Hi - thanks for submitting - I like the basic readability of the thing and the flow and all but I didn't like the gay stereotype stuff especially since it didn't turn out that his brother was gay or that he in fact was gay or something and then the bit with the affair and the promise to off the lover felt sort of superthin and unrealistic and fictional - in the fake sense - but mainly it all seemed a little underdone as far as a "story" goes - I really liked the detail about the boysenberry martini  with a hint of lemon or whatever but disliked the fact that the waiter "swishes" - that's a cliche, lazy writing, as opposed to the martini detail - Also, please realize that this is just the opinion of one dude in Brooklyn drinking coffee and reading the submissions that came in last night when he was at the William T. Vollmann slideshow lecture thing for his 3000 page, 23-year-old effort about the history of violence, a book or an artifact really, that sort of makes me want the site to do a little more than just bat about sexual-preference stereotypes etc. Last night, Vollmann suggested that one solution to our country's current international problems would be to elect someone else president and then scapegoat the shit out of Bush so the world hates him instead of the U.S.  - that's a very good idea. And somehow that maybe can also apply to this rejection note, which is long and quickly returned and absolutely not at all a form letter and is intended as both critique and embrace. And so please don't hate me for typing more in this note than you did in your story! Oh yeah, and send something else if you'd like, homo.

Eyeshot's Flamboyant Testicle

Thank you, but no thanks, Mr. Garcia. I wish you well this season with the 49ers. My friends still mourn the death of your father. 

Sorry for the slight delay there -  was busy, had to organize and listen to and look up the value of some of the 700 or so 45 RPM records I just bought at a NJ thriftstore for $10. Eyeshot might have a rare record store component sometime soon! I literally have, excuse the pun, stacks of stax records, some worth more than $10 themselves. So I’ve been doing that, procrastinating from freelance work and the “non-profitable” writing I usually do to procrastinate as well – and thankfully this delay has allowed for you to send a revision, which I just read. Here’s what I think: The title reminds me of that famous Barthleme story, “Some of Us Have Been Threatening Our Friend Colby” – being reminded of that is a good thing. But then I think in general, I’d prefer for this one to be a ton more absurd, with the same basic structure, but instead of “manic depression, schizophrenia, etc” you would use that list to throw in a few semi-imaginative jokes – same with the way he died – pills? – it could have been anything, right? That’s the point, I think – nearly every detail could be anything – what you include seems believable but sort of randomly selected, so if the goal of this thing is to amuse people – it’s not really attempting to “enlighten” or anything, right? It’s not really an informative allegory about how treating weird kids weirdly causes them to off themselves down the road – So, assuming you’re trying to entertain, make people laugh etc, I think the easiest way to achieve that goal is through surreal juxtaposition, the creation of expectation and then bursting it – but this sort of creates and then extends the expectation, setting things up but not knocking them down, yeah? Not that I think what you sent sucks or anything – I thought it read well and was “amusing,” if not laugh out loud funny – when people submit funny things I tend to only post them if I laugh out loud at least once, a reasonable barometer for judging submissions, since there’s no decision really – either you hear yourself laugh or not, and chances are if I laughed at least one other person might laugh too, esp. since I tend not to laugh at things that are intended to be funny because I’m on guard against what the writer wants me to do . . . And so I think I’d suggest that maybe you play with it and resubmit it or send it elsewhere and hope whoever reads it is a little easier amused. Anyway – thanks again for submitting – sorry I’m not going to accept this one as it is right now – but I’m sure I’ll accept something else later. 

Hi - This is great. But I'm not going to accept it. Actually, I lied. It's not great. Jennifer Aniston is married to Brad Pitt. I mean, really. Even I know that. And I didn't laugh once. There's some funny potential somewhere in there but I don't think you really found it. Maybe if the descriptions had less to do with anything at all related to smoking it'd all be funnier. Or maybe if I were quicker to laugh, more an idiot, on more pills. However . . .

Hi - thanks for submitting. I like this, but I'm not going to post it. It's really nicely subtle, but maybe a little too much so for Eyeshot. Not that subtlety is bad or that nothing on Eyeshot is subtle. Just that it seems subtle in a way that makes me think that I have to read it a few times again to really get it. But I didn't really feel the text was loaded so much or I didn't quite feel so engaged with it when I read it the first time. And that sort of readerly engagement is really important for the Web, I think. Otherwise, people take advantage of the Internet's ADD-inducing effect and zone up and flip elsewhere. But I do think it will quite possibly find a home at some other site where the editors are more patient and imagine the site's readers are patient too. What can I say but thank you and sorry!

Hi - thanks for sending something else. I guess I had some trouble with this since I didn't really believe it - like when men or women write in the opposite sex's first-person voice, as a reader it's difficult not to have it too closely in mind that you're reading a story, and so the suspension-of-disbelief difficulty is raised, and then also as a writer you have to start proving to the reader that the narrator is really a man by showing something only men would know - you have to flash the secret code. Or something. So here's a sexual predator, a date raper etc, and it didn't really feel like a particular character as much as a stereotype, a composite nasty guy, but I couldn't really get into it enough to like read it on some other level, like I couldn't read it closely enough to know whether or not you were playing with all this, and I honestly didn't make it to the end . . . So that's not the critique you want to hear, or the reaction, but so what?!? I'm sure you'll keep kicking it since you obviously have the talent (I liked the language in the last one better - more playful) - so thanks again for sending this and I apologize - please realize my comments only apply to bits of text I read around 10:24 on Thursday night EST, nearly finished with a pint of wine - that the comments above have nothing to do with you or your family or the state of California - so send me something else maybe?

Hi - thanks for sending this - I really liked the idea of coming back and choosing to be a giant mushroom. Very good idea that sort of filled me with expectation for what you'd come up with. But then there were sheep. Ok. And anthrax. Ok. So I guess I would have liked to have heard more or something else about being a giant mushroom, perhaps the history of previous tenants or your plans for the place or maybe how you were sending out spores in certain directions at certain times to influence certain happenings etc. Like it'd be cool if after reading about the giant mushroom I walked outside and figured there's maybe a giant mushroom under the streets of Brooklyn right now and that's why the traffic light changed at a time when no car would have killed me. Or something. So I'm basically saying it's a cool idea but you should think about it and work on it and revise it and work on it some more. Cool? Cool.

Hola - oh shit you're from New Zealand! How effin' cool!?! So I like what you sent. Think it's a fine parody of academic writing, but it was a little too difficult for me to get through - sorry. But send something else. It would be my pleasure to post something by someone in New Zealand.

Eyeshot's Eyeless Monocle

Hey Jersey boy - I'm from New Jersey too - I liked how this started but it didn't really seem like anything more, it just sort of petered out and died - NJ has a tradition of amazing highways and writers - it is your job to work with the industry of those who laid down the Turnpike and Parkway, and mix the pavement with the creativity of Auster, William Carlos Williams, Whitman, Ginsberg, even Jonathan Ames! But thanks again for submitting and please send something else whenever. 

Eyeshot's Route 206er

Hey - thanks for sending something again - I found this really hard to get into and can't really admit to having read it all the way through - so if it ends in green glass soldiers, it's my loss - but I think the beginning could use a little more narrative drive or something - a hook - an easier entry - I was all set to read and achieve, but now I'm like a sleepy stephen. Sorry. But thanks again and maybe try something else someday soon.

Hi - please don't refer to your fiction as "flash" - why do that? Who made up that modifier? why adopt it? anyway - I don't think this submission is right for Eyeshot. There were no alligators in it. Maybe if you exchanged the hail for alligators and the CEO for a  baseball bat, we'd have something, but as it is, with neither alligator nor baseball bat, we can not offer acceptance. Sorry. But thanks for submitting and good luck with this elsewhere!

Eyeshot's Aluminum Crocodile

Hi - thanks for sending something again - I think this is a pretty good traditional-type narrative that would probably have a very good chance at most traditional-type websites and probably a few print journals too. But it's not right for Eyeshot because there are no radioactive cows in it. Nor one mention of a single bison made of recycled paper products and very, very dangerous plastic. Sorry. But thanks for sending again - I'm sure you'll have better luck elsewhere.

Please realize that Eyeshot is an online thing, available on a medium wherein people's attention spans are widely known to be limited, hence, where something like Will Ratblood's ball-touching spiel goes over very well - it's partly about the simplicity, the length, the humor - what you've sent twice, while humorous, didn't necessarily make me laugh out loud either time and just seems a little too long and sort of a convoluted way to point out southern media-related racial stereotypes. I think you nailed Mr. Morehouse's voice, but I'd have liked to have seen a lot less of this - it's not something that I think really needs to go on and on, since the joke of it, or whatever its "special value" is, doesn't really seem to evolve in a totally surprising/interesting/unexpected way, but I honestly can't say I read every word of this with anything approaching extreme concentration. But I thank you for submitting (AGAIN) and hope you send SOMETHING ELSE sometime soon, maybe something a little shorter?

Learn to spell FELLATIO! I'm not going to post this because it's not funny at all. But thanks for sending it.

Hey there Friendster! Thanks for submitting something - I really liked the one about throwing balls through the halos. I suggest you take that idea and write a story about someone who can actually see the halos and throws things through them etc. It'd be great. What you sent is pretty good, but I don't think I'm going to post it on Eyeshot. I had a little trouble getting into some of the earlier bits and although I liked the tone and general instinct, there was something about these that just seemed not quite right for the site. That doesn't mean they suck or anything - I'm sure one of these sites will respond more favorably, if considerably slower:
http://eyeshot.net/kindred.html

Hey - I read this two days ago and was very undecided - there was a lot that I liked about it, though I thought it was a little long for Eyeshot - I didn't mind the jerking off and I liked the girl and all - but I couldn't decide on it - usually I know right away, so not knowing either way was odd - it's only happened once before - the other time I chose to accept it  - so this time, I think I'll let you know as honestly as I can that I really had no idea what to do and flipped a motherf'n coin. It came up on the wrong side and so I'm not going to post this - it's not really as arbitrary as it seems, since if the submission made me want to accept it more I would simply have accepted it without resorting to coins - I wanted you to have a chance, but alas, the coin has spoken - send something else soon though - as I said, I liked what you sent, if not exactly enough . . .

Eyeshot's Indecisive Incision

Yo I.C.! So I like the story, although I don't think it's really a story - it seems more like the beginning of a really great story, but as it is, it seems a little too much like not enough - I liked it, but I'm thinking about it in terms of the site, and I think it might have started a little too slowly for the web, inducing maybe too many thoughts in my head about "Reality Bites." I liked the dialogue, the car bit, the italicized teal, but then it ended - I generally reject things and say they're too long, but this one I think could develop into something more - it seems a good start for something better than just what it is right now . . . Anyway - thanks again and sorry for not posting this - maybe try something else?

Eyeshot's Eater of The Sanctuary's Pizza & Panchero's Burritos

Hi - So . . . Raskov. As in Crime and Punishment. Um, ok. I'd be interested in this if it were more than an imitation - if you took Raskolnikov's personality (whose name means "split") and did some things and told some stories and made them entertaining and funny and odd in a way that undermined the idea of Raskolnikov . . . But all you really do is present a stripped-down letter and the reaction, with an eye-rolling conclusion about children being our future. The main thing I'd think about would be something like "who do you think would be reading this?" and "what would they like to read?" and "how does one go about making people happy"? I'm sorry if this message won't make you happy but you might want to think about what it is that people want to read and why and when you have an idea to write something like what you've written (a good idea), you might think a little bit about how you can work from that idea rather than just fulfilling it, how you can launch off of it and entertain people and surprise yourself etc instead of just sort of filling the slot. Anyway - thanks for submitting again and sorry if that makes three rejections - This ain't baseball!

Hi - We don't post stories that are either set in Hawaii, include psychedelics, or kill dogs. It's really that simple. Well, actually, there's more to it. The way it started with the botany class etc, I thought it'd lead to something more funny, but I think I got distracted in the middle part - there's like this dog and this mushroom and the dog's consumption of the mushroom is sort of inevitable. Okay. But. I don't know. The dog should have maybe shat mushrooms after he ate it, and that's how the guy got his botany job, because his dog shat super-psychedelic mushrooms and the hippie adminstrators at Evergreen gave him the "job" in exchange for his dog's trippy shit . . . But instead, you killed the dog, which is something you should never do unless absolutely necessary!!! Sorry - but thanks again for submitting. And I hope you're able to send this one out elsewhere tonight. 

Eyeshot's Canine of Cannabis

Thanks for sending this! It starts out well and is very smooth and nicely written, but I think it's better off for print than the web. Or if you're a huge e-lit enthusiast and all, then it's probably better off on a site that's a little more traditional than Eyeshot. I might have missed them, but I don't think there were any talking animals in this one, nor were there clouds that ejaculate bluebirds and redbirds and hummingbirds, no highways suddenly deciding to take to the skies, no allusions to bad TV or good literature, no unpronounceable words, not nearly enough three-letter words, and not nearly enough words that stand for colors that look like sounds that sound like smells etc. By which I mean I think this story is good and would be happier if its final resting place were a little saner than one of the slots reserved for silliness over at the ole Eyeshot. But thanks again for submitting and please send something else whenever.

Eyeshot's Pre-Conception Fatality

Hi - I really like how this started out and I liked the pace and dialogue of it and was cool with the racial thing and all. But then the story just sort of dissolved - like you set up something, but then it sort of disappeared. I'd suggest you work on this a while and maybe see why you wanted to write and see how those characters you set up and the great tension of the dad's moving of the backyard would play out over time. Anyway, again, I really like the way it started, but then it seemed like you were thinking more about restricting word count than expanding the story. Cool? Cool. 

Hello Melbourne! I really like your name and I really like your tone and the instinct of what you sent, but I think I'd maybe have liked it more if it were maybe a little more unified or didn't sort of state an idea and then sort of trail off a little. So. Thanks for submitting and please send again whenever. We're all about representing Australia!

Eyeshot's Simpson's Booting

Thanks again for sending something. It's snowing in NYC and citrus is what it's all about when it's snowing - for some reason, perhaps because the thing on the site right now is sort of over-the-top sexy, three people have recently submitted sexy food submissions! Very strange! And I like this one more than the other two, but I'm not going to accept it, since I guess I'd like for the food-sex cliché thing to set something else up - y'now all those movies like "Like Water for Chocolate" and "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover," wherein the gourmand and the voluptuary (that's a Homer Simpson reference) get all intertwined, opens a can of expectation for the reader, and obvious expectations can always be played with, right? So I'd like to thank you again and say that I liked the instinct and intention of what you sent, but I'd have liked it more if it used its momentum to undercut the reader's expectation or something, to make the reader laugh or smile a little more as the piece went off somewhere no one would easily anticipate.

Hey Dayton! Thanks for calling us kick ass, but we rarely accept poetry by native speakers. Sorry.

Eyeshot's Oberlin Ohio