BOOMERIZED BEATNICK ON THE SAME OLD ROAD

marcelo-quinan-37437.jpg on unsplash

I'm currently tearing to shreds the structure of my science fiction film script Distant Enemies with an intention to add more action in middle of script. I have about 10 to 15 things [poetry and short stories] out to several literary magazines, and I'm facing another rewrite of Ghoul World to correct several major tactical decisions I made in envisioning the whole. They were comical ideas, whimsies that should have never survived a critical look at the novel. For example, the key evil corporation I call McDaniel's and they sell Irisher meat that sustains the non-Irish population. They're called McNugguts. Funny, eh? But really not up to the seriousness of the themes. The poetry manuscript that once was Up Your Ass has become You Awake One Morning, Remembering, primarily because the "you" pov calls so many cultural and political memories into the text. My daughter Eva wants me to keep the original title, and I understand that whole argument too. For all I know Up Your Ass may again become the title. 

My major problem these days is depression and confusion when first awakening. I have trouble making decisions about what's next, and I constantly forget things when I leave the house. Like this morning when I drove to Costco and on the way remembered that I'd forgotten the shopping list. I hate spending so much time in the bathroom too, either pooping or peeing. Ages I spend in there.  

BIG BIG BOOMER BEATNICK WEEK

Find photographer here.

A week! A freakin' week between entries, and I thought it had been only a few days. But I've been busy, getting in final touches on film scripts for contest entries ... maybe. This morning I sent off three poems to an on line magazine called Big Lucks. I prepared a short story to send to Virginia Quarterly Review on September 1st. It's ready to go. The VQR pays and it's big time as far as little and lit mags go. I've got several ideas in mind to turn into film scripts. Could even see Ghoul World as a film script. I wrote it with movie in mind, but thought the story was so good that someone would buy and publish the book and someone else will write the script. Really, the back story is marvelous. Possibly another rewrite is absolutely necessary. Absolutely possible, yes. Oh no, not again.

Big activity this week was my wife's birthday. Read about our fun times together here. Found a wonderful website called "Unsplash" where you can submit photos and use free photos by other photographers. I'm using a photo from that site in this posting. 

BEATNIK BOOMER'S SPONTANEOUS AMBIVALENT HAPPINESS

I'd been trying to rewrite the prostate cancer manuscript, Up Your Ass, all morning, but the world outside my head was in a parallel universe. I was forced to squint through an opaque curtain to see my poems. I miss hit so many keys I thought my fingers were drunk. Nothing creative happening.

I'd been that way all morning, then out of nowhere by sheer coincidence my wife drives by the Starbucks where I'm "not" working, and she sees my car in the parking lot. She's on the way to visit one of her clients and only has time to say, "Hi, honey," kiss me and mention that I look tired. "Did you get enough sleep?" 

Now she's gone, and I realize yet again that this familiar feeling is the result of not getting enough sleep. Ever since the cancer treatments, my pissing problems get me up all hours of the night, and I have drugged days like this. Way too many of them. Who can work effectively under such conditions?

As if to put a exclamation point on my dilemma, an overpowering and familiar urge to defecate hits me, and I race the length of Starbucks to stave off a dirty diaper, then as I try to type this happening into the blog ... what the hell ... the same urge sends me scurrying again.

Such is the life of a prostate cancer survivor — spontaneous ambivalent happiness.