Susan Clarke News Center

2009-02-11T09:44:00.001-08:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE NARROWLY ESCAPES INJURY FROM FLYING GRAPEFRUIT

Feb. 11, 2009, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Around noon today, while carrying a basket of laundry across the driveway, Susan Clarke narrowly escaped being pelted by an armada of airborne grapefruit. The grapefruit, seven total which now lay in various states of squishiness in the driveway, were loosed by sudden high winds and whipping rain that unexpectedly shook up what had been a bright, sunny, but cold morning. In the melee, wayward citrus headed Clarke’s way from a neighbor’s tree on the other side of the fence.

This isn’t the first time the rebellious produce has posed a hazard for Clarke in the week since she moved into her new apartment. Over the weekend, while she and her boyfriend unloaded a heavy wooden cabinet from the back of her truck, he was walking backwards with the furniture when his foot struck something and he nearly tripped. Though he reported that it felt like he kicked rat, it was in fact another felled overripe grapefruit. The grapefruit was chastised, but obviously failed to send the message back to its brothers on the tree not to mess with the new tenants next door.

“I have very little experience interacting with nature,” explains Clarke, who has dwelled in urban areas for 20 years. “Most places I’ve lived, the main concerns have been keeping bums out of the building, not running out of hot water, and not falling through the hole in the floor.” By comparison, the sassy grapefruit are a rather quaint nuisance.

In 1687, renowned scientific mind Sir Isaac Newton had his own cross to bear in regards to fruit in motion. His chance meeting with the business end of an apple led to the publishing of his treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which introduced his theories of motion and gravity. Likewise, Clarke’s experience with flying grapefruit led her to write a press release, which slightly fewer people would read. She and Newton also have a shared love of long, flowing wigs.

In Clarke’s undisclosed new neighborhood in Los Angeles, there are several retailers of Mexican-made Fresca. The Mexican-made version of the famous grapefruit soda is far superior to the domestic version as it is made with cane sugar rather than corn syrups. Clarke has plans to stand under the grapefruit tree and ominously drink a bottle of Fresca to send a very clear message to the tree.

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2009-02-11T09:39:00.000-08:00

SUSAN CLARKE REPORTS EPIDEMIC OF SHOWER CHAIRS BEING USED AS PATIO FURNITURE

FEBRUARY 11, 2009, LOS ANGELES, Calif. A recent walk around Susan Clarke’s unnamed ghetto neighborhood has revealed an unsavoury trend in lawn décor— shower chairs designed for the elderly and handicapped being used as patio furniture. Clarke first noticed this offense on her own block, in front of a row of cottages that also included a broken baby changing table and an upside-down 5-gallon bucket of pie filling. Several weeks after spotting and therefore becoming obsessed with this anomalie, she spotted yet another sadly out-of-place shower chair several blocks away on the front porch of a falling-down but stately old bungalow. She believes that this constitutes an outright epidemic.

Clarke has spent a good deal of time analyzing why the shower chairs, which are useful bathing aids for the infirm and elderly, incite such nausea when they are out of context and located next to a pie filling bucket. The chairs have tubular aluminum frames with wide, concave, plastic seats perforated with holes. They have large rubber caps on their feet. Similarly-designed chairs are being sold at Ikea under exotic, umlaut-riddled monikers, so wherein lies the difference? “When you look at a used shower chair, consciously or subconsciously, you picture a naked, sick, old, unclean person in it. And consciously or subconsciously you know that someday you will be a naked, sick, old, unclean person. But right now it’s a sunny day and you’re just taking a walk, so you’d rather not be faced with thoughts of your humiliating spiral towards death.”

There is currently an apartment vacancy on the cottage property with the shower chair, changing table, and pie filling bucket in front. “I kind of want to move there and meet the people responsible for the display, get inside their heads, see what makes them tick,” says Clarke. “It could be some outsider artist and this is their project about the human life cycle and pie.” More likely, it is just poor people with a pile of crap.

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2008-12-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE NO LONGER COMMITTED TO QUALITY

Dec. 9, 2008. LOS ANGELES, Calif. After decades of adhering to strict standards of excellence in her personal and professional life, Susan Clarke is abandoning her commitment to quality and from now on will be “phoning it in.” The decision to embrace a more laid-back lifestyle marks a significant development for Clarke, who has a history of exerting far more effort than is required or even expected in any given situation. At this morning’s press conference, Clarke announced an epiphany that her modus operandi as a “relentlessly critical self-flogger” has only served to freak her out on a daily basis, without earning the money or accolades she was conditioned to expect as a result. Thus, she will be reducing her efforts.

From her post in her Echo Park apartment — formerly the last bastion of quality in the Greater Los Angeles area — Clarke is confident that her esteemed reputation for producing top notch writing work and keeping a tidy house will not be negatively impacted by her new approach. With an uncharacteristic confidence brought on by today’s landmark decision, she explains that even if she were to decrease her average effort by 40 to 50%, she would “still be on par with the top writers and housekeepers out there because my half-assed work is still better than the average person’s 110% effort.” For added clarity, Clarke punctuated the end of her sentence with a z-shaped snap.

Clarke maintains that today’s revelation is a time for celebration, not a sad day of surrender to be mourned throughout the Quality community. “I’m just being realistic about the fact that I’m more awesome than I generally give myself credit for,” she shrugs. “I could really chill the fuck out and no one would even notice.”

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2008-11-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE ALMOST REVERSES ANTI-APPLIANCE STANCE TO BUY COFFEEMAKER

November 19, 2008, LOS ANGELES, Calif. At 10:30 this morning Susan Clarke, well-known in four states for her cynicism towards consumer goods, began taking the first steps towards buying an electric drip coffeemaker. However by 11:15 she had come to her senses and reaffirmed her commitment to her 12 year-old French press pot.

The close call with consumerism occurred after Clarke dumped half a cup of wet, coarse, coffee grounds on the kitchen floor for the 780th time while trying to transfer them from the glass carafe into the garbage can. Earlier in the morning Clarke and her boyfriend had expressed a shared desire to awaken to the smell of brewing coffee. Unless they were to surgically attach an opposable thumb onto the cat, they agreed that this could only become a reality through the advanced technology of an electric, counter-top, drip coffeemaker. Clarke decided to briefly put aside her Amish-like affinity for analog cooking solutions and research coffeemakers on the Internet. “I compared product reviews and price points for a full 45 minutes before suddenly coming to my senses and realizing how stupid it was to buy something that does something I can already do for free.”

Clarke’s coffeemaker kybosh is based on her firm belief that “a stove is all you need.” She cites coffee makers, rice cookers, and electric kettles as “redundant appliances,” as one only needs to boil a pot of water on a stove to make coffee, rice, or hot water. Furthermore, microwaves, Foreman grills, bread makers, and toaster ovens “are ugly, made of plastic, and will eventually break and end up in the landfill” at which point the consumer is suckered into spending 80 dollars for a new one. Plus, there are the issues of the design aesthetic, even with Target working overtime to make everything look Japanese. “I don’t like blinking LED lights anywhere on my premises, and all the coffeemakers have those” Clarke announces with finality. Tomorrow she will return to using her French press pot, “and just suck up the fact that it’s a whore to clean up after.”

Today’s decision came as no surprise to Clarke’s boyfriend, who is just grateful that she never asks him to buy her anything.

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2008-09-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE ATTEMPTS TO CREATE PERMANENT VACATION CONDITIONS AT HOME

Sept. 9, 2008. LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke faced the post-Labor Day doldrums head-on this week by ordering hundreds of dollars worth of high-end sheets, towels, micro-roasted coffee beans, and other luxury items off the internet. The uncharacteristic shopping spree was an effort to rage against the dying of summer and to upgrade her housing amenities to the level she fell in love with at a boutique hotel over the summer. “I want to feel like I’m in an awesome hotel all the time” she explained, fully aware that this will not be easy in a 1970s apartment that is outfitted with grey office carpeting and popcorn ceilings.

Clarke began her journey to vacationland in the bedroom, dropping a pile of dough on one thousand threadcount sheets and a comforter cover that aim to achieve the “white poofy cloud” experience of a boutique hotel bed. She added four significantly overstuffed pillows to encourage sitting up in bed and reading the paper, and ordered four pounds of coffee beans from a top Pacific Northwest coffee roaster to enjoy while doing so. Clarke hopes that the “white poofy cloud” will encourage actual bed newspaper reading and coffee drinking at home, where such an indulgence is often overruled by the need to check work emails or feed the cat. “By creating a vacation-like space, I hope to reach a vacation-like state of mind. Which means nothing will really seem that important anymore and I may possibly get fired.”

The iPod dock and little notepads and pens for the bedside tables should arrive by the end of the week. For the desk, Clarke is creating a linen bound book containing copies of local restaurant menus. The laminated emergency escape map of the building should be ready to mount on the back of the door by the end of the week. Further vacation reclamation plans include spending significantly more time sitting in warm water — formerly a vacation-only indulgence that was impossible at home due to a broken tub drain. A weekend DIY project put an end to that situation and Clarke is now able to enjoy relaxing bubble baths followed by several hours of lounging in a (stolen) oversized terrycloth robe, eating small packets of smoked almonds, and not caring about anything.

Five-star service remains the only outstanding issue that Clarke has been unable to replicate in her upgraded housing situation. On her current salary, she cannot afford housekeeping, laundry, concierge, or butler service of any kind, and is left with no choice but to put a bow tie on the cat and pretend that he is doing things for her when he is actually not. Clarke’s boyfriend turned down this imaginary job offer prior to it being foisted on the feline.

As of press date, the hotel has not called about the robe.

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2008-05-14T19:18:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE FIRES CONSCIOUS,
PROMOTES SUBCONSCIOUS TO HEAD OF TEAM

May 14, 2008. LOS ANGELES, Calif. This afternoon at approximately 3:30 pm Susan Clarke officially fired her conscious and gave her subconscious a raise and complete run of the show. The move was inspired by a trip to the bathroom where, while performing a mundane bathroom task, she suddenly arrived at the answer to a problem she had been trying to solve all day…consciously. Clarke considered the countless times that she has experienced similar breakthroughs —suddenly remembering the name of that movie she couldn’t think of last night while vacuuming the next day, or all those times she came up with totally genius ideas while treading that semi-conscious fog right before sleep.

“Basically,” Clarke explains, “My subconscious gets a whole hell of a lot more done in a day than my conscious, so it was time to do some corporate restructuring.” The conscious was given a fair buyout including all back holiday pay and a booklet of gift certificates good at any Mann theater. Unfortunately, per company policy, the conscious did have to endure a humiliating walk to the parking lot with its box of desk knickknacks while accompanied by a security guard. There were no incidents and the conscious was off the property by 5 pm. An email informing fellow team members of the new chain of command was sent shortly thereafter. Hushed discussions in the kitchenette followed.

Clarke is looking forward to settling in under the fresh leadership of her subconscious beginning tomorrow. “I haven’t had any new initiatives or plans to expand my operations for ages,” she recalls of the stagnant days under her ineffectual conscious, “because I was always trying to come up with them.” Now that Clarke has put the subconscious in charge of operations, she’s confident she will finally begin to see the growth that has eluded her for so long.

The conscious could not be reached for comment.

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2008-03-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE WISHES SHE HAD ORDERED THE OTHER SANDWICH

March 11, 2008. LOS ANGELES, Calif. Last night at a pub Susan Clarke ordered a bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich but soon discovered that she was more in the mood for the roast beef melt her boyfriend had ordered. The BLT had initially jumped out at her from the menu, bacon fan Clarke having abstained from the stroke-inducing treat for several weeks. However when their orders arrived and Clarke was invited to sample her boyfriend’s sandwich — shaved roast beef, grilled onions, and cheese on grilled rye bread — there was simply no going back. “I generally don’t enjoy red meat” she explained, “but this sandwich would have had a Hindu blindly clubbing cows and chasing them around with slices of bread.”

The band broke into a Fats Waller song on the nearby stage but Clarke’s attention remained focused on surreptitiously consuming her mate’s meal while he studied the guitar playing. Her own wheat toast began to curl at the edges, her bacon devolved into a dog chew toy, and her lettuce went limp. She attempted to reconcile her regret over the sandwich order with the consolation that the onion rings rocked and she was glad she opted for them over the steak fries. “Sometimes you think you know but you don’t know.” She added, “You know?”

This was not the first time Clarke has made a decision at a pub that initially seemed like a good idea but soon proved to be a terrible, terrible mistake. In one incident she swapped pink slips with a busboy and came home as the proud owner of a 1973 Pinto. Another time she woke up on the tour bus of a psychedelic figure skating revue. Details of still two more incidents can be found by accessing the related police reports via the Freedom of Information act.

In an effort to prevent future ordering misjudgments, Clarke is preparing a portable PowerPoint chart to help assist her in future restaurant endeavors. The chart helps the user identify their current state of mind in order to assess their best food option at that time. With thorough step-by-step analysis of Clarke’s physical and psychological states as well as recent media exposure, aura hue, and the longitude and latitude of the eating establishment she hopes she will be able to avoid reliving what has come to be known as “the bacon debacle of 2008.”

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2008-02-08T22:34:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE ASSIGNS HIP MONIKERS TO “NEIGHBORHOODS” IN HER APARTMENT

February 8, 2008. LOS ANGELES, Calif. At a press conference held in Echo Park this afternoon, Susan Clarke unveiled a freshly drawn map in which she has renamed the districts of her apartment with hip, two-and three-syllable nicknames fashioned after New York City’s SoHo and NoLita. The former living room, whose main attraction is the large picture window, has been rechristened PiWi, while the office, which is located directly to the South of PiWi, is now appropriately called SoPiWi. Furthermore, SoPiWi is broken down into smaller districts including BoSheCo (the bookshelf corner), DUD (down under the desk) and StoCaLi (the storage shelves above the cat litter box).

Inspired by the highly touted rejuvenation of nearby Downtown Los Angeles, Clarke’s branding initiative is an attempt to create a sophisticated urban reputation for her apartment, which is an otherwise uninspired box with office carpeting and popcorn ceilings. “This apartment could have a major presence as a retail/entertainment live-work loft complex,” Clarke explains from a comfortable seat in KiTa (the kitchen table). “But it needs some savvy, upscale marketing to stand a chance in the highly competitive field of urban gentrification.” Clarke’s additional branding tactics will include updating the font of the #3 on the front door to something more streamlined in brushed aluminum, planting eco-friendly bamboo next to the driveway, and a cross-promotional campaign with Design Within Reach. Clarke ultimately hopes that she can create enough buzz about her address to incite a bidding war between Robek’s and Cold Stone Creamery over who gets to build a retail outlet in her carport, known as BeBe for its location below the bedroom.

Clarke scoffs at memories of former apartments, which were quaintly non-commercial and located in economically mixed, functional neighborhoods. “If it’s not highly researched, targeted to a specific demographic, prepackaged, attached to a corporation, and honed by a focus group,” she posits, retrieving a Mexican Fresca from FriDo (the fridge door), “who would want to live there?”

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2008-01-31T10:11:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE QUITS YOGA CLASS AFTER SEEING TEACHER IN BAD SHORT FILM ON YOUTUBE

JANUARY 31, 2008, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke has announced that she is yet again on the hunt for a good yoga teacher after unwittingly discovering that her most recent instructor is actually an aspiring actor. His real identity was a shock to Clarke who thought that his white turban, beard, and Hammer-like gauzy pants signaled an authentic yogini, the type who study for years in India and devote their lives to a path of enlightenment. The red carpet seems a more likely goal, Clarke concluded, after stumbling across the half-asana in one of thousands of dismal “Office” parodies clogging up YouTube. The faux-gini was clad in Dockers and a tie and was limply “sending up” cubicle life with such weak results that Clarke felt the need to take Child’s Pose for a good 10 minutes in order to regain her balance.

“I’m okay with the fact that actors serve my food and patrol my beaches for sharks,” Clarke offers. But when it comes to her psycho-spiritual growth, she demands “a dedicated expert who doesn’t have to split early to read for a walk-on role on According to Jim. “I don’t trust a part-timer with a headshot to helm my quest for profundity.” She confesses that she might not have come to the same conclusion if the short film had been any good, “But it sucked. It was completely unfunny and unoriginal.”

Fortunately, Clarke had only taken four classes with the fraudulent raja, suffering minimal disruption of her karma.

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2007-11-08T12:17:00.000-08:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE SPOILS ROMANTIC MOMENT BY MAKING SASQUATCH JOKE

NOVEMBER 8, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Last night, Susan Clarke and her boyfriend were enjoying a romantic fall evening at home (read: about to get it on) when Clarke cracked a joke about Sasquatch and by all accounts, ruined the magic of the moment. The specific events leading up to the joke are unclear, but at one point the conversation turned to a certain characteristic of the male anatomy which prompted Clarke to quip “That’s what Mrs. Sasquatch said.” The non sequitur led to further speculation on the mating life of Sasquatch, and the tender candlelit intimacy was all but trampled. Such blunders are common among socially retarded comedy writers, and it is a drawback that Clarke’s long-term relationship has had to deal with on more than one occasion.

“What if there were only two Sasquatches, and they didn’t even like each other?” Clarke posits, reliving the topic that unquestionably put out last night’s fire. Once the pair resigned themselves to thoroughly unsexy examination of possibly fictional wildlife, they found themselves with more questions than answers. “What if there was only one guy and one girl Sasquatch, and they kind of figured they should mate, but they totally hated each other?” Clarke brought up the very real possibility that the male Sasquatch might be immature, or malodorous, or always has to be right about everything. “To be fair,” she continued, “the female Sasquatch might be a total bitch. “ Clarke and boyfriend both considered the possibility that one of the Sasquatches could also be gay, further preventing them from carrying on their legacy of leaving enormous footprints in the deep woods of the Pacific Northwest once every 42 years. A night of unfettered passion it was not.

In an effort to prevent the tragic booty derailment from occurring again, Clarke is going to adopt the practice of purging her best comic material of the day from her system before the boyfriend gets home, performing a standup set in front of a potted palm if necessary. Clarke’s boyfriend has indicated he would settle for turning up the volume on Al Green’s Greatest Hits to drown out any inappropriately non-dirty talk.

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2007-10-30T13:46:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE ENTERS THIRD DECADE OF NOT WRITING ABOUT FELINES

OCTOBER 30, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. This fall marks the third decade in a row that Susan Clarke has written nothing on the subject of cats. A professional writer in the editorial field as well as an emerging creative writer, Clarke has never wasted any of her award-winning observational wordsmithing on cats, including descriptions of their hilariously superior attitudes, how cute they look sleeping with their paw curled around their nose, how to sew a Christmas stocking for them, and why they should all be named Mittens regardless of the markings on their feet. Clarke’s earliest surviving written works — a folder of stories dating from 1977 when she was eight years old — likewise waste no verbiage on the preciousness of a fluffy kitten napping upon a gingham cushion or anything about how sometimes cats end up being your only true friend when everyone else has abandoned you due to your hard drinking and unpredictable episodes of gunplay.

Clarke’s recent lambasting of Garfield does not count, as the target of her disdain in that essay was a predictable and unfunny comic strip. “The fact that Garfield is a cat is secondary,” she clarified in an interview from her apartment where she does not have a cat that serves as a child substitute. She goes on to explain that her personal code of artistic ethics forbids the written considerations of real, non-cartoon housecats, “with their velvety pink ears, affectionate lap kneading, and irresistible tiny meows every time you use the can opener.” According to Clarke, no respectable social commentator should waste his talent on descriptions of a cat chasing a butterfly in the sun. “Or a cat being your only company when everyone else turns out to be a liar who siphoned the gas from your Tercel to get out of the state and jump bail.”

In the future, Clarke promises there will continue to be no place in her work for “twee frippery or sentimental treacle” about such broad, pedestrian topics as cats. Indeed, Clarke’s frippery-free treatises seek to explore more provocative topics related to the alienation of the individual in a post-post-modern corporate-dominated landscape, and his struggle to find meaning in the modern human experience whose explosion of communication technologies is seemingly at odds with legions of voracious consumers who actually have little to say.

Clarke prefers that “the cat writing be left to people who have nothing else to talk about. I have much bigger fish to fry. Don’t I Mittens? Yes I do! Mommy has fish! Oh who’s a good boy now? Yes you are!”

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2007-10-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE NOT BEING HELD HOSTAGE

EVERYTHING IS TOTALLY FINE YOU JUST CAN’T COME IN RIGHT NOW

October 22, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. It is a totally normal and fine day for Susan Clarke, a working writer, and she most certainly is not being held hostage in her house by a crazed person of any kind. Even if she were being held hostage, it probably wouldn’t be by a male who is about 5’9”, 175 pounds, with a shaved head and spiderweb tattoos on his elbows. As she told the UPS delivery man earlier this morning, “I’m not being held hostage or anything, but if you could just stay on the porch, the house is a mess. By the way, do you have any hostage, I mean, postage stamps?” A sudden bit of pollen in the air required Clarke to rapidly wink her right eye.

Police have been combing the area looking for a suspect in an attempted takeover of City Hall, but Susan Clarke has no comment as she doesn’t know anything about it. “Hm, maybe that rings a bell, maybe I heard about it on the radio earlier today,” she told her neighbor, who came to the door later asking if she’d take her clothes out of the dryer. Luckily, Clarke didn’t have to carry all those clothes back upstairs herself because her ski hat-wearing “cousin” from “Arizona” is visiting her, and he insisted on helping Clarke with the household chore. She introduced him to the neighbor as Ted, or more specifically, one Ted. “There’s only ONE TED, we like to say in our family. Everyone should know this, he’s ONE TED.” Clarke followed her joke with a quick start that would be like if someone poked a gun in your spine to tell you to shut up but it wasn’t because of that. That would only happen if someone was being held hostage, which Susan Clarke is not. She hopped because she suddenly remembered she had to check her eBay auctions. Yes, that was it.

Clarke regrets that she won’t be going out tonight. She had plans to meet friends at a Mexican place but she has to cancel due to not being held hostage or anything but because maybe for some other reason.

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2007-10-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE CONTINUALLY STYMIED BY STOVE BURNER DIAGRAM

OCTOBER 10, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. After six months of living in her current apartment and using the stove an average of twice a day, Susan Clarke is still unable to fully wrap her head around which knob operates which burner. Each knob has a small diagram of the stove top and corresponding burner printed next to it, yet 99 percent of the time Clarke turns what she believes to be the appropriate knob only to have blast of blue flame explode somewhere on the stove other than where she has placed the tea kettle or sautee pan. This error has resulted in the singeing of several potholders and the tragic disfigurement of a rubber spatula. “In addition,“ she adds, “it makes me wonder if I may be missing a particular quadrant of my brain.”

In fact, the burner map found on most consumer-grade stoves is similar to pattern-based, problem solving puzzles used in standard IQ tests. And if her ability to operate her stove is an indicator of Clarke’s own aptitude for logic and spatial relations, she may in fact qualify for a “special needs” bus pass. In an attempt to conquer this culinary conundrum Clarke has been taking time to study the stove top in a no-pressure situation, but sadly, pre-test cramming has done little to improve her performance once there is a package of bacon and a griddle involved in the equation. “I just don’t see how this dot is supposed to represent this burner,” she maintains, “unless this is an undersea view. Was this stove designed for the aquatic community? Because that’s the only logical explanation.”

Clarke is hoping that once she comes forward with her story, throngs of others will voice their support with admissions of their own stove knob misinterpretations, “and then the healing can begin. It all starts with dialogue. And ends with closure. And somewhere in between there’s a lawsuit and a new warning label.”

Clarke suspects that cooks have been suffering from this same syndrome — which she hopes to have officially declared SKS, or Stove Knob Syndrome— for hundreds of years. “Take a look at Benjamin Franklin.” Inventor Franklin was responsible for the Franklin Stove, a precursor to the modern day gas and electric cooktop. “Wonder why he didn’t have any hair in front? Probably singed it off by constantly turning the wrong knob on his Franklin stove.”

Representatives of the Benjamin Franklin Institute did not return calls requesting information on the inventor’s descendents and their propensity for hair loss or excessive calls to the fire department.

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2007-08-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE SHOWCASES WRITING SKILLS, WRY OBSERVATIONS WITH SELF-REFERENTIAL PRESS RELEASES

HOPES LATEST PRESS RELEASE ABOUT PRESS RELEASES DOES NOT CAUSE UNIVERSE TO IMPLODE

AUGUST 23, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke, who has been writing a series of self-referential press releases that showcase her stunning writing ability and her wry observations on life, has announced a press release about the press releases — a risky act of sub self-referencing that may affect gravity’s pull and/or set into motion the extinction of several species of plants and mammals. Such potentially dangerous sub-self-referencing has rarely been attempted in the world of letters though it has been successful in rock music, most notably with Bad Company’s 1974 album “Bad Company” which contained the hit song “Bad Company.” Following their lead, Clarke prefaced the writing of this controversial press release with an ominous build of splash cymbals.

As of the beginning of second paragraph, Clarke’s self-referential press release did not appear to be causing any drastic changes in the functioning of the earth’s major life-support systems. Clarke, who is safely hunkered down in a cement basement with gallons of drinking water, boxes of Trader Joe’s Creamy Tomato Soup, and a transistor radio, has turned to this desperate self-referential measure in an attempt to breathe new life into her press release series after it suffered a massive hit of neglect during the vacation month of August. “I know it may seem selfish,” she confessed through a crack in the storm door, “but these are the risks I am willing to take to make my mark in the writing world. If a few black holes develop and engulf portions of the universe, so be it.” Clarke’s physics understanding is limited to a comedy sketch she saw once where someone was pretending to be Stephen Hawking, so she is not really certain if black holes are in fact a risk factor in creating an overly self-referential piece of art. “But if Paul Rodgers was willing to take the leap” she wagers, citing the lead singer of Bad Company, “so am I.”

A Google search aimed at finding a humorous link between Rodgers and Stephen Hawking with which to close the press release turned up an almost unbelievable nugget of coincidental trivia. Brian May, guitarist of the band Queen, with whom Rodgers toured as lead singer last summer, holds a PhD in astrophysics from London’s Imperial College. Clarke surmises that during long nights on the tour bus last year, Rodgers and May would have had ample time to discuss the effect either of their artistic contributions may have had on cosmic developments in the universe.

As of the final paragraph, Clarke’s contributions appear to have had none.

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2007-07-31T00:27:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

NOW AVAILABLE FROM SUSAN CLARKE —
HALF A VERSE AND A CHORUS

July 31, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Songwriter Susan Clarke is pleased to announce the release of half a verse and a chorus. The partial song — whose title is yet to be determined but will probably include parentheses— is the latest in a string of musical projects for Clarke, who has in the past released random rhyming couplets and over four dozen song titles that did not have songs attached to them. The half verse and chorus, which are in the key of C for now but might change later, reinforce Clarke’s career-spanning theme of self-discovery. “As a soul, I’m a work in progress,” she explained from an ashram outside of Taos. “I express this state of being by releasing material that is also a work in progress.”

Clarke has extensive plans to promote the half verse and chorus, and has just been confirmed as a second stage act for the West Coast leg of this summer’s Lollapalooza tour. Famed director Michel Gondry has agreed to helm the video for the half verse and chorus, and shooting begins in Zagreb, Croatia in early August. John Waters has expressed interest in adapting the half verse and chorus into a feature film in hopes that it might later be adapted into a musical and then back into a feature film again. Clarke is also in talks with fast food chain El Pollo Loco about collectible promotional cups which would likely be large enough to include the half verse and chorus lyrics in their entirety.

“I don’t know if NASA has any upcoming plans to go to the moon,” she further plans, "but I would like to maybe go with them and plant the half verse and chorus on the moon like a flag. And maybe golf a bit while I’m there.”

NASA could not be reached for comment, but a spokesperson for the women’s PGA surmised that golfing without the aid of gravity would likely be difficult for a songwriter who has never golfed before.

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2007-07-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE REVEALS ALLERGY TO MONDAYS, COMMON GROUND WITH GARFIELD

July 23, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. At a press conference early this morning, commentator Susan Clarke revealed that she is allergic to Mondays, which much to her chagrin, means she shares common ground with lazy comic strip cat Garfield. Clarke has experienced symptoms of the allergy for decades, including grouchiness, bedhead, and itchy pajama butt, however she has been reluctant to cave in to the diagnosis lest she become associated with the broad, unfunny comedy of the lasagna-eating feline. She finally admitted to the allergy today to take advantage of the legitimate medical excuse for not wanting to work.

“This will greatly ease the pressures of Monday morning,” Clarke explained in a press conference in the lobby of the Knight’s Inn near Downtown L.A., “however I fear the slow erosion of my street cred as a commentator. I have never wanted to be associated with a catch phrase that appears on a mug.” Clarke’s doctor was on hand to assure reporters that the condition was physiological and not within Clarke’s control. “To extrapolate this allergy into a reflection of Clarke’s work would be an unfair bias,” he said, propping up the drooping commentator. “She is still capable of the same sharply-observed, well-constructed critiques of society she is known for. But not until Tuesday.”

In a question and answer session following the announcement, Clarke stated that she was relieved that at least she didn’t have anything in common with comic strip character “Cathy,” who she truly loathes down to the core of her being. While ranting on about how Cathy perpetuates the stereotype of women revolving their lives around chocolate and trying to find a boyfriend, three drops of sweat flew off Clarke’s forehead in a tableau surprisingly similar to the third panel of every single “Cathy” cartoon.

Deep in the throes of career anxiety, Clarke promptly returned home and hit the couch like “Andy Capp”, calling it a day.

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2007-07-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE POINTS FINGER, THREE FINGERS POINT BACK AT HER

July 18, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Several days ago Susan Clarke witnessed an old adage coming to life when she pointed her finger and found three fingers pointing back at her. She was hard-pressed to find the moral in all of it, though, as she had been pointing to a Chihuahua wearing a funny hat. She and her boyfriend were walking through a park when Clarke spied the Chihuahua, which had a camouflage visor strapped to its head with a series of Velcro straps. She wanted to make sure that her boyfriend did not miss the hilarity of the sight, and that’s when the pointing occurred.

“It was an innocent point, not a damning point,” Clarke defends, referring to the snappy slogan that is popular with self-help groups. “Point a finger and there are three pointing back at you” is intended to remind one that whenever one accuses someone else of a particular behavior, they’re probably guilty of the same thing themselves. Possibly three times worse. Clarke, always up for some self-improvement, tried her hardest but failed to learn a lesson from the experience. “I wasn’t wearing a funny hat,” she recalls. “And certainly not three funny hats. So I don’t get where I was in the wrong here.” If she were in a self-help group, this would probably be interpreted as some sort of denial. And the accuser would no doubt be guilty of three times the denial. Which is how self-help groups keep the coffee money coming in.

“I think the real issue here is dog fashion abuse,” Clarke counters. “Dressing up a quivering, four-pound dog like it’s going hunting is just mocking it. It’s four pounds, what’s it going to hunt? Bison?”

Since the incident, Clarke has devoted serious time to analyzing other commonly used catchphrases, discovering that “Easy” might just not “Do It” but that there is, in fact, no “I” in “team.”

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2007-07-13T12:15:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE DEFEATS MOTHRA

July 13, 2007, OSAKA, JAPAN. Today Susan Clarke trampled across Japan and wrestled Mothra, a giant lepidopteran with glowing red eyes, into an early grave. This was one of a series of recent rampages for Clarke, a sixty-foot prehistoric monster who was reanimated as a result of nuclear fallout. “I’m really just a misunderstood pacifist with poor control of my enormous and powerful tail,” claims Clarke, whose ability to shoot radioactive beams out of her eyes has helped her defeat other monsters and assassination attempts by the Japanese military. Prior to today’s battle, which was witnessed by a newspaper reporter and his trusty camera-wielding sidekick, she has kicked the ass of the rhino-like Anguirus, and the famous ape King Kong, among others. “I’m just a victim of your evil science and your warmongering ways, don’t you understand?” she pled before devouring a tiny Boy Scout in one bite.

Mothra may or may not have had it coming, depending on your interpretation of events leading up to the royal whooping. Earlier in the day, Mothra was visited by a pair of adorable twin girls trying to enlist help in saving Japan from the maniacal, fire-breathing Clarke. Mothra turned them down, “which made Mothra kind of a dick to begin with,” explains Clarke. “She only kicked into action when I threatened to crush her giant egg, which was self-serving and uncool.” After a lengthy battle, onlookers watched in shock and horror as Mothra was finally taken down by Clarke’s laser beams. Clarke erroneously thought she was home free but then the military came after her and tried to electrocute her with their advanced artificial lightning. They failed.

Following today’s victory, Clarke will be taking some time out of the spotlight to nurse her dorsal fins. There have already been talks of further attacks on Japan, and she is said to be compiling a list of potential future battle partners including Ghidorah and Megalon. She is also considering expanding into U.S. territories and licensing her image for video games.

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2007-07-12T22:05:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE GOES TO HOLIDAY BARBECUE, BUMS EVERYONE OUT

July 10, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. During a weekend barbecue, social and political commentator Susan Clarke managed to bring all merriment to a halt when she introduced into conversation the recent news story of two U.S. soldiers arrested for premeditated murder while serving in Iraq. “Isn’t that what war is?” she asked, “Premeditated murder?”

Clarke, guilty in this instance of killing several people’s buzz, was incensed by the news of Staff Sgt. Michael A. Hensley and Specialist Jorge G. Sandoval Jr., who were charged last week in the killings of three Iraqi civilians. Clarke continued to alienate margarita-drinking revelers with further inquiries into why the killing of some Iraqis was mandated, while the killing of others was a punishable offense. Following accusations of hypocrisy, she demanded to know why “the Commander in Chief’s decision to invade Iraq itself is not considered one huge act of premeditated murder? What did he expect, that troops were gonna waltz in there like Fonzie, bang the jukebox a few times, and everyone would just fall in line?”

Thankfully, another party guest stepped forward in support and pointed out that over 3500 civilians had been killed in air strikes against Afghanistan since 2001, but he was unaware of any “premeditated murder” charges related to their deaths. Clarke was relieved to discover that she was not the only person at a Los Angeles party who culled their news from a source other than Entertainment Weekly.

While the potato salad levels dropped, the cheddar cheese began to perspire, and the uneaten turkey burgers slowly turned to oily hockey pucks in the setting sun, Clarke frothed over such equally unpopular and depressing topics as the Farm Bill, toxic imported chemicals from China, and the $15 million dollar space toilet that NASA is buying from the Russians.

“I felt it was the best course of action I could personally take this holiday weekend,” the self-righteous partygoer defended. “Sure, I could have just pretended that everything was fine, and just talked about “Knocked Up” and had a bong hit and danced to “Watermelon Man” like everyone else, but…wait. Oh shit. I should have done that! That’s so much more fun! I’m such an asshole!”

Clarke has yet to receive any Evites since the incident occurred.

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2007-06-26T12:04:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE WEARS LAST YEAR’S OWLS, HAS NOT BOUGHT INTO THIS YEAR’S SQUID

June 26, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Thanks to an article in the Style section of Sunday’s New York Times, Susan Clarke has been shamed into retiring any garment with a bird on it and ordered to shop for a replacement item bearing a sea creature— this season’s fashionable new animal kingdom motif. Clarke foolishly misidentified the current clothing trend, thinking it included birds and animals in general. Little did she know that the sparrows and owls reproducing like bunnies on last year’s tanks and totes were only a fleeting fascination, along with the woodland creatures that are now hopelessly “last year”. According the Times article about 20-something hipster craft fairs, this year is all about squid, octopus, and other sea creatures. Anyone seen sporting a bird or a chipmunk might as well give it up and move into a retirement home.

“I didn’t get the memo on that one,” explains Clarke. “Now I know why I’ve been getting the stink-eye from the lawnmower haircut girls at Trader Joe’s — I’ve been wearing last year’s species.” Actually, Clarke is more than a little behind in species adornment, and still wears a t-shirt with a silk-screened dragon on it. The shirt technically forms a land bridge between the trends of tattoo-inspired graphics and wildlife, so is therefore outdated on two accounts. “I have been buying my shirts bigger and my pants smaller, though,” she counters. “So I’m not totally behind on every fashion account.

Clarke believes she has officially lived through and participated in every single trend in the history of the world and is close to trading in the contents of her closet for a barrel with two straps, to be worn for the rest of her stay on this planet. “I can’t keep up anymore,” she sighs, “I’ve worn it all. Retro, boho, hobo, Sheriff Lobo, Daisy Duke, Cat Stevens, dust bowl granny, laurel canyon groupie, Brit punk, Breck Girl, mariachi, mean nurse, railroad worker, Impressionist lady in park, WAC, librarian, perky French spy, Factory girl, atomic mom, atomic dad, wealthy ranch wife, waitress, mechanic, bohemian Art History teacher, silent film star, surfer, skipper, detective, and six year-old. I have officially run out of styles.”

Clarke will be accepting barrel and strap donations from readers, who are encouraged to contact her for shipping information. “Something in a nice 40-gallon oak barrel…maybe I’ll accessorize with a monocle to offset the poverty card a bit,” she rambled, unwittingly revealing that she has not, in fact, run out of styles.

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2007-06-21T10:40:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE REPLACES POPULAR PHRASE “WTF” WITH “WTO”

WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION ENJOYS SPIKE IN VISIBILITY

June 21, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. As of this morning, Susan Clarke has officially replaced her usage of the common phrase “WTF” with the more globally aware and less abrasive alternative “WTO.” For those unfamiliar with the former, WTF is a common slang abbreviation for “what the fuck.” For example, “We’re out of toilet paper again? WTF?” For those unfamiliar with the latter, the WTO, or World Trade Organization, is the global organization that establishes and enforces international trade policy. In the weeks since Clarke has begun to reference the governing body in casual conversation, the WTO has experienced a noticeable spike in popularity. According to WTO spokesmen, the switchboards have been lighting up with calls from ordinary Los Angeles residents expressing a sudden curiosity in export subsidies, trade barriers, and operating procedures at the Swiss headquarters. Clarke humbly takes credit for turning a subject of limited mass appeal into the hottest new topic in Hollywood, and has met with several studios about adapting her joke into a two and a half hour comedy starring Owen Wilson as a bumbling South African ambassador.

“I originally started saying WTO just to be hilariously funny,” explains Clarke. “But before long I realized that I was helping raise awareness about the global economy — that I was making people think about issues beyond their tiny, self-absorbed worlds.” Some passionate souls devote their lives to public service, others hold anti-war posters at busy intersections, “but this is what I have to offer mankind,” she affirms. “Thought-provoking, abbreviated non-sequiturs.” She adds, “and a connection to Owen Wilson’s manager.”

Clarke has plans to replace other contemporary catch phrases with references to matters of a political, environmental, or philosophical nature. In the coming weeks she will ditch TTYL (short for “talk to you later”) in favor of TTYLAGS (“talk to your landlord about going solar”), OMG (“Oh my God”) for OMEM (Out of the Middle-Eastern mess) and will replace BTW (“by the way”) with “Being itself is the product of not being.”

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2007-06-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE BUYS WHITE PAJAMAS, BEGINS MORPHING INTO CAT STEVENS

June 12, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. The purchase of a pair of white cotton pajamas from Target last week has convinced Susan Clarke to spend her life dressed in flowy garments and involved in international philanthropy, much like the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens. Her realization began innocently enough with a trip to the retail giant for some cleaning products. As is often the case at the red-branded wonderland, she found herself wandering into departments that were not on her shopping list and that is when she came across the pajamas — white cotton broadcloth drawstring pants and buttoned long sleeve top. She thought they looked refreshing and airy and she promptly made the unplanned purchase of $17. After returning home and putting on the pajamas she felt a lovely peace, and would not change out of them, even when going to the corner for French fries. Over the next week she traded her contact lenses in for glasses, became a vegetarian again, and repeatedly broke into “Peace Train.” This morning while sitting in the lotus position she spoke of building schools for orphans.

“It’ll pass,” commented Clarke’s boyfriend, unconcerned with this phase and grateful that his girlfriend is incapable of growing a beard. “A few weeks ago after we watched a Buster Keaton movie, she refused to speak for four days, and would only hold up signboards instead. But she got over it. She always does. “

Clarke insists that this is no phase, and claims that her life bears a striking resemblance to that of Stevens, known today as Yusuf Islam. Though she was not raised in 1950s London by Greek immigrants and jettisoned into musical stardom in her late teens, she was in a band once. And though she’s not particularly drawn to the Islamic faith, she did used to go to a Unitarian Church for awhile but started flaking out and sleeping late on Sundays instead. In an even weirder coincidence, Clarke actually has a cat. All three examples support her logical adoption of white pajamas, charity work, and a planned comeback album for sometime next year.

“I didn’t need a brush with death to reevaluate my life’s work,” she explains, referring to Stevens’ bout with tuberculosis and a near-drowning which he credits with his Islamic conversion and career shift. “All it took was an endcap display of breezy white pajamas.” Clarke envisions a future of wearing the aforementioned garments, saying deep-sounding things, and attending annual “Harold & Maude” festivals to perform “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.”

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2007-06-04T13:11:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE SUSPECTS THAT NEIGHBORHOOD BIRD IS AN ASSHOLE

June 4, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. After lying in bed listening to a bird in a nearby tree repeating the same call for upwards of 45 minutes, Susan Clarke has concluded that the bird in question is probably an asshole. There are lots of birds in Clarke’s unnamed neighborhood of Los Angeles, including bluish things, beigey things, and normal looking crow things. Downstairs neighbor Larry also has several pet birds that add to the singsongy street and sometimes whistle at Clarke like construction workers when she passes by. However there is one bird with a kind of “hooty hooty hoot” call, and based on the fact that he goes at it non-stop for extended periods of time, Clarke has surmised that this bird is the asshole bird in the neighborhood. “I have a feeling they roll their bird eyes when this guy flies in,” explains Clarke. “Like that big guy in shorts at the local bar who has an opinion on everything.”

Clarke’s understanding of the world of ornithology is shaky at best, as evidenced by her above description of birds as “bluish things.” However, she is pretty sure she understands the basic fact that birds use calls to communicate with other birds. And based on that, any creature communicating the exact same thing, loudly, over and over again for 45 minutes is an asshole. “Even if the other birds aren’t too bright, you know they got the message like the fifth time. And Asshole Bird knows it. He's just being a total blowhard.”

Clarke has recently begun spreading other propaganda promoting the idea that people are not the only assholes on the planet. “You think humans are the only cocky, irritating, nudgy, bastards roaming the planet? Egos run far and wide.” She suggests that if you observe the animal kingdom with an eye out for asshole-ism you may suddenly realize that some dogs are dicks, some cats think their shit doesn’t stink, and the lizard that guy carries around on his shoulder thinks he’s a goddamn prince.

However, to give the asshole bird of the neighborhood the benefit of the doubt, he may not be an asshole but perhaps just really ugly or malodorous. It would explain why his call, if a mating call, takes longer to get a response than the average bird.

But the real outstanding issue here is why Susan Clarke lies in bed for 45 minutes listening to birds. And on that issue, she was unavailable for comment. (insert sound of crickets)

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2007-05-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE CONTINUES TO FIND BEARD HAIRS OF PREVIOUS OWNER EMBEDDED IN COMPUTER KEYBOARD

MAY 21, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. More than a year after purchasing her Powerbook G4 laptop from a neo-raver high-tech hippie on Craigslist, Susan Clarke continues to discover stray beard hairs of the previous owner surfacing from beneath the computer’s keyboard. When she first bought the unit from a man named Greg, who lived in a bus in Silver Lake, his coarse, rust-colored bristles emanated from the machine at an alarming rate. She tried many methods to rid the machine of the stray follicry, prying between the keys with toothpicks, Q-Tips, and pieces of tape, and eventually chanting and inventing an interpretive hair-removal dance. Over time the hairs seemed to free themselves from the confines of the machine in a symbolic reflection of their owner, who rebuilds used computers, makes short films, and spends months at a time in South America DJ-ing at raves and participating in drum circles. When he’s not living in a bus in Silver Lake.

Today’s beard hair discovery was the first in several months.

“I think I was starting to miss them,” Clarke explained wistfully of the whiskers. “After I got over the initial revulsion at having a stranger’s beard hair inch its way towards me while I work, I came to enjoy the occasional reminder of this odd dude who was making a living totally by his own rules and having a ball.” She admits that the stray fibers have taken on the role of little inspirational messengers, appearing out of the blue to remind her of life’s unadvertised possibilities.

“I never thought I’d be inspired by a beard,” she concludes. “A nice pair of cozy muttonchops or a sexy fu Manchu moustache, perhaps, but never a beard.”

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2007-05-14T12:51:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE FOLLOWS SERVING SUGGESTION AND PUTS CEREAL IN BOWL, COVERS WITH MILK

MAY 14, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. This morning, after Susan Clarke had unsuccessfully tried to figure out how to eat corn flakes for more than 11 minutes, she realized that the answer was right in front of her, in the form of the cereal box’s “serving suggestion.” Clarke first tried eating the airy, crisp flakes using the flat of a knife, like a hobo eating beans from a can. But most of the cereal was sliding off the knife before reaching her mouth. Instead she switched to pouring the cereal directly on her head and mashing it into her scalp, which also resulted in very little cereal actually getting chewed and swallowed. She was just about to concoct a scheme involving a salad spinner and a funnel when she finally noticed the photograph on the front panel of the corn flakes box. In the photo, the cereal lay in a blue bowl while a river of milk streamed onto it from the lip of a spatterware pitcher. A spoon handle jauntily emerged from the cereal, inferring that the cereal/milk combination could be transported to the mouth using the spoon.

“I knew I’d have to improvise,” Clarke recounted, “but I was willing to try anything.” Lacking a blue bowl, she had to settle for an orange bowl, a detail she hoped wouldn’t disrupt the integrity of the project. Once she had filled it to approximately the same capacity as the blue bowl in the picture, there was the issue of the milk pitcher. Clarke does not own a spatterware beverage decanter but does have a gravy boat with a drawing of a chicken on it. She transferred milk from the carton into the gravy boat and then painstakingly set up the whole tableau so that it resembled the corn flakes “serving suggestion” as closely as possible given the orange bowl and chicken gravy boat. Taking a deep breath she poured the milk until the cereal seemed to float. “It seemed to float!” recalls Clarke. Noting that the cereal in the picture was not running over the top of the bowl and onto the table, she ceased pouring before this could happen. “I put the wrong end of the spoon in on my first try, but quickly righted the situation,” she explained before taking a deep breath, filling the spoon with corn flake/milk mixture and successfully lifting it into her awaiting piehole.

“I don’t know why this has eluded me for so long,” Clarke wondered in a post-breakfast press conference. “I can smash an atom, recite up to 30 digits of pi, and send a lab rat back in time. I guess I just skipped some of the basic knowledge in life and went onto the bigger things,” she explained while attempting to put a sock over her shoe. She stopped. “What. It’s to keep the shoe from falling off, right?”

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2007-05-07T22:49:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE APOLOGIZES FOR MISUSING THE WORD “HOMUNCULUS” FOR TWENTY YEARS

MAY 7, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke has publicly confessed that she has been misusing the word “homunculus” for possibly twenty years, and would like to apologize for the blunder. The error came to her attention over the weekend, when she was referring to an acquaintance as a homunculus. When she was questioned as to the meaning of the word, she paused, as it was the first time she had been challenged on its use. While trying to put what she thought was the meaning into words, she decided to look it up, whereupon she discovered that her understanding of the word had not been entirely accurate. “I’d been using it to describe anyone that looked like they might have lived under a bridge in the 15th century, “ Clarke explains. “Part gargoyle, part puffy-haired Troll thing.” According to the American Heritage dictionary, a homunculus is “A miniature, fully formed individual believed by adherents of the early biological theory of preformation to be present in the sperm cell.”

To her credit, Clarke was in the ballpark in the small stature part of the definition, “but I thought that bushy eyebrows, a burlap garment, and a mossy smell were essential to its meaning.” She went on to remove the descriptor from the acquaintance she had been talking about originally and shifted it to describe another acquaintance for whom it was more fitting.

By her best estimate, Clarke believes she has been misusing the word for approximately 20 years and probably heard it in a Woody Allen movie. She has since phased out most other things she picked up from Woody Allen movies including listening to ragtime, wearing big glasses, and believing that someday she’d have an eight-room, pre-war apartment on Central Park West.

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2007-05-04T15:18:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE WRITES IN PUBLIC, RIGHT NOW!

MAY 4, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke, who for years has been too embarrassed/politically opposed to writing on a laptop in public, wrote this press release on a laptop, in public, and in a coffee joint with jazz music and mismatched ‘50s furniture, no less. “No one is more surprised than me,” commented Clarke, who has always maintained that writing in public is pretentious. “But truth be told, I’ve been writing at home every day for over 60 weeks in a row now, and I have cabin fever the likes of which haven’t been seen since that fall afternoon in 1879 when Emily Dickinson ran into downtown Amherst, Mass, screaming, “Double soy latte! And holy shit, how about this weather?” Clarke hopes that unlike Emily Dickinson, she will not die someday and leave behind a box of 1,789 unpublished works.

In addition to not writing in public, Clarke has likewise never played acoustic guitar in a park or painted a seascape on a beach. “I am the first to admit that I need to get over it,” she confesses, typing away on her laptop at the groovy coffee shop. “I feel so free! Free! Free! I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago!”

Shortly thereafter, Clarke looked around and realized that working at the coffee shop was actually just as boring as working at home, but with the addition of being slightly more distracting and costing her $2.17 more an hour in iced tea. Plus, as she wrote that last sentence, some guy that she went out with twice like three years ago walked in the door of the cafe and Clarke cringed and ducked under her hair.

Clarke is now packing up her laptop to walk back home to her box of unpublished works.

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2007-04-23T22:24:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE INVENTS TWO NEW THINGS IN HER SLEEP

APRIL 23, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. This sunny Monday morning Susan Clarke awoke at the crack of nine-thirty A.M. energized by two new inventions that came to her while she was sleeping. The first — and please take an “I won’t steal this” oath before reading any further — is an idea for a refrigerator that is all door. This all-door refrigerator has no main compartment with shelves and drawers, it is only a refrigerator door that shuts into a same-size frame that houses all the mechanics and has a total depth of about five inches. Clarke finds that she puts pretty much everything in the refrigerator door anyway and would rather have the extra floor space in the kitchen to install something that she might invent in her sleep later in the week. Or a ping pong table.

Clarke’s second invention is not really an invention as it is an idea for a support group called ACA — Adult Children of Assholes. Whereas people who grew up in alcoholic homes have Alanon as a resource for working through the issues specific to their background, there are legions of others who grew up in houses where there was no substance abuse but one of their parents was just a plain old asshole. Clarke thinks that it might be helpful to create a supportive environment where people who had asshole parents could get together and share their experiences in asshole households. Ideally, Clarke envisions ACA meetings enjoying ice cold refreshments, preferably chocolate egg creams, from her patented refrigerator doors.

Although she has exactly zero background in appliance repair and absolutely no understanding of how refrigeration systems work, Clarke is already at work on the marketing campaign for her refrigerator doors. Possible tag lines include “The Refrigerator Door — It’s Not Just for Ketchup Anymore” and “Now You Have Room for a Ping Pong Table In Your Kitchen.”

Clarke hasn’t yet decided if she will do a launch campaign for Adult Children of Assholes, or just let the club motto speak for itself— “ACA: From ‘hole to Whole”.

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2007-04-18T21:55:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE FORGETS ALL THOSE BUDDHISM BOOKS AND ANGRILY BURIES HAMMER INTO WALL

APRIL 18, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Several days ago, Susan Clarke lost her temper while installing a towel bar and repeatedly buried a solid iron hammer thoroughly and repeatedly through the drywall in the bathroom. It was the fourth incident with the towel bar, and one that ended badly. When Clarke attempted to drive a mounting screw into the anchor she had installed (after patching the gaping holes from the towel bar that fell off when she first moved in), the anchor spun and made the wall crumble around the anchor like quicksand. She yanked the bullets of death from the swiss coffee-colored epidermis of the wall with the hammer claw before winding up and burying the entire instrument in the wall in two places and leaving very round, deep pockmarks in two others. These holes would have to be patched and sanded, just like the gaping holes she'd already patched and sanded days earlier. The bathroom has a curse, it seems, and does not want to be shackled to a towel bar. Or vice versa.

Quite hilariously, just in the next room between two grey metal library bookends from a yard sale stood dog-eared tomes on eastern spirituality and meditation. None of which suggested that losing your shit when you’re mad was a good idea. But none of which poked their head out of their saffron robe to offer any assistance when Clarke was teetering on the edge of insanity. When her boyfriend came home he found the hammer dangling out of the wall like Harold Lloyd on the clocktower and Clarke curled up in a fetal position wearing some sort of knit cap.

“She was fucked up for like 3 days after that,” says Kavanaugh, the boyfriend. “She was just weird and not fun.” The two have since reconnected and done cute things like hold hands in the supermarket.

Susan Clarke has been reading about Tibetan Buddhism and other eastern spiritual beliefs for about 6 or 7 years and joined a mindfulness meditation group about 3 years ago. Her only reservation about reaching enlightenment is that she’d have to pay for an extra contact lens if she ever sprouted a third eye.

Thank you! Try the veal and goodnight!

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2007-03-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE WELCOMES BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO TO THE YEAR 1977

MARCH 28, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Today as Susan Clarke drove by a Blockbuster Video store featuring signage for their new Total Access program, she congratulated the home entertainment giant for coming full circle and landing back in 1977. The Total Access program was intended to rival Netflix, and allows users to order and return DVD rentals by mail. However, now they have extended the service to enable users to personally drop of viewed DVDs and pick up new ones directly at the store, thereby revisiting the original 1977 concept of the video store. “It’s hilarious that they’re trying to brand this as some new breakthrough in home movie technology, when all they’ve done is turn back the hands of time to the primordial days before Netflix.” She sarcastically points out that ordering a DVD online while wasting time at work and having it arrive the next day in the mail is much more difficult than getting in a car, using 4 miles worth of $3.20 cent gas, parking in a dimly lit lot overrun with skateboarders, entering a blaring, overlit, big box retailer, standing around on soiled popcorn-patterned carpet for 20 minutes trying to decide what to watch, then standing in line while some sub-retarded teenager in a smock makes a mistake and has to page the manager for the register key, then accidentally setting off the alarm on the way out because the S.R.T.I.A.S. forgot to scan something, going back in, leaving again, dodging the skaters in the parking lot, and driving home. Easy peasy!

Over the past few years, Clarke has noted several examples of companies shamelessly doing a 180 on their prior company positioning in a desperate attempt to win back customers or keep up with the Joneses, “but they look like idiots to anyone who bothered to remember the previous incarnation,” says the tirelessly observational and opinionated Clarke. Most recently, she has been obsessing over the soft drink market and it’s equally absurd cycle which reduced portable beverages down to water and then developed them back up to soda again, while a thirsty and obedient customer base bought into every incarnation without batting a tongue. “First they found a way to make seltzer water and everyone was happy and burpy. Then they started adding flavors and bam! Soda. Then they thought people wanted something more natural so sodas became colorless, flavored spritzer things which quickly devolved into the water craze. A hundred brands of water pop up in like a year. Then some of those waters start offering flavored waters. Then carbonated waters. Then flavored carbonated waters. Two years later they’re selling you soda again like it just got invented. What, do they think we’re all sub-retarded teenagers in smocks or something?”

Clarke, who has worked in the marketing world, suspects that Blockbuster doesn’t really believe their new Total Access service is anything newer than a video store or a grape NeHi. More likely, the company is getting creamed by Netflix and if they could come up with a way to start showing movies in theaters and pretending it was their idea, they would.

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2007-03-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE NARROWLY ESCAPES INJURY FROM FLYING GRAPEFRUIT

MARCH 27, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. Around noon today, while carrying a basket of laundry across the driveway, Susan Clarke narrowly escaped being pelted by an armada of airborne grapefruit. The grapefruit, seven total which now lay in various states of squishiness in the driveway, were loosed by sudden high winds and whipping rain that unexpectedly shook up what had been a bright, sunny, but cold morning. In the melee, wayward citrus headed Clarke’s way from a neighbor’s tree on the other side of the fence.

This isn’t the first time the rebellious produce has posed a hazard for Clarke in the week since she moved into her new apartment. Over the weekend, while she and her boyfriend unloaded a heavy wooden cabinet from the back of her truck, he was walking backwards with the furniture when his foot struck something and he nearly tripped. Though he reported that it felt like he kicked rat, it was in fact another felled overripe grapefruit. The grapefruit was chastised, but obviously failed to send the message back to its brothers on the tree not to mess with the new tenants next door.

“I have very little experience interacting with nature,” explains Clarke, who has dwelled in urban areas for 20 years. “Most places I’ve lived, the main concerns have been keeping bums out of the building, not running out of hot water, and not falling through the hole in the floor.” By comparison, the sassy grapefruit are a rather quaint nuisance.

In 1687, renowned scientific mind Sir Isaac Newton had his own cross to bear in regards to fruit in motion. His chance meeting with the business end of an apple led to the publishing of his treatise Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which introduced his theories of motion and gravity. Likewise, Clarke’s experience with flying grapefruit led her to write a press release, which slightly fewer people would read. She and Newton also have a shared love of long, flowing wigs.

In Clarke’s undisclosed new neighborhood in Los Angeles, there are several retailers of Mexican-made Fresca. The Mexican-made version of the famous grapefruit soda is far superior to the domestic version as it is made with cane sugar rather than corn syrups. Clarke has plans to stand under the grapefruit tree and ominously drink a bottle of Fresca to send a very clear message to the tree.

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2007-03-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release

SUSAN CLARKE ENCOURAGES FRIEND TO QUIT JOB AT GUITAR CENTER

MARCH 15, 2007, LOS ANGELES, Calif. This afternoon, in a phone conversation with a friend who works for the evil retail behemoth Guitar Center, Susan Clarke encouraged said friend to quit said job. The friend has been working at the hilariously mismanaged “GC” corporate headquarters for several years now and like most employees in that special little corner of hell, he is underpaid, mismanaged, and driven to homicide on a daily basis, none of which comes close to making the employee discount worthwhile. Clarke was well-equipped to commiserate with his grievances this afternoon as she too, used to work for the very same bastion of retarded men with pony tails. “Actually,” she clarifies, “those billowy retro bowling shirt-type shirts with flames and shit on them are the new ponytail — the new accessory of choice for the man who works in an office park but wants you to know that he used to play in a band.”

The friend does not need to wear these shirts because he played in bigger bands than anyone else working there. He is also talented and accomplished in his field, making him an oddity at a company which is largely staffed by people who have no qualifications for their job title except that they used to play in a band with the guy who was in charge of filling that position. Clarke comments, “It’s totally like the White House. Except for the band part. Replace “play in a band” with “go to law school.”

During the phone call made from his commute home, the friend was talked off the ledge by Clarke who enthusiastically supported his thoughts of quitting and moving to a new city. She reminded him that Guitar Center is, and will always be, a safe haven for mediocrity, and he could be doing much more artistically satisfying things with his life. She cited how far she’s come since leaving the company’s death grip only to turn her attention to writing third person press releases about herself and selling blood.

The Guitar Center corporate office is located in Thousand Oaks, California. To get there, simply take the 101 North and listen for the sound of the VPs trying to get people to chant company slogans in the parking lot. And noodling. Listen for lots of noodling.

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2007-02-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUSAN CLARKE RETURNS HOME TO FIND ACROSS-THE-WAY NEIGHBOR’S APARTMENT EMPTY

ACTRESS HAD BEEN DISCUSSING MOVING IN WITH BOYFRIEND

LOS ANGELES, Calif. Susan Clarke pulled up in front of her undisclosed address at approximately 6:30 this evening and was immediately struck by the fact that something didn’t look right about the street-facing, second-story window in apartment 5. The red curtains were gone. Clarke recalled that the occupant of apartment 5, a young actress named Gillian, had been talking about moving in with her boyfriend Dave, a musician and songwriter. Her suspicions were confirmed when she looked into the unadorned window from the vantage point of her own second floor living room window, and saw only bare hardwood floors. Gillian had occupied apartment 5 for approximately two years.

“It’s the nature of apartment dwelling in Los Angeles,” said Clarke with a sigh. “It’s just a shame when the good ones don’t last longer. The guy downstairs who plays throbbing house music all day — he doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, of course.” Clarke is referring to the landlord’s grandson, who no one takes issue with because he is the landlord’s grandson. The unpredictable 70-plus year old landlord appears to shop at the teen mall store Charlotte Russe and has gone under the knife so many times that the line of her mouth wraps nearly the entire circumference of her head.

The amiable Gillian surpassed ordinary neighborly expectations when she agreed to perform in a sitcom script reading of Clarke’s at the Improv Olympic — a role which was clearly a deciding factor in ABC’s decision to cast Gillian in a prime time sitcom. The two also hiked together on one occasion and co-hosted a barbecue in the fall of 2005.

Clarke keeps meaning to call her and see how things are going, but so far the first steps of friend maintenance have remained at bay.

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Susan Clarke Forgets To Bring Plastic Bag

2007-02-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUSAN CLARKE FORGETS TO BRING THAT PLASTIC BAG NEAR THE DOOR
TO GOODWILL

TASK HAS GONE UNDONE FOR THREE WEEKS

Los Angeles, Calif. Despite its location next to the front door of her apartment where it should be impossible to miss, Susan Clarke has forgotten to pick up a bag of donations for Goodwill three weekends now. “Weekends are the only time I can get there when they’re open. And now I fucking forgot this weekend, this fucking thing has to sit here for another five days.” The double-thickness white plastic Trader Joe’s bag contains several long sleeve t-shirts that don’t fit right and a red t-shirt that got stained with butter when Clarke went to see Brokeback Mountain earlier in the week. The unreceived donation also includes two threadbare towels and a small number of literary magazines from the early 1990s. This is not the first time this Goodwill bag scenario has arisen for Clarke.

Weekend after weekend the Goodwill donation bag remains right by the front door and is continually overlooked – consciously or unconsciously- for any of the following reasons: a) legitimately did not see it. B) saw it but was doing errands on foot and wasn’t planning on going that far. C) Saw it but totally didn’t feel like doing that errand now because was stoned and on way to store for ice cream. D) Blew it off.

The bag is interfering with the advancing and retreating pile of footwear that normally resides by the door, with full command of the area. The Jack Purcells and Van’s, which usually have the freedom to rest side by side, have had to piggyback to accommodate the compromised square footage. As Sunday night counted down to the beginning of new week, Clarke vowed to get that bag out from underfoot this week for certain. “I’m doing it Saturday morning, first thing,” she said crossing her heart. “There’s your story pal.”

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