John Walters's Blog, page 73

Reflections on The Who’s Performance of Quadrophenia in San Diego, February 5th, 2013

If truth be told, I didn’t even know that The Who were coming to San Diego, and even if I had known I would not have considered going, the primary reason being that tickets to rock concerts, starting as they are at fifty dollars or so and going up into the hundreds, are way out of my price range.  However, someone affiliated with the show came to the naval base where one of my sons is stationed and passed on a number of tickets to my son’s superior officer, and so it was that my son, one of his buddies and I headed, along with about ten thousand other rock fans, to the sports arena in which the event was to be held.

The concert is part of the Quadropheia + More tour, during which The Who play the entire rock opera Quadrophenia (which came out as a double album back in 1973), along with an encore of some of their greatest hits.  Of the original members of The Who only Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are left, Keith Moon (the original drummer) and John Entwistle (the original bassist) having died.  The rest of the group is made up of musicians who have since been added, most of whom have played together off and on for years.

I used to listen to The Who back in the sixties; their singles played frequently on local rock radio stations, and we owned their first rock opera, “Tommy”.  I watched them in the splendid documentary of the original Woodstock Music and Arts Festival.  I didn’t really follow their musical progress, though, after the early 70s.  Especially when I got involved in my own struggles as a writer, moving to Los Angeles to attempt screenwriting, and afterwards hitchhiking around the world, I lost touch with what was happening in the contemporary music scene, with the exception of whatever I might hear by chance on public radio stations in Europe, the Middle East, and the Indian Subcontinent.  As a result, I had never heard of Quadrophenia before last night, and I knew nothing about the story behind the rock opera.  This became a problem when The Who began to play, because though the instruments were sharp and clear the vocals were indecipherable; it was impossible to understand any of the lyrics.  I suppose most of the attendees were long-time fans and knew the lyrics by heart, and so for them it was no problem, but for me it was like watching an opera in Italian or German; I could enjoy the music and instrumentals, but I could not follow the story.

Don’t get me wrong – the music was superb, and it was well worth the time (The Who played for more than two hours) to appreciate the music alone.  But reading about Quadrophenia afterwards I was struck by the depth and the nuances in the story, and I wished I could have known it before I experienced the performance.

No matter.  It was what it was, and I’m thankful I had a chance to see it.  Both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, though they are almost seventy years old, can still rock.  Townshend especially is still a wizard with a guitar.  He didn’t break one on stage, though, this time, as he used to, which is probably just as well.

Now I want to say a word about these two near-septuagenarians, something that struck me even before I attended the concert.  I’ve thought of it in the past when I would hear that The Rolling Stones or Paul McCartney or another of the old rock superstars was on tour.  Some might wonder why the old farts don’t retire, but such an attitude never occurs to me.  If they retired, what would they do?  Curl up and die?  Music is their life, their talent, their calling, just as writing is mine.  I could no more conceive of not writing than they could conceive of not playing music.  It’s a part of who they are; it’s their destiny.  And it’s clear that the fans agree, as evidenced by the near-sellout crowd last night who were giving The Who one standing ovation after another.  If you have found your calling you don’t stop what you are doing ever.  It makes no difference, in fact, whether you are famous and successful or not.  You are what you are; you do what you do.  Entertainers may try to retire but it seldom works out.  It’s like what I’ve heard of the difference between an author and a writer: an author is someone who has written something; a writer is someone who writes.  Present tense, not past tense.  That’s what drives these rock stars.  That’s what drives actors and actresses who take on TV and movie gigs late in life.  It’s true not only of the entertainment industry, but applies to other facets of life as well.  Parents, for example, don’t stop being parents when their kids grow up and move away; most are still concerned from afar.

Anyway, it was a great experience to go see The Who perform.  I wish them well, and also any other artists who want to keep working until they drop.  That’s what I plan to do too.  When I’m on my deathbed, just make sure there’s a keyboard close at hand…

I’m a professional writer; I make my living by my words.  I’m happy to share these essays with you, but at the same time, financial support makes the words possible.  If you’d like to become a patron of the arts and support my work, buy a few of my available books or available stories.  Thanks!

California Writers: Jack London and Glen Ellen

This is an excerpt from my recently-published memoir “America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad”.

To reach our next destination we have to head north through the Bay Area and San Francisco itself, across the Golden Gate Bridge to the town of Glen Ellen.  This is the gateway to Jack London State Historic Park.

I have visited it twice, and both times it was in the nature of a pilgrimage.

The time I remember most vividly I approached it hitchhiking from the north in the early morning.  I came through a pass in the hills into a lush valley, and I wondered who lived in the meticulously-landscaped palatial mansions on the hillsides around me.  Somewhere along the way – possibly in Glen Ellen itself – I went into a grocery store and bought an apple, an orange, a pear, and a pint of milk.  The young attractive cashier remarked, “That’s a healthy breakfast,” and I smiled and agreed.  Under other circumstances I might have made small talk and met her later for some sex after she got off work; I indulged in such casual liaisons not infrequently in those days.  But I had my mind on visiting the State Park, and it was far more important to my journey as a writer than mere fleshly gratification.  I hiked up the road to the visitors center, my duffle bag slung over my shoulder.  I could walk all day like that, occasionally shifting the bag from one shoulder to the other.  The trick is not to overload it.  I had my sleeping bag, my shaving kit, my writing notebooks, possibly a change of shirt and a change of socks, no underwear, and one book only that I was reading at the time.  Sometimes, if it was warm enough, I stuffed my leather Navy flight jacket in too, but I might have been wearing it at this particular hour of the morning as it could have been still chilly.  I wandered through the museum at the House of Happy Walls, perusing the collection of first editions of Jack London’s work and the curios and souvenirs he and Charmian brought back from their world travels.  I might have checked out some of the other outbuildings and the grave site as well, but that was not what I was there for.  When I was ready I walked through the eucalyptus-smelling trees along the path that led to the ruins of Wolf House.  Both times I visited the State Park I spent hours at Wolf House.  I couldn’t pull myself away.  I would stare at the ruins and wonder what it might have looked like if it had been finished in all its glory.  I wondered what London must have felt to see his dream turn to flame and ashes so close to completion.  I wondered about my own life as a writer and what had caused me to leave everything from my old life and hit the road, why I couldn’t just fit in and conform and get a normal job and be like everyone else, why I had this inner compulsion that kept me going on an unknown path to an unknown destination, why it was far preferable to me to face loneliness and poverty and the dread of the open road than settle into a convenient rut, why I still had no answers and much of the time didn’t know what to do or where to go, why I couldn’t find anyone else who thought and felt as I did.  Yes, I did a lot of ruminating there at the stark gray stones of Wolf House, but I lingered because somehow there I felt a bit of peace.  It was like a moment out of time, a respite, a pause, a refreshment.  When I was finished, as darkness was falling and the park was closing and I made my way out, I felt stronger and better able to continue to I knew not where.

I hope I get a chance to go there again.  I love that place.

And Jack London himself?  He inspired me as few other writers ever have.  He taught me to hold to my calling and to fight for it.  He taught me to get out and live life so I’d have something to write about.  He taught me that sometimes you just have to do something about what you feel called to do and to hell with the consequences.

Despite the fact that his most famous stories are about the Klondike, sailing in the Pacific, and the South Sea Islands, he was a compleat Californian.  Born in San Francisco, he grew up in the Bay Area, and no matter where he forayed later he always returned.  Eventually he bought several local ranches and combined them into what he called the Beauty Ranch, studied ranching techniques, and attempted innovations that were ahead of their time but now are considered to have been sound ecologically.  Though one of the wealthiest writers in the world, he managed his money poorly and was always in debt.  His death came tragically early.

It is not my intention here to write a critique of Jack London’s literary output or of his life.  I have done that elsewhere.  What I want to do is impress upon you that despite his flaws he represents something that is best about America and the American dream:  the hope that despite humble origins you can rise to great heights, that if you have the grit and tenacity and courage to persevere success will follow, that if you step out and reach beyond what others expect of you and never give up you will win in the end.

Jack London taught me to keep fighting.  I still feel his influence because I have to keep fighting every day.  I am at this moment an unknown, a nobody, but I will never quit.  I will die trying to live my dream.

Book Review: Becoming Ray Bradbury by Jonathan R. Eller

I suppose I should preface this by saying that this book was not what I expected.  I found it by chance browsing at the public library in the new book section.  It intrigued me because I love the short story form and Bradbury is an acknowledged master of it.  I knew a bit of his life story already and have read a number of his books: some short story collections and the novel “Fahrenheit 451″.  I didn’t check it out right away, however.  I went home and read a few reviews online first.  Since the reactions I could find were generally positive, I decided to give it a try.  What I expected was a literary biography, but that’s not what it is.  It is a critical work, meticulously researched, that delves into Bradbury’s literary influences and thought processes as he began his career and achieved early fame in the 1940s and early 50s, up until the publication of “Fahrenheit 451″.

I wanted to like it.  I really did.  I love reading about how authors get their start, how they struggle for recognition, and how they have to overcome obstacles on their way to renown.  Yes, I wanted to like it, but it was very difficult to do so for two important reasons.  One of them was not that Bradbury isn’t one of my favorite short story writers.  I like his work, but my favorites in the short story form are James Tiptree, Jr., Robert Silverberg, Harlan Ellison, Jack London, and Jhumpa Lahiri.  That doesn’t matter.  Bradbury is an important writer in the science fiction/fantasy genre, and a good biography would be a fascinating look not only at the writer himself but at an important stage of American literature at a point when genre writers were struggling to free themselves from the ghetto in which they’d been relegated.

One reason it was hard to like this book was not the writer’s fault at all but the publisher’s.  It is printed in a tiny, almost impossible to read font.  Every time I finished a reading session my eyes would be sore, and it would take them hours to recover.  It was so bad that I almost gave up, something I almost never do once I start reading a book.  But my expectations were high, as I already mentioned, and I persevered because I hoped for a grand, unique reading experience.

Therein lies the second difficulty, which does, alas, lie upon the author.  The book is boring.  The writer is obviously a gifted researcher, but he has taken material that could have been a masterpiece and has turned it into an academic burden.  I kept waiting for it to come to life, but it never did.  I kept waiting for emotion, the emotion that the writer explains that Bradbury depended on so much for his inspiration, to manifest itself, but there was nary a sign of it.  And I know, I can feel, that there is so much emotion behind Bradbury’s story and life.  I know as a writer that every little success, every little sale, especially early on is a thrilling experience, and holding the first magazine which contains a story of yours, or your first book, is a sensation beyond words.  There is no hint of this in the book.  I had to intuit that such would be the case.  Indeed, even Bradbury’s meeting his wife-to-be, and their courtship, and marriage, and having children, is presented in a droll, ho-hum, factual manner.  I can’t believe that these experiences could be so devoid of any emotion.  I know that it is not so.  What I get from this is that the material that the author had to work with is marvelous, that Ray Bradbury’s life would make a wonderful biography which would be an inspiration to writers for generations to come, but this book is not it.

This book drowns in details, probably more detail about Bradbury’s literary and cultural influences that he was even consciously aware of.  I could be wrong about this, but I have a feeling that the author made too many assumptions and tried to connect too many dots, and in some conclusions came up with an at least partially contrived picture, a neat sewing-up of the mental processes in aftermath.  The truth, though, is that there is a lot of groping in the dark, a lot of hit and miss, a lot of sampling and struggling as a writer comes to grips with his voice and his philosophy and the way he sees the world.  This too could have been presented with more enthusiasm and verve.  I am reminded of the way Irving Stone wrote of Jack London’s self-education in “Jack London: Sailor on Horseback”, how he made it seem like a passionate, all-consuming, glorious adventure.

In conclusion, I would say that the book is interesting, but it could have been so much more.  It is not interesting enough for anyone to read who has weak eyes; it is not worth the risk of damaging them further.  I suppose that would be alleviated by tackling it on an e-reader where you can choose your font size and not in the poorly composed print book.  But as I said, most of the power of this book is in its potential, not its fulfillment.  Someday I hope someone else tackles Ray Bradbury’s life story in a more compelling way; I’ll be the first one in line for a copy of the book.

If I Could Have, I Would Have

On my evening walk I was contemplating what I would have done if I had had the publishing opportunities available in the past that are available now; that is, the internet, blogging, self-publishing, and so on.  In my mind’s eye I looked back at myself as a young writer on the road during the time I wrote of in “World Without Pain: The Story of a Search”, when I was desperate for my voice, desperate to unleash the words locked in my soul, desperate for my destiny, and I had forsaken everything else in my life to find these things.  I was hitchhiking and traveling around, eating and sleeping where and when I could, taking odd jobs only when I had to.  Since I couldn’t carry a typewriter, even a portable one, I would write in notebooks and transcribe it later, whenever I had the opportunity.  So I considered myself as I was back then and tried to imagine…

I would have started and maintained a blog, for one thing, and in it I would have put my observations on writing, on reading, on life in general, on traveling and what I was going through.  I also would have included links to anything I had published which was available for sale.

Which leads me to my next point:  I would have published what I wrote.  If I thought it appropriate to an established market I might have sent it to an editor, but if not I would have published it myself.  I would have focused my writing to organize it for publication, in electronic formats and eventually in print as well.  When I was traveling I would have had to avail myself of the internet wherever I could.  It’s possible I would still not have been able to carry a computer around, but if I could I certainly would have, at least a little mini word processor from which I could upload my prose to the web.  Since I would not have had constant access to the internet I would have had to save up my work until I could get online somewhere:  at a public library, perhaps, or at a friend’s or relative’s house.  But I would have been sure to maintain my blog and my publications periodically.

I would have kept my published work for sale on whatever channels I could, whether I sold anything or not.  It wouldn’t have hurt to have it out there, in the hope that someone somewhere would discover my words, and those words would resonate in his or her soul, and then it would happen again to another someone, and another, and another.

I would be sure to write whatever the hell I wanted, to maintain my artistic integrity.  Part of my artistic constipation when I was young was due to the fact that I tried to imitate the work of others.  When I found my own voice I wrote my own material, whatever that material was, whether it was commercial or not, whether it was the latest fad or trend or not, whether it was what everyone wanted to hear or not.  I would write what I had to write, nothing more and nothing less.

I would loathe any day job I had to take just for the money, any pursuit that would keep me from spending my time writing, publishing, studying, ruminating, and doing whatever I could to improve my talent and my craft.  I often had to take odd jobs when the poverty got too severe, when I needed a few bucks in my pocket, when I just couldn’t handle the uncertainty any more.  These jobs never lasted for long and I could never be rid of them soon enough.

I would maintain my personal integrity as well as my artistic integrity.  I realize that many very talented people throughout history have been assholes in their personal lives, but I do not believe that this is the correct way for an artist to behave.  If your calling is communication, as a writer’s always is, then it is important that you be as clean a conduit as possible, that you keep your channel cleared of bullshit.  By this I do not mean you cannot write fiction.  Fiction is not bullshit.  Fiction is a way of presenting truth to the world in metaphorical terms.  But I think it is important for a writer to be honest, courageous, and honorable.  Don’t get me wrong; nobody is perfect, and to pretend to be is nothing less than self-righteousness, which is well nigh intolerable.  But writers should always strive for improvement in their work and in their personal lives.

Finally, I would keep in touch with friends and family.  This is something I did not do when I traveled when I was young.  I would write the occasional aerogram to let them know I was still alive, but weeks would go by between communications.  There was no internet, no e-mail, and long distance phone calls were prohibitively expensive.  The only thing I could do was estimate where I would be next, let my loved ones know, and hope that they wrote in time for me to receive a letter at post restante, or general delivery, before I moved on.  With e-mail I would keep in touch.

In looking back, I realize that I am not so far removed from that young man of sincerity who set out on the road so long ago on the adventure of becoming a writer.  As a matter of fact, as I wrote this I felt I was looking at a younger version of myself in a mirror.  I am still doing the same things I would have done back then had I the opportunity.  I have a blog, I send out or publish my material, I keep it up for sale, I write whatever the hell I want, I loathe any job I have to take just for money (the one exception in my life being when I taught English as a second language in Greece and I could see I was genuinely helping my students), I maintain my personal integrity the best I can, and I keep in touch with my friends and family.  What this hypothetical journey back in time has shown me is that I am an older, more developed version of the young man I was back then.  I am still growing and developing as a writer.  It is my calling, my life’s work.  I do all those things now, and it is all I can do as an artist.  I can’t make myself famous or wealthy; that is outside my hands.  But I am successful in that I try every day to create the best work I can and offer it to the world.  Whether the world accepts or rejects it is not something over which I have any control.

And so I will continue along the path that young writer embarked upon, and try to fulfill the destiny he set out to seek so many years ago.  Day by day, step by step, word by word, until…

California Writers: John Steinbeck and Monterey

This is an excerpt from my recently-published memoir “America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad”.

John Steinbeck was my first literary love, the first writer I became so enthralled with that I wanted to read everything he wrote.  It began, as I recall, with his novella “The Pearl”, which I was required to read in school.  A simple, elegant fable, it impressed me with its plain yet poetic style and the vividness of its imagery.  Afterwards I devoured “The Grapes of Wrath”, “East of Eden”, “Of Mice and Men”, and other works.  I avoided “Cup of Gold”, figuring it wasn’t representative; and “Tortilla Flat” didn’t leave much of an impression.  But the books that were my favorites were “Cannery Row” and “Sweet Thursday”.  Both were set in the Monterey area and both dealt with the same characters:  the marine biologist Doc, an assortment of indigents hanging out around the fish warehouses, and the inhabitants of the local whorehouse.  These characters were so finely drawn you could not only picture them but become totally immersed in their world, the beautiful brilliant world of the California coast.  It made me fall in love with the area before I had ever been there.  “Sweet Thursday” especially, schmaltzy love story and all, was one of my favorite books for years.  I read it over and over, and the part at the end where Doc and Suzy the hooker get together and head off to the tide pools to hunt for octopuses always brought tears to my eyes.

Because I was so young when I became enthralled with Steinbeck, some of his books had less appeal to me.  I tried to read “The Winter of Our Discontent” but I don’t think I ever finished it.  To me Steinbeck represented California, and especially the California coast around Monterey, and I felt that when he wrote about other places he was out of his element.

Later in life Steinbeck made a journey around the United States in a camper with a French poodle named Charlie and called it, appropriately enough, “Travels With Charlie”.  I know I read it but I have to admit I remember none of it except for one distinct scene which is somehow burned in my memory.  I recall this from the first and only time I read the book, which was over forty years ago, so I may not have all the details right.  He’s sitting in a bar in, I’m not sure, Monterey perhaps, anyway somewhere on the coast there, and an old acquaintance is asking him why he left California, and likening it to some sort of betrayal.  Steinbeck tries to explain that it was time to move on and so he moved on, but the local is having none of it.  He is hurt, offended by the fact that Steinbeck left his old haunts and old friends and moved East, as if East were Mars or Saturn and Steinbeck is somehow no longer as human as he used to be.  This struck me, even back then when I was naive and knew very little about the ways of the world, eminently unfair.  Such regionalism seemed to me then and still seems to me petty, short-sighted, unworthy and unfair.  So what if he had moved on?  Life, if one continues to grow, is a series of such moves.  Stagnation breeds decay.  I have no idea what prompted Steinbeck to make that move; my interest drifted to other writers before I became so absorbed that I read biographies and delved into the details of his personal life.  But I am sure he had his reasons.

This brings me back to my own odyssey.  In a physical sense I have probably moved from one part of the world to another more than most:  from Seattle to California to Mexico and Guatemala and back to Seattle and California again to Europe to India and Sri Lanka and Nepal back overland to Europe and back to the States and back to Europe and India and…  You get the point.  That’s just the beginning, before I got married.  I could go on and on.  That’s not the goal of it all, though.  One can drift from one place to another and never get anywhere that really matters.  Thoreau said, “If you would learn to speak all tongues and conform to the customs of all nations, if you would travel farther than all travelers, be naturalized in all climes, and cause the Sphinx to dash her head against a stone, even obey the precept of the old philosopher, and explore thyself.  Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.”  It’s not how far you go physically that counts; it’s how far you step outside your comfort zone, sail forth into new waters, brave new metaphysical territory, explore uncharted thoughts and concepts, cleanse yourself of old ruts and habits, leap into the void trusting that you have wings.  Timidity never aided the discovery of new lands.  Courage involves risk.  Courage involves venturing into the unknown.

And so we carry on our imaginary journey northward up into the Bay Area.  We will pass quickly by Santa Clara University, where I stayed for one year and spent some of the darkest of the dark nights of my soul.  By then I no longer read Steinbeck.  Instead I was absorbed in “The Lord of the Rings”, and the hallucinatory meanderings of Carlos Castaneda, and the beginnings of my fascination with science fiction.  I cannot, however, entirely discount my time in Santa Clara, as it is there, as I was taking a course in science fiction literature, that I realized my calling as a writer.  It is one of my life’s most profound experiences, and makes all the rest of my stay there tolerable.  If I had to descend into that deep, dark, terrifying hell only for that realization it was worth it all.  I probably would have come around to it anyway in time, but in the midst of my soul’s degradation and despair is how it transpired, and I don’t believe that anything so significant happens by accident.

Book Review: Plexus by Henry Miller

“Plexus” is the second book of Miller’s “The Rosy Crucifixion”, a trilogy which is comprised of “Sexus”, “Plexus”, and “Nexus”.  A few years ago, when I decided to re-read some of Henry Miller’s works, I started with “Tropic of Cancer”, his first and by far his best book, one that burst upon my consciousness like a beacon back in the days when I wandered about lost and confused, having no idea of how to come to terms with the wonderful idea of being a writer.  And here it was, so simple and direct, like a mortar shell in the living room:  live life and write about it.  That’s all there was to it.  Such a simple formula.  My naiveté was so great that at the time exactly what that meant didn’t sink in.  The depths of depravity to which Miller was exposed as he came out into the literary light are detailed in the book, but the prose is so magical that I was oblivious to it.  I didn’t grasp that it meant you had to go to hell and then describe in minute detail what the experience was like, even though the words were right there in front of me.  Henry Miller minces no words when it comes to describing hell, and the obliteration and rebirth of the self, or rather I should say the obliteration of the old self and birth of a new.  Paris, for him, was the place at which he hit rock bottom.  For me it was India, and I describe it in my book “World Without Pain: The Story of a Search”.

But I was talking about re-reading Miller.  Next I re-read “Tropic of Capricorn”, a wild roller coaster ride of a book that delves into his roots, especially his days as a personnel manager for a large telegram company.  Another of the levels of hell, but even more hellish because he is completely lost in the chaos, thrown about by every wind of circumstance.  It’s a crazy symphony of a book, if symphonies can be insanely discordant and possessed of their own erratic rhythm of death and decay.  Then I re-read “Black Spring”, which is a mixed bag of short pieces; I liked some and disliked others upon reappraisal.

For this discussion I discount his nonfiction books of travel and reflection upon particular places such as “The Colossus of Maroussi” and “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch”.  Though they are among my favorites of his works, they are completely different in tone, not written ostensibly as novels as the other books are, but as out-and-out memoirs.

From “Black Spring” I moved on to “Sexus”.  The title gives this one away.  Each of the volumes of “The Rosy Crucifixion” are thick, heavy tomes, and this one is full of graphic descriptions of sexual escapades during his early days in New York, one after another, some of them uproariously funny.  It doesn’t rise to the level of literary excellence of “Tropic of Cancer” or “Tropic of Capricorn”, but I enjoyed it so much I ordered a copy of the next volume, “Plexus”.

In “The Rosy Crucifixion” Miller attempts to chronicle the years in New York leading up to his departure to Europe and his profound change of life and of soul, of the finding of his voice as a writer.  It’s got a wealth of characters, details, and minutia.  And herein lies the problem.  Miller obviously wanted to include everything, leave nothing out, and it’s a case of too much, one thing piled upon another until he commits the one sin of which writers should never be guilty:  in some places it is boring.

Don’t get me wrong.  “Plexus” is full of great passages.  There’s almost none of the graphic sexuality of the previous volume; it’s one that you can leave out in sight for the perusal of the kiddies.  The part at the beginning where he talks about trying to find himself as a writer but not knowing how to proceed, what to do, what to write about, is one that many aspiring writers can relate to,  and there are some very funny stories of his down-and-out times as he and his wife drift from one apartment to another, open a speakeasy, even hitchhike on the road to South Carolina.  But there are other sections in which Miller goes on and on, page after page, describing night dreams or daydreams which in the end have no point.  The book could have benefited from some serious editing; the excising of the slow parts would have made the rest of it a delicious romp through the trials and tribulations of a writer-to-be.  As it is, surprisingly even to myself, I got fed up and almost put it down.  I persevered because I always hate not to finish a book I start, even if I have read it before, and I was glad I saw it through because brilliance is scattered throughout, and I would have missed some of the best bits if I had not read it to the end.

The curious thing is that though I bought “Plexus” right after I finished “Sexus” it was years before I got around to re-reading it.  I’m always looking ahead when it comes to books.  It has to be the right time for something.  I know that I am so impressionable that what I am reading affects my daily life and what I am writing.  I figured the time was finally right, and I suppose it was.  It showed me one thing I hadn’t realized before:  as writers we eventually outgrow our mentors.  By that I don’t necessarily mean that we become better than they are.  We simply expand our horizons, go our own ways, so that we don’t have to swallow everything another writer says or does complete and whole without any kind of discernment or screening process, as we might do at the beginning when we are in the first thralls of literary love.  We can eventually pick and choose according to our own dictates, according to what our muse reveals to us personally.  When I first read “The Rosy Crucifixion”, therefore, I was utterly entranced, utterly enthralled at what Miller was doing, the pouring out of his life in a great overwhelming flood of words.  Observing and understanding what he was doing helped me learn to pour forth, to find my own voice as a writer.  But times change.  I found my voice long ago, and I can pick and choose now, be more discerning, more selective.  Even back then, the first time I read it, I realized that “The Rosy Crucifixion” was too rambling and did not rise up to the brilliance of the “Tropic” books; nevertheless I have to say that it is worth reading, especially for new writers just starting out, to get a feel for what it’s like to be able to convert a confusion of experience, in retrospect, into a rambunctious tale of coming-of-age.

On the Eve of 2013: Don’t Worry

While taking a walk in the San Diego sunshine, a deep blue sky overhead and the chill air refreshing my lungs, I ruminated on the upcoming year.  What do I need to change?  What can I do to make my life more joyful?  The first thing that came to me was to find a job, but I immediately realized that that made a piss-poor resolution.  Why?  It is not in my control.  I cannot find a job because it involves the interaction and decision-making of others.  I can look harder for a job.  I can expand my job search into other fields.  I can train for skills that might help my job search.  I cannot, however, find a job; all I can do is try.  It’s similar to the situation with my writing.  I cannot sell a certain number of stories to magazines and anthologies.  I can write them and I can send them out but afterwards it’s out of my hands; it is in the hands of others.  I can write books and upload them to sales channels; that much is in my control.  But I cannot make people buy them.

What was really worrying me, though, was my lack of income.  I’ve written and published ten books and numerous stories and essays, and as far as I am concerned they are good books, the best I could make them at the time.  Since I lost my last job writing blog posts (the company discontinued the blog) I have been searching for another job.  My bank account is shrinking and nothing is coming in.  Am I doing what I can about it?  Yes, I am.  I worry, nevertheless, because what I am doing doesn’t seem to be working.  I can reassess and try to do something else, sure, but what good can the worrying do?

Therefore that’s one of the things I want to work on this coming year:  not to worry so much, especially about things out of my control.  I will do what I can, but afterwards I should be joyful that I have done so, not all stressed out that it hasn’t had the effect I thought it would.

2012 has been one hell of a year.  I’ve had many exceptional years in my life, to be sure, but this ranks among the most dynamic for several reasons.  In early February I conceived the idea that I might need to leave Greece and bring some of my sons to the United States to start a new life.  Once I set my sights on the goal I started to work towards it.  I flew to San Diego in early June, to be followed a month later by two of my sons.  We rented a house.  My sons found jobs.  One of them is in his senior year of high school here.  We’re still struggling, but hanging on.

As far as writing is concerned, I published six books in 2012, in print and electronic versions.  They came in two waves of three books each:  the first just before I left for the States, and the second in late November and December just before the close of the year.

First of all, I published my science fiction short story collection “Dark Mirrors: Dystopian Tales”.

Next, I published “After the Rosy-Fingered Dawn: A Memoir of Greece”.  The curious thing about this was that as I wrote the memoir I had no idea I would soon be leaving Greece; at the close of the book I still believe I will remain in Greece indefinitely.  However, less than a month after I finished I had made the decision to leave, as if the writing had given me closure.

Then I published my mainstream novel “The Misadventures of Mama Kitchen”.  This was the longest book I had written up to that time, and took a major effort of proofreading and formatting, but I was very pleased with the results.

During the move and the time we spent searching for housing and jobs and getting used to living in this new land I did not stop writing, but mostly I was writing essays of my impressions of America.  I did, however, go through a brief time, while I was staying at a hotel on the beach, when I wrote a complete fantasy or science fiction story every evening; it was always an adventure, as sometimes I had no idea what I would write about when I sat down to the typewriter.

Onward to November.  The first book I published then, which was the fourth of the year, was the memoir “America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad”.  It’s a collection of the essays I wrote, but I added introductions or afterwords to each of them, and a prologue and epilogue to the book.

Then I published my novella “The One Thousand”, which is a thriller involving vampire-like alien-possessed convicts and a small group of heroes who have to stop them.  This is in print and electronic formats, and before the end of the year I hope to publish “The One Thousand: Book Two: Team of Seven”, which continues the story, in electronic format only for now.

Finally, I published my fourth short story collection “Fear or Be Feared: Fantasies”, which is already available in electronic formats and will be available in print any day now.

Besides these books, I published fourteen individual stories in electronic formats.

I also sold two stories to traditional print magazines; these will appear sometime next year.

If that’s not all, while I was working under contract to supply content for a company’s blog I ghostwrote about three hundred more articles, five a day, six days a week.

Yes, it’s been a productive writing year, despite all the changes.

What’s ahead?  There are so many variables in the immediate future that it is really hard to make predictions.  I will keep writing, that’s for sure.  Nothing will ever change that.  I will make no guarantees on number of words or stories or whatever.  I will set goals as circumstance allows, and I will change them when I need to.  I hope I sell more stories to magazines and anthologies.  I hope many more readers discover my work and buy many copies, setting me free financially to devote myself to writing full time.  Until that happens I will continue to hunt for a job to help supplement my income.

It’s way up in the air right now whether my sons and I will stay in San Diego, or possibly in midyear move farther north.  Time will tell.

One thing is sure, though.  I am resolved to worry less and enjoy life more.

A Pause in the Action

I don’t do much self-promotion on this website, apart from having the covers of my books along the side, and having an available books page where you can go if you are interested.  I offer a lot of content free for your reading pleasure, much of which does also appear in my published volumes.  But I think it proper to pause in my regular posts to let you know what’s been happening in my world as a writer.

Apart from the time I take job hunting, as I am currently unemployed and royalties from my books do not provide sufficient income to get all the bills paid, I work seven days a week, both mornings and afternoons, on my novels, memoirs, short stories, essays, and so on.  I have been working particularly hard to finish up a few projects by the end of the year, such as my memoir “America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad”, my fantasy short story collection “Fear or Be Feared: Fantasies”, and the sequel to my novella “The One Thousand” called “Team of Seven” (coming digitally within the next few days).  I’ve also been working on various other projects, cleaning up my website, and marketing some of my short stories to magazines and anthologies.

I keep this website for all sorts of reasons.  Promotion of my work is one of them, of course, but not even the main one.  I love having direct access to readers, putting my work out there to anyone on the web who might discover it.  I often publish some of the chapters of upcoming books on my website, as indeed I posted a number of essays from “America Redux”.  And I write book reviews because I love reading books and I want to share my impressions; I’ve always wanted to keep a record of my thoughts on the books I have read, and this gives me an opportunity to do so.

The blog will continue in the coming year with more content.  I’ll get into that next week when I write an appraisal of the year that’s now closing (and what a year it was!) and hopes, projections, and goals for the coming year.

For now, though, I want to encourage you to help an impoverished writer out (and yourself as well – you get some dynamite reading material) by buying a few of my books.  Writing is all I ever wanted to do with my life, but I don’t only do it for myself; I do it for you, the reader.  Take a chance.  Buy a book.  Or two or three.  They make excellent gifts, if you’re into gift-giving around Christmas time.  They also make excellent content for that e-reader somebody just gave you or you just bought for yourself.

My gift to you is all the content I’ve been providing completely free through my website for the past year.

Merry Christmas.

Book Review: On Wings of Eagles by Ken Follett

My reading this book came about as the result of a frustrated search.  For years I have been trying to find a DVD copy of the miniseries “On Wings of Eagles”, which I first watched somewhere in the East and again once in Europe.  It is available on Zone 2 DVD from some company in Germany, but in the United States, to the best of my knowledge, it has been only released on VHS, and these video tapes are now a rarity and very high-priced.  Anyway, who has a video machine anymore?

The miniseries features an old but dynamic Burt Lancaster as Arthur “Bull” Simons, and Richard Crenna as Ross Perot.  It’s four hours long but never lags from the first minutes until the end.  However, it is downright hard to find.

Finally, after several frustrating searches, I decided to give the book a try.  The writer is better known as a novelist, and it reads like a novel, but it was put together after meticulous research and interviews with the main characters.

In short, in the last days of the Shah’s reign in Iran, as revolutionary violence escalates and Americans are leaving the country in droves, an obscure Iranian prosecutor arrests two executives of EDS, Perot’s company, which had a contract with the Iranian government to create a computerized social security system.  Since the Iranian government is collapsing and has stopped paying for EDS’s services the company is preparing to pull out; the prosecutor sets bail at the exorbitant sum of 13 million dollars as a sort of ransom to recoup the government’s failed investment.  Perot tries all sorts of legal ways to spring the men:  teams of lawyers both American and Iranian, intervention of top political and military contacts, endless fruitless negotiations, and even attempts to get the money into the country to pay the bail.  The prosecutor’s hold on the two Americans is relentless and tenacious.  In the end, when all official channels seem to be failing, Perot assembles a team of ex-military men from his own staff to prepare a jailbreak.  To lead the team he recruits “Bull” Simons, a retired colonel who once led a famous mission to free American prisoners in North Vietnam.  The book chronicles their training in Texas, and then their efforts in Iran to free the men.  After the Shah’s government falls and the revolutionaries take over, a mob storms the prison where the men are held and they escape, but then Simons and his team must make a hazardous overland journey through hostile tribal country to the Turkish border and freedom.

It’s a terrific, suspenseful adventure, all the more gripping because it is true.

It holds special fascination for me because only a year before these events took place I hitchhiked through Iran myself.  In a southeastern town my passport was stolen and I had to retrace my steps to Tehran, where I begged on the streets for two weeks before I could come up with enough money for a new passport.  This story is recounted in more detail in my memoir “World Without Pain: The Story of a Search”.  But what I wanted to touch on here is that in my wanderings about the city a young Iranian befriended me.  He took me into the vast underground carpet bazaar and showed me where his relatives worked, and he told me about the revolutionary movement and how audio tapes of Khomeini’s speeches were being clandestinely distributed all over the country and it was only a matter of time before the government fell.  As I read the book I was reminded how close I had been to all the action – and danger, for that matter.

This book is a great read.  It’s the kind of book that’s so exciting and suspenseful that it’s hard to put down.  But more than that it is a tale of common people accepting a call to uncommon heroism, and as a result it is an inspiration to all of us to be more heroic too, in whatever tasks destiny calls upon us to accomplish.

California Writers: Henry Miller and Big Sur

(This post, as many of the previous ones, is an excerpt from my upcoming memoir “America Redux: Impressions of the United States After Thirty-Five Years Abroad”.)

The aspect of writing that Henry Miller opened up to me was voice.  Until then I had heard a thousand voices – I had always been a voracious reader – and certainly some of those writers’ voices were unique:  Henry David Thoreau, for instance, or Jack Kerouac.  But never had I heard a writer’s voice as clear as a bell one-of-a-kind as Henry Miller’s.  From the first few lines of “Tropic of Cancer” he had me hooked.  It was so free, so exuberant, so lively, so bawdy, so irreverent, so iconoclastic, so different, so strong, so vibrant, so poetic.  And the wonderful thing was that it didn’t make me want to go out and try to write like Henry Miller, as so many writers I had read in the past caused me to try to imitate them.  No, it made me want to write like myself.  It caused me to understand that the writer and his life and his voice were one.  It set me upon a journey to seek out the words hidden in my soul, a journey that is still ongoing.

I have written elsewhere of Henry Miller’s impact upon me.  What I want to touch on here is his own journey as a writer that caused him to wander from New York to France to Greece, from thence to traverse the United States and finally to settle in Big Sur.  His book “Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch” says much about his attachment to Big Sur, though it doesn’t tell it all.  Doubtless Miller himself didn’t grasp what drew him to Big Sur.  It was somewhat in the nature of a mystical experience.

In my youth I was always drawn to California myself, but it’s difficult to explain why.  It was an ambiance, something in the light, a quality of the sun and air.  It was also its literary tradition, of course.  Long before I knew of Henry Miller I was pulled there by the works of John Steinbeck and Jack London.  But even before I knew I had to be a writer I ended up in California, in the Bay Area, seemingly by accident, when I followed my sister down to Santa Clara University to study.  What I found there were vestiges of the hippy movement, the Summer of Love, the Grateful Dead, Fillmore West, and the drug culture.  Experimenting with drugs caused me to short out, in a sense, and lose valuable years of my life.

But I digress.  I was speaking of Henry Miller.

What really drew Henry Miller to Big Sur?  The wild landscape?  The vastness of the Pacific?  The surrounding community of misfits and artists?  Perhaps it was a place that was remote enough so that the collective culture of the United States wasn’t in his face all the time, where he could contemplate the scenery, take walks, have visitors, and write what was still struggling to get out without the hindrance of the millions of clamoring voices of a big city.  The fact is, all of his artistic life he had wandered without a home, from place to place.  Perhaps the settling down somewhat appealed to him.

He didn’t return voluntarily to the United States.  He was forced to return.  He was in Greece and World War II found its way there and he had no choice but to evacuate.  I have been in that situation several times.  When I was in India I thought I would never leave, that I had found my place, but my visa options dried up.  When I was in Greece, as I have explained, I thought I would end my days there, and yet here I am again embarked on another journey.  Henry Miller doubtless sincerely intended to return to Europe after the war, but he never did.  He ended his days in the United States, in California, though not in Big Sur but in a house he bought, when he finally got a little money coming in from the sale of his works, in Pacific Palisades.

It is as I have said before:  home is an abstraction.  This is true not only for writers and other artists but for everyone, but most people hunker down close to where they came from and don’t move.  Some have no desire to venture forth, and live meaningful lives where they are; others would desperately like to make a change but lack the courage.  These live as undeveloped embryos, as caterpillars that never managed to make it out of their cocoons.  A writer, though, can ill afford such timidity.  A writer either goes forth to find his voice and his destiny or never becomes what he is capable of becoming.  I speak spiritually, metaphorically, of course, and not physically.  You don’t have to circumnavigate the globe to fulfill your artistic destiny.  Look at Thoreau:  he hardly ventured farther than his backyard of New England, and yet his words transcended neighborhoods, regions, states, countries.

I still want to visit the Henry Miller Memorial Library someday.  I’m sure I’d have a great time.  I know I would love Big Sur too.  I don’t think I have ever passed through there, though I have made innumerable journeys up and down the length of California.  If I did on one of my hitchhiking forays from the Bay Area to Los Angeles or vice-versa, I don’t remember it.  That’s why I think I haven’t done it.  The coastal landscape of California has made a profound impression on me: the redwood forests of the north, with pounding waves smashing upon the craggy shoreline in great glittering spray; the flamboyant tidal pools and offshore islands teeming with seals of the Bay Area; the unbelievably deep blue vast Pacific Ocean that seems to go on forever without end and reminds one of eternity.  For many years, the years of my youth as I wandered the West Coast this was as much home as any place was to me.  As I have said, I was drawn to California again and again; there was a mystique, a tantalizing glimpse of something more and better, a siren-call I could not ignore.  In the end, though, for me it was not enough.  I was at the beginning of my journey, not the end.  I had many places to go and many things to do.  I could not tarry in this illusion.  Remember, after all, who the sirens really were.  They were not benevolent muses; your ship would smash on the rocks and you yourself would be consumed and lost.

Henry Miller, on the other hand, when he ended up at Big Sur, had completed much of his journey:  his physical journey, at least.  He had many more words in him that had to be released, but by that time he could live anywhere; his voice was flowing; the compulsion to move ever on was not as strong.  So he stayed, and wrote, and thrived.

As for me, at this point I cannot say.  If I had the means and the freedom I would travel the west coast, but I have neither.  I cannot pack a duffle bag and stick out my thumb, trusting to find meals and places to lay my head when I need them, as I used to do.  The United States has changed, and I have changed.  I’m almost sixty years old, for God’s sake.  Neither can I cut loose and take off without a care, because I am responsible for others besides myself.  I have, however, thank God, come to the point where I can sit down and write anywhere.  I am no longer dependent on constant physical motion and changes for my inspiration.  I have been many places and done and seen many things, and I have enough inspiration stored up to last several lifetimes.  Sometimes I wish I knew what I know now when I was a young struggling writer, dirt-poor and hitchhiking from place to place.  I could have avoided a lot of grief, but on the other hand the longing to satiate the hunger that accompanies ignorance is an impetus that can propel us towards great adventure.  So it was in my case, and so it was in the case of Henry Miller when he left New York for France.  His circuitous route eventually led him to Big Sur, and there he found a modicum of rest for a time.

Where my destiny will eventually lead me I cannot say.  I have a feeling I will not stay here in San Diego for long.  I haven’t yet found my base, my home, my port in a storm.  I think about it sometimes:  how nice it would be to have a modest house with some land around it in a rural area, somewhere I could keep my books, come back to when I need a rest, invite my family and friends for visits.  I have no idea where that place might be, and I wonder if when I get to it I will know it, as Henry Miller seemed to know instinctively that Big Sur was the place for him to stay.