Tag Archives: Cool Brass

Pornography

Indirect Objects

　

    A feature inside the last 2011 issue of Intervìu by writer Alberto Gayo called to mind comments received about my compilations Reveries and Cool Brass. The latter especially.

    Maybe what Reveries sparked finally ignited in Cool Brass.

    The theme behind Gayo’s article: women taking responsive roles in erotica. A focus: Femme Fatale, a photo compendium by Finn Reka Nyari. Apparently Ms. Nyari’s lens exposed more than female forms offered up as living mannequins awaiting domination or mere male regard.

    You know. The usual. Continue reading Indirect Objects →

Green Venom

Dig A Grave. Lay Down. Bury Yourself.

    What was foretold came to pass. Ideally the doors to Mugwump, my former employer, would’ve closed in January 2012. Yet during the summer of 2011 I saw it barely surviving into October. The place staggered and face-planted one week before November.

    Awash in cocaine and/or drowning in vodka or THC fogging the remnants of their minds, Loca and Fea lost Mugwump, their patrimony.

    Wait. “Lost” isn’t the right word. “Frittered.” Nope. Still doesn’t convey the squander.

    “Squatted down and pissed away.” Much better.

    Coked out when not blind drunk, the Mugwump sisters squatted down and pissed away their company. In doing so they destroyed in five years what their father Blowhard established after 27. Before carelessly tossing the reins to his flibbertigibbet daughters, Blowhard built Mugwump into a company renown for dependability, reliability and accuracy. Continue reading Dig A Grave. Lay Down. Bury Yourself. →

Pornography

No Atonement Kabuki


    Oh man! Did I have a great time writing the three stories comprising Cool Brass, or what?

    When I wrote for newspapers my first immediate chief was an editor who loved quoting Red Smith’s dictum. The late Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times sportswriter likened our craft to “opening a vein.”

    Puh-lease. Continue reading No Atonement Kabuki →

Green Venom

Ring-A-Ding-Ding!


    At my most recent meal in the neighborhood Italian restaurant the owner went aural wall-to-wall playing Frank Sinatra. That night maybe he had an urge to remember his hairline and when his wife still had a waist.

    The proprietor didn’t play one song on a loop. Instead, he tailored his listening preference after those Buenos Aires parrillas which nail their tuners on the endless Carlos Gardel, all the time radio station. Diners who appreciate Sinatra were even luckier.

    Rather than limit our listening pleasure to the crooner’s exhausted anthems (no “New York, New York,” thankfully) or the straight/no chaser/whole fifth downers (the entire In the Wee Small Hours album comes to mind) we ate while sampling the maestro’s oeuvre. Mostly mid-tempo selections personifying happy to be alive with my baby zest.

    The post-Ava canon. Continue reading Ring-A-Ding-Ding! →

Green Venom

Perdu Is Lost


(*Names changed in order to speak freely.)

    My colleague *Perdu is the sort of woman who disturbs dreams. Clever, charming, at times nervy. Unlike women who instigate nightmares, one can lust after Perdu without worrying about a future involving boiled bunnies, knives or elaborately devised revenge schemes against friends and family members.

    Nonetheless her adherence to rationality borders on psychosis.

    After five years of serving at Mugwump*, our dying place of employ, Perdu’s just come around to acknowledging the daily waste, absurdity, and futility contained within its walls. Her acceptance of survival cynicism has been exciting to behold.

    For the longest two hurdles kept Perdu from seeing how our enterprise had become an asylum. Continue reading Perdu Is Lost →