I knew in high school I was going to be an artist.
I didn't know whether
I would be a writer, a painter, or
a musician. In 1957, in Waco, Texas, I saw
that it was writer.
I read On the Road. Jack Kerouac made me feel that
I could do
what he was doing. Have adventures and write about them.
First,
I needed to see something of the world, complete my education,
find a soul-mate
and get married, get an entry-level white-collar job,
start a family, and teach
myself to write, after work. So that is what I did.
Now, I am an artist. My
kids are grown and out of the house. My wife and I
look forward to retirement.
She still works. I'll probably have to work
until I die. It doesn't look like
I am going to sell a book.
But right now, today, I am at the house completing
a
pair of books on my life as an underground writer
and comparing myself to Ernest
Hemingway.
Ernie Hemorrhoid, the Poor Man's Pyle.
I am beneath the underdog,
or,
outside the pale. A day late
and a dollar short. The 10%
that didn't
get the word.
A living fossil. A coprolite.
Is that a vitrified lightning
bolt
or a fossilized turd? It's a turd.
The lightning bolt is a fulgurite.
I
studied Southeastern Archeology in college.
The penis bone is the baculum.
The
whale with his six-foot penis, in repose.
I'll show you 3". Why didn't Hemingway
show
Fitzgerald his own dick, to reassure him?
Or did that even happen. You
can't trust Hemingway on
devouring females. He hated his mother for henpecking
his father.
My parents were normal, thank God. I was average. My IQ is 104.
I
don't practice kinky sex. I'm not mentally ill. I could stand to lose
a little
weight. I'm antisocial. I lack networking skills. I'm ill-adapted to
the modern
age. Still, I do post series of related novels on the worldwide web.
I soldier
on. Through thin and thick.