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Barry Trotter (Book 1)

The Hogwash School for Wizards was the most famous school in the wizarding world, and Barry Trotter was its most famous student. His mere presence made sure that every year twenty candidates applied for every open spot, no matter how rapacious Hogwash's tuition became. As a result, Barry and the school had come to an unspoken agreement: regardless of his grades, Barry could remain at Hogwash for as long as he wished. He had just begun his eleventh year...

Freshman

Sleepy with boredom and gassy from lunch, Hart Fox sat in the hard plastic chair outside his dean's office. A kid walked in the door, pink detention slip in hand, bobbing his head a little so that the purple spikes of his mohawk didn't get bent on the transom. He slumped down next to Hart. Hart nodded--he remembered tis joker from sophomore American History, constantly arguing in favor of anarcho-syndicalism. Was his name Henry?...

Sophomore

Arcing lazily through the air, the Frisbee smacked against the window. “Ooo-oo!” a chiseled and shirtless boy teased as it wobbleplummeted to the ground. “Sarah's in troub-le!”The beauty-boy was righter than he knew: Of all the windows on campus to hit, this one was the worst. It belonged to Stutts’ Professor of Clandestine Affairs, Glenbard North, who had destroyed more students than there were blades of grass on the freshly resodded Old Quad below...

Coming Soon!

All you really gotta know is, I'm writing new things constantly and the more I write, the better my books get. So if you've read my earlier work--and millions of you have--we should keep in touch. This fall, at least one and maybe two new books will be available: a Dickens parody AND a comic mystery loosely based on The Beatles. Drop me an email at mikesnewbooks[at]gmail[dot]com, and I'll be sure to let you know release dates, special deals, etc.
C'mon, do it! It'll be fun.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Broke again.

Is it YOU? Are YOU doing it with your eyes?

Okay, still busted....

...but I have faith that it will be fixed eventually, so here I am with some random thoughts:

1) I celebrated the Cardinals' victory in the World Series with a bottle of Veuve-Clicquot. The trick to not becoming a lush is to cultivate sufficiently expensive tastes.

2) I celebrated Halloween at The Aero, a theater here in Santa Monica. It was running an all-night marathon of horror movies. Decent time, though I wasn't able to stay for more than two and a half. I don't like Italian horror movies, and I'm tired of people telling me how freakin' great Dario Argento/Lucio Fulci/etc are. If that's good, that whole area of culture is incredibly impoverished. "Gialli" are like Hammer movies but with horrible dialogue and worse special effects. I've given these guys at least five chances to entertain me, and they've never done it.

3) Same with Brian DePalma. I think he's a retard. Anybody who watches "Sisters" and doesn't figure it out within the first thirty minutes (fifteen if you're a USC film student) should be escorted from the room. And please, don't anybody explain to them how to reproduce.

4) At the same festival, I watched "Re-Animator," a pleasant memory from my teenage years (with a surprising amount of full-frontal; I wonder how I ever got into that theater at 16?). Apart from the nudity--always welcome, even now--I noticed that actor David Galt looked strikingly like Senator John Kerry. Take a look.

Here.

Here.

They're a little dark, but I think you can see what I'm talking about. It's really striking in some scenes. I think this explains 2004. That, and the voter intimidation. And the electronic voting machines run by Republicans.

5) In more conspiracy news, anybody with 42 minutes to burn and an obsession with Robert F. Kennedy (as fitting a description of me as any) might be interested in this talk given by Lawrence Teeter, Sirhan Sirhan's lawyer. Keeping in mind that he WAS Sirhan's lawyer (he died), Teeter's talk is a nicely compressed discussion of the case for conspiracy.

6) Yesterday was not a day to root against me in football. Not only did Yale beat Harvard, USC beat Cal. Yale hadn't won in five years, including a crushing triple-overtime loss last year. But not this time, Cantabs.

7) I am working on several books, including a couple that should be available for this Xmas. Watch this space (assuming I can figure out what's going on with the site...)

8) And finally: "What happens in Vegas..."
"...can usually be cured by antibiotics. Usually."