Month / September 2006

by Edward Champion

Ed McMahon’s Adjunct

Step right up, bona-fide schmucks aspiring writers! The time has come to hand out the Sobol Award! Yes, $100,000 is on the table, kiddies! With $25,000 and $10,000 for the runner-ups! That’s some good bread, don’t you think? Why, all of you Writer’s Digest subscribers who have always thought about sending in your novels but haven’t done a thing because you fear rejection now have the perfect opportunity to get with the program right now! We’re the Sobol Awards! Why, the name’s almost a palindrome!

Oh, did we mention an $85 non-refundable registration fee? Well, contrary to those pesky critics of ours who claims that this isn’t an award. It is an award! Did you not see “Award” in “Sobol Award?” Is that noun not provenance enough?

Vanity presses? Poppycock. Did you not read the large print?

ONE. HUNDRED. THOUSAND. DOLLARS!

We think this should quell any doubts.

Who cares if we’re run by Sobol Literary Enterprises? You act as if a word like “enterprise” is a bad thing. Okay, so we’re not a foundation. But isn’t any writing experience an “enterprise” of sorts? Writing is an adventure! Embarking into the unknown. To boldly go…hey, you Star Trek fan fiction writers, I’m talking to you. Enterprise — it’s a good name, right? Send in your Kirk/Spock love stories to us and we might give you — what are those four words again? Let’s see.

ONE. HUNDRED. THOUSAND. DOLLARS!

Yes, that’s right!

Remember, it’s first come, first served. Just like any great scam. And if you’d like to send us $85 anyway, we’ll be happy to send you a postcard straight from Sobol Literary Enterprises headquarters thanking you for your money. Because that’s the kind of people we are.

by Edward Champion

A Message from Stephen Baldwin

Hi, I’m Stephen Baldwin. You might know me as the “other Baldwin” or the “youngest Baldwin.” Or perhaps the “other other Baldwin.” There are, after all, so many of us. I can understand the confusion.

stephenbaldwin.jpgAfter years of being a sanctimonious prick, I’ve decided to become a sanctimonious Christian prick, which some might argue is even worse. But I’m here to tell you that it’s not as bad as you think. You see, something funny happened when those planes hit the towers. I realized that life was hardcore. But I had to think it all over. So on that terrible day that Satan struck down our great skyscrapers of commerce, I retreated to my isolated gym room with my Brazilian housekeeper and beat the shit out of my bags and threw myself into a Tae Bo frenzy as tempestuous as the Good Lord himself and did many other things that I won’t tell you about. Because I’m a private man. Besides, I’m sure you’ll learn it all on your own, if you take a long hard look at Jesus. His is the only way.

I emerged with a profound belief that religion can be hardcore too. More hardcore than getting fired by Brian De Palma from Casualties of War. More hardcore than the tattoos between my shoulder blades. And certainly more hardcore than all the chicks I banged in those terrible days before married life. The days where I was led astray. I have long since repented for telling these fine vessels of motherhood that I was Alec.

You see, I am a hardcore guy. And it was this hardcore attitude that had me regularly calling The Ron and Fez Show. And Ron and Fez told me that I was hardcore. And I thought, hey, hardcore. And I felt compelled to take back this word from the evil porn peddlers. And I did my best to close down a porn shop in Nyack, even taking pictures of the sinners’ license plates and publishing their names in the paper. And that was hardcore. Hardcore, the way having a gravel sandwich for lunch is. Hardcore, the way God punishes these evil sinners. Ideally with painful flames and horrible lacerations.

And then I wrote a book — a hardcore book. Since my good friend Pauly Shore had some writing gifts bestowed upon him by the Lord, I showed him an early draft. And he gave me the thumbs up. And he said, “Stephen, that’s hardcore.” And we ate a hardcore lunch. And we both took a big hardcore dump in front of an abortion clinic and laughed our asses off on the drive to Coldstone Creamery. Because that’s how hardcore we are.

And now I’m urging you to buy it. Open your heart. Jesus’s way is the only way. You may not know this now. You may never have known this. Certainly Bono doesn’t know it. He thinks that providing relief is the answer. Doesn’t he know that God will work this all out? Don’t you know? If you don’t understand where I’m coming from, the True Answer is in my book. I am a Baldwin. The Lord is My Shepherd. And I am more hardcore than you.

by Edward Champion

And, Dammit, What Happened to That Cute Little Logo Turtle? Restore BASIC to Today’s Computers Or the Terrorists Have Won!

Salon: “But all of this misses the point. Those textbook exercises were easy, effective, universal, pedagogically interesting — and nothing even remotely like them can be done with any language other than BASIC. Typing in a simple algorithm yourself, seeing exactly how the computer calculates and iterates in a manner you could duplicate with pencil and paper — say, running an experiment in coin flipping, or making a dot change its position on a screen, propelled by math and logic, and only by math and logic: All of this is priceless. As it was priceless 20 years ago. Only 20 years ago, it was physically possible for millions of kids to do it. Today it is not. In effect, we have allowed a situation to develop that is like a civilization devouring its seed corn. If an enemy had set out to do this to us — quietly arranging so that almost no school child in America can tinker with line coding on his or her own — any reasonably patriotic person would have called it an act of war.”

by Edward Champion

Harry Potter and the Order of the TSA?

The BBC reports that J.K. Rowling was stopped at an airport because she would not part from her manuscript. Airport security wanted to check in her manuscript. Rowling relented and was eventually allowed on board the plane back to the UK with her notes bound with rubber bands.

It’s good to know that the TSA are using their energies to go after the real terrorists: bestselling authors who carry such dangerous items as manuscripts. Let us consider first that the paper is flammable. And it is just possible that an al-Qaeda operative, one who has spent several years in the mountains perfecting his throwing skills, might steal one page of the MS and fold it into a paper airplane. The paper airplane, carefully targeted at a flight attendant’s eyes, would subsequently blind the attendant, creating distress among the plane’s staff, and causing the pilot to unlock the cabin door to investigate this ruckus. The plane would then be successfully overtaken by the operatives.

One can never be too careful in this age of terror. I am grateful that the TSA has left no stone unturned, save for the rubber bands, which might put out a flight attendant’s eye just as adeptly as a paper airplane.