BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I’m going to break my own rule again. Yeah, for real…

No, I’m not going to defy The Evil Redhead. That’s not “breaking a rule,” that’s “committing suicide.” Really. Just try it and see what happens.

So… Anyway… Back to breaking that rule. As you all know I despise writing about writing. I’m not even a big fan of writing about being an author. That’s what the book writing thing is all about. This, on the other hand, is my shot at being a humor columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper. Not that any major metropolitan newspapers are taking notice, mind you…

Yeah… That’s the rule I’m going to break. Well… Bend, more or less. I’m going to write about writing. Or more specifically, about what happens when you’ve written something and it gets published.

You see, there’s this thing in the industry called BSSP. That stands for Blatant Shameless Self-Promotion.  Now this differs a bit from SP, which is just Self-Promotion. Why? Because those of us who engage in SP are ashamed. Well, not really. But we DO make it a point to show restraint, courtesy, and manners. Self-promotion is necessary. However, being like a cracked up used car salesman about it is not.

Allow me to give you an example…

Let’s say I’m having a conversation with someone:

Random Person says: “I had a really great corned beef sandwich at Bob’s Deli the other day.”

Murv says: “Never been there. I’ll have to take EK. She really loves corned beef.”

Now, let us imagine this conversation with a new author who has been bitten by the BSSP bug:

Random Person says: “I had a really great corned beef sandwich at Bob’s Deli the other day.”

BSSP Newbie says: “Well, since you like corned beef then you would love my new novel, The Pickling Brine Murders, because my main character Lazarus Q. Ladysmith always has corned beef sandwiches for lunch.”

Believe it or not, while the book and character name have been changed, the above example is NOT an exaggeration. Yes. Not only did it happen, but this sort of thing happens all the time.

Now I’ll be honest. We were all new once. I’m sure I did some self-promoting that toed that line just a bit – although I can guarantee you I was never as bad as the example. Fortunately, I settled down pretty quickly. Like I said before, self-promotion is a necessary evil. But if you pay attention you discover that you can be much more effective by selling yourself – not the book. Once you’ve done that, folks will generally buy your book. If you keep being an idiot, however, they will not only NOT buy your book, they will tell everyone they know to NOT buy it as well.

So… Why is this blog entry called “This Space NOT For Rent”?

Simple. The BSSP is happening all over the social networking sites too. On the FB Wall, on the Myspace Comments. It is running rampant. Just the other day I received a friend request from another author I’d never met and didn’t know from Eve. I approved it, no biggie. Less than 24 hours later a post appeared on my wall. It said, “Congratulations on your success! You deserve it!” I found these opening sentences a bit odd, because since we didn’t know one another she had no clue whether I deserved my successes or not. For all she knew I could be a complete ass.

In fact, I guess I am a complete ass because I removed the post and deleted her as a friend. Why? Because as I said, that was just the opening two sentences. The rest of her post contained several paragraphs about her new book along with links to the places where I could buy it. There was even a picture of the book cover.

Sorry honey. I am not a billboard company. This space not for rent…

More to come…

Murv

I’d start a Twitter account for this sort of thing, but I just don’t have time. Besides which, I’d just get myself accused of trying to capitalize on the “Dad Says” dude, and his success.

So, anyway, there we were, on vacation. I should probably write a vacation blog and tell all sorts of stories about how E K made us march through the woods and over huge boulders, all in the sweltering 95+ heat, with 12,000,000% humidity, but I’ll have to get to that later… Maybe… I guess it’s a we’ll see sort of thing.

Okay, so back to the real story here. There we were, on vacation, last night of the trip, and we were staying at The Davie School Inn. When we asked about “eats” the owner directed us to The Brick House restaurant, a couple of blocks away. A little eclectic fusion sort of bistro with interesting decor and good food. We even sat at the “Twister Table”… Seriously. It was painted like a Twister mat. Kinda weird, but kinda cool at the same time. After ordering up a couple of Mothership Wits for ourselves, and a Root Beer for the O-spring, we set about perusing the menu. When all was said and done, after salivating over the many wonderful sounding selections, believe it or not we all ordered sort of the same thing – E K had steamed mussels and a house specialty salad. I had steamed mussels and a spinach salad. The O-spring had… Yes… Steamed mussels, but instead of a salad she opted for French Fries. Odd combination, yeah, but hey… She’s a 10 year old. Besides, how many 10 year olds do you know who willingly order steamed mussels and then rave about them for two hours? Yeah, that’s our kid. Go figure…

But, that’s not what this is really about. Well… It is sorta, but not exactly. You see, as we sat there enjoying a wonderful dinner, some tunes were wafting in from above. This prompted E K and I to discuss our Vinyl Collection, because it has yet to be all converted to CD. In particular, we were talking about The Police and Sting. Why? Because a song by Sting was playing, silly.

Anywho, fast forward 10 minutes or so. The kid is blowing bubbles in her root beer, shoving French Fries into one side of her mouth, and discovering the creamy goodness of the steamed mussel broth at the bottom of her bowl. Yet another song by Sting begins pouring in from overhead. Being old, and because of that a bit addled, I looked at The Evil Redhead with a puzzled expression.

“That isn’t the same song we just heard a few minutes ago, is it?” I asked.

E K, being in the middle of masticating a mussel, held up a finger to indicate I should wait a second for her answer. However, before she was able to engage peristalsis and swallow the food, the O-spring spoke up.

“No, it isn’t the same song,” she said, then by way of explanation offered her personal analysis of the brass section content. “The other one was a lot more horny.”

E K choked on the half swallowed mussel. I spewed Mothership Wit all over the wall across from me. The server applied the Heimlich Maneuver to the redhead, propelling the glob of  seafood along a bizarre trajectory that landed it in the pale blue beehive of a 97 year old patron across the room who was trying desperately to enjoy a Bruschetta, even though she had forgotten her teeth. Another server who was attempting to avoid the shellfish projectile slipped, sending a tray full of chilled soup cascading across a party of 18 several feet away, prompting the…

Okay… So it wasn’t that dramatic. But, EKay’s eyes got really big, she half choked on the piece of garlic bread in her mouth, and I almost – not quite, but almost – spewed a mouthful of Mothership Wit across the table.

The O-spring looked at us and said, “What?”

E K leaned over and whispered, “You probably should have said brassy, because horny is a slang word that means someone really wants to have sex a lot.”

The O-spring having been through the “talk” at school, besides being brilliant as well, knew what sex happened to be – in theory.  Also, being 10, while she is familiar with the non-specific theory behind it, the subject is still residing in that “EWWW, GROSS!” area of her psyche. Personally, I’d like for it to stay that way until I’m dead, but hey, I’m a dad, and that’s how dads are.

So, since that’s where the concept resides, that’s what the O-spring said. “EWWW, GROSS!”

This was somewhat heartening, to say the least…

There was a moment of quiet, then she looked across the table and said, “You’re going to write a blog about this, aren’t you, Dad?”

Obviously, she hadn’t lost her faith in me…

(Aww, come on, quit groaning… you knew I would have to make at least one Sting song lyric related pun…)

More to come…

Murv