Articles Archive for August 2010
I know that I’ve written about this before, but on Monday nights, I love going to Dempsey’s, an Irish pub on Second Ave in the East Village. When I describe the bar as “unremarkable,” it is not an insult; I don’t need all sorts of bells and whistles at my local bar, just a good and reasonably-priced selection of beers, a bartender who knows when to chat and when to stay away (and when to buy me back a beer), and a TV or two because, hey, I like sports. But that’s really it, aside from I also like that on Mondays, it’s not very crowded, so there’s no one to bother you or anyone nearby talking like a goddamn jerkoff. After all, man is no closer to God than when he is in a pub alone with his thoughts and his beer. Monday night at Dempsey’s is Uncle Jason’s private time.
But because I drink there alone, it begs the question: why the hell do I do with myself the whole time? I get there as soon as I can after work (earliest is usually 6:30pm), and sometimes I stay until 8:30pm. Sometimes I stay until midnight. Most of the time, it’s something in between. I’m not the type to read a paper or a book in a bar (and I’ll be damned if I do any “writing” in one – in that case, I might as well wear a t-shirt that says, “Hi, I’m An Asshole”), and there’s only so much staring at the bottles of liquor that one can do while on that road to inebriation.
And so this is why I appreciate that there are TVs with sports on. And this is also why Mondays work well, because of Monday Night Football, which is on for roughly a 1/3 of the year. Have a beer, watch the pre-game show, have a beer, game starts, have a lot more beers. It’s perfect, and even when you’re feeling most introspective, at least you have an option to entertain yourself with something besides thoughts like, “I know that it has a lot of positives, but I just feel like once you go down that craigslist ‘Casual Encounters -> M4M’ road, there’s no turning back.”
(This is to say nothing of the fact that drinking on a Monday is highly, highly underrated. A big reason why I go on Monday as opposed to another week night is that this is my time to steel myself against the upcoming week, sort of like, “Alright, I know what the week looks like, I know what I gotta do, and I know it’s gonna suck – but first, let me get drunk alone. Then, we tackle the work week.”)
But then January comes around, and there’s no more Monday Night Football. And baseball doesn’t start until April. So for me, there’s a sort of sports void (as I’m not big into pro or college basketball or hockey). And so just this year, having moved back to NYC in December, when January came around, I found myself watching something new on those solo Monday night booze sessions at Dempsey’s: English Premier League soccer.
I have a long and complicated history with the sport of soccer. I did not play it growing up in the hard-scrabble streets of South Philly, save for a brief moment in 1994 when World Cup fever took over and my friends and I kicked around a volleyball and used the two poles of the basketball hoop as a goal for a few weeks before moving back to our more traditional sports (basketball, football, wiffleball, fighting, etc). Though I studied abroad in London for a few months in 2000, I never got into soccer, as I was too busy trying to figure out how to make the $1800 I had saved up last five months while still not only drinking, traveling and having a good time, but also eating, showering, and breathing. In the only fiction writing course I ever took in college, my first story was about how soccer was invented in England by cloistered armless lesbians during the Hundred Years War (I am sure, with my current juice, this will be optioned for a movie within the next year). So I’ve always been familiar with soccer – it’s been on my radar, at least – but at the same time, meh.
Making my relationship with soccer all the more complicated is that I have a handful of very good friends who love soccer (and have loved it for a few years now). Now, you would think that this is a plus for soccer in my eyes, that the very same people with whom I’ve discussed the Eagles’ inability to make the leap and the Phillies rise to powerhouse-ness over the past few years are big EPL fans. But this is not so. This is because these friends who are into EPL (the EPL?) are the same type of people who will go off for hours about their travels through Europe with only the slightest provocation, who will tell you in great detail about the best “unknown” restaurant in Copenhagen or a great hole in the wall pub in Rotterdam or their favorite lunch spot in Brighton. In short, they are Europhile douchebags, and I viewed their love of British football as just another part of their Europhiles d-baggyness. So again, meh.
(And truly, these guys are some of my best friends, so they know that I say this in jest.)
(And there’s this: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!)
But yet, week after week as I sat there alone at Dempsey’s on those dark, cold winter Monday nights, watching replays of EPL matches from earlier in the day or from that weekend (it’s an Irish pub, after all), something strange happened: I started getting into it. I didn’t know anything about how soccer worked (aside from get the ball into the net), nor did I know what teams were playing, but because I sat there watching a ball being kicked around for two 45 minutes halves, when a goal happened, I’d find myself cheering (and again, I didn’t know the teams; for all I knew, it could have been the local Neo-Nazi team trouncing the team playing on behalf of crippled orphans everywhere, yet if the former scored, I was yelping to myself in the bar). There was just something about the payoff, about watching the ball seemingly mindlessly being kicked around for 30 or 40 minutes, that when a goal was finally scored, I found it immensely rewarding. Not exactly the all-consuming instant rush of falling in love, but enjoyable nonetheless. I knew that the season was already well underway by that point, so while I continued to catch those games at Dempsey’s week after week, learning a bit more each time, I decided that come next season (August), I would give soccer a full-assed effort in order to see if it was for me (Europhile d-bag accusations be damned!).
And of course, with the World Cup approaching, the timing couldn’t have been better. Soon, America would be awash in soccer love, and it would be a perfect primer for someone getting to know the game. But at the same time, I wanted to approach cautiously. I am from Philly, where sports fandom is not a hobby, but rather a full-time occupation, on par with family and God (and to a much lesser extent, actual full-time occupation). As such, poseurs are not tolerated. So I would root for the USA, of course, but I would do so modesty, freely admitting that I didn’t know much about the team or even the sport, but, again: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
World Cup soccer taught me two things:
1) Geez, these games are short. The average baseball game is 3.5 hours. The last two minutes of the half in a football game can take 15-20 minutes in real-time. A 90 minute soccer match, including half time, is less than two hours, and there are no commercial during action. Sure, I guess I knew this before from Dempsey’s, but I was drunk and alone and, you know, you sort of lose track of time when you’re drunk and alone (and it’s freezing outside). So actually realizing the brevity of the games for the first time was a plus.
2) Man, people are really, really into this. As corny as it sounds, it’s kinda cool to think about how in that semifinal match, likely 95% of the population of Uruguay – a country I couldn’t pick out on a map – was watching that game and cheering on their team; I had a picture in my mind of a dozen farmers sitting on burros in the one run-down shack with a television within 30 miles while corrupt politicians gathered in the lavish presidential palace (this is how I picture most of Latin America, because, well, I’ve never been there and I’m racist) all rooting for their guys. Again, corny (and racist), but kinda cool.
(Uruguay’s in Latin America, right?)
And so finally, fast forward to last week, the start of the English Premier League season. Over the summer, I had done some research and spoken to friends as part of the team-choosing process, each step along the way repeating that I reserved the right to transfer allegiances once I learned more about the sport. You might ask how this doesn’t fly into the face of everything that I just said about “Oh, I’m from Philly and we’re awesome and we love sports and we’ll fuck you up and a lot of us are fat but still awesome.” That is a good question. I can only answer that I want to do this correctly, but I also want to have a vested interest from the start, a vested interest that I intend to cultivate during the course of the season. However, should I fall organically in love with a different team, then, well, so be it. As part of the process, I also consulted the Sports Guy’s excellent article on how he chose his EPL team. Among his six criteria, there were three that especially struck me: don’t jump on a bandwagon, pick a city that you might actually vacation to, pick a team that’s successful enough to not be relegated/get maximum exposure on TV here in the US.
So my pick: Arsenal.
Arsenal meets all of the criteria above. They have a cool nickname (“the Gunners”). They are the favorite team of two of my Europhile d-bag friends (so I can more easily discuss them). They are not Manchester United. Their stadium is in North London, and I lived in North London, just over a mile away from their stadium. Therefore, based on what I know right now, it makes sense that Arsenal is my adopted EPL team. Time for bloody soccer, baby.
I have to admit, week one was tough. Trying to dive head first into a sport about which you know little about is difficult, even though I had seen maybe a dozen games before. I watched the game at home, having a beer (at 10am!), and was certainly into that. But following the action, trying to figure out the players’ names (god, I sound like a woman) and generally getting a feel for the action was more difficult than I thought. It didn’t help that the game was a rather bland 1-1 tie with Liverpool. We were getting into “meh” territory.
However, undeterred, I approached this week with vigor. All told, I’ll have watched four matches: Arsenal – Blackpool, Wigan Athletic – Chelsea, Fulham – Man United, and Man City – Liverpool. The first two were exciting (for me), as Arsenal and Chelsea both won by scores of 6-0, and The Man City – Liverpool match I’ll watch tonight, either on DVR or at Dempsey’s. But it was the Fulham – Man U match that sealed the deal, a stunning 2-2 draw that in the last ten minutes of action featured a Fulham defender accidentally scoring on his own goal, then a Man U penalty kicked that was blocked, then that same Fulham defender scoring the equalizer on a header. Maybe it was the hangover that I was washing away with multiple pints of Guinness on that Sunday morning, but I was enthralled, hooked.
And with that, I have to say, I think I’m into this whole EPL thing. A love affair that began slowly on those lonely winter nights in Dempsey’s, started and stuttered with national pride over the summer, and now is being cultivated over early morning beers in my apartment (though I hope to go out for some games next weekend), and here we are, in the early stages of what could potentially be a sensational, long-term relationship. A veteran of such wars, I know not to get my hopes (too) high. But early indications are good.
(Now if I could just figure out this whole transfer market stuff…)
But because I drink there alone, it begs the question: why the hell do I do with myself the whole time? I get there as soon as I can after work (earliest is usually 6:30pm), and sometimes I stay until 8:30pm. Sometimes I stay until midnight. Most of the time, it’s something in between. I’m not the type to read a paper or a book in a bar (and I’ll be damned if I do any “writing” in one – in that case, I might as well wear a t-shirt that says, “Hi, I’m An Asshole”), and there’s only so much staring at the bottles of liquor that one can do while on that road to inebriation.
And so this is why I appreciate that there are TVs with sports on. And this is also why Mondays work well, because of Monday Night Football, which is on for roughly a 1/3 of the year. Have a beer, watch the pre-game show, have a beer, game starts, have a lot more beers. It’s perfect, and even when you’re feeling most introspective, at least you have an option to entertain yourself with something besides thoughts like, “I know that it has a lot of positives, but I just feel like once you go down that craigslist ‘Casual Encounters -> M4M’ road, there’s no turning back.”
(This is to say nothing of the fact that drinking on a Monday is highly, highly underrated. A big reason why I go on Monday as opposed to another week night is that this is my time to steel myself against the upcoming week, sort of like, “Alright, I know what the week looks like, I know what I gotta do, and I know it’s gonna suck – but first, let me get drunk alone. Then, we tackle the work week.”)
But then January comes around, and there’s no more Monday Night Football. And baseball doesn’t start until April. So for me, there’s a sort of sports void (as I’m not big into pro or college basketball or hockey). And so just this year, having moved back to NYC in December, when January came around, I found myself watching something new on those solo Monday night booze sessions at Dempsey’s: English Premier League soccer.
I have a long and complicated history with the sport of soccer. I did not play it growing up in the hard-scrabble streets of South Philly, save for a brief moment in 1994 when World Cup fever took over and my friends and I kicked around a volleyball and used the two poles of the basketball hoop as a goal for a few weeks before moving back to our more traditional sports (basketball, football, wiffleball, fighting, etc). Though I studied abroad in London for a few months in 2000, I never got into soccer, as I was too busy trying to figure out how to make the $1800 I had saved up last five months while still not only drinking, traveling and having a good time, but also eating, showering, and breathing. In the only fiction writing course I ever took in college, my first story was about how soccer was invented in England by cloistered armless lesbians during the Hundred Years War (I am sure, with my current juice, this will be optioned for a movie within the next year). So I’ve always been familiar with soccer – it’s been on my radar, at least – but at the same time, meh.
Making my relationship with soccer all the more complicated is that I have a handful of very good friends who love soccer (and have loved it for a few years now). Now, you would think that this is a plus for soccer in my eyes, that the very same people with whom I’ve discussed the Eagles’ inability to make the leap and the Phillies rise to powerhouse-ness over the past few years are big EPL fans. But this is not so. This is because these friends who are into EPL (the EPL?) are the same type of people who will go off for hours about their travels through Europe with only the slightest provocation, who will tell you in great detail about the best “unknown” restaurant in Copenhagen or a great hole in the wall pub in Rotterdam or their favorite lunch spot in Brighton. In short, they are Europhile douchebags, and I viewed their love of British football as just another part of their Europhiles d-baggyness. So again, meh.
(And truly, these guys are some of my best friends, so they know that I say this in jest.)
(And there’s this: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!)
But yet, week after week as I sat there alone at Dempsey’s on those dark, cold winter Monday nights, watching replays of EPL matches from earlier in the day or from that weekend (it’s an Irish pub, after all), something strange happened: I started getting into it. I didn’t know anything about how soccer worked (aside from get the ball into the net), nor did I know what teams were playing, but because I sat there watching a ball being kicked around for two 45 minutes halves, when a goal happened, I’d find myself cheering (and again, I didn’t know the teams; for all I knew, it could have been the local Neo-Nazi team trouncing the team playing on behalf of crippled orphans everywhere, yet if the former scored, I was yelping to myself in the bar). There was just something about the payoff, about watching the ball seemingly mindlessly being kicked around for 30 or 40 minutes, that when a goal was finally scored, I found it immensely rewarding. Not exactly the all-consuming instant rush of falling in love, but enjoyable nonetheless. I knew that the season was already well underway by that point, so while I continued to catch those games at Dempsey’s week after week, learning a bit more each time, I decided that come next season (August), I would give soccer a full-assed effort in order to see if it was for me (Europhile d-bag accusations be damned!).
And of course, with the World Cup approaching, the timing couldn’t have been better. Soon, America would be awash in soccer love, and it would be a perfect primer for someone getting to know the game. But at the same time, I wanted to approach cautiously. I am from Philly, where sports fandom is not a hobby, but rather a full-time occupation, on par with family and God (and to a much lesser extent, actual full-time occupation). As such, poseurs are not tolerated. So I would root for the USA, of course, but I would do so modesty, freely admitting that I didn’t know much about the team or even the sport, but, again: U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
World Cup soccer taught me two things:
1) Geez, these games are short. The average baseball game is 3.5 hours. The last two minutes of the half in a football game can take 15-20 minutes in real-time. A 90 minute soccer match, including half time, is less than two hours, and there are no commercial during action. Sure, I guess I knew this before from Dempsey’s, but I was drunk and alone and, you know, you sort of lose track of time when you’re drunk and alone (and it’s freezing outside). So actually realizing the brevity of the games for the first time was a plus.
2) Man, people are really, really into this. As corny as it sounds, it’s kinda cool to think about how in that semifinal match, likely 95% of the population of Uruguay – a country I couldn’t pick out on a map – was watching that game and cheering on their team; I had a picture in my mind of a dozen farmers sitting on burros in the one run-down shack with a television within 30 miles while corrupt politicians gathered in the lavish presidential palace (this is how I picture most of Latin America, because, well, I’ve never been there and I’m racist) all rooting for their guys. Again, corny (and racist), but kinda cool.
(Uruguay’s in Latin America, right?)
And so finally, fast forward to last week, the start of the English Premier League season. Over the summer, I had done some research and spoken to friends as part of the team-choosing process, each step along the way repeating that I reserved the right to transfer allegiances once I learned more about the sport. You might ask how this doesn’t fly into the face of everything that I just said about “Oh, I’m from Philly and we’re awesome and we love sports and we’ll fuck you up and a lot of us are fat but still awesome.” That is a good question. I can only answer that I want to do this correctly, but I also want to have a vested interest from the start, a vested interest that I intend to cultivate during the course of the season. However, should I fall organically in love with a different team, then, well, so be it. As part of the process, I also consulted the Sports Guy’s excellent article on how he chose his EPL team. Among his six criteria, there were three that especially struck me: don’t jump on a bandwagon, pick a city that you might actually vacation to, pick a team that’s successful enough to not be relegated/get maximum exposure on TV here in the US.
So my pick: Arsenal.
Arsenal meets all of the criteria above. They have a cool nickname (“the Gunners”). They are the favorite team of two of my Europhile d-bag friends (so I can more easily discuss them). They are not Manchester United. Their stadium is in North London, and I lived in North London, just over a mile away from their stadium. Therefore, based on what I know right now, it makes sense that Arsenal is my adopted EPL team. Time for bloody soccer, baby.
I have to admit, week one was tough. Trying to dive head first into a sport about which you know little about is difficult, even though I had seen maybe a dozen games before. I watched the game at home, having a beer (at 10am!), and was certainly into that. But following the action, trying to figure out the players’ names (god, I sound like a woman) and generally getting a feel for the action was more difficult than I thought. It didn’t help that the game was a rather bland 1-1 tie with Liverpool. We were getting into “meh” territory.
However, undeterred, I approached this week with vigor. All told, I’ll have watched four matches: Arsenal – Blackpool, Wigan Athletic – Chelsea, Fulham – Man United, and Man City – Liverpool. The first two were exciting (for me), as Arsenal and Chelsea both won by scores of 6-0, and The Man City – Liverpool match I’ll watch tonight, either on DVR or at Dempsey’s. But it was the Fulham – Man U match that sealed the deal, a stunning 2-2 draw that in the last ten minutes of action featured a Fulham defender accidentally scoring on his own goal, then a Man U penalty kicked that was blocked, then that same Fulham defender scoring the equalizer on a header. Maybe it was the hangover that I was washing away with multiple pints of Guinness on that Sunday morning, but I was enthralled, hooked.
And with that, I have to say, I think I’m into this whole EPL thing. A love affair that began slowly on those lonely winter nights in Dempsey’s, started and stuttered with national pride over the summer, and now is being cultivated over early morning beers in my apartment (though I hope to go out for some games next weekend), and here we are, in the early stages of what could potentially be a sensational, long-term relationship. A veteran of such wars, I know not to get my hopes (too) high. But early indications are good.
(Now if I could just figure out this whole transfer market stuff…)
When you become a real-live published author, one of things you inevitably have to deal with is (are?) reviews of your book.
(See? Real-live published author and I’m not sure if I should use “is” or “are” there. Man, they’ll give book deals to just about anyone these days.)
Ever since I finished writing my book, I admit that I’ve vacillated between being concerned with what the reviews might say and feeling entirely apathetic toward them. On the one hand, I don’t have to tell you that I wasn’t exactly shooting for ol’ Bill Shakespeare or Leo Tolstoy here. Sure, I wanted to tell some good stories and make the best penis jokes as I possibly could, but I more or less was aiming for, “I read it in a few days, I laughed a few times, and it was totally worth the $14. Awesome purchase, fun read, and would recommend it.” That’s it. As I’ve said before, as long as you chuckled at some parts, thought it was worth the money, and maybe even bought it as a gift for that special person in your life who is from Philly/from any big city/is (or was) Irish Catholic/grew up in a large, dangerous or possibly even criminal extended family/loves run on sentences and poop humor, then I’d be happy. Uncle Jason knows his limits, thankyouverymuch.
But on the other hand, anytime someone more or less says “You suck,” well, it’s going to bum you out, at least a little bit. Contrary to what you may have heard from various ex-lovers of mine, deep down inside my gruff, handsome in a “If Meatloaf and Peter Jackson had a kid” kinda way, I am a sensitive man, with the soul of poet and the heart of a cow. And when you pierce that heart, well, it hurts. It hurts.
(And note that I’m not talking about reviews from Publishers Weekly or their ilk here, but rather customer reviews on sites like Amazon or GoodReads or whatnot. I write for the people, baby, not the critics. Viva la Revolution!)
(That being said, I do love the critics, and hope they give me other positive snippets that I can extract from their reviews and use for promotion, should I be fortunate enough to write a second book. Love you, critics. Love you guys so much.)
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I haven’t checked my customer reviews. I couldn’t do this in good conscience, especially when I’m the same guy who, when his blog started talking off, would masturbate to SiteMeter stats, and the same guy who, in a somewhat embarrassing post on this here blog shortly after the book was released, wrote that he was aiming for 50 positive reviews on Amazon and asked you lovelies to contribute. But I can tell you in all honesty that I’ve been much, much better about this than I thought. In my old age, I’ve come to learn that it’s all relative: sometimes life is good, sometimes life is bad; some people will love the book, some people will hate the book – as long as I make it home each night and get to sit on my couch to watch a murder show I haven’t seen before, then it’s all gonna be alright. In the case of reviews, you can only hope that those that fall into the “hate” category explain why they feel that way, if for no other reason that an author like myself can learn from their “mistakes” and do better next time. Or use their words for a rousing session of hate masturbation. Either way, really.
For the most part, I have been lucky, and many of the reviews I’ve gotten, both from customers and critics alike, have been warm (making me feel confident enough to proclaim the book “relatively acclaimed”). Sure, there are some that are negative, but again, as long as they come with an explanation, then that’s alright with me (for example, “he’s a jerkoff and not funny” is not a good bad review; “I can’t believe this guy got to write a book when he clearly hasn’t had any actual, English-language training and my friend’s friend made out with him once and she said he keeps his eyes open – like, wide open – when he kisses and he does this thing where he doesn’t touch you but instead rubs his hands together really slowly and creepily in between you and him and he even coughs every once in a while, so I just couldn’t get into the book” is also not a good bad review, but at least it’s better than the first one.)
But recently, I came across one such not good bad review that gave me pause, and nearly broke my little cow heart. It gave the book one star, and read only:
“God, not even a little bit funny and I am sorry that I paid money for it.”
Well.
Yep, this one got me a little bit. I wasn’t so much angry or sad (again, I DVR nearly every show on Discovery ID, so there’s definitely a new murder show waiting for me when I get home at the end of the day to make it all better). But instead, perhaps it was my (MASSIVE) ego that caused me to feel disbelief. Really? “Not even a little bit funny?” 60,000+ words and you didn’t find, say, 12 of them funny? What about the dozen-plus pictures in the book? I mean, the one of me as the ten year old lesbian alone is worth about $2 of the cover price! As I said, my current life motto, or at least my current approach to life, is that it’s all relative, subjective. “Not even a little bit funny” sounds awfully absolute to me.
I managed to collect myself, but I still was haunted by those words presented without further explanation: “not even a little bit funny.” So, falling back on that ego again, I thought that I’d check some of the other books this person – let’s call him or her NEALBF for “not even a little bit funny” – had reviewed, thinking maybe that NEALBF was a really hard-ass and hated everything. I mean, my book is funny, right?
(Right?)
(RIGHT???)
But to my surprise, NEALBF is not a hater, and he/she gave out many, many positive, five-star book reviews. There were literally dozens of them. But as soon as I saw the first two or so, I noticed a curious theme.
Below are the titles of some of the five-star reviews handed out by NEALBF. I have also included a random sentence from that particular book’s description on Amazon, as well as what I was thinking when I read the descriptions of these books, beloved and starred-up as they are by NEALBF. Tell me if you too can pick up on the theme here.
SNOW WHITE AND THE ROSE RED – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “And when the kindly, intelligent black bear wanders into their cottage some months later, they realize the connection between his plight and the sorcery they saw in the forest.”
Um, huh? A “kindly, intelligent black bear”? Moreover, a “kindly, intelligent black bear” that has a “plight” that doesn’t involve eating lot of salmon, hibernating, fucking and shitting? And sorcery? What the hell is this?
THE WICKED DAY (ARTHURIAN SAGA, #4) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “Born of an incestuous relationship between King Arthur and his half sister, the evil sorceress Morgause, the bastard Mordred is reared in secrecy.”
Oh, I get it – we’re squarely in “Renaissance Fair” territory here. I’m gonna take a leap of faith here and guess that NEALBF didn’t go to the prom and/or regularly masturbates with a (replica) staff of Gandalf halfway up his or her ass.
BLACK TRILLIUM (THE SAGA OF THE TRILLIUM, #1) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “Ruwenda’s rulers are brutally slain, but their daughters–the three Petals of the Living Trillium, prophesied to save their country in a time of peril–flee to the Archimage Binah, who directs them to their magic talismans.”
Are these daughters hot? This definitely has “porn movie premise” potential, as the three daughters fuck their kingdom to safety. If this is the case, I’d probably give this book five stars, too.
SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN
Random line from description of book: “Corie accompanies her Uncle Jaxon on a hunt for the Aliora, faerielike creatures who serve as unwilling slaves to the humans inhabiting this quasi-medieval world.”
Ok, I’ve definitely seen a porno with this premise. Hunting for fairy (sex) slaves in medieval times? I think Brianna Banks was in it, as well as that dude with the long hair who’s in everything now (Evan something?). If I recall correctly, Brianna did a DP scene while wearing wings.
MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “Soon [Mrs. Frisby] finds herself flying on the back of a crow, slipping sleeping powder into a ferocious cat’s dinner dish, and helping 108 brilliant, laboratory-enhanced rats escape to a utopian civilization of their own design, no longer to live ‘on the edge of somebody else’s, like fleas on a dog’s back.’”
I actually think I’ve heard of this one. And also maybe even have read it, a few years back. You know, when I was a child.
BEING A GREEN MOTHER (INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY, #5) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “A young girl’s lifelong pursuit of the ‘Llano,’ the elusive Song of Natureleads, her to her destiny as the Incarnation of Nature and tricks her into a bargain with the Incarnation of Evil to halt the world’s destruction.”
This one just pisses me off, as this is the exact title of my second memoir…
DRAGONSINGER (PERN: HARPER HALL, #2) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “When Menolly, daughter of Yanus Sea Holder, arrived at the Harper Craft Hall, she came in style, aboard a huge bronze dragon, followed by her nine fire lizards.”
…and I was planning on feature fire lizards in my second book. Crap. At least my current draft has thirteen fire lizards, as opposed to this shitty book’s nine (the two maxims of writing: “Write what you know” and “You can never have enough fire lizards.”)
************
So I get it: if you like books with stories about kindly black bears, King Arthur, orphaned daughters who save kingdoms and faerielike creatures, you are probably not going to in any way, shape or form like a story about a 13 year old me trying on a condom for the first time. Loud and clear. I get it. I get it. And we can still be friends.
See? It’s all relative. Now here’s hoping there’s a new 48 Hours on ID, Unusual Suspects, or Wicked Attraction waiting for me on the DVR tonight.
(See? Real-live published author and I’m not sure if I should use “is” or “are” there. Man, they’ll give book deals to just about anyone these days.)
Ever since I finished writing my book, I admit that I’ve vacillated between being concerned with what the reviews might say and feeling entirely apathetic toward them. On the one hand, I don’t have to tell you that I wasn’t exactly shooting for ol’ Bill Shakespeare or Leo Tolstoy here. Sure, I wanted to tell some good stories and make the best penis jokes as I possibly could, but I more or less was aiming for, “I read it in a few days, I laughed a few times, and it was totally worth the $14. Awesome purchase, fun read, and would recommend it.” That’s it. As I’ve said before, as long as you chuckled at some parts, thought it was worth the money, and maybe even bought it as a gift for that special person in your life who is from Philly/from any big city/is (or was) Irish Catholic/grew up in a large, dangerous or possibly even criminal extended family/loves run on sentences and poop humor, then I’d be happy. Uncle Jason knows his limits, thankyouverymuch.
But on the other hand, anytime someone more or less says “You suck,” well, it’s going to bum you out, at least a little bit. Contrary to what you may have heard from various ex-lovers of mine, deep down inside my gruff, handsome in a “If Meatloaf and Peter Jackson had a kid” kinda way, I am a sensitive man, with the soul of poet and the heart of a cow. And when you pierce that heart, well, it hurts. It hurts.
(And note that I’m not talking about reviews from Publishers Weekly or their ilk here, but rather customer reviews on sites like Amazon or GoodReads or whatnot. I write for the people, baby, not the critics. Viva la Revolution!)
(That being said, I do love the critics, and hope they give me other positive snippets that I can extract from their reviews and use for promotion, should I be fortunate enough to write a second book. Love you, critics. Love you guys so much.)
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that I haven’t checked my customer reviews. I couldn’t do this in good conscience, especially when I’m the same guy who, when his blog started talking off, would masturbate to SiteMeter stats, and the same guy who, in a somewhat embarrassing post on this here blog shortly after the book was released, wrote that he was aiming for 50 positive reviews on Amazon and asked you lovelies to contribute. But I can tell you in all honesty that I’ve been much, much better about this than I thought. In my old age, I’ve come to learn that it’s all relative: sometimes life is good, sometimes life is bad; some people will love the book, some people will hate the book – as long as I make it home each night and get to sit on my couch to watch a murder show I haven’t seen before, then it’s all gonna be alright. In the case of reviews, you can only hope that those that fall into the “hate” category explain why they feel that way, if for no other reason that an author like myself can learn from their “mistakes” and do better next time. Or use their words for a rousing session of hate masturbation. Either way, really.
For the most part, I have been lucky, and many of the reviews I’ve gotten, both from customers and critics alike, have been warm (making me feel confident enough to proclaim the book “relatively acclaimed”). Sure, there are some that are negative, but again, as long as they come with an explanation, then that’s alright with me (for example, “he’s a jerkoff and not funny” is not a good bad review; “I can’t believe this guy got to write a book when he clearly hasn’t had any actual, English-language training and my friend’s friend made out with him once and she said he keeps his eyes open – like, wide open – when he kisses and he does this thing where he doesn’t touch you but instead rubs his hands together really slowly and creepily in between you and him and he even coughs every once in a while, so I just couldn’t get into the book” is also not a good bad review, but at least it’s better than the first one.)
But recently, I came across one such not good bad review that gave me pause, and nearly broke my little cow heart. It gave the book one star, and read only:
“God, not even a little bit funny and I am sorry that I paid money for it.”
Well.
Yep, this one got me a little bit. I wasn’t so much angry or sad (again, I DVR nearly every show on Discovery ID, so there’s definitely a new murder show waiting for me when I get home at the end of the day to make it all better). But instead, perhaps it was my (MASSIVE) ego that caused me to feel disbelief. Really? “Not even a little bit funny?” 60,000+ words and you didn’t find, say, 12 of them funny? What about the dozen-plus pictures in the book? I mean, the one of me as the ten year old lesbian alone is worth about $2 of the cover price! As I said, my current life motto, or at least my current approach to life, is that it’s all relative, subjective. “Not even a little bit funny” sounds awfully absolute to me.
I managed to collect myself, but I still was haunted by those words presented without further explanation: “not even a little bit funny.” So, falling back on that ego again, I thought that I’d check some of the other books this person – let’s call him or her NEALBF for “not even a little bit funny” – had reviewed, thinking maybe that NEALBF was a really hard-ass and hated everything. I mean, my book is funny, right?
(Right?)
(RIGHT???)
But to my surprise, NEALBF is not a hater, and he/she gave out many, many positive, five-star book reviews. There were literally dozens of them. But as soon as I saw the first two or so, I noticed a curious theme.
Below are the titles of some of the five-star reviews handed out by NEALBF. I have also included a random sentence from that particular book’s description on Amazon, as well as what I was thinking when I read the descriptions of these books, beloved and starred-up as they are by NEALBF. Tell me if you too can pick up on the theme here.
SNOW WHITE AND THE ROSE RED – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “And when the kindly, intelligent black bear wanders into their cottage some months later, they realize the connection between his plight and the sorcery they saw in the forest.”
Um, huh? A “kindly, intelligent black bear”? Moreover, a “kindly, intelligent black bear” that has a “plight” that doesn’t involve eating lot of salmon, hibernating, fucking and shitting? And sorcery? What the hell is this?
THE WICKED DAY (ARTHURIAN SAGA, #4) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “Born of an incestuous relationship between King Arthur and his half sister, the evil sorceress Morgause, the bastard Mordred is reared in secrecy.”
Oh, I get it – we’re squarely in “Renaissance Fair” territory here. I’m gonna take a leap of faith here and guess that NEALBF didn’t go to the prom and/or regularly masturbates with a (replica) staff of Gandalf halfway up his or her ass.
BLACK TRILLIUM (THE SAGA OF THE TRILLIUM, #1) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “Ruwenda’s rulers are brutally slain, but their daughters–the three Petals of the Living Trillium, prophesied to save their country in a time of peril–flee to the Archimage Binah, who directs them to their magic talismans.”
Are these daughters hot? This definitely has “porn movie premise” potential, as the three daughters fuck their kingdom to safety. If this is the case, I’d probably give this book five stars, too.
SUMMERS AT CASTLE AUBURN
Random line from description of book: “Corie accompanies her Uncle Jaxon on a hunt for the Aliora, faerielike creatures who serve as unwilling slaves to the humans inhabiting this quasi-medieval world.”
Ok, I’ve definitely seen a porno with this premise. Hunting for fairy (sex) slaves in medieval times? I think Brianna Banks was in it, as well as that dude with the long hair who’s in everything now (Evan something?). If I recall correctly, Brianna did a DP scene while wearing wings.
MRS. FRISBY AND THE RATS OF NIMH – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “Soon [Mrs. Frisby] finds herself flying on the back of a crow, slipping sleeping powder into a ferocious cat’s dinner dish, and helping 108 brilliant, laboratory-enhanced rats escape to a utopian civilization of their own design, no longer to live ‘on the edge of somebody else’s, like fleas on a dog’s back.’”
I actually think I’ve heard of this one. And also maybe even have read it, a few years back. You know, when I was a child.
BEING A GREEN MOTHER (INCARNATIONS OF IMMORTALITY, #5) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “A young girl’s lifelong pursuit of the ‘Llano,’ the elusive Song of Natureleads, her to her destiny as the Incarnation of Nature and tricks her into a bargain with the Incarnation of Evil to halt the world’s destruction.”
This one just pisses me off, as this is the exact title of my second memoir…
DRAGONSINGER (PERN: HARPER HALL, #2) – Five Stars
Random line from description of book: “When Menolly, daughter of Yanus Sea Holder, arrived at the Harper Craft Hall, she came in style, aboard a huge bronze dragon, followed by her nine fire lizards.”
…and I was planning on feature fire lizards in my second book. Crap. At least my current draft has thirteen fire lizards, as opposed to this shitty book’s nine (the two maxims of writing: “Write what you know” and “You can never have enough fire lizards.”)
************
So I get it: if you like books with stories about kindly black bears, King Arthur, orphaned daughters who save kingdoms and faerielike creatures, you are probably not going to in any way, shape or form like a story about a 13 year old me trying on a condom for the first time. Loud and clear. I get it. I get it. And we can still be friends.
See? It’s all relative. Now here’s hoping there’s a new 48 Hours on ID, Unusual Suspects, or Wicked Attraction waiting for me on the DVR tonight.