homo escapeons

FIVE IDEAS THAT MY PUBLISHER HATED

This past Monday I presented several awesome ideas to my Publisher. The object of my visit was to get a huge cash advance so that I could sit on my ass and write the Great-Canadian-Novel or whatever.

#1 POLAR MAN

My initial thought was to cash in on the huge success of the documentary Grizzly Man. Grizzly Man was the true story of Timothy Treadwell who lived unarmed with Alaskan Grizzly Bears for over a decade before inevitably being devoured by one of them.

My version, POLAR MAN, is a fictional account of Bartholomew Stankevickius. He was a brave soul who was inspired to replicate Treadwell’s success getting back to Nature albeit not as part of the food chain…anyway, Stankevickious, his friends called him Stanky, went to live unarmed amongst the Polar Bears who congregate right here in Northern Manitoba. The Polar Bears congregate in large numbers near Churchill while they wait for the Pack Ice to form.

Unfortunately Stanky was unaware that Polar Bears are the largest, most ferocious, terrestrial, carnivore on the planet. They are totally predictable and will attack and eat anything, anywhere, anytime. Unfortunately he entered his Igloo with a bag of Big Macs from the McDonalds in town. The first Bear to reach him was only 3 miles away. Instead of surviving for 13 summers like Treadwell, Stanky only survived for 13 minutes.

My publisher just sort of stared at me and lit a cigarette.
I said, “Well I guess it is more of a short story!”

#2 THE FANTASTIC MOTH-A-MATHIC DIET

My next great idea was for creating a ‘scientificky’ 100% All Natural Diet Book for the popular ‘Self Help’ section.

I recently discovered the easiest way in the universe to count calories. Grizzly Bears in Yellowstone National Park, (again with the bears) climb up into the alpine meadows at the end of autumn to stuff themselves silly with Moths. It is the final item on their menu before hibernating.

“Fascinating Donn, so where is this going?” she asked.

Here is the kicker. The nutritional value of each Moth is exactly one calorie! ONE CALORIE!
You and I know how hard it is to keep track of your daily caloric intake? What if you just ate Moths?
“You do the Moth ”,
I said in a hilarious outbreak of tomfoolery.

There was an uncomfortable pause that was broken by a distant ((cough)) that came from somewhere down the hallway.

#3 THE NON ILLUSTRATED KAMA SUTRA

Next up, my superb idea for producing a non-illustrated edition of the Kama Sutra.

My publisher suggested, with a hint of irony, that people only bought the Kama Sutra to leer at the pictures. She informed me that the Chiropractic Association of America was releasing a special edition of the Kama Sutra just in time for the holidays.

I suddenly caved and suggested perhaps watering down the original risqué, exotic, illustrations of Olympic level acrobatic feats of ‘contortionist coupling’ using those wooden model thingamabobs that they use in the muscle relaxant commercials.

My publisher stared at me for a few minutes and then started fiddling with her stapler so I dropped a bomb on her.

#4 FARIQ AND ZAHANE

I thought that it would be a huge success in places like Afghanistan, and Iran, where gay and lesbian children have been saddled with few choices other than the homophobic/pro-hetero classics like Dick & Jane.

“You and I both know that they are totally cool about being gay in the Middle East. On the evening News you always see those young men prancing around the burning rubble with their arms around each other.”

My publisher then tried to explain that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had just recently enlightened an audience of American University students with the fact that there simply aren’t any Homosexuals in Iran. This time she just came right out and said that it was the worst idea that she had heard in her 37 years in the business.

Sheesh Kapeesh!

#5 CRAPBOOKING

Finally I had to pull out the big guns and laid out my plan for developing a gigantic coffee table sized book that capitalized on the Scrapbooking craze. Instead of Scrapbooking this is CRAP-Booking!

I told my publisher that the average Human Earthling lives for 67 years and that it would be “totally cool” if the book actually weighed 67 pounds and cost $67. For that they receive 24,455 blank pages. One for each miserable, tortured, day of their tedious, meaningless, unfulfilling Life. Think of all the fun that they will have cutting, pasting, and documenting all of the crap that they put up with!

You might not believe this but I had a little brainstorm at that very instant and I just blurted out,
“Hey we could call it DEAR F@#$*N DIARY!”

My publisher reached for the bottle that she keeps in the left hand drawer. She rolled her eyes and took a big swig right out of the bottle..which was quite impressive considering that it was only 9:15 on a Monday morning. Her head slowly slumped down on to her desk and she started mumbling something to the effect that people in Botswana would only need a $39 version and that Swedes would need to shell out $79.

To which I replied, “Cool, yeah Whatever?”

I stared at her for several moments until the whimpering turned into more of a wailing noise and then I began to slowly back away and whispered, "Listen, I've got another thing that I have to be at so I'll see you next week".