[247] Screed City

[247]

04/24/2023 Monday. Kitchen Microwave. Beaver Haus. Lower Granville, Vermont.

I don't even know what to do anymore. This mid-life crisis is getting out of hand. Something needs to change, and I am clueless, clueless, as to what it is. Back in Vermont. Which is whatever. Three days of rain and low 40 degree weather. I have ventured outside twice since Friday when I got back. Once to get some hydrogen peroxide in Middlebury, and once to go to Mac's in Rochester to check on the state of the place, because it is closing soon. Which is a first-class bummer for the valley. News alert: The shelves are empty. I don't know, being in a different city/town/country every week is getting exhausting. And now with the work drying up at the Brewery, I am back at the whims of BMI. Which, I can't, I just can't do it anymore, but so what?

And then last night, for fun, I thought it would be a gas to submit an enquiry to this indy noir press, thinking that maybe, I don't know, I don't even know what I thought would happen, I just know that some of the books I write aren't exactly right for Whiskey Tit, and maybe it would be interesting to become engaged in a different community for investigative purposes, so I put together an enquiry for this thing I wrote that is purely noir, I mean, it is allegory and satire, but it is written in the noir style, you know the whole: The light slapped the skyline like a dirty diaper thing that I was obsessed with. And, I don't know, my pitch was fine, I didn't over-share or exaggerate or whatever, it was pretty straight forward and kind of gave them all the details without being too aggressive. And, I don't know, if anything I thought they would maybe at least want to see a sample of the writing, but between when I submitted the thing and three hours later after doing my evening writing I had already received a rejection letter. Which I was expecting, but not so quickly and not so cold-hearted and disinterested. And, yes, rejection is always hard, nobody likes to get rejected, if they tell you they do, they are lying, but that is not the point I am trying to make, my point is that I forgot how things work. That this world is not a simple one to one relationship with anything. There is just too much out there. You can't just say; Hey, here is an idea, what do you think? It is all social media now, brand loyalty. I didn't do the "Research" I should have done before sending the thing. I didn't butter the guy up. Tell him lies about how much his press meant to me and how they were doing groundbreaking work in the field or whatever. You know? The game, I didn't play the game. And it dawned on me, or more specifically, Professor Curly explained to me, that I can't expect to get anywhere with the tactics I used, because shit just doesn't work that way. And if you think that isn't frustrating as hell, I don't know what to tell you.

I went to bed so disillusioned that I woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the black ceiling wondering what the fuck I was doing with my life. Not because I was rejected, but because I can spend countless thousands of hours working on my craft, publishing, I don't know how many books, doing the work, and even that wasn't enough for this guy to say, You know what? The idea seems a little trite, but send over a couple pages, just because I didn't use the right foreplay in the electronic mail I sent. And sure, it was hubris, on my part, in a way, I should have included a writing sample, he probably would have read it, but I didn't want to do that, I knew I would most likely be rejected, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to even do the thing with them, and I wanted to be able to pinpoint where I had gone wrong, so the simpler and less convoluted the better, but I did expect a different response. And that led to the only outcome I could take away from the experiment and that is; We do not live in a merit based society. Everything is advertising. It's all cahoots. And if it is all cahoots, what is the point?

I quit writing last night. At 2:13 in the morning. Over. Done-zo. Fed-up. Finished. Kaput. I slept like a donkey and woke up in a very foul mood. Rain pouring down. A house that apparently needs days of cleaning every time I come home, even though I spend days cleaning when I get home, every time. All of my clothes are becoming Vermont farm-core. My socks are all quitters. My t-shirts are worn. My pants, paint splattered and torn at the knees. Sure, I have a new hat, but it doesn't fit my head right, and because the stupid boiler is fucked, and leaking, my Ticklers take an extra week to ferment and that puts my production line on a delay that I can never catch up to so my drinks are flat.

I didn't quit writing. I quit publishing. What is the point? Last night in my pit of despair as the bridesmaids say, I decided to print out everything I have written that hasn't been published. It's a lot. More than what I have published. I thought I would at least have a physical record of everything and go back to the very beginning, back when I used to make chap-books like 15 years ago. Because that was fun. That was one to one. Something I could do that made me feel like I was making progress. What's the opposite of progress? Congress. Yuck-yuck. I didn't do it though. I forgot all about it. The Vermont inertia reminded me that I needed to deal with bags and bags of trash that I need to drive an hour away to get rid of. That I managed to kill two chipmunks in my rat traps in the Garbage Room. That I need to take both my car and Professor Curly's car to the jerk JD to get work done. That life is an assault and not a passive thing. And not only that, but I have just sent the manuscript of Percolator [Italics] to Jess to edit.

I didn't quit publishing. I quit giving a shit.

[Insert Enquiry]

Dear Editor,

Hello, my name is Joey Truman.

https://www.joeytruman.com/

I would like to submit a manuscript. Maybe you would be interested? Normally I publish over at Whiskey Tit Press, but the book I have written is pure noir, so it seems like I should at least try to get it in front of proper audience? 

It is a story about a guy that puts an ad in the paper, receives a phone call then all hell breaks loose. The main theme of the book is isolation and how to move forward when all your options are losing enterprises. It is an allegory/satire of what it feels like to be a writer. 

Firebrace Winkers, the main character, spends his free time drinking Brawl's whiskey and smoking Jet Black cigarettes dipped in powdered formaldehyde talking to a painting of Rutherford B Hayes and some crows that perch on top of it. One day he gets a phone call from a wife who thinks her husband is sleeping with the baby sitter, and can Winkers come take some pictures. He does. She pretends not to know him when he tries to get paid. The husband recognizes him from being sued by an ex-employee, Winkers was a witness. The husband knocks Winkers out, sandbags him to floor of the garage, the lets him free, invites him into the house, asks Winkers to do a job for him...after that, well...

The book moves pretty fast. 56,000 words, 186 pages. 20 chapters.

Working title is: Zugzwang

Thank you for your time and consideration.

joey

I mean, I was a little presumptuous, but in my defense, what else could I write? I don't know what people want, truly, there are millions of us out there, submitting, getting rejected, thousands of presses, and this one, their whole thing was that they published a Stephen King novel because he asked them to. He doesn't write noir. And I can't imagine his noir to be any good, and their whole thing is commitment to the genre, but that means nothing when you are a slut for publicity. But, who the hell would say no to Stephen King? I mean, they may be liars, but business is business.

[Insert Rejection]

Thanks for thinking of us, Joey – but I’m afraid this isn’t the sort of thing we’re looking for. I wish you all the best with it, but we are going to pass.

Regards,

Again, who the hell am I? I'm no Stephen King, that is certain, but there was something in what I wrote that was so very repulsive to this person that he wasn't even slightly curious, and that really is at the crux of my complaint as the bridesmaids say. The fact that I have spent most of this screed defending myself against the reason people shouldn't be ignored just because they don't say the right things is itself a testament to the reality that shit just does not work the way I think it should work. Which, I do have to find funny, I am not naïve or a purist, I can accept the world on it's own terms, my entire life has been railing against the system that wants nothing to do with me in the first place. I know that, everyone knows that, it is just masochism though, on my part, to even try to put the shit out there.

I don't want it, they don't want it. We already agree on that. I suppose I just don't understand how come curiosity has given way to this notion that getting past gate-keepers is a game of stroking egos and feigning involvement. I don't read. I don't. I used to. I used to read like crazy. Any book I would find on a stoop in Brooklyn I would read. And the truth is that 99% of the shit that is out there is crap. My stuff included, if you read it without context. And context is key. I learned just today that the motherfucker that invented lobotomies won a Nobel prize FOR INVENTING LOBOTOMIES. The greatest single most idiotic and cruel practice that has ever been foisted onto the general population in the name of "Science." I am not a nihilist, but that to me is very scary shit. Moments in time are just that, moments in time, there is no objective anything, with regards to society, but this idea that all the wagons need to be circled at all times to protect a brand, and therefore creating micro-gate-keeping?

There is a reason that I publish with Whiskey Tit, sure, I have an in, I think Miette for the most part will agree to publish my work as long as I believe in it and think it should be published, but there are limits to that, and I am conscientious about what I ask to be published on the imprint, but my history with the press aside, they are not like this. She doesn't immediately dismiss writers because they don't say the right things when they submit. She takes their work at face value, mine included, and I respect that, it is how it should be, there is not niche market value that say a place like Akashic or Ugly Duckling, where you have to be cool first, and then you become part of the gang. The only reason I even tried sending this thing to this press is because I am not sure the work is right for the Tit. It's not wrong, I mean, I wrote it, it has all the things that I bring to anything I write. One thing you think you are getting is not actually the thing you are getting, but that doesn't mean that is anyway subversive. I mean, the book is an allegory for writing, it uses the excesses of booze and drugs as a way to explain isolation and self-destructive behavior, which in itself is maybe subversive, but it is trite, and follows rules that are part of the noir cannon. The book is noir. For that reason. It is unlike all of my other books. Even Roach Town [Italics] doesn't follow those rules. A book that I also think might be wrong for Whiskey Tit.

I suppose my point is, living the life of a writer is hard nuts, man. I try. I do. Or I think I do, but I probably don't. Before I sent that stupid electronic mail, I tried to get on some writing forums and nearly died of grossness before I even started. The idea was to reach out to the community, become part of the thing, and I can't do it. I have my own thing going. And it's isolating and lonely, but I just don't care. I write for a different reason than most. I know there is a reality out there where sharing what you do is important, and yes, this is sharing for sure, over-sharing really, but the reason I don't read is not because I don't enjoy reading, or hearing other voices in the world, but because I find myself trapped in between two worlds, one world where I love the power of the written word and the world where some of the most horrible and idiotic bullshit gets celebrated like it's fresh flowers in Spring, but is really just regurgitated vomit erupting from rotting graves. Like when I hear; What Margarette Atwood writes eleven years ago is what we will be talking about today. Sure. You can't talk shit about her because it's misogynistic, but Handmaid's Tale sucks. It is a fucking love story, and just because it is dystopian, so what? Saying that shit would suck if men keep doing what men do is not something profound. It is not great literature, it is regular literature with a new twist, and because it is basically MFA-style nonsense, really, all you can say about it is that it is a love story with a twist. And yes, we will be talking about it eleven years later, like it is ahead of it's time, but I can tell you that one day maybe eleven years in the future America will be run by Republican Nazi's, but that doesn't make me a visionary, that just makes me somebody that sees things as they are now, somebody that can extrapolate from the information I have and follow it out to conclusion. I mean, women have been getting shit on for millennia. What would happen if they take away women's rights? Whoa! Profound. Have you heard about religion? IT IS GOING TO BLOW YOUR MIND WHEN YOU DO.

Anyway. The New Landlord just sent me a text that asked me to move the tree branches that have fallen from the gigantic pine trees from the lawn so the assholes that come and mow the thing can do their job. The same jerks that mowed down my nascent trees last Spring because they are Vermont-style assholes that can't be bothered to have a look around before they wreck the joint, as Scott would say. I don't know how I will respond. The boiler has been leaking for months now and the basement is becoming unpleasant. I am starting to think he should take care of his own business. Maybe I am wrong, but there comes a point.

I am heading to the City on Wednesday. Professor Curly is going to that dinner in DC for the media. What do they call it? The Correspondent's Dinner, this Saturday. I guess I will go down with her. I am not invited to the dinner because of my rejection letter, there is too much shame, but there is some sort of party on Friday and then a brunch on Sunday. Should be funny. And then we take a train back to the City after that, and then I head back to Roach Tech on Monday morning, at like 5a, and work all week there, hanging out with that bubblegum chewer in his white t-shirt, and khaki pants, a character in a book I have been writing about a guy who has an amazing talent for reproducing noises he hears, who is the main character, so I am okay with that, but it will mean a six hour drive to Rochester, New York, for half-price work.

It never ends. Here is the picture of Rutherford B Hayes that Winkers looks at when he gets high on Jet Blacks dipped in formaldehyde:

[Insert Rutherford B Hayes Painting]