Girl in a Cage

I love the sound of breaking glass

The ironies are pilin' up so thick around here I can't stand it. To wit: yesterday I was writing something in which I had an annoying character say something about how unexpected bad events present a real opportunity to live in the present, appreciate things you usually take for granted, etc.

And then, at 10:12 p.m., some dildo smashed my freakin' car window! By which I don't mean that an artificial penis actually broke the glass--I believe it was a rock that did it. I mean that the person who did it was like a dick, only stupider. Anyway, I'm always prattling on about how great Sirius radio is, and my Sirius receiver is exactly what got grabbed outta my car in the smash n' grab. I deactivated it immediately, so they smashed my window (did I mention that the back door was unlocked?) to grab what amounts to a paperweight with some buttons on it.

And so, Sirius-free for the first time in 2 years, I drove to run an errand with the only CD in the car in the player--the Isobel Campbell/Mark Lanegan collaboration that I recently derided as "mood music for a mood I may never be in." Well, lemme tell ya, driving alone when it's 48 degrees and raining turns out to be the mood for that CD. I was driving aroung going, "This is the coolest album ever!"

I think I'm ready for a couple of irony-free days...

Sell sell sell!

Well, Long Way Back's Amazon number is falling faster than the president's poll numbers (badump-BUMP!), and it's made its way from front tables to back shelves at your local bookstore. I need to move some product, people!

I write this blog off as a business expense, hoping it's helping to promote the work I actually get paid for. But am I doing all I can in this regard? For example, I get probably two or three hits a day from people searching for information on H.R. Pufnstuf, Witchiepoo, or other Krofft characters. (One guy got here searching for "Is Freddie Flute Gay". I mean, I just love the fact that somebody's curious enough about the sexuality of a thirty-seven-year-old flute puppet to actually type that search in. And in the present tense, yet! Like Freddie's currently kicking back at his little retirement cottage in P-Town or something...) How do I convince Pufnstuf fans that they should read Long Way Back? I know there's a connection here somewhere, but I can't quite figure it out.

I get another couple of hits a day from people searching for "Kelly LeBrock Fat" and/or "Tempest Bledsoe fat" (Misspelled as I misspelled it, without the final "t" on "Tempestt"). I don't know if these people are fat fetishists or just celebrity gossip hounds, but I kinda think it's the former. In which case, I think maybe these folks should know that Clare, the narrator of Long Way Back, has a big butt. She talks about it a lot. Those of you who like your women big and beautiful should definitely pick up a copy.

I'm also considering which words I could type here to draw more potential Long Way Back buyers to this blog. Ramones Jockey Club Cincinnati? Buzzcocks Cover? Redemptive Power of Punk Rock? Hospice nurses? Best Halpin Novel Yet? Kari Mythbusters Nude?

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

Well, I've been suffering mightily for the last three days, as the song that's been stuck in my head has been Barenaked Ladies' "One Week," aka "That fucking Chinese Chicken Song." Now, it's horrible enough to have an annoying song stuck in your head, especially when you haven't heard it recently, eaten Chinese Chicken, watched The X Files, or done anything that might have lodged this piece of crap in your cranium. But if it's a cool song that's stuck in your brain, at least you don't feel like a tool when you find yourself singing it. And if it's a cheesy pop hit, you can at least pretend to ironic detachment as you walk down the street going, "I'm not that innocent!" or whatever. But Barenaked Ladies? There's no way to play that except straight up dorky. Sure, they did the noble thing and committed career suicide with that chimp song a few years back, but the legacy of their annoying, passive-aggressive pop lives on! What can I do? My normal remedy when a song is stuck in my head is to listen to it, but I don't own this one! And I'm damn sure not going to go download it. I think my hard drive might laugh at me. I guess I'll just have to keep listening to other stuff and hope something decent sticks in its place.

Pop Life

Having just finished a book, I took a few days off of writing to do some reading. I had a brief, intense fling with PopCo by Scarlett Thomas. First I was completely infatuated--couldn't put it down, was thinking "This is the book Pattern Recognition wanted to be! It's like a warmer Cryptonomicon!" But, then, sadly, things started to go sour. The book I had once adored began to annoy me with its excessive length, and with the hints of Joyless British Leftism creeping into the story, and by the (SPOILER ALERT) end, with the "I'm going to write a book that turns out to be this book!" thing, I kind of wondered what I'd seen in it in the first place. Sure, it was still smart, still clever, but why did I fall so hard for something that turned out to be so flawed? Ah, well, such are the mysterious ways of reading.

Anyway, it's a decent book--the parts about adolescence are painfully excellent, but it's about a hundred pages too long, and the mystery touted on the back turns out to be not all that important or satisfying. In light of the current plagiarism debacle (she lost her book deal! Now who's gonna plagiarize from me?), this book raised some interesting questions. Like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, this featured a math-obsessed, first-person narrator who talks at length about Marilyn Vos Savant and the Monty Hall problem. Like Pattern Recognition, it's got a female protagonist who has a vague marketing-type job working for a company that might be evil and a mystery that is solved in unsatisfying fashion. Like Cryptonomicon, it's got a buried treasure. I don't think any of this rises to the level of plagiarism, and it didn't bother me at all, but it does go to show that there's a big gray area about owning ideas.