For the last eight years, the Daily Show has been my religion. As the cable news networks, the administration, and professional pundits did their best to cast truth as the close relative of bias, Jon Stewart was there nightly to remind his viewers that reality is still objective. No matter how fast the political world spun around him, Jon Stewart always managed to pull the break, and keep us laughing while we fell dizzy, till the world stilled again. Four nights a week, it has been a place for Americans living under the Bush administration to go and wash the crap off ourselves.
It is not surprising that under this climate the Daily Show has been so popular. Laughter has long been the natural ally of truth. All but the most dense people can tell a real laugh from a forced one, and for this reason good jokes are either true or reflect truth. This is why the Daily Show has been so successful and the main reason that Fox’s attempt at an imitation failed so completely. But for the last eight years, laughter has also been an act of defiance. It has been a subversive cry that we are not happy with the way the administration has distorted reality, nor with the way the press has sat silently by as facts are subsumed by ideology. The Daily Show was the best, most natural, source of this defiant laughter. But I speak in the past tense.
Our democratic system has completed its function. We have elected a new leadership. A leadership, which seems to be if not everything everyone could hope, then at least less corrupt than the last. Less adept at distortion. Less awful. In short, business seems to be going back to usual. The still present Bush administration is finally receding into the past.
Perhaps under the Obama administration the Daily Show will not be as great a beacon of defiant laughter as it once was. Perhaps without the comedic fodder of one of the worst administrations in American history, the jokes will lose most of their ardor. But I think not. I think that kernel of excellence will remain. I doubt Jon Stewart will lower his standards or lose his eye for talent. The media is still driven by sensationalism, Barack Obama is still a politician, and George Bush has left us with a world full of things to mock for at least another generation. I don’t worry too long at the fate of my favorite television program.
Last night I watched the Daily Show. John Oliver did a bit with some puppies and a few well placed puns. I laughed, and simultaneously felt good about the world. Which is something I have not done in quite some time, but hope to do much more in the future.
Any understanding of Barry Lott must begin and end with an understanding of synesthesia. As defined in the dictionary, synethesia occurs when:
“a sensation produced in one modality when a stimulus is applied to another modality, as when the hearing of a certain sound induces the visualization of a certain color.”
Suffice it to say that Barry Lott did not smell. To reduce his… aura… to such a common sense perception would be to say that atomic weapons “burn things” or that Charles Manson is a little “out there.” Barry had a stench you could taste and cut with a knife. He smelled in a way that could physically repel muggers. By looking at Barry Lott in an outdoor crowd, you could deduce two things. You could tell which way the wind was blowing by the relative orientation of everyone else to Barry, and you could tell who was more compassionate than whom by how close an individual was willing to stand to him.
His smell was an invasion. It was not experienced with a nose. It invaded your whole body. To be near him was to partake in the metaphysical essence of wet garbage, un-wiped asshole, sweaty feet, and a marathon runner’s mid-stride nut-sack. Naturally, in my sophomore year of high school gym, Barry Lott was my weight lifting partner.
Barry Lott was a kind, if not very hygienic boy, who gave his all in everything he did. He had the heart of a lion, the tenacity of a badger, and it shone through… even if he had the olfactory presence of a defensive skunk. He tried out for the football team every year, even though he never got to step foot on the green. Every year he asked the girl he liked to prom, no matter how many times she shot him down, and every time we went to lift weights he demanded to lift the same amount as me, even though every time he went to lift, the bar fell on his chest and I had to drag it off him. Barry had the kind of “Little Engine that Could” attitude that made me forgive him for his odor… except in one case.
Barry stood inches away from my face, his unwashed gym shorts only a breeze away from flapping against my ears. I dared not breathe, for fear of my lungs burning like napalm scorched jungles. I could forgive Barry for anything… except when he spotted me for one rep max lifts. Laying on the bench, inches away from Barry’s nuts, I think I pretty much hated Barry.
“Come on man, just lift.” Barry urged, shaking the bar.
I stood back up immediately, and gasped for fresh air. “God damn it, Barry! I just wiped that down!” Barry had some kind of fungal growth along the length of his middle finger that looked like pink cheese whiz. I insisted on carrying two towels with me everywhere. One for wiping down the benches after Barry was finished, and one to wipe down the bar. I gave him a dose of the evil eye as I scraped the bar clean again. “Step back, Barry. I mean it. I don’t need you standing that close.”
Barry huffed in disgust, and I had to turn away from his dragon breath. Barry was on my last nerve, as I had recently lent him my copy of Stephen King’s “Dreamcatcher” and he had returned it covered in what looked like orange organic rust. Tolerance was fine, but Barry’s odor had a certain reality that threw up too many practical issues to completely ignore.
“Just lift the bar, man!” Barry shouted, covered in sweat. His scent, like his temper, was worse when he sweat.
“Okay! But you step back! You hear me?” Barry threw his arms to the side and took an exaggerated step backward. When I was assured he would not step forward again I took my place under the bar. It was the first time I had ever attempted to bench two-hundred pounds, and I anticipated a struggle. I shot Barry one last look in hopes that my gaze would glue him to the ground.
I brought the bar down smoothly, not wanting to cheat by bouncing it off my chest. I brought it half way up, and stuck. Not even breathing I flexed everything I had, pushing upward. I got another quarter of the way up. A hair’s weight either way would spell success or failure. Barry came to stand over me, anticipating my drop. Coach Moore rushed to stand by my side, urging me on, clipboard in hand ready to record my weight.
As I quivered there on the bench, I knew that what I needed most was one deep, powerful breath to give my lungs the fuel they needed to strengthen my arms. What I also knew was that Barry’s sweaty nuts were right over me. Steeling myself against the scent, I opened my mouth and inhaled…. I saw the drop of sweat right as it fell from the tip of Barry’s nose.
It hit me directly in the back of the throat and splashed onto my tongue. At once I was no longer in the room. It was as if I had taken some kind of acid trip to a land where the only sound was the rumbling of Gargoyle farts, and the only sight was a noxious green fuzz that blurred the world in all directions. For a while, I blacked out, and lived in the land of Barry’s sweaty essence… experiencing every flavor wet garbage, un-wiped asshole, sweaty feet, and a marathon runner’s mid-stride nut-sack that could be known to a human palate. When I returned Coach Moore’s expression had turned from an enthusiastic cheer to one of horror. To smell Barry was bad enough… but to have his sweat inside your mouth? Unthinkable.
With the same strength mothers use to lift cars off their children, I threw the weight up in the air and racked it. I stood up with only a hazy memory of how I had freed myself, too overcome by the horrible sensations within me. For I was no longer a man. I was some kind of living instrument that existed only to perceive the full horror of Barry’s sweat. If the concept of rape was a liquid, it had fallen in my throat and become part of me. At best, I was only the living messiah of Barry’s odor. An unthinking savage I turned to Coach Moore for help. He gave me the only look one man can appropriately give another in such a crisis. A look that said “Dude… just do whatever the fuck you need to do.”
So I ran. I ran to the garbage can and threw up until I had nothing left to throw up. Then I tried to throw up again. All that I had accomplished was leaving me with the sense that I had down a shot glass of bile and taken a suck on Barry’s nuts. So I ran. I ran home.
I lived less than two blocks from the high school, on fourth street. I ran past Our Savior’s Lutheran Church. I ran across Broadway. I ran past McDermoth Elementary school. And when I kicked open the door to my home and ran into the bathroom I downed a three shots of Listerine and threw up in the toilet.
Seven years, I thought, seven years is how long it takes for every cell in your body to replace itself. Until then, I would be forever tainted.
I laugh a lot. No reason for it, other than that’s the natural place my mind falls when it wanders. I stand still, look out at the sky, and the next thing I know I’m smiling and chuckling to myself. So it doesn’t matter that it’s seven-thirty in the morning, or that I’m all alone in an empty science classroom. I’m laughing my ass off.
“What’s so funny?” Ashton asks, entering the room. If she didn’t know me, she’d probably be concerned…. If not a little bit scared. But Ashton does know me, and while I may be a bit eccentric, she understands that I’m harmless.
I shrug. I can never remember my daydreams after even a half second has passed. Unless I make a conscious effort in the middle of the story going through my head. But I don’t do that often. My daydreams are random often fantastical vignettes, that appeal to my eccentric sense of humor. Most people find them schizophrenic.
“Are you done with the tutoring business?”
“I helped him every morning before school for an hour, and he still failed. His parents need to get him off drugs before they waste my time.” We’re talking about my geometry pupil, Jason. Or ex-pupil. He’d told me the morning previous that he was planning on dropping out of high school. I don’t like helping people who don’t like to learn.
“Breanne and I missed you. Your stories used to keep us entertained.”
“It’s not like we don’t have half our classes together.” I know that the rest of our classes aren’t quite the same as that eternal half hour before school when we are all alone, but I consider it a distinction without difference. Rain drizzles down my hair, finding its way into my eyes. I wipe it out without thinking about it. I’m as drenched as if I had walked under a row of cold showers.
“I wish you would just let me give you a ride to school.” Ashton lives less than two blocks away from me, and brings this up every time my hair gets so much as damp.
“I have two good legs, Ashton.” I pat them for emphasis and smile.
It’s another peculiarity of mine that I enjoy walking long distances in the rain. Rain is cleansing and refreshing, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why people make themselves so miserable in it. Yes, you get wet. Yes, it’s cold. But once you get past that… can’t you smell how clean the air is when it hits your nostrils? What about the fragrance of pine trees and mud and the river? But I don’t explain this because I know people will not understand. I am an odd duck, and I do not have thoughts for other people to understand. I tell them I am afraid of cars, and this seems to satisfy their curiosity.
“You’re so full of shit.” Ashton says.
“Probably.” I’m not a very good liar. Not that I can’t lie. I can just never seem to care enough about something to not tell the truth.
Not that I always know the truth to tell it. If she had asked me then why I’d taken a job tutoring when it would take me away from her and Breanne, I would have said it was because I was tired of them. She would have laughed, finding this to be part of my brusque eccentric charm, but only because she probably knew the truth. Girls at that age are wiser than their male counterparts. I took the job as a tutor for the complete opposite of the reason I implied. I had found myself caring about her and Breanne. Caring about them entirely too much, and finding this to be a rudeness on my part, I had found a reason not to be near them. I’d find another reason if the problem persisted. But I had faith it would not. It takes effort to be a recluse, and I was well practiced.
“It’s raining cats and dogs.” Ashton remarked. The soft rapid-fire sound of the raindrops against the window murmured throughout the empty classroom.
“It wouldn’t be Aberdeen if it wasn’t.” I reply. I’m already pulling a book out of my bag. This way I can pretend to be less interested in Ashton than I am. This way, I can keep my tidy little life with its tidy little rules. There are many reasons I find entanglement with human beings to be inappropriate. Suffice it to say, there are few things that un-man me so much as the thought of a face to face conversation with someone I care about.
“I wonder why Breanne’s late.” Ashton already has her phone to her ear. “I heard there was an accident out toward Westport.” Breanne lives out by Westport.
“What if it’s Breanne?” I grin. Ashton rolls her eyes at me affectionately, because it’s my job to say the worst possible thing I can. It’s how I endear myself to people.
“You are such a loser.”
The phone stops after the third ring. To this day I don’t know what it is she hears that makes her face crumple. But as I watch her quake, I know my words were true. There was an accident out in Westport, and Breanne was involved.
I’m floating over my emotions as Ashton runs out of the room. Were I any kind of man, I would have run after her. But it is among the many things I know about myself that of all the things at which I excel, I will never be good at being a person. I will never understand the billion subtle maneuvers that comprise the world of “appropriateness” outside my isolation. I will never understand the unspoken cues that cause an audience to rise and clap their hands, nor understand when I am supposed to bend over and cry. So I sat there, experiencing a kind of meta-consciousness. I was sad. But it was not my sadness. I was attached to the thing which was sad. But it was not myself. It was only a body.
I stare at the blackboard for five minutes. Our teacher arrives. He was close with our little trio, before I had found a way out. I sometimes wonder if he came in early because he liked to see Breanne and Ashton play their little friendly games with me. He’s crying. I’m not. He goes into the small supply room and closes the door. If I am quiet and lean forward I can hear him sobbing. The sound is heart-rending and forever.
Andrew Burling comes in next. He looks at me. His eyebrows jump up in surprise when he sees the stone like, contemplative expression on my face.
“Is he here yet?”
I say nothing.
“You know we get to leave if there’s not a teacher here within fifteen minutes.” I can only think of the strange thing I am attached to. It appears to want to do something like erupt. It wants to punch Andrew Burling in the face, for in this horrible silence all words are profane, but I only sit. Floating above it.
Andrew Burling hears a sob. He walks to the door of the supply room and opens it a crack. If I were any kind of man I would have grabbed him by his scrawny little neck and choked him. But I am not. I am something else. Something which only lives inside a man.
“Dude,” Andrew Burling whispers as he tip-toes to me. “He’s crying. There’s no way he’s going to remember to take attendance.” I think he wants me to go with him.
“I’m fine. You go.” The mouth says. There is a strange sort of slug that lives in the mouth, and I wonder how it came to live there, trapped behind those lips and those square little bones. The slug is called a tongue. It vibrates air to make things that are not words but only sounds. Andrew Burling leaves. Other people come in to take their seats. No one talks to me. I’m not a person people talk to. I speak to groups or to no one. It’s one of my rules. One of the things I consider appropriate.
Teacher comes out. He tells the class in sobs he doesn’t know how she is. He doesn’t know. And now teacher has to leave to go to the hospital. He does not invite me nor do I think to invite myself. Breanne told me she loved me not more than a month ago. I had smiled with good humor. I know very well what it is to be loved. I am a kind of forest gnome, or a friendly ogre, or the last unicorn in existence. I am insufficient as a person, but as a thing to be looked upon and marveled at as something other than a person, then yes, I suppose am something to be loved.
I went to go and tutor Jason because of that, I think. Because she loved me like a gnome… or a wood sprite… or a kindly old wizard. She had loved me as something unreal. And how had I loved her? How terribly and inappropriately had the thing in which I lived returned that affection? It wants to run to her. It wants to pull out its hair and smash its fist against its chest. It wants to murder the God it believes in, and which I do not, for doing this to her. For doing this to her, and not to me, because she was good and I was not, and surely if he were real then he would have done this to me and not to her. She could feel. Her death would mean something. How was this justice?
But I am not the thing I live in. I am the thing that had not cried at the funeral of his grandfather the previous year. I am the thing that had thought that things live, then die, and that was all that needed to be said. I am the thing that had lived for years under the torturous fingers of an evil sister, and been hurt so many times, that I learned to accept horrible pain as people accept passing bouts of indigestion. I lived in this sensory organ, listened to its loneliness, its hungers, its pains, its complaints. But I was not it.
I sat in Spanish class through the next period. I recited all of my verbs and nouns and adjectives, because I, as I had been told, had a phenomenal linguistic elasticity. I sat through math, and whispered the solutions to the problems Mrs. Nidick was still writing on the board. I sat down in Mrs. Manspeaker’s class at the end of the day and calmly listened to her announce that Breanne was in a coma and might not make it.
I know I did all of these things, because if I had not been in control, it would have been screaming and making demands, and it would have done something inappropriate. I did not give it an inch.
It was December. The streets were flooded as I walked the two miles to my house. My feet are cold. My hands are cold. Capillaries in my cheeks snap, crackle, and pop. I welcome the rain. I welcome the wind. I wish I could find it within me to let them punish me. But all they touch is a body. A body in which I live. I take off my shoes before I enter the house. My dad’s rule since I’m “so fucking dumb I don’t know when to come in out of the rain.”
“Hey BC! Did you hear this!” My father shouts gleefully. He’s at the kitchen counter with a bowl of chili, and his ridiculous safety glasses at the tip of his nose. He’s holding a paper. He’s a painfully slow reader, so I know he has to be excited about whatever he’s looking at. Breanne had a long drive in to school, but I can’t believe it happened to early it made the paper. But it did. Front page. The front page my dad is rattling at me. This is Aberdeen, after all. When it rains it pours. “Some girl your age got in a car accident this morning! Her and her brother!” I do not know why my father loves accidents. He just does. I think accidents are his religion. It means he’s never to blame for not having a plan.
I stand in the doorway. It’s dripping.
“You know ‘em?”
“Nah.” I drop my back pack right there, and my coat. I’ll have to move it soon. My dad’s fourth wife is a neat freak. “I’m going to go downstairs for a bit. Go a few rounds. I’ll be right back.”
Our basement is subterranean and dank. A hundred year old cement block. My punching bag watches me with confusion as I walk past it and hit the wall. Once, twice, three times. Both hands. Stomach level shots, as hard as I can. My stupid body doesn’t know what it can’t do. Cuts are minimal because I have strong callouses from roofing. My wrists feel like jelly when I finally get it to stop, but there aren’t any broken bones. I hit fast, but I hit straight. Panting, I lean against the wall and slide to the ground. It’s nice and cold. I’m panting even after I catch my breath.
I think you were a little bit in love with her, I tell my body. But that’s okay, because that’s what bodies do in high school. They make crushes on people, but it’s not real. It’s only chemical.
It’s getting out of control. I need to comfort it a bit to calm it down.
It thinks I was a lot in love with her. But that’s just dumb teenage body talk. We’re a gnome. We’re a frost giant. We’re weird. I think my body feels it is natural if I identify us as belonging together. If you think we could ever have a relationship, I tell my body, you might as well say it’s okay for people to marry their pets, because that’s basically the same thing. I can only stare when my legs start convulsing, and my arms contract, and I spend a bewildering minute having what feels like a convulsion. Maybe I live in my body a little bit. Maybe I live in the head, because the eyes won’t cry like the rest of the body keeps asking them to.
“Hey BC!” I come from a family of shouters. “I’m making some fish sticks. You want some?” He’s still so happy about that fucking paper. It’s like he fucking loves misery.
“Nuhhhhhhhh” My panting lungs aren’t in my head so they make it hard to work my mouth. “No thanks, dad!” I would have rather thrown up than speak. I lay there for a long while.
My mind wanders, I think of something funny. I smirk.
My body feels the smile on my lips. It’ll never forgive me now.
This is me as a young man… dressed up as a young woman.
Thanks mom.
So… it’s been a month since my last post… and I’m still not done with the YA thing that no one cares about. I know, I suck. This is partly because my computer is broken (I am typing this in the upper third of my screen, which is the only part that seems to be working, and this makes me feel as stressed out as a kid standing on his tip-toes to look out a window) partly because my grandfather died, and mostly because I’m having the whole existential “this story really sucks” type of writer’s block.
Anyhow, as a form of self-punishment for my lameness, I am going to post some things I wrote from long ago for you to read and belittle. This should motivate me to work harder so I can stop metaphorically punching myself in the face. See? It’s fair because everyone loses.
So, this first bit is the prologue to the giant fantasy epic I’ve been trying to write since I was old enough to use words. I haven’t pushed up my sleeves and worked on it since high school, so if there are more adverbs than strictly necessary blame it on that. Get it? Strictly? Ahem…. moving on. If you want to read any of these and formatting is an issue please send me an e-mail and I’ll see what I can do for you.
I have about ten thousand pages of notes I could post with this (well, probably only a thousand that are on the computer) but as I’m sure none of you want to know about super modern septic systems, pharmaceutical manufacture, the food distribution system on the Algn continent, or how the genetic degradation of Oaz is the basis for the life-cycle of the Brishatt I think we’ll just post the prologue and a few supplementary bits.
The glossary is actually pretty fun and I added a bit about their “demons” that a lot of people find entertaining.
These are some fun little tid-bits I wrote as if I were a scholar of the world on which the story takes place. Remember, I was seventeen guys. Be forgiving. I couldn’t masturbate all the time.
And now some pictures. I have hundreds upon hundreds more of these. However, I only spent one day scanning these when I was a senior in high school and Mr. Goings wasn’t paying attention to me in Economics… so the pickings are a bit slim. Go look in my dad’s basement if you want to see more.
WhoreOnHold has a new writer named Beatrix. I, like many of you, miss Charlotte (and I still keep in touch with her) but let’s do our best to welcome the new writer, eh? She’s stepping into some pretty big shoes and that can be very intimidating.
My computer should be fixed in a matter of weeks so then I won’t have any real excuse not to update anymore, although I’m sure I will be able to find many. I’ve also lost ten pounds through exercise on a Wii Fit. I highly recommend that product to anyone, because you’re so busy trying to out-compete yourself you don’t even realize you’re doing work.
Lastly, I spent about two hours in five different bookstores (fact: I once walked fourteen miles and almost broke my hip trying to buy “Superman Returns” on DVD) yesterday trying to find Brandon Sanderson’s “The Hero of Ages” which is the final installment of the “Mistborn Trilogy.” I have found, much to my anguish that I will not be able to lay hands upon it until Friday. You have no idea how much this irks me… because I’m jonesing for some fantastical resolution over here people.
I need food, water, shelter, and magical realism to get through my life. So if you have read the book and want to e-mail me a synopsis of what happens please do. And don’t go high and mighty on me about “oh spoilers ruin the whole book! You’re supposed to be a connoisseur! You’re ruining the whole experience!” I’d just like to say with all the passion of a drunk man at a bar at three in the morning “I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!”
And if you caution me that my eyes are too strained from reading to drive, I’ll tell you to shove a book up your ass.
Seriously, someone needs to tell me how Hemalurgy works or I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight.
Although I have been crappy about updating in recent weeks, I have in a very mysterious way been writing my ass off. (This is in reference to the super double top secret project I wrote, that my writing partner won’t let me talk about for reasons I don’t understand, but go along with for his comfort. And yes, mentioning something that I can’t elaborate on further does make me feel like a huge douche. I hope that is mitigating.) Anyhow the good news is that I am now pretty much done with the super double top secret mysterious writing that I am not allowed to tell you about.
The sad news (other than that I can’t tell you about the secret project) is this: for the next two or three weeks I am going to place my sole focus on the super double “go ahead and read it if you want to” project that only about fifty of you care about. What is this project? Why it is my middle grade fantasy book, Gray Bolt Ascending, of course!
I had a very good momentum going with it when I first started, then lost it due to a bunch of responsibilities being dropped on me from out of nowhere. But now, I am going to bear down and finish the first draft in the next two weeks. So approximately fifty of you should now rejoice. Your minor “squee” of excitement will not suffice. I need some serious rejoicing. Okay? Good.
Enough, enough. Seriously, you should stop now. You’re making me uncomfortable. No seriously knock it off!
ONE OF THE GOOD GUYS DIES AT THE END! DOES THAT WIPE THE SMILE OFF YOUR FACE?
There, I thought that would do it. Also, I’ve been wanting to announce that kind of news since the first time I saw previews for sweeps season on television when I was a toddler. Although in this case I am not just making a joke. One of the good guys in my middle grade fantasy book will die by the end. Muahahahahaha!
Now for an interesting tidbit. Did you know if I write fiction for too long I get a sort of creative mental lag? I just start thinking up different weird scenarios that don’t have anything to do with anything.
Yesterday I spent thirty minutes staring off into space thinking about how horrible it must be to look like Abraham Lincoln (this is because no matter what you do to your hair style, you will always look like Abraham Lincoln) whereas people who look like Jesus are just crying for attention. Hey assholes who look like Jesus! Don’t come whining to me when a simple haircut would solve all your problems. Guys who look like Abraham Lincoln are the real unfortunates.
So today, while I was knee deep in Gray Bolt Chapter 13, I started to think about what it would be like if I were a crusty old sea dog in a bar with sawdust covered floors, thumping my peg leg in time with the music, as I swung my beer stein from side to side as I hollered old shanties. I concluded that this would be pretty awesome, except for the times when I had to stare distantly out at sea and talk about how “Aye, the sea she’s a harsh mistress she is, but one I love more than I have ever loved any faye lass.”
Then I looked up a bunch of sea shanties on youtube, and sang along with them. This one is my favorite.
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