6.02.2025 Feature

Alright you all, here are some announcements I've been putting off:

So I have an offer to publish a book. It's a book I worked on for years, set aside, worked on again, rewrote, rewrote again, and now it's getting another rewrite so I can convince these folks and myself it's worth it. More about this when I know more about this but it's been a welcome if sometimes neurotic focus in recent weeks.

Also have at least one short piece being published this summer and quite a few more in submission limbo. We've been asked not to reveal any details about that until everything is official but kinda cool.

In the non-lit realm, I'm working with a partner to put together a new project to help mitigate some of the brain damage being done by the reckless spamming of AI tools everywhere. I have some experience in that industry and a lot to say about it. Will be getting into that subject in future WaG features as well.

I will also be implementing a paid subscriber option for Without a Gun soon. Closing in on 100 posts! Figure as long as we live in a market economy that places value on everyone and everything, artists and creative types should get compensation for their work. And I have this annoying condition that requires shelter and food. I'd do everything I do for free if I also had a decent place to live and health insurance, but well, that's one fight we all have to fight. Not sure what the model will be but I'll keep it affordable and the free version will still allow for access to most of what I post here.

And finally, I will be returning to the U.S. next month. I feel it's time and I want to find ways to help do what needs to be done. If you're around in any of these places at these general times, hit me up: Detroit and Traverse City in July, Chicago in August, Oakland (California) for the rest of the year after that.

Okay enough of that. Here's a sketch from some old material. Probably not quite how I would write this now but the theme (comedic humiliation) still feels relevant:

It’s August, the annual festival to celebrate the town’s primary agricultural crop. Floats are decorated with products made using the crop. A teenage girl wears a dress the color of the plant’s leaves. She rides on the back of a convertible Lebaron with the top down, waving weary waves at the commonfolk with all the forced grace of royalty. The parade begins a few blocks up the main street from your family’s house.  The high school marching band warms up with some Sousa for about an hour before the noon whistle blows with all the gravity of the air aid and tornado siren it was purposed to be. The next door neighbors set aside their police scanner and porch sitting for the afternoon and load up beers and lawnchairs.  You walk with them part of the way, making some pointless chatter without revealing your destiny. When you arrive in front of the community volunteer office, on the corner of one of the town’s main intersections, the paranoid bus driver who works for the place waves you over to where the horses were.  You are concerned that, well, anyone, but especially the girls you like and haven’t seen all summer, will see you scooping road apples into the wheelbarrow, and have any illusions about you as a viable makeout partner dispelled. Once you receive your instructions you dig from your back left pocket the Halloween mask you stuffed in there before leaving. It’s a generic monster face, neither werewolf nor vampire, with conventionally scary features and streaks of odd color running down to give an impression of decay.  The material is an industrial polymer, rubberlike in consistency, through which very little oxygen can pass. The nostril slits are nominal; the eyeholes just wide enough to see directly in front of you, and to know that you are wearing a mask. You make it pretty far without being recognized.  Then your friend Phil, who is obsessed with Air Jordans and notices everyone’s footwear, sees your Reeboks. He waves, obnoxiously, and says your name loudly and often, following you along the parade route, rousing the attentions of others. It’s hard to breathe in the mask, and the August heat swelters in your pubescent sweat glands. You are a stinky, oily thing, with a droopy monster face, scooping horse manure in the most centralized spectacle that ever takes place in your town aside from a Friday night home football game. You pass out in the middle of Main Street. The mask must be removed to keep you from suffocation. You wake up to Phil standing over you. ‘Oh man,’ he says. ‘Jesus, dude.’