Which you, like. TOTALLY owe me.
Now admit it. I hardly ever take advantage of you, dear captive toadies and readers, by breaking character to flog my shit. Err, sell my merch. So I figure you owe me one lapse of good taste that’s not an actual blog post.
Today I’m taking advantage of your hopeless low-brow humour addiction to point out that there’s a NEW link at the top of each page which will whisk you away, as would a Rajah his child bride, to a
36-page FREE Preview
of my debut collection of eponymously-titled personal essays and political satire that’s just ever so slightly gay, easily verified if you were to look at it, casually look away, then all of a sudden look back again really fast and catch me listening to pirated Maria Callas recordings or flapping my wrists as though my upper appendages had suddenly turned into giant raw chicken tenders.
If I may toot my own horn for a moment, and don’t mind if I do, I’d have to say that my book is perfect for those of you, my fans and fanettes, who are pining for light-hearted, bittersweet short-form writing that’s:
snarky yet lovable, awkwardly inappropriate yet disarmingly forgivable, full of typically male opinionated bluster but still craving constant validation, shocking but still suitable for gifting your grandma, if your grandma worked as a burlesque dancer, and openly queer yet able to “pass” when it suits The Gay Agenda.
To all five of you—Heartfelt greetings!
And let’s cut to the chase, here: If you need something to read at the beach, my book clocks in at three hundred and twenty-six pages and does less damage than “Moby Dick” when you fall asleep and drop it on your face.¹
This is not a small thing.
¹ Disclaimer: Applies only to the paperback. Dropping your Kindle or Kobo device, or the hardcover version, on your face after drifting off can cause severe lacerations, typically followed by depression and a sudden craving for whatever substance you just spent two years in recovery giving up.
Some of the famous authors who took time out of their busy schedules to influence me:
I’ve been a voracious reader all my life, and writers in a humorous style whom I’ve swallowed whole include: Dorothy Parker, Nancy Mitford, James Kirkby, Dr. Seuss, Evelyn Waugh, Maureen Dowd, Erma Bombeck, P.G. Wodehouse and, more recently, Edward St. Aubyn (“The Patrick Melrose Novels”). Oh, and the Canada Revenue Agency, for assessing me as owing them $40,000.00 in back taxes, just because I didn’t file my returns for six years. Yep. Forty thousand dollars. Now that’s comedy!
I nearly forgot to include Fran Lebowitz, the doyenne of LGBT literary-grump humor;
AND…I must also include as idol and model the incomparable raconteur David Sedaris, whose name is, weirdly, the exact anagram of mine if you change all the vowels to “o” and “i” until you have enough, add an extra “d” then ignore anything left over that doesn’t fit.
Made-up coincidences— truly stranger than fiction!
Read the preview (click here if you’re too g.d. lazy to scroll up to the top)!
² About the illustration: Today's illustration features the beloved dead old-lady comedienne Betty White in her famous "Snickers" commercial which she made just before rigor mortis set in, around her 183rd birthday. To the great hilarity of all, Betty ends up lying in a ditch full of mud with sinister-looking smears of a brown, glossy substance on her cheeks, which might be Snickers or then again might not be! Betty's rise to fame after her death is an inspiration to all those snarky, dead old ladies who labour in the hopes that their tiny scrap of talent, already stretched thin as a Democrat's self-esteem, might one day be recognized, if the smell of decomposition doesn't prove an insurmountable barrier.
DID YOU KNOW?
After finishing the shoot, dead Betty just remained supine in the ditch and signed autographs for her fans as the crew finished the burial job with a few more heaps of mud.
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