Dave Shulman

The Timely Demise of Peachmalt James

Dave Shulman
ALMOST EVERY THURSDAY NIGHT since the summer of 1986, one of America’s most prolific unpublished songwriters, Peachmalt James, has hosted “Thursday Night With Peachmalt James” — the West Coast’s fourth-oldest open mike, at the Magenta Neighborhood Palace. But the MNP’s lease recently expired, and the new land barons have found......
Lois

Such a Nice Young Man

Dave Shulman
By the early ’70s, when I came of mainstream comic-book target-audience age, Superman, who my father assured me was once a respectable superhero, had become a dork. Or perhaps my father was favorably predisposed — after all, he and my mother had grown up in the same neighborhood and attended......

Shake

Dave Shulman
AT LAST OLIVIA SCHECHNER SAT BACK from the big flat screen. She’d been at it for three hours — pinkening her subjects’ wan areolae, concealing track marks, cloaking pubes and wayward globs of lube. Her left wrist was killing her. Immaculate Penetration, the venerated monthly magazine published on extremely glossy......
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The Beaver Trap

Dave Shulman
“Some of the appeal of working there was that I’ve always liked the sense of the criminal,” says Allan MacDonell, author of Prisoner of X: 20 Years in the Hole at Hustler Magazine. “But I’m not a criminal — I don’t break the law, under any circumstances, because I don’t......

Far From Savory Dock

Dave Shulman
HECTOR SCHECHNER, FATHER MARTIN TARTAN and I have been taking lots of drugs in a crappy hotel in Amersterdam or Wellington. The confusion as to our whereabouts is partly due to our having taken lots of drugs before we got to our hotel, before we got to the airport, and......

Nothing Serious

Dave Shulman
WATER FALLS, BUT IT DOESN’T GET FAR. The clouds are low, so there isn’t far to go. The rain’s a bit less caustic this week. Chlamydia Pines, my senior research associate, is watching a dirty dove through the window. She says it’s doing the same thing, over and over, though......
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Lucky Mike's Café

Dave Shulman
MIKE DEMENTIANO WAS A PIRATE. He had a costume and everything. Anything or anyone got in his way, Mike took care of the situation in a pirately way. And he said “Arrgh.” “I’m Lucky Mike!” he yelped at Grandma Mardou, upon whose ample lap he sat. It was another rainy......

Promised Yourself You'd Finish But Didn't

Dave Shulman
1. The Gormenghast Novels 2. Gravity’s Rainbow 3. The Macintosh Bible 4. The Oxford English Dictionary 5. The World of Pooh 6. Webster’s New World Encyclopedia 7. Finnegans Wake 8. The Internet 9. Flossing 10......

American Freedom 2005

Dave Shulman
1. Showerless: 4 days 2. Sexless: 365 days 3. Sleepless: 40 hours 4. Hopeless: 15 days 5. Aimless: 213 days 6. Beardless: 293 days 7. Pointless: 40 hours 8. Timeless: 14 hours 9. Mindless: 6 hours 10. Listless: 355 days......

Lies of the Year

Dave Shulman
1. Thanks 2. Good to see you 3. Appreciate it 4. Funny — really funny 5. No problem 6. You’re welcome 7. Likewise 8. Sounds good 9. Bless you! 10. Rumsfeld —Dave Shulman......