AND I ACTUALLY BECOME PUBLISHED

Not on paper, but it's something.   Please check it out!

OUR ONLY HOPE IS REALITY TELEVISION

Mother?  John Junior?  Myrtle?  Jennifer?  Cousin Nathan?  I just heard from that fella at th' bank.  The news...it ain't good.  He gave us three months to make up everythin' we missed out on payin' for th' past six.  I tried to tell him, I tried sayin' "if we couldn't make them payments on time in th' first place, how the hell we gonna do it in three months?" He didn't say nothin' to that.  Oh children, he just stared at me.  I think they mean to take th' farm from under us and leave us all on th' street.

So it's come to this.  Our only hope is we get one of us on some kinda reality programmin'.

I never claimed to be an educated man...shut up, Cousin Nathan.  Now's not the time to be a-jokin'.  You can save it for them cameras, if we's lucky.  But listen, all.  If there's one thing I know?  There's two basic truths about the basic cable TV.  They's got boatloads of money, and they love filmin' them some quirky country people.  And if we're gonna save this farm, we need to be as quirky as possible.

Mother, you an' I already have us a headstart what with your drinkin' problem and my pill addiction and my drinkin' problem.  How many of them intervention programs are there now?  Two or three?  Well one of them suckers is gonna eat us up with a spoon.  Especially when they see the secret bottle setup I got in my wooden leg, here.   I'm...sorry this is how you were to find out about this, children.

But the wooden leg!  That's the key!  John Junior, this wooden leg right here?  You made this, an' a fine piece of work it be.  But it's yet another thing we could try'n sell to one of the TV people.  That's gotta be worth a half hour to one of the networks.  Ain't there a home and garden channel?  Or some kind of DIY show where you teach people how to make new stuff for th' kitchen or th'...an outhouse or some such?  Maybe if you was to focus on whittlin' fancy soup bowls and cutting boards instead of replacement limbs and teeth we'd have somethin' good goin' on there, John Junior.  And to think of how I and your mother used to taunt you over you and your whittlin'.  Well I'm sorry son, that were the liquor talkin'.  For these past twelve years.  

Now, Myrtle and Jennifer?  You two don't have no viable talents, but you're at least a little bit easy on the eyes.  So we're gonna have to take a whole 'nother tactic on you two.  I'm sorry to say it, but th' grease that lubricates th' very gears of reality TV is...drunken harlots.  So you two sit right down and have a drink with your momma and me.  Have a couple.  And let's get to tearin' the legs off of them blue jeans.  Afterwards, we can take a video on the camcorder of you two tryin' to drive a tractor on the highway or somethin'.  I'm sorry girls.  It does turn my stomach to have to do somethin' like this but if one of you had a craft like your older brother and his pansy whittlin' we wouldn't have to slut you up like we is.  

Now for you Cousin Nathan, I don't know where to begin with you.  You're a goldmine.  You got the hut where you tan your roadkill, the Animal Planet will want some of that.  You have the shack where you barbecue the roadkill, that's goof for one o' them cookin' channels.  And your whole house at th' end of the property, well you can't even sleep in there no more can ya?  On account of all th' trash you done collected?  Sorry, Nathan but it is trash.  What you say you collect is literally garbage.  You have more black garbage bags in there than you do furniture.  But you know, I used to judge you for that and I do apologize.  Now that I realize how many of them hoardin' TV shows is out there; your obsessive compulsive behavior is like unto a goldmine to this family.  And you got a serious drinkin' problem too, that's somethin' special!  We can have a super intervention or some such!  Yeah, that's gotta be somethin' the TV will want to air.

Family, we need to come together in this time of crisis.  But I am convinced that the only way we's gonna save th' farm, is if we can sell ourselves to some sorta basic cable reality TV programmin'.  And I think we can do it.  We all have somethin' special, somethin' that people want to watch and learn from.  Or at the very least watch, and gawk at.  If we can succeed in whoring ourselves out to the TV and selling our way of live as disposable entertainment, then we will preserve our very way of life itself.  It's our only chance, I jus' know it.

NOTE TO SELF: UNSURPRISING

I couldn't keep it up.  One post a day?  One, new, original, and un-shitty story a day?  I ran out of steam. Or, I had to stop forcing it.  The past few chunks of I posted...not too happy with.  I'm going to stick with it, but only when a good idea strikes.  And I'm going to try and up production of my longer stuff.

GREEN WINTER

It was going to take forever for the heat to die down, so the guys went to town and started getting creative.  The cash was stacked high in the dank basement, and wasn't going anywhere anytime soon so they got to building.  Tightly wrapped in plastic, non-sequential bills, mixed denominations.  The guys had left the stacks of ones and fives, the chump change.  Tens and twenties and hundreds and fifties and one short stack of two dollar bills.  Why not?, one of the guys had said. They had no answer.  So they built down their in their little kingdom with the blacked out windows, the stolen loot as their bricks.  A whole living room and bedroom, built out of cash.  They made forts out of the money, thousands of dollars high and deep.  They ended up flinging bricks of fifties at one another, giggling like little kids in February in a green winter.  The games continued until the plastic gave way and the air was filled with cash, so they decided to stop.  And after they gathered up the loose cash, they all drifted away to sleep atop their stolen fortune.

SOMETHING LIKE PEACE

She looked up and down the aisle nine or ten times by now, one toe tapping a jittery rhythm against the base of the jewelry stand.  She knew there was a camera up behind her, but she was wide around that the cameras would have no way to catch her hands.  Those nervous hands plucked and tucked the fancy earrings and necklaces here and there beneath her clothes as her head craned back and forth on her tense neck, back and forth.  she licked her lips nervously as she swapped the jewelry back and forth on the hooks.  Never leave an empty hook, that's the first thing they see on the camera.  The negative spaces.  She looked up and down the rack and gave it a spin, then walked away slowly.  Lazily.  Stop a second later, and peer through the glass at the pretty things they keep locked away.  Looking oh so relaxed as she drags a languid finger across the case.  If anybody was watching, they'd never know suspect her to be a thief.  She's just a casual shopper.  She might buy something, she might not.  She glanced sideways up at the security camera again and smiled, a long and slow and triumphant smile.  She felt an emotion that was something like peace come over her, felt her racing heartbeat creep back to normal, and slowly walked out the door.

WHAT'S IN THE SOUP

Well, I think that's okra.  But it might be a piece of eggplant.  If I could taste it, I'd know for sure.  The guy with the gun says "keep your heads down over your plates!  If I see you looking at us, the next thing you're lookin' at is the inside of a body bag!"  And he doesn't need to tell me twice, no sir.  All I see right now is a nice, hot bowl of minestrone with oyster crackers.  In a cracked bowl.  I hear words behind me, but I don't want to understand them.  Whatever's going on behind me, does not concern me.  I'll just sit here counting the noodles.And the beans, there are seven green beans in here.  Seven green beans, eight spiral noodles, five bits of carrot, 9 white beans, and that stuff that might be okra or eggplant.  I'm looking at my bowl sir, just like you said and I am definitely not hearing the loud thumps and smacks that are coming from whatever you have going on behind me.  No, not hearing anything.  Just watching my crackers soak up that rich red broth, eyeing the crack on the side of the bowl, and trying to decipher whatever the hell this weird, almost gelatinous looking- oh God, you just shot somebody.  You just shot somebody, the crack of the gun behind me was like thunder, like thunder right in my head and- I'm not hearing this.  I don't hear any of this, the only thing in the world is me and my delicious bowl of soup.  I didn't see your face, I didn't hear your name, I'm not hearing you reload your gun and hey, I think this is zucchini.

IN WITH THE FLYING ELBOW

Man, it was crazy.  Crazy.  I was just sitting there, minding my own business with a little jar of honey wine when this big bastard comes running in with a whip -with a whip- and the guy just goes nuts on everybody around him.  He's kicking and punching and laying into everybody in sight and everybody's screaming and trying to get away from this skinny-ass bearded nutjob and things were just crazy in there.  And in the background he's got this posse of twelve other guys just egging him on.  "Nice one, Jesus!"  "Oh snap, Jesus just broke that guys collarbone!"  "Kick his ass, Jesus!"  It was just chaos.  So I'm freaked out and all my livestock is freaked out, and then he turns and points at me and he shouts "YOU!" like I owed him money or I banged his mom or something.  I put my hands up and I'm going "Hey man, I'm just trying to take care of my lambs here-" and BAM!  He jumps up like four, five feet in the air and drops this wicked-ass elbow right down on my head.  I go down like a sack of grain into a pile of sheep shit, and then he's standing over me swinging that whip over his head and screaming like a crazy person.  Honest to Yahweh.  He turned his back and I grabbed my string of sheep and got the hell out of the Temple, the last thing I saw was him turning over the moneylender's tables on the floor with his boys behind him applauding him like he just played a kickass lute solo.  Man.  I heard people talking about this guy before, and let me tell you.  I don't know much about this 'son of God' business, but that dude sure does hit like a son of a bitch.

MY BIG GULP RUNNETH OVER

I was mad.  Mad, I tell you!  Nay, I am weak.  Those fountainheads so perfectly arranged before me; I could not resist a splash from each and every flavor of beverage mixed into one, single Double Big Gulp.  My thirst is quenched, yet I am dehydrated and feel sticky.

And it was not a sound idea to dress my bowl of Frosted Flakes with a Starbucks DoubleShot.

Lo, my KFC Double Down did not need a bowl of gravy for dipping, yet I did order it on the side; for I am loathsome.

I regret that I was fool enow to purchase a sack of Cool Ranch Doritos, for my order from Taco Bell was already of the Locos Tacos variety.  Woe, that I did not think outside of the box!

Yet when it came to dessert, I held fast!  I stood strong!  I resisted the delicious sponge cake and the creamy filling of the Hostess varieties.  No Twinkies nor Snoballs nor delicately crusted fruit pie will waylay me.  After having supped so richly this day, I exerted every erg of willpower to resist the siren’s call of the pastry stand.  For I am no animal.  I am a man!

...but in truth, my strength is a mask for my true weakness.  For I know lurking in the back of my freezer, I own a pair of Sara Lee poundcakes and one cheesecake.  And furthermore I know that I will likely make unto myself a sandwich of these confections, however grotesque and decadent that may be.  

O, lament!   

LEAVE THE BOTTLE

With her head hanging low and heavy she stares back and forth from her lap to the phone in her fist.  There's no life there.  No little jingle of an incoming call, no little green light to show a text or an email has come in.  It's as still as a brick, like the weight down low in her belly, the weight planted firmly on her heart.  She looks up and she's a fright; tracks of mascara running down her cheeks from eyes red and bloodshot.  She tries forcing a grin onto her pallid face, but it fails and cracks and seems to fall off in pieces.  The bartender walks up to her to ask her things, but she does not hear him.  He wants to know how are you doing tonight, what can I get you, what are you drinking.  She knows what he is saying, but she only listens for the phone that won't ring.  She pulls out some cash and points at the bottle on the tallest shelf in the bar with a single, shaky finger and gets ready to speak.

NO REASON TO GET ALL EXCITED

I mean, it's just a severed head.  If you can think about it rationally it's really not that shocking.  If it were somebody I knew, somebody I cared about.  Or even if it had been somebody I had seen before and not known.  A guy on my bus to work in the morning, that lady who was always going into the lobby store just as I was coming out.  You know.  But this, this is nobody special.  Sure it's disgusting, but what would you expect?  It's a severed head after all, I think you need to expect a certain level of gore and mess when dealing with a severed head.  But you know what would be truly remarkable?  A head that was neatly removed from a body.  No stump, no trailing connective tissues or meat or gore.  Just a head, neatly and smoothly disconnected from the neck.  Now that would be something to talk about.  Something that you've never seen.  But then again, maybe I'm a little bit jaded.  If you saw as many severed heads as I do, wouldn't you start taking them in stride?

ASK YOUR DOCTOR IF ITS RIGHT FOR YOU

Symptoms include stomach ache, headache, heartache, heartburn, runny nose, running mouth, anal discharge, nasal discharge, oral discharge, inability to filter, fever, a fever for the flavor, chills, douche chills, hot flashes, night sweats, and nocturnal emissions.  Some users may experience overeating, overcompensating, depression, dementia, disturbances in the force, demonic possession, drowsiness, positive reinforcement, positive attitudes, attitude adjustments, alternate realities, anarchy.  Other side effects include life, because that's all it is.  You shouldn't need to see a TV commercial to sell you on it.  

CAM BAILEY HAS A BRAINSTORM

Cam hadn't counted on the explosion doing quite as much damage as it had.  He'd hoped that while the police and the fire department was dealing with  a minor fire in the basement, he'd be able to slip out of an attic window and then steal away across the rooftops with his little sack of stolen jewelry.  The problem was that ol' Cam there didn't know much about making bombs aside from how to set a time delayed fuse.  So when the bomb went off, it went off with an explosion that was more than twice the bang that Cam had intended and this was why Cam was left stranded on a third floor attic landing that had all of the stability of a box of crackers.   If I can just reach that pole, was the last coherent thought that crossed Cam Bailey's mind, right before the last of the beams in the basement went with a crunch like a boot on a pile of saltine crackers.  And as he plummeted to what was probably his death, Cam had time to think to himself  Hell!  I should have just set a fire on the first floor instea-  And then that was all for poor, dumb Cam Bailey.

SLICK

It had to be impeccable.  He carried a little set of tools with him everywhere we went.  A pocket mirror, tweezers, a little bitty comb, three different sets of tiny scissors, and a disposable razor for, well.  Just in case.  He'd once been described as "well-manicured," and the notion made him so happy that it became an obsession to him.  "Well-manicured."  He worked over that mustache of his every hour.  At least just a swipe with that ridiculously tiny comb of his, if not a whole half hour spent on trimming and plucking and maybe even a quick little shave to maintain the clean lines of definition.  If you were to ask him, he'd say he spent so much time on manscaping because he line between swanky mustache and "fu-manchu" was perilously close.  But nobody asked him that, or much of anything.  Because all he was to his co-workers and neighbors?  The creepy guy who was always working over his pervert mustache.  

OBVIOUS, OUT IN THE OPEN

A pack of students walked down the path in the early morning, most of them silent and tired but one of them loudly grousing about the indignity of an eight o'clock start to her day.  At eleven or so, that same girl wandered back down the path, idly noting the shape of a person hidden inside of a dirty sleeping bag laying beneath the trees by the fencing.  She didn't think anything of it, just some bum sleeping rough.  And then at three, this same girl returned with a different group of friends on their way to another class of theirs.  The same form lay there beneath the tree, seemingly unmoved.  This time she noticed, and started wondering more actively about who lay inside.  She walked by the last time at around nine, after a long day of classes and dinner and a few hours at a bar that didn't worry too much about state issued ID's.  And this time when the girl looked over to where that mysterious person had slept, she noticed black and yellow police tape strewn in a rough perimeter around that same area.  The bottom dropped out of her stomach as she realized what she'd been observing all day long.  Her shoulders sagged with the guilt, knowing that a very sad story had played out right next to where she lived her frivolous little life.

IN THE DRINKS AISLE

There was a tiny, tiny little man trapped inside of a bottle of water.  To say I was surprised would be an understatement.  Strangely enough, he seemed to be dressed in some sort of a spacesuit.  I looked around nervously not sure what to expect; a reality show or a truck from the funny farm.  The little spaceman slowly bobbed up and down in the liquid, one dead hand -he was clearly dead- still pressed up against the ridged side of the bottle.  I peered closely and saw his face was decorated with the worlds tiniest muttonchop sideburns and a pair of miniature green-tinted sunglasses, and a tiny peace symbol on a little string floated up by the crest of his helmet.  Should I buy the bottle?  Take the oddity on TV and get famous, or to sell it on the internet for a fortune?  Bring it to the government to explain how a hipster from the 70's ended up in a bottle of generic water in a convenience store?  So anyways, that's why I bought a ginger ale.

ANOTHER SHUFFLING ZOMBIE

This is a long ramp.  It's a very slight incline, but the length is what's going to give her trouble.  More trouble, that is to say.  Her jaw is hanging open and she's groaning slightly as she shuffles along, listing slightly to the left because of the limp.  It would have been easier for her if she'd managed to keep her cane in her left hand, but that was forgotten some time ago.  She might have fallen over if it weren't for the heavy purse that dangled absently from her opposite shoulder in an unconscious balancing act.  But there's no stopping her, there's no amount of physical infirmity in her that can top the unending hunger deep down inside her.  Relentless, she shuffles up the ramp with unfocused eyes on the closest bank of slot machines.  There's one machine wide open, thankfully one with armrests. 

A SORT OF SLEEPY PASTORAL SCENE

The sun shone high and bright over the field, the long grasses whispering peacefully in the breeze.  It'd been a long, long time since the grass in the outfield had seen a mower.  It would be a long time before it would ever see one again.  The dead walked aimlessly through the park, endlessly wandering in ragged clothes and even more ragged flesh.  The chalk lines of the field had long ago been wiped away by thousands of mindless, shuffling feet. Seed from the long grasses had spread, and even now slender green shoots crept up from the dirt in the infield.  The birds made their nests up high in the rafters, safe from the hungry jaws and claws of the dead who roamed throughout the summer heat.  They were silent, with no obvious prey for them to snarl and groan at or to chase with their mindless, slavering hunger.  It made for a sort of sleepy pastoral scene.  A nearly silent meadow, placed here in the center of an empty and haunted city.

I STOOD UP TO THE BADDEST MAN IN TOWN

That is what I wish I could tell you.  I wish I could tell you that I told him to put down his beer and step outside with me, but that's not what happened.  No, what happened was that he insulted me, insulted my date and I sat there covered in sweat and stinking of fear.  He actually said that, he told me "you stink like fear, pussy" and I sat and stared a hole in the surface of the bar.  I cringed when he clapped me on the back with his fat, meaty palm.  I looked away when my date grabbed her purse and her coat and fled the bar.  I tried not to hear him as he laughed right in my ear and whispered "you're a goddamn pussy" at me, but I heard.  And I let him take my unfinished beer and upend it in my own lap.  I ran out of there and sat in my truck and cried.  I cried like a child.  I wish I could tell you that I stood up to the baddest man in town, but I was a coward.  And I'm still a coward, even now.  Even now as I wait in the dark behind a dumpster, near his motorcycle with a cocked and loaded pistol in my hand.  And so, this is how I will stand up to the baddest man in town.  Under the cover of darkness, from behind, by surprise.  I'm a coward, not a fool.

THE TASTE OF DEFEAT

I'm tired.  My head weighs a hundred pounds, it's all I can do to keep it level on that stack of dimes I call my neck.  I can barely keep my eyes open.  Exhausted.  And the pain, my God the pain.  My stomach feels like it'd been worked over by a dozen different fists, although I know the damage was due to just the two.  I hear cheering, the crowd cheering him in the distance.  I'm barely here.  Barely awake.  I struggle to sip at a cup of water but the effort is to much, the cool liquid just dribbles out of my mouth and down my chin.  I let my head slump forward so that I am staring at my hands, so stained with red.  Red and yellow and green flecks of relish.  Was it the relish?  Is that why he beat me?  Is that what they'll ask me, after they finish taping his victory laps?   Is the relish why you lost?  It might be.  I think it must be.  And now a bitter taste fills my mouth, shoving aside the flavors of sweet relish and tangy mustard.  I want to shout to the world, to the cameras and the crowd and to the victor: yes, I lost.  I lost!  But have any of you ever heard of a hot dog being served without relish?  Because I never did.  I want to shout, but I am just too tired.  And thankfully, too tired to even cry.

THINGS DESERVING OF 'MEH'

The word 'meh' is often thrown about haphazardly.  Researchers have determined there are nine items of discussion which absolutely deserve an immediate 'meh.'    

THINGS DESERVING OF MEH

This Tuesday's 24 hour 'Empty Nest' marathon

Would you like a free sample of organic, gluten-free granola?  It was made with brown rice syrup and quinoa.

Coca-Cola has developed a new flavor: Ice

Netflix has emailed to ask about the picture quality of 'Troll 2'

Major League Soccer newest expansion team in Columbus, Ohio

Any upcoming 00's rock supershow

Columbus, Ohio

Your wife's second cousin whom I have never met is pregnant with her third child

The Starbucks on the corner is closed for renovations, thus you must go to the Starbucks across the street, the Starbucks in the Target, or the Starbucks on the other corner