Hello, it's been awhile...in fact, quite a while.
I've as usual been meaning to blog for a long time, but finding the time, making the time and all of that has gone by the way. Finally, after a long period of work, writing, editing and madness I have for once decided to make the fucking time.
There is much to anticipate this summer, and so many things have occurred that I have to figure out just how I'm going to do them all. In line with that come the happenings in our world, close to home and otherwise.
I made a joke recently with my old friend Jim on his birthday about not getting old, to which he replied something about his back. It's true, our bodies are turning into old cars: they're gonna break down, make sounds they're not supposed to, and leak things they shouldn't, but they do.
I have had some nagging issues, but they are really nothing to complain about. When I consider how much pain I really felt almost 25 years ago from an accident that should have killed me, this is nothing.
I'm so trying not to complain about things. I find that little things get me nettled, but that's always been the thing. I try to let that pass, and realize you can't change an awful lot of stuff outside you. You can change yourself if you want.
I again find I have to rethink things. The last thing I want to do is chase money, but you need just enough to get things done. Well, whether it rolls in while I'm alive or helps out the later generations, we'll see.
It's an ego thing...but I would like to see how the world reacts to some of what I'm doing.
So what is going on right now? Well, the good news is that a project that I started writing, and have dealt with on and off for 11 years is coming out this summer.
The Sweet Dreams Series is this crazy story of threads that came together and formed a Gordian knot, or perhaps some kind of non-tie able one.
What you think? Now true, this is not the finished product, just a rough cut. But does that get you interested? I hope so...
When I started writing that story in 2007, I did not know what I'd started, but I can imagine really well. The literary, manga and anime world did not break down the doors, and it won't until this gets out there. There's nothing wrong with considering the possibilities; in fact, I feel you have to, so you don't get blindsided.
So that is gonna be my fourth book, and the third on Brown Posey Press. People have asked how long that is going to run. Well, I wrote five, plus a compendium of sorts. But the arc is going to have to change a lot, and there's going to be an insane amount of work for the next one to make sense due to all the changes in the first.
I think we have a fine trilogy here. And when that's done, I'm going to let Aki and the gang grow up a little more.
Now, that leads me to my resumption of a radio role as...a talk show host.
Fuck me. The last thing I ever wanted to do is be that again.
The toxic, filth-laden wasteland of talk radio, and I mean political as well as sports talk is, quite plainly, shit. Generations have been programmed to let their heads be filled with everything they don't really need. The shopping mall of the radio dial has become one gigantic gape shot that you don't want any part of.
There's little left that I can stomach. But...I was pleasantly surprised to get an opportunity to actually do something that really does appeal to me.
Sunbury Press Books, which is our parent company created the BookSpeak Network, and I host the Brown Posey Press show, primarily for fiction.
Pretty cool; while generally I interview fellow authors on the imprint, I can go off the reservation. I've only done four shows so far, and I'm reading a lot more and prepping to do a full show without commercials.
Now we use phone hookups, so it's kind of a strange, almost analog sound. A friend listened to one of the shows and said it was like someone discovering a forgotten radio, and turning it back on. She found it a very comforting thing. How neat.
So I've interviewed some fine people and authors, and there will be more. I'm really enjoying this. This is the kind of show I can do. Authors talking about their books, about writing, what they read, how they've experienced things...it's actually really thought provoking.
I also have found a paying job...imagine that!
I'm working as a mentor for a gentleman who is in broadcasting school. He is a little older than me, and originally from Kenya. His goal is to return to his homeland and work as a talk show host. The power of radio over there is still king.
He's got most of the tools, but he just needs some technical help, and practice. I've never done this before; I feel I can really help him. This is a nice give-back to an industry that needs people, still.
Now, we gotta hit the realities...our bodies are growing old, but our minds need not. These things I do keep my brain stretched, so I can write again and more, and further along.
I got a great opportunity last weekend to see an old friend. Kelly is a person I met 30 years ago in Northern NH. I was just explaining this experience to a friend, so I'll leave it this way: we were friends, lovers, and a lot of things for four years when it all blew up.
Fault is not one-sided, but we've long since forgiven one another for our doings. She did what I did, jobbed about the radio world, worked like hell, and has found a lot more.
We hadn't seen each other in 26 years, and I'm amazed and impressed by her. We both had things to work through, and we each had to do them. I'm still working on mine, but that's a lifelong deal.
That's the good one.
The passing of Anthony Bourdain is something I have to touch on. There was a recent suicide of a lady that shocked a lot of people, a designer that I am sorry to say I know little about.
I didn't know much about Bourdain; I'd only seen his TV show once, and there's a lot of love/hate flying about the man. He was loud, outspoken, and ruffled feathers. My kinda guy.
He did a lot of good, though; he took us places, and tried food everywhere. Travel, he counseled us, travel; I need to follow that example.
His suicide shocked everyone. What could have happened? No one can say, but there's been a real re-ignition of the talk about suicide.
As someone who planned his own 30+ years ago, I can tell you a few things, but each person's reasons are different.
I wrote about this in Parasite Girls, my first book; and it looms in A Moment in the Sun, my second. Didn't plan that, but these things come about.
In the first, a character notes that a person is in the dark, so far, that they no longer realize what they are completely doing. The damage, the hurt, the agony, and whatever else influences otherwise rational people to do the irrational.
They may even think they're doing you a favor, by offing themselves. They may think life is no longer worth living; or that they cannot contribute, fit in, or do anything useful any longer, if ever.
The skin they live in must be something they cannot tolerate any longer. Everyone has a reason; the cases are different.
There are no true warning signs, but some say when a person no longer takes joy in the things they should, gives away valued possessions, withdraws, etc., those may be signs.
Hard to say. I never told anyone what was going on inside me, and most had no idea. But I'd also isolated myself enough, that the rare occasion anyone saw something strange, they either didn't get it, or passed it off as something other.
I can't really tell you anything specifics, because each of us are so different. Just this...if someone really reaches out to you, shut up, and listen. And listen critically. It's not about you. It's about them. Let it be them for just a little bit.
That said, I have to note the passing of a dear friend. Dick Huntington left us a couple weeks back. Dick was a lot of things, I can't even begin to document them.
An author, a poet, a storyteller, a bard (he liked to call himsef), a teacher, so many things. He was in my old band Ahltyrra briefly, and he contributed in a lot of ways to my writing.
He edited and helped me greatly with my skills, way back when Sweet Dreams first went out to the world. He fell in love with the characters, and loved what I was doing with the time travel, the music, the people. Dick also tightened up my horrible writing style, and my awful changes of tense.
Dick served in Vietnam, but never talked about it. Rather, he talked about his time in California, the music scene, his years of living in different places, booking for the Baltimore Blues Society, meeting such incredible musicians. Great moments of his life.
As his health declined, Dick didn't quit. He helped right up to the end, and I feel that he should be seen for all the good he did, and yeah, he did a lot. I'm not going to toss off the difficult side of him, and that yes, he did piss some folks off.
But I ain't perfect, either, and don't I know it.
I'm sorry Dick did not live in his body to see the book make its way out, but wherever he is, I'm sure he'll see it, and have a lot to say about it!
RIP, brother, love you as you did me.
Well...time to move on here. Thanks for reading.
Tory! Did you deactivate or delete your Facebook or something?
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