Super Me?

Greetings, WYMOP fans!

So with all the uproar over the impending Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie, I’ve decided to embrace my inner spaz, and blather on about a topic that will look really familiar to most—if not all—of the men out there. No, it’s not who do I think will win; I don’t want to be accused of spoiling the film for some comic book fan a year from now when I turn out to be right. Instead I want to look at something most men out there have already discussed: what super power would I really want?

And I’m not talking about childhood discussions, here; I don’t know about you, ladies, but the men in your lives, no matter how old they are, would most likely launch themselves balls-to-the-wall into this discussion if given half a chance, and without a thought.

Now, for the purposes of this blog, I’ve lined up five of the biggies, the ones that have probably been discussed again and again. But this is me, my opinions and my thoughts, on what super power I would want, from my current, aged, wrinkly perspective.

1) Invisibility:

Photo courtesy of
               the Huffington Post

Okay, look: one of the things I loved about my Jeep was the room that it gave me—not cargo, or passenger room, mind, but my own personal space—and the height it allowed me for stepping in and out of the vehicle. Sometimes, when I mentioned all the glorious personal space the vehicle gave me, friends would give me somewhat funny looks, as I am pretty average in the height and build department; it wasn’t like Shaquille O’Neil was trying to squeeze behind the steering wheel or anything.

I would always answer those looks in the same way: truthfully.

“I may not be big, but I’m damn clumsy.”

I am prone to missteps and whacking myself on things. In the summertime, in shorts, I have the legs of a toddler, with their constantly scraped knees and bruised shins, and I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve walked around with a cut or bruise on my otherwise smooth and shiny head, simply because I forgot to duck. And this is when I can see myself.

Were I to lose my visibility, my already pitiful ability to gauge the position of my hands and feet and everything in between would be seriously compromised. Misfortune would leap upon me with all the swift savagery of a puppy attacking an unshod foot, happily gnawing with growling, drooling abandon on the big toe of my fate. I’d give it a week—at the outside—before I was found, invisible and unconscious (and naked, don’t forget that! I’m into the classics!) at the foot of the stairs, having bashed myself into amnesia with a misstep, leaving the police no choice but to make the rounds with an ID photo showing naught but a visibly empty bed.

Invisibility: no.

2) Super Strength:

I once mentioned, in a review I wrote of the film WolfCop, that, were I to suddenly gain greater-than-human strength “ . . . when I was fourteen, I would have been right down at the park, whoopin’ ass in a neighborhood football game. I’m forty-six, and if I got super strength and speed today, then tomorrow you’d find me hanging at the local park, football in hand, waiting for the locals to start choosing up sides.”  I stand by that declaration.

However . . .

If I were getting to plan ahead and chooses power, I’m not sure I’d go with the ability to bench-press Kanye West’s ego. I believe I’ve explained that I am not the most graceful of persons (see above). I’m not even in the top 25%. I’m more in the Oh, that looked painful category.

If you’ve ever seen The Incredibles, you may remember the scene where Mr.

Incredible (who has super strength) accidentally breaks his car a bit (if you don’t, click HERE). That was just thirty seconds of his life, but it probably cost him hundreds of dollars in auto repair. In just thirty seconds. If I suddenly gained Mighty Muscles, or Samson Strength, or whatever cool name you want to put on it, I give myself a week before I’d need: a new car, a new computer, new doors throughout the house, a new toilet, and (this is the icky one, folks) a new puppy for my son—and that’s just off the top of my head. For me, super strength equals financial ruin.

Super Strength: no.

3) Super Speed:

A mailman with super speed. Hardy-har-har, I can hear the jokes now. Cartoons of a turtle wearing a jetpack. Copies of the movie Turbo being randomly left where I could find

them. But it wouldn’t be a joke: if I had increased speed, and my bosses ever found out about it, everyone in my office would be let go so I could deliver the entire town. Every day.

That, my friends, is no fantasy—it’s how upper management in the Postal Service thinks. Someone would get a bonus for coming up with the idea (and you can bet your sweet sitting-parts that no bonus would be coming my way), and I’d be doing the entire town myself. Thirty-five people would lose their jobs, and I’d be the most hated man in the Postal Service. That super speed sure would come in handy when some of the union hit-men—excuse me, I meant representatives—came after me to . . . to talk, yeah, that’s it. Talk. Super Speed would mean being hated and despised, and doing a lot more work for no more money.

Super Speed: no

4) Flight:

We’ve all had that dream, haven’t we? Winging through the air like a bird, looking down upon roof-and-treetops, swooping and diving, then climbing up, up, up, until we punch through the clouds into the brilliant sunshine above, all about us columns and planes of visible vapor, as we soar above a beautiful white landscape in the sky . . .

One problem with that beautiful dream: that would be my nightmare. I’m afraid of heights. I don’t do roller coasters. I avoid the window seat when I fly. It’s a white-knuckle trip every year when I get on the ladder to put up the Christmas lights—which might explain why it takes me so long to get them down again. The one time I tried to do a ferris wheel with my son, just to show the tyke (this was quite a while ago) there was nothing to be afraid of, he wound up asking why Daddy was crying.

It ain’t pretty.

So if I were to choose flight as my super power, the best thing I could say about it would be that I wouldn’t need a nemesis, or one of those arch-enemies the comic book heroes are always spouting off about: all I’d have to do is fly too high, and I’d wet myself to death long before the sun got to melt my wings of wax.

Flight: oh, hell no!

5) Super Brain:

Hmm . . . the Super Brain. I decided to call it the Super Brain rather than Super Intelligence, because there are several different facets to it. Oh, sure, Tony Stark requires some serious intelligence to create the Iron Man suit, just as Reed Richards does for his inventions, and Green Arrow for his trick arrows, Batman and his bat-everything, Lex Luthor and his evil plans . . . but does it only take intelligence? Each of the above mentioned characters has a huge amount of creative genius—the ability to think outside the box, to look at things in a new and different way—not just sheer knowledge. And Batman’s greatest power, arguably, is his inductive ability: he’s DC’s version of the world’s greatest detective.

So, let’s see: is there a downside to brains as a super power?

Well, people might call me a nerd.

Oh, wait, they do that anyway.

People might start making fun of me for my sense of humor, if I start finding stuff funny that they just don’t get.

Oh, hang on. I already love puns. Damn.

I’d probably lose my social skills. I mean, if I had any social skills.

Well, it’s not a downside, but I’d probably start trying to make a living using my brain, rather than walking my route every day . . . like, oh, I don’t know, writing or something.

Waitaminute!

People call me a nerd because half the time they don’t understand what I’m talking about, I have the social skills of a hermit crab with jock itch, I laugh at things people don’t find funny on an hourly basis, and I’m trying to make a go of doing something with my brain that requires at least marginal intelligence and mondo creativity . . .

  . . . holy shit! I’m a superhero!

Sweet!

Talk to you later!

On Dialogue

Hey there, WYMOP readers!

Today’s just going to be a quickie about writing—well, a particular aspect of writing.

But not to worry, you non-writers who are reading this (and I think there are quite a few of you): this is actually aimed mostly at you, though I think some of the writers will get a kick out of this as well.

Dialogue.

Occasionally I’ll see a writer post something about being terrible at writing dialogue, or have someone mention to me how difficult it is. I’ve also seen non-writers respond to that post, or make comments if we’re in person, and sometimes those non-writers are confused.

“Dialogue is just writing what people say, right? People are talking around us all the time, right? All you have to do is listen, and write it the way you hear it. Easy peasy. Right?”

Not quite. Writing dialogue is easy. Writing good dialogue is harder, dialogue that’s going to keep a reader’s attention, and not sound stilted. Dialogue that’s going to sound real to the reader, and not make them point at the page and say “Whoa, dude, people just don’t talk like that!”

“But it’s like I said just two paragraphs back,” says one of the confused non-writers. “You just have to listen to people talk, and write it that way!”

Have you ever just sat and listened to two people talk? I mean, not watched them talk, seeing all the gestures, body language, and facial expression that go into everyday conversation, but listened only to the words? I was working at the kitchen table yesterday morning, banging away at the keys like I am now, when my parents came into the kitchen behind me. They were in the middle of a conversation, and this is what I heard:

Dad: That show about the guy who went to prison for the rape and murder of this girl.

Mom: And he didn’t do it?

Dad: There was this new DNA evidence.

Mom: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Dad: It stars that guy from that cult thing.

Mom: That cult thing . . .

Dad: The cult thing with that guy.

Mom: The cult thing with that guy. That guy . . .

Dad: You know, Brenda Leigh’s husband.

Mom: Brenda Leigh?

Dad: Yeah. Her husband. In real life.

Mom: Wait a minute. Kevin Bacon.

Dad: Yes!

Huh?

They walked out of the room, he into the living room, she upstairs toward the bedroom. Thirty seconds later, Dad shouted up the stairs:

“Rectify!”

Now, I’m not making fun of my parents here—okay, maybe a little—but this is a snippet of what an awful lot of conversation looks like on the printed page. Riveting, huh? Without seeing the flapping hands, or the eyes squinting in confusion, it just falls rather flat—and without the shared experience between the talkers, sometimes it’s downright confusing: it wasn’t until Kevin Bacon was mentioned that I realized the Brenda Leigh my father mentioned wasn’t just someone they knew, but was actually the character in The Closer played by Kyra Sedgwick, whose husband, in real life, is Kevin Bacon.

Do you really want page after page of that to read?

I thought not.

So the next time you’re wondering what the big deal is about writing “realistic” dialogue, go find someplace with people, take a seat, and close your eyes.

Listen.

Chances are, they’ll wonder what the hell you’re laughing at.

—Talk to you later!

Who Needs Pumpkins?

So. Being the caretaker of a 12-year old boy is . . . interesting. A study in contrasts. The good and the bad. I’ll try to explain.

You might have noticed I said “caretaker” up there, not “parent”, or “father.” I’m proud to be a father, and tell people all the time. I do—if you know me, back me up here: I’ve probably told you at least one story about my kid. Probably more. They were probably funny: he’s a funny kid, and I have a terrific sense of humor.

Note—most times, when someone tells you they have a terrific sense of humor, it’s like when someone says “I don’t mean to be rude, here,” or “I don’t mean to butt in”: complete and utter bullshit. This time, however, the words are the sweetest truth—Rob does, indeed, have the best sense of humor he’s ever encountered.

—The Management

No, I didn’t say “caretaker” for any other reason than that’s what it’s like sometimes: being a caretaker at a very small zoo. Just one exhibit. There’s a room in the house that smells a little bit like an animal den, though the dogs themselves are not allowed inside. It’s kind of steamy, with a sort of rain forest atmosphere, and it’s always dark in there. If you look closely you can spot a structure we refer to as a bed, though in reality it’s more nest-like than anything else, cast-off clothes and blankets forming a warm, comfy pile that can be either lain upon or burrowed under, depending on the weather and season.

In this den lives . . . a creature.

The creature (we call him Handsome, for anyone who may have forgotten), is roughly man shaped, and sized—in fact, we can now share clothes, which will make it pretty easy to Christmas shop this year. I’ve already picked out a number of shirts that will look good on me—I mean, that look like they’ll fit him. But I digress. The beast seems to communicate in almost nothing but grunts and a sort of muttering, though when provoked can roar a variety of phrases at surprising volume. There’s “In a minute!” and “In a minute!” and, when he’s really provoked, there’s “In a minute!”

Yesterday I managed to pry the Handsome from his lair with promises of food and a well-placed cattle-prod. He emerged from his hole grumpy, glaring about, blinking in the unaccustomed daylight. I had the Handsome help me with a task or two I had about the house, but it was a constant battle. The Handsome does not take well to harness, and the phrase stubborn as a mule comes to mind. Eventually, I lost track of the Handsome, and he slipped away from me.

I found him back in his lair, where I stood in the doorway and tried to call them out again. I saw nothing but his silhouette against the computer screen, a head misshapen by oversize headphones, the phones clinging to his ears like long-lost friends. I could hear the video he was watching, or the game he was playing, right through the phones, so I raised my voice, shouting my call.

The call was answered immediately with a roar of “In a minute,” the sound of a young male defending what he sees as his territory; I’d get no more work from the beast today. With a sigh, I shut the enclosure door and went about my business.

~ ~ * * ~ ~

Hours later, I finished my projects, and decided to hit the shower before it was time to go. It was dark outside now, and there hadn’t been a peep out of the boy’s room. The house lights were on, and I was tired, so I stepped into the shower. And then I stepped out. I opened the bathroom door, clad in my fresh clothes—and stopped dead when I saw the darkened house before me.

What had happened to all the lights? Was there a power outage? No, there couldn’t be—the lights in the bathroom were still on, and had not flickered, so . . . I poked my head around the corner, calling a quiet “Hello” into the darkness, in good not-going-to-survive-the-horror-movie fashion—and saw a light off in the dining room. It was faint, and small, and seemed to be flickering.

I walked closer, making my way slowly through the shadows of the kitchen. The light in the dining room did not retreat, and seemed to be on top of the dining room table, where I’d left my ChromeBook and bag. I walked closer.

  . . . closer  . . .

What was this? A tiny, flickering face in the dark? I peered more closely, noticing for the first time that there was a piece of paper in front of the face—there was writing on it, though I could barely make out the presence of the letters in the dim, unsteady light spilling from the tiny head in front of me.

So I turned on the lights.

It was a jack-o-lantern made from an extra-large Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate cup, a worn tea light candle, scooped from the holder on the stove, nestled down within it to give it life. While I had been in the shower, the Handsome had carved this thing for me, found the smallest of candles to put within it, then run about the house dousing all the lights to give his creation its full power. In front of the thing he’d left me a note: 

Who needs pumpkins?

Awwww . . .

Yeah, sometimes having a 12-year old boy is a lot like keeping a small and very private zoo. But lots of times, and this was one of them, I just love being a dad.

—Talk to you later!

I'm Back!

Hi. I'm back.

I know (even if you don't) that I've been gone for a while. I've been doing things—writerly things—but it's all been the kind of behind-the-scenes stuff that no one much cares to read about. I took a course in editing, and then gave that a shot for a while. I edited a book

titled Demonic Visions: 50 Horror Tales, Book 5, and, let me tell you, choosing for your very first editing job to edit for fifty people . . . yeah, it's as idiotic as it sounds. If I'd had hair, I'd have been pulling it out by the roots. But I met a lot of people, and I learned from all of them. Hopefully, I helped them all put out a good book—but this is all beside the point.

Since I stopped writing While You’re Making Other Plans, a whole lot has happened. The book I wrote was pulled off the shelves and is no longer for sale—by my own request. My son, Handsome, has grown so large we can wear each other’s clothes, and he’s only twelve. I’ve joined a writing collaborative, and we plan to put out some great books together. I started writing monster movie reviews for Cinema Knife Fight. I’ve recently signed a contract for a short story collection, due to come out early next year. My day job is changing so fast I can barely keep up. There’s been exciting stuff happening—well, exciting for me, your mileage may vary—and I’ve thought along the way about sharing it with all of you, but could never figure out just how to come back.

I wrote a few special pieces, kind of trumpeting my way back into the blogging world, but none of them seemed right. I’m not very good at promoting myself, though my friends take a softer view: they tell me I suck at it. I wasn’t comfortable with any of those “special” pieces, because I don’t feel very special. I’m just me. So I set them aside and decided to try again. And again. But it never seemed to come out right.

So screw it.

I’m back, plain and simple.

I’ll be trying to post stuff here once a week—and if I fall behind, please feel free to call me on it. A quick comment of “Dude, where are you?” left either here or on my writer page on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Robert.T.Smales — look, a handy link!) should get me off my ass. I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers out there post their weekly stuff on Friday, sort of to kick off the weekend, but I’m going to do things a little differently: I’m going to post on Monday. Way too much of the fun stuff in my life happens on the weekend—I don’t want to wait a week to write some of it down. I was forgetful at twenty-six. At forty-six, I’m lucky I remember to take my ass with me when I get up in the morning, and I don’t want to miss the good stuff. Just this weekend, for instance, I:

• Did battle with a terrible Bittersweet plant. I was victorious, but what a cost!
• Watched a movie that I can’t review, but was so much fun I’d love to tell you about it when I have the time.
• Bought the boy a surprise gift: his first trimmer/edger! (It didn’t go over well)
• Had a Tool singing contest.
• Witnessed my son talking to his great grandfather—always a treat!
• And dyed my son’s hair purple. I shit you not: purple. And damn me if he doesn’t still look good.

So, starting next week I’ll be spicing up Mondays with something here at WYMOP. Sorry, Monday, but you need the spicing up. You suck, and I think you know it. So next week I’ll be here, trying to be funny for y’all. Sorry about this week, but this was just to get me started. I needed a little boost to tell you I’m back.

I’m back.

Deal with it.

Talk to you later!

I'll Have a Salad.

Greetings, WYMOP readers!

Occasionally I'll be  with Handsome, and he'll say or do something that causes me to immediately say "Okay, that's a blog."

This was one of those times.

Here's the story:

I went grocery shopping with Handsome this past Sunday.

Grocery shopping with Handsome consists mainly of finding a place to sit still and wait, while the boy goes on “hunt and destroy” missions. He snakes through the crowded aisles with an almost serpentine grace and a complete lack of manners that only the young can get away with: if I were to try to follow him, Security, the police, and possibly even the FBI would be speed-dialed by panicked folks who had, just moments before, merely shaken their heads at the antics of an overgrown 11-year old and wondered what kind of parents he had.

I am that parent, and you can usually find me sitting over by the deli.

The deli, by the way, is the perfect place to stop and wait a while in a grocery store if you’re an anti-social boob, like me. Everyone there is standing at a sort of attention, eyes fixed on the number display with all the focus of a dog who’s just heard the can opener, and clutching the small slip of numbered paper that tells them where they are in the queue.

If you get too bored, then look closely and see if you can spot the Dancer. The Dancer can be either male or female, and for some reason there always seems to be one. The Dancer is the person standing quite close to the counter even though it’s not their turn, who stares at the number display like they’re trying to set it aflame through sheer force of will. If you watch, you’ll see they’re also shifting from foot to foot, almost as if nervous about something. The price of  Imported Hickory-Smoked Yak Ham, perhaps?

No.

The Dancer has to go to the bathroom. Has to go quite badly, in fact —  elimination with extreme prejudice is in their future. But they can not leave the deli counter. If they do, then their number is immediately called out and they miss their turn, forcing them to take another number and start all over again. This is part of the magic of the deli, and is unexplainable by either science or mathematics, but it is rather fun to watch.

Other than the Dancer, the deli is usually pretty quiet. There is a sort of “elevator” feel to the place, where everyone stands in their own space, doesn’t talk, and would rather take a dripping baby gherkin to an unprotected eyeball than make actual eye-contact with any of their fellows in waiting.

Away through the crowd he went, and then back he came, one of those pre-cooked, rotisserie chickens in hand. He dropped it into the cart and was away again.

And came back again. This time with a package of thin-cut steaks.

Away again. Back again. Boneless pork chops.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

Eventually he came to rest, standing just to the other side of the cart, gazing at me across the mound of foodstuffs he’d collected with his (sometimes startlingly) blue eyes.

“Can we go? I’m hungry.”

“Sure,” I said, looking over the cart’s contents. “What do you want for dinner?”

“Can I have a salad?”

I gave him a squint worthy of a B-movie actor with a Clint Eastwood fetish.

“A what?”

“A salad.”

From behind me came a shout, a joyous sound almost giddy with delight. I shifted the cart sideways about a two feet, moving it well out of the traffic lane. Then I stared into it, poking about and moving the larger stuff, just in case I was missing something. Milk, bread, yogurt, cereal, chips, hamburger rolls, peanut butter, soda… and, of course, hamburgers, steaks, boneless pork chops and one whole chicken.

Nothing green, or leafy, or that was grown in the ground for as far as the eye could see. Or at least to the other side of the cart.

“You want a salad?”

A nod.

There was a commotion behind me, then a fast repetition of words.

“Excuse me, pardon me, excuse me…”.

I recognized the voice as the joyous shouter from moments before just as a cart whizzed through the space in the traffic lane I had so recently vacated. It was the Dancer I had spotted earlier, a woman in, of all things, blue leopard-print pants, raced along in a half-run that was a curious mix of pride and desperation.

“From what? There’s nothing but meat in here.”

“Well,” he said, big round eyes growing bigger and rounder. And, somehow, bluer. “Can’t we just put strips of steak and pork and chicken into a bowl?”

My eyes were as wide as his.

“And that’s a salad?”

Right there in the middle of the store, the boy threw his fists in the air like the home team had scored the winning touchdown, and shouted two words:

“Man-salad!”

I stared at him.

“Man-salad?” I said.

“Man-salad,” he said.

So I thought about it.

I put bacon bits on mine. It was delicious.

Talk to you later!

...and as a little extra, just for laughs (if you're into this kind of thing -- I have to say, it made me laugh), here's a little prank video!

Make sure you have your sound on, and listen to the guy on the left breathing in the end. Oh my God!