drinkdrankdrunk: Excerpt From The Loud Boys By Karl Wenclas

 

TUESDAY MORNING: AT THE NEWSPAPER

The newspaper offices:  glass interrupted by black-and-white horizontal lines.  A young woman striding through the entrance disturbed the building’s impersonal design.

The city newspaper’s new publisher, Howell, was hand-picked representative of the billionaire venture capitalist who’d bought the 170 year-old legacy relic for ten percent of what it’d once been worth.  Shortly after arriving in town and studying the operation, Howell had taken over editorial duties as well.

“We’re not doing journalism,” Howell told the staffers from behind a smartphone held in front of his face.  “Journalism is dead. We’re not objective. Neither are we partisans. Our slant--our politics--is what sells.”

He’d done a stint in Silicon Valley as well as New York, and subscribed to the tech mindset.  “Data, Then More Data!” his mantra, to the extent he had the slogan emblazoned in bold crimson-red letters on a large white banner hanging over the main entrance of their new, downsized headquarters.

Then he fired most of the long-time staff and brought in free-lancers and contract employees.

He was a thirty-nine-year-old arrogant cushion of a man wearing Warby-Parker eyeglasses, who’d been raised on video games and sci-fi CGI films.  If it wasn’t electronic, he didn’t want it.

“The bottom line is views,” he told Dara Defiant when she arrived in his office to discuss a new assignment.  “More views, subscribers, numbers, however we get them.  More personalities, celebrities, drama.  In this newspaper.  On screens.  Scandals.  Targets.  Triggers.  Tragedy.  Controversy.”

The office looked like it’d been erected yesterday, and would be gone tomorrow.

“That’s why I’m here,” Dara said with indecipherable eyes. “That’s what I write.”

As ruthless as he pretended to be, coddled Howell was intimidated by his encounters with Dara.  When she walked, her figure cut through the atmosphere as if separate from it.  Tangibly alive.

“What I like about you, Dara,” he said, blinking as he scrutinized her through his glasses (his eyes trained for screens, not people) “is you have no illusions.”

Dara thought to herself at age twenty-five maybe she should still have a few illusions.

"King" Karl Wenclas has a new novel out, The Loud Boys!  I am happy to run an excerpt from it as part of drinkdrankdrunk!  Check out his "War Hysteria" in The Underground Literary Alliance anthology and his current New Pop Lit project.  Finding good contemporary writing can be difficult these days, so the King is a good guide to it, whether it's his own or that of others.  He's also still blogging occasionally at Attacking The Demi-Puppets, trying to give American Lit. the jump start it so desperately needs these days!

The Front Yard War Available In Print!

 

If you see a chemlawn truck pull up on your street, then that's a bummer.  Fortunately, in the winter, one doesn't see them much, so score one for the cold season.  Another reason to celebrate is that the print edition of The Front Yard War is now out.  Amazon usually does a nice job on their print on demand paperbacks, so I'm hoping that's the case here.  I haven't seen a copy myself yet.  One change I made with this paperback is that I went with indented paragraphs instead of the blank line between paragraphs I prefer.  All those blank lines add up though and would contribute to more pages costing more.  So with inflation raging still I elected to keep costs down, so The Front Yard War costs the same as Fast Guy Slows Down did in 2022 (and still does), Edna's Employment Agency did in 2020 (and still does), and so on.  You can't say that about many products these days.  And it's not even shrinkflation.  The word count is about the same as the last novel; it's just a thinner paperback due to the indenting.  If you want a print edition and want to save more money, then order the pdf version directly from me (epub also available, though that is not as print-friendly) for $5 USD (PayPal me at wredfright AT yahoo DOTT com) and print it out yourself (maybe your local public library has free or cheap printing, for example).  As for Amazon, the Kindle version is here, and the paperback version is here.  They are $5 and $15 USD respectively.  They'll probably charge you shipping on the paperback unless you have Amazon Prime or are ordering more stuff, and they likely charge sales tax on both (the government always wants its cut, even from indie lit).  I'm working on the Google Books edition next, so stay tuned for those Googler fans!

The Hoof & Antler

I wrote an article on Mega Championship Wrestling for the new The Hoof & Antler.  The Hoof is a fun quarterly newspaper given out at various Mickey Marts.  The newspaper is free, so if you live near one, please stop in, say hello to the moose statue, and pick up a copy.  If you don't live near a Mickey Mart, then you're probably out of luck.  The Hoof seems to be part of the new revenge of print such as County Highway and Capitol Hill Citizen wherein cool stuff doesn't appear online.  I don't think they do mail order either, but if you live in northern Ohio, USA, then you're in luck (maybe the first time that phrase has ever been used in the history of humanity . . .)!  It was fun interviewing Brandon Xavier of Mega.  The great wrestling photos are by Dirk the editor.

If you want to read more writing by me about wrestling, then please check out Blog Love Omega Glee, where I had quite a lot of fun creating silly wrestling storylines as part of the novel.  Also, the print version of The Front Yard War is in the works.

Cool Yule 2024!

  

And we're almost through 2024.  It doesn't seem that long ago we were counting down to it, does it?  Well, I wish you a cool Yule from this longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.  Curl up with a good book (might I suggest The Front Yard War?) or jam some tunes (might I suggest Gang Of Foreigner?), but whatever you do, I hope you have a good time and take that fun into 2025!  See you next year!

First The Front Yard War Review!

 

Years ago, I took pictures of Crazy Carl Robinson's lawn when he was living in Iowa, USA.  I stopped by to see him soon after I had given a paper on the symbolism of the front yard at the popular culture conference in Chicago.  I think I was planning at the time to expand the paper into a larger work, though I didn't know then that it would be a novel.  Anyway, the pictures have waited patiently for over a decade now, so it seems fitting to finally use one to illustrate the first review of The Front Yard War (available as an ebook--PDF or EPUB--from me directly for $5--PayPal wredfright AT yahoo DOTT com-- and on Amazon; the print version is coming probably early next year--until then you can always print out the PDF, probably cheaper anyway--more ebook retailers will also be coming next year) since the first reviewer is Carl!  I like this photo in particular because of the way the dandelions were growing sideways out of the bricks.  Carl was renting then, if I remember correctly, so he wasn't in charge of the landscaping.  That would be the responsibility of his landlord, and he must have been a cool landlord at least as far as the dandelions were concerned.  Usually, just from walking down a street, you can tell the good folks from the lawns that have dandelions on them.  Probably not 100% true, but it's a good rule of thumb to go by in when you don't have much other data to draw upon.  Anyway, I'm delighted that Carl is the first one to review the new novel.  He and King Karl Wenclas--oddly enough, they have the same sounding first name--are probably the two best living literary critics, albeit unconventional ones, in America.  And though Carl may be slightly biased since I've known him for so long, but as you can tell from the review, he doesn't hold much back, so if he thought it sucked, we'd know.  Here's the review.  Thanks, Carl!  Check out his own books as well.  They're great!:

THE-MAMA’S-BOY-WHO-TAKES-CARE-OF-HIS-ELDERLY/DEMENTED-MOTHER-WHO-NEEDS-A-$7400-FERRIS-LAWNMOWER-TO-SIGNIFY-SOMETHING-TO-SOMEBODY-SOMEWHERE (AKA: A REVIEW OF WRED FRIGHT’S “YARD”)

full disclosure: i paid $7400 for a no-turn ferris riding lawnmower last spring…..my dad passed away 2 years ago and i was obliged to move home to take care of my 84-year-old mother….i have 6.5 acres of grass to cut and the rats chewed the fuel line on my dad’s 1984 wheelhorse……before his death, my dad had been paying our redneck neighbor (who-tells-every-male-that-his-son-has-a-giant-cock) $1500 a season to cut our grass…..if you’re curious, my redneck neighbor has a yard the size of a matchbook (which he could cut with a push mower in 45 minutes) yet his lawnmower costs $9300….2 carpetbagging lesbians from dc just moved in next door and they use a lawn service to cut their grass---and if my dad paid $1500 a season, i bet they pay $4500…..my high school is across the street and every country fuck driving down the road could tell you if i accidentally ran over a begonia in may…..my mom has sundowners and dementia and she wasn’t necessarily sane in 2000….she punches me in the face every 3-4 days, she calls her sisters and threatens suicide every 3-4 days and sometimes she hallucinates that i’m an evil female nurse…..in 2024, i’m down to signifying my identity as a human being on social media---and yes, there’s a picture of me in a straw hat next to the $7400 ferris…..i’d love to online-signify that I have a beautiful wife and a red, chubby-cheeked daughter…..i’d love to signify that i’m teaching at uva and turning down invitations to sorority parties…..i’d love to signify that i’m 57 and still going to football games and music festivals, but i spend my days inside the mental institution listening to my mother threaten to call 911 if i open a blind or leave pee in the toilet…..i don’t want to signify the social status attached to owning a $7400 lawn mower, but it doesn’t feel like i have anything else going on in 2024-----and i think that’s part of wred fright’s point in “yard”…..and if you want an official statement on my yard, i would like it to be green and full of bumblebees and groundhogs……and assuming my mother passes before i do (and spots in my head are more stroke-numb every day), i don’t plan on building any gazebos in the shape of my profile---my yard would be: groundhogs, bumblebees and me (if i were free)

i must confess that i’m not really in the mood to write a book review of “yard” right now, but i’m pleased that wred fright has retained the title of comic strip superhero for the working class….i’m the kind of asshole who reads the last page of a book first and i think wred fright’s afterword serves as a fine introduction to the overall meaning of his novel…..does your yard really belong to you?----it does in the sense that your social media page belongs to you…..at one point, wred fright compares the “american mania for lawns” to estates in great britain and i think that’s as good a place as any to begin to understand wred fright’s message for us…..in many respects, “yard” is more of a cultural read of america/americans than it is of our respective yards….do you notice the pink flamingos in the-creep-down-the-street’s yard?---wred fright does…..do you feel sorry for the-old-man-who-wonders-if-this-will-be-his-last-summer?----wred fright does……do you wave at the-kia-driving-bitch and the-woman-who-doesn’t-want-to-be-a-cougar when they drive through the neighborhood?----wred fright doesn’t want to, but he’s horny, so he does….wred fright can also predict how well-manicured a-woman-who-eats-cookies-on-the-toilet’s lawn will be and he knows how many days it’ll take the city of cleveland to give you a ticket for length of your weeds (per the parma township rulebook)…..wred fright knows the date/time of when rand paul fought with his neighbor over lawn care and he could write a dissertation (with 101 citations) of every time republicans and democrats went to battle over lawn care pesticides in sweet home mogadore

in a review of wred fright’s work during the bush administration, i described wred fright as a “comic strip character making his way through the wasteland of modern america”…..in a review during the obama years, i compared wred fright to fred armisen in a “portlandia” skit entitled “early onset grumpiness”……well, our loveable grumblebunny continues to fight the good fight during the terror that has been the joe biden administration (which in retrospect, might be the worst of all)……i used to assume that wred fright erred on the side of being a democrat, but now i realize that wred fright is fair/balanced in his criticism of all things (and yes, i realize that the buzz words, “fair” and “balanced” used to be associated with fox news, but kids in 2024 don’t even know what fox news or cable tv is)….you could call wred fright an old (working class) punk, but i truly believe that his perspective is as fair and balanced as that of any writer that i have ever encountered....in his most recent novel, wred fright’s critique of american lawn care comes across as a light/breezy satire of america’s obsession with all things “yard”……wred fright doesn’t pull any punches and his treatment of modern treehuggers is as valid as his treatment of trust fund babies is as valid of his treatment of a divorced couple waging suburban war over who cuts the grass in the wife’s front yard…..more importantly, wred fright isn’t mean/nasty in his depiction of the yards and/or mindsets of his friend and neighbors…wred fright (as grumblebunny) is simply going for a walk through the neighborhood and describing what he sees……his satire remind me of the work of “bloom county” creator, berkeley breathed----and seeing things through the eyes of wred fright in 2024 is comparable to seeing things from the perspective of opus-the-penguin in 1984……opus is simply telling us the truth as he sees it, but opus is never heavy-handed and the characters he meets never seem unredeemable (except maybe in a cartoon way)…..i’d like to write more, but my mom’s 2 favorite hobbies in 2024 = 1) drowning stink bugs in the toilet and 2) driving around making fun of poor peoples’ yards----and c rob gets kinda excited when 6-7 cars-on-blocks in someone’s yard pisses her off…..would cutter john pay $7400 for a riding lawn mower?----no, but steve dallas might----bill-the-cat too----and under a cartoon microscope, lawn care in ronald reagan’s america doesn’t seem all that different from lawn care in sleepy joe biden’s america…..

Agree with Crazy Carl?  Disagree?  Read the novel and write your own review!

The Front Yard War Available On Kindle!

I'll be sharing some cool photos I took for the lawn research project as I post about The Front Yard War.  This one is from my old neighborhood in University Heights, Ohio USA.  You can see the snow on the sidewalk.  On that block, there might have been three people who shoveled the sidewalk when it snowed.  I was one of them.  This is looking east down the block from my shoveled sidewalk, and it looks like an iceberg as far as one can see.  This was in a neighborhood where there was a bunch of people who walked to their religious services as that was their belief.  They didn't shovel either, so they were as lazy as most of the rest of the block, but then they'd have to walk dressed mainly in black at night in the street, which wasn't too safe.  Now what does this have to do with lawns?

Well, those same people who are too lazy to shovel the sidewalk, so their neighbors don't have to walk in the street at night dressed in black will call the city to complain if someone doesn't cut their grass, and they'll tell you that's because they care about the neighborhood.

Well, they might fool themselves, but they can't fool me.  If you actually cared about the neighborhood and your neighbors, you'd break out the snow shovel in the winter and not be whining to the mayor in the summer about your neighbor's lawn just because it didn't live up to your dubious aesthetic ideals about landscaping. 

So if you want some laughs about the American yard, then please read The Front Yard War.  In addition to being available from me directly for $5 for the PDF or EPUB ebook (PayPal me at wredfright AT yahoo DOTT com), it is now available from Amazon for Kindle.  I make it available there because some folks don't want to order directly from me (maybe they're shy or more likely they just don't want to have to wait up to 24 hours to get their ebook--I send them manually via email--when Amazon will beam it immediately to your Kindle or whatnot).  Plus at one point at least Kindle users had trouble uploading an EPUB to the tablet.  They could upload the PDF, but it was always kind of a pain on the Kindle.  I don't know if that's still the case, but it's not much work to just reformat another version of the EPUB for Kindle on Sigil, which is what I use to code the EPUBs (thanks, Sigil!  Awesome as always!).  Basically, I just have to upload a separate cover for Kindle, which is pretty easy.  Kindle in general is pretty easy to publish on.  I'm not sure how widely used it still is, but as long as it's easy to do, I'll keep doing it, though I prefer the independent EPUB one can just download onto a phone or whatnot.

Anyway, this book's good, so if you're complaining about what's on tv or the state of American literature or you're just bored, then please give it a shot.  I think you'll have a good time reading.  You can even read the first chapter or so through the sample on the Amazon page.  If you like it, buy the damn thing and finish the novel!  While you're doing that, I'll be working on the print version . . .