Bleaching and Boiling

I finished my other blog yesterday for the SHOUT OUT.

I had to go into it and do some hard coding to tweak it a little. So much eye straining work for so little a change. That's the thing that I dislike about coding, the errors can be minute, but the damn computer will always call you to the carpet. They let nothing slide. Although if I was ever to get into coding XHTML would be the code for me. Maybe I should look into that? I remember having a FAT ASSED book on HTML years ago, when the Web was a baby. But I got bored too quickly. I was forming webpages too slowly. But it gave me a good grounding in web coding, although when XHTML came out, I got left in the dust. I can understand the principles behind things, and therefore fuck with my blog code after uploading a decent template. Besides, there are hundreds of free blog templates on the web, and web tools to build templates. I could go around and build blogsites if I could do the graphics part

But I'm not all that interested in webpages and blogsites. I want to write literature. Fiction, poetry. Shit that isn't rejected by a misplaced period or comma by an unfeeling and relentless CPU. I want to write for a publication, and quite frankly, get paid for it. OR be a staff writer for a television series, or write my own television series, like I've already done. However how does one go about getting their work before the right 'eyes'? Those who make the decisions. That's the big thing about 'the business' be it writing for publication, for the media, for in all...'the business'. They have AGENTS like in The Matrix, who move through and in all things, holding all the keys, guarding all the doors. They keep order in an otherwise disorderly world. They keep the entire process from flying apart by vetting everything and everyone entering. You have to 'know somebody' to get in. Probably from college, or a friend of a friend, or quite possibly have an uncle in the business.

Yet, the rank and file, the rest of us, the riff raff, will always stand outside, looking in, and wanting to be a part of the process, and will NEVER GET IN. That's enough to make a man depressed, the odds against him succeeding. But as Han Solo said in The Empire Strikes Back..."Never tell me the odds!" Yeah, I'm blind to such things. They are as irrelevant to me as the number of hairs on my ass. I don't take stock in such shit. These Agents are an annoyance, and although they may wield great power and authority, one day they will bow and serve me as master. The problem that they will have to one day face and deal with is the fact that I'm relentless and focused. They are fat and lazy, and I'm hungry.

My life has been burned to a cinder. I have already lost EVERY- THING. I've already gone completely through the anus of life. The thing that many fear, which is being penniless, losing everything, and living on the streets with NOTHING BUT THE CLOTHES ON YOUR BACK, I've already been though. I'm talking about even BEFORE I was graced with my laptop. When I walked around with only a duffle bag with a change of clothes or two and a wallet with my ID. Being green to life on the streets, the SKEKS took the duffle bag AND my fucking wallet.

I was reduced to nothing but my swinging dick, and I didn't brag about that either for fear the Skeks might devise a way to take that from me too. So I have already been purified by fire. Been there, done that. Brought to a molten consistency, and had the dross skimmed off the top, leaving only the pure metal. I have nothing to lose except my baby, which is the cornerstone of my entire fucking life. Other than that, everything else is discardable. I can pack all of my mortal remains in a single backpack any day and be on my way.

Can these AGENTS say that?? Can they deal with that?? Can they say that they've ex- perienced a TENTH of what I've already gone through? In talking to Sugar Plum yesterday about the state of the country's economy, she tells me that times are bad for everyone all over. I told her that I faced this shit five years ago when I lost my job. When my entire world came crashing down around me. There was no NEW PRESIDENT in office, attuned to my being unemployed. There was no BILLION DOLLAR BAIL OUT for me. Shit, they wouldn't even GIVE me Unemployment to hold my life together. I got a big FUCK YOU from the government. GO ROT IN HELL. So that's what I did. I went straight to hell, with a bottle of Jack Daniels in my hand and said: Fuck It Then.

But like I said, can the editor of a magazine say that? Can a literary agent claim he has experienced the same. And I'm not talking about those: "OH, right after college" stories of people sleeping on friends couches and in cars. I'm talking about RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. When you are already situated with the wife (or husband), the home and two cars and kids. Yeah, I'm talking about AFTER you've laid down roots. Can they say that? What the fuck do they have over me, other than luck and a position? Both are obtainable. Luck is random, and because it's not a constant, I can take heart that I'll succeed. Since it can go either way, I look forward to my chance at bat. The only thing I can see failing at is not looking for and taking my shot. If I don't do that, then I'll fail consistently.

Like I said, I'm relentless and focused. I have little else to focus on. My therapy, the Internet, which I have to say is my greatest addiction, my health, which is under control thanks to Doc. A., and what else?? My writing. Simple as that. Although I'm languishing right now, and should be on a serious novel, I am working on the Handbook and my screenplay. Two things that I can get done right now.

And then, after the screenplay is done, is the SHOP AROUND. The knocking on doors. The making of connec- tions. But the first thing on my list this year, while I'm doing this, is the losing of weight. That's probably my number one priority now. To knock off all of this weight and to get trim and ready for the fight. If I can defeat this, I can defeat anything. And I'm hungry for the fight. I'm ready to hold control, because that's what is the crux of all things. To hold together, to keep control. As WB Yeats said: "Things fall apart; the center cannot hold", if you can't keep 'you' together, how do you intend to keep anything else under strict control. To move and shake things up around you?

It's funny, this is a big change from yesterday's doldrums. Yesterday I purposely skipped my coffee and my day went to shit. Now that I had two cups, I feel enervated and alert. Funny, how some of the most overlooked drugs do the most for our outlook.

Let me stop ranting and raving. I've got work to do, and a busy day. It's snowing and hailing outside. This is going to be a perfect day.

I'm ready for it.

Hobobob