40-Year Run (cont’d)(9)
SWIMMING
IN THE AT-RISK POOL: FOUR SIDE TRIPS
WITH ART BREW, REPORT WRITER.
September. In “Family Reunion,”
Brew and Brenda and Balder fly to
NEW
PHYSICAL YEAR: WRITING THE MEMOIR OF
SANGFROID, PEACE, AND CONTENTMENT.
When Brenda, who sold her trailer in Wewahitchka, Florida, quit her job
at Gulf Correctional Institution, where she maintained the computers, and moved
into Brew's apartment in Tucker, Georgia, to be near Balder, who's going to
Georgia Tech, and Owen, who lives with Jeannie, in Athens, finds a job as
Telecommunications Project Manager, rolling out hardware and software upgrades
to branch offices for a cable television company, and she and Brew start
looking for a house to buy, in the Atlanta area, Art Brew realizes he is not a
Florida writer anymore, he is a Georgia writer.
He starts reminiscing about his association with the state, as student,
historic archeologist, technical writer, and small press publisher (Garage Band
Books). He makes weekend side trips to a
bluegrass festival in Macon, swinging through Culloden and Yatesville, where
his father practice-preached when he was in the 8th grade, possibly to Young
Harris, where he was permanently expelled from school, in the 11th grade, and
Paradise Garden, where he discovered the twisted seppent motif on a concrete
tumulus, depending on how far behind he is on the writing, from staying kept-up
at his day job at the fiber optic cable factory writing operation and
maintenance manuals. He stops drinking
coffee. He sees that SWIMMING IN THE
AT-RISK POOL and NEW PHYSICAL YEAR combine with a third book to form the series
Georgia Writer--the first series of Gross:
A Book a Month for 144 Books.
Brenda gets on the Internet and gets cable TV installed in her room
upstairs. Brew's computer dies. He buys a new one. He gives Balder the first year's tuition, at
Georgia Tech, which he has saved, at work, since Balder got out of the Marines
Corps, a year ago. I read Sleeping with Soldiers, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man,
and True Colors: The Real Life of the Art World. The factory has the best month it has ever
had, in September. New orders are
rolling in, giving us a strong start for FQ1 2000. The first fiscal quarter. Brew goes final on two of his books, and gets
them on the web, before a quality audit.
Brew and Brenda drive to Young Harris, to see the leaves change. Brenda flies to
WORD
MECHANIC: WRITING THE HOW-TO WRITER’S
GUIDE. Howard Finster says
there's no such thing as an outsider artist.
There are no outsider farmers, no outsider mechanics. Just farmers.
Just mechanics. Thoreau says go
ahead and have your dream. Then put the
foundation under it. Tor House, Wolf
House, the Gillis Brothers House of Charm and BP Station. The James Thurber drawing of a house with a
woman on the roof, a black insatiable maw, waiting to devour the man. The working stiff, teetering on the balance
beam at his day job. Owen and Jeannie,
and Balder, come to supper. Owen brings
a mess of bream "about the size of your hand." Brew has made a seafood gumbo. We get a free Mexican dinner and a mariachi
band in the company cafeteria for breaking production quotas last fiscal year. Next year's quotas are increased. Little red Quotations from the Chairman are waved. The wild ducks honk. (Wild Ducks think "out of the
box." Wild Duck is a title. The
chairman may appoint Wild Ducks, from time to time, to recognize achievement. Brew is not a Wild Duck. He is a Dead Duck. An old fart telling stories on the Dead
Pecker Bench.) Brew receives his
Glori-Anne Gilbert Fan Club kit, a T-shirt, a video, a color glossy still
photograph, a refrigerator magnet, a ball point pen, and a laminated ID card
with his VIP number on it. He makes up a
flier of I Only Read It for the Ads
in an edition of ten copies, and sends it to Dian Hanson, Leg Show magazine, and Michael Skube, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Brew adds Brenda to his health and dental insurance, at work. Brenda and Balder go to a bluegrass festival
in
SILENCE. My ambivalence about coming out of the
closet. Consequences of doing so, in the
past. That is, it's not an irrational
fear. As I have proven,
empirically. SILENCE takes the bit in
its teeth and bolts, as they do. I
daydream about serializing it, online.
Start pitching the idea to publishers.
A book-a-month club, written by-one-man. Think of the drama of it. The drama of it. Daily typewriting lives! How I got from where I was to where I am,
just turning into what you read right here.
I quit drinking coffee and go on a diet.
Walk after supper. Vow to apply
myself at work, where deadlines loom. I
read ’Tis, by Frank McCourt. Taint. The perineum:
taint a pussy and it ain’t an asshole.
Too
EXILE. Having to move, in search of work. From
CUNNING. Acting straight enough to get and hold a
job. Again and again, as my true nature
was revealed. Rose up, like a rising
gorge. From subterranean springs,
unbidden and unstanchable. Collect poems
about Potter into a pamphlet, Potter’s
Ashes. Then write a second pamphlet,
Taint.
Make 50 copies of each one.
We drive to Parker New Year’s Day, to scatter Potter’s ashes from the
Friendship. A pick-in at Janice’s
afterwards. Finish CUNNING early. It is short.
But some of it is poems, which take up more pages. Quit drinking coffee, go on a diet, walk
after supper. Get caught up on my books
at work. Balder starts classes at
Georgia Tech. “Scenes From the Cube
Maze” and “Imagining the Bad Reviews” add themselves on. Run them off as pamphlets. Finish CUNNING
GRIPING, TESTIMONY, OR CONFESSIONS. Change title of CRANK-LETTRES to BREAKTHROUGH. BACKSLIDE is more like it. SAWTOOTH-WAVE RECIDIVIST. Change title of BREAKTHROUGH to GRIPING ABOUT THE WRITING LIFE. Maybe seeing what I'm doing will help me change. What do I have to gripe about--I chose it. Brenda's truck needs brakes. $350. Her computer dies. $650. We have an ice storm, and are without power. I read The Writing Life, by flashlight. The Writing Life. Except Jack Saunders. Who wants to read that? If you felt excluded, what else would you write about? You would obsess. Can I change that? Through an act of will, through insight, through time? Will I outgrow envy, anger, depression, and fear? Work through them? Vent? Dredge it up. Confront it. Expose it to the open light of day. Root it out, root and branch. Embrace my demons. Love my fate. There's joy, after all. Contentment. Peace. Maybe that’s the breakthrough. Not denying the negative, but putting it in balance. Counterbalancing it with positive. I read The Diaries of Dawn Powell 1931-1965 and Conversations With Nelson Algren. Write about the connections between, or among cult writer, salvage archeologist, yardbird, or GI, and outsider, or underground, or vernacular writer. The subtitle THE TESTIMONY OF A SEMI-PRO attaches itself to GRIPING ABOUT THE WRITING LIFE. I write about Black History Month, which in Atlanta runs for six weeks, from Martin Luther King’s Birthday to March. Semi-pro? Is this guy serious? Well, yes. He’s out there for the love of the game, seedy and stove-up, 97 ribs showing and nothing to eat but a piece of tinfoil. The Greek word for tragedy translates goat-song. I add BLACKLISTED, OR, CONFESSIONS OF A SLAVE'Y TIMES REVISIONIST to the title of GRIPING ABOUT THE WRITING LIFE: THE TESTIMONY OF A SEMI-PRO. I have a skin cancer on my neck excised. We tell a realtor to make a bid on an abandoned house in a declining neighborhood. It’s been fixed up by the VA, which foreclosed on it, and is in good shape. The neighbors have pickup trucks with ladders on them. Out working on their cars, Sunday afternoon. I get the draft of a maintenance instruction (MI) out at work. Start work on another one. Brenda goes on the road, to Gainesville, Florida, to install a voice-over-IP system. Owen and Jeannie announce their engagement. Brenda has the family diamond cleaned, that passes to the bride of the firstborn son. I read Racism 101 for African-American Heritage Month. Shorten the title of GRIPING ABOUT THE WRITING LIFE: THE TESTIMONY OF A SEMI-PRO, BLACKLISTED, OR, CONFESSIONS OF A SLAVE'Y TIMES REVISIONIST to GRIPING, TESTIMONY, OR CONFESSIONS. I finish GRIPING, TESTIMONY, OR CONFESSIONS on February 10.
THE GREAT MAN OF TOMORROW IN ART. The ultimate zinester. Moving the stob (beyond the pale), a pinworm in the brain of the monster. The deeper through the crack you slip, the greater is your leverage. The great man of tomorrow in art goes underground, Marcel Duchamp says, to keep from integrating himself into the money society. I work on an MI for the water purification system at work. A publisher asks to see the manuscript to SILENCE. We give a realtor $1,000 earnest money. He faxes our bid to the VA. I see that Out of the South Comes the Whirlwind contains three books, not two. Add WHAT I CALL MY EXPERIENCES. John Bennett names me Vagabond’s Outsider of the Month. We win our bid, and start trying to line up financing, on the abandoned house. My mother flies in from Seattle to visit, and we drive to Athens, for Jeannie’s and Balder’s birthdays. Our loan is approved. Al Aronowitz posts "Faulkner," from The Shakespeare Squadron, at The Blacklisted Journalist, but the title, and credit line, are missing, so nobody who doesn't know the piece will know it's by me, or what in the world it is. In the same number, Amiri Baraka writes, "Violent maniac racists with the green light to do anything to us and get away with it. Despicable ignorant Heathens. Murders--Frauds who make a living lying. Average ignorant white people. Liberals." That was me. The average ignorant white liberal. Holding down the noble black. Getting rich at his expense. Running things. Murdering. Lying. I, Mr. Baldwin? I held you down? You’re like the old maid spinster wanting her cross-eyed sister to give her an enema. You’ve got your glasses on backwards. If you’ll pardon me for saying so. I don’t believe that, anymore. I sign up for a Web site at an Internet Service Provider and start writing WHAT I CALL MY EXPERIENCES. Finish writing THE GREAT MAN OF TOMORROW IN ART on March 2. Zine—I’ll show you zine. I’ll show you the Great American Novel, serialized, online.
WHAT I CALL MY EXPERIENCES. I begin WHAT I CALL MY EXPERIENCES March 1. These novels will give way, by and by, to diaries or autobiographies. Truth is (1) honesty, (2) tested in the annealing flame of experience. That is, published. So the howling void can answer back. I write, I send it out, I write about what happens to it, and how what happens makes me feel. I try to get at the moment, and cobble individual moments together into a coherent picture. The reader can judge how well I have done that by how well it accords with his perceptions, deduction, imagination, and memory. We close on our house and begin to move in. We buy new appliances, a leather sofa and a cloth love seat, a queen-sized bed for the guest bedroom. Tables, chairs, bookshelves. What’s next—the push reel lawnmower? We get on the cable and have a second phone line put in, for the two computers, and take turns getting on the Internet. Brenda bought a CD burner when she got her new computer, and can make CDs. Horace Tapscott got a racist jacket put on him, but he didn’t hate them, he just liked us more. I see through the eyes I see through. Straight white male, over 60, from the South. How does that affect what I see? Prepare to self-nominate myself for Recognition of Diversity (ROD) Day person, tying my nomination to Suent HONK program elements, then don’t submit my nomination. Prepare to self-nominate myself for the SLURP Program. Scientific/Literary Underrecognition/ Reevaluation Program. Then don’t. I get several new books to write at work. An aggressive schedule. I get The Daily Bugle (www.thedailybugle.com) up and working on March 18. Have a cyst cut out of my back. Read No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, by Naomi Klein. Go to the Everett Brothers Music Barn in Suwanee, to hear the James King Band. See Jeannie, on the band bus. Owen is sounding good. I finish WHAT I CALL MY EXPERIENCES on March 26, move it to the Archive, at The Daily Bugle, and start writing ZIP COON. The first installment of ZIP COON, in Current Month, is also March 26. Two files of the same name, in different directories, for different books. Trollope never did this.
ZIP COON. Started book on March 26. The Daily Bugle is up and running. The search engines don’t list me yet, and I’m not hearing back from journalers I send email to. Brenda gardens with her Radio Flyer wagon. I buy a push mower, and keep the small yard mowed. We go to see Back Azimuth at Rocky Mountain Pizza. When, out of the blue…Brenda is laid off. Oh, dear. Not planning on that. Ask Emory University if they want to buy the original manuscripts of my stack. They don’t. Either the publisher who asked to see SILENCE rejected it, or he rejected another “proposal,” and is still considering SILENCE, I can’t tell from the form letter rejection slip. We go to hear Back Azimuth play at the Sweetwater Brewery 420 Pub Crawl, in Little Five Points. Put photographs on the Web. We go over to Balder and Matt’s, for an Easter weekend pig-roast. Balder comes to see us, for Easter dinner. I read Seeing Mary Plain, a biography of Mary McCarthy. Salon isn’t interested in my letter to the editor about a Stanley Crouch column on the image of African-Americans in the media. What they need is an Art Brew column. Which any reader with an Internet connection can get, free of charge. That’s what has them scared, Podjo. You’ve got them on the run: keep it up. Finish writing ZIP COON April 25.
X-RATED. Begin writing X-RATED April 25. Post I Only Read It for the Ads, my account of attending Glamourcon '99, with my throwaway camera-person, Brenda (the camera is a throwaway, not Brenda), at The Daily Bugle. Glori-Anne Gilbert has no britches on. I am fully clothed. I look like the rube behind the curtain at the sideshow. The hick. Country Mouse goes to the Bold New City of the South, Atlanta. Ted Turner and Jane Fonda Field, right in the center of colored town. Brenda and I drive to Wewahitchka, for a Flynn Brown mullet-fry, where we see relatives, and picker friends. I post Potter’s Ashes and Taint at The Daily Bugle. We drive to Signal Mountain, Tennessee, for Owen and Jeannie's wedding, where we see picker friends, and relatives. I post the short screenplay Scenes From the Cube Maze at The Daily Bugle. Fill out my black, insatiable MAW (Management Appraisal Worksheet), tying my performance to Suent HONK objectives. I read Charles Willeford’s Writing and Other Blood Sports. I read John Baker’s Writer’s Guide to Literary Agents and Pat Holt’s Holt Uncensored, on the Internet. Brenda and I drive down to the edge of Florida to get a U-Haul truck full of household goods, and the original manuscripts of my stack, from two rental storage sheds. We can’t get into the second shed, but come back with a truck full, anyway. Balder and his roommates help us unload the truck. We drive to Cochran, Georgia, to a bluegrass festival, where the James King Band is playing. A fan gives Owen a ham off a 400 lb hog and 21 squirrels. We drive over to Athens to help Owen and Jeannie eat the hog. We stay at home Memorial Day weekend. I build Brenda a chicken pen. Our air-conditioner goes out. I read Bad Girls and Sick Boys. Finish book May 31.
QUEER STUDIES. Cracker Studies. I called the book QUEER STUDIES because I needed a title beginning with Q, to complete the alphabet, in my list of titles. Besides, you can publish a book called Queer. William S. Burroughs did it. But don't try to publish a book called Cracker. A cracker is prima facie a racist. No, wait. A sexist. No, wait. A homophobe. I read a biography of John Fante, Full of Life. I read Randy Wayne White’s Ten Thousand Islands. I post to a forum on the Next Big Thing. Making the leap, as a writer, was a big thing. Going online. Moving, in search of gainful employment. I divide QUEER STUDIES into sections on the Next Big Thing. From the time I started writing until now. I write an advice column, “Ask Doktor Dork,” at the newsletter KorporateKulture.Kom. From Zelda Dork. What the old NCOs called an early Quality Control program, Zero Defects. Dear Doktor Dork. I am confused about my sexuality. Aren’t we all, son. Aren’t we all. The air-conditioner just needed Freon. I take a career development planning workshop, at work. I read Ianthe Brautigan’s reminiscence of her father, Richard Brautigan. I read Larry Woiwode’s What I Think I Did, his account of becoming a writer, up to the publication of What I’m Going To Do, I Think, when he thought, I’m launched. If that’s how you do it—get a mentor, network, write what the market wants—I am screwed. I think. How to get around that feeling and take life as it comes. QUEER STUDIES makes 52 books I have written since moving to Atlanta, 50 months ago. We drive to Parker for the Davis Family Reunion. Pick at Flynn’s, in Wewa. Balder is working as an apprentice to Chef Doug, in Seaside, for the summer, and hanging sheetrock for Suzette. He decides not to return to Georgia Tech in the Fall. Jeannie takes a job in Johnson City, Tennessee, and she and Owen prepare to move, from Athens. Brenda has leads on several jobs. A man asks to format QUEER STUDIES for an ebook viewer that uses MS Reader. I tell him go ahead. End book June 30.
KERATODONTALISM FOREVER! How I went from "Writing the Great American Novel on the IBM PC," Review of Contemporary Fiction, Bukowski number, to "Writing the Great American Novel on the Worldwide Web," The Daily Bugle (www.thedailybugle.com), online, daily. I wouldn't call writing a book a month, in addition to holding a full-time job, shirking. I'd call it fighting tooth and nail for quality. I read an interview with Charles Bukowski, by Fernanda Pivano, Charles Bukowski: Laughing with the Gods and a book of Bukowski poems, What Matters Most Is How You Walk Through the Flames. I read Nicolas Freeling’s The Kitchen and Criminal Convictions: Errant Essays on Perpetrators of Literary License. I read Earl Thompson’s Caldo Largo. Brenda and I go to the Mall of Georgia to see Balder’s Army National Guard band play a 4th of July concert. Balder leaves Atlanta for Santa Rosa Beach. Brenda and I go to see a Sam Doyle show at the High Museum Folk Art and Photography Galleries, on the MARTA train. One of Brenda’s laying hens starts crowing like a rooster. We have coq au vin. I read The Hungry Ocean. Brenda flies to Tallahassee, and drives to Howard’s Creek, to help Wanda and Melvin fix their computer. Wanda’s daughter works for Delta, and sent her a buddy pass. I drive to Little Five Points, where Susan Percy signs a book she has an article in, Our Time, Our Turn. I meet Paul Hemphill, Susan’s husband. I apply for a residency at the historic Jack Kerouac home, in Orlando. I apply to MacDowell, I apply to Yaddo. Thinking about Penland. The historic Jack Saunders house, in Delray Beach. I ask the University of Georgia library if they want to buy my stack. I add the subtitle A Book a Month, Posted Online, Daily, to Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Shirker. What a feat! No wonder I’m a little shrill, a little tense, a little strung-out, a little behind, at work. Brew is nominated for a seat on the APRF Diversity Council. PRF (Product Realization Facility) is factory, in Oldspeak. That’s like putting Frank Pitts in charge of the wild, gone-feral hogs on St. Joe Point. I read Nick Catalano's Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter. I read John Kruth's Bright Moments: The Life & Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk. I read an interview with Joel Dorn, the producer of Kirk’s A Standing Eight, by Fred Jung. I finish KERATODONTALISM FOREVER! July 31. That is, I finish Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Shirker. A Book a Month, Posted Online, Daily. A representative series. Art Brew’s Odyssey and Out of the South Comes the Whirlwind were representative, too, and nothing came of them. Maybe something will come of this one. Or the next one.
SLICE OF LIFE (SOL): A MONTH ON THE INTERNET. I start a writer’s guide (“The Writing Desk: The Way of a Florida Writer”) of my first 29 years as an underground writer on August 1, and finish it August 9, to get caught up at work. But then I start a journal (“Le Journal”) for the remainder of August, on August 10. Just to keep my hand in. I pitch the writer’s guide (which I compare to Nicolas Freeling’s The Kitchen) to several publishers. Trying to hold the writing down, on the journal. Call the two pieces AUGUST 2000. Owen and Balder play at Bud and Alley’s, in Seaside. Brenda gets a call about a PABX job. I notify the Division of Cultural Affairs and the University Press of Florida about “The Writing Desk.” I enter Salon magazine’s “Brilliant Careers” essay contest with a piece on Bukowski and a piece on Charles Willeford. As a courtesy, I send the Bukowski essay to John Martin, Black Sparrow Press, and he asks to publish it as a small gratis booklet to give to customers and friends. Gratis and grace are related. Also charisma. A charismatic leader is one not affiliated with any institution, with no institutional base to his authority. It comes from his personal worth, his virtue. Virtue related to virile. In “Le Journal,” I see that HONK IF YOU LOVE SUENT is followed by SCHMOOZE III, and that the three books form the series August, September, October 2000. Lummox Journal asks to publish my Charles Willeford essay in a future issue and John Bennett asks to post the Bukowski piece at his Vagabond Press web site. I write a squib on Hunter S. Thompson, but don’t send it anywhere. Change the title of “Le Journal” to “Outtakes.” Change the title of August, September, October 2000 to Further Chronicles of APRF, as part of a six-month design review of The Daily Bugle. I redo my home page, doing away with the Archive. The Current Book is all you get. That is, I organize The Daily Bugle by book, not by month. I see that AUGUST 2000 is SLICE OF LIFE (SOL): A MONTH ON THE INTERNET. Start pitching SOL to publishers. I meet a deadline at work with drafts of three books. The week before, I issued drafts of two books, to concentrate on the three hanging over my head. Brenda drives to Dawson, Georgia, to help Lisa fix her computer. Attend Folk Fest 2000 at the North Atlanta Trade Center but don’t see Woodie Long and Dot. Woodie is at home, recuperating from a hernia operation. I get the draft of one more maintenance instruction out, at work. Go to see Paul Hemphill at a book-signing at an independent (lesbian/feminist) bookstore in Little Five Points. In the period September 1, 1999 - August 31, 2000, 12 months, my 60th year, I wrote 14 books. Not a personal best—1999 was a 15-book year. Whew—white folks! I finish SLICE OF LIFE (SOL): A MONTH ON THE INTERNET on August 25.
CRACKER POWER. Start writing HONK IF YOU LOVE SUENT August 26. I am nominated for membership on the Diversity Council, at work, and have to attend a class on Managing Diversity for World-Class Performance, tying diversity in to our quality, productivity, and customer responsiveness goals, as outlined in the Suent HONKs program. The class is brutal. My racism is exposed. I rename HONK IF YOU LOVE SUENT TOXIC WORKSHOP. Finish “Toxic Workshop” September 10. Start “Report Writer” September 11. “Toxic Workshop” and “Report Writer” combine to form CRACKER POWER. Brenda and I go to hear Rosemary Daniell read, at the Margaret Mitchell House, downtown. “Report Writer” is about the tools of the trade, like Naked Lunch was about typewriters. Clark-Nova or Martinelli? I see that Further Chronicles of APRF is subtitled Managing the Writing Jones. Any unlettered redneck hippie knows what I’m writing about, because I write like I talk. That is, like they talk. Rename SCHMOOZE III GEEZERS ON PARADE. Owen and Jeannie buy a cedar cabin on five acres of land, with a pond, outside Knoxville. Finish writing “Report Writer” September 23.
FORTUNE’S FAVORITE CHILD. Begin writing GEEZERS ON PARADE September 24. I get caught up at work, so that I can drive to Lansing, Michigan, for a book fair, see Jeff Potter and John M. Bennett, possibly Blaster Al. Possibly Roger Jackson. Take my tent and down sleeping bag. Potter schedules two readings for me and John. Wild Men from the South. John Martin emails Al Berlinski the piece I sent him on Bukowski. Al emails me. May meet Al. My book tour, selling Beat Poet 1, a 16-page newsprint self-cover flier, a folk hero in the international literary underground.. Write pamphlet The Beat Poet Tour. Write a pamphlet celebrating Banned Books Week, Garage Band Books Week 2000. Read from my two pamphlets, Saturday and Sunday night. Meet Dana Buck, who drives over from Ann Arbor. Meet Al Berlinski. When I get home, I write the pamphlet Art Brew’s Big Adventure. See that “Geezers On Parade” is the first half of FORTUNE’S FAVORITE CHILD. Submit a writing sample to Stephen King, from an exercise in his book, On Writing. I read Donald Maass’s The Career Novelist and Andre Schiffrin’s The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing and Changed the Way We Read. I buy Jeff Herman’s directory of literary agents and editors and start sending out query letters about Further Chronicles of APRF. End “Geezers On Parade” October 8. Begin “…Destined for Oblivion, Lacking Even Cult Status” October 9. Send out pamphlets Writing Sample, Elvis at the Supermarket, Underground Writer, and Symbolism in Jack Saunders’ Writing Sample. I combine them into Theme and Variations: A Writing Exercise Suggested by Stephen King, in On Writing, and Some Poems, Plus a Synopsis of FORTUNE’S FAVORITE CHILD, in Progress, a Novel—a Memoir? A Hodge-Podge?—Reminiscent of Naked Lunch. Al Berlinski sends me Dan Fante’s Chump Change. I query Fante’s European publisher, Rebel Inc. About FORTUNE’S FAVORITE CHILD. I send out four more four-page sheets. A sheet writer. Shee-it. I finish writing “…Destined for Oblivion, Lacking Even Cult Status” October 16. Take two weeks off to get caught up at work.
THE BIG DOOR PRIZE. Begin writing THE BIG DOOR PRIZE October 17. The title is from a line from the chorus of John Prine’s “In Spite of Ourselves,” which Jeff Potter made me a tape of, to drive back from Michigan. I get two books out on time at work. I complete my black, insatiable MAW, at work. Management Appraisal Worksheet. For my salary merit increase and performance bonus. I write one for my own personal use, at home. Last year was another productive year. Brenda and I drive to LaGrange, Georgia, to hear the James King Band. I write “Virtually Unknown,” by analogy with Almost Famous. Instead of a teenager going on tour with a rock band, fucking groupies, and getting a cover story in the Rolling Stone, Brew and Brenda go to hear their son play, Brew puts his account in a book, which editors and agents don’t even care to look at, thank you very much just the same. Then they go to Lisa’s Halloween Party in Dawson, Georgia, where they see Owen and Jeannie, Balder and Suzette. THE TOUR CONTINUES. What tour is that? “The Penury and Limbo Tour.” The Beat Poet Tour was last book. I read Darlene Fife’s Portraits From Memory: New Orleans in the Sixties and write an appreciation of it. Raindog puts out a little magazine, Grit, The Journal of Abrasive Literature, with a poem by me as a thematic explanation, and sends me Grit #1, out of the blue. Brenda is working part-time clerical jobs and going on job interviews for telecommunications jobs. Her unemployment ran out last month. Our savings are nearly gone, and the balances on our bank credit cards are approaching their limit. This just in: no bonus, no raise, no 401k match for management employees at Suent this year. Huh? You heard me. No bonus. After we get back from Lisa and Jimmy’s, I write “Sittin’ on a Rainbow.” I get the drafts of seven maintenance instructions out before we leave for Lisa’s. I watch a video of The Woman Chaser, and write a review for IMDb.com. I am invited to join the Diversity Council, at work. I watch Bamboozled, and write about my reactions to it. Brenda brings Lisa’s Dobro back from Lisa’s house. Sends off for a video on how to play it. Finish THE BIG DOOR PRIZE on November 4.
THE MIDDLE YEARS. Begin book November 5. Brenda drives to Dothan with a friend, to take her to get her head examined. Looks like we will get no company bonus, but a fairly decent business unit bonus at work this year. The factory busted all records for making fiber-optic cable. I read Paul Bley’s Stopping Time: Paul Bley and the Transformation of Jazz and see that I am writing books in real time. I think about what this means. Turned down for residency at MacDowell (Yaddo turned me down, earlier). Finish THE MIDDLE YEARS November 24. Put trip to Santa Rosa Beach for Thanksgiving in FOLK MASTER.
FOLK MASTER. Begin book November 25. Brenda and I drive to Santa Rosa Beach for Thanksgiving. Owen has a gig in Dade City. Brenda goes to see Owen, with Balder and Suzette, and I come back to Atlanta, to catch up on my writing. We see Woodie Long and Dot, Mike Jones, who plays in Net Ban’d with Balder, and Jesse and Wendy, two members of Cappsized, another band Balder plays in. Also Franko, who plays washboard in a band with Balder and Duke Bardwell. Door Jam? Hear Duke’s “Potter’s Moon,” a tribute Duke wrote to Potter, on the anniversary of his death, or wake, or memorial service. A very moving song, to people who knew and love Potter Brown. Brenda comes back on the band bus with Owen, who gives us a deer leg. I am voted a member of the Diversity Council at work, by people I took the Managing Diversity workshop with. I get a raise. Our Business Unit performance bonus is substantial, even though there was no award from Corporate this year. Brenda goes back on unemployment. She has six months of Georgia benefits, and the monthly rate is higher than her Florida claim was. We’ll make it now until she gets a job. Wanda and her daughter fly to Atlanta (Wanda’s daughter works for an airline) for a day to Christmas-shop, and Brenda takes them from the MARTA train to the Mall of Georgia, and the Goodwill store, then back to the train to the airport. I decide that keeping my job is more important to me than serializing my books, online, daily, at The Daily Bugle, and shut the web site down. Faithful readers get a Page Cannot Be Displayed error. Silence as a tactic, a ploy. A cry for help, no cry, you have to infer the cry from its absence. I start a pamphlet of poems, Areas Not Interested in Agenting: Poetry, Autobiographical Fiction, Anecdotes and Ravings, so I won’t get computer withdrawal, on our trip to New Orleans, for David and Lisa’s wedding, and to Santa Rosa Beach, for Christmas. Jot poems in a Big Chief tablet. We drive to New Orleans for David and Lisa's wedding, stay with Gerald and Del. Owen buys a bag of oysters and cooks redfish Gerry caught, plus a deer leg he brought with him. The wedding, and reception, are lovely. I see family, and friends from out of town. Hazel interviews Owen and Balder on WWOZ, and they play live music on her Old-Time Country and Bluegrass Music show. We eat brunch at the Royal Sonesta hotel. Music, stories, and eating (spaghetti) at Larry and Hazel's afterwards. Laughter. My mother, who has sold her house in Seattle and moved in with Susan and Rob, gives each of the grandchildren $1,000. Owen and Jeannie are buying a house, Balder needs speakers and a machine that makes CDs, Rob and Bill's kids can use the money, too. I am busy at work, getting technical manuals finished before the Christmas stand-down. If I can, I want to finish FOLK MASTER before Christmas Eve Day, when we leave for Santa Rosa Beach, for a week. As John M. Bennett says, “I think I ca, I think I ca.” I make up 20 copies of Areas Not Interested in Agenting: Poetry, Autobiographical Fiction, Anecdotes and Ravings and storm on into Final Kick (20 copies). I can see the goal line, the end zone, the tape across the finish line. FOLK MASTER makes 25 books in 22 months, a personal best. Finish FOLK MASTER on December 15.
AIRING
DIRTY LINEN. Begin AIRING DIRTY
LINEN December 15. A book like Factotum, only more in there about the
mechanics of the writing life. Brenda
and I drive to Santa Rosa Beach to spend Christmas with Suzette and
Balder. Owen and Jeannie are there. We hear Balder play with Duke and Franko at
Fermentations and Balder, Owen, and Mike Kish play at Fermentations and
Pandora’s. They are good. A friend of Suzette’s lets us stay in her
house on the beach, in Seagrove. We see
Woodie Long and Dot. Woodie gives me and
Brenda a painting and Brenda gives Woodie and Dot a fruitcake. I see that AIRING DIRTY LINEN is in three
sections, “Borracho,” “Navvy,” and “Coterie Writer.” I send “Borracho” to a publisher. I make a pamphlet of poems about working as a
laborer, and drinking, called Navvy. It includes poems about our trip. I mail it out to the Buzzard Cult (20
copies). I sum up the year just past and
print up and mail out the eight-page flier 2000. Al Aronowitz posts “Nelson Algren” and
“William Saroyan” from The Shakespeare
Squadron at The Blacklisted
Journalist. So I start off the year
with a publication in an ezine. Brenda
buys me a Bukowski picture book, for Christmas.
I make a poster for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, for the Diversity
Council, at work. The hard part was
finding a picture of a raccoon. I print
up and mail out Beer Can Island, Underground Writer, Coterie Writer, Contract Writer, Florida Writer, and Vernacular Writer. The pamphlets are rolling out in the new
year. I finish writing AIRING DIRTY
LINEN
January 7.
THE EMPTY NEST, OR, LIFE IN THE SUBURBS: AN OFFLINE JOURNAL. By analogy with Walden; or, Life in the Woods. I start writing THE EMPTY NEST January 8. See that there are sections on Clothes, Utilities, Shelter, Food, Recreation, Charity, Division of Labor, The Job, The Portfolio, and The Career. Brenda and I go to see O Brother, Where Art Thou? We are disappointed. What did I expect? If you have a banjo, it's hillbilly music. If it's hillbilly it has Junior Samples, Lulu, and Stringbean. A minstrel show, in whiteface. Where's the KKK? Oh, there they are, a sky-cam shot, like the June Taylor Dancers, in Springtime for Hitler. What did I expect? Brenda goes to get her head examined. Or her lungs. To a Pulmonary Clinic, to see if she has sleep apnea, as she suspects. I read Drinking with Bukowski. I make reservations to fly to Manhattan for a press conference for the Legends of the Underground reading. Finish THE EMPTY NEST and start “On the Necessity of Vocational Disobedience.” I have some poems accepted in an anthology Real Living: Poets in Unusual Places. Finish writing “On the Necessity of Vocational Disobedience” January 21.
BADGE OF HONOR: THE STIGMA OF SELF-PUBLICATION. Begin writing BADGE OF HONOR January 22. A legend of the underground recounts his activities in the small press scene, mail art, zines, and serializing, daily, then publishing, online, 10½ books in 8½ months. Nothing like it out there because there’s nobody like me out there. BADGE OF HONOR will cover my trip to New York, and the press conference; the next book, BREAKTHROUGH, will cover the reading, March 21. Brenda has obstructive sleep apnea, and will be fitted for a nasal CPAP device. Constant positive airway pressure. The doctor says it should cure it, and give her a night’s sleep. I go to the dentist and get a crown replaced. The old one was a temporary that fell off. After seven years. The Department of Labor tells Brenda to take the date she graduated from college off her resume and she starts getting more phone calls. Age discrimination is rampant, they tell her. I call BADGE OF HONOR “a roman-feuilleton,” make 20 copies of multiples of four-page sheets, and send it out to the Buzzard Cult a week at a time. Ten to my short list of readers and the other ten to people in publishing, teaching, and the media. I am thinking about what to say at the press conference, and what to read at the reading. Trying to psych myself up for those. What have I gotten myself into? New York will eat me alive. Chew me up and spit me out. Who do I think I am? Muhammad Ali? Hunter S. Thompson? Just give my Press pass to a drunk who bites Edwin Muskie on the ankle and slip out the back way. “I saw Allen Ginsberg turn into Allen Ginsberg.” “I saw myself beat over the head with my own barbaric yawp.” “I saw Kerouac say, `You guys go ahead and be famous, all I want is a peaceful sorrow at home with Memère.’” Brenda and I watch the Superbowl. Stuffed mushrooms for finger-food and leftover jambalaya. I get behind at work, writing on BADGE OF HONOR. I am discouraged. Going through the catalogue of unpublished books, recording the pamphlets I sent out, gets me down. Don’t want to start feeling sorry for myself. The trip to New York goes off with great éclat. Brenda gets a job, starting Monday. End BADGE OF HONOR Saturday, February 10
BREAKTHROUGH. Start writing BREAKTHROUGH February 9. I’m glad I went to the press conference. It turned my head around, about what to write, for the reading. I make up the pamphlet Notes From Underground, including the Stephen King writing exercise, my writing sample, “Possums in the Drain,” and several poems about what “Possums in the Drain” might mean. I get BREAKTHROUGH up through BREAKTHROUGH and turn to “Cooking with Owen,” the first part of COOKIN’, on February 23. I publish Cooking with Owen as a 56-page pamphlet. Start writing Cooking with Balder. I'm still not sure what I'll take to New York and read. See that BREAKTHROUGH was finished February 23. The account of the reading will go in COOKIN’.
COOKIN’. A book in four parts, “Cooking with Owen,” “Cooking with Balder,” “Cooking with Brenda,” and “Cooking with Jack.” Start book February 23, although the first 12 pages of it were written in the previous book. Change title of Mixed Bag: A Writing Life Outside the Mainstream to In the Maelstrom. I can’t write with authority about something I am outside of. That’s guesswork and bluster. As I called Norman Mailer’s book about Henry Miller. But I am in the maelstrom, which translates grinding stream. Grist for the mill. A typewriter is a mill. Also a food mill. A hurdy-gurdy. Am I the organ-grinder or the organ-grinder’s monkey, Black McGoon or Hylobates Lar? Amadeo Modigliani, a white silk scarf and Latin Quarter hat, or Charlie Parker, 3-D glasses up on his head, one green lens and one red. I’m not Sonny Rollins, saxophone colossus, I’m John Coltrane, cookin’, with Miles Davis, on the 1956 Prestige lp, Bob Weinstock back there saying, “Yea.” I advised Bob on self-publishing one time. He didn’t want a publisher to treat him like record companies treat musicians. Lucky Thompson on the streets of Seattle, homeless. I take a three-day Business Writing class, off-site. There were two white males, two white females, a man from Ecuador, a man from Kuwait, an African-American man, a woman from Panama, and seven black females. Nobody talked down to anybody, nobody had a chip on his or her shoulder, we worked together, in teams, toward a common goal, with enthusiasm and humor. It was a perfect example of what diversity ought to be, and in fact is, where I work. Mind you, when we go back to work we will not be able to implement what we learned, because the people we work for don’t want clear, concise speech, they want obfuscation, weasel words, cant, and shibboleth. And it really called into question, for me, the diversity class I took, which did more harm than good, was divisive, and polarizing, with the stark premise that what we had in my Business Writing class was a sop, a Band-Aid, was enabling the Eurocentric patriarchal hegemony, and was proof that we were in denial. Huh? “Politics and the English Language.” Orwell, where are you now that we need you? You’re in denial, you double-standard, doublethink, casuistic son of a bitch. I survive the Force Management Program (FMP) at work (am not FMPed), and Brenda is not winnowed at her job, as temp-to-perm, where the contractor effort was continuously rebalanced, that is, the contractors sacked. Here comes, there goes William Saroyan. We only alone ourselves are escaped to tell, like Job. Safe for three more months. Swiss Family Paranoia-Critical. I take two days off from work and fly to Manhattan for my reading. Reading is not a public act. Performing is not reading. The writing is the easy part, for a writer. It’s after that the work sets in. Work being something you are paid to do, or expect some monetary gain from, down the line somewhere. Two tin cans and a string. A EE-8 (pronounced double-e eight) field telephone, crank for ring voltage. Semaphore. Smoke signals with trade blankets. I meet Bill Blackolive. Jeff Potter flies in from Michigan. No media show up, no people from book publishing, no professors from the university. I gave away a few copies of Notes From Underground, to members of the audience, and one or two sets of COOKIN’, to participants in the reading. A legend on my own time. Finish book March 23.
I consider my works like tales I wrote to posterity, waiting no answers.
Heitor Villa-Lobos
I REMEMBER. Begin writing I REMEMBER: A REDNECK WAY OF KNOWLEDGE March 24, after I return from the Legends of the Underground reading, in New York. I write a Report on Cookin’, and send it out with several query letters, to agents. I had sent “Borracho,” the first part of AIRING DIRTY LINEN, to a publisher. It comes back, rejected. I read the manuscript, and it pulls me right in. I’d buy it, if I opened it and read the first page, in a bookstore, particularly if the cover said I had written 175 books without selling one to New York, and my picture didn’t look like the Unabomber. I get down about rejection. That’s expecting an answer, man. STOP IT. My computer dies. I put it in the shop, for repairs. Got a Zip drive, to back up my hard drive. Send I Remember: A Redneck Way of Knowledge out in pamphlets. I was going to write THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING next, then AT-LARGE, finishing A REDNECK WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, but THE RUBBER SEX DOLL CHICKEN WHISPERER pops up. End I REMEMBER April 11.
THE RUBBER SEX DOLL CHICKEN WHISPERER: A SEASON ON THE BEAT POET TOUR, OR, BARDIC ODYSSEY MEETS MONASTIC DESK. Begin writing THE RUBBER SEX DOLL CHICKEN WHISPERER April 12. Send it out in pamphlets. Hear back good things from the Buzzard Cult. Write agents about the book, with samples. Write Report on CHICKEN WHISPERER, a sort of synopsis. Make up Myxoscopic Zoophiliac fliers, like a wanted poster, or a convicted sex offender, on release into the community. The “season” on the Beat Poet Tour is the six months between reading in Lansing, Michigan, during Banned Books Week and being a headliner at the Underground Literary Alliance’s Legends of the Underground reading in Manhattan. The “monastic desk” is the nine books I wrote in that six months. I go to see the play Spinning Into Butter with the Diversity Council, at work. I pay my income taxes, but don’t deduct losses from Garage Band Books. We’ll get money back, because we own a house. Brenda and I go to see Pollock. One of our VCRs dies. My computer monitor dies. Bad electrical incidents. Finish writing book April 23. Shakespeare’s birthday.
THE MAN DONE SUED. Begin writing THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING April 24. See that A Redneck Way of Knowledge is a series of three books within the series Tales to Posterity. Isn’t CHICKEN WHISPERER part of A Redneck Way of Knowledge? It is. I subtitle Tales to Posterity, the whole series, A Redneck Way of Knowledge, and take the subtitle out of the title I REMEMBER. Remembering is a way, but so is imagining. I’m not really a myxoscopic zoophiliac. So is telling tales. Standing up on stage and reading poems and prose vignettes to a live audience. Looking the reader in the eye. Pressing the flesh. See that there is a fifth volume of Tales to Posterity, after AT-LARGE, GLOBAL VILLAGE VILLAGE IDIOT. The Diversity Council has a working lunch, to talk about our reactions to Spinning Into Butter. In a cynical attempt to cash in on the publicity of THE WIND DONE GONE, Brew changes the name of THE WORLD OWES ME A LIVING to THE MAN DONE SUED. Brew starts to publish THE MAN DONE SUED in pamphlets. He writes Report on THE MAN DONE SUED. He sends off for The Man Done Sued bumper stickers. He sends the pamphlets out to people who gave affidavits or depositions in the Mitchell Trusts lawsuit against Houghton Mifflin. Brenda and I go to see The Day I Became a Woman. The James King Band plays the Lewis Family Homecoming in Lincolnton, Georgia. I drive over for that. Good festival. I buy a pocketknife. The boys always used to have one from Stainless, Pakistan. Think of the man fixing typewriters in Naked Lunch, or the Foley artist in The Day I Became a Woman, making the sound of a bicycle crank hitting a kickstand. Brenda survives a layoff at her work. A bloodbath, one person out of every four. Decimated is only one of ten. Brenda has a septoplasty, to correct a deviated septum. On the mend, at home, for the Mother’s Day weekend. Finish writing THE MAN DONE SUED May 11.
AT-LARGE. Begin writing AT-LARGE May 12. I decide to resuscitate The Daily Bugle. The “Ask Doktor Dork” column at KorporateKulture.Kom. Begin updating the files in About. Instead of publishing pamphlets, which was time-consuming and expensive. The worldwide web is fast, cheap, and out of control. Going back online causes a burst of creativity. First it was a rubber chicken and now it’s a cockroach turned into the writer Gregor Samsa for having the temerity to aspire to a glamorous, high-paying career in show business or the arts. Be careful what you wish for, Gregor: you might end up in an insurance office, writing in your head all day, because you can’t sell your work, while your co-workers talk about fat grams, where they work out, and the hot new writer they saw on Oprah Winfrey. Brenda breathes good through her rebuilt nose. I write Report on AT-LARGE, but don’t send it anywhere. The Gregor Samsa cockroach is not a selling point. But really, the book is about Art Brew having the hubris to ask RAC to let him write underware for his job. Books that seek to get at the infrastructure, or underlying form of what the small, desktop computer is going to mean in everybody’s life. By analogy with the hardware and the software. Sell underware in the company computer stores. A new product line. Hubris related to hysteria. More at out. It’s about coming out, as a principled act. Being out. Man, that’s out. A term of praise, to Horace Tapscott. W. O. D. ’n’ that’s ’way out there. I decide to make a pdf ebook out of AT-LARGE and enter it in the 2001 Frankfurt eBook Award (FEBA) competition. Brenda and I go to Cochran, Georgia, to see the James King Band play at a bluegrass festival. Balder and Suzette are there. Eating, telling stories, drinking, music, and laughter, around the old campfire. Very relaxing. Brew leaves RAC, writes, publishes, and drives around selling Evil Genius and Open Book. He visits Key West and the Miami Book Fair. He finds out RAC has been damning him with faint praise, since he left, by mutual consent, assured that quitting would not be held against him. He decides to move to Panama City. End AT-LARGE May 26.
GLOBAL VILLAGE VILLAGE IDIOT. Begin GLOBAL VILLAGE VILLAGE IDIOT May 27. How do you write world literature from Wewahitchka, Florida? An ebook writer can live anywhere. Balder drives Scout to Atlanta, to help Owen move, to Knoxville. We go to Clouds Creek bluegrass festival, to see Owen play. Cousin Lita and Balder’s friend Lindsay go along. The boys grow up and move out of the house in Panama City. Brew and Brenda lose the house to the bank and go belly-up, during the defense drawdown. Move back into Granny Brown's trailer. Brew moves to Atlanta, and Brenda follows. At Suent Scientific, Brew goes, or goes back, underground, but his arm keeps raising up, like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove. The truth will out. Brenda and I go to Parker, for the Davis Family Reunion, a pick-in afterwards at Uncle Ed's dock, where Potter's memorial service was held. I decide to enter GLOBAL VILLAGE VILLAGE IDIOT in the FeBA contest instead of AT-LARGE. I submit an abstract for a paper on ebooks to a conference in Washington, DC, in November. “Why I Write and Publish eBooks on the Worldwide Web.” Finish IDIOT June 16.
THE MISSING YEARS: A WAGE-SLAVE NARRATIVE. Begin “Hombre Duro: 30 Years (the Missing Years) in the Writing Life. ¾ Done on 40-Year Run” June 17. I think it is a book. I finish it on June 28 and start “Pinworm in the Brain of the Monster: Confessions of a Master Shirker” the same day. I think “Pinworm in the Brain of the Monster” is a book, too. I see that these two books will be followed by “Please Try Again,” a book, which will end August 31, 2001, my 30th anniversary as a writer. I go on hiatus until August 31 at The Daily Bugle and put a notice at my home page saying, “On Strike.” Early in “Pinworm” I realize that the three “books” are parts of one long book. I call it THE MISSING YEARS, take the missing years out of the title of “Hombre Duro,” and take ¾ Done on 40-Year Run off the end of the title of “Hombre Duro,” since my 30th year won’t end until the end of “Please Try Again.” So you get to see a novel in the process of development, as it finds its voice, structure, and intent, repeats the thematic pattern, but varies the pattern, as it repeats itself. Theme and variations. What is the theme? Vocation and career in conflict. Or, how does a man devote his life to doing the best work he is capable of in a world that’s hostile or indifferent to his best. THE MISSING YEARS makes 16 books I wrote between September 1, 2000 and August 31, 2001, and one of them, THE MISSING YEARS, is a long one. Dense. Richer than three foot up a bull’s ass. A sort of a magnum opus, to culminate what has gone before and kick off the final ten years, or The 4th Quarter. Give THE MISSING YEARS the subtitle A WAGE-SLAVE NARRATIVE. Ex-slaves were interviewed by WPA Writing Program writers. Taken together, their stories give a picture of slave life, in the voices of individual ex-slaves. Taken together, the three sections of THE MISSING YEARS give a picture of one writer's life, outside the mainstream, in that man's voice. End “Pinworm in the Brain of the Monster” July 8 and start “Please Try Again” the same day. End “Please Try Again” July 10. Go on strike, again, until August 31. I was keen on THE MISSING YEARS, writing it, but double-spacing it, to send out, should anyone ask to see it, I am not sure. Of course, that’s always a let-down. To finish a book. To write for 30 years, and not sell anything. Well, the missing years are gone. No sense crying over spilt milk. Take some time off, get caught up at work, get in shape, physically. I start “30-Year Run: The Backstory” July 11. It wasn’t no strike, it was a very short strike. See that THE MISSING YEARS is a full, one-volume autobiography, in four sections, not three, and outline the parts to complete the story. John Martin sends me copies of the small, gratis booklet Charles Bukowski, published by Black Sparrow Press to give to customers and friends. My glasses break, and I have new ones made. I can’t see through them. I get another pair made. They give me red eyes. I go to Medical, at work, to see what’s wrong with my eyes, and my blood pressure is high. My doctor puts me on hypertension medicine and tells me to quit drinking coffee, lose weight, and exercise. I start doing that. I join the Fitness and Wellness Center, at work. I feel better. Also, I start to work more on my work at work, and less on THE MISSING YEARS, which will get done when it gets done. Suent Scientific sells the cable factory to a consortium. Good. Any company that would hire me I don’t want to work for. I write “The Revolt of Large Brown.” It is followed by “Large Brown in Louisiana” and “Large Brown Small Town Blues.” I think they make up a chapbook, Three Large Brown Stories, and pitch them that way to Four Sep Publications. I also send them out as pamphlets. I write a Report on THE MISSING YEARS. I must be trying to figure out where I am, and how to get from here to the end. Send it out to the people I sent the three Large Brown pamphlets to. I make up several more pamphlets. Art Brew stories. The Class of ’57 Had Its Dreams, As the Swift Seasons Roll, Retread, Underground Writer Makes Good, and Modern Times. I decide that everything to this point makes up the series 30-Year Run, and end the book, and the series, August 3, 2001. I reactivate The Daily Bugle August 4 and start posting daily entries to it. See that “OLJ” goes on the end of THE MISSING YEARS, making THE MISSING YEARS a book in five parts. “OLJ” takes me up to August 31, 2001. Jack Saunders Day. Which sends me back to September 1, 1971, a snake, swallowing its tail. Familiar Buzzard Cult motif. Underground writer makes good—I had no idea when I was starting out that I would write 186 books without selling one to New York. I don’t think anyone has done that before. I don’t think anyone has written 16 full-length books in a year, either. What a feat! Like Ixion, rolling his wheel across the heavens. My accomplishment is mythical. I take a seminar in protecting my 401k from taxes. Traditionally, I use my 401k to pay the mortgage when I am sacked, to keep from losing my house to the bank, paying a penalty to do so, then lose the house to the bank. I take a seminar in estate planning and try to decide what to do about 30-Year Run in my will, or trust, revocable or irrevocable, charitable remainder, life insurance, deeds, instruments, I think of Dickens, the bad guys in Dickens, the people waiting for you to come to market, so they can exact their tithe. I make up three more pamphlets: 30-Year Run, A Few More Poems, and A Summing Up. Cooking like a Tasmanian dervish, as Carl Weissner, the translator of Bukowski says. Management employees at Suent Scientific are offered a package, to retire. Brew doesn’t know if it is optional or mandatory. Voluntary or forced. He doesn’t know if he’ll lose his pension and/or be laid off.