Does My Writing....Suck?

Maybe my writing sucks.  Maybe it's that simple.  Maybe my writing is trite and boring. I must pose this question if I'm to be rigorously honest: Am I that bad?  My books, are they not worth reading?  They don't sell.  Not even a little.  They just don't sell.  I did some marketing.  I won an award and a beautiful review from Writer's Digest. I was reviewed numerous times, and reader response glowed with love. It didn't help.

Has this huge effort been my escapist fantasy? 

I don't accept that idea.  But I wouldn't, would I?  Otherwise how did I put in the decades of practice, the repetition, the  rejection?  A compelling artist needs to work at the craft passionately and beyond reason.  A hundred drafts of one page? I've done that as a matter of routine.  I've  re-written each of my books five times, ten?  I've lost count.

This epic failure is a case of falling through the cracks.  I may be the Van Gogh of modern writers.  If you thirst for vivid emotion and wild color, it's there in my stories. The catalog of books on Amazon is bloated by a million titles.  Why should anyone pay three bucks to download a bit of my life's work?  How do I get the attention of readers, of my natural audience?

My books are wonderful books.  If you value originality, skill, vision and perception, you should read what I've written.  Read "Confessions Of An Honest Man". It's my autobiographical novel.   When my book placed in their competition, the editor from Writer's Digest wrote "I don't usually read this kind of book but I feel better for having read it. I will carry this novel with me for a long time."

Read any of my books. If you get bored, you're not my audience.  I write for artists, therapists and their clients, boomers who used acid, the curious, the addicted, the recovering, the failed, the intelligent and the sensitive ones...and I don't suck.  In my modest human way, I'm glorious.

"Confessions Of An Honest Man:" the link.   Confessions Of An Honest Man

My Blog etc

Lost: One Male Libido

LOST: ONE MALE LIBIDO

This libido (center figure) was last seen on December 31, 2016.  It is approximately ten feet tall, six feet wide and four feet deep.  It has between twelve and twenty horns of various descriptions.  It's covered in long brown fur and has eyes all the way around its cylindrical body.  The number of fingers, tentacles and hands it may possess are unknown as it can sprout extra limbs at moments of high stress.  It is not very intelligent but possesses a wild cunning that can catch pursuers off guard.  If you see this libido DO NOT APPROACH IT.  DO NOT ATTEMPT A DIALOGUE.  IT IS NOT AMENABLE TO REASON.  Call the local sheriff's department, dial 911 or email me at artsdigiphoto@gmail.com.

 There are commonly available and well known techniques that calm this libido but I discourage their use except in extremely dangerous situations.  Under proper conditions this is a highly trained and valuable libido.  I am reluctant to cause it damage or harm. You might call it by one of its names: Thor, Zeus or Johnny.  This tactic may backfire, however, for if it is Johnny and is called Thor or Zeus it gets very upset.  Likewise if it is Thor and is called Johnny, etc.  The best approach is simply to say, "Hey big guy.  How's it hangin'."  It has been trained to recognize this as a non-threatening mnemonic.  It may trigger my libido's desire to return to its so-called master.

I repeat: DO NOT APPROACH THIS LIBIDO. CALL THE AUTHORITIES OR NOTIFY ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE at artsdigiphoto@gmail.com.

REWARD OFFERED: I will give you, free of charge,  my guaranteed technique for healing all stress, depression and emotional trauma.

SPECIAL CAUTION: Do not mistake this libido for the so-called Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti or Skunk Ape. It is not a primate and is immune to veterinary drugs. Rather than seek out police or Forest Rangers it may be more useful to find an old shaman from the Chumash or Miwok tribes. A qualified shaman will likely be more useful in the safe return of this treasured libido.

Magical Dancers

With this poem I enter a realm wherein I admit that I have gone completely mad.  Don't try to figure this out.  I can't.  I'm getting old.  I expect my future poetry to be very strange indeed.

Between my pillow and the back of my head

Magical Dancers

in the space where the stubble of my balding scalp

meets the soft fabric of my cotton dream ship

Magical Dancers.

Shall I wake and know this to be a dream?

Dancers dressed in furs and leather

wearing antlers and tusks

tracing circles and hopping

from one leg to the other

drums and rattles, sticks with bells shaking

Magical Dancers in a dream

but my eyes are open, my mind lucid.

This is no longer a dream.. Are these dancers merely

the fleas left behind by the cat as he warmed my pillow?

Surely not! Surely not!  But if they are, then I salute you,

fleas, for taking on strange identities

in a world where nothing is quite real

where fleas are shamans, magical dancers.

If I turn on my side, what will I see? Fleas vanishing into the cat's fur

or shamans celebrating the oncoming rush of another Big Bang?

The Poem I Can't Write Version 2

This is the poem I can't write.

This is the tuning fork, the bells cast of Himalayan metal

the one good note sounding on a broken piano.

Where is it?  Why can't I write it?

It's just too beautiful. 

Who would trust someone like me

to utter the dreadful exquisite,

sing the endless glory of the universe?

Who would confer such a gift upon me?

Writing this poem would be like receiving  a robe

of the finest silk,

a garment grave and sweet

as the speech at my father's funeral

when a thousand pipes

wail across the valley where trees dip in the wind.

This is the poem I will write, whether or not I am worthy.

Only I can stop me and I will not stop me, can not let go of the current,

trapped by the grip of my own electricity, charging and burning my hands

and I don't care.  I am simply too small. 

I am the poetic mouse who survives beneath the floorboards

while a world clatters above me. 

I am the poem I have written.

Scammed Like An Idiot By Hackers

"This is completely crazy!"  I shouted at my smartphone.  I was on the verge of a panic attack. The man at the other end, in his classic Mumbai accent, replied, "No no sir, it is not crazy.  Your computer is badly infected.  Do you see all these people who are using your private information?" 

            He pronounced Private with a "W".  Priwot.

            My mouse pointer moved while my hands rested in my lap. The Command Window opened and showed an ominous list of white notations scrolling down the black background.  Mumbai Man had control of my computer. I could see repeated iterations of the word "Trojan"

            "See there," he said.  "See, see?  See how many!".  I had been fighting him for at least an hour and he was losing his composure.  I was stubbornly refusing to capitulate.  Is this what's called Ransomware? So it seems.  I couldn't get rid of the guy. I couldn't regain control of my computer until I paid five hundred dollars.  Needless to say, I was upset.  And I brought it upon myself by doing a stupid thing.

            I had already been softened up.  A week ago when I was online a demanding white pop-up window informed me that my computer had contracted a virus.  In order to fix it I must call Microsoft at an 800 phone number. Riiight! And there are elephants on the moon. The pop up wouldn't go away.  No restart, no Task Manager, nothing. I shut down my computer by pulling the plug.  When I rebooted I got on a treadmill of Windows fix-it bubbles that went nowhere. 

            After a couple hours of futzing with various remedies, including a  non-functioning backup program, I realized that I had to reformat my computer. That was three days of work. 

            Everything was fine after the reformat, my computer worked for a week.  Then that same white pop up window appeared and I knew I was in trouble. I didn't want to reformat again! Like an idiot I called the phone number.  Thus an ordeal began that went on for hours.  Mumbai Man insisted that he represented Microsoft.  He gave me an I.D. number.  He gave me a phone number for...uh..Microsoft.  I got another phone and punched that number.  At the first ring a man with a Mumbai accent answered.  "Microsoft Customer Service" he cheerfully announced.

            The voice of Mumbai Man #1 created a bizarre feedback loop because as he spoke to me on MY phone, his voice sounded one desk removed on the phone that I had used to call...er...Microsoft..  I went through the motions, juggling two cell phones. I was assured by Mumbai Man #2 that Mumbai Man #1 was a legitimate Microsoft employee. His name was...uh... Sam Taylor. I wasn't buying it but I was losing my grip on reality.  These guys were slick!  They had an answer for everything. They talked and talked and their reasoning was insane. Slowly they dragged me into the upside-down world of internet thieves.  They could demonstrate to me how badly messed up was my computer.  They told me that even if I bought a new computer the same thing would happen because hackers lurked in my network.  They told me that every computer I ever bought from this day forward would be infected if I didn't pay five hundred dollars.

            "Sir, why are you having a broblem with this?" asked..uh.. Sam Taylor, as if this were a perfectly reasonable situation.

            "A broblem?" I shrieked.  "A broblem?  Five hundred dollars and my computer held hostage is a broblem!.  I can buy a new computer for five hundred dollars!"

            "Oh, but sir, the new computer will also have the same broblem if you do not take care of this right away."

            Listen, I love the accent of Indians, be they from Mumbai, Kalikot or Kerala.  I love the way they sound like they have three marbles just inside their lower lip.  I have adored Indian culture my entire life.  However these fellows conformed to a stereotype, this was happening in the real world and in the real world most Americans expect their tech support to speak with that lilting accent.  Weirdly, it added a gloss of credibility to what was blatantly incredible.

            "I'm sixty two years old," I told the thief.  "Does your mother know what you do for a living?  That you rob old people on Social Security?"

            "Oh, sir, you are a senior citizen?  Let me talk to my supervisor and see what I can do about getting a discount."

            Hmmm hmmm count to five.  "Oh yes sir, my supervisor tells me that we can make the rebairs for three hundred forty nine dollars and ninety five cents."

            I gave in.  I let them install their shit on my computer.  Their spyware, malware, ransomware buggy shit on my computer. I gave them my credit card number.  I still don't believe I did that.  Sam Taylor had turned me over to Steve Smith who worked in Billing, and Steve Smith had then given control of my computer to Richie Logan. I watched my screen as program after program was installed, operated, then uninstalled.  It was spooky!  I was afraid to pull the plug on the modem and shut them out.  By this time I didn't know what to believe and I had the futile hope that these guys were actually fixing my computer.

            My lovely spouse had a terrible virus experience once and contacted a reputable repair company who charged her a hundred dollars to remotely fix her computer.  I phoned them while my computer chattered away, rolling files across the monitor screen.

            "Unplug your modem right now!" This was the order from Jeffrey Everard in Austin, Texas.  He works for OneSupport.  They handle situations such as the mess I found myself in. I trust them.  I think.

            Jeffrey worked for an hour on my computer and charged me a hundred bucks.

Barclay Bank shut down my credit card and promised to mail me a new one with a new account number.  Mumbai Men had yet to run the charge and they were not going to get my money.  I called all my credit card vendors.  I called the bank.

            This was a horrible experience.  Be careful.  These crooks are skillful and incredibly persistent. They are glib, slick and ruthless. They are from India, Ukraine, Thailand, Poland, Belorus and the USA. They find your knowledge level with regard to computers and they know how to convince you that they're not lying.  They twisted my head so badly that I couldn't locate reality after spending a couple of hours in their company.  Did a little alarm go off at Microsoft Headquarters notifying them that my computer was infected? I posed this vision sarcastically and they said Yes that's exactly what happened!

            I am now afraid to do any browsing on my computer.  I'm afraid that any program I purchase to fight malware might be the vehicle bringing malware to my computer.

            I made a mistake, a dumb mistake and it could have cost me much more.  It will be a while before I can relax and use my computer normally.  If ever.

            My hands are still shaking.

             

The Message Of The Dogs Video

I've been putting a lot of effort into making videos of my poems and stories.  I try to make them interesting, adding sounds and images, creating little vignettes of poetry and prose.  I hope you enjoy them.  Learning video editing is a new challenge, but I'm enjoying the process. 

The Message Of The Dogs

The Banquet

The Banquet: A Video poem

The Two Americas

            I hate this sense of polarization in the United States, this propaganda-driven idea that it’s US Versus THEM.  I thought I might take a look at the groups, the US and the THEM and see if I can’t analyze the difference.

            First of all, let me state that I am firmly one of the US.  I wouldn’t let a THEM in my house nor allow my sister to marry  one of THEM.

            There are many lifestyles in this country and I think the US/THEM divide flows along lifestyle differences.

            There are two kinds of people in this country.  Hostess Twinkie People and Progresso Soup People.

          Remember Sarah Palin?  She's still around.  I heard a snippet of a recent speech. She began with the question, “Dontcha wanna get back to the good ol’ America that we grew up with?”

            This is the archetypal Hostess Twinkie question. It’s the soft white piece of cake on the outside.  It has no meaning, no nutritive value and is uttered to appeal to the most childish type of person.  Then Ms Palin followed up with, “Doncha want to return to the America that respected values, like honest hard work?  Values like believing in God and the family?” This is the payoff, the creamy center, made from shortening, corn syrup, fructose, sodium glycol and unspecified binding agents.  It does not require teeth to be eaten.  It does not require a mind to give pleasure to childish people.  It just needs to be sweet and gooey.

            The Progresso Soup people are looking for an honest lunch in a can.  The packaging of Progresso Soup conveys a return to old-country quality and nutrition.  If it was called “Progress Soup” it would sound cold and industrialized.  The addition of the “O” transforms it to grandma’s home made blend of split peas, onions, celery, noodles and chunks of chicken.  It became so successful that it forced Campbells to make better soups.  You know, the soups that NFL players’ moms force them to eat.

            I’m not saying that a Progresso Person won’t eat a Twinky or that a Twinky person won’t eat Progresso Soup.

            The point I’m making is that there are a lot of people in this country with empty minds.  They have no curiosity, and are too lazy to figure things out for themselves.  They are content to be fed the intellectual equivalent of cake and candy.  Due to their lazy childishness, these people are easy to manipulate.  That’s what scares me.  Twinkie people are being lied to.  They are being told that Progresso Soup people are not real Americans, that they’re trying to undermine the constitution and destroy the values imbued in this country by the Founding Fathers.

            They believe these lies because they want to, because it’s easier to believe a comforting lie than to search out a truth that might not go koochy koochy koo.

            Twinkie People are slowly being turned into mobs who will chase Progresso Soup people down the street, force them to hide in attics, and, sooner or later, put them on trains going nowhere.

            We will look a little odd when they make us wear Progresso Soup labels on our jackets.  However, we will be squirting little doses of Ecstasy into the creamy centers of their Twinkies, so I expect the results to be worth the struggle.

Prophet

Video: The Poem I Can't Write

This is the  first video that I've made of myself reading one of my poems.  I plan to continue reading into the camera.  I'm new to the software but it's an exciting way to communicate.  Enjoy.

The Poem I Can't Write

The Ironic And The Absurd

March 9, 2017

            We were watching TV and there was a commercial for the network series The Bachelorette.  The ad featured three girls, three Bachelorettes.  Girl One said, "I love horses." (video of girl with hair blowing in wind, saddled on a gorgeous animal). Girl Two said, "I rescue animals and I rehabilitate Rottweilers." (Footage of tender treatment of big dog's wounds) Then Girl Three said, "I haven't had an orgasm in my life." (Footage of her from the waist up, simply standing there in a suburban back yard).

            Wait a minute.  Run the DVR backwards a bit.  She actually said, "I haven't had an orgasm in my life."  I could almost hear the stampede of men.  It was going in two directions: half the men were running away from this girl, they were terrified by the pressure.  And half of them (the cocky douchebag half) were running towards the girl.  Each of the latter bachelors was sure he could open the floodgates of orgasm for this attractive cherry-picked TV crash- test dummy.

            I turned to my partner and said, "I guess honesty is the New Honesty."  I considered for a moment, then amended my perception. "Or is it honesty is the new Authenticity?  Or maybe Authenticity is the new Honesty?  Something like that."

            My partner, Fox, is accustomed to my sense of the ironic and the absurd.  She knew I was reaching, perhaps over-reaching into sheer nonsense. Still, I'll let it stand..

            I am aware that there is a wide spread  hunger for experience that can be perceived as Authentic.  Why?  Do people feel that they are synthetic beings, that they're so coddled and softened by living in this affluent civilization that they've lost an essential component of human experience?  Do people feel unreal?  I think so.  That's why there's such an appetite for TV shows about people living off the grid in Alaska, or marooning themselves, naked and afraid, courting utter misery for the sake of "testing their limits".  We are the species that has come from competing with hyenas for fresh kills to the species that is sending spacecraft to other galaxies.  We've done this in a breathtakingly short span of time.  In achieving this magnificent push, upward and outward, some people have been left behind in their sense of self-worth.  They don't feel brave, tough, worthy.  They've lost their warrior spirit.  And they feel this emptiness every time they go shopping at Target or Walmart, every time they exploit the incredible ease of getting the groceries and the hair gel.

            "Girl-without-orgasm" was simply following the cultural norm as it excavates this new authentic territory, this candid self-disclosure that, to her, wasn't even embarrassing.  She was just letting the world know: she's in search of an orgasm. She needs a partner who can help her master new skills in erotic communication.  She needs a soft slow hand from a tender buddy to help her over the hump.

            I was embarrassed for her.  No doubt it will make good television for those that are into that sort of thing.  I cringed.  What naivete!  How many years will this stuff follow her around?  She'll be "no-cum" to her grandchildren.  It's out of my hands.  I won't be watching the show.

             

The First Time I Cried In Ten Years

Rahsaan Roland Kirk in all his glory

When I was sixteen years old, I was passionate about Jazz.  Passionate! 

My passion for jazz was so crazy that I left home the day after I graduated high school   I was going on a quest.  I had two hundred dollars in my pocket when I stepped onto the  ramp of I-80 and stuck out my thumb. My plan was to hitch hike from St. Louis to New York City,  in order to find a musician who may not want to be found.  I had to talk to him!  I had to meet him!  Ornette Coleman had liberated my creative vision.  

Word on the jazz grapevine was that  he was "taking a sabbatical".  In the jazz world this is sometimes shorthand for kicking a bad habit.* When jazz players take breaks from their careers it can mean they're in rehab. I was hip to drugs: I was an all-grown-up weed smoker.  Whoopee. I didn't  understand addiction the way I would understand it in another ten years.  I didn't know why so many musicians fell down the abyss of heroin.. I would know, later in my life.  Oh, I would know, I would understand, far better than my sixteen year old self.

 This is all in my novel, "Confessions Of An Honest Man."  It's a three dollar e-book and more people should read it.  End of promotion.

I wanted to share an experience I had this week, an experience entirely related to my love for jazz in the 60's. First, let me tell you that I can't remember the last time I cried.  It could be eight or ten years. That's a long time to have a Pandora's Box of emotion  locked up inside my soul.  This part of my life has been one of silent agony.  There have been times when I wanted to die, but I am resolved to not be a suicide.  I saw a therapist for several months.  I managed to squeeze out a few dinky tears.  It wasn't the catharsis I'd hoped for.  It was better than nothing.

I first heard Rahsaan Roland Kirk when I was fourteen.  This was in 1961  I was crazy for Roland Kirk. (the Rahsaan name came later). The moment I heard his record I was so smitten that goose bumps climbed up my spine.   Wow!  This was a musical three ring circus with elephants and zebras.  It had midget cars out of which climbed dozens of quarreling clowns.  Roland Kirk was technically masterful, innovative, insane and very funny.  Roland Kirk was a grade A bona fide original

Thanks to streaming sites like Spotify I can listen to anyone I care about.  Rahsaan has been gone for thirty years, but his albums are still here and I settled in for a visit to my past, to the passionate sixteen year old  who couldn't get enough music.  I was listening to an old standard, "I've Got Your Number", from Kirk's superb collaboration with Benny Golson.  It's an amazing album, as good now as it was in 1964. I was sitting in my chair in front of my computer and I started weeping.  This was a real shoulder-heaving sob session, a huge catharsis.  My spouse saw my hand covering my face, saw my body lurch..

 "Are you crying?" she asked gently.  "It's all right, boo," I said, "it's good, it's very good." 

The music came through the speakers and I felt as if the sound of Rahsaan's saxophone was tapping at my chest, as though it held a key to open my heart.  It got through to me.  All my frozen emotion came welling up.  I saw my life in its difficulties and frustrations.  I saw myself at sixteen, I saw what an extraordinary person I was.  My New York quest was lonely and unlikely to succeed, but I found Ornette Coleman by the craziest accident.  I was getting on the subway at Forty Second Street.  There was a man getting into the next car, a black man attempting to carry five or six instrument cases.  I rushed up and tapped him on the shoulder.  I wanted to offer my help.  I knew from his knit cap and his attire that he was a man of Jazz.  So, this stranger turned around  There he was.  Ornette Coleman.  I had spent the last ten days searching up and down Manhattan looking for this man.  "I can carry some of these horns if you..." and then I realized who it was and I stuttered, "You..you're Ornette Coleman!" We got on the subway together.  Hardly anyone else was in the car.  It was headed downtown. 

           

I hadn't rehearsed a speech or anything. I told Ornette how much I loved his music and how profoundly it had influenced my own work.  I told him how far I had traveled.  He gave me his phone number and the rest of my experience in the world of avant garde jazz unfolded, just like in my novel. 

That was a long time ago.  In the present, the important thing is that I regained connection to my emotions.  I'm a psychological person.  I know what it means to be shut down, to have no feelings, not even feelings of love.  It's an inner act of self-preservation.

It's a response to trauma.  It's better, more joyful, to feel sorrow and love, to be alive to emotion.  I accepted being numb.  I didn't recriminate myself.  I allowed the numbness and the mental torture to unfold and do their job.  Pain is always telling us to change things.  "Change things!" pain screams, and so I began to take action.  I began changing my life, one tiny bit at a time.  I'm feeling more creative.  Art worked its magic on me; it healed a child who was in mourning for a man who seemed to have failed.  Music helped me revive the most important part of myself.  Here I sit, right now, at my computer, sharing this personal and private story.  I'm grateful that I can, grateful that I'm alive when a few months ago I thought I would die of sheer misery.

I'm still here.  

Ornette Coleman in 1960

*I never saw any evidence of Ornette Coleman using drugs.  He was taking a sabbatical because his music had incited a furious controversy and that scared away promoters.  Ornette couldn't find work. He passed at age 85, world famous and widely respected as one of music's most important innovators.

 Confessions Of An Honest Man, my autobiographical novel