Meanwhile in "Meanwhile in Other News" News...

http://cjonline.com/news/2012-08-11/topeka-strongman-channels-fictional-wrestler


Some thanks are in order...


To Jan Biles of the Topeka Capital Journal for writing a swell article.  (Kids still say "swell" these days, right?)

To Jan's camera for maintaining its composure throughout the ordeal.  (And they say there are no more heroes!)

To whoever went to the trouble of gluing a book to that curiously life(ish)like scarecrow's hand, both I and Barringer appreciate your business.

A Special* Message From Chad Savage

Okay, sort of.  Chad screens his calls, and his people's people's people declined our offer in a manner that would get even the saltiest amongst us booted out of an after-hours Navy bar.  Luckily, we stumbled across a local reprobate who was willing to work for A-frame hugs and expired car was coupons.  Still came away feeling like we got fleeced, but that's show business for ya!

Thanks to Dan Ginavan of LightLyre Films in Lawrence, KS for hip-checking this out-of-my-techno-depth venture across the finish line.

Apologies to anyone or anything with eyes, fashion sense, or a hair trigger gag reflex for the existence of those shorts:


http://vimeo.com/43042446

DISASTRATIS PERSONAE

CHAD SAVAGE - Alan Smithee III

CAMERA GUY - Sir Disembodied Voice, CH, CBE, PotMC


DIRECTED BY FRANK COPPOLA
(Different Guy)

*Special = "You ate dirt, you're a winner!"

'Ello, 'ello, 'ello!

Greetings from the archetypal starry-eyed Midwestern boy! (Kids, whatever you do, DON’T STARE AT THE SUN!) 

You know to be honest, I’m not terribly fond of talking about myself, in part because I’ve always been a bit of a shy guy, and in part because I’m holding out for that glorious day when I’ll be able to hire an experienced herald with a thousand decibel megaphone and the lung capacity of an opera singing howler monkey to trumpet my arrival, departure, and overall metabolic status at seventeen second intervals.  (If you can’t dream big, why dream at all?)  Unfortunately, with the economy on the fritz and my want ads mysteriously returning to sender with frownie faces drawn all over them, it looks like I’ll have to take it upon myself to say a little about myself.  By myself…

Originally from Missouri, I’ve lived most of my life in and around Topeka, Kansas, following a string of lopsided (and I suspect fixed) pre-adolescent “Loser Leaves Town” matches.  Despite it being my second language—after pointing and banging rocks together—I received a B.A. in English from Kansas Wesleyan University in 2004.  These days I lead something of a double life: by day I am a mild mannered ink-stained wretch (it’s not what you think…see, my neighbors are squids, and we don’t get along); by night I am a strength training enthusiast and amateur strongman competitor whose knees and shoulders undoubtedly harbor brutal, Scorsese-esque revenge fantasies.  Landlocked as I am, I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed long walks on the beach…but I bet they’re nice!

To the abject horror of those Ivory Tower daycare volunteers who seemed to equate eating paste and coloring outside the lines with a future behind bars, this is my first novel.  Provided you kick in for Big Gulps and keep your damn hands off the AC, I’d like to invite you along for the ride!