Great Gatsby Roulette
It was May of my senior year in college. Everybody was coasting, knowing either what they were going to be doing the next year, or that they’d be doing nothing. Except for one guy, Tom. […]
Author: Con Chapman
I'm a Boston-area writer, author of The Year of the Gerbil, a history of the 1978 Red Sox-Yankees pennant race, and 50 books of humor including "Scooter & Skipper Blow Things Up!" by HumorOutcasts Press. My work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor and The Boston Globe among print outlets. "Rabbit's Blues," my biography of Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington's long-time alto sax player, was published by Oxford University Press in 2019, and was named Book of the Year by Hot Club de France. My young adult novel, "Kimiko Chou, Girl Samurai," was published by Atmosphere Press in 2021.
Bring Your Sock Puppet to Bed
She says she needs a vacation to a warm and exotic clime but you’ve heard it before and will hear it again– and woman doesn’t know her own mind! No, what she really wants down deep inside […]
Fly the Potty-Mouth Skies
A children’s book author was thrown off a flight when he began swearing about a delay, using the f-word. News item. You know, people think being the best-selling author of the Pokey Little Bunny™ […]
Your Fake Romance Advisor
Marriage counselors increasingly tell couples in relationships that have gone stale to “fake it until you make it,” but who can afford high-priced “experts” with professional training? Ask Your Fake Romance Advisor for guidance in […]
Fear of Female Security Guards
It’s Wednesday, “hump” day. You probably know the feeling I get at this point in the work week; you get up early every morning, day after day, go to work, tap on your keyboard, yell […]
Self-Mutilation on Rise Among Motivational Speakers
CHARLESTOWN, Mass. Over the course of his life Butchie Dorr has tried a variety of techniques–some legal, some not–to keep his body and soul together. “I scalped tickets for awhile, then I caught on as […]
Spring Cleaning for Poets
Spring comes late in New England, so we’re behind the rest of the country when it comes to spring cleaning. I tackled the garage last Saturday, we did the patio and the backyard the next […]
Freedonia Calls for “Cancellation” of Ruritanian Poet
NOVKGRODAK, Freedonia. Mylek Dozkskrkzi, a 37-year old boiler inspector in this provincial capital of Freedonia, has thick skin, he assures this reporter as he wipes sweat from his brow while monitoring the gauges to the […]
The Gertrude Stein Look-Alike Contest
We’re getting up in years, we few forthright men who revealed to each other that we wanted to write back in our youth. It takes a lot for a guy to open himself up that […]
Me and Poodie Take a Walk
I love dogs the way I love sailboats; I want other people to own them and take care of them, and just let me play with them from time to time. And so I was […]