The Terrible Reader

The pages are too long. The words spread out. The words slip out. The words move through the brain and back out into the nowhere place from which they came. The brain no longer able to retain the words that live in a book. The brain is slipping away into a kind of digitalized maze. Only tidbits of information and pictures are able to stick. A book filled with words is a marathon, which a person is too out of shape to run. The words are a threat to a person’s limp attention span. No longer capable of the longer sprints and solitudes that a book filled with words requires, The Terrible Reader reaches for her phone.

 
The Terrible Reader is no longer capable of being alone. He needs to know what is going on on-line. He needs to know what texts have come through. He needs to carry on a conversation that was begun on his phone. He needs to find new emails in his inbox. He needs to check who has checked his frequently checked Instagram and Facebook accounts. There are things to do. Likes to be given and had. Comments to be left. Photos to be seen and loved. The terrible reader has no time for a book. A book keeps him off-line. There is no excitement in these printed words.

 
The Terrible Reader can no longer sit with herself. It is too uncomfortable. Toes curl and uncurl. Nails are bitten. Fingers are picked. Hair is pulled. It is a continual struggle to keep her attention fixed. She feels restless. Anxious. Just sitting there alone with a book is no longer enough stimulation to keep her attention fixed. She tries to hold on with the book in her hand but it is almost painful. There is an antsiness that won’t go away. And when it does, she feels bored. She feels ready for sleep. The Terrible Reader is in a continual struggle between restlessness and sleep. Her attention span can’t keep up with the attention that words in a book demand. Instead she needs the digitally illuminated screen. She needs the fake light to get off. She needs the high-resolution pictures and live time conversations to feel engaged. When The Terrible Reader is on her phone toes do not curl and uncurl. Nails are not bitten. Fingers are not picked. Hair is not pulled. There is no struggle to keep her attention fixed. There is no battle between restlessness and sleep. Her attention is completely transfixed when on the phone. When on-line, her attention span is dialed in. She is immersed. Like particles of dust sucked into a vacuum machine, she is gone.

 
The Terrible Reader can read books no more. The Terrible Reader still tries to read books but most of them remain unfinished. Worlds only partially explored. These unfinished worlds pile up like dead leaves in the fall. Discarded and no longer needed, they are left to die under the weight of newer books which will also go unfinished. Unexplored. The Terrible Reader is yet to come to terms with the fact that they have become a terrible reader. They do not want to admit this painful fact to themselves so they continually try and read some more. It hurts too much to make an honest appraisal of what they have become, since humans never like to admit the truth about themselves to themselves. Every time The Terrible Reader sits down with a book their smartphone pulls at them. It won’t leave them in peace. Come to me, come to me, check me, see me, it whispers in The Terrible Reader’s ear. For the fifth time in an hour The Terrible Reader puts the book down and must reach for the smartphone. They no longer have a choice.

View at Medium.com

Leonard Cohen Died Tonight

Prince, then David Bowie and now Leonard Cohen. What a terrible year this has been for those of us deeply touched and taught by these creative visionaries.

Leonard Cohen was once a wild man. Then he became a Buddhist monk. But he was still a wild man, even when he was a Buddhist monk. I love the story of him sneaking out behind the meditation hall early one morning to drink his coffee and smoke a cigarette.

A lover of women, words, good whiskey and wine. A fine poet indeed. A man with impeccable style, in so many more ways than just how he wore his clothes. The kind of youthful charm Leonard Cohen had well into old age, was proof that a man can grow old without growing old. Every time you heard him speak you listened and learned something original and new. A real philosopher and poet he was. Not many, if any, around like him anymore.

Leonard why did you have to go? I know you were almost really old, but couldn’t you hang around a few more years? I am not quite ready to make a go of this without you in the world.

His novels, poetry and songs where doorways into imaginative landscapes and lovescapes, the likes of which a person never heard before. Without even knowing it was happening he taught you how to live and how to die. This world will no longer be the same place without him in it.

I don’t know as much about Leonard Cohen’s songs, books and poetry as I probably should. I know the basics of Leonard Cohen’s life but I can’t tell you specifics from his biography. For me Leonard Cohen was an example of how to live as a man and an artist. It is strange to me that I have the deepest reverence and respect for a man I have never met. I studied his interviews and from that I learned what I needed to know. I have his album Songs Of Love And Hate hanging on my wall, in the same way that someone would hang a cross or a picture of their hero.

I suppose this is what Leonard Cohen meant to me. He was my teacher. He was a man who spoke more eloquently about how to live life and deal with the various demons he struggled with than any other man I have heard speak. He made me feel less alone with my demons and despair. He showed me the way to deal; through solitude, meditation, occasional nights filled with wine and women, books, music and filling up journals with words, wisdom and art.

How many people become icons but continue to live in very humble conditions, on the second floor of a small home (his daughter and her family live below) in a lower economic neighborhood? He didn’t care much for more ostentatious material things. Money was not his main thing. How rare to find a human being (especially a successful one in America) who puts his art and his life before preoccupations with money, status and more materialistic things.

In today’s America, it is the poets and artists who go unseen. No one talks about them. Leonard Cohen broke through the thick cloud of obscurity and showed generations of artists and poets that they do not have to live a defeated, delegitimized and conformist life. He showed artists, poets and writers that there are alternative ways of living where you can keep your edge and remain in the poetry.

I could be wrong but I think Leonard Cohen somehow knew me. I often felt like he was talking right at me, especially when talking about isolation, loneliness, women, love and art. But I know everyone who loved him felt this way. That is what made him so great and this is what makes things feel so much more hollow and empty now that he is gone.

Thank you for everything Leonard Cohen. You were such a class act. I will continue to live the things you taught. Hallelujah.

I’m Mad.

My wife just asked me, “Are you mad at me?” I said, “No, I’m just mad.”

I am mad about everything right now. What is wrong with controlled anger when it is a logical response to a terrible situation? I am mad that a man like Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. I am mad that I live in a country where the majority of people voted for a man with OBVIOUS and SEVERE Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I am mad that all the white, male, power hungry men have won. I am mad about what this will mean for the values of freedom, intellectualism, peace, non-violence, creativity, equality, social justice, integrity, honesty, sharing, environmental consciousness, non-authoritarianism, independence and autonomy that I believe in. I am mad that police officers and the military will get more praise, power and prestige. I am mad that there will be more conformity and worship of money and business. I am mad that people who are not cool at all will now be in power. I could go on and on, but I am just mad.

I realize that anger is an emotion that arises and then gradually dissolves. This too shall pass. I am mad about this because I want this anger to remain. How else will I be able to continue to oppose and not give into this catastrophe? The society in which I live will be forever changed. I am mad that American nationalism has now taken over. I am mad that people think that a multi-billionaire is the fit leader of a working class revolution. I am mad at the degree of stupidity and arrogance that has become confused as the way to “Make America Great Again.” America has never not been great but I am mad that it just got a lot worse. I am mad that America is only going to become dumber and even less tolerant than it was before. I am mad that racism and sexism has just been normalized. How does a man who said all the awful things Trump has publicly said get elected to be President? How does a woman who seems like her husband’s puppet get to be first lady? I just do not get it and I am mad about this.

I have a long day at work ahead of me. How am I going to go to work feeling so mad? I was supposed to exercise this morning but I was too mad. I can hear ringing in my ears. I don’t want to leave my house. I feel afraid of anyone who thinks that it is a good idea that Trump has been elected as President. I hope I will be able to control myself if I am confronted by someone like this. I am mad that after having one of the better, cooler and more intelligent Presidents in American history (Obama) we end up with far right, extremist, Republican, uncool, opportunists seizing control. People who actually think building a wall and shooting dissenters are great ideas are now in power. I am mad about this. I am mad that uncool people are now seen by the mass of Americans as being cool. I mean look at Trump’s Vice President. He is a robot. As uncool as a person can get. I could go on and on but I won’t. I know I already said I would stop but when I am mad sometimes I keep going on and on even when I know I should stop. But even my dogs are mad. They have been barking all morning.

*Sorry for any grammar errors. I am too mad to care.

A Writer’s Daily Routines

 

Wake up 7:30am
Ten minute walking meditation
Make coffee
Write for several hours
Go for walk (if time permits)
Get dressed
Go to work
Think about drinking gin
Come home from work
Drink gin (or not)
Eat dinner
Do dishes
Go on-line
Watch film or read
Fall asleep reading and listening to music

(Or)

Wake up 8:00am
Walk for one hour
Eat/coffee
Write
Get dressed
Meditate
Go to work
Meditate
Come home from work
Read or go on-line
Go to bed

(Or)

Wake up 8:30am
Ten minute meditation
Walk for hour
Coffee/food
Sit in garden
Read
Avoid writing
Clean house
Avoid writing some more
Get dressed
Go to work
Come home
Drink Gin
Eat dinner
Watch movie or read
Get in bed and watch late night with David Letterman

(Or)

Wake up 8:00am
Walk and listen to a podcast
Drink coffee/eat
Read
Water the garden
Clean house
Sit and stare out window
Get dressed
Go to bookstore
Go to work
Come home from work
Drink gin (or not)
Eat dinner
Do dishes
Listen to music
Watch television

(Or)

Wake up 7:30am
Meditate
Drink coffee
Read
Avoid writing (because I dislike writing so much on these days)
Go to work
Go out for dinner
Drink gin
Come home
Watch television or listen to records
Fall asleep watching David Letterman

(Or)

Wake up 9:00am
Drink coffee
Read
Hang out
Listen to music
Read various things on-line
Get dressed
Go to work
Come home from work
Drink gin
Surf around on-line again
Listen to music
Get in bed and read
Fun sex with wife
Fall asleep

(Or)

Wake up at 8:00am
Drink coffee
Write for several hours
Walk for an hour
Get dressed
Meditate
Go to work
Come home
Drink gin (or not)
Read
Go to bed
Hopefully sex with wife
Fall asleep watching David Letterman

(Or)

Wake up whenever
Drink coffee
Vaporize cannabis
Do whatever I want for the entire day and night (zero obligations)
Get in bed
Fall asleep, holding my wife, with television on (or off)

On Becoming Domesticated

Today I need to clean under the dinning room table, vacuum the carpet in the living room, fix the grass borders in the backyard, clean the back windows and plant the cactus someplace in the backyard.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, on of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, wrote: “The man who is happy in his domestication, who sees his domestication as the good graces of the Gods being bestowed upon him, is no longer a threat to the world, to others and most importantly to himself.” But I didn’t see this one coming. Who could of imagined that by the almost middle age of 42 I would become happily domesticated? Ten years ago, not my mother, my father, my sister, my daily bartender, my palm reader, my marijuana dealer, my pharmacist or my psychotherapist could have seen this coming. To be domesticated basically means to feel comfortable at home. After a lifetime spent feeling terribly uncomfortable and anxious in the numerous places that I lived, its nothing short of a miracle that I not only have my own home but am comfortable in it. The comfort aspect of domestication is not what concerns me. I am grateful for it. If you look up domestication in the dictionary you will find several definitions. If you read through all of the definitions you will arrive at one, which says: To bring down to the level of the ordinary person. I suppose this is that part that concerns me.

At the moment I am writing by my kitchen window, which looks out into my expansive back yard. It is a cold Southern California morning. I am looking at my two German Shepherds pace around in the pea gravel that my wife and I recently purchased. One of my dogs, which is named Camus but lacks the intelligence of the author he is named after, is engaged in a long and steady urination, which is getting all over his front paws. The fact that he is peeing all over himself doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. I am reminded that, contrary to certain people’s opinion, I am nothing like my dog. If I was peeing all over my feet I would like to think that I am civilized enough to move my feet out of the way. My other dog is sniffing around in the pea gravel trying to find an adequate spot to relieve herself. And I get to observe these kind-of-wildlife undertakings from the heated comfort of my kitchen nook. It is this aspect of domestication that I am grateful for. I too spent many years out there in the cold looking for a place to pee.

However, I wrestle with this notion of being brought down to the level of the ordinary. Ordinary? Oh gosh. In my twenties and thirties, when I was still naive enough to think it was only a matter of time until I was recognized as a great American writer and painter, I disdained the idea of domestication. I had nothing but indignation for those who had embraced domestication and I looked upon these “masses” as having given up on their unique greatness (whatever that meant). I would walk by a man gardening or watering his front lawn and I would have to restrain myself from calling him a “sell out.” I would see families moving into beautiful middle and upper class homes and think of these people as mediocrities. Becoming domestic was a threat to my dreams of literary and artistic eccentricity. And as wrong and judgmental as I was about the motivations of those individuals who had embraced domestic comforts, I was not far from correct about domesticities effects upon creativity.

Today I need to clean out the garage, sweep up the pea gravel that has gotten all over the driveway, water my plants in the front yard, sweep the backyard deck and straighten up in the house. Maybe I will do some touch up painting on the walls which have been chipped and marked up. I also need to walk the dogs and unload the dishwasher. Due to my extensive studies in Eastern philosophy I am well aware of how ones outer environment is a direct reflection of their inner environment, and vice versa. I am also aware of how a person’s external environment interacts with their inner life. It is important for me to have everything in my home look curated, cared for, dusted and organized. It is one way that I attain inner peace. However, for those of us who can not afford a housekeeper, maintaining a home that is a direct reflection of an inner life that is balanced, calm, caring and refined requires a continual, almost athletic effort. It leaves little time for making art. Or I should say that being domesticated becomes the art.

I am sure there is extensive information out there on the historical and sociological aspects of human domestication. I wonder if there is as much information out there about what happens to artists, writers, musicians, etc., when they finally become domesticated. Off of the top of my head, I know of few artists, writers and musicians whose works have not become less interesting, potent and innovated after becoming domesticated. I wonder if this becoming comfortable at home business somehow reduces a persons suffering and as a result reduces the quality, ambition and quantity of their artistic output. Why make art once a person finds comfort? I wonder if many artists, writers and musicians who at some point in their life become domesticated are making a kind of Faustian bargain where in exchange for the comforts of home they agree that their art will become their hobby and they will become a bit more ordinary. After all the years of struggle and uncomfortably, for most artists. I would assume that this is probably a fair deal.

Today I also need to clean up my dogs poop, mop the hardwood floors, water some of the potted plants, pick up water for the fish tank, empty various trash cans and sweep the dirt away from the front patio. I may also need to take a trip to IKEA to buy some pillows for an older mid century couch that my wife and I purchased yesterday. I can’t help but think: Am I wasting valuable time? Shouldn’t I be more disciplined and working on a painting and/or writing? If I put as much time into my artistic interests as I do into maintaining my home maybe I would feel better about myself (not that I feel bad about myself)? Maybe I would feel more purposeful? Maybe. The truth is that when I spent almost two decades committed to my art (well committed to the idea of being an artist but not committed to the idea of doing the actual work) I was miserable. I struggled and got little in return for my efforts other than a vague notion that one day all of my toil and poverty would one day pay off. And it has, just not in a way I ever saw coming.

Instead of visiting a bookstore or spending my evenings sitting in a cafe reading, I now prefer to go to Home Depot or Lowes in order to find various things for my home. It is almost as if Home Depot has become my night club. Last night was Saturday evening and I was at Home Depot looking for a new water faucet for my kitchen sink (I like the ones that are steel and are in the shape of a candy cane). On Friday I was at IKEA looking at various linoleum floors to replace the current linoleum floors in my kitchen. Rather than spending hours and hours reading literature at my desk, I now enjoy sitting on my couch or my back deck looking on Craigslist or EBay for deals on Danish modern furniture for my home collection (I have developed a passions for chairs and want to collect as many strangely shaped modern chairs as possible so that one day I can open a chair museum). In my twenties and thirties I wanted to be one of the greatest living American painters and writers. Now in my forties, I am driven to one day open a chair museum. How things change.

I also need to shave today. I also need to go to the market and prepare a lunch for myself to take with me to work tomorrow. If I have time I would like to hook my stereo speakers to the television. I would also like to watch another episode of Breaking Bad. Has being domesticated made me more ordinary?  Has it made me what my twenty something self would of called a sell out or a mediocrity? From a particular perspective, probably so. In many ways there is probably not that much difference between myself and those thousands of other American who love their homes. We are all engaged in similar daily home maintenance routines. But in becoming domesticated I have found an extraordinary well-being and satisfaction that I never imagined I would experience. I have chosen to now spend my days designing, cleaning and maintaining a beloved home rather than pursuing what I now realize for me was a unobtainable dream. I have learned to find satisfaction in everyday, ordinary acts rather than the annoying and constant desire to become something that I am not. My marriage, my dogs and my home have become the canvas upon which I now work.

I will never be comfortable with this idea of being ordinary. However that might not even be true. Our views and belief systems are always changing as we age. Ten years ago I would of never, ever imagined that I would be forty two years of age and happily domesticated. I do know this- if becoming ordinary means feeling comfortable in one’s home, I welcome the ordinary (I think). Now when I go for walks around my neighborhood and I pass by someone gardening or watering in their front yard, I wave, smile and say hello.

The Incomplete Writer

 I struggle to complete things. I am the kind of writer who often gives up just before an ending. I have written numerous incomplete short stories, essays and novels, leaving them for dead right before the end. It is a strange affliction that causes me a great deal of envy towards writers who are able to complete their works. It’s a muscle I lack. In order not to retire certain writings to the dump yard of all my other unfinished works, I have decided to collect below several of my most recent unfinished writings before I forever let them go.

 

So This Is What Grief Feels Like

How does a person’s childhood home live inside of them as an adult? I have just returned home after spending several days visiting my childhood home, where my parents still live. I’m sitting on my couch looking out a window into the backyard. The clock, which hangs on the wall, is making a sound that mimics my heartbeat. Or my heartbeat is mimicking the sound of the clock. My eyes feel slightly swollen from a few short-lived bouts of crying. I miss my childhood home in the same way that a person could miss a pet or a recently lost lifelong friend. I am aware that in my absence my childhood home feels emptier. Quieter. I know that it too is sad that I am gone.

The Beard

One morning he awoke and his beard was gone. There was a note on the pillow beside him, which read:

The Tunnel

A man, who cares about his age, needs to move out of the city, who cares about why. He moves to the suburbs, for reasons that I don’t want to understand. The only real problem here is the tunnel, which divides the suburbs from the city. After several weeks of living in the suburbs, the man, like most men, wants to go visit friends in the city. The suburbs are long, flat and lonely and for more reasons than I am wanting to go into here, the man desperately needs to spend more time in the city. Lets just say his mental health depends on it. Ok? But the problem that I previously mentioned is that he has a terrible fear of going through the tunnel. Maybe he is claustrophobic; I am not a medical professional so it is not for me to make that judgment. All I know is that the man’s inability to go through the tunnel is causing him to become trapped in the suburbs. It’s not a good situation for anyone.

The Insomniac

Five o’clock, Sunday morning, is the quietest time on earth. Everything is still. No one is up- except for the insomniacs.

JTimothy’s mind was a web of noise. Solitude was not bliss. Instead it was an uncomfortable collar that felt too tight around his neck. His feet were like ship anchors dragged along his apartment floor. What use was flossing his teeth when all he did was grind them? The only way that JTimothy could get some semblance of sleep was by putting clean, white tube socks on over his bare feet. And even that was not sleep enough.

Rewind. Three years before. JTimothy slept as much as you and I. A dream filled sleep in the nude. Back in those days the mountains outside his window were still skyrockets filled with opportunity and mystery. They had yet become the claustrophobic walls that trapped him. The washing machine and kitchen table were still inanimate objects. Three years later they would become his best friends and chess partners. The insomnia set in before he consciously realized that his adult life had become intolerable. A constant steady flow of deteriorations, disappointments and humiliating defeats. As is often the case with most diseases, JTimothy’s insomnia knew more about JTimothy than JTimothy knew about himself. His tube socks could attest to this .

JTimothy’s apartment was once an alarmingly beautiful space. It was clean and looked like the kind of space that you could tell the tenant enjoyed taking care of it. From the outside you would never know that inside was a well-curated showroom for mid-century modern furniture. Most of his money from his often-suffocating job went into these objects of good taste. The black Eames chairs in the corner were his favorites. What use are the most stylish and aesthetically pleasing objects when you can’t sleep? The insomniac gradually loses the ability to see beauty.

Fast forward to where this story began. JTimothy in tube socks and yesterday’s clothes. It’s 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning and JTimothy is the only person awake in a sleeping world. Macaroni noodles are boiling on the stove. The kitchen table is already hungry. The washing machine is not yet ready to eat. Just the other day JTimothy had to take the washing machine’s drivers license away from it. The washing machine is currently engaging in a hunger strike against what it feels was an unfair decision to strip it of its autonomy. JTimothy became feed up with the washing machine not being around every time he needed to do his laundry. Ever since the washing machine received its drivers license it had been going out constantly with other washing machines. JTimothy knew that the washing machine had been going to parties and he was concerned that the washing machine would drink and drive. Or even worse- what if it fell in love with a dryer and ran away? He could not admit it but JTimothy was jealous. Deep down he was annoyed that his washing machine was having more fun than he was.

The insomniac can become very possessive. There were times that JTimothy believed that even the mountains belonged to him.

JTimothy paced around his apartment. What had happened to him? He listened to the hot water boiling on the electric stove. JTimothy’s insomnia knew that the reason he could not sleep was

The Driver

The only place that the Driver feels safe and in control is in his car. This is why the Driver drives around and around and around. Day after day.

The Novelist

I know what your thinking. “Forty three years old and he has just written his first novel?” Before you jump to any unfair conclusions with regards to my ambition or will power please allow me to explain. But before I explain allow me to give you this brief list of novelists who made no money from writing before the age of 45: Henry Miller, William Burroughs, Tomas Espedal and I know there are many others but I can not come up with the names now.

If by the end of this short autobiographicalish story you do not think that I deserved to be called a novelist, fair enough. If you still think it is too late for me, that I have reached the expiration date as far as being a legitimate writer is concerned, fair enough again.

You see I have been determined to write a novel since the age of seventeen. No, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start where I am at now. The past is the past even though I understand that the past is as important to a writer as the present is to a Zen Buddhist. So let me begin from right now.

The Bathroom

Waiting in a bathroom stall, after having had an impressively large bowel movement, for a man to finish washing his hands and doing his hair because I am too embarrassed to walk out because of the odor I have created. The man is taking forever.

Walls

I built a small space in my backyard where I can be alone. It’s just one small room- no hallways, no bathrooms, no furniture, no windows. Just six walls made of pinewood and a pillow for sitting. I enter the space through a hatch in the roof.

Bad Bosses

I wish I could invent a device that would make all bad bosses disappear.

The Collector

My wife thinks I have a shopping addiction (even though I do not have enough money to have a shopping addiction). She thinks buying things helps me to feel empowered and in control. It’s a momentary substitute for the general sense of helplessness and lack of control that I feel most of the time, she tells me. I’m not sure I agree with her, even though in the end she is almost always right. However, for the purposes of this autobiographical essay, I will pretend as if she is always, completely wrong.

I don’t see myself as a shopping addict. I think the diagnosis is completely missing the point. Through years of study and exploration, I have developed a sensibility for the finer, more alternative things in life. In the same way that the archeologist has spent years studying so that she or he can identify and collect important objects, I have been refining my ability to

One more:

Chronic Pain (a memoir about a son’s life long struggle with a difficult father)

I was having a difficult time breathing. It felt like something heavy was resting on top of my lungs all night. As I sit up from a restless nights sleep, I struggle to breathe air into my lungs. It feels like trying to pump air into a bicycle tire that is almost full. My wife is still sleeping. She is wrapped up in heavy blankets, like a sausage inside a sourdough bun. I don’t feel rested but it’s 6:20am and I am ready to go.

My wife and I drove for six hours to visit the house were I spent my childhood and grew up into an angry young man. After thirty-five years my parents still live in this aging mansion, which sits on two acres of beautiful Northern California land. The house sits on top of a hill overlooking the affluent country club, which it is apart of. Twenty years ago I remember how upset my father was when the country club association started building larger houses in the oak tree filled hills behind his house. No longer would he be on top of the world- now more successful and wealthier people would be looking down on him.

It’s a cold November morning. Wet leaves cover the damp concrete ground as my wife and I load our suitcases into the back of our financed Prius. I’m too tired and sad to talk. I just want to get this over with as quietly as possible. Once we have loaded up the car with all our stuff we return inside to make sure we have not forgotten anything. As I look around I’m feeling a deep sense of grief. It’s been a difficult weekend visit with my parents and a part of me feels like this may be the last time I will ever return home again. I try to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake my parents. We have already said our goodbyes the night before.

Before retiring to bed last night my father came up to me and in his strange way tried to make amends for the fight he had started the day before. “We should talk on the phone once a week so we can improve our relationship son. I am who I am and I’m not going to change but I want to be your friend,” he said while standing a bit too much in my personal space. I admit, I felt threatened and annoyed. We were standing in a hallway that was filled with a history of my childhood battles with my father. “I don’t need you to be my friend, I need you to be a father,” I replied. “Son I’ve already done the best I could as your father. You’re a grown man now and it’s time to be friends.” I felt slightly confused and uncomfortable, like my father was once again trying to make me agree to something that was good for him but inherently bad for me. He gave me a hug goodnight. I told him to sleep well and with his signature negativity he said, “yeah I’m going to go die.” I knew that indirectly he was trying to imply that our dynamic had worn him out.

I stood at my old bedroom window and looked out into the expansive backyard, where I had spent so much of my lonely and unhappy youth. The same backyard furniture that I sat on as a child was still there and so were all the dangling bushes that I used to sing to while pretending that they were the hands of adoring fans reaching out to touch me. How can one be so sad, angry and unhappy in the midst of such beauty? I thought to myself. Did I even see the beauty when I was growing up? I turn around, turn out the bedroom lights and say to my wife, “Ready to go?” We have a six-hour drive back to LA ahead of us. Before I close the front door behind me, I take one final listen to the sounds inside the house that I love so much. I can hear the subtle sounds of the house settling. I can also hear the hallow sounds that a large house makes when everything inside is still. Upstairs, I can hear my father snoring and I imagine that my mother is laying in bed with her eyes half-open, tears on her cheeks while she listens to me leave.

The Artist’s Way

Just like the car pulled to the side of the road without any gas in it to turn its wheels- I am all out of inspiration. My drive to be creative has got a flat tire. This feels like I imagine pushing a cranky boulder up a hill would feel. Why do it? What is the point? So many people in the world being creative, writing and making art- who needs more? So I feel like I have retired the pen and paint brush. My drive to engage imaginatively with these tools of creative expression has become perverted. I see them sitting there on my desk. I observe them in the same way a sexually aroused man will shamefully stare at a woman through half shut drapes. Just like that man I don’t have the drive to go up and knock on the window and tell the woman what I want. Instead, I stay hidden behind the tree. So much desire but little will to act.

It is a strange place for me to be in. It is as if I have lost my creative drive in the same way an older man may lose the ability to have an erection. My hope is that I have only misplaced it. For most of my adult life my creative drive has been right there at my finger tips, determined to not just make something but also determined to make history. It has forced me to sit down at my desk and create. It has demanded that I spend my afternoons and evenings doing so. But now that demand has all but abated. It feels as if my creative drive has retired. My will to make great art, to write profound literature has gone limp. I never really saw this day coming. I had always heard how you can’t force the creative. How you have to wait for it in the same way that you would wait patiently for the fermenting of wine. I took great consolation and satisfaction in the fact that this did not apply to me.

My fear is that it is now gone. My fear is that domestic bliss has chased it away. My fear is that the same thing that happened to Hemingway is happening to me. My fear is that the demands of growing older and having a profession have corrupted the freedom, vision, struggle, uncertainty and commitment that is need to sustain a creative life. My fear is that the pressures and expectations of the work obsessed society in which I live has beaten the dreamer out of me.

So what do I do? Learn to wait? I believe in visions and prayers so I use these modalities to strike a match in the dark. To seduce creativity back into my finger tips. To coerce the drive to create literature and art back into my will.

In the same way that I have to be forced onto a dance floor, I now have to be forced to create. This makes it hard because there is no one pulling me towards the paintbrush or pen. People do not care half as much about me being creative as they do about me getting on that dance floor. I don’t blame them. It is all me, myself and I. I am told and to an extent believe that I define the life that I live. For now maybe that definition needs to include a lack of creative ingenuity. An absence of art shows, publications, blog posts and day after day spent blissfully engaged in the creative process.

Just as if I was to go to my bank and withdraw $5,000 dollars I would be told that the money is not there, the same seems to be happening to me when I want to write or make art. I am turned away. The will towards action is not there. So instead I play with my dog, I clean my house, I read, I go grudgingly to work, I grow older, I hang out on ebay, I escape through music, I walk, I go on fun adventures with my beautiful wife, I eat (a lot), I garden, I remember, I practice gratitude/acceptance, I sit for long periods staring out windows and I go about my life sometimes painfully aware of what is no longer there.

You Are Who You Pretend To Be?

“Life,” said Emerson, “consists in what a man is thinking all day.”

A year ago someone said something to me that changed the way I directed my life. At the time I was depressed, forlorn and feeling like all of my dreams had been sucked away through the vacuüm of job, rent and making a living. Maybe I was hopeless or maybe I was feeling what everyman feels when they reach a point in their life when they must realize their dreams are not coming true. I felt like I was carrying a dead baby around with me in my arms and the weight of the planets above was pushing down upon my shoulders. Then one of the most vital realizations of my life took place during the time it took my friend to speak a single sentence. “You are who you pretend to be,” she said to me without realizing the effect of her words. By the time she had reached the end of the sentence- I was already filled with a new perspective.

“Of course,” I thought. “How could I be so dumb? Day in and day out walking around like a man who has lost everything that he values most. Bemoaning my job, my economic situation as if I was worse off than anyone on earth. I was feeling like a failure because that is who I was pretending to be. Duh. All this morbid dressing that I walked around in was my own doing. I was dressing myself into looking like the man I was so unhappy being!” Maybe it would be an exaggeration to say that this personal realization of mine was just as significant as Sir Isaac Newton’s falling apple insight or the Buddha’s epiphany under the bodhi tree- but for myself personally, this realization was as important.

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a great writer. Maybe great is an overstatement but I have wanted to be well-known enough so that I could write and receive economic recognition for it. Respect from my peers would be a nice side dish, recognition from strangers when I go out to eat would be a good dessert- but the ability to no longer have to go to some subordinating, energy dissolving job would be the main course paid for by my success as a writer.  The tragic irony of my situation is that the more I long to be a great writer the less I write. Often sitting at a desk, writing for five or six hours a day sounds just as painful as being hung upside down by chains wrapped around my ankles. I love the idea of writing but I disdain the act of writing. It hurts and I most always would rather ride my bike in the rain, go for a walk, clean my house or read a book than write. So I avoid writing better than I avoid looking for a job or making love to my wife.  I run from writing like a cat runs from a screaming child. I pray everyday that God, or Buddha, or Muhammad or some supernatural being will inculcate into my veins the energy, passion and dedication that I will need to someday seriously write.

I have written hundreds of short stories in my lifetime but a great writer is not made of short works. The great writer is a collection of longer works so engaging that often times his or her books refuse to stay upon the shelf. Putting my short stories together into a completed collection, feels as difficult to me as I imagine rolling a bolder up a steep hill would be. I would rather drink, eat, sleep or listen to the radio. So these short stories rest in random folders, separated like distant lovers who constantly remind me that I need to get serious, toughen up and some day soon bring them back together. However, I am at a point in my long literary struggle where I no longer care so much about being great. I have resigned myself to the fact that I may never make a living as a writer and for the first time in my life that is starting to feel okay. Not having the burden of numerous novels that I must write following me around like gnats- I am starting to feel like I can breathe again. I am no longer in competition with Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett or Jack Kerouac as I once was. Now I can enjoy their books with delight and not the typical gnawing desire to write. But I would be lying if I told you this was really true.

Much to my wife, in-laws and parents chagrin or consternation I have taken on the wise words of my friend in the same way that a General would wear his metals of honor on his chest or a Doctor would wear her stethoscope around her neck. It has not been difficult for me to convince myself that “I am a great writer walking among ordinary mortals.” Even though I rarely write- I see myself as a great writer. It may be true that I am yet to be discovered by anyone else other than myself- but I am as certain about being a great writer as I am about being unemployed and broke. Even though others are unaware of the paragraphs that will be written following my name in future dictionaries and encyclopedias and the collections of my blog entries that will sit on Barnes and Nobles book shelves or be pirated in Egypt- I am content enough pretending that all this will one day occur. Someday, sometime.

It is my daily, hourly struggle to continue on in the eyes of those who see me from day to day. My wife, mother, landlord, potential employer and the police officer who gave me a ticket the other day. I know what they are saying when they look at me: “Sure you like to write, it is your hobby and you are even a good writer, but you are almost a forty-year-old married man and you need to get a stable job, a career so that you can be independent, be a provider and start a family of your own.” I see these thoughts floating around in their minds when they listen to me talk about the books that I will one day write. It always triggers one of the biggest quagmires in my life. Do I continue to be who I am pretending to be or do I just embrace what others tell me I should do with my life? Do I trust that what my friend told me is a fundamental law of the universe or do I wake up from the dream? So far- I prefer the dream.

The Booky.

There are more books that I want to read than I can stand to think about. A mass graveyard of books waiting for me to resurrect them. I am so over whelmed by the amount of books that I want and need to read-that I have difficulty reading through one book from cover to cover. Half way through a book, I suffer such anticipatory anxiety by the thought of what book I will read next- that I loose interest in the book I am reading. Occasionally a work of fiction (which is all I read) will take a hold of me and I will complete the book (below I will cite the twenty books that have done this to me). In these rare and holly circumstances the book becomes an altar, a ritual and a prayer that I carry with me through out the day. I take the book with me wherever I go, like a doctor carrying his medicine bag. When I am finished reading the book a sadness comes over me because I know have to leave a part of me behind. There is a small death, a short grieving process and then like a true Booky I set off to the bookstore in search of another book.

I resent work because it keeps me away from my true work- which is reading. I have always said that the worst job to have in a capitalist society is that of a reader (this is why some of the most unhappy people are those who think that their happiness depends upon time that they get to spend reading). You spend a lot of time working/reading but are not payed for the work you do (this is why most Bookies are well educated and poor). And make no mistake, reading good literature is work- it requires complete attention, dedication and time.

As a Booky I also resent anything that resembles responsibility because it swallows up time that could be spent between the pages of a book (this is why a lot of Bookies avoid having children and friends). A true Booky shares an apartment, where the rent is to high (I say apartment because a true bookie could not afford a house), filled with half read and unread books and a stack of books by a reading chair that they are currently attempting to read (but will most likely never finish). As a Booky I spend a lot of time wishing that checks made out to me, would just show up in my mailbox. This way I could avoid the dreaded thing often referred to as “the job.” I also spend a good amount of time in bookstores but I do not always walk out with a book in hand. The book that I buy must be thought about, contemplated- because it has to be intriguing enough to take me away from the book that I am currently reading. Being a Booky is not without its downsides, life is hard for a Booky- but a true Booky spends the majority of their time lost within the pages of a book so that they do not have to think about the downsides.

I am fortunate to live in the San Fransisco Bay Area because there are a plethora of independent bookstores that I can meander around in. For me, the act of entering a bookstore is what I imagine entering a Church or a Mosque would be like for some. It is like entering a realm of endless possibilities. What I may stumble upon could forever change my perception of life- and this possibility is the high that keeps me in a kind of dedicated, hyper aroused pursuit.

My two favorite bookstores- City Lights in San Fransisco (stomping ground of Beat Writers and Poets which is owned by Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and Moe’s in Berkeley are universes unto themselves (that have swallowed the large majority of my income). Every time I enter these bookstores I am carried away into a different time and space. I am possessed by a holly ghost. My worries and fears leave me. The burdens of my life let me go. I am at one with myself and as excited to find a new book as a beggar is to find God. I sometimes catch myself drooling over my chin as I search the isles of books looking for a title that will change my life. I spend hours in the endless, solitary investigations (this is why no one who knows me will go into a bookstore with me) until my back and neck hurts and it is time to go home.

Most often I walk out of the bookstore empty handed, dismayed by my inability to find a book worth reading. In these situations a small depression comes over me and I usually end up drinking too much booze to wash away the despair. But every once in a small while I will find the book. On these rare life affirming occasions it is a customary ritual for me to leave the bookstore with a new book in hand and go to the nearest liquor store where I purchase a cigar. I then find a comfortable lit spot to sit someplace along the street and smoke my cigar like a man who just been given second shot at life.

Twenty Books That Have Taken Hold Of Me From Cover To Cover (in no special order):

1- The Trial/Franz Kafka

2- The Looser/Thomas Bernhard

3- Ulysses/James Joyce

4- Women/Charles Burkowski

5- The Stranger/ Albert Camus

6- The Dharma Bums/Jack Kerouac

7- The Noodle Maker/ Ma Jian

8- Hard Boiled Wonder Land And The End Of The World/ Haruki Murakami

9- Crime And Punishment/Brothers Karamazov/ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

1o- To The Light House/ Virginia Wolf

11- The Key/ Junichiro Tanizaki

12- The Satanic Versus/ Salman Rushdie

13- The Diving Bell And The Butterfly/ Jean- Dominique Bauby

14- Dance, Dance, Dance/ Haruki Murakami

15- Siddhartha/ Herman Hesse

16- Too Loud A Solitude/ Bohumil Hrabal

17- Journey To The End Of Night/ Louis-Ferdinand Celine

18- The Death Of Ivan Illiych/ Leo Tolstoy

19- The New York Trilogy/ Paul Auster

20- The Woodcutters/ Thomas Bernhard

oh and

21) Three Novels- Malloy/ Malone Dies/ The Unnamable/ Samuel Beckett

An Invitation To A Beheading.

I used to love sitting alone in a chair and reading a good book. Nothing brought me greater pleasure. I would read a novel a day while enjoying the background sounds of birds chirping and cats meowing. Nothing was as effective in diminishing my stress and anxiety as a good book. No matter how bad the conditions of the world or my life- the printed words on a page could lift me out from my psychological squalor and re-plant me in a space of wonderment. I look back upon these times with utter envy. I even become emotionally enraged towards the man I was in my twenties. I am not only jealous of the large chunks of time that he had to drift of into the pursuit of knowledge but I am furious that it has all gone away.

Now I cannot read a book without having to get up and do something after twenty minutes. I become aggravated, nervous and I am distracted by these demons that seem to be hovering over me and disrupting my concentration. My thoughts begin to race and I struggle to stay focused upon what ever story or non-fiction work I have chosen to read. But no sooner than I can get past a few pages is there the loud voices of little demons that whisper scary things into my ears and poke sharp objects into my chest making me fearful what might happen next. I try to tune them out and push them away with positive visualizations or a smile- but they are ferocious and do not easily relent.

I know nothing good lasts forever, but there are still so many books left that I want to read. I want to return to that time when I could read peacefully for hours, day upon day- without the little brats whispering in my ear: “is your heart beating irregularly?” or “shouldn’t you be doing something more constructive.” Some times these little demons keep shouting things at me like “watch out, watch out- your head might explode!!” or “run, run, run for your life…death is coming, ha ha!!” My own inner monologue is not loud enough to silence these intruding voices and rather than continuing to read I give up and go do something else.

I have not been able to read a book from front to back for months. These little intrusive demons are getting the best of me. They also sneak into my head when I go for walks and drive my car. If I am not constantly reciting a mantra in my mind or singing a song- they will sneak into my silence and cause me great anxiety and grief. The little demons are wearing me down, forcing me to drink more wine and taking me away from the one thing that has always been of great importance to me- my intellectual life.

Without my practice of diligent daily reading my intellectual acumen has become as watered down as a cheap cocktail. I have not been able to think or write upon the great themes of philosophical dialectics or cultural theory like I had once planned upon doing. I have not been able to write great novels that compare with the best of works by Tolstoy, Kafka or Bernhard. I have not been able to go into my career as an honorable college professor who specializes in Ontology and Samuel Beckett. Rather- to defend myself against these little demons and attempt to save my own life I have had to go towards the New Age. I have had to practice meditation, do Yoga, recite mantras and start wearing beads and stones to defend myself against negative energy. I have had to seek out healers and been told by many that I must get out of my mind and start to become more grounded in my body. The very thing that I put so much work into cultivating has become my demise. My intellect has become the very portal from which these demons can access my nervous brain causing me such scary afflictions as to make me consider taking medication. These voices and disruptions get louder and louder every day- if it continues I may send out invitations to my own beheading.

photograph by Keith Purdy.

Electromagnetic Freak #3.

Last night was one of the more tempestuous nights in my life. The past week my EMRSD (electromagnetic radiation sensitivity disorder) has been very manageable. I experienced only small amounts of symptoms which seemed to bother me little. I was not hassled by the zapping and palpitating sensations nor was my body chronically filled with a buzzing vibration. The feelings of impending doom were lessened and I was beginning to posses the hope that I may possibly have the chance to live a normal life free from EMRSD.

Despite the fact that I have been keeping my wireless exposure to a minimum (I no longer carry a cell phone, I avoid areas where there is a lot of wireless or cellular activity and I limit my internet use to one hour a day) and maintaining some control over my stress and fatigue- last evening all of my symptoms returned like a force of nature. I drank a Belgium beer before calling it a night- despite alcohol being a main cause of palpitations, I have found that the booze helps me sleep. Outside it was raining and the cold air coming through my open window felt dry and electric. Little did I know that the heavens were soon to release a thunder storm, the likes of which I had not lived through before. As I was about to drift off to sleep I was zapped awake by an electrical sensation which caused my heart to race and beat irregularly. I was able to calm myself down enough so that I could fall back into the wonderful world of sleep. But sure enough I was zapped awake again with what felt like an electrical discharge to my brain and heart. My heart raced and flipped flopped like a car engine that was stuttering to a start. My fear and frustration got the best of me, so I climbed out of bed with a heavy heart and went to the kitchen for water (which I drink a lot of because I recently read that tap water in San Fransisco and the surrounding bay area contains trace amounts of sex hormones and anti-depressants both of which I need).

A flash of bright light startled me as I was drinking a glass of water over the sink. This minor shock again caused my heart to race and my mind to unleash scary images of me dropping dead on the kitchen floor. Then there was a loud roar of thunder as if the heavens above were trying to tell me to stop thinking such horrible thoughts. I did some deep breathing exercises in my dark living room which smells like a combination of cat piss and bleach. I burned some sage and did a Yoga pose but the smell sent me back to bed (I am convinced that the sour smell is from an undetected gas leak in my home which is contributing to the symptoms from my EMRSD).

My wife was snoring away soundly in her sleep as I struggled to remain amongst the living. I took deep breaths and remained lying upon my back as I listened to the sounds of thunder and rain that sent my sensitive heart into occasional spasms of fright. “Why am I so sensitive,” I kept repeating over and over to myself as I tossed and turned trying to find a comfortable spot on the mattress. I could feel my heart beating in my ears and pulsation all around my neck and arms. “Why has God forsaken me!!,” I wanted to cry out into the night but instead I tried to calmly reduce my anxiety by repeating a mantra over and over in my fear filled head. As I began to drop off into slumber I experienced some minor zaps and a few thunderous shocks but nothing that threw my heart into a spasmodic sprint. Eventually I was able, after hours of struggle, to join my wife in the world of silent slumber.

This morning I awoke with the relief of one who has just survived a life or death situation. I was overcome with a joy to still be living. Everything looked as if I was seeing it for the first time. After my usual breakfast of yogurt and bread I did some research on the Internet about electromagnetic radiation sensitivity disorder. My concern was that years and years of weekly zapping was weakening my heart. I found information that reassured my anxious mind but also I found a strange article that unsettled it. It was about a woman who suffered from the same ailment as I. Not only was she sensitive to wireless and cellular technology but her condition was aggravated by the weather- especially thunderstorms. During such storms she experienced terrible zappings, palpitations, irregular heartbeats and a racing heart beat that normally sent her to emergency rooms in a state of fright. I suppose I feel some relief in knowing that I am not alone, but today I have been depressed. Knowing now that my EMRSD can be aggravated by the weather has made me feel as if there is no escape. If it is not one thing it is another.

Dinner With My Wife.

I had a miserable dinner with my wife tonight. We fight like addicts, unable to relate in any other way. Night after night another argument occurs as randomly as changing weather. An inability to relate keeps us separate and keeps my heart sore. Tonight I expressed some feelings that I have about my job. I expressed apprehension about working as an English Teacher because of the low pay, my inability to spell, my inability to grasp the rules of grammar and my disdain for Shakespeare and The Great Gatsby (which I have to teach). I told her that I felt like what I had to do to work as a Teacher was standardize my mind and teach things that the state mandates that I teach despite the fact that I find it all terribly uninteresting and irrelevant to life. Lately I have been experiencing a lot of doubt about my work as a High School Teacher. Is this what I really want to do with my life? Long hours, little pay and not much glamor or reward? I expressed these sentiments and more- and the reaction I recieved from my wife pissed me off.

Love is based upon the ability to connect. If there is only a remainder of love than connection will be difficult. One firm symptom of a fading relationship is the inability to connect- which means dissolving love. The moment my wife started to fire back at me I felt my blood pressure raise. My heart skipped beats and I drank more wine. I became angrier by the minute. “We all have to do things that we do not agree with in our work…this is a realistic part of the society which we live in,” she began. “You just need to commit to something and stick with it. I believe in you and I think you have great potential as a Teacher, but your excuses and apprehension piss me off.” Her voice went up, “I know that you want to be a Writer and make a living that way but you have not done it and frankly that is not the way the world works. You are a great great Writer Randall, but you need to really start thinking about how you are going to make a living. If you are going to write novels, great- but you have not yet, and you are almost 37 years old. You need to get it together and figure out what you are going to do. If you do not want to teach than you need to come up with a game plan really quickly!” “But Kurt Vonnegut worked as a car salesman all through his forties,” I replied. “You are not Kurt Vonnegut.”

My blood began to boil. I began mumbling “bitch” under my breath. I could feel my heart rapidly beating and then the words came rushing out of my lungs. “Your attitude is not helping my confusion,” I began- “I am just trying to talk to you about how I feel. This is not about you and how you feel. I feel like I always need to keep the truth of my feelings repressed because if I open up to you and talk to you about what I am really feeling you get angry or mean. You can not handle the truth and it pisses me off!!” My wife began to roll a cigarette, “I am just so tired of your lack of clarity, your inability to stick with something and make something of your life!!” “Bitch,” snuck out of my mouth. I was feeling unheard and unappreciated (I wanted to mention the years and years that I have spent writing short stories and making paintings. I wanted to tell her that my stories and paintings will be appreciated by the masses long after I am dead. I wanted to remind her of the legend that she was sitting across from, but I slandered her instead). I do not often call people names but I could not help expressing the sentiment. “What did you call me, why don’t you call me that to my face,” she said as I excused myself from the dinner table. I came into my studio and tried to get control of my rage.

For the past twenty years I have been trying to figure out what to do with my life. I have written many short stories, thought a lot about writing plays and novels and painted many paintings but every other pursuit in my life has failed to keep my interest. I have worked as a Waiter, Shoe Salesman, Mortician, Ticket Salesperson, Teacher, Tutor, Pizza Maker, Dog Walker and Administrative Assistant. I am as dis-interested in a career as my cat is in hanging out with dogs. I am a man alone on an island fighting his own cause, waiting for great things to happen while swimming through the sea of society with barley enough money to make it through the day. If only I could figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, then maybe my wife and I would get along and my heart would stop hurting so much.

Tennis Balls.

“Why don’t you go hit some tennis balls,” my father said to me in response to all the stress I have been under. I had not played tennis in years and the idea of hitting a tennis ball sounded appealing. “Go to the club and hit against the backboard, or hit with the tennis pro if you want, I’ll pay for it,” my father said. I decided to take him up on his suggestion, and dressed in some old sweat pants and a brown Jimmy Hendrix t-shirt, borrowed my wife’s tennis racket and went off to play tennis.

It had been years since I had played against this back board. As a kid I was here almost every day. I felt tight and stiff. I have grown older than my years (36) and my body was unhappy about being forced into these strange postures. However, after a few minutes of warming up and stretching- my game came back to me. I hit the tennis ball just like the pro I used to be. My backhand was a little rusty but my forehand stroke was still in top condition. I bent my knees and released all of my stress with each swing. The sun warmed my body as I slowly began to forget about all my worries and just concentrated upon hitting the tennis ball.

I was unpleasantly greeted by a middle aged man in a Nike sweat suit wearing a yellow Nike hat upon his head. He looked very serious. “Excuse me,” he said with an official intonation in his voice- “Are you a member of this tennis club?” My first inclination was to be offended. I had grown up playing tennis on these courts and was here long before he had ever come around. This was my turf. I took a deep breath and said “yes, in fact I am.” “May I have your club number,”he said. “Why do you ask,” I said with some hint of animosity in my voice. “Because I have never seen you around before, and quite frankly you do not look like the average club member,” he said implying that this was a prestigious tennis club and I did not look like one who had any money in the bank. “Since I am the tennis pro here at Round Hill Country Club, it is my duty to keep these courts safe.” I felt the anger rise up in my body which was covered in a noon time sweat. Just because I had long hair, a beard and was not wearing the appropriate tennis gear certainly did not make me a threat. Granted I LOOKED OUT OF PLACE, BUT HIS ACCUSATION THAT I MAY BE SOME KIND OF THREAT WAS SIMPLY OFFENSIVE.

After a few minutes of struggle and argument he threatened to kick me off the court if I did not give some proof of my identity or club number. “How dare you question my legitimacy,” I continued on, “you have no idea the implications of your mis- judgment. You are profiling me!!” “Just give me your club number sir,” he said with a hint of legality in his voice. I told him I did not know my club number (my father would not give me the number because he was afraid that I would use it to buy booze and food at the country club bar) but I gave him my last name.

He stopped to think for a moment and then he asked me what my mothers name was. When I told him his whole demeanor changed, as if a light had gone off in his head. I went from being a potential terrorist to the son of a club member. He apologized for his interrogation of me but said again that it was his job to make sure these courts were safe. He then asked me if my name was Randall. When I told him it was he said, “your mother always talks about you and tells me what a great tennis player you are.” “Oh,” I said without interest- wanting him to just go away so I could resume my game with the back board. There was a moment of awkward silence between us and then he said to me before leaving, “can I offer you a complementary can of new tennis balls as an apology?” Of course I said- “don’t worry about it.”

The End.

An Introduction To The Complete And Edible Works Of Shmear

Every word I write you can eat. The point of my published works has always been to appease my readers appetites. Ever since I was young, I have wanted to create books that could be eaten. As a child I could always be found snacking upon the covers of books from my fathers collection. I would chew on Shakespeare, Milton and Emily Dickinson until I was found and given a terrible scolding for doing so. I longed to eat books up until my sixteenth birthday when I finally decided to create and edible work of my own. When I told others of my idea, I was thought of as a fool. “Oh Smear,” people would say, “such a foolish young dreamer.” Despite the antagonizing criticisms- I continued to pursue my invention with the dedication of a fiend. I wrote for hours a day, sometimes skipping out on meals until I finally had in my hand the finished manuscript of what was the first edible book ever created.

I ate my first book. This was the problem. When my parents had asked me about the book that I had spent years and years writing all I could tell them that it was gone. When I had told them that I ate it they looked upon me as a young man who had lost his mind. I was twenty two at the time and was subjected to all forms of psychological examination. I was even subjugated to the confines of a hospital for many weeks for telling a psychiatrist about my invention. “So what was this edible book about,” the psychiatrist asked me. “It is about all the desires of a young man wrapped up into edible pages of a book. The story is told through a narrator who is a young runaway who has left the confines of his comfortable home to seek out authentic experiences. He falls into all forms of disreputable vice and at the end after returning home, in a fit of furry he kills his father and has sex with his mother.” “Ah I see, so we are suffering from a demented form of the Oedipal complex are we not?” All I could do was look into the eyes of the man who wanted to convict me and say, ” I only wanted to eat the story of youth.”

After weeks secluded away in a psychiatric hospital and months spent examined by various forms of analyst and therapist I was deemed to be suffering from a form of hyper-intelligence. The prescription for my cure was that I should be kept away from all books and writing. I was kept for months in my bed with my hands and feet bound to my bed. “It is for your own good Shmear,” my mother would remind me each day as she brought me food. I could see the tears welling up in hear eyes as she untied one of my hands from the bedpost. “If we do not keep you bound we know that you will read, write and eventually loose your mind. This is for your own good,” she constantly tried to remind me.

After months of being bound to my bed I was able to break free from the shackles that not only enslaved my body but also my mind. I packed a bag and left for good the home that I had been brought up in. With little money and no destination in mind I set out on foot as far as my feet would allow me to wander. Through rural villages and small towns I made my way until I found myself in a large city called Vice. There I stayed for many years, working as a dish washer by day and writing my edible works at night. When I was done with my writing for the night I would wonder the streets of Vice, committing thousands of sins in my mind until sleep would overwhelm me and I would be forced to wonder home to my small studio on Transgression Street.

I completed my second book when I had just turned twenty six. It was a longer book that had taken me years to create, but the words were sweet and the story filling. I found a Baker in town who told me that for a cut of the eventual profit he could recreate my edible book one hundred times. This would allow me enough baked copies of my edible works to take around to various publishers for them to try. The Baker and I decided to entitle my second book A Symposium of Edible Words, so that the reader immediately understood that this book was indeed to be eaten.

After dropping “the Symposium” off to dozens of publishers, all of whom worked in the city of Vice- all I could do was wait in anticipation. I drank away the time and spent hours sitting in silent meditation. I thought of numerous ideas for forthcoming books and since I was low on cash I ate the remaining stock of my edible books. Weeks passed without notice and then the letters started pouring in. “Dear Shmear, this is the best book I have ever eaten,” “your words were so satisfying to my mind and gut,” “I have yet to experience such a delight like reading your book and then eating it!!” were some of the comments that came pouring in through my small rusty mailbox. I struck a deal with a publisher who wanted ten edible books in ten years for a price that I could never have imagined earning. That evening the Baker and I celebrated in a den of iniquity- debasing ourselves in every drunken way imaginable.

It gives me great pleasure to be writing this introduction fifty years later. I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams that I would be writing the introduction to the Complete and Edible Works Of Shmear. My intention was never for fame and riches but rather to write words that could be of some significant nutritional value to my readers. I wanted my readers to be able to eat words that would expand their imaginations and support them in a life of creativity and wonderment. Upon completing my first book there was no greater pleasure that I had experienced than eating it. I wanted readers to experience this same pleasure when they were done reading my books. To be able to eat the words and pages that had been stuck in their minds. To be able to eat a text with the greatest pleasure- this was my only goal. After fifty some years of writing and eating edible books, it is my greatest feeling of accomplishment to know that I have filled the hungry stomachs of readers around the world with my delectable words.