New Friends (and Their Sweeties)

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I met two of Fuego’s friends today. I liked both of them, but I wanted to steal their girlfriends.

First I met Edmund and his sweetheart. Edmund is American, and a poet, and likes deconstructing shit. His appearance is striking; his shaved head and long, long (no, longer that what you’re thinking) grey beard get him roles in film and television productions. His girlfriend was dazzling and charmingly shy. He was taking her for granted.

Now, I have made a long career of taking people for granted. It’s a lesson I have not learned and probably never will learn, though I’m working on it. All I can say in my defense in the matter is that I can see the error that others make, even if I’m blind to my own callousness. So tonight I watched a beautiful woman swallow her own hopes for the day in deference to her man. She did it gracefully.

Later I met Jardo. We rode way the hell out to his place to hang out. He had a surprise to show Fuego, and what a surprise it was. Jardo had a new, amazingly gorgeous girlfriend. We joined up with her and after a couple of near misses we landed in a bar. “Pepsi Disco” the sign outside said. Fuego quickly made friends with the DJ (there weren’t many others besides us, but pL had the guy’s life story in minutes).

She is crazy for him. Jardo’s girlfriend, I mean. She’s crazy for Jardo. The little things he did for her made her world. Which made it really frustrating for me to watch him not do the little things. All night long she wanted to dance, and finally I agreed to accompany the couple to the floor just to get them going. When the dancing was done they sat together, her hand looped under his upper arm, and she snuggled up against him. She was tired, but the looks she sent him were adoring. Jardo couldn’t see it so well from close up, but he is the luckiest man in the whole friggin’ Universe. The devotion in her eyes said more than words or symbols could ever show.

Jardo didn’t see most of that, I don’t think. I wonder how many things I haven’t seen. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know; if I did it would only lead to deeper regret. I wish Jardo well. By then end of the evening I was adjusting my actions to maximize their togetherness. She was, as far as I got to know her, everything I could ever want in a girlfriend, but just seeing the way she looked at him made me hope that he saw it too, and he would make her happy.

Edmund, though, you better watch out, buddy. I got better glances from your sweetie than you did, and I wouldn’t make her feel like the unwashed heathen. Realistically, it will not be me you lose her to (more’s the pity), but sooner or later she will decide to go with someone who listens to her. Maybe one day I’ll learn that skill myself. But then again, probably not.

Thanks!

And there it is…

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Yep, I wrapped it up just tonight. More than 13 months of writing, rewriting, trimming, expanding, head pounding and proofreading have led to this one moment. I hit save, and looked at what I had wrought. The beast weighs in at around 152,000 words, and will fill 560 pages in a paperback book (possibly more). It’s a fairly big novel, larger than publishers like to see from first-time authors, but in this case there isn’t much left I would consider fat.

Finished.

“Done” is a slippery thing when working on something like this. I’m sure there are sentences that could be cleaner, minor inconsistencies, and perhaps still the occasional anachronism. As I develop the synopsis and begin my marketing campaign I’m sure I’ll tweak a few things. But at this moment I am ready to start that process. I have reached the milestone where the beast is of high enough quality to start shopping around, and I can move on to the next project.

Done.

I feel like this milestone should be met with more floral prose on my part, and maybe if I let this episode stew for a while I’ll come up with something, but prosadasically I’m dried up right now.

Complete.

Many of you helped me get to this point as well, either materially by reading and providing feedback or through moral support. I really couldn’t have done it without all your help, and you have a right to share in the joy and pride of this moment. Thanks to all of you.

Perhaps this is the word I’m looking for: WAAAAAAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOO!

Dang…

Addendum: I should mention that anyone who would like to read the final version can just let me know and I’ll slide you a copy. In fact, since I’m going to be sending it out soonish, now would be a great time to catch those little (and not-so-little) mistakes that have slipped past me.

Thanks!

Google bin berry berry good to me

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Another look at the odd things people turn to the net to find. These people, rather than finding what they are looking for, for some reason came to this blog instead. Looking at the search strings, it’s pretty clear the majority of them were not looking for what they found here. As usual, phrases I do not want to distract Google with are obfuscated with spaces.

  • what is the significance of stacking rocks? – Jeeves thought I might be able to help with the answer to that. After all, I am renowned for my rock-stacking prowess.
  • slivovitce – very few matches for this homemade hooch on the Web.
  • they drunk natalie – Arthur Dent: What’s wrong with being drunk? Ford Prefect: Ask a glass of water.
  • going to Prague what to wear cold parka – sounds like the searcher already knows more about the subject than I do. Linked to the main page here.
  • owl bar san antonio new mexico – caught my eye because the searcher was someone at the washington post. Linked to the h i g h w a y 6 0 episode. I hope whoever it was read the good stories in the comments.
  • kilgore trout no idea – I did mention Kilgore Trout once, but why someone would want to read that episode I have no idea.
  • Sex and Trucks – connects to the Google-magnet episode S e x , D e a t h, a n d W o r d s
  • my google hurts – linked to an episode like this one
  • EULA Writing – an old classic, links to a draft of the License agreement for Jer’s Novel Writer
  • roads and streets in winston salem 1950 – connected to a story about a very good drive through North Carolina and West Virginia.
  • pinch needle sex stories – Linked to the stories category page. The summary that appeared in Google: … The cowboy might in a real pinch ask his God for a blessing, but … Sex! … with other people around the bubble shatters into tiny red fragments, needle-sharp little …. The P o w e r o f P o s i t i v e D r i n k i n g contributed the sentence “Sex!” and the needle.
  • “25-hour days” hour day – visitor 9001 linked to an episode where I covered a lot of miles.
  • daughter caught me in her dress – you know, sometimes I wonder why I watch referrals so closely. Sometimes I find the answer.
  • office sex accident – ooops!
  • big arabic ass – an unlikely convergence with this.
  • hangover yellow sick – connected rather unlikelily to the threat level meter page.
  • baby ocelot pictures – I celebrate all oocelots, elevators, and rutabagas, even if this search linked to a google page mentioning a search that linked to yet another Google page. (You know what I’m hoping, don’t you?)
  • sex rapture violent – umm… right.
  • eels rumor blinking lights – linked to the Feeding the Eels page.
  • prosperous cemetery ideas – came to the main page. It sounds like a Disney/Shady Acres partnership is on the way!
  • i need my pants – linked to an episode about, well, my pants.
  • martha stewart, sequin contest – improbably, this page came out at the top of the search.

The usual suspects: People continue to come here for cooking advice, inspiration about their nation, alcohol and its effects (especially on women), the word “g o o g l i”, bars, taverns, and watering holes I have encountered in my travels (including one in Prague now), and a new very common phrase, “M o o n l i g h t s o n a t a“

I think I will be glad when “eels” and “ass” don’t appear on the same page any more.

Thanks!

Welcome to Moravia. Do you want beer or wine with that?

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Now that my hosts are back in town, I will have no choice but to have a social life again. The day they arrived back in country, weary from their long journey, we were invited to a party hosted by Marianna’s mother. The travelers tried to weasel out of going, but Jirka, Mariana’s stepfather, would have none of it. Eventually we headed over there “for half an hour”. I knew before we started that this would not be the half hour that the Assyrians invented so long ago. It was more a company party than anything else; not too crazy but not many people there that I could talk to. No biggie, I had some munchies and a couple of beers and fun was had by all. At the party Jirka insisted that the next day (yesterday) we go down to their house in Southeastern Czech Republic, the region of Moravia, to pick up a car that Phil (still working out what to call my brother these days) and Marianna will now have to look after (and, worse, park).

The adventure expanded (unbeknownst to me) into an overnighter. As the time to leave approached I was finally informed that we might be spending the night down there. Despite some anxiety about stayiing in touch with Piker Press (I have a new bit coming out today and I was worried about some edits) I packed up the laptop and toothbrush (what else could I possibly need?). We packed into a car and away we went.

I was rather surprised that wedged into the car, unable to see much in the darkness, not driving, I still got some of the road feelings as we headed out.

First stop was a 24-hour roadside cafe next to the motorway that Jirka had been visiting for years. Better by one beer and one schnitzel I squeezed in with my fellow travelers again and off we went. It was dark by the time we got to the smaller roads, so I didn’t see much of the farmland. We went around a giant Soviet-built nuclear power plant (since then the good people who built Three Mile Island have checked it over and declared it safe) and to a little village not far away. Before going home we stopped off to visit the villiage priest, whose name is also Jirka. That’s when things started to get interesting (sorry about those previous paragraphs).

We went up the stairs to the priest’s rooms and when we opened the door we were met by the small of cooking sausage. Jirka the priest is fairly tall but doesn’t look it because of his big belly. He sweats a lot, and his diet seems to be composed mostly of cooked meats. His slightly shaggy dark hair is in full retreat from his forehead. After he made us comfortable he left for a moment and came back with a bottle of wine from the vinyard of a friend in his home town. Then there was the next bottle of wine. There was an unlabeled bottle of what I assumed to be homemade slivovitce (distilled plum hootch) sitting on the table, but Marianna’s mother nixed the idea of breaking that out. Still, I’ve never hung out drinking with a priest before. He was a good guy.

Just up the road was our final destination, and after more snacks and beer we went to bed. In the morning after breakfast Jirka was trying to feed me more of the sausage I had complimented the night before, and I jokingly said, “No, beer is all I need.” I thought I had made it clear that I was joking, but not too much later I was wrapping up breakfast with Pilsner Urquell. As my brother pointed out as he raised his glass to mine, “You’re not in California any more.” That’s also what he said when we passed the fitness center/bar.

Thanks!

This Means Nothing

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Last night I had a dream that a woman invited me on a road trip across the US. She invited all her friends, but only I, a relative stranger, agreed to go. Only after I said yes was I able to see how beautiful and wise she was.

Thanks!

Programming Note

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What we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. Yes, now you too can look ahead to the many exciting holidays in the Muddled Year, and even help name some of them! Included also are moon phases, eclipses, and other fun stuff!

The URL for the calendar is:

http://ical.mac.com/vikingjs/MR38HBI

If you have a calendar program (e.g., iCal) that knows about the webcal:// protocol, you can subscribe to the calendar and be updated automatically as events are added or named. What fun!

There is a link to the calendar over in the sidebar in a section called “holiday ticker”, which alerts you to important events coming up in the Muddled Months ahead.

Thanks!

The Electric Creature of Prague

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I’m looking around right now, assessing what it’s going to take to smallify my life back down to suitcase-size before my hosts return tomorrow, jet-lag weary, suitcases of their own in tow, ready to party. There’s not much actual cleaning to do; I’ve managed to stay on top of that. All the plants are still alive, which is good, but the table here and one corner of the room look like nests for some sort of beer-fueled electric creature. The nests are lined with cables and stray electronic devices, and are decorated with empty beer bottles. The beast is out somewhere right now, probably foraging behind electronic shops or perhaps on a beer run.

When the creature first began to haunt the streets of the city I imagine it may have raised a couple of eyebrows, but Prague is a live-and-let-live kind of place, and after a while this machine would just be part of the local color. In Japan, they would worry that the machine would eat too much and grow to monstrous proportions, and that it would then—in clumsiness or malice, it doesn’t matter which—destroy the city. In America they would kidnap the thing and take it to a secret facility deep under the windswept desert, where they would attempt to torture its secrets out of it. The creature would flash friendly messages on its flickering CRT face and would weep as it came to understand the cruelty of man, touching the hearts of the only two scientists in the facility who still had souls, who would then have sex.

Here in Prague, the creature is free to walk about, if walking is what it actually does, and people greet it with a polite Dobry Den. I don’t imagine it likes the rain too much. There’s probably an Internet café nearby that doesn’t mind it hanging around while the weather is bad. I imagine it makes itself useful helping customers access their email and in return is allowed to plug in and hang out, talking tech stuff with the staff, sipping pivo and snacking on electronics slated for recycling.

Its nest is here, though. Sometimes at night I can hear it coming and going, but overall it’s a good roommate, if a little sloppy. I’m not sure where it’s going to live when I clean up tomorrow. I suppose I should at least send it an email warning it what’s going to happen.

Thanks!

Music I can’t write to

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I was sitting, staring at the work I should have been editing, and I was humming “Anesthesia” by Brenda Kahn. Why hum it when I can play it? I fired up Epiphany in Brooklyn and until it’s done I won’t be getting anything creative done. In the pauses between songs a thought or an idea might sneak in, but as soon as the words start I’m there in the scenes she paints with her words, an impressionistic sketch of a lonely landscape filled with lost people. In only a few words she builds whole people. Of course, all the detail comes from my own imagination, which is what makes it so powerful.

The same thing happened a couple of days ago with Tom Waits. I rationalize indulging in these pleasures when I should be working by telling myself that it’s emotional food I’m eating, that I can digest and turn into… uh, I think I’ll leave the metaphor there.

Often, you can tell if I’m being productive at the moment by looking at the the “Now Playing” section over somewhere to the right. The better the songwriter, the less productive I am at that moment. (Of course, just because I’m playing music doesn’t mean I’m writing at all, and if I’ve gone to a bar to write that section won’t update at all.) I’ve turned to Internet Radio lately to enhance my productivity; there are stations that play forgettable ambient electronica 24 hours a day. It’s nice, but it doesn’t get into the verbal part of my head. I’ll be switching over to that – after I play through this album a second time.

Thanks!

Adventure

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I started writing this a couple of weeks ago. I had written of my adventure in a crowded store after forgetting how to say “excuse me.” I posted the episode and then noticed I had an email from Keith.

Here’s the thing. On the day I write about making my way through crowded drug store aisles, I read about how he scaled Everest with his pants down. Or something like that. It doesn’t stop there. Keith’s kids have huge adventures, too. It’s like the army commercial but worse. Before this boy reaches ten years old he will have done more than you will ever manage to pull off in your whole miserable life. While I’m sure his kids will on occasion disagree, Keith’s the kind of guy I’ll hire to raise my kids, should I ever have any. Or, perhaps, cuckoo-like, I could slip my progeny into the Sherwood nest to be raised as one of theirs.

So, adventure. When I meet people who know about my dislocated lifestyle, they say, “you must have had lots of adventures.” Well, yes and no. My so-called adventures are generally just inconveniences with some floral prose wrapped around them. I didn’t look for the adventure, it assaulted me. When I overcome adversity, it would hardly be appropriate for me to throw my hands in the air and shout to any gods who would care to listen “Yeah! Wahooooooooo! Fuckin-aaaaaaaa” That’s just not what you do in a drugstore, even if it is a chain.

I do think, however, that all my little adventures do add up to something. I’d be lying to say I’m not proud of my decision to put a hold on a lifestyle that saw me successful, sheltered, and fed to go off romping around the world in pursuit of new goals. Raising a family, I imagine, is a similar adventure, filled with a long series of little surprises as well, the subtle lessons that never end and slowly change who you are. The only thing that makes my adventures stand out is that they’re different. All parents go through the diaper poop explosion. That doesn’t make it less of an adventure than figuring out the bottle return thingie at the grocery store, though.

So I’ll continue with my little adventures, built largely on uncertainty rather than heroism, and I’ll enjoy the stories of others whose adventures tend more to the spectacular. And I’ll remember that life itself is the grandest adventure of all, and that we are all in it together.

Thanks!

The Best 2004 Ever!

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Well, I guess that about wraps it up for 2004. It’s been a heck of a year overall. I’m not going to recap it now – if you want to review it you can go back over the last 310 or so episodes. There are a couple things worth noting, however, looking back and looking forward.

I think over the year the quality of the writing here got better. I look back at some of my earlier favorite entries and they just feel a little sloppy. Sometimes sloppy is good—I’ll have to be careful not to become sterile, and there are certainly still some pretty crappy episodes—but overall readability has improved, I think. You might disagree. I think I was able to produce higher-quality episodes back then, but I didn’t take the time. Or did I? I don’t have anything else to show for those months. It’s all a blur now…

And hey! Check this out! This is a graph generated by Sitemeter that shows my traffic this year:

server2.gif

There’s still a few hours of December left, so it’s easy to imagine hitting 1800 visits this month. The red line is my more conservative estimate of the number of people who visit on purpose. The actual number may be higher; it’s difficult to estimate between all the hits for eggs, alcohol, and sex. The red line is you, the people who actually read this stuff and leave comments and contribute to the community that this has become. The people who leave personal messages for each other in comment threads. As I sit here in a far-off land I still feel connected to you.

Hardest to estimate are the lurkers. I know there are some. Hello, lurkers! Thanks for stopping by! Come back again real soon!

(I was planning to do a fancy interactive thing with a comment for each month as you rolled over that column, but that started sounding an awful lot like work.)

I will not finish The Monster Within by midnight tonight. Part of the reason for that is I’m devoting more energy to smaller bits I can get published and build up a publishing credits list. The other part of the reason is that I’m lazy.

The smaller bits are coming along, though. That may affect the blog as well; some of the creative writing pieces that I had been starting to put up here may go to a different outlet instead. I’ll still put up fragments, but if something is more or less complete I’ll be shipping it elsewhere instead. Moonlight Sonata, which I posted here a while back as “a good start to a short story” now is a short story, and will be appearing soon over at Piker Press. Also, a vastly modified version of the american road myth will be appearing over there. So, obviously, there is still a place for my blog in my creative writing, but it may evolve.

As for New Year’s resolutions, I have but one: Get the pizza crumb out from under the “r” key.

Thanks!

Home is where you drink your beer

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Sitting in Crazy Daisy tonight (It’s 4:30 and dark outside), I’m doing my best to not feel guilty about taking up a table while they’re busy. The waitresses and bartenders here are definitely prettier than the guys over at Roma, but they have mastered the apathetic surliness that is the curse of help staff everywhere. I count it as a small victory that I won a smile out of my waitress tonight.

At the row of tables down the middle of the restaurant a large party is gathering, and in their number is the Anti-Jerry. I spotted him right away. He glanced my direction but did not understand what we each represented, because as the Anti-Jerry he is ignorant of the deeper meanings of things. Clean-cut with a hint of the rascal, wearing a suit with style, polite and attentive, confident and easy-going. They made space for him in the middle of the table. The woman on his left is making no secrets about who she wants to be with tonight. The Anti-Jerry.

Still, it’s good to meet your anti-you every once in a while. It’s like looking in a reverse mirror. When I see the Anti-Jerry I see all the things I’m not that I wish I was, but I also see the things he’s not, that I’m glad I am. And if the waitresses don’t smile at him either, well then. I’ll just wait to meet the anti-waitress.

Just now the sound of glass shattering came from behind the bar, and I thought of Rose.

Thanks!

Episode 9: An Unexpected Call

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Note: To read the entire story from the beginning click here.

The diner on the corner was doing a brisk business but Alice and I found a booth and settled in across from each other. Rita was working, as always. While the city bustled and changed all around this place, nothing ever changed in here. When the Dutch settlers purchased Manhattan from the wrong natives they celebrated here over meat loaf and mashed potatoes, and Rita took their order. As we sat Rita didn’t even bother walking over to the table, she just looked over her hornrims at us and called out, “The usual?” I nodded. She had seen those first Europeans coming though the forest and had already decided what their “usuals” would be by the time they reached the door. I don’t think I ever heard anyone order in that place.

“Can I please have a malt with mine?” Alice asked.

Rita pursed her lips. She wanted to say no. “You want your coffee too or just the malt?”

“No coffee, thanks.”

Rita scowled and scribbled the order on her pad to pass back to the kitchen and turned to greet some other customers. Alice was toying with her silverware, looking at her hands. After a minute or so she said, “I know what you’re going to tell me.”

I hadn’t been aware I’d been planning to tell her anything, but I assumed she was right. She knew a lot more about me than I did. Once I thought about it, it was pretty obvious, though. After I paid for this meal, there would be no money left. The pay phone by the washroom door started to ring. No one paid it any attention. “Look,” I said. “You know better than I do that business is sour.” My mouth was sour as well. All the cheap booze I’d had that day was wearing me down. I thought back to the fine, earthy scotch I’d had at Jake’s, only a few hours ago.

“I can work for free for a while, ’till things get better.”

The phone hadn’t stopped ringing; it was starting to bug me. My nerves were delicate as the last of the barbarian rye faded, leaving behind a temple in shambles. “You know it’s no good, Doll. Things aren’t turning around. Not now. You need to find yourself a real job, so you can take care of your mother.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone moving toward the phone and sighed in relief. Alice was getting ready to blubber again. Twice in one day. That was good even for me. Next time I could afford a secretary I’d get her tear glands removed first. The pretty ones were the worst, and Alice was certainly one of those.

A man I didn’t know was standing by our table. Alice managed to stay buttoned up and I turned a red eye toward the visitor. “You Charles Lowell?” he asked. I didn’t answer; I just kept my eye on his hands, and I was ready to go for the gun I had in the holster under my coat. An afternoon like the one I’d just had would make anyone cautious. “Phone’s for you,” the man said, gesturing toward the corner. Alice looked up from her hands with surprise and hope. I was ready to tell the man shove off until I saw that look. I sighed and got slowly to my feet. “Try answering yourself next time,” the man muttered. I let it pass.

I was going to have to change my eating habits. I was getting far too easy to find by people I didn’t want to know. I tried not to guess who would be ruining my night. I picked up the reciever. “Lowell,” I said.

There was a pause on the other end and a sharp intake of breath. I could almost smell the wildflowers over the phone. “Mr. Lowell?” Her voice was more tentative this time, with a little more Kentucky in it. “I need to see you right away.”

“Listen, I told you before—” I cut myself off as I turned to look back at Alice. The food had arrived and she was working on her malt. She was watching me. I could hang up the phone right then, just walk away from all of them while I still had legs to walk with. If I did that, I’d never get another job in this town, or this country for that matter. Cello would see to that. If I hung up I’d be saying goodbye to Alice when I got back to the table. She was in a bad way.

“Please, Mr. Lowell. Just hear me out. I’ll pay you for your time.”

“Someone was shooting a gun outside Jake’s earlier. I don’t like loud noises.”

“I’ll pay an extra fee to compensate you for the risk.”

No amount of money was going to matter when I was feeding the eels at the bottom of the river. Alice was watching me still, hope giving way to concern. Concern for me. “All right,” I said.

She let out her breath. “A cab will be outside in five minutes,” she said. “Be waiting on the corner. He will ask if you are Mr. Jones. He knows where to bring you.”

“Can I at least tell my secretary where she can reach me?”

“I would rather not say over the phone.”

“All right.”

Her voice seemed to relax a little. “Mr. Lowell. Charles. Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.”

“I’ll see you soon, Mrs. Fanutti.” I hung up and returned to the table.

“Who was it?” Alice asked.

I put the last of our money down on the table. “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’ll see you in the office tomorrow.” I would if I was still alive by then.

Tune in next time for: Blood of the Saint!

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Thanks!

Company’s Coming!

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On the to-do list, just under “finish novel” and “learn czech” I have added “find own place”. Two reasons for that: first, the people who own this place are going to want it back soon, and second, I just heard from friends who want to come and visit in February. That’s soon! I really should have a place by then (see reason 1), but now I have to have furniture in it and everything.

On top of everything, the exchange rate just keeps getting worse. I regularly pay a dollar for a beer in restaurants now. The horror! I’m starting to adopt the R’n’R (Rice and Ramen) diet. I’m not broke or anything, and I want to keep it that way. Gotta watch the burn rate so I can be a foolish spendthrift when guests are here.

As far as that goes, if you’re reading this, you are invited to swing by Prague and crash at my place. (You may want to wait until I have a place, but that’s just details.) When I look at places I will definitely be finding a place with room for guests. Maybe not very much room, but I promise you’ll be able to lie flat while sleeping.

Speaking of finishing the novel, The Monster Within is almost done. That’s a big part of why you haven’t heard much of substance from me lately.

And speaking of not much substance, that’s about all you get from me today as well. That’s the way it goes, sometimes.

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Thanks!

A Very Merry Christmas, Indeed!

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While all you across the big pond yet entertain cavorting sugar plums, here in Old Europe the day is under way (I hear my two Japanese readers scoff). I woke earlyish this morning, and actually felt a little of the season creeping into my curmudgeonly old soul. On a whim I pulled out a CD that I’ve been dragging around with me, wondering why the whole time. It’s called Tierra Santa. Tierra Santa is a suburb of San Diego, and this is a collection of original Christmas music by San Diego musicians. Many of those singer/songwriters have gone on to vanish into obscurity, but a few of them are plugging away ten years later. I haven’t listened to this CD in years, but for some reason it was in my CD case when I hit the road, and here it is. This morning it’s justifying itself.

Most years Christmas is just like any other day for me, but not this year. Last night Marek (an aspiring photographer and bartender at Roma) gave me a really nice card featuring one of his prints. It’s beautiful. And later today, I will be published.

Now, before you get too excited, this is a fairly small deal. It’s a little online publication, but it has actual Editors and standards and stuff, so it is a little bit of a big deal. Most of you that read this will already be familiar with The Cowboy God. Today readers of The Piker Press (www.pikerpress.com/) will see a slightly edited version.

No white Christmas here in Prague, but that’s OK. It’s snowing somewhere. And my sincere thanks go out to all of you who have wished me well. I hope the season finds you happy and prosperous, and closer to your dreams. And when I say I’m a writer and people ask, “Have you published anything?” I can answer “yes”. I guess it is a big deal.

Thanks!

There’s No Google Like Show Google

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Sometimes when I look at the search strings that lead people here I think there must be a message buried in the words. It feels like some sort of barometer of the world mood. Then I see that someone went through seven pages of results for the search “get girls drunk” to wind up at this humble site and I realize that overall humanity is pretty stupid, and the Web just facilitates that. Here then is a measure of that stupidity. That I can offer myself up as a paragon of stupid, the brass ring on the idiot carousel, makes me proud.

As tradition dictates, phrases I want to ensure do not distract the search engines are obfuscated with spaces.

  • beer genuis – if beer makes you smarter, then by damn I must be a genius, too. In this case, it linked here
  • sheep all dressed up – unfortunately comcast.net searches are hard to work back with to see how that could possibly have come here. But you have to like the phrase.
  • billionaires give me a car – linked to my general Get Poor Quick category page, where I ask for multi-billionaires to step forward to fund my space launch idea.
  • first, decipher this cowboy’s symbols, Th – I think we’ve found the limit to how long a url Sitemeter can store. I never did learn what to do next, but it probably had to do with coming in out of the rain.
  • free spells for bring people to come to your site – now there’s a way to drive up traffic I hadn’t thought of.
  • handstand pee dogs – OK, come on people! What do you expect to find with that? If you want to learn about spike you just have to ask.
  • sam’s p l a c e lake t a h o e norm – notable among the many hits I get on that bar because Norm is a regular there. This was not a search on the bar, but a search on a guy in the bar. Viva Norm!
  • trumpet bell making – you know among all the people who come here hoping to find methods to get members of the opposite sex wasted as quickly as possible, every once in a while comes along a true artist who is looking for innovation in horn design.
  • bring a slave – linked to the good ‘ol beer slave episode
  • temper of a rattlesnake – I used that phrase in a Feeding the Eels episode.
  • freeloading – while I’ve used the term many times, the episode with that title was from when I was borrowing Jojo’s WiFi from her back porch while she wasn’t home.
  • lyrics to “C h r i s t m a s C a r o l of my own” – I had the only match! Links to the Bars of the World tour page, which includes, well, a C h r i s t m a s C a r o l of my own.
  • existentialism blog jer 2004 Dec – they must have been looking for me. My only mention of existentialism, however, was to admit that I didn’t know much about it.
  • h a r d b o d y girl – I saw a tremendous surge in traffic last week (well, tremendous for me, anyway; it would have been unnoticeable on a larger site) and it seems part of the reason is that as of this writing Google ranks me number one of all sites for that phrase. I was excited by the increase in traffic for a while, but even now it’s tapering off and I realize that none of it means a damn thing. Are there more regulars than before? Hard to tell, but the ratio of regular to accidental visitor is certainly shrinking.
  • what movie contained the line, sometimes you just have to say, what the heck – came to the main page. I haven’t figured out the whole convergence there.
  • the statement the smell of cigarette smoke is erotic – I sure as hell never said that.
  • pictures of white churches on fire – OK, sure, I do mention white church steeples in Through the V a l l e y of F i r e&nbsp to the B o s o m of B o b b i , but it’s not the kind of title you would expect someone interested in churches, on fire or not, to click.
  • how to get poor – now there’s someone who came to the right place.
  • sax between mom daughter – it’s nice to know there’s still interest in musical families.
  • i gave her beer and now she is dead – Linked to my beer s l a v e episode. I’m kind of surprised at that. Nobody dies.
  • t i k i l o v e g o d – well, clearly they were looking for me, but in fact I haven’t been to Tiki in a long time.
  • sexy m e g a n – notable mainly because in the past the hit has been m e g a n stinks
  • marmaduke dog name – umm… Marmaduke? Linked to a fairly incoherent ramble (beer may have been involved) that included the line “If Marmaduke was to choke to death on Garfield’s corpse, the world would be a better place.”
  • gary sinese – by the time I checked, I had slipped off (or over?) page 22 of aol’s search results. So I ask: who in all the seventeen hells would enter a popular actor’s name, go through twenty-two pages of search results and finally choose to come here?
  • squirrel drinking beer – if that is not the most unlikely yet perfectly tuned three words to bring someone to this sordid site, I don’t know what is. Not three days ago I sent Brian a picture of a squirrel drinking beer. Don’t ask me to find it again.
  • great driving roads in virginia – Because it shamelessly sucks off the name of a popular song, the episode Take Me Home, Country Roads gets more than its fair share of attention. In its defense, it does describe one of the top two highways in that fair state.

Time rolls past. MR&HBI is no longer the top hit for “h a r d b o d y g ir l s”. You must search on h a r d b o d y b r e a s t s to find MR&HBI in the top slot. Damn, I’m proud (*sniff*). Meanwhile, many of the top hits for “h a r d b o d y g i r l s” are sites telling teens the virtues of being a herdbody. (That was a typo, but you know, I’m sticking with it.) I imagine articles with titles like “Anorexia: Make it Work for You”.

Egg cooking, of course, accounts for a couple hundred visits a week (although only 20 out of the last 100 visits), and there are always people looking for the lowdown on particular bars. The volume of traffic by people who can’t figure out for themselves how to get drunk and what to do once they get there is increasing (and alarming). It’s not a mystery, kids. Mini blimps and x-ray gogs remain popular.

What does this all mean? Why would someone search the web for the name of a dog they mention by name? Why do so many people turn to the blogosphere for cooking advice? Why do I spend so much time tracking it?

What else ya gonna do?

Thanks!