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When I found out I was nominated for the Last Drink Bird Head award, I thought the other folks in my category were so immensely talented and deserving that it was inconceivable -- INCONCEIVABLE! -- that I could win. Jeff VanderMeer asked me to appoint someone to accept the award in my absence should I win, and also to write an acceptance speech in case I happened to need one. I got busy and forgot about this request, and remembered a couple days ago and thought, "No, there's no way."

And then I won.

So here I am, like the occasional Oscar winner who doesn't write a speech because there's just no way in heckapalooza they could win, and then they do, and they speak extemporaneously and bizarrely, and everyone then thinks, "Wow, that person is a bird brain!"

Here, after the fact, is my extemporaneous acceptance speech upon winning the Last Drink Bird Head award in the category of "Expanding Our Vocabulary":

Oh wow. Gosh. Wow. Okay. So, uh, yikes, you know, I didn't actually, ummm, think I'd like, uh, win? The award? But here I am, so, uhhhhh, yeah! Wow! Man, these things are heavier than they look! Oh, so I should, ummm, there are -- there are people I have to thank! Right! I couldn't be here today without, of course, my parents, who made me, and ummmm, right -- and I have a dog! No, I don't have a dog. I don't even really like dogs. I've been thinking about getting another cat, because my old cats died and-- Wait, the red light's going on, that means I have to, like, wrap it up, right? But there are so many people to thank without whom I couldn't be here today! The person who invented the Internet for instance -- whoever you are -- thank you! And and and -- oh, the music, that means------ [MUSIC RISES]

When the awards were handed out, I was actually up in northern New Hampshire and Vermont with Eric Schaller, Mr. Last Drink Bird Head himself (for the whole story, you have to read the book). Little did we know that we were celebrating!

Thank you to the mysterious cabal of advisors to the award; I am really and honestly grateful -- amazed! -- that the various work I've done has found an appreciative audience.

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Jeff VanderMeer has announced the second year of the Last Drink Bird Head Award nominations, and I was wondrous amazed to find myself listed there in the category of "Expanding Our Vocabulary: In recognition of writers whose nonfiction, through reviews, blogging, and/or essays, exposes readers to new words and, often, new ideas..."

The other nominees in the category are the sagacious Anil Menon, the acroatic Abigail Nussbaum, and the argute Adam Roberts -- lambent flames of intellect, each!

The nominees in the other categories are marvelous as well, and I do not envy the judges their judging, because I would never want to distinguish between such distinguished folks -- in all of the categories, the nominees are people I read with great pleasure and from whom I've learned a lot over the years.

Now I must go back to poring over lexical tomes, preparing to vanquish my rivals in the grand mudwrestling-while-reciting-the-OED event that will, I'm told, determine the true winner...

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I was there at the beginning.

Yes, soon after Dr. Schaller (my favorite mad scientist) captured the bird, I blindly selected one of my favorite tommy guns and slaughtered the creature with panache.  I gutted it with my teeth.  I deconstructed it with a gulletful of Derrida.  I chugged a shot of ennui and belched sentences of purple bile into the airspace of downed jetliners.  I wouldn't call it a beautiful sight, but it was what I had.

Jeff VanderMeer called me a "smart ass", but I was used to that.  He'd called me worse ("cretinous wombat", "illiterate dirigible", "barbaric yawp", "Dick Cheney").

It all led to a chain reaction of words, words, words.

And now those words have been packaged and frozen with flash, waiting for you to take them out of the freezer and stick them in the microwave of your soul.

All for charity.

Go now, my minions.  Pre your order.  Feed the Wyrm and its whimsical Ministry.  Bring back souvenirs and relics and tchotchkes of the damned.  You're doing something good for the world.  Tell your friends.  They'll never believe you, but you're used to that, ever since the UFO and the sasquatch and the death panels.

The Bird Head took his last drink and I no longer have any tommy guns.  But why should that stop you?  There are mad scientists and realpolitiking consiglieri who claim sovereignty over the rest of us, but you -- you're free.  Suck in your gut.  Join the abjection.  Flay your dreams.

Remember: it's all for charity.  All the children who don't learn to read, I'm sending them to you.  It's time to ask yourself: Do you really want that weight to rend the fabric of the last vestiges of your conscience, punk?

Do it for the Bird Head.  One day, you, too, will take your last drink.  But that day is not today.  Go now, so you can say you did one good deed in your life.

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