AND THEN WE CAME TO THE END

by Gar Anthony Haywood

Okay, picture this:

There's this great dinner club.  It's run and attended by some of the smartest (and of course, most beautiful) people you know.  Successful, funny, generous people.  For years, you've hung around outside the club, just outside the red velvet rope, sharing a word or two with the men and women entering and exiting just to get a sense of how cool it would be to be one of them.  And then, one day . . .

They invite you inside.  Offer you membership.  Give you a key to the front door.

Now you're at the club every other week, meeting new people, making new friends.  Telling stories your audience finds fascinating, cracking jokes everyone laughs at (well, almost everyone).  Slowly but surely, you're finding your place in this rarified crowd, developing a sense of actually belonging here.  Life is good.

Now picture the club owner choosing this exact moment to shut the joint down.

Say what?!

Welcome to my Murderati experience.  Just when I was starting to really have fun, the lights go out --- for good.

Was it something I said?

This has been a fantastic writers' blog, and it was one long before I ever came onboard.  One thing I think has always set it apart is its almost total lack of a promotional focus.  For all the writers, big and small, who have held a place on the Murderati roster over the years, few have shown more than a passing interest in salesmanship.  The emphasis here has always seemed to be on telling great stories about the writing life, rather than hawking literary merchandise.

I'd be lying if I said holding up my end of the Murderati bargain every two weeks (plus again every eight weeks for Wildcard Tuesdays) has always been easy.  It hasn't.  I spent more than a few nervous Tuesday and Monday nights banging my head against the wall seeking to shake a post topic that didn't suck loose for the next morning.  But overall, I had a blast, and I think I wrote a post or two I can be proud of.

In fact, I think that's how I'll leave you all: With a brief list of my favorite Murderati posts:

LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME (THAT TURNED OUT TO BE TRUE)

THAT'S INCREDIBLE! (AND THAT'S THE PROBLEM)

NO PAIN, NO GAIN

THIS I DO BELIEVE

YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP

DECEMBER 14, 2012

SORRY, OUR MISTAKE, WON'T EVER HAPPEN AGAIN

Thanks for the memories, people.  And a special shout-out to Pari and J.T., who threw this party in the first place.  You guys are the best.

Take it away, Dandy Don.

APROPOS OF NOTHING

by Gar Anthony Haywood

We writers are such kidders.  We spend hours and hours online every day, and devote much lip service to justifying it.  We're doing research, building our fan base, learning new promotional techniques, keeping abreast of the latest developments in publishing, blah-blah-blah.  And sure, some of that is true --- but only about sixty percent of the time.  The other forty?

We're goofing off!

Case in point: I blow forty minutes every morning reading The Huffington Post, and while I do it in part to catch up on the news, I'm only religious about it because I get such a kick out of some of the site's headlines.  They practically beg for a punchline, which I'm only too happy to supply.

Let me show you what I mean:

 

But says she has no intention of returning the Royal Lampshade.

(If the guy who wrote this story thinks this is news, he must have a major drug problem.)

She wants to receive an obscene phone call before every performance --- on her hat.

Because 174,261 times in 59 years is hardly enough for any man.

Because if they made it available in any other part of the world, they'd be laughed out of existence.

Number 1: "Was that as pathetic for you as it was for me?"

I can't give you 43 million reasons why, but the guy in the picture could.

Okay, maybe it's just me, but if I'd gone to see a doctor named "Nikita Levy" for the first time and found this guy waiting in his office, I would have smelled a rat right there.

Perhaps.  But what do you say we drive a stake through his heart and chop off his head, just to be on the safe side?

. . . made E.L. Grey cry.  But only for 50 seconds.

Proving that when you say, "Nyet new taxes," in Russia, you had better mean it.

And then she'll go into rehab with Steven Tyler.

Man, I knew my new desk lamp smelled funky!

"Of course I'd like to go home with you tonight.  But would you mind autographing this bar napkin first?"

I don't know, Mr. Gere, and I don't care.

No, but let's hope a group of neo-Nazis pay $212,000 for it on eBay, anyway.

. . . and 1 thing I simply don't understand: Why in the hell does somebody with his money find it necessary to paint hair on his head every morning?

And here I always thought it was the other "Joe Walsh" who wrote "Walk Away."

Shouldn't this headline read "MUST-SEE YAHOOS ON VIDEO!"?

Help me out with this one: If she's maximum-frowning in the "Before" photo . . .