While serving the two-year prison term called graduate school, I gave a reading at a bar featuring other students. It was the first such public display of my work, and since my friends, classmates, and Girlfriend would attend, I wanted it to be perfect.
Taking the advice of the many who had walked before me, I went for humor. My choice was a self-contained section of my thesis-novel, and I knew that it was chock-full-o’-yuks. Each line was hilarious. Everyone would love it.
But as I read, fear got the better of me, and I stumbled from one sentence to another. I heard a giggle here and there, but no big laughs.
Finally, I got to what I considered the funniest section of the piece. It had a great punchline: “‘There is no Horny the Dwarf?’ he asked. ‘Then I guess Snow White is shit outta luck.’”
I was so certain of success that I paused for the inevitable hilarity to quiet down. But there was silence. Not a single laugh, not even a pity laugh from Girlfriend, not even a modest push of breath through the nose that would comprise a snort.
Then I saw the looks on people’s faces: squinted eyes, frowns, eyes turned away. They were cringing. I wanted to throw myself before a pack of abused pit bulls that hadn’t eaten in a fortnight.
Anyone who goes to enough readings or sits in enough workshops has witnessed (and been told of) cringe-inducing moments galore. And, in the spirit of trying to make myself feel better, today I’m going to share some of them with you.
One cringe inducing performance…
Sadly, I think everyone enjoys reading others’ embarrassments, as it makes them look better. At least I do.
Cringe-Inducing Moments
1. One poor lady served up a piece about a newly married couple that featured a female rocket scientist; a scene where they cried about not being able to have children; and a camping scene in which the husband was not able to fight off a bear with a stick, because “the stick was too small.” QED.
2. When I was in grad school, a student read a story in class about a woman who was worried she had contracted herpes. The protagonist wasn’t infected, but in the final scene of the story, a rapist attacks her.
“’Don’t do this,’” she said. ‘I have herpes.’ ‘That’s funny,’ he said. ‘So do I.’”
THE END.
We all stared at the floor.
3. At a conference, a frumpy, middle-aged housewife presented a story that consisted completely of S&M, explicit sex, and a certain act involving one’s fist. I guess you don’t know what happens behind closed doors. (Thanks to Friend of Wife for this great tidbit.)
4. Also in grad school, a fellow student wrote a embarrasingly awful rip-off of “Beloved” in the form of a short story. Told in the voice of a slave, it read like a Klan textbook on black diction: “Ise nots bein’ good for massa, he be whippin’ me,” for instance.
…and another…
Everybody in class shifted back and forth in their seats, not wanting to blurt out that it was a stupid, racist piece of crap, until one person said, “Damn. I didn’t know that ‘Ise’ meant ‘I.’ I thought that the guy’s name was Izzy.”
6. “He was her Calgon.” We all went back and checked our Greek mythology on this one, but found no Calgon in the encyclopedia. No, the writer meant the bath soap Calgon, which (according to the commercial) “takes you away.” When the teacher slammed him for this, the guy got all defensive, and the rest of us said nothing.
6. Random bits:
–(punctuation uncorrected): “I see a man. I said to my sister “you want to see a man? that’s not a man I can take you where youll say thats a man she said.
–(dialog) “You have found the most important archeological discovery in the last 50 years. Now, make love to me.”
–”They kissed like animals eat.”
7. I’ve saved the worst for last. At a public reading series hosted at a bar, the audience was treated to the fiction stylings of a shaved-head, ear-ringed, motorcycle jacket-wearing dude of 25. He was hip, he was edgy, he gave the most awful reading I ever hope to endure.
…and yet another
He read from his (unaccountably) published novel, telling of a sexual encounter involving the narrator and a transvestite prostitute. The dude read fast and loud — very loud, practically yelling at us. In one sentence that lasted about five minutes, he told us in graphic detail about The Fun With Trannies, “framed” by a background story that involved something about shooting heroin and going back to the womb and masturbating in high school and he WAS READING AT US LIKE THIS.
As he neared the end of his sentence, he said the words that are unfortunately burned into the brains of myself, Wife, and everybody else who heard it: “And then the transvestite hooker grabs my ass and the butt juice runs down my leg…” The butt juice. He said “butt juice.” Not just cringe-inducing, it was horrifying.
Butt juice. I can’t get that out of my head. In a sense, edgy reader guy has won.
Oh. My. God.
This place is getting pretty gross, bookfraud.
Oh. My. God.
This place is getting pretty gross, bookfraud.
Oh. My. God.
This place is getting pretty gross, bookfraud.
“Archeological discovery” wins on hilarity.
Years ago at a gay writers conference I saw a large 50-ish women all in tweed make her way to the podium and begin spouting, in a Scottish accent, gay male porn–”and he was hot, I mean hot, H.O.T., hot…”
Butt juice? – no one will get that out of their head. woah….
Oh, wow. I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks.
man…and I was eating lunch.
fwc: damn, that’s funny. i can hear the woman now, with that scottish accent…hot…h.o.t…
mariemm3: you see? butt juice will take over your brain and squeeze in a vice that will make you leak brain juice.
jordan: glad that you laughed. more than at my reading, i’m sure.
glitzy: let that be a lesson to you: never mix food and bookfraud. or food and bloggers, period. consider it my contribution to your health.
Butt juice bothered you. You have no problems doling out Sphincter McNuggets but your brain was rewired by butt juice.
I don’t get you, man.
My (rather heartless) contribution would be having to endure the CNF writers in my program who dissolve into a puddle of tears two sentences in to their reading. You watch them for five minutes of awkward sobbing (they usally say “I knew I’d cry” and you want to scream back, “Then why the bloody fuck did you pick this piece to read?”) and you hope wonder if they’ll compose themselves enough to continue and in the end, their allotted ten minutes extends to about 30 as they blubber through it.
I know. It’s not really about bad writing. Just bad readings. Sorry. I digressed.
“Archeological discovery” wins on hilarity.
Years ago at a gay writers conference I saw a large 50-ish women all in tweed make her way to the podium and begin spouting, in a Scottish accent, gay male porn–”and he was hot, I mean hot, H.O.T., hot…”
“Archeological discovery” wins on hilarity.
Years ago at a gay writers conference I saw a large 50-ish women all in tweed make her way to the podium and begin spouting, in a Scottish accent, gay male porn–”and he was hot, I mean hot, H.O.T., hot…”
Butt juice? – no one will get that out of their head. woah….
Butt juice? – no one will get that out of their head. woah….
Oh, wow. I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks.
Oh, wow. I haven’t laughed this hard in weeks.
man…and I was eating lunch.
man…and I was eating lunch.
fwc: damn, that’s funny. i can hear the woman now, with that scottish accent…hot…h.o.t…
mariemm3: you see? butt juice will take over your brain and squeeze in a vice that will make you leak brain juice.
fwc: damn, that’s funny. i can hear the woman now, with that scottish accent…hot…h.o.t…
mariemm3: you see? butt juice will take over your brain and squeeze in a vice that will make you leak brain juice.
jordan: glad that you laughed. more than at my reading, i’m sure.
glitzy: let that be a lesson to you: never mix food and bookfraud. or food and bloggers, period. consider it my contribution to your health.
jordan: glad that you laughed. more than at my reading, i’m sure.
glitzy: let that be a lesson to you: never mix food and bookfraud. or food and bloggers, period. consider it my contribution to your health.
Butt juice bothered you. You have no problems doling out Sphincter McNuggets but your brain was rewired by butt juice.
I don’t get you, man.
My (rather heartless) contribution would be having to endure the CNF writers in my program who dissolve into a puddle of tears two sentences in to their reading. You watch them for five minutes of awkward sobbing (they usally say “I knew I’d cry” and you want to scream back, “Then why the bloody fuck did you pick this piece to read?”) and you hope wonder if they’ll compose themselves enough to continue and in the end, their allotted ten minutes extends to about 30 as they blubber through it.
I know. It’s not really about bad writing. Just bad readings. Sorry. I digressed.
Butt juice bothered you. You have no problems doling out Sphincter McNuggets but your brain was rewired by butt juice.
I don’t get you, man.
My (rather heartless) contribution would be having to endure the CNF writers in my program who dissolve into a puddle of tears two sentences in to their reading. You watch them for five minutes of awkward sobbing (they usally say “I knew I’d cry” and you want to scream back, “Then why the bloody fuck did you pick this piece to read?”) and you hope wonder if they’ll compose themselves enough to continue and in the end, their allotted ten minutes extends to about 30 as they blubber through it.
I know. It’s not really about bad writing. Just bad readings. Sorry. I digressed.
okay now that will be forever burned in MY mind.
okay now that will be forever burned in MY mind.
okay now that will be forever burned in MY mind.
Butt juice. I hope to never have to hear, see, or read those two words together used as a noun for the rest of my life.
Butt juice. I hope to never have to hear, see, or read those two words together used as a noun for the rest of my life.
Butt juice. I hope to never have to hear, see, or read those two words together used as a noun for the rest of my life.
brian f.: the weepies appear to be prevalent in every writing program in the usa.
an agent wrote “sphincter mcnuggets” to me. “butt juice” was uttered before a group of two dozen. it’s a numbers game.
dora: glad to have helped your linguistic education.
doublebagger: i hope you don’t look at my response, then. butt juice butt juice butt juice au jus butt juice.
i dont imagine anything could be as disturbing as “butt juice” but once in a workshop someone submitted a story about an abused woman, a story which took place in a bathroom, a story which detailed this woman’s bodily functions, including the “great globs of orange and brown lipid shit” which she was in the process of evacuating from her system. just thought i would share.
brian f.: the weepies appear to be prevalent in every writing program in the usa.
an agent wrote “sphincter mcnuggets” to me. “butt juice” was uttered before a group of two dozen. it’s a numbers game.
dora: glad to have helped your linguistic education.
doublebagger: i hope you don’t look at my response, then. butt juice butt juice butt juice au jus butt juice.
brian f.: the weepies appear to be prevalent in every writing program in the usa.
an agent wrote “sphincter mcnuggets” to me. “butt juice” was uttered before a group of two dozen. it’s a numbers game.
dora: glad to have helped your linguistic education.
doublebagger: i hope you don’t look at my response, then. butt juice butt juice butt juice au jus butt juice.
i dont imagine anything could be as disturbing as “butt juice” but once in a workshop someone submitted a story about an abused woman, a story which took place in a bathroom, a story which detailed this woman’s bodily functions, including the “great globs of orange and brown lipid shit” which she was in the process of evacuating from her system. just thought i would share.
i dont imagine anything could be as disturbing as “butt juice” but once in a workshop someone submitted a story about an abused woman, a story which took place in a bathroom, a story which detailed this woman’s bodily functions, including the “great globs of orange and brown lipid shit” which she was in the process of evacuating from her system. just thought i would share.
kfo: “great globs of orange and brown lipid shit.” wow. and i thought i’d heard it all. thanks for sharing.
michele: nobody gets a medal for being nice.
kfo: “great globs of orange and brown lipid shit.” wow. and i thought i’d heard it all. thanks for sharing.
michele: nobody gets a medal for being nice.
kfo: “great globs of orange and brown lipid shit.” wow. and i thought i’d heard it all. thanks for sharing.
michele: nobody gets a medal for being nice.
Misery loves company, obviously.
Misery loves company, obviously.
Misery loves company, obviously.
You were right. I feel better now.
Actually, the motorcycle dude didn’t bother me as much as the frumpy housewife with the S&M tale. I admit to fringing that topic in my own writing — but good Lord, to get up and read it in front of people?
Particularly a bunch of writers, who know that no matter how wild the tale, some aspect of it is based on some inner part of the teller.
Great blog, BTW, Bookfraud. I’ll be back.
You were right. I feel better now.
Actually, the motorcycle dude didn’t bother me as much as the frumpy housewife with the S&M tale. I admit to fringing that topic in my own writing — but good Lord, to get up and read it in front of people?
Particularly a bunch of writers, who know that no matter how wild the tale, some aspect of it is based on some inner part of the teller.
Great blog, BTW, Bookfraud. I’ll be back.
You were right. I feel better now.
Actually, the motorcycle dude didn’t bother me as much as the frumpy housewife with the S&M tale. I admit to fringing that topic in my own writing — but good Lord, to get up and read it in front of people?
Particularly a bunch of writers, who know that no matter how wild the tale, some aspect of it is based on some inner part of the teller.
Great blog, BTW, Bookfraud. I’ll be back.
s.w. vaughn: glad to be of some service. yeah, a story with fisting in it is disturbing from anybody.
thank you for the kind words, and look forward to see you again.
s.w. vaughn: glad to be of some service. yeah, a story with fisting in it is disturbing from anybody.
thank you for the kind words, and look forward to see you again.
s.w. vaughn: glad to be of some service. yeah, a story with fisting in it is disturbing from anybody.
thank you for the kind words, and look forward to see you again.
Yuck.
Yuck.