THE FRAGMENTS TOUR

 

 

 

I realized, gentle readers, in my vomitus bloggaria attack of last week or so, that I probably need to post this and that from my writing collection. To better remind the few and dogged that I am, indeed, something of a writer. To reveal my hits, misses and downright head-scratchers so that we can continue our friendly ways.

 

So, aye. Here’s a sampling. I shall even annotate them. Or make something up if I can’t remember just why I bothered in the first place.

POEM

Below is a poem I wrote for a contest. They provide a picture and you have to come up with something inspired by said picture. Now. Not much came to me. So I finally called it a day and sent the following in. Because I was doggone determined by that point, no matter what dribbled out of my fingers after days looking at some bland lanscape smeary thingo. I was going to submit something!! Yeah. I think I called it Whale Clouds. I’ll let you know when they name me Poet Laureate of the Planet. Yay! Happy face.

I looked at that picture and went, whale clouds.
I saw clouds full of whales above a landscape
I’d seen since a child.
Dust and yellow fields of wheat and duty stones
and houses full of dull good people
living dull good lives.
I’ve been trying to write something poetical and deep.
It comes across as trite and laughable
so I will just write this.
Poetry is honest little nibbles, yes?
Or it’s supposed to be.
I should hope that someone reads this and wants to
quote it or make a poster around it
to tell them something they wish to hear or
that sparked some ‘ah, there it is!’ moment.
Is that not a moment, to see a whale
in those careful or careless cloud smears?
Or do I see what I want?
And before I can descend into something
depressingly precious
I’ll end this little shriek
with something about hawks and panting coyotes
and a black fence that
seems quite aggressively divisive
and old man ‘keep off my lawn’.
Probably just me. Probably just me.

FLASH FICTION

The next offering in my Fragments tour is Mouse Bones. It was written for some little contest that gave you a single word and a word limit. I think the word was ‘Jars’. I rather liked this and might ‘do something’ with it.

Her fingers scrabbled against the jar, stuck far back on the high shelf in her mother’s closet, behind the shoe box full of receipts for the Dollar Store and every purchase made at Dave’s Second Chance Thrift Emporium. The shoe box had gone into the big hefty bag, to be put out on the curb. As her mother had gone into the earth, to await Jesus dropping by for her soul. There, just an old Mason jar. Oh. A mouse skeleton rested in the bottom. How long had it tried to climb those slick icy walls? How long? Just tufts of fur left here and there on the delicate little bones. The tiny skull where those ink drop eyes had once regarded the world with such suspicion and terror. I’m sorry, mouse, she thought, as she dropped the jar into the garbage bag. Receipts, mouse bones, some sort of lesson.

GARRISON KEILLOR ATTEMPT

 

Below, now, was written for some humor contest. Also had to be only so many words. This is where I, as a writer, cannibalize some family tale for my own selfish uses. See Jellyfish Gravy and Zombies where I said I do that. Stranger and the Bear is prob’ly the name for the following…

Gran’pa looked over at me. “It’s time to tell the story.” I groaned, just the right groan because Gran’pa so enjoyed me groaning. He settled his skinny butt on the seat, braced his feet; this was gonna be good, he was telling me already. “That bear was a big bear. A great big bear. I says to your dad, now your dad was a wet little squirt yet, didn’t know his shirt from Shinola.” Gran’pa meant to use another word but Gran’ma gave him the stink eye. And Gran’pa does what Gran’ma wants, it’s just easier all around on everyone and he’s a wise old coot in some ways. “I says to your dad–look at that, it’s a bear! We was hunting out there in the Blues, way up back, you had to walk in or take a horse. We hadn’t seen any elk but we saw a big ole bear. Now, we had your dad’s ole dog, Stranger, who’d bite a friend and curl up with a thief, Stranger who once brought home a skunk for us all to enjoy. He was a big red hunting dog with a chewed up ear.” Gran’pa took a long suck of his pipe, let the smoke curl out, making me wait, making me wait to hear what came next. I let out a big sigh, just as Gran’pa liked it. He nodded, tapped the table to show the good part was seconds away. “Now, your dad and I stared at that ole bear, a black bear, grizzlies ain’t been around in those mountains for years now, but it was big enough to be a grizzly. Then we saw Stranger. Stranger and that bear were about to tangle. There’d be dog all over creation in a bit! I admit I started feeling real bad for that dumb idjit dog, that was an idjit dog, I’ve never met a dog stupider and meaner than Stranger. I got my rifle up, your dad had tears in his eyes. You bet we were expecting that ole bear to just rip that dog in two before our eyes! Welp,” Gran’pa paused, eyes wide. “There was this big ole pine tree. The bear walked past it heading south. Stranger walked past it heading north. They plum missed each other! I ain’t never seen the likes of it. That bear went one way, Stranger went another.” Gran’pa’s eyes came to me. “A’course, Stranger chased after a farm truck not a week later and lost. But that dog had the devil’s own luck that day, up thar in the Blues. I don’t believe in miracles, but I saw one, when that bear went one way and that dog went the other.” He laughed, and let smoke rings drift up. It would be at least three days before he told that same story again; perhaps he’d add another bear. I hoped so. Maybe he’d add some wolves, too. And a dragon. “Stranger and the bear, it actually happened.”

STEPHEN KING ATTEMPT

The following rather grim little tale I wrote for Halloween, obviously, for a writing class I was teaching. To high schoolers in China. Now. I did not, obviously, share this with them. I wrote something else for an example. At least I don’t remember sharing the following with my class. Sigh.

THE IDAHO DEVIL

The devil works in a dingy café in the middle of Idaho, on one of those backwoods roads that come from nowhere and end nowhere in particular. He cooks fried egg sandwiches and deals for souls. I know, I made a deal and I’ve traveled here to make another.
     My name is Rusty. I’m a little bit of sawed off nothing to look at, about the same weight as a sack of taters and I ain’t never had any luck come my way. I been kicked around and beat down, sure, been in and out of the system here in the Gem State, been beat up for looking at a guy wrong, sure. He broke my fingers one by one while the other boys just laughed in that one home I lived at for almost two years. They took me to the hospital but it didn’t do no good. Cause I got something wrong with my bones, they don’t heal so well. So my fingers are all crooked and knotty and no woman likes to hold my hand.
     Now before you start sobbin’ over my life, you gotta know I ain’t no saint, I never rose above or made lemonade out of the rotten lemons that got chucked at my head every day of my life so far. I’m as mean as a broke-back snake. And when I heard the rumors about the devil working the grill at the Sawtooth Café up there outside a Stanley, well, I had just gotten out of jail in Ontario for breaking a beer bottle over this woman’s annoying head. Called it assault or some such you know what. I was real glad when she kinda slithered to the floor, all bloody-headed, with a piece of glass sticking out of her forehead. Real glad. You see? I ain’t no saint.
     So I got a ride up into the mountains, it was summer, there were tourists and I acted real friendly and harmless. I wasn’t intent on hurting anyone, people can pick that up.
They get jittery, then you know you gotta get what you want or back off.
Anyhoo, I got dropped off on that little nothing of a road and there it was, the Sawtooth Café, all weathered and worn down and looking, well, evil. Some places just have this look. You know you’re risking something more than your life walking through the door. But I was already long gone lost, if you know what I mean.
     There were big hogs parked in the dirt parking lot, a few pickups with Idaho plates, so all local flavor. No shiny scrubbed tourists here to look down on the local warts.
And there he was, the devil. I sat at the counter, the scratched red counter, and the waitress, with her nametag reading Shawna, pinned to her flat chest, came over after a bit, eyeing me like one might eye a giant slimy pile of chicken guts left to steam in the sun. “ Yeah? Whatcha want?“
     For a moment I was too busy staring at the devil, who was a good-looking Indian guy, Shoshone or even Nez Perce, but with these pale colorless eyes that flicked to me, his black hair in two braids hanging over his thin shoulders. Sorry, Native American-looking, right, gotta be all PC now cause of the Lib’rals. Thin, tall, his hands around that spatula flipping burgers sure and easy. He wore a white apron over his white-t-shirt and regular old Wranglers and cowboy boots.
     “ Hon? You gonna order? “ Shawna asked, her eyes going carefully and respectfully to the devil flipping burgers and adding yellow cheese slices to some of them for the group of bikers in the corner who were drinking coffee and wearing leather, long filthy hair and sunglasses.
     “ Oh sure. Coffee. You got any pie here? I’ve been hankering for some pie. “
Oh how full of it I was.
     “ Sure, hon, we got pie. “ Shawna told me and the devil turned his head my way as if he sensed I wanted to do some wheeling and dealing. I was just the sort the devil loved, all out of luck and full of desperation and bullspit. “ We got apple, coconut, blueberry and peanut butter, banana and custard. “
     “ Peanut butter. And that coffee. “ I told her, not really wanting pie, but I had maybe five on me and pie was two twenty five a slice, plus coffee, would just about bankrupt me. But I acted like Joe Moneybags and she never called me out on it, just brought me some bitter, black as hell coffee, and about the best slice of peanut butter pie I’d ever had. She drifted over to refill coffee cups for the bikers and the devil spoke to me from that greasy, spotted, dim kitchen.
     “ You know me, Rusty? “
Not even pretending he was anything else but Lucifer or whatever the devil calls himself in private these days.
     “ I do, “ I told him, deciding if the devil already knew my name, then he knew I wanted to deal. And probably already knew what I wanted to deal over.
     “ I can give you seven years. “ His voice was low, smooth as new cream. Sweet as a promise you know won’t get kept. “ You can start over. “
     My biggest wish. To just…erase my past.
     To not be a tiny, broken, ugly, pathetic mess. To not be me.
     “ Sure. I have to sign anything? “
     “ You just have to shake on it these days. “ The devil smiled and his white teeth gleamed.
     I took his hand, his cool, smooth, lineless hand. No lifeline, the devil had never been born and would never die.

     So I’m back.
     He made me a child. My parents lived past their accident, and my memories did not support this, I still saw the State cops in the door trying to tell me my mom and dad were smeared over the Interstate like human puddings. I played with toys they bought me at Christmas while my real mind screamed that it wasn’t real, wasn’t real…so the devil left me with my old life, just put a new face over me, made me a child again. And for seven years, seven years, I tried to cut those real memories out of me, the broken fingers, the jail time, the stealing, the just trying to live another day, get through another day.
     It was all the same.
     The same Sawtooth Café. The same waitress. The same man cooking burgers on the grill. And this time he had eggs frying. And he looked at me and grinned. “ Rusty, time has been kind to you. “ And how he laughed as the waitress kept her eyes down, her heavily black-rimmed eyes that said she had made deals, too.
     “ I want my life back. I brought you a gift. “ I had had a dream. A horrible, wonderful dream about what I needed to do.
     “ Did you. “ The devil did not wear a hair net, but I doubt the Idaho Health Inspectors came here to check out the rat and bug situation. “ I do like presents. “
     I lifted the bag onto the counter. I beckoned him over. Shawna kept her eyes down, poured coffee for a local wearing an Obama Sucks! pin on his Boston Red Sox cap. The devil peeked in the sack and then reached in, and took out the human heart I had brought him. “ My, my, “ he said and the smell of him, for a moment, sizzled in my nostrils. Something of heavenly cinnamon and something of hellish ash, like apple pie and burned popcorn. “ A baby heart. “
     “ Yes,” I said, meeting those pale eyes, the eyes that had looked into the eyes of God and smirked. Or wept. “ I want to make a new deal. “
     “ And? “ His fingers caressed that lump of muscle and lifeless tubes. Caressed it like one might pet a puppy, I could not stop watching the motion of his hand.
     “ I want my life back…I want my life back. “ Oh the despairing cry of those in the pit. But I cried it, I cried it anyway.
     “ Bring me a heart a year. A child’s heart. “
     And so here I am, with a new deal, and my luckless life back in place, with that other ghostly visit to what could have been a strange smear in the back of my hot, aching brain.
     You understand now why I have to kill kids? I just take the unwanted ones, the ones that are like I was. Those kids nobody gives a shit about. And only one a year, I can live with that. I can live with that just fine.

 

Yeah, okay. Human sacrifice, the devil frying eggs, that’s pretty tame stuff for moi, truth be told. All righty! Some fragments, some flash fiction-y offerings, even a bad poem. Hope this makes up for the Danger Noodle Trilogy of Terror. Oooh, remember that movie?? With the evil little doll? Ugh a bug! I still get chills.

Nov. 2016– no hint of the many inches of snow yet to arrive…

 

 

 

 

 

Jellyfish Gravy and Zombies!!

 

from Zesty Things.

Okay, gentle readers!! I have to pretend I’m an actual horror writer, that I live, breathe and fart tales of gentle gore and words that bring forth the monsters we know and love. Vampires, zombies, mostly. Werewolves never seemed to take off or get their hot streaks in the public eye. Vampires, yeah. Sexy vampires, via True Blood and Twilight. Oh and a shout to Anne Rice and her emo fang boys, of course. Louis and Lestat, oh my! Zombies, hello. Walking Dead! What fans didn’t burst into unashamed tears when Carol and Daryl hugged after Daryl found her, again, and they had that little dinner and he lied to her about Negan’s use of a baseball bat. Oh! My poor little heart! Tears! Or when Rick and Daryl hugged after Daryl escaped Negan? Oh!! Pretty much when Daryl does anything and it involves Carol or Rick. Yep.

found on Twitter. 

Werewolves, now, not so much. They’re not, oddly, very popular. Or not so oddly. A guy who turns into a dog. We like Beast from Beauty and the Beast, but he’s not a werewolf or some other were-animal, not really. Underworld— how many movies now in that franchise? tries– sexy leather-wearing vamps and sexy leather-wearing werewolves, but they all look alike in that blue lens filter. We’re just there to watch skinny people fight in leather. Plus, maybe it’s just me, but I’ve yet to see a turning into a werewolf sequence that didn’t just make me go, uh, that looks fake, is that supposed to be a wolf or…? Well, American Werewolf in London, okay, and the girl turning slowly into a werewolf in Ginger Snaps, not bad. And there’s other examples, I’m sure, that were astonishing trickeries of camera and makeup. Company of Wolves was hit and miss on the chango factor. It was pretty fun there until that hunter guy in Granny’s House went all wolfboy, then it was just a big dog and a girl. But Angela Carter did it so much better on paper, anyway. As our imaginations did that transformation and boy, did it look real.

The Big Bad Wolf trope really does need to get explored some more. Into the Woods took a swipe at it and if you saw the original staging of that, the Wolf could have done porn. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. And it wasn’t done to exploit or titillate, it worked in so many ways for that oft-told warning sent to little girls who leave the path. “Nice is different than good.” Yes, little girl, yes, it is. [You’ll get eaten by wolves or monsters, so behave and do what you’re told, little girls, or else. Little Red Riding Hood might as well be called Be a Good Girl or You’ll Die. Do we gals all not get that same dreary, strident warning all the time? Wear the right clothes. Act like a lady. Be this way. Be that way. Then nothing bad will happen to you. Except it does, of course. It does. The art work is called Twisted Eden, I believe. But if you go looking, you can find that many artists found many ways to portray the little girl or not so little girl and the wolf, the beast, the animal, the wild that threatens to engulf her or reveal her real nature or…yep.]

But. Werewolves don’t seem to dominate all horror offerings like vampires and zombies do. Mummies, either. Frankenstein’s creation, eh. Ghouls? Nope. Ghosts? Sure, we do get our ghosts but that comes and goes. It’s been zombies on top for some time now. And vampires. Vampires for the romance and safe dark sex angle and zombies for most of the other needs. With your weird sharknado offerings and dystopian hellscapes full of politely dirty children gritting out lines about revolution and rebellion while looking like memes for America First, Everyone Else Can Suck it.

But. In the jellyfish gravy [ha ha, I bet you thought I was just coming up with weirdo titles and then not referencing them.] of my brain, I do tend to gravitate toward the dark, the strange and unusual. It interests me. I find exploring what makes that thump you hear at night– a thump that’s not a roommate or one night stand or family member of some sort or your dog trying to break into the fridge– something I just like to do. I do like realism and those little odd moments that pop up in every day life that can be exploited like a motherfucker for gentle readers to sigh over and nod over and smile or cry over. As writers are exploiters of the human condition, in case no one told you that. We’re not nice. At all. We’re cannibals. We eat our own. What writer doesn’t mine, ruthlessly, their own friends, family, children and self for their ‘art’? Name one. I’ll wait.

from Mystery Fanfare. 

Reams have been written about that ghoulish tendency to use those family fistfights at Christmas for writing fodder. I want it noted that I, too, acknowledge that yes, I will ruthlessly, without ruth anywhere near me, use anything anyone has ever said to me or done to me. I’ll disguise it a bit or not. I might get super-brave and just let it all hang out there for that person to read or see. [I do write plays. I have a big fancy degree that says I can write plays.]

And playwrights, oh dear. We do tend to get a bit sloppy with that surgical scalpel as we cut and sew together conversations we’ve actually had, or just had in our heads instead of actually bothering to talk to other people, into conversations for the masses. Or not so massive masses if no one comes to see your play. Eugene O’Neill famously asked that Long Day’s Journey not be performed until after, what, twenty years or so after he was dead? Can someone go Google that? Thanks.

Oh jellyfish in my brain’s gravy, thy name be tangents.

Anyhoo! Monsters. I did promise to write a bit about monsters after clumsily baluffing for many many words about romance novels and escapism, fantasy fun and lemonade. Danger noodle!

Scary stories are cathartic. They’re a bit sexual, okay, a lot sexual. We get that nice fear going, we build up and build up and AH, MONSTERS or AH, DEAD MONSTERS.

In romance or love stories, that moment is the moment when the sky fills with fireworks. In horror, it’s when the monster dies or we do. Wink! Either way, we’re getting some sort of ‘death’ and a release and a cool-down period on the other side where we’re either victorious over whatever evil we’ve faced or we’re dead and we don’t care anymore until we get brought back to life for the sequel. Well trod territory.

That’s why horror movies, stories, tales, what have you, will never ever go away. Tragedy works on this premise as well. Hell, there’s even a CLIMAX, as part of the classical progression toward the aftermath of that BIG MOMENT. That build and build toward something and then the freefall and the fall out. Very late night bullshit drinking a lot basic grad school palaver. I’m not the first to point this out and other fresh-faced dewy drunken sorts will point it out, hopefully, long after I’m a footnote in Kindle downloads on how not to be a writer manuals.

Horror stories and scary tales, ah. Because we need them to explore some iffy, icky stuff. And to, seemingly, deal with it and even seem to conquer it. Racism, sexism, otherness, bad skin problems, hunger, lust, materialism…what have you! Bad guy dies in the end. It’s comforting as Wonder Bread toast smeared with Blue Bonnet margarine. [See Post Danger Noodle really long title.] Or, bad guy seems to die in end but actually doesn’t and comes back over and over because who doesn’t enjoy that trusty scaregasm over and over and over. Can I get an amen? Amen!

Shall we not even go near how very Conservative wet dream horror stuff can be? The rigid behavior patterns, the monster wandering about all willy nilly not obeying rules, the virgin gets to live…yeah. Let’s not. The Scream franchise dipped some toes into this and had fun with it. 

Oh and there’s also fearporn and exploitation horror and just plain bad crappy horror films and tales, which have no redeeming value other than to be as gory and awful as possible. There’s no real art or actual structure to such dreck other than to present suffering and blood. Silence of the Lambs versus Hostel. Both are about some pretty terrible people doing pretty awful things to others. One won Oscars, the other just gets rolled eyes and an ‘oh gross’ from most folks. Crafting the horror tale is a goddamn art. That’s why good horror tales that resonate are so rare. They’re, those excellent, cream rising to the top, tales of horror and scariness and dark deeds done in the dark of night, hugged and kissed and celebrated for a reason.

Now, Walking Dead can drift over into the fearporn, just want to make you suffer as much as possible category. Miseryporn I’ve heard it called. That relentless, just start killing people as nastily as possible, offer no hope, no light, blah blah blah kind of writing where you get exhausted and battered. And dread tuning in to see what beloved character or not so beloved character is going to get their head bashed in or eaten alive or shot or knifed or scalped or fall down a well. Until you turn that off and go look up political speeches by White Nationalists just to lighten the mood. [And I feel the actual need here to say– that last sentence was a joke. No, I am not into the Aryan Nations and so forth and so on. M’kay? M’kay!]

Which filters over into whatever I’m writing, of course. Balance. Don’t go so far over into the drearscape that your readers feel battered into jelly and just start politely avoiding your stuff in favor of Ren and Stimpy reruns and frothy Cormac McCarthy novels. Horror can drain you. Make you realize there is no purpose to any of this and then the universe laughs in your face as you weep. Yeah, I’ll keep that sort of bleak awfulness for my own private collection of stories, poems, plays and such and not share it too liberally with others. Mostly because trying to get that published is a damn nightmare. And I get funny looks and queries about my mental health and if I’m ‘okay’. So, light and frothy horror writer gal I shall be, by gum!

And then I get bitter. Real lemon bitter. And then get full of doubt and misgivings about myself as a writer in the first place and write bitter bitter words that I erase or fling out, depends on how self-destructive I feel.

Yours truly could start a war in Switzerland. That has long been my reputation. I’m a horrible person with a horrible set of awful words who’s not nice at all, ever. Yes, that is my actual reputation among most who know me. That might be my rampant braindemon, Fearmina Beaverface McAwfulness, having a constant go at me, but. My rampant need to destroy myself at every turn…it’s a combo of Vampire Queen and Zombie Horde. A kind of blood-sucking flesh-tearing free-for-all, if you will. Going on in my brain nearly all the time. Do you think if I took up heroin, I’d be a nicer, wiser, better, more polite person? Or at least…ah, the self-indulgent maudlin nonsense of an ‘artist’. Ain’t we fun??

Oh jellyfish gravy, where is this going again? Horror, scary stuff, post-post danger noodle world…

I like to write scary things because I like to write scary things. There. Okay? Here endeth the lesson. Sigh. 45 just banned most of the ‘free’ press from White House news briefings. Like the New York Times and the BBC and CNN and the Washington Post…and people are cheering this, who claim to wuv themselves the Constitution. Uh…? I can’t write anything scarier than that. I just can’t. It’s a bit, a lot, depressing. Oh, I tried to be light and cheerful and stay away from Tangerine Pussyhands and the Flying Buttmonkeys of Doom that have descended on ‘murica like an Orange Plague. I tried. I tried. I’m off to write a musical about my dog and springtime and butterflies. Yeah, butterflies. Who lead my heroine to a dungeon full of Pirate Highlander Viking Kings in cowboy hats. And then there’s a chorus line and a big showstopper about Sweden and whips. See Post-Danger Noodle for why I suddenly went flopwaddle. [Writer! I can make up words all I want!!]

Oh hey, if you made it to the end of this and there’s a medal if you did, baby!, then notice I wrote an actual book, I have plays on the internet if you’re a producer of theatre or looking for an audition piece and…yeah. I am Rhino-Skin and will ruthlessly promote my work! 

 

 

IT’S A POST DANGER NOODLE WORLD NOW OR MANLY FANTASY MEN MEANS MAMA NEEDS TO STEP OUT FOR SOME LEMONADE

Disclaimer: What follows is a frothy little confection of rancid creaky ‘we know this stuff already, geez!’ and meandering musings on being a writer. I did warn you. 

 

Wheeeeee!

Danger noodle sub-primal screams aside, I had a thought. Several. M’kay. Ahem.

About romance novel men and fantasies for the ladies. Lines between the sublime and the limeade section of fiction. Commercial fiction versus other fiction that doesn’t sell but looks important sitting on a shelf. Because why not. And since I’m a, ahem, serious playwright writerly writer sort of lady [or broad or gal or female type with assumed female parts attached in some fashion], I get to laugh, of course, along with others about such manly men.

from Bored Panda. Australian firefighters and puppies. Ah, puppies!

What maniac said women don’t like to look at men? Are you insane?? Of course we do. And gay women like to look at women and so forth and so on. There’s so many categories of desire and who’s lusting after what these days that I am frankly backlogged and need to Netflix myself into 2017 territory on that whole subject.

PLEASE DON’T WORRY. THIS IS NOT GOING WHERE YOU THINK IT IS. I PROMISE. TRUST ME. 

Now the following is going to be about books, not movies or youtube bits or mini movies posted on whatever. Books.

Of course, if one actually bothers to read those books –with the titles and covers that make one cringe like a mofo yet salivate over, because you already know the damn story by heart. It’s comforting! It’s like cheese and crackers! It’s like toast made out of Wonder Bread smeared with Blue Bonnet margarine– shit, where was I?

Oh.

If one bothers to read a few [a lot] of those romance-y romance books–I hear now there’s something called Kindle, and other little machines…I know!– then one notices the rather florid sexy parts. Which at times induce giggles rather than “Mama needs some lemonade right now, ‘scuse me” moments.

There’s even contests out there to see who can write the worst purple prose and awards given for most cringe-worthy depictions of the act of making the beast with two backs. But, but. Those florid flowery overly written and breathless passages! Those descriptions! Of stuff and things! I noticed something. Bigly.

It isn’t about gals who like to cuddle. I don’t see pages and pages written on gals who like to cuddle. Uh no. It’s pages and pages of her having a world-shattering good one. As in her partner/kidnapper/pirate king really really really knows what he’s doing. I’m sure there are LGTBQ versions. In fact, yeah, there are. Not to mention frothy fiction that features people who are not products of lab-level Aryan breeding. As in some other skin color than milk white and sun-tanned.

from Rehost.

So, yeah, the infamous scenes are pretty torrid. It’s not polite, nice or realistic. Well, Barbara Cartland keeps it a bit vague, but how realistic are her stories? Yeah. So your basic cookie cutter romance heroine. She gets that La Petite Mort. And often a castle at the end to go with it.

Ah. And we, the audience for all this frothiness, get a very safe taste of some biological urges. At the hands of a very safe and controllable sort. Unless you go back into the rather, ahem, early days of bodice rippers, where the gal’s bodice got ripped for real and…yeah.

I remember the Wolf and the Dove, Kathleen Woodiwiss, about a Norman guy who took over a Saxon household and uh, made a slave of the gal and actually had her chained to the bed and…oh yeah, read that one more than once. As did my friends at school. Fantasy. Dark dark fantasy. For girls. Ahem. Fairly unsettling view of relationship goals, ahem! But. We still got to put the book down. We can come back later, without much of a dent in our ordinary outer surfaces. When people still read books! Instead of downloading them to their devices and binge-watching The Real Housewives of Boise instead. I know what year it is!

Fantasy, after all, is neat and tidy. We can explore, safely, and then tuck it all away, safely, and carry on with no one the wiser. No one’s going to know about your foray into some Highlander-studded daddy dungeon where he…Unless you tell someone this. And then face being looked at as if you’d murdered an entire litter of Golden Retriever puppies as you took a poo on the US Constitution.

I doubt even that would hoist Tangerine Vader from some people’s hearts. Or would it??

 

So I’m not really surprised by this whole 50 Shades hoo-ha. At all.

He’s the alpha male from pretty much every romance novel ever written or conceived, the stereotypical guy who will magically change the minute he meets you…

Now, this topic has been beaten to death, it’s a dead horse and then some. Expectations versus reality. [You can’t make nothing but a man out of him, according to Jill Conner Browne, who wrote the Sweet Potato Queens books, which are gut-busting funny. Well, to me, anyway.]

And the whole whips and chains and spanking angle, been there, done that. Romance novels used to abound in that stuff. It was their bread and butter. The dominant male, the submission to his will…come on now!! Who hasn’t thrilled to that moment when the fragile little heroine finally gave in to her passion? Oh my! [If you have read even one romance novel, you know this moment. It might be disguised a bit, but it’s there. That ‘give in to passion’ trope. He chases, she demurs, blah blah. When she stops and lets him catch her…that moment. You’re all squirmy right now, right? Ashamed but grinning? You know, that moment. Uh huh.]

Romance novel quotes from Pinterest

 

Of course, if a real guy showed up at the door with a broadsword, in furs, I’d probably hide. Or call in the local SWAT team or the local squad of golfers. [They have clubs. Yeah. I went there.]

As I would assume this fur-wearing, broadsword-carrying sort was not there to sell me siding or talk to me about Jesus and earthquakes in Japan. I’d have to assume he’s there to be a total murderous dickweed. And so act accordingly.

I watch Vikings over on the History Channel! They’re not looking for a soul mate in the screaming nobodies they cut in two without a thought. I feel so lied to! I read romance novels where Vikings turned out to be muscled teddy bears full of soft lovehearts and sweet sighs…not murderous plunderers looking for glory, gold and plotting against their own kin! I know, expectations versus reality. It’s a bitchkitty.

Varangian bulgarslayer by Christian Hoejgaard

That’s why we have fantasy!

Duh! We can control everything. We can take those characters writers blurf out and dance said characters around in our own dark and rich ballrooms.

We can make that Viking Highlander English Lord Cowboy Pirate King Vampire Sir Beast [and there are subgenres here…] waltz us until we need a cigarette. And then tuck that man/men away until next time we wish to imagine something fun, frothy, hot, sweet, quick, long, adventurous, scary…mm.

from Pinterest

Vampires, come on. Neck lovin’! Monsters as romantic leads…the broody alpha with the dead beating heart that beats just for us…mm. And they’d know what to do, being uh, long-lived and all. They’d have lots of knowledge and stamina and chains and whips from Roman days and…sigh. Mama needs some lemonade! BRB. Just kidding. Sort of.

from Drawingnightmare

Now, there’s a whole tangent about horror and monsters and the dark and that sort of needed fantasy and release. Which I probably should have explored with a barely working flashlight and a rock in my other hand because what is that noise? What is that…OH! Maybe another bloggie post about all that. Because I need to practice writing. I never seem to get any better at it. Tangent girl is back!

Now. Romance writing, to me, is just fairy tales with the sex scenes put back in. Beauty and the Beast? There’s lots of, ahem, speculation about that Beast. And of course everyone seems to prefer the Beast from the Disney version to the dud that showed up after the change. Go ahead, do a little private polling on this subject. I’ll wait.

Though actual unedited fairy tales were pretty raunchy, awful, raw and bloody. Sleeping Beauty raped by the prince, for instance. She wakes up to her twins, conceived by that rape, crawling up to her boobs because they’re hungry…shit. I just. Oh! Hey Disney, gritty reboot? But that version of Sleeping Beauty, where the prince treats her like a sock puppet and then goes away, rings a little more true than the nice version. Which is probably just me being a gloomy Gussie.

Notice I am not going off into tangents! I want that noticed! Well, except for when I do. Don’t notice that. Thanks.

Yeah, romance writing, it’s porn for girls. Yeah. We know. I know. We all know.

There’s lots of stuff written about just what gals like and don’t in that way. I mean reams. Books. Trilogies. Entire encyclopedia lines. Women like to cuddle, men like to hunt. That’s pretty much what people have come up with after, what five or six thousand years of deliberating on the sexy natures of men and ladies?

How old is writing? Maybe those cave paintings and such were about how women, allegedly, just want to cuddle and men just want to hunt everything that moves and then stab it, a lot. Stab. Get it??

I and others seem to think that humans are bit more complex than that. But that’s not comforting or comfortable, it’s certainly not a couple pieces of Wonder Bread smeared with Blue Bonnet level of contentment. We humans do like our stereotypes and our comfy blanket versions of human behavior, oh yes we do!

Religion gets its licks in– women don’t like sex, women are unnatural if they like sex, women just want babies that’s why they put up with sex, etc. You’ve heard them. I’ve heard them.

We get them trotted out when there’s votes to be won. Abortion, the pre-born, rape–women can shut down their bodies during a rape, and shouldn’t go out in public, shouldn’t wear this, that, the other, etc; women don’t get paid as much because they have babies and that’s their choice and it’s just biology and…There’s a gigantic bullshit swamp here to dive into. Watch out for gators.

Ah, where is this going and why is yours truly musing about fantasy very safe and controllable Highlander Viking Cowboys and turning stomachs with the Real Story of Sleeping Beauty?

A Pirate King Highlander Chieftain Viking Lord combo set in a gloomy dungeon-heavy castle full of broody immortals…mm!

Mama needs some lemonade!! Oh dang it…are there any books out there with Highlander Viking Cowboys and Sassy Spirited Missies who just need to find love and give up their careers? My brain is tired! It’s tired of SERIOUS STUFF. And wants a real break from TANGERINE ‘MURICA. Checking Hallmark Channel right now.

Or I could just write it myself, because I am a writer but I’d probably start laughing so hard someone from a Tennessee Williams play would have to show up to escort me to the local lobotomy clinic.

Oh my, remember when women were hauled off and brain-gutted because they were ‘acting up’ and their families were okay with this? Lobotomies for the gal who’s a bit out of control! Don’t believe me? Look up Williams’s sister Rose and his play Suddenly Last Summer. Go ahead. I dare ya.

Wait, what? Oh. Where is all this frothy goodness heading?

Excellent question, gentle readers!! Excellent. Thank you for asking.

Now!

I don’t write things that sell. I don’t. I’m not a popular author. I write dark twisted probably far too honest and not honest enough bits of this and that.

I need to improve.

I need to either embrace my Satanic Rob Zombie-ish demonic drearscapes or turn to light little mass consumer-wanted tomes that are read at beaches and then forgotten about, but which pay for a beach house so I can watch people read my forgettable words while I write my ‘real’ novels and ‘real’ plays and…ahem.

“You’re so funny,” someone said to me once. “Why don’t you write like that?” I wonder if anyone has ever said that to Norman Mailer. Or if they said that to Chekhov. Or Cormac McCarthy. You need to lighten up there, Cormac! Put some damn jokes in Blood Meridian! Make the Judge really clumsy! Have you ever considered that your stuff goes over most people’s heads? Fix that, Cormac!

But I digress. Ah. Okay!

Maybe I’m trying to decide, yet, what sort of writer I am instead of just being a god damn writer. You know, one who writes. That kind of writer.

Because people [those others who don’t buy my books or commission my plays] don’t want gritty honesty or drearscapes of dreariness…[unless there’s a Russian surname and even then people just put those books on their bookshelves without actually reading them. I am wise to those tricks!].

What sells?

Yeah. It’s not the little gritty novel about a woman realizing her life will end in obscurity and being alone, where she’ll die in her apartment and be eaten by her own cats. That she won’t find love or happiness, ever. Unless that ‘slice of life’ tale is written by a Hollywood starlet, ghost written by an out of work and down on their luck playwright…Then, it might sell as a novelty item for a bit.

But. Fifty Shades? Come on. Why did it sell? It’s fun, it’s frothy, it’s familiar, it’s very very safe.

Rosemary Rogers did BDSM so much better on her worst day. As did Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and…anyway! Not to mention Anne Rice and her whole Sleeping Beauty series, gentle readers. You want some fun alone time sexy reading, try those three books. It’s under A. N. Roquelaure. Now, I haven’t read any of the Shades books. But I want to because I want to see if it’s as awful as critics say. And because it’s probably comfortable and easy to digest as toast. Wonder Bread toast at that. And then I can add ‘stalky billionaire’ to my stable of reliable safe studs. [No, I don’t actually have that in my head. Of course not. Nope.]

I guess this is sort of a pep talk. To myself. To hang in there, kitty! [Remember that poster?]

And to take some time to enjoy the trashy and fun stuff out there a bit. And to just write and not worry about what genre or category or subgenre or sub-subgenre I fit into so people can hustle my books or so I can hustle my books in a shameless and rhino-skinned manner.

Also to avoid looking at anything political.

Though sexy for-the-ladies fantasy novels are pretty damn political in and of itself. People point to them and go, see? Women! You’re all such silly rabbits! With all women being the same woman, of course. We’re all the same. We just want six hundred paged slick-covered shallow novels filled with cuddling and descriptions of pretty dresses, of course! Except. Anyone who’s bothered to read even one of those things notices right away it’s barely disguised porn, it’s outright porn, it’s sometimes dark and disturbing porn for Stockholm Syndrome fans.

Anyway! That’s a whole other kettle of bloggery blogness. Huzzah!

Highlander Viking Cowboys. Ignoring, sort of, politics…OMG. What the fuck, America? Really?? Why on earth…! Mama needs some lemonade!!

 

HEY. BUY MY BOOK/S. ONE IS CALLED OREGON GOTHIC. I’M ALSO IN TEN TEN MINUTE PLAYS, VOLUME II, III. SUPPORT PLAYWRIGHTS, TOO!

http://www.10-minute-plays.com/playwrights/ann_wuehler.html

http://www.10-minute-plays.com/online_store.html

 

DANGER NOODLE WITH DISCLAIMER AND A SIDE OF TANGENTS

DISCLAIMER: Okay, so I wrote an all-over the map scream about the Tangerine Hellscape that is ‘murica right now. I might post it anyway. It’s funny. I think it’s funny. And since this is my safe space…bwha ha ha. It’s not. Because anyone casually driving by on the internet can peruse this. Anyone. Anyone!!

I will post the hysterical shriek of my scattershot thoughts, oh yes. Because it’s a primal scream. It’s probably a sub-primal scream, if that’s a thing. It seems to have come from some stagnant pool of WTF and cold dregs of coffee yet in my cup. Which is cutesy and profane at the same time! I’m no lady, I’m Bell Star! That was a line from a commercial advertising a Time-Life book, at least, that’s what I remember. And memory, as you know, is always so clear and right about everything. [It’s not, that was sarcasm] Anyway, the line was something like–” That’s no lady, that was Bell Star.” Who was a woman bandit in the Old Weste. Get it? Ye Olde Weste? Get it now?? Belle, not Bell? Anyway!! End of Disclaimer!!!

 

Hello, gentle sorts. I had a dream…[stop groaning and looking for another blog to glance at. I promise this is not a dream interpretation self-important self-discovery of yours truly. I promise! Or a lengthy or quick look at a certain FAMOUS SPEECH.] So. I woke up from this dream this morn panicked. Panicked, I tell ya. I had forgotten to feed my fish for several days and the tank was dirty.

Yeah. I don’t have a fish tank or pet fish. Have not had them for years. I’m talking decades. [Even though I’m perpetually twenty-nine, of course. So just barely three decades and the first one doesn’t count because I was like, um, a baby.] I felt a weird need to share that. Because I’m trying to come up with content to match my title– DANGER NOODLE.

That comes from some wag renaming animals with absurd names. I found them amusing, they amused me. I was amused! Danger noodle instead of snake. Here, the rest of them: http://pleated-jeans.com/2015/09/30/16-alternate-names-for-animals/

I’m trying to be lighthearted and frothy here because my country sucks.

It’s sucking all of us into some weird Dr. Who alternaverse. I don’t watch Dr. Who, so that might not work on any level but I feel ‘murica has been invaded by the Daleks and we’re all supposed to not notice and say only nice things to the ‘opposition’. Well, one side is supposed to say nice things [lib’ruls] and the other side can say whatever they want, except about kids.

See that Milo guy and his downfall from the graces of the American We’re-Not-Nazis But We Totally Are movement. Sexism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, great, no problem. Raping kids, even we have to pretend we draw a line there because the public got a wee bit upset and went on Twitter mini rants, so we have to fire that guy but not change our stances on anything even a little. Yay!

Wait, gentle reader wonders, how does this chick know about Daleks, she DOESN’T WATCH DR. WHO? Gotcha!! Yeah. I got that from Eddie Izzard and other comics and assorted sorts. So, I know basically what Daleks are, I just don’t have an urge to watch Dr. Who fight them with umbrellas or whatever he actually does.

I’m sorry. I’m sure Dr. Who is a great show. I used to watch the ones when I was a kid with Tom Baker and the big long scarf. I don’t watch it now. Okay? Okay!

Now. Danger noodle!

Which is weird, about my not wanting to watch Dr. Who. Because normally I am all for those weird cult shows. Maybe it’s my version of a fish tank I don’t wish to clean and fish I wish would just starve already so I can flush them. Oooh. That was dark. Oh my.

 

Oh. So. Tangerine Nightmare, AKA 45, unsigned protections against transgender kids. So does that mean we can now hunt them with our ‘murican-made ‘chine guns of Awesome Murderness? Our Penisthundersticks can now be used to hunt…? Cause it seems removing protections from such a vulnerable and tiny group is just…I don’t know, asking scary-cat Jesusbillies to shoot now and not question ever later. Is that just me?? Am I having the vapors or what?? Danger noodle! Ah, that’s funny. Calling snakes ‘danger noodles’! Ha ha ha.

Here, from the New York Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/devos-sessions-transgender-students-rights.html?_r=0

Oh and Standing Rock.

If you have no idea what that is, well, ain’t you lucky. Yeah, the oil pipeline clusterfuck. Taking a big leaky oil pipe through sacred lands. [They leak, Look it up. Those big tubes carrying oil leak like mother bears.]

Standing Rock, North Dakota. Where protestors were treated like Middle Eastern terror cell operants. [Is that a word?] I mean, the military police showed up, with tanks. Rubber bullets were fired willy nilly into the crowds.

Who were not armed. Militarized local cops and actual military sorts.

Against folks waving signs who didn’t want their water sources ruined and their land defiled.

Veterans showed up to protect the protesters. Chanting and signs and refusal to just go away. For months. The pipeline goes under a section of the Missouri River known as Lake Oahe, by the way. For those of you scrambling to figure out if I’m making this up or not.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/how-obama-can-keep-the-standing-rock-sioux-standoff-from-turning-bloody-20160908

Big Oil versus Native Americans, and guess who loses?

It was a real life game of Cowboys and Indians, well, a real life game of We Want More Money Wah versus You’re Not Going to Ruin Our Water You Greedy Fucks. [That’s a mite simplistic. Others will and have written far more elegant and scholarly take downs of this tragic, awful clusterfuck of a clusterfucking mess.]

Reporters were arrested for reporting on this. 45 has stock in that company pushing for the pipeline. It’s a fucking Hollywood wet dream of an issues movie, it’s going to win bigly at the Oscars one day. With a title like Bob’s Standing Rock Stand. And [I predict!] there’s going to be a white person at the heart of it, because the White Savior trope wins bigly on Oscar Night. Danger noodle! Danger noodle! Ha ha ha.

Oh, this is all over the place, with no actual cohesive theme! This is why I don’t write essays. I am tangent girl. I go off into actual other lands and come back from the sky. What? See what I mean?

Oh and now protesters in general.

I see where in Arizona and other places, lawmakers [who can’t seem to remember they’re not little kings and queens these days] are trying to turn protesters into rioters. And then making said “rioting” illegal and prosecutable. So anyone opposed to anything going on these days…would be subject to fines and even jail.

Would that include going to town meetings with your local elected officials and demanding they explain themselves and do their damn jobs already? I think, yes, that would also be included in that Don’t Talk Back To Us attempted spate of silence the critics laws. Oh and all protesters, are, of course, being organized and paid for by George Soros, among others, who just want to Make America A Commie Playground–MAACP. My dad believes this. My brother. My aunts and uncles and…

Can you say DICTATORSHIP and FASCISM and OMG WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO MY GODDAMN FUCKED UP FUCK OF A COUNTRY?

danger noodle ha ha danger danger noodle funny yeah

Of course, since I’m kinda lib’rul [I’d so punch a racist-spouting asshat. Probably have. Ahem. I’m not a take the high road kinda gal. I’m probably a LINO, ha ha!] I’m prob’ly being too ’emotional’ to ‘rationally’ see where all this protesting is just
‘hurting’ the ‘liberal’ cause.

That if I and others protesting or even just casually mentioning some of the crappola going on lately would just…give it all a chance to smooth out and see that it’s all going to be magically okay, well…can’t we, those who are noticing and protesting and speaking out just…play nice and go along and be quiet and keep our heads down and understand it’s to MAGA?

America has been under siege for eight years and is the moist domain of carnage, blood, awfulness and elitist Hollywood types who need to keep their traps shut.

Because ‘merica is right now being raped by outer space illegal immigrants from war-torn galaxies who want to take our jobs, our prettier women, make us do heroin and vote a lot in our various elections. Not to mention take all our tax money that was going to buy more and bigly better bombs and tanks and medals for parades and instead use OUR TAX PENNIES to buy steak and lobster with their welfare checks.

danger noodle help me danger noodle help help

Did I mention I need to get back into Alice in Oregonlandia?

That I have been writing, but it’s crap I wouldn’t show to my dog, let alone another human. Except I think my junk writing, as I label it, is probably ‘better’ than anything ‘serious’ I poop out. Oh. How’s that for wretched rampant self-pity very early in the morning? Is it good enough, gentle reader/s? My country is turning into some sort of Tangerine Turd-Splattered Hellscape and the wind moans outside. Danger noodle no longer amuses right now.

Poor danger noodle. Killed by reality. Sad. There’s always trash panda! Hope reborn!
A raccoon. A raccoon is a trash panda. Why can’t I have that imagination?? Why must I be burdened with my dark and dreary gray wasteland brain country that produces indifferent zombies once in a while? Hello? God?? Can you get back to me on that? Thanks.

See? Tangent girl! Oh and…and oh dear. Rampant cutesy self-awareness. Holy balls of badly glittered homemade Christmas ornaments! Someone should go back and edit this down to just ‘danger noodle’ and ‘clusterfuck’. Sigh.

 

 

MANOS, THE MOVIE THAT MADE ME HATE MY EYEBALLS

Hello, gentle readers. How’s it going? Good? Bad? Now that we’ve exchanged pleasantries, down to the nitty gritty. You can skip this one. It has very little to do with writing and is a bit, a lot, really really a lot, self-indulgent and rambling. You’ll also learn some not very interesting things about me. No real gut-wrenching admissions will hit you in the feels. I promise.

So, found a treasure trove of Mystery Science Theatre 3K episodes over on the youtube.

Moi does no possess a Netflix account. Moi is woefully stuck in some other year where Netflix was not a thing. Snickers expected and even enjoyed right about now.

I’ve watched Kitten With a Whip –Ann-Margaret as some bipolar JD blackmailing the voice behind Charlie’s Angels Charlie. I expected so much more from that title. Sigh.

I’ve made it through the Mole People. Beaver Cleaver’s dad and slave girls underground, while giant humanoid moles did all the work for the albinos. I have a sick need to watch that one again, because the snarky comment– this movie is all ropes and asses!–still makes me snicker to myself at odd moments.

The Brain That Wouldn’t Die. Which I actually enjoyed. The girlfriend’s head in the pan alone. I totally bought she could talk with no working vocal cords. No, really, I did. She went from super-sweet to super-Joan Crawford bitter. It was AWESOME.

Oh and of course, I had to sit through the Beast of Yucca Flats. Because. I cannot remember why right now but I had a pressing need, it pressed! to click on that selection and then endure it. Giant scientist guy, Tor Johnson? Well, Tor somebody! turned into a desert-stumbling psycho who has to kill, kill, kill and then some cars drove around, and the narrator said the most random things that had nothing to do with the movie. There was also no dialogue spoken on screen. Best. Movie. Ever.

I felt high watching it. I have no idea what the mary jane feels like, ahem, but I felt very very high during the entire Yucca Flat alternative world view. Which brings me to Manos!

From the Beast of Yucca Flats. Except. This was not actually in the movie I watched. He stumbled around the desert. Maybe this is an early still from Fifty Shades of Grey?

I kept seeing Manos, Hands of Fate, read that it was about devil worship. Oooh, right there, I’m hooked. I do love devil worshiping movies. Usually because they’re so wonderfully goofy and full of nekkid folks. Yeah, I am that shallow. So, I settled in and prepared myself for hijinks and fun. I had, yes, expectations.

Ugh.

It took me three days, three tries, to get through this one. It was a drag, man! A total drag, man! I was up one night with a bad tooth, I do mean it hurt like the dickens. So I pulled up MHOF and pow, five minutes of Torgo and the clear impatience from the three MST3K guys –one actual guy and two little robots, but still–this poor achy lady [if I call myself a lady, does everyone else have to, as well?] fled for the arms of Hypnos. [Greek god of sleep.]

Of course, the near overdose of ibuprofen and the application of ten year old Orasol via Q-Tip might have had something to do with that, as well. Oh, for those wondering why yours truly doesn’t just go the dentist…BWH HA HA HA. ‘murica, baby! It’s better to die free from an infected tooth in a free market cage match over who gets to charge ‘muricans more for basic, have to go the doctor health care because I think I’m dying than let them commie socialist elitists immigrant scumbags get a free lunch. Freeeeeeeeedummmmmmm. Bald eagles! Old Glory! Apple Pie! Exploding America First American Apples Only Sparkler Patriot Pie for me!

from Pinterest. Eagles and ‘muricans don’t have teeth!

But. Mostly this movie was a very tame set of fights between the wives of Manos. I could never tell if Manos was the guy in the Halloween costume and the Harry Reems stache or the god they all followed. And after a while I didn’t care.

The wives –they went from being limp, wearing white lingerie and old lady underwear, standing asleep against pillars to somewhat more active yet still limp sorts, all wearing the exact same white lingerie and exact same old lady underwear– squared off in what I thought would be an actual weird game of Red Rover, Red Rover.

from DVD Talk. Seriously?? How does this advance the story? 

One set of wives –Manos/guy who worshiped Manos?– was apparently some sort of version of a rogue Mormon or a Biblical patriarch. He had more vagina to choose from than the Golden Corral has selections of side dishes. Except he never had to run around in a see-through floaty nighty and show his undergarments. Sexist much?? You’ll have to go back to the beginning of this sentence because I went off on a weird tangent. Sorry! Manos/notManos wanted to not kill the little girl of the couple who had stumbled into this mess. The other side wanted the whole family dead.

Family stranded at night, finds weird hotel, has to stay the night, they worship devils, danger danger, the end.

The happy family plus creepy caretaker…oooh. 

We have enough wives, one Manos wife read from the off-camera cue cards. But Manos loves women, said the six foot tall blonde wife, that little girl will grow up to be a wife! The MST3K team went ehhhh, and yes, I did, as well. Ehhh. Poor little Debbie!

Yes, Little Debbie. Like the snack cakes. Uh huh.

Then, the wives all rolled around awkwardly, slapping gently at each other, sometimes just sitting on each other as if waiting for off-camera cues. That was the bulk of most of this movie. Other than this couple who apparently spent all night kissing, that the cops kept interrupting. They’d drink from a flask and then go back to kissing. They had nothing to do with whatever plot was actually there that I could discern. Those wacky kids!

These two made out the entire movie. I have no idea, to this day, why they were included in MHOF

I finally made it to the end. It took a lot of stamina, but I did it.

All this while trying to get my Alice in Oregonlandia novel going in some direction other than all the directions at once.

Watching cult movies seems to be focusing my will to live, my brain’s ability to lay out something resembling plot in my own writing and those cultie movies scrape the despair and helplessness out of my poor shriveled raisin of a soul. Like a lot of folks, American politics right now stabs me in the face all day long. It’s very tiring and soul-shiveling.

It’s not fun like it must have been during that whole Nixon thing! I’m claiming it’s helping me be a better writer because I feel a real need to justify why I’m watching MST3K instead of masterfully tackling my latest novel, while writing a full length historical play on the real Catherine the Great, done in rhyming couplets in the style of Moliere. [No, I am not actually writing a play like that. Not yet. Mmm…]

Manos did not deliver much beyond a ‘why am I watching this again?’ irritation and an actual horror that whatever I’d been writing had the same soporific quality as those poor women clumsily fighting each other in what was surely meant to be highly sexy and edgy cinema. [Or probably just an excuse for the director to film scantily clad bad actresses in their undies touching each other…not going to continue that thought. Because it’s obvious where it’s going.]

Oh, also, the poodle died awful damn quick. The little girl’s pet. She cried for it the whole damn movie. Dang. I cared more about that little black poodle than all the humans on display. There’s a lesson there, surely!

Little Debbie and her dog. 

Will I take on another MST3K cult/bad movie excursion? Probably. I wonder if they did Night of the Lepus. I’ve seen that one. I remember the giant bunnies romping through a burrow. That same shot over and over. That’s burned into my permanent brain museum. Those giant bunnies. Those giant bunnies.

Buy my books!! Always Be Selling Your Books– ABSYB

Doomaclypse, part deux

 

Wow, so…this one just disappeared.

I don’t remember what this one was. Except there’s a Dr. Who reference in it.

Was it politics? Probably!

It was snowing heavily. That’s what I remember.

Fuck that orange shit trumpet shitting all over America. How’s that for a rewrite?

 

 

 

Light-Hearted Screamers of the Coming-Doomcalypse

I wrote the above title with no real directive or thoughts as to what to write next. I’m free-ballin’ it here, to quote myself. The picture below is not mine. I went over to Google and typed in ‘balls’ and picked a picture. Now you know the dark, twisty, twisted, twistified workings of my brain meat.

from Bullsballs

Okay, I had some words and then I deleted them because they were an incoherent mess. I’m trying to write during this Time of Tangerine Vader and wondering how soon until America invades Canada for dissing us on Twitter.

I am actually wondering that. Does Trudeau have the Canadian war planes ready for that scenario? Does Canada have war planes?? Would that Google search get me on a list somewhere? Probably not. I’m a WASP, or at least, I pretend to be one during house to house searches. Just kidding! Sort of! JUST KIDDING SORT OF!

I do have pink skin, my ancestors came from some vague Northern European locations [my ancestors were quite slutty on one side. Probably the other side, too, they just hid it better] and I can claim to be a Lutheran if pressed about it. I can gargle out some Lutheran info when that big flashlight comes to me, you betcha.

I notice that Protestants never get blamed for anything in America, whether terror attacks, economic woes or moralistic quandaries.  I notice that. A lot. Yet, a lot of those proclaiming to be Protestants claim they’re the real victims.

Others have noticed it far better and with far more gleeful venom that even moi possesses. I notice that especially right now when Tangerine Vader and His Army of Somewhat Loyal Flying Monkeybutts spew out blame and edicts in the same breath…It’s like something from a Monty Python sketch, maybe the really famous one with the dead parrot.

“They’re” trying to sell us that dead parrot that is trickle-down economics and a particularly awful strain of Christianity while some are going, but that parrot is dead, that parrot is no more, that parrot has ceased to be.

There’s actual quotes from that sketch floating about but if I look up Canadian war planes and Monty Python, I fear I’ll get hauled away for America First Patriots Only Reprogramming Program. Now, I kid, sort of. I kid.

Oh. Yes. Have been glancing at forcibly cheerful screams about how all this current floofiness will be good for artists. I do so admire trying to turn this moldy lemon into something drinkable for the whole class!

No, you can’t wallow in the dark gooey shittery all the time, you start craftily hooking up with others who see things like shadow governments, the Illuminati fingers on all our pies, alien visits covered up by the government, 9/11 being an inside job, vaccines exist just to make money and support Big Pharma, kale will solve all problems on this planet so people should eat it all day long already, scientists just want to get grant money so they’re spouting whatever the government wants them to spout, climate change is a liberal conspiracy to turn us all into commies and take money from hard-working sorts and give it those who don’t deserve it, feminists hate men, regulations are bad except when they’re not and don’t seem to effect me in any way, liberals want to hasten in Sharia law, conservatives are all deplorable assholes, etc…etc…etc.

I mean, there’s so many new and exciting conspiracies/groups of interest to choose from lately! Or the same old conspiracies and funky-scary-funny groups dressed up in today’s fashions. Probably that, huh?

Nothing ever changes, not really. Ugh, how gloomy is that?? Very! Someone needs more coffee! It’s me, in case you were wondering. It’s me.

Of course, if you try to put a positive spin on everything, you start eating your own hair in private and kicking your pets just for some balance to your constant forced sugary positivity.

Be careful what you wallow in for too long is my vague point here! I should tell stories! I can meander and wander through word fields like a lot of others can! I can point out the obvious and string together phrases and idioms like a lot of others manage to do in regard to that obvious finding! Yay!

Oh by the hairy chin of my auntie– where was I?

Trying to fill the white space with wordage, ah, yes.

I will try to enjoy the boost to my creative output that must be coming due to the Tangerine Vader and the Posse of Pimples in the American White House of White People Only.

I kid. I’m sure some other-colored folks slipped in and are disguised appropriately. We humans are adaptable little bastards! Sorry, sorry. We humans are as God made us and sometimes God allows us to disguise ourselves so we can survive in less than nice situations. Amen.

Oh hey!! Before I close this confusing mess of this, that, the other, BUY MY BOOK. It’s good. I wrote it. It has several short stories! You can read one every day, it will take five minutes! There’s sex and violence! I promise! Villains get theirs! Probably not, but hey, you’ll have to read my little collection to find out! Vampires! Who do not sparkle in sunlight! Who acts like a vampire! Like one from the Lost Boys! If you get that reference,  OREGON GOTHIC should be on your to-read list!! I’d appreciate it. I’ll even post some drunk China shots and yes, I do have them. Ugh. Challenge accepted, my dears? 

https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Gothic-Ann-Wuehler-ebook/dp/B00YB65O0U

Alternative Oregon Facts

from the Oregon Trail Game

So, it’s Friday, it’s trying to rain atop the many inches of snow, it’s Post-Groundhog Day, I’m feeling impish.

Or rather a profound horrifying despair over the world in general and my country in particular. That might just be me being a total snoftknocker. I’m a writer, kitty cats, I can make up words if I want. Bigly words if I wanna! But, let’s go with ‘impish’. My inner imp is awake, she’s been napping. Well, sort of. She’s always pestering me to be a complete and utter force against which the Evil Empire indifferently snorts at. Her name is Violet Bobbi Jo and she loves sesame seeds. Yeah, who doesn’t? She’s so edgy, not. Remember that trend? To write something, then write the negative right after? I’m so on your side…NOT. Remember that?? Are we meant to remember that? Did it actually happen?

I’m letting my other imps, demons, inner monsters and assorted creatures that stomp about in my brain distract me. They refuse to stay spanked or to learn any lessons. They are immune to positive quotes, stern scoldings disguised as ‘tough talk’ and bribes of any kind, except cheesecake. Something in the chocolate raspberry cheesecake oeuvre makes them toe the line for about two and a half minutes every other decade.

Ah, alternative facts for Oregon. I washed my hair this morn and my mind went, alternative facts for Oregon, how funny would that be? Probably not funny at all, I’m not a comedy writer…which is quite another demon who’s very negative and thinks I can’t write at all and should go into dead animal removal like my mother always wished for me. I ignore that particular Negative Nellydemon about twenty percent of the time. She’s like a jar of mayo in the fridge, when you don’t like mayo but you use it for things like deviled eggs or potato salad, even though you rarely make either one. That’s what Nelly is like. Exactly like that. Oh the dog below is chasing a goose. Margot passed away and the goose is probably not that lively, either.

from Everything Doormats

Okay!! Alternative Facts for the Great Beaver State. No, seriously, my home state is called the Beaver State. Because of trapping beavers, not…yeah. Ahem.

1– IN OREGON, DUCKS HAVE MORE RIGHTS THAN STRAIGHT WHITE CHRISTIAN MALES. Oh those wacky Portland hippies and their hold over my state! Ducks have more rights than men! Thanks, hippie Portland! Must be all the Voodoo Donuts!

2–IN OREGON, MASTURBATION IS LEGAL BUT ONLY IF YOU DO SO TO IMAGES OF MOUNT HOOD OR CRATER LAKE. We welcome all kinds of people here, don’t despair! We’re not anti-anything, but we do have limits.

3– IN OREGON, ONCE A YEAR YOU MUST PERFORM A RITUAL SACRIFICE TO SATAN. THAT’S WHY OREGON IS SO GREEN AND SUCH A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE. BECAUSE OF OUR PACT WITH THE LORD OF FLIES. Make sure you get your paperwork in and postmarked in a timely manner. Send this to Salem, of course. Portland is the alternative state capital, but all official paperwork has to go off to Salem. Yes, there’s a Salem, Oregon. I know. It’s confusing.

4–IN OREGON, ANYTHING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF BEND IS CONSIDERED IDAHO. Uh, that one is actually true, more or less. How many times have I heard– we might as well be Idaho? A lot. I hear that a lot during my extended stays in East Oregonia. There’s a great divide between Bend and the ‘rest of the state’. If I’ve noticed it, well, that means at least three or four others have, as well. Yay? Oh, also, while we’re talking so intimately about imaginary borders within the state of Oregon– there are two time zones at work. If you go past Farewell Bend, you’ll find yourself in the Pacific Time Zone. Extreme Oregon East is on Mountain Time…It’s spooky. You drive a bit past Farewell Bend there off the Snake River and boom, you LOSE AN HOUR. Where did it go?? Not even Jesus knows. Not even Jesus.

5–IN OREGON, NOBODY WEARS UNDERWEAR. Underwear is for the man, man!

6–IN OREGON, EVERYONE GETS A POTTED PLANET FROM THE GOVERNOR. If you are a legal resident– and that takes being born in either Bend, Eugene or Portland– and have not received your spider plant, your aloe vera or your mini rose bush [you only get a choice of one, not all three, calm down!], please send an Oregon-themed postcard to the appropriate agency. You can find this listed on the Oregonians-Only secret government website that only real Oregonians are privy to.

7--IN OREGON, THERE ARE NO BALD PEOPLE. Everyone here has lots and lots of hair. It’s our killer climate, our history of utter tolerance and love for all sorts and our wig surplus problem which the Oregon lawmakers solved by making baldness illegal. Yay! It’s Statute 776655409.9, if you don’t believe me. Look it up.

8–IN OREGON, OUR TSUNAMI WARNING SIGNS ARE ORGANIC, VEGAN, CAGE FREE, RANGE FREE, NO PESTICIDES, FAIR TRADE, GOOD LABOR, WOMAN-FRIENDLY, RECYCLED, NON-GMO AND OTHERWISE REALLY GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT, PEOPLE, PETS, JESUS AND WOMEN. Oregon has the best signs! We rock with our signs! I looked for a specific Oregon Tsunami sign, because it would be totally awesome and show I wasn’t lying at all about how awesomely wonderful our signs are, but…it seems jealous sorts have blocked such signs. I’m blaming Idaho. Might even be that sneaky Northern California. Those sneaky bastards!

9–IN OREGON, YOU MUST COME UP WITH NINE LIES ABOUT OREGON. Oh my gosh, what lies?? There are no lies here, only truth. Bigly truth! Alternative facts here only! Facts come and go, but Oregon is forever.

Below is a random shot from Beijing, China. Because all rambling blog posts should end with a random shot from China. I took it, by the way. I’ve been to Beijing, more than once. I used to live there. In China. I put that on resumes and in random bios I have to write and now, here’s evidence. I’d write the word ‘proof’ but apparently that’s used in terms of math stuff so now I get gun-shy [tee hee, guns, tee hee] using that word. Oh hell.

BUY MY BOOK!! OREGON GOTHIC: https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-Gothic-Ann-Wuehler-ebook/dp/B00YB65O0U