Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
Compared to 2020, all previous years, even the Disco Era, were the golden age of human existence.
Dave Barry, Washington Post
Good riddance 2020. The year from Hell, right? So everyone says. But it’s really only a matter of how you look at it.
Whatever. Here’s something from a collection I call “Leary’s Laws,” call it a gloss on Dave Barry’s above comment.
… Read moreThings
This week we join Jack Shackaway on an interesting trip through Bangkok traffic. His trusty old typewriter, which he’s meant to get rid of for years, proves useful.
Even among loyal fans, after only four or five Kicking Dogs chapters and a few SIDECARS, interest in this project has waned. Fizzled away to fuck all, in fact.
The last bit is classic Leary alliteration, though he’d never say “fuck.”
… Read moreLeary habitually seasoned his conversation with “gosh” and “darn.” Gosh was salt, and darn was pepper. Sometimes, if a communication required a bit of mustard, he might go so far as to say “frigging.” That’s how I knew the
Last week we learned some ins and outs of executing a contract, Thai-style. This week we learn how some manage to accomplish this deed with greater style than most do.
WRONG WAY
Selections from Arno Petty’s Intelligencer and Weekly Gleaner
BARING ARMS. Maybe you were wondering what those signs in Thai on the doors of the bars on Suttisarn Road and similar venues are all about. These areas have been declared Weapons-Free Zones, you will doubtlessly be relieved to know. … Read more
Enough with the novels, already. Time to spin some haikus, eh?
I admit it: the internet is eating my mind. And here are some related haikus, straight from the poet, by God.
Spring day darkening:
the locust digital swarm
eats my absent mind.
Read on for the essential lowdown on dopamine addiction.
Dipping for Dopamine
Delivery vehicles,
Every damn Like
A dopamine fix.
Proto-cyborg Lament
The battery defunct,
My 5G iPhone is dead.
I am diminished.
Oxymoron… Read more
Last week we met more hard men. Jack, meanwhile, got valuable notes for the story he was writing, learning more about Tommy and Willie’s various business enterprises and business conflicts, not to mention some of the ins and outs of being successful hard men in such troubled times.
NOT STANDARD
Selections from Arno Petty’s Intelligencer and Weekly Gleaner
#1 Recover the pleasure of sinking into a long novel.
I’ve started serializing Kicking Dogs on this site (the next chapter appears next Tuesday). This novel is just 242 pages long. Hardly more than a brochure and, ideally, it’ll leave you wishing there was more of it.
MOM and Genesis 2.0 are longer. Much longer. But ideally, again, they’ll leave you wishing there was more. (In fact more of the Magic Circles series of novels is on … Read more
The previous episode concluded with the following:
… Read moreRambo was singing Carabao’s nice song “Welcome to Thailand” between his teeth into the mike — in the process, I guessed, erasing the interview with the high-ranking police officer I had managed to get only after long negotiation. Then there were three bangs on the door, and Somsak arrived with the drinks. I decided a little Mekhong was a good thing after all.
And just at
I’m posting a new Kicking Dogs chapter every Tuesday, and an independent item every Thursday.
Let’s kick off this week’s SIDECAR post with a seven-year-old item from Jack Shackaway, my collaborator and, incidentally, the hero of my novel Kicking Dogs.
… Read moreSelling novels: What it takes
I’m probably over-reacting, but it’s already getting harder these days to take pride in thinking of yourself as a writer, since so can anybody with the price of a computer and
… Read moreIn the previous episode, Jack Shackaway was robbed at gunpoint by a pair of colorful characters. These gentlemen, name of Tommy Two-Toes and Wrong-Way Willie Wong, then bought drinks with the money they took from him till they were all legless.
In the course of events, Tommy and Willie said they had a business deal they wanted to discuss with him, and Jack said he had to go to the toilet. In fact he
