Video Games are Real

Author: Caleb J. Ross

  • Kansas City Reading Coves – Cigar & Tabac, Ltd.

    Kansas City Reading Coves – Cigar & Tabac, Ltd.

    I bring you #4 of a hopefully long-lived series: Kansas City Reading Coves.

    When I can, I like my coves like my burning crosses: smokey and offensive to most.

    Today’s cove: Cigar & Tabac, Ltd – 6898 West 105th Street, Overland Park, KS 66212-1801

    I have purchased many a cigar in this place over the last year or so, each time bypassing the giant leather couches for the equally giant walk-in humidor stationed along this small shop’s north wall. I envied the old men each time, wishing I had a few moments to crash, take in a cigar, a book, and a few overheard conversations regarding golf or lawn care or something else just as fitting to the cigar stereotype. This evening, my birthday, I finally allowed myself a few moments to live this dream.

    For the most part, my envy was justified. But what comes with romanticizing a book and a cigar in a place like this, are the same associations that make it hard for me fall entirely into the dream. Golf on the TV, men talking about boats, and lots of Republicans. I need to bring a black guy with me next time to air out the place.

    Rankings out of 10:

    Smoking accommodations 10 The place is called Cigar & Tabac.
    Furniture comfort 10 These couches are so soft cartoon spokes-bears wipe their asses with them.
    Quiet level 5 Talking and TV don’t go well with books, but the lack of music pumping overhead events things out.
    Temperature comfort 8 It’s hard to argue with the indoors.

  • This Day In (Made) History

    This Day In (Made) History

    Today is my birthday. I’m not much of a celebrator of this, or any, traditionally celebrated day. I’m not a scrooge, a prude, or a buzkill. I’m just lazy. But my dis-affection hasn’t stopped others from wishing me all the best on this day.

    From family, to Facebook, to forums, virtual and physical friends alike have been fantastic.

    Below is an especially warming well-wish:

    This day in history (courtesy of Mr. Nic Young)

    1775 The Spanish establish a presidio (fort) in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.
    1833 Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States, is born (d. 1901)
    1858 Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution in The Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of London, alongside Alfred Russel Wallace’s same theory.
    1890 H. P. Lovecraft, American writer, is born. (d. 1937)
    1907 Alan Reed, original voice of Fred Flintstone, is born. (d. 1977)
    1920 The first commercial radio station, 8MK (WWJ), begins operations in Detroit, Michigan.
    1920 The National Football League, (NFL), is founded in the United States.
    1931 Don King, American boxing promoter, is born.
    1948 Robert Plant, British Musician (Led Zeppelin), is born.
    1953 The Soviet Union publicly acknowledges that it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
    1966 Dimebag Darrell, American guitarist (Pantera and Damageplan), is born. (d. 2004)
    1970 Fred Durst, American singer (Limp Bizkit), is born. **Yeah, sorry about that.**
    1982 Caleb J. Ross, American author, is born. Caleb spent the majority of his formative years in a storm-wrecked grain silo, where he lived off the remains of the injured and dying animals he cared for with a measured degree of ineptitude. The general ambiance of his youth would inspire a keen interest in amateur taxidermy, a hobby that many historians believe caused the ostracization that led to the dark, anti-social themes of his written works. Caleb was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in the August of 2012, whereupon he shed much of his acquired social stigma, but not the smell of formaldehyde.
    1986 In Edmond, Oklahoma, U.S. Postal employee Patrick Sherrill guns down 14 of his co-workers and then commits suicide.

  • Coming late 2011: I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin (the book, not the apology)

    Coming late 2011: I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin (the book, not the apology)

    It’s official. Negotiations have been negotiated. Signatures have been signed. Bells have been sleighed. I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin will be published in late 2011 by Black Coffee Press. I’ll keep this announcement short and tidy; there is plenty of time for me to drone on about how proud I am of this book. For now, just make sure your nutting pants are clean.

    Perhaps not coincidentally, I do drink my coffee black.

    Black Coffee Press has a quite a list of books lined up for 2011-12. Some I am especially looking forward to are:

    A Shiny, Unused Heart by J.A. Tyler (2011)

    This guy is everywhere. J.A. Tyler is one of those names that materializes on every lit site, from the smallish to the giantish. Sometimes I theorize these appearances are simply to make me feel inadequate. Well done, sir.

    Code for Failure by Ryan W. Bradley (2012)

    Again, a writer whose name appears everywhere. I am not as familiar with Mr. Bradley’s work as I am with the other two fellows on my list, but based on what I do know, Code for Failure is not code for failure (ha, see what I did there).

    When You Are Sleeping I Will Evolve Into A Bird by Nathan Tyree (2012)

    Nathan Tyree and I put together a grand collection of stores called Oprah Read This >> Oprah, Read This, featuring too many fabulous writers to list here. Go to the site, read the stories, and anticipate Tyree’s Black Coffee Press book.

  • It’s about TIME I got a fake TIME cover

    It’s about TIME I got a fake TIME cover

    It has been 10 years since a living novelist has appeared on the cover of Time (since Stephen King in 2000). So why does Jonathan Franzen get to right this wrong? Why not me? “Because you’ve never had a novel published,” you say. True. Though smell on the street is that travesty will soon to be rectified….more to come on that lovely bit of teasery a bit later.

    Until then, come on, you be the judge. I make a damn good counterpoint.

  • Peter Griffin does porn and literature

    Peter Griffin does porn and literature

    (part of my ongoing Unexpected Literary References series)

    In my continuing hunt for literary references in cartoons, I sometimes forget those that have been with me for years. I’ve long been a fan of Family Guy, and the episode “Peterotica” features some delightfully tacky parodies of contemporary classic novels used as the titles for Peter Griffin’s erotica writings. Enjoy. If you feel so inclined, watch the full episode here.

    Angela’s Asses by Peter Griffin Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
    Shaved New World by Peter Griffin Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

    Harry Potter and the Half Black Chick

    by Peter Griffin

    Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

    by J.K Rowling

  • Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” mentioned in The Simpsons

    Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” mentioned in The Simpsons

    UPDATE: While I still keep an eye out for all literary mentions in cartoons, my main focus now is YouTube videos about video games. Check out my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/calebjross

    (part of my ongoing Unexpected Literary References series)

    Ever since I made my first “Great Unexpected Literary References” post, I seem to have grown keen to book mentions in cartoons. And to be honestly, none has surprised me more than Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” a short story that I assumed was only known among the academic literary cliques. But no. Unless of course Matt Groening, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone were all at one time part of a literary clique. I wouldn’t doubt this; those guys are smart.

    Trey Parker and Matt Stone I mentioned regarding “The Lottery,” in my first “Great Unexpected Literary References” post. Today, I bring you a brief mention in Matt Groening’s “The Simpsons,” this one from an older episode called “Dog of Death.”

    The Simpsons | “Dog of Death” (the image above is a bit fuzzy. To watch the entire episode, click here)

  • Mind effed: Jose Saramago hates on wisdom nuggets, bitches

    Mind effed: Jose Saramago hates on wisdom nuggets, bitches

    Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are a malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarls to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skein, or indeed, if we may be permitted one more stock phrase, in the skein of life.

    -from The Cave (pg 56)

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