Now’s the time to order your copy of Buk 100: My Old Man, A Birthday Greeting.Click right here for Newington Blue Press’ limited edition chapbook. Only 100 copies will be printed in this initial run, which celebrates what would have been Charles Bukowski’s 100th birthday.
When you read it, be sure take a gander at two poems of mine: “First Smoke” and “Guerrilla Poet.” (The latter piece is an homage to my good friend and colleague in the writing world, poet Dennis Villelmi.)
I hope you guys are looking forward to a great weekend! No matter what you’ve got planned, remember Buk’s advice — “what matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”
I remember Laser Tag as an exciting but fairly brief blip in 1980’s pop culture. A lot of the kids I knew got excited about these commercials, a lot of us asked earnestly for Laser Tag guns Christmas, and … none of us got them. (Our parents seemed unanimous that they were too expensive.)
Ah, well. The subsequent buzz around my neighborhood was that our parents were probably wise, anyway — we heard later that the guns hardly worked, making the product nowhere near as cool as the commercials depicted. (I am linking below to Kevin Noonan’s Youtube Channel, by the way.)
And then the fad faded — all the hubbub around Laser Tag (and Photon, its cheaper competitor) just kinda went away. It sort of makes sense. Paintball was alive and well as an edgier, more subversive, and more exciting sport; I can’t imagine how these gaudy electronic products could compete with that.
The Wikipedia entry for Laser Tag had a couple of surprises for me. For starters, the technology for the products’ infrared light guns and sensors was developed by the United States Army in the 1970’s — I guess it was an Ender’s Game-type scenario. And the first game system using the technology was South Bend’s Star Trek Electronic Phaser Guns in 1979. (Those toys were released in conjunction with the premiere of that year’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”)
Didn’t see that one coming. I’ll bet those toys fetch a nice price among collectors.
Anyway, there was another Laser Tag commercial that everybody talked about back in the day … it depicted American and Russian teams competing in a dystopian-future tournament, in which the Statue of Liberty was the trophy. It’s smile-inducing. I couldn’t find a really decent copy of it to link to here, but you can find it on Youtube.
A pal of mine gave me this N99 mask. Little could she know that she would inadvertently AWAKEN AN ANCIENT WARRIOR. The time has come to put my lengthy and grueling ninjutsu training to work.
Ignore the wisps of gray hair. That’s … part of the ninja disguise.
The Roanoke Times published my writing again this morning in its Letters section — this time, it was my brief satirical essay, “I Am Going to Drive Drunk Tonight.” The regional daily newspaper was founded in 1886 — it is Southwest Virginia’s leading online news source, in addition to its sales at 1,500 locations throughout the region.
I’m lucky enough today to see my writing featured again by Winedrunk Sidewalk: Shipwrecked in Trumpland. This time out, it’s my satirical treatment of the president using Marc Antony’s speech in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Its title is “Friends, Americans, countrymen — lend me your fears,” and you can find it right here.
Here’s a big thanks, as always, to Editor John Grochalski!
So I’m sure you guys remember how I’m weird about occasionally trying to run down the origins of various aphorisms … A while back I tried to look into the (possibly apocryphal?) Chinese curse that people like to quote — “May you live in interesting times.” I posted about it at the end of March. (It felt timely then, and it still does.)
I stumbled across a three-tiered variant of the saying just yesterday. As it turns out, the curse in its purported entirety is as follows, or at least according to the Internet:
May you live in interesting times.
May you come to the attention of those in authority.
May the gods give you everything you ask for.
It’s interesting stuff. That bit about “the attention of those in authority” feels especially ominous in the Trump Age.
If any of you guys have any insight into exactly where this quote originated, please feel free to chime in.
I have some really damned cool news, guys — two poems of mine will be featured in an upcoming limited-edition chapbook in Europe commemorating what would have been the 100th birthday of Charles Bukowski! Newington Blue Press announced today that it will release 100 Years of Bukowski (100 Jahre Bukowski) next week.
The chapbook will be 68 pages long, and this initial run will consist of just 100 numbered copies. Its featured writing and art were selected to showcase “a conversance and artistic involvement with the phenomenon of Bukowski.” The poems of mine to be included are “Guerrilla Poet” and “First Smoke.” I am grateful indeed to Newington Blue Press for allowing me to be a part of such a unique publication.
You can pre-order an advance copy of the chapbook via the publisher right here.
Newington Blue Press is based in Germany and the United Kingdom.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 