For Grannymar Pecker tracks I can see from my computer.

The Junk Drawer Blog is goofing off somewhere this week, but she left an assignment for her commenters. She stole a comment game from Comedy Plus.

The Junk Drawer Blog is fun, but whoooo boy, her commenters are just so vanilla, so white bread, so unimaginative.

Here’s how SHE explained the Comment Game.

It’s very simple. I start the game off by listing two words or phrases, like waffles or pancakes, and you pick the one you like better. You can explain why if you like.

She started with Twitter or Facebook. Nice start, but OMG, her commenters responded with choices like:

• Mac or PC
• Coffee or Tea
• Boxers or Briefs
• Peanut Butter or Jelly

I. am. NOT. kidding. And it goes on for over 100 comments.

I played too, here were my choice:

• Po or Laa Laa – which the next person said they didn’t have a clue about. Dur, Hello Google? So I came back with…
• Clarabelle or Crusty – which the next poster didn’t know, but chose Clarabelle because it was a nice name! OMG, puh-leeze! My final entry, before I decided to hijack this idea was…
• Simon Cowell or Simon & Shuster. The next commenter chose Simon Cowell because she hadn’t heard of “the other one.”

LISTEN UP. Here’s the deal. I am taking over this idea.

There is a big prize involved.

A wonderful Marilyn Monroe shirt from the wonderful people at TeesForAll.com. I wanted a gift certificate from TeaseForMe.com, but haven’t heard back. TeesforAll.com is not doing this because they like me, they want to sell you some Tee shirts. Surprise. Surprise. Surprise. They have a really cool Stones shirt, and some other Boomer targeted stuff.

WIN THIS SHIRT

No, it doesn’t have to be the Marilyn Monroe baby-doll with pink stripes, unless you want it. And then I want a picture of you in it.

HERE’S HOW WE’RE GONNA PLAY:

It’s kind of like the The Junk Drawer Blog contest, BUT, the combinations need to be weird, arcane, tricky, smart, obscure, clever, whatever. (Like my examples! )

AND: you must explain why you chose the word you did, to avoid miscellaneous fakery.

After a while, I’ll close the comments and then we will vote on the best combination.  Finalists may be contacted to provide a full and complete explanation of their word combinations so you can’t fake it easily.

Got it? Good.

Here is my combination, you take it from here:

Sky King or Enola Gay?

Francesco wrote today…

Few cultures have as rich of a literary tradition as the Irish. And few literary traditions are as steeped in abject sadness, soul-crushing squalor and pub-related fatalities as that of the Irish autobiography. Yet each year we continue to be enthralled by books from authors that by all accounts should not have lived past birth. In honor of these fine men and women I present, via Francesco, the following template to help you pen your own award-winning Irish memoir, Mad Libs style. For example:

(gerund)
(vegetable)
(town’s sole economic lifeline)
(dearest childhood possession)
(body part of which there is only one).
(complete surname)
(chemical element for water)
(choose a gender)
(proper noun)
(verb)
(entrance other than door)
(woman’s name other than “Mom”)
(inanimate object)
(gimp extremity)
(colorful Gaelic phrase for “open cutlery drawer”).
(double-digit number)
(imagine the worst job possible for a woman, then imagine it occurring inside an underground factory).
(oh hell, you decide)
(medical term for “the sniffles”)

Now go visit Francesco and see where to plug your Mad Libs…

I Can’t Find Me Legs: A Tale of Growing Up Poor, Catholic and Eventually Blind in Ireland
By Going Like Sixty
It was day three of the Blessed Feast of the Prolonged Consumption and Father O’Hurley had just finished flogging me in the abbey. I put on the clothes my dear, defeated mother had fashioned me from discarded radishes and quickly ran past the abandoned Corvettes—only to learn that my dog had been sold to help pay for the removal of my wee brother’s sphincter.

These were tough times for the McSixty clan. A blight had destroyed all the Hydrogen, and we had just burned the last of the females in the house to stay warm. Still, we had faith in our M & M’s that He would be merciful and soon run the lot of us in our sleep.

Soon after I arrived home my father stumbled in through the coal chute, reeking of whiskey and Princess Diana. “Damn the cursed English!” he yelled at our pet drawer before his faulty elbow gave out and he crashed face first into the bolloxed knife tray.

With my father now dead, it was up to my mother to raise me and my69 siblings, which she did by getting a job in anus smelling establishment. Unfortunately, a few hours later while walking back from the prostitute cannery she was struck from behind, both sides and above from dog turds. She eventually died from phlegmengitus.

Twenty years later I moved to America.

When I was a young lad, my family’s best friends were Rubened. Ruby and Eddie Hodge. Rubened to every one. They even signed their Christmas cards Rubened. Eddie went to a business school to become an accountant and one of the requirements was exquisite handwriting. My Aunt Morna attended the same school and their handwriting was very similar. Eddie always signed all the Christmas cards and correspondence with a big flourish Rubened.
His handwriting fit his personality. Eddie was the anti-accountant outside of work. He was a joke-teller extraordinaire. He always had a joke, some new, some old, some hilarious, some corny. But when Eddie told a joke, everybody laughed.

Heartily.

Including Eddie.
Eddie understood that you weren’t supposed to laugh at your own jokes, but he did. Mightly, and he had a contagious laugh, so the laughter kept going for a few beats more than the joke deserved. Ruby heard the same jokes over and over and over. But she always had a huge smile on her face and giggled at the punch line. She loved seeing Eddie having such a great time.

Today another entertaining friend arrived at my door.

Head Rambles, the book, is like Eddie. I’ve read Grandad’s blog for a couple years. I felt like I knew Grandad personally and laughed out loud at the “most cantankerous auld fellow” and his life in Ireland, with Herself, Sandy, Laughing Boy, K8, and others that wandered in and out of his writing.
He is quite the sportsman too. Regularly taking potshots at passing tourist buses.

The gunfire sounded interesting, so I went down to the village to get the paper.  Sure enough, the villagers had caught themselves a tourist bus, and the tourists had tried to take refuge in the church.  That was foolish, because everyone knows our church is closed on a Sunday.

Grandad, kept his identity a secret. It must have been difficult for him to actually put his “real” name on the cover of the book. (If that is his real name.)

Like most of us, he slowly revealed parts of his life and his families lives and like most humor writers, seems to have suffered his share of life’s pains.

But mostly Grandad just fires off the top of his head. (Picture that!) Somebody or something is always pissing him off.

I pondered this as I stood there on the doorstep, stark naked.  Wouldn’t I look a right prat wearing a hard hat and nothing else?  I told him to fuck off, and went back to bed.

‘Who was that?’ says Herself from under the duvet.

‘Those fucking builders you ordered,’ I said as I decided whether to get dressed or not.

‘I didn’t order them. You did.  Make us a mug of tea.’

‘Fuck your tea.  If you didn’t order them, and I didn’t order them, then who did?’

‘Dunno,’ says Herself, and she went back to sleep.  Lazy bitch.

Did I forget to mention that Grandad lives in dream state most of the time? If he called Herself a lazy bitch to her face, I’m sure he would be two balls short of a juggler.

Grandad fancies himself to be a golfer, he practices a lot – usually with Sandy’s turds aimed at the neighbor’s home. This is the blog post that cemented Head Rambles in my RSS feed.

Then I remembered our K8’s idea about using dog turds. So I brought in a pile from outside the gate. They were nicely sun-dried and ripe for driving. All I needed was a target.

Our neighbour put up a rather ugly extension some years ago that blocks part of our view. I always hated that extension. But it made a perfect target.

If anyone is interested, dog turds are much more aerodynamic than pine cones. I could aim straight and true. The neighbours extension now bears a remarkable resemblance to a large Jackson Pollock. It looks a lot better. As long as the wind doesn’t blow from that direction.

Head Rambles is an excellent blog and an excellent book.

I was glad to have an old friend drop by and entertain me again with his tales.

Just that damn bullet hole makes it awkward to turn the pages.

Buy Grandad’s book, he shouldn’t be launching turds at his neighbor’s home. He needs some balls.

We’re all writing books! Well, those of us writing blogs are writing books. Was this in your plans when you started blogging? Are you writing another more traditional manuscript hope someday it will be published. Would you like to see your blog develop into a book? Here is your encouragement.

Head Rambles is off to the printers!

UPDATE: I was under the impression that this was Grandad’s novel. As he points out in the comments, this isn’t it. This is a true blog to book, which is even more outstanding!

I started reading Head Rambles soon after I started blogging. I fell over Grandad outside the pub in the village where he likes to have a pint more than occasionally. I met Herself, Sandy, K8, Wouldye, and other virtuous companions. Others, not so virtuous, come and go on a regular basis. His commenters are as entertaining as Grandad.

He is fond of sending American tourists (easily identifiable because they always have sunglasses on the top of their head) “to the bogs” if one should ask him directions.

His conversations with his laptop are poignant and often pointed. He has a point of view about life in Ireland and has won some prestigious awards and has been the subject of many newspaper articles, television stories, and I suspect a few scrawled notes hanging from poles (maybe even Poles) in the village.

He is quite the sportsman too. Regularly taking potshots at passing tourist buses.

The gunfire sounded interesting, so I went down to the village to get the paper.  Sure enough, the villagers had caught themselves a tourist bus, and the tourists had tried to take refuge in the church.  That was foolish, because everyone knows our church is closed on a Sunday.

So I racked up my score a bit, and went home.

His appeal to me was firmly locked in when I learned about his love of golf, his love of dog turds, and the clever way he interacts with his neighbors.

Out with the golf clubs.

I had a fine time.  Most of it was Wouldyapoo, because Sandy is discreet and only craps next door, and Wouldyapoo is large and weighty.

Apparently one of the young women was just about to go in the back door, when a rather large turd splashed across the door in front of her nose.  It was unfortunate timing.

There’s more, much more, on a regular basis. Get Grandad’s email updates or put him in your reader. You won’t be disappointed.

I’m can’t wait to lookat the pictures in the book. I’ll probably read some of the words. Since I’m a blog reader, not a book reader, I may find myself just reading a page a day. Unless the words are really large to bulk the book up to 192 pages. I am concerned that Homeland Security will declare Head Rambles subversive and I will have to elicit my friend Bill to smuggle a copy into the U.S. for me. Lucky for Bill, he likes to wear sunglasses on his head and loves to visit Ireland. He may be able to secure an autographed copy – or at least one with a bullet hole.

So here’s the deal with the book:

The original idea was to do a compendium of posts – a sort of “Best of Head Rambles”.  But by the time I had weeded out the too topical, the insane, the libelous and the blasphemous, I was left with about two pages.  I think Mercier expected a bit more than that?

So the idea of the novel was born.  And a novel is a different thing altogether from writing a blog.  A novel requires characters, plots, a start, middle and an end.  It requires a storyline, and all of this has to be worked out in advance.

Grandad has also been reading up on book marketing. Back in May, he teased us with this post…

The bottom line is that the book I have been working on has been put off.  It won’t be published for a couple of years, if ever.  It’s not that the publishers aren’t happy with it – it’s because I’m not happy with it.  They say it needs a bit of polishing – I say it needs rewriting from scratch.

Six months later it’s off the the printer!

So there! You budding authors/screenwriters (you know who you are) be encouraged. If

Ireland’s most cantankerous Auld Fella can get a book deal, you can too.