2017 Draft Queue Junk Drawer
The hour is getting late, and while I’m aware that we haven’t even started planning the 2017 Septemberfest, I’m not concerned. Such things have a way of taking care of themselves. One way to ruin a party is by over planning it. I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, “No, the way to ruin a party is by under planning it.” Nonsense. Can you recall a party that you went to that was under planned? What happened? Did the host run out of cheese or something? Maybe you couldn’t find a place to pee. How did any of that stop you from PARTYING? I don’t need bags of ice and cocktail napkins to tell off-color jokes, vomit, and throw a punch, so, as far as I’m concerned, too little planning never got in the way of a good time.
Despite the delay in the end of season party, the 2017 season is drawing to a close. It’s already far past my editorial bedtime. You may have noticed that the production here at the Mill is way down. It’s true. I blame the butterflies. I think most of them have flown south. How can one write without butterflies?
You can? Really?
Well, Mx. “I can write anytime”, some of us aren’t so blessed. You know what? Maybe you should write an article called, “How to Write Without Butterflies.” Go ahead. I hope you get a thousand claps.
If I had more time and butterflies I would have liked to have written the following “stories” this season. Now that I have run out of time, I will have to store them here and hope they don’t rot over the winter.
Post Idea #1: Ethnic Foods We’d Like To See
This was a post I was going to write about my ideas for ethnic foods that don’t exist. For example, I want to be able to go to a Chinese restaurant and order a “Three Gorges Dam” (#56). I want to look at the list of sausages at Der Biergarten and see “Yonkerswurst”, “Crapicolla” and “Fritizo”. I want “underground samosas” and “pig paneer”, Pad Fry (no egg), and rum soaked Udon. You get the idea.
Post Idea #2: Why Does Jimmy Buffett Get to Be Jimmy Buffet?
I’ve complained about this before, but I just don’t understand why of all the people in the world, God picked Jimmy Buffett to get to be Jimmy Buffett. The obvious question is, “why him and not me?”, but really, isn’t there someone on earth more deserving of being Jimmy Buffett than Jimmy Buffett? I wasn’t going to stop there. There was going to be a second part to this post in which I wondered what it would take to become the New England equivalent of Jimmy Buffett. I can’t play guitar, but if I could I would be writing endless variations of a song tentatively titled “Kind of Cold, but Really Drunk” in the hopes that maybe in ten or fifteen years people would PAY BIG MONEY to come eat at my restaurant on Isleboro, ME. There, they would drink, spend money, wear lobster hats, and sing “Kind of Cold, but Really Drunk” over and over and over again.
Post Idea #3: The Sacred, Secular, and Profane in Speculative Fiction and Fantasy
I have no idea what this piece would be about. It’s the title of a summer course I signed up for in 1988 that was cancelled for lack of interest. Ever since, it has kind of haunted me.
Post Idea #4: PUP
The story of a 12-year-old boy who runs away from his home in the West of Ireland during the 1800s to join a sealing expedition. After being brutally mistreated by a sadistic captain and his barbaric shipmates, he is saved by a talking polar bear who turns him over to be raised by a colony of seals. The seals teach him how to catch fish with his teeth. A kindly walrus then shows him how to dig clams and explains the “law of the ice floe.”
Post Idea #5: Thank God for Man-o-Pause
The severe reduction of testosterone after 50 isn’t something to be feared. It is to be celebrated! For the first time in my life I can look at the vaguely feminine outline of a tree and not consider masturbating. Why, just the other day, while I was standing on line at the grocery store, a woman directly in front of me bent over to pick up her basket and I continued to read the headlines of US magazine! I suddenly have so much time. It’s like being relieved of the necessity of eating. Like I can eat, if I WANT to, but I’m no longer going to get in the car, drive downtown, and wait twenty minutes for a pizza just because I’m hungry. I’m happy with tunafish. I’m starting to see what life has been like for the Boss for the past three decades. How did she ever tolerate me???
Post Idea #6: Hurricane Coverage We’d Like to See
I watched a lot of Hurricane coverage this Fall. Hours and hours of Weather channel, CNN, and NBC. None of it was what I wanted. It never really came close. I was constantly disappointed.
I started thinking about what it is that I want to see. I was going to write a post where I tried to explain my desires, but instead I’ll just confess to my ugly interior life and skip the part where I try to convince you that I am not a monster. Here is a quick outline of my ideal hurricane coverage:
Post Idea #7: Let’s Gush About Joni Mitchell While She Is Still Alive
The “death of a rocker” post is a trap. When somebody dies, how can you compete with all the hot takes? I had the idea to start gushing about people who haven’t yet died. I’ve done it in the past with Linda Ronstadt and Tom Jones. Look, it kills me to say this, but I’m not sure that the Joni Mitchell piece can wait till Spring. My tentative title was going to be: “All You Warbling Bitches Ain’t Fit to Hold Her Hippie Jock Strap.” Maybe it’s better I didn’t get to this.
Post Idea #8: What I Want From Medium, Part XXVI
I like to complain about Medium. It’s an addiction, I know. I’m a fanboi, not a hater, but like Apple geeks discussing Mac rumors circa 1989, I’m quite convinced Medium would be in much better shape if it just LISTENED TO ME.
My current set of wants are neither new nor endemic to me. I’ve heard a lot of other folks articulate most of them, but when it comes to complaints, great minds think alike. Here are some of the things I want:
Gamified Stats: This may sound dumb to you, but I would like to know where something I publish sits in the comprehensive ocean of Medium stories for the week or month. If this post right here ended up ranked 52,287 for the month of October, the goal would be to get something into the forty thousands. I play a lot of games where I am low ranking. It doesn’t impede the satisfaction I get from beating up on other losers.
A Snazzy Profile Page: I could easily settle for a profile page that worked like the current publications page. I’d pay $5 a month for that, but I’d also like to be able to embed other people’s posts without their permission (like we can in stories). That would open up an opportunity for curation, if I wanted to exercise it.
Some kind of League or Cabal Function: Again, a gamification, but what if you could form an art league or cabal that would influence the “next” or “suggested” stories that show up above comments?
The Ability to Click on a User Icon and See that Person Naked: I have a hypothesis that the writing of nude people is, for the most part, much more interesting than the prose of their clothed counterparts. I could be wrong, but experimentation is everything!