100 Word Challenge: Show Me Something

The 100 Word Challenge resides here, and could save you 15% on your car insurance. The word this week is "harsh", and my story is called "Show Me Something"









Her track suit was tight, electric blue, and it glowed where the sun hit it. She was blonde, of indeterminate age, and standing very close to me.

“What would you say, sir, “ she said with a posh British accent, “if I told you this all natural cleanser would get a coffee stain off of your shirt in 15 seconds, and if it didn’t, I’d give you 50 American dollars? All natural, no harsh abrasives, no scrubbing.”

She peered at me, her pale blue eyes searching me out, looking at my Dodgers t shirt and my eyes.

“Go ahead,” I said.

One hopes Mr. Larson's estate got PAID

Macy's is now running a commercial featuring one of the songs from "Rent", a musical that I have a positively unhealthy fondness for. I am trying to remember James Hetfield's dictum that, if I'm going to accuse someone of selling out, I should at least have had an offer made for something of mine first. (Implying that it's a little easier to sell out if someone is willing to make you set for life-it would be hard to turn down that kind of money.) So I will leave it with the wish that Macy's took care of the composer's family. (Jonathan Larson, the composer, died before the show opened on Broadway.)

And if you haven't seen "Rent", by all means please do so. It's marvelous.

NaNoWriMo: It's Everywhere You Want To Be

Current Word Count: 3906
Goal for Today: 5000



This is thrilling, isn't it?

NaNo UpDate

Current Word Count: 2181

Goal for End of Day: 3500-4000

Oh, my.

A movie is coming out based on Ernest Hemingway's unfinished novel, "The Garden of Eden". It certainly looks very adult, very passionate, very intriguing. The novel is odd-very Hemingway, in places, and very different in others. Of course, he died with it unfinished, so who knows what he really intended for it. But the movie, at first glance, seems true to the manuscript that remained. I wonder how successful a movie about grownups doing grownup things will be in 2010.

What Do I Want?

What do I want?

I've been asked this question a lot lately. I've been asking it of myself, and other people have asked it of me.

I have given lots and lots of different answers, most of them at least partially in jest.


-$252,000(I don't know why that particular number. It would solve a lot of problems, though. Arguably, the only problem it doesn't solve is "owing someone $253,000.")

-World Peace

-Musical talent(If I have longed for one thing that I do not have above all else, it is that. I love music and it frustrates me to no end that I can't produce it.)

-The ability to pursue my passions and earn a living while doing it.

-Overwhelming physical attractiveness

-For this dang cold to go away already.

Among other things.

NaNo starts tomorrow-really, tonight at midnight. I'm going to do it again. I don't know if I'll finish-writing all 50000 words in 30 days. Nobody does until they try. If what comes out is less than nauseating and plausibly editable, I may just clean it up and self publish it. (Rest assured, if you are a regular reader, you won't miss out. I will pimp it like mad.)

Gretchen Cello says she writes to "heal humanity with art". Given her outrageous talent, she probably could. Kelly at Ordinary Art would probably laugh at that. She says stories should be as big as people. Hemingway said writing was an obsession- the only thing that hurt worse than writing was not writing.

I don't know what I believe.

Scratch that.

To quote Crash Davis, I believe in "the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap. I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft-core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

I don't know what I want. I have never been entirely sure who I am. I don't know what the next 30 days are going to be like. I don't know who will win the election on Tuesday.

But I know the ball drops at midnight.

Nanowrimo.org

Join us. Admission is free, and you only have to be slightly insane.

Perhaps stupid, but still funny.

Via the Daft Scots Lass, 101 Halloween costume ideas:

Immortals Aren't

Rob Neyer reminds us that baseball's immortals will not last forever.

I may, indeed, be cracking under the strain.

A very funny Gilbert and Sullivan parody, dealing with the fabulous NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which rears its lovely head Moanday, November 1.

Warming Up On Flash Fiction Friday

This is my Flash Fiction for 52/250 this week. The theme was "Tombstones", and, as you will see if you read it, I went in a direction you might not necessarily have expected.

The Best Five Players Born On My Birthday

The fine folks at Wezen Ball have a little list on their site today of the best 5 baseball players born on each day of the year, so you can look up the best five players from your birthday.

The best five players born on my birthday were Buck Ewing, who caught for 18 years before the turn of the 20th century, Jim Gilliam, a very good utility infielder for the Dodgers in the 1940s and 50s, Paul Derringer, an irascible pitcher for the Reds in the 1930s, Red Rolfe, a third baseman for the Yankees in the 1930s, and Dan Pasqua, a somewhat forgettable outfielder for the Yankees in the 1980s.

Doghouse Riley Explains It All

Doghouse Riley, who is even more hardcore than Phil Nugent, with a cogent preview of next Tuesday's election:








"Y'know, no one's gonna goad me into defending Democrats, but Reality is a different matter. The Democrats aren't in whatever situation they're in (election results are a week away; maybe we can wait that long to count the votes) because of hubris; they're where they are because they've been running from Ronald Reagan for thirty years. They found themselves, last January, with two bad choices: a compromised healthcare bill, or a failure to deliver on the healthcare promises their landslide President had made. Surprising at least one observer (me, who expected them to fold yet again), they took option A. They are now blamed for this; had the vote gone the other way they'd be blamed for that. And they are to blame, because even if they couldn't see which way the wind was blowing they could've checked in with 1992 again. They didn't lose those fights through supreme self-confidence. They lost because they thought they could win by refusing to fight. It's stupid, and when you see a crowd of ostensibly smart people doing something stupid--assuming that surprises you in the least--you look for some ulterior reason. And that reason is they're still running from Ronald Reagan thirty years later. They're afraid to propose the United States of America spend money on programs that benefit anyone other than the wealthiest 5%, for fear of being called Tax n' Spenders, and they're afraid to cut the astronomically absurd "Defense" budget for fear of being called unpatriotic. They're afraid to make corporations pay fairly, and in full, for their benefits and for the sound operation of a free and just society, and they're afraid to make them pay for shipping American jobs overseas. They're afraid of Roger F**king Ailes. They're afraid of using the system to their advantage the way Republicans do without blinking, and they're afraid of their own constituencies. They're afraid of Ben F**king Nelson and Evan Bugwit Bayh. Mostly they're convinced, and have been for some time, that electability is more important than being right or doing what's right, and they're convinced that corporate donations are more important than defending a belief system."

Oh, boo.

So it's not a cell phone, after all. Sigh. I liked it better when I didn't know.

A little investigation revealed this, which seems very much like what the woman is holding in the video.

Oh well.

Cell Phones in 1928?

OK, this is just downright wierd.

I'm willing to admit right up front that this could be a fake, but take a few minutes and watch this.

Filmmaker and Cinephile George Clarke has recorded a YouTube video where he plays a snippet from the DVD extras on Charlie Chaplin's "The Circus". When you view the clip, you see a woman walking by holding something that looks for all the world like a cell phone to her ear.

The clip was from the Hollywood premiere of "The Circus" in 1928.

Again-this could be a fake. This could have an innocent explanation.

But I'll be darned if I can figure out what it is.

h/t Dvorak Uncensored, at dvorak.org/blog

Celtics 88, Heat 80

In one of the most anticipated debut nights for one of the most anticipated NBA seasons in my memory (and, given their labor issues, what may be one of the last NBA seasons in my memory), my Boston Celtics tipped over the LeBron Express, defeating the Heat, 88-80.

This will produce much snickering, as the Heat, with the renowned trio of LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade, three of the best players in the league, are supposed to, according to conventional wisdom, make mincemeat of their opponents, win every game by 30, and take the championship with ease.

The Heat are indeed a very good basketball team-no team with that much talent could be less than decent. And, after trailing by 15 at halftime, the Heat made a ferocious run, mostly fueled by James, to make the final score as close as it was.

But for now, the ancient Celtics showed the young folks how it was done, and it was great fun watching graybeards like Shaquille O'Neal cavort like their younger selves.