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Okay work

Thursday 7/14/22

Okay work today. Formal work on the short stories "Carlyle," "I Don't Think We Should Be Doing This," "White Wizard Summer," "So Ugly," "The Number One Cause of Death," head work on The Year of Doing Nothing and Everything. Started a story. Put it aside. The Thelonious Monk feature will be in the September issue of JazzTimes. Had to be cut down to fit in the print issue and payment will come in two separate checks, but the entire 3000 piece will run on the site. Signed that copy of the Sam Cooke book that someone had mailed me wanting it signed for a gift, and mailed it back. Projects pertaining to Dracula (the 1931 film), Billie Holiday, and Thoreau are immediate--as in tomorrow--concerns. Whenever I look at social media, I wonder if anyone has ever said anything funny on it. No stairs today. Need to really get back into the stairs groove. 100 push-ups. No Downtown this week. Found a copy of the Byrds at Oberlin in 1970. I've been going to bed later and getting up around six this week, and that won't work.


An editor at a venue of mine that's like the highest circulation place in the country disappeared a few months ago. I didn't know why. He was just gone. I found out the other day it was because he tweeted that women get pregnant. He got in trouble for that. They told him to take it down. He didn't. So they fired him. For saying women get pregnant. They owe me money, this place. I'm having a hard time getting it. This other editor there said to me in like May that I should take this piece I wrote and change it into something else. So I said, okay, I can do that, how many words would you like? He ignores me. More than a month goes by. I ask again. He ignores me.


See? It's this shit. These people set up this shit up so that they can be as rude and unprofessional as they want, with these endless games, do their petty gossip shit ("I don't like him because he followed-up and expected me to do my job and he doesn't love cronyism and so I want you to hate him, too, for me, okay?"; and then that other person is like, "Sure!") and when you try to get an answer--and believe me, I hate writing these people more than once, it's the last thing I want to waste time doing; I want to write, get it in, get it out, that's it--they can say you're a pain in the ass. You're pushy. But they've set up the construct. They've created the situation. It's them. It's always them. Do I look like I have free fucking time to jack around with you, or do I look like I'm writing twenty masterpieces a week and working on ten books at once and all of the other vital work and activities--including all of the workouts so that I don't have a heart attack because of these people--that one sees documented in this journal as I am also in a war? Do I look like a guy with his thumb up his ass and time on his hands? Or do I look like a guy who does 5000x more than anyone does each week? Right.


I am going to write this piece anyway. Guessing at a word count. I'll send it in. If I am fucked over by this person, after all of this, then it just goes up on here. I'll call you out. I'll show how it works. I'll show how you work. And your little friends who aren't really your friends will see that. Anyone who looks you up will see that. I will name your name and move your ass up the Google list. Ignoring me indefinitely does not save you. Doing the right thing is all that saves you. That's it. I treat you more than professionally. I have a patience that would make Christ say, "Holy fuck." But there comes a time. Then I do what I have to do.


Anyway, this guy who got fired wasn't a blast to try and work with. Get word back. But he was seriously fired for tweeting that. I wrote him at his new place of work, which is an outlet I'd never heard of before, telling him that sucked, and I was sorry that happened to him. I was. He didn't deserve that. Sounds like I'm making it up. "He was fired for saying women get pregnant." But I'm not.


I'm going to also write a piece on the 1972 Summit Series. I don't know the nature of this yet, op-ed or feature. I'm going to pitch something about it today or tomorrow.


These are the Datsuns, a New Zealand band. I don't know if they exist anymore. Radio sessions. They have a great song called "Motherfucker from Hell."


Addendum: Here's that Summit Series pitch:


Idea for you for September 2. That's the 50th anniversary of what I am going to call the most important international sporting event in history. The game-changer beyond sport. That was the day that the Summit Series opened between Canada and the Soviet Union in hockey, at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviets were "bad," kind of like the Russians are now. This was supposed to be a cakewalk for Canada. The teams would play eight games, and Canada would win all eight by a huge margins. So the thinking went. Game 1 starts, Canada jumps out to a lead, North America is happy, and then shit changes. The Soviets start blowing doors, and paste Canada, 7-3. Huge embarrassment for the West. The Soviets had only been playing hockey for like a couple decades. This was one of those sporting events that was more than sports. It changed, too, what people thought was possible at a sporting event. It was the ultimate underdog ass kicking, and a shot across the bow in the culture wars. Canada would eventually win the eight game series--by the slimmest of margins--but to do so, they had to break the ankle of the Soviet Union's best player--on purpose. It was ghastly. It's some of the best sports drama there is, too, and we can link (YouTube) to the whole game.



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