I was enrolled in a tech school at this time, another school I didn't graduate from but for which I now owe the government a shit-pile of money. That whole program turned into a mess. I got a lot out of the fine arts stuff, but almost two years in I was taking the same HTML class, their job placement program seemed to be what they could scour off of Craig's List, and I had no fewer than three teacher's quit halfway through the semester. It was bullshit. Then in April '07 I got an opportunity at the cigar store.
And that is where I am. Part of the world, just like you wanted. Tamed. I don't even mind it. I don't mind the work and am grateful for the job -- these days especially. Told someone I discovered I had a survival instinct after all. I will break my ass to keep this job. That doesn't make me important, and I haven't been at this as long as most, but it proves I want to work. There are children of privilege who did far less in their lives than I -- hell, I went to school with Robert Chambers for a year. If the minstrel or philosopher were still somehow reveared in the mechanisms we've developed to control our population, then maybe I'd have had an easier go of it. I'm one of those things that fell through the cracks -- neither here nor there. I'm friendly enough, people respond well enough to that to my face. But there's an awful lot of the rest of it, too. Maybe I am what they say I am. I know I'm fucking nuts. I'm not making this shit up. I'm the only one that lives in my head, you go live in yours. I try to crack the seal on some of that with my work and the research I do.
Again, that's what appealed to me about Live Journal and The Interwebs -- all head.
When you're dealing with written words, your brain is engaged on a totally different sphere. And you're all out here, with all your brains and ideas. But I believe I was somewhat radicalized, which is hysterical because I was of no import. But I bring out an ugliness in some people, I'm not really sure why. Were all the same blood, mud, and shit. I never thought I was better than anyone, I just think about seventy percent of you need to be taught something about rational thought and controlling your emotions.
I have to do it, why do you get to run around berserk, you fucking cunts?
I see it Every Fucking Day in the store, so don't even try.
Anyhow, so, yeah, was working there for about a year and finally decided, fuck this. It became more important to me that there was a way to physically manifest this chap book than that it had a Glen Chadbourne cover so I killed the project for the second time. I reformatted my original . PDF -- that took like an hour -- and put it up for sale at LULU.com. Last I checked, in a year, seventeen copies sold. I don't think my parents have even bought one. My sister-in-law did, the usual suspects. I have not heard a single opinionabout the book outside of my initial circle. One genre pal even wrinkled his nose and said, "buy it? I already read it." and he had good things to say about it, too. The thing is, none of that even annoys me. I'd enjoy a bigger response because everybody wants to get paid for masturbating in public.
But I truly don't care. I would actually rather toil in obscurity than have to swim in the sewer with all this political crap. It sounds like bullshit, but I want to do this for love of craft. Maybe I'm justifying my failure, maybe after twenty five years of pretending to give a shit, the veil has finally fallen. I don't care to be validated. I would rather the work stand on it's own. Maybe there at LULU I gimp the respect of my peers. But is it their perspective that matters, or is it the availability of the work?
I say it's the latter. If you want it, you can go get it. For my part, I know that the thing I wanted it to be is available to you.
Do you know that if you guys bought 64,000 copies of THE JAWS OF ADANA that I could pay off my student loan and other debts? No pressure. I make literally ten thousandths to the penny per word for every copy of that that I sell, and that book is both disturbing and well-edited. You've read worse shit from big houses.
So I think that's how it's going to go for me from here on out. Some even get plucked out of the ether and into real, big-boy publishing deals from self-pubbing. Weirder things have happened.
Worst thing that can happen is I know I did it on my terms.
And that ain't the worst thing.
