Monday, November 29 (cont'd)

I went to The Red Bar on Sunday.

Brenda stayed at home to rest up.

Dread Clampitt played in Pensacola, until midnight, Saturday night. Got home to Grayton Beach at 3:00 a.m. Up to play from noon to 3:00 p.m. Sunday.

Suzette and Michelle showed up at 1:00 p.m., at the end of the first set, in the clothes they went to bed in, in Pensacola, Saturday night.

Dread Clampitt played a new song by Balder, then a new song Justin had written, then Duke Bardwell sang Butch Hornsby's "Dirt Dauber Blues, which ends with the line, "My life is mud."

Hornsby just died.

Duke gave me a Life & Times rough studio mix CD of Hornsby songs, with various musicians backing him.

I'll make a tape of it to listen to, driving to work and back.

Dirt Dauber Blues might make a good name for a booklet for the liner notes for Dread Clampitt's next CD.

Dirt dauber nests were used in folk medicine.

Dirt daubers are all exoskeleton and no backbone.

I left The Red Bar after the first set.

Michelle asked me why I was leaving.

I said I'd started writing a new book and it was kicking my ass.

She said, "But you'll miss what's happening here."

I said, "In Heart Beat, Jack Kerouac is in a latrine on the ground floor of a building in Mexico City. William S. Burroughs' apartment was on the second floor.

"A guy came down to take a leak. You can imagine what the place smelled like. Kerouac was sitting in the dirt with his back against an adobe wall, writing in a notebook.

"The guy said, `Man, there's some good shit up there,' meaning dope.

"Kerouac said, `There's some good shit down here, too,' meaning his writing."

Q: Did you really say that to Michelle?

A: No, but I thought it, after I got in the car.

I had to get in the car. To think.

I had to get away from music, passive conversation, external stimulation. Pretty women.

A writer needs solitude. Privacy.

An unpeopled void, to retreat to.

Q: It must be hell having to write and work full-time.

A: And be a social being, during the holidays.

Visit with family, friends.

Help clean up in the kitchen.

Q: Bukowski wrote a story called "You Can't Write a Love Story," in which whatever woman he was with accused him of being a stick in the mud. No fun. All he wanted to do was sit around in his nicotine-stained shorts, drink beer, and write.

And he couldn't write a love story.

A: That's all anybody with any sense wants to do.

What's wrong with that?

That's all I want to do.

From: Jack Saunders
To: Paperwight
Subj: Three stories.

One of the political blogs I read linked to you during the Bush-Kerry debates when you said Dred Scott was right-wing code for pro-life.

It was curious to see the next day that was on Slate, not from you, directly, but from the A-list blogger who linked to you.

I bookmarked your site and started reading it. It's one of my favorites.

This weekend an electronic magazine publisher called me and asked me to send him three short satirical pieces (~500 words). I sent him three columns.

They are at November 26 (cont'd).

He said they weren't funny enough, or could be funnier, and asked me to rewrite them. He also said I was holding back. I needed to get at the truth.

I wasn't sure what he meant by that until I went to his web site and learned that "vile Jews" were behind Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Anyhow, for columns that aren't funny enough, and hold back, I thought you might enjoy them.

I have to go to work tomorrow.

It's Sunday night.

I usually write a day ahead.

I got a lot done this weekend.

When Owen comes in off the road he calls it re-entry.

He has to come up slow, or he'll get the bends.

I am like a coelacanth.

When they bring me up my swim bladder pooches my eyes out.

I don't have any trouble getting started after I've been interrupted. I have trouble shutting it off, once I get started.

Fairly busy week next week.

Anyhow, I got moving on "Novel."

I'm thinking about it now. How happy I was to get a job. How badly it ended.

About how I felt done wrong, and guilty about bringing my own punishment down on my head, at the same time.

It can't be both.

And yet, it was.