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Freak Speak

Speliing Duzn’t Mattr

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Post #156 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger–

All of you know about the National Spelling Bee. You know, where dorky kids who are way up there in the brains department spell words you’ve never even heard of, much less know how to spell. Over and over. Kind of scary smart, but it still makes you sick. Well, Dr. Crankenfuss is here to tell you that being a great speller ain’t so great after all. Take this challenge and you’ll see why “Speliing Duzn’t Mattr.”

So here’s the test. And it’s one that will make you feel good about yourself. Get out a stopwatch or some timing device and see how fast you can read the next paragraph — which I’ve put in CAPITAL BLUE LETTERS — as fast as you can. When you first see it, you’ll think it’s really hard. BUT IT WON’T BE. After you’re done, post your time. You’ll see how right I am in my title.

 IH YAM HIER TWO TEL U AH TROOTH YU PRBELBY HAF KNOT THUOGT UV BEEFOR. SPELING IZ NUT TAHT INPERTANT. YESC, EVRIBUDY TELZ U ET IZ — YUR TEECHARS, YUR PERANTS, EVIN U PRALBLY BELEEV ET. BT YU KAN REED THEZ PRTTY FST EVUN THO EVRY WURD IZ RONG. OW EZ THEZ POSBL? BEKUZ YUR BRANE WURKS BETR THN U THOGHT.

So how long did it take you? An hour?? Dude, that is NOT GOOD! Now c’mon, be honest, you had to do better than that. Anyway, next time someone gets after you for your bad spelling (like I do with people sometimes), tell those people like me, “Lay off, Bobo. You can understand this just fine.” It might just shut us up.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Who thinks kids should never fail
Just because they can’t spell,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Daniel’s First Attempt at Flash Fiction. See what you think.

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Yes, I know this is a shock. “What the #$%&@#%$ happened to Dr. Crankenfuss? He looks awful!” you’re saying. “Was he in some kind of industrial accident?” Well, no, the Crank is fine. That’s not Dr. Crankenfuss on the left at all. It’s me: Daniel Berenson, the head guy at Freaky Dude Books and the dude who’s nice enough (so far) to lease some space in his head to the good doctor.

And now you’re no doubt thinking, “Just look at him! What’s he got to smile about?” Well, a lot actually. My books are getting more noticed, all the reviews (over 40 of them) are 4 or 5 starred (except for one). I’m in the middle of editing and formatting my sixth book, a poetry book by and for kids, and it will be coming out in September. Also I’m happy to announce that I’ll be giving away a bunch of free stuff in the next few weeks so keep checking back or you might miss it.

But as the title of this post states, this is my first stab at Flash Fiction, which is literature for the Twitter generation, I guess. I entered a contest. There were five categories — stuff like “Write a murder mystery that has a party in it and doesn’t have over 50 words, including the title,” or “Write a romance with a horse in it somewhere. 45 words max.” I chose, “Write a children’s poem about The Adventures of Max Little. It has to involve bravery or courage and can’t be over 40 words, including the title.”

Here was my entry:

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Max Little wanted dinner:
Something like himself.
So he scuba dove
Down to an ocean shelf.

He battled squid and octopi.
He survived, but with a limp.
But Max got his dinner —
Tasty jumbo shrimp.

Total = 40 words

Was I pleased with myself or what? A sure winner, I thought. Okay, it’s not aimed at kids exactly. Would most children get the exact parallelism between “Max Little” and “jumbo shrimp”? Did the contest judges? But fighting squid and octopi? Hey, that’s very courageous. Remember that big squid — or was it an octopus? — in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. That guy was ginormous.

Long story short. (Ha, ha. See how I incorporated the essence of Flash Fiction into those three little words?) I LOST. “No, no way!” you say. WAY! Anyhoo, it’s they who have truly lost. Now I have the rights to this poem and it will be my first entry in my Flash Fiction oeuvre. And I’ll add it to my Poetic Poetry page. Now it’s time for my next self-imposed challenge: Dinner for two within one hour using only chicken, oleomargarine, and mosquito repellent. Ooh, Maureen’s gonna love this!

Freak Speak

Daniel’s Gettin’ a Bit Full of Himself with this LOVE THUG book

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Humor Post #105 from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

People out there know I don’t say much bad about Daniel, the guy who started Freaky Dude Books and me, but sometimes he just needs a little talkin’ to. He’s just released LOVE THUG at Amazon this past weekend, he’s gotten one whole 5 star review, and now he thinks he’s like the next Justin Bieber of the literary world. He’s gone and entered this contest at The Kindle Book Review where he thinks he has a decent chance of getting recognized in the Young Adult category. Well, the cover DOES look mighty nice. If they judge the book by its cover, he DOES have a chance. (No wonder. It’s by Maureen Dunlap, his girlfriend.)

LOVE THUG
A Romantic Comedy for Teenagers (or almost teenagers)

He was all excited so I thought I’d try to be funny. I told him he had a better chance of getting recognized in the “Face Like a Turkey” contest but he didn’t go for that too much. That was kinda mean, I admit, but hey, that’s one of my talents and Daniel says that one of the lessons of LOVE THUG is “Be yourself” and that’s what I’m doing here, isn’t it? Anyway, he had to pay $20 to enter so I guess he’s “puttin’ his money where his mouth is,” as they say.

Tell you what. To make it up to Daniel, I’ll write a little cheery rap for him right now just in case he doesn’t win this thing. After all — don’t tell him I said this — the odds aren’t that great, are they? There will probably be lots of entries and there are a lot of good writers out there. (Lucky I didn’t enter or he NEVER woulda stood a chance. But there wasn’t a category for rap, and I haven’t written a book yet.)
Anyway, here’s my “feel good” rap for Daniel:

Don’t get too down if you don’t win,
You can always get up and try again,
Rejection can feel like a kick in the shin
But your true talent will win in the end.

Good luck, Daniel, in that Kindle Book Review Contest. After all, you never really do know where lightning is going to strike, do you?

For the rest of you, take a look at their ad. Looks pretty professional to me.


From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss