When CROSSROADS ROAD was originally published, I offered 200 free Kindle or Nook copies at a website where book lovers congregate. In exchange, the folks who accepted them were asked to post an honest review somewhere online. It could be at Amazon, their personal blog, at the website where the giveaway was organized, or any other place they wanted to write about the novel.
Unfortunately, only about 25 percent of them actually followed through. Which is fine. There’s no easy way to police it, and I have little interest in doing so. I mean, seriously.
But this scheme DID generate quite a few reviews, and I consider it to be a positive experience.
However… Whenever you make something free, you’re venturing outside your target audience. All sorts of people (readers of romance novels, and hippie-dippie self-help books, for instance) request a copy. You know, ’cause it doesn’t cost anything. And then they read it, recoil in horror, and post the requested review.
So, at the site where all this happened, there are multiple negative reviews of CROSSROADS ROAD — almost all of them fixating on the Sue character. She’s the fat woman, you might remember, who falls off a toilet in the first chapter. Some people have a BIG problem with Sue, or more precisely, my portrayal of her. And everything goes downhill from there.
Most of the reviews at the website are positive, but there are enough negative ones to make me shy away from it. It’s no fun to see the book savaged, not because the story sucked, or my writing is bad, but because I broke some rule that says people in certain categories must always be portrayed as heroes. There are no heroes in CROSSROADS ROAD. Everybody is flawed, without exception.
But, for some reason I checked the site today, after two months or more. There are about six new reviews, and five are positive. But one person was deeply offended by the Sue character (of course), AND — are you ready for this? — the fact that I didn’t exhibit proper respect to people in therapy.
I almost dropped a rectal plate. People in therapy? I barely even touched on that subject, and anyway… isn’t there a long history of psychiatrist jokes? Dating all the way back to The Three Stooges, and beyond? Man, that one floored me. I knew some people wouldn’t like Sue, even while I was writing the book. That one wasn’t too hard to predict. But therapy?? It never even crossed my mind.
In any case, I’m not complaining. I can live with people being offended, it goes with the territory. I’m not trafficking in Garrison Keillor-style gentle humor here. And I kinda get a kick out of it when I’m called sophomoric. Wow! Ya think? No, I’m not whining, I just don’t understand it.
I don’t understand how people can be offended so easily. Maybe I have a black, black heart, but almost nothing offends me. Some stuff I see on the internet is distasteful and disgusting, and people constantly say things I don’t agree with. But offended? I’m not even sure I know what that means.
I used to get irritated when people would repeat stereotypes about West Virginia, but I wouldn’t say I was offended by it. Frustrated and a little angry is a more accurate description. But even that doesn’t get me whipped-up anymore. People have a right to be idiots; it’s in the Bible or the Constitution or something. I’m too busy to try to micro-manage all the world’s dumbassery.
So, anyway… I was going to write a paragraph or two about this, and it turned into a whole update. The good news? I’ll have plenty of extra stuff to write about tomorrow.
See ya then!
Now playing in the bunker
Be offended by Crossroads Road!
No.
I just don’t have enough energy to be offended anymore. I know people who can’t go a day without something offending their sensitivities, and that has got to be exhausting. I am very live and let live. I am no optimist by any means, but I’d rather give the benefit of the doubt to people and assume that their intention was not to offend me.
2/3 of the country are now pussies. I blame it all on soccer.
Amen, Brother.
But I am offended you picked on soccer.
No shit. And the mentality that “there are no losers”. Don’t keep score? Everybody gets a trophy? Bullshit. Learn to work for your rewards or you’ll end up camping in a park with a bunch of other “everyone wins” advocates railing about how life is unfair because you’re not successful.
The soapbox is now vacant.
-Dude
My turn on the box…..
America is a free country. One of our freedoms is to lose. I don’t think people recognize that.
Box open….
I’m not gonna let some motherfucker who works part-time in a coffee shop, and spends the rest of his time “writing a screenplay” and then gets upset because there are people who make more than them, TELL ME HOW TO RUN THIS WHOLE GODDAMN THING! FUCK OFF!
Box is available again.
I like cinnamon toast.
Cinnamon toast offends me. Deeply.
.
Only fags like cinnamon toast.
Fags with huge schlongs and a taste for sushi !!!
I hear you, CADude! I was back in New York state watching my niece with this unprounceable name (I pronounce it phonitically, and me wife gets pissed!) play T-Ball. This kid on the opposing team out in left field made this most amazing play to get the batter out. I mean, it was big league material. The runner was totally out by a mile, but stayed on base. I asked my wife, “what the eff is up with that?” And she said, “Every kid gets on base, it teaches them confidence.” Huh??????
Oh, and after the game, they held and awards ceremony and each kid from BOTH teams got a “Championship” trophy. Fuck, if real life was like T-Ball I’d be living in Bill Gates mansion, driving Paul Allen’s yacht, and wearing Steve Job’s turtleneck dickie.
Steve Jobs was buried in that dickie.
“I’m too busy to try to micro-manage all the world’s dumbassery.”
Laughing my ass off at that one. I may have to start using it. Daily, in fact.
I’m never offended. I can’t remember the last time I was “offended”. And I think that most people who are “offended” are only offended because they’re supposed to be. However, I constantly offend others, it seems. Goddamn blubbering vaginas, cry me a river then drown in it.
Anyone want to take a stab at what this weird shit is supposed to be?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INN82ox9iZo&feature=related
I’m offended you would even need to ask about the great Dick Forkin. You’re a BUM!
Jeff, some of the greatest writers “offend” people. Good. Keep the bastards on their toes. Put them under a little bit of pressure. I always enjoy someone who looks at things differently. It keeps things interesting instead of so predictably boring.
Send them a clip from “Two Girls, One Cup!”
Is that a movie about the LPGA?
Yes.
Look it up, it’s free everywhere.
Yeah, the Lesbian Poop Gag Association!
I am offended when I am served lukewarm tea. In addition, I am offended by the depiction of that Sue character in Jeff Kay’s book. This book should be banned from all libraries everywhere. However, Jeff Kay is a fresh new voice in the world of fiction. Crossroads Road is a triumph. A laugh-out-loud page-turner. Jovis’s self-deprecatory outlook forced me to re-think what I believed I knew about myself and the world around me. A must-read for 2011.
Can you mine any of this text for book review blurbs?
I little bit more on topic: I generally get more irritated at defensive people than I do when someone is behaving in an offensive manner. I guess I like it when someone is stirring the pot, so to speak.
So, it’s been a pretty rough day today. I doubled up on my xanax and know I feel like I’m rolling on extacy.
In todays classic, is the circled guy Jeff?
I’m wondering about the dude with the dark hair and beard, bottom left. Why is his weiner gray?
He is clearly dead, as is that green guy up and to the right from Grey Dick.
As an underwear model I was offended by the book Crossroads Avenue. The arthur Joan K should be ashamed.
Fat people are funny. Including me.
It would take a hell of a lot to “offend” me. Pissed off maybe, but not offended. People need to fucking relax. Besides, we Surfers have thick skin…nothing offends us. We’re the ones doing the offending. So all the pansies out there can just fuck off.
I’m in a mood today..can you tell?
I am the offender.
I was going to say no, but Lee Harvey hit the nail on the head. People who are the politically correct offend me.
Fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
Shit, I think I just royally screwed myself.
My manager sent a note asking what we would like to do for our December meeting/holiday party. It stated “pot luck lunch” and I told my manager I have a ‘thing” about eating food from unknown kitchens. The thought gets me physically retching. I probably just labeled myself a whiner.
Can’t these cheap fucks just pony up and order some pizza like normal people? I don’t want a fucking crock pot of “Uncle Ernie’s 5 Alarm Mystery Chili” playing Russian roulette with my colon.
madz, I am right there with you!!!!! At my church. I NEVER, EVER stick around for the monthly potluck. If it were just “pot, for sure. But since there is an element of “luck” factored in, No Way!
I know some of these people and they are not clean. And that’s at the office. I can’t imagine what their kitchens look like. Kids with booger hooks wanting to “help.” Dogs that lick off of plates. Cat fur. FUCK NO!
Heck, madz, the first time I was invited to dinner at my future (and now former) inlaws house, the fiance’s Mom cooked a whole salmon. After it was done, she put it on the kitchen counter while the potatoes were still cooking. I walked out into the kitchen, and found their cat up on the counter eating the salmon. Grossed me out! I feigned “dieting,” and after I left went straight to McDonalds.
Other weirdest thing…with the current wife was invited to a “cookout” at their camp. Hey cookout: burgers, hot dogs, steaks if you’re lucky. Well this was steaks alright…Swiss Steak. Huh? Only in the Upper Upper Pierogi Belt, I guess! Weird stuff.
Sue was my favorite character. I guess I’m a dick.
Jeff,
So add one line to the book and make Sue a WalMart manager. ANYTHING is funny if it happens in WalMart.
Girl gets bitten by a bat. Not funny.
Girl gets bitten by a bat in WalMart. Freakin’ hysterical.
I don’t want to offend anyone, but the second picture in further evidence made me laugh. Hard.
I wonder what it’s like having sexy time from behin’ with her.
I’m usually hard to offend, but I’ve been stressed lately. I was recently very offended by a bartender. It was the way he told me my debit card was declined. Just like that “your card’s declined.” loudly! and in front of everyone around me! So I gave him a talking to about how a little “i’m sorry but…your card’s declined” in a less-than-shouting voice might not be so hard to do. I was so offended at first that I debated not paying at all. He essentially shamed me for having no money (on that card).
My credit card gets shut off almost like clockwork when my idiot bank decides that my purchasing behaviour is suspicious – so I get the shitty “your card’s been declined’ service all the time. I hate the superior, judging attitude they have when telling me this.
It’s always fun to then call the card company right there, have it immediately turned back on and then then ask these shitheads to recommend a competitor that isn’t a condescending piece of shit. Fuck these people in the ear.
No joke! I’ve just been broke and juggling low balances on a cuppa two tree cards so it’s always a crapshoot of disdain and eye rolling from 14 year old cashiers. Or jerk bartenders.
The question itself is offensive. You pre-suppose that someone’s being offended might not be genuine. Have you ever been a Mexican woman or a black man in the deep south? No. Therefore, you can’t speak to the subject of being offended. You’re a white devil!!!!
White Devil? Ohhhhhhhh…. that would explain why people get tense when I tell them my son’s name is Nigger Please.
Nigger Please eat you peas!
Nigger Please be quiet!
Nigger Please go to bed!
I’m REALLY late to this party, but goddamn, this was too funny! (Uh, I mean, I FIND THAT OFFENSIVE!)
I’m mildly offended every day by the douchenozzles of the world. I’m sure I must have taken grievous offense to something at some time, but I can’t recall.
We have several moral rights as humans and legal right as citizens (some of which are even honored, in many cases), but nobody has a right not to be offended.
.
I’m sure to offend most everyone by saying Sue was one of my favorite characters.
and “Someone order more balls, Big Sue’s on the move” gets me laughing every time.
that, and “I’m too busy to try to micro-manage all the world’s dumbassery.”
I’m offended by very little.
Noted exceptions include the WNBA, foreign penises, child dancers, gay dogs, other white people, tiny cars, and scrapple with bacon already in it.
I’ve lived in Dixieland for nigh unto 25 years, but I’m still not sure I’d recognize scrapple if it bit me on the leg. Northerner, city boy (not the band).
.
I’m on Maryland’s Eastern Shore- I guess that’s kinda south. I’ve run into a few people in Florida that didn’t know what it is, either, though.
Scrapple needs a better PR person.
It’s flat and rectangular, deep brown. It never smiles.
I bet you’d recognize a WNBA player if it bit you on the leg.
Flat, rectangular, deep brown, never smiles. Sounds like toast (regular, not cinnamon) done the way I like it. Although the toast becomes happy, with the addition of sufficient butter.
WNBA sounds like a radio station.
.
I wish the WNBA was anything other than what it is.
Well, not anything.
Cinnamon never offended me. Cinnamon Toast Crunch sucks, though, and can blow me.
DUH REPLY DUH DUHHHHHHHHH
I have no problem with cinnamon. The cinnamon toast comment was a “joke”, although I pretty much lost my taste for it after, say, puberty or thereabouts.
One of the many ways to divide people into two groups is:those who like sugar for breakfast (e.g. cinnamon toast, strawberry waffles, etc.) , and those who like fat (e.g. eggs benedict, sausages, etc.). I’m squarely in the latter camp.
My true offensive breakfast food is cinnamon raisin bagels. Bagels should be savory: plain, sesame, garlic, poppy, salt… but no blueberry. That’s of the debbil. I don’t insist on cream cheese or lox – a garlic bagel with butter is a wonderful thing.
.
Yeah, I’d picked up your comment from (way) earlier about cinnamon and kinda ran with it. But I was serious about Cinnamon Toast Crunch. It can blow me, although I admittedly have strange desires when it comes to breakfast cereals. And serials.
Cinnamon raisin bagels? They’re worthless. What kinda shit are these bastards trying to run by us?
At breakfast I constantly crave the eggs, the sausage, the bacon… the scrapple… mmm scrapple… but, then again, I’m built like Rosie O’Donell on cheap animal steroids. Still, fat is my game. For breakfast. And then for the rest of the day I eat only kale, uncooked rice, and low fat croutons dipped in vinegar and/or rail vodka.
Then I telemarket while doing Jane Fonda workouts in heavy sweats. But I’ve said too much.
Does that mean you have to kill us now?
Well, I don’t have to… it’s more about choice, and a select chosen few.
doctorright, how far away from Pax River ru? I have a sis back there. Great place…but soooo hot in Summer.
I wasn’t offended by anything in the book. My one ond only gripe was about the ending, but I kinda understand the pressure Jeff was going through. 99.9% was great, but the ending was like he just phoned it in. Believe me, I have wriiten and been published, and ending a piece is always the hardest part. I did come up with a solution: I come up with an story idea, write a great ending…then write the remainder of the story to fit the ending. But I still loved the book, and will always cherish the “Pass the beer nuts” inscription on the inside cover. Thanks Jeff…and give us another book soon!!!
I’m offended that Jeff wrote the same thing for my inscription.
And the most offensive thing to me is that here in Nome, Alaska we can’t even GET BeerNuts. Awesome storm outside right now. It’s a wonder Jim Cantore isn’t out on Front Street in his Weather Channel windbreaker! Phones are dead, but somehow we still have internet!
I’m offended that Yuengling draft may, and I repeat may be giving me explosive diarrhea. Much research needs to be done to rule out other possibilities. I may need to drink more of it to build up my immune system. We’ll see.
That sounds eerily familiar to a condition my husband experiences which we’ve loveingly dubbed “The Shiner Shits”. Explosive diarrheas occurs the following day after a night of tipping back too many Shiner Bocks.
Are you guys sure it’s not the crap typically consumed alongside the beers that’s doin it?
You mean like the pound shelled peanuts I ate while enjoying my beer? Hmmm, interesting theory.
The best thing to keep in mind is that your book made them feel “something”. So much so they felt compelled to write a review about it.
I don’t get offended, really. It’s more either A. Anger or B. Irritated and you don’t want to see me in either state. It’s not pretty. Ask the Evil Twin.
I am offended by the lack of respect people have for the military and their lack of knowledge about it. I am also offended by the lack of respect for old people. My mother is 84 years old and I took her to the doctor recently. There was a 30 something, 6’5″ security guard at the door, who wouldn’t move his lazy ass to open the door for her, while I gathered her stuff. Yes, I do get offended and angry and a little riled up about it.
Why do old people deserve respect just because they haven’t died yet?
icecycle66, perhaps it is because of the experience of years, Yeah, most are not geniuses, but somehow the years of life experience has some value to teach the youngsters.
@Jerry…I assume you just may be a Vet. Something about going through that whole deal teaches you some really great stuff. It may not always be acedemic, but as insane as it sometimes is, it fills your soul. Inter-service rivalry aside, each and every one of us would die for the other. Sure, the Army is dumb, the Air Force are wimps, the Navy sends 5000 people out on a ship and they come back with 2500 couples…and the Marines are just plain brave crazy! Oh, the Coasties are just totally, totally brave and wonderful…even though you are Homeland Security now. Thank you so much to anyone, anywhere from our country wearing a uniform and protecting us!
Well, Happy Birthday Marine Corp! (November 10 – not sure which year).
1775, 236 years old. Semper Fi!
I rarely get offended by much of anything and I can’t stand the way all these “politically correct” whiners are turning society into a bunch of sissies. Suck it up, get yourself some self-esteem and shut the hell up.
If the chronically offended would exert as much energy into doing something productive as they do whining about who “wronged” them, we’d be much better off as a society.
If you had made Sue a southern republican, those people wouldn’t have said a word.
Sorry, guys. I’ve been summoned to work early again, and wasn’t able to finish the update. I’ll post it at 2:30 in the morning, when I get home. See ya then.
Heh…that’s 10:30 PM Alaska time. Hey suckers, it’s my chance to be “First.” LOL!
For Jeff….
http://money.cnn.com/video/smallbusiness/2011/11/08/smb_hwgs_yuengling_brewery.cnnmoney/?iid=HP_River
Fuck’em. So they have an opinion. Humor is all about twisting the infinitive and misfortune. I think you got a real-time example of why humor doesn’t sell as well as some other genres, though…the humorless honestly do outnumber the rest of us. Why do you think Carrot Top still has a career?
…nowadays a twisted infinitive can be cured by surgery.
This is the best example of offense I’ve ever seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCIaS36_T5A
I’m offended by some of the comments here Wait… Did I say offended? I meant thoroughly entertained.
As if Jeff isn’t funny enough..then there are the comments. It’s all so good.
The only thing funnier than Sue falling off the toilet, would have been Sue in a Porta-Potty that was tipped over and rolled down a hill.
Wotta fat bitch..
Yeah! It’s not like Jeff rolled her down a hill in a sloshing port-o-potty
So they said “Wow, that book was offensive.” At least they said WOW.
Taylor Swift offends me. I just change the channel.
I never get offended, I just get even!
Just kidding. Meh, I have sort of a short fuse, get pissed, then 5 minutes later am over it. My wife, on the other hand, tends to let things stew, and 25 years later STILL brings stuff up from long ago. Hey, it’s only cheating after you’re married. If it’s still boyfriend/girlfriend stuff, it’s fair game. Heck, I cheated on my ex-wife one week after we were married after she went on a weekend camping trip with an ex-boyfriend. Oh, and the next weekend, I had planned for her and her 1 year old son to go across the state with me to my National Guard annual picnic. She was evasive, but finally admitted a “prior commitment.” Said “prior commitment” being serving a weekend in jail for a DUI that she hadn’t told me about. What really sucked was that in the female jail, they wore orange coveralls, and not Frederick’s of Hollywood prison uniforms like they do in all the girl prison movies, lol! Whatta ripoff!
Happy Marine Corps birthday, jarheads!
I’m probably more often the offender than the offendee. I try to limit my mentions of bong water and cock rings but hey…everyday conversation can be boring.
I’m offended that I woke up at 2:30 AM and there wasn’t an update from Jeff.
I know, I set my alarm so I could be first. After hitting refresh for an hour I went back to bed but couldn’t sleep because I just knew any moment he would update and one of the west coasters would get any easy first. Just shameful Mr. Kay.
Feel free to add a comma or period in that sentence above, seems a bit run on.
Not only do I not get “genuinely” offended, I don’t really understand people who do. I give them a quizzical look that I’m sure they think I’m faking and just offends them even more, but what do I care?
” I’m too busy to try to micro-manage all the world’s dumbassery.”
hahha….classic.