Tag: publishing

Mom Dearest

September 18, 2008 / Neil Kramer / 37 Comments

Have you noticed that I have gone from writing about Sophia every day on my blog to writing my mother? Does this mean that my existence completely revolves around the woman I happen to be sharing my space with at the time?

Don’t answer.

In a week from today, my mother is going to retire from her job at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Publishers.Â She has worked with the company since before she was married, and has seen drastic changes in the publishing industry over the decades.Â What does this mean to you, my dear blogger friends?Â This means you have one more week to suck up to me, thinking that somehow I can help you get your sleep-inducing “memoir” read by the company’s editor-in-chief.Â After that, you can stop reading this blog because I will be useless to you.

My mother does not like the Florida senior early-bird dinner lifestyle, but her friends have pressured her to sublet an apartment in “Century Village” in Boca Raton for three months this winter so she can try it out. Â Yes, she has officially become like Seinfeld’s mother.

This creates a dilemma. Do I stay here during the winter while she is in Florida?

Am I ever going back to Los Angeles?

Is there a direct connection between me returning to New York and the immediate collapse of Wall Street?

Imaginary Phone Conversation Between Sophia and My Mother
a one act play by Neilochka

Mom:Â HowÂ DID you live with him for so long?

Sophia:Â Now do you see what I was talking about?

Mom:Â And every night it is the same thing!Â He watches All My Children, yelling at the TV, saying “Don’t do it, Erica!” and then he locks himself in his room for an hour, making all these weird grunting sounds, like a caveman.Â What does he do in there?”

Sophia:Â You don’t want to know.Â If I were you, I’d get away from him this winter before he makes you crazy.Â Go anywhere.Â Go to Florida.

Mom:Â I hate Florida.

Sophia:Â Well, it’s your choice.Â Florida in the sun or three long months with…

Mom:Â Hola, Boca!Â Will you come visit?

Sophia:Â Sure.Â And I won’t tell him!

The two women laugh.

THE END

Yeah, I know I am funny.Â Â But, the only reason I have a sense of humor is because my mother is funnier.

After reading my last post, she bought me this as a gift:

Tell All

May 29, 2008 / Neil Kramer / 18 Comments

via Publishers Weekly:Â In the tradition of the tell-all, screw the loyalty, backstabbing, I wanna write a book and tell the truth now that I have a book deal, even though I was too wimpy to do so when I was there sucking up to the Man, tradition of “What Happened — Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” by Bush spokesperson Scott McClellan, “Behind the Oval Office” by Clinton aide/prostitute-lover Dick Morris, and countless other memoirs by bloggers lucky enough to obtain impossible-to-get glamour jobs in law, publishing, and the entertainment fields,Â who then turn around and betray the trust of their former bosses and co-workers, comes Neil Kramer’s new book, “Behind the Blogosphere:Â What Other Bloggers Really Tell Me.”Â

In his three years of blogging, Mr. Kramer, or “Neilochka from Redondo Beach” as he was known online, kept backup copies of every IM conversation, Twitter, email, and blog comment he was ever involved in — right on his computer in his office in Chicago, discussing the intimate details of the lives of his “blogging friends.”

“I carefully created this “Neilochka” personality,” said Mr. Kramer, “using the the Britten-Margolis Personality Quadrant, making sure that this character seemed open, friendly, and sensitive to the needs of others, especially to that of women.Â In fact, one of my first posts was about “Neilochka” vehemently insisting that women who are size 14-16 were just as sexy to me as the truly attractive women who are size 0.Â And my readers believed it!Â Â Combined with other little details, like an unstable marriage where my wife was completely at fault, humorous jokes stolen from obscure Japanese comedies, and hints that I was pretty well-endowed, was enough to get women to tell me anything!”

And tell me they did.Â In complete confidence, they talked to Neilochka, thinking him safe, like the gay friend in a chick-lit novel.Â After three years of blogging, he KNOWS everything.Â

And now YOU will too.Â In Neil Kramer’s new book, “Behind the Blogosphere:Â What Other Bloggers Really Tell Me,” the author takes no prisoners.Â Nothing is off-limits.Â

Some highlights:

Which bloggers don’t look like their photos AT ALL because they always use a high angle to hide the double chin?
Who are the blogging perverts, sending “Neilochka” photos of their bras — and worse? (including some men!)
What anti-depressant each blogger is taking, and who has completely lost their libido because of it?
What “really” goes on behind the closed doors of Room 1243 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel during BlogHer?
Who is the quiet, shy “cat blogger” in Toronto who has slept with every male blogger east of the Mississippi, and has made sculptures of their privates which she sells on a secret Etsy site?
Which female blogger never has anything to wear for her high-profile job as a social media specialist because her “wonderful” husband insists on wearing her clothes around the house, stretching the fabric?
Which mommyblogger actually thinks her new baby is “sort of ugly?”
Which “Momocrat” is really voting for McCain and thinks her other friends are “liberal pussies” who hate America?
Which “good friend” of Dooce said “her favorite blog is “Citizen of the Month,” butÂ Heather “Dooce” is so insecure she would never say so publicly in fear of losing her own “standing?”

And so much more.

Soon, at a bookstore near you.

Remember:Â Tomorrow is “Write Like the Opposite Sex Day.”Â If you so choose, write your post as the opposite sex and then tell me about it in the comments.Â I’ll put up a link.Â Hell, I’ll even give you until the weekend.

And if you comment on my blog tomorrow, make sure you do so as the opposite sex.

Fans Shocked at Bugs Bunny Gay Revelation

October 27, 2007 / Neil Kramer / 65 Comments

NEW YORK (AP) — Only a week after the announcement that the character Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series is gay, the fictional world is again shocked with the revelation by Steven Blanc, son of voice artist Mel Blanc, that the perennial prankster “Bugs” Bunny of Looney Tunes cartoons is also gay. This announcement, while unexpected, give new and clearer meaning to many of the on-screen exchanges between the smart-aleck “wacky wabbit” and his put-upon nemesis, Elmer Fudd.

Bugs Bunny was in love with his male rival, Steven Blanc says.

The author of “Bugs and Elmer: A Forbidden Love,” stunned fans at the Academy of Motion Pictures annual Warner Brothers Looney Tunes Night, when he answered one young reader’s question about Bugs by saying that he was gay and had been in love with Elmer Fudd for years.

‘”You have to remember that this was Hollywood of the Golden Age, even before Rock Hudson. The studio just wouldn’t allow it. Instead, Bugs and Elmer expressed their love for each using homosexual codes of the day, such as Elmer pointing a gun at Bugs, and Bugs responding with a squirt of seltzer in his face. Those in the closeted gay community clearly knew that Bugs famous “What’s Up, Doc?” was the password to get entry into the notorious Hammer Club on the Sunset Strip.”

The news of Bugs Bunny’s homosexuality brought gasps, then applause at the Academy, and set off thousands of e-mails on Warner Brothers cartoon Web sites around the world. Some were dismayed, others indifferent, but most were supportive.

” ‘BUGS BUNNY IS GAY’ is quite a headline to stumble upon on a Friday evening, and it’s certainly not what I expected,” added Looney Tunes fan Charlie Johnson, of Trenton, New Jersey. “(But) a gay character in the most popular cartoon in the world is a big step for gay rights.”

Note, November 2010:Â This is not true.Â It is a joke.Â This was NOT approved by Warner Brothers.Â Â And Mel’s son’s real name is Noel.Â And just so you know — Bugs Bunny is probably my biggest literary influence.

My Brilliant Literary Career

January 19, 2006 / Neil Kramer / 49 Comments

Last week, Sophia was all upset about the James Frey story and his fraudulent memoir, "A Million Little Pieces." Well, actually, she was more upset at me.

"It’s pretty clear that the book got sold because they thought he was an alcoholic and drug abuser."

"So?"

"So, you have no grit in your life. You don’t even like beer."

"I like Merlot."

"No one wants to buy a memoir from someone who drinks Merlot. You’re like that depressing guy from Sideways."

"I’ve smoked pot."

"When was the last time you smoked pot?"

"When I was 14. But I didn’t really inhale."

"Jeez, you’re so vanilla. Did you know I once went out with someone who liked to be spanked."

"Weirdo."

"He was a college professor."

"Why would anyone want to be spanked? All my life, I’ve been proud that my mother never once had to spank me when I was a kid. What would I tell her now? Sorry, Mom, now I get spanked all the time."

"Hopeless."

So much for anyone ever buying my boring memoirs.

But what about fiction?

Well, today, there was another nail in the coffin for my non-existent writing career.

"Did you read Gawker today?" asked Sophia.

"No."

"Have you heard of Opinionista?"

"No."

"Well, it’s a blog written by an anonymous blogger, and it’s all about the inside stuff going on at her law firm."

"So?"

"So, she just revealed herself as Melissa Lafsky!"

"Do we know her?"

"No, but read this."

Sophia handed me "The New York Observer." There was another article about this woman:

In recent months, Ms. Lafsky has been fluffing the pillows for her landing, a sort of “soft opening” phase for her product launch. Profiled but not named in The New York Times in November, she posed so that her face was obscured; in this month’s The American Lawyer, she hinted that her identity would soon be revealed; and her blog plugged an interview with The Observer minutes after the interview was complete.

Of course, prior to this week’s non-spontaneous self-disclosure, Ms. Lafsky had already procured herself an agent—ICM’s blog-adoring Kate Lee —and worked up 100 pages of a manuscript loosely based on her life as a lawyer-blogger. (“It’s not a roman à clef,” she said. “It’s not The Devil Wears Brooks Brothers!”)

(Talented, Beautiful, and can Blog without looking at the monitor)
(photo by Melanie Flood)

I wasn’t sure what Sophia wanted me to make of all this.

"Good for her," I said. "Or is this another one of those "I hate Stephanie Klein – type stories?"

"Don’t you get it," Sophia replied, "There have been a number of anonymous bloggers that have gotten a lot of buzz by creating a mystery about who they are… and then they make a big reveal. Do you see where this is going?"

"No."

"Only a really dumb blogger starts using his real name right from the beginning. Like Neil Kramer. You should have just been "Citizen of the Month" and then had a big reveal."

"Too late now."

"There’s nothing new for you to reveal. Nothing buzz-worthy."

"I don’t know. We can say I’m gay."

"Hmm…not bad. We’re already separated. We can say we got separated because you decided you were gay.

"Good… good.. just how long do I have to be gay for?"

"Until you sell a book."

Jeez, that could be a long time."

"Well, you’ve always had a problem with procrastination. Finally, we found a way to keep you focused. No sex with a woman until you write a book."

"I’m not too sure about this idea."

"Too much like a bad sitcom episode?"

"What if I’m gay, but you decide to transform me back to being straight again."

"Yeah, then I can write a book instead of you! — "The Gay Blogger and How I Made Him Straight Again.""

"Would I have to go around the rest of my life being known as "The Man Formerly Known as The Gay Blogger?"

Note: After Melissa Lafsky signed with ICM agent Kate Lee and resigned from her law firm, she posed in a nightgown for a spread on female bloggers for a future issue of Fashion Week Daily.

Luckily, I’m all ready for my fashion shoot with my new Texas hold’em pajamas.