The Last Thing on My Mind

DOING NON DOING

2011-10-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

I am not a normal writer thatwould be a contradiction in terms. By definition writers are hardly normal.They dream up stories that never existed before, and populate them with peopleand scenario’s that are imaginary.

Thereis nothing wrong with this noble occupation, people have been following itsince the invention of the chisel, and their efforts have prevented anunimaginable number of pratfalls from taking place. Without the writer to chartthe uneven terrain of love, the dastardly realm of politics, or even thecontradictory subatomic shenanigans of quantum physics, existence would be purechaos.

Forthe writer of course, existence is pure chaos, and its measurement is in whatone has to sacrifice. The life of a writer is solitary; it is solitary becauseone has to think. It isn’t really necessary to come to conclusions, in factconclusions are to be avoided at all costs, because they paint one into acorner and corners are best left vacated until the final throes of ones finaledit.

Keepingthe story moving, adding twists and turns, and not being long winded are allexcellent nuggets of advice for the writer trying to mine rich veins ofadventure, comedy, or angst. The fact that they are all diametrically opposedto one another brings the errant writer to an almost Zen-like crossroads thathe has to learn to transcend with the wily non-doing of a Taoist adept bent onimmortality.

Butwait a minute; this non-doing of which you speak is what writer’s have beenwaging war against since the dawn of time. It’s the blank page one stares at,the canvas un-painted, the word un-spelled, the story un-formed. It is the baneof every writer’s existence; it is the very thing that drives us up the wall.It is the most contemptible facet of an occupation that is otherwise the mostpleasing of all artistic careers . . .isn’t it?

No!All of those things are doing, and they are indeed the friction that bringscreativity to a halt. Non-doing does not only apply to writing, it applies tolife itself. It is the cornerstone of a spiritual existence, it is theflexibility that water exhibits, it is not thinking oneself into a corner, andit is not taking oneself too seriously.

Whyare you immune from all the pitfalls of being a writer? I hear you wonder, alongwith a string of curses and vicious invective that is better left unsaid. Thetruth is I’m not. I continue to fall into all the traps that bedevil you, andmany, many more of my own invention. This is probably the reason I refuse tothink of myself as a normal writer anymore, because as a normal writer I was atwar with the blank page, and the best thing I ever learned to do, was to makepeace with it.

HANK WILLIAMS

2010-07-05T08:34:00.000-07:00

Hank Williams won a Pulitzer Prize in April, he was 29 years old when he died, and he was the father of Country music. His 1952 Cadillac was being driven to a gig by a 19-year-old college freshman he'd hired as his chauffeur. The two drove around Montgomery for a while, then Hank got a shot of morphine to ease his aching back for the journey to the gig in Charleston.

Because of a snowstorm they stopped in Birmingham and got a hotel room, several women found their way to Hank's room, and when Hank asked them where they were from one of the girl's told him heaven; to which he replied, “that's the reason I'm going to hell.”

By the time they got to Knoxville it was obvious they wouldn't make the show in Charleston, so they grabbed a plane, but the plane was turned back due to bad weather.

The two got a hotel room, and ordered steaks from room service, after which Hank got hiccups that threw his body into wild convulsions.

They called a doctor and the doctor gave Hank another two shots of morphine mixed with vitamin B12.

They bundled Hank into the back of the car, and sped off to make the gig in Charleston. On the way they were stopped by the Highway Patrol and given a twenty-five dollar fine for speeding.

Hank was dead of course, and probably had been since Knoxville. But that wasn't important anymore, he'd created Country music, and in 67 years the Pulitzer Prize committee would agree that he'd done a great thing.

Country musicians do what they have to do, they play through the pain, and part of playing through the pain is revealing that which makes us hurt. It's not an easy thing to live with, and it's not an easy thing to watch. But Hank never seemed to mind it, as long as it ended up in a song, or some other form of sweet release.

Hank's last song was called I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, and it was released one month before he died.

RHYTHM

2010-07-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Awriter has to find a rhythm; the words have to beat as the eyes dance overthem. The syllables have to dance like the notes on a stave, they have to moveseamlessly with the eyes and the mind, and hopefully not tread on anymetaphorical toes.

Ifthere is a misstep somewhere, the prose will crash to a grinding halt and thereader will have to back up, find what it was that caused the accident, andscrutinize it carefully to understand it before proceeding.

Storiesrely on cadence, that’s how storyteller’s in days of yore held their audiencescaptive. They voiced the story, lilted, whispered, shouted, moaned, and whined.They beat a path to understanding, using words to create characters andsituations that danced through their listeners’ minds.

Iknew before getting into Vampyre Blood-Eight Pints of Trouble, that I needed a new sound, because CountDracula, or Drac as he’s called in the book, was a story that was written in1897 by that wonderful Irish author Bram Stoker, and Bram had a gothic style ofwriting that has become synonymous with the character.

Sothe Gothic style had to blend with a modern style in a folksy way that almostsings the words and carries the story along in a wavelike motion that doesn’twant to let you stop. It was kind of like Jack Kerouac meets P. G. Wodehouse inmy mind, which it doesn’t seem at all like now, but that didn’t matter. I justneeded a hook to hang my hat on so that I could sit down and listen to thecharacters as they dictated themselves.

Atthe very beginning of the book Count Dracula meets Waldo, the drummer of theTechno Zombies, a Goth rock band on a world tour, and as soon as this chancemeeting takes place it adds a new layer to the story. The band plays four songsthroughout the book, and their lyrics illustrate the inner turmoil the Countcontends with as he struggles to become human again in a world that seems tohave only one aim in mind—quashing individuality.

Ihave to admit there were many times throughout the creation of the story whenthe antics of my characters literally made me want to give up and walk away.But I didn’t, I hung in there and it made me realize that you can cut into lifeanywhere in the world, and you’ll find hearts beating, and minds workingovertime trying to create their own story to lift them out of hum-drum andboring existences.

Itmay seem from what I’ve said here that this book came about in the last fewyears, but that isn’t true. I began writing this book before I was born, andevery situation I found myself in, and every person I associated with in mylife are a beat in that rhythm, and their spirits live on in this book. I guessin truth, this book is indeed a gift of the rhythm of life, and for that I ameternally grateful.

THE NIPPLE TWISTER

2010-07-05T08:24:00.001-07:00

There is a place off the beatentrack of Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles that I’m absolutely sure is caught upin some kind of weird time warp. A highly innocuous area filled with out ofwork males looking for handy man jobs.

Getting short term employment isan early bird occupation though, and when all hope seems to be lost thatgainful employment will be secured, the action moves to a street in back, wherea dice game begins for those that wish to try winning their pay for the day.

It’s a shabby place, a short cutbetween two major thoroughfares, and nobody ever goes there because they wantto, they go there because they have to. It’s the kind of place where the lost go to get lost, an inevitabilityin the center of a large city.

But when the sun goes down, andthe gamblers leave the stage, the place gets quiet, and if you were lookingdown upon it from a roof or a high window, you’d see it’s a crossroadsilluminated by a street lamp shedding a cone of pure light onto a filthy sidewalk:a sidewalk about to be cleansed, by the hot steam of pure genius.

The urban theater falls silent asintermittent sets of anonymous headlights sweep by, creating an eerie preludefor this evening’s program. A program devised by a wickedly talented impresario,and as the air tingles with electricity, anticipation builds to a crescendo.

Nobody knows who he is. He is ananonymous donor to the splendor of Los Angelean culture. He comes and goes likea shadow, and he performs a sacred task for the spirits of all the namelessactors that have pounded the streets of Hollywood looking for a role in asilent movie, a talkie, or a 3D blockbuster.

His mind is not complicated byhighfalutin cultural ideals. His mission is carried out in secrecy, for only insecrecy can the truth of the moment be totally revealed. Only in secrecy canthe flower of talent blossom. Only in secrecy can the energies that permeatethe universe be configured into a vehicle that carries the heart onward towardits dream.

He steps out of the shadows as ifhe were stepping through the doorway of his soul. Cloaked in darkness he movesswiftly to the base of the streetlamp, it’s a comfortable place for him, aplace where his whole being is nurtured by healing rays that move up from theearth, and transfuse with their counterparts that fall upon him from theheavens.

He has a moment of doubt as hislong dark cloak slips from his shoulders and falls to the hard concrete. He isfree. The plunging neckline from his dirty white shirt is tucked tightly intohis trousers, and his round Buddha belly protrudes from it like a melon. Herubs it softly with both hands while wondering if he will be able to do what hehas to do once more, to save the human race and the universe from totaldestruction.

He stretches out his arms andgazes at his hands; he then looks at his thumbs and his fingers. Everythingdepends on the next move. He brings his hands toward the shirt covering hisbreasts and slowly pulls away the material. He has arrived at the moment: the piecede résistance.

His thumbs and forefingersencircle his nipples, and twist. A look of ecstasy invades his face. He twiststhem tighter, harder, and faster, and then before he knows it he is lost.

A symphony begins playing in hishead, and the cruel harsh world beneath the streetlamp disappears. This iswhere he really lives, this is his moment to shine, and this is what he wasborn for. He has no idea how long he’ll stand here twisting his nipples. Untilthey’re sore for sure: and even beyond hopefully.

He knows only one thing; he isdriven. He also knows that every religious figure in history was laughed atwhen they first brought their message to the masses: and as cars drive byfilled with incredulous faces staring at him in awe, he knows that one-day hisway will enslave them all, just as it has enslaved him.