Someone from a table across the way shouts "Pull the strings!"
Edward, he gets a grin on the yap could surely have powered California for months, if'n we weren't wandering the sleepy-times, y'unnerstan, and therefore in no position for to offer much of anything by way of stemming the energy crisis all gnashing lumps out the coastlines.
"So tell me", he says. "What are you at yourself? Are you writing?"
I sigh, aye, and an "Oh, Dear Eddy, if'n only that were the case."
I tell him I'm in the midst of an altogether terrible fuss regarding the state of the novel I'm prodding and pulling at. The fear, I tell him, it keeps me battering at those keys, but it keeps me also from being in any way capable of writing a damn word worth a frosted buffalo's ball-bag.
I tell him I did get a short story published, however, in a literary magazine funded by the University Of Ulster, no less, a curious tale concerning masturbation and fleeting love and Bright Eyes, aye.
"But the truth of the case" I say, " Regardless of fear or anxiety or anything so adolescent, the truth of it all is that I'm in far too much of the lust with a lass worked on said publication for to concentrate on stringing much of anything together."
What I tell him about is the maniacal raging in the blood-pump regarding Beautiful Ms Gillian. "Oh, her poems, Dear Eddy" I say, "Done scourged the soul asunder, you'll know. And those slipstreams o' obsession and lust and Fondness With Intent all career 'cross the brain-wax when she comes o'er for to share a smoke of an occasion, those feisty articles have swollen beyond any mortal man's capacity for swelling, I dare say I'll go mad in the teeth if'n I think of it all for any length of time. And yet how can a man think of a damn thing else?"
Edward shrugs. "Fucked if I know."
He lights a cigarette and gestures to a passing bar-man for a refill o' yonder elixir. "Well tell me this" he says. "Why aren't you telling this to her? Truth be told I don't have much to offer by way of advice, and I can only really understand every sixteenth word you say."
"Ach, Mr. Wood, if'n only it were so simple."
I've considered as much in fastidious depth, oh God aye Ed Wood, God aye, since back when first she entered my line o' look-see, matter o' fact. Way back when, when myself and Sir Fleming and Mr Ryan H were sat in the University buildings discussing The Stuff We Can't Talk About None Much Ever Again, lamenting those things what we oh so adore but can't dare for to mention no never no more, on account of them having been pillaged and appropriated and defiled and degraded by association with the dig-glands o' sundry intolerable student bastards. Bill Hicks, Star Wars, Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, gargantuan pop cultural monoliths all, and each a rare cluster of holiest splendor, yet lost to the winds o' cruel circumstance. Sat there gabbling, I say, and a lass all a sudden appearing for to borrow a lighter off of Ryan H.
Article comments
1 - Iloz Zoc
Both I and Zombos think you are insane. This just proved it. However, now I know what you get if Joyce, Salinger, and Hemingway slept with the same woman, and in some bizarro world time screw-up, all three's sperm slammed together to conceive at the same time: you would get a Duke De Mondo.
Not saying that's a good thing, but that is what you'ld get.
2 - Mat Brewster
savage drunken arse-melt
I think I had a bit of that at Waffle House once.
Good gawd Duke, that was marvelous. Good luck with the lady and all that too.
3 - Eric Berlin
Duke, some of your most beautiful and elegant phrasing can be found in the above lines. Great work man... and always grand to see a bit of happiness filter up there into the great Northern Irish lands !
4 - Mary K. Williams
Just wonderful Duke - glad Ms Gillian could read your mind. : )
5 - Aaron Fleming
Tis a wonderful story - Jimmy Stewart should play you in the film adapt. And perhaps Faye Dunaway circa-Network for Gillian.
I've said it before, but congrats on the whole thing!
And D minor rules!
6 - Scott Butki
You mention your insomnia so you may like a story I read aloud last nite at the local coffee house.
I asked if they wanted a short story, a really short story or an extremely short story.
They asked for the latter so I gave them this:
woke.
She did not.
I passed out.
She stayed dead.
This was not going to help my insomnia.
The end.
Cute story.
You're a brilliant writer.
7 - Scott Butki
I just hope you removed that cigaratte before you kissed her, dont ya know.
8 - DJRadiohead
At least a dozen pardons for not getting to this until this morning. For a change I have the excuse of having put off reading this until I finished some actual work I was doing (shocking, innit?).
Duke, this combined with the previous volume of Mind Wax is some of your best.
9 - Scott Butki
This is so good I'm about to suggest some friends read it.
Dare I ask what a blood pipe is?
10 - Duke De Mondo
Hi folks, thanks for the wondrously kind words! my own thoughts on this particular screed are all sortsa dishevelled at the minute, but i am rather fond of at least 56% of it, so there's always that. the last half coulda been better, though, no doubt about that.
but anyway. yes, thank you, and to scott, that short story was not only extremely short, but marvellous also! i re-read that comment a good couple dozen times. and the blood-pump and blood-pipes malarkey refers to matters of the heart. obviously i couldn't be using words like "h***t". a fella with a mangled yap like mine can hardly get away with anything of the like, unless maybe in a medical setting.
11 - Greg Smyth
Somewhere, Edward D. Wood Jr. was shaking his head to the tune of "You sneaky bastard."
Pure class. Congrats man, and a fine screed it is too.
12 - Scott Butki
Ooohh, I thought the arse comment, the blood pump was speaking of appendages and body parts where sexual things might occur.
I was trying to think of how I'd describe you since I told a few people to come by and read you.
I said "Think Tom Robbins meets James Joyce meets Nick Hornby and they all speak as if they are in Clerks."
13 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Damn you write purty, I dare say worthier than a frosted buffalo's ball-bag. But then, I like to fancy that I understand every fourteenth word you say. May the Mind Wax never Wane--pull those strings!
14 - Scott Butki
So what does your new lady friend think of
this piece?
15 - Duke De Mondo
Greg and Gordon, thank you! Scott - thank you no end also for suggesting this to friends! All sortsa lovely, that is. And the lady-friend liked it, i'm pretty sure. She seemed plenty pleased with it all.
16 - Condecending twat.
Ah dear oh dear, i dont know what i think of your piece of prose - pish or perhaps rather pleasent. It’s nice to think of the girl with a overwhelming smile when she reads over your reflections. But i think the vulgar backlash of irresponsibilty and short sightedness on your behalf throws your writing into a pool of romantically imbelished slosh.
Im afraid it seems that in writing of a rather fond memory, the effect of seduction and enchantment can’t be found far from the thoughts of your female counterpart. Even f it was never your intention what kind hearted girl wouldnt been tickled by such an unashamedly public declaration of love. But the treacherous torch of love often burns those who get too close - if you see what i mean. So im not trying to be scathing of you piece with these comments but Id like to offer you a bit of practical, perhaps even moral advice to reflect on. Indeed thoughts which have been thrown up by your writing in the very first place.
Is it irresponsible to potentially enhance the pain of a past and parted lover by publically declaring your devotion in such an imaginitevly excessive (some would say poetic) manner?
In essence how would the girl you speak of feel if everything gets fucked and she knows along with the rest of the world how you felt at one time, but do no longer.
Your declarations of love seem to be of the sort a girl suceptable to a dose of melancholy and enthusiasm, will take instantly to the heart. Theres no problem in that im sure many will think. But if the day comes when the two of you split to go your seperate ways, and i must say it would be foolish to think it will not as opposed to can not. Then how will you and the girl feel of these posts declaring how good things were in contrast to what they have become.
My point is this; if you love this girl you would not be so forth right in declaring it with such embellished romantic rhetoric for two reasons. lol sorry thats perhaps the worst and best line ive ever wrote. Anyway
1. If it all goes tits up. Gillian will look back on this and probably decend into a darker pit of despair knowing such sweet words are no longer applicable.
2. And moreover if everyone knows all about it the sting has to be sharper i would have thought. So treasure those intimate thoughts, which will become all the more valuable if private.
Should we Be-careful of the words which talk of love, always considering the much sadder effect such rhetoric, written in the heat of the jovial moment, could wield to the loved one in the days ahead. It’s a slippery situation, declare your love in the essence of its spirit, or be cautious of such a spirit because it may be kinder even more loving to keep it subdued. I don’t know what is best. Pro and cons of both, but therin lays a moral conundrum to ignore or obey.
All the best, hope all is well between u two.
17 - Duke De Mondo
Mr or Ms T**t (it's fine for you to refer to yourself as such, but i don't know you and so for this reason i'll refrain from anything of the like), your comment was much appreciated, and also thank you no end for takin the time to read the article up yonder.
Your thoughts to large extent chime with my own. There is, perhaps, a great degree of irresponsibility involved in discussing the in's and out's of the day to day in such excessive detail and flinging the lot to the web-net for whoever to see. Even if none saw it but the folks in the text, there is still the chance, as you say, that it could serve as some sort of emotional black-mail type device sometime in the future.
All i can really say in defence is that the day-to-day adventures and foibles are what this series was intended to relate, although obviously with an eye towards exagerration and poetic licence and attempting (and possibly failing) to make the lot highly amusing and what not, and it would be altogether very bizarre if i DIDN'T make mention of such events as those related in this piece.
For my part, what I do is i ask if i can discuss these matters aforehand. My friends and mine lady-friend know very well the depths of my self-obsession and also the need to write at great length about these sorts of things. i don't know that any real harm can come from anything i've scribbled, though, even in a worst-case scenario like that which you've put forward.
my goal with most everything is to wrap the thoughts on the pop culture around the trivialities and occurances of the everyday, for i consider both to be linked to a great degree in anyone's critical take on these things. this kind of screed is probably not a great example of that, on account of sometimes a fella gets caught up in one or the other.
sometimes i maybe say more than is altogether decent, but i DO put these things forward to, for example, Ms Gillian, before i make any of it public.
certainly it would be wrong to assume that EVERYTHING gets put out here or there. Only a tiny tiny fraction of the day to day ever gets mentioned becuase as you say, some things are intimate and mean more to all involved when kept as such.
Some things just lend themselves to fine stories of an evening. Which i suppose is what happened here.
with regards your last comment, i don't know what is best either. but certainly if it seemed anything might cause any sort of hurt to anyone, i wouldn't for a second consider it worthwhile to write. Who knows what happens in the future times? Sometimes though the present is just fillin a fella's head too much for him to be able to write or think about a damn thing else.
thank you again for your comment, and sorry for the somewhat muddled nature of this response.
18 - A silly fool
A jolly good response. I like you more everytime i come back. As for knowing me, i cant think of any reason why u would want to bother, seeing ur having a grand old time. And long may it continue is what is silently say. So strangers it is, best for all concerned. Chit chat is often such a terrible bore.
Am I coming across as a slightly camp-er stephen fry? haha maybe not. But one must dream of possesing such wit and fortune sometimes. CT.