Deliriously Happy (11 page)

Miranda Cosgrove (L
ITTLE
B
IG
G
IRL
)

Scarlett Johansson (B
IG
L
ITTLE
G
IRL
)

Zooey
and
Emily Deschanel (T
HE
N
EW
B
ARRYMORES
)

Thomas Pynchon (H
ANGIN'
W
ITH
T
OM
)

News item: Baby boomers getting older
.

M
ACULAR
D-D-D-D-G
ENERATION
As Boomers age, many are faced with difficult choice: laser surgery or glasses? Pros/Cons, personal stories of triumph/tragedy
.

N
O
R
EMOTES:
S
TORIES TO
T
ELL
T
ODAY'S
G
RANDCHILDREN

Service Pieces

9 S
EX
T
RICKS
T
HAT
W
ILL
M
AKE
H
IM
T
HINK
Y
OU'VE
B
ECOME A
H
OOKER
Interview hookers, or just make them up? Test on wife first
.

W
HERE TO
F
IND
B
EST
P
ORN ON THE
W
EB
Pseudonym?

News item: People hate Muslims

S
HIITE
L
IKE
M
E
Undercover investigative piece. Apply for jobs in turban, etc., at downtown electronics stores. Maybe follow Islam for whole year and make it a book? Strategize on how to get beaten but not killed
.

Travel Pieces

T
OP
S
PAS OF
O
LD
E
UROPE

C
ASTLE
K
EPT:
K
ING FOR A
M
ONTH

B
EST
S
EX
V
ACATIONS OF
S
OUTHEAST
A
SIA

Get passport
.

News item: Celebutantes Getting in Trouble

Need new angle. Paradigm shift. Celebutantes as Christians and Paparazzi as Lions?

Possible “Lives” Columns

M
ILLION
L
ITTLE
P
IXELS
Reveal Internet porn addiction. Title too clever? Alt:
I N
EED
P
ORN
This may be a book
. T
HE
M
ONSTER IN
M
Y I
P
AD
? Tell wife now, or wait?

T
HROUGH
G
LASSES
D
ARKLY
On getting reading glasses for first time. Intimations of mortality, etc. Maybe end on reading bedtime story to son or daughter. Circle unbroken. Tearing up already. Ask wife what books they like
.

M
Y
D
AD
Dredge something up
.

News item: Dog dials 911

G
OOD
D
OG!
Listicle. Not all dogs dialing phones. Dogs barking at danger, raising babies, etc. Include police, assistance dogs, and this could be book. Literary nonfiction or coffee table? Why not both?

Or go counterintuitive:
T
HE
B
EAST IN THE
H
OUSE,
dogs who killed/maimed/ate owners, in funny way
.

Or humorous twist:
C
AT
H
EROES.
Made-up, obviously. Could be “Shouts and Murmurs,” or short, funny book
.

Something About Robots

Larry Doyle is a professional dinner speaker. The following piece is adapted from opening remarks to a speech he recently gave before the Optimists Club of Manhattan
.

New York City is totally insane.
²
Just the other day, I was having a drink at Mulligan's Brew
³
over on Forty-Third Street, when who, or should I say
what
, should walk into the bar but this pink-and-purple kangaroo.
⁴

I'm thinking, Whooooa, bartender, another round, and this time make it a double.
⁵

So this 'roo sidles up to the bar, puts a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, and says, “Barkeep, give me a Screaming Orgasm.”
^6
,
7

Hiiiiiii-Yo!
⁸
The bartender is a bit taken aback by this, but he's seen a lot of strange things, so he makes the Screaming Orgasm and plops it down on the bar.

“How much do I owe you?”
⁹
asks the kangaroo.

Well, the bartender looks at the double sawbuck
¹⁰
on the counter and figures,
This is a kangaroo, what does he know about drink prices?
So he says, “Twenty bucks.”

The kangaroo doesn't say anything. He just slams down the drink and hops off his stool to leave.

At this point the bartender's curiosity gets the best of him.
¹¹
He says to the kangaroo, “You know, we've never had a talking pink-and-purple kangaroo in here before.”

“Well,” the kangaroo says, “at twenty bucks for one lousy Screaming Orgasm, I'm not a bit surprised.”
¹²

A
NGELS
M
AY
R
EPLACE
V
AMPIRES
A
S
N
EW
T
REND IN
T
EEN
L
IT

—
Huffington Post

Weirdest dream. Must get this down.

Angel floating over my bed. Very buff, but also vulnerable somehow. Long flowing locks, but his face and body hairless. Smells like chocolate
.

Angel says unto me: “I am love but cannot love.”

I say back: “What?”

Angel says: “I have so much love to give some lost young woman, but alas, I cannot indulge in the carnal
.”

I say: “Okay.”

He says: “You can use that.”

Rereading this in the morning. What was he trying to tell me?

Epiphany:
Hot sexy angel wants to make sweet celestial love to you but cannot
. This is big!

Reading Bible for insp. No angels so far. In two thousand years, they couldn't compile an index?

Possible titles:
Angels and Dames
.
Fallen Love
. Keep thinking on this.

Finally: Genesis 19:1:
“And there came two angels to Sodom at even.”

Man, God is
mean
.

Why can't Angels have sex with teenage girls? Need strong, dramatic, yet plausible reason. Sex makes them mortal? It turns the girls into demons, or swans? No genitalia?

Because God said so!

Hot sexy angel who wants to make sweet celestial love to you but
it is forbidden
. Yes!

Exodus 3:2:
“And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.”
That is sexy. Been used?

“Heavensent.” “Angelophilia.”

2 Kings 19:35:
“And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.”
Digging a dry hole here. Need better source material.

“A Coming of Angels.” But will people get it? Might keep me out of libraries, and Texas. “A Kissing of Angels.”

Went to B&N and asked if they had any books on angels. A whole floor! I'm on to something here.

Seraphim? Cherubim? Ophanim? Malakhim? How am I supposed to keep all those straight?

Clerk says if I tear pages out of a book, I have to buy it. She suggested I try Google.

Jesus Christ!

Ninety-two million hits! If only half buy my book @ $25, I'm a billionaire!

Shouldn't get bogged down in research. That's not what puts it on the iPad. Use my imagination! If God can create the heavens and the earth in six days—fun fact—I can create a hot and sexy teen angel romance before the electricity goes out.

Opening image:
A glorious well-oiled angel riding on a winged unicorn
. Sure, it's sexy. But
too
sexy?

Divine inspiration:
Mangel
.

“Raging Mangel.” “My Mangel.” “Heaven Sent Me a Mangel.” “The Mangel Chronicles.” I smell franchise!

Damn. “Mangel” already trademarked for another purpose.

The work's the thing. Build it and the title will come.

Need a villain. Satan too obvious. Werewolves would be interesting, but maybe not formidable enough. The Catholic Church? Could work.

Big Business! Evil developer wants to build over an ancient Christian burial site. Forest Lawn! Sexy angels sitting on the Hollywood Sign! All coming together.

Hmm. Sounds vaguely familiar.

Of course
. Change Forest Lawn to the Greenwich Village crypt of Dracula's sexy undead son, Liam, and the Hollywood Sign to the Washington Square Arch, and it's my woefully misunderstood young adult bodice-and-neck ripper,
Hot Wings
.

Hallelujah!

“This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today,” Mr. Wayne told spectators as he lighted the first batch from the warehouse where he has gathered thousands of books in the 10 years he has run the store, Prospero's Books. When Mr. Wayne sought to thin out the collection, he said, he found that he could not even give the books away to libraries and bookshops, which said they were full. So, he said, he began burning the books to protest society's diminishing support for the printed word.