As so often happens with projects that are started for all the wrong reasons, this one flamed out rather quickly. It wasn't an abject failure … I followed through in January and February, fell off a little in March, and then totally went to pot in the months after that. By June I'd posted 86 stories. That's not a bad total, and some of those stories are pretty darn entertaining. But it's still a far cry from 365, which is how many days there are in a year (in case you're one of those people who doesn't know about time and math).

The project wasn't a complete waste of time, because out of it came a series I consider one of my finest creations - Professor Blowjob and the Storm-Fighters of Courage. (You can read the series for yourself starting right here.) Prof. Blowjob embodies everything I enjoy about writing – ridiculous characters, absurd situations, juvenile humor, and gloriously awkward turns of phrase. It is most certainly not for everyone. But the people it is for, it is so, so for. And those people are, in my opinion, a criminally underserved market of readers.

A few months ago, I decided I would try to get Professor Blowjob published. It isn't a complete manuscript yet, mind you, but I figured enough of the saga was there that I could at least find an agent who'd be willing to say, "I like the roll of your spliff, son … let's keep in touch." Sure, I could have published it myself, on account of how I own a publishing company. But let's be honest … Awkward does not have two dimes to rub together. And daddy needs to get paid. So: commence the agent search.

I've never spent much time pursuing a literary agent, even though I've written and published a lot of books and stories and have a fan in Turkey, which are the three major requirements listed on most literary agents' websites. I figured I would start by sending out blind submissions and then narrow the list down when the responses came flooding in -- a very reasonable strategy.

After combing through the first list of agencies I found in a Google search, I settled on about 40 different agencies. I found the person at each agency who handled books or authors I admired, and sent that person the following introductory email:

Subject: The next Sophie's Choice, probably

Professor Blowjob and the Storm Fighters of Courage is a story of friends and how they come together to learn about life and murder bad guys. It starts with a simple question: where is Professor Blowjob? It quickly answers that question and moves on to other issues that are far more important than that. It's a roller coaster ride of things that are important and exciting and brand new ideas that no one has ever heard before. In short, it is a book about life and the people who are living it.

Led by legendary renegade maverick special operative Sargent Pat Hardy, the Storm Fighters of Courage take adventure by the balls and ride it like a giant poodle all the way into Action Land. You might think you've read about adventures before, but you've never seen adventure like this. Every page of Professor Blowjob and the Storm Fighters of Courage is soaked in death-defying testosterone and nail-biting fury. After you read it, you'll probably have to take a cold shower to get rid of all your hard-ons – that's how death-defying this action is.

The story of the book is about a bad guy named Mark Hazzard who fucking wrecks shit left and right. He has an electronic leg and he used to date Jacky Minx who also dated Sargent Hardy and he took Hardy's sperm and made a frozen baby out of it and all that stuff. So he's really got Hardy by the balls. How will Hardy get out of this mess? He'll have to rely on his friends, the Storm Fighters of Courage! They are: Beans, the marksman and naïve youngster with a tale to tell and a love of eating pizza. Lady Midnight, the demolitions expert and seductress. John Nightnight, the hand-to-hand king. Snog-Dog, the sky sorcerer. And of course, Professor Blowjob, the polymath. Together, they will get in so much adventure you can't stand it!

Professor Blowjob and the Storm Fighters of Courage is real. It's the most important novel of this generation or any other and it has been prelisted by the New York Times as the #1 bestseller of the future. People who have read it in its final form have used words like "good" and "quite good." Do you want to be left out in the cold with this important work of fiction? You shouldn't! Next stop: FUN!

And then I sat back and waited. And waited.

Out of 40 submissions, I received approximately 5 responses. Only one of those responses was from a human being. The guy who represented the author of Marley and Me wrote to say, "Let's pretend this never happened." I give him credit; that's pretty funny. It's almost as funny as Marley and Me is terrible.

The other responses were all form rejections. To those people I responded thusly:

Dear Emailer,

Please accept my sincere apology for the formulaic nature of this email response. I receive a tremendous amount of form letters and I am unfortunately unable to respond to each one individually. Although I am unable to respond in depth at this time, I appreciate the facsimile of human communication and I wish you the best of luck in your future rejection efforts.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Dinsmore

I still hold out hope that I'll be able to complete the Professor Blowjob saga someday. And I still would love to do my part in creating a marketplace for gonzo fiction. There are a few people out there, like the excellent Jon Konrath, who are working in a similar milieu and doing a wonderful job of helping to get this kind of work out into the world. It would be great if Awkward were a part of some kind of movement. But I don't even know if Awkward is Awkward anymore. Like I said, daddy's got to get paid.

Mostly, though, I just wish I could find a literary agent with a sense of humor.

Update: When talking about the people in the literary world who are on the side of the good guys, I should have mentioned my friend Joshua Citrak's site Slouch. Great writer, excellent site, NO BULLSHIT.

The point of the post is that my friends Dave & Gabe have a show on YouTube and it is soon going to be exploding with content. So get in now, on the ground floor, so in 2 months when your friends are all like, "dude, you have GOT to check out The Big Time Show," you can be all, "what, you mean some future episodes that haven't even been made yet? Because I've known about that shit like forEVER."

The first episode is below; you can check out the entire hilarious series at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE21137175EEB208D. Spread the love! Share the laughs! Live the lie!

This year presented some particular difficulties because this is the year I became a dad. I don't want to be one of those guys who becomes a dad and totally loses touch with new music, because music is still really important to me. True, I haven't seen a band play all year. Ugh, I just wrote that and felt a little sick. But that makes sense because seeing a band means leaving the house at night when I would rather be sleeping. Listening to music, on the other hand, is something you can pretty much do during every hour of your waking life, particularly if you're someone like me who sits in front of a computer all day and doesn't ever need to talk to another human being. I hope for your sake you are not someone like me.

You can even listen to music with your kids, if you want. Although I also don't want to be one of those guys who's like, "my kids are only allowed to listen to the Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart." Because every kid needs to have his or her crap music phase, right? Thankfully my daughter is still at the age where I can listen to adult-oriented stuff in her presence without her bothering me all the time with questions like, "what's a gat?" and "why is the woman in the song making those horrible moaning noises?" I mean, I turn it off when her ears start bleeding. I'm a very conscientious father.

But having said that, I didn't really have the time to sit with records as much as I would have liked this year. And very few albums really blew me away, aside from my number one album, which is one of my very favorite albums of the last several years. With all those caveats in mind, I'm just going to say "fuck it" and present the fifteen records that did the best job of breaking through the clutter.

15. Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness
There are bands you want to fuck and bands you want to cuddle. Los Campesinos! is decidedly in the latter camp. But that's okay ... the band you want to fuck will only disappoint you and leave you miserable in the end. On the Campesinos! fourth record, they cover much of the same territory they've explored on their previous albums: heartache, loss, sorrow, and the impossibility of finding true love. The genius of the Campesinos! is that even when they're nursing broken hearts, they still sound like they're having a good time. Even if you're not bowled over by their recordings, be sure to catch them live … if you can leave that venue without feeling like you've had a spiritual experience, I'll give you your money back.

That's not true. I won't give you your money back. But I will be like, "whaaaaat?"

14. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
What is this, performance art? Musical theater? Prog rock? I have no idea, but I like it. Three albums in, St. Vincent (nee Annie Clark) has yet to make a bad move. The most obvious comparison is Kate Bush because of her unapologetic art-rock leanings, but I might liken her more to Paul Thomas Anderson. Like PTA, Clark has an absolute mastery of her craft and the ability to make work that is artistic without being distancing. The flip side is that, as with PTA, St. Vincent's work can sometimes seem a little cold. Is cold the same thing as distancing? Maybe I just contradicted myself. Being a music critic is hard!

13. Mister Heavenly - Out of Love
Mister Heavenly is an indie-rock supergroup composed of dudes from Man Man, Islands, Modest Mouse, and the Shins. (Can one still call it indie-rock when two of the groups on this list have released albums that have debuted in the Billboard top 10? I really miss the days when we referred to it as college rock. It's rock! For college kids! But kinda not really because I'm 36 and I'm pretty sure all the dudes in this band are in their like 60s. Still, that's so much better than "alternative.") They call their music style "doom-wop" which I think we can all agree is the worst and should never be mentioned ever again. The guy from Islands sings like he's in an ad for free credit reports. One of the songs is called "Diddy Eyes" and it's as awful a song as has ever been recorded. But despite all of that, I really like this record. That was a great review, me! Now go out and buy it, you!

12. James Blake - James Blake
Remember when everyone was so pumped for this James Blake record? And then it came out, and everyone was like, "this is the best thing!" And then the end of the year came around, and everyone was like, "James who now?" Well, I remember, Mr. Blake, and I remember spending a good month drinking sizzurp and listening to your record nonstop and feeling like the world was full of beauty and pain and wanting to engage but not really having the motivation (on account of all the codeine) and feeling grateful that I could just participate in the world from afar through your lovely album.

11. Fountains of Wayne - Sky Full of Holes
Fountains of Wayne are dad-rock for the Park Slope generation. Being as how I am now a dad, this is the only band on the list that actually speaks to me. Sky Full of Holes doesn't make me want to do dangerous things to my body the way some of the records on my list do, but their thoughtful, hilarious song-stories about middle-class folks trying to find a sense of dignity in their day-to-day lives are almost always catchy and heart-wrenching and nostalgic and relatable to someone like me in a way that music created by 22 year-old guys in leather pants is not. Of course, I always end up gravitating toward the 22 year-old guys in leather pants when I want to listen to something, because that's who I secretly want to be. And so do the guys in Fountains of Wayne, so, you know, full circle, or something.

10. Delicate Steve - Wondervisions
This is the only record I've ever bought because of a press release. The press release was written by Chuck Klosterman. I've actually never read anything by him before except these dumb drawing things he used to do on the back page of Spin. I guess maybe that's because I'm a hater and that guy seems like he's got the life I wish I had. But I can't hate this press release because it's the greatest thing I've ever read. Man! Was that a good press release. Oh, the record's pretty sweet, too.

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My Christmas album, "Christmas with the Flamingos," is now available for all your holiday needs! Listen on Soundcloud or stream after the jump!

Christmas with the Flamingoes by jeffrey-d

TOP TEN

10. RED STATE
Written and directed by Kevin Smith.
Trailer: http://bit.ly/vMIYiP

I know, I know—you don’t have to tell me. Kevin Smith made the list. As a Hostel retread, at least one-third of Red State fumbles for its torture porn aspirations—providing Smith’s dunderheaded high school horndogs some of his most humorless dialogue yet. But Michael Parks performance as ultra-fundamentalist Abin Cooper conjures up a cool-headed psychotic in the vein of Westboro Baptist Church’s pastor Fred Phelps mingled in with Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. His fifteen-minute sermon at the center of Red State is worth the rental alone.

9. INSIDIOUS
Written by Leigh Whannell. Directed by James Wan.
Trailer: http://bit.ly/uzDzkw

From the minds of Saw, fused together with the producers of Paranormal Activity, these two frighteningly successful franchises join forces to deliver a technical exercise in cribbing from the greats. Fans of Poltergeist should file a lawsuit, but I’ll argue that the first half of Insidious is a rather sturdy rift on the haunted house yarn, supplying an proper dosage of violin strings (and boy are they shrill), bait-and-switch Boo!-scares, and a decent heap of eeriness to thrill the kiddies for the film’s requisite 90-minute run-time. Let’s skip any discussion on Insidious’ latter half, shall we? When Lin Shaye pulls out the WWI-era gas mask and starts communing with the dead, you can almost hear the pinched warble of Zelda Rubinstein calling from beyond: Carol Anne? Tell her to go to the light!

8. AMER
Written and directed by Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani.
Trailer: http://bit.ly/uSLBwV

An art-house giallo redux. An MTVed Suspiria. Totally pretentious—but I loved it. By taking the Dario Argento/Mario Bava-template and extending it into a 90-minute music video, writer-director team Cattet and Forzani give us a near-wordless, dialogue-free portrait of Ana. Focusing on three key moments in her life—the death of a grandparent as a young girl, a breathless run-in with a biker gang as a teenager, and a sexually-charged attack from a leather-gloved marauder wielding a straight-razor as an adult—the audience watches Ana plunge head-first into her own color-saturated fantasies, blurring the lines between what is real and what essentially amounts to a binge-session of Italian horror flicks. Style-over-content all the way—but with a color-scheme from Argento’s best films serving as Amer’s prototype, this one’s a lot of goofball fun.

7. I SAW THE DEVIL (AKMAREUI BOATDA)
Written by Hoon-jung Park. Directed by Jee-woon Kim.
Trailer: http://bit.ly/vgMDct

The cliché game of cat-and-mouse gets a brutal role reversal in this absurd, nasty little treasure. Kim Soo-hyeon’s fiancé has recently been murdered by a diabolical psychopath who has alluded the police for years. But as fate would have it, Kim himself just-so-happens to be something of a super-secret top agent for lord only knows who or what—and now, with a lot more time on his hands, he focuses his super-secret top agenting skills on making the life of his fiancé’s murderer a living inferno of pain and regret. Thus ensues one of the more wince-inducing diversions of catch-and-release that I’ve ever seen onscreen. Clocking in at a jaw-dropping two and a half hours, the nihilism permeating this film eventually becomes too opaque to take seriously—but director Jee-woon Kim, who is responsible for other such K-horrors as A Tale of Two Sisters, stages a handful of set-pieces that demand close-viewing. At least for those who can stomach it.

6. FRIGHT NIGHT
Written by Marti Noxon. Based on the original screenplay by Tom Holland. Directed by Craig Gillespie.
Trailer: http://bit.ly/syfHCP

A remake makes the list! With the vampire-craze hitting its peak, it’s not such a shocker that the vultures would swoop down and peck at the bones of Tom Holland’s 1985 mini-classic. What is a bit befuddling however is how little Craig Gillespie (Lars and the Real Girl) sticks to the original and still feels the need to cling to its source material. This update would do better to stand alone, on its own, removed from William Ragsdale and the rest. By streamlining the original film’s storyline (next door neighbor is a vampire) and stripping the narrative of what made its cinematic ancestor so much fun (namely by swapping Roddy McDowall’s turn as a late night creature feature host for David Tennant’s odd spin as a Criss Angel-ish Vegas magician), I cry foul for going the remake route in the first place. The narrative parallels between the two are scant—and what connective tissue remains attached are arguably the low-points for the remake. Evil Ed? Christopher Mintz-Plasse, I’ve seen Stephen Geoffreys, I knew Stephen Geoffreys, his turn as Evil Ed is a favorite of mine. Christopher—you’re no Stephen Geoffreys.

But thankfully there is enough innovative material within this update to really stand on its own, completely independent from its predecessor. Much like Matt Reeves did with his own remake of yet another sacred vampire-cow Let the Right One In, Gillespie is at his best when he forges into fresher, original territory with his version of Fright Night. That at least lessens the sentimental sting of witnessing yet another childhood horror being mined and sapped of all its 80’s glory. A remake by any other name…

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The new Awkward Podcast is finally here! This here is the first chapter from the audiobook version of Johnny Astronaut by Rory Carmichael. Yes, it starts on Chapter 2. Wanna know why? Buy your own copy of Johnny Astronaut right here for only $.99!

Johnny Astronaut Chapter 2

Music totally stolen for this podcast:

"Fables of Faubus" by Charles Mingus
"Rye Bread2" by the Price Is Right Band
"Green Jeans" by the Fabulous Flee-Rakers
"Heaven and Hell" by El Michels Affair
"Disgruntled" by Rancid

This made me sad. I worked hard on these books and I have a lot of affection for them. They are really, really funny. I've always wished they were still out there, lightening the world's mood in these dark days.

Well, now, with the magic of the eReader, I am pleased to say these books are finally available again. What's more, they're chock full of extra material for you to enjoy. What's even more more, they are only $.99 each!

Here's what your $1.98 will get you:

Johnny Astronaut by Rory Carmichael
(Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061RKDV2)

• the complete text of the original sci-fi-hardboiled-disco-dancing adventure!
• over 70 pages of bonus musings from "author" Rory Carmichael himself!

I An Actress: The Autobiography of Karen Jamey
(Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005Z5F7BM)

• the unedited author's cut of the novel, including a never-before-seen chapter that was cut from the original pressing!
• a special essay from Karen Jamey on the James Frey memoir scandal!
• three short stories by Jeffrey Dinsmore, including cult faves "Faggy on the Streets" and "The Alcoholic Monkey Who Took Over My Mind and Turned Me Into a Cold-Blooded Killer!"

If I can sell enough of these books to make it into the top 100 in the Kindle store, I can get my work out in front of a whole new mess of people who don't know me. I'd really appreciate your support. All you have to do is follow the links and click the "buy" button, just as you would any other product on Amazon. You don't even need a Kindle to read it! You can download a free Kindle reader for your iDevices or Android phones. You can also download a free Kindle reader for your PC or Mac. You can even download the books and never read them! It's really up to you.

If you're still unsure of how this whole thing works, please watch the video below for more information.

And that's not all! Many years ago, when I originally released the book, I ended up cutting out a chapter. The print version always felt a little naked without it, so I have restored the missing chapter for the digital edition!

AND THERE'S STILL MORE! In addition to the full text of I, An Actress and the special bonus chapter, you will also get an additional essay from the one and only Karen Jamey herself, entitled, "Karen Takes on James Frey!" Very timely!

Want to buy it? Of course you do. It's almost less than nothing for one of the funniest novels ever written. You can buy it right here!

Baby and Daddy, fighting the power.

My wife and I took our 10-month old daughter Zellie on the Occupy LA march over the weekend. It was a very peaceful, if somewhat subdued moment of people coming together to express their common frustration with the state of our country. I was pleasantly surprised at the diversity; I know the coverage of Zuccotti Park tends to focus on the punks and hipsters, but every age and walk of life was represented at Occupy LA. I would even say it skewed old. Turnout felt somewhat sparse when I was in the thick of it, but the local news estimated the crowd was between 10 and 15,000 strong, which sounds like a pretty impressive figure to me. Zellie did not seem that impressed, but the only thing that really excites her at this age is bananas.

It was the first march I've ever been a part of. I've always been more of a complainer than a protestor. My civil disobedience mostly takes the form of snarky Facebook status updates and rambling emails to my friend. That's not a typo, I really only have one friend. My only real involvement in politics to date consisted of attending the Ralph Nader rally at Madison Square Garden in 2000 (Tim Robbins showed up as Bob Roberts! Don't worry; no one got it then, either) and making a few hours worth of phone calls for Obama in 2008.

Oh, I also went to see George Bush Sr. speak in high school, but that was for a girl. The President was on a Whistle Stop train tour that whistled to a stop 20 miles from my hometown, and the highly crush-worthy Julie C. invited me to join her family at the station. Under those kinds of circumstances, how could I refuse? You show me a guy who won't drive 20 miles to watch the President wave from a sweet-looking vintage train with the girl he wants to bone and I'll show you a guy who doesn't believe in America.

For someone who spends an obscene amount of time reading about current events, my lack of direct involvement has always been a source of shame. I've made some phone calls to my representatives over the years on issues that I really care about, but I'm always secretly hoping it will just go to voicemail. My involvement tends to be the quiet kind, the kind that occurs only in my head. The only thing my protesting disrupts is my own sense of inner peace.

Until now, it's always been pretty easy to excuse myself. In my lifetime, protests have had a slim record of accomplishment. I was in New York during the 2004 Republican National Convention, when everyone in the world who hated George W. Bush came to town to scream about it. As it turned out, an awful lot of people hated George W. Bush. Approximately 90% of New York City and approximately 100% of everyone in every other country in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people blanketed the streets for days, and no one outside of New York cared or noticed. If hundreds of thousands of people can swarm the streets of the country's media center for several days and no one gives a shit, doesn't that kind of discount the act of public protest itself?

That was a rhetorical question. The answer is yes. Public protests are just standard operating procedure at this point. Politicians propose something infuriating, people take to the streets in a desperate attempt to make themselves heard, infuriating thing happens anyway. On to the next infuriating thing. There's nothing special in a protest; it's just business as usual. Eventually, everyone goes home.

Until they don't. And that's the great thing about Occupy Wall Street: they're not leaving. It's easy to discount protestors when they show up on your lawn, hoot and holler for a couple of hours and take off; it's much harder to ignore them when they start their own city.

There's nothing new in the concept of a sit-down protest. A lot of the commentaries I've seen try to make the case that this wouldn't be possible without Twitter and cell phones, but I don’t really see how technology makes much of a difference. There's nothing particularly high-tech about plopping a tent in a park and refusing to leave. No one is afraid of OWS because the protestors know how to check-in to Zuccotti Park on Foursquare. They're afraid because no one knows when it will end.

And make no mistake about it: people are afraid. It may not seem that way when you watch Fox News and the anchors are belittling the people in the crowd for wearing weird clothes or not being able to have in-depth policy discussions off the tops of their heads. But the question all the skeptics are asking -- "What do they want?" -- betrays an underlying admission of fear; i.e. I do not understand this. So, as bullies are wont to do, they pick on the thing they can understand -- look at that guy's stupid haircut! – to distract attention from their real, palpable fear that they are no longer in control. The world is changing around them and they have no idea how to stop it. Gandhi said it best: "First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. "

A lot of people are putting pressure on the protestors to come up with a list of demands, as if having a ransom note would somehow increase their credibility. In my opinion, one of the main things the movement has going for it is the lack of concrete demands. There's this constant pull to bring the conversation into terms the prevailing paradigm understands – the terms of argument. If the protestors say, "this is what we want," that gives the opposition the opportunity to tell them why they can't get it, to remain within the cynical bubble where they feel comfortable. "Oh, that's what you want from your government? Well, you can't have that because of X, Y, and Z. Stop being naive." It's that kind of conversation that's been keeping us down for so long. We're tired of arguing. We've been arguing for years, and it doesn't make a lick of difference, because the argument is happening on your cynical terms. We've told you what we want a million ways to Sunday and you're not listening. Maybe it's time you started speaking our language instead of us trying to speak yours.

Besides, you already know what OWS wants, because it's the same thing everyone wants. We want the return of the middle class. We want a clean planet. We want a government that favors the needs of its citizens over the desires of corporations. We want a strong public school system, we want dependable healthcare, we want jobs that give us a humane amount of vacation time and a decent living wage. We want a government that protects us … from poverty, from hunger, from illness. After all, isn't that the point of having a society in the first place? So that we don't have to spend our lives fending for ourselves? If you really want to be on your own, it's not that hard. Don't get married. Don't have kids. Don't talk to your neighbors. Just go off in the woods and live alone. There are plenty of places in America where you can still do this and no one will ever bother you. If, however, you still see some benefit in connecting with other people, then maybe it's time you spoke up.

In the OWS movement, I see a glimmer of hope, maybe the first real glimmer I've seen in my adult life. I think people have finally had enough. We're tired of being forced to adopt this isolationist worldview. We're tired of living in fear of everyone around us and we're tired of supporting a system that tells us our fear is necessary. Our goal in life should not be to make enough money that we can wall ourselves off from the rest of humanity. I don't know when that became the American dream, but it sure ain't mine.

It's high time we had a government that worked in the people's favor, instead of actively preventing us from experiencing personal fulfillment, happiness, and the ability to enjoy this gorgeous planet we've been lucky enough to appear on. It is our right and our duty to ask our government to protect the things that really matter: Community. Family. Health. Nature. Life. Call me a hippie if you want to; I'm tired of being part of your cynical, defeatist, anti-humanitarian worldview. You'll come around. And if living in an equal society that is free of fear doesn't appeal to you, might I suggest Yellowstone? It's quite large, with plenty of room to hide. Just remember to hang your food up when the bears come around.

I have always secretly suspected that Jim Carrey was the creepiest creep in all of Creepville. Now it's confirmed! And it's not because he's a 49 year-old father proclaiming his love for a 22 year-old actress completely unprompted and so the whole world can see. It's because ewww.

Thank you video and Internet, for once again making me want to stab my eyes and ears out with a fork. Mission accomplished for today!

(Via Videogum.)