Select clubs; They are not for everyone.

If you were to run into a member of a very select club like “Those who travel with well paid entourages” entering the old Madolf apartment on the upper east side and have the [choose your label; nerve, audacity, stupidity, etc.] to ask that person “what have you done/created for me lately” he will probably answer that you will have to talk with his agent/manager/aide/VP.  But if you bring along a dance troupe then of course he will provide the same rejoinder, after he manages a move or two with the troupe. 

It is more likely though that before you get a chance to question said member of the select club the traveling entourage will have called in the Marshalls (Penny, Franklin, Tucker and Local) who will then swing by and ask you to leave, you see, an auction was in the works and your class was not invited.

Now, the recognizable face isn’t going to put in a bid on the luxurious penthouse apartment, no, he is just there to support another world leader, a Kahn so to speak, who needs to set up a consulate in the one city in the world that can give him personal access to the world leaders.  Of course Kahn also has an entourage and so as the head count increases the room for individual movement goes in reverse and the city is forced to call in crowd control and ask for additional funds to do so.  While the city raises taxes to meet the need the Kahn will also be expected to raise more funds to support his habit of supporting members of the Select Club, which means he will divert money from investments to do so.

The Select Club is very select in its membership and having two in the same building on the same day, well, it was almost a quorum and so they invited a few additional members who were jetting through the neighborhood, Miley (what an entourage she had, and each had to carry a pole), George (everyone in his group held up the left hallway), Bill (his group stuck to the foundation), Warren (his group tried to hide as they invested themselves in the brick and mortar), Michaele (she had a few housewives with her and a film crew), and Oprah (who had to video in because she was taking seven thousand winners to China).  By the time the invitee’s were assembled they somehow had more than the yearly allotment of club memberships in the room.   The updated membership list had seemed to vanish after Michaele entered and so they couldn’t officially disinvite anyone.

The member you almost had a chance to meet outside the apartment, who was also the Select Leader, was about to take the lead and start the meeting when he had to ask for a recess.  Then he picked up his i-phone and called for Reggie, “I need my damn i-stuff Reggie.”  Of course with the combined entourages spilling out through the halls and maximum loading the elevators (now they knew how many holes it took to fill the old Madolf hall) Reggie was hard to find, and this is what can happen when you need everyone on site.  The person assigned to carry the i-books gets lost in the crowd.  Of course a new bill was quickly passed so that an external elevator was built to allow for Select-Select access to the building and once completed Reggie was quickly lifted to the appropriate level to deliver his package.

           

“Love you Reg…” the Select Leader intoned.

When the meeting was finally complete (about ten minutes or so later) and the crowd dispersed to their awaiting armadas and the one remaining member, Kahn, was now officially an owner of the fiefdom he took a look around and, with the aid of his team of nearby accountants, quickly reassessed the value of his property.

“Well the new elevator is nice,” the chief accountant relayed while the tabulating members of his crew continued their work, “and very efficient, but it seems to me that the property value will, well it will not be what it was when you placed the bid.”

“Don’t worry,” says Jim Gaffigan, “there is a bunny.”

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.  You can find Saverio Monachino on http://www.comicfictionnoir.com/.

Saverio buried a bunch of key words in this particular blog like the title of his book; By Any Means.  He also threw in a bunch of other key words like thriller, murder, mystery, traumatic brain injury, comic, Canada, detective, author, artist, philosophical, writer, intrigue, fiction books, human condition, see if you can find them.  If you can’t don’t worry, in today’s age of ‘linking’, no document is complete until you follow the links.  Try it.

Once upon a time there was a train.

Well now…, what to do, what to do, what to do.  The World Series is over and there is no Football on TV tonight (of course I don’t get ESPN so I don’t really know that), and my pro basketball team just won its first and probably only game of the season (I follow these games on the internet), college basketball is still a little ways off, so maybe I’ll just write a blog.  Oh wait!  It’s election night.  Now that is something I can watch on TV.  No, no, I don’t get the cable news shows (basic cable is so yesterday isn’t it?  Anyone want to lend me some money?), I wonder if it is still on any of the local stations…., this is Tuesday still isn’t it?  I have to check this out.

Yes I’m a junkie and now I just gotta go check in on the new sport in town…, watching the races…, political races.  Oh, oh, this is great, there they are now rounding the bend.  Look, with all of this action I don’t have time to write a blog so I will just leave you with a page or two of the first book I wrote a few years back.  It is not yet published, but let me know what you think.

The title of the book (this can change) is called ‘Getting Even… Almost’ and I’ve pasted in the first page or so of the first chapter.

Have fun.

Saverio

Chapter One:  Once upon a time there was a train.

The low rumble of three thousand plus, slightly out-of-tune horses could be felt as well as heard well before the train made its appearance.  A young girl on platform four viewed the underground station with suspicion as her knees began knocking together and the vibration in her stomach matched that of the support pillar she was leaning against.  When her jaw started to rattle, she move closer to the track to peer up the tunnel, but that was too much for her grandmother to bear.  The older woman elbowed her husband, who picked up on his cue after the second jab and leaped into action.  The elderly gentleman snagged his granddaughter gently, but firmly, by the elbow while pointing down to the tracks beneath the platform and said “You don’t want to fall in, do you?”

Emma didn’t answer, but did look to where his finger pointed, observing the trash strewn amongst the ties.  Following the line of track into the tunnel, she spotted particulate matter of all sorts floating on the air currents that rippled in and out of the pillars.  She thought of a television cartoon her brother liked, where young children rode surf boards beneath a jetty.  As she watched, pieces of old newspaper mixed with torn cellophane wrappers reflected the tunnel light back into the dust, creating ethereal bodies that seemed to float on the incoming tide.  Along with the ghosts came plastic drinking cup tops, straws, wadded up cigarette packages and other assorted detritus being pushed into the station by the approaching train.

Emma stood at the edge of the platform with anticipation building inside her to a point where she had to cross her legs and hold tight.  When the engine finally swung through the final curve, she sucked in a deep breath and held it while leaning out over the track as far as her grandfather’s grip allowed.  She could clearly see the bright swath of light cut by the high beam slowly align with the tracks.  Now only the headlight could be seen, getting larger and larger, and straining, so it seemed, to stay just ahead of the rolling thunder. 

Unfortunately, as the train continuously decelerated it took longer to actually arrive at the platform than she had calculated.  And when it finally did arrive, it was a bit of a letdown for the girl.  An old diesel, with worn Amtrak livery, seemed to ooze out of the tunnel, pulling the Pennsylvanian behind.  Because of the bustle upstairs in the station - the kiosks, shoe shine stand, people moving hurriedly from one point to another and the sounds of the powerful engines below on the platforms reverberating throughout, mixed with the clanging bells, plus the loudspeakers announcing arrivals and departures – she had expected a little more. 

“What a pile of junk!” Emma thought as she finally exhaled and placed her hands over her ears.  The engine passed by, swaying slightly, its brakes squealing.  When it had completely stopped, the nose of the engine was buried ten yards into the exit tunnel.  In what seemed to be by pure chance though, the various cars aligned perfectly with their prearranged unloading positions. 

That is all for tonight… let me know what you think of the opening to Getting Even… Almost.

“Don’t worry,” says Jim Gaffigan, “there is a bunny.”

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.  You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.

To Leak or Not to Wikileak, that is the question.

What is a little leak amongst friends?

Just the other day I took a little leak, and with a weak bladder that is a weaki-leak, right?  So what, you ask, ya gotta go, ya gotta go. And that basically was my take on things as well.  I had to go, so I went.  I didn’t try for a secret release, but then again I wasn’t trying to go public either.  Needless to say I was caught by a very smart assed little guy who ran to the owner of the house and well…, he leaked too.  My neighbor didn’t like the news.

“What in the name of everything right are you doin’ on my grass,” he slurred.

“What the hell are you upset about,” I responded, trying to make him see that my mistake landed just to the left of his property, “This is my yard, and in the name of everything usual, my dog pisses on your lawn all the time.  Why don’t you get mad at her?”

“And she craps on it too…” he added as he took out a dog biscuit and fed my dog.

Well this started a heated debate about the balance of nature.  Like when my dog leaves a small excrement of her own in someone’s yard, but eats well over half her body weight in deer poop which way is the ecological balance shifting?   Now don’t get me started on the problem of natures natural wrecking machines.  You know what I’m talking about, no matter what I plant the deer eat it, and then leave fertilizer for next year’s crop.  And now we can talk about the overpopulation problem too.  As in; there are too many deer in our neighborhood.  I mean how in the world can there be more deer in New Jersey now than when the state was first populated by Europeans?  It must have something to do with that damn state sponsored low income housing mandate.  But I wont get into that discussion right now, it’s too political. 

Anyway, just like that, the argument with my neighbor moved off of my own problem with leaking things out of my hidden vault before I could even get my fly up and onto other things that had been in all of the headlines, if anyone actually read those anymore.  In this state of current events discussion it is always advantageous to argue with a neighbor after they’ve had their aperitif(s), and my neighbor definitely had all of his.

You know the first thing that was on his mind, besides my watering his flowers (which I wasn’t, it landed on my property and later I will take my damn surveyor’s map over to his house and if he doesn’t give me some of whatever he was drinking I’ll shove the whole thing…, oh, where was I.  Yes, I remember, it was that bit about GOOGLE sending all their assets off sore to avoid taxes. Well, that neighbor of mine he starts telling me about how his investment in Google had done very well to date, in fact he may soon be moving to a house at the top of the hill, and then he lets me know that Google is doing the right thing, avoiding those stupid corporate taxes and growing their business and all I can do is try to calculate how many US companies have parked their money off shore, and then add in the number of rich people who do the same and after using some fractal geometry (kudos to Benoit Mandelbrot, he was a pioneer), I am able to recalculate the oft misinterpreted dept relationship to the GDP as it should be if those very large companies actually paid taxes. 

My neighbor wasn’t interested in lowering his taxes for some reason.  I think it is because he is trying to get his app (app is short for application, like if you are making a request for money, or approbate, if you like something, or aperitif if it is late in the afternoon) bought by Google or some other such conglomerate.

Anyway, as the dog sat in his yard looking for sticks and deer poop without having to move anymore (a full stomach will do that to a dog) the conversation/argument turned to other news, like how both the Democrats and the Republicans are already claiming victory in the latest round of elections.  Of course the elections are still over a week away so perhaps these are prognostications instead of claims?  Or, as the Druids might say, “we prophesized that one, eh?”  So does this mean that our elected officials are Druids?  Do Druids float?  We can always try that ‘witches’ trial thing from Monty Python on them now, can’t we.  On the elected officials, not the Druids, and see if they…, Sorry I digressed again. 

Another hot topic of the day was about the little Wiki guy who likes to take leaks, or is that he likes to take your leaks for you.  And on this topic my neighbor gave me an earful again for leaking on his grass because in English it is so hard to grasp the correct connotation of words with multiple uses.  And me, I just wanted to catch the little tweeter who gave me away, I’ll, I’ll take my next one a little closer to his home. 

Anyway this Wiki guy gets on TV for taking a leak and then some of those who, like my neighbor don’t like this type of activity, start to harangue, oh, the shame, the shame.  Leave him alone because he, like me, has an active bladder.

Now apparently WikiLeaks was established way, way back in 2006 by a guy named Julian Assange, "a male with a near genius IQ" say some.  According to a major newspaper that seems to have a penchant for listing a bit to one side of the political view and reports its news that way as well, this male Assange redefined "whistle-blowing” as he gathered up all the whistles in the neighborhood and then published his own map which details how to find a whistle.  In doing this he gathered up everyone’s stuff, hid them beyond the reach of parents and others determined to retrieve them, then releases the map instantly, and globally, to watch the return on his investment pour in (read: advertisement and ‘charitable’ donations).

Now, now, Mr. Genius IQ, do you know “War is Hell” (I wish I had made that one up).  That phrase unfortunately is very, very true.  And if this male near genius IQ had paid attention in school he would have learned this.  If he cared about the information he is disseminating it might serve him well to actually read his history books.  War is hell, always has been, and it has been going on for quite a while.  Does Mr. Assange know that recent problems in the Middle East aren’t really recent, and to put a time frame into play well, the dawn of recorded history would be needed?  Can he please leak that information?  But, if one takes a more focused view of turbulent times then the time frame in question encompasses the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire after WWI.  But he must have known this, everyone does.  And in the same manner, if one reads a report on battlefield casualties, well, everyone knows that you have to add a multiplier or two because, well here we go again; War is Hell.

If Mr. Assange wanted to do something really New and really Different then he would steal the whistles from all sides conducting the argument du jour.  If a man likes to leak as much as Mr. Assange says he does, then let us see him leak that tidy bit of Balanced reporting.  Oh, there is an article or two from his latest stolen pile which tells that yes, the other side is causing some problems as well, but lets face it, he really is just leaking on one side of the situation without putting the geopolitics into perspective.  Can Mr. Assange tap into the data bases of, say…, Iran, or China, or heck maybe one or more of those countries in South Asia that likes to leak on their neighbors as they stool on their populace?  Wouldn’t that be a real nice thing?  After all WikiLeaks is a not-for-profit media organization with a goal of bringing important news and information to the public.  Now, if they only leak on one side of the story what makes them different from an organization with a particular political twist?  Let us see if the near genius IQ guy has male cajones and gets info from ALL sources.  Wouldn’t that be nice?  And different?  Yes it would be different, one might even say unique, and very interesting, and one would probably have to be a genius to do that.  Now, if he spent his time trying to figure a way to bring education to the suppressed masses in these countries, well that would be nice too, and genius.

 Wiki-leakies tell everyone that they provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for sources to leak information to the company journalists.  But why have we not heard of any news that one skilled in art (read: able to discern information from input data without needing a tell all book) didn’t already know, like from other sides of the conflicts that aren’t occidental in origin?  Or better yet, an explanation of the last season of LOST.  Did they die in the crash in season one, or die after the bomb goes off at the end of season five?   

But again, I digress, the blame really is on the intelligence communities who have no trouble finding where the male Assange lives, but still cannot find that bin Laden guy.

“Don’t worry,” says Jim Gaffigan, “there is a bunny.”

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.  You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.

Saverio buried a bunch of key words in this particular blog like the title of his book; By Any Means.  He also threw in a bunch of other key words like thriller, murder, mystery, traumatic brain injury, comic, Canada, detective, author, artist, philosophical, writer, intrigue, fiction books, human condition, see if you can find them.  If you can’t don’t worry, in today’s age of ‘linking’, no document is complete until you follow the links.  Try it.

How to have your dog take you for a walk

            The dog’s name is Maple, or érable if you want the original language.  Of course before ‘érable’ became Maple she was t’errible.  Some might say feisty but to me, well, she had acute ADHD.  “Don’t panic,” the wife says, “I’ll take her for training.”  Now, they are both infected with ADHD.  Good thing the dog has slowed down a bit over time, the wife, well she keeps on ticking, and kicking. 

When I write for some reason I am in need of help filling out character personalities, so to make it easy for myself I just add in those I know, like érable.  But when I’m not writing I’m walking, as in, the dog.  Nice on a sunny fall afternoon, much worse any other time.  But don’t worry, she is a well trained hound, so I was told.  All she does is sniff whatever smells extremely bad, and if it smells extremely, extremely bad, she eats it.  Or rolls in it, or barks at it, and occasionally does number two, which means I have to carefully scoop the number two up and place it into a nice neat carryall device until I can either dispose of it in my own personal garbage can, which in New Jersey we pay a steep price for weekly collection, or better, if no one is looking, deep into one of the neighbors yards. 

Now, if the dog isn’t rolling, or sniffing, or eating, or pooping, well then she, like the wife, is socializing.  They did go to the same school after all.  And man can she gossip, and sniff all the private parts, and beg, and get people to stroke her the right way, and of course get treats fed her by the neighbors so our home dietary plan goes out the window, and get pet some more, while all I can do is watch and wait.  Sorry, I digress.  Now was I talking about taking the dog for a walk or how I have to keep the wife company when she goes to the mall.  Life can get confusing at times.

            Of course walking the dog does get one lots of exposure to the lives of those who live nearby.  The dog lovers are obvious.  They are always outside, rain or shine, waiting for the princess dog to pass by so they can pay homage and give her dog biscuits or beef jerky if they want to make me really jealous.  And as they stroke the beast they give me the unabridged story of their daily adventure since the previous evening's discourse.  I, of course, now have a running chronology up to and including the day before, of each and every one who awaits the daily return.  But then there are the others too, those shy introverted inhabitants who prefer to keep their comings and goings quiet.  Those who one has to work to get gossip on, if one wasn't standing outside listening to the neighbors as they pet the dog.  So this too, like the dog biscuits, is force, which means the truth, if desired must be carefully extrapolated from what we do see and hear.

            In this regard one does have to sift through the incoming streams of information to set aside conjecture from fact.  After all, what do we really know about the man who lives alone and his backyard is hidden by a rather high solid fence?  He may not really be holding ritualistic Druid summer and winter solstice pageants, though there does appear to be a lot of hot tub use on certain days of the month that coincide with the owner’s craigslist blast solicitation for help cleaning his bedroom.  Those dates usually coincide with payday, and while bedroom is in the query advance, most of the hard work seems to be spent, as mentioned, in the hot tub as the neighbors listen to them…, well no one can really say what they do back there, after all, there is no definite evidence for the practices and doctrines held by the druids – so, in reality we know virtually nothing of certainty about them. 

            But linking their philosophy to the ‘immortal’ nature of a man's soul is not something to take lightly.  After all, many religions originating in different geographic locals also bring the Pythagorean doctrine into play. 

Whatever that means I don’t know, but I do know that I am still pissed.  The last time the dog and I passed by the craigslist frequenting man the dog got a biscuit but I, try as I would, did not get an invitation to the next solstice celebration.

“Don’t worry,” says Jim Gaffigan, “there is a bunny.”

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed by some as 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Saverio describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.  You can find Saverio Monachino on www.comicfictionnoir.com.

murder is not aways pretty but it can be funny

The first ever post by Saverio Monachino (http://www.comicfictionnoir.com/) is just an advertisement for his radio interview with the Authors Show on October 13 (http://www.theauthorsshow.com/).  After this, all the posts will be..., well different.

Author Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'. He deftly uses humor to open discussion on important human issues. By Any Means is his latest thriller novel

Author Saverio Monachino will appear on The Authors Show on October 13, 2010, to discuss his latest thriller novel, By Any Means. The show can be accessed at www.TheAuthorsShow.com.

Saverio Monachino's writing style has been termed 'Kurt Vonnegut meets Mark Twain'.  Dr. Monachino describes it as 'comic fiction noir'. Regardless of the terms used, his attempt is to use humor to open the door to serious discussion about very important human issues.

"I wrote the book," stated Dr. Monachino, "because after publishing on scientific topics in peer reviewed journals for a number of years I wanted a chance to, like newspaper columnists, just give my opinion.  In this way my point of view can be used and we can just leave the facts out of it, and of course this method is a lot more fun, and a bit easier.  In By Any Means I translate, to the best of my abilities, my vision of the three dimensional world around us and use this treatise to help people see, as I do, the important things in life and how they are clouded or misdirected by the social conditions around us."

While it can be said that Saverio's book are funny, the issues he discusses are real.  The humor in By Any Means alternates between simple and subtle.  It also uses the comic take on noir fiction to 'explore motive involving murder, the conflict between true religious belief and cultism, and deeply felt, sensitive, emotional family values.” 

"Readers will enjoy this book," continued Dr. Monachino, " because, as a reviewer in Virginia posted:  'Comic? Yes, and the comedy is truly both deep and subtle. A mystery? Indeed, a murder mystery but those pages seem to cover the deeper mystery investigated by the author. It is obvious that By Any Means has gone to great lengths to open up more important questions than just who killed who as one begins to see the outlay of dysfunctional family dynamics, its development and picturesque guides to finding the right way to reconnect.'"

Dr. Monachino will be appearing on The Authors Show on October 13, 2010. He is available for media interview and can be contacted using the information below or by email at r1234f56r@yahoo.com. More information is available at his website.