A Post Inspired by a Book I'll Never Read

When you write fiction and have a writer’s block, that’s fine. But if you have nothing to write about in a non-fiction blog then you’re just boring.

Just look around, see what inspires you… Here you go, that wasn’t hard:

On the bookshelf, I have a non-fiction book by Roddy Doyle, something about his parents falling in love.

Here’s my Roddy-Doyle-non-fiction-book-inspired post:

My name-dropping creative writing teacher, Howard Norman, was on a train once with this Doyle fellow, on their way to a writers’ conference, and from the train window they saw an interesting billboard or a hotel sign or whatever, something that made the writer in them get excited, and Doyle said he had to get out at the next stop to investigate, so they got off and walked toward that billboard or that sign. I wasn’t really listening, to be honest.

The point of the story is not what two authors actually found in a random New Jersey town, but that there is such a thing as an author’s life, and Howard Norman was living it. We had that story, and we had other stories about dinners with Leonard Cohen, and meetings with what’s-her-face who used to go out with Jack Kerouac, and disparaging statements about the interviewing techniques of Diane Rehm. Every class, someone new popped up and became a real person. The man who wrote The Commitments was chasing signs, Diane Rehm asked set, inane questions, and even Tommy Dorsey was there, somehow related to the family, playing trumpet in the basement.

To be honest, when I was trying to be a rock star I was never looking forward to the rock star life. I mean, once you throw the TV out of your hotel room window, you can’t watch TV anymore; the hotel is not simply going to give you another set, after all. But when I heard Howard Norman's literary anecdotes I thought that a writer's life had to be the life for me: writing, teaching, criticizing, meeting Leonard Cohen, and more importantly, telling people about meeting Leonard Cohen. Maybe it’s not so much about writing and getting a novel published, but actually about looking out of the window from a fast-moving train and searching for signs.

Look at that, I just created a metaphor without even trying. There’s hope for me yet.

My Fishing Story

You know how sometimes you walk around on one of these errand-days, moving from the supermarket to the post office to the a gift shop to the bank, and everywhere you go the ladies give you that look, and you think, Man, I still have it, but then you get home and realize your fly was open and everyone in town is laughing at you now? Actually, I think it happened to me, but I can't be sure.

You get older and all of a sudden—and I don’t know if it’s simply an age thing or a twenty-first century phenomenon—but at some point you look back in a Blade Runner Director’s Cut kind of way, and you realize it may be true that you walked to school one day in your jammies, but maybe you’ve just dreamed about it years later. Or maybe you saw it on TV.

I was walking with a friend in Brooklyn and saw this guy fishing in the river, and all of a sudden this memory comes back, of the family on the beach, and this shadow on the wharf, and my dad takes us to talk to the man who lets us fish for a few minutes. And I tell my friend I even caught something. So I’m talking about this fond, picturesque childhood memory, but then halfway through I’m thinking, Did that really happen to me or did I see it in a movie?

Here I am trying to examine my past in order to understand the world in general but I'm thinking that maybe I'm doing the exact opposite. Maybe instead of understanding the world by understanding my own past I reconstruct my identity through my submission to contemporary thought.

It's not very clear to me either. I'm not ready.

One Year of Blogging

Some of My Roommates in London

A French man. Cool guy. We used to finish a bottle of Whiskey every day together. A French woman. She was his ex-girlfriend. She was so drunk one time that she fell asleep on the tiny highway divider outside our home.

A Spanish woman. She was cool. Two Peruvian ladies. They stopped speaking English when I tried to get them to pay bills. We had a big bonfire in the back and burned all of their stuff.

A few Israelis. One of them was destined for greatness but he was too complicated to achieve anything. He played me some of his songs and I had Dollar signs in my eyes, like Brian Epstein listening to the Beatles for the first time. We used to bring chairs outside and play music by the highway, him on the guitar, me on the harmonica, and wait for cars to get caught on the speeding camera. One day a few of us were sitting in his room, listening to music, when suddenly he got up and looked confused. “What was I about to do?” he asked. No one answered. He sat down again with a smile, saying, “Oh, yea, nothing.”

An English guy. He used to fall asleep with cigarettes in his mouth, burning holes in his bed sheets. The police followed him to the house one night because he didn’t pay his pub bill and I woke up with a flashlight on my face.

Two South African couples. One of the girls ended up marrying the French man, the other one, her first cousin, is now with the singer from my band. The South African boys returned to South Africa. What can you do. Actually, there was another South African. She taught me Yo ma se Chat. Other South Africans taught me Yo ma se falepte pus.

A couple from Czech Republic. They used to take showers together and giggle. He was a country boy and she was from Prague. This meant she was open and friendly while he was close minded and his best friend was a policeman with a mustache. Just goes to show things are the same everywhere.

Our landlord was an old man with a glass eye.

There was an Irish deaf guy. We didn’t have central heating, and his room was the only one without a radiator, so to keep warm he left his hairdryer on all day. He didn’t realize it was noisy, see?

I had a South Korean roommate, too. One day I thought, What if he had some South Korean lady friends he could introduce me to? So I asked him, “Did you come here alone?” -- “Three months ago,” he answered. “No,” I said, “I mean, are you here alone?” -- “I don’t know yet,” he said.

There was a Polish woman. She had positive affirmations all over her room and a large picture of a married couple taped to her mirror. That’s what I’m saying, see? Life is funny and sad at the same time. And it’s the same everywhere in the world. And it’s always been like that, and always will.

PitS: Home Improvement Edition

A quick one before this room is emptied and I lose my internet connection for who knows how long. Taking out carpets and putting new floors all over because little Jr. shouldn't grow up in a house with stinky, dried up dog pee. So no internet. Did I mention no internet? This is too overwhelming. This might be a good time to start smoking again.

So I'll be back posting when this room has a floor and when the house in general is more child friendly. I guess this is really happening.

But before I leave, here are some of my favorite Stumble Upon video finds:

A Short Post About Pit Bulls

Pit Bulls will undoubtedly be demonized again once people forget about the whole Vick thing.

So before that happens, and for the sake of argument, let’s say many people hurt other people; shooting, raping, destroying lives. Let’s say some people in this country claim the moral authority to send other people to die in a faraway desert. Let’s say some people gain power by demonizing an Other. Let’s say people destroy their planet. And let’s say (again, just for the sake of argument), that we are sad little creatures with an unfulfilled potential for greatness, who from the moment each and every one of us is born can only think, “How can I get my hands on the world’s limited resources?” and “What’s in it for me?”

But even if we decide to subscribe to this sad view of the world (and it’s a conscious decision. Nothing here or anywhere else is a truism), is that enough for us to lose faith in the human race?

What I’m saying is, leave my Pit Bulls alone.