Reading old punk zines and writing the character of Cal for my novel is reviving my inner son of a bitch. Hm, I kind of missed that guy. Oh, I'm sure he'll eventually piss me off by not using a coaster or knocking on my door and asking for money at 3 a.m., and then I'll have to throw him out on his ass, but for now it's fun to chat about the old days.

Okay, here are a few I thought of on the way to work.

Cancer Stick
Finest Veal
Daddy's Girl

I'm considering grabbing song titles from insults hurled in the pages of punk fanzines. Not original, I'm sure, but I think "Pinch Loaf" is just begging to be recorded.

Hm, Pinch Loaf... Nah, too close to Meat Loaf.

All of this made me think of one of my least-favorite writing conceits: writers who write song lyrics for their books. Maybe you can hear the tune, dude, but I can't, and I find that distracting. Also, it doesn't matter if you're writing hardcore punk or heavy metal lyrics: it always ends up sounding like high school girl poetry.

It was at this moment mrdankelly stopped blogging and picked up his well-worn Martin guitar. When he strummed it, it sounded like angels singing, except with taut metal wires.

Whoooooaaaaaa*/She was a roaming girl
Served me peas and daffodils/
Then her plumber man returned to her/
And left me bitter Metamucil

Roaming girl/Roaming girl/
Whooooooaaaaaaa/Woo-woooooooo
She roamed around/From town to town/
Her scented love-hat growing old/
And I regret not eating mold
But she... She is my... She... Her... She do am be/Roaming girl
Whooooooaaaaaaaa (Repeat chorus 67x)

Roaming girl came back one day/
Said her plumber-boy was cruel and gay/
She touched my eyebrows with her smile (silence)
(Spoken) But I was dead/Yes, dead and vile
(Power chords)
Whoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaa/
Whoooooooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaa/
Roaming girl/Roaming girl/
You were but fortune's harlot, miss/
You threw my sweat love into hell's abyss/
But I still love you/Whoooooooaaaaa/
My roaming girl
Wooooo-woo-woo-woo-woo-wooooooo!!!!!/
Sweat sweat looooooooooooove!

(Spoken) Take my hand in mine, then we'll go.


At that moment, mrdankelly leaned over his guitar and gracefully expired. Then all the girls who were ever mean to mrdankelly wept sorrowfully and apologized to him, because he was a beautiful and sensitive man. Not like those assholes they dated. Then they made out with each other and let him watch them make out. Which, uh, brought him back to life, so he could watch them beautiful goils touch boobies. And one of them even went out and got him a cheeseburger, because he was a beautiful, sensitive, and hungry man.

Footnotes
* I especially despise onomatopoeia in fake lyrics.

When I'm writing the novel, occasionally there's a point where I'm no longer typing out a scene as described to me over the phone by someone watching it through a telescope. Instead I'm standing elbow-to-elbow with the other characters. I'm not invisible. I'm just one of the gang. A quiet one, however. No postmodern authorial forays into this book's action for me. Cal, Charles, and Freddy, each 25 years old, just go about their business, ignoring the 40-year-old guy standing beside them in the pop cultural museum Freddy's built in his mother's coachhouse. Though each might look at me once in a while and think... "Geez, that guy kind of reminds me of... me."

Vonnegut did it in Breakfast of Champions. Grant Morrison did it in Animal-Man. Why can't I remember what that's called? When an author writes himself into his or her work? It's not deus ex machina. Damn, this is going to bug me.

What other works employing this device can you list?

This is probably the most saddening and maddening thing I've read all day.



More when I have time to comment.

I'm feeling lonely over at Shelfari. Why not stop by, sign in, and friend me?

I have no idea what she's like as a person, and I haven't read her books or seen her on TV or such like. Regardless, I somehow just know that a few of you literary highbrows are going to say something about how her work is (enter series of negative adjectives here) or that she's an obnoxious interviewee or whatever opinions you've formed about her. Whatever. For now, let me just make the observation that Ann Patchett...



...is way cuh-yoot.

Even her name is adorable.

Okay, I looked into her a bit more. This story is priceless:

Dave: So you wrote for Seventeen for a while.

Patchett: I'm not exactly sure how that happened. I sold them a short story. Most of what I ended up doing was nonfiction. Seventeen was good for me because they were so cruel. They bought one out of every five articles that I wrote, and they would let everyone in the office, down to the janitorial staff, comment on everything. There would be notes in seven different colors of ink, people writing back saying, "That wasn't the way I felt when I was fourteen. You need to represent my point of view."

They were horrible, the worst organization to work for, but in terms of nonfiction, I lost all my ego. I can write for any magazine now, in any voice. I can do it in two hours, I could do it in my sleep, it's like writing a grocery list. I give them a lot of credit for making me the workhorse I am today.

I did next to nothing for other magazines in those days. I was always nervous, trying to win their approval. Then I got an editor there whom I despised, we had a screaming fight on the phone - you don't know me, but I've screamed maybe three times in my life, I'm just not a screaming kind of person - and I said, "That's it. I'll never darken your door again." At that moment, it was like my whole career broke open and I was suddenly able to do some different things. Being with Seventeen was great, cutting them loose was great.

I also worked for Bridal Guide. That's a big one.

Hmmmm... I recognize myself in this. I don't think being broken until you can write for any magazine is all that much of a plus though. The idea that you need a total asshole as a mentor is such a cliche too. I've learned more from patient but firm-handed editors than any of the, "Well, this just doesn't feel right. Do it again. No, I don't have time to give you more input. Just do it."

The Bedside Reading List

As part of my new year's resolutions, I vowed to finish off the stack of books that have gathered on the shelf on my side of the bed (Mike has her own overstacked bookshelf on her side, but that's her problem). Here's the list and my current tally. I don't HAVE to read each book in bed, but it somehow seems more honest if I do.

The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

Chasin' That Devil's Music by Gayle Dean Wardlow

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader

Dark Water by Koji Suzuki

The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax

Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford

The Oxford Annotated Bible by God and Friends

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The Elephants of Style by Bill Walsh

Orientalism by Edward Said

Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

From Cottage to Bungalow: Houses and the Working Class in Metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929 by Joseph C. Bigott

To Sleep with the Angels by David Cowan

Memoir from Antproof Case by Mark Helprin

The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emry

White Noise by Don DeLillo

A Stack of Architectural Prairie Digests

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

SAS Urban Survival Book by John "Lofty" Wiseman

You Can't Win by Jack Black (No, not that Jack Black.)

The Odyssey by Homer

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
Not bad, and I will definitely pass this along to my son to read when he gets a few thousand words under his belt, but the hype... she must not be believed. Pullman makes some nice points about rejecting religion and the will- and intellect-sapping techniques of the Church, but he can only disprove God by employing him as a character, which sort of pokes holes in his arguments. Maybe His Dark Materials isn't intended as a wholly fundamentalist atheist work, but it certainly couldn't have sold as many copies as an out-and-out refutation of any specific God or prophet (I think I remember a mention of "Our Lady," But the names Yahweh, Jesus, Mohammed, and such never come up. The Church is a collection of old men in black cassocks—obviously Catholic, but never outwardly so. I recall a Pope being mentioned, but not as the literal head of the Church.). Certainly, the story wouldn't exist without a distinct antagonist. Good storytelling for the most part, but towards the end Pullman falls back into some sappy New Agey idea of humans being prevented from reaching their full potential owing to the manacles of organized religion (yes, it's always religion, never hunger, greed, sexual desire, or such that manipulate people into acting against their better angels). Agreed, but (1) claiming that if we'd all just be, like, beautiful and free and freaky, man, we'd experience a New Enlightenment is naiive at best, and (2) poets and scholars always claim that the general populace is capable of Enlightenment and spontaneous creativity, but they never really believe it, do they? The second book, The Subtle Knife, is the best book. The last book is a bit rushed and ( *SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!* )

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Of Paradise and Power by Robert Kagan

Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre

A manila folder of clipped Harper's and New Yorker articles.

I'm about halfway through Within a Budding Grove, the second book in Marcel Proust's work "In Search of Lost Time." I swear, I will dig up Proust and put my fist through his fop head if I have to read one more asthmatic description of his hotel room, dinner with his grandma, or the latest beautiful unattainable girl to cross his path. You're a big pansified poof, Marcel. Deal with it.

#1 I think I might be officially blogged out. With W. screaming to the earth in flames and my guilt at spending too much time on nonsense and fart jokes, I'm not sure what to say here. Ah, give me an hour and I'll be back.

#2 We had our taxes done last night, and while it was great that I didn't get much published last year (my expenses were greater than my income--also, I have to name my own "business"—how about, DAN KELLY AMALGAMAUTOMATED CONGLOMEROID INDUSTRIES"—so I can get breaks on office supplies and whatnot), and hence didn't have to pay too much in social security, fed, and state, it was sobering to discover I only had four articles published last year. Part of it was the six-month curse of The Article That Would Not Die™ and the novel, but the other part is the fact that I've grown a little disenchanted with the business. I hate schmoozing. I hate trying to break into new markets. I hate having about 17 years of publishing behind me and STILL being treated like a newbie while trying to impress a new editor. I should, and I do, write just for the sake of writing and because I love doing it (not always, but enough), but I want more. I always want more.

I want at least one book published before I die. Then I'll be happy.

79,529 / 120,000 (66.3%)

Now I go on vacation for a week.

That took about four years, with multiple monthlong breaks between writings. When I come back I'll give myself five months to compete section 2 (August 23, my 40th birthday). Section one was written in fits and starts, but I'm sure I could have finished it in far less time than that if I'd stuck to a schedule.

And when I'm done, I'll publish the damn thing myself and sell it on the street if I have to. Whee!

If I haven't made it clear, my latest project is a piece on Black Patti Records—an extremely minor Chicago African-American record label that existed for only nine months in 1927 before folding; the rarest of the rare among 78s, any Black Patti record, even the crappiest one in poor condition, will probably garner you a grand on eBay. Don't hold your breath about finding one in grandma's attic. I'm especially interested in writing about Black Patti's manager, Jay Mayo Williams, a black music impresario who was also a football player way back when. As with most of my projects, I'm completely absorbed in the subject, with a passion to discover this or that bit of obscure knowledge or any living person who might have interacted with Mr. Williams. It's quite exciting, though I'm covering slightly tread territory, and rather than simply banging out 6,000 words, I should scribe a booklet instead. Maybe a chapbook. Wheeee!

Anyway, I'm thrilled because I found a local collector who has a Black Patti record (it's one of the good ones too, and it'll only cost you five grand if you want it). He's into an interview. I'm hoping he consents to doing it in person, because I'd love to finally SEE a Black Patti in person.

Whenever I settle upon a subject that nobody seems to care about or that's been only passingly researched or reported upon, why is it that when I'm about three months into research I discover some other fucking guy has been working on a documentary about the same subject for the past year? I contacted the library at Monmouth, IL about Mayo Williams (that's his hometown), and was informed by the librarian that some guy named Erick Light was already there last summer, doing extensive research. He probably has PBS money too, dammit, and doesn't have a boss who's picky about extended vacations.

I'm not discouraged, just annoyed. It reminds me of a book I read recently. If you haven't read Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions, you should. Part of the plot involves the author's rediscovery of a mythical silent film comedian named Hector Mann. The author's life has recently sailed straight to hell (his wife and sons die in a plane crash, he ends up drinking too much, he alienates his friends, and so on), but after seeing a Mann comedy and laughing for the first time in years, he decides to write a book about him, which pulls him out of his funk. I don't want to reveal too much, but it turns out someone else is also writing about Mann. Drama ensues.

My point is that I understand and appreciate that other people care about these things and want to promote them to the rest of the world too, but I'm beginning to think I'll need to invent my own Hector Mann to write about if I ever want to make a subject all my own. I want to explore an undiscovered country without suddenly realizing that Amundsen got there already. Meanwhile I'm freezing to death on a glacier, gnawing my pemmican-flavored ice bar.

I also fear potential repercussions if the other person isn't like, say, Floyd Webb (who's filming a Count Dante documentary and who I interviewed after a few month's worth of my own research), and doesn't want to share info or, worse, start accusing me of stepping on his or her toes. In addition, while I was happy as heck to help Floyd, but sometimes it's no fun to keep playing the Boswell role.

I'll write the damn thing, but shucks.

Fret.

As part of my new year's resolutions, I vowed to finish off the stack of books that have gathered on the shelf on my side of the bed (Mike has her own bookshelf on her side, but that's her problem). Here's the list and my current tally. I don't HAVE to read each book in bed, but it somehow seems more honest if I do.

The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket

The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

Chasin' That Devil's Music by Gayle Dean Wardlow

The Prestige by Christopher Priest

Innocent When You Dream: The Tom Waits Reader

Dark Water by Koji Suzuki

The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax

Ulysses Annotated by Don Gifford

The Oxford Annotated Bible by God and Friends

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

The Elephants of Style by Bill Walsh

Orientalism by Edward Said

Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

From Cottage to Bungalow: Houses and the Working Class in Metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929 by Joseph C. Bigott

To Sleep with the Angels by David Cowan

Memoir from Antproof Case by Mark Helprin

The Encyclopedia of Country Living by Carla Emry

White Noise by Don DeLillo

A Stack of Architectural Prairie Digests

Walden by Henry David Thoreau

SAS Urban Survival Book by John "Lofty" Wiseman

You Can't Win by Jack Black (No, not that Jack Black.)

The Odyssey by Homer

The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by

Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Of Paradise and Power by Robert Kagan

Fantomas by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre A little bit of a letdown, I must admit, but for its time it was quite a grisly book about an incredible antihero who floats through most of the story in a barely perceptible way. He is everywhere... and yet nowhere! Still, overlook the "ACTING! THANK YOUUUUUU!!!" moments when Fantomas or Inspector Juve are revealed to be the little old cleaning woman nobody notices in the room and you have an interesting little potboiler. I can see why it turned on the surrealists too. For much of the novel you don't feel like your in 1911 France, but some other-dimensional elsewhere that looks like a slightly darker and dreamier version of 1911 France. Ah! Who is that in the corner? Whew! Just a girl scout selling cookies. Agh! No! It is accursed Fanto... Glurrrrghhhhh...

Something I came up with for my book, which I've determined is set in the universe of urban legend and Christian satanic panic literature. This takes place after the lead character, a 15-year-old boy, gets into his first fight.

Leaving her son alone, she worried she'd have to install a dead-bolt on his bedroom door. Just like that poor woman she'd heard about, whose daughter went insane after sniffing LSD at the family picnic. She attacked her mother with a croquet mallet before developing the "munchies." When the paramedics came to take her away, she'd already eaten her way through an entire tub of German potato salad.

Why did such bad things have to happen to nice people?

Needs work, but it made me chuckle.