Print is Better 100

Read "The Salvation Shark," and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com

If you're here with me in Binghamton, 100 years ago, some of our most famous residents were the kin of Dr. Kilmer. The family business was hawking "Swamp Root," one of the most notorious snake-oils in history. It was a stinking broth of mostly alcohol and a few other undisclosed ingredients that did almost nothing but rot the liver. While the patent medicine is still available today, production was all but shut down by the Pure Food and Drug Act. Willis Sharpe Kilmer stole the family fortune from under his uncle, the original "Doctor," and used it to branch into the newspaper business and horse breeding. Willis and his father built the triangular building on Chenengo Street as well as what was for many years the tallest building in the city. Kilmer was a name known around the world for duplicity and corruption. 'Round these parts, we revere the man as a scion.

There is a new restaurant in the triangular building. It's called 'Remlik's.' Get it? That's the name for the family horse farm in Virginia that is synonymous with animal abuse. They breed only winners. I probably never would have gone to Remlik's myself. I've eaten at nearly all the "fine dining" lunch counters in town, and nearly all of my food has been "microwaved." I don't expect any different from Remlik's. Chances are, it will be closed in 6 months anyway. However, the last few weeks before the restaurant opened, the owner has been threatening to tow any car he finds parked for the ART Mission Theater across his parking lot. April 19th I will be performing in a comedy show at the ART Mission that I helped write. If you'd like to attend, but want to have dinner first, make sure to ask Remlik's if you can remain in the lot. You might have to move your car. If you are coming from out of town and you want my opinion, the Lost Dog Cafe is only two blocks from the theater. Maybe after that, you can see Binghamton's cowboy. We're classy! Thanks for reading.

-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com

Laugh at Yourself First: The Salvation Shark

Read "The Salvation Shark," and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com

Listeners to the Original Geeks Podcast already heard my big news this week. While I have yet to set a date starting in April, I am releasing The Salvation Shark in two hardcover volumes. followed by a full paperback edition. Chapters will continue posting at Laugh at Yourself First through December, so you can still read the entire book for free. I have a few contests and give-aways planned, starting right now with my Facebook friends. Everyone that "attends" the posting of Chapter 40 will receive a Salvation Shark poster.

If you're here with me in Binghamton, you might have been there with me in 1994 when I slam danced for the first time at the Tazmanian Embassy. If you weren't, I was 16-years-old, the Taz was a coke bar on the South Side, and the band was Abalienation. If none of this rings a bell, come to Fitzie's Irish Pub this Friday evening to see "A Trillion Lives." The other kids in the pit that night have reunited to pay tribute, doing an hour of such Abail classics "Punk 'Till I Die," "Are You A Nazi?!?!" and "Tax Bullets Not Beer." This is before Greenday ruined everything, and music was still fast, loud, and under-produced. There will most certainly be a pogo party with all my friends. If you want to see this old punk throw his back when I have to be at the Day Job at 4am, come to Fitzies for A Trillion Lives. Thanks for reading.

-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com

This week, Laugh at Yourself First is about my brother, Matthew, who I lost one year ago after a 2 year battle with brain cancer. Anything I say will not be enough. Thank you to everyone that helped in the creation of the Matthew Juser Memorial Scholarship, but special thanks to the ART Mission Theater, and the East Maine Fire Company for hosting us. The EMFC named Matthew their Fireman of the Year for his bravery. Matthew was 28. I miss him. Thanks for reading.

-Paul
pauljuser.blogspot.com

Laugh at Yourself First: The Salvation Shark

Read "The Salvation Shark," and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com

One day, history will tell how Napster destroyed the world. In those days, short of a magazine or book contract, the only way I could find new readers were hastily assembled chapbooks with photocopied covers. Pages were printed on my inkjet and stapled with a stapler that couldn't reach the middle of the page. Instead, I stapled each copy on cardboard boxes and closed the tines with my finger. If you're here with me in Binghamton, you might have one of those books, handed out at a punk rock show or poetry reading that probably took place in your living room. There may be misspellings, but there's a drop of my blood in nearly every single copy. These were the days you tied up your phone line for hours downloading a single song ,and streaming video was a laughable fantasy.

Technology changes, and computers became smarter. With cable Internet, whole albums could be downloaded in a few hours time, and made movies possible, first in segments, then in seamless files. CD's and DVD's became irrelevant faster than producers could stop spending money on them, leaving only Madonna proud that she remains a top-selling artist. The record companies didn't know what they were up against. Nitwits like Lars Ulrich paraded in front of cameras bullying fans to buy a new disc that was scratched in a week by those sleeves under the visor of your car. Entertainment companies met a real competition in people producing their own art. When quantity no longer matters, quality wins every time. The change has spun so fast that tyrants with weapons, armies, and money are being easily routed by a million kids with Facebook who shed only their own blood. The notion of Nation is gone, and the Bad Guys are just starting to realize they lost everything years ago with a single downloaded song. Salvation Shark chapters start March 4th. Thanks for reading.

-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com

Laugh at Yourself First, The Salvation Shark

Read "The Salvation Shark," and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com

The groundhog lied.

I don't normally take predections from varmints, and cephalopods or pseudopods are decided on a case-by-case basis. Watching all but the last hint of snow disappear from my yard in one day was enough to get my hopes up for an early Spring. We had doors open, cats on the front porch and a jump start on Spring cleaning. The next morning was a white-out. Two days later, the snow was gone, and back in double the morning after that. As some readers may remember, Punxsutawney Phil is a close friend. We've shared corn chips. If you leave him alone with a chocolate cake, he's going to destroy your kitchen. More than that, I am a friend to the woodchuck race. Granted, the french fries my grandfather and I used to feed them in the back yard probably resulted in countless woodchuck heart attacks, but they didn't know the difference.

If you're here with me in Binghamton, you probably shoot Phil's kin off your back porch, and you certainly don't take pains to avoid them on the roads. Last year, I rescued an infant 'chuck from the side of the road, regardless of how many times he bit me. We named him Melon, but he escaped two days later when I didn't expect he could climb over a six inch brick wall without my noticing. He could. I already felt bad about keeping him in a cage, but he was well-protected from the hawks that circle overhead. We never saw any trace of Melon again. Apparently Phil lied about the Superbowl as well. There are new chapters of the "Salvation Shark" and "The Witch King's Sword" posting this week. Thanks for reading.

-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com

Read "Here in this Sorrow," and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com

If anyone asks about my lip, tell them I was in a fight. It's better than the true story. I know what most people assume when they see the bleeding, open wound. It had to be the week the Day Job sent me to perform for preschoolers, who have no qualms about asking what happened. If I tried to perpetuate a rumor, I would have found myself delivering pizzas again. I had to tell the truth. Should you decide to visit Mark Twain Country for any reason, be sure to eat at one of the many Pudgie's Pizza in Elmira. If you're here with me in Binghamton, don't. Burning my lip on molten pizza sauce isn't very badass. Fight the truth. Tell everyone I was in a fight.

Junk food is dangerous. Science recently confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt that feeding McDonald's to your three-year-old is guaranteed to make him a dummy. If you need an example, look no further than me. I eat junkfood all the time, and I'm barely a half-wit. Life on the road forces a person to eat a lot of egg-and-cheese sandwiches and hashbrowns. I could argue for hours over which gas station has the best microwaved bagels. I drink a lot of coffee to keep my metabolism high enough to process the garbage I devour. I don't know how the young mother I saw last week will compensate for the bottle of brand-or-off-brand-named-brightly-colored-sugar-water-flavored-drink-mix she gave her toddler. 'Round these parts, it ain't uncommon for the young'ns to have already graduated to Mountain Dew. Come back next week for new chapters of the Salvation Shark. Thanks for reading.

-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com

Laugh at Yourself First: The Salvation Shark

Read "The Salvation Shark" and more short fiction, scripts, and very little poetry at Laugh at Yourself First.
pauljuser.blogspot.com

Mark Twain Country is not far from me, and at some points through the year, the Day Job has me there more than my own home. In honor of Twain's 100th birthday, his surviving heirs, Tom and Huck, are being given a face-lift to show their maturity. In a move that stinks of Liberal feel-good dumbassery, the new editions will be expunged of that word that is only acceptable in rap songs and Tea Party descriptions of the President. Maybe if the offensive word is removed, the offensive history will disappear with it. I've learned the hard way that you can't use it even in the context of, "I'm so offended that person used this word." Instead, you are supposed to give hints to what word you are referring to. I'm not that swift, I get side-tracked, "What word? Nincompoops? Knuckleheads?"

A great teacher once told me, "The only offensive word is 'hate.'" It can't have any more power than you give it. While some argue Abraham Lincoln made history as an unrecognized racist, I think Mark Twain's motives were unquestionable. He was not using that word to oppress anyone, he was using that word to describe the way people talked in a segment of society he found reprehensible. If not other things, the United States is a more accepting place than it was in the time Twain was writing, but the Good Guys still have a lot of work to do. Mark Twain's books are one of the very reasons we have come so far. If he is still offending people, he done his job good.

If you're here with me in Binghamton, you're wondering why the rest of the country is so upset about this weather. The first time I ever drove in the snow, my car came within inches of T-boning another car at the stoplight on a long straight highway that went downhill for miles. I now live at the top of that hill. A few weeks later, a different storm spun me into a ditch. It wasn't until the next winter that I hit two or three consecutive patches of ice and smashed my tail light on a guardrail. You get used to it. Gas into the snowbanks. I've barely had reason to leave the house the last week, so I've dug in and fortified. I've been obsessively scrubbing bathtubs, changing toilets, and making bookmarks for The Salvation Shark. Look for them around town. If you are not in Binghamton, I'll be happy to send you a few to leave in your own town. Drop me a line at TbStarlight@gmail.com. Thanks for reading.

-Paul
printisbetter.blogspot.com