Sunday, November 15, 2015

Blog Seeds

I jot down ideas on little scraps of paper. On envelopes. Sales receipts. Business cards. The backs of checkbooks and in an endless trail of notebooks. Folders and coupons and wine bottle labels, covered! I fill flash drives and I email myself. Leave voicemails I never listen to.

The blog ideas pile up and up.

Out at Dana’s storage space, cleaning out my stuff, I see that most of what I own is my idea pads. There are stories and there are quotes and there are opening lines for things I never got around to writing.

Until now, I mean. Until this week. This is the week I’m finally going to get around to writing them.

It will go like this: For the next month, everything I post here will come from a single sheet of paper I covered in ideas back seven years ago.

I’ve got them all typed out below and I’ll change them into red after I use them. See?

-Aquatic Ape Theory

-Michael Persinger’s helmet

-“If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.” – Lionel

-“I feel it is only fair to inform you that for the last several months, the role of me has been played by a blow-up doll.”

-Mononymous

-Lobbying for puppy-killing

-8-track mind in an mp3 world

-My left nut

-How many elves in an elf pie?

-GET ONLY MORE DARING!!

-“Silhouettes of hanged corpses comprise the perimeter of his now miniscule empire.” – William Vollmann 

-Cargo cults

-She was the kind of person who goes to the beach and sits with her feet pointing AWAY from the water.

-Do tadpoles believe in the tail fairy?

-Handy tips for maintenance and upkeep of your mirror man.

-A god as a houseguest (Old Testament type with a bad temper)

-Oh, the babies you’ll not be having!

-If this Administration doesn’t consider you to be the enemy, you’re just not trying.

-“Electric clitoris” (Vollmann term)

-The dangers of meeting your heroes – The Ballad of Ray Hill

-iGod

-Censoring dreams/nightmares in the name of national security

-“Maybe you’re done being sad.”

-White History Month

-And now I’d like to talk about the sky islands of southern Arizona. (spiders, evolution in action)

-bhm- 3,550,000

-“Fabula”  “Chimera”  Dreams, reverie, memory

-Write what you want to read.

-“Your particular experience is neither inevitable nor dominant in the world.” – Deborah Eisenberg

-Phone lines installed in Heaven. My long-dead grandma calling me four times a day.

-“Mexican Death”

-Squirrel in a wheelchair

-A: “You look how I feel.”
B: “You must feel pretty good then, because I know I look better than you.”

-“Molloy”-like bit with me doing an unnamed drug and then trying to walk to Stop ‘n Go for a Coke.

-“Breaking News” interruptions in dreams

-“I’m lost, no matter.” – Beckett

-I almost killed an old man with caffeine.

-“She is made of several babies.” – Smog

-The Factory: A Fable – Hobble and Wobble, intermittent warehouse foremen. Both incompetent, take turns getting fired and rehired.
A: “Why do you have a hammer in your hand?”
B: “I am protecting these drinking glasses from the evildoers!”

-Sacrificing the Virgin

-Finding a new Dalai Lama. “Where ya been Daddy-O? I’ve been looking everywhere for this comb!”

-Atheism. Because having to live with myself for all eternity is NOT a comfort.

-I could tell you a story, kid. A story about the girls I’ve known. Or loved. Or who have known or loved me. More than a list, really. A parade, really, and everybody loves a parade.

-Gives answers like a verbal ransom letter.

-Nose – death – egg

-Have to ask the ticket taker what my name is

-Fizostigmin – Alzheimer’s drug that improves memory

-Arrested for pulling a gun on a lady in a giraffe suit

-Scrotal purse that gets smaller in the cold

-“He was the son of one of the least important of his father’s wives” (re: Osama bin Laden)

-“I open up my head and feed bread crumbs to my brain”

-Heresiologist

-Too late I remembered that gorgeous people are so rarely interesting.

-“Nimbus Askew”

-Preferring-not-to-be-burned-at-the-stake-ness

-“I will tell you things at random.”

-Mandragora Maniken

There. That ought to get us started. (Feel free to vote for your favorite.) 

63 comments:

  1. I'll cast my vote for the Mandragora Maniken.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Hi, CDog! It's been 7 years since I jotted these notes down, so I'm wondering what it was I was aiming for with that one.

      Unless it was a reference to that time I got into a fist fight with a mandrake...

      Delete
  2. I just made a note on the tag on the back of my shirt, " to read in ...." I ran out room on the shirt tag. I need to get out another shirt for "in the future". Reminds me I need to do laundry. I should make note on a Kleenex.
    I hope I remember to look forward to your blogs. I make a note. Or perhaps just a hint about my notes on something I plan on not eating. That way when I'm hungry, I'll remember I forgot something.
    Maybe just a trail of bread crumbs to my iPad would work better . That's it. I just need to remember buy bread now. It's always something ...
    I feel better about this now but I'm not sure about what. *sigh*
    The mixed metal Mustang threw me off a bit. I hate it when that happens.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. None of the things you said sound too crazy for me to jot down blog ideas on. I used a dollar bill for notes for a couple days a while back, but then I spent it. One time, when I didn't want to get up to find a piece of paper, I considered using a tortilla shell.

      Delete
  3. "-I almost killed an old man with caffeine."

    I'd like to read that one since I almost killed myself with caffeine until I found out that's what was affecting my heart rhythm.

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    1. I believe that's probably the first one up, actually, Cal! I almost wrote it today in the form of a play. I've been hanging onto that story forever.

      The ones that are already in red are the ones I ended up writing when I was over at Multiply. You remember some of those!

      Delete
  4. Stephen King's doing sort of the same thing with the Bazaar Of Bad Dreams. Now that he's retired and his brain has turned to mush he has to find a way to remember how it's done. Townshend said it best "Hope I die before I get old.". although he didn't. either.
    Perhaps someone should be collecting these works of yours. for POST-erity.

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    1. POST-erity! That's puntastic!

      I hope I'm not done coming up with topics yet. I'd hate to be at the Pete Townshend stage of my career already. Which I guess would still be better than the Bono stage of anyone's career.

      I bellieve I have copies of every blog post I've ever written. Granted, I had to get my stalker to supply me with a copy of a few of them, but it was well worth the hell I had to go through to get them.

      Delete
    2. At least you have all those ideas hanging around in your head, yet. There's way too much pressure on you writer types to perform; put upon you/you put upon yourself, nah'me? s'worse'n bein an Orca at sea World. If I felt obligated to produce something literate and ORIGINAL(ahhh... there's the rub) regularly? I'd probably reach out and snatch somebody up by the ponytail! and I LOVE fish!

      Delete
    3. Thanks, bj. I don't know that I'm a writer, but I do start feeling guilty if I haven't started to plan out my blog post for the week by Wednesday. There's performance anxiety, especially after I write one that's halfway good.

      Delete
  5. I really like "mononymous". I'm so jealous. That's something I should have come up with on my own...

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    1. My favorite is "How many elves in an elf pie?"

      Mostly because I have no idea why i would write such a thing. But I like to picture myself as being very excited when I wrote it, like, "This is gonna be FANTASTIC!"

      Delete
  6. Nose death egg reminds me of Muck , Rhum , Eigg

    but I expect that yours is about an infected piercing .

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    1. That's another one of those entries that make me wonder what was behind it. Unhelpfully, under those words are sketches of a nose, a reaper robe, and what looks to be a sunny-side-up egg.

      The world may never know what the common denominator was supposed to be.

      Delete
  7. Aquatic Ape Theory and Mandragora Maniken sound like fantastic names for an Indie band.

    Also, I hate to piss on Lionel's parade, but if he actively spends his free time going around and telling others not to collect stamps, and he writes books about why you shouldn't collect stamps, and he forms a big club where people meet regularly and agree fervently about how they all don't collect stamps, then I would consider that a hobby. It's a terrible hobby, yes, but it's still a hobby.

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    1. It's been a rough weekend for True Believers, so I'm ducking that entirely.

      Although I guess we also learned that most of us are only here and alive and able-bodied today because 13-year old Ben Carson had a religious conversion before he could stab the rest of us!

      Go, Jesus!

      What's keeping Richard Dawkins from stabbing you?

      Delete
    2. Richard Dawkins hasn't stabbed me yet because he's a synthetic robot and he wasn't programmed to kill... YET.

      I'm no True Believer. But after hearing Justin Bieber's newly released music I AM a True Belieber. Someone hurt you, Justin, so play some generic, tepid electronica and pour your heart out to us. Tell us who hurt you. We're here to listen.

      Also, did you see that awesome painting Ben Carson has of himself with Black Jesus™? He's gonna be soooo pissed when he finds out Jesus is a blonde haired, blue eyed white guy.

      Delete
    3. I have never heard a Justin Bieber song. But I did see those pictures of him naked.

      The great thing about living in 2015 is for those of us who don't go that way,. we have Miley Cyrus, who basically looks exactly like Bieber except she has girl parts. Plus she's naked in public a lot more than Biber.

      Corporate music looks out for all of us!

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. yeah - great - will use it to link to Katy's post

      Delete
    2. When I was going through that box with old folders and discs in it, there was a disc marked "IMPORTANT!" and that was the only thing on it. That gif.

      Obviously, if I'd believed it was so important, I had to give it a prize place in this blog.

      Delete
  9. 8-track mind in an mp3 world

    All the kids showed up last night - I can confirm that there is a digital generation gap

    It's a comfort that the puppies have an 8-track minds

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    1. Yeah, I suppose that line can be considered a compliment or an insult, depending.

      It's all contingent on how one feels about Yes' "Roundabout."

      Delete
    2. yeah yeah - it's all about the "clicks"
      bear with me - beer chang (elephant beer) - example, two nights ago

      I returned from a fourteen hour visa run and crawl in the bed for a good sleep. However, just as I dosed off, a small slimy tree frog started to jump against my naked back. The dogs thought this was the most funny joke of all time!

      The best I can figure, Namcoke (the crazy dog) has learned that he will get sick if he eats this type of frog so he gave me the tree frog as a welcome home gift. I don't know if I should thank him are barbecue his ass!

      I like the "clicks" of life : off to dance with the grey storks with the puppies and drink some more beer chang

      Delete
    3. Write the good stuff and the funny stuff down when it happens. You might not remember later on and anyway, someday you're going to want to be reminded of what the good stuff was.

      Delete
  10. LOVE. "Get only more daring" coupled with Cargo Cults is just full of amazement to me. Your brain is a wonderland, Katy.

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    1. Thanks, Heather. I'm going to write one about cargo cults eventually. I'm just not sure how. But it's one of those ideas that keeps popping up when I'm running through ideas for blog posts. (?)

      Delete
    2. Have year heard the Gainsbourg song "Cargo Culte?"

      Delete
    3. No, but now I'm going to have to youtube it. Everything I know about cargo cults (and potlatch) is from Marvin Harris' "Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches."

      Delete
    4. I will have to check that out! The Gainsbourg track is from his incredible "Ballad of Melody Nelson." The whole album is just pure, soul crying sonic perfection. In short, I kind of love it.

      Delete
    5. Gainsbourg is one of those guys where I've never known where to start with his stuff, and youtube is a little heavy on his late-era, canned drums phase. "Melody Nelson" the place to start?

      Delete
    6. Absolutely! That and anything he did with Bardot.

      Delete
    7. I've been listening to "The History of Melody Nelson" album for a couple days now, and I'm digging it, but sort of feeling guilty for it. I mean, there's a chance I'm setting back womens rights 45 years by even typing Gainsbourg's name, right?

      Delete
  11. Oh, aquatic apes, please. Will they worship Great Cthulhu?

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    1. I'm afraid my blog would be boycotted if I had them do that.

      Did you see where a literary award recently changed the bust that it would give award recipients? It's always been a bust of Lovecraft, but apparently, more people are just now discovering that he made some really ugly statements on race.

      And here I'd always thought he was such a nice guy...

      Delete
    2. Oh yes, most of us Lovecraft readers know that. On the other hand, he was a general misanthrope, and also used English instead of Americanish.

      Delete
    3. Oh yeah, probably a completely miserable jerk, like all good writers are.

      Yet no one seemed to care until very recently.

      Delete
  12. Is that a deep dish "elf pie" or a thin crust?

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    1. I don't remember what I was thinking when I jotted that down, but it must have been great! I mean, haven't we all wondered about that at some point in our lives?

      Well, all of us except chefs, I mean. Surely, your really great chefs of the world know how many elves are in an elf pie already.

      (And why does "elf" become "elves" but "chef" becomes "chefs" and not "chevs"?

      Delete
  13. I found an old idea notepad. It took about two minutes of reading that tripe to decide to throw it in the fireplace and burn it to bits. As for your ideas, I look forward to reading about "Squirrel in a wheelchair" and "Arrested for pulling a gun on a lady in a giraffe suit".

    ReplyDelete
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    1. There are some entries in my old notebooks where I wrote 4 or 5 pages on a topic that is just indecipherable nonsense. I can tell that I was really actively thinking about the topic, but it's rubbish.

      Fortunately, "squirrel in a wheelchair" wasn't one of those. This is comforting because it shows me that the drug problem was never as serious as I'd feared.

      Delete
  14. Hey Katy! You're blog seeds are infinitely more interesting than my blog seeds. Not to mention more plentiful as well! The thing I do know about seeds though, is that they grow better if you plant them in shit, and that's one thing I do have plenty of.

    My left nut! ....or, you're left nut, either way, I'm intrigued.

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    1. With ideas like "squirrel in a wheelchair," "my left nut," and "how many elves in an elf pie?" I believe some of these ideas might be self-fertilizing!

      Delete
  15. Hmmm. I'd be interested in hearing about your thoughts on squirrels in a wheelchair. AND.....if you think you're strange with all those thoughts and scraps of paper with notes on them, you should see MY office. It's as cluttered with nonsense on notes as much as my brain is. (sigh)

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    1. Hey, if I had your posting schedule, I'd be in a constant state of panic!

      I post once a week and half of them wind up being cheats like this one.

      Delete
    2. I AM constantly in a state of panic Katy.

      Delete
    3. There are millions of mites living in your hair, on your skin and probably in your mouth, too.

      Delete
  16. Scrotal purse that gets smaller in the cold...please expand :)

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    1. Haha... I wrote that one and posted it at an old blog site. It's a Christmas post. Maybe I'll recycle it here for the Christmas season!

      Delete
  17. So hard to choose between White history month, electric clitoris, and nose-death-egg. I'd like to know what you are using for mind fertilizer. Do you have to water it frequently?

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    1. I ended up writing the White History Month one back in the day. It's here:

      http://www.fascistdykemotors.com/2011/02/white-history-month-needs-assessment.html

      Delete
  18. I want these as fortune cookie messages.

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    1. Haha. yes, clearly, I've missed my calling.

      I hear writing fortune cookie fortunes pays better than blogging...

      Delete
  19. I remember when the aquatic ape theory first came out. Well, almost. First heard about it in 1976 - not too long after Elaine Morgan's first book on the subject came out. I can't believe you put that first. How random. How wonderful.

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    1. Hey there! I always start off with cool concepts like that and then, by the time they actually become a blog post, it ends up being just a post about a date or something.

      My Hollow Earth post ended up morphing into a post about making a gif of my head.

      Delete
  20. Katy. "Write what you want to read."

    Therefore, Fuck Walmart!

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    1. Hi, Mooner!

      This doesn't always work. Right now, I am reading a 1200 page book on HP Lovecraft, which I would neither be able to write nor, if I did write it, post as a blog post.

      I also don't post a lot of porn.

      Other than that, though, it's a great rule of thumb.

      Delete
  21. Your higher intelligence makes your life more difficult. For me, watch how easy it is:

    FUCKWALMARTFUCKWALMARTFUCKWALMARTFUCKWALMARTFUCKWALMART!!!

    OK, my lower intellectual levels and the ADD might have a bearing. Some bearings, maybe. I'm looking out back and The squirt seems to have finally caught a mouse that was living in my shed and living off the garden and compost pile. Disabled mouse is making a red slinky in the snow and the adorable brown puppy is smiling down at it. She looks like Snoopy sitting atop her dog house while Charlie Brown fills her feed dish. It seems as though her mouse hunting program is the same as with the big grasshoppers. Catch, disable one rear leg in a major way, watch the tortured circles twist painfully, disable a front limb, bring the sacrifice to me.

    OK, now it's in her mouth and headed to the back door. Looks like daddy has an early Xmas present.

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    1. Cats do the same thing. I find pieces of large insects and toads and various critters all over my house.

      It's a little disconcerting sometimes, especially because I know if I were just a little smaller, the cats would do the same thing to me.

      Delete
  22. Holy shit. Bring it on.

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  23. too late I remember that gorgeous people are so rarely interesting --- story of my life, or at least the good parts

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    1. Hi, Erich!

      There's a dating meme I'm using in my next post that basically goes: "Smart, sane, attractive: You may choose 2."

      Granted, for me, it would be "Good taste in music, clever, presentable to the outside world: You may choose 2," but still...

      Delete

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