My Name Is Wonderchicken, And I Have A Problem

No, it’s not the booze. Been 5 months since I had a drink. Not the ponies, or the ladies, or the intoxicating, forbidden allure of naked living room dancing, though I have been known to indulge in the latter from time to time.

No, I am addicted to making ever-more-elaborate websites: the twisted desire that is killing the youth of today.

Actually, no, that’s not true. The youth of today are telling the world what they just dug out of their nose on Twitter, or Farmvilling their way to true friendship on Facebook. But more power to ‘em, I guess. I was drinking rye and falling off the tops of fences at their age — not notably nobler pursuits.

Anyway, without further old-mannery, here’s the latest Fun Internet Thing from Wonderchicken Industries™: Gamefilter.net. Share and enjoy.

What’s It All About, Alfie?

I have operated on a few simple principles for more than two decades now, with good success.

First, do no harm. Or as little as possible.
Second, do not suffer fools or Bad People. They will rob you of your life.
Third, make choices with an eye to minimize future regret. In other words, imagine you were on your deathbed looking back – live your life to make that old bastard as peaceful as possible about dying.
Fourth, learn and wander. We may or may not be hairless monkeys, but there is wisdom out there. It may be an evil world, but there is beauty. Find it.
There is no meaning — in anything — but what our minds create. To search for meaning is to make the same mistake as those who search for happiness : both meaning and happiness are mental constructs superimposed by your mind on top of the actual conditions of your life. Seeking them in externals will drive you mad if you’re smart, or guarantee you failure if you’re persistent.

I wrote that in response to an AskMe question, almost 5 years ago, and had completely forgotten it until tonight, when I noticed that it had been favorited out of the blue, all these years later. The question was “Do you know what you want out of life? How do you know? How did you figure it out?”
I’ve been angry and silent lately, at least in terms of my own writing. I’ve been doing all sorts of other stuff online, sure. Built and run my own busy community over here, a bunch of other stuff. But I’ve decided tonight that I need to start stringing those words together again, laugh and glare ironically and textually dance on the graves and all, and tamp that anger down, or at least direct it productively, before I become the kind of old bastard I’ve always hated. I have no choice about getting old, but I do have a choice about what kind of old man I become.
Ain’t makin’ no promises, mind you. But maybe it’s time to write some stuff again, and widen that circle out, again, a little.
‘Cause what the world needs now is another active blogger. Like I need a hole in my head.

First Paragraphs From Stories I'll Never Write Episode 2

The nails didn’t hurt nearly as much as I’d expected going in, but the pain bombshell blossomed as they dropped the post into the hole and levered us upright.
My brother’s head was wobbling a bit on our shared shoulder as I glanced over, but he felt my eyes on him and snapped back into his customary 200-watt anchorman idiot grin and winked. “It’s not like we didn’t expect this, eh?” I couldn’t argue. We’d had a pretty good run.
Raising his face to the sky, still grinning, he bellowed “Father! Why has thou forsaken us, dude?” My conjoined brother, the son of god. Smart-ass to the last.

First Paragraphs From Stories I'll Never Write Episode 1

They beat him hard hauling him out of St Paul’s after he crapped in front of the High Altar, but he barely felt it through the hockey pads and the exhilaration. Light rain was falling in London, and it cooled his face as they kicked him to the curb. One of them spit on him as they walked away, dusting their hands. He was alive and unhurt and shaking as the adrenalin ebbed.
The first skirmish had ended in success. His war on god was underway.
[Sometimes entire paragraphs just appear in my brain, right before I fall asleep. It happens a lot. I'm going to try and start remembering them. So, this.]

Wonderchicken 08

The exploratory committee has come back with a dog-choker of a bar bill, the Portobello market magic 8-ball has come up with a big och-aye, the goat entrails are vermiformally encouraging, and the Voices of The Peoples have been heard.
VOTE WONDERCHICKEN! (You know, eventually.)


I inhaled. Read my lips: I did have sex with that woman. I’ve torpedoed more companies than you’ve had hot meals, I avoided military service, I never did stop the drinking. And the Alzheimer’s, well, you know what Nancy says. I am a crook, and I’ve had lustful thoughts about other women.
I am a donut.
But I swear by the Vengeful Bearded Deity of The Midwest, I will emerge from the media birth canal triumphant, only mildly crumpled and sweaty, and wiping god-goo from my forehead, stride manfully forward into the cleansing light of the television cameras.

I think of Dean Moriarty

…so in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars’ll be out, and don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what’s going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty, I think of Dean Moriarty.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

A Poetry Break brought to you by the fine people in the AudioVisual Division of Wonderchicken Industries™