Reality and Fictonal Stereotypes

Okay, I've got a blue collar job. I've made other entries that say as much.

One thing you notice right away in the world of grocery retail - most people are uninteresting and pretty much unlikeable. I was taking my lunch in the break room the other day when I overheard a coworker's very loud cellphone conversation. This middle aged woman is very plain, with a figure that may have been pleasant when she was younger and a personality that generally makes me forget she exists. But this phone call that I was privy to allowed me to see another aspect: she, too, has real problems in her life. Unfortunately, these problems are so mundane and boring that she failed to garner any of my further pathos.

In stark contrast, the fictional version of this woman would have to have some quality that would cause us to pull for her, to hope she overcomes her obstacles and betters herself. In reality, though, we know that she's never going to change her situation, and we accept that, forget about her, and move on.

On the other hand, one of the assistant managers of the store is the exact cardboard cut-out of middle management that stereotypes in art, lit and film have brought us to expect. He's overweight, frumpy, put-upon by the higher ups, lacking in real ambition to achieve anything past the status quo, barely competent, thinks himself far cleverer than he really is, etc. If I actually wrote this guy as a character in a story, you'd think he was a stock character and ask me to make him rounder. But I swear, he's really as banal as you'd expect. I bet you could write his dialogue.

There's also a particularly ugly and peculiar fellow I have to deal with daily. While retaining his anonymity, he's got the same name as a famous king of England who suffered an infamous defeat. In appearance, he somewhere between Shrek and Quasimodo, with a mustache and glasses. To top it off, he's epileptic, which has caused him to damage his body further during his seizures, so he sort of scuttles along. And he's got a really bad attitude, despite being an obviously lonely character --who'd be much more sympathetic in fiction, mind you. But in real life he's immediately unlikeable. I keep praying that one day he will confide in me, "Gary, I was once a handsome young prince. But a witch fell in love with me, and since I would not return her love she locked me in the hideous form you see before you today. I remain afflicted until I can find true love... with a horse."

The New Absurdist

The two men cowered at the corner of the tavern, fearing almost everything in sight. The glasses were dirty, which meant germs, and the patrons mostly had dark skin, which meant danger. Neither germs nor danger were friends to the two men, nor did these men have any friends apart from each other. “I’m very glad you came with me,” said one to the other. “I’m very glad I came with you,” said the other to the one. They both wore scarves, though it was not very cold. They both wore helmets, though they were seated inside. These two men proceeded to observe what they knew was about to transpire in that ramshackle tavern.

The door was forced open and a gust of wind filled the room, though not very cold wind. A little old Irishman, whom the men knew was formerly a priest, entered with that gust, as if blown inside. He was a frail man, and though not truly frail enough to ride a breeze, one might get the impression he would try. In spectacles and cap, he shuffled inside, said a quick howdeedoo to the barkeep, and then trudged to a small table at the back where was already seated a heavy Black woman in Afro-centric kaftan. She gave the old Irishman what seemed to be the evil eye as he took off his cap and sat down.

Just then, the accordion player started up again, momentarily distracting the two men’s attentions. He played a lively, but repetitive shanty that both men had heard as boys down by the docks. Their eyes glazed wistfully as they thought of their lives in those days, as they thought of all games they didn’t play for fear of injury, and they thought of all the cats they’d killed so they wouldn’t be bitten or scratched unexpectedly.

“Oh, oh, oh, Jesus!” They turned their heads wildly in the direction of the heavy Black woman, who was nearly shouting. “We pray humbly to you, O Jesus….” She and the old Irishman with eyes closed, heads bowed, holding hands, prayed intently. “Tell us, Jesus, who is on that train, Jee-Zus!”

“Yes, Dear Lord,” the Irishman intoned, “tell us who it might be that’s on that train. We want to know so heartily that we are imploring you now, Lord, tell us who is on that train, sweet Jesus.”

A waitress, late thirties though not unattractive, strolled by and reminded the two men, “Marinara is on television at eight o’clock. You can’t watch TV if you go all the way in the back of a cave, can you?” She smiled, eyes bugging in a false show of enthusiasm. But the prayer was not yet over and so their attentions returned very quickly to the odd couple.

The Black woman smacked her hand on the table, spilling a bit of the ex-priest’s lager. “Jesus, Jesus, Jee-Zus! Who—I said, who is on that train?”

“Jesus Lord, Jesus Lord!” rumbled the Irishman.
“Lord Jesus—Lord Jee-Zus!” thundered the Black woman.

The two men fished in their pockets, nervously eying the other patrons. They each pulled out their tickets, stood slowly and deliberately, and began to march toward the unlikely pair of supplicants. One spoke firmly and at moderate volume: “We are on that train, brother and sister.” “Yes,” said the other, “it is we who are on that train.” The one handed his ticket to the Black woman, who squinted at it skeptically. The other handed his to the Irishman, who adjusted his spectacles skeptically.

Seeming convinced of the authenticity of the documents, the man and woman both nodded to each other and punched them, handing them back to the pair of friends.

“Just one question though, Father — Oh, I can still call you father can’t I?” asked the one.

“Sure, my child,” the old man nodded.

“Where does this train go?” asked the other. Then the two men drew their pistols, leveled them, took painstaking aim, and killed the Black woman and the Irishman without further ceremony.

“We are on our way,” said the one to the other. “On our way we are,” said the other to the one.


For more like this - The New Absurdist

Houses Are Where People Live

So economic ruin is upon our nation (ie. the USA, but most other nations, too). And the problem is that our economy is basically illusory. I am hopeful that people will cease to view houses as investments are start viewing them again as a place in which to live. There was a time you'd burn a man's house when he died, to kind of honor him and symbolize that he's no longer among the world of the living. "He don't live here no more." Actually, I'm not sure this was regularly practiced at any time in history, but maybe it should have been.

On top of the home mortgage crisis, we should become aware that the economy (goods and services traded and rendered) and the shadow economy (pieces of paper that give people shares of imagined revenue from companies, sometimes called the Stock Market) aren't working very well together. To put the point on it: a company can be entirely viable, earning a profit by supplying goods/services, but not experiencing enough GROWTH to keep the shareholders happy. And so it gets sold, or dissolved, even though the economy was doing just fine as it was. In this way, I'm anti-capitalism, even though I'm 100% pro-free markets. The problem is that exponential GROWTH can't continue indefinitely. You don't have to be an economist to understand that. Sooner or later you just have to settle for making a living. And this is why we need to find a way to bring the focus away from corporations and back to companies. Companies making things, do stuff. Corporations inefficiently reap the benefits of the operation of companies, buy and sell companies, close them down after they've used them up.

Anyway, enough rambling for today. I'll post some more fiction in the next day or two.

Exciting Blue Collar Adventures

I work a blue collar job for numerous reasons, but most practically because I am prone to arrogance, and a job connected with any measurable status would turn me into a living dildo.

My current self-made prison is the produce department of a supermarket. My shift begins at 4 AM, which helps me avoid having any sort of normal social life. It gives me plenty of time to be a starving artist, plenty of opportunities to starve. Though I do enjoy cooking for myself. Problem is my counter space is so limited that it deters any elaborate meal preparations. It is rare that I have more than an entree. I try to create dishes that incorporate many things together so my meals will be more balanced.

At my job I mainly think all day about writing fiction (sometimes also about writing music), though sometimes I think about woman and loneliness. Then I look at my married coworkers and I am again glad to be unattached. Most of my time is spent engrossed in my own thoughts and I only appreciate the truly annoying or the truly absurd in the external world of the work place.

Chances are, if you are a reasonable shopper, I never notice you. If you are obnoxious, bullheaded, ignorant of the world, I probably remember you quite well.

On the more positive side, we receive produce from many different sources, so occasionally we get interesting boxes. The other morning we received a particularly notable brand of cabbage, and after putting out the cabbage, I cut from the side of the box these two phrases: God Loves You and Chucky Love You. (Note: Chucky Love You is also written in Spanish, Korean and Japanese.) I then placed the cardboard bearing these words of encouragement atop our white board. I don't know if anyone else was inspired by this brave act on my part.

We all must do our part.

Bad Days (Extended)

I.

Shards of the children's bones in his teeth, he attempted to claw his way from the sewer, but the walls were too slippery to find a hold. He kept coming back with fistfuls of slime. With nothing else to do, he scraped his palms as clean as he could on the rim of his bucket, allowing the filth to sluggishly drip inside it. He couldn’t remember why he had not brought a ladder, except that they are just too large to carry on one’s person, especially if you’ve got a girl under your left arm and a boy under your right. The candles guttered; he was nearly completely engulfed in darkness. The light of the sun was blinding as he attempted to stare up at the hole to the surface some two stories up. He tried again to climb the wall, to get his footing in the brickwork. His soles skidded back to the floor, his ankles absorbing the impact.

He looked around at the rats, the bones, the scum, the black water, or what little he could really see of them in the diminishing light. “This is the last time I take my lunch in a fucking sewer.”

II.

Kids with air rifles had taken over the Capitol, so he smoked a cigarette angrily in the farthest minaret. If he could dampen his handkerchief, he thought it might be possible to send tiny smoke signals to the elderly who still held most of the office buildings on the adjacent block. By the time he'd hacked up enough phlegm and spittle, his cigarette had burned down to the filter. Reaching into his coat pocket, he realized his pack was empty. He wondered why he had bothered to put an empty pack back in his pocket. He flipped the lid and looked inside. There was a lick-and-stick tattoo of a circus seal inside.

They must be watching me right now, he thought, and then blacked out from concussion.

III.

She waited in the filthy diner on 4th. There was no more berry cobbler. She cried so hard that the owner asked her to leave. When she got into the streets, she could see them coming toward her at a quickened pace. The look on their faces like starving hounds. They did not care if she was not berry flavored. They hit her with Tonkas and with Wiffle bats. After a matter of moments, she crumpled upon herself and they forced her into the open manhole, into the sewer below, where it was rumored that cannibals still hid who had not received notice of the changes made on the surface.

She barely recovered consciousness before her clothes were being ripped off her and fashioned into a rope of some kind...

For more like this - Pan-Weirdism Community

What Have I Got in My Pocketses?

I promise you, things are really turning around.

Egypt and Tunisia are on their way to becoming more democratic than the USA. Libya is on its way to being powder keg for WWIII. The US is on its way to becoming a third world hellhole (and aren't I glad I don't have a Government job now?). Fates are really turning around.

And I've got some really solid ideas for a short story collection that could put my cozily at the bottom of the sellers list. See, short stories are not very popular - at least, not when compared to novels. In this day and age it's sort of paradoxical. People are very busy and have less time, so short stories would seem an easy option. But people's lives are also pointless and meaningless, so novels offer a deeper escape, full immersion. ("Full Penetration" you might say, once you've read my [proposed] short story collection.) I remain a man committed, at least in the short term (the next year at least, the remainder of my life at most), to the short story. As I've commented on other men's blogs, I rarely have read a perfect or mind-blowing novel, but I have read dozens of perfect or mind-blowing short stories. I will produce many shorts even if it means I wallow in obscurity doing so. (A promising note: writing only short fiction works for Kelly Link.)

But the unpopularity of short stories is not the only commercial obstacle to my success. Yes, there's my race of course, but this isn't about the white man holding down the white man. My writing is failing to cement itself in a solid marketing category. This is both good and bad. Good because there seems to be a demand for this sort of weird, interstitial fiction and it leaves me more flexible in terms of branding. Bad because its harder to find a convenient conduit to channel my work to those who would really dig it. There's not a good word for the writing that am I am currently doing, but I am not alone in the style. You know those fellows who combine elements of mainstream and genre fiction with the brush of the surrealist/irrealist/absurdist. Bizarro has attempted to provide a label for the 'movement,' though I think Bizarro has failed to encompass all aspects of the weird. Plainly put, Bizarro attempts to be the literary equivalent of the Cult Movie Section of the video store, but makes no real distinction between the weirdness of Eraserhead and the weirdness of Surf Nazis Must Die. For me this is a problem because I don't think I have a Surf Nazi appeal in my writing, and that seems to be more and more the direction their movement leans. See Mellick's Zombies and Shit or Donihe's Night of the Assholes for more on this point. (If you are interested in a more general sort of weirdness check out the Dreamwidth community I've started with Mr. Nihil - Pan-Weirdism.)

I suppose I should also mention my lack of discipline. Were I to work harder at planning, revision and self-editing I would also stand a better chance of being published sooner, by bigger publishers willing to take greater risks on a newcomer. But that's like something way out of my control, man. Give me a break.

Now, if you'll excuse me, 5 hours of Horatio Hornblower isn't quite enough for one day. Adieu.

Weird Fiction Finds (Vol. 1)

I'm pretty much stealing this directly from Jeff VanderMeer, but it's hardly such a revolutionary idea as can be owned by any one man. Here are some books that I have found on my journeys, as are worth being pointed out to connoisseurs of weird fiction, old Sci-Fi/Fantasy cover art, etc.

The Gray Prince by Jack Vance. Awesome cover art. And get this: the cover advertises it as "A Fantasy Epic" while the title page declares it is "A Science Fiction Novel." Science-Fantasy is sort of my interest right now as I develop my space opera, so I picked this one up at Harper Ferry Books.

The Weird Gathering & Other Tales edited by Ronald Curran. Also found this one at Harpers Ferry Books. Another one with great cover art, which is the only thing that caught my eye about. The collection is purportedly intended to examine social attitudes surrounding female practitioners of magic and sorcery, and is ostensibly composed of only tales published in the first half of the 19th Century. Unfortunately, as I flip through it, I see a LOT of verse, which is a big turn off, but titles such as "The Witch Dance on the Brocken" turn me back on.

Harvest of Fear (Formerly FRIGHT) edited by Charles M. Collins. A collection of old (some as old as 18th century) horror tales. I got this for 10 cents at a church rummage sale. An incredible buy. Though I hadn't heard of most of the authors when I purchased this, the exception being H. P. Lovecraft whose "The Horror at Red Hook" is included, it has introduced me to E. T. A. Hoffman, L. P. Hartley, and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, amongst others.