When Stevens Elementary Published My Haunting Childhood Lit

This is an excerpt from my forthcoming (hopefully) memoir A Portrait of the Doofus as a Young Man

I published my first book when I was 8. Entitled Dinosaurs (Jan. 1989), this illustrated debut was published by Stevens Super Stars Publishing Company. Dinosaurs masquerades as a straightforward informative text about dinosaur facts but on the second to last page the tone changes drastically. “They didn’t have anything to eat,” is all that is written and underneath those haunting words is a giant empty circle. Then the book returns to harmless fact on the last page. If only Franz Kafka, who said “we ought only to read the kind of books that wound us,” was around to read Dinosaurs. Naturally, Stevens Super Stars Publishing company wanted more from me after that and I was contracted to write two more books.

The first was Mrs. Reed, about a woman with a pig who finds twin cats in New York City and tries without success to find their owner. Continuing to explore mortality as I’d done in Dinosaurs, by the end, everyone–animal and human alike–are dead. First Loon, then the cats (never having been reunited with their owner, despite the ad Mrs. Reed places in the paper) and then Mrs. Reed herself. Everyone, everything gone—poof! Mrs. Reed, a woodwind being blown into by this author to sound the song, Carpe diem, readers! For you too may too not find the owners of the lost cats.

The last book was My Grandma Mary’s Catfish (June 1990). This way my first foray into the adventure story. Grandma Mary sets about on a mission to save a catfish from a shark after she becomes reunited with the turtle her father had kicked out of the house and the turtle tells her of the catfish’s situation. On her journey, Grandma Mary uses the resources she has packed to survive encounters with a seal who is “acting wild,” a homicidal whale and a drowning seahorse. At the end, Grandma Mary saves a goldfish from a shark and feels she has succeeded, showing not that the rising star of Stevens Super Star Publishing Company failed to notice that he had accidentally changed the type of fish central to the plot and title of the book but that he has masterfully manipulated the narrative to convey the horrors of mental illness à la A Beautiful Mind: Grandma Mary doesn’t notice the difference because she is of course suffering from Alzheimers. 

Publishing prose may have been my bread and butter but poetry was my jam. There was nothing to me like grabbing a pencil and one of my parent’s legal pads and filling the page with 6 or so obscenely-large scrawled lines in AABBCCDD rhyme scheme. I covered all of the big subjects: Love, Peace, the Earth. I also covered The Cafeteria, A Can, Cub Scouts, Crime, The Toad, The Pencil, Soccer, Baseball, and The Circus. When it came to matching words of the same sound, even when those words didn’t convey much of anything about the subject, I was unmatched.

Best Friend

My best friends name is Willy.
We always play alot.
We always play soccer.
He’s not much of a talker.
We sometimes jog with his sister.
We rearly play twister.
That’s all I have to tell
and I hope I told it well.

Did I need to have a line where I lied about Willy’s social disposition? Or a line discussing what we did not play Yes. Because the ends (which need to rhyme) justify the bends.

My most memorable poem, however was my free verse masterpiece, A Penny, written for everyone who has felt like the lowest form of currency.

A Penny

A penny is not many
A penny is something but not much.
A penny with a president sitting on top.
so little in ways.
so big in others.
A penny is real special.

Not thinking about pennies the same way now, are you, reader? Boom! Poetry-ed!

New Book Out Now!

Central North American News: Reporting on the Region Betwixt Canada and Mexico. 

                    Common Sennis Press, $12.00

For fans of absurdity, satire and the written word comes a book full of articles I've written over the years for Central North American News, the only news site to focus specifically on the region betwixt Canada and Mexico. With 50 some odd articles and editorials on such crucial events as Man Can't Eat Just One Canned Green Bean, Jailed Comedian Goes on Month Long Humor Strike and Librarian Downright Whimsical, you'd be a BIG DUMB UGLY UNWASHED JERK not to want to get yourself a copy. 

 Buy Now!

From the preface: 

Central North American News was a product of necessity. In 2014, there was barely any reporting being done on Central North America. The best you could find were some scholarly articles in anthropology journals, like: “Who Dat? An exploration of the people living below Canada but above Mexico” and and the 5000 word write-up in Southern North America Times on “The Third Best Region in North America.”

Someone needed to report on this vastly overlooked region of North America. How else would we know which elementary schoolers were being shot up by Ar-15s and what new levels of racism could be reached in modern society. I, Daniel Sennis, found as a newborn in a newspaper box, costing my bewildered adopted parents 50 cents for purchase, would have to be the one to step up. Central North America needed me.

Purchase the definitive guide to the last decade of life above Mexico but below Canada! Buy Here!

The Origin of Daniel Sennis

In my last entry, I discussed the new movie, Social Suicide which explains part of this blog's beginnings. But there is another tale that needs to be told about this blog. One filled with Media Moguls, amazing super powers, pizza sauce and a girl by the name of Ivana Betterman.

It started with a book. The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging,which I found in the bargain bin at my local bookstore and thought, though I had absolutely no interest in blogging...$3...what a steal!

That night, I was so excited--I read most of the three page introduction before carelessly throwing the book in the trash. I knew I had to find out more about blogging, and how I could use it to distract myself from the important things in life.

First, I tried sending Ms. Huffington an e-vite to my upcoming Charlie's Angels themed Birthday party, but no such luck.

Then fortune intervened. I heard that Ms. Huffington was going to be attending one of those mean-spirited rich people bring-an-idiot parties at the end of the week. I knew that if I could get close enough to one of the party guests, I would surely get an invite.

The first time I got a chance to talk to Arianna was when she was handing me out first prize at the end of the night. I took the opportunity to tell Ms. Huffington how much I desired to be a blogger just like her. She laughed for a while.

“Oh, you’re serious.”

She then looked at me pityingly. Then she bit me. She took my hand and bit it as hard as she could.

“Ow!” I screamed. “What was that for?”

“You’ll see, Daniel Sennis.”

“My name isn’t Daniel Sennis!" I shouted as I ran crying out the door, trophy in hand.

That night, I wasn’t feeling very well.

“What’s the matter?” asked my girlfriend.

"Ever since Arianna Huffington bit me as hard as she could at the Idiot Party, I haven't been feeling very good. I'm going to lie down.”

Lying on the couch, I was bombarded with images of blogger dashboards, Google image searches, templates, RSS feeds, Arianna Huffington going in for the bite.

"What's happening to me?" I screamed.

Then my Huffington bite glowed red and I heard Arianna’s accented voice:

"It's time, Daniel Sennis. Blog your huge blogger butt off. Huffington out."

The blog came naturally due to new-found powers: enhanced word play ability (needed for the obligatory play-on-words blog title); super touch typing speed (over 35 wpm); and most importantly, Super Human self-importance.

The next day, my girlfriend, Ivana Betterman, asked me why I wasn't at work. My hair was disheveled and I had pizza sauce all over my face.

"I'm a blogger now. This is my work."

"Yeah, well, tell me how that works out for you. 

"You're leaving me?"

"Yes, you have shown me that I really need to figure out who Betterman is."

The next day Buster, the disabled Orangutan moved in, and the rest is movie history.