Amurrica (the Blog)

Hmm…. Can a 27 year old man with a wife, a child, a dog, a career, a penchant for prose, and the power to move YOU regularly update a blog? Probably, but I can’t. Teaching takes up a lot of time as does parenting and husbanding (huh?)— I’m also editing a collection of short stories/poems. I hope to update the blog as soon as I publish the aforementioned collection.

Until then… take care of yourself and pay attention.

Here is that band I told you about earlier— The Soft Pack (they used to be The Muslims).

Sure. I’ve been sick the past few days– I just finished reading Bukowski’s Post Office. In my humble opinion, it is the best of his novels (I’m going to re-read Ham on Rye soon, and I won’t read Pulp until I’m 50). There is a part in the fourth section of Post Office that just strikes a chord… He says something about how his daughter’s mom left him: I got the cat. She got the girl. Shit, it was sad. It was almost as sad as the ending of Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

Oh yeah– I found a new band that I like. They were originally called The Muslims, but they changed their name because (I think) they were trying to be politically correct or something. Their new name is the Soft Pack. If you check them out, try and listen to “Extinction”. ( http://www.myspace.com/thesoftpack )

Or don’t. This is, after all, Amurrica.

A note on the subject of this post: I watched about an hour of Scrooged this evening. I fell asleep during the movie (like I said, I haven’t been feeling well) and woke up during the Frisbee the Dog scene.

In the previous post (approximately ten minutes ago), I alluded to the fact that I read a lot of great books— Well, I just finished reading one of them today when I was supposed to be grading final exams.  I graded about half of the tests, and read the last ten pages of Factotum. I’m a Bukowski fan. Some people love him and some people hate him… I’ve never met anybody who just “liked him”.

He has the ability to polarize people. Lucky bastard.

I’ve been on a bit of a Bukowski kick lately… Factotum was good, but it wasn’t as good as Hollywood. I’ll explain Factotum first: Henry Chinaski, Charles Bukowski’s alter-ego, is working odd jobs around Miami, New Orleans, New York City, and Los Angeles.. He sleeps with several women, gets drunk often, and gets fired often too. I don’t know what draws me to Buk, but I’ve been a fan of his since 2001. Somebody called his “genre” Dirty Realism… I like that particular label because he wrote about reality and he wrote about all of the grime that followed him throughout his life. Give me a rotten son of a bitch with a problem, and I”ll probably read it. Hell, give me any son of a bitch with a problem and I”ll probably read it.  (I just found a fork in my pocket).

Needless to say, I liked Factotum.. But if you are a Bukowski fan, you should probably read Hollywood. When Bukowski was in his mid-sixties somebody paid him to write a movie script (Barfly), and Hollywood describes the movie and his “process”.

I like Bukowski’s process: he drinks, listens to music, and writes.

My dog has to take  leak—

This blog was created because I need an excuse to drink at night.

My wife says that I can drink if, and only if, I am writing— She believes that I have great writing chops (she’s probably right), and she also believes that I drink too much (again, she’s probably right). Nevertheless, I started this blog. If I write at night, then I can sneak in that double rum & Coke I so desperately need.

I am also blogging because I read a lot of great books by dead people and listen to a lot of great music by living people, and I’m egotistical enough to believe that somebody, somewhere will want to read about it.

The plan is simple: I will get away with drinking at night, and you can read what I write… We’ll pretend that it is a fair trade.

I forgot to mention the book… My book of short stories and poems is in the works, and I want to get my foot in the door (as they say). Don’t worry, I won’t whore my book out to you (because it hasn’t been published) yet.