News, Lummox Reference Desk and Lummox-approved Links

Lummox n (2001) : A guy who’s smarter than he looks.

May 13, 2002

We’ve got a weird combination of news and announcements and the like today, starting with something that’s major probably only to Mike Magnuson. He has quit smoking. Ceased. Finished. Threw out the ashtrays. Over with. Done. That’s right, folks. Since late in the evening of May 6, Mike has not smoked a cigarette. Not very long to go smokeless, we understand that, but since Mike has been smoking bigtime heavily since 1981, we believe he’s making a momentous step in the right direction. Still, he reports feeling way out of sorts, and the nicotine patches he’s wearing are giving him bizarre and extremely vivid nightmares. “But what the hell,” Mike says. “Vivid nightmares are good for a writer. I’m gonna go ahead and enjoy the high while it lasts.”

Meantime, Mike’s riding long distances on his bicycle every day, doing his best to pedal his way out of the smoking hole that has been his life, and though his legs are killing him and he hasn’t been able to work at his keyboard worth a hoot, he’s refusing to smoke.

Contact Mike at mike@lummox.org and you’re likely to get a hallucinatory response from him.

Seriously, though, we’re pleased that Mike’s finally trying to quit, and we hope you’re pleased, too. Take time out to encourage him, for chrissakes.

In other news, we just can’t hold our tongues any longer. If you pick up the May issue of GQ and turn to page 80, you’ll find an article about bicycling by Mike Magnuson. We hope you enjoy it and are inspired by it, but we will not respond to any questions concerning the photograph. Oh, and if you happen to be in Korea in June, you can find a reprint of the article in GQ Korea.

And on another bicycling note, we hereby are making a plea to your charitable hearts. On June 8, Mike will be riding in the TREK 100 Ride for Hope in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. This ride raises funds to fight childhood cancer and is organized by the Macc Fund (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer, Inc.) in Milwaukee. If you’re interested in sponsoring Mike in this event—he’ll be riding 100 miles, and the idea is that you’ll be willing pay a certain amount of cash for each mile Mike rides—please contact info@lummox.org and we’ll be happy to take your pledge. For more information, visit the event’s website at www.maccfund.org.

And for your noncharitable hearts, remember that Father’s Day is rapidly approaching and that any of the items on our Lummox Essentials page would make wonderful gifts for dear old dad.

Last, there’s a few new links up lower on this page. Check em out.

May 7, 2002

For this auspicious occasion in Magnuson’s life, we offer the following two excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape.

“Thirty-nine today, sound as a bell, apart from my old weakness, and intellectually I have now every reason to suspect at the…(hesitates)…crest of the wave—or thereabouts. Celebrated the awful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the Winehouse. Not a soul. Sat before the fire with closed eyes, separating the grain from the husks. Jotted down a few notes, on the back of an old envelope. Good to be back in my den, in my old rags.”

And from the end of the play:

“Perhaps my best years are gone. Where there was a chance of happiness. But I wouldn’t want them back. Not with the fire in me now. No, I wouldn’t want them back.”

April 15, 2002

BREAKING NEWS! LUMMOX.ORG GETS RIPPED OFF!


In Oxford, Mississippi, Saturday afternoon, some DICKHEAD stole the Lummox.org magnet from the passenger-side door of the Lummox.org pickup truck. Mike had parked the truck on the University of Mississippi campus, next to a church, so that he could attend the afternoon program at the Oxford Conference For the Book (which, by the way, despite the crime that occurred outside, was excellent), and while Mike was enjoying the show, the aforementioned DICKHEAD approached the Lummox.org pickup, and in broad daylight, stole the magnet.

Mike says that he is not surprised somebody stole the magnet, but for this to happen in Oxford, Mississippi? Worldwide capital of literary coolness and fun?

The horror.

We here at Lummox.org share Mike’s rage concerning this incident, and, like, Mike, we plan on committing our considerable resources to apprehending the THIEVING DICKHEAD who couldn’t think of anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon but steal from Lummox.org.

Thereby, we hereby offer the following reward for information leading to the apprehension of THE DICKHEAD and to the return of the Lummox.org magnet to its proper location: One signed copy of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man and one copy of Loud!

If you have info or want to extend your sympathies, please email Lummox.org at any of our addresses.

Thanks.

April 9, 2002

If you missed Magnuson on Whad’Ya Know the other day, you can hear the broadcast, in its entirety, on Whad’Ya Know’s website. http://www.notmuch.com

Professor Magnuson reports having no memory of being on the program. He says he was freaked out, was blown away by Michael Feldman’s quick wit, and as a consequence Professor Magnuson giggled a lot and in general sounded fairly dopey on the radio. In any event, if you have comments on the program or on anything else, please drop Mike an email.

In other news, Mike’s heading south this weekend for an unofficial appearance in Oxford, Mississippi. Rumor has it that the long-awaited meeting between Mike Magnuson and Elwood Reid will take place at the City Grocery Bar in Oxford, at roughly 5:30 Friday night. Reserve your seats now.

April 5, 2002

We are able to report that Mike has driven the Lummox.org pickup truck successfully from Carbondale to Madison, and he is currently mellowing out in a hotel near the state capital and awaiting a brief conference this evening with Madison’s own master of Zoetrope prose, the great Dean Bakopoulos. Madison seems way busy tonight, Mike says. He will be weird tommorow morning on Whad’Ya Know, he worries, but then again, what’s wrong with being weird. Long ago some sisters were, right?

Just to let you know, we’re down to an EXTREMELY SMALL NUMBER of copies of Loud! to give away free with your order of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. Drop by our Lummox Essentials page pronto, and maybe think about ordering your copy now for, like, Mother’s Day. Wouldn’t your Mom like a copy of Lummox? Magnuson’s Mom has one.


Also on the site, you can check out, finally, an update to the Fitness section of the Lummox Guide, and on the Him page you’ll find some new tour dates.

Drop Mike a line and mike@lummox.org . He’ll be happy to hear from you.





April 3, 2002

Well. That’s about all we have to say about ourselves lately: Well. The staff has been loafing considerably over the last—what’s it been?—couple of weeks since we’ve last posted some news (some of our staff even went on vacation somewhere, Bermuda probably), but Mike Magnuson certainly has not been taking it easy. He’s been back into full swing at Southern Illinois University, therein doing neat stuff like getting reacquainted with his students and his colleagues and, alas, his computer keyboard. Seems to us that, somewhere in there, maybe years before he commenced working on Lummox: The Evolution of a Man, Mike enjoyed writing very much, and from all reports Mike is enjoying writing very much again. He won’t tell us exactly what he’s been working on for the last week and a half, but he says he’s rising early in the morning and wandering to his computer and by God stringing words together into, well, something. Well. See what we’re saying? Well. Everything’s just going so freaking well these days.

Like what, you may ask?

This Saturday, for instance—April 6—Mike will be appearing coast-to-coast on Michael Feldman’s Whad’Ya Know. If you need information on local listings, go ahead and click on http://www.notmuch.com and you’ll find basically everything you need to know, at least about Whad’Ya Know. Mike reports being extremely excited about this radio appearance, because if there’s any single radio show that is Pure-D Cheesehead, Whad’Ya Know is it. Mike says he’s been a fan of the show since somewhere roundabout 1985. Or in any case for a long, long time.

Also upcoming, Mike will have an article on bicycling in the May issue of GQ, which will be hitting the stands before too long.

He’s doing some readings along the way, too: at Rend Lake Community College, at Marion High School, at St. Clair Community College, and in late May Mike will be traveling to Boone North Carolina to give a reading. Concerning these readings, we promise we will get our shit together in the next couple of days and reorganize the Pickup Tour section of the Him page, but for the moment, just know that more info is on the way. If you haven’t guessed, we’re kind of bummed that the tour is mostly over, but fear not: We’re conspiring to get Mike back out on the road soon.

In addition to his writerly functions in the next few months, Mike will be riding his bicycle in several charity cycling events this spring and summer, most notably the Tunnel Hill/Cache River Bike Ride on Saturday, May 4, which will benefit the Cypress Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Ullin, Illinois, and on June 8, Mike will riding in the TREK 100 in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, a ride that will beneift the Macc Fund. He will be riding numerous other events this summer, and, as always, check back for specific times and dates and, of course, for ways that you can contribute to the charities sponsoring the rides.

As far as events now long past, Mike reports that he had a wonderful time in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a couple of weekends ago, where he appeared at what has been dubbed “The Best Meacham Ever.” Mike thanks everybody for all the wildness and weirdness and the billion laughs that were had in Jacob’s basement on Saturday night. Mike notes that he may be frightened of Boy Scouts forever.

Last: We only have a few freebie copies of Loud! left to give away with your order of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. Order soon, and take advantage of Lummox.org’s temporary cheapness. Just click on Lummox Essentials, and the rest is as simple as eating ice cream.

March 18, 2002

First things first: How about them Salukis? Lummox.org passes along its congratulations to the Southern Illinois University men’s basketball team for handing the Georgia Bulldogs their asses on a platter.

Other things, starting with the upcoming: Wednesday night, Mike will give a reading at the Carbondale Public Library, 7 PM. Word is he won’t be reading from Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. He figures on giving it a rest for an evening and moving on to material that he’s actually made up, like, oh no!, original fiction. He tells us he’ll read a story about a dog and a guy in the military and a magical clarinet. Or something like that. Should be cool, though. We hope to see you there.

Thursday through Saturday, Mike will be a Visiting Writer at the Meacham Writers’ Workshop in Chattanooga, Tennessee. You can find him at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga Thursday night at eight, in Fletcher Hall 114, giving a reading along with David Garrison, Ken Smith, and Dara Wier. Want more info? It’s online here: http://de.cstcc.cc.tn.us/Meacham/

What else? We only have a few more free copies of Loud! to give away with each order of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. Snatch em up, we say, while they’re still free.

Oh, and we also have a few new links on the links section that’s lower on this page.

And Mike, you bet, he’s not the same guy he used to be. He reports feeling stunned and disembodied for the last few days, since he got off the airplane in St. Louis last Thursday and drove the Lummox.org Pickup Truck back to Carbondale and called the tour quits for the time being. It was a long wild road, that’s for sure. Mike says he feels twenty years older. He gave fifteen readings in eight states, appeared on over thirty radio programs and several TV programs, drove over 4000 miles, met hundreds of people, drank beer in nearly a dozen bars, and ate at some of the finest and lousiest restaurants in America. At this point, we can’t accurately assess what effect Mike’s foray through the country has had. We suppose (and Mike supposes, too) that we should calculate the tour’s success in terms of the book sales it has generated, in which case, hey: Mike probably should have stayed home. People have bought Lummox, though, and people continue to buy Lummox. We ask you to keep spreading the word, friends. If you dig Lummox, tell someone about it. And if that someone digs it, they’ll tell someone about it. In this manner, the message of Lummox can spread to all those who need to hear it, which we believe is vast number of people. Fuckin-A.
There are a lot shittier books than Mike Magnuson’s Lummox that’s what we think, no matter if the out-of-touch dickheads at the New York Times Book Review won’t bother to review it.
But this isn’t to say that nobody’s reviewing Lummox. We have just posted excerpts from eight new reviews on our Evolution of a Man page, and if you click through to Amazon on our Lummox Essentials page, you can find some awesome customer reviews there. You can also post your own review on Amazon, we suppose.
On other fronts, Mike has received some awfully kickass emails from people who have enjoyed the book, and Mike has tried his best to respond personally to everyone who’s dropped him a line. He says he loves all you lummoxes and lummoxettes. He admits, however, that it’s easier to talk with people in a tavern than it is to write them witty commentary in emails. He’s trying, though. So don’t be strangers. You can find his email address on our Him page.
And you can find Mike back at Southern Illinois University this week. He’s Professor Magnuson again, which is what he’s been all along.
He says if the Salukis can make it to the Sweet Sixteen, hell, Lummox can make it there, too.




March 12, 2002

Keep on ordering copies of Lummox from our Lummox Essentials pages, and for a short time longer we’ll keep on including a free copy of Loud! with every order. We appreciate all your support so far, and hope you keep stopping back on in.

In Mike-related news, he’s flying to Detroit today and will be appearing tomorrow evening in Ann Arbor at Borders #1. As always, the Him pages contains the specifics.

Later this week, stop back in for Lummox.org’s complete recap and assessment of Mike’s travels through the bookstores and taverns of middle America. Also, we’ll post nearly a dozen new reviews on our Evolution of a Man page, and we’ll post up scads of tour pictures and recipes and fitness tips and all other manner of cool shit that we’ve been compiling while Mike’s been on the road.





March 8, 2002

This is where Mike’s at: New Orleans. You can bet, consequently, that we ain’t gonna be hearing from the boy for a few days. He’ll be doing that New Orleans thing, whatever that is. Mike’s never been to New Orleans before.
Never been to Knoxville, Tennessee, either, not till last night, when he read to a near-capacity congregation at the Laurel Theater, which, as it turns out, is a converted church. Is there such a thing as the Converted Church? Probably. Mike’s reading, in any case, was to the Knoxville Writer’s Guild, and he reports being grateful to all in attendance, particularly during the Q & A portion of the program, when nobody thank God asked Mike what it’s like to be a lummox. Mike talked with these folks about writing. Wow. Imagine that.
On Wednesday, of course, Mike appeared at Lemuria in Jackson, Mississippi. This was a double-bill engagement with novelist Elizabeth Dewberry. The Dewberry/Magnuson reading in the beer bar was, no doubt about it, incomparable. We’re telling you: If you’re ever in Jackson on a Wednesday night and can attend one these beer bar readings, don’t pass up the opportunity. Lemuria knows how to put on a reading, for sure. Very special thanks go out to the Blue Tongue Lounge Society, for presenting Mike a certificate of membership in good standing. Mike says the party at the Blue Tongue Lounge that evening was just about the funnest time he’s ever had. “What we have here,” Mike says, “is a failure…”





March 6, 2002

We’ve got a ton of weird news today and can’t decide in which order we should present it, so here goes a quick list of the latest breaking stories.
1) Lummox.org has just confirmed that Mike will appear on Michael Feldman’s Whad’ya Know? on April 6. We’ll bring you detailed info about this when the time draws closer.
2) If you’re in New Orleans this weekend and happen to be attending the Associate Writing Programs annual conference, you can meet and hang out with Mike at the Radisson Hotel on 1500 Canal Street, Friday evening between 6:30 nd 8:30. Just find the Southern Illinois University Carbondale MFA party, get yourself a drink, and commence having fun.
3) Mike reports having a tremendous time in Oxford, Mississippi, last night, where he read at Square Books to, as Tom Franklin put it, “a small but important crowd.” Kudos go out to the Ajax Diner, for their flounder in Tabasco crawfish cream sauce to Jim Higgins, for Ozzy and Blue Oyster cult to Cody and Jamie and Lynn and Doug and Linda and Beth Ann And Cristen and Joy and Dingleheart’s friend and Chief’s well-adjusted daughter to Jim Dees and Tom Franklin, for showing Mike the alley where William Faulkner used to take a leak when he was drunk and to the incredible band The Kudzu Kings, for playing one of the greatest bar concerts Mike has ever heard.
4) Mike reads tonight at Lemuria in Jackson, Mississippi. 7 o’clock.
5) Mike reads tomorrow night in Knoxville, Tennessee, at the Laurel Theater. 7 o’clock.

In website news, we’re finally getting serious about T-shirts, but we need your help. Keep ordering books and CDs from the Lummox Essentials pages, and the proceeds, as always, will go toward T-shirts and other neato things involved in the continued operation of this site.

Last, we’d like to give our hearty support to Janet Reno, who is on a pickup truck tour of her own. Check out our links section below, visit her site, drop her a note, and tell her that Lummoxes everywhere are on her side. Go, Janet!




March 5, 2002

Mike’s finally been back in Carbondale for a bit—for 36 hours, to be precise—in which time he has told us may a fine tale from the road. He reports that somewhere in the Green Bay leg of the tour he lost track of his sanity, and from then till now—that’s last week Wednesday till today—he’s been maneuvering through the world in a prolapsed fugue state, but not without memories. He says that his appearance at the Little Professor in Green Bay was very interesting and intimate and provided perfect conditions to read some naughty sections from Lummox that he’s never read in public before: namely, the second-grade fart scene from the first part of the book and the first attack of the Phantom Shitter from the last part of the book. The audience seemed to laugh a great deal and to join in on the general tone of obnoxiousness Mike was setting for the evening. For example, before Mike read, he mentioned that he’s found a review of Lummox that suggests the book is “as pointless as Cher getting another facelift.” In response, some audience members found a large portrait of Cher and placed the picture in a chair in the front row. After the reading, these same audience members snuck out to the parking lot before Mike got there and turned the Lummox.org magnets upside down, ostensibly in protest of Mike’s reading. Or maybe not. Mike does want to thank Joel Krueger of the Green Bay Fire Department for the fine Titletown FD T-shirt.
From Green Bay, Mike had to beat feet, as it were, down to Milwaukee and check into his hotel and get ready to appear in the morning on Reitman and Mueller on WKTI, which Mike said was totally a lot of fun. Matter of fact, during Mike’s appearance, Richard Woosencraft, Mike’s high school principal, called the station, and for reasons unknown to either Mike or the Lummox.org staff, Mr. Woosencraft said that Mike was a nice kid when he was in high school.
Mike read that night at Harry W. Schwartz in Milwaukee to a kickass crowd of almost 100 people, and of course many copies of Lummox were sold, along with many tears shed, et cetera. Of the many highlights in Milwaukee, Mike ran into his old friend the genius marimba player Chris Loss, who Mike hasn’t seen for at least sixteen years, and off they wandered into the evening after the reading, ending up at Von Trier’s and quaffing many a fine tankard of whatever it was that they were drinking. Mike says that Chris is as entertaining as he used to be, way back.
So then came Oshkosh. We say this with a hearty and menacing tone because coincident with Mike’s arrival in Oshkosh was the arrival of the GREAT MARCH BLIZZARD OF 2002! No shit. Mike gave his reading to a kickass crowd at the New Moon Coffee Shop—which by the way is a very hip place (In April, Steve Smith’s group Vital Information will play there)—and while Mike was reading, the snow was beginning to fall. Still, the reading was cool. Mike appeared on the same bill with Oshkosh comedy legend Johnny Romano, who was very funny, particularly when he was talking about how hairy his ass is. Anyway, by midnight or so, Oshkosh, and most of the Midwest, was in full blizzard: superhigh winds, much snow, general mayhem. And Mike did the only thing he could do: He got drunk and resolved to suspend tour operations till the blizzard passed.
But the blizzard didn’t pass.
Next day, the conditions were the same: superhigh winds, heavy snow. And Mike hunkered down in his hotel room and did stuff like sleep and read and sleep some more.
On Sunday, as will often happen, the skies cleared, the temperatures plummeted, and the wind howled. And Mike tried to drive back to Carbondale in this. On I-94 near Kankakee, Illinois, Mike reports seeing complete whiteout conditions, with multiple accidents alongside the road, several of these requiring ambulances and jaws of life and what have you. Truly horrible stuff. But Mike somehow made it, and he made it, boys and girls, by driving slow and being a responsible person, if you can believe that.

Today’s news: Mike’s now heading south out of Carbondale toward Oxford, Mississippi, where he will read this evening—at 5 o’clock—at the legendary Square Books. Rumor has it that Mike will be quaffing beer thereafter at the City Grocery, and late in the evening, Mike plans to return to Faulkner’s grave to pay homage.
On Wednesday, Mike will read at Lemuria in Jackson, Mississippi, and from there he does a complicated airplane thing that will put him in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Thursday night, and New Orleans on Friday night.
As always, check out our Him page for further details on the tour.
And stay tuned for several major announcements concerning Mike in the media in April.
In the meantime, stop by the Lummox Essentials page, if you haven’t yet, and order your copy of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. For a limited time, you order the book, we give you a free copy of Loud! Ain’t that a sweet deal?






February 27, 2002

News of the Pickup Truck Tour.

Lummox.org has just gotten off the phone with Mike, who is tucked away for a short period of time in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he will read this evening at the Little Professor Book Center. He’s sounding a little rough, quite frankly, and a little overtired, and we are wondering about his ability to continue the grueling pace of his tour. He says, “I’m eating, sleeping, talking, and driving Lummox.” We get the impression that he wants us to feel sorry for him, but none of us here do because by God Mike’s job is to get out there on the road and spread the word. Still, if your heart tugs at the thought of Mike’s current state of fatigue, drop him an email and console him. If you think he should quit whining, tell him that, too.
Nevertheless, Mike has been indeed spreading the word. The last couple of nights have been outstanding—good crowds in Madison and in Manitowoc—and lots of folks have picked themselves up a copy of Lummox. We extend our thanks to everyone who made these two events a kickass success.
Upcoming stuff: Tomorrow morning, you can hear Mike on the famous Reitman and Mueller Show on WKTI-FM in Milwuakee. Mike will be on-air from 8 till 8:30, so listen in or listen up, whichever you prefer.
Also tomorrow night, Mike will be reading at Harry W. Schwartz on Downer Ave. Consult the Him page for further details.
As always, if you’d like to procure a signed copy of Lummox and aren’t able to attend one of Mike’s public appearances, you can order one here, on this site. Just drop by the Lummox Essentials page and click on PayPal. And remember that for a limited time we will include, free of charge, a copy of Loud! with every order.





February 25, 2002


EAU CLAIRE NEWS FLASH!

Mike has left Eau Claire safely and in doing so has demonstrated to all interested parties that he did not get shot while he was in town. The Eau Claire Leader-Telegram had indicated, a couple of days prior to his visit to Eau Claire, that Mike was worried about violence breaking out at his Eau Claire appearances, but as far as we can ascertain, Mike’s two readings in Eau Claire went off without a hitch. Thanks to all the folks who turned out for the afternoon reading at Borders and the equally awesome crowd at the Racy D’Lene’s. Later in the evening, some controversy did erupt when Professor Bruce Taylor of UW—Eau Claire told Mike he was an idiot. This was, however, in connection with Mike’s spilling beer on him. Everyone we interviewed has said that Mike did spill beer on Professor Taylor therefore, Lummox.org agrees with Professor Taylor’s assessment: Mike’s an idiot. Hey, Mike: You’re supposed to drink the beer, not spill it on your former professors.
Lummox.org sends special thanks to Garth Kutzke, who has relieved the Lummox.org pickup truck of its woodstove payload and replaced it with 300 pounds of sand. Mike says the truck’s running perfectly. And that Garth’s a cool person.
In other news, Mike’s appearing tonight at LaDeDa Books & Beans in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Check out the Him pages for further details.
Tomorrow, he’ll be in Madison. Then Green Bay. Then Milwaukee. Then Oshkosh. Again: Him will hold the answers this week. In any event, if you live in the eastern part of Wisconsin and want to check out Mike Magnuson in person, this is the perfect week to do it.
If you’re somewhere else in the world, remember that signed copies of Lummox are available through this site, and for a limited time we will include, free of charge, a copy of Mike’s CD titled Loud! with every order of Lummox.
And before we go, thanks to Jocie at Valley Booksellers in Stillwater, Minnesota, for the work in putting together Mike’s reading there last Friday night. Mike tells us it was kickass.





February 22, 2002

Lummox.org wants to thank all you lummoxes who have been stopping in to our site and sending Mike emails. We don’t know if he’s actually gotten off his lazy ass and responded to any of these emails, but we figure, because he’s a professor and shit like that, he’ll probably be responsible. Like in the old Bartles & James commercials, we appreciate your support.
We do want you to know that you can order a signed copy of Lummox directly from this site! Just visit the Lummox Essentials page and, if you’re in a buying mood, click the PAYPAL button, and you’ll be ready to rock ‘n’ roll. And for fun, we’ll offer this incentive. For the next 20 people who order a signed copy of Lummox from this site, we’ll send you, free of charge, a copy of Mike’s audio CD titled Loud!
In Pickup Truck Tour news, Mike’s been hiding, as a quick perusal of the tour dates on the Him page will indicated, in the Twin Cities for a day, and he’s been meditating and being mellow and way, way too responsible. Maybe the big boy’s finally growing up.
Last evening, Mike appeared, via telephone, with Jack Beaver on Wisconsin Public Radio’s Spectrum West, and Jack, as usual, provided first-rate on-air companionship and insight. Lummox.org thanks Jack Beaver for everything he’s ever done.
This morning, Mike talked with Don Roux on WAYY radio in Eau Claire, and after that, with the fellows on “Morning Ride” at KQYB radio in Spring Grove, Minnesota. Mike has determined that lots of people in radio are lummoxes, which will only go to show you that you should turn your TV off and hear the news of the world, as related by lummoxes, on the radio.
Look for Mike this evening, at 6 o’clock, at Valley Booksellers in Stillwater, Minnesota, and if you’re in Eau Claire tomorrow, you can hear Mike reading at Borders in the afternoon and at Racy D’Lene’s Very Coffee Lounge at night. Precise coordinates are available on the Him page.





February 20, 2002

For the many of you who have expressed concern over Mike’s whereabouts, we are relieved to report that Mike has finally given our office a call. He’s okay. He’s not in jail. He hasn’t been drunk for the last two days. He says. He’s insisting that he’s been taking time to contemplate nature, to watch the Olympics, to drive his pickup truck over the Midwest, and to rethink the notion of lummoxness and its manifestation in towns throughout the United States. The more he ponders it, the more he’s certain that legions of lummoxes are out there, just ready to be recognized and to take their place properly in society, where they’ve always belonged. He says.
This evening, Mike will be reading from Prairie Lights Bookstore in Iowa City, Iowa, and his reading will be broadcast on the radio at 8 PM. If you’re inventive, hunt down your local listings, or find the Prairie Lights website, and hear Mike read live!




February 18, 2002

Mike’s been in St. Louis today, holed up in a motel in an unspecified location, which is pissing off the Lummox.org staff because he didn’t tell us where he was going or where to reach him, and he has been thoughtless enough not to call the office and check in. So today’s report is based on what information we could gather from somewhat inextensive detective work. By tomorrow, we assume Mike’s going to resume contact with us, and we hope to provide you with details of his hiding place then.
Here’s what we know:
1) Mike appeared this morning on KMOV-TV Channel 4 in St. Louis, and he seemed to be having a good time shooting the shit on-air with the “Morning News” anchors. Mike suggested that Lummox is a feel-good book, something that will speak to the disenfranchised Lummoxes of the world and encourage them to find meaning in their lives. Lummox.org says, “Damn right!”
2) Mike then appeared on KTRS-AM radio with honorary Lummox personalities Kevin and Wyndy, and listeners are saying that Kevin and Wyndy are 100% onboard with the whole lummox concept. At one point, both of these folks admitted to having worse grades in college than Mike had, and Mike graduated with a 2.86.
3) In the evening, Mike gave a reading at the famous Left Bank Books in St. Louis, and the six people there reported having a nice time. We’ve heard that there was a poetry reading going on across the street from Left Bank Books at the time of Mike’s reading, and hey: Who the hell would hear a real live lummox instead of a poetry reading? Us, that’s who.
4) After the reading, Mike headed to KMOX-AM in St. Louis to appear on the John Carney show. The guest host of this program was John Grayson, and from the sound of the broadcast both John and Mike had a lovely time jawing about lummoxness, hard labor, good books, and heavy metal music.


In other news, Mike had a fabulous turnout for his reading at the Barnes in Noble in Carbondale, Illinois, last week Wednesday. He signed a bunch of books afterwards and reports, as usual, that Carbondale’s got great vibes and even greater people.

Earlier that Wednesday, Mike appeared Rock 105 WTAO in Murphysboro, which it turns out isn’t in Murphysboro at all but in Marion, twenty miles away. Mike drove to the wrong town, see, and ended up being an hour late for the appearance, but things turned out grandly. Kritter and Pinto were their usual kickass selves, and they had fun with Mike talking about people shoving walleyes up game warden’s asses in northern Wisconsin.

Oh, Mike was in New York City over the weekend. He ate steak two nights in a row and on Saturday did something top secret.

We still don’t know exactly where Mike is—he still hasn’t checked in—but we assume he’s currently driving, in the rain, from St. Louis to Iowa City. If you see him on the road, honk your horn and wave and tell him to give us call.



February 13, 2002


The Lummox Pickup Truck Tour officially begins today. This is it, boys and girls: from here till, well, sometime a little over a month from now, Mike will be wandering the country in search of lost lummoxes. Or something. And today Mike doesn’t have to wander far. He’s appearing this morning, at 8 o’clock, on Carbondale’s WTAO with Critter and Pinto on Hard Rock in the Morning. Southern Illinois listeners may tune in to 105.1 on their FM dial. And tonight he’ll be reading at the Barnes and Noble in Carbondale. Check out our Him page for further details.

This news flash is just in: Mike will be going to New York City on Friday and Saturday to do something too horrible for even Lummox.org to mention. Or at least not yet. Stayed tuned for tales of weirdness and a kickass guess-what-the-lummox-did-now context here on Lummox.org.



February 12, 2002

Mike gets on Mancow’s Morning Madness yesterday morning, round about 7:30, and it turns out that Mike’s appearance on the show coincides with the return, after seven months, of longtime Mancow sidekick Turd. Story is, Turd has been evicting people from houses on the south side of Chicago since he left Mancow, which is completely pulls the shit out of Mike’s heart strings because Mike himself has spent some horrible time on something much like the eviction circuit, way back, when Mike repossessed furniture and appliances in Columbus, Ohio. Check out The Right Man for the Job for a fictionalized version of the story. Anyway, Turd is a very cool person, the ultimate lummox: big guy, doesn’t take guff from people, and he’s smart, too. Matter of fact, Turd offers Mike a cup of coffee early in the show—not that offering coffee constitutes smart, but hey: Turd’s a nice guy. Lummoxes are nice guys.

So Mike’s sitting there in the studio, which is a fairly small room with Mancow operating the control board in the middle and his crew situated in a semi-circle around him, and Mike just about can’t say a thing. Sometimes a lummox will do that: seize up in the face of greatness. Which is exactly what Mike is witnessing: greatness. Mancow and Al Roker, Jr, and Freak and Kathy and Turd, these folks are amazing professionals. They can talk about anything and be funny about it and smart about it, and perfectly, every time.

Somewhere in there Mike watches Freak do the Chicago traffic report, without notes, and Freak seems upset that he goes one second over on a three minute and fifteen spot. One second? Without notes? Mike decides that radio people are totally amazing, and if Mike ever grows up, he wants to learn how to do what they do. Besides, you don’t want Mike to keep writing books, do you?

So hey: Mike basically just sits in front of a microphone and laughs on the air for two and a half hours and probably doesn’t do important shit like convince people everywhere to buy Lummox: The Evolution of a Man, but he’s sure having fun.

Toward the end of the show, Tom Arnold shows up in the studio, and Mike flips out over that. Tom Arnold. Right there. Inches away from Mike. Mr. Arnold is doing a promo for a March of Dimes thing in the evening, and Mancow is 100% rising to the occasion: leaning back against his desk and shooting the breeze with Tom like they’ve know each other forever. And Mike sees Mancow leaning back and decides to do the same, and when he does, Mike bumps into the light-switch panel for the studio and proceeds to dim the lights way low, which wrecks the continuity of the program for a moment, which earns Mike a sharp rebuke from Turd, which is making Mike depressed to this instant.

But in the end, Mike reports that being on Mancow is one of the highlights of his life.

The Lummox.org staff sends special thanks to Al Roker, Jr., for setting up Mike’s appearance and for being way cool to Mike. Al has sent Mike home with a truckload of Mancow and Q101 promotional items—CDs and beer coasters and such—and pending Al’s approval, Lummox.org will include some of this stuff with every order for Lummox: The Evolution of a Man or Loud!


February 11, 2002


ATTENTION! SERIOUS CORRECTION! Lummox.org has fucked up!

When we announced the other day that Mike’s reading in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has been cancelled because The Little Professor Book Center was going out of business, we were wrong. We blew it. We received some wrong information, and we reacted quickly and posted it on the site without verification. This will go to show you that Lummox.org cannot and should not qualify as a news service. We’re lummoxes, for chrissakes. What do you expect?
Anyway, The Little Professor is still in business it’s still a kickass bookstore and it will remain a kickass bookstore for many years to come. Our apologies.
To restate, then, Mike Magnuson will be giving a reading at the Little Professor Book Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on February 27 at 7 pm. Please check our Him page for further details.



February 10, 2002

Mancow update! Mike will appear on The Mancow Show tomorrow morning, February 11, sometime between 7:00 AM and 8:00 AM. For local listings, check out Mancow’s website, which we have listed in the links section lower on this page. Mike is totally jacked about the Mancow thing and is currently en route from Carbondale to Chicago in the Lummox.org pickup truck, cranking tunes and drumming on his steering wheel and trying to think of some funny shit to say on the radio.
A note about the Lummox.org pickup truck, a picture of which you can see, along with a complete list of tour dates, on our Him page: If you see the Lummox.org pickup truck on the freeway, you will note that a large black object is strapped into the truck’s bed. This object is a junker wood stove that Mike tore out of his house yesterday afternoon, and he is using this stove as weight to keep the truck on the road in the snow. He will transport this stove on tour until he reaches Eau Claire, Wisconsin, whereupon he plans on dropping it off south of town, in an undisclosed patch of woods.


February 9, 2002

Lummox.org calls for a boycott!
If for some reason you have checked out Lummox: The Evolution of a Man on Amazon this last week, you will note that there are already used copies of the book available. Now, you may well ask the following: How the hell could there be used copies of a book that was only released four days ago? The answer is that people in the media—newspapers, magazines, TV shows, and the like—receive free promotional copies of new book releases, and these people are supporting their alcohol and drug and gambling problems by selling their free books on Amazon. These people don’t read the free books they don’t give a fuck about their free books. No. They are simply taking a hand out that represents somebody else’s hard work, and they’re selling this hand out like scrap metal. Lummox.org believe this practice is bullshit. If these people really give a shit about books, which obviously they don’t, and if they don’t have time to read the free books they receive from publishers, they should donate these books to a public library.
We therefore ask that you do not purchase any books from media-type assholes who are making profits off their freebies. Buy new books, dammit.


February 6, 2002

News flash! The Lummox.org staff has just learned that Mike Magnuson will be appearing on the very cool and widely syndicated radio program, The Mancow Show, on Monday morning, February 11. Stay tuned for complete details, but we understand that Mike will be driving the Lummox.org Pickup up I-57 from Carbondale to Chicago on Sunday afternoon, whereupon he will hole up in a cheap motel and watch HBO till it’s time for him beam into the studio and start talking trash with the great Mancow himself. Mike’s going to take pictures of this momentous occasion and have the Lummox.org staff post them on this site, if Mancow is cool with that, and we know he will be. Mancow rocks!
In Lummox.org news, check out our Evolution of a Man page to read some kickass new reviews of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. On the Him page, we have some new Lummox Pickup Truck Tour dates, including a deluxe coffeehouse reading at Racy D’Lene’s Very Coffee Lounge in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, on February 23 an appearance at the Meacham Writer’s Conference in Chattanooga, Tennessee, March 21-23 and a reading and lecture at Port Huron Community College, in Port Huron, Michigan, on April 21. With regret, however, we must report that the Little Professor in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where Mike is scheduled to read on February 27, is going out of business, and Mike’s reading has been cancelled. Lummox.org feels terrible about this fine independent bookstore having to close its doors, and we request that you do your part for books and patronize your local independent bookseller.
And hey: Do your part for Lummox T-shirts, too. Order your copy of LOUD! today.


February 5, 2002

Lummox: The Evolution of a Manis available! Lummox.org has many in stock! Stop by the Lummox Essentials page and order your copy today.


February 4, 2002

Mike is happy and burnt out today. He reports that The Superbowl completely kicked ass. Wow! On behalf of Mike Magnuson and Cheeseheads worldwide, Lummox.org extends hearty congratulations to the New England Patriots for beating the crap out of Goliath. Well done, we say.


January 30, 2002

T-shirts? You want some goddam T-shirts? Lummox.org can and will print up some cool Official Lummox T-shirts, but you have to help us out. We’re as broke as an old heart. So order your copy of LOUD! today, and all proceeds will be used to make T-shirts available on this site.


January 16, 2002

Professor Magnuson reports to Lummox.org, sadly, that he has lost a tooth. He asks at this time that you take a moment to remember it. It was a lower molar, the one farthest back on the right side, and it served with distinction in Professor Magnuson’s mouth for more than thirty years. The cause of the loss was cracking, by peanut, at the Cellar in Carbondale, Illinois, during the Green Bay Packers’ final game of the regular season. The tooth was removed without incident on the morning of January 14.



January 7, 2001

The Lummox.org staff has finally gotten off its fat asses and decided to put some new shit on the site. We’ve been having a great time since November, though: hanging out at the Cellar in Carbondale, Illinois, reading some good books, spending some time with family (hey: whoever said lummoxes don’t hang with their families?) and watching plenty of football. We hope you’ve had a kickass holiday season and all that. You wanna catch Mike Magnuson this week: He’ll probably at the Cellar in Carbondale, Illinois, on Thursday night. Buy him a beer: This website has cost him every cent he had.

Stuff you might want to know:

Lummox: The Evolution of a Man will be released on February 5. Get down to your local independent bookseller and reserve your copy now.
Loud!, the official studio recording of Mike Magnuson reading selections from Lummox, is now available, for a mere $13, on our Lummox Essentials page. Order your copy now! We’ll ship it to you directly.
Several new dates have been added to Mike Magnuson’s Lummox Pickup Tour, which you can check out on the Him page. Stay tuned for more info on the tour and a complete listing of Mike Magnuson’s appearances in the media this spring.
We put up a bunch of new links, too, which you can find lower on this page.
In our Lummox Guide to Fashion, Food, and Fitness this week, we offer advice on hunting, cycling, and chickens.
And we want to thank Christina Cannova for updating our site until we can figure out how to do it ourselves.

Have a good one,

The Staff at Lummox.org



November 12, 2001

Lummox.org welcomes you to the grand opening of our site. Take some time to poke around and check things out, and come back soon for weekly updates in every section of the site.

In our Him section this week, you’ll find information about Mike Magnuson, the upcoming Lummox Pickup Truck Tour, and an exclusive online interview with Mike.

In our Lummox Guide to Fashion, Food, and Fitness, we begin our journey through the fineries required for you to live a happy lummox life. We’ll be posting weekly recipes, fashion items, and fitness tips starting next week.

On the Loud! page, we have information about Mike’s new Audio CD, which will be available on December 1. Check out the sound clips while you’re there.

On the Evolution of a Man page, we have some new reviews of Mike forthcoming book, Lummox: The Evolution of Man, which HarperCollins will publish on February 5.

If you’re interested in finding a copy of one of Mike Magnuson’s books or a copy of his CD, check out the Lummox Essentials page, and it goes without saying that we appreciate your support.

And on this page, you’ll find brand-new items in the Lummox Reference Desk, and some very cool links.

In Magnuson news this week, Mike’s losing his concentration because the gun deer season opens in Wisconsin on Saturday morning. On Thursday, Mike’s heading north out of Carbondale, Illinois, where he lives, and on Saturday morning he’ll be armed and dangerous on his deer stand in Eleva, Wisconsin. He’s also been training hard lately with Saki and the gang at Carbondale Cycle they’ve been riding on trainers three days a week inside the shop, and they’ve been riding outdoors on Sunday mornings. Check the Lummox Guide to Fashion, Food, and Fitness in the coming weeks to read about the unusual cycling training methods in Carbondale, Illinois.

Have a good one,

The Staff at Lummox.org

An ongoing survey of Lummox mentions on the net, in print, and in real Lummox life.


Send your contributions to the Lummox Reference Desk here: lummoxopedia@lummox.org.
Items posted are edited for length and, on occasion, for style.


*

Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the Official Dictionary of Lummox.org, provides this brief, terse, and open-ended definition of lummox.

lummox - n [origin unknown] (1825) : a clumsy person

*


*

Somebody on the net, on a page promoting the operator’s wit, posts this definition of lummox, which we figure the operator stole from somebody else, just like we’re stealing it from him.

LUMMOCK, LUMMOX
Noun
Dialect
A large, heavy, or clumsy person; an ungainly or stupid lout.
Note: a North American colloquial.
Variations: LOMMIX, LUMMIX, LUMMUX.
Origins: unknown.

*

John Perry, an unknown Internet poet, has penned this lovely quatrain, and for it, Lummox.org hereby designates John Perry as our Official Poet Laureate.

Regurgitation,
Important to a lummox.
Regurgitation,
A way to empty the stomachs.
--John Perry

*

If you research your clothing before buying it--and if you do, we think you have some serious shit wrong with you--you might come across a company that offers Lummox Leisurewear. "Designed," they say, "specifically for the bigger person!" This company also sells dietary supplements and, we shit you not, "T shirts and coffee mugs with your favorite strongmen on!"

*

Take a sedative, friends, before reading this sensitive discourse on lummoxes that we’ve stolen from the archives of Heartless Bitches International.

I've had it up to here with college lummoxes who swill beer, tip over Dumpsters, pee in the bushes of their own front lawns when the bathroom is eight steps away in their apartments, hoot and howl during parties for no apparent reason and choose to do this right under my bedroom window at 4:00 a.m.

These same assholes complain that the only women who come to their parties are "The Fat Girls", stand outside their apartments for three hours straight drinking and complaining about how cold it is, AND THEN HAVE THE NERVE TO HIT ON ME WHILE I'M WALKING DOWN THE STREET HAND-IN-HAND WITH MY FIANCÉE.

Let me explain to you just what a Lummox is: A Lummox is any stupid and immature college student, either male or female, who thinks that college is where one learns to drink beer and that "class" is a four-letter word.

I am a non-traditional student who maintains a 3.02 average while working a fulltime job. I am in my thirties and mommy and daddy don't pay my way in life! I've scratched and clawed for every inch I've achieved and I don't care who I intimidate when I announce my goals for the future. But I'll be dammed before I let a group of lazy Lummox yahoos ruin my nights with their parties and pissing in their own front lawns. As for the Lummox who hit on me as I walked down the street with my Fiancée: He (My fiancée) offered to kick the guy's butt, but being I'm the green belt in Judo, he conceded to let me have the honors.

Lummox.org notes that no self-respecting lummox would hit on this chick in the first place.

*

We’ve heard mention of a stage play, by John Haubner, called Lummox, Texas. Apparently the storyline follows a number of unfortunate things several small-town folks do when their star football player, a fellow named Sam, is suspected of, well, of sucking the occasional dick. We’ve heard it’s a funny play. The one review of Lummox, Texas we could find indicates that the play isn’t fundamentally bad but, at points during the performance, the acting sucks. We expect it does.

*

The following, taken from Dynamic Marketing Collector Cards, is a synopsis of the classic Ren & Stimpy episode called Lair of the Lummox:

As hosts of their favorite TV show, Untamed World, Ren & Stimpy become voyeurs in the wild. They observe the mating ritual of that endangered species, the Lummox, who nail their underwear to trees to attract the opposite sex. By befriending one of the Lummoxes, Ren & Stimpy become experts on Lummox behavior & Lummox love.

You guessed it: Ren & Stimpy is the Official Cartoon Show of Lummox.org.

*

And just in case you think the mean stuff in Lummox: The Evolution of a Man about Fannie Hurst’s novel Lummox is bullshit, here’s a review that we found on Blockbuster’s website of the horrendous movie somebody made from Fannie Hurst’s equally horrendous book:

Based on a 1923 novel by Fannie Hurst, this dreary and primitive early talkie was unleashed on a derisive audience in January of 1930. Winifred Westover played the title-role, a downtrodden Swedish kitchen slavey seduced by the son (Ben Lyon) of her wealthy employer (Ida Darling). When she discovers that the boy is engaged to a society belle, she leaves the household, carefully hiding her pregnancy. Giving the baby up for adoption to a rich family, "Lummox," a la Madame X, can only watch from the sides as her son (Robert Ullman then William Bakewell) grows up in luxury to become a famous concert pianist. Directed by one of the grand old men of the silent era, Herbert Brenon, Lummox was stagebound to the point of ridiculousness with actors speaking their lines carefully into mikes hidden in vases and other such places. The film was also a case of nepotism: Not even a near-star, Winifred Westover was the wife of William S. Hart, the former Western ace rumored to have a financial interest in the producing company, United Artists. Formerly a leading lady of silent Westerns, Westover was singularly incapable of carrying a full-fledged talking picture. The film, her first in nine years, also proved her last.
~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

And here’s a scan of Lummox.org’s copy of Fannie Hurst’s Lummox. We think the gal on the jacket looks kinda like Hillary Clinton, don’t you? We think Hillary’s cool, though. Really. After all, she’s married to a lummox.

*

We heard of a punk band called Lummox, but we haven’t been able to procure any of their music. Their masterpiece, we have learned, is entitled Natural Born Swillers, released in 1996. We love this song title from Natural Born Swillers: "Here Today Guano Tomorrow."
Oh, and the band’s motto deserves a Nobel Prize:

LUMMOX
Smoke Pot - Drink Beer - Play Music
Everything else is work

*

We’ve heard about a spelling-challenged power trio called Lummux.
They define lummox thus:
"A lummox is a fat, lazy, beer-drinking, over-the-hill, gray-haired, couch-potato dad (did we mention fat?)."
And for booking arrangements, they offer this stipulation:
"We will play at any event you want us to, except for gay bars, so email us if you're not a queer."
Lummox.org suggests that all gay bars nationwide should email this band and offer them a gig.
the_lummux@hotmail.com

*

We’ve heard of a band called Three von Lummox, and we admire the hell of them for appearing on the same bill with a band called Tourette’s Latrec.

*

We can’t help but smile at this guy’s description of his dog:
"I've got an Ignatius as well. Formally, Ignatius J. Lummox. His nicknames are Igbert, Iganinny, Wigberto S. Ramos, Pigdirt and Naish, among others. 85 pounds of Frisbee-leaping, bed-sleeping yellow Lab puppy."
We can tell you flat out that this dog owner is absolutely not a lummox. A lummox gives his dog a normal name, like Rex.

*

This is perhaps the purest lummox expression ever set down in words, taken from a site having something to do with halfbakery, whatever the hell that is:
With a name like "Lummox," I has to be good!

We has to be getting our asses down to the bar pretty soon, too. You thirsty?

*

We’ve found something out there called the Mackenzie Childs Lummox Lamp, which their people describe as follows:

Dimensions: 13" diameter (lamp), 21" diameter (shade), 41 1/2" tall Lamp: handmade and decorated majolica, gold lustre, ceramic floral transfers, hand carved rosewood base, brass lamp hardware, brass buttons. Excessive Finial: olive wood, brass mesh rose detail, stone disc, brass filigree disc, crimped brass sphere, brass insert. Shade: rattan ajiro weave with glass beaded thistle fringe. U.L. tested and approved.

For one thing, the price tag on this pretentious piece is $1300. For another thing, what lummox would need all this shit in a lamp?

*

This lummox definition comes to us from an organization called The Lummox Guild, which is apparently devoted to some kind of role-playing game called EverQuest:
"A clumsy or awkward person: an oaf, a gawk, a klutz, a lobster, a looby, a lout, or even a lubber. These are just a few of our more cunning attributes."
A lobster?

*

One day, we were surfing Lummox-related shit, and we came across a cutesy family-type website with a picture of a baby playing with his four-year-old brother, and this is the caption: "Get this lummox off of me!"
There you go: People start complaining about lummoxes from infancy onward. No wonder lummoxes have complexes.

*

We found a wedding website with this heading: "The Magic Moment...The Wedding."
And there’s a snapshot of a double-chinned bride--who by the way is marrying a double-chinned groom--and she’s standing there all smiles, and her mom’s kissing one cheek, and he dad’s kissing the other.
This is the caption:
The parents of the Bride bid their daughter's singledom goodbye. She cheesily grins as her folks offer her first lesson about the birds and the bees: "Make sure that lummox does all the cooking and cleaning."
Lummox.org says, "Don’t count on anything, sister."

*

This is from a guy named Mel the Virtual Village Idiot, who goes to great lengths to prove that he’s not really an idiot:

Another thing that occupies much of my time is the perspicacity of people as they interact with the local constabulary. I'm usually walking my regular route when some traffic-going lummox is stopped by a common, local gendarme. While the drama unfolds I usually draw just near enough to hear the disputation. On one side is the lummox defending an indefensible position, and on the other side, the gendarme, having to show great restraint in the face of this abecedarian attempt at blame.
--Mel the Virtual Village Idiot.

Lummox.org thinks Mel should shut the fuck up, quit using all them pretentious words, and mind his own business.

*

We find the following to be sweet and heartwarming. Really. This is from a touching essay entitled "Nonstandard Standards in Public Schools" by a fellow name of Jeremy Cantrell, a student at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. If this guy can feel so terrible about calling somebody a lummox, we can’t help but thinking he’s on our side.

One time in second grade gym class, I lied to a coach. We were playing some dawdling game, like kickball or dodgeball. Our coach, Coach Bond, called me out when I knew, as a fact, I was safe. I was angry at the time and called him a name along the lines of "Lummox" or "Ogre." Sure, these were not ear-splitting cuss words, like the children on the playground effortlessly proclaimed, but it was just as bad. This was a man with a car, a job, and a house, that I was berating, not a child.

He heard me and asked, "What did you call me?"

I turned to him and said, "I was talking to him," while pointing at one of my friends.

The coach grabbed me by the wrist, took me into an office, and sat me down in front of another annoyed coach. That coach left the office to attend to my fellow classmates. Coach Bond later returned with a paddle in hand (possibly practicing his swing with the graceful artistry of a samurai warrior.) This was at a time when teachers and coaches could physically beat kids with a wooden paddle, as long as it fit specific state guidelines. Being only seven, and the second smallest child in my grade, I now noticed that making fun of a man's girth was a mistake. Coach Bond was a large man, he probably heard "Lummox" jokes throughout his life. I lied, pleaded to him that I was only talking to my friend, who was probably hating me just as much. He gave me three powerful swats, two for calling him a name and one for lying, as he later told me.

Coach Bond taught me a lesson that day. Sure, I continued to lie. I lied to my parents, teachers, friends, bosses, my grandma, and even a youth minister, but I knew when to quit. I knew Coach Bond was mad at the Lummox line, but I think he was angered more at my feeble attempt of lying. Throughout my life, I usually did something abnormally stupid then lied about it. I was dumb enough to perform these egregious acts, but smart enough to lie about them.

It seems that most of these lessons of life are learned at public schools. These schools are a breeding ground for Nonstandard English practices. It's ironic that teachers spend so many back-breaking hours teaching students to speak Standard English, when fifteen minutes later, they're calling their gym coach a "Lummox," or telling fellow students that they will "knock the shit" out of them.

Amen, brother. Stop picking on lummoxes, and we’re well on our way to world peace.

Send your links to lummoxopedia@lummox.org and we’ll consider them for online review.



http://www.mamselle.ca/error.html This is the kind of humor we imagine Little Timmy Cavanaugh might find entertaining because, if you fall for it, you’re not as smart as Little Timmy.

http://www.simpleton.com/ And this would be the online home of Little Timmy Cavanaugh, a shrine to the joy he takes in saying that most everything in the world is stupid. Little Timmy is an extremely intelligent boy, which he very much wants everyone to recognize, and he’s an extremely naughty boy, too. He loves it when people get mad at him. Matter of fact, Little Timmy gets paid to make people mad. Recently, Little Timmy wrote in the Washington Post that Lummox: The Evolution of a Man is a stupid book written by a lazy author. This article appears on Little Timmy’s site, along with Little Timmy having some easy sport with Mike Magnuson, who apparently became angry about being called lazy and sent Little Timmy a couple of threatening emails. We at Lummox.org are disappointed with Mike’s behavior, and we have sat down with him after supper and told him he’s grounded for a month and that he’s never ever to get drunk and threaten a reviewer again, to which admonishment Mike has been appropriately contrite. Mike promises to get control of himself hereafter and act like a responsible young man. “Listen,” Mike says, “I can’t argue with Little Timmy. He obviously knows way more than me, and he’s clearly smarter and sharper and better-educated and harder-working than me, and he’s absolutely a better all-around human being than, heck, anybody I’ve ever known.”


http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/Shaker/index.html? To prove that not only is Mike Magnuson dumber than Little Timmy Cavanaugh but the entire Lummox.org staff is dumber than Little Timmy, we provide the following sophomoric amusement: The Shakespearean Insult Generator.


http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/index.html Home of the Wisconsin Book Festival, the first edition of which will be held this coming October. Note the rotating author’s head shots. Magnuson’s head makes a Hamletlike appearance in every sixth frame.


http://www.onmilwaukee.com/entertainment/articles/magstalks.html As an alternative to the Magnuson interview we feature on Lummox.org, we offer this somewhat more lucid interview with him from On Milwaukee Magazine. Note that you can post comments here. Do it.

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilm/product/film_info/0,3699,2423440,00.html This is a 16-minute film called Across Town From Everywhere, made by Suzy Kidnap, and featuring four songs by Little Jack Melody. If you’re into Little Jack, which Lummox.org definitely is, this film is must-see material.

http://www.lummux.com/ Dave Crewe, the drummer for this fine spelling-challenged English ensemble, passed along this link. We wonder much about his ride cymbal placement and that he’s wearing a glove on his left hand, but hey: Anybody who drums for a band called Lummux has got to be cool.

http://www.she-net.com/directory/Cool/ Prepare to network and nurture, friends. This is the She-Net Links Directory.

http://www.fccj.org/~ngardner/ArticlesandSamples/ptcook.html The famous essay, by Thomas P. Cook, titled “Meeting Mike Magnuson.” This has been available online for quite some time, and we post it here now only to offer this comment: Mr. Cook’s got Magnuson down to a T. Maybe.


http:www.renoforflorida.com/ KEEP ON TRUCKING, Janet Reno!


http://www.myprofessorsucks.com/viewval.php? Evaluations for Professor Magnuson


http://www.metafilter.com/comments.mefi/14837 Lummox discussion group


http://www.siccoproductionz.com/delta.html We know everybody’s seen this or heard this before, but just in case you feel like having the experience again, here it is, boys and girls: The Ghetto Delta Commercial. The Lummox.org staff has viewed this 793 times so far, and we find new amazements in it every time.

http://www.geocities.com/mbordt/chunder2.htm This will be Michael’s Thunder Chunder Page, which Lummox.org offers for all you writers out there, just in case you need a niftier word for puke.

http://store.yahoo.com/floridagen/aiequine.html When a little just ain’t enough, Lummox.org recommends the fine products on this page.

http://www.voy.com/9289/3342.html This exchange about a lummox is, well, it’s priceless is what it is. Check it out. And if you wanna be an pain in the ass, and we hope you do, feel free to post a comment.

http://www.debcentral.com/ Almost every day, someone asks us about Professor Magnuson’s writing students and just how well do they fair after they’ve studied with the big lout. We present in response to these inquiries the following: Debcentral! The Official Website of Deborah C. Schwartz. This person studied with Professor Magnuson at the University of Florida in 1997, and as you can see by the compendium of rejections she’s posted here, she’s cutting a wide swath through Contemporary American Letters. We asked Professor Magnuson for his thoughts on this site and this person, and he said, "I’m very proud of her. That rejection page is some seriously funny shit."

http://www.mancow.com/ Home of The Mancow Show, which, you guessed it, is the Official Kickass Morning Radio Show of Lummox.org. When the Lummox.org staff grows up, we want to do something cool for a living like Mancow does.

http://www.scrote.net Online home of the Scrote Himself, who looks surprisingly like Mike Magnuson, were Mike to lose about a hundred pounds and start wearing a feed cap and standing in front of a refrigerator with his T-shirt tucked in and his hands in his pockets. This site features user-submitted pictures of scrotes and succinct commentary by the Scrote Himself on the scrote way of life, which, Lummox.org can’t help noting, bears a high number of one-to-one correspondences with the lummox way. We suggest that you send the Scrote Himself an email and tell him, hey, let’s hammer a few twelve packs and take over the world.

http://lummox.xxx-pornmovies.com Some very cunning stuff here, from some very cunning people, which they about have to be to come up with this: You click on this link, and you’ll see a chick showing her tits and you’ll think you’ve stumbled across a deluxe free-teenie-porno web page and you’ll be all thrilled and getting ready to hoo-boy yourself silly, but no, no, no, you have not found a free-teenie-porno web page. You have stumbled into the online wasteland of Lummox, the Official Punk Rock Band of Lummox.org. Give em a holler. Tell em you fell for it.

http://www.angelfire.com/va2/lummox The World-wide Lummoxic Homepage. Lummox.org feels that this site, made up mostly of what you call wordplay, reveals a great deal about the nature of lummoxness and lummoxity and lummoxification and basically anything you can make lummoxy by attaching the word lummox to it, which is what these folks have done: They’ve lummoxicated the workaday world so that we may better understand it, and we at Lummox.org are grateful. We had been lost for a long time.

http://members.aol.com/Anton98/index.html Lummox.org says, “What the fuck is this?” Drop this guy an email and tell him to get his shit together. He’s embarrassing us all.

http://members.tripod.com/~Raindog Online home of Raindog’s Dawg House, which looks to be the online home of the poet RD Armstrong, who is also known as Raindog and probably by another name, too, but he hasn’t posted it anywhere. We figure his real name is Ronald or Richard or Reginald or something, but then again, with a name like Ronald or Richard or Reginald, you couldn’t be Raindog the Poet and Mastermind of Lummox Press, could you? For real, though: We’re into what Raindog’s doing. The links on this site will take you to some interesting interviews and give you access to some great books of poetry that you’d never be able to find if you let chain bookstores determine for you where the good words in America are available.

http://www.kiosek.com/dostoevsky/library/crimeandpunishment.txt Ladies and Gentlemen, Lummox.org is pleased to present to you, in its entirety, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

http://www.milhous.net This is what you see when you open this site: A website for and about a house bear! But hey: Don’t let the goddam bear scare you away. Click on the BOOKS link, and you’ll find the collected book reviews of Dan Wickett, champion of modern no-bullshit literature and disseminator of fine words on such lummox-approved authors as Elwood Reid, Brady Udall, Tom Franklin, Steve Yarborough, Martin Clark, John Dufresne, Madison Smartt Bell, Daniel Woodrell, Kent Haruf, David Gates, Walter Kirn, Barry Hannah, and on and on. If Dan Wickett says it’s good, you can bet your ass that it is.

http://www.edgarmint.com Online home of novelist Brady Udall and his greater-than-great novel The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. If you haven’t read this book yet, get the hell down to your local independent bookseller and buy it. Lummox.org thinks this novel is one of the best and funniest books to come along in years, and we know for a fact that Mr. Udall is a cool person, too, and a tireless promoter of the finer points of lummox living—well, a tireless tolerator of lummox living, anyway. Oh, and if you have questions for Mr. Udall, word has it that the guy actually answers the email you send to his website, unlike here on this site, where, if you send email to Mike Magnuson, you’re likely to get a response from a fat Swedish woman in curlers and a muumuu who’s pretending to be Mike Magnuson.

http://www.littlejackmelody.com Online home of Little Jack Melody and His Young Turks. If you haven’t heard Little Jack, you really should drop everything you’re doing and check him out. This guy’s a first-rate musical and lyrical genius who sounds, in Lummox.org’s opinion, like a lounge singer in a Late-medieval French King’s Court. If that’s possible. And we believe Little Jack proves that it is. Maybe. In any case, Little Jack is a hipster who’s way too smart to be hip, which means his is stuff that supersedes by a light year what you’d expect from your typical skinny fellow who puts on a suit and tie and starts crooning. We particularly recommend Little Jack’s classic CD On the Blank Generation, whereon you can hear the song “A Waltz in Springfield, Missouri”—the Official Be-Depressed-About-Your-Middle-Class-Childhood Song of Lummox.org—and a version of the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth that will change your life. Guaranteed.

http://www.brunching.com/toys/toy-alanislyrics.html Here’s something that will amuse you, like, once, but it’s worth checking out, anyway. This is the Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator.

http://www.esquilax.com/baywatch/index.shtml Irrefutable online proof that David Hasselhoff is the Antichrist. Lummox.org can’t speak with any authority on the subject of Baywatch. In fact, nobody on our staff can remember watching more than some commercials for it during football games, and we haven’t avoided the show because we’re against tits and ass, because you can’t really be against body parts, can you? That would be like being against humanity, right? But hey: Fuck Baywatch. Lummoxes have got better things to do with their time. And in that light, we wholeheartedly support the seamless logic presented on this fine David Hasselhoff site.

http://www.midgetchaos.com Midget Chaos! Lummox.org thinks this site rocks. View the wrestling match. Click the links. Post your insightful comments on the graffiti board. And most of all, try to find out just who the hell this guy is. The Lummox.org research staff has determined, after extensive study, that the creator of Midget Chaos worked for a time in a plastics factory and was there involved in a series of humiliating practical jokes played on his coworkers, which means he passes the lummox test, because all lummoxes have at one time or another been involved in some variety of coworker humiliation, but other than that, we can’t find out squat about the guy. One of our staff members has suggested that the creator of Midget Chaos might in fact be the elusive novelist Thomas Pynchon, and though this Pynchon theory has generated considerable discussion here at Lummox.org, the final consensus view of the Lummox.org research staff is that the creator of Midget Chaos is a spiritualist of some sort, possibly a psychic medium, possibly someone into Voodoo, who has located Elvis and Padgett Powell in the cosmic energy continuum and has, no shit, combined their brains.

http://www.cruel.com Home of the Cruel Site of the Day. Always entertaining, frequently revolting. If you need proof that there’s more wrong with the world than what you see on the news, you’ll find it here.

http://www.portalofevil. com The Portal of Evil Home Page. Don’t run for the exits, you P.C. weenies, this here site provides regular and deluxe entertainment. We promise you’ll laugh your ass off each time you visit.

http://www.randysweb.com/weird/index.htm Home of Randy’s Web WWWeirdness. Simply the finest collection of strange and funny shit on the internet. Check out the 70 plus drawers on this site. We guarantee you that you’ll be poking around this site for hours and hours. One of the reasons, in fact, that we never get anything done here at Lummox.org is that we’re usually spending most of the day at Randy’s.

http://www.varminthunter.org/ Online home of The Varmint Hunter Magazine. Like the great Wisconsin writer Michael Perry says, “The least you can do is buy a T-shirt.”

http://www.sneezingcow.com The online home of Michael Perry, writer, speaker, humorist, firefighter, paramedic, deer hunter, small-town sage, and fan of the Green Bay Packers. This guy is a great writer and a friend of lummoxes everywhere. Lummox.org endorses everything he says about anything. While you’re at his site, order a copy of his book entitled Big Rigs, Elvis, and The Grand Dragon Wayne, and when it reaches your home, you can read an entire chapter, called "Insoluble Toxins," profiling Mike Magnuson.

http://www.shimonlindemann.com The homepage of J. Shimon & J. Lindemann, Photographers. These folks are the greatest and coolest photographers working in the state of Wisconsin, and probably in the Midwest, and probably in the whole world, as far as Lummox.org is concerned. Their photographs of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people manage that mix of stark and funny that we at Lummox.org believe life is all about. Shimon and Lindemann have had occasion to take formal photographs of Mike Magnuson a couple of times: once, for The New York Times Magazine; another time, for the jacket photograph of Lummox: The Evolution of a Man. That’s right, folks. These are the official photographers of Magnuson’s new book.

http://www.zappa.com The homepage of the Zappa Family Trust. What can we say? If you’re not into Frank Zappa, you suck. Lummox.org also notes that our Lummoxopedia section is not a ripoff of the Zappedia section on the Zappa site. A while back, the Lummox.org staff had a staff meeting at The Cellar here in Carbondale, Illinois, and after several pitchers and a couple of shots of Cuervo, we couldn’t think of anything else to call this section of our site but Lummoxopedia. Anyhow, Lummox.org suggests that you listen to Frank Zappa at least once a day. This will keep you in proper spiritual and intellectual balance, we believe.

http://home.att.net/~night_writer/index.html The homepage of an online writing collective known as WritingWest. This page was started when MSN canceled its online writers’ club, or whatever they called it, and it has been functioning independently for a couple of years now. Lummox.org absolutely does not endorse any of the writing on this site, but we wish to note that Mike Magnuson has lurked and raised havoc in their chat room for several years. If you’re ambitious, hunt through their Fiction Bulletin Board for postings beginning roundabout the date 12-17-00. Mike posted a short-short story to this board, and when the operators yanked it because it was too scatological for a "family audience," Mike got cranky and created a stir that caused one of the genius contributors and chatroom moderators on WritingWest to come out "in support of book burning." The ensuing debate on censorship is entertaining to say the least, even if Magnuson ends up sounding like a pompous history professor struggling to explain free speech to some punk members of the SA.

http://www.heartless-bitches.com The homepage of a very frightening organization called Heartless Bitches International. You truly have to see this site to believe it, but suffice it to say that Heartless Bitches succeed in pissing you off and making you laugh at the same time, which we believe is an art. Lummox.org hereby officially declares Heartless Bitches International to be Lummoxes with No Dicks. We love you, Heartless Bitches!

http://www.lummox.com This, friends and brethren, is the online atrocity commonly known as www.lummox.com. Take one look at this site, and if you don’t puke immediately at the canned sweetness and the truly barfworthy descriptions of these people’s meanderings through the world, drop them a line at their email address and tell them their site is offensive to lummoxes worldwide and that they should stop the bullshit right now.

http://www.keneally.com The compendious and awesome homepage of Mike Keneally, guitarist and genius composer and guitar wizard in Frank Zappa’s last touring band. Lummox.org doesn’t know Mr. Keneally personally, so we don’t know if he’d appreciate being called a Lummox, but we think he is one, anyway. Check out the pictures of him, read his whole approach to music and being an intelligent humanoid, listen to his sound samples, and by God get a hold of this man’s recordings. Lummox.org highly recommends his debut album entitled Hat. as well as Beer for Dolphins Live. But don’t stop yourself there. Get everything he’s got, and feel the vibe. It’s strange and brilliant, and that’s the way we like it.

http://www.stevemorse.com The homepage of legendary guitarist Steve Morse of the Dixie Dregs. This guy’s attitude toward making music and being great at it is inspiring and kickass in every way. Magnuson has been a major fan of Steve Morse for twenty-two years, back from in the days when the Dixie Dregs played the Peaches Rock Stage at Summerfest in Milwaukee in 1979. And even though Mike himself can’t play the guitar worth a shit--he tell us he’s basically a lapsed drummer--he has always taken Steve Morse’s attitude about music and applied it to his efforts in writing. Lummox.org believes that this attitude is something to the effect that this is what I do and this what I have to do, and I’m not going to waste my artistic life trying to create a product that’s marketable to pubescent girls and boys.
Lummox.org particularly recommends Night of the Living Dregs, Dregs of the Earth, and California Screamin’, but we dig everything the man’s recorded. Check out this guy’s playing; you’ll know he’s something special.

http://www.levee67.com/crews/ Simply the finest and most complete website devoted to Harry Crews, novelist deluxe. If you’re doing research on Harry Crews, you have to start here. Also, in the blurbs section, you’ll find picture of Mike Magnuson’s novel The Fire Gospels, and a few words Harry had to offer about the book. Lummox.org says that Harry Crews is the ultimate novelist for lummoxes. If you’ve never read Harry before, start with A Feast of Snakes, and we’ll bet that within a month you’ll have read at least eight more of his books.

http://www.oysterboyreview.com Online home of The Oyster Boy Review. This magazine was created by Damon Sauve, Harry Crews aficionado and guy with all-around good taste, and its contents never fail to delight the staff at Lummox.org. Check it out. Send em some money or something.

http://pigironmalt.com Online home of Pig Iron Malt, a literary magazine that makes you want to head straight for your nearest brew up and have, like, ten pints, and this is a good thing. Check it out. Send em some money or something.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/education_of_max_bickford You can probably skip checking out this link, but don’t skip checking out The Education of Max Bickford, which is on CBS. It stars Richard Dreyfuss as a professor at an all-women’s college. Lummox.org has been watching this show with great interest, and while it is TV, meaning there’s a prerequisite sanitizing of reality for storyline purposes, we think this show provides an incredibly accurate portrait of college-professor life. We say, This shit is right on the money!