Sunday, June 30, 2013

More Questions Than Answers

What is truly frustrating is that I cannot decide between the two version of my manuscript.  Just when I think I have made a decision, I reconsider the other one.  Both have strengths, both have weaknesses.  Neither is what I would consider to be mainstream literature.  I don't know, I just don't know.  I hate that I keep second-guessing myself.

When I consider it, yes, one is more of what I originally intended, and the other I have made great changes to make it more literature than satire, more serious than entertaining, more thoughtful than vulgar.  What is better?  What is worse?

Just when I think I have answered this question, I have another answer to the question, and then more questions...  What is better, what is worse?  Can I release both, somehow?  Should I?  Should I combine the two?  Do I have the time?

Then I reason with myself.  The one I have spent more time on over the last three years, the more serious, more literature, but still not enough mainstream to be considered publishable by a mainstream publisher, has corrected the problems that I was having with the 2010 version, which I have based the other version, The Millennial, off of.

Do I want over-the-top or thoughtful?  What is better and what is worse?  Does anybody care other than me?  Does it really matter on the grand scope of my life?  Will anyone read it, either way?  Do I just give it up and move on?  What is the right thing to do?  Is there a right thing to do? Am I just some mutt chasing his tail?

What does it matter?  Does it matter?  Don't I have more important things to think about, to work on, to make sure turn out well?  Shouldn't I see this through, for once and for all, to show that I can?  Why can't this be more clear-cut?  Why do I make things more difficult than they have to be?  Why am I so indecisive?  Does Mark Wahlberg really have a third nipple?  Which is the best fantasy world, Narnia, Oz, or Never Never Land?  Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?

Maybe this is all really me second-guessing publishing Out in the Garage, and that I care way too much about what other people think.  This is, after all, my novel.  Some people are going to like it, some people aren't, and most people aren't ever going to read it.

I guess a part of it, too, is...  What version makes me happier?  When I set out to make changes, it wasn't merely to please others, but there were some real problems I had with the story that I was looking for advice to help with, and I got that advice, and followed the advice that I liked, and ignored the rest.  It was still me making the decisions based on my own criteria.

It seems like I know what I want to do -- but am I brave enough, can I find the confidence, to do it?  Why do I start second-guessing myself again now?  Isn't this what has prevented me from publishing it before now?  Am I just afraid to let myself be vulnerable and to open myself up to criticism from the world?  Is it because I have spent so much time on it that it has become such a part of my life that I am hesitant to give it up, and now I am trying to give myself reasons to not give it up?  Don't I just need to keep pushing forward and not forsake the work that I have done and trust the advice that I have taken, and put out what I know to be the better version -- even if it is different from what I originally intended, because, to be honest, I had no idea what the Hell I was doing in the beginning, and now I have learned a great deal?

This is such a trivial concern in a world that has so many bigger problems that more people should be taking the time to think about and attempting to do something about -- even if it is just writing books that more directly confront those problems than this first book of mine, which is really rather juvenile when compared to the books that I am planning on writing.  It is time to move on, and I can't do that until I get this one finished, and I am too far into it, too close to being finished, to change my mind out of fear and nervousness.

Sometimes I just need to pep-talk myself and think out-loud and help myself realize when I am being foolish.

Thursday, June 27, 2013


I have a confession... *cough cough*

Okay, here it goes.

A while ago -- now -- I realized that at some point over the last three years or so that my manuscript had become...  I'm not sure.  So, realizing this, I went back to the last edition that made sense, and started focusing more on the language that on changing story or plot, and, while it is definitely not what I would consider a literary masterpiece, it is much more genuine, much more, well, mine.

Not that I don't appreciate all the people over the years who have read it and give me advice, but at some point I started worrying about pleasing others too much and not myself.  Well, I realized that it's my fucking manuscript and I have a right to be selfish about it, goddammit.

I am very proud of the way the now not so secret manuscript is turning out, I am still tweaking it, but it is roughly at the same point as my other manuscript.

It wasn't until last night until I finally kicked myself in the pants and pulled my head out of my ass and finally, once and for all, decided to go with this version, which is heavily based on the 2010 edition, with some vast improvements in the writing and very little change in the story itself.

My gut instinct tells me that I am making the right choice, because ultimately I am doing this for myself, and I am the one who has to live with what I put out, and I would rather be the guy who writes the absurd satire than the guy who writes the pretentious wannabe garbage.  If I am self-publishing either way, then I would rather publish the version that is most what I originally intended, the version that inspired me to change to English and start down this road to being a professor.

Anyways, without further adieu, here is the description that will appear on the back of the book and Amazon and all that (although I might tweak it slightly between now and October):

"Born in the 80's, a Bastard Son but not a bastard.  He's reckless and self-absorbed... Oh, and, did I mention, in a band, too?  THE MILLENNIAL squeezes the heart until it's black and blue and ready to burst.  It makes the reader want to fart, laugh, and orgasm, simultaneous.  There's sex, drugs, and rock n' roll, and quite a healthy dose of death, too.  It's every masturbating, gothic-wannabe asshole's wet dream.  Did I mention sex enough times?  SEX SEX SEX!!!" 

"Dripping with semen," says Egbert Tripplefuss of The Jerk-Offer.  

"Really did make me fart, laugh, and orgasm at the same time," proclaims Thom Schlitzman of The Pussies and Assholes Literary Review.

"No one should read this, unless you're cool, then you can do whatever," raves Todd Nelson of Nipped Blog.  "Seriously though, reading THE MILLENNIAL  is the best walk over hot coals I have had for a while."

Wayne Crosby of the Nodtown Gazette reports: "Never thought I would read something that would make me want to masturbate publicly, but Gabe Gott has gone and done it again!"

Goddammit I never get tired of this song.



Wednesday, June 26, 2013

The Post Where I Say "Fuck It"

The more research I do, the more blogs, Twitter feeds, etc. that I read, the more advice that I get from other writers or well-meaning people who have an opinion, the more I realize how the whole goddamned world has gone completely fucking insane.

This is why I am doubling down on my commitment to myself to write whatever the fuck I want, however the fuck I want, put it out however the fuck I want, and I don't give a damn about what is supposed the right way or whatever.

The people who decide what the right way is don't have my interests or my knowledge or experience and have not legitimate basis to tell me how to do what I do or why.  It doesn't always have to be about making money or becoming famous or whatever.

I can't please everybody but I can please myself, as my masturbating hand will attest.


At least they admit it and are working towards minimizing it. Unfortunately many foods have GMO's in them and most people don't know about it.  It's not only difficult to get away from, but next to impossible, since all soybeans today are genetically modified (thanks to Monsanto). This is what happens when large corporations control congress (not talking about Chipotle here) and are not forced to label these things as being modified.  This is just a symptom of a larger problem with our society, and it is all fueled by greed and protected by ignorance and apathy.

Friday, June 21, 2013

PRICE DROP (what?)!

My short story collection is now only $6.99 (or cheaper on Amazon) for a paperback and $2.99 for an e-book (now available for Kindle and Nook).

Ridiculous Nonsense

Penis McGee was a good fellow, was he
He danced with every one he chose
He liked to fiddle fiddle
And also diddle diddle
So to every occasion he rose

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Zippity Dippity Doo on a Tuesday morning before work

I am hoping to order the proof of Out in the Garage by this weekend, along with some copies of my short story collection, Tales From the Fringes (which is only $6.86 at Amazon right now, by the way).    While these are copies to give away to family and close friends, I am going to start keeping some on-hand to sell and use for promotional purposes.  You never know who you are going to meet, or what opportunities will come your way.

And yes, I am starting on research.  Right now it is mainly an online thing until I find all the relevant articles and books.  I will probably start out by doing a lot of reading about American Exceptionalism before I start my historical research.  The former will help to shape the latter as I make a more complete connection between the Melville the and the thing he was criticizing (which is as relevant as ever in today's 24-hour propaganda cluster-fuck).

My goal is to go through AT LEAST two chapters of Out in the Garage a day until I have gone through all 17 chapters.  For the most part I am happy with everything, and I have no desire or see no need to change the story, the plot, the characters, etc. but there are some places where the language is still a little funky or inadequate and the descriptions are flat, boring, or too melodramatic.  

The melodrama worked more in previous versions where everything was over-the-top.  However, in the current version, it just comes across as cheesy, so I am going to tone it down a bit.  I want it to be vivid, yet subtle.  At least subtly over-the-top, or an implied over-the-topness -- if that is even possible.

Part of me does want to just say fuck it and publish it how it is, but I still have the time to polish it up before the release date.  That is one of the nice parts about current technology, and one which I will definitely continue to take advantage of.

I feel like I can't do any new writing until I have completely exhausted all of my current projects and the upcoming projects are thorough planned out.  I also need to get better at using my time wisely and dividing it more evenly between the things that are important in my life.  Sometimes some things might usurp more time than others, but right now there is nothing in particular that needs that.  I can be very productive if I push myself -- I just gotta be more Type-A than Type-B right now.

These blogs help with that.  In a strange way they help me organize my thoughts about my work and focus on what I need to be working on.  I have so many goals to accomplish, and I am not going to accomplish them by being lazy or focusing too much on one thing.  I can't lose sight of the importance of school, but yet my writing is also important -- it is, after all, what influenced me to study English and finally get my bachelor's degree-- and self-publishing is a challenging and rewarding hobby.

Monday, June 17, 2013


Right now, my focus is on making the language and the descriptions pop in Out in the Garage.  The next step will be to go through it very carefully and solely focus on typos.  My problem right now is that I am having an increasingly hard time focusing.  I guess I just need to blow off the steam and get it out of my system, though, so I can really buckle down and get accomplished what I need to get accomplished.

I do want to order a proof soon, which is the beginning of the second step.  That way I can also double-check all of my formatting.  I have also been hard at work in making the book's description and my bio sound more professional -- well, better written, anyways.

My goal is to make sure it is as entertaining-yet-thought-provoking as possible.  The story I am happy with, and I am not doing any major rewriting -- no craft stuff.  I do want to make sure every word, punctuation mark, and blank space, not function properly but also look how each one will look best.   It's important for me to take pride in my work and make sure it is of the highest quality possible, which means there won't be an exact, final version until it is actually published and I can't take it back.  I am not looking forward to the online formatting, which is another reason why I am going to focus on the print format and make sure everything is right before I even worry about anything else.

I do want to be done with it long before October 18 (and am confident I will be, since I am on a very challenging time frame right now with school, and what-not).

I do think that because it has take so long for me to put it out, I do have to take extra care to make sure I am satisfied with it, which is no easy task.  I do feel like setting a concrete deadline makes me focus on it and do it right, since I no longer am able to procrastinate.

It's go-time, right now, at this very moment.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Oh, what the Hell, here's another (sort of)

[Those of you familiar with my story, "The Backwoods Event" will recognize the beginning of this, but this is the original version, a version of which appeared in my undergrad portfolio.]

Killing Boredom
A Short Story By
 Gabe Gott

Joe Camel, himself, and I, the Marlboro Man, lit up in quick succession with the built-in cigarette lighter of Joe Camel’s 1992 Ford Escort.   Of course, Joe Camel and the Marlboro Man were just our aliases – our real names were Dave and Phil.  For legal reasons, we have to go by those names for the rest of the story.

Neither of our backseat compatriots smoked yet, but we had already gotten Jay to drink, and almost Timmy too, so, we figured, it would only be a matter of time.  We knew their curiosities had been piqued, even if they pretended otherwise.

Dave and I cracked open our windows and the heavy October air swirled into the milk-crate-with-wheels of a car.  Dave had his heater blasting to try to make up the difference.

“Goddammit, do you guys have to, it’s fucking cold,” Timmy said, breaking his vow of chastity or silence or whatever.

“Yeah, what about our lungs,” Jay said, pinching his noise and waving his hand in front like a mime in an anti-smoking ad.

“It would be worse if we didn’t roll down the windows,” I said and turned the music up to drown out their protests.  If they couldn’t beat us, they might join us, I thought, as my menthol-fresh essence trickled around the car, meshing with the crisp tobacco air from Dave’s end of the car, creating an overpowering net of influence over Jay and Timmy.

I had made a compilation, courtesy of Napster, of Marilyn Manson, Tool, Korn, Nine Inch Nails and Static-X songs.  They were the poets and philosophers of our angst.  “Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes” assaulted our ears as Dave and I filled our lungs and Jay and Timmy’s lungs with nicotine and dormant cancer.

“Violence for the people
They always eat the hand that bleeds
Violence for the people
Give the kids what they need…”

We sang along with Marilyn Manson, our Ohio-born brother, who spoke directly to us – well, all of us except for Timmy, who wasn’t allowed to like such sacrilegious noise.  The car rocked up and down in motion to my air-guitaring, Jay’s headbanging, and Dave’s steering-wheel drumming.

The road continuously materialized in front of us in the headlights as we followed it on the winding, twisting journey through the dense old-forest growth of the rural Ohio countryside – the emptiness between each of the towns that our civilization seemed like it might succumb to at any time.

Dave, Timmy, Jay and I had grown up within five-miles of each other along the same stretch of a two-lane trucker’s highway, US 250, that ran North and South through the state and into West Virginia.  In our 17 years of experience, we had found there was never much of anything to do, so, as we got older, we began to find ways to fight the incredible fog of boredom away from our brains.

Sometimes that led us to do things like Smokey the Bear, Captain Planet and Nancy Reagan crusaded against, but other times, like on that particular evening, we headed south from where we lived at the Northern tip of Ashland county – the steaming Hell-hole gaping pit of nothingness – down 250 to Ashland, the town, where there was sometimes something to do.
Most of the time we just drove around the streets, drag-racing and goofing off, jamming out to the soundtrack of our rebellion against boredom, but that night we intended to go to the crappy three-screen movie theater to see “Fight Club”, which had just come out.

Dave was the only one of us who had a driver’s license, so he drove us after our parents’ dropped us off at his house.  They were all happy to get rid of us obnoxious little twerps, as much as possible, for as long as possible.  It wouldn’t be long until we graduated, until they could be completely free of us.

I stared out the window, thrusting my imagination against the face of the unknown, the night sky and the blackened landscape, searching for the monsters and demons lurking just beyond my field of vision.  I felt mostly sober, but the world was still vaguely surreal and unnaturally knowing.  Dave and I smoked a bowl together before the others had gotten to Dave’s house – but that was hours before and Dave had seemed ready to drive when it was time to go.

From the thicket at the edge of the road just ahead of the car a mother opossum with its tiny rat-babies clinging to its back scurried out into the road and directly into our path.  Dave slammed on the brakes; the creatures praised their metal god as their seven sets of yellow eyes widened.  The Escort, the idol of their holy father, nearly went airborne as it took their sacrifice.




I grab the dashboard with my hands and try to ride out the violent waves.  The seatbelt tightened and slammed me back into the seat, causing the cigarette to pop out of my mouth with the force of my skull hitting the headrest.  At the same time I felt Jay slam into the back of my seat, as he never wore a seatbelt – he was lucky the Escort was too small for him to be ejected.  Timmy jerked in the same manner and moment that I did, and Dave, with his weight on the brakes and his body pressed to the pit of his seat, skidded the car to a halt.

No other traffic was coming from either direction so we took a moment to catch our breaths as our hearts beat along to the music.  Dave turned the CD player off in a silent tribute to the lost souls.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” he said.  Clutching his hand to his chest, he threw his cigarette out of the window.  I recovered my butt from the floor, but the end of it had been put out by the water from the bottom of my Chuck Taylor All-stars.  I tossed it out of the window and Dave and I looked at each other.  Jay recovered almost immediately, but Timmy rubbed his forehead where it hit the back of Dave’s seat.

“Serve’s them right,” Jay said, looking back towards where the opossums must have been.  “They nearly got me killed.”

“They did get killed,” Timmy said.

“You’re the one not wearing a seatbelt,” Dave said, looking back at Jay.  “You should put one on before some other woodland creature kamikazes itself at us.”

“They’re just possums,” Jay said, rolling his eyes, putting a seatbelt on.

“Still, though, I feel bad,” Timmy said.  If the rest of us weren’t here he would probably be crying.

“Let’s go, or we’re going to be late,” I said.

Feeling cheated out of enjoying the entire first one, I lit up another cigarette.  I turned the CD player back on to the mechanical steamroller guitars and screaming that were the sonic interpretations of the weight that dragged at my soul…

While Timmy turned around in his seat, watching the road behind us, Jay glared out his window, and I focused on my cigarette, Dave took one last glance in the rearview mirror and drove off, shaking his head, lighting himself up another cigarette.

“Can I have one,” Timmy blurted out.  Dave and I looked at each other – after we had recovered our disbelief Dave pulled a Camel and handed it back to him.  It had been a long time coming, and we had finally done it.  We basked in our victory, pulling the others one step further in the right direction.  Timmy looked like a confessed murdering, condemning himself to death row, doing whatever he could to punish himself for his crime.

Jay rolled his eyes, shook his head, and then took a deep breath.

“Me too, I guess…  But I’ll take one of yours,” He said, knocking the back of my seat.

“Sure,” I said, pulling one out of the pack that I had not put back in my pocket yet, and tossed it over my shoulder at him.

I turned up the Marilyn Manson and smiled, watching in the rearview mirror as Timmy and Jay light up with the car lighter, and then hacked and coughed until they got used to the poison in their lungs.


By the end of the movie, even Timmy had mostly forgotten about the opossums.  Adrenaline pumped through our veins and awe ran through our brains as we left the theater.  Our feet made a candy goo crunch on the carpet of the lobby of the theater as we headed towards the exit.

“Shotgun!” I said as I scrambled to beat Jay out of the door of the theater.  He and I ran to Dave’s car, with Dave and Timmy trailing not far behind.  Jay and I pushed at one another, and he tried to trip me as we fought for the passenger’s seat in Dave’s car.  We ran into the side of the car, which rocked against our weight as we wrestled to get an advantage over each other.  Jay smiled devilishly as he pulled me down to the ground of the parking lot; I grasped for the door handle.  Dave and Timmy made it over to the other side of the car, and Dave lit up a cigarette before unlocking the doors.  I threw my weight and knocked Jay off of me, kicking up with my foot, knocking him clear, and I scrambled my way into the car.

He pulled at my foot, but it was too late: I was in the seat.  I swung the door shut, narrowly missing slamming his hand in the door.

“Ha HA!”

“How am I supposed to get in, dumbass,” Jay said, his face red as he sat on the ground.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “I guess you can just walk.  It’s not that far.”

“Fuck off,” he said, “Just let me in the fucking car.”

“If I get up you’ll just sit here,” I said.  “I want to hear you say it!”

“Fuck you!”

“Just say it so we can go,” Dave said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m starving,” Timmy said.  “Stop being a sore loser.”

“Goddammit,” Jay said, standing up and brushing the small stones that had stuck pants when he had leapt after me.  “Okay, you win, now let me in the fucking car…”

I pushed the seat back and sat down, shaking my head.

“He never learns,” I said, looking over at Dave and Timmy.  “I am the all singing, all dancing crap of the world…”

 “Let’s start our own fight club,” Jay said, slamming the back of my seat with his fist.  “You and me, Phil, face to face, later tonight…  Then we’ll see how great you are.”


Into Taco Bell we went.  We often ate there, sometimes more than once in a night.  Our friend Kevin, who was generally the manager on duty at the time we generally went, met us at the counter.

"Hey, assholes," He said.  Kevin had graduated a couple of years ahead of us, and, in spite of being a burnt out, somehow managed his shifts somewhat successfully.  I guess it took a stoner to get other stoners motivated to work.  "Come out and smoke with me, I'm takin' a break."

"Oh man!" Jay said. "I'm fuckin' hungry!"

"It'll taste even better five minutes from now," Kevin said, and we followed him back outside from where we had just come.

  We followed him out behind the restaurant to where the corral for the dumpsters hid them from view from customers in the parking lot.  Our Taco Bell was one of those old ones, without a drive though, where you could go inside and eat to like 3 in the morning, and employees always parked back by the dumpster corral, so we were relatively safe to go back there and smoke with some privacy.

We got out there and as Kevin pulled the joint he had already rolled, I told him about how he should go and see Fight Club himself.

"It's fuckin' rad, dude," I said.  "I think you'd totally like it."

I watched as he searched around his pockets for a cigarette lighter, the joint plucked in his lips.  I could see the puffy rings under his eyes, and how his eyes were already totally bloodshot.

"If I didn't have to work all fucking night, I might," he said.  "I never fucking get a night off.  My uncle is like the Adolf Hitler of the fake Mexican food industry."

His uncle owned the franchise, but Kevin could pretty much do whatever he wanted there.   Things seemed to go more or less okay when he was there, and there was always a steady stream of business.  He would probably one day manager the store; it wasn't a bad job for an ambitionless stoner.

"I fuckin' hate this place," he said, exhaling a cloud of purple-tinged smoke, which wafted like fresh perfume into my nostrils.  He handed me the joint next.  He always talked about how much he hated the job.  We knew better, though.  "Seriously, man, this place fucking blows.  These kids are fuckin' draggin' me down..."

"These kids?" Dave said.  "You're not even 21, dude."

I took a superman sized hit.

"Easy there, man, this is good shit, you're gonna' flip out in like two seconds," Kevin said to which I grinned, and then he turned back to Dave without missing a beat.  "You know what I fuckin' mean, man...  There is a big different between 16 and 20..."

"Four years," Timmy said.

"Thank you, Einstein," Kevin said.  "You fucking asshole.  Jesus  Christ...  You guys have to promise me something..."

"What's that," Dave said, just as he took a hit and inhaled, so that his words came out all smoky and distorted.  He passed the joint to Timmy, who passed it off to Jay, who tried to match my hit tit-for-tat.

"You guys are going to fuckin' freak out," Kevin warned again.  "You fucking amateurs...  Seriously...  What the fuck was I saying, man?"

He turned to Dave and started laughing.  For a second he turned into Beavis and Dave into Butthead, but I blinked my eyes and he was back to normal again.

"I don't fuckin' know," Dave said.  "You were bitching about your job or something..."

"Oh, yeah, that's right," Kevin said, holding the joint, which I snatched from his fingers 'cause he was takin' too long with it.

"It's going to go out," I said, but he ignored me, too focused on the bit of wisdom he was trying to tell us.

"Get the fuck out of this fucking town," Kevin said.  "Don't make my mistake, man.  Get the fuck out of here and don't look back.  This place is a shithole.  It's gonna' drag you down and sit on you, till you're all purple in the face and shit, and before you know it, two years will have passed and..."

"Jesus Christ," Dave said, taking another small hit before passing directly over to Jay.  He looked at Kevin, shaking his head.  "How much have you had to smoke today?  You say that like we don't already fuckin' know."

"Yeah, man," I said.  "Why the fuck would we stay?"

Jay nearly dropped the joint after he burned his fingers on the tip which had burned down to almost nothing.

"Fucking amateur," Kevin said, taking the roach, hitting off it, and then stamping it out.  Luckily the police around Ashland weren't real receptive, or the garbage man, because the ground was littered with literally a million defeated joint ends.  "Well boys, let's go get some Taco fucking Bell!"

To us, he sounded like Spartacus trying to rally the other slaves into rebellion.  We followed him like we were about to go face a Roman Legion, back around the building, through the front doors, past some startled old people who got out of the way before we stormed over them, and into line.  Kevin went behind the counter and shoved the cashier out of the way.

"What could I get you boys today, it's on me," he said.  He turned to the cashier.  "Go help them bust this food out..."

The cashier quietly strolled back, washed her hands, and put rubber gloves on, and waited to make our food with the others.

"Hey, Gina," I waved to her. She was in my economics class.  "I love you, you know!"

She smiled and looked away.  I had been wearing her down for months.  I hoped I could get her to sleep with me before the year was out.  I didn't want to go to college a virgin.

Ahead of me Dave and Jay ordered, Timmy waited behind me, with a growing number of other impatient people, including the old people, who had that "I would call the cops on you if i could" look in their eyes.  Luckily for us cellphones wouldn't be all that common for another few years yet, at least not around Ashland.

As I looked back, the restaurant wasn't filled with people at all.  Sitting in booths, chatting, waiting behind us in line, scowling, walking in and out of the door were a bunch of giant opossums. I turned back around, and everyone ahead of me was still normal.  Kevin wasn't kidding, I thought, this is good shit...  We would find out later from Kevin, whose dealer tried to call him, but couldn't reach him since he was at work, that the pot we had smoked was in fact laced with PCP.  Kevin smiled at me, his smiled wavered and snaked across his face, and when he opened his mouth it seemed like a deep dark cavern of emptiness.

"Dude," he said, his popping out of his mouth like bubbles, "Are you fucking going to order at once.  I turned around, and realized that all of the possums were staring at me, blinking, waiting for me to order.

"Well," they said, all in sync, "Get on with it."

"Uhhh..." I said, the beadiness and blackness of the possums' eyes causing me to shudder.  "I'll take a chalupa..."

"Okay," floated out of Kevin's mouth and popped on the ceiling.

Timmy moved me over to stand beside Jay and Dave, who wiggled and wobbled about like they were made of rubber.

"That's fucked up," Jay said, his words attacking me like a mini air fleet from the hanger on his tongue.  "Your head looks like a pumpkin!"

Suddenly and without warning, time sped up, and when it went back to normal, I was sitting in the backseat of Dave's car, with Timmy driving, Dave sitting beside me behind his normal spot, and Jay in the passenger's seat, snarfing down his Taco Bell, like a wild animal stripping away flesh from a fresh carcass.

Dave had already eaten his food, and seemed to have turn into a statue, staring out the window.  I realized my Taco Bell sat, scalding on my lap.  Later, from Timmy, we would find out that Kevin just suddenly flipped us out, and made us all leave as soon as our food came up.  Apparently the restaurant was also completely empty, except for a couple of old people, who were too old and senile to notice our distorted states of mind.  I guess PCP can have that effect.

"Didn't you think they were going to get us, man," I said, addressing no one in particular.

Timmy smiled and looked at me in the rearview mirror.


The fucking possums, man," I said.

Jay stopped feeding, jerked his head up and stared at me, blood seeming to drip from his jowls.

Dave slowly turned his head around, his eyes wide and trembling.

"I didn't mean it," he whispered.  "You gotta' let me go...   My parents will worry...  Seriously, it was an accident..."

Then he started shouting, fighting against the seatbelt and rocking the back of Jay's seat.


Jay started laughing and then swung around and punched Dave in the face, right in the eye.  Dave curled up into a ball, squeezing as far into the corner of the seat as he could get...

"I'm sorry..." he mouthed.

"Don't worry," Jay said, looking at Timmy.  "I took care of it."

I looked down at his lap at his food, and his Taco Bell was in fact a half-eaten opossum carcass...  Then I threw up all over myself.

The world blurred around me and faded in and out of blackness.  I could taste the sour half-chewed chalupa chunks and threw up again, this time on the floor.

"I took care of it," Jay said.

Timmy looked back at me in the rear-view mirror and over at Jay and smiled.

"Best anti-drug ad, ever."

Thursday, June 13, 2013

It's Been a While...

A short story by
Gabe Gott

Herman O'Toole lounged back on his couch, assaulting his stomach with Jones' Salt & Vinegar potato chips.  Crunch!  His teeth ground up the divorces from his job and his wife.  He swallowed – he had no savings and only half of the junk his wife had purchased using his credit cards.   He tipped the chip bag to his mouth and the last of the crumbs sailed out; every last speck of his debts from ex-wife's overspending and his alimony to her left his bag empty.

Herman's insurance sales job had paid for the lifestyle he had wanted since before he knew what it meant.  He bought a lot in a housing development, picked the largest of the four designs, and married a former model.  She was the type of wife he could have ordered out of a catalog.  In fact, as she was a model, he may have seen her in her glory, in the Sears Christmas catalog, smiling, proudly displaying underwear, gold jewelry, a fur jacket...  She looked exactly like her pictures, and like the descriptions in the catalog, she was all about the products she displayed.

Had it been months, or years?  Had it actually happened?  Maybe he had never left the couch at all -- had always been there.   Maybe those fragments of memories that flashed and sparkled like the last few straggling fireworks of a formerly impressive display had happened on some TV show he had watched.

Hypnotized by the flashing  rambling images from his 70” Sony Wega Plasma, Herman hid in the sanctuary of the shadows half buried and surrounded by a blanket of empty wrappers, casually lit by the spastic light waves dancing around him around the room.  Groaning as he got up from where the couch had worn his groove, torn plastic rained down to the floor.

Herman thundered out of the room and into the kitchen where the usual coterie of appliances lined the walls like far off mountains surrounding a laminated -wood table island, set for four, in the middle of a sea of empty wrappers and half-smashed instant potato boxes.  The chairs sat looking ready to turn into sawdust with the slightest thrust of pressure against them like shipwrecks just off the coast of the island.  He made his path through the garbage past the island to the refrigerator, and thrust his head deep within the Arctic recesses.  He sighed and then took his Grail quest to the cupboards.


Half an hour after absorbing the last bite of the last atom of anything edible within his apartment, he collapsed across the table.  Food crusted plates and silverware ran from below him; a glass crashed to the floor and sank below the surface.  His chair gave way with a sudden crack.  The world spun around as he tumbled backwards; a geyser erupted from his mouth when he hit the ground with a...momentarily startled awake from an unknown cause, the downstairs neighbor, supposing a dream, fell back once again oblivious.

Herman lay splayed out on the linoleum like a polar bear that had just slipped backwards on a slab of ice. The room spun around him, he closed his eyes, but the spinning continued.  His limbs went numb and his mind went blank...

he squeezed his eyes even more tightly; his hands and knees sank into the sand like it was absorbing him, slowly, more and more, every time he stopped.  Herman saw everything in shades of red from the sandblast air working away at his eyes.   The sun pierced through the layers of sand to his soul as he crawled along, unable to see more than a few feet in any direction.  His head spun, his vision blurred in and out, he smelled only burning, his throat burned, it was swollen so that only a whistle would escape, but his last scrap of will pushed him on.  Hanging his head, he noticed how emaciated he was: his flesh barely contained his bones; his organs had dried from plums to prunes.  It wouldn't be long before the sun and sand broke him down or buried him.  He was a lost dog looking for a bone unable to find his way back home again --somewhere on his search he had lost all of his instinct that mattered.

He collapsed in a heap.  He could not even remember what he searched for or why.  The sand started to pull more and more of him under. Out of the corner of his eye there was a brief clearing and he noticed that behind him lay a vast, burnt out wasteland, smoke rising towards the heavens from all directions.  Crumbled buildings, skyscrapers, danced recklessly in the wind like heroin-addict ballerinas, ready to plummet.  The sky glowed pink like someone had given it an Easter-Egg dye job, the air and sand blew tumbleweeds of garbage, McDonald's wrappers and Pepsi cans, wrapped up with red and green Christmas ribbon, blop, blop blopping across the barren desert...  Bodies lay about, dried and broken, half buried and scattered across the sand, rats scuttling in and out amongst them, avoiding starvation by chewing on the leathery flesh...

The room around him blurred as he came into cognition.  He blinked his eyes into focus and heard the rerun of Leave It to Beaver that had at some point come to occupy TV Land in the time that he was out.  The floor under him had grown cold.  He attempted to move, every part of his body twitched and shivered; his heart thumped and stuttered like a car engine that had just been started for the first time in years.

“Holy fuck!” he muttered, the only thought that crashed around his mind, echoes of waves of holy fucks like the remnants of a bad acid trip. He lay there for an undetermined amount of time, shuttering, struggling against oblivion.

He won the battle, at least for a time, and sat up, slowly, as to not make his head start spinning again, but determinedly, as to find out the future day and time where he had arrived.  He searched for his phone and found it amongst the garbage. The kitchen looked like the cupboards and the refrigerator had binged and purged.  He found his phone with the battery just seconds from dying: six missed calls with six voicemails, and six text messages.

“Fucking bitch,” he threw his phone across the room; it smashed against the doorframe and fell in fragments amongst the sea of remnants.

His alimony check was late.


He showered.  He may have been clean, but it didn't really help.  Every part of his body ached like he had just been through a medieval stoning.

An infomercial for high definition sunglasses played across the 70” Plasma as Herman lounged back into the soft leather couch he and his ex-wife had bought at Value City.  She hated it so he had gotten it in the settlement.  He thought it was conformable enough.

He changed the channel.

Alex Trebeck stood at his podium facing the contestants: a school teacher from Maryland, an astrophysicist from Cambridge and an Ohio farmer.  The farmer commanded a sizable lead over the others going into Final Jeopardy.

“The Final Jeopardy category is 'Competitive Eating',” Alex Trebeck read from the teleprompter.  “And we'll continue...  After the commercial break.”

Jamie Lee Curtis tried to persuade Herman to buy Activia Yogurt, but he had never heard of “probiotics” nor cared to know how regular they made his bowel movements.

With great effort he thrust himself up and towards the kitchen to grab a Dr. Pepper.

He meandered through the maze of junk on his way back to his spot as Jeopardy came back.   Alex Trebeck again summarized the competition, with Farmer Bob the run-away winner unless he messes up the final round.  It happens.  Some people slip.  Herman leaned slightly closer to the TV to get more involved in the action.  His pupils readjusted slightly.

“And tonight’s final jeopardy answer is 'The governing body that sanctions over eighty professional eating competitions a year.'”

Herman hummed along to the catchy final jeopardy music.  He did not sweat it that the farmer would win.  He turned off the TV and went to bed before Trebeck repeated what he already knew to be correct.  It had almost echoed from his psyche to the TV.  The episode had played out in some Freudian way, but he was consciously oblivious to it -- he was a zombie, maybe generations removed from any form of reality.


Herman had a black seven printed on a cardboard placard pinned to his shirt.  The judges with their clipboards, these were the counters, one for each contestant, and there was also an official timekeeper.  The crowd began to settle down, waiting, ready to watch the contest.  The judges all took their places, and the time keeper raised the pistol in the air.

Ready," the timekeeper said, looking into the stopwatch.  Bang!  He pulled the trigger and hit the start button at the same time.

Before he knew it, Herman was halfway through his platter of hotdogs.  Fist after fist of hotdog after hotdog went into his mouth.  He had strong esophageal muscles that pushed the mashed hotdogs and momentary gushes of water and bun goo down to his seemingly bottomless stomach.  He finished off the hotdogs in record time, WORLD RECORD TIME.  When he looked up, the crowd was carrying him on their shoulders, the trophy clutched in his hands...

He woke from a heavy slumber, deep within the folds of blankets, floating peacefully on his Tempur Pedic mattress, trophy clinging invisibly to his palms, still thrust to the air.

He blinked his eyes.

He had been reasoning with himself before he had given it a conscious thought: one, he enjoyed eating; and two, he could eat a lot, and fast -- perhaps even more and even faster than anyone else he knew.  Most people frowned upon binging, but, then again, why would an alcoholic not join a drinking contest?  Three, he could get paid to eat!  Some people went to college for eight years to do what they love for a living.  He wondered if he could compete and still draw unemployment.

“Who are you kidding” a distant voice echoed.  It sounded half-buried somewhere back in the sand-pit of his mind and eerily like his wife's.  Ex-wife's.

The dark cloud continued to hover over him.  He knew he barely had the energy to go out for pickup or through the drive through, and, more often than not, he left his meals up to delivery.  Thank God for grocery delivery.  The coroner will have to cut a hole in the wall to fit him out.  The day Herman is discovered his downstairs neighbor will have finally determined the cause of the smell that will have been haunting for weeks.  The smell will have grown so unbearable that the neighbor will finally notice how Herman’s mail has been piling up for even longer than usual…

He rolled and twisted and turned and flipped and flopped but could not get back to sleep. Daylight streamed in through the missing plastic strips in his blind.  He toss and flipped and twisted until his hankering for McDonald's for breakfast was so enormous, it devoured his imagination.  He pictured the Steak Bagel meal with its sautéed onions, scrambled eggs and hollandaise sauce...  He usually bought a couple of extra hash browns to top it off and upgraded to an extra-large Coke to wash it all down.  Sometimes he also bought a couple of breakfast burritos.


He stood up at the side of his bed and blinked his eyes, and dressed himself like a lynch mob was rolling in at him from every direction.  He lumbered out of his room, into the bathroom, and then down the hall towards the kitchen.  He took ten minutes to find his keys from around the rubble, and then headed out the door.

He locked the door to his apartment.  The door had been a window that had been converted upon the transition from two-story house to duplex.

He held onto the rail for dear life making his way down the rickety handmade wooden steps that wobbled a violent protest of him leaving.  He needed to talk to his landlord.

The cheap bastard, Herman thought.

He nearly fell as he looked around on his way down, half-expecting to run into his wife.


He started up his mint green Jeep Grand Cherokee with the rust spots here and there -- a box of Ruggles Mint-Chocolate Chip Ice Cream with wheels.  Out the driveway to the left there was a McDonald's 1.3 miles away and to the right there was one 3.4 miles away -- according to his Tom-Tom, which he had checked, out of curiosity, more than once.   He turned right because his old neighborhood was in the other direction.

He tapped the steering wheel to the music on the radio -- some Lady Gaga song -- zooming past cars in no-passing zones, buzzing through school zones at 50 mph, tailgating the old lady in the Buick because he could not get around the constant stream of traffic that  had annoyingly started from the opposite direction. Not bothering with a turn signal he swung into the McDonald's parking lot and narrowly dodged being hit from both directions.  He sped around, swerved through throngs of pedestrians and almost hit the car in front of him at end of the drive through line.


He ate the last of his McDonald's went down like he was in competition in his car in the parking lot -- Herman won every time.  No matter his intentions he always ended up sitting in the nearest parking space from the last drive through window ripping through his food like a starving cannibal.

He knew the Chipotle just down the street would open soon, and he had to go to Chipotle for the same reason that a lion has to hunt and kill a gazelle. Arriving at Chipotle before the restaurant opened its doors he was waiting outside with the rest of the impatient crowd when someone recognized him.

“Hey Herm!”

Herman noticed Jerry just as Jerry slapped him on the shoulder.


It's a different business now than when you started Herman remembered Jerry had told him several months ago upon laying him off.

Herman tensed up.

Jerry was one of those guys who had been handed everything by his parents his whole life – instant potatoes, the son of an Insurance-made millionaire taking over his father's business.

“How's it goin' there, Bud',” Jerry said, once again slapping Herman on the spot that still ached from the first time.  He tried to look Herman straight in the eyes but Herman looked away almost immediately.  Jerry started to speak, but no sound cam e out.  After a long pause, during which Herman noticed the manager of Chipotle walking up to unlock the door, he finally managed:

“Find anything new yet?”

Herman stepped backwards out of Jerry's reach.


Before Jerry could respond to Herman the manager opened the door and the raving crowd of addicts barreled through the entrance, almost trampling the manager who leapt out of the way at the last moment.

Herman jostled past Jerry like a keen running back past an incompetent linebacker, getting a person or two ahead of him.

After a brief wait Herman was ordering his burritos, watching amusingly as the employees struggled to fit everything within the tortilla shells and wrap them up.  He stared down the employees like they were responsible for his gluttony.

The employee wrapping his burritos joked with him about eating both.   Herman eyed Jerry, who watched wide-eyed.

“I'm preparing for an eating competition,” Herman told the Chipotle worker.

“Oh wow!  That's a relief!  I was worried you had a tape worm.”

Glancing back Herman noticed Jerry was looking in another direction.


In his Jeep he started pecking at his first burrito like a hungry vulture, the radio station once again playing the Lady Gaga song.  By the time he finished he had forgotten about the asshole.  Herman noticed he had downed the burrito in about four minutes by the clock in his Jeep.   Not bad, he thought, but was it enough?

After a moment of silence reflection, Herman realized he would have to do better.  He wasn't hungry enough.  He didn't want it badly enough.  He had to really want it.  He held his breath and continued talking himself up.

There was a rapping at his window.

Apparently that bastard couldn't just leave him alone.

It wasn't Jerry.  He did, however, recognize the cheery, 17-year-old freckled face that excitedly stared back at him.


He tried to hold back the urge to bolt as he cranked the window down.

She smiled ear to ear, her ocean blue eyes attempting to irrigate the desert of his heart.  Esperanza was almost a grown woman; when he last saw her, she was still just a kid.


He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.  His heart raced like a sandstorm inside his chest.

“Gosh, I haven't seen you in forever!  Mom...  I...  We both miss you!  We talk about you all the time!”


“You should totally stop by sometime.”

“I should?”

“Yeah, of course… We miss you!”


“Like, really really miss you!”

She stood there like a mirage.  Her sundress flitted in the breeze, light seeming to emanate from her like she had just descended from Heaven.

A slow bead of sweat dripped down his forehead, followed by a cascade, and he began fiddling with the radio dial.  He peered at himself in the rear-view mirror as she spoke to him, her words distant echoes, the sounds of buildings collapsing, bridges burning – signs of life within him, destroyed.  Only the garbage remained.

“You should just come over for lunch!  I'm sure mom would be thrilled to see you!”

He couldn't stop looking at himself.

“I can't, sorry.”

She peered into his open window.  She stood firm, unwavering in spite of him.

“Maybe for dinner?”

“Sorry, I'm busy.”

"Maybe next time?"

He saw her in his rear-view mirror, standing there like a statue of a virgin martyr, with a Chipotle bag dangling from her hand, watching him speed away.


He always dreaded having to hike up those rickety stairs.  It for some reason always reminded him of his house that his ex-wife had gotten in the settlement.


She popped out of his daydream like Freddie Kruger about to strike.  He searched around his peripheral vision, but he could not see her bright red BMW convertible anywhere.  She must have parked around the corner.


The second burrito clutched in his hand, he peered over his should like a meth addict running from the police.

“Hi Belinda,” he mumbled.

“You're late,” she said, her red sundress flitting in the breeze.  She clutched a Pepsi can as she stood there, glaring at him through Gucci sunglasses.

“Late?  I don't live with you anymore.”

“Your alimony?”

She ripped her sunglasses off and gave a Hellraiser-esque stare-down.

“I’ve been calling you...  Haven't you got my messages?”

He remembered the phone, lying in broken pieces somewhere in the junk heap of his kitchen floor.  Oh, he had gotten the messages.

She only had short phrases like artillery fire left for him.


Her green eyes burned at him like green coals squeezing themselves into diamonds.  He hesitated.

“Don't fuck with me!”

He stood there, wavering.

“Goddamn you, Herman!” Belinda brushed the hair out of her eyes, flaring her nostrils like a bull about to charge.  He never knew why she insisted on having bangs that length.  Trim them shorter and they'll be out of the eyes or grow them longer and tuck them out!  JESUS.  She sure looked good, though.

He turned around and started up the stairs. She followed him, grumbling the whole way.  He had no money and no checks to give her.  His bank had closed his empty account three-weeks ago.   He did not know what he would do when they got up there.  Every step rumbled as if the Earth's gravity had started to pull harder and harder at the stairs.

“Jesus, Herman, what a shithole...”

He reached for the door just as she uttered it and the stairs gave way and the two crashed back towards the Earth.  Her mind didn't even have time to calculate a reaction as Herman's shadow blotted out the sky.

Her body twitched under him like a cockroach that had finally succumbed to the blows of his stamping foot.  He couldn't move; he just lay there, staring up at the sky.  For just an instant the whole world stopped around him as he lay there, just lay there.  He knew he should get up, but he couldn't.  She stopped.  The world started spinning, faster and faster, until he had to draw his eyes to a close.  His heart flitted at an incalculable rate.   He twitched every time he tried to draw a breath.  Goddd, he thought, as the last of the oxygen left his brain...

...his vision blurred and the sand encrusted him and he was buried except for his head and the sand typhooned around him and his face was being eroded so he squinted until he had to close his eyes entirely.  He saw the soft-brown glow from the sun through the semi-opaque blinders of his eyelids.  Then the Earth swallowed him up just like it had Rome, Egypt, and the countless other forgotten empires that had come before.  For a moment, everything was at peace.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

A Post, Post

Sometimes, especially lately, I feel like I have gone through my book so many times, I just have to let it be "as it."

However, in spite of this, I still feel compelled to proofread it one more time before I print a proof and then I will proofread it, and proofread it again (and all right in a row) and this will be my final effort before I publish in October.

My goals are to improve the language and eliminate the typos.  I want every word to be what I intended, whether it makes sense or not.  It's a lot easier to justify something that I planned than to explain a typo -- which seems like it should be a whole lot easier of a problem to fix.  HA!

The next novel I am in the process of brainstorming and fully planning out.  I expect to be started writing officially soon.

This, of course, is all in addition to my thesis, which I really have to get started on researching.  I just don't want my summer to be over yet.  I have to give myself the right amount of time, so I don't go crAZY!!!!

Then again, that was probably too late a long time ago.  Oh well.  What the fuck ever.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Random Notes:

Been distracted by shiny things, lately.  Will be getting back to business, shortly.  And by business I totally mean my thesis.  That thing is... Here.  Yikes!

Very exited to be reading Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (as well as other books, including The Mystborn by Brandon Sanderson).

Recording is...  Going well.  Check out

Check out the books page to read the updated description for Out in the Garage, my debut novel, which I am self-publishing / releasing for sale on October 18.

*Making my wife watch Warm Bodies because I know she'll like it once she gives it a chance*

Monday, June 3, 2013

A Note About Survival Pilot

As I am sure you are well-aware of by now, I have this music-recording thing I have been doing -- the latest incarnation of which is currently called Survival Pilot.  I am currently recording an album, newly entitled Goodbye Melancholia, and am releasing each song upon completion -- instead of the traditional route of releasing everything at once.  This gives people a chance to be in on the creative process (and it will keep me on my toes).

Anyways, the results of the recording I have been doing are turning out rather well (if I do say-so myself).  The latest (fourth) single to be released is called "Goodbye", and I encourage you to go to My Soundclick Page and check it out.  After a few days to get the vocals right, I have released it -- and am very happy with the results.

As I am poor and being forced to be creative on the fly, I have to use what I have available.  This is why I am using for my album art this image --

 -- which is a cell phone picture of the visualizations on Windows Media Player (and which I edited with the very basic photo-editing software I have on my computer).

All of Survival Pilot's music is also available for free download -- if you are interested.

Saturday, June 1, 2013


More to give away!  Email me (gabegott@gmail) right now to get a PDF of my upcoming novel, Out in the Garage, for your e-reader / tablet / computer!

This is what you'll be getting:

"Lance Adamson was born in the 80's.   His best friend is Wayne; they go all the way back to kindergarten.  Now they are in high school and have started the greatest band ever, The Knights of the Round Table, with their two best friends, Art and Louie Louie.  Maybe the rest of the school might for once actually notice them -- without the crosshairs. They certainly practice out in the garage enough.

It was Grandpa Harry who took Lance out to the garage for the first time and taught him how to play drums: how to really play, how to make it count -- how to let the music carry him away.  His mom and dad were also at one time rock n' rollers, but they stopped going out to the garage and now they're divorced.  Lance hopes that never happens to him.

One summer he goes away from the garage and stays with his Aunt and Uncle on their dairy farm, which is practically in the middle of nowhere.  There he meets Edie ...  And, well...  They are just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  However, they still must survive the Evangelicals who run the town.  That will, well... Take some faith.

With the good and the bad and the whole tangled mess all swirling about, Lance trudges forward, discovering that -- no matter what happens -- he can always go back out to the garage."


The first ten people to email me ( right now will receive a free advance PDF of my upcoming novel, Out in the Garage.  It will be as true to the final version, and you will easily be able to read it on an e-reader or a tablet or a computer screen.  If you ask me very nice, I might be willing to print you a paper copy on my high-volume laser printer.  ;-)

I have the free version on my Kindle and I really like the way it looks.

NOTE: If I get ten people really quickly, I will probably give away more.


I think I want to focus this website more.  Or join something. I know I have been considering these things for a while.

I would like to write more about music -- not merely my own projects but also those of my friends (who wish it) and articles about classic albums or the occasional, currently-good album.

Maybe treat my blog more like a magazine.  I might consider getting some contributing writers, or start a website with a group of writers who will all contribute equally.  A way we can all write and publish and promote ourselves and each other.   Maybe I should go more broad, though.  I don't know.  I am rambling.

Maybe a good way of putting it would be an online artist collective.  Not pretentious --artists of any type, of any style -- and not anti-commercial, but anti-over-commercialization.  Artists of any stage of their career.  We could provide each other constructive criticism as well, but the end-goal will be to increase the audience for ourselves as a whole and as individuals, with both free products and for-sale products, with no difference in the quality of either, just each meeting a specific audience demand.

Sure we could continue to go it alone and maybe get lucky after years and years of trial and error but not really getting anywhere and settling for careers that keep us content, or we can reasonable work as a group to help each other pursue our dreams.  Sure, we will probably have to work day-jobs for a while, but if we put our heads and different skill-sets together, it can only be beneficial.

It's true I could join such a community that is already in existence, but I like the idea of putting one together myself that is as all-inclusive as possible.