I'm not entirely sure how this works, as this is my maiden blog voyage. What I'm going to do is treat this like a public diary. I'll document what I'm writing, I'll be exposing--which is to say, I will be naming lots of names of people and venues, I'll be quoting from emails within my possession--the corruption, bigotry, cronyism, and all of the horrible writing in publishing, for there is not anyone I've not dealt with in this so-called industry which is anti-decency, anti-literature, anti-sanity--and I'll be bringing readers with me on my hikes, the concerts I go to, the museums I'm regularly in, the ballets I attend, the sporting events I'm always at, plus what I'm reading, listening to, screening.
There will be photos, videos, all of that, provided I can figure out how to work the gears, as they say. Admittedly, that's iffy here on Monday morning, but hold fast!
Today I'm hustling out after a quick three mile run to see my mom before she returns to the Middle West--specifically, Chicago. We had not seen each other since last August, but she and my sister flew in for a wedding. The latter did a portion of my workout with me on Friday. Most days, I run three miles, I walk three, and then I climb the Bunker Hill Monument anywhere from five to seven times. It's 294 steps to the top, erected in 1843.
I'm fairly certain I'm the only person in this country who uses the inside of an edifice on the National Register as a gym, so I'll be writing an essay about this soon, called "You're Up, You're Down, You're Up." Running the stairs--in addition to the 3000 miles I cover annually on foot--is something I started to do as publishing sought to destroy me, and my life fell apart.
I'd have weeks where I'd have a short story in Harper's, I'd talk on NPR, there would be works on literature, film, music, and art in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, ARTnews, with an op-ed in The New York Times, and people just started pounding me, as I watched people who achieved one of the things I achieved--by which I mean, had given to them for the wrong reasons--get the awards, the support, the puff piece reviews, the stories accepted sight unseen, the genius grants, the tongue baths, the genital stroking. Banning me from their venues, spite rejecting works out of the standard industry jealousy and the fear I engender as being something totally unlike any of them. Have a look around the website. Click on some tabs.
But anyway, you people (and you certainly know who you are): I am going to expose you and raze your system to the ground.
Part of keeping going has involved keeping myself fit, like a Zulu warrior stripped for battle. There was other stuff, too, which will emerge through these postings, and in a memoir of mine. A wife who was having an affair for a long time, which I didn't learn about until four years after the fact, after she ghosted me, took my house, my health, caused me to have a stroke at thirty-six while I was on assignment for ESPN in California. A few hours later, I got on a plane, because I wanted to die in 2012, and life is far, far worse now. Because I've achieved more, gotten to a level where I can't turn to the person next to me and say, "huh, here we are," because it's just me, the proof is all around, and publishing is an anti-meritocracy that hates legitimacy in direct proportion to how outsized that legitimacy is.
But I walked, I climbed, I created more in six years than I believe any artist ever has, while spending the bulk of my life begging horrible people to actually do their job, dispense with their envy and hate--for a bit, anyway--and respond, not ban, not spite reject, not steal. And the more I achieved, the better I got, in every single which way, not just as an artist, the more the hate and discrimination was upped.
But the revolution is coming, where people will read again, and people will stop writing wretched little MFA stories that no one on planet Earth is actually interested in, and which lit bizzers pretend to care about.
I'm heading out to see my mom one last time now. Just ran three miles, but bagged out on the Monument stairs, as I'm behind. I screened 2001: A Space Odyssey this AM for something I must write very quickly. Listened to an awful of Lee Morgan over the weekend--a club date from 1962, his final session, a 1958 gig with Art Blakey in tribute to Clifford Brown.
I say I'm new to this, by which I mean the formatting, not diaristic writing. I intend to see those writings of mine come out in my lifetime, but in the interim, this will be a repository for more of them. Going to try and upload a photo of me and my sister now. On Friday we visited my father's grave, and he was much on my mind yesterday for Father's Day.
A man with unshakable character, who, seeing what I am fronted with, what I am fighting to change--and which I will change, you have my eternal word--would tell me to lay on. Our other sister died in October 2014, so my mom has been through a ton, and she just came through a bout with breast cancer. Usually, I think, parents are proud of their children, but I'm exceedingly proud of my mom. As my dad would be, too, I'm sure, and no doubt as my late sister Kerrin is, and my other sister Kara, who joined me--I never have a climbing buddy!--inside the Monument on Saturday morning. I did my five climbs, and she did two, which is awesome for a first time. The Monument is not easy. Attaining sweet, sweet victory is not easy. But, the day is coming.
By the way: this blog is called the Many Moments More blog on account of the lines, "Heroism is endurance for one moment more." That's also the name of the memoir I'm doing.
So. Welcome to the resurrection.
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