Bring The Machine Home (It's Time For Internet 2.0)

 

<i.>

Vince Gill is feeling a bit grumpy these days, and so am I. But it's not just the issue he raises, though if you spend any amount of time creating music, like I do, it's definitely relevant, especially in light of the whole great rock 'n' roll swindle of streaming. You've probably seen the oft-discussed David Crosby meme, in which he talks about netting a fiver, based on royalties of nineteen-thousands of a cent from one of those streaming services -- yee-ikes! And I thought Mafia bosses skimped on fair division.

Devaluation of music isn't the only problem rattling around my brain, though, as I ponder what's happened to this lovely thing called the Internet, of which I became aware in 1995. My wife got there before I did, being the trailblazer that she is -- but that's how we started, going to the library, then tapping out your latest e-mail message, and shooting it off. Click, click, boom! Off it went, without a second thought. 

I'd started doing freelance magazine work, to supplement whatever the day jobs weren't paying (see the Jobs To Nowhere series), so I picked up on the coming of the digital era pretty fast. One minute, you were stuffing stories into some plain brown envelope -- a FedEx sleeve, for longer pieces -- the next, you were copying and pasting them into a blank white space, or attaching a document, and hitting your return key.

Click, click, boom! By the end of the '90s, you weren't using envelopes, plain brown or otherwise, and spending more and more time at all those new cyber cafes that were popping up like mushrooms -- or LANs (Local Area Network), if they had games, to lure the kids. You paid by the hour, so you had to work fast (though you could bend the rules somewhat, once you got to know the management.)

I enjoyed the explosion of blogs, fan sites and forums that sprang up, catering to every cult taste on the planet. I have fond memories of that experience, like the afternoon I spent at my crappy suburban Chicago office job, gently badgering one of my co-workers to print out all this info from a Badfinger site, simply because it had images of releases I'd never seen -- one of many ways that made the minute hand go faster, when the bossman wasn't lurking around.

Many of those virtual highways and byways are long gone, like the Little Splinters site, that catered to Paul Weller fans. (I spent a fair amount of time printing out the contents of that one, too.) Right away, you realized that permanence and tangibility weren't going to play a big role in this equation, as attention spans grew shorter and shorter.

But it didn't seem like such a pressing issue, when anything and everything seemed possible, because society had yet to come apart at the seams. Meanwhile, you kept on clicking and surfing, clicking and surfing. The world is yours, you told yourself. At least...that's how it seemed...at the time.

<"Bring The Machine Home,

Take I"/The Reckoner>

<ii.>

These days, it's a different ball game, of course. The promise and possibility that the mid- to late '90s signified now seems largely suffocated by the usual suspects -- Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft -- whose Mafia-like antics, and never-ending determination to twist whatever (and whoever) they can in pursuit of their goals consumes more and more and more of our attention, energy and time. 

We've seen this development at a basic level, with the forced format changes that they constantly impose, like Facebook's recent switch from its signature dark blue background (Classic Facebook) to its newer versions (or Clown White, or Off Black, as I call them). 

I'm used to it now, but it irritated me then, especially when the resulting pop-up box asked why you wanted to switch back to Classic Facebook. I wrote in the comment field, "If you really cared what we thought, you wouldn't be doing this, right?" I'm still waiting for a response on that one.

The encroachments on our time and energy don't end there. It's hardly surprising that the so-called gig economy's growing by leaps and bounds, as the conventional job market continues to crater, but it's not driving any greater growth in earning power, nor personal satisfaction. It's harder and harder to square the slogans that these outfits constantly tout ("Do as much or as little as you want," "Work in your pajamas") with the relentless race to the bottom that they actually practice ("If you don't like it, you can't leave," "Your account can be closed any time"), because that's the only way their business model works. Or can work. Either way, it doesn't work for you.

This struggle cuts both ways. Last year, I watched a longtime friend hang up his journalistic hat; two decades of low pay and little advancement will do that. He decided to seek a regular job instead, a possibility that has yet to materialize after a year of elevator pitches, endless shuffling of resumes, and various related trips to job fairs, and support groups. The problem, of course, is that he's one among millions of fiftysomethings out of work at this point. No one's hiring them.

I'm experiencing my share of aggravation lately, as well. I'm trying to boost my overall rating on one transcript site, and reclaim the top tier, where the best work, pay-wise and quality-wise (such as it is) exists. I had a bad run of three niggling grades that pushed me into the middle tier, and its less desirable discards. (There's also a bottom tier, for the rookies, where I've seen the odd person or two get busted. We won't imagine how that experience feels.)

The way these sites operate, it takes forever to work those lesser grades off, forcing you to dedicate more time than you really want to spend on them. (So much for the claims of not having to squat on Bid Site X every day, right?) And you have to get extremely nitpicky about the work you do, because you don't want to fall further down the rabbit hole. Thankfully, it's not the only thing I do, but right now, I'm thinking of taking a week or so off from that particular rat race. Getting dinged, after putting in a couple grueling all nighters, will do that to you.

<"Bring The Machine Home,

Take II"/The Reckoner>

<iii.>

I don't only have Vince Gill to thank for my inspiration on this post. The other source came from watching a PBS "American Masters" special, late at night, on John Lennon's connections to New York City, and how it influenced his activism, as well as his art. Among the clips is a brief one from an April 22, 1972 peace rally that he and Yoko attended, where he said something that caught my attention: 

"We're here to bring the boys home, but let's not forget the machine! Bring the machine home, and then we'll really get somewhere."

Obviously, at that moment, Lennon was talking about ending the Vietnam War, and pulling the plug on American involvement there. But the last part of his statement, "Bring the machine home," has wider implications. I also see it meaning, "bring our technology closer to home, in a way that works better for us." I'm thinking of Point #5 in the White Panther Party Platform, in particular, which still rings true today: "Free access to the information media -- free the technology from the greed creeps!"

The greed creeps have never done better, as the pandemic is showing us. Relevant examples include Etsy, the online portal for handmade goods, whose second quarter earnings report showed a total gross profit of $317.4 million, and total revenues of $428.7 million. Those figures, released in August, reflected increases of 159.1 and 136.7 percent, respectively. 

That's a thrilling outcome for those sitting in the boardroom, but less so for the community relying on it for some kind of income. It's a dynamic that's guaranteed to keep our collective earning power flowing somewhere else, helping to make an all-powerful entity even more overweening, and less responsive. 

Just imagine how much better off we could make ourselves, if we took even 10 percent of that $300- or $400-some million, and put it into our own DIY ventures -- like a co-op, for example, run by the workers involved, instead of some anonymous digital platform lorded over by some faceless anonymous middlemouth. Now there's a thought, eh?

On the plus side, Etsy supports Black Lives Matter as "the civil rights movement of our time," and has donated $1 million to causes like the Equal Justice Initiative, making them a tad less greedy and creepy. But even so, I find it odd that in the 21st century, we're still run along the same unforgiving lines of the 15th, with some overweening overdog wielding life or death power over the serfs who worked the land, even as it slowly worked them to an early death.

Monopoly money also brings monopoly power. As Free Code Camp reports (see below), half of all Internet traffic now flows to just 30 websites (emphasis mine), with the remaining half spread across some 60 trillion unique web pages that Google indexes. I imagine this is why I've seen a drop in my own monthly website traffic lately, from 20,000-25,000 to 15,000-17,000 monthly page views. The same story holds for other notable categories, like online advertising, where Facebook and Google account for 85% of all new dollars being spent there. The rest fight fiercely for the rest of the crumbs, as the race to the bottom accelerates. Wash, rinse, repeat.

<"Bring The Machine Home,

Take III"/The Reckoner>

<Coda>

To some degree, this is a chicken and egg question. "Which came first?" I'm tempted to ask myself. "The day jobs that barely paid enough to make to ends meet, or the 'gig jobs' that don't pay enough, and don't pretend to?" 

Neither model serves our needs, leaving us trapped in a world of binary Tweedledee-or-Tweedledum (non) choices. Psst. Hey, kid! You want AT&T or Verizon? Chocolate or vanilla? Democrats or Republicans? Food or medicine? Medicare only, or sliding scale fees? You know the drill. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Or, as Bernie Sanders so bluntly put it, when he ran for President: Americans don't only want a choice between Aetna and CIGNA. We can do better than the standard binary paradigms that the world continues to offer. 

That begins by realizing how much buying power we have, and finding better places to funnel it, as Michael Bloomberg did, by sinking $16 million into a fund that aims to help former Florida prison inmates fully pay all their fines and costs, as the state demands, and reclaim their voting rights. That's real power, and will make a real difference in those ex-offenders' lives.

Obviously, most of us don't have anywhere near $16 million, but that's not the point. For a start, we can still make better decisions about whom and what to support with our existing energy and money. That thought occurred to me when I stumbled across a multi-part podcast series aimed at zinemakers, including outlets to sell them. Sounds great, I thought. I can use that info. Let's see what they've got.

Unfortunately, the "resources" turned out to be the usual suspects, like Etsy, where the podcaster focuses their 'zine sales -- and, not surprisingly, directed much of their ire. To top it all off, the podcast site opened with a royalty free musical greeting, a gesture that totally undercuts their own message. How can you bitch about Etsy fees, I asked myself, when you're OK with screwing the pooch for yet another musician? 

But swapping one bid site for another isn't the answer. Shifting priorities from Etsy to Fiverr to Scribie to Submittable to Upwork and back again, or some equally closed loop, isn't the revolution I have in mind. Finding alternatives that empower real people in real life is, and that's the prize we should all focus on achieving. 

Time will tell what those alternatives look like, or how they'll take hold, but getting that discussion going -- and keeping it going -- is the first step in forming bigger and better ideas that lead to action. Like the man said, bring the machine home. Then we'll really get somewhere. --The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,

Before Some Algorithm Punishes You Again):

Business Insider

Etsy, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2020 Financial Results:
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/etsy-inc-reports-second-quarter-2020-financial-results-1029474868#

CNET

Four Memorable Moments

From The Congressional Hearing On Big Tech:

https://www.cnet.com/news/four-memorable-moments-from-the-congressional-hearing-on-big-tech/

Free Code Camp

The Future Of The Open Internet

Is In Your Hands:

https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/inside-the-invisible-war-for-the-open-internet-dd31a29a3f08/

Think Globally Act Locally:

https://peterfeld.tumblr.com/post/21601283204/john-lennon-and-yoko-ono-at-a-rally-in-bryant-park

Windy City Snapshot: The Article That Never Ran

<And an anti-New Year to you, too...

I drew this graphic at 15,

May 1979, when stuff like

Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground

formed essential building blocks

of my high school soundtrack.

It fits the vibe here, I think.>

<"I mastered the art of recording 

known as 'capture the spontaneous moment 

and leave it at that'. The Bells was done like that, 

those lyrics were just made up on the spot 

and they're absolutely incredible.>

<"I'm very adept at making up 

whole stories with rhymes, schemes, jokes."

Lou Reed, CREEM, September 1980

("Lou Reed Tilts The Machine">

Reckoner's Note: During my Windy City era, I kept busy freelancing for all sorts of national music rags, from the technical (Guitar Player) to the retro (Goldmine), to the general (coffee table reference guides that needed lots and lots of entries, like, yesterday, man). When that era started, I also figured it would make sense to try and get some local action, too, in case the national stuff dried up.

Alas, though, it didn't work out that way, as the following piece might indicate. I wrote it back in 1996-97, but it's never seen the light of day -- until now. This era coincided with the rise of alternative weeklies, who prided themselves on cranking out stories that The Man (as in, mainstream media) either forgot about, or flat out ignored. This was the place to start, if I wanted to do any local freelancing. Or so I was told.

I approached several outlets, but the one mentioned below (City Vibes) was the only rag to respond. Or not respond, which is what I ended up writing about, to salvage the situation -- this piece came during an era when I paid 30 cents a shot, even for local calls! 

But none of these issues satisfied the folks at City Vibes, who refused to pay. I didn't expect the full shot, by any means, but I felt my time deserved something. After all, major mags pay "kill fees" all the time, on stories that don't run, for just that reason. But not in the Windy City, apparently. I said something like, "Go fly a kite," and I never approached any of the alt-poobahs again. I  kept doing my national stuff, and never looked back, as the saying goes. 

Of course, the bloom has long fallen off the alternative weekly rose, as you'll see from the links below. But I refuse to join the Viking funeral, not only because their time has come, and gone -- and more outlets have sprung up to replace them -- but from a simple truth.

If you don't feel like answering the phone, or paying for my time, don't expect me to wear out my lips kissing you all goodbye. The piece follows below. As usual, all the names have been changed, to avoid retribution from the guilty. Make of it what you will. --The Reckoner

THE VILLAGE PEOPLE PUNK OUT (AND I GET TO HOLD THE CHECK)
I only wanted the just the facts, but all I got were just the flacks. So it went when City Vibes deputized me to buttonhole those notorious '70s bad taste icons, The Village People, currently headlining an all-star disco demolition over The Trammps ("Disco Inferno"), and KC & The Sunshine Band ("Boogie Shoes," "Shake Your Booty," and too many others to mention), on March 29 (Star Plaza Theater, Merrillvile, IN), and March 30 (The Rosemont, Chicago).

"No problem," Star Plaza's Marketing Maven reassured me, in late February. "I'll pass on your request to the Village People, and they'll call you." The mind boggles. At last, I get to pop choice nuggets, like, "And when did The Cop take a hike?" Three weeks dribbled away: no Village People, no response. Maybe they'd misplaced their Rolodex?

Take two, Monday, March 15. "I've called, but there's no answer," the Marketing Maven assures me. "Well, my girlfriend's usually here, if I'm not," respond. A length pause follows: "Oh." 

Take three, Friday, March 19: I get A) Star Plaza directions, B) travel/ticket information, C) a plug for group discounts, and oh, yes, the Marketing Maven's voicemail. But she's not there.

Take four, that same Friday: I left a message with the Rosemont's PR flacks, figuring the locals might cooperate more. No such luck, though. I guess they don't need to return my call, let alone risk the publicity.

What a unique response -- this from a group who hammered three chart grand slams in "Macho Man" ($25, 1978), "YMCA" (#1, 1979; two million US, 12 million worldwide sales); and "In The Navy" (#3, 1979), before bottoming out with "Go West" (#45, 1979), and "Ready For The '80s" (#52, three weeks, 1/80). 

Maybe "The Peeps," as many reviewers affectionately tagged them, want us to forget such milestones as their double-LP, Live & Sleazy, or Can't Stop The Music, possibly America's only pro-disco musical, starring Nancy Walker.

Of the original Peeps, lead singer Victor Willis (The Cop), and Randy Jones (The Cowboy), have since left the group, whose fearsomely-styled costuming (including a biker, GI and Indian, among others), and cartoonish bump 'n' grind remain a pleasant night out, primarily on college campuses. If you go, expect no surprises.

One last tidbit: The Wacky Top 40 (1993) now contains a corrective statement for anyone accusing the Peeps of nasty Milli Vanilli-style live lip sync: "The Village People have responded uniformly to such rumors by making it clear that they sang live in all their concert settings for the last 17 years."

Feel better? I hope so, and for those who doubt me, The Star Plaza and the Rosemont  do have the finest voicemail systems I've ever encountered. Too bad they don't talk back.

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Your Favorite Alt-Weekly's Hit The Funeral Pyre):

CityLab: Making Peace
With The Decline Of Alt-Weeklies:
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2013/03/making-peace-decline-alt-weeklies/5043/
Governing.com:
Mourning The Decline Of Alt-Weeklies:
https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-local-news-alt-weeklies-watchdogs.html

Reuters:
The Long, Slow Decline Of Alt-Weeklies:
http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2013/03/15/the-long-slow-decline-of-alt-weeklies/

Not Another List Article: How To Fail As A Writer (Rebutted)

<Photo & Artwork: The Reckoner>

First off, the usual full disclosure: as I've said before, I think, I enjoyed The Book Of Lists and The People's Almanac...first, as a pre-teen, and then, as a high school student, curious about the world around me. In lesser hands, though, the concept underwhelms, which is how I feel about endeavors like one that caught my eye on Bookbaby.com recently: “How To Fail As A Writer.” 

So, in the spirit of providing counter-information, our rebuttals follow below, one mind-numbing trope at a time:

1. Don’t worry too much about your opening line. Readers will soon be past it and into the good stuff.

Fair enough, but maybe the author prefers to ease us into the story. Consider Maj  Sjowall's and Per Wahloo's seventh entry in the Martin Beck mystery series, The Abominable Man (1971). The first chapter simply describes the killer's late night drive through Stockholm, to reach his target – whom he slaughters at the hospital, with a bayonet, in the next chapter. In just eight pages, we've gone from mundane to terrifying. This approach works well, in the right hands. 

2. Don’t be concerned that your ending goes off with a fizzle. The rest of the book was worth the price of admission.

Same response as #1. Sure, sizzle trumps fizzle, but one person's “fizzle” is another person's subtle coda. For further reference, see how The Abominable Man ends:

"Bohlin too climbed up on the roof and looked around.

"'For Christ's sake, why didn't you shoot?' he said. 'I don't get it --'"

"'No one expects you to,' Gunvald Larrson interrupted him. 'By the way, have you got a license for that pistol?'

"Bohlin shook his head.

"'In that case you're probably in trouble,' said Gunvald Larrson. 'Now, come on, let's carry him down.'"

3. Don’t worry about typos and grammatical errors. Trivial details won’t bother veteran readers.

Again, depends on a) your audience, b) intent, and c) underlying rationale. Sniffin' Glue, which launched the whole punk fanzine movement, is riddled with errors, large and small...but we're still reading it and talking about it today. If you're not doing Sniffin' Glue, then, yeah, get a proofreader.

4. Go with your first complete draft as your final draft. Your gut instincts were correct the first time around, you’ll just dilute them when you edit.

Didn't hurt Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs or Jack Kerouac, right? Whose ghosts would you hang out with in that After Life Waiting Room – the above gents, or the editor of Lawnmower Quarterly, who's sweating over every comma till his hands bleed? 'Nuff said!

5. Only write when the urge hits you. If you need discipline to write, it’s not really writing.

Many big name authors, like Stephen King, make a point of writing so-and-so many words a day, regardless, because it's a discipline, some sort of a job, blah-blah-blah...doesn't work for me at all. I'm not the type who waits all day for inspiration, but let's face it – I got into writing, and other creative activities, in hopes of escaping the nine-to-five (plus) job. The day I approach it that way is the day I think about doing something else.

6. Do not exercise, enjoy hobbies, or have any kind of life . Any minute spent not writing is time down the drain.

Some people thrive on battering till the job gets done. If that means locking themselves away from friends, TV or Internet, why should we care, if the results kick ass? Leave 'em alone, and leave 'em to it!

7. Sleep as little as possible. Sleep deprivation will unlock your inner writing god.

Maybe, maybe not. No two writers' circadian rhythms run alike. For reference, I only need to look at my household. I'm a dedicated night owl, who's lived much of his life between “midnight to six,” as the Pretty Things say. By contrast, Squawker is more of a day person, and would probably wilt trying to keep my hours. In other words: to each his own.

<Failure is not an option.>

8. Quit your day job immediately. Work gets in the way of your writing.

I can only speak for myself here. When you're doing that 40-hour drill, as I once did, time is the rarest element on your personal periodic table. Not surprisingly, you often feel squeezed, even resentful, of having to divide your creative energies with The Man's demands and expectations. On the plus side, you're less likely to waste time, because every minute counts (literally).

Now, after a decade of self-employment, the creative ball game has changed. I feel more relaxed, after doing my “rent money party” stuff – those un-sexy, greenback-generating activities that you need to pay the freight – I have more freedom to pursue creative activities that often got diverted, postponed, or sidetracked, depending on whatever juggling I was doing that week between my day job, household demands, and personal life.

So it's not a case of, "Is one schedule better than another?" A better question might be, "Here's Door Number 1. Here's Door Number 2. Both carry big tradeoffs. Which ones can you live with, depending on which door swings open?"

9. Be as original as possible, forget conforming to any genre expectations.

Should every writer resign themselves to cranking out genre fodder? Some of the biggest splashes – books, film, or TV, take your pick – have come from defying the expectations that straitjacket the best-laid genre fiction. Imagine a tone-deaf executive's reaction to Vince Gilligan's famed pitch for “Breaking Bad”: “You're gonna turn a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher into 'Mr.Chips'? Are you kidding me? The teacher's unions will crucify us!” Thankfully, it didn't happen that way.

10. Ignore the belief that publishable books have structure or that you need one.

Didn't stop anyone from reading Naked Lunch, or On The Road, right? To name only two famous works that break this rule.

11. Leave details as ambiguous as you can. Let your readers rely on their mind-reading abilities to intuit what you really meant .

Ambiguity is a powerful tool, actually. Haiku is rife with it. Russian literature couldn't exist without it. Scandinavian crime fiction extensively integrates it into the plotlines (such as in our above example, The Abominable Man, whose victim turns out to have been one brutal SOB in uniform, once Beck and his colleagues dig deeper). A pox on such commandments!

12. Make sure your readers cannot easily form mental images from your story.

Overdosing on imagery and exposition is equally bad. I remember a high school teacher saying how much he loved James Michener, with one caveat – at times, he found himself wishing for a bit less detail: “I love him, but sometimes, I find myself asking, 'When he's gonna get done?'”

13. Don’t worry about logical inconsistencies, keep your readers on their toes!

Like so many aspects of writing, inconsistency depends on who defines it – but it's not necessarily a show stopper, as any child of the '60s and '70s can tell you, particularly when you consider how network TV worked then. 

Consider “Batman”'s infamous third (and final) season. It's a season where the Penguin doesn't seem to recognize Alfred, the loyal butler, despite their many previous run-ins; Batman seems unable to suss out Batgirl's secret identity, even after spending time with her under their respective civilian alter egos (Bruce Wayne, Barbara Gordon); and strange, second-tier villains like the hyper-feminist menace, Nora Clavicle, flout their own conventions by dressing in slinky, sexy outfits (that men, presumably, might find appealing -- instead of the Margaret Thatcher prison matron's garb you'd expect her to wear, right?).

In short, the scriptwriters tossed consistency out the window totally, after a stellar first season, and a reasonably solid second one (despite a handful of clunkers). Even so, for all the above howlers, they're part of our pop cultural memory bank, and they've never stopped airing (consistent or not).

14. Do not waste time learning the craft of writing. Focus on producing lots of words – that’s what writing is all about.

Of course, it's worth remembering that, once upon a time, producing lots of words is exactly what writers did, because that's how they got paid. Pulp-era titans like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Zane Grey earned, on average, five to 10 cents a word, or $3,000-4,000 per novel produced. Even so, disparities persisted, as Burroughs famously groused about his rival: "Zane Grey, the only writer who probably tops my sales, owns yachts and beautiful summer homes ... he cruises all over the world, while I sit here with my nose to the grindstone."

The point is that, in this scenario, craft took second priority to simpler considerations (like selling) -- although Burroughs tried, in vain, to crack the slick magazines, without success. He saw himself as a populist entertainer and storyteller first, as he explained his decision to start writing at 35, after many failed business ventures ("I made up my mind that if people were paid for writing such rot as I read, I could write stories just as rotten").

Those issues are no less apparent today. How artful does a Harlequin romance novelist really need to be, for example, given the formula they're expected to follow? Which isn't to suggest you should give up, or give in, because writing is a craft. Just realize, that in certain situations, you may have to make some allowances. 

<Failure is not an option.>

15. Don’t read, not even the great authors. And especially never read other authors in your genre . Their writing might rub off on you and make yours less original.

Here's the flipside of that argument. I've seen many aspiring writers soak up favored influences, to their detriment. How else to explain the countless Charles Bukowski wannabes that I endured at college literary readings, as they tripped over one another in recreating his style, while exploring the seamier side of East Lansing's happy hour bars, sweater-clad armies of preps, and split-level aluminum siding. None of them, of course, had ever experienced a county hospital ward, a drunk tank or racetrack. Net result? I stopped reading Bukowski for quite awhile. 

16. Do not research your topic. Your intuition is more compelling than facts.

If you're writing a historical period piece, that's one thing. If you're interweaving bits of life experience with anecdotes, journal entries, and news articles – that's a different kettle of piranha, as they say in England. A story or a novel is more than just an array of facts, no matter how artfully arranged.

17. Do not ever read for other writers. Critiquing will just cloud your mind and take your focus off your own work.

Skip to Statements #22 and #23.

18. If an editor critiques your writing, stick to your guns that it’s his fault he didn’t understand “what you really meant.”

Most editors' suggestions, in my experience, will raise your game. That only makes the boneheads stand out more, such as the one who change a quote of mine, about a rock guitarist who questioned his manager's agenda. The quote changed from, "He sussed him out, good and proper," to, "He cussed him out, good and proper." Apparently, the guy had no grip on the subtleties of British slang, but did he ask me? I didn't find out till the back issues hit my PO box. Yes, I went ballistic, but I couldn't fix the damage after the fact. Every time I see that quote, I get irritated all over again. Trust me: sometimes, it's best to stand your ground.

19. If a reader gives you feedback that something in the plot seems to be missing, ignore her. Better yet, prove it’s “all there” by pointing to page 224, where three words in the middle of a paragraph at the end of the chapter “explain it all.”

Like editors, readers can help by pointing out things you've missed, or call attention to issues that might slip past you. Or, as I've seen on many a Goodreads site, or forum – they can also bang on endlessly about minor points, dredge up irrelevancies that don't matter, or miss the point you're trying to drive home.

20. Never back up the electronic copy of your work. It’s good for your creative juices to be in constant fear of losing your book beyond the event horizon of the cyber black hole.

Now this statement actually makes sense! But you can't force people to back up their data. Nor is it a new issue, as I remember from seeing people in journalism classes rush to share their latest scoop, and snap on the tape recorder, only to watch their faces sag when you heard: "Fzzzzzzzz...." 

 The “I've Gotten Away With It So Far” Club is stuffed with too many charter members who left their creations in the laps of the digital gods – and suffered accordingly. It's one reason why I write out a lot of my stuff in longhand first, or even dictate it into a digital voice recorder. Different strokes, different folks, and all that.

21. Forget the idea of practicing any kind of writing other than your book. It’s just a distraction.

Didn't hurt J.D. Salinger, did it? As he famously noted about his best-known work, The Catcher In The Rye, he claimed to have spent 30 years – essentially, whatever life he'd lived, up till then – in preparing to write it. As I've aleady noted, some people thrive on that kind of single-mindedness.

<Failure is not an option.>

22. Do not stoop so low as to take the advice of writers who have walked the path before you. You need to find your own path in your own way.

23. Never show your writing to anyone.

These last two statements mirror each other, so I'll tackle them together. Generally speaking, you will have to figure out your own path, because you may encounter people who try steering you in their direction -- whether it makes sense, or doesn't -- or fail to understand what you're doing.

Getting feedback is a good idea. Just remember, though, it's not always infallible. Take the oft-told story of Van Halen's producer, Ted Templeman, goading Eddie Van Halen, into re-recording one of his guitar solos...again. And again. And again.. Finally, after many frustrating, fruitless hours, Eddie went into the studio alone, late at night, and recorded the solo he felt like doing. But he didn't breathe a word to anybody. The next day, Templeman heard the results, and -- so the story goes -- said: “Great!” Don't feel surprised if this happens to you once or twice in your travels.

Let's face it – allowing list articles to guide your creative destiny is like asking your friendly neighborhood fortune teller if that job offer (Chief Rat Killer) is the one that you've really wanted all your life. Except the fortune teller's batting average might end up a tad higher than the list article. --The Reckoner

<Photo & Artwork: The Recokner>

Links To Go (Hurry, Before 
Somebody Writes Another Damned List Article):
Bookbaby: How To Fail As A Writer:
http://blog.bookbaby.com/2016/09/how-to-fail-as-a-writer/?utm_campaign=BB1723&utm_source=BBeNews&utm_medium=Email&spMailingID=54221551&spUserID=MjIyOTk2MTAzNDE3S0&spJobID=1181011978&spReportId=MTE4MTAxMTk3OAS2


Odyssey: A List Article
About Why I Hate List Articles:
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/list-article-hate-list-articles

The Daily Telegraph: 
Xenophobic Hack Or Master Storyteller?:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2016/07/06/xenophic-hack-or-master-storyteller-the-wild-world-of-edgar-rice

Nickled 'N' Dimed To Death By The Piecework Industrial Complex

Reverie

I'm completely and utterly bored

With the theatre; and starving for my art

It's come to the point where I just can't afford,

To wait any longer for a part.

Somewhere in this land of milk and honey,

There must be a practical solution.

I wonder if there would be any money,

In starting a one-man revolution?
-Ann Winthrop

I found the above-cited piece while looking for something entirely different.  It appears in You Work Tomorrow: An Anthology Of American Labor Poetry: 1929-41 (University of Michigan Press). For further detail, see John Marsh's introduction below. According to my Google Books info, "Reverie" first appeared in Equity magazine's December 1936 issue.

Winthrop (1902-82) appeared in various Broadway productions of the time. Her notable roles included those of Ruby Keefer in the 1933-34 production of Sailor, Beware, plus Ann Herman in Lend Me Your Ears, in 1936. Though "Reverie" focuses on the jobless actor's lot, it has a deeper meaning if you look beyond that issue...especially in the last two lines.  As someone working with the written word, Winthrop's sentiments strike a chord with me. Living from week to week is nerve-wracking enough  -- which doesn't stop those who contract your services from finding new ways to twist the knife. 

One of my longtime editors recently sent an email stating that any further stories spun off from local government meetings are worth only $20 per piece...instead of the $40 I'd been getting for the last few years. The email further stated that if I wanted to earn that extra $40, I'd have to do some additional reporting, and note those instances on future invoices. So that lead story is still worth $40, because that's what this organization pays. However, if you write two extra stories, they're only worth $40 altogether (2 x $20)-- not $40 each, which would mean $80 (2 x $40).

Doesn't seem like a big deal, right? On one hand you'll probably find ways to score that missing $40.  On the other hand, it does make a difference...after all now, you're rolling that rock a little further uphill. Increments add up fast in today's short-change economy.

To rub a little extra salt into that open wound of mine, the editor said he'd already discussed that issue with his boss, behind the scenes -- so, after five years of picking up this outfit's odds and ends, you apparently don't rate a phone call, let alone any real notice. Ka-BOOM! There goes the bomb dropping -- now shut up and start picking up the pieces, right?

Considering how this bunch has treated you recently, however, the pattern isn't a random one, because your work increasingly means picking up the scraps and the dregs -- the stuff that nobody with an IQ above room temperature really wants to do. That's how you wound up interviewing the local music promoter a couple of summers ago about his Jimmy Buffett tribute band...and the three-hour set they expected to play.

On one hand, you felt sorry for the guy, because the (now-defunct) festival was struggling to afford the ever-spiraling costs of band booking: apparently, even faded stars still command fearsome guarantees (as in, the $100,000-plus range -- I kid you not). On the other hand, the whole thing seemed like an ego trip. Surely, 90 minutes of Jimmy Buffett would be more than adequate...and couldn't you find some noteworthy local acts to fill the remaining time?

But you weren't able to interview the two or three "name" acts that were coming...since the section editor had cherry-picked those opportunities for himself. So you just gritted your teeth and got on the job, swearing to shut your eardrums whenever that damnable "Margaritaville" song gatecrashed its way onto some hapless bank or supermarket radio speaker.

The whole episode left you pondering what your own particular version of Hell might look like...forced to sing those f#cking songs at pitchfork point with your fellow travelers in eternal damnation...all squeezed into ill-fitting flip flops and loud Hawaiian shirts...while the demons prepare to slather some more sulphur onto your back, laughing hysterically at your torment.

Warning, warning (danger, danger): Corporate absurdities coming ahead.

All jokes apart, such incidents show how you rate in this corporate entity's scheme of things -- of which this memo, unpleasant as it reads, is only the latest reminder.  Your brain recalls a similar hammer that dropped in your email box about this time last year stating that your take home pay was getting chopped to 25 percent of its previous level.

As always, the authors cited financial constraints, and -- as always -- thanked us for our work, because we played such a valuable role for the organization. Cue one of Rod Serling's tight, clipped soliloquies: "You're on assignment for the Piecework Industrial Complex, a duty that carries no insurance, no benefits and no job security...but the pats on the back never stop coming...only in...The Twilight Zone."

Thankfully, that cloud soon lifted, but it should serve as a warning: "Don't get fooled again." As they say in business: past behavior is the best indicator of future behavior. All jokes apart, it's time to keep prospecting for alternatives that make a bit more financial sense than this one, because...all this constant nickel 'n' diming will only bleed you to death. --The Reckoner


Links To Go (Piecework-Free, Thankfuly):
You Work Tomorrow: Introduction:
http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472070008-intro.pdf

You Work Tomorrow: Table of Contents 
(Lots of great titles to look up, and savor):
http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472070008-toc.pdf

Too Much Pressure (Life As Evil Science Experiment, Take I)

Too much pressure, this pressure got to stop
Too much pressure, it's getting to my head
Too much pressure, 

they're giving me hard times
Too much pressure, my man made me sad
Too much pressure, 

him try to make me look small
Too much pressure, end up with no money

Released in August 1980, the lead-off single from this classic Two Tone band's first album sums up the steaming, noxious pile of crap that characterizes so much of our so-called modern life. I've always dug this song, because it does that classic R&B/soul trick of mating downbeat sentiments to some of the bounciest toe-tapping music you'll ever likely to encounter.

I'd have given anything to see the local lads' reaction once they stopped bopping their heads long enough at some hole-in-the-wall pub...and heard what the band was really saying underneath the bounciness. The song recently gained new life on The Abyss soundtrack, of all places -- but, hey, record sales aren't what they used to be, so you shake some action wherever you can, right?

Sadly, of course, this song's lyrics haven't aged a whit: for a further snapshot, see the link below to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's July 2014 press release on its survey about stress in American life. To me, the most interesting finding is that those in poor health and people with disabilities were most likely to report some kind of stressful incident in their lives. Such details have a "man bites dog" quality to them, but one that's often forgotten (especially by judgmental blockheads who tell you -- with a straight face -- to "just snap out of it").

Pressure has a funny way of blindsiding those of us who surf the margins...this is the third time I've restarted this post, because the situation keeps changing. For the last couple days, I've worked like a galley slave on various editorial projects to keep those funky dollar bills flying in...it's a little hard to get into the Yuletide groove when you're feeling chained to your computer screen all day long. 

The good news, however, is that -- thanks to my strong last-minute footwork -- the budget chasm will likely melt down to a budget gap. The Squawker and myself aren't exactly ready to break out the confetti quite yet, because we've still got roughly $200 in bills to cover.  But I feel somewhat better than I did last week about where the budget equation stands -- or else, this post might have taken a considerably darker tone. 

Earlier this week, we also won a $100 gas card.  With the oily black stuff hovering slightly north of $2 per gallon right now, the timing couldn't have been better...hell, if we'd have had some extra nickels and dimes to scratch together, we could even have gone on one of our celebrated last-minute road trips ("Man, it's too nice to park in front of this computer screen all day -- let's get the hell out of here"). I'm sure we'll make up that lost time another day, though.

Too much pressure, and 

all them certain kind of people
Too much pressure, them having it easy
Too much pressure, them having it easy
Too much pressure, them sail through life
Too much pressure, them have no joy
Too much pressure, them have no joy
It's too much pressure, it's too much pressure

Like I've already mentioned, though, we're not out of the woods yet.  One troubling, wearying feature of modern life -- which, as Blur so sagely reminded us, is rubbish -- is that somebody always finds a way to reach into your pocket for more of the pittance that you do bring home.

Case in point: starting in January, I'll have to resign myself to shelling out an additional $30 per month for water and sewer. It's the first time that I've run into such a concept as a renter, which deep-freezes my heart.  My mental image is of a malicious Mr. Magoo type rubbing his bony calloused hands together, cackling: "How can we squeeze just a few more pennies from these people? Hey, wait a minute, this idea sounds pretty inspired..."

No matter, the rent now edges up to $800 per month, and -- although I've been promised that's the limit -- the jury's still out on that one, as far as I'm concerned. You know that old cliche: when anybody in an official capacity advises, "Don't worry"...that's when you should worry. Remember all those "temporary" jails and taxes? They have a way of becoming pretty damn permanent, especially when people quit paying attention.

As I write this, I'm contemplating some type of eBay sale -- or maybe a repeat of October's hat trick...when I sold off about a quarter of my record collection to inject some greenback lifeblood into my bank account. In one sense, it's not a big deal: if you're a dedicated vinyl and CD archaeologist, it's not unusual to buy, sell and re-acquire three or four copies of a favorite album.  

On the other hand, it's another reminder of the nether status that you seem to permanently inhabit -- because, obviously, if your situation didn't feel so precarious, you surely wouldn't contemplate such a maneuver. Lately, this so-called contract life feels like bank robbery: you can't build a rainy day fund, because you've been forced to spend all the money that you just made from the last job...which forces you to go back out, and pull another, and another, and another...and so on, and so forth.  Wash, rinse repeat.

Suffice to say, it's not a situation that you feel like tolerating indefinitely. The Squawker and I talk a lot about what more we want from life -- the right combination of dominoes hasn't quite fallen into place, I suppose. For the moment, I'll just enjoy myself, unleash some of my pent-up creative energies -- starting with this post -- before I square off again with the economic forces of reaction that so many of us are staring down right now.  We'll see how things turn out, but just remember...pressure doesn't ever take a holiday. --The Reckoner

Links T'Go (Before Yer Head Implodes...)

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Burden Of Stress In America:
http://www.rwjf.org/en/research-publications/find-rwjf-research/2014/07/the-burden-of-stress-in-america.html

Too Much Pressure: The Play

http://tmpbelgrade.tumblr.com/

Too Much Pressure: The Selecter (YouTube Video):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETTKzcIQTjU