TWENTY-11 CHOICE CUTS: The Year Collected @ hnywork

* True love is a myth. I am prepared to offer you semi- indifferent like.                                           -- CHAZZ

X-MAS: Thou Art

* This is the best I can do right now: Listening to Elvis sing gospel makes me want to believe in God.
* Merry Christmas.  I love you.

FLASH: Holiday Discount Movie Bin

See him?  You see him.  I see him.  We all see him.  The man at the discount movie bin, furiously shuffling through the flimsy DVD cases, four days before Christmas.  

ROAD JOURNAL: Ballad of the Black Cowboy

Blacks.  Cowboys.  Hold on.

FRAG: Coppola Beard

The floundering prickshaft
Grows a Coppola beard;
Then finds it weird his direction
Is unclear to the actors.

ACE: 1994

(A list from everyone's least favorite unemployed actor of, on, and about the year 1994 of our Lord, a golden season in Pictures, that Ace nearly was a part of)

HOTEL REVIEW: Return of the Huttle

(Back at the Huttle last night.  On the way out tried a quick pic to recreate the shot from the last stay.  Lame result.  Anti-magic.)

September

December

COUSIN CHAZZ IN LOVE: 5. Here Come the Singing Spider DeNiro From Deerhunter Molesting Hobo Monster

(The strangest happening yet in the Cuz's escape from Rehab.. Hobos, talkings to God, dandelion cigars, and Frankie Valli -- all below)

ON CHAZZ: Disgusted

I'm sorry. I've taken Chazz's post down. While this is a goofy weird site, I don't need prospective readers coming here to find Chazz quotes like, "I'm not into cuddles; I like bed-sheet puddles". Disgusting. Uncalled for. It was one thing when he'd post misogynistic pick-up lines, ladies seem to like that, but this was too far.

COUSIN CHAZZ IN LOVE: 4. The Money Fell Through Rewrite

(The financing behind the epic Chazz production has dried up. While we are not giving up, where once a big action-packed scene of the bad guys setting siege on the Kezar Rehab until Chazz makes a daring escape was planned, we have this revised version below that takes the economic situation into account)

FLASH: Old Ragsnarolk

A quick flash story opener that Ry-Y described in a cool way: "Felt like an epic poem smashed with a modern day reality show about loggers."

PIC: Chimney

FRAG: Macaroni Can o Tomato

Counting seven toothy grins,
They yelp, We want to eat!
Count their several belly bends
And as they take their seats:
Promise macaroni never ends
an emendation at their feet.


12-1
An emendation to the feast


12-6
Count seven toothy grins
They all want to eat
Discord

ACE: 7 Best Nicknames I Gave Werner Herzog During the Rehearsal Period of Fitzcarraldo Before I Was Fired

7 Werner the Burner
6 The Almighty Power of Zog
5 Herz So Good (Vina)
4 Captain Barbosa
3 Ol Kraut Snout
2 The Calcium Crystal Cluster
1 Gargamel

FLASH STUPID: The Death of Albert Muskrat Jr. by Vampires

No matter what they tell you, AM didn't kill himself. While he was discovered strung up by a jump rope on the loading docks of the East Dinksborough Sam's Club, and while he is infamous on Google+ for his fondness of amatory asphyxiation, this is not the open/shut case Chief Redblatt told us. AMthe2 was murdered, my friends. Murdered by vampires.
I see you doubt me. You think I've read too many Stephen King books from back when he was good. Do not doubt that the undead walk among us. East Dinksborough, what with its Maine state record three Wendy's, and many "healthy" residents, is a town with an excess of blood. Ally the Musk knew this. He tried to tell us. Every one of you avoided his vociferous warnings before you got him fired from the Hess, because, as Lucille has told me, he was "freaking customers out" talking about vampires. Here I will quote from a call A to the Rat made on Late Night, Early Mourning with Norman Mourning on April the 12th of last year --
NM: Musky in Maine, you are on the air.
Musk: Greetings, Norm.
NM: Where in Maine, Musky?
Musk: I'd rather not say...
NM: Why is that?
Musk: Vampires.
NM: Tell us more, Musky. Are these sexy vampires?
Musk: Not at all. Anything but. Vampires are not sexy. If pedophiles had spent a thousand years weaving lies into literature that their ignominious kind were sexy, you'd probably .. Oh, wait. Nabokov. Let me --
NM: Musky--
Musk: Norm, let me remetaphor.
NM: Fine.
Musk: What if Americans had written books. Sexy books. For cows. Written in a cow language, or having invented a helmet that gave the bovine ability to read books, these stories tell lonely lady cows about how erotic it should feel to them when humans eat a hamburger. You see? Lady cows.
NM: I'm bailing on this call --
Musk: Hold on! Third time is a charm. One more. Si?
NM: Sure.
Musk: Imagine we live in a world where air was water and water was air --
(Mourning hangs up)

You see, my friends. He was trying to warn us. This is why the undead strung him up with that jump rope, and left that condom on him.

PICS: Somnalius Frond

ROAD JOURNAL: November Cape Girls

1. A dead beach town is autumnal murder mystery make-up; good DNA for a story, rough on a work week. Disconcerting. Chucks one off. The sand dunes, more so the weedy bluffs, scored by the cool nothing of an empty town behind, all feels awry.
2. I estimate this motel has sixty rooms. We are the only vehicle in the lot. Two teenage hoodlum girls meet us at the side entrance, and, like gatekeepers, try scrounging us for a lighter. I don't care if these teens are hanging around the lot smoking, but there is something in the approach I feel obliged to reject. Teen girls shouldn't be in a shit motel lot approaching working men. And by handing them a lighter I'd feel as if I was complying in something nearing inappropriate: a yokel goshes, gollys, and winks while handing over the lighter with a wolfish eye. This is all my thing; a dead girl story in my mind recently, and this creep town, and these young girls too familiar around men, all of it sitting wrong on me. I could have told the girls, no lighter, but that would have felt more.. What? Lying to avoid rejecting a forward child seems .. perverse? So I say, "How old are you?". I say it with some pretty square indignation.
She misreads me as flirting, and says something she thinks is sassy cute.
"No." I say.
The girl tells me to "Get fucked, Loser".
Now I'm giggling. Not at the language. No, I'm laughing at the look on her face. To parking lot girls everyone is either a pervert or a shithead daddy, and they hate daddy, no matter their age.
3. I walk upstairs to the next motel room on the circuit with an improved mood. Thanks, Girl.

ROAD JOURNAL: The Revision of an Opening Paragraph

COUSIN CHAZZ IN LOVE: 3. Daddy the Murderer

(Previously Chazz was told to leave rehab.  He knows people are coming for him, and now must find a way to stay safely sanctuaried.  Perhaps a hard-luck story about his Daddy)

A.MUSKRAT.2: Women Not Objects (Per Se)

SF: 2 Eagles = 1000 Wolves

1. Science Fiction 100 years ago comes true 75 years later.  Science Fiction written today is obsolete six weeks later.  Across this planet more information is processed and communicated in 12 seconds between people than in the entire first several millennium of human existence.  Because you operate in this world you must be a genius.


2. Our country is scolded for its youth --but Two Dollar and Change -- a very young country the old countries say, but not so young -- the longest lived empire of all: our two and change is worth one thousand Roman years.  2 eagles = 1000 wolves.  New timekeeping.

A.MUSKRAT.2: 7 Stages o Man Via Andrews Sisters Song Titles

1. It's A Quiet Town
2. I'm Going Down The Road
3. Rum And Coca-Cola
4. More Beer
5. Walk With A Wiggle
6. Muskrat Ramble
7. Too Fat To Polka

MATH: Richard Pill

A = "Big Pharm sells drugs you don't need, Bro. All they care about is profit."
A + 27.5 years = "I want dick pills."

FLASH STORY: Dog Math

(350 words I wrote in bed early this morning.  Something that might be filed, and turned into something longer later)


In that way the old man considered himself righteous: full of
properly scaled contempt for the ignorant, he would take one of the poor saps under his wing despite it, and this protege' would serve a term to learn a few things.  In this case the Wall youngest, Demmy Wall, this particularly precocious little tweety bird of an already abnormally precocious lot of dirty neighborhood kids had crawled under the fence of the Old Man's neighbor to the east, Elton Farr, and been bit a good one on the forearm by one of Elton Farr's Rottweilers, Mr. Pickleboy Jr., and thus had come sniffling over to the Old Man's place to the west, and thus had been taken in for a bit of doctoring, (the Old Man could still mend a wound; an amateur mend, a professional wound), and thus he
said to young Demmy, "Would you like to learn something about dogs?"
"Mr. Pickleboy I play with!"
The Girl had her feelings hurt worse than her arm.
"Yes, yes, outside the yard you have played with him.  But inside the yard he is inside his yard, and more than that, he is with Augustus and Cicero.  Can you imagine how difficult it must be for him to be with his brothers Augustus and Cicero when he is called Mr. Pickleboy Jr.  There was no Mr. Pickleboy Sr."
"There was.  It was Mr. Farr's cat."
"A worser travesty couldn't be perpetrated to a dog.  And even so Pickle is quite sweet outside of his yard, Si?
"Yes." She said.
"Dogs are math, my dear.  One dog is a person.  You see him, and he sees you.  He cares for you as you would like.  Two dogs are dogs.  Don't expect two dogs together when they smell another dog peeing a mile away to care as little for it as a human would.  Now here is your lesson, girl: Three dogs are wolves.  Never forget it.  Three dogs together will never get the smell of meat out of their noses when you are around them."
"I see." Demmy Wall said with such earnestness that the Old Man loved her.  She calculated his advice, and he smiled.  She thanked him, and he hurried her out of the house.  She waved at his figure in the window, and he waved back.  
Children can have a similar math is what he thought.

PICS: Wino Hill

NOTE: Run-On King

While revising my fiction work from the last year, prepping some things for sending out, I came upon this sentence out of Bridge, Tunnel -- what a crazy long sentence.  I can't figure out if it is technically correct or not.  It is like a stranger wrote it.



SHE LIVED on West 38th, State Residence, well-protected by cops and military, GuvHaus, the helipad kids in her building called it, (as did Roger) -- these whiz kids, who worked the State landing site at the park, stopped inviting her to the roof to smoke hash after Roger came around; they'd wine and dope, and watch humvees, and put bets on how long the lights would stay on, and on the nights the neighborhood power went down, they would lay against the rough tar of the roof, and wait for the stars to color in as light realigned to old bearings, and they would chant as if they were Indians out of the island's biography corresponded to visible stars.

ACE: 1999

(The triumphant return of one Ace Milton, the actor who choked away every shot he had.  Let his bitterness be your joy.  This is his spot now, and below is his commentary on all the plum roles he lost out on in the above mentioned year)

PICS: Limtucky Woods

COUSIN CHAZZ IN LOVE: 2. The Hillbilly Speedball

Previously on Chazz In Love: 

(A boy sheep-herd got a doomsday message on his smart phone; rough and tumble Hillbilly crank-cookers prepped shotguns and trucks; while it hasn't been totally explained, it seems to have something to do with the lovely and dangerous Momia Juanita, and her showing baby bump.  But, alas, she may have perished in a meth-lab explosion.  Now to SCENE TWO, and the Introduction of OUR HERO)

PICS: NastyGannset

I: c.u.

Sauron up in this.

COMICAL: Divine Knickers: The Norman Clature Story

(Below a bizarre excerpt from a fake book on a wholly fictitious competition of cult-like insult comics in Kansas, 1931.)


".. three kinds of players in the cutthroat world of competitive nicknaming: the Easterners, those Appalachians of appellation; improvisers of a style likened to the rat-a-tat of a Thompson gun in their titling; men like West Apple Johnson and Saco Sam Miltfill, who ran the circuit for years, coining thousands of nicks still used today, and not one of them capable of writing their own Christian name; then are there the learn'd men; the university wits who, leaving their ivory towers to travel the gravel, originally took up the back alley game of nicking to test themselves in mastery of the true word of this young countryside -- men like Dr. Alex Messersniff, from a long line of linguists, and an acolyte of Theodius Cram, he took his skills to the nick competition; his books, his theories, he tested against the ingenuity of this cousin'd brethren of the hillside, and often beat them at their game.
-- The final grouping is but the one man: Norman Clature. In his own lifetime he was mythology in the ginmills and opi-dens of the nicking underworld, for in his uncanny gift were the souls of men disrobed of self-serving accouterments. What's in a name indeed..." -- ELBERG WITHERSPOON --


EXCERPT:
THE 1931 WORLD TOURNEY OF NAME GIVING MANHATTAN, KANSAS
-- So it was Norman Clature returned to the tourney for the first time in seventeen seasons. Old now, pocked and rancid with whiskey sweat, still the young ones looked on his entrance into the old stone hall with giddiness; here was he suited to a painting on the wall rather than to sit with them and share beans and cigarettes, and drink with them. It came that a Mississippian called Tom Dunn approached him, and before the rest, made to test Clature in a pre-tournament spat. Here is how it has come down to us:
--"I say Norman, you're looking like the old canvas banners illustrated with your visage, we, as boys, spent hours staring up at, at the fairgrounds. But maybe I am seduced to this thought by the smell of you, Old Hat! I call you, Yeasty Carnival Butter!"
-- The crowd of men went silent as senators to Caesar. It was something as kin to decrying God. Tom Dunn, feeling the room near convulse, attacked on, "Your capillaceous and royal-hued nose shows your business in the last years -- a Bourbonic Plague, I name thee, Sir!"
-- Small laughter spoke out of the halo of men. Tom Dunn meant to kill the old man here, before Norman could be a threat in the tournament that would soon begin, and where men would test themselves as to who could brand the other with the finest insult in the language; it was high alchemy, and, (even a washed up), Norman Clature was not a thing to feel sympathy for. Cheer him for what he was, and he might think himself it again, if for just a little while.
"You, Norman, come to us, we as your children, my good man; but after all these years, you've come as but a sad shell spent in a shot awry -- I name thee Piss-skin of the Forest! A bullet of urine, missing every tree!"
-- Here it was that Norman Clature, with the arthritic spiders that were his hands, rolled a smoke, lit it, and contemplated Tom Dunn, while all the rest waited his reply.
-- Norman Clature said, "You have drempt this since you were a little boy, Tom. But as I am old you thinks I am ripe. I am not so ripe. I am as sour and tough as an old cock o'the yard. Heed me, I will crow soon enough, and when I do, you will, in the auditory, relinquish your other senses to me: I will have you smell the fecal waters of the Nile; I will have you spy the trees of a Gaulic winter closing in on you; I will have you taste your own cold panic as it sweats inward and condensates on the roof of your mouth. You will feel your liver for the first time with this poison I have for you. Know this: I will name thee, Boy! You ladies loan, you wizard fart, you tankard of peppermilk; I name thee Tomcat Foldpants, for in this is the parallel of such a voracious nature as thou hath! Your appetite hath made you womanly, and all around are you merited for a folder of other men's garments!"
-- And in this was the nicking career of Tom Dunn ended, and that of Clature reborn.

PHONER: Linguistics Per Touch Screen

With everything else Google has given me, here is an app for posting to my blog from my phone. If I have an idea during the day for writing, I write it with a fancy pen that writes as fast as the thoughts. Later I type on a computer at the slower speed necessary to fill out the earlier flash. What is the ratio of speed of communication to language clarity? Is that last line unclear? I'm tapping it on a phone while sitting in a bathtub while listening to a podcast while surfing the Internet. Communication moves incalculably faster, further, but mastering it today is being a master of shorthand. Were I writing in a notebook I would go a long bit on Alan Moore's idea of magic: the practitioners of the dark art in the ancient world were the masters of language. A bard means both a wizard and a storyteller. A magic spell is simply putting the words in the right order to where it is as a branding onto other minds. Texting is analogous to Gandalf tapping on the doors of Moria with a toothpick. Spk frend n enter.

PICS: Sept@ME-NH-VT-MA-CT-NY-RI

QUALITY COMIC: Juicy Juice

The Quality Inn can be a tough place.  They do provide a lovely little notepad.  Here's issue #1 of the shittiest comic in the world, QUALITY COMIC.

COUSIN CHAZZ IN LOVE: 1. The Hill

Cousin Chazz is probably never getting out of rehab.  But what if there was a movie about his leaving rehab?  A movie that revealed the truth as to why he had to hide out in a rehab when he didn't have a drug problem.  A movie about Cousin Chazz and a tragic love affair; a movie full of white powder, brown women, and green beer -- quite simply the greatest hillbilly movie ever known.  

-- Below is the 5 Minute opening scene (in draft) introducing a boy sheep-herd, an Irish gorilla, a crank lab, and also the finest pregnant bird CC ever knew.

PICS: Alexandria Blues

REPLACING CHAZZ 7: Grimace O'Reilly

Grimace O'Reilly is an old stagehand from back in the golden age of 1970's arena rock.  But that's not why we've given him the shot at replacing Chazz.  No, Grimace, is a newly minted "smart phone" enthusiast who is up with all the cool new apps available today for the entire family to enjoy!

150 HORRIBLE WORDS: Steve the Nether Lich

A classic Bernie Wrightson from Creepy Magazine

Nine times out of ten murderers take Halloween off.  But not Steve.  Not this year.  His scythe had been hidden behind the freezer for far too long, and now mere hours before the big night, it was time to get his drink on.  And by drink, I mean drink the blood of the innocent.  How else could a Nether Lich do Nether Lich properly, decade after decade, without fresh souls?  He didn't choose the life, the life chose him.  So here he was, pulling his tube socks up to the knee, prepping for glorious blood!

MOVIE PITCH: The Stud

(Here, in honor of Football SeasoN@!!, is an updated pitch of an old movie idea, my ideal pro football movie/sports movie)

PICS: King Pig

REPLACING CHAZZ 6: Stan from Deerhunter

Yeah.  I'm here.  I'm gonna write a little thing here about .. uh.. about some things going on over at the steel mill.  But, um, I seem to have misplaced the power cord to the laptop.

REPLACING CHAZZ 5: Marjorie Naismith Deleon

You ever been so stressed you just forget to eat lunch?  I haven't.

HOTEL REVIEW: The Huttle Puddle

My favorite motel in Mass.  Right next to an abandoned drive-in, it is a place things happened in back then.  You can feel it.  Stephen King probably thinks there are ghosts here.  I'd like to watch a Rashomon remake set here in 1952 based around the murder Stephen King's ghost was involved in

The Hotel Review was started, and continued, for one reason: the day I returned to the Huttleston in Fairhaven, Mass.  Just don't believe there is internet.  I think that sign is stating that somewhere in the world there is a thing called the internet.

100 Posts: 6 Months

• •    Each month below is linked to the author's favorite post of that month.  A spoiler alert: they're not Chazz, (not all), but stories and scripts, so go ahead and disregard this now, thou non-story-reader.  

       Also a column of pictures, one per month, (other than March, where there were no pictures). 

       And finally some Googly stat lists about this site's viewership.  Inside baseball, kinky! 

ROAD JOURNAL: How Did I End Up on the Road?

IF I: Ran a Bar

(Ahh, dreams.  What would I do if I could run my dream tavern?)

BRIDGE, TUNNEL: CHAPTER FIVE (in part)

(It's coming in trickles now.. two weeks on the road has me brain-dumb.  Fiddled pictures -- not much for the old write-write: two pages.  It's taken a month.  Here is the trick of quitting it)

PICS: The Big Wind Down

PICS: Skaneateles

REPLACING CHAZZ 4: Allan Poe Nelson aka Johnny Westbrook

Don't let this old man fool you; back in the day, before Allan became a respected environmentalist up in Orono, he was the coolest cat in all of Greater Portland; no one had the coolest things before "Johnny Westbrook", go ahead and ask him:

ROAD JOURNAL: Sour Gut @ Love

REPLACING CHAZZ 3: "Buy the Beer" Billy

BBB: What's happening.  Alright, alright.  I'd like to see if there's any groovy chicks reading this blog, the kind that like drinking beer by the romantic light of a good ol'fashioned trash burning at the sand pit.  Anyway call me at 207-177-7777.  Leave your measurements at the beep!  Heheheh.
NY: Billy, you're supposed to be critiquing this blog.
BBB: Chill, Poindexter, I'm getting to it.  Now then: This blog sucks.  It's horrible.  Hold on a sec...
(Billy pulls out a pay to play Walmart cell phone)
BBB: Billy speaking... Yeah?  Where?  The rest area?  Sweet!  (Hangs up phone)  Gotta go, Shakes-queer, the Bonny Eagle girls soccer team are tanning at the Limmy Rapids!!  Hell yeah!
NY: Come on, man.  You shouldn't go over there, you're in your thirties.
BBB: Forever young, my friend.  When the underage need alcohol, Billy will be there!
NY: Could you just give us a list on how to improve this site?
BBB:Yeah, fine:
1. More pictures of bikes.
2. Short fiction about young hot chicks.
3. Reviews of beer.
BBB: Good?
NY: Sure.
BBB: Out.

REPLACING CHAZZ 2: Ace Milton

We've heard from Alexei, here's candidate 2.  Ace Milton is infamous for being the actor who almost has "it".  While you've never seen him in a high profile movie, Ace has auditioned for every big time role in Hollywood.  He's 0-57 on high profile auditions, and like most failures in life, he'd like to blog about it.  Let's do this!

REPLACING CHAZZ: Alexei Vladimirovich

Alexei

With Cousin Chazz out, someone must come in.  Our first candidate to audition a new column is Alexei "Sandman" Vladimirovich, a Trotskeyist and recent émigré from Siberia, who has shacked up with a, how you say, progressive woman from Portland, and, ninety-day visa in hand, Alexei has begun composition of his periodical, Napitki Penisa Vody, on our decline here in the west -- Take it away, Alexei:

CHAZZ: REHAB

It has come down to me to let everyone know that Cousin Chazz has entered rehab.  His column will be suspended indefinitely.  It seems Chazz has been freebasing Diet Pepsi for months.
As part of the deal brokered in his intervention, I agreed to let Chazz have one more list.  He chose as his final list, the problems he has with life.  I found this healthy, a checklist to work on during his stay at the Kezar Falls Clinic of Sobrietal Evolution.
Chazz is 30.  He has no job, no car, no bank account; none of these were on his list of problems in life.  Nonetheless a deal is deal -- here it is:

ROAD JOURNAL: Actors Playing Geniuses

ROAD JOURNAL: Something Wicked This Way Comers

BELOW: What do Tolkien, Macbeth, DePalma, and Kurosawa have in common?  Why is Deadliest Catch a suckpill?  Who is the greatest radio host of ALL TIME?

HOTEL REVIEW: UTICA Dirt Mall