Dear Anonymous;

Dear Anonymous;

Thank you. Thank you for helping me get a bit of the lead out.








David

Following is a comment left on my Wild Wild East post, "Go East Young Man". This is the post that deals with the first 70 or so pages of the book Wild Wild East . I think it's best to just read it as is and let my comments follow.

From Wild Wild East comments by Anonymous:

"A good show putting this up, an interesting thing to watch its refinement through feedback and edits. Kindly, I have to admit your intros had left me looking for something a bit more brazen. And again, purely with best intents I'd just like to note I actually got a tad annoyed the sixth or seventh "[Ii]magine", especially when it was put in the imperative.

Also maybe worth noting, I could more passionately relate to an attitude that seems to keep seeping out of this whole system of works, just one part of which is the book. I keep seeing a Rum Diary-esque posture apparently pushed out by an angst to tell it all, like it was, no more, no less, damn both the politic and politically correct.

And, maybe sadistically, maybe masochistically, I'm looking for that no-compromise seed to unleash itself and rule omniscient, knowing full well it could kill you just as fast as it could set you or I free."

Back in November of 07 I put a few pages of the book up on Wild Wild East . 15 to start and a full 70 or so by the end of January. This was not the sort of thing I was particularly interested in promoting – more it was a post, edit and review exercise with only close friends and trusted writers as initial recipients. Almost immediately, in as friendly a way as possible, the people who knew me best sent a collective but no less clear, missive to "take the gloves off!" One guy went so far as to say it just bored the living fuck out of him. Oh, he was nicer than that but I got it. More pointedly, Patrick Scullin , a very old friend and writing partner of mine imparted a George Seldes quote, "Tell the truth and run". This was what I needed – and maybe a bit more. I'm not Hunter S. and certainly not Henry Miller . And this is reality, not reality masquerading as fiction – because honestly, I have little to lose by telling a real story. And the real story, I think, is a whole lot more compelling if I don't shroud it in fictitious circumstances as if it were all some sort of psychedelic misconception (that's why I keep saying "imagine"). – or I'm sheltering a job I don't want to loose (Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company).

That bit of art can rest on perspective and the way of telling – the distance – the change in personage from first to second to third – depending on whether I need to regard myself as a past avatar, a current thinking, functioning mammal or a complete glyph. It's my prerogative.

At Pat's original urging, I was able to get to a point about my past relationship with my wife that had eluded me before. I couldn't see it, but over twelve years since our parting and 7 years after divorce I probably had not confronted the subject much. I tried to rectify it and re-write it with two other women since but those situations didn't work out either. Duh. What part of "duh" didn't I understand?

So what? This is now my confessional? Not fucking hardly. How poor for readers. In the book, I have time. I don't have to give away too much too soon. A story can build and a character can reveal himself with subtleties and back-stories over time – so you get his thinking. But this is a whole lot more like advertising or lesser journalism. I've got a short window in which to sell – or charm – or just say whatever advances the plot.

So thanks Anonymous, and just tonight to Dick Johnson and Abbe and Inkslinger . You're "da men", or "da womens" who help me work. I need to shout-out a bit to Freya, Rhona, Kenneth, fallen agents and anyone else who gives a shit or just gives me shit.

In the end I now understand that this blogging thing is a collaborative effort. No pain, no rain. Like being on a stage and feeding off the vibe. Or falling. Nice trip methinks.

$0.83 Cents? Adsense makes no cents!

Yup, that's the amount of money I've made off of Google Adsense for the entire life of this blog. Sheeeeze. No getting rich around here – or my writing sucks.

So I'm doing the all-American thing and blaming you – my readers, for being low-life, lazy no-clickers! C'mon people. you know the drill!

After reading whatever drivel I have just scribbled, you need to go to the sidebar and just click randomly on whatever ad Google has ever-so-inadvisedly chosen to accompany my blog: Hemmoroid medications, penis enlargement, Vietnam snowboarding expeditions ... whatever. you don't have to buy a thing. Just click on an ad. Because that's how it works. I get a credit for every idiot click that comes out of my blog and I'm betting that plenty of idiots stop by from time to time. But the word is "monetize". I need to monetize said idiots. So be a pal. Be a PayPal! Do your part in just screwing with the system and send me a thousandth of a penny every time you click on something/anything...

Saigon 182.5: The movie

So what does Saigon really look like? To me, it looked like this after 6 months. And what does "Saigon 182.5" mean? It means this: a circle has 360 degrees. A year has 365 days – and so six months has 182.5.

And by the way: Go to the sidebar and scroll down to the Podcast control to pause the music before playing the film. That way the soundtracks won't conflict.




This film was shot originally just as whatever had been on my cel-phone for six months and edited in the Mac. A compendium of stuff. I made it as a sort of video postcard for friends. Then, in the summer of 2006 it was entered and deemed a finalist in the Nokia/Discovery Channel MobiFilms contest – a film contest for movies done exclusively on mobile phones. It was actually shot on a Motorola V3. The contest judges took particular note of that. Whilst participating in the contest we were all given very expensive and insanely complicated Nokia n93s to shoot with, including a Carl Zeiss lense and an inane editing interface that made programming a VCR seem easy. The task was to shoot and edit a film in one hour. My film that day sucked. The shots and script were ok but we were required to edit it in the phone using the Nokia interface that could only be described as Flinstonian. This film is much better and no phone should be made to edit film.

I think Nokia understands that now. They abandoned the MobiFilms contest concept after just two years and have since been preoccupied with coming up with their own iPhone killer. Ha. And me? I'm back to Motorola. I won a $700 retail Nokia phone for my efforts and sold it for $500. Big money in Vietnam.