Saturday 10/16/21
* Let us account for Saturday.
* Spoke to an editor at Rolling Stone--truly good guy--about if there's anything that can be done re: Sam Cooke or Brackets.
* Spoke to Boyers at Salmagundi; he was at a book festival today, but came back and read a new piece of mine straight away. They're not buying anything right now. I really could have used the money. They have a short story of mine called "Read the Ice" still to run.
* Spoke to Wickett, who I dubbed the osprey, because he is good at spotting errors in prose. Typos, etc.
* Received a text from old buddy Schiller, with a photo of one of his girls playing hockey. She was leading the rush up ice. I can tell Schiller is hurting for me and what I am going through. He invited me to his home. Said the only downside is his girls would ask me endless questions, but that would not be a downside for me. He was joking, of course, but I think they are quite energetic and tire him out a little. When I speak to Schiller after all of these years, it makes sense to me why we were friends so long ago. I would say it makes sense to me now in a way it didn't then. Schiller is a deeply moral man. He is a sensitive man, and a strong man. Schiller is not scared of vulnerability. He can be candid in ways that few can. And generous of himself--his true self. I am happy for him and the life he has built for himself. I both admire him and am proud of him.
* Worked on a story, but just a bit--externally, anyway--which is about a hornet.
* I sent the fellow who executed the Brackets cover a note congratulating him and telling him how blown away I was. The cover was my idea, but he realized that idea way better than I hoped. He did an awesome job. I didn't have anything to do with the spine, really, and I thought that looked great. It's a unique spine. Not a spine you'd see on another book. Which, as the osprey mentioned, is fitting.
* The "Everything wrong with publishing" entries are going to be a regular series on here I decided today. There is one for tomorrow. It will continue as a series until the industry no longer functions as it does presently.
* Wrote an editor of mine at The Daily Beast about getting a screener copy when it's available of the Peter Jackson Beatles Get Back docu-series, which I'm writing about for them.
* I revised a 3000 word film essay today as well. Very much like how it came out.
* Bunch of new posts on Twitter. I learned something mind-blowing today about my Twitter analytics. But that will merit its own blog post.
* Wrote Kimball about what we'll discuss on the radio on Tuesday: Christopher Lee reading Dracula which I had posted on here; the tightest performance just about anyone has ever given in rock and roll, courtesy of the Grateful Dead; the Ghost Stories for Christmas film version of M.R. James' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral; Saki's "Sredni Vashtar; the Cape Cod Radio Mystery Theater's "The Buoy," which was also linked to in that earlier entry.
* Walked six miles. Ran 5000 stairs.
* Acquired many peppers, strawberries, and bananas for my heart.
* Listened to the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks and that second edition of the Grateful Dead's Europe '72.
* Pitched JazzTimes about a Christmas piece pertaining to the unissued take of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, and also Sonny Rollins' year of 1956.
* Sold an essay about the Three Investigators YA mystery series. Very little money.
* Sent a Halloween op-ed to the New York Daily News. I'll have to follow-up.
* Watching the Red Sox and Bruins a bit. I will work harder tomorrow.
* Blind Willie McTell's "Three Women Blues" was released on this day in 1928.