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My pal Abe is feeling down. He doesn't have a follow-up in the oven for his 2002 New York Times Notable Book, and it's been four years. On top of that, the alt weekly he's been scribbling for lo these twenty-five years past doesn't LUV him anymore and is cutting back on the number of articles they're commissioning.
That handwriting has been on the wall for quite some time.
"You write too well for them," I told him on the phone yesterday. "I mean, come on – it's all about selling ad space. They want pieces on where to find the best chocolate martinis in San Diego not tortured analyses of narco corridos lyrics. What about the stuff you were doing for Gourmet and The New York Times?"
Abe sighed heavily. "Oh, I'm still doing it. But, you know, those pieces are few and far in between."
I adore Abe myself but part of the problem is that he has a legendarily abrasive personality. He's bigger than life. He's the funniest guy on the planet but his humor tends toward the reductio absurdum – take people you know, pretend they're wind-up toys, crank their keys, put them down in some extreme situation, watch them take off and fall down. It pisses people off. More than that, it wounds them in some unfathomable manner. They feel betrayed.
(I don't feel betrayed when he does it to me, but then I cultivate the detachment of the cosmic goof, I'm weird that way.)
Evidently he pissed off his alt weekly editor, a writer herself, a bad writer I might add: when I lived in Berkeley, every other week, there she was on the cover of The East Bay Express, twittering about canning or finding her womanly self in middle age, a veritable jello mold of plump, moist prose. They were once best friends and then – inexplicably according to him – she dropped him. Without a word of explanation. Began a vendetta against him at the newspaper, poisoned the mind of the publisher – who up till then had been a father figure to Abe.
Getting dropped without a word of explanation is something of a trend in Abe's social life.
A few years back, Abe came up with a really brilliant idea for a column – restaurant-type reviews of worship services. The column was called Sheep and Goats, it ran for about five years and it was great stuff. But, let's face it, the subject matter was incendiary.
The alt weekly pulled that one two years ago.
When Abe was first dithering about an NYT Notable follow-up, I told him he really ought to consider repackaging those columns. He owned the rights. "I mean, okay – you don't want to be stereotyped as a 'food writer.' I grok, although I gotta say: it worked for Rachael Ray. So do a religion book! It's topical but more to the point, 60% of it has already been written."
"I don't know," said Abe. "I have this idea for a book about the evil eye, malocchio! The Evil Eye through history. You know, it's really fascinating. It's right there on the American currency."
Great! I thought. A book about the Evil Eye! That oughta set the publishing world on fire. Instead I sighed. "Listen to me, Abe. Do you or do you not want a high five figure advance? If you do, you will write the Definitive History of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich. There weren't a lot of little old ladies with mustaches and baggy black clothes lining up at the New Nonfiction shelf at Borders last time I looked. Please don't position the Evil Eye as your NYT Notable follow-up."
He didn't, as it turned out, though I don't think the decision had anything to do with our conversation. It had to do with his inability to position anything as the follow-up to his NYT Notable. The prospect of success terrified him.
When we'd run through all his problems and made fun of all the people we knew in common, it was time to move on to politics.
"So Jesus, those Arabs and their fucking cartoons."
"Well. Not all Muslims are Arabs," I felt compelled to point out. "And anyway, it's just as virulent and persuasive on the Judeo-Christian end of things. It's just that's a cultural artifact we're more used to. No, the real horror is fundamentalism in general."
"I don't get it though. Why with technological miracles blossoming all around us, has humanity decided to turn around and lurch backwards?"
I thought about this for a moment. "It's happening too fast," I said slowly. "Accelerated change is accelerated stress on a global scale. People are scared by it. They're grasping for something that won't change."
And that was my one cogent thought for the day. Shortly thereafter I hung up the phone and commenced to twittering
That handwriting has been on the wall for quite some time.
"You write too well for them," I told him on the phone yesterday. "I mean, come on – it's all about selling ad space. They want pieces on where to find the best chocolate martinis in San Diego not tortured analyses of narco corridos lyrics. What about the stuff you were doing for Gourmet and The New York Times?"
Abe sighed heavily. "Oh, I'm still doing it. But, you know, those pieces are few and far in between."
I adore Abe myself but part of the problem is that he has a legendarily abrasive personality. He's bigger than life. He's the funniest guy on the planet but his humor tends toward the reductio absurdum – take people you know, pretend they're wind-up toys, crank their keys, put them down in some extreme situation, watch them take off and fall down. It pisses people off. More than that, it wounds them in some unfathomable manner. They feel betrayed.
(I don't feel betrayed when he does it to me, but then I cultivate the detachment of the cosmic goof, I'm weird that way.)
Evidently he pissed off his alt weekly editor, a writer herself, a bad writer I might add: when I lived in Berkeley, every other week, there she was on the cover of The East Bay Express, twittering about canning or finding her womanly self in middle age, a veritable jello mold of plump, moist prose. They were once best friends and then – inexplicably according to him – she dropped him. Without a word of explanation. Began a vendetta against him at the newspaper, poisoned the mind of the publisher – who up till then had been a father figure to Abe.
Getting dropped without a word of explanation is something of a trend in Abe's social life.
A few years back, Abe came up with a really brilliant idea for a column – restaurant-type reviews of worship services. The column was called Sheep and Goats, it ran for about five years and it was great stuff. But, let's face it, the subject matter was incendiary.
The alt weekly pulled that one two years ago.
When Abe was first dithering about an NYT Notable follow-up, I told him he really ought to consider repackaging those columns. He owned the rights. "I mean, okay – you don't want to be stereotyped as a 'food writer.' I grok, although I gotta say: it worked for Rachael Ray. So do a religion book! It's topical but more to the point, 60% of it has already been written."
"I don't know," said Abe. "I have this idea for a book about the evil eye, malocchio! The Evil Eye through history. You know, it's really fascinating. It's right there on the American currency."
Great! I thought. A book about the Evil Eye! That oughta set the publishing world on fire. Instead I sighed. "Listen to me, Abe. Do you or do you not want a high five figure advance? If you do, you will write the Definitive History of the Grilled Cheese Sandwich. There weren't a lot of little old ladies with mustaches and baggy black clothes lining up at the New Nonfiction shelf at Borders last time I looked. Please don't position the Evil Eye as your NYT Notable follow-up."
He didn't, as it turned out, though I don't think the decision had anything to do with our conversation. It had to do with his inability to position anything as the follow-up to his NYT Notable. The prospect of success terrified him.
When we'd run through all his problems and made fun of all the people we knew in common, it was time to move on to politics.
"So Jesus, those Arabs and their fucking cartoons."
"Well. Not all Muslims are Arabs," I felt compelled to point out. "And anyway, it's just as virulent and persuasive on the Judeo-Christian end of things. It's just that's a cultural artifact we're more used to. No, the real horror is fundamentalism in general."
"I don't get it though. Why with technological miracles blossoming all around us, has humanity decided to turn around and lurch backwards?"
I thought about this for a moment. "It's happening too fast," I said slowly. "Accelerated change is accelerated stress on a global scale. People are scared by it. They're grasping for something that won't change."
And that was my one cogent thought for the day. Shortly thereafter I hung up the phone and commenced to twittering
