Tag: satire

Weight Loss Club Uses Novel as Diet Aid

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books, Malcolm R. Campbell8 Comments

from the Morning Satirical News:

Athens, Georgia, July 7, 2010–The Athens-Clarke County Lard Ass Club (ACCLAC) celebrated its one-year anniversary at the Krispy Kreme on Atlanta highway this morning by announcing they were changing the club’s name to The Buttless Wonders. The club’s one thousand members have lost a combined total of 75,000 pounds during the last 12 months.

According to ACCLAC president Bob “Big Daddy” Horton, club members are now petite enough to carpool to meetings.

“We owe it all to Malcolm Campbell’s novel Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire,” said Horton. “Last summer when Campbell spoke to our friends of the library group, somebody in the back row shouted out ‘what’s in it for me?'”

“You’ll laugh you ass off,” replied Campbell. “By the look of you, you need the therapy.”

Instead of getting mad, that guy in the back row had an epiphany along with his box of doughnuts: he didn’t need as much ass as he had.

“The greatest moment of my life,” said ACCLAC recording secretary Sue “Big Mama” Patterson, “came during our New Year’s Eve pilgrimage to Junction City, Texas, where we met Jock Stewart. I kissed him on the mouth when he said, ‘Nice to meet you, Little Lady.'”

According to sources at the Junction City Star-Gazer, Stewart “got those ACCLAC people” drunk on cheap Scotch, and then he gave them some words to live by.

“My Dear Old Daddy always used to tell me that it’s a plain and simple fact of anatomy that an asshole is going to be on your tail for your whole life. That being the case, you might as well make it comfortably fit in one chair,” said Stewart.

“We wanted to take those words sitting down,” said Patterson, “but we couldn’t. The chairs in Jock’s house were just too small. Right then and there, we resolved, to start laughing our asses off.”

ACCLAC meetings begin and end with a reading from Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. The club’s personal trainer, librarian Naomi Clements, estimates that the club loses an average of 98.6 pounds per meeting even though everyone is “slamming down doughnuts like there’s no tomorrow.”

Small-assed sources in Washington, D.C., claim that ACCLAC has sought FDA approval to start marketing the novel and its special Lard-Ass Reading Guide as a prescription diet aid.

“Laughter really is the best medicine,” Horton said. “Now, when I haul ass, it doesn’t take two trips.”

-30-

Pied Type Doesn’t Have a Flaky Crust

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books

Job Case Photo by Heather on Flickr
The title of this post comes from my novel “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire.” For better or worse, it’s a play on words. In this case, “pied” has nothing to do with the apple and cherry pies grandma used to make.

The term “pied type” refers to handset type that’s been dropped on the floor, scattering in a mess.

Handset type was stored by font in a California Job Case, a removable drawer in a cabinet. The letters were arranged in the case in order of their frequency of use. Printers created words, one letter at a time in a composing stick–a small hand-held tray which the typesetter viewed upside down. (The Linotype did this automatically, one line at a time–quite a time savings)

When the typesetter finished a column or part of a column, he tied the type tightly together with string and then transferred it to a form to be mounted on the press. If he dropped it, he said he had pied his type. “Pi” or “Pie” type refers to mixed up stuff whether it’s a dropped block of type or pieces of the wrong font mixed up in a job case.

Handset type was still prevalent enough in the late 1960s that my journalism course work included a printing class in which we were all trained to set type this way. Years later, I would still find some printers–especially those doing formal invitations on small platen presses–to be setting type in a stick and letting lose with a lot of profanity whenever the type got pied.

Malcolm

Have Fun and Lose Weight

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books2 Comments

Riding in Christmas Parade
The feds won’t let me promise you anything, but let’s just say that anyone reading my comedy/thriller novel Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire might just laugh their butt off.

Now, for some people, that’s going to be a hell of a lot of weight lost in only 220 pages for only $11.86! The price is lower on Kindle.

So, it’s win/lose for everyone.

Really Brief Excerpt

Jock’s dear old daddy always said, “Jock, take my word for it. Sloppy people are all going to hell.” He also said, “If a man smells like a whore house, he’s going to hell.” Smith had two strikes against him today and it wasn’t even noon yet.

“What did Lucinda Trail have to say?” asked Jock while Smith was licking his plate like an all day sucker.

Smith almost dropped the plate.

“Are your people following me around?”

Jock shrugged. “That, plus you’re wearing her perfume.”

–
It was an honor being among the local authors serving as grand marshals in this year’s Christmas parade in Jefferson, Georgia. The theme was “A Storybook Christmas.” Each of the authors tossed handfuls of candy to the kids along the 40-minute route. I’m shown here in the photograph with my wife, Lesa.

—Malcolm

The Thirteen Days of Christmas

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing2 Comments

On the first day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
A cartridge for my shot gun.

On the second day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the third day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the fourth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the fifth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the sixth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the seventh day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Seven mugs a-brimming,
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the eighth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Eight aides a-bilking,
Seven mugs a-brimming,
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the ninth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Nine caddies prancing,
Eight aides a-bilking,
Seven mugs a-brimming,
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the tenth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Ten hordes a-pillaging,
Nine caddies prancing,
Eight aides a-bilking
Seven mugs a-brimming
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the eleventh day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Eleven gripers pissing,
Ten hordes a-pillaging,
Nine caddies prancing,
Eight aides a-bilking,
Seven mugs a-brimming
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the twelfth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
Twelve grenades with pins a-missing,
Eleven gripers pissing,
Ten hordes a-pillaging,
Nine caddies prancing,
Eight aides a-bilking,
Seven mugs a-brimming
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

On the thirteenth day of Christmas,
My true love sent me for fun
A baker’s dozen epiphanies,
Twelve grenades with pins a-missing,
Eleven gripers pissing,
Ten hordes a-pillaging,
Nine caddies prancing,
Eight aides a-bilking,
Seven mugs a-brimming,
Six hounds a-baying,
Five beholden kings,
Four calling cards,
Three French kisses,
Two Victoria’s secrets,
And a cartridge for my shot gun.

–Jock Stewart
–
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A Good Day for a Smile

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books2 Comments

Nora Roberts sells 21 books every minute. When you go to her website, you’ll find all of her titles are available in an Excel spreadsheet. 160 of her books have been New York Times bestsellers. After all these years and all these books, I wonder if she still feels a sense of excitement and adventure on the day each new novel is listed on Amazon. On each book’s official release date, does she sit back in an easy chair, smile and enjoy the experience?

SeaCoverMy second novel, Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, was listed there yesterday. Exhausted from non-stop proofreading, I didn’t notice the listing until late in the evening and the book’s description hadn’t appeared yet. It’s there now and yes, it does make me smile–partly because it’s there, partly because my Jock Stewart character is so off the wall, I can’t help but be amused at the antics he gets away with while following truth, journalism and the evil-doers who stole the mayor’s racehorse and killed his publisher’s girl friend.

Writing is an adventure that unfolds in the quiet of an author’s den. My den’s a mess and I have no clue where anything is. I’m the hermit of a room lined with books, some by Ms. Roberts and dozens of other authors whose work has also contributed to my on-going education. It’s nice, though, to step outside the solitude once in a while and see what’s going on in the world past my horizon of books. Seeing one’s book listed on Amazon is a perfect excuse.

I have a smile on my face today. When you read the book, I hope you will, too.

Publisher Cancels Novel Found to Be Based on True Story

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn writing3 Comments

New York City, January 4, 2009–Conglomo House announced this morning “with substantial remorse” that it has canceled the scheduled February 1st release of Mack Hooper’s novel Stiffs Scattered Down a Lonely Road because the book was found to have been based on actual events.

While police in Hooper’s hometown of Junction City, Texas, have long questioned the synchronicity of the plot line with local events, Conglomo House editors steadfastly defended the novel as “a pack of lies” since last summer even though the first-time author failed the standard pre-contract polygraph test when he claimed he wasn’t telling the truth.

According to uninformed sources, the discovery of truth in a novel is evidence per se of breach of contract.

“Ignoring the results of the polygraph test was a bad judgement call on our point,” said former acquisitions editor Nell Quickly. “We were in too much of a rush to get Hooper’s shocking, sharply written thriller about the horrifying demise of a minister’s five former trophy wives out to the public.”

Junction City police chief Hank Kruller told reporters at a County Line Road news conference that gossip columnist Monique Starnes, writing about the novel in the local Star-Gazer, caught his attention when she said, “This story is so real, readers will smell fresh blood on the page. You just can’t make stuff like this up.”

“While I thought Starnes was just another fru-fru reporter out there making it up, I began to suspect Hooper wasn’t,” Kruller said.

According to Conglomo House editor in chief Fred Smith, publishers often find it necessary to cancel memoirs that turn out to have been faked, but withdrawing a novel based on claims of veracity is unusual.

“Speaking off the record,” said Smith, “I’m a busy man trying to reduce the amount of red ink around here, so don’t expect me to run for the border when some small town Barney Fife leaves me a voice mail asking if I know that all five of Hooper’s ex-wives have come up missing.”

Hooper’s agent Lucy Lake, his greatest fan ever since the manuscript for Stiffs Scattered Down a Lonely Road arrived in an old gun case three years ago, said she not only saw the novel as the best crime fiction to come across her desk in years, but one that would bring “hen-pecked male readers” a substantial amount of vicarious pleasure.

“Mack told me the stains on the manuscript were ketchup,” she said.

When confronted with the shallow unmarked graves scatted down County Line Road three miles from his parsonage, Hooper confessed to having based his novel on the unsolved crime. He was subsequently taken into custody for obstruction of justice and improper use of poetic license.

“If he’d come forward when he began writing the novel and told us who his protagonist Jack Cooper really is,” said Kruller, “we might have been able to close this case before all of Hooper’s wives were dead and buried. What a great memoir that might have made for the bean counters at Conglomo House.”

 

from the Morning Satirical News