100 Words - rooftop

Gary stood on the rooftop shouting nonsense phrases into the sunrise. Mary fanned him with yesterday's New York Post. The birth of a ritual. From this day on their predawn benders would climax in non sequiturs and cool breezes. When the sun fully rose they would retire to their separate apartments and dream of making love to each other. Something they never had the guts to do when sober nor remembered to do when they were drunk. They lived for that magic moment after two drinks when their love would spark only to be lost in the inertia of intoxication.

Review: I WAS A TEENY-BOPPER FOR THE CIA by Ted Mark

Before this book I did not know that comedy spy porn was a literary genre. Nor was I aware that a man named Ted Mark was that genres greatest scribe, having written dozens of such books.

I found this book at the last SF Library big book sale and thought owning a book with this title was easily worth a dollar. Several months later I finally got around to reading it.

Jaded as I am by the barrage of porn available on the internet I found the porn in the book to be almost quaint by comparison. It even seemed reserved by 1967 standards, which is when it was published. A modern romance novel would put it to shame. It does have however a certain naive charm. Genitalia are never named in vulgar terms. The writer uses either medical terms or cute euphemisms.

After a few chapters I started to wonder whether the book was porn disguised as social commentary or social commentary disguised as porn. After a few more chapters I decided that neither could stand on its own which is probably why the whole spy plot line had to be added.

The premise is that this handsome recently-divorced lawyer owes a Senator a favor and is recruited to investigate communist infiltration of community theater groups in middle class American suburbs. In the course of his duties he begins to have sex with each female member of his local theater troupe. I say begin because he is almost always interrupted in some humorous manor.

The humor is of course mostly juvenile and exceedingly chauvinistic. The old complaint of how porn objectifies and degrades women is truthfully founded in works like this. In the midst of the sexual revolution the author paints woman as opportunistic nymphomaniacs looking to avoid all responsibility in life.

While not apologizing for the sexist views of the author, like H.P. Lovecraft's racism you have to take it as a symptom of culture and marketplace. It does detract for the work but it shouldn't be banished because of it. The work should stand on it's own. Though I doubt Mr. Mark's work will ever be measured beside Lovecraft's.

So what am I trying to say about this book? It's interesting as a time capsule of a forgotten sub-culture and an artifact of a time in publishing of which I will always be jealous. A time when many new writers found an easy path to getting their little paperbacks published and distributed. Of course cable TV, the web and the publishing industry's changes have done away with all that. It sounds like I'm down on how things have changed but I'm happy with the current state of things. My words find their way to my readers. I think I'm just romanticizing a bygone era.

250 Words - Saliva's

Rapid fire guitars split the dark. Explosions and smoke got us to our feet. The stage lights rose and the band appeared. We all cheered and stomped our feet. The music began and it all went wrong. If they had done a sound check someone should be fired. The mix was way off. The lead singers mic didn't work at all and the backup singer's drowned out the instruments.

We gave it one song. The band froze wondering what to do. Nobody from the club made any motion to help. They started on their next tune and it was still all wrong. We rushed the stage, beat them to a pulp then smashed their instruments and amps. The bouncers came running but we outnumbered them and they were soon down and out.

Then Billy screamed something about an open bar. Unfortunately those of us still on stage were too far away and the bottles and even the kegs were all gone before we could beat our way over there. The sirens came and everyone ran for the doors. Billy, Joey and I sat down at a table and watched as the people tried to escape and the cops tried to get in.

In the end it's just us three and about fifty cops left in the club. They asked us questions. We told them what happened, excluding our participation. They told us we could go. Outside the cops had everybody zip-tied. We waved goodbye to another Saturday night at Saliva's.

100 Words - Benny

They say that murder is nothing but extroverted suicide. They also say that cats are nothing but effeminate dogs. Benny has been awake for thirteen days writing truth tables on his walls trying to create formal logical proofs of every possible combination of those sayings. Unfortunately his hatred of cats clouds his reasoning. So-called emotional language, which is invalid to logicians, keeps appearing in his premises. He knows it's wrong but can't help himself. He looks the other way and fudges the conclusions. Down by the radiator that doesn't work the equations balance telling him to kill all the cats.

100 Words - The Van

The man in the black spandex pants said he wanted to sell me some pretty pictures. Something about an art dealer whose gallery was in a windowless van didn't seem right to me, but I needed something to perk up my apartment's plain white walls, so I climbed on in.

Inside the walls were covered with paintings and photographs. From the ceiling hung a variety of kinetic sculptures that swayed and clanged with every corner the van took. The photograph of the city at night was too expensive so I bought a little painting of a jellyfish swallowing a tricycle.

100 Words - Hack

I never liked that cat. He was too clawing. Ha Ha. Bet you never expected me to open with that bad a joke. What can I say? No really, what can I say? My head is blank. (Sound effect of rimshot.) Take my strife...please! Sometimes I get like this, only able to communicate in variations of bad old jokes. Maybe I'm channeling Benny Hill. Maybe I asked too many people how many cars he owned. The answer is zero. Maybe I'm just a hack at heart. Sounds like a Valentine's day axe murderer. Tip your waitress. I'm here all week.

100 Words - CX

The clouds were puking rainbows. The wind made promises it could not keep. The trail boiled muddy tearing at my heels, tearing at my wheels. Younger men and women flew past mocking my torment, spraying me with the residue of their strength, the by-product of their glory. Cold old bones twisted in their sockets trying to escape the torture I'd bequeathed them. Ligaments stretched, lost their grip and shouted for mercy. I could go no further. I veered off the path and fell into a growth of ferns. A soft bed on to which I laid my head and slept.