Already a fan of Chris Wood's Blog, I'm not suprised to find his books only further underline his remarkable writing talent.Thus, the urgency of his, eh, "early retirement."
See, I can’t find a publisher for my stuff; everybody keeps saying things like, ‘I’ve never seen such bad spelling,’ and, ‘How did you get a typo in crayon?’
With all the serenity I can muster, I find myself repeatedly explaining how it’s a children’s book, and kids -inherently dumb by nature- would never know the goddamn difference. But those know-it-all fucktarded shit sticks at the Wall Street Journal wouldn‘t know a decent children's book writer's talent if it popped a zit on their dork.
I set all these fires for nothing.
So Chris Wood must die.
DIE!
I mean, who needs this kind of competition? And who put talented writers in charge of everything anyway? Hm? I'm just supposed to sit here while fancy-pants British author Chris Wood -just oozing talent- is hoggin’ up all that paper? It’s not like paper grows on trees you know.
This 'Chris Wood' probably counts his stacks of gold while saying 'pip pip' at random intervals, smoking a big curvy pipe in front of a fireplace. You call this a level playing field? Shit, anybody can get published with cheesy gimmicks like talent, a big curvy pipe and a fireplace! And where the hell do you even get a big curvy pipe and a fireplace here in the Twentieth Centurion?I'm the victim here if you think about it.
Dyin's too good for him.
-He should die with extreme predjudice.
I‘ll choke that sonofabitch with his own monocle chain.
CW: Why are you in my house?
LOBO: I‘m not in your house pal. I‘m in Chris Wood‘s house. Have you seen him? He looks just like you, but he's British. You know, monocle, khaki shorts ... possibly a pith helmet.
CW: Chris Wood is my twin brother. There must be some kind of mix up here.
LOBO: Really? The cops told me he lives here.
CW: Cops?
LOBO: Yeah. I rode an international flight here in a ghillie suit made of almond tree branches. Despite the brilliant camouflage, some Air Marshalls came to my row insisting they could see me. I called them filthy liars, and, well, long story short, they kicked the crap out of me until I made bail.
CW: Well, it‘s a good thing they couldn‘t see you then, wasn‘t it?
LOBO: Yes. I hate filthy liars. Experiences like that is why I totally hate foreigners.
CW: Me too.
LOBO: My name is LOBO.
CW Hello LOBO. I‘m Chris Wood.
LOBO: You and your twin brother are both named Chris Wood? Isn‘t that confusing?
CW: I'm hassled by idiots over it constantly.
LOBO: It sounds like life will be simpler for both of us if he was dead.
CW: Indeed. He’s very evil. You know The Ingredients of a Good Thriller? I wrote that. And Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death too! But he stole all the credit.LOBO: That bastard. Listen, help me out with some surveillance-type questions. We can pool our information, put a homing beacon on his car, and track him via satellite. After a few weeks of that, we'll analyze the data and determine the best place to kill him with cinderblocks and pointy sticks.
CW: Pointy sticks are illegal here -and cinderblocks tend to be cost-prohibitive.
LOBO: Really? Man this place is weird. I mean we’re on the opposite side of the world from the US, yet gravity is not reversed. Unlike anarchists, Americans obey the laws of physics! The custom travel pants Predator Press scienticians designed for me -the ones with inverted pockets- have somehow malfunctioned, and I have lost my wallet and passport as a result. Can I sleep in your car for the duration? I see your steering wheel is on the wrong side. I can fix that.
CW: My car does have a steering wheel, but it doesn’t work. My car’s direction is actually controlled by a rudder, which means ploughing through concrete every time I drive, but there you go.Personally, I try to ignore the laws of physics. This does take some willpower, but stick with it. You just have to be strict with them, and then you can float about, let your molecules wander off, even turn kinetic energy into pizza – it’s fantastic.
LOBO: Judging from your music collection, your favorite music appears to be the blues. But that crap is depressing! Where the hell is the ABBA? Are you hiding it? I don’t see any copies of Max Payne in your DVD collection either.
CW: I don’t find the blues depressing, or at least not all of it. “I’m getting my dick sucked as I sing this” by Big Smile Chesterton, for example, is a happy tune. So is “I ran over the taxman (and I stole his wallet too)” by Goodforhim Lemonzest.
Also, anyone who doesn’t feel laid back while listening to BB King is a bollock faced imbecile. I have that on good authority.
LOBO: I disagree. That 'laid back' thing only ensures his show will never be as widely-enjoyed by the masses like the rampantly successful Predator Press juggernaut is.-All King's interviews are chocked full of softball questions, and the resulting lack of journalistic 'edge' makes his show a real snoozer. Worse, you don't want to fall asleep around him ... once sufficiently lulled, he marries you.
CW: Well you can’t trust British culture either. It will break into your house and completely screw with your mind, by putting your CDs in the wrong cases and slightly adjusting the settings on your TV.
LOBO: The Beatles and The Rolling Stones Chris? That’s total Rock ‘N Roll overkill. Don’t you think farming out the Sex Pistols to France would have been at least, well, sporting?
CW: We tried, but the trouble was European Union legislation stating that all foreign rock bands had to be pasturised before entering France. Johnny Rotten and co weren’t fond of the idea of being boiled en route, so the whole thing fell through. I call it a lack of initiative.
Hey, have you been slightly adjusting the settings on my TV? I thought BB King was black. This guy looks like he swapped Frodo's ring for bulletproof eyewear. And does that shade of blue really occur in nature?
LOBO: You once wrote “English mustard is the envy of the civilized world. If you don't envy it, you aren't civilized.” If the Germans find out you dissed Heinz Ketchup like that, it could start World Wars III, IV and π. In the future, can you please refrain from this scathing and incendiary commentary on condiments for the sake of world peace? There’s only so many times we should be expected to rescue the French … and their mustard sucks.
CW: No, fuck world peace. I must have my say on condiments. If we all have to become little piles of radioactive soot just because I don’t like your choice of dressing, tough shit.I agree French’s Mustard is tasteless, underspiced cack, but it does have one useful application. It can be put on roast beef to torture British men, should that be necessary. Much better than wiring their balls up to the mains, quite frankly, because while it naturally hurts like a bastard to ruin a good slice of roast cow, it’s better than frazzling somebody’s knadgers. Probably. I mean, less bad karma and all, which can’t be a bad thing.
For somebody who just said ‘Fuck world peace,’ I should worry.
LOBO: The UK should feel indebted to the United States. If not for us, just think of how many nukes would be pointed at you instead. Jesus. What is the Defense Budget for soccer?
CW: Despite living in Manchester, I’m still leery of British culture. It once sold me an Oasis album which turned out to be full of rancid warbling and vague guitar scratching. It’s not all Benny Hill and James Bond, you know. That’s only the good stuff.
The worst thing about British culture is that it forced Benny Hill off the air. This was during the Thatcher years, when the only other thing to laugh at was people in government getting buggered by dwarves.
LOBO: Do you like documentaries? Researching British history on Wikipedia, I found out Margaret Thatcher and William Shakespeare were having a torrid affair, and David Bowie killed Shakespeare in a fit of jealous rage. Thatcher escaped by choking Tony Blair with her thong, and Sir Isaac Newtron rescued her on his hovercycle. Shit that’s AWESOME -all we Americans got is a guy with a lantern yelling “one if by land, two if by sea” from some freakin lighthouse.
CW: Yes, it’s true about Bowie and the Bard. I gather they argued about the royalties for Cat People. Christopher Marlowe met his end in the same way, although I heard that was about his royalties from the first Bat Out Of Hell album. Or so I’m told. Thatcher was actually having an affair with Samuel Johnson, who wrote the first dictionary. He was so fat he needed a crane to keep his gut out of the way while they were getting down to business.
Sir Isaac Newton never used a hovercycle, that’s just ridiculous. He did invent luminous toothpaste, though, so that night joggers could bare their pearly whites as a means of lighting the way ahead. It’s from this idea that headlamps grew from. True story.
LOBO: Having just cracked my copy of Sherlock Holmes and the Underpants of Death, I must say I’m enjoying it immensely. I say we team up and write a new mystery series: “Sherlock ‘Iron Man’ Holmes.” It’s where Sherlock Holmes and Thomas Edison team up and build a suit that can fight crime. Morton Downey Jr is a shoe-in for the movie.CW: That sounds like a great idea, but I must warn you of my exacting working style. I have to be completely in the zone, and this requires surrounding myself with naked women, who must cover at least 90% of my eyeline as I work. It’s better that way.
I also need several escape routes, at least four (4). This is in case the authorities come crashing through the door, trying to interfere. Of course, the authorities couldn’t care less what I’m up to, but it’s an essential part of my creative process, as are the former Special Forces bodyguards, fuelled motor bike and small inflatable chicken.
LOBO: Americans are extremely tolerant of foreigners no matter how crazy weird their culture is, and the British are no exception. But why do you people insist on butchering our fine American language with that strange accent?
CW: I know, it’s unforgiveable! We’ve even renamed it ‘English.’ Very bad of us. I love the fact that you Americans are tolerant of foreign cultures, especially showing interest in other country’s histories. Every American I’ve met (in the UK) takes the same approach. We English, though, prefer to assert ourselves overseas by loudly demanding egg and chips everywhere we go, even if it’s a church, the dentist or what have you. It’s a cultural thing, and a crap one.
LOBO: Watching Simon Cowell pitbull on American Idol contestants, I am often reminded of what you guys did to William Wallace at the end of Braveheart. Honestly, I kinda get the American Idol thing. But why were you people so mean to William Wallace?CW: The British authorities of the day didn’t like Mel Gibson, I’m afraid. It’s a shame – I’m a fan, particularly of the first Lethal Weapon film, but there you are. Bloody red tape.
LOBO: The US and UK, are considered “Western Civilization,” The UK is pretty far east of the US. China is currently west of the United States. China should move back where it is on the Risk board, because this is just confusing.
CW: There were plans to position the UK north of the US, so that we could keep an eye on Canada for you and also fart on it. As far as I know, this has yet to happen. I did hear a rumour that the British Isles were actually mounted on a gigantic remote control roller skate, and that we could move about quite easily. The government has kept quiet on the issue, which is suspicious.
10 copies of his book, you may personally ensure he never does.
Please help Chris continue to fight leukemia!
LOBO: I noticed the taxi driving me here was driving on the wrong side of the road. But the British are so polite they all started driving in the exact same manner -and the cops didn’t bust them for it! In the US, they woulda clubbed us like baby sea lions for something like that. Suspecting a link, I'm thinking maybe cops without guns is a good idea. Do you know John Cleese?
CW: The entire British police force is admirably polite. If you commit a murder, just say, “I say, old chap, I’m terribly sorry,” and they doff their helmets and allow you to continue. Slitty McGraw of Ipswich clocked up over 400 corpses this way, all through good manners and homicidal instincts. It’s a great display of class, I always thought.
John Cleese and I go way back. I call him JC and he calls me the Woodster.
LOBO: I have always admired the UK for it’s role in the Seven Years War. But wouldn’t it have been smarter to have named it the Seven Minute War? It seems to me that would have made it a lot cheaper, and it’s really hard to kill a lot of people in seven minutes. Don't you have egg timers here?
CW: The Seven Years War should only have lasted five years, but they insisted on tea breaks and regular games of cricket. It’s bizarre, I know, but even amidst death and maiming the English love of cricket continues. It’s very bizarre.LOBO: Cricket, Croquet, Polo … you people sure like blunt objects. Were these sports developed in bad neighborhoods or something?
CW: We do enjoy clubbing people with blunt instruments, true. It stems from our ancient culture of violent games, like face stamping and heading the shot.
LOBO: Again citing Wikipedia, the ancient British went through all the trouble of building the Roman Coliseum. Why isn’t Wimbledon held there? I gotta tell you, a squad of hungry lions would significantly increase the watchability of tennis.
CW: The Ancient Britons were basically travelling builders, and gave the Romans a good quote on the job, even throwing in a patio set for Caesar. Mind, I gather they overran on the job due to tea breaks and were eaten by the lions.
leukemia. For his collection.
You screwed up.
You mercilessly crushed his leukemia hopes and dreams.
And how dare you play God like that? To avoid suffering
any future
payback, I suggest buying 10 copies of this book too.
Please help Chris get leukemia!
LOBO: Couldn’t the excitement of modern tennis be vastly improved by simply replacing the ball with small stray cats? That would be cheaper, too.
CW: Tennis is an incredibly dull game, and for a reason. It was invented to test the stamina of wannabe kings. If they could stay awake during a whole game, they got the crown. If not, they were fed to hungry badgers. We’re cost conscious in the UK and lions are expensive. Christians aren’t cheap, you know, and they don’t like Winalot.LOBO: Wikipedia says Buckingham Palace is 108 meters by 120 meters, being 24 meters high and containing 77,000 square meters of floorspace. Predator Press scienticians studied this for months, and concluded this is, like, a million square feet in real measurements. Why is Buckingham Palace so big? Is this guy Buckingham, like, really fat or something?
CW: The Duke of Buckingham was reputed to have a massive cock, at least 114 feet long, and he claimed he needed a big palace so he could walk around with a boner without flopping it into the walls.
LOBO: Did he know any important people? Lord Likely perhaps?
CW: Well, he was only a duke after all.
LOBO: That's too bad. But isn't it weird that the Duke of Buckingham ultimately became the Duke of Buckingham? It's kinda eerie if you think about it. Was his mom psychic?
CW: The Duke of Buckingham was destined to be a great leader, perhaps the one man who kept unified all Europe at the time. Unfortunately, listening to him speak was like hearing a muppet fart, so his career as an orator was limited.
He did have one dubious claim to fame, however, which did not make him popular with his servants. He used to insist on them kneeling down in front of the gentry and opening their mouths, thus inventing the first urinal. History has been overly kind to him by forgetting this foul deed.
LOBO: So we have him to thank for American beer?
CW: Precisely.
LOBO: The British still stubbornly refer to Saint Paul’s Cathedral as Saint Paul’s, despite the fact that -according to Wikipedia- Saint Francis of Assisi orchestrated a successful hostile takeover bid in 1996. England has historically been lockstep with Catholics, and -not generally known for rebellious acts against the church- you guys are uncharacteristically risking pissing off the Pope.
Is it problem with Saint Francis of Assisi? Whatever Saint Francis of Assisi has done, consider the alternative ... the Pope sending Jesus to pound a bunch of pagans into a thick chalky paste, and pouring what remains over Satan's hibachi for all Eternity. Personally? I think you should reconsider.
Besides, I’ve seen the new St. Francis Cathedral sign he wants to erect and it’s got all sparkly neon letters!
CW: It’s actually St Filbert’s. St Paul won it in a card game (Deuteronomy 12:12,903,218,407).
LOBO: But I thought St. Francis of Assisi quit gambling and had to go to those meetings and stuff. Wait. Am I thinking of Bob Wilson of Galilee? ... No, Bob Wilson of Galilee is the guy that can do that cool trick where he pulls his thumb off and put it back on.
-Ah! You mean Joe Francis of Assisi, right?
CW: No. That’s a common mistake … Joe Francis is the patron saint of something that almost rhymes with Assisi. As to Saint Francis, he is one of the few saints I know of to be mobbed up. He used to be called Frankie of the Birds, or Frank the Holy. He and his crew used to chill there in the small hours, smoking cigars and saying “Fuck you” a lot. I went to St Paul’s last year. Nothing’s changed.In the old days, the Popes were super-pissy, and if they didn’t like anything, they’d send round a couple of cardinals to smash all your windows and insult your drapes. The English are super-sensitive to things like that, and its dread power kept us in thrall for quite some time.
LOBO: I see the British Museum is here in Britain. A museum that features British stuff right smack in Britain seems redundant -I mean you didn’t put Scotland Yard in Scotland. And that would have been smart, because then the Scots would had to mow it! I would have gone with an ABBA Museum. Or a casino.
CW: The British Museum is in Britain, which flies in the face of our fine tradition of making no fucking sense at all. (Have you seen our spelling?)
The location of Scotland Yard – London - is intended to confuse criminals. It’s a sneaky move but a successful one, and has been a triumph for over one hundred years. We have really thick criminals over here. Mind, you should see our police.
mail Sherlock Homes and the Underpants of Death to you!
You barely have to get off the couch for God's sake. Think
your snooty librarian will mail you books? Those people are lazy!
LOBO: You claimed to have written The Ingredients of a Good Thriller in the span of a few months. I don’t think I could manage a dozen heartbeats over that short a span of time. Were you on steroids or something?
CW: No, I wasn’t on steroids, although I did have a constant supply of merest whims being brought to me by my especially compliant Personal Needs Department. These trained experts are so dedicated, they make the SAS look like half-arsed delinquents.It was also necessary to neglect a great many personal matters for this period, so for six and a half months I did without food, sleep, and going to the toilet. I began in late December, and I can tell you, I had one hell of a messy June.
Totally worth it, even if I did have to move house afterwards and am still being sued for the effects of subsidence caused by my rocket-like flow of piss.
LOBO: I think I'm 'connecting the dots' here. America's Founding fathers replaced all those prototype British cities with newer versions that are closer for Americans to visit. But once we got lots of guns to shoot each other with, we forgot we were having wars with you guys and started working on domestic issues.
Eventually we forgot what the Founding Fathers found in the first place, which subsequently resulted in the Founding Fathers' unjust demotion to mere Finding Fathers. And just try to pay a Founding Father's Child Support on a Finding Father's pay. It's impossible.
CW: So I assume you shot them?
LOBO: Probably. But no one knows with 100% certainty. With no Founding Fathers to get the deadbeat Finding Fathers found, we soon ran out of ideas and bought televisions.
-But let's get back to why you guys kept those old, worn-out cities like Hampshire, York, Jersey when ours were perfectly new? Is this part of a sinister British plan to hog all the history?
CW: I like the fact that America has used a lot of our place names. There’s a Manchester in Texas, for example, which is great because when I ask for directions home, I can end up in a different continent. Not very convenient, but it adds a certain spice to life.
To be honest, I think the American Manchester might be in Washington. I’ve no idea. Your country is too big. Make it smaller, please. Can’t you throw a few of the crappy states out of the union? Just keep the good stuff, like where they make Fender guitars and gangster films, and get shut of the knuckle draggers that just pull down your national average.
LOBO: Ooooh I’m with you there! There’s like fifteen or twenty states that are totally worthless.
CW: Yes. I mean, would you really miss some places? I keep saying we should throw Yorkshire out of England, and the whole of the UK is only 27 square inches. Surely you have surplus crap you can do without? It would make it easier on the place names, and frankly, more cash and leisure time for the rest of you. Do you really need a North and South Carolina?
LOBO: Hell no! Those lazy slobs didn’t even bother to come up with separate names! Cripes … now that I think about it, we could get down to six or seven states. Tops. I say we just create a whole new continism -like 'Englerica' or 'Ameringland.'
CW: Think of all the postage we would save. And who wants to have to remember all these area and zip codes?LOBO: So what happens with all those old, passé city names then?
CW: Joe Francis is naming cities?
LOBO: No. I said ‘passé.’
CW: Oh. We were planning to sell them off in a big yard sale, but I think we just grew attached to them. There are plans to update parts of England - Chichester now has electricity, for example (although I doubt it’ll catch on).
LOBO: Chickchester? Did British feminists found that place in response to Man-chester? Jesus, this whole ‘let’s pretend women are as important as men’ thing is getting out of hand.
Well, I wouldn’t force the feminists to get electricity … if they want to operate ovens barefoot and pregnant via Gilligan’s Island pedal-power, who are we to argue? I have a strict ‘hands off’ policy when it comes to wanton abominations against science and nature like that.
CW: Personally, I enjoy the old fashioned and quaint. I was burnt at the stake yesterday, for example, and I’ve never felt better.
Buy The Ingredients of a Good Thriller
now, and we will make this post shorter!
LOBO: I got this picture from your blogger profile. Don't you think you are losing too much weight?CW: Yes. I’m one salad away from not reflecting light at all, I’m that thin. It’s one of those things. It’s the curse of size zero, I reckon.
LOBO: So want to give a heads up on what you’re working on next?
CW: I have two books in the pipeline. One is a sequel, called Sherlock Holmes and the Flying Zombie Death Monkeys, which is a poignant biography of Duke Ellington. The other is a political novel called Judas Cow, which I began in 2004 and so far has seen me just about lose my marbles.
The Holmes / Ellington book should be out later this year. Judas Cow may never be ready, as it’s one of those serious (ish) novel type novels which make the author dress up as Napoleon and mutter darkly about his plans for Russia. Not to worry. Luckily I’m a teacher, and a certain measure of insanity is considered a positive bonus.
