reviews of crazycarl's new anthology, bloodreal:
"Crazycarl is like 7-Up: never had it and never will."
-Graffiti on a bathroom wall from 1989
"Your writing is as important to this world as that tree out there."
-Mama (pointing to a tree out there)
"In summation, this book feels like the literary equivalent of those weird 'friends' you would tolerate in hanging around in grade school despite not liking them much; you have no idea why you put up with them in the first place, but you did until you finally were able to separate from them at some point and let them blossom into the jock/bully/asshole they were destined to be."
-From a review in Razorcake Magazine
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Thursday, May 7, 2009
the ballad of bobby-the-blade for "scared stiff reviews"
THE BALLAD OF BOBBY-THE-BLADE
i just finished reading michael willis’ pretty boy: the life and times of charles arthur floyd (1992) and it got me to thinking about heroes…..my dad was named after pretty boy floyd and after I finished reading the book, I called and left a message to let him know that I thought his parents gave him the koolest name of 1935……my homepeople were hard-scrabble mountaineers and there was no way in hell that, in the midst of the great depression, that there were going to name their children after some fucking president or politician……hell, my grandfather was named after jesse james, so the concept goes back for generations……and if you don’t know your pretty boy floyd, he was a depression era bank robber who stole from the rich (the banks) and gave to the poor (his friends and family and neighbors)…..he tore up mortages and became an icon for the common man…..when he robbed his hometown bank, the boys at the barber shop yelled “give ‘em hell” and his grandfather and his buddies hung out at the railroad depot chewing tobacco, swapping stories, and waiting for the show……and after the feds bushwhacked him on a farm outside of east liverpool, ohio, that same bank chipped in money to bring pretty boy’s body back home to oklahoma……20,000 people came to his funeral as women threw themselves on his coffin and men put cemetery dirt in their pockets as makeshift souvenirs (geno’s nana was there too---she peed her pants and made a one-legged boy-from-town dry her cooch off with his only sock)…..and that was 1934 and it’s 2009 now and it seems like we’ve run out of heroes……no offense, but do you think my son would call in 2049 to thank me for naming him, obama robinson?---I don’t think so…..like if I had to name my (future) children after any politician, I’d just as soon let the stray cat escape back into the woods……my point is: 2009 freaks need heroes too---the drug dealers, stoners, cokewhores, acidheads, speed freaks, day trippers, pill poppers, lesbians, nuns, fat kids, and the big handsome all need someone to believe in……I met such a man at my friend, nootie’s wedding…..his name: BOBBY-THE-BLADE……like I had never met the dude before, but I knew that he was going to be special when someone in the wedding party organized a pool for the moment during the weekend when/where “the blade was gonna crack” (with all the proceeds going into the honeymoon kitty)….i had “on the plane,” but aside from carrying a 6-foot bong in a guitar case with him everywhere he went (and going outside to hit it during the ceremony), the blade ultimately stayed in control (I assume out of respect for the bride and groom)……and this might be a short intro, because who needs to hear my bullshit when I could be telling stories of bobby-the-blade smoking a bowl in his law school class?---it made cnn and the charlotte observer, ya know?......how about the time bobby-the-blade and jonny fairplay (who lied about his grandmother dying on survivor: asshole island) were on judge mathis arguing about who-owed-whom money for bailing drug dealer, heavy dee out of jail?.....snorting oxycontin in the break room at work in front of his boss?----it’s there along with old chestnuts like “going nuts in the smoothie shop” and “breaking out of rehab”……i must admit that I am so in awe of the-blade’s skills that when I went on booktour for fat on the vine in 2007, I pretended like bobby-the-blade was my friend just for the fucking stories (and bobby, if you’re out there, pittsburgh thought you were a god)……more to the point: bobby-the-blade’s been doing this shit since 1990 and I kinda dropped off circa 2006 (when I came to iowa)……does that mean I sold out?---yeah, I think it does…..did wred fright sell out?----yeah……nootie?---you’d have to ask him yourself.....the big handsome?----apparently so, but then again, you can never be sure with the big handsome…….and rumor has it that bobby-the-blade might be headed to jail in 2009, so I just wanted to write this as a kind of tribute to him…..no one robs banks anymore and crazycarl doesn’t really have any hobbies per se…..and all that remains is the dream that there’s one more magnificent fuck-up left in bobby-the-blade (and that he’s doing it for all of us)……like I don’t want him to go prison, but I have no doubt that bobby-the-blade could turn it into his own version of a clockwork orange (1971) meets fear and loathing in las vegas (1998) with a little bit of pineapple express (2008) thrown in for flavor…..NOTE: before I begin, you should realize that I don’t really know this dude….most of these stories are 2nd or 3rd hand, so just imagine what the urban legend would be like if I actually did….there are no pictures of bobby-the-blade either, but if you believe and are walking along the beach late one night, don’t be surprised if the naked freak who rises up out of the ditch to ask you for a light turns out to be bobby-the-blade---and before the night’s over, you might just break on through to the other side
10) BOBBY’S COLLEGE ROOMMATE: bobby-the-blade went to boston college (not too shabby, yeah?) and I believe he was pre-law…..any of you eagles remember him?---well, I bet his college roommate does…..ya see, bobby and his roommate didn’t get along, so one afternoon bobby decided to put 5 hits of lsd into his roommate’s drink----and the dude stonecold disappeared…..his roommate’s stuff stayed in their dorm room for roughly 3 more months and then one day, bobby came back to dorm and all of his roommate’s possessions were gone too…..bobby never saw his roommate again
9) BOBBY GOES TO REHAB: after smoking that bowl in his law school class (which I’ll get to later), bobby’s mother sent him to rehab in washington state……and no one heard from bobby-the-blade for about 6 months---that is until my friend, nootie got a phone call from the blade asking if he knew anyone who wanted to buy any (high dosage) methadone patches……it seems that bobby-the-blade and some heroin girl/slut that he met at rehab had broken out of the facility, but before they left, they successfully picked the lock to the hospital’s pharmacy and stole (among other things) over 30 methadone patches…..nootie never knew for sure, but he thinks bobby and the heroin girl went through all 30 patches in less than a week
8) BOBBY’S GREATEST JOB EVER: (TRAVELING) DRUG DEALER FOR THE BAND, DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
7) BOBBY’S LAST JOB (FALL 2008): I don’t know the particulars, but bobby was working as a salesman for some marketing firm that distributed brochures/videos for another company (that’s vague enough for you not to know what I’m talking about, yeah?)……anyway, bobby has a meeting scheduled with this businessman and throughout the course of their conversation, bobby keeps asking the businessman questions in stoner code (ostensibly to see if the businessman gets high)……bobby eventually decides that he does, so instead of giving the businessman a packet with promotional material from his company, bobby gives him the “other packet” (the one with the northern lights) and goes home…..the next day when bobby goes into work, there is a cop waiting in his office who wants to know where the marijuana came from----bobby feigns ignorance and tells the cop that “it must have been some kind of mix-up”……of course, bobby got fired, but as of this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)
6) THE DOMESTIC BOBBY: at one point, bobby-the-blade’s mom hooked him up with a swanky apartment at the beach (in the hope that he would turn his life around)……and after about 3 days of “exploring,” bobby discovered a secret door which lead to the roof of the apartment building (and there’s plenty of sunlight at the beach, ya know)…….anyway, bobby decides the next day to start transferring all of the plants that are in his apartment (25-30?) up to the roof…..and bobby (obviously) did this in the middle of the night, but over the course of a couple months, several of his neighbors saw him going up the stairs to the roof at 3 am with a variety of gardening supplies…..then, one day after about 3 months, bobby goes up to the roof and discovers that all his plants are gone…..and taped to the middle of the (empty) floor is a police sergeant’s business card with a note which read: “call me”…..of course, bobby never called and at this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)
5) BOBBY-THE-BLADE V. HEAVY DEE ON THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW: did I mention that bobby-the-blade is a tv star as well?......it all started about 3 years back, when bobby-the-blade drove to virginia to bail his old high school buddy, heavy dee out of jail (and I could have just as easily done a top ten list for heavy dee who is perhaps most famous for double-crossing some (bigger) drug dealers who, after loading all of heavy dee’s furniture into a moving van, left him beaten, naked, and tied to a chair in his empty living room)……anyway, so supposedly bobby-the-blade puts up $3000 to bail heavy dee out of jail and then heavy dee refused to pay him back…..so what would your friendly, neighborhood drug dealers do in a similar situation?----they’d go on THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW and (in the case of bobby-the-blade) bring jonny fairplay (a childhood friend) along as a character witness…..and I don’t remember the particulars, but at the end of the show, judge mathis called all of them “degenerates” and refused to make a ruling because he “didn’t believe a word that came out of any of their mouths”…..more to the point, bobby-the-blade, heavy dee, and jonny fairplay told all of their friends and family that they were gonna be on tv----they were fucking proud of it……like if you were a smalltown drug dealer, would you want everyone in your hometown to see the show?.....would you want your grandma to be watching as judge mathis called you and your friends “degenerate drug dealers” on national television?---I don’t think my grandma would have liked it at all (and she really is dead)
4)DOCTOR SHOPPING: like I’m sure most of us have considered snagging the doctor’s prescription pad during an office visit, but did you realize that there was a crime called “doctor shopping” and that it’s a felony?----bobby-the-blade does……ya see, whenever the blade has some spare time, he likes to make appointments with different doctors just to see what kind of medicine that they will prescribe for him….and over the years, bobby-the-blade has done quite well for himself---like wherever bobby-the-blade is tonight, I’m sure the adderol,>zoloft,>oxycontin>vicodin is falling like rain…..i’m not talking the (low-dosage) adderol your 8th grader sells to his friends at school either----I’m talking a strain of adderol that could mellow your 8th grader right into a coma……anyway, on bobby’s last visit to the doctor to get his meds, the temptation of snagging a couple of scripts and forging dr nick’s signature was a little too much for the blade…..and the first four forgeries worked quite well----everything was fine with the 2 mail orders and 2 local pharmacies (that bobby had never used before)……unfortunately, when bobby returned to the 3rd local pharmacy to pick up his prescription, there were 2 plainclothes detectives waiting for him with handcuffs…..and they took him down to the station for questioning and fingerprinting, but once again, the local authorities have yet to charge him with a crime (as they wait their turn for perhaps the biggest blade-related score of all)……this one’s a pretty serious felony though, so it’s a good thing bobby still has a legitimate prescriptions for zoloft (as well as for adderol, oxycontin, vicodin and cat tranquilizers) in case things don’t go as well for him in court
3) BOBBY-THE-BLADE ORDERS A SMOOTHIE: one day, bobby-the-blade was thirsty and decided that he wanted a smoothie from the local smoothie shop…..when he arrived, he noticed that the girl behind the counter gave the customer in front of him free “money” (which turned out to be a $1 coupon that was stacked beside the register)……and when the blade announced to the girl that he wanted a free smoothie as well, the (confused) chick refused…….so what did the blade do?----he hopped the counter and proceeded to grab all the $1 coupons from beside the register……so what did the smoothie chick do?---she grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and the fight was on…….their argument spilled out into the parking lot and eventually the police were called…..when they arrived, the cops gave bobby the option of going to jail or having his cousin sign some papers authorizing them to take the blade to a mental institution…..bobby-the-blade ultimately chose the mental institution where he was held-for-his-own-safety for close to a month……surprisingly, there aren’t any good stories from bobby’s time in the mental institution, perhaps because he didn’t have access to any “really good drugs”
2) BOBBY-THE-BANKER: after bobby’s trip to the mental institution, his mom somehow managed to get him a job as a loan processor at a bank…..and, in general, bobby was on his “best behavior”----like if you were a hot chick and came in to apply for a loan, bobby would hook you up with the money if you agreed to go out with him…..then, one day, bobby made a lunchroom faux pas……bobby was sitting at the lunch table with his boss and coworkers when he realized that he’d forgotten to take his medicine…..so bobby takes a knife from counter, mashes the (prescription) oxycontin into powder, cuts it into lines with his driver’s license, and then proceeds to snort it in front of his startled boss and coworkers……and later that afternoon, bobby-the-blade’s boss called bobby into his office to fire him…..and i think the conversation went a little something like this: THE BOSS: “BOBBY, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU SNORT DRUGS OFF THE LUNCH TABLE AT WORK IN FRONT OF ME AND ALL YOUR COWORKERS”?......BOBBY’S RESPONSE: “I’VE GOT THE PRESCRIPTION RIGHT HERE….DO YOU WANT TO SEE IT”?
1) BOBBY-THE-LAWYER: no doubt, bobby-the-blade is a smart cat…..and in his younger days, he was studying to be a lawyer at unc-chapel hill……bobby, as you can prolly tell by now, also likes to have a good time, so during the summers, bobby liked to go on the road with the band, drive-by-truckers…..and after one particularly good summer, bobby had some trouble readjusting to life at law school….and on his first day back, bobby kinda/sorta forgot where he was and PROCEEDED TO PULL OUT A BOWL AND SMOKE IT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS LAW SCHOOL CLASS……and the lawyer-dudes around him tried to tell him to put the bowl away, but bobby wouldn’t let their “negative energy” harsh his gig……eventually some girl stepped outside and called the police who subsequently walked into the lecture hall and arrested bobby on the spot……fortunately for bobby, he had smoked all the weed before the police arrived and possession of drug paraphernalia is only a minor misdemeanor in north carolina….of course, the blade was expelled from law school and the dean personally guaranteed bobby that he would “never be allowed to practice law anywhere in the world ever again”……more importantly, bobby made the front page of all the north carolina papers that week…..and a few days later, he was named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week (or whatever it was called at the time)……and for those of you who would talk smack about bobby-the-blade, let me just ask if you’ve ever been named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week?---yeah, me neither……crazycarl says the drive-by truckers oughtta write a song about that dude
i just finished reading michael willis’ pretty boy: the life and times of charles arthur floyd (1992) and it got me to thinking about heroes…..my dad was named after pretty boy floyd and after I finished reading the book, I called and left a message to let him know that I thought his parents gave him the koolest name of 1935……my homepeople were hard-scrabble mountaineers and there was no way in hell that, in the midst of the great depression, that there were going to name their children after some fucking president or politician……hell, my grandfather was named after jesse james, so the concept goes back for generations……and if you don’t know your pretty boy floyd, he was a depression era bank robber who stole from the rich (the banks) and gave to the poor (his friends and family and neighbors)…..he tore up mortages and became an icon for the common man…..when he robbed his hometown bank, the boys at the barber shop yelled “give ‘em hell” and his grandfather and his buddies hung out at the railroad depot chewing tobacco, swapping stories, and waiting for the show……and after the feds bushwhacked him on a farm outside of east liverpool, ohio, that same bank chipped in money to bring pretty boy’s body back home to oklahoma……20,000 people came to his funeral as women threw themselves on his coffin and men put cemetery dirt in their pockets as makeshift souvenirs (geno’s nana was there too---she peed her pants and made a one-legged boy-from-town dry her cooch off with his only sock)…..and that was 1934 and it’s 2009 now and it seems like we’ve run out of heroes……no offense, but do you think my son would call in 2049 to thank me for naming him, obama robinson?---I don’t think so…..like if I had to name my (future) children after any politician, I’d just as soon let the stray cat escape back into the woods……my point is: 2009 freaks need heroes too---the drug dealers, stoners, cokewhores, acidheads, speed freaks, day trippers, pill poppers, lesbians, nuns, fat kids, and the big handsome all need someone to believe in……I met such a man at my friend, nootie’s wedding…..his name: BOBBY-THE-BLADE……like I had never met the dude before, but I knew that he was going to be special when someone in the wedding party organized a pool for the moment during the weekend when/where “the blade was gonna crack” (with all the proceeds going into the honeymoon kitty)….i had “on the plane,” but aside from carrying a 6-foot bong in a guitar case with him everywhere he went (and going outside to hit it during the ceremony), the blade ultimately stayed in control (I assume out of respect for the bride and groom)……and this might be a short intro, because who needs to hear my bullshit when I could be telling stories of bobby-the-blade smoking a bowl in his law school class?---it made cnn and the charlotte observer, ya know?......how about the time bobby-the-blade and jonny fairplay (who lied about his grandmother dying on survivor: asshole island) were on judge mathis arguing about who-owed-whom money for bailing drug dealer, heavy dee out of jail?.....snorting oxycontin in the break room at work in front of his boss?----it’s there along with old chestnuts like “going nuts in the smoothie shop” and “breaking out of rehab”……i must admit that I am so in awe of the-blade’s skills that when I went on booktour for fat on the vine in 2007, I pretended like bobby-the-blade was my friend just for the fucking stories (and bobby, if you’re out there, pittsburgh thought you were a god)……more to the point: bobby-the-blade’s been doing this shit since 1990 and I kinda dropped off circa 2006 (when I came to iowa)……does that mean I sold out?---yeah, I think it does…..did wred fright sell out?----yeah……nootie?---you’d have to ask him yourself.....the big handsome?----apparently so, but then again, you can never be sure with the big handsome…….and rumor has it that bobby-the-blade might be headed to jail in 2009, so I just wanted to write this as a kind of tribute to him…..no one robs banks anymore and crazycarl doesn’t really have any hobbies per se…..and all that remains is the dream that there’s one more magnificent fuck-up left in bobby-the-blade (and that he’s doing it for all of us)……like I don’t want him to go prison, but I have no doubt that bobby-the-blade could turn it into his own version of a clockwork orange (1971) meets fear and loathing in las vegas (1998) with a little bit of pineapple express (2008) thrown in for flavor…..NOTE: before I begin, you should realize that I don’t really know this dude….most of these stories are 2nd or 3rd hand, so just imagine what the urban legend would be like if I actually did….there are no pictures of bobby-the-blade either, but if you believe and are walking along the beach late one night, don’t be surprised if the naked freak who rises up out of the ditch to ask you for a light turns out to be bobby-the-blade---and before the night’s over, you might just break on through to the other side
10) BOBBY’S COLLEGE ROOMMATE: bobby-the-blade went to boston college (not too shabby, yeah?) and I believe he was pre-law…..any of you eagles remember him?---well, I bet his college roommate does…..ya see, bobby and his roommate didn’t get along, so one afternoon bobby decided to put 5 hits of lsd into his roommate’s drink----and the dude stonecold disappeared…..his roommate’s stuff stayed in their dorm room for roughly 3 more months and then one day, bobby came back to dorm and all of his roommate’s possessions were gone too…..bobby never saw his roommate again
9) BOBBY GOES TO REHAB: after smoking that bowl in his law school class (which I’ll get to later), bobby’s mother sent him to rehab in washington state……and no one heard from bobby-the-blade for about 6 months---that is until my friend, nootie got a phone call from the blade asking if he knew anyone who wanted to buy any (high dosage) methadone patches……it seems that bobby-the-blade and some heroin girl/slut that he met at rehab had broken out of the facility, but before they left, they successfully picked the lock to the hospital’s pharmacy and stole (among other things) over 30 methadone patches…..nootie never knew for sure, but he thinks bobby and the heroin girl went through all 30 patches in less than a week
8) BOBBY’S GREATEST JOB EVER: (TRAVELING) DRUG DEALER FOR THE BAND, DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
7) BOBBY’S LAST JOB (FALL 2008): I don’t know the particulars, but bobby was working as a salesman for some marketing firm that distributed brochures/videos for another company (that’s vague enough for you not to know what I’m talking about, yeah?)……anyway, bobby has a meeting scheduled with this businessman and throughout the course of their conversation, bobby keeps asking the businessman questions in stoner code (ostensibly to see if the businessman gets high)……bobby eventually decides that he does, so instead of giving the businessman a packet with promotional material from his company, bobby gives him the “other packet” (the one with the northern lights) and goes home…..the next day when bobby goes into work, there is a cop waiting in his office who wants to know where the marijuana came from----bobby feigns ignorance and tells the cop that “it must have been some kind of mix-up”……of course, bobby got fired, but as of this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)
6) THE DOMESTIC BOBBY: at one point, bobby-the-blade’s mom hooked him up with a swanky apartment at the beach (in the hope that he would turn his life around)……and after about 3 days of “exploring,” bobby discovered a secret door which lead to the roof of the apartment building (and there’s plenty of sunlight at the beach, ya know)…….anyway, bobby decides the next day to start transferring all of the plants that are in his apartment (25-30?) up to the roof…..and bobby (obviously) did this in the middle of the night, but over the course of a couple months, several of his neighbors saw him going up the stairs to the roof at 3 am with a variety of gardening supplies…..then, one day after about 3 months, bobby goes up to the roof and discovers that all his plants are gone…..and taped to the middle of the (empty) floor is a police sergeant’s business card with a note which read: “call me”…..of course, bobby never called and at this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)
5) BOBBY-THE-BLADE V. HEAVY DEE ON THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW: did I mention that bobby-the-blade is a tv star as well?......it all started about 3 years back, when bobby-the-blade drove to virginia to bail his old high school buddy, heavy dee out of jail (and I could have just as easily done a top ten list for heavy dee who is perhaps most famous for double-crossing some (bigger) drug dealers who, after loading all of heavy dee’s furniture into a moving van, left him beaten, naked, and tied to a chair in his empty living room)……anyway, so supposedly bobby-the-blade puts up $3000 to bail heavy dee out of jail and then heavy dee refused to pay him back…..so what would your friendly, neighborhood drug dealers do in a similar situation?----they’d go on THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW and (in the case of bobby-the-blade) bring jonny fairplay (a childhood friend) along as a character witness…..and I don’t remember the particulars, but at the end of the show, judge mathis called all of them “degenerates” and refused to make a ruling because he “didn’t believe a word that came out of any of their mouths”…..more to the point, bobby-the-blade, heavy dee, and jonny fairplay told all of their friends and family that they were gonna be on tv----they were fucking proud of it……like if you were a smalltown drug dealer, would you want everyone in your hometown to see the show?.....would you want your grandma to be watching as judge mathis called you and your friends “degenerate drug dealers” on national television?---I don’t think my grandma would have liked it at all (and she really is dead)
4)DOCTOR SHOPPING: like I’m sure most of us have considered snagging the doctor’s prescription pad during an office visit, but did you realize that there was a crime called “doctor shopping” and that it’s a felony?----bobby-the-blade does……ya see, whenever the blade has some spare time, he likes to make appointments with different doctors just to see what kind of medicine that they will prescribe for him….and over the years, bobby-the-blade has done quite well for himself---like wherever bobby-the-blade is tonight, I’m sure the adderol,>zoloft,>oxycontin>vicodin is falling like rain…..i’m not talking the (low-dosage) adderol your 8th grader sells to his friends at school either----I’m talking a strain of adderol that could mellow your 8th grader right into a coma……anyway, on bobby’s last visit to the doctor to get his meds, the temptation of snagging a couple of scripts and forging dr nick’s signature was a little too much for the blade…..and the first four forgeries worked quite well----everything was fine with the 2 mail orders and 2 local pharmacies (that bobby had never used before)……unfortunately, when bobby returned to the 3rd local pharmacy to pick up his prescription, there were 2 plainclothes detectives waiting for him with handcuffs…..and they took him down to the station for questioning and fingerprinting, but once again, the local authorities have yet to charge him with a crime (as they wait their turn for perhaps the biggest blade-related score of all)……this one’s a pretty serious felony though, so it’s a good thing bobby still has a legitimate prescriptions for zoloft (as well as for adderol, oxycontin, vicodin and cat tranquilizers) in case things don’t go as well for him in court
3) BOBBY-THE-BLADE ORDERS A SMOOTHIE: one day, bobby-the-blade was thirsty and decided that he wanted a smoothie from the local smoothie shop…..when he arrived, he noticed that the girl behind the counter gave the customer in front of him free “money” (which turned out to be a $1 coupon that was stacked beside the register)……and when the blade announced to the girl that he wanted a free smoothie as well, the (confused) chick refused…….so what did the blade do?----he hopped the counter and proceeded to grab all the $1 coupons from beside the register……so what did the smoothie chick do?---she grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and the fight was on…….their argument spilled out into the parking lot and eventually the police were called…..when they arrived, the cops gave bobby the option of going to jail or having his cousin sign some papers authorizing them to take the blade to a mental institution…..bobby-the-blade ultimately chose the mental institution where he was held-for-his-own-safety for close to a month……surprisingly, there aren’t any good stories from bobby’s time in the mental institution, perhaps because he didn’t have access to any “really good drugs”
2) BOBBY-THE-BANKER: after bobby’s trip to the mental institution, his mom somehow managed to get him a job as a loan processor at a bank…..and, in general, bobby was on his “best behavior”----like if you were a hot chick and came in to apply for a loan, bobby would hook you up with the money if you agreed to go out with him…..then, one day, bobby made a lunchroom faux pas……bobby was sitting at the lunch table with his boss and coworkers when he realized that he’d forgotten to take his medicine…..so bobby takes a knife from counter, mashes the (prescription) oxycontin into powder, cuts it into lines with his driver’s license, and then proceeds to snort it in front of his startled boss and coworkers……and later that afternoon, bobby-the-blade’s boss called bobby into his office to fire him…..and i think the conversation went a little something like this: THE BOSS: “BOBBY, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU SNORT DRUGS OFF THE LUNCH TABLE AT WORK IN FRONT OF ME AND ALL YOUR COWORKERS”?......BOBBY’S RESPONSE: “I’VE GOT THE PRESCRIPTION RIGHT HERE….DO YOU WANT TO SEE IT”?
1) BOBBY-THE-LAWYER: no doubt, bobby-the-blade is a smart cat…..and in his younger days, he was studying to be a lawyer at unc-chapel hill……bobby, as you can prolly tell by now, also likes to have a good time, so during the summers, bobby liked to go on the road with the band, drive-by-truckers…..and after one particularly good summer, bobby had some trouble readjusting to life at law school….and on his first day back, bobby kinda/sorta forgot where he was and PROCEEDED TO PULL OUT A BOWL AND SMOKE IT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS LAW SCHOOL CLASS……and the lawyer-dudes around him tried to tell him to put the bowl away, but bobby wouldn’t let their “negative energy” harsh his gig……eventually some girl stepped outside and called the police who subsequently walked into the lecture hall and arrested bobby on the spot……fortunately for bobby, he had smoked all the weed before the police arrived and possession of drug paraphernalia is only a minor misdemeanor in north carolina….of course, the blade was expelled from law school and the dean personally guaranteed bobby that he would “never be allowed to practice law anywhere in the world ever again”……more importantly, bobby made the front page of all the north carolina papers that week…..and a few days later, he was named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week (or whatever it was called at the time)……and for those of you who would talk smack about bobby-the-blade, let me just ask if you’ve ever been named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week?---yeah, me neither……crazycarl says the drive-by truckers oughtta write a song about that dude
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
crazycarl's travel guide for "scared stiff reviews"
CRAZYCARL’S TRAVEL GUIDE:
how many of you out there have a friend who judges your hipness in relation to how often you travel?....how many of you out there have a friend who swears that the blueberries in venice are infinitely sweeter than the blueberries in indianapolis?......and maybe travel-as-money is an elitist concept to begin with, but I can’t tell you how many friends I have who sweat me with a : “dude, you’ve never been to amsterdam?----dude, you’ve gotta go to amsterdam!”……and I try to tell them that I’ve been to amsterdam-in-my-head, but they don’t believe me/just aint feeling it……and what bugs me is that these same people tend to define their respective identities thru their travels---BAM, i’m smart and rich and cultured because I went to spain last summer----BAM, I’m smart and rich and cultured because I’m going to scotland this summer…… and I know the punkrockers would say that this is a class issue because poor people don’t have the money to jet off to exotic west virginia anytime they feel like it……it could also be argued that, often times, people travel to escape their problems at home----like if your stepchildren are uglier and dumber than their father, why not spend a few weeks on the jersey shore?.....and while that certainly may be true, I think the real issue concerns our capacity to free our collective minds (in the parliament funkadelic sense of the word)…..and this scenario creates some practical problems that many of our (richer) traveling friends might not understand……for example, let’s pretend that the big handsome was traveling in spain…..how would the big handsome get drugs?.....what would happen if the big handsome tried to buy drugs on the street and got arrested or throw in jail?.....for that matter, in our post 9/11 world, should the big handsome try to sneak drugs onto the plane inside his taint?.....how long could the big handsome go without drugs?.....could the big handsome possibly have a good time overseas without drugs?----all valid questions and believe me, the answer to the last one would be a definitive: “hell no”…….the best advice I could offer the big handsome would be to go to the dentist and have a tooth pulled and then get a prescription filled for the pain…..what other options are there?.....he could maybe roll on the plane, but trust me, we all gotta come down some time……I would also recommend driving over flying…..like people on airplanes pretend to be nice to you for a while, but eventually you hit an invisible wall where they think: “ if I talk to this person much longer, he’ll wind up thinking that he’s as important as me”----and then the snooty prick in the seat next to you will let you know in no uncertain terms that they gots important biddness to take care of and can’t waste anymore of their valuable time talking to a tourist like you……more importantly, when you drive, you get to carry all your “stuff” with you…..for example, let’s pretend geno had to get to sundance for the world premiere of evil awakening (2008)----you don’t think airport security would ask what he was doing with his nana’s head-on-stick when they went thru his carry-on luggage?----you know that they damn skippy would whereas if geno were driving, he could just toss his nana’s head under some socks in the suitcase and there’s a 99.9% chance that nobody would even notice/care…..as for me (and I’m no paris hilton), I wouldn’t be caught dead “vacationing” without my: 1) “blood pressure” pills, 2) visine, 3) cough drops, 4) peanut butter, 5) skim milk, 6) cracker, 7) “cigarettes,” 8) imodium ad, 9) gum, 10) loaf bread, 11) balloons, 12) pillow, 13) lighter, 14) knife, 15) carton of water, 16) refrigerator magnets (to give to the sluts along the way), 17) sunglasses, 18) a 12-pack of toilet paper, 19) stocking cap, and 20) greer’s goo……anyway, please to enjoy crazycarl’s travel guide for 2009:
10) ALASKA: did sarah palin change what you thought of alaska?----it didn’t for me…..when I went there last summer to visit my friend, alaska dave, I had hoped that everyone would be drunk all the time (and they motherfucking were)…..like it seemed to me that if you actually made it to work on time, the boss didn’t really care if you were hammered or hungover or puking or whatever as long as you showed up…..and what’s even kooler is that you could show up drunk and BRING YOUR DOG TO WORK WITH YOU…..it was the most dog-friendly place that I have ever seen……I pictured drunken pilots flying to crab festivals where the whole town shut down and got drunk for the weekend----done and done…..i pictured bigfathairy dudes driving their motorcycles around the bar at 3am and teenagers bumming smokes off their grannies at 6am---done and well……and if you want a sweet story for the senior citizen in your life: there was only one radio station in the 300 plus miles between wasilla and denali and here’s a random sampling of what the news was like: “yeah, missy mcgahee’s dog got loose last night, so if any of ya’ll see gracie on the mountain, be a good neighbor and take her back up to the pen…..also, you all know what happened to geno last summer, so if anyone has a wood splitter and some spare time, maybe go over and help geno out with his woodpile”…..and like it says on the license plate: alaska truly is the last frontier
9) BLACKSBURG, VA: motherfucking sux…..it sucked in 1994 and it sux even more in 2009 (post-serial killer)……I went to school there, ya know (and I like to think that I’m a funny guy)----well, no one got my sense of humor at all…..it’s a party school, right?---yeah, if your idea of a party is 50 dudes and 3 girls and the 3 girls all have better boyfriends back home……and I’ll admit that I made some really good friends there, but we’d just go camping every weekend/trip thru the hills (because there really was nothing else to do)……so how is it different after post-massacre?----well, when I was there last summer, there was a fat, mustachioed cop on every street corner carrying an ak-47 assault rifle trying to make up for his lack of effort in the spring of 2007……hell, the person in front of me even got a speeding ticket for driving 22 in a 15 mph zone…..do yourself a favor: buy yourself a pint, a virginia tech hat, and watch the game on tv
8) CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA: is to the university of virginia what blacksburg is to virginia tech……and if you’re going to c-ville, might I suggest you bring a shitload of money……why?----because that beautiful, barefoot, hippie girl with the dreadlocks and the tye-dye dress that you just danced with isn’t really a hippie----she’s a poseur with a trust fund, and a porsche, and vice presidency at shell oil waiting for her as soon as she graduates from uva’s darden school of business……charlottesville is basically chocked full of “green” douchebags who’ll yell at you for an hour for flicking a cigarette out of your car, but then drive off in their $50,000 suv looking for the nearest european (bottled)beer…..and when they blame the death of all the lightning bugs on your cigarette butt, kindly inform them that you’re doing your part to save toilet paper by handling the first 2 rounds of the asswipe with your fingers (just like they do in the philippine rainforest)….. “living off the grid”---be sure and let that dude charge all the drinks to his mother’s credit card…. “backyard windmill”----yeah dude, I’ll see ya later, I gotta get up early for work tomorrow....for that matter, I think I’ll leave the charlottesville section with some of my own lyrics to the tune of phish’s “golgi apparatus”: well, I look at other peoples’ berks just to check my status/call mummy on the phone have her send more hiker apparatus/I saw you with a ticket stub in your hand/I saw you with the abercrombie and fitch man/I saw you with the price tag on your sleeve/I heard you tell the poor they had to leave./
7) HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM INDIANAPOLIS LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “let’s take our credit card and go to the mall and buy some shit made out of plastic…..no, wait, let’s go to another mall and max out another credit card by buying more shit made out of plastic”…….HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM MICHIGAN LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “where’s my gun?….where’s my hat?…..where’s my beer?…..hold on, there’s a deer: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE…….hey look, there’s a squirrel: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE……look out, there’s a hamster: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL….DIEDIEDIE”…….(note: these are real responses from the big handsome…..i personally know some really sweet people from indy, but I’d have to agree with him about michigan)
6) COLORADO SPRINGS, CO: while we’re on the subject of the big handsome, I might as well tell you about my trip out there to visit him in the spring of 2007…..i did some internet research before I went and was pleased to discover that all the kids are on drugs and all the adults are on jesus…..in fact, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference…..like if you wanted to wear your wife’s floral print dress down the street, colorado springs was the place to be…..if you wanted to dress like exodor from “mork & mindy,” it was ok to let your freak flag fly……to tell ya the truth, if darth vader were working the checkout line at the local quickie mart, I don’t think the good people of colorado would have even noticed……case in point: I told this (hottie) hippie chick who was hanging out in front of the big handsome’s coffee shop that her dog said something to me “about pueblo,” but that since I was from virginia, I didn’t quite understand “colorado dog”…..her (deadpan) response: “that’s freaky, ‘cause I like got him at a shelter in pueblo…..what else did he say?”
5) IOWA: I think I told you about iowa before…..every small town has 8 baseball fields, 9 graveyards, and lots of dudes with mustaches…..IN IOWA, YOU’RE 1) BORN, 2) YOU GROW A MUSTACHE, AND 3) THEN YOU DIE…..maybe somewhere along the way you grow a mullet and get thrown in over-the-limit squirrel jail, but I think you get my point…..and god bless iowa for saving what’s left of crazycarl
4) MADISON, VA: my hometown can be summed up in one phrase: “if you stand next to the stove, you’re gonna catch on fire”
3) PITTSBURGH: I was 24 the first the first time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came….i was 39 the last time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came……in between, my friend, nootie lived in shady side and the police should have been called every day……I think I told you before about those underground “parties” too---complete with topless, lesbian rubdowns, special k rooms, and just general debauchery inside the confines of an old paintball factory……ya know, nootie musta been pretty popular there because whenever I went into a store with him in the strip district, employees would just give me anything I wanted off the store’s shelves….you’re a friend of nootie’s?---take this tee-shirt and necklace…..you’re staying with nootie?---take a couple of subs home with you for later (and in pittsburgh, they put some interesting shit in the sandwiches, ya know?)…..in retrospect (and beyond the sphere of influence of the great gnu), I think pittsburgh has more culture/flava that its’ fellow rustbelt sister cities……I think it must be all those polish girls with the big tits and the even bigger hair singing neil diamond songs
2) POTPOURRI: 10) PHILLY: go to the germ bookstore and tell the man that you want to meet a real satanist, 9) THE QUAD CITIES: might I suggest a trip to border’s and then dinner at applebee’s?, 8) LAKEWOOD, OH: where old kent state punkrockers go to die, 7) LOUISVILLE: home of the big handsome and thousands of riverboat gambler types with get-rich-quick schemes that never seem to pan out, 6) LONDON: there was this bulldog that walked himself around the block and wouldn’t look at you even if you had a pocketful of meat, 5) RICHMOND, VA: make my funk the p-funk/I wants to get funked up/, 4) PARIS: mama was having “female troubles” that day, so I don’t think I’m really qualified to say…..i will say that the city was dirty and the people stunk though, 3) DANVILLE, VA: straight out of mad max (1979)….if you know you’re a hardass, get out…..if not, just keep driving, 2) AKRON: just keep driving…..don’t stop for gas….just keep driving, 1) ASHLAND, VA: all the really good drug dealers live in the fraternity houses…..tell them that your name is gipper and that you used to be a pika
1) YOUNGSTOWN: I know there’s that wred fright song, but don’t believe the hype…..youngstown makes akron seem like iowa……let me set the scene: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the next block: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the nicest neighborhood in canfield: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE……pauley walnuts didn’t get out of the car and bruce springsteen just flew over, ya know?......and the last time I was in youngstown, I went to the elks’ lodge to cover “the jim traficant victory party” for the local alternative weekly…..jim traficant happened to be in jail at the time, but that didn’t stop me from touching tish traficant on the arm and complimenting her on the mink stole that she was wearing……and every time the election results were updated on tv, I would sneak platefuls of chicken and polish sausage out to my car…..i think that brother traficant wound up with like 11% of the popular vote in that particular election, but I drove home with a carload full of kielbasas at the end of the night…..wred fright, take me out: there was a fight at the pick-wick pub/I said: smoke all the crack and then beer-belly love/y-town, yeah, it’s my favorite place/I’ll smash a beer bottle ___ __ ____/I’m going to youngstown/there’s no ____ in youngstown/wred’s mom’s from youngstown/that’s why we live in youngstown./
how many of you out there have a friend who judges your hipness in relation to how often you travel?....how many of you out there have a friend who swears that the blueberries in venice are infinitely sweeter than the blueberries in indianapolis?......and maybe travel-as-money is an elitist concept to begin with, but I can’t tell you how many friends I have who sweat me with a : “dude, you’ve never been to amsterdam?----dude, you’ve gotta go to amsterdam!”……and I try to tell them that I’ve been to amsterdam-in-my-head, but they don’t believe me/just aint feeling it……and what bugs me is that these same people tend to define their respective identities thru their travels---BAM, i’m smart and rich and cultured because I went to spain last summer----BAM, I’m smart and rich and cultured because I’m going to scotland this summer…… and I know the punkrockers would say that this is a class issue because poor people don’t have the money to jet off to exotic west virginia anytime they feel like it……it could also be argued that, often times, people travel to escape their problems at home----like if your stepchildren are uglier and dumber than their father, why not spend a few weeks on the jersey shore?.....and while that certainly may be true, I think the real issue concerns our capacity to free our collective minds (in the parliament funkadelic sense of the word)…..and this scenario creates some practical problems that many of our (richer) traveling friends might not understand……for example, let’s pretend that the big handsome was traveling in spain…..how would the big handsome get drugs?.....what would happen if the big handsome tried to buy drugs on the street and got arrested or throw in jail?.....for that matter, in our post 9/11 world, should the big handsome try to sneak drugs onto the plane inside his taint?.....how long could the big handsome go without drugs?.....could the big handsome possibly have a good time overseas without drugs?----all valid questions and believe me, the answer to the last one would be a definitive: “hell no”…….the best advice I could offer the big handsome would be to go to the dentist and have a tooth pulled and then get a prescription filled for the pain…..what other options are there?.....he could maybe roll on the plane, but trust me, we all gotta come down some time……I would also recommend driving over flying…..like people on airplanes pretend to be nice to you for a while, but eventually you hit an invisible wall where they think: “ if I talk to this person much longer, he’ll wind up thinking that he’s as important as me”----and then the snooty prick in the seat next to you will let you know in no uncertain terms that they gots important biddness to take care of and can’t waste anymore of their valuable time talking to a tourist like you……more importantly, when you drive, you get to carry all your “stuff” with you…..for example, let’s pretend geno had to get to sundance for the world premiere of evil awakening (2008)----you don’t think airport security would ask what he was doing with his nana’s head-on-stick when they went thru his carry-on luggage?----you know that they damn skippy would whereas if geno were driving, he could just toss his nana’s head under some socks in the suitcase and there’s a 99.9% chance that nobody would even notice/care…..as for me (and I’m no paris hilton), I wouldn’t be caught dead “vacationing” without my: 1) “blood pressure” pills, 2) visine, 3) cough drops, 4) peanut butter, 5) skim milk, 6) cracker, 7) “cigarettes,” 8) imodium ad, 9) gum, 10) loaf bread, 11) balloons, 12) pillow, 13) lighter, 14) knife, 15) carton of water, 16) refrigerator magnets (to give to the sluts along the way), 17) sunglasses, 18) a 12-pack of toilet paper, 19) stocking cap, and 20) greer’s goo……anyway, please to enjoy crazycarl’s travel guide for 2009:
10) ALASKA: did sarah palin change what you thought of alaska?----it didn’t for me…..when I went there last summer to visit my friend, alaska dave, I had hoped that everyone would be drunk all the time (and they motherfucking were)…..like it seemed to me that if you actually made it to work on time, the boss didn’t really care if you were hammered or hungover or puking or whatever as long as you showed up…..and what’s even kooler is that you could show up drunk and BRING YOUR DOG TO WORK WITH YOU…..it was the most dog-friendly place that I have ever seen……I pictured drunken pilots flying to crab festivals where the whole town shut down and got drunk for the weekend----done and done…..i pictured bigfathairy dudes driving their motorcycles around the bar at 3am and teenagers bumming smokes off their grannies at 6am---done and well……and if you want a sweet story for the senior citizen in your life: there was only one radio station in the 300 plus miles between wasilla and denali and here’s a random sampling of what the news was like: “yeah, missy mcgahee’s dog got loose last night, so if any of ya’ll see gracie on the mountain, be a good neighbor and take her back up to the pen…..also, you all know what happened to geno last summer, so if anyone has a wood splitter and some spare time, maybe go over and help geno out with his woodpile”…..and like it says on the license plate: alaska truly is the last frontier
9) BLACKSBURG, VA: motherfucking sux…..it sucked in 1994 and it sux even more in 2009 (post-serial killer)……I went to school there, ya know (and I like to think that I’m a funny guy)----well, no one got my sense of humor at all…..it’s a party school, right?---yeah, if your idea of a party is 50 dudes and 3 girls and the 3 girls all have better boyfriends back home……and I’ll admit that I made some really good friends there, but we’d just go camping every weekend/trip thru the hills (because there really was nothing else to do)……so how is it different after post-massacre?----well, when I was there last summer, there was a fat, mustachioed cop on every street corner carrying an ak-47 assault rifle trying to make up for his lack of effort in the spring of 2007……hell, the person in front of me even got a speeding ticket for driving 22 in a 15 mph zone…..do yourself a favor: buy yourself a pint, a virginia tech hat, and watch the game on tv
8) CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA: is to the university of virginia what blacksburg is to virginia tech……and if you’re going to c-ville, might I suggest you bring a shitload of money……why?----because that beautiful, barefoot, hippie girl with the dreadlocks and the tye-dye dress that you just danced with isn’t really a hippie----she’s a poseur with a trust fund, and a porsche, and vice presidency at shell oil waiting for her as soon as she graduates from uva’s darden school of business……charlottesville is basically chocked full of “green” douchebags who’ll yell at you for an hour for flicking a cigarette out of your car, but then drive off in their $50,000 suv looking for the nearest european (bottled)beer…..and when they blame the death of all the lightning bugs on your cigarette butt, kindly inform them that you’re doing your part to save toilet paper by handling the first 2 rounds of the asswipe with your fingers (just like they do in the philippine rainforest)….. “living off the grid”---be sure and let that dude charge all the drinks to his mother’s credit card…. “backyard windmill”----yeah dude, I’ll see ya later, I gotta get up early for work tomorrow....for that matter, I think I’ll leave the charlottesville section with some of my own lyrics to the tune of phish’s “golgi apparatus”: well, I look at other peoples’ berks just to check my status/call mummy on the phone have her send more hiker apparatus/I saw you with a ticket stub in your hand/I saw you with the abercrombie and fitch man/I saw you with the price tag on your sleeve/I heard you tell the poor they had to leave./
7) HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM INDIANAPOLIS LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “let’s take our credit card and go to the mall and buy some shit made out of plastic…..no, wait, let’s go to another mall and max out another credit card by buying more shit made out of plastic”…….HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM MICHIGAN LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “where’s my gun?….where’s my hat?…..where’s my beer?…..hold on, there’s a deer: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE…….hey look, there’s a squirrel: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE……look out, there’s a hamster: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL….DIEDIEDIE”…….(note: these are real responses from the big handsome…..i personally know some really sweet people from indy, but I’d have to agree with him about michigan)
6) COLORADO SPRINGS, CO: while we’re on the subject of the big handsome, I might as well tell you about my trip out there to visit him in the spring of 2007…..i did some internet research before I went and was pleased to discover that all the kids are on drugs and all the adults are on jesus…..in fact, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference…..like if you wanted to wear your wife’s floral print dress down the street, colorado springs was the place to be…..if you wanted to dress like exodor from “mork & mindy,” it was ok to let your freak flag fly……to tell ya the truth, if darth vader were working the checkout line at the local quickie mart, I don’t think the good people of colorado would have even noticed……case in point: I told this (hottie) hippie chick who was hanging out in front of the big handsome’s coffee shop that her dog said something to me “about pueblo,” but that since I was from virginia, I didn’t quite understand “colorado dog”…..her (deadpan) response: “that’s freaky, ‘cause I like got him at a shelter in pueblo…..what else did he say?”
5) IOWA: I think I told you about iowa before…..every small town has 8 baseball fields, 9 graveyards, and lots of dudes with mustaches…..IN IOWA, YOU’RE 1) BORN, 2) YOU GROW A MUSTACHE, AND 3) THEN YOU DIE…..maybe somewhere along the way you grow a mullet and get thrown in over-the-limit squirrel jail, but I think you get my point…..and god bless iowa for saving what’s left of crazycarl
4) MADISON, VA: my hometown can be summed up in one phrase: “if you stand next to the stove, you’re gonna catch on fire”
3) PITTSBURGH: I was 24 the first the first time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came….i was 39 the last time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came……in between, my friend, nootie lived in shady side and the police should have been called every day……I think I told you before about those underground “parties” too---complete with topless, lesbian rubdowns, special k rooms, and just general debauchery inside the confines of an old paintball factory……ya know, nootie musta been pretty popular there because whenever I went into a store with him in the strip district, employees would just give me anything I wanted off the store’s shelves….you’re a friend of nootie’s?---take this tee-shirt and necklace…..you’re staying with nootie?---take a couple of subs home with you for later (and in pittsburgh, they put some interesting shit in the sandwiches, ya know?)…..in retrospect (and beyond the sphere of influence of the great gnu), I think pittsburgh has more culture/flava that its’ fellow rustbelt sister cities……I think it must be all those polish girls with the big tits and the even bigger hair singing neil diamond songs
2) POTPOURRI: 10) PHILLY: go to the germ bookstore and tell the man that you want to meet a real satanist, 9) THE QUAD CITIES: might I suggest a trip to border’s and then dinner at applebee’s?, 8) LAKEWOOD, OH: where old kent state punkrockers go to die, 7) LOUISVILLE: home of the big handsome and thousands of riverboat gambler types with get-rich-quick schemes that never seem to pan out, 6) LONDON: there was this bulldog that walked himself around the block and wouldn’t look at you even if you had a pocketful of meat, 5) RICHMOND, VA: make my funk the p-funk/I wants to get funked up/, 4) PARIS: mama was having “female troubles” that day, so I don’t think I’m really qualified to say…..i will say that the city was dirty and the people stunk though, 3) DANVILLE, VA: straight out of mad max (1979)….if you know you’re a hardass, get out…..if not, just keep driving, 2) AKRON: just keep driving…..don’t stop for gas….just keep driving, 1) ASHLAND, VA: all the really good drug dealers live in the fraternity houses…..tell them that your name is gipper and that you used to be a pika
1) YOUNGSTOWN: I know there’s that wred fright song, but don’t believe the hype…..youngstown makes akron seem like iowa……let me set the scene: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the next block: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the nicest neighborhood in canfield: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE……pauley walnuts didn’t get out of the car and bruce springsteen just flew over, ya know?......and the last time I was in youngstown, I went to the elks’ lodge to cover “the jim traficant victory party” for the local alternative weekly…..jim traficant happened to be in jail at the time, but that didn’t stop me from touching tish traficant on the arm and complimenting her on the mink stole that she was wearing……and every time the election results were updated on tv, I would sneak platefuls of chicken and polish sausage out to my car…..i think that brother traficant wound up with like 11% of the popular vote in that particular election, but I drove home with a carload full of kielbasas at the end of the night…..wred fright, take me out: there was a fight at the pick-wick pub/I said: smoke all the crack and then beer-belly love/y-town, yeah, it’s my favorite place/I’ll smash a beer bottle ___ __ ____/I’m going to youngstown/there’s no ____ in youngstown/wred’s mom’s from youngstown/that’s why we live in youngstown./
Sunday, January 18, 2009
crazycarl's top ten books for "scared stiff reviews"
CRAZYCARL’S TOP TEN BOOKS FOR SCARED STIFF REVIEWS
do kids still read in 2008?---nah, I don’t think so…..do I really give a shit?---uh, no…..and you won’t get any preaching me from either…..i like watching tv and searching webshots for amateur college pee pix the same as the next dude…..i like reading too, but it’s a little harder to explain……full disclosure: I’m an english professor…..and although I’ve prolly read 1000’s of books, they were all for THE MAN and I retained next-to-nothing……I was 36-years-old before I ever read a book for pleasure (and that was after I graduated with a ph.d. in english literature)……to tell ya the truth, I never felt entitled to read……like I read comic books and subscribed to pro wrestling illustrated as a kid, but I hated the 9th grade summer reading list as much as you did…..my parents currently subscribe to 3 newspapers and time, but I’ve never seen either one of them read a novel……hillbillies read newspapers and I guess that’s why I ultimately break my reading list down into: 1) books I read for THE MAN and 2) books I read for me…..so why I am about to break down my top ten fav books for you here?----I’ll give you 2 rather trifling reasons and if you still want to go search for pix of geno’s nana on the toilet, be my fucking guest……seinfeld was an excellent show, ya know…..and there was a throwaway scene in an early episode where seinfeld talks about how/why people keep books in their houses as trophies….and I know that seems like a rather minor point, but I think it’s true…..like some people keep deer heads on their walls while other people keep books on their shelves----and they taught me at kent state that everyone is special in their own right…..the 2nd reason has to do with what I tell my students on the first day of class about reading---that there’ll come a day when it will no longer be kool for them to drive around cranking young jeezy in their minivans while driving their stepkids to soccer practice……I tell them that, in the future, they’ll be required to go to border’s and drink coffee and that it’s imperative for them to look kool while doing so (and my job is to teach them that lesson)…….and if you came for random crazycarl nuggets of bookstore wisdom: 1) you can never go wrong with rockstar biographies chocked full of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, 2) the true crime section is always sexy, 3) it’s much easier to understand the book if you’ve already seen the movie, 4) chicks dig astrology---like the only pick-up line that’s ever worked for me besides: “dude, do you wanna get high” is “dude, do you want me to read your palm,” and 5) (perhaps the most important) don’t ever talk to anyone who’s hanging out in the self-help section
10) FAT ON THE VINE (because if you don’t pop for yourself, no one else will): a lot of my friends dig hunter s thompson and they seem to be disappointed when the crazy stories I tell them in person don’t seem to measure up when they read my novel……and i’ve never met hunter s thompson, but I’ve done enough drugs to know that johnny depp doesn’t always magically appear and dance shirtless with you through the blue and yellow purple hills……sometimes you get sad and sometimes you get mad and it’s almost always embarrassing the next morning……I think hunter s thompson wanted you to think he was a rockstar whereas I was just screaming into my diary…..i could have revised it too, but that was my 1997 (assblood and all)……and you can call me a dick, but I’ve never lied to you…..that book is 92% bloodreal----as close as I could come to the truth without losing my mind
9) THE SHINING: I’ve got to assume that for every 5 people that love stephen king, there are 5 others that hate him……I’ve only read 2 of king’s books: salem’s lot (which I thought dragged on a bit too long) and the shining (which I loved)…..i also loved stanley kubrick’s film, the shining (1980) as well as the 1997 tv mini-series with the dude from wings…..there’s hardly a week that goes by that I don’t make reference to tony (danny torrance’s “imaginary friend” in the novel and my only friend in iowa)…..like people will ask me what I’m doing over the labor day weekend and I’ll just curl my index finger and talk about “hanging out with my special friend”…….and maybe you wanna know whether I prefer king’s novel to kubrick’s film?----well, honestly, there’s only one example I can think of where my answer to that question would be that the film is equal to the book and the book is equal to the film….they are both excellent and would make my top ten list in both categories----the shining as king and kubrick at the height of their (respective) creative powers
8) THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST: I think this was the 1st book on the list that I read….and, as always, you can never go wrong with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll…..you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 25 hits of acids and hang out with the grateful dead for the weekend?.....you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 100 hits of acid and drive a school bus across country with neal cassady and jack kerouac?.....you know I have……did you hear that a film adaptation of the book directed by gus van sant is scheduled to be released in 2009?....crazycarl says to bring your favorite hell’s angel
7) TOP TEN HONORABLE MENTIONS: 10) WATERSHIP DOWN: i don’t know why, but I’ve always had a thing about rabbits, 9) Little Red Riding Hood Missed the Bus: kristin abraham’s mother should fight mine in a cage match, 8) JIM MORRISON: LIFE, DEATH, LEGEND: my fav dead rockstar bio 7) The Rules of Attraction: I know the underground literary alliance is gonna hate me, but jessica biel is fucking, smokin’ hot, 6) BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE: I’m trendy like that, 5) ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST: it makes me want to get committed just for the stories 4) DISHWASHER: dishwasher pete washes dishes in all fifty states…..recommend the book to your local dishwasher and he’ll still be packing you bowls in 2018, 3) THE PORNOGRAPHIC FLABBERGASTED EMUS: opus from bloom county walks the mean streets of youngstown and emerges unscathed , 2) THE COLLECTOR: for all the budding serial killers on your list, 1) THE COMPLETE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS: for all the stoners on your list that are too high to read
6) A CLOCKWORK ORANGE: I know the dialect is hard, but o my brothers, the rape scene from the movie would certainly be in my top ten list of the most disturbing moments in cinematic history……in fact, the seniors at my high school would make the freshman watch kubrick’s a clockwork orange (1971) just to watch us squirm (and you would have been labeled pussy-4-life if you dared to sneak out)…..i’ve debated about reading the novel in class, but obviously the kids would want to watch the movie, and invariably, someone’s mom would complain……and if you don’t think a clockwork orange deserves to be in the top ten, let me just leave you with a little blurb from wikipedia: “ The Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match was created by professional wrestler Raven during his time in TNA Wrestling. It’s a singles match for which a chain link wall is erected on one side of the ring with chains wrapped from it to various points on the ring itself with weapons hanging from them. In the first match the only way to win was to put an opponent through two tables, but afterwards it was changed to falls-count-anywhere rules.”
5) FIGHT CLUB: the first rule of crazycarl is that he’ll damn skippy read the last page of a novel first and then tell you what happened……fight club is all about the hook----and tyler durden (brad pitt) is really the narrator’s alter ego…..and if you didn’t already think that the brothers campbell were the koolest-of-all-that’s kool, did I ever tell you that they tried to organize a kent state fight club back-in the-day?…..like it was supposed to be in the backroom of a tattoo parlor, but on the night I went, it was mysteriously cancelled at the last minute (fear of 5-0?)…..they eventually re-scheduled and I think there was a broken nose and some stitches, but word-on-the-street is that real punks don’t beat the piss out of their friends just for the house’s amusement
4) A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES: jonathan swift once wrote that: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”……the hero of the novel, ignatius j reilly is fat, perverted, slothful, over-educated, unemployed, and lives with his overbearing mother…..does that sound like anyone you used to know?---yeah, me too….john belushi was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died……john candy was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..chris farley was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..geno, I’m ready for my curtain call…..and before I forget: god bless john kennedy toole for killing himself
3) FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: ok, so maybe I wanna believe that johnny depp is gonna cum and we’re all gonna dance shirtless in the blue and yellow purple hills too…..and one man’s gonzo is another man’s bloodreal……solace-in-excess (as a concept) works for me---you know, the counter culture ideal that prolonged drug use will allow the hero to escape the course realities of american life…..i don’t think you can stretch the rubber-band-that-is-your-brain indefinitely though…..i also like “faction” as a concept---the faulknerian notion that the best fiction comes from fact…..note: if I had written this top ten a couple years ago, fear and loathing in las vegas would have prolly come in at #10…..however, since hunter s thompson had the (celebrity) nutsack to kill himself, his novel is now #3 with a bullet
2) MISERY LOVES COMEDY: have you ever heard of ivan brunetti?.....he’s a chicago cartoonist whose commix, schizo, hee!, and haw! are included in the collection, misery loves comedy……and just in case, geno can’t get around copyright law, I’d like to describe a few of the panels which are included on comicartcollective.com (if you’re curious, they have 100 brunetti cels for sale and every single one has been sold)…..in “I bought him off a crack whore,” an 8-year-old boy is talking to an 8-year-old girl while peeing on a baby’s head….the boy says to the girl: “don’t worry, I bought him off a crack whore”……in “not a sex crime,” two parents arrive home and discover a naked man standing over their daughter in a pool of blood…..the killer says: “it’s not a sex crime because I didn’t pop a boner”……..i could go on, but I think I’ll leave “I tried to use my cock as a bong,” “did you switch my heroin with drano,” and “his dad tried to get fruity” to the readers’ imagination…..i’ve often thought of sending brunetti a copy of fat on the vine
1) HELTER SKELTER: about midway through vincent bugliosi’s account of the manson murders, he talks about how charlie required the mothers-of-the-family to fellate their own 6-month-old babies in order to “eradicate the hang-ups” of their bourgeoisie parents…….what the fuck do you want me to say after that?....it’s not a brunetti comic and it’s not from the oprah’s book club….hell, I don’t even think the censors would have allowed the oprah’s uncle to have done that to her in a brunetti cartoon…..tell me tell me tell me the answer/you may be a lover but you aint no dancer/ look out helter skelter helter skelter/helter skelter yeah/ooh!/
do kids still read in 2008?---nah, I don’t think so…..do I really give a shit?---uh, no…..and you won’t get any preaching me from either…..i like watching tv and searching webshots for amateur college pee pix the same as the next dude…..i like reading too, but it’s a little harder to explain……full disclosure: I’m an english professor…..and although I’ve prolly read 1000’s of books, they were all for THE MAN and I retained next-to-nothing……I was 36-years-old before I ever read a book for pleasure (and that was after I graduated with a ph.d. in english literature)……to tell ya the truth, I never felt entitled to read……like I read comic books and subscribed to pro wrestling illustrated as a kid, but I hated the 9th grade summer reading list as much as you did…..my parents currently subscribe to 3 newspapers and time, but I’ve never seen either one of them read a novel……hillbillies read newspapers and I guess that’s why I ultimately break my reading list down into: 1) books I read for THE MAN and 2) books I read for me…..so why I am about to break down my top ten fav books for you here?----I’ll give you 2 rather trifling reasons and if you still want to go search for pix of geno’s nana on the toilet, be my fucking guest……seinfeld was an excellent show, ya know…..and there was a throwaway scene in an early episode where seinfeld talks about how/why people keep books in their houses as trophies….and I know that seems like a rather minor point, but I think it’s true…..like some people keep deer heads on their walls while other people keep books on their shelves----and they taught me at kent state that everyone is special in their own right…..the 2nd reason has to do with what I tell my students on the first day of class about reading---that there’ll come a day when it will no longer be kool for them to drive around cranking young jeezy in their minivans while driving their stepkids to soccer practice……I tell them that, in the future, they’ll be required to go to border’s and drink coffee and that it’s imperative for them to look kool while doing so (and my job is to teach them that lesson)…….and if you came for random crazycarl nuggets of bookstore wisdom: 1) you can never go wrong with rockstar biographies chocked full of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, 2) the true crime section is always sexy, 3) it’s much easier to understand the book if you’ve already seen the movie, 4) chicks dig astrology---like the only pick-up line that’s ever worked for me besides: “dude, do you wanna get high” is “dude, do you want me to read your palm,” and 5) (perhaps the most important) don’t ever talk to anyone who’s hanging out in the self-help section
10) FAT ON THE VINE (because if you don’t pop for yourself, no one else will): a lot of my friends dig hunter s thompson and they seem to be disappointed when the crazy stories I tell them in person don’t seem to measure up when they read my novel……and i’ve never met hunter s thompson, but I’ve done enough drugs to know that johnny depp doesn’t always magically appear and dance shirtless with you through the blue and yellow purple hills……sometimes you get sad and sometimes you get mad and it’s almost always embarrassing the next morning……I think hunter s thompson wanted you to think he was a rockstar whereas I was just screaming into my diary…..i could have revised it too, but that was my 1997 (assblood and all)……and you can call me a dick, but I’ve never lied to you…..that book is 92% bloodreal----as close as I could come to the truth without losing my mind
9) THE SHINING: I’ve got to assume that for every 5 people that love stephen king, there are 5 others that hate him……I’ve only read 2 of king’s books: salem’s lot (which I thought dragged on a bit too long) and the shining (which I loved)…..i also loved stanley kubrick’s film, the shining (1980) as well as the 1997 tv mini-series with the dude from wings…..there’s hardly a week that goes by that I don’t make reference to tony (danny torrance’s “imaginary friend” in the novel and my only friend in iowa)…..like people will ask me what I’m doing over the labor day weekend and I’ll just curl my index finger and talk about “hanging out with my special friend”…….and maybe you wanna know whether I prefer king’s novel to kubrick’s film?----well, honestly, there’s only one example I can think of where my answer to that question would be that the film is equal to the book and the book is equal to the film….they are both excellent and would make my top ten list in both categories----the shining as king and kubrick at the height of their (respective) creative powers
8) THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST: I think this was the 1st book on the list that I read….and, as always, you can never go wrong with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll…..you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 25 hits of acids and hang out with the grateful dead for the weekend?.....you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 100 hits of acid and drive a school bus across country with neal cassady and jack kerouac?.....you know I have……did you hear that a film adaptation of the book directed by gus van sant is scheduled to be released in 2009?....crazycarl says to bring your favorite hell’s angel
7) TOP TEN HONORABLE MENTIONS: 10) WATERSHIP DOWN: i don’t know why, but I’ve always had a thing about rabbits, 9) Little Red Riding Hood Missed the Bus: kristin abraham’s mother should fight mine in a cage match, 8) JIM MORRISON: LIFE, DEATH, LEGEND: my fav dead rockstar bio 7) The Rules of Attraction: I know the underground literary alliance is gonna hate me, but jessica biel is fucking, smokin’ hot, 6) BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE: I’m trendy like that, 5) ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST: it makes me want to get committed just for the stories 4) DISHWASHER: dishwasher pete washes dishes in all fifty states…..recommend the book to your local dishwasher and he’ll still be packing you bowls in 2018, 3) THE PORNOGRAPHIC FLABBERGASTED EMUS: opus from bloom county walks the mean streets of youngstown and emerges unscathed , 2) THE COLLECTOR: for all the budding serial killers on your list, 1) THE COMPLETE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS: for all the stoners on your list that are too high to read
6) A CLOCKWORK ORANGE: I know the dialect is hard, but o my brothers, the rape scene from the movie would certainly be in my top ten list of the most disturbing moments in cinematic history……in fact, the seniors at my high school would make the freshman watch kubrick’s a clockwork orange (1971) just to watch us squirm (and you would have been labeled pussy-4-life if you dared to sneak out)…..i’ve debated about reading the novel in class, but obviously the kids would want to watch the movie, and invariably, someone’s mom would complain……and if you don’t think a clockwork orange deserves to be in the top ten, let me just leave you with a little blurb from wikipedia: “ The Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match was created by professional wrestler Raven during his time in TNA Wrestling. It’s a singles match for which a chain link wall is erected on one side of the ring with chains wrapped from it to various points on the ring itself with weapons hanging from them. In the first match the only way to win was to put an opponent through two tables, but afterwards it was changed to falls-count-anywhere rules.”
5) FIGHT CLUB: the first rule of crazycarl is that he’ll damn skippy read the last page of a novel first and then tell you what happened……fight club is all about the hook----and tyler durden (brad pitt) is really the narrator’s alter ego…..and if you didn’t already think that the brothers campbell were the koolest-of-all-that’s kool, did I ever tell you that they tried to organize a kent state fight club back-in the-day?…..like it was supposed to be in the backroom of a tattoo parlor, but on the night I went, it was mysteriously cancelled at the last minute (fear of 5-0?)…..they eventually re-scheduled and I think there was a broken nose and some stitches, but word-on-the-street is that real punks don’t beat the piss out of their friends just for the house’s amusement
4) A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES: jonathan swift once wrote that: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”……the hero of the novel, ignatius j reilly is fat, perverted, slothful, over-educated, unemployed, and lives with his overbearing mother…..does that sound like anyone you used to know?---yeah, me too….john belushi was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died……john candy was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..chris farley was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..geno, I’m ready for my curtain call…..and before I forget: god bless john kennedy toole for killing himself
3) FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: ok, so maybe I wanna believe that johnny depp is gonna cum and we’re all gonna dance shirtless in the blue and yellow purple hills too…..and one man’s gonzo is another man’s bloodreal……solace-in-excess (as a concept) works for me---you know, the counter culture ideal that prolonged drug use will allow the hero to escape the course realities of american life…..i don’t think you can stretch the rubber-band-that-is-your-brain indefinitely though…..i also like “faction” as a concept---the faulknerian notion that the best fiction comes from fact…..note: if I had written this top ten a couple years ago, fear and loathing in las vegas would have prolly come in at #10…..however, since hunter s thompson had the (celebrity) nutsack to kill himself, his novel is now #3 with a bullet
2) MISERY LOVES COMEDY: have you ever heard of ivan brunetti?.....he’s a chicago cartoonist whose commix, schizo, hee!, and haw! are included in the collection, misery loves comedy……and just in case, geno can’t get around copyright law, I’d like to describe a few of the panels which are included on comicartcollective.com (if you’re curious, they have 100 brunetti cels for sale and every single one has been sold)…..in “I bought him off a crack whore,” an 8-year-old boy is talking to an 8-year-old girl while peeing on a baby’s head….the boy says to the girl: “don’t worry, I bought him off a crack whore”……in “not a sex crime,” two parents arrive home and discover a naked man standing over their daughter in a pool of blood…..the killer says: “it’s not a sex crime because I didn’t pop a boner”……..i could go on, but I think I’ll leave “I tried to use my cock as a bong,” “did you switch my heroin with drano,” and “his dad tried to get fruity” to the readers’ imagination…..i’ve often thought of sending brunetti a copy of fat on the vine
1) HELTER SKELTER: about midway through vincent bugliosi’s account of the manson murders, he talks about how charlie required the mothers-of-the-family to fellate their own 6-month-old babies in order to “eradicate the hang-ups” of their bourgeoisie parents…….what the fuck do you want me to say after that?....it’s not a brunetti comic and it’s not from the oprah’s book club….hell, I don’t even think the censors would have allowed the oprah’s uncle to have done that to her in a brunetti cartoon…..tell me tell me tell me the answer/you may be a lover but you aint no dancer/ look out helter skelter helter skelter/helter skelter yeah/ooh!/
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
p.5 (a writer for "zine world") just reviewed "fat on the vine" for issue #26.....not only did she actually read my novel, she seemed to understand it too: "When I first received this book to review, I figured I'd race right through it, that it would probably be stupid and a waste of my time. However, once I started reading it, I got sucked it to the point where I ended up reading the rest of the book at a snail's pace, just to make it last longer! Reading this book is kinda like reading someone's diary or a book-length personal zine that's actually interesting. Sure, there's lots of self-loathing and whining, two things that usually help me stay away from personal zines, but in this book, it works. Plus, the laugh-out loud moments in "Fat on the Vine" are abundant enough to balance out any of Crazy Carl's self-depracating rantings. I can throughly relate to his views on how fucked up it all is regarding organized religion, the so-called American dream and keeping up with the Joneses, and hierarchical structures in general. It's hard to say exactly what this book is about...Think of it as a frothy mixed drink of day-to-day anecdotes with a little umbrella, and maybe even a cherry and a plastic dinosaur tossed in for good measure! I highly recommend this book!" ALOHA, P.5
Saturday, February 9, 2008
some dude at razorcake (a punkrock magazine) just wrote a review of fat on the vine in which he called me, among other things, a “loser,” “douche,” and “flat-out asshole”……he didn’t really review the actual book either, choosing instead to call me a bunch of names (like the character and I were the same person)…..so what was my reaction?.....well, first of all, the negative review did hurt my feelings to some degree…..i didn’t write fat on the vine to be anyone’s hero/antihero and I guess that comes through in the book, especially the 50 odd times that I insult my readers for feasting on my pain/blues/agony……my second reaction was that I was pleased that some outside reviewer actually took the time to read the text---like there were tiny reviews in both time out new york and time out chicago, but it was pretty obvious when the reviewer referred to me as “one of the crazy kids from the underground literary alliance” that he/she had only read the blurb on the back cover…..in retrospect, I’ll throw a shot out to the razorcake reviewer for actually reading (and hating) my book before selling it on e-bay for $1.50…..after worrying about the review for a while, I called one of my friends on the phone (a real live punkrocker who is familiar with both my book and the magazine) and asked for his opinion…..in a nutshell, he said that “if the author of fat on the vine had been into fugazi, then the razorcake reviewer would have loved it”…..however, since the author was into the grateful dead, the reviewer hated it---and that works for me, ya know----as close to objectivity as I can wrap my brain around……I do worry about fat on the vine floating around in cyberspace though and in some ways, I want to explain its content…..1997 was certainly an ugly year for me, but it’s 2008 now…..and all our heroes (sid vicious or jim morrison or whomever) that died-as-assholes weren’t given another 11 years to redeem themselves…..my karma is as good in 2008 as lilbigsexy’s was bad in 1997…..and if you give me a chance to prove it to you now, I will…..i think the best way I can start is with a top ten list of apologies…..i think it was fugazi who once said: if the thunder don’t git ya/ the lightning sure will/:
10) editing: for those of you that have read fat on the vine, can you imagine what it would be like to edit it?.....i’ll send a shot our right now to my publisher, jeff potter…..and I know I gave lip service to fighting-the-oprah-power in my afterword, but if the truth is known, I didn’t really have the computer skills to edit the motherfucker properly…..like maybe if the ula had sent their corporate jet to pick me up in iowa and drop me off at jeff’s house in michigan, we could have edited it together…..i edited my part in roughly 2 weeks and I just didn’t have the tech skills to do the text justice…..i guess I should also note that we were editing right after the virginia tech massacre and jeff wanted to change a few names to protect our innocence…..ultimately, I feel that I should apologize for my lack of computer skills----i am older than I look, plus I was at a party for 20 years while the rest of ya’ll were taking computer classes
9) while we’re on the subject of apologies, if I could apologize to one person/thing from fat, I think I would apologize to sports…..i was a lil hard on julie, but I think she’s still a big enough freak to appreciate the effort…..my mama really is like the character in the book, but she’s also tough….like if you went and told her what I had said, you wouldn’t break my family----she might still be calling me a piece-of-shit on her deathbed, but you wouldn’t break our family……in regards to sports: I still don’t like the meatheads in the gym who are clapping/screaming for their team while running on the treadmill, but I do like sports…..why?---because they’re live and there’s 90,000 people at the stadium getting hammered like they were at a rockshow---and in many respects, sports are the only things that are “real” in the brave new world of 2008 reality television
8) I guess I should also apologize to the big handsome for not (retroactively) putting him in fat on the vine…..the novel was written in 1997-1998 and I didn’t meet the big handsome until 2000…..i think the big handsome makes a fine foil for me----he’s the high joker to my low joker…..and when I write about him fucking up, it’s much easier for me to deal with the repercussions, both literally and figuratively…..for example, while he’s chasing the girls around the room begging them to punch him in the stomach, I’m the one stealing their panties---someone else gets the blame though, ya know…..and the same goes for my writing……why do I like the big handsome?----because as freaks go, I can always count on him to be the bigger freak…..and while you’re shaking your collective heads at his debauchery, I get to rest/shit mine out
7) no apologies for ohio….you want an example of ohio v. iowa?.....well, another professor at my school stopped me in the hall one day before break and said that he had ordered a copy of fat on the vine from amazon…..and I assume my face turned from red to white and he immediately said: “if it embarrasses you, I’ll put it on a shelf and read it in 20 years after I retire”……I said that I would appreciate it, knowing full well that 92% of the people in this world (and 100% of ohioans) would read it in its entirety the second the package arrived----hell, the last time I got something published ______ (no names, but a virgo and we all know what that means) had xeroxed it and was putting it under kent state profs’ doors the next day……anyway, when I got back to my school, his package from amazon with fat was sitting in my faculty mailbox unopened……and I immediately took the dude some virginia peanuts as a thank you….i told him that 1997 had been pretty ugly for me, but that I “hoped to become more like him and my father” in 2008 and beyond…..i know I already thanked the state in my afterword, but with dudes like this, the good people of iowa certainly deserve another tip-of-the-hat from me
6) maybe I should apologize to my body as well…..do you know that I go to the gym for 2 hours a day in 2008?.....and I’m not a mathematician, but 20 years of partying equals 1000’s of monkeys on my back.....like i’ve always exercised on saturday afternoons as friday night’s smorgasbord shot back out through every hole in my body……I didn’t stop partying because dr drew looks really kool in his designer eyeglasses……I stopped partying because it felt like one more vomit and my soul was gonna splatter on the sidewalk along with last night’s burrito……i was tired of the nose bleeds and the bloody shits and the devil spots on my brain----my mother’s religion didn’t get me, but father time ultimately did…..you want a hero?----well I say fuck everyone of those self-help fuckers on tv….they might want your confession for their infomercial, but they damn skippy don’t want you…..as for my hero: I’ll go with waylon jennings who did it without jesus, dr phil, or rehab…..ole weighmore just went home and locked the door----and he yelled at his wife and he sweated a lot and 3 months later he walked out clean/sober…..and i respect that
5) you think I should apologize to my fat-era friends?....this is a tricky one and comparable to my apology to the big handsome in #8…..and I’ll grant you that while in the haze of a blackout, I may have pissed on someone’s parents’ couch, or sling-shotted peanuts off a balcony at bikers, or taken a bite out of every single piece of food in a friend-of-a-friend’s refrigerator, but I don’t think that’s the point….i think part of it was the fact that I was (and am) a late bloomer and my friends were starting to grow up…..and if you’ve got a wife, mortgage, and a child on the way, someone needs to be the asshole---and that (symbolic) asshole became me…..the thing is, I would still be somewhat disappointed in old friends who would read fat on the vine and think the same thing of me as the razorcake dude did…..do you know who stuck with me?----the fat kids stuck with me because the pain is the pain is the pain….and I was me then and I’m me now and I don’t need to apologize to them because they already know what it’s like to be fat your whole life…..ultimately, the dedication at the beginning of fat still works for me: for the “ugly people who think they’re beautiful” and for the “beautiful people who think they’re ugly”
4) you think I should apologize to all the women out there for the faux-misogyny in fat?----I’ll grant you that many of the sections were sophomoric, so I guess it couldn’t hurt to cover my bases…..still, do you know many times I had sex with julie in 2 years?.....do you know many times I’ve had sex in my entire life?----like I’m not gonna break it down for you here, but geno prolly got more lovin’ that summer he spent with his nana on cape cod when he was 16 than I have in my entire life…….the point is: did your boyfriend apologize to you for the ex-wife and the 2 ugly stepkids?.....did he apologize to you for trading your car for a pair of karate pants and some magic beans?......dude, if you had sex with me, do you think I’d stop bringing you presents after 6 months?.....1997 or 2008: if you have sex with me, I’ll bring you a goddamn present every day for the rest of your life
3) I thought about apologizing to the freaks out there who keep waiting for the next naked lunch, but then I realized that fat on the vine is the next naked lunch (in the sense that it’s unreadable)…..the only real difference is that kids today are too busy decorating their myspace pages to read anything (and that’s not to say that burrough’s naked lunch wouldn’t be on a list of myspace readers’ top 100 books)…..the nut of my argument is that alternative kids will pretend to have read naked lunch because it is a counter-culture drug book…..maybe the apology here should go to my bookshelf because naked lunch is certainly front and center----I even gave it 4/5 stars on goodreads even though the only thing about the book I liked was the afterward……in truth, I gave naked lunch 4/5 stars because I was voting for burroughs, the rockstar-as-me……will everyone be a rockstar in the future?---yeah, I think they will….i was just vain enough to write a book about myself----that no one will ever read because they’re too busy blackberrying each other about buying a new blackberry
2) even though things are holding steady right now, I should prolly go ahead and apologize to my teaching career…..like I know professors are supposed to get published, but I can’t imagine any boss that I would ever have in academia being pleased with the content of fat on the vine…..my defenses are certainly valid: 1) professors are supposed to get published, 2) fat is on my resume, and 3) it’s FICTION, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t agonize over my choice to publish every single day….like 10 years ago I would have sold my soul to the devil to be published, but now I worry about my karma….i’m a good teacher too---no bullshitting, no yelling, and no ego trips…..i put on a fine show for the house every day and I make up for not paying attention/talking at the faculty meetings by going to every sporting event on campus and sitting between two 70-year-old nuns…..and if you’re marking my penance: that’s 1.5 years down and 18.5 years to go
1) I’m old and tired now and writing steals precious exercise time…..that’s why I’m going to the afterword from fat on the vine for #1: “tomorrow morning I have to get up at 8am to help the nuns move seats into the new theater…..on monday, I have an english search committee meeting in the morning and a handbook committee meeting in the afternoon…..i have short hair and am in bed most school nights by 9pm……[real ellipses]…….and 10 years removed from starting fat on the vine, I still think it’s stunning……ugliness and self-hatred fill every page and it reads like one, long, bloody scream…..i like to think of the crazycarl that wrote this as my alter ego---and if we ever met, I don’t think you’d ever believe that the narrator was actually me…..this is how I felt in 1997 though and I don’t wanna hide from what I was or am…..it’s possible to grow and heal…..[real ellipses]……..if you want some new age philosophy before I go: it’s ok to be yourself…..it’s ok to let your freak flag fly and it’s ok to bushwhack up the mountain the wrong way….i still don’t get laid that often, but that’s ok too…..the nuns still like me, as do my students, dogs, lesbians, fat kids, drug addicts, and a who’s who list of assorted freaks….there’s power to be gained and connections to be made even if your drug dealer thinks you’re a pussy”
10) editing: for those of you that have read fat on the vine, can you imagine what it would be like to edit it?.....i’ll send a shot our right now to my publisher, jeff potter…..and I know I gave lip service to fighting-the-oprah-power in my afterword, but if the truth is known, I didn’t really have the computer skills to edit the motherfucker properly…..like maybe if the ula had sent their corporate jet to pick me up in iowa and drop me off at jeff’s house in michigan, we could have edited it together…..i edited my part in roughly 2 weeks and I just didn’t have the tech skills to do the text justice…..i guess I should also note that we were editing right after the virginia tech massacre and jeff wanted to change a few names to protect our innocence…..ultimately, I feel that I should apologize for my lack of computer skills----i am older than I look, plus I was at a party for 20 years while the rest of ya’ll were taking computer classes
9) while we’re on the subject of apologies, if I could apologize to one person/thing from fat, I think I would apologize to sports…..i was a lil hard on julie, but I think she’s still a big enough freak to appreciate the effort…..my mama really is like the character in the book, but she’s also tough….like if you went and told her what I had said, you wouldn’t break my family----she might still be calling me a piece-of-shit on her deathbed, but you wouldn’t break our family……in regards to sports: I still don’t like the meatheads in the gym who are clapping/screaming for their team while running on the treadmill, but I do like sports…..why?---because they’re live and there’s 90,000 people at the stadium getting hammered like they were at a rockshow---and in many respects, sports are the only things that are “real” in the brave new world of 2008 reality television
8) I guess I should also apologize to the big handsome for not (retroactively) putting him in fat on the vine…..the novel was written in 1997-1998 and I didn’t meet the big handsome until 2000…..i think the big handsome makes a fine foil for me----he’s the high joker to my low joker…..and when I write about him fucking up, it’s much easier for me to deal with the repercussions, both literally and figuratively…..for example, while he’s chasing the girls around the room begging them to punch him in the stomach, I’m the one stealing their panties---someone else gets the blame though, ya know…..and the same goes for my writing……why do I like the big handsome?----because as freaks go, I can always count on him to be the bigger freak…..and while you’re shaking your collective heads at his debauchery, I get to rest/shit mine out
7) no apologies for ohio….you want an example of ohio v. iowa?.....well, another professor at my school stopped me in the hall one day before break and said that he had ordered a copy of fat on the vine from amazon…..and I assume my face turned from red to white and he immediately said: “if it embarrasses you, I’ll put it on a shelf and read it in 20 years after I retire”……I said that I would appreciate it, knowing full well that 92% of the people in this world (and 100% of ohioans) would read it in its entirety the second the package arrived----hell, the last time I got something published ______ (no names, but a virgo and we all know what that means) had xeroxed it and was putting it under kent state profs’ doors the next day……anyway, when I got back to my school, his package from amazon with fat was sitting in my faculty mailbox unopened……and I immediately took the dude some virginia peanuts as a thank you….i told him that 1997 had been pretty ugly for me, but that I “hoped to become more like him and my father” in 2008 and beyond…..i know I already thanked the state in my afterword, but with dudes like this, the good people of iowa certainly deserve another tip-of-the-hat from me
6) maybe I should apologize to my body as well…..do you know that I go to the gym for 2 hours a day in 2008?.....and I’m not a mathematician, but 20 years of partying equals 1000’s of monkeys on my back.....like i’ve always exercised on saturday afternoons as friday night’s smorgasbord shot back out through every hole in my body……I didn’t stop partying because dr drew looks really kool in his designer eyeglasses……I stopped partying because it felt like one more vomit and my soul was gonna splatter on the sidewalk along with last night’s burrito……i was tired of the nose bleeds and the bloody shits and the devil spots on my brain----my mother’s religion didn’t get me, but father time ultimately did…..you want a hero?----well I say fuck everyone of those self-help fuckers on tv….they might want your confession for their infomercial, but they damn skippy don’t want you…..as for my hero: I’ll go with waylon jennings who did it without jesus, dr phil, or rehab…..ole weighmore just went home and locked the door----and he yelled at his wife and he sweated a lot and 3 months later he walked out clean/sober…..and i respect that
5) you think I should apologize to my fat-era friends?....this is a tricky one and comparable to my apology to the big handsome in #8…..and I’ll grant you that while in the haze of a blackout, I may have pissed on someone’s parents’ couch, or sling-shotted peanuts off a balcony at bikers, or taken a bite out of every single piece of food in a friend-of-a-friend’s refrigerator, but I don’t think that’s the point….i think part of it was the fact that I was (and am) a late bloomer and my friends were starting to grow up…..and if you’ve got a wife, mortgage, and a child on the way, someone needs to be the asshole---and that (symbolic) asshole became me…..the thing is, I would still be somewhat disappointed in old friends who would read fat on the vine and think the same thing of me as the razorcake dude did…..do you know who stuck with me?----the fat kids stuck with me because the pain is the pain is the pain….and I was me then and I’m me now and I don’t need to apologize to them because they already know what it’s like to be fat your whole life…..ultimately, the dedication at the beginning of fat still works for me: for the “ugly people who think they’re beautiful” and for the “beautiful people who think they’re ugly”
4) you think I should apologize to all the women out there for the faux-misogyny in fat?----I’ll grant you that many of the sections were sophomoric, so I guess it couldn’t hurt to cover my bases…..still, do you know many times I had sex with julie in 2 years?.....do you know many times I’ve had sex in my entire life?----like I’m not gonna break it down for you here, but geno prolly got more lovin’ that summer he spent with his nana on cape cod when he was 16 than I have in my entire life…….the point is: did your boyfriend apologize to you for the ex-wife and the 2 ugly stepkids?.....did he apologize to you for trading your car for a pair of karate pants and some magic beans?......dude, if you had sex with me, do you think I’d stop bringing you presents after 6 months?.....1997 or 2008: if you have sex with me, I’ll bring you a goddamn present every day for the rest of your life
3) I thought about apologizing to the freaks out there who keep waiting for the next naked lunch, but then I realized that fat on the vine is the next naked lunch (in the sense that it’s unreadable)…..the only real difference is that kids today are too busy decorating their myspace pages to read anything (and that’s not to say that burrough’s naked lunch wouldn’t be on a list of myspace readers’ top 100 books)…..the nut of my argument is that alternative kids will pretend to have read naked lunch because it is a counter-culture drug book…..maybe the apology here should go to my bookshelf because naked lunch is certainly front and center----I even gave it 4/5 stars on goodreads even though the only thing about the book I liked was the afterward……in truth, I gave naked lunch 4/5 stars because I was voting for burroughs, the rockstar-as-me……will everyone be a rockstar in the future?---yeah, I think they will….i was just vain enough to write a book about myself----that no one will ever read because they’re too busy blackberrying each other about buying a new blackberry
2) even though things are holding steady right now, I should prolly go ahead and apologize to my teaching career…..like I know professors are supposed to get published, but I can’t imagine any boss that I would ever have in academia being pleased with the content of fat on the vine…..my defenses are certainly valid: 1) professors are supposed to get published, 2) fat is on my resume, and 3) it’s FICTION, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t agonize over my choice to publish every single day….like 10 years ago I would have sold my soul to the devil to be published, but now I worry about my karma….i’m a good teacher too---no bullshitting, no yelling, and no ego trips…..i put on a fine show for the house every day and I make up for not paying attention/talking at the faculty meetings by going to every sporting event on campus and sitting between two 70-year-old nuns…..and if you’re marking my penance: that’s 1.5 years down and 18.5 years to go
1) I’m old and tired now and writing steals precious exercise time…..that’s why I’m going to the afterword from fat on the vine for #1: “tomorrow morning I have to get up at 8am to help the nuns move seats into the new theater…..on monday, I have an english search committee meeting in the morning and a handbook committee meeting in the afternoon…..i have short hair and am in bed most school nights by 9pm……[real ellipses]…….and 10 years removed from starting fat on the vine, I still think it’s stunning……ugliness and self-hatred fill every page and it reads like one, long, bloody scream…..i like to think of the crazycarl that wrote this as my alter ego---and if we ever met, I don’t think you’d ever believe that the narrator was actually me…..this is how I felt in 1997 though and I don’t wanna hide from what I was or am…..it’s possible to grow and heal…..[real ellipses]……..if you want some new age philosophy before I go: it’s ok to be yourself…..it’s ok to let your freak flag fly and it’s ok to bushwhack up the mountain the wrong way….i still don’t get laid that often, but that’s ok too…..the nuns still like me, as do my students, dogs, lesbians, fat kids, drug addicts, and a who’s who list of assorted freaks….there’s power to be gained and connections to be made even if your drug dealer thinks you’re a pussy”
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
crazycarl interview from "scared stiff reviews"
Crazy Carl Interview
Scared Stiff Gets Crazy: Author & Actor Carl Robinson Speaks About His Book “Fat on the Vine” and His Love of HorrorExclusive Interview by Geno McGahee - October 1, 2007
“Horror movies for me to really love them, I’d like to think that they really happened, based on true stories and documented truth…that makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that much more exciting for me." –Crazy Carl Robinson I have had the opportunity to read and review many books this year, but not one of them was as interesting as a book called: “Fat on the Vine,” by Crazy Carl Robinson. I discovered Crazy Carl in the horror movie, “Demon Summer,” a low budget flick, somewhat inspired by the Evil Dead, but interesting and ambitious, bringing the best possible product to the screen under those conditions. In one of the scenes, a minivan drives by with a man hanging out the window. “Excuse me ma’am, do you have a pair of your mama’s panties? Here have a pair of mine,” he screamed, throwing a pair of women’s panties at a group of bullies. That was Crazy Carl and that was hilarious.I spoke to the creator of “Demon Summer,” Luke Campbell, and he said what I had thought. That was all Carl and when I discovered that he had written a book that was “sort of strange” according to Luke, I had to read it, and I’m glad that I did. Fat on the Vine would offend some…it is raw and there are no punches pulled…nothing held back whatsoever. Carl writes from the heart and writes honestly, but has the ability to make a depressing situation funny. I found myself laughing aloud as I read through the pages, which is something that I don’t often do.Crazy Carl Robinson is a unique and talented writer that brings a perspective that I appreciate and I’m sure everyone else will as well. I hope that “Fat on the Vine” becomes a hit, as it should, because it presents something that everyone can relate to…especially the black sheep, the misfit, and the outcast. Scared Stiff had the chance to sit down with Crazy Carl Robinson and discuss his book, movie career, and his love of boxing. Ladies and Gentlemen, Scared Stiff presents Crazy Carl Robinson… GM: Your nickname of “Crazy Carl.” Is that something that you came up with or is that something that others called you because of your antics?I probably give the credit to my friend Nootie. It just sort of stuck after a while. In high school, I was “Big Red.” Undergrad, I had personalized license plates with my initials CMR and Bad…so they thought that I was “Commander Bad.” Crazy works the best.GM: How long did it take you to write: “Fat on the Vine?”I’d say two years. It seemed to work better in my parent’s basement. In my parent’s basement, with my mom yelling at me because my thoughts were dirty. I wrote better under those conditions…but I would say it took two years to write it all together.
GM: It took you some time to finally get “Fat on the Vine” out to the public. Was there some hesitation on your part about releasing it and if so, why?
No, actually, it is just a pain in the ass to get published. I thought when I wrote it that everyone would love it and everyone would read it and then nobody really cared that much. My friend Red helped a lot. He introduced me to a lot of people. He introduced me to people in the Underground Literary Alliance. My friend that runs Wing TV, Victor Thorn…he helped out a lot as well. Really, it’s connections with friends more than any mainstream publisher giving a shit.
GM: Did you encounter any scam artists or things of that nature while trying to get your book out there to the public because I know that a lot of publishing companies require an agent and you have many “agents” willing to take money without putting any real effort in?
I had agents when I first wrote it and somebody outside of St. Louis and I paid her 250 bucks and she sent me a Christmas card every year, and that was all she did. She’s a devil…I wish I remembered her name because I would tell you that I was going to get her (laughs). I got some scam artists, but I figured that I would roll the dice one time for the 250 bucks and it came up craps.
GM: I have referred to “Fat on the Vine” as the most honest book that I have ever read. How difficult was it for you to be so open and write such a book, knowing that it was going to go out to the public?
That was probably the ugliest time in my life. What was happening to me in that book was probably me going nuts, so it really didn’t matter what the public thought. It was just me bleeding….mentally bleeding…whatever.
GM: The book focuses a great deal on your mother, and her overly religious…near fanatical ways. Has she read your book and if so, what were her thoughts?
No, not at all. She’s petrified of it. My dad has seen the cover. She would say something like, “why don’t you write something that isn’t filth, so I can show it to somebody and be proud of you.” Honestly, in my old age, I don’t think she’s mean spirited…I think she’s afraid. She’s afraid of what the neighbors say…she’s afraid of her shadow. She’s afraid of germs. I don’t think that it comes from a mean place inside of her. I think she is just afraid. GM: Do you come from a family of writers? Oh no, a family of hillbillies.
GM: Because your book is so raw and controversial, are you afraid of any backlash from not only your family and perhaps even your work associates?
Oh yes, very much. I teach now and it’s part of my deal is to get published. One good thing is that it was ten years ago and the ones that would have been furious at me ten years ago have forgotten a little. I wrote it in my own special code and my own special spelling and language. I’m sure some people will be angry and try to trash me, I guess, but you kind of have to read it first. Ultimately, whoever trashed me would know I’m smart too, and ultimately, I’m harder on myself than anyone else and I thought that came through.
GM: Is this book the first in a series or is it dependent on if “Fat on the Vine” gets published and is successful?
I’ve written two other ones: “Dead in the Head,” which I would say is meaner, and “My Parent’s Medicine,” which is a little bit lighter. I come out of the darkness and get my Karma a little bit better. I have always thought of them as a trilogy, but if it took nine years for the first one, maybe expect Dead in the Head in 2016 and My Parent’s Medicine in 2025. You may as well keep the faith.
GM: How did your book signings go and how was that experience over all?
Pretty cool…actually. Maybe one of the better weeks of my entire life. The first one was in Baltimore with anarchist feminists and I came out and said, I know you are all poor…let’s all fight the power and we can trade panties for books, and the anarchist feminists didn’t like that. Then they called for some nutty Crazy Carl stories of me…or I should say the character, stealing shit, and the anarchist feminists didn’t like that. I apologized to them a lot on stage. Philadelphia was a ULA reading at a Satanist bookstore and actually the Satanist was cool, but he had a sign in the bathroom stating how long to hold the handle to flush it. I think that they have blood/sugar/sex/magic parties there, and we called my friend “The Big Handsome” from stage and a girl called on speakerphone and asked if she could come over to the Big Handsome’s house and cut herself and the Big Handsome said that it would be awesome. It was funny…the crowd laughed. New York was pretty fancy. I saw my friend from undergrad…had a nice dinner. Cleveland was Red’s hometown show, with two bands and like seventy-five people there. The main band was “The Dad of Rock.” In Chicago, Julie’s aunt was in the crowd. There were only seven or eight people there but it was really my best show, and my last show was in Pittsburgh…it was pretty fancy. They had a nice display for us. It was a really nice bookstore and my friend Lauren came…a little shout out.
GM: Was there any reaction from Julie’s aunt?
I never met Julie’s aunt. I have seen pictures of her. I’m 92% sure that it was Julie’s aunt. I send Julie a care package every year for her birthday and Christmas and I’ve never got a response. I sent her the book as well, and I’m just about sure that her aunt was in the crowd.
GM: I’m sure if you sent Julie the book she’d read it.
I’m just hoping that her parents didn’t read it. Her aunt was quite classy. If Julie’s aunt is reading this, she was quite classy.
GM: Overall, how has the reaction been to your book?
If I’m telling the truth…nobody really gives a shit. I have four more boxes of copies in my closet. We got some good media attention for the tour itself. We got some good attention from local newspapers. We had some pretty good write ups. I sent it out to fifty reviewers and you’re one of the few that is cool enough to contact me and talk to me and I’m still hopeful, but I don’t think that Oprah is going to call.
GM: Have you done any follow up with these fifty reviewers that you sent it to?
Actually my friend, Red…I’m not going to mention any names, but he would send it to a mainstream reviewer and a week later they were selling his book on EBAY. His book is “The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus,” if I’m giving another shout out.
GM: You have been in 3 Campbell Brothers Movies: Midnight Skater, Demon Summer, and The Red Skulls. How did you get involved with the Campbell Brothers and are you planning a return to the movies?
Yeah, I would love to be in another one of their movies, but Luke is living in Cleveland now and Andy moved to Texas and I live in Iowa, so maybe some kind of summer visit in Cleveland maybe. Six or seven of those people were actually my students, in my English Class.
GM: It had to be weird for them to approach you…
It probably depends on how much of a freak I was. It probably wasn’t that tough at all.
GM: In Demon Summer, you throw a pair of women’s panties at the bullies, and in Midnight Skater, you buy drugs with women’s panties. Even in your book, you mention hiding women’s panties in a game box…
The Bigfoot: The Giant Snow Monster Game…I should say that if anyone is going into my parents’ house to look for that game…it’s still there, but just this summer, I took all the contraband out. So, the game is still there, but it is empty. The only thing that is in there is the Bigfoot Giant Snow Monster.
GM: I would hate to see it end up at a tag sale and some unsuspecting person picking it up and wondering why are panties included in a Sasquatch game…
Or my mother giving it away to my seven year old second cousin…
GM: So is that where it came from? Is there an inside joke about that women’s panties?
Maybe a little subtle self promotion. You can tell from the book. Fighting the power for big fat dudes, occasionally I would steal panties. Not from someone I thought was cool…maybe a distant acquaintance or from somebody at a party.
GM: Considering your creativity and skill as a writer, have you thought about writing a screenplay?
People have told me that I remind them of Jack Black and I should “Fat on the Vine” to him so he can win an Oscar. I thought about doing that about a month and a half ago and I still haven’t done it, but probably the next break I get, I might do it. The closest I would come to sending it to Hollywood is to send it to a guy like Jack Black.
GM: As far as horror films go, what are your favorites and why?
I thought that maybe you’d ask me this, and I read the variety on Scared Stiff Reviews, and I may have seen one of every seven you’ve seen and that comes, I think, from my small hometown in Virginia, where there’s one grocery store and one traffic light. Comic book dudes will say, “Dude you have to read this new comic…such and such,” and my little town had a CVS and they may have had a Batman and a Spiderman… but back to your question. I’m pretty fond of “The Shining.” That’d be in my top ten. Mother’s Day…I wouldn’t say that that was one of my favorites, but four in the morning and all f#$%ed up one night, that was on and it was on. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is obviously a classic. If I’m telling the truth…my dad’s pick up truck…the 1971-1972 Chevy pick up truck at the end that saves the girl…that’s my dad’s pick up truck. Horror movies for me to really love them, I’d like to think that they really happened, based on true stories and documented truth…that makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that much more exciting for me.
GM: Boxing…who got you interested in the sport and who are your favorite fighters?
My dad boxed in the Army, so he had always loved boxing. To tell you the truth all men from the 1950’s era, loved boxing. Muhammad Ali was the first one that I really noticed. I love Mike Tyson…not necessarily for the life he lived, but before he went on the meds, there was no social filter. Every celebrity says what they think we want to hear and for a long time, Tyson just said the first thing that popped into his head, and I loved that. I love Sonny Liston. I love the bad guy whether it’s professional wrestling or boxing. If it is set up with the good guy versus the bad guy, I’m always rooting for the bad guy.
GM: You don’t follow the sport now. Was there something that turned you off to it or was it just the decline and eventual disappearance of Mike Tyson from boxing?
I did my dissertation on professional boxing and wrestling. It took the better part of eleven years of me turning something in and the dude not liking it. I spent so much time writing about boxing and wrestling, that I was just about sick of it. Partly, I like heavyweights, and I’m a big dude, and I would think that the next time that a really big and talented heavyweight came around, it would peak my interest again.
GM: You said that you did your dissertation on professional wrestling and boxing. How much of a fan of pro wrestling were you?
When I was a kid, professional wrestling was my favorite thing. I am really starting to hate it now.
GM: I’m with you on that. I was raised on professional wrestling and the storylines are just horrible and it’s become like the music industry…empty and focusing on the bells and whistles instead of good dialogue and stories.
Honestly, once Vince McMahon pulled the curtain away and said that it was fake…and now the only real thing is when somebody dies or there is a tit slip. And now it’s like a bad Monday night soap opera.
GM: Do you have any closing thoughts for the readers and for the people that have and haven’t read your book?
My concept when I wrote it was blood real. What I put down on the page was what I was feeling at that time. I think that my Karma is much better now. I teach. I’m with nuns all day. I help people. I’m nice to people. If I was naughty in 1997, I can mature and grow and maybe change my Karma and do good work now. I wasn’t pulling any punches, if I’m talking boxing speech. If I can tell when I’m reading a book and somebody is being blood real, I respect that. They’re not spinning a plot or showing me how well they can write. They are just telling me the truth…their truth.
(Interviewer’s Note: Crazy Carl Robinson is one of the funniest people that I have ever met. His wit and humor come out on the pages of “Fat on the Vine,” and I am highly recommending it. If you want something different and something that will make you laugh and probably have you scratching your head a couple of times, this is the book. It is an amazing read.)
Scared Stiff Gets Crazy: Author & Actor Carl Robinson Speaks About His Book “Fat on the Vine” and His Love of HorrorExclusive Interview by Geno McGahee - October 1, 2007
“Horror movies for me to really love them, I’d like to think that they really happened, based on true stories and documented truth…that makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that much more exciting for me." –Crazy Carl Robinson I have had the opportunity to read and review many books this year, but not one of them was as interesting as a book called: “Fat on the Vine,” by Crazy Carl Robinson. I discovered Crazy Carl in the horror movie, “Demon Summer,” a low budget flick, somewhat inspired by the Evil Dead, but interesting and ambitious, bringing the best possible product to the screen under those conditions. In one of the scenes, a minivan drives by with a man hanging out the window. “Excuse me ma’am, do you have a pair of your mama’s panties? Here have a pair of mine,” he screamed, throwing a pair of women’s panties at a group of bullies. That was Crazy Carl and that was hilarious.I spoke to the creator of “Demon Summer,” Luke Campbell, and he said what I had thought. That was all Carl and when I discovered that he had written a book that was “sort of strange” according to Luke, I had to read it, and I’m glad that I did. Fat on the Vine would offend some…it is raw and there are no punches pulled…nothing held back whatsoever. Carl writes from the heart and writes honestly, but has the ability to make a depressing situation funny. I found myself laughing aloud as I read through the pages, which is something that I don’t often do.Crazy Carl Robinson is a unique and talented writer that brings a perspective that I appreciate and I’m sure everyone else will as well. I hope that “Fat on the Vine” becomes a hit, as it should, because it presents something that everyone can relate to…especially the black sheep, the misfit, and the outcast. Scared Stiff had the chance to sit down with Crazy Carl Robinson and discuss his book, movie career, and his love of boxing. Ladies and Gentlemen, Scared Stiff presents Crazy Carl Robinson… GM: Your nickname of “Crazy Carl.” Is that something that you came up with or is that something that others called you because of your antics?I probably give the credit to my friend Nootie. It just sort of stuck after a while. In high school, I was “Big Red.” Undergrad, I had personalized license plates with my initials CMR and Bad…so they thought that I was “Commander Bad.” Crazy works the best.GM: How long did it take you to write: “Fat on the Vine?”I’d say two years. It seemed to work better in my parent’s basement. In my parent’s basement, with my mom yelling at me because my thoughts were dirty. I wrote better under those conditions…but I would say it took two years to write it all together.
GM: It took you some time to finally get “Fat on the Vine” out to the public. Was there some hesitation on your part about releasing it and if so, why?
No, actually, it is just a pain in the ass to get published. I thought when I wrote it that everyone would love it and everyone would read it and then nobody really cared that much. My friend Red helped a lot. He introduced me to a lot of people. He introduced me to people in the Underground Literary Alliance. My friend that runs Wing TV, Victor Thorn…he helped out a lot as well. Really, it’s connections with friends more than any mainstream publisher giving a shit.
GM: Did you encounter any scam artists or things of that nature while trying to get your book out there to the public because I know that a lot of publishing companies require an agent and you have many “agents” willing to take money without putting any real effort in?
I had agents when I first wrote it and somebody outside of St. Louis and I paid her 250 bucks and she sent me a Christmas card every year, and that was all she did. She’s a devil…I wish I remembered her name because I would tell you that I was going to get her (laughs). I got some scam artists, but I figured that I would roll the dice one time for the 250 bucks and it came up craps.
GM: I have referred to “Fat on the Vine” as the most honest book that I have ever read. How difficult was it for you to be so open and write such a book, knowing that it was going to go out to the public?
That was probably the ugliest time in my life. What was happening to me in that book was probably me going nuts, so it really didn’t matter what the public thought. It was just me bleeding….mentally bleeding…whatever.
GM: The book focuses a great deal on your mother, and her overly religious…near fanatical ways. Has she read your book and if so, what were her thoughts?
No, not at all. She’s petrified of it. My dad has seen the cover. She would say something like, “why don’t you write something that isn’t filth, so I can show it to somebody and be proud of you.” Honestly, in my old age, I don’t think she’s mean spirited…I think she’s afraid. She’s afraid of what the neighbors say…she’s afraid of her shadow. She’s afraid of germs. I don’t think that it comes from a mean place inside of her. I think she is just afraid. GM: Do you come from a family of writers? Oh no, a family of hillbillies.
GM: Because your book is so raw and controversial, are you afraid of any backlash from not only your family and perhaps even your work associates?
Oh yes, very much. I teach now and it’s part of my deal is to get published. One good thing is that it was ten years ago and the ones that would have been furious at me ten years ago have forgotten a little. I wrote it in my own special code and my own special spelling and language. I’m sure some people will be angry and try to trash me, I guess, but you kind of have to read it first. Ultimately, whoever trashed me would know I’m smart too, and ultimately, I’m harder on myself than anyone else and I thought that came through.
GM: Is this book the first in a series or is it dependent on if “Fat on the Vine” gets published and is successful?
I’ve written two other ones: “Dead in the Head,” which I would say is meaner, and “My Parent’s Medicine,” which is a little bit lighter. I come out of the darkness and get my Karma a little bit better. I have always thought of them as a trilogy, but if it took nine years for the first one, maybe expect Dead in the Head in 2016 and My Parent’s Medicine in 2025. You may as well keep the faith.
GM: How did your book signings go and how was that experience over all?
Pretty cool…actually. Maybe one of the better weeks of my entire life. The first one was in Baltimore with anarchist feminists and I came out and said, I know you are all poor…let’s all fight the power and we can trade panties for books, and the anarchist feminists didn’t like that. Then they called for some nutty Crazy Carl stories of me…or I should say the character, stealing shit, and the anarchist feminists didn’t like that. I apologized to them a lot on stage. Philadelphia was a ULA reading at a Satanist bookstore and actually the Satanist was cool, but he had a sign in the bathroom stating how long to hold the handle to flush it. I think that they have blood/sugar/sex/magic parties there, and we called my friend “The Big Handsome” from stage and a girl called on speakerphone and asked if she could come over to the Big Handsome’s house and cut herself and the Big Handsome said that it would be awesome. It was funny…the crowd laughed. New York was pretty fancy. I saw my friend from undergrad…had a nice dinner. Cleveland was Red’s hometown show, with two bands and like seventy-five people there. The main band was “The Dad of Rock.” In Chicago, Julie’s aunt was in the crowd. There were only seven or eight people there but it was really my best show, and my last show was in Pittsburgh…it was pretty fancy. They had a nice display for us. It was a really nice bookstore and my friend Lauren came…a little shout out.
GM: Was there any reaction from Julie’s aunt?
I never met Julie’s aunt. I have seen pictures of her. I’m 92% sure that it was Julie’s aunt. I send Julie a care package every year for her birthday and Christmas and I’ve never got a response. I sent her the book as well, and I’m just about sure that her aunt was in the crowd.
GM: I’m sure if you sent Julie the book she’d read it.
I’m just hoping that her parents didn’t read it. Her aunt was quite classy. If Julie’s aunt is reading this, she was quite classy.
GM: Overall, how has the reaction been to your book?
If I’m telling the truth…nobody really gives a shit. I have four more boxes of copies in my closet. We got some good media attention for the tour itself. We got some good attention from local newspapers. We had some pretty good write ups. I sent it out to fifty reviewers and you’re one of the few that is cool enough to contact me and talk to me and I’m still hopeful, but I don’t think that Oprah is going to call.
GM: Have you done any follow up with these fifty reviewers that you sent it to?
Actually my friend, Red…I’m not going to mention any names, but he would send it to a mainstream reviewer and a week later they were selling his book on EBAY. His book is “The Pornographic Flabbergasted Emus,” if I’m giving another shout out.
GM: You have been in 3 Campbell Brothers Movies: Midnight Skater, Demon Summer, and The Red Skulls. How did you get involved with the Campbell Brothers and are you planning a return to the movies?
Yeah, I would love to be in another one of their movies, but Luke is living in Cleveland now and Andy moved to Texas and I live in Iowa, so maybe some kind of summer visit in Cleveland maybe. Six or seven of those people were actually my students, in my English Class.
GM: It had to be weird for them to approach you…
It probably depends on how much of a freak I was. It probably wasn’t that tough at all.
GM: In Demon Summer, you throw a pair of women’s panties at the bullies, and in Midnight Skater, you buy drugs with women’s panties. Even in your book, you mention hiding women’s panties in a game box…
The Bigfoot: The Giant Snow Monster Game…I should say that if anyone is going into my parents’ house to look for that game…it’s still there, but just this summer, I took all the contraband out. So, the game is still there, but it is empty. The only thing that is in there is the Bigfoot Giant Snow Monster.
GM: I would hate to see it end up at a tag sale and some unsuspecting person picking it up and wondering why are panties included in a Sasquatch game…
Or my mother giving it away to my seven year old second cousin…
GM: So is that where it came from? Is there an inside joke about that women’s panties?
Maybe a little subtle self promotion. You can tell from the book. Fighting the power for big fat dudes, occasionally I would steal panties. Not from someone I thought was cool…maybe a distant acquaintance or from somebody at a party.
GM: Considering your creativity and skill as a writer, have you thought about writing a screenplay?
People have told me that I remind them of Jack Black and I should “Fat on the Vine” to him so he can win an Oscar. I thought about doing that about a month and a half ago and I still haven’t done it, but probably the next break I get, I might do it. The closest I would come to sending it to Hollywood is to send it to a guy like Jack Black.
GM: As far as horror films go, what are your favorites and why?
I thought that maybe you’d ask me this, and I read the variety on Scared Stiff Reviews, and I may have seen one of every seven you’ve seen and that comes, I think, from my small hometown in Virginia, where there’s one grocery store and one traffic light. Comic book dudes will say, “Dude you have to read this new comic…such and such,” and my little town had a CVS and they may have had a Batman and a Spiderman… but back to your question. I’m pretty fond of “The Shining.” That’d be in my top ten. Mother’s Day…I wouldn’t say that that was one of my favorites, but four in the morning and all f#$%ed up one night, that was on and it was on. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is obviously a classic. If I’m telling the truth…my dad’s pick up truck…the 1971-1972 Chevy pick up truck at the end that saves the girl…that’s my dad’s pick up truck. Horror movies for me to really love them, I’d like to think that they really happened, based on true stories and documented truth…that makes the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that much more exciting for me.
GM: Boxing…who got you interested in the sport and who are your favorite fighters?
My dad boxed in the Army, so he had always loved boxing. To tell you the truth all men from the 1950’s era, loved boxing. Muhammad Ali was the first one that I really noticed. I love Mike Tyson…not necessarily for the life he lived, but before he went on the meds, there was no social filter. Every celebrity says what they think we want to hear and for a long time, Tyson just said the first thing that popped into his head, and I loved that. I love Sonny Liston. I love the bad guy whether it’s professional wrestling or boxing. If it is set up with the good guy versus the bad guy, I’m always rooting for the bad guy.
GM: You don’t follow the sport now. Was there something that turned you off to it or was it just the decline and eventual disappearance of Mike Tyson from boxing?
I did my dissertation on professional boxing and wrestling. It took the better part of eleven years of me turning something in and the dude not liking it. I spent so much time writing about boxing and wrestling, that I was just about sick of it. Partly, I like heavyweights, and I’m a big dude, and I would think that the next time that a really big and talented heavyweight came around, it would peak my interest again.
GM: You said that you did your dissertation on professional wrestling and boxing. How much of a fan of pro wrestling were you?
When I was a kid, professional wrestling was my favorite thing. I am really starting to hate it now.
GM: I’m with you on that. I was raised on professional wrestling and the storylines are just horrible and it’s become like the music industry…empty and focusing on the bells and whistles instead of good dialogue and stories.
Honestly, once Vince McMahon pulled the curtain away and said that it was fake…and now the only real thing is when somebody dies or there is a tit slip. And now it’s like a bad Monday night soap opera.
GM: Do you have any closing thoughts for the readers and for the people that have and haven’t read your book?
My concept when I wrote it was blood real. What I put down on the page was what I was feeling at that time. I think that my Karma is much better now. I teach. I’m with nuns all day. I help people. I’m nice to people. If I was naughty in 1997, I can mature and grow and maybe change my Karma and do good work now. I wasn’t pulling any punches, if I’m talking boxing speech. If I can tell when I’m reading a book and somebody is being blood real, I respect that. They’re not spinning a plot or showing me how well they can write. They are just telling me the truth…their truth.
(Interviewer’s Note: Crazy Carl Robinson is one of the funniest people that I have ever met. His wit and humor come out on the pages of “Fat on the Vine,” and I am highly recommending it. If you want something different and something that will make you laugh and probably have you scratching your head a couple of times, this is the book. It is an amazing read.)
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