Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Shirker:
A Book a Month, Posted Online, Daily

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.