My Defective Muse

I need a muse.

I used to write more. Honestly. But lately, I've been spiritually bereft and devoid of ideas. I couldn't even come up with a decent blog post idea. Don't I deserve a muse? Haven't they served some of the greatest authors in history and inspired some of the best literature known to man? Hey, if it was good enough for Byron and Keats, then surely it's good enough for me.

I was thinking about this the other night as I started writing a story about a sentient chair that starts talking back to people when they sit on it. Oddly enough it just wasn't coming together, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Clasping my hands upwards in prayer, I cried out, "Sweet Muse, dear Muse. Please come and bestow your gifts upon me. Shower me with your golden prose and words of wisdom."

And she appeared. My Muse, my very own Muse, gliding delicately down from the ceiling. A misty blue light surrounded her, illuminating her pink taffeta dress and halo of blonde curls. Her soft features seemed to radiate with warmth and beauty. I was awestruck. I was beyond myself with anticipation.  I was enraptured.  I was…

"What the hell do you want?" she croaked in a raspy voice.

I was in trouble.

"You're my muse! I need inspiration!" I could already tell this wasn't going to go well.

"Oh, they all want inspiration." My Muse sighed wearily and flung herself onto the sofa. She unhooked the clasp on a pink purse and brought a couple of cans of Coors Light. Of course they were warm. "Here ya go sweetie", she said brightly, handing me one. "You need a good idea, huh?" She cracked open her beer with a loud pop.

"Well I have a good ide - yeah....I need a good idea."

"Well, I got a couple for you, I think." She opened up her purse again, took out a pack of Marlboro Reds, and shook one from its carton. "Whatcha ya got so far?"

I showed her my screen.

"What the hell is that?" My Muse laughed and exhaled a stream of smoke from one nostril. "A fucking talking chair? Boy do you suck!" 

"W-Well, " I stuttered defensively, "You're my muse. It's your fault I'm in this mess." The Muse rolled her eyes and flicked ashes onto my leather sofa. "Look," I pleaded, "Don't you have anything for me? A glimpse of inspiration? A crumb of wit? Anything?" 

"Well, I have something you could write about…" My Muse sighed and leaned back into the sofa cushions, one hand in her pink waistband.

"OK!" I put my fingers on the keyboard, ready to type.   

"But what's in it for me?" She sniffed her armpit and winced slightly. 

There are those who believe that muses are divine deities whose sole existence rests on their ability to arouse passion and inspire prose. The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, they are goddesses that spout words; jewels that fall from the sky and land upon their chosen vessels, like dew atop a gilded lily. She wasn't wasn't one of those muses.

.
"There's not supposed to be anything in it for you!" I screamed. "You're my GODDAMN MUSE!"

"Relax, Jesus Christ!" My Muse grinned and picked her nose with one perfectly manicured fingernail. "Don't get your Calvin Klein's all in a bunch."  

This wasn't working. Maybe I was just imagining her wrong. "Aren't there any, like, guy muses?" I asked. "You know, gorgeous hunky men with long flowing hair, deep booming masculine voices, strongly chiseled features and the bodies of Greek gods…"

My Muse sighed and blinked sleepily. "Oh, there are guy muses", she said, casually smashing a empty beer can on her forehead and tossing it behind the couch, "But they look nothing like Greek gods, I assure you. I've met a few. Fat little guys with thick glasses and no girlfriends. Live in their parent's basements. Guy muses are a dime a dozen sweetie." She paused and sucked thoughtfully on her cigarette. "But they only work on certain assignments mind you; sci-fi, really bad fan fiction, stuff like that." She threw the cigarette onto the carpet and stepped on it with one pink satin-clad heel.

"That's all they work on?"

"Well, it's a full time job isn't it?" My Muse countered. "I mean terrible fan fiction is all over the internet nowadays and somebody needs to inspire it. Do you even realize how difficult it is to write a sex scene between Harry Potter and Draco and make it sound believable?"

I let out an involuntary shiver.  The scary thing was, I think I did know. 

"Listen honey," My Muse said, pausing long enough to spit over her shoulder, "Why don't you just write about me. I mean, I'm an interesting person. I've got hobbies…"

"You?"

"I collect beanie babies." the Muse continued, oblivious to my interruption. "Turn-ons include tattoos and sunsets. Turn-offs; guys who cry and…"

"Why on earth would I want to write about YOU?!" I asked. This was getting ridiculous. 

My Muse leaned forward and smiled. "Look at it this way", she said, blowing a cloud of smoke in my face."Ya got nothing else. Either you write about me, or continue with your talking chair shit."

Then she belched.  

Inspiration struck.

Confessions of the Apocalypse

Okay, confession time.

I've been on Twitter way too much lately. I've been reading every political article my friends post on Facebook and even (god help me) the comments underneath. I've been watching the news before work and after work and also reading online articles.

The good thing is I know what's going on in the world. The bad thing is I KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE WORLD. And everything I see leads me to only one conclusion.

I mean it has to, right? We can't go on like this forever. Everything's painful, dark and dismal and racist and sad and depressing and generally horrible, so yep, we're all going to be very dead very soon. I'm sure of it.

The way I see it, the end of the world could come in two different ways. The first involves the earth exploding into a huge ball of massive destruction in what I'd like to call The Big Awesome Fiery Apocalyptic Crash of Epic Doom or BAFACED for short (and yes that acronym means nothing). All that will be left will be a mere whiff of ozone, some discarded Snicker wrappers and thousands of individual socks that still don't have a matching partner. Because irony.

The second, and far more likely, scenario, is zombies. Everyone thinks that if zombies took over, they'd be able to handle it. The truth is we'd all be worm food because no matter how badass you think you are, you still shriek when you see a small spider skitter across the floor. So when the inevitable zombie uprising happens, you're not suddenly going to become some muscular demi-god killing machine dispatching the undead with an unlimited supply of guns and ammo at your side. Nope, you're going to be the same person you were before. The type of person who pulled a groin muscle reaching for the remote while eating a Hostess Twinkie and watching The Walking Dead in their underwear.

Yes, the world is doomed.

But before all the mass destruction and potential brain-eating, I just need to get a few things off my chest. Some confessions of the apocalypse if you will. Full disclosure: some of these are stupid, some may be (slightly) controversial but all are totally true.

So here it goes:

*  I think Radiohead is overrated and I find Thom Yorke's voice to be whiny and annoying.

*  The Dark Knight was just okay.

*  Sometimes when you're talking, I'm paying attention. But usually I'm just Mystery Science 
    Theater 3000 riffing you in my brain.

*  I would marry book Sherlock Holmes if I could.

*  I honestly wouldn't marry TV Sherlock Holmes even if I could.

*  Nutella is just okay.

*  Those jeans DO make you look fat.

*  Captain Hook was misunderstood. 

*  Eric Idle once retweeted me. This may have been the high point of my life. 

*  I figured out the ending to The Sixth Sense and nobody believes me but honestly I DID.

*  The ugliest word in the English language is 'fart'.

*  I'd take Luke Skywalker over Han Solo any day.

*  I hate racists so I guess I'm kind of prejudiced that way.

*  I have never seen an episode of Dr. Who.

*  I ate the last cookie.

Well, that felt great. I can only hope that whatever being awaits us in the afterlife will forgive me of all the aforementioned sins and cleanse my immortal soul. Because I know some die-hards out there who are never going to forgive me for that Dr. Who one and some that may actually want to kill me over the Luke/Han one. Seriously. I might need to go underground until the world explodes.

So those were mine. Anything you'd like to confess before we all die? 😏 (Oh and sorry about that jeans thing. I just really thought you should know).

Chasing the Paper Dragon

Hello, my name is Cheryl and I am an addict.
                                                   

Hello Cheryl!

My story is typical. It started out small -  people started to give me the junk for free. But when that dried up, I had to pay for it. There's a place in Detroit where I find myself from time to time. It was once an old glove factory and looks...well...like an old glove factory. There's no air conditioning in the summer, no heat in the winter and everything's covered in a fine layer of dust. But in that dank dark place, I'd find everything I needed for my fix. So I'd go there every chance I could, no matter how terrible the conditions. You know what I mean?

Yes we know!
I don't.
Shut up Harold.

So I guess I should just finally say it out loud. I, Cheryl, am a used-book junkie.

You're probably pissed off right now. I don't blame you. The story of a drug junkie is far more compelling. Drug tales are awesomely tragic and the good ones have their story of staring into the abyss and then finding the courage to live again, all set to, what I imagine to be, a kick-ass soundtrack. Sadly I have no Hunter S. Thompson tales of wild head trips and the hardest drug I take is ibuprofen. And that's purely recreational.

You see, I love the look of an old book, I love the smell of an old book. I have come dangerously close to petitioning my local electives to allow me to marry old books. There's something incredibly romantic about a yellowed page, a bent spine, that unexplained tea stain on page 132 that didn't come from you. They're like little mysteries. You weren't the first one to read this book, there were others before. There's history in those pages. Also the thought of spending all day in a used book store fills me with more glee than it probably should.

But before you say this isn't really a problem....

It isn't.
Shut up Harold and let the lady talk.

The problem I have is that I keep on collecting books with no room to store them. Also I don't read them because I hate sitting still and have the concentration span of a small goldfish. So there they sit, collected and unread, piled under or over other discarded prose in my small storage space. I've rescued them only to banish them to the 7th circle of hell. Or whatever circle of hell fits. You see, I bought Dante's Inferno - but never bothered to read it.

One of my prized finds is a copy of Wuthering Heights with some awesome wood engraved illustrations. I haven't read it yet (of course) but I did read the book in high school, so that kinda counts, I guess. Anyhow, it wasn't only the artwork that intrigued me, it was a small inscription on the inside - Howard F Leitner Nov, 1943. I don't know who he was. I don't know if it was Howard's, or if he gave it to someone or how it ended up at John K King used books in Detroit. But there's a sense that we're connected somehow - through the pages of a beautiful book.

  

That's probably why I don't own a kindle. There's no real history in a Kindle. You can download novels to friends but there's no real love in that. And as for those explained treasures, like an inscription or a coffee stain, forget about it. You do either one of those things to a Kindle and boom - you've negated the warranty.  And if you borrowed it from someone, they are gonna be pissed.

So I guess the first step is admitting that I have a problem. The second step would be to probably do something to curtail the evil book jones I got going on, but I'll be honest. I have no plans to stop. You know, once an addict...blah blah blah.

Whew! So I got that off my chest. Felt really good. Any questions?

Yeah one. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?
Shut up Harold. 

An Introduction and an Explanation

Hello and welcome to my blog. First of all I can tell you that there won't be a consistent theme throughout all my posts. Most of what I write is dependent on mood swings, current fictional crushes, what I had for breakfast that day, etc. What I can tell you is that this isn't my first blog, although I've contributed to others.  I used to run a blog dedicated to horror films entitled Werewolves Beating a Dead Horse. It's still out there, although a bit neglected. Someday I might return to it.

Sooo...you might be asking yourself. Licentious Howler? Why that exactly? Well sit down a spell, pour yourself a cold glass of something good and let me tell ye the tale.

One morning around Christmas time, I woke up with a song in my head that I couldn't get rid of. After searching through the dusty file cabinets in my brain for half an hour I was finally able to figure it out. It was the traveling theme from Final Fantasy III on SNES.  I messaged my brother that he had to bring the game to Christmas because I had to play it. I knew not why, because I played it 20 something years ago (borrowed it from him then too) but I needed to play it NOW.

The one thing I remembered (apart from the music) was the beautiful illustrations by my favorite artist, Yoshitaka Amano. But I have to admit - time, along with memory lapses, made me forget a lot of the plot and characters. During my replay, I rediscovered Cyan. I LOVE CYAN. This is Cyan.

Anyways, during a strange moment in the game Cyan, who recently lost his wife and child, is propositioned by a woman of ill repute in a bar. He....doesn't take it well (understatement). "How DARE YOU! YOU LICENTIOUS HOWLER!" he cries and one can imagine his face twisting in fury as he screams at the poor girl who probably just couldn't resist his sweet ass 'stache and rampant machismo. He then goes on a rant about how proper women should have some decency and modesty before running into a wall and bonking himself on the ground. Morality hurts.

Not only did I fall in love with the character but I fell in love with the term 'Licentious Howler'. After playing that scene I wanted to start a band so we could call ourselves The Licentious Howlers. I wanted Licentious Howler to be my screen name for everything I signed up for. I wanted to adopt a wolf baby and name it Licentious Hower. But sadly, I lack sufficient musical talent, changing all my screen names would be a bitch, and wolf babies are not easy to come by so instead I decided to write a blog.

So that's the introduction and the explanation and if you've stuck around to the end of this post you've got a better concentration span than I do. Stay tuned for more silliness in the upcoming weeks.