IGX

Write one to three paragraphs. The story can be terrible or the writing atrocious. Or both. Misinformed, factually inaccurate material will enhance your effort. Just be bad. Be really bad. You can do it. I've seen your stuff.

My cabin was on fire; or it wasn't. I was back home again Lost In My Own Backyard searching for my Buried Dreams recovering from Road Fever and my death on the river, or in the river, more accurately next to the river. I wasn't well; I'd never been well since that day of brief death on, in, or next to the river.

I felt like I'd been Pecked To Death By Ducks and as if Jaguars Ripped My Flesh. I suddenly collapsed on the porch with agony across my left leg. Before passing out from the pain, or dying again, the difference between them increasingly elusive, I thought to myself that it felt like a wolverine was eating my leg. As I looked down I was surprised to see a wolverine and thought, "A Wolverine Is Eating My Leg", "is this enlightenment"? The I realized that I didn't care if I was enlightened or not, I was as hungry as the wolverine. "Hold The Enlightenment", I thought. "Pass The Butterworms" I said to nobody, or perhaps to the wolverine who was still eating my leg though he didn't seem to be enjoying his meal at all.

The fire from the cabin was warm against my skin.

Excellent Dr. Donkey. That is some really good bad writing.

She sashayed into my detective office like a bombshell and exploded into a chair, crossing her long legs crossways. I whipped it out and put two glasses on my desk and poured the bourbon liquor for two of us, her and I, the both of us together.
“What’s on your mind, sister,” I quipped wryly.
“Because you’re a detective,” she explained in a sultry sex way, “I want you to find out who killed my husband.”
“Where’d he get offed,” I queried interestingly.
“Harvard,” she moaned angrily. “Them eggheads done him in.”
“Shit,” I complained bitterly, “now I’m going to have to go down to Harvard and talk to the principle.”

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

They were never worn because my precious angel just grew and grew and grew and before we knew it she just couldn't even get them on, my little snuggabug! And that's the whole story.

Yep, works better as a one sentence story. Your little snugglebug is boring and the entire story has the tension of a limp noodle. Good job!

“Gene the Goat Fucker”
A short story by B.U. Ckethead

Chapter 1

The sky was the color of a bruised vagina after too much doggy style. The wind swept over the fields of grass as Gene the goat fucker finished another unsuccessful persistence hunt.

“What to do now?”, thought Gene-TGF. “I’m satiated with tallow, I missed getting an antelope, and I’m hornier than Mickey”.

Just then, off in the distance, came the siren’s song - “baa”. Gene-TGF knew exactly what would happen next.

From the disturbing and inappropriate opening image to the celebration of bestiality throughout (not to mention the putrid punctuation), this is bad writing at its zenith. Nice going. A truly wretched job.

One of the neighbours was wakened from her sleep by screams in the night: faint, high-pitched screams that drifted across the neatly mowed lawns and seems to come from the cabin within the woods, rebuilt from their previously burnt ashes. It was hard to tell, on that humid summer night, when the air was still and thick as cotton, exactly where they were coming from, or even if they were nothing more than the screams of an old man, desperate for attention. Fully awake now, she could hear them through the open window. They sounded like the cries of a boy, a fifteen-, sixteen-, seventeen-year old boy; a young man about the same age as her son. The muffled screams carried over the lawns, sounding faintly like the words “spank me, spank me harder. Shove it right up my ass!”

The sky was the color of a bruised vagina after too much doggy style.

Bux, I'ma let you know right now I'm stealing this. My vote for best IGx sentence, 2016.

He thought back to how nervous he had been and laughed to himself. They had known when they painted that thing on his bonnet, and deep down he had known too. And here he was, in front of the man he'd dreamed about, the one who had said such sweet things online.

It wasn't as he had imagined, his paramour was older and far more paranoid than he'd hoped. But he'd traveled too far to let those things get in the way. As they looked deep into each others eyes, they both reached into the jar of vaseline at the same time and their fingers touched.

After a long afternoon of stripping copper wire from the interior of a local Jewish synagogue, Mr. and Mrs. Kaz stopped by the neighborhood KFC for a little bite to eat and tally up the day's efforts. Mrs. Kaz, a former student at Grambling State quickly assessed there was more work to do if they were going to get Kaz Jr. out of jail. "That boy just can't stop boosting cars." "Alright goddamn it! One more chicken wing, then let's go hit up that slope church a couple of blocks over," said a very irritated Mr. Kaz.

riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to
Howth Castle and Environs.

Sir Tristram, violer d’amores, fr’over the short sea, had passen-
core rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy
isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor
had topsawyer’s rocks by the stream Oconee exaggerated themselse
to Laurens County’s gorgios while they went doublin their mumper
all the time: nor avoice from afire bellowsed mishe mishe to
tauftauf thuartpeatrick: not yet, though venissoon after, had a
kidscad buttended a bland old isaac: not yet, though all’s fair in
vanessy, were sosie sesthers wroth with twone nathandjoe. Rot a
peck of pa’s malt had Jhem or Shen brewed by arclight and rory
end to the regginbrow was to be seen ringsome on the aquaface

Let's see: some posters have copped a 'graph or two from classic lit-a-chur. James Joyce, for instance. And another great writer, here unnamed. Turd has allowed his fevered romantic fantasies to erupt into full flower and has forgotten to write poorly. His coherent sentences and flowing rhythms are a great disappointment to us all. Shape suffers from the same syndrome. Writing about boring people doesn't necessarily make for boring prose. Rotten and repetitive writing does that. What a dork.

Let's get back to bad writing on this dark and stormy night.

seeahill wrote:Let's see: some posters have copped a 'graph or two from classic lit-a-chur. James Joyce, for instance.

Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are deservedly classics. The Dead, in particular, is about as close to a perfect short story as the English language has seen: that last sentence alone earns it a place in the Pantheon.

Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake are self-indulgent and overwrought in the extreme.

That's the joke, but you didn't write 'em, and that's the point. I know you can do worse. Much worse. Give us a paragraph or two that really stink up the page.

Dead leaves were dancing out back of Toots O'Rourk's place, whipped to a frenzy by the cold November wind. I turned up the collar of my coat, but the whisky in my gut was twirling a dance of its own, doing its part to keep me warm. I had a date with that lousy scrivener, Seahill.

Get a load of this mug, I thought, as I fingered my artillery. Where does he get off, telling me how to run my grift? Meantime, he was running around town, peddling some two-bit Dashiell Hammett pastiche. Well, I ain't no patsy.

He tottered out the back door; I could smell the gin from where I was. But hell, I coulda smelled his stink from half a world away.

"Bud, pal," he sweated "watcha doing here? Hey, hey, don't be sore, see? Why don't we go inside and have a drop?"

All of a sudden, he made a run for his strap -- but I was faster, natch. My roscoe coughed once. It was enough. A forty-five in the groceries ain't no picnic.

OK, this is bad. It's very very bad and, as requested, it does stink up the page. Still, it is not the entirely excruciating and mind-numbing screed we expect from an attorney. You should be ashamed of yourself.

It was Lava Falls. No amount of skill or strength or fervent prayer is going to stop the occasional swim at that particular rapid.

It was very beautiful inside the waterfall. There were round circles and circles falling off of ovals. It’s really like being in an underwater kaleidoscope.

The raft was in an eddy. I’m holding onto the outside of the raft, and I saw another raft coming toward me driven by the current. As I saw that thing coming for me, I ducked under and swam. I tried to swim under the boat. I was swimming against the current. I was swallowing a lot of water, and I couldn’t get out from under the raft because I was swimming the wrong way.

I finally resurfaced and R and J pulled me aboard the raft and rowed across the river to Tequila Beach. I was conscious at that point and someone handed me a celebratory beer. I don’t recall if I ever got that beer opened. I blacked out. I saw no bright light, no beckoning figures, no pearly gates. Just nothing.

The End

I didn't ask you to plagiarize bad writing. I want original bad writing. If I don't get it, I'm going to go pout in a corner.

“Gleebshortz!!!” squalbed the Grooooobezing, gently prubicing its klowpter. “Gleebshortz - GleebshietZZZZ!!!”The di-Groooobezing fawned, its hoofaltner warkeling will-nill. All of the Groooobeling-Houksteeks bwabbled fro-to-fro, qwiazecks spwackling from their gingzookalainers. The stench was amazing.

Using the “Ladder” Set/Rep Variation

Let's jump start this shit, it's going to be kind of garbled anyway:

About 4 years ago, Bob (Brock) and I trained together about 6-8 times a week. We'd train at lunch, and then after work. We followed a pretty typical WSB template, but did have ample opportunities for extra workouts.

Once we decided to do a variation of a low fatigue/high volume routine based on the "ladder" technique. We called it "Power Ladders". We chose 3s as our top set kind of arbitrarily. The term “ladder” refers to a progressive repetition scheme. See below. It's illustrated amply.

Testing initially indicated I had a 335 close grip bench. This is how I set it up: Rep range 1-3 or occasionally 1-5. Completion of 3 “ladders” at a set weight would trigger progression.

Note: These numbers are approximations, as I couldn't find my training log from back then to get the actual numbers.

Week 1:
Day 1: 275x1/2/3/1/2/3/1/2/3
Day 2: 285x1/2/3/1/2
Day 3: 285x1/2/3/1/2/3

Week 2:
Day 1: 285x1/2/3/1/2/3/1/2/3
Day 2: 290x1/2/3/1/2/3
Day 3: 290x1/2/3/1/2/3/1/2/3

Week 3:
Day 1: 295x1/2/1/2/1/2
Day 2: 295x1/2/3/1/2/3/1/2/3
Day 3: 305x1/2/3/1/2/3

Week 4:
Day 1: 305x1/2/3/1/2/3/1/2/3
Day 2: 315x1/2/2/1/2/1
Day 3: 315x1/2/3/1/2

Week 5: Tested my CGBP max.
New max was 365.
Bob's results were similar.

30# increase
4 weeks of training.
3 times per week on the movement, often two days in a row
Not one rep went to failure.

Not too shabby.

What do you notice? Higher volume, low "relative" intensity, self-regulating "ladder" pattern, ~4-9 sets per "ladder"

I first read about the “ladder” set/rep scheme in one of those old bodybuilding books by Robert Kennedy. Circa 1988-89. That particular book (and I'll eventually look up which one) gave an example of using ladders to work on chins. Sounded easy enough. Do one rep, take a little break, do 2 reps, take a little break, and so on and so forth until you can no longer improve on your rep count.

Fast-forward a few years. Hell, maybe even a decade.

“Chain Yourself to the Power Rack and Call Me in a Year” appeared in MILO: A Journal for Serious Strength, published by Ironmind Enterprises. It was written by a relatively unknown trainer named Pavel Tsatsouline. In it he described how to “grease the groove” of a movement. This article is now on line, at the Dragondoor website and can be found here:

http://www.dragondoor.com/articler/mode3/69/

The concept of frequent, heavy practice of a lift while staying fresh is the heart of the concept, when applied to strength training.

Why use ladders?

First, they are easy to set up. Pick a rep range. Could be 1-3, could be 1-3-5, could be 5-10-20. Pick the number of times you'd go “up” the ladder, given that you don't reach the point of momentary muscular failure. Pick the condition that will trigger progression. Now do it.

Probably the most important thing is the fatigue management. It's better to start a ladder over than to attempt to force an extra rep out. With ladders you let the volume do the work.

Let me reiterate:

1.Pick your repetition range. Taking your approximate 5 RM and doing a ladder with 1-3 reps is a good place to start.
2.Pick the number of times to run through the ladder. I'd suggest starting with 3 runs through. If you get all three ladders, then you need to add weight next time.
3.It's about staying fresh and crisp. It's not about grinding them out and gritting your teeth.
4.Let the volume do the work.

Other ways to use the ladder:

Bodyweight calisthenics are ideal for the use of a strength-endurance ladder. The most frequently recommended way of using a ladder is with a training partner in a “I go, you go” format. This becomes very competitive. Another variation is the breathing ladder. Do a rep, take a breath, do two reps, take 2 breathes, do three reps, take three breathes....keep adding reps and breathes until you can't add any more. This gets surprisingly hard with stuff like kettlebell swings and even bodyweight squats.

Reverse ladders or countdowns are another useful way. When I do an “EDT” type of workout, I often use reverse ladders to manage my fatigue so I can make or exceed my repetition target. This would look like a 3-2-1 or a 5-3-1 type of rep scheme.

The “ratchet” is a version of the ladder I read about over on Scott Sonnon's Circular Strength Training forum. A ratchet would look like: 1-2-3-2-3-4-3-4-5-4-5-6-5-6-7...and so on. The ratchet is a good way to mix things up and keep you on your toes.

Nafod is sorta interesting. Read aloud, it has a rhythm. So bad it's good.
"the ladder" is a familiar and brilliant piece of writing which, apparently, was posted as a spoof. So far, I'm liking Bud's Ape, Bucket, and that fucking NAFOD.
But I know many of you are far worse. You don't even have to try.
Darf?
Darf?
As florid as possible: events that transpire the day Darth becomes Commander in Chief.

Whatever it takes to get seeahill's approval for he is the font of all language.

seeahill wrote:Nafod is sorta interesting. Read aloud, it has a rhythm. So bad it is good.

Thanks. I call it "Trump Rally in Greenville"