R. M. Berry
Dear R. M. Berry:
A couple of years ago I sent a manuscript to Dalkey Archive Press, because they
had accepted a story of mine for the Bukowski number of the Review of Contemporary
Fiction, "Writing the Great American Novel on the IBM PC," I knew what
kind of books they published, and I thought my submission might be right for them.
Imagine my surprise when I got a rejection slip from Fiction Collective 2, at my
alma mater, FSU.
Anyhow, I knew who you were when I drove to Tallahassee
Friday for the Florida Literary Arts Coalition conference, Other Words. I went to
hear your remarks at the Opening Remarks/Welcome event.
I didn't stay for
the brown-bag lunch/FLAC organizational planning meeting on Saturday because, although
I am small press publisher, as well as a writer, and publish a book a month, online,
as I write it, at The Daily Bulletin, in addition to publishing pamphlets,
books, and audio tapes (no video yet), I find I am not a joiner, not a successful
arts organization grant applicant, and not all that keen on coalitions, volunteerism,
faith-based organizations, or abstinence-only sex education. Colored preachers. White
preachers. Preachers.
While you're up, get me a grant.
As a professional
courtesy, I alert you to POSTCARDS FROM POINT AND SHOOT, my book about how folk art,
Americana music, and vernacular writing are related, which begins with my trip to
the FLAC conference on the FSU campus.
When I attended FSU, and was taking
classes, I lived in Rogers Hall, as a mature undergraduate, which was about as far
from the Williams Building as you could get, on foot. This was before the Bellamy
Building was built, when the Anthropology Department shared quarters up over the
Seminole Dining Hall with the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management. We used
to listen to their professors telling the students to serve catfish and charge for
trout.
Now they serve tilapia and charge for grouper.
That was a
long walk, too.
If you want to hide a book, put it on the Internet.
On the other hand, LitVision Press saw Bukowski Never Did This at The Daily
Bulletin, and asked to publish it.
People who want to find a certain
kind of writing go looking for it, and find it. It's not that hard.
Jack
Saunders
Richard Mathews
Dear Richard Mathews:
Nice to see you again, at the FLAC conference in Tallahassee last weekend.
I didn't take a table at the book fair because my new book is in-press, and my old
ones are shopworn (out of print).
Women do get lonely, wearing the same shabby
dress. As Sonny Stitt might say.
Try a little tenderness.
In my experience,
if you're looking for tenderness, you're in the wrong racket.
Anyhow, it
was interesting to visit my old college campus, and see people I knew (Rick Peabody,
Richard Grayson), from events going back to 1980, in Peabody's case.
I had
a class in the Williams Building, and I think I had one in Dodd Hall.
Duane
Locke moved to a retirement home, in Lakeland, and is writing up a storm, on the
Internet.
I write and publish a book a month on the worldwide web, at The
Daily Bulletin. The latest book, POSTCARDS FROM POINT AND SHOOT, opens with my
trip to Tallahassee to attend the FLAC conference.
It will end with my attending
a homegrown folk art, Americana music, and vernacular writing powwow in Panama City,
where I now live.
You can't catch snook in downtown Delray Beach anymore.
Good name for a story.
Jack Saunders
What's Root Doctor?
Q: What's Root Doctor?
A: A history of the band Dread Clampitt.
It sold 500 copies. Which
is good, for a pamphlet. It paid for itself.
I ordered 250 more copies. Print
on demand.
I'm hoping they will come in time for the homegrown powwow at
Big Chief Visions.
Buy a painting and win a cat. Buy a cat and win a painting.
But a CD and get a booklet. Buy a booklet and get a CD.
A Cruel Twist of Fate
In Slouching Toward Nirvana, Bukowski writes
that the woman he went
to Catalina Island with,
in Women, is homeless. Dee Dee. Can that be?
She
was a high-powered executive in the recording industry.
She is homeless and he
died rich, with nicotine stains in his shorts.
With a good woman in a gingham
dress. To feed him vitamins
and health foods. Limit his drinking to expensive
wines.
The Last Bender
I am in training, but.
Our neighbor left a cooler
with some beers in it
she took off
a drunk on our front porch. I didn't drink them
but. I didn't
throw them away. Tonight, I cooked pork
on the charcoal grill. I came in with
a beer in my hand,
and told Brenda I had iced the bonus package down,
and
was going to drink them, that night, because I was going
to go off coffee and
go on a diet Monday. She said,
"Your last bender." I wouldn't call it
that. On the other hand,
I don't know what I'd call it. Money talks and bullshit
walks.