Goodreads keeps sending me notifications saying “You are now friends with” so-and-so.
Goodreads puts far more effort into me having a healthy social life than I do. They’re a bit heavy-handed about it, though.
“IN SOVIET RUSSIA, FRIENDS MAKE *YOU.*”
Tag Archives: humor
“Say hello to my little friend.”
This handemade leather-bound volume is about the length of my forefinger; it was an especially cool Christmas present from a writer friend of mine. She picked it up for me at a Renaissance Faire. She told me I could write all my “secret thoughts” here. (I’ve got a lot of ’em.)
I personally like to think that it looks like something out of Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” universe, like maybe the place where Roland inscribes clues about his quest. (I know he doesn’t need to search for clues in any of the books, but still.) Or maybe it’s a convenient pocket-tome for the vengeance-driven Arya Stark from “Game of Thrones” to keep her “list.”
I haven’t yet decided precisely what I will record here. I quite love it, though. It’s sitting on my desk as a reminder for me to write. (You know what would fit perfectly on a single page? All the progress I’ve made on my novel in the past six months. Maybe I’ll start with that.)
It would be a hell of a lot of fun.
My latest brilliant idea — somebody should make a board game based on Dante’s Inferno. Like a send-up of Monopoly or Sorry.
Hell, you wouldn’t even need advertising art. All those Gustave Dore illustrations are in the public domain.
RUN WITH THIS, people.
Pictured: fun.
It’s a Christmas Twitter Political Limerick Miracle.
So, dudes, this really cool thing happened during the first wee hours of Christmas 2019. I couldn’t sleep (yet again) so I was Twittering in bed — I wound up responding to the #Dimerick hashtag, where people were poking fun of Donald Trump with limericks. I wrote four.
George Conway retweeted two of them. (As you’re doubtlessly aware, he’s the husband of White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway — which is funny, because he’s an outspoken and highly visible critic of Trump. He’s also a very smart guy — if you’re not following him on Twitter, then you should remedy that right now. )
The two tweets just took off. I got 8,000 “likes” on the first one that you see below, and 5.8 thousand “likes” on the second one. (Both got more than a thousand retweets.) All sorts of people were retweeting them at Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the rest of the Senate GOP leadership. (If the secret police come for me, I love you all, by the way.)
I know it’s a silly thing to be proud of. But these limericks are … my most popular poems to date. I might have finally found my real niche.
Just for kicks, I’m sharing the other two that I wrote below as well.
A friend of mine wrote me a “Twilight Zone” intro and I love it.
His name is J. Sebastian Cunningham and he is a damn fine satirist. This still cracks me up every time I read it. (The James Woods reference is a nod to my resemblance to the actor.) Thanks again, J.
What was old is now new again.
Enter a complex yet unassuming man. One, well versed in word, both written and spoken. A man followed modestly by a people hungry for prose. A man that didn’t disappoint. Enter the writer’s mind, if you will, into the dark recesses of a James Woodian insanity that no Shakespearean play could duplicate, let alone imitate. Enter the mind of greatness and madness. Enter a mind living in…
The Twilight Zone.
I call it “Monster Melee Insomnia.”
I had genuine, serious, grownup responsibilities to meet yesterday.
And I was up sleepless at 2:21 AM the prior evening pondering what would happen if a group of Terminators fought John Carpenter’s “The Thing.”
I am 47 years old, people.
And I’ve got two more for you:
What would happen if The Blob fought The Thing? I suppose it all boils down to which has the fastest, most successful cellular-level method of attack. What about the baddie from Dean Koontz’ “Phantoms?”
And what would happen if the vampires from “30 Days of Night” fought the infected from “28 Days Later?” Sort of a … “30 Days of Night Later” kinda scenario?
There needs to be a name for this disorder I have. There needs to be hope for a treatment.
Nolan’s got a new knit cap!
Stepping out in a Christmas present that was handmade for me by a writer friend. (I love it.) I told her that it was a very homespun, writerly thing for me to wear — a homemade cap knit by a friend, and she laughed at that.
I’m about to share an extremely unpopular opinion.
Why does everyone hate hipsters?
Based on what I can see, the look and the lifestyle seem pretty neat to me. You get to wear really inexpensive clothes without being judged. You ride around town on a cheap bike, which is healthy for you — and again, there’s no judgment, because that’s normal for your peer group. It’s like being a Marxist, without the terrible economic theory.
You listen to alternative music. Awesome. Social mores call for you to be “authentic” and creative, and there seems to be an emphasis on progressive politics.
Doesn’t this all dovetail nicely with people whose personalities lean toward arts or academics? Is it really all so bad?
Maybe there’s something I’m missing. If you know me at all, you can guess that everything I know about hipsters comes from a Google search I did five minutes ago. One of my college classmates is a sublimely intelligent man whose opinion I trust … he is now living on the West Coast, and he hates hipsters. And I do mean that he HATES hipsters.
Please, don’t do the obvious and suggest that I become a hipster. I’m too old. The only new subculture that’s appropriate for me to join right now is AARP.
PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CRETIN.
(Hey, I need to make at least one “Wizard of Oz” reference per year. It’s required by the Weirdo Writers Union.)
By the way, that’s Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. There’s a depressing article over at The Daily Beast today about Russian state media describing Trump as their country’s “agent.” You can find it right here.
(I’m not even sure I can PRONOUNCE “schadenfreude.”)
This is me laughing at Trump’s feelings being hurt by Trudeau and Macron at the NATO Summit.
Cry me a river, Snowflake-in-Chief.
I’d love to say “schadenfreude,” but I’m not sure I can spell it. (Did I get it right?)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 