Christopher Moore's Blog

So, the new book will officially be out any second, or already is in some areas. My eighth book! Today I looked at them all on the shelf over there in my office, by the little altar, with the picture of me and the incense, and the sign that says, “I rule, you drool!” and I said, “How did a humble kid from the back woods of North Carolina, the son of a mill worker, who put himself through law school by shoveling coal for frail people on cold winter days – oh, wait, that’s not me?” Then I said, “Wow, I have written eight books. So I haven’t really done an honest day’s work in like fourteen years. Maybe I should get a job or something.” And as I was talking to myself, a rooster crowed outside my office.

(You see many years ago, when hurricane Iniki devastated Kauai, many chickens were released from their cages, and now, with no natural predators on the island, we have a huge population of feral chickens.)

So anyway, a rooster crowed. So I grabbed the new paint ball gun off my desk, ran outside and started blasting away, hoping to knock his middle-of-the-afternoon nuggets into the next town. I strafed the whole perimeter of the property, a line of day-glow pink spots drawing across the grass like I was perforating it so I could tear off my neighbors yard and mail it away for valuable prizes. But despite semi-automatic fire, determination, and a desperate need to be distracted from this part of the new book that I’m having trouble with, the rooster did not falter. Once out of range in the neighbors yard, he crowed once again. The bastard!

He hates my freedom. That’s what’s going on there.

I mean, I can sleep as late as I want. The book isn’t leaving without me. It will be exactly where I left it yesterday. So if I want to get up at nine, or ten, or noon, well, it just doesn’t matter. But the rooster ( I’m sure there’s one, a head rooster. A large and in charge poultry potentate, pusillanimously planning my pre-dawn perturbation.) will not let it happen.

So I have armed myself. And if the odd tool shed sports a Pollacking of pink, and if the neighbors dog heretofore known as Willy would suddenly be more appropriately named Spot, well, there is collateral damage in war. Freedom is not free, my countrymen.

And I know what it is like to run an unpopular war, believe me. Because if you think people get miffed about a rooster going off at dawn, you should hear the kind of thing they shout when you blast off a salvo of CO2-powered pellets under their bedroom window. Don’t they know that chicken carries salmonella? That’s a pathogen. Sure, the rooster might look harmless, just sort of loud and obnoxious, but have you seen what salmonella can do if it gets on your cutting board, and then on your salad? Poop out a fire hose, that’s all I’m saying.

So tomorrow, first thing, after I creep out of elephant grass in my camo-jammies, and have a cup of coffee, I’m going to throw open the fridge door and blast the shit out of the half-carton of eggs we have in there. No, they’re not roosters, but they have the materials to be roosters. Even in their little carton, all lined up like good little soldiers, I can feel them hating my freedom. And when I’m done there, I’m going over to the neighbors and having a look in their fridge.

I shall not falter, I shall not be wavier, I shall not rest until I have done every thing in my power to avoid getting on with writing this next section.

So what I’m saying is, thanks everybody for ordering the new book.

Peace. Out.