"My grandma's birthday
falls on Alien Day. Do
you think she's from space?"
The Official Web Site of Author Roy Hudson |
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In case you missed the update on the home page (or Facebook or Twitter), yesterday, 4/26, was not only Alien Day, but also my grandmother's birthday. It inspired a haiku in my head, but today is the first time I've gotten a chance to write it down. Like I said in an earlier blog, a day late, a dollar short. So here's my 4/26/2018 haiku:
"My grandma's birthday falls on Alien Day. Do you think she's from space?"
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I remember the standup portion of Open Mic Night on April 13, 2018, most of all. The lanky comedian asked the crowd if anyone in attendance would soon be married. One man answered, "In three years."
The comedian took advantage of the man's Southern accent by saying, "Are you hoping that by then you two won't be related anymore?" It seemed off the cuff, and it drew several laughs, but it left me with a pressing question: Was the Southern man a plant? I didn't see him in the dark club, and even judging by his voice I couldn't tell where he was seated, so I couldn't ask him, so I decided to ask the comic himself. After he had left the stage to considerable applause, I made my move. I was a little embarrassed, because I thought he might make fun of me for not knowing better... but I started to ask, "Excuse me? I thought you were very funny, but the wedding joke... Was that scripted, or--" Suddenly another man appeared behind the comedian. I found out later that it was the Southern man who had been laughed at during the performance. He had a gun. I tried to warn the comic, but the shots were louder than I was... and faster. I got my answer, though the comedian did not live to tell me. As I mentioned on the homepage, yesterday was World Poetry Day and I didn't know until today. However, since I need something for Week 13, and I'm not going to miss out on the opportunity to write a poem, I'll write one now...
"We rely too much On social media. If we miss one day, We're out of touch. Birthdays, appointments, Numbers and lists. Losing a phone's worse Than slitting your wrists. The alternative's To go off the grid, But try doing that Without flipping your lid. No news, fake or otherwise, No word of disaster When tragedy strikes, No hashtags to show your support. And on stressful days When you take a break, You come back a day late, a dollar short. You've missed a made-up holiday People don't get off with pay, But when you miss it, you might shed a tear. For the next World Poetry Day You'll just have to wait Until March 21st of next year." I went from over a week ahead to almost two weeks behind! Yikes! Fortunately, a day worth writing about was Sunday, so here's a haiku...
National Grammar Day Haiku for #WritAWeek2018 Week 10: "National Grammar Day tells us to "March forth." Or, March 4th. Whichever." For Week 11, I'll use something I found out via the doctor this morning... #WritAWeek2018 Week 11 Random Haiku: "I found out today That I'm allergic to dogs. I'm gonna miss her." Kidding, of course. We're not getting rid of Cheech, I just have to get some allergy medicine. MORE medicine. Boo! As I said on the homepage, I came up with a question today, to which my brain provided a punchline. Here's the question, followed by the punchline:
Q: A straight woman who hangs around gay men has many unflattering names, but what do you call a straight man who hangs around lesbians? A: An optimist. It's not much as far as a written work goes, but I'm going to count that as my 9th #WritAWeek2018 thing. I've lost track of which week we are into 2018... According to my calendar, this upcoming Tuesday begins the eighth actual calendar week of this year. So, I'm ahead of schedule! YES. If I start slacking off around the middle of the year, I'll still be able to keep up if I stay productive these first few months writing things like stories, essays, jokes, and poems... Speaking of which... I thought of another story I want to write, but I haven't gotten to it yet. It's been on my mind a LOT lately, so I doubt I'll forget. This is going to take some exposition... Around 1999 (YIKES), I wrote a story called "Change for a Dollar." It's really dated in that it centers around a pay phone robbery to retrieve a lost bicentennial quarter, stolen from a prized collection given to the antagonist by his grandmother. Because life imitates art, MY grandmother recently gave me and all of her other grandchildren rolls of bicentennial quarters, just like in this story I wrote almost two decades ago. So I got to thinking a lot about that story, and it made me want to revisit the characters... At the end of that story, an arrest is implied. Someone is framed for murder. That was almost 20 years ago, when pay phones were still commonplace. If that story were true, the framed individual would probably just be getting paroled right about now. And they would likely want revenge. So... the seeds of a sequel were planted, and those seeds have been growing. Pretty soon, I'll be ready to write the story. I'll have to post the original story for reference, but I think I want to edit it first to make sure it leads into the sequel I've come up with. And on that note, I think I'll go revisit that story... now! TTFN “Reformed Villains Anonymous”
The group gathered in the Metropolis high school gym for their meetings every Sunday at noon. Not all of them believed in the Sabbath, but out of respect for their nemeses, they decided that, if they were to take a day off from trying to destroy a planet or two, it might as well be on a holy day. The mediator called out, “Alright, everyone, gather round. It seems we have a familiar face in our midst again, after a brief stint as a superhero. And in case you’ve spent the past twenty years living under a rock, or in outer space (I haven’t forgotten you, Arkillo), you may even remember his days as President of the United States. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Lex back to our group.” The bald former hero of Metropolis stood up, his head hanging low. “Thank you, everyone. But I don’t know that I’m the villain I once was. It felt good being a hero.” Arkillo nodded. “Don’t feel bad, Lex. I also enjoyed being the Sinestro Corps’ protector of this sector. It wasn’t until our leader once again accepted the Parallax entity that I was called out from my heroic duties to once again be a villain.” The mediator replied, “Yes, but your Corps’ former leader was blasted to bits by the leader of the Green Lantern Corps. You chose not to become a hero again. If you truly enjoyed it, why stop just because a dead boss willed it, a boss whose successor turned the Corps into heroes?” Arkillo shrugged. “Revenge, I guess.” “But revenge against whom, Arkillo? The Green Lanterns, or the deceased leader who called you back to villainy?” Arkillo leaped from his chair. “I am a villain,” he shouted. “Sinestro didn’t make me that way!” “Forget, Arkillo,” Bizarro suggested, “last names allowed.” The mediator smirked. “Thank you, Bizarro. You do understand that he means the opposite, right, Lex?” Lex groaned, “I’ve been here before, you buffoon. I know how this works.” Bizarro growled, “Be mean to Plastic Man, Lex! Plastic Man Bizarro’s worst enemy!” The mediator cleared his throat and said, “Bizarro, you should know that hero or villain names are not allowed… unless, you know, your hero or villain name is your first name, like the majority of you here. Call me Eel.” Lex snorted. “I don’t even know how you’re the leader of this group, ‘Eel.’ You’re not a villain. You were an incompetent thief who was set up, gained super powers by accident, and got revenge against your former partners before becoming an incompetent member of the JLA.” Eel frowned. “But… I helped all of Superman’s enemies escape from their underwater prison. Surely that accounts for something.” “That wasn’t in continuity and you know it!” An Alternate Ending, by Roy Hudson
New York City had already been reeling in the wake of the stock market crash which had sunk the nation into a great depression… but now, there was another crash that had left a major impact on the city. It was supposed to be The Eighth Wonder of the World. There are many emotions that follow the word “wonder,” but “terror” should not be the foremost. And yet, the greedy filmmaker who had chosen to seek a life of fame of fortune by bringing a foreign curiosity into an environment where it simply did not belong had made a killing… both figuratively and literally. That filmmaker faced a barrage of legal charges, not to mention the end of his career, but he was not the only person the city found at fault. The theatre owner, the stage hands, the financiers, and even the panicked masses who had abandoned their humanity in a last-ditch effort to escape with their lives were all held accountable in a court of law. Not all of those pressing charges were bereaved, however… and not all those being charged were at fault. The judge listened to as much of the case as he could stand before shaking his head and waving his hands to signal the plaintiff to stop talking. “Let me make sure I follow your case, sir: The husband of the grieving lady against whom you’re filing charges was running from the path of the giant gorilla as it fell from atop a skyscraper, and grabbed your wheelchair to push you to safety with him. He didn’t make it, and was crushed to death, but with the last of his remaining strength, he used his own momentum to wheel you from the path of impact, where your chair stopped, only to topple when the beast shook the ground, causing you to bump your head. You think the widow of this hero is at fault. What is wrong with you? I sincerely hope, for the sake of future generations of Americans, that men like you do not breed and carry this insensitive greed into the next century, Mr.… Am I pronouncing this correctly, Mr. Drumpf?” “Ja, Your Honor,” the aging German immigrant replied, before adding, “though my son is considering changing his last name to something more ‘American.’” Legacies: A Work of Non-Fiction, by Roy Hudson
Today, my late grandfather would be 92 years old, according to his son/my father. He had a rough life, though I barely knew him. I was maybe twelve when he died, and for the last seven years or so of his life, he was an invalid. Still, I do remember him, and I usually take a post-Thanksgiving dinner nap in “his” chair, which my grandmother has held onto almost three decades later. I hear stories about him, even now, though he didn’t tell me many of those stories himself during life. I know that he had lied about his age during the mid 1940’s so that he could join the Navy and the fight in the Pacific in the last days of World War II. He never told me any of that. I wish I had found out about it when he was still in decent health, so that I could have asked him questions about the experience, but I never got that chance. He was robbed of his health by bad habits and addiction. Just like his son, he was a longtime chain smoker, and an alcoholic. I didn’t know that until my half-sister told me many years after his passing. The booze and cigarettes took a heavy toll on his body, killing him shortly after he had reached his sixties. The age at my grandfather’s passing troubles me, because my dad is 67, and he has severe COPD, or lung disease for those unfamiliar with the term. I worry about him every day. Just as his own father was dependent on alcohol, my dad is dependent on his cigarettes. He has awful coughing spells, and once he catches his breath, he lights up a cigarette to settle his nerves after nearly passing out. It’s frightening, to say the least. My mom and sister, who both still live with him, as do I, refuse to ride in the car with him driving, because he loses his breath behind the wheel and could potentially cause an accident. I don’t like him driving, either, but when he’s determined to go somewhere without a driver, there’s no talking him out of it. It doesn’t help that he takes medicine that makes him drowsy all day. He uses oxygen and a C-PAP at night to keep him breathing in his sleep after dark, but he doesn’t have that benefit when he sleeps in the daytime. It’s another thing to worry about. I never fathered children, and it’s not something I’ve ever longed to do. With the legacy of addiction passed down three generations, can you blame me? What I hadn’t mentioned is that I, too, battle with addiction. I take Xanax every night for my schizoaffective disorder. I can’t sleep without it. If I miss one dose, it screws up my whole week. It’s a problem when I run out or misplace a new bottle, which I did last month. My insurance only allows new prescriptions or refills every 28 days, so when I lost a bottle and ran out of the previous refill, I went through withdrawal. And that was the first night without it. I guess that’s what my grandfather felt like without a drink, or my dad without a cigarette. It was scary. And if addiction is passed down the generations, I definitely wouldn’t want to pass that down to a child. I wouldn’t wish my bad genes on an enemy, much less an offspring. It just occurred to me that aside from the generic "get back in shape" promise I make myself every year (more on that in a bit), I haven't set any New Year's Resolutions for 2018... and since it's been a week since New Year's Eve and I haven't changed much of anything, I guess it means I have no resolutions... yet. I have a few ideas.
I'd like to do something that Jessica McHugh, a favorite writer friend on Facebook, has done with several "new years" resolutions, where, starting the first week of January, she writes a new story per week. 52 stories in one year... Considering I've done 30 stories in one month before, I think I can do that. I wrote a New Year's story on January 2nd, so that's one down, 51 to go! But there are other writing goals I'd like to set for 2018. Like I said way back in November, I want to read some more books on writing to try to put my brain back on the right track. I have a row of them on my bookcase, plus a good many digital books on the subject. At Dragon Con 2016, I bought three flash drives containing six books full of writing info, and at least one of those is on social media for artists. I also have a Kindle book dedicated solely to writers using twitter. I really need to build my web brand so I can make some more e-sales... On 12/29, I received some Amazon royalties... a total of $4.96. The sad thing is, that was the most money I'd earned selling ebooks for the entire year. If I'd use my web resources more often, I might earn enough money to really make a difference in my finances... Going back to the "get in shape" thing... TWO things happened in 2017 that really scared me. First, my cousin, age 39 at the time, had a massive heart attack. He died on the table twice. And he's in much better shape than I am. Second, an online acquaintance, who's only about 8 months older (he had just turned 39), died on New Year's Eve. I don't know what kind of shape he was in, but it's still worrisome. I need to start exercising again before my body gives out even more. I have bad knees and a bad back, and a large part of that is my weight. If I don't start making an attempt to get healthier before I turn 39, I might NOT turn 39. I've already started watching my portions, and last night I didn't eat any junk food after 8 pm. That's a big problem for me. I need food with my medicine, which I'm supposed to take at bedtime, but I usually eat the wrong kinds of food when I take them. I need to change that, and a new year is the perfect opportunity... even if I am a week late! So, to sum up: 1. Write a story per week. 2. Read more writing books. 3. Do a better job with social media/building an online brand. 4. Try to get back in shape, (Watch my portions, try to exercise, and don't eat junk food after 8 pm.) I think that's it for New Year's Resolutions. And that's it for now. “I Sold Lang Syne,” by Roy Hudson
They say that what you’re doing on midnight at New Year’s Eve is a hint toward what your year is like; I fucking hope not. I thought it was the perfect scam. I got a hacker buddy to send emails to all the fans of a popular rock band. The lawsuit dictates that I’m not allowed to say which one… but if you keep up with the news, you fucking know which one. Anyway, the scam was simple: I’d email details about a secret concert taking place on New Year’s Eve with this fan-favorite rock band whose initials are not F.F. and charge $100 per ticket in cash at the door of an old club that had fallen into disrepair, and for which I would not pay for its use. It’s in a shitty part of town, so I didn’t think anyone would notice… and since no rock concert would actually take place there, I didn’t think anyone in the area would complain about the noise. So, at 11 p.m. on December 31st, I collected $100 cash from everyone whom had fallen for it. The place sold more tickets than the venue’s capacity, but I didn’t think anyone would mind. Someone did, though… The band’s front man, whose initials are not D.G. At 11:45, a limo pulled up in front of me. A crowd rushed the car, and I wondered who could possibly be in it. Then the doors opened and the band stepped out... right behind several bodyguards who made a path toward me to keep the fans out of not-D.G.’s way as he approached me. He said, “We got several messages on social media about this impromptu New Year’s show, and did some digging. The venue wasn’t cleared, so… we paid for it ourselves. And since it’s a holiday, we decided to make it,” he raised his voice, “a free show.” He then motioned a bodyguard toward me and the ape grabbed me and forced me inside. He carried me up the stairs to the balcony. The band then took the stage and started the countdown to midnight. The bully dragging me turned on a fan at the top of the balcony, blowing air directly on me. At the count of one, the bodyguard grabbed me and dangled me over the masses… a rather high drop had he let go of my legs. All the money I had collected for the show fell from my pockets as the fan blew the bills out, landing all over the crowd. I guess everyone got a refund as the band whose initials are not F.F. played, “Auld Lang Syne.” By the time I was back on my feet, an officer had arrived with handcuffs. Since the venue was paid for and the band had cleared things with the police department, and since the crowd got their money back, the only crime I’d committed was fraud. And, of course, the band was suing me for the cost of the venue and permits. If I can’t come up with the money by the end of the year, I’ll be thrown into jail. I have plenty of time to think of a new scam to get the money. This time, I’ll find a crooked band manager to help, and I can split the money with him… |
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