Laughter in the Dark

Author of "The Revised Kama Sutra: A Novel" ("Very funny"--Kurt Vonnegut) and 12 other books at Penguin, HarperCollins, Amazon, Google Play, Kobo, Nook, Apple, etc. http://www.richardcrasta.com

[newyorker]

This week’s cover, “Reading Group,” by J. J. Sempé.

[laffsinthedark]

The Haves and the Have-Nots. The haves have so much, multiple houses that are mostly empty, multiple sofas and chairs; the poor are crowded into a tiny chair.

[laffsinthedark]

Memorial Day Sale of “Eaten by the Japanese”

“A classic in military history, telling the story of men trapped in a world of torture, starvation, and death"—Roger Mansell, War historian, in Tameme Magazine "...it is a book about kindness, solidarity, and collective survival."- Barry Fruchter  The book is at Smashwords for 99 cents. Also, The Revised Kama Sutra is on sale for $2.99

[laffsinthedark]

The Books of Mark Ledbetter, Author, Historian, Linguist

It gives me pleasure to inform my friends and readers know that the e-books of an author I greatly admire, Mark David Ledbetter, are now available from most of the major digital bookstores worldwide: Apple, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, besides Tolino, Playster, 24Symbols, Overdrive, and the subscription service, Scribd. And that presently, three of them are FREE at the channels below (the last two titles will be free only for a couple of weeks longer).

The links to the individual books at all of the above stores are displayed by books2read.com on a separate page for each book,: you can click on the title below to get the page, or copy the link below it onto your browser: Get them now (while 3 books are on sale, perhaps for a week more), But if you have to pay for them, they are priced so reasonably that I doubt anyone will grudge the price.

America’s Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

https://www.books2read.com/u/mZPxJ2

 America’s Forgotten History, Part Two: Rupture

https://www.books2read.com/u/bQ99D0

 America’s Forgotten History, Part III: A Progressive Empire

https://www.books2read.com/u/boZYpZ

 A Preview to Volume 4 of America’s Forgotten History: Grotius Rises

https://www.books2read.com/u/3G9M6d

 Dancing on the Edge of the Widening Gyre: A History of Our Times

https://www.books2read.com/u/bP568z

 Language and Globalization: The History of Us All

https://www.books2read.com/u/3kr8X8

[laffsinthedark]

Go the Bleep to Sleep or Bleat to Sleep?

Your opinion, please. Should this humor collection, with a parody essays in it, be named “Tell Your Sheep to Go the Bleep to Sleep” or “Tell Your Sheep to Go the Bleat to Sleep?” Which title do you like better?  At the moment, the book is on sale for 99 cents at #Apple #Kobo #Scribd #Nook and #Amazon.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id596417238

https://www.books2read.com/u/bP5Jl7

[thehonestauthor]

When you hear someone mention writing:

[laffsinthedark]

Did someone say “The Book of Dog”?

[theonion]

WASHINGTON—As part of their effort to rein in government spending through entitlement reform, GOP congressional leaders announced Friday that their new tax plan will require welfare recipients to apply for each individual piece of food they receive. “Mandating that all Americans on food stamps submit a separate application for every morsel they want to buy ensures that they get the nutrition they need without wasting taxpayer dollars,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, explaining that the new bill would significantly reduce the costs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by requiring low-income Americans to make a case for each piece of fruit, slice of bread, or grain of rice they plan to purchase. “Putting more onus on welfare recipients to justify why they need to buy something like a potato chip, a dollop of mayonnaise, or a pinch of salt with taxpayer money will help increase personal responsibility and reduce waste. In addition, parents will be required to fill out separate forms itemizing each mouthful taken by their children, which will enable them to be adequately nourished while not indulging in superfluous calories at government expense.” Ryan added that the bill also included work-requirement reform mandating that all food stamp recipients submit daily paperwork to their SNAP office with a valid explanation for each minute they weren’t working.

[laffsinthedark]

That’s only for the burger. Separately for the bun, the onions, the lettuce, the tomato, the sauce, the napkins.

[laffsinthedark]

We will get you with missiles from the skies. You’ll never see the blues of our eyes, or the color of the shit in our pants, coz you’ll be in Paradise before you even you know it. And because we are the Personification of the Good, now and forever, we shall be exempt from the laws of the universe. In preemptive self-defense, we reserve all rights, including the right to bomb God, especially if the Security Council is too chicken to unanimously approve.

Lord Bush of Iraq, or The Jolly Nuker of Baghdad

[laffsinthedark]

WHAT WE ALL NEED: An Anti-Terrorist Book of Incompletions, Unsafe Love, and Writing While Brown. By Richard Crasta. Richard Crasta is, if anything, a subversive writer, having in his first novel turned the classic Kama Sutra on its head, and in Impressing the Whites having spared no holy cows whatsoever, asking questions that few people ask. His ultimate subversive book, perhaps his most daring, is WHAT WE ALL NEED, which, though it is a combination of selections from different works in progress, is tied together by the common theme of subversion, desire, longing, pacifism, and humanity, and energized in most places by Crasta’s humor and frankly hilarious style. In a tongue-in-cheek manner, the book explores the basic subjects of sex, unsafe sex, unsafe politics and terrorism, chemical slavery, literary areas of darkness, love, Southeast Asia and the subcontinent, fatherhood, massage, and perhaps the first lingamistic revision of the Theory of History in the history of literature. The book is passionate, laugh-out-loud funny, satirical, moving, and moved by love for the human race and a passion for freedom of speech and expression, especially for the unheard voices and races of this world. What has Bill Gates to do with this? And how might one neutralize Al Quaeda? Who are the Pink Berets? Read on.

Blurb for “What We All Need”

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The Right Not to Be Pigeonholed as Asian, Indian, or Exotic

We’re all human, differing in our DNA by only 1 percent. As a writer, my goal has been to show my unique humanity, indivisible by labels, my freedom of expression sacred as that of any other writer.

[berniesrevolution]

The Democrats’ new slogan shows they learned nothing from Bernie Sanders’ campaign

Branding experts explain why “Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages” sets up the Democrats for a disaster in 2018 and beyond.

Democrats have an image problem.

Despite President Donald Trump’s unpopularity — his approval rating is historically low — a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that only 37% of Americans believe that the Democratic Party “stands for something,” while 52% say that it “just stands against Trump.” And, while more young people voted for Bernie Sanders than cast ballots for Hillary Clinton and Trump combined during the 2016 primaries, registered voters (and particularly young voters of color) stayed home by wide enough margins in November to have likely cost Clinton the election.

So, on Monday, the party will roll out its new campaign platform and slogan, titled “A Better Deal: Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages.”

Already the subject of deep derision by liberals and conservatives alike, the slogan is reportedly the result of several months of focus-group testing by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, representing an attempt on behalf of party leadership to move away from so-called identity politics and put forward a unified economic message in the Trump era.

But advertising and marketing executives panned the effort to Mic in interviews, calling the sloganeering “painfully dry,” “a missed opportunity” and “exactly how the Republican party wins.” All of the executives suggested that the party has, more than six months after the painful loss of Clinton’s presidential race, not learned the lessons of a campaign that failed to connect with enough voters in key states.

“Pretty poor writing”

“There’s just no soul there,” said Joey Ellis, a partner at GrandArmy, which represents Beyoncé, Kanye West, UNIQLO and Tuft & Needle. His co-partner Eric Collins added, “With ‘Make America Great Again,’ you have this four-word slogan where every word counts. With ‘Hope and Change,’ that was also super-clear. But ‘Better Skills, Better Jobs, Better Wages’?”

“I don’t know who’s doing this kind of stuff over there, but this is just pretty poor writing on its face.”

Charlie Jones, president and founder of the Brand Intersection Group, which has worked with SoulCycle, Sweetgreen and Mic, said that the party is failing to articulate what it means to be a Democrat.

(Continue Reading)

[laffsinthedark]

I can do better than this. Democrats, hire me, Richard Crasta, author-editor, to write a new party platform for you. Trust me: I am without health insurance, have been below the official U.S. poverty line for the last 7 years, I am more in touch than you are.

[laffsinthedark]

Benzo Land: One of My Most 5 Most Personal and Passionate Books

Along with The Revised Kama Sutra Impressing the Whites, Fathers Rebels and Dreamers, and The Killing of an Author, “Benzo Land: How Doctors and Drug Companies Enslave Us” is one of my most personal and passionate books. It is presently in digital and paperback form at Amazon and BN, but will be added to more platforms soon.

Here is a short excerpt:

Sometimes, a writer needs to take a leap of faith. And sometimes he has a story that, if left untold and bottled up inside him, could destroy him.

 This is one such story. Besides, I believe this is what people should do: tell their stories. If by chance others benefit from this book, or public policy changes result, it would delight me. If not, I do this because that’s the kind of writer I am: I tell my truth, regardless of the consequences or the price of telling the truth (even though memory can fudge, and subjectivity slant what you think to be the truth, it is all you have). As for my friends and those who wish to know me, I say: nearly everything you know about me and think of me is a lie, or shallow, superficial knowledge, unless you’ve read this story.

I hope you enjoy it and maybe learn from it. Another blog post on the subject: http://richardcrasta.com/drugs-that-raze-out-the-troubles-of-the-brain-then-enslave/

[laffsinthedark]

The Other Side of Fatherhood: A Father's Day Anthology [Richard Crasta] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This Father's Day Anthology is about modern fatherhood, about fathers who for reasons beyond their control cannot be with the children they love ... trying to express their complex emotions

Modern fatherhood, love, and loss. How to bridge the gap.

[laffsinthedark]

The Other Side of Fatherhood

When a father cannot be with his children, and is dispossessed, and is forced to rely on letters, what happens? This newly edited book on Amazon. Also direct from Createspace.

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My Self-Censored Books Relaunched

Censorship is an evil, cowardly thing for a writer, especially a writer who has expressed pride in his former fearlessness. Here are a few formerly self-censored books republished,at Amazon some updated. The funniest of these new titles, in my humble opiinion, is “What We All Need: A Prescription for World Peace and Happiness.”

Amazon

[theonion]

Aides Wrestle Drill From Trump’s Hands As He Tries To Remove Obama Listening Device From Skull

WASHINGTON—Rushing toward the president as he pressed the eight-inch bit into his temple, several White House aides managed to wrestle a drill from Donald Trump’s hand Monday while he attempted to remove Obama’s listening device from his skull. “Obama implanted a microphone inside my head to record everything I say!” Trump reportedly shouted shortly before three White House staffers pinned him to the floor and pried apart his fingers to seize the power tool. “You don’t understand, he can hear everything we’re saying! Obama can even hear my thoughts! I have to get it out! I can feel it! I can feel it! I can feel it!” At press time, staffers were panicking after Trump locked himself in the bathroom and began cutting his stomach open with a razor blade in an attempt to find the tracking chip he said The New York Times had put in his food.

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Love , French Kissing and Genes in Fiction

Confessions of an Indian Bad Boy? Who do we think we are fooling, other than ourselves? A story that asks questions: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Richard_Crasta_My_Introduction_to_Love_and_French?id=YvBCDgAAQBAJ

[bookmania]

If you didn’t grow up like I did then you don’t know, and if you don’t know it’s probably better you don’t judge.

Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

— Read this book.

(via bookmania)