Yes, I know I'm 2 days late, but they tell me I was born three weeks late, so from my perspective, I'm catching up, but I will never catch up with the sweet, gentle, and wise icon of our society - the mother.
Not all mothers have children
Some Mommas aren't even women
But they're all wise
Okay, the wisdom is not always obvious
I'm pretty sure those are Dad hands.
Wise Mothers are always ready to give advice in different categories such as...
helpful
Conflicted
mortifying
Useful
religious
Wisdom that can follow you even after she's gone.
Here's a song from BB King I first heard on Mother's Day this year.
Hello –
Walter Bego here, Senior Editor of Go Figure Reads – the company
that so judiciously rejected Dirk Destroyer for publication.
As odd as it
may sound, there was a time when the manuscript you’ve been reading
was worse than it is now. Its improvement is largely due to Judy
Oregano. She made several corrections, suggestions, and even cut out
whole chapters (or non-chapters.) Three of those non-chapters are
below. I include them here for the benefit of our more masochistic
readership.
Dirk Destroyer’s Less Destructive Brother – the lost (thank
goodness) non-chapters.
Chapter Non-Thirteen
Whine, Whine, and Something Else
Headley here again. I’m getting some criticism, and I thought I
should address it. It seems that some people are upset about the
irregularity of my chapters. Some chapters are numbered by word,
like this one, and others are numbered by… well, numbers, I guess.
Numerals, you say?
Well did I ask you?
The reason for this is quite clear if you’re paying any kind of
attention to what’s going on. The chapters uh, numeralized are the
chapters that keep the story flowing. The other chapters are titled
by word because that’s the way I want them.
It’s very frustrating to receive such criticism while I’m still
writing my rough draft. Here’s an email I got.
Dear Headley Hauser:
You are an ass. You should burn in hell. Your chapters are
driving me crazy. Chapter 12 was puny, and chapter 11 went on
FOREVER! I wanted to find the school nurse’s station and
fast-forward you to oblivion. Why are you doing this? Are you from
the devil? I hope you and the devil have a wonderful time in
eternity together.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Let me just say this. You’ve got quite a mouth on you for a mom.
Do you kiss your kids after saying stuff like that? I don’t know
where in the US Calcutta is, but I worry about the kids in your town
if all the moms are like you.
I’d really like to say a great deal more here, because my publisher
– Go Figure Reads (gofigurereads.com) is always on me about how
short my stories are. Well if all the readers are like Mother Terri
out there in Calcutta, I guess that means I’m just doing them a
favor.
Chapter Non-Fourteen
HA!
There! Chapter 13 is short too. I even named the chapter Grand
Prize Give-Away even thought there were no Prizes in the chapter,
Grand or otherwise. I did it just to piss off that Theresa mutha’.
Take that you Calcutta crack-pot!
Chapter Non-Sixteen
I Get Interrupted. You Get Interrupted
Headley again. I’m only interrupting because I keep getting
interrupted. Another e-mail. You won’t believe what…
Well, I just let you read it.
Dear Headley Hauser:
It is my unpleasant duty to correct some misapprehensions on
your part in your… literary efforts entitled, “Dirk Destroyer’s
Less Destructive Brother.” Although the errors and incidents of
poor taste are too numerous to catalog in a simple email, I must
specifically address your mistakes regarding Mother Theresa of
Calcutta.
First of all, Calcutta is not in the United States, but is the
primary city of the Indian state of West Bengal. Secondly, Mother
Theresa is so titled not because she had physical children, but
because of her station at the head of an order of nuns who showed
great mercy to the starving multitudes of Calcutta. The third matter
is that I can state without reservation that Mother Theresa did not
write the email in question for two incontrovertible reasons.
The first reason is that Mother Theresa was a saintly woman – so
much so, that many here in the Vatican and around the world believe
that she will achieve sainthood in the not-too-distant future. As
such, she would never use the language, nor express the sentiments
found in your chapter thirteen.
The second reason I feel certain that Mother Theresa did not write
that email is that she died a number of years ago.
Sincerely yours:
His Holiness, Benedict XVI, Pope of
the Universal Catholic Church (retired.)
P.S. You are a moron.
HHBXVIPotUCC (retired)
Look – I don’t know if the Mother Terri thing was a put-on or
not, but I can see right through this Pope email.
First of all (see – I’m writing just like pope-guy here!) there
is NoWay the church would ever vote for a pope named Benedict. I
mean Benedict means bad guy, like Benedict… Well, that bad guy who
did bad stuff, and in spite of what some of my Baptist friends may
say, the Catholic Church would not intentionally elect a bad guy pope
named Benedict. I don’t know anyone with a good word to say about
the name Benedict – a name fit for only bad guys and runny eggs.
And what kind of last name is Xvi? How do you even pronounce that?
The next thing you’re going to tell me is that we’ve elected a
guy named Hitler, Castro or Hussein to be President. Give me a
break!
Clearly, the
literary world owes a debt of thanks to Judy Oregano for cutting such
puerile poopedy-poop from Dirk Destroyer. She’s here with us via
the magic of modern technology.
Judy, was
reading the rough version of Dirk Destroyer hard on you?
Oh,
sweetie, It was easy as pie, with a glass of white wine. I prefer
pecan pie and Chardonnay. But nothing fancy. It's wasted on me. But
to be honest, there were some difficulties to be endured. The
most difficult being the hot flashes. Wine seems to trigger those in
women of a certain age. But I don't give up when things get tough
because that's the kind of person I am. I'm no quitter, no matter
what Daddy said. I'd like to see him finish nursing school. Once I
saw him nurse a squirrel that had fallen out of a tree and couldn't
walk – he nursed it right straight to heaven with his shotgun. I
reckon that was merciful, but it's not the kind of nursing they
encourage nowadays. Oh, it's not the gore that was so awful, it's the
suffering. I can't hardly go for a walk in the morning, what with
having to pick up all the earthworms that got stranded on the
sidewalk during the night. I know, birds' gotta eat, too. But I hate
to see the little things struggling and drying up all pitiful like.
Which reminds me, the story was fine, just fine. Only needed a few
tweaks. As far as I can remember.
Did you do any
special training to deal with bad writing?
Naw,
just picked up a pie and some wine and ran the air conditioner on
high.
Do you have any
advice for youngsters starting out that think they might like to edit
bad fiction?
Try
nursing school first. Get an idea how much suffering you can handle.
Thank you,
Judy. Next week we continue with the narrative of Dirk Destroyer
that wasn’t quite bad enough to cut.
Headley keeps adding stupid comedy routines. I keep telling him that what the people want is classic violence.
One of the most frequent questions I get asked, (and not always from
family,) is: Headley, why are you such a pathetic loser?
At first I found the question offensive, but as I was asked it so
often, I decided to look at it in a good way. It turns out there is
no good way to look at a question like that, so I figured the best
thing would be to answer here on the blog and maybe that would get
everybody OFF MY BACK!
Back in December of 1989, I wasn’t a complete loser. It’s true
that I had a lousy job, and a worse work ethic. I had poor taste in
clothing, questionable hygiene, and a diet that included too many
gassy foods, but I also had (wait for it,) a girlfriend named,
Hermosa Golden.
Hermosa finished second in the Babe Most Likely to Cause a Heart
Attack pageant, an annual event in her upscale town of
Chapavinhyaniceaster, Mass. It was sponsored by Construction Workers
local 142 and the League of Women Voters, (the hard-hats were
concerned that the name might be insensitive, but were over-ruled.
They had some odd women voting in Chapavinhyaniceaster, Mass.)
In addition to being a beauty queen runner-up, Hermosa was a cardiac
surgeon, (probably just as well she didn’t win the Babe Most Likely
to Cause a Heart Attack pageant,) a personal friend of Mother Teresa,
and the only heir of her senile father, Richie Golden. Richie Golden
owned a chain of active gold mines stringing from Alaska to Chile (the country
not the food, for, though I really like chili the food,
that wouldn’t make much sense.)
Yup, Hermosa was a winner. Most of our friends agreed that Hermosa’s
only fault was her taste in men, because Hermosa loved me like salami
loves mustard – or some more appropriate simile (or maybe
metaphor.)
Among Hermosa’s less questionable enthusiasms was her obsession
with New Years Eve.
“Whatever else happens, Headley, we must kiss
at midnight on New Years Eve,” she told me. “If we kiss at
midnight, we’ll get married, be rich, happy, healthy, and live in
joy for the rest of our lives.”
“I could live with that,” I responded romantically. See – I
could sweet talk with the best of them.
December 31, 1989, Hermosa called me from the hospital around 10PM.
“Pope John Paul has had a heart attack,” she told me, “and they
need me for emergency surgery.”
“Yeah, well hurry it up,” I replied. “I charged some chicken
wings to your credit card, and they smell great! If you don’t get
here soon, I’m going to start eating them.”
“I knew you’d understand,” she said sweetly.
While Hermosa was taking it easy saving the Pope, I was trapped in
her luxury apartment with 2 dozen of the sweetest smelling chicken
wings I’d ever had to sit and watch (and not eat.)
I resisted the temptation to open the box of wings. I didn’t blame
her. I understood that love was all about sacrifice. For nearly two
hours I sacrificed and sacrificed. How can chicken wings smell so
fantastic for so long? What were these – chicken wings of the
gods?
The phone rang.
“We saved His Holiness,” said Hermosa.
“Forget about that!” I shouted. “Get over here, fast!”
“Don’t worry, Baby. I’ll be there by midnight. We can kiss in
the New Year and be happy forever!”
Happy forever sounded nice, but I REALLY wanted a chicken wing!
I watched Dick Clark, (who was still a teenager back then,) as the
aroma of those chicken wings battered at my olfactory nerves (though
they weren’t battered chicken wings.)
When they started counting down the last minute, I realized that
Hermosa wasn’t going to make it in time, so I ripped open the box
of wings. That’s when I realized why they smelled so good for so
long. The store didn’t send us wings – they sent us drumsticks.
I thought I heard a key in the door, but I’m not sure because I was
focused on the sight in front of me.
“Oh Baby,” I shouted. “What legs!”
I quickly grabbed a drumstick from the box, smacked my lips and bit
into it.
“MMMMMMmmm, ooooooooh, slurp, mmmmmm!” I said (or something like
it.) My mouth exploded with flavor as the ball hit zero in Time’s
Square.
“Happy 1990, Baby!” I shouted.
I might have heard a door slam, but I didn’t care at that point. I
went on to devour all the chicken legs and go into a food coma –
the delicious kind.
A couple days later I began to wonder what happened to Hermosa. I
never found out, but I did get a visit from a process server with a
court order to vacate her luxury apartment.
So you wonder why I’m such a pathetic loser? It’s because rich,
beautiful, medically talented women that are friends with Mother
Teresa are clearly unreliable.
But MAN, do I love chicken legs!
Yes - that last romance was 25 years ago - what of it?
Now that I’ve put together a veritable manure pile of blog posts,
it’s getting more and more difficult to remember what I’ve
posted. I did a quick scan of my post titles. It’s infuriating
how often my post title has little or nothing to do with what I put
in the post. I’d divorce myself, but who would get custody of the
Pop Tarts? Can’t take that chance.
So I’ve been working on a sports parody the last few weeks, and it
brought to mind another sports parody I wrote 12 years ago. Almost
immediately, my song was out of date. My second stanza of the first
verse proclaimed that the Red Sox would never again win the World
Series, I referred to the Tampa Bay baseball team as the Devil Rays,
I mentioned Vandy – a team that’s gone to bowls the last two
years – as a perennial sad sack, I reference Doherty as the North
Carolina coach, and I mention Tommy Lasorda who everyone seems to
have forgotten.
Thank goodness the Cubs have been consistent so far.
For a few years I tried to keep up – changing the song to reflect
the changing nature of sports.
Boy did that get old.
So even if in my growing manure pile, I might have posted this song
before – here, for the first time is the original 2002 lyrics (to
be sung in a soft lyrical brogue.)
A Jig for
Holy Sport’s Fans
(Chorus)
Don't ya know that Jesus
Cheers for
Notre Dame?
The Spirit
likes les Habitants
The Canadians
the same
The heavenly
host helped MJ
But the
Lakers now they cheer
And the
Father above’s a Yankees man
Though their
fans drink too much beer
Oh heaven’s
not a refuge
If you’re a
Cubbie fan
Cheer all you
like for the Red Sox
But they’ll
never win again
Vandy and
Northwestern
Are great
with cap and gown
But don’t
look to them for football
For they’ll
always let you down
(repeat
Chorus)
Oh, Mary’d
like the Saints now
If she ever
saw them play
Teresa was a
Celtics fan
Till the poor
got in the way
The martyrs
don’t like Lions
They remember
all the pains
And the Devil
cheers the Raiders and
The Miami
Hurricanes
The popes,
they liked Lasorda
So the
Dodgers had a run
The angels
would help their namesake
But they
don’t think baseball’s fun
The Oilers
had a blessing
Till Gretsky
left for Hollywood
And no-one
likes a Devil Ray
‘Cause
they’re just no damn good
(repeat
Chorus)
Now
Krzyzewski has the blessing
For Doherty
is no Smith
The Demon
Deacs want Duncan back
That heavenly
monolith
And meanwhile
all God’s children
From New York
to Anaheim
Let mercy
slow and evil grow
For on sports
we waste our time
(last Chorus)
Don't ya know that Jesus
Cheers for
Notre Dame?
The Spirit
likes les Habitants
The Canadians
the same
The heavenly
host helped MJ
But the
Lakers now they cheer
And the
Father above’s a Yankees man
Though their
fans drink too much beer
(spoken in brogue)
Like a bunch of Lutherans, they are
(sung slowly) Their fans drink too much beer
Back in the 60s and 70s, My Mother the Car was often referred to as the worst TV show ever. I wonder if people would still say that today. There's a lot more really crappy competition out there now.
