Category: People Are People

Out of the Woodwork

Seems my friends list on goodreads blew up today. Three folks added me, and I went ahead and added one myself, someone whose writing I always enjoy whenever I come across it.

Why not come on over and check it out? I’ll add anyone, especially anyone who reads the sort of books I read. C’mon…you’ve tried Facebook and MySpace and last.fm. One more social network won’t kill you.

Pimpin’ Ain’t Easy

…is it, James?

I heard this alluded to on the Bat Segundo Show podcast interview with James Lipton, but my jaw dropped when I looked it up.

Actors Studio host Lipton was a pimp in France
Last Update: 10/22 5:04 pm

James Lipton, the host of U.S. talk show, Inside the Actors’ Studio, once worked as a pimp in Paris, France.

The revered TV presenter, who has sat down with Hollywood’s biggest names for in-depth chats about their life and work over the last 13 years, has revealed he once procured clients for French hookers.

He says, “This was when I was very very young, living in Paris, penniless, unable to get any kind of working permit… I had a friend who worked in what is called the Milieu, which is that world and she suggested to me one night, `Look, you’ll be my mec… We would translate it perhaps… as pimp.”

Guess I’m Really Not Alone

I’m in a café in a library at the Big Red School on the Hill, playing hookey from work. Hell, I got stories to finish.

There’s a joke in I-town, mostly among writers who know each other, that everyone here is a writer. “Everyone”–townies, professors, undergrads, grad students–is working on some novel or screenplay or somethingorother.

I’m observing a conversation between two people, an English professor and a library media specialist, and an old physics professor who kind of horned in on their conversation.

Two of the three confessed to being writers.

Cramming

I know what you’re thinking. All that screed about writing, and here he is blogging. Deal ;). I just wanted to take a second and brag.

I’m also part of an online flash fiction critique group, which I’ve been neglecting as I freak myself out trying to pound “The one with the mask” out of me. There’s a minimum monthly participation level that I crammed into the last day of July with one story and three critiques.

The story was based on a Carver-like piece of Vogon poetry I wrote awhile back, probably the closest to a decent poem I’ve ever written or am ever likely to write. No, I don’t consider that cheating at all, why do you ask? There was lots of editing that needed done. Anyway, I submitted it to surprisingly few criticisms, aside from people’s individual tastes on sentence structure.

The point again that this is the umpteenth time I’ve experienced the joys of just sitting the fuck down and getting shit on paper, sort of the literary equivalent of a bulemic purge, in order to beat a deadline. You’d think I’d learn that lesson, but I doubt I will anytime soon. Already, I feel myself “not feeling like it,” as far as the bits I have to do to carry “The one with the mask” those few precious steps toward completion.

Gonna Be a Bright Sunshiny Day

Just this second, I noticed a small family out on the Arts Quad at the Big Red School on the Hill. A young Mom and Dad, probably both grad students, were throwing a bouncy rubber ball back and forth while Little Baby Girl (who can’t be more than a year old) was reading her little baby book. Mom miscalculated her throw and the ball bounced off of Little Baby Girl’s head.

I couldn’t hear anything from inside the library cafe, but you could tell the baby was screaming. Mom and Dad didn’t seem too worried, though. In the time it took me to write this, Little Baby Girl was hugged and soothed, and is now back up and around, enjoying the sunshine and the grass, almost like nothing ever happened.

Unintentional Eavesdropping

Nope. I was in Indianapolis six months. No one paid me a dime.

(repeat x3)

No, not a song lyric. Just the ramblings of a probable itinerant (judging solely by appearance, I admit) sitting one comfy chair over in the café I’m sitting in. I didn’t see a Bluetooth earpiece. And if I had, I don’t think I’d necessarily be less disturbed.

Nothing to See Here

Jaysus, I’d tell this person to give it up already, except that this person obviously didn’t find what he or she was looking for. Maybe this can serve as a warning for the next lazy-ass cheating bastard: Read the damn story yourself, you goldbricker! As if your prof couldn’t spot your plagarizing a mile away.