Dave's Fiction Warehouse

I 'm happy Pope Francis was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” As popes go, he’s not bad. It says something about the Vatican that when somebody who works there actually walks the walk in regard to Christianity, it’s quite amazing and newsworthy. So: Good job, Frank. But don’t get all prideful, because look at your competition: Ted Cruz? Are you kidding me? Bashir Assad? I know, Time always qualifies its annual award by saying it’s all about influence — good or bad — as opposed to making the world a better place. But still. When the name of the award is “Person of the Year,” it always sounds like an honor. And it always seems like smarmy equivocation to short-list people who are, arguably, nothing more than headline-whores and amoral assholes. It’s worth noting that Time‘s annual honor was called “Man of the Year” until 1999. Women were not considered very influential until that date. Oops. Sorry, Maggie! Sorry, Indira! Past winners include Hitler, Stalin, Khrushchev and K...

Give us a kiss. W e all have our guilty pleasures, and mine at the moment is " The Strain ," the TV adaptation of the books by Guillermo del Toro. It's all about vampires taking over New York City. It's like "The Walking Dead," except, you know, with vampires. And an evil presence orchestrating the whole thing. You can see why it's a guilty pleasure. But bear with me. These aren't the glamorous, simpering vampires we've become used to through certain young-adult novels. Yes, they feast on human blood, but they lurch around like zombies and attack via a snake-like appendage that erupts from the mouth, like a frog nailing a fly. Much more efficient than fangs. The appendage is a two-way conduit: while delivering blood to the vampire, it delivers the little white parasitic worms that eventually turn the victim into yet another vampire.  Disgusting, yes. And a refreshing departure from the canon. Vampires are supposed to elicit horror, as opposed to ...

S arah Palin has come out of seclusion to demand that President Obama be impeached .  Obama should take some comfort from that, since Palin's support on any issue, historically, has been a pretty sure sign that the opposite will happen.  Part of me wants to believe that Palin's "blistering op-ed" on Breitbart was written  by someone else, since she rarely communicates in complete sentences. But her lede (journalism lingo there) makes me think she wrote at least this much: "Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president. His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, 'no mas.'" Here we have three distinct metaphors in one sentence: the overburdened camel, the abusive husband, and welterweight boxer Roberto Duran. A hat trick! Too bad it won't all fit on a bumper sticker. She also includes herself among "we average Americans" and derides the president's "friendly wealthy bipartisan eli...

O nce again, I was summoned for jury duty. Once again, I was dismissed after spending half a day at court, shivering in the hyperactive AC. I'm beginning to think lawyers mistake my naturally shifty look for a vengeful nature. Maybe it's just as well. You only get paid $40 a day. And after the judge explained the facts of the civil case in question, I was already thinking it sounded way too complicated:  A young woman and her pre-teen daughter were going down I-75 in a minivan when some jerk in a pickup forced her off to the shoulder; she over-corrected and the van crossed traffic to collide with the guard rail. The two were unhurt; the pickup driver never  bothered to stop. But then a semi came up and rear-ended the van, injuring both the woman and the little girl. She was seeking around $200k for medical bills and whatnot. The only thing I could think of was the asshole in the pickup -- surely the proximate cause of the accident. He was caught and charged. But I don't sup...

W ho among us has not spent 15 minutes perusing Facebook without at some point concluding that life could be better? Show of hands. Now we know why. It's not that life sucks, per se; it's just that the geniuses at Facebook were messing with us. They wanted to know if small variations in the number of cat videos and dinner entrees and vacation sunsets could have an effect on one's mood. They fixed it so that instead of yet another hilarious meme or Buzzfeed quiz, one might see one of those pathetic posts from someone complaining about their neighbors or contemplating suicide. Turns out it makes a difference! According to the data, plaintive cries for help are kind of depressing, while getting 10 likes on an Instagram photo induces a euphoria akin to orgasm. If the research can be trusted, we may now conclude that positive things make people happy, and negative things don't!  This has profound implications.  Of course, a number of people immediately got on Facebook to bit...

I f you only watch the Hulu promo for "Rev.," you might think it's just another "Vicar of Dibley" or "Father Ted" -- a catchphrase-heavy sitcom about zany English vicars and their zany congregations.  It's actually a lot better than that. Having just watched the third (and probably final) season on Hulu, I consider it another of those miniature BBC masterpieces, like "The Office" or "Fawlty Towers." I say "miniature" because the best BBC sitcoms almost always have the good taste to wrap it up after a couple of seasons. And each season usually consists of only 6 or 7 episodes. Imagine if American sitcoms did that. Imagine The Fonz with a character arc, Jed Clampett saying to hell with Beverly Hills after 13 shows. Maybe the writing would have been better. "Rev." has some great writing: funny and poignant, often at the same time. Tom Hollander does play an English vicar (the Rev. Adam Smallbone), but his crumb...

T oday, for the first time in years, I was out the door and walking before 7:30 a.m. That's quite a departure for a guy who has never been a morning person.  But I've been forced into it. Even though the official first day of summer was just a couple of days ago, here in the Sunshine State it's been summer since about April Fool's Day.   By "summer," I mean that season when the local dress code reverts to shirtlessness and flip-flops for anything short of funerals. Around here, a hat and a pair of cargo shorts are all the wardrobe you need until about Halloween. Fishnet tank-top optional. Especially after the solstice. Besides the temperature, the weather app on my computer also shows what it "feels like," accounting for factors like 98 percent humidity, no breeze and a fair amount of rotting trash and dog shit along my route.  A couple of days ago, it reported that although the temperature was 94, it would feel like 104. After wading through a few m...

S ometimes as a kid I’d pick a word at random and just repeat it over and over. I found it interesting how quickly the word would lose its meaning and become just this odd sound issuing from my mouth. (Yeah, I had kind of a relaxed schedule as a kid.) I thought of this after Variety recently noted the new record for film use of the word “fuck”: Martin Scorcese’s The Wolf of Wall Street uses it — drumroll — 506 times! That’s a fuckload of fucking f-words! If you’ll pardon my fucking French. The only words used more often were “the” and the pronoun “I.” If you’d asked me earlier, I would have guessed the record-holder to be Goodfellas (300 times) or The Big Lebowski (292 times.) Hard to imagine a time when one use of the word “damn” created such a stir in Gone With the Wind. We’ve come a long way. I completely understand why Mom, whom I’ve heard swear exactly twice in six decades, doesn’t go to the movies anymore. I also understand why Scorcese keeps upping the f-word ante. I’m quite su...

H ere’s a sad sight on New Year’s Day: a fully trimmed Christmas tree taken out with the trash. I know some people get sick to death of holiday details, but wouldn’t you want to save some of those ornaments? No doubt there’s a story here that I really don’t want to know. As I’ve mentioned before: We live in an odd neighborhood.