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The Drunken Odyssey

~ A Podcast About the Writing Life

The Drunken Odyssey

Monthly Archives: February 2021

Episode 461: Isaac Fitzgerald/Brigette Barrager/Leigh Hobbs!

27 Saturday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Children's Literature, Episode

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Episode 461 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, I speak with Isaac Fitzgerald and Brigette Barrager and Leigh Hobbs about children’s books.

Photo by Janine Ker.

Photo by Simon Schluter (2 May 2017).

TEXTS DISCUSSED

 

NOTES

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

I uploaded a new video to my other youtube channel, The Strangest Mouse, of the model trains at EPCOT, with very quaint music.


Episode 461 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

The Curator of Schlock #344: Evil Ed

26 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

≈ Leave a comment

The Curator of Schlock #344 by Jeff Shuster

Evil Ed

This is a wet one, folks. 

As I stated last week, Edwidge, my pet kangaroo, was tossed into a hutch filled with fine China by Wally the vampire. With Edwidge down for the count, I knew I was done for. Then I remembered a strategically placed bear trap above the fireplace right behind me. As Wally made his way toward me, fangs out, I grabbed the bear trap and brought it crashing down on his head. Wally screamed and screamed as Celestial and Jervis tried to pry it off of him. I knew this was the time for me to escape, but I never leave a kangaroo behind. Edwidge was coming to and I lifted her over my arms as I made my way out the front door into the cold night air.

schlock mansion

This week’s Arrow Home Video release is 1995’s Evil Ed from director Anders Jacobsson. This is the Special Edition of the movie or the Special Ed-Edition. This is a Swedish movie dubbed in English and I find it odd that there is no Swedish language track on the Blu-ray, Still, the English dubbing has its own charm I suppose. What I’m saying is that it doesn’t detract from the movie because the whole affair is so bizarre regardless. Let me explain.

I previously mentioned that England had thrown many horror movies into the Video Nasty category, but other countries in Europe also had it in for these kinds of movie censorship laws. Apparently, the Cinemabureau of Sweden was one of the worst film censoring bodies in the world until it was finally dismantled in 2011. Naturally, gory horror movies must have been at the top of the list which brings us to Evil Ed.

The movie begins with a film editor finally losing his mind from editing and censoring too many gory horror movies. He sticks a grenade in his mouth and pulls the pin, blowing his head apart in front of a producer named Sam Campbell (Olaf Rhodin) who screams, “You’re fired!” at the headless corpse. This brings us to Ed (Johan Rudebeck), a mild mannered editor of Swedish indie dramas. He gets transferred to the Splatter & Gore department at the orders of Sam Campbell and is now assigned the editing duties of Lose Limbs 1 through 8. The Loose Limbs series is about a maniac that likes to cut people up, piece by piece. Sam gives Ed the keys to his own house, says he’s set up an editing station there since they’re short on space at the studio.

After cutting so much bloody footage out of these slasher movies, Ed begins to hallucinate. He starts cutting a loaf of bread only to see the loaf replaced by a severed arm. He then opens the refrigerator only to be greeted by a what appears to be a goblin swigging cans of beer. The goblin then flips him the bird, calls Ed a Nazi, and throws a tomato at his face.  Sam Campbell stops by the house to inspect the final cuts of Loose Limbs and he chides Ed for removing the “beaver rape” scene. Ed says that scene was in bad taste, but Sam argues that there was no nudity in that scene therefor it doesn’t violate the censorship laws. Soon after, Ed is chased through the house by a demon with horns and when he’s cornered, he gets his courage up and snaps the demon’s neck, only to then realize the demon was Sam after all. He cuts up Sam’s body and throws it in the trash and if you think that’s the last person Sam will mutilate, you’re in for a treat as he mutilates several more.

I enjoyed Evil Ed. It reminded me of a send up of Giallo movies I saw called The Editor. Both are comedies, both feature film editors as their main characters, and both feature plenty of splatter. The Arrow Blu-ray has loads of special features and a nice transfer. It’s interesting. I don’t think of the 90s as a boom time for horror movies, but Evil Ed is worth your time if you laugh at gallows humor.


Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #111: Under the Radar

24 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart

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Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #111 by Drew Barth

Under the Radar

If we think back to comics during and after World War II an interesting trend emerges. We had the Golden Age of comics and all of the heroes and horror stories that brought—which then led to the adoption of Comics Code bullshit. Violence and death were now outlawed as egregiously un-America in comics. Unless, of course, we’re talking about war comics. The glories and goriness of war abounded in war comics at the time, but a few creators found the ideas of those war comics repugnant. And this is where a book like The Unknown Anti-War Comics comes into play.

Edited by Craig Yoe, The Unknown Anti-War Comics compiles many works published by Charlatan Comics that expressed anti-war sentiments. Featuring creators like Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Denny O’Neil, and Pat Boyette, this collection showcases some of the strongest work from these creators—especially the O’Neil and Boyette story “Children of Doom” at the end of the book. Many of the stories here were included in various Gill-penned anthologies for Charlatan like Never Again, Strange Suspense Stories, and Space Adventures, anti-war narratives that these creators were able to publish under the guise of simple sci-fi fantasies.

Many of these stories still resonate as true today. In the story “Come In, Earth—Please,” Gill and artist Charles Nicholas show us two astronauts coming out of cryogenic sleep after leaving Earth behind to explore new planets a hundred years ago. They are dismayed that they have yet to receive any communication from their fellows on Earth and, in a Twilight Zone-esque twist, discover that nuclear war has destroyed Earth and they may be the last humans left in the galaxy. In the thematically similar stories “No Common Ground” and “Journey’s End,” we see aliens who have fled their home worlds for Earth in search of life free from the violence of their original homes. Met with distrust and the threat of a full-scale nuclear war, tensions wane as children from both sides play together and show their parents the folly of their violence.

Just as comics are apt in depicting violent conflict, comics are also especially apt in encapsulating the theme that war is our path to extinction. This collection reminds us that morality is a subject that comics can explore masterfully.

Get excited. Get rid of the bomb.


Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

The Perfect Life #6: Problem-Solving With Potatoes

22 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Perfect Life

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Dear Dr. Perfect,

What is the appropriate way to eat a baked potato? The answer has begun to plague my marriage in ways I had never imagined. My wife outright delivered an ultimatum during dinner the other night. She said that she’ll leave me if I don’t start eating mine “the correct way.” I asked her what way that would be, and she refused to say. She could just be looking for an excuse, but up until now, our marriage was the picture of happiness. Where do we go from here? I slice mine in half, then apply butter and bacon bits. I don’t even like baked potatoes, but everything is riding on this. Please help solve this crisis before it ends my marriage for good.

With gratitude,

Shuddering and Spuddering

——————————————–

Dear S & S,

This question has plagued civilization since Roman times. Well, for all I know, they weren’t eating potatoes back then. I do believe it was a subject of intellectual discussion during the Renaissance, a real “hot potato,” if you will. Leonardo Da Vinci was rumored to have thrown a fully loaded baked potato at an early Mona Lisa sketch he couldn’t get right. Fast forward to the nineteenth century, to Ireland’s Great Potato Famine, and you’ll find varying degrees of records on this greatly contested issue.

Let’s begin with how I eat my baked potato. There’s really nothing to it. I boil mine in a Terra cotta pot over an open fire for about three and a half hours. That’s about thirty minutes a pound, if you’re counting. Prior to this routine, I usually invite guests over for a night of casual banter and wine, where we drink and exchange high society gossip while indulging in the finest appetizers. One evening, I panicked upon realizing I was all out of blini for the caviar and used a box of Triscuits instead. The discreet switch turned out to be a hit, with many guests none the wiser. Our entree consisted of pepper steak stir fry, Borscht, and baked potato. I can tell you, as someone who runs in fairly sophisticated social circles, that there is only one proper way to eat a baked potato. Perhaps your wife is privy to this insight, and I can save you a lot of trouble by just telling you now.

Your first obvious blunder involves the initial urge to cut the potato in half. You might as well just beat the poor thing with a club like some neanderthal. You must roll the potato, preferably on small plate of simmering butter. Gently turn the potato until it’s relatively marinated. Next, cut an impeccably shaped opening about two inches in diameter and a half inch wide in the center of the potato. Add approximately four spoonfuls of sour cream, one ounce of butter, two tablespoons of chives, five ounces of shredded cheddar, half a cup of bacon bits, four diced tomatoes, and two ounces of tequila. This should be about as right as you can possibly be.

You might also consider that your wife may have ulterior motives. We advice columnists often refer to this as spousal entrapment. She could just as easily lament your postures or critique the placement garbage cans within the proper distance from the curb. While her admonishment of your pedestrian mastery of potato-eating is understandable, she could be deliberating upon your marriage’s end altogether. You’re right to suspect that she’s searching for an excuse. Offer to make dinner one night. Keep it simple with steak and potatoes. Serve the food and excuse yourself to the lavatory.

As you take in inordinate amount of time in the lavatory, take comfort in the private investigator you’ve hired to snap pictures of her from the patio. She’ll naturally prepare her potato and even have a few bites as she waits. You’ll have all the evidence you need of her preferred method. This plan is not foolproof, however. She might wait for you to return just to wait and see how you do it first. The proper way to eat a potato is an entirely different story. You might be tempted to use a fork and knife, cutting and pulling the potato apart as steam rises. This again is incorrect.

You must gently scoop the insides with a potato spoon. Not a soup spoon, dessert spoon or, God forbid, cereal spoon, this has to be an officially-designated potato spoon. You can find one at any high-end cutlery center. You hold the potato spoon in one hand and your dinner fork in the other, prodding and mashing and picking delicate bites until only the skin remains. Then cut the skin into equally proportional bites and consume.

If you don’t have a glass of red wine on hand, then you’ve already failed the next test. I prefer white myself, but those are the rules. Like you, I don’t much care for potatoes in general, but go through the motions to remain a good standing member of society.

The potato might just be a symbol of your crumbling marriage. In 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle faced ridicule during a spelling bee competition, where he altered a young student’s correct spelling of the word to “potatoe.” In an obvious setup, the card he used had the wrong spelling, and he didn’t trust his own judgement. He was, like you, another victim of circumstance. There’s still hope though. Potato sliders in any case are known to quell differences, and you can just as easily eat those with your hands.

If you want my real advice, be prepared. Serve potatoes with every meal until she grows tired of the charade. Eat potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Slip potato wedges into your sandwiches. Make potato soup. Purchase Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head accessories from the local market. If she gets on your case about your strange potato obsession, remind her about what an important food source it is. After a few weeks of this, she most likely will never bring up potatoes again, and you can drop the matter, continuing the blissful marriage you once had.


Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

Episode 460: Gwen Mullins!

20 Saturday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, Kerouac House

≈ 1 Comment

Episode 460 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, fiction writer Gwen Mullins and I discuss many, many things from the front of the Kerouac Project of Orlando’s porch.

IMG_2711

Photo by Geoff Benge.

NOTES

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.


Poet Danez Smith will perform an online masterclass on Friday February 26 at 6pm, and an virtual reading on Saturday, February 27 at 4pm p.m. At the event, hosted by Valencia College and the University of Central Florida, Smith will read from their newest book, “Homie,” recently named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award. Registration for both events is available at https://tinyurl.com/smithdanez


Learn more about the residency program of The Kerouac Project of Orlando here.


The Curator of Schlock #343: The Mutilator

19 Friday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Horror, The Curator of Schlock

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Arrow Films, The Mutilator

The Curator of Schlock #343 by Jeff Shuster

The Mutilator

Also known as Fall Break.

Where did I leave off last week? Oh, yes. I was about to be eaten by Wally the vampire when in busts Edwidge the kangaroo, ready to pounce. Wally arches his back and hisses at her like a wild cat, but that doesn’t faze Edwidge as she pummels Wally with repeated stomach jabs and right hooks. Just as she’s ready do what looked a tiger uppercut, Wally grabs her by the tail and starts swinging and swinging and when Wally finally lets go, Edwidge goes flying into a hutch filled with china. Plates and tea cups smash on the floor and poor Edwidge is down for the count. Wally slaps his hands together and I realize I am once again a dead man.


This week’s Arrow home video release is 1984’s The Mutilator from directors Buddy Cooper and John S. Douglass.The movie’s original title was Fall Break, most likely to capitalize on the slasher tradition of naming movies after famous days like News Year’s Evil or My Bloody Valentine. The problem is fall break isn’t a thing. I never enjoyed a fall break while I was in college. I got spring breaks (many of which I spent catching up on term papers). Mutilator is a better title. It reminds brings to mind a killer that mutilates bodies which is exactly what I want to see in this kind of movie.

The movie begins with a young boy named Ed cleaning his father’s rifles for his birthday while his mom is preparing the birthday cake. Ed accidentally fires off a round, killing his mom in the process. Needless to say when his father arrives home to find a dead wife at the hands of his son instead of a fun birthday celebration, he kind of loses it a little. We know this because he drags her body to the living room, props it up, and pours her a glass of Scotch.

Fast forward about ten years later and Ed (Matt Mitler) is a happy college student, trying to move on from his past. Ed’s father has a beachfront condominium in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, and Ed has to prep it for the winter as his dad is an insane drunkard and can’t manage it himself. Ed’s college friend go with so they can party hearty. Naturally, there’s a mutilator on the island ready to pick them off one by one.

The first victims are Lisa (Francis Raines) and Mike (Morey Lampley) who decide to go skinny dipping in an abandoned swimming pool. The first murder is Lisa, drowned by the Mutilator. I have to say that’s rather disappointing. When I spend my limited time watching a movie called The Mutilator, I expect to see some mutilation. Drowning is not mutilation! Fortunately, Mike goes looking for Lisa only to encounter the Mutilator waiting for him with a chainsaw. And he cuts Mike up real good. You can see the guts and everything!

Wait! What am I talking about? This is a sick movie and you’re sick individual for liking such filth! Why couldn’t I have covered a more wholesome movie like Paddington or Paddington 2? We get to see other gruesome murders. The local sheriff gets cleaved in the neck before getting decapitated. The Mutilator then goes on to stab the funny friend, Ralph, with a pitchfork. Later, our slasher guts Ralph’s girlfriend, Sue, like a fish.

This leaves Ed and his girlfriend, Pam (Ruth Martinez), to escape the insane clutches of the Mutilator. Are you ready for the shocking twist? Turns out the Mutilator is none other than Ed’s dad, driven mad by coming home to his dead wife on his birthday so many years ago. I bet you didn’t see that one coming. The Arrow Blu-ray comes with a bevy of special features including a making of documentary where we learn that the producer had enough money in the early 80s to make a slasher movie or buy a vineyard in France.

He now thinks the vineyard in France would have been a better investment.


Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #25

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in politics, Sozzled Scribbler

≈ Leave a comment

The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #25

Transcribed by DMETRI KAKMI

15 February 2021

What follows is a phone conversation with my amanuensis, Dolmio Kukurbit, who is a cis-male and therefore lower down the evolutionary scale than us gender non-conforming people. The fact that he’s also one of those old fashioned homos makes it worse.

I edited out Dolmio’s stupid sissy cis-questions so you only get my words of intersectionalist wisdom.


Hello, is that Dolmio Kukumber?

Dolmio, I’m ringing to tell you I realised I was falling behind the times and becoming kinda like retarded.

What? Oh, it’s redundant? Sorry, yes, that’s what I meant to say. Silly me.

I decided to you know like keep up with the times, so I decided I’m a woman, like every man in the country, right? Because like who wants to be associated with toxic masculinity? Like Meryll Frost said, inside every great man is a grating woman.

What? Oh it’s great woman. Sorry. All the excitement is making me mix up my words.

So aaaanywaaay now that I’m non-conformist woman, I got rid of common sense and any connection to reality and got loads of tats and piercings. And a beard.

What’s that you say? Tats and piercings are symbols of conformity? Why, pray tell? Because everyone has them? Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, Dolmio?

Stop trying to destabilise my revolutionary fervour. You’re just scared women like me are going to take over the world and turn you into a sperm donor, if there’s any left in you at your age.

So  aaaanywaaay on my journey to becoming a bearded lady, I changed my name.

From now on I want you to address me as Salonge Salieri.

What do you mean it sounds like a drag name? How dare you oppress me with your homophonic assertions.

I don’t care if the correct word is homophobic. Shut up and listen. When the oppressed speak, those in power must listen. They might unlearn something.

So, like I was saying, because I want to challenge the patriarchy and bring down capitalism, I’m going to be a lesbian, too, and start eating carpet. But I haven’t found a good recipe for preparing shaggy rug yet so I’m holding off on that tasty meal.

The message for the world is this:

I’m a lesbian who wants to be addressed as He/Him.

What’s that, Dolmio? Using the pronouns he/him undermines my femininity?

Who are you to tell me what is and isn’t feminine? It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but why should I be limited by outdated gender pronouns that are invented by the patriarchy to control and restrict me and to tell me what I can and can’t be?

This new identity automatically makes me an activists. And like oh my goddess I’m so excited because I’m going to open my own BoobTube channel and… What now!

Oh, it’s YouTube. Sorry… Hee, hee. I made a Fallopian slip of the tongue.

It’s a Freudian slip of the tongue, you say?

Isn’t Freud one of those privileged dead white men who was part of the patriarchal colonialist hegemonic project that oppresses minorities, like white middle-class inner-city people with bad educations, the latest laptops and free wifi wherever they go?

Yeah, nah, I prefer Fallopian because I am woman. It’s all in me. Everything you want done baby, I’ll do it unnaturally. Whoah, whoah, whoah…

Besides there’s nothing wrong with a slip of the tongue in a fallopian tube. If you think there is, you are misogynist.

And you know what? I’m starting to hate you, sitting there mansplaining every thing to me. I don’t want you to correct me when I make a so called ‘mistake’, okay? I don’t care about your good intentions. I’m here to tell you it’s not a mistake. I’m reinventing language and pushing boundaries with my neo-pronouns as a non-binary person. Just ask Michelle Foucault.

Yes, the great French S&M wanker was a woman underneath all those ugly masculine trappings.

Apology not accepted, Dolmio. You are CANCELLED.

I will vilify you and destroy your life on my YouTube channel. Why? Because I’m right and you must agree with me, even when my pronouncements have no basis in reality.

Newsflash: Nowadays feelings trump facts.

What’s that? You want to ask a question? Salonge gives you permission to speak.

Why would a woman want to use the he/him pronoun? It’s none of your business, you revolting attachment to a penis. You just have to obey. That’s all you have to do. Is that too much to ask?

Oh my goddess, I’m exhausted. Being offended all the time and trying to change the world one micro-aggression at a time is tiring. I think I will stop being a woman and become one of those nice oppressed and marginalised Báhn mì people.

I think you mean BAME.

Shut up, defiler.

À bientôt, mes amies.


The Sozzled Scribbler was born in the shadow of the Erechtheion in Athens, Greece, to an Egyptian street walker and a Greek bear wrestler. He is currently stateless and lives on gin and cigarettes.

Dmetri Kakmi is the author of Mother Land (shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards in Australia), and the editor of When We Were Young. His latest book is The Door and Other Uncanny Tales. He does not endorse the Sozzled Scribbler’s views.

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #110: Tuck and Roll

17 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart, Fantasy

≈ Leave a comment

Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #110: Tuck and Roll

Urban legends can provide a quick, solid backbone to a fictional world that can establish time, culture, attitudes, hopes and fears, and a prevailing sense of community as people are drawn together to whisper about the thing they had seen in the forest or sewer. In The Cloven, Garth Stein and Matthew Southworth have created their own urban legend in the Pacific Northwest and have given it the kind of life usually not seen in goat-human genetic experiments.

This first book in The Cloven series begins with a great promise. James Tucker—or Tuck, or Kiddo depending on who you talk to—is in a facility that endlessly tests him as the most successful human-animal hybrid ever created. He is one of many Cloven out in the world—people with furry goat legs, thick skulls, and an indestructible intestinal tract. The main purpose for the Cloven was for military applications, but that’s scrubbed as soon as a lead researcher sets as many of them as he can free into the Pacific Northwest. The Cloven become urban legends. But James Tucker is adopted and raised as normally as a kid can be raised. But, like everything else in his life, even being raised normally isn’t as normal as he would want.

Almost everything we see of James’ past is up for debate as we discover that, as a child, he’s been having his memories altered. What is truly his past and what is the story his adopted parent has told him? The flowing, dream-like lines of Southworth really enforce this idea of ambiguity throughout The Clovenas we as readers can never be sure where James’ past really begins. Is it with the lead researcher that would let the other Cloven free? Or is it in the hospital like he’s remembering above? The splotchy nature of watercolor reinforces this feeling further.

Books like The Cloven or Fractionand Charretier’s Novembercan push what it means to be a serialized comic series by providing these longer stories that can come out and sizzle for months while readers wait for the next book to drop.

Get excited. Get hooves.


Drew Barth at Miami Book Fair in 2019.

Drew Barth (Episode 331) is a writer residing in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida. Right now, he’s worrying about his cat.

The Perfect Life #5: Mysteries of Love

15 Monday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in The Perfect Life

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The Perfect Life #5

Dear Dr. Perfect.

I am having no luck attracting a woman enough to even go on a date with me. I have a decent job, I live in my own apartment, and I am not overweight. Should I start a podcast?

Sincerely, Mr. Lonelyheart

——————————————

Dear Lonleyheart,

If you’re searching for lessons on the laws of attraction, you’ve come to the right place. Women often seek two things in a compatible mate: confidence and security. Well, there’s also status, money, prowess, drive, ambition, sense of humor, trust, and, of course, charisma. Those could be my own preferences or something I heard a woman say. I’m certain that your issues extend beyond podcast aspirations. Best not to broadcast your insecurities.

Dating has changed since I was a young stallion. We met people at luncheons, car shows, and discotheques. We had speed dating, blind dates, meeting through friends, blackout drinking, and dumpster diving. Today, we’re swiping left, right, up, and down with no rhyme or reason.

Once, I escorted a lady friend to Medieval Times. Caught up in the moment, she insisted that I joust with one of the knights to prove my fealty. I explained the stupidity of her whim. She said that if I had any inkling of sleeping with her, I would joust the knight like my life depended on it. I clarified that I had no such intentions on a first date. She guzzled wine from her goblet and called me a peasant. By then, we had missed most of the show. Sometime after our disastrous feast, we went out for coffee and got along just fine.

The point, Loneleyheart, is that you needn’t worry. You have a job, a decent apartment, and you’re not overweight. The long road toward companionship is rife with trial and error. Try on a variety of suits, each more daring than the next. Avoid the sociopathic urge to lie about everything and stay honest with yourself and what you’re looking for. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with embellishment with a persona. Just because you’re not actually an airline pilot or a doctor doesn’t mean you can’t think like one. We’ve all been to hospitals and on airplanes. How hard can it be?

I once went hang-gliding on a date with a skilled pilot. Prior to our adventure, I had assured her of my piloting skills despite having never done it before. We took off from the top of a cliff. I never admitted my embellishment, even when she visited me in the hospital. She was a tender person, full of life, but I squandered our relationship during the Advice Columnist Convention (ACC) of ’96. There was a woman there who—well, maybe that’s not relevant here.

If I’ve learned anything from women, it’s that they also like a guy who can cook. I once dated this chef who reviled in our competing soufflés. We were so crazy about food that we introduced it into the bedroom like some cheap rehash of 9 1/2 Weeks.

As far as your issues, attraction isn’t impossible. Approach the nearest catch who’s caught your eye and simply say hello. They could roll their eyes and ignore you, or they could answer you back. If they’re receptive, you’ll have the opportunity to recite some Walt Whitman or Edgar Alan Poe, two titans of the Romantic Age. Either way, you’ve got their attention, and it’s go time. If none of this works and all the conventional means have failed, it’s time to get serious.

Start that podcast.

And never forget, when the going gets tough, lower your standards.


Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.

Episode 459: Nicklaus Rupert!

14 Sunday Feb 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, Film

≈ 1 Comment

Episode 459 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

In this week’s episode, Nicklaus Rupert and I discuss the PhD in Creative Writing, the creative and professional benefits of working for a literary magazine, how working in a cinema house can turn one into a storytelling curmudgeon, and the responsibilities of using the trope of Floridian tackiness.

TEXT DISCUSSED

NOTES

Scribophile

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Learn more about the residency program of The Kerouac Project of Orlando here.


Episode 459 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

 

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Recent Posts

  • Comics Are Trying to Break Your Heart #112: I’m Talking About Isolation
  • Lost Chords & Serenades Divine #19: Silica Gel’s May Day
  • The Diaries of a Sozzled Scribbler #26
  • The Perfect Life #7: Commit to a Dream
  • Episode 461: Isaac Fitzgerald/Brigette Barrager/Leigh Hobbs!

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