"Find What You Love, and Let it Kill You..."

Yeah, that's about what's happening with me right now...let's just have a little preface, which will lead you along in this business...

That should pretty much tell you everything. While I do not intend to sink into an alcohol and drug-fueled end (I did that in the past, not to mention the psychosis), I will tell you that there are things that lead us there, whether we want this or not.

Case in point: I am THIS FUCKING CLOSE to having everything in for my next book, Live from the Cafe, but it does seem something is holding us up. If not one thing, another...it only serves to fuel my own weirdness, and if there is not enough stress in my life at this point, I didn't need more of it.

The big issue is: Sunbury Press has a release date planned for July 11th. I want to hit that. In fact, I've done all that I can do from my end. The final edits were sent in early this morning...we hit that date, I'm alright.

My cover artist, Mitch Bentley, delivered another gobsmacking cover, which is now off into the hands of the publisher for the lettering, and I've sent the boilerplate, the legal stuff, the backflap, all that shit.

We hit that date. That's the killer. The date. We gotta hit it.

Now, I am not pointing any fingers here...no insinuations, or accusations, because who knows what hits us next, both the big things and little things.

...shit happens, I accept that shit happens, and that we can work through the shit that happens, and we make shit happen.

I don't fucking quit. Have you noticed that yet?

Mitch is now off at SoonerCon...so hopefully he runs into the Boys from Oklahoma who know how to roll their joints and he has a blast.

Such is the business, any business. These things happen, and I assume they happen for a reason.

Such as raising my blood pressure higher than fuck.

Oh, here's a sneak peak at the clean cover...

Is that cool or what? Mitch paints vivid shots that open things up, and I hope once this also makes you want to drop in on the cafe In the Middle of Nowhere, Quebec.

Imagine a one-stop-light town, where everything seems old and out of time, but for a few things. There's one convenience store, a Chinese takeout joint, and all the life seems to revolve around this odd, rustic, massively uncorporate coffee place called Le Cafe.

Life in a small Northern Town, where the people are strong, the coffee stronger, and you never know who will show up to hang out, drink and play music.

You step back (I hope) into your own life. You remember change, resistance to change, what it was like to be young, and to stay young, and the people around you that you trusted, not just liked a little bit.

It's a weird place in our own lives but there it is.

Not exactly a bucolic existence, and I have made it anything but. Some of this will make you uncomfortable because I am anything but comfy.

But I digress...

...I got into reading Bukowski's really gritty, nasty, down in the dirt poetry, his womanzing, drinking, horseplaying self, to the point you are on the bar crawls with this guy, the voyeur watching some of this stuff, and wondering how the fuck you got here.

It's life. We've all been there, or are there.

I am a bit more fortunate than others. I try not to judge, though I do admit to joking a lot. You have to have some kind of humor to get through this.

I am seeing things that are reflected in the book, but they come back in the alternative universe. Friends being torn to shit by stupid things like politics, the subtle difference between people is enough to unfriend them from Facebook, and then life itself.

Were any of us really friends?

Do we have friends?

I hate it when people bitch that so and so went off the rails because he/she didn't have "real" friends, and surrounded themselves with people who only did what they wanted 'em to do, enabled them, blah fucking blah.

To those to judge: LOOK IN THE FUCKING MIRROR, THE CRACKED, SMASHED, JERKED UPON MESS YOU MADE!

Go to the mirror, boy...you have no more right than I do.

Now, friends...

It's funny...how sometimes...a chance meeting or a discussion will open the door to that person, the one you have not even met face to face, and you are presented with a really, genuinely nice, person. A kind person...one that is that cool with who they are, and does not give a shit about what anyone else thinks.

They are rare.

I won't say who she is, but this is someone I knew over a year ago (still have not met), and we reconnected. Her actual recollection of this insignificant interviewer was heartening to me, and that she remembered what I was working on, above the amazing project she is now engaged in.

She asked, "How do you do it?"

My writing? I didn't answer right away, because I didn't know. I guess I rambled one off...but the time, energy and effort put into her project is the same as mine.

You give all of it, at that given moment.

Live from the Cafe is the current give. It's actually a pretty fair one, I think. I'll be shamelessly plugging away at that.

But this friend...yeah, she is one. I hope to meet her one day and say thank you for reminding me that you can open yourself up and be rewarded for it.

Not shredded for it.

There's too much shredding right now, internally and outwardly.

We gotta stop shredding each other. Put aside the bullshit differences, and take each person as they are.

As much as some people will not believe it...despite my views on things, I don't give a fuck what yours are.

You make it an issue. I try NOT to. Not always good at it, but I'm doing my best.

I hope you are.

So yeah...we have to dive into the morass every now and then, get covered in it, roll around in it, and be reminded where we are.

I get up and out of it and say, "Psych! I'm still here! Get used to it!"

And I hope you can put my madness aside enough to see what I've offered, and I hope it does some good.

There's a reason I don't blog much anymore...I want to put all my energy, the positive, good energy into the story, the words, the phrases, those fucked-up dysfunctional characters that travel 'round and 'round in my brain.

'Cause they're a little bit me...and a little bit you (sorry to Neil Diamond).

Anyway, to borrow from Bukowski...there, I feel better.

Pour me another.

Peace, Out.