Top Ten Things to Do During Winter Storm Nemo

With Winter Storm Nemo forecast to dump 150 feet of snow on the Northeast, some of us may be stuck inside for a bit. Here are some ways to pass the time:

#10 Photoshop yourself kissing Bar Rafaeli.

#9 Three Words: Forty-eight. Hour. Tequilathon.

#8 Re-read your New Year’s resolutions and laugh.

#7 Eat two-dozen donuts, a whole chicken, and a small water buffalo wrapped in bacon: pretend you’re Chris Christie.

#6 Tell everyone you’re out shooting skeet.

#5 Dump that dead hooker that’s been in your trunk since Christmas. Now they won’t find her ‘til spring.

#4 Write a polite, well-reasoned letter to President Obama telling him to go drone himself.

#3 Clean. Because there are germs everywhere. Especially in the bathroom. I know I just cleaned this morning, but they're back again. And on the kitchen counters. Don't forget to scrub the part under the edge where the counter overhangs. Dust behind the refrigerator! The broom can’t hold it. She’s breaking up….

(Wait, is this top ten things to do or top ten signs you need to get out of the house?)

#2 Entertain your children with fascinating stories about how much worse storms were in the old days. Before they had the Internet. Or video games. Or fire.

And speaking of fire: the #1 Way to Spend Winter Storm Nemo:
Follow the lead of this gal:

BONUS THING TO DO DURING WINTER STORM NEMO: Curl up with a good book. May I recommend my novel Full Asylum (“Atlas Shrugged with professional wrestlers”). I'm offering a Winter Storm special: download Full Asylum to your Kindle or other reader in less than a minute for only 99-cents. But hurry! This offer ends with the storm. Available at Amazon.com(Sorry to sneak in income-generating stuff. Skeets ain’t free, you know.)

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Happy Birthday, Ronald Reagan!

To commemorate the 102nd anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan, take a moment to enjoy some of his famous humor:

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Mayberry, S.S.R.

Last week brought news that 83-year old Jim Nabors, famous for his role on The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, USMC, married his partner of 38-years, Stan Cadwallader.

The wedding caused a certain amount of controversy; I’m not sure why. I know what Nabors does is icky, but a person shouldn’t be prevented from getting married just because he’s an actor. Lots of actors are in loving, committed relationships. If I thought about it, I’m sure I could come up with two or three actors who haven’t been divorced since before Christmas.

The Nabors/Cadwallader nuptials led to some snippy celebration in liberal venues, including a Facebook page called The Politburo of Teabilly Mockery, whose profile picture consists of Lenin wearing Mickey Mouse ears. You can’t make this stuff up. The Politburo posted this photo of the Andy Griffith Show cast with the caption “Maybe the conservatives are right. Maybe we could learn a lot from the folks in Mayberry…Andy, a Democrat, promoted Obamacare. Opie grew up to be an outspoken liberal. Gomer just got gay married.”

I was planning to write a diatribe pointing out that it was not Andy, Opie, and Gomer who did these things – it was the actors who played them. I thought it would be a useful educational service to explain to liberals the difference between fantasy and reality. I know they have a big problem with that, which is why their policies never work.

But then it occurred to me that I could not recall any conservative ever actually saying that we could learn a lot from the folks in Mayberry. Just to be sure, I checked the indices in every volume of my library, which consists entirely of the works of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. No mention of Mayberry. I also checked for The Andy Griffith Show, conservative values on TV, and Otis the town drunk as role model. Nada. I could have tried Google as well, but I had already done almost four minutes of research. What am I, a research machine?

I’m not surprised by the results of my in-depth study – which I submitted for publication to the Journal of Media Sociology and Backyard Distillering. I can’t really imagine a conservative warming to Mayberry. For one thing, Andy Griffith’s character, Sheriff Taylor, was always sitting on the porch playing folk music on that guitar of his. Hippie freak.

Also, he was soft on crime. Did he have any clue how dangerous it was leaving the keys to the jail hanging where the criminals could let themselves out? Once they got out, good luck getting them back: he didn't carry a gun! His deputy, Barney, played by Don Knotts, carried one, but then Andy would only let him have one bullet and made him keep it in his pocket. I’m sure that one bullet was the only thing standing between Mayberry and a total collapse of civilization.

Knotts left the show mid-run – I believe to pursue his dream of starting a berry farm – and I didn’t watch any of the episodes after that because Barney was the only character who was funny. Let’s face it: without him the show was the Family Circus of sitcoms. But I have no doubt rioting broke out in the streets of Mayberry. Also looting. I bet Aunt Bee joined a tough gang of seniors smashing the window on the TV & Repair place next to Floyd’s Barber Shop and helping themselves to that cutting edge 12” black and white set that was always on display. Then Andy, explaining that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," declared martial law and sent the fat little mayor with the speech impediment to the gulag. No keys on easily accessible hooks there – that’s how real commies work once the civilian authorities have been swept aside.

Clearly this idea that conservatives want to remake the country in the image of Mayberry is another liberal fantasy. They should get some help with that.

All kidding aside, congratulations and best wishes to Jim Nabors and Stan Cadwallader as they move into the next phase of their life.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Land of Oz meets the Book of Genesis

Book Review: The Lost Dragoneer (The Chronicles of Susah, Book Two)

The Bible doesn’t tell us much about the centuries that span from Adam to Noah. Adam’s surviving sons, Seth and Cain, go their separate ways and then, in the words of Spencer Tracy’s character in Inherit the Wind, the book “goes into a lot of ‘begats.’ ‘And Aphraxad begat Salah; and Salah begat Eber’ and so on.” Lamech begets Noah, but before we get to the ark and the Flood, we're told (Genesis 6.4): "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God come in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown."

It's an intriguing passage, but sadly lacking in detail. Recently, author C.D. Sutherland has stepped in to fill the gaps. The Chronicles of Susah transports us to a world with all the elements of other magical lands like Oz or the Harry Potter universe: a gifted protagonist, a dangerous journey, a wise old mentor, and of course, giants in the earth.

The Lost Dragoneer is the second and most recent installment in the series. Susah, the daughter of Noah, has little interest in her father’s insane boat building project. She has left home and put her ability to control animals with her mind in the service of the Dragoneer Corps, a sort of dragon-powered air force for the nation of Sethica. As The Lost Dragoneer opens, the Sethicans have just won an epic battle against an army of ogres. It is a bittersweet victory for Susah, however. Most of the dragons are dead or dying and Susah must rebuild the corps. Locating and taming wild dragons is the easy part, though. Susah must also confront vicious ogres, bloodsucking trolls, temptation by Satan, and her own vanity.

Politically, Susah’s world has much that is familiar. The story takes place in a time of transition. The old system of tribal government has given way to a Council of Elders, which spends most of its time taxing and regulating – and undermining the military. Much of what we learn about the political situation comes from the hotel owner Keenan. When Susah tells him how lovely his hotel is, he replies proudly, in a pointed reference to President Obama, “I built it.”

But it’s the way Sutherland intertwines his tale with the Bible that is the unique feature of The Lost Dragoneer. “I began with the Scriptures,” he explained to me. “Anything in black in white must remain and is off-limits to alterations in my story telling. Using that approach, everything between those gaps are gray-areas and by definition free-game for my extreme fiction. After some of my fans started calling my first book Antediluvian Steampunk, I agreed the term is more descriptive than just ‘Religious Sci/Fi Fantasy'”

Sutherland says that some religious traditionalists have chafed at the technology that he injects into Biblical times: there are blasters as well as swords, skyscrapers as well as castles. Nevertheless, I think most Jews and Christians will appreciate the familiar people and places from the core of their faith. Everyone, even jaded atheists such as myself, will appreciate the captivating story.

Based on some internal chronology, I reckon that The Lost Dragoneer takes place 80 years before the rains start to fall and the animals come on by twosies-twosies. That affords ample opportunities for sequels: I look forward to many more installments in The Chronicles of Susah.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Front Lines of the Culture Wars...

I was trying to find a good quote about the culture wars. As I slogged through what seemed like the hundredth post-election article with the words conservative despair in the headline, I found this gem in the comments:

Stories are important. Storytellers have a specific type of power. They shape memories and impressions. The victors write history – but anyone can write a story, and those who write the best and most popular stories win the culture wars. Don’t just give it up to them. Fight back. – Jamie W.

As one of the characters in The Fountainhead said, “Do you think I picked the things in my art gallery by their signatures?” I didn’t have to follow the link to know who “Jamie W.” is. Jamie Wilson runs conservativefiction.com and is a senior editor at Liberty Island Magazine. So she knows about storytelling, and she’s right, of course. Before our fellow citizens will vote for liberty, they need to understand it and believe in it – and stories are an effective way to connect with them on a gut level.

But stories can't change hearts and minds if no one reads them. This is especially problematic for writers of conservative and libertarian fiction: they're mostly indie authors who do not have the publicity department of Random House or the sales force of Simon and Schuster to promote their life's work.

With that end in mind, I’m pleased to announce the first issue of my new e-mail newsletter, Never Surrender, will be released on Friday, February 1. The title, of course, is taken from the advice Winston Churchill gave to the British people when the Nazi hordes were consolidating their takeover of France and the Battle of Britain was imminent.

In Never Surrender, I will share the latest from novelists whose characters take responsibility for their own lives and live traditional values; comedians who laugh at the absurdity of political correctness; and filmmakers who use the power of cinema to tell tales of liberty overcoming tyranny, and, along the way, give us a sense that there are things in life that are sacred. Issue 1 will feature capsule reviews of works by Kia Heavey and Christopher Bunn and news from FrackNation, Loren Spivack, and (speak of the devil) Jamie Wilson.

In a shameless effort to build circulation, I’m going to commit marketing. Subscribe to my free newsletter, Never Surrender, by February 28 and automatically be entered in a drawing to win a copy of your choice of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Glenn Beck's The Overton Window.

To begin your free subscription to Never Surrender, and be entered into the drawing, email subscribe@MonteferroPress.com.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about hospital gowns, freedom, and never surrendering. Check it out on Amazon.com

Top Ten Obama Sitcoms

#ObamaSitcoms was trending on Twitter the other day, so I did my part to invent some:

#10. Everybody Loves Food Stamps

#9. The Nanny…State

#8. Sabrina the Teenage Mother

#7. Beavis and Biden

#6. Unmarried with Children

#5. I Dream of Lenin

#4. How I Got Bin Laden

#3. Malcolm in the Unemployment Line

#2. The Big Keynes Theory

And the #1 Obama sitcom…
The Blunder Years

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

Book Review: Lovers and Lunatics (The Potter Family Files, Volume I)

The book description on Amazon began, “Normal guy Frank Potter is forced by his wife to join a local acting group. He enters a terrifying world of hefty thespians, impromptu drama, and crazy people. Mayhem and ambulances ensue. A large Russian woman also falls on top of someone from a great height.” Not promising. The printed word isn’t exactly the best medium for slapstick. But we were well into the week, I needed something for today’s book review, and Lovers and Lunatics is only 118 pages long.

Also, author Christopher Bunn had assured me in a Facebook message that his novella is comically politically incorrect (Is that the right word? Novella? It’s only 118 pages, so I think that’s the right word). Without getting off my ass, I hit the one-click Buy button and started reading on my Kindle. Technology is amazing.

I got two paragraphs into the novella (I think that’s the right word. I’m going to stick with it), up to the point where the narrator describes his children as “our three little in-house savages,” when I realized something:

This book (or novella) is, as we say in Boston, wicked funny.

It consists of three short stories: “The Revenge of the Demented Thespians,” “The Attack of the Crazed Environmentalists,” and “The Night of the Thanksgiving Turkey Terror.” The stories chronicle the adventures of the charmingly clueless Frank Potter. He's the kind of guy who, when his wife tells him to answer the door, he always manages to hear something like “Would you like a fried egg sandwich with sausage after I get the doorbell?”

Frank is perennially cranky. Among the objects of his displeasure are poets (“[W]hile I normally disagreed with the domestic policies of Josef Stalin, I did agree with his long-standing rule of exiling poets to Siberia”), pretentious arthouse plays (“[W]henever I read reviews that use phrases like ‘brave and unflinching’ I know a film or play is going to be incredibly boring…The phrase ‘affirmation of life’ in a review means the story will feature at least one suicide.”), bureaucrats (“He had a sour expression on his face, like he spent his free time sucking on lemons and thinking about how he wanted to buy more lemons,”), TV journalists (“I won an Emmy back in ’93 for my groundbreaking segment ‘Public School Lunches: Your Child and Radioactive Food.’”), nouvelle cuisine (“I think it’s seaweed...And pine needles. And this wispy stuff is called Spanish moss.”), and day spas (“[I]t’ll be all giggles, right until someone drowns in the mud”).

And the French. (Did I mention this is a politically incorrect novella?)

While I enjoyed all three stories, the first was my favorite, thanks to the hilariously awful play, Concrete Flowers Deux, that the demented thespians perform without having seen the script ahead of time. I laughed all through it. It reminded me of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s play-within-a-play The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby.

I look forward to Volume 2.

Learn more about Lovers and Lunatics on Amazon.com

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com