Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: The Power of Bad Writing

Updating from New York City, I’m not going to do a plug today but will instead go right into my story. I will say that I rifled through close to 2000 pictures and found some good ones including two pictures of The Coat. Question is, do I upload them now or wait until my next quarterly pictorial adventure…

Luckily for me the story I scanned in and am sharing is funny, cause I’m kind of pressed for time. Again, as a disclaimer, all of these stories were written in the 8th grade, I was thirteen years old, I’ve gotten better.

In the 8th grade, when I was thirteen years old, I thought I was one fuck of a writer. My Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Friedman, took a shining to me and became what I consider to be my first mentor – I’ve had several since.

I would stay after class and she’d help with my writing, give me feedback. It was mainly poetry but I occasionally did short stories here and there. My mom was all psyched that I was getting into writing and, wanting to encourage it, she got me a typewriter.

It was functional – that’s about it. Nothing fancy, press a key and the letter pops up on the page. No erase key, nothing like that. I started using it to belt out my poetry, playing with format and trying to emulate e.e.cummings chaotic formatting with my rigid typewriter. I have these poems – I’ll get to them.

At the end of the eighth grade we had a final paper. It was a short story followed by an analysis of someone else’s short story. Somehow, for reasons beyond my recollection, I was apparently very anti-drugs. My “kill the crack” line from the poetry portfolio was nothing compared to this short story that I’m about to show you.

Also, at some point, I started to believe I could draw. I took an art class in the 8th grade and the one thing I remember was my teacher looking at some clouds, telling me they needed more blue, and then taking points off because my clouds were too blue. And that’s really all I remember about my artistic background going into this paper.

But, despite my minimal skills, I had no qualms with showing my artwork. I was so proud of it, in fact, that I displayed my skills on the cover of my short story paper:

Now that’s hot. A guy and a girl separated by a needle – 100% Proof blood, apparently, being poured over a desert landscape. But it gets better; let’s take a look at the Table of Contents where I promise some “Bonus Sketches”:

My art is so hot, it’s a fucking bonus. I’m not going to transcribe the story, I’ll post it here and I suggest you read it. I’ll sum it up afterwards in case you’re too lazy to read it.

Basically, it’s a touching story about a boy who was beat by his father, bullied and rejected. He meets a girl that finally understands him but she carries a crack-pipe in her purse and forces it on him. The crack gives the boy “the power of insanity”. He uses this new power to shoot the high-school bully with a shotgun, kill some girl that rejected him, and shoot and kill his father. His girlfriend then dies, because she chose “the path of the crack-head”.

And then, after the story, the money-shot. How I explain to my teacher that I only hope my story can have the power to stop one drug addiction. And if it did have that power I would publish it.

If you didn’t read the story, if the above description wasn’t enough to get you to read it then you might have “the power of insanity” as well. I was so full of myself I thought it was the best story every made that will end drug abuse if crack heads just read it.

I’ll end this with what I know you’re all waiting for. Bonus Sketches. Enjoy:

Have a good holiday.

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The Power of Bad Writing

Monday, May 30, 2005

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