In case you haven't noticed...
11:26 AM PDT, August 27, 2006, updated at 6:59 PM PDT, August 27, 2006
Since my last post, way back in the Eisenhower administration, Amazon has been kind enough, or foolish enough, to publish three more of my short stories. The King of Retail is pretty close to the sad but funny truth about my life in retail; You Were Right is a hopefully humorous if somewhat hostile suicide note from husband to wife; and Punishment, more of a literary effort, describes a guilty man's inner struggle and his attempt to punish himself.
I am also proud to be included in Rebellion: New Voices of Fiction, a new short story collection by a diverse group of writers. I know I'm supposed to describe the details of my breakfast or the recent burglary of my apartment or perhaps wax philosophical about the indisputable link between reality TV and skin disease in general (and grog blossoms in particular), but I just can't bring myself to waste that much of your time right now. Plus my nose has developed a reddish hue and I've got this rash on my-- A Million Little Towels (or... Would You like That Memoir Freyed?)
11:33 AM PST, February 1, 2006, updated at 2:15 PM PDT, June 13, 2006
In light of the Frey debacle, and in the spirit of shameless mendacity for dramatic effect and increased sales, I've decided to post an addendum to my prosaically truthful memoir, MORE TOWELS. Please open your textbooks and feel free to sing along, since it is for you, the readers, that I am risking my bad name and reputation. Yes, it is my hope that my book will help others to quit playing music and become wealthy liars.
On page twelve or so I would like to add the following imaginary event: After the concert I had moderately pleasurable coitus with the entire Captain Beefheart band and road crew and their spouses and pets. When we were finished and I'd washed behind my ears, the band's first cellist, Flippo Czsklvnski, drilled my teeth without an anesthetic. In fact she didn't use a drill. She used a can of Sterno and a blowfish. I died in childbirth a month later, which wasn't too bad because I was reanimated and woke up in prison in what would have been Chapter 4 B if I'd known I could just make this shit up. Wheeee. Chapter 4 B: Prison Sucks and Stuff Wherein the prison guards, armed with bazookas, crowbars, cudgels and Chicken McNuggets, kept most of my body in one prison cell while my one and only true love's entire family shared another with my toes and eyelashes. It was awful. I just had to lie there wiggling and blinking while these people (they were like family to me except that they never once asked me to cosign) used an accordion and a slide trombone to commit mass suicide. I hocked the instruments after I escaped because I am a bad person. Insert anywhere: I never slept with that woman. But I could have. Chapter 6 C or D: The Great Escape By this time, seventy-three years into my ten-minute prison term, I'd become quite famous for my whittling and being one extremely tough hombre. There wasn't a prisoner or a guard in the whole damned penitentiary who didn't own and cherish one or more of my fine hand-whittled weapons. Now, you might think they would have been expecting something like this, but I caught the guards off guard. I had a 9mm automatic Fedexed from Wal-Mart to my cell and over the course of three ballet lessons I whittled and whittled, rarely stopping to rehearse. By the end of our first performance of Swan Lake (a stunning success) I had fashioned the most realistic bar of Ivory soap you've ever seen. It even floated! Not that they could have stopped me with those soap guns I'd sold them, but the guards didn't even seem notice when I stole the old German motorcycle and jumped the barbed wire fence, which is why they'll probably deny this after I publish my book and become famous. Insert anywhere: I have three large and rather attractive gonads, Garth, Llewellyn, and Sid "the chin" Farber. They can sing show tunes like nobody's business. I'm thinking of hiring a fourth, named Leonard. Chapter 11 C: Death to My Enemies After drinking sixteen cases of Jack Daniels and shooting heroin into my eyeballs I hacked my entire band to death with a plastic shoehorn. What choice did I have? I was drunk. And stoned. And high. On uppers and downers, and diagonals. Glue sticks in each nostril and a sewing needle in my makeup bag. I had a headache. Plus Sid had laryngitis and I had to sing Alto. Insert anywhere: I invented the Internet. But Microsoft screwed it up. Chapter 14 B ver. 2.1: I Can't Wait to Lie to Oprah Sometimes I have dreams of being on television and being really famous for being an idiot and one tough hombre. But then, right in the middle, the dreams change and I get famous for being a completely different kind of idiot and not quite so tough. Oh well. Insert anywhere: We have proof that Saddam Hussein has nucyular weapons. Chapter 49: Who Needs Twelve Steps When You Can Take a Taxi? I don't know what time it was when I woke up but there was a hole the size of Donald Trump's left eyebrow in my spleen and I looked around and noticed I was lying on my back on stage with the Rockettes and I reached up to feel my face and all that was left was half of my head and it was the top half (which made keeping it connected to my neck a little difficult) and the top half was always my least favorite half unless you separated it (my head) vertically in which case the left was my absolute least favorite of all although some people, usually children, say they prefer it. Damned crack and various other drugs! I tried to focus: Kick, two, three, four, kick, two, three, four. I pulled myself up and grabbed the remains of my head by the hair and rested it on my neck and straightened up and checked my fly and said to myself, Why do you always have to use drugs and be a tough hombre and shit? Because it makes a good story. Everybody loves to read about people who hit rock bottom and become reprehensible and stuff. That's why they watch Jay Leno. Did he hit rock bottom? No, but he sucks. Is this the bottom? I don't know. I think so. It looks a little like Radio City Music Hall. Don't use any more drugs, okay? Okay then. Good answer. Keep it up and maybe I can get you on Oprah. That'd be swell. Want some heroin? No thanks. I tried to trick you. You did? Oh, wow! Don't worry, you passed the test. Go, me! You're cured. Now go and write some reprehensible lies. Okeedokee, artichokee. And maybe you'd better start working on a pathetic apology, just in case. No prob. Or really, a sort of half apology where you say you did it to save the world and end poverty and annoying phone calls. Hey, I lied before and I can lie again. Kick, two, three, four. Sing it, Sid! I never slept with Alexander Haig.
11:35 AM PST, January 25, 2006, updated at 9:02 AM PST, January 29, 2008
Only rarely are writers offered an opportunity to
communicate with their audience. But thanks to Amazon's new program I
am now sending this message, not to just one or two, but to all five of my readers.
If you enjoyed my work – whether you read my memoir, More Towels, or one of my Amazon Shorts – I want to thank you and assure you that there will be more to come, hopefully soon. I am currently working on a growing collection of short stories ranging from the literary to the ridiculous, and I have two novels I'm hoping to get published before I croak. If, on the other hand, you did not enjoy my work, I sincerely hope you'll always think of me as Tammy Fay Baker. She's used to bad press. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments about my work, this message or my socks: Point that thing somewhere else! Here, for anyone interested, are my current offerings:  Punishment  The King of Retail  Philip Waning gas 'n snack  You Were Right More Towels: In Between the Notes  Rebellion: New Voices of FictionI am honored to be included in this new short story collection. Bambidextrous
7:12 PM PST, December 25, 2005, updated at 6:38 PM PST, January 31, 2006
adj. able to pet young woodland creatures equally well with either hand.
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Bio
No matter what else was going on in the Jarrett household while I was growing up, there was always music playing (or being played). I suspect an interest in and aptitude for music served both as a comfort and a refuge for the five Jarrett brothers when the faulty structure of our family finally began to crumble. So it is no wonder that I eventually pursued a career (or perhaps an identity) in music.
But after far too many years of dissatisfaction and frustration I realized I wasn't doing this for my own gratification, and, though I worked regularly and got laid often, I certainly wasn't making a lot of money. Worse than that, I wasn't a particularly gifted drummer. This, I realized (with the emotional reaction I generally reserve for imminent doom), was not a healthy combination. After a minor career in business, I decided that if I didn't do something I loved my head would pop open and a giant question mark would emerge before I expired of bitterness and shame. And so I write. And I love to write. Sometimes. There are times when I prefer having written, having created something I'm proud of (if only until I read it again a week later). But my work matters to me and I want it to matter to others. Although my writing has made me a better, happier person, I don't expect it to change the world. Still, it would be encouraging to learn that something I wrote induced heartfelt laughter or tears, to know that the work I love provoked deliberation, introspection or irritable bowel syndrome.
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