Velociraptor Hands

Vita and the Monsters of Moorhouse

2019-12-26T11:23:00.000-05:00

Heya Velocininjas! Long time no see. I've been in the process of moving my blogging over to jilliankarger.com, which should be up and running soon.

I wanted to let you guys know that my dark fantasy novel, Vita and the Monsters of Moorhouse, is now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback. You can get it here.

I wrote about this novel (previously titled simply Moorhouse) many times on this blog as I worked on it over the years, and it's so exciting to see it out in the world after nearly a decade.

Thanks so much for all your feedback on those terrible, early sketches I posted on here. I hope you enjoy the finished product.

Short Post and a Song #152: YAAAAAAAAAY

2018-03-11T12:46:00.000-04:00

Your regular Short Post programming is being interrupted this Sunday because hey guys, guess what? My young-adult dystopian novel, VIABLE, is now available in Kindle and paperback on Amazon! You can buy it here.

Look at it there, looking all book-like. Pretty cool to see after nearly eight years working on the bastard.

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"Crystallize" by Lindsey Stirling

Whenever I imagine VIABLE as a movie I imagine someone like Lindsey Stirling as Baine. At thirty-one Stirling is a tad too old to play sixteen, and I have no idea if she can act, but her skill with the violin and the physicality she brings to her playing would just suit Baine's character so well.

Short Post and a Song #151: The Pixar lamp makes a small but memorable cameo in Season 3.

2018-03-04T10:06:00.000-05:00

Steve Miller Dan: Is there anything you wanna watch?

Me: Have you maybe changed your mind about Friday Night Lights?

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Dan: [laughs] No.

Me: But it’s not about football! It’s about the—

The Time Traveler's Dan: I know, I know, it’s about the—

Me: —characters.

The Danulator: —lights.

~*~*~*~*~

"Hash Pipe" by Weezer

After many, many years I am very grateful to say that I can finally listen to Weezer again. When the Green Album came out I fell in love with the band's sound. Once I discovered that Weezer had done even more amazing music seven years earlier, I entered a phase of heavy Weezer listening that stretched from middle school well into college.

It took a while, but eventually I managed to kill all the Weezer songs I'd loved best by playing them over, and over, and over, sucking the soul out of them with no thought to my future self's happiness. And so I've spent several years only listening to "Buddy Holly" or "Island in the Sun" in cars and restaurants, bored by what had once been some of my most favorite songs.

But then the other day I was able to randomly hear "Hash Pipe" and both A) enjoy it, and B) not immediately realize what song it was. When I did figure out the song I went on a Weezer listening spree and all my old favorites welcomed me back with open arms. It was a beautiful experience, one I hope you'll all eventually find with bands you've murdered for yourselves.

This happened right in the nick of time, since I have been on the lookout for angsty, angry music as inspiration for my Rebel rewrite, and it doesn't get much more "just try to fuck with me and I will kick you in the face with my angsty teenage combat boot" than this song's bass line.

Short Post and a Song #150: If I had actual children I probably wouldn't remember their names either.

2018-02-25T07:25:00.000-05:00

ME: [accidentally bangs guitar on side of chair] Oooh sorry Gwennie.

MY BRAIN: Guinivere was your car in high school. Your guitar's name is Gretchen.

ME: Right right, sorry Gretchen.

MY BRAIN: You silly bitch, don't even know the names of your own children.

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"Highway Tune" by Greta Van Fleet

These guys sound so much like Led Zeppelin, it's insane. Like I really wonder if Josh Kiszka made some kind of Faustian/Little Mermaid-eqsue deal so he could have Robert Plant's voice.

"Highway Tune" doesn't sound like one exact Zep song to me (though it's definitely got shades of "Black Dog" and "Rock and Roll" in there); it's more like Greta Van Fleet has somehow managed to bottle the band's general sound.

Some folks tend to write this band off since they sound so much like another band. But Jesus Christ, sounding like one of the greatest rock bands to ever exist ain't bad in my opinion. And as I've mentioned before, originality wasn't exactly Led Zeppelin's specialty either.

Also check the guitar around 1:48. I don't care who the hell they sound like, that guitar fucking rips.

Short Post and a Song #149: No he didn't actually get me a giant cheese wheel, and yes I agree it was very cruel of him to toy with my emotions like that.

2018-02-18T12:27:00.001-05:00

[Valentine's Day]

Star Wars: The Dan Awakens: My client said I should have bought you a rose on my way home.

Me: So I could be like, "Oh thaaaanks babe" and awkwardly put it in a glass since we don't have any vases and end up forgetting about it until the dead petals start crumbling all over the floor?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Dan: Yeah I told her you'd rather I bought you an enormous Valentine's Day cheese wheel.

Me: And the fact that you know me that well is gift enough. ...Seriously though did you get me a giant cheese wheel because now I can't stop thinking about it.

~*~*~*~*~

"The Very Thought of You" by Billie Holiday

Heya Velocininjas, I hope you had a good Valentine's Day, hope you really smeared your happy relationships in your single friends' faces all over social media. I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day, to be honest, or big organized holidays in general. I wish people would just give each other gifts and appreciate one another all the time instead of when they're forced to.

So when Yes We Dan neglected to get me a giant cheese wheel, I wasn't sad because it was Valentine's Day. I was sad because I had thought there was maybe cheese, and then there wasn't, and that was a goddamn tragedy.

But then I ate like five string cheeses later so really it was all fine.

Here's a song Dandango somehow seems to still enjoy despite hearing me sing it several thousand times while doing the dishes over the years, and also one of the first pictures anyone ever took of us together when we were small eighteen-year-old children:

Movies with Velociraptor Hands: Dirty Dancing, Part 4

2018-02-12T12:22:00.000-05:00

Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Heya friends, hope you had a nice weekend! Did you watch the Olympics? Because I didn't, and I won't, and you can't make me.

Instead of the Olympics, let's talk Dirty Dancing. When we last left Johnny and Baby, Johnny got accused of stealing a bunch of guests' wallets by one of his jealous diamond-pocket-stuffing ladies.

Baby tells the hotel manager (in front of her family) that Johnny couldn't have done it because they were together in his room all night. Then Johnny gets fired anyway because fraternization, and Baby's dad is kind of a dick about the whole thing.

And now, the thrilling final installment of the notes I took while watching a movie that came out a year before I was born:

-Got genuinely emotional over the scene with Baby confronting her dad. “I’m sorry I let you down, but you let me down too.” Having to learn that your parents are human people who are every bit as fallible as you is a very relatable lesson, and one this movie conveys well.

-Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey had amazing chemistry, wow.

-They believe in each other, aw.

-C’mon, Swayze, maybe not the all black and the sunglasses and the leather jacket when you go to see Baby’s dad.

-This movie has such a great soundtrack.

-Kinda sweet how the sister’s not a piece of shit for a second there when she offers to do Baby’s hair.

-The grandma from Gilmore Girls was pretty hot.

-“Nobody puts Baby in a corner” is a dumb line imo. It just sounds so unnatural (why wouldn’t he be speaking directly to Baby when she’s right there?), and their table’s hardly even in a corner. Unless he means it metaphorically, like she should be onstage instead of in the audience? Whatever, it's dumb and I don't like it.

-Okay so the speech Johnny makes about Baby before they do their final dance together is just the best. Instead of some mushy declaration about love at first sight, or focusing on Baby’s physical beauty, he professes admiration for what a great person she is. He talks about her willingness to stick up for others, and how she’s “someone who’s taught me about the kind of person that I wanna be.” Johnny doesn’t see Baby as a trophy on his arm or a paper doll who only matters as far as she can enrich his own story—to him she’s a full-blown person in her own right. This an attitude that is sadly very hard to find in other romantic films, and I’ve gotta hand it to Dirty Dancing for doing a great job with it.

-That final dance is very corny but I also kinda love it still. Plus the earlier mention of Johnny working with the staff kids on a dance makes their involvement more plausible.

-Why is everyone doing that weird bridge thing with their arms?

-“When I’m wrong I say I’m wrong.” Was that supposed to be an apology, Baby’s dad? Because it sure as hell didn’t sound like one.

-How come no one ever brings up the prospect of Baby and Johnny staying in touch after the summer’s over? People probably didn’t come from super far to work or stay at a resort in the Catskills—they could’ve made their relationship work if they had wanted, I bet.

-Swayze always looks like he’s about to cry before he kisses her.

Aaaand that's it! You would not be wrong to point out that I did not have the kindest things to say about Dirty Dancing during the first few installments. Watching the film, I couldn't help but agree with my friends' assessment: The dialogue was garbage and Baby and Johnny's relationship had no substance apart from several dance montages (or rather one very long dance montage with teeny tiny breaks for dialogue).

But in the last third or so of the movie you can see a definite change in the tone of my notes. Once Johnny and Baby were actually together I found myself rooting for their relationship, despite not giving a shit about it before it started. I also started to relate more to Baby as a character, and admire that she managed to become so nice and empathetic when her parents both seem kind of terrible.

Maybe I'm still biased because I grew up adoring this movie. Maybe I'll never have perspective. But I can say at twenty-nine that while I see a lot of problems with the movie that I didn't when I was a kid, I still also see a lot about it to love.

I skipped doing a Short Post and a Song this Sunday since this has already been way more than I've posted in five years, and I didn't want the blog to explode from posting too much at once. But since watching Dirty Dancing I have been listening to the soundtrack pretty frequently, and have grown particularly attached to a smooth little tune called "Stay" by Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs:

Thanks for joining me on another trip down memory lane, Velocininjas! This was way more fun than rereading Twilight, thank God.

Movies with Velociraptor Hands: Dirty Dancing, Part 3

2018-02-09T12:24:00.000-05:00

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Hello again Velocininjas! Yes that's right, I'm blogging three days in a row, it's like a regular 2012 up in here. It's a lot easier to put out blog posts quickly when all I'm doing is copying and pasting a chunk of the notes I took while watching Dirty Dancing last week.

When we last left off, Baby had gone to a hotel staff party with a lot of sexy dancing and met Johnny. She's smitten with him when he gives her an impromptu dance lesson at the party, but he's kind of a dick to her at first, honestly.

Baby finds out Johnny's dance partner, Penny, is pregnant and in need of an abortion, but can't find someone to cover for her in a show at another hotel when the traveling abortionist comes through town. It's decided that Baby will take Penny's place as Johnny's dance partner, since why not add the risk of being seen fraternizing with a guest to this already very tricky situation?

Aaand that's about as coherent as things are gonna get, I'm afraid. Let's get back to my notes:

-“Ga-gung” is a weird noise to make for a heartbeat. You too good for a simple “bum-bum”, Swayze?

-How long is this dancing montage?

-Is this movie just a dancing montage now?

-Too cool for a raincoat, Swayze? Your precious leather jacket is gonna be so fucked from wearing it in the pouring rain and you will deserve it.

-I have always despised the moment when Johnny and Baby get in his car after he broke the window to get his keys, and Baby exclaims, “You’re wild!” To make matters worse, Johnny doesn’t hear her the first time and asks what she said, and she repeats it, only much louder and more obnoxiously. It’s awkward and forced and way too on the nose and I hate it so much.

-Baby and Johnny's relationship is based almost entirely on dance montages.

-Swayze’s talking about women “stuffing diamonds” in his pockets. So is he a prostitute who gets paid in diamonds? Are the diamonds in necklace or ring form, or are these women just jamming big ol handfuls of uncut diamonds in there?

-Love how the music synchs perfectly with Baby grabbing Johnny’s ass.

-Beige iridescent lipstick sounds like just the worst thing.

-Johnny tells his tale of being a man whore like he’s the poor, used victim in all this. Yes, those women were using you, but you were also using them for money and sex while not giving a shit that they were cheating on their husbands with you, sooo…

-“You’re not daddy’s girl anymore. He listens when I talk now.” How long could they have been on this vacation that Baby’s older sister could claim that her father has switched favorite children? That sort of shift usually takes more than a week or two.

-Baby’s older sister singing to rehearse for the talent show remains as amazing a scene as I remember.

-What do all these women see in Garbage Robbie? He’s such an asshole it’s absurd—he’s a cartoon, a caricature of an asshole. He has a copy of The Fountainhead with notes in the margins that he's able to just whip out at any given moment since he has it on him even while he's doing his job. As a waiter. For Christ's sake.

Okay, I've got one chunk of notes left, so you guys get to wait until next week for the thrilling conclusion of me watching a very popular film and making snarky comments about it while other people go to their jobs and actually contribute to society.

Movies with Velociraptor Hands: Dirty Dancing, Part 2

2018-02-08T13:07:00.000-05:00

Read Part 1 here

All right dudes and duderinas, it's time for our discussion of the seminal film, Dirty Dancing, (aka the many poorly organized stream-of-consciousness notes I took while watching the movie) to truly begin.

Btw I just looked up "seminal" to make sure I was using it right and I totally was:

I am, of course, referring to the second definition.

Without any further ado, let the stream of consciousness ramblings begin!

-Baby does a voice-over at the beginning of the movie and I don’t think it ever comes back. Is that normal, to be like, “This is gonna be a movie with voice-over narration” for the first minute, and then just go, “Haha, psyyyche bitchesss, no voice-over for you!”

-“I’d be standing here dead.” No you fucking wouldn’t, guy, dead people can’t stand up. That’s like one of the core aspects of being dead, not being able to stand anymore.

-During dance class Penny says, “God wouldn’t have given you maracas if he didn’t want you to shake ’em” to a room of women in reference to their breasts, and I wanna know how that’s not sexual harassment.

-In Johnny Castle’s first appearance he’s wearing sunglasses at night, carrying his leather jacket over his shoulder, and holding a large sign that says “BAD BOY” with his other hand. (Okay maybe not the last one, but he may as well have.)

-I love how the manager of the hotel treats his dance teachers like they’re these hard criminals or something. They’re dance teachers. At a fucking summer camp for adults in the Catskills.

-Johnny tells Robbie the waiter to “put your pickle on everybody’s plate and leave the hard stuff to me” and I can't even choose a dick joke to make, there are just too many options. Also what sort of resort is this where everyone gets a pickle on their plate? Is that really a thing? That sounds awesome, sign me up for that.

-The hotel manager’s bitch of a grandson is gonna have a shitty career ahead of him if he really thinks the dance teachers “showing off for each other” isn’t going to sell lessons.

-Johnny’s nose is in his dance partner’s crotch at one point. Their platonic friendship is a strange one.

-Bitch Boy, as the hotel manager’s grandson shall now be known, tells Baby, “I love to watch your hair blowing in the breeze” when there is seriously zero breeze. Fuck this guy.

-I have never seen people in real life now dance as much like they're about to bone as the hotel staff at this party in 1963.

And on that wholesome note we'll end for today. Join me next time for my groundbreaking observations about dance montages.

Movies with Velociraptor Hands: Dirty Dancing, Part 1

2018-02-07T10:30:00.000-05:00

Heya Velocininjas and Velocininjettes! You might’ve noticed that I’ve been blogging a lot more regularly lately, and even managed to do a few posts that aren’t Short Post and a Song posts.

That is partly because I recently finished editing my novel Viable for the final time and am taking a break before I start editing/rewriting my (very) rough draft of Rebel, the second book in the Renaissance Experiment trilogy. Normally I would waste all that time and writerly energy making stupid jokes on Twitter, but I’m taking a break from that to work on self-publishing Viable. In the meantime the blog gets to endure my attempts at comedy instead.

Also yeah, don’t think I’ve mentioned yet, but I’m going to be self-publishing Viable in the very near future. In fact it’s being formatted this very second (unless you’re reading this a long time from now). Navigating the self-publishing process has been fun and tedious and exciting and frustrating and fascinating. It’s definitely been both complicated and time-consuming, but overall it's still been much easier and more manageable than I initially assumed.

As part of my break from working on The Renaissance Experiment trilogy, I decided to rewatch the film Dirty Dancing. I had not seen Dirty Dancing since high school, but had seen it many, many times between the ages of ten and sixteen.

I fucking loved that movie. I grew up doing various forms of dance and therefore tended to appreciate dance movies more than your average person. I was also completely in love with Patrick Swayze, which I don’t think requires any explanation.

In the intervening years between high school and now I’ve had many people tell me what terrible, terrible, very bad, godawful film Dirty Dancing is. The dialogue is garbage and no one acts like real people. There’s no story aside from Baby and Johnny dancing at this hotel one time, a girl getting an abortion, and Baby and Johnny dancing at a different hotel this other time.

In general folks whose opinions I trusted found this movie I’d grown up adoring to be a heap of overly cheesy bullshit.

So I rewatched the movie for the first time in thirteen years to see if the film held up. I took several notes while watching, hoping I’d be able to structure them into a blog post of some sort.

But alas I am a lazy fuck who doesn’t feel like doing that now, so instead I’m just going to just transcribe my notes as I wrote them. It’ll basically be like I’m live-tweeting the movie, only it won’t be live and this isn’t Twitter. I took kind of a lot of notes, so I’ll also split this up into a few different posts. So, again, another way that this won’t be like live-tweeting at all. It was a bad comparison, I apologize.

See you all next time for Part 2 in the epic saga of me watching Dirty Dancing for the first time since high school!

Short Post and a Song #148: Gillian is Black Mirror's Barb, I guess

2018-02-04T07:15:00.000-05:00

[watching the end credits of the Star Trek episode of Black Mirror with Danfleet]

Capdan Picard: (at screen) But what about Gillian?? SHE WAS IN MARKETING

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"Quarter Chicken Dark" by Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile

I've always had a soft spot for string instruments, and play one of them (guitar, badly). Two actually if you include piano, but piano's kind of a weird percussion/string half-breed monstrosity that neither instrument family wants to claim as its own, so I'm not sure it counts. Recently I discovered this album of four of the best string musicians in the world playing together exists and got pretty damn excited about it.

I don't know what musical genre this song/jam session falls into, but whatever it is rocks so very, very hard. Getting off to a fun and groovy start these guys take you through a fucking roller coaster ride, getting softer and slower, then faster and louder, playing around with the original melody in the laid-back and playful way only truly skilled musicians can. Chris Thile, the mandolinist, also has a cover of "Heart in a Cage" by The Strokes that I highly recommend.

Short Post and a Song #147: Here make yourself a belt, guy

2018-01-28T18:38:00.000-05:00

Dan Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest recently ordered a belt on Amazon, and we were both pretty surprised by what he received:

I never thought the phrase "some assembly required" would apply to a belt, but I stand corrected.

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"Brain Stew" by Green Day

I have two sisters who are a bit older than I am (by four years and six years, respectively), and what that tended to mean growing up was that I got into quite a few books/movies/albums at an earlier age than appropriate. So I remember a distinct period in my early childhood where my Walkman alternated between Dookie, Insomniac, and a set of ten different "Best of the 50s" cassettes. ...It was a weird time.

Nowadays I still love early Green Day. It takes me back to my teenage angst, despite the fact that I originally listened to it as an angtsy eight-year-old. When I'm writing a scene where a character feels trapped, or angry, or both at once (aka my protagonist for most of Viable), I usually end up putting on "Brain Stew" to get myself in the right state of mind. There's something mad and desperate about the song that kinda makes me think of the brainwashy aspects of A Clockwork Orange.

Short Post and a Song #146: She compared the song I ultimately chose to "early Coldplay" and I have no idea how to take that.

2018-01-22T14:23:00.000-05:00

NURSE: Do you tend to get dizzy or faint when you get blood drawn?

ME: Absolutely yes.

NURSE: You should play some music on your phone, it’ll relax you.

ME: [panicking twice as hard now about whether she’ll like the song I choose] Oh ok cool.

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"One Summer's Day" by Joe Hisaishi

I know I may make it sound like I listen to a wide variety of cool and edgy music when I'm writing, but honestly about 50% of the stuff I listen to when working on my books comes from the soundtracks of children's movies and was written by the amazingly wonderful composer in the video above.

Joe Hisaishi has the power to take emotions and bottle them up into melodies that make your heart ache. "One Summer's Day" from Spirited Away is four minutes of bittersweet nostalgia that will have your throat swelling and your eyes tearing in just the first few notes, even if you're not sure why. You'll start thinking of the the hometown you don't visit often enough, or the last great day you spent with a friend you didn't realize until later you weren't going to see again.

Speaking of writing, I'm editing Viable for roughly the 4,239,101st time. I realized I went a bit mad with line breaks in one of my more recent edits so now I'm going back and putting things more or less back the way they were before I cut all my paragraphs to ribbons.

It's been tedious and a little disheartening to spend so much time making a change, only to realize the change doesn't work and that it was better the way it was before. But I'm not putting everything back the way it was. A few of those new line breaks actually add some much-needed emphasis to a certain line, or amp up the humor of one of my protagonist's wittier asides.

Sometimes with a book you'll dedicate A LOT of time to making a change that might only improve things by one or two percent. Sadly that's just the name of the game when it comes to creating any sort of art. It's up to you whether you choose to focus on the time lost—or on how even if it was only by the tiniest bit, you made something you were already proud of even better.

Short Post and a Song #145: SpongeBob's human arms are gonna give me nightmares

2018-01-14T22:00:00.000-05:00

No matter what the rest of the world believes, always remember that stoned vandal (possibly radioactive?) SpongeBob on the back wall of the fried chicken place near my apartment thinks you are doing a great job.

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"Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys

I don't have a fancy explanation for this one, guys: I just really fucking love this song.

The Opposite of Bitchin’

2018-01-08T19:01:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I was on hold with the doctor’s office. I expected to be put on hold. I expected the hold music to be bad.

However I was not expecting there to be STATIC.

And I’m not talking a little static.

I’m talking driving through Two Gas Stations and an Abandoned Barn, West Virginia; straiiiining to hear “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones through the nearly constant static on the shitty car radio since it’s still better than the “Give Us All Your Money Because Jesus” show on the only other functioning station, and since “Gimme Shelter” is a bitchin’ song.

This song, sadly, was not at all bitchin’. It was the downright opposite of bitchin’: It was this super peppy polka music.

So for forty-five harrowing minutes I sat with my headphones full of 85% mind-numbing static, and 15% abrasively upbeat accordion.

I got the referrals faxed where they needed to be faxed in the end, but my God, at what cost?

Short Post and a Song #144: And they say it's hard to be productive on the weekend.

2018-01-07T12:46:00.000-05:00

Final Dantasy: wow it's only 11? we've already accomplished so much

Me: have we now

Super Danio: [playing video game] well I don't know how many terrorists YOU'VE killed today jill

~*~*~*~*~

"Moscow" by Autoheart

Recently I entered one of those musical slumps where I've played the songs I love most to death and now hate them. (It's okay, I just have to not listen to those songs for a while before I can go back to loving them all over again.) So I've been relying pretty heavily on Spotifly Discover Weekly these days for music that doesn't make me wanna punch stuff.

This sweet love song caught my attention since I'm a sucker for piano and melodic vocals. I think it could be great on the soundtrack of a film in a lovey dovey happy ending sort of scene.

The Birth of a Rebel

2018-01-02T15:36:00.000-05:00

Krissy was what adults tended to refer to as a “problem child”, when what they really meant was a “little piece of shit”. She had no manners to speak of and was already swearing like a sailor at age five. She couldn’t visit a neighbor’s house without profoundly fucking it up in some way and was known for her generally loud and rowdy behavior.

Also five, I was not a problem child. I was mild-mannered, shy, and eager to avoid inconveniencing anyone. I got along with most of the kids in the neighborhood and had never had a real argument or confrontation with any of them.

Krissy and I were polar opposites—I should have been put off by her wild ways.

Instead I found her fascinating. Krissy clearly did not give a fuck what people thought, and as a kid who already gave way too many fucks, I admired her.

Krissy moved before we turned six, but during our brief friendship we managed to go on several stupid (and in some cases legitimately dangerous) adventures together.

Probably the most dangerous adventure we went on was the maiden voyage of Krissy’s life-sized Barbie car. Krissy was gifted the Barbie car for her birthday by her foolish, foolish parents who, given everything their daughter had done in her five years of life up to that point, should have known better.

For those who don’t remember these frankly irresponsible toys, Krissy’s Barbie car was basically a tiny Jeep that was capable of going slightly slower than a fast-moving bike.

The car was meant for sidewalks, driveways. It most definitely was not meant for the actual road, where actual cars were.

Still, roughly an hour after the party where Krissy received the car, she appeared by my side where I was playing with some other neighborhood kids.

“Wanna check out my new car?” she asked.

I had desperately been eying the Barbie cars at the toy store for months, so fuck yes I wanted to check out Krissy’s new car.

I abandoned my safer, saner friends and found myself sitting in the passenger’s seat of the toy car with a girl I had seen try to climb our neighbor’s garage door in the driver’s seat.

“Where do you wanna go?” she inquired, gripping the steering wheel.

I thought for a moment. “I bet we could make it all the way to Jeannette’s house,” I said. Jeannette was a friend who lived one street over and traveling that distance in a car of our own seemed like the height of badass rebellion in my five-year-old mind.

Krissy gave me a condescending, “oh bless your heart” sort of smile. “I think we can do better than that.”

You guys probably know that childhood memories aren’t the most reliable. Your brain’s still developing and it can be hard to tell the difference between what you actually remember and the stories you’ve told yourself over the years.

So take what comes next with a grain of salt: But what I remember came straight out of an action movie—albeit one starring two small girls in an equally small Barbie Jeep made of plastic.

Krissy tore diagonally across the driveway, through the grass, and over the curb. For a moment we were airborne, flying, before the rubber hit the street.

With a screech of the brakes and a thick puff of exhaust we careened around our cul-de-sac, and continued speeding down the road.

I swore I could hear police sirens and see the flashing lights of their helicopters up above. We were gonna be in so much trouble.

We were also headed for one of the main streets in my town, which had a very steady stream of traffic.

Still I don’t remember feeling scared. I was five; kids don’t understand death, not really.

All I knew was that I was speeding down the street with my friend, going faster than I had ever thought the toy Jeep could possibly go.

The wind filled our ears and I felt really, truly free.

…For, like, two minutes maybe.

Right before we reached the main road and it truly would have become a life or death situation, our parents caught up with us and brought us back home.

That wild ride had been the most exhilarating thing to happen to me since going on the highway in a golf cart a year earlier (we’ll get into that in a future post, promise), and I thirsted for more of that sweet adrenaline.

A 5-year-old rebel had been born.

Short Post and a Song #143: Marty McFly you son of a bitch

2017-12-31T08:31:00.000-05:00

So not only did dozens of artists steal Chuck Berry's intellectual property during his career, but Marty McFly actually went back in time and played one of Berry's most popular songs before Berry even had the chance to come up with it himself.

That is some high level mind fuckery, McFly. Yeah screw you man. Who the fuck do you even think you are in that vest

~*~*~*~*~

"Johnny B. Goode" by Chuck Berry

Here's Chuck Berry performing his VERY ORIGINAL AND NOT WRITTEN BY A TEENAGE SKATEBOARDER IN A STUPID VEST song live in 1958. Watching Berry play guitar is just about one of the best things. He seems to be having so much goddamn fun and handles his guitar so naturally it may as well be another limb.

Short Post and a Song #142: driving on drugs

2017-12-27T16:48:00.001-05:00

[drives on drugs]

[tearfully tells drugs' wife how sorry i am i killed her husband]

[helps pay for drugs' children's educations but am never truly able to absolve myself from the guilt of drugs' death]

~*~*~*~*~

"Feel It Still" by Portugal. The Man

Merry Belated Christmas, Velocininjas! I wasn't here on Sunday due to it being Christmas Eve and I was spending it with Dantasia's family. Just a few weeks before that A Dan for All Seasons and I were out to dinner with his dad and his dad's girlfriend, and "Feel It Still" came on the radio.

After a few seconds I remarked that the song sounded like "Please Mr. Postman" by The Marvelettes. When I got home I was smugly pleased to find that Wikipedia supported my claim:

I mean what else are blogs for other than to brag about being right about really inconsequential things?

When I've made observations like this in the past some have assumed that I must not like the new song in question. But I actually really, really like "Feel It Still" and think it's all the stronger for what it took from "Mr. Postman". It's a groovy tune that makes me want to dance, and one I've been listening to on a fairly addictive basis while writing in recent history.

"Feel It Still" does have an official music video, but I tend to be of the opinion that most official music videos are kinda crap (with some great exceptions, of course). So instead you guys get a video of some very skilled dancers from Brian Friedman Choreography doing a super fun routine to the song in a warehouse.

Short Post and a Song #141: my butt’s eternal, bitch

2017-12-18T17:53:00.000-05:00

A Tale of Two Dans: the delivery’ll be here in an hour

Me: your butt’ll be here in an hour

The Candy Dan: [looks backs at me] my butt’s eternal, bitch

~*~*~*~*~

"Bang Bang You're Dead" by Dirty Pretty Things

I've been doing lots and lots of work on my novel Viable lately and it is not always the easiest to motivate myself on these dreary winter days.

When I sit down to edit I've been putting on "Bang Bang You're Dead" and something about the opening guitar riff hits me like an extra-strong cup of coffee and getting going suddenly doesn't seem quite so hard.

Short Post and a Song #140: Yeah we can't order from that place anymore

2017-12-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

So I mentioned previously that I've been doing something called "joke twitter" for a while now. In joke twitter it's common for people to put together collections of their best jokes from the previous month, then do a call inviting others to swap jokes.

I did my first monthly call for October and it was a lot of fun getting to read jokes from friends as well as a lot of very funny strangers.

So I did another one for November:

Seriously guys I hate this band-aid so much.

Ayn Dand laughed when he saw the picture I used for the call.

Hoover Dan: Someone is going to take that picture of you and be like, "She slapped my baby!" And the cops are gonna be like, "Oh yeah she looks like a real...

Me: [answers phone call from delivery person]

Dantasy Football: ...BABY-SLAPPING BITCH!"

~*~*~*~*~

"Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones

I've been a fan of the Rolling Stones ever since I was old enough to tell people my favorite band was the Beatles, and have them respond with something along the lines of, "I prefer the Rolling Stones myself."

(I don't know when I became a Beatles fan. I have no memory of a world without their music, quite luckily for me.)

Since people kept associating the Rolling Stones with my favorite band, I figured maybe I would like them too. And I did, very very much.

The many times throughout my life that people have asked me, "The Beatles or the Rolling Stones" I've just been like, "Why? I CAN LIKE TWO BANDS GODDAMMIT."

Anyway, "Sympathy for the Devil" is a hell of a song. The samba beat, in theory, seems like such a weird fit for this song, and yet it works perfectly. It has some of the best narrative lyrics I've ever heard and makes me think of John Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost.

And let's not forget that fucking sick guitar solo.

Short Post and a Song #139: About 83% of our conversations end up involving Muppets at some point

2017-12-03T17:26:00.000-05:00

Just a typical Saturday night chilling at home with Swedish Danf:

Danzo initially thought that either Statler or Waldorf had a monocle, but I shut that shit down real fast.

~*~*~*~*~

"Hands Down" by The Greeting Committee

Generally with music I am a song-by-song type. Many of the songs I love most are the only ones by that band that I know, and while I love Led Zeppelin dearly I have no idea which tunes belongs to which album.

However, when I really really really like a song I'll sometimes feel inspired to check out the band's other stuff.

That is precisely what happened with me and "Hands Down" by The Greeting Committee. I was blown away to find that The Greeting Committee is comprised of mere children who are every bit as good live.

I don't even hear lyrics most of the time, but some of these lyrics in this song, I mean, Jesus Christ:

"Baby, you know I love you

More than my words know how to show you"

Aaaaand now I'm crying, and only slightly because I have been writing words my entire life and these babies are already better at it than I am.

I highly recommend their other stuff, especially "Elise" and "She's a Gun" (which has a super fun video game-inspired music video).

Short Post and a Song #138: No that was a boop you ignorant savage

2017-11-28T13:37:00.001-05:00

Peter Dan: [pats my nose] Bop!

Me: I get the feeling you are going to bop my nose again

Raisin Dan cereal: [pats my nose] Boop!

Me: Ha I was right

Bicentennial Dan: No that was a boop you ignorant savage

~*~*~*~*~

"Hallways" by Islands

You may be wondering what the fuck we're all doing here since today is Tuesday and not Sunday. But alas, I was at my cousin's in DC for Thanksgiving, seeing memorials and portraits and shit (and also the movie Coco, which I very highly recommend).

I miss the alliteration of Short Post and a Song when it doesn't occur on a Sunday. I mean let's face it, we all do. But life is just too short to let alliteration call the shots.

My cousin is the proud owner of a keyboard and as someone who hasn't had regular access to a piano in nearly a decade, it was difficult to keep myself from tinkering with it whenever I was in the keyboard's vicinity. (This should be a lesson to all of you: Do not invite me over, I am not a good house guest.)

I generally stuck to the scant handful of songs that I still have stored up in my fingers after all these years, but I missed the days of tediously and neck-ruiningly bending over my parents' piano growing up, trying to sound out the songs and movie scores I loved most.

"Hallways" makes my fingers itch. It'd take two people to achieve the full effect but I think after many, many, many hours of making terrible noise on a piano I could maybe figure out some sort of one-person version. My one criticism of this lovely tune is that the piano at the end could go even further complexity-wise, but then I found this live version where exactly that happens.

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving, Velocininjas! Unless you're British.

Then fuck you.

Short Post and a Song #137: Are the tacos in the cauldron?

2017-11-19T08:19:00.000-05:00

I'd be in great shape if I could just dedicate as much thought to getting my shit together as I do to how that one dude offered Schmendrick a taco in The Last Unicorn even though his group only had rat soup.

~*~*~*~*~

"Lost Coastlines" by Okkervil River

While a few trusted friends are looking over Viable, I've been doing a lot of thinking about The Renaissance Experiment trilogy as a whole. Not writing anything down, really—just thinking about themes and messages and all those other sorts of things that can be a bit dangerous to think about when you're doing the actual writing (or at least it can be for me).

While I've been doing that thinking I have listened to this song roughly 5,000 times. When I first heard it I just thought it was a sweet, lovey sort of sounding song and I plopped it on my "Roth" playlist (every main character in the series has his or her own playlist, and even some of the secondary ones).

As I found myself coming back to this song over and over, I realized how strongly it applies to not just one character, but the whole series. The song is about getting on a boat and heading away from everything you've ever loved toward the unknown. It's about feeling lost.

But if you listen to the song, it doesn't sound like it's about that at all! It sounds so damn happy. And a happy song about being scared and alone and lost happens to fit this series like a glove.

Also check out the video, guys—it documents all the amazing drawing of the illustrations and lettering artist Kevin Tong did for an Okkervil River show.

Short Post and a Song #136: it's like tarantino WANTS me to have insomnia

2017-11-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

ME: [trying to sleep]

MY BRAIN: why was michael madsen's character in reservoir dogs named mr. blonde when everyone else was a regular color?

ME: shut up

MY BRAIN: why not mr. yellow?

ME: [covers head with pillow]

MY BRAIN: why jill

~*~*~*~*~

"Tickle" by Eyes Lips Eyes

This song is sooooooo muuuuuuch fuuuuuun. Whenever I listen to it I swear I can feel those guitar riffs tickling my brain.

Short Post and a Song #135: An ice cream factory sounds like it would probably be the best factory.

2017-11-05T07:48:00.000-05:00

Guys I have some terrible news. There are only a few pages of It Takes Four left, so I'll have to go back to trying to think up jokes on Sundays again starting next week.

But for now, the epic conclusion of this terrible, terrible book I wrote when I was eight!

Last week ended in yet another cliffhanger: "The parents clapped and in the morning the parent had forgotten all..."

Translation: ...about the divorce. Now you probebly think I'll say they lived happily ever after. I only have two words for you...

Yeah Right!

At the Callaway house I don't know how, but the next day Mr, Mrs. Callaway were back on their feet. The parents were thrilled at the scene but they...

It's nice to see that my sense of humor was on point even back then. "Yeah Right!" Classic.

"...I don't know how, but the next day Mr, Mrs. Callaway were back on their feet." That has got to be some of laziest fucking storytelling I have ever seen. Clearly I got too preoccupied with the stupid Love Prance and totally forgot there was a whole other set of twins with probably Alzheimer's-ridden parents.

But now the parents are back on their feet! Who would've thought such a devastating illness could be cured by the presence of their daughter and another girl who looks just like her that she met in the woods.

Translation: Lived Happily Ever After. The End

Well that was abrupt. Seriously I took these pictures a while ago and double-checked the book to make sure there wasn't any more.

There was not.

But hey, at least there's a sign with lights around it that says "The End" in cursive that appears to have been hung on a wall by the same person who hung all those horrifying blank pictures. And a pathetic-looking flower.

Translation: About the Author

(illustrartor)

Jillian Karger is a third grader at Parkview School. Jillian has also ... The Scary Witch, The Invisible Friend and George and Garth go to the Ice Cream Factory. Jill has 5 people in her family and four pets.

I actually think "illustrartor" is amazing and vow to do all that I can to ensure that this becomes the new commonly accepted spelling of the word.

For someone who had written so many books at this point you'd think I'd say "written" instead of "...".

Oh man, I really wish I knew where any of those books were, especially "George and Garth go to the Ice Cream Factory". If I remember correctly, "The Scary Witch" ended with said scary witch turning into a rainbow.

Thanks for making another trip down memory lane with me, Velocininjas. Next time I'm in Ohio I'm gonna have to stock up on more embarrassing shit from my childhood to share whenever I'm running low on jokes.

~*~*~*~*~

"The Next Time We Wed" by The Fratellis

This is the third time I've featured The Fratellis, and I love how incredibly different all three songs are. "Whistle for the Choir" is a pretty love song, "Medusa in Chains" is slow and bluesy, and "The Next Time We Wed" is a groovy tune that brings Prince to mind. This new track is just so much goddamn fun.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, friends, go watch V for Vendetta for me.