Thursday 11/25/21
* Started work at 3:30 on this Thanksgiving morning.
* A big part of the reason people want to say they are writers is so that they never have to write anything and they can pretend they are something and be "special." 95% of the people who call themselves writers write less than someone who does not call themselves a writer at all. They write less than just about anyone in American society in any field. You'll see them on Facebook on a day when they wrote thirty words for the first time in six years, thanking all of the people who encouraged them. These will be other people who call themselves writers who don't write anything. The words will always suck. But 600 of these people will hit that like button and write insipid comments like "LOVE THIS" and "You go girl!" I have screenshotted some of these recently. I'll put them up on here soon. They're funny. Then again, these are the kind of people who seek to stop me from getting anywhere.
* This is also funny: yesterday I had to watch an eight hour documentary and write a 3000 word feature, and that, for me, is "easy work." The kind of work where I say, "well, at least this next little bit is easy enough" and I exhale. Isn't that something? And as I was doing that, I finished off two other essays and filed them, ran stairs, and put material up on here. The 3000 word piece should be out today.
* NB: I am going to be destroying some people on here by showing what they are all about. Speer Morgan and Evelyn Somers (a woman dumb enough to email me once and blame her husband for her lack of success in her writing career, who is so threatened by what I am) of The Missouri Review, Sy Safransky of The Sun, Ladette Randolph of Ploughshares (who is as bad as anyone, and sufficiently stupid to once say to me, "If you want to get in Ploughshares, be friends with the guest editor"; she sabotaged a book thing for me somewhere else; I have some awesome quotes from people who have dealt with her; once when she thought I had a fancy agent, she kept referring to him as a gun; it was hilarious and pathetic; "Congrats on getting a gun," she'd say, like ten times; she's a nothing as a writer herself, a total talentless nobody who hasn't made two hundred bucks in her life from her writing, whose piddling few books are a result of easy-to-prove cronyism and quid pro quo, though she must be like sixty, so, of course, someone like that will envy and hate me--someone outside of her system, with a talent unlike anyone in her system--more than she could possibly hate anyone else; that's just how it is; I have some funny ass stories of her taking things sight-unseen for Ploughshares just because she thought it was from one of the flavors of the month, but this one time it was just a guy with a name similar to one of the flavors of the month, and she was kissing his ass, until he pointed out the mistake, then she never said anything to him again), Willy Staley of The New York Times Magazine. We'll also be circling back to Raluca Albu of BOMB. People have gone after me via whisper networks, saying "I hate him and now you must hate him and lock him out," and so now I'm going after people's jobs, and above their heads, to their boss, their dean, their department chair, their university president, their patrons, their board of directors, in addition to what I do in this journal. Bigots all--and I have the proof. Various book publishers in NYC will be coming up on here as well. You know what you can do to save yourself? You can stop discriminating against me. But if you don't, you will be up on here and thousands of people per day will see what you do and why you do it, for which you know you have no defense. It only helps at this point. It only moves me along. Simply a matter of putting the time in. I'm so invested in writing my proper work. But I must do what I must do, on behalf of that proper work. There will be something in a few hours. What are we going to say? He's not good enough? There is no one crazy enough to say that. I destroy these other people. I am infinitely better at writing, and I am exponentially more successful even with an entire industry against me. I've also had it, and have taken all of the abuse and discrimination that I'm going to. In case you can't tell.
* Wondering if Starbucks is in trouble. I saw this morning that the popular Starbucks in Harvard Square--the one across the street from the Coop (more on the Coop soon; I made a visit there the other day)--and this was after the store closer to the Brattle had closed some time ago. So now there is no Starbucks at Harvard, I believe. That's odd, right? Also, the Starbucks at the end of my street--which is very popular, too, and used to be open to at least nine o'clock on a Sunday night--now closes every day at four, and often earlier than that. Just randomly closed when I go by, as I did at half past two the other day. This Starbucks serves half the North End and people who live on the Waterfront, and is housed in a building that is five stories tall and packed with businesses of all kinds. Starbucks seems pretty fail-proof to me. But maybe it's COVID? You rarely see Dunkin' Donuts outlets close in Boston. I don't think Dunkin' Donuts is more popular than Starbucks here, which would surprise people, maybe. When I am out, I feel like I'm a good deal more likely to see someone with a Starbucks cup than a Dunkin' Donuts cup.
* Bruins beat a bad Sabres team last night. Thinking of going to the Brattle today for a screening of Hawks' The Big Sleep at 4. Might go down to the cafe in a bit and read some Pepys.
* Just got a note on here as I was writing this from someone in Europe, saying they want to sell my pieces I have the rights to to venues in the the foreign market. I don't know about this. I'll have to look into it. Someone else wrote me about being a guest on their podcast about the Sam Cooke book. I'll do that, I guess.
* Sent a note just now thanking an editor of mine, and expressing gratitude for their skills and professionalism. They're really on point with how they do their job, and I admire them.
* Crazy hockey stat: in the 1985-86 NHL season, the two leaders in shorthanded goals were defensemen: Paul Coffey (9), Mark Howe (7).
* Certain “simple” things are just good for us in large, soulful ways that exceed our expectations, no matter how often we experience them, which is their magic. Time spent in a nearly empty rink. A walk along the harbor before dawn. Cold air in the lungs while running stairs.
* Downloaded a bootleg of Gene Vincent's complete appearances on the BBC's Saturday Club. You hear Brian Matthew chatting with him in 1960, and it's cool to know that John Lennon was probably listening. Also downloaded a bootleg of the Kinks live in Paris in 1965 for a book I'm doing.
* This is a Grateful Dead show from 9/3/67. It's missing a long version of "In the Midnight Hour," which can be found elsewhere, that was discovered some years ago. I am making all of these Dead-related discoveries. For instance, I realized that embryonic strands of "Dark Star" are present in, of all things, this early cover of Martha and the Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street."
* I like this photo, which I found yesterday. I don't know that it's a Thanksgiving photo, but I think of it that way. Some guys out in Pennsylvania, or the Middle West, having come in from a quail or pheasant hunt to get a few beers at the local bar before going home to their families.
Comments