Seth Kupchick's Blog: Bet on the Beaten, page 6
June 6, 2016
The epublisher within
I'm a publishing hack who knows almost nothing save what I've learned as an avante garde experimental writer all but barred from the traditional publishing world when I was coming of age, and my heroes would've been publishing. I mostly gave up on the publishing world for long swaths of time, but every five years or so, would think I should really take a stab at it since I'd written one book that was publishable, and would find the few 'indie publishers' who weren't tied to academia, and accepted unsolicited manuscripts. I never had any luck with these, but also came to the conclusion that most of them were made up of a couple of guys/gals in a basement with a full time job somewhere, and working on publishing in their part time, since it would sometimes take me more than a year to hear from them.
Epublishing has sped everything up, and I'm happily grateful. I've already sold more books in the last six months than I ever sold through traditional publishing, so in a very real way I'm writing outside of myself for the first time ever, and it feels great, very nourishing. But one sale makes you think you're getting another like girls when you're on a winning streak, and the dream of epublishing is that you can get hundreds of sales, or even thousands, and I'm coming up against that wall right now. I really feel like "If So Carried" is a prisoner, and I'm trying to figure out how to break him free, but it's going to be hard.
I started my first Bknights sale this week, and I have some general thoughts and criticisms. My cover sucks, or it's not good enough, and that's a drag. I know... every cover sucks, but some actually draw the reader into the book, and I'm not sure mine does this. To be fair, most don't, so when I scrolled through the digital marketing stacks today there were very few books I wanted to click on, or think about, but there was one, and I wanted his cover! I'll probably have to pay more for this, and I'm not sure where I stand on that today.
Like many innocents, I was sold on the 'ebook' from a random google search I did about amazon. "Who knows, a great novel could be out there that no one in the big 5 was willing to take a chance on, but now we're giving the author a chance to get his work seen by millions." Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the first time I heard this sales pitch, but it was the first time I felt it applied to me, and the way Bezos was spinning it was fresh, and made self-publishing not feel so desperate, and I signed on. I have no regrets joining the ebook world, at least of today, but I'm starting to rip off some veils of illusion surrounding it, and seeing it for what it is.
1. The ebook world may still be in its golden age, but I'm already sensing it used to be easier to sell your book years ago when there was less competition. You see, I'm not the only one who has figured out you can bypass the publishing world, and be an entrepreneur, but most of the writers aren't trying to sell literature. In my pure heart, I really don't understand this since it would seem that literature was one of the genres that the big 5 ignored, but the reason they did is they couldn't sell it, and in a basic way this makes sense. The market for good literature just isn't as big as for trash, or easy reading, or pulp, or fun, and that's a statement on the human race that I've got to accept, but it's a bitter pill to swallow. The epublishing world is exactly the same and today "If So Carried" is stacked with about 40 or other books that have nothing to do with its genre, or style.
2. The ebook world is out of step with the 'creative non-fiction,' or 'literary fiction' world of academia. This is 100% true and I'd guess that the only thing creative writing MFA's are holding out anymore is being a key to the traditional publishing world, so they are going to turn their nose up at the epbulishing world, and this is one of the reasons why I like doing this so much, since I rebelled against the MFA program fine arts grad school student. But now I'm coming up to the limits of my rebellion, and like any warrior who puts their face in the opposite of what they hate, they eventually have to see what they hate in their opposite, and this is never easy. The epublishing world is a cesspool of bad writing, and it's possible that I've tarnished my name forever by even joining it, or so the MFA kids would tell me. Truthfully, I don't know if that's true, but I'm probably off the short list for any awards or grants, but I wasn't on that short list before, so in my case it means nothing. But I can imagine the grad school student professor not wanting to be associated with the fantasy/erotica world of epublishing, and the desperate admission of being a 'self-publisher.' It's almost like a man saying he chose self gratification over being with another because he was too pathetic to find a mate.
3. Epublishing forces you to become an entrepreuner and the dream of finding a publisher would be they do this for you. In another era, this was probably true, but traditional publishing has become so desperate to find a pool of readers they force the authors to do a lot of their own marketing, or so I've read. Going through the indie publishing world I have no problem believing that if I got published by "Publishing Genius" a lot of the marketing and promoting would be on my shoulders, and at the least I'd have to do a lot of readings, but more than this. We live in an age where bookstores are dying and getting shelf space isn't such a big deal, so really everything has been equalized, unless someone is willing to spend thousands of dollars on a marketing campaign, but that's only for the big writers (Stephen King, Anne Rice, etc.).
I'm going to leave this here for now, and sit through my day of failure like a brave soldier, hoping I lost a battle, but will win the war.
Epublishing has sped everything up, and I'm happily grateful. I've already sold more books in the last six months than I ever sold through traditional publishing, so in a very real way I'm writing outside of myself for the first time ever, and it feels great, very nourishing. But one sale makes you think you're getting another like girls when you're on a winning streak, and the dream of epublishing is that you can get hundreds of sales, or even thousands, and I'm coming up against that wall right now. I really feel like "If So Carried" is a prisoner, and I'm trying to figure out how to break him free, but it's going to be hard.
I started my first Bknights sale this week, and I have some general thoughts and criticisms. My cover sucks, or it's not good enough, and that's a drag. I know... every cover sucks, but some actually draw the reader into the book, and I'm not sure mine does this. To be fair, most don't, so when I scrolled through the digital marketing stacks today there were very few books I wanted to click on, or think about, but there was one, and I wanted his cover! I'll probably have to pay more for this, and I'm not sure where I stand on that today.
Like many innocents, I was sold on the 'ebook' from a random google search I did about amazon. "Who knows, a great novel could be out there that no one in the big 5 was willing to take a chance on, but now we're giving the author a chance to get his work seen by millions." Don't get me wrong, it wasn't the first time I heard this sales pitch, but it was the first time I felt it applied to me, and the way Bezos was spinning it was fresh, and made self-publishing not feel so desperate, and I signed on. I have no regrets joining the ebook world, at least of today, but I'm starting to rip off some veils of illusion surrounding it, and seeing it for what it is.
1. The ebook world may still be in its golden age, but I'm already sensing it used to be easier to sell your book years ago when there was less competition. You see, I'm not the only one who has figured out you can bypass the publishing world, and be an entrepreneur, but most of the writers aren't trying to sell literature. In my pure heart, I really don't understand this since it would seem that literature was one of the genres that the big 5 ignored, but the reason they did is they couldn't sell it, and in a basic way this makes sense. The market for good literature just isn't as big as for trash, or easy reading, or pulp, or fun, and that's a statement on the human race that I've got to accept, but it's a bitter pill to swallow. The epublishing world is exactly the same and today "If So Carried" is stacked with about 40 or other books that have nothing to do with its genre, or style.
2. The ebook world is out of step with the 'creative non-fiction,' or 'literary fiction' world of academia. This is 100% true and I'd guess that the only thing creative writing MFA's are holding out anymore is being a key to the traditional publishing world, so they are going to turn their nose up at the epbulishing world, and this is one of the reasons why I like doing this so much, since I rebelled against the MFA program fine arts grad school student. But now I'm coming up to the limits of my rebellion, and like any warrior who puts their face in the opposite of what they hate, they eventually have to see what they hate in their opposite, and this is never easy. The epublishing world is a cesspool of bad writing, and it's possible that I've tarnished my name forever by even joining it, or so the MFA kids would tell me. Truthfully, I don't know if that's true, but I'm probably off the short list for any awards or grants, but I wasn't on that short list before, so in my case it means nothing. But I can imagine the grad school student professor not wanting to be associated with the fantasy/erotica world of epublishing, and the desperate admission of being a 'self-publisher.' It's almost like a man saying he chose self gratification over being with another because he was too pathetic to find a mate.
3. Epublishing forces you to become an entrepreuner and the dream of finding a publisher would be they do this for you. In another era, this was probably true, but traditional publishing has become so desperate to find a pool of readers they force the authors to do a lot of their own marketing, or so I've read. Going through the indie publishing world I have no problem believing that if I got published by "Publishing Genius" a lot of the marketing and promoting would be on my shoulders, and at the least I'd have to do a lot of readings, but more than this. We live in an age where bookstores are dying and getting shelf space isn't such a big deal, so really everything has been equalized, unless someone is willing to spend thousands of dollars on a marketing campaign, but that's only for the big writers (Stephen King, Anne Rice, etc.).
I'm going to leave this here for now, and sit through my day of failure like a brave soldier, hoping I lost a battle, but will win the war.
Bknights Fiverr Day!
Everyday is a holiday in America, so tomorrow is Bknights Fiverr day for me, the most cryptic day of the year, but maybe also the most profound. Tomorrow, will be the first day I've ever done any advertising for a book, and that's remarkable. I've been "self-advertising" since November, but what's happening tomorrow feels very different, or maybe I won't feel anything at all. I could sell no books tomorrow, and get absolutely no push on "If So Carried," and have to accept this is possible. Let's face it, I don't know much about Bknights except from what I've read online, and my "title, blurb, cover," could be all wrong!
The only thing I can say for myself in the face of failure is that I'm one man and I've tried very hard to play it to line and do what the readers except of a book to interest them since it's readers I'm writing for, and one or two illiterates who pick up a book every seven years and get something out of it. Sure, I'm writing for myself too, and if you don't do this I highly doubt your writing will mean anything to anyone else, but I really think this story has merit and why I'm trying to publish it. This will probably be important to remember when my sales reach almost nothing tomorrow.
*Did another BKnights run and it felt more hollow this time. I hope whoever bought my book likes it, but it didn't feel as good as getting people to buy it through my endeavors. I'm not a politician with an email list.
The only thing I can say for myself in the face of failure is that I'm one man and I've tried very hard to play it to line and do what the readers except of a book to interest them since it's readers I'm writing for, and one or two illiterates who pick up a book every seven years and get something out of it. Sure, I'm writing for myself too, and if you don't do this I highly doubt your writing will mean anything to anyone else, but I really think this story has merit and why I'm trying to publish it. This will probably be important to remember when my sales reach almost nothing tomorrow.
*Did another BKnights run and it felt more hollow this time. I hope whoever bought my book likes it, but it didn't feel as good as getting people to buy it through my endeavors. I'm not a politician with an email list.
May 6, 2016
What's in a review?
We are a nation obsessed with voting, and ratings take the place of voting in elections, since everyday is a popularity contest in social media, not to mention TV. We're a nation of stars like Sly Stone predicted in "Everybody is a Star," but while his song was an affirmation of the power of the people, I'm afraid the original intent has been warped, and we're a nation of sycophants looking for approval. We can't stop rating things we're so obsessed with the power of the individual, and we don't seem to care how smart or stupid we are, since any vote expresses freedom.
It's almost impossible to find objective criticism in our highly politicized environment, and I guess stars or thumbs up/down, are the closest we can get, like the A to F letter grades in school. There isn't much variance in this system, and when I went to Oakwood in elementary school we didn't even have grades, because they were seen in the same way people see standardized testing now; as a way to box the individual into a neat package, and shrink him down. But Oakwood probably has grades circa 2016 since the ideals of the citizen have been shattered by the illusion of voting on social media for the celebrity we want, which in the end is usually ourselves.
In the old days, we had publishers or movie studio bosses to take care of our egos, but now we have only ourselves, and must rate our ourselves everyday, with a thumbs up or down, like a politician in a hot campaign. In a way, this is exciting but I fear it gives the lie to our actual political elections where our vote doesn't mean much, so maybe social media is society's way of making up for what we lack in real life.
I'm publishing a book and the 5 star rating system makes some sense to me, but it's the review that really matters, since the objectivity of stars can only account for so much in art. A four or five star review implies a job well done, and that the book wasn't too boring, while a one or two star review implies a job poorly done, though so much so the book may well be entertaining, at least in the short run, but entertainment is a double edged sword. A three star review to me sounds like the worst since it's like lukewarm water.
Truthfully, you have to read the reviews to understand a book, or take into account all the stars and all the reviews, coming to a totality in your mind. I got very good at this as a kid because my parents would leave the "Calendar" section of the L.A. Times out for me to read and I'd compile an aggregate of reviews, and essentially judge the critics, and became an astute observer. Society has gotten to a point where you almost need this third eye to understand anything at all since we live in a world of national elections where everyone is distorting the truth everyday for their popularity and political ends, a nation of voters, who don't bother going to the polls, but are instilled with a fat thumb and an iPhone, ready to weigh in on every scandal. You have to distill all criticism to come to a point, and that's too much for most people, so the best books go unread, but so do the worst.
It's almost impossible to find objective criticism in our highly politicized environment, and I guess stars or thumbs up/down, are the closest we can get, like the A to F letter grades in school. There isn't much variance in this system, and when I went to Oakwood in elementary school we didn't even have grades, because they were seen in the same way people see standardized testing now; as a way to box the individual into a neat package, and shrink him down. But Oakwood probably has grades circa 2016 since the ideals of the citizen have been shattered by the illusion of voting on social media for the celebrity we want, which in the end is usually ourselves.
In the old days, we had publishers or movie studio bosses to take care of our egos, but now we have only ourselves, and must rate our ourselves everyday, with a thumbs up or down, like a politician in a hot campaign. In a way, this is exciting but I fear it gives the lie to our actual political elections where our vote doesn't mean much, so maybe social media is society's way of making up for what we lack in real life.
I'm publishing a book and the 5 star rating system makes some sense to me, but it's the review that really matters, since the objectivity of stars can only account for so much in art. A four or five star review implies a job well done, and that the book wasn't too boring, while a one or two star review implies a job poorly done, though so much so the book may well be entertaining, at least in the short run, but entertainment is a double edged sword. A three star review to me sounds like the worst since it's like lukewarm water.
Truthfully, you have to read the reviews to understand a book, or take into account all the stars and all the reviews, coming to a totality in your mind. I got very good at this as a kid because my parents would leave the "Calendar" section of the L.A. Times out for me to read and I'd compile an aggregate of reviews, and essentially judge the critics, and became an astute observer. Society has gotten to a point where you almost need this third eye to understand anything at all since we live in a world of national elections where everyone is distorting the truth everyday for their popularity and political ends, a nation of voters, who don't bother going to the polls, but are instilled with a fat thumb and an iPhone, ready to weigh in on every scandal. You have to distill all criticism to come to a point, and that's too much for most people, so the best books go unread, but so do the worst.
May 5, 2016
The Democratic Party: 2016 vs. 2008
1. Bernie Sanders is a septuagenarian, and Obama was a dashing 40 something like the Kennedy's, in a tight fitting suit, neatly buttoned.
2. Hillary's campaign staff is better this time because she went with the youth adept in social media, instead of that Boomer Mark Penn. Robbie Mook is wont to say that Hillary is further ahead of Sanders at this point in the race, than Obama was ahead of Hillary at this point in 2008. I'm sure it's true, but the difference is Hillary Clinton is a very unpopular candidate, while Obama was the bomb, and the Country literally fell in love with him!
3. Obama was a 'tabla rasa' in 2008, or a blank slate. Sure, he'd recently become a Senator, but he skilfully had missed many votes, and had a pretty clean record. He also had the support of many in the Senate, and had reached across the aisle on one piece of legislation with Dick Luger from Indiana, a Republican, and used this as proof of his ability to work in a bipartisan fashion. Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure Dick Luger got primary'd by a Tea Party candidate, soon after Obama became President, nor do I remember him coming to Luger's aid.
Senator Sanders, or as Thom Hartmann, the great liberal talk show host used to call him, "America's Senator," has no legislative achievements to speak of, nor is he a 'tabla rasa.' If anything, Bernie Sanders is the opposite, a stalwart socialist thinking liberal from the '60's, who embodies the best of F.D.R.'s depression era economic ideas, and looks like it! Liberals painted what Bernie has done onto Obama, but were bitterly disappointed.
2. Obama in 2008 and Sanders in 2016 both attract the young, but I can't imagine any idealist attending an Obama rally now, since he proved himself to be very pro Wall. St., and war.
Obama was a transformational candidate, but Sanders is leading a transformational movement, and this is probably the biggest difference between the two, and a subtlety the mind needs to contemplate. Once the cult of Obama died when he proved himself to be in the Clintonian tradition, so did his support among the white liberal elite. It's important to remember that under Obama the Democrats not only lost Congress, but an overwhelming majority of governorship's, and his popularity hovers at about 50%. Politically, I believe the most transformational component of Obama was being an "African American" and winning the Democratic Primary campaign against the first woman running for President, Hillary Clinton. Obama was a 'tabla rasa,' and the people wanted to believe!
3. Hillary is pretty much the same mediocre candidate, and went so far as to admit it in 2016. In my opinion, she was playing the 'woman card' more effectively in 2008. She was younger, and seemed to have a little more life than she does now. The "Clinton Compromise" of the '90's, popularly known as "Triangulation," all but deconstructed the Democratic Party as America knew it, and this is slowly coming to light about twenty years later. That's why people were throwing dollar bills at the Clinton motorcade outside of George Clooney's mansion, and he went on "Meet the Press" the next day to apologize, and say we needed to get money out of politics, even though he spent the night hosting a party that raised millions for her.
4. This is a big point: There is an incredible dissonance between watching Bernie's big crowds, and Hillary in staged settings. It really LOOKS like he is winning, and yet he's not. The pundits say that's because Hillary is tapping into the traditional Democratic Party base for her victories, most notably "African Americans." The problem is the base of both Parties is shrinking and Independents rule the day.
I don't think there is an Independent in America today who'd vote for Hillary Clinton. The modern day Independent is a little different than it was when I first learned about him/her in John Anderson's failed third party bid against Reagan/Carter. I believed for a good 30 years that an Independent Party affiliation was basically a conservative position, but not anymore. Now an "Independent" means anyone frustrated with the "Two-Party Stranglehold" on the electorate, either from the far Left, or the far Right, with the near equivalents being "Socialists," and "Libertarians," a strange but generally harmonious marriage, and politics makes for strange bedfellows. Bernie will get a lot of these voters, but Hillary won't. There were less Independents in 2008 (no Tea Party), but still TV pundits were happy to gloat about how "Obama would win the Independents," and it was used as a rationale to explain why he was a more electable candidate in the general election, and an appeal to the "Superdelegates," who were still officially behind Hillary. Not many remember, but there was a week or two when people really thought the Superdelegates would go with Hillary even though Obama won more pledged delegates, his brilliant strategy in 2008 that Hillary has mimicked in 2016 without the public appeal.
5. The Superdelegates: In some ways, the Superdelegates, are in the same position they were in 2008, initially behind Hillary, but forced to reconsider when the outsider candidate was clearly more popular, but the difference was Obama had picked up more delegates than Sanders..... not a lot more, but he was winning and this made their decision easy. The Superdelegates are in both an easier and more difficult position this year: easier, because Hillary is winning, but more difficult because she's the most damaged front-runner I've seen in my life, and everyone knows it. She's not exactly lighting it up on the campaign trail.
Opinion: I think Bernie has every right to appeal to the Superdelegates to side with him even though the pundit class laughs this off as absurd, knowing Hillary rules the Democratic Party, and no such thing will ever happen. They're probably right but I choose to live in delusion, since this whole race from the Donald, to the Democratic front-runner being under an F.B.I. investigation, seems insane.
2. Hillary's campaign staff is better this time because she went with the youth adept in social media, instead of that Boomer Mark Penn. Robbie Mook is wont to say that Hillary is further ahead of Sanders at this point in the race, than Obama was ahead of Hillary at this point in 2008. I'm sure it's true, but the difference is Hillary Clinton is a very unpopular candidate, while Obama was the bomb, and the Country literally fell in love with him!
3. Obama was a 'tabla rasa' in 2008, or a blank slate. Sure, he'd recently become a Senator, but he skilfully had missed many votes, and had a pretty clean record. He also had the support of many in the Senate, and had reached across the aisle on one piece of legislation with Dick Luger from Indiana, a Republican, and used this as proof of his ability to work in a bipartisan fashion. Funnily enough, I'm pretty sure Dick Luger got primary'd by a Tea Party candidate, soon after Obama became President, nor do I remember him coming to Luger's aid.
Senator Sanders, or as Thom Hartmann, the great liberal talk show host used to call him, "America's Senator," has no legislative achievements to speak of, nor is he a 'tabla rasa.' If anything, Bernie Sanders is the opposite, a stalwart socialist thinking liberal from the '60's, who embodies the best of F.D.R.'s depression era economic ideas, and looks like it! Liberals painted what Bernie has done onto Obama, but were bitterly disappointed.
2. Obama in 2008 and Sanders in 2016 both attract the young, but I can't imagine any idealist attending an Obama rally now, since he proved himself to be very pro Wall. St., and war.
Obama was a transformational candidate, but Sanders is leading a transformational movement, and this is probably the biggest difference between the two, and a subtlety the mind needs to contemplate. Once the cult of Obama died when he proved himself to be in the Clintonian tradition, so did his support among the white liberal elite. It's important to remember that under Obama the Democrats not only lost Congress, but an overwhelming majority of governorship's, and his popularity hovers at about 50%. Politically, I believe the most transformational component of Obama was being an "African American" and winning the Democratic Primary campaign against the first woman running for President, Hillary Clinton. Obama was a 'tabla rasa,' and the people wanted to believe!
3. Hillary is pretty much the same mediocre candidate, and went so far as to admit it in 2016. In my opinion, she was playing the 'woman card' more effectively in 2008. She was younger, and seemed to have a little more life than she does now. The "Clinton Compromise" of the '90's, popularly known as "Triangulation," all but deconstructed the Democratic Party as America knew it, and this is slowly coming to light about twenty years later. That's why people were throwing dollar bills at the Clinton motorcade outside of George Clooney's mansion, and he went on "Meet the Press" the next day to apologize, and say we needed to get money out of politics, even though he spent the night hosting a party that raised millions for her.
4. This is a big point: There is an incredible dissonance between watching Bernie's big crowds, and Hillary in staged settings. It really LOOKS like he is winning, and yet he's not. The pundits say that's because Hillary is tapping into the traditional Democratic Party base for her victories, most notably "African Americans." The problem is the base of both Parties is shrinking and Independents rule the day.
I don't think there is an Independent in America today who'd vote for Hillary Clinton. The modern day Independent is a little different than it was when I first learned about him/her in John Anderson's failed third party bid against Reagan/Carter. I believed for a good 30 years that an Independent Party affiliation was basically a conservative position, but not anymore. Now an "Independent" means anyone frustrated with the "Two-Party Stranglehold" on the electorate, either from the far Left, or the far Right, with the near equivalents being "Socialists," and "Libertarians," a strange but generally harmonious marriage, and politics makes for strange bedfellows. Bernie will get a lot of these voters, but Hillary won't. There were less Independents in 2008 (no Tea Party), but still TV pundits were happy to gloat about how "Obama would win the Independents," and it was used as a rationale to explain why he was a more electable candidate in the general election, and an appeal to the "Superdelegates," who were still officially behind Hillary. Not many remember, but there was a week or two when people really thought the Superdelegates would go with Hillary even though Obama won more pledged delegates, his brilliant strategy in 2008 that Hillary has mimicked in 2016 without the public appeal.
5. The Superdelegates: In some ways, the Superdelegates, are in the same position they were in 2008, initially behind Hillary, but forced to reconsider when the outsider candidate was clearly more popular, but the difference was Obama had picked up more delegates than Sanders..... not a lot more, but he was winning and this made their decision easy. The Superdelegates are in both an easier and more difficult position this year: easier, because Hillary is winning, but more difficult because she's the most damaged front-runner I've seen in my life, and everyone knows it. She's not exactly lighting it up on the campaign trail.
Opinion: I think Bernie has every right to appeal to the Superdelegates to side with him even though the pundit class laughs this off as absurd, knowing Hillary rules the Democratic Party, and no such thing will ever happen. They're probably right but I choose to live in delusion, since this whole race from the Donald, to the Democratic front-runner being under an F.B.I. investigation, seems insane.
May 2, 2016
Presidential elections of my lifetime
1. '68: Change Election
Richard Nixon: status-quo candidate
Humbert Humphrey: status-quo candidate
The '68 campaign started with the incumbent, Lyndon B. Johnson withdrawing from the race and leaving the Democratic field open for two change candidates: Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. But Kennedy was assassinated, and the party elders chose Humphrey over McCarthy at the Democratic convention amidst a sea of police brutality and chaos. In a traditional reelection campaign, Nixon would've been the change candidate, but not this time.
2. '72: Status-Quo/Change Election
Richard M. Nixon: status quo candidate
George McGovern: change candidate
McGovern's monumental loss was seen as a blow to the left wing of the Democratic Party, and has all but defined the Party's attitude towards general election candidate's to this day. McGovern may have been the right man in '68, but not '72, proving that the Democrats don't have the best timing. Nixon was also a very savvy politician, not unlike Bill Clinton, and managed to triangulate and co-opt a number of Democratic Party issues in a way that appealed to enough of the electorate (ending the Vietnam War, creating the EPA, etc.).
3. '76: Change Election
Gerald Ford: status-quo candidate
Jimmy Carter: change candidate
This election had the potential of having two change candidates battling each other for the Presidency, except that Reagan narrowly lost out on upsetting Gerald Ford in the Republican primary, after Richard Nixon's ignominious resignation from the oval office over Watergate (starting the 'gate' hyphen after every D.C. scandal). This time the Democrats got the mood right, but not right enough, because the change the Country was looking for was in Reagan, not Carter. Reagan had none of Nixon's triangulation and was a hardline right winger, while Carter was something of a New Deal Democrat who thought the Country needed to start rationing energy, and the electorate didn't want to hear it.
4. '80: Change Election
Ronald Reagan: change candidate
Jimmy Carter: status-quo candidate
This election marked a seismic shift in the political landscape, and Reagan destroyed Carter, an incumbent, and this was interpreted as a mandate. In office, Carter gave a famous speech about the 'spiritual malaise' in America after the Vietnam War, and the start of polarized politics, while on the campaign trail Reagan talked about America as 'the shining city on the hill,' and offered the people, 'a new morning in America.' Reagan on horseback in the Santa Barbra hills was the perfect antidote for a Country tired of soul searching.
5. '84: Status-Quo Election
Ronald Reagan: status-quo candidate
Walter Mondale: change candidate
This was the Orwellian election that everyone feared, and in true Orwellian fashion an ex B-list movie star, Reagan, was setting himself up for a place on Mt. Rushmore one day. There probably wasn't anything the Democrats could do this time around, but Mondale was as uninspiring candidate as Humbert Humphrey, who was a more status-quo candidate but from another time. He was the last New Deal Democrat to run for President, and the end of an era.
6. '88: Status-Quo Election
George Bush: status-quo candidate
Michael Dukakis: change candidate
This was the first Presidential election I could vote in and to me defined the beginning of apathy that all but defined American presidential elections until 2004. Bush was Reagan's VP and ran as his third term, while Dukakis was not the right change candidate by a long shot. Gary Hart was the new JFK, and a true progressive, but like his hero had a penchant for women and was taken down in the Nation's first big Presidential sex scandal, and a precursor of things to come. Dukakis was very much a compromise candidate, a problem that seems to bedevil the Democratic Party, whether by their own making or not.
7. '92: Change/Status-Quo Election
Bill Clinton: change candidate
George Bush: status-quo candidate
This was a mixed election like '72, and Bill Clinton wisely ran as a 'New Democrat,' descrying that liberalism was over, and took Jerry Brown down in the primaries to prove it. In some ways, this was George Bush's election to lose, and if he hadn't been such an unlikeable politician, often portrayed as a wimp, he may have won it. In retrospect, there would've been very little difference between a Clinton presidency, or a Bush one, and this started the rather popular notion that there was no difference between the Party's and that the era of polarized politics was over.
8. '96: Status-Quo Election
Bill Clinton: status-quo candidate
Bob Dole: ?
This was a sleeper and I don't remember Bob Dole ever mounting much of a challenge. He was the Republican Party's equivalent of Walter Mondale, an old timer out of touch, but didn't offer as much of a change as Mondale. If anything, Dole hearkened back to the Nixon era and an early '70's triangulation from the Right, when the Country was still under the sway of F.D.R. Clinton argued that the Country was under the mood of a Reagan era, and triangulated from the Left, so they were actually mirrors.
9. '00: Status-Quo Election
Al Gore: status-quo candidate
George W. Bush: change candidate
Al Gore was Bill Clinton's popular VP but Ralph Nader may have upset the apple cart in '00 by taking votes away from him. W. was able to tap into an evangelical voting bloc that all but tilted the scales in his favor, but he wasn't a popular president, and you could say Gore lost this election, rather than W. winning it. Gore refused to campaign with Bill Clinton because he wanted to distance himself from the Lewinsky sex scandal, but this proved to be a fatal tactical error.
10. '04: Change Election
George W. Bush: status-quo candidate
John Kerry: change candidate
W. literally ran on 'stay the course' and it worked well enough to eek out a victory over a weak change candidate. Kerry was the establishment's choice in the primaries, and given the nature of the election, he was challenged by the Left, or what they called 'the democratic wing of the democratic party,' but to no avail. I'm not sure Howard Dean would've defeated W., but the electorate wasn't voting for Kerry, but rather against Bush.
11. '08: Change Election
Barack Obama: change candidate
John McCain: status-quo candidate
I'm not sure there was anything the Republican Party could've done to win this one after 8 years of W., the least popular President in my lifetime. McCain tried to run as a maverick, but Obama was the first Black man to run for President, and a 'maverick' from Arizona couldn't top this. In some ways, the general election became famous for Sarah Palin, McCain's pick for VP, and a truly outlandish choice. Most will remember Obama's epic upset against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, but not the general election.
12. '12: Status-Quo Election
Barack Obama: status-quo candidate
Mitt Romney: shape-shifter candidate
Like '96, this was one of the duller reelection campaigns, and the incumbent pretty much had it in the bag from the outset. Obama was a 'tabla rasa' in '08 but by '12 he had proven himself to be more of a status-quo candidate, than a change candidate, save for the grandiose implications of being the first Black president, and why he'll primarily be remembered. Romney never got his footing in this campaign and was basically labeled a 'flip-flopper' like John Kerry in '04.
13. '16: Change Election
Hillary Clinton: status-quo candidate
Donald Trump: change candidate
*Bernie Sanders: change candidate
*Ted Cruz: change candidate
*John Kasich: status-quo candidate
*current contenders
Conclusions:
It would seem that a change candidate winning in a status quo election, or a status-quo candidate winning in a change election, is generally doomed to unpopularity. If Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman President, this wouldn't bode well for her in the oval office, and Trump may be considered a more successful President by the electorate. The only caveat here is the '76 election, when the wrong change candidate won (Carter not Reagan), and that may be the case in '16, with Bernie Sanders being the right change candidate. The Democrats will be repeating the mistakes of '68 by electing Hillary for Obama's third term, and ironically she has a similar kind of Nixonian scandal hanging over her head.
Richard Nixon: status-quo candidate
Humbert Humphrey: status-quo candidate
The '68 campaign started with the incumbent, Lyndon B. Johnson withdrawing from the race and leaving the Democratic field open for two change candidates: Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy. But Kennedy was assassinated, and the party elders chose Humphrey over McCarthy at the Democratic convention amidst a sea of police brutality and chaos. In a traditional reelection campaign, Nixon would've been the change candidate, but not this time.
2. '72: Status-Quo/Change Election
Richard M. Nixon: status quo candidate
George McGovern: change candidate
McGovern's monumental loss was seen as a blow to the left wing of the Democratic Party, and has all but defined the Party's attitude towards general election candidate's to this day. McGovern may have been the right man in '68, but not '72, proving that the Democrats don't have the best timing. Nixon was also a very savvy politician, not unlike Bill Clinton, and managed to triangulate and co-opt a number of Democratic Party issues in a way that appealed to enough of the electorate (ending the Vietnam War, creating the EPA, etc.).
3. '76: Change Election
Gerald Ford: status-quo candidate
Jimmy Carter: change candidate
This election had the potential of having two change candidates battling each other for the Presidency, except that Reagan narrowly lost out on upsetting Gerald Ford in the Republican primary, after Richard Nixon's ignominious resignation from the oval office over Watergate (starting the 'gate' hyphen after every D.C. scandal). This time the Democrats got the mood right, but not right enough, because the change the Country was looking for was in Reagan, not Carter. Reagan had none of Nixon's triangulation and was a hardline right winger, while Carter was something of a New Deal Democrat who thought the Country needed to start rationing energy, and the electorate didn't want to hear it.
4. '80: Change Election
Ronald Reagan: change candidate
Jimmy Carter: status-quo candidate
This election marked a seismic shift in the political landscape, and Reagan destroyed Carter, an incumbent, and this was interpreted as a mandate. In office, Carter gave a famous speech about the 'spiritual malaise' in America after the Vietnam War, and the start of polarized politics, while on the campaign trail Reagan talked about America as 'the shining city on the hill,' and offered the people, 'a new morning in America.' Reagan on horseback in the Santa Barbra hills was the perfect antidote for a Country tired of soul searching.
5. '84: Status-Quo Election
Ronald Reagan: status-quo candidate
Walter Mondale: change candidate
This was the Orwellian election that everyone feared, and in true Orwellian fashion an ex B-list movie star, Reagan, was setting himself up for a place on Mt. Rushmore one day. There probably wasn't anything the Democrats could do this time around, but Mondale was as uninspiring candidate as Humbert Humphrey, who was a more status-quo candidate but from another time. He was the last New Deal Democrat to run for President, and the end of an era.
6. '88: Status-Quo Election
George Bush: status-quo candidate
Michael Dukakis: change candidate
This was the first Presidential election I could vote in and to me defined the beginning of apathy that all but defined American presidential elections until 2004. Bush was Reagan's VP and ran as his third term, while Dukakis was not the right change candidate by a long shot. Gary Hart was the new JFK, and a true progressive, but like his hero had a penchant for women and was taken down in the Nation's first big Presidential sex scandal, and a precursor of things to come. Dukakis was very much a compromise candidate, a problem that seems to bedevil the Democratic Party, whether by their own making or not.
7. '92: Change/Status-Quo Election
Bill Clinton: change candidate
George Bush: status-quo candidate
This was a mixed election like '72, and Bill Clinton wisely ran as a 'New Democrat,' descrying that liberalism was over, and took Jerry Brown down in the primaries to prove it. In some ways, this was George Bush's election to lose, and if he hadn't been such an unlikeable politician, often portrayed as a wimp, he may have won it. In retrospect, there would've been very little difference between a Clinton presidency, or a Bush one, and this started the rather popular notion that there was no difference between the Party's and that the era of polarized politics was over.
8. '96: Status-Quo Election
Bill Clinton: status-quo candidate
Bob Dole: ?
This was a sleeper and I don't remember Bob Dole ever mounting much of a challenge. He was the Republican Party's equivalent of Walter Mondale, an old timer out of touch, but didn't offer as much of a change as Mondale. If anything, Dole hearkened back to the Nixon era and an early '70's triangulation from the Right, when the Country was still under the sway of F.D.R. Clinton argued that the Country was under the mood of a Reagan era, and triangulated from the Left, so they were actually mirrors.
9. '00: Status-Quo Election
Al Gore: status-quo candidate
George W. Bush: change candidate
Al Gore was Bill Clinton's popular VP but Ralph Nader may have upset the apple cart in '00 by taking votes away from him. W. was able to tap into an evangelical voting bloc that all but tilted the scales in his favor, but he wasn't a popular president, and you could say Gore lost this election, rather than W. winning it. Gore refused to campaign with Bill Clinton because he wanted to distance himself from the Lewinsky sex scandal, but this proved to be a fatal tactical error.
10. '04: Change Election
George W. Bush: status-quo candidate
John Kerry: change candidate
W. literally ran on 'stay the course' and it worked well enough to eek out a victory over a weak change candidate. Kerry was the establishment's choice in the primaries, and given the nature of the election, he was challenged by the Left, or what they called 'the democratic wing of the democratic party,' but to no avail. I'm not sure Howard Dean would've defeated W., but the electorate wasn't voting for Kerry, but rather against Bush.
11. '08: Change Election
Barack Obama: change candidate
John McCain: status-quo candidate
I'm not sure there was anything the Republican Party could've done to win this one after 8 years of W., the least popular President in my lifetime. McCain tried to run as a maverick, but Obama was the first Black man to run for President, and a 'maverick' from Arizona couldn't top this. In some ways, the general election became famous for Sarah Palin, McCain's pick for VP, and a truly outlandish choice. Most will remember Obama's epic upset against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primaries, but not the general election.
12. '12: Status-Quo Election
Barack Obama: status-quo candidate
Mitt Romney: shape-shifter candidate
Like '96, this was one of the duller reelection campaigns, and the incumbent pretty much had it in the bag from the outset. Obama was a 'tabla rasa' in '08 but by '12 he had proven himself to be more of a status-quo candidate, than a change candidate, save for the grandiose implications of being the first Black president, and why he'll primarily be remembered. Romney never got his footing in this campaign and was basically labeled a 'flip-flopper' like John Kerry in '04.
13. '16: Change Election
Hillary Clinton: status-quo candidate
Donald Trump: change candidate
*Bernie Sanders: change candidate
*Ted Cruz: change candidate
*John Kasich: status-quo candidate
*current contenders
Conclusions:
It would seem that a change candidate winning in a status quo election, or a status-quo candidate winning in a change election, is generally doomed to unpopularity. If Hillary Clinton becomes the first woman President, this wouldn't bode well for her in the oval office, and Trump may be considered a more successful President by the electorate. The only caveat here is the '76 election, when the wrong change candidate won (Carter not Reagan), and that may be the case in '16, with Bernie Sanders being the right change candidate. The Democrats will be repeating the mistakes of '68 by electing Hillary for Obama's third term, and ironically she has a similar kind of Nixonian scandal hanging over her head.
April 26, 2016
Freedom isn't free, and neither is self-publishing
I started the process of publishing "If So Carried by the Wind" about two years ago and read it was going to cost me about $500. "I'm not going to be a sucker and pay money for this since I wrote a masterpiece that will sell itself," I thought, but quickly realized no book sells itself. I had what I considered a kick-ass cover an artist friend designed, but not a graphic/commercial artist. He came down hard on the manuscript a couple of months after I published "If So Carried" and told me it needed an edit. I put that off for a year and the whole project went on the back burner and was still free.
I'm in the second phase of publishing my starter book, and I'm now seeing the $500 estimate coming to bear. I'm getting to this number incrementally, and in some ways that softens the blow of putting down money for the possibility of little to no return (I'll get to the economic breakdown soon enough). My take on this is that publishing has become my passion and gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. Writing used to do this for me, but there is only so much one can write, and I've come to the conclusion "If So Carried" is worth it.
Here's what I've spent so far:
1. Edit = $196.00
2. Kindle Cover = $45.00
Here's what I plan to spend:
1. Create Space paperback cover = $80.00
2. Cheap Web Site = $18.00 (?)
3. Kindle = $50.00 (?)
All of this, of course, is for a marketing campaign that could cost anywhere from $20.00 to $20,000.00 though I'd start small rather than wage an all-out assault where I flood social media.
So, where did I save money? I did my own formatting, for better or worse, and I'm sure that would've been around $80.00, nor did I use an ad agency for the blurb or tagline, nor have I paid for reviews, and everything else was on the cheap. But I was lucky to get a quality edit and in the end that's what counts.
I'm in the second phase of publishing my starter book, and I'm now seeing the $500 estimate coming to bear. I'm getting to this number incrementally, and in some ways that softens the blow of putting down money for the possibility of little to no return (I'll get to the economic breakdown soon enough). My take on this is that publishing has become my passion and gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. Writing used to do this for me, but there is only so much one can write, and I've come to the conclusion "If So Carried" is worth it.
Here's what I've spent so far:
1. Edit = $196.00
2. Kindle Cover = $45.00
Here's what I plan to spend:
1. Create Space paperback cover = $80.00
2. Cheap Web Site = $18.00 (?)
3. Kindle = $50.00 (?)
All of this, of course, is for a marketing campaign that could cost anywhere from $20.00 to $20,000.00 though I'd start small rather than wage an all-out assault where I flood social media.
So, where did I save money? I did my own formatting, for better or worse, and I'm sure that would've been around $80.00, nor did I use an ad agency for the blurb or tagline, nor have I paid for reviews, and everything else was on the cheap. But I was lucky to get a quality edit and in the end that's what counts.
April 24, 2016
Sunday night TV
Nothing is better than the family getting together for Sunday nite TV, even if it's just you and your Teddy bear. Watch a few mainstream melodramas and get close.
March 27, 2016
A meditation on Craig Gilbert and Me
By almost any standard, "An American Family" is one of the most important documentaries to be made in the history of television, and was proably the edgiest PBS ever got to boost its ratings, but a beautiful artistic edge that they've never been able to duplicate. So, how is it possible that Craig Gilbert never made a documentary again!
The best answer I could get was from watching a surprisingly good HBO movie about the making of "An Ameican Family," and Craig Gilbert gave the impression that art had mixed with life in ways he couldn't imagine when he embarked on his project, and he was shattered. "An American Family," became a suprise zeitgiest, and landed on the cover of Newsweek, so I'm sure Gilbert got a lot more attention than he imagined, and the thing about fame is that no one knows how they are going to react when it happens to them. But I think what brought Gilbert down is that the "Loud's," the family he chose to represent in American in '71, knee deep in the glam years, got as much criticism as they did from America, and really drawing a line in the sane over their morals, or lack of them. They were a classic upper middle class Santa Barbara nuclear family circa '71, and were on the verge of divorce, a reality that happens in the course of the shooting, so the family breaks up and America picked sides. Specifically, Gilbert was charged with egging on the divorce so that his 'documentary' would have a story, but he denies sleeping with Pat Loud.
I'd like to think that the genre defining brilliance of "An American Family" overwhelmed the auteur, and he had created something much greater and larger than he imagined when he embarked on the project, and I think this really happens in art all the time, and could be persuaded to argue that if it doesn't happen the art probably isn't great, and will serve more as entertainment than anything to be remembered. "An American Family" was truly the opposite of this, and somehow took on a life of its own that drowned Craig Gilbert in implications worthy of a crime in the court of the occult, or setting loose the demons out of a Pandora's Box. Clearly, it's the kind of work that couldn't be repeated or improved on, and yet artists go on in spite of achieving this, so why not Gilbert? I don't really know, but I feel a lot like him lately, even though my story isn't exactly the same. I've written more books than "If So Carried by the Wind," and all but started an art movement called "Bagism" that has yet to be released upon the world, but it's no a massive resume, and could just as easily end where it began.
I think Gilbert got hung up on the impossible to answer question of the effect he was having on people in real life, and how he was hurting them. He saw the ramifications of his art splayed back on a family that he'd become close to over the course of a year, and broke a few ethical grounds to get some footage (short of cheating), and so altered the results for art. More than that, Gilbert had to wonder to what degree his film had broken up a family, and how true he was in his anthropological rationale to be an accurate ethnographer, and how an ethnography ultimately alters the ethnographer, so he takes on the sins of those he's observing in order to better understand them, and is changed. At the very least, Gilbert and his skeleton crew of cinema verite idealists, made a masterpiece that all but changed how Americans looked at art, or TV, and to prove it "An American Family" has now become cited as a major influence on reality TV, but when I was growing up it was anthropology. To be honest, I'm not sure anyone knows what it is and that's what makes "An American Family" such an enigma that I never get tired of immersing in. Sure, some of this may have to do with me being raised in Southern California near the Loud's, and there's no doubt the art that mirrors our own actual life will touch us closer, or more intimately, than that which paints a foreign land, that makes us dream.
So, why do I feel like Craig Gilbert? Well, I've written a book that is a little like his movie. It's about an actual family in California, and it's also like an ethnography of a tribal way of life, and explicitly not a work of fiction. I was also told not to publish it because it hit too close to the bone, and would reveal people who didn't want to be revealed, unlike the Loud's, clamoring for attention. I was told it would be sacrilege to publish it even though it was eminently publishable, and that I'd pay a price in the occult realm, where the enemies of art toy with each other over the artist's soul. It's almost like I had the same wide eyed admiration Gilbert had except it was among my mentors and heroes in the realm of art, an elite few, who decreed many things on my behalf. Sure, Gilbert had the American public breathing down his throat, but the idea being someone was breathing down his throat, and that's a hard position to be in. I could also imagine some people begging for such attention, but to others it's too much to take, and they crumble under the pressure of scrutiny, and how their actions are affecting not only their earthly life, but possibly how they'll be judged by God. It's my belief that a work of creation can only elicit this feeling if it's truly worthy, and that it does so on its own volition, with a little help along the way.
It's very possible that with the publication of "If So Carried by the Wind," I will make almost no forward movement in art, and wallow in the implications of what I've done, but I'm not saying that as an over-romantic twenty year old! I really think I've done that one work of art people dream of and the implications are far bigger than I could even glean, even though I've been gleaning them for about 18 years now, and may spend the next 18 doing the same. Like "An American Family" I never get tired of reading this story, and I don't feel that way towards anything else I've written. It has literally been a fount of endless inspiration to me with no easy answers at the end, and every time I re-read it I see it in a new way. Sure, I get sick of it sometimes, but if I let it sit for a year or two and pick it up it's there for me all over again to prove my life as a writer was worth it.
I had a lot of crazy feelings when I was first told how good it was by Casey and Stan Rice. The first was pride that I'd done what I set out to do when I started writing at about twenty, and that I really had amounted to something. The next feeling was anger that I was being told I couldn't publish it, and that if I had a soul I wouldn't. I reveled in the irony for years of how the one important thing I had written, was unreadable, and that there was a metaphysical lock on it, while mediocrities all around me rose to the heights of fame on almost no discernible achievement, save they were entertaining, or pretty, or smart. To make matters worse, I'd done a few rewrites that gutted all the poetry out of "If So Carried" and put the project on hold indefinitely, not to mention giving me a dose of paranoia that the Gods really had it in for me, and that I'd never get the manuscript right. At the same time, I didn't really want to 'get the manuscript right' because I was forbidden from publishing it, and even if I did it would define me, like Casey in the pages of "If So Carried." I didn't want to go against his teaching, and become defined as a Beat historian, or something silly like that, but we become what we hate, or so he taught me, and it may be a blessing in disguise that it has taken me this long to birth my beginning and end. If I had done this when I was younger, I may never have been a Bagist with Seaside Johnny a few years ago, during Obama's reelection campaign, and the world would've been denied a great series of paintings on bags, but that's another story.
It wasn't surprising Craig Gilbert gave up on filmmaking after "An American Family." Everything else would've been so horribly second rate it would've been only mercenary, so I guess he didn't need money. Or maybe he became a pizza delivery driver like me. I hope he got over the guilt of what he did to that family, or what he documented, and that God won't judge him too harshly, but none of us know how God is going to judge us, and it's true some of us live much larger than life lives and have a lot more to be judged on, than others. I'd like to think that Craig Gilbert's contribution was greater than his judgment, and that he's doing enough reflection to justify his success.
The best answer I could get was from watching a surprisingly good HBO movie about the making of "An Ameican Family," and Craig Gilbert gave the impression that art had mixed with life in ways he couldn't imagine when he embarked on his project, and he was shattered. "An American Family," became a suprise zeitgiest, and landed on the cover of Newsweek, so I'm sure Gilbert got a lot more attention than he imagined, and the thing about fame is that no one knows how they are going to react when it happens to them. But I think what brought Gilbert down is that the "Loud's," the family he chose to represent in American in '71, knee deep in the glam years, got as much criticism as they did from America, and really drawing a line in the sane over their morals, or lack of them. They were a classic upper middle class Santa Barbara nuclear family circa '71, and were on the verge of divorce, a reality that happens in the course of the shooting, so the family breaks up and America picked sides. Specifically, Gilbert was charged with egging on the divorce so that his 'documentary' would have a story, but he denies sleeping with Pat Loud.
I'd like to think that the genre defining brilliance of "An American Family" overwhelmed the auteur, and he had created something much greater and larger than he imagined when he embarked on the project, and I think this really happens in art all the time, and could be persuaded to argue that if it doesn't happen the art probably isn't great, and will serve more as entertainment than anything to be remembered. "An American Family" was truly the opposite of this, and somehow took on a life of its own that drowned Craig Gilbert in implications worthy of a crime in the court of the occult, or setting loose the demons out of a Pandora's Box. Clearly, it's the kind of work that couldn't be repeated or improved on, and yet artists go on in spite of achieving this, so why not Gilbert? I don't really know, but I feel a lot like him lately, even though my story isn't exactly the same. I've written more books than "If So Carried by the Wind," and all but started an art movement called "Bagism" that has yet to be released upon the world, but it's no a massive resume, and could just as easily end where it began.
I think Gilbert got hung up on the impossible to answer question of the effect he was having on people in real life, and how he was hurting them. He saw the ramifications of his art splayed back on a family that he'd become close to over the course of a year, and broke a few ethical grounds to get some footage (short of cheating), and so altered the results for art. More than that, Gilbert had to wonder to what degree his film had broken up a family, and how true he was in his anthropological rationale to be an accurate ethnographer, and how an ethnography ultimately alters the ethnographer, so he takes on the sins of those he's observing in order to better understand them, and is changed. At the very least, Gilbert and his skeleton crew of cinema verite idealists, made a masterpiece that all but changed how Americans looked at art, or TV, and to prove it "An American Family" has now become cited as a major influence on reality TV, but when I was growing up it was anthropology. To be honest, I'm not sure anyone knows what it is and that's what makes "An American Family" such an enigma that I never get tired of immersing in. Sure, some of this may have to do with me being raised in Southern California near the Loud's, and there's no doubt the art that mirrors our own actual life will touch us closer, or more intimately, than that which paints a foreign land, that makes us dream.
So, why do I feel like Craig Gilbert? Well, I've written a book that is a little like his movie. It's about an actual family in California, and it's also like an ethnography of a tribal way of life, and explicitly not a work of fiction. I was also told not to publish it because it hit too close to the bone, and would reveal people who didn't want to be revealed, unlike the Loud's, clamoring for attention. I was told it would be sacrilege to publish it even though it was eminently publishable, and that I'd pay a price in the occult realm, where the enemies of art toy with each other over the artist's soul. It's almost like I had the same wide eyed admiration Gilbert had except it was among my mentors and heroes in the realm of art, an elite few, who decreed many things on my behalf. Sure, Gilbert had the American public breathing down his throat, but the idea being someone was breathing down his throat, and that's a hard position to be in. I could also imagine some people begging for such attention, but to others it's too much to take, and they crumble under the pressure of scrutiny, and how their actions are affecting not only their earthly life, but possibly how they'll be judged by God. It's my belief that a work of creation can only elicit this feeling if it's truly worthy, and that it does so on its own volition, with a little help along the way.
It's very possible that with the publication of "If So Carried by the Wind," I will make almost no forward movement in art, and wallow in the implications of what I've done, but I'm not saying that as an over-romantic twenty year old! I really think I've done that one work of art people dream of and the implications are far bigger than I could even glean, even though I've been gleaning them for about 18 years now, and may spend the next 18 doing the same. Like "An American Family" I never get tired of reading this story, and I don't feel that way towards anything else I've written. It has literally been a fount of endless inspiration to me with no easy answers at the end, and every time I re-read it I see it in a new way. Sure, I get sick of it sometimes, but if I let it sit for a year or two and pick it up it's there for me all over again to prove my life as a writer was worth it.
I had a lot of crazy feelings when I was first told how good it was by Casey and Stan Rice. The first was pride that I'd done what I set out to do when I started writing at about twenty, and that I really had amounted to something. The next feeling was anger that I was being told I couldn't publish it, and that if I had a soul I wouldn't. I reveled in the irony for years of how the one important thing I had written, was unreadable, and that there was a metaphysical lock on it, while mediocrities all around me rose to the heights of fame on almost no discernible achievement, save they were entertaining, or pretty, or smart. To make matters worse, I'd done a few rewrites that gutted all the poetry out of "If So Carried" and put the project on hold indefinitely, not to mention giving me a dose of paranoia that the Gods really had it in for me, and that I'd never get the manuscript right. At the same time, I didn't really want to 'get the manuscript right' because I was forbidden from publishing it, and even if I did it would define me, like Casey in the pages of "If So Carried." I didn't want to go against his teaching, and become defined as a Beat historian, or something silly like that, but we become what we hate, or so he taught me, and it may be a blessing in disguise that it has taken me this long to birth my beginning and end. If I had done this when I was younger, I may never have been a Bagist with Seaside Johnny a few years ago, during Obama's reelection campaign, and the world would've been denied a great series of paintings on bags, but that's another story.
It wasn't surprising Craig Gilbert gave up on filmmaking after "An American Family." Everything else would've been so horribly second rate it would've been only mercenary, so I guess he didn't need money. Or maybe he became a pizza delivery driver like me. I hope he got over the guilt of what he did to that family, or what he documented, and that God won't judge him too harshly, but none of us know how God is going to judge us, and it's true some of us live much larger than life lives and have a lot more to be judged on, than others. I'd like to think that Craig Gilbert's contribution was greater than his judgment, and that he's doing enough reflection to justify his success.
March 8, 2016
The haters are going to hate Ryan Adams' "1989"
I love this record but can't admit it (there I admitted it). It's a great love record and that's very rare in this world. Taylor Swift is a great songwriter whose best songs are poetic gems, and the worst forgettably poetic, but either way they are all poems, and you can tell she's a very good poet. She works very hard at getting her words exactly right, and while there is a certain predictable quality to them, it's the kind of predictably that strikes a real chord in my heart, and obviously millions of other people, because she's the most famous pop star on the planet. I checked out "1989" from the library, the year I was 21, and got some good listens, but for me Taylor Swift is a great radio artist who gets played so much I don't really have to own the records. I end up knowing the better half of them by heart, the six or seven singles the music industry moguls space out cleverly, so that Taylor plays for a whole year.
I haven't listened to a lot of Ryan Adams in my life, but enough to respect him. I get that there is something primal about him, and very unperfect, that's good for rock n' roll. But I've never listened to Ryan Adams like I have since "1989," so I've got to say it's a great covers record that really reintrepts an artist so much that you almost want to say it's a Ryan Adams masterpiece, and it is, but he's covering Taylor Swift songs. There are times I almost feel ashamed for Ryan Adams when he breaks into Taylor Swift's ultra pop "Welcome to New York," but in the end Swift is a very good song writer and Adams has seen the real love struck beauty in her songs, that Swift sometimes hides with a LOT of production (if I have a complaint of her, it's that "1989" was too overproduced for me song by song, to make want to put it on, but four or five tracks are great radio music, and I love to hear them in the Movin' mix.) Ryan Adams really strips these songs down, so they have almost none of Swift's production, and this really changes them, along with his sensitive performances, but I'd argue Swift's songs are the reason for this, since they are very well written. But I can't listen to Taylor Swift's "1989" in its entirety but I can the Ryan Adams version, even if a few songs at the end aren't the best,
On You Tube, I saw a really interesting interview between Adams and Swift, and she talked about how she wrote her lyrics, and it reminded me very much of how I wrote poetry in college, aching over every line, and I think you hear this in her music.... not the ache but the pain that goes into every line, and the poetic beauty. At her worst, Taylor has a Hallmark Card quality, but at her best she shines as a voice of the masses, and occasionally a brilliant mind. Ryan Adams took Swift's lyrics and changed them in places, or left parts out, or added parts (?), so he really made these songs his own, and I guess the emarrassing and/or brilliant thing for him is that he has admitted to the world he's a huge Taylor Swift fan, and may even have a crush on her. I mean Ryan Adams is Indie cool and for him to admit his love for a mainstream Goddess like Swift all but validates her stature as a major cultural figure, so he's really gone out on an artistic limb. In some ways, his whole career could be summed up by this record, even though I know nothing about Ryan Adams, so maybe he's already made in his name, and this will be a quirky footnote that people either love or hate, but..... it's stiall a statement. We live inj a culture war where artists like Taylor Swift are condemned for being shallow, and yet their music seems more relevant now than one could have even imagined a few years ago. I had an amazing moment last week when I was walking by Bimbo's, the rock n' roll pick up dive of Seattle, and they were blasting "Trouble," and it sounded unironic.
I don't know if "1989" sounds like a normal Ryan Adams record or not, but probably not. I heard one once during a period I was painting on supermarket bags with Seaside Johnny, and it sounded like contemporary folk, mixing punk, traditional ballads, and rock n' roll, in a classic style, so there is something pure about Ryan Adams, like he's from the middle of the Country, and something a little stupid about him, but there's something stupid about rock n' roll, with a knowing glance, and Ryan Adams has done his best to capture it on "1989," by daring to be laughed at by his contemporaries, and considered a fool by my generation, thinking he was trying too hard to be ironic, and he was, but..... I've now listened to this record almost non-stop for a week and it's a very tender one about heart break, and I'd say the first 8 or 9 songs are classics, because the are great Taylor Swift songs. I don't think the last few are as good, but that's the dark side of Taylor.... saccharine sweetness.
The best song on Ryan Adams's "1989" may be "Style, because he taps into a Springsteen like feel on it, or something garage/punk from the '80's, like he does on much of the record, when the songs require it. Taylor Swift's version of "Style" was a big hit on the radio and one of my favorites, but it wasn't as brilliant as "Blank Space," a masterpiece, that Adams reintrepts. It was a kind of Don Henley "Boys of Summer" feel that was actually done by Mike Campbell, Tom Petty's lead guitarist, and collaborator, and I thought the mood Taylor Swift got on it was very relatable. I really felt like she was singing about me, and the future of her, and everyone in America, who somewhow defined the Country without tyring to, just amazing replicas of a national character, and Taylor Swift is that, and so was the man she imagined in the song. I'd listen to it every time it came on, looking forward to it, but Ryan Adams takes it even further. He changes the lyrics to "she's got that Daydream Nation look in her eye" and Sonic Youth did put out "Daydream Nation" in 1989, so I got what Adams was getting at, tweaking the original lyrics, by suddenly taking a catchy but haunting pop song, and turning it into something primal and deeply linked to the history of rock n' roll, something Swift may be attaining, through the back door.
I think Ryan Adams really takes the Taylor Swift song "Bad Blood" in the right direction. It's one of my least favorite radio friendly Taylor Swift songs, not because I think it's bad, but the production is so poppy and over the top I can barely listen to it, and this is Taylor's weakness, and strength. Ryan Adams takes "Bad Blood" and squeezes out every bit of meaning from it by making it a kind of Hillbilly Rock. Swift herself probably lends herself well to a C&W interpretation because she started her career as a Country star, and I'm sure will always be linked there, even though she's become so much more as a pop sensation, taking her C&W instincts but going free.
God Bless Ryan Adams for being open enough to stake his reputation on an album of Taylor Swift covers, done like he's thought about the songs, and felt them. I don't believe for a minute he made "1989" flippantly and yet I can already imagine them critiquing him for this in hipster rock n' roll circles, as an attempt to make the Ryan Adams brand cool and relevant, something everyone wants, and why I'm writing about "1989!" And he may have done it for this and Adams may tell me that none of these songs meant anything to him, and he came into the studio with a Taylor Swift songbook out, and made a record in a couple of days. Another school of thought would be Ryan Adams fell in love with the record, and though he understood the ironic implications of making it, really liked it, and doubled down artistically with a sensitive rendering of a pop stars hits. IMHO, Ryan Adams made this record sincerely, and really found beauty in the Taylor Swift songs. Why do I say this? The interpretations are too good for me to believe otherwise, and I have listened to a lot of pop music the last four or five years and have really loved it to the point where I have favorite artists, and Taylor Swift is a Goddess in the arena, the pop queen star. Miley Cyrus feels like Mars in the pantheon of the Gods.... Rhianna Venus... and Lana Del Rey Saturn. Maybe Lorde is Mercury, like quicksilver through the hands, and Bruno Mars is the Sun, shining on us all with his pop funk gold. Taylor Swift is the Moon, ruling the lunar court.
I haven't listened to a lot of Ryan Adams in my life, but enough to respect him. I get that there is something primal about him, and very unperfect, that's good for rock n' roll. But I've never listened to Ryan Adams like I have since "1989," so I've got to say it's a great covers record that really reintrepts an artist so much that you almost want to say it's a Ryan Adams masterpiece, and it is, but he's covering Taylor Swift songs. There are times I almost feel ashamed for Ryan Adams when he breaks into Taylor Swift's ultra pop "Welcome to New York," but in the end Swift is a very good song writer and Adams has seen the real love struck beauty in her songs, that Swift sometimes hides with a LOT of production (if I have a complaint of her, it's that "1989" was too overproduced for me song by song, to make want to put it on, but four or five tracks are great radio music, and I love to hear them in the Movin' mix.) Ryan Adams really strips these songs down, so they have almost none of Swift's production, and this really changes them, along with his sensitive performances, but I'd argue Swift's songs are the reason for this, since they are very well written. But I can't listen to Taylor Swift's "1989" in its entirety but I can the Ryan Adams version, even if a few songs at the end aren't the best,
On You Tube, I saw a really interesting interview between Adams and Swift, and she talked about how she wrote her lyrics, and it reminded me very much of how I wrote poetry in college, aching over every line, and I think you hear this in her music.... not the ache but the pain that goes into every line, and the poetic beauty. At her worst, Taylor has a Hallmark Card quality, but at her best she shines as a voice of the masses, and occasionally a brilliant mind. Ryan Adams took Swift's lyrics and changed them in places, or left parts out, or added parts (?), so he really made these songs his own, and I guess the emarrassing and/or brilliant thing for him is that he has admitted to the world he's a huge Taylor Swift fan, and may even have a crush on her. I mean Ryan Adams is Indie cool and for him to admit his love for a mainstream Goddess like Swift all but validates her stature as a major cultural figure, so he's really gone out on an artistic limb. In some ways, his whole career could be summed up by this record, even though I know nothing about Ryan Adams, so maybe he's already made in his name, and this will be a quirky footnote that people either love or hate, but..... it's stiall a statement. We live inj a culture war where artists like Taylor Swift are condemned for being shallow, and yet their music seems more relevant now than one could have even imagined a few years ago. I had an amazing moment last week when I was walking by Bimbo's, the rock n' roll pick up dive of Seattle, and they were blasting "Trouble," and it sounded unironic.
I don't know if "1989" sounds like a normal Ryan Adams record or not, but probably not. I heard one once during a period I was painting on supermarket bags with Seaside Johnny, and it sounded like contemporary folk, mixing punk, traditional ballads, and rock n' roll, in a classic style, so there is something pure about Ryan Adams, like he's from the middle of the Country, and something a little stupid about him, but there's something stupid about rock n' roll, with a knowing glance, and Ryan Adams has done his best to capture it on "1989," by daring to be laughed at by his contemporaries, and considered a fool by my generation, thinking he was trying too hard to be ironic, and he was, but..... I've now listened to this record almost non-stop for a week and it's a very tender one about heart break, and I'd say the first 8 or 9 songs are classics, because the are great Taylor Swift songs. I don't think the last few are as good, but that's the dark side of Taylor.... saccharine sweetness.
The best song on Ryan Adams's "1989" may be "Style, because he taps into a Springsteen like feel on it, or something garage/punk from the '80's, like he does on much of the record, when the songs require it. Taylor Swift's version of "Style" was a big hit on the radio and one of my favorites, but it wasn't as brilliant as "Blank Space," a masterpiece, that Adams reintrepts. It was a kind of Don Henley "Boys of Summer" feel that was actually done by Mike Campbell, Tom Petty's lead guitarist, and collaborator, and I thought the mood Taylor Swift got on it was very relatable. I really felt like she was singing about me, and the future of her, and everyone in America, who somewhow defined the Country without tyring to, just amazing replicas of a national character, and Taylor Swift is that, and so was the man she imagined in the song. I'd listen to it every time it came on, looking forward to it, but Ryan Adams takes it even further. He changes the lyrics to "she's got that Daydream Nation look in her eye" and Sonic Youth did put out "Daydream Nation" in 1989, so I got what Adams was getting at, tweaking the original lyrics, by suddenly taking a catchy but haunting pop song, and turning it into something primal and deeply linked to the history of rock n' roll, something Swift may be attaining, through the back door.
I think Ryan Adams really takes the Taylor Swift song "Bad Blood" in the right direction. It's one of my least favorite radio friendly Taylor Swift songs, not because I think it's bad, but the production is so poppy and over the top I can barely listen to it, and this is Taylor's weakness, and strength. Ryan Adams takes "Bad Blood" and squeezes out every bit of meaning from it by making it a kind of Hillbilly Rock. Swift herself probably lends herself well to a C&W interpretation because she started her career as a Country star, and I'm sure will always be linked there, even though she's become so much more as a pop sensation, taking her C&W instincts but going free.
God Bless Ryan Adams for being open enough to stake his reputation on an album of Taylor Swift covers, done like he's thought about the songs, and felt them. I don't believe for a minute he made "1989" flippantly and yet I can already imagine them critiquing him for this in hipster rock n' roll circles, as an attempt to make the Ryan Adams brand cool and relevant, something everyone wants, and why I'm writing about "1989!" And he may have done it for this and Adams may tell me that none of these songs meant anything to him, and he came into the studio with a Taylor Swift songbook out, and made a record in a couple of days. Another school of thought would be Ryan Adams fell in love with the record, and though he understood the ironic implications of making it, really liked it, and doubled down artistically with a sensitive rendering of a pop stars hits. IMHO, Ryan Adams made this record sincerely, and really found beauty in the Taylor Swift songs. Why do I say this? The interpretations are too good for me to believe otherwise, and I have listened to a lot of pop music the last four or five years and have really loved it to the point where I have favorite artists, and Taylor Swift is a Goddess in the arena, the pop queen star. Miley Cyrus feels like Mars in the pantheon of the Gods.... Rhianna Venus... and Lana Del Rey Saturn. Maybe Lorde is Mercury, like quicksilver through the hands, and Bruno Mars is the Sun, shining on us all with his pop funk gold. Taylor Swift is the Moon, ruling the lunar court.
February 4, 2016
Reasons to Publish
1. I'm bored and need a project.
2. I want validation, and people to love me.
3. I want to stir men's souls.
4. I want to torture myself with criticism.
5. I want a 3 million dollar book deal.
2. I want validation, and people to love me.
3. I want to stir men's souls.
4. I want to torture myself with criticism.
5. I want a 3 million dollar book deal.
Bet on the Beaten
Blogs are as useless as art, and mean nothing, so enjoy!
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