balding angrily

“The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, now hug me close! Let not Starbuck—ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the end of all my bursting prayers? all my life–long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!”

“Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb’s own unwinking eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattress that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there’ll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;—cherries! cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!”

“Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope my poor mother’s drawn my part–pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now come to her, for the voyage is up.”

From the ship’s bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their enchanted eyes inten upon the whale, which from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook on their bull–like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.

“The ship! The hearse!—the second hearse!” cried Ahab from the boat; “its wood could only be American!”

Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab’s boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent.

“I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of min; thou uncracked keel; and only god–bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole–pointed prow,—death–glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all–destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!”

The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the groove;—ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye–splice in the rope’s final end flew out of the stark–empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.

Here’s another piece of fiction. Jerry and I are big fans of Miranda July, and I tried to emulate her with this one.

When Fidel Castro moved into the corner house, the big two-story, yellow-sided ranch, Derek and I rode our dirt bikes down there to have a look. Three huge moving trucks blocked traffic turning onto Sage, making neighbors go back, turn on Mesquite, Harwood, then again at the other end of Sage. The trucks were piled high with masses of blanket-wrapped furniture. As the mover’s unloaded, we hoped to see signs of a kid – a bunk bed, a bike, a basketball hoop. Heck we would’ve been happy to see a toy baby crib. But it was all serious stuff – dark wood, marble, tall mirrors.

Then we saw Fidel himself come out of the house and give some directions to some movers holding a heavy desk. He pointed, and they walked away. He shielded his eyes from the Texas summer sun and scanned the neighborhood, focusing on us hanging over the handles of our bikes.

He smiled and waved, and we waved back. Walking toward us, he called, “You kids thirsty? I got some cokes for the movers.” I’m sure Fidel sounded a lot more Cuban than that, but I can’t fake a Cuban accent. So, I can’t write one either.

Derek and I looked at each other and shrugged. “Sure!”

“Cool! I’ll bring ‘em out.” He disappeared inside his house and came back with two red cans with the familiar white swirl. Mom let me have Cokes, sure, but it was rare. And this was before kids couldn’t trust their neighbors; a new neighbor was an immediate friend.

After he gave us the Cokes, we popped the tops and took long, deep gulps. “Thank you, sir.” Derek was always the more polite one between the two of us, with his sirs and thank yous.

“Is this all for you or you got a family?”

Fidel looked around him with his hands on his hips as if to locate a wife and kids. “Nope. Just me. What about you kids? Where do you live?”

I pointed up the hill to the other end of Sage. “826. One house down from the corner. Derek lives across the street. He’s got a sister in high school. She baby sits us sometimes.”

“That so? And what’s your name?”

“I’m Alex. Everyone calls me Big Al.”

He held out his hand, and I shook it. “Nice to meet you, Big Al.” He withdrew his hand and put it back on his hip, smiling. “I’m Fidel.”

We didn’t know what to do with that; we hadn’t heard of Fidel as a name before. Derek pointed his bike toward the creek at the end of the street. “Well, we gotta go, sir. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah. Nice to meet you.” Following Derek, I waved back at Fidel. “And thanks!”

We parked our bikes on the muddy shore of the creek, took our shoes off, and walked through the slow, cool water.

“Why do think he doesn’t have kids?” I turned to Derek. He shrugged.

“Dunno. Maybe he just hasn’t met the right woman. That’s what my mom says about my Uncle Jim. ‘Just hasn’t met the right woman.’”

A rock in the water caught my attention; it looked like a perfect throwing rock – three-sided, rounded corners, sized to sit snuggly in my palm. I picked it up and put it in my pocket.

“Yeah, but your Uncle Jim isn’t old like that guy. That guy’s got a long white beard.”

Derek shrugged again. “My dad says if I’m smart I won’t marry. Maybe he’s smart.”

I thought about that; it seemed logical. “Yeah, I bet that’s it.”

Derek gave me a sly, funny look and winked. Then he tackled me, pinning me to the mud, and wrestled the rock out of my pocket. He sprung up, and jumped around in rocky creek, throwing up huge splashes of muddy water. I got up, laughing.

“Give me back that rock!” I screamed through my laughs, and started chasing him.

He turned and yelled back, his voice bright and loud. “Gonna have to catch me!”

There has to be a better way to die than naked on your bathroom floor. Well, obviously there is. Probably 10,000 better ways. Running with the bulls. In the arms of a hot guy. Heck, I would have been happy to have died during a particularly nice wank. But naked on your bathroom floor? That tells the world that you were clumsy. You slipped and fell. Clumsy moron. Clumsy, naked moron.

Would I do it again? What do you mean would I do it again? Would I have taken a shower? Probably not. Or at least I would have watched my step getting out.

Oh! Would I live my life the same way? Of course I would have lived it differently. What a dumb question. Do you ask that of everyone that comes through here? I can’t imagine everyone’s waltzing through the gates going, “That was perfect! Wouldn’t change a thing!” And if there are those people, I don’t want to know them. In fact, you can write that on your little form there. “Does not want to be around people with no regrets.” Gah, can you imagine spending an eternity with a bunch of unbearably satisfied people? Makes me shiver.

No, please put me with the people that are just like me. You guys tortured me enough in life surrounding me with a bunch of differing opinions and different outlooks on life. It drove me crazy. All I wanted was a world where everyone agreed with me, and it seemed like at every turn someone was coming up to me and shoving their differences in my face. You know I used to fantasize about marrying another guy named Alex who looked just like me? Talked just like me? Same build? Same fashion sense? Yeah, of course you know. You’re you. But then you sent me this guy who was skinny and sweet and, well. Happy. It drove me out of my mind.

And the people he brought into my life? Chatty and friendly and nurturing and gentle? I could have done without all that, thankyouverymuch. If you’re sending me back down, please get it right.

No going back, eh? Well that’s good. Life was shit. Just as long as you put me with a bunch of me’s. And just as long as I get to have lots of sex.

I gotta say, that’s one thing you guys got right. Sex was awesome.

Sex with Jerry? It was awesome. I just said. Are you listening?

It was always a surprise. Like Easter baskets when I was a kid. I knew I was going to get treats. And I knew they would be delicious. And I knew there would be a lot of it. But I never knew EXACTLY what the treats were going to be. Sometimes there were solid chocolate bunnies. Sometimes there weren’t. Sometimes there were peanut butter eggs. Sometimes there were jellybeans. Sometimes not. Sometimes there was a totally new candy that had just come out. And sometimes there were hollow chocolate bunnies. You know, there’s something I gotta tell you. Those hollow chocolates were a real fuck you. A real donkey punch. You peel off the foil, and you see this huge bunny or Santa or whatever, and it’s HUGE, and, like, obviously full of chocolate. And you bite into it. And, like, nothing. Air. You bite into air. I hope you’re sending the inventor of hollow chocolate somewhere else because that is a mortal sin if there is such a thing.

Anyway that’s what sex was like. An Easter basket. Pretty damn familiar and predictable but just enough variation to keep it exciting.

Oh, I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to get me to say that I loved Jerry because of his differences. I put it to you that I would have loved him more had he been just like me.

No, no, no. The sex would have been BETTER.

Nah, ignore what I said before. Comparing sex to an Easter basket? That’s retarded. Believe me, the sex would have been better if he was just like me.

We’re done? That’s cool. Just point me to my area full of me’s, and I’ll be outta your hair.

But you just said no one goes back.

I thought you guys weren’t allowed to lie. Like that was a rule or something.

Fine. But don’t expect me to like it. And don’t expect me to be singing your praises down there. I’ll remember this. Mark my words.

Hey-hey, look! I’m writing things!

I was thinking of writing this on The Advocate Blog, but figured it would get too personal-blog-like. (I got feedback for my last post that it was too personal-blog-like.)

So, last night I went to my writers’ group, and we talked about writing and stories and things. A piece that I’ve been working on was on the chopping block. People seemed to like it. They seemed to have a little bit of a problem with a section that got to exposition-y, so I’ll probably whittle it down. I think the section is still important to give background on a character. Plus I’m learning more-and-more that, while the people in my group yell “EXPOSITION IS DEATH!!!!!” I have read many, many, many published books with plenty of long, expository* sections.

Then we went to a wine bar afterwards which was dimly lit with comfy chairs and heavy wood benches. The bar looked onto a forecourt through floor-to-ceiling windows, and people were dancing the tango in that forecourt - three couples to be exact. A couple of women, and two male-female couples in their forties or fifties dressed to impress.

I pointed to the dance class, and said to my fellow writers, “Look at that. That needs to go in someone’s story.”

Fellow writer:  Why?

Me: It’s interesting. Look. There’s two women dancing together. Don’t you want to know their story? Are they lesbians? Or did the male of one of the couples fail to show?

Fellow writer: But where’s the conflict?

Me: There IS no conflict. Or if there’s conflict, it’s that those people are doing a frigging tango lesson in a tiny courtyard under yellow light, while we’re in here listening to Aretha Franklin. I think that’s an interesting juxtaposition. It’s a cool contrast.

Fellow writer: There’s got to be CONFLICT!!!!

Me: But no. There really doesn’t.

This set off a whole discussion of CONFLICT!!!! According to my fellow writers, “An author lives or dies by conflict.” I’m kinda getting sick of hearing what a story HAS to be. Or what an author HAS to be.

So there you go; there’s your conflict: I disagree. As usual.

*Expository sounds like suppository. Heh-heh.

As you can tell, the updates for my blog have started to dwindle. Yeah, it may be a cop-out to say I’m busy, but it’s the truth. And I’m busy doing stuff that I find exciting. So I guess I can at least update you on those small things that are keeping me from you, my beloved fan. (Do I really still have any of those?)

The Advocate Magazine - On the three days I’m not at my job in architecture, I’m interning at a local magazine. I just finished my first article for them that will get published in March. The article tells a few stories about a specific intersection that’s getting a lot of attention locally. Whole Foods is building a new store at this intersection which is really the center of this particular community. I’m really proud of my work on the article, and I’m looking forward to seeing it published.

Right now I’m working on a couple of photograph-heavy pieces for the magazine’s annual design issue. I’m interviewing some architects and trying to line up some photo-shoots of remodeled bathrooms. These are a nice break from the intensive research I had to do for the other article.

Working Out/Maintaining Health - Again, it seems silly to write about this, but I do spend a lot of time in the gym. That takes me away from you, dear reader. And instead of being apologetic about it, I might as well admit to it and be proud of what I’ve accomplished. Since early 2007 I’ve taken 20 pounds off, and it just feels really, really great. I like looking at myself in the mirror now. And I feel good, up, happy. All those things that lead to boring writing.

Editing the YAF Connection - In Salt Lake City, at our end-of-year meeting, I received a lot of strokes from my colleagues on the work I did last year for the YAF Connection. They said that I greatly exceeded expectations, and that I was a valuable asset to the group. These things gathered together validate that I’m not making a mistake by pursuing this “writing” thing.

Miscellanea - Jerry and I have been going to a lot of open houses; we’re feeling out the Dallas real estate market, finding out what our money can buy. When we decide to buy, we’ll be educated.

Tonight Jerry and I are hosting our open house at our loft. Every month our building picks a floor, and the tenants on that floor open up their lofts if they want. The rest of the building comes to the open lofts and judges them. Jerry’s been working himself into a lather to make sure that we win “best loft.” I don’t think we will, or maybe it’s more correct to say that I don’t care a whole lot. I just hope people enjoy our loft.

Sunday we’re pulling hosting duties for my family. Over the holidays we didn’t connect with them, so this is to make up for that. I’ll be cooking two recipes, one from our new favorite Food TV personality, Ina Garten.

That’s about it. I can’t promise more frequent updates because, like I said, I’m enjoying the work that’s keeping me away from the blog. Plus I’m pretty proud of the posts I HAVE been putting up. Lately, I’m thinking that I’d rather have fewer quality posts than more frequent “blah” posts. Lately, anyway. Except for this one. This one’s shit.

So I’m digging through history, looking for a story about a local traffic intersection. I think I’ve got what I want to write about, and it connects nicely with what’s happening now at that intersection. And luckily I’m not into the WRITING yet; I’m just researching.

As I dig through The Dallas Morning News archives, I keep coming across these great bits of wordsmithing, bits that make me want go back in time to when a headline like, “Toreadors of Abrams Road Fight Speeding Autos, Not Bulls to Board Streetcars,” didn’t prompt a guffaw. When thieves were referred to as “robbers” and “bandits” that “bedeviled” police. When “juveniles” and “youths” were “hanging around places that would certainly get them into trouble.” When a furniture store opening was announced by a picture of some lawn furniture and this press release:

Umbrella Beauty - Glimpse the inside of this umbrella done in a red rose pattern, the valance attractively edged with six-inch white fringe. There’s a place for the zinc-plated handle in the glass-top table. Chairs of washable vinyl plastic in a palomino color have wrought-iron frames and come in several different colors.

You can almost hear a woman in an ivory pencil skirt with a conservative up-do, saying the above into a fist-sized microphone as the staged lawn furniture spins on a laminated press-board platform. I’m having fun. I wish I could tell my high school history teacher, Mr. Glenn, “See! I DO like history. Just not in the way you teach it.”

I met with the editor of a local newspaper on Wednesday, and she gave me an assignment. I have an assignment! Just like a real life writer that gets paid! Let me whip out my pocket notebook with the metal spiral at the top. Let me me lick the tip of my pencil and flip the pages of that notebook and jot a few notes. Let me shove a bulbous microphone in the face of an avoiding politician. Let me step into this telephone booth and save Lois Lane from a helicopter perched perilously on the rim of the top of the tallest skyscraper.

Seriously, I’m looking forward to it. She said I might also get involved in the paper’s volunteer blog. When I do, I’ll link to my posts here. That is if I still have any readers here.

Look! J-pop! (Not J-rock.)

I think I spoke too soon with yesterday’s post. The creative part of writing is the hardest; I’ve been staring at those few paragraphs for the day, trying to figure out where the story goes. Part of me just wants to end it there. Part of me wants to find out more about this character who has vivid and horrifying fantasies. And then I spent an hour this morning editing a few other pieces. I really love editing - taking an x-acto knife to a piece. The creative part hurts my head.

At Tuesday’s Writers’ Group, we’re sharing short-short humor stories. I re-wrote a post from this blog because nothing really funny is happening to me since Jen-An and Owen moved away. Oh! But good news, Jen-An is visiting Dallas, so we get to see her tonight. Hopefully she’ll do something wacky.

Yesterday I received my first official rejection email for a short story I wrote.  It was from The Missouri Review, and the editor who sent it was very kind.  Having read and re-read the story many times, I’m aware of its faults.  Specifically, I have a problem with point-of-view.  I tend to want to write from what they call “third person limited,” meaning the narrator is supposed to be just over the shoulder of a particular character, seeing his, her, or its thoughts but no one else’s.  However, I keep slipping into other people’s heads.

I’m all for experimental art, and this idea of fluidly slipping in and out of different characters’ heads is interesting.  However, if I’m not aware that I’m doing that, it leads to sloppy and confusing writing.

So, I intend on re-working this story, giving it two distinct and deliniated points of view.  But you don’t want to know about all that.  You want to know about my bowel movements.  Well, I just got off of a week of high-pressured hell of the family variety; my brain isn’t working well.  I’m sorry I don’t have anything more spectacular than P.O.V.-talk.

In the tradition of The Rural Juror, I present the following list of titles that, strangely, make my mouth happy. Feel free to use them for your next project.

• Seaside Suicide - I see this as a Pat Conroy novel. A blonde, forty-seven-year-old, divorcée goes to her shoreline vacation bungalow to write her memoirs. She meets and falls in love with a local gardener that dispels wisdom, masked as planting tips. Interspersed throughout the love story are the memoirs she’s writing detailing her childhood abuse and its subsequent effect on her failed marriage. At some point in her past, she was considered a “suicide blonde.”
• Hornswoggled and Swaddled, Flabbergasted and Gas-Attacked, Clusterfucked and Up-Chucked - A trilogy of modern-day-dress fantasy novels that would sit comfortably next to a Piers Anthony series. Each novel concerns the adventures of a pair of unlikely heroes - sometimes human, sometimes mythical - that come together unwillingly but find themselves fast friends by the end. The pairs of words would be the names of the two unlikely heroes and also a point in the plot. For example, Hornswoggled would be a nasty, foul-mouthed giant that would be tricked by Swaddled, a kindly elf. At some point they would be bound with bandages to some sort of death machine.
• Chronology, Lounging - This is not so much a novel as a character-driven meditation. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for the new millennium. Time/Space. Relativity. Free-Time. All explored by an office-worker, trapped in a dreary job, obsessed with the ticking clock. Masters Theses will be written about this book. It will be puzzled over for the next twenty years.
• Severance Reverberant - An attempt at a sequel to Chronology, Lounging. This will concern the physics of sound. The office-worker will quit his dead-end job and join a jazz ensemble. It will fail. It will be John Knowles’ Peace Breaks Out to his A Separate Peace.

The ball’s in your court, M.R.