Girl in a Cage

We Are The Road Crew

Whew! My virtual book tour winds down with a move to www.drivelikehell.com today for a cool conversation with author Dallas Hudgens. Check it out!

My warmest personal thanks to everybody who participated--not only all the bloggers who asked great questions and donated their time and energy to help me get my name in front of people., but also Harold and Keri at Typepad for all their help.

Somewhat colder thanks to those who objected to the whole enterprise for not filling the blogosphere with the kind of vituperative attacks on me that would have made for great publicity. Come on, folks! Let's get us a feud goin'! It's a win-win! Publicity for all! I call you names,you call me names, everybody reads our blogs to see what outrageous attack is coming next, and then maybe I sell some more books! Anyone interested in a feuding opportunity should contact me directly or just leave a nasty comment after this post. Thanks!

Copycat

So I was walking in the park the other day, and my thoughts turned to the issue of plagiarism. Specifically, I was listening to the Belle and Sebastian song "The Gate" while I walked. And I noted, though not for the first time that this song has a banjo part that is nearly identical to a banjo part in another song. Obvious ripoff, right? Well, so you'd think. Except for this: the other song was "Just An Illusion", which was released by a local Cincinnati band called The Edge (group motto: "No, not the guy from U2") in 1986. (Featuring Daniel Sokatch on vocals and Karl Meyer on bass!) I suppose it is theoretically possible that a copy of this song made it into the hands of My Favorite Glaswegians After the Robertson Family, but, I mean, if there are 2000 copies of this recording extant, I will fry up my Batman all-leather Converse All-Stars (yeah, so maybe the boy's sneaker fetish rubbed off a little bit) and eat 'em. I just think there's no way B&S actually copied a song from the American Midwest from 1986.
And I, for my part, was working on a book recently, and I sent it to my friend Dana, and she very kindly informed me that my book had a lot of superficial similarities to another book. One that I'd never read. I also ended up changing some details in Dear Catastrophe Waitress after my friend Jessie informed me I had copied a story line from Sex and the City, a show I have never watched.

So when you read something about the whole Dodgeball plagiarism suit, for example, it's easy to read about all the similarities and go, "oh, yeah, they totally ripped that off." But just because there are similarities doesn't mean they were done intentionally or unconsciously. I mean, I've found myself unconsciously parroting stuff I've read in my writing, but the two biggest instances where people would have said, "oh, he ripped that off" if I hadn't made changes, I was completely ignorant of what I was ripping off.

Probably there's some interesting lesson about the creative process in here somewhere, but I'll be dipped if I know what it is.

Still Turning Pages

Today I was thinking about touring, and I remembered one of my favorite books: Michael Azzerad's Our Band Could Be Your Life. He describes how all these great bands of the 80's--Husker Du, the Minutemen, Black Flag, etc etc used to tour by driving all over the country cramped in a crappy van and crash on people's floors after the shows, and by and large the only reward they got was getting fired from their day jobs.

And not one of these bands has a song about how hard it is to tour. Only the people with their own luxury buses who stay in hotels write those. Go figure.

Anyway, my own virtual tour, which has been incredibly grueling--I'm going to check myself into virtual rehab because I'm suffering from virtual exhaustion-- keeps a-rollin': keep up with me today at After the MFA, where I talk about writing, being a writer, and stuff like that.

In completely unrelated news, my friend Deb is doing the breast cancer 3-day walking thingy. Here's the link to donate some money. Deb lost a dear friend to breast cancer, and then her sister was diagnosed and is currently undergoing treatment. (Note--I'm not going to say anybody's "fighting" or "battling" cancer because that is a really stupid metaphor that I'll be happy to rail against at length in a future post.) Deb wants ten of your dollars for breast cancer research so that they will let her walk sixty miles. I would probably give double that to not have to walk 60 miles. Maybe that would be a good alternative fundraiser--some kind of couch potato-athon. Every dollar raised buys you a minute on the couch during triathlon training or something. Well, that's for the future--tell the Komen people they can have that idea for free. In the meantime, Deb actually wants to go for a sixty mile walk, so pony up, bitches!

He Hate Me

Oh, the rigors of the virtual road! The virtual partying! The virtual groupies! It's really taking a toll on me, man, it really is. I think maybe I'll write a double concept album about how I feel disconnected from my audience and I'll get me some giant puppets, and then they'll make a bad movie from it in which Bob Geldof shaves his eyebrows.

In any case, my virtual book tour continues today with a stop at the inappropriately-named Rarely Likable (Erin seemed quite nice to me, but maybe I caught her in one of her rare, likable moments), where I talk about writing, living in other countries, and "Crocodile Rock." She's also posted a fantastic video of Elton John performing "Crocodile Rock," backed by the best rock and roll band of the '70's. Check it out.

Also, the Virtual Book Tour has already ignited a firestorm of controversy! No, actually, some guy posted some barely-comprehensible objections to the whole enterprise. I only wish he'd posted his grievances more prominently, but you can't have everything.

You know, I've been poking fun at my complete lack of celebrity status, but it appears I'm on my way! I've got my first playa hater!

Rock You Like Mr. Grieves

So a while back, I caught this incredibly annoying British documentary about the Pixies on the documentary channel. Mostly it was insufferable (too many pleased-with-themselves British talking heads, not enough Pixies), but one of the main themes that kept coming up was that the Pixies invented this "quiet-loud-quiet" dynamic changing thing that was so radical and influenced Nirvana, blah blah. I've seen this idea elsewhere, too. In fact, I've seen it so much that I was beginning to believe it. (I mean, I believe Nirvana ripped them off, don't get me wrong. Not as much as they ripped off Squirrel Bait, though. I mean, seriously, go download "Hammering So Hard" and tell me Nirvana didn't totally bite this band's entire style. Go ahead! I dareya!) But then I was driving around the other day listening to the classic hard rock station, and the telltale guitar lick comes in, the drums start thumping, I almost crash the car because I'm bangin' my head and throwin' up the heavy metal horns, and the Scorpions' "Rock You Like a Hurricane" begins.

I was busy bellowing "Yyyyyyeaaaah!" and, of course, "Zis is Klaus Meine of Ze Scohpions on dabulyou ee bee en Cincinnati--Rockyoulikeahurricane!" which is what I do whenever anything about the Scorpions comes up. (Fortunately for everyone, it's not all that often). But then a funny thing happened: the ass-kickin' intro was over, and I could barely hear Klaus over my own yelling.
Because, in fact, after the loud intro, we got a positively Pixies-esque quiet verse, complete with whispery vocals! Take that, British hipsters! I thought. It wasn't the Pixies who invented that at all! It was the Scorpions!

Turn The Page

Oh, it's day one of my virtual book tour, and I'm already strung out from the road. I can feel the eyes upon me as I'm shakin' off the cold. I pretend it doesn't bother me, but I just want to explode!

Oh, I guess I have to really make a lot more money before I can write a Seger-esque ode to my own self-pity.

And I have to make Eminem-sized money before I can write something about how hard it is to be me, and how I don't care about all the things people say about me, which is why I can't stop repeating them.

Well, in the meantime, I still think I'm lucky as hell to have a great job and get to make up stories for a living. Check me out over at Syntax of Things today talking about Dear Catastrophe Waitress and who would win in an all-Scottish band deathmatch!

Dying is Easy...

My pal Bonnie posits that because everybody thinks tv comedy is dead, tv execs are just throwing everything against the wall to see what sticks.

I have only limited tv time every night, so I've only had time to check out a limited number of things, but here's my report on two.

1.Halfway Home, on Comedy Central.
I got this one by accident, because I have the dish network brand DVR, which is stupider than a Tivo Brand Tivo. Cons: it doesn't follow shows when they move, and is easily befuddled by the "oops, the show ended five minutes late" bs that the networks do all the time now just to mess with DVR watchers. Pros: It doesn't recommend shows for me, a feature I find creepy as hell on the real Tivo. And, in this case, if you've got it set up to record something and something else comes on in that time slot, you get a serendipitous surprise!

Anyway, this show is really really funny. It's a typical ragtag band of misfits thing, with an odd assortment of convicts (and their inexplicably fu-manchu sporting P.O.) forced to share a home. It's got its share of pushing the envelope type jokes (ie, mailman Garrett Morris (I think) leering into the camera and screaming, "Salt Peter! That's BONER POISON!"), but what I like about it is that it's a little more character driven than just language driven. I think this actually makes it better than the Sarah Silverman Program that it replaced. Which was funny as hell, but mostly because you were waiting to see how she was going to work the word "vagina" into every scene. Well, okay, the thing with the fart in the police car was also really funny.

2. The Whitest Kids U Know. I came across this on Fuse the other night. It's a sketch comedy show, and, like most sketch comedies, hit or miss. They seem a little too in love with envelope pushing as a comedic strategy. And even the good sketches are uneven. So one sketch begins with a really dull, unfunny Hamlet parody in which Hamlet and Horatio are looking for zombies--and then it turns out this is on stage at Ford's theater, and Abe Lincoln is in the presidential box going, "Oh no! Don't Go In there! Oh, Snap!" And Booth is an outraged theater patron who ends up killing Lincoln because he won't shut up during the play. Okay, that was clever and funny, but he kills him by hitting him in the butt with a hammer multiple times, and then they have to kill the joke with the postscript, "yes ,Abe Lincoln really did die from getting hammered in the ass." There was a clever thing about a slutty doe coming on to some hunters, but then when the inevitable bestiality begins, the two observing hunters are holding guns over the scene and going "we'll shoot her when you're done!" which was disturbing and awful. I mean, Sarah Silverman can almost get away with rape jokes, and these putzes--not so much. So, my verdict--the misses drag the hits down, and whichever one of these guys has the talent you'll probably see again, probably in something better than this.

Virtual Book Tour!

Follow me on tour! It's like following the Dead, only without the drugs, patchouli, and tie dye! Well, actually ,you can have all those things if you like, because you can follow me on tour from the privacy of your own home! Hell, cue up "Uncle John's Band" if you want!

Here's the deal. On Tuesday, I'll be appearing on syntaxofthings.typepad.com . Wednesday, find me at rarely.typepad.com . Thursday, I'll be at www.afterthemfa.com, and Friday you can find me at drivelikehell.typepad.com.

Come along for the ride!

Throw Some Cheese on That

I am officially old.

I kind of thought I could age gracefully---that I wouldn't still be in to what the kids were in to, but I would at least be able to see where they were coming from, man, I could say, hey, that's not my personal bag, but you go ahead and let your freak flag fly.

But it's become clear that as my kids hit the tween years, I'm staring down a youth culture I don't understand at all. I'm not just talking about why they don't understand that The Naked Brothers Band is a crappy show with crappy music (full disclosure--"Banana Smoothie" isn't that bad. Okay? Happy now?). I'm talking about stuff like this--the boy is the most meticulous dresser of anyone in the house. He's bought into the whole sneaker fetish thing, which must have come from California. I mean, whoever decided to fetishize footwear obviously didn't live in a climate where it rains or snows. It's difficult to worship your sweatshop-made kicks when they have those little salt stains on them, or mud, which you can't avoid around here these days.

So because the boy lives in New England, and because he runs around outside and plays, he actually spends time with wet paper towels or pre-moistened wipes making sure that his shoes are spotless. I don't even do that with my dress shoes. Furthermore, he ensures that he's wearing a black t-shirt with a little hint of blue when he's wearing his black sneakers with the little blue stripe.

So here's how I know I'm old--the boy is not acting bizarrely. He is fitting in with his peer group with this behavior that, in the 70's, when I was ten, would have marked you as so incredibly girly as to need a beatdown. Now being obsessed with having spotless shoes and making sure your shoes match your shirt is the kind of hyper-masculine behavior that helps you avoid a beatdown. I'm lost here, people.

And yesterday, we're on the way to the early-morning indoor soccer game, and we've got the hot jamz station on, and this song comes on and the boy wants to turn it up, so I oblige. "Is he saying 'throw some cheese on that bitch?'" I asked. How charming, I thought, that these hip-hop kids are writing odes to sandwiches!

Eye rolling ensued. "It's throw some D's!"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know!"

So I decide to listen to the words a little more closely to see if I can decipher what exactly throwing some D's on something means. (Is he telling his girl to get some implants?) And, I mean, I am just a hopeless fuddy-duddy. Not only do I still have no idea what throwing some Ds on something represents--I think there's a possibility it may be something automotive, since the "bitch" he appears to want the D's thrown on seems to be his Cadillac, but I had to turn the song off.

"I love that! Why'd you turn it off?"

"Because the whole song is niggamuthafuckabitch niggamuthafuckabitch! It's ugly! I just don't need this ugliness at 8 in the morning!" Yes, I actually said this, though it has to be said that I did a pretty credible parody of the verse when I was saying all the swear words. Even still, I was somehow posessed by the spirit of my mom when these words came out of my mouth.

Featured!

I just thought that everybody should know that my new novel, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, is Typepad's featured book this month! Read all about it here and get a free copy if you sign up for a Typepad account.

Also, you can hear me talking about the book, music, pop culture, and how I still don't really understand what emo means in the typepad podcast! Grab it here. You'll be glad you did.