Spoken into the Ether

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My origin story! Seriously. This 8-bit computer shaped so much of my life. Jack Tramiel was the man who brought the Commodore 64 to the masses, and his story is phenomenal. An excellent piece on him can be found on Every.

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Lucky 13! Baker’s dozen. Here we are, at the end of the road. It’s entirely possible I may drop a future short story on this feed, but as far as my old stories go, this is it. So I hope you enjoy it — at least as much as I have enjoyed sharing them with you, aurally.

This story originally appeared in THE2NDHAND, which used to be printed on a broadsheet (11”x17”). A sample issue looked like this:

Very zine-y. I went going back and forth with the editor, Todd Dills, regarding this story, submitting it then pulling it then resubmitting it…and through it all, he was gracious and kind. The problem was that this story is basically an homage of a novel, After Life (read it!), and I was afraid the author of the novel would not be cool with me doing this, but like editor Todd, author Rhian was also super kind. Kindness rules!

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So here we are — the end of the road. On June 17, 2025, I set out to record a dozen of my short stories for this podcast, and we have arrived at number twelve. As I mention in the intro of this episode, you can watch the adaptation of this short story on IMDB:

Fork in Chopsticks

Not sure how the filmmaker arrived at that title, but I remember holding no objections. I was just amazed that the short film was made at all. Still amazed! On my old personal website, the page for the movie looked like this:

The editor of the story on East of the Web created a great logline for it:

Kung fu dubbee and would-be actress, Ally gets one last chance.

As far as audio recommendations go for this round, I have become a huge fan of the Acquired podcast:

These are very longform — seems like four hours is their norm nowadays. And often even longer; I just finished listening to the trio of episodes on Google, so that’s twelve hours. And they blew right by.

All right — one last thing.

I lied! This will not be the final episode of Spoken into the Ether, as there will be another next month.

So you’re not done with me yet. Until next time!

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Back in 2007, I visited the City of Light for the first time during my honeymoon, and it did not disappoint. The photo below is from that trip almost twenty years ago, and even though the camera shook a little, I think it shook correctly. It still managed to capture all that glitter.

I don’t write scifi stories too often — in fact, this might be the only one. And of all the short fiction I have written, this is the one that got the briefest attention of Hollywood (millisecond). That plus the story itself awaits you.

As for my audio recommendation, I recently discovered the Literature and History Podcast. It’s been going on since 2016, so I’m very late to the game, but the beauty of a project like this is that it’s completely evergreen — after all, Doug Metzger’s podcast deals with classics like the Iliad and the Bible. Incredibly researched, superbly narrated (what a voice!), and hilariously sung (he writes a comic song for each episode), I’m not even on the 20th episode and can’t wait to get caught up.

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Where were you when the OJ was declared not guilty? I was at my first real job (IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, in the journals department). Nobody got much work done that day, Tuesday October 3, 1995, as we were all fixated on the verdict. As I recall, not everyone had internet access at the office. I’m almost certain we found out via a live radio broadcast.

The story I’m reading for this episode is OJ adjacent — the protagonist isn’t right in the head, and there is indeed violence. It involves a television director, a sub shop, and unrequited love…though obsession is probably a better descriptor.

For my audiobook recommendation, my Philip Roth journey continues. The Great American Novel is one of his lesser known works, but not only does James Daniels narrate the hell out of it (he must assay at least twenty distinct characters, possibly thirty), the novel is 100% about baseball. The 2026 season’s opening day is just weeks away; for once, my timing is right on!

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Unlike Jake, one of the two main characters in this story, I’m incapable of growing a beard. A fu manchu may be possible, but even that is doubtful. Which is actually fine by me. I knew a guy in college who had a five o’clock shadow around one o’clock, every day. This particular feature of his body rarely brought him much joy.

The fourth episode of this podcast featured a jettisoned chapter from my first novel; this is its sibling, the second of two deleted chapters now resurrected. It’s a domestic tale, involving a chef who grew a beard while his wife was out of town. Hilarity does not ensue.

On the audiobook front, I’ve been on a Philip Roth kick, and the kicking continues! Portnoy's Complaint, read by Ron Silver.

I love that the cover says it’s directed by Philip Roth. What does that mean? I can only imagine Philip told Ron how to read the book, though I doubt Ron needed much help because he was such a great actor. It’s yet another fantastic reading by him. Be warned, this book is still quite raunchy even by today's standards, or maybe especially by today's standards. For me personally, it overstayed its welcome about 80% of the way through, but it ends strongly and I must say, I can’t remember the last time I laughed so much listening to a book. No question it’ll offend many, many people, but I enjoyed it immensely.

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March-April 1995. I was a year out of college and working at my first real job when this story was published, but this story was written in that awful space between college graduation and first real job. Many of my friends had secured their jobs before they graduated because they earned STEM degrees, but not I. With an English B.A. in hand, I feared the worst — slinging fries at McDonald’s. Misplaced fear, of course, since I had never worked in food services (still haven’t, knock on wood — I have nothing but the hugest respect for those who work in the very tough restaurant business).

The thing that stands out with this story is that it’s written in the second person — the “you” voice. Which I have often called a bastardized “I” voice, because that’s its eventual function, to put you into the story so you see it from my point of view.

Here’s the lovely cover that my story appeared in.

InterText was one of the first online lit magazines. It ran from 1991 to 2004! Holy cow, that is like a hundred years in internet time.

And speaking of time, it’s recommendation time! Another Philip Roth classic, The Plot Against America, read once again by Ron Silver.

I wish I didn’t have to say this is timely reading/listening, but it is. A miniseries was made by HBO and shown during the pandemic, which I have not seen, but I think the book will be more than enough.

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Remember the GEICO caveman ads?

Here’s the very first one:

It premiered in 2004, and this story you are about to hear, “The Lost Diaries of a Cro-Magnon Man,” was written right around that time. So credit where credit’s due — thank you, GEICO Caveman! Also, thank you to Michael, who accepted this story for In Posse Review.

For this episode, my audiobook recommendation is not for a book but for a narrator — Grover Gardner. For the last few months, I’ve been listening to The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William L. Shirer. It’s more than 57 hours long, and I have five hours to go. Gardner read this book, and he’s also read all of Robert A. Caro’s LBJ books (I’ve listened to the first two). At this point, it’s not crazy to measure this man’s reading in days instead of hours.

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Bonus alert! Before reading the short story “Little Things” for this episode, I read from an essay I wrote about the concept of home. This was for Kartika Review, back in the spring of 2010, which is all about my first house:

That is the Alpha Tau chapter of Phi Kappa Tau, which still exists today at 106 The Knoll, Ithaca, New York, and indeed it was my first house, as my formative years were spent in an apartment complex. And the reason why I read the essay first is because this short story is all about my fraternity experience. Animal House it was not — not even close!

Two milestones of note, one of which Substack celebrated in a very Substack way:

And the other:

Thank you, dear readers and listeners! I’m actually kind of shocked that there have been a thousand downloads (1002, to be exact, as of this moment). My hope was we’d get there by the end of the series, so these are some very sweet metrics.

And on the subject of podcasts, if you haven’t listened to Kevin Stroud’s The History of English Podcast, you are in for a treat. I have listened to all 186 (and some bonus episodes, too) and eagerly await his next one.

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Number five is a bit of a change of pace: three flash fiction shorts for the price of one episode. They are as follows:

* Bird Figurine

* 1950

* Confessions of My Wart, Which Is on My Right Foot, Second Toe

I don’t have a picture for the third story, but maybe that’s for the best. Does anyone really want to see a photo of a wart, even if it’s a talking wart? Maybe especially if it’s a talking wart…

My audiobook recommendation for this episode is Demi Moore’s memoir Inside Out.

I still can’t get over just how young she was when she was in the iconic movies of my youth, such as St. Elmo’s Fire (just 23!). Perhaps it’s her husky voice, but she’s always seemed older than her actual years. As the book nears its end, Demi’s emotions become almost palpable. She’s never been one of my favorite actresses, but after listening, I can tell you that my esteem for her has never been higher.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sung.substack.com