10 Books You Need to Write Before I Die

10. Acid Waterfall
by Terry Schmidt
- This gloomy tale follows a small New England community whose children keep disappearing. A little girl witnesses her brother burn to death in the town waterfall. But will anyone heed her warnings before another child dies?

“Schmidt turns the suspense dial to 11 and doesn’t let up.”

9. Mrs. Peterson and Her Cats
by Joan Madison
- Mrs. Peterson was widowed two years ago. Her friends encourage her to start dating again, but she finds herself uncomfortable around anyone besides her cats. Her world is turned upside down when she starts developing cat-like features on her body.

“One of the best books in the lycan genre.”

8. All Bogs Go To Heaven
by Juan Melendez
- A poignant study about the world’s swamps drying up, Melendez documents his experiences traveling to these endangered habitats with meticulous detail. What he discovers shocked the literary and scientific world and earned him a Nobel Prize. The mystery continues. Do swamps have free will?

“Melendez has proven himself to be one the greatest minds of our generation, and I’m not just saying that because he’s Latino.”

7. Swallow
by Jonathan Webb
- This autobiographical account of Webb’s experience during the Korean War expertly depicts the psychological horrors soldiers endure in wartime. Webb, a prostitute in Korea at the time, chronicles his encounters with American soldiers and the fear they only admit having to him.

“The graphic sexual detail Webb employs sometimes distracts from his awesome insight into the soldiers’ psyche.”

6. The F Train
by Jaleel Thompson
- A young African American boy travels on the F Train everyday to go to school. He starts seeing the same people on a daily basis – The frazzled businessman running late to work, an unshaven apathetic twenty-something, and a quiet woman who sits in the back corner seat. The boy’s life is turned upside down when he realizes that the quiet woman starts developing cat-like features.

“Thompson’s understanding of lycanthropy is unlike any author before or after him.”

5. Hiram J. Belliwick Goes To Washington
by J.B. Obermayer
- This swan dive into surrealism features the curmudgeony Hiram J. Belliwick, a man “twice his own age” with a foot for a face, who won’t answer to anything but his full name. He enters a headbutting contest, much to the dismay of the other contestants since his face is a foot. The judges disallow his entry and Hiram J. Belliwick soon finds himself in the middle of a Supreme Court Case and a media frenzy.

“I didn’t understand most of this book, but I understand that it’s respected.”

4. lol Lucifer
by Sally Unger
- This is an autobiographical account of Unger’s IM conversation with Beelzebul. Unger finds herself in a strange chat room with fiery graphics after clicking on a pi symbol that appeared at the bottom of her screen. A man with no screen name starts talking to her and is so hilarious, Unger is forced to use “lol” multiple times.

“I didn’t believe it was Satan at first, but the facts are too compelling to ignore.”

3. Cancer Shoes
by Benjamin Pendelow
- Harry, a shoe salesman in Savannah, is tired of his mundane existence. In order to spice up his life, he starts playing practical jokes on customers. When he sells a pair of shoes, he replaces one of the shoes in the box with a shoe that’s one size smaller. After two years of nobody noticing, a teenage girl discovers Harry’s secret and blackmails him. Harry begrudgingly finds himself going to her high school prom and buying her alcohol only to find out that she has cancer.

“It’s not often that you see a book like this published.”

2. Sticky Rice
by Silas Carragher
- Two gaysians who refuse to date outside of their race decide to open an Asian-Caribbean fusion restaurant in Manhattan. When they hire Pierre, a sexy black maître d’, they both find themselves having feelings for a race other than their own. A love triangle ensues, but when they discover Pierre is a woman, they decide to fire her. They soon find themselves in the middle of a Supreme Court Case and a media frenzy.

“I didn’t understand how during sex, neither of the gaysians could detect Pierre’s gender.”

1. Broken Ladyfingers
by Mae Brown
- A female boxer is tired of fighting women. After compiling a record of 13-9 against women, she seeks the challenge of fighting men. She undergoes a sex change operation and starts fighting on the men’s circuit. After breaking his fingers multiple times, he consults a doctor who tells him that the sex change operation doesn’t change the sex of the fingers.

“Mae Brown writes one of the most provocative sex change boxing stories of the past century in ‘Broken Ladyfingers’”

Blog #35 complete.

Metamorphosis

An unfocused blog yields few readers. An unfocused reader yields few blogs. Both are symptomatic of a blog’s demise. My blog has been diagnosed with pointlessness. The blogging code of conduct, which I’ve ignored thus far, states that one’s blog must cater to a specific field of interest in order to maintain readership  (e.g. political punditry, tech troubleshooting, funny photos, etc.). I’m only qualified to discuss one topic, so in an effort to try and crack double-digit readers, any future blogs will relate to public restroom etiquette. Enjoy.

Metamorphosis complete.

Memoirs Final Chapter

“The cancer has metastasized,” Dr. Rubenstein says. “It’s now in your imagination.”

“How long do I have?” my husband asks.

The doctor looks at Carl. “You seem perfectly healthy. I would say another 35 to 40 years.” Carl lets out a sigh of relief. “Mr. Colman,” he says turning to me, “I would guess you have no longer than 15 minutes.”

“15 minutes?!” I cry.

“Well if the cancer doesn’t kill you in the next 15 minutes, I will,” the doctor jokes.

“Can I please be alone?” I ask.

“You’re going to be, soon enough,” Carl says. “And so will I.”

Carl kisses me on the mouth with his cleft pallet and leaves the hospital room, followed by Dr. Rubenstein.

Kissing Carl still feels wrong. Being straight has always been a hindrance on our relationship. I remember the day we met. He asked if he could buy me a drink. I told him I wasn’t gay. Ten months later, we were married. My father refused to go to our wedding. To this day, he hasn’t met Carl.

I can feel the cancer cells spreading through my imagination. I find myself struggling to picture a unicorn, Carl’s favorite animal. He used to call me his unicorn. I always thought that was pretty gay, but it seems sweet now in my final moments.

It’s raining outside. It stops. The sun is fighting its way through the clouds. It’s sunny outside. It starts to rain a little bit more. The rain gets a little heavier. It calms to a sprinkle. It gets a little heavier again. It stops. It starts raining again. A rainbow appears.

Blog #31 complete.

Memoirs Part 1

I was conceived in the winter of ‘84. It was an average winter – the kind of winter where you need to dress warmly to avoid falling ill. My father demanded another son since it had become clear that my brother was too gay for Jesus to fix. And so, my mother worked hard to ensure their next offspring be a straight male, spending most of her days watching Charles Bronson films and taking whiskey shots. That April brought showers with the promise of May flowers, and me. Born 26 weeks premature, I weighed only two ounces and measured 19 inches from head to toe though technically I had neither.

My early childhood proved challenging. I didn’t look like the other children. I didn’t have organs or even a mouth. I was anxious when the first day of school came. I was used to not fitting in, but school turns loners into losers and losers into spectacles. My mother walked with me to the classroom and gave me a kiss before nudging me toward my peers. There were giggles when I first entered the room, met with quick admonishment from my teacher, Ms. Wilcox. I fell in love for the first time. Ms. Wilcox was the most beautiful woman I had ever sensed. She had hair, eyes and gave off body heat. I thought about Ms. Wilcox often, dreaming of marriage and the children we would one day raise together. She even seemed to reciprocate my fondness of her, spending more time with me than any other student. One day after class, I couldn’t stop myself from expressing my feelings to her.

“I love you,” I said. “I love you more than bees love flowers. I love you more than sprinkles love ice cream. I love you more than clouds love the sky.”

She looked frustrated. “I’m sorry, Scott,” she said. “I can’t understand you. There were too many beeps. Remember, one beep for yes, two beeps for no.”

Blog #30 complete

Virgin vs. Revirgin

‘Tis better to have fucked and lost than never to have fucked at all?

One friend of mine is an involuntary virgin-for-life. Another isn’t capable of getting laid anymore. I’m saving myself for marriage so I can give my virginity as a gift to my wife or husband.

Neither of my friends realize they’re officially out of contention for a vagina (disambiguate). The revirgin thinks he’s one high-paying job away from being bombarded by poon. He’s had it before, so he logically thinks he’ll have it again. The virgin thinks his shyness is the only obstacle between him and a pussy parade. Denial is his greatest ally.

So if the veil was lifted from their eyes and they saw an eternally snatchless reality, what would their reactions be? Would the virgin be more devastated than the revirgin never having had a whiff of a snizz? Maybe the revirgin would take it harder realizing he’ll never see another set of donkey ears again.

Susan Boyle is a good example of a virgin not killing themselves knowing full well their Sarlacc Pit will never get fed. Bringing into play the opposite sex illuminates the real issue here. Beggars can’t be choosers.

Science shows that on a 10-point scale, one being the ugliest, 10 being the hottest, most people aim for a mate at least one point above themselves to ensure their offspring have improved genes. As a result, the ones of the world aren’t aware of each others’ existence. The problem is compounded by ones who believe they’re several points higher on the MBS (Maslow’s Beauty Scale).

If ones were content with genetically settling, every disgusting, deformed, virgin-homunculus could have guaranteed satisfaction when their cellars got damp.

Blog #24 complete.

Sleep Werewolf

Blog #22 complete.

Blogoraptors

Blog #19 complete.

Tense Issues

I’m anxious. Every action in my life is fear-based. I also fuck up tenses in my writing. The conditional tense often morphs into the future tense for me. As I expound on hypothetical scenarios, woulds become wills as if my fantasies were prophetic. Do you see what I did with the title? Do you see? The double entendre in human form. Do you see? The double entendre changing. 

Blog #18 complete.

Friendly Fire

Three goals. Two guys. One cup.

“You’re still striving for infamy, right?” my friend asked me.
“Sure,” I said. “Are you still striving for career advancement?”
He nodded. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

I wasn’t, but after a brief explanation, was shown how we could both achieve our life goals. My friend is in the FBI, so he could single-handedly bring notoriety to whatever crimes I end up committing. With his fingers on the pulse of the investigation, he could keep me one step ahead of law enforcement. In return, I’d leave friend-friendly clues that would give him the edge over other investigators. It would all lead to one climactic showdown where I’d force him to kill me since arresting and putting me in a cell is like “trying to arrest a rainbow and putting it in a cell.” At that point, I’d lift my crossbow to fire at him, prompting a solemn, fatal shot from him. With my last breath, I’d say, “Tell Merrill to swing away.” These, of course, the last words of Mel Gibson’s wife in the film, Signs. It’s such an insignificant quote, we’d both get a chuckle as I fade to black.

My friend gets a promotion for catching me. Check. I gain infamy through death. Check. We have a final showdown (cup optional). Check. 

Blog #17 complete.

Photo Essay

more about “Photo Essay“, posted with vodpod

 

Here’s a direct link for the slideshow.

Blog #14 complete.