Saturday, February 6, 2010

Answer #32 - Because Great Balls of Fire Exploded Out of his Chest

The snow wasn't bad driving.  Yes, Adventure Boy pulled out the big guns of 'wussball' and 'chicken' so I got in the car and drove to Illinois.  Pride is a dangerous thing, but I got it in spades.

Now I'll get in the car in 1/2 an hour and drive to Mukwanago, somewhere between Madison and Milwaukee.  This will be maybe 7 hours and to the accompaniment of some fairly crappy pulp fiction book on CD.


Why would anyone listen to crappy pulp fiction for 7 hours?

That's just how we roll.

Yesterday's was 'Tail Spin' by Catherine Coulter.  There was a plane, a strapping FBI agent, a rich family and their bastard daughter, the bastard daughter and the FBI agent meeting as the plane plummeted because of a bomb aboard and the bastard daughter happening to drive by the field in which said plane was smouldering in time to save said strapping agent - of course, a handful of dead bodies along the way, leading, inevitably to the engagement of the FBI agent and the bastard daughter who inherited all the money somehow.

It was, it was.. it defied description.  It was beyond reckoning, it was.. the dialogue was..  the reader and her bizarre and earnest attempt at southern accent was.. it..  there were cellphones that all, every one of them, every character in the book carried a cell phone that rang, incessantly a random popular tune, which the author felt compelled to tell us about.  Every time.  No ring ring, always a pop song.  For everyone.  Even the nuclear physicists.  Implausible, you say?  Yes, I say.

Examples:

"Sherlock's pocket rang 'Like a Virgin'"
"'She Loves You' screamed from the buzzing phone on the commissioner's desk"
"'Three Times a Lady' let Rachel know that Laurel had tracked her down"
(this went on for hours and endless hours...)

But the pinnacle, the screaming masterpiece of all of the cellphone ring descriptions:

Bastard daughter and FBI Agent are finally locked in an embrace.
For some reason she licks his neck and then apologizes. (not kidding)
He smiles, reassuringly as he holds her close, her face in his hands

And then (wait for it)
"Great Balls of Fire exploded out of his chest"

His cell phone was ringing.

I spit my coffee all over the dashboard and we laughed ourselves into town.

Ah, good times.  Snow storms.  Pulp fiction...  coffee-covered dashboard.

The road.
'

2 comments:

  1. The only thing in the world that can make bad writing worse is to listen to it read out loud! But "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" ... pulsates through his tight jeans...

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  2. Oh! I gotta use that in my new play! The juxtapositions are rich and endless.. I prefer to listen to "Selected shorts" on NPR Podcasts... I would also recommend anything from the ZBS media catalogue.
    Not as tawdry, intentionally amusing stories. There was a BBC series that had a killer who's phone played "Crazy Frog" (Look it up on Youtube if you're curious)
    Glade you made it safe. But then, you were AB positive. (Adventure Boy that is.)
    Chessley

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