There aren't many happenings that incite me yank out clumps of my own hair and scream, "These deals are INSANE!" like some shill from QVC, but get a load of this: a Kindle app can easily be procured on newfangled smartphones ranging from the iPhone to (I forget their competitors but I'm pretty sure those indestructible Nokias from 2002 are out of the running).
http://www.amazon.com/More-Stories-Additional-Nick-Olig-ebook/dp/B00PJB4XPS
I should have brought a celebrity on-board to help me peddle this product. Did you know "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan made an appearance in Fond du Lac, WI, recently? Was it for purposes of wrestling, brandishing a 2 x 4, and promoting the Stars and Stripes? You're damn right, it was. And I didn't even think to kidnap him by leading a trail of rare Bald Eagle coins and steroids into a commandeered van. Idiot! My next opportunity won't arrive until county fair/Walleye Weekend season, summer 2015, when my options will be limited to the drummer from Whitesnake and that regionally semi-famous carnie known for his ability to go down on himself.
Anyway! I guess I have to steamroll ahead on my own. My eBook is titled More Stories, and Additional Stories. You want more reasons to buy it already? Damn. It's never easy.
Well, for starters, I've had an inclination for writing comical stories since I was in grade school. From that time to high school, through college when I got my first paychecks for winning contests and contributing to my college's newspaper, continuing into a post-college era in which I've freelanced and published a rookie effort (There Will be Blog), and enduring into my late 20's and beyond when I finished a much better second book, I have always been improving and borderline freaking obsessed with writing funny material. It's both leisure and work to me, and I love the challenges. Basically anytime I check my account balance or hear somebody nonchalantly saying they never read (which sometimes elicits a high five), I am reminded of those challenges I have forced myself to love.
Do you want me to rip out more clumps of my already depleting hair to get you to purchase something that clearly has less value than paying your multitude of bills or buying groceries and meth? Phew! OK, here are some more words. Holy pot of coffee, this calls for a breakdown of all 34 chapters.
Top Stories: Narratives, two-thirds of which relay personal calamity and nostalgia, 33.3 repeating percent of which are impersonal, outrageous farces.
1.) The Cat Lady and the Munsons: I reminisce about childhood visits to my friend Willy's neighborhood, which were immortalized by the titular characters: a decrepit old woman who supposedly shunned the material wealth she inherited in favor of crashing in her dingy garage and surrendering her house to feral felines and secondly, an endearingly white trash family (in memories, anyway) known for stealing Hi-C juiceboxes straight from the factory and devoting Friday nights to watching murder-porn.
2.) The Knife Salesman: Mired in an employment slump I thought college graduates were supposed to be immune to, I venture on a Greyhound bus south to Chicago for a job interview at Pierce Marketing, a company that sells knives. During a demonstration at headquarters, surrounded by a younger and equally desperate crowd, I realize I'm basically part of an infomercial hustle. The prospect slowly devolves into an obvious scam and I'm left to crack disillusioned jokes and explore my big city dreams (mostly in my mind).
3.) April Fool's Day: As the proud possessor of a job, albeit a crummy one that was teetering on bankruptcy, and a revamped interest in women--especially the ones out of my league--I scheme to move out of my parents' house by asking a friend if I can move into his house. He says yes. What could go wrong? Is it remotely possible my friend's bachelor status could change within a 72-hour time span in which he agreed to also let his new girlfriend and her baby stay at his modestly sized house too, and that I would have no idea this was going to happen, but I'd find out on April Fool's Day? You bet. I have a knack for finding myself in comedyz of errorzzz.
(I've never cared for Spellcheck when I was trying to prove a point.)
4.) Coach, The Short Story: For the first time in this collection, I check myself out of the action, probably watching the proceedings from the penalty box. This story is about actor Craig T. Nelson's trip to the Daytona 500. The star of Coach encounters Mike, an awestruck fan whose vocabulary becomes shockingly limited in the presence of his idol. The two become fast friends and the friendship quickly leads somewhere a bit more R-rated than friendship. Whether that "R" stands for "Romance" or "Regret" is up to the reader to discover.
5.) White Knows Candy: An affable yet naive candy shop owner named Skip White finds himself embroiled in a local controversy in the wake of the slogan he expresses in his TV commercial: "White Knows Candy!" Though the third-person-speaking White has no comprehension of cocaine-lingo, he is forced to defend himself on Hard Focus, a local news expose replete with a conniving host, a moral crusader, a disgruntled coke-head, and a comedy legend who got defamed about a week before I released my second book. Nice timing, Cosby!
6.) Hammer Plays Monopoly: Intertwining personal and impersonal narratives, I play a game of Super Monopoly with my two best friends--only I imagine myself in the role of MC Hammer, living large (at first), then haplessly overspending and making poor investment choices and agreeing to property trades sure to haunt Nick as Hammer as he nosedives into bankruptcy in a three-act tragicomedy.
Entertainment: A nice jumble of impersonal and personal topical pieces about television, movies, and music--starring the Ultimate Warrior, Batman, Billy Joel, and Brian Wilson (the new face of Mount Rushmore?)--with a lot of narrative structure.
7.) Pitches for Reality Shows: Yes, I know my enemy, as the Rage song goes, and for a writer in a prolonged audition period, the popularity of stupid reality shows (I'm leaving out Cops but that's about it) is a source of frustration. Thankfully, revenge comes easily, if not profitably, since those stupid reality shows are incredibly easy to ridicule. I devise three of the monsters, getting into the minds of three men who offer pitches to once-respected cable channels. "Loose Cannons in Cleveland," for one, expresses the appeal of Hal Galboni, a brash and uncontrollable cop who gets transferred to Cleveland as part of the new "Loose Cannon Exchange Program," in which all of America's aspiring Dirty Harry's are traded for mild-mannered cops to the city LeBron makes famous.
8.) When Jersey Shore Ruined Fist Pumps: A couple years after I started a blog, this one, Jersey Shore became a phenomenon more readily associated with fist pumps than I am. Now, that was a perfect shit-storm for some South Park reminiscent, ruthless comedy vengeance, so I envision how quickly those sleazy oxygen-wasters would be torn apart in the "so popular I should never do this again" zombie apocalypse hypothetical. For good measure, I include myself in such a cataclysmic SITUATION (see what I did there... huuuhhh?!), and my plight becomes unwillingly similar to the cast of that program my friends should be embarrassed to have watched.
9.) Ultimate's Upbringing in Parts Unknown: Included in the beginning is an email I wrote to the then-living wrestling legend, to which Mr. Warrior replied, and I'll always be grateful for that gesture. That intro segues into an overview of what his formative years must have been like in the fantastically kooky town of Parts Unknown, from where the Ultimate Warrior claimed he hailed.
10.) A Slow Night in Gotham City: Eschewing epic bouts with the likes of Bane, I picture Batman during a surprisingly innocuous shift in which he busts some "baby-faced burners" smoking pot behind a gas station and fails to bring to justice The Littering Menace.
11.) Bad Zombies vs. Worse Zombies: In this more scholarly but still funny essay, our new-found cultural interest in the undead is explored retrospectively in a breakdown of The Return of the Living Dead, known for its intelligent corpses who are invulnerable to brain bashing. An indie horror filmmaker I know from college said he really liked it, so you know it's legit.
12.) Billy Joel Is My Generation's Dad: To the children of Baby Boomers, I have found this title to be completely true. The Piano Man has so much to teach about the human capacity for both greatness and embarrassing crap. He is portrayed in the story as an every man Boomer Dad at various points in his life, beginning with the startling promise of the aforementioned "Piano Man" through his fleeting years as an awesome husband in "Just the Way You Are" to his gut-wrenching infidelity in "A Matter of Trust," with a conclusive "River of Dreams" hint at redemption.
13.) Brian Wilson's Sgt. Pepper Journal: Also a narrative about a fascinating rock star, this chapter imagines the journal entries the Beach Boys visionary wrote while listening to The Beatles psychedelic foray with a head swelling with acid. The account of Wilson reducing his boundless talent within the four creeping walls of a drug-fueled shut-in continues the book's recurring trend of providing pathos in unexpected moments... between jokes, of course.
14.) The Danger Zone Mix: Having watched Top Gun the night before, musings about "The Danger Zone" expressed by Kenny Loggins are fresh in my off-kilter mind during a lengthy conversation I have with my friend Willy. With me spearheading the subject, we cover what kind of vehicle we'd want to drive on the highway to the Danger Zone, ponder what monstrosities lurk in such a perilous place, and discuss which songs we'd like to listen to on the way there.
15.) We're an American Band, For What It's Worth: In this ambitious essay with some narrative elements, I hike up my rock 'n' roll nerd suspenders and get down to the sordid business of best identifying America's most accomplished answer to The Beatles, or greatest band. It's arduous, maddening, and everyone who responds to my big question disagrees. Some people downright hate the idea. But I power through the A-side and work out a decent compromise on side-B, a deeply controversial (to those with rock 'n' roll suspenders) lineup of America's most superlative bands, formatted like a baseball lineup
Local News: Impersonal accounts not unlike the fake news in the general style of the detached smart-ass material you might have read in The Onion, only I introduce them all in my own voice to prove maybe I'm not a total lunatic for doing this.
16.) The Soil Satan Goes out of Business: Founded by Vince Wally Vincent, whose viewpoint is expressed in the filming of the commercial for his going-out-of-business sale, the Soil Satan, which was meant to be a clever display of oneupsmanship to that other vacuum company, the Dirt Devil. Sadly, the Soil Satan outlet quickly became the battle grounds of raging Satanists and protesting Christians. They engulfed the store in turmoil, and while engulfed, few purchased vacuums. VW Vincent tells the world what else went wrong with his Soil Satan venture and drunkenly ponders his future as a brick is hurled through the window.
17.) Grunk Gets Ink Done: After leaving a heavy metal concert, the main character Grunk (I never got his birth certificate) has dragged his girlfriend to a 24-hour tattoo parlor in downtown Chicago. In his pretentious and indecent bluster, Grunk rambles on about the various images he might want etched into his flesh forever, which include remarkable visions like a Ford peeing on Calvin as he pees on a Chevy.
18.) Bitch Objects to being Called a Ho: Filming of a rap video goes awry when the MC, Choco Ballz, mistakenly refers to one of the bitches as a ho. The bitch mistaken for a ho, Bajama Jones, unleashes an attack on the rapper for his faux pas, and rookie rap video director Jake Hostetler, a Northwestern film grad, simply lacks the savvy and street cred to control the situation. It's a sad day for not only bitches, but hoes as well.
Sports: When I'm beside a TV, there is always a portion of my brain that is wishing I was watching Sports Center. Using a lot of jokes, my fondness for baseball, football, and basketball are expressed, as are some thoughts on pro wrestling. (Because pro wrestling has a sense of humor, and I honestly do like it more than soccer.) If you're absolutely not into sports whatsoever but you'd still care to read the rest of More Stories, and Additional Stories, by all means, skip around, and demand that I owe you $.50 the next time I see you.
19.) Sportsball Entertainment: I explore the trend of more-mainstream and legitimate sports leagues like the NFL, the NBA, and Major League Baseball becoming so dubious and sketchy that it's possible to compare them to pro wrestling. Brett Favre's NFL career was basically a pro wrestling character arc, for instance. The NFL's short-lived replacement refs of 2012 may have been WWE transplants. Steroids and NBA refs convicted for fixing games are other parallels cited in this essay that's mostly for just fun but does have its genuine moments of sports-disillusionment... But IT'S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT!
(Sorry. I had to. Inside joke.)
20.) Nobody Brought a Football: With a huge shift in tone, this story is a total farce and can be appreciated by anyone who has seen a car dealership commercial starring a regional football star and noticed that A.) the football player is a lousy actor who reads hackneyed lines, and B.) the football player is invariably brandishing a football. Moments before filming such an ad, Brock Walton, the vile and foul-mouthed star, demands that a football be brought to him, and when the production assistants are slow to produce one, the lineman launches into a tirade and berates the pigskin-forgetting crew.
21.) The Day Job Basketball League: In response to the naysayers of the NBA who claim the Association is bunk even though it's played by some of the best athletes on the planet, I provide a proposal for a league composed of teams with regular jobs such as barber, janitor, and police officer. The strengths and weaknesses of said vocation-teams are covered, like the Migrant Workers' ability to endure for 48 minutes and three overtimes without keeling over and the Painters' dependence on ladders to reach high elevations.
22.) Cubs Fan's Plea to Nephew: In spite of the fact that Teddy Roosevelt was the president when the Cubs last won the World Series, I offer my baby nephew reasons why he should cheer for them. I sentimentally interweave a story about my mom recovering from a stroke at the same hospital when my nephew was born and ask him to consider lessons about hope and perseverance.
Opinion: Specific outlooks on a range of topics are expressed by me or a character in the deranged form of an Opinion column in the newspaper.
23.) The Appendix Is a Lazy Psycho: I vent my frustration with the vermiform appendix, truly our most useless organ, and if that wasn't bad enough, that squirmy freeloader also has violent impulses that can manifest in a dreaded appendicitis--the messenger of death of Oregon Trail infamy.
24.) Down with Santa: My denouncement of the odd tradition we have of lying to kids in order to commercialize Christmas and later disenchant them with the truth culminates in a letter to be given to my nephew when the time comes to break the Santa-news. In this letter, I apologize for all the other lies, including the one about Uncle Nick owning a Gumdrop Hovercraft that would disappear whenever he said the magic words
25.) Phony Write-in Candidates Are No Joke: My personal regret for voting for write-in candidates with obscene names segues into a letter written by (fictitious) guidance counselor from high school. Mr. Dinkle oversaw many elections for class government tainted by the "not-at-all-funny" likes of LeBong James, Nelly Fartado, and Mike Hawk.
26.) Porn Parody Titles Are a Serious Problem: I relay a personal story about passing written tests and shining in two interviews only to be denied acceptance for a job at Family Video, which segues to me consulting with the returning Mr. Dinkle for words of encouragement. He explains why an upstanding young man like me should be thankful about the rejection since Family Video has warranted his scorn for renting dirty movies to his teenage son. The atrocities wrought by the video store and its offerings of Ho Malone and RoboCock are decried in absurd fashion by a righteously misguided Mr. D.
Personal Ads: Quirks more so than opinions of mine about how I relate to the world around me are mused on with humor, thought, and emotion.
27.) The Mario 2 Outlook: Using the iconography of Mario as a backdrop, I argue for the merits of 2 over its more popular bookends 1 and 3. But this piece is really about the personality traits we can discern from someone based on what their favorite Mario-for-Nintendo game is. I make a heartfelt case for the Mario 2 personality, because it recognizes misfits, teamwork, variety, democracy, strengths and weaknesses of character, levitating princesses, no time deadlines, bottles of potion we can smash to open a door to a new dimension, and in the end, it was a lot of fun but we find out it was only a dream.
28.) Online Dating Misadventures: With that good old "laugh at my pain" sentiment, I cover the longing for company that comes to single folks on Valentine's Day, and that transitions into me exploring dating sites in frivolous, haphazard fashion. Christian Mingle is ruled out because I don't want to date some dude named Christian.
29.) Fear of Motorcycles: A narrative thread of my time in Chicago resurfaces (before the big finish in the Windy City), as I recall how much a former roommate of mine swooned for men on motorcycles. Personally, I hate motorcycles 'cause they're so damn loud and dangerous, but ultimately, I acknowledge that it's the sexual appeal of a Son of Anarchy that really irks me (since that's the opposite of me and I would prefer to do the deed more often). Both motorcycles and Nick are torn apart and recycled for parts.
30.) Too Sad to Dance: The woeful history of my dance moves is chronicled, starting with shoddy performances in junior high but improving (slightly) to attentive-yet-sometimes-rhythmless cover band follower to capable-enough-to-earn-some-post-reception-smooching-on-a-party-bus level. My description of the ageless and lovely tradition of shaking your booty and meaning it at a wedding reception is a redeeming way to offset that occasional and haunting feeling I get that I'm simply too sad to dance.
31.) Blow Sucks: I compare and contrast alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine, and conclude that it doesn't take a genius to determine that cocaine is the worst by far. It's a horrible drug and an easy PSA with jokes. I explain the logistics of importing and exporting through our orifices and deem the nose a bad importer, ramble how the differences between a weed movie like Half-Baked and a coke movie like Scarface CLEARLY favor the former, and spin a little narrative reflection at the conclusion.
Obituary: You recall that "Nick is dead" craze that thrilled roughly forty people until they realized it was only a hoax? Well, maybe this is what gave them the wrong idea.
32.) My Dumb Eulogy: In the preface, I reason that I'll soon be delving into darker territory regarding death--yes, harmless death--and offer an account of how I think my eulogy would read many years from now (provided the robotic eulogizer lies a lot).
Bottom Stories: The most personal, best, darkest but I'm still cracking jokes, darkest but sometimes I don't even crack jokes, and painful but totally worth it stories I've done so far.
33.) Nestled with Kooks: When I was 23 and on the cusp of graduation college, a mental breakdown that had been building for a while culminated in regrettable (yet ultimately just sad) behavior that led me to a two-week internment in a mental hospital. I encounter a fellow-patient with terrible bathroom etiquette, a paranoid schizophrenic with a heart of gold (and a mind that might as well have been protected by a tinfoil helmet), and visit with friends and family who eventually provoke me to spill my guts about what torments me most in this life.
34.) Love and Dread in Chicago: Back in the 2nd City, I've found the closest thing I've ever had to true love luring me into a bedroom in her bra and panties, only Maggie and I get interrupted. By a wide array of problems that I have either caused or seemingly been cursed with. I see no solutions. But in the end, I see otherwise--or at least, I still see no solutions, but that's beside the point.
Did you make it this far? HOLY FUCK! High five. Please buy More Stories, and Additional Stories--or if you don't, then just force 20 people to do it instead.
Thanks!
