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Quick account of some activities

Monday 11/7/22

Wrote entire latest feature on Billie Holiday this AM. Worked on four books yesterday and two stories. Walked three miles, did 500 push-ups, ran 5000 stairs without stopping, which was good--that's about an hour of straight stair running. Went to Charlestown to do the Monument after the 5000 stairs at Government Center, but there was a line, and I didn't want to wait in the line and be in a crowded Monument.


I feel strong. Like someone who cannot be sidetracked, distracted, or who will waste any of their energy on anyone or anything that does not advance the cause. Anything that I have to do is what I will do.


Yesterday marked 2310 days, or 330 weeks, without a drink. Solid. Ran 3000 stairs today, did 100 push-ups. Began piece on The Sound of Jazz.


I pitched something on Clement Moore. Or, I should say, I re-pitched it.


There was Christmas music today at the Starbucks. It was shitty Christmas music, but Christmas music all the same. Other times the likes of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald will be on the sound system. Hearing that music makes me want to fight even harder. To be in my house in Rockport, hearing that music, living a life on my terms, when there is much more reaping than sowing, though I will always be a sower in extreme with what I create. But to sow knowing there will be the reaping, is much different than to sow--to sow constantly, to sow every moment of life--and have faith.


But I do have faith in my outcome, and the impact of that outcome, which itself will be a continuing story. So it is important that I stay strong in all of the possible ways of strength.


Yesterday while running the stairs I saw a man in a Cubs T-shirt and Red Sox cap. No. That's not how it's done. Don't do that. I also saw a guy a couple different times today, about fifty-years-old, balding, and wearing a Mac Jones jersey. Also, no. Don't be a balding fifty-year-old guy in a Mac Jones jersey. Bad looking uniform, too.


What did Jones throw for yesterday, all of 150 yards? He is not the answer. He's not close to the answer. Pop gun arm. Never going to be anything in the league. Sounded like a boring game. The score was misleading. They didn't move the ball. They don't move the ball when Jones is the quarterback. They're not going to move the ball with Jones as the quarterback. The Patriots are above .500 now. Not a very good league, is it? You have two good teams--the Bills and Chiefs. Yes, I know, the Eagles must be included. Okay. So three teams. There's not much else. The Patriots can be 9-8 just by being less bad than bad teams like the Colts. The Colts are so bad they just fired their coach as I was typing this. And the Bills lost to the Jets. There's also a lot of mediocrity in college football. Who's good? Georgia. Who else? Ohio State struggled with Northwestern, Michigan struggled with Rutgers, Alabama lost again, Clemson lost to a blah Notre Dame team, and spare me with TCU as one of the best teams in the country, though they're ranked, what, four?


Saddened to see yesterday that Peter McNab died. Strong offensive player who, along with Terry O'Reilly and Brad Park, bridged the gap between the Lunch Pail A.C. Boston Bruins of the late 1970s and the Bourque-Middleton-Pederson teams of the early 1980s. I went on Google yesterday to look up something about him, and the first thing I saw was a piece I wrote for Sports Illustrated on those Lunch Pail A.C. Bruins.


The weather is in the seventies. I can't recall anything like this at this time of year. I wore shorts yesterday and today.


A nice essay on Cynthia Asquith added to the book on horror art.


Went out to get a green tea last night and read (To Walk the Night), and when reaching into my pocket for my wallet, I pulled out a fistful of green tea wrappers so I guess it's safe to say I'm drinking a lot of green tea.


This is from the second chapter of To Walk the Night, which might be my favorite chapter of all-time. "The Scotch inside us was fine; it was a fine day. Everything was fine. We sang 'The Best Old Place of All' at the top of our lungs. The road went away under the tires of blurred gray."


Do you see how Sloane just stands his ground as writer? How confident he is while standing that ground? It's so simple, but it's not. Look at that authorial presence. That's not idle repetition with the use of "fine." But he has something to say--that is, the narrator Bark does--and he's saying it, effectively. Not going to stand on ceremony. Not going to try and humor you. Screw that. Say what you have to say and let it ring. The repetition, though demotic, becomes more--it becomes music. Annunciatory music. Which leads into a statement about an actual annunciatory form of music. Then we move from the demotic to the well-turned poetical phrase with larger meaning.



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