Hysterical Publishing: Because we're all a little hysterical on the inside.

When I decided to self-publish Here Comes Your Man, I naturally understood that the book’s success would depend on the selection of a sufficiently awesome name for my fake¹ publishing company.

So I started a list, and for the next two weeks, everything I encountered gave me an idea that I liked for roughly four minutes. One night, my daughter was instructing me on the correct pronunciation of “opossum” and I thought: Nocturnal Books! The next day, I drove past the Riverside MBTA station and thought: D-Train Publishing! We ordered pizza for dinner, and I thought: Mushroom & Olive Press!

This little branding exercise reminded me of every attempt my high school friends and I made to start a rock band. Since we were usually short a drummer and/or bassist, we spent far more time thinking up cool band names than we did playing music. And since we weren’t even vaguely cool ourselves², we never had much luck with the names either.

In fact, the only band name I can even remember now was one jokingly suggested by my friend Matt’s father: "Joe Banana & the Bunch—The band with appeal." I briefly considered employing some version of that moniker for my publishing company, at least until I discovered that the Joe Banana name and slogan are both already in use by a real band. (On the bright side, the band sells t-shirts, which I plan to buy for my entire staff.)

So I continued brainstorming, a process I now realize isn't nearly as much fun without a group of teenage bandmates to snicker at my inappropriate suggestions. Eventually, I circled back to my very first idea: Hysterical Publishing.

I’ve always liked the word hysterical—its sound and architecture as much as its divergent connotations. For a while, Here Comes Your Man was actually called Hysterical & Useless (a fragment from the Radiohead song “Let Down”). And I've also noticed that sticking "hysterical" in front of just about any "-ing" word improves it tremendously: hysterical accelerating, hysterical accentuating, hysterical accessorizing, hysterical acclimatizing etc. (Note: there are several thousand more -ing words here in case you're already bored with this post. My personal favorite: absquatulating.)

But anyway...with the name decided, I just needed a snazzy logo to back it up. And since Hysterical Publishing's Chief Illustrator once again blew all her screen time for the week playing Wii Sports Resort, I was forced to sit down at the computer and work something up myself. I think you'll agree that the results were pretty awesome, even employing a rather Joe Banana-esque color scheme:

Now, a few naysayers within the Hysterical Publishing team have suggested that this logo is perhaps 10-15% too awesome (i.e. manic and distracting) for use anywhere on our otherwise minimalist cover design. But even if that does prove true, it will not mean that this effort was a complete waste of time. On the contrary, the new logo will be emblazoned throughout the Hysterical Publishing campus, as well as being the centerpiece of the outdoor advertising campaign we're rolling out this spring.

Oh, and in case you can’t quite make it out, the pattern of 1s and 0s washed faintly across the logo spells "Hysterical Publishing" in binary code. (See—I told you I wasn’t cool.)

¹Correction: Hysterical Publishing received its first piece of junk mail this week and thus is no longer fake or imaginary.

²Shocking, I know. Though I should clarify that, in the years since high-school, my friend Matt has acquired a certain full-bearded, acoustic coolness that continues to elude me (despite anything my kindhearted cousin Jennifer might tell you).

Here Comes Your Man

It gives me great pleasure—and just a hint of queasiness—to announce that my novel Here Comes Your Man will be released on April 1, 2010 by Hysterical Publishing.

(woo-hoo!!!)

Now, as exciting as that sounds, there are a couple of caveats I should share:

About the publisher:
Hysterical Publishing is an extremely small, independent press that has (to my knowledge) just one employee: me. So while I do plan to talk about myself in the third-person as much as possible, you should know that this is really a self-publishing effort. I’m handling everything from cover art, to page layout, to satisfying the diva author’s incessant demands for more PBJ sandwiches and Diet Coke. (And if this self-publishing venture follows the script of most others, I will also be buying the bulk of the books myself as well.)

About the release date:
Since Hysterical Publishing is such a tiny operation, they can't actually guarantee that Here Comes Your Man will be released on April 1st. They say they're going to try really really hard, and they've promised that, if the book isn't released on April 1st, it will definitely be released at some time before or after that. (And that's way more than any other publisher has promised me, so I'm going with it.)

About distribution:
Once Here Comes Your Man is released, whenever that might be, you’ll be able to get it in both paperback and e-book format from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and a variety of other outlets. (And if my daughter has her way, one of those other outlets will be a little stand in front of our house, where you’ll get a handmade "friendship bracelet" with every book.)

Anyway, I think that’s enough fine print for now. What’s the book about?

Whenever people ask me this question in person, I usually look down at my shoes and say something like, “Uhhhhhhhh…”

Lucky for you, this is not a real, in-person conversation, so you can just read the book's back-cover blurb instead. Here goes...

Here Comes Your Man

Meet Garrett: 30-year-old computer geek, master of irrational optimism, and serial-kisser of women who (it turns out) don’t like him that way. After three blurry years of business travel and inadvertent celibacy, Garrett is so ready for a serious relationship that he’s a little bit dangerous.

Inspired by a romantic near-miss on a flight home to Seattle, Garrett hurls himself into the deep end of the dating pool, determined to find happiness no matter how miserable it makes him. Too bad the women he falls for don't share his sense of urgency: Froot Loop sculptress April worries she’s warping his personality, cynical attorney Corinne suspects he likes her too much, and upstairs neighbor Meryl just wants to be friends.

Garrett refuses to give up though… well, at least until he does. But sometimes, after you’ve finally abandoned hope, you find that someone else hasn’t given up on you.

So that's my big announcement for today! I'll be blogging more in the coming days and weeks about books, carrot cake, Andre Agassi, and the whole self-publishing process, so...stay tuned! Or at the very least, drop by on April 1st to see if the Hysterical Publishing team and I can hit our deadline: We guarantee you a book, or a really solid excuse!

Born from jets; hoping for rebirth.

I still remember the Saab that got me—a dark red 1978 99 Turbo that I spotted at a donut shop when I was nine. It was a startling vehicle, with its clamshell hood, crazy wrap-around windshield, and rakish, swooping hatch. To me, it looked like some kind of spaceship, but cooler than anything George Lucas could’ve imagined. Even the nameplate seemed otherworldly: SAAB. I remember thinking that I’d probably never get a chance to ride in anything so exotic.

But just a few years later, my father began working for a Swedish firm, and his company car was a blue 1984 Saab 900 Turbo. Riding in its cockpit for the first time, feeling the whoosh of the turbocharger that seemed ready to lift us right off the pavement, I was hooked. I’ve owned four different Saabs since then, two of which are still in my driveway.

Like most Saab aficionados, I was never happy about GM’s dulling influence on the company, but I also grudgingly recognized that, without GM’s investment, Saab might’ve disappeared years ago. Still, that knowledge hasn’t made it any less painful to watch GM's recent treatment of Saab, first trying to sell them off like some toxic asset, and later announcing that they would just shut them down.

The American media’s Saab coverage has been spotty, so I’ve been following the story on a Swedish news site called The Local. Multiple articles there have suggested that GM rejected an initial bid from Dutch carmaker Stryker because it was backed by Russian investors, and “GM was reportedly concerned about the transfer of technical know-how to Russia.”

That one really had me scratching my head. Sure, Saabs have always featured some nifty engineering, but does the company really possess some secret technology that simply cannot fall into Russian hands? And if said technology does exist, why hasn’t GM exploited it to, you know, make money?

I'm beginning to suspect that GM is content to let Saab die because they'd rather not see the brand succeed under someone else’s stewardship—a turn of events that would just underline GM's own failure. And perhaps GM doesn't want any of their future vehicles—be they Chevys, Opels or Vauxhalls—to be forced to compete with a reinvigorated Saab, whose owners have always been among the world's most loyal and enthusiastic. Maybe that mysterious Saabist devotion is the real "technology" that GM is hesitant to sell.

As of today, GM has reportedly reopened the door to potential buyers; here's hoping that they can work something out. If not, maybe I'll see if I can track down that 99 Turbo from the donut shop, or an old 900 like Dad's—both cars are still more original and inspiring to me than anything Detroit has produced in the last thirty years.

Free Couch! (cushions not included)

Two weeks ago, we put our old couch out on the curb. We were actually hesitant to let it go—we'd had it for nearly ten years, and it was still quite comfortable—but we needed the space, and we were sure that someone else would give it a good home.

Within an hour, a couple in a minivan stopped to claim the couch. They said they wanted it for their playroom—they had young children, in addition to a teenage son—but they needed to clear some space in their van before they could haul it away. The plan was that would take the cushions and pillows immediately, and then the man and the teenage son would return shortly for the rest of the couch.

It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. It was two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon; I figured they’d be back before dinner. But while other people stopped to inspect the couch (now looking a little naked), there was no sign of the couple in the minivan, either that day or the next. They just never came back.

And I just keep asking myself, Why?

I can understand changing your mind—maybe they figured out that the couch wouldn’t fit in their playroom. But still, wouldn't you at least return the cushions so that somebody else could use the thing? How much trouble could that possibly be, especially if it meant saving it from a landfill?

Since I don't like to think ill of people, I've been trying to imagine a scenario that would excuse this couple’s behavior. So far, I've only come up with three possibilities, summarized below. Since I never got their real names, I’ve just referred to them as "Regis and Kelly."

1. The 24 Theory.

Regis and Kelly were actually undercover counterterrorism operatives who had just discovered an explosive device hidden in the “Seasonal/Juice/Candy” aisle of our local Star Market. Using our couch cushions to fashion a makeshift blast suit, Kelly had successfully defused the bomb, saving dozens of lives and literally hundreds of dollars in tacky holiday decorations.

As a token of his gratitude, the store manager presented Kelly with a gallon jug of store-brand cranberry juice. Caught up in the excitement of the moment, Kelly attempted a celebratory swig from the unwieldy bottle, but just ended up spilling cranberry juice all over our herself and couch cushions, staining them irreparably.

2. The Memento / Dory Theory.

A tragic trapeze mishap in 1994 left Regis and Kelly afflicted with anteretrograde amnesia, a rare brain disorder that prevents them from being able to store new memories. And so, three minutes after pulling away from our house, Regis and Kelly forgot that they’d ever stopped. Upon arriving home that night, they were stunned to discover that their minivan was packed with couch cushions of every conceivable color and size.

Agreeing that this was probably just another one of Regis Jr.’s teenage pranks—in reality, Regis Jr. is now 30 years old and running for Massachusetts' open U.S. Senate seat—Regis and Kelly stacked all of the cushions on the curb for the morning trash pickup.

3. Raiders of the Lost Couch

Regis and Kelly were actually renegade "recyclers" (aka curb cruisers, dumpster divers, or sidewalk stalkers) who, shortly after leaving our house, were captured by a tyrannical junk cartel. Dragged to the evil trashlord's headquarters/two-car garage, they faced their longtime nemesis—we'll just call her "Kathie Lee"—who had discovered our cushions and correctly identified them as part of a rare late-90s Crate & Barrel Apartment Sleeper. Kathie Lee threatened Regis and Kelly with unspeakable tortures unless they revealed the couch's location.

"I'll never tell," Regis scowled. "You don't scare me anymore, Kathie Lee."

"Oh no?" Kathie Lee said, flicking on a karaoke machine.

Two days and 273 Christmas medleys later, Regis finally snapped and agreed to lead Kathie Lee to the couch. But by the time the trio arrived back at our house, the couch had disappeared...

They wondered: Had it been carted it off by some less-picky trash-picker? Or had it, separated from its beloved cushions, died of a broken heart and ascended directly to furniture heaven?

Or maybe—just maybe—the original owner couldn't leave the fricking couch blocking the sidewalk forever, so he'd had to haul this decushionated behemoth to the garage—by himself, if I had to guess—pivoting, dragging, and flipping the thing end-over-end, its fold-up bed frame periodically springing out at him like some enormous mechanical tongue. And maybe the couch is still sitting in his garage—alongside his old washer and dryer and everything else he can’t bring himself to throw out—waiting for someone to knock on his door and ask for it.

Or maybe we’ll never know what really happened…and maybe it’s better that way.

Teen Wolf Wearing Ray-Bans

As I've mentioned before, people visit my blog for a variety of reasons, most of which involve looking for someone or something else. They search for "snacks to regulate blood sugar," and Google or Yahoo magically mis-leads them to a post about my diabetic cat.

I feel a twinge of guilt every time I see hits like that in my Google Analytics report—my blog certainly isn't going to help anyone control their blood sugar—but I do enjoy my little glimpse of the things people search for:

best things about working in information technology
lost or corrupted user profile in Vista
how do you say ‘fan club’ in japanese?
use of freeze by dates
derek shortened
queasyness at bedtime
i'm not the man i thought i was
teen wolf wearing raybans

That's all pretty mundane stuff—I mean, who hasn't been gripped by the need to see an adolescent lycanthrope in glamorous eyewear? But every once in a while, I'll encounter a search imbued with such passion that it practically jumps off the screen:

a dog keeps peeing on the grassy strip between the curb and sidewalk who owns it

This one scared me because, very briefly, I worried it might've come from some disgruntled neighbor. Thankfully, Google indicated that this visitor actually lives in Iselin, New Jersey, a place Hugo and I will be sure to steer clear of.

Over time, I've noticed that certain searches seem to transcend geography. For some reason, I see hits like these coming in from all corners of the globe:

blackberry change life
blackberry changes people life
blackberry change my life
blackberry will make my life better
sugar snacks
blood sugar snacks
snacks good for blood sugar
snacks to regulate blood sugar
un gateau
ce n'est pas de gateaux
ceci n'est pas un gateau

The Blackberry hits, which arrived from as far away as Malaysia, Indonesia, and South Africa, just depress me beyond words. And while I totally understand all the blood sugar queries—diabetes is a global issue—it's harder to guess why people everywhere are also searching on "Ceci n'est pas un gateau." Though in a surreal sort of way, one search does answer the other, non?

Snacks good for blood sugar?
This is not a cake!

But by far the most curious search to bring anyone to my blog has to be:

he peeing long moan good

I have no idea what this person was looking for, but I’m pretty sure it was inappropriate, if only grammatically. And for some reason, my blog is the #1 Google result for this phrase.

I've always wanted to be #1 at something; I guess this is it.

My Old, Familiar Friend

Two weeks ago today, I took my old friend Spalding to the vet, something I'd done so many times over the last sixteen years. Unfortunately, this trip wasn’t like any of the others; this time, I came home with an empty carrier.

I'd known this day was coming, but that didn't make the occasion any less sad. As it turned out, diabetes wasn’t Spalding’s worst problem—he also had a tumor on one of his hind legs. By the time we discovered it, camouflaged within his gray fur and already encroaching on his knee, the only treatment was amputation. Given Spalding’s age and medical resume, we decided to keep him comfortable instead.

He had four good months after that, which I think was more than any of us expected. His limp gradually worsened, but he still hopped up onto the couch every night and sat purring beside me while I watched TV or wrote. And that's how I'll always remember Spald: a warm, happy shape beside me on the couch.

And he actually made an excellent writing partner, except on those rare occasions when I attempted to use a pen. Spalding never met a pen he didn't want to rub his face against, so he would chase it back and forth across the page, purring and lunging and knocking my hand off course. It kinda drove me crazy sometimes. But now, of course, I miss it.

Weapon of Choice

It’s ten-thirty on Thursday night. Lilah and Alex are asleep, Hugo has been walked, and I’m in the dining room, trying to write.

But now Hugo appears beside me, wide-eyed and whining. I run through the list of things that might be troubling him:

Does he have water?
Yes.

Is there a mouse in the kitchen cabinets?
I find no evidence of this, but much like the existence of God, it's a difficult thing to disprove.

Did the cat die again?
No, Spalding is still breathing..and now he’s meowing at me because I touched him.

Is Hugo about to have explosive diarrhea?
I take him outside again, and he casually attempts to pee on the new Japanese maple. When I snap the leash, he pretends to have been aiming for the fence.

Is Hugo distressed by that new rawhide, resting so tantalizingly atop the china cabinet?
I take the rawhide down and give it to Hugo. He runs off to stash it in his crate with his other rawhides, and then returns to whine at me again.

Would Hugo prefer that I write in the living room?
I relocate myself to the couch, which is far too comfy for productivity at this hour. Hugo is still upset though, pacing back and forth in front of me…

…and that’s when I finally see it, the source of his agitation: there’s a fly in the house.

This is very bad news, perhaps worse than all of the other possibilities combined. Something about a fly’s buzzing tickles the most primal parts of Hugo’s brain. If I don’t banish this thing, Hugo will be barking and chasing it around the house all night, pausing only to chew out his frustrations on unsuspecting shoes and books. And none of us will sleep.

My fly-killing skills are notoriously weak though, a point that was driven home by our cat Theo a few years ago. I'd been chasing this monster fly around the house, flailing and cursing at the thing for a good ten minutes, when it made the mistake of buzzing past Theo, half-asleep on a chair. Without even rising from his reclined position, Theo snatched the fly out of the air, dragged it straight to his mouth, and ate it in front of me.

I'd never been so impressed and revolted at the same time.

But Theo has since passed away, Spalding has no interest in insects, and Hugo is all enthusiasm and no skill. I grab Lilah’s slim paperback of Henry and Mudge from the table and, with little hope of success, begin tracking the fly. It circles just out of reach, resting first on the ceiling, and then on the inside of a lampshade.

When it finally stops on the wall, I strike. The fly lurches back into the air, stunned but alive, and Hugo lunges after it. His snapping jaws knock the fly off course, but it's just another glancing blow.

Seeking a more substantial weapon, I grab a magazine from today’s mail. The fly lights on the blinds and I strike again, knocking it to the windowsill while Hugo barks in near-rabid excitement behind me. One more bash, and the fly is finally dead.

With equal parts pride and relief, I get a tissue to collect the corpse and clean the errant bug-bits off the murder weapon, the Fall 2009 issue of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. I recognize that there will be karmic consequences for what I've done, but at this point, I'm ready to accept a few lifetimes as a dung beetle if I can finally get some fricking work done.

But as soon as I return to the couch and the computer, so does Hugo. He's whining and wedging his head up onto my lap, every bit as agitated as before.

What now? Another bug?

No, it seems that Hugo just doesn’t understand what happened. He never saw the dead fly, so he's convinced that it's just hiding somewhere, waiting to start buzzing again.

Or maybe Hugo knows exactly what happened, and this is just his way of asking, "Aren't you going to eat that?"