Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

I had to share my big amusement, because I read this yesterday and I am STILL laughing about it:

Steven Colbert’s book promotional materials are out, in anticipation of his book’s arrival around the holidays. His book focuses on the reballification of America:

Why write this book now? Colbert fears America has lost its balls. He wants to reballify the nation. Even the ladies. Ladies can have balls — lady-balls. They’re called “Thatchers.” Colbert will show you how he got his mammoth swinging sack.

OMG. “Thatchers.” My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. 

R*belle pointed me to the next big thing in hot romance man fashion: Utilikilts.

Now, when my sister in law hiked the Appalachian Trail, she told the family that a LOT of the guys on the trail used to buy elastic waist, stretchy skirts at Wal-marts and Targets and wear them hiking, as they were less constrictive and much cooler for hiking.  I’m also well aware that many a fine Scots, Welsh or Irish man has donned a kilt, to say nothing of formal wear kilts. Let’s face it - men in kilts can be hot damn sexy as anything.

But I’m not sure the Workman’s Model will catch on. If we renovate our house, and the workmen show up in a utilikilt? My jaw will drop, no question. But I might have to order Hubby a Mocker Docker-equivalent kilt for Father’s Day. You know, so he can wear it to the office and stuff. Funny thing is, I’d think it was kinda hot. He’d probably want to kill me. 

The state paper in New Jersey is the Star-Ledger, and while there are smaller local papers for individual towns and municipalities, the Star-Ledger pretty much covers the whole state. And since NJ is a weird state of a few metropolitan-type areas that are also suburbs of other, larger cities located in other states, that’s a lot of news to cover. I’m forever reading about something cool to do on the weekend that’s, like, 2+ hours away. NJ is narrow but it’s kinda long.

Today’s Star-Ledger, and I can’t find a link to this info so you’ll have to take my word for it, had a whole section about Harry Potter (T minus a bunch of days until a book I’m not interested in reading will appear! Woot) with a promotional item about a reading at a local Borders this weekend.

What are they reading? HP Fanfic.

Seems a local couple who write a monster load of Fanfic regarding all things Potter are going to be hosting a reading of the best-ranked stories.

My reaction was along the lines of, “Srsly? Fanfic?” and then I realized I wasn’t substantially caffeinated to form a coherent thought.

Hubby, on the other hand, is a bit of a Potter fan, having started his pre-release tradition to read the series from book 1 anticipating the debut of HP whatever-is-next. His reaction was, “Please acknowledge that I am not as obsessive about this stuff as some people!”

“I don’t, like, dress up as the characters, and stuff,” he said as he wound his burgundy-and-gold scarf around his throat. *snerk*

Just kidding. Fanfic writers are not also necessarily dressing up as characters or living permanently in the fiction created world. But I actually had to explain that to Hubby, seeing as he is not too familiar with the world and concept of fanfic.

While there are many, many fans of the fanfic around these parts, I have to say, having a reading of fanfic in a bookstore for the promotion of a book that’s not coming out for two months is very, very bizarre to me. I’d be curious who came up with the idea - fanfic person who works at the store? Maybe it’s a multi-store promotion to create early buzz and activities surrounding the book, so that by the time the thing comes out, it’ll be like the release of Vista: a big giant non event.

Curious as I am, I’m not going to go. For one thing, my weekend is full of Really Important Tasks like getting the dog’s undercoat groomed out for summer, and sitting upon my behind and playing with the Toddler. I’m sure it’s not on the toddler’s top-five list of preferred activities, but then, he hates going to the grocery store. I do wonder though, if anyone else will be there specially for the fanfic reading. 

Lilith Saintcrow, fearless and wise, sent ol’ Tony an email through the address on his website Anthony Catanzaro.com. Her original email alerted him that someone might be impersonating him on this here site:

Are you aware that someone claiming to be you is issuing death threats on the popular romance-reviewing blog http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com? In case you’ve missed it, someone claiming to be you has threatened to close two bloggers in the trunk of a car. Additionally, someone claiming to be your wife is issuing threats and silly statements that don’t reflect well on you.

I’m sure you might be angry at the original post mocking your recent appearance on a television show, but that’s beside the point and it has brought your name to the attention of a lot of romance readers who pay for books you might be on the cover of. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that kind of publicity is priceless.

I hope this is a misunderstanding and that you don’t know someone is trying to make you look bad by acting like a lunatic. The romance community may seem big, but a bad reputation for issuing cranky death threats won’t go unnoticed. I’m interested in hearing your side of the story, as a romance author and reader, and look forward to hearing from you.

That Lilith, she ain’t no dummy. While I was busy talking to all the different manifestations of Kathryn Falk, Lilith was going after the dish on whether it was Tony (and Tina!) who posted on our site. If it wasn’t, that poor man has some damage control to start spinning.

For the record, the comments originated from the same IP, 65.209.5.50, from Tina’s original post to Tony’s more intimate, alluring statement regarding his Caddy and the Belt Parkway.

Here’s the answer Lilith got from Tony’s email:

Lilith,

Thank you for you email..That was definitely not me who left a blog on this site your talking about..I barley have time to breath lately.... I have been so busy I don’t even have time to respond to important emails.. I’m on my way to LA to star on a new reality show for VH1 so thank you for bringing this to my attention..I have millions of fans all over the world so I can understand how someone might have wanted to defend me.

Nice to meet you by the way!
God bless Always!
Anthony Catanzaro

The IP address in the header to the email: “Received: from unknown (HELO pre-smtp23-02.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net) ([64.202.166.53])”

It’s not the same IP address, though the server one surfs from and the server one emails from could be different, I am thinking - though someone with more advanced technical knowledge would have to give me the straight up on that.

Aside from finding yet another person who doesn’t know the terminology of blogs vs. comments (people: you visit a blog and leave a comment. You don’t “leave a blog” on a site. SHEESH.), have we found yet another person who is actually two people? Was it Tony or was it an imposter? Did the real Tony leave the comment and a different person respond to the email? Or was it both?!

On one hand, all the comments from Tina and Tony came from the same IP, so it could be the same troll. Not that I understand the mind of a troll, but it doesn’t make sense for there to be repeated visitors getting their panties in a twist about our mocking a YouTube clip, when let’s face it, we’ve been amply harsh about other topics and haven’t attracted a troll yet. And I try to hold on to the rapidly-dissolving hope that people really REALLY aren’t that dumb as to shoot themselves in the foot repeatedly and publicly, despite recent evidence to the contrary.

Plus, Candy did say she’d heard that Tina was emailing authors whose books were adorned with Tony’s mantitty regarding our harsh and evil behavior. So who knows?

Meanwhile, this weekend I will be searching out my evil twin, just to see what she’s been up to. I think she runs some site about Sweet Ponies and Fluffy Bunnies.