High Tech Promotion in the Year of Perry Block

This year, 2018, is the Year of Perry Block.

This is the year that my book Perry Block-Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute is destined to be a ginormous success.

At present it is only a normous success. Or perhaps a gin success. To achieve the highly coveted ginormous status, extensive marketing will be necessary and in this regard I am lucky.  I have at my disposal the most high tech tools  available to accomplish this purpose. 

And I have been employing them all.

Last Saturday I arose early and scoured the house to collect a bunch of pushpins and flyers promoting the book.

My mission:

To blanket the city! To spread the word!

To roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news.

I then posted them on bulletin boards all over Bala-Cynwyd PA. Must have been 3-4 of 'em!

Watch those sales abound!

Next I sought to establish direct contact with the reading public. But how to get people to pay attention to me in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city, especially during the bustle, which is generally between 5:00 P.M.and 7:30 PM except during the weekends.

So yesterday I put on a chicken suit & handed out flyers on a street corner in Center City Philadelphia.  A lot of people took flyers and only a few of them made that weird circling motion with their index fingers at the side of their

heads. 

What does that gesture mean anyway?

Tossing witticisms from my beak, a crowd of people gathered around me. Sensing a man of sophistication and letters, many posed salient and thoughtful questions to me about the literary arts, to wit:

• Would you recommend using paprika and basil when cooking you for Sunday dinner?

• How did you manage to actually write a book between feedings,  poopings, and having sex with female chickens?

• Bwark ... Bwark ... Bwark,  Bwark, Bwark????

Success!

Now feeling secure that I could garner attention without my chicken suit
I traveled into town next day dressed in my own clothing.I engaged in further literate communication with multiple passersby and no doubt about it, enthusiasm and excitement about Perry Block - Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute reached fever pitch! 

Many other authors would quit here, but I am hardly done.  There are potential readers everywhere that I must reach. 

And I will seek them out wherever they may be!

Yes, I am fated for ginormous success. 

And watch out friends, an enormous chicken may soon be coming for you!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you liked this post, I hope you have ginormous success in your life. If you hated this post, I hope you have ous success.  Or maybe no better than gi!

Wonder Woman Around the House

"Wonder Woman! Wonder Woman!  Wonder, where the fuck are you?"

"Oh, Perry, I'm sorry I'm so late! I had to slay a radioactive monster from one of Jupiter's moons that was attacking New York City.  It could breathe fire and play music by ABBA!"

"So? There's no dinner, the dog isn't walked, and no matter how many times I've told you, you put the toilet seat down again!  

"Honey, I'm so-so-so sorry, but the monster was so incredibly vicious it ate all three of the Baldwin brothers, although it did spit out the goofy one Steven. Finally I had to call on Superman to help me catapult it back into space."

"I know.  I've been watching it all day on CNN.  Bet the only reason you called Superman was because you're interested in his Man of Steel."

"No, Perry, no! I'm fully 100% satisfied with your manhood!"

"Well, that's cause you're Jewish, you've probably seen even smaller."

"What would you like for dinner, Honey?  I can fly to Maine and get you a choice lobster, search the sea for the best oysters, or travel back in time for some awesome meat from a woolly mammoth." 

"I'll take the lobster. But step on it, Wonder!"

"Of course, dear,  and .... oh there's the phone. Honey, it's Aquaman!"

"You mean AquaLame?  Tell him to go bother someone from the Marvel Universe."

"Yes, Aquaman?  A huge oil rig has exploded?  Dozens of workers drowning?! A tidal wave of oil threatens to make obsolete hundreds of ocean species?!!  Japan is about to sink beneath the waves?!!!"

"Could we have sex first before you leave?"

"Oh, Perry, I'd love to, but I'm afraid I've got to go.  As soon as I get back, I'll envelope you in my Lasso of Sex, sometimes wrongly called my Lasso of Truth."

"Bye, Wonder."

"Goodbye, Perry, love of my immortal life!"

"So you see, folks, being married to Wonder Woman is not all it's cracked up to be.  And she's Orthodox to boot so she spends most of Shabbot in shul!"

"I guess that's okay.  I sure can use a break from the many hours of phenomenal sex we have every day but Saturday."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Honey, I'm home.  Got your mammoth dinner!"

Note: As many know, Gal Gadot who plays Wonder Woman is a Jewish Israeli. She's the kind of girl I used to knock off by the carload back in the day when I was cute! That carload being a Matchbox carload.

What's in a Name When Your Name is Perry?

Perry & the Sweater               ZZZZZZZZZ                      Great Caesar's Ghost!  

What’s in a name when your name is “Perry?”

After all these years I’m not really sure.

True, there's nothing terribly wrong with the name Perry, aside from the fact that the folks who bear it are few and far between. Yet I’ve always liked my name about as much as I like the smell of five day old fish.

How come?

As a kid in my 1950’s Philadelphia Jewish suburban world, I knew no other Perrys. I alone epitomized the name. And as its sole epitomizer, I was hardly doing it justice

I was not athletic. I was routinely picked last in gym class and then promptly placed on waivers. I was also painfully shy. Speaking up in class might as well have been speaking up to negotiate the Cuban Missile Crisis. The only time I raised my hand was when I had to go to the bathroom.

Nor was I popular. In Junior High School I was President  of the "Clapping Out Erasers Club." Later in High School I was voted "Most Likely to Be Home Watching the Wild Wild West on Prom Night." 

Thus my concept of “Perry” was someone with all the qualities I disliked in myself.  And the only other Perrys I knew were fictional or on TV. 

And lame.

Although he had his own catchphrase - "Great Caesar's Ghost!"- Daily Planet editor Perry White was the only principal character in the Superman legend never to get his own comic book.

As played by actor Raymond Burr, Perry Mason was one of the TV’s most boring characters, a burly middle aged barrister who wasn't funny, didn't duke it out with bad guys, and only hung with women if they were wrongly accused of  committing murder.

Then there was a laid back crooner with a personality like a carp whose greatest talent seemed to be the ability to mask his blandness with a closet full of red cardigan sweaters. His name was Perry Como. 

And let's not forget one of the murderers in the book and movie In Cold Blood. His name? Yep, Perry Smith.

Later as an adult I did briefly get to know another Perry. And I found myself baffled by something that any Tom, Dick, or Harry had been doing all their lives.

“Hello, Pouie,” I sputtered over the phone the first time I called “Other Perry.”

I found myself unable to ascribe to another human being the name I’d always felt saddled with, but which I’d also come to feel I owned.  For better or worse, not only did I epitomize the name, I had now become the:

"One True Perry!"

But then a curious thing happened.

Some people I'd meet began to tell me they actually liked my name:

"Perry! That's kind of unusual, and kind of cool!"

"Has a friendly sound to it, Perry does.  Names ending in "ry” always do."

"Not many people named Perry. Makes you special!"

There also began to appear a few Perrys more pleasing than the humble Perrys of the past. Despite our shared Perry personas, rocker Perry Farrell, actor Perry King, and designer Perry Ellis all  presented a better and more positive image to me in terms of talents, personality, and achievements than the Perrys of yore.

So maybe I'm not the "one true Perry" after all. Nor should I be limited by stale self-images of who a Perry ought to be.

So what's in a name?  

If it's your name, it's all about what you think of yourself. I'm trying to start thinking of Perry - my name and me - in a good way.  

I think Pouie would be pleased.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

More Palpably Pleasing Perrys

Happy Birthday, Dear Avatar

It's a special Birthday today, September 12, 2016. 

Let's all sing!

But it's not my birthday I'm talking about. 

Quite frankly I haven’t celebrated my birthday since Haley Joel Osment was cute. 

I’m wishing happy birthday to my Avatar.  You know, the profile picture I use on Twitter, Facebook, and this blog.

I was 54 years old when my profile picture was taken and I’m now 67. If my Avatar were a person, it would have already been masturbating for years now.

Although male pattern deterioration had already set in for me at age 54, I was still somewhat marketable. Nobody threw up when they saw me coming and attractive women meeting me for the first time could conceivably have thought “if a horrible catastrophe wiped out all of the men on earth, I could probably get drunk enough to consider mild petting with him.”

None of my facial features had as yet been placed on life support.

The picture was taken on a beautiful warm summer's  day which turned out to be one of my best hair days in a decade, in Disneyworld. Hard to imagine more optimal circumstances under which to muster a decent enough photo of myself to later press into service as my official internet emissary.  

For seven straight years.`

C’mon, don’t play so innocent, fellow Boomer! 

You can’t tell me you’re not rocking an online picture that's been around so long it might have been cropped from a selfie with Kaiser Wilhelm or one in which you’re wearing enough makeup for it to accompany your application to clown school.  

 

Next year, my Avatar will celebrate its Bar Mitzvah.  Mazel tov!  

And in another 13 years or so we may all be together to celebrate its wedding. 

You better believe if I’m still here, my Happy Birthday Avatar will be too!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Little Fishies in the Water (FF)

"Hey, dudes, where are we all headed?"

"Some guy named Perry Block is tossing bread into the other end of the lake."

"Forget that. He only throws stale Wonder Bread and even slathers mayonnaise on it first. What does he think, we're gentiles?!"

"Brothers, that's not it! Remember we thought the Sierra Club granola spill had wiped out all the female fish in the pond? Well, we found a female!"

"What are we waiting for, let's go!"

"She looks like a female Steven Tyler fish."

"What are we waiting for, let's go!"

"Oh, no!  Perry Block is reading to her from his Halloween opus, Blogpost of Horror."

"Reverse course!  Time to bottom feed."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All right, so I shamelessly took advantage of this week's picture prompt of little fishies in the water to further promote my under-performing Halloween piece, Blogpost of Horror.  Our benevolent ruler Rochelle never said we couldn't use the Friday Fictioneers for cheap and tawdry huckstering, and so I have.

I saw the variegated fish above as on their way to something special, either food, sex, or my great comedic art.  Okay, so they passed on the third; what do you expect?  They're unlettered fish. They've probably never even read Jane Austen (Me? Of course not.)

You should swim on upstream to feed on the entries of the other Fictioneers by clicking on the proper name below. They'll be variegated, free of shameless promotion, and for the most part, free of me and Steven Tyler!

Your NOFC Time-Back Guarantee!

How do I do it?

Nope, don't got one of these ...

It will come as little surprise to regular readers of this blog that there are no regular readers of this blog. In fact, if blogs were able to time travel and my blog time traveled into the past to the time and place of my high school years, I would seem popular by comparison. 

How to change this?  

I can't give away a book, because I have no book to give away.  I can't see a product giveaway, because a coffee cup with my face on it would instantly hurtle both Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts over the fiscal cliff. And I  certainly can't offer you a money-back guarantee, because you've paid no money. All you've done is spend an unfunny minute or two having the ass bored off of you.

That's it!    Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to offer you: 

The World's First
 Time-Back Guarantee!

Only from Nouveau Old, Formerly Cute

Hated something you read on my blog even more than I hated writing it?  Wasted precious time you could have been watching Hoarders or In Search of Bigfoot?  Lost the opportunity to procrastinate important work or life decisions even a few guilt-ridden moments longer?

Now, you can relax!  With the new NOFC Time-Back Guarantee, simply tell me which post or posts you detested and I'll give you back 100% of the time you squandered, no questions asked.  I really don't want to know the answers anyway!  

Here's just a few of the things I can do for you to refund your wasted time in full:   

1) Fill out a simple Internet Form.  Register a product purchase, add your voice to a petition provided it doesn't overly push the phrase "Aryan Nation," or sign up to receive regular updates from a way more interesting blog than mine. 

2) Join ChristianMingle.com.  As long as you promise to raise the children Jewish.

3) Set up that holiday app that makes it look like it's snowing on your blog.  Which is a great service because if not set up properly the snow begins to pile up and Twitter accounts start smashing into your Blogroll.  

4) Unfollow two or three of your Twitter followers who seem so nice you hate to unfollow them, but all they ever damn well tweet about is where the fuck they are!

5) Check spelling in a blog post.  It's a well known fact Spell check check doesn't catch everything. But I'm foolproof!

6) Write a Christmas card or two. "And though it's been said many times, many ways," I'll say it again in whatever time or way you want, provided you don't overly push the phrase "Aryan Nation." 

7) Have an uncomfortable conversation about something over Skype. Tell your wife you're leaving for your pilates instructor, talk to your children about drugs and sex (especially if you want to take the "for" position), come out to your Tea Party parents ....   I'll even tell your enemies how badly they're aging!

8) Tie your tie, wipe food from your face, administer an enema. If you live in the Philadelphia area. Deals off if you're going to enjoy No. 3. 

9)  All0w you to tell me your troubles. But you must give me equal time to tell you mine. Dude, you're really in for it! 

10) Comment on how funny somebody else's blog post is.  Yeah, I'll even do that for you,  jerk!

So why delay?

Plenty of unfunny posts are waiting for you right now!  May I suggest  How to Secede from America without Really Thinking,  It's a Quarter to Three, and The War on Christmas - A Film by Ken Burns. Those ought to keep me plenty busy post-Christmas.

Void where prohibited by law. 

Which I hope is one shitload of places.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yes, I'll animate this for you!

But you've got to hate me first.

Guess I Didn't Deserve the Phillies ....

One man!  Just one man!

The Philadelphia Phillies, the best team in baseball throughout the 2011 baseball season, have fallen to the St. Louis Cardinals by a score of 1-0 in the fifth and deciding game of the National League Division Series (NLDS) between the two teams.

The loss places the Phils out of contention for the World Series ring that had seemed so within reach just a few weeks ago and plunges the entire City of Philadelphia into darkness!

Throughout the City and indeed the entire nation, virtually everyone knows who is responsible for this shocking upset.  It is one man alone, a man named:

Perry Block!

A resident of the Philadelphia area and a  self-professed Phillies fan, Mr. Block himself had earlier questioned whether he, a born loser, was worthy enough to be a fan of the Mighty Phillies.  The resounding answer:

NO!!!

"I'm flabberghasted!" said Phils' Manager Charlie Manuel. "How can one man --- one solitary Phillies fan --- be so totally unworthy as to sink an entire baseball team?!"

"You'd think Fate would have erred in favor of benefitting the undeserving loser rather than punishing an entire team and City," said Phils' ace Roy Halladay, who was charged with the loss. "I guess Fortune works in strange ways." 

The City of Philadelphia is poised to file legal action against Mr. Block as soon as a reasonable cause of action can be determined.

"Oh, we'll get him!" vowed  a visibly shaken but determined Mayor Michael Nutter, "We'll get him!   Our best attorneys are researching guilt, bad karma, and annoying shlemiel as we speak!" 

For his part, Mr. Block was in seclusion and offered no comment.

An acquaintance of Mr. Block who spoke on condition of anonymity and that we print that he is a remote acquaintance of Mr. Block who doesn't even really like the guy said "Well, how do you think he'd feel after all this?"

"My guess is that he feels one tiny little bit even less worthy than ever before..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perry’s Headline News

Who doesn’t love to see his or her name up in lights? 

Over the years  I’ve been privileged to see mine hit the headlines more often than Rupert Murdoch, without even ever having to get hit in the face by a pie.

Stroll with me now down the Perry Memory Lane .... 

• Perry Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame!

Didn’t know I had such stuff on the ball , did ya?  Nah,  I still throw like a girl.  It was twice - Cy Young Award Winner Gaylord Perry hitting the HOF in 1991. 

• Perry Reaps Academy Award Nomination!

Much as I’d like to have directed David and Lisa, I could barely direct you across the street let alone this sensitive ground-breaking film. It was filmmaker Frank Perry behind the lens in 1962.  

• Perry Snags Three MTV Video Music Awards!

Carry a tune?   Not without a U-haul and movers.  No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe, it was Katy Perry this past August you were lookin’ for, babe!

Yes, vicarious living has its benefits, especially when you can pull down awards and accolades from a Near Oscar to a trip to Cooperstown without even putting down the clicker. It’s one of the virtues of having a first name more popular as the second half of a name than in the misbegotten spot in which I’ve managed to have it begotten in mine.

  

But now for the first time comes a heady conflict between my headline heaven and everyone else’s hard line reality.   Bursting onto the political scene is GOP Presidential Candidate Governor Rick Perry from Texas, a man with whom I have about as much in common as do Mel Gibson and the B’nai B’rith.

On the one hand, Gun Totin’, Social Security Deponzi-izin', Obama-Care Bustin' Governor Perry could do more harm to the nation than a canister of outtakes from Shit My Dad Says dumped in the water supply.

On the other hand, folks, I’m digging on the fame!

• Perry Triumphs over Field in Debate!

Not only don’t I like to speak in public, frankly, I’m not even really all that thrilled with speaking in private.

But now as Winston Churchill, the aptly named Pericles,  and a touch of Elmer Gantry, I’m about to inspire you to great heights, plummet my opponents to greater lows, and give one and all one hell of a great photo op in the doing!

"Fourscore and seven years ago, once more into the breach, and forever unto the end of time, I'm gonna whup your ass!   Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen."

• Perry's the New Frontrunner!

Yesterday, I'd have lost a foot race to Governor Chris Christie even if he had to carry six or seven hundred Twinkies,  comedy writer Bruce Vilanche,  and an anvil from an old Warner Brothers cartoon.

Today, catch me if you can, y'all!

• Perry Clearly Leading the Pack!

Now I’m a ferocious feral hero straight out of The Call of the Wild, guarding and protecting my loyal pack of four-legged supplicants from all manner of dangers and hazards of the most rugged, tundra-like out-of-doors, adoring she-bitches all the while a-hewing to me like Scotch Guard!

Frankly I’ve never exactly been an Alpha Male.    Mostly I’m more of an Alfred E. Newman male.

Oh how I do love these headlines and how they soothe my battered ego! 

Or do I love my battered country more?   Is there no way to resolve the conflict?

Wait!    Look!     

Extra,  Extra,  Read All About It ….

• Perry Drops from Race on News of Sex with Gorgeous Blonde!

Now, there’s one Perry headline I think we can all of us get behind!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yep! I'm digging the photo ops too!

____________________________________________

The Cruelest Month

Ah, the Beauty of the Fall.  Know what?

Shut the hell up!

"April is the cruelest month," once wrote the poet, revealing himself to have been woefully ignorant of the true nature of the seasons of the year as well as of the concerns of one Perry Block, regardless of how good he might have been at personification and bowling over the ladies at parties. 

No, that cruelest of all months is the one underway.  September, for me, is the Simon Cowell of the Gregorian calendar.

September marks the end of Summer. It’s the time I realize that not only did I fail to do all those outdoorsy things I hoped to during the last three months,  the one time I made it to the beach the water was 58 degrees, the top of my head got so sunburned I resembled a human flashlight, and the only attractive woman who talked to me on the beach asked if she could bury me .... that is, completely.

With September comes the Fall.  So this is your favorite time of year, huh?  To me, September marks the beginning of a season characterized by the impending death of all things green, growing,  and alive, with the one exception of the Incredible Hulk. 

That nip in the air?  It spells animals scurrying for cover as if the Luftwaffe were approaching and leaves and plants beginning to sag and shrivel like your Aunt Hilda's face before she had the work done,  and meanwhile all you can talk about is where to get cider.

Those shortening days? In a couple of months, Nature will  be throwing its leafy little hands up to its dainty neck and doing a command performance of the final scene from Camille, and there you go hopping on a hayride. 

September sets this all up as coolly and deliberately as a bartender at 4:00 P.M.  All while you're busy bobbing for apples.

September marks the annual return to reading, ritin', n' 'rithmetic.  Doesn't matter how long it's been since I've been in school, every September I walk about inquiring of everyone if they got their books yet, who they have for homeroom, and if that hot Nicole Halaylos is in any of their classes.

It's a compulsion I cannot control. How about you?

Oh, I forgot.  You're still slurping cider.

And worst of all, for the 41st year in a row seems I’ve gotten Miss Kretchmer in Geometry.  She's still mean, she still doesn't grade on the curve, and OMG! she just called on me in class!

And September presents the anniversary of my birth. This year I will be 61 years old on September 12th.  

That's right --- my freshness seal expired deep into the last century.  I am "better if used before September 12, 1982," although few now would rightly want to use me anyway.

Nevertheless, every year the date September 12 sees fit to drop another unwanted digit on the mass of digits it has already mercilessly deposited upon me.  I am annually being rung up like a cash register by the month of September itself!  

This is indeed the cruelest part of the cruelest month of the year.

“Try to remember the kind of September,” once wrote the songwriter, revealing himself to be have been woefully ignorant of the true nature of the seasons of the year as well as of the concerns of one Perry Block, regardless of how good he might have been at rhyming three syllable words and bowling over the ladies at parties.

Try to remember the kind of September?

There’s 21 days ahead of me I’d like to forget!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Semi-Importance of Being Perry

            

      




Mr. Mason                                        Mr. Farrell                       

    

All my life I’ve had a love-hate relationship with, of all things, my own name.

To be more precise, my relationship with my name is about ¼ love and ¾ hate, and the “love” is more on the order of “like” similar to the manner in which you “like” a comment on Facebook primarily because it has no misspellings.

Now you might think I have an archaic moniker like Bartholomew, an androgynous one such as Skyler, a back-to-the-garden 60’s name like Moon Glow, or an aberrant flight of parental reason like Melrose.

But you’d be wrong.

My name is Perry.

Chances are you don’t even know a Perry.  If you’re of a certain age, your perception of Perry comes from either:

• Perry Como, crooner of the 1950’s whose mellow song stylings brought new dimensions to the word “comatose;”

• Perry Mason, the fictional attorney who never lost a case as personified by the grim, porky, and generally unappealing actor Raymond Burr, whose best role was opposite Godzilla; or

• Perry White, Clark Kent’s 'Great Caesar’s Ghost' spouting editor, the man who holds the distinction of being the only nonessential character ever woven into the entire Superman legend and the only one never to get his own comic book.

If you’re a bit younger, you may know rocker Perry Farrell, actor Perry King, or designer Perry Ellis.  But frankly if you held a convention of Perrys you could fit them all in a Hampton Inn and still have room for a Starving Artists' Sale. If you took all the Perrys in the world and laid them end to end, they’d be thankful for the attention.

I myself have only known one other Perry.  And in that experience I learned that I am wholly unable to handle something that people named Jim and Bill and Bob and probably even Bartholomew each and every day negotiate with ease.

I cannot address another human being by the very name I’ve felt saddled with my entire life, but which I’ve also come to feel I own!

“Hello, umm,  Pouie ...”

I sputtered over the phone the first time I called Other Perry, slurring our communal name so badly it sounded like I was summoning a Pekingese for his nightly brushing and toenail clipping.

“I mean .... Hello, Perry!” I tried again, this time a bit more sprightly. “This is your namesake.”

Namesake?

To avoid saying “Hello, Perry, this is Perry,” I --- a person alive and breathing in 21st Century America --- actually uttered the word “namesake.” What would be next? Babbling to him to “leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for our namesake” as well?

Truth is, how we relate to our names oft does define our identities. Call your daughter Bertha and chances are by the time she’s 23 anyone lacking a full-blown death wish will opt for the stairs whenever she heads for the elevator.  Christen your daughter Tiffany or Angelique and odds are she’ll grow up to never even consider dating a Perry, let alone me. 

But when it comes to the Semi-importance of Being Perry, there's just no road map.  I don't know what a Perry is, what a Perry does, or what a Perry ought to be. I need some Perry pointers and fast!  

Other Perrys out there ---  if any there be --- can you help?  Please place a call to Philadelphia Perry.  Let's talk our Perryness.  Let's psych out our Perry personas.  If we exchange our Perry perceptions, we may yet achieve Perry Perfection

Or at least, Perry Passability. 

I promise not to call you Namesake.  As long as you promise not to call me Pouie!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

        






  Mr. White                     Mr. Platypus