Motel Heartache

News Release About Myself and My Colleagues

2012-01-24T13:25:00.001-05:00

Iowa Short Fiction Prize

2012-01-21T00:30:00.000-05:00

I received word today that my short story collection The Geography of Love was named a semi-finalist in the Iowa Short Fiction Prize. While it didn't win, it was named a semi-finalist (one of the top twenty) out of three hundred plus manuscripts. Close, but no cigar. The letter was sweet and incredibly encouraging though. Hopefully something will come of it. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Problem with Pretty Girls (originally from Fictionaut)

2011-12-30T00:47:00.002-05:00

They pick you up with open bottles of vodka wedged between the seatbelt and the emergency break. The hold a lit joint between their fingers while they talk to your dad in the driveway. Their car has never had an oil change. Its tags are expired. Before you make it two blocks they will race past a parked police car with the stereo blaring, their arms in the air, palms off the wheel and dash and pressed against the ceiling. They're laughing already. Nothing can touch them. They wonder why you're so scared?

Nominated for Best American Short Stories

2011-12-24T01:36:00.000-05:00

I know I rep Atticus Review and Atticus Books a lot, but they are amazing people who work incredibly hard to support their authors. This week they nominated my short story "Swimmers" for inclusion in the anthology Best American Short Stories 2012. You can read it by clicking on the link. Though it truly is an honor just to be nominated, wish me luck!

My Christmas Card for Atticus Review

2011-12-19T22:11:00.000-05:00

Atticus Review is a wonderful and thoughtful journal. Look what they took the time to put together for all this year's contributors.

In Honor of Hitchens

2011-12-17T00:42:00.000-05:00

In honor of Christopher Hitchens I'm re-reading selections from Love, Poverty, and War tonight. My friend pointed out the fact that he was often difficult to agree with, but always challenging. The world has lost a great mind, and a charming dissident.

Flash Fiction and Fictionaut

2011-12-17T00:31:00.002-05:00

I was invited to join Fictionaut.com this week. Kind of feel like I'm sitting at the cool kids' table now. To celebrate I posted some new flash fiction here. Enjoy.

December issue of decomP out now

2011-12-07T22:18:00.001-05:00

The December issue of decomP Magazine is out now featuring my short-short story "The Kid on the Floor." Check it out!

Attention All Adjunct Instructors

2011-12-06T15:46:00.000-05:00

Anyone working as adjunct faculty should read this book! For over five years I worked 70 plus hours a week at two different colleges, barely making ends meet and always fearful of the future due to the fact that my jobs afforded little in the way of security or benefits. Adjunct instructors do the bulk of the teaching at most all colleges and universities, but are often the migrant workers of higher education. Little pay. Transient and impermanent positions. This novel captures the lives and struggles of adjunct professors like none other. You should be reading it.

Safety Pin Review

2011-12-06T15:40:00.000-05:00

The Safety Pin Review is by far the coolest idea I've seen for a lit journal in a long time.

And when you don't learn better

2011-11-16T00:52:00.000-05:00

I started working on a new novel tonight. There's no big idea right now. I don't know where I'm driving. In the end it's probably a lot of trouble for my own amusement, but there's something there. My goal is to give myself a completed early draft for a Valentine's Day present.

Publication News

2011-11-06T12:31:00.003-05:00

I got word today that my short-short story "The Kid on the Floor" will appear in the December issue of decomP Magazine. It's a cool journal and I'm excited to be included.

As a side note to this, I had one of those funny writing moments with this submission. After I got word that it had been accepted by decomP I began to contact the other publications who had it. I'd gotten to all of them except one which I put off until this afternoon. After sending a withdrawal email to that last journal I checked my Gmail account and found that they had turned down the story, but wanted me to send another piece to be considered for their next issue. It looks like this time we flirted with each other, but went home with another. Maybe the next dance.

Writing exercise for the night: NOIR in 1,500 words or less

2011-10-20T22:37:00.000-04:00

With a weeks worth of student essays and stories graded, I'm settling in to get back to work. This week has been filled with wet, dreary October days, the kind that make my spirit beam. Tonight I'm going to try out my new Write or Die task master and attempt to write in a genre I've never bothered with before-- noir. Dirty dames and down on their luck dicks here I come.

The Last 5 Books I Bought

2011-10-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

1. This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation
-Barbara Ehrenreich
* Forty pages or so to go. Wonderful collection of short essays, asides, observations, and arguments about the political landscape of the first ten years of the new millennium.

2. Everbody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge
-Mark Yarm

*Two-hundred pages in and I'm amazed at the construction of the book. Imagine conducting interviews with dozens of people for hundreds of hours and then going back and trying to piece a clear narrative out of those conversations that is both informative and entertaining. Mark Yarm did that.

3. Hunters and Gamblers
-Ryan Ridge

*Twenty pages to go. Wonderful and weird collection of stories ranging from micro-fiction to novellas which go from post-apocalyptic playground to the pressing ennui of Wal-mart worlds.

4. The Financial Lives of The Poets
-Jess Walter

*Can't wait to start it. The title reminds me of all the jokes from my M.F.A. program. You know the jokes. They're never funny. Just a statement of sad facts where you giggle at the end to take the edge off. "We love spending forty thousand dollars to be something that only we value or romanticize. Hahaha. Right guys? It's so worth it!"

5. How They Were Found
-Matt Bell

*The fact that I haven't read more of his work has been bothering me lately. I'm about to fix that.

Write or Die

2011-10-11T23:39:00.002-04:00

If anyone is interested in, or deranged enough to, taking part in National Novel Writing Month I suggest you have a plan. Right now I'm working on a loose outline (which is way more planning than I ever do), and I bought an awesome app called "Write or Die" for Dr.Wicked.com. Highly recommend it!

Swimmers up at Atticus Review

2011-06-28T10:35:00.003-04:00

My short story "Swimmers" is now up at Atticus Review. You can read it here.

Below is an introduction to the story written by Katrina Gray:

Mike Hampton’s “Swimmers” speaks to reproductive hope and fear, both bordering on desperation. Alternating points of view, Hampton weaves together several stories, all of which contrast the idea of self with the propagation of self, and what it means to a human identity when fertility and love become incompatible bedfellows. Gender roles shift; quiet lives unravel. Fertility is a business, Hampton reminds us, and those in the business—the nurse who takes your sample, the doctor injecting you with eager cells—have their own desires. What happens when the potential of a new person threatens the people already in a relationship? Some of the characters rhythmically swim through the process, unsure, and some dive in and take the ring. Hampton offers them all grace and patience, easily working through their intimate thoughts on the page.

"Gone Away" is the Story of the Day

2011-05-21T00:38:00.001-04:00

Sheryl Monks selected my short story "Gone Away" as her story of the day in honor of Short Fiction Month. You can read it on her bloghttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif or on the webpage for Still.

Work forthcoming in The Atticus Review

2011-05-19T13:59:00.002-04:00

I got word today that my short story "Swimmers" will be featured in an upcoming issue of The Atticus Review. I'm excited that it found a home.

Publishing, especially small press literary publishing, is a difficult endeavor. This story was originally accepted for publication last year by another journal which hoped to serialize it in four separate issues. Unfortunately months later the publisher had to cease publication of the journal.

When the story is published I'll post the link.

New story in the Winter issue of Still

2011-02-11T13:33:00.003-05:00

My short story "Gone Away" appears in the Winter edition of the online journal Still. You can read it by clicking here.

The Iron Horse Literary Review's Facebook issue

2010-10-04T14:04:00.003-04:00

The Iron Horse Literary Review's Facebook issue is due out this month, and it features my essay "25 Things About my Ninja Training." Hopefully we'll get a bump from The Social Network.

Newpages Welcomes Southern Grit

2010-10-04T14:02:00.001-04:00

Newpages.com has welcomed Southern Grit in its New Lit on the Block section.

The Wrong Tree Review

2010-07-07T23:22:00.002-04:00

My short story "Super Hero Suicide Notes" will appear in the winter issue (issue 3) of The Wrong Tree Review.

Publication news

2010-06-28T15:22:00.001-04:00

Just got word today that my short story "The Medicine Man's Boy" will appear in the inaugural issue of Southern Grit. I'll put up a link to the issue when it comes out in August.

My essay "Subject Seventy Two" from the last issue of Paradigm

2010-06-22T19:36:00.001-04:00

the weiss issue: Subject Seventy Two by Mike Hampton

Bye Bye Bettie

2008-12-12T16:02:00.003-05:00

1923-2008

Have fun teasing the boys up above.

My Hang Up with New Notebooks

2008-12-11T23:35:00.007-05:00

I went to an outlet mall last weekend to begin the slow process of buying Christmas gifts. It seems as if I usually begin with the third-cousins whose names I can't remember (they're youngest and therefore easiest to buy for), and work my way up the familial ladder in order of closeness of relations. It only took about ten minutes before I bought something for myself.

At a Border's Outlet I bought a brand new Moleskine for less than five dollars. I was so happy with it I pulled the plastic off of it and flipped through the blank pages while I waited in line at other stores.

Nothing is as promising as a new notebook. I imagine this is the way painters must feel about snow white canvases. A blank notebook seems so perfect to me that I almost hate to write in one. The moleskine I bought will inevitably end up buried in my desk for the next few years, stored away like a wine bottle. It takes time for me to mark on a brand new book.

Now I have Moleskines and drawing books that are covered with lines of dialogue and rambling observations. They have phone numbers written on their backpages like public toilets, and crude pictures crawling out from the margins. These are old soldiers. I know them well enough to ask them to consider words that might be, well, stupid.

That's really my problem with new notebooks. I want the first thing I write in them to be important. When I look at a blank page I image that I can write better than I can, that if I wait I can come up with a new foundation for society or philosophy of life. But if I rush, if I write down something that made me laugh or random voice in my head, the blank pages in front of me will never live up to their potential.

New notebooks allow me to imagine myself as greater than I am, to hover above perfect semetrical lines evenly spaced on the pages and see a library worth of seminal thoughts spinning in a hundred directions. This may be hyperbole, but a new notebook feels at least close to that way in my hand. This is a warm hyperbole.

Ink changes a new notebook into just another attempt, shot, something done.

So for now my new Moleskine is sitting on my desk undisturbed, and when I open it and see all the nothing written there I am sure that I am a genius.

Recent Publications

2008-12-11T23:24:00.002-05:00

My short story "Boys and Girls in Motels" will appear in the new edition of The Pacific Review, and my short short "A Long Line of Liars" was recently featured in Blood Lotus.

Other than that there has been a steady stream of rejection letters, but they are tempered with requests to see more of my work which is encouraging. I even got a revision request from a good journal. Hopefully with my teaching duties at two colleges coming to an end I'll have more time to write. I hope so. It's been awhile since I've been disciplined enough to make myself write (right), and it's like falling back in love.

The Black Hole of Higher Education

2008-07-22T13:53:00.000-04:00

I called a friend last night who I hadn't seen in months to find out how things are going with him. The news wasn't good. Due to budget cutbacks in the state of Kentucky he will be out of a job in the public defenders office in a few weeks, and his options are running out. He's left to search for legal work hours away from home, and considering going back to work as a part-time clerk at a bookstore, but he had another thought- teaching.

My friend has a Master's degree in Philosophy, and thought he could find a job as adjunct faculty since his professional position has been removed. This is becoming a familiar refrain among my friends. They have advanced degrees, real world experience, publications and so on, but have had no luck in finding a meaningful job.

When I was growing up my Dad used to tell me that all I had to do was get a degree in anything, and I would be fine. He was sure that once I had a degree I would be able to earn a living, and have some security. I have a Master's degree myself now, and am sorry to say that I haven't found that to be the case. I teach part-time at two colleges, and have for years, but have been unable to find a full-time job. In fact I still work at a restaurant five days a week to get by.

My friends are no better off. They wait tables, tend bars, and teach at the same time. They move from professions were they have responsibilities and respect to unskilled positions where their educational level is of little value. They email me and ask how the market is in Cincinnati. They are all concerned about the market.

After talking to my friend I am afraid that the system is collapsing on itself. People like myself are spending over fifty-thousand dollars to receive educations that don't deliver a comfortable, modest life. When we graduate the situation gets bleak as time goes on, and we end up heading back to the same institutions we graduated from to make ends meet. When a star dies it slowly collapses into itself, and forms a black hole- a dense spot in the universe where no light can exist.

My situation might be a little different from my friends as I wanted to become a professor and enjoy teaching, but the thought that teaching has become a stogap measure for them saddens me. I hope that in the future the students I teach can make a living with the knowledge they've gained, and that the life that they have imagined becomes a reality. That's is what we were told all along.

Random Thoughts on a Knfie Catalogue

2008-07-22T13:42:00.000-04:00

I have been getting stranger and stranger catalogues in the mail lately. I've flipped through pages of novelty birdfeeders, t-shirts advertising Polish pride, and fifty pages of decorative baskets. I don't know how the decision to mail these things to me is made, but they do make quick disposable reading. Today after receiving a catalogue for knives a few questions came to mind.

First, having a commemorative knife made in your honor is the best sign that you've made it. The first page of the catalogue today featured a whole set of Johnny Cash knives. If I ever need to stab a man in Reno just to watch him die, I know which knife to use now.

Secondly, apparently it's ok to sell all manner of Nazi and Confederate paraphenalia if you refer to them as "historical artifacts." I find this more than a little disconcerning, and have trouble accepting that SS daggers are mostly bought by historians.

Lastly, one of the Swiss army knives featured had over thirty tools. One of the tools featured was referred to as a "medical spatula," so apparently if one buys this knife and can't find a rolled up dollar bill or a key they are still prepared. I always had enough trouble getting the knife blade out on those things.

New Story in the Rio Grande Review

2008-06-07T00:42:00.000-04:00

My short story "Little Animals" appears in the current issue of The Rio Grande Review. You can check it out by following this link.

My short story "Sea Change" also appears in the current issue of Shaking Like a Mountain: Literature about Contemporary Music.

The Anniversary Party Begins

2008-05-16T23:01:00.000-04:00

I've always had trouble remembering anniversaries, but this week from the Today Show to NPR one in particular has been garnering a lot of attention; the twentieth anniversary of The New Kids on the Block's "Hanging Tough." This album was a seminal event in the modern cute-boy-band era. Their sugar sweet pop songs crooned on every radio station, and their faces plastered the covers of grocery store magazines for years afterwards. Now they're back, and reunited for a stadium tour.

For me the New Kids on the Block (or simply NKOTB as my wife and sister continue to refer to them) symbolize the music of the 80s. I remember Top 40 charts chocked full of Phil Collins, Wilson Phillips, Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, and other bands with sappy love songs and bouncy ballads. It seemed that all the music I heard while growing up wasn't produced by artists, but was music produced in much the same manner as Diet Pepsi: cute boys and girls, flashy ads, simple lyrics, and engineered for the widest audience possible.

Now that I'm older though, I believe this is unfair. Every era has its share of empty pop songs, and surely the 80s (a time when I was admittedly too young to have much perspective) had music that was challenging, engaging, and worthwhile. I decided to investigate if there were any albums that were truly worth revisiting from the year 1988, and this is what I found. The following are eleven albums which deserve a twenty-year anniversary celebration more than "Hanging Tough."

1. Sonic Youth- Daydream Nation
"Teenage Riot" alone has more value than any Joey solo.

2. Living Colour- Vivid
"Cult of Personality" is harder than Donnie.

3. Pixies- Surfer Rosa
"Gigantic" is a much better stadium rock song than "Hanging Tough."

4. N.W.A.- Straight Outta Compton
Though this album was a favorite of all the white kids in Raiders hats who beat me up, I still had rather hear it than "Please Don't Go Girl."

5. Public Enemy- It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
Elijah Muhammed is a much better spiritual leader than Maurice Starr.

6. Metallica- And Justice for All
Though they have since cut their hair, they never danced in sync to please nine-year-old
girls.

7. Tracy Chapman- Tracy Chapman
Cuter than Jordan.

8. Leonard Cohen- I'm Your Man
More brooding and quiet than Johnathan, and he's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

9. Slick Rick- The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
Dirtier than the Kids are clean with a better beat.

10. Jane's Addiction- Nothing's Shocking
Twenty years later their members have never been on The Surreal Life or Dancing With the Stars.

11. R.E.M.- Green
If you want a vacant song that is dorky enough to be fun I'll take "Stand" over any New Kids song. In retrospect I wonder though when college rock became alternative rock, and also when the line dissolved.

So I guess 1988 wasn't the terrible year for music I remember it as. For every band I heard on the radio there was another who didn't get nearly as much airplay on my local Top 40 station, and I encourage all those who are considering going to a stadium to see NKOTB to instead listen to an old album by The Sugar Cubes. Then again some people like to revisit their childhood. As I look up from my computer I know that all my G.I. Joe's are in a box twenty feet away, waiting to spring back to life.

Bouncing Baby Bourbon

2008-05-16T22:28:00.001-04:00

Months ago I began my political career in the most modest and appropriate fashion I could find. I wanted a position with no real responsibilities; one with a title, but no work as I find myself faced with a new stack of papers on my desk each day. Becoming the president of anything was out of the question since I had no interest in accountability or becoming a figure-head. Likewise was true for positions such as vice-president, mayor, councilman, secretary, et cetera. I searched for a position with a humble title, and nothing else to speak of. My first choice of Kentucky Colonel since I hoped to join the ranks of Colonel Sanders, Hunter S. Thompson, and Johnny Depp, but my inquiries led only to a deadend so I moved on to the next best thing. I became an ambassador, not for a small island nation mind you, or some hamlet buried in Eastern Europe, but an ambassador for something a little closer to home. I became an ambassador for Maker's Mark Straight Kentucky Whisky.

My appointment as an ambassador for was simple. I filled in a form on their homepage, and was told that soon a barrel of straight Kentucky whisky would be engraved with my name. Months passed. There were no press conferences to attend, nor passports to sign. I had a title I believed in and my days clear to pursue my own interests.

This week I received my first official correspondence from the folks back home in the mail. Inside the packet was the birth certificate for my barrel bearing the official seal of my charge which stated that Maker's Mark Barrel 795403 was dedicated in my honor in recognition of my "loyalty, outstanding dedication, in-depth knowledge and services as an honorable Maker's Mark Ambassador." I was glad to see that my long months of service had not gone unnoticed.

Of course the birth certificate came with a status report. My barrel is made of "Charred American White Oak," and houses "Around 50 Gallons" of fine Kentucky bourbon in my honor. I was informed that its contents were "Well-rounded with a distinct character" which affirmed my belief that those I represent are certainly not simple or lacking in character. If they were less distinct I would find it much harder to fulfill my duties.

Lastly, my packet contained business cards should I need to get fast-track through customs, or get out of any misdemeanors while conducting my official duties. After all, what good is a title if it doesn't come with a business card?

Things back home are going well. My barrel waits to settle in for a long seven year rest while I sit in another state attending the duties I have been assigned: enjoying a drink in the evening, and thinking about those I miss on the other side of the Ohio river.

More Late Night Ramblings

2008-02-23T22:09:00.001-05:00

One of the hallmarks of "Generation X" is that they possess both a repulsion and strong attraction to nostalgia. The idea of gaudy 80s Hair Metal and WWF superstars pop up in conversation as objects of ridicule and emblems of a simpler, happier time. While I'm not sure if my age qualifies me for inclusion in this group, I had a ten minute conversation with a few friends last night that went more or less like this:

Me: "Honky Tonk Man"
Them: "Ultimate Warrior. Shaking the ropes."
Me: "Brutus the Barber Beefcake looked like the lead singer for Slaughter."
Them: "Remember the British Bulldogs?"
Me: "The Bushwackers."
Them: "What about Flotsam and Jetsam?"
Me: "They should have an Intercontinental Belt in the UFC. You know, for the fighters the fans love but who could never be champs."
Them: "Ravishing Rick Rude had handprints on his tights."

To continue on with this fairly accurate transcript would be pointless. What struck me however was that it wasn't a conversation at all by any rights. There was no context nor any cohesiveness. The ten minutes we spent together wasn't an exchange of ideas. It was much closer to the experience of pulling pictures out of an old photo album, one we collectively shared in our memories, to recall our heroes in their prime and wonder where they fell apart.

No Depression Magazine is going out of business after their current issue is released. The news was announced on Newpagesblog.blogspot.com. Apparently their ad revenue had fallen to the point that it was impossible to continue on after 13 years. The magazine was so closely tied to the music industry that it had no option but to suffer along with it. This is sad, because not only are we as a nation losing a generation which appreciates the album as a form of expression, but we are also steadily losing a generation of young voices and readers.

By the end of this month I will have sent stories out to every literary journal, magazine, and church bulletin in the country. In a few months I will be greeted by the rejection slips from many if not all of them. I can only take comfort in the hope that maybe one of my stories will hit, and in the idea that I might develop a healthy rejection-related masochism over the next few months which will be fed at little cost by the United States Post Office.

Writers and poets have a strange attraction to prisons. In the minds of those I've spoken with prison represents quite time alone with steady meals to do our work in peace. I wonder why monasteries don't have the same daydream appeal, but can only conclude it has to do with the fact that being bothered by chores and meditation seems more of annoyance than the occasional chance that we might be stabbed to death with a homemade knife.

Attention spans are dropping. I fast-forward through thirty-second-long clips on Youtube. I speed up movies that get slow and zip through commercials on my DVR. Technology helps us live faster, and this worries me. An old Tai Chi instructor once warned me not to rush through life, because if I did I would only get to the end quicker. This is one of the strikes against reading. It's slower, contemplative. The speeding up of our world is apparent in the nostalgia cycle with television shows like "Best Week Ever." A few years from now we can look forward to fast-forwarding through wrap up shows about how great the last twelve hours were.

Bitchin' Fiero

2008-02-01T22:05:00.000-05:00

First let me start by saying that I am far from a motorhead. When it comes to cars I can't go on about superchargers or the superiority of specialized suspension kits in comparison to their factory counterparts. My knowledge is basic. I know where the gas goes, and have a vague understanding of how to change my oil. In an emergency I might be able to change a flat tire, but the odds are probably fifty-fifty. Lately, however, I have been picturing my dream car.

The car I envision speeding down a leaf strewn country road in is not a classic muscle car like a Ford Mustang. I don't picture myself taking the turns in a chopped up Chevrolet Chevelle or Dodge Charger. No, my dream car is a Pontiac Fiero; a silly half-breed of sports car and sub-compact with all the styling the late 80s had to offer.

I am aware of the Fiero's drawbacks. For one, there is no backseat. The interior is a little cramped which is obvious by the way the stereo speakers have been mounted in the headrest of the driver's seat rather than in the dash. It's also not that powerful for a sports car, and due to the fact it doesn't weigh very much when compared to other sports cars it tends to be more than iffy when driven above seventy-five. The Pontiac Fiero though does have it advantages.

The first advantage is that it's cheap. Fiero's on ebay range from three hundred to around two thousand dollars. This is due in large part to the fact that most have hundred of thousands of miles logged on them by this point, and have long since been marked by cigarette burns and the occasional spilled beverage. It's important to lust after the achievable. Life is easier that way.

Another advantage to the Fiero is that I can appreciate its awkward charm. It looks like a suped-up go-cart which hopes to be a real sports car one day. It has potential which has never been fully realized. It just needs a chance- a fresh start.

Lastly, how many Fiero do you see on the road today? Camry's are as ubiquitous as SUVs. Mini-Coopers and Impalas make me yawn. If I had a Fiero and drove it with pride and vigor I can imagine my neighbors watching me pull into my driving with awe and confusion. Maybe they would approach me with a smile and say, "Are you driving a Fiero now?" I would nod and lean against the hood with a toothpick in my teeth.

So my dream car might not stun showroom crowds in Detroit or pace laps at the Indy 500, but for three hundred dollars I can imagine the American highway would be a little fiercer. I can see myself driving into the sunset in a little firecracker that never found its footing, past its prime, taking another shot at being a true sports car.

Main Street Rag

2008-01-10T22:46:00.001-05:00

Just wanted to let you all know that I have two poems in the new issue of Main Street Rag. Anyone interested can order the new issue here.

I Make Me...Promises Promises

2008-01-01T22:00:00.001-05:00

Tis the season to imagine one's self as a better, more vibrant and productive person. New Year's resolutions are things which I've informally considered, but never put down in writing before since in the past I've had the good sense to know that I won't keep them. But since this New Year's Day is the first holiday I've had free from work this year I thought it would be a nice change to take time for a little introspection and come up with a list of promises I'm sure to break. Who knows? Maybe I'll be able to keep a few in spite of myself. Here are my resolutions for 2008 in no particular order.

Read more. In the past year my reading has steadily gone down hill. Textbooks and lesson plans have replaced the short story collections and novels that I used to tear through. This year I make a promise to myself to read more often. I will also try to read more small press literature since some of my favorite books in the last few years have been put out by publishers other than the major houses.

Subscribe to more literary journals. It's the least I can do if I want them to publish my work, and it's great to be blown away by the work of someone I've never heard of.

Produce more work. Even though as of late I've been teaching five courses and working another part-time job, if I am honest with myself I always have an hour or so a day that I could use to write instead of surf the internet or consider how far television has fallen.

Spend more time with my family. I said these were in no particular order.

Exercise. I think I'm required to include this by law, or at least as a matter of tradition.

So that's it for promises. I could go into more self-auditing, but I'm far too tired to bother to pick myself apart further. If I keep one or two of these I'll be happy. It's New Year's Day and anything seems possible. I end with an appropriate quote that arrived in my inbox today via The Writer's Almanac.

"Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man."- Ben Franklin

The Writey Awards 2007

2008-01-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

When conversing over email with a friend earlier this year, the subject of how my writing had been going came up. I tried to find an artful way of expressing both my frustration and my desire to keep mailing envelopes stuffed with stories to the four corners of the country and this is the best I could come up with.

Certain Buddhist sects practice what is called "spirit training." This practice can entail anything from picking up stray leaves off the temple grounds, dusting picture frames, or cleaning floors with hand-towels. The purpose of spirit training is to breakdown the ego with tasks for which their is no acclaim. Through doing work which one doesn't receive praise or encouragement it is hoped that the practitioner will lose his sense of self and be able to be more fully dedicate themselves to the spirit of what they hope to achieve in the future. My writing this year has been my own form of spirit training.

This year I have received thirty rejections, and no acceptances. The most troubling part of my struggle this year however has been the number of times I've received no response at all. I have one story which has been out for over a year, and another which has been out for two. A half dozen stories and essays have been mailed for ten months or more. Silence. Spirit training. I go to my basement to write each night and hope that in the morning good news will find me. I go on.

My year hasn't been completely devoid of success however. A story I placed years ago finally came out in print in an anthology from The Jesse Stuart Foundation. Two poems I sent out last winter are forthcoming in Main Street Rag. I've a gave a reading in Louisville, and had a college class use one of my stories as text. There have been reasons to continue.

I have made progress this year as well. My work, at least in my eyes, has gotten better. I'm close to finishing two books and they are much better realized than the earlier drafts I had completed in the past. And there is still the hope that something sent long ago will find a home.

But for now here are my Writey Awards for 2007:

Worst experience:

My experience after submitting to The Florida Review in December of last year.

Rejection is something that any serious writer becomes accustomed to and expects. Most any literary journal no matter what the size is flooded with submissions. To give you an idea when I was an M.F.A. student at Spalding University one of our responsibilities was to read submissions sent to The Louisville Review. In an upstairs room of a wonderful old stone building students like myself would find boxes stacked floor to ceiling that were filled with work waiting in numbered envelopes. We were asked to read at least five and rate them from one to five. By the end of the residency most of the work might have been reviewed, but there was always more stories, essays, and poems than student readers.

It takes time to get a response. Three months is a short time, six months is becoming the standard, but every work deserves a response. The Florida Review fell short in this regard. Not only did they not respond (which I can understand because work does get lost and my work has disappeared in the mail before), but they never answered any emails sent to check on the status of my story after six months. They also didn't answer the phone messages I left. In the end, it left a sore spot since I got the sense that they didn't care.

Best moment of 2007:

If I had to pick one moment I would say that it was the reading I did as part of The InKY Reading series. I read three short-short stories, two of which originally appeared in The Southeast Review, and had a wonderful time.

The Final Tally:

Rejections: 30
Acceptances: 0
Waiting for response: 19

Here's hoping that 08 brings more shining moments at the mailbox, and more fruitful hours spent night watching the type stream on late into the night.

Christmas Shakes

2007-12-29T23:48:00.000-05:00

The Christmas season is over now, which for me means an end to two months of anxiety. In my case this seasonal anxiety isn't born out of hurrying from store to store to buy Christmas presents, spending long hours trying to address Christmas cards to relatives I haven't seen in years while attempting to make them personal, or from the stress of realizing that all the magic of the holidays I once experienced as a child has long since dulled. While these all these add to my agitation in small ways, the main cause of my holiday madness is due to the fact away from my job as a professor I wait tables on the side, and the holiday season is our busiest time of year.

For two months I don't know what day of the week it is. I am only aware of what time I have to work. On an average day I might attend to the needs of anywhere from one to five hundred people. Seconds are spent juggling the needs and concerns of people who measure the time they spent waiting for their salads with nervous forkplay and looks of annoyance. It weighs on you. You become a smiling pinball. Your nerves go first.

I noticed that after a month into the season I began to experience a phenomena I had only seen in long-term servers, grandmothers and middle-aged men who still come in everyday to carry plates to secretaries and warm bottles in the coffee cups. My hands began to shake. It started as a tremor, but as the weeks passed I suffered the same fate as the long-timers. At the end of the night I would wait for a manager to appear with my check-out slip and cash shaking in my hand. My nerves had gone.

The holiday season at a restaurant has the effect on the staff that combat or other stressful situations might in that it brings out the worst in you. Every personality flaw is amplified. If someone is a racist they stop hiding it. Sweet single mothers become spiteful and suspicious. Closet alcoholics rush out to down margaritas between the lunch and dinner shift. For my part, I spent the last two weeks punching walls and staring at knives.

But its over now. My hands are steady as a tattoo artist. Wrapping paper lines the dumpsters, and the crowds have thinned. My Christmas shakes have passed, and now at my part-time job we are much kinder to our fellow man.

Online Dreaming and Dosing

2007-12-23T00:08:00.000-05:00

A recent study I don't remember well enough to cite showed that college-age students spend more time on average each day surfing the internet than they do watching television. I'm not surprised as my daily routine leads me to a desktop far more often then it leads me to a remote control. Since I had a rare day off today I spent most of my time imagining myself doing incredibly benefitial things which I left for the most part half-done or postponed. While I did get a few pages written, a baby fed and adored, and some random shoes stowed away, most of my time was spent online dreaming all the things I would do later. Since that time has yet to come, here are some of the things I found on the net today.

First, I searched to see if the Hells Angels have a homepage. Hunter S. Thompson's book on the outlaw motorcycle gang was one of my favorite non-fiction books in college and AE insists on running documentaries on the Ching-A-Lings and Mongols every day, so the idea of tire iron wielding thugs surfaced from the depths of my unconscious mind at the keyboard for some reason.

Of course they did. Not only do the Hells Angels have a homepage, they have many. On some the first question asked of visitors is whether they have high or low bandwidth. Once inside the main homepage visitors can navigate to chapters all over the world, each with their own homepage and estore.

I have to admit this was a discouraging revelation. I have long held the suspicion that every Harley Davidson that passes me on the street is driven by a dentist or architect, but the fact that the most notorious motorcycle gang in our country's history is internet savvy and populated by part-time iMac operators broke my heart.

Secondly, I found a great clip of members of How's Your News (a news group staffed by the handicapped) performing with the The Polyphonic Spree. To check it out click here.

Lastly, I spent almost an hour answering quizzes at Mental Floss' homepage. Mental Floss is a trivia magazine I subscribe to which makes me feel smart and informed in spite of myself. I learned interesting facts about ladybugs and lighthouses and answered quizzes covering important topics such as "ham" and "Are there product placements in novels?" If you are a dedicated procrastinator check out there homepage for trivia...whenever you get around to it.

The alluring thing about the internet is that it allows you to imagine how wonderful it would be to have things. When people browse they are stimulated by the images of all the great products they could have if they clicked here and entered in a credit card number. It's sedentary shopping; a deadly combination of two American loves: wanting and doing nothing.

Once again, internet browsing trumped television for me. Writers are on strike. Shows are in reruns. Commercials can't be clicked away. Now it's past midnight and my blogging is almost finished. Time to get to work and do all the productive things I've pictured myself doing all day long.

Inside the Author's Anthology

2007-11-16T20:57:00.001-05:00

The Jesse Stuart Foundation was nice enough to publish my short story "Rabbit Blood" in their anthology "New Growth: Recent Kentucky Writing." When I received my contributor copies this week I was surprised to see that they also included discussion questions about my story for the readers. In the spirit of Kurt Vonnegut writing a term paper about Kurt Vonnegut in the 80s classic "Back To School" I thought it might be fun to go ahead and answer these questions myself. I am a little hesitant however, as in the film Vonnegut's paper received an F and the professor commented "You obviously know nothing about Kurt Vonnegut." Regardless, here it goes. The questions below are the actual questions which appear in the anthology.

Question 1: An initiation story is one that involves a character (usually a young one) in a potentially maturing situation. Sometimes a character gains an insight; sometimes, not. Do you think the young narrator of Rabbit Blood learns anything about life by the story's end? Does he mature in any way?

Answer: In my opinion by the end of the story the young protagonist has learned that his feelings for his older love interest were childish and could never be shared due to a combination life issues such as the gap in their age, their current stations in life, and other factors. This is much the same resolution we find in other initiation stories such as most notably James Joyce's "Araby," although to compare this story to "Araby" would be an injustice.

Question 2: Do you think your understanding of this story would be different if it were in third person rather than by the character himself? How?

Answer: Writing in the third person has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages come in the ability to broadly explore the world of the story and the lives of secondary characters. The disadvantages include limiting the intimacy between the reader and the protagonist in addition to lessening insight into the lead character's worldview. Had this story been written in third person readers would have been able to learn more about the world in which the story takes place as well as the lives of the secondary characters, but this choice would drastically change the story's direction and limit the ownership of the story's main character.

Question 3: Dramatic irony occurs when the reader knows more than a character or narrator. What effect does your knowing things about the situation (e.g., Lucky's "medicine" is some type of illegal drug) that escape the narrator have on your interpretation of the story?

Answer: As a reader I know much more about the story than the young narrator and it is this knowledge that allows me sympathize with his struggle. Had he understood more about the world around him it would have raised questions about what age he truly was. As an author, I attempt to portray characters as truly as I can. One of the mistakes authors make when writing about young characters is to construct them as unusually smart and perceptive for their age.

Question 4: Hampton claims that his story "is composed of several scraps of memory left from my childhood." Do you think creating fiction by weaving memories from different events and real-life characters would be difficult? Why?

Answer: I said that? Well it's true. Most writers I know are hopelessly sentimental in one aspect or another. Stories are largely created from things overhead, events half-remembered, and recollections of people long gone that have been softened by the passage of time. I don't think it's difficult at all as it's the only way I know how to write. It would be much harder for me to write a story about Texas for example if I hadn't driven across it once in the past. In my opinion it would be much harder to create a story out of thin air and people it with characters whose attributes and habits I hadn't lifted from life. One of the most important skills you can gain as a writer is the ability to listen, watch, and steal liberally at every turn.

Again these are just the answers I have as the author of the story. Yours as a reader might be different, and neither of us are definitively correct in the end. If you read my story in the anthology and enjoy it, that's enough.

My Reading at The Rud

2007-11-12T22:38:00.001-05:00

This past Friday I gave my first reading in a year at The Rudyard Kipling in Louisville. It was a wonderful night.

The venue itself was the perfect setting for intimate art events. The Rudyard Kipling is a small nondescript restaurant and bar in historic downtown Louisville. The performance space upstairs consisted of a large wooden room with an elevated stage surrounded by tables.

Danny Flannigan opened the show, and was wonderful. He was a powerful singer songwriter who shared songs about hope, life, growing older and about his days working on construction sites. Downstairs after his set he confessed that the Rud was one of his top three gigs of the year.

I was invited as part of the InKy Reading Series, and that Friday was dedicated to fiction writers. Stephen George of Louisville's The Leo read first, I read second, and the last author of the night was Brian Leung closed the night.

Stephen shared a short story, and Brian read two prose poems in addition to the short first chapter of his novel "Lost Men." I read three short stories , two of which had originally appeared in The Southeast Review.

Though there weren't as many people there as I had hoped it was a wonderful time and I would like to thank all of you who came to see me.

New Growth: Recent Kentucky Writing

2007-11-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

The Jesse Stuart recently published the anthology New Growth: Recent Kentucky Writing which features my short story "Rabbit Blood." If you are interested in picking up a copy follow this link.

Reading at the Rudyard Kipling

2007-11-05T23:10:00.000-05:00

This Friday (November 9th) I will be reading at The Rudyard Kipling in Louisville as part of the InKY Reading Series along with authors Stephen George and Brian Leung. If you are in the ville that day stop by and buy me a drink. I'll need it.

One Hour Before Thirty

2007-11-05T22:49:00.000-05:00

In less than an hour, and possibly by the time I finish this post, I will be thirty years old. It's a grim reality and one I am still attempting to reconcile.

Thirty is said to be the old age of youth. In the Japanese culture thirty is considered the age in which one truly becomes a man. As I draw nearer by the minute to this milestone I feel less adult than ever before.

The evidence of my age is mounting however. I've done things I never dreamed of doing when I was younger. I have been married now for seven years. I have a child. I also work as a professor and it seems ever quarter I am confused by how young my students seem to be. This should all stand as evidence that I am no longer young, but every time proof of my progression toward the grave presents itself I counter in my mind with proof to the contrary.

For example I spend each night of my life watching cartoons populated by sophisticated talking dogs and megalomaniacal milkshakes. I have a myspace page as well as one on facebook. My tastes are helplessly teenage; ragged jeans, Goodwill shirts, albums by bands no one has heard of.

But since my birthday is hurtling through time toward me I have made plans. Tomorrow I will celebrate the death of my twenties with my own personal wake. I will drink the same bourbon I drank in college, one with a quality so low referring to it as "cheap" would be an exercise in looking on the bright side. I will watch reruns of The Ben Stiller Show (when I could stomach Ben Stiller), Mr. Show (one of the best and strangest sketch shows ever), Kids in the Hall (ditto), and Saturday Night Live from the early nineties (a cast which for my money surpasses the original 1975 cast). I will listen to Soul Asylum (Grave Dancers Union), Nirvana (Bleach), Pearl Jam (Ten), and Pontius Copilot (my favorite evaporating band from the past). I will wear a concert shirt from the bottom of my closet, and read from On The Road.

I will pretend to be young. The next day, I will learn how to be an adult.

Love Letters to a Fourteen Year Old

2007-09-22T22:17:00.001-04:00

I've been a little down for the last week or so. Somewhere out there in the meandering channels of United States Postal Service, or in the mail rooms of dozens of literary journal, are my nicely typed submissions which have gone unanswered for six months or longer. If you write I am sure you can sympathize. Envelopes in the hands of strangers. Time drags on. You hope for the best.

To cheer myself up tonight I went down to the basement office I share with spiders, and pulled an old shoe box off a shelf crammed with boxed-up nativity figurines and old stereos. It's a box I've kept stowed away since I was in high school. I had the no-response blues, so I thought I would go slumming through memory lane, and remember a time when every letter I wrote received a heartfelt response. The shoe box holds the remnants of all my juvenile romances.

I was a letter writer up until the late nineties when I got my first hotmail address. I have love letters from girls I met at the beach on summer vacations, notes from girls I met at track meets, and Valentine Day cards from girls I can't place at all after so many years. Email ended this. With a check and a click I erased every significant relationship I had after the age of eighteen. When I bring out the box, I am reminded of the tragedy of convenience.

If I had had email when I was younger I wouldn't have been able to notice the following:

When young and writing love letters, it is important to use a lot of exclamation points.

If you have a step-daughter it is important to develop a strong bond with her. Otherwise she will refer to you only by your first name, and write long diatribes against you to boys she hardly knows.

The girls who wrote to me spent almost have their time writing about their sisters, brothers, cousins and friends. This make sense since for the most part we hardly knew one another although we were in the grips of storied and tragic love affairs.

Nearly every letter ends with a plea to write back soon. The absence of email led to anticipation which made the whole affair more exciting. I imagine the girls who wrote me walked to the mailbox everyday, as I did, full of hope that there would be a letter waiting for them. This was good training for a writer.

We talked about everyday things: music, movies, TV shows. When I read the letters I feel old.

It is possible to express your feelings with homemade gifts. The box contained among other things a romantic cassette tape with songs by Bryan Adams and REO Speedwagon taped from the radio, and a lock of hair taped to a birthday card.

In the end, I'm glad that email didn't exist when I was younger. Thanks to my shoe box I spent the night remembering a girl with amazing handwriting who dated me and three other boys at the same time, a girl whose dad had threatened to send her to Charter Ridge (a mental hospital) if she got out of hand, and a girl who was thrilled that she just made third chair in band. I was also able to read letters from people I promised to love forever who I can't place now but whose sentiments still make me feel cared for.

Save your old love letters. Throw away your rejections. Wait for the mail, and keep faith that someone you haven't spoken to in years is cloistered in a basement remembering you fondly.

Motels Part I

2007-09-12T00:51:00.001-04:00

The Kozy Motel in Manchester, KY is a sagging platform of concrete and plaster that sits atop of a NAPA store my uncle Shorty has owned as long as I've lived. It was once a nice, clean, no-frills motel. It had been the only place to stay in town when my uncle owned it too.

When I was young my uncle drove my cousin and I to Lexington to see the WWF. It was the mid-eighties, and pro wrestling was at its height with heroes like Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant beating each other senseless on national television three times a week. In the back of the car my cousin and I talked about our heroes. I had a Jake the Snake Roberts poster that ran the length of my door, and my cousin had a foam replica of the championship belt which I envied greatly.

"Randy 'Mach Man' Savage, is going to be there with Elizabeth" my cousin said. "He hates Hulk because they used to be friends."

"He ain't a Macho Man," my uncle Shorty said. "He used to stay at the Kozy with his brother Lanny when they wrestled Smokey Mountain. I threw them out for stealing towels."

We loved the show that night because we had a first-hand account that the heel Macho Man was a real villian-- a towel thief.

At the Baptist college I first attended, there were rules for everything. There were rules against holding hands in public or kissing on the lips. There were rules against wearing the wrong t-shirt, against unnaturally colored hair or pierced noses. There were rules to keep students from running.

Students were given two overnight passes a semester which had to be signed by their parents and approved by the college. If a student left for the night without an overnight pass they could be expelled. The college had learned long ago it was easier to expel troublemakers (free thinkers, pregnant girls) than to reform them. It was a work/study college, so it didn't hurt their bottom line to send half a dozen home each semester. It sent the right message to those that stayed.

The night before finals I sat in a Denny's with a girl I had known for a week. We smoked cigarettes and drank coffee. I had met her in art class where she only drew dead trees and nursery rhyme characters. Neither of us had an overnight pass, and each time a police man came to the pick-up window we sank into our seats.

We spent the night in a motel which had been built on top of a former stripmine. The polyester comforter was stained with motor oil. Ladybugs explored the blinds. We made love as if there was no hope left for us tomorrow.

She had taken off her pants in the car as we crossed the desert because I asked her too. The car had no air-conditioner, and the heat had been growing since we passed an amusement park on the other side of Los Angeles. I had never driven a stick before so we depended on long runs. If I stopped at a light we were lost. Roadside flea markets bled into Barstow, and afterwards we vanished into the Mojave at seventy miles an hour.

Her feet dangled out the window, and sunlight bounced off half-painted toes. By the end of the day we had left the desert behind us, and found ourselves over seven thousand feet above sea level in Flagstaff, Arizona. I promised to get her off the road soon, and she asked if I wanted to go out later get a tattoo.

The lobby of the motel was decorated with statuettes of Hindu deities. Above the front desk curling blue arms spread out like a crab next to black bodied goddesses heavy with jewels. We checked in under fake names and paid in cash.

That night as she slept I sat on the floor in my underwear and watched a documentary about The Mississippi River. Hernado De Soto first laid eyes on it in 1541, when he was forty-four years old. I counted the days until I would see it for the first time. I was young. I too was an explorer.

Virgina Tech And After

2007-04-16T22:40:00.000-04:00

After I taught my last class today I saw CNN reporting that 7-8 students had been shot at Virginia Tech. When I got home forty-five minutes later the number was 22. By five o'clock the toll was 33 including the shooter, if there was in fact only one. Now after ten o'clock at night there still aren't any answers and there won't be for months.

At this hour the only things I'm sure of in the coming days are the following:

Experts will sit at roundtables with coffee mugs in front of them and blame scary musicians and violent video games, clips from Hollywood blockbusters with more explosions then dialogue will scroll before commercial breaks, and weeks later the same talking heads will begin to blame themselves for sensationalizing the tragedy.

While this is going on politicians and activists will debate gun control laws. One side will argue that firearms make our citizens unsafe and that there is no legitimate need for semi-automatic pistols in the realm of hunting or sport if they pose a danger to our children. The other side will say that only law-abiding citizens obey laws and that if more of the students had been armed the number shot would have been lower as someone could have shot the shooter. They might add that no one holds up a gunstore before the commercial break.

During all the talk celebrities and public official will weigh in on each side with one organizing benefit concerts and television specials, and the other trying to pass legislation to prevent this ever happening again.

As the answers come slowly over the months, each less satisfying than the next, people will grieve the fact that they missed important clues and some will apologize for not recognizing the potential for this to occur sooner. Lawsuits will come on the heels of these confessions while black armbands are sewn onto football uniforms and memorials are dedicated.

College campuses will begin to look more like high schools years from now, with metal detectors and armed guards. Concrete barriers will stop cars from parking too close to dormitories and professors will be required to report writing which might hint at potentially dangerous students.

The time of an open college campus in the heart of a community, one in which you can now wonder about freely watching squirrels or passing afternoons in the library, will become as foreign an idea as the time in which you could smoke cigarettes in high school.

In the end all that can be done will be done. The answers gained will continue not satisfy, and we will continue to live in a world that is often cruel, unpredictable and tragic on occasion because in the end there are no answers for these events. There is no prescription from which these terrible days spring. The best we can do is comfort one another, try and be a little smarter, and hope that we don't build walls too high to remember what it was like before they existed.

Goodbye Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-13T23:10:00.000-04:00

Goodbye Kurt Vonnegut
1922-2007

So it goes.

The Breakdown Blues

2007-04-04T22:06:00.000-04:00

First the confession. At this point I have not written a completely new short story for over four. I am embarrassed as I write this because being a writer is more than saying you are a writer. Being a writer is not the same thing as being a water skier where in the winter months no one has the expectations that you are out chipping ice away from the lakes so that you can ski. To be a writer requires an amount of constant unrewarded doggedness to do the title any justice, since after all, a writer is nothing if not someone who writes.

I have never been of the mind that being a writer is anymore important than being say a plumber or someone who seals driveways. After all, in the final analysis it might be less practical an endeavor than either as no one ever looks at their home in disgust and says, "Get the Yellowpages. We're going to need a writer." But since the term (the word title seems unfit for my present level of accomplishment and productivity) is one that I use to define myself, I do feel a certain sadness that I have done little as of late to earn it.

My descent into sloth has been a gradual one. When I graduated from my M.F.A. program a little over a year ago I had the makings of both a novel and a short story cycle. I spent the year after the program re-editing my novel and submitting it to publishers and agents. At this point it has been read and passed upon by two publishers, both of which had good cause. While I'm proud of the novel thus far, it is at best seventy-percent of the way finished. It's written in first person, which doesn't hold up well over two-hundred and fifty pages and also serves to limit the novel as I can only tell what the protagonist knows. With this in mind I began to re-edit the book, and though I was pleased with the start of the new draft it felt as if I have lived too long with the misfits I had created so I decided to take a break.

On this break I submitted new versions of short stories to journals, and re-edited the work I have into a short story cycle which I submitted to publishers. This was over four months ago and while I have been collecting scraps for new work, I haven't been able to practice the most important writing exercise of all--keeping my ass in the chair.

This breakdown is not an uncommon one. It has happened to most writing students I have met. They say when their time in the program ends all the late hours they poured into trying to please their professors and peers are eaten away by the concerns of making a living, raising a family, and the other more practical dilemmas of the world. The creative vein slowly scabs and flakes away if left unscratched.

It would be unfair to say that my disinterest in writing, or maybe it would be more appropriate to say my putting off writing, is due to the concerns of real life as these only play a part in my procrastination. I am not the most practical person after all. My inactivity is also due to my lack of success if I am to be honest with the universe and candid. Japanese Shinto priests have a term for work for which their is no immediate or practical reward (they call it spirit training) and lately my spirit is weak. I do recognize though that without the hours spent without reward or encouragement I will never be able to be successful in my work.

I also realize their have been others before my who have had it much worse than I do now. Flannery O'Connor who is failing health most of the time she forced herself to write three hours a day. The poet Li-Young Lee worked in a factory at night and wrote his poems alone in between shipments. The desire of the writer, the spirit, has to be strong or else nothing will ever come of their work.

The reason I write this confession, the reason I choose to set here in my basement and confess the fact that I haven't even tried of late, is to in a small way get moving again. I don't want to be at some Christmas party years from now talking about how I used to write. I am at this moment practicing the most important writing exercise known to man--I am in the chair and the keys are moving.

Writey Awards for 2006

2006-12-30T18:50:00.000-05:00

Another year has come to an end and instead of taking one of the dozen of surveys submitted to me on Myspace.com asking me to note whether I have kissed in the rain or met a celebrity this year, I decided to take stock of my year in writing. If you're thinking about writing maybe this will give you a little insight into what you can expect. If you are a writer, then this inventory might be too common to illicit sympathy. Regardless, here is what all those envelopes sent to strangers have gotten me this year.

2006 was my first year in writing after earning my M.F.A. from Spalding University. The previous two and a half years were a wonderful time, during which I was allowed to speak the common language of literature with incredibly helpful and warm faculty and friends. With the degree in hand, I started out 2006 determined to make my diploma more significant than just a piece of paper in a drawer. Here is a brief count of the numbers for this year.

Number of submissions (novel, short stories, etc.): 74

Number of rejections: 43

Number of acceptances: 1

Number of submissions awaiting response: 30

Number of publications that lost my submission: 1 (as far as I know)

While this might look grim to some, it should actually be encouraging. 2006 wasn't that bad a year all things considered. I had two things come out in print, and I have three more pending publication. Also the large number of submissions awaiting response is due to the fact that most every publication takes three months or longer to respond to submissions. Add to that the holidays (basically forget anything being accomplished in from late October to early January) and this year could still turn out great. It might sound like a silly hope, but as a writer you depend of silly hopes because sometimes they come true.

Since I covered the large number of submissions from this year awaiting response, I might as well go through some of the other numbers since numbers have no emotional value and therefore are the arch-enemies of writers. Below are my Writey Awards for 2006.

Best Comments From a Rejection Letter (non-form):

"...the resulting narrative is at once fresh, sardonic, disturbing, and emotionally powerful."
-Zoetrope: All-Story

"...I admire the giddy nature of your writing.."
- Zoetrope: All-Story

"..it (the story) was among the top ten finalists.."
-Alligator Juniper

* Please understand that I actually agree with these rejections, and they helped me revise my work. I include these because they are "nice rejections." Next to be accepted, a hand-written note wishing you the best and encouraging you to re-submit is as good as it gets.

Worst form rejection slip:

Any form rejection designed to be the size of a playing card to save paper. Several journals use these.

Best form rejection slip:

Santa Monica Review
(It has this great, "Look, we know how it feels..." opening.)

Best Comment from an acceptance letter:
"Wonderful story! Very real, and gritty.." Heartlands

*Other publications that have accepted my work and/or printed it this year received the work before 2006 and therefore were not eligible for a Writey.

Most confusing and/or frustrating moment of 2006:

Two stories named finalists in contest with well-known judge, and set to be published in August. Not sent galleys until October, and told they would be published in November. Issue still not out, and my last email to the publisher (in December) has not been returned.

Honorable mention: Story submitted to publisher in December of 2005. Emailed publisher after six months to find out status. Not told that the story was lost until October after two months of correspondence with secretary.

Best Moment of 2006:

Walking into a bookstore, opening a glossy newly printed book, and being able to see something I wrote inside it.

The Writeys Awards for 2006 above do not include the whole meandering process of trying to get my novel published, as that would be a whole essay in itself. To give you an idea of what it has entailed so far though, my novel has been rejected by nineteen different publishers and literary agents. The publishers have for the most part not read the book, and suggested I get an agent. The literary agent have for the most part ignored my query letter (one actually sent the envelope back unopened.) My novel has been with a publisher for five months now, and I haven't heard anything which is generally a good sign. I hope for the best, and keep the envelopes in the mail.

The Electronic Afterlife of Art

2006-09-15T23:57:00.000-04:00

The internet is a huge city whose machinery moves so fast there is no time to consider urban renewal. Graffitti, written by unknown hoodlums, remains on the sides of passing trains year after year. Posters for bands that have long since disbanded stay nailed to utility poles. Chalk drawings on the sidewalk do not fade over time. Every rambling piece of art and expression continue to exist, and wait for rebirth.

A few months ago I was contacted by an Israeli publisher regarding a story I had published online years before. The story involved The Salvation Army, genital piercing, and teenage girls. I could not image what an international audience would think if they ever read it, but when the contracts arrived from Tel Aviv, I signed them. Then I forgot about the whole affair, considering it a bizarre event that would never be repeated. I was wrong.

Today I was contacted by an Indian publisher who wanted permission to republish a personal essay I published online about attending my first NASCAR race in Bristol, TN. What an Indian publisher would want with my exploration of largely southern race car culture is beyond me, but once again I granted the rights to publish my work in a country I will never see.

These request have left me a little puzzled. But when I considered them I came to a few conclusions.

First, I relized that culture is culture. My befuddlement at what an Indian publisher could want with an essay about race car culture in America must in some way be equal to that of a Hindu priest wondering what National Geographic could possibly see interesting in a temple dedicated to rats. The temple afterall is a part of his every day life, and most Americans belong to a different religion than his own.

Secondly, I realized that the internet allows art to have an afterlife. Words float in the electric ether waiting to be considered and reborn in new forms, but this blessing is not the sole territory of literature. Music is downloaded, shared, and posted. Art is pasted onto new pages, incorporated into other works, and photoshopped by strangers worldwide. Art is reincarnated every day in small and large ways, and its audience is sometimes the most unlikely thanks to the angels of search engines and scrolling screens. Once it is created and born into the electronic realm of being, it remains.

Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists

2006-09-15T23:09:00.000-04:00

This week, for the first time, I was able to walk into a bookstore and find something I wrote for sale. While it wasn't a book, or even a story, it was a great quiet moment. While what I wrote was something that might better belong on the back of a cocktail napkin, or in an forwarded email, it was nice to see my work in print. It was also one of those moments in life where failure, either my own inability to count and/or that of the copyeditor's, mixes with success. My list (Seven Band Names That Would Be Impossible to Book) appears in the anthology Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of List, although the list as printed includes only six names. Buy a copy. It's my greatest success and misstep to date.

Are Fake Memoirs the New Fiction?

2006-02-10T20:27:00.000-05:00

By now, weeks after the story of James Frey's Million Little Pieces has broken, the public is aware that the work which was awarded a coveted Oprah's Book Club selection spot is riddled with gross exaggerations and out right lies. The book which was marketed as a memoir of addiction and recovery has been shown to be more of a work of fiction sold as memoir, but in the end, does it matter? Memoirs aren't gospel after all, they are an author's rememberance of a period in his life, and in the bottom line world of publishing sales matter more than integrity. Nonfiction outsells fiction, so the question must be asked if the fake memoir is an attempt to straddle this demarcation of genre and perhaps produce a tradition which is more attractive to the shrinking readership of America. Is loving a lie enough?

James Frey is certainly not alone if you consider his work pioneering instead of immoral. Many other authors have been taken to task for what they have presented as fact. Augusten Burroughs memoirs such as Running With Scissors have been attacked as self-serving, unfair, and false. J.T. LeRoy, whose works including Sarah and The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things, was once heralded as a wunderkind of immense social and artistic importance, only to be revealed as an imaginary author whose works were in fact written not by an ex-street kid prostitute saved by therapy but by a woman. However neither of these authors have suffered for their inaccuracies or imagined personas. While Augusten Burroughs new memoir contains a disclaimer, a film version of Running With Scissors is set for wide theatrical release. The same is true of the make-believe LeRoy whose memoir The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things was made into a film by director Asia Argento. The stories remain accepted despite their questionable origins and no authors have been run out of publishing on a rail.

But why would anyone feel cheated in the first place? Why does it matter if a good story told as fact is nothing more than fable. The answer comes from the very nature of writing.

In any genre one writes in, it is understood that the author has made an unspoken contract with the reader. In a work of fiction, the first few chapters of a book serve to inform the reader as to how he or she should read the manuscript. The reader learns whether the narrator can be trusted, if the work is supposed to be accepted as hard fact or allegory, whether the laws of time and place exist or are thrown to the wind. In a work of nonfiction that feeling-out process doesn't exist as the work by definition is accepted as truth. The same is true of memoir, only with memoir there is another agreement the reader makes with the author. He or she not only agrees to accept what is written as truth, but in a small way, conceeds to sympathize. The anger many readers felt towards Frey, the sense that they had been cheated, comes not only from his violating the term that his book is fact but also from the dull-pain that their sympathy was undeserved. This is one of the reasons the negative response has been so profound. Both a televised tongue-lashing from Oprah Winfrey and litigation from readers have followed. People don't like to feel that they have been made fools of, or do they? Burroughs and LeRoy will continue to publish as there is no publicity wave moving against them. Thankfully for their sake, their books were never Oprah Book Club selections.

But is the fake memoir the new fiction, a marketable crossbreed of fiction and non-fiction which can freely take elements of both in crafting a story? Are the sales of non-fiction proof that the public is ready to make concessions? If so this genre would allow new freedom. First it would allow the reader to suspend a little belief but not all, keeping an air of control that must be submitted when reading fiction. Secondly, it would allow the author the freedom of an essayist to craft a story on the skeleton of truth while at the same time exaggerating and creating randomly for affect.

At first glance it is attractive, but the arguement for this new wave of writing falls apart on closer inspection. There are purist readers on both sides. Readers of fiction want to understand that there is a wall between the art and the artist. Readers of non-fiction don't enjoy being lied to or having their emotions toyed with. And in the end all fiction is cobbled together from real life experiences and attitudes, whether they are the authors or not, and non-fiction owes it success to the willingness of its readership to accept and empathize with what it presents as fact.

While the reading public might love the lie, they hate the liar.

The Cult of Shut Up Little Man

2005-11-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

"Someday Ray, I will kill you."
- Peter Haskett

I've always been engroess with outlaw art in all forms. I love the instances when the festering underbelly of American pop culture finally comes to a head and lifts up something real, honest, sometimes frightening, but always entertaining. This is the case with Shut Up Little Man!, a series that started with second-rate recordings and blew up into all forms of media simply because the recordings are as enthralling as they are disturbing. The story of Shut Up Little Man! is twisted, cruel, and unlikely. Most of all, and beyond all reason, it's magnetic because it is sinister and true.

The phenomena began in 1987 in a rundown apartmentbuilding the color of Pepto-Bismol in San Francisco's lower Haight district. Two college-age guys known today as Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D. moved into the kind of rat-hole apartment we've all had at one time or another in our lives, located on 237 Steniner Street #4. Soon after moving in they realized that their next-door neighbors where two alcoholic, violent, and especially loud psychopaths who were bound to each other only by their mutual boiling hate for one another.

Neither of the explosive drunks, Peter Haskett and Ray Huffman, worked. They spent each day drinking themselves into a stupor in front of the television, and screaming at one another with a level of hostility that is honestly hard to put in words. They never left their apartment except for short trips to O'Looney's liquor store or Walgreen's for smokes. They existed in their own dark world of booze and hate, which would later be captured for posterity.

Soon after moving in Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D. began taping the fights between Peter and Ray through their shared and thin apartment wall. Ray and Peter fought loudly enough that this was easily done. They taped hours of fights over conflicts ranging from toenail clippings to stealing, and we're lucky they did. The tapes are riveting in their intensity and unbridled hate.

Later the tapes Eddie and Mitchell made took on a life of their own. The Shut Up Little Man tapes! (Shut up little man being one of Peter's favorite things to yell at Ray) became a fast favorite among tape-trading circles. In 1993 a play based almost entirely on the dialogue from the tapes played in Los Angeles and received a huge response. The next year it was performed at The Threadwaxing Space in New York City's SoHo district.

This was just the beginning. The tapes took on even more incarnations. Shut Up Little Man! comic books, bumperstickers, T-shirts, and the original tapes are all now available from retailers such as Amazon.com. In 2002 a movie based on the tapes entitled Shut Yer Dirty Little Mouth was produced staring Glen Shadix (Otho in Beetlejuice) in the role of Peter.

The cult status of Shut Up Little Man! has brought about all kinds of online fan pages that feature everything from Ray Huffman's death certificate to interviews with Eddie Lee Sausage about the time he tried to pay a drunk Peter royalties.

It is amazing how two washed-up lunatics screaming at one another from the confines of their dingy apartment has entralled so many, but to fully appreciate Shut Up Little Man! you really have to hear Peter and Ray for yourself. Their fights are available on most all file-sharing systems as well as for sale. The recordings are hiliarious and startling. They will make you cringe and roll on the floor at the same time. They stand as a perfect example of fringe culture that is so alive and evil, it must be shared-if only for the sake of therapy afterwards.

Fun With Euphemisms!

2005-07-25T14:19:00.000-04:00

Sexual Euphemisms can be a fun way to wow your friends, but often give too much away. How much about your sex life do you really want people to know anyway? So here's a helpful exercise that will enable you to make your own vibrant and mystifying sexual euphemisms on the fly.

Step 1- Take an action verb
Step 2- Choose a country of origin
Step 3- Pick an animal
Step 4- Finish up with a type of junk food

Just follow these steps and you'll be able to say with pride, "Hey, I had a wild one last night. Took her home and gave her 'Flying Mexican Donkey Milkshake' before she told me her name."

7 Band Names That Would Be Impossible To Book

2005-07-25T14:10:00.000-04:00

(published by McSweeney's)

1. No Event Scheduled
2. Open Date
3. Cancelled Due to Fire
4. Postponed
5. All Ages w/ No Cover
6. Renovating
7. Private Party

A Lonely Hunter

2005-02-21T01:10:00.000-05:00

It's one in the morning on February 21st, 2005 and the news has just come over the wires. Hunter S. Thompson has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The world of new journalism has in fact ended not with a wimper but, sadly enough, with a gunshot.

Hunter S. Thompson was someone I looked up to. He was one of the old heroes, along with Kerouac and Hemingway, that most men come to hold dear when they first fall in love with writing and highways. The kind of idol you find when you're up late at night with like-minded friends trying to break Dylan Thomas' record of seventeen whiskeys in a row.

So here's to you hunter. You made paranoia a sexy necessity and taught us to make ourselves the only part of the story not too exaggerated to recognize. You rode us along with the Hell's Angels while Sonny Barger made his case, and left us in a hotel room with a teenage runaway who just wanted to give Barbara Streisand a painting. You let us talk football with Richard Nixon and shared cocktail with us on the beaches of Puerto Rico. Your death, like that of the other old heroes, begs the same old questions: Who can be surprised? Is self-destructiveness tied to genius? Is it really better to burn out? The answers to these questions don't matter though. These questions will always be around. You've answered them for yourself and taken the proud highway from Woody Creek to parts unknown-leaving us here with fond memories of another dead hero.

Heroes

2005-02-08T02:14:00.000-05:00

Jim Jones looked a lot like Elvis
In those last days
He sweated under big sunglasses
Twisted his goldnugget rings
Threw smiles to the ladies
Then Danced and sang to tears

Sometimes it's hard to see the monsters
Because they look too much like our heroes

Slow Day at the S.A.

2005-02-08T02:05:00.001-05:00

(originally published in 3AM Magazine)

The first idea was a paper clip but it didn’t look sharp enough to make it through the skin. Then we thought about using a latch pin but the metal bent at a funny angle. The nails in the bottom of the fix-it box looked too thick. Finally Kayla found a real long hatpin, the kind with a little pearl on the end, and we decided it would do.

“This,” Kayla says between bubblegum pops, “is perfect”.

It’s important to use something sharp. My brother told us about a punk kid who tried to pierce that loose skin at the bottom of your neck with a chicken bone. He was pushing this thing through and all of a sudden “Crunch”! Half the bone is in his fingers and the other half is gone. It cut through his vocal cords before they could find it. He couldn’t say anything after that.

Kayla cleans the hatpin with rubbing alcohol and eases my pants down past my knees, but my panties stay up.

There is no one in the secondhand store today. Sundays are pretty quiet so they are the best days to work. Kayla put two big bells on the door to warn us if any customers walk in. This shouldn’t take long. No one can see us way back in the storeroom anyway.

My legs have little blue veins that stick out like an old lady’s when I‘m cold. The air conditioner overhead sounds like a milkshake machine and I’m wondering if you bleed less when you’re cold. The hatpin is clean and Kayla pushes it through an old pair of blue jeans to make sure it is sharp enough. It goes clean through, seam to seam, just like that. This is was my idea.

With the hatpin ready we look through the earrings we picked out. One is a big gold hoop that’s too big for the job once we really look at it. Another one is the right size but the clasp looks pretty flimsy. None of them look like they would work.

Kayla sticks the hatpin back into the folded blue jeans and spits her gum out. Today her hair is pink. Her mother says if she keeps dyeing it she’ll go bald, but she doesn’t listen. My knees are turning purple around the bones. My mother says I need to gain weight. We sit like this for a while trying to figure out what to do. I wonder if you bleed less when you’re skinny.

Looking at my legs makes me want to pull up my pants but Kayla grabs my arm. Her bracelets scratch me. She’s smiling so big I can see her tongue studs. No one at school has them but her. That’s the way it’s been since grade school. Somehow she is always in front of me.

She stands up slowly and takes out her belly button ring. We size it up. It’s solid, stainless steel and looks about the right size. Perfect.

Kayla asks me if I’m sure while she rubs the hatpin down again. She’s had infections before so we want to be careful. She says she knows a girl who pierced her ears because her mom wouldn’t take her to get them done and got some kind of fungus in them because she didn’t clean the needle right. Her ears turned all orange like cream sickles.

I tell her I’m ready but I need to go to the bathroom first in case. I know if I pee when she does it I’ll never live it down. She tells everything she knows.

While I’m in the bathroom Kayla goes to look through the racks of old uniforms against the back wall of the store. People donate all kinds of things like that here. Some of the shirts come from the army. Some say Subway or Jiffy-Lube on them. She pulls out an old nurse’s top. It’s a white V-neck with little teddy bears on it. She pulls in over her tank top and laughs. She’s the first nurse either of us has ever seen with a nose ring.

Since no one has come inside the store for over two hours we get brave. We turn the radio off the good time oldies station and put in a mix tape one of Kayla’s friends at college gave her last weekend. She has lots of friends at college that she’s always talking about. The music is really loud and most of it sounds like a trashcan falling down a stairwell. Kayla shouts something about noise bands and jumps around. Then we lock the door just in case and go back to the storeroom.

Everything is laid out on a clean white t-shirt that has a red cross on it. The hatpin sits next to the rubbing alcohol, a washcloth we found, and the ring. Kayla’s mom takes these little blue pills to relax, and she shares them with her sometimes. We both take one. It feels like a fingernail going down my throat, but I swallow hard and try to relax. My ears are listening to the air-conditioner, the noise band, my pulse.

When my pants come down again Kayla starts acting like a real nurse. She helps me get in position. It would be easier if we had a bed but all we have in the storeroom is a couch that we pulled a sheet over. She’s put on gloves but they aren’t rubber or anything. We couldn’t find any like that so she’s wearing white opera gloves so she doesn’t have to touch it.

“I’m going to be the first huh?” My heartbeat sounds slow inside my head, like something just starting up for the first time.

She says she thinks I’ll be the first.

Everyone at our school has their bellybutton done unless their parents are super uptight. A lot of girls have their eyebrows or noses done. One of the senior girls even has the kind that’s just a little ball that sticks out under your lower lip. None of them have this though. We’re sure of that.

“You going to?” She asks pointing down between my legs. My panties say Wednesday on the front but its Sunday. No one wears them on the right day. That’s the rule.

“What if we did my boobs?” My hands push into the sides of them so they look bigger. We both laugh.

Kayla says in Jamaica it cost almost two hundred dollars to get your boob pierced on the beach. Her cousin told her so. That doesn’t even include a tip she said, and you have to tip for everything; even for toilet paper.

“We’re not in Jamaica.” My fingers are turning blue.

“Ok,” she says, “but one junior girl, Amy somebody, has those done. My ex told me. Plus you heard about what happened to Hunter last summer.”

She scoots closer and I shake my head “No”. This is the way she acts when she gets ready to tell something real dirty or gross. Her eyes get white as rice and her mouth gets big so you can hear the metal in her tongue clicking away. She always tells what she knows.

“He pierced his own nipple right, but he went too deep or something. It always got infected so he had to take it out. Well when he took it out it left a big ball of scar tissue that looked like a third nipple right? Well one night he was picking at it, and he was real high right, and it came off but there was this string on it. He sat and flipped it for awhile and he’s like ’what the fuck’ but it doesn’t come loose so he cuts the string. The next day he wakes up in the hospital. It wasn’t a string but like one of the nerves to his heart or something.”

She smiles real wide while my thumbs hook into my waistband.

On the couch it’s hard to get comfortable. The cushions are old and my back is pushing against the frame. My right leg is on the armrest and my left leg is propped against the edge of the couch. My stomach feels real cold, like the air-conditioner is running in my belly. Neither of us says a word. The music out front sounds like someone is recycling soda cans in a dishwasher.
Kayla gets the hatpin ready and tells me to practice breathing.

She reaches down between my thighs with one opera glove and moves it into place. Inhale. My legs get tense and my veins start popping up like pen marks. Exhale. She’s looking at it. Inhale. What does it look like? Exhale. Does it look like everyone else’s? Inhale. It feels like a snowball is growing inside my belly. Exhale. She pulls the side of it out. Inhale. Hold it. Hold it.

Kayla stabs the hatpin into me. I fight to stay still. Her bracelets scrape my leg as she fishhooks the ring into me. Everything burns. The snowball in my belly has boiled away. Everything is electric. My fingers look like cream sickles. I can’t say a word.

When it’s done Kayla looks at me. Her eyes are big and glassy. I touch it. My hands feel warm and wet. It’s not pee, just blood. Just a little to let you know it was real. The ring feels steady. Kayla looks a little jealous and it’s perfect. I’m the first.

Being Anthony Michael Hall

2004-10-07T01:34:00.000-04:00

The most successful writer today will never have the name recognition of a C list celebrity from two decades past. The same is true of painters, playwrights, poets, and photographers. Richard Avedon? Who's that? Bukowski? Never heard of him.

From this day forward I will not rest. I will work tirelessly until I become the best known writer of my generation. I will rise to the stature of Anthony Michael Hall!

I regret that I have but one life (or crotch) to give for my country

2004-10-07T01:19:00.000-04:00

(published in The Village Broadsheet)

Election time is upun on us, bringing with it all the pagentry of the Olympics and all the eager anticipation of a Charles Manson parole hearing. The two candidates before us a both finely tuned political animals; two parts of the global political machine that are completely capable of appearing independant. While the media mulls over every nuance of the upcoming election, I've found most interesting the fringe movements who go to extreme lengths to persuade a nation of discontent and uninterested voters. Forget yard signs and bumperstickers. Let's see how far we can go!

Rock the Vote. Old Hat. Heard It. Fuck the Vote! Now we're talking.Fuck the Vote's homepage implores "Sexy Liberals of the U.S. Unite in taking back the government from the sexually repressed, right-wing, zealots in control!". The way it provides for this to change to come about is simple. Register at fthevote.com and find an attractive conservative slub willing to trade his or her vote for a quick toss. The would be lovers sign a pledge promising to vote for Kerry (our more appropriately against Bush) and get laid. Done and done. The site comes pictures of those willing to screw for change and a searchable database by state were lonely conservatives dare liberal loins to change their minds. It also hosts grassroot meat-ups and celebrities such as Michael Moore are pictured on the site lending support-in spirit if not in body. Not to neglect commerce, the site also sells Fuck the Vote condoms and bookmarks.

Another way sex has been used to influence the upcoming election comes not from true believing girls next doors but from the porn industry. Videos featuring the No More Bush Girls shaving their crotches for change are available on p2p networks along with websites such as newsfilter.org. Hey, it beats cold-calling and fliers.

But who's winning in the hearts and crotches of America really? Collegehumor.com polls national opinion via pictures of nude coeds who have either written Kerry or Bush on their bodies. Even in this poll, it's close.

But what if you want to get laid, but are a staunch replublican? What if you want to get laid, but are unsure which way you want to vote? For you there is hope. You can have a votergasm!

Votergasm works much the same way as Fuck the Vote, but in a less partisan fashion. It wants young people to get involved, then get naked, without political pretext for the action. Votergasm.com has an interactive pic-rating section where you can guess if someone is an ass or a trunk as they put it and also features a message board that lists all the election night orgies to come. Democracy on the march!

While there are few bigger ways to make an impression than through sex and nudity, there is one-death. We've all seen the picture of monks burning themselves and heard of radicals blowing themselves up on buses for one political cause or another. In the obituary section of my hometown newspaper this Sunday a grieving family remembered their lost mother. They wrote about her as a parent, teacher, and activist, and asked that in her memory I please vote for John Kerry.

This whole bizarre mess will be over in less than a month and I'm glad because under all the teasing and screwball attempts to influence the elections there is a core of seriousness. We are at war. There are serious economical and social issues at stake. For me, that takes all the fun out of it. I need real comedy. Unscripted. Unformulated. How long before they interview Manson again?

Gas Station Karaoke: Staggering Through Nascar America

2004-09-23T00:08:00.000-04:00

(published in Me Three)

Thirty miles from the track, I get the sense that something big is happening. Bubbas stand out by the interstate, stone faced and serious. They have flood lamps hooked up to gas powered generators at their feet turning the night into noonday around their pick-ups, where signs hang off tailgates with three foot tall letters reading “I Need Tickets”.

Further in, smutty fog the color of diesel fuel clogs the valley. Road signs become illegible through the smoke screen of charcoal burning, cigarettes smoldering in the grass. Pup tents have been erected in the median of the divided highway, church lawns have become refugee camps for luxury trailer. Every green space is choked with discarded cans of Coors Light, wads of toilet paper, Frito-Lay bags. I get the sense that I am intruding, and if nothing else I better keep driving.

Closer to the track, stout policewomen herd in the drunks that wander around the streets, their fishbelly white bodies catching headlights on shaky legs before they move on to pass out in gravel lots or on air-mattresses. RVs fill every space imaginable around the speedway in one great spiral that goes on all the way up past interstate 81N. Tonight 160,000 race fans lay with drunken jitters while the sun is on the other side of the world. The ones who can’t sleep, the true fans with their bellies full of nitro walk the landscape like zombies from a third rate horror film. Hungry. Restless.

As I pull up the hill towards my campsite, the gas stations are alive with Budweiser reps giving away free beer. Skoal reps are pushing smokeless tobacco into dirty overworked palms. A Karaoke machine is set up in the corner of the Qwik-Mart parking lot where braless women in their forties warm over Tanya Tucker while their men eye approvingly. This is NASCAR America. And it’s growing.

I sleep in my clothes. I want to be ready.

When I was asked to come to Bristol motor speedway for the fall race, what race fans call the night race, I wasn’t really interested. It was an invitation I’d turned down before, and with so much writing to do I didn’t think I had the time. I was curious though about the change that had occurred in my family over the last year.

My relatives’ homes over the last twelve months have slowly become shrines to the sport. Toy cars line up on mantles where wedding pictures have been in the past. Fantasy NASCAR teams have replaced fantasy football teams as a long distance bonding ritual. Holidays have become times to debate the new point system, which drivers wreck others on purpose, how the sport is totally rigged or inevitably geared toward whichever team has the most money to spend.

In a way NASCAR has become a much bigger part of their southern culture than it had been in the past when it was something of a novelty, like watching Bill Dance fishing for smallmouth bass on Sunday afternoon. That’s the reason I came to Bristol. I moved out of the south against my instincts, so now anything that seems intricately southern draws me in. I’ve become obsessed with the idea of meeting Little Jimmy Dickens, making my own lye soap at Dollywood, or squirrel hunting one last time. Bristol fell into this line. I had to do it. Just once. Just to show “my raisin”.

The morning of the Friday race, the minor league Busch series race, the population of Bristol, TN has increased eight fold. The ground temperature at eleven in the morning is in the upper eighties, but feels like a hundred degrees since everywhere you look there is concrete and aluminum sided vans reflecting the heat, walls of sunburned flesh meandering.

In all directions semi-truck trailers are hawking voodoo dolls of the most hated drivers. Arms crowd next to arms; tattoos meet tattoos, as the sea of blue-collars crush into one another to buy radio shack race scanners at four hundred dollars a pop.

Friday morning is not without its share of celebrities. An oak tree of a man, bearded and steely-eyed, named Chocolate signs gas cans for a hundred dollars a piece. He is the crew chief for number eight, the most popular driver on the circuit. Even with the connection to number eight, Chocolate has to share time with the Texas Bikini Team, who have sweated their masquera off by noon posing with deacons and circuit court judges.

The fans look like a fat clown convention. Number forty in lipstick red. Number thirty virgin white. Number twenty four in neon green. Every shirt is an overstated mural to Chevy or Dodge with a huge bright picture of cars, flaming tires, and a driver’s face. Checker flag bikini tops hang inches above hot pink paunches. Their is a sea of out of shape bodies in every direction, hungry, hot, ready to see someone killed in their car.

Because of the walls of people gathered around the mammoth racing complex, you can only walk in staggers. If you take three steps, two have to be to the side to move out of one person’s way, then the other. Bristol on race week becomes one of the largest cities in Tennessee, most of its rag-tag citizens living within the same two square miles away from showers, fresh food, and running water.

I move through the odor of sour mash and body odor back up the hill towards my campsite. Confederate flags whip in the wind above number eight flags, upside down twenty four banners. At the gas station, a crowd has gathered to hear a sixteen year old sing Trisha Yearwood. Some of the wifeless men are working hard to get her top, offering a string of number forty-eight beads.

The night of the race, I feel less out of place. I have a racing hat on, sunglasses that slant backwards, and most importantly, a race scanner with matching earphones. The contraption looks like something a pilot would wear, with a microphone jutting down from one of the coconut shell sized headphones. It does serve two purposes though.

One, it blocks out the noise. The race track is surrounded by mountains, and is itself a deep concrete bowl that only amplifies the rumbles and squeals of the engines. Without earphones, you walk out deaf.

Secondly, the earphones and scanner allow you to hear every word between the driver and pit crew. The majority of the fans look like they work on an aircraft carrier, they set and eaves drop on every turn with spare batteries at the ready in their sweaty laps.

Fighter jets fly over the track as a local politician rambles against gun control. Children sing the national anthem as best they can remember it, then are quickly bused off the track. The speedway added an additional twenty thousand seats last summer, and there is still only standing room. The speedway has over twice the attendance of the Superbowl, every seat waiting for blood and exhaust. The cars are ready. The switches wired to engines flip on, and the race begins.

An hour into the race it becomes clear to me that the race itself isn’t the attraction. There is no sense of competition. Driver eight, who was badly burned two weeks earlier to the point of limping, is supported by a good ninety percent of the fans. He is a legacy, he’s young and good looking, and he’s bound to win. His victory comes not only from the fact he has the most money, but also because the race is totally rigged. If any driver gets too far ahead of him, the race goes under caution. This means all the cars have to get back in a close line and circle for four or five laps. All leads are lost. The reason is always bogus: debris on the track, oil in pit row, things that can’t be proven. The fix is in.

The real entertainment in the race, for me and the 160,000 air traffic controllers surrounding me, comes from eaves dropping on the hustled hillbillies at the wheel. You get to hear unedited slander and spite on every turn.

One crew chief tells his driver, “If you go down on that thirty-eight car and show him your nose, he’ll let you by. He just wants to get his car out of here in one piece.” Bristol is notorious for its short track wrecks. Drivers have been killed below us, some just flying in to the race. Their names are lent to grandstand seating now.“Don’t try anything smartass though,” the crew chief warns. “He’s a big fucker.” The drivers know there is no place to hide after a wreck. They’ve been surrounded too.

After two hours, the race ends with number eight burning his tires in a scarring victory. Everyone’s dreams have come true, and the hundreds of dollars spent seem worthwhile.

Walking with 160,000 fans on the highway, you can only take baby steps. Up the hill at the track, people look like a million African fire ants stirred to a frenzy. From the air, it looks like an evacuation from some great disaster, thousands after thousands forcing their way back to backyards and overpasses to sleep.

With nothing left to do, I walk into the gas station by my camp site and buy a six pack of cheap beer. It cost twice what it would any other time, but most of the crowd is sweating blood from thirst and joy so no one minds. Worn out and stinking, I sit on the grass by a mini-van that is hawking cold pizzas.

The Karaoke machine is blaring an off-key Stand by Your Man while huge bodies lean on each other in the dark. Next year there will be more race fans, there are plans to add a third race, additional deep fryers and cigarette cartons have already been ordered. I finish my last beer and go off to find a dance partner. This is NASCAR America, and I’m taking it all in before the sun finds its way back.