The Present Tense: January 2011

The cover art for Sausagehead

I want to stray from the theme of this blog, which I recently declared to be my drawings. Instead, I want to showcase some of the work of an author named PMD that roams the streets of the East Village, selling his book Sausagehead.

The book gives advertises a "Quality Promise" with seal in the lower right corner, and it does not fail to deliver (though I do believe the "#1 National Bestseller" line at the top to be an exaggeration). Its quality does not lie in the writing style, which is a ranting, grammatically-ignorant nightmare. Its quality does not lie in the plot or storyline, which is completely nonexistent. Rather, the true joy of Sausagehead is its inspired dedication to its purpose: to teach readers how to avoid being a Sausagehead by accepting Jesus into their hearts.

Annie Lederman and I ran into the author PMD outside of Pianos over a year ago. He approached us with his book and we laughed uncontrollably when we saw the title and the cover art. PMD was not offended by our reaction and proceeded to tell us about the book. We were almost convinced to buy it when he began to pour on the crazy and we had to flee. Later, we both regretted not buying the book from him. Luckily, Annie somehow managed to find him again, and bought me a copy of Sausagehead as a Christmas present. Thanks Annie!

A collage self-portrait of the author PMD, advertising a fabricated broadway play based on his book

You may be asking now, What is a Sausagehead. In the words of PMD:
"Sausagehead is a guy who doesn't have his mind set up on one thing, he says on thing and then does the other. He cannot make up his mind on what he wants to do, because he's unstable in all his ways. He acts as though he can fight, whereas he's the biggest coward there ever was... Whenever you are around Sausagehead there's always a bad smell proceeding from him, because he constantly fart when he's around people. His breath doesn't smell too good, and he can care less whether people are offended or not."

Excessive farting seems to be one of the biggest hallmarks of a Sausagehead, and many passages of this book are dedicated to exposing this trait:
"You cannot fart in church and expect those who are around you to rejoice in your actions... It is okay if a sausagehead goes to Church - and when he gets there he farts like crazy, because that would be demons coming out of his behind."

I don't want to give away all the joys of this book in case you ever happen to run into PMD, and if you do, BY ALL MEANS BUY SAUSAGEHEAD! This is one of those rare gems of harmless craziness that makes New York great. He gave both his email and phone number in his book, and I'm considering finding out more about this enigma PMD. I'll keep you updated!