Category / Uncategorized

by Edward Champion

Gerard Jones, The First Writer to Offer His Own Audio Commentaries?

Gerard Jones, author of Ginny Good, certainly hasn’t been resting on his laurels. His latest effort is something called Propagandaville, in which he continues his crusading against bogus marketing devices and the troubling limitations on free speech. Indeed, I don’t think there’s any other author around who has not only offered a complete audio version of his book, but who has been so passionate enough to record his sentiments about the publishing industry.

by Edward Champion

Excerpt from Beverly Cleary’s “Ramona the Alternative”

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Thanks to the success of Judy Blume’s revised edition of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, in which all references to Margaret’s pink sanitary belt have been eliminated, Beverly Cleary has also stepped into the revision game. Responding to recent concerns that “Pest” was too antiquated a term for the 21st century, Cleary’s classic novel Ramona the Pest has been rewritten and updated for the present day. The title of the book has been changed to Ramona the Alternative. Return of the Reluctant has obtained the first chapter of Cleary’s “special edition” and it follows below.]

“I am not a Goth chick,” Ramona Quimby told her big sister Beezus.

“Then stop acting alternative,” said Beezus, whose real name was Beatrice. She was standing by the front window waiting for her friend Mary Jane to score some dime bags to enjoy just before school.

“I’m not acting alternative. Yes, I dyed my hair jet black and I rarely see the sun these days. But I’m singing and skipping to Peter Murphy,” said Ramona, who had only recently learned to skip to Bauhaus. Ramona did not think she was alternative. No matter what others said, she never thought she was alternative. The people who called her alternative were always hipper and often read Spin Magazine and laughed at her because she didn’t own a turntable.

Ramona went on with her singing and skipping. She began to feel considerable angst and contemplated setting fire to something. Perhaps she might skip to the 7-11 and spend most of the day hanging out in front looking gloomy. “I hate my life,” said Ramona. “I want to kill myself and I’m only eight years old.” Murphy’s gloom was starting to weigh on her. Perhaps she should cement this with a good solid blast of melancholy from Robert Smith. No longer could she care much about Beezus, who had one of the stupidest names she had ever heard. The name “Beezus” was more Goth than Ramona. It was more alternative in a radcliffy kind of way.

“Come on, Mama!” urged Ramona, pausing in her singing and skipping. “I’m too depressed to live. Can’t I stay home and be miserable?”

“Enough of that music, Ramona,” said Mrs. Quimby. “Why don’t you listen to something sensible like the Beatles or something?”

“The Beatles are so mainstream,” protested Ramona, who contemplated bringing up Lennon’s pugnacious solo album, Plastic Ono Band, but soon realized that she was talking with her mother, who would likely never understand what she was going through, much less have any musical sense whatsoever. She was a girl who had been denied an iPod. Life was so boring that she had to fall asleep in class.

Then Mary Jane arrived. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Quimby. I think Beezus and I can take care of Ramona today.” Mary Jane winked at Ramona. And Beezus and Mary Jane began to titter.

“Don’t forget your lunch, Ramona!” cried Mrs. Quimby.

“Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Quimby,” said Mary Jane. “I’ve got something in a plastic bag that will probably get Ramona through lunch hour. And Beezus too!”

by Edward Champion

Live Oscar Blog

It’s in the works, but I’m in the process of assembling a live Oscar blog, URL soon to be announced, for this Sunday. More information as it happens tomorrow, but at the present time, we’ve got some very talented and funny people involved with this thing — individuals who might just put this crazed Academy Awards thing into perspective. And they’ll be providing some very funny commentary in real time as the ceremonies happen.

More to come.

by Edward Champion

The 12 Cartoon Trainwreck

If riots weren’t enough, it seems that the top editorial brass of The New York Press has resigned because the NYP publisher got cold feet over publishing the infamous Muhammad cartoons published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

I have little to say on the matter that Laila hasn’t said already, but with the exception that reprinting a cartoon doesn’t necessarily mean that you subscribe to its message or that you are even subconsciously declaring to someone that their views are worthless. If anything, this whole mess limns in full the mighty communicative gulf between East and West, Muslims and Christians, and violent provocateurs and nonviolent provocateurs. But for the Western newspapers, in the end, this is as clear-cut as shouting fire in a crowded theatre. Yes, the freedom and the right to say it is there. (See Brandenburg v. Ohio 395 U.S. 44.) But know what you are unveiling when you say it. The fundamental distinction lies not with the message, but with the separation between speech and action.

by Edward Champion

The Coretta Scott King Funeral: Summary

CARTER: I hope we can take the opportunity to remember what Coretta Scott King stood for.

BUSH, JR.: Coretta, Coretta, terruh, war, don’t listen to Kayne West.

CLINTON: Yes, I too am a white ex-President. I’m sorry. But don’t blame me. I spoke in many African-American churches when I had something to gain, such as a second presidential term. Now, not so much the case. But Hilary, who is likely running for President in ’08, might do this too. This is what Coretta would have wanted: blatant opportunism. Have I finished seducing you?

LOWERY: George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

MICHAEL BOLTON: They put me here because Stevie Wonder’s feeling a little under the weather.

BUSH, SR.: Reverend Lowery, shut up, boy, and shine my shoes.

ANGELOU: I know why the caged bird sings. And so do you. Let’s just hope the press is awake to spot the absurdities we’re experiencing today.

by Edward Champion

My Kicking Fetish

Okay. I’ll confess. Every so often, in a moment of weakness, I’ll jump for something based off of a cover.

EXHIBIT A: The cover of The Bells Are Ringing. This was added to my DVD rental queue because, aside from the strange combination (well, to me anyway) of Judy Holliday and Dean Martin appearing in the same film, who can resist the image of Dean Martin kicking his leg into the air while Judy Holliday is slightly insocuiant about it? I’m telling you. Legs kicking in the air! It’s my downfall.

bellsareringing.jpg

Yes, I have a kicking fetish.

I should also point out that as a kid, I had an obsession with the Rockettes — in large part because I always associated them with kicking. Which either makes me extremely gay or just plain deviant.

When watching football, I think the punter is the most impressive player. Or at least, I’ve always thought that he does the most work. Because the arm is far more precise, whereas the foot is not. Even if he is a microscopic dot from really bad seating, you’ll always see his leg in the air without binoculars. But a quarterback’s snap? Not always.

My favorite moment during a crime drama was always when they kicked the door in. And the thing that most impresses me about horses is when a horse somehow kicks down a stable door, or when a horse proves to the foolish human trying to tame it that it is the master by whinnying and standing on hind legs.

It’s my firm belief that people should kick more. Or at least realize that their legs are good for a lot more than walking or running.

Leaping, of course, has some acceptance in our society. But kicking? Not so much. It may, in fact, have something of a stigma attached to it. Likely because kicking is considered more of a threatening physical action rather than something which permits excess energy to be happily applied to the leg. In fact, why permit kicking to remain in its default emotional setting? Kicking can be joyful, artistic, and just downright goofy.

The solution here, of course, is to get all happy kickers together in an arena and demonstrate to the world that it’s okay to kick from time to time. There’s no shame in kicking. And yet even sex manual authors sometimes overlook the kick’s possibilities.

by Edward Champion

Three Hours of Sleep

In lieu of content here today, we direct you to the following places:

by Edward Champion

A Special Note to Return of the Reluctant Readers

[EDITOR’S NOTE: After Mr. Champion made an appearance on a nationally syndicated talk show and was told by his agent to “go jump into a lake,” the powers that be (namely, the telling impetus of self-preservation) demanded that he follow the examples of others and write the following note to aid future readers who peruse his blog.]

Return of the Reluctant is about linking to news stories I am unlikely to remember and about fabricating some of the stupid ideas that mesh within my mind. While there have been references here to shrooms, alcohol and masturbation in the past three weeks, this does not necessarily mean that I am a Hunter S. Thompson type regularly engaging in these activities. As has been accurately revealed by nearly every person who has commented on my posts, there is something suspect about a litblogger who is into occasional cross-dressing and who has repeatedly claimed that he beat Sir Edmund Hilary to Everest. Never mind that I probably never set foot in New Zealand and that my birth certificate states that I was born many years after Hilary reached the summit. But I still maintain that I wrote primarily from memory and that if my head recalls the wintry weather atop Everest during the Eisenhower administration and the partial frostbite I contracted on the climb back down, then it must be true!

During the process of writing this blog, I embellished many details about my sexual experiences. In 2005, there was, in fact, a longer time period between two fuck buddies than I initially reported. It was personal shame which provoked the impulse. No, I did not fuck 2,200 midgets in a cramped Westin suite over a 72-hour period. No, my cock isn’t eighteen inches long. It is considerably smaller.

Yes, I have desired to wear a bustier and a garter so that I might be able to impress some of my hunky West Coast peers such as Scott Esposito and Mark Sarvas. Unfortunately, both gentlemen have rebuffed my advances and I have spent many hours in therapy trying to come to terms with my self-worth.

I didn’t chronicle any of this in my blog because the last thing the world needed was another blog about a balding loser who couldn’t get laid. You wanted a tale of a blogger overcoming his addiction to cross-dressing and learning to copulate without a sartorial complement.

Well, dear readers, I gave you that tale and made a tidy sum. And I have no regrets about any of it. Ultimately, it’s a story, the kind of thing you’ll see turned into Lifetime TV movies.

I’m still very much riding the horse. I’m still on the path and I hope, ultimately, I’ll get there. Preferably in boxers rather than panties.

Edward Champion
San Francisco
January 2006