Archives for April 2006

YYYYEEEEAAAAGGHGHGHGHHH!!!!!!!

I just sold my newest story, “Blood of Virgins,” to Realms of Fantasy magazine. Some of you may know that I am insufferably fond of this story, and have put just sick and terrifying amounts of time and energy into writing and rewriting it. I’m thrilled as hell that it’ll be appearing in such a great magazine. You should all go subscribe now so that you don’t miss it.

I’m doing a workshop this week with legendary journalist Gay Talese. The publicity all over campus calls him quote: “the most important writer of his generation.” (But that quote is never attributed. Doesn’t it matter who said it? What if it was his mom? But I digress. At any rate, he’s a big deal.) I read my article out loud. We were only supposed to read the first 4 pages, but he kept prompting me to keep going until I’d read the entire thing. He said, “Wow. That was great. I wanted you to keep going because I was sure you were going to crash and burn sooner or later, but you didn’t. This is publishable.” I felt pretty pleased, since that’s really the first nonfiction piece I’ve written. And just to show that he really knows what he’s talking about, he also said that I was obviously “unbalanced” and “a dingbat.” And that’s just from reading my 12-page article that’s not even really about me. Now that’s insight.

Though he did seem to be under the impression that I’m an aspiring comedian aiming to do radio humor or something like that. I didn’t get a chance to explain that I mostly write morbid, surreal short fiction. That has me thinking though. If other people’s reactions are any indiction, somehow in the last five years or so I seem to have become funny. I don’t know how this happened. I never thought of myself as a particularly funny person. It’s occurred to me that my fiction mostly reflects an older worldview of mine — that of a sensitive, intense, and powerless loner. That’s not really who I am anymore. Now I’m a lot more social, easygoing, and confident. (Though ladies, I am still extremely sensitive.) I’ve been wrestling lately with whether my fiction should be doing more to reflect that shift of worldview.

My buddy Derek James will be opening for frickin’ Blues Traveler this summer. How cool is that?

So the other day I was driving in my car and I heard this song on the radio. The chorus went like, “I heard it’s cold out, but her popsicle melts. She’s in the bathroom, she pleasures herself. Says I’m a bad man, she’s locking me out. It’s ‘cuz of these things, it’s ‘cuz of … these things.” I thought, Hey, that’s a pretty cool song. I wonder what it is? So later I went to my handy google and was like, Okay, how did that song go? Let’s see, something about … popsicle … bathroom … pleasures herself. That ought to get it. I don’t know what I was thinking. That search brought up like 500 million sites, none of which, as you can probably imagine, had anything to do with song lyrics. Fortunately, I was able to recollect another section of lyrics and found the song, “These Things” by the band She Wants Revenge, which is indeed a pretty cool song.

So I was at a barbeque last weekend and the conversation turned to the subject of: what bones have you broken? I have never broken any bones, despite having played lacrosse and rugby, because, in case you were unaware of this, I am #@%&!*@ indestructible. No, actually, I attribute this merely to good luck and the fact that I tend to excuse myself and go read a book whenever someone you’re hanging out with suggests something like, “Hey guys, let’s all jump out of this tree onto these rocks and see who can make the loudest noise,” which, if you’re male, happens about every three days. Anyway, after 45 straight minutes of broken bone stories, I started feeling kinda bored and excluded from the conversation. I also realized that if you’re heard one broken bone story you’ve heard them all. No, literally, they’re all exactly the same. Here is the monomythical broken bone story: “So I was doing something stupid/innocuous and all of a sudden I heard something snap, and I said, ‘Hey guys, I think I might have broken this,’ and then someone said, ‘Nah, it’s probably just jammed/dislocated. Here, I’ll pull it back into place,’ and they tried to do that and it hurt like hell. They said, ‘Better?,’ and I said, ‘Not Really,’ so they tried again. And again. And again. So then I went to the doctor and the doctor said, ‘It looks like there’s a lot of bruising here that happened after the injury,’ and I said, ‘Yeah, we thought it was just jammed/dislocated and we tried to pull it back into place, and the doctor said, ‘DON’T DO THAT!'” I heard this exact same story about twenty times. I even heard one person tell it about her finger and then tell it again about her other finger. Hey, the fact that it’s about a different finger does not make it a different story. Maybe you have to be part of the broken bone club to understand this, but if someone said to me, “Hey, I think I may have broken a bone,” I would think that my first instinct would not be to say, “Well hey, just let me yank on that for ya.” And if I was the one with the broken bone, I would not say, “Okay, sure,” more like, “You get the #@*% away from me.” What is it that makes all these people think they’re doctors? Did they all stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night? I just don’t get it.

I think I almost got mugged again last week. I was walking home from a fancy banquet thrown by my department. I was with my friend Erica and another friend who’d had too much to drink and was going to sober up on my couch before she drove home. Two kids on a bike pulled up near us, and the kid on the handlebars leapt off and rushed us. I tensed. The kid stopped, glanced at us, then turned around and hurried back to his friend. Our drunk friend said, “Wow, that was weird.” I said, “Come on,” and we walked away, toward the emergency call box. Erica said, “Here,” and handed me her heavy U-ring bike lock to use as a club. The kids rode past us and then off down the street. Another student came up to us with his pepper spray out. He said, “Were those guys going to mug you?” I said, “I don’t know.”

I figure what happened is that they saw our drunk friend and assumed we were all drunk and would be easy marks. It was party night on Frat Row, so there were huge crowds of drunk students out on the sidewalks. Then when the kid saw that I wasn’t drunk and was extremely wary, he changed his mind. Or maybe they were just playing a prank, who knows.

Going shopping at the local grocery store here involves running a gauntlet of surly vagrants, so I tend not to turn my back on anyone in the parking lot. But I subconsciously assumed that the black guy in the expensive suit chatting with someone in a convertible was okay. I got in my car, and before I could close the door this guy was leaning in and offering me his hand to shake. He said, “Hey man, you speak English? I’m Robert.” I didn’t really see that I had much choice, so I shook his hand. He seemed way too well-dressed and well-groomed to be a mugger, so I figured he was probably going to try to convert me. He could tell I was apprehensive, and was like, “I’m okay, man. See, that’s my jag right there.” A jaguar was parked facing me. The guy said, “That’s mine. I’m okay. Really. I hang out with the Lakers. I’m on my way to a job fair.” He patted his pockets. “But, man, I forgot my wallet and I’ve looked all over my car and I can’t find any change and I’m almost out of gas. Could you help me out?” I said, “What do you need?” And he said, “A few bucks for gas.” At that moment I was about 50% sure it was a scam, though I wondered why a scammer who’d managed to finagle a suit and possibly a jaguar (I wasn’t totally convinced it was actually his) would bother with me in my gym clothes and 10-year-old car with no hubcaps. But I was so overjoyed at the prospect that I wasn’t getting mugged or proselytized and that I could buy my way out of this for just a few bucks that I was glad to give it to him, especially if maybe he was telling the truth. He was so grateful and effusive that it almost made it worth it even if it was a scam. He got in the jaguar and drove off, so it was really his. Now that I’ve had more time to consider it, I’m more than 50% sure it was a scam. It seems pretty unlikely that someone would just happen to be that low on gas and have no money and be on his way to a job fair. Plus I think the guy’s delivery was just too polished. So what does he do, drive around to parking lots all day doing that? I don’t know.

Last night I went to see a screening of the documentary Invisible Children, which was filmed by three recent USC grads. These guys traveled to northern Uganda to document a civil war that’s been raging there for over 20 years. A band of religious zealots called the Lord’s Resistance Army is fighting to overthrow the government. These rebels replenish their ranks by kidnapping children mostly ages 6-12 from the surrounding villages. The children are then armed and assigned quotas of people they’re supposed to kill, and are executed if they fail. Children who demonstrate their disloyalty to the rebels by crying are also summarily executed. The rebels teach the children that smearing their bodies with oil will make them impervious to bullets. (If this fails to work, it means that the victim had somehow displeased God.) The situation has gotten so bad that thousands of children now leave their villages every night and commute miles into the cities to hide from the rebels. The children sleep in basements, piled atop one another. It’s one of those situations that feels to me like science fiction, but is unfortunately very real. The film is not for the faint of heart, but it’s definitely worth checking out, and is even quite funny in places, as people’s basic humanity shines through under even the most trying circumstances.

All right, well while I’m here, here’s a story you may find moderately amusing. Last week I was supposed to go for a walk with my friend Erica, who lives nearby. She didn’t show at the appointed time and place. Perplexed, I went to move my car, which I had to do anyway, and ran into her a few streets over. She said, “Have you seen a little dog?” I said no. She said, “There’s this little dog. He’s been running up and down my street all day. I think he’s lost. I’m afraid he’s going to get himself run over. I want to catch him.” For reasons that are no longer clear to me, this seemed like a good idea. What can I say? I’m highly suggestible, and I like doing people favors.

I spotted a little dog and said, “You mean that little dog?” She looked, nodded, and said, “I’m going to go get some cheese to lure him in.” I said I’d keep an eye on where the little dog went, but I quickly lost track of him. You’d be surprised how many places there are for a little dog to hide in a parking lot. Erica came back, and I had to confess that I didn’t know where the little dog had gone. As I was saying this, I spotted him again, down an alley. Something had occurred to me. I said, “You know, it seems like I just saw a poster at Ralph’s for a lost dog. And the reward was like $500.” I hadn’t really been paying attention, but it seemed like the dog in the poster was a little yellow-brown rat-dog like this one was. Erica said, “It’s $1,000. Those posters are all over campus too. But it’s not the same dog.” I said, “Are you sure?” She said, “Pretty sure.” I said, “For $1,000, maybe we should make sure.” I was suddenly a lot more interested in catching this dog.

Erica had brought back a big hunk of cheese and a belt. She was going to lure the dog in with the cheese, then slip the belt around its neck like a leash. I have never owned a dog and am not really a dog person, and this dog could tell from a hundred yards away that it didn’t like me, so I kept out of sight while Erica tried to lure it in. She sat very still and would toss little pieces of cheese to the dog, gradually trying to lure it closer. It was very skittish, and would bolt whenever she moved a hand anywhere near it or whenever a car passed nearby. I think she almost had it when a girl came up behind her and was like, “HEY, WHAT’S UP, ARE YOU TRYING TO CATCH THAT DOG?” at which point the dog took off.

Erica and I conferred. A big SUV came by and drove over her belt, which she’d left lying next to her cheese. She picked up the belt and groaned. “This belt is ruined.” I was getting impatient and said, “Look, let’s just chase the dog down. I mean, come on, its legs are like two inches long, how fast can it really run?” We fished some cardboard boxes out of a nearby dumpster. I think back on this now and I really don’t know what I was thinking. Like, what was our plan, exactly? I have much more sympathy now for everyone who’s ever pled temporary insanity. Anyway, we tried to be subtle and cornered the dog behind the dumpster. I thought Erica was going to get him, but he suddenly decided to rush me, which surprised me. I probably could’ve gotten him, but all of a sudden he was like, “ROWROWREOEOROW!,” which scared the shit out of me. It was the first noise I’d heard him make. He slipped past me and squeezed through a fence.

By this point, Erica was irritated with the dog for getting her belt run over, and I was irritated with him for scaring the shit out of me, and I found myself feeling more and more apathetic on the issue of whether or not he got himself run over. Erica said, “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think he’s a lost dog. I think he’s just a straight-out stray dog. I don’t think a house dog would be this skittish.” I said, “I think we should check the reward poster and see if it’s the same dog, and if not just say to hell with it.” Erica was like, “It’s not the same dog,” and I said, “Well, let’s just check.” So we walked over and found one of the reward posters. I stared at it, and was like, “Okay, well obviously it’s not exactly the same dog, but it’s pretty close,” and Erica was like, “This dog in the poster is a miniature poodle. The dog we’ve been chasing is some kind of mutt.” And I said, “Come on, they’re both little yellow-brown rat-dogs. That’s pretty close if you ask me.” So then we went for walk.

By a curious coincidence, Erica had recently related an incident that “happened to a friend of her cousin’s.” This individual was walking along the beach one day and saw an animal drifting in the ocean. They thought it was chihuahua and fished it out of the water. They revived the animal and took it home with them. They left it in their apartment with their cat while they went out to the store to get pet supplies. When they came home, they found that the animal had killed and largely consumed their cat. There was blood everywhere. The animal turned out to be not a chihuahua but a large cat-eating rat from China that had fallen off a shipping boat. I thought this was the most horrifying (and amazing) story I’d ever heard, and I quickly related it to my Chinese roommate, who expressed skepticism that such cat-eating Chinese rats exist. I tried googling it, but couldn’t really find anything. On a hunch, I tried Snopes.com, which debunks urban legends, and they had the whole story, which is completely made up, with the cat-eating giant rat in question supposedly originating in a wide variety of countries. Anyway, these two little rat-dog stories have somehow gotten comingled in my brain, and I now occasionally have nightmares that I’m being attacked by a cat-eating Chinese rat who rushes out from behind a dumpster barking loudly.

By the way, if you happen to spot an apricot-colored miniature poodle wandering in the vicinity of Jefferson and Hoover and answering to the name “Coco,” give me a call, I’ll split the take with you 50/50.

The internet in my apartment has been down for weeks now, which has made it a serious hassle to update my blog (which is why I haven’t much) and do email, if you haven’t heard back from me. I’ll try to post some more stuff soon.