Bill O’Reilly, Women’s Shoes and a Cucumber

O’Reilly, Women’s Shoes and a Cucumber

By SJR

(JACKSONVILLE, Fla) - An old Inside Edition video of Bill O’Reilly A.K.A. Bill O’Asshole - everyone’s favorite loud-mouthed, racist, dickhead - surfaced recently and has been making the rounds on the web. The video exposes ole’ Bill for the ill-tempered, douche bag he obviously is. The video-rant by itself is pretty funny to watch because Bill makes a real ass of himself by throwing a tantrum on camera.

CBS has removed the video from YouTube citing “copyright infringement,”…yeah, right. I can just see Bill now trashing his apartment and shouting at his computer screen while wearing his black leather gimp suit with the zipper mouth.

Anyway, what I found even more amusing were some of the responses that the video received, in particular one written by a blog commenter on Gawker known only as “VirusWithShoes”. This shit had me laughing out loud. So, without further ado I present to you, “Bill’s Special Alone Time“:

“Every night, a naked Bill O’Reilly sits hunched over in a dark and airless closet surrounded by untold numbers of boxes of women’s shoes. He opens up a pair of sling-backs, and sniffs them until he almost passes out. When his face is red enough he carefully boxes them away, childlike in his movements, already missing the feel of the leather against his face. Quickly, he then takes a rapidly softening whole cucumber and forces it down his throat, fighting the gag reflex while wanting even more. With tears streaming from his eyes, and his body shaking from the exertion, he mumbles a mantra of self-hatred inaudibly into the darkness and onto the cucumber. After 30 minutes of Bill’s Special Alone Time he slowly pulls it out, enjoying the sensation of it moving from his throat, past his tongue and into the dank air of the closet, the smell of the vegetable and his fevered saliva reminding him of the time he fell out the sycamore tree when he was 6 and bumped his head on a rock - the exact moment in his life when everything began to make sense to him.

His voice is reborn.

He stands slowly, awkwardly, his body stiff from holding the same position for too long, though to him - always not long enough. He reaches out to the shoe boxes to help him steady himself. Salty beads of sweat run down his chest, trickles from the pools in his armpits and under his breasts, cooling as rapidly as his innate anger is warming. His penis - an object of disgust to him for so long now - is as hard as it’s going to get without chemical help. His toes clench and unclench with a staccato rhythm of their own. He opens the closet door, and looks at the poster of John Wayne hanging on the inside - the man he always wanted to be, but never could be, no matter how much he screams into footwear or chokes himself on cucumbers. Wayne looks back with his dead eyes - a two-dimensional construct of a dream that never was.

Bill’s chest hitches, and he starts sobbing. Snot runs down his nose, his mouth opens wide and green stains frame this most silent of screams. He cries for all men, for all America. But mostly, almost exclusively, for himself.

Spent, empty, Bill steps into the shower. Runs it as warm as possible. Until it burns. His tears mix with the water.

His fear, his hatred, his shame - his anger. They all fall down the drain.”

The Art of the Muxtape

I am totally diggin’ on the Muxtape concept. It reminds me of the old days when we would create a mix on two reels of plastic gold and share them with whoever was willing to trade some good tunes. In fact, I’m so goddamn old now that I have a boxes of mix tapes from the old days that have un-played and forgotten mixes still on them. I seriously need to invest in a cassette converter for my pc. Long live the old school…

Back in the day you could create a mix for a girl you were crushin’ on, a mix for a homeboy, a mix for cruisin’ down the boulevard, a booty mix, whatever. It was when people listened to their music instead of inhaled it. You had to time the space between tracks, had to have a good intro, a good outro, etc. No longer can you go to the flea market and buy an underground mix tape like you used to. These days cassettes are for old people and…well, old people.

The mix tape was an art form. It was something that you put a lot care into creating. You titled your mixes and went to great lengths to do so. It is way too goddamn easy these days to make a “mix” on your mp3 player. Who cares? And who is going to hear it besides you? There is no creativity or art that goes into making them. Mixtapes made some artists what they are today. Just ask Skinny Black…

As much as I hate to admit it, we all must change and conform to the new styles or wither away and die as technology sweeps over us like so many plagues from the past, hence, the Muxtape. Though Muxtapes utilize .mp3’s they still have much of the creative spirit that went into creating the mix tapes of old. The mixes are limited in number so you have to be picky about what you mix and also how you order the tracks. It’s fun and it’s a great way to discover music from other people.

I have found tracks on Muxtape mixes from the old days that brought back lots of memories. It makes me think of the old systems we used to play our mixes on; big-ass boom boxes with silver knobs and lots of buttons, 6×9 speakers stacked in the rear window of your ride. Good times.

Anyway, I encourage you to check out the site and check out a few mixes. It is addicting and a lot of fun.

Here are some Muxtapes of note:

http://thebrokenforum.muxtape.com/

http://datadreamer.muxtape.com/

http://forty4.muxtape.com/

http://misgatos.muxtape.com/

http://ezd.muxtape.com/

http://de1.muxtape.com/

http://hiphop.muxtape.com/

http://thrillistcoachella.muxtape.com/

Feel free to comment with any good mixes you find - I am always looking for good tunes.

- peace

Room 206

- from a forthcoming short story

Room 206

by s. joaquin rivera

The pager said room 206. This was it. This was an “unknown” call. This was what I had been waiting for all those months in class. I could not have been more nervous. As we approached the door you could hear loud Mexican porn playing on the television. Wes started laughing and captain Rhodes elbowed him. The captain cautiously opened the door and the smell was horrifying; David, the other rookie besides myself that day, threw up onto the concrete below. I was happy that I was able to fight it off, though the urge to follow suit was strong. Disgusted, the captain told him to take it outside.

There were dark blood stains leading from the window to the kitchen area but no other signs of anyone being at home other than the rotting corpse in the middle of the kitchen floor.

It did not matter as I drew my weapon anyway. The whole place was littered with the remnants of failure; crack pipes, pizza boxes, Chinese take-out and trash everywhere. The broken liquor bottles and empty beer cans were mixed together in piles among torn up pieces of mail and photographs. There were portrait pictures everywhere with tiny holes poked into the eyes giving the people a creepy, soulless look.

We all stood there for a moment looking at each other and listening for anything when the phone rang. It startled me and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The answering machine on the table picked up the call and we listened to the laughing voice on the speaker.

“Jack? Jackie-boy? Jack-Jack? You hear me, man? I know you’re there…(laughing). I can see your car in front of the building, asshole. I guess I should say congratulations. You stupid fuck. You have no idea what you’re in for you know that…? Do you know that, Jackie-boy? Do you know what’s going to happen now…(more raucous laughing)”

Click.

I remember that I was closest to the entrance. The door was still open and we could all hear David outside puking his guts out still. Rhodes, Wes and myself were not so lucky. The moment before the explosion happened it felt like time stopped. My ears had that familiar ringing tone and I felt my heart stop inside of my chest. I watched the cigarette the captain was smoking fall to the floor in slow motion, unmoving and with a broken trail of smoke ascending upward and evaporating into the dark room. And just before it hit the ground everything went black.

©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved

Pull the Trigger

Pull the Trigger

by s. joaquin rivera

you are not that important, trust me
get over yourself
do us all a favor and
kill yourself
stop wasting time
get it over with
don’t leave a fucking note
no one cares
just do it
end it
give us all some closure
end your miserable existence
stop the endless bullshit
look at yourself
like what you see?
enjoying yourself?
pick up the phone and listen?
hear it?
nothing
you are nothing
might as well pull the cord out of the wall
hang yourself with it
go ahead, check the mail
see? nothing in there
total bullshit is what your existence is
everyone is disgusted
you are disgusting
cross the finish line already
pull the trigger
pull the fucking trigger
pull it…

©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved

Suicide Note With Crayons

Suicide Note With Crayons

by s. joaquin rivera

If I knew you were going to kill yourself I might have pressed for a few more moments with you. No one gets what they want though. I carved the word ‘quitter’ into your mirror so you’d have to look it every time you made yourself up but I guess that didn’t matter much in the end did it? How ironic that you used the glass from that same mirror to bleed yourself out in warm water; must have made for a nice bath.
–

I punch the dead man but still he will not react
I don’t know what I expect as
he swings back and forth in the cold air
I punch him again, and once more
nothing, just the same stupid look on his face and
the sound of the hooks in his flesh, creaking
the dead do not fight back
instead they only stare at you with their comeuppance
that all knowing glare that says: hit me all you want, you stupid fuck
I’m dead

–

A dinner in hell
amidst the burning flesh
sipping our sour wine out of broken glasses
and serenaded by their screams
the sky is falling indeed
it is the way of all things

–

I almost want to call you on the telephone but
I suspect I would not have the courage to say anything and I
can almost hear you saying: hello? Who’s there? hello? who the fuck is this?
there is no sound, just silence as I clutch the cord and think
of how I never forgave you. I know that
one of these days I will write your obituary
I just wish I could watch as you
blow your brains all over the room

–

the internet holds many secrets but some
are easier to uncover than others
it is amusing on a certain level that
you take pride in your own humiliation
you look just so thoroughly used
whoever took the picture captured
your complete debasement
used really doesn’t even begin
to describe the look in your eyes,
whore of the year

–

there is blood in the streets tonight
flowing through the gutters
rushing down the drains and into refineries
only to be leaked into open seas
where it is consumed and spent once more
absorbed and evaporated

©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved

Musings & Nothings

“Without faith, the cross is only wood, the bread baked wheat, the wine sour grapes.”

- Barlow, Salem’s Lot

“We must go through bitter waters before we reach the sweet.”

- Van Helsing, Dracula

HUBERT BARCLAY MARSTEN

October 6, 1889
August 12, 1939

The angel of Death who holdeth
The bronze Lamp beyond the golden door
Hath taken thee into dark Waters

God Grant He Lie Still

- Epitaph of Hubie Marsten, Salem’s Lot Cemetery

MySpace: The Virtual Trailer Park

MySpace: The Virtual Trailer Park

S. Joaquin Rivera

Broken Sword Publications

(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) - Since their inception social networking sites have caused people to become less social in real life and more annoying and full of shit behind the anonymity of their computer monitors. These sites have caused people to lose their jobs, they have allowed sexual predators new tools and they have opened the door for the people in real life that you thought no longer existed to come crashing into your living room bearing fruit cakes and more baggage than the airport.

Once upon a time there was life before social networking websites and that life was good…I think. It was a care free time on the Internet - a time where people had to actually email their friends and family to keep in touch. It certainly was not a time filled with profile pages containing mundane details and squalid photographs of people no one bothered to give a shit about before.

It was not filled with so many “creative geniuses” so willing to share their masterpieces via their blogs and bulletins. I scarcely remember what life was like before everyone and their mom had a social profile to better the world with. In fact it took a very long time for me to catch on to the whole phenomenon and for the most part, I am now sorry that I ever did.

I started off with Live Journal several years ago. Now that it has been bought by Russians and is being converted to look and act just like MySpace I have parted ways with the service. I never tried FaceBook or anything else for that matter so I can only comment on MySpace, which for some people is akin to crack cocaine.

MySpace is the great cyber outhouse in space. It’s an overflowing shit-hole. It’s a virtual cesspool of know-it-alls, drama queens, wannabe tough-guys and complete social retards on self-built soap boxes. Its bullshit knows no bounds.

It is an endless trailer park with row after row of toothless douche bags wearing dirty, holey wife-beaters standing next to their filthy doublewides. These people want to share their opinions and “art” with you. God bless the Internet…

The funny thing is, as fucked up as I think MySpace is, it has been a monster of my own creation. I now find myself like the old man stamping out roaches but who can never seem to get them all. It’s my fault. I created the profile. I added contacts.

Other than the fact that it is a free marketing tool for my publishing business I honestly have no idea why I don’t just delete the goddamn thing and be done with it. If it weren’t for a few sales here and there and the few friends and family members I keep in touch with (though with some of them I wonder…), I would have flushed the thing down the toilet a long time ago.

I keep the cursed thing for two reasons: to market my writing and keep in touch with a few people. Number one is to market and I am starting to wonder if having a MySpace page is even necessary for that because there seems to be an ever growing list of things that make me question my sanity for not deleting it.

Not that it matters in the slightest (the fact that I’m even writing about these things is sad within itself), but for what it is worth these things annoy the ever-loving shit out of me and will cause “friend” deletion quicker than you can say: douche bag.

- Updating your goddamn “status” every five minutes with items like “I just took a shower, lolz1!!” or “I’m getting ready to eat some really good cheese!” or “I just got back from the bakery and shoved five pounds of marble rye up my ass”. No one cares what the fuck you’re doing. It’s retarded and it makes you look like a bigger asshole than you already are.

- Spamming the bulletin board. Why people feel the need to do this is beyond me. Most of the time it’s with mundane bullshit. It prevents me from reading about stuff from people I actually give a shit about because they’re buried under 50 bulletins about your shitty band. It’s cool to let everyone know what’s going on or what you’re up to but doing it five times in a row is fuckin’ bullshit.

- People who bitch about not getting “kudos” on their blogs. This is pretty ridiculous. I guess I just don’t get it. Are you fucking serious?!? Are you that shallow that it hurts your feelings if people do not give you “internet kudos”? Please, kill yourself.

- Drama in general. There is so much goddamn drama in real life why in the fuck would anyone want to immerse themselves in it online? I swear it is like there is a kiddie pool full of turds and some people just flock to it. People take themselves way too seriously on the web. I mean…look at yourself; MySpace is a social networking site whose major demographic is teenagers and perverts.

©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved

The Reverend Burns

The Reverend Burns

by S. Joaquin Rivera

There was strong wind blowing on the day it happened, bringing with it a touch of wickedness. It happened on the corner of nowhere and eternity on a busy street in Saigon; the kind of place where mean-spirited hookers sold false dreams on platform heels and slick prophet’s silver tongues sought fat wallets.

It was on this day that The Reverend decided to make a statement that the world would remember. It was the summer season and the leaves in the trees were in full bloom; ripe with new seeds and ready to germinate. The streets of Saigon were themselves pregnant with violence, blood and desire. The hustle of sinners and collectors floated in the air like the wafting aroma of rotten flesh.

Women hurried down the street carrying heavy laundry and children while men of money went along in search of sin and sanctuary. The day was to be the most dramatic day of the New Year. It made sense to the Reverend that it would happen on this day; there was no freezing rain to contend with and no one was paying attention to much of anything other than the blood flowing along in the gutters. The Reverend had planned things well.

The plan was simple; distract and move swiftly. Act simply and be not swayed by temptation. It was uncomplicated and direct; a parade under the watch of daylight and shadows would mask the real event. The Reverend knew that the hypnotic chant of the Buddhist Monks would drown out the sound of war and degeneration; they would turn no heads until it was too late.

And so on the morning on June 11 the yellow robed priests marched along in a single-file line of death. They had reached the world’s stage with hardly anyone taking notice. Among them, almost hidden in their ranks, stepped forward a very frail old man in his sixties; a holy man glowing in yellow and white. The Reverend stepped forward and quietly assumed the lotus position on the street corner amidst the soldiers, the con men and whores.

Even as the moon was still visible in the morning sky, the monks moved with a grace and stealth as if under the cover of full darkness. The Reverend sat motionless as the others from the parade, the ones who had their faces masked in solemnity, proceeded to pour healthy amounts of gasoline on the old man as he sat and waited, expressionless and mute.

From across the busy road a little girl in the throes of horseplay with her brother paused and looked at the Reverend; their eyes locked in time while he smiled slowly. He reached into his yellow and flowing robe and removed a single match, its head igniting in slow motion as the little girl watched, mesmerized as everything surrounding them came to a complete stop.

No one breathed nor blinked. The cars and bikes in the street stood frozen as the women and the men waited and watched. Not a creature moved in that moment and there was nothing except the Reverend in full bloom of the season, fully and totally engulfed in flame.

And just as quickly as the silence had come over everyone, the moon was swallowed by the morning sky and the audience screamed in horror as the Revered sat on the corner of nowhere and eternity, burning freely and as motionless as a statue.

The Reverend sat there in the lotus position for the entire world to see, on a stage of his making, resolute, with the smell of gasoline and burning flesh in the air. He sat like that for the rest of that day, for the rest of his life, forever more; burning his image into history.

His heart, the only part of the Reverend untouched by flame, was preserved and remains to this day an artifact and thing of legend. For on that day, the Reverend sacrificed his body so that his soul would live on, his heart remain and his face imprint itself to the clouds.

©2008 S. Joaquin Rivera/ Broken Sword Publications, All Rights Reserved

Bullying: The New Way to do Business on the Web

Bullying: The New Way to do Business on the Web

 

S. Joaquin Rivera

Broken Sword Publications, LLC.

 

(JACKSONVILLE, Fla.) – In another absurd development in the publishing world, Amazon.com has now threatened any and all Publish On Demand publishers with “punitive action” for offering customers a direct discount on their own websites. While not exactly surprising in light of recent events it is still ridiculous and not getting enough mainstream press. Tactics like this amount to nothing more than a schoolyard bully beating up kids for their milk money when the teacher is looking the other way.

 

Publishers are baffled (not to mention appalled) as to how Amazon could even have the gall to tell a publisher what price they could sell their own book for on their own website. Amazon has not given specifics on what “punitive action” would mean but it has a lot of people scratching their heads as to what the online retail giant is thinking in the first place.

 

Much to the dismay of numerous publishers and authors, Amazon is holding strong in their Gestapo-like tactics to strong-arm POD companies and small publishers to agree to their terms. Amazon is not asking but telling every single POD publisher that they have to let Amazon’s company, BookSurge, not only print their books but ship them as well. If they fail to comply they will lose the ability to sell books on Amazon.com.

 

Many of the larger POD companies (Lulu, iUniverse) have already given in and signed a contract with Amazon – one whose details seem shrouded in secrecy. Though Lulu has not said anything officially and seems reluctant to communicate with their customers.

 

What is clear is the fact that Amazon.com has managed to anger quite a few well-respected organizations, a plethora of authors and publishers, stockholders and most importantly, customers. But will this matter in the long run?

 

The American Society of Journalists and Authors has denounced what Amazon is doing and The Author’s Guild is in talks about the implications of antitrust and legalities of what Amazon has done thus far. The Small Publishers Association of North America issued a letter to the Amazon.com board of directors, detailing their dissatisfaction with the decision and listing in great detail why the decision is ridiculous. There is also an unofficial boycott of the site underway much thanks to the power of the blogosphere.    

 

The bottom line is this: no one is going to want to sell their books through Amazon if this continues. The reported quality that BookSurge provides is said to be extremely poor. No one wants to buy books with pages missing or covers off center. Many authors and publishers (including BSP) have already pulled their sales links to the site, in effect, beating Amazon to the punch. Who wants to do business with a bully anyway?

 

© S. Joaquin Rivera, Broken Sword Publications, LLC. All Rights Reserved

 

 

—

 

• In response to the Amazon.com blitzkrieg, Broken Sword Publications is no longer encouraging sales through their site. Broken Sword Publications does not condone the business practices of Amazon.com nor does BSP approve of the quality of books that Amazon now provides. You may buy our titles directly from BSP at a lower cost with free shipping and an autograph. Visit our site or more details. http://brokenswordpublications.com

There’s Something About Amazon

There’s Something About Amazon

S. Joaquin Rivera
Broken Sword Publications, LLC. 

(JACKSONVILLE, Fla) – The Wall Street Journal as well as numerous other media sources, including Publisher’s Weekly, are reporting that Amazon.com, the on-line retail juggernaut is forcing many Publish On Demand (POD) publishers to use the recently acquired POD service, BookSurge or else.  

According to the reports, if a publisher fails to comply with Amazon’s demands to use their service they will lose the ability to sell their books directly on Amazon’s website, leaving Amazon resellers as the only option for consumers to buy their titles.  

There is wide speculation on the issue and its validity. BookSurge is not popular with many authors due to its high costs and quality of their products. Various bloggers have initiated petitions in response to Amazon’s bold move but it is unclear where this will leave many publishers and authors who use POD services like LuLu, iUniverse and Lightning Source. The dust has yet to settle but many POD publishers have already had their “Buy” buttons removed.  

The news has sent the independent publishing world into a frenzy of speculation and disgust but most mainstream news outlets seem uninterested thus far. Message boards on various writing and publishing Websites are rife with different opinions on the topic but no one seems to know if the decision is final, legal or if it will last for very long.  

Many POD authors and publishers turn to Amazon as a book marketplace that has a history of credibility and offers incentives like free shipping. Slowly over the course of the past few years Amazon has broadened its reach into the publishing world by not only acquiring its own manufacturing service but offering other features like Amazon Shorts and Kindle to authors.  

The jury is still out on whether or not having a title listed on Amazon is essential to a book’s success. The publishing world has changed drastically in the past few years with virtually anyone being able to publish for a reasonable fee. Publishing is already a cut-throat business and just because you can publish a book doesn’t necessarily mean you can sell it without the right kind of connections. Amazon is well aware of this.  

However, as the industry moves forward, amidst the blood and carnage of chain book stores putting mom & pop bookstores out of business, and more people using POD services, Amazon seems intent on trying to bully their way to the top of the online book retail food chain. And so far, they are getting away with it.

Already it seems that many publishers are ready to turn elsewhere to sell their books. Amazon.com is far from the only bookstore on the web and while it may have 15-percent of the online book market its competitors are not far behind. Who is to say that the others will not follow suit? It wouldn’t be a shock if Barnes & Noble or any of the other major book retailers purchased their own manufacturing company and pulled the same kind of stunt.  

© S. Joaquin Rivera, Broken Sword Publications, LLC. All Rights Reserved