Green Hell

My Sentiments Exactly

    A few selections from Guy Lee's superb translation of Catullus. (Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-283587-4).

    Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the first century B.C., and a contemporary of Caesar, Crassus, Pompey, Cicero, Marc Antony, and the rest of that wacky, fun-loving bunch. Although 116 of his poems have survived, he is perhaps best known for his love poems to the pseudonymous "Lesbia," of which these selections are examples. Born in Verona (the modern region of Veneto, formerly Cisalpine Gaul), Catullus relocated to Rome as a young man, and became the archetypal country boy who moves to the big city and makes good. 
    It was during his stay in Rome that he met and became romantically involved with "Lesbia."
    Whilst skimming through the notes and introduction, I discovered that "Lesbia" was the pseudonym Catullus assigned to a woman named Clodia, who was -- well, a bit of a tramp. I knew something about the story was familiar, and I soon discovered what. She was the same Clodia Metelli whom Cicero tore a new asshole in his Defence of Marcus Caelius Rufus. (Reprinted in Selected Political Speeches -- Penguin Classics, ISBN 0-14-044214-6.) 
     This Clodia was the sister of Cicero's arch-nemesis, Publius Clodius Pulcher, and the wife of a patrician named Metellus Celer (whom she was later rumored to have poisoned). In the course of her life, she had adulterous affairs with a veritable legion (no pun intended) of men, including Catullus and the aforementioned Marcus Caelius Rufus, upon whom she eventually turned like a rattlesnake. 
    Now for what I suppose are obvious reasons, I have a soft spot for writers who've endured the deaths of siblings, and who, as young men, had wretched taste in women. (As the very snarky saying goes: "You can take a white-trash whore out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of a white-trash whore.") Catullus wasn't the first writer to fall desperately and obsessively in love with a fickle, narcissistic shitweasel of a female, and he certainly wasn't the last. At times, I think hopeless affaires de coeur are the price of admission to the club...
     What sets him apart from poets like -- say -- Dante Alighieri is the fact that he had no illusions about Clodia. Dante's mewling praise of his Beatrice in the Divine Comedy is so overblown as to be downright fulsome at times. Not so Catullus. Catullus knew that Clodia had handled more peckers than a gay urologist, and if anything, it only increased the pain and poignancy of his situation. 
    When it comes to Roman literature, I generally prefer satirists like Juvenal or Petronius -- although I do enjoy Martial's nastier epigrams, and even a few of Horace's pieces. (Now that my Latin is improving, I'll have to go back and read them in the original. Like the Greek playwright Aristophanes, many of the Roman poets suffer in translation. As the parallel Latin/English Oxford edition of Catullus reveals, the unexpurgated, untranslated Latin and Greek are often shockingly and delightfully obscene. What can one say about a poem that begins with the line "Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo"?) What immediately impressed me about Catullus, though, was the man's intensity.
     Bam! Bam! Bam!
     He didn't fuck around. 
     Whether it's the result of my stereotypical "Celtic temperament" or the manic-depression (at times, I suspect that the former is merely a euphemism for the latter), I've loved with equal fervor, and endured the same hell when the affair ended. This is to say that Catullus and I were on the same wavelength from the get-go. I began reading the book on Monday night, and finished it Tuesday afternoon. 
    Except for LXIV (a tedious epyllion  -- my least favorite piece), it's all great stuff. The following pieces, though, are my favorites.

Nulli se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
  quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
 dicit -- sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti
  in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua
                                                    (LXX) 

 "My woman says that there's no one she would rather wed
   Than me, not even if Zeus himself proposed.
 Says -- but what a woman says to an ardent lover
 One should write on the wind and the running water."

    And the second half of LXXII:

     nunc te cognoui. quare etsi impensius uror,
     multo mi tamen es vilior et levior
    'qui potis es?' inquis? quod amantem injuria
     talis
    cogit amare magis sed bene velle minus.

    "
   "I know you now. So though my passion's more intense,
   Yet to me you are cheaper and more frivolous.
    'How can this be?' you ask? It is because such injury
     impels
     a lover to love more, but to like less."

     LXXV

     Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa
     atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,
     ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias,
     nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

     "Lesbia, my will has sunk to this through your frailty
     And so destroyed itself by its own kindness
     That it could neither like you, even if you were perfect,
     Nor cease to love you, though you stopped at nothing."

        And my favorite, LXXXV. Short, sweet, and to the point:

     Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris?
    nescio sed fieri sentio et excrucior.  

     "I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why?
     I don't know, but I feel it happening, and I am in agony." 

Unpretentious Hamming

     Among the many things that set my teeth on edge are the smarmy author profile photos one sees on the back covers of various books. What, I ask, is the point of gazing thoughtfully at some distant (and imaginary) object, or of trying to apppear to be a sensitive, pensive, vulnerable soul when in real life, you're the kind of asshole whose own grandmother sends him letterbombs? Whom do these nutsacks think they're fooling? 

     Pardon my vulgarity, but contempt has gotten the better of me: Fuck that shit. I refuse to create and/or convey a false impression by pretending to be something I'm not. If I can't sell books on the strength of my writing, too fucking bad for me. There is no way in hell I'll resort to dolling up like an ankle-grabbing GQ cover model or a pretentious, simpering artiste for the sake of tapping the "muff market."
     What you see is what you get. 

    We did our first shoot today (the "normal" one -- the next will be the obnoxious/humorous/outrageous one), and here are two candidates for the rear cover of Irish Need Not Apply. 

     

     (It's a Hiberno-American gesture, by the way. It means -- uhm -- it means, "May you and your descendants go directly to heaven." Yeah! That's it! That's what it means!) 



     Don't even say it. Although I seldom write Sci-Fi or Fantasy, I'm still a hopeless Moorcock junkie. Hence the Arrow of Chaos thermal. I grabbed the shirt the moment I saw it -- price no object. 

How to Read Review-Blurbs

     The devil, as the adage maintains, is in the details. The details,in this case, are the ellipses. 

     The blurb: "a monumental piece...brilliantly written...makes the reader yearn for an earlier age..."

     The original review: "A monumental piece of shit, as brilliantly written as graffiti in a truckstop restroom; this literary atrocity makes the reader yearn for an earier age -- an age in which good money wasn't squandered after bad on utopian pipe dreams of educating the hopeless."   

Unnerving Coincidences

     This morning, although I haven't checked my AOL mail in months, I had to sign on in order to read a message from my uncle. 
    While I was sorting through, flagging, deleting, and otherwise dealing with the 1,000+ pieces of spam, forwards, etc., (may a thousand generations of dysenteric pigeons perch upon the graves of the senders' forefathers), I noticed one (situated between "Enlarge your penis now!" and "Canadian pharmaceuticals at rock-bottom prices!") entitled "Veronica thanks God for you!"(Unlike the sender, I might add, I've done Veronica and God the courtesy of capitalizing their names.) 

     Initially, I thought it was a comment on my latest serial, but then I noticed that it was dated a full month before I posted the first installment. 
    The realization gave rise to a wonderfully perverse sense of irony: Dave may evoke any number of sentiments in Veronica, but gratitude to the Almighty certainly isn't one of them. 

     This isn't the kind of story I usually write about Bill and Dave, but it seemed like a prime opportunity to try my hand at a slightly different mode of expression -- and to heave a few globs of reeking, still-warm satire at the tottering remnant of the American Fever Dream. I suppose that's what I get for becoming overfond of Aristophanes, Horace, and Juvenal. 

   I am rather surprised at my own treatment of Veronica, mind you. When first I dreamed her up a few years ago (she made her debut in the "Gibbous Moon Over Dreamland" pieces,) I'd intended her solely as a piece of comic relief. She was, after all, a composite of the most soulless females I've ever encountered - whether in reality or in fiction. It occurred to me, though, that if she had no redeeming features at all, I wouldn't be writing fiction, but rather propaganda. 
    A few re-readings were enough to convince me that the line between satire and philippic was becoming as blurry as Bill and Dave's vision on a typical Sunday morning, and that if she was the demoness I'd made her out to be, Dave wouldn't have wondered what she was like in the sack. It also occurred to me that the likelihood of her being a flesh-and-blood Aphrodite -- emerging as a completely finished product from the splash of Ouranos' nuts hitting the ocean when Kronos gave Freud entirely too much to think about -- was rather slim.
     It occured to me that at one time, she had to have come into the world tabula rasa, had to have been a little girl who had a favorite doll or stuffed animal, loved puppies and kittens, hated spinach or broccoli, and was as sadly misled by fairtytale endings as any of us. In short, as a thinking, feeling, human being, she must have formed her attitudes and behaviors as reasoned or knee-jerk responses to the various stimuli of nature and nurture.   
     Consequently, I decided to flush my usual approach down the crapper, and cast Dave and Veronica in admittedly stock literary roles: those of unllikely, reluctant (and ill-starred) lovers who can't stand each other, and who come dangerouly close to hating themelves for their mutually inexplicable attraction.

     We'll see how it works.

Bitching About Writing and Music

     I haven't posted in a while, as some of you may have noticed.
     It's not for lack of things to say (far from it, as a matter of fact), but I've been busy as hell for the past few months. In addition to everything else, Mags and I have expanded our sphere to include copy-editing and advertising. This is hardly what I imagined myself doing when I began writing seriously (neither was working for a newspaper -- ain't life full of surprises?), but it pays better than endless attempts to puke up the Great American Novel.
          Speaking of which…
     I don’t think I'm destined to be a novelist. In October I churned out 75,000 words (too many of which were articles, pronouns, and conjunctions), but the book became ever longer, with no end in sight. I'm still working on the project, but I need to decide where to take it. It's more-or- less a fantasy novel; for all that it's certain to infuriate the target audience.
      Barring Tolkien, Lewis, Dunsany, Zelazny, Vance, and a handful of others, I don't even like fantasy.  In the main, it's sappy, pretentious, clichéd and boring. 

    Yes, we get it. You have seven unpronounceable names.  Your ancestry includes beings who, while less than gods, are more than men.  You bear a sentient, aeons-old weapon that devours souls, communicates with you, and erases ATM fees from your bank's records whenever you will it.  You're physically unfit, mentally unstable, and your survival actually requires more exotic chemicals than I needed to endure high school. Moreover, your graduating class voted you "Most Likely to Have His Remains Added to the Reliquary in the Shrine of Our Lady of the Turd of Misery."      
     But despite your obvious failings, I'm supposed to believe that you defeat every foe who engages you, and that you get laid as often as cheap tile.
     What's that you say?
     Fuck me?
     Fuck me? Fuck YOU!
     I'm calling bullshit on you, "Special K!" Moreover, I'm calling bullshit on your sub-creator. You're not a hero! You're a Rockefeller, a Bush, an Obama, or an inbred Euro-nabob: Were you not born in a mansion, with a silver spoon in your mouth; you'd be living under a bridge on the Southside, with a crackhead gangbanger's dangler in place of the flatware. You are not a mighty man of renown. You are, quite frankly, a wanker.      

     Having said that, I'll add that I've written a few fantasy shorts in my time (more about 'em later), but I based them on Celtic, Norse, and Buddhist mythology rather than Dungeons and Dragons -- and most of the characters get laid without falling back upon non-human ancestors or magical trinkets . One offering, a short piece entitled Thorkill's Conquest, which I scribbled twenty years ago, actually doesn't suck, and will appear in another book -- as soon as I choose between the PG-13 and X-rated versions. I'll probably opt for the former, as the latter will likely enrage a few of my ex-girlfriends, and I don’t live that way anymore. (I can already imagine the phone ringing off the hook…"Disclaimer, my ass! Who else have you done it with in the funhouse at Myrtle Beach?" Or better still: "Listen, jerk-off! The only reason I put out was because you told me you were in the band. If I'd known you were just helping them set up their equipment…")
     Hey, the key to realism is writing what you know, n'est ce pas?
     The novel has been fun to write, as I decided to use the conventions of the genre as toilet paper from page one. There are no cutesy, pixie-ish beings as comic relief, no sentient weapons, no wise and powerful wizards, and no talking animals -- except for a wharf rat with Tourette's Syndrome.  Without giving too much away, it's equal parts Cannery Row and high fantasy. The working title (swiped from either Ben Jonson or Thomas Kyd -- I can't remember which) is Sons of Swords and Fortune; which, while describing the characters perfectly, is faggy and pretentious. I'll probably change it.
     Like Leiber's Fahfrd and the Grey Mouser, the protagonists are a pack of degenerates who'd be more at home among British football hooligans than at Arthur's Round Table. Although the standard disclaimer horseshit applies, some of their antics may or may not have been inspired by actual experiences with my drinking buddies (most of whom my wife and mother consider degenerates who'd be more at home among British football hooligans than… yadda yadda yadda…).
    
     Now that I've gotten ahead of myself, I suppose I should backtrack.  The publishing company is operational. Maggie and I have put it together a little at a time for the last three years. (If I ever write a work of nonfiction, it'll address the unnecessary red-tape and BS small businesses face in this country. "Free enterprise," my rosy, Irish ass…) Our debt-free status and determination to remain that way should explain the timeframe.
      As I have nothing but contempt and loathing for usurers, I was damned if I'd borrow illusionary money and pay a cabal of tapeworm conjurors interest thereupon. Our way required time and perseverance, but the company is all ours, and we're beholden to no one. We're incorporated, we have a license, we have an attorney, and we've even taken on an intern.
     Although being a reporter wasn't always fun, I'm grateful for my hitch with John Fredericks at the Beacon.  Insofar as publishing is concerned, it was an education.  
    
      Maggie is soliciting contributions for our first offering, an anthology to be released next spring. I'm editing the collection; and -- sweet, kind-hearted SOB that I am (and because saying "no" to one's spouse is unwise) -- contributing a piece under a pen name. I'm also assembling a collection of my own short fiction, to be released whenever I have enough material to justify charging ten bucks for it. In addition to the fantasy shorts I mentioned earlier, Bill and Dave will be lurking within the covers, as will McVann. I also mean to include a period piece set in Scotland -- but lest anyone bust my clackers for bandwagon- jumping, rest assured that my Scots have body-hair, use profanity, and commit murder for next-to-nothing. Except for a few mercenaries, there are no kilts or claymores to be found. My story takes place on the Borders, a few years before Jamie th' Saxt sent everyone packing for the Ulster Plantation.

     Self-pub entails certain risks and difficulties, but it affords me complete artistic (chuckle) freedom,  and there's no way I'll spend year or more, writing a book for ten or fifteen percent of the swag.  This way, once we get our costs back, everything goes to us. No risk of making agents, publishers, and other second-handers rich while we pick shite with the chickens.
          Unfortunately, the cookbook had to be shelved for the time being. The underlying idea was making gourmet meals from dirt-cheap imports. Due to the sagging dollar, though, said imports are no longer dirt-cheap.  For example, a four-ounce packet of black sesame seed, which cost $0.99 now costs $1.79. Even my favorite brands of noodles (Vifon, Indo-Mie, Nong Shim and Sapporo Ichiban) have increased in price. These developments necessitate revamping and updating the text.

     In other news, I hit a book sale this weekend and made out like a bandit. I picked up a hardcover copy of Pasternak's Dr. Zhivago for a dollar; a volume of Cicero's dialogues, Erasmus's Ten Colloquies, St. Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law, a book on colloquial Spanish, Glenn Greenwald's How Would a Patriot Act (One of the most important books of the last decade, in my not-so-humble opinion), and a stack of guitar magazines. (Whilst sorting through them, I exclaimed: "What the hell? Who slipped an issue of Fangoria into this pile?" The wife says: "That’s not the cast of The Hills Have Eyes, dear. That's My Chemical Romance." Sorry. That was mean.)
    
     This reminded me that four of my guitars needed restringing. My next stop was the local music store, wherein I did something incredibly stupid. One of the axes in question was a Höfner classical acoustic I've had for thirty years.  Like an idiot, I wasn't paying attention when I grabbed the pack of strings. Lazy, shiftless ne'er-d-well that I am, I'd meant to buy ball-ends. Instead, I picked up the traditional variety.  Not having played that particular axe in years, I couldn't, for the life of me, remember how to tie the damned things to bridge. Thank God for Google…
     Finally, a full hour later, I had it strung. Another hour later, I had it tuned. I took it into the kitchen and played a few bars of vaguely Flamenco-ish noodling for the wife, who, never having heard nylon strings up close, was pleasantly surprised to discover that she very much enjoys the sound of them.  I, to reiterate, did not very much enjoy changing them.
     "Dear," says I, "next time I put myself through this, feel free to poke me in the scrotum with a knitting needle."
     As she is not a neocon, and I am not a Muslim, she declined.
     I'm bitching about it (changing guitar strings --not my wife's fundamental decency) because complaining is what I do best, but I admit that the strings are wonderful. They're D'Addario Pro Arte silverwound, and the tone is incredible. Remember your first girlfriend? Remember the first time she said "yes" when you asked her for  -- well, you know? Well, these strings are that "yes." They sound that good.
    I also picked up a package of 80/20 Bronze for my Fender F-210 (a present from my stalwart, long-suffering comrade, Ronnie Watkins, on my thirty-something birthday) and two packs of XLs -- .009s for my brother's Höfner Jaguar-knockoff, and .010s for my SG.
     Whilst restringing the Fender, I hit another snag. The pegs in the bridge were old, and made of plastic. During the struggle to extract them, one broke. This necessitated yet another trip to the music store, and the purchase of multiple pegs in whichever colors were available.  When next you see a hippie/bikerish-looking guy playing an acoustic guitar, the bridge pegs of which induce cognitive dissonance or vivid hallucinations on sight; it's probably me.
     The 80/20s are very nice. Brighter (and, admittedly, a little tinnier) than the Phosphor Bronze I usually play, but they're growing on me -- kinda like jock itch. They’re light enough (.012s) to spare my dignity (I've been wimping out and playing electrics for the last few months), but just heavy enough to restore my calluses and finger strength. Ran through Ozzy Osbourne's "Diary of a Madman" as soon as I'd tuned them -- and rediscovered the meaning of the term "self-contempt." But I stuck with it, all the same.
    Two hours later, my fingertips felt as if I'd tried to pick Darth Vader's nose through his mask, but I made progress.  Picking up the electrics, by way of comparison, was rather like playing that pathetic "Guitar Hero" game.
      And speaking of electrics…     
      XL's aren't my favorite strings, but they're not at all bad -- and they're reasonably priced. Once upon a time, I only played Fender "Bullets," but I haven't seen them in years.  I tried Ernie Ball "Slinkies" during the late '80s or early '90s and found myself hoping for a chance to kick ol' Ernie right in the -- well, you get the picture. For the time being, I'll keep D'Addarios on my electrics.

     Not much to say about the SG. It's a stock, mid-'90s Epiphone. Looks nice, sounds nice, plays nice, and aside from the rinky-dink neck (which feels like balsa wood) I'm very fond of it.  
    
     The Jag knockoff is a different story.  During the autumn of '82, my late brother expressed an interest in playing -- probably my fault. Not entirely convinced of his sincerity, Da bought him an inexpensive German model (A Höfner 164, as nearly as I can tell) at the Heidelberg PX; reasoning that if Chris was serious, plying him with a better instrument would be a matter of course.
     Chris hated the guitar.  His disappointment upon opening the box was obvious, and I honestly wanted to be somewhere else, for my father's sake.  In retrospect, I don't think his feelings were hurt, but one can never tell.
     For my part, I didn't understand. I'd been nagging the old man for an electric guitar since the spring of '81, to no avail. As I'd have considered even a cheap PX or Sears-Roebuck model a Godsend, Christopher's ingratitude flabbergasted me.  
     In time, Daddy relented and bought me a midline classical acoustic for Christmas of '81 (with a stern warning that I'd damned-sight better enroll in a guitar class within the next two semesters). But one can't play heavy metal on nylon strings; all the more reason to marvel at my brother's uncouth reaction.

     My first electric was the payoff for working the 130^th Station Hospital Pharmacy as part of the DOD's Summer Hire program. Six weeks of fulltime blood, sweat, tears, hopes, and dreams (and of forsaking movies, the video arcade at Campbell Barracks, LP purchases, and the water park in Leimen -- all heroic sacrifices for a boy not quite fifteen) bought my first real axe.
     It was an Aria Pro II CS-350, and a case of love at first sight. Aqua blue and shaped like a lopsided, wasp-waisted SG, it had chrome hardware, two humbuckers, with separate tone and volume pots; a standard, three-position toggle for a selector, and coil taps. Best of all, it felt like a real guitar -- heavy, solid, and unyielding.
    One of the amber-colored tone knobs has long since become stripped, fallen off, and rolled into oblivion. My own perspiration has corroded much of the chrome plating, and several frets are worn nearly to the fingerboard. I've played, taught, composed, recorded, and moved on to other pursuits -- while never abandoning that teenage ambition of mine, or the instrument. However battered, it's still a part of me; so inseparably, it will be even when it ceases to exist. The bond transcends sentiment and attachment: when wood dry-rots and metal rusts, when the guitar disintegrates into oxidized flakes and termite-shit sawdust, it will be as heavy, solid, and unyielding as ever -- perhaps even more so.

        Hopefully, this explains my failure to understand my brother's fit of pique. He'd been given something for which I'd have killed -- and yet he stuck his nose up at it.
      "OK, so it ain't the best axe on earth. But it's a freakin' electric, dude! An' it didn't cost you one red cent! Shitfire! You can even use my amp whenever you want!"
     I didn't remind him that I'd begged for the amp, and gotten my wish -- the cheapest POS the PX had in stock. By then I'd already bought a guitar, so was one more year? Save my allowance, work another summer; and a better amp was as good as mine.  Another season; and I'd have an arsenal of stomp-boxes. One more; and I'd be back in the Land of the Big PX -- wherein innumerable apsaras of gainful employment supinated themselves, bared their hooters, spread their legs, and promised me a HiWatt, or at least a Crate for my trouble. Why hurry?

        Try as I might, I never managed to soften Chris's attitude towards his guitar. He regarded it with undisguised contempt, never touched it, and took up bass in '85. I can't remember him learning more than two songs on the guitar: "King of the Road" and "Black Sabbath." Bass was another matter. He picked up Thin Lizzy's "Renegade," Black Sabbath's "Black Sabbath," Deep Purple's "Love Child," and a few AC/DC tunes; but being a lazy, unmotivated bastard ("We should play more AC/DC. You don't have to move your fingers much, and it doesn’t matter how stoned you are…"), he shelved it and took up vocals when my friend, Jon, bought a Squier P-Bass knockoff. 
     Chris wasn't a good singer, but he wasn't a bad one, either. Despite his limited range and galling, Maryland accent, he could manage a Johnny Rotten-ish snarl; and never stooped to "Cookie Monster" bellowing. As fate would have it though, his muse eventually led him away from music, to the seedier end of Ponce de Leon Avenue. And if he was happier working construction and car-washes, and spending his earnings on booze and hookers, who was I to fault him? At the time, music was my life -- but it was only the soundtrack to his. He went his way, I went mine -- and gained an orphaned guitar in the process.
   
     In time, it became mine.
     Until I bought the Stratocaster, I was rather a ham-fisted player. This is to say that I routinely broke strings. It's also worth mentioning that I'm rough on equipment, period.

     "Uh, Dave, buddy? You're a damned good customer an' all, but I just gotta ask you one thing. How the f*** did you manage to melt three tubes?"
    "Awnknow. Mus' be the conditions inna g'rage."
     "You’re still playing in your f****in' garage?"
     "Not always. Sometimes I play in the basement -- and other people's garages. "

     "Otis was asking about you a couple o' weeks ago. Said he asked you to audition. I heard Charlie offered you a chance to jam onstage, too."
     "Yup."
     "Man, I don't get you. What are you? Just a total asshole?"
     "Nah. I'm more of a chickenshit. Now can you fix the f***in' amp, or what?"

     Christopher's guitar was a Godsend and, more importantly, a backup.  Granted, it didn't sound like the Aria, but it spared me the trouble of installing an entire set of new strings when I broke one.  Moreover, I really liked it.
     Until so-called "Alternative" became all the rage, no-one played anything that looked even remotely like a Jaguar. During the '80s, as a matter of fact, most of the big-hair bands preferred instruments that more resembled microorganisms one might catch in a Haitian brothel. Aside from a brief dalliance with Explorers, I always preferred the more traditional shapes: SGs, Strats, ESs, etc. (The sole exception to the rule is the Les Paul. It's blasphemy to say so, but I've never cared for them. To me, they play like hunks of flotsam, and they all sound alike. I'm far more partial to Stratocasters.)  
     Given my predilection for all things passé, the outdated look of my brother's guitar appealed to me -- and still does.  When next I jam with my cousin, I'll play it and have the wife shoot a few photos or a video clip. I'm sure to look like an art-fart, 90's grunge-rocker -- but I like it that way.
     As you can see from the photo below, the instrument has a no-frills, sunburst finish, two ultra-primitive single-coil pickups, one tone and one volume pot, and a mongrelized bridge and tailpiece. Crude though it may be, I love the sound.  The bridge pickup is a little tinny, but its counterpart in the neck position has a nice, fat "woman tone" that lends itself to blues-rock -- or to kicking back and mimicking Grand Funk Railroad. The bridge pickup's tinniness is easily overcome by fiddling with the tone settings on the amp and pedals, and it has a raw, jagged, punk sound that warms the cockles of my Grinchy li'l heart. Although it doesn't howl as fiercely as my hollowbody, it's quite capable of spitting out controllable feedback.  For a cheapie (and this is quite surprising, considering the instrument's relative lightness), the sustain is very nice, and the Cro Mag bridge makes adjusting the action a cinch.
    Best of all, it has 22 frets, and the cutaway is deep enough to allow access to all of them.  This enables me to cop the solo from Judas Priest's cover of "Diamonds and Rust" note-for-note, without going an octave lower -- or bending a string until it snaps.

    One man's trash is, indeed, another man's treasure.

                                                                 Höfner 164 (?)

 

 

Shite Mountain Revisited

Being more of a swearblogger's barking, growling and snapping, and little else.

I’ve occasionally heard it said (in a belligerent tone, as often as not) that since a writer works mainly in ideas, “that other stuff” (grammar, punctuation, correct usage, etc.) isn’t important. Rather than accuse those who make this and similar assertions of mere laziness and/or impatience, I’ll assume that their curious belief is the result of flawed logic.

That a writer works in ideas is so obvious as to go without saying. Unfortunately, we hairless monkeys don’t communicate ideas directly (i.e., though mental telepathy). As a result of this particular handicap, we construct elaborate sets of symbols called “languages,” as substitute forms of communication. Therefore, it stands to reason that the firmer one’s command of a given language, the greater one’s ability to communicate one’s ideas.

I’ve never read a definitive, scientific study that positively established either a causal or corollary relationship between intelligence and linguistic aptitude. Empirical observation, however, leads me to believe that one exists. In my forty years on this ball of rock, I’ve noticed that in general, intelligent people are also well spoken. Why this is so, I don’t know, and won’t pretend to. Perhaps intelligent people are better able to acquire the tools needed to relate complex, subtle concepts, and more inclined to do so, as well. Perhaps an enhanced vocabulary allows one to entertain a broader, and deeper body of ideas in the first place. Perhaps they’re mutually reinforcing.

As I’ve said, I don’t know why this is so: only that it is so, and far too often to be mere coincidence. I’ve noticed that the articulate are able not only better able than the inarticulate to express their ideas precisely, but to do so concisely, as well. This leads me to believe that not only are the former group’s mental processes more orderly and precise, but actually more rapid.

A word, as we’ve established, is a sound or combination of sounds/characters that symbolizes a thought. Given this, it’s occurred to me that a man with a large number of these symbols at his disposal expresses his thoughts quickly and efficiently: he has no need to waste time and thought “fishing” for the proper word or combination of words.

Consider the following sentences. Both express the same concepts, but the former does so more precisely and concisely than the latter.

As Bill looked up the darkened staircase, he experienced an inexplicable sense of foreboding.

As Bill looked up the thing that leads from the ground to a higher place, where there was no light, he felt worried about something that might happen in the future, even though he couldn’t tell himself why or how he felt that way.

In the first sentence, concepts are expressed in a sort of “shorthand,” in fourteen words, as opposed to the second sentence’s forty-four. I’ll allow that the example was crude, and perhaps applicable mainly to speakers of Indo-European languages, especially English. English, however, is a prefix-, suffix-, and compound-word-laden Indo-European language. Barring the omission of the words “staircase” and “darkened” from the second sentence (a deliberate exaggeration on my part), can any English-speaker honestly deny having heard children and uneducated adults express themselves similarly?

I don’t believe so. Nor do I believe that children or uneducated adults are noted for conciseness, precision, or rapidity of thought, all of which are considered components of intelligence if I'm not mistaken...

Bear in mind, Gentle Reader; that I’m speaking generally. Neither racing thought nor chattering speech necessarily indicates high intelligence. In many cases, both are the marks of an unfocused, undisciplined, and superficial mind. I should also mention that there are many who think slowly and deliberately, thoroughly assessing every word in terms of both literal and implied meaning, before speaking or committing them to paper. Far from being signs of stupidity, these traits often indicate meticulousness and intellectual profundity.

Most of us, though, are neither morons nor MENSA candidates. Therefore (in my admittedly prejudiced opinion), it behooves us to adopt the stiff-necked, hardnosed “Say what you mean, mean what you say –and do both correctly!” approach to writing and speaking so dear to my dour, irritable Scottish forbears.

A recent experience served to drive home the importance of this simple truth.

Not long ago, I had the chance to leaf through a student-published periodical from a local university. To say that I was shocked by the piss-poor quality of the writing would be a gross understatement – and that’s coming from an unabashed hack, swearblogger, and shit-stirrer. The few actual ideas expressed within the periodical were generally second-rate, in and of themselves, but the manner in which they were committed to paper was even more horrifying. Arguably, much of what I read actually consisted of “idea-free,” inarticulate expressions of unexamined emotion. Even the few pieces in which introspection, coherent thought -- and sincere attempts to communicate with the audience -- were in evidence were so poorly written as to nullify any potential emotional impact on the reader.

Worse still, the so-called “writers” made no apparent effort to choose their words in such a way as to create any kind of flow or rhythm. Even such time-honored devices as onomatopoeic suggestion were completely absent. In some cases, words were apparently chosen randomly, with complete disregard for meaning, whether connotative or denotative. This rendered many passages ambiguous at best, and meaningless - or meaningful only to the writer -- at worst.

Writing of this sort, in my not-so-humble opinion, is pure self-indulgence, and serves no useful purpose. It makes no effort to engage the reader’s thoughts, feelings or imagination, and serves only to leave him confused, indifferent or disgusted. Additionally, most of what I read was self-consciously pretentious, obscure for the sake of obscurity (no references or tantalizing clues for the reader to follow), and – quite ironically, given the writers’ tendency to “show their asses” – possessed of an unhealthily claustrophobic, almost masturbatory quality.

I hope never to see its like again – but I almost certainly will.

Escape From Shite Mountain

Being little more than an incorrigible swearblogger's snarky, opinionated observations on the craft of scribbling.

Yesterday, my significant other posted a very sweet piece about my writing and me on her blog. I’d be a bald-faced liar if I claimed not to have been deeply moved and honored by the sentiments she expressed, but I’m afraid they’re not entirely accurate.

I understand that a number of people (Maggie included) enjoy my writing, especially the rants. As man is a social animal (even reclusive, curmudgeonly men like Yours Truly), I’m as happy to be appreciated as the next guy. The fact that someone finds a given piece of writing enjoyable, though, doesn’t make it good writing.

By my own standards, most of what I produce is outright garbage. Certainly, I’ll enjoy writing it while I’m writing it, but when I review the finished product a few days or weeks later, what I see gives me the dry heaves, as often as not. When I review it a few months later, I usually find myself in dire need of a truckload of airsickness bags and a few kilos of elephant tranquilizers.

Granted, I’ve only been doing this for eighteen months or so. In that time, I’ve noticed marked improvements in the overall quality of my output. That still isn’t saying much, though, and making the improvements has been anything but easy. When I began writing for an audience back in June of 2006, I’d been out of school for nearly eighteen years. Eighteen years, needless to say, affords one plenty of time in which to forget damn near everything one ever learned in college.

I’ll admit that I majored in English (emphasis on lit and comp) in those days, but the jobs I’ve held since leaving school in 1989 simply haven’t required using any of what I learned. Suffice to say that after the better part of two decades running commercials on cable TV, painting houses, landscaping, cutting down trees, and holding various food service and retail positions (from fry cook to Night Manager at a supermarket), I’d become more familiar with inventories than with indirect quotes.

Naturally, there are certain things one never forgets. The eight parts of speech are so firmly ingrained that I could probably recite them in my sleep. I still bristle at the sight of split infinitives, sentences ending in prepositions, dangling modifiers, quotation marks used in place of italics, and similar abominations. And finally, I don’t imagine there’s enough booze in the world to allow me to drink the functions of gerunds, participles, infinitives, and modals off my mind.

Retaining such information, however, hasn’t made the task of writing any easier, unless perhaps on a subconscious level. I’ve encountered numerous hurdles from the get-go, and – pessimistic bastard that I am – I don’t imagine I’ll ever clear them all.

The length of my sentences, for example, has been a persistent problem – compounded by the fact that I don’t necessarily want to correct it. Most of the literature I read for my own pleasure is a hundred or more years old, and I actually enjoy the long, complex sentences of a Joseph Conrad, a James Joyce, or a William Faulkner. Whereas I understand the need to be concise, I can’t help but notice that the modern mania for clipped, “See Jane run” sentences has actually exerted a subtle “dumbing down” effect, by catering to short attention-spans.

I’ve also noticed that just as the use of dynamics and rhythmic shifts in a piece of music can create several different moods within the same composition, the length and placement of sentences has a similar effect on a piece of writing. By charting and/or planning the number of words in each sentence, the writer can create numerous subtle but subconsciously perceptible patterns, ranging from a gentle “wave” to a jagged, tension-and-release rhythm.

So much for that hurdle, then. As I’ve said, I’m not especially keen to overcome it. The next one, though, is another matter entirely. Punctuation, for me, has been an unmitigated nightmare. This has been the case for as long as I can (or care to) remember. I don’t lose much sleep over periods, commas, exclamation points or question marks, mind you: their functions are largely self-evident.

The use of quotation marks has proven trickier, but mainly when using them in conjunction with other punctuation marks. The differences between Commonwealth and American printing conventions have served only to complicate this matter. After a year and a half of sweating, though, I’m finally getting close to sorting things out – and to tearing out what’s left of my hair.

In my case, the colon and the semicolon are far and away the nastiest “demons” in the veritable Goetia of punctuation marks. I understand the use of both on the most elementary level, but that’s as far as it goes.

Dave, the frustrated writer, grappled with the colon and the semicolon as he tore out his hair; filled the air with vile, shocking profanity; and wished that the inventors of punctuation marks had the products of their labor shoved up their asses sideways.

Dave, the frustrated writer, wished the following as he grappled with the colon and the semicolon: That their inventors had them shoved up their asses sideways; that his repertoire of vile, shocking profanity was larger; and that he had more hair to tear out, as he’d largely denuded his own scalp within a mere eighteen months.

I’m still working on the more advanced uses of both, alas and alack. This has necessitated relearning the basics of grammar and sentence structure on a “nuts and bolts” level. Doing so has been a pain in the ass, but it’s an absolute necessity, as far as I’m concerned. I also believe the effort will ultimately pay off, even if I never attain perfect mastery of either.

I understand that one can be a successful (and even a damned good) writer without an intellectual understanding of the mechanics of language. I’m certainly not stating as a categorical imperative that one must be an Oxford-trained grammarian in order to write coherent, enjoyable prose: far from it, as a matter of fact. I do, however, believe --and very strongly, at that – that anyone aspiring to the title of “writer” is obligated to himself, to his readers, and to the language itself – the very tool of his trade – to attain a certain, fundamental level of competence in his craft.

This is what I’ve spent the last year and six months trying to do. As I said in my opening paragraph, I’m very flattered by the things my significant other wrote of me – but I still have a long way to go.

Shameless and Pretentious Navel-Gazing

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I don’t consider myself a “writer” per se, but rather a blogger. To some, the difference may seem academic. In truth, it’s anything but. Granted, blogging is a form of writing. Generally speaking, though, the quality of writing in cyberspace is far lower than that in the print world. Writers spend years honing and perfecting their craft.

Bloggers generally don’t bother.

I’d like to make the transition from blogger to writer-proper someday. Not that I’m in any great hurry, mind you. As a dyed-in-the-wool ranter, I’ll keep spewing profane invective until the day I die -- Internet or no Internet, audience or no audience.

Admittedly, it would be nice to be able to write for a living. Shoveling shit in hell for thirty-five to forty hours a week isn’t exactly fun, after all. I don’t do this for the money. That should be patently obvious, as Green Hell is a free site, and I don’t run advertisements of any kind. I don’t do it to become popular or make friends, although I’ve made many friends since I began posting, and am glad to have done so. I don’t do it in the hopes of becoming famous – I’m a very private person – and I certainly don’t do it in order to meet women. I already have a fiancée, and bloggers aren’t exactly famed as “chick magnets” -- with good reason.

Ultimately, I post on Green Hell because I love to write. Secondary benefits of keeping up this blog include catharsis and “stress busting.” For the last two years, my stress levels have been dangerously high, and blogging – especially swearblogging – provides me with a “safety valve” of sorts.

Recently, I’ve suffered several nastier-than-average attacks of writer’s block. When this happens, I tend to become rather out of sorts, as my favorite outlet no longer functions properly. Unfortunately, the well-intended prodding of those near and dear to me has served only to exacerbate the problem. It has, in effect, proven the equivalent of pounding a lame horse’s spine with a sledgehammer, while screaming: “Run faster! Run faster!” and expecting some other outcome than the poor damned beast’s death.

Not a single one of them suffers from cyclothymia, manic-depression, or bipolar disorder, as it happens. Therefore, explaining that this kind of writer’s block isn’t a choice -- that when the really black moods set in and the words and ideas won’t come, they simply won’t come -- is rather difficult. It’s rather like trying to explain music to the deaf or color to the blind. For this reason, I shall no longer attempt to explain it.

The most recent attack was far more severe than usual. Rather than pressure myself or give in to the depression, though, I decided to catch up on my reading. I’ve been reading a great deal of history, some fiction and poetry here and there, and a good bit on writing, as well. I’ve found the last-mentioned category particularly interesting and beneficial.

After several weeks of studying writing, it became readily apparent to me that nearly all of my prior work is of abysmally poor quality. Frankly, I’m ashamed of most of it. It’s crude, sketchy, amateurish, rife with assumptions, and damned pompous, at that. It relies entirely too much upon profanity and “shock value,” and the sheer vitriol and venom (especially in my more recent posts) appall me.

This, needless to say, must change – and there’s no time like the present.

Therefore, I'll begin tomorrow, or perhaps Sunday. Well, maybe Monday...

What I haven’t mentioned yet is that I’ve also spent a fair amount of time randomly surfing the blogosphere. Should the gentle reader think I’m being harsh with myself, he should hear what I have to say about the rest of the rubbish out there.

Oh! I just said it. Moving right along, then…

This is actually a shame, as many bloggers have excellent ideas. They simply don’t articulate them well. I’ve long been of the opinion that a writer’s ultimate duty is to do his thoughts justice, in words. Sadly, this is a rare occurrence, especially on the Internet.

As a poor presentation hardly does a good idea justice, I’ve decided to get on my soapbox again, and crack the old textbooks open. Doing so probably won’t make any difference, in the long run, but why not take a shot at it?

The following items are a few more of a blogger’s thoughts on the craft of writing.

Writers do not “create,” strictly speaking: That function is the exclusive province of God. Writers rearrange pre-existing elements into new patterns – in some cases, according to established formulae. This is hardly an act of “creation,” needless to say. The overuse of the words “create,” “creative,” and “creativity” serves little purpose, other than boosting the writer’s ego. As often as not, this boost is both unnecessary and unjustified.

*****

Truth really is stranger than fiction. I suppose this is why what passes for “journalism” these days requires so much more “creativity” than literature -- and greater suspension of disbelief on the reader’s part, as well. The journalist’s job is to make oft-irrational human behavior appear to make sense, while the poor reader’s task is to force himself to believe what he’s reading.

*****

At times, I still grapple with the sheer number of purported “writers” who haven’t the slightest grasp of the mechanics of language. Hopefully, I can do something to correct this. I’ll make a few attempts in this very post.

Words are tools. They are tools of communication, just as hammers, saws, etc., are tools of construction. A writer or speaker who fails to communicate his ideas to his audience is usually guilty of misusing his tools. Every tool has a function, and the word – whether spoken or written – is no exception. Words function as symbols. Simply put: a symbol is something that conveys meaning by representing something else. Just as a flag symbolizes a nation, or a mascot symbolizes a team, a word symbolizes an object or idea.

When I say the word “red,” I’m making a number of sounds. Color is perceived visually, but by saying “red,” I communicate visual information through sound. Pardon the colloquialism, but how cool is that? I’m honestly convinced that many ancient cultures thought words possessed some inherent, magical quality, for this very reason.

Unfortunately, the intellectual vandalism called “deconstructionism” (the deliberate attempt to deprive words of meaning) has taken its toll on the English language. This, perhaps, is why so little modern literature shares the near-magical quality of many of the classics.

The fact that words are verbal symbols for objects and ideas may appear too obvious to require mentioning. Sadly, it isn’t. In the post-deconstructionist age, many seem to have forgotten that words convey meaning, whether through denotation or connotation.

*****

Words, needless to say, are a writer’s primary tools, just as hammers and chisels are a sculptor’s. Ideas are the media in which a writer works, just as stone is the medium in which a sculptor works. A sculptor who can’t make proper use of hammers and chisels will work the stone poorly, and be a poor sculptor. A writer who can’t make proper use of language will present his ideas poorly, and be a poor writer.

Unfortunately, I’ve encountered many a self-styled “Michelangelo” who couldn’t carve a pecker into a tree trunk, with a pocketknife.

*****

The next few items are dry, technical, and of interest only to my fellow “hacks,” who aspire to become actual writers.

I’ve already mentioned that words are tools, and that a writer should employ his tools correctly. Correct employment of words depends upon the writer’s understanding of his own language. This can be an especially formidable task for an English-speaker who wishes to write, as English is a rich, complex language.

Owing to its mixed origins (Anglo-Saxon and Norman French) and its speakers’ readiness to adopt loanwords, English has an immense and often intimidating vocabulary. This feature, along with the irregularity and complicated nature of its spelling and grammar, makes it rather a difficult language for foreigners to learn. One meets many foreigners who speak English, but few who speak it well. Native English speakers must clear exactly the same hurdles, and most fail, although not as miserably as speakers of foreign tongues.

One meets many native English speakers, but few who speak it well…

Enhanced communication with speakers of one’s own language is the immediate benefit of learning to speak it properly. The richness of the English language, though -- especially the expansiveness of its vocabulary – affords the competent writer or speaker of English the additional benefit of being able to convey subtle shades of meaning more readily than speakers of simpler, more homogenous languages.

As words symbolize concepts, the larger a writer’s vocabulary, the more ideas he can express. This, I think, explains the profound impact of the various English-speaking peoples upon the literary world.

The aspiring writer should think deeply upon this.

He should also go peddle his papers on a different street corner. I’m gettin’ off the soapbox for the time being.

Me love you longtime.

Even More Rantin' About Writin'

The Internet has proven to be a blessing to writers and a curse to readers. While providing aspiring writers who would otherwise go unread with the opportunity to expose their work to the public, it’s also been responsible for some of the most unreadable, god-awful, digestion wrecking shit imaginable making it into print.

I don’t consider myself a writer per se, but rather a blogger – specifically, a swearblogger. The gentle reader is likely to find more invective than instruction on this site, but once again I find myself playing “schoolmarm” in the interest of delivering the English language from the brutal mistreatment to which I so often see it subjected on the Internet.

Spelling

I understand that even with the benefit of spell-check, spelling and typographic errors occur. To err is human, yadda, yadda, yadda. All the same, it appears to me that a good many of the “writers” (and I employ the term very loosely) in cyberspace couldn’t be bothered with learning even the rudiments of spelling.

Admittedly, English spelling is rather complicated, owing to the changes in the spoken language over the centuries, its mixed Germanic/Romance vocabulary, and the fact that English speakers as a group are hardly reluctant to adopt loanwords from other tongues.

English spelling isn’t as perfectly phonetic as German, Finnish, Turkish, or Spanish to list a few examples, but it is a phonetic language nonetheless, and isn’t nearly as difficult as, say, Gaelic. Its rules easily grasped once one learns the “code.” Simply put: “Phonetic” means that the various letters have assigned values.

Assuming that the gentle reader/aspiring writer is at least capable of reciting the alphabet, I’ll mention that English has twenty-six letters, of which five (a, e, i, o, u, and occasionally y) are vowels, while the remainder are consonants. Generally speaking, vowels come in two varieties, long and short. Unlike certain other languages, English has comparatively few “pure” vowels, and many of its “long” vowels are actually diphthongs, but that’s not especially important at the moment.

The following pairs of words best illustrate the difference between so-called “long” and “short” vowels. In each pair, the first word illustrates the “short” value of the vowel, while the second illustrates its “long” value: cap/cape, met/mete, pip/pipe, slop/slope, and tub/tube.

From these pairs a simple, general rule may be deduced: When followed by a single or double consonant in a one-syllable word, the value of the vowel is “short”: mat, bet, slap, pit, last, grasp, sell, etc.

One may also deduce that when a one-syllable word ends in “e”, the value of the vowel is “long”: male, mate, mite, mote, mule, etc.

I’ll have much more to say in future installments of The Fucktard’s Guide to Spelling, (see the forthcoming post "A Dictionary Costs Less Than Your Daily Fix") but for now, should more “writers” memorize these two simple rules, I’d almost certainly find myself flying into near-homicidal rages less frequently.

Contractions

A contraction is quite literally that – a shortening of a noun or pronoun and a verb, or an auxiliary verb and a negative. No, in this case it ain’t what yer wife was bitchin’ about when she went into labor.

“I am a hot, sexy studmuffin” becomes “I’m a hot, sexy studmuffin.” “You are a pathetic sack of monkey shit” becomes: “You’re a pathetic sack of monkey shit.”

“Even when popping Viagra by the handful, Steve cannot screw his way through wet toilet paper” becomes: “Even when popping Viagra by the handful, Steve can’t screw his way through wet toilet paper.”

“Steve is an asshole who thinks he need not pay his bills” becomes: “Steve’s an asshole who thinks he needn’t pay his bills.”

Rules for forming contractions: When the contraction consists of a noun or pronoun, and any form of the verb “to be,” the formula is noun/pronoun + apostrophe + the last letter or two of the conjugated verb. Examples: I’m, you’re, he’s, she’s, we’re, they’re, you’re.

So stop writing “you’re” when you mean “your” or I’ll pee on your lawn until it dies.

I’ll explain the use of apostrophe + s in the formation of possessives in the future.

When the contraction consists of an auxiliary verb and the word “not”, the formula is verb + n + apostrophe + t. Examples: can’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, didn’t, etc.

There are two notable exceptions to the general rule, but they’re easily memorized. The modal auxiliary verb “will” takes a stem-vowel change, and drops the final consonants, becoming “won’t,” and the modal auxiliary “shall” simply drops the final consonants, becoming “shan’t”.

If I even suspect that the gentle reader/aspiring scribbler won’t memorize these simple rules, I shan’t hesitate to beat him to death with a fucking claw hammer.

Welcome to the future. The contraction of a noun or pronoun and the third-person singular form of the verb “to be” and the singular possessive are identical, which leads to some confusion. This needn’t be the case, as the meaning can be easily derived from the context in which the word appears.

In the sentence “John’s driving leaves something to be desired,” it’s obvious that the apostrophe + s combination is possessive. In the sentence “John’s driving drunk as the last lords of creation, so clear the sidewalks before the crazy stewbum kills us all!” it’s obviously a contraction.

Plural Possessives

In the case of a plural possessive, the formula is s + apostrophe, as opposed to apostrophe + s.

Example: “Looking at the row of horses’ arses in the starting gate, I was reminded of Steve” vs.: “Steve’s a real horse’s arse.”

The exception to the rule consists of plural nouns ending in the letter n, such as men, women, children, etc.

Example: “Bill was a sweaty, raincoat-wearing panty sniffer who often haunted gas station ladies’ rooms” vs.: “Bill was a sweaty, raincoat-wearing panty sniffer who often got whacked on children’s cough syrup and haunted women’s restrooms.”

Repetition

I’ve bitched about this before, and I’ll probably bitch about it again. I can’t stand unnecessary repetition. Compare these two paragraphs, gentle reader/aspiring writer, and then contemplate the many ways in which the thesaurus is your friend.

Bill pulled his revolver. He jammed the revolver into the face of the clerk at the adult bookstore. The terrified clerk stared down the revolver’s barrel as Bill said, “Your porno or your life!” Cocking the revolver’s hammer with his thumb, Bill sent a message to the quivering flunky: I mean business!

Bill pulled his revolver. He jammed it into the face of the clerk at the adult bookstore. The terrified clerk stared down the weapon’s barrel as Bill said, “Your porno or your life!” Cocking the hammer with his thumb, Bill sent a message to the quivering flunky: I mean business!

Reading the first sentence, one receives the impression that either the writer has a very limited vocabulary, or he’s one hell of a Beatles fan. Reading the second, one receives the impression that the writer is at least familiar with pronouns, different levels of abstraction, and synonyms.

One needn’t take the tour de force route – Dave’s formidable manhood and boudoir stamina left his lovers gasping, “Run me through with your ‘claymore of love!’ Serenade me with your ‘bedroom bagpipes!’ Sacrifice me on your ‘standing stone’ again, you stallion of a Scots-Irish fertility god!” – but doing so is at least indicative of a certain degree of creativity.

It also inflates my ego…

Narrative and Dialogue; Formal and Informal English

Coming from a bastard who’s written entire blogs in archaic Scots, this may seem a tad hypocritical, but I’ll say it anyway: Employ formal English for narrative, and informal or dialect for dialogue, unless writing in the first person.

Unless one is deliberately trying for a “folksy” effect, the use of nonstandard English in narrative simply appears ignorant. The use of formal English in dialogue, though, often renders it wooden and inauthentic.

The following scenes are both atrocious, each for different reasons.

Bill came up the street and saw Dave.
“Dave!” he says, “I got money burnin’ a hole in my pocket, an’ I wanna get me some tail! Care to join me?”
Dave wasn’t really all that horny, and he once got VD from a German hooker when he was a kid, so he wasn’t real keen on doing strangers, but Bill usually bought booze, too, and Dave liked to get wasted on Saturday nights.
“Yeah, what the hell,” he said, “We’ll see what’s going on in Buckhead tonight.”
Then they went to Buckhead and cruised a lot of bars because they wanted to get some.

Shontavius approached DeKwandre. They exchanged the gang’s peculiar greetings, and began discussing business.
“Would you care for a tipple?” asked Shontavius, proffering a bottle of malt liquor.
“I would very much appreciate a libation, kind sir,” said DeKwandre.
Shontavius handed him the bottle, which he gratefully accepted.
“How then shall we approach the matter of the undocumented migrants who are presently compromising both our territorial imperative and our distribution network?” Shontavius asked.
“I think we should assemble our comrades and discharge our weapons at them,” replied DeKwandre. “That, I’m sure, would encourage them to take their business elsewhere.”
“I quite agree.”

The first piece is awful because it’s written in colloquial English. It sounds crude. It’s clumsy, stilted, and a grammatical nightmare.

The second paragraph is the opposite. It’s also sure to see me branded a “racist” – not that I give a shit -- so I’ll modify it somewhat. Note, though, that were one writing a novel or story concerning “gangsta” culture, said paragraph would leave any real “gangbanger” – or anyone even remotely familiar with that particular subculture – rolling on the floor with derisive laughter.

Here’s a better rendering of the first:

As he walked up the street, Bill spotted Dave.
“Dave!” he said, “I got money burnin’ a hole in my pocket, an’ I wanna get me some tail! Care to join me?”
Dave wasn’t feeling particularly amorous, and having once contracted an unpleasant disease from a German prostitute during his youth, he wasn’t at all anxious to repeat the experience. Bill, however, usually bought the drinks, and Dave enjoyed “tying one on” on Saturday nights.
“Yeah, what the hell,” he said. “We’ll see what’s going on in Buckhead tonight.”
They spent the rest of the evening in Buckhead, visiting numerous bars.

Here’s the politically correct (and far more readable) version of the second, in which I’ve substituted inherently evil, demon-possessed rednecks for noble, misunderstood gangbangers:

Cooter approached Bobby-Clyde. They exchanged greetings, and then began discussing business.
“Ye’ want ye’ some shine?” asked Cooter, proffering a jar of corn liquor.
“Don’t mind iffen I do,” said Bobby-Clyde.
Cooter handed him the Mason jar, which he accepted gratefully.
“What we gon’ do ‘bout them wetbacks what’s cuttin’ in on our crystal action?” Cooter asked.
“Shit, I say we round up the boys an’ pour the coal to them greasy li’l sumbitches,” replied Bobby-Clyde. “That’d send them fuckers packin’.”
“I sure heard that, brother!”

In the last two pieces, the reader understands that the writer is literate, even if the people of whom he writes aren’t.

Moving right along, I’d like to cover another of my pet peeves: the use of exclamation points in narrative. To my mind, they have no business befouling the printed page. In dialogue, they’re acceptable, as they indicate excitement on the speaker’s part. In narrative, however, they’re indicative of an unpardonable degree of arrogance. How dare the writer assume that the reader will give a rat’s ass about (let alone become excited over) the same things he/she does?

Bad writing: Dave kicked Steve in his atrophied nuts, while Bill hit him with a barstool!

The exclamation point is unnecessary. The reader can visualize the action and react accordingly. He doesn’t need us telling him to become excited. Besides, I’ve visited bars in which the action related in the sentence wouldn’t even raise eyebrows.

The following sentence illustrates better use of the exclamation point:

“Kick him in his atrophied nuts, Dave!" shouted Bill, as he hit Steve with a barstool.

I’ll admit that the preceding sentiments are purely subjective, and based on my own personal preferences! That doesn’t change the fact that I often see exclamation points cropping up like crabgrass in a good bit of Internet writing, though! A little more restraint on the part of the “writers” who commit this abominable infraction would do much to minimize the “gerbil on crack” quality of their work! Really! No shit!

Irritating, isn’t it?

I suppose that’s enough rambling for one day.

Take care.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

Green Hell is rather an eclectic blog, one on which I'm as likely to post recipes and gardening tips as I am to spit corrosive jets of venomous and profane invective at officials both elected and appointed, comment acidly upon national and international affairs, mock my enemies, and just-plain rant and rave about anything and everything that has my dingus in a knot at any given moment.

Opting -- at this particular moment -- to ignore the shrill and strident demands of my perpetually pretzel-like pecker (The joys of having a foul temper!), I've chosen to put GH to yet another use: blatantly plugging the work of yet another of my friends.

I do hope the gentle reader will give her work a look-see.

I give you Cat Connor. Cat is a fascinating lady who lives on the other side of the world -- quite literally. She's the New Zealand-based author of the forthcoming Killerbyte (to be released June, 2007), is the co-author of my own first attempt at writing a novel, and is just a damned fine human being in general. She and I have so much in common that it's almost frightening, and as I can't say enough about her, I'll say a word or two about her work.

Said work is rather difficult to pigeonhole, and is probably best described as "romantic suspense" -- with severed limbs, gunshots, and decomposing bodies stuffed into dumpsters added for good measure. I'd hold doors open for her, defend her honor against ruffians, and hand her a (bloodstained) bouquet any day of the week! Please do have a look at what she has to offer.

The gentle reader may not be as fortunate as I, in that he/she doesn't know Cat personally, but he could do far worse than to become a little better acquainted with her.

More Rantin' About Writin'

Being part the third of an unsolicited dissertation wherein a swearblogger holds forth on various and sundy subjects germane to his "craft."

A few more of a swearblogger's (very personal) thoughts, opinions and observations on the not-so-fine art of scribbling:

With the possible exception of a persistent case of jock itch, nothing irritates me more than "secret squirrel" writers who consider their works to be things of such beauty and perfection that any and all changes are not only unthinkable, but tantamount to blasphemy.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I revise and edit my stuff constantly, often even after I've posted it. Beyond this, I usually run it by someone else before putting it up it, as I've found it difficult to be objective when proofreading and editing my own writing.

In most cases, that someone else is my mother. Having witnessed the worst of my antics for the better part of forty years, she doesn't consider me God's gift to the human race, to writing, or to anything else for that matter, so she doesn't spare my feelings. She's not a writer, and has only a high school education, but she's extremely intelligent and honest to a fault.

If I hand her a manuscript and a pencil, I know the manuscript will be coming back looking as if a street gang with a tractor trailer-load of spray paint had been loosed upon the Great Wall of China. Words and entire sentences will be crossed out and/or replaced, question marks left upon the page to indicate confusing or ambiguous passages, etc.

Spoken commentary then follows: "Unnecessarily violent." "Too much profanity." "This part is pointless." "It's too bitter." "It's too venomous." "It sounds like you're actually threatening your readers." "Trim your moustache. You look Fu Manchu."

Lest anyone suspect me of latent masochism, I'll add the following: I'm seldom if ever satisfied with my own work. The few times I do manage to post something of which I'm even the least bit proud, I'll take a look at it a week or a month later and groan: "I can't believe I actually wrote that piece of shit!" Being edited in this way prevents me from becoming hyper-critical and removing good passages along with bad ones, as she also points out the "gems" along with the "turds."

Editing the work of others is every bit as beneficial as being edited. It's easier to approach another's writing objectively than it is to do so with one's own, and after editing a few of another scribbler's pieces, some of this objectivity "rubs off" on the writer. This allows him to evaluate his own work from more neutral perspective, and to ask the same questions of himself that he does of those he edits.

The point of editing is to streamline a work, to make it leaner, meaner and more effective. When one edits another person's writing, he eventually begins to apply the same standards to his own. This has been especially valuable for me, as two of my major failings are verbosity and the tendency to write labyrinthine run-on sentences that would leave even a Cervantes or a Bocaccio shaking his head in dismay.

*************

A recent telephone conversation with Barry Eisler left me thinking about the matter of self-discipline when it comes to writing, studying and other such pursuits. The topics of discussion ranged from methods of memorizing Kanji to personal writing habits. We agreed that in both cited cases, the only way to do is to do it. While one is watching TV (neither of us suffers from that particular addiction, for the record), he could be writing or studying. While he's surfing the internet, he could be writing or studying. While he's buying workbooks, he could be writing or studying.

When one considers how little time we actually have on this earth, one marvels at the amount of this tragically finite commodity we waste. So knock it off! If you want to write, don't talk about writing, don't dream about writing, and don't plan to write. Sit your ass down and write.

Every day.

Once again, the only way to do it is to do it. Writing isn't a spectator sport. It's a hands-on, learn-by-doing activity, and a demanding one, at that. Chances are, you're not a gifted genius who can spend most of his time sitting around doing nothing, and then lift a buttock every few days and sporadically fart beauty and profundity into the literary atmosphere. This means you need practice.

Now hop to it.

**************

A person who doesn't love language probably shouldn't write. The love of language is indispensable, to my mind. A writer should fully appreciate the power and beauty of the word, whether written or spoken. If he doesn't, it'll be apparent in his work, unless he's an exceptionally talented faker. Writing is very much a labor of love, and one forgets that at his own peril.

If one reads the work of poet T.S. Eliot, that of novelists G.K. Chesterton and Joseph Conrad, or even that of Ray Bradbury -- the undisputed master of the fantasy short story, in my opinion -- one notices that their subject matter and their approaches to presenting it couldn't be more different. There is, however, a common element in their efforts. Upon reading any of their writing, one goes away with the same feeling he experiences upon seeing that rarest of sights; a man and wife who've been married for forty of fifty years, and are still madly in love with one another. I can think of no other way to describe it.

***************

There's no place for jealousy in this field. If one has time to be jealous, he's not spending enough time writing. One shouldn't view a superior writer as a source of jealousy or as a rival, but rather as an inspiration and a teacher.

I've been complimented on my writing, but realistically, I'll probably never write thrillers as well as a Barry Eisler or a Rex Miller. I'll probably never write horror as well as a Stephen King or a Liam Jackson. I'll probably never write fantasy like a Bradbury, or sci-fi like a Heinlein, or humorous historical fiction like a George MacDonald Fraser.

And if ever I attain a tenth of the skill of a Conrad, a Chesterton, a Twain, a Bierce, a Poe or a Mencken, I'll go to my grave happy. They were giants. I'm just a man.

This bothers me not a whit. As Popeye said: "I yam what I yam, an' that's all what I yam." Huk-guh-guh-guh-guh! Toot! Toot!

In my opinion, if one really loves words, language and writing, he doesn't become jealous of others' work. Can anyone reading this honestly say he'd want to live in a world in which he considered his own work the ne plus ultra of all writing? To know, as a reader, that he'd never read anything better or more enjoyable than the best of his own efforts? What sane person would want that? To my way of thinking, that would be a form of damnation. Putting it bluntly, it would be enough to get me hooked on smack.

Not long ago, my best friend, "Obi Wan Sluggo," and I were running up our phone bills, when he began reading me an excerpt from a piece of his writing. For the record, he's a much better writer than I am, and has a very distinctive voice -- both on the printed page and in "real life." Now I don't just like to write, I like writing, period. Given this, when he began reading his work to me, I found myself as transfixed as if I were a specimen in some kid's bug collection. The experience was akin to hearing a recording of Eliot reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

The man's use of language is such that he could make his grocery list interesting. One simply can't be jealous of that kind of talent. One can only regard it with a mixture of admiration, respect, wonder, gratitude and outright love.

***************

"There" indicates location. "Their" indicates ownership. "They're" is a contraction of the pronoun "they" and the verb "are". Any questions?

***************

One lesson I've learned -- albeit slowly -- is the importance of breaking out of "comfort zones". Doing so is well worth the effort, as it builds guts. "Guts," by the way, doesn't mean not being afraid. "Guts" means being afraid, but acting in spite of the fear.

For me, "going public" was an act of departure from a comfort zone. The next step was returning to writing fiction, a far more difficult undertaking than passing along opinions or anecdotes. Beginning work on a novel (I'd only written short stories before) was yet another, and I suppose poetry might be the next step, although I'm not sure I have much aptitude as a poet. Although I read poetry often, I haven't formally studied the medium since college (nearly eighteen years ago), so I'll have a good bit of "brushing up" to do. Next, the question of whether poets are born or made rears its ugly head.

Time to leave the comfort zone and find out.

*************

The requirements of writing are much like those of gardening. One must have good soil -- in this case, a knowledge base. "Write what you know" is, after all, one of the cardinal rules of the game. One must have viable seed -- in this case, definite ideas or feelings. What is writing, if not the expression of one or both? Last, but hardly least, one needs the proper tools, a matter I believe I've already discussed.

I could draw other parallels, as well. One must be able to weed (edit). One must fertilize and condition the soil (broadening his experiential framework, absorbing new ideas, etc.). One must become adept at crop selection (determining and understanding the media and/or genres to which his particular temperament and talents are suited).

**************

If a writer fails to establish rapport with his readers, he won't have readers for long. One way of establishing rapport is appealing to what practitioners of Neuro-Linguistic Programming refer to as "preferred representational systems." The PRS is means of coding information. NLP recognizes three major preferred representational systems: visual; auditory; and kinesthetic.

Whereas no one relies solely upon any given representational system, most people prefer one or another. A person who often uses the term "I see" to mean "I understand" probably prefers the visual system. One who expresses the same idea by saying "I hear what you're saying" -- or something similar -- probably favors the auditory system. One who "grasps" concepts or ideas probably leans toward the kinesthetic system.

A recognized technique for building rapport is, as stated, determining which system a person prefers, and then appealing to that system through one's choice of words. As a writer is addressing a broad audience, and can't make that determination on an individual basis, it's important that he employ all three major representational systems evenly, in order to establish the broadest possible appeal.

A sure-fire way to "lose" the reader, though, is to mix representational systems within a given sentence -- especially a comparative phrase -- as this creates sensory incongruity. Incongruity, of course, can be used as an effective literary device, but it's best to avoid it until one has a fair idea of what he's doing.

"What are you going on about now, Bean?" asks the gentle reader. ""You been smokin' those banana peels soaked in airplane glue again?"

Here's an example of the theory put into practice. Which of the following sentences is the more effective?

"Bill [Yes, Bill's back. The bastard certainly gets around, doesn't he?] seemed to light up every room he entered, like a small sun, but I was more like a fart in a church."

"Bill seemed to light up every room he entered, like a small sun, but I was more like a burned-out taillight."

In my opinion, the second is the more effective, as the narrator's choice of similes targets the same representational system. The first, on the other hand, has a jarring quality. Its overall effect is much like that of a mixed metaphor or a non sequitur.

***********

I've noticed that the pieces which elicit the largest number of reader responses are the ones that are actually painful to write. Interesting.

More later.

On Writing II

A few more of a blogger's thoughts on writing:

Let's discuss redundancy (unnecessary repetition) again. In my last post on this thread, I became so caught up in the repetitious element that I slighted the unnecessary element.

Whereas a certain degree of redundancy is employed as a stylistic device in the first sample paragraph (the second is simply a crime against humanity), both technically contain unnecessary repetition. In the first, we understand that Bill is looking for a letter, whether we say he looks, seeks, searches, etc. In the second, we understand that ol' Bill, ever the busy little beaver, is out and about, boppin' from place to place.

That he's "goin' mobile," as the Who sang, is understood. There's no need to keep telling us, unless the specific means of locomotion he employs somehow serves the ends of the story, whether by building atmosphere or by telling us a little more about Bill.

"Having driven his stolen Lambourghini to a parking garage, Bill removed his pogo stick from the trunk and hopped two blocks to the Vietnamese massage parlor," tells us a little something about Bill. The mere fact that he's in motion doesn't.

**********

When writing, one should make two basic assumptions, even if neither is strictly true. First, he should assume that he's a terrible writer. Second, he should assume that he doesn't know much of anything.

Given our current "feelgood" culture, with its overemphasis on self-esteem and "empowerment," and characterized as it is by a shocking lack of humility, this advice may sound counterintuitive at best, and counterproductive at worst.

It's neither. When a person assumes that he's "all that and a bag of chips," and that he knows everything, he can neither improve his writing technique nor expand his knowledge-base. As -- in his own mind, at least -- he's already a master of his craft, and already knows everything worth knowing, he has no incentive to do either.

In my opinion, a writer -- like a martial artist -- should always possess the "beginner's mind."

********

Write because you love writing, or because you feel the need to express something. Don't write because you want to be rich, famous, loved, or admired. You may achieve all four goals (or any number of others), but you'll still be a hack, and deep inside, you'll know it until the day you die.

I'm not as fond of Ayn Rand's work as once I was, but her novel The Fountainhead examines this matter in depth, and very nicely at that. In the book, Howard Roark is the better architect, while Peter Keating is the more renowned. Roark designs buildings for the love of designing buildings, while Keating designs them for a host of superficial and purely secondary reasons.

Roark pursues his craft and lives his own life, weathering its travails in a state of almost Zen-like tranquility, while Keating, knowing that his own prestige is undeserved, eventually becomes a "train wreck". Roark couldn't be bothered with Keating, but Keating -- rather like the character Salieri in the film Amadeus -- develops an unhealthy, love/hate obsession with Roark and his work. As he divides his time between fixating upon Roark and pursuing goals not germane to the field of architecture, he never develops whatever native talent he may have had.

"Study deeply upon this," as Musashi wrote.

************

Study poetry, even if you don't intend to become a poet. The constraints of poetry force the poet to convey the essence of his message in a very limited space, and the discipline he develops in the process is invaluable. When one reads T.S. Eliot (admittedly, my favorite poet), he finds that the amount of information Eliot imparts upon the reader in the miniscule amount of paper he uses is breathtaking.

The poet's overall approach to his craft can also be applied by the writer of prose. As a matter of fact, some prose -- I'll cite Wolfe and Joyce as specific examples -- has a poetic quality of its own. Poetry and prose aren't polar opposites, and shouldn't be treated as such.

************

In order to communicate with others -- the goal of writing, after all -- one must be able to reach others. This demands a genuine concern for other human beings, and the ability to empathize with them. In this respect, the writing abilities of the self-absorbed and psychopathically inclined are limited by their very natures. A writer who lives entirely "inside his own head" can't get into the heads or hearts of others.

*************

Write to express, not to impress. When one writes to express, he shows consideration for the reader. He says, in essence: "I have something important to tell you, and I care enough about you to ensure that you understand what I'm saying." This approach lends his writing depth and sincerity. When one writes to impress, he says, in essence: "I don't care about your feelings. I simply want to overwhelm you with my 'greatness'." At best, this approach renders his writing shallow and superficial. At worst, it leads to the pompous, overdone buffoonery of an A.E. Waite. Like Aesop's jackadaw, this kind of writer unknowingly makes a clown of himself in the eyes of the more discerning reader, while impressing only the ignorant and himself.

************

On a related note, take your craft seriously, not yourself. The work of a writer who can't laugh at himself has a stiff, brittle quality and is ultimately boring. Commenting upon my "Moose" pieces, in which I honestly ran the risk of overdoing the sentimental and romantic elements, my best friend -- the ever-mysterious "Sluggo," who is a much better writer than I am, actually --sent me an email in which he referred to the pieces (and, I assume, The Homecoming Queen, as well) as "Harlequin Noir." The remark was so funny and so true that I laughed my ass off, if I may be blunt.

Twenty years ago, I probably would have been mortally offended. Of course, twenty years ago, I couldn't have written anything that elicited some of the responses these pieces did, either. There's a lesson in there somewhere, methinks…

What saves these pieces from becoming overly maudlin or wistful is the fact that they all contain humorous elements, even The Homecoming Queen, which is otherwise a very dark story.

************

A narrow emotional "spectrum" leads to narrow appeal. Based on feedback I've received, I think the best pieces I've put up "work" because I tried to express a number of emotions: pain, fear, confusion, joy, wonder, love, hate, anger, nostalgia, tenderness, etc., all in the same story. This is a purely personal observation, though, so I'm not presenting it as a hard-and-fast "rule."

In order to convey emotions convincingly, one must actually be able to feel them. I can't emphasize this enough. A writer who occupies a single emotional "space" 24-7 (in addition to being an emotional cripple, and very probably insane) will find his expressive capabilities severely limited by his handicap. It's important to be able to express what one feels, but the ability to do this predicated by the ability to feel things in the first place.

One of the most flattering comments I've received said: "You made me laugh and cry in the same piece." To me, that's a true compliment. It suggests that I was "broadcasting" on a number of "frequencies," and doing so in such a way that the reader could "receive" on a few or all of them, as well.

**********
Last, but not least, take what I've written with a large grain of salt. I'm still in the learning process myself, and just sharing what I've picked up along the way.

More later.