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.

Woof n' Tails

I don't know how much good petition-signing does, but pressure on one of these branches has, in the past week, means that it can no longer sell puppies. If this petition can help in any way, I'm for it:

http://www.ipetitions.com/campaigns/nopuppymills


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 10:21 AM

Look who ain't dead:

Introducing Krueger, who was nearly hit by at least one car (mine) a few weeks ago, taken to Animal Control, scheduled for euthanasia Sunday, March 28. Heartworm positive. He weighed 45 pounds, and should ideally be in the 70-80lb range when in full health. He was frail and uncoordinated, flea-ridden, toenails grown out so long that his toes splay like starfish now. I enlisted help from a local rescue group, one of whom had to meet me at the shelter to sign him out. This group goes to Animal Control every day and pulls adoptable dogs. When the group coordinator and I walked in, she went right over to *another* GSD and said, "This one? She's beautiful." I led her to my ragged bag of bones and said, "No, this one." She looked at him, and clearly didn't think he was much of a save. She looked at me like I had some psychological condition in which I had to choose the very ugliest, sickest, wildest deathbed creature of all.

Which, in a way, I did: my fervor at springing him stemmed from my conviction that, with so many healthier, prettier dogs in shelters (& so many purebred GSDs in rescue, dogs just turned over by owners incapable of handling them) - why would anyone choose to rehab an emaciated, surely sick stray? I'd seen something special in him the day I'd almost killed him myself, dammit.

And so far, I've been right.

This weekend there's a big festival in town & I'm affiliated with it to some extent, and was debating whether or not I should attend. I just learned who was headlining. I'd been told it was a bluegrass band, and that's cool. Can't go wrong with bluegrass. Love bluegrass.

Pardon? It's what? It's HIPPIE BLUEGRASS. HIPPIES. BLUEGRASSING. HIPPIES.

I just listened to a couple tracks off their new album, not quite understanding how hippies might handle bluegrass. I'm now stabbing myself in the ears with a bent fork, and looking for some Exploited (there MUST be some in my office somewhere) so I may rebuild my eardrums with proper scar tissue. MotherFUCK. Hippie bluegrass.


posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 9:30 AM

Whiskey Dick

Both dogs have been so good this weekend: Eike's learning the Baltimore Finish, and Krueger's not doing a damn thing. Re: not doing a damn thing: Krueger's a great house dog. He does nothing. He steals a slipper now and then and humps it, but other than that, he likes to lay around. I like to lay around. We get along.

Right, so Tony's show was last night. It kicked ass. We all had much fun. We all had much liquor. I got special dispensation to write about the local biker gang. I have to "submit a proposal," and when I called bullshit, I learned that the proposal would be something along the lines of, "Can this redheaded chick with the rack write about us?"

This is exciting.

Anyway, I left my car downtown, since I was in no shape to drive.

This morning, went back for the car: gone. Dudes were building a stage where it had been. Car: towed by the police. They wouldn't release it without the titleholder present. That would be my dad.

My rockin' dad drove 3 hours down and 3 back just to get the cop who towed my car to sign a form. We didn't even have time to go out to dinner.

I have to get the car out of impound tomorrow, and had to borrow money from Tony (and withdraw Eike from training for six weeks) to do so. Most expensive concert I ever attended. I told my folks, well, at least I wasn't calling to say the car was impounded PLUS I needed money to bail me out of a DUI.

Sigh.

And so goes Savannah.

I have 11 days to conceive and write a story for a book that may well be full by now. But I did wake up this morning to some people in the house who count as a whole new subculture, and might use them.

I almost hate to do it, though, because they thought I was ten years younger than I am.

I'd heard a lot about the show Nip/Tuck and watched it tonight. It was useless. Give me Deadwood any day.

And so it goes.
posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 1:31 AM

Damned if I don't

The first-ever Necro anthology is on the curb. A few jaywalked last weekend at World Horror, but the rest won't hit the streets in force until sometime this month.

Some folks went all a-cocklooped because the ultra-limited state of this book was $400 and there were only 13 copies. They blew up because nothing should ever cost $400, no stories were worth $400, artificially jacking the price of a book to $400 could damage the whole realm of all books everywhere because other publishers might decide to follow suit, etc.

These same folks turned around and creamed themselves with hot collector-lust over Cemetery Dance's new hardcover versions of their magazine. $75 each.

The $400-freakout crew didn't notice that there was also a standard edition for $50. Granted, $50 is more than I can spend on a book too, but this book is 160,000 words. Your average collectible hardcover (like skinny little DANGEROUS RED) costs $50, and this DAMNED sucka has twice the volume of fiction in it as skinny little DR contains.

The $400 books are all sold out, by the way.

I bet the CD hardcover magazines are really sharp. I assume some of them will be at Horrorfind so I'll get to see them in person.

I'm not opposed to high-priced collectible editions. I can't buy them myself, but: richer people than I can buy them, and nobody ever, ever said that any publisher was ever obligated to keep their "collectible" edition cheap enough for me, or any other broke person, to purchase.

Fancy books are, like lobster dinners and haircuts and name-brand groceries, things that I would love to have, but can not afford. No big deal. Maybe someday I can afford this stuff, and then I will have it. Maybe not. It's fun to have stories published in books one can't actually purchase, though. Thank god for contributor's copies.

Speaking of fancy books and being broke: I am officially Going To Horrorfind again this year. (Yay!) I think I'm even bringing Tony. Too bad Eike can't come.

Coolest PalmOS app I've seen in AEONS: AirClock. If there's a patron soul out there who wants to buy it and send it to me as an E-Gift, you might save my job. You might also actually SEE me at a convention - hotel alarm clocks never wake me up. This sure as hell would!

Right, so a month or so ago I tried an experiment: I was going to Make Friends. I was going to get involved and post on a horror message board. Just jump right in, I thought. Jump! Jump! Jump!

You know, like off a very tall building.

Yeah, I failed that. I don't like this whole "interaction" thing very much and I get worse at it the older I get.

However, I have FUN at cons. I LIKE people at them. I meet dozens of wonderful people each time I attend one. Strange.

KILL BILL 2: haven't seen it yet. I'm too busy watching Vol 1 over and over. The night I settled down with the DVD and watched it (my fourth viewing) I very belatedly realized that there are *chicks* kicking ass in it. What I mean is, the element of chickliness never occurred to me. The obvious? I can't see it. Ever. The things that I insist are quite obvious tend to be things others don't see, until I point it out to them.

The dogs, Eike and Krueger, are wearing me out. I think I have a cavity. I inadvertently grabbed the wrong sweatshirt and ended up wearing a Whiskey Dick pussy-eating one to work yesterday. Speaking of Whiskey Dick, he's playing at Jinx tomorrow night, so I have to go represent. Willie Heath Neal and His Cowboy Killers are also on the bill.

I shall drink.

Last weekend I saw Tombstone Daddy, Jimmy and the Teasers, and Rocket 350 - great show. The next night I was supposed to go see The Kickass (only, and I mean only, because I like their name and had to check it out) and forgot. Rumor has it they were, in fact, kickass. Dammit.

My advice to you for the day: don't get aspirin in your eye and Old Bay in your papercut. Don't, for god's sake, no matter how reflexive the instinct, try to dig the aspirin-eye out with your fingers while there's still Old Bay on them. At least LICK FINGERS FIRST.
posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 2:07 PM

Take the quiz: "Which American City Are You?"

Cleveland
You are blue collar and Rock n Roll. You Work hard and party harder.


Cleveland.

In Cleveland while on a Grayhound layover, a cop *on duty* hit on me. And later I brushed my teeth in the bathroom and a lady asked me if she could borrow my toothbrush. Oh, and the bus driver on the leg out of Cleveland let us smoke on the bus.

That's about all I remember.
posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 11:56 AM

Which Family Guy character are you?


I'm starting to dislike these quizzes.
posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 11:40 AM

No foolin'

I'd decided to shut off communications of all sorts for a while so I could focus on fiction.

Instead, the following things happened:

1. Nearly quit my job. Decided an attitude adjustment was in order and am okay again for the time being.

2. Nearly hit a stray GSD. Kept in touch with Animal Control and, though he was scheduled for euthanasia last Sunday, joined forces with a local rescue group and got him bailed out. Now I've got a 2-year-old, untrained, malnourished, dog undergoing heartworm treatment in the house. Yes, a second GSD.

3. Underwent an absolute and final hard-drive failure. Toast. I'm still loading backup disks to see how much I've lost, but everything written since my little exile is GONE. I'd thought I was backing up safely, but the corruption in the drive made backup disks burned during that time unreadable. Godfuckingdammit.

4. After cashing my DANGEROUS RED paycheck, I spent $100 on toys and put the rest in savings. Between the treatment for Stray Dog (currently named Dog X while I assess him) and replacing the hard drive, all DR money is gone.

5. Sundays I've been burning out my voice screaming over Kasey Kahne fucking WORKING IT too many times recently.

And so it goes.

posted by Mehitobel Wilson at 6:03 PM