Stubs 2 Berserk D’Sorbet

Stubs (see last post) don’t just pile up in my story pick up file. They also accumulate in my unfinished post file. Here are a few random snippets that never grew up into real posts.

(Which doesn’t mean they won’t someday.)

I've come to the conclusion that the baby boom generation will never be considered venerable or wise. We're just a silly generation - a roving era of flibbity gibbets; addicted to fads from the early days of hula hoops all the way to Viagra. All my life, whatever age I attain, it will be considered the age of silly people.

Oh well, no biggie.

Justice

“I know I broke up with you, but I need you to do me a favor.”

“Wha…?”

“I need you to get tested. I’ll pay for it.”

“Wha…?”

“You see my new boyfriend thinks I gave it to him, but if you don’t have it, then I can prove he gave it to me.”

“How do you want your coffee?” asked the waitress sweetly

“Black!” answered the middle-aged man as if the possibility that he might like flavor involved in his breakfast beverage was a personal assault.

Considering his attitude, why was he so surprised that his Belgian waffle was covered in baking soda instead of powdered sugar?

Excuse 483

Sorry I’m a little late, Boss

I came the other way

No, I don’t mean the side roads

I wanted to avoid the sun in my eyes

So I went west instead of east

The extra 8000 miles takes longer than you’d think

Then there that Pacific thing.

It’s a good thing I had my Yugo treated to float like a 72 bug

because the bridge must have been out.

Swiss cheese and I are tight

by Headley Hauser

Some bonds often

Are closer than all others

And Swiss Cheese binds me

So close it nearly smothers

Parting such intimates

Is a Herculean feat

Swiss cheese keeps me closer

To everything I eat

So if your meals are celebrations

Of togetherness and bliss

Forget the prunes and fiber

And eat the cheese that’s Swiss

Particle board is wood in the same way that vomit is food.

Wise Ass Beer – it doesn't make you smarter when you drink it – it just makes you think you are.

(Wise-Ass Beer Company, Hudson, Mass – drink responsibly)

What I’d Like to Hear in a Post-Game Interview

Interview: So it was a much closer game than most imagined it would be. Is this a moral victory for you?

Player: Muskrat Susie, Muskrat Sam, do the jitterbug down in Muskrat land.

Interview: I’m sorry?

Player: I forgive you.

Interview: Right… so when did you feel the momentum turn against you?

Player: And they jiggle, and they start to giggle.

Interview: Look – I’m asking questions about the game. Why are you giving me lines from a Captain and Tennille song?

Player: Because Muskrat Love is the most stupid-ass song ever, and if you insist on asking me stupid-ass questions – that’s what you’re gonna get.

Here's a video that shows why cats don't work in child care.

Stubs - Vernon

No – I don’t waste all of my time.

I’m sometimes asked why I have so few books and stories. (I guess blog posts don’t count.) After all, I’m told, it doesn’t really take that long to write a novella, what do you do with the rest of your time?

You mean other than borrow Pop Tarts from friends?

Okay, I’m not a complete bum. I do a lot of writing nobody ever sees. For each Trouble in Taos, or Mortified, there are dozens of story ideas I squirrel away for possible future use. I write a page or two so I can remember the idea, then save it in two burgeoning folders on my laptop. I call these writings, Stubs. 

 Here’s one I wrote on Tuesday.

Vernon Hororfield Crawford considered himself nobody’s fool. This was true to a degree. There was no registered deed, no contract of bondage, no mafia blood-oath that marked Vernon as belonging to anybody in particular.

It was certainly true relationally, as Vernon had never had a girl-friend, unless you count Mary-Ellen Boxenbaucher who had once let him kiss her – right on the braces, during recess in third grade.

As such, it might be best stated that Vernon was a everybody’s fool, a free-agent fool, a fool at large, a fool about town, a fool without boarders, a…

I think you get the idea.

If you saw Vernon at home, you probably wouldn’t need this narrative to come the above fool-related conclusion. Vernon lived in a large trailer park, which other than being unusually tornado-magnetic, was remarkable in only one respect – its paucity of rubbish disposal facilities.

The reason for the paucity (or lack, if you don’t enjoy the word paucity – or have developed an allergy to words that begin with the letters p, a, u, c, which includes… paucity among possible others I can’t think of at the moment,) was that Theobald (Grimy) James, the manager of the Gone With the Wind Trailer Park rented the community’s industrial-sized 23 foot dumpster to Vernon as a mobile home.

Other than the lack of windows, paucity (there’s that word again,) of electricity (Grimy had strung one extension cord from Blind Man Bridger’s breaker box,) and general smell of ancient putrefaction, the mini-delux (as Grimy called it,) served Vernon’s needs tolerably well.

Of course he had to be careful to keep his high-threshold doors well padlocked, not only to keep his neighbors from throwing trash onto his kitchen table, but to keep scavengers from claiming the TV, mini-fridge, and electric toilet he rented from Bloodsucker’s Bay Fine Furniture to Let.

On the plus side, having entirely metal walls, he had the best broadcast channel reception in the park.

That’s it – that’s all there is. Someday, Vernon and his foolishness might become a short story or even a book, but for now, he joins a host of other stubs in my voluminous “Pick Up” file.

But unlike his file co-residents and the electric toilet in his dumpster, Vernon, having been posted here, has seen the light of day.

So you see - I don't waste time.  There's no reason in the world that I have a link to this video.

Stuff I Get From Others

Once again, I give the masochistic... no that's supposed to be faithful, viewers of my blog a break.  More pictures; fewer words.
And as these pictures were sent to me on Facebook and other sources - less Headley content in general.

For some reason, several things I get from "friends" follow a certain theme.

Others have a vocational tilt.

Given those choices, I'll take the pirate job, which for some reason leads us to grammar.

And puns

Did you hear about the Buddhist monk who refused Novocain during a root canal? He wanted to transcend dental medication.

And for a reason I can't fathom, this -

And finally these stupidities

For today's video - here's Ellen  from 28 years ago.

Chapbooks!!!

Four years ago, Go Figure Reads asked me to put together two chapbooks, one of stories, and one of old columns. Being a diligent fella, I handed them in a couple months later, thinking they’ll want to publish these shortly after Trouble in Taos finally gets released.

Then two years later they told me to start this blog. After a few months of the blog, the chapbook with old columns got thrown out. Then they went to work on the remaining chapbook, gutting most of my work, adding stuff, and dividing it in two.

Well, at least I was going to get some money out it…

Nope. (%^$*@@&!Z*QQQ##*) They’re free.

Postage isn’t, but they’re free.

If you want your own copy of The Money Mountain (and other stories) along with Mortified (and other stories) send me a stamped self-addressed envelope large enough to enclose two 9x6 (actually 81/2”x 51/2” but by saying 9x6, I will hopefully avoid those who send a tiny envelope suitable for Tinkerbelle’s hankie and expect two honking chapbooks to be stuffed inside by magical fairy dust.) The postage on your SASE should be 182 cents (AKA a dollar – eighty-two,) in whatever postal denominational configurations you choose to employ.

Send your request to:

Headley Hauser

c/o Will Wright

5765-7 Hickory Knoll Dr.

Winston-Salem, NC 27106

Helpful tip: If you put two dollars and twenty-eight cents on the outer envelope, the post office will cancel all the postage – not just the forty-six cents to get your letter to me. They’re just that way. You won’t get any chapbooks from me – though I might mock you in a later post. I’m just that way.

So… you aren’t asking, so I’ll ask to cover your embarrassing silence, when do the e-books come out so we can save our one hundred and eight-two pennies, our honking big envelope, and the pain of addressing and licking stuff.

Well – based on track record, I’d advise you to check back in about four years.

MORTIFIED

(and other stories)

In This Book

The Only Roach: One roach has enough sense to avoid the exterminator’s trap. Now can he learn to live in a house of humans?

Toto in Munchinland: You know the story. Now see it through the eyes (and nose) of Dorothy’s little dog.

Mortified: Stan Plotz tried to play it safe. He died anyway. This is going to require some adjustment on his part.

The Money Mountain

(and other stories)

In This Book

The Money Mountain: Commerce could get confusing in the land of Monet, but how much “help” was too much?

Doeg’s Story: A songbird meets another bird in a lovely garden. There’s something about the other bird’s golden tether that seems disturbing.

The Crow and the Weeping Man: The kingdoms of Plenty and Bountiful fight for the Bay of Piscane. The Crow can bring victory – but what of the weeping man?

Here's a little help when you're counting up those old 5 cent postage stamps.

I Don’t Feel Like It

In the life of any blog, there are going to be days you just don’t feel like it.

Blogging, that is.

I don’t feel like blogging today.

I could be telling you about the poodle that raised me which is the reason I still feel the urge to urinate when I see a fire hydrant.

But I don’t feel like it.

I could tell you how a cabal of scientists has conspired to infect disinfectant wipes with a virus that causes OCD.

Nope – don’t feel like it.

Then there’s the representative from Oregon that joined a monastery and took a vow of silence. He’s become so popular that his fellow congress-people have nominated him for speaker.

You won’t hear about it from me – I don’t feel like it.

Why do shelf and cheap furniture makers find it easier to glue millions of specks of sawdust into board shape than to just use… boards?

I won’t tell you – don’t feel like it.

Then there’s the mighty condor that flies everywhere and eats anything. Why is it endangered, but bugs that insist on flying into your mouth when you’re breathing hard remain too numerous to count?

Don’t ask me. I might know – just don’t ask. I don’t feel like talking about it.

So, celebrities that don’t want to talk to admirers are ‘blowing them off.’ The admirers they blow off are called fans. Fans are things we use to… blow things off. Do you think that’s strange?

If so, please don’t bring it up.

As I might have mentioned - I don’t want to blog today. I don’t want to talk about sticky spots on the floor, the glories of finishing second on reality TV shows, or why the Department of Education needs a SWAT team.

Oh - by the way - I learned to fly.

I just don’t want to get in to it.

Thanks for understanding.

Here's a little guy that gets it. 

Look – Up in the Air – It’s a…

Drone. The word makes me laugh.

I don’t know why I laugh – drones are killing people around the world, but we’re assured they won’t be killing us Americans (unless we really bug the politician in power at the time.) Drones are also spying on us – not only the NSA, but Google, which is fast becoming the corporate version of Big Brother.

The internet porn industry loves drones. There’s no such thing as discrete sun-bathing anymore – Just ask Kate.

But still, I laugh when I think of drones – little flying mopeds giving off an occasional beep for no apparent reason, carrying cameras, packages from Amazon, Italian food.

If I had a drone, it would look like Marvin the Martian. It would threaten random people with its space modulator. It probably wouldn't last long - shot down by one of those Duck Dynasty guys. People just can’t take a joke any more.

I had breakfast with some fellow starving artists this week, and we discussed drones.

“I heard one crashed into this gorgeous lake in Yellowstone,” said the nature photographer.

“Maybe it’ll start a coral reef,” I offered helpfully.

“I don’t believe Amazon’s using them to deliver packages – just a publicity stunt,” said the only one among us with any promotional savvy.

The playwright and the poet were strangely quiet, but I think both were taking notes, as was I – the humble blogger, easily identified as a blogger because I ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.

“I envision a world full of flying shrapnel,” I told them, “gleefully careening just above our heads. A book from Amazon and a pizza from Luigi’s crash in mid-flight showering pepperoni and poetry on a geriatric hippie. The hippie sifts through the carnage for food, thought, and spare parts for his Vespa.”

That’s when they moved to another table marked, “blogger-free zone.” It’s pretty bad when even starving artists won’t associate with you. It was almost as bad as the time I was sniffed and snubbed by a yellow Labrador retriever, who then proceeded to roll around in deer poop.

“I’m also a novelist!” I cried to my ex-table mates. Sound, apparently didn't carry the seven feet to their table. The novelist bit didn't impress the Labrador either.

If only I could grow little mechanical wings, maybe I could hang out with Marvin and the other drones.

No, they probably shun bloggers too.

So here's the star of today's blog - my favorite hostile ET.