Friday 10/18/19
Ah, the stuff people say to me. How much they project their own limitations. This journal covers much. It was a necessary undertaking, due to the reality that I am in a historically unique situation. I have an industry that refuses to let me get to the public. I am the most hated person in that industry because of the abilities I possess. I create art, entertaining art, at a level, and rate, no one ever has. The best fiction writer is the best music writer, sports writer, op-ed writer, arts writer, essay writer, current events writer, film writer, the leading expert on all of those things. How is that possible? I don't know what to tell you. Look at that work. You tell me it's not true. You tell me. Because you can't. The work can't be faked. Best on the radio. You've never heard me on the radio and once thought, "I think there is someone else in the world who knows more about that subject," because you cannot. So what then? What am I? That's not my place to explain that, to pretend like what this is is not true, because it's obviously fucking true. And the fiction? Come on. Will be the best on TV, will be the best at making films. At children's books. I have not gotten to market yet. The truth is, the better I get, the more I achieve, the more I am suppressed. When I do get to market, I will overrun the world. There is no one, has been no one, nor will there be, who can do what I do with any single one of these things, let alone all. I will get people reading again. I have a talent that is unique, and strength, courage, character. I can write the funniest thing ever, I can sear you through the gut with prose that pierces every last one of your emotional organs. I can do it at will, I can do both in the space of a line, I can serve up the core guts of humanity in my work, in these bloody pages even, such that you think I am speaking specifically, solely to you, different as you are from everyone else who feels the same way. I will connect with you at the level of who you are like no artist has. That's what I do. And yet, sometimes people will press me, expecting that I have a two-sentence answer I might give them--even after they've read some of this journal--to explain this unique situation in fourteen words. I will be firm--polite, but firm--that that's what the journal is for. Some will still press me. Some will even be sufficiently condescending and ignorant, prisoners of their own sense of what is possible, via who they are--not who I am--telling me to quit, to make money in, I don't know, real estate, because I'm smarter than other people. I think there would be no bigger tragedy, given what is at stake, given I am this artist, were I to quit when I was still capable of fighting. I feel like culture is at stake, decency, humanity. I was given a gift--though it often feels like a curse--that exceeds the gifts of others. To whom much is given, much is asked. I can do this. If I get past these people. I have a body of work, an enormous corpus already, that can make endless amounts of money, last and be loved as long as humans last and maintain any capacity for love. Someone said to me today that I should do something else, it's a capitalist society. Whatever that means. Here's the thing: right now, I could write a story that cures cancer, and these people are going to hate me more. Capitalist society? Give me a chance. I achieve things that when anyone else achieves one of them, garlands are thrown at their feet, six figure jobs, lavish book deals. The bigger my achievement, the more they make it a point to keep me from getting anything else.
They are keeping me from market. From the capitalist society. This blog alone is a huge money maker. This thing I write in my downtime. Find me one thing in the world like this journal. Ever. There is a reason why someone who has never published anything and myself are at the same presses, why I am nominated for nothing, why there are no reviews, no jobs. I'm a threat to these people. I terrify them. But the public has not spoken, because I am kept from the public. I publish a lot, but it's a piece, it's not buzz, it's not backed, it's not advertised. I'm sure millions of people love it. Bu they're not going to take the time to look someone up. When I am a name, the most household of names, I will take the ceiling off of every house out there. No limits. I think the people who know me, know my work--John, my family, Derek, Norberg, Emma, Susan, Kimball, Dan, Bruce, Aaron--know what all of this is, know all of it is true. You could take one week of my career and build a legacy off of it. Spend time here, tell me to do something else, and that is your issue, that speaks to your stuff, not mine, not what I am going to do, not what I am in the process of doing. But my friends, my family, you see the sheer mind fuck horror of my life. The pain I am constantly in. That you could never live through. No one is going to argue that. You love me. You don't want me to be in any pain, let alone this. Do you want me to quit? No. You don't fucking me to quit. You want me to see this out, because you know what it means to the world. You believe that I can do something you would not believe is possible that any other human could do.
Do I sound like I am going to be denied to you? Hey, readers of "Fitty," does that sound like someone who isn't going to do this? Fuck no. Motherfuck no.
Not what I need on a Friday. If you put stones in my passway, I will remove you instantly. I am getting to where I am going. Not primarily for me, or my bank account--though that's in there--but for the world, for humanity. I don't think God would bet against my work and what I can do, and I'm not betting against it or me either. I am fucking getting there. It is going to happen. If I'm cursed, I will outlast the fucking curse. I have too much ability to ever stop, until I arrive, and then I just fucking start again.
Anyway. Where are we at, son? Eight short stories written in two weeks. Not doing the WSJ op-ed I pitched Saturday night, pitched another today. Next week we work hard. Last two weeks was nothing.
I would say that if you read what I write, and seriously suggest, for a fraction of a second, that someone who can do that do anything else, you need to check on your own soul. That's not on me.