The Last Testicular Hero

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My personal trainer and I celebrate yet another triumph.

Yesterday I got a call from Guy Hoden, the deputy chief over at the department of testicular affairs. As you can imagine, things are in a tizzy over there, and he sounded frazzled.

“Look, Gessner,” he said. “We need your help….we are up against it here….”

“Anything for you guys,” I said, magnanimous as always. I am a great believer in supporting the fellow members of my tribe of one-balled men.

“Ok…well, it’s like this. With Lance down we need a new hero.”

I was flattered of course. The way to my heart is through my ego. But I’m also a realist.

“That’s very kind, Guy. But I’m a mid-list environmental writer. I’m no celebrity.”

I was hoping he would argue with me on that point, but he simply said:

“Look, it’s between you and Tom Green.”

I could barely remember who Green was–some MTV personality?–but was still a little flattered.

“And we couldn’t find Tom Green,” he continued.

Crestfallen, I asked what was expected of me.

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Adventures in RomneyLand IV: What a Cute and Cuddly Moderate…

categories: Cartoons / Cocktail Hour

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Bad Advice Wednesday: Have Way (with words)

categories: Bad Advice

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As a writing teacher, my favorite joke is one of Steve Martin’s.

“Some people have a way with words,” he said famously. “Others…not…have…way.”

This point, as you can imagine, is fairly relevant to a class full of people who want to be published writers. If you are going to try and be a professional athlete it’s helpful to be relatively athletic. And if your goal is to be a writer it helps to have an innate gift for words.

But why bring this up to a bunch of people who are already determined to become writers? Isn’t it potentially cruel to point out that some lack this gift? I prefer the word “realistic” to cruel. One thing a writing apprenticeship is about, on top of putting in thousands of hours of writing sentences and producing work , is finding out who you are, or at least who you are on the page. This process of discovery is not often started with clear eyes, but it better be ended that way. As full-fledged writers, we had better have at least a passing acquaintance with how our own minds work, with our particular quirks of imagination, and with a general sense of our strengths and weaknesses.

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Life Among Giants: An Amateur Makes a Trailer, and Hooks it to a Star

categories: Cocktail Hour / I Used to Play in Bands / Movies

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They say a man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client. But what about the man who makes his own book trailer? I’m thinking I’ll charge myself double, as I know a fool and his money are soon parted. But as Cato the Elder said: Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise (Cato the Younger was in The Pink Panther, as you’ll recall). So a word to the wise: much to learn here. For me. Or as my mother liked to repeat: Fools’ names and fools’ faces, always appear in public places. In HD! I wish I’d had a better director! Don’t worry, I’ll get back to I Used to Play in Bands soon. What’s that you say? Right. Better to read the book! Next: What do you call the writer who makes his own web site? Continue reading →

The John Hay Foundation

categories: Cocktail Hour

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So the other day I read in the paper that John Hay’s house was for sale.

So I got to thinking. Maybe we need something like this…….

The John Hay Foundation

John Hay was one of the great visionaries and writers of the last century. He put forth a vision of life that extended beyond the merely human, that reached out through imagination and empathy to nature and saw the world as a great biotic community of interrelated beings. His vision has never been as vital as it is right now, at a time of ever-increasing population growth, climate change, and the tearing apart of earth and sea in search of fossil fuels. With wildness and varied life everywhere under assault, we have much to learn from this celebrator and protector of all that is live and wild.

The John Hay Foundation will be a nonprofit organization dedicated to remembering Hay’s vision, and toward promoting both wild places and wild writing. The first mission of the Foundation will be to get Hay’s home on Dry Hill in Brewster designated as a landmark. It was here that John Hay made his stand, here his words came from, and Dry Hill remains an island of solitude in an overdeveloped sea. The house needs to be preserved as the home of Cape Cod’s greatest celebrator of the natural world. Continue reading →

Serial Sunday: The Weight of Light, Episode 4

categories: Cocktail Hour

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[Episode 4 of on ongoing story. 900 words this week, written at John F. Kennedy International Airport in NYC> Eventually we’ll have a category where the whole thing can be read in order, but for now, scroll down to start with Episode One if you missed it! And who didn’t?]

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The Weight of Light

Episode 4

“Magnum Opus”

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The Fedora is in a basement space, down five or six cement steps from the street, and old, one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the city. Ted walked down and looked—no customers as yet, so early in the day. Outside he held the pink underwear or maybe dildo bag and tried not to pace. This was a mission of mercy. A woman approached—she looked like she’d sounded, rather plump and a little short as her husband had been, her husband’s age, too, mid-fifties. Ted started to greet her, but she walked straight by with a cross look—wrong woman. Late for the appointment, a very tall, very distracted woman in a very straight black dress stopped, long bare legs. He’d paid no attention to her approach: not the person he’d pictured at all. “Mr. Swallow?” she said. Continue reading →