Mehitobel Wilson: writer, reader, chronic curmudgeon.

Tomboy bombshell cowgirl; lover of funk, attracted to roadsides.

Besotted with spots.

Friend to sleaze.

Admirer of filthy films, fleshy steaks, Hong Kong rap, new felt and pocket-knocking 8-balls; prefers 10 gallons of hat and 4 fingers of Jack.

Procrastination here breeds urgency there. Urgency begets sharper fiction. The dream: hone it to a splinter, and sink it deep.

So I'm here.

Grrr.

I'm sweating through some sort of postpartum fit, which seems (according to authors polled) to be the norm after finishing a big project. I won't give you the details, but trust me, I'm not very nice to anyone right now. Don't ask me for anything.

Tony can ask, though, and did. Anybody who wants to go see his show, check it:


Artfolk, check out the book released to accompany Modern artist Ellsworth Kelly's current exhibition at SFMOMA:Ellsworth Kelly in San Francisco. Pay special attention to the essays of one Julian Myers, Smart Art Guy.

On my birthday, I learned (in a backwards way) that my little brother's getting married in November, and that one of my best friends from high school had a baby. FOR my birthday, I got action figures and monster posters and played Playstation and drank beer until dawn. Note how other folks grow up, and I do not.

Ah, fuck it, though. I already grew up. I already did the marriage thing and said hell no to the kid thing. I already lived in a tres expensive townhouse that was so fancy that I wasn't allowed to wear my motorcycle boots in the house. I already played trophy wife in pretty dresses and tossed pretty smiles to moneyed fuckos so they'd like my husband more, or something. I already drove the car with the Bose and watched my language and all that bullshit.

I'm now a retiree, free as hell in my curmudgeonhood, rejoicing in my monsters and books and Mafia movies, whacking people with my cane and yelling, via fiction, that nobody's got manners or self-respect anymore, that the shallow are fucked, that the blind and lazy rule the world, that ignorance and apathy are responsible for everything we hate. OUR ignorance and apathy.

I'm a mean old bat, retired at 25, and getting pretty mouthy now at 29.

My tolerance for shit died a long time ago. My ability to excercise restraint in beating the producers of shit? I'm doing everything I can to hang on to the last wisps, there, but am losing interest in the effort, and am increasingly catching myself ready with the stick.


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 1:13 AM

Done That

These past few weeks have been spent in the throes of self-imposed pressure, I suppose. My reaction to this is severe and violent procrastination: everything from photo shoots in satin to, well, photographing my goldfish (and failing, those speedy buggers.) I've watched movies and read books. (This past weekend I read Ernst Junger's STORM OF STEEL and Simon Clark's very entertaining VAMPYRRHIC, if you're curious.) Shit, I even redecorated. I guess "decorated" would be more apt, since nothing was put together in the first place. I guess "my mom decorated" would be yet still more apt, since I'm just crap for that kind of thing - she bought me stuff, I put it where the labels on the bags said the stuff should go. Thank god the "dust ruffle" had an illustration. (When I look at my "dust ruffle," which is a khaki piece of fabric that hides the cinder blocks that hold my box spring aloft, all I can think is, "palmetto bug ladder.")

ANYway. All of the above bullshit (nice as it is, and it really is) was a gigantor procrastinatory device to keep me from finishing my final original entry for my collection. But the story got finished, and the collection is on its way to the first publisher on the list.

I'll be 29 on Friday. I expect to have further collection news by the time I'm 30. If not, my schedule will be totally thrown off and I'll have to chuck it all and become a sassy barmaid in a New England fishing village.

Bad news last week: the last bar in town that I liked got shut down by "the revenuers." The reason it's the last bar is because every other bar I've ever liked - every place I've ever called "my bar" - has shut down. Good news: due to the fact that the government, to whom I owe student loans, has exacted payment for said student debt, the revenuers have allowed my bar to reopen.

See, it IS all about me.


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 1:34 AM

Pass It On

You know, one of the problems with being a tough-ass punkrocka amongst non-punks is that we tough-ass punkrockas have succeeded too well in scaring everybody else. I go to shows, alone, often, and always have - or drive out of town to go alone. Strange town, strange people, and I don't care - it's not a social event for me, it's a band. I'm there to see the band. Even when I do go with people I know to a show I'd like to see, I tend to roam off by myself, meet up with them later.

(Granted, NOTHING is a social event for me. Everything is a carefully-orchestrated ANTIsocial event. Go away. Git.)

(I'm not a tough-ass punkrocka any more, I'm too old and too lazy to deal with the bullshit. I was kidding up there.)

ANYWAY, so here I go trying to convince other folks - non-punk ones, but ones who like music that's different, at least - to catch good bands when they tour through my friends' towns, and they always find excuses not to go. "I fell asleep with my shoes on," they say, or "I don't like punk music," they say, or "I trust you on books, ladylove, but when it comes to music, he-yell no."

Dammit. My reputation as She of Shitty Music has not only spread too far, but is now tainting the reputations of actual good bands. "Oh, dude, I heard of that band - you know, Bel said they rocked. But last I heard, she was deeply absorbed in Weird Al songs and importing Chinese hardcore rap. This means that band sucks."

Shoot. On the other hand - I like it when a book makes me uncomfortable, and I'm proud when a story of my own bothers someone else - but that's a private, interior discomfort. Going, likely alone, to an event attended by people who Aren't Your People is pretty scary: I felt that way when I went to my first World Horror Convention in Atlanta in 1999. I knew no one and had no idea what to expect. So I guess me telling you to go see indescribably post-punk no-wave math-rock-deconstructed (see? indescribable) - um, LOUD AS FUCK bands when you're really into denim-laden prettyboys or hesher bands or whatever is akin to me telling you it would be a kick for you to lick an electrical outlet. It WOULD be a kick, but it might suck for you.

Geoff "and then the dog licked me" Cooper played me some Bloodhag the other day, and they do rock, and don't need any gimmicks. Listening to even snippets of them made me miss Minneapolis, specifically this guy Shawn from a band called Horror (of course) who idolized Pinhead and had more facial piercings than any Cenobite could fathom. (But when a band doesn't need gimmicks, yet has gimmicks, that's very cool.)

Warning, to those of you who write short stories: once you've relaxed into novella-length, it's hard as fuck to restrain any story to short-story boundaries. ANY story. I'm trying to contain three different suckers right now but they insist on overrunning every obstacle I put forth - they've outgrown all my stringent rules and are running wild. When this happens with cows, you can just whang on a pie tin and holler "GIT ON BACK HERE COW COW COW" and they jog on back where they belong. This does not work with fiction.

Okay, time to start planning for SPOOKYCON, San Fran Goddamn-cisco, ya'damn RIGHT I'll be there, Chinatown and all. Side trips to Tommy's Joynt for sick amounts of buffalo stew and meatballs and just huge bowls full of meat and meat alone. (Well, and beer, but that's not in the bowl.) I will finally get to hang out with (hell, half of them I'll finally get to MEET) all the lazy bastard West Coast people who just can't summon the nerve to cross the Mississippi, unless it's to go to NYC. My much-missed superfriend Julian will take me to places full of blase hipsters, and I will chainsmoke, and people will look upon me with disgust, despite the fact that they've all got cocaine in their pockets.

Must... squirrel... Spookyflight Cash...

posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 4:24 PM