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