Temporary Absurdist

Inexpensive Promotion Opportunity from dada east

2008-03-10T12:01:00.002-05:00

ok, this is a rare opportunity for self publishing / self promoting experimental artists. If you burn your own albums, print your owns books and zines (even through vanity press's like lulu.com) and print your own arts - please consider this opportunity to inexpensively promoting yourself.

experimental artists (of any kind), editors, website owners and makers.

for $1 - three lines of text
=====================
great for: website address and description
great for: book and zine description and address
great for: performance description and address etc etc

for $5 - 7m x 9m square
great for: album cover and website
great for: book zine cover and website
great for: your head and website etc etc

please ask questions
Don't worry about space I'll add another page if needed

http://www.dadaeast.blogspot.com

A New Absurdist Update

2008-01-16T15:07:00.000-05:00

Hello again. Nothing to report on the The New Absurdist website at this point. It seems as though it will be back but I've had no communication from The Polycarp and no one knows anything.

You can of course use this site to post your Absurdist stories, but you have to become a member first. Send me an e-mail at headsfromspace @ yahoo dot com and I will get you on the memberlist.

Nobody (including me) has posted at the TNA board for a while so it seems everyone is in hiding for the present. Send me news if you have any, or post to this blog.

Web Death Anthology is Finished And Awesome

2007-10-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

Yes, the anthology is finished and ~~will be~~ IS available at Bust Down The Door ~~shortly~~ NOW!

As I predicted, this anthology is A W E S O M E and extremely gnarly.

Also it appears that The New Absurdist will be back at some point, probably when we least expect it. Stay tuned for more rock n' roll.

Last Call For Web Death Anthology

2007-09-18T14:58:00.000-05:00

This is the last call for submissions to the Web Death 2007 New Absurdist Anthology. What does this mean? It means that in another weeks time I will be sending it out to be formatted and e-booked, and then it will be too late for YOU to get into the anthology.

Assuming you want to get into the anthology.

We have 24 pieces in the anthology, and the anthology is becoming AWESOME! I predicted that the anthology would be awesome, and I was right.

Also, the TNA message board has migrated to Yuku. You need to bookmark the new address, though you will be redirected using the old one for a while.

The Justynn Tyme Cover

2007-08-30T15:09:00.000-05:00

Here is the proposed cover for the New Absurdist Web Death Anthology. It's beautiful and I love it. Justynn has done a great job:

DAILY CHILLS CALENDAR

2007-08-26T05:38:00.000-05:00

365 DAYS… 365 STORIES… UNDER 365 WORDS…

I am collecting dark, twisted, surreal, and/or bizarre flash fiction, poetry, humour and images. 365 pieces will be selected and placed in a daily “inspiration” style calendar. The submissions I’ve taken so far have been incredible. Some would make Wes Craven cry. They’re coming in from a broad range of sources including, of course, horror writers, experimentalists, absurdists, surrealists, and more.

I’ve moved the book up a few levels from my first vision and have refined the details.

This sucker seems to want to be a hot item. My goal is to see this for sale on big chain bookshelves. I want to bring a taste of some of the worlds most creative fringe writers and artists to the general public. The big stores don’t normally take collections of any kind but they love daybooks and calendars and other “novelty” type items. People eat that stuff up.

-Submissions must be in by late September but RSVP now to show interest.
-All contributors with seven pieces in the book will get 1% of royalties and a short bio at the back.
-All contributors with three pieces will get copy.
-All contributors with one piece get a smile, a handshake, and potential publicity.
-Copyrights remain in artists name and will be printed with each piece.
-Reprints are fine. We're aiming at unexplored audiences where evrything is new.
-When the book is complete I will hand it over to an agent in New York to make the sale.
I am meticulous so will not forward the book until it is perfect, but I do hope to have it together within two months.
-This is not aimed only at current fans and readers of dark fiction, it is to be marketed for everyone.
-This is not going to be an online daily email. This is not to be POD.
-This is not a project aimed at generating money for myself. It would be faster and easier to write 365 one liners myself.
-Consider that some person might read your strange and twisted prose and be so enthralled that they will look your name up and order a copy of your own novel(s)

E-mail submissoins to D.W.Green@rogers.com

Web Death Anthology Status

2007-08-14T15:18:00.000-05:00

I've received several more submissions for the Web Death anthology as well as an essay by AD MacDonald. I hope to get more essays. I am waiting for more Absurdists to check in and send their stories. I really have no idea how many I might receive.

At some point I will probably try to hunt down more e-mail addresses and do another mailing. I've also posted about the anthology at the Bizarro Central Forum. Several Absurdists hang out there. I had no idea.

I've done a redesign of this site. Still quirky in Internet Explorer. Not too bad though. Less absurd, more understated.

Justynn Tyme Weighs In

2007-08-10T10:43:00.000-05:00

Justynn Tyme has posted some thoughts about the upcoming Web Death 2007 New Absurdist Anthology at his weblog He is a nice person. I recommended him for membership in The Legion of Death. Membership is pending.

We have three submissions for the Anthology so far. I hope to get at least thirty. I want this thing to be MASSIVE. I want it to be so mindblowingly huge that Donald Trump will look at it and say

"this is huge!"

That's how huge I want it to be.

Ray Fracolossy was caught lurking at the TNA Message Board yesterday. He failed to reply to my post. This is less than optimum. Et tu, Ray?

Web Death 2007 New Absurdist Anthology

2007-08-09T14:01:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone ::

To celebrate the death of TNA, I'm planning an e-book anthology featuring one story from everyone who's a member of The New Absurdist.

Rules for submission to the anthology:

1) Everyone gets in. That is, everyone who has posted at least one story on
The New Absurdist website.

2) Do not send a story that has been published in ANOTHER TNA anthology. That would not make sense.

3) No story will be rejected. Some minimal editing for punctuation and clarity may be needed, but that's it. But please, please send your BEST!

4) Don't send something really long. Try to keep it to a few hundred words.

YOU CAN HELP!

I have a few e-mails for people, but since TNA is down as of this writing (aug 9) and few people are visiting the forum, I need people like Ray and Justynn to contact absurdists and tell them about the anthology.

YES WE NEED ARTWORK FOR THE COVER!

YES WE ARE LOOKING FOR ESSAYS!

This anthology will be HUGE!

TNA @ Archive.Org

2007-08-06T13:29:00.000-05:00

You can access some older content on TNA by going to this page.

Yes, We Have No Absurdism Today

2007-08-01T09:44:00.000-05:00

The New Absurdist is down for the second day. Ray managed to find his way to the message board and post, so at least some people are aware.

I did a post there letting people know that TTA is active again. Perhaps some people will find their way here. The purpose of this site is to provide temporary shelter to Absurdists who want to post and comment on stories. Everyone is welcome. You will need to have a Blogger ID to become a member.

To become a member, e-mail me at headsfromspace at yahoo dot com and I will add you to the list of members, and you will be a member, and you will be happy.

TNA Is Freaking Gone

2007-07-31T14:15:00.001-05:00

TNA Offline on July 31 2007.

I just checked in at The New Absurdist and it is gone. You may access the message board here.

Don't know if this means Polycarp has pulled the plug, or not.

IT'S BACK!!

2004-12-18T10:58:00.000-05:00

The New Absurdist is Back online.

I am screaming like a little girl. The forum is gone so we had better keep the temporary Absurdist for that but its back. Holy shite! Why wasn't I told about this... Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY Oh boY

Algae Number Four

2004-12-10T10:47:00.000-05:00

The wall outside is glowing golden. A bird is standing in the air, right in front of her window. It is carrying two yellow straw sticks. She reaches for her watch. A quarter to eight. Sunrise has happened without her, even though it is Sunday. But then, Sundays are different, and thus the hour feels right and wrong at the same time. She thinks of simply drifting back to sleep again. It is tempting, the bed so warm, still carrying the imprint of her night body.

Outside, the grass is wet when she walks through the leaves. It hasn’t rained, the drops of water are dew, or are due to the sprinkling machines. She can’t tell the difference, and there is no one around to ask. Everyone else seems to be asleep still. Sunday, she remembers. Even the wind hasn’t woken up yet. The ocean lays still, the water seems thicker, heavier, almost like liquid metal. Above it, the sun, not golden, but blinding white. The shore is black, and the water close by is black, too. Oil, she thinks. But it isn’t, it is algae, dead algae. The waves must have carried them to the beach in the night. It looks disturbing.

A bus passes by, it doesn’t stop in front of the bungalows. Seeing it, she remembers the start of the journey that brought her here. She had been in a city, walking to the bus station. The place, she knew it, had crossed through it before. Yet, there was another woman waiting at the bus station already, wearing the same coat as she did. They both had tickets for line number eight. A bus arrived, and they stored their bags away. Then they drove through streets, on and on. “It will take hours to get out of the city,” the other woman said. “I don’t mind, I like to be moving,” she answered. When they reached the next stop, she realized that they had caught the wrong bus. The number of it was four. There was something else that was wrong. She tries to remember it, while she watches the oily algae waves sip against the black beach.

Her breath is turning into a hazy little cloud, as she stands there. This can’t be, she thinks, and tries again. Another cloud appears. She tries once more. Again, the warm air she exhales turns to white, even though it isn’t cold enough for it. On the way back, she keeps watching her breath. It stays invisible. Maybe it was a string of cold air, or the humidity of the ocean, she thinks.

Back in her bungalow, she sees the bird again, standing in the air, on the other side of the window, looking in the way she is looking out.

When she returns to the ocean, later in the day, all the algae is gone.

Superficial Orange

2004-12-09T08:38:00.000-05:00

She walks in a perfunctory manner toward the bank, her purse hanging on her shoulder, her shoes clicking on the just-swept, white-squared sidewalk that leads in a winding manner from the adjacent parking lot to the glass entrance doors, the pleats in her variegated dress symmetric in their vertical creases, the bank itself far enough away from the sewage plant so the banking customers are not aware of the stench emanating night and day, day and night, the olfactory presence malodorous in its threat.

Inside, the two on-duty tellers are occupied; there are two customers in line: one, a young but tall blonde girl with short hair, the length sufficient for a ponytail, her shirt a smoky gray color bearing a pro sports team logo on the front in the direct center of her chest, which does not show evidence of large breasts. She is wearing tight-fitting denim jeans. The second patron, the one next to the woman who just walked in, is a very old man with cropped white hair and eyes that bulge and a jaw that appears crooked. He is unshaven and looks as though he just woke up from too long a nap.

She stands motionless beside the man and notices that the blonde girl is holding a white pen in her left hand. She does not carry a purse, the pockets of her jeans hold nothing that protrudes. The woman wonders why the girl is here with only a pen and nothing else. This is a bank, a place to make transactions, so shouldn’t she have some papers, a checkbook, something else in her hands besides only a pen? Anxious to see what happens when the girl is called by the next available teller, the woman ponders the pen-only issue pensively.

One of the tellers wishes a good afternoon to the customer she just helped and verbalizes the young but tall blonde to approach. The woman in line beside the old man watches the girl from a left angle as the girl positions herself before the teller. The conversation ensues, but is too low a volume for the woman to hear; all she can do is watch the movements of the girl and the teller in order to attempt in deciphering why the girl is at a bank and in possession of only a pen.

The teller says something and the girl nods and responds with a brief utterance, the pen now in her right hand, which rests on the chest-high ledge before the teller. The teller looks down and to her left, grabbing a slip of paper; it appears she is writing something on it, but since the ledge blocks the view, the woman cannot be certain this is happening. After a moment the teller hands the girl the slip of paper and the girl looks at it. The teller’s eyes are not on the girl.

Handing the slip of paper back to the teller, the girl says something and the teller smiles. The girl turns to her left, exposing her face to the woman, walks past and exits the bank. The woman looks back at the teller’s ledge and sees that the pen has been left. The old man has been called to the other teller, leaving the former open for the woman to approach. When she is called, she lifts the pen from the ledge and reads in cursive lettering just below the cap: EXCUSE ME, BUT I DON’T CARE.

The woman looks at the teller, who is also looking at her. The woman realizes the teller knows the pen was left by the blonde girl and that it doesn’t belong to the woman. Reaching into her purse, the woman brings out a roll of bills and tells the teller she wants to deposit the cash into an account. The teller performs the transaction, watching the woman write her information with the pen that the blonde girl left.

The woman exits the bank as the heavy glass door shuts in silence, hoping that one day she’ll see her daughter again and tell her that she left her favorite pen behind.

Copyright © 2004 by Jeffrey S. Callico

THE SPIDERED WEB OF polycarp kusch

2004-12-02T07:02:00.000-05:00

Before I killed off the Hertzan Chimera pseudonym, I interviewed a whole heap of out-there hippied and social reprobates for my Stoker-recommended non-fiction paperback SPIDERED WEB from Cyber Pulp Books. Creator of the New Absurdist and all round good egg, Polycarp Kusch was one of the most entertaining guys - boy, does he have some stories to tell. Anyway, here's the interview with this absurdist master, originally entitle Purple is not a Letter...

A perfectly filthy day in the Belvaros section of Budapest, Hungary. Ahhh how the grey overcast clouds trap the car exhaust and keep it down in the streets where the people need it most. Hertzan Chimera takes shelter in the decaying Pushkin mozi café, choking in cheap tobacco smoke and wondering if the patched-up machine gun holes in the walls are of nazi or soviet era calibre.

Polycarp Kusch is there in his corner, wearing his thongs with his head shaved down close because he's apparently not bright enough to know it's winter and that shoes and hair keep people warm. His brain throbbing under his semi-transparent skull going ak-ak-ak ak-ak-ak and a roll of 50 forint pieces stuffed at an odd angle in his pocket to boost his confidence with the iridescent red haired Barbie dolls that seem to run in packs and own the utca-s and körút-s here. Who could resist an opportunity to spend a few moments in the presence of Hungary’s most alluring social realist.

Initially, Polycarp Kusch is suspicious but a few drinks later and ... no wait… more drinks and…no… that's not an interview, that's him lighting a cigarette… and finally…

This interview may never have taken place were it not for the weather.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Polycarp. Do you mind if I tape this?…

Polycarp Kusch reels back reliving a scene from his junior high school PE class, frightened that Mr Chimera is going to masking tape his butt cheeks together, but relaxes upon seeing the handheld recording device.

Ok…. Tell me something about a friend of yours, Comrade Daniil Kharms.

POLYCARP KUSCH: Well after being exiled twice, having his writings banned and eventually dying of starvation in a soviet "psychiatric" hospital, I think Mr. Kharms would take some offence at the title Comrade, but anyway…

Kharms is the master of the Incident, the incredibly short bizarre - short story. He was also a man who believed it to be bad luck to ever use the same name twice. So he is Kharms, Harms, Charms, DanDan, HarmsDanDan and a hundred others variations. He also had an amazingly bizarre attachment to the aroma women put off when sexually excited. But then who doesn't?

When I first started writing, my stories were incredibly short, which I saw as a personal flaw. I was still living under the delusion that the novel was the great literary form to aspire to. Then I discovered Daniil Kharms.

Kharms taught me three basic points of writing:
1) Write 3 pages a day, even if they suck.
2) The vision is more important than the number of words needed to express it.
3) The mundane will always expose the most fascinating part of ourselves.

If I get blocked up when I'm writing, it's usually because I'm taking the whole matter, including myself, way too seriously. I'll sit down, read Kharms and it's completely cathartic. Who was it that told writers their words had to make sense? High school English teachers should be taken out and shot.

I really wish writers could enjoy the same freedom of expression as painters and composers. There was never a truly grand abstract period to literature that could be paralleled with John Cage musically or to Jackson Pollack visually. I think the closest we've gotten to that was the dadaist tone poems, then one step up to Joyce and then right back into sentences full of words that people know, arranged in ways they're comfortable with, telling the same stories over and over. I'm not saying that conventional storytelling is bad. It just doesn't have to be our only option.

But back to Kharms… Find him! Read him! He's all over the net in every language you can imagine. I even saw one site where he's been translated into Esperanto. My greatest goal is to one day be translated into an absolutely synthetic language like Esperanto. Let's have a show of hands on who speaks Esperanto… Anyone? Anyone? Anyone at all?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Is it always like this round here, the weather?

POLYCARP KUSCH: No no no, the only place on the planet to be come springtime is Budapest. So beautiful, it could almost make you believe there's hope for people. But the crappy winters in central Europe give a nice contrast, a reason to stay inside and drive up Nintendo's stock value. There is a sense of continuity with everything here that doesn't exist in the US or that I never found living there. And living in a country that doesn't have the highest state-of-the-art street sanitation techniques really makes one appreciate the colder heavier air of winter that keeps the dog poop smell close to the ground instead of rising up and coming in through your windows like it does in the summer.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Freedom is very important to us all but this shines through in your writing. There is an ethos, yes?

POLYCARP KUSCH: Freedom and openess generate a fair amount of crap because we can't seem to get used to the idea that others might actually listen to what we have to say if we don't make it as loud and obnoxious as possible. I will most surely admit that. Small children will randomly say 'Turd' into the telephone simply for the shock value they think the word possesses (and for that matter, the power we've gifted it). Writers will write about their bent on “fucking” or use new words they've just learned or made up. Who's to judge what’s good bad or otherwise other than the reader? What doesn't generate crap? No one stops eating because crap continues to come out, even though we all realize the causal connection.I believe everyone is an artist, so far as everyone has their own vision of the world. It's inescapable. Hemmingway speaks to some, Handke to others and 73 year old waitresses have stories to tell as well that would connect with readers given the chance.It's getting to the point where I don't even see writing as a valuable form of expression. Time is too tight in people's minds now. To invest one's self in a day's reading of a novel, it better be a damn good novel. So we look to others to tell us what's good before we even start. What is worth my valuable time? We waste our lives on so many things we never even bother to think about. Why with art do we demand a guide and handhold?

HERTZAN CHIMERA: You have a bouncing baby boy called ABSURDISM! excuse me but what the fuck is that all about?

POLYCARP KUSCH: Unfortunately, the Absurdism! site is now gone, but the goal was to have an editor free environment where writers could post whatever random bits of themselves they wanted for public exhibition, in stark contrast to the inhibition in writing generated by editors of the old guard of print media who are now carrying that vision into cyberland.

The grand reward of writing is others reading it and seeing our small piece of the picture. Awards are lovely, free advertising, but they've outscoped themselves in importance. Again another dilation device for the time impaired. Well that won that, I can spare myself a minute to see. That writers would lend themselves to give out writing awards shocks me. It's the frat house mentality of I had to go through the initiation, so why shouldn't you. Petty bullshit.We can do it all ourselves now, and that's got to put a scare into publishing houses who pick and choose who gets paid and promoted. So Absurdism! was meant to put writing back in the hands of those who wanted it, those who felt it valuable and had the time.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: You support absurdism and you say your work is absurdist but it smacks of the most horrific socio-realism this interviewer has ever had the pleasure of reading.

POLYCARP KUSCH: Social realism is such a great term. If the real world itself wasn't so freak'n absurd I'd switch over and use that, but then I'd have to change all my business cards too.Truly, I don't care what you call it, I just want to be read and have that mean something after the book goes back on the shelf. I've read people, put the book down and couldn't remember it one way or the other. I'd love to have a copy editor go over my stuff and help me define what's the style I'm shooting at and what are just grammatical mistakes. Things tend to fall out intentionally in two different ways: one I like to write in sentence fragments, the other is writing incredibly long, unpunctuated compound sentences. I read too much Joyce and like it too much. My narratives become dialogs and I write them either broken or running on and on. How things fall out unintentionally, read it and tell me.I think most of the time it works to put across the characters I'm trying to build, but sometimes... it doesn't. You can't win all the time. Spelling... I'm just a moron with a bad keyboard and an attention span too short to run a spell check before transforming to pdf.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: To say I am besotted with your straight-forward, vile, insane, touching, brutal, architecture of words would be the #1 understatement of all time. I have read your collections MACABRE and A BRIEF COMPILATION and need to know what’s next on the horizon?

POLYCARP KUSCH: My main project over the past few months has been trying to find aluminium foil in this country. I don't believe it exists here. And some of those zip-lock freezer baggy things. I like those too. They're great for meat. Ask me more about this later because now you've got me obsessing on food storage.

HERTZAN CHIMERA: Will the real Polycarp Kusch ever stand up and admit his identity in a criminal line-up?

POLYCARP KUSCH: The polycarp is an invention that allows me to actually live the fictional account of my own life. A kind of imaginary friend that would come to your house, wipe his ass on your hand towels and then wait patiently to see what kind of moustache you come out with after washing your face. So the answer there would be no.

Salvador Dali has one of the best quotes, "Everyday I awake to the greatest joy possible… that of being Salvador Dali." I wake up in the morning and say, "I invented the letter D" or "I'm so freak'n famous I can't stand myself. What do you mean you've never heard of me?" and then I tell people that again and again until they either believe it or tell me to shut the hell up and I move on to my next fixation.

It's much easier to write fiction if you just live it. Then it's a simple matter of transcribing the thing. I'm not a writer; I'm a clerk typist. And by the way… polycarp kusch is not capitalized...

HERTZAN CHIMERA: (yawning) I'm sorry… what were you saying? Never mind. Probably wasn't all that important anyway. So, my pager's about to ring and I've got a train to catch to get out of this god forsaken place, but two more quick questions. Where can people download these e-books of yours? And I've heard you've found the cure for cancer? Please fill us in on both.

POLYCARP KUSCH: Well, the good folks over at dreampeople.org have been nice enough to post my books up for download until the other good people (the ones hiding in the pentagon bunkers) clear my application for a new absurdist site.

About the whole cancer thing, I don't see why these so-called researchers haven't seen it. Curing cancer is a simple matter of…

At this point in the interview the tape ran out and polycarp turned into a basking shark and chased me out of Budapest. Good job I had on my jogging shoes. Schlop schlop schlop...

(c) Mike Philbin 2003

http://www.mikephilbin.com

A Filthy Old Dad Christmas Carol

2004-12-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

This is something I wrote about 2 years ago and is part of a trilogy. Sorry, it's a bit long for the blog, but maybe you'll get a laugh...

It was a deathly cold Christmas Eve in the Small Town and Filthy Old Dad was making his way down Elm Street, cursing and punching virgins and laughing at mental defectives and cripples, and tripping blind men and heaping abuse on every living thing, as was his habit. He was dressed in his usual old brown shoes and brown leisure suit, heavily stained with beer and the remains of Little Debbie snack cakes. He had no hat or gloves, and his unshaven face was bright red, as were his drunken eyes. The eyes…those evil eyes! They darted this way and that, glittering with hatred, condemning the world and everyone in it with each machine gun glance.

“I’ll see you in hell!” he screamed at a group of children helping a little old lady across the street.

“That man!” exclaimed Emma Gondwallow. She stared at Filthy Old Dad from the front window of Emma’s Beauty Salon and Facial Repair Shop. “What did anyone ever do to him?”
“Hah!” cackled Sally Thrushbottom. She shifted her massive frame in the chair. It was hard to get comfortable in that chair, for it was plastic and small, and Sally was not. She was getting another perm, a virulently ugly shade of purple. She averaged about one a month. Her hair positively crackled in anything more than a slight breeze.
“He’s a bad one, a devil’s seed! He killed my neighbor’s dog last Christmas, just breathed on it and it dropped dead! He’s not been worth a damn since his wife died. Just taking up space is all he’s doing.”

Emma watched as Old Dad stumbled and pitched into the gutter, his ragged clothes instantly soaked with the salty, melted slush collecting there.
“Well,” said Emma, closing the curtains and turning her attention to the mountain of reeking flesh who helped pay her bills, “I wish he would die and go to hell, he’s a curse on this town, especially at Christmas time. That drunken fool wouldn’t know a Merry Christmas if it charged up his ass and stapled jingle bells to his tongue.”
Sally jiggled with laughter, suffering a mild heart attack that she passed off as indigestion. “You are a caution, Emma, a real caution.”

Filthy Old Dad shook like a dog, sending dirty salted water flying in every direction. He lurched against the brick front of Tim’s Liquor Emporium and felt his way to the door. Christmas bells chimed as he entered.
“Merry Christmas, Old Dad.” Tim was wrapping a bottle of wine for a customer.
“I got your Merry Christmas right here,” sneered Filthy Old Dad, clutching his groin with a dirty hand.
Tim looked bored. Most of the liquor stores in town wouldn’t serve the old man anymore. There had been some incidents. Tim had a soft spot for drunks, though; his own father had been one. So he continued to allow him in the store, although most of the time he felt like punching him in the face.
“Great,” he said. “Hilarious. What can I get you?” He already knew the old man’s poison, but asked just to piss him off. It was easy to do.

Filthy Old Dad had a temper like a rat with gonorrhea.

“Thunderbird!” screamed Filthy Old Dad. “Thunderbird, you fairy faggot! How many times I gotta tell you? Stupid fu—“
“Hey,” Tim warned, “you want I should kick you out? It’s Christmas for God’s sake. Show some freaking respect, Old Dad.” Tim gave him his best stare, forcing the old man to drop his eyes.
“Yea,” Filthy Old Dad mumbled, clutching the thin brown paper bag containing his precious Thunderbird wine, “merry freaking Christmas.” He grabbed his change and darted out of the store, back into the wind and the coming dark and his own confused thoughts.

He made his way slowly down the street in the growing gloom. Tiny crystals of snow started to fall and stung his eyes. He brushed against Tad Lowell, star quarterback at Small Town High, and almost fell down.
“Watch where you’re going, old man!”
“Eat dog shit and die,” suggested Old Dad as he ripped a tremendous, wine-flavored belch.
“Stinkin’ wino, I oughta…”
“How’s your Mom?” Old Dad said suddenly, a knowing leer spreading across his face, “I see her at the Prarieview Motel a lot.”
“What do you mean?” Tad said suspiciously.
“Nothing.” Filthy Old Dad unscrewed the cap and took a swallow. “Forget it.”
Tad watched him as he headed down the street toward Jefferson Park. Just before he disappeared, he turned and shouted “Hey, you look a lot like the Sheriff! Maybe you’ll be a cop someday!” He laughed like a hyena as the night swallowed him.
Tad shook his head, baffled and angry. “Old drunk. Don’t make any sense, talkin’ about my mom…”

Tad did very poorly on his SAT’s that spring and never made it to college. He got syphilis at a drunken graduation party and died in a car accident the next year without finding out about his hideous disease, though he did manage to pass it on to a couple of whores first.

Filthy Old Dad headed for his secret place in the center of the park. He was the only one who knew about it and he guarded it jealously from other drunks. It was a shed of weathered wood planks overgrown with vines and surrounded by saplings, formally an equipment shed used by the Small Town for storing lawnmowers and grass seed, and the bases and lime for the softball field. He had another half-bottle of Thunderbird hidden there. He planned to drink fast and pass out; wrapping himself in old blankets he had stolen from clotheslines in unguarded backyards.

He went inside and lit his candle. It was damn cold and he got serious with the half-bottle of wine. “Ah, shit,” he said, feeling better. He was numb now and stumbled outside to take a piss. Watching the yellow steaming flow he shivered, knowing he didn’t have long to live. His liver was shot to hell and he didn’t care. Old Dad turned his face to the heavens as he shook off the last few drops.

“Hey God, you up there?”

He didn’t wait for an answer but passed out right there in the snow.

The Curse Of The Willards

2004-11-10T19:02:00.000-05:00

It struck me. It really struck me and I couldn't believe it. Yet, I did believe; more now then ever before. How could I not believe it now. Here I am, in the Arizona desert walking my cat – miles away from any elevated plateaux and pow. Malignantly struck down by a falling watermelon. Laying here in the remnants of a juicy rhine I can't help but think back to what my mother had told me just after my father died.

“Japser” she said “I don't want to be the kind of mother who lies to her children. Where will it end Jasper? I am asking you?”

“I don't know mommy.” I said and I didn't. Who the hell knows what your parents are going on about even when your sixteen years old. I've driven her crazy I thought. I know why dad's gone; the old mans bought the farm.

“Look Jasper” she said “I know you you know your fathers dead. Lord help me but I don't know how he made it this long, honestly. Still Japser, there is something you need to know. Your father didn't just died, he was killed.”

“Huh?” I said. See that's the sort of thing I am talking about. When she talks like that I know I am responsible. I mean how in the hell could she have made it through life talking like that.

“Stop talking to the readers Jasper and listen to me. Your father was killed by a falling watermelon. They investigated and it didn't come out of any window or plane. It just fell out of a clear blue sky; but of course you know that now; it just happened to you.”

“mother?” her words were wavering in and out.

“Your father never had the straight story when his father died. Which is rather strange in if you ask me, since every male in his family has been killed that way dating back to the dark ages. Why in the hell he never told you about it himself is beyond me. I guess he didn't really believe it either when his mother told him. Now you know Jasper and I bet you're lying here thinking you should have told your son don't you. I bet your not even wearing clean underwear are you?“

“Oh shut up!” I shouted.

Boneless Widow

2004-11-10T15:31:00.000-05:00

She never did have much of a spine, but once her husband died, she began puking up and crapping out all of her bones.
It wasn’t quite as horrible as it sounds; most of them had turned to jelly before being expelled, but occasionally small shards would get lodged in her throat, causing her to have to do the Heimlich on herself. The splinters were even worse. They would scratch and puncture on the way out, causing much pain and often serious bleeding.
Her in-laws looked on with smug expressions, knowing that her condition would inevitably prevent her from collecting her husband’s fortune. Contesting the will became somewhat of a joke. Obviously someone as boneless as she would turn to mush before the scrutinizing eyes of any judge.
She knew they were laughing at her, that they were bloodthirsty jackals with green dollar sign eyes, but what could she do? She was terrified of them and the mere thought of going to court caused her ribs to come up in a pink-white splash that swamped her desk and splattered the floor with mucus bombs.
Slipping out of her chair and into the gore, she swallowed her teeth and howled a jellyfish howl. They would get their way and she would spend the rest of her days as a chilled dessert, bland and quivering, served only to the very young or very old.

Worce

2004-11-09T19:24:00.000-05:00

It all started with Sara’s now legendary rampage out of my life. So violent and sudden, so unforseen, I could merely stand in awe as if this all were happening to someone else. Had I been given the foreknowledge to sell seats I could have made a fortune. The next day there was a two week eviction notice on my door. My neighbor came over slapped me on the back and said, well, at least things can’t get any worse. Next day my dog got sick.
A few days after that my personal bogeyman called me into the office to tell me that my job had been moved to India, that he was deeply sorry, that I was no longer needed, but at least things could not get worse. A week or so later my grandmother Alzheimer’s finally went fatal and her brain forgot how to live.

When I was giving my grandmothers eulogy, talking off the top of my head, the people around me began vomiting uncontrollably. I think it had something to do with the hole in my head. A bag of hammers busted a hole in it. I think some mimes did it.

I never went to the hospital or anything, and I can't really see up there, but I think it's gotten infected. All sorts of weird things keep spouting out of there. And not just blood and puss. Creatures have emerged, birthed from my head like in some Zuesian parable.

The things, which have been leaping out at regular intervals since last night, aren’t leaving and they’re really creepy. Like that naked woman with Chain-saws for arms and fanged genitals. I mean that’s just weird. They’re eating all my food and this one, who bites at anything placed in front of it, has taken up residence in my toilet. And I really, really, have to pee.

This morning I woke up with a severed cartoon flying squirrel’s head in the bed bleeding ink all over the place. The head looked up and said in an all too cheery cartoon voice, hey, at least things couldn’t get any worse.
The fact is I must loosing touch with sanity, because all I could think to do was reach into the hole and say, "Hey rock, watch me pull a rabbit out of my head."

Hey guys, great idea!

2004-11-04T20:23:00.000-05:00

I'm so glad you started this heads, this is awesome. And it's free of all the jerks that come in and screw everything up. Guess I'll start brainstorming and put something up!

Vomited Soul

2004-11-03T09:46:00.000-05:00

You can learn a lot about yourself on your knees vomiting in a wallmart bathroom. And aside from the more obvious epiphanies of self, such as discovering what you sound like on your knees vomiting in a wallmart bathroom, the results of this gut wrenching soul searching can be quite enlightening.

It happened quite suddenly, as I grasped the public piss grips of the porcelain god, too week with need to be squeamish of what and where my hands now were. A boy, three or so, walked in with his father. I struggled to retain myself, as though if they could not hear me I could conserve some shred of my dignity.

"We’re goin’a see the wee wee, we’re gonn’a see the wee wee," the boy chanted with the fearless abandon and wonderment of his youth. It really touched me. He was totally without the fears you have to be carefully taught. He was wonder and curiosity in it’s purest form. The simple act of taking a piss, which I had long ago regulated to an annoying -if relieving- experience, held such marvel for him. He was excited, this was an adventure of epic proportions in his little world.

You can learn a lot about yourself on your knees vomiting in a wallmart bathroom. I discovered that I was no longer a child. I don’t know when it happened, I didn’t notice it. Someone, someday, had come in and stole my innocence and replaced it with boredom and cynicism. A pretentious sham of manhood.

How Do I Land This Thing?

2004-11-01T11:17:00.000-05:00

For K, sleep was a strain. He felt it was something he had to really sink his teeth into, to lie with eyes closed and empty his head of everything but sleep. It required an immense amount of concentration. Think of anything but and he would be done for, following the thread through to its conclusion, each vagrant thought branching out and groping for others, the crackling electrical activity in his brain growing louder. Too, K found it more interesting to roam about his mind like this. He felt it wilful to just snap the end off a thought and toss it away for the night. He secretly envied those capable of sleeping one second after the light goes out, so quickly they might have fallen down a well. He gazes around the room to see if anything moves him sufficiently to move, then casts his gaze inwards, where he feels a vast, silent weight asquat his centre of gravity. K tried many things. He had exhausted masturbation as a means to sleeping. Though he did not like to think he had cranked every last endorphin from his body, it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. He blacked out both windows with baking foil, to no end. He felt he had overegged the pudding: the room became so dark K was unsure whether or not his eyes were open. K removed the foil, by now feeling desperate. He said as much to Z, who laid a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. K was appreciative of this show of solidarity until he realised Z was wiping quiche from his fingers. Z suggested K might, as a measure, begin to tire himself out for nightfall by dint of exerting himself during the day, at which point K. flew into a white rage and threw Z out. Z returned the next day, drunk and sunburned. He put it to K he could at least resort to cheating. K shot him a cockeyed, curious look, and Z sang a brief praise of the gracious attitude towards prescription in this country, removed a fistful of pills from his pocket. K pushed a palmful around his palm: blues, scarlets, pinks, golds. The name of each was printed in miniscule lettering on the jacket, x's and z's scattered freely amongst vowels, some of which were huddled together in pairs, rounding out the extraterrestrial quality to the names. K wondered aloud whether chemical sleep was the proper course. Z clapped him on the back and retired to the living room. With a glass of water to gargle, K ate one blue, one scarlet, one pink and one gold. He crawled into bed with a fresh glass of water to await the effects. Gradually K began to feel his brain fill with a thick sludge, a considerable loss of motor functions too. Everything felt as though it had happened five minutes before. While K enjoyed this state of being, the last thing he felt like doing was sleeping. Some hours passed, the effects wore off and K was still awake.
He had not slept in three days and though his physical self was exhausted, his mind felt wide awake and gnawed at his jaded body. Z looped K's arm in his and led him out of the house to an adobe cottage nestled into the craggy side of the hill. The veranda was scattered with people sitting propped upon elbows, perched on flowerpots, crosslegged, blowing vertical cones of smoke, fluttering paper fans. Dogs scampered about, licking hands and sniffing crotches where they could. A band in the corner, doublebass, cornet, banjo, chirped out a Mills Brothers song. K felt his body's responses to have grown more sluggish, as though he was in control of it by means of rotting elastic bands. How do I land this thing? he said to Z, who vanished into the house, to reemerge with a canaryellow beanbag. He plumped it up with a genial flourish and invited K to sit. K sat, and for the first time in some length felt comfortable, like a bee in a crocus. Several elderly Spaniards danced, a slow backwards shuffle, closeheeled, hands on bellies. The last thought in K's head was that it looked like a serious business before he drifted up out of his sleeping physical self and around the veranda, mingling soundlessly with the other guests. Z sat perched upon a wall listening to a woman with kohled eyes tell of a minor collision she was involved in the previous week. No injuries to speak of, but the other driver, after an amicable exchange of details, had firmly laid the blame by her feet. K drifted over to take a closer look and had got to thinking she certainly had everything pushed up and out tonight when he heard the band squawk to a stop midsong and the guests fall silent, their gazes gravitating towards the beanbag where K lay sound asleep, hand thrust in his trousers, rubbing and moaning loudly.

why TNA is down...

2004-11-01T09:30:00.000-05:00

I don't really know what's going on with TNA these days. I do know Polycarp has moved to the States and that his Internet connection is not great, also that he was (is) going to reconfigure the site, but other than that I'm not sure what the delay is.

Anybody have more info on this?

I'm going to e-mail him and try to find out more. Also, since no one has posted a story here yet I will probably post one later on today. For all members (and non-members): you may also post stories on the message board if you find it more convenient to do so. And please search your e-mail address book for any e-mails you might have of old TNA members; I'm still not sure how many know about this place...

Also FYI: Blogger gives you the ability to edit your own posts so if you post something here and want to correct it or add to it you can.

Have a good Monday and vote Kerry 'cause Bush is a traitor and incredible liar.

sunday review archive

2004-10-29T05:52:00.000-05:00

if you notice heads has graciously added my link to the sidebar

within there stands a dead link to the sunday review archive
me and justynn tyme did like 20 in 24 weeks a while back
they are all genius
a true collaboration

anyways a while back i moved my web host that stores the files and shit
i had to redo links for endless stuff cause the URLs were now wrong

anyways i never got around to redoing those pages becasue it is time consuming and tedious. however for the purpose of the temporary absurdist i am going to get it active, at which point you will be able to read my words and see justynns art. if you dont remember this shit or know what it is you need to check yourself!

it will be up in a week
i do say that
ill be back
check the link in the sidebar
lots of other good content (and a number of dead links that point to www.absurdist.cc)

alrighty now
it will be big news look out!!!