Summer and Longing, Dixon Hearne
Game Shows, Michael Frissore
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Soumark and art, Tom Besson
Hardfellas, Ryan Mattern
Hardfellas, Cont'd
Cenophobia, P. Bees
Camera Shy, Greg Baldino
Stones, Jef Peeples
Lady Finger Palm Uses a Cane, Cyndi Gacosta
Haikus, Sarah Ahmad
Dread and Then, Davide Trame
Confrontation 2, Jim Fuess
Galaxies, Davide Trame
Drinkology, Howie Good
Listening To The Rain, Howie Good
iCrush/Crash, iDrew
iGirlfriend, iDrew
Cigarettes, Coffee and Beer, Oh Dear, John J. Trause
Evolution, Jim Fuess
The Suppressive Have Never Embraced Conformity, Colin James
Acrasial, David Kowalczyk
Recumbentibus, David Kowalczyk
Zenzizenzizenzic, David Kowalcyzk
Contributor Bios
Editrice Note: SPROING!
Coo Coo for Toucan: Our First Fan Fic!
Showing posts with label Issue 6 May 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Issue 6 May 2010. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Friday, April 30, 2010
Oh yeah, we're famous now....Coo Coo For Toucan!
Just kidding. Nearly forgot we included our first fan fiction, written by our buddy Christopher Kayser, in the issues after the bios, and on our Facebook page. But you can see it here, too. And YOU can write fan fiction as well!
Coo Coo For Toucan
"Right then, I rid myself of this weird" said Toucan Bob as the other birds paused from pecking rocks. They looked at him with glazed eyes akin to those of college freshman after their first party. Toucan Bob flapped his wings, dropped a bomb on a passing rat, and flew into the forest. A minute, or an hour passed, and the stoned birds stared, then slowly went back to beating themselves stupid.
From the nest of coconut trees came the sound of hammers, electric drills, and many other things stolen from humans stupid enough to get stranded on the small island (yes, they are on an island, pay attention). And then, with the sound of a cat being beaten against a rug, there was a caw of success from Toucan Bob. Without hesitation, or applause, Toucan Bob grabbed his creation: three coconuts and a banjo connected by a mess of industrial nails, glue, and organic material best left unsaid. Toucan Bob dropped his creation into the bay and crawled into it. With the squeak of hungry rats, the banjo started to squirm back and forth like a sick version of a fish's tail, and like said sick fish, the horrible amalgamation flipped sideways and floated out into the ocean. After a while, out of sheer pity, the ocean finally let the abomination sink and Toucan Bob got to see under the ocean, that is until a moray eel bit his head off.
And that’s why you should never eat pancakes while dancing with jellyfish.
Coo Coo For Toucan
"Right then, I rid myself of this weird" said Toucan Bob as the other birds paused from pecking rocks. They looked at him with glazed eyes akin to those of college freshman after their first party. Toucan Bob flapped his wings, dropped a bomb on a passing rat, and flew into the forest. A minute, or an hour passed, and the stoned birds stared, then slowly went back to beating themselves stupid.
From the nest of coconut trees came the sound of hammers, electric drills, and many other things stolen from humans stupid enough to get stranded on the small island (yes, they are on an island, pay attention). And then, with the sound of a cat being beaten against a rug, there was a caw of success from Toucan Bob. Without hesitation, or applause, Toucan Bob grabbed his creation: three coconuts and a banjo connected by a mess of industrial nails, glue, and organic material best left unsaid. Toucan Bob dropped his creation into the bay and crawled into it. With the squeak of hungry rats, the banjo started to squirm back and forth like a sick version of a fish's tail, and like said sick fish, the horrible amalgamation flipped sideways and floated out into the ocean. After a while, out of sheer pity, the ocean finally let the abomination sink and Toucan Bob got to see under the ocean, that is until a moray eel bit his head off.
And that’s why you should never eat pancakes while dancing with jellyfish.
Spring, Spring, Spring!
Editors' Note--SPROING!
The sound you are hearing is both the sound of spring having sprung and our magazine massively expanding. We at The Toucan are excited about both. And what’s not to love about Spring? Flowers, sunshine, Earth Day, toucan mating season—we did notice this issue has at times verged towards the randy. But since the pieces were well-written, we’ll blame it on spring fever. Although this pretty much guarantees that our submissions pile will be even stranger from now on…
But seriously folks, we’ve appreciated the warm response we got when we posted ourselves on Duotrope. If you haven’t heard of it, you should. It’s a website great for both writers and editors—we put out the call for submissions, you respond with your pieces. And so we grow, like the flowers in the spring, la de da, we love flowers…sorry about that.
Since we last published, we’ve stuck our beaks out. We’re now distributed at two more stores in the Chicago area, the ShopColumbia store and Women And Children First. We also were at the Chicago Zine Fest with our T-shirts and talking mascot and had a blast. And we flew into the 21st century and got a Facebook page, which can be a bit ponderous to update when you have a beak as long as ours, but we manage. No matter how you’ve come to us, we want to welcome you. Thanks for fitting this bird into your life, and the best part about us is that we come with our own newspaper of sorts.
Gosh, what do we say about the so-called waste disposal system? Well, first, that we certainly don’t think it should be used for waste disposal. We’ve doubled the amount of fiction with everything from deepening friendship to a satirical take on game shows to two quietly springlike prose pieces, to…well, you just go ahead and read it, OK? The poems run a similar gamut, from the flirty “iCrush/Crash” to the reflective “Galaxies” and “Listening To The Rain”. Tom Besson tops off the issue with a cover he made just for us—and we also love our new logo. We’ll miss the monocle, but never fear, we still, like Floyd, have a cigar.
So, have you sprained your wrist yet? Got a paper cut flipping through all the extra pages? Remember, you could be in those pages if you only submit! Our Summer Issue (yeah, that’s a new thing too) is nearly full, we have no more room for prose, but poets can still squeeze in there. After reading the guidelines at www.thetoucanonline.blogspot.com, send your stuff along to thetoucanmag@gmail.com, where the editrices make eager readers. In the meantime, Toucan fans old and new, happy spring! Stay inside when there’s lightning, and don’t trample too many flowerbeds.
The bloomin’ Editrices,
Liz and Laura
But seriously folks, we’ve appreciated the warm response we got when we posted ourselves on Duotrope. If you haven’t heard of it, you should. It’s a website great for both writers and editors—we put out the call for submissions, you respond with your pieces. And so we grow, like the flowers in the spring, la de da, we love flowers…sorry about that.
Since we last published, we’ve stuck our beaks out. We’re now distributed at two more stores in the Chicago area, the ShopColumbia store and Women And Children First. We also were at the Chicago Zine Fest with our T-shirts and talking mascot and had a blast. And we flew into the 21st century and got a Facebook page, which can be a bit ponderous to update when you have a beak as long as ours, but we manage. No matter how you’ve come to us, we want to welcome you. Thanks for fitting this bird into your life, and the best part about us is that we come with our own newspaper of sorts.
Gosh, what do we say about the so-called waste disposal system? Well, first, that we certainly don’t think it should be used for waste disposal. We’ve doubled the amount of fiction with everything from deepening friendship to a satirical take on game shows to two quietly springlike prose pieces, to…well, you just go ahead and read it, OK? The poems run a similar gamut, from the flirty “iCrush/Crash” to the reflective “Galaxies” and “Listening To The Rain”. Tom Besson tops off the issue with a cover he made just for us—and we also love our new logo. We’ll miss the monocle, but never fear, we still, like Floyd, have a cigar.
So, have you sprained your wrist yet? Got a paper cut flipping through all the extra pages? Remember, you could be in those pages if you only submit! Our Summer Issue (yeah, that’s a new thing too) is nearly full, we have no more room for prose, but poets can still squeeze in there. After reading the guidelines at www.thetoucanonline.blogspot.com, send your stuff along to thetoucanmag@gmail.com, where the editrices make eager readers. In the meantime, Toucan fans old and new, happy spring! Stay inside when there’s lightning, and don’t trample too many flowerbeds.
The bloomin’ Editrices,
Liz and Laura
Page 1--Summer And Longing--Dixon Hearne
Leslie drops the skillet when she sees Tara treading up the road through her kitchen window. They have not seen each other since the wedding three years before, when Tara confused love with obligation and tied herself to a man she grew up with and dated all through high school. It was expected on both sides, though Tara’s family felt more strongly about it, more obliged. Spence really hadn’t been with anyone else either. It just seemed a match too logical and meant-to-be to question. Leslie wasn’t thinking about any of that, though, as she watched Tara round the corner and park, eager to hold her, feel her warmth once again.
“It’s about time!” Leslie yells at the car, not waiting for Tara to exit. They exchange excited grins and hug the long embrace of two hearts separated far too long.
“I brought you something,” Tara announces. She reaches inside the car, and there on the back seat, curled in a tight little ball lay a tiny pup, chestnut brown with gold tinges at the face and ears. “My dog Junie’s pup,” Tara whispers, so as not to startle it. “The only one I’m able to part with so far—and only for you.”
Leslie gently scoops her up like a proud new parent. She’s had only the company of itinerant cats since she moved here, and she’d never seriously considered living with a dog.
“She has no name,” Tara says. “You get to decide that. I told my vet to just write down “Leslie” in her file. She’s been vaccinated, though, and she’s healthy, too – just a little scared right now, venturing so far from what she knows.”
The two exchange another round of hugs and endearing smiles and leave the bags in the car for later. Tara is anxious to see Leslie’s new place, hear about her life. So much can change in three years with the perpetual motions of the universe, but nothing substantive in lives so fully rooted in devotion.
“Spence is fine—I knew you were about to ask.” Tara slips out of her over-shirt as Leslie escorts her proudly from room to room like a museum docent, pointing out things she has acquired and displayed, and for what purpose. It is a small house, but Tara finds it immediately comfortable and inviting. The room Leslie has set aside for Tara was pulled together from memory: yellow curtains and duvet, a green runner rug beside the bed—tiny details that only a kindred heart can intuit.
“Coffee? Let’s brew a big pot,” Leslie says, as they arrive back at the kitchen. Tara returns to the car for her bags while Leslie starts the coffee and makes a cozy pallet in a laundry basket for “Summer”—that’s what she will call her new companion. A wonderful name, she thinks to herself, the sound of perpetual happiness.
At some point, life breaks down into routine and the mundane—or so Tara soon discloses in their conversation. Spence is a good man, easily humored and satisfied with what he’s been dealt. There’s been no pressure for a son or lovely daughter to compete with relatives or friends, Tara affirms. He is exactly as he’d always been, and for this, she is grateful. Living together, she confesses, has really added only one facet to the lives they had led apart—cohabitation.
“Spence is a manager now,” she continues, staring off into nothingness. “They kicked him upstairs after he settled a major labor dispute at the insurance company.”
“That boy is a natural-born referee if there ever was one,” Leslie smiles. She too has known Spence her whole life. He is her brother Tim’s best friend, and spent a lot of time at her house growing up. “Is he happy with it? His new job?” she inquires cautiously. “Of course, you might never know for sure with Spence; he never complains. Unless he’s changed.”
“He’s satisfied. Good money, but more hours. He wants to buy a camp on Lake St. John, someplace to spend our week-ends and vacations. Of course Tim would be there too. He’s a lot like Spence, you know. I never noticed it till Tim married Shayla and the four of us spend so much time together. He wears the same aftershave, same kind of shirts and jeans, watches the same TV shows every night of the week.” Tara pauses again, staring out the window. “Perfectly content with friendship.”
Leslie listens more intently now, something quiet stirring deep within her. Tara retrieves the puppy from its pallet and holds her forth like a chalice. “Summer, huh? I like that. She shall be called Summer all her days—full of life and passion and tender little secrets others can only guess at.” Her smile broadens. “That’s what summer’s all about.” She places the pup upon her lap, exhaling a long slow sigh. “Listen to me go on like a drunken poet. Let’s hear about you. What it’s really like, a life of your own making?”
Leslie shifts in her chair with an odd discomfort. “Fine!” she blurts. “Things are good. I’m teaching for tips every day—and the brats haven’t poisoned or maimed me yet.”
Tara returns Summer to her basket, and Leslie suggests they relocate to the living room sofa. Still uneasy, Leslie finds herself searching for words, something pleasing and light. “I coach the debate team at school this year,” she says at length. “We’re coming to New Orleans in October to compete—Lincoln High. Can you believe it?”
Tara tosses her fiery mane, smiling, and asks about the kind of things kids debate these days. “Politics? Religion? Sex?”
They have a round earnest laugh, recalling the tame topics of their day, which helps to put Leslie more at ease. She still cannot reconcile the disquiet, the arousal she felt when Tara spoke of Spence and Tim earlier. Something rather cryptic—in her tone.
Then suddenly, and in words shrill as a winter bell, Tara announces: “Spence and I are separating.” One minute, laughter, the next, numbness. “I’m so sorry, Les,” Tara quickly adds. “I didn’t mean to upset things. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
The announcement resonates. Leslie has no poised and polished reaction for such news, no stock response. It feels as if some childhood truth has just been negated—along the lines of Santa Claus or leprechauns—revealed to be nothing more than a fanciful tale.
“Are you sure about this?” Leslie asks, utterly unsure of anything herself at the moment.
Tears swell and hold, then slowly trail down Tara’s handsome face until they quietly dissipate. “That’s it,” Tara whispers. “I have no tears left. They’re all used up.” Uncertain, she reaches for Leslie’s hand and finds instead the warm accepting arms of one whose heart is constant. Leslie pulls her close, gently tracing the graceful curves of her slender back, the sleek lines of an accomplished swimmer had she been inclined.
“Do you remember the summer we spent on my uncle’s farm?” Tara whispers at length, settling her head upon Leslie’s lap. “We rode those horses through the fields and woods, wild as the wind that spurred us.” Leslie listens quietly, smiling. “’The Thunderbirds’, we called ourselves, ‘Sisters of the Sun’. Do you remember, Les? And we made our solemn pact with one another.”
Memories rush forth now, too many and too strong for Leslie to ignore. “Yes. You were Goddess Tara, Keeper of the Seasons, and I was Goddess Leslie, Savior of Lost Hearts.
“Pretty sophisticated stuff for eleven-year-olds, don’t you think?” Tara responds, wistfully.
Leslie’s eyes pan the room, eventually lighting upon the painting that hangs over her mantel, upon the haunting smiles on the women’s faces in the picture. She stares transfixed, as if she’s finally unveiled their secret meaning. “We made other promises, too,” she says at length. “And of course, our secrets.”
Tara stretches her comely body the length of the sofa, nuzzling the tufted pillow she has placed in Leslie’s lap. “Oh, to live that time again. Would you wish it, too, Les?”
Leslie strokes her auburn tresses in gentle even rhythms. She is far too lost in reminiscence to respond immediately, and when she finally does, it comes more as revelation than memory. How could she not see at eleven years of age what is so clear to her now? She has studied this face, these eyes, heard this voice nearly her entire life. She knows Tara’s ways, her thoughts, her feelings. But now, as if from some hermetic vein, an ancient urge awakens. She remembers that summer, and all the other summers of their lives, and it is suddenly, strangely not enough.
The air swells and undulates in waves warm as the coming solstice. Few words need now be spoken—hearts, eyes, touch convey it. And here they remain through the haunting night, entwined in tender knowing.
“It’s about time!” Leslie yells at the car, not waiting for Tara to exit. They exchange excited grins and hug the long embrace of two hearts separated far too long.
“I brought you something,” Tara announces. She reaches inside the car, and there on the back seat, curled in a tight little ball lay a tiny pup, chestnut brown with gold tinges at the face and ears. “My dog Junie’s pup,” Tara whispers, so as not to startle it. “The only one I’m able to part with so far—and only for you.”
Leslie gently scoops her up like a proud new parent. She’s had only the company of itinerant cats since she moved here, and she’d never seriously considered living with a dog.
“She has no name,” Tara says. “You get to decide that. I told my vet to just write down “Leslie” in her file. She’s been vaccinated, though, and she’s healthy, too – just a little scared right now, venturing so far from what she knows.”
The two exchange another round of hugs and endearing smiles and leave the bags in the car for later. Tara is anxious to see Leslie’s new place, hear about her life. So much can change in three years with the perpetual motions of the universe, but nothing substantive in lives so fully rooted in devotion.
“Spence is fine—I knew you were about to ask.” Tara slips out of her over-shirt as Leslie escorts her proudly from room to room like a museum docent, pointing out things she has acquired and displayed, and for what purpose. It is a small house, but Tara finds it immediately comfortable and inviting. The room Leslie has set aside for Tara was pulled together from memory: yellow curtains and duvet, a green runner rug beside the bed—tiny details that only a kindred heart can intuit.
“Coffee? Let’s brew a big pot,” Leslie says, as they arrive back at the kitchen. Tara returns to the car for her bags while Leslie starts the coffee and makes a cozy pallet in a laundry basket for “Summer”—that’s what she will call her new companion. A wonderful name, she thinks to herself, the sound of perpetual happiness.
At some point, life breaks down into routine and the mundane—or so Tara soon discloses in their conversation. Spence is a good man, easily humored and satisfied with what he’s been dealt. There’s been no pressure for a son or lovely daughter to compete with relatives or friends, Tara affirms. He is exactly as he’d always been, and for this, she is grateful. Living together, she confesses, has really added only one facet to the lives they had led apart—cohabitation.
“Spence is a manager now,” she continues, staring off into nothingness. “They kicked him upstairs after he settled a major labor dispute at the insurance company.”
“That boy is a natural-born referee if there ever was one,” Leslie smiles. She too has known Spence her whole life. He is her brother Tim’s best friend, and spent a lot of time at her house growing up. “Is he happy with it? His new job?” she inquires cautiously. “Of course, you might never know for sure with Spence; he never complains. Unless he’s changed.”
“He’s satisfied. Good money, but more hours. He wants to buy a camp on Lake St. John, someplace to spend our week-ends and vacations. Of course Tim would be there too. He’s a lot like Spence, you know. I never noticed it till Tim married Shayla and the four of us spend so much time together. He wears the same aftershave, same kind of shirts and jeans, watches the same TV shows every night of the week.” Tara pauses again, staring out the window. “Perfectly content with friendship.”
Leslie listens more intently now, something quiet stirring deep within her. Tara retrieves the puppy from its pallet and holds her forth like a chalice. “Summer, huh? I like that. She shall be called Summer all her days—full of life and passion and tender little secrets others can only guess at.” Her smile broadens. “That’s what summer’s all about.” She places the pup upon her lap, exhaling a long slow sigh. “Listen to me go on like a drunken poet. Let’s hear about you. What it’s really like, a life of your own making?”
Leslie shifts in her chair with an odd discomfort. “Fine!” she blurts. “Things are good. I’m teaching for tips every day—and the brats haven’t poisoned or maimed me yet.”
Tara returns Summer to her basket, and Leslie suggests they relocate to the living room sofa. Still uneasy, Leslie finds herself searching for words, something pleasing and light. “I coach the debate team at school this year,” she says at length. “We’re coming to New Orleans in October to compete—Lincoln High. Can you believe it?”
Tara tosses her fiery mane, smiling, and asks about the kind of things kids debate these days. “Politics? Religion? Sex?”
They have a round earnest laugh, recalling the tame topics of their day, which helps to put Leslie more at ease. She still cannot reconcile the disquiet, the arousal she felt when Tara spoke of Spence and Tim earlier. Something rather cryptic—in her tone.
Then suddenly, and in words shrill as a winter bell, Tara announces: “Spence and I are separating.” One minute, laughter, the next, numbness. “I’m so sorry, Les,” Tara quickly adds. “I didn’t mean to upset things. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.”
The announcement resonates. Leslie has no poised and polished reaction for such news, no stock response. It feels as if some childhood truth has just been negated—along the lines of Santa Claus or leprechauns—revealed to be nothing more than a fanciful tale.
“Are you sure about this?” Leslie asks, utterly unsure of anything herself at the moment.
Tears swell and hold, then slowly trail down Tara’s handsome face until they quietly dissipate. “That’s it,” Tara whispers. “I have no tears left. They’re all used up.” Uncertain, she reaches for Leslie’s hand and finds instead the warm accepting arms of one whose heart is constant. Leslie pulls her close, gently tracing the graceful curves of her slender back, the sleek lines of an accomplished swimmer had she been inclined.
“Do you remember the summer we spent on my uncle’s farm?” Tara whispers at length, settling her head upon Leslie’s lap. “We rode those horses through the fields and woods, wild as the wind that spurred us.” Leslie listens quietly, smiling. “’The Thunderbirds’, we called ourselves, ‘Sisters of the Sun’. Do you remember, Les? And we made our solemn pact with one another.”
Memories rush forth now, too many and too strong for Leslie to ignore. “Yes. You were Goddess Tara, Keeper of the Seasons, and I was Goddess Leslie, Savior of Lost Hearts.
“Pretty sophisticated stuff for eleven-year-olds, don’t you think?” Tara responds, wistfully.
Leslie’s eyes pan the room, eventually lighting upon the painting that hangs over her mantel, upon the haunting smiles on the women’s faces in the picture. She stares transfixed, as if she’s finally unveiled their secret meaning. “We made other promises, too,” she says at length. “And of course, our secrets.”
Tara stretches her comely body the length of the sofa, nuzzling the tufted pillow she has placed in Leslie’s lap. “Oh, to live that time again. Would you wish it, too, Les?”
Leslie strokes her auburn tresses in gentle even rhythms. She is far too lost in reminiscence to respond immediately, and when she finally does, it comes more as revelation than memory. How could she not see at eleven years of age what is so clear to her now? She has studied this face, these eyes, heard this voice nearly her entire life. She knows Tara’s ways, her thoughts, her feelings. But now, as if from some hermetic vein, an ancient urge awakens. She remembers that summer, and all the other summers of their lives, and it is suddenly, strangely not enough.
The air swells and undulates in waves warm as the coming solstice. Few words need now be spoken—hearts, eyes, touch convey it. And here they remain through the haunting night, entwined in tender knowing.
Page 4--Game Shows (Part One)--Michael Frissore
I.
It was the turn of the century and America had caught the quiz show bug. It was the fifties all over again – minus the hoses and the German Shepherds. I had recently ruined my chance to audition for Wheel of Fortune because I thought I had mad cow disease. So I swore I would never ruin another opportunity.
There was a new game show called “Would You Like To Be A Millionaire?” It was a blatant rip-off of the Regis Philbin show, certainly, but who asks for originality anymore? I always wanted to be a contestant on a game show, since the days of the old Match Game and Hollywood Squares. I dreamed of meeting mid-level celebrities such as Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde.
One day, a large, multicolored bus came to my town offering tryouts for the show, and I was the best contestant in the group. I couldn't believe it. I was going to fly to California. Los Angeles, The City of Angels. Or La-La Land, as I like to call it. As if that weren't enough, once I got there, I wasn't only picked for the show, but I even won the “Quickest Digit” question. When I got into “the hot seat,” or, as they called it, “the warm chair,” I was nervous. My mouth was dry. My palms were wet. I was a wreck. This decreased with the simplicity of the questions. The thousand-dollar question was “How many cans of beer are there in a six pack?” This was easy! Then came the $2,000 question.
Which of these was described by Edgar Allan Poe as the brightest purple he’d ever seen?
A. Purple Haze
B. The Purple Rose of Cairo
C. Purple Rain
D. Deep Purple
How was this even a question? I knew it. This game was rigged. I sat there in front of millions of people in stunned silence.
“Well, Regis,” I finally said. “I think I’ll use a lifeline.”
“First of all, my name isn’t Regis. It’s Rick Dees,” the host said. “Secondly, you don’t get any lifelines.”
“You bastard.”
“Answer or get off my show.”
I began to think out loud like they did on the real show.
“Well, let’s see. “Purple Haze” and Deep Purple were in the 60s. The other two were in the 80s. And Poe died in the nineteenth century. Who wrote this question?”
“Time’s running out,” the man who gave us “Disco Duck” said.
“I suppose he could have seen into the future a hundred and twenty years and known about Jimi Hendrix or Woody Allen. He could have said Deep Purple and not meant the band. Or I suppose you people are screwing me.”
“We need an answer.”
“Howard Stern says you suck. Ba Ba Booey! Ba Ba Booey!”
“Security!”
Security chased me around the studio, then threw me out of the building. I didn’t even get the thousand dollars. But I had become addicted to watching and auditioning for game shows. It was really a sickness.
MORE PRIZES (NOT, NOT REALLY, BUT CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ANYWAY)!
It was the turn of the century and America had caught the quiz show bug. It was the fifties all over again – minus the hoses and the German Shepherds. I had recently ruined my chance to audition for Wheel of Fortune because I thought I had mad cow disease. So I swore I would never ruin another opportunity.
There was a new game show called “Would You Like To Be A Millionaire?” It was a blatant rip-off of the Regis Philbin show, certainly, but who asks for originality anymore? I always wanted to be a contestant on a game show, since the days of the old Match Game and Hollywood Squares. I dreamed of meeting mid-level celebrities such as Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde.
One day, a large, multicolored bus came to my town offering tryouts for the show, and I was the best contestant in the group. I couldn't believe it. I was going to fly to California. Los Angeles, The City of Angels. Or La-La Land, as I like to call it. As if that weren't enough, once I got there, I wasn't only picked for the show, but I even won the “Quickest Digit” question. When I got into “the hot seat,” or, as they called it, “the warm chair,” I was nervous. My mouth was dry. My palms were wet. I was a wreck. This decreased with the simplicity of the questions. The thousand-dollar question was “How many cans of beer are there in a six pack?” This was easy! Then came the $2,000 question.
Which of these was described by Edgar Allan Poe as the brightest purple he’d ever seen?
A. Purple Haze
B. The Purple Rose of Cairo
C. Purple Rain
D. Deep Purple
How was this even a question? I knew it. This game was rigged. I sat there in front of millions of people in stunned silence.
“Well, Regis,” I finally said. “I think I’ll use a lifeline.”
“First of all, my name isn’t Regis. It’s Rick Dees,” the host said. “Secondly, you don’t get any lifelines.”
“You bastard.”
“Answer or get off my show.”
I began to think out loud like they did on the real show.
“Well, let’s see. “Purple Haze” and Deep Purple were in the 60s. The other two were in the 80s. And Poe died in the nineteenth century. Who wrote this question?”
“Time’s running out,” the man who gave us “Disco Duck” said.
“I suppose he could have seen into the future a hundred and twenty years and known about Jimi Hendrix or Woody Allen. He could have said Deep Purple and not meant the band. Or I suppose you people are screwing me.”
“We need an answer.”
“Howard Stern says you suck. Ba Ba Booey! Ba Ba Booey!”
“Security!”
Security chased me around the studio, then threw me out of the building. I didn’t even get the thousand dollars. But I had become addicted to watching and auditioning for game shows. It was really a sickness.
MORE PRIZES (NOT, NOT REALLY, BUT CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ANYWAY)!
Page 5--Game Shows, Part Two--Michael Frissore
II.
My next opportunity came just a few months later. There was a newspaper ad for auditions for a “wacky new game show.” All I had to do was go down and sign a release. That was it. No questions to answer or anything. They asked me if I knew how to write, said, “Sign this,” and I was on. I lied and told them I hadn’t been on a game show in the last three years, but then they said most shows have that silly “three-year rule,” but not us. It was a crazy quiz and prize show called “Wish Bag.” Sounds fun! Everyone loves wishes. Everyone loves bags, especially if they’re filled with valuable prizes.
Backstage was different than my previous experience had been. People were pretty unprofessional, swearing and drinking, and just being plain rude. The other contestant was all nervous and fidgety. Then she did jumping jacks for nearly half an hour. As show time approached, a producer told me to “just have fun” and do what the host says, and to greet him on-air by saying, “Love you. Love your show” and tell him he’s a great American. This sounded silly for a game show, but I wanted to please. Then I was pushed onto the chair from which I would be playing. I looked at the frightened girl to my left, my opponent. I started to say hello, but that’s when the show began. The room got dark and there was a smattering of applause.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice said. “Welcome to The Wish Bag. And here’s your host…Elvis!” The theme song, typical game show fare mixed with a bit of circus music, started playing, then came the lyrics:
Wish bag, dishrag
Shish kebab zish zag
Bag and tag the purple fish hag
Amish news mags
Mawkish booze bags
Larry Tish and Lillian Gish bag
These were the actual lyrics. I memorized them because they were repeated seven times. During this nonsensical intro, a man in black face came out dancing and inexplicably tossing pizza dough in the air. Then a monkey came on stage dressed as a dominatrix and riding a bicycle. Upon seeing the monkey, the pizza man produced a shotgun, seemingly out of nowhere and shot him. The crowd booed and threw handfuls of what looked like paste at him as the music stopped. My second appearance on a television game show had started as ridiculously as the first one ended.
“Thank you, folks,” said Elvis the host, wearing a white sequin suit. “Thanks to our announcer, Mr. Chickenhead Antonucci. Hail Hitler! Welcome to The Wish Bag, the game show in which we make the wishes for you. That’s right, see that big sack over there,” he said, pointing toward Chickenhead. “Next to him is a large bag filled with wishes. Our contestants will answer questions. When you hear the sound of a pig being slaughtered, whoever is ahead gets to make a wish. We also have a really good carrot cake recipe, so stay tuned for that.”
“Carrot cake is good,” Chickenhead said. “Long live the carrot people.”
“Shut your hole, you rancorous, epicene simpleton,” Elvis said viciously. “Okay, contestant Roman numeral one, what is your name?”
“Megan," my female counterpart replied.
“Do you put out?”
“What?”
“Nothing. That was our producer coughing. He has AIDS. Contestant two, what name are you using today?”
“Marcus,” I said.
“And what fast food drive-thru window do you take orders from?”
“I’m sorry?”
“As for me, I’m bloody rich.”
“Buddy Rich, ladies and gentlemen,” Chickenhead shouted.
“I’ll come over there, knock you to the floor, and rape you in front of all these idiots if you don’t shut up,” Elvis said intensely. “Now, let’s get right to the questions. First you, Megan, you sexy thing. For a thousand dollars. I’m sorry, there’s a period there. For ten dollars: Pro-wrestler The Iron Sheik is from what country?”
She considered it for a couple of seconds, then said, “Ummm, Iran?”
“No,” Elvis said. “I’m sorry. It’s Sweden. No points for you. Okay, Marcus, you ready?”
“Yes, I am, Elvis. Love you. Love your show. You’re a great American,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“Okay, shut up, putz. It’s my show,” he replied. “Also for ten dollars: Name the actress who played Barbara Cooper on the TV series One Day At A Time.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” I said. “Valerie Bertinelli.”
“Ooh, I’m sorry,” Elvis said. “The answer we were looking for was Fleagle.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “Fleagle was a character on The Banana Splits, and how many sheiks come from Sweden? This game sucks.”
Suddenly the horrid sound of a pig being slaughtered blasted throughout the studio.
“We know what that sound means, kids,” Elvis said. “It’s time for ye olde wish bag. Marcus, since you’re pissing me off, we’ll let you go first. Grab yourself a wish.”
I reached into the bag and felt something furry, which freaked me out. So I pulled back immediately.
“What the hell is that?” I demanded.
“Oh, sorry there, Marcus,” Elvis said insincerely. “That’s the magic bag of rat carcasses. No, boys, we want the wish bag for this one.”
An albino brought out a new bag and I reluctantly reached in and pulled out an envelope, and then handed it to Elvis.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s see what your birthday wish is, smarty pants.” He opened it slowly. “Ah, yes. Folks, Marcus’s wish is that your host, Elvis, would kick him in the testicles and push him into the alligator pit. Why, I’d be happy to, Marcus.” He came toward me and gave me a swift kick in the crotch. I fell to my knees in pain as the audience cheered gleefully.
“Boys, open the pit, will you?” Elvis shouted. I turned around and looked down at about a half-dozen alligators. “Bon voyage, Marky Mark,” Elvis said as he kicked me into the pit.
“All right,” Elvis said in closing. “Thanks for watching The Wish Bag. Remember, help control the population: have yourself castrated. Good night!”
“The Wish Bag.” I could hear Chickenhead announce. “Is a Mike Goodson television production, and has been brought to you by Pride Auto Parts, Second Coming Mayonnaise, Lust Auto Parts, NAMBLA, and the Ku Klux Klan.”
YES, THERE'S A PART THREE, AND YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO READ IT.
My next opportunity came just a few months later. There was a newspaper ad for auditions for a “wacky new game show.” All I had to do was go down and sign a release. That was it. No questions to answer or anything. They asked me if I knew how to write, said, “Sign this,” and I was on. I lied and told them I hadn’t been on a game show in the last three years, but then they said most shows have that silly “three-year rule,” but not us. It was a crazy quiz and prize show called “Wish Bag.” Sounds fun! Everyone loves wishes. Everyone loves bags, especially if they’re filled with valuable prizes.
Backstage was different than my previous experience had been. People were pretty unprofessional, swearing and drinking, and just being plain rude. The other contestant was all nervous and fidgety. Then she did jumping jacks for nearly half an hour. As show time approached, a producer told me to “just have fun” and do what the host says, and to greet him on-air by saying, “Love you. Love your show” and tell him he’s a great American. This sounded silly for a game show, but I wanted to please. Then I was pushed onto the chair from which I would be playing. I looked at the frightened girl to my left, my opponent. I started to say hello, but that’s when the show began. The room got dark and there was a smattering of applause.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a voice said. “Welcome to The Wish Bag. And here’s your host…Elvis!” The theme song, typical game show fare mixed with a bit of circus music, started playing, then came the lyrics:
Wish bag, dishrag
Shish kebab zish zag
Bag and tag the purple fish hag
Amish news mags
Mawkish booze bags
Larry Tish and Lillian Gish bag
These were the actual lyrics. I memorized them because they were repeated seven times. During this nonsensical intro, a man in black face came out dancing and inexplicably tossing pizza dough in the air. Then a monkey came on stage dressed as a dominatrix and riding a bicycle. Upon seeing the monkey, the pizza man produced a shotgun, seemingly out of nowhere and shot him. The crowd booed and threw handfuls of what looked like paste at him as the music stopped. My second appearance on a television game show had started as ridiculously as the first one ended.
“Thank you, folks,” said Elvis the host, wearing a white sequin suit. “Thanks to our announcer, Mr. Chickenhead Antonucci. Hail Hitler! Welcome to The Wish Bag, the game show in which we make the wishes for you. That’s right, see that big sack over there,” he said, pointing toward Chickenhead. “Next to him is a large bag filled with wishes. Our contestants will answer questions. When you hear the sound of a pig being slaughtered, whoever is ahead gets to make a wish. We also have a really good carrot cake recipe, so stay tuned for that.”
“Carrot cake is good,” Chickenhead said. “Long live the carrot people.”
“Shut your hole, you rancorous, epicene simpleton,” Elvis said viciously. “Okay, contestant Roman numeral one, what is your name?”
“Megan," my female counterpart replied.
“Do you put out?”
“What?”
“Nothing. That was our producer coughing. He has AIDS. Contestant two, what name are you using today?”
“Marcus,” I said.
“And what fast food drive-thru window do you take orders from?”
“I’m sorry?”
“As for me, I’m bloody rich.”
“Buddy Rich, ladies and gentlemen,” Chickenhead shouted.
“I’ll come over there, knock you to the floor, and rape you in front of all these idiots if you don’t shut up,” Elvis said intensely. “Now, let’s get right to the questions. First you, Megan, you sexy thing. For a thousand dollars. I’m sorry, there’s a period there. For ten dollars: Pro-wrestler The Iron Sheik is from what country?”
She considered it for a couple of seconds, then said, “Ummm, Iran?”
“No,” Elvis said. “I’m sorry. It’s Sweden. No points for you. Okay, Marcus, you ready?”
“Yes, I am, Elvis. Love you. Love your show. You’re a great American,” I said, trying to be helpful.
“Okay, shut up, putz. It’s my show,” he replied. “Also for ten dollars: Name the actress who played Barbara Cooper on the TV series One Day At A Time.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” I said. “Valerie Bertinelli.”
“Ooh, I’m sorry,” Elvis said. “The answer we were looking for was Fleagle.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “Fleagle was a character on The Banana Splits, and how many sheiks come from Sweden? This game sucks.”
Suddenly the horrid sound of a pig being slaughtered blasted throughout the studio.
“We know what that sound means, kids,” Elvis said. “It’s time for ye olde wish bag. Marcus, since you’re pissing me off, we’ll let you go first. Grab yourself a wish.”
I reached into the bag and felt something furry, which freaked me out. So I pulled back immediately.
“What the hell is that?” I demanded.
“Oh, sorry there, Marcus,” Elvis said insincerely. “That’s the magic bag of rat carcasses. No, boys, we want the wish bag for this one.”
An albino brought out a new bag and I reluctantly reached in and pulled out an envelope, and then handed it to Elvis.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s see what your birthday wish is, smarty pants.” He opened it slowly. “Ah, yes. Folks, Marcus’s wish is that your host, Elvis, would kick him in the testicles and push him into the alligator pit. Why, I’d be happy to, Marcus.” He came toward me and gave me a swift kick in the crotch. I fell to my knees in pain as the audience cheered gleefully.
“Boys, open the pit, will you?” Elvis shouted. I turned around and looked down at about a half-dozen alligators. “Bon voyage, Marky Mark,” Elvis said as he kicked me into the pit.
“All right,” Elvis said in closing. “Thanks for watching The Wish Bag. Remember, help control the population: have yourself castrated. Good night!”
“The Wish Bag.” I could hear Chickenhead announce. “Is a Mike Goodson television production, and has been brought to you by Pride Auto Parts, Second Coming Mayonnaise, Lust Auto Parts, NAMBLA, and the Ku Klux Klan.”
YES, THERE'S A PART THREE, AND YOU CAN CLICK HERE TO READ IT.
Page 7--Game Shows, Part Three--Michael Frissore
III.
Yes, there's a part three. You might ask how I survived the alligator pit, but I could only tell you I don’t know. That's really all I feel comfortable talking about it. But I can tell you I was deeply scarred from these experiences. I stayed away from game shows for five years. I couldn’t even watch them anymore. During this time I met Stacy, the woman I would marry. When I told her about my brushes with fame, she was very supportive. She wanted me to try it again, to get over my fear. I said I wasn’t about to try, but if she found a show she wanted to try out for, I would go along for the ride.
Stacy had a bit of a weight problem, as did I. So she decided she wanted to try out for a replica of the show The Biggest Loser, a show in which obese contestants try to lose the most weight. One Saturday we waited with about eighty others at an open casting call. There were two signs advertising the tryouts, so that passersby could point at us and laugh openly. Two men jogged past us and actually turned around, jogged about fifty feet the other away to take another look, then turned around again and went on their merry way. Another woman had her boyfriend take a picture of her in front of a sign as she pulled her shirt up to show her flat stomach, the cocky whore.
Auditioners grabbed seats to fill out the application, which asked for three female and three male friends who could testify to your character. That’s six references! For a stupid show! Does the CIA even require this many references? After an hour a man shooed the chubby scribblers away, announcing they would be putting umbrellas on the tables in a half hour. Ninety minutes later these no-umbrella-puttin’-up motherfuckers hadn’t produced the giant shade givers, as the large crowd were cruelly forced to stand in the sweltering sun. Perhaps “Operation: Fry the Pig” was to see if we were serious about partaking in this fine program.
I was surprised that very few of those in line were tear-down-the-walls-of-your-house-to-get-you-out obese. Of the men there were a couple in better shape than I am. So I said what the hell and filled out an application myself. There were all sorts of people there, a professional poker player, a former comedian, a Catholic youth minister, and a designer who had already auditioned for Project Runway. Stacy even ran into a high school classmate. Friendships were formed, particularly between the women, as the former comedian said, “I can’t believe none of us wore the same outfit when we all shop at the same store.” And all the gals shouted, “Lane Bryant!” Ah, good times.
Apparently, they needed more contestants because at around noon two men and a woman began approaching passersby, shouting, “Hey, you’re fat! Come here!” Many were insulted. Some broke down in tears. Soon after this two other men started walking towards us, each hauling food carts, one with hot dogs and hamburgers, the other with ice cream. Everyone started digging for their wallets when the men detached the front of the carts to reveal two big piles: One of burgers, dogs and fries, the other of cookies, cake and ice cream. They announced that those who didn’t jump into the food like it was a pile of leaves would get to be interviewed for the show. Alas, before they could finish speaking, several show hopefuls had already dove into the piles, creating an awful mess. The scene was hosed down, the would-be contestants were slapped across the face and told to vacate the premises.
From there, there was complete disenchantment with the whole audition process as the men were herded into one room and the women into another. On the men’s side these two meatheads hazed us like we were pledging some silly fraternity. They lined us up. Some looked around, others stared straight ahead. We were told the show is no joke and only the serious need apply. We were then forced to strip naked and walk obediently by them as they whacked our substantial bottoms with ping-pong paddles. They then dropped marshmallows on the floor and commanded us to pick them up without using our hands, feet or mouths. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
We later learned that the women underwent similar humiliation as they were forced to stand in a line and remove their shirts and bras a la Showgirls or Fame. There was talk of litigation among contestants later, but, like a group of gypsies, the show was gone the next day, never to be heard from again. No program called Hog Squeal Piggy Fat ever aired.
Stacy and I overcame this and moved on. We would try out for other reality shows, even ones that had nothing to do with us, like Pull the Plug, which followed families as they tried to make that difficult decision. We hung around a hospital for days while producers kept asking, “So where is this Aunt Bernice with the terminal cancer?” We eventually made a break for it. Months later we were thrown off of Conversion, which attempted to turn gay men and women straight. The executive producer caught us having sex in the bathroom at the audition for this one.
Finally there was How Much For the Baby? which offered couples cash for their newborns. We borrowed our neighbor’s kid and went down to try out, but everyone involved was arrested at the scene. And I learned something else from this experience: There’s absolutely no way they'll let a husband and wife share a jail cell together, the Nazis.
Yes, there's a part three. You might ask how I survived the alligator pit, but I could only tell you I don’t know. That's really all I feel comfortable talking about it. But I can tell you I was deeply scarred from these experiences. I stayed away from game shows for five years. I couldn’t even watch them anymore. During this time I met Stacy, the woman I would marry. When I told her about my brushes with fame, she was very supportive. She wanted me to try it again, to get over my fear. I said I wasn’t about to try, but if she found a show she wanted to try out for, I would go along for the ride.
Stacy had a bit of a weight problem, as did I. So she decided she wanted to try out for a replica of the show The Biggest Loser, a show in which obese contestants try to lose the most weight. One Saturday we waited with about eighty others at an open casting call. There were two signs advertising the tryouts, so that passersby could point at us and laugh openly. Two men jogged past us and actually turned around, jogged about fifty feet the other away to take another look, then turned around again and went on their merry way. Another woman had her boyfriend take a picture of her in front of a sign as she pulled her shirt up to show her flat stomach, the cocky whore.
Auditioners grabbed seats to fill out the application, which asked for three female and three male friends who could testify to your character. That’s six references! For a stupid show! Does the CIA even require this many references? After an hour a man shooed the chubby scribblers away, announcing they would be putting umbrellas on the tables in a half hour. Ninety minutes later these no-umbrella-puttin’-up motherfuckers hadn’t produced the giant shade givers, as the large crowd were cruelly forced to stand in the sweltering sun. Perhaps “Operation: Fry the Pig” was to see if we were serious about partaking in this fine program.
I was surprised that very few of those in line were tear-down-the-walls-of-your-house-to-get-you-out obese. Of the men there were a couple in better shape than I am. So I said what the hell and filled out an application myself. There were all sorts of people there, a professional poker player, a former comedian, a Catholic youth minister, and a designer who had already auditioned for Project Runway. Stacy even ran into a high school classmate. Friendships were formed, particularly between the women, as the former comedian said, “I can’t believe none of us wore the same outfit when we all shop at the same store.” And all the gals shouted, “Lane Bryant!” Ah, good times.
Apparently, they needed more contestants because at around noon two men and a woman began approaching passersby, shouting, “Hey, you’re fat! Come here!” Many were insulted. Some broke down in tears. Soon after this two other men started walking towards us, each hauling food carts, one with hot dogs and hamburgers, the other with ice cream. Everyone started digging for their wallets when the men detached the front of the carts to reveal two big piles: One of burgers, dogs and fries, the other of cookies, cake and ice cream. They announced that those who didn’t jump into the food like it was a pile of leaves would get to be interviewed for the show. Alas, before they could finish speaking, several show hopefuls had already dove into the piles, creating an awful mess. The scene was hosed down, the would-be contestants were slapped across the face and told to vacate the premises.
From there, there was complete disenchantment with the whole audition process as the men were herded into one room and the women into another. On the men’s side these two meatheads hazed us like we were pledging some silly fraternity. They lined us up. Some looked around, others stared straight ahead. We were told the show is no joke and only the serious need apply. We were then forced to strip naked and walk obediently by them as they whacked our substantial bottoms with ping-pong paddles. They then dropped marshmallows on the floor and commanded us to pick them up without using our hands, feet or mouths. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.
We later learned that the women underwent similar humiliation as they were forced to stand in a line and remove their shirts and bras a la Showgirls or Fame. There was talk of litigation among contestants later, but, like a group of gypsies, the show was gone the next day, never to be heard from again. No program called Hog Squeal Piggy Fat ever aired.
Stacy and I overcame this and moved on. We would try out for other reality shows, even ones that had nothing to do with us, like Pull the Plug, which followed families as they tried to make that difficult decision. We hung around a hospital for days while producers kept asking, “So where is this Aunt Bernice with the terminal cancer?” We eventually made a break for it. Months later we were thrown off of Conversion, which attempted to turn gay men and women straight. The executive producer caught us having sex in the bathroom at the audition for this one.
Finally there was How Much For the Baby? which offered couples cash for their newborns. We borrowed our neighbor’s kid and went down to try out, but everyone involved was arrested at the scene. And I learned something else from this experience: There’s absolutely no way they'll let a husband and wife share a jail cell together, the Nazis.
Page 10--Soumrak--Tom Besson
I sit alone wondering why I chose solitude over companionship. The forest answers me as twilight creeps over the landscape. It seems to rise from the roots of the trees and spill forth from the depths of the creek bed, flowing like a dark mist across the open fields. The fireflies begin their dance of desire, their glow growing stronger with the fading light. In a symphony of chartreuse they send their message of ephemeral life made bearable only in the pursuit of beauty.
The sound of rolling thunder and flowing water is all to be heard as the darkness ascends to the sky. Battling the impending night, fingers of lightning shoot across the heavens as the fireflies seek refuge on the underside of leaves.
I am at one with nature, torn between two homes, in anticipation of the first and in sorrow at leaving the second.
Soumrak by Tom Besson
Page 11--Hardfellas--Ryan Mattern
Today is the day Sally “Tally Ho” Briggs, star of some 500 adult blockbusters, the founding mother of “girlONgirl” cinema, will leave the business for good.
“You’ve been gettin’ sloppy Sal,” Nick, her grease-ball Italian agent told her, his cramped trailer-office littered with Diet Coke cans and Big Mac boxes. It smelled like a litter box used as an ashtray. Prune Day at the old folks home. “The last five or six shoots you’ve looked out of it. And not that sexy, droopy-eyed rape look——I could sell that——but that I don’t wanna be here, I’m slowly startin’ ta realize there’s more ta life then gettin’ fucked by a fake plastic dick look.” Sally took a cigarette from Nick’s pack sitting on his desk and lit it quick, tiny silver ghosts creeping out of her mouth.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Act like ya want it, Sal! Act like you don’t wanna be just another flash-in-the-pan broad that no one beats it to in ten years.” Nick handed her a script for her upcoming shoot: Hardfellas, Cock-N-Roll Productions’ take on the Scorsese classic. She thumbed through it. Apparently, in the card game scene when Tommy shoots Spider in the foot——later Spider would tell Tommy to “go fuck himself!” which would inevitably be his last words——her character, Marie, brings the guys drinks and gets gangbanged by Henry, Tommy, Jimmy Conway and Frankie Carbone. It was Sally’s first dick-flick in a long time, and it was sure to be her comeback. In the industry, girls who only fuck girls tend never to last as long as the ones who hit for the cycle. “You can start by puttin’ that shit out!” Nick taking the cigarette from between her lips and dropping it into an empty soda can. “For Christ’s sake, you keep that up and ya face’ll look like a leather handbag.”
“All right, all right. Keep your hands off, you creep,” she said swatting Nick’s hands away.
“Ya test results will be in this afternoon. We’ll start shootin’ tomorrow.”
Sally hated that she had slept with Nick. In fact, it haunted her on more than one occasion, both on the job and off. She was doing a scene many years back in a movie called St. Elmo’s Firecrotch, the first time she had ever had to dye her pubes, and she had an issue on set that put an end to filming for the afternoon. It was the end of a big kegger scene where she went upstairs with Billy Hicks, the orange collar of his button-down shirt popped underneath his turquoise suit jacket a number of sizes too small. He laid on the bed as she mounted him and pulled his Ray-Ban sunglasses down past his nose and off his face. It was the first time in the entire shoot that she had seen Billy’s eyes, that deep green she despised. It stuck on her face like algae. Right then she was in Nick’s office-trailer, listening to his sickening New York accent tell her of how she’s going to be the queen of the industry. How she’s going to make lots and lots of money. How people are going to celebrate, love, WORSHIP her. How all she has to do is lay on the desk and close her eyes. She didn’t open them for long after he had finished. Nick was standing in the corner, zipping up his slacks and casually tossing his jacket over his shoulder then finally leaving. Sally just laid on the table with her eyes closed, feeling a warm and gooey stream start from her belly button running down to her thigh. Back in the frat house, she started hyperventilating as she sat on Billy’s now softened lap, then fell crying into his shoulder. He ran his fingers through her hair, telling her everything was going to be all right and not to cry, then mouthed to Mikey, the director, get this bitch offa me!
Embarrassed, she ran to her trailer, slamming and locking the hatch behind her. She sat underneath the fold-up table, biting her fingernails, swearing to god that this would be the last film she’d ever make. I’ve been doing this shit for ten years man, TEN YEARS, she said to the air vent who whispered an adversarial hum back to her. No more, she thought. No more.
*****
Sally left Nicky’s office upset about her tits. She checked them out in the driver side window of her Deville. Hmmpf, she sighed. All the doctors in Beverly Hills can only do so much. When she was in her prime, she could hold an open beer under her left one and pour it into a glass waiting underneath her right one. Her favorite party trick. But years of twisting, groping, tittyfucking, and Newton’s goddamned joke of gravity had left her treasures a little closer to her waist, a little more cone shaped than round, and a little less symmetrical. She had heard the term cross-eyed torso somewhere before and it immediately came to mind.
She got into her car, looking at herself in the rearview mirror. God these bags, she thought, pulling down the skin under her eye with her index finger. She remembered a time when things couldn’t be held in these bags. When wrinkles didn’t crack and run across her face like so many dried up rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates zigzagging from her forehead down. She decided her nose was the fertile crescent. All these horrid lines and aging scars, which would give some lucky woman dignity and validity, gave her nothing more than a stomachache. For she was in the younger, prettier business.
Sally turned on the radio with the button on the steering wheel. She listened to a static-ridden KFI broadcast about the state of the nation. Something like thirty percent of Americans out of work. Health care’s a joke. Homeless people are no longer allowed to sit down on the Santa Monica Pier. Mayor Villaragosa’s fucking some reporter from Telemundo. Edwards is campaigning despite his dying wife. KSSSHHHH. Just in, he’s also cheating on her. Twelve million Californian households are in some phase of foreclosure. Two San Diego high school students killed by illegal... She switches over to satellite radio and Confetti by the Lemonheads starts playing.
She’s crying. Harder than she has in a long time. Her car hasn’t stirred from its parking space and her head is against the dash. It’s a conflicted cry. She’s happy. But she feels guilty for being happy. People are starving, not getting the right medical treatment, being forced out of their houses and she’s making millions of dollars per film, living in a gated community in Diamond Bar, and for what? For her tongue? Her tits? The key and pitch of her fake orgasm wail? She’s miserable, miserable for feeling so very thankful that she has it so easy.
Sally again looks at herself in the rearview mirror and thinks of how ugly she looks when she cries. God, what a terrible actress she would make. She starts her car and takes the 10 to the 57 home.
*****
Being in the business so long, sex like anything loses its thrill. Sally had started to take her sex life in a dangerous direction——not only to her person, but in violation of her contract. Porn stars must disclose all relations with their agency, and use their assets off camera as little as possible. This helps preserve their appeal. Tiger Woods doesn’t go around smashing mailboxes with his putter. Same idea. Or maybe not, but you get the picture.
Sally had trained herself not to cum naturally. That way she could give her audience the kind of screaming, ecstatic, plane’s going down kind of orgasm they expected from her. This meant she had to resort to things weirder and kinkier than she’d every tried before. Acts stranger than those performed during Once Upon a Time in a Mexican Girl, where she appropriated a six shot revolver with Carolina. And what got her off completely were public places. The most outlandish were always on her mind.
WHAT'S UP WITH THIS GIRL? CLICK HERE FOR MORE!
“You’ve been gettin’ sloppy Sal,” Nick, her grease-ball Italian agent told her, his cramped trailer-office littered with Diet Coke cans and Big Mac boxes. It smelled like a litter box used as an ashtray. Prune Day at the old folks home. “The last five or six shoots you’ve looked out of it. And not that sexy, droopy-eyed rape look——I could sell that——but that I don’t wanna be here, I’m slowly startin’ ta realize there’s more ta life then gettin’ fucked by a fake plastic dick look.” Sally took a cigarette from Nick’s pack sitting on his desk and lit it quick, tiny silver ghosts creeping out of her mouth.
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Act like ya want it, Sal! Act like you don’t wanna be just another flash-in-the-pan broad that no one beats it to in ten years.” Nick handed her a script for her upcoming shoot: Hardfellas, Cock-N-Roll Productions’ take on the Scorsese classic. She thumbed through it. Apparently, in the card game scene when Tommy shoots Spider in the foot——later Spider would tell Tommy to “go fuck himself!” which would inevitably be his last words——her character, Marie, brings the guys drinks and gets gangbanged by Henry, Tommy, Jimmy Conway and Frankie Carbone. It was Sally’s first dick-flick in a long time, and it was sure to be her comeback. In the industry, girls who only fuck girls tend never to last as long as the ones who hit for the cycle. “You can start by puttin’ that shit out!” Nick taking the cigarette from between her lips and dropping it into an empty soda can. “For Christ’s sake, you keep that up and ya face’ll look like a leather handbag.”
“All right, all right. Keep your hands off, you creep,” she said swatting Nick’s hands away.
“Ya test results will be in this afternoon. We’ll start shootin’ tomorrow.”
Sally hated that she had slept with Nick. In fact, it haunted her on more than one occasion, both on the job and off. She was doing a scene many years back in a movie called St. Elmo’s Firecrotch, the first time she had ever had to dye her pubes, and she had an issue on set that put an end to filming for the afternoon. It was the end of a big kegger scene where she went upstairs with Billy Hicks, the orange collar of his button-down shirt popped underneath his turquoise suit jacket a number of sizes too small. He laid on the bed as she mounted him and pulled his Ray-Ban sunglasses down past his nose and off his face. It was the first time in the entire shoot that she had seen Billy’s eyes, that deep green she despised. It stuck on her face like algae. Right then she was in Nick’s office-trailer, listening to his sickening New York accent tell her of how she’s going to be the queen of the industry. How she’s going to make lots and lots of money. How people are going to celebrate, love, WORSHIP her. How all she has to do is lay on the desk and close her eyes. She didn’t open them for long after he had finished. Nick was standing in the corner, zipping up his slacks and casually tossing his jacket over his shoulder then finally leaving. Sally just laid on the table with her eyes closed, feeling a warm and gooey stream start from her belly button running down to her thigh. Back in the frat house, she started hyperventilating as she sat on Billy’s now softened lap, then fell crying into his shoulder. He ran his fingers through her hair, telling her everything was going to be all right and not to cry, then mouthed to Mikey, the director, get this bitch offa me!
Embarrassed, she ran to her trailer, slamming and locking the hatch behind her. She sat underneath the fold-up table, biting her fingernails, swearing to god that this would be the last film she’d ever make. I’ve been doing this shit for ten years man, TEN YEARS, she said to the air vent who whispered an adversarial hum back to her. No more, she thought. No more.
*****
Sally left Nicky’s office upset about her tits. She checked them out in the driver side window of her Deville. Hmmpf, she sighed. All the doctors in Beverly Hills can only do so much. When she was in her prime, she could hold an open beer under her left one and pour it into a glass waiting underneath her right one. Her favorite party trick. But years of twisting, groping, tittyfucking, and Newton’s goddamned joke of gravity had left her treasures a little closer to her waist, a little more cone shaped than round, and a little less symmetrical. She had heard the term cross-eyed torso somewhere before and it immediately came to mind.
She got into her car, looking at herself in the rearview mirror. God these bags, she thought, pulling down the skin under her eye with her index finger. She remembered a time when things couldn’t be held in these bags. When wrinkles didn’t crack and run across her face like so many dried up rivers. The Tigris and Euphrates zigzagging from her forehead down. She decided her nose was the fertile crescent. All these horrid lines and aging scars, which would give some lucky woman dignity and validity, gave her nothing more than a stomachache. For she was in the younger, prettier business.
Sally turned on the radio with the button on the steering wheel. She listened to a static-ridden KFI broadcast about the state of the nation. Something like thirty percent of Americans out of work. Health care’s a joke. Homeless people are no longer allowed to sit down on the Santa Monica Pier. Mayor Villaragosa’s fucking some reporter from Telemundo. Edwards is campaigning despite his dying wife. KSSSHHHH. Just in, he’s also cheating on her. Twelve million Californian households are in some phase of foreclosure. Two San Diego high school students killed by illegal... She switches over to satellite radio and Confetti by the Lemonheads starts playing.
She’s crying. Harder than she has in a long time. Her car hasn’t stirred from its parking space and her head is against the dash. It’s a conflicted cry. She’s happy. But she feels guilty for being happy. People are starving, not getting the right medical treatment, being forced out of their houses and she’s making millions of dollars per film, living in a gated community in Diamond Bar, and for what? For her tongue? Her tits? The key and pitch of her fake orgasm wail? She’s miserable, miserable for feeling so very thankful that she has it so easy.
Sally again looks at herself in the rearview mirror and thinks of how ugly she looks when she cries. God, what a terrible actress she would make. She starts her car and takes the 10 to the 57 home.
*****
Being in the business so long, sex like anything loses its thrill. Sally had started to take her sex life in a dangerous direction——not only to her person, but in violation of her contract. Porn stars must disclose all relations with their agency, and use their assets off camera as little as possible. This helps preserve their appeal. Tiger Woods doesn’t go around smashing mailboxes with his putter. Same idea. Or maybe not, but you get the picture.
Sally had trained herself not to cum naturally. That way she could give her audience the kind of screaming, ecstatic, plane’s going down kind of orgasm they expected from her. This meant she had to resort to things weirder and kinkier than she’d every tried before. Acts stranger than those performed during Once Upon a Time in a Mexican Girl, where she appropriated a six shot revolver with Carolina. And what got her off completely were public places. The most outlandish were always on her mind.
WHAT'S UP WITH THIS GIRL? CLICK HERE FOR MORE!
Page 13--Hardfellas, Cont'd--Ryan Mattern
*****
Sally went to Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific the way she goes anywhere where pants are required——with enormous sunglasses on. The kind that say, maybe I’m famous, maybe I’m not, but either way you want to see what’s underneath. They kept her wrinkles away from the soccer moms who would judge her. They also hid her face from the dirty aquarium janitors who can’t afford to buy her films, so they end up beating off to her thirty-second trailers online. Its sad really, the previews I mean. Eight seconds of her going down on another girl. Star wipe. Twelve seconds of strap-on action. Star wipe. Three seconds of her topless, telling the audience that she loves them. Star wipe. Then seven seconds of product information and legal nonsense.
She walked past the “Beasts of Baja” tank, a huge gray and open-mouthed bass hulking along the top and into the tangles of seaweed. She lingered around the river otters’ exhibit, one of them floating on its back with a large clam on its chest, then disappearing into a rocky nook on the far left of its habitat.
No longer mesmerized by the cuteness of the otters, she remembered why she had come here. Walking through hallway after blue, glowing hallway she found someone who would do. He stood in the center of “Shark Lagoon”. The tank took up both sides and was connected by a glass awning so that the sharks can swim over you. His head was cocked up and rocking from side to side as he followed each predator along its path. His face hadn’t been shaved in some days, and the prickly hairs on his neck and chin were blooming like a garden of bad times. She walked over to him, stopping beside him, feigning interest by looking up too.
“See that right there?” he asked her, pointing up to an octopus inching itself across the glass of the awning.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a giant octopus. Its not even supposed to be in this tank.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Well, I’m sure the sharks wouldn’t mind a little octopus instead of their usual fish heads and guts for lunch.” He was still looking up watching the thing shimmy across the glass, but she had her eyes cast down to the crotch of his jeans to make sure this was worth her while. “You know I read somewhere that these things are so smart that they almost always figure out a way to get out of their tanks.”
“You don’t say,” she played along, wishing his giant octopus arm would come out of its tank. “My name’s Jane,” she tried to tell him, but before she could fake another word, he gasped.
She looked up to see the giant octopus tangled around a shark bigger than her. The water fizzed and bubbled violently while the two swirled in quick, tight circles, the octopus with its eight arms wrapped around the shark like thread around a finger. The two spinning like a rubbery blue hurricane. But, almost as fast as it started, it was over. The octopus inked and darted away, and the shark, broken and mauled into a dozen shark pieces, tumbled in ribbons down to the sand of the bottom. All the commotion had sent a shock between Sally’s legs, and before she knew it, she was bent over in a supply closet next to buckets, squeegees, and scuba gear, feeling octopus man’s prick shove deep inside of her. They rocked fast and dirty just like she wanted. Like waves breaking onto toxic waste runoff from San Onofre’s power plant. Like plastic choking sea turtles. Nets drowning dolphins. Seagulls eating cigarette butts. His nails scraped across her back like a harpooned whale being dragged along the deck of a ship. Oh and when they came! They came like an oil spill ruining thousands of miles of sea. Maiming every innocent life in all the ocean’s deep.
*****
Sally had exited the freeway to go home. The intolerant Christians were still out on every corner with their signs, pleading for the citizens of Diamond Bar to vote Yes on prop 8——making same sex marriage illegal. Their signs gave Sally a headache. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. KFI kept broadcasting more bad news. American soldiers are being beheaded. Bush has no intention of withdrawing troops. Banks everywhere are turning people away. Wall Street collapsing. Auto makers laying off 500,000 employees. Bailouts. Budget cuts. McDonaldization. AIPAC. Blood for Oil. Apartheid. Disney. Death row. Global warming...
“Call from: Nick,” a robotic voice interrupted through her Deville’s speakers——a hands free setup courtesy of Cock-N-Roll Productions. She dreaded hearing his thick voice muffled by a cheeseburger. He always ate on the phone. She was pulling into her driveway, and all she wanted to do was lay in the bathtub and rest up for tomorrow’s shoot.
“Yes, Nicky?” she answered.
There was an eternity of silence, just her tires against the road. Then a sigh.
“Nick are you there?” Sally asked.
“Well you really fucked us this time, Sal,” he said calm yet infuriated.
“What do you mean?”
“You failed your ELISA test, ya stupid bitch! You’re HIV positive! P-O-S-I-T-V-E!” All was quiet. “Do ya know what this means, Sal? It means no one’ll touch ya. It means you’re done in the business and I’m responsible for not keepin’ an eye on you. Who knows how many people you could’ve ruined!”
Sally couldn’t speak.
“Ya contract is over. So much for ya big come back! Un-fuckin-believable,” and the line went dead. Sally, now parked in her driveway, laid her head on the steering wheel, the Deville’s engine running and the satellite radio whispering Pink Floyd’s Obscured by Clouds.
Sally went to Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific the way she goes anywhere where pants are required——with enormous sunglasses on. The kind that say, maybe I’m famous, maybe I’m not, but either way you want to see what’s underneath. They kept her wrinkles away from the soccer moms who would judge her. They also hid her face from the dirty aquarium janitors who can’t afford to buy her films, so they end up beating off to her thirty-second trailers online. Its sad really, the previews I mean. Eight seconds of her going down on another girl. Star wipe. Twelve seconds of strap-on action. Star wipe. Three seconds of her topless, telling the audience that she loves them. Star wipe. Then seven seconds of product information and legal nonsense.
She walked past the “Beasts of Baja” tank, a huge gray and open-mouthed bass hulking along the top and into the tangles of seaweed. She lingered around the river otters’ exhibit, one of them floating on its back with a large clam on its chest, then disappearing into a rocky nook on the far left of its habitat.
No longer mesmerized by the cuteness of the otters, she remembered why she had come here. Walking through hallway after blue, glowing hallway she found someone who would do. He stood in the center of “Shark Lagoon”. The tank took up both sides and was connected by a glass awning so that the sharks can swim over you. His head was cocked up and rocking from side to side as he followed each predator along its path. His face hadn’t been shaved in some days, and the prickly hairs on his neck and chin were blooming like a garden of bad times. She walked over to him, stopping beside him, feigning interest by looking up too.
“See that right there?” he asked her, pointing up to an octopus inching itself across the glass of the awning.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a giant octopus. Its not even supposed to be in this tank.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Well, I’m sure the sharks wouldn’t mind a little octopus instead of their usual fish heads and guts for lunch.” He was still looking up watching the thing shimmy across the glass, but she had her eyes cast down to the crotch of his jeans to make sure this was worth her while. “You know I read somewhere that these things are so smart that they almost always figure out a way to get out of their tanks.”
“You don’t say,” she played along, wishing his giant octopus arm would come out of its tank. “My name’s Jane,” she tried to tell him, but before she could fake another word, he gasped.
She looked up to see the giant octopus tangled around a shark bigger than her. The water fizzed and bubbled violently while the two swirled in quick, tight circles, the octopus with its eight arms wrapped around the shark like thread around a finger. The two spinning like a rubbery blue hurricane. But, almost as fast as it started, it was over. The octopus inked and darted away, and the shark, broken and mauled into a dozen shark pieces, tumbled in ribbons down to the sand of the bottom. All the commotion had sent a shock between Sally’s legs, and before she knew it, she was bent over in a supply closet next to buckets, squeegees, and scuba gear, feeling octopus man’s prick shove deep inside of her. They rocked fast and dirty just like she wanted. Like waves breaking onto toxic waste runoff from San Onofre’s power plant. Like plastic choking sea turtles. Nets drowning dolphins. Seagulls eating cigarette butts. His nails scraped across her back like a harpooned whale being dragged along the deck of a ship. Oh and when they came! They came like an oil spill ruining thousands of miles of sea. Maiming every innocent life in all the ocean’s deep.
*****
Sally had exited the freeway to go home. The intolerant Christians were still out on every corner with their signs, pleading for the citizens of Diamond Bar to vote Yes on prop 8——making same sex marriage illegal. Their signs gave Sally a headache. Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. KFI kept broadcasting more bad news. American soldiers are being beheaded. Bush has no intention of withdrawing troops. Banks everywhere are turning people away. Wall Street collapsing. Auto makers laying off 500,000 employees. Bailouts. Budget cuts. McDonaldization. AIPAC. Blood for Oil. Apartheid. Disney. Death row. Global warming...
“Call from: Nick,” a robotic voice interrupted through her Deville’s speakers——a hands free setup courtesy of Cock-N-Roll Productions. She dreaded hearing his thick voice muffled by a cheeseburger. He always ate on the phone. She was pulling into her driveway, and all she wanted to do was lay in the bathtub and rest up for tomorrow’s shoot.
“Yes, Nicky?” she answered.
There was an eternity of silence, just her tires against the road. Then a sigh.
“Nick are you there?” Sally asked.
“Well you really fucked us this time, Sal,” he said calm yet infuriated.
“What do you mean?”
“You failed your ELISA test, ya stupid bitch! You’re HIV positive! P-O-S-I-T-V-E!” All was quiet. “Do ya know what this means, Sal? It means no one’ll touch ya. It means you’re done in the business and I’m responsible for not keepin’ an eye on you. Who knows how many people you could’ve ruined!”
Sally couldn’t speak.
“Ya contract is over. So much for ya big come back! Un-fuckin-believable,” and the line went dead. Sally, now parked in her driveway, laid her head on the steering wheel, the Deville’s engine running and the satellite radio whispering Pink Floyd’s Obscured by Clouds.
Page 16--Cenophobia--P.Bees
I have not been to the other side of the world. My earth ends here on the beach, not in the wild waves. Even walking the sloped-shore sand is treacherous. One foot an imprint, the next a sinking-sliding out to sea.
The rogue wave that grabbed at my sole encouraged its undertow to snatch at my footing. Unable to propel forward, I leaned unbalanced toward the sea, the unknown. I spread my arms. My calf muscles constricted. I pulled my foot free of the sucking insistence. I saved myself and lost myself in the same instant.
Had I abandoned to the fall, the water would have washed over me. It would have bathed away the sweat of fear. My heart yearns for the possibilities my mind refuses.
I am not that easy. Whatever it is in me that broods and chaperons my soul has cuffs of steel. I fight the misstep. I balance against the perceived fall. I stand stoic and miss the ocean’s cool lotion; miss the therapy of her broth. In resisting, I am left to examine the sandy bowl shape my weight and the wave have conspired to make. It is a mark gone in the next wash of frictionless exploit of wave.
I breathe deep and smell the sea that lingers in the mist. It clings to my hair. I think I will be able to conjure the ester mix of kelp, shells with crusted sand, wave washed rocks, and sun on a winter’s day. But I know that I will need another trip to the shore to fill my perfume vials. And every trip to the shore creates a cyclone in the bottle of my stomach. It is the twist of extremes. The upward spiral of yes and faith and hope and new beginnings. The abysmal slide to despair. To fault. To rejection and fanatic loathing.
I study the waves as they wash in, no two alike. Their separate selves rise from a orbital tidal pull. They link hands as they race for the shore, for me, until in curves of entrancing foam and froth they cross my feet and entreats me to join them. They mock me in my solidity.
The raucous rush of water heard as laughter goads me. Its persistence unnerves me. It is a sound that cannot be ignored. It is the canned laughter of TV, the background music in a restaurant, the squeak of gym shoes on a wood floor. It is everywhere and will not leave me.
I beg it to talk to me, to stop the taunts and tell me instead of its travels. Chancing to speak it tells me where its waves have been, to Walvis Bay, Kuala Lumpur, and Stavanger. These are places I long to see. The ocean’s salt spray teases with tastes of foods I long to try.
So I return each year to test my soul. I close my eyes and the lull of rhythmic beach wash, the narcotic smell of seaweed trace, and faultless fresh breeze draw me in. I feel the laciness of the white wash dress my ankles. I gaze to the horizon and watch as gulls and terns preach a fatalistic Calvinism.
I look over my shoulder and see where I have walked. I see the imprints my bare feet have made in the sand. They mark a perforated line between land and sea, the parentage of the known and the plumbless of unknown.
Perhaps another day I will tear the stub loose and ride the ticket to the other side.
The rogue wave that grabbed at my sole encouraged its undertow to snatch at my footing. Unable to propel forward, I leaned unbalanced toward the sea, the unknown. I spread my arms. My calf muscles constricted. I pulled my foot free of the sucking insistence. I saved myself and lost myself in the same instant.
Had I abandoned to the fall, the water would have washed over me. It would have bathed away the sweat of fear. My heart yearns for the possibilities my mind refuses.
I am not that easy. Whatever it is in me that broods and chaperons my soul has cuffs of steel. I fight the misstep. I balance against the perceived fall. I stand stoic and miss the ocean’s cool lotion; miss the therapy of her broth. In resisting, I am left to examine the sandy bowl shape my weight and the wave have conspired to make. It is a mark gone in the next wash of frictionless exploit of wave.
I breathe deep and smell the sea that lingers in the mist. It clings to my hair. I think I will be able to conjure the ester mix of kelp, shells with crusted sand, wave washed rocks, and sun on a winter’s day. But I know that I will need another trip to the shore to fill my perfume vials. And every trip to the shore creates a cyclone in the bottle of my stomach. It is the twist of extremes. The upward spiral of yes and faith and hope and new beginnings. The abysmal slide to despair. To fault. To rejection and fanatic loathing.
I study the waves as they wash in, no two alike. Their separate selves rise from a orbital tidal pull. They link hands as they race for the shore, for me, until in curves of entrancing foam and froth they cross my feet and entreats me to join them. They mock me in my solidity.
The raucous rush of water heard as laughter goads me. Its persistence unnerves me. It is a sound that cannot be ignored. It is the canned laughter of TV, the background music in a restaurant, the squeak of gym shoes on a wood floor. It is everywhere and will not leave me.
I beg it to talk to me, to stop the taunts and tell me instead of its travels. Chancing to speak it tells me where its waves have been, to Walvis Bay, Kuala Lumpur, and Stavanger. These are places I long to see. The ocean’s salt spray teases with tastes of foods I long to try.
So I return each year to test my soul. I close my eyes and the lull of rhythmic beach wash, the narcotic smell of seaweed trace, and faultless fresh breeze draw me in. I feel the laciness of the white wash dress my ankles. I gaze to the horizon and watch as gulls and terns preach a fatalistic Calvinism.
I look over my shoulder and see where I have walked. I see the imprints my bare feet have made in the sand. They mark a perforated line between land and sea, the parentage of the known and the plumbless of unknown.
Perhaps another day I will tear the stub loose and ride the ticket to the other side.
Page 18--Camera Shy--Greg Baldino
The lock clicked, and the girlfriend came into the apartment, early. I was finishing the latest Batman before starting dinner. Her keys made a loud clink as she threw them in the broken coffee cup we keep on the milk crate bookshelves by the door.
“Honey,” she said, her coat not yet off, my cheek still unkissed, “I need your help with my film class.”
“Okay,” I said. I set my comic book down on the couch beside me and adopted the straight-backed, hands-in-lap posture of A Thoughtful And Attentive Boyfriend. “What's the score?”
She sat in the chair opposite from me. “We’re doing documentary shorts; like little filmed essays, and for our next one, we have to show someone demonstrating a skill.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Like a cabinetmaker making a cabinet.”
“I— right,” she said, smiling her Patient Girlfriend Smile.
I thought about this. “So you want to film me down at the winery? That could be fun.”
“Actually, I wanted to film you rimming me.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Wait, what?”
She pulled a Moleskine journal from her shoulder bag and started flipping through pages of drawings and text. “It doesn’t have to be real long, just three minutes. I’ve already mocked up a storyboard, and I’ll do the voice-over so you don’t have to memorize any dialogue.”
My Thoughtful Boyfriend Posture started to give way to Spastic Jerking and Hair Pulling. “Ciara, you... you can’t film that.”
She looked up from her little boxed doodles. “Well no, I’d set the camera on the tripod.”
“What—no! Babe, this is a terrible idea!” I sprang to my feet.
“Look, I know it’s a static shot,” she stood up and tried to show me her notes, “but I figured with some editing and transitional music—”
I stepped away, not wanting to see what was in that notebook. “I don’t want you to make this film!”
What I was saying must have finally hit her, because her mouth became a perfect “O” of shock and indignation. “This is a fourth of my grade! I won’t pass if I don’t turn this in!”
“I don’t want that on film!”
“Why not? You're good at it.”
The look of hurt on her face wounded me, but I was resolute. “That’s... that's beyond private. I am not doing it.”
Hand on her hip, she cocked an eyebrow at me and spoke, crossly. “This is because I didn’t want to do your winery job, isn’t it? Does it bother you that much to think about my career for once?”
“You’re talking about me eating your ass on camera!”
“Which you do very well!”
“What and you want to tell all your classmates about it?”
She made as if to shout at me further, then stopped. Her arms attempted to gesture, but something in her fell away, leaving her like an unstrung marionette.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked, having no idea who was going to be sleeping on the couch tonight. “In God’s name, why?”
When she answered me, she was so quiet. “Because you make me happy, you big doof.”
She stepped over to me, set a hand gently on my shoulder, and guided me back down onto the couch. The comic got pushed aside as she sat next to me, close, as though we were discussing having children or buying a house.
“It’s not easy for me, you know, being in this class. Everyone’s newly married, or they’ve got kids, or they’ve just bought a house. Before class starts, all I that hear is about handprints in clay, or mortgages, or trips to bed & breakfasts.” She sighed. “And they all look so smug, and so happy, that their husbands spent twenty bucks at a card store for them, ‘just because’ it was a holiday.”
She crawled into my lap, and drew her face close to mine. “I just want to say to them, just once, ‘Hey, my man loves me so much, he goes down on my little rosebud in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, and licks me there forever until I melt, just because! I want to say that, ‘just because,’ those exact words. Just because.
“Just because,” she shrugged, “you love me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She did.
“Look, forget the film. Forget them. If it upsets you, it's not worth it. Fuck it. Forget it. Just take me into that bedroom—”
She smiled, and I swear I fell in love with her all over again.
“Our bedroom; and love me. Love me forever.”
For that smile of hers, I’ve made pancakes from scratch. I’ve embarrassed myself and the Stone Roses at karaoke. I’ve written epic poems declaring my love on the back of napkins. I’ve braved blizzards to bring back egg rolls at two in the morning because she was sick for five days straight and when her appetite returned that was the first thing she wanted.
She smiled, and all I could say was:
“Okay.”
I picked her up in my arms, and—remarkably, for a man who gets winded climbing a ladder—carried her like she was a memory, all the way to the bedroom.
She looked at me, like she wanted to kiss me, but was starving herself, holding out for the first touch of my lips on her skin.
Her coat finally came off, as we tore out of our clothes. She peeled out of her dress, nothing underneath save for a pair of black stockings, and leapt onto the bed like a determined and fearless suicide.
“Jesus, I want you,” she said.
Why do I always wear so much clothing? “God, you look good in stockings.”
She crawled over to the edge of the bed, close enough to feel her heat. “I always wear them for you, you know?”
Her mouth poured hot breath over my chest, and she kissed at my neck. Her lips fluttered like a bird.
“I’m going to lick you until you can’t walk.”
She pushed back with an adorably unsexy meep! and assumed the position. The dark silk hose framed her beautiful full derrière as she rested her head on a pillow and crouched with her hips in the air.
I joined her on the bed, smacked her raised cheek, and heard her suck in sharply, then breathe out. The soles of her feet to her calves, her thighs, her lips, her hips...
Pulling her to me, I gripped her rump; just roughly enough to excite her, but softly all the same.
My breath fell, hot, onto her forbidden chasm, I spread her open, and poised my tongue’s tip right at the apex where the small of her back met the curve of her seat. The spit on my tongue had just brushed against the sweat of her flesh. Teasing her, I kissed at her waist, devoid of elastic marks. Over the crest of her thick farmgirl booty, I looked at her. She was almost giddy with lust.
I thought to myself, My girlfriend has the best choice in underthings ever.
My tongue stopped just as I felt the first tremble of muscle run through her.
My girlfriend never leaves the house in a dress without underpants.
“Oh, god, don't tease me, I can’t bear it.”
My girlfriend sure as hell never goes without a bra when it's low fifties with a chance of nipples.
I slapped her on the cheek again. “You just wanted a rim job, didn’t you?”
She tried to snort but only sniffled.
“Honey, I’m not even taking a film class.”
“Honey,” she said, her coat not yet off, my cheek still unkissed, “I need your help with my film class.”
“Okay,” I said. I set my comic book down on the couch beside me and adopted the straight-backed, hands-in-lap posture of A Thoughtful And Attentive Boyfriend. “What's the score?”
She sat in the chair opposite from me. “We’re doing documentary shorts; like little filmed essays, and for our next one, we have to show someone demonstrating a skill.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Like a cabinetmaker making a cabinet.”
“I— right,” she said, smiling her Patient Girlfriend Smile.
I thought about this. “So you want to film me down at the winery? That could be fun.”
“Actually, I wanted to film you rimming me.”
I nodded thoughtfully. “Wait, what?”
She pulled a Moleskine journal from her shoulder bag and started flipping through pages of drawings and text. “It doesn’t have to be real long, just three minutes. I’ve already mocked up a storyboard, and I’ll do the voice-over so you don’t have to memorize any dialogue.”
My Thoughtful Boyfriend Posture started to give way to Spastic Jerking and Hair Pulling. “Ciara, you... you can’t film that.”
She looked up from her little boxed doodles. “Well no, I’d set the camera on the tripod.”
“What—no! Babe, this is a terrible idea!” I sprang to my feet.
“Look, I know it’s a static shot,” she stood up and tried to show me her notes, “but I figured with some editing and transitional music—”
I stepped away, not wanting to see what was in that notebook. “I don’t want you to make this film!”
What I was saying must have finally hit her, because her mouth became a perfect “O” of shock and indignation. “This is a fourth of my grade! I won’t pass if I don’t turn this in!”
“I don’t want that on film!”
“Why not? You're good at it.”
The look of hurt on her face wounded me, but I was resolute. “That’s... that's beyond private. I am not doing it.”
Hand on her hip, she cocked an eyebrow at me and spoke, crossly. “This is because I didn’t want to do your winery job, isn’t it? Does it bother you that much to think about my career for once?”
“You’re talking about me eating your ass on camera!”
“Which you do very well!”
“What and you want to tell all your classmates about it?”
She made as if to shout at me further, then stopped. Her arms attempted to gesture, but something in her fell away, leaving her like an unstrung marionette.
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked, having no idea who was going to be sleeping on the couch tonight. “In God’s name, why?”
When she answered me, she was so quiet. “Because you make me happy, you big doof.”
She stepped over to me, set a hand gently on my shoulder, and guided me back down onto the couch. The comic got pushed aside as she sat next to me, close, as though we were discussing having children or buying a house.
“It’s not easy for me, you know, being in this class. Everyone’s newly married, or they’ve got kids, or they’ve just bought a house. Before class starts, all I that hear is about handprints in clay, or mortgages, or trips to bed & breakfasts.” She sighed. “And they all look so smug, and so happy, that their husbands spent twenty bucks at a card store for them, ‘just because’ it was a holiday.”
She crawled into my lap, and drew her face close to mine. “I just want to say to them, just once, ‘Hey, my man loves me so much, he goes down on my little rosebud in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, and licks me there forever until I melt, just because! I want to say that, ‘just because,’ those exact words. Just because.
“Just because,” she shrugged, “you love me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She did.
“Look, forget the film. Forget them. If it upsets you, it's not worth it. Fuck it. Forget it. Just take me into that bedroom—”
She smiled, and I swear I fell in love with her all over again.
“Our bedroom; and love me. Love me forever.”
For that smile of hers, I’ve made pancakes from scratch. I’ve embarrassed myself and the Stone Roses at karaoke. I’ve written epic poems declaring my love on the back of napkins. I’ve braved blizzards to bring back egg rolls at two in the morning because she was sick for five days straight and when her appetite returned that was the first thing she wanted.
She smiled, and all I could say was:
“Okay.”
I picked her up in my arms, and—remarkably, for a man who gets winded climbing a ladder—carried her like she was a memory, all the way to the bedroom.
She looked at me, like she wanted to kiss me, but was starving herself, holding out for the first touch of my lips on her skin.
Her coat finally came off, as we tore out of our clothes. She peeled out of her dress, nothing underneath save for a pair of black stockings, and leapt onto the bed like a determined and fearless suicide.
“Jesus, I want you,” she said.
Why do I always wear so much clothing? “God, you look good in stockings.”
She crawled over to the edge of the bed, close enough to feel her heat. “I always wear them for you, you know?”
Her mouth poured hot breath over my chest, and she kissed at my neck. Her lips fluttered like a bird.
“I’m going to lick you until you can’t walk.”
She pushed back with an adorably unsexy meep! and assumed the position. The dark silk hose framed her beautiful full derrière as she rested her head on a pillow and crouched with her hips in the air.
I joined her on the bed, smacked her raised cheek, and heard her suck in sharply, then breathe out. The soles of her feet to her calves, her thighs, her lips, her hips...
Pulling her to me, I gripped her rump; just roughly enough to excite her, but softly all the same.
My breath fell, hot, onto her forbidden chasm, I spread her open, and poised my tongue’s tip right at the apex where the small of her back met the curve of her seat. The spit on my tongue had just brushed against the sweat of her flesh. Teasing her, I kissed at her waist, devoid of elastic marks. Over the crest of her thick farmgirl booty, I looked at her. She was almost giddy with lust.
I thought to myself, My girlfriend has the best choice in underthings ever.
My tongue stopped just as I felt the first tremble of muscle run through her.
My girlfriend never leaves the house in a dress without underpants.
“Oh, god, don't tease me, I can’t bear it.”
My girlfriend sure as hell never goes without a bra when it's low fifties with a chance of nipples.
I slapped her on the cheek again. “You just wanted a rim job, didn’t you?”
She tried to snort but only sniffled.
“Honey, I’m not even taking a film class.”
Page 21--Stones--Jef Peeples
White, smooth, weather polished stones.
My grandmother and I collected them in the park
behind my house. Or rather she watched me
as I chose each one, somehow instinctively,
and placed it in my pocket.
I’m not sure on what merits I made my choices,
which to leave by the gnarled oak tree
and which to plant on each side of me.
I felt sorry for all the orphan rocks and wanted to take them all.
But choosing one means leaving another,
and perhaps they chose me anyway.
Some were tiny like bird eggs.
Some were larger like the cobblestones
used as ballast before paving the downtown streets.
With these, I would fill my pockets until I could hardly move,
almost doubling my weight with rubble.
I would sway with the balance of the mounds.
I have kept these stones since that day,
lining my pockets with their heavy affection.
Sometimes they have kept me from floating away.
Sometimes they have caused me to drown.
My grandmother and I collected them in the park
behind my house. Or rather she watched me
as I chose each one, somehow instinctively,
and placed it in my pocket.
I’m not sure on what merits I made my choices,
which to leave by the gnarled oak tree
and which to plant on each side of me.
I felt sorry for all the orphan rocks and wanted to take them all.
But choosing one means leaving another,
and perhaps they chose me anyway.
Some were tiny like bird eggs.
Some were larger like the cobblestones
used as ballast before paving the downtown streets.
With these, I would fill my pockets until I could hardly move,
almost doubling my weight with rubble.
I would sway with the balance of the mounds.
I have kept these stones since that day,
lining my pockets with their heavy affection.
Sometimes they have kept me from floating away.
Sometimes they have caused me to drown.
Page 22--Lady Finger Palm Uses A Cane--Cyndi Gacosta
Lady finger palm uses a cane
To get up and stand on one leg
Then walk around a pond
To where there are others like her
Together, they form a shade
Under them I sleep to dream
To dream the childhood realm
Of stones that skip across ponds
Of frogs that creep at night
Of a beetle that sits still on a sill
Of a tire afloat on green waves
Of coconut groves and seaweed graves
Of gaps between woods of a porch
Awake. I get up being beaten with her cane.
To get up and stand on one leg
Then walk around a pond
To where there are others like her
Together, they form a shade
Under them I sleep to dream
To dream the childhood realm
Of stones that skip across ponds
Of frogs that creep at night
Of a beetle that sits still on a sill
Of a tire afloat on green waves
Of coconut groves and seaweed graves
Of gaps between woods of a porch
Awake. I get up being beaten with her cane.
Page 23--Haikus--Sarah Ahmad
Ignorant
Intensely leaning
against a long-standing wall
as the bridge falls in.
--------------
Revenge
Hawk melts vividly
as the dove dances squirming
around raining clouds.
--------------
Tragedy
Filth of the stone bites
as singing paper frost flees
and dies flat dimly.
Intensely leaning
against a long-standing wall
as the bridge falls in.
--------------
Revenge
Hawk melts vividly
as the dove dances squirming
around raining clouds.
--------------
Tragedy
Filth of the stone bites
as singing paper frost flees
and dies flat dimly.
Page 24--Dread and Then--Davide Trame
Even if you are always at a loss
when you try to define it,
you know it well, it’s so yours.
Its constancy like gravity.
Because you know you’ll have
to face the test,
the honed marble, the axe
of the sentence.
Because you can’t pretend
not to sense
the ultimate, unavoidable,
blade’s sharpness.
Well, yes, you can find
some comfort just before,
some sympathy,
an embrace.
Maybe the same
buzzing of voices
that has accompanied you
throughout.
Just before.
And in the meantime, in the wait,
you cast a thought’s feather
there, where you can’t see yet,
after it’s all over:
sky at last and a shot
of scattering swallows,
unconstrained space and breath,
at one with belief.
when you try to define it,
you know it well, it’s so yours.
Its constancy like gravity.
Because you know you’ll have
to face the test,
the honed marble, the axe
of the sentence.
Because you can’t pretend
not to sense
the ultimate, unavoidable,
blade’s sharpness.
Well, yes, you can find
some comfort just before,
some sympathy,
an embrace.
Maybe the same
buzzing of voices
that has accompanied you
throughout.
Just before.
And in the meantime, in the wait,
you cast a thought’s feather
there, where you can’t see yet,
after it’s all over:
sky at last and a shot
of scattering swallows,
unconstrained space and breath,
at one with belief.
Page 26--Galaxies--Davide Trame
I have just finished this long, long story,
logs running down the river, a huge tight rolling,
and the snow blizzard, the fury of blinding flakes,
Ketchum, Daniel, Dominic, names, on the road I read of,
and after reading the last word it certainly all lasts
like the last note of a concert, the meaningful
silence suspended in the conductor’s baton, in his
tense fingers holding the sky’s roar.
I am wondering how many life stories I plunged into
in this life, I like a pupil in them, in a sea
of many eyes.
Characters, plots, galaxies within galaxies.
It’s what makes me think about the illusion
that we are living just one life.
I have another story ready by my side, waiting
with its fresh stings of salt at the water’s edge,
on one of the many beaches I have left
that are still present with this
sea roar facing the growling sky,
dragging you in before you know it.
logs running down the river, a huge tight rolling,
and the snow blizzard, the fury of blinding flakes,
Ketchum, Daniel, Dominic, names, on the road I read of,
and after reading the last word it certainly all lasts
like the last note of a concert, the meaningful
silence suspended in the conductor’s baton, in his
tense fingers holding the sky’s roar.
I am wondering how many life stories I plunged into
in this life, I like a pupil in them, in a sea
of many eyes.
Characters, plots, galaxies within galaxies.
It’s what makes me think about the illusion
that we are living just one life.
I have another story ready by my side, waiting
with its fresh stings of salt at the water’s edge,
on one of the many beaches I have left
that are still present with this
sea roar facing the growling sky,
dragging you in before you know it.
Page 27--Drinkology--Howie Good
Time disappears when I sleep.
When I wake up, it’s in a landscape
derived from security camera tapes,
the descriptions of witnesses.
Black cars abound – frailties, too.
But it helps a little if you think
of other words for being drunk.
Bombed. Looped. Shit-faced.
Destroyed.
When I wake up, it’s in a landscape
derived from security camera tapes,
the descriptions of witnesses.
Black cars abound – frailties, too.
But it helps a little if you think
of other words for being drunk.
Bombed. Looped. Shit-faced.
Destroyed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
