Datsun Flambe

Grind Time: How We Shall Proceed and Continue Here at The Flambe

2012-01-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

Strangely, I feel renewed in my day job as well as in this writing thing. This is the end of the first week of classes. Over the winter break I finished a draft of a novella I've been working on. I can honestly say I'm happy with what I turned out with. Now the challenge is to maintain the renewed feeling and the writing output as the semester snaps down on my neck. And you probably notice that I have trouble maintaining the blog when I'm teaching. I also have a hard time maintaining when I'm knee deep in a project as I was with the novella.

That brings me to this blog. I used to post stupid cartoons on Saturday and music on Mondays and I even started a labor-intensive link thing on Sundays. Yeah, I don't do that anymore. I've taken all that kind of ephemera to my Tumblr: Forgotten Tunnel TV (another blog name I'll have to sort of explain later).

Here at the Flambe, I'm going to go further in chronicling my grind. Once a week I'm going to write about the progress of what I'm working on. That's the new focus. No cartoons. No music. Or if I post that stuff it will be to underscore the sentiment I'm expressing.

And below is the contents of the newest page on this blog, the one titled: "What? What in the Hell is a Datsun Flambe."

Peace.

What? What in the Hell is a Datsun Flambe?

Not quite a Datsun, but the picture is Flambe hot.

Ever read that Ralph Ellison's short story, "Cadillac Flambe?" Yeah, I named my blog after that.

Datsun Flambe is my weekly chronicle of my writing grind. Journey with me as I write these novels, short stories, humor pieces and whatever else I'm writing. Whatever part of the struggle that is fascinating and perplexing me during the week is what I'm posting about.

Blog is updated at least once a week.

As always, I maintain a list of published stories and the like on the right-hand side of this site. Consider browsing them. They get lonely. Show them love.

Want pictures and videos and other stuff like that? Check out my Tumblr: Forgotten Tunnel TV and consider following.

I'm Editing Specter Magazine's Hip Hop Issue

2012-01-18T00:00:00.001-05:00

Specter Magazine is a force for good in the world. They published my story "A Friendly Game" and my short short, "Wolf Stories we Told That May Not be True" and then they interviewed me.

Now, I'm editing their upcoming hip-hop issue. Submit! Submit! Here are the details from the site:

Special Issue: Hip-Hop

There's no backstory as to why we've decided to focus on Hip-Hop. No narrative to share, no personal enlightenment to explain. I love hip-hop; I love literature: I want to see my two creative joys intersect here at Specter Magazine.

Submissions for Specter's first theme issue, The Hip-Hop Issue, are now open. We're looking for fiction, poetry, non-fiction, and art/photography which embodies a hip-hop aesthetic.

The Hip-Hop issue is scheduled for a June 4th, 2012 release (subject to change).

Submissions will be selected by guest editor Rion Amilcar Scott, who appeared in previous issues of Specter, including his Pushcart Prize nominated story, "A Friendly Game." Rion has contributed to PANK, Fiction International and Confrontation, among others. Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, he earned an MFA at George Mason University and presently teaches English at Bowie State University.

I'm thrilled to have Rion on board to edit this issue. Hip-Hop has infiltrated almost every part of the globe, from music (obviously) to dance to fashion to--now--literature.

mensah demary
editor-in-chief

The deadline is April 30th. Submit here.

100 Books: The Conclusion (For Now)

2012-01-07T18:17:00.002-05:00

"I read more books in 2011 than this clown and I have a country to run. Wanker."

I set forth as a goal in the beginning of 2011 to read 100 books. I read 48 books. I'm sure I'm forgetting a book or two, but damn, I didn't even get halfway toward my goal.

So I'll be doing this again in 2012, until I make it.Then it's 100 movies.

Here is a list of the books I read in no particular order, with brief, perhaps meaningless commentary if I felt like providing it while typing.

My Infamous Life by Prodigy of Mobb Deep
Ever talked to someone who's been through a lot, but seems to have learned nothing from all those troubles. Yeah, this book is like that. Entertaining though. Very, very violent. What I learned was that even when the stupidity of Prodigy and his crew cause them to be shot up, Prodigy is a hero. Still one of the greatest rappers on the '90s. Disconcerting to hear some of the actual violence behind the violent lyrics. Makes it less of a fantasy. More menacing and ultimately senseless.

Backsass by Fred Chappell
Owned this book for a long time. Always read the title as Backass.

Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Brilliant book by a brilliant writer. So much narrative tension. There's a lot to learn in here about the craft (creating sharp characters, plotting) and if you don't want to learn about craft and you just want to keep turning pages, yeah, Ms. Jones Brings it. I gave this as a Christmas gift to my sister-in-law. I hope she's as blown away as I was.

True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Very short book with a lot of depth. Barely 100 pages, but it took me a while to read. So much to ponder. I read it originally a few years ago before my girlfriend (now wife) and I broke up briefly. We were supposed to read it to understand our relationship. She accused me of taking all the lessons and applying them to my writing life instead of to the relationship and you know what? I was. Never finished it back then. It belonged to her and I left with her. And then we got back together.

Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson
What a dick.

Mailer: A Biography* by Hilary Mills
God, another fucking dick.
*I have an asterisk by this one because I couldn't finish it on account of the fact that my copy was defective. Instead of the last 30 or so pages, it just repeats the previous two chapters. Pissed me off.

Quantum Lyrics by A. Van Jordan

Briefs by John Edgar Wideman

Abstraktion Und Einfuhlung by Percival Everett

Fist Stick Knife Gun by Geoffrey Canada
I taught this book in English 101. Very insightful. Made me reflect on the violence of my youth. I think the students got a lot out of it.

So You Know It's Me by Brian Oliu

No Sleep Till Brooklyn by Kevin Powell
My God these poems are bad. His dialect poems appear to have been ghostwritten by the woman who wrote The Help. If he were white, I would be offended. The rest of the poems are no good either.

Demo vol. 2 by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan
Mediocre follow up diminishes the brilliance of Vol. 1

The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson
Some ideas here are dated, but a lot to think about as an educator who's trying to teach people to think for themselves instead of parroting. Most kids come in with very low critical thinking skills. I'll probably need to re-read it at some point. I'm trying to do a lot of reading on education to sharpen what at time feels like a losing battle. This was to be the first of a bunch of books on educating the mis-educated, but I lost the thread of that and need to return to it.

Seven Guitars
Two Trains Running
The Piano Lesson
Radio Golf
Joe Turner's Come and Gone
Fences
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Jitney
King Hedley
Gem of the Ocean
All of the above are by my hero August Wilson. It constitutes the most significant works of his oevure. This go-through Wilson's work, I read them in the order they were published (which is not the order above). Great to see his development. I took away a lot about the use of dialogue and how it needs to represent the essence of how we speak, "the sound of it" and not necessarily be exactly how we speak. Beautiful work.

Missing You, Metropolis by Gary Jackson

Ayiti by Roxane Gay
Special book. Special person. Check the last story, "A Cool, Dry Place." Mindblowing.

B Jenkins by Fred Moten

Grim Tales by Norman Lock

The Glen Rock Book of the Dead by Marion Wink

During my Nervous Breakdown I Want to Have a Biographer Present by Brandon Scott Gorrell
Felt annoyed by the lack of page numbers or interesting imagery. Bored most of the time. Some interesting moments, insights.

Please Don't be Upset by Brandi Wells
A really visceral writer. Though at times it seems forced. Enjoyed it overall.

Donald by Eric Martin and Stephen Elliot
Fuck this book. It made me feel sympathy for a (fictional) Donald Rumsfeld.

Two Minutes of Light by Nancy K. Pearson

Limestone by Anthony Kellman
An uneven epic poem. The opening section is the strongest.

Babyfucker by Urs Allmen
Look past the title. Past the premise (if the premise is even the premise). You'll learn a lot about language. And it's a translation!

Love Poems by Nikki Giovanni

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves us by Laura van den Berg
Amazing set of stories. Seems like a lot of thought went into the order of stories so it pays off as a book, rather than just a grouping of stories. Each story features a women in the midst of some sort of transition. They are all involved in the sciences in some way. The first and last stories are showstoppers. I picked it up just to skim it and in a day or two I was done with it. Nice work.

The Weather Stations by Ryan Call
Another really special set of stories. Many ways to read this. As a collection? Linked stories? A novel? The world these stories take place in is so far from our world, but it the work is all about our world and is very, very urgent. And the guy just won an award for the book!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I talk about it in this interview. And I make fun of this misguided guy's efforts to sanitize it here. Love it.

God Hates us All
This is the oddest pop culture tie-in I've ever seen. On the show Californication ~~Fox Mulder~~ David Duchovny plays a sex addicted writer who wrote a classic novel and now goes around having sex with young hot women instead of writing. He fucks up his family and hurts his daughter in his pursuit of P. The novel he wrote is called God Hates us All. I resolved to stop watching this show many times. In the first season, I said I would stop and then one of the later episodes in the season was one of the best hours of television I've ever seen. Then the show got ridiculous again and I figured I was done and then all the dumb shit he'd done throughout the past couple seasons came back to haunt him and I had to keep watching to see how it would play out and to figure out how I could make my writing life like his. Actually, my wife probably wouldn't let me. Bummer. But then at the end of the season everything was back to normal and the consequences of his thoughtlessness turned out to be not that deep. Anyway, this book is supposedly the "literary classic" the fictional character, Hank Moody, wrote. It's not a classic. It's kind of entertaining. Does not feature any of the characters of the show or nod to any of the plot points. It barely advertises the show on the book cover (just a circle in the top left hand corner and a picture of the characters on the back). You even have to do some digging around to find out who actually wrote it (some guy who wrote some books on poker). So it fails as a vehicle to promote the show. It just looks like any other book. It fails as a novel. I was mildly entertained, I guess. It's not the classic they speak of on the show. Things like this are best left imaginary. Now every time I watch the show I think, This clown wrote a silly book, why should I care about him? I bought the thing on a whim. The guy behind the counter nearly had a heart attack looking at the title. Then he tried to sell me some atheist books.

An American Requiem by James Carroll
Looks like I read ~~one~~ two memoirs all year. It's a sharp one. It's about a guy who leaves the priesthood to become poet. Some Stephen Daedelus shit. But not only that, his father was a high ranking FBI spook. They clashed over Vietnam. Very poetic and honest. A view on society that you rarely get. The fact that it's good literature is a bonus!

The Science of Forgetting by Bro. Yao

The Daughter's Exchange by Valerie Prince

Normally Special by xTx

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

The Official Catalog of Potential Literature edited by Ben Segal and Erinrose Mager

Bayou Vol 1.
Bayou Vol 2.
by Jeremy Love

Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words edited by Robert Smartwood

<p>&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;ANA</p>

Another post coming soon!

Relaunch Soon! (Sooner Than You Think!)

2012-01-06T17:02:00.001-05:00

Stay Tuned. I'm about to relaunch this biatch complete with a new plan to avoid the dead spot problem, i.e. disappearing when I become too busy.

I'll reveal whether I read 100 books in 2011

and

I'll tell you about my plans for 2012.

Meanwhile, watch this video:

Monday Music: The Doors' Five to One #occupywallstreet

2011-10-10T10:36:00.000-04:00

"They got the guns, but we got the numbers. Gonna win/yeah we're taking over..."

Sorry for the dearth of posts lately. Work is killing me.

Monday Music: Tracy Chapman: Talking About a Revolution #occupywallstreet

2011-10-02T14:31:00.001-04:00

Finally the tables are starting to turn.

Monday Music: Rage Against the Machine: Sleep Now in the Fire #occupywallstreet

2011-09-26T23:42:00.000-04:00

Yeah #occupywallstreet

Saturday Morning Cartoon: The Invention of Love

2011-09-17T00:00:00.000-04:00

http://www.shushkof.com/invention.html

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Ira Glass on Storytelling

2011-09-10T00:00:00.000-04:00

Monday Music: I Go to Work by Kool Moe Dee; I Get the Job Done by Big Daddy Kane

2011-09-05T01:53:00.001-04:00

Happy Labor Day. Enjoy these work themed videos.

Oh yeah, I took the last week off to get situated back at my day job which started back up full time last week.

I don't plan to slow down my writing grind too much this semester. Some points it will be inevitable, but I am in a groove with the flash fiction project I'm working on. I have a Sept. 15 deadline to get something churned out.

So as Moe Dee says below: I go to work....

Saturday Morning Cartoon: The Duck Trilogy

2011-08-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

Focus?

2011-08-25T03:08:00.000-04:00

Been back to work. Not teaching yet, just meetings. Can't help but be a little disappointed at my output for the summer.

Started the summer with three nearly completed projects and ended the summer the same way. It feels like I've made no progress, but my flash fiction project says I added 10,000 words to it. (Yes, my flash project can talk).

What I've learned is what I already know. I'm best at focusing on one thing at a time. Trying to write a flash fiction collection and a short story collection and a novel and some humor pieces is just going to lead to a bottleneck. The writing life is like a highway.

Since I've taken this new perspective as my own, I've had much more peace of mind and, more importantly, gotten more written. I've made plans for the upcoming month, drawn up a new calendar. Until the 15th of Sept. or I will focus exclusively on my flash fiction collection. That should give me enough time to get a draft done, then I can put it to the side and finish up those last few stories lingering on my short story collection. Then I can put that to the side and see what this novel is hollering about. I think I'm getting rid of a chapter and tie the two threads of story more closely together.

And of course, I'm still going ahead with my humor project. I have some ideas backed up with that too. That's something I can do alongside the fiction. I hope.

I'm grateful for this new understanding and focus. Just wish it didn't take the whole summer to figure out.

Monday Music: Livin' de Life

2011-08-22T12:00:00.002-04:00

The story behind A. Samuels, the greatest rapper of all time, at Birthplace Magazine.

Stankin' Lankin' vol. 5 Part 1

2011-08-22T02:14:00.001-04:00

Here's the reason I haven't had time to write or update the blog recently; I've been fuckin' around on the net. I haven't done this in a while. I'm gonna do this in parts. Here is Part 1:

Al Sharpton discusses what his controversial activism in Crown Heights in the 80s taught him.
Watching the mainstreaming of Al Sharpton has been interesting. Look at the picture that goes with this article. Remember when he was a fat guy with bad hair and horrible tracksuits? Now he has the president's ear and a show on MSNBC.

How your upbringing shapes your brain.

The Transformation of Michelle Bachmann
Kinda terrifying.

The Myth of the Extraordinary Teacher
Take that Dangerous Minds!

Yes, Kenny G's music is: "lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing."

Martha Southgate is Older & Wiser.

How Bin Lo Lo got got.

Will be back with more.

Saturday Morning Cartoon: He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword

2011-08-20T02:41:00.001-04:00

Monday Music (on Wednesday!): Summer's Almost Gone

2011-08-17T13:02:00.003-04:00

Yes, the summer is winding down. Black to school soon. We had some good times, but now they're gone.

OK, we didn't have any good times.

I know I promise to do a lot of posts and then I don't do them because life says, "don't write that post, do this other 'more important,' actually, I mean, 'less-important-but-urgent-task,'" but I'm going to do a bunch of posts wrapping up my summer. And do a State of the Grind sort of post.

Yeah.

Next few days or so.

Seriously.

Not kidding.

You don't believe me?

Fine, be dat way.

Preview: I read all of August Wilson's plays again. I'll tell you about that.

Enjoy the song:

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Black Dynamite

2011-08-13T00:39:00.000-04:00

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Mike Huckabee's Learn Our History Cartoons on 9/11 and the Reagan Revolution

2011-08-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

Stankin' Lankin' vol. 4

2011-08-01T16:31:00.000-04:00

This one is late because life intervened, so I will include stuff from this week too. The internet has too much stuff, this is what stopped me from writing last week.:

It's Ramadan so that means that it is time to read my story, A Ramadan Tale.

Specter Literary Magazine came out with its zero issue. More on that later. Read it now.

Are we in a golden age of fiction?
Maybe. Maybe not, but there is a really broad range of fiction available now. There is a very vibrant literary underground. If only the average person had entry to that.

Nano Fiction must convince the IRS that it is not porn.
Another example of the government acting silly and screwing average people.

The Bookstore is not dead. It just has to do some creative things to compete. Politics & Prose in DC is offering limited membership exchanges to Borders Rewards members. Also, cut all the silly trinkets and toys and focus on selling books.

Some comments on God's blog about his creation.

If you're in New York, check out the Museum of the Moving Image's Jim Henson Exhibit. Long live creativity and imagination. Damn, I just got some ideas for my children's stories.

Obama's weak. There I said it. He caves often and at the slightest pressure. This is what we wish he had said. At this rate, it won't matter that he caught bin Laden, got rid of don't ask, don't tell, reduced the number of nuclear weapons in the world and passed universal health care (sort of).

Dwayne Betts is blogging for the month of August of Poets & Writers.

Amazing story in the New York Times about a Japanese pitcher who had a dream of making it in American baseball. He got paid millions only to be bumped down to the minor leagues, but he has a dream so he continues. Just inspiring. This is the story of everybody whose dreams work out in a shitty way, but keep going with dignity. It happens this way for most of us.

Broetry?
Uhhhhh, ok.

PANK was the Journal of the Week over at Fiction Writers Review Last Week and one of my blog posts was offered an an example of "fun and readable" content.

Short profile of the Kenyan journal Kwani? I met some of the people involved with this over in Ghana.

Over half of the stories chosen for Best American Short Stories comes from 12 Journals.

This guy says Pottermore will transform storytelling. I say, yeah right.

A genre writer accepts that he is a thriller writer.
It's always a good thing when a writer finds his vision and voice where ever he or she may find it and it is always important to look in unexpected places. I am enjoying writing flash fiction after enjoying the long story. Not to say that flash fiction is my vision or that I'll never write long stories again, but I never imagined I'd be taking such pleasure in very, very short stories.

Need. This. Now.

Novelists strike and the nation fails to notice.

Monday Music, Debt Ceiling Edition: Raise the Roof

2011-08-01T00:00:00.007-04:00

*UPDATED* below with some thoughts on the debt ceiling "compromise."

Uncle Luke, in the late 90s, was an unusually prescient political philosopher. He discussed the (then coming) debt ceiling crisis in his 1997 song, "Raise the Roof."

Of course, Flavor Flav and Public Enemy discussed the issue back in 1980s with their song of the same name from their debut, Yo! Bum Rush the Show

All jokes aside, I'm no political philosopher, but one thing we can all agree on is that Obama is not the fighter he portrayed himself as way back when we all hoped for a change. I won't go as far as asking Bernie Sanders to oppose him in a primary--I still believe that his second term will be a progressive heaven--but I share in the disappointment over the White House's debt compromise. Democrats left with almost nothing they wanted. Sure the nation is not going to default--which would have been a catastrophe--but where are the tax increases on the wealthy? The idea that the the Tea Party Republicans made the act of paying what we owe a political game is offensive. More offensive is that Obama didn't get rough with the Republicans. He had a powerful weapon and he didn't even threaten to use it. The 14th Amendment allows him to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling, which is what a Republican president would have done. Say what you will about the Republicans, but they stick to their principles and force their ideas into reality. Those ideas are usually really bad for the country, but they make them happen. I wonder what would happen if a Democrat acted that way with ideas that were actually helpful to the poor and the middle class.

Obama is working now from a position of weakness. He looks soft to an increasingly disgusted base and his opponents know they can push him around. But we can't blame him entirely. The Tea Party Republicans are acting in an unprecedented fashion. Sure they rode Clinton, but they are now blocking Obama at every turn and transforming even once routine actions into crises. Make no mistake, if the country had gone into default, the Republicans would have attempted to impeach Obama and they may have been successful. Many of these Teabaggers are like the Joker from the latest Batman movie, they just want to see the world burn. The reach goal was an impeachment--a sort of coup d'etat or, if they didn't get that far, weakening the president in order to remove him come 2012. They achieved first part of the latter goal.

The nation's in a real sorry state. The recovery is slow. It feels as if we have little vision left to do big things. The Congress is filled with obstructionists. The President's Black--historic, but a weak-willed Democrat, not historic, too much precedent for that.

This president is very good at turning weakness into strength. Let's see if he can do that here and somehow make us all believe.

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Robots of Brixton

2011-07-30T12:47:00.000-04:00

Robots of Brixton from Kibwe Tavares on Vimeo.

Factory Fifteen: Robots of Brixton

Hope I'm Funny...

2011-07-29T04:03:00.002-04:00

I'm still trying to be funny, by the way. I haven't mentioned it on the blog lately, but my column over at PANK, Forgive Him Father For He Knows Not What He Has Done is still going strong. I wrote this about Rep. (soon to be former rep.) David Wu; this about planking and this about a stinky stinkbug.

The title of the post, for the record, comes from the beginning of a Richard Pryor routine. Just wanted to mention it.

I'm enjoying what I do over at PANK. When the editor first asked me to write a humor column, I turned her down because I knew everything that was coming down the pike for me. There was a baby on the way and I didn't know how that was going to affect my time (obliterated it). I knew I didn't have enough time to do it weekly and when the school year is going, I don't. But I felt like I was on the sidelines. The PANK blog got better and better and my competitive spirit was like, "You better get out there." Most weeks I don't have the time, but I get it done. It can be wracking to the nerves, but it's brought me some very important insights about writing.

I like writing humor because it makes you focus on the readers. As a humor writer you are trying to elicit something specific. So in the revision process there is a constant trying out of things to get that specific effect, in this case laughter.

In writing fiction, I'm never thinking about the audience. It's about trying to get the story or novel done. But recently, emotion in writing has become incredibly important to me. Previously, I wanted the reader to admire my language. Get their mind wrapped around the puns. Say, "This guy loves words." It's all so very much up in the head. Now, I want readers to read with their hearts.

People who have read the last version of my novel and loved it all mentioned some sort of intellectual effect that appealed to them. That's cool, I want to make you think for sure, but the stuff that I've loved has had an emotional effect as well. So that's what I'm pushing for.

I've purposely been doing a lot of writing because I felt I needed a new understanding of writing and these new ideas about emotion come in no small part, I think, because of the humor writing I've been doing. In my fiction, I'm thinking more and more about what effect I want to have on the reader.

When I started over at PANK I used to worry that I'd have nothing to write about and that I'd run out of ideas at some point. I purposefully didn't start until I had two weeks of ideas. I think I had one or two weeks early on where I was scrounging. I now have a long list of ideas and then politicians do stupid things and I have no choice but to take it to them. When I run out of shit to write about I'll probably stop. But I'm three weeks ahead right now. Can't wait for you to see the ones coming up.

Peace.

Monday Music: RIP Amy Winehouse

2011-07-25T17:08:00.001-04:00

Club 27. Chasing death ate up Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and bunch of others at the age of 27. Now it's claimed Amy Winehouse.

I first heard her on Ghostface Killah's Fishscales album. I was on Wisconsin Avenue in DC, coming back from Best Buy where I bought the CD. He seemed to be rapping over an amazing 60's soul sample. I like to find the sources of samples. Many times you'll find great songs that never became popular across generations.

Shock of all shocks, it wasn't a 60s soul sample, but new vocals by a new artist. She wasn't old. She just could express a lifetime of pain at a young age.

What kind of fuckery is this?

She's white? And British.

I forgot about the Ghostface version and sought out more of her music. Back to Black was a bluesy boozy masterpiece. She laughed at her addictions. Told rehab no, no, no....

Blah, blah, blah...she spiraled and we watched hoping she'd give us more music. We all know the story. I'm going to stop writing now. Everything I'm typing seems false next to the realness of her music.

RIP

The DL - Amy Winehouse Valerie Live by Dagoba54

Stankin' Lankin' vol. 3: The reason I wrote very little this week.

2011-07-24T19:11:00.004-04:00

The Horn of Africa is hurting....Here are some places to give to help....

Did Newscorp do some American Hacking?

Can DC Comics Rebuild Itself This Fall?
No.

New Spiderman movie? Probably the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

Read this moving piece in the New York Times by the president of Nauru, a country you probably have never heard of (I hadn't).

Here is the cool lineup for Specter Literary Magazine's Blog.
And here is the lineup of the first issue of Specter Literary Magazine. Coming Aug. 1.

That Christian Terrorist from Norway, Anders Behring, advocates bombing writers conferences.

Ayn Rand wrote some great children's books, according to her editor.

Stupid BET banned Killer Mike's video for his thoughtful, "Burn." And then changed course because of fan protests.
Maybe the the son's chorus scared them: "I will burn. This mother. Fucker. Down."
or this: "I know that you frustrated and you want to kill shit. Stockpile your weapons cuz the day might just come real quick."

I was just telling my wife that it was time for a live action Captain Planet movie.

Washington Post has a Muslim in America series.

This is why Borders Failed
I went there today to see what was up. Um, 10 percent off is not really a discount. Especially when those books are marked up way more than 10 percent. When they closed a bunch of their stores a few months back, I went on the last day and bought $200 worth of books for $28. Borders shutting down can mean a return to intimate independent bookstores. Just takes some people with vision. And uh, if you set up a bookstore, make sure you dedicate more space to books and less space to stupid trinkets.

This dude is the man.

Uh....

Ummmm (ThatsVaginal.com)....
And more....

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Sneak Preview of the new Beavis and Butthead!!!!

2011-07-23T02:37:00.000-04:00

Beavis's back!

Butthead's back!

All the people screaming that Beavis and Butthead are back!

Get More: Beavis and Butt-Head, MTV Shows

Previously on Datsun Flambe.

Special Documentary Presentation: The People's Champion: Behind the Battle

2011-07-22T17:03:00.000-04:00

People's Champion: Behind the Battle from Trent Babbington on Vimeo.

But What of Not Submitting?

2011-07-21T21:43:00.000-04:00

Submitting stories to journals for little reward. Being rejected over and over. It can be a mindfuck can't it?

Last week, we were treated to a listing of Blake Butler's list of submissions and then he posted 22 things he learned from the act of submitting stories to journals. And then Brett Elizabeth Jenkins over at (In)specter discussed making rejection a game by attempting to collect 100 of them in a year.

But what of not submitting?

I've also had the pains of sending out story after story. I've also turned it into a game. Became obsessed with Duotrope waiting for editors to reply after 475 days (all the editors must have tragically died). It can make one a little crazy. But it is now a part of my writing process all tied up and bound like a paperback.

But like I said, it makes one crazy...and sloppy. My wife says that when I'm in the midst of submitting aura, I don't focus enough on the quality of the work I'm submitting. That I rush to get the work out there a draft or two shy of complete.

I don't agree with her, but there is something to be said for her criticism and after epic rounds of submitting I figured it was a good time to pull back. I can't tell you how much has been gained from slowing it down.

I've gained the chance to enjoy writing for the pleasure of it. It feels different and liberating to sit there working on something just to push yourself forward. Just to be a better writer when all is done. Sure I'm going to wade back into the swamp. Got plans to already, but I step back a much stronger writer.

There's no way of capturing the purity of intent I had when I was sixteen and just reading and writing poetry, just because...before it was part of a plot to take over the world, but pulling back approximates it. Helps me to figure out new strategies when I get back into sending stuff out. I'm going to do it again and again and again.

Monday Music: Dog Doogity

2011-07-18T00:00:00.001-04:00

Teddy Riley must be spinning in his grave.

Stankin' Lankin Vol. 2: My weekly chronicle of how I wasted my life on the internet

2011-07-17T15:48:00.005-04:00

Extreme Sarcasm
"Sometimes you have to have tyranny to have freedom."

LOL
Oh America, this is you.

The Sexual Lives of Missionaries
Want to read an excerpt of Kyle Minor's new novel?

Rumsfeld Fondled
Poetic justice. Doesn't go far enough though. One of the books I read, but haven't told you about imagines a world in which he is kidnapped and taken to Guantanamo Bay. Except he, unlike so many folks there, is not innocent.

Now this woman is bout it, bout it.

A Piece can be Unrejected????

The images on this Tumblr....whoa.... (see above)

Peep Roxane Gay's new story. It has the internet going nuts.

What's the difference between a writer and a person who writes?

Good to see people showing love to the god, Dirt Dog.

Hero Worship
The superhero really does need an update for our modern times. The rapper Boots Riley said on Twitter this week that until Batman helps the criminals rob a bank, then he is just another pig. I don't think I would go that far, but let's look at him this way: Bruce Wayne, wealthy billionaire industrialist who got all his wealth from his parents embezzles money from his company so he can go beat up poor people who are committing crime just to make a living in Gotham's depressed economy. If you look at him that way, then he is just another pig. I want to see a superhero battling the real criminals. The criminals who nearly bankrupted the entire economy. Criminals who commit legal crimes everyday. As Boots once said: "You're all gold mines, they want to deplete you."

Ever wonder why the American Right never fucked with a backward Empire lover like Naipaul?

A fellowship for writers with children?
Don't mind if I do. I shouldn't be telling you about this because me and my wife will compete for this and I will defeat her.

Yes! Sugar will be revealing her secret identity soon.
At which point I'll stop reading her column. Just kidding. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you're missing out. Sugar writes a tenderly written advice column for The Rumpus. She does so under the pseudonym, Sugar. Click on the link. Read it. Soak it in. Ask her a question. I'm calling it now, I bet Sugar is a black woman.

How come you guys didn't tell me about The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl? This internet sitcom is some seriously funny shit. If I had some extra money I'd contribute to this kickstarter campaign for some more episodes of the show. Maybe I'll do a full post on this some time. But here is the first episode. Watch and then go contribute to the campaign.

Episodes 2 and 3 are even funnier.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Son of Strelka, Son of God

2011-07-16T11:59:00.000-04:00

Dig it: someone edited the audio version of President Obama's Dreams From My Father into a whole 'nother story, a creation myth. And then someone animated, the first two chapters. Oh internet.

A Whole New Obama Myth

Links to the rest of the Story (Chaps. 3-9)

The Promises we Make to Ourselves are Likewise Made to be Broken

2011-07-15T19:22:00.002-04:00

Today is the 15th of July. You know what that means? Maybe you don't. Well, certainly you don't. Today is the day I'm supposed to turn in (to myself) a draft of my short story collection. Yep, those 4 stories I need to finish are supposed to be done by midnight and the whole thing is supposed to be sitting pretty on my harddrive awaiting revision.

Haha.

Funny.

Since I put that thing on my calendar I doubt I've written a sentence of that project. I've written plenty on some other projects. Some that are not so near complete. I wish I was telling you about a victory, but I'm not.

It was a deadline as unrealistic as the initial deadline. Which was at the end of May. I got that bright idea upon seeing the deadline for a great short story collection contest was May 31. I got this idea at about 3 am a week from May 1. I put up a tweet that read something like: "Planning to do the impossible."

And you know what happened after I put up that tweet. The next day I got some sort of sickness, the likes of which I hope I never get again. Throwing up outside my apartment building probably didn't make my neighbors love me. I wrote not a word for a week and then after I got better there was other stuff I won't relate here (you know the saying: hell is other people...yeah, that saying is apt). And then things got hectic at the dayjob. It is always hectic at this time.

The impossible never happened. And then the impossible didn't happen again.

It feels bad to have this thing hanging over my head. Always feels bad to have something to accomplish that you aren't accomplishing. Perhaps I'm working on too many projects. All my projects are talking to each other, I think. Enriching each other, but also slowing things down.

Just as I organized a writing/reading schedule I had to start teaching summer school and I don't think I adapted my writing/reading schedule well for that.

I need to slow it down. Not rush this project so much. Soon, I'll create a new deadline. It would be nice to make this one. Doing the impossible is overrated, I guess. My flash fiction project is going well, I think. I've been reading steady, really, I have. My novel is untouched. The summer's almost over.

Good luck, Rion.

Monday Music: Ain't no Stopping us Now

2011-07-11T10:19:00.004-04:00

Stankin' Lankin'

2011-07-10T15:06:00.002-04:00

I spend a lot of time on the internet, it's my affliction. Instead of trying to fight the habit, I'm going to make it useful to you. "Stankin' Lankin'" is my weekly roundup of shit I found interesting on the web.

This is the stuff I read online this week that is worth reading.

The Same Thing Happens Every Night
A father discusses his sweet nightly ritual with his smarter-than-him daughter.

Widow of Lord Glenconner begs manservant who inherited West Indies estate to give back his fortune
This what I call the redistribution of wealth.

Unlikely Animal Friendships
Cuteness overload.

So this woman wrote about how violent sex helped her overcome her PTSD and then some writers and journalists took exception to her essay (she is a white reporter covering Haiti and her PTSD, she says, extends in part from her work interviewing a Haitian rape victim and feeling unsafe in a country that can be dangerous) and then Roxane Gay took exception to them taking exception (and she mentions me!) and then Edwidge Danticat takes further exception and then Roxane gives us a lesson on the words surrounding sexual violence.

Planking Enemy #1. I thought planking was stupid and then Chuck D did it. Well, Chuck can do no wrong.

New Lit Mag to Showcase Emerging YA Writers
Of course, Hunger Mountain, publishes YA fiction.

Speaking of new Lit Mags...I'm going to do a full post about Specter Magazine because it is a really cool inspiring project: A lit mag, a many-voiced group lit blog and a mico-fiction/nonfiction/poetry lit mag all under one umbrella. They've already done some cool things and the project's main part, the lit mag hasn't even launched yet. But for now, read this from the micro-fiction/nonfiction/poetry project. I got one up there too.

Dave Chapelle Does Stand up
Who knew?

Saturday Morning Cartoon: He-man: Masters of the Universe Episode 1

2011-07-09T10:49:00.000-04:00

Bicentennial Nigger

2011-07-04T00:00:00.006-04:00

No music today.

Just one of Richard Pryor's most astute monologues.

Brilliance.

Happy 4th of July.

Rion Amilcar Scott fun fact: He DID NOT write a fantasy novel called 'Brigantia of the Iceni'

2011-07-02T16:09:00.004-04:00

Did you guys happen to see my new bio tab above titled, "Who? Who in the Hell is Rion Amilcar Scott?" Well, if you didn't, don't click on it because I have posted it in its entirety below for you to read. You're Welcome. Peace:

Fun fact: Rion Amilcar Scott is actually a super-intelligent baby. That's him above. This explains the nature of his rather bizarre writings, which were completed, mostly, in utero.

I write fiction (short stories and working on novels and other longer stuff) and humor pieces. I write some non-fiction type stuff, but nothing gives me the thrill that fiction does. I have links to my published work under the "Now Playing" tab on the side. Invisible Man is my favorite novel. I liked Huckleberry Finn a lot too. I guess Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas influences what I do. Also Winesburg, Ohio and Dubliners, I guess. I could probably sit here all night typing the titles of books that moved me in some way. I'm no going to do that.

I started in this writing thing through poetry. It was never very good. I love poetry, but you won't catch me writing any these days. If you happen to Google me: Yes, I did write that shitty poem and no I DID NOT write a fantasy novel called, Brigantia of the Iceni. I go my entire life encountering no one else named "Rion." Leave it to the internet to find someone else named Rion Scott. And leave it to the internet to make him a writer. No offense to my man, Rion Scott, I'm just not him.

Here is the bio you'll find in lit mags

Rion Amilcar Scott has contributed to PANK, Fiction International and Confrontation, among others. Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, he earned an MFA at George Mason University and presently teaches English at Bowie State University.

Here is the bio that is posted on this site (bonus points if you know which movie I'm paraphrasing and which character said it.):

I am no one. Just a simple fiction writer trying to make his way in the galaxy.

This is the bio that goes along with my PANK column

Rion Amilcar Scott writes fiction all over the damn place, tweets @reeamilcarscott and blogs at datsun flambe

And here, I'll archive my bios from Twitter, which are everchanging (again, bonus points if you know what song, movie, etc. the bio alludes to...if it alludes to anything at all):

Semi-famous people ignore me on Twitter.

Just a simple fiction writer making his way in the galaxy.

Young writer from Cross River telling stories like Biggie. Take the King's English paint pictures so vivid. (current)

Honors:

Winner, 2007 Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, "202 Checkmates"

2nd Runner-up, Pan-African Literary Forum Africana-Fiction Contest, "Juba"

Runner up, 2008 Indiana Review Fiction Prize, "David Sherman, the Last Son of God"

Finalist, June 2009 Glimmer Train Fiction Open, "David Sherman, the Last Son of God"

Finalist, 2009 Santa Fe Writers Project Fiction Contest Finalist (top 10), "David Sherman, the Last Son of God"

("David Sherman" is still unpublished, so lit mag editors if you want it....#shameless)

Completion Fellowship from George Mason University's MFA Program, Fellowship from Colgate Writing Conference. A couple Pushcart noms for my stories, "A Ramadan Tale" and "Juba," but everybody gets Pushcart noms. I just want you to read those stories. (see links for them on the side)

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Dock Ellis & The LSD No-No

2011-07-02T01:40:00.000-04:00

Toward a slight change in direction on Datsun Flambe

2011-07-01T01:14:00.003-04:00

Summertime Grind.

Sigh.

In a few days I will be back to teaching. Summer school. One class, but it still means that my summer writing time will be cut. Which is a shame because in the month and some weeks that I've been off school I've been sort of wandering in the desert. Written some stuff, but the gigantic mountain that is the various projects I've been working on remain largely untouched.

I'm tired of being 3 stories from a working draft on my short story collection, People in Motion, so I'm working on that. My novel The Revelation of Everything (or whatever the fuck it will be called) needs another draft before it goes back out into the agent world. Then there is the weekly humorfest that is, "Forgive Him Father, for he Knows Not What he has Done" and this blog (my exercise in semi-freewriting) and smaller projects. Oh yeah and I will read 100 Books this year or die trying (I am reading, despite no updates. Trust me on that one.)

Each one has a specific purpose. I finally figured out each thing's specific purpose and figured out a system for working these things at the same time. I guess all the wandering was for a reason but now I have to incorporate summer school into that.

Banana grind.

I typed the last two words as a reminder to myself. I need to remember to grind a banana for my son's eating pleasure. Which brings me to my other thing. The wife and kid are very demanding of my time. Who told this kid to be so helpless? It's been a full nine months since his birth and he hasn't landed a job. Lazy kid.

Seriously though, you ask what all this has to do with the direction of the Flambe. Good question. I know where I want to be as a writer, but not sure how I'm getting there. Or if I'll ever get there. One thing I can count on is the grind. It may not ever get me anywhere, but I can't control my luck or any other outside factors. So I'm going to document the writing grind and all the insights I get from it a bit more on this blog.

I started Datsun Flambe at 1:30 a.m. on May 12 with the hopes that I would makes some funny comments about things. That got boring. I left the blog alone for a while. I figured it would find its focus if I threw a bunch of shit at it and it is finding a new focus. I'll write about hopes, progress, setbacks, rejection, lit mag wait times. I'll self-promote, but like I've been doing, I'll usually offer something else with that self promotion, back stories to the stories, videos or music that served as inspiration.

And as usual: cartoons on Saturday and music on Monday. Other features too if I'm not too lazy.

Let's burn some Datsuns.

A Tribute to words we're not supposed to say

2011-06-30T13:08:00.000-04:00

Here is this post over at PANK about words my son accidentally overhears "Substitute “Baby’s First Words” in Case my Son’s Actual First Word Turns Out to be Profanity"

My son actually did say his first word the other day. I was bathing him in his little bathtub and he looked up at me and said: "Daddy." My mother and wife had heard him say it before. And my mother swears he said "hey," but this is the first time he said something recognizable and it seemed he knew what he was saying.

I tease my parents a lot because in my baby book it says that my first word was "da-da." I tell them it was a great disappointment to look in the book and see that my "first word" wasn't actually a word and that I'll never know what my first word was.

But sometimes when he says "da-da," I get the impression that the little guy is just trying to say "Daddy." Like I've been teaching him.

Honestly, I don't like the PANK column this week. I wish I could do it over. Narrative is everything even in something that is essentially a list. I wanted to show us ourselves and get us to laugh in a sense of the familiar. It's about the arrangement (derangement) of the words and the added emphases, which I could have done a better job with. There is little sense of narrative, which if I had been more skillful with the word arrangement, the reader would pick up on a bit.

If I ever re-print it in a book, I'll re-write it. Enjoy it for what it is.

Some other tributes to words we are not supposed to say:

Monday Music: Ghetto Extraordinary (Mini-Movie)

2011-06-27T16:33:00.000-04:00

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Some clips from "You're Getting Old," The Most Amazing Episode of South Park Ever

2011-06-26T01:32:00.002-04:00

Remember a couple of Saturday Morning Cartoons back I told you about that episode of South Park, "You're Getting Old," that was dazzling and moving and amazing? And I couldn't post it because they didn't offer embed codes or I wasn't smart enough or something. Well, they allow embedding of clips from the episode, so here are a few clips, but nothing does the thing justice like seeing the whole episode.

You're Getting Old
Tags: SOUTH
PARK Stan Marsh,Randy Marsh,more...

Bishop Bling is Speaking Over at PANK

2011-06-23T23:25:00.001-04:00

So this is my latest PANK column. It's about a "Bishop" with an interesting message. Which is not so different than this guy's message or the message from the skits down below. If you're so inclined, you can help Leroy Thompson finance his plane. I hope you're not so inclined.

Oh yeah, last week at PANK I talked about your mother.

Some Thoughts on the Summertime Grind

2011-06-21T13:21:00.002-04:00

I meant to post more about the summertime grind, but I've been so caught up in it that I haven't had time to reflect.

I read somewhere once, I think it was the New York Times Book Review, that a writer must be both boxer and trainer. It struck me as a true statement. With that thought, I've been working on a lot of projects. Some being exercises that may never rise to anything I'd want the public to see and some of it has been shining and polishing prose that I hope to show to you one day.

I feel like I'm going in two different directions at the same time. I'm rewriting old stuff and at the same moment, I'm trying to push in different directions and change my prose style through continuous writing. Revising the old stuff calls on me to mesh the old style with whatever is coming out of me at the present moment. And it's important to make it smooth. Which is difficult.

This time last year. I thought I had finished my novel. It was an amazing feeling to be all done with this thing I had been working on in earnest for five years. It was overwhelming joy--the best joy I felt until my son was born--followed by despair. I mean, the work had been with me through all kinds of things: breakups and reunions and deaths and graduations, etc. I'd always return to The Revelation of Everything. It was sad that it was gone.

But alas, The Revelation is not done. One of my projects, which I have not started yet, is doing a pretty substantive revision of it.

Also, I'm working on a short story collection. Which I am a couple stories from completing a working draft of. And lately I have been writing flash fiction. I had beef with flash fiction for a while, but I'm having a good time writing flash pieces.

I'm going to be doing more blogging about the summertime grind in more specificity as the grind continues.

Monday Music & Saturday Morning Cartoon (on Monday): Stuntin' Like Mufasa

2011-06-20T13:31:00.001-04:00

Yeah, I didn't put up a cartoon Saturday. Let me remedy that. Happy belated Father's Day.

A Very "202 Checkmates" Father's Day

2011-06-19T13:36:00.005-04:00

It's Father's Day so I want to talk a little about the inspiration for my story, "202 Checkmates," which was in the last (print) issue of Fiction International. It's a story about a father and his daughter. I write a lot about fathers in my fiction. I don't quite know why. I've written about angry fathers, reluctant fathers and 120 year old fathers. Right now I'm working on a story about a father after his redemption. Our stories often end with redemption, but sometimes we need to be redeemed over and over again. Redemption might not be the end. I'm often interested in the story after the credits. The marriage after the quirky courtship and the dream wedding. After the happily-ever-after. The Ewoks after the Empire.

Rarely do I use my own father as a model in my stories. The father in "202 Checkmates" is an out of work mechanic who, because he can't provide, is emotionally detached from his children--except for their tenuous connection through chess. It's not real bonding time because he's using his victories over his 11-year old daughter as a self-esteem builder for himself. My father runs a successful small law firm in Washington, DC, which always made me proud of him. We had plenty of good bonding time from soccer games to gardening. So when I think about the above story, I always have to ask myself where the character comes from.

I wrote all the stories above before I became a father. Before I even had any thoughts of becoming a father. Still, in re-reading them, it's clear that they were about my anxiety about becoming a father. Someone's guardian. A provider for someone. A disciplinarian and when needed, a friend. The story I'm currently working on is has hit some bumps in the drafting process and I realize it is because I have a son of my own and that means different anxieties. Anxieties I'm only now getting to know. The kid is no longer an abstraction, but a crawling, crying, drooling, smiling thing.

The origin of the story was a bit removed from fatherhood. It came from playing video games with my nephew. He was probably six or seven at the time and of course I let the kid win. But he was a prolific trash talker, so I started winning to show him that I could beat him and then I would laugh about it. He'd get mad and throw down the controller and then I'd coax him back and let him win. At which point, he'd start talking trash so I'd have to beat him and then he'd throw down the controller...it was a vicious cycle...

His parents and my wife were appalled. I joked that I was teaching him that life was defeat after defeat. Not a funny joke, I know. I wouldn't make that joke today.

When I sat down to write, I asked myself, what if a father really did set out to teach his child that lesson. The story seemed to write itself, which rarely happens unless I've thought about a story for a while.

Too bad I don't have a link to the story for you guys, but you should buy that particular issue of Fiction International (at the link above). There are some really good stories in there aside from my own. One of the best issues of a literary journal I've been published in.

Monday Music: Some Music For my Summertime Grind (Immortal Technique, Killer Mike and Stic Man)

2011-06-13T01:04:00.001-04:00

Next post later today, Some thoughts on the Summertime Grind....

Saturday Morning Cartoons: "You're Getting Old," The Most Amazing Episode of South Park Ever

2011-06-11T19:31:00.002-04:00

This week, I'm not posting a video, mostly because they won't let me embed. I'm going to give you a link and this link will change your life. Here is the link.

It's an episode of South Park that aired this week, titled, "You're Getting Old." South Park is the most consistent piece of comedy/satire out there. This episode is just special and I've been thinking about it since I watched it. South Park is known for shitting all over everything until you find the truth in a very narrow strip of the middle. This episode calls that whole point of view into question. Stan, at the age of 10, finds himself becoming cynical. The music all his friends love (and everything else) sounds like crap (literally) to him. And he can't find enjoyment in anything, so he mocks everything. All of this alienates him from his friends.

What's so special about this episode is that it is genuinely moving. We've all been moved by a dramatic part of a comedy, but this has no such dramatic parts. It's all comedy and it's still genuinely sad, while being hilarious. It's something that I've hoped to pull off in some of my humor writing, but haven't achieved yet. The episode is not just funny, it's affecting and a bit uncomfortable.

I've been that cynical asshole who ruins things for people because things are changing right before me. We've all been that person. Some of us are more insufferable than others. It's a response to moments of great and uncomfortable internal change. South Park is best when it is putting up a mirror to the audience.

Some are speculating that this episode is signaling the beginning of the end of South Park. I've often wondered how long they can keep going. How long can they manage the consistency. How long they can keep up this particular point of view. There are 7 episodes left in the season. It'll be back sometime later this year. I'm interested in seeing what direction they'll take it.

I'd like to Thank the Comedy Gods for Anthony Weiner and Weinergate!

2011-06-09T12:26:00.002-04:00

Not me.

I wrote this ("Transcript: Anthony Weiner's Penis Answers Questions at His Press Conference") about Weinergate over at PANK. I kind of ignored Anthony Weiner at first. Whatever happened was murky and, hey he was a liberal hero and it all seemed so easy, what with the name and all. But part of me kept saying, something is not adding up. Then this happened:

The single greatest press conference of all time. So I stopped staring a gift horse in the mouth and came up with something. His name, his actions, his outing....the Comedy Gods don't always give us such material to work with. They decided to shine, shine, shine...

Funny idea for someone out there: Weiner on To Catch a Predator....go!

Monday Music: Paul Revere

2011-06-06T14:58:00.000-04:00

In honor of Sarah Palin, history major.

"So Weren't you Trying Read 100 Books This Year or Something Like That?" An Interview Conducted by my Little Hater*

2011-06-05T13:50:00.005-04:00

So weren't you trying to read 100 books this year or something like that?

Well, the short answer is yes.

Are you still engaged in that pursuit?

The short answer to that is also yes.

Why don't you try to give me some long answers? I mean, really. I haven't seen any of your book report-like reflections of books you've read posted on here in a while. All I see are stupid cartoons and links to self-hating "humor" columns. Are you actually, in truth, reading or what?

Yes, I didn't stop reading. I just haven't had the time to write and post reflections because teaching freshman English is time-consuming.

Right. So when are you going to post your reflections?

Starting this week, I'm going to post one at a time until I'm all caught up. School is out so I have much more time to read and write.

Oh, so you're whining that your job is keeping you from your real work? Don't you make your wife miserable with such complaints?

I get frustrated from time to time, but I still enjoy my teaching.

Real diplomatic. Maybe you missed your calling as a bullshit-artist politician.

No, I prefer to keep my bullshitting to the pages of my fiction. You can check out my published stuff linked on the side of this blog under "Now Playing."

Advertising yourself in the middle of an interview? Real classy. So if you have been reading, what can we expect you to post about?

Well, I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Great book. I see why it's considered a classic.

A children's novel? I see that you're shooting real high there. What's the last book you read?

I just finished Babyfucker--

What did you call me?

No, that's the name of the book.

OK, motherfucker. How many books have you read so far?

Not sure.

You mean to tell me you are trying to read a very specific, yet arbitrary, number of books and you are not keeping a running count? You really are an idiot.

I haven't compiled it into a list. After this big push, I will list them all for you.

You know May was Short Story Month, right? Wouldn't it have been a good idea for you to read a bunch of short story collections and then reflect on them on this shitty blog?

That would have been a good idea. I wish I had thought of that.

Sounds like basic common sense. There are a bunch you have started and left incomplete. Classic collections. Even if you got interrupted by school work you could have made a major push through your reading and reaped the benefits as a writer. The same for poetry month. Really screwed up there, huh? You don't think, do you?

I'm using my summertime to really catch up. I have some tricks up my sleeve. That's all I can really say about that.

(In a mocking voice) I'm using my summertime to really catch up. I have some tricks up my sleeve. That's all I can really say about that. (muttering under his breath) Bitch.

What?

Oh, nothing. It's June--halfway through the year--have you read 50 books?

No. I must admit I'm very far behind. April and May were very tough months work-wise. I still managed to read some good books. The Weather Stations by Ryan Call is quite amazing.

Your friend's book? I'm glad you can read so dispassionately. You are a little slow, so I'll spell it out for you: I am being sarcastic.

Noted. I know it looks like I'm just hyping a friend's work, but I get very little out of lying about the book. Some very well-wrought stories. I will do a full post on it soon.

Well-wrought? What are you, a shittier version of the New York Times Book Review?

Can we wrap this up; I'm not sure I can take much more abuse.

You always were a thin-skinned son of a--

Is there another question coming?

Matt Bell has read more than 70 books so far this year? Does that make Matt Bell a better writer, reader and all around human being than you? I mean you aren't even close to that, right? He's a real man while you're a boy, right?

I don't know Matt Bell very well. Seemed nice online and in our brief exchange at AWP. Other than that, couldn't tell you what type of human being he is.

You're an idiot.

Good bye.

Go fuck yourself.

*Battling the Little Hater

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs

2011-06-05T02:26:00.003-04:00

The old Warner Brothers cartoons could be damned hateful. This one, "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs," is of the Banned Eleven, cartoons so racist they've been taken out of circulation by the company. This one enjoys a good reputation on aesthetic grounds. As a kid I noticed the hateful portrayals of blacks, native americans, asians--particularly Japanese--and on and on in these cartoons. I laughed at what I could--I loved Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck--but I've always wondered what was going through the heads of these animators. One of my older brothers tells me that could never stand Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons because of caricatures. I think you can find most of the 11 online.

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs -1942 by redhotjazz

Satire, Cooning and my "Merking of OBL" series over at PANK

2011-06-02T11:08:00.002-04:00

Tommy Davidson as Sleep N Eat in Spike Lee's Bamboozled

sat·ire
/ˈsætaɪər/ Show Spelled[sat-ahyuhr]
–noun
1.
the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2.
a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3.
a literary genre comprising such compositions.

*

Cooning: The deliberate or intentional non-ironic use of negative images or stereotypes for entertainment of whomever the dominant group is.---DJ Renegade

*

So I wrote this piece: "Ol' Clementine Explains How he and a Team of Navy SEALs Killed Osama bin Laden." It's the latest installment of my humor column over on the PANK blog. And also it is the third part in a mini-series on the death of Osama bin Laden. I called that series The Merking of OBL.

I posted it on Facebook as I do most of my published pieces and the first comment was from poet, Joel Dias-Porter a/k/a DJ Renegade: "Why would you post that?"

He went on to say that the piece went "dangerously close to cooning" and it made me think a lot about satire. One man's insight is the next man's poor taste. Satire is often the search for the sweet spot that's a good distance from blandness, but also not over the line of good taste. It can be tricky to find, but not impossible, when dealing with issues of race. I take issues of black representation seriously. Not to be too sanctimonious, but when you dehumanize people, you can do anything to them. Dehumanizing representations have often been the pre-text to economic oppression, violence, genocide, etc.

Let me say this, I respect DJ Renegade very much. Last time I saw him read was a nearly transcendental experience, both because of the quality of the work and how it spoke to my personal life. At the precise moment he was reading incisive and probing poems about death--that at the time moved me greatly--my grandmother was 30 minutes away in the hospital taking her final breaths. When I matched up the time of the reading to the time of death, well it was and is hard not to apply some semi-mystical significance to that reading. I say all this to say that these comments don't come from an easily dismissible place, at least not for me personally. This is not some lightweight writer or some random internet crank.

But I think it all turns on irony. It's interesting that both the dictionary definition of satire and Dias-Porter's definition of cooning focus on the presence or absence of irony. I find it difficult to see how my piece comes "dangerously close" to lacking irony. In some areas it felt as if I was laying on the irony too thick, forcing me to go back and punch up the jokes. I also find it hard to see how an intelligent person can be unable to discern the ironic intent of the piece. But I'm not exactly unbiased in my reading of the piece.

Ultimately, it's not up to me to decide if I misfired. What say you, dear reader?

Monday Music: Me and the Devil (RIP Gil Scott-Heron)

2011-05-30T14:14:00.003-04:00

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Calvin & Hobbes

2011-05-28T20:55:00.000-04:00

Appreciation: Gil Scott-Heron (The Heron Collection)

2011-05-28T01:33:00.003-04:00

I once crafted a CD of Gil Scott-Heron songs. Two actually. I imagined it a double CD. The "Scott" disc and the "Heron" disc. The Scott disc featured smoother, gentler songs and the Heron disc featured songs with a rougher tone. See, the Heron disc I imagined, dealt with Gil's demons: The many monkeys on his back. I rarely listened to the Scott disc. It was all about the Heron disc for me. I don't remember exactly what was on it. Some of my favorite songs like "Johannesburg," "Lady Day & John Coltrane" and "We Almost Lost Detroit" no doubt. No poetry like "Whitey on the Moon" or "The Revolution Will Not be Televised." I had that stuff on a different disc. It didn't matter what was on it, because I was always waiting for the last three songs. Those three songs, were three of his most powerful on their own, but taking his biography into account and hearing them in tandem....wow, it was always nearly a rapturous experience.

The songs were, "The Bottle," "Angel Dust" and "Home is Where the Hatred Is."

Many times I remember sitting in my driveway after the long ride from Fairfax, VA---where I went to school--to Silver Spring, MD--where I lived-- waiting for the sequence to end.

Gil Scott-Heron lived hard. The joke was that he took the second part of his last name too far. But it was no joke, this talented singer, poet and novelist had slipped into the darkside of life and got lost in drug addiction. A lot of folks expected this news long before it happened. But the amazing part was that some of his best songs are about battling addiction.

The sequencing on my CD was simple to me. These three songs seemed to be talking to each other. Together they had a narrative,."The Bottle" dealt with alcohol. It's a nearly didactic song saved by its funkiness. It goes first because it deals with an addiction that is widespread. The character in it is not wrecked, but is certainly heading there. The song is almost playful. Then I placed the song "Angel Dust" next. PCP is obviously much more dangerous than alcohol. He sings, "Down some dead end streets, there ain't no turning back." It's a perfect set up for the next song, one of my favorite songs of all time, "Home is Where the Hatred Is." An emotionally wrenching song about a guy totally broken by his addictions. "You keep saying, 'Kick it, quit. Kick it, quit it.' But did you ever try?" The line and the way it's delivered has nearly brought me to tears many, many times.

Without further ado,"The Heron Sequence:"

"The Bottle"

"Angel Dust"

"Home is Where the Hatred Is"

Monday Music: It's Your Birthday + Plus my Luke Interview on PANK

2011-05-23T15:40:00.000-04:00

So x-rated rapper Uncle Luke is running for Mayor of Miami-Dade County. I interview him here over on the PANK BLOG. Enjoy "It's Your Birthday," (below) one of the only Luke songs with a video PG-13 enough to be featured on this blog. Enjoy the interview.

More to come later this week...I just need to relax now. Last week was absolutely hell, but I'll be back.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Rapture Event

2011-05-21T11:57:00.001-04:00

So this is going to happen today. Later for you losers...I'm about be raptured....Come get me God!!!!

Monday Music: Still Standing by GooDie MOB

2011-05-16T10:36:00.000-04:00

Sigh. Hell-week and a half is still going strong. Grading, grading, grading and grading. I'm Still Standing like my favorite GooDie MOB joint, but for how long? How long?

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

2011-05-14T13:44:00.000-04:00

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zack Weiner

Happy Birfday Datsun Flambe!

2011-05-11T16:58:00.000-04:00

I'm in the middle of a pretty hectic Hell Week, that's the midterm and end of the semester when people throw papers at me and try to kill me with them and the only way to survive is by grading them.

But I'm not so busy that I can't acknowledge the third birfday of my beloved blog, Datsun Flambe. It began at 1:03 on May 12 2008 with a Pearls Before Swine strip asking why the world needed another blog. I hoped to answer that question. That seemed like so long ago.

George Bush was president and Obama's campaign had just started gaining momentum. I was unmarried. Unemployed. Childless with one niece. Still had my grandmother to lean on, but she was fading. The 101-year-old lion was sick, I just didn't know that in a few months we'd part. I had only traveled internationally to Trinidad and Canada. I was freshly graduated from an MFA program with a degree in fiction and excitement about a renewed Writing Life.

Barack Obama is president of the United States. Now I'm married. A college professor (excuse me, Lecturer) teaching composition. Got a son, two nieces and a nephew. I am Grandmotherless. Not as devastated by that fact as I was in the previous two years, but it still stings a lot sometimes. I've been to Europe (briefly) and Africa and South America. The MFA was still the best time in my life because everyone I was a around gave a fuck about fiction and I had brilliant people who were paid to give a fuck about my fiction and peers who were interested in what I was doing just as I was interested in what they were doing. Now, my excitement has dimmed. Not my passion. Just the excitement, because the Writing Life is hard in its cold indifference. That's not a complaint. More of an acceptance of the way things are. After all the pie-in-the sky dreaming, there is only hard work. I have less time to write than ever and with less time comes more ideas. It's a recipe for frustration and anger and dark nights of the soul and total losses of faith only to regain that faith somehow.

But there is the Flambe to keep my head in the game.

Well, the world doesn't need the Flambe. It mostly ignores my madman ravings. I lost interest in the Flambe and ignored her for months on end. Wasn't sure what to do with her. The internet has too many sad, abandoned blogs floating out there asking to be loved. I felt bad about abandoning my project and have now returned to it. I have a good sense what I want to do with it, just not a lot of time to do that thing I want to do with it. So I've been slowly, slowly tweaking it. Just wait for hell week to be over so I can devote more time to The Flambe.

I didn't mean for this to be a whole long post. Just a new tradition, a yearly acknowledgement accompanied by some Pearls craziness at 1:03 a.m. PEACE.

Monday Music: It's OK to Not Like Things

2011-05-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Next Media on the Bin Laden Death

2011-05-07T11:09:00.001-04:00

Monday Music: Walk With Me (9/11)

2011-05-02T00:53:00.001-04:00

This Tragedy Khadafi song seems appropriate on this bin Laden death day.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: The Black Panther Episode 1

2011-04-30T11:00:00.000-04:00

Happy Birtherday

2011-04-29T00:46:00.005-04:00

I propose that April 27 be set aside as a national holiday, Birtherday. It will celebrate the moment president Barack Obama made the unprecedented and uneccessary move of providing his birth certificate to the public to prove what everyone, but a handful of racists already know: that he was born in the United States and is eligible to hold his office.

Here are some suggestions as how to celebrate:

1. Exchange gifts with people, but only citizens of the United States of America.

2. Sing the Birtherday Song. It is to the tune of Luke's It's Your Birthday. The lyrics go: "Go Barack it's your Birtherday...." And then you substitute the name of everybody in the room.

3. Make Birtherday Cakes with icing that looks like the Hawaiian longform birth certificate....

4. Harass someone different than you...

Leave other suggestions in the comment section. Don't let me down. We need to create some traditions for Birtherday.

So here's a roundup of Birtherday articles that are worth reading, including my column, Forgive Him Father, over on the PANK blog (first one):

Birther Control or Ol' Clementine Got Some Questions About the President's Birth Certificate

On to the Next One

Our President is Black

Show Me Your Papers (a must read on The Goldie Taylor Project)

The Onion Goes in

Confronting the Coded Racism of Donald Trump

Esquire Reporter Tags Along with the Birthers
Esquire Reporter Hangs With the Birthers Part 2

Lawrence O'Donnell goes in. Who says he's boring? Well, I did, but he's proving me wrong:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Colbert goes in. Perfect ending:

Monday Music: Buzz Aldrin the Gangsta Rapper

2011-04-25T14:43:00.000-04:00

Buzz Aldrin's Rocket Experience from Buzz Aldrin

The one where Buzz Aldrin punches a guy in the face.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Selections from the Prince of Egypt

2011-04-23T21:30:00.001-04:00

Haven't Left the Blog Alone The Flambe Needs Me: Illness, God, Moses and "Nigger Knocking"

2011-04-23T14:45:00.000-04:00

No, my little lurkers, I haven't abandoned the blog again for the third time. Sickness hit my gut with a one-two punch of vomiting and you don't want to know what. It came with little warning. Had a slight headache Monday night. Still didn't prepare me for what was about to happen.

I stayed up late Monday night, even with my headache, making plans to redouble my efforts on my short story collection. I told myself that if I kept my head down and wrote, wrote, wrote I could finish it by the end of next month. Just as I told myself that, my body started laughing. The next day, I was teaching a class and my stomach got to bubbling and...well, the rest is gruesome.

So I rested and took a day off work and now I'm back and I'm bearing gifts: In this week's PANK, I tell the story of the Ten Commandments.

And I'm also in Uptown Mosaic Magazine's first issue. It's a magazine that attempts to capture the essence of Uptown, DC with an eye on the world. My story, The Nigger Knockers, is another chapter from my novel, The Revelation of Everything. And I'm really proud it's in the fiction section of the first issue of this magazine. I'm excited to see the directions the magazine will be going in the future.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Woody Woodpecker and Modern Art

2011-04-23T14:05:00.002-04:00

Woody Woodpecker used to be my role model. A few weeks back, saw this fascinating article in the New York Times about how an animator used to bury modern art in the scenes of the cartoon. He did it in the one above. Check it out below:

That Noisy Woodpecker Had an Animated Secret
By MICHAEL CIEPLY

Published: April 10, 2011

LOS ANGELES — Sixteen years ago Tom Klein was staring at a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, “The Loose Nut,” when he started seeing things.

Photographs courtesy of Universal Studios Licensing

An explosion scene in “The Loose Nut,” a 1945 Woody Woodpecker cartoon, shows a modern-art touch, the work of the animator Shamus Culhane.

Specifically, Mr. Klein watched that maniacal red-topped bird smash a steamroller through the door of a shed. The screen then exploded into images that looked less like the stuff of a Walter Lantz cartoon than like something Willem de Kooning might have hung on a wall.

“What was that?” Mr. Klein, now an animation professor at Loyola Marymount University, recalled thinking. Only later, after years of scholarly detective work, did he decide that he had been looking at genuine art that was cleverly concealed by an ambitious and slightly frustrated animation director named Shamus Culhane.

Read the rest here unless you have hit your 20 free New York Times articles for the month.

Monday Music: The Recognized Thresholds of Negative Stress and Honeydips in Gotham

2011-04-18T00:00:00.001-04:00

The Devil in Denim

2011-04-16T11:54:00.002-04:00

Wow.

THE DEVIL IN DENIM from Carson Mell on Vimeo.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Pearls Before Swine

2011-04-16T00:00:00.015-04:00

I know how ya feel, goat.

2011-04-15T06:22:00.008-04:00

Not the centennial issue.

Forgot to tell you. Got a review of this young adult novel, We Could be Brothers by Derrick Barnes in the centennial issue of The Crisis Magazine. Here's how I start:

The first sentence of Derrick Barnes' young adult novel, We Could be Brothers, is the rare sentence that says much more than it intends to. If read in a certain way, it serves as a sort of meta-commentary on the book itself.

Barnes writes, "As soon as the bell rang, 2:30 on the dot, classroom doors swung wide open and we flew out into the hallways like we were shot from cannons."

It's a sentence that is full of relentless motion and energy, but also one marred by clumsiness and cliche'. The story that follows moves more or less in that same vein. Smooth and, at times, page-turning tension is often contrasted with false notes, preachiness and flat characterization.

read here. And read the rest of the issue here. Or order it here.

This Week's Pankish Inappropriateness

2011-04-14T09:29:00.007-04:00

This week, I debut a new character in my column over at PANK, Ol' Clementine, a former slave who fought in the War of Yankee Aggression, for the confederacy of course.

And this is Tracy Morgan/Jordan lunching out along similar lines:

And this is Disney lunching out. See the rest on the Youtubes. It's worth watching in a "Holy-Shit-That's-Racist" sort of way.

Good Shit From the Vaults 2: Guest Blogger: Joe the Plumber

2011-04-13T06:00:00.000-04:00

Note: So I've been going into the vaults and checking out posts I've written, but not put up. This is one I remember writing. Barry O. and Old Man McCain had a debate where each of them kept shouting out some guy named, "Joe, the Plumber." At first, I thought "Joe" was an abstraction like "Joe Six-Pack," politicians' favorite trope for the ordinary American. I typed up something quick and figured I'd polish it up with some funnier jokes later.

Then, the next day, Joe was all over the news. He was a real dude and the reality of this guy was much funnier than what I had written. Here was a poor guy campaigning hard against his own interests in hopes that he would one day be a member of the elite class that Republicans look after. Then it turned out that the guy wasn't even a plumber. I spiked the column, but am presenting it here as some good shit from the vaults for you to snack on. This was originally written on 10/15/08 and with the exception of some misspellings, I have not changed it.

Dear Barry & John,

It's me, Joe the Plumber. You guys mentioned me a whole lot during your final debate. You looked in the camera and called me by name. I found it weird.

It was cool at first when the Old Guy brought me up. I was comfortable with that. It was nice to have a brief moment in the sun, but then the Old Guy kept saying my name over and over. I don't know if his memory is off.

I was with my friend, Joe Six-Pack. He was, as usual, drunk off his ass and when he heard my name you should have seen him. He laughed so hard, he fell off his seat.

Look, my name isn't Joe and I'm not even really a plumber. To be honest, I don't even really exist.

Sincerely,

Joe the Plumber

Monday Music: Mister Cee's Master Plan

2011-04-10T21:00:00.003-04:00

So Mister Cee--Big Daddy Kane's former Deejay, Hot 97 radio personality and, most notably, discoverer of Biggie Smalls--was arrested recently for allegedly patronizing the services of a male prostitute in New York City. He claims he was set up. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. But that is besides the point.

I could use Mr. Cee's misfortune to make a cheap shot like the rest of the internet, but I'm not going to do that. While I feel bad for him, this is an opportunity for hip-hop to deal with its homophobia, next to its misogyny, one of rap's most persistent problems ( I can't help but think that these problems go hand-in-hand). Mister Cee assisted one of the greatest rappers of all time as his Deejay. Listen to his sharp cuts on "Mister Cee's Master Plan." He brought another great emcee to the public. He obviously has a great ear for talent. Is all that erased because he may have an attraction to men? No. His private preferences are not our business. If he decided to be in a car with a male prostitute, however foolish the decision, that is between him and his family and unfortunately, the New York justice system, who seem to have nothing better to do.

It's time to realize that so many of our heroes throughout history have been gays or lesbians. Doesn't make them lesser human beings. Hip hop should also realize that some rappers, deejays, singers, etc. are also homosexual. Some of them are legendary artists who have made timeless music. They've just chosen to keep that part of their lives private. Sexual orientation doesn't change that. The sooner we grow up, the sooner people can stop hiding their true selves in the shadows. When this changes on a societal level, humanity can take another couple steps forward.

I loved this song as a kid and I love it now. If he's gay, I still love it.

Saturday Morning Cartoon: Toy Story 4 (3 Versions)

2011-04-09T01:18:00.000-04:00

100 Books: The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature

2011-04-07T20:25:00.000-04:00

I must say, I'm sort of behind on this 100 Books thing. I have several books going at once and that may be slowing me down. I have some tricks up my sleeve to finish strong. For instance, I plan to read closely related books in tandem. One cool thing about reading this way is that one book can very often lead to another in surprising ways. For instance, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance--which I'm still reading and is overdue from the Montgomery County Public Library--led me to revisit a slim Buddhist book called True Love. There are some other books I plan to revisit and visit based on ideas in the books I'm reading. This can and does happen in my regular reading life, but there's something about the speed and immediacy of this 100 Books project that leads one book into another as opposed to reading one book in isolation and picking up another in virtual isolation.

Also, I sort of anticipated that during the school year, I'd be much delayed. When the summer comes, it's on. My biggest disappointment/setback is that I didn't take as much advantage of spring break as I could have.

There are a few that I have finished that I haven't posted about yet, so expect to see those soon.

So I finished The Official Library Catalog of Potential Literature a while ago, but I'm still thinking about some of the texts. The book is an inventive sort of anthology in which each story or text is in the form of catalog or jacket copy for books that don't exist.

The texts vary widely in quality. The worst are short and flip, Teresa Carmody's "Literal: A Novel" reads in its entirety: "Surprisingly true to life!" Ha Ha, clever. The best of them, though, take time to invent a world. They do what jacket copy is supposed to do, make the reader wish the book was in his or her hands. But in this instance, I can't order, for example "Now They Turn Left by Hank Reckon." This piece, which is Mike Young's contribution to the anthology, describes a book in which a stock car driver dies during the last lap "and is replaced--in spirit, body and full Victorian get-up--by Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron and the visionary of computer programming." The book, Young tells us, is "Told via radio transcript, news ticker, and the eyewitness new media (blogs, Twitter, Facebook status updates) of souls touched along her way, Now They Turn Left is John Dos Passos meets the Coen Brothers."

It actually sounds like the book this age needs. I wish halfway through he decided to actually write the novel. And that was my frustration with it. The best of them had me retreating into my imagination instead of to Amazon to order up the books, which is not a bad place to be.

James Franco

2011-04-07T12:00:00.003-04:00

Over at PANK this week in "Forgive Him Father" I put a call in to James Franco, author of the story collection, Palo Alto.

Good Shit From the Vaults 1: This post I wrote but never published about this crappy Esquire Heath Ledger short story

2011-04-07T04:37:00.003-04:00

Note: I was looking back at some of the posts sitting in my drafts folder and I was surprised that I had a few that I finished, but for some reason or other never published. For instance, the below. I have no clue why I never published it. Perhaps I just forgot to hit the publish button. For others there is a clear reason why they are sitting there all unpublified. This one is dated 6/25/08. I remember being highly annoyed by Esquire's "reported fiction" piece about Heath Ledger's last days. Not only was it bad fiction, a forgivable sin, but it was morally icky. So, I made fun of it. Enjoy.

In the Annals (Anals?) of shitty short stories, perhaps the sloppiest deuce from deep in the loose bowels of the imagination was dropped by Esquire magazine. Not only is this story, "The Last Days of Heath Ledger" a piece of shit, but it makes you feel all dirty when you finish reading it. Like when you forget to wash your hands after leaving the bathroom.

I read the shit so you don't have to (OK, I'm done with the crap motif). This is how Esquire describes it:

To write a conceivable chronicle of Heath Ledger's final days, writer Lisa Taddeo visited the actor's neighborhood, talked to the store owners and bartenders who may have seen him during his last week, and read as many accounts and rumors about the events surrounding his death as possible. She filled in the rest with her imagination. The result is what we call reported fiction. Some of the elements are true. (Ledger was in London. He was a regular at the Beatrice Inn and the Mirö Cafe. And he was infatuated with Nick Drake.) Others are not.

So the story finds the dead actor narrating his story postmortem. How that works, I'm not sure. Then he meets with Jack Nicholson and they discuss life and...um playing the Joker. Apparently Jack Nicholson's real personality is a parody of the characters he plays in the movies. Let's listen in:

See, that's the thing about Jack, you don't want to fucking listen, you're annoyed by the way he delivers his agonizingly self-masturbatory Chekhov-in-Jerry-Garcia-suspenders diatribe, but when Jack gets to the point, the point is brave.

And here's the point: I heard you kept that gay little journal for the Joker, and in this latest one you finished shooting, Gilliam told me you were talking all the usual overanxious peripatetic bullshit, like, I wanna direct, I wanna make art, not just be art. Blah, blah, blah. Forget it, kid. Jack flicks his paw in the air like he's dismissing the world.

A waiter in Moroccan garb jumps back like he's been slapped.

Jack puts down his glass, drops a clean lamb bone onto his plate. Tink. Jack cleans his plate. Always proving it. All night.

What I mean is, live your goddamn life. Fall in love again. Hell, fall in love five more times and fuck a coliseum of college chicks in between. Don't be so goddamn concerned with how you're gonna be remembered. All work and no play and all that garbage.

At that, he grabs the wine bottle like a king. I swear, there was something of royalty to him, his purple scarf, his leaning back in that velvet Moroccan settee and spreading his legs like he's got seven cocks

See what I mean? The story keeps going downhill until you're staring at a page or a screen and you're wondering if there is any point at all to existence.

Cross River Love

2011-04-04T22:59:00.005-04:00

I want to change the name of my blog from Datsun Flambe to Cross River Love. Because Cross River*, knows how to party, yes they do. But I don't think I can change the name of the blog because I've already built up a deep well of indifference for the Datsun Flambe brand. I mean, to create this much indifference is pretty hard. Sometimes I click into the site myself and I start reading and I'm like, "Man, I feel nothing. Neither dislike nor like. Certainly not passion." I mean, changing the name might force people to feel something or even worse, I might improve the content and engender "admiration" or something. Nope. I don't want your damn admiration. I'll keep my cryptic unexplained blog name**. We keep it rocking. We keep it rocking. Make it shake. Shake, shake it baby. Shake it, shake it mama. Shake it Flambe.

*I'm not talking about Cross River in Nigeria or in New York, but the Cross River where most of the stories linked on the side take place.

**Hint: it has something to do with Ralph Ellison.

Monday Music: Sign O' The Times

2011-04-04T00:01:00.001-04:00

A lot of crazy shit is going on in the world, huh?

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang

2011-04-02T01:08:00.000-04:00

DYN-O-MITE!

2011-03-31T20:08:00.000-04:00

Here's one of my favorite episodes of Good Times (The Nude a/k/a The Wiggler) in honor of my latest DYN-O-MITE! post over at the PANK blog.

Thelma & Michael talk about the episode.

RIP: "Indie" Lit

2011-03-29T18:34:00.005-04:00

Here lies "Indie Lit."

Not small presses, which for a few years, before the untimely death of the term "indie," were attempting to brand themselves as such.

They're alive and well and thriving and publishing all kinds of interesting (as well as uninteresting) writers. What has died is the term "indie, lit." Dead of misuse. It now lies in a cemetery next to "Bling Bling"--dead the moment white people started using it--and "The Dougie"---a dance, not a "term" per se, but likewise dead, also because of white people.

This death, however, can't be blamed on white people, not entirely at least. Since it became easier to self-publish, more people are doing it. Therefore more people are talking about self-published books. And somehow, people stopped calling self-publishing self-publishing. Somewhere down the road, self-publishing became "Indie Lit." Every self-published author is now an "indie author." And small press authors instead of being "indie" became ________.

Tired of misuse, "Indie Lit." threw itself out the window and died.

This is an association that small presses, surely don't want. The small presses currently have a decent reputation and self-publishing, kind of doesn't. Many self-published books--not all--are self-published because they can't get published any other way. Some have egregious plot issues and have a reputation, not entirely undeserved, of being riddled with typographical and usage errors. Major reviewers ignore them as do bookstores and they oftentimes smack of desperation. That's the reputation at least. That's not to say that many self-published authors aren't taking the care to craft good stories and hire proofreaders and copy editors. Many are. And as more people self-publish, that reputation has begun to change. But until now, self-published and "indie" were two entirely different things.

No one is sure when "Indie Lit"--the term-- was born, but it couldn't be more than a couple of years old. It was always a pretty lame and imprecise phrase. Small presses didn't need a new name. Especially not one that attempted to apply a false layer of hipster cool over a bookish enterprise. Designed to make folks conjure up images of indie punk bands and the cool independent movies of the early 1990s (bring them shits back). It was sort of like if Screech started calling himself T-bone. We all remember the nerd who started listening to Black Moon, not because he liked them, but because it was cool to like Black Moon. Back in the day, I had news for that nerd. I told him, I listen to Black Moon because I like them. It hasn't made me any cooler.

Naw, I just made fun of him.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, that's right. RIP "Indie Lit."

2011-03-28T20:42:00.002-04:00

In the mail today in I got my contributor's copy of PANK 5. Yes, I've blogged about this issue previously. It features the opening chapter to my novel-(once-again-in-progress), The Revelation of Everything. I picked up my copy of PANK 5 at AWP and now I have another one. I'm just posting to say that you should go out and buy it because there is some good shit in it.

Peace.

Monday Music: Unknown Soldier

2011-03-28T00:00:00.004-04:00

Three wars, huh? Good luck explaining that one, Barack Obomber. Make sure when you do, that you have your Nobel Peace Prize handy just in case you have to give it back.

Unknown Soldier from Waiting for the Sun by the Doors.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Godzilla

2011-03-26T15:53:00.004-04:00

This New York Times article contextualizes Japan's cinematic responses to past nuclear crises. It's worth a read. (i.e. Godzilla's more than campy fun the same way Huck Finn's more than a kiddie adventure story). The below is a cheesy Godzilla cartoon.

Appreciation: Elizabeth Taylor

2011-03-23T12:16:00.001-04:00

Forgive me for posting a commercial. Elizabeth Taylor just passed. Which makes me think of my grandmother. Who's been gone for going on three years now. Taylor endorsed the perfume and lotion line advertised in the above commercial. My grandmother used to love White Diamonds, especially the lotion. I was thinking about that the other day. Could almost smell it. She used to squeeze out too much and then slather the excess on my hands when I wasn't looking and I'd get annoyed and tell her I didn't want to smell like a lady. Whenever she squeezed out too much and I wasn't paying close enough attention, she'd get me.

It's minor a coincidence that Taylor died just as I had Granny and White Diamonds on my mind. But the bigger thing, for me, is that just yesterday I found a way to write something on Granny. The death of a close grandmother is so common that an essay on the subject, if not done well would be so trite and meaningless to anybody outside of me. But I thought the other day how certain types of language, language that is normally, and rightfully, looked down upon, was the only thing that gave me solace after she passed. I'm being vague because I don't like to be explicit about half-formed ideas. That somehow kills them.

I love to dream about Granny, and probably do once a week, because most of the time it feels very, very real. Dreams will be a part of it, I guess and White Diamonds and her trickster spirit and...I don't know. I hate writing non-fiction. So I hate getting ideas to write non-fiction. I normally turn them into fiction, but this one can't be turned into a story.

This hasn't been about Elizabeth Taylor, I know. I know little about Elizabeth Taylor. But I'm thankful she could provide the perfume that gave me and Granny many moments and I appreciate that.

Slave, Please

2011-03-23T09:47:00.002-04:00

New Blog Post up at PANK. I take on Twain and the controversy behind the newly published bowdlerized version of Huckleberry Finn. Twain is the man.

Check this CBS 60 Minutes segment on the book below:

Hell Week is Over

2011-03-22T19:10:00.002-04:00

Hell Week was...just awful.

The papers kept coming and then they grew faces and the faces laughed at me and then they started talking and I kept pushing forward, grading as I went and the papers started laughing at me and then one said, "You will never finish this task," and my son started crying, except his cries sounded like, "You are not up to the task of grading all these papers nor of raising me."

And then I had a nervous breakdown.

And then another.

Then I finished grading all the papers.

Then I found one I missed.

But now I'm on Spring Break. I like Spring Break so much that I capitalized it when it should be lowercase. Spring Break.

Once, I told my wife that I could complete a draft of my short story collection in a week if given the time. I need a good excuse for the end of the week when it's not done. Because it won't be done.

But I am working on a lot of projects. Like my column over on the PANK blog. The aforementioned short story collection. Sending out my completed novel to agents. Some children's works. Because Rion is for the Children. Reading 100 books. Making changes to this blog no one reads or comments on, which I've been doing slowly, slowly. Some other things. I'm excited about working on these things.

Monday Music: I got Prose, I got Prose in different Area Codes: A Nate Dogg Appreciation

2011-03-21T12:14:00.007-04:00


The radio edit of Nate Dogg's hook on Ludacris's"Area Codes" goes "I got prose/I got prose/In different area codes," which I can relate to.

It's rare that I remember the first time I heard an artist, but hearing Nate Dogg's voice for the first time is burned into my memory. I was a ninth grader and Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle had just come out. I wasn't sure how I felt about Doggy Dogg. He was the boogieman of the moment, the rack eveybody hung black folks problems on. I pretended to turn up my nose, but Snoop's songs were jamming.

I borrowed Doggystyle from a friend, put the cassette into the tapedeck in my bedroom and sat back. Man, this cali boy could rap even if what he was saying was at times, horrible. And the music! Then it got to the song, Ain't No Fun. It begins with a ludicrious radio skit that takes swipes at rival rapper, Eazy-E. Then it segues into some smooth R&B singing, but it was the inverse of just about every R&B song I had ever heard. The singer mocked love, fidelity and monogamy. It sounded like a parody, but the singing was too good for a parody. I didn't know how to take it.

Over the years, Nate proved that what he did was no joke. Artists of all types called on him to sing their hooks and he delivered. His role was unique, clever and represented something new in R&B and hip-hop. Later, folks such as Akon and T-Pain filled the void when he became sick and left the scene, but they were never as interesting or original as Nate Dogg.

I laughed at the ridiculous narrative of Regulate. Jammed to his singing on The Next Episode. Bobbed my head to the horrible ideas of Xplosive.

Nate Dogg definitely had a theme: women can't be trusted, don't waste your time on love, protect your money from gold diggers. Sometimes it was repetitive and hard to listen to; the music the only counterpoint or redemptive value. The rapper Immortal Technique once rapped: "Most people are only players because you've been played and ain't let go of that shit since the seventh grade." Nate's music illustrated this at times. Behind the great singing and vulgar boasts always seemed to be sadness. This is most evident on his first solo album, G-Funk Classics. On the song "Scared of Love," with a voice dripping with pain and regret, he sings: "I'm just a man, scared of love." He lets down the guarded bravado of "Ain't No Fun" and exposes a human vulnerability that's often missing in the gangsta genre.

He sings:

When they asked me
why I dont like love
or why I dont have a lady
maybe its because I know
as soon as I tell her
how I feel about her
as soon as I act like
I love her she's gone

[Chorus]
I'm just a man (scared of love)
I'm just a man (is why I dont have a lady)
I'm just a man
I'm just a man in love

I really was so into you
but you dont know what I'm going through
you say you really care for me
but in love there's no guarantee
so, I think I outta take my time
cuz love aint no friend of mine you see

Dont let me get you too confused
you're the friend I dont want to lose
if I made a choice its you I choose
but my heart's a tad bit through
so, I try to get you off my mind
but a remedy I cannot find for you

Ever since he went away there's been a real void in hip hop and R&B. Rest in Peace homie.

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Nuclear Boy

2011-03-19T04:58:00.001-04:00

This is how they're explaining the Nuclear Crisis to kids in Japan, it involves flatulence and diarrhea:

found here

Forgive Him Father

2011-03-17T16:21:00.004-04:00

The Pank blog is one of the more amazing out there. It more than matches the work published in the print pages of the magazine and in their monthly online editions. It's a must that I stop by there a few times a day.

I'm not saying that because they've published my work. It's because some great things outside of me are being written over there. I like publishing over there because I'm next to the powerful memoirish posts of Alana Noel Voth, the strange sense of humor of Gene Albamonte and the insightful musings of Thomas Demary, among other exciting stuff I read over there on the regular. (Geez, could you use the phrase "over there" one more time please.)

So I'm joining those folks weekly with a humor column called "Forgive Him Father, For He Knows Not What He Has Done." Check the link to the right. Did my first post yesterday: A Sample of Critical Reactions to Martin Lawrence's Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son. I'll try to have them up by Wednesday at 8 a.m. The humor will be similar to my (St.) Ides of March post that I posted here the other day. I probably should have saved that one for PANK because everyone knows no one reads this stupid blog.

So follow along @ Pank, I promise, as the name suggests, it's gonna be inappropriate.

Hell week.

2011-03-16T19:27:00.003-04:00

Actual picture of me staring at a stack of papers I have to grade.
As you can see, fear of digging into the stack has not only blown my tie back,
but it has also turned me into a Caucasian.

So much to post about, but later for that. It's hell week. A crazy dance I do at the midterm and at the end of the semester where I am forced to read, literally, thousands of pages of paper in rapid succession. At the end, my bleeding eyes just pop out my head like Daffy Duck and I run around screaming woo-hoo, woo-hoo. I'm not complaining.

I got such a stack of papers to grade, I just can't justify talking to you fools. Especially since you don't talk back. Mutes.

More hundred book selections soon. Tribute to my man, Nate Dee-Oh-Double-Gee. More boring musings. More barely funny posts about nothing. See you soon.

The (St.) Ides of March

2011-03-15T16:04:00.009-04:00

Everyone knows that The Ides of March refers to the 15th of March. On this day, people often say: Beware the Ides of March. Yet, few know the origins of the phrase. Often it is said to come from Shakespeare, but like much of what is attributed to the Bard, the phrase appears nowhere in any of his plays or his poetry.

One hundred years ago, a shipment of tainted malt liquor, originating in Chicago, started appearing in stores nationwide. Hundreds died and thousands more experienced symptoms of diarrhea, lethargy, vomiting and general confusion from drinking the bad malt liquor. At first, no one noticed because well, if someone said to you, "I just drank some Old English and now I got the shits," would you be overly concerned?

Whether it was a batch of St. Ides that sickened the public or another brand is unclear. But it almost certainly was not. The brand was invented in the early 1900s to push the Catholic Church into bestowing sainthood upon the little known 16th century bishop, Ides of Cicero, the first brewer of malt liquor. After the Ides of March, the call amongst Catholic malt liquor drinkers intensified. The Church hastily announced that Ides of Cicero would now be known as St. Ides, the patron saint of malt liquor.

Next time someone warns you to Beware the Ides of March, share with them this little known history. Next week we will discuss the origins of the phrase: Fear the Four-Loko of February.

Rapper and actor Ice Cube (among others) often commemorated The Ides of March tragedy in songs and commercials.

Monday Music: Pop it Out

2011-03-14T00:00:00.003-04:00

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Beavis & Butthead are Dead

2011-03-12T07:42:00.002-05:00

Uh-huh huh....Buffcoat & Beaver are coming back....huh huh huh....

Heh heh heh...he said, "beaver"...heh heh heh....

Banned Episodes:

Saturday Morning Cartoons (On Friday Night): 5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO

2011-03-11T19:35:00.001-05:00

This should be the theme song to the Economic Recovery. Lord knows it should have been the theme song to the Great Recession.

Saturday Morning Cartoons (On Thursday Night): Ride the Fence

2011-03-10T17:59:00.005-05:00

Moving caused me to miss posting a cartoon on Saturday so here's one and tomorrow another.

This Wisconsin union busting business has me upset. Makes me feel like listening to Boots Riley and the Coup.

The authorities are dragging protesters from the capitol as they try to roll back worker's rights. This is the first salvo in a class war. It's coming to town near you.

"Pro-union, but most lost they bite/Anti-motherfuckers crossing a strike/Take a look around and be for or against, but you can't change shit by riding the fence."