(slight repayment for your inspiration)
"Eternity doesn't get old"
he said, and rolled a cigarette
from butts rifled from the ashtray;
"This down-on-your luck,
it's a phase
a passing whim or fancy.
These are but trifles".
By candlelight and flickering;
Lay your cards down:
The Queen of Cups, The Lovers, The Stars and Moon,
Temperance capsized,...
The Forest King
Leads you into the middle of the night
Stars falling, crackling sparks of life propagating through the luminiferous aether;
By moon cast shadows
You'll see
the many-antlered crown
You've placed upon him
Tonight, tonight;
All sorrows will be drowned
in tears or wine
this night for dancing,
voices hoarse and broken with song,
For madness until
His knuckles will like gnarled knots embrace
and seize thrusting upon your hind
Every wish thrice fulfilled and then forgotten,
and your ears remember his rude words:
for a moment you both were rich.
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Now, it came to my attention that other people have been using my catch-phrase "A six-pack of gerbils"... and I just wanted to clarify this is mine. Mine, mine, mine, it started here first.
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Now I'd conceived this as sort of a YouTube show with high production values based entirely upon real life events. A sort of Autobiography, as you will.
We'd call it "Jetski Prospector" and it would be about me on a Jetski going around and having all sorts of different adventures, and finding stuff.
You have to imagine it. Me, or someone almost as good looking as me playing me (I'm thinking a younger David Hasselhoff), in a wetsuit partially unzipped to reveal a large gold medallion nestled into his abundant manly chest hairs, zipping along on a Jetski looking for treasures. There would probably be a nifty tune playing every episode to introduce me (Tool?). And then we'd have a map and I'd point to someplace on it and say "We're going there" or "X Marks the Spot" or some other such nonsense and then we'd be off.
We'd visit all the different Islands of Kootenay Lake, discovering new ones along the way, doing things like teaching the natives how to make fire with matches and promising them a "Missionary for Every Pot" or trading "Blankets for Beavers" and discovering all sorts of cool things like rivers that are filled with sapphires or gold nuggets and it wouldn't be stealing because we'd have traded Blankets or colorful beads for exclusive mining rights. Maybe I'd have to take a wife on every island as part of my brokering peace treaties. People in blackface could act the roles of natives and tribesmen because there really aren't that many people of color out here, except for when it was an important role like chief, then I'd want Robert Downing Jr to play him because he did so good in Tropic Thunder. The gold and the sapphires and rubies and emeralds could all be added in with CGI afterwards, and everything would get that sort of lens-flare-sparkle to make it look as exciting in the video as it was for me to find.
On top of Mountains, In the Sahara Desert exhuming Mummies and Pyramids and The Treasures long buried, or in the high Arctic, or Valleys of Drumheller battling resurrected Dinosaurs, these would be the chronicles of my real-life adventures in a wetsuit with my Jetski.
Before you dismiss this outright, they made "The Mandalorian", didn't they, and look how that's doing!
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And, having committed to returning to the Kootenays in the Spring it's all I can do to try and get some thoughts down on paper.
I mean, simple projects that have been too long in the pipeline, there's a sort of mental constipation that's plagued me these past couple of years and I'm trying to get past it.
Now, the project - there's a few, but only one at a time in front of me, I keep telling myself it's done. Veritably it is, except for where it isn't. And this is where it begins to annoy me.
The project, a kids book of sort, think "Hop on Pop", yeah, a kid's book because I'm setting my sights low, a kid's book because I've seen a lot of what's out there and it makes me gag.
So, trying to get into the rhythm of writing - seriously, a few hours a day. Set up stopwatch. Look at notes, pages, jangles, rhymes, try and organize, shape, prune and edit it down.
It compresses and then expands again. Take a breath. Do it again.
Take frequent breaks. Go for a walk. Pick up garbage around the neighborhood. Write an email or a letter. Start a painting, listen to a podcast. Maybe work on another writing project, "A change is as good as a rest" they say, and it's true - this one in front of me, it's been too long in the works and it's lost all it's joy. Still it needs to be finished.
I remind myself that - while I'm thoroughly convinced that somehow I'm dragging my heels, that this should go an awful lot quicker, that "Uncut Gems" took the Safdie brothers 160 rewrites on their script, and then I throw myself into it again.
This is the rub. It gets better - bit by bit, inch by inch, but it's killing me. Why? I don't know. I can write a clear sentence. I can write an outline, paragraph, chapter, fine - I can develop a clear precis, document every key event, character, sort them into order, I know - exactly - what has to be written, it's as clear as a straight line in my head, clear as crystal, I know what I'm trying to say - yet when I try to rhyme it that line springs back like a piece of Yarn, tangles upon itself.
That said, I'm making progress. There is some truth in that - even if you're not thrilled with your output - sitting down day after day and making the effort to write will yield results, and it is.
The Kootenays in the Spring, I'm fine with that, the job, not so much, but get a couple of projects done so I can badger publishers, collect rejection slips, have a new plan for the fall...that's all I gotta do...
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