THE END IS VERY NEAR, SAYETH THE BEATNIK WRITER

Hello readers. More boring news, repetitious, unexciting news. Sitting right now in warm knit sweater, temps outside in the 20s, in New Seasons, having just enjoyed a smokey lentil soup. Writing is done for the day. Three scenes left to produce for the novel's ending. Could take anywhere from 1 to 3 chapters, at least two. Then begins the rewrite to tighten up style and make certain cultural characteristics consistent throughout the book. In the writing, I've discovered cultural traits I wanted to use. Not having the patience to go back and make changes at the beginning, I made notes of them so, during the rewrite, I could make the changes then. For one, I decided to dirty up the culture because of overcrowding and lack of care by the ghouls who now run the global culture. Printed the first 50 pages so that Mertie can begin to read it.

LUGING THE BEATNIK NOVEL TO THE FINISH LINE

Find photo here!

Luge! I had the sensation, yesterday, as I put in four hours of steady writing, that I was racing downhill toward the finish line. I was in a state of grace, knowing that certainly, come hell or high water, the novel will be completed. It's like when I ran the mile and half mile in high school and stood, bent over just beyond the finish line to catch my breath, my body coming back strong, my flesh tingling with the surge of oxygenated blood pumping in my system. Only that was after the run was completed. Yesterday, I only sensed the end rather than the actual end. I wonder if I'll feel any different when its done than when, as a younger man, I finished other novels? 

BEATNIK AND THE SPORTIN' LIFE

I can't imagine this entry will run long. It's Sunday, the Seahawks are playing, and they're behind by 4 points, and, even though the Zags and Blazers won last night, I just do not feel any sort of cleverness coming on that would pad this account of my progress in sports viewing, excuse me, writing. Must keep my priorities prioritized. In the Manning novel, I'm just completing a lengthy scene in which much is revealed to the reader about many of the incidents throughout the novel. Seriously, I'm not very far from the end. Maybe three more chapters or scenes. Only a couple more things to get into the book and it'll be finished.

A BEATNIK GETS ALL MUSHY WITH LOVE'NSTUFF

Find his photo here.

Needs dramatic shadowing.

Woody Allen and his films, I love. His short stories too. At one time in my life, his films so often reminded me of myself and my insecurities and my comical woundings (they felt nearly mortal) ... well, that's what good art does, doesn't it, it touches us? I just watched Hannah and Her Sisters for the who knows how manyieth time? One of my favorite films of his, and as the film closed to that wonderful piano playing, "I'm In Love Again", while the camera moves through the apartment to touch on all the relationships and how they worked out ... I got misty, and, next, I think how my first draft of the novel will soon reach its ending after all this long time of work, and how much I'm in love with my wife and our relationship after 20 years together, and my curious Facebook debates with my Southern antagonists who hope to see a second civil war so this time they can win, and, the conflagration of love and war of which my childhood was made when I, feeling the orphan, lived with my paternal grandparents all through WWII ... well ... my feelings well up and splash all over in my head, and my fired up synapses tell all my organs to get busy and create the chemical reactions this robot calls feelings, and I rush to my desktop Mac and sit to spill this rush of emotion out to you who follow this old man, trying to write a book someone other than himself will publish. The dream still lives.

BEAT UP BEATNIK BREAKS OFF THE NARRATIVE TEMPORARILY

Find photo source here:

This writing machine will shut down, most likely, for several days. In two hours, I'm off to get a tooth pulled. #21. Then comes Thanksgiving. P'rhaps some family will show up? Who knows?

I'm not going to say much this morning ... I don't think. I had a short burst of creative juice yesterday, saw my way through to a new ending that will cause the novel to run one or two more chapters longer. Several potential endings are in mind. One is a pretty nifty surprise. Some are upbeat and some not so upbeat. Not sure which will win out. 


Just because I see the ending, doesn't mean it's a done deal. Truth is, though I know what "actions" need to happen, there's still the problem of making sure I get all the information in too and in proper order, i.e. the background stuff that's been hidden from the reader so that everything makes sense and comes to a neat conclusion. I do have one line I want Charley Manning to assert near the end: "This investigation ain't no neatly plotted book, pal. There ain't no smoking gun. Just a lot of smoke, mostly, and a dozen suspicions."

More than once, lately, I've felt no impulse to finish the book, almost a fear of completing it. Could it be that I don't want to have to send it around and find out no agent wants it? I'm reading a Sam Beckett bio too. Don't know why I do it to myself. That's not my ambition at this time ... to win a Nobel Prize.

Wrote more than I planned to, didn't I?

HEADLINE: BEATNIK COMMUNIST SAP IS FINISHED

"Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America from border to border and coast to coast and all the ships at sea. Let's go to press."

It has been reported to this columnist, your pal among the infamous, friend of Joe McCarthy and Milhous Nixon, that the novel of communist sympathizer and loose cannon, Mr. George Thomas, is suffering from faulty plumbing. The strings of his violin are snapped. Mr. Thomas was spotted at his favorite club, the Torque, in the heart of downtown Vancouver, crying the blues to his ever-loving partner and confidant, Ms. Mertie Duncan. It has been reported to this columnist from various sources around town that novelist Thomas hasn't got a finish. He hasn't got an ending. He's hanging out there in his communist commune, his pinko heaven, surrounded by various cronies and communist saps, and he's going bust. That you can take as golden from this columnist, your truly, 

You Know Who?

DALLAS COWBOYS, NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS & GONZAGA BULLDOGS

In the Vancouver library downtown, 4th floor, in winter gear, eyes on Portland in the distance. Mertie started her new job today, and my thoughts are with her. They've got a 6 months trial period. The job will carry a load of responsibility and human contact. She likes working with people. She'll get lots of that. I'm hoping she relishes the work and is happy there. 

The Manning novel continues apace. The conclusion is not that far ahead. Yesterday, I was unexplainably joyous, even though the Seahawks lost. What happened to all their brag about a dynasty? Meanwhile, the real American team, the Patriots, continues to chalk up wins and perform well season after season and, also, so do the Gonzaga Bulldogs who play SMU tonight at 8pm. Whoever decided the Dallas Cowboys was America's team when it's, obviously, the Patriots? 

THE HAUNTED BEATNIK WALKS THE COLUMBIA RIVER

Walked by the Columbia River this afternoon, a golden time, the sun slanting low toward the horizon and long shadows spilled across the grass. 

only 3:30 and looks eveningish

An old phantom came to haunt my morning as I was writing at the Torque. How do I explain it? It's a destructive little snot. I've no idea how to explain why it comes nor where it comes from. It appears in my consciousness unasked and carries with it a troubling sensation. The sum total of the sensation is that I don't feel like a writer. The sensation says: "Hey, who do you think you are, trying to write a novel? You're not a writer, silly goose." I deeply experience this sensation, so deeply that it convinces me momentarily of its undeniable truth. 

My father seems to haunt the edges of it when it comes. Could be that when I sent him a bound copy of my MFA poetry thesis, he told me he hadn't read it because he didn't understand it. Maybe that's why his image is always a part of the sensation that materializes within the synapses of my brain. The thoughts that become clear when I'm feeling this sensation is my middle class, working class background and my wage earning dad who, actually, was a self-taught tool designer, a pretty technically difficult job that he learned on the job. Anyway, I put my head down and kept at, and, finally, had a pretty good morning and early afternoon of writing.

PLOTS AND BEATNIK SCHEMES

You can find the image here.

This entry will be rough and ready, folks. Today, I roughed out an outline for the final chapters. Something I was told I ought to do for the whole novel. Now that I see how easy it is, I might do it on my next novel. Next novel? Am I kidding myself? The final scenes might be as many as five chapters. Don't know, yet, how many words each step I've outlined will take to reveal. Funny how this writing process leads to ups and downs. I'm stimulated again, and I ain't seen the sun for many a day. I'm learning to love my rainy morning drives. Bottoms up and look out ahead! My windshield wiper's broke ... I guess. 

HO HO HO CHI MINH CITY: P I MANNING PORTLAND

The Manning novel is moving to a foreign city. You can see it by clicking and going for a ride in a city full of mopeds. Of course, no one knows how the city will look in the Fifth Century AS [Age of Science] as opposed to Sixteenth Century BS [Before Science]. Probably all transportation will be electric vehicles and called trics. That's the time this scifi piece is set in. Had a great week of writing. Moving ahead full steam. Momentum is building. Even after I finish this first draft, there will remain a rewrite for style, consistency and polish. You know, friends, in the last two years, I've rewritten two novels and written nearly a completely new novel. Pretty solid effort.

PHYSICAL FITNESS AND OLD BEATNIK WRITERS

Today, I've been bent over my laptop for 4 straight hours at Starbucks. My bones and my back ache. I remember when I could sit 8 hours at a time, writing away, with nary a pinch of pain. I'm not the only person to realize this connection between physical effort and writing. Many writers have commented on the physical difficulty of the writer at his laptop i.e. the old typewriter. Let me tell you all, however, "The End" is soon, relatively soon, to be put to the Manning novel. I can feel it winding down in my aching bones, only a few chapters ahead. I can see it out there in the mists in the middle of the moors. Thus, I'm tired and this blog entry is kaput.  

ONE-HUNDRED-ONE-THOUSAND-THREE-HUNDRED-FIFTY-SEVEN

Six am. Did anyone other than myself catch the error in the title of my last entry? The title of this entry is correct. I was drowsing in my old man's recliner yesterday, thinking about that title and realized I'd made an error in writing out 101,357

ONE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND-ONE-THOUSAND-THREE-HUNDRED-FIFTY-SEVEN [no]
ONE-HUNDRED-ONE-THOUSAND-THREE-HUNDRED-FIFTY-SEVEN [yes]

But this blog is a writer's blog, not a mathematician's blog so

I forgive myself. Beside that, I've also surpassed that number with the writing I did yesterday. 

Following the writing of this early a.m. blog, I'm going to send off The Man In the Mirror today for its first trial run into the hands of an agent. I believe it ought to be labelled "... something along the lines of Crime and Punishment" in the cover letter, plus "the story of a murderous little high school teacher"? Something along those lines. Speaking of Crime and Punishment, a couple of weeks ago, I caught Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors" which I think is much closer to the way things might happen than the way they happen in Dostoievski's novel. Unless, human nature has really changed that much in a hundred or so years.

ONE-HUNDRED-THOUSAND-ONE-THOUSAND-THREE HUNDRED-FIFTY-SEVEN WORDS: THAT'S A MOUTHFUL

The current novel now stands at 101,357 words. The first of the secrets are being revealed to P.I. Charley Manning [and reader] as he pursues his investigation. His employer is still not clear. Manning is beginning to distinguish "bad guys" from "good guys", if only because one side seems to be doing the most damage. But who knows? Twists and turns are still in the offing. He must find out what "the research project" is all about, then he'll know which side is which. 

Yesterday, I walked at Fred Meyers, and I observed a very old couple. The woman was in a wheelchair, and her mate was pushing her through the aisles. As I often do, I began to inhabit one of their minds as in a story point of view. I was in the wheelchair pusher's p.o.v., and I imagined him, feeling sad, because he remembers their days of intimacy. Then, I made fun of myself. Why should I think that, I wondered? So many stories could be told that didn't include their sexual lives. As if I don't already know, generalizations are impossible in the world of fiction. The man could just as well be totally pissed at his wife for making him wander so many aisles in search of things he could care less about.  

FIND IT

Odd thing! In my internet search to find photos or art work that portrayed an old man pushing an old woman in a wheelchair, I couldn't find one. Does that speak a thousand truths? 

FOURBYTWO IS A KNOCKOUT PUNCH

I now hold the latest FourByTwo in my hands, the Fall 2014 edition, the Los Angeles edition. I can't tell you how this tiny book affects me. Wait a minute ... yes, I can! It's delightful, magical, unique! FourByTwo is hand crafted by Jeremy Gaulke who has now departed for the East Coast, Virginia, making the book bi-coastal, and edited by klipschutz who still prowls his old haunts on the West. 

Order an issue or subscribe here. I'm telling you it's production values will be remembered as time goes by. It's a visual and tactile sensation to hold in your hands. The book's uniqueness resides in the fact of how lovingly the fine poetry is treated within the structure of an imaginative and beautifully designed book. Artistic far beyond selecting cover art, each issue is one of a kind! 

This issue of FourByTwo features the poetry of Paul Fericano, John Tottenham and klipschutz. Sample below.

THE SIGN OF THE DOUBLE CROSS

In the name of the Bogart,
and the Cagney,
and of the Holy Edward G.
Amen, see?

                   Paul Fericano

Delightful, eh?

BEATNICK SENDS OFF DAUGHTER TO A HAPPY MARRIAGE

News of the day. The writing is speeding along for the Manning novel. Soon, I'll break 100,000 words. It will be the longest novel I've written to date. Below, is the wedding toast I put together for my daughter's wedding to Mr. Scott Furuta. I'm very happy with it and with how well it went as I uttered it. I sent this version of it on expensive paper to the couple for a memento of their special day. Of course, there were spontaneous exclamations along the way that are missing, but, roughly, this is it:

FOR THE WEDDING OF SCOTT KIYOSHI FURUTA AND EVA THOMAS

Delivered on  20 September, 2014

As the father of the bride, I’m upset with Scott and Eva

I thought I’d never have to buy another suit

I was hoping they’d get hitched in a hot air balloon

Somewhere above the Arizona dessert

Instead, they got married in Cle Elum, Washington

And I’m the only hot air balloon in sight

Eva gave me two orders about this wedding

I was to cry when I gave her over to Scott

And when I told her I thought my toast would probably be short

Since there are many years when she was not in my care

She teared up and told me I was a writer and could do better than that

To please Eva I did my internet duty

And read over several examples of wedding toasts by fathers of the bride

And I got lots of advice from many people too

Such as My god, George, you can’t say that!

And Keep it short!

The sample toasts I read ran about five minutes

So does this one

One wedding toast tradition is that the father must embarrass the bride

By relating some memory from her past

I’m sure most of you know that Eva cries very easily

She’s one of the most tenderhearted and gentle women I know

When Eva was about three, sometimes she’d cry so hard she couldn’t catch her breath

She’d cry and cry and cry until she couldn’t breathe

Then she’d pass out, fall down and pee her pants

I hope you don’t have to deal with that too often, Scott

One of my favorite memories of Eva comes from that same period

For about a year, while her mother was finishing up her first nursing degree,

Eva was in daycare at the Lutheran Church in Cheney

Every weekday morning I put her on my shoulders to carry her to daycare

It was our routine to sing “You Are My Sunshine” as we traveled along

That’s my happy memory of it—our singing that song together

Eva’s memory is a bit different

Only recently she told me that during our walk to daycare

While we sang that happy song together, she was filled with dread

She knew I was about to drop her off and leave her behind

When I think of Eva up there on my shoulders

Being carried along, singing happily away and filled with dread

That memory can make me cry

However, Eva, I’m unable to shed any tears at this wedding,

This joyous beginning is also the culmination of so many things in your life

So many things that make you the woman you are today

The daughter I so much love and admire for her courage and intelligence

And the perfect loving partner to Mister Scott Furuta —

The joining of your two lives together

It’s just too happy an occasion for me to feel any sadness

Which brings me to the groom

Toast tradition says I must now speak about the groom

Brace yourself, Scott

Happily, Scott Furuta is the perfect mate

For the loving and tender-hearted woman that Eva has become

Scott is supportive and funny and a gentle person himself

He’s got a warm laugh and he’s a real gentleman

The first time I met Scott, he shook my hand,

And very sincerely and respectfully called me, “Mister Thomas”

I looked around to see who he was talking to

Scott Furuta is a very bright fellow also and a college teacher

He learned that the Thomas family is very competitive in games like Trivia and sports

My two sons are still injuring themselves in sporting competitions to this day

After one or two Thomas family gatherings

We quickly learned that Scott Furuta plays a mean board game himself

I think we all agree he’s the best among us with his quick and ready intelligence

Of course, none of that competitive stuff means a thing to Eva

She knows and we all recognized immediately that Scott

Is one of the most gentle dudes around

Finally, another wedding toast tradition is to give marital advice to the couple

I have only one good piece of marital advice to offer both of you

I got it from my oldest son, Sean

He and his wife, Sheila, will celebrate 30 years together next year

A couple of years back I asked Sean what he owed his long marriage to

He said, “I watched what you did, Dad, and I do just the opposite.”

Well that’s my five minute toast

Families and friends of the couple, 

As the British say, "will you please all be upstanding"

And raise your glasses and your hopes

In a toast to Mr. and Mrs. Scott Kiyoshi Furuta

With love for the newlywed couple,

Dad

BEATNIKING AROUND FOR LAUGHS

Man Preparing To Leap From A Mirror

September was an interesting month. Can report I've now finished entirely with the final, the polishing, rewrite of The Man In the Mirror and wrote a plot outline for it too. It's ready to be sent around. Also, just this month entered Angie's Choice, in two literary contests. Goodbye 50 bucks! I don't have much hope for it in contests since it's closer to commercial writing and less like workshop writing. My progress was like that for me with my MFA when I learned how to write a publishable poem, and, sure enough, some of my poems began to find markets. Did I get better or did I only learn how to please editors who looked for poetry like they wrote and, of course, would think was good poetry? From my own experience with editing, editing is one way to learn about where you rank among poets in your own mind. Also, last month, as reported elsewhere, Toni Partington, Christopher Luna,  Eileen Elliott and I were featured readers at the Angst Gallery celebration for 100,000 Poets For Change/William Stafford Centennial.   A combined affair. September was a busy month.

THIS BEATNIK'S WEDDING TOAST WAS A SUCCESS. LAUGHTER AND TEARS.

USS Hornet a WWII vessel

Sorry, folks, there was my daughter's wedding, but now I'm back with an intention to push rapidly through to the completion of the Manning novel. Things are starting to round out toward a satisfying if disturbing finish. Finish could still be a year away, but I'm over some sort of mental hump for the time being and seeing my way through to completion. Also, the final dusting off of The Man In the Mirror is pretty far done now. I'll soon have two completed novels to send around: it and Angie's Choice. Angie's Choice has had an agent in the past, and I see it as a pretty successful adventure novel with a potential for a motion picture much like the movie called The Desperate Hours. Frank Sinatra was the lead as a bad guy in the 1955 release of that film that came out as I prepared to head off to the Navy at age 17. Nothing much else to add at this time, but felt I had to put something here in a vain attempt to keep a regular offering of blog entries. Supposedly every other day. Not. 

WILL IT BE A TOAST OR A ROAST? HIS DAUGHTER'S UPCOMING WEDDING

cabinet and decor in the complex my physician's office is in

A busy and joyous time ahead. A week from today, September 20th, I give my daughter away. It's a difficult writing task also as I'm to make a toast. Given the divorce twixt her mother and I when she was four, the toast is problematical, specially since everyone tells me, "You cannot use the d word. It's a wedding, dummy, and you don't bring up divorce there." My daughter has overcome many difficult times that I would love to recount at her wedding. All her adventures, every darn one of them, make her the wonderful and marvelous person she is today. Unfortunately, all her triumphs are out of bounds material as there will be people there not in the know. 

Two weeks from today, thanks to Christopher Luna's invite, I'm one of several featured poets at the Angst Gallery for the September 27 event: 100 Thousand Poets for Change/ William Stafford Centennial Reading I'm to read a poem by Stafford and one of my own. Stafford was the outside poet I chose to read my poetry ms. I'll read one of my poems he would have read. By and large, he approved of my ms, and, sometimes, I realize how I failed to realize the promise he suggested might lie ahead for me. 

I'm still red penciling my last time through the novel, The Man In the Mirror. More than halfway through this final touch up, the more I read it, the more I like it. Hope an agent will like it too. 

The Manning novel continues apace. Just over the next ridge line, maybe two, I foresee the end of that novel journey. 

BEATNIK SILENT BOOMERS DO WEAR TIES

Oh, happy day! Today Mertie and I are celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary. That's the corn pone anniversary isn't it? Corn pone i.e. unleavened cornbread in the form of flat oval cakes or loaves, originally prepared with water by North American Indians and cooked in hot ashes. I ought to have a photo of Mertie to put in here, instead of just me, but I'm at Torque Coffee to write and dressed to meet her after work at Grant House for dinner. I took this unusual tie and brand new haircut [WHAT HAIR, you say] photo just now at the Torque. I don't have any photos of Mertie on this laptop. All our photos are on the desktop Mac, and I don't need a photo to call up her lovely face. 


The writing has not felt so good since the early months when I was afire with the original story line. I'm moving ahead steadily now, though I still take pains from paragraph to paragraph, working to remove roughness of prose and phrasing. At one point awhile back, I told myself I ought to just plow ahead and worry about polish later, but I can't seem to stick to that plan. 

Well back to the novel. 

NOVEL BEATNIK CLOTHING AND SINGER SEWING MACHINES

Grandma (left) and Grandpa Thomas and his mother

Aargh! That's right ... aargh! This morning, I realized, for the sake of plausibility, I had to make a change in the novel. It had to do with Irishers and wild humans. That change led to another change. By using the search and change function, the changes were easy to make, but, now, uncertainty and doubt arise. I'm not sure that my changes aren't creating other implausible situations. I try to think through the novel, but can't think clearly enough. I could start at the beginning again and read through the first 200+ pages just to make sure the alterations haven't made the pants too short for the legs ... OR ... I can plow ahead and complete the suit, wait for the first read through that follows the completion of the whole novel. But, I think, alarmed, waiting might allow other plot complications to build up until the entire novel is distorted. The situation is complicated by the fact I took several days off to drive up to Seattle to practice dancing with my daughter for her upcoming wedding. I'm starting this morning with a cold sewing machine motor. Which reminds me of my grandmother who had a Singer that had a foot pedal. When I lived with her and Grandpa Thomas, I recall her toiling away, pumping that foot pedal and sewing complete novels of suits and dresses. Sneakily, I hope my mention of Irishers and wild humans gets your attention about the novel.

THE BEATNIK BRAIN ON SLEEP ... OR NOT ... ASPECTS

One of the most difficult aspects of writing at my age is getting enough sleep each night to bring a fresh mind to the task. Yawning my way through a manuscript doesn't lend itself to creative leaps of insight. 

Aspects ... that's a word that rings a synapse or two. I clearly recall, while I was failing to get my master's degree at Southern Illinois University, reading somewhere about teaching English 101 that the word "aspects" was being used way too frequently in scholarly papers and other essays. Don't recall who wrote the article in which that appeared or the rest of the article at all. All I recall is that one idea about that one word ... aspects.

source of photo found here

I'm doing a final rewrite of The Man In the Mirror, a final polish. Wife Mertie, seeing what I was doing as she headed off to bed and come to my side for our goodnight kiss, asked me what I was up to. She couldn't imagine I would be going through the novel again. Made me realize just how difficult and time consuming the writing of a novel is.

Another thing I realize as I go red-penciling through the first novel I ever wrote, and initially wrote in 11 weeks—I always work better on a hard copy rather than a computer screen when it comes to a final polish. Of course, a book is never completely finished in my mind. I don't care how often my brain rewrites, it will come up with another way to say almost anything it's tried to say another way. 

I'M BEATNICKED, BUSHED AND LEFTOVER

I looked into what they need at the Red & Black Cafe in an owner/associate. Damn! I see it would require a greater investment of time than I want to give, and, also, a physical stamina that's beyond my capacity though I'm healthy enough. My ambitions saw all the upside and overlooked the cliff of the downside. Thanks to Olin Unterwegner for following through and coming up with the information about the Cafe's needs. He writes they are also fund raising and pursuing a crowd funding option. For more info, see link to Cafe above. Any contributions to the worker-owned business would be appreciated, I'm sure.  

see photo source

As for moime's boy, I haven't written on The Last Days of Planet Earth (aka Manning) but one day out of the last six. Political nonsense has wakened me at all hours of the night and early morn. Yawningly tired and distracted, I've not been able to find the vitality that leads to good writing. However—CELEBRATION—I did finish entering the last pages of The Man In The Mirror into editable files. Will print it up and give to Mertie to proofread and make suggestions, if she has any. I wouldn't have made this effort had she not said she liked the novel when she read it, and she's an avid mystery reader. Frankly, I see some problematic writing in it, but I've polished as best I could while I typed it into computer files. No major revision. Mertie said, as I typed the last sentence, that she was amazed that a person could take on a typing task like that and complete it. She hates the paper work part of the job she now has.  

Now I have two novels to send around while I finish Manning, and I have two other novels that need rewriting.

SILENT BOOMER BEATNIKS HIS WAY TOWARD A BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Writerly things! An automatic mental jump shift occurs in my approach to Manning, the character, when I write the words "Charley Manning" in a sentence and when I write only "Manning". In the first instance, I experience a jump shift of POV from the interior Manning into my roll as the omniscient observer. This shift encourages me to look around at the scene Manning's entering, to give some details that aren't attached to Manning's stream of consciousness. I believe it adds realistic pieces that Manning might miss because of his intentions in the scene and that I might miss because of how I intend to advance the plot.

For a' that, writing went damn well this morning down at the Torque in the heart of Vancouver. Most of the afternoon, I've been in Portland, walking around, preparing to meet a couple of cronies at Bob's Red Mill for dinner. I briefly visited Powell's Books. Right now, I'm eating chips and drinking a Sprite at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne. I tried to go up 12th to the worker owned Red & Black Cafe only to discover that no one was working at the moment, even though the hours posted say someone is there. Talking to a couple of young men sitting at an outside table, I learned that only three workers currently own the joint. If someone's got some cash and a lot of energy, there's a chance at the Red & Black to make something happen. They recently bought the building so there's a mortgage. You know? When I finish my damn novel, I can see myself working there and making it happen. Another place for poetry readings and talk of revolution. The Portland Wolf Pack was meeting there last time Mertie and I visited. What couldn't be accomplished with some imagination and a little cash? Huh?

KIRK DOUGLAS & CHRIS LUNA & MORE BEATNIK STUFF

A new working title for the Manning novel may be, Last Chance For the Human Race. Dramatic, eh? Writing it is still going swimmingly. That other novel, the first I ever wrote, The Man In The Mirror, the one I'm typing from hard copy into editable files? It's down to 20 pp. At one or two pages a day, I'll be done in 10 to 20 days. A whole 'nother George wrote that crazy thing. A murderous high school teacher? I would soon after be a sinister [according to the principal] high school teacher for one year.

Speaking of old guys still performing, I caught Kirk Douglas's one man show, "Before I Forget", on the Turner Classic Movies Channel. He was sweetly entertaining. I used to think something like that ought to be easy to do, then I saw how much cleverness goes into pacing a performance like his!

Living in a lively town like Portland, you rub elbows with talent all day long. Went to St. John's Booksellers this morning to buy a copy of Chris Luna's Brutal Glints of Moonlight, style inspired, I believe, by Jack Kerouac's school of disembodied poetics. Never visited that neighborhood before.  Afterwards, I took my hour walk there and discovered Pier Park: softball fields, b-ball courts, swimming pool, walking trails, picnic shelters. It features a huge disc golf course. Suddenly a young man stepped from behind a pine to call out, "Sir?" "Yes," I said. "We're shooting a scene for Grim right now," he said. "Can you stay to the left of that basketball court so you won't be in the shot?" "Of course," I said. Two brief summers ago, Mertie had to skirt her usual lunch hour walk in a Vancouver cemetery because "Leverage" was being shot there. Add those encounters to the time we had brunch with Timothy Hutton and his girlfriend ... well ... you get the picture. Actually, we were seated at a table right next to theirs, but...?

SILENT OLD MEN AND THEIR RETIREMENT DREAMS

The writing goes well. As I continue my pursuit after a best selling novel, published by someone other than myself before my ashes are cast to the winds, I'm reminded of a friend I made in Cheney WA, a member of that quickly fading Greatest Generation. We were members in a local club. Chuck was ten years my senior, had made his living as a railroad telegrapher, a blue collar profession just as mine had been. He was one of the last at his profession. 

another old man's dream

Well over six feet, Chuck was rugged, round cheeked and nicely proportioned, handsome into his sixties and beyond. He'd been a writer too, often publishing humorous pieces in whatever local paper he was reading in whatever town he found himself working.

His retirement dream was to spend his time traveling the American back roads like a Charles Kuralt, then came the blow old timers fear—a crippling illness. Within months of his retirement, my friend came down with Ménière's disease, aka endolymphatic hydrops. Ménière's attacks the inner ear and leads to dizziness so severe that one can't stand upright and suffers nausea much like seasickness. Driving was impossible. Chuck's dream was dead, but he decided to try new operations that did reduce the severity of his attacks and took up painting, and he was good at it too. One of the things I most recall that Chuck told me was, "When I was in my 60s, I could still kid myself I was relatively young. In my 70s that's no longer possible." Approaching 77 myself, on some better days, I might argue with him about that.

NOTES TO A BEATNIK SELF: THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE

Today I wrote a note to myself about something I needed to remember later on after I went in to make an alteration in a previous chapter when I got around to it. That moment of frantic scribbling to remember because I'm old and my memory can fail me at any time made Leonard Pearce leap into mind, him and all his notes to himself. Remember him? Sometimes, when I hurriedly scribble messages to myself on notepads, post it notes, napkins and lined papers, I feel like the protagonist, Leonard Pearce, of the 2000 movie, Memento. I kid you not. Wait a minute. Who am I writing this note to? Is anyone listening out there, beyond this page? This feeling I’m having right now must have been why I was so much drawn to Sounds of Silence when I first heard it back in January, 1966 when my world was crumbling. I was one month away from walking out of graduate school at Southern Illinois University. Ten years away from having my last drink. 

BEATNICK A PATH TO FOURBYTWO / 2 ENTRIES IN 1 DAY

The Summer Issue of FOURBYTWO is in my hands, and a fine production it is, put together by Kurt Lipschutz and Jeremy Gaulke in association with Luddite Kingdom Press of Yakima/San Fransisco. This issue features the poetry of Klipschutz (Kurt's nom de plume) and Joie Cook. Very small and beautifully conceived, it cries out to be held and appreciated both for the poetry and for its polished and intriguing format. Altogether a handsome thing in a small package. You should get your hands on it as quickly as possible. The Spring Issue, I've heard, disappeared quickly. The poems aim for cultural relevance and are droll observations of the times we live in. Klipschutz's "Apples" is a brilliant send up of Steve Jobs, and, here, I'll give you the whole of Cook's 

TO AN INTELLECTUAL MODERN

we were born
in the same century,
i presume;
and from the same tribe
of carnivorous apes
we emerged,
craving warmth, shelter and food;
then three nights of babylon hit!
some cappuccino was ordered,
computers were down at the club,
and there you were,
strapped to canvas at the museum,
being perfectly analyzed.

BEATNIKING THROUGH A SILENT'S WALL

This morning's entry will be brief unless during the course of the writing, new ideas appear. They often do. Yesterday, in Facebook discussion, the idea came up that people who write almost always are discovering what they know and feel in the process of writing. If it's true that the human animal is an electrochemical robot, that idea makes sense. As words arise from a writer's unconscious to appear on the page, they become very aware of what is in their unconscious, and they have an extensive record of themselves on the page. Writers and readers are, by and large, much more self-conscious than those who read little and, thus, know little about themselves. (I don't know if that last sentence is true. Today, I seem to question everything I try to generalize about.) At this moment, if I were being honest, I'd say that even writers don't know themselves. 

The picture, you ask? What about the bloody picture? Yesterday I made a pretty significant breakthrough in the Manning (working title) novel. I discovered a good way to bring in the corporate elements in the novel who are aligned, unknown to him, against Manning's investigation. Will Wile E. Coyote get to the other side of the wall is another question. This is a good metaphor (I just realized—see above) for writing. The road running bird (writer's unconscious written down) leads the way, with the coyote learning about himself as he follows it. Sometimes BLAM into a wall. 

PS: Many things did appear out of nowhere in this brief account.