April 26th & May 3rd, 2021 - Old Babes in the Wood

Dear TNY,

Holy fuck, buddy.  “Old Babes in the Wood” is about as interesting as watching the paint/stain/who fucking cares in this story dry.

I’m going to try to not waste time here. Emphasis on try.

Who gives a fuck about pants?

Who gives a fuck about mice? 

Who gives a fuck about puzzles?

Who gives a fuck about mosquito netting?

Who gives a fuck about more pasta?

Who gives a fuck about Tig?

I’ll tell you. 

No one. No one gives a fuck about Tig.  Because the author, and yes, I’m familiar (she wrote one of my favorite poems), doesn’t give us a fucking reason to.  Because one of the characters is sad?  Because a non-present character is dead?  Everyone dies.  Make me fucking care.

Here’s the best example I can summarize for why these two dawdling old ladies don’t fucking matter in this flimsy-ass, bullshit, cockstain of a story:

They complain about the location of the well, why did their father put it downhill and far away, they complain about the work that someone else would do, because they would do it wrong, they complain about why the deck is hard to get on if you are leaving the water, yet they don’t and cannot fix it, they complain about [INSERT EVERYTHING], etc.  BUT THEY DON’T DO A FUCKING THING THEMSELVES.

So, who fucking cares about them?  Who fucking cares about any of this shit?  No one.  No one at all. 

I once read stories for a magazine.  Slushpile.  And this guy sent in a nonfiction piece about his buddy in Vietnam.  And the piece was a fucking turd, withered in the colon, that should have been shit into the nonexistence of limbo (and I’m sure it was).  And TNY, as you know, I won’t suffer pieces of shit.  So I told him this.  He then proceeded to tell me that I was a huge fuckwad of a human and that his buddy was the best damn sonuvabitch that ever died defending our country.  Now, opinions about the Vietnam War aside, I had to explain to him that his buddy was fucking irrelevant in the conversation because this guy, the author, did such a fucking dogshit job on the story that no one would ever fucking care about his buddy they way he (the author) did.  And that’s the goddamn truth (the author then proceeded to find my home address and send shit to my house; and that, TNY, is failing to understand that when the art doesn’t work, it’s the fucking artist’s fault; and by default, that’s your goddamn fault).

Empathy isn’t required.  I’m not here to contort my limited supply of empathy to every cause.  And neither is any responsible, fit reader (but the plebes you sell to, TNY, and the marketshare they control…maybe they are so unburdened by real fucking life and its actual substance that they have time for your drivel; maybe they, like you, can’t tell the difference between random alphabet markings on a page and, you know, literature that fucking means something (it’s hard, I know (SARCASM))).

Make me care about these stupid fucking puzzles and pants and all the other fucking banality in this dickturd of a story.  MAKE ME FUCKING CARE AS MUCH AS THE AUTHOR DOES (and really, as much as you care, TNY, but we both know why you printed this story (***cough***name-based publishing***cough)).  Or don’t.  And look like a magazine that’s disconnected, smug, this-story-is-excellent-because-I-wrote-and/or-published-it sack of worn out cattle assholes, too blown out to even be used in off-brand hotdogs.

Well, that was unpleasant.  And by “that” I mean this story.

Fuck, I wanted to read something worthwhile today.  I just finished Jo Ann Beard’s Festival Days, the eponymous essay being a reason to keep fucking living.  Which is, weirdly, about a woman losing someone (ish, because it’s really about everything), and it is the opposite of this latest TNY offering. To be clear, that essay was: Something I was impressed by, something that touched me, something that gave me faith in literature, something that I fucking cared about.

So, to you Jo Ann, you’re a fucking slayer.  Tip of the hat, and all that stiff formality.

And to you TNY, [insert the sound of a flabby, pudding-style, rank, beer-heavy, probably-should-call-the-doctor-afterward shit).

And I’m out, bitches (unisex bitches to be sure; I’m not a fucking animal)!

Nick