It has been too long

A lot of people have been asking me lately if I’m going to start blogging again. And by a lot of people I mean my cat asked me in a dream the other night. Then before I could answer he turned into a bear and ran down to the river to catch a salmon, except the salmon was actually a freshly-microwaved Applebee’s steak that had learned to speak and was about to tell the bear that was actually my cat the meaning of life but then I woke up. (Editor’s note: I’ve still got it!)

Anyway, my posts have been few and far between in the year 2010 and I have some pretty solid reasons for this. First, I got a little confused on that whole Mayan calendar thing and thought the world was supposed to end on May 17, 2010. Turns out the card on my refrigerator with that date on it was actually for a dentist’s appointment that I ended up missing. Needless to say, I woke up the morning of May 18 feeling pretty stupid, especially considering I woke up shirtless in a dumpster next to a hobo that I vaguely remember telling of our impending doom and then accepting his offer to enjoy some of his tasty Jack Daniel’s. (Editor’s note: I asked if he wanted to get some breakfast but he said he really had to get going and would call me. … Which he hasn’t.)

Second, I’ve been on a little book tour for my yet-to-be-published and still untitled teen masterpiece about vampires and werewolves. (Editor’s note: Team Legarm!) It seems odd, I know, to do a book tour for an untitled book that isn’t finished. (Editor’s note: I’m officially 8 1/2 paragraphs in.) But I consider it a bit of a preemptive book tour. Rule No. 1 of proper promotion is to whet the consumer’s appetite. (Rule No. 2: Release topless photos.) I figure if I show up to various bookstores across the country it’s going to get people buzzing about my book which I hope to have released by the end of the world – a deadline that seems much easier in hindsight. After my tour is over I plan on starting a huge social media blitz, as well, whatever the hell that means.

If you want to come to one of my book tour stops, you’re more than welcome. We’ll be at Borders next weekend. Once you park, go around to the back of the building by the dumpsters and look for the folding table. I may or may not be sitting there – depends on if I want a smoothie or not because I hear there’s a really great smoothie place across the street. Either way, try to keep it down a little bit because we’re not really supposed to be there and my friend Barry is going to be keeping a lookout for someone taking out the trash and when he gives the signal we all need to get down really low behind the dumpster so nobody sees us. Also, if anyone has a pen they could bring along, I’d really appreciate it. I’ll sign anything. And by anything I mean boobs. (Editor’s note: I won’t sign wangs.)

So I think you’ll forgive me for not posting, what with the book tour and the whole end-of-the-world confusion, but I promise that I may or may not start posting regularly again. I can tell you that I’ve put completing my book on hold for another project that I’m guessing you’ll be seeing right here soon. It’s going to be pretty badass. (Editor’s note: It might not be pretty badass.)

My foray into teen literature

I don’t often discuss my hopes and dreams with people, but I consider this blog a bit of a friendship, a mutual respect between you the reader and my sweet writing skills. So in the name of friendship, I’ll open up and tell you that I’m a bit of an aspiring author, if by aspiring I mean completely awesome.

Originally, I wanted to be a children’s author. Primarily because children’s books are short but also because most kids are dumb, I figured it would be an easy undertaking and I had even come up with a main character for my book, an elf named Richie that taught life lessons by locking children in cages when they didn’t eat their meals or they didn’t pick up their toys. Of course the publishers I presented this to thought it was outrageous (which isn’t unexpected because the publishing industry is just another propaganda arm of the liberal media) and were particularly disturbed by the fact that Richie got his energy from eating babies. To be fair to myself, he only ate ugly babies and nobody cares about ugly babies.

So my children’s literature career is on ice, at least for a while and pending copyright trials based on my recently released book The Dog in the Hat which is (allegedly) just a rewrite of The Cat in the Hat with every mention of the Cat in the Hat replaced with the Dog in the Hat. According to my attorney, I’d have had a better chance of getting away with it had I (a) actually written the book instead of just using a Sharpie and a pen to make my changes and photocopying it, (b) changed all the references to the Cat in the Hat as opposed to just the one on the cover (Who knew there were more?) and (c) not sued the estate of Theodor Geisel claiming he posthumously stole the idea for The Cat in the Hat from my self-published children’s book The Dog in the Hat.

Methinks it’s going to be a long process, so until this is all worked out I’ve decided to take up the realm of teen literature. This is a pretty basic progression since I think I have a good idea of what teenagers are into these days because I regularly pose as a high school student during lunchtime in order to take advantage of the school’s free lunch program. Based on this experience, teenagers really like pizza and also enjoy throwing other teenagers – or at least 20-somethings posing as teenagers in order to get free lunch – headfirst into trash cans.

I’ve decided to excerpt part of my rough draft here on the blog for all of you. I’m kind of hesitant to do this because my friend Barry told me once that Charles Dickens got the idea for A Christmas Carol from an excerpt in a blog and I don’t want anyone to steal my idea (especially that Dickens guy), but it is Christmas time so I’m feeling generous and also no one will read any of my book unless I trick them into it, so here it is:

“Frank stood in the locker room after his teammates had left, the light glistening off of his finely chiseled chest still warm from another intense and awesome football practice. Frank liked two things: football and boning cheerleaders. The school was still buzzing about the big rivalry game last season when he successfully combined the two.

“But Frank was alone right now because he had a secret. A dark secret. Every teenager has them. Like when I was a teenager, nobody knew that I had drilled a hole in the locker room wall so I could see into the girls locker room, except it wasn’t the girls locker room on the other side, it was the janitors’ changing room, only I didn’t know it until much later … which in hindsight explains a lot.

“Frank’s secret, though, was nothing like that. Not even close, really. No. Frank’s secret was much darker. And more exciting. And possibly worthy of a movie deal. Frank waited alone in the locker room because he knew that if he stepped outside he’d have to face it head on.

“Oh, it was easy to take on football opponents in such a manner. The crush of sweat-drenched bodies in their physical prime was nothing compared to what Frank had to face. For Frank was a werewolf. And not the cool, Teen Wolf kind of werewolf. And he found solace only when he was with other werewolves just like him. And there were others like him. Three others to be exact – Kev, Rick and Vladimir. Also, there was Dale. He wasn’t a werewolf but he wore a gorilla suit pretty regularly, so the werewolves let him hang out with them.

“But alas, Frank had done the forbidden and fallen in love with a non-werewolf, thus threatening the delicate balance between the werewolf world and the human world. I’m not really sure what happens if that balance is thrown off. I hired an intern to do some research on it, but he got mad and quit when he found out that the internship wasn’t for Stephen King despite what the ad in the newspaper said. I told him if he kept at it he’d meet Stephen King before the end of the internship, but he didn’t believe me, and with good reason since the claim was based solely on the hope that we’d run into Stephen King on the street on our lunch break one day.

“Frank, though, had fallen in love with Claire and really wanted to take her to prom. He had wanted to take her to Homecoming, but he already had a date lined up. And then he had wanted to take her to the Valentine’s Dance, but he got the flu. And then there was the Sadie Hawkins Dance, but you know how that works where the girl needs to ask the guy and Claire didn’t really want to go so she didn’t ask anybody, but Frank was going to ask her to prom.

“Kev, Rick and Vladimir knew what was on the line if Claire and Frank went to prom and then kissed (and most likely boned). Dale, the kid in the gorilla suit wasn’t really sure what the big deal was, but he liked hanging out with the werewolves and wasn’t about to jeopardize that opportunity. So the four boys would stop at nothing to prevent the likely prom coupling of Frank and Claire.”

I’m no literary expert, but that’s pretty solid if you ask me. I don’t want to spoil anything, but the best part is probably going to be when the kid in the gorilla suit gets rabies and starts running around and biting people. Turns out he wasn’t a kid in a gorilla suit at all, but an actual gorilla.