Attention adults

Friday 5/23/25:

A scene from several days ago:

It was almost nine in the morning and and quieter than usual for that time. I could hear music coming from one of the churches down the street on Hanover. I'd been going back and forth between listening to outtakes from Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left and working again on "Friendship Bracelet," this story 2700 word story I've probably worked on now for well over a year, and which made me cry again on that morning with its sadness and power and beauty. Reading also made me angry, because there's no denying the matchless quality of this story, this art, and how important it is, or could be in the world, and I know these people won't so much as let it appear where virtually no one would even see it anyway.

Here is a paragraph towards the end:

Whatever had to be done, Doreen wanted to do, for as long it took. And some day, these days of checking and mending and skin smoothing over skin would be a memory. They’d belong to the past. Better days were ahead. Better days had come. Days that weren’t determined by what had been. Not that it’d ever be forgotten. Doreen would never let that happen, even in her dreams. Long ago would be both long ago and like yesterday. But the friends would have the morning. And the afternoon. And the evening. The tomorrows. The sun. A fresh beginning and continuation both. The “look at us.” The “here we are for another day.” The “what do you want to do” and the “I’m so glad we are what we are.” The light of the new start. Again. And again.

Speaking about Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein said that he had an ability that no other composer had before him or after him: There was one perfect note to follow whatever it was that had just come, and Beethoven rendered that note in every single instance.

We look at the above paragraph, and we can't point out any words, really, that people won't know. Continuation? That may sound silly, but I'll get these word-of-the-day items in my Google feed, and I'll see the likes of the word "career" there. Unless you're attuned to it, and you live it, in essence, you can fail to notice what words that people may not know now.

But I don't think there's anyone who could fail to understand the above, say what you will about reading comprehension and attention spans and what not. And as this is an entry in this journal, that paragraph is divorced from its context, the whole in which it is yet more powerful. Who else could produce that? Who could conjure words that impact us with that force?

It's a similar idea to Beethoven and his latest one perfect note, following in the chain of one perfect notes. Great writing has to be more musical than music. Among other things. But that's one of them.

I want to say that anyone, in theory, should be able to do that--and I know it's silly, but we all know those words, those are not long sentences, etc.--but only one person who's ever lived can.

The gravid quality of each of those lines, those words, the very parts of the letters in the story itself is cumulatively and individually unlike anything else itself. I feel like a fist has punched through my soul and let it in that which is most needed, which has both reinforced my soul and made it more whole. And I wrote it. The hole would only be bigger for someone who did not.

I don't think you can read this story and be the same person after. The final words are obliterative.

When I send things to editors and publishers now, it's often for legal reasons. So that I can truthfully say in these pages that such and such a person was offered this story or book, here is a portion of it, here is what they put out instead, this is how they know that person and why they published them, this is that person's publication record, this is how they get published what they get published, which we can all see is very bad writing.

It's basically, at this stage, just to create the legal receipt. That's how bad this is, and how deep and far the discrimination goes. Nothing here in this industry, subculture is about wanting there to be amazing work and get that amazing work to people in the world.

So that was a portion of Sunday, after which I had to take a long walk.

I wrote an op-ed this morning on William Wellman's The Story of G.I. Joe, a war film from 1945, which I probably won't be able to move. The other day before eight in the morning I had written, from scratch, two film pieces--one on Monster on the Campus, the other on The Screaming Skull--as well as an op-ed about George Wendt and the authenticity of Norm Peterson from Cheers, and gone through the whole of "Friendship Bracelet" several times.

Later, I wrote about eighty percent of another film piece, this one on Wanted for Murder, and walked three miles, did 100 push-ups, and ran ten circuit of stairs in the Bunker Hill Monument. On Sunday, I had also done ten circuits of stairs, as well as walked three miles and did 100 push-ups. Walked six miles yesterday, and again did ten circuits in the Monument.

Like the man said back at City Hall, I'm not playing. It was in the forties yesterday, and we had a nor'easter, but there I was, waiting for them to open up in Charlestown. I had on a lot of clothes because of the cold (it's actually colder today), and they were soaked through, which made them heaver and the stairs somewhat harder, but I wanted to do another ten. It's taking me sixty-three minutes or so, which is pretty good.

Yesterday, I overheard a woman saying to her friend as they were leaving the Monument, "I wonder what his calves look like." Women can be hostile in the Bunker Hill Monument--primarily women in their thirties and forties who are out of shape. Their hate for me will be sufficient that they'll express it out loud to themselves, like they can't control it. It's kind of like publishing people. When I send "Friendship Bracelet" to the blue-haired, etc. etc. woman, and she knows what I do, the level at which I do it, and even how I look, how do you think that will go? Like I said--receipts for legal reasons.

I'll pass a woman going down the stairs in the Monument, and then pass her again moments later going back up, and she'll say to herself, with utter contempt in her voice, "Are you kidding me?" It's real animus. I don't jostle her or so much as look at her, really. I'm not effecting her at all save in what she's thinking and/or what she is projecting. I experience quite a bit of misandry, but it's like this special kind that treats a fit and active man as the worst kind of man. You are free to run stairs, too. No one but you is stopping you. I'm certainly not.

It has occurred to me that I haven't had any Advil in quite a while. This is notable because I'll have periods where I get a lot of headaches and also because I don't need the Advil despite all of these stairs and my fitness routine. I don't ache after. I don't ache in the morning. I have no more pain in my body than I did at eight-years-old. I feel no discomfort. I am simply ready to go again.

I wrote a feature on the Yardbirds' "Heart Full of Soul" that I can use for Double Tracked: The Art of Writing About the Art of Rock and Roll.

Three things that have warmed my heart lately:

--Someone on a baseball history discussion forum made a case for Dave Kingman as the 1979 NL MVP.

--Reading where someone said that they saved up their babysitting money to buy the box set of the sixty canonical Clive Merrison/Michael Williams Sherlock Holmes radio adaptations. They hadn't just done this--it was years ago. But it was a sweet thing that was sweet to see.

--My mom flew out to Colorado and got to see her older brother/my godfather whose grandson was graduating high school and she sent me a photo of the two of them together. My mom is looking at her brother with such admiration in her eyes. Someone else might not quite notice, but I know her so well. My godfather is a good man. After my dad died, he read the words I wrote at the memorial service. I should have done that myself. The truth was, I didn't feel like I could at the time, and I was also scared of public speaking, which is ironic now, I suppose, because nothing could frighten me less. But my godfather stepped up and he's someone if you could pick anyone to do something like that you know you'd want to ask him because that's the kind of man he is.

Signed off this morning on a copy-edited piece about John Brahm's 1944 film, The Lodger.

People don't want a Panthers-Oilers Stanley Cup Finals rematch, but I definitely do. That's the most compelling story.

Ever since watching OKC flip a switch on the defensive end in Game 7 of their last series against the Nuggets, I thought the NBA title was as good as theirs. They leveraged that defensive intensity into speed and ran Denver right out of the building. They're the best, most complete team. They may not lose again.

The Red Sox keep being the Red Sox. This uninspired, uninspiring team led by a manager who has perfected the baseball skipper version of "quiet quitting" and is there--when he shows up--just to collect a paycheck. They had a chance to sweep the struggling Mets the other day, and once again, Alex Cora pulled the high-priced ace in Garrett Crochet despite a low amount of pitches and being in complete control, and lost them another game in what is becoming familiar fashion.

A few days ago, Cora's daughter graduated from Boston College. That graduation was at ten in the morning. The Sox played at Fenway at 6:40. He didn't go. I find that disgusting. I find it even more disgusting--and depressing--that basically everyone but finds that perfectly appropriate. I know why they do. Most people live without purpose. They breed. You see all of these women who play at and boast about being "the momma bear" and of course everyone defaults to saying, "Family comes first." The truth is, people would give their souls--they do--to do less. They are lazy plonkers. And that's one reason why they're so unhappy and unfulfilled and why the world that they constantly bitch about is such a shit hole.

They're also not smart enough to do the temporal math of something like this. Cora could have gone to the graduation, then the post-graduation brunch, and then the party back at the house, and still gone and done his job.

This wasn't an either/or. This is a guy who's checked out and probably just wanted to get drunk and played this card. Meanwhile, back at the ballpark, his team wins without him. The next day, Cora gets himself tossed in the second inning. Team wins without him again. Then, Cora is back, makes his latest bonehead pitching decision, the Sox lose as a direct result. He's also a cheater. This guy is trash. He's a con artist, a careerist, a coaster, and, again, a cheater.

But people will always defend and stump for other people doing less because they do less and want to do less and get away with doing less. Honor among thieves? More like honor among lazy morons. That wasn't about family. That was about not wanting to go to work and using family as an excuse. The Red Sox won't win again until he's gone, because so long as he's there, this Alex Cora-sponsored culture will be in place. Yes, they don't have a good roster and their pitching is bad, but it's that much harder to win when the Cora effect permeates the whole operation.

I've been spending a lot of time listening to Wagner's Tristan chord and its resolution, as such.

Located a digital copy of Bear Family's early Elmore James recordings that had been on my list for a while, and also downloaded all of the Tallis Schlars' albums of Josquin masses, which had also been on my list. The full Tallis Josquin!

I found a bootleg compilation of Beatles promos--mostly radio spots/commercials--from the 1960s, which is a cool little curio that I've shared with a few people.