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Freak Speak

How my Rainbow Head Kept Me from Being Dead/ P.S. VOICES’ Reviews Are Great News

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Post #148 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger —

You like how I look today? I thought so. But there’s a reason for it, and it probably saved my life. See, it was school spirit day and I bought this rainbow head wig online — my mom was so happy — to show my school spirit. It has red in it, so I figured it would be perfect since our school colors are red and white. To get the white, I wore a white shirt and hey, my skin’s sort of pasty and white, so there you go. Mr. School Spirit!

So I’m walking down the hall between classes, all full of myself, and this tall — and I do mean TALL, he must have been on the basketball team (for college!) — guy cuts in front of me and I trip over my own shoes and almost fall. “Nice move, cigarette head!” I said, referring to his l-o-n-n-g-g lanky head. Under my breath, I thought.

WRONG! He heard me and picked me up off the ground by my shoulders and put me against the wall. “You say something, punk?” he asked (and not sweetly either).

“No, no,” I protested. “I was praising you. I said, ‘Nice move to to get ahead.’ He thought for a second and let me down. “Okay,” he said, “but don’t try any funny stuff with me, okay?”

I had no trouble agreeing with him.

Now how this rainbow wig will save me is this. As soon as this was over, I ducked into the bathroom and took it off. He probably won’t recognize me without it. And he probably didn’t see my shirt (with my super-cool slogan on it) because he was looking me straight in the face. Believe me, I know, because our eyes never went away from each other.

See, school is full of education AND adventure. My education for the day was to promise myself to keep the insults that come from my mouth away from the ears of dangerous guys. Best lesson I had all day, maybe all month.

Glad to be alive,
Your Dude with the more careful ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

******************************************************

VOICES: AN OWNER’S GUIDE TO THE ADOLESCENT MIND keeps getting amazing reviews at Amazon! (If you had books like this assigned to you at school, you’d be enjoying school a lot more, I promise you that.) Every poem rhymes, every poem makes sense without the teacher having to explain it to you, every poem relates to YOU — what makes you happy, what scares you, what makes you feel most any way you do. And every poem is meant for you to perform, you know you’re a real actor! Check it out. You’ll see! 

VOICES: Poems for Performance

That’s it
My message is done
Now I’ll go back
And eat that onion.

Dr. C

Freak Speak

OUR RADIO AD FOR “LOVE THUG” (free this Wed-Fri, July 10-12)

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Okay, first off, if you’re here just for the radio ad, it’s at the bottom, okay? But then come back and get the lowdown on it. I’m worth it.

See,I’m Dr. Crankenfuss and I’m the ranting, raving, and rapping middle schooler who lives in Daniel Berenson’s head. (He’s the guy who runs FREAKY DUDE BOOKS.) It’s not that bad really cause there’s a lot of room up here and I like the freedom Daniel gives me. I often like to make fun of Daniel cause he’s kind of easy to make fun of, but today I’m here to praise Daniel, not to bury him.

See, Daniel has this book at Amazon called LOVE THUG. It’s a romantic comedy for kids. Yeah, you heard me right. And it’s funny too. They’ve even used it at schools in Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina. You can read all about it at its Amazon page. It’s got great reviews and everything.

But let me get to the good part. It’s FREE July 10-12 — that’s Wednesday through Friday — at Amazon. On those days, just go to its page, click on the Buy Button and it’s all yours. For absolutely nothing.

But even free books need good ads. That’s what gets people to check them out. So Daniel got on the computer and cooked up this radio ad. It’s really pretty good. (I always tell him he has a good face for radio.) He says next time he’ll get James Earl Jones to do the talking. I mean, when Darth Vader tells you to get something, you get it, right?

So here it is. Listen to it and on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, go get LOVE THUG at Amazon. It’ll be worth every penny you spend.

Freak Speak

DON’T BUY “LOVE THUG.” WHY NOT? BECAUSE IT’LL BE FREE ON WED-FRI (JULY 10-12)

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News from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Usually I refer to my posts as humor posts because, as you well know, they’re funny. Not this one! This one is serious and if you listen to me, you’ll save money. Not a whole lot, mind you. A whole $2.99. But that’s not chicken feed for someone my age. So get ready to get smart.

ATTENTION, ALL PEOPLE!
(And that means you too!)

DON’T BUY LOVE THUG!
DON’T BUY LOVE THUG!
DON’T BUY LOVE THUG!

Why not??? Because it’s going to be
FREE AT AMAZON JULY 10-12 (WED-FRI).

If you don’t know LOVE THUG, it’s a very funny book. You can read all about it at LOVE THUG’s page at Amazon. Check out those reviews. Read a few pages. That’s all it’ll take to convince you the book is worth every penny you’ll spend when it’s free. Now this is normally not an expensive book. Hey, a Big Mac costs more. But wouldn’t you rather get a Big Mac for free than paying for it?

I’ll say it again (in case you don’t read too good or have ADD like me).
On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Daniel’s having a big sale.
LOVE THUG will be FREE on those days (July 10-12).
So hold off for a few days, then come to Amazon and get it for NOTHING!

And Daniel told me to tell you if you don’t like the book,
he’ll refund all the money you spent!

Funny guy, that Daniel.
NOT!

Just trying to help.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dr. Crankenfuss

Freak Speak

Dr. Crankenfuss’s Poem for Weekend Writing Warriors

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Okay, we’ve been gone a while but it’s time for me — that’s Dr. Crankenfuss — to post a poem that will eventually be in my book, which will come out in about a year. IF I CAN BELIEVE DANIEL! Anyway, I’m presenting it as this week’s Sunday Snippet for Weekend Writing Warriors. Be sure to visit the Warrior site and look through all the stuff writers post there. A lot of interesting reading for sure.

So here’s my poem. But first I have to explain why I wrote it.

See, I wrote a post with a poem that was entitled Books Are Evil. They’re Killing Us. Let’s Ban Books! Click here to read it if you want. Daniel posted the poem at a few places including LinkedIn and I got some replies. Some were nice and agreed with me. Others weren’t so nice. For one thing, people told me my love for iPads and Kindles was wrong because they were made in China by workers who made about $1 a day. So I did some investigating on my own and this is what I found out.

TABLETS AND OTHER STUFF WE NEED AND LIKE A LOT
by Dr. Crankenfuss

I don’t understand it,
What can I say?
Almost nothing I own’s
Made in the USA.

My shoes come from Vietnam or China,
Calvin Klein’s made in Hong Kong,
Almost the only thing I have not from the far East
Is a polyester shirt from Oman.

India, Korea, Pakistan,
Don’t matter if it’s for a woman or a man,
I don’t know what happened to all the US workers,
Must be they’re all frying fast food burgers.

So I guess to be fair I should give up my iPad,
Its workers are exploited and somehow that’s my bad,
I could read paper books printed here I suppose
But shouldn’t I also learn to live without clothes?

******************************************************************
Thank you to Weekend Writing Warriors and now it’s time for my usual rant.
******************************************************************

News from the world’s Awesomest & Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School and YA Blog –

Listen to me, people!
DON’T BUY LOVE THUG!
DON’T BUY LOVE THUG!
DON’T BUY LOVE THUG!

Why not??? Because it’s going to be
FREE AT AMAZON JULY 10-12 (WED-FRI).

If you don’t know LOVE THUG, it’s a very funny book. You can read all about it at LOVE THUG’s page at Amazon. There you’ll see the price is $2.99. Now $2.99 ain’t much. Hey, a Big Mac costs more. But you can get an even better deal than that.

On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, Daniel’s having a big sale.
LOVE THUG will be FREE on those days (July 10-12).
So hold off for a few days, then come and get it for NOTHING!

And Daniel told me to tell you if you don’t like the book,
he’ll refund all the money you spent!

Funny guy, that Daniel.
NOT!

Just trying to help.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
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!