Friday Jamz for 3/23

Posted on March 23, 2012 by

It’s Friday! I bet you guys got some big plans for the weekend, like gettin up in the club and so forth. If so, may I suggest a solid tune for pregaming? It’s a song called ”Butter On Ya Muffintop” by 4two7. I heard recently it on Billy Jam’s show on WFMU, and it is exactly as ridiculous as that title implies. It is, in fact, so dedicated to its specific area of the female anatomy that it nearly transcends the Ick Factor (almost like Foot Patrol).

I am tempted to transcribe some of the best rhymes here, but I think it might be better to just let you listen and experience them in their full glory. What Sir Mixalot did for big butts, 4two7 will do for muffintops and buttering them, with perhaps a bit of jelly as well.

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If you’re in a more old school mood, perhaps you’ll enjoy this slow jam by the generically named duo Charles and Eddie, “Would I Lie to You.” This video was available on demand on our cable, so my wife played it on a whim one evening, and I found its early 1990s-ness exquisite. That very particular time fascinates me, in large part because that’s when I had the misfortune to be in junior high/high school. It’s an era most people haven’t quite tried to mine for nostalgia or comedy, certainly not in the way the 1980s have been raided. But good lord, is it ever ripe for mining.

There’s a parallel here with the 1960s, which didn’t really start to happen until The Beatles came along. If you look at artifacts from the early portion of that decade–particular what was played on the radio–you can see people stumbling to figure things out, almost as if they’re waiting for something like The Beatles but they have no idea what that thing is yet. The pre-Clinton 1990s are a bit like that, with the catalyst being the arrival of Nirvana. The difference is that in the early 1990s, every aspect of fashion and culture was a million times worse. The Simpsons are a notable exception, but even The Simpsons didn’t really become The Simpsons for at least a season and a half. It’s like irony had to wait to arrive until we had an ironic president.

If you know nothing about the Very Early 90s, this video is a crash course. The Cavaricci outfits, the needless camera trickery, the white guy’s Fabio hair, the Quiet Storm beat–it all screams First Bush Administration, which we all know was a time of tumultuous change. Sadly, the Charles portion of Charles and Eddie passed away in 2001, but Eddie now fronts a band called The Polyamorous Affair. They never let the music die, guys.

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The Style Dad Council

Posted on March 20, 2012 by

I’ve been working out for a couple of months, with a consistency and determination I haven’t shown in many moons. I’ve also been trying to eat better, or at least not eat such enormous portions of things. My problem has never been snacking or eating much junk food. For the most part, I eat what you might call “good food,” it’s just that I have no real sense of proportion when I do. You know the saying “live every moment like it’s your last”? That’s what I do, except exclusively for meals.

By the end of last year, I was feeling truly horrible about my appearance and general well being. Stress plus lack of exercise conspired to make feel like absolute garbage. Making changes to my lifestyle was difficult, but I accepted that I’d reached an age where taking care of yourself means something different than it did when I was younger. Now that means, “eat salad for lunch every day” whereas ten years ago that meant “guess I won’t have that ninth taco.”

I’ve been pleased with the results thus far. My general energy levels and ability to not eat like a monster are much improved. As for my appearance, I think I look marginally better. But I also realize that there is a rigid ceiling to what I can achieve, appearance-wise. I could go on the Insanity regimen and I would still look like a Dad.

For the rest of my days I will look like someone whose every spoken word is greeted with a vigorous rolling of the eyes. That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. After all, I am a dad and I like to think I’m as good at that as anything else I do. And maybe I’m finally growing into what I am. I’ve never known quite what to do with this thing that stumbles around below my brain, and every time I thought I might have half a clue, genetics have intervened.

I also have this odd condition I like to call anachronistic dysmorphia, wherein I can see pictures of myself from five years ago and think I look okay but can’t be happy with what I see in the mirror. “Why did I think I looked like crap then? I looked fine! But today, Jesus, I look like a bridge troll.”

In other words, the bar for what I expect from myself in the Looks Department is very low. And maybe looking Dad-Like is what I was meant to be all along. I should be okay with that. I would be okay with that, I think, if I didn’t live in New York City. Because there is a class of parent found in NYC that makes me feel powerfully inferior. I look like a normal dad, but I feel at times that I live in a city full of Style Dads.

Read on! —->

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Tales of Suspense From Pre-Dawn Running!

Posted on March 19, 2012 by

I’ve been working out very early in the morning lately. My schedule and my waistline necessitates it. In the past few weeks, as the weather’s warmed up, my cardio workouts have been mostly running. I’ve been running off and on for 13 years now, and I know it’s good for me because I hate it.

Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, it’s usually still pitch black when I go out for my run, which is always unsettling. When you go out to run at dawn, you feel energized and accomplished. When you go out to run pre-dawn, you feel creepy. Especially if you’re doing the routine I currently am, which is to sprint very hard, then jog, then repeat. So to the casual observer, it looks like I’m running from some terrible crime, but I keep getting winded. “I really need to get away from the scene of this jewel heist I just pulled off, but…man, just gimme a second…”

So I get a weird vibe on any given morning I run, but this morning in particular felt more odd than usual. I can’t explain to you why, exactly. It was just a feeling I had, a sense that something was off or something was in the air that things weren’t quite right. I went off on my run regardless, feeling uneasy but knowing I’d feel worse if I didn’t go.

To combat the feeling, I decide to take a route through some more residential streets, thinking this would feel safer than my usual route around a local park. But the feeling persisted, possibly because it was pitch black, and possibly because it feels even weirder to sprint past people’s houses while they’re fast asleep. Especially the quaint little Tudor-esque houses that can can be found in my neighborhood, which look very charming during the day but gnarled and sinister in the dark of night. And when the occasional person did show their head, stumbling toward their car hanging onto a coffee mug for dear life, they looked as nervous and suspicious as I felt.

So I changed my route, heading toward the more industrial parts of my neighborhood, where trucks were already loading and gassing up for the day. This was more familiar to me, and yet I still felt that something was wrong, and I realized there wasn’t a whole lot I could do to get rid of that feeling.

However, it didn’t become much more than a feeling until I neared the end of my run. I was jogging an overpass that fords the LIE, which was already jammed to the gills with traffic in both directions. I reached a sprinting portion of my routine. And as I did, I got the sense that something else was running behind me. Gaining on me. I didn’t hear anything apart from my own footsteps, but I was certain of it.

So I ran faster, but this thing, whatever it was, kept pace with me. I craned my neck to see what it was, and it turned out to be my own shadow, cast by one of the huge lamps that lines the overpass. As I continued to run, it caught up with me, loomed over my head, then overtook me and disappeared as I neared the end of the overpass exit ramp.

This was when I thought to myself, “Wow, this movie about my life is terrible.”

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Two Views of That Day

Posted on March 16, 2012 by

I’ve written about this before. I know I have, and yet I feel compelled to do it again. “This” being my feelings on St. Patrick’s Day, which have evolved over the years from seething hatred to an uneasy truce (think Korean DMZ).

My animus has faded due partly to the mellowing of age. The older I get, the less I am able to muster the energy to despise things when I can merely hate them. But the other main reason for my change in feeling is because at some point, I realized my dislike of St. Patty’s Day was just a parroted expression of my father’s dislike of the day, and Ireland, and Irishness in general, or at least the most pronounced expressions thereof.

My dad hated Ireland because he was born there, and his formative years in the Emerald Isle were not happy, to hear him tell it. He had plenty of stories of sadistic Christian Brothers at his school and crushing poverty, all of which were very funny, as Irish stories tend to be. But behind the yucks, you could feel the privation and shame and pain.

He couldn’t stand to go back there, and did everything in his power not to, especially after my grandparents died. His work, whatever the hell it was (psst: spook), took him on insane business trips to India, Africa, former Soviet republics (the Icky-stans, as he called them), former Yugoslav republics, Afghanistan, Jordan…and the only place he expressed any real hesitation to travel to was Ireland. It made him nervous, I think because it made him feel emotions, which most Irish folks can’t deal with. That’s why they invented whiskey and dances where your upper body remains rigid.

Read on! —->

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Soundtracking

Posted on March 13, 2012 by

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but writing a novel is kind of hard. One the main reasons it is so hard is the time needed to complete it, time that can be spent in so many ways that don’t involve sitting at home by yourself in front of the computer screen. Not to mention that simply being at a computer screen offers so many distractions. I’m constantly worried that I’m “missing” something on Twitter; breaking news about the Mets, perhaps, which I am semi-professionally obligated to keep on top of, or perhaps a hilarious meme that cries out for my contributions.

One of the biggest enemies of novel writing is lack of focus, be it internet enabled or just the wandering of mind that tends to happen when you have to do one thing and one thing only. My biggest problem is I’m a multitasker by nature. I find it extremely difficult to work on one single thing when I have ideas for a dozen others, all of them vying for headspace. When it comes to shorter nonfiction stuff, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with working on more than one project simultaneously. But that method is deadly for fiction writing in general and novel writing in particular.

Colson Whitehead (whose novels The Intuitionist and John Henry Days are in my own person canon) wrote a great piece about this a few years back for the Times, “What To Write Next.” The intent was humorous, but even more so than the jokes, what struck me about the piece was its subtext: The writer’s fear that you’re toiling away on one thing when you can and should be working on something else, an impulse that can prevent you from doing anything at all.

An excellent way to combat this lack of focus is through music. I’m far from the first person to point this out, but I feel compelled to share my thoughts anyway, as I owe a debt to all the music I listened to while writing this book. I know I wouldn’t have been able to do it without clasping headphones to my dome and letting music push the outside world away for a while.

I found listening to albums (remember those?) helped the most. A complete album–a good one, anyway–immerses you in a universe, which helps you focus your energies and attention for the running time and hopefully beyond. The albums I listened to most often while writing Love and a Short Leash were:

  • Miles Ahead, Miles Davis
  • Double Nickels on the Dime, The Minutemen
  • Mikal Cronin S/T
  • David Comes to Life, Fucked Up
  • Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, Guided By Voices
  • Get Happy!, Elvis Costello
  • Singles 06-07, Jay Reatard
  • The Tyranny of Distance, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
  • Melted, Ty Segall
  • Murmur, R.E.M.

In addition to these records, I also got sucked into various boots of Petit Wazoo/Roxy and Elsewhere-era Mothers of Invention shows (1972-1974). I can’t quite explain why; I listened to a ton of Frank Zappa in high school and college, but only rarely since then. This was an addiction I thought I’d conquered. Whatever the reason, my desire to listen to this music again reemerged right when I was finishing up my final draft, and I’m glad it did. I found the funk-and-jazz charged jams of this era of Frank Zappa’s oeuvre to be helpful for this particular stage of my toil.

I found that commercial radio doesn’t help me all that much, with its incessant breaks and complete lack of imagination, but listening to WFMU definitely did. I did most of my work on the weekends, and the Saturday afternoon block of Michael Shelley, Fool’s Paradise with Rex, and especially Terre T’s Cherry Blossom Clinic powered me through many marathon writing sessions.

To honor this debt, I wanted to share a playlist of songs that were often drilled into my ears when writing the novel. Some have particular resonance for reasons related to novel’s plot/subject matter, some are mood setters, and some are just bitchin’ tunes. I’ve arranged them in an order that helps my own process: Get pumped up, settle in, shot of energy, scale back again, repeat. I’m not sure if this will be instructive to anyone or if it really shares anything except a glimpse into my weird headspace. But hey, you get some rad tunes, so shut your noise. Playlist available here, deets after the jump.

Read on! —->

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The Finish Line

Posted on March 12, 2012 by

This weekend, this happened.

Which is to say, Love and a Short Leash, the novel I wrote about here and have been mentioning obliquely and incessantly in various social media platforms is finally complete. Now it is ready to take flight in this big, terrible world and hopefully find a cozy nest somewhere. Metaphors!

I am not ruling out self-publishing. I’ve seen more and more people go this route, and not just odd cranks and fanfic enthusiasts, but for-real authors. The idea of having complete ownership over my creative output is very appealing to me, and I have the ebook chops to make my own digital novel with ease. However, what I don’t have is the reach, influence, and free time to hustle and get this book into as many hands as I’d like. And I do feel that, considering the insane amount of time and I spent writing this thing, I owe myself the effort of seeing if more conventional channels want to publish it. If that doesn’t pan out…well, I’ll just burn that bridge when I get to it.

This book began in its life as a short story I wrote when I was in the MFA program at Brooklyn College. The head of program then was Michael Cunningham, author of the The Hours (among other novels). In the first class I had with him, a sort of “freshman seminar” for brand new MFA candidates, he told the assembled hopeful writers, “The world doesn’t want your stories.”

What he meant was, nobody is out there begging for you to finish your work. If you set out to write something and you never finish it, nobody will be banging on your door to demand it. This applies to every creative endeavor, but especially so to writing. The world is a big place and it will get along just fine without you and your thoughts and your dreams, thank you very much.

I don’t believe Michael said this to be discouraging or to intimidate us, drill-sergeant-style. I took it as a simple reminder that writing is really, really, really hard (see?), and there is already so much of it, more than any human could read in 10 lifetimes, that one more story is a tiny drop in an infinitesimally large bucket, and you must know this before you pick up a pen or sit down at a keyboard.

When I began writing this novel, I operated under this assumption: Nobody wants this thing. Sometimes this attitude gives you a sense of defiant me vs. the world-ism, which can be useful in the solitary endeavor of writing. But it can also be a crushingly depressing outlook if you’re inclined to dark thoughts, which is me in spades. I blame my genes. My Irish side gets the big ideas, my German side makes me do the hard work, and then both sides gang up to whisper What’s the point, really? That negativity, plus not having long stretches of time to work on this novel, is what caused me to abandon this book at long stretches.

Last year, I resolved to push past this feeling and finally finish a draft of this novel that had lingered on my hard drive and in my mind since 2004. I still had the idea Nobody wants this thing at the back of my head. However, I also began to make regular updates on Twitter and Facebook about my progress. I tried to make the updates an even mix of clinical (how much I’d done and how much I had yet to do) and affirmation/self encouragement (e.g., “THIS IS GONNA MELT YOUR FACE, GUYS.”).

I did this for much the same reason I made similar updates regarding my efforts to get into shape: To create public accountability. (Idea admittedly stolen from Drew Magary’s Public Humiliation Diet.) If I talked online about how I was working out, it’s that much more embarrassing to walk around looking like a land monster, because then people will whisper Oh, he gave up… Likewise, if I kept posting novel updates, that obliged me to continue until I finished. Otherwise, when people asked me about it, I’d have to do the dance of, Yeah, I was working on that book for a while, but you know, I’ve been so busy…

In doing this, I found that many people–real-life friends, online friends, and virtual strangers alike–were both supportive and curious, sending encouragement while wanting to know more about the novel. Especially since I finally completed my first draft, I’ve gotten heartening pats on the back and atta boys from so many people, which is amazing motivation for an endeavor where the payoff comes much, much later, if at all. And as I reached the home stretch, with the end in sight, I got some genuine I can’t wait to read this thing notes from people I love and admire. This, more than anything else, enabled me to power my way to the end.

I still believe it’s best to approach the whole writing business–particularly the novel writing business–assuming that no, the world doesn’t want your stories. But I also found that when you share the journey, even in the most cursory way, the world might like to hear those stories anyway.

So, anybody wanna publish a novel?

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YouTube Comment of the Week: Smurfs Pasta

Posted on March 5, 2012 by

Time was, you were nobody unless you got your own canned pasta. In the days of my kid-dom, every cartoon character was immortalized in semolina form by Chef Boyardee or Franco-American. Any resemblance between the pasta and the character(s) they were supposed to represent was purely coincidental; most of the shapes looked more like amoebas than anything else. They all tasted the same as well, industrial fake cheese and processed tomato sauce tang. I know because I ate every single one of these pastas at least once. I was a carb completist. (Although I feel that by calling these things “pasta,” I should have to apologize to some kindly old Italian grandmother somewhere. Perdonilo, nonna!)

The Smurfs received this tribute, of course, since they were on TV for roughly 73 years. Was the pasta blue? Of course not; such technology did not exist yet, and let’s pray it never does. The Pasta Smurfs looked and tasted exactly like the Pasta Pac-Man and the Pasta X-Men, which is to say carb-loaded blobs swimming in Campbell’s tomato soup. Uniqueness, verisimilitude, and taste were not the goals here. The goal was to make a canned pasta that you could put a cartoon label on so dumb kids (like me) would beg for it. Mission accomplished.

However, I do understand that the mere sight of these items have a nostalgic pull for folks of a certain age, myself included, which is why I found the comment you’ll see below this clip oddly endearing. And odd. Though no more odd than the commercial itself, in which Papa Smurf reacts to a Gargamel-induced food shortage by transforming a bunch of Smurf houses into Smurf pasta. Thanks, Papa Smurf! Now I’m no longer hungry but I have to sleep in a ditch!

Honorable mention for this comment that points out a continuity flaw in the ad copy:

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One Shining Moment With Mike Francesa and Marie

Posted on March 1, 2012 by

I grew up listening to WFAN. Since that was (and continues to be) the Mets’ flagship station, my mom had pretty much every radio in the house tuned to it. Mike and the Mad Dog could be heard in my house post-school on any given weekday, with that duo just beginning to rail against their Target of the Day as we got off the bus.

Mike and the Mad Dog basically invented sports talk radio as we know it; i.e., two loud guys screaming at callers and each other for several hours. Growing up in a non-cable household, and thus cut off from ESPN and most televised games (particularly baseball), this was my family’s only pipeline to the world of sports and the discussion thereof in the heady First Bush/Early Clinton years, a time of tumultuous change.

With the advent of the internet, however, it seems like sports radio is an idea whose time has passed. When you can comment on a story on almost any major news site, or even start a sports-related blog of your own, waiting on hold for an hour to possibly talk to some imperious host for 8 seconds has a lot less appeal than it once did.

It has even less appeal when it comes to Mike Francesa. I don’t know if he became unlistenable after his break-up with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, or if he simply suffers from comparison to the modern internet-powered array of alternatives. In either case, I’ve come to find his brand of pomposity and shit-stirring intolerable. It doesn’t help that he is a first-degree troll when it comes to the Mets, an expert at tapping into the Self-Loathing Troglodyte segment of the team’s fanbase. I certainly don’t look at the team through rose-colored glasses, but that doesn’t mean I want to hear its every move sneered at by default, either.

I once listened to Francesa every day, whether I liked what he had to say or not, because, well, that’s what you did, right? These days, I feel no need to tune into something that pushes my buttons so much, especially when there’s so many other places I can go to that fulfill the same function as his show and then some.

On the rare occasions when I have listened in the last few years, the show seems to skew painfully old. I hear a large proportion of callers who are firmly in the Early Bird Special set, asking Francesa questions they could easily have answered via Google. (“Hey Mikey, what time does that Knicks game start tonight?”) More and more, his audience sounds like it’s made up exclusively of people who the Internet Age has left by the wayside. It’s fine and good that this crowd still has a place to commune, but it sounds like something that will age itself out of existence, and soon.

However, this demographic means you get glorious moments such as this one, which I heard in the car on my way to pick up my daughter from school yesterday. In it, Marie from Long Branch takes a hilariously long time to figure out that you can’t listen to a radio show and talk on the phone at the same time. Then, she repeats everything Francesa says for the benefit of her husband Louie before cutting to the chase: she wants in on a promotion the station is doing with McDonalds. Francesa grants her wish and finds out exactly what she likes to get in excruciating detail. Quarter pounder…fries…iced tea….entire geological age passes…

Then Francesa asks about her favorite teams and promises to send her something during the baseball season. At this point, three-plus minutes into the phone call, we discover that Marie thought she was talking to a WFAN underling, not Francesa, the whole time.

Later, we learn a bit about Marie and Louie’s met-cute backstory, and even hear from Louie himself, all of which is actually kind of endearing. (I’m a softy; sue me.) Still, the first three minutes of this call are some of most unintentionally hilarious radio I’ve heard in years. It made me laugh so hard, I literally punched my steering wheel (because laughter makes me angry).

Whatever else you want to say about Francesa, this is something you could not hear anywhere else. Take that however you will.

For a better audio clip of the tail end of this call, click here. Thanks to @CoreyNYC and @WFANAudio for sending the audio and video my way.

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My Annual Plea

Posted on February 21, 2012 by

I've used this pic four years running, and if it was good enough for 2008, dagnabbit, it's good enough for 2012

Every year around this time, I entreat you, the Scratchbomb reader, to consider donating some funds to WFMU, the Fun 91, the Freeform Station of the Nation. That time is upon us again.

WFMU does not get any money from the government (federal, state, local, what have you), nor does it get any money from corporations. It also refrains from constantly begging for money throughout the year a la PBS. WFMU has but one two-week pledge marathon that raises the bulk of their operating costs for the year. That is why it is crucial to add your support at this time.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but radio in the New York area is bad. Like, really bad. Atrocious, one might say. For a city that likes to think it’s the Center of Everything, particularly when it comes to the arts, New York’s radio stations are unlistenable, robotically programmed swill. WFMU is an island of goodness amid this raging sea of garbage.

Because they are not owned by some huge Conglomco, and because they are not beholden to any taskmasters governmental or corporate, WFMU gets to do whatever the hell it wants (within FCC confines, of course). I don’t love everything I’ve ever heard on WFMU, but I do love the fact that all of it is made by real humans who love music and radio, which definitively cannot be said for everything else on the airwaves.

I first started listening to WFMU well over a decade ago. A roommate turned me on to Terre T’s Cherry Blossom Clinic, which was exactly the kind of punk/garage/glam show I’d been searching for my entire life to that point. I made my first WFMU donation to her show when I was still powerfully, crushingly unemployed, because I believed in it that much, and if I couldn’t share what little money I had with something that made me that happy, well, what was the point of money anyway?

I still love Cherry Blossom Clinic and listen every Saturday I can; in my push to complete my novel over the last few months, I probably wrote 75 percent of it listening to Terre T. And so I feel somewhat indebted to WFMU for providing me with a soundtrack to my industry.

WFMU is also home to The Best Show, which is not only one of the funniest things humans have ever done, but which would be impossible on any other station. To do the kind of humor that Tom Scharpling does on that show–be it sparring with callers, chatting with guests, or performing comedy with Jon Wurster–requires large swaths of time that other spots on the dial would never allow in a million years. Even if you don’t listen to The Best Show, chances are you enjoy some form of comedy that has taken inspiration in some way from The Best Show. (SNL, for instance, counts many Friends Of Tom among its writers and performers; peep Bill Hader’s t-shirt in this video for visual evidence thereof.) That alone makes it, and WFMU, worthy of your attention.

I’ve volunteered for WFMU events for last few years and it is always a joyous experience. I am not blessed with a huge amount of free time, but I make time for WFMU, because being a tiny piece of what makes it happen is so rewarding. For instance, two years ago, I got witness this bit of amazingness–a Nerd-Off between John Hodgman and Patton Oswalt–live and in person.

My wife and I will be assisting in The Best Show’s first marathon program this evening. We will also be donating funds in addition to our time, and if you have any change to spare, I urge you to do the same. If you can part with 5 bucks, I assure you it is appreciated. I’ve manned the phones at the marathon and received pledges at that level, and I can promise you that every little bit helps.

However, if you care to listen during tonight’s show (which will feature special guests Ted Leo and Julie Klausner) and care to donate $75 or more, you are entitled to the Hammer of the Gods Best Show Demon Summoning Pack, which includes:

  • A Best Show magazine with contributions from such luminaries as John Hodgman, David Rees, Robert Popper, Michael Kupperman, and more, plus an interview with Michael Nesmith and many other awesome tidbits and treats.
  • A flexidisc with an exclusive song from Kurt Vile
  • A CD of brand new comedy from Scharpling and Wurster.
  • A free download of the audio from last year’s Radiovision Conference panel, featuring Tom, Marc Maron, and Ira Glass.
  • A new Best Show sticker! A Vance the Puppet stressball! Some other stuff, I bet!

If all of that ain’t worth $75, I don’t know what is.

High rollers can donate more and get premiums from other DJs, which are always fantastic; the premium CDs from Terre T, Rex, and Evan “Funk” Davies always contain some amazing vinyl finds you simply can not get anywhere else. Think you can just get anything from anywhere in our digital age? You are completely wrong, and WFMU’s DJ premiums prove it every year.

I believe I’ve made made my case. This concludes my annual plea on behalf of WFMU, one of my favorite things in the world, until next week when I bug you again during Marathon Week Two.

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What’s Been Doin’

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

Hey! I haven’t written here in a while. Nor have I been writing all that much at Scratchbomb in calendar year 2012. One large reason is that, for the last bit and a half, I’ve been concentrating alternately on finishing my novel and working on a large-ish non-fiction thing.

As far as the novel goes, it is 98 percent done. I’ve completed a second draft, and will soon begin a third so I can dot the i’s, cross the t’s, remove superfluous adverbs, and so on. However, all the really hard work (the actual writing of stuff) is done, and very soon I will send it out to the world and onto a slush pile near you. I am close enough to completion that I feel confident enough to tell the world the following facts about this novel:

  1. The title is Love and a Short Leash.
  2. It is a spy novel that involves baseball.

Speaking of baseball, the large-ish non-fiction thing I mentioned above involves The Great American Pastime and it too has been consuming me of late. I’ve been kinda squirrely about exactly what this thing is on Twitter and elsewhere. I realize that vagueness such as this is maddening and I apologize for that. Here is what I can say about it:

  1. It is called Yells For Ourselves.
  2. It is a multi-volume ebook about the 1999/2000 Mets, or rather, about the narratives and media perceptions thereof.
  3. It will be available in a no-frills version and a souped-up version for the iPad that will include lots of extra goodies, the technical aspects of which I’ve (mostly) figured out.
  4. More details will become available upon the official launch of YellsForOurselves.com. (Nothing there right now, really, except a “watch this space” notice and one of my favorite Mets-related pics ever.)

I am pursuing traditional channels to get my novel published. (Speaking of which, if you’re involved with traditional channels, hey, hit me up, wouldja?) The non-fiction book will be self-published, more or less to prove that the souped-up version is something can be done, from a technical standpoint.

The other big reason I’ve been delinquent in my posts here is because I’ve been writing for other sites. (Scratchbomb and I have an open relationship.) I realize this has endangered my goal for Scratchbomb to be the M*A*S*H of the Internet (“where hilarity meets brooding introspection!”). However, I’m pretty proud of the stuff I’ve done elsewhere of late. Apart from my regular stuff at Amazin’ Avenue (which should ramp up now that spring training is upon us). here’s where you could have seen me so far in 2012.

  • Last Friday I eulogized Gary Carter at The Classical. The Kid was the first athlete I loved, and his death, while sadly unexpected, hit me hard. I hope did his memory justice here. On a less serious tip, I also took a look at how Ray Manzarek’s brought an otherwise fine HBO doc about John Wooden and the UCLA basketball dynasty to a screeching halt.
  • For Vice, I penned a brief assessment of the Marlins’ home run monstrosity as a sign of the impending apocalypse. If you think that take is a bit hyperbolic, I assume you have not seen this thing.
  • For Splitsider, I looked back at the Looney Tunes 50th Anniversary Special, possibly the greatest thing Bill Murray has ever done, if not humanity itself.
  • Last but certainly not least, I’ve scribbled a few things for Low Times: a review of Mitch Miller’s prog record, and an in-depth study of which exact city was built on rock and roll. And if you’re not listening to the Low Times podcast, get on the stick, fella. I have to say the Worst Lyrics discussion with Ted Leo and DC Pierson is one of the funniest things I’ve heard in many a moon.

Will I be posting here with more regularity in the near future? Possibly. What I can promise is that if I don’t, I will definitely put up another post apologizing for not posting.

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