My condition walked into a bar

This is a guest post by Caleb J Ross (also known as Caleb Ross, to people who hate Js) as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin and novella, As a Machine and Parts, in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contact him. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed. Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb

I have this problem with feeling as though every single word I type as part of a blog post, blog comment, tweet, or Facebook update must be either a punchline or must be leading up to one. This feels like a true mental/medical condition that should be studied. I would imagine it to fall under the same umbrella as the Truman Show Delusion (which is a real thing...much like my video-taped real life exploits). See! See that parenthetical statement just now. I had to weave a joke (funny or not, intent is what makes a joke a joke) into this post. I can’t help myself.

Oh, and the self-depreciation. I thrive on it. I learned at an early age that being short and frail is socially acceptable only when describing a lab-coated scientist or a comedian. Professional, I am neither, but personally I’d like to think I know my way around a joke and a Bunsen burner. My understanding of my position within society, and my consistency in filling that role, has warped my brain into being able only to produce humorous(ish) content.

Maybe that’s why, when I write books, I tend to skirt the humor. Books are my safe space.

Why is humor so powerful? The urge to be funny seems like a universal urge, right? We all eat. We all sleep. We all did Austin Powers and Ace Ventura impressions during those movies’ respective heydays. Humor, to me, feels like the ultimate defense destroyer. A joke, even one not funny, tells an otherwise stiff and unapproachable audience that we have something inherently, though intangibly (which makes humor even more interesting, to me) in common. Humor, generally speaking, is simply a commentary on the invisible social structures that keep us aligned as a group. We are all spectators to these structures; rarely are we participants in their creation (even politicians and lawyers act as part of a greater structure).

I’ve falling victim to the inherent aversion to intellectualizing humor: too much thought can make turn a laugh sour. So, for fear of souring you readers, let me leave you with this, my latest marginally funny tweet:

@calebjross: Please, someone write a story with an obsessive compulsive werewolf nun. Title: Creature of the Habit.

Two more Lit Pub items, this time maybe more about me than my book. Oh gosh, interviews.

Now, in Robb Todd Corner, his new story and postcard up at Wigleaf. And you can now go order his book, "Steal Me For Your Stories" over at Tiny Hardcore Press.  OMG.

Speaking of Tiny Hardcore Press, check out this video for Brian Oliu and Brandi Wells' books.

I can’t stop thinking about a black man. His stomach wavy and dark. How it contrasts with red. How it contrasts with the way it could be against me. There is a jutting swagger to his way. It yells man. In it, I cannot find any soft. I see debris. I see a charred wall. Hands through my hair. A beat made by bodies.



Do you hear this song? This song helps to unruin my day. It will be over soon. Fill in the blanks.

I can’t get any lower than this.

I can get lower than this.

Pour a bucket of sand into my throat. Ask me to swallow. No. Don’t ask me to swallow. Just tell me to.

Lots of Links and Then Lesbians

Happy birthday to Roxane Gay’s book, Ayiti, which officially releases today! So excited to read this! You should be too unless you are dumb.  Get it here!


She also has a really great story over at Fringe called, Begin Chest Compressions. Makes me sort of hate her no I could never do that.

The Lit Pub continues to do some little things about my book. The most recent is this one, written by Sarah Rose Etter, about my story The Mill Pond and it asks about true evil. Robb Todd wrote some stuff too as did the aforementioned, Roxane Gay.

There’s also a cool thing about Blake Butler over there you may want to check out. I love hearing other people’s stories about falling in love with an author’s writing. This is a good one.

Also, WHAT WHAT?!?!

DJ Berndt, who I will hug the shit out of one day, just released an e-book entitled, “Very Beautiful Women” that includes the writing and artistic stylings of 36 lovely ladies, myself included, although I’m not sure how ‘lovely’ I am, but I am at least, nice. A nice lady. Ani Smith, Ana C., Brandi Wells, Frank Hinton, to name a few. It’s really very good. I read it all this past Sunday with my super secret link. Check it out.

In other news, I’m no lesbian, but DAMN if I don’t want to cross over from time to time and, manOman my current celebrity crush I want to throw my panties at is the girl from Two Broke Girls. Her name is Kat Denning or something and I don’t know where she came from or what she did before but she has lots of skin and these dark eyes that might be blue or gray or brown, I am not sure and when she does that goofy sitcom bantering part of me wants to shake her but part of me sees through the written dialogue to her soul and her soul is telling me that Kat Denning wants her boobs in my mouth. My hands yell back to her soul that they want them too, asks Kat, Please can we get to know you better than anything we’ve ever touched before? And then I sit back and think about molesting Kat’s breasts for at least a half an hour with my face, hands and mouth. I would look up at her like a helpless, shameful, child, like, it’s chocolate kat, I can’t help myself, I will eat it all if you will let me I will get sick on it until i throw up and she does, she lets me, and she strokes my hair and I never wipe my mouth, my chin, my face I reach down i rub myself to fruition my tongue pulling her nipples into my mouth like fruity candies and it’s the best autograph she ever gave she tells the guests at the engagement party and I finish, “…and the rest is history!” raising my diamond ring to the crowd.