Michael Cera has a short story featured in McSweeney’s issue 30

Probably my favorite publication ever, McSweeney’s new issue features “new work by Wells Tower, Michael Cera, and Etgar Keret, along with as always a bevy of lesser-known but nonetheless excellent writers investigating everything from mental hospitals to sentient mists…”

Yes, that’s right, THE Michael Cera— the one who’s solely holding up Arrested Development movie production with his expensive-ness. See below for his story’s excerpt, which was e-mailed with the issue announcement:

Carroll Silver once considered himself hot property. Yep, he used to think to himself, I exude all sorts of delicious mystery. Girls look at me and they think Holy hell what wouldn’t give to have that man kiss me on the neck. Men and boys alike look at me and think to themselves What am I? What the hell kind of scum am I? I thought was good, but just look at that fellow. Look at him. Where on earth does somebody like that come from? Where can get those clothes? Approximately how long will it take me to transform myself to at least look like somebody who has enough sense to admire and try to emulate someone like him?

Carroll no longer considered himself hot property.

In the morning, Carroll would glance at the mirror only to find his horrified reflection staring back at him. He’d furrow his brow and tense his face up skeptically, in disbelief at what he was seeing. He’d slap the skin under his chin and grab a fistful of it, tugging on it with breathy contempt. He’d run his fingers through his hair, which had stopped growing around his ears the way it used to. In what seemed like a moment he had turned thirty-eight, become lonely, looked sloppy, and was hungry.

After several years of moderate success, Carroll was starting to become disappointed with the roles that he was being sent out for. Whereas he used to play the younger, more handsome brother, or perhaps a handsome only child, he was now being brought in for the annoying best friend, or the free-spirited uncle. One day while learning his lines in his trailer, Carroll made a frustrated phone call to his agent, which ended in him firing his agent, which led to him looking for a new agent, which led to him not being able to get a new agent. In an attempt to take his mind off of the severity of the matter, he stopped looking for an agent altogether and began going to bed early.

Carroll’s last job—the one that led to his firing his former agent—had now been eight months ago. He had been cast as a gym teacher in a comedy about a young basketball team. One day the prop master, Glen, asked him if he had a preference of pitch for the whistle he would be using in the role of Coach Kelman. He told him he didn’t give a damn, he would just try to hit his mark, say the right lines, and otherwise keep quiet. The prop master laughed. He liked Carroll. Carroll hadn’t meant to make him laugh and he certainly didn’t like him back. In fact, he could hardly stand the prop master’s laugh, and how red his face got when he was smiling. He was the kind of guy that Carroll, in his younger years, would have had a lot of fun with. Carroll was no longer in his younger years and the prop master made his skin crawl on a daily basis. Just hand me the fucking whistle and hand me the fucking clipboard, he thought to himself, and nobody is going to give a shit about the pitch of the whistle and nobody is going give a shit about what I have written on the forms that are clipped into my clipboard and nobody is going to even watch this stupid fucking movie except for little kids and everything’s going to be fine.

He very much liked Sandra, the on-set wardrobe assistant. He liked her so much, in fact, that he folded and hung up his wardrobe in his trailer at the end of the day. In fact, he liked her so much that he wished on a daily basis that he didn’t have to wear that stupid whistle and those gym shorts and the baseball cap when he was around her.

One morning, he stepped into his trailer and found a note from Sandra sitting on the bed. He smiled uncontrollably and locked his door. He giddily picked up the note, which read: Hi hun yesterday during the bleachers scene your balls were showing when you were sitting down so I gave you a pair of black undies for today just so it won’t happen again. I’ll put them in with your wardrobe from now on.

—from Michael Cera’s “Pinecone.”

McSweeney’s subscriptions are currently on sale, $5 off, at their online store, and if you order now, your first issue will start with this one.