FWIW – a literary site

Introducing the Inventive, Offbeat,

Dark, Perverse Humor of Robert Criss

 

 

 

 

I met Robert Criss, at the MET, like a little biatch heh heh heh ho ho ho heh heh heh yah yah yah I met Robert Criss, at the MET, like a little biatch heh heh heh ho ho ho heh heh heh yah yah yah I met Robert Criss, at the MET, like a little biatch heh heh heh ho ho ho heh heh heh yah yah yah I met Robert Criss, at the MET, like a little biatch heh heh heh ho ho ho heh heh heh yah yah yah… A fitting introduction for Robert’s style of humor.   Segueing into seriousness, Robert Criss is a young-ish humor writer currently living in Atlanta. I first came across his writing randomly during my own early foray into publishing short humor.   I believe the first piece was “Signs That the Person You’re Talking to Might Be from New York.” A relatively conventional conceit (for Robert), tho delivered in a fractionally more unusual, literary style than most such pieces, employing, however instinctively, modernist methods of repetition, anaphora, and symbolic agglomeration, as well as deep and twisty irony, elevating it above the common fare. Plus, my having lived in NYC / Brooklyn for some 8 years, it was pretty on point! Rendering it all the funnier. Later I came across a few of his more typically offbeat, dark, perverse or boundary-pushing pieces, was further impressed, and felt inspired to do a deeper dive… Messaged to offer my compliments, and we struck up a sporadic correspondence.    Over the past decade to half-decade–due to the consumerist mercenary algorithm-based New Media / Social Media ‘attention economy,’ shortened attention spans, cultural degradation, high printing costs, and other factors–viable humor writing venues keep closing. The coterie of ‘top’ ones increasingly run topical-ish, formulaic, cookie-cutter humor, of ever shorter and shorter length. Robert’s writing, emerging during this period, is at once informed by this landscape of the fungible and single-premised, but has also managed to subvert it and turn it on its head towards original ends. A marker of vision or creativity transcending the time-and-place.   Robert’s humor tends to be on a higher level conceptually than much of the stuff appearing now. It tends to employ irony, sarcasm, and other subtle comedic devices more deftly, meta-reflexively. Tends to be darker, more offbeat, slapstick, irreverent, black, bawdy, and risk-taking–hearkening back to freer and amply funnier times and styles, when comedians weren’t afraid to push boundaries of decency and propriety, but clearly also contemporary. Conspicuous silence in Comments Sections probably means he’s bravely (and foolhardily) pushing the edge… and silently succeeding! Some contemporary parallels might be Tim Robinson, Nathan Fielder, or John Wilson. (Or John Waters!)    One curious thing about Robert’s writing is that it typically (though not always) lacks most punctuation, save periods, sparse commas, and occasionally has almost none at all. One wonders to what extent this is intentional, what a product of growing up as a ‘Gen Z’ or late ‘Millennial’ in a period when social media, texts, messaging apps, and other cursory forms of communication, stripped of punctuation and emoji-laden, skyrocketed. At any rate, so far he’s made the style work for him and exploited it.  It’s also conversational and colloquial. And often reads like a sketch or play fragment that might work even better performed aloud. At turns stylistically it can come off, if such a thing were possible, as a sort of Cormac McCarthy or Gertrude Stein humor parallel. As Robert has been prolific in the past three or four years, it’s difficult to select representative and choice pieces from the hundred some he’s published. (And, of course, I haven’t had the chance to read more than a fraction.) Thus, I asked him about his personal favorites, and am including two, which I agree are among his best, as well as a short I like. Also, early examples of his ‘Optical Disillusions’ (explained below). And a few crudely drawn cartoons I especially like. (Like many humor writers, he’s also prone to occasionally combining illustration or cartooning.) I’ll take a great idea coupled with illustrative crudeness over commonality and slickness any day; indeed, in some cases visual awkwardness even enhances. Where are the wonderful crudely drawn cartoons of yesteryear? A short list of pieces for Further Reading appears at the bottom, including the New York piece, and some of his more unorthodox and risqué offerings.  Robert may not be a ‘master’ of the written humor form just yet–are there any contemporary masters?? can there be when publications won’t publish a humor piece longer than 800 words now?!–but (not to jinx anything) he seems to be on his way. Currently, a complete book of his Optical Disillusions is forthcoming from Weekly Humorist Press. As I understand, over the past year he’s been watching a ton of avant-garde and classic cinema, reading a lot of theater and classic literature, and refining his use of punctuation and grammar a bit. More recently, he’s taken a hiatus from short humor writing to study theater more and try to write a play. Who knows, maybe we have a neo Harold Pinter or August Strindberg (or, you know, Robert Criss) in the making. Looking forward to the efflorescence of whatever he comes to concoct. (If it be the Spirit’s will.)   –Ed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir, I Am Not Pleasuring Myself to the Pin-up Girls

Painted on the Side of the Warplanes, Sir

 

 

LIEUTENANT: WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE ON THE AIRFIELD AT THIS TIME OF NIGHT, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, I WAS ON PATROL DUTY AND STOPPED MOMENTARILY TO ADMIRE THE WARPLANES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: WHY ARE YOU ADMIRING THE WARPLANES FROM THE SIDE WHERE THEY PAINTED THE PIN-UP GIRLS, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, I BELIEVE THIS SIDE ALONG WITH ALL THE OTHER PARTS OF THE WARPLANE ARE WORTHY OF EQUAL ADMIRATION WHEN THEY WORK TOGETHER TO CREATE THE MIRACLE OF FLIGHT, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: DON’T YOU KNOW THE ENGINE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE AIRCRAFT, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, THE ENGINE IS VERY IMPORTANT BUT WHAT IS AN ENGINE WITHOUT WINGS AND WHAT ARE WINGS WITHOUT A FUSELAGE LIKE THE ONE I’VE STOPPED HERE TO RUN MY FINGERS ACROSS, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: THAT SOUNDS LIKE PERFECTLY COMMONPLACE BEHAVIOR TO ME, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, YES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: YOU JUST ANSWER ME ONE QUESTION, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, YES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: WHY DO YOU HAVE YOUR PANTS DOWN TO YOUR ANKLES, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, I FELT A BEE CRAWLING UP MY LEG AND REMOVED MY PANTS ALLOWING IT TO ESCAPE BEFORE IT COULD STING ME, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: ARE YOU TELLING ME YOU’RE AFRAID OF A BEE STING, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, IT WASN’T SO MUCH THAT I WAS AFRAID OF IT STINGING ME, I WAS TRYING TO AVOID THE STINGING BECAUSE IT WOULD CLAIM THE LIFE OF THE BEE AND I AM A LOVER OF ALL INSECTS PLANTS AND ANIMALS, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: IN THAT CASE, I UNDERSTAND YOUR DESIRE TO PROTECT THIS PLANET, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, YES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: AND CONTINUE AT ALL COSTS TO NURTURE THE PLANT AND ANIMAL LIFE AROUND YOU FOR EARTH IS OUR ONLY HOME AND MOTHER NATURE ITS GREATEST GIFT, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, I WILL, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: BUT BEFORE YOU DO THAT, EXPLAIN TO ME WHY I RECEIVED REPORTS OF LOUD MOANING COMING FROM THIS AREA, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, I GOT CARRIED AWAY BY THE P-51 MUSTANG’S ROLLS ROYCE PACKARD BUILT V-1650-7 MERLIN 12-CYLINDER ENGINE WITH ITS 1490 HORSEPOWER, A MAXIMUM SPEED OF 500 MILES PER HOUR, AND SIX .50 CALIBER MACHINE GUNS—TWO WITH 270 ROUNDS PER GUN, FOUR WITH 400 ROUNDS PER GUN—ALONG WITH ITS 37-FOOT WINGSPAN, 13-FOOT HEIGHT, AND 32-FOOT LENGTH THAT MAKE UP 12,300 POUNDS OF PURE AMERICAN MUSCLE, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: WELL THAT SOUNDS TOTALLY WITHIN THE CONFINES OF SOCIALLY ACCEPTED ACTIVITY, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, YES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: AND I’D LIKE TO COMMEND YOU FOR YOUR METICULOUS RESEARCH AND DEEP APPRECIATION OF THE AIRCRAFT, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, THANK YOU, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: AND I’LL LET YOU CONTINUE YOUR PATROL IF YOU TELL ME WHY YOU ARE HOLDING THAT BOTTLE OF LOTION AND TOWEL, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, I WAS USING THIS TOWEL TO WIPE OFF THE FINGERPRINTS I’D MADE ON THE AIRCRAFT THAT MIGHT LEAVE UNFLATTERING SMUDGES VISIBLE IN DIRECT SUNLIGHT DURING MORNING INSPECTION TOMORROW, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: AND THE LOTION, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, THE LOTION IS HERE TO RESTORE MY FINGER OIL AFTER MUCH OF IT IS TRANSFERRED ONTO THE MACHINERY IN THE ACT OF CARESSING THE AIRPLANES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: PRIVATE, YOU’RE TELLING ME WHILE YOU WERE ADMIRING OUR ARSENAL YOU BROUGHT ALONG A TOWEL TO PRESERVE THE AESTHETIC INTEGRITY OF THE PLANE AND A LOTION BOTTLE TO MAINTAIN A BALANCED AMOUNT OF OIL ON YOUR FINGER AND WHILE MOANING LOUDLY FROM THE PURE ECSTASY THIS ACTIVITY GAVE YOU, YOU NOTICED A BEE CRAWLING IN YOUR PANTS SO YOU REMOVED THEM AND THIS ALL OCCURRED SPECIFICALLY IN THE AREA CONTAINING THE ONLY AROUSING DEPICTIONS OF FEMALE SPECIMENS ON THIS ENTIRE AIR-BASE FULL OF MEN AND ONLY MEN, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, YES, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: ARE YOU LYING TO ME, PRIVATE?

PRIVATE: SIR, NO, SIR.

LIEUTENANT: WELL THEN, PRIVATE, TO REWARD YOU FOR YOUR UNFLINCHING HONESTY AND OUTSTANDING ATTENTION TO DETAIL, I NEED YOU TO DROP YOUR PANTS AND USE THAT LOTION TO PLEASURE YOURSELF TO THE PIN-UP GIRL ON THE SIDE OF THIS PLANE FROM NOW UNTIL ZERO FOUR HUNDRED HOURS SO LONG AS YOU CLEAN UP AFTERWARD WITH THAT TOWEL AND KEEP YOUR MOANING TO A MINIMUM, PRIVATE.

PRIVATE: SIR, ARE YOU SURE, SIR?

LIEUTENANT: THAT’S AN ORDER, PRIVATE!

PRIVATE: SIR, YES, SIR.

 

 

 

 

 

The Doctor Says I Need More Cheese In My Diet

And That You Can Take It Up With Him If You Disagree

Or Think I’m Lying Because I’m Not

 

 

Welp, I just had my annual checkup at the doctors and it went well. Yep, tests came back good. Tested high on the high ones, low on the low ones you know. Doctor did recommend I add more cheese to my diet though.

 

Yeah, he said more cheese because he knows that I like cheese and he said it’s okay to have cheese for every meal. He says the way I feel while eating cheese is good for me because I’m happier. He knows how important cheese is to me and stands by the benefits of cheese consumption.

 

You think I’m lying? Well, he actually thought you might say that and he told me to tell you that you can take it up with him if that’s the case. He doesn’t like when people don’t trust his prognoses. Takes that kind’ve thing really seriously. So you can take that up with him.

 

Anyways he also said I should cut out all the exercise I’ve been doing as well. Said I’d be better off eating chicken wings every night from my favorite wing spot. I asked him what flavor and he said what’s your favorite flavor and I said buffalo and he said buffalo it is. I was as shocked as you are but you know he has a degree.

 

The man studied for 8 years. What am I going to do? Not listen to him? Out of the question. I mean I could get a second opinion. He said it’s not necessary though. So technically that’s a second opinion right there. Just from the same guy who I trust completely.

 

He told me if I started competing in eating competitions on the weekends that would also be really cool. I asked if it had any health benefits like the no exercise, cheese, and chicken wings diet and he shook his head. He said, “I just think it would be really cool if you did. You might even get on my wall of fame, who knows.” It’s this bulletin board near the reception desk where only pictures of his favorite patients are featured for all to see. I’ll admit, I want my picture on there badly.

 

Here, this is his home phone number that you can call to verify. Don’t call now he’s still at the office but go ahead and leave a message if you’re so sure he’s wrong. He invites criticism. But he’s a busy man. Might take a few days to get back to you is all I’m saying.

 

Like I said, the tests came back good as far as I know. I mean at least he said they did he didn’t go into specifics. Kind’ve brushed over them. His main goal was teaching me how to swallow the most ice cream while under a time constraint without getting a brain freeze. The trick is to keep a warm rag underneath your hat.

 

Trust me I know how it sounds. When I told him I wasn’t so sure about his methods he told me to strip down to my underwear. He then proceeded to feel around in my underwear and said, “Yup, they’re still there. Just checking.” Then he parted his coat to show off his souvenir t-shirt underneath he earned from eating six pounds of ice cream in under three hours. You can’t make this stuff up!

 

Ask yourself, what would I gain from lying? I’d be able to eat all the foods that I want at any time? That doesn’t sound fun to me at all. From what I’ve heard previous to my appointment, that’s putting my life at risk.. But, hey, someone’s gotta do it.

 

Though I had to ask him about my heart health. Coronary artery disease runs in my family. It killed my father. That’s when he got very serious. He told me the best thing a man my age can do for his heart is extreme sports. He said stuff like paragliding and whitewater rafting is going to keep me alive longer. He said testing the heart and putting the most strain on it as humanly possible will no doubt make it stronger over time.

 

I didn’t understand that part. How was I going to be fit enough for extreme sports by not exercising and eating only my favorite foods?

 

He explained that the heart is a muscle like a bicep or deltoid and the only way those get stronger is if you tear up the old muscle tissue by lifting weights and eating protein to create new muscle. So I can neglect the other muscles in my body as long as I treat my heart the way a latissimus dorsi is treated by twelve sets on a cable machine. By putting myself in heart attack scenarios, my heart is given the greatest workout of all.

 

I said, “Really?” And he said, “Yeah something like that.”

 

I tried stumping him by asking if the “apple a day keeps the doctor away” thing was true. Surprisingly, he said it works but most people get it wrong by eating gala or fuji apples. Surprisingly, he said people should be eating caramel apples every day, dentists are making people “soft,” and that basically everything I thought I knew about nutrition was not only wrong but also cringeworthy. In fact, every time I said the words nutrition or health he would visibly shudder and put a finger to his lips.

 

“The only ‘meal prepping’ you should be doing,” he said, “is with pancakes.”

 

So, yes, that’s why I brought home a week’s worth of wings, fondue, and ice cream. Doctor’s orders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Results of the survey I conducted

asking people if they like my new hat

 

Mother: Do I like your new hat? I LOVE your new hat. You’ve really bounced back from the incident with the paper shredder and your genitals.

Father: Pal, I think you look just wonderful in your new hat. I’m really proud of you and the way you’ve composed yourself in the wake of the paper shredder thing.

My friend, Tom: I like your hat so much I’m actually a little jealous I didn’t find it first. And I heard about the accident at your workplace. That’s terrible. My family is praying for you.

My co-worker, Lisa: Your new hat is killer! Also, the custodian said your office is clean enough to return to work now.

Custodian: After many days of scrubbing and powerwashing, we were able to clean up the walls, floor, desk, and ceiling. The rugs did not make it. I haven’t seen your new hat.

My doctor: Your new hat looks great, I could never pull it off. It is super cool. Just don’t go too crazy while you’re wearing it. You’ll rip your stitches.

Insurance adjuster who called me: Your coworker told us that you went to sit on the paper shredder but your pants ripped exposing your genitals right before you sat down. We’re following up with you to determine if that story is accurate. I’d love to talk about your new hat, as I’m sure it’s nice, but it’ll have to wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Optical Disillusions

 

 

Several years ago Robert began experimenting with the idea of ‘Optical Disillusions’: optical illusions with a twist, which humorously and sarcastically disillusion the viewer. Eventually he created a full-length book, accepted by Weekly Humorist Press and forthcoming. At this point it seems there are few novel humor concepts left ‘untapped,’ and Robert instinctively honed in on one. Optical illusions + black humor = Disillusion. An original sphere that hasn’t been comically explored much. Below are some of the earlier Disillusions (not appearing in the book) he’s at liberty to share.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Further Reading

 

 

Signs That the Person You’re Talking to Might Be from New York

 

Alvin And The Chipmunks’ Christmas Song The Year After Alvin Died

 

Farm to Table. Table to Fork. Fork to Mouth. Food to Throat. Air to Throat. Hands to Chest. Hands to Chest. Hands to Chest.

 

Oh No, I Just Realized I’ll Never Be Able To See The Elephant’s Foot At Chernobyl!

 

I Was Really Moved By Your Beautiful Trombone Solo Until You Pressed A Button And Made The Instrument Ejaculate A Liter Of Spit

 

I Think The Red Line Crossing Out The Swastika On Your Shirt Could Be A Tad Thicker

 

I Hope I Didn’t Embarrass You By Shitting My Pants While We Sat Courtside At The Laker Game

 

The Lost Final Chapter of Helen Keller’s Biography

 

What’s the Best Part About Your Entire Family Dying From COVID?

 

Why Do I Even Bother? It’s All Been Said Before In My Novel Series Detective Kojak Pikachu-Holmes And The Ambiguous Origin of Chinese Checkers That’s Been Overlooked For Far Too Long

 

Full List of Humor Writings & Visuals on His Website

 

 

 

 

 

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—About the author, Robert Criss