COMMERCIAL INTERRUPTION: "Wahoo" by B.P. Kasik

So I wrote a new book under the pseudonym B.P. Kasik. It's called Wahoo.

Buy it!

Already bought it? Good.

Now read it!

Already read it? Good.

Now let's discuss it.

I used a "pseudonym" on this one because Phony McFakename is a great name for comedy, horror, and weird books. But this one's different. It's "serious." Not to say there isn't humor and fun to be had with it. But Wahoo isn't avant-garde or bizarro in any way. Structurally, it's a drama. (Though this book started as an epic monster-mash story about the main girl fighting Jefferson-descended Lovecraftian fish monsters all through UVA. But the monsters weren't working, so on my editor's advice, I dropped them and just made it about the now no-longer-monster-fighting girl.)

As you know (since you already read it), Wahoo is a short YA novel about a young woman leaving home and visiting college for the first time. She makes some friends, struggles with her eating disorder, and ends up caught in a police raid on a huge outdoor party. It's a quick, fun, emotional read. Very slice-of-life-y.

About that title. It's set at the University of Virginia. Students there call themselves "wahoos." Sometimes these students scream, "Wahoowa!" Scientists are baffled by this phenomenon. But seriously, the "wahoo" is the school's unofficial mascot. (Read all about it.) It's a fish that can drink twice its own weight. I think that means UVA students like to drink alcohol.

There's not a lot of alcohol (or football, a huge UVA pastime) in this here book. Sure, there's a bit of drinking, at the big epic party scene. But the main character is basically an introvert. So don't expect too much sensationalism.

Now about it being set in Charlottesville...I wrote this months before the KKK even rallied here in July. But I was able to go back in and work that event into the plot, as it was relevant to some of the police/race issues that are addressed by my characters. (I'm a local, I was a UVA student, I pay attention to things, so my characters have some thoughts.)

But that alt-right rally that hit our city in August, killing three and maiming dozens more?

We're still processing that. Our whole city has mild PTSD. The torch mob attack was a few feet from where I work. The downtown attack was a mile from where I live. Before that rally, Charlottesville was mostly just known as the top place to live on quality-of-life lists, or mistaken for Charlotte, North Carolina. Just a progressive college town with nice colonial architecture and a fairly standard set of societal issues. But now...

The rally was a huge elephant in the Charlottesville room, and way too big to try to address in my already-completed, about-to-be-published book. Plus, Wahoo is set during the July 2017 Midsummers party, so chronologically...the rally hadn't happened yet in its world

For now, I was able to persuade my publisher to insert an Author's Note at the start saying that the alt-right rally is relevant to some issues in Wahoo, but I do not (can not) address it.

Will I address it in a sequel? Time (and sales figures) will tell. Goodness knows my characters have some thoughts about it.

Hope you enjoyed Wahoo. Or if you're reading this and haven't read Wahoo yet...shame! But I forgive you. Go read it.


-Phony McFakename

* * *

I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And my books are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Literateur: Cool Books, August 2017

Got a new book coming out in a week, putting some finishing touches on it. Also just finished another one. And halfway through the one after that. And still need to do a final revision on the two others I've already finished and run past proofreaders.

What I'm getting at here is my writing energy is depleted. But I still want to share some books I've read and liked lately over the past few months. This is all positive. I'm probably done dissing books, unless I can do so in a very amusing or helpful fashion: 

To Be a Machine         Mark O'Connell

Haunted Castles          Ray Russell

Fudge Hampants: Mystery Shopper   Phony McFakename

Nightmare at 20,000 Feet       Richard Matheson

It         Stephen King

The Case Against Satan          Ray Russell

Star Shine        Fredric Brown

A RH+            H.R. Giger

The Haunted Forest Tour        Jeff Strand, James A. Moore

Hammer Wives           Carlton Mellick III

Nothing Left to Lose  Dan Wells

Voyage to the Moon   George Tucker 
Four Past Midnight     Stephen King 
Smoke and Mirrors     Neil Gaiman 

High Cotton    Joe R. Lansdale

Hot Water       P.G. Wodehouse

Destroy All Movies!: A Punk Encyclopedia    Various Authors

Suspiria de Profundis    Thomas De Quincey

The House with a Clock in its Walls     John Bellairs

Pigs Have Wings         P.G. Wodehouse

The Speed and the Fury          Phony McFakename

Tumor Fruit     Carlton Mellick III

Wahoo    B.P. Kasik

Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of    Robert Bloch

Gentleman of Leisure    P.G. Wodehouse

The Howling Man       Charles Beaumont

Misery    Stephen King

Eric Roberts 2: Acoustic Boogaloo    Phony McFakename

Spider Bunny    Carlton Mellick III

Indiscretions of Archie           P.G. Wodehouse 


-Phony McFakename

* * *

I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And my books are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Favorite Quotes, August 2017

“Politics always change. Stories never do.”

“Maybe there aren't any such things as good friends or bad friends - maybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when you're hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe they're always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for too, if that's what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart.”

“We lie best when we lie to ourselves.”

“You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for... and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”

“Adults are the real monsters.”

-Stephen King, It

“As soon as you finish a film, people want you to talk about it...and it’s, um...the film IS the talking.”

-David Lynch

“On your way to oblivion...always take the scenic route.”

-Carlton Mellick III, Satan Burger

“It seemed to me that transhumanism was an expression of the profound human longing to transcend the confusion and desire and impotence and sickness of the body, cowering in the darkening shadow of its own decay. This longing had historically been the domain of religion, and was now the increasingly fertile terrain of technology.”

“This is one of the problems with reality: the extent to which it resembles bad fiction.”

“The odds seemed pretty long from where I was standing, certainly, but then again, I reminded myself, the history of science was in many ways an almanac of highly unlikely victories.”

“These robots are literally inhuman, and yet I react no differently to their stumblings and topplings than I would to the pratfalls of a fellow human. I don’t imagine I would laugh at the spectacle of a toaster falling out of an SUV, or a semiautomatic rifle pitching over sideways from an upright position, but there is something about these machines, their human form, with which it is possible to identify sufficiently to make their falling deeply, horribly funny.”

“Humans, after all, weren’t actively hostile toward most of the species we’d made extinct over the millennia of our ascendance; they simply weren’t part of our design. The same could turn out to be true of superintelligent machines, which would stand in a similar kind of relationship to us as we ourselves did to the animals we bred for food, or the ones who fared little better for all that they had no direct dealings with us at all.”

“This was what we did as a species, after all: we built ingenious devices, and we destroyed things.”

-Mark O’Connell, To Be a Machine

“Legend has it that when a puzzled student told him he had read ‘Absalom! Absalom!’ three times and still didn’t understand it, Faulkner told him, ‘Read it a fourth time.’”

“In the first ten years of the Alderman regime [circa 1915], only 1,145 of the 2,241 first-year men returned for the second year.”

-Virginius Dabney, Mr. Jefferson’s University

“I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.”

“The fact is that all of us have only one personality, and we wring it out like a dishtowel. You are what you are.”

“He bit his lip in a manner which immediately awakened my maternal sympathy, and I helped him bite it.”

“Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin ..it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring”

“Do you know anything at all that nobody else knows or, for that matter, gives a damn about? If you do, then sit tight, because one of these days you're going to Hollywood as a technical supervisor on a million dollar movie.”

“Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century.”

“I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse.”

“The main obligation is to amuse yourself.”

-S.J. Perelman

“If a man can be corrupted by a few books, I doubt if there was anything there to begin with.”

-Ray Russell, The Case Against Satan

“Rome wasn’t built in A.D.”

“Your talk," I said, "is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.”

“Another day gone and no jokes.”

“Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular, and by nature it is interminable, repetitive, and nearly unbearable.”

“Put a thief among honest men and they will eventually relieve him of his watch.”

“When I want to read anything, however, I usually write it meself.”

“Having considered the matter in, of course, all its aspects, I have decided that there is no excuse for poetry.”

“It cannot too often be pointed out that women are people.”

-Flann O’Brien

“I’m happy. Hope you’re happy, too.”

-David Bowie, “Ashes to Ashes”

-Compiled by Phony McFakename

* * *

I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And my books are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Cinemasterworks: Movies I Liked in the Past Few Months

Good news: got an MRI the other day after seeing several specialists about my chronic shoulder pain. So I'm well on my way to regaining full function up there and hopefully having less pain when I write. Been doing better, but I still have pain days. Today is one of those days. So here's my laziest blog yet. Movies I liked over the past few months.

I'm staying positive with this list. Declining to mention movies I hated or walked out on after 5-10 minutes.

Unearthed and Untold: Making of Pet Sematary

Wonder Woman

Nerve

The Blob (1988)

Baby Driver
MST3K: Robot Holocaust

MST3K: Corpse Vanishes

The Other Side of the Door

Rifftrax: Galaxy Invader

Keeping Up with the Joneses

Surf II

Prescription Thugs

Lone Star

Rifftrax: Megaforce

Rifftrax: Death Promise

Rifftrax: Attack from Space

Rifftrax: To Catch a Yeti

Rifftrax: Buffalo Rider

Rifftrax: Alien Outlaw

Rifftrax: Night of the Shorts

Rifftrax: Reefer Madness

Florence Foster Jenkins

Paterson

Hacksaw Ridge

Video Game High School

David Lynch: The Art Life

Captain Fantastic

Memento

XX

Critters

Heavy Metal Parking Lot

Rakka

Netherbeast, Inc.

Son of Rambow

Oh Hello! On Broadway

Con Air

In the Mouth of Madness

Finding Dory

Storks

Big Fan

Rifftrax: Supersonic Man

Rifftrax: ROTOR

Rifftrax: Fever Lake

Rifftrax: Yambao

Rifftrax: I Believe in Santa Claus

Comedians of Comedy

Dig Two Graves

Matewan

Repo Man

Eight Men Out

Rock n Roll High School

Future Shock! The Story of 2000 A.D.

Rifftrax: Ghosthouse

Trolls

Don't Think Twice

Rifftrax: Guy from Harlem

Alien: Covenant

The Girl with All the Gifts

Clown

The Wizard of Lies

Dave Chapelle Netflix 2017 comedy specials

Rifftrax: Plan 9 from Outer Space (Live)

Rofftrax: Abraxas

Rifftrax: Nightmare at Noon

Rifftrax: Swamp of the Ravens

Rifftrax: The Magic Sword

Rifftrax: Wonder Women

Rifftrax: Devil's Hands

Rifftrax: Kingdom of the Spiders

As I Lay Dying

All That Jazz

Parenthood

Michael Ian Black: Noted Expert

Guardians of the Galaxy 2

Rifftrax: Cool as Ice

Shock Waves

Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Manchester by the Sea

Gimme Danger

Spaghetti Man

Rifftrax: Cat Women of the Moon

Norm MacDonald: 2017 Netflix Special

Batman & Bill

Doomed!

Mr. Arkadin

War Games

Rifftrax: No Retreat, No Surrender

Working with Orson Welles

99 Homes

The Fate of the Furious

Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai in the Fifth Dimension

Kong: Skull Island

Rock of Ages

The Final Girls (Jumping up and down with enthusiasm for this one, just brilliant)

Strange Frequency

Conan O'Brien Can't Stop

Louis CK: 2017

Blood Father

Timecrimes

Snowden

Son of Kong

Train to Busan

Rifftrax:Jack the Giant Killer

Samurai Cop 2

Phantasm II

Rifftrax: Zindy the Swamp Boy

Rifftrax: Prisoners of the Lost Universe

Rifftrax: Manos, the Hands of Fate

Rifftrax: Boy in the Plastic Bubble

Rifftrax: Beast of the Yellow Night

Rifftrax: Breaker Breaker

The Ant Bully

Rifftrax: Night of the Living Dead (Live)

Rifftrax: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Rifftrax: Hideous Sun Demon

Rifftrax: Future Force

-Phony McFakename

* * *

I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And my books are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.

Cinemasterworks: "A Ghost Story" and THE PIE

I don't normally go out for movies in the theater anymore. Name a reason.

-People talking
-People texting
-Can't get a babysitter
-Too expensive
-Poor/unoriginal movie quality

But A Ghost Story grabbed my attention. I love me a quality horror movie and this one got positive buzz all across the Internet (Check out its Tomato score!). It seemed like one of those clever, low-budget sleepers that you hear about later and wish you'd seen on the big screen.

So when I saw it pop up at the local indie cinema, I cheered! I want to support original, independent cinema! Here was my chance!

I knew nothing about it, I just wanted to experience something special. Been too long since I went into a movie cold.

So when the wife took the kids to visit family, I treated myself to a ticket to this flick at the local arthouse theater, where people typically respect the odd and artsy film.

And sure enough, the crowd was cool.

Lights went down and everyone shut up. Not a phone in sight.

The movie starts really slow. Every shot lingers for an uncomfortably long amount of time.

But I got that. It was building atmosphere. And the 70s Kodak-filter look of the thing, combined with its unique, boxy 1.33:1 aspect ratio, was interesting.

And hey look, Oscar-winner Casey Affleck! I didn't know he was in this! Neat.

The relationship dynamic between the two leads is a bit cold and mumble-core-y, but I guess they'll demonstrate more warmth and develop it more later.

I got a little pensive when a shot of the couple laying silently in bed together lasted for what felt like a minute. (Especially after they'd already used the same shot of the same thing for about 30 seconds straight a few minutes earlier in the film.) But I trusted that it was building toward something.

And sure enough, the next scene is a gut-puncher. (SPOILER: Casey Affleck dies. He's the "ghost" of the movie's title.) I accepted its payoff.

So there you go. A main character is dead and wandering around covered in a white sheet with two eye-holes cut out, truly an old-school ghost of the highest order.

That's cool. Haven't seen that trope played seriously before. Some neat shots of him wandering through hallways and through fields.

Okay, the film has made very little narrative progress in the first 20 minutes, but the atmosphere is thick, so I'm cutting it some slack.

Then...THE PIE happens.

A woman walks into a house and leaves THE PIE for the mourning widow. She leaves a note by THE PIE. She walks out of the house. This scene takes a very long time, but I didn't clock it.

Then the silent sheet-covered ghost in the house hangs out and looks at THE PIE. This also takes a long time.

Then the widow walks into the house, derps around, and then notices THE PIE. She takes THE PIE into the kitchen. This takes--SURPRISE!--a long time.

And then THE PIE scene happens.

The widow SLOWLY gets a fork. Then places that fork in the pie. Then brings that forkful of pie to her mouth. She chews it. Swallows it. Pauses.

Then the widow places her fork in the pie AGAIN. Brings that NEW forkful of pie to her mouth. Chews it ONCE MORE. Swallows it YET AGAIN. Takes ANOTHER pause.

You will never guess what happens next.

Here it comes...

SHE TAKES ANOTHER BITE OF PIE!

This continues, silently, for five minutes.

Now you're thinking: C'mon, it was probably one minute at most. You're exaggerating. The movie didn't really waste FIVE MINUTES of its running time showing a widow stress-eating a pie!

Yes. Yes, it did. Five minutes of its 90-minute running time were spent with that widow eating her pie.

Now about 4:30 into that scene, she finally sheds a tear while eating a piece of the pie. That's SOMETHING! But no way is it enough to justify the 1960s Andy Warhol-level of cinematic monotony that was just inflicted upon us.

Even then, like an abuse victim, I tried to cognitive dissonance-myself into believing it was gonna get better and that there was a reason for THE PIE. I actually stayed for the next scene in hopes that it was gonna have a payoff.

Nope. Just another molasses-slow scene with silent people slowly moving from room to room.

Irredeemable.

This is why people don't like art movies. Because they abuse your attention span and troll you with pseudo-intellectual and pseudo-emotional nonsense.

I walked out on the film.

This marks A Ghost Story as the first film I ever paid for and then walked out on. The theater manager, to her credit, gave me a free pass. I told her that her theater was great, but the movie was unwatchable and unforgivable. She mentioned that she planned to see A Ghost Story the next day.

"Hope you like pie," I responded.

I looked it up when I got home and it turns out I wasn't the only one who took note of this scene.

Please add my voice to the anti-THE PIE demographic. There are a thousand cinematic methods for demonstrating grief. Showing a widow stress-eating pie for five silent minutes was the worst one you could possibly choose.

To this movie's credit, I will never forget it. And I'll think about it every time I see pie. The other night, I was reading my kids a book where a toddler magically makes nine pies appear.

I blinked and muttered, "Nine pies...That's 45 minutes of screen time in A Ghost Story."


-Phony McFakename

* * *

I exist on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. And my books are on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Kobo and probably some other places, too.