Saturday, January 7 (cont'd)

From: Jack Saunders
To: Patrick Simonelli
Subj: Reply

I sent a book to Steve Vaughn but didn't send Bill Blackolive one. He was poor-mouthing so bad in Last Laugh I figured he'd borrow Steve's copy if he found out he had one. It's like when William Saroyan hit on Henry Miller for money because Saroyan was a starving artist and Miller should support him. Miller disagreed.

From: Jack Saunders
To: Jeff Potter
Subj: Reply

Two comments on direct writer-to-reader sales by mail or UPS.

One, when I saw Larry last in New Orleans, a UPS truck threw a package on the porch of a shotgun house and drove off. In a dope neighborhood.

Larry said they no longer insure packages. If it's lost or damaged, tough shit. Sue me.

I asked him why, and he said, "It was costly."

Of course.

Two, people would invite Scott Nearing to come lecture. He would stay in the host's house and sell his self-published books after his talk.

Of course, he didn't make a living writing.

No, he got his living expenses down to rock bottom and wrote for his own amazement.

From: Jack Saunders
To: Jeff Potter
Subj: Reply

I don't understand why people can't see this [do-it-yourself]. It's obvious. Owen produced his own fiddle tape at 16. He sells it on CD today at festivals. A song on his self-produced CD The Saunders Brothers: The Doghouse Sessions got more air play than a song David Davis recorded for a major studio. Davis got the play statistics and there was Owen's song, ahead of his. This from selling it at bluegrass festivals and giving a comp copy to a disk jockey. Balder's CD gets air play in Czechoslovakia. He gets fan mail he can't read. Pink Floyd's The Wall album sold in America with no air play whatsoever, just the concert tour. Of course it's hard to get the concert tour without the air play, but the two are only connected because the air play/concert tour mafia makes you connect them. They're gangsters, and gangsters can't shoot straight. Monopoly is all they have going for them.

From: Jack Saunders
To: Brenda Saunders
Subj: Reply

Rita Mae Brown is a lesbian writer who had long-time affairs with Martina Navratilova and Fannie Flagg. I thought you'd like the quote about the woman whose hair could be wrecked by a ceiling fan. She also said that while life gives us the faces we deserve, when we age, life gave Billie Jean King the thighs she deserves. Just office humor.

From: Jack Saunders
To: Jeff Potter
Subj: Reply

It's [reading in public] just heartbreaking and an energy sap.

It's worse than submitting to little magazines and getting rejection slips.

It's impossible.

I don't know why anybody does it.

Dealing with agents and editors is like dealing with the feeble-minded and the greedy.

Facing an empty room, putting on your game face, it's like Kevin Kline playing Willie Loman in a dinner theater in Opa Locka, Florida, in Soap Dish.

Disheartening.

But what are you gonna do? Leave show business?

Q: Why After BLUE-COLLAR REDNECK: An Online Journal (OLJ)?

A: After BLUE-COLLAR REDNECK: An Online Journal (OLJ) is a turning point. at least in my own mind.

That is, BLUE-COLLAR REDNECK was a turning point.

It's a one-volume summary of my life and career to date. My hopes, theories, mistakes, regrets.

You can put longing and regret in a memoir.

What life lacks longing and regret?

You're a better man than I am, Charlie Brown. If you don't long for anything or regret anything.

Q: Or you're not telling the truth.

Do you think that by ending the book with your Redneck Riviera Tour you can make something happen?

A: Yes.

It's magical thinking. Wishful thinking. Probably faulty.

I don't think anything I do will make a difference. Make anything good happen. I may inadvertently cause something bad to happen. That's more likely.

By calling attention to myself.

Q: Blue-collar redneck puts New York editors and agents off.

A: New York editors and agents are rude, pushy, and lack a sense of humor. They lack subtlety. Nuance. Think of Frick and Frack, the Tappet Brothers, laughing at everything each other says. They're just Yankees. They can't help themselves.
I love Yankees.

Everybody knows I love Yankees.

Think of it as Merle Haggard playing "Working Man Blues." Drink a little beer in a tavern. Am I supposed to be ashamed of being blue-collar, or a redneck? I'm not.

I'm proud to be a working man, no matter what color my neck is.

I wear white socks, too.

You don't like it you can kiss my ass.

KISS MY ASS. You can shit on my shoulder but don't wipe your ass with my hair.

BLUE-COLLAR REDNECK is code for KISS MY ASS. You effete corps of impudent snobs. You nattering nabobs of negativism. Nixon and Agnew in 2002!

Q: What about the OLJ part?

A: I left a lot of OLJ out of BLUE-COLLAR REDNECK, or took it out when I revised it. I missed the OLJ. I'm glad to be back.

A memoir is plot-driven.

An OLJ is discursive and alliterative. Associative and spontaneous. Repetitious. It flaps, like a worn-out blind.

Q: The flowers need more Vigoro.

A: Senior citizens need Viagra.

I'm glad for the Dead Pecker Bench.

Don't put me in, coach. I don't want to play.

I want to be quiescent.