Monday, March 11, 2024

Area Woman Reads Grandfather's Self-published Novel, Wishes For Death

Today we'll be reviewing SEDUCED by D. L. Johnson. An erotic economic thriller, SEDUCED takes the reader on a gripping ride through the corporate banking system and deftly explores the issues that face everyday Americans as they struggle with the bottom line and the man.

The novel opens with a Prologue, giving the reader a panoramic sweep of American history of the last hundred years. The first line gorgeously evokes the fears and aspirations of those times.

"America was in the Roaring Twenties, a giddy, gilded age when the 1929 stock market crash ended crazed bank borrowing and betting for overnight riches."

The reader nods, recognizing that indeed there was a crash in 1929. Good job!

The next sentence personalizes the stakes of economic booms and busts of our capitalistic world:

"It led to the Great Depression's deadly, desperate deprivation that Rian Reston thoroughly studied in history at college."

The alliterative prose rolls trippingly off the tongue, a veritable euphonious swell of words that recalls the patristic writings of Chrysostomos and, perhaps, Tacitus at his most grandiloquent.

We are frog marched through a newsreel parade of History until arriving at the watershed moment:

"Then---like a streaking meteor from a dark sky, on August 15, 1971, President Nixon shocked the world by ending the redemption of US dollars for gold. That created new freedom for the nation's benefit. Or harm!"

That final, telling exclamatory sentence drives home the point, and sends a frisson streaking down the back of any concerned citizen who thinks about Richard Nixon and meteors.

We are then plunged into the world of seedy bars in Chicago where Lothar Gravestone, fresh from Middle-earth, goes to drink with his eight-year-old step-son.

"Afterward, Lothar would take Rian home for a beating, as usual. His caring, loving mom, Sasa, too, if she intervened."

The reader is gripped immediately by the boy's plight as he is apparently beaten senseless every single day, but one feels some reassurance as Lothar will be beating the boy at home--no beatings out in the alley, at least!

In a "booze-fed buzz," Lothar drinks and laments getting fired as men around him talk about "da" Bears and whether Chris Kattan is a comic genius. Lothar sees Roberto Scaratucci, his former foreman and an Italian from Italy. They mix it up:

"Without a word, Lothar pulled Scaratucci around and smashed his nose with a burly fist. Then, burying the other fist in his stomach, he said, 'This is for you, you bastard.'"

After Lothar is carted away to prison for the crime of punching an Italian, Rian Reston must carry on in life without the daily beatings and struggle to survive in the mean streets of Steamboat Springs where he gets a job at a bank and meets crowds of seductive females who wish to beat Rian, so to speak, off.

"He had no time for genuine relationships---just one-off transactions with cheerleaders or hormone-driven women, who enjoyed hanging with or hooking up with testosterone-crazed gridiron gladiators. 'Scoring,' for the smack-talking jocks with their brains hanging between their legs, was in a girl's end zone."

Thankfully, Rian learns how to tuck his brains into his shirt and meets Mariah, a nice girl with a penchant for penis. A peppy party ensued.

"As she undressed, he pushed his briefs off onto the floor and his steel-hard shaft sprang out from its cloth prison."

Any reader will be breathless with excitement and wonder as they follow the exploits of Rian and the hormone-driven women who dawn lipstick and armor-clothes to do battle of the sexes. Like my niece!

"Without hesitation, he mounted her. As he placed himself, her alabaster hips rose to take him, and he sank in full hilt.

'God, it feels good. It's huge, its fills me,' she moaned.

"She bucked like a crazy-ass mare as her well-hung stallion jackhammered her to the promised land. She bit, grunted, and moaned. Spurred on like a crazed animal, he didn't feel her Tony Lamas flail his clenched buttocks as his pleasure-pulsing penis came in spasmed spurts."

"His twitching erection pointed straight up. She got on him and held it as she carefully impaled herself on its purple-rouge end. She was a blur of animalistic fury, riding his monstrous pleasure pole."

"After that night, the friends with benefits had many Tinder moments taking each other furiously."

Then Rian learns that meaningless hookups are meaningless, and he meets his true love, Missy. Together they go on a journey that takes them from one part of the bedroom to the other.

"No rush now. At long...long last, the universal clock's pendulum halted for them. Sensuality engulfed them. His muscular arms engulfed her. Their fiery, impassioned tongues flickered, explored, and tasted each other.

Nestled like cooing doves, nuzzling, purring, quivering, they savored the moment. Then, unable to resist any longer, aching with desire, holding his engorged erection, he rose over her butterflied open thighs. She guided him. 'Give it to me...I want it all!'"

Hey, where did Taylor go? Anyway, that's how we learn about banks. Five stars. Get your copy today and get engulfed in sensuality!

https://www.amazon.com/SEDUCED-D-L-Johnson-ebook/dp/B0CSDXZ28K/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=ItYZA&content-id=amzn1.sym.d0ebfbb2-6761-494f-8e2f-95743b37c35c%3Aamzn1.symc.50e00d6c-ec8b-42ef-bb15-298531ab4497&pf_rd_p=d0ebfbb2-6761-494f-8e2f-95743b37c35c&pf_rd_r=R1H27XQABG06VWYTJ1XD&pd_rd_wg=FLeAM&pd_rd_r=9148c221-9fa9-4353-a1b3-71beac241cb8&ref_=pd_gw_ci_mcx_mr_hp_atf_m


P. S. Andy can testify that we've enjoyed ten years of this stool softener! This is from August 2014.




Friday, February 9, 2024

The Problem With a Chinese Wish Pot Is That You Want To Make Another Wish an Hour Later!

Since I'm the type of person who digs on multiverses, I thought I'd watch a movie called WISH UPON. And, yes, nonexistent reader, all my wishes which I was not careful to wish for swished into my smart-ish wishy-washy squishy eyeballs, wish.

"Hard pass. Wait. From the director of 
ANNABELLE??! I dig on!"

Some dummy finds a Chinese wishing well, kiss and tell, and then proceeds to prance about like Terence Trent D'Arby. (Dear God that would be much, much better.) 

"Duhh. I mean, huh. Er. Derp. Wait. Line?"

She wishes that the popular girl would get skin herpes or something equally funny, and it comes true! Ha, ha! This will be a great story at their fortieth reunion. Mike Perez will love it, I promise!

"I hate you Prell!"

So you see, it's like this. Dumb girl makes wish and then something ironic happens like dumb uncle does pratfall in his fancy bathtub or area dumb woman gets her face caught in the garbage disposal. 

"How does the garbage disposal keep up
 with the news like that??"
"Don't. praise. the. garbage disposal."

How is this ironic, you ask? Well, you see, because the uncle liked hygiene and the area woman liked to wash her vegetables first, it just shows you don't do that or a Chinese demon will kill you! Wow. This movie is kinda deep. 

"Says here it wants to be called an Asian Wish Pot, not an Oriental."

Because when the Oriental girl figures out the curse, the wish demon does a sort of slow motion running with the Pamplona bulls thing and kills the girl very dead.

"I'll catch up with you guys later! I have to gently sink 
my face into this sharp horn! For irony!" 

Then the dumb girl wishes everything could go back to the way it was and the film starts with the Big Bang and recapitulates 13.8 billion years and brings us back to the same stupid point, except her dad dies instead of her mom--AND they had to sit through the Ice Capades again! 

"OMG! Dad's blood is freezing cold!!"

The rest of the movie is really great because the dumb girl runs around trying to escape her malfunctioning brain and fails ha ha.

"Someone bring me a taquito! Awwwggh!"

And she dies, after learning the valuable lesson that you don't yell. Or you always leave a note. Or you don't give lessons.

"Someone give my regards to the lunch lady. Her fish sticks were exquisite."

And yet... and yet... did she learn a lesson? I mean, since she's super dead and stuff? Sort of hard to see the point. You know, this movie was incredibly stupid and just a huge waste of.... Aw hell, who cares, let's dance!!

Friday, January 19, 2024

Spooning (not the good kind)

We were huddled in Chris's igloo, breath smoking. 

"Chris," Mom quavered. "Can you turn the heat up, please?"

"You mean on, Mom," I said. "The word is on."

"What's the problem? I think it's fine." Legs crossed, Chris sat back in his cane chair, wearing shorts and a Bermuda shirt, his lips blue as he sucked on the straw of his pina colada. "Rasta, mon!"

"Can we get the show on the road?" Mom said, breaking the ice and the icicles from her nose. "Bailey is lonely waiting for me. I told her I'd be home in an hour."

"Bailey can't tell time, Mom."

"Oh, she can. She's a pickle, that one! Yesterday she was solving equations in matrix linear algebra. Did you hear me? Matrix linear algebra."

"Matrix?? Bailey must be the One!"

Mom nodded. "The other day Bailey was putting the treats I give her behind the toilet. Oh, she's a pickle! Later, she found the treats and ate them, one by one. What dog does that? Isn't that amazing?"

"Literally every dog on the planet does that."

"Oh, is this my Christmas gift, Greg? I don't like this. I don't want it."

"You haven't opened it yet."

"I know what it is. You did some horrible painting of me."

"You act like you're Dorian Gray. I promise I didn't paint you with your face melting off your skull."

"What did you say about my melting skull face? Oh! I don't want it!"

"Mom, just open it. You'll like it, I promise."

"I'm very scared."

"As well you should be."

"You better not put this on your blog."

"Oh, Greg. Why? WHY?"

"Happy Solomacas Day, Mom!"

"Thank you," Mom said, grimly.

"You look thrilled."

Chris burst out laughing. I joined him, both of us swept up in a hurricane of hilarity. Mom shushed us fiercely.

"They can hear you in the next igloo! Shhh!"

Mom demanded to go home. We got to her apartment just in time to see Bailey climb down from the table piled with books on quantum mechanics and Finnegans Wake, the Graphic Novel. Bailey removed her glasses, cleared her throat, and then pissed on the carpet.

"No, bad dog!"

"Aw. Look at all the urine. How will Bailey get that Nobel Prize in Mathematics now?"

Mom instructed me to put the painting in the bedroom. There I set it on the dresser, where it will remain until the sun explodes or we die, whichever comes first.

"I really wish you wouldn't paint me. But that's a dear painting of Bailey. She's so cute! Don't you think Bailey is beautiful?"

"That dog is a fox."

"Now in here is where I want my new bed to go."

"Well, you'll have to kick the dried turds out of the way first, but there's some cleared space..."

"It would be nice to get a good night's sleep. That darn beeping noise wakes me up every night. At two am! I'm thinking of writing the Denver Post about it."

"That doesn't seem like the best way to... Wait. Why do you have a spoon on your toilet?" I went to get the large metal spoon. "Have you been crying and eating cookie dough in here?"

"What? No, that's my poop spoon."

"Your..." I gasped. "Poo...?"

Mom shrugged. "Yes. I use it to break up the poop in my toilet. It won't go down, so I use that spoon to break it down so everything flushes."

"Oh, dear God, Mom," I said. I flung the spoon from me, some poop water spritzing Bailey in the face, who barked weakly. "Why? WHY?"

"I don't know! I mean, I'm a normal goer. It's not like I have such big poops. It must be the toilet."

"You're a... normal goer."

"Though lately I've been going a little, then I flush, then go a little more. Like that."

"Ohhh," I said, fainting and falling and grabbing to the walls. "Elizabeth! I'm coming to you now...!"

"What are you reading?" said someone to no one not reading this.

"Greg's blog. More about his mom's poop."

"Again?? Why? WHY??"

"Good question. Hey, what's on the CW?"

Merry Christmas, everyone! *checks calendar* Merry Christmas, everyone!

Friday, November 17, 2023

Fasting and Furious, It's About Family (Unfortunately)

Mom and I were having our Last Supper at the Wind Crest Saloon. To distract Mom from the fun of her upcoming move, I went all in and pushed across the table Dad's new masterwork. It's an erotic economic thriller with, get this, a woman senator. I mean, come on. Now I've read everything! 

"Reform your banking system... or DIE."

Mom scowled at the cover. 

"Is that supposed to be your father standing on a heap of... what..." Mom squinted. "Are those skeletons?"

"And a sexy lady. Because women love lounging on a pile of decomposing corpses. It's pretty metal."

"Will this book be on the Amazon front page?"

I laughed. "Sure! I mean, we can all hope. I don't know if Bezos can pull some strings, but he's trying. Because people need to know about banks. And stuff."

"They now know my crimes. Ha ha."

"I don't understand what the point of this is," Mom said sourly, pushing the book back at me. "Has your father lost it completely?"

"That's what they said about Einstein. Wait. Did they say that about Einstein?"

"He's not serious, is he?"

I took up the tome and flipped through its four hundred pages. "It's a book of monumental linguistic criminality. So... yes."

"Do you want some of my mashed potato?" Mom scooped up some in her fingers. "Bring your plate over here. You're looking too thin to me."

"Mom, do not put potato, mashed or not, on my plate. Please."

"Do you want some of my salad? You'll eat that, right?"

"No. I'm fasting. I can have water, with water mixed in."

"You're what!"

"Fasting."

"Oh, that's terrible. It's terrible for your body!"

I shrugged. "I want to get back to my elementary school weight. I was a VERY chubby kid. *looks at Andy* Mm? Mm?"

"You look terrible."

"Probably shouldn't have thrown myself into that vat of acid. I'll go head-first next time."
 
"Tufutti break! Yaaay!"

Then it was time for Mom's big move. There were well nigh a hundred boxes with leaky shampoo wetting the cardboard and lumpy bags of wet trash. Once the movers lifted away the dresser and hutch, exposed to pitiless light were little black turds across the stained carpet. Worse than that, some were black gumdrops.


There was a pink rag on the floor. I picked it up only to see it was a pair of Mom's panties. I flung them from me like it was an IED and it exploded, wraiths swirling out. Trying to prevent my skeleton from leaving my body, I turned to see Mom hoisting a moist bag of garbage.

"Mom, you're spilling."

Turds whimsically spilled forth from the rip. Mom stooped to conquer--and picked up the little turds in her hand.

"Okay," she said. "I'm going to turn in my keys at the front desk."

"Right. But the...?"

"What?"

"Are you going to bring them the turds?"

"Maybe I will! I'm not very happy with them."

And indeed, Mom handed them her access badge, her signed intent to leave, her mail and room key, and--the coup de crap--Bailey's little turds. Goodbye, Wind Crest! I'm sure you'll miss us!



**************  NEEDING TO GET SEDUCED??  ********************


Get your copy(ies) of SEDUCED at finer retail outlets everywhere! 24.99 hardcover, 17.99 paperback, and 1.99 for the ebook. Well? Don't just gape at this blog post, get out your damn credit card and start ordering. NOW

Friday, September 22, 2023

I Bare Everything in Steamy Pics and Fans Lose It

Mom was scooping mashed potato with her salmon, but she wasn't happy. We were at the Flyin' B Cafe in Wind Crest with the giant radio-controlled plane hanging by wires from the ceiling overhead. 

"Greg," Mom said. "I want you to be serious with me. I have a serious question to ask you."

"Do you think there are jeans inside that plane?" I said, peering up. "I mean, like a jeans cargo plane?"

"I want to ask you something. But I don't want you to get mad at me. No, I shouldn't. You'll probably get upset."

"And what does the B stand for in Flyin'? Bee? Bitch? Bee-yotch?? It really makes you wonder..."

We went back to eating. The silence went on like salmon scooping potato.

"So," I said, desperate. "Lauren Groff's new novel is out."

Mom looked up. 

"Who?"

"I know her, you know," I said with as much smugness as was warranted. "And the fact that I know her makes me rather interesting."

"What? Who?"

"She was my thesis advisor. Back when I was getting my MFA and my heart was a golden chalice half full of poison. Anyway, I'll never forget the advice she gave me: 'Please stop writing, Greg. You have a stupid face. And you smell like diarrhea. Yours, Lauren Groff.' She'd talk like she was writing a letter to you. Funny, that."

Mom watched a teenage girl go past. "That girl has a nice figure," she said.

"Uh. Are you checking out that girl's ass, Mom?"

"It's a good figure she has."

"Indeed. I'm not allowed to look at it, due to various local, state and federal laws."

"Look at this." Mom grimaced, her hand white-knuckling the table. "I'm gripping the table. What is the reason?"

"Furniture encouragement?"

"And just a little earlier, when you were holding open the elevator door for me, I had this image of your head being chopped off in the door!"

"I think you might have what lay people call the heebe-jeebies."

"I'm just anxious all the time."

"Well, they might have something for that...?"

"I suppose you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Mom said. "You'd like to see me like a drooling zombie all day!"

"No, Mom. That would take surgery. Lots of surgery."


"Of course. I'm sure you'd love to drop me off like a piece of trash. Just dump me off at the hospital and never have to deal with me again."

"Now you're talking! But think of all the benefits?"


"Shh! Keep your voice down! People are trying to die."

"Right, right. Sorry."

Someone keeled over at the next table, and attendants, some with nice asses, swooped in to take away the life offender. Mom and I finished our delectable entrees, and started our deletable desserts. Mom ordered two slices of cherry pie.

"It's NSA," she said proudly. "So I can have as much as I want!"

"That means no sugar added. There's still plenty of sugar."

Chewing, lips cherry-red, Mom narrowed her eyes at me. "Listen to me," she said, flakey crust sputtering from her tongue. "I want to ask you a serious question."

"Go ahead already. I'm sure my reader is dying to hear it."

"Is there something going on between you and Cinira?"

I stopped breathing.

"Hello? Did you hear me?"

"Mom, why in the world...?"

"You were laughing with her as you were walking away the other day. Are the two of you having an affair??"

I got out my phone.

"What are you doing? Hello?"

"I'm signing up for lobotomy surgery with my Lobotomy App." I grinned. "And I can't wait for that big breakfast!"

Friday, August 11, 2023

In Which I Explain Neil Breen's New Film to Mom, to No One's Amusement

Mom was not amused. "Where do you hear about such weird stuff?"

"I hear it on the street," I said. "Some guy shining my shoes gave me a hot tip that Neil Breen has a new film called CADE: THE TORTURED CROSSING. So I went to see it. With my eyes."

I can think of four things wrong with that title

"But it turns out that my eyes were not enough. I needed my BRAIN, too. Because Neil Breen is deep. And wide. And spindly."

"Your Honor, I move that I recuse myself. Also, I am out of order. 
This whole damn movie is out of order. And corrupt."

"Neil Breen, as Cade, and also majestically playing his twin brother, Cale, buys a Mental Hospital that is kept anonymous, as hospitals are wont to do. Someone from The Bank is corrupt, however. And they use Mental Patients, who are also anonymous because who uses names anymore, I mean, really, this is the twenty-eleventieth century, people! And The Bank uses those Mentalists for Jeans Editing, like some sort of Sweatshop in the Future and it is Corrupt." 

"Strange... This wheelchair wasn't here before. 
Wait, am I trapped in my iMac's screensaver??"

"Mom? Are you listening?"

Bailey had come into the room, enticed by all the Neil Breen talk. The little doggie hopped into Mom's lap, provoking Mom to cross her eyes and pout her lips.

"Oh, glacious! Oh, my glacious! Oo is the wittlest puppy, oo aren't oo! Boo baba booey!"

"Mom, please. You're going to give Bailey cavities. And stomach upset."

"Be quiet. Are you done talking about your dumb movie?"

"Just two and half hours to go. So Neil Breen investigates as to why The Mental Hospital is using people to experiment on, and his suspicions are especially aroused when he meets some guy with the harmless name of Dr. Mengele. From The Bank. There are national ANNN-ND international secrets."

"Who am I. What am I. Why am I."
*Crowd cheers*

"Cade fights these nameless people, and then his desktop wallpaper glitches and Clippy popped up and asked if he would like help?"

"Suck it, Tom Cruise."

Bailey climbed down from Mom's lap and then quivered her bottom over the carpet. A long, sticky mass of gumdrop-colored poop came out.

"OH MY GLACIOUS! SUCH A OO GIRL!" Mom bawled.

"It's bad when even the dog is a movie critic," I said with requisite dryness. "Anyway, in the end, as the stench of dog poop wafted about the room, the movie came to a thrilling climax in a gigantic set battle scene."


"Er, I mean this..."

Everyone is kung fu fightin'! 
Neil Breen's acting like shite-in'!

"You see, Neil Breen duplicates himself and fights these people wearing black ski masks. Let me tell you, the tension was thick and soupy with a trough of low pressure of boredom mixed with perplexity. It's the winning Neil Breen formula!"

"I don't like it," Mom said. "And I forbid you from seeing Neil Breen films from now on."

I turn to the camera, thumbs up. "YAS! I knew having a mommy would come in use someday!"

"Oo my glacious, whatta glacious oo are," Mom cooed, picking up the bits of poop. "Oo poo pooed, didn't oo!"

I turned down Mom's offer of gumdrops and cheesecake and Pepsi--everyone sing along!--and I ran outside, hoping to find some black ski-masked people to karate chop.

Another work of Breenius! I give it five tuna cans!

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Reunionited and It Feels So So-So

Can you believe it's the tenth anniversary of our thirtieth high school reunion? And that I think I'm funny? UNBELIEVABLE

The best part of the reunion was seeing so many dear faces. And talking about masturbation. Not in that order. But, seriously, I don't think Mike Perez likes me. Or knows who I am. Or why I am.

That better be Rob Stark's elbow poking into me.

After all the fun, I was thinking of my love of Tim McGraw (but not his music) when a knock came at my door. It was Tom G. and Mary R. No, too obvious. It was M. Ryan and Tom Griffith (better). Mary Ryan expressed a concern about popping over at my studio so uninvitedly. With a girlish blush she thought I might be busy treating my body like it was Casa Bonita. Instead I was doing something much, much worse: I was BLOGGIN'.

"Please dear God stop," Tom explained. "It's immoral. You'll grow hair on your palms with all that typing."

"Why can't you do something wholesome?" Mary opined. "Like start your own cookie business? Just don't cross your eyeline!"

"Well, you'll be happy to know I've decided to knock the habit of blogging every day, and instead I'm going to live a righteous life. That's right. I'm leaving my husband and going to fly the sexy skies!"

"I have D.T.'s sexy pug of a nose!"

Tom R. and Mary G. were not enchanted with my new life decision. We took a moment to enjoy cake forever, and then we mused on all the diverse paths through life we'd take before the sodomites came to disembowel our first-born child ha ha. 

"Remember piling on the lawn outside that dear ol' school of ours?" I expostulated. "How proud and quivering we were to begin our lives, despite the fact that high school was objectively the best years of our lives."

Tom put a hand on my shoulder. "Please stop talking."

Flag not as prominent as it should be. 
(At least Craig Chapman was ecstatic to be there!)

"I'm exhausted," Mary said. "And I'm starving to death."

"But wait, we haven't talked about the thirtieth reunion. Look, I have a picture! Me and Andy as Mafia dons with our crime family arranged around us, for some reason."

(Satan not included.)

Mary put Tom's hand on my shoulder. "Please never speak again."

With that, Tom and Mary climbed into their double-decker bus (which was totally Frank Herzog's idea) and left our planet Wednesday BYE!

All in all, it was a very satisfying reunion.

(Man having love affair with cookie. And it was a movie!!)