Sunday, 29 June 2014
Friday, 27 June 2014
Thursday, 26 June 2014
Wednesday, 25 June 2014
For many moons, I've been adding little stories
to my autobiography. Here's one I recently wrote:
MORE THAN ONE BLUE MOON
I used to listen faithfully to a radio station in Maine.
On summer nights it would play those old 1950s
songs, do-wop and R&B that I loved. One evening
while The Everly Brothers were singing, or
Fats Domino, or Mary Welles, I worked up my
courage by the telephone. I remember the door
was open to the porch and the ocean was out there.
Across the bay the little houses and vehicles were
dots of reflected water light. It took me two more
songs to pick up the receiver and dial.
When the DJ answered, I could hear the music
in the background like the soundtrack of a drive-in
movie playing with mosquitos in a chrome car
covered field. I asked if he could play ‘Blue Moon’
and he said sure and hung up. That was all it took,
but I felt instantly at ease again. I could breathe again.
All I had to do was listen and wait for The Marcels.
After a commercial break for the horse racetrack
and Mammoth Mart, the DJ returned to the
microphone and announced the next song was a
special request and the needle touched the vinyl
with a rushing crackle. Now, in those days, I did
think of myself as one of those 1950s teenagers
I saw in the movies, Diner and American Graffiti.
I expected a lot from this DJ, you would have thought
I was a moth caught in the glow of the radio dial.
Except the song he played wasn’t what I asked for,
it was ‘Blue Moon of Kentucky’ by Elvis Presley.
Even though Elvis recorded ‘Blue Moon’ in the
echo chamber of Sun Studios, why didn’t the DJ
play that instead? Maybe he wanted me to know
there was more than one blue moon.
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
I finished reading Tom Robbins’ Tibetan Peach Pie.
Both he and Kurt Vonnegut mention their gratitude
to the Golden Age of Publishing when you could
actually make a living with your writing. (Nowadays
most journals and contests charge the author to submit
their work.) Of course I still cling to that Golden Age
dream of the paid author but that hope is vanishing.
These are different days. An especially great change
that has occurred very recently is the ability for the
author to self-publish. Now I have my own press,
Good Deed Rain, and I plan to print all those
long-waiting novels and stories of mine. (Coming up
next is a collection of 5 novels.) And it’s possible to
print on demand so I’m not swimming in boxes of
unsold books. It’s really a wonderful development,
a new golden age of publishing that I’ve been waiting
for years to happen—I’m not making a living writing
but I can see my books published.
Monday, 23 June 2014
With a weekend full of moths
in our daughter’s room and wasps
in our front yard, all those bugs
remind me of this old story I wrote in 1990.
It’s supposed to read like the voice-over
beginning of one of those old sci-fi movies.
ANT ATTRACTION first appeared in a
self-published collection called PAYING
FOR WATER written in a pretty awful
basement apartment in Seattle.
Ant Attraction
Orwell and Huxley were wrong:
Orwell and Huxley were wrong:
The Future belongs to the ants.
Workers will devote their entire lives to the Queen.
They will fight wars and build vast underground colonies.
Though desert winds will cover the Earth
the dunes will shake and hum with the goings on
underneath. That’s where Wink Thorax has his studio
and beams out his show “Ant Attraction” to eager
millions everywhere. The tunnels jam up every
Wednesday as males try to get on the program
clawing for a chance to be permitted to sit
with the camera and sell themselves
Though desert winds will cover the Earth
the dunes will shake and hum with the goings on
underneath. That’s where Wink Thorax has his studio
and beams out his show “Ant Attraction” to eager
millions everywhere. The tunnels jam up every
Wednesday as males try to get on the program
clawing for a chance to be permitted to sit
with the camera and sell themselves
knowing that inside that black, smoked glass booth
sits the Queen. And finally, ever slowly
her jeweled hand will flick out and point to
the winner.
her jeweled hand will flick out and point to
the winner.
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