Awkward Press

A few days ago, I wrote a comment regarding the book Neon Angel by Cherie Currie that was ghostwritten by our friend Tony O’ Neill. In my comments, I said, “For those of you who are unfamiliar with literary terms, that means that Tony basically wrote the whole thing.”

Yesterday, I got an email from the legendary Runaways leader herself, telling me that I was totally wrong and that she worked her ass off on it and that I am basically a complete dick, although she said it in a much nicer way than that. Not only that, but Neon Angel was actually originally released in 1989, and the version coming out this year is just a revised version.

And she’s totally right: it was a dick thing to say. I know nothing about Tony and Cherie’s process, and it sounds like she really did work hard on it. Clearly, if it had already been released, it is not 100% Tony’s handiwork. Also, please note that Tony himself had nothing to do with my comments … he’s a great guy who doesn’t have a bad word to say about anyone, and as far as I know, he found the book to be a positive collaborative experience.

It’s easy to make stupid comments on one’s blog and assume that no one will ever see them, but I realize that it’s not right to make fun of someone’s hard work without knowing the facts behind the matter. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Currie for my unnecessarily rude statements. For the record, I love Cherie Currie’s work, I love Tony O’ Neill, and any collaboration between the two is bound to be an amazing read. You can buy Neon Angel right here. And check out Cherie’s bio website and her artwork for more information about her many talents.

A free copy of Awkward One goes to the first person who can tell me why double quotation marks are added every time I use a blockquote in WordPress. Example:

””””””This is a single quotation mark.”””””” “This is a double quotation mark.”

Any php smarties out there?

Update: Nothing is actually happening to the double quotes, the apostrophes are being changed into double quotation marks. That is the real problem. Like so:

Mark said, “I love the part where Juliet””””””””s all ””””””””Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”””””””””

Update Update: Ack! More quotation marks are being added every time I edit the post! See that first quote up there? That started out as a single apostrophe before and after “This” and “mark”.

Also note: nothing is happening in the regular post, it””””s only in the blockquotes.

Update Update Update: WRONG! It”s happening everywhere! Haaaaaalp!

Update Update Update Update: Je l’ai! It’s fixed! No one wins the book. (FYI: No one really tried to win the book.)

If you’re like me, you spend every waking moment in December lying on the floor in a fetal position, wracked with indecision over what to buy your friends and family for Christmas or whatever other quasi-religious festival of consumption you celebrate. You dream that someday someone will come along and alleviate your pain with the perfect gift idea, but your mental anguish has left you so incapacitated that all you can think to do is pull up your laptop computer and refresh AwkwardPress.com over and over again, hoping beyond hope for some kind of sign.

Consider this your sign, friends.

For a limited holiday time only, we’ve reduced the price on Awkward One to $7! That’s less than 9 cents per page for a fantastic and handsome collection of short stories that most of the editors’ mothers agree is “readable!*” With prices this low, we should be in jail!

Awkward One is soft and bendy and compact and it adds a lovely dash of sophistication to a Christmas stocking or holiday candy sock. It is absolutely impossible to swallow and makes a wonderful teething tool for infants. Hell, rip it apart and use it as wrapping paper … we don’t care! At this price, you’ll still save money!

*not an actual quote

Order your copy now! Now now now now now now now! No, wait … okay, now!

Still waiting to purchase that copy of Awkward One? Well, if you play your cards right, you might not have to! The good people at Lit Drift will be giving away ONE COPY AND ONE COPY ONLY of our precious gem of a book as part of their ongoing “Free Book Friday” contest. All you have to do is comment and you’ll be in the pot.

Even if you have already picked up your copy, Lit Drift is a great book site run by wonderful human beings and you must check them out right now because your life depends on it. Seriously. Lit Drift or death. What’s it gonna be?

If you enter the contest and are not picked, don’t despair. You can still totally buy one here. We have, like, 3 or 4 copies left.

Yes, I’ve been away for awhile. It probably won’t get much better for a couple of months. I’ve been furiously slaving away on my Green Jobs book. Which has nothing to do with Awkward, but everything to do with whether or not I will be able to eat. Well, maybe not eat, because I’m not really that poor. More like it is has everything to do with whether or not I will be able to afford the HD channels in my cable package.

Speaking of, how about this healthcare thing, huh? Crazy. I don’t really care what kind of “package” we end up getting, just so long as the status quo is maintained. If there’s one thing about our country that’s great, it’s how I have to spend two hours on the phone arguing with my insurance company every time I go to see a doctor. That’s how the founding fathers would have wanted it. There’s that great story in The People’s History of America where Thomas Jefferson goes to the doctor and he’s like, “what is this? You bleed me without asking for recompense, sir? Back to England with ye!” (Little known fact: Thomas Jefferson was part pirate.)

I haven’t rapped at ya’ about Awkward for awhile, but we are still very much alive and needing your support. Sales have been pretty slow since our party in New York, I think partly because I have stopped talking about it incessantly. If you have not bought a copy yet, I truly recommend doing so. Not just because I have a hilarious and mind-blowing story in the collection, but because it is a cover-to-cover masterpiece that children of all ages and mental abilities can enjoy. To that end:

1) We’re in a store! Just one. The one store that I happen to walk past on my way to work every day. Skylight Books, the best independent bookstore in Los Angeles, now has 5 copies of Awkward One. If you live in L.A. and don’t own a copy yet, please stop in and buy one so they will think we’re popular! If you don’t live in Los Angeles, buy it here! Now! Now now now!

(more…)

Kyle was interviewed by a gentlemen named Adam Szymkowicz and he talked about us! Oh my god oh my god oh my god I think he likes me …

Also, The Fanzine gave us a nice plug in their “Recommended” section.

Also also, one of Clay‘s plays was chosen as part of The Best American Short Plays of 2007-2008! Congratulations Clay!

This is just a message to let you all know that I’m completely sabotaging the awesome traffic we’ve built up on the site by disappearing for a week in the New York City jungle. If you really miss me, you’ll find a way to ge to the Awkward Release Party next Tuesday. I’ll hit you when I get back, friends and strangers!

And, let’s face it, probably a few times while I’m there. It is hard to stay out of the spotlight for long, even when the spotlight is just a blog with 10-12 readers, most of whom don’t even speak English.

When people visit awkwardpress.com, they routinely ask one of two questions. The first is: “are there any zardoz boobs on this site?” The answer is no. The second is: “where the Hell is Honor? The guys on this site look stinky. We want Honor!”

Well, folks, I’m pleased to finally be able to appease the askers of the second question. Honor, as you may know, is in high-demand as the editor and writer of GotoTennis, the only tennis site worth reading on the WWW machine. After many months, however, I was finally able to convince her that we were a legitimate enterprise and that we weren’t going to steal her identity, even though I am technically writing this post under her name. (Hi! It’s Jeffrey. There’s some weird site snafu in which a person’s profile picture won’t show up until they write a post, forhence the reason I am writing this as Honor. I promise, Honor, this is the last time I will ever steal your identity. In America. Overseas is a different story.)

Honor is a great friend and an amazing writer who contributed a great, nail-biter of a story to Awkward One, which you should buy right now. Welcome, Honor! Pardon the odor!

Yo. I am in the middle of a writing frenzy. It is not fun writing. It is fun, but in a different way. It’s not the kind of writing that’s going to make either of us laugh, is what I mean. But that is the kind of thing a man has to do when a man has a family to support. (Full disclosure: I don’t have a family to support.)

So posting will be light today, if not nonexistent. I guess the existence of this post proves it will not be nonexistent. It is existent. Maybe I should change the title of this post to “Existent Posting Today.”

In the meantime, please enjoy this video of some kid who just made you obsolete:

Any smarties out there in the audience? My javascript menu stopped working and I can’t figure out why. Go up to the menu item that reads “contributors” and hover over it. Nothing, right? Then, click on it. Now if you hover … look at all those beautiful names!

Anyone able to tell me why this is happening?

Update: Got it: I accidentally connected a thing to a thing that was not supposed to be connected to that thing. No worries. All better now. I’m a programming genius. Whatever.