Mr. Wrong Saves America - The Exciting New Dick-Lit Novel by Bookfraud!

As promised, here's my dick-lit novel, the perfect anedote to all the fluffy fluff fluff known as chick lit that's ruining our nation's youth.

It's not finished yet, but it's a start. Hopefully, it will offend everyone in one way or another. And since I'm going out of town, I don't have to worry about it.

Thirteen was Joe's lucky number. He was born on the 13th, he was making $13,000,000 a year as a hedge fund manager, he and he'd scored 13 times with 13 different chicks in the past month. He lived in the 13th story penthouse, which was 13,000 square feet, in a building on W. 13th Street.

But it was also bad luck. He'd failed to get Mets tickets for his clients, his 13th largest, and he was being sued by 13 investors. His Porsche 913 (a special, one-of-a-kind Porsche made specifically for Joe) needed repairs, and 13 times his mother had called him at work that day, asking about when he was going to come visit. Damn! Worse, the 13 hot chicks were all bothering him for something more than just dating, sex, and the privledge of being in Joe's car.

It was the height of the trading day, but Joe had to get some relief. He called his friend/sidekick Bill and they made a beeline to Club Zoomers. Nothing like a T-bar to relax! Joe knew most of the silicone babes there, and he could use some $10 Budweisers and an eight-foot beer bong. Bill was married, had two children, and lived in the suburbs, but Joe could always count on him for a good time. Later, he and Bill would hit Boob World, Breast Wishes, and his favorite, Titty Hut.

But a girl named Sunshine was giving Joe a lap dance when his Blackberry went off in his $1,300 tailored silk pants, and he spilled a little beer on his $1,300 Berluti shoes, which he had flown to Paris to buy. Fortunately, he didn't get his $13,000 Armani suit damp.

"Hello," Joe said, worried that someone from his company was calling.

"Joe, it's Sharon. You haven't called. You haven't e-mailed or texted. You promised after our fourth multiple simultaneous orgasm you would call me! And that was six weeks ago! Where have you been?"

Women! Joe loved them, but he couldn't deal with clingy nutjobs like Sharon, even if she looked like a combination of Gisele and Heidi Klum. "I'm in a meeting," he said as the disc jockey said, "And put your hands together for our newest dancer, Cheetah!"

Joe turned off his Blackberry. His conversation with Sharon really upset him, and he knew he wouldn't be able to hit the rest of the day's bars. "Bill, I know! Let's go play some golf!"

"Awesome idea," Bill said. "You're the best!"


The only man who can stop me now

They hopped on Joe's Gulfstream jet to Georgia, where a tee-time had been arranged at Augusta National. Man, this was more like it! Joe was playing the game of his life. He was four under after nine holes, and was threatening to break Tiger Woods' club record. He was using his new Calloway driver and Nike balls, which cost him thousands of dollars. God, he was kicking ass! His caddy, a blonde Victoria's Secret catalog babe wearing lingerie and garters, knew the course inside out. Of course, Joe knew he would do her after the round.

But feeling guilty about his job, Joe turned on his Blackberry. It immediately rang, and when he answered, a female voice yelled, "Joe, Joe, I have to have you, I must have you!" It was DiCarla, the Italian supermodel who Joe had loved and dumped a year earlier. She had been rated the fifth most-beautiful woman in the world by Maxim, but it hadn't been good enough for Joe.

"DiCarla, it's over," said Joe. "You were so hot. And I could have loved you. But there are too many flavors in the world. Joe wants to taste them all."

He hung up and made a 35-foot downhill put for an eagle. He finished the round shooting a club-record 57, and after shagging the caddy, Joe and Bill got on the Gulfstream and flew to the Gulf of Mexico, where a 100-foot yacht awaited them. Joe had been thinking about going on a safari, but killing elephants was just too easy.

After snagging a 50-foot marlin as three bikini babes watched in a lustful trance, Joe ordered the yacht back to dock. But as they were pulling up, the dock exploded into a giant fireball, yachts and people flying all over the place.


Joe in action!

Joe knew that this was no accident. The terrorists were after him. He was living a double life, he knew it, and now somebody had given him up. He looked over at Bill — who pulled a gun and pointed it at Joe's head. "Take us to Mexico — now!" Bill shouted.

"It's you, you slimy terrorist son of a bitch! You lied to me all these years!"

"Yes, Mr. Hot Shot Wall St. trader — or should I call you Mr. CIA Operative 007?" Bill suddenly had a thick Middle Eastern accent.

"So everything I know about you is a lie!" Joe said.

"Yes, Mr. Smart American Imperialist Pig! My wife, my children, my job — none of it is real! I have suffered all these years in U.S.A. going to the decadent American strip clubs with you and getting sex from all of your model girlfriends' model friends and drinking for free and flying all the around the world in luxury so I could have this moment!"

"You mean, I gave you everything America could provide so you could kill me?

"Yes," Bill screamed, "I have only lived for this moment!"

Yeah, I know the whole thing changed in the middle. It's my dick lit novel and I'll do as I want to.

Anyway, this is where I stop. Packing for my trip and all that.

You're all creative types. Do they go to Mexico where Joe talks Bill into going to a strip club one last time, gets another call from a needy ex-girlfriend, and, in the process of hanging up on her, kill Bill? Does Joe commandeer the boat, using the hot bikini babes to help, a la Pussy Galore? Do they just all die in the ocean, much to the delight of feminists everywhere?

You tell me.

This Is Most Definitely Not Chick Lit

If you are in the habit of following such things, you know about a "controversy" over a collection of short stories, "This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers."

The hullabaloo, such as it is, stems from chick-lit writers (or "chick lit-istas," as I call them) feeling slighted and demeaned: the implication is that they aren't in the club of America's Best Women Writers.

(Before I step into this steaming pile of perfumed doo-doo, some disclosure: I am good friends with one of the writers who contributed to "This Is Not Chick Lit." It's a terrific collection, and I've discovered a couple of new writers by reading it.)

I didn't really care about what chick lit-istas thought until they busted an aneurysm when the book was first announced (also see here). On blogs and elsewhere, the "literary fiction" crowd struck back. And if you know anything about men, you know we can't resist a catfight.

Another disclaimer: I can't condemn chick lit because I haven't read any of it. The thing about chick lit is that, by definition, it's for chicks. These books are aimed at women readers; they (usually) lack the aims and ambition of literary fiction; (I am told) there's a lot of shopping and man bashing. Which I can’t say interests me.

In their defense, chick lit-istas will cite Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte, two writers accused of 19th Century chick lit; the chick lit-istas invariably trot out these ladies when their genre is deemed Not Literary Enough For Serious Consideration.


Je ne sais quoi

Hell, let's just do a comparison. In one of my favorite books, "Jane Eyre," you have a plucky heroine (check), falls in love with Mr. Right (check), has competition from a woman hotter than she is (check), snags then loses Mr. Right (check), gives serious consideration to Mr. Wrong (check), and finally snags Mr. Right in the end (check). But in all this you have tragedy and real drama, a marriage that is called off at the last second, a madwoman in the attic, and Mr. Rochester getting burnt to toast and blinded.

This is not the stuff of "Bergdorf Blondes" or "Sex in the City."

So if chicks are the only ones reading chick lit, what do guys read?

I'm trying to imagine the male equivalent of chick lit, which one wisenheimer I know calls "dick lit." But really, dick lit has been prevalent in one form or another since someone bothered to put Homer on paper. ("The Iliad" and "The Odyssey" are the first certifiable dick-lit books).

In theory, dick lit c. 2006 should be about frat-house behavior that continues after college. But most of the men whose primary interests are beer, babes, and sports are reading Maxim rather than "Infinite Jest."

Horror, sci-fi, and crime, it can be argued, have a particularly male tint. But there's really only one Father of Contemporary Dick Lit, a man named Papa.

Yes, Ernest Hemmingway gave birth to modern macho-man fiction. His heroes fish. They drink and they hunt and they fight the good fight. They go to the bullfights and zinc bars. They hunt and box because they are Men. They treat women like crap because Hemmingway makes them whores.

Despite Hemmingway's many shortcomings, he did not hang a sign on displays of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" that said "No gurlz allowed." Hemmingway addressed universal concerns and themes that transcended gender, no matter how much hunting and bullfighting was involved.

I don't want to slam chick lit as one-dimensional, but to compare it to literary fiction borders on the desperate; the amount of Sturm und Drang from the chick lit-istas over "This Is Not Chick Lit" has the unmistakable stain of Thou Dost Protest Too Much. Granted, the subtitle "Original Stories by America's Best Women Writers" might be over the top, but it's hyperbole only because they left out Joyce Carol Oates and Jane Smiley, not Jennifer Weiner or Plum Sykes.

In the chick lit-istas' defense, you might argue that putting out a book that "slams" chick lit is the real stroke of desperation. Literary fiction sales are relatively small compared to chick lit, and a book that claims to be "not" chick lit is like putting out a book that is "not" sci-fi or horror.

But that's just it. The chick lit-istas have made the genre so popular that it overshadows many great female literary fiction writers, whose writing and aims are said to be so much higher than Candice Bushnell, Helen Fielding, etc.


A Papa in more ways than one

Truthfully, I can't say if chick-lit books are well-written — like I will repeat for the 1,057th time, I've never cracked one open — but the writing is besides the point, isn't it? It's the adventure of some Bridget Jones or Carrie Bradshaw wannabe, and if it's breezy fantasy. And I say, “no problemo.” Chick lit is commercial genre fiction, entertaining and light, and there's nothing wrong with that.

In the end, the quality of prose in genre fiction usually doesn't matter. (Most sci-fi reads like it was written by Billy Pocket Protector in 10th grade. You aren't there for elaborate sensory imagery or complex characters.)

For all the thousands of chick lit-istas who read this blog, here's some unsolicited advice. If you truly want to be considered one America's Best Women Writers — and there's no reason that you can't be — you have to write something that the other half of the population can read in public without fear of humiliation.

There's no reason that a story about career girls in the Big City who are obsessed with shoes and men and drink too much and fret about their weight can't be The Great American Novel. It just hasn't been written yet.

Next: The real reason for this blog posting — an excuse for Bookfraud to try his hand at "Dick Lit"!

Kung Jew Fighting

When I was 13, my mortal enemy was a classmate named Jim.

Jim had the intelligence of a small aquatic creature, yet he managed to get under my skin and torment me through the hell known as junior high. Jim was big, stupid, and a bully. His favorite thing to call me was a "dumb Jew."

This all happened after I had moved to a new city where I had no friends, at an age where children are attuned to inflict special cruelties upon their peers. I ended up at a school that was in all ways inferior to my previous institution — academically, facilities, and fellow students.

Jim was simply the apotheosis of everything bad about being 13, and his constant use of "dumb Jew" hurt less from its intended meanness than from the fact that Beavis & Butthead had gotten me upset.

When I tried to explain that indeed, I was a Jew, but certainly not dumb, and, furthermore, that for him to call me a "dumb Jew" was kind of like a wheelbarrow accusing him of being a "dumb Christian," all Jim could say was, "I'd rather be that than a dumb Jew."

Our exchanges went like this:

You dumb Jew!

Jim, you're a retard.

I'd rather be that than a dumb Jew!

Jim, you're a retard with a half-inch penis.

I'd rather be that than a dumb Jew!

Jim, you're a retard with a half-inch penis whose future includes a career in garbage disposal, permanent virginity, and death by age 30.

I'd rather be that than a dumb Jew!

Sensitive artist in training that I was, I had a thin skin, and being one of the only Jewish kids in all of that neck of suburban Chicago, I could not call upon reserves of the like-minded or like-tormented, there was only so much of this I could take. The other kids picked up on this, and taunted me as well — not that they were anti-Semites as much as they were typical children.


You're kidding! You mean Jesus was Jewish?

Jim and I came to fisticuffs on several occasions, with one memorable occasion when I narrowly escaped a serious beating when Jim and four friends with chains pursued me on bikes from school one afternoon.

Fortunately, as seventh grade morphed into eighth, Jim became a pariah of sorts, as his enormous stupidity became a burden and his taunting was exposed as a pathetic refuge for the most disliked of adolescents, the uncool.

However, Jim's descent into loserdom didn't mean I was popular or even liked. A kid named Kevin seemed to have it in for me, in the way that big dumb bullies have it in for nerds. Midway through eighth grade, Kevin started calling me names, threatening me with violence, etc. Kevin was over six feet tall, and hulking, with a long face that already seemed to bear the scars of alcohol abuse.

I took all his insults with gritted teeth. But one time, in the locker room, he called me "Jew boy" in front of my classmates, and I was left with no alternative to tell Kevin to fuck himself. (Couldn't let that pass in front of others, no way).

Kevin was big, but slow, and telegraphed his punch worse like Morse code, and I easily ducked underneath it. I tacked him, knocked him to the floor (face first), and bloodied his nose before the gym teacher broke things up.

Nobody called me names after that. It was like kicking someone's ass in prison.

That was the last fight I've ever been in, 27 years, several addresses, and dozens of pairs of underwear ago. Why, then, would I bring this up now? Is it Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semetic rant? Could it be the desire of several million folks in the Middle East who want me dead?

Not at all. Of late, my life has been partitioned into boxes of stress — work, home, family, erectile dysfunction. I've been taking trips for personal business, spending my nights figuring out my mother's move, and trying to keep wife out of the evil clutches of Joshua Bell.

And lost in all of this has been my writing (careful readers will notice the long absence of new Bookfraud entries or similarly authored posts on other blogs). My writing has suffered, and it bothers me. But why? And why am I a writer?

It can't be said that before my family made its way to the Chicago suburbs my life was perfect. Still, growing up I was surrounded by fellow tribesmen who knew what kosher meant, what was involved in a bar-mitzvah, and didn't think there was anything weird about yarmulkes. Better yet, I went to school with Jews, played baseball at the Jewish Community Center, went to summer camp with Jews, hung out with Jews. I only heard "Jew boy" and "kike" on television.

Then came the move, and my religious upbringing became my defining characteristic. I went from being one of the guys to being a Jew.


What did Jew write?

Not to overdramatize: I hardly spent my adolescence friendless. But I was marked different, I felt different, and I have really never fell easily into cliques or made friends ever since.

Sure, I'm a grumpy, cynical, misanthropic pessimist, and I probably would have been all those things had I stayed ensconced in the little Jewish bubble I spent my first 13 years. (After all, things at home weren't exactly perfect).

But I doubt I would have felt the extreme alienation that marked my teenage years. Philip Roth, to cite the most obvious example, writes about being a stranger in one's own homeland.

Seventh and eighth grade was like the you-know-whos wandering the desert for 40 years, forcing me to become observer as much as participant. I would watch people closely. I read a lot. I became suspicious of others, and wondered what really motivated them. Stories started fomenting in my head, stories about what made them tick, and what weird things lurked behind the facade of their normal lives.

In other words, I became a writer.

Now That's Noveltainment!

Not long ago, I proposed that a new form of literature was taking shape: Noveltainment. Based on varied sources as video games, consumer products, and TV shows, Noveltainment is the novelization of just about any piece of crap Americans consume. It's next logical step in our race-to-the-bottom pop culture.

It's "Entertainment Tonight" about books.

Thinking I had truly stumbled on to something, I asked for reader-submitted noveltainments. I got a few. Three, to be exact.

However, they were all quite humorous, and I'm glad to present them here.

Leading off, Brian F. comes up with this hum-dinger of a Noveltainment entry about our good friends over at Verizon:

You slip your hand into your pocket again and are met with the familiar cool plastic-as-metal casing against your sweaty palm. It's reassuring. Even now, after all this walking, all these miles logged, it's still good to know that cell phone will always be there. No matter how long the journey takes--and this is a journey that could last a lifetime--there will always be that connection. But you shudder as your gait takes you around the corner and between two skyscrapers. You look up at the behemoths, knowing their massive, signal blocking edifaces might very well spell curtains for your confidence. In a flash, you pull the cell from its resting place, throw open the flip top with your thumb and stab the speed dial. One ring. Two rings. Static. A third ring that echoes the thunder in your heart. When the answer finally comes, you barely let them speak as you shout, "Can you hear me now?"

Here is an awesome meta-blog entry from our friend Fringes. Of course, I'm partial to this one.

The place was a hybrid portal with Malcovichian connections--part-museum, part-cyberchase--and Fringes wandered in by accident, drawn in by air conditioning and the wood laminate flooring. Her feet hurt, the pavement of the crowded sidewalk burning her bare soles and pink painted toes. Fucking five dollar flip-flops. Fucking sidewalk vendor promising good fit good fit. Liar.


I love you, too

Tossing the flips into the nearest recycle bin, she began to look around. Ads zipped overhead. Hidden directions were everywhere, they whispered in her ear. Underlines. Bold type. Some screamed at her as she searched for the bathroom. She needed to pee. Look here! Home Depot! Target Home Furnishings! Vagisil!

Forgetting her bladder for a moment, Fringes clicked an underline hovering near her left shoulder. News story! Breaking! Nine children die in meth lab fire!

Back to where she started. Quickly. As fast as her connection allowed anyway.

Another curious click, more judicious this time. Warmer here. Not global warming. Stories. Not news stories. Life stories. Life on digital paper. She'd found Bookfraud.

Bookfraud on blogspot tastes like candy in March 2006. Fringes was born in March. For everyone else, March is the beginning of spring.

Give it up

The man who ruined my marriage

Bullets in the head

She read each entry as she sat in a leather wing-backed chair in the Bookfraud section. She could smell pecan pie baking. Somebody's grandma was surfing nearby.

Rogues Gallery

Steroid Madness Special Guest Blog!

The Rules

An afternoon spent in archives and current pages, Fringes bought ice cream on the concourse level to cool the occasional flashes of jealousy. Finally finding the bathroom, she sat on the toilet and thought.

Damn Wife. Bring home Uma and, like,Wife fall in love with Uma, and Wife and Uma run off together, leaving Bookfraud to cry in my open waiting embrace. Damn Wife. Probably a better writer than me. So I can't be mad. Just get better and find my own Bookfraud. One who shows me what he looks like and wears mad black-rimmed reading glasses and who writes like Pynchon. Ten times better than Pynchon. And who thinks I'm Uma.

In November 2005, she lost track of time. Late for an appointment, she reluctantly left the leather winged-back. Outside, the pavement was cooled from the lowered evening temperature. Fringes stopped to check briefly the fucking sidewalk vendor refund policy, found there is no fucking thing as a fucking sidewalk vendor refund policy, and defiantly boarded her bus in her bare feet. She'd left behind in his space a footprint or two, but she didn't think Bookfraud would notice. Staring out the window, she imagined Bookfraud in his smartie-guy glasses, laughing, as Wife and Uma serve him cocktails with sex, pie and yesterday's mail.

Bravo, Fringes!

Next, our man Quinn, Mr. PFNM, took up the Noveltainment challenge, going completely native on us, novelizing his favorite book:

Brilliant writer Dan Brown knew he had a bestseller on his hands the minute he wrote the opening sentence "Renowned curator Jacques Saunière staggered through the vaulted archway of the museum's Grand Gallery." The problem was only that he might not be able to get it written fast enough.


Fig. 1: "Writer"

Thus inspired, and since I didn't get enough entries to fill an entire blog, I offer you the following Noveltainment out of a romance novel, or maybe a porn flick. Or a horror movie. It really isn't more than some garbage that spilled out of Microsoft Word. A bunch of chimps might have written it.

Anita Lampert was watching her fifth soap opera of the day when she heard a knock on the door. Her husband was out of town, and she hadn't been out of their house in suburban Akron or bathed for two days. Her negligee was filthy, and she had fallen off the wagon months ago and tipped the scales at 264 pounds. Not good for a 55-year-old with heart problems.

Fighting the urge to kill herself, Anita opened the door. In the doorway stood a tall, handsome man in his early 20s wearing a sleeveless flannel shirt and tool belt, handlebar moustache, and sunglasses. His arms rippled with muscle, and his face looked like it had been chiseled from stone. Anita felt herself go limp.

"I'm the plumber," the man said. "I'm here to lay some pipe."

I also had a couple of additional paragraphs too racy for publication. She accidently suffocates the plumber in the act of love, then freaks out, drags him to the garage and chops him up with a hacksaw. Serves him for dinner. Fantasy gone wrong, that kind of thing.

Incredibly stupid, don't you think?

That's Noveltainment!

The Island of Unread Books

Since I lack anything particularly interesting to say and, since you really don't want to read about my daily, personal travails, and, since I feel the familiar compulsion to write something to fill the space, and since I really love pointless, run-on sentences, I will ply you with a tale of something lacking.

I recently finished George Saunder's "In Persuasion Nation," which I thoroughly enjoyed, but am now facing down the abyss that every serious reader (and writer) has at one point in his or her life:

I don't know what to read.

Sure, I've got books stacked up at home, piles of novels by once-hot authors and still-burning stars. There are plenty of musty volumes lying about; story collections, biographies, history, science. But I can't seem to work up the cajones to read any of them.

For a neurotic like myself, the thought of wasting time reading something possibly bad is as stress inducing as, say, spending my time writing something possibly bad. I was hoping to find a book that would transport me elsewhere, a book that is so well-written and gripping that I can't put it down. (It's been a long time since I had one of those).

I tried "Bel Canto," which Wife strongly recommended, and found it as turgid as the opera it describes. I tried "Atonement," which about 1,232 people recommended, but I couldn't find the energy to finish.


Unread and unloved

Classics? I am in that state which compels me to Keep Up With What's Happening in Literature, and I gotta read new writers, you know? (Though I do have a book before me that was published but a couple of weeks ago, and that I highly recommend.)

My reading vistas were not always so bleak. Since I was a child, I've always carried around a list in my head of books to read, works I would jump into as soon as I was finished with the book I had in my hand. These were always colored by what my friends read or how much I liked the author I was currently reading -- for instance, as soon as I read "The Handmaid's Tale," I got my hands on as much Margaret Atwood as I could find. Ditto with "Moon Palace" (Paul Auster), "Fifth Business" (Robertson Davies) and, recently "Cloud Atlas" (David Mitchell).

You know what I'm talking about.

The few times I've the same feeling about non-fiction happened to be two books about evolution, "The Moral Animal" (Robert Wright) and (maybe the most important book I've read) "The Selfish Gene" (Richard Dawkins). But while I enjoyed their other books, it wasn't the same -- your know, first love and all that. Right now, Dawkins' "The Ancestor's Tale" is on my nightstand, barely read.

Often, I feel the obligation to pursue a novel that has no interest -- bad sign -- but has been molting on my bookshelf for so long that I feel like a heel by not reading it. There's only so many trees in the world, and some went to make this book, never mind the author's dedication and sweat.


He just read Camus

But life is too short, I say, that reading should be a burden. There are writing schools of thought that posit you should read as much as you can in order to learn, but that smacks of drinking cod-liver oil or allowing a sex-deprived Mike Tyson give you several right uppercuts. Iron Mike broke my jaw, but I learned to duck!

You see, the most important reason for a writer to read isn't just as a course of study. It's inspiration. Some of my best writing has come as I am reading something amazing: "The Moor's Last Sigh" or "Cat's Eye," for instance. Given my lackadaisical fiction output of late, and, given that I am going to embark upon familial duties and vacation that will suck the minutes available to writing, I need something inspiring, well-written, funny, smart, impossible to put down or forget.

Something that I can read the shit out of.

Any suggestions?

Less Stress — Write Away!

Adulthood has its benefits, but relaxation is rarely one of them.

As an adult, one has Responsibilities, the siren call of maturity. Often I wish I were a brilliant, irresponsible artist who had a coterie to pick up after me. You know, pay the bills, deal with the fans, secure drugs, and keep my "accidental" tranny prostitute hookups out of the press.

The title of the story is "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities," but my life right now feels like "Responsibilities Begin in Nightmares."

If you're wondering blog you've wandered onto, don't worry, it's good ol' Bookfraud, just having a good ol' breakdown. And writing, that one activity in which I could escape the stresses and turmoil of the world, has turned into a depression-inducing, stress-generating activity.

I don't have children, but it's beginning to feel that way. There's been changes at work that have put everyone on edge. My father died last year, and my mother is moving out of the house she's lived in for 23 years, and, super-diligent son that I am, I have to help figure out her finances, long-distance. I gotta figure out a trip to see her to help with her move, and see if I can stay on track with a long-awaited vacation. Our apartment needs work, we need new furniture, the toilet's broken. I was planning to drink a gallon of Gatoraid on my next flight.

A million other things are on my mind, and several of these have to do with writing. Including: what the fuck am I going to do with my agent, what the fuck am I going to do about my novel (which is not before any editors at present), and what the fuck I'm going to blog about, and shit, should I just join Murray's Monastery and Jewish Deli, West Palm Beach, Fla.?


Behold the future

In my early 20s, when the weight of the real world started bearing upon me, I would cope with typically immature means, such as drinking and experimenting with other people's sexuality.

Now that I'm in my 40s, drink no longer has the same copacetic effects, and experimenting with others' sexuality isn't as interesting. These days, I usually try the following ways to cope with stress, none of them particularly original or effective:

1. Instead of talking to Wife, a therapist, or Little Elvis (best friend, you know), I like to take my stress into my sleep, so that I can wake up in the middle of the evening, dripping with sweat, looking like a corpse drained of blood, screaming, "Yes, Sir, I would like another!"

2. Eat anything that does not contain olives, brains, or formaldehyde.

3. Fantasize about sex with green-skinned alien chicks, like Captain Kirk.

4. Hit the gym, and watch it hit back. Very painful.

5. Sit on the edge of the marital bed, head in hands, on the verge of tears, pleading with Wife that it wouldn't be so bad if I played poker for a living.

There was a time, not so long ago, that I would have made writing fiction the A-Number 1 way to deal with stress. But no more. Though I have no deadlines nor contracts to fulfill, my fiction writing can cause bouts of anxiety-ridden fits of pulling the hair out, for only because writing is one of the few career options that could relieve the stress of all the other crap, and if I don't make it work, am I going to be a maitre d' at Red Lobster my whole life?

At some point, the stress becomes neurosis, and I really start to lose sleep. Am I missing something? Have all of these years working a full-time job destroyed any hope I have for a writing career? Did I not take enough risks when I was young? Is there any hope that the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol will knock on my door? Is global warming going to destroy the world? Will Al Queda? Will the sun rise tomorrow? Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghkdfjfuhhrefofdlsfadjfqjkazjppmhuhnyt!

Now, to those who say, "Gee, Bookfraud, instead of going and spending two weeks at the funny farm, why don't you take a stress management seminar?"

To them I say: no! I hate stress management. Stress, by definition, is bad. I want less stress, not to manage it! LESS STRESS! LESS LESS LESS STRESS DAMNIT!

Oh, for those younger days — post-college, pre-career, and fully naïve years in which I really thought that my job was simply a means to an end: I would work for a few years, publish a novel, and take my rightful place in the literati.


May I have another?

Now I'm so stressed out about Life, I don't even dream the dream anymore.

Writing used to be a refuge, a place in which I could put my twisted ideas to paper and create worlds in which others could partake. I enjoyed writing, but such happiness has melted like ice cream.

I am going out of town tomorrow, hopefully to relax. I'll let you know if I survived the weekend. More noveltainments Monday. Or something. Until then, I will deal with my stress by leaving you with a string of semi-profane, meaningless words:

Yog.

Dingus.

Hippie Toejam Festival.

Penile implants.

Dingleberry Hut.

Snecoscum.

Boogerhunt.

Noveltainment

Wife gave a reading Friday night at a bookstore. I was wandering the shelves post-reading when I chanced upon the “Fantasy” aisle — Dungeons & Dragons, Lord of the Rings, that kind of thing. There I found something extremely disturbing.

Video Game Novels. Yes, there are now books based on video games — Halo, Warcraft, and others. I picked up “Cycle of Hatred (World of Warcraft)” by somebody or something named Keith R.A. DeCandido — he has 49 books to his credit, according to Amazon — when I was greeted by this gem of an opening:

“Erik had been cleaning ale off the demon skull mounted behind the bar when the stranger walked in.”

After I stopped laughing, I thought about this dangerous trend. First there was “novelization” of movies and sci-fi shows like “Star Trek” and “Battlestar Gallactica.” Then we had books with product placements and books based on children’s cartoons.

Now we’ve got books based on video games. There have been movies made out of video games, video games made out of movies, but I don’t know when books out of video games started. It’s not really a novel as so much as it is Novel as Entertainment, or Noveltainment.

One can argue that consumers of this fiction are reading, at least, instead of annihilating aliens on their Xboxes. And if they weren’t reading “Cycle of Hatred (World of Warcraft),” these same folks aren’t awaiting the latest Philip Roth or Joyce Carol Oates title with the same eagerness as they are the PlayStation 3.

If video “gamers” are reading, good. So why not extend the model to other genres? Why not extend the novel to non-traditional realms, take it where it has never gone before — to other forms of entertainment, or even consumer products?

Being a good consumer and one who makes pale stabs at writing Serious Fiction both, I propose that Noveltainment attempt, at the least, to have a literary bent. You can merge “the best of all worlds,” so to speak! It doesn’t have to be Erik cleaning the ale off the demon skull, though the more I read that sentence, the more I like it.


Not that there's anything wrong

For instance:

Sitcoms

There was frisson between the two men, something they dared not speak all these years of their friendship, but now something had changed. George sat across from Jerry in the diner, and contemplated what Jerry had said: “Why can’t I have cereal for dinner?”

George felt a sudden passion, and a shiver ran down his spine to his anus. It had crystallized what George had felt his entire life. Suddenly he saw Jerry in a different way; no longer the rabbit-faced, buck-toothed, Jew-fro’ed comedian with a head the shape of an iron, but a sensitive, caring man, someone he could live with…he wasn’t gay, not that there was anything wrong…but as Elaine chattered on about how she couldn’t get past the fact the man she was dating had three nipples (“triple nipple,” she called him), George wanted her gone, dead, so he could spend all of his hours with Jerry.

But then Kramer entered the diner, wearing a silk blazer and gabardine pants. George felt jealous, murderously jealous. He would have to find his father’s weapon of choice, the Festivus gun.

Pro wrestling

Right in the middle of the SummerSlam Slammiversary Road to Hell Wrestlemania Showdown XIX, the biggest event ever in Sports Entertainment History!, The Rock was worried. Really worried. He was dropping The Undertaker in a double souplex, setting him up for the Rock Bottom — they were going to smell what The Rock was cookin'! — when he realized that he had left his car lights on! Shit! The battery was sure to be dead by now.

The crowd was booing, but The Rock didn’t care. Oh, shit! He had forgotten to pay his MasterCard bill — he wouldn’t get double Rewards Points this month! How could he have been so stupid? His wife was going to kill him!

As he was pinning The Undertaker to retain his WWE World Championship Belt, the crowd going berserk, camera bulbs flashing, blood pouring down his face, thousands chanting “Rock! Rock!” in orgiastic unison, the champion thought, “And I forgot to send a prompt thank you note to my wife’s second cousin after the baby shower.”

What was happening to him? Why was his life falling apart? He knew that he would have to check in — again — to the mental hospital after SummerSlam had run its horrible, bloody reign of violence.

Old-school video games

He could not stop eating, moving. As if compelled by a force pulling him with a lever, he moved right, left; he moved up and down, his lifeforce mechanically munching dots in his path. He did not understand why he was doing this, except that pale ectoplasms in the form of monsters chased him, and he intuitively knew that if one were to touch him, he would die. Once in a great while, a piece of fruit crossed his path, and suddenly he was chasing the monsters.

Pac had no control, had no say in the universe, had no power to control his destiny, and as if this great outburst of anger had purged all his ills, killed all his hopes, he looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid him open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.


Existentential nausea

Cars

It had been a hard driving all day, she wasn’t losing any weight, she wasn’t getting any younger, so why not indulge herself a little! She needed it — she was bigger than most others, and all of her accessories made her look fat.

And she was feeling old. Younger models had replaced her in the public’s eyes; she had once been so hot, but age had taken its toll. Men coveted her no longer.

So the 2002 Cadillac SUV called her best friend, the 2001 Ford Focus, and they went out and got new tires, a lube job, oil change, a complete interior cleaning, and, just to show the world that she was a whole new 2002 Cadillac SUV, she got a paint job to boot, her dull black going to a shiny new red!

To celebrate the makeover, they went out to Exxon for a fill-up of SuperHiTest, at $4.93 a gallon. She couldn’t afford it, with her Manhattan parking rent and only getting 3 miles per gallon, but she deserved it!

The possibilities for Noveltainment are endless. TV weathermen, Christina Agulera’s new CD, Diet Coke With Lime — anything can be turned into fiction and made Noveltainment!

Hell, you could even make Noveltainment out of a novel (talk about meta.)

Others? If you have a Noveltainment idea and write a paragraph, I’ll publish it. E-mail it to bookfraud@yahoo.com.

I might even give a prize to the best entry. I'll send you a picture — but not of me, of course.

Speaking in Tongues

Ohhhhhhhh yeah, baaaaaaby!

This is Rockin' Rick St. Clair, comin' at ya with a 129-minute music marathon, kickin' off with Def Leppard! That's right, I said Def Leppard — it’s “Pyromania”! On Peoria's home of classic hits, 109.1 FM, WLYN, The Lion! Oh, yeah!

Musical interlude


Schlock of ages

Baaaaaaaaby! That wrapped up our 340-minute, commercial-free music marathon with KISS! “Detroit Rock City”! Ohhhhhhhh, yeah! It's a steamy 95 degrees out there but cool at WLYN, 109.1 FM! You’re on the air on The Lion! Who’s this?

Hello? Is this Rockin' Rick? Did I win?

Yeah, baaaaby, you're the 203rd caller to the WYLN Party Prize Hotline! Answer this question right and you score two tickets to see Jerking for the Weekend, the world’s greatest Loverboy tribute band, at McShooters, Peoria's happy-good-time people place, this Saturday! McShooters -- where ladies drink for free every Tuesday!

OK, all you have to know is who was the original drummer for the Beatles—

Ohmigod! Pete Best! It's Pete Best! Rockin' Rick, this is great! I've lived in Peoria my whole life, and I work down in the photo department at the Walgreens, and my marriage is on the rocks, and Don and I don't have sex no more, and we love Loverboy and going to this show will help strengthen our marriage, I know it, and--

Ooops, sounds like we got cut off there before we could get any of the caller's info! So the two tickets to see Jerking for the Weekend are still available! Be the 486rd caller after our next 344-minute music marathon to see if you can be a big winner! On WYLN - Peroria's very own 109.1 FM, The Lion!

And don't forget to check out the Morning Zoo tomorrow morning on The Lion! You don't have to go to Chicago or St. Louis or New York to get the Morning Zoo -- you got it here in Peoria, Illinois!

Rockin' Rick St. Clair here! You know what you want -- AC/DC! And it’s a Back-to-Back-to-Back Pack Weekend at The Lion! Kicking it off is one of Rockin' Rick's favorite's "For Those About to Rock"! We salute you! On Peoria’s home for Classic Rock -- 109.1 FM, The Lion!

Musical interlude

Oh, yeahhhhh! We just finished that music marathon with back-to-back-to-back REO Speedwagon, who come from right here, downstate Illinois! Yeah, baby!

Hey, this is James. Am I on the air?

Yeah, James, you're the 571st caller to The Lion! Just turn your radio down, dude!

Is this Rockin' Rick St. Claire? Did I win something?

Oh, yeah, baaaaby! You answer our Mystery Music Question, and you win two tickets to see Pack of Emus, the world's most awesome Flock of Seagulls tribute band, all at The Horny Pig, Peoria's finest rock club for over 35 years!

Man, I never win anything! Too awesome! Oh, man, my Mom and I are dying to see Pack of Emus! My Mom might say she loves me, for once!

Right on, James! The Mystery Music Question is: Which one of the following was NOT in the Rolling Stones? Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, or Ashlee Simpson?

Hold on…how do you spell "Ashlee—"?

Ooops, sorry, I hear you typing on your keyboard there no help from the Classic Rock Gods of the Internet! We'll have to wait until next hour to give away those tickets! In the meantime, let's start up a 96-hour non-stop commercial free music marathon with — who else! — Van Halen! Oh, yeah, baaaaaaaaby! Kicking it off with “Jump” on Peoria’s HOME of Classic Rock, WLYN — The Lion!

Musical interlude

Man, that was some music marathon! Ending it all with “Cars” by Gary Numan! ONLY classic rock on The Lion -- where it doesn't have to be good to be a classic! And hello! You’re on The Lion with Rockin’ Rick St. Clair!


Rockin' Rick's competition

Rick, hello. This is Bookfraud.

Hey, you’re the 998th caller to The Lion! All you have to do is answer our Rock Quiz Smashdown, and you get a couple of free backstage passes at the Peoria County Fairgrounds to hear “Walk This Way” and “Sweet Emotion” and other classic hits sung by Germany's best tribute band, Aeroschmitt! All courtesy of 109.1 FM, The Lion!

I really don't care about the tickets.

You mean you don't want to see Aeroschmitt, featured in this month’s issue of Peoria Life magazine?

Actually, no. I just want to know if you’ve ever published a novel. Or short story.

Why you asking me, the King of classic rock? Maybe you should ask the Morning Wake Up Krew, 6 a.m. until 11 every morning on The Lion! They're wacky and wild — you never know what you'll hear on the Morning Wake Up Krew! Oh, yeaaaaaaaaah!

Well, it seems every time I open up a magazine or newspaper, somebody is getting published to great acclaim or winning an award, and they’re half my age and twice as attractive. So I thought I would call a burnout disc jockey with six brain cells left and see if he's gotten published.

Well, hell yeah, baaaaaaby! Everybody’s gotten their book published — to great acclaim! Everybody but you!

You’ve published fiction?

Oh, yeaahhhhh! Short stories in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Shenandoah, Quarterly West, AGNI, Prairie Schooner, Ploughsares…

And you published a novel?

Baaaaaby, I’ve had more hits than we play in a Metal Power Rock Block! Didn’t you read my novels? They’ve been nominated for the Booker Prize!

You have to be British or a citizen of the Commonwealth to win one of those.

But that’s how awesome my writing is, dude! Everybody is awesome but for you, apparently!

Damn.

Listen, Booktard, or whatever you call yourself, why are you so obsessed? If you like writing, just keep writing! If you don’t like it because you don’t get published, why bother? You might as well try listening to opera or jazz or some crap like that and pretending that you like it because it’s good for you! When you could be listening to a commercial free non-stop Stones Hot Rocks weekend on The Lion!


Wake up to the Morning Zoo!

What the hell are you talking about?

Just write only if you like it — because Rockin’ Rick St. Clair knows you only have one life, and though I’ve had six kids by six women, and a lot of times in rehab — I lost count after my third time at Hazelden, oh yeaaahhhhh! — if you’re spending it chasing success, you’ll be unhappy!

I guess you’re right. I’ll get off the phone now. You’ve cleared my mind. I just have one request.

Rockin’ Rick is all ears!

Play ”The Man on the Silver Mountain.”

You got it, baaaaaaby! My favorite — Ronnie James DIO! DIO on 109.1 FM, The Lion! WLYN — Peoria’s ONLY place for CLASSIC rock! Rockin’ Rick St. Clair about to kick off a 17-day non-stop commercial-free music marathon! Right NOW on The Lion!