Idea 79 - My Friend Jeff: The Unauthorized Biography

I think it's kinda bullshit that it's only famous or interesting people who get biographies. What about the everyday heroes who slog through this life without ambition, interests, or any important deeds worth noting?

Plus, me and my buddy Jeff always totally rip on each other in really funny ways, and I always thought it'd be hysterical to publish a dense tome about all the dumb embarrassing shit he's done over the years. He'll be so pissed, but he'll have to laugh, you know? Here's a snippet from Chapter 3, "An Adolescence More Painful Than Most":

Perhaps Jeff's most horrifically lame exploit occurred early in his disastrous sophomore year in high school. Despite his virulent and sizable acne, he had somehow scored a ride to the big Steve Miller concert with Kelly McCarthy, one of the Junior class's most nubile and socially important young women. Historians uniformly agree that only reason this came to pass was Jeff's mom's friendship with Mrs. McCarthy. What follows is an attempt at reconstructing this extraordinarily repellent event.

---

"Oh shit." Jeff stared glumly toward his faded and ill-fitting shorts.

Kelly quickly glanced toward her zit-ridden passenger, then followed his gaze downward. "What the heck is... Oh my God, gross! GROSS!!'"

As the historical record shows, what had occurred had been gross indeed. Jeff had drunk far too much Bud Dry during the concert's early stages, and was now paying an unholy price for his pathetic light-weightedness. For when Jeff awoke from a brief blackout while riding home with Miss McCarthy, he couldn't help but notice that he was sitting in a gloppy orange pool of processed pizza, thanks to his overly relaxed colon.

"OH MY GOD!!!! JEFF!!!! GROSSS!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!"

---

The best thing was that she pulled over right then, right on the highway, kicked him out of the car, and drove away. Totally left him there. Funniest thing ever. Seriously, nobody tell Jeff about this book until it comes out, I want to see the look on his face, he's gonna freak.

Idea 78 - The Sexy Heiress With The Sexy Battleship Tattoo

Here's one for all those sad people who get erotic fulfillment from books instead of mobile porn. I've been checking out the racks at airport shops, and it looks like all I'll need to draw the suckers in is a mostly black cover with an ethereal, youthful female form, mostly draped in shadows, with just a hint of rebellious body ink exposed on one ivory shoulder. Also, look at the title: you'll notice I used the word "sexy" twice. That was on purpose. I'm always thinking:

Into a haze of languid clove smoke, she disappeared like a dream at edge of sleep.

"Was she real?" Robert asked, his own voice foggy in his thudding ears. The erotic rock concert had just ended. But Robert was desperate for an encore -- a private encore, featuring her and her alone.

"Oh yes, she's very real. And that picture of a battleship on her back? That's a tattoo." Alexander knew so much about her. But how? "Her father is a wealthy importer/exporter." Alexander regarded his martini as he spoke, stirring it lazily with a slender and long-nailed pinky. "No one knows who her mother is, but many suppose that she must have been some type of contortionist."

Robert was confused and aroused in equal and considerable measure.

In his mind, the prow of the battleship roared mightily over a creamy shoulder blade, slicing the wet wind in two as she pounded, rhythmically, across a silken gossamer sea. The ship's imposing cannons rose ominously, exposing their darkened caverns. Each would soon bloom with unimaginable heat.

Robert was suddenly overwhelmed by that accidentally-wore-my-younger-brother's-pants feeling.

Sorry, I should have made it clear that this excerpt was Not Safe FW. What can I say, my talent for stroking that most erogenous of human organs -- the genitals -- can get a little, shall we say, out of hand at times. I think we shall.

Idea 77 - Angling For Disaster

It seems like film producers and sheltered intellectuals alike all love those extreme adventure memoirs, like Into the Void and crap like that. And yeah, maybe I haven't climbed anything or sawed off/eaten any crucial body parts. But what I can do is take a very pedestrian "adventure" I've undertaken and make it enthralling via my word-magic:

The bass struggled mightily, whipping its entire 14-inch body against the line that threatened to pull it into my straining 10-year old arms. It was at that moment that I first cursed the Gods. They had listened to my prayers -- my endless requests to land a largemouth as big and heavy as a small Nerf football -- and cursed me to my present torment by delivering exactly what I had asked. Those pricks.

I knew that the fight could last up to three minutes. And I knew that either the mighty bass or I would be dead when it was done. Or my line might break. Or the lure could just pop out of its gaping toothless maw, which could open as wide as an inch and a half and slam shut hard enough to snap a wet saltine in two.

As the the very lifeforce drained from my rail-thin frame, I was dimly aware of my hardy fishing partner Ian, who was catching tiny sunfish and putting firecrackers in their mouths. My fellow adventurer simply didn't know fear.

Wow, what a cliffhanger! It feels just like that movie, Cliffhanger.

Idea 76 - The Game Of Death

Maybe I can make some money by stoking panic and hysteria. But what kind of -- oh wait! I could goose the snoozing dragon of parental concern about video games!

Lucas and Sanji swore viciously through gritted and braced teeth. They had nearly finished the third level of MomKiller 3D.

"Dam*! Cr#p!! Chr&$@t's an@s on a jumped-up sh%*garti€£s!!! You shot that old woman in her @$$! High-five me!" Sanji had been a Hindu altar boy until this past Christmas, when his kind but negligent parents purchased a sin-filled Play-Station. That morning, his blood-curdling shriek of delight had been a dark portent of deteriorating penmanship and carelessness with matches.

Lucas spat out Funyun flecks as he screamed chilling instructions. "Get those ding-€@&ing explosives!!! We'll head to the crap€^*%ish PTA meeting and take our fat $&@nus#%ard parents hostage!!!

"I can't wait!" hollered Sanji. "Then let's turn gay!"

All we need is some simple banner ads on leading "mommy blog" CafeMom.com. Once word gets out, parents will buy up the whole first run just to burn them in the town square and shake them angrily in front of local news cameras.

Idea 75 - The iPhonebook

Okay, so this one's such a shoe-in that it'll easily fund all my children's college educations, even the ever-expanding gaggle of "Illegitimies" who keep popping up.

Basically, if I write anything at all related to the iPhone, I'm going to get what I cal "viral buzz", which equates directly with sales (duh). And I don't blame the masses for slavishly fawning over the iPhone -- I've got one myself, and I would literally exterminate an entire pet hospital full of sad handicapped animals if it was somehow necessary to protect my touchscreen lover. Granted, it gets horrible phone reception, but whatever.

All I need to do is make the book physically large enough to explain the exorbitant price (which will draw Apple fans like spiders to a baby's ear). So here it is:

Wait for it...

Literally the phonebook, but for iPhones. I'll just reprint the yellow/white pages -- hundreds of editions in their localized entirety -- but add a nicely designed cover, like a photo of the iconic "walking fingers" traipsing across the surface of a 3GS, set against the quintessential black background. Holy shit, it's so compelling it's like mind control!

Huge upside: no actual writing required. Maybe just a preface about how Windows Mobile phones 5ukk ba!!zz, to get the attention of the early adopters/fanboys.

Possible buzz partnerships: Keyboard Cat, LOL Injureez, Engadget Mobile, Cute Granneez, Yellow Pages if they still exist (not sure).

Idea 74 - Look No Further: The Responsible Use of Real X-Ray Glasses

Agreed: with the pace of technological innovation increasing at a nauseating pace, real x-ray glasses are obviously right around the corner. But I'm pretty sure that their arrival will unravel society itself, as the impulse to look through inappropriate things, like everybody's clothes, will overwhelm even the most respectful eunuch. Widespread moral degradation and rioting will ensue. But not if this book has anything to say about it:

Chapter 7: Things not to look at via your new x-ray glasses:

• Genitals -- The appropriate behavior is to steal a quick glance at the underwear, which is enough to titillate oneself but not visually abuse someone else
  

• Colonic interiors -- Eating habits are private, and it's simply not your right to peer into a stranger's innards and guess what they've ingested in the last 16-24 hours
  

• Pastries -- When someone bakes a pie, what they're really baking is a surprise. A major part of the excitement of a filled pastry is what's called The Gushing Moment, when secret goo meets lips and teeth. (Also tongue.) Even if you've been told ahead of time that it's a blueberry croissant or a Boston creme, you are doing the chef an egregious disservice by "skipping ahead" to the wet part. For shame.

That's a huge relief for me, just to be able to put my concerns on paper, as it were. And I know I speak for millions of enraged citizens when I say that the time for x-ray vision legislation is NOW, not after the scourge of wanton see-throughery spoils our streets with sodden shorts and spoiled sweet surprises. That was a lot of s's!

Idea 73 - The Legendary Myth Of Legend

Maybe I can get some attention by "discovering" a new Greek or Roman myth -- something akin to a newfound Gospel, but it won't be about the bible so people won't flip out about it too much. The best thing is that I can just make up random weird events and it'll sound like a real myth:

From the armpit of Athena burst a small tuft of golden wheat, the flowing fronds of which soon bore a star-shaped fruit. As she walked, this star-fruit fell to the fertile soil at the foot of Mount Olympus, from whence soon sprung a stone goat with nine faces. It was named Goatus and thus mankind received the name we call our modern goats.

After 100 years of silence, Goatus beheld a young human maiden named Sallyus, who was hot. He was so entranced by her beauty that he belched, and the belch became a half-god named Cletus, patron of home-made wine, and thus mankind received the name we give to our modern white trash.

See, I came up with that in about two minutes and I just explained two mysteries of our time. What could I accomplish if I had some funding? Who knows? Oh wait, I do.

NOTE: I mean no disrespect to those who still believe in those Greek/Roman gods but at the same time you have to admit that all that stuff definitely didn't happen. Also, it does concern me that kids who read those myths might think magical stuff happens when you fuck animals.