Big Words Radio Episode XXXXVI: ‘Peep Show’ with Joe Matt!

Better late than never….

After a scheduling snafu with guest Joe Matt (without a home computer, he didn’t have time to check the original date at the library), we reconvened the phone interview at Think Twice yesterday on December 8th. This worked out well, as one of my original co-hosts dropped out (Ian Chrystal) due to the fact that he moved to New Orleans and my other original co-host (Don from Don’s Atomic Comics) couldn’t make the original studio date. During the interim, former Monster Of Verse and gifted comic writer artist in his own right Kyle Kaczmarzcyk (The Red Eye) joined the co-hosting team for the show and brought his own brand of spiced summer sausage into the mix. At any rate, here’s your synopsis:

Episode XXXXVI: ‘Peep Show’ : Tom and dual co-hosts Don (from Don’s Atomic Comics) and Kyle Kaczmarczyk pick mythic writer artist Joe Matt’s brain (Spent, The Poor Bastard, Fair Weather) about his next graphic novel project, the future of the comics industry, digital inking and Viewmaster Reels.

To hear the show in full audio quality, click your way over to: http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html  

If you want to listen to the show in addition to bonus episodes, sound clips and pretty pictures, park your butt over at: http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

…and you can still subscribe to the show for free on ‘the iTunes’ by searching ‘Big Words Radio’ under your podcast browser.

…and finally, you can rate the show, become a fan, or post comments on individual episodes over at: http://www.bigwords.mevio.com

A big thanks goes out to Joe Matt for rolling with the punches during the show, Drawn & Quarterly Publishers for putting me in touch, Don for peppering the show with glowing praise, Kyle for continuing to tolerate my abuse, and producer Richard Wicka for playing ringmaster during the proceedings. I’d also like to bid a fond farewell to Ian Chrystal and his lovely girlfriend Rachel now that they’ve uprooted. We’re going to miss you, your pithy commentary and your surly demeanor.

My next studio date is at the beginning of February and I’m hard at work on booking a quality guest. Don and I both talked on the ride home about finding a happy balance on the show between completely over-the-top offensive comedy and an informative interview talk-show format. Obviously, I’m still working on that. Stay tuned for more episodes. I’m sure I can fit one in some time in January if the right guest(s) pop up…..

Tom Waters

Big Words Radio Episode XXXXV: ‘Segway’ with Canto V, countdown to Joe Matt!

I had some difficulties posting this show, but after ironing out some kinks with the bit rate, it finally posted today:

Episode XXXXV Synopsis:Wherein the Big Words One Man Mobile Unit hangs with progressive metal-heads Canto V during a rehearsal for an upcoming sold-out concert at Club Diablo. Tom bumps his head on the basement ceiling, refers to drummer Eric Dietz by the wrong name and finds multiple occasions to insult returning co-host Jeff Schmithe.

-To tune in, click on over to http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com. You can also subscribe for free to Big Words Radio on ‘the iTunes’.

This is a super-sized episode clocking in at an hour and seven minutes, so there wasn’t any room for intro/outro music. Thanks to Diabetes Dave and the rest of the band for a great concert. If you have a chance, check them out this Friday (December 4th) at Club Diablo!
And speaking of shows, we’re just three days away from comic icon Joe Matt! Tune in this Thursday night for what’s sure to be an entertaining hour with the offbeat artist/writer behind Spent, Fair Weather and The Poor Bastard.

Big Words Radio Episode XXXXIV: ‘Two Rooms At The End Of The World’

There’s an interesting story behind this one…

Initially, I tried to secure comic wunderkinds Mike Carey OR Joe Matt for the show.  By some quirk of fate, writer Mike Carey AND artist Peter Gross (Unwritten, Lucifer) agreed to a dual interview.  To top it all off, Joe Matt agreed to the next studio show on December 3rd!  Here is your synopsis:

Episode XXXXIV: ‘Two Rooms At The End Of The World’

Tom talks with Eisner-Award winning writer Mike Carey and Eisner-Award winning artist Peter Gross about their new best-selling DC/Vertigo series ‘The Unwritten’. Co-host Jeff Schmithe shows up and fails terribly.

To hear the show in full audio quality, click on: http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

For the show and a cover photo from Unwritten, visit: http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

You can also subscribe to the show by searching ‘Big Words Radio’ under the Podcasts section on ‘the iTunes’.

Thanks to Mike and Peter for coordinating the interview even with the time difference in England.  Thanks also to Ian Chrystal for an assist on the Q&A where artistic questions are concerned.  I’d also like to wish producer Richard Wicka a happy birthday.

Tune in on December 3rd for Joe Matt with co-hosts Don and Ian from DON’S ATOMIC COMICS!

Thanks,

Tom Waters

Big Words Radio ‘Parter Of Two’ With Reverse Vector!

            After a less than optimal recording session at Faso’s in August, Pheonix Resistance disbanded.  And like a pheonix rising from the ashes, Johnny Pharaoh (the Artist formerly known as Johnny Berlin) formed a new band (Reverse Vector) and we went back to the drawing board to record two new shows live from Club Lobdell on location at Rushford Lake with special outspoken guest Auntie Linda!  Here are your synopses:

 

Episode XXXXII: ‘Reverse Vector Live At Club Lobdell!’

Johnny Pharaoh (the Artist formerly known as Johnny Berlin) and Tyler Christian of the newly formed super band Reverse Vector rock out with their scotch cocks out at the luxurious Club Lobdell located on ‘this Lake Of Rushford’.

 

Episode XXXXIII: ‘Auntie Linda Strikes Back!’

In Part One of a ‘parter of two’ that will rock your partials out, Tom interviews band life partners Johnny Pharoah and Tyler Christian of the newly formed Reverse Vector at ground zero in Club Lobdell on Rushford Lake. Like an insidious venereal disease, Auntie Linda rears her ugly head and bares her scotch-soaked claws towards her only son…

 To hear both shows, click on over to:

http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

-or-

http://www.bigwords.mevio.com

-You can also subscribe to the show for free on ‘the iTunes’ by searching ‘Big Words Radio’ in the podcasts section.

     Thanks to Johnny, Tyler and Auntie Linda for knocking one out of the park the second time around.  Linda definitely brought more hilarity to the table that we wouldn’t have if we published the first two shows. 

            My next Think Twice in-studio date is on Thursday, October 22^nd at 7 p.m.  I’m still working on a celebrity guest, but there are a few avenues I’m exploring.  It’s going to be tough to top John Valby, but I’m sure as hell going to try.  Have a great week,

            Tom Waters

Big Words Radio Episode XXXXI: ‘Sing, F&%#in’ Sing!’ with guest John Valby

What a great show yesterday!  It took a lot of prep work and more than a few emails back and forth, but it was worth it.  Here’s your synopsis:

 

Episode XXXXI: ‘Sing, F&%#in’ Sing!’

Tom and co-host Lindsay 2 talk to Buffalo legend John ‘Dr. Dirty’ Valby about marriage, politics and an internship in boob autographs.

 

    To listen to the episode on Think Twice, click your way over to:

    http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

 

    To hear the show on the official Big Words Radio site (accompanied by an adorable photo of John),

    click on over to:http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

    or subscribe for FREE on iTunes by searching ‘Big Words Radio’ in the Podcast section. 

    You can also hear the episode later this weekend at: http://www.bigwords.mevio.com

    

    A big thanks goes out to John Valby as well as John’s manager Paul Lamanna for helping to put this interview together.  John was a treat to interview, tremendously down to earth, and hilarious in everyday conversation.  Another big thanks goes out to Lindsay 2 for stepping up to the plate admirably as a co-host as well as her husband Nico for making frequent beer runs during the taping of the episode.  Thanks also to Richard Wicka at Think Twice for smoothing me out when I went into freakout mode shortly after 7 p.m. when the phone wasn’t ringing.

    What the hell are you waiting for?  Dial up the show on your intraweb already!

    Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update: S&S Launch Saturday, WYRK tomorrow, John Valby Thursday!

            It’s gonna be a busy week.

            Tomorrow morning, I’ll be driving downtown to talk to Clay and Dale at Country 106.5 FM (WYRK) to give away some books on the air and discuss the big Slapstick & Superego launch at Magruder’s this weekend.  If you’re listening in, I should be on some time after 8 a.m.      This Thursday, I’ll have the distinct pleasure of interviewing John ‘Dr. Dirty’ Valby at the Think Twice Radio studio for Episode 41 of The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour.  Valby is a Buffalo music legend and I look forward to finding out what makes him tick over the course of the hour. 

            And this Saturday, the Slapstick & Superego book launch is finally hitting at Magruder’s in Lancaster from 6 p.m.-10 p.m.  After responding to your feedback from a questionnaire last spring and tailoring this launch to reader responses, I truly hope that there’s a record turnout for this event since this is my first booking at Magruder’s and I’d like it to be successful for both of us.  For those attending, the launch will take place on the second floor of the building.  Signed copies of the book will be available for $19.99, so bring your wallet and a sense of humor!  September looks like it may be too hectic for any readings or in-store promotions, so this will probably be your only chance to get the book before October!  Don’t miss out!

            Night Life Magazine drops this week with ‘Babes On A Plane’, a rant about, well, babies on planes from Slapstick & Superego. 

            That’s all I’ve got for today.  I hope to see you all this Saturday at Magruder’s and wish me luck tomorrow and Thursday!

            Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update!: Obstruction

Yeah…

The Pheonix Resistance show went less than satisfactory for me on the recording end or the band while they were performing last Friday. Blame it on the Big Words poltergeist or band-related drama, but I’ll be reviewing the audio this week to find out if portions of the show are worth salvaging or if we’ll have to scrap the whole evening and start over from scratch.

And I’m officially blocked, so, much like previous blocks, I won’t be updating on the site too often aside from Mondays until further notice. I’ll be spending a lot of my down time in the coming months promoting Slapstick & Superego along with working on the remaining submissions that Alycia Ripley and I have left for the Buffalo Anthology Project, so stay tuned here for S & S updates and feel free to visit the anthology site over at http://www.buffaloanthology.blogspot.com for any relevant information regarding that. Aside from that, I’m sure I’ve got twelve to fourteen months of a creative blackout to look forward to, so I’ll spare both of us the anguish/aggravation of giving you a play-by-play on it.

Night Life magazine hits the stands this week with the conclusion to ‘A Preacher, A Rabbi and a Minister Go Into A Bank At The Same Time’, my essay from First Person, Last Straw about the perils of organized religion. That’s all I’ve got for this week. If something else pops up, I’ll be sure to drop you all a line.

Take care,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Post Infringement/Pre-Pheonix Resistance

 Whelp, last week was interesting. 

The Kahle & Co. radio show went very well last Wednesday on 1340 AM.  Brian Kahle and myself riffed away, talked about the new book, and of course, I worked in more plugs than I should have.  Thanks are in order to Brian for being kind (or daring) enough to have me on the show again.  While Lockport is a bit of a hike, he’s got a very loyal audience and I always appreciate their time.

The 5^th annual Buffalo Infringement Festival also wrapped up over the weekend and I had an interesting time reading at Nobody’s Art Space on Elmwood and Forest.  A special thanks goes out to Josh Smith and the rest of the Infringement organizers for giving me the freedom to either read or set up a table at my scheduled events.  Josh also got a five minute sound byte out of me for his own radio show, ‘The Way Up’, which you can listen to at thinktwiceradio.com or on ‘the iTunes’. 

This upcoming Friday, I’ll be recording a ‘parter of two’ at Faso’s Grateful Bear & Grill on 1506 Abbott Rd. in Lackawanna.  The event?  None other than The Pheonix Resistance (whom all of you got to hear first-hand at the Big Words Radio Anniversary party) performing a live concert at Faso’s!  I’ll be interviewing Johnny Berlin and the rest of the band before the show itself and the band will start tearing it up some time around 9 p.m.  Tickets will be $3 at the door, so if you want to be part of the next Big Words Radio Show, stop on out!

Speaking of events (nudge nudge), we’re less than a month away from the official Slapstick & Superego Book Release Party at Magruder’s Restaurant on Saturday, August 29^th from 6 p.m.-10 p.m.  If you haven’t marked your calendars yet, please do so now.  Attendance is free but book purchases ($19.99) are strongly encouraged. 

And finally, the new issue of Night Life hits stands today with Part 1 of  ‘A Preacher, A Minister And A Rabbi Walk Into A Bank At The Same Time’, the religious tirade I read on Episode XXXIV of Big Words Radio. 

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print this week.  I’ll talk to you all in a few days,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Kahle & Co. This Weds., WYRK in August, Snafu w/Infringement…

For those of you who follow me on Twitter, have me as a friend on Facebook (or joined the Big Words I Know By Heart Group or the Big Words Radio Group), you’ve gotten your share of sneak peaks for each Monday and Wednesday Update as each newsworthy item develops. So if you haven’t yet, feel free to friend me and join the groups! Now on to everything else…

I’ll be going on the ‘Kahle & Co.’ radio show this Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. on 1370 AM (WLVL) to talk with Brian Kahle about Slapstick & Superego as well as the upcoming launch. Make sure to tune in since Brian and I always manage to have a good time getting caught up. I also got a confirmation late last week that I’ll be going on Country 106.5 WYRK on Tuesday, August 25th with Clay and Dale in the morning (around 8 or 8:30 AM) to talk about the book launch a few days beforehand. Clay and Dale are great guys and I’m really looking forward to going back for the first time in a few years to talk shop with them.

I also had a great time taking part in the Buffalo Infringement Festival at Neitsche’s two days ago. There were a lot of great bands, I ran into a few people I wasn’t expecting to run into, and Kyle Kaczmarzcyk and I split a table and did the meet-and-greet with many of the festival attendees. Unfortunately, I was off on my times for BOTH shows I was supposed to participate in on Sunday and was unable to make either of them. This was a minor scheduling error that turned into a massive clusterf&%#k, so I apologize if you came out to see me at either event. I rarely (if ever) miss a gig, but when I do, it’s a doozy, so again, sincere apologies…

 As for Big Words Radio, both new sites are tracking at around 352 total downloads for the month of July. Not too shabby. I’ve got two or three more episodes to post on mevio.com and I’m phasing one ‘classic’ Big Words show per week on podomatic, so it’s nice to see that the show is picking up new listeners via multiple avenues on the web as well as ‘the Ipod’. It would be really nice if mypodcast.com could get their stat tracker back up on running, but I’m not holding my breath.

And finally, Night Life magazine rolls out this week with part 2 of ‘Perpetual Estrogen’, my categorical essay on the universal traits of women. Grab it while it’s out!

So please tune in to WLVL this Wednesday or if you have the time and inclination, catch me at Nobody’s Art Space this Saturday or Nietsche’s this Sunday for the final lap of the Buffalo Infringement Festival! Have a great week,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Slapstick Launch Revisited, Infringement, Kahle & Co. Visit, & John Valby Booked For Big Words Radio!

Okay, I’ve got a helluva lot of ground to cover this week, so I’ll attempt to do it as quickly as possible…. First off, if you didn’t catch the announcement last week, the official book launch for Slapstick & Superego is going down on Saturday, August 29th at Magruder’s Restaurant (2nd floor) from 6-10 p.m.. Signed first editions will be available for $19.99, so mark your calendar and round up the calvalry.

Secondly, I’ll be at the Buffalo Infringement Festival this weekend as well as next weekend to hawk some books and perhaps read some new material. For times and locations, click on over to their web site at: http://infringebuffalo.org/showInfo.php?id=51.

Next Wednesday, I’ll be popping in to talk to long-time pal Brian Kahle about the new book and the book launch during his ‘Kahle & Company’ radio show on 1340 AM at 12:30 on WLVL. Brian’s a great guy with a loyal following and I always make a point of popping in on his show every time a new book comes out, so tune in if you’ve got the time.

And speaking of radio shows, I got confirmation this weekend that John ‘Dr.Dirty’ Valby will be appearing on the next studio episode of Big Words Radio on Thursday, August 27th at 7 p.m.! John is a legend in the Buffalo music scene and I’m exhilarated that I’ll have a chance to sit down and talk to him about his illustrious career. As far as Big Words Radio goes, I’ve posted over 30 existing shows onto the new sister site at www.bigwords.mevio.com. In seven days, the show has been downloaded 70 times so far and their audience is just getting their first taste! The stat breakdown is pretty comprehensive, and it gives me the benefit of a full breakdown on individual episodes downloaded, most popular shows, etc. All 50+ shows should be up on mevio by week’s end.

And finally, Night Life magazine drops this week with Part 1 of ‘Perpetual Estrogen’, a categorical look at the universal rules regarding women. Grab a copy on stands everywhere!

With a clear launch date, I’ll be devoting more time this week to setting up promotional spots leading up to the launch as well as a bevy of appearances throughout the fall following the launch. The motto for the S&S junket will be ‘less is more’: less appearances with more publicity behind each individual booking. After coming out of a six month junket with both Breathing Rooms, I’d rather make each spot count than exhaust myself with an obstacle course of endless spots. The next twelve months should be twice as successful and just as busy as the last twelve.

So stop out to Infringement this weekend, tune into 1340 next Wednesday and I’ll drop you all a line later this week!

 Sincerely,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update! At Long Last, The Slapstick & Superego Book Launch Announcement!

            After a lengthy online questionnaire, plenty of feedback and half a summer of ironing out the fine details, I’m pleased to announce the official launch for Slapstick & Superego. 

            You are cordially invited to attend a live (and recorded) evening of comedy to commemorate the release of my eighth book on Saturday, August 29^th from 6-10 p.m. on the second floor of Magruder’s restaurant located at 4995 Broadway in Lancaster.  Mark your calendar now because the evening is going to be one to remember. Admission will be free, but multiple book purchases are strongly encouraged.   

            Thanks to all of you for your feedback regarding the impending launch.  Out of all the responses I received, the one deal-breaker came down to everyone’s desire that the launch take place on a weekend, so you got your wish.  After an hour or two of rants, I’ll be selling and signing First Edition copies of Slapstick & Superego for the eminently reasonable price of $19.99.   

            I’d like to book a band (acoustic or soft rock, preferably), but nothing is confirmed yet.  I’ll keep you posted after I put the feelers out to a few people.    

            As a longtime resident of Lancaster, I’ve always preferred to conduct the book launches in my town, spreading out to the city of Buffalo and beyond afterwards.  I’m a small town guy at heart, and I’d rather run the regional gauntlet afterwards. 

            Expect five or six months of promotions in bookstores, bars and reading venues all over Buffalo afterwards, but if you want to scoop the book up on day one, call your sitter, ask off from work or ride out with your friends, because this particular book starts at Magruder’s. 

            I’ll be putting some time in over the next five or six weeks setting up radio spots, interviews and press coverage to publicize this event.  Please bring your friends, round up a posse and call in the do what you can so that we can make this the biggest event Lancaster has seen to date!

            All early responses on the book have been through the roof.  All of the reader feedback I’ve received thus far shows that this book is going to go the distance.  Let’s launch it in style and show the rest of Buffalo what they have to look forward to.

            I’m psyched with the new venue, the launch date, and a solid battle plan.  Early copies have been selling through by the bushel. 

            I can’t wait.

            See you there?

            Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Convergence

            Thank GOD I’ve got a word processing program again.  After six weeks without one, I’m surprised that I made it without clawing the walls like DeSade.  The only problem is that I’m blocked now, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing considering that there’s a lot of other things that need immediate attention.

            I’ll be devoting most of my free time this week to a) working on the Buffalo Anthology now that the final deadline came and went, b) writing a review on Kyle Kaczmarzcyk’s newly released Red Eye trade paperback (for ordering info visit: http://www.zombieworx.com), c) meeting on Tuesday with a certain Lancaster establishment regarding a late August book launch for Slapstick & Superego (and not the place you’d think), and d) porting the radio show over to some new sites. 

            At the risk of confusing the hell out of everybody, the stat tracker on mypodcast.com. has gone haywire and isn’t recording the amount of downloads performed since the beginning of June.  This is a serious issue and it doesn’t appear as if anyone is monitoring the site for maintenance purposes.  So if it’s not too much trouble (or if you haven’t heard the original shows yet), I’d prefer it if you listened to the show at either http://www.bigwordsradio.podomatic.com or http://www.bigwords.mevio.com.  After signing up and uploading to about two dozen sites in the last week, though, Mevio appears to be the site where I’ll be permanently moving my base of operations.  They’ve got unlimited space, easy upload interface, and a lot of other positive factors in their favor.  The podomatic site is restricted in terms of space, so I’ll be uploading one classic Big Words show per week and phasing out the oldest one if you feel like subscribing from there.  This whole process should take about a month to complete. 

            As for the official web site (http://www.tomfoolery4.wordpress.com) the unique hits took a sharp uphill climb yesterday to the tune of 90 unique hits (with the majority of hits coming from the Mitchell’s Tavern fiasco).  Stats are important to me because I like to see what shows and posts are getting play and which ones aren’t.  I also broke down and joined Twitter, so if you want to add me, you can find me under tomfoolery4. 

            Okay, enough technical mumbo jumbo.  Thanks for all the feedback on last week’s Quixote Wednesday post.  The general consensus is that I should keep bitching when I feel like it, so if I’ve got a bone to pick on a Wednesday, I’ll post it.  If I don’t, I’ll write some time later in the week just to check in with you.  Sound good?   Fair enough.

            That’s really all I’ve got for you this week.  Scoop up Night Life magazine this week for ‘Beating The Shakes’, a summer repeat about the evils of coffee addiction.  Cross your fingers for me tomorrow and hopefully I’ll have an announcement on the S & S launch! 

            Have a great week,

            Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Up For Suggestions/Last Word On MJ…

    Okay. I’m not sure what to do with these Wednesday updates during the weeks when I don’t have anything to bitch about and when I’m not railing against a specific target.  The entire point of doing these Quixote Wednesdays (in the spirit of the namesake) was to rail against a lost cause, or to fight a battle that most people in their right mind wouldn’t fight.  So where do we go from here?

    I’d rather not plug or promote, because I do enough of that during the Monday Updates.  And I’d rather not piss and moan about something unless it’s really getting my goat, and I’m not always hopping mad about anything in particular every single week (after the Gamestop situation, that is).  So I’ll put this particular weekly installment in your hands, dear readers: would you rather a) see this feature disappear to be replaced by posts that aren’t so regular throughout the week, b) see a Quixote Wednesday Update when the mood strikes or c) hear me complain about something insignificant that happens to be bothering me every single week?

    Feedback is KEY here.  If I hear nothing by the end of this week, I’ll assume that no one is reading and that you really have no opinion whatsoever in this matter and I’ll just proceed to do whatever the hell I want.  I can tell by the stats that there are those of you who check in every Wednesday, so I would APPRECIATE some feedback here.  Feel free to email said feedback to:

    bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

    Your emails will be anonymous if you wish or credited if you prefer.

    In the mean time, I’ll give you a parting crusade:

    The Michael Jackson funeral bandwagon is really starting to aggravate me this week.  For the last twenty or so years, most people couldn’t have cared less about his music, his career, or his personal character.  He was branded a freak or a medical curiosity by the media and he was more of a curiosity in the tabloids than anything else.  Now that he’s dead, every other person has branded him something close to a musical visionary, and his personal habits, proclivities and inclinations have been set aside.  I continue to be disgusted by the magnetic appeal of celebrity deaths.  

    Where were all of you hangers on for the last four or five albums?  How many of you own a Michael Jackson CD, and did you buy one before he died or afterwards?  Can you name an album he’s released aside from Thriller?  Let’s go in order, shall we?  Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, History, Blood On The Dance Floor, and Invincible.  How many do you own?  Right.

    Don’t just jump into the cult of popular consensus because the man died.  I’m a fan of Michael’s music (and wrote about it FOUR years ago in If They Can’t Take A Joke), but I’ve read enough biographies about him that I’m almost positive he was a pedophile. 

    The majority of you are poseurs, and you make me sick.  This sort of sheep-thinking leads me to believe that the nation would weep over Vlad The Impaler if he passed away suddenly under media fanfare in our day and age.  Don’t hop onto something that you know nothing about and don’t latch onto a cause or the passing of a famous person of interest if you had no clue about them in the first place. 

    ENOUGH with the MJ nonsense.  Really.  Fuck off with it.  Join a Jonas Brothers fan club or buy some Bills season tickets if you feel that you need to belong to some cause that everyone else is into.  The stir that his death has caused (and the nation of people who have flip-flopped now that he’s dead) astound me and should embarrass them.  

    The sort of people who get suddenly wrapped up in cultural phenomena for the sake of it truly make me sick.  You are cattle, plain and simple.  Pick your own interests, stick with them and don’t believe or follow what your televisions tell you is important.

    Okay, so this turned out to be a pretty good Quixote Wednesday.  Final thoughts?  Fuck off, MJ-come-lately’s. 

    Again, email with your thoughts on the Wednesday situation: bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com 

    Talk to you soon,

    Tom Waters  

Monday Big Words Update! Recognition, Expansion & Promotion

What a difference a few days make!

    Brian Meyer from The Buffalo News was kind enough to let me know that ‘Cherish Your Freedom On Independence Day’ (the My View piece that ran on July 4th) was their #1 article on buffalonews.com for July 4th and the better part of July 5th!  I was hoping that the article would strike a chord with readers, but I had no idea it would hit home with so many!  I was astonished last year when I found out that the Town Of Lancaster sealed ‘Lancaster Feels Like Home To Me’ into a 100 year time capsule, but this is quite a milestone in its own right.  Thanks to all of you who read My View and thanks for all the kind words of praise.  It means a lot. 

    In addition, I’ve been spending some time this weekend getting the word out online on The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour.  Without getting into too much technical mumbo jumbo, I’ve syndicated some of the earlier shows on to podomatic.com and listed the show on a great deal of directories and feed aggregators.  This basically means that there’ll be more online beacons for the uninitiated to find the show.  While the mypodcast.com site has plenty of room and looks sharp, they’ve been having some problems with tracking accurate statistics in the last six weeks, so I’m looking at some alternatives for setting up shop down the road.  In the mean time, I’ll be experimenting with some of these other free hosting sites and seeing which one works best before setting up shop for good on another site.  If you want to check out, become a fan of, or subscribe to the sister site, here’s the address:

    http://www.bigwordsradio.podOmatic.com

    The stats for the show on podomatic are pretty all-inclusive and they give me a better indicator of how well each show is doing, how many people are listening, etc.  My goals for Big Words Radio Year 2 are to reach a larger audience, book bigger and better celebrities, and scale back on the number of new shows in order to strive for quality over quantity.  I’ll be implementing a lot of these goals over the course of this summer.

    And later this month (as well as the beginning of August), I’ll be taking part in the Buffalo Infringement Festival downtown to promote Slapstick & Superego before the official launch.  I’m still ironing out the details for the launch, but here are the dates, locations and times where you can catch me during Infringement:

    7/25 9pm Nietzsche’s (Part of Space Alien Love Fest)
    7/26 5pm – 7pm Rust Belt Books (Solo)
    7/26 5pm – 8:30pm Rock Harbor Yard (Part of Zombie Fest)
    8/1 9pm Nobody’s Art Center (Part of Nobody’s Pirate Party)
    8/2 8pm Nietzsche’s (Part of Infringement Awards Ceremony and Closing Party)

    A big thanks goes out to organizer Josh Smith for working around my hectic schedule to make this happen as well as the rest of the organizers for the Buffalo Infringement Festival.  This will be the first time I’ve taken part in Infringement, so I’m looking forward to the experience and I’m intrigued to meet and greet with some of the other artists, poets, musicians and writers taking part in the event.  If you’re calendar is free at the end of July or the beginning of August, come out and say hi!

    And finally, Night Life magazine hits the stands with a vengeance today with ‘How To Be A Slob -or- Why Martha Stewart Won’t Return My Phone Calls’, an older essay from Zany Hijinx. 

    That’s all I’ve got for you today.  Lindsay and I are still working on getting a word processing program for our loaner, so I’m holding off on writing anything new since I abhor Wordpad and would rather wait to write on something I’m familiar with.  I’ll talk to you all in two days,

    Tom Waters

2 poems in AV this week, My View this weekend…

    I was thumbing through ArtVoice yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to see that they ran ‘token excuses for block’ and ‘listening to thelonius monk’ (from Breathing Room Volume I) in their ‘in the margins section’ in this week’s issue!  I still don’t have the slightest idea when the Joe Nickell interview is running (if ever) along with another piece I was assigned to write, spent money on and wrote LAST SUMMER, so it was nice to see a few poems that were recently accepted run so soon.  As for the other two, this has happened so many times with no clear indicator as to why the pieces haven’t run that I’ve lost any hope of them seeing print in AV.

    As for other publications, be on the lookout in the Buffalo News My View section this weekend (most likely on July 4th) for ‘Declaration’, a new essay I wrote about how Independence Day means a lot more to me than just fireworks and backyard barbeques.  I showed it to my buddy Brendan (the same one who recently co-hosted Episode 40) and he gave it the thumbs up, so odds are that it’s going to go over like gangbusters.  

     I hope you enjoy your 4th of July and don’t forget to grab a copy of ArtVoice and the Buffalo News this weekend!

    Tom Waters 

2 New Shows! Episode 40: ‘Septuagenarian Stew’ & Will Holton Live @ The Tralf!

    Yesterday’s show was ridiculous!  A big thanks goes out to Mike ‘ring a ding’ Mariani and Gun Nut Brendan for bringing their A game and keeping the dialogue snappy and laugh-out-loud funny.  You won’t believe it until you hear it:

 

Episode 40 Synopsis:

    With no celebrity guest in sight, Tom viciously attacks his good buddy Mike. Gun-nut Brendan returns as co-host emeritus to get a few cheap shots in while mourning the loss of Michael Jackson.

 

    And I finally finished editing and posting Will Holton’s fantastic concert from mid-April at the Tralf.  I’m still peeved that the hour of conversation we had in November was lost (due to a technical glitch with the recording program I work on), but I’m glad his music made it through the process:

 

Will Holton Live At The Tralf:

     National recording artist Will Holton plays out to a sold-out crowd at the Tralfamadore in downtown Buffalo during a multi-city tour to promote the release of his debut album ‘Always’. 

 

    Thanks again to Will Holton and Tony Shep for the VIP passes and Jesse Rejewski of JR Audio for full access to the sound boards during the show.  The sound quality is top notch and if you enjoy jazz, you’re in for a treat.

 

    To hear both shows online, pop on over to http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com .

    To subscribe for free on iTunes, search ’Big Words Radio’ in the Podcasts section.

 

    And with that, I’m completely caught up on the older shows!  Next week, I can start recording some new material and causing more mayhem in the greater Buffalo area.  Have a great rest of the week and enjoy the shows!

    Tom Waters   

Monday Big Words Update! Clearing The Slate

By the end of this week, I’ll be completely caught up on all previous radio shows.  At some point in the next two days, I’ll be posting a concert with Buffalo jazz great Will Holton live from the Tralf.  I also found a hilarious bonus clip from the anniversary show with Zombie Chris.  You can find that on the Big Words Radio site right now!  Aside from a few other odds and ends, that brings me totally up to speed so that I can finally start working on some new One Man Mobile Units. 

    And it looks like my co-host Man-Whore Mike and myself will be flying solo this Wednesday for the Think Twice in-studio date, so buckle up, because my only recourse is a no-holds barred skewering of my co-host ala the Auntie Linda episode.  The shows were beginning to get tame anyway, so this should be a nice return to core values. 

    It took three months to get the radio show current, from building a new site and porting all of the previous shows to editing and producing the backlog.  Sadly, my interview with Will Holton from November is lost to the ages, along with the final Monsters Of Verse performance.  The show must go on, though. 

    And whenever we get our new computer in, I’ve got some serious catching up to do with the Buffalo Anthology Project, as well as the working manuscript for poke the scorpion with a sharp stick.  The downside of having such a productive year is that it’s going to take me another six months to get caught up with the existing material I have.  Between those two tasks and the upcoming promotional launch for Slapstick & Superego, I’m gonna have my hands full for the rest of this calendar year without writing so much as one more word.  It’s good to be busy, but it stinks just a little bit that I can’t continue to create some new essays at the expense of short-changing three very full time endeavors.  I’ve got a lot of work to do.

    I’m still working on a venue and launch date for Slapstick & Superego.  I hope to have some concrete details by week’s end so that we can set a date, schedule some radio appearances and work on getting some posters up in any place that’s pliable to a stapler.  I can’t work on the anthology until I can access the existing manuscript and start popping the new submissions in, so I’m stuck waiting for perhaps another few weeks.  So we wait a little while longer…

    And the new issue of Night Life magazine hits the stands today with ‘Butch & Tom’, a reprint of an older essay about how much I’m turning into my father in my old age. 

    That’s all I’ve got for today.  I’m getting really sick of complaining about the same things this summer and I’m sure you are too, but I don’t have a choice other than being happy with what little forward progress I’ve been able to make on the creative endeavors I have access to.  Have a great week,

    Tom Waters 

Some 3 months later, April Foolfest 2 is finally online!

    Okay, so these two took a while to edit, produce and post.  Better late than never, though, right?  As of this morning, both portions of April Foolfest are up on the new Big Words Radio site.  Here are your snyopsi:

 

April Foolfest 2: Tom & Finny

Tom reads some new selections from Slapstick & Superego and JR Finlayson reads some new poems at Desiderio’s on Broadway.

April Foolfest 2: Lenny Revell

Without the benefit of a vocal sound system, Lenny Revell belts it out a capela to a packed house at Desiderio’s on Broadway during April Foolfest 2.

 

    To listen to both shows, click on over to http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com .  Subscribe for free on iTunes by clicking on Podcasts and searching ‘Big Words Radio’. 

 

    The portion Finn and I had includes ‘Mona Lisas & Mad Hamburgers’, the Buffalo rant from the new book that seems to be a frontrunner for a new crowd favorite.  Lenny’s clip sounded a lot better than either of us thought it would, but took a LOT of editing due to long pauses, crowd interaction etc. between songs.  Live shows are a bitch to edit afterwards. 

    And again, my next studio date is Wednesday, July 1st at 7 p.m. and I’m still looking for a celebrity guest!  If you know (or if you’re in contact with) an A or B-list national talent (or Buffalo icon), email or call me ASAP!  

    Have a great weekend and enjoy the shows!

    Tom Waters 

Quixote Wednesday Update! Guest Drought

I’ve got a serious problem with next week’s Think Twice Studio show on Wednesday: I don’t have a guest. 

 

    Between the total lack of technology for a few weeks there and a plan of action of contacting some a, b and c-listers in the last few weeks, nobody has come through.  I’ve got nothing.

    While Mike ‘ring a ding’ Mariani will be joining me as co-host, I’ve tried in the past to reserve the studio dates for national brand names that people would recognize. 

     If any of you happen to have a pipeline to a real star (again, NATIONAL or widely well-known), please let me know ASAP!  Comedians, writers, comic artists, adult film stars, actors, etc.  Odds are that if I haven’t heard of them, then I won’t be interested.  From a Buffalo standpoint, the only studio guests I’m currently interested in would be John Valby, Ani Difranco, Allison Pippitone, Shredd, Regan or a Bills or Sabres player.  If it’s a musician or a band, I would rather record them as a ‘One Man Mobile Unit’ off-site, so again, not interested.

     If you’ve got a valid guest idea, please drop me an email at: bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com.  Normally, I’ve got a guest booked a month in advance for these shows, but a week away and counting and I have no idea who’s going to be sitting in the hot seat (or waiting patiently on the phone) once the show goes on air. 

    Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.  One way or the other, Mike and I will have a great show.  Cross your fingers for us and drop us a line!  Thanks,

    Tom Waters  

Monday Big Words Update! Episode 39 up, more copies of S & S en route…

After an amazing party/show anniversary on Saturday (and some serious editing on Sunday), Big Words Radio Episode 39 is now online.  Here’s your synopsis:

 

Synopsis:

     Tom looks back on a wildly successful first year for The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour by throwing a party. Former co-hosts reflect on their experience on the show, SoCo Mike commits a serious faux pax by using a vintage Robin The Boy Wonder glass for his cocktail, and special musical guest The Pheonix Resistance rock it out with an original composition (‘Neverending Grace’).

 

To hear Episode XXXIX, click on: http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

 

To subscribe to Big Words Radio on iTunes, log on, click on ‘Podcasts’ and search ‘Big Words Radio’.

 

    And the first batch of Slapstick & Superego came and went in rapid succession.  I’ve got another payload of first editions in transit as we speak and should have them in by Wednesday, so if you want one, speak now or forever hold your peace, because they’re going fast!  Early first impressions on the book have been overwhelmingly positive, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the general public thinks once they get their hands on the book late this summer. 

    As far as the yet-to-be-published episodes, I spent last week working on April Foolfest 2.  For a two and a half hour spoken word/music concert, there’s a lot of editing to be done.  Much like the new book, I’d rather take the time to get it right the first time than release an unfinished product, so keep your eyes peeled on the web site and hopefully I’ll be done with it some time this week. 

    And Night Life magazine hits the stands this week with ‘Docker Bums’, an essay about the increasing laziness of our modern world.  With limited access to my backlog, I’ve had to resort to some reprints until the computer crisis passes…

    And that’s all the news that’s fit to print this Monday.  Thanks to everybody who made the party such a huge hit, thanks to everyone who helped/participated on the radio show in the last year, and thanks to the new owners of Slapstick & Superego!  I’ll have your Quixote Wednesday Update for you in two more days…

    Tom Waters

Slapstick & Superego available NOW!

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/slapstick-superego-essays-rants-scathing-social-commentary/6045728

 

Free fifteen page preview!  Order NOW (seven day standard shipping) unless you want to wait for the launch!

 

Description:

Author, columnist, freelance author and radio host Tom Waters unloads both barrels with his eighth collection and his first book comprised of nothing but high octane rants! No fluff, no filler, just controversial cringe comedy at it’s finest. For first-time readers, Slapstick is the perfect introduction to Waters’ bibliography. For those already initiated, it’s a welcome addition. Slapstick & Superego aims for the funny bone, breaks it and keeps delivering.

 

$19.99, 210 pages, 6″ x 9″, perfect binding, cream interior paper (60# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-color exterior ink

 

    Now that I’ve seen it with my own two eyes and signed off on it, I can honestly say that this is the most professional book (inside and out) I’ve ever released!  It’s BEAUTIFUL!  Thanks again to Ian Chrystal and Vicki Robinson for a job well done on a grueling four month project.  Thanks also to Alycia Ripley for a phenomenal introduction (you can read it on the web preview).   

    Now I can work on an official launch and set a date later in the summer (late July or August).  I got the first ten copies and in less than a day, I’m already down to 6, so email ASAP if you want to buy a copy during the Big Words Anniversary Party this Saturday.   

    Ladies and gentleman, start your online ordering!  Ebooks are also available for the low low price of $7.99  More info on the launch as it develops…

 

Tom Waters

Doubt It Publishing

Quixote Wednesday Update! A Word From Michael Bly Regarding the Mitchell’s Tavern Fiasco…

It’s ridiculous man! I deal with it as much as you do playin at shithole bars like this every week. Fortunately my business has done well enough that I can usually avoid the real hardcore dives like this but it really makes me sad about my hometown. I place I laud everywhere else I’ve been or live – even an amazing city like NYC when it was next to impossible to get anyone to believe anything good about a place like Buffalo.

I hate to say it but this kind of behavior from all involved has become far more common than when I lived here over ten years ago before moving to NYC originally. You can blame part of it on the economy – for people like this guy surely are not doing well and looking to make excuses for why they have no money and take out their frustration on some poor, unsuspecting person like Mike that just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and, of all ironies, tryin to help!

But I say its gotta go deeper than that. Is it the parents? Is it the town leaders that have taken us into a deeper depression state with a bad choice in almost every crucial decision in the last 50 years?

Or, and I hate to sound so much like the republican I’m not, but is it just time to say that there is no personal responsibility left in a place like this? Not on the part of the guy who clearly either didn’t have the 400 in the first place or had it and spent it at the first few bars he was at then forgot he did just like he forgot he left the stupid clip in the parking lot. Not on the part of the patrons who instead of being out to celebrate a new promotion or a good week at the office with some co-workers or ANYTHING positive are far more likely going out to get so drunk they can forget about their multitude of mounting problems by spending the last money they have and then, no surprise after adding depressants to the already depressed, they end up miserable and ready to fight or encourage one. More than ready to blame an innocent bystander like Mike just so they can blame someone other than themselves for the miserable state they’re in!

And certainly not on the bartendar who either knew the guy and was protecting a regular, was genuinely clueless as to the whole event or hired bartendars that couldn’t recognize and deal with a problem patron.

In the end, the industry polices itself. As Patrick Swayze’s character said in ROADHOUSE; “Good people who really wanna have a good time won’t come to a slughterhouse.” It was true 25 years ago when that movie came out and it will always be true. My guess there wasn’t one person in the place of either gender that you would really wanna take home to mom and probably not a patron there with more than a bachelor’s degree or makin over $50,000/yr either. That may sound snobish and it’s by no means the only demographics to consider when analyzing a bar crowd but facts are facts and certain things like upbringing, education and income level undoubtedly make certain behavior more likely. Like Bob Dylan once said; “When ya got nothin, ya got nothin ta lose.” In my opinion it is alcohol combined with this state of being, more than any other factor, that leads to bar fights.

The obvious answer is to avoid like poor excuses for a bar like this – hate to say it but if I’ve never even heard of the place and I’m in the business its hard to imagine they’re runnin that great a business – but the greater challenge is avoiding places like this in a place like Buffalo where this bar is no longer the exception but indeed becoming the rule….

Disenheartened with my home,

Michael Bly

Monday Big Words Update: Out Of The Ashes…

    This is one of those Frosted Mini-Wheats sort of weeks.  I’ve got alternating good news and bad news:

     The Big Words Radio One Year Anniversary Party is only six days away!  The good news is that I’ll have pre-launch copies of Slapstick & Superego available for $19.99.  The bad news is that I’m only going to have 10 copies to sell, so if you want to be one of the first to get one, yesterday would be a good time to let me know.  Seriously, if you want one of the first copies, let me know ASAP because they are going to go quickly.  Drop me an email ahead of time at:

     bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

     if you’re interested.  If you can wait until the next payload, by all means do so.

     Our computer is broken beyond repair.  That’s bad.  We’re salvaging what parts we can and all of my original book files (including the Buffalo Anthology Project) will be intact once we get our new Frankenstein monster in two weeks.  That’s good.

     I’ve got all of my current sound files ported over onto the loaner we’re using while our PC is under construction.  This is good news, as I can start knocking out some radio shows from my backlog and posting them up before week’s end.  After a brief upgrade, I still don’t have Microsoft Word or a comparable word processing program.  This sucks.  I’m going on four weeks without the capabilities to write something new without a very time-consuming and roundabout process.  This is worse than writer’s block because I’d really like to get back into some of the projects I’ve been toiling away on and I still can’t.  I suppose I should be grateful that I can work on the radio show, though.  Life’s full of delightful little curve balls.

     That should bring you all up to speed.  The new issue of Night Life assaults the stands this week with ‘Assault On Mitchell’s Tavern’.  You read the blog first almost instantaneously after the incident occurred and now the 70,000 readers of Night Life magazine can read all about it as well.

     Circle on back in two days for your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday Update.  Laywer/musician Michael Bly sent a supportive email regarding the Mitchell’s Tavern fiasco and with his permission I’ll be posting it for your enjoyment.

     That’s all I’ve got for today.  As soon as a new radio show is up, you’ll be the first ones to hear about it.  That is unless you’ve already subscribed to the show for free on iTunes (just search ‘Big Words Radio’ in the Podcasts section if you want to join in on the fun).  I’m a fast typer, but the iTunes update is faster.  Talk to you all in two days,

     Tom Waters 

Quixote Wednesday Update! Mitchell’s Tavern Review (unpublished)

As promised, here’s the original review for Mitchell’s Tavern.   Word also has it that the owner has been throwing his weight around in an attempt to get me to take down these posts.  For those of you who’ve followed this site long enough, you know that I don’t give up easily, and this isn’t the first crusade we’ve been down the road on.  I got confirmation this week that Kenneth (the kid who started the fight) was indeed friends with the bartender who was outside during the fight.  We’re less than two weeks away from Mike’s court appearance and I’m really interested to see how things pan out for him after such a bizaare situation.  More to come next Wednesday…

Location: Mitchell’s Tavern, 734 Sheridan Dr., Tonawanda 874-8907

Drinks: Top shelf and bottom shelf liquor with few in-betweens.  Five draft beers including Landshark Lager along with daily drink specials.

Dress Code: Sponsored team gear and cut-off muscle shirts or sweatshirts. 

Music: Open mic with Paul Dylan every Friday.

Scene: A corner bar that lets the mob mentality run the way they do business. 

 

     After discovering (or remembering after returning to the area for the first time in years) that Sheridan Drive forks to the left after Elmwood Avenue, the wife and I doubled back and found Mitchell’s sticking out like a sore thumb across the street from a convenience store.  My buddy Mike got the drop on us and was well underway working his talents as a single man on a new blonde friend at the bar.  We staked our claim at a raised table across from the bar on a trio of black leather stools.  Musician Paul Dylan crooned to a James Taylor in front of a small crowd eating and drinking across from a pool table that appeared to take up the better part of the dining area towards the front of the building.  
     I ordered a pitcher of Landshark beer and a double of single barrell Jack Daniels for $20 from a cordial blonde woman tending bar.  The Jack Daniels alone tallied up to $12, but it’s a smooth whisky and it was the best brown liquor I could find compared to bottom-shelf selections of Kessler’s, Jim Beam and Black Velvet.  Lindsay ordered a Grey Goose and tea for $4 and Mike was settling in to the evening with a pint of Guinness ($4).  A neat row of frequently ordered liquor bottles peeked back at us upside down from a well manufactured shot/drink dispenser gallows behind the bar.  Two flat-screen televisions broadcast a baseball game and a basketball game, respectively.  A row of daily drink special banners lined a wood-panelled border protruding from the ceiling and a Genessee clock from a former era advertized a slogan long gone: ‘Boy, could I go for a Genny now.’  
     At 9 p.m., it was as if a starting bell went off and a herd of people poured into the bar.  Most of them looked to be softball team players and we were surprised to see a couple drinking at the bar with their child in tow.  A few road construction workers drank to the end of a grueling work week.  Pat and I grabbed a smoke near a picnic table situated behind a side entrance along with a horde of softball team members smoking in unison.  A group of patrons played a casual game of ‘Can-Jammers’ (a frisbee/trash can hybrid sport) in the parking lot.  The entire bar was full once we headed back indoors.  Paul Dylan launched into his second set of the evening with a soulful version of ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones along with a skilled accompanying guitarist.     
     By ten o’clock, a drunken patron started yelling about losing his money clip in front of one of the two bartenders who took over during a shift change.  Having bartended before myself, I could tell that the person’s attitude (and inebriation) were going to escalate.  After looking around on the floor in front of him, he began accusing people sitting at the bar next to him on both sides and shouting obscenities.  Eventually, a girl came inside and told him that a man had found his money clip outside and the patron stormed outside and said he was going to beat the guys up.  I didn’t think anything of it until Lindsay wondered if Mike was involved since he went outside to make a phone call.
     Out of curiosity (and concern for my friend), I went outside with a cigarette in hand to investigate.  Five or six people surrounded my friend a few feet away from the entrance and the drunken patron in question threw a punch at him.  I jumped in to pry this person off of my buddy while a group of onlookers tried to egg the man on.  I immediately asked for the owner or manager on duty (one of the bartenders was outside with us) and was told that there wasn’t one.  Eventually, the Tonawanda Police were called and they arrived on the scene.  When the police showed up, the owner (Nick Christou) magically appeared from the kitchen and started apologizing to my friend and the officers who arrived.  
     My wife was so disgusted by the situation that she asked for my keys so that she could wait in the car.  It turned out that Mike found this person’s money sitting in the parking lot with his driver’s license and after trying to be a good Samaritan by looking for the owner, he got assaulted by a group of drunken regulars.  After talking to the police inside the bar while they filed their report, I went outside to check on Lindsay and had to put up with the same drunk swearing and threatening me on the way back in.  Eventually, the police told us that the best thing everyone involved could do was to leave the bar and go our seperate ways.  Lindsay and I drove home infuriated over the situation and I phoned Mike so that we could try and make sense of what happened.    
     What started out as a decent evening with friends turned into a nightmare at Mitchell’s that could have been easily avoided if the owner or the bartenders on duty (or outside during the altercation) had intervened.  Every bar/restaurant has to put up with violent patrons who start fights from time to time.  How they deal with it (or ignore the situation completely while watching the fight) is another matter entirely.  The three of us will never go to Mitchell’s Tavern again.  For obvious reasons, I wouldn’t recommend the place to anybody for any reason.   In my ten years as a reviewer for bars, restaurants and other establishments, this is the first time something like this has happened to me or my friends and hopefully, it will be the last. 

Monday Big Words Update! Big Words Radio Anniversary Party Reminder and more…

Monday Big Words Update! Party Reminder and more…

     In less than two weeks (Saturday, June 20th), I’ll be throwing a one year anniversary party for the Big Words Radio show at our Lancaster grotto from 3 p.m.-3 a.m.  Anyone who’s ever been a guest or a co-host on the show  is invited along with the usual suspects.  I’ll be recording five minute roast clips from each alumn and cobbling them together for a radio show afterwards, so come with some ammunition.  The Johnny Berlin Band will also be performing for the party from 8 p.m. on, so get ready to rock out with your c&$3k out!  If you’re interested in attending the party (and you’re fairly certain you’d be a welcome guest in my home), drop me an email at: bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com. 
     I heard Johnny Berlin play a few weeks ago and I was really impressed.   He’s got a strong heavy metal style with an understudy in acoustic ballads, so the band should have something for everyone.  We were planning on recording a music two-parter before the party, but Lindsay and I are STILL waiting on a part for our computer, so everything is still up in the air.  I was also planning to have pre-launch copies of Slapstick & Superego, but I’m STILL waiting on five final revisions that can’t be ignored.  If the book is available by June 20th, be pleasantly surprised.  This is the longest amount of time any book has taken me in pre-production, so I gaurantee that it’s going to be perfect.  
     And speaking of the radio show, Night Life magazine hits the stands today with the conclusion to ’Oral Technique’, an essay regarding the one year mark.  If you’re not local, ‘Oral Technique’ is also up on this month’s issue of Acid Logic at acidlogic.com.  
     As for other freelancing/promotional gigs, two poems from Breathing Room Volume I (‘token excuses for block’ and ‘listening to thelonious monk’) got accepted with ArtVoice last week.  Their publication calendar for poetry is a bit irregular, so keep your eyes peeled because they could be appearing this week, next week, or ten weeks from now.  I also got notification that I’ll be appearing during the Buffalo Infringement Festival downtown in late July/early August.  Once I have specific dates, I’ll let you all know.  
     Aside from that, I have no other news.  The only way I can write on our loaner is by composing an email inside AOL and then copy and paste, so I’m on a bit of a forced break.  What’s scary is that I really don’t HAVE to write for the next two years or so.  The next three books are already complete, so for the first time ever, I can take my time when it comes to working on new material.  
     Stay tuned this Wednesday for your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday update.  I’ll be publishing the original review draft for Mitchell’s Tavern since we decided not to run it.  Have a great week and I’ll talk to you all in two days,
     Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Mitchell’s Tavern Aftermath

In the wake of what happened at Mitchell’s Tavern last Friday, Lindsay, Mike and myself are angry and amazed at the direction this debacle is taking. 
     Mike went to the hospital directly after the fight to make sure that nothing was seriously wrong.  He wound up with a black eye and two bruised ribs that the doctor told him were dangerously close to being broken.  The next day, he found out that he’s going to have to go to a Town Of Tonawanda Court date on June 20th because the moron who started this mess (Kenneth) is charging him with larceny.  A few thoughts on that now that Lindsay and I have had a few days to think about what happened at Mitchell’s:
     1)  They had an external security camera at Mitchell’s trained on their only parking lot.  Even with poor resolution, it should be pretty easy to see when this kid’s wallet fell out and when Mike found it.
     2)  Lindsay pointed out that Kenneth was one of a group of kids drinking outside before the incident playing a game of ‘can-jammers’, a hybrid frisbee game.  Odds are overwhelmingly strong that his money clip fell out of his pocket during the game and why this didn’t occur to him before he got his blood up is beyond me.   
     3)  The amount of money Kenneth claimed was missing varied between his argument with Mike, what he told the Tonawanda Police and what was written on the report.  While he was in the bar, he was shouting to anyone who’d listen that he lost $400.  In the police report, he told the officers logging the incident that he had $300.  Again, why would anyone carry that much money around with them and what sort of person usually carries that kind of money around with them?   I highly doubt he had that much in his money clip, but if he did, what does that say about his chosen profession?
     4)  One of the spectators who watched the fight was either a bartender at Mitchell’s or a really comfortable regular, because I went for a drink order and this girl (who was standing at the lip of the bar just next to the kitchen) walked behind the bar and got my drinks for me.  Instead of alerting the owner about an escalating situation from where she was standing when Kenneth started flipping out, she followed him outside to watch the action.  
     5)  Mike was inside with Lindsay, myself and another friend the entire evening.  The only time he went outside was when he checked his phone message and the only reason he left the bar was because it was too loud and crowded to hear it indoors.  
     I’m really interested to find out how Mike’s court appearance turns out.  If I were him, I’d charge this yo-yo with assault.  I can’t fathom that there would be a judge in the county who’d side with someone who chose to resolve a good Samaritan situation with their fists instead of taking the time to think about what happened, or how he lost his money in the first place. 
     Everyone who’s read the story so far from friends to other bar owners to members of the media are outraged at the situation, the bar, and the corroding state of civility in our city.  The general consensus remains that someone at Mitchell’s should have stopped the situation before it got out of control. 
     Next Wednesday, I’ll be posting the actual review draft for Mitchell’s Tavern that the News won’t be running because they didn’t want to send one of their photographers into a potentially hostile environment.  If anything else develops, I’ll be sure to make mention of that, too.

Monday Big Words Update! Purgatorio

The last two months have been very frustrating.  It seems like every project I’ve been working on has gotten trapped in limbo and things aren’t progressing at a speed that I’m comfortable with or the timeline I was originally working with.
     After personally proof-reading my correction proof for Slapstick & Superego and submitting the typos and various errors that crop up with any manuscript, I uploaded the newest revision and ordered a copy of the revised book.  I got the new copy in the mail over the weekend and there are five NEW typos that cropped up and can’t be ignored.  I was hoping to have some copies of the new book on hand for the Big Words Radio Anniversary Party on June 20th, but it’s getting down to the wire and it’s not looking good at this point.  I can’t plan an official launch, I can’t schedule radio interviews, and I can’t really do much of anything in terms of promoting or scheduling the new book until the new book is DONE, so I’m stalled yet again and I’m not sure how long it will be before the book measures up to the standards I’m holding it to.  One way or the other, this new book is going to be perfect.  No typos, no mis-prints, no formatting hiccups.  As the third release from Doubt It Publishing, the presentation of the book needs to be as tight as the content within, so unfortunately, I’m going to wait patiently until the finished product is, well, finished.
     The entire month of April was spent designing the new Big Words Radio web site and moving each show over individually under a different format.  As a result of this, there are still six to seven hours worth of archived shows that I’d like to edit and post before planning/recording any new shows.  Potential guests are chomping at the bit and I’ve even talked a number of talented local and national artists about doing new shows, but I can’t set a date or start researching new shows until the old ones are up online.  And I can’t do that until we get our computer back from repairs.  The new motherboard for my PC was supposed to be in last Tuesday and it got delayed, so I have no f*&#ing access to the sound files that I’ve been anxious to work on since last week.  So any new radio shows are on hold for a bit longer.
     With a final deadline approaching for the Buffalo Anthology Project, Alycia Ripley and I agreed to block out some time in May and June to begin reviewing the final slate of submissions and start adding the accepted works.  While I’ve made some headway updating accepted authors and while I have access to the submissions that haven’t been accepted or rejected via email, again, I don’t have access to the anthology file itself because it’s on a hard drive that isn’t physically HERE right now.  So I get to wait that one out, too. 
     And after the fiasco at Mitchell’s Tavern this previous Friday (if you didn’t read about it yet, scroll down), my editor at the Buffalo News and I decided that we won’t be publishing the review because he doesn’t want to send a staff photographer to a bar where their reviewer and his friends got jumped without provocation while the employees watched outside (on camera) and did nothing to stop it.  
     I’ve got a lot more to discuss about the Mitchell’s Tavern fiasco, but it seems like the perfect topic to go into at length for a little something I like to call ‘Quixote Wednesday’.  All of us directly involved are truly livid about the incident, and from what you’ve all told me since posting, you’re not too pleased about it either.  I’ll start airing my grievences two days from now on the official site this Wednesday, so I’ll talk to you all then.
     And before I forget, part one of a brand new essay (‘Oral Technique’) hits the stands in Night Life magazine today.  It’s an article about the impending one year anniversary for the Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour that I wrote on my AOL email since I don’t have a word processing program on our loaner computer.  
     Color me frustrated,
     Tom Waters

Assault At Mitchell’s Tavern In Tonawanda

     Three hours ago, my wife and I began a typical bar assignment for the Buffalo News Gusto at Mitchell’s Tavern on 734 Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda.  Like any other bar review, I called a bunch of my friends in the vicinity and invited them out.  My buddy Mike (who I’ve known for over four years) met us up at Mitchell’s.  Mike is a genuinely decent guy.  He got there before us and bought a pitcher for me ahead of time out of pocket.  The beginning of the evening progressed like any other bar review I’ve written since I started writing them for Buffalo Beat in 2001: a group of friends having a fun night out while I observed objectively and took notes far away enough from the bar that the establishment was unaware of my presence or intent.
     Around ten o’clock, a drunken man with a crew cut at the bar started arguing with the bartender about his money clip.  According to him, someone had stolen the $400 in cash that he brought to the bar and he started accusing the bar, the patrons around him, and anyone else within earshot.  Again, I’ve been writing bar and strip club reviews long enough to tell when a customer is psychotic, angry, or looking for a reason to wind himself up.  In the mean time, Mike (who had been inside with us the entire time prior) went outside to take a phone call.  Minutes later, one of the regulars came in with the money clip and let this person know that a man in the parking lot had found his money.  Instead of being relieved, the guy (I refuse to use the descriptor ‘gentleman’ where he’s concerned) became angry and wanted to know where he was.  The lounge area was full at Mitchell’s and the staff, patrons and the band watched the evening unfold.  This reprehensible piece of shit stormed outside in a fit of rage.  I thought nothing of it until Lindsay wondered if Mike was the person in question.
     I went outside to smoke a cigarette and see what was going on.  The picnic table where everything happened is less than six feet from the main entrance at the side of Mitchell’s and five people or more were boxing Mike in while the main neanderthal was fighting with Mike.  A group of ten or more other patrons were shouting insults and encouraging this kind of mob activity.  I jumped into the mix and put this idiot in a headlock to hold him off from my friend.  After a few minutes, somebody pulled this man aside and another onlooker remarked that the Tonawanda police had been called.  I started demanding to anyone within earshot that I see the manager on duty or the owner.  During this entire altercation, one of the bartenders was outside watching the action.  One of this guy’s friends began telling me that I should calm down and that there was no manager present.  I stormed back inside to find any kind of authority figure and the main instigator’s buddy came inside and continued to harass me for aggravating the person who’s money was ’stolen’.  
     Once it was obvious that Tonawanda Police were on their way, the owner (Nick Christou) suddenly appeared and introduced himself.  Mike came inside (his glasses were knocked off) and Nick apologized for what happened.  He feigned compassion minutes before the Tonawanda Police showed up.  My wife Lindsay was so aggravated by the situation that she took my keys and said that she’d wait in the car.  I found out later that the mob outside verbally harassed her on the way to the car.
     Two Town Of Tonawanda Police Officers showed up and took a report from all relevant parties.  Mike explained that he took a phone call and saw this man’s money clip (with his driver’s license attached) sitting in the parking lot.  He asked a smoker outside if they knew the person in question.   That was when the girl came inside and the fight started.  The officers logging the incident did the best they could under the circumstances and while they were present, the owner was appropriately present and apologetic. 

     I was so infuriated over the situation (in addition to wanting to check on my wife in the car) that I went outside for a smoke after speaking with the police.  I checked on Lindsay and she told me that the group of ten or more shit-starters directly outside the main entrance went out of their way to provoke her as she walked out to the car.  On the way back in, the head-wound who started the entire fight went out of his way to wind me up right near the entrance.  The groupies and townies in attendance talked smack right along with him even though the police were directly indoors.

     Mike and I finished speaking with the police and they explained that there wasn’t much that they could do aside from filing the report and sending everyone their seperate ways.   Nick (the owner) was all too amicable in front of the police and shook Mike’s hand when we left.  Lindsay and I drove home and Mike and I spoke on the phone on the ride home about how surreal the entire evening was.
     I’ve got a lot of questions about what happened tonight.  First of all, I’ve been writing bar and strip club reviews for almost ten years.  I’ve seen drunks arrive wound up and I’ve seen human train wrecks looking for trouble.  This person obviously showed up after one or two other bars and dropped his money clip in the parking lot.  Most reputable bars are capable of recognizing a problem customer and they address the problem immediately.  Multiple people tried to talk this guy down from the ledge while he was getting worked up and no one working there removed him.  Problem number One.
     Secondly, I’ve known Mike for a number of years and he’d sooner fall on his own sword than take found money from a stranger.  Once again, he bought me a pitcher before I even showed up and my wife and I spent the better part of the evening INSIDE the bar with him, so the odds of him intentionally stealing this idiot’s money are slim to nill.  
     Strike Three: What sort of person goes out on a Friday night with $400 in a money clip?  Most sane, sensible, non-drug dealers don’t travel around with that much money.  After talking to Mike on the ride home, the police said that he only had about $100 inside this treasure-trove of a clasp, so the guy was  full of shit.  He also alleged that he had a credit card wedged in with his millions, so this was a person with an inflated sense of his finances looking to start a fight. 
     And finally, any bar worth their salt stops a fight before it happens or intervenes during a fight DIRECTLY OUTSIDE when it occurs.  In all my time reporting upon Buffalo bars, I have NEVER seen a bar flagrantly ignore an incident like this until today.  The bartenders saw this coming.  The owner was in the bar and saw it coming.  Everyone indoors saw where it was going and half of them stormed outside to watch the action.  Nobody did anything until after the fact.      I implore you to boycott Mitchell’s Tavern on 734 Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda.  If you have an opinion, take the time to phone it in at (716)874-8907.  What Mike and myself went through tonight could have been avoided well ahead of time from multiple angles and the management, the staff and the regulars did NOTHING to stop it.  
     I’m ashamed and enraged at the worst of the human condition this evening.  Please do what you can to prove that I’m wrong in the mean time….
     dissappointed,
     Tom Waters

 

Technical Difficulties…

Agh!

After writing an extensive update, the draft glitched on my loaner computer and I’m back to square one.  Fuck!

During the break, the motherboard got fried on my four year old computer.  Apparently, this was caused by old age.  So without any of my projects readily available, I’m stuck in a holding pattern for a few more days.

Everything should be back to normal by next week and I’ll bring you all up to speed when we resume our regularly scheduled Monday Big Words Update!

Thanks for your patience because I have none right now,

Tom Waters

2 New Radio Shows! Uncle Hal 63 & Big Words Radio 38!

Yowser!

I just got done doing two back-to-back radio shows yesterday and boy is my mouth tired.

Seriously though, folks, there are two very different and very interesting shows up on a number of sites as of this morning. Yesterday afternoon, Uncle Hal came back swinging after a six month break for his 63^rd episode and was nice enough to invite me back as co-host. If you’ve never heard The Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal before, be forewarned. This is not your grandma’s comedy. We pull NO punches, anything and everything gets goofed on and every episode is more brutal than the previous ones. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Here’s your synopsis for 63:

Hal is back and joined again by the ever whacky Tom Waters. The show is off the hook! Tune in because even Hal cringed a couple times…whew! There’s the Popeye’s Chicken fiasco that has a whole group of patrons clucking! A new installment of Porntards! A racist teachers gets suspended for using the “N” word! When you hear the lost old man phone prank you’ll piss your pants! Kids get shocked with electric dog collars and shot in the ass with BB guns. Hal’s Happy ending asks the question “Why do we need all these stupid constitutional rights?”

You can listen to the show on my site (www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com) or you can listen to the show (along with the other 62 episodes of full tilt comedy) over on Hal’s site (www.powunclehal.com). You can also subscribe to the Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal on iTunes by searching ‘Uncle Hal’.

Last night at the Think Twice Radio studios, I had the honor of interviewing Harvey Pekar along with my co-host Mike ‘ring a ding’ Mariani. Here’s your synopsis for that one:

Episode 38: ‘Making It Big’

Tom and co-host Mike ‘ring a ding’ Mariani talk to comics legend Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) regarding his life, his career, and the supposed sanity of ‘close personal friend’ Alan Moore.

You can listen to Big Words 38 on the Think Twice radio site (www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html), over at the official Big Words Radio site (www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com) or again, you can subscribe to the show on iTunes by searching ‘Big Words Radio’.

A big thanks goes out to producer Richard Wicka, Mike Mariani (for behaving himself), Harvey Pekar and Pamela Mullin at DC Comics for helping to make the show happen. It was a much tamer show than we expected and you’ll actually be surprised at the Bob Costas-style interview that took place.

Enjoy!

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update!: Pekar Approaches, A Brief Respite, and What’s In Store For The Summer…

In two more days, I’ll have the opportunity to interview another one of my heroes for Big Words Radio: Harvey Pekar.

By Wednesday night (around nine p.m. Eastern), Episode 38 of Big Words Radio will be up on the Think Twice Radio web site with (arguably) one of the biggest guests to appear thus far. Pekar is a legend and a pioneer in the field of black and white indie comics and the opportunity to speak to him is eclipsing most of my activities this week.

Wednesday morning, I’ll be co-hosting and recording a hotly anticipated return to another controversial pod cast: The Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal. Hal hasn’t had a new show in almost six months and after numerous technological upgrades in recent weeks, he’s asked me to join him so that we can offend the remaining civilians on the planet who haven’t found fault with our highly offensive, frequently upsetting and often hilarious pairing. Hal’s show is a bit higher on the production end, so don’t expect to hear (or see) Episode 63 until some time next week on his official site at powunclehal.com. Wednesday’s going to be a busy day.

Also, ArtVoice informs me that my interview with Center For Inquiry ghost-hunter extraordinaire Joe Nickell will be hitting the pages of their new issue this Thursday. Keep your eyes peeled for it this Thursday. On the Night Life magazine side of things, this week’s issue closes out the conclusion to ‘Tom & Twig’, a new essay about how many traits I’ve picked up from my dear old mum.

Aside from that, I’ll be taking a break from writing-related email, the official web site, and the Big Words Radio site from Thursday, May 14^th through Tuesday, May 27^th. After four straight weeks of building the new site up from scratch, re-tooling 35+ shows, slaving away on completing Slapstick & Superego and coming to a close on Monsters Of Verse, I could use a break. Again, please refrain from emailing from 5/14 though 5/27 as your email will go unanswered until the 27^th or afterward.

I may post one final Quixote Wednesday update before the jump, but I’m not making any promises. For most intents and purposes, this will be my last online update before the last week of the month. While it would seem sometimes as if I never stop writing, even I can use a break once in a while.

June holds a soft launch for Slapstick & Superego (invite only), a One Year Anniversary Party for The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour (same day, invite only) and a heck of a lot more. Expect more new shows, a lot of forward progress on the Buffalo Anthology Project, one hell of a sharp looking new book, and a few other announcements regarding the official book launch slated for either late July or some time in August.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Enjoy the rest of your week and don’t forget to log on to Think Twice radio Wednesday night! American Splendor commencing in 5, 4, 3…

Tom Waters

 

Big Words Radio Episode XXXVII: Necrobibliophiliacs!

 

Tom, Zombieworx Comics Publisher (and creator of the hit comic book The Red Eye as well as Pulp) Kyle Kaczmarczyk and time-travelling Tonawanda native and sci-fi author Diane Meholick (Switch In Time, Buffalo Stories, Painting Katherine) antagonize, titillate and aggravate an endless barrage of attendees at the 3rd Annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair. Dreadlocks, Raggedy Andy Hats and bike horns prove to be a deadly combination. The event took place on Saturday, March 14th at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum. This podcast is a continuation of the Monsters Of Verse series.

 

-Subscribe on Itunes by searching Big Words Radio!

-To listen online, click over to: http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

Um…Has Anyone Ever Heard Of ‘the Itunes’?

 

For the first time ever, it is now possible for all of you to ‘dial it up’ on your Ipod. As of this week, Apple informed me that The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour (all 36 existing ‘podisodes’?) passed their grueling approval process, so in addition to visiting the site online at its new second home (www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com), feel free to subscribe or download directly on Itunes! Just pop onto Itunes, search ‘Big Words Radio’, and BAM! You’re there! It’s never been easier to listen to my nonsense, and when you subscribe, the newest shows will pop up on your Ipod before I even send out the announcement! So the question isn’t necessarily ‘do you like apples’, but ‘do you like Apple’?

And there is still a mountain of back-logged shows that’ll be going up in the next few weeks! As of this morning, the final (and first, oddly) installment of ‘We’ve Got Gregg’s Back’, the benefit for Gregg Sansonne, is up on the site featuring a knockout performance from Buffalo Music Award-winning dynamic duo Busted Stuff! The entire benefit (including my corny jokes on mc detail) is up for your enjoyment in chronological order, so you can listen to the concert the same way those of us who attended heard it, minus the long pauses, band warm-ups, or frequent Chinese Auction announcements.

What can you look forward to hearing in the future, you may ask? April Foolfest 2 featuring yours truly spouting out Slapstick & Superego, JR Finlayson doing what he does best busting out mad lyrical dope rhymes and piano wunderkind Lenny Revell bringing down the house sans microphone Jerry Lee Lewis style! A ’parter of two’ interview/concert combo with local jazz saxophonist Will Holton on location at Ying’s Wings in Depew and the Tralf in downtown Buffalo, respectively. The final Monsters Of Verse performance at the Center For Inquiry. And so much more! Expect brand new ’One Man Mobile Unit’ episodes some time towards the end of May and the beginning of June!

We’re also less than a week away from superstar special guest Harvey Pekar, comic book pioneer and American Splendor icon! Stay tuned Wednesday, May 13^th for the first studio show since the shocking Sara Jay episode (#35) from March!

That’s about everything for one day. Have a great weekend and have fun ’dialing it up’ on your Ipods!

 

Quixote Thursday (?) Update: CFI/DOL Aftermath, Closure All Around…

Wednesday got me over a barrel (a very busy day), so unfortunately, I didn’t have time to post the usual Quixote Wednesday Update. Hence the Thursday post.

I joined my former peer Curt Kuczkowski at the mediation hearing for his Gamestop benefits yesterday morning downtown and the meeting was a lot shorter than mine. Both of us came to the conclusion that my file was larger and that they fought harder to with-hold my benefits because I didn’t go as quietly when I got the ax from out of nowhere. Gamestop had no representative present (big surprise) and Curt was informed shortly after his case was called that it was a default situation since Gamestop didn’t show up. This generally means that the DOL will rule in his favor, so that’s great news for Curt and great news for anyone who gets clipped for no reason down the road. The day gave Curt some much-needed closure after seven years of faithful service and the two of us joked about starting a betting pool over who would get wrongfully terminated next. We’ve both won the battle but you can rest assured that I’m not done waging war by a long shot.

Continuing on with putting the last six months to bed, Guest Monster Christina Wos Donnelly, JR Finlayson and myself gave our final Monsters Of Verse reading last night at the Center For Inquiry as part of Just Buffalo’s monthly Literary Café hosted by Perry Nicholas, which falls on the first Wednesday of every month at 7 p.m. Christina was fantastic, and I had no doubt that she’d round out the lineup nicely. This was the first reading we’ve done together since Rust Belt Books in 2002, and it was a pleasure to share the stage with her while she did a series of far-ranging poems along with some short rants.

Finn filled the middle portion of our feature with a comprehensive sampler of his work from his current chapbook (Gypsy Stance Blues) along with a lot of the new work he’s written as a result of the MOV experience. I read a short selection of newer stuff along with ‘Poem For Finn’ from Breathing Room Volume I: Free Verse and closed out the set. After six months of going through hell and back on stage and off, it was a very emotional evening for Jeff and me. The timing for the Monsters Of Verse couldn’t have been any better, because it gave us an outlet for everything else that was going on in our lives and inspired us to write some new material while we were performing our older work.

For this week’s update, I’d like to thank everyone that was involved with the Monsters Of Verse project over the last six months. Desiderio’s, Don’s Atomic Comics, Clarence High School, Caz Coffee, FYE, Borders Books, Talking Leaves, Chow Chocolat, Spot Coffee, The Small Press Book Fair, The Buffalo News Collectible Show, Night Life Magazine, UB Spectrum, Buffalo Spree, Carrie Gardner, Richard Wicka, Kyle Kaczmarzcak, Josh Smith, Christina Donnelly, Diane Meholick, Anne Foster, Brian Platter, DJ Soma, Michael Bly, John Kindelan, Joe Stevens, Perry Nicholas, and everyone else who had a hand in helping to make the project such a diverse and successful traveling poetry show of mischief, mayhem, and yes, poetry.

I’d also like to extend a huge debt of gratitude to JR Finlayson. We’ve been friends since we were 17 years old (when we had a creative writing class together) and we’re stronger friends as a result of the experience. Things were bumpy and strained at times, but Finn was a trooper throughout, and for that, I’m tremendously grateful.

Now that MOV is over (or at least my tour of duty is if Jeff decides to keep the moniker and run with it), I can get back to working on the Just Buffalo Anthology Project with Alycia Ripley. We’ve got about a year of backlogged submissions and I blocked out the next two months so that I can devote some time to clearing our submission log before the final round of entries come racing past the plate in the next two months. If anything, MOV was a great practice run for the ensemble book promotion that every accepted writer will be taking part in next year when the anthology is finally released. For more information on the project, click on the link to the right or visit buffaloanthology.blogspot.com

for updates. There should be a ton of them in the next two months.

That’s enough rambling for one day. I’ve got a really big announcement, but I’m saving it for Friday, so stop back if you want the news! Have a great week,

Tom Waters

Monster Of Verse (semi-retired)

Monday Big Words Update! CFI/DOL This Wednesday (Gamestop Round 2!), Big Words Radio Progress…

Monday Big Words Update! CFI/DOL This Wednesday (Gamestop: Round 2!), Big Words Radio Progress…

Oof. A fun-filled, frenetic weekend rife with activity. And this week doesn’t look like it’s going to let up, either. Multiple friends asked me if I was going to the ArtVoice Best Of Buffalo Awards tonight, but unfortunately, Lindsay and I will be on assignment for the Buffalo News this evening. Where? None of your business. Well, until it hits print, anyway. Congratulations in advance to the nominees as well as the winners. Buffalo is lucky to have a wellspring of talented artists, writers and performers and they deserve all the accolades they can get. Sincerely. ‘Nuff said on that.

This Wednesday, it’s come to my attention that Curt Kuczkowski (one of the other Gamestop area managers wrongfully terminated last fall) will be going head to head to contest the two months worth of unemployment benefits he received at the Department Of Labor downtown. After seven years of faithful service with the company, these rat-bastards at Gamestop are going after TWO MONTHS worth of benefits that they originally granted him. No union layoff, no severance package, no pension, just two months worth of benefits (he found another job) and they’re trying to take even that away from him. How heartless and soulless can you get, Gamestop?

I stated two weeks ago that I wasn’t going to keep covering this ongoing jihad on the web site unless something important cropped up. Well this is important to me, and it should be to anyone else who’s gotten screwed over by their employer. Just because I won my case doesn’t mean I’m not willing to throw my hat in the ring where a peer is concerned, so I’ll be there this Wednesday with bells on. For anyone else interested in joining (or supporting) the fight, here’s the time and location:

Wednesday, May 6^th, 9 a.m.

Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board

290 Main St., 2^nd Floor

Buffalo

Curt worked very hard for what little he got out of the fallout from this merger and there is no moral or ethical reason why Gamestop can’t at least let him walk away with benefits that were already paid out to him. The fact that they’re trying to reverse benefits they agreed to grant him is barbaric, so feel free to meet the rest of us down there this Wednesday. On to other Wednesday related news.

JR Finlayson, Christina Wos Donnelly and myself will be giving our FINAL reading as the Monsters Of Verse this Wednesday at the Center For Inquiry as featured readers for Just Buffalo’s Literary Café hosted by Perry Nicholas. I try never to say never, but this is the end of the line for me. Finn and I may saddle back up down the road, but it’s going to be awhile for me. My plate is full enough, it was fun while it lasted, and it’s time to move on. Rest assured, though, that we’re going to go out with a roar instead of a whimper! Christina is also a tremendously talented poet in her own right with a long list publishing credits. She and I have been friends for almost a decade and this will be the first time we’ve done a scheduled reading together since about 2001. I’m just as excited to hear her read as I am about finding some closure and a definitive end to the Monsters Of Verse ’08-’09 traveling caravan of insanity and promotion. We should be doing an after-party once things wrap up at CFI, but you’ll have to show up to find out where…..

Wrapping up, Night Life hit’s the stands this week with part one of ’Tom & Twig’, a BRAND NEW humor essay about my mom and I that hasn’t appeared anywhere else. Scoop it up while it’s hot! As for the new second home for Big Words Radio, a quick click will take you to four brand new exclusive clips from the Gregg Sansonne ‘We’ve Got Gregg’s Back’ benefit featuring live performances from The Mick Hayes Band, Only Humen (featuring Michael Bly), Gregg Sansonne himself, and of course, Black Widow. I’m still working on the edits for Busted Stuff’s set, but expect an announcement later this week once it’s done. All four live performances sound fantastic and it’s still mind boggling that five Buffalo Music Award winners performed on the same day under the same roof. Check it out and download at will over at:

bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

And we’re 9 DAYS AWAY from Harvey Pekar! That sort of crept up on me. I’m starting to get psyched! The Big Words One Year Anniversary Party is heating up, too, and a few bands have already contacted me about playing for the event. If you’re a former musical guest on the show (or if you’d like to play the party on Saturday, June 20th), feel free to contact me at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

That’s it for today. When I’m not duking it out in Curt’s corner this Wednesday or saying farewell to MOV Wednesday night, I’ll make sure to drop you a line for our regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday Update! Take care,

Tom Waters

 

Big Words Radio One Year Anniversary Party!

What?: Big Words Radio One Year Anniversary Party!
When?: Saturday, June 20th from 3 p.m.-3 a.m.
Where?: Tom & Lindsay’s Lancaster Grotto Mansion
Who?: Friends, fans, listeners, and (especially) anyone and everyone who’s ever been on, exposed to, or involved with the show!  Former guests & co-hosts are encouraged to attend for drinks, dinner, and an opportunity to roast Tom for individual 5 minute audio clips.  The sound files will be combined for a 1 year anniversary show pod-cast.  
What The Hell Should I Bring?: A sense of humor and some booze.  Failing that, soda or a snack and proof from a doctor that you fractured your funny bone.
When The Hell Should I R.S.V.P.?: ASAP!
What The Hell Can I Expect?: Pre-launch copies of Slapstick & Superego available for sale and signing(specify if interested in RSVP as copies will be limited!), complete insanity and bedlam, a healthy meal (barbeque cookout weather permitting), a live musical guest (or guests) and a liver transplant shortly afterwards.

Quixote Wednesday Update: Dan Labowski & Michael Bly Band @ Desiderio’s, Big Words Radio Onward & Upward!

Now that we’re taking a fresh approach to the concept of Quixote Wednesdays, I thought I’d spend today on some positive topics. Instead of jousting at big, heartless corporate windmills, let’s take a look at local music and a few other things, shall we?

Dan Labowski started a new open mic night at Desiderio’s on Broadway. He’s a great guy, a fantastic musician, and you probably know him better as the lead singer of the Buffalo Music Award-winning super group Suckerpunch (who, coincidentally, played a helluva concert for Big Words Radio on Episode 27) as well as the lead singer for No Excuses. The open mic is every single Tuesday, it starts at around 9:30 p.m., and it’s open to everyone: musicians, comedians, you name it. So if you’re not doing anything one of these Tuesdays, come up and see Dan do his thing! I didn’t realize how diverse Dan’s style was myself until I heard him play a few opening sets. I’ve seen him play out every week for the last four weeks at Desi’s and truly deserves a bigger turnout. Having hosted an open mic myself (way the hell back in 2001), I know just how hard it is to start something new and get a following going. Open mics aren’t as predominant as they were back in 2001, so again, do me a solid and support my buddy!

I’m also pleased to announce that Michael Bly (another former Big Words Radio alumn from Episodes 17 & 18, respectively) will be performing THIS SATURDAY at Desiderio’s on Broadway at around 10 p.m. Mike is a dear friend of many years, a hell of a performer and a great showman. He’ll be playing some material from his upcoming CD Release this Saturday backed by the entire Michael Bly band, so do yourself a favor and come on out! It should be a great concert and the wife, myself and Intentionally Bald Mike will be there rocking out and slamming shots along with the rest of Lancaster’s party people!

Are you noticing a theme here? Big Words Radio. After two and a half back-breaking and grueling weeks, I’m proud to announce that ALL 35 original episodes of The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour have been transferred to the new web site complete with pretty pictures, quick download links and relatively accurate posting dates. What does this mean? This means that I can FINALLY start posting all of the new shows from the last six to eight weeks. What’s that web site again, you say? Glad you asked:

bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

So get the hell over there and download to your heart’s content! And when you get there, you may notice a BRAND NEW EPISODE that you won’t find anywhere else on the web! This morning, I edited, produced and uploaded legendary Buffalo Music Award-winning band Black Widow’s hour-long performance from the Gregg Sansonne: We’ve Got Gregg’s Back benefit. The sound quality was crystal clear, the band brought the house down, and the emcee was less than despicable (yours truly). You may notice that there’s no episode number attached to the post and there’s a damned good reason for that: there are FOUR more concert shows from the same day and I’ll be posting them all in a row! By this time next week, each performance from Busted Stuff, The Mick Hayes Band, Only Humen (with a cameo from Michael Bly) and Gregg Sansonne himself will be up on the new site in chronological order! Not to mention the fact that it’s free! So click over, download those bad boys onto your Ipods and rock out with some great Buffalo Bands compliments of Big Words Radio!

I’ve got a lot more in store for that site and now that the past is taken care of, I can start tinkering on the present and the future. I’ll save a few surprises for next week, but check the site often and you might hear a show before I mention it.

So to recap: Dan Labowski open mic at Desiderio’s every Tuesday from about 9:30 throughout the evening. The Michael Bly band this Saturday at Desiderio’s. The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour at it’s new home with a new show. Have a great rest of the week and hopefully I’ll see some of you out this Saturday!,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update!: The Last Fandango

After oversleeping on Saturday for a 7 pm reading at Caz Coffee Café (long nap), it was a relief to discover that Jeff Finlayson, Kyle Kaczmarzcak and Diane Meholick kicked one of the last two MOV shows off without me just fine. I felt like a dick for not showing up early like I normally do, but this is another sign that it’s time for a break. We had a great time and a great show and I’d like to personally thank everyone who came out for the reading. Due to my tardiness, the event was not recorded, so if you missed it, you won’t have an opportunity to hear it online at a later date. Sucks to be you.

I can’t help but take stock of the six month run that Jeff and I have had together traveling around as the MOV and on good days, I’m very grateful for the process we went through. On bad days, it seems like the agony of being in a rock band without the money or the groupies. All in all, it was a great concept and Jeff and I have become stronger friends as a result. A lot of new material has been written as a result of our constant feedback, reading the work out, and interacting with the public. A while back, I said that I regretted ever having a part in the inception of the Monsters. I spoke too soon.

Jeff is a very talented writer and he now has a new book (and a half) of new poems that he’s drummed up because of our tour. Instead of writing a mountain of new material, I’ve learned to spend more time editing and to elicit editorial wisdom from my peers, so my third collection of poems will be a tighter, more concise collection with less dreck and more concentrate. The MOV experience was like boot camp for us, in a way. We are hardened professionals now, and the thought of reading my poems in front of an audience is no longer horrifying and frightening. Jeff and I talked Saturday night after the show and he wants to continue the moniker. Because of the Slapstick launch in the summer (and a much-needed rest after fourteen months of writing and promoting), I won’t be continuing on after May. However, Jeff will. With any luck, other area poets will join him in the hopscotch-style readings we founded together with Carrie Gardner.

We’ve got one more reading in May at the Center For Inquiry with distinguished poetess Christina Wos Donnelly hosted by Perry Nicholas and I couldn’t think of a better way to round out the end of the junket. I try never to say never, but after that, I’m out for awhile. If any area poets are interested in joining Jeff in the non-locale-specific gauntlet, please feel free to email him directly at:

Dullroar25@hotmail.com

That’s all I’ve got for today. I’m pretty goddamned tired. Tired of promoting, tired of writing (after a year and change of it) and tired of putting my face and my name out there. It’s clearly time for a break. Some writers have the ego, the drive, or the tenacity to keep plugging, promoting and assuring others that their work is worth reading and I’m not one of them. In a semi-professional career spanning almost a decade where I’ve never promoted any one book for more than three months, I’m tapping out for a bit. I’ve had enough for now. I’m sick of myself, I’m sick of both poetry books, and I’m sick of leaving my house for another scheduled engagement. It takes a certain kind of person to continually tour the circuit and I don’t have that quality. At the heart of it, I’d always rather spend any night quietly at home with my wife or quietly out at a bar anonymously. I stopped doing any of this for ego reasons a long time ago. Even this is redundant.

Make it out to the Center For Inquiry on Wednesday, May 6^th at 7 p.m. for the final reading for the original founding members (plus Christina) of the Monsters Of Verse. We’ll razzle, dazzle and amaze. Ten slots are also open for open readers.

As for everything else, all of the original episodes of Big Words Radio are almost complete. The process is time consuming and aggravating, but all 35 episodes should be done by week’s end. Expect a new episode next week. And the final installment of ‘Pronunciation’ (a lengthy essay on my wedding and everything surrounding it) hits the pages of Night Life magazine this week, so scoop it up for the final word.

In two more weeks, I can have my life back. I hope it still fits. I’ll talk to you all in two days for a new Quixote Wednesday Update,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: The Damage Done

For all intents and purposes, this will be the last week that I write about the Gamestop crusade. After six months of raging against the inconsistencies in leadership, their unscrupulous business and merger practices, and the prejudiced hiring decisions of Buffalo DM Lisa Roper, it’s time to move on. Online, that is.

The damage has been done and will continue to chip away at the company by remaining online. You might be surprised to find that if you search ‘Gamestop Buffalo’ on Yahoo or a number of other web search engines, one of the posts from this web site will pop up on the first page. What does this mean? This means that if I stop writing tomorrow about the wrongful terminations, the gender inequality in Lisa’s district, and everything else that we’ve covered, curious people online will continue to discover what a reprehensible organization they’ve unwittingly supported and (hopefully) make a conscious decision to stop shopping at Gamestop.

This is getting redundant for me and for my core readers. Many people inside the company have emailed to express their support for what I’ve done since my termination in October and to let me know that they read the site every week and have discussions about it with other employees. Thanks for that support, but now it’s your turn. I’m done fighting battles for those of you who are too foolish to leave the company or too deluded to think that you won’t be ‘phased out’ when the time arrives and your salary is more of an expendable loss than the skill set that you’ve helped shape a merged company with. If you think it won’t happen to you and you’re still employed with Gamestop Inc., then you are a fool. This particular phase of the battle is over for me. You can have it now.

I made a decision last week to start investing my energies into other avenues off line. Organizations and individuals that have been fighting this brand of injustice a lot longer than I have. I’m no longer going to be making this battle a matter of public record because there’s a lot more work that can be accomplished by running dark, making some phone calls and meeting with some professionals in state and out of state. Trust me when I say that I’m not done with this situation by a long shot. After today, though, you just won’t be hearing about it online anymore.

On this particular topic, I’ll leave you with a relevant quote that’s been pinballing around in my head since this nonsense began back in October. A year ago, it applied to me. Now that I’m gone, it applies to every other former Electronics Boutique employee who seriously thinks that they’re going to retain their job in the long term:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Catholics, but I was not a Catholic, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Good luck.  If anything groundbreaking happens where this is concerned in the next six months to a year, I’ll let you know after the fact.  Take care,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! When You Go Your Way And I Go Mine

I’ve got good news and bad news. Which would you rather have first? As a pessimist, we’ll get the bad news out of the way before the big announcement!

The bad news is that there won’t be any new episodes of Big Words Radio until later this week. I realize that its been awhile since all the shows I talked about have hit the virtual airwaves, but there’s a reason for that. Long story short, Think Twice Radio has added a number of new shows and it’s next to impossible for my producer (the honorable Richard Wicka) to devote an inordinate amount of time to any one show. After joining the ranks at Think Twice Radio last June, I’ve come to respect his unending reserve of energy, his boundless creativity, and his commitment to creating free pod casts, video and television segments, and photography exhibits. I’ve learned more from him about multi-tasking and getting the most out of each and every day than perhaps any other person I’ve ever met. I don’t think you’d disagree that my output has risen considerably in the last year and I have Rich (and a few other factors) to thank for that. So what does this mean for The Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour, you ask? I’m sure you can see where this is going…

In the last week, I’ve been quietly (and obsessively) building a new home online for the show and transferring each episode over piece by piece. I’ve also been re-mastering some episodes, adding pictures for each show, and adding additional bonus content. In October, when Uncle Hal had a guest spot on Big Words Radio, I stopped by the week afterwards and did a co-host gig on his show. With Hal’s permission, Episode 61 of The Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal is now posted on the new site directly after our Big Words stint! Kinda cool, huh?

The problem with all of this (in the short term) is that I wanted to publish the pod casts in the order that they were originally released, and 35 hour long episodes cannot conceivably be moved overnight. As of this morning, I should be up to about Episode XVI. So in order to GET to all of the new content up (and believe me, I’ve got something like 10-15 hours of great show material just waiting in the wings), I have to post the first 35 shows. Instead of taking a short cut and skipping ahead to the present material, I’d rather do things right the first time so that the site looks sharp and so that all the previous episodes are preserved for posterity. Whether you knew it or not, effective June 2009, individual shows will start ‘phasing out’ on the Think Twice site one by one as they reach their one year mark for server retention purposes. This is something I’ve been stressing over since November, and now we’ve found a solution.

What does this mean for Big Words at the Think Twice site? Rich and I have found a solution. You can still find all the previous shows there. Until they start disappearing in June. Going forward, though, you can look forward to hearing every in-studio recording at thinktwiceradio.com FIRST (including my hour with Harvey Pekar on May 13^th. Shortly afterward, those shows will also go up on the new Big Words Radio home. The big difference is that you’ll ONLY be able to find the One Man Mobile Unit Episodes on the new site. Confused? Hopefully not. In the long run, this is for the best. Trust me.

I’ll be racing to get caught up on every episode and hopefully I’ll be posting 36, 37, 38, 39 and so on by week’s end or the beginning of next week. And for your edification, here are a few more bonus features for the new web site: no lag times, easy downloading, pretty pictures, and direct access. A few people have complained to me about sound drop-offs halfway through each show. That’s not going to be a problem anymore. You can either listen online or download directly without any hassles and listen at your leisure or upload it onto your portable MP3 device. Or (preferably), you can burn the shows onto a disc and share with friends! So ladies and gentleman, start your downloads!

I can now track stats and traffic for the show and the majority of my numbers (and online presence) will now be determined by the amount of downloads each show receives. Think of it as a syndication agreement where no one is making any money. I’ve really come to love doing the show and I’ve met (and talked to) a lot of funny and talented people in the last year. The rest of you have been severely supportive with your feedback, too, and I tend to prioritize based on reader or audience response. There’s no point in writing or recording if nobody’s interested, but thankfully, the hits have been climbing since the show launched last year, and it’s going to be a long time before this gets boring. This is a growth cycle that was bound to happen and the time just happens to be now. So where is this magical, mysterious web site, you ask? The site address is so easy to remember that you probably won’t even need to write it down:

http://www.bigwordsradio.mypodcast.com

So what the hell are you waiting for? Click the link, check out the new digs, and by all means, download to your heart’s content! Please VISIT at your earliest convenience, let me know how you like the new interface, and email with your feedback! I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised and mildly impressed! It took a lot of work, but it’s worth it.

Here’s this week’s scoop in a nutshell: Uncle Hal and I will be teaming up again this week for the first time since November for a brand new episode of The Pissed Off World Of Uncle Hal. The corrections for Slapstick & Superego are complete, so copies should be available in about 4-6 more weeks (just in time for a summer launch!). As for Night Life, Part III of ’Pronunciation’ (my long essay about the wedding and the events surrounding it) hit’s the stands this week. And as always, there are plenty of new reviews up and running over on ’The Dirty Bomb’ at donsatomiccomics.com.

I think that’s everything. As soon as the new shows are up, you’ll hear about it here first. As soon as the book is available, you better believe I’ll let you know. And if anything else happens, well, you get the picture. Have a great week and enjoy the new home for Big Words Radio!

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Playing Favorites

We’re going to go local one final time and then next week I’ll wrap the last six months up in a happy little gift bundle for once and for all. For reasons I’ll be going into next Wednesday, these will be the last two Gamestop-centric Quixote Updates.

As those of you who’ve followed this series know, the Buffalo Market has its share of stores that can do no wrong. This isn’t to say that they don’t commit wrongful acts or seriously misstep the boundaries of common sense in the world of retail, but thanks to Lisa’s frequent and obvious favoritism, they manage to operate their locations free from consequence. Let’s look at Kim at Galleria and Aliyah at University. Now that we’re fully entrenched in Annual Review season (and the prejudiced scores that Lisa gives out regardless of performance weighing heavily towards her ‘pals’), you can bet dollars to donuts that these two stores will get high marks despite demonstrating a frequent and increasing loss of sales, product and customer service.

The Galleria store where Kim (DM Lisa Roper’s ‘friend of the family’) was appointed lost MULTIPLE Playstation 3s over the holiday season. A customer (or perhaps a thief who didn’t buy anything) managed to stroll into the store, scoop up a number of these bulky hardware units (valued at $400-$600) and walk out of the store with them. NO written documentation was given. The entire issue (like all of the issues that have cropped up in the past) was swept under the rug in the same manner in which Lisa ceremoniously ripped up Lewis Sebastiano’s (the newly appointed store manager in Amherst) corrective actions. Can the Galleria location do enough business to afford losing this many units from a loss prevention perspective? Apparently so based on Lisa’s official response, being that nothing important happened and that no one else needed to know about it.

Taking things one step further, Kim’s annual inventory was delayed as long as possible to hide the shrink damage of such an obvious hit to store profitability in an effort to sweep things under the rug. As a stockholder, I honestly wonder who would want to support a company that reinforces this kind of gross negligence and a lot of people are wondering what sort of supervision Lisa has (if any) that she’s allowed to run her stores with so much autonomy and flagrant cronyism.

Moving over to University (another store who’s inventory was delayed until it absolutely had to be scheduled from a company standpoint), their annual score clocked in at a hefty .64% loss over less than a twelve month period in relation to overall store sales. We know from previous reports that one employee was too busy punching a customer outside of the store (again, no documentation) to worry about loss of company product. To put things in perspective, a score of .30 or lower is considered acceptable by company standards. .64% is typically a store that results in a store manager’s immediate termination. Since Lisa picked a seasonal woman for the job, it would admit crippling negligence on the District Manager’s part if this were to happen, so again, the rules have been pushed aside to lend credibility to an appointed supervisor who shouldn’t really be in charge of anything and never should have been hired into the position in the first place.

Two clear cut cases of massive loss prevention damage in one District alone. A District that keeps losing money (per store) every single year that Lisa is allowed to run her thirteen or fourteen stores into the ground. My question is this: If thirteen stores aren’t being conditioned to make money for the company, then what is their purpose as a retail entity?

It doesn’t make much sense, but then again, not much that Lisa’s done has.

Stop by next Wednesday for the final word.

Tom Waters

Monday Update! Five Minute Video Premiere/Happy Dyngus Day!

Dyngus Day is literally one of my favorite party nights of the year, and it’s one of the only times when you can hear so many great Buffalo Polka Bands, pig out on reasonably priced buffets (especially the smoked Polski Kielbasa), and use a water pistol in a bar without getting rolled. Because of this, this Monday Update will be especially brief since I’d like to get a nap in before the evening’s festivities commence.

Night Life hit’s the stands this week with Part II of ‘Pronunciation’, a new essay that covers the events before, during and after our marriage in September. It’s a serious essay (and a long one), but the pacing seems right and the piece flows well, not to mention that there was a lot of info to cover.

There was a MASSIVE new amount of content uploaded onto The Dirty Bomb in the last week (3 graphic novel reviews and a comic-related update having to do with Dean Haspiel and Harvey Pekar), so if you haven’t yet, scoot yourself over to donsatomiccomics.com and click on ‘The Dirty Bomb’ link on the home page. I’d give you a direct link, but WordPress has been an unconscionable pain in the ass lately with site links.

As far as other freelancing gigs go, the ArtVoice assignments keep chugging along. I wrapped up a sharp interview with CFI resident ghost hunter Joe Nickell last week that should be appearing soon. You can also feel free to check out ‘The Department Of Goofing Off’ in this month’s online issue of Acid Logic at acidlogic.com and if you’d like to comment on the graphic novel reviews in a larger national forum, throw your two cents in over at comics bulletin.com.

Aside from that, I don’t have a lot of news for you. There are a lot of radio shows under production right now, but none have popped yet. Check back for a heads up as soon as I get it. I’ll be appearing on Time Warner Cable public access for the next five weeks (as well as online for the next two years) with a segment for Think Twice’s ‘Five Minute Video Series’ (entitled ‘I Push People): Here’s the web site address and subscriber channel info straight from my producer, Richard Wicka:

http://www.hotftv.net/five-min-series/five-min-index.html

(Adelphia cable subscribers can watch the Five Minute Video Series:
City of Buffalo: Fridays channel 20, 7:00 PM
Suburbs of Buffalo: Mondays channel 20, 10:30 PM)

With a mug made for radio, I’m not sure how I feel about the segment (I haven‘t even watched it yet), but I’ll try anything once.

That’s it for this week, folks. I’m twenty pages away from correcting every last bit of Slapstick & Superego, so we’re getting down to the very last of the pre-production snafus before rolling the book out some time in June or July. Have a safe and festive Dyngus Day and don’t forget to swing on back in two for Quixote Wednesday!

Doing shots every time the Pennsylvania Polka plays tonight,

Tom Waters

Massive Dirty Bomb Update!

If you haven’t been reading any of the graphic novel reviews and updates at The Dirty Bomb over on the official Don’s Atomic Comics (!) web site for the last three months, then I just feel sorry for you, because you’re missing out.

As of today, I posted two more reviews and one massive update with privileged Big Words Radio info as well as some more celebrity news over on the Dirty Bomb.

I haven’t been re-posting Dirty Bomb info here because you’re just going to have to go over there yourself if you want to find out. I try to throw a little something extra onto each site that I write for, whether it’s Acid Logic, Comics Bulletin, Facebook, Myspace, or any other intraweb-enabled thingamajiggy.

So GO TO THE DIRTY BOMB already! Do not pass go or collect $200! What the hell are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? Oh, a site link might be useful, eh? Fair enough. Here’s your link, so go check it out!

 

 

http://donsatomiccomics.com/WordPress/

Quixote Wednesday Update! Reason #348 Why You Should Open An Account Far Away From Bank Of America…

Since Lisa and the majority of the Gamestop managers are on vacation this week anyway (since there’s actual work with the preposterous ‘Game Days Sale’ to be done in stores, which is being relegated as we speak to underlings who get paid far less), I’m going to take a break from sticking the screws to Gamestop this week.

In the spirit of Quixote Wednesdays, let’s take a look at Bank Of America. Honestly one of the worst banks I’ve dealt with in my lifetime, which would explain why they only have about three locations in operation in the greater suburban Buffalo area. I had a horrible customer experience with BOA last week (not the first and CERTAINLY not the last) and I’d like to share it with all of you.

I keep a floating idea of what my budget is in my head. I was off on that budget by about a hundred dollars last week. As a result, I incurred two $35 overdraft fees from Bank Of America. First of all, I’ve paid out a good $5-800 of overdraft fees in the last year mostly relating to pre-wedding financial situations. $35 is a preposterous amount in terms of an overdraft charge and I would like to think that a bank that I’ve been doing business with for five years would be willing to meet me halfway after paying so much for so many charges over the course of a calendar year.

When I realized my error at one of the two functioning ATM machines within a forty five minute drive, I drove home to try and speak to a rep. This was on Friday night. It took about ten minutes to navigate through their automated phone system and the FIRST rep I spoke with told me that their computers were down and that she’d have to transfer me to a rep with a working computer, and to hold please. I was disconnected, and had to redial the 800 number and go through the entire automated system again. The second rep (in a different state) had a nonworking computer as well, so she transferred me to a THIRD person. After an hour on the phone, the third customer service associate told me that she contacted Bank Of America (doesn’t she work for them?) and that they weren’t going to reverse any of the charges. I’ve lost more than an hour of my life to their horrific phone system to find out that I can take my overdraft fees and shove them.

I have a checking account and a consolidation loan with BOA. From where I live, BOTH ATM’s are often inoperable or non-functioning in ANY weather conditions, so when I withdraw money, I end up having to pay Bank Of America’s unreasonable handling fee of $3 in addition to whatever neighboring bank has the technology to run a functioning ATM.

My point is this. If I have to pay YOUR ATM fees because you don’t have enough locations to suit me and your ATMs only work 30% of the time at best, is it asking too much to wipe the slate on one or two of the fees that I’m responsible for? If you fuck up, it’s my fault. If I fuck up, it’s also my fault. That’s not exactly a two-way street.

Bank Of America made the mistake of sending me a follow up survey via email today and I took the time to fill it out comprehensively and vehemently. As soon as my consolidation loan is paid, I plan on setting up accounts anywhere else. I’ve also been with HSBC for the last twenty years and I’ve never had these kinds of problems with them. For an industry that took a massive payout and pissed the free money away on sectors that wouldn’t fix their growing crisis, you would think that they’d take their average consumer’s occasional missteps with their budgets a bit more reasonable.

On this Quixote Wednesday, I’d like to offer up a massive ‘Fuck You’ to Bank Of America. If you knew how to take care of what few customers you still have, maybe you’d be able to open more locations to adequately serve us and you might have the funds to allocate towards working ATM machines, computers, or customer service reps who were allowed to make decisions that benefit the company. I truly hope that you’re the next bank to close it’s doors. Truly.

Tune in next Wednesday when I’ll resume the Gamestop Crusade. Enjoy your vacation, folks. We’ll all be here when you get back from escaping your stores when actual physical labor and something that resembled real work was required of you.

Have a great week,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Tying Up Loose Ends…

After a long, strange trip for over six months with the Monsters Of Verse promotional junket, JR Finlayson and myself are in the final furlong and we can see the finish line for this particular race. We’ve got about four weeks of scheduled bookings and appearances and then we’re done. Part of me is relieved and the other part of me will miss sharing the experience (and some fantastic conversations) with so many other talented poets, writers, disc jockeys, musicians, graphic designers, cartoonists, etc. What’s so nice about this trip through the spanking machine is that we can all look back whenever we want by listening to the entire tour (or the better part of it) on the Monsters Of Verse site at thinktwiceradio.com. I’ve been putting a lot of the tour to bed from a psychological standpoint in the last few weeks and even considered ’retiring’ both Breathing Room volumes to their rightful place on the shelf next to my other collections so that I can move on and focus on other projects. Four more weeks.

Our next official stop will be at Caz Coffee Café from 7-9 p.m. in South Buffalo on Saturday, April 25^th . The lineup will include (but won’t be limited to) JR Finlayson, myself and Kyle Kaczmarzcak. From what my calendar says, this will be one of the final two engagements for MOV.

As for everything else, I’ve been quietly working on a volley of assignments for ArtVoice. If you nab a copy of this week’s issue on stands, you’ll find a small piece that I wrote about the Center For Inquiry and author William Lobdell’s book Losing My Religion in their In The Margins section. Once May rolls around, I should start knocking out assignments in rapid succession, but in the mean time, it’s been a matter of how much time I have in my week to devote to which project based on priority.

This week’s issue of Night Life kicks off the second week of the month with part one of ‘Pronunciation’, a brand new four part essay about our wedding and everything surrounding it within a six month window. It’s a more somber piece and it clocks in at around 6 pages, but the pacing seems warranted given how much information there was to disseminate.

And I’m almost done proof-reading the only copy of Slapstick & Superego on the face of this planet before forwarding the corrections off to VLR Designs. I originally wanted the book done by May and it appears as if I’m the one holding up the production slate right now. I’ve been looking at the presentation and appearance of this collection as the new template for all Doubt It Publishing book releases going forward, so we’re all putting a lot more perfectionism into this collection than any I’ve worked on to date.

Additionally, I’m unsure as to whether or not poke the scorpion with a sharp stick (my next poetry collection) feels finished at 100 pages or not. The Pre-Launch Questionaire sent out a few weeks ago worked wonders on what readers would like to see happen with Slapstick, so I may be ‘test-paneling’ responses for the ideal poetry collection according to readers likes and dislikes in the future as well. That collection, though, is at least six to seven months down the road.

Finally, I keep forgetting to thank Christopher Schobert from Buffalo Spree for his spectacular write-up/review/interview of Breathing Room Volume I: Free Verse in the December issue of Spree. Thanks, Chris. You did a stupendous job and quite a few friends brought it to my attention. There’s also another local write I wanted to thank and I had no idea the article came out until someone sent me a link about two months ago. Charity Vogel from the Buffalo News wrote a very nice blurb back in November regarding both Breathing Room collections and I just wanted to take the time to thank her for her efforts. You can still check out her write-up over at:

buffalonews.com/entertainment/booksliterature/story/481433.html

 

Many people don’t realize just how many complimentary copies go out (and have been going out) for every single collection released so far to almost every single newspaper, radio station and bookstore in town (for the last ten years) and how little many of these media outlets do to return the favor. Even a tiny paragraph on a slow news day can work wonders for a title. It’s always the same guilty parties, too, which is surprising and frustrating. In most cases, complimentary copies come out of my pocket. Ideally, it would be nice to see more write-ups, calendar listings and reviews in the future, but I’ll be exploring some new options and improved business practices with all Doubt It Publishing titles from here on out.

For the current poetry collections, a lot of the old guard has kindly relented and started taking notice in print, in bookstores (locally and nationally) and on the radio. Breathing Room I & II aided in improving the learning curve in terms of how to effectively market and sell a poetry collection. This summer, fall and winter, Slapstick & Superego will be a quantum leap. Mark my words, Buffalo, because the Doubt It Publishing name-branding will commence in about two to three more months.

Bonus Poem! Conduct Unbecoming

This week has been a bitch and a half and I was thinking about this poem earlier today.  It applies to quite a bit.  Instead of giving a ten minute explanation for a one page poem, though, I’ll just let you read it.  It’s from the upcoming poke the scorpion with a sharp stick, which I’ve been working on quietly with what little free time I can spare as of late.  Enjoy! -Tom

Conduct Unbecoming

i would rather tell people

exactly

how i feel

when i feel it

than mince words

pretend that there isn’t a problem

or join the longstanding tradition

of stabbing others in the back

or misdirecting my anger on those who aren’t deserving of it.

i prefer to go for long periods

without saying anything

in favor of lashing out

saying something i’d regret

or resorting to physical violence.

i choose to beat myself up

by various methods

instead of

channeling my rage, confusion or sadness

towards the people i love

& when all of these subroutines & behaviors fail me

i default

& retreat inward

for a season or three.

It’s a sad, dysfunctional, pathetic, pathological world

when i’m the misfit for carrying on as previously stated

& the norm for dealing with others

is quite to the contrary.

Quixote Wednesday Update: Roper Hyperbole

Quixote Wednesday Update!

 

I was seriously considering skipping this week in favor of mentioning my show tonight (April Foolfest 2 at Desiderio’s on Broadway at 7 p.m. with special musical guest Lenny Revell), but after receiving 151 unique site hits last Wednesday on my site within 3 hours, I certainly don’t want to leave my readers (inside the company and without) uninformed. That, and I’ve really been looking forward to this installment. Lisa (in classic Lisa fashion) is on vacation in the Dominican Republic this week during a crucial week where she should be checking in on Game Day Sale Compliance, but she hasn’t done her job this far, so why would she start now? At any rate, without further ado, here is your Quixote Wednesday Update…

A few weeks ago, myself and a small army went to the Department Of Labor downtown to contest my rights to unemployment benefits in a mediation hearing. One of the perks to showing up for this brand of circus is that I had access to my file before the hearing itself along with all of the paperwork gathered up to that point. One such document was an internal Gamestop transcript of my previous DM Lisa’s recollection/delusional fantasy as to what happened the day she marched in and terminated my employment with the company for no reason.

The day after she railroaded me out of the store on one of her personal and highly prejudiced witch-hunts, she had to report back to Estela Reyes, an internal HR person who was most likely required to keep a file at corporate on this particular wrongful termination. While I wasn’t allowed to make copies of any of the documents in the aforementioned file, I took copious notes on the glaring fabrications of what happened versus what Lisa claimed to cover her own ass for your enjoyment:

-Lisa alleged that I was on a Final Warning for Loss Prevention policies. The Final Warning I received was for a separate company policy entirely and it was issued to me in February of 2008 (coincidentally the last time I was on a vacation, which seems to be the only time she can be bothered to visit stores that aren’t run by her buddies). 1. Lisa herself told me that all Final Warnings revert to writing warnings after three months. 2. The Final Warning was for Marketing Compliance, as I was late setting up an in-store display. How in the hell does setting up signs and posters relate to Loss Prevention and how can a DM parlay that into a case for terminating someone?

-Lisa claimed that I ’rambled’ out on the sales floor to her about buying my books after she showed up out of the blue and fired me. Bad move. As a writer, I have a pretty comprehensive sense of recall and that day remains fairly crystal clear in my mind. 1. The first thing I did after finding out that I lost my job was inform Lisa that I wasn’t going to freak out because doing so wouldn’t do any good. I asked her if it was okay for me to let my new wife of two weeks know so that she was in the loop. During the uncomfortable silences in the back room after what she had done, Lisa mentioned to me that I would make out okay since I had just released two collections of poetry. After that, I joked (in one sentence) that now she would have to buy one of my books. How a joke to lighten the severity of the situation would amount to rambling is beyond me. In all likelihood, Lisa was glossing the situation over to justify replacing yet another male manager in her District with a female. 3. This entire exchange happened in the back room of the Thruway store location. Not one shred of this happened out on the sales floor and there were no witnesses the entire time that we spoke. When I left and walked out onto the sales floor, I took my various awards and prizes with me and quietly said goodbye to the staff that was working in a calm and collective manner. I’m unsure as to how any of this was converted to ’rambling on the sales floor’, but that’s another indicator of how unfit and deluded this woman is when it comes to lying about how she does or doesn’t do her job.

-It stated on the report that I was offered to look at any supporting documentation as to why I was being terminated. 1. I was NEVER offered any supporting documentation. She walked in like a robot four days after returning from my honeymoon and after almost eight months of no disciplinary action, she showed up and let me go for a reason that was pretty far-fetched. Again, at NO time was I offered to see paperwork that was relevant to the situation. That would have been nice.

-There’s a lot more from this single conversation that I’d like to cover, but I’ll save the rest for next week. I’d love to keep going, but there are so many glaring inconsistencies that I’d run the risk of ‘rambling’. Heh. I almost wonder if Lisa would attest to the same conversation if she were swore in and in the presence of an appointed judge or if she would actually let some truth fall off of her twisted and fairy-tail-spewing tongue. Maybe we’ll find out soon, maybe we won’t. That’s all I’ve got for this week. Rest assured that I’ll have plenty more Gamestop fables next Wednesday!

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Sansonne Benefit Aftermath/April Foolfest 2 THIS WEDNESDAY/Busted Stuff Deserves An Apology…

The Gregg Sansonne ‘We’ve Got Your Back’ Benefit at the Colonel Weber Post in Lackawanna yesterday was a huge, huge success! Well over 400 people bought tickets and came out in droves to support Gregg before his upcoming surgery fundraiser. Busted Stuff, The Mick Hayes Band, Only Humen (with a two song cameo from Michael Bly) and Black Widow rocked the crowd down to the foundations with an entire day of great music and multiple sponsors contributed their time, food, gift certificates and other goods and services in support of Gregg’s procedure. Thanks (personally) to Mazia’s Pizza in Clarence, Desiderio’s on Broadway, Salon On The Avenue in Lancaster, and Don’s Atomic Comics(!) in Depew for helping me to bring something to the table from my end of the benefit.

I also had a real blast emceeing the benefit! I did so well with the audience that one of the organizers (who runs a non-profit organization for kids) asked if I’d emcee for one of their events because she liked my quirky, irreverent hosting style. For my first time doing this sort of thing, I’m just glad I didn’t blow it. You can judge for yourself later this week, though, because the ENTIRE BENEFIT was recorded directly from their sound board for Think Twice Radio! If I can ever get a day or an evening off to visit the studio this week, I’ll be dropping off a boat load of new shows that are well overdue for Big Words Radio as well as the Monsters Of Verse Project site. I’ll keep you posted when they’re posted.

Moving on, April Foolfest 2 is going down THIS WEDNESDAY starting at 7 p.m. at Desiderio’s on Broadway. This Wednesday will be the 2 year anniversary of the original April Foolfest book launch for If They Can’t Take A Joke. Michael Bly performed and I popped the Big Question to Lindsay. Lindsay’s birthday is this week, we love Desiderio’s, Lenny Revell will be performing, and I’ll be reading selections from Slapstick & Superego. Not to mention the fact that the event is FREE! How many more reasons could you need to come out and have a great time? This show is going to be a knockout (we’ll be recording this one as well), so suit up, drive out and meet us at Desiderio’s on the corner of Broadway and Bowen!

The early questionaire responses have voted unanimously for a late summer book launch at Desiderio’s. I’ll be locking down a date this week, and factoring in all the responses, I’m going to shoot for an early August event on either a Thursday, Friday or Saturday evening. Once it’s confirmed, I’ll let you know.

A new issue of Night Life hit’s the stands today with Part Two of ‘A Preacher, A Rabbi & A Minister Walk Into A Bank…’ pt. 2 of 2, a religious lambast going all the way back to First Person, Last Straw. And finally, I’d like to thank Dave from the Buffalo super-duo Busted Stuff. A few years ago, we had a misunderstanding that I took public. Dave was enough of a gentleman to speak to me calmly and collectively about what happened and we shook hands and moved forward. In addition, the band sounded about 300% better than when I heard them two years prior when they played the benefit and they were pretty damned good to begin with. So thank you, Dave. I’m glad we could settle our differences and make some plans for the future. The up side of the reconciliation means that you can look forward to hearing Busted Stuff play on Big Words Radio some time down the road. It should be a hell of a show.

Talk to you all in two days on the official web site for the Quixote Wednesday Update,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update! Amok

After getting wrongfully terminated on a paperwork technicality, it comes as quite a shock (but not really) to discover that my former supervisor would tear up company documents in the presence of multiple employees. The eyes have it that after Lewis pitched in and did his part on helping to get me fired, Lisa marched into my old store (Thruway) and shredded ALL of his written warnings. For a ‘leader’ so intent on document compliance and procedural carry-through, it’s astonishing to hear that Lisa can’t even follow the bullshit that’s falling out of her own mouth regarding company statutes, policy, and paperwork retention. If memory serves, ALL company documents must be retained for NO LESS THAN one calendar year. Technically (as if there aren’t plenty of reasons already), Lisa should be terminated for flagrantly violating company record policy in the presence of multiple members of management.

Now I’m not a procedure freak, but something doesn’t seem right there, especially when you take into account that Lisa talked me into giving Lewis the majority of his documentation. I was ordered on multiple occasions to start laying a paperwork trail down so that she could get rid of him down the road and I followed my orders like a good soldier and did so every time Lisa asked me.

As a matter of fact, for the year and a half that we were under Lisa’s ‘command’ in the Buffalo District, Lisa had consistently tried to railroad me into terminating Lewis by any means necessary. In the past, she’s made those statements in the presence of multiple other managers during inventories. I’m so glad that Lewis returned the favor by stabbing me in the back for the one person who wanted to phase him out of the company the most. The end result of these shenanigans is that we have two snakes who can’t trust each other and a District Manager who shouldn’t (and can’t be) taken at her word to save her life, and if you can’t live up to your word, what does that say about you as a person?

Factor in the concrete truth that Lewis’ write-up carbon copies were all sent in to Human Resources at the corporate headquarters Texas after each discussion was conducted with him (Lewis had a sizeable file full of behavioral, procedural, punctuality and attitude-related corrective actions spanning his five years with the company) and after he signed off on them and it doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense that Lisa would tear up the paperwork in her possession in the Buffalo market. It also doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense that she’d promote someone that she despised so openly and frequently aside from the fact that she back-pedaled over the summer when Lewis confronted her about her intention to get him out of the company by any means necessary. Spineless, frequently absent, and completely lacking in integrity. That sums up these two, and they probably deserve each other in the current miasma of a cess pool that’s left to be referred to as a District.

And what of the other Buffalo stores? I’ll save them for another week. It’s annual review season in the dark regime and I’d rather phase these tidbits in for easy digestion than overload you with such a far-reaching example of mismanagement, incompetence and obvious abuse of power from a district standpoint. Either someone is asleep at the wheel higher up or Gamestop is retaining Lisa’s employment out of a stubborn sense that her termination would be an admission of guilt or a concession that she never should have been hired on within the company in the first place. Sales numbers, morale, and the original number of successful managers have dropped consistently and drastically in twenty or twenty two months that Lisa took the helm and started hiring on as many girls and personal friends that she could. It truly astonishes me that one person in a District position can exhibit such obvious double-standards as a leader and be allowed to report to work (or just not show up at all) for so long. Make sure to click back next week for more examples of ludicrous absenteeism, invisibility when it comes to exhibiting leadership, and how to turn a blind eye when one (or two, or three) of your favorite managers are screwing up left and right. It’s going to be a fun couple of months because there’s no shortage of anecdotes flying past the plate! Have a great week,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Slapstick & Superego Final Stages/April Foolfest 2 Next Week/Gregg Sansonne Benefit THIS SUNDAY!

While this is an exciting time, for many reasons that I can’t divulge, the next six months will be highly irregular. I’m happy to report that I’m currently in possession of the only copy of my next book on the planet and I’m re-reading it (a painful process for me) for typos.

Slapstick & Superego is so close to the finish line that I can taste it, and in many respects, it feels like the first actual book I’ve released. Instead of a resume or showcase-style format, this book was planned from start to finish as a rant collection. No interviews, no poems, no projects, just rants. It is the first concept book from start to finish, and I’m very proud of it. In addition, the introduction (by Alycia Ripley), the wraparound cover (by Ian Chrystal) and the interior layout (by Victoria Robinson) are all second to none. Early response has been through the roof, and the team effect is something I’ll be implementing as Doubt It Publishing moves onward and upward.

In the same regard (for reasons I can’t necessarily go into), I’ll be holding ONE event for the book in the next six months. Once I’m satisfied with the look of the collection, and once I’ve signed off on it, I’ll be holding a singular launch over the summer and then there won’t be any other events until November or later. After the Monsters Of Verse tour, this will be a serious change in the way I’ve done business for the previous six to eight months. Instead of promoting a few times a week, I’ll be plugging, interviewing, reviewing and doing radio spots for one event only and then disappearing into the woodwork until the holiday season.

In case you forgot, April Foolfest 2 is going down next week with musical guest Lenny Revell at Desiderio’s on Broadway at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1^st. In light of the fact that Slapstick arrived in my mail box early, not only will I be showing the editing proof off to anyone who wants to see it, but I’ll read a few rants from the book from 7-9 (along with selections from both Breathing Rooms) as well. If you want to see the book before summer comes around, next week will be the time to do it. Anyone who’s been to one of the book promotions at Desiderio’s knows that they’re an event to remember (and that they tend to run all the way up to last call), so if you’re free, make it out to a free evening of tirades and truly inspiring music by new pal Lenny Revell! Aside from the last few MOV events and the Slapstick launch, you won’t be seeing too many public appearances from ‘this guy’ until the holiday ads start running on television and in your local papers, so make a point of coming out!

And closer up on the map, I’ll be emceeing for dear friend Gregg Sansonne’s ‘We’ve Got Your Back’ benefit THIS SUNDAY! Gregg is undergoing some serious (and much needed) back surgery that will put him out of the local performing circuit for at least a few months. Gregg has been like a brother to me, and he played my wedding as a gift for Lindsay and me. If you have this Sunday open (from noon to six), pop on out to the Colonel Weber V.F.W. Post and fork over the measly twenty bucks to see Black Widow, Busted Stuff, Mick Hayes and Only Humen rock the joint out for the better part of the day. There will also be a Chinese Auction, games, raffles, food and a cash bar. I’ve never emceed before, so I hope I can round out the bill without screwing anything up.

Tickets will be available (in limited quantities) at the door, but if you want to secure some in advance, feel free to contact me via email

(bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com) or you can feel free to call Nicole (one of the organizers) at 341-4073. I can’t stress what a great friend Gregg has been to me and many others in the Buffalo music community over the years, so PLEASE come out and support my buddy in his time of need!

 

Quixote Wednesday Update! Round One Results

DECISION: The initial determination, disqualifying the claimant from receiving benefits effective October 10^th, 2008, on the basis that the claimant lost employment through misconduct in connection with that employment and holding that the wages paid to the claimant by Gamestop Inc. prior to October 10, 2008, cannot be used toward the establishment of a claim for benefits, is overruled. The claimant is allowed benefits with respect to the issues decided herein.

I wonder if Gamestop likes apples?

For the first time in six months of hammering away on this situation, a ray of good news came down the pike. After spending a few hours downtown at the Department Of Labor with some much-appreciated supporters, the right decision was made.

The audacity of Gamestop’s blindness rested in the front of the DOL file I was permitted to look over before the hearing took place. It stated that no one from the company would be able to attend the hearing, but that they would appeal the decision if the Department Of Labor ruled in my favor. Really? Have at it, then.

The way I see it (and based on what I’ve learned in the last week), they’re only going to make things worse for themselves and the longer they drag this out, the worse they’re going to look thanks to my case and quite a few others. It’s amazing that they would fire off key employees from their company instead of giving their workforce severance packages to save money. It’s even more mind-boggling that a company would be so reprehensibly in the wrong that they’d fire multiple people and then contest unemployment benefits for every single one of them simply to save money on their yearly unemployment insurance as a corporate structure. Even Darth Vader is looking pretty rosy right now compared to these heartless heathens of consumerism, eh?

So round one (by decision) goes to the little guy. For once. It’s going to happen a lot more often in Buffalo, so again, here are my terms for the corporate cronies from Gamestop who keep signing on week in and week out who haven’t been fired (yet):

1. Terminate Lisa’s employment based on her well-documented and unethical work history.

2. Stop sweating the bottom line by contesting the benefits of the multiple Buffalo members of management earned by helping to build your company.

I can keep going around and around at the Department Of Labor and the longer I have to play this game with them, the less patience I’ll have about dialing a few other numbers to talk to a number of other organizations who have already contacted me. All of these things take time and energy, though, and I don’t always have both. If this bullshit drags out, I will certainly MAKE the time, though, and every month, a few more friends offer their support as well as their services (legal and otherwise). How bad do you want this to get?

Do the right thing, Gamestop. For once. Is that a tall order, or have you been so blind for so long that you forgot how to err on the side of humane treatment in concern to your workforce?

I guess we’ll all find out together as the Wednesday’s keep rolling along. I got enough interesting information last week to keep us occupied for the foreseeable future. Keep on reading and I’ll keep on writing,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Light At The End Of The Tunnel

After a weekend of promotion, very serious progress on two different upcoming books and one of the best radio shows yet, I feel a) exhausted and b) like I’m getting somewhere. At a time when I should have had writer’s block and then some by now, I have quite the reverse. If anything, I can’t STOP writing. Even after a year of high production, ideas, essays, poems, reviews and other related creations keep pouring out and there’s no end in sight. While draining, these are the sort of boom phases that sustain a great deal of professional freelance writers for years to come.

Saturday at Chow Chocolat was a tremendous success. JR Finlayson, poet/comedian Josh Smith and yours truly had a boffo turn as the Monsters Of Verse downtown in the heart of the city on Main Street, sucked down some coffee that was damned near perfect, and made some new friends in the creative community. Thanks to Scott (owner), Josh Gage & Vince Barone (The Manipulators) for hosting their weekly open mic and giving us what essentially boiled down to free rein, and the random cast of characters that showed up for the open mic collective that used to be a hell of a lot more commonplace around these parts before the landscape of our economy and our culture changed. A great deal of the evening was recorded for pod cast conclusion and I’ll be dropping the show off over at Think Twice some time this week for the Monsters Of Verse project site.

Something else very strange happened this weekend: two near-completed books surfaced! Graphic designer Ian Chrystal sent the best cover for any book I’ve released thus far and Victoria Robinson drove the point home with an interior that’s about 99% complete for Slapstick & Superego. You can get a sneak peek at book 8’s cover if you’d like to pop over and visit either my Facebook or Myspace profile site where this marvel of modern design rests comfortably and beautifully on the default profile pic. Keeping things fresh and using a rotating team for Doubt It Publishing appears to be working for a new company philosophy and I couldn’t be happier with Vicki and Ian’s commitment to perfection and their work ethic that led to bringing the project in WELL AHEAD of schedule some two months sooner than we all originally planned. This will only benefit you, the book buyer, as spring and summer unfold. How, you may ask? Whelp, I’m not going to tell you that yet, so deal with it.

And after reading out for the first time in awhile with the Monsters Of Verse, I revisited the file folder for Poke The Scorpion With A Sharp Stick, scrapped the original manuscript and began re-assembling the key poems from scratch. After two long dusk sessions throughout the night, 100 pages are complete and I’m thinking about moving forward in the fall with a smaller book than I originally intended. Long-time fans of the site are no doubt familiar with the interactive process for each book where you’re allowed to pitch in your two cents and contribute to the preproduction of each collection via a floating test panel and I’ll be doing that with both new books in the coming weeks, so stay tuned and prepare to deliver your opinions when the time is ready.

Today (Sunday, as I write this), co-host Diabetes Dave and myself were bowled away in the studio for Episode 35 of Big Words Radio with adult film star Sara Jay. She was bright, funny, engaging, titillating and entertaining all rolled into one. Sara and Alexis have broken the stereotype and proved twice over that porn actors are far from vacuous bubbleheads who wouldn’t know their alphabet if it was in a bowl of soup in front of them. A big round of thanks are in order to Sara Jay for rendering myself and my co-host dumbstruck with a certain performance that’s NEVER been done on Think Twice Radio before and to Diabetes Dave for batting on deck as a tasteful co-host after the original two co-hosts were unable to appear. Don’t waste another moment! Read the rest of the Monday Update and click your ass over to Big Words I Know By Heart on

www.thinktwiceradio.com

Confirmed Bookings As Opposed To Last Minute Cancellations (Milligan’s)

It’s going to be a busy couple of weeks.

Tomorrow, the Monsters Of Verse take the stage (with Rotating Guest Monster Josh Smith) for the first time in a few months at Chow Chocolat at 6:30 p.m. Again, Chow Chocolat is located downtown on 731 Main St. On Sunday (after losing BOTH original co-hosts), I’ll be going back into Think Twice studios to interview adult film star Sara Jay for Episode 35 of the Big Words I Know By Heart Radio Hour. And speaking of the radio show, I’ve got some HUGE news.

-Comic writer Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) will be my guest for the next studio date in May.

I’m really excited about having Harvey on. Being two cranky old men who like to complain, I’m sure the two of us will get along like gangbusters. Pekar is a pioneer in the comics industry and it’s going to be an honor and a thrill to interview him for the show. Mark your calendars for May 13^th, because it should be a show to remember.

Moving on then. Don’t forget to stop out to Brennan’s Bowery Bar on Main and Transit in Williamsville this Monday (St. Patrick’s Day Eve) from 5-8 p.m. if you want to a)hoist a pint with me for the holiday or b) get a second chance to buy a copy of Clean Up After Me, I’m Irish: A Cheap Degenerate’s Guide To Buffalo Bars ($13). I normally don’t keep any copies on deck during book promotions, but I ordered 10 for the occasion.

And sadly, the promotion for St. Patrick’s Day itself at Milligan’s Pub in Orchard Park has been cancelled. The owner’s son who is apparently ’running’ the place (into the ground) and I had some harsh words yesterday and I’m not about to boost business for a bar that doesn’t want it. Jay is a hothead, a half-wit and wouldn’t know how to operate a business if it sat on his face. You’ve seen how well nepotism works first hand over the course of the last six months in the Gamestop scenario, and this is no exception.

It’s a shame, because I’ve been friends with Steve and Carol (the actual owners) for the last eight years and now, thanks to their addle-brained mid-20 year old, we probably won’t be. It’s also a shame that their son shot his mouth off to someone who’s been firmly entrenched in the industry for almost ten years and will continue to write about it. Their loss. If you want to know more, feel free to ask me about it at the 5 million other bars I frequent, write about or have longstanding relationships with.

Since Tuesday is St. Patrick’s Day, you’re all welcome to join me out at Desiderio’s on Broadway in Lancaster from 8 p.m. on. I’ll be selling off my remaining copies of Clean Up After Me, I’m Irish, and celebrating the holiday in the spirit intended for the event.

And finally, I’ll be appearing with fellow Monsters Of Verse JR Finlayson and Diane Meholick next Saturday at the 3^rd annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum from noon-6 p.m.

That’s all I’ve got for today. I said it was going to be a busy week, didn’t I? So mark your calendars and we’ll see you out on the circuit!

Have a great weekend,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

For the last five months, I’ve wondered if I would have received my benefits sooner if I’d been less of a squeaky wheel and kept my mouth shut. This Monday, I found out thanks to a few peers: no. As luck would have it, Gamestop is going after EVERYONE they’ve terminated in the past few months for their unemployment benefits whether they’ve gone quietly into that bad night or not, whether they’ve been pleasant about their unintentional termination based on technicalities or otherwise.

In multiple cases Gamestop is making a concerted effort to squeeze every penny out of the people who have worked for them after their longstanding practice of unofficially laying off the companies they’ve bought out. Instead of laying off the companies they’ve merged with (just check Wikipedia), Gamestop has been firing the employees who haven’t been on board since day one and in turn, they’re turning their former employees upside down and refusing them benefits regardless of whether they’ve followed company policy or not.

In the case of Curt Kuczowski, Lisa Roper has guaranteed unemployment benefits after termination to no avail. Time and again, Lisa’s word has meant NOTHING. After a few weeks of benefits, Gamestop Inc. has changed their mind and reversed their decision on multiple people affected by their unethical practices, requesting a full refund on unemployment wages by any means necessary. So this Wednesday, I ask you this: why would you contribute money to a company who not only a) fires the managers who make money on a store by store basis but b) won’t pay the people that they terminate even when they clip them for not kissing the right asses?

In Curt’s case, he followed company policy by the book. He received benefits for a month and a half, found another job and landed on his feet. After finding gainful employment (for a fraction of his previous pay), Gamestop decided that he was unworthy of the funds allocated for his unemployment benefits and the Department Of Labor sent a request for him to refund all weekly benefits previously paid to him. Trust me when I say that he isn’t the only one. I almost feel lucky that they haven’t paid out a goddamned dime for the years I’ve put in yet and it makes anyone wonder, what sort of company would muscle out the people who have worked hard for them and left involuntarily?

This is (in all likelihood) a death knoll for the industry when money-hungry corporations aren’t willing or able to pay out for employee benefits on the ground floor. Multiple managers across the company are losing out on the very benefits they’ve earned and when Gamestop is fighting against a basic necessity while ‘awarding’ their employed workforce with $100 gift cards to offset the troubles of the economy, something is seriously wrong with the retail market. This is a sign of weakness and a clear indicator that the videogame industry is headed directly towards the toilet.

Since 2005, big name industry companies such as Microsoft and Sony have been training and educating their consumers to download their software via stepping-stone practices like exclusive content and downloadable only games. In another console generation or two, brick and mortar stores will be extinct. Aside from Gamestop’s company-wide history of buying out other competitors and phasing out their workforce, they’ve got five years AT BEST to pay back their Electronics Boutique-related loan to their parent company, Barnes & Noble. Can they pull it off in this market? Probably not, even if they keep sticking it to the store managers that they decide to fire for no particular reason aside from the fact that they make more than $26,000 a year.

One of the lowest-paying Fortune 500 companies on the list is re-staffing or wrongfully terminating their Electronics Boutique counterparts and systematically refusing their unemployment benefits. Since the merger of 2006, they’ve been firing their sales-hungry betters from the top right down to the bottom and it’s obvious that this company has chosen the course of unscrupulous firings rather than paid retirements or layoffs. Unfortunately, my termination based on gender is far from an exception to the rule and the longer I fight for the money I’ve earned, the more I hear about other such cases.

In the Buffalo market alone, four or five other managers have either never received benefits in the last six months or they’ve gotten them only to find out that Gamestop wanted the money back. At the end of this fiscal quarter, I wonder how they’re going to cook their yearly stats to make them sound profitable if they’re shaking down their own fucking prior workforce for every nickle, dime and penny even after they’ve been ‘let go’ for making too much money or sadly being on the wrong side of the pond by accident before they borrowed enough funds that they couldn’t pay back to buy the company that would have put them out of business?

Sounds like a class action law suit, doesn’t it? This warrants further inspection on a local and national level based on Gamestop’s patterns. No company should be allowed to carry on with the degree of nepotism, corruption, money-hungry favoritism and downright evil that Gamestop has demonstrated. They need to be taught a lesson, and luckily enough, they fucked with the wrong guy.

Monday Big Words Update: Sensory Overload!

In terms of publishing, things have gotten to the point where I can’t even keep up with where my stuff is being printed let alone let all of you know where it’s showing up as it’s appearing even if you did have the time or inclination to read all of it. I’m not bragging, this is just a statement of fact. In the last week alone, a the Flight 3407 commentary went up over on acid logic.com, a new comic review popped up over on comics bulletin.com, a trio of new reviews found their way onto my new home (‘The Dirty Bomb) over at donsatomiccomics.com, a Gusto Club Watch review saw print in the pages of The Buffalo News on Friday, and a My View piece on my fondness for the family summer homes that Lindsay’s family and my family own went into the Buffalo News on Saturday. That may be everything, but I doubt it.

The fact that I WROTE that much material is boggling to me and even I don’t have the time to read all of it after I write it. In terms of writing only, the last twelve months have been an unbelievably potent period and I’m not going to stop while the creative juices are flowing. Factor in the Big Words Radio Show (Sara Jay phone interview THIS SUNDAY!), the Monsters Of Verse Tour and Pod cast (Chow Chocolat THIS SATURDAY @ 6:30), the intermittent book tour for both Breathing Rooms, preproduction on Slapstick & Superego (ahead of schedule), everything I’ve written this week, formulating Doubt It Publishing as a local and national publishing company to take note of with multiple authors worthy of shelling out your hard earned cash for AND the Buffalo Anthology Project on the back burner until early summer when I have time to go over the six or seven months of submissions, this is a lot to process. I try not to think about it all at any one time because it would probably render me irrevocably insane.

It’s good to be busy, but there’s only so much I can take. In the coming months, you just might see me winding down and stepping back from a lot of things for some much-needed rest and time to focus on my new family, my personal life, and the career that isn’t my writing career. I’m running out of steam fast and I have no one to blame but myself, and yet, there is no ’stop’ button on a great number of the projects that are underway.

I could use a break. Monsters Of Verse has two more months left with my involvement and after that, it’s anybody’s (or nobody’s) ball game. Co-founder JR Finlayson and I were talking about it today and as far as I’m concerned, after May, count me out. Finn, Carrie, or anyone else is more than welcome to take the name, the pod cast, and the contacts and run with them, but I am officially resigning as one-third of the touring poets once June rolls around. I’ve had my fill and then some and to be honest, I feel as if the experiment was a dismal failure. The intention was for three poets (any three poets) to join forces and elevate their status in the Buffalo market by showing up anywhere and any time while pooling resources and fostering a sense of team work and collaboration and in doing so, create even more work. Monsters Of Verse was a mistake, and I’m sorry that we started it. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t have joined up with Jeff and Carrie. Business and friendship make poor bedfellows and that’s a hard lesson learned, but I won’t make that mistake again. Long story short, you should see an announcement on all of my web pages some time in May with a casting call or a call to arms for any Buffalo poets with a passing interest in taking the torch and running with it, because I for one don’t want it anymore. On to other business and then I’m going to sleep…..

A new Night Life hits stands today with a Big Words helping of ’Alternative Thinking (part I)’, the once-and-for-all essay about how I really feel about the gay and lesbian subculture versus how people think I may feel. This Saturday, the Monsters Of Verse will be appearing with Rotating Guest Monster Josh Smith at Chow Chocolat downtown on Main St. in Buffalo at 6:30 p.m. for our first featured reading in quite some time now. In just seven days (next Monday), I’ll be at Brennan’s Bowery Bar promoting, signing and selling Clean Up After Me, I’m Irish from 5-8 p.m. the day before St. Patrick’s Day, so stop out, buy me a pint and buy a goddamned book! If you can’t make that date, make sure to swing out to Milligan’s Pub in Orchard Park ON St. Patrick’s Day from 4-8 p.m.

Check all of your local listings and calendar publications if they happened to take the time to post the calendar emails I sent to them in a timely manner (which they normally don’t). Your best bet is to click on back throughout the week as each date approaches since cutting and pasting calendar events that were emailed to you for your paying job posting calendar listings is apparently a daunting, grueling, unforgiving, thankless and insurmountable task. Cough Cough.

That’s all I have the time and energy for today. Wish me luck this Monday as I’ll be doing battle with the forces of evil (i.e. Gamestop Inc.) for the money I should have been getting since I got wrongfully terminated the week after our honeymoon. No matter what the outcome will be, rest assured that you can read all about that and more in two days when I drop the Quixote Wednesday knowledge on all of your asses! Talk to you soon,

Tom Waters

Last Minute Fax Number For Those Interested in Aiding Waters vs. Gamestop Inc.

Ladies and Gentleman,

 

Per previous discussions, if you are unable to attend the Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board session this Monday, I would prefer (and appreciate) if you could fax a testimony/personal character reference regarding yours truly to the following fax number:

 

716-851-2795

 

If any of you have also worked under Lisa’s ‘command’ and would care to volunteer your two cents regarding her work ethic (or lack thereof), you’re welcome to write about that in the same letter as well.  If you’re still working for the company (or within the district), you are more than welcome to ask that your identity remain anonymous for fear of retaliation in the workplace.  We all know what would happen if any of your names were revealed and that would actually add some concrete credibility to the situation at hand.  Former customers as well as former employees and peers are all encouraged to send in testimony.  Again, I need all the help I can get if I’m going to have a shot at a) receiving my benefits and b) making sure that this woman’s business behavior isn’t tolerated or encouraged in any work environment ever again.  Thanks,

 

Tom Waters

(Late) Quixote Wednesday Update! Free Front Row Seats To The Gamestop Freak Show THIS MONDAY!

Thank god this happened today because I wasn’t sure whether I should go after Gamestop Inc. this week or go off on another crusade. I talked about just such an eventuality weeks ago and the time has finally come. Mark your calendars, everyone, because I rarely call in favors and I’m calling one in today to sincerely ask for your help and support. Take a seat and listen up.

After four straight months with absolutely no benefits or financial help from the State Of New York after being terminated for little more than a trifle, the Department Of Labor has FINALLY gotten off their ass and schedule a hearing for my unemployment benefits. After going through hell and back, getting fired for the wrong reasons by a woman (Lisa) who would rather maintain incompetent women and spineless yes-men rather than top salespeople who know how to drive business, we have reached a crucial plot point in the Buffalo Gamestop saga. If you care at all about the Great Depression we are in the middle of, the manner in which Big Business has been choking out the Little Guy, or the fact that the better part of Corporate America has been trimming jobs from hardworking people who have earned their positions just for the sake of saving a few pennies off the bottom line, then know this: This Monday is your time to speak up.

The Department Of Labor was proactive enough (give me a break) to give me SEVEN days notice that my unemployment hearing will occur THIS UPCOMING MONDAY on MARCH 9^th, 2009 at 2 PM. Here is the address downtown for your edification:

290 Main St., Room 207

Buffalo, NY

14202

I find it ironic that a departmental organization that was formed to inspire people to find gainful employment would have the complete lack of foresight to give anyone LESS than a week in terms of notice regarding their public hearing. Yet another example of how dysfunctional our system is when it comes to compensating those of us who have actually worked for a living with benefits that we’ve contributed to our entire lives.

 

I’ll be there.

Even with only five days notice, count me in, front and center. If my instincts are correct, we can expect a three ring circus with a great goddamn deal of soulless clowns, godless misanthropes and black-hearted, money hungry whores. In the spirit of traditional and textbook investigative journalism, you had better believe that I’ll be recording the scheduled hearing for inclusion on my radio show site, which remains online for no less than one year.

If you’ve read these Quixote Wednesday Updates with any degree of frequency, you know exactly just how far in the wrong Gamestop was in terminating my employment. I’m sure they’ve got some very high priced lawyers and a lot of money (possibly the money I didn’t get after six years of faithful service and a full roster of sales awards) to throw around in their favor.

Again, I NEED your help.

I was fired a week after my honeymoon for no reason other than the amount of money in my bi-weekly paycheck and the sheer fact that my new boss preferred the company of attractive women, bottom line. Lisa (the woman I was unfortunate enough to have as a boss for a year and a half) has a previous history of a) favoring females in the workplace, b) losing her own job with former employers for sleeping with the female managers she was in charge of and c) giving higher annual review raises to girls simply because they were girls. I realize that we live in a world where the white male is the new devil, but Lisa is in the wrong. So far in the wrong that an example needs to be made so that Gamestop and this individual should be taught a lesson.

Since the merger a few years ago, Gamestop has been ‘phasing out’ (I.e. ‘letting go’, I.e. ‘terminating for whatever reason they can come up with’, I.e. ‘laying off to trim manager salaries so that they can replace their workforce with their own Gamestop crop and/or young kids who are foolish enough to accept chickenfeed in place of an honest year’s pay simply because they have the supposed privilege of working around video games’. I’ve taken great care and diligence to expose the corruption behind all three Buffalo markets, the slow phasing out of Electronics Boutique employees for their underpaid counterparts on the Gamestop end of the pond, Lisa’s proven technique of rewarding girls that she likes instead of male managers in longstanding positions who made money for the company, and my previous Regional (Kiyeohl)’s direct relation to one of the founding stockholders of Electronics Boutique and his subsequent invulnerability despite his known incompetence based on the District Managers he was handed on a silver platter.

Every base has been covered and now we arrive at a crossroads. If you don’t have to work this Monday, I IMPLORE you to join me, my wife, AND the Department Of Labor (oxymoron) to set an example. I need your help more than ever. This isn’t just about me and I could care less about the money at this point. A large conglomerate beast has done everything they can to destroy my longstanding track record (as well as a legion of others across the country and beyond) as an effective manager who fixed problem stores and it was all in the name of saving a few pennies a year because they’re under the false impression that lower paid children can run satellite stores as well as effective individuals with a long history in retail.

I’m asking (begging) you one final time. Please join me on Monday. The money doesn’t matter anymore (although it would be nice in large part because our WEDDING funds were depleted thanks to my wrongful termination based on my gender). My wife and I will persevere and survive despite the fact that Lisa came in a week after our honeymoon and fired me with no witnesses and zero paperwork signed after the help of my former assistant manager (Lewis), a man whom she wanted to fire from the day she met him who is a proven drug dealer, abuser and an established racist. Lewis got promoted into a new store by Lisa as a thank you for saving the company money. Lisa has systematically kept poor managers with a flair for sabotaging their peers or favoring the same sex they were born into.

Last week, I posted a very sincere essay about my thoughts on the gay and lesbian culture. Despite my work in comedy through my pod cast radio show, my essays and my web sites, I have no issues with gays or lesbians. Scroll back if you’re not sure and I’m positive after reading ‘Alternative Thinking’ that you’ll have a full understanding of my thoughts and convictions about the gay and lesbian subculture. I am not a bigot. I never have been. This is not an attack against gays and lesbians and I support their choices and anyone who is lucky enough to find and maintain a happy and fulfilling relationship regardless of their partner’s gender.

My issue with Gamestop and Lisa is this: Lisa is an individual who doesn’t deserve the job she was hired into and her employment (as well as Gamestop Inc.’s behavior since their supposed merger) have gone on long enough. Passing up males who have put their time in and shown everyone (especially their peers) that they’re worthy of promotion and helping out personal friends or females simply for the fact that they’re women is wrong. From a regional and company standpoint, allowing this kind of behavior and pretending that it isn’t happening or continuing to ignoring her lackadaisical leadership skills as a District Manager who rarely (if ever) visits stores is asinine.

I’m toeing the line here. I’m not fighting this battle for selfish or personal reasons. Since I started this crusade, Lisa has stopped terminating male members of her District as some misguided over corrective, overprotective gesture to save her own hide and prove that she isn’t prejudiced against men. It’s too late. After two years of driving male members of management out of the company because they were ignored for promotions and terminating men by any means necessary, the damage is done in Buffalo. Her behavior, her actions and her negligence as a supervisor should be addressed, and apparently, Gamestop is so far gone morale-wise that they can’t fix their own problems in-house. The Department Of Labor is hanging by a thread, because I just happen to be the one loose end that they’ve ignored since the beginning of October despite the fact that I’ve worked and payed into the system that sustains them since the age of 14. This is one of the two times in my life that I’ve depended upon our American system to take care of me after I supported them (with a new wife and family, no less) and our government has failed me.

If you have the day off, please feel free to show up this Monday at 2 p.m. and help to prove a point. A system that’s in the habit of awarding people with no jobs has ignored an individual who’s worked for almost twenty years at any job that pays who got fired by a woman who has been allowed to impose her prejudiced views against anyone with a male chromosome in a District run by a nepotistic fill-in who heads a small part of a company that would rather find a petty and insignificant handbook sub-clause to terminate good people than take care of the individual store managers who made their brand name so successful in the first place. An example needs to be made.

Who’s with me?

Please feel free to leave your comments below this post. I hope that my pessimistic nature will be proven wrong this Monday and that if you can make the time to speak out or prove a point simply with your presence as a member of this nation’s workforce, you will. If (thanks to the unreasonably short notice), you are unable to attend, please take the time to call the number provided (851-2711) to speak your mind and say your peace in defense of such an ongoing practice of corporate corruption.

Thank you in advance,

Tom Waters

 

Monday Big Words Update! Updated March-May Calendar, Two MORE Big Words Episodes With Lenny Revell!

Monday Big Words Update! Updated Mar-May Calendar, 2 MORE Big Words Shows!

First off, grab your copy of Night Life this week if you want a print version of the very well received ‘Thoughts On The Flight 3407 Crash’ essay that you all saw here FIRST online! There’s a whole block of new columns rolling out this month and they’re all popping into Night Life magazine, so grab ‘em while you can.

Moving on, if you haven’t heard the historic interview with adult film starlette Alexis Amore on Episode 32 of Big Words Radio, don’t waste another second and click over now! I’m also pleased to announce that there are two NEW episodes up in addition to Alexis’ show featuring an interview hour and a fully loaded hour and a half concert episode with national piano wunderkind Lenny Revell! Here’s your synopsi!:

2/20/09 Episode 34
Tom and Lenny meet each other for the first time, forge a heterosexual ‘bromance’ regarding their love for the music of Elton John (vs. Billy Joel), and discuss the predominance (as well as their mutual disgust) of the ‘97 Rock Mentality’ on the Buffalo Music Scene.
2/20/09 Episode 33a: Piano Man
National virtuoso Lenny Revell regales Tom and his fans with a number of brilliant renditions while Tom’s brain goes on tilt due to one glass of Knob Creek and a full work day.

Click over and enjoy all the podcasty goodness over at:

Thinktwiceradio.com

Lenny was a pleasure to interview and surprisingly much better than I expected him to be on the keys (and he came highly recommended, mind you). Thanks again are in order to Lenny for rocking it out even after a full work day. Give it a listen and then buckle up and mark your calendar for April Foolfest 2 at Desiderio’s on Broadway when Lenny and I will be splitting the bill starting at 7 pm with an evening of comedy, great music, potent beverages and spectacular cuisine along with Suckerpunch’s Dan Labowski.

And (since the calendar should max out your attention span for the remainder of this post, here is the newly updated Event Calendar for the next three months. Please note the addition of two very important and very exciting bookings (Brennan’s Bowery Bar on St. Patty’s Eve and Milligan’s Pub on St. Patrick’s Day). I’ll be taking a time out from Breathing Room I and II to hawk a few dozen copies of Clean Up After Me, I’m Irish: A Cheap Degenerate’s Guide To Buffalo Bars, so if you want to buy a signed copy from me in person (or just buy an Irishman a drink on or near our favorite holiday), Brennan’s and Milligan’s will be the time to do so!

There’s a lot more to cover, but I’ll pop a few posts in throughout the week. Don’t forget to check back on Quixote Wednesday for the latest crusade! Thanks,

Tom Waters

Monsters Of Verse/Breathing Room Bookings March Through May 2009

Saturday, March 14^th, 6:30 P.M., Chow Chocolat (731 Main St., 843-4388), Monsters Of Verse featuring poet Josh Smith

Sunday, March 15^th, 2 p.m., Big Words Studio Date with Guest Sara Jay (adult film star); co-hosts Intentionally Bald Mike and Alie

Monday, March 16^th, Brennan’s Bowery Bar, 5 p.m.-8p.m., St. Patrick’s Eve signing for Clean Up After Me, I’m Irish: A Cheap Degenerate’s Guide To Buffalo Bars

Tuesday, March 17^th, Milligan’s Pub, 4 p.m.-8 p.m., St. Patrick’s Day signing for Clean Up After Me, I’m Irish: A Cheap Degenerate’s Guide To Buffalo Bars

Saturday, March 21^st, Buffalo Small Press Book Fair, Karpeles Manuscript Museum, Buffalo, 12-6 pm, (Monsters Of Verse, setup begins at 10 am), special guest author Diane Meholick (Buffalo Stories)

Sunday, March 29^th, 12-6 p.m., Gregg Sansonne Benefit, Colon John Weber VFW Post, 2909 South Park Ave, Lackawanna, 823-9605 (Tom Waters hosting, tickets are $20)

Wednesday, April 1^st, 8 p.m., ‘April Foolfest 2!’, Desiderio’s on Broadway (5827 Broadway, 683-7767), Tom only with Special Musical Guests Lenny Revell and Dan Labowski.

Saturday, April 25^th, Caz Coffee Café (688 Abbott Rd., 825-7806), 7-9 p.m., Reading (Monsters Of Verse with poet Susan Marie and artist/writer Kyle Kaczmarczyk)

Wednesday, May 6^th, 7 pm, Center For Inquiry (3965 Rensch Rd., 636-4869), Monsters Of Verse w/3^rd poet Christina Wos Donnelly)

Wednesday, May 13^th, 7 PM, Big Words Studio Date, celebrity guest TBD

Big Words Radio Episode 32: A Word In Spanish With Alexis Amore!

What a show!

 

    We wrapped in the studio last night after a captivating hour with adult film star and Peruvian import Alexis Amore.  Thanks are in order to Alexis, producer Richard Wicka and co-host Alie for taking the time to be part of one of the best show’s yet!  Big Words Radio just keeps getting bigger and better and you’ve all got a front row seat.  Here’s your synopsis:

 

2/25/09 Big Words I Know By Heart Episode 32: A Word In Spanish With Alexis Amore!
Tom and co-host Alie talk to busty Peruvian hottie Alexis Amore about the industry, simulated orgasms for the listener’s enjoyment, and the amount of research everyone invested into this episode beforehand.

 

    Tune in over at the Think Twice intraweb site and keep clicking back as national recording artist Lenny Revell’s ‘parter of two’ should be popping up some time within the next week.  The moment both of Revell’s shows are online, you’ll all be the first to know. 

    And don’t forget, adult film star Sara Jay is on deck for the next in-studio date on Wednesday, March 25th!  I’ve got some other phenomenal guests planned for future shows, but I don’t want to tip my hand too soon and I’d rather not jinx them.  A lot of work goes into each program and the behind-the-scenes labor involved factoring in phone calls, research, questions, and the general prospectus and theme of each show.  Trust me when I say that the next studio guest after March (if it works out) is a pioneer in his field. 

    Thanks for listening and feel free to click over directly at the link provided!

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

 

Have a great week!

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update! New Essay: Alternative Thinking

Alternative Thinking

In light of recent events, I thought I’d approach the subject of homosexuality. It’s a topic that (as an essayist), I’ve always wanted to weigh in on but haven’t had the proper context to discuss it with. Until now. I didn’t want to approach it from the wrong angle and risk offending people where this lifestyle is concerned because it’s not an issue to take a waffling opinion on or an essay that can be written with my usual screwball demeanor. After 33 years, I think I’m finally ready to write about the gay and lesbian culture in a way that properly explains my position.

Despite what many may think, I support the gay and lesbian subculture wholeheartedly for a number of reasons. For starters, the odds of two people finding each other on this planet, falling in love and making each other happy are infinitesimal enough as it is. If two people can find each other and help take a little agony and hardship out of each other’s lives by doing so, then what the hell is wrong with that? To take it one step further, if those two people are consenting adults and they happen to be the same gender, why should it be a big issue? Happiness is one of the most limited resources we have and it’s in far shorter supply than natural gas, coal, diamonds or any other known quantity in the universe. Call me pessimistic in thinking that way, but look at modern day relationships and prove me wrong.

We live in a world rife with climbing divorce rates, spousal abuse, infidelity, failed marriages that soldier on for the sake of children born within (and out of) wedlock, rampant pedophilia nationwide, co-dependant pairings that end in mutual self destruction, sexual addiction, gambling addiction, entire families destroyed by alcoholism, and five billion other maladies that occur intentionally (or by accident) when two people join into a relationship, move in together, or walk down the aisle together. There’s a strong possibility that gay and lesbian couples may actually be capable of teaching us how to maintain a healthy relationship with another person without letting it fall apart at the seams over the duration of the partnership. I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.

The very notion that same-sex relationships are wrong, forbidden, or singled out by any society in terms of progress is flat-out ridiculous. Quoting the Bible isn’t going to win any amens on my end, either, because the majority of the tenants brought down in the Old Testament were guidelines for health or complete crocks of shit. If you want to take up that argument with me, consider the possibility that perhaps sodomy was taboo over two thousand years ago for disease and health reasons rather than morality issues. It’s been postulated that the removal of Pork from the Jewish religion was set forth as a dietary guideline, so it’s not that far out of the ball park to claim that homosexuality was singled out for the sake of propagating a growing species and avoiding death by disease. A million other religious postulations have been overturned, thrown out or forgotten by organized religion and this is a belief that should have gone out a long time ago with the others. So take your scripture where this is concerned, roll it up and shove it in your mouth, because I don’t want to hear it.

If anything, we’re more overpopulated as a species than we have ever been, so from a survivalist standpoint as living organisms, it’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world that some men and women are pairing off with each other with no desires or plans to have children of their own. If our planet didn’t have so many inhabitants, we wouldn’t be running out of natural resources at the unnerving rate that we are, not to mention the fact that many committed same sex couples adopt, so on a very large scale, they’re helping straight people out on multiple levels. If heterosexual couples the world over used protection more often or made the decision not to have more than two children total (replacing only themselves from a mathematical standpoint), our resources would be in much better shape. There is no logical reason why couples should have four, five or eight children when you consider our survival and our evolution going forward as a species and same sex couples are helping a great deal where this is concerned.

No one can blame the disintegration of the nuclear family as an ideal on homosexuals because as a former value ideal, the breakdown is a hell of a lot more systemic than that and we’re all to blame, and who’s to say it’s an issue that’s deserving of blame? We have evolved and splintered and our culture has made room for multiple variations and alternate options in addition to the nuclear family. Single parent families. Same sex marriages with or without children. Children raised by their grandparents instead of their biological parents. These are all variations on a core value that’s no longer the standard to the way life really is. Hanging on to an ideal that doesn’t apply overall anymore is a losing battle and it’s best just to accept that we have more alternatives to growing older with our without a significant other and/or children of our own.

We’re also well aware some twenty years later that AIDs was not created or perpetuated by the gay and lesbian community. Heterosexuals have done more than their share of spreading this fatal disease since it was discovered and any theories to the contrary are false from a scientific standpoint. If anything (from personal experience), I’ve seen more cases of straight men willfully and maliciously spreading the virus without telling their partners than any other subsection of our culture. I would almost assume (based on the free programs and availability of protection within the subculture) that gays and lesbians are more protective and more sensible where the AIDs virus is concerned.

And I can understand (but wonder why) there’s a double standard where gays and lesbians are concerned. A lesbian lifestyle is held up on a pedestal in American pornography, marketing, advertising and in popular music as a fantasy designed for men’s enjoyment while gay men (on the other side of the coin) are often the victims of hate crimes, school hazing incidents and other forms of homophobic cruelty. I’m not saying that lesbians aren’t also the victims of homophobic brutality that is one hundred percent avoidable, but on the whole, this is how the subculture appears from a heterosexual’s point of view in our society.

As far as the lesbian fantasy/myth, it is exactly that. Not all lesbian women wear lipstick and garter belts 24 hours a day in the event that a man is watching. Odds are that lesbian women really don’t give a shit what men are watching. It’s not wrong to find two women having sex appealing, but there is a strong difference between what we see in adult film and pop videos versus how lesbians actually live their lives. It’s called reality, and to a greater extent, a three dimensional lifestyle. White males still influence the landscape of modern advertising and marketing because their consumer buying power holds that much sway, but that might not last forever either. A hundred years from now the gender and the race controlling our advertising dollars could be a whole different ball game. That’s if we make it another hundred years.

As someone who is firmly entrenched in an artistic community of writers, poets, journalists, musicians and other creative types, it would be foolish for me to take any other kind of stance when it comes to same sex partnerships. I’m a Republican, but I’m not a Republican from the Stone Ages, for chrissakes. One of my best friends growing up told me that he was gay some time around high school. Many of the friends that I have (or have had) in my life have been gay or lesbian. I’m also an Elton John fanatic, so it would be hypocritical to take an anti-homosexual stance when it comes to the people I talk to, the friendships I have, or the beliefs that I defend.

I’ve honestly never had a problem with it, and often wonder if the people who are most homophobic might have personal issues of their own to resolve before they project them on other people, if you know what I mean. Assuming that every gay person is going to hit on you (as a man) or that every lesbian woman will attempt to convert you (if you’re a girl) is narcissistic and false. Gay and lesbian people are not sexual werewolves with no impulse control and it doesn’t work that way. You’re ’safe’, so don’t obsess about homosexuals going out of their way to convert you. They’re not Mormons and they don’t have a vested interest in intentionally growing the population by recruiting people who aren’t interested. Think about it.

Love is the bottom line where relationships are concerned whether it’s heterosexual or homosexual. If you love someone and they love you back, where is there a problem? There isn’t one, and it shouldn’t be for anyone else involved, either. End of discussion.

Off the fence on another argument,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Chasing My Own Deadline To The Finish…

Another grueling, exhausting weekend. We’re going to make this quick because I’m pressed for time (again).
In light of my impending Big Words radio interview this Wednesday with adult film star Alexis Amore, Night Life hits stands today with my original ‘Found In Translation’ Puma Swede Interview. Grab a copy on stands and don’t forget to tune in to the Think Twice site late Wednesday night or early Thursday to catch all the insanity.
After a lot of editing and producing work on four hours worth of material, there are FOUR (count ‘em) new Monsters Of Verse shows up online over on the Think Twice Monsters site. Here are your synopses for those:
2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 10: FYE Transit
Local comic writer/artist Kyle Kaczmarzcak (The Red Eye, Pulp) attempts the unthinkable by promoting his work for eleven continuous hours with Tom beginning at FYE Transit. Poet JR Finlayson discusses the intensive therapy it took to recover from his ’08 press junket as a founding Monster Of Verse.
(Bonus Round included)
2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 11: ‘Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger Cliff-Hanger! (pt.I)’
After spending the afternoon at FYE Transit, Kyle Kaczmarzcak continues to expose himself to Tom’s insanity as they take their show down the road to Don’s Atomic Comics in Depew for a free beer promotion. In the spirit of cross-marketing, Part II can be found over on Tom’s pod cast site, Big Words I Know By Heart (also on Think Twice). Arrow over for the surprisingly violent conclusion!.
2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 12: Talking Leaves Elmwood
Poets Anne Foster and Josh Smith share a round table discussion with local novelist Diane Meholick and Tom Waters on a Sunday afternoon at Talking Leaves. For the first time in months, poems are recited for a pod cast show that was intended to have more readings than appearances. Irony!.2/15/09 Monsters Of Verse 13:     2/20/09 Borders Books And Music in Orchard Park
Long time show biz friends Diane Meholick (Buffalo Stories, Painting Katherine) and Tom Waters schmooze their way through a Borders promotion by schlepping each other’s wares to unsuspecting Valentine’s Day book buyers and discussing the finer points of local and national folk music, among other things.
I also had the good fortune of recording one interview hour and one concert hour with national piano great Lenny Revell, who will be joining me on stage as part of the bill from 7 p.m. onward on Wednesday April 1^st at Desiderio’s on Broadway for April Foolfest 2! This was the first time I’d ever met/heard Lenny play and he is without a doubt one of the most talented musicians in Buffalo, hands down. There’s a lot of post-production work to be done where his show is concerned, but I’ll let you all know the second it hit’s the web.
Don’t forget to check on back on Quixote Wednesday for some new information that will surprise and intrigue. This week’s curveball is a lot more shocking and unpredictable than anyone could have guessed! That’s all the time I have for today. Get caught up on all the radio shows by clicking your way over to:
http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html
And
http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html

Let The Dirty Carpet Bombing Begin!

Good news, comic book lovers!

For the last few weeks, Don, Ian, Brian Platter and myself have been building a new patch of real estate on the super-information off-ramp we call the intraweb. As of today, the site becomes a reality. If you steer yourself over to the official Don’s Atomic Comics web site, you can click on ’The Dirty Bomb’ and find dualing comic book reviews, comic related rants and engaging posts from Ian and myself. I’ve been a big fan of Ian’s Dirty Bomb over the last two years and the two of us decided to team up in classic superhero fashion and join forces to combine our readerships.

From here on out, those of you who have been following my graphic novel reviews over on Comics Bulletin will be able to read them days, even weeks in advance before they go up over there. Comics Bulletin has been very good to me in the last few months, but Don has been good to me for almost a decade, and we had a very appealing idea: share the reviews with the regulars I shop with. Long and short, that’s my goal on the site. I’m sure a lot of other things will happen as a result of the new site, and Ian and I are looking forward to the curveballs that will come across the plate.

For your convenience, I’ve posted a direct link here on the home page to the right along with the 5 million other direct links provided. There are two posts up already, so pop on in, read some exclusive content (!) and say hello!

We’re entering a brave new world and I couldn’t be more excited about it. Thanks again to Brian Platter of Six Shot Studios for doing the hard work by creating the site, Don for letting us set up shop on his official site, and to Ian for crossing swords with me yet again (in that way). I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Don’s Atomic Comics is family to me. Now you get to meet my twin brother Ian. And read what he has to say on a semi-regular basis. Tread lightly, ladies and gentleman, and treat him with the same respect you’d treat me with. He’s an Irishman too, and I certainly wouldn’t pick a fight with him (or, for that matter, try to beat him when it comes to drinking good scotch), so keep that in mind. Ian is also a great writer, and I’ll be tuning in just as often as everyone else to read what he has to say.

I’ll wrap up there. Enough work for one Saturday morning! Click your way over to:

 

 

http://donsatomiccomics.com/WordPress/

Big Words Radio Hour Episodes 30 & 31 Up Right NOW!

Hey folks!

 

Two new episodes of Big Words Radio are up and running on your worldwide superinformation off-ramp right this second!  Here are your ’synospsi’:

 

 

Big Words Episode 30: ‘Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger Cliff-Hanger!’ (pt.II)
 Tom throws his first official Poetry Kegger at Don’s Atomic Comics in Depew.  Distilled spirits are consumed, comics are purchased, and a fight almost breaks out at the end of the clip.  This episode concludes Part I, which can be found by clicking on the Monsters Of Verse pod-cast show (which can also be found on the Think Twice Site).  This is what’s known as ’cross-promotion’.

 

Big Words Episode 31: ‘The Large Verbiage We’ve Shared Through Rote Activity Podcast’
 With a Democrat firmly entrenched in the White House, Thomas Waters and ’Full Head Of Luxurious Hair Michael’ attempt a show reformat that’s kindler, gentler, and a hell of a lot more liberal.  Guest Lindsay Waters upsets the new world order of things by bringing the content rating of the show from PG to NC-17. 

 

    I would STRONGLY recommend that you wait until Part I of the Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger show appears over on the Monsters Of Verse show site before diving head first into PT. II on my own site.  Just a suggestion, though, and odds are that you’re going to do whatever you want. 

    Tonight, I’ll be recording an back to back interview and concert shows with highly acclaimed musician Lenny Revell.  As soon as the shows are finished and posted, you’ll be the first group to know.  In the mean time, perk up your ears and click away over at:

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

 

    Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you all on Monday for your regularly scheduled Monday Update,

 

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Six Degrees of University (pt. III of III)

Quixote Wednesday Update! Six Degrees Of University (Pt. III of III):

Let’s talk about Joe from Eastern Hills, shall we?

Back in 2005, I inherited Joe when I took over the Delaware location and the previous manager was terminated (thanks quite a bit to Joe‘s machinations). Joe was terminally incompetent but, since I went to high school with his wife, he got transferred to the Union Rd. store instead of being terminated. Joe managed to get Mike (the store manager at Union) fired. Instead of getting promoted to manager, Colleen (from Niagara Falls) got a promotion. At my insistence. Colleen couldn’t stand Joe, so Joe got transferred to the store outside of the Boulevard Mall in Eric‘s District.

Jeff (the manager outside of Boulevard) couldn’t stand Joe because of his incompetence. So again, Joe got transferred to the store inside the neighboring mall. A few months later, Chris (the store manager inside the mall) got terminated. Finally, after having a hand in getting three of his supervisors fired, Eric promoted Joe into a management position at the University location (outside of Eric’s District). After Eric got his neighboring DM fired (Mike), Eric dumped his dirty laundry (Joe) into a separate District so that he wouldn’t have to deal with him.

Lisa was promoted from outside the company as District Manager after ’deciding to leave her former company’ (Starbucks, after sleeping with one of the managers she was in charge of) and got Joe as part of her new District. It was widely known that Joe was a completely clueless, but his ability to kiss ass and sell everyone out from under him was a quality that had served him well under the new Gamestop corporate structure. Lisa admired these qualities. Even though Joe’s employee’s at University complained of his inability to manage a store, prioritize his job duties in a timely manner, or even complete any assigned tasks on his own without bungling them completely, Lisa ignored the obvious and transferred him to the Eastern Hills location after terminating the manager there for a loss prevention issue.

Eastern Hills was viewed as a retirement home of sorts in my previous District. Michelle (the former manager) had mismanaged the store so well that it barely escaped closing before the lease was renewed post-merger. With limited foot traffic, shoddy sales numbers and a staff that ignored most walk-in customers, Joe was awarded the store when it became obvious that he couldn’t handle a high traffic location. Instead of terminating Joe, Lisa awarded Joe’s penchant for obvious ass-kissing by transferring him to another location. So far, Joe had been transferred out to another store by two other DM’s so that they wouldn’t have to fire him. His reputation for laying down brownie points as a substitute for competence was already cemented, and it got him a store in a low volume location in the middle of nowhere.

Curtis (my previous manager) was forced to move from an award-winning location that he built up from nothing by threat of termination (per Ki’yeoh, the regional manager, Lisa’s supervisor) to Joe’s store at University. Curt was a workaholic, and he was pushed into a situation that he didn’t want and bullied by the regional into cleaning up a store by a manager who never should have been promoted in the first place. Curt’s first inventory was a nightmare thanks largely in part to Joe’s incompetence. Lisa swept it under the rug and ignored obvious signs that Joe had no clue as to what he was doing. Much like Mike and Eric before her, Lisa chose to honor Joe’s loyalty to getting his supervisors fired over Joe’s complete inability to do his job.

Joe remains a joke to the managers who work in his district as well as the people he inherited. It astonished his peers that he managed to maintain employment by selling out the managers he worked under while displaying obvious and blatant incompetence as a salesman and a member of management, but the new Gamestop regime was insistent on keeping people who lived in a moral vacuum who were willing to sell out anyone to get ahead. See also: Eric, Stewart, Glenn and company within the Buffalo region.

Even with a low volume store, reports came rolling in that Joe had no clue what he was doing. It took him an inordinate amount of time to complete job tasks that most managers could finish within a reasonable amount time frame. His employees (inherited under another manager) complained that he had no idea what he was doing. Fellow managers in the same district lamented that he called them constantly for simple problems that most members of management knew how to resolve after a mere month or two with the company. Joe was an embarrassment. He’d been swept under the rug and transferred out by so many DMs (instead of being terminated) that he finally got hidden away at the smallest store in Buffalo.

When Joe had his first store inventory at his new store, he overslept. By two hours. After a year of kissing Lisa’s ass at the University location before his inexplicable transfer, no documentation was made. Long time employees at the Eastern Hills store complained that Joe would take an inordinate amount of time to compete simple tasks or that he was incapable of figuring out simple management duties. Now that Joe was at one of the smallest volume locations in the District, this was also ignored.

Much like Lewis (my last assistant manager who attended my wedding and had a hand in getting me fired on a technicality during the week of my honeymoon), Joe was more than happy to suck up to Lisa after I got terminated. Days after my termination, Joe brought print-outs from one of the web sites I posted to into a store meeting. I suppose when you make a career out of selling out your peers, you have no idea how to get by on professionalism or the bare minimum of job competency.

Recently, a new friend told me that he shops at Eastern Hills all the time. The employees consider him a regular by most standards. According to this kid, the employees (including Joe) award him for helping out the customers when it’s ’busy’ (and this is the lowest traffic store in three districts, mind you) by giving him an employee discount. This is a blatant violation of company policy. This is also grounds for termination. Joe remains employed to this day.

This third chapter closes out the University trilogy, a look at people who maintain their job security (for now) despite their ability to perform basic job tasks. Glenn (the first store manager at University in this scenario) had a hand in getting his DM fired and got promoted by Eric into another District to a better location. One of the current male employees followed a customer outside of the store, punched him in the face, and got away with it without any disciplinary action. Joe made a practice of badmouthing his supervisors and helping to get superiors fired until he finally got his own store and when he couldn’t handle the store he was promoted into, he was awarded a lower volume location so that another manager could clean up his mess.

If you look at the last three Quixote Wednesday posts, it becomes pretty apparent that Gamestop would rather keep unscrupulous employees with no values and no sense of basic morality in favor of hard workers or individuals with certifiable sales results. In the last four years (locally and nationwide), they’ve ’phased out’ local and national employees systematically as an alternative to layoffs, forced retirement or other suitable means of forcing employees out of their jobs.

Get your peers and supervisors fired and gain a promotion. Kiss ass and keep your job. Help the store you shop at take care of customers when more than eight people are in the store and get a free employee discount. Are these really the sort of values that any publicly traded company wants to enforce? With Gamestop (under regional Kiyeol’s leadership and Lisa’s District supervision), apparently so. What a brave new world we live in….

Monday Big Words Update! A Boat Load Of New Shows On The Horizon…

This is going to be one of the shortest Monday Updates in recent memory as time is an issue today and not much has occurred…yet.

A new issue of Night Life magazine hit’s the stands today with ‘Barometric Pressure’, a very honest look at the nature and progress of my own bipolar disorder. I’m rarely this open with my readers (aside from the poetry books), so scoop it up if you want to catch a different side of me.

Borders last Friday was a great time with author Diane Meholick and we recorded the event for Monsters Of Verse pod casting purposes. Diane will be joining me again as a rotating guest Monster on Saturday, March 21^st from 12-6 p.m. at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum for the 3^rd annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair. She’s a talented author and she was a joy to spend two hours with. You can catch our conversation soon on the Monsters Of Verse site on Think Twice Radio.

On Saturday, Lindsay, myself and ‘Luxurious Full Head Of Hair Michael’ recorded what will in all likelihood be the only episode of the ‘Large Verbiage We’ve Learned Through Rote Activity’ program. The Big Words format was completely reversed and after listening to the show with my buddy Ron, we were in stitches. Those unfamiliar with the previous 29 shows will have no goddamned idea what’s going on and will most likely turn the show off. Those of you who’ve heard some of the other shows will get what we’re doing and most likely piss yourselves laughing. The show isn’t up yet, but it will be very, very soon.

I spent Sunday editing and producing 6 hours worth of Big Words and Monsters shows and I’ll drop an update as soon as they’re all up. In total, there are 2 new Big Words shows and 4 Monsters pod casts going up THIS WEEK. That’s a lot of pod casting, folks.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Stay tuned for more information this week and don’t forget to tune back in for your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday update! Take care and have a great week,

Tom Waters

Bonus Valentine’s Poem! ‘Be Mine’

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

This is the first new poem I’ve written in about three months.  Odds are that it will go into my next poetry collection, Poke The Scorpion With A Sharp Stick, which is due out some time in late 2010 or early 2011.  Enjoy the holiday,

Tom Waters

Be Mine

Real Love

is 3 millimeters between our open eyes

(not so much scanning as)

taking in every speckle, fleck & dilation of the pupil

in naked adulation

or the closest thing to total understanding

that two people can have among each other.

It’s:

the guerilla hug on the way out the door to work

an instinctive hand reaching for mine in our sleep

sharing a meal meant for one

sequestering ourselves from everyone else

just to be with each other

having a nap before or after bedroom elocutions

tracing the soft scent of skin

with my finger, nose or tongue

the hiccup of breath preceding a tear I anticipate the source of which is all thanks to me (and the fact of this brings about a horrid pall of shame and guilt I’m unfamiliar with)

your eyelids brushing my cheek when you wake

the comfortable feel of your ass with my hand

knowing every curve and bump and freckle and wrinkle and laugh line and chasm of sorrow on your body from back to front with my eyes closed and every embarrassing story, parable and anecdote about your life twice (most of them), the boys who hurt you and your parents who shaped you, the girls who hated you, or a world that changed us, found us, made us, dusted us off and dropped us into the same spot together so that we could find ourselves

à

HERE

Hers, His

Who fucking cares?

We made it

for now

we have one another

Today, tomorrow, next week

which makes the rest of it bearable

that has to be Real Love

or a facsimile

thereof.

Thoughts on the Flight 3407 Plane Crash…

I was very torn about whether or not to write about the horrific plane crash late Thursday night/early this morning, but I feel compelled to. While most people cope with any tragedy of this magnitude, they tend to relate to the event by making it about them. I’ve always shied away from writing about celebrity deaths or Buffalo tragedies because I would rather mourn in my own time than jump onto a bandwagon and vie for recognition in the classic journalistic tradition of grabbing headlines or boosting site hits by banking on the loss and grief of others.

While it’s appropriate and relevant to report an event regarding the who, what, where, why and how, oftentimes writers inject their own egos in situations like these where it’s not warranted (i.e. ‘I met Jimmy Griffin at a church function in ‘76’ or ‘September 11^th was important to ME because I was doing THIS on that day and my cousin’s sisters’ husband was down the street’, etc.). While many of my essays are egocentric, I strongly frown on this sort of narcissism in professional writing. Lives have been lost and this has nothing to do with me or anyone else who tries to make it about them. If more people read between the lines in whatever newspaper they read or any cable news station that milked such an awful occurrence for everything it was worth, they’d realize just how exploitative and heartless the field can be.

In this instance, I’d like to say a few things. I was born, raised and lived in Clarence for 26 years before moving out of town to Amherst and then Lancaster. It will always be a part of me and living a half an hour away, that sounds foolish, but there is a definite cultural difference between Clarence and Lancaster. I wrote an article some time back in the Buffalo News My View column about my love for Lancaster and the fact that (like anyone aging and finding out that they ‘can’t go home again’), Clarence has become more populated and less rural over the course of the last twenty years. Over the summer, the Town of Lancaster was kind enough to include this article in a time capsule that was sealed in a building for the next 100 years. Clarence loyalists didn’t take to this article too kindly, but many alumni from high school agreed.

Since my parents’ home is on the border of Williamsville, we spent the majority of our year directly in the flight path leading to and from the Buffalo airport. Most people who live in Clarence can hear the planes that depart and arrive throughout the day and it became so commonplace that we learned to tune it out. It was part of growing up and living in Clarence. For all of us.

In December, I obtained a part time job in Clarence where I remain and work three days a week. It’s given me a great opportunity to reconnect with the town I grew up in and visit with old school chums or familiarize myself with the surrounding townships, bars and roads. The Goodrich Road/Clarence Center Rd. area (where the crash took place) is not only five minutes away from Clarence Central High School, it’s also ten to fifteen minutes away from my place of employment. The Clarence Middle School is also five minutes away from the crash site.

My heart goes out to the victims and families of flight 3407. Early reports are already confirming that most of the 49 people who died in the crash were Buffalonians. It was a horrible, horrible tragedy and most of us will be coping with the loss and grieving in our own ways throughout the weekend and well beyond.

With any unexpected death or national disaster, I try and look for the positive effects and ramifications that weigh out all the negative and saddening events. For those familiar with the Goodrich Rd./Clarence Center area, it’s a highly populated, well-developed suburban area on the border of Amherst and Clarence Center.   With two neighboring schools, a firehall and densely populated neighborhoods, it’s a godsend that more people weren’t hurt. It’s also very fortunate that the crash took place so close to the Clarence Center Fire Hall. Luckily, their response time was much faster than it would have been had the crash taken place further away from their station. What happened was awful. If the crash happened further out, though, the fire could have cost more lives and caused more property damage (during a Buffalo winter where we’ve already had plenty) than it did.

It’s always especially painful when any deaths occur so close to a major holiday. It seems as if the really decent people always die near national holidays. Again, my condolences to the friends and family of the victims in the plane crash. You will be in everyone’s thoughts and prayers in spite of living in a world of exploitative, ulterior and sensationalistic media overexposure where any tragedy is concerned.

Hopefully Buffalo media outlets won’t milk the crash for their own selfish purposes too much in the coming weeks. It would be nice to see ANY media outlet take the moral high ground by being tasteful and conservative on their take as opposed to disrupting the grieving process by hammering surviving relatives with questions for weeks on end and conducting around-the-clock coverage long after all relevant facts have been released and the news portion of the story is gone and the dead horse portion of the exposure truly begins. Please be tasteful and remember that it’s not always ’all about you’ or ’all about Buffalo’ when handling the story. For once. See also: Tim Russert, Jimmy Griffin, anything having to do with the Goo Goo dolls, etc. Real journalists will attempt to write about the story tastefully and objectively within a short time frame. Again, our thoughts and prayers will be with you.

 

Quixote Wednesday Update! Six Degrees Of University (pt. II of III)

Here’s another great story…

I’ve been in retail since I was 16 and I’ve most likely been inundated with every form of customer service training module imaginable. I’ve been trained at bookstores, video stores, movie theaters, toy stores, carpet stores, super stores…you name it. And if there’s one common bond that I’ve noticed in my 17 years in retail, it’s this: taking care of the customer no matter what. That used to count for something. So where does punching a customer in the face fit in?

Focusing on the University location again, there was an incident a month or two ago. For those of you who haven’t been following this series, University is the store that Curt got fired from on his 7 year anniversary a week before I got fired on my 6^th anniversary. Curt was replaced by (you guessed it) a girl. From Galleria, where Lisa’s harem of personal friends and ass kissers reside.

Curt’s replacement must be doing a stellar job. According to one of my many informants, one of the employees kicked a customer out of the store. In addition to this, he followed this particular minor outside and physically assaulted him by punching the child in the face. Lisa (the District Manager who fired me) found out about it. What did she do to correct the situation? Nothing.

This is yet another double standard in a District that’s lousy with them. While people like Curt and myself got terminated on obscure technicalities that weren’t covered on a regular basis, pals of Lisa (and their employees) are running rampant: assaulting customers, closing stores early, giving out employee discounts to their friends, and so much more. I don’t want to give you all the goods just yet, though.

So again, I ask you: how is it good customer service at ANY Gamestop to punch a customer in the face? And why wasn’t any documentation given? The employee was given a firm talking to, and that’s it. No paperwork, no termination of employment…no cause and effect. Another great moment in leadership for Lisa, between replacing men in power with girls, friends of the family who are girls, and ignoring men who have proven their loyalty for promotion in favor of girls or friends of the family. Now we can add total neglect where ACTUAL disciplinary action is concerned.

How bad does it have to get before Lisa’s superior’s wake up and realize just how unfit she is for the job, because the last time I checked, punching consumers in the head after kicking them out wasn’t in any of the training manuals or videos. I’ve worked at ‘urban’ stores for the company, and I’ve been in some tense situations, but I’ve never gone so far as to walk outside the store and physically assault minors. This is completely unacceptable from any company standpoint. Let me rephrase that: it SHOULD be completely unacceptable from any company standpoint.

Power to the players? How about punches for the players? This District has become more of a joke in the last four months than it was in the first place. This male actually should have been fired for his actions and nothing has been done. How many faux pas’ can Lisa sweep under the rug before someone above her who knows how to do their job takes action? I guess we’ll have to keep count, won’t we?

That’s all the news that’s fit to print this week. Tune in next Wednesday for Part III of the University trilogy. I’ve still got some interesting information to dispense for all of you and as long as you keep driving those site hits up (and as long as Lisa still has a job), I’ll keep ‘dropping it like it’s hot’ every single Wednesday like clockwork.

So remember the new promotion at University: come into the store, get kicked out and physically assaulted! I wonder why they don’t have any catchy television ads to promote this unusual event?

Cheers,

Tom Waters

p.s. Remember that all information is confidential if you choose to keep your name and association with the company private.  Keep the whistle blowing by sending me your emails, comments, suggestions and internal intel at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

Monday Big Words Update! Promotional Aftermath, Calendar Additions…

Somebody get the number of that Mack Truck!

This weekend was a killer in the positive and negative sense of the term. On Friday night, I had a bar review I conducted with the wife for the Buffalo News. On Saturday, myself, Kyle Kaczmarzcack and JR Finlayson promoted for eleven consecutive hours at FYE Transit and Don’s Atomic Comics for my fifth Tom’s Atomic Kegger. When Sunday rolled around, I had a two hour stint promoting both Breathing Room books with Anne Foster, Josh Smith an unexpected guest star author Diane Meholick and a rag-tag cast of characters. Whoosh! The weekend is gone.

The outlandishly good news is that we kicked ass and took names. Don and the rest of us had our best crowd ever for the kegger and I the Monsters Of Verse and myself had the best turnout I’d ever seen at Talking Leaves Elmwood. Many, many books were sold and distributed throughout the greater Buffalo region this weekend and here’s some spectacular news: As of Saturday, both Breathing Rooms hit the 100 copies sold mark and kept going! For such a short amount of time with only a month or so of promotions (what with the holiday break), this is astoundingly good news for the two little poetry collections that could.

Much like Elton John and ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, one of his most popular singles, Breathing Room I and II continue to amaze me with how well they’ve been received. Readers LOVE these two books and I’m not sure how or why, but I certainly appreciate their patronage and the avalanche of praise I continue to receive regarding both collections. Who KNEW that poetry would be the genre that set me free from a publishing standpoint? I never would have guessed it in a million years, but let’s keep those copies moving!

To avoid making this a five page update, the new Night Life is out this week with a Big Words dose of ‘Chia Chick’, an old favorite about Valentine’s Day and relationships that I like to dust off for the holiday. It’s acerbic and readers really dig out, so scoop it up if you haven’t read it in my first book, Born Pissed!

Three new shows went up on Think Twice Radio over the weekend too, so if you haven’t had a chance, check ‘em out. This previous weekend’s promotional insanity was recorded and Rich Wicka and I should have those up online by the beginning of next week.

And finally, there have been a few great additions to the Event Calendar for the next three months. Some poets have been added and subtracted, but I’m hesitant to roll the whole calendar out again, so I’ll go over the bullet points.

-Author Diane Meholick (Buffalo Stories) and poet Josh Smith will be joining me THIS FRIDAY at Borders Books on McKinley Parkway from 7-9 p.m. We’ll all be selling and signing copies of our books in honor of Valentine’s Day. And we’ll be doing it because we’re greedy and we’re starving Buffalo Artists. So swing out, buy some books and say hello!

-On Sunday, March 21^st, The Monsters Of Verse will be joining the festivities at their very own table at the 3^rd Annual Buffalo Small Press Book Fair from 12-6. This prestigious hullabaloo is located at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum on Richmond Ave in Buffalo and it’s a great opportunity to meet the majority of Buffalo’s literati in one day under one roof.

-Last but not least, local musician Lenny Revell has agreed to perform an hour long set of his piano-based genius for April Foolfest 2 at Desiderio’s on Broadway on Wednesday, April 1^st. I’ll be ranting from 7-8 p.m., Lenny Revell will be playing from 9-10 p.m., and I’m still working on a second musical act for 8-9 p.m.. Buffalo is rife with talented musicians and I want to find a good fit for Desi’s. I’m really looking forward to seeing Lenny perform and it’s an added bonus to an event that’s sure to be a blast!

I’ll cut myself off at the knees there. There’s a lot more to go over, but we’ll save it for Friday or Saturday. Talk to you all on Wednesday for Part II of the Quixote Wednesday mini-series,

Tom Waters

3 Bookstore Promotions in 2 Days, 3 new Radio Shows up NOW!

Holy god it’s going to be a busy weekend!

 

    First off, I’ll be at FYE Transit and Don’s Atomic Comics TODAY from 1-4 and 6-midnight (respectively) promoting both Breathing Rooms!  Show up at FYE and dogpile into the Monsters Of Verse podcast!  Or show up and bring or buy a copy of EITHER Breathing Room and drink for FREE from 6-midnight!  Yes, that is the only catch.  Don and I have been getting my readers drunk for going on 8 books now and we’re certainly not going to stop now.  Come on up, bring a girl (20% off everything in the store if you do) and let’s get WRECKED! 

    I’ll also be at Talking Leaves on Elmwood from 2-4 tomorrow (Sunday) with poet Anne Foster (a guest Monster Of Verse), so stop out tomorrow if you’re busy today! 

    All three events will be podcast and should be up in the not too distant future.  As far as the radio shows go, there are THREE new shows up right now!  2 new episodes of Big Words Radio are up as we speak and there’s a new episode of Monsters Of Verse with JR Finlayson over on the Monsters Of Verse site.  Here are your synopsi:

 

Big Words Radio:

Episode 28: ‘The Real Deal’
   The insanity and frivolity get kicked up a few notches higher when forces beyond our control pair Tom with little brother and mad troubadour Dave ‘The Real Deal’ Waters. During guzzles of Jim Beam, Tom and Dave discuss family values, music, pizza and their love lives.

Episode 29: ‘How Dare You Sit There And Drink All Our Beer’
   Dave ‘The Real Deal’ Waters regales Tom and an unsuspecting Clarence audience (his downstairs neighbor) with an impromptu concert in his outside stairwell. Highlights include ‘Plastic Jesus’, ‘Texan Love Song’ and ‘The Man In Me’.

 

Monsters Of Verse Podcast:

1/20/09 Monsters Of Verse Episode 9: Dissertation
Poet emeritus and visiting professor JR ‘Jebrey’ Finlayson schools the Clarence High School Poetry Club regarding poetry, art, staying up until dawn, the joys and perils of having children, and his take on the future of the universe in just 20 minutes and change.

 

As always, you can dial up the following episodes on your Ipod at the intraweb post office boxes provided below.  Don’t forget to stop out to any of the events this weekend and be part of the madness that endless promotional junkets become!  Seeya soon,

Tom Waters

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html

Quixote Wednesday Update: Six Degrees Of University (pt. I of III)

Wow, it appears as if we’re going local again on the Gamestop front. As they like to say in South Park, scissor me, Xerxes! If they’d stop doing so many asinine things I could attack from more of a global level, but this is TOO GOOD!

Everyone remembers Stewart, right? The only guy in either company history to be promoted as a District Manager into his own District? Violating every policy in every manual since the inception of both electronics chains dating back for the last thirty years? The weasel who’s gotten more people fired to keep his own ass out of the frying pan while he’s festered with self-loathing and paranoia in a job that he most likely despised a few years into it who somehow managed to stay employed for over twenty five years? That one? Yeah.

Well Stewart was promoted as a ‘district trainer’ a few months before he passed on things that Curt said in conversation on a company trip to Vegas in September. Curt and I sat together. In late September, Stewart and Lisa took a three day road trip to Philadelphia for a District Trainers power point presentation extravaganza. Colleagues and ass-kissers out of the same mold tend to make small talk when they take three day road trips. Less than a month later, we were out of a job. Case closed, eh?

Whelp, now that Stewart is in charge of the same District he’s worked in for going on almost thirty years, this leaves a vacancy. Keeping in league with the new Gamestop order of promoting total incompetence from within, Glenn got the job.

Glenn comes from a store near UB. Glenn used to give the local police, his relatives and good customers extra special discounts above and beyond what might be considered legal by company standards. Who knows, though, maybe that’s NOT grounds for termination based on their antics for the last few months.

When I was employed at the Thruway location, we shared plenty of customers, so I got all the information I needed from them. Curt took over the store after my previous DM Mike got wrongfully terminated and Lisa took over. Curt used to tell me about how many customers would come in ‘looking for the hookup’ and how Glenn’s relative (who happens to be a cop) kept coming in under the auspices that he was guaranteed pennied-out merchandise per Glenn. Giving away hint guides and items that are marked down to be ‘field destroyed’ is also grounds for termination. Not for Glenn, I guess.

Glenn had something to do with getting Mike fired. Like a festering little sore, Glenn hibernated in Mike’s District for a year and a half after a merger re-shuffling and curiously got awarded a bigger, better store at a mall on the boulevard in Eric’s District after Mike’s termination. For those who forgot, Eric is the neighboring DM who had a stellar habit of firing his competing DM’s because he was incapable of inspiring his own Districts or driving any sort of palpable profit gains by comparison. Eric is a Regional now, and medical studies have recently shown that whatever he had left of a spine has dissolved due to the new promotion.

As of this week, Glenn’s soul has become empty enough that he’s earned a starting position into a higher tax bracket as a ‘District Trainer’. Congratulations, pal. More positive proof that sales results don’t matter, integrity doesn’t matter, and adherence to day to day company policies is completely irrelevant. The only two things that matter for Gamestop are:

1. Whether or not you worked for Gamestop before the merger

-and-

2. Making sure you kiss the right ass and betray your peers to prove your loyalty to the company and your complete lack as a moral human being.

Well played, Glenn.

I’ve got two other very interesting discussions where the University store is concerned, but we’ll save them for next Wednesday and the Wednesday following. They call that a ‘cliff-hanger’. If you’re reading along, please turn your procedural manuals to page 285. Just kidding. Talk to you all next Wednesday,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Lead Time…

On Wednesday, I had a small experiment. Instead of ‘simul-casting’ Quixote Wednesday on all four or five or six sites at once, I posted it right here on the official site with a lead time of twelve hours or more to see if all of you would come here first. I did this for multiple reasons. 1.) I’d rather have the traffic here where I can track search terms, individual site hits, stats, and so forth. 2.) It’s nice to utilize sites like Myspace, Facebook, and BuffaloMe.com, but I’d rather let the site hits wash up on home turf before random users wander across it and 3.) The Gamestop Gestapo are going out of their way to brush everything under the carpet, so why not see how many of the goons are really reading the posts?

The Wednesday experiment paid off in spades. On Wednesday, January 28^th, the official Big Words site garnered a commanding 115 unique hits in one day (vs. 48 the previous Wednesday). What does this mean? This means that I’ll be changing the way I do things permanently. If you want to read the first edition hot off the press, then you damned well better show up to the official site first. From here on out, all Monday and Wednesday updates will be posting ASAP on tomfoolery4.wordpress first and foremost and rolling out tardy some time much later in the day on all of the other sites that are familiar with the first amendment or aren’t spooked by anonymous threats from menacing phone calls and emails (I’m talking about you, YourHub). Once more, if you want all the scoop that’s fit to print first, come to the official site. If you’d rather meander past it when you log in to one of your favorite community sites, that’s fine too, but after a taste of one day’s returns on a whim, I’ll be analyzing my information firsthand and reporting it right back to you.

Enough about all that nonsense, though. Now that we’re into the beginning of February, there’s a new batch of Night Life columns on deck! This week marks a short intro by the editor followed by the three month Monsters Of Verse calendar slightly in progress. If you want a copy for calendar purposes, scoop it up on stands this week!

And there are three very valuable venues for the Monsters Of Verse this week. On Saturday, we’ve got FYE on Transit and Wherle (1-4) followed by Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger(!) at Don’s Atomic Comics from 6-midnight or later! Saturday is going to be a real marathon, but I couldn’t think of two other places I’d rather spend the entire day at. On Sunday, JR Finlayson, myself and a third Monster will be showing up at Talking Leaves on Elmwood (2-4) for an appearance signing right on the main strip of the cultural crème de la crème. La de da! If you’re a downtown person, stop on by and buy some books! Or just stop by and schmooze. All three events will be pod cast for future Monsters Of Verse Show inclusion, so join in on the frivolity and find out what you’ve been missing!

And I just dropped off two back to back Big Words radio shows at the Think Twice Studios Home Of The Future this morning, so stay tuned for word on when they hit the intraweek airwaves. I’ve been toiling away on an interview/concert double header with my musically gifted little brother Dave ‘The Real Deal’ Waters and both shows are finally done. After a long break, Big Words Radio is back on track.

And finally, I’m pleased to announce a very important addition to the 2/09-5/09 Calendar. A benefit is being held for Gregg Sansonne. Gregg is an outlandishly talented Buffalo performer who’s been a dear, dear friend of mine for going well on eight years. He was kind enough to play at our wedding reception for free as a gift and honestly, we are kindred spirits insofar as our musical tastes and our senses of humor are concerned. He’s had some serious health issues as of late and a benefit is being held for him on March 29^th.

At the previous Buffalo Music Awards, Gregg won Solo Artist Of The Year for the 4^th time in a row. This is unheard of. I’ve always said that he plays Elton John’s ’Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding’ better than Elton did back in the ’70s and I mean that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my buddies.

One of the organizers asked me yesterday if I’d be willing to M.C. the event. More than a few local bands and artists will be performing to support Gregg when Buffalo needs him the most. Again, Gregg is like a brother to me, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to help out the friends who have stuck by me, so I’m honored to announce that I’ll be part of a benefit on his behalf. More details as they materialize.

That’s all there is to blather about for one Monday. Tune on back in two days time for your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday Update! Read it here first on the official Big Words site! Sincerely,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update! Shooting Peter In The Head To Pay Paul

Let’s zoom back for more of a nation focus on the Gamestop front, shall we?

This week’s lesson planner comes from a District Manager out of the south who’s still with the company. Now odds are that you’re not that familiar with company history, but Steve Morgan used to be the VP of Electronics Boutique. He stayed on with Gamestop until the spring of 2008, and the company explanation for his departure had some spin or other to do with him ‘pursuing a CEO position elsewhere’ because he couldn’t obtain one internally. With any large, faceless, soulless conglomerate, we’re never going to know the official reason behind his actual departure (or if he quit or got fired for that matter), but the District Manager who contacted me shed a bit more light on what really happened and the motives behind his leaving the company.

While Gamestop is more of a cult-like compound in terms of internal staff, EB Games always had a sales-based staff. Steve Morgan was the living embodiment of this. He was a hard-nosed, results-based leader who demanded a return on the bottom line. Once upon a time, this was important in the retail world. In many cases, driving profitability and improving profits and losses per stores was much more important than lobotomizing store managers and cooking stats to make your company seem more successful even though your yearly numbers were better because you opened a thousand more stores overseas instead of improving your store sales per each location. Call him kooky, but Steve Morgan had a knack for getting every store to improve their prior year goals or else. He was respected, revered and despised, but he was an effective VP.

Flash forward to 2006 when the merger went down and by fall of the same year, commissions for subscription sales and warranties were removed entirely. Any incentive at the store level was null and void. Steve Morgan stayed on and continued to tout the new Gamestop vision. Here’s where things get interesting…

After ‘black Tuesday’ (the top secret company term for the day in 2007 when scores of EB District Managers were fired for any reason that Gamestop could come up with to reduce adequate salaries for top-performers), Gamestop continued to implement a master plan to brush mass firings under the carpet and maintain their public standpoint of a happy merger versus a hostile buyout with mass firings. If you look at the big picture, mass firings were happening, but they were being phased on over the course of a three year period.

By January of 2008, Steve Morgan (grasping at straws to keep the right people in place at the store level) sent a directive out to all of the District Managers in the company. He had a turnover goal. In order to keep the company headed in the right direction, he ordered all District Managers to adhere to firing a MAXIMUM of one Store Manager for calendar year 2008. The funny thing is, by January of 2008, one particular Southern Region had already hit their goal of one manager per district.

A store district (in Gamestop terms) consists of 8-16 stores. The public stance in PR releases and merger terms withheld the vision of maintaining quality people and retaining all hard-working managers no matter what side they were on before the buyout. We all know how that turned out. In three years, more Electronics Boutique staffers have lost their jobs than Gamestop drones. After terminating legions of EB Dms in 2007, Gamestop started axing Store Managers. I’m not sure who’s plan this was, but it certainly wasn’t Steve Morgan’s. Shortly after his directive (by the First Business Quarter of 2008), Steve Morgan had ‘left the company’ to ‘pursue a CEO position’. What a crock of shit.

On the local front, Lisa (my former DM in one of the two Buffalo markets) terminated no less than four store managers in 2008 and they were all with either company for more than five years. That exceeded Steve Morgan’s goal by quite a bit. Yearly review increases are graded in some part by a Turnover ratio from the Regional level all the way down to a lowly Store Manager. That category is going to hurt like a son of a bitch come April or May when the whores who still managed to kiss enough ass to keep their jobs get their sit-down meetings with the higher ups.

If you look at the big picture, the Gamestop merger was never a merger. After borrowing a few hundred million dollars from their parent company (Barnes and Noble), they implemented the same game plan they’d used in previous buyouts. Check out Wikipedia for previous ‘mergers’. Gamestop pretended that they were joining two company visions when in fact they were saving money on forced retirements and multiple terminations by phasing them in and reducing yearly salaries by keeping original cult members in place and promoting staffers who were too stupid to realize just how underpaid they were compared to the supervisors they were replacing. In the span of three years, an Electronics Boutique employee is outnumbered by Gamestop moonies by three to one.

Steve Morgan made a desperate attempt to keep sales-driven Managers in place at the store level and he was either forced out of the company or terminated like most of the people on that end of the merger. Why pay people for results when you can promote some kid who doesn’t know any better into a store at $26,500 a year, open a few thousand new stores and pretend that the company is making more money overall (during stockholder conference calls) even though they’re losing money per store location due to incompetent leadership and poor direction?

This tactic makes no sense. It didn’t make any sense to Steve Morgan, it makes no sense to people with a head for business strategy and it looks downright asinine to me. Then again, though, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to take out a five year $150 million dollar loan from my parent company while buying up new stores and buying out additional European companies (while assuming their debts), either. I wonder who will be left from the EB side by 2011 when the loan money is due for one of the lowest paying Fortune 500 companies on the list?

 

Monday Big Words Update! Complete MOV/Tom Event Calendar (for now) For 2/09-5/09!

Tom's Atomic Poetry Kegger!

 

 

Oof!,

I’m still pretty beat, but I’m scaling back and taking it easy before the big MOV horse and pony show starts rolling again on Saturday, February 7^th at FYE and Don’s Atomic Comics! Early response for Tom’s Atomic Kegger at Don’s has been through the roof and it looks like we’re going to have a real hit on our hands!

My time is severely compromised today, so I’ll make this short and sweet. Grab the new issue of Night Life this week for the newest Big Words I Know By Heart print column. I’m pretty sure that (in light of recent events) it was a review of ‘Fun Home’ by Allison Bechdel, but I can’t view the original email I sent out with my January block of columns.

Also, I’ve been toiling away on the next two Big Words radio shows and they will definitely be up by the end of this week. Stay tuned to the site for details. And if you’re not a Myspace person, I posted a boatload of publicity photos up on Facebook for your enjoyment. And now, the Official Monsters Of Verse Calendar (so far!) for the next three months! There are a lot of other venues and appearances in the works, so this WILL be subject to change. The dates below are set in stone though, so start marking your calendars and JR Finlayson, myself and a lot of talented writer/poets will see you out on the road! Let the games begin! Talk to you all on Wednesday when the Quixote Update hits,

Tom Waters

 

Monsters Of Verse/Breathing Room Bookings Winter/Spring 09

Saturday, February 7^th, 1-4 p.m., FYE, Transit, Signing (Monsters Of Verse w/3^rd Monster Artist/Writer Kyle Kaczmarczyk)

Saturday, February 7^th, 6 p.m.-?, Don’s Atomic Comics!, Tom’s Atomic Poetry Kegger w/Monsters of Verse! Free beer for anyone with a poetry book by JR Finlayson or Tom Waters, 20% store discounts on comics and collectibles for everyone who brings a girl. Special Guest Comic Artist/Writer Kyle Kaczmarczyk (The Red Eye, Zombie Works Publishing).

Sunday, February 8^th, 2-4 p.m., Talking Leaves Elmwood, Signing (Monsters Of Verse w/3^rd rotating Monster TBD)

Friday, February 13^th, 7 p.m., Borders Books & Music, Hamburg, Signing (Monsters Of Verse w/3^rd poet Susan Marie)

Wednesday, February 25^th, 7 p.m., Big Words Studio Date with Guest Alexis Amore (adult film star); co-hosts Intentionally Bald Mike and Alie

Wednesday, March 4^th, Perry Nicholas reading, CFI 7 p.m. (attending, not reading)

Thursday, March 12^th, 7 p.m., Think Twice Radio (Five Minute Video Series taping, Tom only)

Saturday, March 14^th, 6:30 P.M., Chow Chocolat (Monsters Of Verse)

Wednesday, March 25^th, 7 p.m.,, Big Words Studio Date with Guest Sara Jay (adult film star); co-hosts Intentionally Bald Mike and Alie

Wednesday, April 1^st, 8 p.m., ‘April Foolfest 2!’, Desiderio’s on Broadway, Lancaster (Tom only with musical guests to be determined)

Saturday, April 25^th, Caz Coffee Café, 7-9 p.m., Reading (Monsters Of Verse w/3^rd rotating poet TBD)

Wednesday, May 6^th, 7 pm, Center For Inquiry (Monsters Of Verse w/3^rd poet Christina Wos Donnelly)

(Finn gone from February 9^th-19^th)

 

Essential Dykes To Look Out For (by Allison Bechdel); Oh, and here’s your Quixote Wednesday Update!

Some information is too valuable to dilute by adding other tidbits that have washed up on my doorstep where Gamestop is concerned, so I’m going to drop this bombshell all by itself because it deserves the whole showcase for this particular Wednesday. You’ve read some pretty explosive exposes and communiqués over the last three months regarding the evil, soulless conglomerate that saw fit to fire me and hundreds (if not thousands) of store managers who didn’t deserve to lose their jobs, but this honestly takes the cake over every single update I’ve done thus far combined. And the beauty of this update? It came from an outlandishly good source. I’m sure certain readers (from an internal company standpoint) would love to know if this was inside or outside information. Whelp, I’m not going to tell you that.

And before we get rolling, let me give the company an honest chance at an end to these updates. I’m only going to offer my terms once, so print this out at Human Resources or your legal department and feel free to contact me when you realize that you have no other recourse. Here are my demands:

1.) Stop fighting my unemployment benefits. I’ve made an outlandish amount of money for your company and the least you can do (the VERY least) is pay me what’s owed to me. I realize that we’ve had our, how should I say, differences in the last three months, but my vitriolic nature would have been quelled a long time ago had you given in and given me the benefits I’ve paid into week in and week out for the six years that I’ve worked with EB. The Department Of Labor hearing is coming up soon and unless you want this to become a larger fiasco for your three Buffalo markets, it’s in your best interests to back down and pay up. Once New York State hears that I signed off on a stock option grant/nondisclosure agreement LESS THAN a year ago and puts two and two together with my wrongful termination, your company is fucked as far as a leg to stand on in this case. Give up the ghost and do the right thing. You may forget how to take care of your employees early and often, but trust me, this can get a hell of a lot worse for your company if you don’t admit defeat when you’ve already been whipped a few dozen times. Admit defeat. Tuck your tails between your legs, turn your horns down, take your football and go home.

2.) Terminate Buffalo DM Lisa for spending her first two years with the company firing successful male managers and replacing them with young women and friends of the family. She is operating her district on a double standard based on gender and it’s making the entire company look bad every single day that she continues to sully her employment as a leader (or what passes for one). Just because she’s stopped firing men in the last month and started promoting males for the first time (instead of ignoring tenure over gender, which is what she’s done on multiple store levels for well over twenty months now) doesn’t mean that any number of departmental and government agencies won’t look at the big picture and slap the company with a massive, crippling fine. I am a journalist. Information comes to me and I share it with all of my readers through multiple media outlets. What Lisa has done to well over a dozen men who have since left the company (voluntarily and involuntarily) is wrong, and even a black-hearted group of money-hungry stock-whores such as yourselves should be able to see that by now. Give Lisa her walking papers. As God is my witness, for every week that she continues to collect a paycheck, I am going to keep writing these updates and keep exposing your corporation for their wide string of hypocrisies, greed-motivated business tactics and their complete ineptitude as far as taking care of the people who have built them into the successful conglomerate they are today. Terminate Lisa’s employment, pay me the benefits due to me, and these Wednesday updates go away.

Those are my only two conditions. Don’t view this as a threat, view it as a mini-manifesto. Longtime readers and fans know that I’m like a pitbull when I attack. I will latch on to an issue, a newspaper or an organization and I won’t let up until the other party involved is bruised, defeated and ashamed. Make up some copies for the three districts in Buffalo, Xerox a company directive at corporate, have a conference call with your legal team and come to the conclusion that my fan base reached years before I went to work for Electronics Boutique in October of 2002:

Tom ALWAYS wins. Plain and simple.

And now, your regularly scheduled Quixote Wednesday Update. Ooh, but this is good! Drum roll, please….

At the Thruway store, one of the fifteen assistant managers from the neighboring mall location (most stores are only allowed one, but the flagship mall location is allowed four or five or six since Kim is Lisa’s family pal and was hired into the company under those qualifications) was transferred over. Two of my remaining employees (one has left now after the holiday season and won‘t be shopping at the company ever again) were more than ready to take the position. They were both passed up because Todd (the new assistant) has obviously sold his soul and has a direct pipeline to Lisa. Colleen (the manager at my old store) can’t stand Todd. Last week, we discussed the fact that Todd is doing next to nothing because he realizes now that Lisa isn’t going to fire any males in light of her impending wrongful gender termination actions on a national level. All the men in Lisa’s district are bulletproof now, and Lisa even fired one of her own on a technicality (Charla) to try and refute two years of clipping guys because well, they were guys. I gathered some very interesting intel last week about Todd that’s going to piss off not only the three local store districts, but the entire goddamn company once word spreads. And you may not know this, but the internet is a great way to disseminate information and fact. Let me wind up for the pitch on this one with some cold, hard facts about the company since the merger:

-$10 an hour is the glass ceiling for an assistant manager with a great deal of experience and an award-winning resume when he comes to work for the company. It is a massive exception and by far nowhere near the standard. Generally, assistants start around $8 an hour.

-For the last fiscal year or so, Store Managers for Gamestop generally start their salaried (40 hours plus) positions with the company at $29,500 a year.

Now let’s bring it all back home to Todd. I have it on extremely good authority (from a source close to Todd who heard it from the man himself) that he makes THIS amount as an assistant manager:

-$15 an hour! That’s a fact. This works out to be about $30,000 a year.

Wow, huh? So knowing that you’re not going to get fired, not doing your job, and aggravating the manager you transferred over to is worth that much? I’m not sure what he’s doing for Lisa that he got transferred to another store for that amount, but obviously, he must be working harder than over half of the store managers in all three Buffalo Districts. That is truly astonishing. Boy, I hope that no one on the store management level or under in the Buffalo market somehow stumbles upon this information, huh? That could truly be disastrous for the company from a turnover standpoint (their reviews and bonuses are graded in some small part based on turnover), moral, and staffing in general. Damn.

I made a decent bit more than that (which is one of the sole reasons why I was wrongfully terminated so that the corporation could save money on their bottom line), but I wonder (knowing what I know) how other male STORE managers with years of experience might take this crippling news that a completely inept young gentleman who’s bringing nothing to the store he works for is making a great deal more than them after years of service and drone-like loyalty. Wow. I am so glad that I don’t work for Gamestop anymore. It’s a shame that most of the people working in the Buffalo/Rochester/Syracuse market are so blind and spineless that they don’t have the balls or the brains to find a real job when reality hit’s the fan, eh?

This all makes me wonder: what wrong move will Lisa make next? What delightful pieces of information haven’t I passed along to you, the consumer, because this week and last week were too good to crowd? Dozens of sources inform me that the company is tracking this web site from a local and national level, so I guess I’ll let you rotten fuckers do the guessing for me. Earn your $26,500 a year yourselves in the mean time and do some of the detective work on your own. While it’s obvious that Todd can’t do his job for the massive hourly amount that he’s making (which is head and shoulders above what most salaried managers make), maybe you can all do your jobs and find out what connection Todd has with Lisa that makes him unscrupulous enough to deserve a pay scale so far out of the ball park that it approaches the surreal.

Why beat a dead horse, though?   I’ll let this crippling blow to morale sink in for the next two or three days and let you all digest it and decide if you still want to work for a multinational beast with such an obvious penchant for staffing middle-management positions with people who have zero skill sets for doing so, paying the morality-free with more money than the hard-workers, or just employing the acolytes in favor of people who actually bring a profit in by beating their own profit and loss reports. It doesn’t make sense to me, but then again, I don’t have to rationalize or explain why my company is failing so badly to the American stockholder. Suck on that for a week, you bastards. Scroll up, read my demands again, and think about how far you want to take this and how much damage you’re willing to incur for my benefits and one flagrantly incompetent District Manager. The sooner you come to your senses, the sooner this crusade ends. Have a little conference call about it, talk to your lawyers, and then take action and spread the word. I’ve got ears and eyes all over the place and trust me, it’ll get back to me. As for you on the side of decent morality as well as going to sleep at night with a clear conscience, if you’re looking for someone to confess to regarding Gamestop, drop a dime or ten directly via email at:

  

 bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

 

Monday Big Words Update: Hitting The Wall…

Monday Big Words Update! Hitting The Wall…

After three months of pushing the envelope and burning the candle at both ends, I’m exhausted. It’s hitting home that Jeff Finlayson and I will be promoting like rabid maniacs for the next three months starting in February, so I’m actually forcing myself to relax a bit this week with the free time I have.

I spent most of last week working on setting up more engagements for the Monsters Of Verse and securing an ample amount of copies for Breathing Room I and II (so that I‘m not running out during events). I should have a calendar out to all of you (as well as up online) by the end of this week. Our readings and appearances were a lot of fun from October through December, but expect bigger and better for the first half of this year. After Jeff and I walk away from MOV in May, I’ll start working on the beginning engagements for Slapstick & Superego, which I’m coordinating the pre-production on with a small team.

I also recorded two shows with my brother David, who (as you may or may not know) is an extremely talented musician in his own right. Earlier in the week, JR Finlayson had an appearance at Clarence High School for Ms. Foster’s Poetry Club on Tuesday and brought the Edirol in tow for recording purposes. I’d like to have all three shows up online by week’s end. I’ll send an update out once they are up and online.

Slapstick has been in the works for almost four years now, and now that the book is done on my end (writing it), I’m going to leave the rest of the work details up to the professionals that are in place at Doubt It Publishing in-house. Since Breathing Room was (and continues to be) such a success, there’s no reason why I won’t continue to reinforce the name brand and branch out with my publishing house to find new and even more professional means to publish, produce and distribute locally and nationally. I’m really, really proud of the book, and I’m sure that the team I went with will bring their own talents into the fold successfully and within a timely manner. Batting for the home team we have:

Victoria Robinson-layout/interior graphic design

Ian Chrystal-cover art/exterior graphic design

Alycia Ripley-introduction

If my career (as far as the books go) is any indicator, I learn from my mistakes. My personal life is a bird of another color completely. Alycia did a phenomenal job on the intro and all signs point to incredible for Ian and Vicky so far. Between the actual book, the artwork and the layout, this essay collection is going to look light years better than the 11^th hour beauty of If They Can’t Take A Joke. I set the wheels in motion for this book two or three months ago, so the book should be done well before I have a date or a promotional appearance for it.

This is going to be the first book I’ve ever written and released that’s entirely made up of rants and essays (emphasis on rants). In many respects, this is the first real book that I’ve written, even though I’ve got seven other books under my belt. If They Can’t Take A Joke has turned into something of a calling card and Breathing Room has gone a long ways in showing the Buffalo Lit scene that I’m not just some erratic force of comedy trying to push his ideals on anyone who will listen. All signs point to a helluva great junket for Slapstick when it releases early this summer. My target window for promoting the book will be June through October or November. After that, I’ll be taking the entire holiday rock block off and concentrating on the scheduled release of the Buffalo Anthology Project. After that, Merry Prankster will be released.

It’s going to be a busy year and a half, not to mention the fact that I’ve got a radio show, the web sites, the book reviews and the five billion other things that corrode what little free time I’ve had since about May of last year. At this point in the game, I’d rather be busy and creative than lackadaisical and blocked. On to other matters…

The new issue of Night Life is out today with ’The Department Of Goofing Off’, my rant about the total ineptitude of the Department Of Labor. Even though everyone saw it here first, ‘Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me Is Going To Destroy You’ (the structured, two part Gamestop lambast) turned a lot of eyebrows in the pages of Night Life as well, and there’s not a goddamned thing Lisa (my former DM) or Gamestop can do about it. Getting back to the unemployment benefits owed to me, though: As of today (after filing for my weekly benefits), it has been:

3 MONTHS

-without a penny from the state of New York or Gamestop Inc. for my unemployment benefits.

I can’t BELIEVE that either company (and the Department Of Labor is a business, so don’t even try it) has gone this long without paying me for 19 years and 6 years of hard work, respectively. My buddy Curt (the one who got wrongfully terminated by Lisa and Gamestop the week before me) emailed last week to let me know that Gamestop is denying him his benefits now as well.

It would be really nice if anyone in a position of beaurocratic power would get off their ass and get something done. It really would. Anyone. I guess I have to do everything myself and take the bull by the horns with a cattle prod, don’t I?

As for Quixote Wednesdays, the weekly rants against Gamestop and anyone else who gets in the crosshairs are gathering a lot of mileage and momentum. I’ve got some OUTLANDISHLY good information I’ll be rolling out on the official web site first (and then four or five or six other sites later that day), so tune back in in less than 72 hours!

Keep coming back,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesday Update: Davey & The Gamestop Goliath

Welly well well!

When it rains, it pours, doesn’t it? I’ve got some GREAT intel for all of you to enjoy, dispense and disseminate this week and there’s so much of it, I’m saving some of it for next Wednesday. Perk up your ears because this is really, really good.

Ooh, but this is GOLD! Ha ha!

Anyway, for those of you joining the war (already in progress) against Gamestop Inc., some great battles have been validated and won in the last two weeks. Even though Lisa (my former boss) told me directly after she fired me for a technicality that Gamestop wouldn’t contest my unemployment benefits, I’ve gone four (count ‘em) FOUR months without unemployment benefits. For someone who’s worked non-stop since the age of 14, this is a crock of shit. Gamestop (surprise surprise) DID in fact contest my benefits alleging ‘gross misconduct’, which is one of those big gray area catch-all reasons for termination. Not filling out one report properly is now apparently grounds for being terminated under the nom de plume of ‘gross misconduct’. If they want gross misconduct post wrongful termination, they’re certainly going to get it.

Long story short, I’m contesting my right to unemployment. Not many people know this either, but when you apply for (and actually GET) unemployment benefits, said money comes out of your previous employer’s pockets. This is one of the reasons why I’ve been fighting tooth and nail to get it (aside from the fact that I’ve been paying into the system for so long). The Department Of Labor sent me a notice letting me know that a hearing date will be set soon, so trust me when I saw that when I get a firm date, ALL of you are invited to show up and support the cause. This isn’t just about yours truly, I’m fighting this battle for every man who’s been fired by a man-hating, misbehaving’ supervisor who’s taken it upon themselves to abuse what little power they have by firing men and replacing them with unqualified women with no sales skills. The fact that the entire District she’s been neglecting for the last two years has been dive-bombing into the toilet sales-wise should be proof positive of that. On to bigger fish, though. Did I mention fish after talking about men-haters? Hmph. Odd, that….

Let’s go local and talk about my old location in the Thruway Plaza in Cheektowaga, NY. In the time since I’ve left, no less than four out of the original eight or nine staffers that I was in charge of have quit or left the company. Brian (who followed me from the previous videogame company to Gamestop thanks in large part to his loyalty to my leadership) was taken off of the schedule and couldn’t be bothered to show up and find out what was going on because he refused to work for anyone else. Anthony was accused of theft because he had a supervisor ring out a standard defective return exchange, which is something that any random customer or employee is more than welcome to do. Colleen (the supposed store manager for the time being who was dropped into an award-winning location for more money than I made simply because of her gender) told the staff that Loss Prevention would be coming in to investigate the return/exchange after the holidays. Knowing these rotten pricks for over two years, this sounded to me like they were going to work the parties involved for the holidays (when they needed them the most) and then terminate their employment for unjust reasons when they were no longer crucial to driving daily business.

Lo and behold, the LP witch-hunt was called off surreptitiously. Lisa has backed herself into a corner and with a Turnover ranking that directly affects the Store Manager’s bonus, the District Manager’s bonus, and the Regional’s (Kiyeol) bonus, they’ve stepped on their own dicks for the fiscal year ending 2008 and the way things are going, well into 2009. Anthony was so incensed by the allegations that he put in his two week’s notice, writing that he didn’t appreciate being accused of theft by an employer that he put good time in with driving business. I can see why Anthony would be upset.

And then there’s Jill. Jill had worked at the store before I took it over and showed the location how they could be so successful that we’d beat the other 120 locations at Madden two years in a row. Jill was a hard worker. She was loyal. And then (as is so typical for the way Lisa runs the district and neglects things), she got passed up for a promotion after I was wrongfully terminated. Instead of promoting people already in place at the store, she dropped Todd into the hot seat as Assistant Manager. After promoting a backstabbing, pot-smoking racist (Lewis) into a new store out in Amherst, Lisa transferred Todd out from under Kim, her personal friend of the family whom she awarded a job to within the company as a store manager at one of the two largest stores in the District. The biggest mall in Buffalo. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to crack the case on that one.

Jill put her notice in the day before Christmas and Colleen actually thought the sealed envelope was a Christmas card. Ha! Ha ha ha. Ain’t life grand? On to the pay dirt of the week, though….

Todd (the new assistant manager at my old store) was a waste of space before he got promoted. An awful figurehead who drove both staffs crazy. Since his promotion, it’s come to his attention that he won’t get fired. Why? We’ll get to that momentarily.

Colleen (the girl who was all too happy to get a higher yearly review score compared to mine even though I had better sales results and who was more than fine with taken my old store for a few thousand dollars more due to her gender) thought she was on easy street when she transferred to a higher volume location. When she was originally promoted to her first location as store manager, I literally had to fight to get her promoted because the DM at the time didn’t think she was capable. So I got her promoted. If you ask her former DM, he’ll tell you the same thing. Most people might feel indebted after such an act. Instead of backing me up, Colleen took my old store knowing full well how Lisa stuck it to me with no grounds for a real termination and this was a week after Curtis (our mutual mentor) was clipped on his seven year anniversary with the company. Moving on….

Colleen can’t stand Todd. She’s been trying to get rid of him since he was promoted and transferred into the store. The main problem? She’s not allowed to. And there’s the rub.

The District I was wrongfully terminated from is under DIRECT orders NOT to fire any males in supervisory positions. Why, you ask? Why? Because Lisa is trying like hell to shift her modus operandi in light of this impending discrimination charge based on gender. After two years of terminating males and replacing them with less qualified females or personal friends, she (and to a larger extent, Gamestop) honestly think that they’ll disprove the past by letting unqualified men keep their jobs for the time being. So instead of terminating Lisa, this company (in their vast and varied incompetence as a newly merged axis of evil) has told her not to fire men. Ha! Ha ha ha.

The problem is, Todd is well aware of this. Todd is going out of his way not to do anything at work and actually makes more work for his boss (Colleen) and the people who have to put up with him during his shifts. If you knew you weren’t going to get fired for any reason simply because you were born with a penis, wouldn’t you? I guess the girls in the District need to start looking through the help wanted section, eh? Charla (who got clipped a few months ago from the University location) firmly believes that she was let go to validate the new regime policy. She was fired as a woman in a sad attempt to reverse two years of firing men for the wrong reasons. Lisa is so lost as a DM at this point that it would take Amelia Earhardt to find any sense of decency or competence as a supervisor in her.

What a week. I wish I could tell you about a Southern District Manager’s information obtained this week. Or the employee discounts that the Eastern Hills Mall location has been administering to people who aren’t actually employees. I don’t want to bore you to tears, though. A company that runs under double standards? Hell yes. A District that is divebombing in terms of results? You betcha. A woman who didn’t deserve the position she was promoted into from outside the company by an incompetent Regional who was born into a position of power? Check and mate. I’m going to win this fucking Department Of Labor case and I’d like for all of you to have a front row seat at the proceedings on my behalf. I’ll have more phenomenal scoop for all of you next Wednesday. With the rumors flying directly at me for the last week, you can guarantee that. Have a wonderful week and here’s your stock report,

Tom Waters

1/10/09 $28.66 (+3.08) (+20.64)

1/12/09 $25.47 (-.66) (-2.53%)

1/13/09 $24.64 (-.83) (-3.26%)

Monday Big Words Update: Putting People In Their Place (one person at a time)

 

I saw two movies in theaters this summer: The Dark Knight and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. Since I’m busy writing books and making money from same, I can’t be bothered to see every film that comes out every week that it appears. Solid money would bet that both of movies that I paid money to see in a crowd setting will win one or multiple Oscars, so this is once again testament to the fact that I have good taste and that I don’t just wander aimlessly into a stadium setting to get away from my house. Dark Knight was the best superhero movie ever made and Heath will get some sort of pity Oscar due wholly to the fact that he’s dead now, but Button will garner more Oscars because it was released intentionally later in the year (Oscar has a short term memory) and it plays more Oscar cards than Dark Knight. Not to mention the fact that Fincher is long overdue.

And while it sunk my career with Buffalo Rising (and sunk Buffalo Rising as a credible publication, period), Batman: Gotham Knight was the best animated film I’ve seen this year. It’s got Batman, it comes in a metal case, and once again, it bridges the gap between Batman Begins and Dark Knight. What more do you need?

I’m not going to waste any more space blathering on about comic books or comic book movies on a Monday Update, so we’ll move on here since I’m capable of writing about more than simply reviewing what I have time to watch and since I’d rather create than rent and watch movies….

Since persons who are too cowardly to come at me head on have been launching slings and arrows (who read this site on a regular basis), the previous three paragraphs were for him. Let’s continue with this send-up and then we’ll get on to regular business….

Site hits. If you want to talk site hits, let’s talk real man numbers, shall we? I don’t have any major publications posting us on their home pages in every single township because they don’t have any more original contributors who aren’t on the union staff payroll, eh? Big Words is one man, one site, and a whole SHIT-LOAD of site hits. Cook all the stats you want, but here are some raw numbers (top site hit days among the average, which is around 75 unique site hits per day) you can take to the BANK for fiscal year 2008:

Week 31 2008: 604 Unique Hits Sold

Week 43 2008: 527 Unique Hits Sold

Week 50 2008: 763 Unique Hits Sold

Week 1 2009: 767 Unique Hits Sold

Lowest INDIVIDUAL site hits for Fiscal Year 2008 in a given week (drum roll, please):

Week 27 2008: 230 Views

Month Stats and Highs:

April, 2008: 1,924 Unique Hits

July, 2008: 1,981 Unique Hits

October, 2008: 1,723 Unique Hits

December, 2008: 2,163 Unique Hits

Harumph, I say. This is not even mentioning the 150,000 site hits that Think Twice Radio hits every month that I’ve had a show there that hasn’t been a holiday month. If all else fails and I develop an inferiority/self esteem complex, though, I suppose I could ask one of the five or six publications I write for to nominate me as their blogger of the year, though, but then again, I don’t have to battle those sort of esteem issues due largely to the fact that I have readers who support me and spend money!

Even without a flagship newspaper backing me and ordering me to write a few times a month as an added responsibility to my low-paying sales job, I still manage to draw a crowd that kicks the ass off of most online viewerships. Tumbleweeds are most definitely NOT rolling by this site and in addition to Gamestop corporate, most Gamestop employees and the majority of the informed Buffalo inernet public, I bring my own crowd to the party. Nintendo used to tilt stats in their favor and play around with pie charts to make it look like they weren’t getting killed during the Gamecube years, so bandy you bald ego all over your one tiny site all you want, pal. I’ve got five or six sites, one radio show and eight books by the middle of this year, so keep it up. Go seek therapy, because you don’t want to pick a fight with me.

As for Gamestop, I’ve got so much great intel for this Wednesday that they should probably batten the hatches in Grapevine Texas (the corporate headquarters) two days from now, drop their socks and grab the soap. Seriously, when it rains, it pours, and I’ve got enough scoop to last us all two weeks, so I may bleed some local info this week and corporate info the following week. Keep that scandalous freedom of information pouring in, company drones and otherwise! Feel free to email me with additional crippling stock information at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

There are some loose ends I wanted to catch up on (since I have an ACTUAL audience instead of some random people who click on a company mandated banner and then click out of the box to find something interesting), but we’ll save them for another day. A few Monday bullet points:

-Calendar dates are lining up for the Monsters Of Verse and Breathing Room bookings for the next three months. I’ll have a full calendar for you by the end of this month. JR Finlayson will be holding a symposium for the Clarence High School Poetry Club TOMORROW and that episode should be up on Think Twice’s site by the end of the week.

-’Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me Is Going To Destroy You Part II (better known as the Gamestop skewering essay) is running all week for free in Night Life magazine. Scoop it up on stands everywhere in the greater Buffalo/Toronto area with over 90,000 copies currently in distribution every single week!

-’Pussy Magnet’ (an essay about our two cats) is up online this month at Acidlogic.com. Search it and click on the article on the home page. I’m having some issues listing direct links on this site so until I figure it out, you’ll have to flex your intraweb chops by typing phrases like Acidlogic.com in your browser window and figuring it out by yourself. If you’re too stupid to figure that out, odds are that you’re illiterate and you should walk away from your computer before you hurt yourself….

-In all seriousness, take two minutes and REGISTER at BuffaloMe.com! For a community/networking/blogging site in the Buffalo area, there is no equal. It’s quick, it’s user friendly, you can post songs, photos, blogs, meet new people in your area and register with the greatest of ease not to mention the fact that it’s the fastest growing LOCAL site in Buffalo! What else do you need? Support local! Myspace is all well and good, but do yourself a favor and pop over onto BuffaloMe.com. Great site, great people, zero censorship.

That’s all I’ve got for today. There are a lot of irons in the fire so check back daily throughout the week. Plenty of ground to cover. I should have another radio show by week’s end, too, but why spoil all the surprises? Quixote Wednesday I’ll be dropping an honest to god bombshell or ten directly in Gamestop’s direction. Tune in in two days and start loading your sawed-offs now,

Tom Waters

Wednesday Quixote Update: Cracks In The Seams…

Hrmmm…..

Not much to report this week on any front. The Department Of Labor (in their infinite incompetence) have rejected two weeks worth of unemployment insurance out of the 15 weeks and counting that I still haven’t seen a dime for because I’ve worked four days. Even though I filled out the online forms properly, the information got discombobulated on their end and I haven’t received one goddamned call regarding anything. I’m wondering when the hearing date will be called regarding Tom Waters vs. Gamestop. A few officials who are friends of mine have recommended that I start taking legal counsel from a private sector more seriously regarding Gamestop, my benefits, and the entire rigamarole. When I have more time (and ambition as far as these things are concerned), I’ll be doing just that.

There are two courses of action in this situation. Pro bono lawyers don’t really exist if you look at the post-victory payout versus up front costs or departmentally appointed mediators, but that doesn’t matter. Justice is more important to me (for myself and the gaggle of other managers, assistants and keyholders that Gamestop has wronged) than a dime of what’s owed to me from unemployment insurance out of Gamestop’s pockets. So if I don’t get some satisfaction (or the courtesy of a phone call) by the end of this month, I’ll be looking into contacting the right government officials over the heads of the clowns I’ve been dealing with (far, FAR over) or I’ll be polling the local legal pool to see who wants the case (or, if it’s a class action situation, nationally) the most.

As far as Lisa’s (my former District Manger)‘s job being gone, consider that like a slow cancer. I made a prediction a while back based on some paperwork that a certain agency sent me and I’m sure it’s reached corporate hands by now. Gamestop (being the spineless, money grubbing jellyfishes that they are) are most likely grooming a replacement before they fire Lisa (the same way that Starbucks, her previous employer did when they fired her for the same shenanigans) or they’re waiting until the end of the fiscal year to clip her stupid ass. Either way, her job is toast and I’m the melted honey butter on top of it. Ha…ha…ha.

And a shout goes out to Jill for putting in her two week’s notice and joining the ranks of my disintegrating former staff. Every manager dreams that a store will disintegrate after they’re gone and in most cases, this doesn’t happen. I’ve lost count of how many staffers have quit, put in notice or just not showed up to work in the three months since I’ve left, but to Jill and the rest of the old team that I could trust, thanks for making that dream come true. I’m sure Lisa and Colleen (who was more than happy to take my position for a few thousand more after being a friend and colleague for years) thought that taking me out of the picture wouldn’t make a difference to their bottom line. This is where the Gamestop mentality fails time and again. Great sales aren’t about pie charts and corporate catch phrases. Successful stores are about the people who run them and the team that they inspire. It’s too late for that store and, in all likelihood, too late for Gamestop.

I’ll keep this update brief. Thanks for throwing in the towel, Jill. You’re better than that job, anyway. Let the lemmings go down with the ship without you because at this point, whoever’s left is either too stupid or too lazy to find a decent job where they’re respected elsewhere. I haven’t had much time to check the stock, but it’s up…slightly.  Sort of like the strap-on that Lisa uses on her life partner.

 

Talk to you all soon,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update (severely tardy to the party): Fincher & an avalanche of PORN!

Yesterday was severely busy and the rest of this week isn’t looking too hot, either, so I apologize for not dropping the Monday update as scheduled.

You may have noticed that December was not my best month for Gusto Club Watch interviews. Rest assured that there are 3 finished reviews on three different bars and they should start popping in any week now.

The new issue of Night Life hits this week with part 1 of ‘Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me Is Going To Destroy You’, the Gamestop assault that you all saw right here back in November. I figured that a good majority of Night Life readers who don’t have internet access shouldn’t be left in the lurch, so we’d bring them into the loop too.

As for David Fincher, I jumped back into my bio piece with both feet this weekend and started putting some hard research into the back end of Benjamin Button along with all new relevant reviews, interviews and biographical information that the new promotional junket has to offer. I continue to be fascinated with the director, and while I can’t make any promises as to when the piece will be finished, all I can say is that it will be done when it’s done. The bio articles are the only creative writing projects that I don’t rush, and with 11 completed pages done and another 9 pages of categorized notes tabbed by personal info, movie information in chronological order and a quotes section, the article is going to be well over 30 pages. At the rate I’m going, this could be a book by itself, but I’m not going to turn a blind eye to all the new info from Fincher’s latest masterpiece, which is earmarked to be an Oscar dandy in a few month’s time.

Moving on, you can thank Intentionally Bald Mike for the next two or three Big Words Radio Hour in-studio shows, because I’ve got NO LESS than two brand name adult film stars slated for phone interviews. I’d rather not give their names up yet, but trust me, these girls are gonna be GREAT! I’m ironing out the details on a third, but I’m pretty pleased with the first two and if it weren’t for Intentionally Bald Mike’s $50 bet, I wouldn’t have put so much effort into making contacts in that industry again.

As for other radio shows, I’m taking the week off. I’ll be focusing what free time I have on setting up calendar dates from February through May for Breathing Room promotions as well as Monsters Of Verse appearances. I’m also making some headway on two ArtVoice features at the same time, so I’ll be clocking in on those particular details this week, too.

That’s all the time I have for today. I’ll pop in for a Quixote Wednesday update on time for your regularly scheduled broadcast. Take care, webslingers,

Tom Waters

Big Words One Man Mobile Unit Episode 27 (at long last): Suckerpunch!

Yup,

 

    Much like the Kevin McCarthy two-banger, Suckerpunch was kind enough to record two separate hours (one interview hour, one concert hour) weeks ago from our Lancaster grotto.  And in the same respect, it took me about three weeks to get the episodes up online.  This band was absolutely incredible, and they were unlike any other musical act I’ve had on so far in that they were hardcore with some bite!  If you like rock with some teeth (i.e. Metallica, Marilyn Manson, and Disturbed), then you are absolutely going to LOVE these two shows!  Join Suckerpunch, co-host Alie (Desiderio’s) and myself for two solid hours of boot-stomping, head-banging, Wild Turkey-swilling radio gold!  Here’s the official synopsis:

 

Big Words One Man Mobile Unit Episode 27: A Suckerpunch To The Nuts! (pt.I of II)
   Tom makes the grave error of a) inviting Buffalo Music Award winning hard rock band Suckerpunch into his home and his heart, b) letting co-host Alie (Desiderio’s) bartend with only Wild Turkey as a hard liquor and c) trying to host a cohesive interview show throughout. Total bedlam ensues as Tom, Alie and the band gear up for a ‘parter of two’ that will rock your f-ing socks off!

    The boys were a bit difficult to herd in for a group session interview wise, but that was part of the fun.  A big thanks goes out to the entire band for lugging about half a million dollars worth of equipment into my home for the full metal experience, Alie for her top notch bartending and co-hosting skills, Phil from Macaroon’s for helping to put me in touch with the boys, and the rest of my apartment building for not calling the cops and hauling us off while Suckerpunch obliterated every eardrum within a five mile radius.  Truly a landmark show.  Listen for yourselves over at:

 

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

Quixote Wednesdays (A Few Minutes Into Thursday, 2009): Read It And Weep, Gamestop!

With last week’s holiday decathlon (and the bankrupt notion of peace on earth etc.), I decided to let things slide with Gamestop since they had enough to keep them busy what with the declining holiday traffic they’ve been enjoying all year long as well as the pressures of working a six day week (except for Colleen, who was apparently allowed to take a personal day on Christmas Eve, since Store Managers don‘t really need to be around for one of the biggest days of the year). Before I expound too much, let’s take a look at the recent GME stock activity at the beginning of the post rather than the end of the post compliments of thestreet.com:

12/22/08 $23.14 (-1.46) (-5.94%)

12/23/08 $22.18 (-.96) (-4.15%)

12/29/09 $21.95 (-1.19) (-5.14%)

12/30/08 $22.14 (+.19) (+.87%)

YEAR TO DATE: -64.66%!!!!!

That year to date number is CRUSHING considering that they’ve opened so many new locations and taking into consideration that they bought an entire French videogame company and assumed their debt as part of the buyout. Now I may not be an expert on business strategy, or even profits and losses, but it doesn’t make sense to me to keep scooping up new acquisitions and opening new stores when you’re getting your ass kicked all over the stock market.

And here’s another talking point that I haven’t gotten around to: A close pal pointed out to me that Gamestock’s stockholder reports (the same stocks I got screwed out of conveniently three months after I signed off on them) may be a bit skewed. They keep proclaiming that they’re making more money on the whole as a company, but if you take into account the fact that they’re making more money because they keep opening new stores, odds are that they’re losing money on the whole. I don’t know who appointed the spendaholics who keep rampaging across a dying retail terrain buying locations up like an 8 year old in the first few laps of Monopoly, but this is bound to catch up with them.

On the local front, reports tell me that Lewis (the brown noser who got his own store for costing me my job during my honeymoon) is doing horribly at his new store. The location apparently isn’t selling much on the border of Clarence and Amherst, and if you can’t blow through product this time of year, you obviously don’t know jack and/or shit about retail. Yet another great promotional decision in a long line of stupid ideas from my previous District Manager Lisa.

As far as the rest of the region, I got some fascinating scoop about the new neighboring District Manager (promoted into his own District, which flies in the face of every company policy in place for the last twenty years), who previously had a store out in the Orchard Park/Hamburg area. One of my buddies ran into a high school student who used to work for him and this student let the dime drop that the newly promoted DM’s teenage daughter is a total slut. I guess this bald jackass was too busy getting other people fired over the years to notice that he was neglecting one (if not all) of his three kids. I hope your new promotion pays well, because you may have to fund a teen pregnancy, baldy!

And it must have been something I said, but apparently, Gamestop is not happy with me. While a few of my peers have already received unemployment insurance for being terminated under ridiculous circumstances, my benefits have been denied under the heading of ‘Misconduct’. That’s a nice little grab bag with wide reaching implications, isn’t it? Since when did having a penis constitute misconduct, I wonder? I’m not done with this battle by a long shot. 2009 will hark the starting bell to Round 2 against these stupid bastards. I’ll see your soulless, gelatinous asses in court when I contest the ruling. Again, if you thought this would destroy my world, then you never knew me as an employee or a human being in the first place.

No matter what sort of circus this hearing may turn out to be, I honestly can’t see a mediator favoring a corporation with a local bent for replacing their consistently successful male managers with newly minted young women who coincidentally just started with the company during Lisa’s reign of terror. Filling one report out improperly after six years with the company turning no less than four problem stores around (with a handful of prestigious sales awards on my shelf for trouncing the other 120 stores in my District, mind you) should not be grounds for immediate termination with any company. I’m curious to see who shows up for that shit-show, but rest assured, I’ll be giving each and every one of you an invite for the festivities so that you can grab a front row seat and watch the ballgame unfold in person. The wheels of justice may be slow, but the Department Of Labor can’t be that incompetent. I still trust in the basic good of our nation and its agencies, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed and implementing contingency plans in the mean time.

In closing, I’d like to wish all of you who have followed these Wednesday communiqués a wonderful and prosperous New Year. If you didn’t keep encouraging these blogs, I would have stopped writing them a long time ago. Fortunately, you can’t get enough of them and I love writing them. Like many parting employees past, present and future have told me, ’Keep up the good work.’ I’m not the only one the company has screwed over locally or nationally, so keep those positive emails rolling and if you know something I don’t (whether you want anonymity or fleeting celebrity), feel free to drop me a line anytime at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

 

FINAL Call For Buffalo Anthology Submissions Runs From 1/09-7/09

This is it! Alycia is back in town for a brief time and we’ll be committing the next six months to wrapping up the LAST slate of submissions along with securing a publisher for the collection. Close pal Christina Wos Donnelly soothed some of my woes by emailing to say that most anthologies take two years on average. Here are some answers (along with some criteria) to answer some recent emails:

1.) If you’ve already submitted work and had it accepted, feel free to submit more material. The odds of a second (or in some case, third) work from the same author being included are less favorable than the initial submission, but if you believe your other works are capable of surviving the firing line, have at it.

2.) You will only be notified IF your submission is accepted. As working writers, we decided at the outset that chain rejection emails were infinitely nastier than no reply at all. If you haven’t heard from myself or Alycia by next year’s end, then your work didn’t make the cut. Sorry. This doesn’t mean that you’re not a promising writer/artist/poet, your work just wasn’t a good fit for the project. No hard feelings?

3.) We are still accepting poems, so feel free to submit, but the acceptance ratio will be much greater for essays, flash memoirs, historical expositions and works of fiction. The collection as it stands is top-heavy with poetry. Buffalo has a phenomenal poetry scene with a wealth of talented poets, but we firmly believe that there are still a lot of other creative endeavors and headspaces toiling away in Buffalo that deserve greater recognition.

4.) Please, by all means, SPREAD THE WORD! We want this collection to be just as succesful as you do, if not more. Just Buffalo can always use some extra help (financially and creatively), so if you have an altruistic bone in your body, push it to the breaking point. Tell your writing workshop. Tell your friends that have been writing and haven’t gotten a lot of work published on the local front. Tell your peers if you’re firmly entrenched in the heirarchy. If there’s one thing this project has taught us (and there have been a lot of valuable lessons down the road), it’s that word of mouth can hold a lot more weight than a listing in most of the notable newspapers. A Call For Works listing is all well and good, but after the day or the week-long run is over in a publication, word of mouth keeps the submissions rolling in.

5. And finally (before the Final Call For Submissions copy), if you were one of the writers who submitted for the last reading period (summer 2008), we haven’t gotten to your work yet, so don’t be crestfallen…yet. Alycia and I will be hitting the learning curve in the next six months to put this project to bed once and for all. After July, we’ll be rounding up as many accepted contributors as we can for the purpose of putting our heads together in person to decide on a finished project together. This is not a two-party system. This is not a head trip for myself or Alycia. This is a non-profit collection with the dual intention of promoting lesser known creative talents while raising money for Buffalo’s only literary center in a time of need. A finished manuscript is only the first stepping stone on the road to publishing, promoting, marketing and selling the book. Trust us on this one. Compiling the book will be easy compared to the junket we have in store one calendar year from now. We’ll need as many hands on deck as we can get to put this book out in a professional, fiscally viable manner. As always, contributions (creatively and financially) are appreciated.

And now, the Final (and Lord, do I mean final!) Call For Submissions. Happy New Year,

Tom Waters
Poetry Editor

Alycia Ripley
Fiction Editor

Buffalo Authors Alycia Ripley and Tom Waters will be considering any and all submissions of flash fiction and nonfiction (2,000 word max) as well as poetry (10 page max) for inclusion in an upcoming not-for-profit anthology about present day Buffalo. Since the submission period has been extended and the publishing window has been reconfigured to allow for a larger collection, works of fiction as well as historical or biographical essays will be given precedence over poetry submissions due to the current content of accepted works thus far. Submissions will be considered in (as well as) outside of Buffalo, and the material must be topical to modern day Buffalo life, landmarks or Buffalonians in general. All entries must be cut and pasted into the body of an email and sent simultaneously to ‘bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com’ and ‘alyciaripley@hotmail.com’ with the type of submission in the subject heading (ex: ‘flash fiction submission’).
In addition, please include name, address, email address and published works you would like listed after your name in the completed anthology. The finished book will be published in the Spring of 2010 and all royalties will go towards the betterment and continued success of the Just Buffalo Literary Center. Submission period will run from January 1st-July1st and accepted authors will be notified via email. In addition, any and all parties interested in contributing their time or capital towards publishing, producing and marketing the book are also welcome to email or query.

For more information (as always), feel free to visit the official Just Buffalo Anthology Project site at:

buffaloanthology.blogspot.com

Thank you so much for your interest in the project,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! More Sterlace Love…Another Turn Of The Glass…

Hoof!,

I am so goddamned glad that this year is almost over that I can’t even express it in words. The last six months have been hell in a handcart and in my experience, life kicks me in the ass every seven years. This one’s almost over and the kharma chain had damned well better hit the soft reset, because one man can only handle so much on his plate (even when half of it might be his fault). Two more days and we’re on to the next twelve months. I couldn’t be more relieved…

On Christmas Day, I went to see The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button with my little brother and even though it was three hours, I can’t wait to see it again. While everything Fincher has directed since Alien 3 has been near-perfect, this film was light years different in terms of style from Zodiac, his last tour de force. There’s a reason why everyone is predicting that it will blow the doors off of The Dark Knight at the Oscars. Because it will. I’m calling it right now: Even though most of you know how near and dear Dark Knight is to my heart, Button has a much broader appeal and Fincher has been long-overdue for a handful of the most sought-after trophies in Hollywood. Believe it, because it’s going to happen. That, and Oscar is known for his short-term memory, dead Australian or no dead-Australian.

After the film, I tried something new for the radio show. Greg Sterlace and myself did an hour and a half follow-up show via telephone and I recorded snippets of our conversation at random. I was a bit crocked by the end of the program, but decided to include the baby and the bathwater. The results were pretty funny. Here’s your snyopsis(s?):

Episode 26: The Big Words Xmas/Chanakuh/Kwanza/Boxing Day Extravaganza Happy Fun Time Hour!
Tom slurs through the phone after seven drunken hours with his little brother and an opening day viewing of Benjamin Button to talk movies, the Jewish tradition of seeing movies on Christmas Day, and to discern (and re-discern) the reason why Greg Sterlace fled from Buffalo, the city that made him a worldwide icon.

And the bonus round:

Bonus Round: Wherein our humble host blacks out and somehow manages to keep attacking the Honorable Gregory Sterlace, his comely girlfriend Paula and any race, creed or color his pickled brain can lock on to for more than thirty seconds.

Check ‘em both out (along with the previous studio show with Greg and co-host Josh Smith) over at:

 

 

I know I promised to have both of Sucker Punch’s shows up by now, but I like to bookend multiple shows and my producer and I have been having some issues and learning curves with uploading items on Filezilla. I see no reason why they won’t be up by the end of this week and I’ll drop you all a line the second they’re up on the site for your listening pleasure. Sorry, Suckerpunch! I’d rather have both shows intact side by side than pop them up willy nilly. I hope you understand.

Aside from assignments and a part-time job that’s been hardening me up and chewing up some of the time I’ve grown accustomed to spending writing and freelancing, I’ll be working on punching up a Final Call For Submissions for the Just Buffalo Anthology that Alycia Ripley and myself have been toiling away on and setting on the back burner in turns. This will give us one calendar year to wrap it up and set it loose by the spring of 2010. It seems like a long ways away, but if next year is anything like this one, I won’t have five minutes of down time for the foreseeable future.

And finally (for now), the new issue of Night Life assaults your free paper stands in Buffalo and Canada today with my final column for 2008, entitled ‘The 7 Year Bitch: Good Riddance, 2008!. It basically explores the majority of the metaphysical bitch-slaps I’ve had to deal with while holding my sanity together this year. Again, thank god it’s almost over.

That’s all I have time for today. Without the benefit of a time machine or a stop watch that puts everything outside of my study dead in it’s tracks, this is the best I can do with what little recreational time I have. Talk to you all on Wednesday with some more great Quixote Wednesday scoop,

Tom Waters

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

Big Words Radio Episode 25: ‘A Voice Made For Television’ with Greg Sterlace!

Ho ho Oh!,

    After a holiday meal with producer Richard Wicka, co-host Josh Smith and ‘close, personal friend’ Jim Pray at the Home Of The Future, we strapped ourselves down in the studio and brought back-up guest Greg Sterlace off the bench for a show that was much funnier than I thought it was while we were recording it.  Here’s your Christmas Eve synopsis:

 

Episode 25: A Voice Made For Television
Tom speaks with last-minute yuletide guest Greg Sterlace and his Ventroliquist Yoko Paula to discuss their About Schmidt-esque road-trip sojourn between massive gaps of dead air. Author, poet and performer Josh Smith (co-hosts) on Christmas Eve as he typically only celebrates Boxing Day and Kwanza.

 

    Consider this episode an early Christmas gift!  Surf on over to:

 

thinktwiceradio.com

 

 for the full hour of holiday sneer!  Many thanks to Josh for understanding the difference between comedy and actual racism, Greg and Paula for suffering our slings and arrows, and Rich for putting up with me for 25 episodes now!  Great job, gang! 

    Greg and I will be doing another episode out of studio tomorrow with a slightly different skew, so you can tune into that one some time around Friday or later.  Both Suckerpunch shows are complete, so look out for them before the week is out.  I’ll drop you all a line as always once they’re up on Think Twice.  Happy holidays and have a great Christmas Day,

 

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesdays: Merry Christmas To Everyone But Me!

I’m taking this week off from lambasting anybody.  In light of recent events, I’d like to try and enjoy what little time I have for the holidays and leave a little kharma in the bank for the New Year.  Demolishing Gamestop and the severe incompetency of the New York State Department Of Labor can wait for another week.  Have a great holiday and stay safe,

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update! December Suprises…

After yesterday’s update, I don’t have a whole hell of a lot to get caught up on. There are no less than three new Big Words Radio shows in the pipeline, but time hasn’t been on my side lately and the file uploading process I have makes it infinitely easier to just drop the shows off at the studio when the weather and the roads permit. As for the roads and the weather, lake effect snow: what’s up with that? Since the wife and I are on lockdown due to Lancaster’s ‘State Of Emergency’ and the Driving Ban, perhaps I’ll try and volley a few shows Rich’s way.

This Wednesday (X-Mas Eve) marks my next in-studio date for recording the show with co-host Josh Smith. As for a guest, we’ve got our pick of the litter and I’m not entirely sure who’s going to be on until Wednesday rolls around because I have two people on deck for the guest chair and they’re both call-ins.

As for both Breathing Rooms, I’m taking a hiatus on promoting the new books in addition to the Monsters Of Verse. The holidays are hectic enough and there’s not much point in promoting anything in Buffalo in terms of in-store promotions this late in the winter. JR Finlayson, myself and our third rotating guest poets will kick back into high gear in February once the elements and the economy are off the ropes, if you know what I mean.

It seems like forever since I got a bar review into the Buffalo News, but, well, I’ve been busy and the News has been busy. You can expect a new Club Watch (or two) within the next week or two.

And a new Night Life presumably hit’s the stands today with the final installment of ‘5 Writers, 3 Musicians, A Director, A Teamster, A Painter, A Boxer and a Game Show Host: A Study In Biographical Pictures’, a critical essay on my 15 favorite biopics.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Stay the hell at home, don’t panic, don’t find an excuse to leave the house to get milk or eggs or some such nonsense and chillax. The way I see it, this is nature’s way of telling us to get some rest and get caught up on things around the house. Thank god we’ve got whiskey, cigarettes, 800 movies, 2,000 comics and a few dozen video games. Who wants to play video games, though? Talk to you all on Christmas Eve with ‘Quixote Wednesday’,

Tom Waters

2 New Sterlace(?) TV Shows!

Oof, the holidays are murder, eh?

Everyone needs a release valve or ten.  Luckily I have a few outlets (whiskey, writing, and cheese) to vent.  If you still have it, the Buffalo News ran a new holiday piece that I wrote in Saturday’s ‘My View’ section.  Yesterday marks the tenth year since my grandfather Franc passed on and I’m not sure if it was an accident or not, but they ran the piece on the same day.  I made mention in the essay.  Early responses seem to be very positive.  It was nice to be able to honor my grandfather’s memory in such a public forum. 

Also, I made two appearances on the Greg Sterlace show this previous Friday and the Friday before.  They are already up online over at sterlace.com (12/15 and 12/19, respectively) and should bew running on Time Warner on Wednesdays and Fridays (check your DVR or local listings for times) on public access.  Last Friday it was the Mr. Ski Mask show with a very special gay proposal for Ski Mask.  This week (due to weather constraints), Sir Face Mask hosted the show and we spent a half hour going off on the Viewer’s Mom.  This show is bananas, yo!  I have no idea how they get away with everything they get away with, but it sure is fun. 

You can also check out some pics from the show along with a new look I’ve been working on.  I stumbled by accident onto a hybrid Dennis Miller code of dress that I’m really digging.  The pictures only run for the current week, so act fast!

Good luck getting all your shopping done and happy holidays,

Tom Waters

Quixote Wednesdays: The Department Of Goofing Off!

Since I’ve had so many blind rampages lately, I think we’ll adopt Wednesdays and brand them as ‘Quixote Wednesdays’ instead of ‘Gamestop Wednesday Updates’. Sound good? Good. Some quick Gamestop info and then I’ve got a Department Of Labor rant that you can enjoy as an early holiday gift. I just wrote it this week and there’s enough venom stuffed into it to please any longtime reader.

My former DM has about one week to continue enjoying her lifestyle, her job and her employment. I’ll leave it at that. While most of you know that this doesn’t have anything to do with personal assault, physical damage or vandalism that leaves a lot of other venues for bringing her down to our level. The beauty of this massive snowball of a nightmare is that it’s just in time for Christmas! Merry Christmas, Lisa. You’ll probably be replaced by some other monster shortly after December, but I’ll take a great deal of enjoyment in knowing that I was the last straw that brought you down like a gigantic, fleshy game of Jenga. Say hello to your psychiatrist for me, you stupid bitch.

And before I forget, there are not one but TWO new graphic novel reviews up on comicsbulletin.com.  Pop on over and check them out soon as there aren’t any direct links and it takes a helluva lot of scrolling to find them after a day or two.  So hurry!

And now, the rant! It’s called ‘The Department Of Goofing Off’. Your welcome, New York State. Now get off your ass and give me my goddamned money. Have a wonderful rest of the week (well, better than Lisa’s is going to be) and I’ll drop the knowledge on all of you by Friday,

Tom Waters

The Department Of Goofing Off

The Department Of Labor couldn’t find their ass with both hands, a global positioning device, Google Earth, a dowsing rod, a police psychic on the payroll, a leprechaun, a genie, and least of all, Amelia Earheart. That’s right. As a matter of fact, Amelia Earheart happens to be the new commissioner (she’s the one with the Burger King crown on her head in the company picnic photos) of the Department Of Labor. In a scant nine years, this commission of a clusterfuck has turned into a blight that makes the Department Of Motor Vehicles look like a while-you-wait photo shop. I’ve been getting ass-raped by the DOL for the last eleven weeks and now it’s their turn. Grab your ankles and look for the soap, you dumb bastards. Squeal like the unreachable beaurocratic fatcats you are soaking up the governmental funds you sun yourselves with on hammocks minted in gold when you should be working for those of us who have our entire lives, you worthless sacks of human waste. This one’s for you.

After getting the royal screw-job from my previous employer for boosting sales too much and the shortcoming of being a white male with a penis, I made the gross assumption of expecting that the government would cushion my fall from financial grace by giving back some of the sweaty money I’ve paid into the same system for nigh upon twenty years. I was so wrong that I made R. Kelly look like an altar boy. How foolish I was to draw the conclusion that an agency designed to help those out of work would do just that. I must have been betarded to infer, deduce and conclude that the two people in this great country of ours who are tasked with ignoring people out of work would dole funds out to those who have actually worked for a living in the past!

For six years, I’ve catered to (literally) generations of welfare recipients, SSI slugs and the walking biological waste who would rather stand in line or fill a seat and fill out paperwork for free funds, grants and tax dollars in an effort to sit around, rot their brains and neglect their children instead of getting off their gelatinous asses and press a hamburger button for eight hours four times a week for an honest paycheck. In a dying economy full of companies who are sniping hard working people left and right, I fell into the same category. Unfortunately, with my background in backbreaking labor as opposed to growing up in a system that caters to perpetually jobless dregs who know how to work pity to the maximum advantage while spawning children who will accomplish the same, I am at a disadvantage.

I’ve gone eleven weeks without a penny from the state or the government I’ve made every attempt to support. I’ve filled out their paperwork in record time and faxed it out well within their acceptable deadlines. I am a writer after all. Perhaps the fact that my handwriting was legible was a dead giveaway that I had an above-GED education or that I wasn’t a bottom-feeding piece of scum in a tank full of those fish who suck the spooge off of the side of a fishbowl. If I was smarter (or swifter), I would have filled the forms out with a Picture Page Marker and sent the letters out folded up into some manner of origami airplane instead of a tele-fax, which was a dead giveaway that I had more than a rudimentary education.

Sadly, I didn’t spend the majority of my life finishing early into soon-to-be teen moms. I’ve never cooked crystal methamphetimes in multiple bathtubs. I also haven’t traded foodstamps for handguns from local corner stores so that I could rob banks for tax-free non-dye pack dollar dollar bills (y’all) in order to buy the latest hip sneakers while I continued to collect a steady fare for supposedly doing nothing. This was among the long list of what would become many of my first mistakes.

When I got wrongfully terminated in October of this year, I was honest. Another huge mistake. Instead of lying through my teeth like everyone else, I tried to explain that I founded my own publishing company and that it cost me more money from the outset (in review copies, radio show comps and bookstore swag) than I was making. How foolish I was to tell the truth. I should have taken a note from the hundreds of thousands of career loafers and omitted the truth. That way, my claim would have been processed in a manner more timely than say, eleven weeks and counting. Unlike my pathetic peers, I don’t deal in outside ’pharmaceutical’ representative work. I’m not in the business of ’hands-on’ sperm donation through the Frostee Clerk at the local Dairy Queen after we’ve shared a Philly Blunt. Woe is goddamned me.

The beauty and the form and function of the Department Of Labor has much ado with their chain of command as well as their response time, which is negligible at best. The entire system is set up to ignore actual recipients. I’ve made no less than a dozen phone calls and gotten zero callbacks in return. At this point, I’d prefer a post-film critique with a hundred monkeys with a hundred typewriters over the half of a simpleton who seems to be ignoring genuine requests for guidance and assistance that a slightly more corrupt simpleton appears to be in charge of. What is it that you people do? With a score of locations spanning this entire country, I’m astonished at the incompetence and complete inattention to detail that your organization displays. If you were service or gratuity based, you’d be doling out hand jobs under an expressway overpass for macaroni and cheese money by now.

Thanks in large part to my honesty (which, again, was a massive mistake and I should have known better), my claim is ’pending’. ’Pending’ means that the money owed to me will be on hold from now until nuclear fallout sometime in 2071 when my case-worker, trained Tandy Robot Arm Who Passes For A Pathetic Employee Of The Government or Lazy Bastard Who Chucks Pencils At The Ceiling While Ignoring His Ringing Phone gets off of his fat pock-marked ass and actually earns a living, which I did for practically twenty years until this economy decided to bring the hammer down on me.

What do you people do and how do you live with yourselves? The entire daisy-chain of neglect is built around ignoring the people who pay you, isn’t it? I’ve gone onto every web site, automated response system and paper trail invented for the scam that our government has put into place and they all lead to dead ends. I’ll just draw the assumption that (much like my former employer’s home office), a handful of oily men and women in short-sleeved shirts hold one-person limbo parties ala Bruce Willis in Moonlighting across the country while their phone lines are set to Forward-Only.

Not unlike the Batcave, finding a Department Of Labor (oxymoron) that will open it’s doors is paramount to knowing which hologram of a mountain cliff is fake so that I can pass through to the real place where their might be a breathing person who actually works for the good of some people who are down on their luck willing to work at a job who can’t find one. I’d still prefer to sacrifice my financial gains as opposed to my dignity, and those of you in this industry have neither. You make me wretch, and if there was any justice in this life, you’d boil your own body parts down and sell them on the black market to renumerate those of us who have actually worked for a living instead of coasting up and down a vacant office aisle in a bad chair with a bad tie. Damn you to hell, Department Of Labor. To be more specific, rot in hell, Brian. Do your job for once in what passes for the pathetic vacuum of an existence that you call a life.

Laborious,

Tom ‘government cheese’ Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Deadline For The D.O.L./Flurries Of Activity

Monday Big Words Update! A Deadline For The D.O.L./Flurries Of Activity

The year just goes by in a blinding flash once we ramp up through December, doesn’t it?

I wanted to pop a few blogs in over the weekend but there wasn’t any time. The Double D’s/Night Life Big Words Column bash was a MASSIVE success this previous Thursday. There wasn’t one single person in the bar who didn’t get a free t-shirt, CD, book, poster or movie! Great drinks were had by all, special guest vocalist Lauren Dragon (a new ingenue from Chicago who just took the Buffalo music scene by storm) surprised us all by showing up and rocking the mic with the Dr. Z band, Joanne at Double D’s was kind enough to throw a free buffet out for the crowd AND you can read all about it next Monday in Night Life magazine! Night Life finally has a new consistent bar reviewer for the first time since I left in that capacity over two years ago and not only is this guy good, he’s not going anywhere. He was kind enough to send me a draft from his first review and whatever you want to call the quality that a good writer of bar, club and lounge reviews has, HE’S got ‘it’.

While ArtVoice’s resident bar poseur Reginald Dwight couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag, Night Life now has a new ace in the hole and this guy hit the ground running. I’d also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Joanne and the rest of the crew at Double D’s Queen City Grill as well as Ed Honeck and the rest of my crew at Night Life for organizing such a great event. My star seems to be starting its ascent and I don’t ever forget things like the generosity and support they gave me. While I may be brutally and cripplingly vindictive with people and companies who are still stupid enough to f with me, I am also loyal to a fault and the majority of my contacts and friends are longstanding for a reason. Make a note of that, Buffalo. As far as I’m concerned, I’d like to do an anniversary party at Double D’s every year and it was great to hang out with some of my readers and get wrecked. I also decided NOT to pod cast the event so that I could ease up and enjoy the festivities without being in a constant state of focus for the sake of the douche-nozzles who couldn’t bother to make it. If you weren’t there, you missed out. Keep your eyes open for next November or December because the third anniversary should be a true corker!

As for the rest of the weekend, the Batman Bash at our apartment was a helluva time. We had homemade gumbo, pizza and wings, and thirteen straight hours of live action and animated Batman films. The trolls who somehow still keep Buffalo Rising rolling around in site hits by the dozens (per month) can seethe over my fixation all they want, but if they check out Alie’s pics up on my Myspace profile, they’ll see just what sort of ‘pathetic geeks’ I missed out on. Who was right where the Dark Knight film was concerned? Point to Tom Waters again. It’s been awhile since I’ve said this, but a big go fuck yourself fgoes out to Elena Buscarino, Buffalo Rising and Newell Nussbaumer in that order. How are you guys doing? Not so hot, huh? Well that’s too bad.

As for other ‘don’t ever mess with Tom because he’ll bring your world down by the foundations’ news, the good folks at BuffaloMe.com were kind enough to send me two emails in the wake of my total departure from YourHub.com. They informed me that my name is apparently in their Top Twelve for search terms. I don’t even know how to wrap my brain around that. I guess Buffalonians are reading. If they’d just start popping online and ordering some books, we’d be in business. So spend some money for the holidays, you cheap bastards! I’m not in this for the prestige or the glory, I’m in it for the money! I’ve got a hot wife and two cats to feed, so open up your wallets and buy some (or all) of the books for god’s sakes!

After MULTIPLE emails to Ben Kirst (at my request), my entire blog/profile history has been erased from YourHub. I’m curious as to what Deanna Russo will say when she returns to the helm about Ben’s editorial godheadship in her absence. While the cat’s away, the mice will play, eh? Once again, Ben, you made a mistake, and Buffalo.Me is gobbling the site hits you could have had up like Pac-Man on amphetamines. Do you hear those crickets chirping? That’s your web site. Try and walk around the tumbleweeds, pal. Once more, do yourself a favor, support local (Facebook SUCKS!) and register a profile on BuffaloMe.com. It takes a few minutes, they’re very user friendly, and they don’t decide what blogging content is too hot for the internet. They actually allow their users to speak their minds and they’re over 1,000 subscribers and counting after just two months. BuffaloMe represent, ya’ll! I’ve got some more deep intel about Ben Kirst’s mistep last week, but that ties in to Wednesday’s Gamestop update, so you’ll just have to wait two days.

Working on wrapping it up, there’s another new episode of Big Words Radio. Episode 23. At long last, Kevin McCarthy’s first parter of two is up right now on ThinkTwiceRadio.com. Here’s the synopsis:

Big Words One Man Mobile Unit Episode 23:

The other hour long episode will be up by the end of the week. Kevin is honestly the nicest guy in Buffalo showbiz and it was an honor to get a private concert in his beautiful home in Amherst. Thanks for being so patient with my production learning curve, Kevin! Your two shows were my guinea pigs, so I apologize for any splicing/editing issues ahead of time. And as for musical guests, I still have a few rabbits left up my sleeve and they’ll be hippety-hopping out real soon. Think hardcore local live metal bands. Think TKO’s or surprise left hooks. My next two hour long guests were a riot to hang out with and I think we pissed off my entire neighborhood last Wednesday when we brought the house down at my apartment grotto in Lancaster. ‘Nuff said on that front.

I also co-hosted/appeared on my first broadcast for the newly minted Mr. Ski Mask show for Time Warner cable this previous Friday. I loved meeting Greg Sterlace and I’ll miss him and his wife Paula dearly, but to nutshell it: Sterlace’s show was nuts, Ski Mask’s show is crazier. If you want to see the gay proposal, the full-frontal assault on anyone who watches the show and a whole barrel of rants, check your local listings and catch the show Wednesday night or Friday night on public access.

Almost finally (whew!), there’s a brand new issue of Night Life magazine on stands today with my 3-part Big Words exclusive critique on the 15 Greatest Biopics ever released. I put a lot into the piece, so scoop it up for free all week in the Greater Buffalo/Niagara area!

Closing out, I’m going to drop a deadline for my non-buddy Brian at the beurocratic clusterfuck better known as the New York State Department Of Labor. It’s been 11 weeks with no unemployment insurance benefits and I know you read this site when you’re supposed to be doing what passes for your job. You have three days to pick up your phone and call me regarding benefits that I’ve paid into for 19 years. They are owed to me. Speed up this process or you’ll have a lot of interesting information/comedy to read this Wednesday. Get off your ass, do your job and finish my ’pending’ file. If I don’t get a phone call tomorrow, I’ll spend my spare time writing a brand new essay and I’ve got bile to burn, my friend. In case you haven’t figured it out, I am not a man to be ignored or trifled with and the small army at my disposal is well into the thousands by now. Big ego? No. Focused rage? You better believe it. Get your ass moving after the four phone calls I made to your answering machine (since you weren’t at your desk cracking the case last week from the hours of 9-5) or suffer the consequences. Consider yourselves warned, Department Of Labor. I don’t take prisoners, so get your asses in gear. You don’t want at piece of this. Trust me.

There’s a big barrel of Gamestop Update rolling out this Wednesday with yet again more info than I can cram into one day, so I’ll save a few highlights for X-mas Eve. I’m at two and a half pages of pissed off, so I’ll stop here. One final thanks goes out to Christopher Schobert for his phenomenal profile/interview on Breathing Room and my neurotic written therapy in this month’s issue of Buffalo Spree. You rule, Buffalo Spree! Take care and see you all in two days for new record breaking site hit numbers,

Tom Waters

Kevin McCarthy-’The
Only Sober Irishman In Buffalo’
Tom chillaxes with his home-boy Kevin McCarthy while they talk
music industry, traditional Irish drinking music, and the inadvertent
3-way musical love when session drummer Tom Brown pops in for a ’stop
and chat’ and some musical genius occurs.

Big Words 2 Year Anniversary Party TONIGHT at Double D’s Queen City Grill @ 8 p.m.!

Okay, I can’t believe I neglected to blog this yet and it’s outlandishly short notice, but tonight marks the auspicious 2 Year Anniversary Party for a little column I like to call ‘Big Words I Know By Heart’.  The place?  Double D’s Queen City Grill at 1051 Sheridan Drive on the border of Tonawanda and Buffalo (2 blocks past Elmwood on the left across from a gas station).  The time?  8 p.m. to ?.  What can you expect when you show up?  Celebrity appearances, prize giveaways (books, CDs, t-shirts, movie passes, etc.), crazy stupid drink specials and food specials. 

     Also, due to a very sad event with 12 Pack Jack (my condolences, gentlemen), the Dr. Z Band will be performing from 8 p.m. to midnight!  Live blues, free swag, great food, good company!  What else do you need?

Seeya tonight at Double D’s!  Be there or rot in hell!

Branching Out/Wednesday Gamestop Update!

Wow, what a week!

This can’t go unnoticed. Once a day, I check my blog stats to see how many site hits I have as well as what sort of search terms readers are typing in online to get to tomfoolery. Well I can tell you right now that today was something special. Today, Big Words reaches a new level of legitimacy. I’m glad I was sitting down when I checked because the number of INDIVIDUAL hits for today ONLY is at:

406 hits SERVED!

It’s far too soon to tell what different variables would factor in to a number that’s over three times the previous record (126 hits for a day) and the day isn’t even OVER yet! I can guess at a few of them though since this is a Wednesday. More on the hit phenomenon on another day because there’s too much to cover since it’s Wednesday.

On the writing end, Buffalo Spree Magazine has a profile on yours truly in their national magazine with an interview and a short review on both Breathing Room books. Pick up a copy today as it is a well written, prestigious and sharp subscriber based industry mag! There’s also an interview up this week with me compliments of Gary Holdsteady and the good people at Independent Stream based out of Minnesota! Click on over to that one at:

independentstream.podomatic.com

 

That should be everything writing-related for one day (I hope).  I’m having some serious issues with wordpress lately, so I apologize for the underlining.  I’ll endeavor to resolve the situation in the coming weeks. 

Also, the folks at Comics Bulletin posted a new review from you-know-who on Batman: The Man Who Laughed over at comicsbulletin.com. AND this month’s issue of Acid Logic is up online with ’Double Barrell Diplomacy’, my anti-Canadian shopper rant. Peep that at acidlogic.com

As for Gamestop, what can I say? In many respects where they’re concerned, I am omniscient. Taking things back to a local angle, the University store (Lisa’s home office location) is getting away with murder time and again. For a store that’s supposed to be the very example of professionalism based on their proximity to the District’s Manager, they’ve been anything but. A few customers stopped in on Saturday and the store was closed two hours early. Hmph. I realize that extending holiday hours can be a burden on the staff, but when did individual stores get to start making their own rules? That seems a bit hypocritical that so many other managers would get fired over trivial gray areas while former top grossing stores with female managers can do whatever they wish. Somebody should really call and complain about that, huh?

As for other customer service related issues, the Mall store in Clarence has been refusing trade-ins after eight p.m. Now maybe company policy changed since I got clipped, but I thought for some reason that trade-ins were a good thing because the profit margin is considerably higher than that of new product. I guess the Mall store knows better than the company and they are also free to make up their own rules. Hmph.

Meanwhile, at my old store location (the one I was wrongfully terminated from) half the staff seems to be jumping ship. Notices have been put in, other jobs have been found, and it appears as if the majority of the people that I hired have finally had it with the new regime. What a pity that they’re leaving right during the peak of the holiday season, eh? It’s a true testament to the current management staff (or what’s left of it) that keyholders, part-timers and the old guard (even after a number of years) are so fed up with the way the district is being run into the ground that they’re leaving the company altogether. Lisa continues to do a stellar job of rewarding the weasels, ignoring the hard-workers and stepping on everyone else in the process. Way to earn your salary, Lisa!

And finally, here’s your GME stock report. What goes up must come back down again. They had a nice surge yesterday and now they’re headed for the urinal drain yet again. Who woulda thunk it? Here’s the scoop (or what I had time to copy and paste in the last week:

12/3/08 $18.85 (-.16) (-.84%)

12/4/08 $20.18 (+1.33) (+7.06%)

12/5/08 $21.27 (+1.09) (+5.40%)

12/8/08 $25.00 (+3.73) (+17.54)

12/10/08 $24.09 (-.91)

Gamestop’s stock has fallen and it can’t get up. I’ve got so much more wonderful news to bring for the holidays, but why spoil the surprises? I’ll save some for next week so that you’ve got an extra gift under the virtual tree to look forward to. Enjoy the rest of your week!

Tom Waters

Monday Big Words Update: Interception/Interference

 Like anybody during the holiday season, the flu bug threw me for a loop yesterday and today. Sorry I’m late with the update, but I slept through most of today and camped out on the couch while what I hope is the worst of it is running it’s course through my immune system. Getting sick is BRUTAL when you get older(!), so I’ll make this brief:

-You guessed it, there’s a new episode of Big Words Radio (22) with a dear old ‘close personal friend’ Jon Elston! Here’s the synopsis:

Episode 22: ‘Two Roads Diverged In A Wood’thTom sits down at his penthouse apartment for a full hour show along with a ‘Bonus Round’ with Jon Elston (one of the head scribes with Road Less Traveled Theater at the Market Arcade) about their new hit play ‘Triangles’ as well as redheads, the Cohen Bros., tenured hack David Lynch and their painfully traumatic (and tremendously successful) high school years..

Listen to the most brutal line of questioning since ‘The Honeymooners’ Episode over at:

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html  -And there’s a new episode up under the Monsters Of Verse banner from this weekend’s FYE Hamburg promotion. Here’s the synopsis for that one:

12/6/08 Monsters Of Verse Episode 8: Wonder Twin Power Activate at FYE Hamburg!With no 3rd rotating Monster on deck, JR Finlayson and Tom Waters are left to fend for themselves on the front lines at FYE Hamburg with 10 pounds of ham, Susan Marie, The Dark Knight pre-launch hullaballoo and Finn’s

You can check that bad boy out over at:  http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html  There’s also a three or four part essay on Biopics that starts TODAY in the pages of Night Life magazine, so you don’t want to catch it already in progress once it starts rolling. Pick up your copy throughout the week in the greater Buffalo Niagara area!

 

And finally, I’m instituting a ban on YourHub blog posts. After two years of attempting to blaze a trail along with the three or four other consistent bloggers on the Buffalo News sponsored site, my last Wednesday Gamestop Update was censored twice by Ben Kirst, one of YourHub’s organizers. I am vehemently AGAINST censorship on a site that was designed to be a forum of and by the people. I feel as if it goes against the very spirit of the project, so until I hear otherwise, I won’t be posting on their site anymore. For a site that has never paid me that I helped to bring traffic to time and again from networking, I’m deeply distressed in this turn of events. It appears as if they will have to rely on the three or four Buffalo News Union Staffers who are leaned on to write on a regular basis along with the handful of other community posters who don’t have direct ties to the payroll department. After trying to explain the reason why I felt that it was wrong to take the post down to Ben, he emailed back with this:

 

 

Tom:

I’m sorry you feel that way, but we’ve been clear from the beginning that Buffalo.com/YourHub will not condone what we construe as personal attacks, and we will remove content from any user who violates this policy.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me immediately.

I more than respectfully disagree. The previous post was not a personal attack. The entire Gamestop crusade was launched not just for Yours Truly, but to right the wrongs of SCORES of other Gamestop District Managers and Store Managers who have been terminated for the wrong reasons, such as greed, discrimination, or the dollar amount in their pay checks versus the chickenfeed that they pay starting managers now. This is what journalism is supposed to be about. It is unbelievably unfortunate that a site maintained BY The Buffalo News can’t see the forest for the trees on that one. You made a mistake, Ben, and this will be my final (abridged) post. If any of you would like to read my posts throughout the week (as well as this Monday Update post in its entirety) or check out my pictures, you are welcome to read them on my official site at:

 

 

 http://www.tomfoolery4.wordpress.com

I also post near-simultaneously throughout the week on my Myspace profile blog as well as on BuffaloMe.com, an exciting new community site designed to bring Buffalonians closer together. If you’ve never heard or never been, it’s a cool place to visit and post and they don’t impose their own opinions where personal posting content is concerned. It’s this bizaar concept called ’Freedom Of Speech’. Look it up, Ben. Their blog posts also don’t lump words together or automatically censor language that may be deemed offensive compliments of a Victorian automated Bot. BuffaloMe is also very quick and easy to register, so I strongly encourage you to take your business or public thoughts, opinions and observations there. The site is growing at the speed of sound and after two months, they’ve already got over a thousand members. Imagine that.

This Thursday also marks the Big Words I Know By Heart Night Life anniversary party at Double D’s Queen City Grill on Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda! Make sure to make it out on Thursday at eight p.m. for an evening of FREE swag, great blues music and great food and drink! Hope to see you there!

That’s all I’ve got for today. I’ll be back again Wednesday with the Gamestop update, there’ll be a new graphic novel review up on ComicsBulletin.com on Wednesday, and any other relevant info will be up throughout the week! Thanks,

Tom Waterssales 

 

 
With no 3rd rotating Monster on deck, JR Finlayson and Tom Waters are left to fend for themselves on the front lines at FYE Hamburg with 10 pounds of ham, Susan Marie, The Dark Knight pre-launch hullaballoo and Finn’s thTom sits down at his penthouse apartment for a full hour show along with a ‘Bonus Round’ with Jon Elston (one of the head scribes with

Wednesday Gamestop Update: Another Party Heard From…

After last week’s complete reaming (administered by yours truly), a source emailed me outside the Buffalo market with some disturbing/controversial/informative news.  Read for yourself and we’ll discuss during the regional breakout.  Before I drop the mad knowledge, though, I’d like to take a moment and encourage anyone who’s worked for Gamestop nationwide (in the Buffalo market or outside of it) to email me if they have information leading to their downfall.  Feel free to send your emails to:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

Keep in mind that, having an ACTUAL command of journalistic legalese, I’m genuinely capable of protecting my sources.  Being savvy (or halfway intelligent) helps where these things are concerned.  I’ve got so much more information to share, but I’ll let another voice speak for this week and close out with your weekly Gamestop stock report:

Tom,

I’ve been following, off and on, the saga of GameStop since I first saw it
mentioned on, of all things, a comic book blog. I’m not a disinterested
party; like thousands of people, I’m a former EB manager. I stayed six
months past the “merger.” (I use quotes deliberately; it wasn’t a
merger. GameStop won, EB lost.)

Gamestop Deep throat #457 comments on last week’s article and responds by saying…

I’ve known Kiyeol (and for what it’s worth, I had to look up how to spell
it; that’s where six years worth of EB Games e-mails come in handy) since
he was a keyholder nearly ten years ago. I was hired about a week before
he was; I started at (location withheld by Tom) in Pennsylvania, he was at (location withheld by Tom).

 

Kiyeol got promoted to assistant manager rather quickly, then had a store outside Philadelphia (a promotion his own District Manager couldn’t even recommend him for) which he managed for a little more than a year, and then when the Virginia Beach district opened up, Kiyeol moved south. Then, the company created the “Regional Manager”
position (basically, the super-DM who had his own district and oversaw another), which Kiyeol filled, and then he went to Boston about a year after that. (His district in Virginia Beach after he left? -My- district manager had to go up there and straighten it out. And then LP came in and got rid of his Group Manager.) Kiyeol was very much on the fast track.
However, it’s not because he “is the nephew of one of the founding
members.”
He’s actually Mr. Kim’s son. As in, Mr. Kim, the man who created the
watch kiosk at King of Prussia to give his wife something to do, which
eventually turned into the EB Games you and I both knew.
I’ll keep my thoughts about Kiyeol to myself, except to say two things.
On the one hand, no one ever mistook Kiyeol for any sort of team player.
On the other, he put in his forty hours a week and called it done. Draw
your own conclusions.
On a personal level, I actually do like Kiyeol. When an LP position
opened up in Boston working for Kiyeol, I applied for it, and had the
merger not scuttled that, I wonder if I might not still be working for the
company.
I do wonder how Kiyeol ended up in Buffalo. I’d heard that with “Black
Tuesday” (that was the nickname I often heard used for the day that
GameStop fired half of EB’s District Managers) and the region realignments
after the start of the fiscal year in February 2006 that Kiyeoh had gotten
what he wanted — a region based out of eastern Pennsylvania. Apparently,
my sources were wrong.
Sadly, I think Kiyeol will thrive in the GameStop environment. It’s a
company that doesn’t value individual thought or innovation. The results
matter a great deal, but what matters even more to GameStop is the
-process- in getting those results. The GameStop culture was the hardest
thing to deal with for the six months I stayed past the merger; where EB
had done a great deal to empower its managers and its employees to make a
decision, at GameStop the absolute worst thing someone could do was to
-make- a decision. I don’t miss it, but at the same time, there are
people who can and will thrive in an environment like that.
What you do with the background on Kiyeol is up to you. I just wanted to
correct your perception on who his benefactors in the former EB were.

All the best,

Gamestop Deep throat #457 

11/28/08 $21.85 (-.15%) (-.68%)

12/01 $19.35 (-2.41) (-11.08%)

12/02 $19.01 (-.34) (-1.76%)

Again, anyone interested or concerned in seeing Gamestop brought to their knees can feel free to email me with insider knowledge or information at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

Depending on your wishes, I WILL keep your information anonymous.  Talk to you all on Friday,

Tom Waters

 

 

Monday Update! 4 Days and a TON of shows!

Every time I say I’m going to be brief, I do anything but. There’s a lot of ground to cover today, so I will ATTEMPT to make this brief.

-Night Life rolls out on stands today with a teaser (‘2 Years And The Meter’s Still Running’) for next week’s 2 year Big Words column anniversary at Double D’s Queen City Grill on Sheridan Drive in Tonawanda! If you like free swag, you won’t want to miss this! The party starts at 8 p.m. with special musical guest 12 Pack Jack. Night Life has been VERY good to me, so return the favor and stop out next Thursday (the 11^th) at Double D’s because you won’t want to miss the bash!

-In case you haven’t checked (I haven’t had time to even write a show update), there are 2 new shows for Big Words Radio and one brand new Monsters Of Verse from the FYE Transit appearance. In order, Episode XX (‘Swallow Meeghan Whole’) is a studio show interview with Top Shelf wunderkind Nate Powell and dueling co-host(s) Zombie Chris and Road Less Traveled Theater playwright Jon Elston. Episode 21 (‘What About Bob?‘) is a One Man Mobile Unit with Buffalo-bred acting legend Bob ‘Ernie’ Insana and co-host Nick Jakabowski (sp?). MOV Episode 6 (‘Organic Growth At FYE Transit’) is a conversational show with JR Finlayson and rotating guest Monster DJ Soma. Listen in to 3 separate hours of JUSTICE by clicking over to these two links:

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/tom-waters/tom-waters.html

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html

-Since Wednesday’s Gamestop update, Thanksgiving obviously came and went and it was nice to have my first year out of retail hell in 16 years. I actually got to enjoy the first holiday in the decathlon! How did I relax? Funny you should ask, because I spent every free second out of the last four days working on teaching myself this ‘business of radio production’. With Richard Wicka’s tutelage, Episode 21 was the FIRST episode that I wrote, recorded, edited, produced and submitted from start to finish. It took a LOT of work but I’m getting faster with each episode. I spent a great deal of time editing a Kevin McCarthy 2-parter and I should be done within the week.

-And since they post later in the day on Wednesdays, I keep forgetting to mention that my graphic novel reviews are popping up every week on Comics Bulletin. If you want to scroll back (or bookmark for future Wednesdays), check ‘em out at:

 http://www.comicsbulletin.com/reviews/

-Yesterday, the Monsters Of Verse appeared and recorded another show at the Buffalo News Collectible Show at the Millenium Hotel. From 10-4, we cleaned HOUSE, flipping cards, making friends, shaking hands and kissing babies. Many thanks to JR Finlayson, Brian Platter, Don’s Atomic Comics(!) and YourHub/Buffalo News guru/ad man John Kindelan for helping to coordinate the event! I’ll send out an email when MOV 7 with special guest Monster Brian Platter hit’s the intraweb!

-And finally, I’ll be going back to work (part-time) later this week. At the very least, this should give those of you interested in hearing all 87 shows time to get caught up. There is still a lot in the works on my hard drive, but it’s a matter of getting to it and giving all of you the time to hear it.

-I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and I’ve got some fantastic carpet bombs to drop for Gamestop Wednesday. A random manager from OUTSIDE the market gave me some dynamite intel, so tune in this Wednesday to:

 http://www.tomfoolery4.wordpress.com  

 

Excelsior!

 

Tom Waters

Weds. Gamestop Update: Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me Is Going To Destroy You

Whatever Doesn’t Kill Me Is Going To Destroy You

I’ve focused more on Gamestop on the corporate/national level for awhile, but the last few weeks are deserving of your attention. The moral of the story for my former friends, peers, co-workers, subordinates, employees I’ve hired and the multiple people that I talk to inside and out of the Buffalo market who feed me intel (think Project: Mayhem) is very simple:

You dumb-shits backed the wrong horse.

 

The fact that Lewis (my former assistant manager I kept from getting fired for the year and a half I tolerated his laziness, surliness, and documented racism online and off) would take Lisa’s word over mine was a very big mistake. Being a drug addict, an obvious bigot and a young poseur doesn’t leave much room for these kinds of mistakes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: payback’s a bitch.

Lewis had a hand in hanging me DURING my honeymoon. This is a fact. In exchange for selling me up the river on a technicality (textbook reinforcement for this ENTIRE region), he is getting a promotion to store manager. I guess that makes him an honorary lesbian. Lewis is supposed to be getting his own store (another new location that’s completely unnecessary for any company during a recession with two other locations within a 2 mile radius) in the Amherst/Williamsville area before Christmas.

Reports are still rolling in that my former DM is scrambling frantically to find my ’source’ while she tells people that ‘the company’ is ‘gathering information’ on me for ’something’. I have more sources that are a lot more honest with me than they’ll ever be with you, bitch. NOBODY respects you in YOUR OWN district. In a year and a half, you’ve run 13 previously successful stores into the ground by promoting unqualified pals of yours into positions of power while continuing to display a total lack of professionalism that got you fired from your last job. Why would you expect anything less from a staff you inherited?

Lisa (I’m sure someone will be handing you this printout if you don’t already check the site every day), you are a fool, and your days as a supervisor with Gamestop are numbered. You’re a joke to all of the managers, keyholders and employees that you continue to neglect, ignore and manipulate. How does that make you feel? Lonely, pathetic and insecure, I would speculate.

Much in the same way that Lisa has been making threats internally about the company ‘taking action’ against anyone who talks to me (and it has gotten back to me from multiple stores spanning MULTIPLE districts), I never tried to keep my crusade private. See also: every goddamned web site that I post these Wednesday updates on. Sometimes you have to throw a road flare at a box of roman candles to get someone‘s attention. I always knew (on a local level) that one of your misguided cronies (even though you’ve fired one of them to cover your tracks) would continue to print my company rants, like Joe at the Clarence store. Joe is another assistant manager I kept from getting fired. This goes back to 2004 when I turned the Delaware location around and he got transferred instead of getting canned. Joe and Lewis are a perfect example of no good deed going unpunished.

Lisa is left with a district full of backstabbers who can barely do their jobs, which they hate. Again, I would rather have my dignity than a single penny in my pocket. It’s hard to see that angle from inside the rat race, though. In the last three months, everyone has chosen their side in this war. A lot of people made the WRONG choice. You underestimated me, but there are still a million surprises that I’m not going to mention. Until they happen.

If Gamestop corporate (which Lisa has implied is coming after me) or Lisa had a card up their sleeve to play, they would have played it by now. You are a fool, Lisa. You’re dumber than you look if you truly thought that you could call the Erie County Sheriff and have me (let alone ANYONE) thrown in jail for slander. Buy a dictionary. Go on wikipedia where, coincidentially, millions of other people bash Gamestop which they are well within their constitutional rights to do. NO ONE has ever gone to jail for slander for publishing information that can be gathered by obvious means. You should have acted faster, Lisa, because THIS situation WILL cost you your job.

The chain of corruption leads all the way up to the Regional Manager, Kyeoh. Kyeoh is the nephew of one of the founding members of Electronics Boutique, who is now a protected major shareholder. This is another prime example of nepotism, corruption, and total incompetence. On a company level, he is a joke, just like Lisa, and his peers and subordinates wonder why he still has a job while understanding that he’s ‘protected’ from higher powers who turn a blind eye to the fact that he’s run 120 stores into the ground in a company that’s dive-bombing on the stock market at an alarming rate. A friend of mine outside the company (and I have many) is fond of saying, ‘While most publicly owned companies are looking for a bailout, Gamestop is looking for a clue.’

Aside from the aforementioned promotion that Lewis might get to store management (in Amherst), Stewart (the store manager from Orchard Park) got a promotion to District Manager in his own district. I know for a FACT that he got my peer and myself fired along with my previous DM a year and a half ago. Promotion into the same district you worked in is a FLAGRANT violation of every company policy in place no matter which way you look at it. If you wish to make policy a big deal in this cage match, maybe you can bring this to Gamestop Corporate’s attention.

NO ONE has ever been promoted from store management into a district management position in their OWN territory. It’s NEVER been done and there’s a good reason for it. Much like Lisa’s behavior (and negligence as a supervisor with basic store needs), the company procedure has been in place for over 25 years to ensure that DMs wouldn’t fall prey to favoritism. These are sad, pathetic, incompetent times for Gamestop in too many ways to write about for one Wednesday, so even though this seems long in the tooth, trust me, there is so much more that I’ll cover in the future.

Stewart (in exchange for kissing his bosses’ asses for going on well over 20 years now) is finally going to be put in charge of his pals, his enemies, and he’s going to be Lisa’s peer in the neighboring district. Lisa’s peer WHILE they both have a job.

I have no job. I have no benefits. I’ve gone two months without a dime from a system I’ve paid into for 19 years with hard work, great salesmanship and common courtesy. I’m doing just fine, though. If you thought firing me on a technicality the week after my honeymoon would be the defining moment that broke me, you were DEAD WRONG.

I’ve known EXACTLY who had a hand in my downfall since the week after my wrongful termination. In descending order: Kyeoh (the regional), Eric (a previous DM in a neighboring District who tried his damndest to get me fired after getting his neighboring DM fired two years ago) Lisa (my old boss), Stewart (Orchard Park manager who’s climbed to the top of the next ship of fools), Lewis (former assistant), Colleen (a woman I single-handedly insisted get promoted to store management three years ago), Joe (former assistant and another ass kisser to boot), Ryan (store manager Amherst, brown noser to the Nth degree) and quite a few more.

Do you want to know the sad thing, Lisa? You have no idea how MANY people are on my side INSIDE of the company and OUT. You have no grasp of just who’s gunning to take your job out from under you. Your days are numbered. If I were you, I’d leave town, start another job and change your name, because my longtime readers, fans and book buyers will tell you that the Buffalo Rising jihad over the summer was just for fun. You are my main event, bitch. Buckle up.

When I was in college, I wrote a research paper (my subject choice) about Lenny Bruce. Lenny Bruce was a trendsetter, a naturally gifted comedian, a manic depressive, and furthermore, a revolutionary where first amendment rights are concerned. I learned about free speech and the power it holds when I was 19. At 40-something, maybe you should spend some of the generous ‘sick’ time you use neglecting your District researching this topic before you shoot your mouth off to anybody who still cares.

I’m not sure what the company vision is anymore, but on a Regional level (in no less than two Buffalo DISTRICTS), stores have been run on these three premises:

1.) Stores are run and kept in line with the loosely veiled threat of fear and paranoia by supervisors who don’t do their jobs and only show up at the stores where their cronies reside.

2.) A solid work ethic and a proven sales record are inferior to blatantly kissing ass, stabbing your peers, supervisors and subordinates in the back. This is how you get promoted in the Buffalo market. It worked for Eric, it worked for Lewis (who thinks he has job security now), it worked for Ryan (who got a bonus-earning store without earning it), it worked for Colleen (who got a salary increase to take my old store and keep Lisa informed), it briefly worked for Charla (until Lisa fired her to cover her tracks as a gender discriminator), it worked for Kim (who was handed a top earning store just for being Lisa’s pal and long-time friend of the family) and last but definitely not least, it worked for Joe (who still has a job despite his incompetence simply because he’s gotten four peers fired, prints up these emails and has a hotline to Lisa.

-And finally (this got Lisa fired once, and it’s going to cost her her job again until she can figure it out in that big stupid doberman pincher head on her fat shoulders):

3.) If you’re a girl in one of these Districts, you WILL get a better review score (regardless of results), a promotion (despite male counterparts with more time in and a better sales record) and you’ll be left alone simply because of your gender.

I’m going to wrap this up for this week‘s Gamestop Update. There is NOTHING Gamestop can do to me (nationally or locally) to shut me up. Serve me a subpoena. Try to prove that this info CAN’T be obtained by anybody online or through painfully simple methods. If you think you can beat this case on a Supreme Court level, let’s dance, you soulless pieces of human waste. I’ll have lots more for you next Wednesday for the weekly F&*%K Gamestop update on all my sites.

In the mean time, get some rest, Lisa. Keep clicking back on tomfoolery4.wordpress.com for ALL the real Gamestop Scoop!

Take care, webslingers!

Tom ‘out of the retail business forever’ Waters

Monday Big Words Update! Happy 2 Year Anniversary, Big Words! Etc…

It was this week exactly TWO YEARS ago that Ed and the gang at Night Life magazine were gracious/foolish/crazy enough to let me start the weekly print column by the name of Big Words I Know By Heart.  Two years later, it’s still going strong, and that same week, I had my phone number changed to ‘unlisted’ and moved the official web site right here on Word Press.  The rest, as ‘they’ say, is history. 

As far as anniversary parties go, these things are rarely (if ever) thrown on the same day or week as the actual event.  If we wanted to do the anniversary to the exact day of the conversation, it would have been on the same day as the 2008 Buffalo Music Awards.  Sort of a conflict of interest.  So instead, Night Life and I organized a Big Words 2 Year Anniversary bash on Thursday, December 11th at Double D’s Queen City Grill (on Sheridan Dr. in Tonawanda) at 8 p.m. next month with swag, giveaways, a POSSIBLE (don’t count on it yet) free buffet, and musical guest 12 Pack Jack!  Everyone is invited, expect a number of special guest appearances from other area musicians, writers and journalists, and show up ready to have a great time! 

Mark your calendar today, as Lindsay and I have been going back to Double D’s since we had our Gusto Club Watch assignment a year ago (and since we had friends in the area and it was convenient for them) and we have always had a great time there.   They’ve got a Queen City Platter ($10.99 for a single of wings and a roast beef on weck) that will knock your Aunt Connie’s socks off! 

As for the print column itself, AOL has seen fit to erase the block of columns I submitted for November, so I have no clue what you can expect in the print column when it hits stands all over Buffalo this week.  If memory serves, it was a humorous rant.  That’s all I remember.  I really need to delete my old emails more often to free up some room.

Yesterday, I submitted December’s block of columns, wrote two new columns specifically for Night Life and sent the whole batch out to Christy at the Night Life offices.  December is going to be a great month for Night Life and Big Words I Know By Heart!

I also spent today shmoozing with a number of bands, poets, artists and the like setting things up for the next five or six weeks.  A deluge of phone calls and emails came in in the wake of last week’s music awards and I’ve got no less than three new radio shows to RECORD this week, three other podcasts to UPLOAD this week, and a print interview to conduct for the News this Saturday. 

Lana and Hund (the two musical wunderkind from Black Widow) had to reschedule for next week and hard rock heroes band SuckerPunch confirmed a private concert date for December for Big Words Radio.  Again, my buddy Gregg Sansonne won Solo Artist Of The Year at the Buffalo Music Awards for the FOURTH time in a row!  This has NEVER been done before.  I am so proud of you, buddy!  We ‘did lunch’ today out in my nexk of the woods and got caught up on our personal lives and engagements while we were out doing so.  I took a few pics of Gregg while we were out and about and I should have the pics up by the end of today or the early a.m. for tomorrow. 

I’ll also be interviewing Buffalo acting legend Bob ‘Ernie’ Insana tomorrow at our apartment for an episode of Big Words radio and Jon ‘Road Less Traveled Productions’ Elston, one of the most productive writers in the business today, will be coming into the studio as a guest this Wednesday with my co-host Zombie Chris!  Yeah! 

That should be everything for one day.  Tune in on Wednesday for more info as well as your regularly scheduled F*&%k Gamestop Weds. update! 

Sayonara,

Tom Waters

2008 Buffalo Music Awards/FYE Transit/MOV Aftermath…

Busy week…

     In the last three days, I’ve cemented a number of great things in the works with ArtVoice that I’d rather not talk about yet for fear of jinxing them, attended (and networked extensively) at the Buffalo Music Awards, set up a few artist interviews in the coming months for the Buffalo News Gusto ‘Tell Me’ section, gotten into a car accident during five o’clock traffic on the 198 (Friday), reinforced a friendship with a close friend and said goodbye to another one.  Oh, and there was another Monsters Of Verse event this afternoon (Saturday) which went over like gangbusters at FYE on Transit Rd. in Williamsville/Depew/Clarence.  It never, ever ends…

     By the time you read this, the 2008 Buffalo Music Awards pics will be up on my Myspace page (if you have an account, just search Tom Waters or tomfulre).  I’ll repost a few (along with this post) on YourHub. 

     As a result of so much chaos and discord this week, JR Finlayson, myself and rotating MOV guest DJ Soma decided to do a conversational show for MOV episode VI.  Lindsay and I will be heading to Think Twice studios tomorrow (on a day we wanted to spend quietly at home together) to drop off all of this week’s show, work on the text, and go over some formating instructions with producer Richard Wicka.  Like every concert, show and event for Think Twice, quite a bit goes into each show before, during and after the recording.  I promise I’ll send an update out as soon as the shows are up.  And speaking of, MOV episodes IV and V are now up.  You can listen to those over at:

http://www.thinktwiceradio.com/monsters/monsters.html

     FYE was a pretty cool gig today.  The staff was very supportive and helpful, Finlayson, Soma and myself got along like gangbusters, Jeff and I sold quite a few books, and we got a lot of visitors.  Those pics should also be up on Myspace (with a smaller sampling on YourHub) by early Sunday morning at the latest.  Rock buddy Michael Bly showed along with quite a few others and we had a brief after-bash at Brennan’s Bowery Bar (which Reginald Dwight, a competing bar reviewer, just covered in AV this week, apparently). 

     The last three days have given quite a few of us a lot to digest and process.  Aside from the studio visit tomorrow, Lindsay and I will be taking stock of it all quietly at home on Sunday.  Lana & Hund (from Buffalo supergroup Black Widow) will be coming over to the house on Monday morning to do a jam session for Big Words Radio w/returning co-host Brendan Hanlon, which signals the start of another insanely busy week.

     As far as Monsters Of Verse, two area poets have already confirmed for two of the dates.  JR, myself and one other rotating guest star will be covering the Buffalo News Collectible Show next Sunday from 10-4 pm at the Millenium Hotel located in front of the Galleria Mall for the next MOV gig, so we’ve got a few days to cover bookings and get caught up on our lives.  More on everything during the regular Monday update.  I’m beat and I’m getting really sick of keeping my gloves up when I’m expecting to have my guard down.  Cest la vis.  Have a great rest of the weekend,

Tom Waters

Monsters Of Verse Third Rotating Poet: Seasonal Positions Opening Now!

As an organic experiment, the Monsters Of Verse has changed already…..

JR Finlayson and myself will be looking at a third poet to round out the remainder of our shows for the next five months. If you have a chapbook/published book of poems/poems you would like to read out at a venue for podcast inclusion, feel free to email both of us simultaneously at:

bigwordsmailbag@yahoo.com

-or-

dullroar25@hotmail.com

Carrie Gardner will be pursuing other projects.

Again, thanks for your interest in Buffalo poetry, the anthology in general, and the Monsters Of Verse! Until the end of the calendar year, though, JR and myself will be focusing on running the gauntlet for M.O.V. We look forward to hearing from you!

Thanks,
Tom Waters