Swill

Swill Reading Oakland Tuesday

2010-10-15T22:33:00.000-07:00

If you're in Oakland (California: non-California Oaklanders need not apply) next Tuesday, October 19, there is a reading celebrating issue 5 of Swill and issue 9 of Monday Night. The reading will be at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph, Oakland, near 19th Street BART, at 7 p.m.

I will be there. I will read. The other Swill readers will be Allison Landa and Warren Lutz. The Monday Night readers will be Marissa Bell Toffoli (nothing against marriage, but I think her name was shorter the last time I had to type it. Although that explanation is a helluva longer than her additional name.), Amber DiPietra, and Della Watson.

I hate to be the one to break the news, but this so-called "cafe" actually has a full liquor license, and while attending the reading, listeners and ignorers alike may imbibe as much alcohol as their server allows. To add further to this sadness, I think it was unanimous among the editors of both magazines that the reading should take place somewhere that serves alcohol. Because, you know, otherwise I'll drink at home.

Another note: I will represent both magazines at the reading. I started Swill because I wanted specific things from a magazine, but I was one of the editors of Monday Night for nine years. I left Monday Night during the editing of the latest issue because I don't have time to read the number of submissions we receive at the two magazines combined. I didn't leave until after we'd decided what to accept for the current issue. I've been a part of Monday Night for nine years and I'm proud of what we've accomplished. I'm also damned glad to be friends with Jessie, who has been one of the editors from the start, and Nana, who joined more recently but feels like she could have been there all along.

So, if you are able to join us, we have a half dozen readers and a full bar. What more could you want? I mean, considering that you could conceivably meet your what more at a full bar.

Different Media, Different Methods

2010-09-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

This started as an email to Sean Craven (http://seancraven.blogspot.com/). Thus there are some second person phrasings in here. If you are not Sean and they apply to you, fine. If not, well, I liked the email enough that I didn't feel like editing the damned thing. I have enough editing to do without messing with this.

Was listening to a Gary W. Tallent bass line on a Springsteen live version of Chuck Berry's Back in the USA, and I loved the bass line, but realized, it would have been different if it hadn't followed that particular piano solo. Which to a certain degree is the nature of the bass: it sets things up or it follows them. It's an 'in conjunction with the rest of the band' instrument.

I also realized that there's this weird guitar break in the Springsteen version that probably has nothing to do with the Chuck Berry original but was included in the MC5 version. Which was produced by Jon Landau, who later became Springsteen's manager, probably by the time of the bootleg I was listening to.

Music is such an interdependent activity, while writing and the visual arts lean toward independence. To varying degrees, depending on what input the artist allows. Which, multivariegated artist that you are, has to tap into different parts of your brain, which has to be good for you. While I have chosen a job that requires a large amount of work-related socializing, and after work, except when I specifically seek out friends, I NEED my isolated activities. Different ways of achieving some form of balance.

Not to claim that either of us has achieved our ideal state, but there are other people in the world who either get no isolation or get far too much. Which presumably makes for an imbalance, results of which are fucking fine fodder for story-telling. I think instantly of The Wild Child, a great movie based on an interesting book. A similar story, that of Kasper Hauser, was turned into an interesting play by Peter Handke and another interesting movie (by Werner Herzog, who was a friend of Handke), such fine material that it was a good story in at least four different tellings, although in my opinion only the Truffaut movie was great. (The play was pretty damned close, though.)

I wonder how the medium relates to the tale. The Wild Child, as it's about an isolated character, seems like it would be delivered most accurately as a book, an isolated creation. But the story is not about a boy alone. It is about a boy alone inserted into society, it's about that society's reaction to him and its attempts to either sell him as a freak or to defreak him into being one of us. At least, that's the story Truffaut's movie tells. The other angles I've witnessed may have been as accurate in terms of what they intended, but I did not get the emotional impact. Handke's play is difficult to compare as it is an experimental piece with few words spoken, and I've read it but not seen it.

I think the primary point to be made from this is that the storytelling that worked best had a point to make and made it. You have to know what you're trying to do, and you have to say it. The bass line that follows the piano solo may not have been there the first rehearsal, or the seventh. But the damned song was not complete until THAT was THERE.

Table Assembly Instructions For Aliens

2010-09-05T13:40:00.001-07:00

This picture is the complete assembly instructions for an Ikea table. Granted, they leave out that you have to hold the screws with a wrench or something while attaching the table legs, but that's not hard to figure. What's interesting is the apparently gelatinous being at the bottom, and what it is attempting to do. Whatever it is doing, it seems to hurt if you don't put a rug underneath. Also, greater pleasure is derived if one arm is extended, even if that arm does not have a hand. Bracing your arm against the obscure furniture-like item seems to prevent its cracking when you do whatever it is you do to it. I don't know what the being is pressing itself against (or into); it does not remotely resemble the flat table with four legs that these instructions accompany. I would, however, have liked to derive the pleasure from table assembly that this being apparently derived from whatever it did.

The United States of Oakland

2010-08-08T18:27:00.000-07:00

Possibly backdrop for my novel, which is pretty much completed but, uh, needs some backdrop. Anyway, so far this is fiction:

The states were no longer united. Regional interests had become irreconcilable mindsets. Indignation on all sides – secession, once begun, went viral. The federal government tried to hold its military bases, but there were too many in California, some manned by Californians. California broke off on its own, absorbed a few surrounding states, and became The Western Territories. Texas, The Southeast, and The Northeast had large enough armories to form strong groups of their own, especially the Northeast, which held Washington, D.C. The Midwest, however, had primarily agriculture, and insufficient artillery to defend it. It became a battleground, strategically important for the land itself and the people who knew how to work it.

California was its own bloodbath, soldiers and police and gangs, allegiances bought and sold with no national flag to salute. Laws disappeared, it was all a question of power. Murderous alliances formed, composed of allies who did not trust each other. San Francisco tried to co-opt Oakland with money. Oakland responded with explosives and automatic rifles. Oakland controlled Northern California, and they spread across what used to be state lines. They had Las Vegas with them when they hit Los Angeles. They burned it to the ground.

Oakland became capital of The Western Territories. It was run by a coalition of military men, bikers, mobsters, and other politicians. They had many connections and few morals. It took a lot of years, a lot of hits, but the people who ran Oakland weren’t satisfied with controlling The Western Territories. They ordered butchery until they controlled The Midwest, then they hit hard in The Southeast until that was theirs as well. They didn’t have Texas or Detroit yet, but they didn’t really want them. Let those crazy motherfuckers keep killing themselves, that was the word. Pincer The Northeast.

It was bloody, but Oakland was used to that. A lot of people get killed. The difference was, this time Oakland got something out of it. Got to be capital of the newly United States of America.

SWILL 5 COMING SOON

2010-05-02T17:55:00.000-07:00

We don't have a table of contents yet, we haven't finished line edits, and we haven't yet responded to all submissions because many of the stories we've accepted are short and may not quite fill an issue. So, in case we come up a few pages short we may accept someone else. However, I have closed the reading period with the expectation that my page estimates are pretty accurate.

Swill 4 may have been our ultimate noir issue. We still love noir, and there is some slated for Swill 5, but our love of plot does not mean that every story must have a monster or a killing. In fact, we've branched out so much in this issue that there are more female writers than male. Which has not been the case in the past. In fact, it was pointed out to me that there were no female writers in either of our last two issues. Which struck me as odd, because cruelty and a sick head are hardly exclusive to males.

So, as we have no idea yet what order the stories will appear in, I'll just list the authors in alphabetical order. Thanks to all, it's been and continues to be a pleasure.

Swill 5 will include new writing by:

Sean Beaudoin
Z.Z. Boone
Sean Craven
Elizabeth Eslami
Chia Evers
Allison Landa
Delphine LeCompte
Warren Lutz
Jasmine Paul
Rob Pierce
Catherine Schaff-Stump
Wendy Sumner-Winter

And here's what I think of public displays of affection

2010-02-20T10:55:00.000-08:00

Stop advertising your love
Nobody cares about happiness
Unless it affects their own
So give me some of that
Or get it out of my sight
Cheers, lovebirds,
May you toast yourselves with strychnine.

I'm Not Here

2010-01-22T22:09:00.000-08:00

Well, not enough anyway. I stop in periodically and see numerous posts I'm interested in, then try to read the ones I'm most interested in based on the subject. Because...

I'm rewriting the ending of the novel I've been working on, and I'm editing for two magazines (Swill and Monday Night), the former of which is reading submissions right now (www.swillmagazine.com for guidelines, etc.), the latter having moved on to the editors talking about which submissions we're going to accept.

So far, none of those things are financially profitable. As I have a wife and two kids, there is a whole lot of other time going to a job that generates income and to spending time with family.

Oh, and I'm beginning to suspect my next car repair may involve a shotgun.

I know this doesn't matter to that many people, but to the people who read this blog: hey, that's why I may not have commented on a post that would have interested me had I read it. If you've posted something and want my opinion, let me know. If you're someone who doesn't have my email address, send something to editors@swillmagazine.com and I guarantee I'll look at it. However spammy you may appear.

This thing where life is finite just fucks with my schedule. Off to work on novel, ignoring several recent blog posts that interest me. Cheers all.

Everybody! It's Ghandi's Birthday!

2009-10-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

Ya gotta dress like Mahatma, don't ya?

Went to get a beer in Oakland

2009-10-04T21:52:00.000-07:00

Nine o'clock, Sunday night, wanted a beer. I live in Oakland and the nearest good liquor store is a mile away. It's night, it's Oakland, that's a drive.

Two blocks from my house, police cars are blocking the street straight ahead and to my left, the two directions I want to go. A cop on foot is waving a flashlight. Charades with police, my favorite sport. I turn off the car stereo and roll down my window. The cop meanwhile has stepped forward, eager to send my oblivious ass on its way.

"Where do you want me to go?" I ask.

He could speak now but is apparently too deep into his role as a mime. He points, waves the flashlight. I turn my car to the right. "Thank you."

"You betcha," he says, speaking now that I no longer need him to.

I take a left at the next corner, head down the street to the main intersection. Where there are more cops, blocking the road to the left, the one direction I need to go. I take a right, drive four blocks to the next major street, take another right, drive four more blocks until taking one more right puts me on a major street behind all the action, drive four more blocks and take another right that goes half a mile until I'm at the street three blocks from my house where I was initially headed.

From there it's smooth sailing. A left turn and I'm less than a mile from my liquor store.

Knowing all the road blocks, I took a different route on the way back. What a hassle for one beer. Good thing I was already drunk when I started.

Oh dear, is that black man the President?

2009-09-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

I would love to see something about President Barack Obama that doesn't involve race. But Obama isn't the one who initiates race as the context. He is a man who has been given the task of fixing everything broken by his ridiculously inept predecessor. He's trying to choose his battles, because the Bush administration did not leave four years of problems, or even eight. But before Obama can even enter battle he meets flack that has nothing to do with the issues. This may happen with every president, but this is the first time we've elected a black man who is supposed to be our saviour.

It is impractical to try to remove the racial aspects from the attacks against and the defenses of the president. It is absurd to suggest that all these attacks would be taking place if he were white.

I think it's also safe to say that a lot of people would feel worse about being saved by a black man than by being failed by a white man.

Finished First Draft of Novel

2009-07-26T20:31:00.000-07:00

And it's soon to be a big budget motion picture near you. I wrote a damn action novel, an attempt to convince myself I could write something straightforward without a million subplots/flashbacks. And in those terms I've succeeded, although it needs some fleshing out and I changed the setting of the last scene while I was writing it so I need to go back and fix that. Tons of things that need fixing, actually, but that's the nature of the beast.

Unlike anything else I've ever written, I assume this will get published once I fix it up. It has film and video game potential - the whole story is basically a first person shooter, then at the end shit blows up. Oh, and there's a love story, which isn't written very well at the moment, but will be tied in neatly when I rewrite. I mean, that's a piece of cake - I have experience with love succeeding and failing. The trick is making all the international espionage play out. And I think I'm pretty close to having that. And there's actually an important but not prominent character who could be the lead in a sequel that would not even be the same type of book.

It's fun writing what I don't know how to write and turning it into what I do know how to write, but turning it because I'm learning how to write more ways.

Swill 4 On Sale Now!

2009-07-22T20:30:00.000-07:00

Sean wrote an excellent post about the new issue of Swill. As the editor-in-chief of this magazine, I gotta say I'm very proud of our first three issues but issue four is, in the words of Captain Beefheart, "the best batch yet."

There are excerpts from each story, from this issue and each of the previous issues, on the Swill website. The story order for this issue was like a music mix- there was never any question of one story being better than another, the question was always what segued best.

Having decided to open with a noir/horror/science fiction comedy, what type of story follows that best? Thank you John Shirley, a fine opening story and very difficult to label. Which was one of the reasons to open with it; it seemed like any of the other stories could follow it smoothly.

After that the ensuing stories could reasonably be labeled, in order: crime, horror, noir, wacked-out surrealist comedy, noir, fantasy/horror. Out of that batch Craig Hartglass's comic story about a day at the mall with Paul Bowles and Jack Kerouac clearly stood out in terms of "one of these things is not like the others." And we like things that aren't like the others.

We also like the others: W.G. Kelly, Steve Young, Brian Haycock, fine writers who gave us fine stories. Sean and I are also pleased with our own creepy little tales in this issue.

Last night one of the things Sean and I agreed on was that although the new issue is better than the first, the first had a diversity to the types of stories that we would like to have again. Clearly we like certain types of genre writing and see them as literary, but that doesn't mean we dislike mainstream literature. That is, we dislike the boring shit, regardless of genre. Anyway, the website contains my Swill manifestos (they're the back cover text from issues 1 and 2).

The main thing right now: we love this issue, check it out.

Blurry eyed sobriety? Hell, I know a cure for that

2009-07-18T20:38:00.000-07:00

ooh look, there was a blank unaddressed email in my "Drafts." guess i was in the middle of saying nothing to no one and got interrupted. now, taking up where i left off...

god, maybe i should send this to everyone. i'm basically waiting for one file from sean then i update the swill website; i could recreate it from the version i have and i will if it's close enough (i have a hardcopy to compare to.) then our big deal issue 4 will be available to our hordes of followers next week; i'm posting July 24 as the release date - that's friday and i'll be mailing out authors' copies saturday.

so freaking tired right now, and i get up early all next week to open the store. which won't, of course, affect me going to writers group at 7:30 tuesday - hell, that tends to energize me, just means i'll be tired wednesday. if i can just make my brain work while i'm tired...

i think the house fire may have something to do with my fatigue. i know it did the night it happened, kind of hard to sleep while wondering if maybe the fire department missed something, even though they have these cool mri cameras that look behind the wood - i've read too much science fiction to have faith in technology. i guess if i read the front part of the newspaper i could have had the same response.

things not to do: don't let your house catch on fire. don't lose your best employee while your second best employee is on vacation (he's not leaving yet and she'll be back before he's gone, and i recommended him for the management job in our company - again, i think it's doing this shit the same week the house catches fire.) oh, and if your house does catch fire, don't let it fuck up any doors so they don't shut right, because then you don't know whether insurance will pick up the tab if you get the door fixed before your claim is processed - basically, i'm making this door workable without knowing what that entails but i pay enough in premiums and they're no doubt going up, i'd better get every fucking penny's worth out of this. also, avoid doing all these things in a shitty economy when you're about to launch a personal project and you want to do everything possible in terms of marketing.

good news is, i have a copy of swill 4 in front of me and it looks fucking great. one fucking typo and it's already been corrected, we print from the corrected file start of next week.

ok, this was going to be a deeply personal email to a close friend of mine but god knows who so we're going with this, all you close personal friends who make your way here. but if you happen to make it past the blog and all the way to my house, the two drink minimum applies only to me, you may leave as much alcohol behind as you like. Cheers!

Got Home Tonight And Our House Was No Longer On Fire

2009-07-15T20:58:00.000-07:00

But I couldn't park on my own block due to the fire trucks. The fire department had the thing out before it did much damage, mostly an outside wall, and a few minutes later they were done being dashing with us and out front giving hats and badges to the neighbor kids.

Thing is, I'd originally gotten home a couple hours before. Susan was home and I hadn't had lunch and was starving and it smelled like the neighbors were starting a barbeque. They have a decent number of them, and it did seem to me it was smelling like coals a long time without there being any smell of meat. But I was tired and didn't take much notice, had to go pick up Nate after awhile.

When Nate and I got back we were almost to our house when I realized I couldn't make it down the block in the car. Nate asked what was going on and I said it was probably one of the elderly people on the block had a heart attack or something. Nate wanted to take a shower right away so he got out and walked while I turned the car around and parked a block away.

It was only when I got close that I saw a fireman walking down from our driveway, and the big truck was angled right at our house. There wasn't any visible smoke but my wife was home alone. We have smoke detectors and a smoke alarm inside, but I walked damn quick to the first fireman I saw, waved my keys and pointed at the house.

Well, I was told right away that the fire was out and no one was hurt. Apparently a neighbor had seen the smoke outside, called the fire department and knocked on our door in case anyone was home. Thank you, Eve. Thank you, Oakland Fire Station # 8.

Apparently the fire was started by a smoldering cigarette butt in a planter pot on our back deck. I told Susan, it would be safer if she drank instead of smoked.

How To Feed The Child Molesters

2009-07-11T22:26:00.000-07:00

To each other, of course.

So, my new thought is, we catch all the pedophiles, don't feed them for a few days, and give them pictures of each other both as adults and as children then truck them all into an outdoor stadium and leave them a few days without supervision. Just armed security outside so no one slips out for more easily purchased meat.

Eat up, boys. Afterward, the janitors would receive combat pay.

Can O' Worms, or, I See Your Guilt and Double It

2009-07-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

I felt good that I felt bad about the guy with the missing leg, but I felt bad that I felt good about it.

Guilty without being charged, your honor – I’d done nothing to cause the man’s condition, nor had anyone suggested I had. It was a ‘there but for the grace of God’ moment except I don’t believe in God, although I suppose if there were one, he she or it would be quite graceful. I on the other hand had felt self-congratulatory for what should have been a normal sympathetic reaction.

I couldn’t just feel sorry, I had to feel good that I felt sorry. And I couldn’t even stop there, my ego had to scream for more attention so it could blame me for feeling good.

Sometimes my brain is like a ball of dirt rolling down a mountain of shit until the ball is as vast as the mountain had been. There aren’t flies big enough to eat me away.

No wonder I drink. Flush this down. But the guilt never washes away, it just gets pushed out of reach. And what do I have to feel guilty about? Oh lord oh lord oh lord (the egotistical atheist replaces prayer with talking to himself.) It’s not as though there’s any pleasure I feel like I deserve.

Just that I want it. With a lack of satisfaction guaranteed. That is, I will feel consummate pleasure while the pleasure is being consummated, or until it has been consumed, but when it is done there is nothing left. The act itself, whether sex or drinking, may at its conclusion leave me with a momentary sense of well-being, but that moment passes and is soon replaced by pain or absence. Which leaves me needing more at a time when I can’t have it.

Thoughts About the film Being There

2009-07-04T12:42:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile since I've seen it, but the movie Being There returns to my thoughts fairly often. What's written here contains spoilers and assumes the reader has seen the movie. It brings up some subjects peripheral to the movie itself that I think are interesting, but hey, it's a great movie, people should see it regardless.

The thing about the character Chance in Being There is not that he is a Christ figure, as implied in the film, but that he is like a Christ figure compared to the rest of us. Our intellectual and political icons (icons meaning the ones who’ve been publicized thus heard of) do not necessarily take the time to consider issues any more deeply than does Chance, and may rely on the quick “briefings” provided by television rather than the more time intensive articles printed in newspapers. The difference is that Chance admits to being molded by pop culture, (well, not in so many words, because he can only talk about what he understands, which is virtually nothing), which is of course what makes him adored by the masses: he seems to be one of us, but because he is seen as someone of importance each of his simple words is extrapolated into something of greater import.

Much of the story is about metaphors and symbolism: everything Chance says about the garden is treated as a metaphor (especially for the economy), and the story becomes about not what actually occurs but about how it is interpreted, both by the masses and by those in power. Chance is not Christ by any means—he is a fucking idiot, and if he is our Savior we are most likely doomed. But here Kosinski takes his stab at religion in general, for its inflating of conceivably inconsequential figures into Godlike ones–we know that Chance is not godly, but as he is treated that way he is eventually portrayed that way.

Is Kosinski then suggesting that those treated as Gods may eventually grow into such? Or, as a child who survived the holocaust and the megalomania that led to it, is his suggestion instead that people will believe anything and are fully capable of seeing any moron as God? The sheer cynicism of this would be easy to accept if not for the fact that Chance’s grand messianic moment occurs without an audience. It may instead be a moment in which a man, who by luck has been perceived to possess far greater attributes than he actually does, continues to not acknowledge the greatness that is an aspect of himself. And that lack of acknowledgement is a large part of what makes him admirable; his wisdom may be specific and not applicable to the rest of his life, but what really makes it wisdom is that it does not color his view of himself. Indeed, he seems to have no view of himself.

To a large degree this is a story about a man without ego dropped into a world rife with ego, and how that world embraces this stranger. Of course, they are embracing him because they are assuming things about him that are untrue, they see areas in which he is inept as areas in which he is superior, because they do not understand him to such an extreme that they fail to see how little there is to understand. And there is almost no doubt that there is something wishful to this aspect of the general concept: Kosinski was no mainstream socializer, was prone to hiding under tables at dinner parties.

Kosinski also knew a great deal about how fortuitous chance could be – he was supposed to be an overnight guest at the home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate the night that Tate was murdered, but his flight missed its connection (of course, that story is according to Kosinski, who reputedly lied about virtually everything, more concerned with a good story than with what really happened. As Kosinski has been accused of plagiarizing the bulk of his work, it’s possible that this happened to someone else and it’s their story, but for my purposes it’s more useful if in this instance Kosinski told the truth.)

And if Kosinski was a plagiarist, perhaps there is a connection between him and the character Chance – a man who is lauded for things he has not done. Except, of course, this theory doesn’t work if Kosinski actually wrote Being There.

OF COURSE Language Is A Virus

2009-06-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

And some like to spread it more than others. Writers are nothing but a bunch of verbal sluts. Open those pages wide, I'm diving in.

Neal Stephenson Needs An Editor

2009-06-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

I'm reading "Snow Crash, " and for the most part really enjoying it, but I'm on page 430 of a 470 page edition and I'm pissed off. "Lay" instead of "lie" three different times so far, one of the instances in what is supposed to be a quotation from centuries ago, before this was a common grammatical mistake. Particularly odd is that the book is written in the present tense, so the only word written in the past tense in these sections is a word that is meant to be in the present tense.

I'm reading a Bantam Dell edition, a division of Random House. Um, no one proofreads this shit? I'm an editor, and there's no fucking way in hell this would get past me. It's not Stephenson's fault that he makes a common grammatical error (although I suspect he could use some grammar review, he's a good enough writer that I can see where his time would go other places.)

In terms of editing, it's not really as big a problem as the long sections where he rambles about Babel, backstory that seems to have been thrown inadvertently to the forefront (file that shit under 'research,' Neal, you have a really good story that you keep interrupting with this tedium, including quotes from George Steiner, whose own writing on this subject is far more interesting not only than your own but than the excerpts you quote.)

Ok, I was really enjoying this novel and should probably finish reading it, but god can I edit the next one? Because apparently no one edited this.

My Summer Fling

2009-06-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've done the mid-life crisis thing before, but that's the great thing about the MLC - I don't know when I'll die, so I have to keep having one crisis after another to ensure that one of them is actually mid-life. So, although I'm happily married, in the interests of fulfilling this great western tradition/cliche, I must be perpetually infatuated with some attractive young woman and a car I can't afford. The car of the moment is a Bentley GT, which differs from my current car, a 1995 Maxima, in just a few ways: it goes from zero to sixty in about 4 seconds, topping out around 198 mph (the Maxima tends to start rattling a little at about 75, would probably explode at about 140, so god knows what it would do at 198), and the passenger side front door of the Bentley will open, whereas the one on my Maxima awaits the availability of a used part before I can even afford that option. And no, I haven't looked into the cost of the Bentley, but in this economy with my income I'm sure an affordable monthly rate could be worked out that would keep me in eternal Hell no more than a few days a week. And they have booze there, right?

Speaking of which, although I'm happily married, summer approaches and I find it hard to keep my hands off this little lady.

Screw it, I'm putting her in my mouth.

Barack and Michelle’s Night On The Town

2009-05-30T18:19:00.000-07:00

I read with delight about Barack and Michelle Obama going out for a night in New York. Crowds gathered on sidewalks to wave and cabbies stood on the frames of their cabs to catch a glimpse of the President and First Lady.

The date itself: they went to some no-doubt expensive restaurant where the chef and owner grows his own food (which foods those are were not mentioned in the article I read), then to a Broadway play. Generally the idea of a Broadway play repels me, as something that is all too often a crappy Vegas spectacle with a New York snob-critic pedigree. The Obamas attended “Joe Turner’s Come And Gone,” August Wilson’s play about black American boardinghouse residents in the early 1900s, migrants from sharecropping farms. Hey Barack, where’s the totally irrelevant crappy Disneyesque song and dance numbers in that? Where’s the serious adults dressed like zoo animals? On skates?

So, even when they go out and have a good time, the Obamas do something serious and in good taste. And look like they love each other while they’re doing it.

Plus, they were criticized by the Republican National Committee for wasting taxpayer money. Which is, of course, the RNC’s job. Now, this would be a better point if the president were overpaid for his work, or took vacations half the time. (Which would have been a bigger issue during the Bush Junior administration except that his vacations were no less productive than the time he spent in the White House.)

Personally, I feel a ton of stress on the job, and I need to let go on a regular basis after work. And yeah, my family is dependent on me and although I’m good at my job this is a vicious economy that ensures no job security, but at least I’m not responsible for world peace and every national problem that became worse over the last eight years. Hell, the RNC should be forced to watch some August Wilson, to maybe feel some sentiment for the people they’ve been fucking over and feeding to the sharks the last eight years. A lot of the DNC could use that as well.

The head of the RNC recently officially stated that the Republican Party was done attempting to fix its own problems and was now going to go after the Democrats. Somehow he wasn’t summarily thrown out on his ass after that idiotic statement. Shit, even if you’re doing it, you don’t admit it.

Oddly, it’s not the morons of the Republican right that our president is fighting, just the problems they’ve built for him. And if anyone can solve these problems, I think Barack Obama is the man. And if there’s anyone who deserves a night on the town more than this man and his wife, please show us your resume, I’m sure you can find a job in this administration.

Of Course, He Wants To Give Them Happy Endings

2009-05-27T22:58:00.000-07:00

Nathan, our 17 year old, just asked me if I knew where The House of the Scorpion (an excellent young adult novel) was. I was busy, said no, looked for it a few minutes later without success. I asked Nate if he'd found it. He was lying on his bed, reading, didn't hear me at first. Then he looked up quickly and said, "No, I'm reading A Clockwork Orange."

This is the same kid who's read Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and The Road more times than I have.

We do get some things write.

Hey! Hungry Ego Here! Feed, Please!

2009-05-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

Sanity seems to be hanging around lately. Not sure why; plenty of stress/fatigue, so it must be all the support from family and friends. Now if I could just convince myself I deserve it.

Ha, never said the neuroses were gone.

So much to be glad about, so much to be tired about. So if I get hyperbolic in any direction it’s almost certainly personal, but maybe only unilaterally. I yam what I yam, and so is Lola (oops, mixing Popeye and Kinks references – I’m not sure this sobriety thing really helps, my mind itself is fucking drunk.)

I wish I had an appreciative audience for everything that passes for wit in my mind. I may have blown it by not going into the bumper sticker industry. That and not going for it with my idea for mistletoe belt buckles, which I saw advertised years later in the back of Easy Rider. That one doesn’t bug me too much, I had someone willing to back me on it if I did the labor, but it was a moneymaking scheme, nothing to feed the ego – essentially just another bumper sticker.

For today I need nothing but a general feeling that I want everyone who’s been there to keep being there, and I know I’ve got people who aren’t going away. Shit, I’ve always been a hippy-dippy motherfucker in some regards: commit to people, stay with them, give everything and get everything. And like everyone else, I don’t always follow up.

But… I believe that absolute commitment to those you care about is the best way to live.

And when I talk like this I don’t trust myself. I’m sending a message to who – to myself, as affirmation of my ideals; to people I love and care about, who don’t really need this but if they read it will probably like it; to people who don’t know me as well or at all and who I’m trying to impress.

Anyone could be reading this. Taking my word for who I am (not something I’d do, but I’d actually recommend it to others – if you don’t actually know me, you’re unlikely to analyze me more closely than I analyze what I write. Hell, I can’t even help noticing every fucking time that the word analyze starts with the word anal.)

Express Disapproval If You Don't Want Your Child To Smoke

2009-05-17T16:59:00.001-07:00

Just sent an email and saw a big ad on the side of the page for Child Smoking Prevention. Sponsored, of course, by Philip Morris USA, a civic spirited organization that has probably killed more Americans than any terrorist group or war opponent we've ever had. Fortunately, they're good for the economy.

Anyway, there's a link at the bottom of the ad (which shows a very skinny mom talking to a daughter whose jeans were probably purchased within the last 20 years - the pants aren't old but the style is) that will take you to a page telling you how to converse with your child to prevent them from smoking. As explained by a company that makes a fortune selling cigarettes.

Apparently, any opportunity you get, whether through direct conversation or pointing out an anti-smoking billboard or commercial, what you are supposed to do as a parent is point out that you disapprove of smoking then ask your child what he or she thinks. Um, yeah, that's gonna fucking work. Just in case your kid is already smoking, point out that you disapprove before you ask what the kid thinks. Pretty much guaranteed to make the child resent you, talk about you to his or her friends, and smoke smoke smoke.

Well done, Philip Morris. Killing America's youth for how many years?

Today's Report Card

2009-05-16T22:08:00.000-07:00

Can't get no forgiveness round here, everyone I moaned and bitched at the other day said there was nothing to forgive. See, I knew I had good friends, which is one of those things where you earn each other. I don't know how much I'd get done if I was as non-judgmental toward myself as I am toward others, but there's a time to stop driving myself and treat me like I'd treat a friend. Fortunately I have friends who do that for me.

People tell me they're fucked up too, but it usually takes awhile before I see it. Until I witness a neurosis that's at least as bad as one of my own I have difficulty empathizing. I'm a cynic who likes strangers, but I try to find flaws in them so I can relate. I can idolize or be attracted prior to that, but in order to really like someone I have to see similarities to myself. (Ego doesn't mean you think a lot of yourself, it means you think of yourself a lot.) And sure those similarities can be good qualities, but we're much closer if I catch you with a flaw that matches one of mine.

This itself might seem like neurotic ground, but other people do it too. People who marry (with or without paperwork) tend to have physical similarities, such as finger length or nose size or eye shape. Because on some level we're attracted to people who look like the people we grew up with. Whether that's evolutionary or genetic I don't know; I read this in some study and I don't remember what they gave as the reason behind it, but the reason was just an educated guess anyway. Basically, somewhere along the way I should be attracted to people who look like me. Which is probably why my wife and I are both half-breeds (she's half-Korean, half-American soldier, my parents are from Illinois and Ohio).

Okay, so I don't get the visual aspects of the argument. But I'm pretty sure there was a scientific study that firmly established that heterosexual males, regardless of their intelligence level, are attracted to hot babes. And while the term 'hot babes' remains open to interpretation, 'heterosexual males' is for the most part clearly defined (except in the Bay Area, where I happen to live.)

Anyway, the argument re. marrying the familiar didn't take on a Freudian tone. It wasn't that you marry someone who reminds you of your mother because of some underlying sex-with-mom thing; it was more along the lines of finding attractive that which you've grown up with. So presumably if you weren't in a close family unit that was related to you by blood, or if you were exposed enough to the community around you, your attraction might be toward another group.

Maybe it's a finger and nose length thing, but I grew up in pretty much exclusively white areas and have never been particularly attracted to white females. That is, when they were the only females around I was attracted to them, and I've never consciously sought out women of a particular racial type, I just seem least attracted to the group I grew up around. I don't know if that study I read about just gave percentages (I never looked at it closely) and maybe I'm a rebel compared to what the conformist is in the group they studied, or I'm rebelling (shit, I don't need it now, but when I was single I'd have conformed, rebelled, whatever road got me laid) and taking the 'exotic,' but for all I know the exotic I've chosen fits their definitions of sameness.

Susan and I have done a lot of stuff over the years, but we've yet to break out the ruler and measure the noses.

For those who wonder what I'm up to

2009-05-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

Fuck if I know. Which is actually a vast improvement over the certainties of a few days back. I've survived what's presumably the most physically and emotionally draining aspects of this week, still need a break but no longer feel broken. And I subjected a couple of different friends to short self-centered monologues last night, for which I forgive myself (that's one of the things friends are for and I'm self-centered anyway, nothing to brag about but last night was not the time to deal with it.)

So I rambled a bit, kind of like this, couldn't always come up with the word I wanted but by and large was just a tired version of me. And friends don't seem to mind this sort of thing. Maybe I should get some of that self-esteem stuff and stop being surprised when people like me.

Oh goody, almost Monday

2009-05-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

I need to do nothing and that isn't an option.

Totally burnt out, physically in a way I don't understand. Shitload of stuff going on, but that's usual, only the details vary. I think it's a buildup; the standard denial is work stress doesn't bother me because I have to deal with it, and I'm good at dealing with it, same with family stress.

Of course, family stress this week includes our godson(who lives with us) getting hospitalized after a bad reaction to benadryl on Wednesday and not getting released until today (Sunday) while they monitored his condition, including a couple of days where they had him under suicide watch.

As usual, yeah, I'm fine. I had a fairly long talk with him today during which he said virtually nothing. Yeah, he's fine too. We have absolutely no blood relation but sometimes the emotional similarities are eerie.

My body has been aching. I know I hold the steering wheel too tight, I slouch too much, I'm on the computer a lot at work and at home and I drink too much beer and coffee. I've never understood non-chemical relaxing.

I cannot take it easy. I have a job to do, a family to take care of, and I'm writing a novel and editing a magazine.

If my body breaks down and we can still make the house payments I'm okay. I have to work to afford to write. Things worth doing have to be worth it of themselves. If at some point I'm paid for it that would be right, but what is right is rare.

Far Better To Have Health Concerns Than To Be Past That Stage

2009-05-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

I just said that to my dog before feeding her a can of beef-flavored whatever. Having a Boonville IPA myself. Here's to yr health, love yr liver, all that.

Reordering History

2009-05-05T21:59:00.001-07:00

Popped open Yahoo at work this morning and was greeted with the news headline, "National Guard Kill 4 At Kent State." Jesus, I thought, again? Then I saw that this was a "news archive." Of course, it was listed at the top of today's news headlines, just a reminder that Cinco de Mayo is the anniversary not only of the invention of the margarita but of the Kent State killings (and if I got any of that history wrong, I am a product of the California public school system.)

It was also a reminder that our news media seems to feel its primary obligation is to keep us scared shitless. If a state of hysteria can be induced, maybe people will stop playing World of Warcraft and watching Youtube long enough to pay attention to the news. Fat chance, hysteria mongers. The news media, by going for ratings and competing with the entertainment industry, has lost the esteem in which it was once regarded and become just another channel to be flipped through. Yes, if I see a fire on the screen I will probably stop long enough to see where it is (unless basketball's on another channel, in which case I'll wait until local emergency banners are running across the bottom of the court,) but I won't believe the hyperbole that has been recently used regarding swine flu (let's use the worst case scenario as probability - that will get their attention) or had someone I knew convinced, from the television footage in London during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, that all of San Francisco was on fire.

Those who exaggerate peril both damage their own credibility and denigrate those to whom tragedy has occurred. People are selfish enough, we don't need to worry about ourselves when it's time to be concerned about others. And we need some form of news media that tells the truth and is delivered to a wide audience. The mainstream sources for news have done little over the years to prove themselves anything but gullible government lackeys, and it is only occasionally in a government's interests to reveal the truth. Guerilla news coverage historically has been done through independent newspapers with small circulations, could conceivably deliver their messages to the masses via the Internet but who will the mass Internet users trust?

Trust no one and carry an Uzi doesn't work against a government; they have more distrust and Uzis than you can imagine. And I'm a U.S. citizen. I'm not talking pogroms and layered graves. I just want information I can believe, and I don't know where to get it.

Swill Website Updated, New Issue Coming Soon

2009-05-02T21:36:00.001-07:00

Finally updated the Swill website (www.swillmagazine.com) today. Nothing major in terms of content, just an animated gif that rotates a batch of quotes I like in twenty second intervals. Which if I had a more recent version of Photoshop I could have put together very quickly, but since I have Photoshop 5.5 it's a multi-step process just to get muddy text. The text I wound up with is still somewhat muddy, and I may get around to cleaning it up somehow at some point, but for now I'm fairly happy/relieved with the result.

The main changes on the site were made a couple months back, when the selections for issue 4 were finalized and I posted the authors' names. Then the real changes occur when we finish line edits and start running samples from the new issue, which is going to kick the shit out of our previous issues. And I like our previous issues, but we haven't had anything with the consistent strength of the stories appearing in issue 4.

One of the best parts about the layout process is that we get an actual page count, and then I get to tell Sean how many illustrations we need. At which point he comes up with as many pages as we need very quickly and all the words come together with pictures I've not seen before and I hit that moment where everything is what it's supposed to be. I am a cynic with ideals; these moments of satisfaction are rare and don't last, but damn I'm glad when I'm in them.

The magazine should be one literary or visual orgasm followed by another. Otherwise the reader is better off jerking off. Which is my reaction to most literature, but I suppose that also gives a clue to how much I love certain writing. And I'm not referring to erotic literature; I get off on Swill. And Swill exists because of a whole lot of other stuff I get off on.

To Blog or Not to Blog

2009-04-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

Someone mentioned to me recently that I don’t update my blog much. I was aware of this; I wasn’t aware that anyone cared. So I suppose I’m guilty of blog abuse. As it’s my blog, that would make it self-abuse, and it ain’t the first time. I just don’t usually do it in public.

My given reasons for not posting much are that I’m either writing my own fiction or addressing someone personally. It’s not an unwillingness to waste time on the internet. The web is both a very useful resource and a great excuse for not doing what I should. I am easily entertained by the artistry of others, especially when it takes me away from working on my own.

Much as I liked that reasoning, I know there are people who write a lot more than I do who also maintain blogs. I don’t know a fucking thing about what might cut into the rest of their day, but something lent the air of bullshit to what now seemed to me justification.

So, a bit of self-analysis. Some of it’s easy. I’m anal. This makes for good editing skills, makes me reluctant to post words I haven’t gone over thoroughly. If I like something enough on a casual basis and don’t care much about how it reads I’ll post it. Otherwise it reflects on me the writer, me the editor, me the anal-retentive. And while I’m generally low-key to be around, a large part of my self-esteem comes from the quality of my work, and my writing is part of that. The part I would like best known.

I think it comes down to an inability to believe I deserve the good things I get. Why do I have this great wife and family, this job I’m really good at, a handful of terrific friends? Just a really basic belief that I don’t deserve the good things that I’ve got, therefore I must undermine them. Fortunately, I’m really good at drinking.

The good news is, over the course of these paragraphs I’ve come to terms with all my internal issues and will be blogging frequently and cheerfully from here on. (And with great subtlety.)

WRITERS VERSUS EDITORS

2009-04-25T13:22:00.000-07:00

I suppose some editors are failed writers - but so are most writers. – T.S. Eliot

The relationship between writers and editors should not be adversarial. As someone who’s spent a lot of time on both sides of that relationship, I’m certain that there are many good people out there who just don’t have time for more than a form letter. I often consider myself one of those people. I’m also certain there are many editors from whom I should be grateful that the form letter is the only dealings I’ve ever had with them. That assumption is based not on any run-ins I’ve had with editors, but on my general cynicism toward the human condition.

As an editor, presumably the idea is to get the best writing possible from people whose writing you like. As a writer, presumably the idea is to get your work published in the best condition possible. That last phrase is often where writers and editors come into conflict.

As co-editor of two small magazines, Swill and Monday Night, I have suggested quite a few line edits over the last few years. This occurs especially with Swill, which is my baby (although Sean helps me raise it) and has something resembling a specific direction. It’s a genre fiction literary magazine, or some such thing. (Check the excerpts at swillmagazine.com – we have published a wide variety of story “types,” and my favorites among them fall within all the categories, where they can even be categorized.) Regardless of the labels, I want the magazine to be as good as possible, which means suggesting edits. Writers do not agree with all my suggestions, and I’d probably be appalled if they did. The idea, after all, is to improve their story, not take it away from them. And I only make these suggestions if I am interested in publishing the story in the first place. As this suggestion process generally occurs after the story has already been accepted, the writer wins all arguments anyway.

Of course, sometimes the writer must wonder what the hell the editor is thinking, as witnessed by poet Frederick Seidel, who told this story about one of his first major publications, in The Hudson Review, in a recent New York Times Magazine.

“I got back a letter from the editor saying that the poem was brilliant… but wouldn’t I consider a number of changes they wanted to propose to the poem’s advantage? So I took a look at their suggestions, hung onto the poem and three months later sent it back to them – no changes whatsoever. Back came a note saying: ‘Wonderful! That does it! It’s just superb.’”

And yes, I feel fully capable of being that editor.

Belated Updike Elegy

2009-04-18T12:23:00.000-07:00

Just a one liner, but I love it:

Our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite.
- John Updike

Subba Cultcha

2009-04-05T01:00:00.000-07:00

So, last night I’m listening to some music and my wife asks what I’m listening to. I tell her the band name – Zola Jesus – and that it was given to me by one of my music-sharing friends, and we talk about the music a bit. She says it’s an interesting sub-culture, and I agree: “They sound like they’ve listened to a lot of Pere Ubu and PIL.”

Susan’s reply: “I meant the sub-culture of people who share music.”

I never thought of it that way. I’ve been sharing music with friends since the late 70s, although it’s been shared in different ways over the years. Under the influence of my friend John, I got real good at making mix tapes in the 80s. I’d made them before, but they’d just been one song with a gap then another song – from John I learned the art of blending one song into another. And on a good cassette deck it was easy to check levels as you recorded, and a challenge to end each side of the tape smoothly. There was an art to it, and those who were good at the art and shared similar musical tastes – it was always great to give or receive a tape like that. So much went into it.

With cdr’s and Itunes and similar programs it’s far easier to put a mix together. You never have that gut-crunching moment when your last song for the side doesn’t fit and you have to rewind to the spot where it was going and replace it – and those were always tight segues, starting at the exact moment after the previous song ended. Recording on a computer means you get told whether your songs fit or not, and there’s no exact time frame you have to fit – you just have to be under 80 minutes or 700 megabytes or whatever your disc allows for the format you’re recording in.

The artistry of the mixing aside, the point for me is I love music, and I know other people who love music. And if we form a sub-culture, it’s a sub-culture that supports music released on small labels. And the music shared causes others to purchase music from those small labels. Because God knows, I don’t listen to the radio much, to a large degree because commercial radio plays shit and noncommercial radio is both hard to tune in and inconsistent. I’ve never heard Zola Jesus on the radio. I expect I’ll buy their next album if I can find it.

Recently I was looking for the Sector 27 album that Tom Robinson recorded shortly after the break-up of the original Tom Robinson Band. Tom has his own website, and above some free downloads he was offering was the following text:

“Free Downloads: iTunes downloads cost 79p per track. Writer/publisher get 6p, Performer 6-8p, Visa/Mastercard 7p, Apple 12p, and Record Company almost 50p. Sod that. Help yourself to my songs & share them with your friends:”

In the meantime, I expect I’ll remain part of this sub-culture that I didn’t know existed.

Music Review

2009-03-29T22:09:00.000-07:00

Michael has a post up about the Art Pepper album, Smack Up. I mentioned a song from this album in a piece published in the first issue of Monday Night; the prose poem or whatever you want to call it is reprinted here.

MUSIC REVIEW

During the Coltrane I fantasized wild out of control glorious spasms. During Art Pepper it was something thinner; a quiver, a shiver, a sitting alone. It was a blues song, Las Cuevas De Mario; I didn’t know it was a blues until it blew into me. I’d heard it before but the time hadn’t been right.
The trumpet is rounder than the sax; it makes one’s head revolve. Saxophone, a straighter sound: when it curves, the turns are tighter, the head moves vertically, within itself.
Shaken by everything; reading Burroughs, listening to Coltrane and Pepper, drinking: I’m just frail, and that’s how I’m supposed to be, and that’s how these artists make me. I realize I don’t associate Burroughs with music, his writing seems more to do with painting and film: it lacks the fluidity of most music. But there is music, good music, that lacks fluidity; the world often lacks fluidity, is as fluid as chaos. And there is music that reflects that, and some of it is what I’ve been listening to while reading Burroughs tonight.
Making love to a stranger/the possibility of sudden death/the chance to see what has not been seen.
There is in Burroughs a bizarre, sinister hope, a wish for love that cannot be possible, and that when imminent is sure to be destroyed, interrupted, or corrupted. Yet the hope remains.
A man whose life is centered on one great tragedy—in this case, the shooting death of his wife—must, of course, be veiled. That Burroughs has in his writing unveiled an imagination of vast horror is certainly no more amazing than that some critics have somehow seen these horrors as impersonal.
In his work Burroughs has succeeded in creating a world solely his own, replete with fantasies clearly personal—homosexual fantasies far from polite revealed to a world that to a large degree thought such acts subhuman, fantasies that often combined orgasm and death, as written by a man who shot to death his wife and afterward openly loved men, fantasies that blatantly preferred the outcasts to the society.
And the hedonistic pleasures, well yes, they are there to see us through; and the visions of madness and terror, we know versions of these to be true; and the travels through time, and dreams, these test our pallid visions of reality, our insufficient and inaccurate definitions of what is.
Burroughs, of course, also does not know. But he is willing to fill the page with possibility, to intelligently, emotionally and physically challenge life: those who see his work as distant are missing the sadness that rains down from its clouds. Fold up those umbrellas and be soaked.

I Want To Be Famous Because I'm Great

2009-02-21T19:15:00.000-08:00

That is, I have more ego than those who just want to be famous. I want to be famous because I deserve it. Which isn't to say I believe I deserve it yet. Deserving it is what I'm working toward, and yes please I'd like the fame that comes with it. Of course, I'm talking about the amount of fame that a well-known writer would get, which is not the hounded by paparazzi invading my privacy to the point where I should be allowed to shoot them variety. No, I aspire to be known as a writer (and I don't walk around claiming to be one just because I have a few novels in the works. Hell, everyone's grandmother has a few novels in the works. "I could be the next Agatha Christie." No thanks and no I couldn't, Ms. Christie was phenomenally good at what she did and I do something else.)

I can legitimately claim to be an editor on the small press level; we are working on the fourth issue of Swill and the eighth issue of Monday Night, both scheduled for summer publication, and I am proud of what both publications have achieved. Monday Night is more of a shared credit, as it was started several years ago as an off-shoot of the writers group I was in at the time. The number of editors has gradually dwindled to two, with Jessica's focus primarily on poetry and mine primarily on fiction; Sharon, who used to be one of the editors, does all the artwork and layout. And although a version of that writers group still exists, none of us who work on the magazine are in it.

Swill is more specifically mine. To a large degree it was my wife's idea, as she told me I should stop grousing if Monday Night wasn't doing everything I wanted it to do. Also it was her idea that I involve Sean. Swill owes a lot to the writing of Delphine LeCompte. Delphine has a lot of stories on line and I'm a big fan. She submitted stories to Monday Night and I was the only editor who liked them, and I loved them. There was a story of hers that was being considered for Monday Night and it got published elsewhere. Delphine and I exchanged numerous emails; I really wanted to publish her. And I wanted to publish fiction that didn't fit in the so-called "literary" magazines. I had fiction of my own that didn't seem to be marketable at all; I thought it was literary fiction but the literary fiction markets dismissed it as "genre." After a few years of this I came to the realization that what these markets considered literary I considered boring. They were rejecting me not because I wasn't good enough but because I wasn't part of the program. Whereas I'd been thinking they should publish me because my stories were so obviously superior to what they were receiving.

I guess Swill publishes the work of writers who don't do what they're supposed to. I like stories and I hate epiphanies because in real life there's action and there aren't epiphanies. In real life of course there's tons of boredom too, but that doesn't justify the stories that replicate those scenes. I really hate writers. Not all, but maybe all the ones who call themselves writers. I mean, unless that's what you do for a living, but so much writing is self-absorbed and why should I care about another person when I'm self-absorbed myself?

So Swill has gotten one terrible review from a zine press, one decent review from a litzine review magazine (I disagreed with their criticisms but it was fairly written, ran excerpts from a few stories, and clearly expressed the reviewer's prejudices, which I actually found impressive) and have had nice things said about us by Harlan Ellison. Let me rephrase that:

HARLAN ELLISON LIKES US! FUCK EVERYONE ELSE!

Because Harlan Ellison was one of three writers specifically mentioned on the back cover of the first issue of Swill. It was a note about literary fiction, which I said we like, but we think literary fiction includes Harlan Ellison and James Ellroy. (The third author I mentioned was Shakespeare - he included a lot of violence and humor in his work, yet some of the critics put up with him anyway.)

As I don't expect James Ellroy to ever say anything nice about anyone but himself (although maybe he'd like us, since he's one of my favorite writers), and Shakespeare is even less likely to give us a shout, we may have already achieved a chunk of the fame we're seeking.

We want more, of course. We make absolutely no money doing this and we think it's worth something. Issue 4 will be our best yet, and I was quite excited today when I found out that I know someone who knows one of the leading science fiction editors in the world, and he'd be happy to help me contact him. Not that Swill is all sf by any means; out of the 7 stories in the next issue, I think two would fit in that category, four would probably be best classified as crime, and one is a bizarre comic literary fantasy that has nothing in common with the rest of the issue except that it's damned good.

God, like authors aren't obscure enough. What if it turns out I get most famous for editing?

Valentines Day Massacre

2009-02-15T00:17:00.000-08:00

I am, of course, a bit late with this, but it's the sort of thing no one would complain about: "This is absolutely horrible, you asshole, and you should have given it to me yesterday." Nope, this is the music mix not to give someone you're courting, and probably not to someone you've broken up with - why bother? - but to give yourself after your heart's been stepped on.

Fortunately for me, none of this has anything to do with my current situation except that Jenny suggested that I do an anti-Valentines mix, perhaps so she wouldn't feel so guilty about hers. I'll be sending copies of this to those I think most likely to appreciate it. If you haven't received an email from me by Sunday morning (which, technically, it is now, but I think of morning as when I'm drinking coffee not alcohol) and you'd like a copy, lemme know. Playlist is:

1 H-A-T-R-E-D Tonio K.
2 I Don't Need the Reasons Eastern Dark
3 Sharpening Axes Graham Parker
4 Song For The Dumped Ben Folds Five
5 Devastation Malcolm Middleton
6 Shelter Black Mountain
7 Stupid The Dirtbombs
8 Repulsion Dinosaur Jr.
9 Pretty Baby (You're So Ugly) Ty Segall
10 Someone who cares The Only Ones
11 How Much I've Lied Gram Parsons
12 Hell No, I Ain't Happy Drive-By Truckers
13 Empty Heart The Hellacopters
14 Trouser Minnow Rapeman
15 Temporary Thing Lou Reed
16 I'll Say It Real Kids
17 Gun Uncle Tupelo
18 One More Night Dave Edmunds
19 Teardrops Must Fall Mink Deville
20 Ever Fallen in Love? Buzzcocks
21 You Don't Know Me Sister Double Happiness
22 The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow) The Jam

I LOVE LUX INTERIOR

2009-02-06T01:19:00.000-08:00

Hey man, this is love. Love you Lux, love you Ivy, love you Nick and Bryan and Kid Congo. Don't mourn, memorialize. Best to all, I can't convey what the Cramps have meant to me, I got kicked out of a Holiday Inn parking lot looking for this band. Aloha to Hell. "I've lost touch with reality."

Ivy, if somehow you ever see this, best to you, love, cheers however that comes.

I don't know where to stop with this. I could talk the Cramps forever. One of the greatest bands I've ever heard or seen, a band I felt physically related to those times when I was screaming animal noises drunk in the street but as songs. At the time I never saw not being a madman as an option, I felt like I was faking it. And here was Lux doing what I wished I could be doing, and I was "out there" compared to most people I knew, but not out there like the Cramps were out there. What a fucking blessing this band was. Whoever you are, whatever you are, you can be this. Release what's in you, let it out.

Of course it helps if it's musical, especially rockabilly/psychedelia.

Nick Knox was one of the best drummers I ever saw, and he could chain smoke an entire set, flipping his sticks between cigarettes.

I don't know how to talk about Ivy - every time I saw the Cramps I chose her side of the stage, got as close as I could, watched her shimmying shoulders while she played guitar. Sexiest goddamn guitarist I ever saw, and what a player, and this is supposed to be a tribute to her man.

Because Lux - there's no fucking describing Lux. Lux was everything I wanted to be. He was fucking insane, singing his ass off, all over the stage and amps, and if you ever saw that video where the Cramps played the asylum, Lux telling the crowd, "People say you're crazy; I don't think you're so crazy," and you know he's been hearing this and living this and it's funny, but it's also why I could relate. No matter how out there I was compared to my classmates, what had it been like for Lux in school?

They were sick, they were funny, they played great rock n roll and they never had a choice about becoming a part of the mainstream. They were always the Cramps, they couldn't be anyone else and no one else could be them.

Life stripped bare left them no choice but to make this noise, these noises. I'd say RIP Lux Interior but I don't think that's an option. Rock, Lux, wherever you are. As if you could say no.

Make Room?

2009-01-25T11:41:00.000-08:00

Obama Vs. Assault Weapons

2009-01-24T23:15:00.001-08:00

Found this on a gun site. I spend a decent amount of time on gun websites, researching weapon details for fiction I'm either writing or editing. I don't know if the gun lobby is genuinely afraid of Obama or just using this opportunity for marketing, but I see it as promising that someone working for peace is seen as frightening. The need for AK47's in the hands of individuals is an extrapolation of the 2nd Amendment that I can't dismiss altogether, despite the number of nuts who may hold it. Trust in government is not one of my strong points. Of course, neither is trust in individuals, which is why I would feel a damn sight more comfortable with restrictions on assault weapons. Peace and love, eh?

Hail hail Baracknroll

2009-01-16T20:44:00.001-08:00

Best Albums of the Year - 1978

2009-01-06T19:55:00.001-08:00

It takes me awhile to put these lists together, and this is by no means final, but 1978 is to my ears one of the greatest years in rock music, and Jenny was curious so I put it together. God knows what I've left out, I didn't go through my records before doing this, just put it together tonight. Suffice to say, any big name bands left off this list were left off intentionally, but there are other things I need to work on tonight so I'm putting this up pretty quickly. And apparently I have a lot of albums from 1978 - of the zillion things left off, I think Willie Alexander's album would've been # 21. Here goes:

1 Pere Ubu Dub Housing
2 Talking Heads More Songs About Buildings and Food
3 Johnny Thunders So Alone
4 Magazine Real Life
5 David Johansen David Johansen
6 Joe Ely Honky Tonk Masquerade
7 Wire Chairs Missing
8 The Clash Give Em Enough Rope
9 Bob Dylan Street Legal
10 Lou Reed Street Hassle
11 Pere Ubu The Modern Dance
12 The Adverts Crossing the Red Sea With The Adverts
13 Bruce Springsteen Darkness On The Edge of Town
14 Southside Johnny Hearts of Stone
15 NRBQ At Yankee Stadium
16 The Buzzcocks Another Music In A Different Kitchen
17 Siouxsie & The Banshees The Scream
18 Big Star Sister Lovers
19 DMZ DMZ
20 Elvis Costello This Year's Model

I was invited to a party by J.D. Salinger

2009-01-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

I was invited to a party by J.D. Salinger
The house was hard to find
It was a surprise party for Thomas Pynchon
B. Traven was there
Sam Beckett monopolized conversation, with his
gestures
Borges wrote down the whole thing
But ascribed the transcription to someone else
A man perhaps fiction
Whose pen and paper themselves
Would have required invention
If I had not been there to witness
The guest of honor revealing
Less than everyone knew.

In a room like this
We suppose the desk exists
Because we put things on it
And the drinks do not spill
That is, we do not see them spill
We still think we drink them
As we do not hear Salinger or Pynchon or Traven or Beckett
Or myriad others who have not spoken
Yet they cover their ears
Because what we sense as silence
They hear as screams
And even if they are wrong
Their interpretations of hallucinations
Are far more lucid
Than yours or mine of reality.
The question becomes
Why do they call it a party?

Easy Targets

2008-12-21T21:57:00.000-08:00

The Nazis
Did not leave
Did not die
The Nazis
Were normal
And what is normal
Never dies
They were only doing
What everyone else did
As you and I
Only do
What everyone else does
Their economy was bad
Their hate was not hidden
There was never a question
Of them not killing
The question was
Which of their own
Would they disown?
The Jews
Were easy targets
The Germans were
A hateful people
As we are
A hateful people
They had built
Their own violent culture
As we have built
Ours
They could not solve their problems
So they renamed them
Called humans animals
We cage ours
In ghettos
And hope they kill
Each other
But in case they don’t
We’ve made our homes
Into cages
And we’ve bought machines
To entertain us
So we rarely have to go outside
And for those
Times when we do
We teach our children
Not to talk to strangers
We teach them to be safe
We teach them to be frightened
Or frightening
It’s necessary
In our society
And we can’t do anything about it
We may not like it but
This is as normal
As our lives
get.

the word comes down

2008-12-14T16:41:00.000-08:00

something other than caffeine and alcohol and guilt
and panic should enter my system
but i don’t feel the need
for anything but an end to this
and i know only
how to continue it
with the general idea
that at some point comes sudden death
but only after sufficient
fear panic guilt alcohol and caffeine

Ode To Captain B

2008-12-11T22:44:00.000-08:00

The last post reminded me of this, which appeared in Monday Night # 2, and is probably more a rant than a poem but what the hell.

ODE TO CAPTAIN B

But I like writing that’s difficult. I like music that’s difficult. Cuz it isn’t difficult for me. Captain Beefheart is my Britney Spears, one catchy dance tune after another. But better dressed, and more attractive. And intelligent, something to aspire to. Songs about Merc Montclairs and human being totem poles, hallucinogenic knowledge of reality. Life as a desert, life as seen by life, not by some visitor. To be the world and hate those who defile it, an ecological religious zeal. It makes so much sense it’s incredible how rare these beliefs are. How selfish other beliefs are, and how self-destructive most of that selfishness is. Destroying where you live to live better, a stunningly grisly illogic. It does need a tune, the truth hurts in just words, Dachau blues those poor Jews. Yeah, and it stuns, pain we can’t fathom but it’s been subjected intentionally from human to human, and I think I will drink now, I think I will drink far too much. Because I’m a part of this planet and don’t know how to stop what it does to itself, if there is a God we are a failed experiment, why didn’t the motherfucker give us some heart. Yay, Mary, where is your boy. Now when we need him, always we need him. If we can’t spare each other we should at least spare the planet but we seem incapable even of that. Those with heart have no strength, those with strength have no heart. Of course everyone wants to kill everyone, with every country run by cocksucking bastards. Who wouldn’t want to kill that, what sort of heathen wouldn’t be a terrorist. Where imperialism is considered relatively peaceful, where political necessity requires immorality. To get what we want we must support torture. How important is what we want. What the fuck do we want. Jesus I just want a beer and a place to stay and occasional sex, a washed body and an unwashed brain. And a place where my children can stand to live. Not just an isolated street but a world. So forgive me if I just don’t get your popular tunes with their lilting little simple melodies. And I understand shrieks and whispers and jokes that aren’t funny. And I am confused all the time, and need words that don’t mock that. And need songs that can be sung by people who don’t look good.

Ghosts (for Albert Ayler)

2008-12-11T22:22:00.000-08:00

I've been stumbling across Albert Ayler's name a lot lately. Here's a poem I wrote about him (sort of) a few years back; it was in the first issue of Monday Night.

Ghosts (for Albert Ayler)

They found Albert Ayler
dead in the East River
his feet tied together

So, who the fuck
puts a hit on a saxman?
He must’ve had bad habits,
because genius is not
a thing men get killed for,
or we’d have heard by now
how Einstein ducked assassins’ bullets.
Then again
maybe he was a threat
only to other scientists
And maybe they killed him
Secretly, slowly,
Taking so long that no one suspected;
And maybe Ayler was murdered
by another saxophonist
jealous of the honking squawks
the anguished wails
the misery embodied in solos
that cried out
for an afterlife now
Or maybe it was suicide
and he wove the ropes around himself
with the same dark magic that forced
taut yowls from the depths
where his breath searched for a soul
Maybe Ayler couldn’t stand
to play another haunted
note.

Can I Get Bigger By Renting My Bundle To A Nintendo Timeshare?

2008-11-29T00:41:00.000-08:00

Or am I just overexcited by all the great opportunities in my email? You know, it appears that I can get my degree while increasing both my penis and bra sizes. I am going to be one multi-faceted dude. With a new job working from home, not that I'll need it: I'm getting millions from various Africans who for some reason can't access their own bank accounts. Do you think I can just download these body part size increases? Because like, otherwise, I might have to get up from my chair. Which is where I'll be receiving all my rich guy payments and sex, thank you. If I have to get up, I'm renting my bundle elsewhere.

Bruce Springsteen's Super Bowl Set

2008-11-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, Bruce is an Obama supporter, so presumably the fact that the Super Bowl occurs not long after the presidential inauguration means we'll get some happy political material. I.e., "Born To Run" is a lock, from the title alone. Whereas if McCain had won we might have gotten "War" and "Darkness On The Edge Of Town."

Now, I'm a huge Bruce fan, but I also think it would be great if the Dirtbombs played the Super Bowl and did their fantastic cover of Phil Lynott's "Ode To A Black Man" (which, despite my overt whiteness, I always find myself singing along to, especially at the incredibly catchy "can't understand a black man" line, at which point I'm always when I think of it damn glad I'm alone).

That aside aside, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Bruce played "The Promised Land" and "The Rising." Or something like the great cover he used to do of Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA." (Which, of course, was the title tune of the 2nd MC5 album, (over)produced by Jon Landau years before he was Bruce's manager.) Mainly I'd like it if Bruce just gets possessed like he used to, back when a great cover of Gary US Bonds' "Quarter To Three" could morph into something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH66lSTKpWg&feature=related

Bruce and the band had been playing a killer version of the song for 4 minutes prior to that little explosion. Now, if anyone has live footage of anyone anywhere comparable to this, please let me know. I saw Bruce three times in the 80s, they were the 3 best shows I've ever seen, and no one comes close. And I've seen James Brown, Sun Ra, the PFunk All-Stars, Sonny Rollins, NRBQ, The Clash, and a whole lot more. Some of these folk I caught well past their prime; I can judge only by what I've seen. And from what I've seen and heard, the 1978 Springsteen tour is the greatest series of shows filmed and recorded.

So of course the NFL gets him 31 years later. Now, they may have gotten the right guy. Bruce still makes good albums, if not as good as his best. And his repertoire (he was playing 3 hour sets 30 years ago) leaves him plenty of good songs to choose from. And I'm sure he still has a damn sight more energy than most performers half his age. The biggest competition may be that the NFL actually got Prince for the Super Bowl just a couple years ago, and that's a guy in Bruce's approximate age bracket who can also still deliver. Hey, it's a lot more fun competition than the one for the presidency. Personally, I'm still looking for people excited about Joe Biden.

Book of the Day - Hunger, by Knut Hamsun

2008-11-26T20:08:00.000-08:00

An absolute classic about a man struggling to survive, insisting that he will make it as a writer even when he can't afford to eat. He just continues to write.

This book was first recommended to me by a guy bumming change at a bus stop. I gave him fifty cents, he turned me on to one of my favorite authors. I win the exchange, except karmically, where he kills me. Bastard.

Anyway, this one's dedicated to our Thursday holiday on which we're supposed to give thanks but generally celebrate gluttony. I'll be with my wife and our sons, a friend and some dogs, and we know that our favorite Korean barbecue will be open, so although I would not need to enjoy the food to appreciate the group I'll be with, I will enjoy the food. Quite possibly gluttonously. Friday I work again, can resume lack of eating then.

Cheers, all. The economy is brutal; we don't need to be.

And if anyone needs a board game recommendation, contact me after tomorrow night. We own a game store, and I suspect by then I'll have played them all.

Oh God, this site is becoming rife with cute pictures

2008-11-25T20:08:00.001-08:00

Lemmy reveals the secret to his health and good looks.

FEED THE KITTY!

2008-11-25T18:47:00.001-08:00

I'm writing a short story about a hitman, so I was researching sniper rifles on the net. Which is when I found this:

Now that's what I call a domesticated animal.

WHEN I'M OLD, HOW WILL I EAT!????

2008-11-22T19:03:00.000-08:00

I've just spent a couple of minutes beating the shit out of a lid of pasta sauce, in a desperate attempt to make it turnable. I'm what's politely called middle-aged now, fully capable of most manual activities. And I can't make pasta without really going psycho on this jar (coming soon, don't worry I won't starve).

What happens when I'm old and still want to eat cheaply? Do I have to hurl the goddamn jar at the outside of the house and scrape what's edible into a bowl, stepping around the shards of glass? Or will be I be stuck with boxed foods? I have no problem with being thought of as the crazy old guy who throws jars at his own house; I'm concerned with how much food will be lost in the process. Will I be outside lapping at the sauce on my steps? Even if I don't need it, just to keep the animals and homeless away? Or maybe I should just step in it and eat my own feet. Flexibility can be essential to survival.

Al Davis Fires Himself

2008-10-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Al Davis, owner of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, announced today that he was releasing himself from his leadership role.

“It is a regrettable day,” Al Davis said. “When I first hired this man he was full of energy and intelligence. And I knew his family – his father once applied for a job with the Raiders, years ago. I didn’t hire him, of course, he was always telling me what to do – but I knew him, and the fact that I didn’t hire him doesn’t take away from the sentimental light I should be seen in for remembering the man.

“But the man I hired has changed. He doesn’t have the same energy, and he no longer applies his intelligence to winning. Not at football anyway. He disparages the name of the Raiders with his every action, drafting bad players and either signing bad coaches or driving away the good ones.

“This has been a very difficult decision for me, personally,” Davis said, tears leaking from his eyes. “This team is a family and I love the Raider family. And I love Al Davis. But I have come to realize that his time is past. He has betrayed the family, and he must be disowned from it.”

Davis looked down, as though bracing himself, looked up again.

“It is with great pride that I introduce to you the new owner of the Oakland Raiders: the clone of Al Davis. Oh, don’t bother looking around the room – I have spent many years on illegal but necessary cloning research, cloned myself long ago and have harvested the organs of young clones to rejuvenate myself. My brain and heart and other crucial organs are no longer those of a 79 year old man. I will live forever! As far as the Oakland Raiders are concerned, I am the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost! I was born on the 4th of July – every day is Independence Day! Just win, baby!”

Davis stood suddenly, looking much stronger than when he had entered the room.

“And if this year’s team doesn’t improve enough,” Davis said, raising the microphone to his lips, “I will use the clause in small print at the bottom of every Raider contract. I own the genetic rights to Lamonica, Biletnikoff, Madden – even Shanahan, that little prick – if they were mine once, they are mine forever.”

The lights went out a moment, there was a sound like the fluttering of wings, and when the lights came back Al Davis was gone.

Sex Is God And There Is No Heaven

2008-10-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is a short story I wrote a few years back that I've about given up on getting published - that is, I have my own magazine and could publish it there but I prefer to use newer material, and the most likely candidates for publishing this have already rejected it. It was apparently a near-miss at Thieves Jargon (www.thievesjargon.com , an excellent literary site that apparently will be closing down soon unless Matt DiGangi changes his mind), but at 5000 words it was right at the edge of their maximum length and I know how that goes - if most of what you publish is a quarter of that length, then you have to prefer the 5k story to four others to make room for it.

Anyway, I'm damn fond of this story and thought other people should get a chance to read it, so I'm posting it in the comments here.

My Prose, She Goes

2008-09-29T00:11:00.000-07:00

Zygote In My Coffee, an online magazine with obviously fine taste, has published a couple of my short stories in the locations indicated below. I intend to post more of my writing here but haven't yet formatted anything for this location.

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/zygote70s/issue75languagebarrier.html

http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/issue45takinglife.html

I'll post more stories here when I get around to reformatting some things. For now the conflicting theories are that I should go to sleep, or sit here listening to Spacemen 3. Either way, there will be no more playing with html tonight/this morning. Cheers.

Jackson Saints, Where Are You?

2008-09-28T23:42:00.000-07:00

Okay, apparently I know where the Jackson Saints are - San Francisco, which is the only place I've seen them. Only it's been 15 or 20 years, and when I was reminded of them tonight while listening to the Dictators (they used to cover a Dictators song - Stay With Me, I'm pretty sure, and I think Chuck Davis was the name of their singer then, and he was great, and I saw him in the crowd at a Dictators reunion show, early 90s, and said to him, "You guys shoulda opened" - and Chuck or whoever their singer was nodded and smiled in agreement, I didn't know him I just thought they were the best band in SF at the time, somewhere on a level approaching Sister Double Happiness, and I don't think a whole lot of bands from <anywhere approach SDH, I mean for a couple of years that was just one of the best bands in the world...)

Rambling on (without the R Plant Tolkien references, as amusing as they might be), I was really surprised upon googling the Jackson Saints tonight to find them apparently still extant, and apparently still based out of SF, and with mostly the same players. Although of course the time my brother came up from Santa Cruz to see them at my insistence they'd changed vocalists without notifying me and they were still damn good but they weren't the same band, they didn't cover the Dictators. And I really liked that earlier singer a lot. Oh, the point being that I don't see any way of contacting the Jackson Saints except via their Myspace page. Which would require me starting a Myspace account. Which I did once, but that guy who greets everyone and becomes your friend seemed suspiciously like a child molester, and I'm too old to do anything with one of those except kill him. I genuinely was concerned several years ago when my young son started a myspace account and this older guy was his "friend." Bizarre premise, "Hi, I'm presumably in my twenties and I like to have a lot of teenage friends." Yeh. One time I was talking to a cop about a convicted child molester who was in our neighborhood, and the cop intimated that I should take care of it myself. Which I had no problem with on certain levels, although I assumed there would be certain lifelong legal and emotional issues involved if I actually killed someone. I did think the guy deserved it though.

So, much as I used to like the Jackson Saints, I do have certain issues with myspace. Which is why I'm posting this, in the hopes that at some point someone who knows some other way of getting in touch with the band can give me a heads up. Of course, if someone actually in the band saw this that would be ideal. But I guess that point would be clear by now, eh?

Swill Magazine Reading For Issue 4

2008-09-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

I'm the editor of Swill Magazine and I sent out my call-out today for fiction submissions. This will be our fourth issue and we're damned pleased with what we've done so far. Samples from the various issues are available at our website, www.swillmagazine.com . Submissions should be emailed to editors@swillmagazine.com . It is strongly recommended that writers at least read excerpts from the website before submitting. It's only $4 an issue, but if you spent the cover cost on every magazine you're thinking of submitting to you'd be broke (if you aren't already) and the website should be sufficient for getting a feel for what we like. Hell, 4 bucks is a gallon of gas, you could be twenty miles down the road instead of sitting still with a fucking magazine (we have pictures, but not the kind you'd want to spend the night with).

If you haven't made it to the Swill site yet, I could give you a jumpstart on what passes for our heart with this excerpt from the back cover of our first issue:

"We like stories where things actually happen, stories where someone might die. We like stories with an edge, and we don’t like epiphanies. We also like it when the jokes are funny. We don’t like Literature with a capital L. We do like literary fiction: we happen to think it includes the work of James Ellroy and Harlan Ellison. Oh yes, we also like sex, sometimes even in stories; it’s just that most people write so damned poorly about it. Mainly what we like are stories. Not symbols and themes and extensive descriptive passages, not paint-by-numbers well-structured tripe that fails to excite. If you’re Faulkner reincarnated we’d be happy to publish you but frankly we don’t believe in you, and anyway you should be working for someone who can cover your drinking money. We prefer the Shakespeare approach to existentialism: question the meaning of life, then litter the stage with corpses."

I'm also one of the editors with Monday Night (www.mondaynightlit.com, which is also reading right now) and when one of our editors put up a post about Swill on Zoetrope someone responded that Swill was probably the type of place that would publish necrophilia comedies. Which is highly unlikely, as that is a major portion of what my novel in progress is about.

So, I was minding my own business one night a couple weeks ago when I get an email from Ellen Datlow. Ellen is one of the best known editors in science fiction (she was fiction editor at Omni for several years) and she began her email with the phrase "Hi, Harlan Ellison recommended a story in your issue #3" at which point I nearly fucking keeled over. Ellen Datlow wanted a copy of Swill 3 because Harlan Ellison had recommended to her that one of the stories in it should be considered for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. I edit a magazine with high ideals but low circulation and Harlan Ellison is recommending us to one of the leading anthologies in the industry? Harlan Ellison knows we exist?

I didn't have any idea how this could have happened. I was ecstatic and agog. I forwarded Ellen's email to my co-editor Sean (whose blog is at http://seancraven.blogspot.com/ ) and his response was similar to mine, with the exception that he said, "Didn't I tell you I was sending a copy to Harlan Ellison?" Which I'm sure was along the lines of something Sean said to me when we were talking about distribution for issue 3, except I heard it as "I can try to get copies to..." with Harlan Ellison's name somewhere on that list. It wasn't like Sean had a connection, unless author worship counts.

I of course sent the requested issues to Ellen Datlow and the other editors of that anthology. It's such great news for our little magazine that we're being considered, but it's also the point of our magazine: a lot of "literary" magazines are boring. Which is weird, because there are a lot of good writers but boring has become its own genre. I don't even know the standards, I just know I pick up a fiction magazine and one story after another does not have a fucking plot. Which I thought was what a story was, then its quality was determined by how well it was told, but there are a helluva lot of magazines out there that are going for how it' s told without considering that it's not telling anything.

I thought I wrote literary fiction. Then I read the magazines publishing "literary fiction" and realized I hate literary fiction. If these were the people in charge of science fiction I'd hate science fiction too. Great fiction has never been bound by categories but magazine fiction is shackled by it. That's why I started Swill. Too many fiction markets are controlled by "schools of thought," which is to say, a lack of thought altogether - educating the stupid gives them justification, not intelligence. But they aren't even educated, only indoctrinated, for actual education would leave them the ability to defy what they'd been taught.

Most lauded writers could be machine-gunned in a line without loss of a soul.

ELVIS

2008-08-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

I can't put into words the sheer perfection of Elvis Presley's rockabilly. Rockabilly, among the many forms of music I love, is way up there in terms of visceral response. When the emotional and physical coincide. I know the work of the other Sun artists and more obscure rockabilly studs. I own a lot of music, I continue to seek a lot of music. I don't think rock has ever had another singer as good as Elvis Presley.

Which is sort of what came up eventually in the paragraph below, which I copied from a response I made to a post on Mog:

cali had a post, here or multiply i don't remember, where she was talking about the soundtrack to the first shrek movie, which contained rufus wainwright's version of leonard cohen's hallelujah, despite the fact that it was john cale's version that graced the film (and i ain't kidding when i say graced - that song's been covered something like 100 times and i've heard a handful, but the other 95ish don't matter - cale does the definitive version, it can't be touched, as a cover it rates with cale's version of heartbreak hotel as one of the most stunning interpretations EVER, except in this case cale does the song pretty close to the original, just better. whereas heartbreak hotel, much as i love cale's version - well, ain't fucking nothing better than elvis doing heartbreak hotel.)

testing 1 2 3

2008-07-30T19:24:00.000-07:00

listening to brotzmann/laswell, gotta post something because i wanna reply on a page where the primary language is french. well, the primary language is music, but the text next to the radio buttons is in french. and i'm goin 100 miles an hour with the radio on - it's the sound salvation.