What Is mjp Books?

Or maybe I should say, who is mjp Books?

In light of my last post, I should probably say that mjp Books is no longer. Mainly because mjp is no longer.

The books that were hereare over at booksbyhannah.com. The books haven’t changed, even though I have. This blog, though, is done.

Any new books or writing-on-paper-type projects will be on booksbyhannah.com.

what next?

Out and About

If you don’t listen to my podcast, well, I understand, podcasts are an acquired taste. But if you don’t listen, then you didn’t have the pleasure and privilege of hearing my latest masterful narrative opus, Putting the T in LGBTQ.

“Wait, you mean ‘T’ as in transgender, mjp?”

Yes, T as in transgender. That’s me. And for some reason, I felt compelled to tell everyone about it. Continue reading “Out and About”

How to Make Noodles Using Coffee Instead of Water

Nearly every day when lunchtime rolls around, I’m working, trying to finish some article about something that I don’t know anything about. Or that I didn’t know anything about when I woke up in the morning.

I don’t want to interrupt my creative genius flow, so I go into the kitchen and grab a cup of noodles, or more accurately, a Maruchan Instant Lunch.

Though it’s worth noting that the Maruchan Instant Lunch is virtually identical to the Nissin Cup Noodles. Are they created in the same factory somewhere, salted with the tears of child laborers? I should know the answer if I want to be woke, but I don’t, so I guess I’m not.

Continue reading “How to Make Noodles Using Coffee Instead of Water”

Supercharge Your Content Creation With These Awesome Content-Creation Tips (#7 Will Shock You!) and Send Your Click-Rate Into the Stratosphere!

“Content” is a shit word coined by shit people to describe shit writing.

Not that I have a strong feeling about the subject…

Sears Popcorn

sears popcorn

Carol and I were on a long drive the other day, and out of the blue I said, “Sears popcorn.”

She said, “Oh my god!” because Sears popcorn is one of those things that brings back a strong memory if you experienced it as a kid.

Carol said, “I can smell it…”
“I know, right? Those long bags…”
“God, that’s weird. Why did Sears sell popcorn anyway?”
“I don’t know, but here we are 50 years later talking about it.”

So yeah. If you don’t know what Sears popcorn means, I can’t explain it.

Also, you have to pay like $13 in tolls to drive from the desert to Orange county. When did that happen? Two thumbs up though for the wide, smooth, virtually empty toll roads.

Under a Sky of Some Sort

I’ve been waiting for the joshuatree.blog domain to expire for about four months now. It finally did, and I actually “caught the drop,” and was able to register it before an army of robots got to it. So I may be starting up something over there.

Will this go away? I don’t think so.

Will I continue to neglect this? I don’t think so.

 

This is Peanut. She’s a dog wearing a sweater.

Peanut the dog

My One-sided and Probably Totally Biased Memories of the Guerilla Poetics Project

In a podcast I did with author Hosho McCreesh we talked a bit about the Guerilla Poetics Project, and I think the project was interesting enough to talk about in a little more detail. As a cautionary tale, perhaps. I don’t mean that to sound ominous, I think it was a great project and still could be. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you’ve never heard of Guerilla Poetics Project, here’s a little breakdown, a thumbnail sketch so to speak, the 50,000-foot view, as countless idiots who have read any business book written in the past 20 years might say. And for the purpose of avoiding saying Guerilla Poetics Project a thousand times, I’m usually going to call it GPP here, which should not be confused with the GDP the BBC or OPP. Everything clear? Then let us proceed into the water, children. Watch out for sharks and pointy, stinging things.

Continue reading “My One-sided and Probably Totally Biased Memories of the Guerilla Poetics Project”

Where, oh where, has my little dog gone?

I don’t post much here lately, and that’s because the things that used to go into a blog post now go into the podcast.

So if you want to know what’s happening, go have a listen, eh? Listening is easier than reading, any teenager will tell you that.

Bringing the hammer down

Someone who works here in the office has a body odor problem.

I mean, that’s not exactly accurate, is it? The person who stinks doesn’t have the problem, everyone else does. So we have a body odor problem, he doesn’t.

Which is apropos of nothing, but it got me thinking about how glad I am that I don’t manage people anymore. For many years I managed people in technical support, as many as 25 at any one time, and there’s nothing good about that job. Not a single thing.

Oh, when I first got the job I thought I was hot shit, but it didn’t take long to realize that it’s a stooge position. Dirty work.

Continue reading “Bringing the hammer down”

I went down to Hammond, I did as I pleased

There are a lot of great sitcoms on TV these days. Or rather, that thing that TV is morphing into, however you watch it. FX or FXX (or FXXX?) is home to many of them, including a really fast, funny, utterly absurd thing called, “You’re The Worst.”

worst

Continue reading “I went down to Hammond, I did as I pleased”

In a world of newborns, the toddler is king

When, exactly, did the memo go out to every young female singer instructing them that from now on they would all play ukuleles and sing like children choking back sobs?

You may as well tell me, because I know that a memo went out, that a rule was established somewhere. It had to be. This isn’t natural. This epidemic of cutesy-pie little girl voices that’s threatening to drown us all in a sea of swallowed words. You can’t escape it. It’s becoming impossible to find a young female indie-type singer who doesn’t sound like an infant on the verge of tears.

Continue reading “In a world of newborns, the toddler is king”

“I am currently at work putting together a quote”

I’m posting this in lieu of actual entertainment. It’s an email exchange with an insurance salesman. It came out of nowhere and was addressed to “Kevin Healy,” which ain’t me. The subject line was, “I am currently at work putting together a quote.”

This was sent to a common-word gmail address I’ve had forever that gets an unusual amount of weird mail. Why people type email addresses that they don’t own into forms when they want a response is a mystery to me, but then most things people do are a mystery to me…

Continue reading ““I am currently at work putting together a quote””

How to do everything wrong

I told you that a podcast ate my blog, but other than that I haven’t said much about it around here. Maybe because I don’t see much separation between here and there, but I suppose there is some separation. I’ve been putting out a podcast every week for six months now, so this may be a good time to sum up the experience so far. I’ll say up front that I should be writing the next podcast rather than writing this, which should give you some idea of what the schedule is like.

wrongEBefore I do anything I haven’t done before I like to find out as much about the thing as I can. I don’t mind making mistakes, but unnecessary mistakes are for fools. And I’m no fool! Right? Okay, that’s debatable. But I spent weeks researching podcasting because I really didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t listen to podcasts and I only had a vague idea of how it all worked technically. In that research I learned how to do everything the right way, then I went off and did just about everything wrong.

Continue reading “How to do everything wrong”