Russian Corpse Dolls

It is really hard to keep up with the awesomeness that is Joe these days.  In the month of November alone, we've seen four short stories published, three poems published, another short story, what very well may be my best, the cannibal-driven The Meat, taken at Drunken Boat, three more pieces (essay, flash, poem) accepted for translation into Romanian, and for whose magazine, egophobia, I've been invited to be a regular columnist, and yesterday I received an email asking for permission to turn another short story ("In Cases Such As These") into a drama for KMVR in Sacramento.

And my payment for these things?  A big fat fucking not a dime.

Like when I ran into Jon Dempsey working at the old Country Farms in Berlin, CT, after I returned home from California following a few years of losing jobs and girlfriends and fucking up my dreams.

"Yeah," Jon said, slapping down an extra piece of juicy roast beef, "but you're living in San Francisco."

The idea sounds a lot more impressive than it is.

An up-and-coming writer versus a fat guy sitting at his computer.

(To which you say, "Who you kidding, Joe?  You're not fat!"  Damn straight.  16% body fat.  Which is good.  Of course, that's not George [5%] good.  But it'll have to do.  Until I get better.)

*

OK.  So we've got to upgrade this fucking thing.

This blog began as a joke, really.  I kept hearing (over and over and over) that I should start one, how I'd have so much to say, how it would be good for my career and (yawn).  I didn't know how to start a blog.  It took me, like, seven years after everyone else to even get a goddamn e-mail account (and I am one of like seven people left on the planet who still uses hotmail).  So just to shut everyone up, I did it.  Actually my wife did it.  Kind of like when my former poetry professor had to send out my submissions for me because I was so apprehensive and gun-shy.  After she set it up, I tinkered with the design to get this craptastic gem you see before you today.

But I look around at everyone else's blog, and feel like that goofy family of kids who lived on the Turnpike and wore the ill-fitting hand-me-downs and drank their tap from the poisoned mercury well.

I went trolling around the Internet last night, since I was having a bitch of a time writing, because I was feeling so down about my blog having all the visual appeal of a vegan Thanksgiving.

Found a few interesting distractions.  One was this awesome article by Chuck Wendig http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/11/03/writers-are-the-99/, which explores the 99% vs. 1% phenomena that has taken root, this idea of the writer as marginalized (along with everyone trying to carve out a living in the creative arts), which ties in nicely with the opening paragraph of today's entry.  I like being able to tie all these random thoughts together, more like an exercise, really, since all good writing is all about motif and parallelism (for a stellar example of this, see the other day's banking conceit http://tinyurl.com/6lt43u3).

Wendig, as usual, makes terrific points, doing what I try to do, only a fucklot better. But the sentiment is the same.  

Mostly, I walked away from his blog feeling envious.  Because his blog looks like a grown-up's, whereas mine looks like it designed by one of Harry Potter's lesser, ineffectual classmates.  (Speaking of Harry Potter, since when did he start dating my Amanda?

)

So I guess if we're looking for a theme today, it's coveting what we can't have. Amanda (http://tinyurl.com/89l4fmh).  A blog that makes me look like a professional.  To get paid for my work while achieving international fame and hot, awkward-looking Romanian chicks.

Of course, all my coveting can't quite touch this guy (and this guy definitely seems like a guy you wouldn't want to touch.)

Russian Man Stole 29 Corpses And Dressed Them Up As Dolls





In case you missed it, the dude's name is Anatoly Moskvin.  He is like a cemetery expert over in Nizhny Novgorod, a town in Russia.  And he really does look like the kind of guy who would dress up dead people for elaborate tea parties.  Here's an arbitrary link http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,796477,00.html, but it's pretty much all over the Internet.  Along with the pictures.

Usually he dressed the corpses as women, which I thought was interesting.  With blonde wigs.  I mean, if you are dressing up corpses, there are so many ways to go. You could have drinking buddies.  A sports' team.  A giant teddy bear.

OK.  Well, he did go the teddy bear route with one of the corpses.  But can you blame him?  In the corpse-dressing game, it's like the rock band "serious" shot.

But dressing them up like women says so much, doesn't it?  There are no reports he had sex with them (not that I've read).  Anatoly just want to be surrounded by girls dressed up pretty in a giant, never-ending tea party where he was the permanent guest of honor http://tinyurl.com/7czfgm6.  Is there a law against that?  OK. Probably several.

It's all about controlling our environment, no?  The work, the scenery, the people you want accompanying your life.  Some people are just more conventional than others.

I can understand Anatoly's point.  And not just because I've asked Justine to have me stuffed and set up permanently in the living room when I die.  The outside world, there are so many variables required to deem success.  Bosses.  Publishers. Women who say "yes" when you ask them to marry you.  Life is about circumvention.  Wall Street.  Publishing.  Love.  Anatoly simply did what Kirk did with the Kobayashi Maru: cheated at a game he was never meant to win.


Best I can do to tie all that shit in is leave you with a little Khan ear worm (which features, yes, a Russian).

I'll leave you to make the connection.