I admit it. I had a problem. I was addicted to the news.
Now this is a strange admission, especially for me. I think if I started off by saying, "I was addicted to Reese's peanut butter cups," people who know me would nod sagely and say, "Yep. That sounds about right." Chocolate is a logical addition for me. News is not. Mostly because I never cared about the news. School shootings, fires, murders, rape . . . all of it is so depressing and it has a hopelessness and a terribly repetitive pattern to it that makes me run as far away from it as I can. And then came Trump. I am unabashed in my hatred of Trump. I think he's a terrible person, a terrible president, and a terrible American. But it was because of him that I found myself addicted to the news. Every day I would go to a news site and there'd be a headline saying "TRUMP TAKES A PISS IN THE ROSE GARDEN" and my heart would begin to pump fast and I'd think Finally. This is what's going to get rid of him. And then nothing would happen. So I'd obsessively refresh the news site and a new headline would pop up saying "TRUMP CALLS GEORGE WASHINGTON A PIECE OF SHIT ON PRESIDENTS' DAY." And I'd think, Yes! He's gone for sure now! And then nothing would happen. That's what my days became. Refreshing the news, getting mad about what Trump said or did, getting madder that there were no repercussions, lather, rinse, repeat. Until finally, about a month ago, I said to myself, I just can't do this anymore. And it was true, I couldn't. I was completely burnt out on the news, on Trump, on everything. So I quit. Cold turkey. I stopped visiting news sites altogether. And you know what? I am so much happier now. It took me cutting news — and Trump — out of my life to realize how miserable it had all been making me. I'm sure there have been major news stories that have come and gone since I gave it all up, but honestly, I don't care. I can't and I won't get sucked back in. I plan to vote in November to make positive changes, but until then, I refuse to be baited by all the negativity that circles through on a minute-by-minute basis. I know a lot of people who take breaks from things like Facebook, and I totally get it now. I strongly recommend taking a break from the news like I did, even if it's just for a week. See if you don't feel better once you're disconnected from all the drama and histrionics. I'm betting you will. I'm not sure how other families are, but in my family, everyone from my mother's generation was a saint. From the moment they exited the womb until the moment their casket was lowered into the earth, they could do no wrong. They were kept on very high pedestals, with nice lighting and appropriately angelic music.
The stories these people told about themselves and about one another were equally stain-free. They grew up, got married, had babies, and dutifully attended each other's birthday parties. It was truly remarkable that such a large family could remain so scandal-free for so very long. But once these relatives shuffled off this mortal coil and were no longer able to paint their pasts with their own brushes (and no longer had siblings to continue telling the same slanted stories over and over), the truth came tumbling out. And the truth was, in a word, fascinating. Let me give you a for-instance. My mother had a sister named Grace, and Grace lived in several different places throughout the years I knew her, but wherever she set up shop, she always displayed one photo prominently. It was a black-and-white 8x10 of a very stern-looking man with an even more stern-looking crew cut. This man was Hal. Now I believe that Grace and Hal were married, since she had a different last name than the one with which she was born, but since I never met the guy, it's hard for me to be sure. Maybe she married someone else and kept a flame for Hal. I never asked. I'm also not sure of Hal's fate, whether he left Grace and started a new life or he died. In either case, once Grace and my mother had both passed on, I learned a little more about Grace's youth, which, curiously, was never discussed. It turns out that when Grace was 16, she had a habit of sneaking out of the house and making her way down to the local dance hall when, if you'll forgive the phrase, the fleet was in. It was at the dance hall that she met a sailor, whose fleet was in (if you catch my drift) and that sailor got 16-year-old Grace in the family way. As soon as that sailor found out, he disappeared—back into the Navy, where she never heard from him again. Grace was sent to a nunnery to have the baby and then shipped off to a school for wayward girls. All of this was an astonishing revelation to me. When I came along, Aunt Grace was in her mid-fifties and a big believer in God and church and all the trappings, and picturing her as a wild teenager was simply not possible. But she was. Oh yes, she was. So now when I think about that photo of Hal that Grace always had staring at everyone who visited her, I wonder about him. I wonder if Hal knew of Grace's salacious past. If he did, was he bothered by it? If he didn't, was he kept intentionally in the dark like the rest of us? Oh, Hal. For the first time in my life, I wish you were still here so I could ask you these things. I also wish I'd had the presence of mind to maybe take advantage of some aunt or uncle's drunken stupor (and believe me when I tell you there were plenty of those) to dig into the past and uncover stories like this. To be honest, I was never a huge fan of Aunt Grace, but if I'd known she was such a wild child, I would have seen her in a whole different light. Maybe someday I'll write a story about Grace and fill in some of the details about those crazy years. Yes. Maybe I will. This weekend — and throughout the playoffs, really — I am throwing my support behind the Philadelphia Iggles. Now that may seem like an odd choice, given my complete lack of any connection whatsoever to the NFC, Philly, Pennsylvania, the Amish, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin, and hoagies. But the Igs are a scrappy team, a fun team to watch, and a team that's overcome a lot to get to this point. That's a team I can get behind. What I can't get behind is their fight song. In case you're unfamiliar with the classic "Fly, Eagles, Fly," here it is in all its tone-deaf glory: Here's my question: Why would eagles fly on a road? That doesn't make any sense. The whole point of flying is that you don't need roads, as Doc Brown informed us at the end of Back to the Future. But I guess they needed some physical thing that would lead to victory, and a road was the only thing they could come up with. So then wouldn't it be "Walk, Eagles, Walk"? Or "Run, Eagles, Run"? Well, no, that doesn't make any sense either. Eagles don't walk or run. If they're going to be walking or running on the road to victory, they might as well be the Philadelphia Bipeds. Is there perhaps a road in the sky with which I am unfamiliar? A strange skyroad upon which you can somehow fly? Maybe we can fix all this by changing it to "Win, Eagles, Win"? But then it would still be "Win, Eagles, win, on the road to victory ..." Okay, it's definitely the road that's screwing everything up. Let's go with, "Fly, Eagles, fly, to the nest of victory ..." See, now, that's perfect. That's poetry right there. All we need now is a bunch of musicians, a recording studio, and a cheap distribution platform to get people humming this new version of a classic song in time for this weekend's game. Any takers? Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk.
Standing in the grocery store the day after the blizzard that was supposed to usher in a new Ice Age and wipe humanity off the planet. Turned out to just be snow. Staring at the completely barren bread shelves. Well, not entirely barren. The healthy breads are still there. Why such a rush on white bread before a storm? Do they burn it to keep warm? Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. Then on to the milk section. There's plenty of milk, even the healthy milk. Odd. Even more odd is that the egg shelves have been thoroughly raided. Were people going to ride out the bad weather making French toast? No, you need milk for that. Maybe it was a mad rush to ensure fried eggs and toast on that snowy morning. Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. And then there's that. Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. The sound of a grown woman, nose a half-inch away from the screen of her phone, dragging her salt-encrusted Uggs across the linoleum. What are you, five? Is recess over and you're showing your reluctance to go back to class by scraping your shoes on the ground? Did the powerful storm render you unable to pick your feet up and put them back down like an adult? Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. In the spirit of keeping joy in my heart for the New Year, let me offer this suggestion. I'll give you a piggyback ride around Stop & Shop and then out to your car. Not only will I be rid of ssssshhhhhhhhkkk, but it's less likely that you'll bump into some poor old woman and knock her down, just because you can't be away from Splitter Critters for two goddamned seconds. Ssssshhhhhhhhkkk. Ssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhkkk. Watching with dread fascination as she trips over a WET FLOOR sign and smashes her phone. Okay, well, that actually worked itself out nicely. The piggyback offer was sincere, but my back and knees aren't what they used to be. With the release of my novel Typo Squad imminent, I've spent this week in full-on shill mode, talking up the book to anyone who would listen. And even some who wouldn't. People, for the most part, have been really supportive, and more than a few of them have asked where the idea came from. The simple answer is that I spent years and years as a proofreader and copy editor, and knowing what a thankless job that is, decided to give folks in the editorial business some heroes. The less simple answer is that Typo Squad had been kicking around in my head for a very, very long time. Truth be told, I can probably trace its roots back to 1992. That was the year that the much-maligned (and deservedly so) hair metal band Faster Pussycat released their swansong album, Whipped! On that album was a very clever song titled "Big Dictionary." Have a listen: The pause that they put in between "dic" and "tionary" always made me think that it would make a great character name - Dick Shonnary. And how people might call him Richard. That bubbled in my subconscious for a very long time, until about five years ago, when I decided to build a story around Richard Shonnary. But it wasn't going to be a novel. Typo Squad was going to be a movie. I made attempt after attempt to get the screenplay written, but I could never get it off the launch pad. I'd get five or six pages in and the whole thing would just fall apart. It was maddening. And then a couple of years ago, I found myself sitting at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with the great Chris Whigham and our wives, and he asked me what I was working on, writing-wise. I told him of my frustration with writing the script, and he said four words to me that changed everything: "Write the book first." So I did. I sat down and I wrote Typo Squad, from beginning to end. It took me a really long time, and you know what? It was shit. That first attempt at Typo Squad was absolute swill. I reluctantly torched the entire thing and started over from scratch. The second iteration of the book was better than the first, but it still wasn't where it needed to be. So yes, I put attempt number two aside and started it again. This time, though, I was able to take big chunks of what worked from the second version and use them in the third. And the third time was the charm. That's the version that the world will shortly see. So I don't find it strange at all to be thanking Chris Whigham for his sage advice that day. (I actually modeled my favorite character in Typo Squad after him in gratitude.) I do find it strange to be thanking Faster Pussycat, but I suppose I must. So thanks, guys. And now it's time to release Typo Squad to the world. And hope that the world enjoys it. To this day, I don't know how the conversation steered toward types of cakes.
I was 15 years old, on my way into Boston with three friends to attend the rasslin' matches. Scott was on my left in the back seat, Mito to my right. Mike sat up front in the passenger seat since his mom was driving us. And, as I say, the conversation inexplicably turned toward cakes. In the confines of the back seat, someone insisted that some cake in question was a Bundt cake. Someone else just as stridently said that the cake was a carrot cake. (Seriously? We had nothing better to talk about?) The conversation grew increasingly heated, Bundt cake versus carrot cake. I suppose none of us considered that it could, in fact, have been a carrot Bundt cake. But that's neither here nor there. "It's a Bundt cake!" someone shouted. "No, I'm telling you, it's a carrot cake!" someone shouted back. "Bundt cake!" "Carrot cake!" It was at that moment that Mike turned around from the front seat, and in an effort to settle the dispute, said, "Guys! It's a cunt—!" and stopped dead, eyes wide in horror. He had just accidentally combined "carrot" and "Bundt" and said "cunt" in front of his mom. The car filled with a heavy, awful silence, which was only maintained because we were laughing so silently and hysterically in the back seat that tears were running down our young faces. Mike's mother, God bless her, never said a word about her son's gaffe. Years and years later, well into adulthood, by pure happenstance I bumped into Mike. His first question to me: "Do you remember the cunt cake?" Do I remember the cunt cake? I will never, ever forget the cunt cake. Okay, let me set the table for you: I'm a big fan of Subway's turkey sub on flatbread. Toasted, American cheese, little bit of honey mustard, mmmm. Delish.
The problem arises when I order lettuce. Those who know me are well aware of how much distance I generally keep between myself and vegetables. If you want me to eat greens, you'd better be talking M&Ms, Jell-O, or Shamrock Shakes. But in the case of the turkey sub on flatbread, toasted, American cheese and a little bit of honey mustard, I make an exception. I like a little bit of lettuce. I feel like it enhances the flavor. So when the sub comes out of the oven and arrives next to the veggie display, I always ask for a little bit of lettuce. FOOM. What's foom? Foom is the sound of the Subway employee sticking his or her arm into the lettuce container up to the elbow and extracting the equivalent of 17 heads of lettuce. Which they then dump on my up-until-that-moment beautiful sub. Now I no longer have a turkey sub on flatbread with American cheese and honey mustard. I have a lettuce sub with a little bit of turkey, American cheese, and honey mustard. For the record, I've tried variations on the phrase "a little bit of lettuce." I've tried a tiny bit of lettuce, just a hint of lettuce, a wee bit of lettuce, a small amount of lettuce, not too much lettuce, a slight amount of lettuce ... it makes no difference. FOOM. There's one guy who shoves his hand in the lettuce preemptively, assuming that I'm going to want it. And when I order a little bit of lettuce, he empties the entire container on my sub and then calls to the guy in the back to bring him more lettuce, which he then dumps on my sub. He builds Mount Everest out of lettuce. And then he looks at me innocently and says, "That enough?" And the thing about lettuce is that they can add to the lettuce, but never subtract. Once the lettuce is committed to the sub, that is some non-refundable fucking lettuce. On a few occasions I've eschewed the lettuce entirely, which, since I don't order any other vegetables, makes the Subway employees look at me like I'm a Communist. Or from Saturn. And also, that makes me feel like I'm caving. And I don't want to cave. I just want a little goddamned lettuce. Is that so wrong? If anyone has any advice, or knows the secret code word to say to actually get a little lettuce when you only want a little lettuce, I am all ears. Until then ... FOOM. So, yeah. I published a book today. I mean, holy shit, I published a book today! Along with the very kind well-wishes and likes and shares and so forth, many folks are asking the same question: "How do you feel?" And I thought I'd answer with something like, "Fucking unbelievable, man!" But I don't.
Don't misunderstand — I'm extremely proud, not only of the book, but of myself for learning to navigate a very complicated system to get the book out there. Seriously, I think amazon has set things up so that you have to prove your worth before they'll show your work to the world. I suppose that makes sense, in a way. If there was a button in Microsoft Word that just let you convert what you're writing into a book just as easily as you can convert it to a PDF, amazon would be choking on all kinds of poorly written shit. Maybe they are anyway, I don't know. But getting back to how I feel — I think it's very different for authors today than it was in days gone by. I'm sure it was an unparalleled thrill for Stephen King to hold a copy of Carrie in his hands for the first time, or to see it on a bookstore shelf. I don't have that. I have a .mobi file on amazon, and maybe people will see it and buy it and maybe they won't. But either way, it's all virtual, so I don't have that weighty sense of reality that some authors have had. Still, yesterday I wasn't a published author, and today I am. No one can ever take that away from me, and if amazon lasts another thousand years, then so will I. I have a legacy. I've left something behind for future generations to enjoy. And even if they don't pull it off a virtual shelf (or whatever they'll be doing a thousand years from now), it's there. My book. So maybe I don't have that exultation that some writers have, but I am happy and proud and satisfied. I don't think I could ask for much more than that. |