Monday, December 31, 2012

My new writing project (yeah, this will happen)

After the tenth time of listening to my son sing Deck the Halls in his four year old approximation of English, I realized that there was a writing gold mine hidden in the lyrics.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the first installment of the great hardboiled Christmas series. Ready and running by next Christmas season (which I think starts around September 10th now a days)

From the darkened alleys of this down and out fa la la la burg, I work. I got an office, I got a gun. I got a couple pints of egg nog jostling around my gut, making me all merry and mellow. Like that will ever happen. I'm Menow. Don Menow. I'm working the private detective racket in the sticky part of Caroltown. A Christmas Carol denizen gets themselves in some trouble, they wind up coming to me. I usually kick them out, because I can't be bothered, but a few of them I take their money and do what I can.

I was lighting another cigarette, waiting for the headache to stop, when she walked through the door. She was a dame, had the legs of a girl who worked the chorus line gigs for longer than her made-up face would say. She sat down without waiting and took out a hip flask of Christmas cheer and took a shot of it. "I heard you can help a lady down on her luck."

"I ain't seeing any lady here. Just a dame in a chair. What's the damage?"

She wasn't fazed one bit, "You got the chivalry I figured to be hit with. Yeah. I do a little hoofing. I got a gig with a new troupe, the Nine Dancing Ladies. I would love to say we got an upfront legit routine, but that would be a bent line. We dance in a few slips of holly. The guys hoot and toss coins. Nasty work, but it pays  for the pot roast."

I said, "Yeah, I heard of you girls. You work down at that dive bar, the Pear Tree. Don't you work with those loofer boys, The Lords a Leaping. Man, has there been some sordid talk about those guys."

The girl laughed, "Yeah, my life would be so much keener if they were all just looking for a sugar daddy, and not for a nice dancing girl."

This was rich, "So one of those leaping pretty boys had an eye for some Christmas cookie like yourself. That happens. Some of those boys works all sides of the court."

The girl started to cry, "If only he wanted a little of my skirt. He was long and man how he leaped. But he had his eye on the money. He got me involved in some photo business."

"A little skin. A little less gay apparel than the constabulary would approve of?"

The girl's water works really was turned on now. "If only that was the case. No. He was in to a little blackmail."

I leaned in. "Lady. Now, I'm listening."

 _______________________________

That's it for now. Next Monday, I will continue with this timely tale of Christmastown degradation. Right now, I will be watching Scooby Doo with my son.

Friday, December 21, 2012

I have given up - Dr. Duke

I think it is official. I just don't like the writing of Hunter S. Thompson. Years ago I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and thought it was good though about 50 pages longer than my interest led me to desire. This year I took out from the library two of his books to listen to while driving. I lasted 20 minutes of Rum Diary before radio commercials and oldies rock seemed more fascinating and pertinent. I was nearly half way done with Hey Rube, before I just threw up my hands. I think some of that had to do with the reader, he had a scratchy near yelling voice (I wanted to give him a lozenge and remind him that he should use his inside voiceu) But even with that, I didn't care what he was saying and the Thompson hyperbole just wore my ass out.  So that's it. I think I am done trying to like his work. He is one of the writers people speak of with reverence but I don't think the people who name drop him read him that much.

Blasphemy alert!!!!

I feel the same way about William S Burroughs. Can't seem to get through any of his books. I admire him, I just don't think I can read him for longer than 20 pages.

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Ridiculous Story Idea Give-a-way

The story idea: Harry Houdini tries out for an opening on the Ghost Hunters team. He goes on a trial investigation.

It's yours

Why Give It Away: Because I would need to research Houdini more than from the Tony Curtis movie. Also, I just wrote a story where Hercules is hired to be in Ghost Hunters, and I like it enough to work on it so I guess I have released Houdini from servitude.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

It was a grave yard smash

Last month, my son and I were at a library we don't usually go to. Small one, but the children's section had a great deal of recent picture books. George was not interested in these, he found a bin of Scooby Doo picture books and he was hooked but good. Which gave me time to look at the new ones. It was Halloween so I was happy to see all these lovely SPOOOOOKY books. One took my attention, it was a picture book of The Monster Mash. You know. The old silly novelty song. It was new and had lovely illustrations, the illustrator really did a great job. The artist is David Catrow and it really is fun and awesome, if only.....

On looking at it, I realized something was off. The cover and the spine and the title page all said the author of the book was David Catrow. It hit me. What about the guy who wrote the song back in the sixties? Where was his name. So I searched and finally found it in the copyright page in tiny print acknowledging that the song was written by Bobby Pickett. The guy who wrote the words to the picture book only gets credit in the copyright notice. I checked and all the words of the book, and the only words of the book, are the lyrics written by the almost uncredited Bobby Pickett.

And now comes the rant.

I want to believe that David Catrow had nothing to do with this. That his publisher said, people are buying this book for your pictures, you are the author. I hope that an artist who illustrated someone else's words would not think himself worthy of sole authorship of the work. I mean hell, even in most pictures book versions of The Night Before Christmas you get the author Clement Moore on the cover. So this song by Bobby Pickett is not his anymore? He was just a workman on a song from a half century ago and we don't need to even mention more than we have to legally? Catrow is our boy and that's the only name we need to float.

This pisses me off more than it should. Bobby Pickett wrote a silly song that is still being sung fifty years later. It's not like David Catrow rescued this obscure work from the vaults. Someone wrote it, and it wasn't the artist who made the cool pictures.

For years I wrote a column on GotPoetry.Com called the International Revue of Bad Children's Book. I ended it after 42 columns about three years ago. If I was still writing it, I would include this book, not because the words are bad and not because the pictures are lousy, they are certainly not. I would include it because it is showing the publishing world being disrespectful to a writer. Even if they think the words are silly and superfluous. There would not be a book if not for Bobby Pickett. Someone needs to write the words, and that person should have his name on the goddammed title page.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Seasoning of Life

The new Grand Fiend trifle is up, The Seasoning of Life. http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/11/conversations-with-grand-fiend.html\

For most of them, I got my inspiration from my collection of monster drawings (yeah I know, kind of goofy just even writing that) but this came from a small book by the food writer MFK Fisher, A Cordial Water. This is a neat little book about all the foods and herbs meant to cure people. She is a fine writer and its more engaging than it might sound at first, with that said, I haven't finished the book, I just gotta sit down and go through it.

The first chapter talks about a gray little girl she went to school with who stank "She wore around her neck a bag of assafeddity. It had a bitterness to it, rather rancid, and when I discussed this casually with my mother, she laughed in a vague remembering way and said to see if my new friend did not wear a little cloth bag hanging under her dress around her neck. And she did. During recess went down to the dim toilets together, and quietly she showed it to me, gray, gray, even her skin in that light was he color of her wool dress, her underwear, the soft little bag like a dead field mouse on a string. It would keep fevers away, she whispered gently to me."

Two paragraphs later the little girl dies and the family moves away. Strong stuff this thing called belief. And of course it inspired nonsense from me.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Lzy Wriders Untie

I have a new Grand Fiend story going up on Linguistic Erosion a couple of days from now. I am happy that I can still be in the right mood to create the tone. I wrote five of them from April to August and I put them in a little chapbook, which I made 13 and sold 0. My salesmanship is still a stellar thing to behold.

I looked in my notebook a week ago and saw the first paragraph of a Grand Fiend story and figured I could toss this out in a half hour and submit it a half hour after that. That is what I did. I have been very fast with these and I had the thought that I could just type and they would be decent.

You know where this is going. Yeah, the editor for Linguistic Erosion, that accepted all five previous ones, sent me an email saying that it is ragged and can I edit this puppy. I was chagrined. I have always been the type to not care about editing or proofreading, I get too into the rush of first draft creation that  I forget that the rush does not translate always into a complete story.

I brushed it through again, and even came up with a better joke at the end, or at least I thought it funnier. Luckily, it was accepted. Its nice to be published, and its a good thing to be humbled back into reality from time to time.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

This piece is so personal that its hard to read. The power and the anger is palpable. Nice work

http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/Don-t-Be-Selfish-337588873

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Things from Three Graces



This is a mess of links of things Heather and I have from Three Graces, they brighten up our lives, because that's what art should do.

I love this AManda Atkins piece. It is a funny take on Nancy Drew and that ilk
http://amandaatkins.blogspot.com/2010/09/and-roses-ran-rampant.html

This was purchased the first time we went into the store. This is on a wall with a bunch of other monster drawings and paintings
http://nicolemaloof.com/artwork/786361.html

These next two are by a soft scuplture artist Abby Glassenberg whose owls make Heather swoon. We don't have owls, but we have these two birds and two others
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25512190@N00/4857064345/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25512190@N00/2805949332/in/set-72157619007769910

This is the latest thing we got from Kim at Three Graces. Heather adores it. It is on he wall right under a really awesome Syd Hoff drawing we have. The two work great together
http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1024&bih=491&tbm=isch&tbnid=pfD3JtZr941yMM:&imgrefurl=http://www.threegracesgallery.com/shop_deniseduong.html&docid=Ig-5oEddcPCtAM&imgurl=http://www.threegracesgallery.com/Denise_Duong/ITsAlwaysfunwhen.jpg&w=650&h=650&ei=-jqTUPGkIYns0QH684Bo&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=96&vpy=137&dur=7004&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=127&ty=187&sig=107206406750834753625&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=137&start=0&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,i:72

On our walls at home is a lot of art, but five of them all come from one gallery. It is a gallery in portsmouth NH that is going to be closing of nine years.http://www.threegracesgallery.com/ I love their art and Heather and I have gone crazy for much of their work. Kim, the owner, wrote that she is ready to focus on her own art and who can blame her. Still. One less place where beauty might be allowed to happen.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

another story

Might as well link another story I got published online this month. I don't have much to say about this. I think I was trying to come up with a story for an anthology looking for b-movie like tales. I came up witha mole rat story, sort of, and then I was almost instantly bored with the idea and instead I remembered a story this guy told me - that he lived in the desert in 60s and how he and his buddies were indian extras for a few awful Westerns. I put the two ideas together and this came out. This is very much in my wheel house, how someone older finds hope in a past that might not be real. I might have to stop writing that story, but hell, it works for me for now.

http://www.fiction365.com/2012/10/i-was-a-teenage-mole-rat/

Story of Love

So here is a story I wrote a month back and was published by Daily Love. I took the title and the landmarks from my morning commute through Worcester. I saw the homeless person holding the sign mentioned in the story and I went from there. Because I was driving through Kelly Square at the time I gave my self permission to use the real place and the real traffic, it makes it easier when you write to not always create things from whole cloth. Lazy lazy lazy writer, no comma soup for you!!!!

http://www.dailylove.net/search?q=kelly+square

Friday, September 21, 2012

Be Kind to Your Audience

I listen to a lot of books on tape (CD) due to driving too much for work. This week is a YA oriented anthology "Zombies v Unicorns" every other story is either a zombie story or one about unicorns. The stories  are okay I guess, but one thing annoyed me.

So for the Zombie story, Children of the Revolution, the protagonist is a college student in England who is being 800 pounds to watch the five adopted children of a famous actress (sorta Angelie Jolie) for one night. The kids are in a closed space and the girl is not allowed to have face to face with them. This "mystery" goes on for 80 percent of the story. The girl does not know what is wrong with these kids. So over an overwrought section, she frees them and they bite her.

The part that annoys me is that this is set up as a surprise, as a long reveal, but we know the reveal. They are zombies. How do we know the children are zombies before the writer reveals it? Because we are reading a zombie story is a zombie anthology. Did the author not know where this story was?

Where is the fun reading a twist y ending tale when you know all the twists before you crack open the book? This is lazy writing. Find a way to write it where it is still interesting and surprising, even though we know what the creature is. We are readers who read zombie stories, we have read a lot of them, please be kind to us and not expect us just falling off the turnip truck.

Monday, September 17, 2012

...wait for it....

For years, one of the ways I use poetry open mikes is to hear the current work of writing in front of an audience, it is part of the editing process. So last night I tried a piece with a good punch line and one I thought funny. It went really well, but here's the thing, the audience was laughing to themselves when I got to the set up for the punchline, they laughed at the punchline too, but they got the joke before I laid it on them.

The question I have for myself is should I fix it or is it fine as it is, a laugh is a laugh whether it is where I want it or not? Should I allow the audience to be smarter than me or should I find a way to surprise them. I think I am leading to the former because the audience is smarter than I am.


Saturday, September 8, 2012

Inspiration thou name is icky cookie concept

I realized I have not written any of the series I have been doing such as the Grand Fiend or the Short Order Mad Man and I had no ideas so I wasn't thinking of it or worried. Now I read this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/07/candy-corn-oreos_n_1865397.html

How can I not write a short order mad man story about this? Just need to make it weirder, though I don't know if  I have that power. Candy Corn Oreos seem like a torture implement from some lost civilization, lost because they made Candy Corn Oreos.

I will be in a slam tomorrow so I have to work on prepping for that but I hope to write this Oreo monsterpiece today.


Saturday, September 1, 2012

Movies About Writers: Colette

A movie about writing is impossible, and a movie about a writer is almost worse, some form of unsatisfactory voyeurism. But still, there I go, watching movies about writers, even writers I don't care about. I have two books on our shelves by Colette, I have not been able to read much of either. I have Creatures Great and Small, which is a collection of dialogues between her cat and her dog about what they see of the human world. This seems like a slam dunk for me, but the book mark I found in my copy shows I made it 25 pages. I have no memory of even that many pages. There is another book of hers I have called Claudine's House that has a cover so unsettling, I am afraid to read it for fear that I will upset people walking by. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1843914158/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

I got a dvd from Netflix and the bonus material has this 30 minute film about Colette made for the French State Department back in 1951 or so. It's not bad. Maybe because its so short. There was a time near the end that I was hoping the details were not lying and this wasn't full length. How do you make writer's compelling to watch? Their job is to ignore the world and focus on the blank page (god I wish I didn't write that sentence, the blank page....oh how droll, how dripping with portent, bleh....)

The answer is have a vain writer of failing health talk from her bed. There was a good amount of shots of where she used to live and the photography and the narration are lovely. Makes you want to live in 1888 Provence. I liked how Colette said she didn't want the movie made because who wants to see what she looks like now. Of course, that comment was filmed, so of course Colette wanted to see herself filmed.

There was a strange conversation between her and a man who I found out was Jean Cocteau, where they talked about idleness and the way she made book writing look easy. It was an odd, stilted exchange. I didn't know what to make of it. My favorite part was Colette looking at the produce her maid brought in from the market. The Maid was obviously uncomfortable with the fakeness of the exchange being done for the camera, as she was leaving, she caught herself giggling and quickly left.

Here is a few minutes of the film, the quality is poor, the one I saw was much better preserved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F452Uxq4_7Y&feature=related

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Silent But Deadly Inspiration

Yesterday I was talking to someone about films that do not age well. He said as a kid he loved Black Hole, and now he finds it the dullest kind of crap you possibly could watch. I said that the Original Willy Wonka movie is pretty dull, the first 40 minutes at any rate, man that is one of the worst beginnings of any classic I can think of.

This brought to mind movies I loved but don't want to see again because now I might find them ridiculously pretentious. In my twenties, I loved the obscure film. Now, in some cases I think they are little known for a reason.

Which is why I will not see La Grande Boufe again. I saw it 18 or so years ago and I thought it amazing. Four middle age french guys hole up in a villa and eat themselves to death. That's it. They eat a lot and one by one they die from over eating. I thought it the shit. It was something. Now I wonder what I would make of it?

I mention this film because I was inspired to write the latest Short Order Mad Man story while thinking of this flick. In one scene, one of the characters farts for 2 minutes and then is dead/ That always tickled me. On thinking of it, I put that idea into the rarefied world of the Short Order Mad Man.

here it is http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/08/the-short-order-mad-man-on-silent-but.html

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

What we talk about when we talk about talking about what we talk about

I forgot I wrote this piece. Linguistic Erosion put it up yesterday. I went to a writing workshop at a great bar in Worcester, Nick's and Nick Davis was running a drunken workshop. It was just me and him. I wrote about a conversation I heard at the bar. Usually, I have a "no stealing a person's story" policy. But this time I read it to him and he was flattered. I was happy he didn't slug me, so there you go.

The title is not from Raymond Carver's What we talk about when we talk about love. But Murakami's What I talk about when I talk about running, which he admits taking the title from Carver, so does that mean I took it from Carver twice removed? It's like Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but with high falutin literature instead.

http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/08/what-we-talk-about-when-we-talk-in-bars.html

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Lou #5

I found a great a mini-comic, Lou #5 from Melissa Mendes. She is part of this thing I subscribed to from Oily Comics. They are doing mini comics and for a fee, they send me everything they made for the month. I got five mini comics and they are across the board on style.

Lou is great, about a tom boy living in an isolated area. What  I love is that at the end of this brief eight page story, some real adult menace shows up and you see how kids deal with it, and percieve it. I thought it was great.

I have already said that I like her work, at the Maine Comic Art Festival I bought one of her original water color strips and that inspired one of my "Grand Fiend" stories. So, yeah, I am a fan.

I think people who write flash and other short form fiction, like me, can learn from people doing eight page mini comics, the sense of timing and space.  Here is a link to a page from Oily Comics and what Melissa Mendes is doing. http://oilyboutique.bigcartel.com/artist/melissa-mendes

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Cooking Books

One of the series I have been writing and sending over to Linguistic Erosion is the Short Order Mad Man, where I have a nutbag tell his crazy stories in the land of food and restaurants. This should be easy for someone who has worked in the food industry. But. Yeah, I ain't never worked in the food industry. I watch Anthony Bourdain, Top Chef and whatever thing I can use as background on Cooking Channel. I make this shit up is what I do. Its a writers thing. But I can't totally bluff so I have been reading up on cooking and the cooking world. I am slowly going through a MFK Fischer book and I finished two others.

The first one was Anthony Bourdain's novel The Bobby Gold Stories. I really wanted to like it a lot, but I thought it was just okay at best. Its about a mob muscle who works in the food and night club scene. Some of the moments were fine, but mostly, it was a poor imitation of the Friends of Eddie Coyle with a little bit of Big Night thrown in. But some of the tone was good, that hard boiled fiction meets soft boiled egg world was kinda cool and I am sure I will be stealing some of that voice for the stories as  I go on.

Here is a link to the second one I wrote. http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/07/the-short-order-mad-man-on-toast-club.html

Thursday, August 9, 2012

This is David Macpherson's Blog

Some times I have dumb ideas. This dumb idea I had was having a blog, my only blog, be for my pen name and the writing I have put out under that name. Why was this a good idea? I don't know. I like how so far it is about the art and writing that influenced the work I am creating, but why stop at the stupid things I put out under Miles Gough? This makes no sense to me. This should not be a hardship to my huge amount of readers, being that this blog has gotten 10 views, anymore and my head will spin.

so let me say that this blog is about the writing of David Macpherson, which is me, and the things that influence what I write, which seems to be art, illustration and random pieces of writing. I think I will have more fun with this that way.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

I have a book I picked up about five years ago called "Comics Gone Ape" or something to that effect. It is awful to think that I can easily look it up and verify the title, but I am too lazy to do so, oh well. The book is a pretty funny look at popularity of simians in comic books. It goes into the old saw that DC comics back in the 1960s realized that there was a sales bump everytime a gorilla was on the cover, so they put monkeys on the covers often to help with sales. I have heard this time and time again, but part of me feels that its kind of bull. Still, its a pretty funny story.

I started the latest Grand Fiend story with that in mind when I wrote the first line, but then put it aside because we had to go somewhere. The next day, I picked up the latest issue of Hogan's Alley in the bookstore, and lo, there was an article in it how in the 1960s, DC Comics used apes on the covers as a way to increase sales. This was fate telling me to finish the story, not really, but still a funny coincidence. The story was done that night.

Here it is, as always, at Linguistic Erosion

http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/08/conversations-with-grand-fiend-gorillas.html

Sunday, July 29, 2012

The first story I wrote in what turned out to be a silly series called Conversations with the Grand Fiend came from a art prompt. I don't use museum art prompts, I have a bunch of original cartoon art at home and this was one of them and I started the piece with just this cartoon to go on and the story just happened while my son watched Backyardigans in the next room

Here is the illustration, but Scott Nickel, who does nice things
http://www.gocomics.com/eek/2008/02/26

Here is the story
http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/05/conversations-with-grand-fiend-issues.html

Friday, July 27, 2012

Blue floaty vampire things

Almost all of the pieces I have been doing in the Conversations with the Grand Fiend have been inspired by art I either own or have coveted. I think the next one in the series will be based on this Nicole Maloof drawing. I think I have an idea on what to do, we will see.

http://nicolemaloof.com/artwork/786361.html

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Here Already

This is just a simple blog for the writing of Miles Gough and the writing and art that I find inspiring.

Here's the first. This is a strip by Melissa Mendes. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mezilla/6176309333/

That inspired this, the third Grand Fiend Story. And that you can find here.
http://www.linguisticerosion.com/2012/06/conversations-with-grand-fiend-joys-of.html

Miles Gough is a pen name. But more on that at a latter date/