The King Did Not Hang

Feb 10

The O’Callaghan Awards

For O’Callaghan Awards, another group of…ummm…iconoclasts?

By Sage Warlockheart
Herald Staff Writer

NEW YORK - A chef who whimsically combines scraps of used latex yoga mats with benzocaine to feed out-of-work circus podiatrists; an Austrian poet based in Brazil who uses dental floss to suspend live bullfrogs over pools of ketchup; and Lucy from “Peanuts” are among the 14 recipients of the $385 “abstruse grants” to be announced Tuesday by the Lochlan P. and Marta P. O’Callaghan Foundation.

     While no one has ever heard of most of the fellows, a few are so obscure it was difficult to confirm whether they were even real people. They include Pishel Hoal, a 66-year-old former gemologist who lives underground near Coober Pedy, Australia, and who occasionally surfaces from his hole to wander about.

     “Four of the kings have been beheaded and the rest have followed me here,” Hoal said in an interview conducted via Skype from the Opal Blossom Hunan Buffet in Coober Pedy. “If I tell them we have the goats, they’ll be still. They’ll be still.”

     This year’s O’Callaghan fellows range in age from 6 to 93 and are evenly divided between men and women. As in past years, most either have struggled with emotional problems or have been in prison. This year’s judges stuck to the O’Callaghan awards tradition of naming fellows whose accomplishments square with the foundation’s stated mission to “shine a light upon work that seems unimportant to the rest of the world, only because it is unimportant.”

     All 14 fellows will receive $27.50 a year for five years, and must use the grant to purchase either playing cards or cat food. Since the inception of the program in 2007, 18 people have been named Lochlan P. and Marta P. O’Callaghan fellows.

     Besides Mr. Hoal, other winners this year include retired lepidopterist Belinda Pandoe-Crapht, 56, whose study of the Common Blue Morpho, the Red Admiral and the Camberwell Beauty butterfly species has informed and influenced her music as lead singer of the punk-metal outfit Ass Typhoon; Trisha Bloorkie, 23, a Sacramento prostitute who also serves on the board of the Santa Clara Valley Water District; Robert Simpote, 44, who enjoys US Weekly and is thinking of subscribing; Maladraiga Hernandez-Mushi, 78, a pioneer in the Electric Boogaloo, Popping and Crazy Legs movements of the 1970s; Maxim Dityatev, 49, a mixed-media artist who works mainly with Sour Apple Berry Bubble Yum, ejaculate and chicken skin; Jennifer “Zothecula” Miller, 15, a Goth teenager known for cranking up The Sisters of Mercy and wearing eyeliner to bed; and Herbert Rae-Boney, 48, a protégé of Dutch physicist Gerardus ‘t Hooft, whose theoretical work on gauge theories, quantum gravity and black holes earned him the Nobel Prize in 1999.

     Mr. Rae-Boney left Mr. ‘t Hooft’s laboratory ten years ago to study circumplanetary dust physics, but instead has spent much of the last decade managing Ron’s Do-Nuts at the corner of Vineland and Conroy in Orlando with his wife, Cathy Rae-Boney.

     Another fellow who failed to live up to his promise, Gillie St. Warche - an entrepreneur whose idea of putting “a professional water polo player in every home” has yet to pan out - said he would use the money to buy either playing cards or cat food. “I don’t have a cat, so I guess I’ll buy some playing cards,” said Mr. St. Warche, who was named a fellow because of his “extraordinary ability to read Proust while simultaneously lighting squirrels afire,” according to the judges’ notes. “Or I guess I might buy some cat food, because I have a friend who has a cat. And she could give the cat food to her cat.”

     While all of the fellows do pointless, inexplicable or boring things with their time, the O’Callaghan grants are distinctive because they reward the truly inane. “I think it’s real fun,” Teague O’Callaghan, the foundation’s president, and grandson of Lochlan P. and Marta P. O’Callaghan, said of discovering and naming the fellows. “It’s fun, and it’s also funny. Both.”

     As examples, Mr. O’Callaghan cited Sharon Haavish, 93, who has a different colored track suit for every airport she visits, and Kyle Ballantone, 28, a liquid helium salesman from Alfalfa County, Okla., whose cross-stitch embroidery designs of Grand Duke Leopold I and other members of the House of Baden-Durlach have captured the hearts of Swedish people everywhere, though mostly in Sweden.

     Mark Sixypotch, who, at the age of 19 has already translated several seminal herpetological books into English - including (from the original Marathi) “The Snakes of India and Pakistan,” by K.G. Gharpurey; “Japanese Venomous Snakes,” by Seiichi Takahashi; and (from the original Azeri) “Amphibians and Reptiles of Azerbaijan” by A.M. Alekperov - is so gay.

     “I have no idea what to think about winning this award because I’ve never heard of it and I’m quite sure no one else has either,” said Mary von Pahrtenfur, a junior at SUNY New Paltz who is well known on campus for her notion that a new pan-global alphabet could bring about world peace and get people to finally realize that Alan Thicke is the devil.

     Wayne X. Hashago, 55, a familiar figure in journeyman tool and die making circles, called the award a “piece of shit.” Hashago has six fingers.

     Similarities can be seen in the work of three fellows: Annette Fordol, 42, who has walked in circles around her own house in Lapeer, Mich. continuously for four years; Jaishree Dhurvasula, 29, whose musical compositions transcend classification, but range somewhere between Cambodian trip hop and traditional oom-pah; and Sebastian Pelicago, 81 who fashioned a popular line of pre-school toys out of used tattoo needles, carbolic acid, shards of glass and meat.

PHOTO: Maxim Dityatev: Mixed-media artist

“Let’s Move” is only latest First Lady initiative

First Lady Michelle Obama recently outlined her initiative to eliminate childhood obesity within a generation. In her kickoff speech for what the Obama administration is calling the “Let’s Move” campaign, Mrs. Obama said “the physical and emotional health of an entire generation and the economic health and security of our nation is at stake.”

“This isn’t the kind of problem that can be solved overnight,” she continued. “But with everyone working together, it can be solved. So, let’s move.”

The administration has been putting the “Let’s Move” campaign together for over a year, and dismissed several other possible projects for Mrs. Obama along the way, including “Let’s Dance,” an appeal to resurrect post-disco, synthesizer-driven dance music from the early-to-mid 1980s; “Let’s Seriously Get Way Baked,” which was deemed too close in substance to Nancy Regan’s “Just Say No” appeal, and “Let’s Get It On,” a challenge to elderly Americas to don their rain coats more speedily.

Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move” initiative continues a long tradition of U.S. presidents’ wives taking up a social or political cause. Some of those efforts were either rejected by administration officials, or have simply been lost in the annals of presidential history.

—-

• Martha Washington never lived in the White House, but some historians have claimed that her hobby - and later commercial enterprise - of crafting dental implants from cherry wood was the first cause, of sorts, promulgated by a First Lady. Owing to an unspecified, but profound childhood trauma, the taste of cherry wood, gave President Washington an intense rush that allowed him to concentrate more fully on matters of state. Mrs. Washington realized that she’d stumbled into a money maker, and was soon peddling the inexplicably popular, “Martha’s (Splinter Free!) Cherry Bomb Chompers,” in Battery Park.

• Despite the rechristening of the Red Room as the Goofy Foot Room in 1809 when the Madison’s moved into the White House, few in Washington knew about Dolley Madison’s fascination with surfing. The “Bro, That is Perilous!” campaign sought to improve surfing etiquette on the increasingly crowded east coast shoreline. “I’ve inquired about promised sick big water off New Symrna Beach, for my plans are to depart on the morrow by carriage and I don’t mind reporting to you, Brosef, that I am so amped,” Mrs. Madison wrote in an 1802 letter to her friend, Margaret Rawlson Pauling. “And yet when last I was there, I spent the better part of sunrise turning my spy-glass in every direction, watching with unwearied aggro, hoping to discover the approach of some epic crunchers. But, alas! I descried only dick draggers in all directions. When those ass clowns get worked, they can cause full on dings in my stick and - Heaven forgive me - I pray a rip the size of a Redcoat regiment will take them far to sea.”

• Elizabeth Monroe became a foodie in France where her husband James had been named U.S. Minister by President Washington in 1794. Twenty-three years later, when the Monroes moved into the White House, Mrs. Monroe had become addicted to red meat. In 1821, she discovered a sublime steak sauce created by the head chef of England’s King George IV, and secretly began importing cases of it into Washington for her own consumption, and for presidential dinner parties. When the king found out about Mrs. Monroe’s fixation with his steak sauce, he ordered her supply cut off, partly in retribution for his father’s defeat in the Revolutionary War. In response, Mrs. Monroe founded an initiative promoting American-made steak sauce and called it, “Are You Fucking Kidding Me? British ‘Food’ Is Fucking Disgusting Anyway. Go Fuck Yourself, King Whatever Fuck Your Fucking Name Is.”

• When Sarah Polk and her husband James arrived in Washington from their native Tennessee in 1845, they brought with them a style of southern charm to which the White House has since become accustomed. But Mrs. Polk was wary of big city ways, and bristled at whispered insults about rural life in the south. To combat what she considered northern ignorance, Mrs. Polk undertook an educational campaign called “My Kinfolk Is Your Kinfolk.” The campaign highlighted the achievements of backwoods cornfed yokels to sophisticates in Philadelphia and New York. A favorite of Mrs. Polk’s was a poster depicting a young hillbilly, half his overalls unbuckled, urinating in a jug while shooing away a critter, and the tagline: “See? A American Did That.”

• Abigail Fillmore - “Who Doesn’t Love a Poached Egg?”

• James Buchanan, president from 1857 to 1861, is still the only president who never married. As First Lady, he chose Harriet Lane, his favorite niece. The two had been inseparable during Buchanan’s years as minister to the Court of St. James, where Queen Victoria gave Ms. Lane the rank of ambassador’s wife. Soon after Buchanan (or “Nunc,” as Ms. Lane called him) and his niece moved into the White House, Ms. Lane became the toast of social Washington, and launched “It’s Not Weird!,” a campaign aimed at de-stigmatizing intimate uncle-niece relationships across America.

• Lucretia Garfield was First Lady for only six months before her husband James died in office after being shot in 1881. While Mrs. Garfield did not have much time for causes during her husband’s presidency, she had always had two, unrelated, joys in life - lye and sad clowns. In the middle of June, three months after moving into the White House, Mrs. Garfield asked her husband if she could embark on two social crusades as First Lady - one to be called “Lye!” and the other to be called “Sad Clowns!” “Sure,” President Garfield responded, but then it never came up again and then he got shot and died.

• Epilepsy was a constant in the White House life of Ida McKinley, and her husband William. Perhaps because her own serious illness was such an obstacle to a normal, healthy life in Washington, Mrs. McKinley focused her public attention on an issue she believed would boost the spirits of Americans saddened by the plight of their First Lady. But Mrs. McKinley’s crusade promoting tiny shower caps to protect babies’ hair-dos, called “Keep Her Pretty,” was met with befuddlement rather than approval, and it was soon scuttled by President McKinley who called his wife’s idea “looney,” “batty,” “zany,” “moofie,” “shaapie,” “truggly” and “garbanzo.”

• Her years as an Army wife in a variety of posts around the world prepared Mamie Eisenhower for the many heads of state she and her husband Dwight would receive at the White House in the 1950s. But it was Mrs. Eisenhower’s concern for a domestic crisis that would lead her to declare her own personal war on the Chordettes. The songs “Mr. Sandman” and especially “that goddamned annoying ‘Lollipop’ shit,” were enough for the First Lady to create, The Whoredettes, a group of four slutty teenagers with terrible voices and worse hygiene that toured the country parodying the Chordettes and spreading rumors on stage about the original group members’ sexual dalliances with old women, donkeys and Mao Zedong.

Bad Scene, Vol. II: “Battlefield Earth”

“Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000″ (2000) written by J.D. Shapiro and Corey Mandell. Based on the novel by L. Ron Hubbard. Directed by Roger Christian.

Starring John Travolta as TERL - fresh off well-regarded performances in “A Civil Action” and “Primary Colors.” Seven years before “Wild Hogs,” nine years before “Old Dogs” and 11 years before “Wild Hogs 2: Bachelor Ride.”

Starring Forest Whitaker as KER. Yep. Long after “The Crying Game” but long before “Last King of Scotland.” Oh, Forest. Why?

Starring Barry Pepper - only two years after “Saving Private Ryan” - as the earthling hero, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER.

Starring Michael MacRae in a star-making, scene-stealing cameo as DISTRICT MANAGER ZETE. Veteran of motorized 70s/80s TV dramedy like “Starsky & Hutch,” “The Dukes of Hazzard,” “Knight Rider,” “C.H.I.P.S.,” and “Hardcastle and McCormick.” Yes.

Starring Shaun Austin-Olsen as PLANETSHIP, chief bureaucrat and Psychlo functionary of the goldmine where TERL is head of security. In 2008, Austin-Olsen played First Counsellor in “Magic Flute Diaries.”

About the behind-the-scenes creators:

Director Roger Christian won a set decoration Oscar for “Star Wars” in 1977. Interestingly, in his official bio, Christian lists, among other directing work, commercials for Chrysler and Taco Bell before mentioning “Battlefield Earth.”

Corey Mandell now teaches film writing - correct - at the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program. He says his classes there “explore the essential elements of successful premises, flexible story structure, and deeper and more realistic characterizations.”

His co-writer, J.D. Shapiro calls himself a stand-up comic. His writing credits, pre-B.E. (B.B.E.?) included “Robin Hood: Men in Tights.” Post-B.E. (A.B.E.?), Shapiro is credited with two films: 2008’s “X-Treme Biography: Santa” and “Knights of the Not-So-Round Table: The Lost Tapes of 524 AD.”

***

The following words scroll up the screen - ala “Star Wars” - at the beginning of the movie:

IT IS THE YEAR 3000 AD

EARTH, ONCE MANKIND’S HOME, HAS BEEN RULED FOR THE PAST 1000 YEARS BY A CRUEL ALIEN RACE FROM THE PLANET PSYCHLO.

AS THEY HAVE DONE ON COUNTLESS OTHER PLANETS ACROSS THE GALAXIES, THE PSYCHLOS MINE EARTH’S METALS AND TELEPORT THEM BACK TO THEIR HOME PLANET.

GOLD IS THE RAREST AND MOST VALUABLE METAL OF ALL.

THE DWINDLING HUMAN POPULATION IS RIGHTING TO STAY ALIVE. HIDING IN POCKETS, IN RADIATED AREAS, THEY ARE ON THE VERGE OF EXTINCTION.

***

BAD SCENE 1 

In the following scene, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER, along with a handful of other humans, has been captured and brought to a gold mine run by the Psychlos. As they exit the slaveship, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER shoots a Psychlo guard and escapes. But he runs right into the large paws of TERL, the mine’s security chief, who lifts JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER by the neck, eager to find out which of his guards let the human escape.

Scene…

TERL: Who is responsible for allowing this man-animal to run around unsupervised?

GUARD: The man-animal shot Durango, sir

TERL: I’m a little pressed for time. Why don’t you save the going-away jokes for later. (throws JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER to the ground.)

GUARD: It’s not joke, sir, I swear. The man-animal somehow got ahold of this gun (shows gun).

TERL: Really? Show me.

GUARD: Sir?

(TERL grabs gun from guard. Gives it to JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER.)

TERL (To GUARD): Reach for the gun.

GUARD: But sir, I might get shot.

TERL: Sure you might. And I might suddenly grow a third arm.

GUARD: But sir I swear it shot the wrangler.

TERL: The report filed today still has my name on it. And you are out of your skull-bone if you think that I’m going to write on the report: “Shot by man-animal” as the cause of death, unless I see it.

GUARD: If I obey your command, I may get killed.

TERL: And if you don’t, it’s a certainty that you will be killed. (beat) Reach for the gun.

(GUARD reaches for the gun, and JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER shoots him.)

TERL: Well. I’ll be damned. (Begins maniacal laughter.)

…and, Scene.

***

BAD SCENE 2 

In the following scene TERL, a graduate of Psychlo’s prestigious military university, expects to hear from DISTRICT MANAGER ZETE that he’s being promoted and can return to his home planet.

Scene…

(DISTRICT MANAGER ZETE is teleported onto earth from Psychlon).

TERL: It is a pleasure to see you, Your Excellency. I would be honored to expedite your clearance through security.

ZETE: Please, call me Zete. Does all of Earth look like this?

TERL: Oh, I’m afraid so, sir.

ZETE: Pathetic. All the green, and the blue sky. They told me this planet is ugly, but this has got to be one of the ugliest crapholes in the entire universe.

TERL: I couldn’t agree more.

ZETE: I hate these puny, undersized planets. The gravity is so…different.

TERL: Well, one does get used to it.

ZETE: The human animals, grossly undersized.

KER: They don’t make very good eating, Your Excellency.

TERL: Ah, yes. My executive assistant, Ker.

KER: Thank you.

TERL: He has been fully trained to replace me as Chief of Security. As soon as my transfer goes through.

ZETE: Well, Ker. Once we finish mining out this miserable, little planet, let’s do the universe a favor. Let’s exterminate the lot of them.

TERL: (Maniacle laughter) Oh, you’re too much.

ZETE: So they tell me.

TERL: Please, come this way.

(The group repairs to a conference room)

PLANETSHIP: I am honored by your vist, Your Excellency

ZETE: Thank you, Planetship. You’ll be pleased to know, that I’ve approved additional labor resources. I’ll have them sent here by the end of quarter-cycle.

PLANETSHIP: Thank you, Your Excellency.

ZETE: What else? (to TERL) Oh, your long, overdue transfer. You must be looking forward to getting off this disgusting excuse for a planet.

TERL: I just want to do what serves the Corporation best, sir.

ZETE: Admirable. And, I must say, you’ve done a first-rate job here as Interim Security Chief. (Applause and “here, here”s.)

TERL: I do what I can.

ZETE: Which is why we’ve decided to keep you on for another tour of service.

(pause)

TERL: There must be some mistake.

ZETE: Home Office does not make mistakes.

TERL: Of course not. But have you looked at my file, sir? It explicitly says that this is a temporary assignment. Yes. Are you not aware, that I graduated (said with a flourish) top of my class?

ZETE: Quite an accomplishment.

TERL: I don’t mean to second-guess the Home Office, but surely I could better serve the corporation…

ZETE: Home Office is well aware of your academic achievements, and obvious talents. That’s why we’ve decided not to keep you here for another five cycles.

TERL: (Maniacal laughter) Oh, thank you, sir. I don’t know if I could have kept my sanity being here another five cycles.

ZETE: We’ve decided to keep you here for another fifty cycles! With endless options for renewal (echoes 3 times - endless options for renewal, endless options for renewal, endless options for renewal -  followed by maniacal laughter.) Those options, of course, being at Home Office’s discretion, not yours. The Senator has a lot of friends.

MINUTES LATER - TERL AND GUARDS ESCORT ZETE FROM THE BUILDING

TERL: Please tell the senator, that if I had even an inkling that that was his daughter…

ZETE: Watch your tongue. (pause). The Senator’s exact words to me were - and I’m quoting - “If that blasted Terl tries to talk his way out of it, have him vaporized on the spot. But cheer up. There’s one bright side to this. One day, you’re going to die. And when you end up in hell, at least it will be a step up from this place. (Maniacal laughter.)

…and, Scene.

***

BAD SCENE 3 

Out near the mines, TERL’s ship has landed, and after a struggle, he’s outnumbered by man-animals - JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER’S crew, and a group from the woods that has joined them. JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER manages to grab TERL’S gun and points it at TERL, who is on the ground. In this scene, JONNIE GOODBOY TYLER has learned the Psychlo language, and believes he knows how what’s left of the human race can rid themselves of the Psychlos forever. But when the group gets an unexpected chance to kill TERL, he must convince them that his long-term plan is better than easy revenge.

Scene…

ROBERT THE FOX: Let’s give this demon what he deserves.

Cheers from the group…yeah, yeah.

CARLO: Kill it, kill it. Kill it, then we’ll run.

JONNIE: Then what? What kind of life is it to run? Always living in fear of being hunted. What about the others we’re leaving behind? What about them?

CARLO: There’s nothing, nothing we can do for them. Only the gods can free them.

JONNIE: Ohhh. You think the lights in the night sky are gods waiting to come down and save us? Do you? Those are planets. Planets like this one. The great villages were built by our people. By millions of men and women just like us. Willing to fight to the death for one thing about all else. Their freedom.

OLD GUY IN THE CROWD: Do you think no one has tried? You can’t defeat them. (echoes 3times - You can’t defeat them, You can’t defeat them, You can’t defeat them.)

JONNIE: Yes we can. Yes we can. But we have to go back. We go back and learn about their weapons and their machinery. Our race is slowly dying, and will soon be gone forever. Let it be said that we took this one chance…AND FOUGHT!!! Are you with me? ARE YOU WITH ME???!!!!!

CROWD: YES! WE FIGHT! WE FIGHT!

ROBERT THE FOX: If you’re fighting the beast, me and my men are with you.

JONNIE: Thank you. It’s good to have friends out here.

ROBERT THE FOX: May the gods be with you.

(With whoops and shouts, they return to the woods.)

…and, Scene.

Coincidence?

Bad Scene, Vol. I: “Staying Alive”

“Staying Alive,” (1983) written and directed by Sylvester Stallone (music by Frank Stallone)

Starring John Travolta - reprising his role as Tony Manero from “Saturday Night Fever” (1977)

Starring Finola Hughes - who 20 years later would become a QVC home shopping network star - as dance diva and Manero’s paramour, and fellow cast member, Laura

Starring Cynthia Rhodes - who would one day star in a Richard Marx video, then marry Richard Marx - as Manero’s long-suffering girlfriend, and fellow cast member, Jackie.

Starring Steve Inwood as director, Jesse.

***

REALLY BAD MONOLOGUE # 1

JESSE, DIRECTOR OF THE BROADWAY SHOW IN WHICH TONY MANERO HAS BEEN CAST, IS FRUSTRATED WITH THE QUALITY OF EARLY REHEARSALS.

Scene…

CHOREOGRAPHER
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight
One-two-three-four…

JESSE
(Shakes head)

That’s it. Relax.

(The cast stops dancing.)

What we’re dealing with here is a conceptual interpretation problem. Which is easy to overcome if you just forget the fact that you’re dancers working for a couple of bucks. You are translators of body language. That’s all dancing is. It’s body language. So don’t waste my time going through the motions of emotions. You gotta feel what the hell you’re doing here. For those who forgot, the show’s called “Satan’s Alley.” It’s a journey through hell that ends with an ascent to heaven. And you might think it’s simple. But if it’s gonna work, you gotta bust your asses.

***

REALLY BAD MONOLOGUE # 2

MANERO THINKS HE HAS A SHOT TO TAKE OVER THE MALE LEAD FROM BUTLER IN “SATAN’S ALLEY,” AND PRACTICES ALL NIGHT WITH JACKIE.

THE FOLLOWINGDAY AT REHEARSAL, MANERO SEES HIS CHANCE AND ASKS JESSE TO GIVE HIM A SHOT OPPOSITE FEMALE LEAD LAURA.

MANERO WOWS ‘EM AT FIRST AS THE REST OF THE CAST LOOKS ON. BUT THEN HE FUMBLES HIS MOVES, ANGERING THE (VERY BRITISH) DIVA, LAURA.

Scene…

LAURA
(to Jesse)
Is this a dance or a bloody circus?

MANERO
(to Jesse)
Forget it, man.

MANERO STORMS OFF. JESSE FOLLOWS HIM INTO A HALLWAY.

JESSE
Wait. (PAUSE) I said wait.

MANERO
I don’t want to talk about it, man.

JESSE
Don’t walk outta here and expect to come back.

MANERO
Oh, is that right?

JESSE
That’s right. You walk out the door now, you’re over.

MANERO
(incredulous)
Ahright. What would you do?

JESSE
Don’t worry about what I would do. I’m not the one that’s on the line. You are.

MANERO
I dont’ want anyone ever laughing at me.

JESSE
Who are you, somebody special? What’d you ever do that mean’s anything? What’d you ever do?

CLOSEUP ON JESSE

JESSE
I give you a chance for a lead in a Broadway show, and you walk out the door?

MANERO
Oh, who cares?

JESSE
Who cares? Nobody has to care. In this business, I don’t have to care about you. And you don’t have to care about me. And if you can’t follow that, follow this: You wanna dance here, you follow my rules. It’s not a democracy. You know, you are not the best dancer to ever hit Broadway…(PAUSE)…What you have is anger. And a certain intensity, and that’s what I need to make this show work. What’dya think you’re so terrific you’re gonna go out and you’re gonna score another show? Is that it? The best thing that you ever scored in your whole life is Laura, but you even blew that cuz you got too heavy with her. You’re different kinds of people. And no matter how much you carry on, you’re never gonna change that. If you had half a brain in that thick skull of yours, you’d stop worrying about trying to change other people, and start worrying about changing yourself.

MANERO
(PAUSE)
Everybody uses everybody, don’t they?

JESSE
Go to hell, Manero.

A message for our clients

August, 2009

Dear [client’s name],

Gambatte kudasai! That’s what our intern Keiko - whom we had to fire in June - would say to us when things looked bleakest. Keep your chin up, she’d say with a smile. And then we’d close our door.

Autumn is nearly here and as dire as things may seem out there in the publishing world, we are committed to representing your projects, at least through the rest of 2009.

The last thing we want is for you to fixate on layoffs at Simon & Schuster, salary freezes at Penguin, imprint mergers at Random House or that silly acquisition ban at Houghton. HarperCollins may have shut down a couple divisions, but they were non-fiction divisions. Remember - you make stuff up, Artist. Dismal days at publishing conglomerates can’t matter to your creative process. They matter only in that we’re going to have trouble selling your ideas.

Your representatives here at Chazz Kopplerbach Hoarb Literary Agency don’t want you to have to think about any of that. We want you to keep envisioning big, ambitious, important. Bring us your novel and we will do the rest. That’s our pledge to you. We will sell your manuscript. I swear to God we will. Seriously.

Without further adieu, The List. As our disclaimer goes each year, these are only premises to get those creative juices running. These are ideas that we Professional Literary Agents who lunch with Professional Book Editors every day (yes, these days at Gray’s Papaya), know would sell. As always, we don’t want to stifle your own mojo, but these are good plots in search of a great writer. That’s you.

So take a look at these ideas: Pick one up. Play with it. Toss it around. Bounce it off a wall. Give it a bath. Run over it with your car. Squish it into your kids’ knapsack. Take it to shul some Shabbos. Watch an episode of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” while it sits next to you on the couch.

A quick straw poll around the office (really quick, I mean, like, in the last ten minutes) suggested a strong collective prediction that Fall 2009 is going to be the Autumn of historical fiction involving kings. Following are some royal historical plot sketches we’d love to see blown out big and bold by someone with your talent.

Good luck!

• What really happened between Suryavarman I and Jayavarman V after the death of the Khmer Empire’s King Udayadityavarman I 998 A.D.? Suryavarman I, of course, captured the Cambodian throne, but at what cost to Rithisak, the woman he and Jayavarman V both loved?

• When Queen Maria II of Portugal returned from exile in England in 1834, she knew - even at the age of 15 - that she would have to stand up to her uncle (and husband), Prince Miguel, who had pronounced himself king in her absence, and trashed the Constitution her father had composed. But her heart wasn’t in it. In fact, her heart was in Swanage, on the Dorset coast, with Jerome - Yak Boy. He had been Maria’s playmate as a child, and she had longed to stay in Swanage with Jerome and his yaks forever. But civil war was raging in Maria’s homeland and she was damned if she would let her uncle-husband turn Lisbon into Vienna.

• When Canute, son of Sweyn Forkbeard, was only 17 and taking part in his father’s conquest of England in 1016, he had no idea he would become the first Danish ruler of the British Isles. He also had no idea the fulsome women of Wessex would welcome him and his father’s band of tired, strapping warriors with such vigor and enterprise.

• In 454 B.C., Xerxes II, son of King Artaxerxes I, was just 16 when he was captured by his father’s enemies. The men who opposed the king’s imposition of Zoroastrianism as Persia’s state religion were ruthless, and the only light during those dark years was a little girl who came every day to the walls of Xerxes Babylonian prison and tossed a pomegranate over the fence to save him from starvation. One day, he dreamed, they would marry and make a life together - maybe in Scottsdale. Two weeks after Xerxes was freed, he refused the Persian crown and went looking for the girl who saved his life. But then he died of a staph infection he got from rubbing himself with a rotting blanket.

• Cuacuauhpitzahuac’s mother died giving birth to him in the hills of Tlatelolco in 1388. Each year on that date - his birthday - Cuacuauhpitzahuac honored his beloved mother by killing someone else’s mother. The Aztec press dubbed him Nantli Temictiloni, or the Mother Killer. Cuacuauhpitzahuac was never caught, and died of a massive stroke, just minutes after his 89th kill. How did he hide his deadly secret while carrying on his duties as Tlatelolco’s king? Did he have accomplices inside the royal palace? A thrilling tale of courtly intrigue, murder, ancient killing, baronial slaughter, deadly regal butchery and Mummenschanz.

• On the surface, Erik Bloodaxe, son of Harald Fairhair, was like every other 10th Century Norwegian king - he loved beer, he loved the ladies, he loved elf sacrifice - but he was living a lie. Though Erik had to hide it even from Queen Gunnhild, poetry was what he loved most. To whom might Bloodaxe bare his balladist soul? To whom? Whom? Who? What? Huh?

• Khan Chagatai was already 45-years-old when he and his brother Tului took over the Mongol Empire after their father Ghengis died. Which was sort of awkward since their father had been only 13 himself when he had taken over his own father’s tribe. Then Ghengis just happened to create one of the largest kingdom’s ever known to man. And now Khan would have to share power? With his idiot brother? Sure, Tului was, technically, adept at conquering vassal states. But the way he did it was so…inelegant. Who marauds an entire village, sparing all the Merkits, but raping all their pet marmots? That is seriously fucked up.

• Burma was a desperate place at the end of the 19th century. With the constant threat of a British incursion across its borders, King Thibaw Min sat in the capital of Mandalay wondering how to protect his people. A treaty with France was one option. As was a big, huge wall of fire along the country’s borders. What about torching the royal elephants and having them march in a circle around the country trunk-to-tail? What about serving the British troops really hot soup? Or some sort of mirror trick?

PHOTO: Wayne Hoarb of Chazz Kopplerbach Hoarb, LLC

Notes on Contributors

My Esquire piece, “Notes on Contributors,” landed on the magazine’s website Saturday. You can also see the real, live print version in the current November issue - Halle Berry on the cover - on page 170.

The editors chose eight “Notes” but I’d submitted a bunch more. Here are the rest:

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• Paul Gaggerns and his wife live in a gully outside Houston where they raised three children and enjoy pot roast. In earlier times he trained ferrets and cats to get along better; more recently he’s made his living juggling turnips at the Houston Zoological Gardens and has taken to wandering about.

• Geoff Hachis is an editor and fisherman. His Poetry for the Shower in English (translated by Crane W. Holler and Mike Toops) is forthcoming. Hachis is the founder and managing director of the Slippery, Sweaty Bicycle Seat Foundation in central Latvia. The purpose of the Foundation is to study the entire written historical record of the bicycle seat with the goal of making them less sweaty and slippery.

• Carlotta Ixelsh co-edits the online poetry review, BloodFireTwighlightTwighlightFireBlood. Ixelsh visited Bolivia once, where she contracted typhoid. She has photos of herself, passed out drunk in the Cochabamba bus station, strangling a cat. In 2005, she organized a festival in her hometown of Jacksonville, Fla. celebrating Bolivia’s agreement to supply 2 percent of the antimony for China’s cable sheathing industry.

• Maude Mish has finally purchased something she thinks she’ll wear more than once. Her forthcoming collection of collected collections will be collected next year by The Collections Collective (London, Mumbai). Sometimes a poet, always a dialectical behavior therapist in private practice, Mish lives in Rathdrum, Idaho with her two puffins, Ollie and Smacker.

• Sarah von Neaden, of the famous Skyler Chronicles Poets, is 88 and specializes in beading and poetry. She has earned a PORP and has taught by invitation at 11 universities and 28 writing labs. She is presently building a fiction workshop in Bisbee, Arizona with lumber donated by Bisbee High School writing students. She is also writing four books: Snails in the Copper Pot (fiction), What Do You Think Of My Toenail Polish? (poems), Rabbit Hole Roundhouse: Quantum Mechanics and Superstring Theory in the Post Cohen-Tannoudji Age (2-vol. set) and Skin Feels Freda, a memoir of her days siphoning gasoline from rental cars at the Avis off S. Garfield Ave. in Orange County.

• Bill “Wetlands” Omat received his M.F.A. a long time ago. He has served on the Mayor’s Council for Friendly, Non-Controversial Art in Charlotte since 1997. His poetry collection, Numb is Night, Feel is Day, is available at Carolina Taco Source and carolinatacosource.com.

• Ronnie Pupples teaches Dreamscapeture at Mollysapp Community College on the edge of western Vermont where he’s also maintained a watertaxi business for the last 14 years. He is a British citizen and is a regular contributor to British Writers Quarterly, British Writing Is Better and Would That We All Were British. Pupples has seen his verse published in Tapioca Review, Liver and Sue Baten’s Shorts. He lives on a radish farm where he continues his lifelong study of ponds.

• Marge Radael’s chapbook, Feel It In All The Ways won the 2001 Skooch Prize for Chapbook Brilliance from the Greater Metropolitan Fresno Chapbook Association. She teaches writing and sentence diagramming at Fresno City College. Last year, she was one of seven chapbookists chosen to read before Dwayne L. Hortense, founder of the Kaliope Stuttgart School of Chapbook Arts.

• Rory Riverlovely credits an early-career dalliance in low-cost prostitution with her ability to bring disparate interests together around a focused goal - attaining a high score in Galaga, for instance. Riverlovely’s essays and photographs have been published primarily in Skintag and The Bad Mamma Jamma Review. Besides a serious interest in kale and other kinds of cabbage, she enjoys zephyrs and a good rubbing.

• Simon Romazzle has published poems and short stories in Kiddiepool, The Delano Journal of Wheat, Shiver Me Timbers, Kyle is Wrong and Pickle Farm. As Lyman Tompazzle, he publishes and edits batpatio.com, a website for those hoping to attract more bats to - and around - their patios.

• El-Ando Sorel submitted her novel, Velvet Rattles You And Again, for a Pulitzer Prize for “distinguished fiction by an American author” in 1981. She was not a finalist - and, come to think of it, never got a return receipt confirming delivery - but the award did go to a dead person that year, so she felt better about that. One of her private journal entries, May 17, 1994, has been staged as musical theater.

• Joan Crispee Tille’s most recent CD, a compilation of curling sounds called Violate the Hog Line, was released in January 2003 to tremendous critical acclaim. Between 1974 and 1992, Tille took a notation each time she fell down. The collected notations, Down (Calf Creek Zipperman) won the 1997 Pardon Low Johnston Wonderfully Rich Notes Award.

• Cara Ulish is co-director of the Florence L. Shipplebottom Institute for Writing Excellence in Pencil at the University of Guelph-Humber. Most recent works are published in The Scaly Fish Review, Moral Voice for Californian Little People, Spaghetti: Journal of Pasta and Sauce, and Spaz’hole. Her chapterbook, Follow Me, Dear One, Into the Darkest Corners of My Chevy Lumina, was awarded third place by the National Society of Crime Writers for Peace Contest, Ontario Chapter.

Jan 03

Memo to NYSE traders on “Oh, no” body language

MEMO

TO: Floor traders

FROM: NYSE Group, Inc. Communications Team

RE: Body language/facial expressions during Big Board free falls

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Gentlemen,

As you all know, these are difficult times for Money. And when Money is hurting, America turns to Wall Street to gauge just how much.

That’s where you come in.

When Money is screeching in pain, as it has been in recent weeks, banging its little green fist on the floor for mercy and bleeding zeroes from every orifice - people around the world want to put a face on that anguish.

As part of your audition to become a floor trader, you sat on a stage and gave us your best “Oh, dear God” reaction to an 800-point Dow nosedive. You were subsequently trained in proper eyebrow fluctuation, sunken shoulder dejection and, of course the bottom-has-fallen-out knee-drop.

It’s only a matter of time until the electronic markets swallow your job. The one thing keeping you employed at the moment is your humanity - so show a little of it. We can’t imagine that you’d need motivation these days, but if you’re having trouble summoning the proper and necessary horror, just imagine you’re a Cubs fan.

A quick refresher for sessions when consumer confidence is at an all-time low, monthly retail sales numbers are in the toilet, housing starts are at 19th century levels and hobos have begun to burn the Beige Book’s pages in a big steel drum to keep warm:

• Dig the palms of your hands into your eye sockets. Hard. You are weary.
• Fold your left hand into your right armpit. Put your ID badge or the tip of a pen into your mouth with your right hand and look down at a monitor. You are concerned.
• Exhale in an exaggerated, exasperated breath with lips pursed. Your are flummoxed.
• Look up at the board with both arms in the air - like you’re Willem Dafoe getting shot in “Platoon.” You are desperate.
• Place both hands behind your head and look up at the board/God. You are resigned.
• Put both arms in your lap and your head down on a keyboard. You are napping.

Think about what floor trader Michael Rutigliano told the Associated Press recently. Mike said when he steps on the NYSE floor, it feels “like walking on to the field of the Yankee Stadium of the business world, complete with lights, referees, uniforms, hand signals, and scoreboards. There’s a palpable energy, a sense you entered the premier business arena in the world.”

Use that, people. Remember - the world is watching. No one wants to see Money wounded and weak. But when Money is wounded and weak, America wants to see that sense of catastrophe in the rutted brow, the contorted death mask, the boozy tear drop.

Hey - let’s be expressive out there.

If car marketers went to divinity school

When I was in graduate school, I kept a list of terms that I thought would make great car names:

• Buick Jebusite
• Subaru Parousia
• Mitsubishi Pentateuch
• Cadillac Invictus
• Chrysler Crusade
• Dodge Pharoah
• Kia Qoheleth
• Oldsmobile Monte Casino
• Toyota Tormentum
• Peugeot Citeaux
• Ford Apostasy
• Mercury Hosea
• Rolls Royce Hijra
• Honda Chrysostom
• Pontiac Pleroma
• Mazda Didache
• Lincoln Ecclesiastic
• Nissan Old Saxon
• Chevy Septuagint
• Hyundai Zebedee
• Suzuki Sheol
• Volkswagen Tetragrammaton