Barry Graham's Blog, page 66

Reports of Manny Pacquiao's resurrection are greatly exaggerated

Prediction for tonight’s fight: Pacquiao to win a one-sided fight on points, or by late TKO - unless he gets robbed again. #MannyPacquiao

— Barry Graham (@BazNoir)
April 12, 2014

I was right in my prediction for the Manny Pacquiao-Tim Bradley fight last night. This is the second time Pacquiao has done it, but the last time two of the judges outrageously gave the decision to Bradley.

This Guardian article, along with several others I’ve read, trumpets that Pacquiao has returned to “vintage...

What are your best short stories?

My favorites:

"Big Davey Joins the Majority," which I wrote less than two years ago, and you can read for free here. Prior to that, it had been many years since I wrote a short story, but I wrote another, “Hurt,” a few months ago, and you can read that for free here.

"Get Out As Early As You Can," "What Goes On" and "Either/Or" in my book Get Out As Early As You Can. That book also contains “That Summer,” which Tony Black considers one of my best.

"The Work Ethic," "All the Bad Stuff," "The Guit...

Throwaway

Throwaway:

She came into the kitchenwith the sky

crumpled in her hand.

That’s the sky, I said. Don’t throw it away.

It’s empty,she said

and tossed it in the trash.

The cost of doing business

The cost of doing business:

'Four days later, Crowley was coming out of Evangelo’s, a bar just down the street from the Plaza in Santa Fe. The first thing he realized was that someone was sitting on his Harley. The second thing he realized was that it was the Kid.

“You know something? Some little bastards just can’t be told,” Crowley said.

“Nice bike,” said the Kid.

“Get your brown ass off of it.”

The Kid obeyed. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a Bulldog 44. He pointed it at Crowle...

Inquiry

Inquiry:

"I don’t know where this story is going. Not the real story. I know the narrative, the details of what happened. But I don’t know what the point is. I don’t know the meaning, or if there is one. That’s what I’m trying to find."

Is Tim McGuire in The Book of Man based on Tom McGrath?

Yes.

TOM MCGRATH AT 26In this fascinating 1967 documentary about the...

TOM MCGRATH AT 26

In this fascinating 1967 documentary about the counterculture in London, the Scotsman interviewed is my friend Tom McGrath, who was editor of International Times, a.k.a. I.T.

It’s a strange feeling for me to watch and listen to the 26-year-old Tom. I didn’t meet him until 1988, by which time a lot of hard living (including heroin addiction) had left him bearing no physical resemblance to the man in the film. His voice, however, was unchanged.

More than thirty years ago, a young Paul Reekie was still making...

More than thirty years ago, a young Paul Reekie was still making avant-garde/transgressive/punk music in addition to his poetry. He put out this song as a single, and gave me a copy of it on a wild night in Edinburgh in 1991. I remember playing it to a musician friend (and fan of Paul’s) shortly after, and he said, in quiet awe, “That redefines weird.”

Tony Black reviews One for My Baby

Tony Black reviews One for My Baby:

This is the dark side of the American dream: blunt and brutal and every page is painfully portrayed by one of the greatest practitioners of the dark novel working today.

What George Orwell thinks we peasants should be reading

I’ve been rereading some of Orwell’s essays. When I was young I went from near-worship of Orwell to starting to see his flaws. When I read him nowadays, it seems as though all I see are the flaws… and yet I love him as much as I ever did.

I was struck by his classism in the essay"Raffles and Miss Blandish."

Arguing that hard-boiled, morally-ambivalent fiction is fascistic, Orwell claims:

People worship power in the form in which they are able to understand it. A twelve-year-old boy w...