Water

This was the scene Sunday night at the Mag’s Sentence compound. Heavy rain. High winds. Lightning. Thunder. The atmosphere brought to mind a combination of Vietnam, the jungles of Chiapas, and the darkest, swampiest recesses of Gainesville, Florida. For a while there, I was considering strapping my meager belongings on to the back of my burro and making way for high ground, but then I realized, whoa, I was already on high ground – honestly, I mean elevation-wise I live on high ground, as in near to the top of a hill from whence, on a typical dry Southern California night, I can gaze down at the streetlights of Glendale Boulevard or gaze forward at the police helicopters circling over criminals like English professors over an opportunity to get a poem published in an online literary journal.

So yeah, the rain pounded down for a long, long time. I was naked when I took this picture, and all soaped up – there ain’t nothing like a cold shower, right? – and I was singing a little song Shakespeare used in a couple of his plays: “With a heigh-ho, the wind and the rain/ and the rain, it raineth every day.”

This is to say when there’s standing water on your patio in California, something truly special has occurred. Does this not make you want to put your nose to the ground and take a drink? I mean, if the thought of me running around soapy and naked in my backyard in a rainstorm hasn’t made you too nauseated to take in fluids?

As along as we’re on the topic of fluids and nausea, check out how much water these people have at their disposal. This is a photo I lifted from Facebook. It depicts a panel presentation at the AWP Conference in Denver last weekend. I’m not sure what the presentation was about: the lyric poem? Miniature fiction? Techniques for teaching graduate students the art of networking and nurturing? The panelists, in any case, obviously have some prepared statements on a subject pertaining to creative writing, and they are here pictured during the grueling, heart-pounding hour of their presentation: my thought is this is during the Q & A period because all the panelists have their mouths shut in a tight, I-know-you’re-talking-but-I-am-supposed-to-be-talking-now grimace. And this is all wonderful. Comical to me. But wonderful anyway. But why the fuck do they need all that water? And why has it come to pass that people can’t make a short presentation in front of a small audience without slugging a full liter or more of water? These panelists aren’t even standing up! Hell, in a cyclocross race, the racers wail the tar out of their bodies for anywhere between 35 minutes to an hour, with no bottles on the bike, with no hand-ups allowed, and you think it’s remotely possible that a cross racer’s need for water is slightly in excess of a seated panelist at AWP?

I know, I know. Creative writing is a tough job. I’m glad I have cyclocross to remind me just how hard the writing life is.

And heigh-ho, I’m doubly glad to have the rain.

An Inspiring Message of Hopelessness

Give a forty-six-year-old fellow a laptop and access to the internet and the desire to create great literature and the ability to place the chicken marks in the correct places between words and phrases and clauses and what do you get? A big steaming pile of bullshit! Ain’t it predictable? Or better yet: Isn’t Mag predictable? That guy, I’m telling you, spends way too much time breaking people down , telling them there’s no hope, ruining their dreams, destroying the last vestiges of their joyful outlook about Jesus and Mother Mary and Joseph the homeless guy who reads Roberto Bolano novels under the Fletcher Street Bridge. Mag should look at himself for once his in lousy life. Mag should look at the collective failure he represents. Then maybe he’d stop sticking the knitting needle of his regrets into our fucking eyeballs!

Look. I’m totally serious. If you give a person a basketball and the ability to dribble and to shoot and to run the court, this person might posses the skill set to rock the house at the YMCA lunchtime shirts-and-skins game, but that doesn’t mean this person can suit up tomorrow night and save the L.A. Clippers from certain disaster, right? Or if a person ice skates or plays guitar or sings karaoke or rides a bicycle or befouls perfectly stretched canvas with paint or – whoa, I gotta stop this meander before it cuts itself off from the main stream and turns into an oxbow. [Editor’s note: Mag’s Sentence will offer a special prize to the first person who can decipher the previous meander metaphor.]

So yeah. You’ve got the equipment. You’ve got Microsoft Word and Final Draft and a stack of hip novels that women like to read and a stack of hip screenplays that 25-year-old studio executive assistants like to read and don’t forget the Adidas sneakers: don’t leave your hovel without them on, hey, because ain’t nobody gonna take you seriously if you’re tramping around town with Jesus feet and all the unhustling, unschmoozing behaviors to go along with your Jesus feet. That’s right. You’ve got your shit together now. You’re a wise, scrubbed weenie on the way up. So what do you need to do, with all this stuff you have? Flip the coin, baby, and hope you know somebody who might help you catch it. Because that’s what the sauce reduces to: either you’re a true genius (rare but possible) and nobody’s going to deny you, or you’re going to have to be one lucky motherfucker.

So far in life, I’ve been a motherfucker but not too lucky.

Still, why give up hope?

Answer (and I can’t help quoting my old buddy Chainsaw from back in the day): “Because you’re hopeless, asshole.”

Ah, the artsy-fartsy life, it’s so uplifting.

Wishing you the best of luck in all your endeavors,

mag

Freshen This Shit Up, Mag

I love weekends. I’m not altogether certain why because I essentially do on the weekends what I do all week: participate in a sort of urban self-pitying, self-loathing version of lather, rinse, repeat. But I love weekends anyway. I am one boundlessly happy motherfucker, hey. With such a richly varied life! Damn! I gotta run around the block and spread the goddam word!

Probably not. I don’t feel like getting arrested. And besides, the weekend’s over. The Turd Locker won first place in the beauty pageant. And was not The Turd Locker’s win more important than any number of earthquakes and bombings and shootings and ass-rapings and animal-maulings that occurred all over the world this weekend?

I say, “Hooray, assholes. Now you can buy yourselves a few new cars!”

Incidentally, I’m going to write a book about assholes one of these years, and this time, I’m not going to be the main character.

So where the fuck’s this going? And who gives a double-tapered shit?

Oh yeah. There’s something about Saturdays and Sunday that frees the soul to express things otherwise inexpressible and to think things otherwise unthinkable and therefore to do things heretofore undoable. Think about it: who the fuck (except for weekend-shift types) doesn’t let their Inner Mighty Mouse out of the bag on Saturday and Sundays? Now, maybe your friends on the weekends are getting their praise on at the Megachurch or getting their health on at the triathlon or getting their community service on at a Let’s-Clean-This-Filthy-City event. My friends? They’re getting their booze-brain on and consequently getting their know-it-all on and then they’re planting their lubed-up asses in front of their keyboards and sending me elaborate emails explaining why I’m a piece of low-grade sod, why my various intellectual endeavors demonstrate the mental facility of a plague-carrying rodent, and let’s not forget, Magnuson, that the worst fucking mistake you ever made was leaving fulltime factory work in the first place because you had way more talent at factory work than you have ever had at writing and thinking. Fuck yeah!

Actually, I wish I had more friends like that. These days, I only have one or two friends like this.

Quote from an email that appeared in Sunday morning’s inbox: “I have to be honest, Mike. Your blog is an embarrassment to yourself. You don’t have anything relevant to say, especially about world events, politics, and entertainment. You hardly mention bicycling, and doesn’t that matter to you, Mike? Instead, your blog seems to be a daily excuse for you to feel sorry for yourself. Personally, I quit feeling sorry for you years ago.”

Jesus fuck, that’s some warm commentary, no? For the first time in my life, I feel self-actualized.

Now I quote from the ‘p.s.’ part of the email: “And that picture of a dog turd you posted the other day? Inexcusable. I cancelled my RSS feed for your blog right then and there.”

I read that email over a few times – fifteen or twenty times probably – and in the process realized that I have finally become a mature, sane, calm, measured, rational citizen of the earth. Fuckin-A. My shit’s together now (could this be because I’m living gluten-free? Of course!) and I feel no need to release the blisterpack of my discontent because a dear friend of mine, a person who I’ve known for almost twenty years, has criticized my blogging practices.

I responded nicely. “Thanks for the advice on the blog. I’m new at this shit and haven’t been too concerned about trying to measure up to other bloggers, most of whom are certainly better writers with lots more to say than me. And you’re right: I’m still an asshole but not quite as bad of an asshole as I used to be. In five years, I will be a bowl of human tapioca and everybody will like me a lot. Trust me. But in the meantime, I promise not to post pictures of dogshit and promise not to try convincing people to feel sorry for me. Also, I will for damn sure endeavor to post more material about cycling because I know that’s really important and that’s truly all I should think about. - mag”

The person hasn’t replied yet.

Does this mean I can just keep doing whatever the fuck I want?

Can't Get No Worse

I’m all about happiness and light today. Fuckin-A. Slap me in the face. Call me a piece of shit. Take away all my shit. Take a shit on my driveway. I just don’t fucking care! I am so incredibly overjoyed about all aspects of my life. And I’m sure you are, too.

Okay then. Seriously. I’m happy. I mean, it has just taken me thirty minutes to type those words – not the first paragraph; the words ‘I’m happy’ – but now that I’ve typed them, wow, I guess I’m obligated to let the emotion course through my body. Admittedly, it’s not exactly coursing like the Niagara River through me or anything, but I definitely believe that a tiny, remote, abstract element of joy might exist somewhere in the fetid swamplands of my inner soul.

Happiness point #1: I have been bitching nearly nonstop about my Celiac Disease problem – about the gluten-free life, about my lifetime ban from the Five Dollar Footlong at Subway, and so forth – but I have to admit that a life sans gluten, at least for me, ain’t so bad. It’s not that a fellow can’t eat; it’s that a fellow can’t eat certain items. And the benefits of following the program are amazing: gastric improvement, mood improvement (doesn’t this make you sick?), weight improvement (or maybe that’s because I’m riding my bike a couple/three hours a day?). I mean, I feel fantastic, better than in years and years.

Happiness point #2: See #1.

Happiness point #3: There you go. I’m fresh out of happiness again.

Anyway, see that light socket in the picture above? It’s fucked up. It looks like somebody shit on it (imagine the logistics), but goddammit, that light socket still works. Screw a bulb in and we have light. I feel like that. I feel like life has handed my ass to me so many times and in so many ways and that it’s just going to keep handing my ass to me. Like in the old joke: It’s Life 42, Magnuson 0. And Life’s lining up to kick another field goal. But what can a person do? Quit?

Let’s hear a big goddam HELL NO, people! We ain’t quitting.

Meantime, a couple of Mag’s Sentence announcements: Mike (that would be me) has got huge stacks of work piled on his desk the next few days. He is considering a three-day hiatus from Mag’s Sentence in order to complete his professional mission. Of course, he is not considering taking a few days away from his bicycle, which will go to show you where Mike’s priorities lie.

In other words, if I post some grammatical nonsense tomorrow, look for it later in the day. If nothing appears, please don’t leave me forever!

I’m thinking about reviewing books on Mag’s Sentence, too. Sound like a stupid idea? I mean, since I can’t hardly read in the first place?

Weekender: Harry Partch Documentary, Parts 4 through 6

The rest of the Partch documentary. The music is amazing, no? And don't you want to be more like Harry when you grow up?

News from the Mag's Sentence mini-compound: Resting and riding my bicycle (that's a form of resting) today. Stay tuned for a very weird post tomorrow. - mag

Weekender: Harry Partch Documentary, Parts 1 through 3

If you don't know about Harry Partch, this documentary will get you up to speed. In my opinion, Harry signifies something in art that goes beyond art, which is to say you don't have to make art the way people expect you to make art; you have to make art to correspond to your personal vision. I'll post the other three parts tomorrow. Meantime, I'll be back on Monday with the usual derailleur-inspired grammatical nonsense. - mag

A Strange, Reclusive Figure

Tuesday, February 9, 2110, somewhere on the streets of Los Angeles.

Mag’s Sentence has been conducting an ongoing investigation into Mike Magnuson – keeping him under 24-hour surveillance, trying to verify if he’s actually riding his bike every afternoon (he leaves his house on a cyclocross bike, usually at three p.m. PST, and returns a couple of hours later, but we’re not sure he’s riding the whole time he’s gone); trying to verify if he’s working at his desk the twelve hours a day he claims to be working (from our vantage point on the street outside his home, we haven’t been able to ascertain the location of his study or whether he’s occupying his study: when he’s not gone with his bike, he’s in the building somewhere, is all we know); and trying to verify if he’s staying away from gluten (for the last week, we haven’t found any Jack in the Box bags in his garbage, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t sneaking hamburgers on buns somewhere else? Perhaps on his bike rides?). This investigation of Mike Magnuson, it’s worth pointing out, has been extremely difficult, especially when cameras are present – he flies into violent rages when someone tries taking a picture of him. The photograph above was taken by one our of employees – from a distance of two hundred yards. Fortunately, Mike Magnuson was taking out his garbage at the time and exchanging pleasantries with his neighbors, who had gathered in the street to admire a lovely rainbow that had formed as the Tuesday’s rains were passing from the city on into the mountains, so Mr. Magnuson didn’t see our photographer.

Shortly after that photograph was taken, we sent an operative walking up his street, with orders to stop and engage in a brief conversation with him, so we could assess his general demeanor. Our operative reports that Mike was wearing a pink winter hat, a black T-shirt, gray plaid pajama bottoms, and cheap sports-type sandals with black DeFeet socks.

This is an exactly transcript of the exchange.

Operative: Beautiful rainbow up there.

Mike Magnuson: Fuckin-A it is.

Operative: Where do you think it ends?

Mike Magnuson: Not here.

Operative: My name is [name redacted]. What’s yours?

Mike Magnuson: Steve. But back home in Chicago, people call me Schteve.

Operative: Can I ask you something?

Mike Magnuson: Depends.

Operative: Are you happy?

Mike Magnuson: You like lemons?

Operative: I beg your pardon?

Mike Magnuson: Seriously. You like lemons?

Operative: I guess so.

Mike Magnuson: I’ll get you some.

Here Mike Magnuson disappears into his back yard for a couple of minutes and returns with a brown Trader Joe’s bag full of lemons.

Mike Magnuson: They’re from my tree. I got a lot of them.

Operative: Gee. Uh. Thanks.

Mike Magnuson: Cool. See you later.

And he goes back inside, walking with a perceptible limp.

We’re currently trying to assess the meaning of this incident. Why would he say his name is Schteve? Why would he stand in the street in his pajamas?

Weekender: Wayne Krantz Documentary Part 3

Hope you enjoy the third part of this. For whatever it's worth, the tune they play here, in my opinion, is one of the most thoughtful, joyful pieces of improvisational music ever recorded. When I grow up, I would like have my art be as joyful and smart as this. And did mention Wayne is from Oregon? That's a fine, fine state.

Enjoy the game today. I'll be back tomorrow with a regular, weekday-style irregular post. - mag

Weekender: Wayne Krantz Documentary Parts 1 and 2

Have fun watching this if you have time. I'll post the third part tomorrow and Monday, I'll be back with the usual unhingements. - mag

Technical Failures, Whining As A Way Of Life

You may well ask what the hell happened to the random picture that bears no relation to the text that appears underneath it? You may say, “Mag, have you really gotten so goddam lazy in your forty-sixth year that you can’t step outside and take a stupid, probably blurry snapshot and go back inside, download the picture on to your laptop and upload it to Mag’s Sentence?” I may respond with some friendly, loving remarks of this nature: “If you’re so great, why don’t you try it?” You obviously are trying it – most everybody these days is – and the chances of you living a more efficient and artworthy life than me are vast indeed.

That reminds me of something that’s occurring to me a lot lately. Hey, if you’re better than me, I think that’s great. I admire whatever you’re up to. You know what I’m talking about? We spend too much time on a who’s-better-than-somebody-else level. Like I’ve actually heard this question: Who’s a better guitarist? Jimmy Page or Jimi Hendrix? The only correct answer: Who fucking cares?

So wait: where's the useless, artless picture to go along with this post?

Okay, I had meant, first, to post a remix of one of my original Xtranormal videos today and then make a few announcements about several neato upcoming programming changes here at Mag’s Sentence. But wouldn’t you know it: Xtranormal has been puking the last few days, and I can’t access my account to access the remix. I had a long talk with myself and decided that this was going to be difficult, but I was going to proceed today without a visual aid.

Anyway, announcements.

Xtranormal videos. I’ve made something in the range of twenty-five of those things, and I’ve had way too much fun in the process, but for the time being – a few weeks, maybe a month, maybe two months – I’m going to set them aside and wander in some other crazy creative directions.

Posting schedule. I’ve been doing my best to post seven days a week since Mag’s Sentence started. I’m not sure why the daily format, except for I’m a freak, I guess. For purposes, therefore, of getting my freak under control, I’m going to back off to five posts a week. On weekends, if you still feel like dropping by, I’ll be linking to interesting videos, blogs, and news items produced by people with much more intelligent points of view than me. As always, I appreciate that you visit this place. And I owe you bigtime.

Ass problems. A number of you have written me wondering what’s up with my celiac-ravaged gastric system. I’m feeling much better now, thank you very much, because I’m flat-out banning gluten from my life. The last few days, I’ve been able to ride my bike without difficultly, and just last evening, I ate three bowels of some killer chicken chili at my buddy Seth’s house – lots of beans in there – and I am pleased to report that my system absorbed this and has produced nary a toot. Can I get an Amen on this?

All right then. Come back tomorrow for a spectacular Superbowl edition of Life Sentences. I’m like totally sure you can’t wait.

Happy riding and writing.

To Live and Train in L.A. #1

It ain’t no picnic. Let me say that from the start. In my best days of cycling, back in the day, back when I was a forty-year-old Category IV Heckawee superstar in rural southern Illinois, cycling was a matter of suiting up, saddling up, rolling down the street for a couple of minutes and then pedaling along essentially empty roads for hours on end. If two or three cars would pass in a thirty-minute period, we would often complain that the road had become a bit too ‘trafficky’ for our tastes, and we would seek, and easily find, quieter roads. We were happy cyclists indeed. What an inspiring time that was! Here in Los Angeles, however, a quiet road seems to be one where you can manage to pedal thirty seconds without narrowly escaping certain death from any one of the twenty-five million automobiles and trucks that cram the Los Angeles streets at all hours of the day. Sure, the city has provided bike lanes and erected numerous signs indicating the existence of bike lanes and bike routes. Sure, huge numbers of cyclists manage to ride on a daily basis here: commuters, racers, homeless people, hipster single-speeder douchebags with skinny jeans and no helmets, et cetera. But me? The great pumpkin on a cyclocross bike? I’m scared shitless every time I roll down the street.

Go ahead. Call me a pussy. I don’t care. The L.A. roads are busy and scary and while I’ve lived a rich life and am ready to meet my maker – my maker being The Pillsbury Company, of course – I don’t want to get killed while I’m riding my bicycle. Bicycles, you see, are for improving the quality of life, not for magnifying the violence attending one’s death.

Nevertheless, I have ambitions, misplaced, petty, foolish ambitions along the lines of “Gee, it would be fun to race my bike again and not have my ass completely handed to me.” Or “Gee, I would love to hang once again with a group of friends who like to ride bikes.” And so on. Some mornings, I read Velonews or Cyclingnews or CXMagazine on the internet and start sobbing because I want to get back into racing so badly. But don’t call me a pussy in this instance. Ain’t nothing wrong with a grown man sobbing about wanting to race his bicycle again.

So what can be done? Should a person risk death, on a daily basis, just to find inner satisfaction? The answer, obviously, is fuck yes!

If this were Facebook, you would have to click that you like the living fuck out of what I just wrote.

And you know what? I’m heading out for a near-death experience right now. Should be awesome. Maybe I'll see you out there and we can tell stories.

Following Up On The Underside

This week’s been hard for me, as you know, on account of some soft-tissue issues that are either going to sort themselves out or they aren’t. In the meantime, I’m saddling up and taking the tissues for a test ride, just to see how things are progressing, and when I get back from my ride – if I get back, that is – I’m spending the rest of the day on a super-secret and ultra-pointless writing project, which is the kind of writing project I like best.

I’ll be back with new Mag’s Sentence stuff tomorrow.

For the moment, I’ll close with a ridiculous motivational quote a number of cyclists have been passing around this week: “Success, like happiness, comes as a by-product of work…concentrate on the work and allow the rewards to come, or not come.” I guess a genuine joy-bundle named S. Pressfield wrote that or said that or whatever.

Please don’t take heed to that kind of Pure-D bullshit, people. Be happy first, then worry about your work.

Happy riding and writing, everyone.

Consistency

When you get right down to it – and why in the fuck should we not get right down to it? – the corporate types who are motivated by pictures and slogans and so forth are probably more busy kissing ass and giving the appearance of being motivated than they are actually being motivated by the posters in their office halls. My view: nobody is stupid enough to look at a picture of a bald eagle paired with the word STRENGTH and then decide to have a great day on the telephones at work. Or a picture of a tall tree paired with the word POWER. Or a picture of a mouse ass-reaming a dead mouse in a trap paired with the word WEALTH. Or maybe this has nothing to do with intelligence. Maybe we’re looking at a different-strokes-for-different folks situation. Maybe a certain type of person needs a simple word, something on which to focus, in order find courage to suffer through yet another long day endeavoring to make somebody else rich. I don’t know. One word never motivates me. One word means too many things.

CHICKEN, for instance.

Think about it.

See what I mean? Maybe you don’t. Sorry.

Today, CONSISTENCY rankles me in some way – in the as-a-concept way, of course. When I started Mag’s Sentence, I did so by establishing a couple of parameters, chief of which was that I would avoid confining myself within parameters, which meant that I would steadfastly refuse to confine myself within one identity, one area of interest. Most blogs by writers are in some way centered around selling the books of the writer or, worse, they are exclusively about writing, and if you’re not a writer, writerly matters are as boring as attending three straight performances of Madame Butterfly by the University of Northern Northwest North Dakota Amateur Opera Society. And cycling blogs? You’d think the authors of these things really do have nothing on their minds but things with two wheels, which is capital-B Boring. Odd note: The other day, Lance Armstrong said in an interview that all Alberto Contador thinks about, from the moment he wakes till the moment he falls asleep, is cycling, and when I read that I couldn’t help thinking that Contador must easily be the dullest person in the entire world, even duller than the 18^th Century British Literature Faculty at UNNND. Who cares if Contador is fast? We’ve got life to live over here!

Oh yeah. CONSISTENCY. Fuck it. I don’t want to fall into that shithole of the mind.

Speaking of which, look at that beautiful terrain in the picture above. Is that occasion for poetry or for cycling or for maybe cracking a bottle of wine and contemplating the meaning of things?

Closed for Renovation

Finishing up my time here in Oregon, where I've been teaching in the low-residency MFA Program at Pacific University. This is a great program with a lot of first-rate writers teaching here and studying here. So what if rain falls all day, every day?

Meantime, I'm traveling back to Los Angeles tomorrow, where obviously sun shines all day most every day, and I will resume routine daily Mag's Sentence madness on Monday.

Get out and ride your bikes, write something, eat something good, and be happy.

Mag's 2010 Racing Season: The Announcement!

I’ve been in Oregon for over a week now, bikeless but at the same time oddly happy. True, my exercise regimen here has resembled the kind of midget-size political and military power Napoleon had when he was exiled to Elba. To run, I have decided, is to beat one’s joints into an irreversible trash-heap state, so instead of running, now I’m just walking. If I had to stay here for another full week, I would be crawling. A month, and I would turn into a mushroom that not even a starving animal would want to eat. Ah, the tragedy.

So what does a cyclist do in a ten-day period off the bike? He plots out an ambitious training program, sets a plan for the upcoming season, and decides on a number of equipment purchases to make this training program a success. Fuck yeah! I’m going to buy a new Trek Madone and a shiny new Radio Shack uniform and a bunch of Nike undergarments, and I’m going to race in the goddam Tour de France this summer. No shit. I think this is a reasonable season goal, not only from a financial and physical standpoint but from a mental standpoint because that’s key, having your mind in the game before your put your ass in the saddle. So I’ve been studying the Tour’s route fairly carefully and targeting a few stages for stage wins, which is embarrassing because I would prefer to compete for victory in the general classification, but at this point I’m going to be realistic: take a few wins in the first week of the tour, enjoy a few moments of glory, and hey, if opportunity presents itself, I might go for the whole shebang. Why not?

See you in France this summer!

Allez, my friends.

Not Possible

Something’s going wrong. Incredibly wrong. I can’t think of one snarky, cranky, bitchy, pissy thing to say about the writing life today. Must be that writing’s going good? No. It’s going like shit. I’m away from my desk. I just moved. I just read over a bunch of material I’ve written recently and have decided the binary code on which it’s stored should be vaporized. And what else? Most books still stuck. There’s about no hope in the world for a writer like me, with a mentality and sensibility like mine, to publish anything of significance, in book form, on a national scale, and expect anybody to read it. And, um, fuckin-A, you should hand me a goddam diaper bag, people, because I’m totally filling my Jockey shorts with self-pity here today. But still – or but fuck – I’m a happy camper.

To make things worse, I know the reason why I’m a happy camper, and somehow I can’t manage to choke my happiness back into the sort of old-fashioned piston-fisted beat-off session at which professional whiners like me excel. So the reason I’m happy? I’ve been hanging out with a bunch of writers since Thursday, and despite how much I have been dreading the prospect and despite how much of my freetime I spend stewing over things like the horrors of university-professor/writer types, well, shit, it turns out I’m a writer; these people I’ve been hanging around with are writers; and we’ve got lots in common; and we’re having lots of fun!

I’m gonna puke pretty soon.

So I’ll stop with the mush.

Stay tuned for a new animation tomorrow.

Not Too Old Yet

What writers want is piles of books, stacks of manuscripts with handwritten notes on them, cheap TV equipment on which we can view the Godfather for the 300^th time in case we’re uninspired or in case we just can’t live one more minute without watching Sonny getting shot to pieces on the causeway. “Look,” the Godfather says, “how they massacred my boy.” Ah! We want our lives to be a huge body of work in progress, and if correlative wastes stem from this pursuit, isn’t this all a lovely form of messy, energetic, creative fun?

In the fizzling, fetid wastelands of my middle-aged heart, I still believe in that. I want my life to be a bustling manifestation of creativity and art, and I want the sloppy, Beethoven-like hair and wild-eyed look to go along with it. To a certain extent, I have achieved this: I am broke, I look crazy, I feel like shit physically, but by God I’m having the greatest creative run of my life. For years and years, I would tell people I had ten projects going at once and the truth was that these ten projects amounted to ten ongoing email exchanges with ten of my old friends. But these days, I really do have ten projects going at once (some have to do with writing; some don’t) and I’m more often than not weeks behind on emails with old friends because I’m devoting so much time to creating instead of avoiding creating. Moreover (I love that word, by the way: it’s easily the most entertaining adverb in the pseudo-intellectual word-choice toolbox), I feel for the first time in years that I am free to express myself however the fuck I want and I can do this without fear of snide recrimination from insecure professorial assholes who are more worried about maintaining a positive image than they are about producing useful, truthful art. Am I bitching about university life again? Fuck yes!

But I do not mean to bitch, mellow reader. I mean to say something incredibly corny. I am forty-six years old – too old to be making a creative run, at least according to the nonsense I hear in Los Angeles – and everything that possibly could have gone wrong for me in the last few years has gone wrong. My mind and spirit should be toast. But despite the odds, despite how much I should feel beat down, I’ve got more gas in my tank (more gas in my ass, too!) than ever. Fuckin-A!

Where am I going with this? I forgot.

Oh, I remembered. You’re never too old to make your run.

She Secretly Loves It

Merry Mag's Sentence Christmas