3,000 Dimwits – A Thank You

Double your pleasure, double your fun.  It’s a double post kinda day.  Doubly exciting.  And to what do we owe this pleasure, you ask?  Welp, we reached 3,000 dimwits, and going strong.   Most excellent, dear readers.  Thanks and double thanks.

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My brother texted me the other day – the brother that I always talk about.  He goes by the one syllable name, Joe, but I call him “Broseph.”  It’s a play on his full name Joseph and him being my brother incase you didn’t put two and two together.  I’m terrible at math myself, so don’t feel so bad if it went over your head.

Broseph reads my blog regularly.  He said in the text, “You’re really finding your voice.  And it’s fantastic.”  Then he went on to say something about hurry the hell up and write my book.  To which I replied something like, “Thanks dude!  I’m close, oh so very close.”  Then I said something lame about how my blog is like a very rough sketchbook, and the book will be my finished painting.  It was LAME-O.  Lamesville, USA.  But it’s kinda the truth, I hope.

When I write on my blog, it’s just me dumping my thoughts onto a screen real quick.  I don’t put much time into it.  I don’t go back and fix things.  I just sit down and write whatever’s on my mind at the time.  Let it all gush out.  I’m just as surprised as you are to see what comes out of my mouth, believe me.  I can’t believe some of the stuff I write.  What a dimwit dingaling!!!  The Captain of the Dimwits, for sure.

Well, this is a post mainly to say thanks to those who read my madness even though I just thanked you a few posts ago.  It really does mean a lot to me.  It also meant a lot that my brother told me he’s eagerly anticipating my finished book, because unlike me, he actually does read a lot of books.  He knows a good writer when he reads one, and he insists that I have what it takes.  He tells me I have something special, so I take his word for it.  It’s a very trusted word.

I sure hope Broseph is right.  I sure hope I have a doozy in me.  I think I do.  I’ve begun saving up money to take off time next year to give it a stab.  See what happens.  And today, I just lined up a cabin to stay for free out in North Carolina.  I saw photos, and it looks like the perfect kind of place to write a beautiful painting.  I’m going for a masterpiece.  One for the ages.  Or at the very least, one to stick on top of the toilet for when you’re bored.

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Of course with me, saying thanks is never quite enough, so I went ahead and did up a nice photo to include on the inside jacket of the book.  I don’t know.  I may play around with it some more.  Photoshop a parrot on my shoulder, or maybe an eye patch, or something more Pirate-esque.  It needs a little something more, but it’ll have to do for now.  I autographed the photo for you and everything.  When the real book comes out, the very first book I’ll autograph will be for Broseph.  I have to think more of what I want to say, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.

Here you go, you dimwits.  Thanks.

And one last quick thing speaking of autographs.  A while back, I told you about how I’m sorta friends with Stephen Chbosky – the author of “Perks of Being a Wallflower.”  I met him on the movie version of the book two years ago and I stayed in touch somewhat.

Well, I recently asked Stephen to autograph a book for my former roommates’ newly adopted, teenage daughter.  The teenage gal is a big fan of Perks.  My former roomie sent me a text a week or so ago.  She included a photo of her daughter just after she opened up the package to reveal the signed book.  Her daughter had her hands clasped tight together, held close to her chest.  Almost like a position of an answered prayer.  Her face was pure glee.  She was crawling out of her skin with delight.

When I finish my book, I’m going to sign it and do the same sorts of things as Stephen.  I hope it will be a light for others.  I hope it will be a spark for certain people that desperately need a light or a spark.  I hope to make a newly adopted teenager’s day when she’s going through a really rough spell.  I hope my book will be an answered prayer for some.

I sure hope my brother is right.  Thanks Broseph.  Double thanks.

A Thank You – Fabulous

Quick story for you, you dimwits.  The other day, there were two kids and an older gentleman sitting on the steps.  The kids were a boy about 12 and a girl about 8.  The older gentleman asks me if I’m part of the film crew.  I said, “Yes sir, I am.  That’s me causing all this trouble in your neighborhood.  Are these your kids?”

He replied, “No, these are my students.  I’m waiting here with them until their parents pick them up.”  I said “Cool,” and then I asked the kids, “So what’s your favorite subject in school?”  The boy answered without hesitation.  He says in a girlish, prepubescent voice, “I want to be a writer.”  I told him good answer.  Being a writer is a wonderful career choice.  Then the kid talked my ear off for the next 17 minutes.  He wouldn’t shut up.

The little girl was a little more bashful, so once Chatty Kathy finally shut his piehole, I asked her again.  “So what’s your favorite subject?”  She puts her head down, thinks about it for a second, and then softly says, “Being with my family.”

I told the little girl that was a good answer too, but too bad that wasn’t the question.   I said good thing they don’t teach Listening as a school subject, or you’d fail miserably.

Can you believe it?  Twelve years old, and this kid already knows he wants to be a writer.  I didn’t know that I wanted to be a writer until I was 26.  It was an accident, really.  I created a funny character on MySpace named Ralph, and the character started to take off.  I built up a pretty big following from people all over the world.  It was wild.  I had no idea what the hell was going on.

My brother read my stuff and he sends me an email one day.  He said my writing reminded him of this famous author.  My brother said my writing is similar to this book he recently read.  The book was called “The Catcher in the Rye.”  He knows I don’t read much, but he suggested I read it.   I borrowed the book from him, and gave it a read.  It’s been almost ten years now, and I still haven’t returned that book.  It’s the greatest book that I’ve ever read.  It was some compliment my brother gave me.  The Catcher in the Rye.

I’ve had several people tell me that my writing style reminds them of J.D. Salinger.  Those are big shoes to fill.  He’s one of the best authors of all time.  I don’t know that I’ll ever get there, but that’s the goal anyway.

Just like Chatty Kathy, one day I want to be a writer, too.    I think I have it in me, and that’s the first place being a writer begins – with you.  Not with some crappy ass teacher who barks all these rules at you, and tells you there’s only one way to write.  There’s a million ways to write a story.  My way just happens to be a little off.  Lots of mistakes.  Sloppy, wreckless, poetic, insightful, up, down, sideways, raw and rough, tender and sweet, wild and free.  Mix the ingredients all up, and hopefully one day it’ll make for an interesting book.  The kind of book that you borrow from a friend and never want to return.

Well, I just wanted to say thanks.  Saying thanks is important.  This blog is just for practice, but it’s nice that so many of you have stuck around, and that so many of you that leave come back to check in from time to time.  And for you regulars, it’s amazing to me that you read my madness on such a consistent basis when there’s a million other things you could be doing with your time.

This one is especially for you.  How’s about an autographed photo of me dressed up like a Roman soldier, wearing cowboy boots, camo shorts, old geezer blue blockers, doing a little fishing in a swimming pool, and sitting right next to the one, the only, the effervescent Whoopi Goldberg.  Many thanks.

I woulda had Whoopi sign it too, but she says she was having a bad hair day.  She refused, but I think her cornrows look fabulous.   Just like you dimwits.  Fabulous.  Thanks again.

$0.00 – A Thank You

Get this you dimwits.  I’ll get to the funny business here in a second.  I have a bunch of funny stuff coming up, but I have to get down to some other bu$ine$s first.

I think I’m getting the boot.  All my WordAds are starting to disappear.  POOF!  Just like that.  I think someone reported me or something, just because I told them to stick it up their greedy, corporate arse in my previous post.  Unbelievable.  I thought I lived in a free country, but I guess not.  This is tyranny.  I re-read their terms of service, and I haven’t violated anything.  Nowhere in the terms of service does it say that a person can’t tell them to stick it up their greedy, corporate arse.

That’s what I get for listening to rap.  I never liked rap before.  I just started listening to it a few years ago just when I go running, or when I pull up to a red light in my Toyota Camry and crank some Jay-Z to impress the gal that pulled up beside me.  It never works, by the way.  I think I need bigger rims.

I’m back to running this week and I’ve been listening to a lot of rap again.  I guess Eminem must’ve rubbed off on me, and I had to open my big mouth and slam corporate America.  Thanks a lot Slim Shady.  Now I’m back to ZERO dollars earned off of writing in 8 years.  I’m never gonna afford that big ass yacht.

Well, the thing is, I actually don’t mind the ads.  I’ve watched several of them myself.  Since I write about trying to save the children and other inspirational topics, the ads are usually pertaining to outreach programs and community oriented stuff.  There was a really good one by Adrian Grenier from the show “Entourage.”  He’s a really cool dude, and he’s trying to make a difference in the world by using his celebrity status.  So here I am trying to make a difference in the world myself.  I lost 15 pounds writing last month trying to save the children, and I get the boot.   Makes a lot of sense.

I already have a plan if that’s the case.  I’m hoping that it’s not, but if I get terminated, then I’ll just go to WordAds biggest competitor and add them to my blog.  Whatever.  I’ve survived 8 years of writing without getting paid, and I’ll continue writing regardless.  I’m a determined mofo.  I’ve got ideas for 6 books, so I’ll get paid one way or another.  I just thought it’d be nice to have a little extra pocket change to eat at Arby’s.

Anywho, I created this rap persona a few years ago called “The Kasual Kid.”  That’s me, or him in the photo above.  I keep a flow book, and I spit mad rhymes every now and again.  I rap about things like shower loofas and the hard life growing up in the country tipping cows.   Maybe someday I’ll dig out a few flows and share them with you.  But I have more business to attend to for right now.

This is a thank you to the folks that stopped reading and dropped me like a bad habit.  I’m about to share some really funny stuff here in the next few weeks / months.  At least I hope it’s funny.  Some of you will probably think so.  The others that didn’t wait it out through all my crazy, mad stories, or got offended by a few things they disagreed with, well, they’ll miss out on all the funny stuff.

I use it for motivation.  I like to know people are reading.  It does mean a lot to me.  You guys and gals have been very kind with your comments, likes, shares, ect.  But I also like to know that certain people aren’t reading.  It gives me the drive to want to become a better writer.  I gave a thanks to all of you dearest dimwits who stuck around in the previous post, but this is a thanks to those that left.  It’s about to get real fun around here again.

One last thing.  I’d like to reconcile with WordAds if possible.  I don’t like to bite the hand that feeds me $7.33.   They don’t have to pay anything.  It’s a nice service, really.  So here’s an ad I made for them to promote their business and try to smooth things over.

Take care you dimwits.  I will do the same.

A Letter To My Mother – Free Spirit & Wieners

April 20, 2013
Saturday, 1:31 PM

771 Dimwits and counting…

Mother,

I didn’t know which of the 16 email accounts of yours to send this to, so I decided to post it here.   Hopefully it finds you, and hopefully it’s during a time when you just got back in from the warm sunshine and time spent admiring your flowers that you enjoy more than anything.

750 new followers in just over a week.  This is crazy, huh?  I’ve got wives reading my stories to husbands, and mothers reading my stories to daughters.  Stories about wieners and Sally Jessy Ralphael’s feathered hair.  Can you believe it?  It’s wild.  I don’t know what’s happening, but of course what’s new. I never know what’s happening, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.

You know how your free spirited, kind hearted, adventurous, and yes, your rather mischievous son of yours just seems to go along with life.  It’s gotten me this far, so there’s no use in changing it now.  Well, remember that time you and Dad sat me down right after I graduated college?  You might not remember it, but I do.  It was in the living room, and it was quiet.  If I didn’t know any better, it might’ve been my own funeral that I was attending.

You and Dad wore somber, stern faces.  You told me to sit down, so I did.  On the couch directly across the room, not far away from your somber, stern faces.  I had an idea of what was coming, some sort of boring lecture with me having to say a lot of uh-huhs in between.  I’ve gotten my fair share of lectures from you, and from others, so I kinda get a sense of when they’re coming.

It was a lecture all right.  I know you meant well, and I’m not here to put you down or anything like that.  Mothers do the best they can – well hopefully.  The good ones do anyways, and you’re a good one.   But here’s what you told me.  You and Dad told me to cage my free spirit.  You didn’t say those words exactly, but what you meant was to put my free spirit inside a box, and put him up in the attic with all the other dusty toys.  I was to be a man now.  Stop playing games and get some direction in life.   Some goals, a job, a career, maybe a wife, some kids, and all that other sorta stuff.

Well, I didn’t want to be a man.  From all I saw at the time, being a man meant cheating husbands, divorced dads, drunks, liars, punchers, spitters, and those that like to give lectures about how I’m to play life by the rules, and become a man.

I was 21.  I knew more about being a man than the asshole telling me I had better be a man, after I knew flat out that he had just beat his wife senseless a few nights ago.  My friend told me.  He was in tears.  And now that man had the gull to tell me I had better become a man.  Well, I had the gull to shut my mouth and say “uh-huh.”  I knew more about being a man than him, and sometimes as a man you gotta know when to shut your mouth and say uh-huh, because it’s not worth the fight at the time.  There are other ways to go about winning a fight without shouting, and cursing, and more fighting.  So I left it at that:  Uh-huh.

I guess this is my usual, long-winded, rambling just to tell you this, and then to follow it up with a little more rambling to wrap things up.  I never put that free spirit in a cage.  I never boxed him up.  I kept him free, and I guess that’s why people like my stories about wieners and Franzia boxed wine, and all that other stuff.

They’re free spirits too.  They’re dimwits.  There’s a whole mess of us out there, and they enjoy someone who can spin a good tale, tell a whopper of a story filled with craziness and madness, but also full of love and hope.  Those are the two most important ingredients to a story, because without love and hope, you might as well just read from the dictionary.  The thing with telling a good story is you gotta have a free spirit to be able to tell it, so that’s why I kept him free.  That and it just never made all that much sense to me why anyone should keep anything in a cage.

Thanks for being a good mom.  I usually never tell you that, maybe even never.  Probably because I’m too busy telling tall tales instead, but I was just thinking it’s probably nice and important for a mother to hear that from her son.  It’s a lot of hard work raising kids.  Not a lot of credit, late nights, no sleep, and lousy sons who make you cry when they send you letters.

I know you’re crying right now.  Just like when I can sense a lecture, I can usually sense when someone’s gonna cry, too.  I can sense a lot of things.  Some say it’s a gift, but sometimes it’s a curse too.  It can take a lot out of you with all the sensing going on all the time, and no way to turn it off.  Rather than whine about a gift that others would kill to have, it feels nice to make good use of it finally.  Wieners!  HA.

So stay tuned.  Your son is going places that only a free spirit can lead a person, and he’s taking a TON of dimwits along with him!  It’s going to be a fun ride.  It will be interesting at the very least.

Love,

Your son.  The dimmest of all the dimwits.  The dunce.  The doofus.

Chris

PS.  Sorry to include this photo of you with a scrunchy face, that looks like you just caught a whiff of a dog turd, but you didn’t really think the Dimwit was gonna end without a good laugh, did you?  Toodles.

“Big Love” – Excerpt From A Hot And Steamy Romance Novel

Do you like reading hot and steamy romance novels about pounding hearts and quivering thighs as much as I do?  Doubt it.  But if you do, then you will be thrilled to know that I’ve been working on writing a romance novel of my own.

The romance novel is titled “Big Love” and it’s a love story about a guy and gal who meet in an online chat room.  They hit it off, chat back and forth for several months.  The virtual lovebirds have only one rule:  no photos or physical descriptions of one another allowed whatsoever.  They’ve committed to testing out the theory that love is blind and that true love doesn’t concern itself with physical appearances.

After several months of online courtship, the two decide to finally meet up in person.  Kevin White, a nutritionist and health coach, is in for a BIG surprise when he finally meets the virtual love of his life, Nelly Barnes, a Wal-Mart sales associate.  The following excerpt is from their first meet-up.  Check it, yo.

“Big Love”
Excerpt From A Hot And Steamy Romance Novel
by Christopher Hinton

It had been months of correspondence, back and forth emails, phone calls, and handwritten letters.  The time was finally here.  I was going to see her.  In the flesh.  Face to face.  I was finally going to get to squeeze her tight, and if I had it my way, I might never let her go.   My sweet Nelly.  My true love.

I was nervous as hell.  I showed up at the coffee shop as per our arrangement, only I arrived two hours earlier than expected.

I gulped down three cups of coffee and an espresso while I was waiting.  I don’t drink coffee.  I was jitters.  I was a bundle of nerves.  Where is she?  Where is my cute as a button, Nelly, my precious baby lamb?  She was going to be here any second now.  I ordered another cup of coffee and sat back down, waiting.

Not long afterwards, in walked Nelly.  There she was.  It was my bunny angel.  I knew it was her by the way Nelly described the outfit so perfectly in a prior email – she said that she would be wearing black stretch pants and a yellow puppy dog T-shirt with the clever caption printed on the front, “I Ruff You.”

Yes, it was my Nelly all right, but she didn’t look like the girl that I had spent countless hours sculpting, and forming and painting a picture of in my mind.  If I’m being frank, Nelly was about 240 pounds heavier and carried quite a few more extra chins.  The girl in the painting also wasn’t wearing flip flops and didn’t have her hair pulled back into a moo cow Scrunchie.

I’m a putz.  I’m a dope.  A real honest-to-goodness imbecile.  The first thing that shot through my brain and out of my mouth before I had a chance to put a silencer on that nasty, devil of a tongue of mine came spewing out.  I fired a bullet.  Boy, did I ever.

I took one look at Nelly and I screamed “Holy shit!” across the entire way.  They heard me in Alaska.  Christ, they heard me in Japan.  Every person in the joint was looking at me, snapping and stretching their heads around like rubber bands.  I don’t blame them.  I have a bad habit of cursing – I’ll be the first to admit it, my pastor would be the second –  but cursing in public is a vile thing if you ask me, especially when there are children present.

I mouthed an apology to the mothers.  I meant it, I was sorry, but what was I going to say to my poor Nelly?  Sorry wouldn’t cut it.  Not for my sweet pookums, but it wasn’t like I had much time to give it thought.

Nelly gave a wave and walked over to my table.  She smiled, laughed nervously under her breath.  She was all jitters too.  She spoke.  A crackling, mousy voice came out of that mammoth body.  It was much different than the voice I had heard over the phone.

“Hi there, stranger.  So good to finally see you.  Sorry, I’m shaking.  I didn’t think that I would be this nervous.”

I said hi there right back.  Told her it was okay, I was nervous too.  We hugged.  It felt warm.  She had a question in regards to my shouting fit, however.

“So was that a good holy shit or a bad holy shit when I walked in the door?”

I never knew there was such a thing as a good holy shit, but I was relieved to be given a choice in this case.  I chose to go with a good.  It was good.  Nelly was – she was different than I had fantasized about in my dreams, but it didn’t matter.  That’s love.  It’s mad and it’s crazy, and if it’s right, it doesn’t give a damn about a size or a shape.

My Nelly was no ankle-biting poodle, and our love was no tiny, puppy love.  No, Nelly was a big fat ass elephant of a greyhound dog if that makes any sense, and I decided right then and there that it was all right with me.  I must be mad and crazy.  It was love for certain, and after I decided a little bit more, it was even better than being all right.  It was downright ecstasy.

The rest of the afternoon was nice.  We laughed.  We nearly fell off our chairs.  The tongue behaved, settled down and so did the nerves.  I can’t remember ever being happier than I was in that moment.  It had been a long time since I had been happy, which is a sad thing for a person to say, but it’s true.

No more dark and lonely nights.  Nelly was my sun.  She lit up the room, she lit up the sky.  Night time no longer existed as long as she was around. There was only day.

I held my Nelly tight.  It was a good holy shit.  It was a good goddamn.

I found my big love, all right.  I decided I was never letting go.