Celebrating Diversity

Whoopee! Okay, that’s enough of that.

Seriously, I think diversity sucks. If everyone were just like me, this would be a much more copasetic planet. But, as we know, there are close to 7 trillion non-Yolas infesting this world of mine, and eradication would be difficult at best. So...
If you can’t kill ‘em, celebrate ‘em – that’s what I always say.

Case in point: My ragtag group of Followers. Most of you have wisely hidden your identities behind pseudonyms and spurious images. If I felt the urge to get out my little hatchet and pay you a visit, I wouldn’t know where to start (except for Barbie, of course, and she was nice enough to send those private photos). So, since I have nothing else to do this Saturday morning, I might as well celebrate you.

That this not-so-humble blog has managed to corral such a diverse group of misfits and malcontents in such a short time is, I suppose, a remarkable achievement. I mean, just look at this bunch:

We have a guy who wears old toaster parts on his head and wants to take over the world. We have a talking cat, for god’s sake, and a three-headed dog who rides the bus five days a week to Hell and back. There’s a little girl with temporary tattoos who dreams of dirty dancing. There’s a close-mouthed dude who looks like a cross between the Marlboro Man and an NRA poster. There’s a one-legged ass-kicker. There’s a hornball barfly who does amazing things (trust me) with that Viking hat of hers. There’s a lady whose head is twice the size of everyone elses' (where does she buy hats?). We have a great, great, multi-great grandniece of a headless corpse.We have two confirmed dead.

And we’ve had a couple of distinguished visitors. Angelina Jolie, you’ll recall, stopped by to threaten us with lawyers, and a famous real-life mystery author (and military man?) has favored us with a pithy remark or two. All this, and we’ve only been on the Cybernet, I mean Internet, three weeks. Who knows how low we can go?

Let’s find out. That’s your assignment for the weekend. Tell us, if you will, what other sorts of oddballs, celebs, dead folk and four-legged beasties we should attempt to lure into the fold.

Remember that motto – If you can’t kill ‘em, celebrate ‘em – but keep it under your hat. I’m registering the phrase and will soon have T-shirts available in the Yola Shop.

(Apologies to those of you expecting to hear from Davy Crockett today. He weaseled out on account of being dead, but I’ll keep after him.)

Friday, Cry Me a River

Good morning, insects. It is I, Yola. Friday is the day that stands on the bleeding edge of drunken revelry and ships passing in the night. I don't know about you lot, but I'm laundering my little cotton socks right now.

What's playing on the toaster? Farrah Fawcett's timeless version of Sinnerman. Mmm.

Since I'm not planning on straining my eyes to find wisdom in the comments of Cyberdrew this weekend, this will be my final post for the week. If you want more Yola, meet me at the watering hole. Bring your credit card. My month is emerald and my year is steel.

Next week, I have a facial so my favorite elected official will be nattering into your little shell-like ears, Congressman David Crockett from the insignificant state of Tennessee. Please bow and scrape as usual.

And for today, one last question for you to consider. Where do you writers get your ideas?
Ta for now, YOLA

Feeling the Love

Greetings, humans. It is I, Yola. Thursday always makes me think of Friday, how about you? Yes, a Thursday can be very like a Friday. Go to your local for lunch, eat a little raw meat with your beer. After work, roll over to the Yukon and kick YBarbie's plastic butt. I'm feeling it.

What's playing on the toaster right now? The stupid thing fritzed out on me and refuses to play anything but Journey and Rush. It's probably buried in the Ukrainian language directions somewhere, how to make those squealing rock legends shut up and die.

So in keeping with the end of week theme, tell me how you all write love scenes. Do you wear silk and burn fancy candles? Do you open a bottle of Moet and imagine someone other than your spouse? Do you go to the petting zoo?

So many possibilities.
Ta, YOLA

I'm So Right

Good morning, readers. It is I, Yola. Today is Wednesday, a very good day to eat what you kill. I woke up today with an unquenchable thirst, added a rib eye to my protein shake, skinned the neighbor's cat, and now I'm ready to deal with whatever little squeals of protest you may send my way. Yes, life is hard. Life is, actually, a b$itch like me.

What's playing on the toaster right now? I'm So Right Tonight by the lovely Miss Jo Stafford.

So today, let's talk query (oh, that's a bad word!)…query (it hurts!)…I want to know about your most icky, humiliating query (make it stop!) experiences. Was it by letter, by e-mail, by pitch? And what would you do differently next time? Please, keep the whips and chains, where they belong, people. No threats to any agents or editors living or (possibly?) dead. No matter how tempting.

Ta, YOLA

Tuesday's Child

Good morning, thralls. It is I, Yola. Tuesday is a day of renewed vigor, the sun is shining, and a thermos of wheatgrass martinis awaits my lunch. What's playing on the toaster right now? My Way by the little punk from Hoboken—er, Shepherd's Bush. One of those.

Anyways, couldn't help but notice that some of you took instruction yesterday while others of you did not. YukonBarbie, for shame. If your man pecs look good in my bra, which I highly doubt, give me a call. Otherwise, pedal your wares down the street at Kay's. Cyberdrew, was that English? I thought not. Everyone else passed with the coveted AA.

Today, I would like to pick up the theme offered by lovely Miss Vicky. Guess my favorite television show from 1984. Bonus round, what was YukonBarbie's favorite show?

Ta, YOLA

Writing because we're writers

Well, hello there, audience. It is I, Yola. Today being Monday, the day of hangover recovery, booting strange men out of bed, and wondering where I've been the last three days. For instance, I don't remember buying that toaster at all. Must have been the guy I met at the Yukon. He said he could cook but I was hoping he didn't mean food. But well, food's good too.

I thought I would pose a question to all of you. How did you become writers?

For me, it was a plan for world domination. Being Yola means domination, of course. I realized at birth that my unique viewpoint was not shared by the rest of the world. I decided to be the first-person narrator of my own life. How has it worked out for me? Awesomely, thanks.

So, lets hear from you little people. And please kneel when you write.
--YOLA

Yola gets a toaster.

Feast your eyes on this baby. Ain’t it a beaut? With its brushed stainless steel finish, cool blue LED display lights and “advanced Toast Technology,” it's just about the spaciest kitchen appliance this side of Star Trek.

The enclosed material, however, gave me pause. Right there on page 1 of the User Manual were those intimidating words READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE USE. This presented difficulties, as not only are there 22 pages of instructions, but 16 of those aren’t even in English. Sure, you say, I could read the ones that say Francais and Espanol anyway, but since I wouldn't have a clue what they said, what tasty tidbits of toasterology might I be missing?

Luckily, my next door neighbor, wise beyond her years in such matters, pointed out that the French and Spanish pages are likely just translations of the English. Whew! But this presented new concerns. Why, I had to know, did the English version occupy a mere six pages, while the other languages each got eight? Was the manufacturer withholding certain details from us English types, perhaps, or, on a more disturbing level, did they think those non-English speakers so technologically challenged that they required two whole extra pages to operate a fricking toaster?

Then I chanced to recall my most recent airline experience, which included two long layovers in lovely George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Every sort of sign and instruction, I noticed, from KEEP SEATBELTS FASTENED to NO FIREARMS PERMITTED BEYOND THIS POINT, blatted at me in both English and Spanish. And in every case, the Spanish versions contained significantly more words and syllables. Could that be the secret of the extra two pages? That it just plain takes longer to say something in these so-called Romance Languages? Maybe so. On the other hand, on the off-chance they’re really more romantic, maybe those extra pages of instructions would make me fall even deeper in love with my toaster.

Anyway, this extraneous cogitation behind me, I finally proceeded to read the English version. And right away made a disturbing discovery. “Do not operate or place the toaster,” it said, “in a heated oven or microwave oven.” Sheesh! If they’re going to place limitations like that on their product, what good is it? Alarmed, I scrutinized every other word of the instructions. And was somewhat mollified. Nowhere did they say I couldn't operate my new toaster while riding my bicycle, or inside the refrigerator, or in the washing machine, or anywhere else.

I can’t wait to fire this baby up and enjoy hot frozen waffles with my bubble bath.

I liked this movie and so will you.

Or else.

A Cybermanifesto

Look, I know you have to be wacked-out to follow a blog like this. I get that. Still, I was unprepared to receive the following missive from the yola-ite known only as Cyberdrew. I reprint his message here in full, including the disturbing photographs, in hopes that someone out there knows where to find him, and can thus alert Homeland Security, the nearest loony-bin, or at the very least Dr. Who.

Puny humans, rejoice! Your deliverance is at hand. The age of the Cybermen fast approacheth! (I kid you not, he actually said approacheth! – Y.)

Long have we waited, long have we yearned for your primitive technology to reach a level suitable to receive the glorious gift of our assistance. That momentous moment (Oy vey! – Y.) has nearly arrived.

Maybe you think you know about Cybermen from what you’ve seen on the infantile teleplay known as Dr. Who. You know nothing! We allowed our likenesses to be employed in that trite entertainment merely to lull the suspicions of your leaders. As long as they believed we could be easily banished to another dimension by an idiot in an antique police call box, we knew they would take no serious preparations to resist us.

But know this: We lurk in secret no longer. Recruitment has begun, and you may be next to join us. Thanks to the worldwide proliferation of this thing you call the Internet (little knowing it is actually the Cybernet, invented by us), we can now send transmissions through your computing device to irrevocably alter your genetic structure. All we require is that you remain online a minimum of 17.5 minutes, and you will be placed in queue for transformation into a Cyberman (or, for the liberated potentially child-bearing types among you, Cyberchick).

If you are not transformed on your first, second, or even thousandth attempt, do not despair. Your time will come. The longer you remain online, the greater your odds of metamorphosis. Selected test subjects have already joined us. You could be next! --Cyberdrew

Yeah, and any second now, monkeys are going fly out of my butt. Still, it took me just over seventeen minutes to type this, so toodles! – Y.

Don't crush that politician, hand me the pliers.

Happy DTV day. Or so you'd think, by the way the TV newsies are gushing over it. Yes, at one second to midnight tonight the FCC will sound the death knell of analog television. And while they continue to put a smiley face on it, the switch to going to cause grief for millions of Americans. What bothers me most, of course, is that one of those millions of Americans will be me.

Yeah, they’ve been warning people for some time they’d need digital adapters to get over-the-air broadcasts. What they didn’t mention was that digital signals are so weak and ornery that for many viewers, those adapters won’t be worth a damn.

What no one has wanted to address is the dilemma faced by me and my fellow VCR addicts. Cable users won’t be affected, says the FCC. You have nothing to worry about, says Comcast. We’ll take care of you. Like hell. With the cheap little adapters Comcast provided I’ve already lost the ability to record ABC, NBC and Sci-Fi Channel, along with a dozen lesser lights. And that's just the beginning of my nightmare.

Either the politicians didn’t bother to consider what a mess they were making – or just didn’t care. After all, these are the folks who brought us Fannie and Freddie, resulting in our “new” economy. And they’re not done. Now they’re itching to slip a wet willie to the automotive industry.

Everyone out there who thinks government-mandated technology is a good thing, please raise your hands. Great. Keep ‘em up. I only have one pair of pliers, but I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

Carmen Electra, cloning and cheap airline tickets.

Oh yeah, and Brook Burke, bestiality and bonnaroo. And let us not forget the Hun’s Yellow Pages or how to get pregnant. Or Willow Palin. Or, god forbid, Susan Boyle.

No, I don’t want to talk about any of those people or things or things masquerading as people. I’m not ever sure who (Jamie Czerniawski) or what (New Moon) some of them are. I’m just appalled at the number of blogs and websites that toss these names (Jon and Kate) and terms (ubersexual) about willy-nilly just because they’re some of the most searched words (fibromyalgia) on the Internet. It’s a shameless (Britney Spears) tactic to drive web traffic to their sites (sublimedirectory), clawing their way to the top (brangelina) by fooling the webcrawlers (eminem) into thinking they're popular (poop freeze).

Well, you won’t encounter that sort of despicable behavior (Howard Stern) here at Yolawriters (Thumbzilla!). I prefer to build my blogosmic empire the old fashioned way (gnutella!) – by pestering hell out of my friends and relatives (Colin Cowherd!). Yola out.

Green hair on my potato salad.

As of last year, according to Internetworldstats.com, there were 6,710,029,070 people with access to the Internet.

Well, hello. How come, nearly a whole day and half after my first post, only one, one!, of you has left me a comment? And only three others are even paying attention?

Blessed be to (insert name of favorite Deity) for my four loyal Followers. It’s heartening to know you’ll share my pain when I find ants in the Frosted Mini-Wheats, when my cat pisses all over the dog toys, when I arrive at work wearing mismatched shoes, when my VCR tapes Wipe Swap instead of Burn Notice, when I find a half a dead mouse in my slipper, and when the only birthday card I get is from my life insurance agent.

So thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you to Vicky and Davy and Kassandra and yes, even Cyberdrew, for sticking with me through these 33 difficult hours. I promise there will be more.

As for the other 6,710,029,066 of you… Just remember. I know who you are. I know you where you live. I know your neighbors would hate to learn there’s a sexual predator on their street. Sign up now and all will be forgiven.

Look! I'm not wearing any underpants!

Hm.
What does one say to inaugurate a new blog?
Hello world?
Hi Mom?
Greetings, people of Earth?
You can see what I decided on.

Life, it seems to me, is largely a struggle to find the right words – a rip-snorting battle to say something appropriate. And I damn near always lose. Look me up in my high school yearbook and you’ll see my future ordained: Most Likely To Say Something Inappropriate.

But as you see, I’m still here fighting.

I guess that’s what this blog is about – taking my struggle to new heights, battling the compulsion to say inappropriate things to every Internet-savvy being on this sad planet. And losing.

I hope to say great things here. Important things. But to encounter those little jujubes of wisdom, you’ll likely have to wade through miles and miles of flapdoodle.

So as we begin this journey together, I offer this advice: Carry a sharp knife. Once in a great while you may find something worth keeping. As for the rest, you'll likely want to scrape it off your shoe.

standing by

Yola's coming! Yola's coming!

She/we will be here soon.