ARIES (March 21-April 19)- It’s been non-stop Casual Friday since you wore that pink slip home Thursday. Consider your couch the emperor’s new clothes. Return to work when “Office Space” breeds nostalgia. Above author was born, he was born, he was born on the floor. “Coffee” bio, Sagittarius play dominant role. (51 words)
Ok, so my story is coming out in "For Here or To Go?: Stories from the Service Industry" in December and they want a bio.
First prize: a copy of the book when it comes out.
"There are two things I need from you now: a short (50 wrd) bio (it can be silly or serious or both) and a mailing address."
Here are bad examples. I'll take care of the mailing address later. (<---see that? That's being "silly". Now let's get "serious or both" about this.)
Brendan Sullivan is a lame-ass white kid from suburban Connecticut. His shitty writing has mostly seen print on “restaurant checks”, with the exception of a few toppings in The Hartford Courant, The Voice, Flak Magazine, and Northeast Magazine. In his spare time he is Al Gore. (46 words)
Or
After dying his hair back to brown, Brendan Sullivan--formerly Marshall Mathers--rented the movie titanic and realized that all he wanted to deliver in life was pizza. He can do minor auto repair, house painting, woodwork, and lawn care. For more info call 1-900-CHEMLAWN (45 words)
Or
Does anyone read these things? Brendan Sullivan does. Everytime, every newspaper, every magazine. He reads them thinking that someday they could be him, someday those could be his credentials, someday that could be his name in italics. He has run stories in Flak, The Hartford Courant, The Voice, and Norteast Magazine, but never before with a bio. (57 words)
As you can see, my autobios suck more than most of what I type. Help me out.
Click on "Comment" below and leave something, anything.
I sat at the newsdesk and stared into the lense of a camera. On top was a picture of a blonde haired woman named "Louise". I know this was her name, because it was spelled out in thick marker in case I forgot, thanks
It went surprisingly well. My instructions were merely that "nothing looks better on TV than a nice dark suit, a blue shirt and tie." So I wore a rugby shirt with a white collar, and a sweater. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I felt that I was saying, "Peter Jennings is retiring and it's OUR TURN NOW." And although I won't admit it, many in the features department commented that my hair was greasier and more batman-like than usual.
I touched on that the gaming magazines feared that the game would blur the line between games and violence. And noted that the game was just as sexist as the army and that women soldiers, while they could be trained, could not fight in infantry.
My line after "the army spent 6.3 million on this game, but recruitment spends $10,000 on each of the 80,000 soldiers they recruit every year" was how the recruitment department of the army alone spent more money than Iran, Iraq, and North Korea.
But I looked down at the teleprompter and saw that they were on explosion footage of "Black Hawk Down" and they wanted to know about how the army cooperates to show off its goods in movies.
Of course, TV News. Why talk about the world when we could dish about Hollywood.
He had made-for-TV hair and a royal blue shirt, which he referenced, twice.
'Wow, so you're the writer for tomorrow's US Army video game?'
This was not going good places.
'Well, I am the TV guy here and ...' reporters from the department crept by trying to make eyes with me and help. 'We've been reading your story about this new army video game and we want to use it.'
I am doing the addition in my head. My usual rate plus some sort of commission here, right?
'You're going to have your newscasters read it?'
'No,' he said, 'you are.'
'I'm going to have your newscasters read it?'
He slowly explained that tomorrow I would be on New England News Network (read: Fox news) chatting it up Happy News with anchors from Boston.
He looked at my white button down with the dirty look I may be most familiar with, 'Oh, yeah.' He wouldn't look me in the eye, but instead from side to side on my shirt as if assessing and rear-ended bumper. 'Yeah, do you have another shirt? Maybe something in blue?' He held out the sleeve to his royal plaid shirt.
Thanks, I didn't know what blue looked like.
'Yeah, white will make fuzz. Oh and don't wear anything with lines.'
Again to the shirt. Thanks, so those are lines?
He left, the department stormed. 'You are under no obligation to do anything for that goddam news station.' No one here likes that Fox broadcasts from the newsroom. It's another thing thrown onto us when we were bought out by the Chicago Tribune. 'At other newspapers where they have good unions you would get $100 for your time.'
They told me to yell obsceneties and subversive comments about the military.
Here's the thing: I hate TV news more than most things. They are going to straighten my shirt and put makeup on my face. I wanna say, 'Fuck that' but I also want to work here.
I'll be sitting there, waiting for my voice to crack, listening into my goddam earpiece.
'Well Brendan, this is quite a game the army has come out with.'
'Quite a game the army has come out with indeed, Bob, but the fact of the matter is that I just plain don't like black people.'
From the second edits of my new story 'In the Mirror':
The only reason we got off the highway in Kansas was because Schaper found out I had never been to Waffle House. We had spent days in the car by then, and only today did we feel like we had come to the end of the beginning. For a year before we wated tables, picked corn, delivered pizza, and saved every cent we made so that we could drive away when we graduated highschool. But when we glued that four-foot US Highways map to a cardboard box and pushed thumbtacks into all of the places we wanted to go, I never imagined that Waffle House would have been one of them.
‘How can you be old enough to vote, but you haven’t been to a Waffle House?’
Schaper is from the South, which is something I just found out today. To him, Waffle House is a vital institution. Like church, only with better hours.
Inside, we each took a swivel stool a the counter. The grease-shined, chrom napkin dispenser told me that I was not in top form that day. I had stopped shaving weeks before, but my young Irish face sprouted only on the chin and cheeks. My hair, which I would have normally classified as Free-Range in that it did what it wanted to within the confines of my short vaguely Buddy Holly haircut, had recently been promoted to the level of Wild after thirteen days with the windows down.
We each ordered coffee and hash browns from laminated menus that doubled as place mats. Schaper ordered two waffles, because he was there.
The waitress brought us two small ceramic mugs. We sipped in silence and watched. Large trucks pulled in and out of the parking lot. Large men went into and out of the bathroom. I stared at eh menue for maybe ten minutes. So many options for so many items. Our world famous hash browns cooked seven different ways. Scattered on the grill, smothered with onions, covered with cheese, chunked with ham, Topped with Bert’s Chili, diced with tomatoes, peppered with hot peppers. Or try all seven. End quote.
Up north, we have the Internation House of Pancakes, which included waffles, but down here, they didn’t even serve pancakes.
More large men clanged the bell tied to the doorknob, and seated themselves.
*
‘Waffle House is the anti-truck stop,’ I decided out loud after a moment of quiet reflection in the Sweet and Low packets.
Schaper sipped the idea for a minute. His more developed stubble made him look like something of a primate when he pondered things with his mouth. ‘Whudaya mean?’
‘OK, take these coffee cups for example. These aren’t even half the size of your average gift shop mug. To have a mug this small means that you have to have someone coming by constantly to fill it. It means that each cup is a new experience. In a single meal you could drink from three different coffeepots.’
He glance around the room at his fellow southerners. He slouched a bit, somewhat embarassed by the loud Yankee sermonizing to a coffee cup.
The night before in a desperate attempt not to camp in a town honestly called “Booneville, Missouri,” home of the only campground on the map, we stopped at a T& A Travel Center to pep up. By then we had perfected the all nighter. Driver picks the music, passenger rests up for the next shift. As I walked to the counter past the high shelves of air fresheners, books on tape, and four different flavors of sugar wafer, I ran into a uniformed woman as she changed coffee filters.
‘Evening sugah,’ she pulled a large metal coffee thermos from the back row and set it down in the front of several coffee flavors, including one called Almond Joy. ‘Honey, you look like you could use a cup of coffee. Y’all want the thirt-two-ounce or the large?’
I stirred the though of having two pounds of coffee in me, ‘Uh, no thank you.’ Somehow I was not interested in making truck-stop coffee a measureable percentage of my body weight. ‘Do you have anything smaller?’
She filled a child-sized cup for me as I waited for her to call me ‘sweet and low.’
And now for the news update, we go live to Nashville with John Spragens:
Honking Mad Righteous political protestors or selfish lawbreakers? Depends on whom you ask By John Spragens, Nashville Scene
Downtown workers don't need a newspaper to tell them when an income tax vote is scheduled in the state legislature. All they have to do is listen for the sounds of hundreds of horn-honking protesters who descend upon the state Capitol as regularly as seven-year cicadas....
In other news:
Leaving Is Such Success Some only succeed when they get the hell out of here By Brendan Sullivan, Hartford Courant
Can't wait to get the hell out of Connecicut? Well you are in good company with Rivers Cuomo from Weezer, P.T. Barnum, George W. Bush, Wavy Gravy, Benedict Arnold, the Hartford Whalers, and Ralph Nader. All of whom gained success only after leave this little state. (possibly because their bosses lamed up their stories at the Hartford Courant when they took the day off) ...
Back to you, John
Leather and Pearls Tennessee Harley riders put their best boot forward By John Spragens, Nashville Scene
When 4,000 Harley-Davidson riders roar into town, people tend to notice. That's why David Carr, a local organizer of last weekend's Tennessee Harley Owners Group (HOG) rally, has been trying to peddle this message over the sound of revving engines: Harley riders are people too.
We went to the Newport Film Festival this week, Amanda and I. One of the plusses of this job is that I can take off in the middle of the day on a tuesday and spend the night in Newport.
It was my first Bed and Breakfast, which I've always heard was like staying in someone's house. Really it was like being able to sleep in one of those beds in living history museums. Our room had wideboard hardwood floors, a brick fireplace (with complimentary Prestolog), some silver plate on the wall, and a painting from the eighteen hundreds of a old man in a pilgrim hat ice skating.
With the AAA rate, it was only $10 more than the Motels outside of town, and we got to park for free ($10/day otherwise) and the film festival was on the corner of our street.
Sherman Alexie's film wavered between terrible, not trying hard enough, and being vanguard endeavor. While most movies, even his other "Smoke Signals", run like a novel, this one was based on a book of Poems.
Watching the movie was like witnessing all of the imagery that would be read to you at a poetry reading, only all at once. One scene an Indian poet will read his book in front of no one in the window of a bookstore with a poster that says "Celebrate Indian Month!" The next will be an Inian fancydancing in a black background, then a woman getting ready to bury an indian with his violin. Confused? We were too.
The worst scene has Sherman Alexie trashtalking his thinly veiled autobiographical character "Seymour Polatkin" with other Indians. "His books are all lies," an awkward, fat Alexie would say.
"What do you know? You can't even read." Another would say. The whole time he looked like he was trying not to laugh.
But everywhere we went, people felt like they had to treat us well, even though we were 15 years younger than our bed and breakfastmates.
"They must be thinking 'new money'" Amanda whispered at breakfast. "The must be thinking, ugh, 'dot-commers'." We pleasanted ourselves thinking they took us for young brilliant filmmakers, or artists with the wherewithal to be in such a place on a wednesday morning.
Really we were a Cutco Knife Salesperson in training, and a crappy journalist.
Perhaps you remember a few posts ago when my Punk Planet rejected my story. It helped me realize that I fuck up my writing on purpose almost to protect my self. Typos, non-good endings, etc. I think I do that so that when my stories are rejected I can say, "Ah, it wasn't a good draft anyway." or "Fucking ex-english majors get all upity when they see typos."
Well, when rejected, they said I could send more and I did. This time it was my pizza story
And well, this just in:
Hey Brendan. Guess what? I really like BOTH versions of your story, and
I'm thinking I'd like to use the longer one. I have a suggestion. Take a
closer look at it and tighten it up some...there are some typos and some
awkward phrases. Then I'll take another look. I would need it in a week
or so...I hope that's okay.
It looks like there's a half a sentence missing at the end, actually.
Take a look.
Let me know. The pay is small but it's going to be a cool book. Check
out the press' website: www.gcpress.com.
Leah
That's from the Fiction editor of punk planet. She wants to publish my story in the upcoming anthology For Here or To Go: Stories from the Service Industry.
A creative writing professor once told me that in my entire writing career I would get one exclaimation point, and I should never waste it.
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh holy fuck I wanna use it right now.
Wanna read the draft she bought? It's long, and if Ben could tell me how to make a link to it on a different page, I would put it there. But for now:
Pizza Delivery: How Can I Help You? By Brendan Sullivan
When I drove up the second time, they were waiting at the bottom of the hill in accordance with their boarding school’s rules. There was a time when me or any other pizza driver could meet them on campus, but that was not tonight. I almost felt bad for them having to wait on the edge of campus for a pizza, never knowing really when it would get there.
‘Hey guys, thanks for waiting.’
‘What took you so long?’
I wanted to tell him how I came twenty minutes ago, like I on the phone, and waited for them so show up. I wanted to tell him that because of his own prep school self importance, my next delivery yelled at me for being late, and kept the tip. I wanted to tell him that no one seriously tied a sweater around their neck, and that it was just a joke that kids like me made about kids like him.
But I didn’t. I was the pizza guy. My job was to drive and smile.
He handed me a crisp, clean fifty-dollar bill and I prayed that I had enough change. It must have been after one of those three-day weekends when parents came and left money to ensure their child’s education would not be hindered by munchies.
He wanted all of the change.
With the amount the people spend on their kids’ education, you would think someone could have taught him about tipping.
But I am the messenger. If someone in the kitchen screwed up their order, they take it out on me.
*
I learned about fund raising from delivering to rich neighborhoods in the next town over. I would pull up to the entry way to these three story suburban palaces and commence staring. No one buys a house this large if they don’t want people to stare slack jawed
Ding, Dong. I waited for them to come to the door, and when I knew they are coming out, I stare open mouthed in the air, as if I had never seen columns before except on the Discovery Channel.
‘Oh, sorry Mister.’ Tonight I will let him think he caught me. ‘Uh, $11.23 please.’ I opened the red velcro box and let the steam out first. ‘Be careful, it’s hot. Can I put it down somewhere for you?’ I wanted him to think that the pizza is so hot and fresh that only my hardworking hands can beat the heat.
‘Is this whole place yours, sir?’ I asked in wonder. I feel like I should be wearing suspenders and a scalley cap shouting the evening headlines and selling newspapers.
‘Do you like my house?’
‘Yeah, it’s so big.’ This man has waited his whole life to hear those words. I put the pizza down in the kitchen and survey the appliances.He puts the pizza down and walks out on the porch. ‘You must be a hard worker.’
If there is one thing I’ve learned about this neighborhood, it is that they all wanted to believe that everyone in the world made the same wage, and that they were the ones who pulled overtime. They did not want people to think they have had everything handed to them.
But then again, if they really did not: they wouldn’t order delivery.
He reached for his wallet and I asked him, ‘do all of your kids drive?’
I wanted to convey the following: sir, I can’t help noticing that you have more money than I can explain.He smiled and opened his wallet to pull out a twenty and a quarter. ‘No actually, I only have a daughter and she’s six.’
‘Oh, well I wondered why you have four garages.’
I pulled out the change wad from my red delivery jacket, and started to count out nine ones. ‘Let’s see that was $11.23, so I owe you one-two-three.’ I search the wad for ones, and turn the pile more than twice.
‘You know what, if you could just give me a five that would be fine.’
I handed him a five and thanked him, very much.
*
Ring, Ring
‘Pizza delivery, how can I help you?’
‘Yeah, how many slices in a large?’
‘Eight.’
‘How many in a medium.’
‘Eight, same as the small and the large.’
‘Well if its all the same I'll just take the small.’
*
When the phone rang that night, we were so closed that the trash from that night had already been picked up. I held up the receiver as I swallowed the last bite of the steamy spaghetti I had stayed late for.
‘Pizza Dewivery, how can I help you?’
‘Yeah, can I get fifty pizzas delivered tomorrow to Westminster school?’
Nice, I thought, the boss is going to love this. I had no idea how he could ever make fifty pizzas in these two little ovens, but we needed the money. I heard a voice in the background and the sound of a car driving past.
‘Hello?’
‘Yeah, so, uh, Westminster school tomorrow.’
‘Ok, just plain cheese?’
The sounds of outside stopped for a second, as a hand was smooshed over the mouthpiece on the other end of the line. They really should have figured out what to get before ordering, I thought.
‘Make that twenty-five cheese, twenty five pepperoni.’ Man, I thought, those boarding school kids live it up. How much money does it cost to go to a school where they buy everyone pizza. What’s more, the kid I delivered to at the school that day told me they were almost done with school and we still had a month to go in the town high school.
‘Not a problem. Will you need any soda or chips to go with that?’
‘No, can you bring them to the office of Peter Briggs?’
‘We’re really not supposed to come onto campus.’
‘Well he is the headmaster, so I am sure it would be ok.’
Hey, who am I to argue with these guys? I had no idea what a headmaster was, but the name spoke authority.
‘Ok, I’m sure you are right. Can you tell us which building to look for.’
‘Yeah, right as you drive up it will be the fourth building on your left as you come up the hill.’
We hung up and I told the boss the good news. We all called him boss.
‘That’s a lotta pizza.’ He looked over the order ticket. Boss came to America seven years ago from Albania. For the first two years he bagged groceries and learned English at a Stop’n’Shop down the street. Then he bought the pizza place and his wife came out to join him. Since then, they were joined by two newborn babies, and all of their parents. The eight of them lived in a house on the edge of town. Fifty pizzas was almost five hundred dollars coming in.
That could buy new menus and tables or maybe get a display case to sell more pizza by the slice at lunch. Or maybe then we could get pizza lights for the top of our cars.
Of course, it was a much better idea to drive undetected. People always got nervous when they saw a pizza light heading towards them at above suburban speed.
‘What time they want it?’ Boss squinted at the ticket, trying to read my handwriting and English. ‘25 L’s X. 25 L’s Pep. Peter Griggs, Westminster School.’
I looked over the ticket, and discovered that he was right. Oh man, I hope I didn’t screw this one up. ‘I’m sorry Boss, I’ll call them back.’
The number on the caller ID rang and rang. No answering machine. I tried it twice. This is why I should have left when I had the chance. Then Boss could have answered the phone and he would have remembered to ask all the questions.
‘It’s probably for twelve.’
‘But what if it is not? You could cost me a lotta business.’
Boss asked very little of me. Answer the phone, speak English, deliver the pizza. Never once have I had to do dishes against my will and both he and his wife insist that I do my homework between deliveries. ‘Do your homework, go to school. Become doctor,’ they always said, ‘or lawyer.’
‘Who is this?’ Boss pointed to the name at the bottom of the ticket. Of course, the headmaster, I could just call him and ask him when to deliver. Even if he had left for the night, I was sure he would get the message early enough in the morning. I dialed the first four letters of his last name into the voice messaging system. Man, that school. Honestly, voice messaging?
‘Hello this is Peter Grigs?’
‘Peter, this is Brendan from Pepperoni’s Delivery.’
‘Pepperoni’s?’
‘Yes, I was just calling because I got your big fifty pizza order, but I forget to ask what time you wanted them delivered to your office.’ The unease I felt during the whole ordeal before unraveled itself as I spelled out just what was going on.
He didn’t even have to say it.
I had been had.
That day, I thought about the kids up at the school in a whole different way. They had always had a sort an attitude, one that doesn’t care how long you waited for them, or how long it took to get the pizzas through the kitchen.
But this was different, it wasn’t them chanting ‘Hey, Hey, it’s OK / you will work for us someday,’ at hockey games. It was an attitude that came from years of having everything handed to them, and never having to say ‘how much?’
*
The car idled in the driveway, and I prayed my emergency brake would hold as I ran up the steps with the pizza. Years later I would pass this house and remember the order. Large Cheese, Large Pepperoni, two-liter Diet Coke.
This was not in a neighborhood known for its tips. This was in a neighborhood where the best I could hope for was to break even.
We didn’t have cash registers in our cars, so when a pizza came out to $10.49, they either need to have exact change or to round up. But on this street, I considered a deliver a success when I didn’t have to spot them the forty-nine cents.
Before the doorbell could chime, a woman in another room shouted, ‘I tell them every time to park on the street and walk around to the side door, those idiots.’
People did weird things when they were hungry, and I figured that now would not be the right time to tell this woman that there is nothing remotely helpful about using roman numerals for house numbers.
I wanted to tell her that I was sorry for the wait, but I only drive the pizzas, I don’t make them.
I wanted to tell her that her screen door isn’t sound proof.
When she came to the door, I put away the hostility and put on my pizza guy smile. ‘Hey, thanks for waiting, it’s going to be twenty-three even.’
‘Listen, I tell them every time to park on the side street and come around to that door.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry I have never delivered here before.’
I satisfied myself by making comments to an imaginary co-driver. I am sorry but we’re not the fucking New York Times. We don’t have a database that says where and how you like yours delivered.
Maybe you could not tell by the rust pile idling in your driveway, but we have to cut out the luxuries in this job.
But again, I was nothing but smiles.
‘Twenty three even,’ I handed her the pizza, ‘Ooh, be careful, it’s hot.’
She handed me $25, which is a fairly appropriate tip. But then she asked for a dollar back. Now that hurt.
I wondered if she understood what went into this job.
I wondered if she knew how many times I have to change my oil each month.
I wondered if she had any idea what new tires were going to cost me.
But, well, you get the picture.
A woman who looked like the one at the door walked up behind me. They must have been sisters or roommates, because they both yelled at an invisible child the same way.
‘Sir?’ she said.
This was the first time I had been called that, but it did not carrying any knightly respect. It felt more like when your mother used your full name to tell you what you had done.
‘Sir? Is that your basketball in the backseat of your car?’
‘Yes it is.’ I turned back to the woman at the door. ‘Ok, one dollar is your change, thank you very much.’ I turned to walk down the steps with my red insulated pizza bag and my wide thanks-for-your-order pizza smile.
‘Are you sure that is your ball in the backseat of your car?’
The other woman leaned out the screen door and rested the pizza box on her hip. ‘What are you asking him?’
‘I’m going to ask him again. Is that your basketball in the backseat of your car.’
‘Yes, that’s mine.’
‘Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t just pick that up in our yard and put it in your backseat?’
This was worse than when she accused me of being late. Was there a formula? People who delivered pizzas later also steal children’s toys?
‘Excuse me?’
The screen door shut with the pizza and both women outside. ‘Why don’t you answer her question?’
Now I only carried the pizza bag. ‘No, that is my basketball.’
‘Because my son has a basketball exactly like the one in the backseat of your car. Orange with black stripes’
I wanted to take back the box and say, my brother has a pizza exactly like this one: pie cut and covered in cheese.
‘Well, the one in the backseat is definitely mine.’ On the way home, I thought how I must have been in shock, because I thought of all the things I should have said. I should have told her that just because I deliver pizza doesn’t mean I steal children’s toys. I should have told her right then about her stupid roman numerals.
Instead, I walked to my car and put the pizza back in the front seat. The woman followed behind and as I put on my seatbelt, she reached through my window, unlocked the back seat, opened the door, and pulled out my basketball.
At this point, would she even care if I told her how late they were making me for other people’s pizzas?
She palmed the ball and squeezed it with both hands. ‘Excuse me? I didn’t say you—.’
‘Never mind,’ she shouted up to her sister. ‘His is smaller.’
*
Ring, Ring.
"How many slices in a large?"
Here we go again, "Eight, same as the small and the medium."
Silence.
"Hello?"
"Wait ... how does that work?"
*
Years later, I got onto an elevator. I pressed the button for my dorm room on the fifth floor. The pizza guy next to me asked me to hit the button below mine for a delivery.
On the second floor a classmate of mine walks in. He pushed the top floor button and stands against the elevator. He was wearing sporty nylon pants and his sweaty hair indicated that he had either been working out or just woken up.
‘What’s the "W" for?’ I asked.
He took off his sunglasses and looked at me. ‘It’s for Westminster, it was the name of my boarding school.’
‘Oh now way, in Simsbury?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I grew up in that down.’
He smiled through his half glazed eyes, which were partially hidden under his intentionally filthy white baseball hat. ‘Did you go to Westy?’
‘Nah, I went to the high school, but I used to deliver pizza to Westminster.’
‘Oh really?’ The door opened and her got off of the elevator. He looked both the pizza man and me up and down. ‘That sucks.’
The door closed and I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to go back down to whatever floor he got off on and go over to him.
I wanted to tell him that he is no longer cool for wearing the sweatpants from his boarding school track team.
I wanted to tell him that the job did suck at times, and it was because of kids like him.
I wanted to tell him that I remembered him and that I spit in his food every time.
I wanted him to tell everyone one who every ga
But instead, I became a writer.
