Where The Rubber Meets The Road

I’m still writing, of course. You’d think one kind would naturally dovetail into the other, and if you were me, you would be wrong. I present this as the sort of waste of time I engage in: a fake song (that will most likely never be put to music) about a fake couple (who will mostly likely implode) for a fake band (that isn’t as good as I want them to be) in a story (that has a .01% chance of ever being published). I think I write almost twice as much material about the story as I do in the story.

The War

She puffs out her lip like a hitchhiker’s bruise.
He catches the heart on his sleeve on her dress.
They slip off their shoes for their ruse of a cruise.
The roadside they litter with such bitterness.

The wrong turns they take and the stops that they make
In the lots where the ghosts of their best shots lay dead.
She puts on her blacks as they stay for the wake;
They sigh while his blues clash with lips ruby red.

And this is the war
If not the heart’s wish.
It’s love at the core
That hates in the flesh.

In decency lost and complacency found,
The particulars are in need of redress;
They pick at the bones as they drive the world ’round,
And make their love with razor sharp tenderness.

And this is the war
If not the heart’s wish.
It’s love at the core
That hates in the flesh.

In the dark that falls in the hours made small,
When push comes to pull and the knife to it’s rest,
They’re twining their grip as they cling to their fall,
And lay themselves down by the sweat of their breast.

And this is the war.
Their war.
This is the war.
Their war.

I know, it’s a blogging no-no to leave gaps this wide between posts. Well, tough shit. And I mean that in the nicest possible way, for all three people who read this (crossposted – not even on the site itself).

It’s not that I haven’t been writing; it’s just that I haven’t been writing here.

My love of the written word, of reading, writing, and of storytelling goes back a long way. Probably because writing is the ultimate way to monopolize the conversation. Blogging (for me) is simply a way to keep flexing that muscle, even if I don’t have anything interesting to say. And let’s face it; that’s a lot of the time. If I was that pithy and intriguing, I’d be getting paid for this because people were reading it, and advertisers would want to sell to those people. (You may now remove tongue from cheek.)

Occasionally, I feel like I do have something to say, and being the selfish bastard that I am for the purposes of this sentence, I keep those to myself. Not by choice, of course.

I write fiction, because (to paraphrase that legendary asshole, Harlan Ellison) I can’t not write fiction. And over the years, I have reached the stage wherein I, the unpublished writer, look aghast at what passes for popular literature and say, “I can do better than that.”
I may not be the next Shakespeare, the next Mark Twain, or even the next William Gibson, but can write circles around William Shatner’s ghost writer. For that matter, if the dumpster-full of formulaic vampire chick-porn authors are anything to go by, I should already be in Stephen King territory (speaking of formulaic…).

Arrogant? Yes. But true. It’s bad out there, kids.

For the past few weeks, I have been touching up a trilogy I’m currently in the middle of. Times have been a-changin’ faster than I can crank out this story, considering that the whole enchilada, in toto, will weigh in around a half a million words, about three-fifths of which has already been committed. That’s one and a half novels in the can.
Of course, I still have to get somebody to read the damn thing(s). And by “somebody”, I mean someone who doesn’t finish the first book and say, “It’s really good. You should get it published.” An agent, for instance.

If there’s anything comedy has taught me, it that getting a decent agent is almost 75% luck. If you’re not picky or smart, getting an agent isn’t actually all that hard. I’ve had offers as a comic, and turned them all down.
Why? Because not a one of them could open a door that I could not have opened by myself. Also, at least one of them was a predator. Which you also get in the literary world. For every earnest, honest, hard-working agent, there are a hundred earnest, dishonest, hard-working agents looking to bleed as many people of a few bucks as they can before everyone catches on.

Not to mention the sad, equally predatory, and ruinous world of “vanity” (or self) publishing. Sure, if you’re a minor celebrity who can’t be taken seriously by the literary world because you were once the annoying kid on a hit television show, and you have a flair for the thing (*cough*wilwheaton*cough*), you could do well by self-publishing. But for the rest of us, it’s just a pathetic exercise in self-delusion. Your book will go nowhere. Actually, even if it were published by a reputable publishing house, the odds are still good that your book is going nowhere.
And currently, neither is mine.

Thus, I have been sequestered; hunkered down with my laptop, sifting through hundreds of thousands of words in order to make sure my protagonist has heard of Wi Fi, and doesn’t make Clara Peller references. Occasionally, I find a typo, and it really pisses me off. Every second I spend reviewing material is a second I’m not creating new material. Unfortunately, it is the artist’s curse that they eventually become sick unto death of their creation, be it jokes, stories, songs, paintings, ad infinitum.

But however much I become frustrated or bored with the tedium, it pales in comparison to how much I dislike what comes next. Because if not for my crippling lack of acumen when it comes to self-promotion, I’d have more than a just handful of people noticing when I haven’t posted, and more than a handful of dubious credits to my name. And that translates all-too-well to pimping my book, or prostituting myself to that end, or some other mixed metaphor. Put simply, I suck hard at drawing the right kind of attention to myself.
But draw I must.
Otherwise, I’m might as well be blogging with myself.
Until I go blind.

When you start out doing comedy, it’s all new material. Every joke, every carefully chosen word, every gesture and inflection – it’s all up for grabs.

When you’ve been at it long enough, you eventually reach the place where you reside onstage. It is your home; it is where you come from. It is the you that gets translated to roomfuls (or less) of strangers, and everything you say and do comes from that place – a unified, single source from which your material flows.

But the jokes themselves don’t always start that way.

I used to have a friend with whom I would write jokes, and – being that we were in our comedic infancy – the material we came up with was interchangeable. That is, either of us could bring it up to the stage and have similar success with it. But as time wore on, and we developed our own distinct voices, moved into those places onstage wherein we would reside, it became impossible to write together in any equitable sense, because the flavor of the material was suited to one or the other. Sometimes I would write a joke, like it, want to bring it to the stage, but then realize that it was speaking in my friend’s voice. There was no way around it; that joke – regardless of who wrote it – belonged to him.

And to this day, I have discarded jokes that were otherwise stage-worthy because they simply did not come from that place. Audiences may not know the why or how of it, but they can tell. Imagine Richard Pryor smashing a watermelon with a sledgehammer, and you have a rough idea of stylistic incompatibility.

I have a wry and clever side to my wit, and sadly, I can almost never use it onstage. Onstage, I am largely very sarcastic and almost brutal toward the things I mock So, the audience just doesn’t respond when I start using witty word-play or pointed satire. The change is too marked, too abrupt for them to adjust. George Carlin got away with it, because, well, he was George Carlin. And I am not.

The point, of course, is that a comic must be ever vigilant if she/he wants to avoid sinking their set because they just plain fell in love with something they wrote. I have been guilty of exactly that: bringing the show to a screeching halt with a witticism that absolutely didn’t belong, and all because I couldn’t bring myself to to let it go.

Recently, I played my home club in Madison, Wisconsin (which – I once told The Captial Times – is the only place they get my Noam Chomsky jokes), and brought with me a good five minutes of new material. Believe is or not, that’s a fairly large chunk to insert into a set. About half dealt with religions, and the other half dealt with ethnicity. Of the entire five minutes (to be brutally honest), about one and a half minute was worth saving. The rest just went off the reservation (har dee har).
It’s frustrating, because there was nothing especially wrong with the odd three and a half; it just didn’t mesh. All the wordsmithing and brainstorming didn’t make it work the first time, and is unlikely to redeem the material. So, I have to let it go. Out with the wrong, in with the right.

It’s a survival trait.

When it rains, federal agencies ignore your city’s need for reinforced levies for partisan reasons and the poor die in droves.

Of course, I’m paraphrasing. There’s something about pouring in there, I think.

We’ve sent the kids packing for the summer to their father’s, pulled some teeth, recovered from illness, made arrangements for travel, done a lot of work that is better done without little ‘uns underfoot…

You get the gist. It’s funny how some people say they don’t have the time for something, when they have all the time in the world – provided they put down the remote/controller/headset/other technological gadget. And then there’s the inverse: people who will never believe anybody is really that busy.

But it happens. And you literally don’t even have time to make so much as a phone call. My friend Shirley told me she once ate dinner while bathing, just to give herself time for other necessities. It’s a funny image, and it’s a familiar one. Though I’ve never munched on a chicken leg while scrubbing my unmentionables, I have conducted delicate, nuanced, negotiations with booking agents while producing a similar product from my other end. If you get my drift.

In short, you have to prioritize. And as much as this blog is both catharsis and a portal into the world of stand-up comedy, and as much as both functions are important to me, they do not win out over the necessities of life. Thus, a lo-o-o-o-ng silence.

Which is fine. I am not quite so egotistical as to believe it changes anything significant to not write, save that it’s one of my precious few great pleasures, and my fingers start to itch if I haven’t.

Fortunately, like all things, the storm passes, and you begin the process of renewal.

I’m still paddling.

Obviously, it’s been busy lately. I haven’t had much time for the blog, even if – right now – it’s just a placeholder for the more substantial writings I intend to fill these computer-generated pages with.

I have many excuses, and some of them are even true, like my attempt to write a musical about a fast food drive-through: (Also, they rhyme)
Is that your whole order? It can’t be true!
Expand your horizons and your ass, too! (Come on, sir, I’m here for you)
You don’t understand a word I’m saying,
But I’m on my headset and I’m praying. (Even though it sounds like braying)
Shakes! Burgers! Chicken bits!
The cooks! Are! Having fits!
How ’bout a lot more sodium and fat?
Do you want some fries with that?

But of course, rule number one for writing is: Write.
I paraphrase Harlan Ellison by saying that the writer writes not because she/he can, or even because she/he is good at it, but because the writer can’t not write. However, this applies to comics, too. And parents, if they have a soul. Really, anyone who is dedicated to anything can say it of their project.
So, you must prioritize. Shall I devote another hour or two to sounding off in this, my personal echo chamber? Or do I set it aside for a day or two in order to maintain some semblance of consistency elsewhere in my life?

See? I told you I have excuses. Don’t worry, my little echoes. I’m still standing. I’m still writing. And soon enough, I’ll have another pile of unfiltered opinion/doggrel for you to chew on. Until then, perhaps there’s something more productive you could be doing?