by Phil Stern
“But Sophia…”
“Darren, we’re fucking over! Forget it!”
Just then Liz and Nicole pranced out of the restaurant, a stern chauffeur opening the back door of a waiting limo. Before getting in my darling sister paused and waved. “Bye Sophia! Congratulations on the article!” Giggling, she and Nicole then disappeared inside the hulking black automobile.
“Sophia, please.” Theatrically getting down on one knee, Darren then took my hand, proposal-style. “Remember seven months ago, when I asked you to be my wife on top of the Empire State Building…”
And then I socked him. Look, I’m not proud of it, but my fist, kind of on its own, swung out and connected with Darren’s jaw. More stunned than actually hurt, my former fiancé fell back onto the pavement, staring up at me.
“Don’t…ever…come see me again!” I seethed, cocking my fist for another blow. “Or call me, or anything! I swear, Darren, that’s nothing compared to what I’ll do next time!”
“What the fuck has gotten into you?” he demanded, still lounging back on the ground amid the now crushed flowers. “For God’s sake, Sophia, sometimes things happen, all right?”
Disgusted, I spun around to see the limo pulling out, revealing a crowd of people standing outside the restaurant, drinking in my scene with Darren. Front and center was my family. Shaking her head in grand disapproval, my mother pushed her way to the back of the crowd.
That night I moodily stared at a picture of a gathering of my former television colleagues. Held in a coffee shop the day before, they’d all wanted to congratulate me on my jump to full-time print journalism. Smiling shyly, I was in front of about ten people, proudly holding up my article.
At that moment, at least, I convinced myself the approval of these virtual-strangers meant more to me than all the disdain my mother could muster.
STEVE LEVINE
How did science fiction come to resemble the ravings of a lunatic?
Here’s an experiment for you. Go into the nearest bookstore and read the first paragraph of a new sci-fi novel at random. I guaran-fucking-tee you this is what it will be like:
The Ushra oozed sedately over the Micanridge oppomutt, severely contemplating the approaching Jurante Elder. My, thought the Ushra (though the Iatians weren’t even sure an Ushra could think), could
my platamous be inverted? And which of the 15 possibly genders
was the approaching Jurante? If it was a beonk, well, might it want
to quoray? Darting behind a Wedopladiousvesra tree, the Ushra
sunk into the ground, it’s essence now the size of a goobenyak.
Now look, I have as much imagination as the next guy, but this is crap. And incidently, my cap for new, unintelligible words in a first paragraph is two. That’s it. Two fucking made up nonsense words the author screamed out the night before while jerking off to Klingon porn. Anything more is pushing it.
And this shit gets published? My God, the Literary Police should have arrested this guy for even submitting such incomprehensible goobenyak to a reputable book house! (All right, so I kind of like goobenyak. Don’t ask me why.) Being creative is one thing, insanity quite another.
Though the flip side of all this is just as depressing. Take my father, for example, who couldn’t understand science fiction at all.
“Son,” he would begin, walking through the living room during Star Trek. “What’s wrong with that man’s ears?”
“That’s Mr. Spock. He’s a Vulcan. They have pointed ears.”
“Why?”
“Dad, I don’t know. They just do, all right?”
Sitting down, my father would then lecture me on the proper auditory properties of a rounded human ear. Grimly, I would try to block him out and watch the show.
“Son, you know this is all make believe, don’t you?” he’d finally conclude. “There are no Vulcans. Or space ships, for that matter.”
“No shit, Dad. But I like it, all right?”
So now that we’d established Star Trek is a television program, he begins criticizing Scotty’s engineering skills.
“I would think cross connecting the impulse and warp engine control panels to be unwise,” he would intone. “A basic mechanical precept is to never install unfamiliar controls on an engine.”
“Yeah, well, this other starship just got fucked up by the Doomsday machine, so they have no choice.”
“Yes, but even so, their scripts should adhere to basic common sense,” Dad would chide. “Really, Steve, this is quite silly.”
Dr. McCoy drove him nuts. “You’re telling me that man was cured simply by waving a blinking thing over his head?”
“Dad, he wasn’t cured….look, just watch the show, all right?”
“I’d like to take a copy of this to Harvard Medical School,” he’d grumble. “Let’s see what they think of this marvelous program you waste so much time with.”
Once he actually demanded I explain to him how a transporter worked. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!” he announced. “Except on this…this program of yours!”
“That’s right, Dad. It’s a show! No one’s saying there’s really a transporter. It’s all fiction.”
“Of course, son.” Dad smiled. “That’s my point.” Clearly, I was an asshole for watching this shit.
By the way, speaking of other worlds, there was a quintessential Florida moment in the bank this morning. An old guy was babbling away, about absolutely nothing, at a politely nodding bank teller until his wife began yanking on his arm. “Come on, Winston,” she sighed, “there are people waiting, and this girl has work to do.” Angrily following his wife toward the door, Winston began yelling out in old guy fury. “She was interested in what I was saying!” “No, she wasn’t!” the wife yelled back as they exited the bank. Clearly, this was a running issue between them.
Meanwhile, off to stage left, a young couple was sitting across from a bank “officer.” They were painfully young, around 20 or so, dressed in their Sunday best for this Tuesday business excursion. With excruciating attentiveness, these two clods were trying to comprehend the mysteries of a checking account, though the deeper meaning of it all was clearly eluding them. (This, unfortunately, is what happens when you marry someone else from the trailer park with an eighth grade education to match your own.) The clods finally wandered out the door, having decided, I believe, to keep what little money they had tucked in the mattress, just like “Pappy” and “Grandpappy” before them.
So if you’re a young person in some butt fuck town, listen very carefully. Run. Run as far and long as you can. Stay in school, get your high school diploma, and then escape. Don’t get pregnant or impregnate anybody. Don’t get married. Don’t settle into the old trailer out back or take a job at the local paper mill. Just run. You know that other world you see on television, where people live in cities, have decent jobs, and think there’s more to life than shooting hogs and getting drunk every Friday and Saturday night? That world really exists. You want to join it, trust me.
The alternative is a lifetime in Podunk, Iowa or Shittsville, Virginia. Or, God forbid, Webster, Florida. And while those may be nice towns to stop by for a garage sale, believe me, you don’t want to spend a lifetime there.
HAYLEY SYKES
I ran into Steve in the elevator yesterday. He was prattling on like a tard about books and first paragraphs and stuff. Like, you know, he’s some famous author or something? Whatever.
But it got me thinking. I’d like to write a novel someday. What kind of first paragraph could I write that would really, you know, hook the reader?
And look, I’ve told you I want to write porn, right? So get over it. Anyway, here it is, Hayley’s First Paragraph of the next Great American Novel:
I always liked Jason’s cock. So long and hard, like a uranium control rod bursting with excess radiation. And it’s going to take more than just heavy water to slow that reaction down! Marissa thinks so too. Actually, she says it’s like a mushroom cloud b
etween her legs when Jason plunges deep into her reactor, creating fallout all over her long, lush body that even the thickest cement shield would find impossible to contain, even when the winds are calm. Not that she cares. Why would anybody want a test ban treaty for such pleasure? If there was a Geiger counter in Marissa’s bedroom for Jason’s cock, the readings would be off the chart!
Pretty good, right? And there’s even a theme! You know, the nuclear stuff? I think it’s pretty clever.
Well, guess what? Like a tard I showed it to Steve, and this is what he said:
“I don’t know, Hayley. That fifth sentence runs on, and you mix metaphors in the final sentence.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“Geiger counters don’t have charts,” he said, glancing down my shirt. “They have screens, or dials, or something. But definitely not charts.”
I know Steve’s depressed and all, but I really wish he could be more supportive of me as a writer. After all, I am helping him out with his stupid Life Project/blog/column/middle-age fucking loser tard thing, which I don’t have to do.
Anyway, on another note, I love Beth and all, and I’m sorry she got fired over Tardgate, but where does she get off telling me how to teach?
“You know what I would do?” she opined last night, after I told her about Angel and Latisha’s argument. “I would have called the principal and had them removed from the classroom. What they were saying was disrespectful.”
We were sitting around shooting the shit in my apartment with my gay friend Nick and Beth’s new friend Garth. Actually, Beth and Garth are fucking, but I don’t know if they’re officially going out. I think they’re trying to take things slow.
“These aren’t tards,” I reminded Beth. “One doesn’t just banish them from the classroom whenever they say something annoying.”
“Yes, but you have to maintain control,” she chided me. “You can’t let them get away with deriding the material.”
“Yeah,” Garth belched, taking another swig of beer. “Can’t be no deer riding in school. What are they, fucking Santa’s elves or something? Them kids could get hurt.”
Five years ago Garth had been a proud member of the “No Hope” segment of the school population, allowed to merely sit in the back of each class, lost in whatever recreational substance he’d just taken in the bathroom, making strange noises as the high evaporated. These “students” would be duly promoted from one grade to the next, riding whatever absurd curve was applied that year in order to assure proper graduation rates. Now some sort of self-proclaimed scholar, Garth wanted to be an educator himself.
And the funny thing was, he might well do it. In the South they’d put anybody they could find in front of a class and hope it all worked out for the best. They had to. Because after a few weeks wondering what planet they’d landed on, idealistic young educators from the North would often walk out of the building during lunch, fling their briefcase in their car, and drive back to New York, or Ohio, or Maryland, never to be seen again.
“Deer riding,” Gay Nick mused, taking another drag. “That sounds like fun.”
“Hell, shooting ‘em’s better.” Reaching down, Garth swiped Banjo, my new pup, on the rump. “Come on, boy! What say we go out and blast some bucks!”
“Please.” I gave Garth my best reproachful stare. “Banjo is a golden retriever, not a hunting dog.”
“Damn, Hayley, what in hell you think them damn dogs is supposed to retrieve?” Now Garth stared into Banjo’s eyes, his gaze suffused with that backwoods, maniacal grin. “What ‘bout it, boy? I’ll shoot some ducks, and you can flounder on out and get’s ‘em for me! What do you say?”
“Oh my,” Nick muttered, turning away. “Aren’t we the barbarian today?”
“Hell, boy, where in you think hamburger meat comes from? Animals is fer eating!”
“Anyway,” Beth interjected, putting a placating hand on Garth’s shoulder. “Hayley, you simply need to get control of your class, that’s all.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Nick chortled, “Lesbians In Space sounds like a delightful premise for a film!”
Which actually got me thinking. I mean, writing a book is hard. But a porno film? Maybe that would be a better way of breaking into the industry.
So anyway, I’ve already begun writing the script, which is tentatively entitled SuperKock Meets The Space Lesbos. Maybe we can shoot it next year.
By the way, apropos of nothing, I was watching science shows on television all last night, and I have two important observations to make:
Killer whales are cool! They routinely snatch seals from the beach, haul them out to sea, and let the young killer whales play with them! You know, as hunting practice? They toss them around, let them start to swim away, snatch them back…all kinds of good stuff.
But then (and here’s the kicker!) the adult killer whales push the seals back, unharmed, onto the beach. The younger whales don’t get to eat the seals, because they have to learn to initially get the seals themselves! Get it? There aren’t any freebies. I like that.
It would kind of be like giving poor children welfare checks, allowing them to carry them around for a day, and then forcing them to return the checks before they were cashed. That way, they’d have to learn how to apply for welfare all on their own, without their parent’s help.
See what I mean? That’s how you become self-sufficient.
And here’s the second thing. Scientists don’t know anything about other planets billions of light years away. They may think they do, but they don’t.
You know what I’m talking about, right? Some tard scientist says he knows whether this planet has an atmosphere, or what elements make up its crust, or how pretty the oceans are, simply by the ultra-violet colors emanating from that solar system.
Please. Who knows what colors indicate what elements on Planet Fucknut ten billion light years away? Who even knows if colors change after traveling all that distance? Who even knows if there are different things on that planet we’ve never encountered, and would thus have no idea what color indicates their presence?
Leave coloring to crayons, and don’t tell me what’s on Planet Fucknut until we get there. Honestly, you’d have to be a tard to believe that shit.
DAVE MILLER
When I was in the mental hospital, group therapy was always the highlight of my day.
Imagine, if you will, about 20 patients sitting in metal folding chairs arranged in a circle in the middle of the largest living area in the ward. The “group leader” (known to sane people as the psychiatrist) also sat in the circle, as if a mental patient himself, distinguished only by his tie and identity badge. As usual several white-garbed attendants proctored the event, strategically positioned behind the nut cases most likely to act out.
It was unusual, though, for an actual pacification to occur during group. If someone started getting agitated, the psychiatrist would immediately suggest they remove themselves from the gathering and calm down somewhere else. The nut case would then stalk off, closely followed by an attendant, muttering vague threats about the person who’d demeaned them moments before.
Which said much about the odd dynamic permeating group sessions. Often someone would describe a feeling, or dream, or frustration with life. At times it was very moving, clearly speaking to their overall condition.
Yet the other mental patients, utterly lost themselves within an impenetrable narcissistic haze, would generally tell the person who’d just bared their soul to shut the fuck up and quit whining.
So what if your husband banged your best friend, cleaned out your bank account, reported you to the IRS for tax fraud, and then burned down your house before moving to Switzerland with your two young kids? That’s nothing. My wife carried on a two-year affair with my own father! Then the bitch got me fired for banging my secretary, wrecked my car, and still hits me up for two grand a month in child support! Now that’s a problem!
Oh yeah? Someone else might interject. My son is
gay! Can you imagine that! And my wife says we should accept it! She actually gave him a tube of Vaseline and a box of chocolate-flavored condoms for Christmas! What kind of shit is that?
And on it went. I often came away from these sessions with a rosy feeling about the world, realizing my problems, in the grand scheme of things, weren’t even all that severe.
The drug addicts rarely shared much in group, simply looking depressed and angrily declaring that they wanted to get high. Occasionally one would engage in wild flights of fancy, describing with rapturous wonder the joyous sensation of shooting up. They often remarked on how the drugs were the only thing that made them feel anything in life. That made me kind of sad.
Then there was Amy, an out of control 17-year-old from Long Island. Amy essentially had a zero tolerance level for frustration. At the drop of a hat she would yell, scream, and rant away over nothing. On occasion she went completely berserk. Actually, she was the only female locked in the padded room during my stay there. A few times she even gave the attendants a good fight, scratching one badly across the cheek.
Which meant that on a good day, Amy merely subjected everyone else in the facility to scathing verbal assaults. As you might imagine, this made her particularly entertaining in group.
One time Martin, a 50-something college mathematics professor, described for the umpteenth time how he’d come home one day to find a goodbye note from his wife. He’d been married to Helen for 30 years and, according to Martin, they had a wonderful relationship. Yet in the note Helen said she was slowly dying inside, day by excruciating day, and needed to go off and find herself. That was four months ago. Since then Martin had quickly become dysfunctional, landing in the ward two weeks before.
“I simply don’t understand it,” Martin softly repeated, once again adjusting an absurdly old-fashioned bow tie before pushing back his thick, 1960's style eyeglasses. “Helen and I were so happy together. She loved preparing little sandwiches for faculty gatherings, and making tea for the professor’s wives. We played bingo every Friday night! And she loved relaxing in our living room. Why, for nights on end, as I worked on equations in my study, Helen would watch television for hours. And the next morning I’d describe my equations for her…”