One of the great pleasures of teaching journalism at a university is getting to know some really talented mass media students. One, Aaron Hare, used me as the subject of a short documentary assignment. It’s three minutes, twenty-four seconds. Check it out.
You can also check out Aaron’s YouTube channel. He has a bright future.
For the second time in two years, Jason Offutt’s horror novel, “The Girl in the Corn,” received an Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Gold Award. The 2022 award celebrated the audiobook version of the novel; the 2023 award honors Offutt for writing the best independently-published horror novel of 2022.
The IBPA awards ceremony took place May 5 in San Diego. Publisher of “The Girl in the Corn,”(and of Offutt’s 2020 sci-fi comedy “So You Had to Build a Time Machine”), CamCat Books, earned four gold awards and three silver. This marks the second year in a row CamCat Books was the biggest winner in the awards contest for the best independently published books.
“The Girl in the Corn” is available at CamCat Books.
For a list of this year’s Gold and Silver Benjamin Franklin awards, go to: https://www.ibpabenjaminfranklinaward.com/2023-winners.
The 2023 awards ceremony also marked the Independent Book Publishers Association’s 40th anniversary.
By Jason Offutt
Author’s note: Hi, folks. It’s been about a year since I retired this column, but it’s family vacation time and, well, things like this happen all to us all too frequently. I wanted to share.
One of the most important bits of planning a vacation isn’t the when, or the why, or even to put every family member in the car. Forgetting one or two might make the experience more relaxing. The important detail, at least from the onset, is knowing where.
It’s harder than it sounds.
We embarked on the Offutt Family Summer Vacation 2021, with me behind the wheel, my only instructions, 1) don’t kill us, and 2) go north.
From our home, “north” takes in a lot of territory. At the top are white places filled with Canadian rednecks and maple syrup. Below that, there’s Minnesota with its lakes and mosquitoes, then Iowa. I listed Iowa last because that’s where we were headed. Yes, on a family vacation. Shut up. Iowa has a lot of interesting sights, like the tree that ate a plow, the Iowa Quilting Museum, and corn. Don’t judge us.
My wife, who expertly planned our vacation to a place with lots of hiking and biking trails, then slipped on the stairs the day before departure and hyperextended her left ankle, sat in the back seat, her swollen, bruised foot on my arm rest.
Simply go north? Nope. I wasn’t going to question a damn thing.
An hour later, after stopping for lunch, I pulled over, because, like he mighty lion gorging on a gazelle in midday, I needed to crawl beneath an umbrella tree and nap. For the record, my gazelle was a vegetarian low-carb wrap, and this lion wore a Hawaiian shirt, and shorts with a coffee stain.
You’re judging again, aren’t you?
“I can drive,” my wife said. “My right foot’s fine.”
Rule 1 of surviving on the plains of the Serengeti: Never argue with your wife. She’ll eat you.
I crawled into the backseat and fell asleep.
I have no idea how much time past. All I knew was during that time, a thick heat and even thicker smell crawled over me like something evil in a science fiction movie. As an adult, being dragged from sleep in the back of the car during a family vacation is like being in Metllica’s tour van during the early years. Body odor, stale French fries, and we all know somebody threw up, even though no one will own up to it.
“Where are we?” I asked.
I ask the stupidest things.
“Honey Creek is 1.2 miles,” the generic Google Maps computer lady said. “Turn left on Honey Creek Road.”
One-point-two miles later, my wife turned onto Honey Creek Road, which was, in reality, the gravel drive of a modest ranch-style house with an American flag and above-ground pool out front.
“You have reached your destination,” Google Maps Lady said.
Destination?
“We’re in the middle of nowhere.” My wife’s voice held a sound I’d never heard from her. Oh, sure, I recognized it. My own voice made that sound all the time. It was defeat.
After she held a discussion with Google Maps Lady (which involved lots of middle fingers. Touch screens are so therapeutic), she cheered up.
“I told the GPS Honey Creek, not Honey Creek Resort. There’s apparently a difference,” she said, laughing in a way that made us all nervous. “We’re three hours away.”
Our 16-year-old boy stirred from whatever foggy semi-conscious state teenagers exist in and spoke.
Dear God, he spoke. Couldn’t he see the paper-thin difference between Happy Mom and this one?
“You said–” he started, before I interrupted him.
“Did you see they have a pool? And–” I motioned toward the trees behind the house. “Ticks. They probably have ticks. Nice place.”
My wife did the first two out of three in a three-point turn, partially in the yard of the nice people with the pool at the gravelly tail-end of Honey Creek Road, Iowa, and ripped back down the gravel.
“We should have at least walked up to the front door with our bags and told them we’re here,” I said.
No one laughed. I thought that line was funny, but maybe it wasn’t. Our family’s used to events like today’s. We’re that TV sitcom family, the one that’s sometimes nominated for an Emmy, but never wins, and the network’s usually “this” close to cancelling us. Catch our show, “Those Darn Offutts,” every weeknight at a Dumpster fire near you.
Yeah, sure, we finally made it to the resort, and it was nice. Nicer than that Metallica smell we’ll never get out of our car. Wherever I parked it.
Jason Offutt is an award-winning humor author. His latest novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” is available at www.jasonoffutt.com.
The raven bothered me. Walking through Highgate Cemetery in the late afternoon with a small group of students looking for the graves of one of my favorite authors (Douglas Adams), and some guy named Marx (not Groucho, the serious one who worried more about the fate of the proletariat than he did of proper beard maintenance), a raven’s caw split the stillness of this ancient, vine-covered final resting place of roughly 170,000 people.
I froze and looked around. Nothing.
The raven, an intelligent, three-pound creature marked by legend to signal the end of the British Empire if the flock left the Tower of London (only about six are left there), was really, really close. But, scanning the heavy deciduous canopy that loomed over about 53,000 gravestones, this black bird, as big as a small dog, was invisible. Was it even there at all? This was the only time the harbinger of death cawed during my trip to the cemetery and I got more nervous with each step.
Then my chewing gum crunched. “Ouch,” I said, spitting gum into my hand. Bits of silver dotted the green glob. Are you kidding me? I stuck my tongue into the hole in my tooth just to be sure. I lost a filling?
At the caw of the raven, a vital piece of oral hardware popped out, opening my jawline to infection and, what was worse, giving me an extreme sensitivity to all the beer I planned to drink while in England. I was 4,290.5 miles away from my dentist. Problems with teeth, much like problems with your private parts, aren’t things people worry about when they’re away from home. Travelers are more concerned with pickpockets and having to talk to French people.
At that moment, I did what any British person would do in this situation; I went to the pub.
The cemetery sits atop a steep hill in the Highgate area of London as most things there do. Of course, some things also sit at the bottom of a steep hill. The pub we found was somewhere in the middle. Set back from the street, the Whittington Stone looked a bit more modern on the outside than most pubs I’ve been to, although that might mean it’s less than 500 years old. Inside, it captured the dark wood, and friendly “welcome and get politely drunk” atmosphere British pubs are known for.
The Whittington Stone pub is named after Richard Whittington (1354–1423), a merchant, four-time Lord Mayor of London, and epic champion of the lower class who founded a hospital for unwed mothers (it’s unknown if he helped them get their start), funded drainage systems for the poorer sections of London, and founded a charity that still exists. The “stone” on this hill is where he sat and heard ringing from Bow Bells Church six miles away; apparently 400 years before the Internet that was a pretty big deal for poor people in East London. A weatherworn statue of Wittington’s cat, a legendary mouser, sits just up the street from the pub.
Getting the hang of all this pub business (this was only a couple days into our journey), my students and I found a table, wood with a brass number at the end, and grabbed a menu. One of the many great things about pubs is what they do with their menus. Most pubs post menus outside so you don’t have to go in to realize you’ve made mistake and need to be somewhere else. A chalkboard marquee set up out front took the posted menu’s place, offering shepherds pie for £5.99, a pretty cheap price for dinner in London. Considering I’ve spent a pound more for just a hamburger (albeit a proper hamburger), £5.99 was right in my price range. The menu inside one-upped the marquee. It boasted a two-for-£7 deal my students took full advantage of.
My students ordered barbecue chicken, fish and chips, and one of them decided it would be best to flirt with the barmaid.
“What are you going to eat, Offutt?” one student asked.
Me? With fish and chips, a beef sandwich, and the chalkboard shepherds pie all looking delicious, I played with my tooth hole.
“Beer,” I said. “I’m going to have beer.”
Lots. The best part, I didn’t have to chew. Wait. That was the second best part.
Running into a quasi-medical problem so far away from home in 2013 isn’t like it was in 1847, or even 1987. I took advantage of the six-hour time difference and cell phone technology and called my dentist.
“There’s a product called Dentemp,” he said. “It’s a temporary filling. Get that and I’ll see you when you get home.”
In 1847, a traveler with a tooth problem may have died an agonizing, oozy death. Today I just went to the chemist (pharmacy) and got the British equivalent to Dentemp, Toofypegs (a name I assume people at an ad agency came up with while high on nitrous oxide). I was going to be fine. As for the rest of the trip—I survived my trip to England without an oral infection.
Screw you, raven.
Author’s note: This piece is based solely on my opinion. If you agree, great, if not, that’s cool too. I hope we can still be friends. Everyone has different tastes. For example, one of my wife’s favorite novels is, Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” I have not told her I wrote this for the simple fact that I’m not stupid.
As an author, I should never hate on other authors. It’s bad form. Hey, gang, we’re all on the same team, fighting the same fight, suffering the same setbacks, and celebrating the same victories. I love the writing community I’ve discovered online because that’s what we’re all about. We either know where other writers are and want to help them over their hump, or they know where we are and want to help us for exactly the same reason.
So, I would never talk shit about another author, especially one who’s won a Pulitzer Prize. I’ve honestly said since I pecked my first story into a Macintosh 512K at the only newspaper in 1987 that would give a job to someone as inexperienced as me—if I ever win a Pulitzer, I’m wearing it around my neck on a big gold chain 24/7.
Damn right, that’s what I would have done.
I’ve moved on from that. I’m here for my fellow writers who need a digital hug, or (hopefully) a literal kick in the pants when it comes to making their writing better. I love you all.
Except Cormac McCarthy. Fuck that guy.
McCarthy won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished fiction by an American author for his post-apocalyptic novel, “The Road,” even though authors have written about that kind of thing for years and no one paid them any attention. John Hillcoat directed the 2009 movie based on “The Road” that starred Viggo “Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings” Mortensen, Robert Duvall, and Charlize Theron.
What a great cast. I nearly went to the theater to watch this movie, but like I try to do with every film based on a book, I stopped at the public library to read “The Road” first (support your public library, folks).
Hey, gang, I have a question. Have you ever slogged through “The Road”? Come on, be honest. If so, good for you. You have the kind of strength to actually survive the post-apocalyptic hellscape America will become soon enough. However, that wasn’t me.
The same year McCarthy won the Pulitzer, Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love,” came out (and white-trashed so many American kitchens with those words painted on barn wood), as did “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas,” “Water for Elephants,” Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects” (Flynn can write. Damn, can she write), and another post-apocalyptic work—which is highly more entertaining than McCarthy’s—Max Brooks’, “World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.”
McCarthy can’t hold the jocks of these authors. They create characters, they paint a scene with something other than dirt and plants described in the depth of a surgeon discussing a recently-freed bowel obstruction, and they do not—I REPEAT, DO NOT—write shit sentences like this:
“He rose and stood tottering in that cold autistic dark with his arms outheld for balance while the vestibular calculations in his skull cranked out their reckonings.”
Wait. What? This is the kind of faux-poetry nerds get beaten up for writing in junior high school.
I’m fully convinced people say they like McCarthy’s work only because others have said they should. You want to feel like garbage at an intellectual dinner party, say you don’t understand the appeal of Cormac McCarthy, and twenty people will start lecturing you on how you failed to understand the deeper meaning of “Blood Meridian” that made such a violent book so goddamned boring, or the fact that Cormac really would know how to use a fucking quote mark if he thought it necessary, thank you very much.
Dear Pulitzer Prize committee: Never consider me for your award. I’ve seen what you think is good, and it ain’t.
It’s interesting what kind of insight you get about yourself when it’s through the eyes of someone who thinks you’re a bit silly, by which I mean they know you’re American.
The Warwick Arms is a friendly sort of pub (I’d like to think they all are). The warmth as you walk in is welcoming compared to the ever present cold rain that falls on London an average of 160 to 200 days of the year. Yellow tungsten lights glow on a wall of liquor bottles behind a polished wooden bar that spouts taps of UK beers like Fuller’s London Pride and Guinness Stout. Barmaids fill pint glasses of these room temperature beers by cranking hand pumps, no American Co2 set-ups here. Traditional British food like meat pies and fish and chips dot the menu, as well as a long list of Indian food.
But the most interesting part of any night at the pub is the locals.
“He was a piece of shit,” a man in a blue delivery uniform I’d soon discover was named Tom said to a gentleman in a tweed jacket (I’m not making that up) named Bob (I’m not making that up either). Both gentlemen sat on stools next to me at the bar.
Tom referred to British-born Michael Adebowale who brutally murdered British military drummer Lee Rigby near the southeast London Woolwich barracks in London May 22. Like Adebowale, his accomplice Michael Adebolajo was a convert to radical Islam. Witnesses say the men butchered Rigby with a knife and meat cleaver on a city street.
Bob took a pull of an amber lager in a tall, thin pint glass and sat it onto a Fuller’s London Pride coaster on the bar. “These were not smart boys,” he said. This was two days after the attack.
I took the dark black pint of Guinness the barmaid handed me, and turned toward Tom and Bob. “I doubt the American media has given this story more than a mention,” I said.
“Why’d you say that?” Tom asked.
Glad you asked, Tom. As a print journalist and current university journalism teacher, I feel I’m in a good position to criticize the media, and the American media is notoriously bad at covering its own country, let alone what’s going on overseas.
Like any good American, I didn’t realize I’d be wrong.
“When I came into town a couple of days ago, the front page of ‘The Metro’ (a free daily newspaper provided to the London Underground) was about the tornado in Oklahoma,” I said. “If a tornado hit a city of the same size here, the American media might not have mentioned it.”
“And why should they?” Tom asked. “There’s 300 million people there in America. There are 62 million people here. Why would they care?”
I didn’t expect that. The American media has faults – many, many faults, like the Kardashians and Honey Boo Boo. When I drove to Canada in 2011, anyone who discovered I was from Missouri brought up a tornado that destroyed Joplin, Mo., months before. They seemed genuinely concerned. That same year, Tropical Storm Washi struck the Philippines killing more than 1,000 people. Can’t say I heard of it at the time.
“Say you’re in the middle of Utah,” Tom continued. “Why would you care about someone from Britain or from Kyrgyzstan, or even know where it is, you know?”
That made sense. But still. “Then why was the British press in Oklahoma?” I asked.
“There’s a lot of us over there,” Tom said. “More than you’d think.” Then he turned back toward Bob and resumed their conversation.
Sipping my inky black stout I thought Tom made a good point. Maybe the America-centric nature of the U.S. media isn’t because Americans don’t care about the rest of the world, it’s because, well, we really don’t care about the rest of the world.
“You’re not talking to me.” Bob’s voice grabbed my attention. He was in the middle of a story. “Piss off. My food’s getting cold.”
Bob howled in a belly laugh, and Tom joined him.
“Where you been so far?” Tom asked, turning back toward me, leaving Bob laughing at his own story.
“Today I went to Borough Market.”
Tom shook his head. “No, no. Burah. Burah Market. It’s spelled like that, though, isn’t it? Borough. But it’s pronounced Burah. You pronounce it Burr-oh.”
For an American, pronunciation in London is rather confusing. “I noticed that with the Thames (Tims) and Gloucester (Gloss-ter),” I said.
Tom nodded. “That’s because you Americans pronounce things phonetically. Which makes sense. With us, I don’t know. It’s hundreds of years of this. That’s just how it is.”
He drained his pint glass and motioned to the barmaid for another. “Where else you going over here?”
I smiled and said, “Stonehenge.” Maybe the most iconic 5,000-year-old structure on the planet, right up there with the Great Pyramid. It’s mysterious, something every school child reads about, or at least remembers from the first “Ice Age” movie, and I was going to hop on a bus and stand next to it in a few days.
“Stonehenge?” he asked, his voice rising a bit at the end. “You want to see a bunch of rocks?”
“Uh, yes,” I said.
“You do know they’re just in a circle, don’t you?”
Just another night at the pub.
Author’s note: This, as you’ll find in three paragraphs, is the last essay from my 29 years of writing a weekly newspaper column. It is not, however, the last humor column I’ll write. One will pop up every once in a while in this space for you subscribers, so don’t go anywhere.
Well, folks, this is it.
I’ve written a weekly humor column for various newspapers since 1991; that’s 29 years, which is longer than Gen Z has been alive. Gen Z. I have no idea what that means. General Zod? Generic Zantac? Given that generation’s propensity to stare at their phones instead of, oh, I don’t know, traffic, I think I’ll go with Generally Zombies.
I spent way too long on that joke. When I get in this mood, my wife often frowns and says, “you’re not funny.” I always respond the same way, “I have a stack of awards that say otherwise.” Those awards read, “Best Humor Column.”
Why, you’re asking, is this idiot talking about himself? You’re right, I shouldn’t be. The No. 1 rule I tell my opinion-writing students is never write a column about your column. I’m breaking that rule for the first time in 29 years simply because this is my last one.
When summer 2020 ticks off the calendar, so will this weekly essay. I’m finished. Jason’s column will be no more, non-existent, kaput.
Thanks for sticking with me this long.
Since this is my last chance to babble at you, here are a few topics I almost wrote entire columns about but thought better of it. Be warned, my kind and faithful readers, there are reasons I stopped myself.
Random Texts With My Wife
My Wife: My bath today was a baby wipe.
Random Conversation with Our Children
The Boy: *Yawns during homecoming parade*
Me: Are you tired?
The Boy: Yes.
Me: Well, you weren’t up half the night with a baby like I was.
The Boy: You know what you did. That’s your own fault.
Random Texts with My Wife
Jason: I forgot the list. What do we need from the store?
My Wife: Ice cream.
Jason: That’s it? Ice cream?
My Wife: Yes. Something with chocolate chunks in it.
Jason: What about milk?
My Wife: There’s already milk in ice cream.
Jason: I meant do we need milk? You know, for our children.
My Wife: Yeah. Get some eggs, too. And bread.
Jason: Do we have anything to eat at home?
My Wife: No. That’s why you’re buying ice cream.
Random Conversation with Our Children
The Girl: What’s for breakfast?
Me: Rocks and sticks.
The Boy: That’s better than what Mom cooks.
Random Events With the Baby
When a child is born, parents take it easy on them, at least the first few weeks. They have to be a month old before we even start thinking about tattoos. And smoking? No way. Not until kindergarten, young lady, and that’s final.
The first time we took our baby (now almost 6) out of the house, we were prepared for almost anything.
Have you ever gotten a newborn dressed to go into the late October air? The typical wardrobe consists of a onesie, PJs, some kind of sweater, a Kevlar vest, thermal Antarctic explorer pants and a coat made out of a bear.
Everything went well. My wife turned around to talk to the baby during the drive, even though at a couple of weeks old the baby’s conversation skills were lacking.
That’s not entirely true. The baby knew when she opened her mouth Mom would stick a boob in it.
When I parked, the baby started crying. My wife exhaled slowly.
“I wasn’t going to get her out.”
Putting a newborn into her snowsuit and strapped into and out of her rocket chair takes longer than when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins got strapped in to go to the moon.
“I’m still not,” she said.
Then my wife did something so unexpected, so uncharacteristic, I had a hard time knowing what was real. She undid her bra, leaned into the backseat and breastfed the baby still strapped into the car seat.
I’d never been more in love with her.
Well, that’s it. I should have ended my last column with a poop joke, but my wife said that was tasteless. I thought she realized you all knew me by now. If you want to read more, you can subscribe to my website. I actually update it, sometimes.
As always, thanks for reading.
With COVID-19 lockdown restrictions easing across the world, it’s time to look back with fondness at the month or more we spent trapped inside the house with our families.
We watched all 6,579 titles on Netflix. We read. We baked. We taught the children how to make a shiv using a spoon. It’s called togetherness, people.
Near the end, something changed. A feeling in the house, like music played slightly off-key. Our children, who usually fight to pass the time, now played together quietly, exchanged grins and nods from across the dinner table, and whispered when my wife and I entered a room.
Sure, we’ve been restrictive. Parents have to be restrictive during a pandemic. No friends in the house. We don’t care if you are flossing, that medical mask stays on. And if you want to play Monopoly the shivs stay under your mattress.
But what about the note I found written in code in, wait, what is that? Blood? Could our children actually be plotting against us?
No, not our kids; but just in case, I took detailed notes for the lawyers.
The COVID-19 Diary.
Day 40: I found a tripwire at the top of the stairs. At first, I had flashbacks to the war, then I remembered I was never in a war. That trap wasn’t set for the Germans, or the Iraqi Republican Guard, or the Rebel Alliance. It was set for me. Or were the children simply playing a game, like Daddy Fall, or Collect My Inheritance Now? I must be overreacting.
Day 41: We’re running low on food and I’m hungry.
Day 42: I couldn’t wait for a grocery run so I ate all the houseplants.
Day 43: I just realized we’ve never owned houseplants.
Day 44: Our oldest child winked at our youngest who then stared directly at me and dragged a finger across her throat. She’s only five so it was adorable.
Day 45: The Oreos hidden in our bedroom closet are missing. I suspect everyone.
Day 46: I saw our children in the yard dressing a deer carcass. The Boy held a spear. They’re getting so big. I wonder if loincloths are in this year.
Day 47: The children have gone feral. We can only communicate with them through grunts and hand motions. I’ve begun wearing tribal face paint in an attempt to blend in. I look like guitarist Ace Frehley from Kiss.
Day 48: My wife and I barricaded ourselves in our bedroom. The children have discovered fire. The stone hand ax and Clovis point are next. It’s only a matter of time.
Day 49: The house has gone quiet except for a rhythmic thump. Maybe the neighbor is working on his car.
Day 50: The steady pounding isn’t mechanical. It’s a war drum—from the living room.
Day 4 million: The children are breaking down the door. Dear, lord. This is like Moria in “The Lord of the Rings.” If you’re reading this, send hel—
And that’s where his journal ends. Dad’s at the hospital now. Please send flowers and cards.
Jason’s upcoming novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” is available for preorder at jasonoffutt.com.
It took the third lockdown Zoom meeting with my wife’s family for me to understand how awkward relatives are when we’re not eating. I knew we were awkward, I just didn’t know why.
Food, I’m now certain, is what makes the family dynamic hum. Look at the times families gather. At Easter, there’s food. Memorial Day, food. Thanksgiving, food. Weddings, birthdays, funerals, graduations, reunions, food, food, food. We learn how to communicate with each other between bites. Or, in the case of my family, during.
Of course, with my family the main food was actually booze, but the adults always made sure there was enough ham and Jell-O salad to keep the kids out of everyone’s business. And by “business” I mean standing near the beer cooler.
Now when families gather in Spring 2020 to discuss work most of us no longer go to, sports our children no longer play and school that was one of the first things closed due to the pandemic, it’s over the internet. Each part of the family sits in their own house staring silently at their computer, or iPad, or smartphone wondering who’s going to talk first.
Fun fact: No one does.
This is what COVID-19 has done to America, it has revealed our country’s core weakness—we can’t talk to one another unless there’s cheese dip.
So, if you’re one of the 95 percent of Americans trapped at home hanging out with your loved ones on Zoom, Skype, FaceTime or some other video conferencing software, spice things up. Try Jason Offutt’s Sure-Fire Methods of Ruining a Virtual Family Gathering:
Hopefully we can try all these out during our weekly family cyber gathering. Good times.
Jason’s upcoming novel, “So You Had to Build a Time Machine,” is available for preorder at jasonoffutt.com.
