Back in Action

Thank you for your patience. My email (jhj at atomictomato.com) and website are back up.

Feel free to mail novel acceptances, topless photographs and money. Lots of money.

Temporarily Out of Service

If you've tried to contact me in the last few days, my email and website have been down because, um...well, I forgot to pay. I've rectified that, now, but my email is still down until the host gets the payment database telling the permissions database that I'm okay. Or something like that.

If you're one of the teeming multitude of fans trying to contact me this weekend, or a publisher with buckets of money for my novel, you can reach me at johnhornor at aristotle.net.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

It Might Get Loud

I'm pretty excited for this movie, being a guitarist and all.

Good Weekend

Some Mondays, I look forward to getting back to work. With two kids and a house and chores and birthday parties and tantrums and...well...the list goes on, sometimes weekends are harder on me than work.

However, this weekend was a good one.

I'm old, so Friday night I went to bed at eight - all this exercing thing has got me beat at night. In the morning, we had a garage sale, and sold a bunch of stuff. My beautiful wife has been working hard all week to put that together (with the illustrious Eric Ford) and I'm in debt to both of them.

Sometime midmorning, my kids and I packed up and drove out to Wabbaseka, Arkansas, to our cabin there. Wabbaseka means, literally, "stinking water" in the Caddo language of the indigenous native Americans hereabouts - or so I've heard tell, not speaking the language myself. And it's not a misnomer. Wabbaseka kisses a track of Nation Wildlife Preserve that's mostly bayou, stagnant and stinky.

It being hotter than equatorial Africa, the mercury hanging around 100° easily, we turned on the cabin's window unit, got the little house near frigid (Helen kept asking if we could start a fire and there was condensation beading on the windows) and we watched movies for the rest of the day, until dusk, when it cooled off. Then we went and caught some fish, watched the family of raccoons play on the island across from the cabin, and listened to the cicadas whirring in the half-light of the end of day.

Yesterday, we came back after a leisurely morning and then, after kissing my bride, my bandmates came over and we rehearsed the new band, The Headknockers. The songs began to gel and I feel like we're gonna be a good little outfit.

It's nice to be content with your weekend. I hope you guys had a good one.

But now it's time to get to work.

More Embarrassing Photos from Yesteryear

Here's what Facebook does - it dredges up old, embarrassing photos. The funny thing about this one is that I was embarrassed even as the picture was taken. This is at Dogpatch, Arkansas, an old theme park in the Ozarks that's gone now. And I'm glad. I hope they burnt the fucking place to the ground.

My sister, looking all innocent, had just pushed me half-off the paddleboat, into the drink, getting my pants wet. Lisa and dad thought this was very, very funny. I, as you can see by me hiding my face in shame, did not.


And this one is me in my glam rock period. I was listening to a lot of Marc Bolan and David Bowie at the time. Fuck if I know when this was taken or why I look like such a tool.

I look like a hybrid between Elvis, Santa Claus, Paris Hilton, and a Care-Bear.

The Weight

Well, quitting drinking for...ahem...fourteen days didn't do it. No weight loss. So I've moved on to more drastic measures; exercise. Really, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel here, jumping around, grunting, sweating balls, more grunting, jumping jacks, toe-touching, and in general yanking this old carcass around unmercifully.

There's this thing, you might have seen it on TV, late night, while you were sleepless and drinking beer and eating bon-bons - wait, that might've been me. Anyway, it's Tony Horton's p90x. 90 days of torture. And believe me, it's torture. And your torturers are sleek, glistening, cheerful people who have no problem whatsoever doing chin-ups or the fucking downward dog (or upward dog for that matter). Their foreheads are lightly sprinkled with beads of artfully placed moisture while they exercise, the motherfuckers. Fuck them. I hate them. But I kinda love them too. Strange how that happens.

I hurt. I ache. There's a great Leonard Cohen tune called "Tower of Song" in which he states:

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on
Im just paying my rent every day
Oh in the tower of song

I ache in the place where I used to play. This is me. I feel like crawling under my desk and moaning until I fall asleep.

Ok. Just so you know. I won't be giving updates about how much weight I've lifted today in a military press or how much weight I've lost.

The bad thing about all of this is it's cutting into my writing. It's been maybe two weeks now that I haven't written jack. I gotta get back on that hobby-horse, too. Maybe once I stop falling asleep at 9pm in exhaustion. When is the heightened energy supposed to start?
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While I was searching for the appropriate exercise image on my trusty stock image website, I came across this photo. This chick (who is probably mouldering in her grave) really turns me on for some reason. Well, maybe not "some" reason, but two reasons.

B(.)(.)bs.

Jason Isbell

I know. I know. I've posted a YouTube video earlier this week. But if you want to hear one of the best live concerts of Jason Isbell, free from Archive.org, all you have to do to download the .zip file with high quality vbr mp3s is click HERE.

Just doing my part to try and spread the love.
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ADDENDUM: The file has been removed from Archive.org. Probably because of my link. Sorry folks. Move along. Nothing to see here.

This Be The Verse

I grew up cross-eyed and had to wear glasses from the time I was about two. Luckily, by the time I was eighteen, I didn't have to wear them anymore. Looking at these pictures makes me realize how much I hated wearing glasses. I wasn't the happiest kid. Especially with that haircut.

My sister is turning forty this Thursday. I've been asked to get some photos together for the party. And I came across these. They kinda make me feel sorry for myself. But only a little.

It's weird because my dad, who put down the cigarettes long ago, is still here and while he doesn't look like this anymore, that's how I think of him in my mind's eye. Black haired, wearing funny hats and oversized sunglasses.
The only poem I ever learned, verbatim, was Philip Larkin's THIS BE THE VERSE.

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

I didn't take his advice. And I don't think my folks fucked me up too bad. Let's hope I don't fuck my own kids up beyond recognition. And speaking of recognition, when I look at these pictures, I can see my daughters in my big sister's face. And a little in my features, too.

I don't look much like that anymore. It's sad to think that the best I ever looked was when I was eight.

My Favorite Song

You don't care. I know you don't. But this is my absolute, most favorite song. At least for a few days longer. Shit, if I could write a song or story as moving as this, I'd have 15 dollars. I love it. Go buy some Isbell.



I saw her in Roosevelt Springs, where time doesn't touch anything
She never did say she could sing, but I figured it was so
I needed some company then, not sisters or children or men
That's a hell of a spot to be in, but she put me in tow

Money and liquor and lust had taken my heart and my trust
I could see ashes and dust were headed my way
She tended bar in the town
Her alto settled me down
I started hanging around
Didn't need much to say

She smelled like cigarettes and wine
And she kept me happy all the time
I know that ain't much of a line
but it's the Gods' own truth
She lives down inside of me still
Rolled up like a twenty dollar bill
She left me alone with these pills
In the last of my youth

Wings on her shoulders and feet, a bar on Gethsemane Street
I took time to plan my retreat, and backed out the door
I must be attracted to those who've witnessed a man in the throes
Of life that ain't grindstone to nose, but pedal to floor

She smelled like cigarettes and wine
And she kept me happy all the time
I know that ain't much of a line
But it's the Gods' own truth
She lives down inside of me still
Rolled up like a twenty dollar bill
She left me alone with these pills
In the last of my youth

Lost on the dry side of town
My memories slowing me down
She shook me and I came around
I came back to life
With nary a mother or dad
She showed me what I never had
The princess of leaves, she gets sad
'Cause I won't take a wife

She smelled like cigarettes and wine
And she kept me happy all the time
I know that ain't much of a line
But it's the Gods' own truth
She lives down inside of me still
Rolled up like a twenty dollar bill
She left me alone with these pills
In the last of my youth

Scenes from a Kitchen

A year and a half ago, my wife and I decided to remodel our kitchen. Now, many months later and many, many, many, many thousands of dollars later, we're still not done.

But we're almost there. It'll probably take us another year or so. And many more thousands of dollars.

However, the kitchen, as it stands now, is looking pretty good. Back when we started, it looked like this:
This isn't so bad for a kitchen, but the virulent green was annoying and the linoleum floors sucked major anus. Florescent lights makes me nervous and ornery.

Now, after new hardwood floors, new custom cabinetry, new counters and lighting and fixtures and appliances, it looks like this:

And this:
And this:



Notice the 3form windows. That's beech fronds sandwiched between sheets of translucent plastic materials. Very cool stuff. Very heavy. So, I'm very happy it's finally up - that happened last week. For the last eternity, we'd had three holes in the kitchen and the living room (on the other side of the wall) opening to the stairwell to downstairs.

So, you can see we're not unhappy with the progress, though there are some definite things we wish were finished - like the doors. The sconces. Oh, I'll spare you the enumeration of shit we/they haven't done.

I did learn some things about contractors and I will share them with you.

1. Contractors require contracts, otherwise you're just working hand to mouth.
2. Contractors require constant supervision, otherwise they'll only work as long as you're in the building.
3. Contractors like to drink beer, chase women, father children out of wedlock and wear western shirts.
4. Contractors would rather not do what they've contracted to do. They'd rather do other things. See #3.
5. Without a contract stipulating a timeline for completion, contractors will make sure it takes a year and a half (or more) to finish the job.
6. Work is never done on time, but payment is expected, promptly.
7. Contractors don't do what they say they will do. See #4 (I think it bears repeating)
8. There's a reason contractors work with their hands; their heads are fucking stupid.

I could go on, but why bother. I'll leave you with a few more photos of life in our incomplete (though beautiful) kitchen.

Cookie admires the dishwasher.

The Cookster moves in for the kill.
The Cookster performs her deadly pre-wash attack!