Good-bye to all that
I am burying my soon never-to-be-published autobiography that mean-spirited agents refer to as a “memoir.” As a certain fellow-traveler said back in the 60s, ”You won’t have Nixon to kick around any more because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.”
It would be delusional to think my confessions are 1/3 as good as Augustine’s or more than half as good as Cellini’s but they are only a little inferior to Rousseau’s or Bennie Franklin’s. They beat Frankie McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes by miles. (According to Wikipedia, unable to find work during the depression, Frank returned to his ancestral home in Ireland in 1934. Yes, it must have been tough for a 4-year old kid to find work in those days.) He returned to New York to go drinking with such sots as Jimmy Breslin and, when he could take time off from screwing weirdo Shirley MacClaine, Pete Hamill. Drunken Irishmen are the right allies when you are shopping around for agents and Frank soon enjoyed much success. I don’t have the good fortune to know any drunk Irish people because the Irish woman I share a bed with can drink any of those sissies under the table and still go home sober enough to write another book – better than any of theirs.
Upshot – I am out of the publishing game. Three books and hundreds of articles have netted me $75 bucks over the last 40 years. I can take a hint. If I can’t, I can take a blow to the head and then it sinks in. So I am done. Finis. Kaput. Rifinito. Acabado. ??. Which letter of these words don’t you understand?
Now, I will content myself with being a blogger. If anybody wants to collect my pieces from this journal and watchingpolitics, be my guest. Keep 90% and give me 10% of the profits. By my calculations (and don’t mess with me unless you are the reincarnation of Fermat), we both will net zero dollars.
As for my blogs, they beat David Hume’s Treatise on Human Nature hands down. As Davey said, his book fell stillborn from the press. Mine gurgled to the top three times before they sank. But they have only been waterboarded, so I will persevere. Like Timothy, [Timothy,6.12], I will fight the good fight. When that is over, I will fight the bad fight, with cement in my gloves because, like Tony Margarito, I know that winning is fun even if you have to cheat, plagiarize or kill.
So, either I will be back like Arnie Schwarzenegger or I shall return like Doug McA. I prefer Doug’s way of putting it because with such style, grace and pinache, he was able to slog through 10″ of water at a dozen beachheads while the Universal Newsreels rolled and recorded his every step for posterity. In 30 years, only Linda Hamilton will remember Arnie.
En passant, (something I remember from my vainglorious Bobby Fischer days), I am moving in opposite directions, subscriber-wise in my two blogs. WatchingPolitics has now climbed to about 1200 loonies. I have no use for any of them. GendinsJournal has dropped to a paltry 80. I took it on myself to let go 20 freeloaders yesterday. I suspect that more of you would like release. This journal does not permit self-unsubscribe. Blame it on my distinguished lawyer/website manager who, out of embarrassment that he knows me, prefers anonymity. If you can get up the moxie to ask for freedom (do it via private e-mail if you must), I will set you free. Thank God, Almighty, at long last, I can set you free.
I’m glad you’re keeping your blog. What would I do without my “Sidney in the morning”?
I have the feeling that this spate of complete and partial divestitures, coming so quickly on the heels of “A Most Happy Fella,” in which the protagonist also abandons his worldly pursuits, means
a) happily, you have a whopping thirteen years of Harry-like contentment ahead of you, or
b) unhappily, you are about to hit the old park bench and close your eyes forever.
I have personal knowledge of Malachy and Frank McCourt. When the former owned and tended his eponymous bar on Third Avenue, he was the one to stick his red beard in my face and tell me that I had enough, I had to go to sleep, and I couldn’t do so in his establishment. The last time I followed his advice, I almost froze my ass off because someone had stolen my coat. To this day, I believe it was Himself.
Frank was my son’s creative writing teacher at Stuyvesant (my daughter went there, too; it’s the family school). Vernon thought he was an inspiration, and said as much in an interview by the NY Times on the occasion of his death. Also, in the Acknowledgments of his recent book Vernon writes, “Frank McCourt taught me that everyone has a story to tell.” About me he said bubkes.
I’ll be the first to admit that Angela’s Ashes is not only prolix, being padded with lyrics to hoary Irish songs, but in large part fraudulent, displaying a suspicious total recall of Frank’s life, beginning at conception. Yet, since we were lately on the subject of great opening sentences in literature, recall the first page of that memoir. It’s masterful.
The brothers were Professional Irishmen. The type often writes well and they have a talent to amuse. Otherwise, the diminution of their numbers is not mourned.
Gendin’s Journal may have a smaller following than WatchingPolitics, but quantity should not be confused with quality. It’s a privilege to read these ramblings — self-indulgent and pig-headed though they may, on occasion, be. It’s also an honor that my responses –immature, provocative, and intellectually bereft as they may appear — are so often contiguous with those of Len and Al…and the ever-crafty Marlo. Truly.
Besides, why would anyone prefer to read political diatribes when they can immerse themselves in the name-dropping one-upmanship of three old coots whose friendship predates “Strawberry Blonde”.
And of course, I meant Margo, not Marlo. Sorry.
Ralph, First a correction. My friendship with Len is not as old as yours and mine, much less as old as the Jimmy Cagney movie of 1941. The Len/Sidney friendship has flourished mainly through the mails for about the last 6 years but, sadly, we have never met face-to-face. As for Al, I am delighted and thrilled out of my mind to have him back in my life but this has happened after an absence of 45 years. Second, I have repeatedly warned you about your modesty. The worst thing about it is that you are insulting the acumen of my dear friend, Sharlene. Please do not cast aspersions on her taste in men. Third, what name-dropping? Not once have I mentioned my connection with Elizabeth Taylor, Bill Marriott, Julie Christie, Larry Hagman, or 125 other celebrities. I have been temperate to an extreme.
Len, what you would do without Sidney in the morning is precisely what you do do – write letters to the Ashville newspaper and round up people to do battle against right-wing fanatic Republicans. Continue the good fight.
Al, When Vernon Silver lost his chalice he also lost his lantern. I’ll take Daddy over Frank any day of the week. “Tis how I am.