Category: Writing

  • ODDS and ENDS: Summer Playlist, Ringo, and Rejected

    (It’s just a jump to the left…)

    Our Summer Road Trippin’ is about to start. The thrill of leaving the City is building in me, as I use my Magical Thinking to forget about how awful traffic is on I-95. (Anywhere on I-95, it’s bad.) And with the road trips comes a friendly competition between the wife and me – Who Can Come Up with The Better Playlist? First of all, there never is a winner – it’s more like an exhibition, a “friendly” so the speak, than a competition. The rule of the contest is that the list needs to be 3+ hours long (we are driving after all) and needs to loosely tie into the theme of Summer/Travel/Vacation or getting away. We do repeat songs from year to year, and occasionally we do have the same song on our lists. (Harry Styles and Paul Simon are the frequent repeated artists.) This year, we have added a rule, which is we need to accommodate some of the songs our daughter likes. She’s beginning to form her own strong opinions on music, and we want her to feel that she has a say in all of this. My lists can be rock and grunge heavy, but this year I want to work in more 70’s funk. Oh, and the Tom Tom Club will have a prominent spot this year.

    Today is Ringo Stars birthday, if you didn’t know.

    I got a rejection notice at 2:22am last night. A bit of an odd hour, but I guess lit journals don’t keep banker’s hours. The magazine had my submission for four months, which is a normal amount of time to hold one of my stories before saying no. I saw that rejection right before I went to bed, and it did put me in an off mood. Not bad, or angry, just off. Off in the sense that I don’t know what’s right anymore. The rejection didn’t stop me from falling asleep, or from getting up and getting back at it today. Yet, I wondered; who was the person who was up at 2:22am this morning? Did the rejection email have to go out at 2:22am? It couldn’t wait until the start of the work day? If this person was up at 2:22am, then that makes me think we have some things in common; we both like staying up late, and working into the wee hours. I salute you, this person who is most likely a volunteer reader or intern for the magazine. I hope you got some sleep, as I will be submitting to you again soon.

  • What We Can Learn from “THE IDOL”

    (SPOLIERS but really, does it matter…)

    First of all, I’m not here to pick apart this show. IF somehow you missed it, THE IDOL is a show on HBO with a five-episode run. The show is about the music industry in Los Angles, and stars The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) and Lilly-Rose Depp. If you do a search, you’ll find out that it’s not good. But, depending on how you view “bad” tv, you could either find it maddingly self-indulgent with a side of pointlessness, or an entertainingly hot mess of a dumpster fire. (I’m in the dumpster fire category.) I’m not here to bemoan the quality of the show as a whole, as there are many, and I mean MANY, other and much better TV critics who have taken this show to task.

    What I am here to single out and applauded is quite possibly the greatest demonstration of Third Act Narrative Exposition I have ever seen in all of my life. I will be SPOILING episode 5 of THE IDOL. You have been warned!

    To give you the set up – Jocelyn (Lilly-Rose Depp) has kicked Tedros (Abel Tesfaye) out of her home and life, all the while stealing his cast of singers. She then asks her manager Chaim (Hank Azaria) to “pay off” Tedros and “get rid of him.” Then the scene jumps ahead six weeks, and we are at So-Fi Stadium in Los Angeles during sound check for Jocelyn’s world tour which is about to kick off with Tedros cast of singers as the opening act. High up in the empty stands, Chaim is talking to Andrew (Eli Roth) a Live Nation executive, and Nikki (Jane Adams) a record label executive. It is the dialogue between these characters, and the effort put forth by these actors that (Chef’s Kiss) needs to be taught in screenwriting, and acting classes.

    First, the dialogue; it is a train wreck. See, as the narrative has jumped ahead six weeks, a lot has happened that the audience doesn’t know about. Well, don’t worry, Chaim, Andrew, and Nikki will tell us all about it. These three characters stand there and have a “Hey, remember what happened…” conversation, which is so clunky, unnatural sounding, and utilitarian, for it only has one function; to tell us what happened to Jocelyn and especially Tedros. The dialogue feels desperate to get the information to us, like the scene was born out of frustration because no one could come up with a better way to impart the narrative developments. Now, I say this should be taught because, as this show is a visual medium, it’s better to show rather than tell. What we are given are empty words that have no dramatic weight behind them, and the scene gotten through rather than enjoyed.

    But more importantly, the effort put forth by Azaria, Roth and Adams to make this amateurish dialogue seem natural and relevant is nothing short of Herculean. I can only imagine that when these actors were handed the script for this scene, that they had to have known. All three of these actors have impressive credits in productions with great directors and writers; they know what good writing is. But they did it – just went for it. “Damn the torpedoes! I’m committing to the line!” Honestly, I’m not surprised. These are three professional actors. They are getting paid to do a job, and they did their job. And that’s why every acting teacher in America needs to pull out this scene, make their students watch it, and then say to the students, “That is how you commit to a scene!”

    Yeah… THE IDOL is not good – I don’t think I’m breaking any ground here in saying that. But even in bad art, lessons can be learned, and entertainment can be gained. The scene starts at the 50:00 mark. You know, so you can queue it up for your enjoyment, or your class.

  • Retired Flash Fiction Story

    (This is an experiment of a flash fiction story that I decided to retire from submitting. Enjoy.)

    Airbag

    There was light, and then there was darkness. Maybe there was sound, but I think all I can remember hearing was the fear in my brain; As I was scared. Or was I screaming? Broken glass? I think so, and if that was true, then I don’t know how I didn’t get cut up. I hit my head, and banged up my back. There wasn’t any blood that you’d expect.

    What existed after, most likely before if only I had paid attention, was the feeling of floating, up and away – of relief that I was here and not in some other place, even though no rational person would want to be where I was, and that’s because they weren’t fully/completely aware of being alive in this reality, but now, or at least then – in the aftermath – I was present.

    When I was a child, growing up in the Cold War, knowing that at any second one of two nations could blow up the whole world; so many people lived in the pool of existential threat every day. Life could end at the push of a button, as that was modernity. But what I fixated on wasn’t necessarily that all life could end, but having to wait for it to end. Being told the missile was on the way, that in a matter of minutes I would be evaporated, but I had to wait for my impending death. That count down is what scared me. Sure, if you knew you had one day left, then you could get some stuff done. But with five minutes – I would just be left with my thoughts. My awful thoughts. Even if I tried to be constructive with my five minutes, I’d most likely use four of the minutes deciding what to do, and that last minute wouldn’t be enough time to accomplish it. But I know me, and I would spend five minutes kicking myself for all the things I didn’t do. Hating myself as the doom, the bomb, the endless end drew nearer. Not enjoying what I had, but regretting what was.

    The darkness did give way to the light once again. I opened my eyes. I looked around and made sure I was alive. On the side of a highway, having spun around, I was alive. Excitable, juiced, sweating yet cold. The Universe had expanded, only to contract back to the same place, and I was still there. The blue gray interstate, an airbag deflating – I had the acknowledgement of time.

  • Personal Review: KUDOS by Rachel Cusk

    (SPOLIERS, but I don’t think you can spoil this novel…)

    I’m a big fan of Rachel Cusk. Ever since I read a piece on her in The New Yorker a while ago, and I think the article was about the OUTLINE Trilogy, I have found her to be a huge inspiration and a fascinating author. She does a great job in fooling me in believing that we are close friends, and the conversations she shares with me, makes me feel smarter. Like all very talented writers, she’s also part magician – conjuring a relationship with the reader that never really existed, and making us feel that we are the only person she is talking to.

    I finished KUDOS, the final novel in the OUTLINE Trilogy last week. All in all, it took me the span of five years to read the three novels. I can understand how a person would argue that this delay in completing the series would be detrimental to my understanding, if not appreciation of the trilogy. Yet, I don’t believe it has. Returning to these books is like visiting an old friend from college. Things pick up right where they left off, no feeling of lost time. And this friend doesn’t try to guilt me for my absence.

    If one were to look up reviews for these books, almost all of them will make references to how these books are a new form, even an experimental version, of what an autobiographical novel can be. Some will even compare the books to Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle series, which might be applicable. I don’t agree with the comparison, as Karl is overtly autobiographical, while Rachel only hints at autobiography, but clearly has kept her protagonist a fictional version of herself.  Which lead me to start to believe that all the “new form of a novel” was more marketing hype than actual reality.

    Don’t get me wrong. I loved KUDOS, and the other books in the trilogy, OUTLINE and TRANSIT. As I settled in on reading this book, I found the familiar style that Cusk has; this very easy, yet highly intelligent way of writing. She doesn’t speak down to the reader, but it feels that I am being included in the conversations. This time around the author/protagonist is at a writers conference, talking to other writers and people. Again, the persons who occupy this world have no issue, and are very adept at opening up and sharing events, observations and experiences with her. At one point, another writer does point out how odd it is that all the characters in the author/protagonist’s novels have no problem confessing all their sins without much prompting – a sly mete joke Cusk put in her own novel.

    It’s true, people do not speak the way Cusk’s characters do. But, Tennessee Williams’ characters speak in a way that can only exist in the worlds that Williams creates, and as such, I believe that Cusk is casting that same spell. It’s not reality, but it is a world I would like to live in. To speak to a person on a plane about the family dog of theirs that just died, or the tour guide who loves to walk the city, or the other women writers that still have to deal with ex-husbands that intend to do them harm, both physically and emotionally. It’s an unburdening that has no expectations to it. The reader isn’t asked to act, or pass judgment, but just hear and witness that these lives exist. It’s an environment that becomes very comfortable, and enjoyable.

    And in the end, without a climax or even rising action, the book concludes, leaving the feeling of conclusion. That to me is the trick, and an impressive one at that. I have been given a journey, but I am not sure where I have gone, or what, if anything was accomplished. But I know I went some place, I learned, and that must be what is accomplished. And as I ponder on that, maybe it isn’t a gimmick to call these books a new form of novel. There is a different way to tell a story after all.

  • Updating My Site

    It was long overdue, but I have started the process of updating my website. It has been nagging at me for a while now – that my page is rather basic, and not the best showing of who I am. The more I blog, and submit stories, the more that I know that people will be coming by to see what I am all about. My numbers are up, by the way. I have equaled the total views of 2022, in the first six months of 2023. So, there is more traffic on my site. Sure, maybe half of it is bots for China and Pakistan, but still…

    Updating my website, and talking about myself are not my strong suits. Doing all of this makes me very self-conscious, and after a few minutes of working on it, I end up feeling frustrated and embarrassed. Frustrated because the look of my website never feels “professional” enough, and embarrassed because I can’t shake this thought in the back of my head that “why the fuck would anyone care what I have to say?” Now, I know that the more effort I put into the site, the better it will look, and who the fuck cares what anyone thinks?

    Oh! I did sign up for AdSense, so ads will now be on the site. I hate to brag, but after a day, I have earned nearly a whole penny! The other reason for doing this is that I haven’t found a good side hustle yet. I might start dog walking soon, unless the traffic keeps growing on this site, then all bets are off.

    In the end, I’m probably going to keep monkeying around with this site off and on for the next month. I’m open to suggestions of what to do, or who’s sites I should check out for inspiration, so drop me a comment or message. And you might as well “like” and “subscribe” while you are at it.