California as a Final Resting Place: The Ridiculous Notion that Roller Coasters Were Not Engineered With Death in Mind
California as a Final Resting Place for Cliches
California as a Final Resting Place [One Year Later (I would love to disappear and grow a beard)]
California as a Final Resting Place: Two Years Later: The Cheese Blends
California as a Final Resting Place: Four Months Too Late
“Mr. ---------, I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long.”
“I’m sorry?”
“….”
“….”
“Sorry to make you wait, sir.”
Noting the already three occurrences of the word sorry in this still embryonic conversation, I decided to jump the rails and take a shortcut to wherever this was going.
“Who is this and what do you want?”
“I apologize again, Mr. ---------, for the inconvenience.”
Apologize now, he says.
“No, but what inconvenience? I’m at home. I was just eating a sandwich. I’m basically in my underwear. The only inconvenience here is the incessant apologizing. Now why am I talking to you?”
“Sorry again, sir. My name is Mortem Posthelwaite, I’m with the magazine Ink, Inc. We’re a small independent college independent literary magazine.”
“Excuse me, but which is independent?”
“Umm…I think both. Hold on.” There was the clank and clutter of a telephone receiver being held to shoulder under the pretense of muting it and voices in the background signifying some sort of confused/ing conversation over institutional dependence. “Yes, both, sir.”
“Okay.”
“But again, sir, I’m with the magazine Ink, Inc. We are an independent literary magazine, and your novel The Cheese Blends has recently come to our attention. We were wondering if you could answer a few questions concerning the book.”
Before he could finish his sentence, I had before me a page of Googled information concerning this Ink, Inc., and within me a set of serious suspicions concerning the legitimacy of this whole thing. The magazine did not seem to exist.
“Yeah, sure. Do you mind, Mr. ….”
“Posthelwaite.”
“Yes, Mr. Posthelwaite. Do you mind if I ask what possibly independent university you are a student of?”
“You mean, ‘of what university are you a student.’”
“Excuse me.”
“Nothing. Sorry, sir. Umm…I attend [mumbling + weird crunching sound of something grating against the mouthpiece of his phone]--U.”
“I’m sorry, what was that again?”
“[Same]--U.”
“Ah.” I pretended to hear him.
It should be explained here that I was, when this phone call arrived, still basking in the minor success of the now-published The Cheese Blends. As it turned out, going with Option 2[*], worked to my benefit, and a handful of pages landed in the hands of one Mr. Arthur Pubeleasheir (or Mr. Art Pube, as he is sometimes not-so-affectionately known in certain rogue publishing circles), a moderately wealthy publisher of moderately readable books which have been systematically rejected by other, “mainstream” publishing houses. Mr. Pubeleasheir came back to me on the street corner that very day and offered to publish my book based solely on the three pages I had given him as he passed. Six months later, the book hit the shelves, published and distributed by PageByPage Books, a division of Read-to-Yourself-In-Public, Inc., which was, itself, owned by Viacom.
The point is the book was out, I had made a little money off of it, was now trying to enjoy my turkey and pepperoni sandwich at 2:30 on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, basically in my underwear, now having to pause my new DVR so as not to miss the upcoming ballistic elephant video on World’s Most Shocking…, but was being interrupted by this ---- of a reporter whom I had serious suspicions about.
“Okay. So what do you want to know.”
“[Again, fumbling, cluttering, clanking, etc.] Okay, Mr. ---------, let’s begin.”
“Let’s.”
“Let’s start with inspiration. Inspiration being the thing that all artists need to be inspired. What was your inspiration for writing this book?”
“I ate too much cheese and suffered several painful bowel impactions after which point I sued the figurative pants off of a third-rate chain restaurant whose niche was different types of cheeses, all of which were available plain, fried, or melted depending on your appetite and whether you wanted to shell out an extra sixty-five cents for something to dip your fried cheese into, or an extra four bucks for something to dip into the melted cheese. And again, I litigated the place basically into the ground for doing irreparable damage to my colon area, which is the reason that my aforementioned sandwich that you are interrupting is cheeseless. But you already know all of that.”
“….”
“Don’t you?”
“I, uh,…I, yes, I suppose some of that is common knowledge.”
“Common knowledge?”
“Written about in other articles, other sources, etcetera and so forth and so on.”
“Nope.”
“….”
“The only other existing article about my book is a review in my hometown newspaper, and I had them sign a waver saying there would be no question about nor mention of my bowels.”
“….”
Of course I knew that the Cheese Hut had, some two years ago, shortly after the litigation, and when I began working on the book, employed a small band of vagabondish college-aged indie-music-beard-and-horn-rimmed-glasses enthusiasts with a penchant for groundless snobbishness (but who yet ironically and for a pretty negotiable already low price were more than willing to do this kind of “investigative reporting”) to follow me around and chart my every move. Of particular interest to them was the frequency and efficiency of my BMs. I would see them slipping into public bathroom stalls as I washed my hands. I could hear them in my back yard at night, digging into my sewage system, feel them following me down the pharmacy aisle at Wal-Mart. And now this ridiculous interview.
“Mr. Posthelwaite?”
“Yes. Yes sir. I apologize, sir. But do you mind answering a few more questions.”
“Sure.”
“How have you recovered from this gastro-intestinal, digestion--your personal medical problem?”
“I will repeat: I cannot have cheese on this now cooling toasted turkey and pepperoni sandwich because it would render me rectally wrecked and utterly gutturally incapacitated. That’s how I’ve recovered.”
“[Sound of pen scratching wildly on pad unnaturally close to the phone receiver] Right.”
“[Crowd noise. Screeching. Silence. Crowd noise. Screeching. Screaming] That is ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh. Sorry there, Postagestamp. I’m trying to watch the television and they just showed some seriously disturbing roller coaster footage.”
“Oh. Yes sir. I’m sorry.”
“Again, why are you apologizing? Do you have some sort of personality deficiency?”
“Deficiency? Sir, I--“
“Quiet. Listen. [Again, Crowd noise. Screeching. Screaming] Did you here that?”
“I did, sir.”
“That’s DVR. I can rewind my television.”
“That’s very impressive.”
“I don’t know that I like your tone, there Postalweight.”
“No. I’m legitimately impressed.”
“Well, look, this roller coaster got to the top of its loop--which, let’s just be honest: I can think of no circumstance in any context where feeling like I’m going to die a horribly violent public death could be considered fun--but the thing got to the top of its loop and just stopped.”
“Wow, that’s--“
“But then--that’s not all--then, the front car and the back car both fell away from the rail and were dangling loose, like two ends of a shoe string.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“No one was hurt. You believe that?”
“I do not.”
“I think it’s time that we--the society, I mean; not necessarily you and I, although we would be included--give up this ridiculous notion that roller coasters were not engineered with death in mind. They had to have been built by a sadist or something.”
“Very good, Mr. --------. [Long and awkward pause] Do you have time for a couple of more questions about The--“
“[Click].”
BACK TO POST Passing the novel out page by page on a busy street. See “California As a Final Resting Place: Four Months Too Late.”
California as a Final Resting Place [One Year Later (I would love to disappear and grow a beard)]
California as a Final Resting Place: Two Years Later: The Cheese Blends
California as a Final Resting Place: Four Months Too Late
“Mr. ---------, I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long.”
“I’m sorry?”
“….”
“….”
“Sorry to make you wait, sir.”
Noting the already three occurrences of the word sorry in this still embryonic conversation, I decided to jump the rails and take a shortcut to wherever this was going.
“Who is this and what do you want?”
“I apologize again, Mr. ---------, for the inconvenience.”
Apologize now, he says.
“No, but what inconvenience? I’m at home. I was just eating a sandwich. I’m basically in my underwear. The only inconvenience here is the incessant apologizing. Now why am I talking to you?”
“Sorry again, sir. My name is Mortem Posthelwaite, I’m with the magazine Ink, Inc. We’re a small independent college independent literary magazine.”
“Excuse me, but which is independent?”
“Umm…I think both. Hold on.” There was the clank and clutter of a telephone receiver being held to shoulder under the pretense of muting it and voices in the background signifying some sort of confused/ing conversation over institutional dependence. “Yes, both, sir.”
“Okay.”
“But again, sir, I’m with the magazine Ink, Inc. We are an independent literary magazine, and your novel The Cheese Blends has recently come to our attention. We were wondering if you could answer a few questions concerning the book.”
Before he could finish his sentence, I had before me a page of Googled information concerning this Ink, Inc., and within me a set of serious suspicions concerning the legitimacy of this whole thing. The magazine did not seem to exist.
“Yeah, sure. Do you mind, Mr. ….”
“Posthelwaite.”
“Yes, Mr. Posthelwaite. Do you mind if I ask what possibly independent university you are a student of?”
“You mean, ‘of what university are you a student.’”
“Excuse me.”
“Nothing. Sorry, sir. Umm…I attend [mumbling + weird crunching sound of something grating against the mouthpiece of his phone]--U.”
“I’m sorry, what was that again?”
“[Same]--U.”
“Ah.” I pretended to hear him.
It should be explained here that I was, when this phone call arrived, still basking in the minor success of the now-published The Cheese Blends. As it turned out, going with Option 2[*], worked to my benefit, and a handful of pages landed in the hands of one Mr. Arthur Pubeleasheir (or Mr. Art Pube, as he is sometimes not-so-affectionately known in certain rogue publishing circles), a moderately wealthy publisher of moderately readable books which have been systematically rejected by other, “mainstream” publishing houses. Mr. Pubeleasheir came back to me on the street corner that very day and offered to publish my book based solely on the three pages I had given him as he passed. Six months later, the book hit the shelves, published and distributed by PageByPage Books, a division of Read-to-Yourself-In-Public, Inc., which was, itself, owned by Viacom.
The point is the book was out, I had made a little money off of it, was now trying to enjoy my turkey and pepperoni sandwich at 2:30 on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, basically in my underwear, now having to pause my new DVR so as not to miss the upcoming ballistic elephant video on World’s Most Shocking…, but was being interrupted by this ---- of a reporter whom I had serious suspicions about.
“Okay. So what do you want to know.”
“[Again, fumbling, cluttering, clanking, etc.] Okay, Mr. ---------, let’s begin.”
“Let’s.”
“Let’s start with inspiration. Inspiration being the thing that all artists need to be inspired. What was your inspiration for writing this book?”
“I ate too much cheese and suffered several painful bowel impactions after which point I sued the figurative pants off of a third-rate chain restaurant whose niche was different types of cheeses, all of which were available plain, fried, or melted depending on your appetite and whether you wanted to shell out an extra sixty-five cents for something to dip your fried cheese into, or an extra four bucks for something to dip into the melted cheese. And again, I litigated the place basically into the ground for doing irreparable damage to my colon area, which is the reason that my aforementioned sandwich that you are interrupting is cheeseless. But you already know all of that.”
“….”
“Don’t you?”
“I, uh,…I, yes, I suppose some of that is common knowledge.”
“Common knowledge?”
“Written about in other articles, other sources, etcetera and so forth and so on.”
“Nope.”
“….”
“The only other existing article about my book is a review in my hometown newspaper, and I had them sign a waver saying there would be no question about nor mention of my bowels.”
“….”
Of course I knew that the Cheese Hut had, some two years ago, shortly after the litigation, and when I began working on the book, employed a small band of vagabondish college-aged indie-music-beard-and-horn-rimmed-glasses enthusiasts with a penchant for groundless snobbishness (but who yet ironically and for a pretty negotiable already low price were more than willing to do this kind of “investigative reporting”) to follow me around and chart my every move. Of particular interest to them was the frequency and efficiency of my BMs. I would see them slipping into public bathroom stalls as I washed my hands. I could hear them in my back yard at night, digging into my sewage system, feel them following me down the pharmacy aisle at Wal-Mart. And now this ridiculous interview.
“Mr. Posthelwaite?”
“Yes. Yes sir. I apologize, sir. But do you mind answering a few more questions.”
“Sure.”
“How have you recovered from this gastro-intestinal, digestion--your personal medical problem?”
“I will repeat: I cannot have cheese on this now cooling toasted turkey and pepperoni sandwich because it would render me rectally wrecked and utterly gutturally incapacitated. That’s how I’ve recovered.”
“[Sound of pen scratching wildly on pad unnaturally close to the phone receiver] Right.”
“[Crowd noise. Screeching. Silence. Crowd noise. Screeching. Screaming] That is ridiculous.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Oh. Sorry there, Postagestamp. I’m trying to watch the television and they just showed some seriously disturbing roller coaster footage.”
“Oh. Yes sir. I’m sorry.”
“Again, why are you apologizing? Do you have some sort of personality deficiency?”
“Deficiency? Sir, I--“
“Quiet. Listen. [Again, Crowd noise. Screeching. Screaming] Did you here that?”
“I did, sir.”
“That’s DVR. I can rewind my television.”
“That’s very impressive.”
“I don’t know that I like your tone, there Postalweight.”
“No. I’m legitimately impressed.”
“Well, look, this roller coaster got to the top of its loop--which, let’s just be honest: I can think of no circumstance in any context where feeling like I’m going to die a horribly violent public death could be considered fun--but the thing got to the top of its loop and just stopped.”
“Wow, that’s--“
“But then--that’s not all--then, the front car and the back car both fell away from the rail and were dangling loose, like two ends of a shoe string.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“No one was hurt. You believe that?”
“I do not.”
“I think it’s time that we--the society, I mean; not necessarily you and I, although we would be included--give up this ridiculous notion that roller coasters were not engineered with death in mind. They had to have been built by a sadist or something.”
“Very good, Mr. --------. [Long and awkward pause] Do you have time for a couple of more questions about The--“
“[Click].”
BACK TO POST Passing the novel out page by page on a busy street. See “California As a Final Resting Place: Four Months Too Late.”
posted by Matt Mc at 6:46 AM
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