Happy Labor Day
Writer of very short things. In Best Microfiction 2021. Nom Best Small Fictions 2022 & 2024. Short-listed for Bath Novella-in-Flash Award & Fractured Lit Chapbook Prize. Wigleaf Top 50 long list. But enough about me. How are you? http://billmerklee.com
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Happy Labor Day
Reading Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner. Rewatching The Leftovers (again).
Why did it take me so long to discover rewriting on the front porch as the sun slips away and the crickets start to sing?
A lot of people are fucking stupid.
The bullshit never ends.
So yeah, that quote about taking pleasure in reading some obituaries turns out to be from Clarence Darrow, not Mark Twain. But it still applies today.
Same. Sadly out of print, and expensive when you can find them.
At the heart of any art is process — what the artist goes through (mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually) to express something that needs to break free of the artist. A.I. doesn’t do that. It merely creates content.
Please stop posting screenshots from Twitter. We left for a reason.
There already.
Happy Birthday!
Congrats!
Question for Mike Flood: With $450 million being allocated to Alligator Alcatraz, and ICE burning through $8.4 million a day to illegally detain people—How much does it cost for fascism? How much do the tax payers have to pay for a fascist country?
I think we all are, Todd. You’re particularly good at it.
I love the Scots.
Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion and nothing more.
When I was in therapy in my late 20s, my dad couldn’t understand why; it wasn’t the way his generation dealt with things. Then shortly before he died, he asked if I thought he should get counseling. That was a huge leap for him, and it’s one of my biggest heartbreaks that he never got to do it.
Few things finer than a platter of clams and oysters and a flight of IPAs with good friends as the sun sets on Long Beach Island, NJ. A brief and welcome respite from our national stupidity.
Easily the shittiest Independence Day of my 67 years.
Yup. Salt in the wound.
Just got an email from the Social Security Administration, blowing smoke up my ass about the Big Bullshit Bill.
They manage to piss off my friends on the left AND the right, so I keep listening.
Jesus can’t stop throwing up.
Stunning work from @danbillyc.bsky.social in the latest @pitheadchapel.bsky.social
On this shittiest of days, a moment of joy. I cannot love this enough.
No Republican deserves to win another election. Ever.
@cnn.com Dear CNN: Stop being merely a content provider and start sounding the fucking alarm.
And the dismantling of the republic. This must not be framed only in budgetary terms. It is an existential crisis.
Somebody’s looking for their mama.
Yeah, this wasn’t what they had in mind when they used to tell us anyone in this country can grow up to become President.
I removed most of my posts from FB and rarely go back.
Led Zeppelin, The Who, and Pixies in one episode — “The Bear” continues to hit it out of the park with its music choices.
Front Row Seat for the Heat Dome I don’t remember this Much condensation On the windows from Summers past. Looks like tears.
Collagen OD.
Anybody else think our idiot President is doing the bidding of whack job evangelicals and trying to usher in Armageddon?
Forget the noise about the southern border. DOGE is the invasion.
A fave.
No kings.
Let's be careful out there tomorrow. Love you all.
Always sounds like the kid bullshitting his way through an oral report on a book he never read.
If music is therapy, who is your therapist?
Perfection. R.I.P. Brian Wilson.
Happy Birthday!
youtu.be/YUUhDoCx8zc
Is it fascism yet?
Then my movie collection is just a big fat lie.
Oh man…
Such a small man inhabiting that bloated carcass.
When will that woodpecker figure out that our shutters are not wood?
I suppose there's a niche market for this.
Happy Birthday, Jude! 🎂🎉🎈
Wonderful film.
Good.
Terrence Malick
It seems his foundation in geopolitics comes from having played Risk as a kid.
I wouldn't trust it to do research, but maybe analysis of existing research. I think high-speed problem solving would be more useful than plagiarism and digital party tricks. But yeah, in the end, it's still the road to Skynet hell.
Yup. Let A.I. cure cancer or find life on other planets. Otherwise, stay away.
Lest we forget.
He wasn't just Norm. R.I.P. George Wendt. youtu.be/dRl_RojhjgA?...
Justice Jackson nails where we are right now: “Your argument turns our justice system into a catch me if you can kind of regime from the standpoint of the Executive where everybody has to have a lawyer and file a lawsuit in order for the government to stop violating people’s rights.” 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
Calling him a musician is overly generous.
Happy Mother’s Day
If you believe in Trump, you don’t believe in America.
“When I left, there was forty-eight states,” Stanley said. “When I come back, there was fifty.” Then his eyes got big and he leaned in. “What the hell happened?” My story "All the Small Things" has some pretty stellar company in Stanchion #18, available here: www.stanchionzine.com/product-page...
Congratulations!🎉
That’s the Trans Lifeline.
I’m good either way. Though, thankfully, the few conversations I’ve had were fascinating. I have very little patience for small talk.
Somebody please just do it already.
Stopped in at a great old hotel in Niagara Falls (NY) for breakfast. Tables with high-back chairs. Ordered a salmon BLT with garlic aioli on toasted wheat berry bread. Finest sandwich I have ever eaten.
Mom would have turned 90 today. ❤️
Good.
Book (magazine) mail!
Pretty sure you can do both.
Big Congrats! Looking forward to the read.
Looking forward to my copy.
It’s the abuser’s mantra: “Look what you made me do.”
Is it treason yet?
"I try not to let my personal life enter my fiction too much. However I find my fears usually overlapping with what the protagonist must overcome." Our featured author @ironbrewer.bsky.social interviewed by @bstephens.bsky.social here: www.smokelong.com/interviews/s...
Ask his ex-wife.
Thank you, @harvard.edu
“It was the shittiest winter ever as far as Mal was concerned. Lennon was dead, Reagan was president, and Jodi had dumped him.” My story “All the Small Things” is in the new issue of Stanchion Magazine, available here: www.stanchionzine.com/product-page...
Some guidance for these perilous times.
Solid choice. He signed my copy at Maxwell’s (RIP) way back when.
youtu.be/IbW5K2F1N28
That 12-string Rickenbacker is everything.
billmerklee.substack.com/p/kurt-vonne...
All that mid-70s hair…
Psyched to have a story in this issue.
Just once, I’d like someone in the room to yell “Bullshit!”
R.I.P. Clem Burke
Take a look at one of the photographs inside Issue 18. Please consider pre-ordering a copy while on sale. It's pretty great and it'll be in your hands at the end of April. Thank you 🖤🤍 www.stanchionzine.com/product-page...
Don’t let Congressional Republicans off the hook. They could stop all this. Instead they are cowards and accomplices.
