Cheesy letter to Martha I regret

I wrote this letter and sent it to Martha Stewart dot com right after she was arrested (2003?). Of course, I never heard from her. I don’t know why I do these things. I really don’t stand for anything – not that there’s much to stand for these days. I guess that’s why I write – so poorly. I also guess something just clicked that day when I saw on the TV that this woman was arrested and the subsequent pandemonium that followed was being taken so seriously. Unbelievable that I could waste the words/time but not if you consider the waste of all others, I really guess. Here’s about as much not-making-sense sincerity I can muster…

 

Dearest Martha Stewart,

 

I’m almost sorry about your situation. I know that you are being used — I know how that feels. I’m not sure what kind of person you are and because you’re caught up in something like this it makes it all the more confusing to figure you out. An old woman told me once, a grandma I wish I had perhaps, that when you’re confused about someone stay away and if you have to approach make sure you move very slowly. Certainly you are a type of celebrity, at least to many in America. I suppose you’re also a “success” in most American eyes. Are you an example though for how a successful person, or a successful woman, should be? You probably used to be. I don’t know — but, obviously, it’s very easy to get caught up in trying to figure you out. Not that it should mean anything to you, but I hope you are something else than what I’ll eventually convince myself you are.

 

Until then let’s say you’re a good person. That is what you have tried to show me in the glamour-selling and glamour-management we Americans do so well, right? Growing up in the heart of America where your face was everywhere, smiling, cheering, confident and without loss, you convinced me that you are something special. For a while I cheered you on. You see, I was raised by my mother. When I discovered manhood — it was shown to me, unfortunately, by Mom’s poor choice of men — I grew comfortable with the idea that more women should take part in leading America. You were one of those women. I took my hat off to you as I have done many others whom I admire. But that hat has since been taken away from me. That hat was the simple belief that there is a RIGHT in all of our wrongs and it will always find a way through. And so…

 

Where does it all end, Martha Stewart? Who will stand up and show the way to what is RIGHT? People like me cannot. I am held hostage in humanities next great game: consumerism. My eyes are now weak because of the brilliant light of another product eclipsing the sun. And the only thing I hear anymore is the trivial voice of a man wanting a family and to live like our forefathers intended us to live in the greatest country in the world — but that’s clouded by advertising and corporate sponsorship and whether or not I can afford a child. I’m not saying our way of life, how we all live, is wrong. I am saying, though, that it is all very misdirecting.

 

This letter probably isn’t about what you think it is. I apologize for not being clearer. But the issues you face are also probably not what you think they are. There is a way out for you and it is not fighting this fight. I believe that America embodies the first attempt on this planet to do something about mankind’s ills. And she is now suffering, badly, trying to fight her fight. So it’s not about calling your broker, Martha Stewart. It’s about Clinton or Bush (leaders). It’s about the mockery of democracy in the last election. It’s about Enron, The Dow, fictional values, untruth, Martha Stewart, etc.

 

Please separate yourself from the fight you are about to enter. Help America instead — she needs it! And if separating yourself from this fight takes you away from what you think it’s about… so what. In the end where will your fight lead? To justice or to the justification that what you are being told is now criminal you thought was ok? Can you explain your fight to me as if I were nine years old or one of your vice presidents, one of your marketing executives, your broker? (Please don’t talk as if I were a lawyer.) It’s not like such a fight hasn’t been fought before. Have such fights done anything? Of course not. And why? Because they are not about what is RIGHT? You are being called, Martha Stewart – in my life time you are the most prominent woman to receive this call.

 

Do what’s right. Give back the money you made. Of course, do NOT give it back to the stock market — it was fictional money turned real only because of your name. Don’t give it to the Government either as they’ll simply use it to make more of your mistake. Give it to someone, yes, a single person maybe, like in the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Or give it to a little girl who will otherwise never go to college. There are a lot of them to pick from. And don’t forget to show her how to grow up to show others what is RIGHT.

 

Good luck to you, Martha Stewart, and I wish you all the best in the coming months.

 

Sincerely, worstwriter

 

Go to eleven…

My “go to eleven” on how to or how not to be (a) successful (writer):

1. Perpetual state of crisis as a springboard
2. Insanity rules everything just because
3. Indulge in stupidity as there are no other choices
4. Every measure of success warrants your demise
5. Never count on an audience
6. Too many sorrys are OK if you don’t mean them
7. Morality shouldn’t be determined by circumstance
8. No connection with people is a good thing
9. Not working enough
10. Process slave
11.  

tgs

A Winter’s Tale

Berliner Ensemble

 

Directed by Robert Wilson, Guest Performance at Staatstheater Wiesbaden

There is no regret from having gone to see this play, which is not often the case when I attend German overly subsidized theatre of this magnitude. Robert Wilson is, of course, a great director, especially when it comes to magnitude. Don't quite know why he picked this play, though. It doesn't have much going for it regarding "the times" and he made no connections to anything happening today. Not that that is a prerequisite. Maybe he's just fond of it. Whatever.

My girlfriend, who kindly invited me and paid for the over-priced tickets, hated this production. We argued on the way home and she claims that I tried to kill her opinion – she really thought it sucked. Why would I want to kill an opinion like that?

I saw Wilson's Black Rider in the early summer of 1990. Unfortunately I was drunk and don't remember much of it. I ended up puking some chick's Golf full of pizza and beer. Not good since that was one of my first outings in z' German schickimicki (don't know if I spelled that correctly). When I recovered from my hangover it was obvious that I missed something. I tried to see Wilson's production of Parsifal in 1992 but I was even more drunk than the previous production – and this time I ate too much Thai food and ended up sleeping off my dizziness in front of the Thalia Theatre. Luckily no schickimicki. And some really nice Germans gave me a ride home that night. Not much luck with Wilson, I'd say. Some years later and finally with my drinking problem under control (I don't eat junk food anymore) my girlfriend invited me to see this production, A Winter's Tale.

I actually have a lot of reservations about this play. Some idiot professor in college made me write a paper on it which he subsequently threw back in my face saying I should first read the play. Of course I read the play! Turns out he didn't agree with my analogy that the resurrection of the queen at the end was Shakespeare's way of gettin' back at the Universal Church for lying about the crucifixion of Christ.

I guess that's kind of interesting now with Da Vinci Snot n'all…

Anywho, this was a great production and it's rare, especially with Shakespeare, to see so much come together between text, design, music, etc.

tgs

Writers and my comments about ‘em

Beckett
“Try again. Fail again. Fail better”; nuff said.

Bulgakov
Master and Margarita – can’t wait for the film.

Bukowski
Love this guy simply because he existed. The only writer that has ever actually crawled right into my heart. Saw him once at a reading at a German bookstore.

Kundera
How often during the day do I think of Toma, and his little fixation; the guy who wrote “High Fidelity” said “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” was about gettin’ chicks. If it were that easy.

Joyce
Uh… genius brainfuck that is so good.

Patrick Süskin
Perfect modern example of writing that combines smarts and entertainment; brilliant.

John Grisham
Actually can’t stand this guy but… It’s important for people to see and accept even the things they don’t like; this guy and a few others (see next) are perfect examples of terrible but profitable writing and I admire them for “writing”.

Dan Brown
See above remarks for Grisham; same difference; they make the list because, unlike me, they “write”.

Macbeth
Not an author but… best literary example that answers the question of human freedom and control; why do so many people hate G W Bush? They should just read this play over and over and over and then maybe they’ll get it – what’s wrong with our leaders today, I mean.

Henry Miller
I think Tropic of Capricorn is better than Tropic of Cancer.

Tennessee Williams
The master of portraying the American female.

Pinter
Brilliant stage writer and thinker; maybe the first to actually challenge actors to also use their brains.

Bernard Shaw
Plays Pleasant and Plays for Puritans.

David Mamet
The best example of a writer whose mind can’t catch up to the pen – or is it the other way ’round; love/hate him.

Virginia Woolf
The perfect symbiosis of mind and pen.

Kafka
The dude with whom I want to share a bottle of reserve Rioja.

Dostoevsky
If aliens want to know what humanity is all they need is to read Fyodor.

Nietzsche
If humanity wants to know what humanity is…

Steinbeck
Bore me, slap me; don’t really like him but have to give him credit.

Hemingway
Best example of life better than art; I’m hoping to finally discover him as I get old.

What’s in the truth anyway?

Here another somewhat similar post.

A silly letter to progressive liberals who I would like to love.

Or.

Dear Mike Malloy.

Let me start by defining…

nihilism

1. (Philosophy) Extreme scepticism, maintaining that nothing has a real existence.
2. The rejection of all religious and moral principles.
3. A doctrine holding that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake independent of any constructive program or possibility.
4. The belief that all endeavors are ultimately futile and devoid of meaning.

Source: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nihilism

I’ve been following progressive liberals for a while now. I like progressive liberal talk radio, too. I particularly like the aggressive progressives, such as those on Air America. But I’m starting to get confused. I remember how talk radio started. Excuse me, but, talk radio did start with the Pig Man, right? Anywho. I even read Pig Man’s first book. I feel like I’ve faced the apples and, even if I don’t want to, I have to face the oranges now. The problem is, I actually feel like the fruit, no matter what it is, is eating me.

For example, “Truth-seeking”. All these progressive liberals talk about truth. Randi Rhodes. Mike Malloy. Etc., etc. You know, my first job was pumping gas in the wake of the ’73 oil crisis and to this day I remember cars lining up for at least five miles to fill their tanks. I was a young feller then and it was a great way to master the trickery of chickery. “Hey baby, you wanna come back at the end of my shift – you don’t have to wait in line to get pumped?” Anywho. Thirty years later, the chicks, the guys, all the studs of forever-ville have been buying SUVs as though there is no tomorrow. How can these people be shown, guided, directed, coerced, to find truth?

I got a question: how can anyone find something that they don’t even care about? A society hell-bent on surviving and consuming doesn’t care – liberal or conservative – about truth. At least there is no precedent in recent history to warrant thinking otherwise. Sure, the facts and truth are fun, at least as they are presented by progressives. But isn’t it more likely that the followers of progressives are more entertained when given the intricacies of finally establishing the Fascist States of America? Isn’t that what the Pig Man did when he started all this from his side of the political spectrum umpteen years ago? What I don’t get is that America used to be a “can do” place. I’ve lived abroad for a long time. Trust me on this. America is the only place on the planet where anything could get done. But even that has to give in to surviving and consuming. Right?

Recently I had an email exchange with another human being. He’s somewhere in the Midwest, USA, and I’m in the center of Europe. He wrote me and said how bad things are in the US. He’s even afraid for his life – because he’s gay. Without thinking much about it I responded to him saying that he had nothing to be afraid of. Unless you can make a buck off of it nothing is gonna happen to homosexuals in America other than being called a few bad names. Then I got to thinking. By the time they got rid of slavery there was no making money off Negros, so why all the lynching?

Can do, baby. Can do.

Two sides of a coin don’t matter when the coin is worthless.

Nihilism – there’s never a Zar to slaughter when you need one.

Have I found any truth yet?

Maybe I need to re-learn what truth is. I’m even open for people to explain it to me? As long as you can do it originally, without emotion and without someone else’s facts.

Stolen election here or there. Do you think there’s truth in how people vote or by what margin our politicians are posted to their positions? Somehow someone knows more than they’re saying. If you ask me, and no one will, I can’t believe things aren’t a lot worse. I also cannot believe, liberal or conservative, that people compare Bush and his idiotic cronies to Nazis. Somebody is being very childish in the sandbox.

Speaking of sandboxes.

There is no such thing as a liberal truth because that presupposes there is something else. Such a quagmire, eh? I try to argue with conservatives. I try to tell them that they are wrong. I read books for rhetorical ammo but then it usually turns into a scene that reminds one of a second grade sandbox fight. A conservative will always win such a fight!

During a recent debate with neighbors who are on the other side of the intellectual spectrum I had something like an epiphany. It goes like this: You can never beat the numbers or the flow, period. I’m sorry if that doesn’t make any sense. I think it has something to do with this: even if you get rid of Bush and his cronies the next one will be only slightly better or worse. As David Byrne once sang, “same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was…”

Truth! Come here boy. Here, Truth! Come here. There ya go. That ‘a boy. What you got there? You got something there?

Here’s a thought. Can someone point for me? Pointing works. I swear it does. Mrs. McDonald (no pun intended) was my fourth grade teacher. She used to punish me for talking too much during class. You know, with the girls. She made me sit in class one day and not say a word. I swear this is true. She said that if I said a word she was going to call the principle who would in turn call my mother who would then beat me with a wooden kitchen spoon. But then I had to go the bathroom. So I stood and pointed to you-know-where and Mrs. McDonald pointed to the door and all the kids laughed and I went to the bathroom.

Please, progressive liberals, don’t make me point down there to find the truth. I’m already a loser and failure and… I’m tired of being laughed at on my way to the john.

If I have to chose between apples and oranges I’m gonna chose… pears or tomatoes.

Has anyone read Macbeth? Bush is the perfect Macbeth. America is not where it is now because of Bush. Bush is where he is because of America. Where is the truth in that? This is our fate. Is that a truth? It’s time that we all drink from the witches brew – maybe it’s the only thing that can save us.

Apples and oranges. Apples and oranges. Same as it ever was. Same… as… it… eeeeevvvvveeeerrrrr wazzzzzzzzzz.

Sincerely,

-tgs-

Endnotes in a novel

My novel Engagement takes place in and around Cologne, Germany. There’s some Düsseldorf in there and a bit of Frankfurt, too. Of course taking place in Germany means there’s no getting around using the language. Although I don’t have much trouble speaking German, writing it is another story. I'll let Mark Twain explain that one to you. While working on my book the thought came to me to use endnotes to clarify or translate the German words I was using. But I did this with a little twist. I took the meaning of the words, as I understood them, and not the literal translations. After a while I realized that it’s a pretty good idea.

 

A few examples taken from my book:

Mittelstand - The heart of German culture and economics from which everything is derived; it could also mean to stand in the middle, in the way of everything.

Sprungbrett - Diving board or jump start in life; does not indicate there is water in the pool.

Gell - A Hessian idiom, sounds great when said while drunk, idiosyncratic interjection.

Fernweh - The want to travel far and see the world; get away from Germany just because you can; if you can’t, tough shit.

Köln - The German name of the city of Cologne; a really big filthy village.

München - The German name of Munich; a really big clean village.

ißjemandzugestiegen - "Has anybody boarded?" This is what a conductor barks in a train cabin so he can check tickets.

Sperrmüll - The only great thing to ever come out of any socialized system of governance; state sponsored collection of old furniture or bulk trash; very useful after moving or renovating an apartment and coincides with this as a cultural past-time.

Abendbrot - Like the mythical dinner or supper that most American families would like to have but can't due to the coercive, predetorial capitalism and the mortgage poor lifestyle that has been adopted, the German version has survived; no matter what region you go to in Germany four out of five families basically eat the same dam thing every night.

Langesamstag - One of the trivial reforms to the German system allowing stores to stay open on Saturdays beyond 4:00pm; still closed on Sundays.

Betriebverfassungsgesetz - A dysfunctional anti-capitalism German law protecting and wrongly empowering employees against employers; the laws and regulations behind this are so backwards it could end up being the downfall of the post-WWII German experiment; the you-go-girl of social market economics.

Studiengebuhren - Germans never paid for things like the cold war or financing development poor nations or countries; part of an estranged and perverted social welfare system to include free education; will only function if wirtschaftswunder economy can produce more value than sucking taxes out of hard working people can consume.

Kaufvertrag über ein gebrauchtes Kraftfahrzeug – A contract for selling a used car between private individuals; perfect example of continental European socialism gone rotten. When a car is sold between private individuals (this is NOT a transaction among vested and liable organizations or companies) a full and detailed contract, where a simple "bill of sale" would suffice, HAS to be used. Inherent in this contract is the notion that the private seller, selling a USED car at usually extreme discounted prices due to market conditions, is liable for not just the car being sold but for the action of the buyer. The motto here is: if the buyer screws up it's the seller's fault.

Finding Theatre

While growing up theatre was the farthest thing from anything I could imagine. In fact, I never heard of theatre or drama till I was in high school. To get through life and the sickness that is suburban America, I turned to sports and became a half-witted jock who fantasized about super heroes and the milky flesh of girls, especially the parts around their ankles, and every once-a-once the stupid idea of someday gettin' rich.

One day as a senior in HS I got suspended for insubordination. Like everyone else I was having a hard time with youth and I forced my frustration to ricochet off others – I wasn't a trouble-maker but I was often in trouble (if that makes any sense). Broken family, always questioning life, parents, growing up in an environment that makes you inherently despise authority, etc., etc.

In order to get away from it all I would find a place to hide, to be alone. Often it was outside near the sport fields, under the bleachers. Sometimes I went behind or in-between the provisional mobile-home-like classrooms that were set up around the school – the result of great community and governmental dysfunction. At the least, I had to be careful because if I were caught skipping:

1. It would be revealed that I cried
2. It would mean some kind of disciplinary action and suspension from an upcoming jock event (which was the only reason, other than fear, that I stayed in school)

I was wearing out my welcome in these places of sanctuary. What to do?

After a bit of scouting I decided to have my sessions in the school theatre. I had noticed once while moving some equipment through it that there were lots of curtains and dark corners on and around the stage. Crawling in to such an area seemed like a fitting act. Up to that point I don’t think I ever saw the stage of our school theatre – I had no idea what was what and where was where; I had never even attended a school play or musical event that used the stage. Boo who.

One day I skipped the last three classes and was desperate to find a hole to crawl into. Not thinking much about it I walked into the theatre as though the world was mine and I was going to give it the only gift a young man can give – other than spurting seaman and going to war: tears. The timing couldn’t have been any worse. There was Ms. Migelly, the drama teacher, along with her class of wimps and pussies who were all reading and reciting from booklets.

-Mr. Stough. May I enquire as to your reason for disturbing my class?

-No.

I continued walking across the front of the stage. I paid the teacher little attention. Insubordination is a great word. Some of the pussies were starring at me.

-Excuse me, Mr. Stough, you can’t just walk in here and disturb my class… Mr. Stough. Thomas Stough!

- Fuck you, bitch.

That was my first experience in theatre. I was suspended for a three days and prohibited from participating in any sporting events for two weeks.

This is gonna sound corny but something happened that day. I realized that something that is black and empty can be brought to life with words and gestures and screams and passion. It was as though on a silly, smart-ass, bad-mouthing day I found my home with Ms. Migelly. But like so many others, because of my anger and frustration, I was blind to what was in front of me.

About five or so years later I realized I love the theatre. While living in another area of suburban hell, the grand old money town of Norfolk, VA, I volunteered and helped renovate an old theatre. One day during a break someone looked over my shoulder and said:

-What are you writing there in that notebook?

-Dunno.

-It looks like Dialog.

-What?

-Theatre. You know – a play. You don’t know what you’re writing?

-Oh. Yeah. Sure.

The smell of fresh black paint to cover the stage was like fresh flowers to me. The strobe lights after they’ve been turned off leave a unique odour that perhaps is comparable to those who enjoy the smell of gas after they’ve just filled their cars. And if you get on your knees on a stage after a show, especially something by Shakespeare or Voltaire, sometimes Genet and David Mamet, you can touch and feel the spit and mucus left over by the actors. (To this day I still try to get up on the stage after a show and lick up the spit left behind.) Oh, how I would roll in that grime after a show just before it is swept away. The dust and dreck whirled about by a performance – it was the dust to dust, ashes to ashes joy of life for me.

Anywho. I cursed myself that day some thirty years ago when I called that wonderful drama teacher a bitch for no reason. Yeah, I’ve been paying for that ever since.

A prop list is very useful

This is the prop-list for my play Flight of the Dodo.

For those who don't know, the actual writing of a play is quite a challenge. There are those who have mastered it. One master that comes to mind is David Mamet. I have no idea how he does it, other than lots of hard work, but if you spend any time reading Oleana or Sexual Perversity in Chicago you will eventually begin to see that a great playwright is like a great chiseler. To me, Mamet will always be a greater playwright than he is a script writer (movies).

I have been trying to find ways to make writing a play a bit easier. At the least I want to be able to lose myself from the burden of theatrics and be able to focus on story and cause and effect. Maintaining a prop-list has been quite effective for me up to now. Unlike narrative or prose work, a play has to eventually transcend the meta-physical and become real. Staying in touch with props is a nice little trick. The reason is because when writing the play many different things must coincide, the story is much more dynamic and eventually involves consciousness. I would also go as far as to say that, when it comes to the actual writing, a play is multi-dimensional where a novel is not. The three-walled space that is open to my own personal audience becomes it's own universe. Navigating through it is helped by being able to connect elements that are real. For example, by keeping a list of props and their association in the play I am able to navigate through the chaos with a bit more ease. Of course, this is no substitute for hard work. 

Soon I will post my play Fight of the Dodo which was performed in the winter of 1993.

Whoopee.

tgs

P.S.S. Why marriage sucks

As I said in a previous post women love love. I know there is a lot to such a statement and I want to be as fair and open as possible. I don’t mean it necassarily as a negative or anything against women. I’m simply attempting to clarify something I’ve observed. This post is more than just ranting about a busted marriage or hard-ass career women. The world is up-side-down, nothing is right and the people falling through the cracks must, at the least, be allowed to speak. I ask of nothing more. Does anyone mind? Can I get a… “boo-who” from someone?

After losing probably the last real job I would ever have in the year A.D. 2001 my wife threw me out. I can’t blame her really because I failed at living her life. But the thing that finalized her throwing me out was when I asked her for some help. It went something like this (roughly translated to English for the hearing impaired):

-Honey, I said. I’m too old and have no academic credentials. All I have to offer employers is experience but that doesn’t matter anymore in a world where nothing really gets done anyway. You have a great job because you followed all the rules and for that I commend you. I gave up something when we married because I thought I should, I thought it was the right thing to do both for love and for our future child. I made a mistake. Will you help me as I try to right this mistake? I’m still relatively young. I still have ambition. Will you help me go after my dream?
-No!, she barked.

It took about two years to come full circle. The final stages where two people clamour at each other in confusion – perhaps not unlike when it all begins. But falling out of love is something we never prepare ourselves for. Maybe that’s why we’re all so stupid in the way we live. Anywho. One day in spring she drove me to the train station after commanding that I pack my things. Yeah, the best punch I ever recieved was when I was already down. She actually drove me to the train station with luggage and wishes of luck. My son was sitting in the back seat. He was very confused. I will never forget how she drove that car that day. She was so at ease. She was so, just as everyone else who walks through the good side of western life, machine-like, without remorse, as though we never said… in good times and bad. She had taken all I could give and when there was no more… See ya ’round sometime.

Before I continue, please refrain from pity. Who knows, this may very well end up being a wondrous Cinderella story…

As I was saying, after that last real job I would ever have I spent a lot of time “unemployed” between 2002 and 2004 contemplating. Luckily I never really sulked over being discarded from the job market (I hate careerism anyway), nor did I sulk about being discarded by my wife. Instead I worked my butt off writing and producing two original plays (The Good Criminal and Blush). It was a friggin’ dream come true. But it was without my partner. And that’s a real shame.

That’s right. Without the bitchin’ and naggin’ of a “wife” I went about my business as a man. I did what I wanted to do. If she got in the way then I kept doing it all the same. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t make her invisible. She made herself invisible. Suddenly, in a time of (relationship) turmoil, she forgot who I was when we started down this path. Perhaps I forgot who she was as well. And so the story goes…

You see, in the mid 90s I got married. I married right in the middle of trying to become a “writer”. She liked that, I tell you. Because there I was commanding the words, the actors, the scenery. I made theater – out of nothing and it was good. But… What a mistake! Neither one of us had married before and we were both pushing mid thirties and we both were blinded and… You know how that works. To add to the flame, things were ok in Germany, economically speaking. When things are good economically, as we now know from the exuberance of the nineties, most important things regarding life get swept under shinny new rugs. Of course the reality was the so-called Wirtschaftswunder was coming around full swing and about to go head-to-head with globalization. How can a country like Germany see that coming when all it collectively worries about is where it goes on its next vacation? And I was living in the middle of it…

-Mein Schatz, do we go to Mallorca or Ibiza?
-Oh, Liebling, let’s go to both.

Oh, to play the games people play. Marriage mixed us among other Germans reaping the benefits of the Wirtschaftswunder. I lapped it all up with a perverted kind of pleasure looking back at the Germans wondering if any of them had a clue how things really were in this world. As an Ausländer (foreigner) that could speak the language getting a job was fairly easy in the beginning. And got them, I did. I ran through jobs like most people go through drive-in windows. I hated every single one of them. The only thing that kept me going was getting off work and going home and working on a new play. But the jobs kept coming. I got lazy in marriage. Finally I landed a high paying job that included a nice company car (new Audi with leather interior – whoopee) and business travel all around the world and stays in lavish hotels (I stayed in the Waldorf Astoria twice in NY – over-sized whoopee). Every night while alone in those lavish hotels I was hacking on a laptop a novel or a new play. (Mega-whoopee.)

Now I don’t want to sound too arrogant here. But I knew what was coming. One of the things that most creative people can do is see the future. I’m not talking clairvoyance here. Creative people simply have a knack for seeing what’s coming – that’s part of what makes them creative. By 1998 I saw that Germany was about to face some serious realities. I tried to tell my German wife what was coming but she just said that life was great and she had a job and that I should finally find something that would make me happy and where do we go on our next vacation…

-Ok, but, can I go back to producing plays? I asked with humility pouring from my nostrils.
-No!, she barked.

The reality bomb hit Germany around the end of 1999. I could see and feel it in management. People were freaking out. Export figures and unemployment were finally entering beer table discussions of people under forty. When 2001 came around I lost any chance of acquiring any gainful employment in pseudo-socialist Germany and decided to finally pursue my dream with or without wife’s blessing. As an Ausländer I was on my own – the legal marriage the only way of securing a visa. Top that off with the fact that I had a child I loved so deeply that only for him would I give up my dreams – if that was actually asked of me. Talk about dead-end!

There were two walls I had to face. One was woman. Two was Germany – a country fortified to the hilt with the emancipated feminine – see my play Blush.

Just look at unemployment in Germany. This is a joke. The alternatives for me to make a living as an Ausländer in Germany are not pretty. Anyone who knows the German system knows what I’m talking about. I can work at a stinking’ temp agency or McDonalds in my own country – but that would mean losing contact with my son – who is not even ten years old yet. Can you say, between a rock and a hard place?

So what is marriage to me? Asking a wife for help and she, categorically, saying NO. Can you believe that? She dumped me – just like a girlfriend would. My friends, we are born alone and we all leave this world alone. That is reality.

Having ranted all that, I feel as though I’ve I stood up against something. I’m glad my marriage didn’t fail because of womanizing or whoring or abuse. I am sorry for my son, though. I not only failed in marriage but also in breaking the cycle of broken families that I have only known growing up in suburban hell of America. As naive as this sounds, I honestly hoped that moving to Europe would help me break from that evil cycle. I was wrong.

And before I forget, this whole thing also helped me meet my girlfriend – she caught me as I was falling. I love her for it and thank her with all my heart.

Rant on, tgs, worstwriter

 

Calling Wim Wenders

Wim, dude! Wake up. Can’t you hear me calling? Hörst du gar nichts?
You’re German. I’m not. That’s a good mix. Was meinst du?
Melde dich mal. Ich hab’ was für dich.

Here.

You can film it and I won’t charge much… ;-)

Regards, tgs, worstwriter

Theater in Cinema Format

Why would a half decent, relatively handsome young fellow like me want to become a playwright? It's foolish, really. But I fell in love with the stage. Unlike the love that most people know this was something different. But I don't really want to get into that whole thing about love. Especially at this time since I'm still mighty bitter about getting dicked-over by my one and only wife. What a bitch. Schlampe!

Ok. Calm down, Tom. I'm cool now. Go here if you're in the least interested in my ranting and raving regarding women and their unbridled lust to control and manipulate – not men – love. Or you can use the search window and just type in "bitch".

Where was I?

Oh yeah.

When I was in my mid-twenties I found out what I wanted to do. Write for the theatre. I tried acting but I thought acting was too brainless – no offense. No matter what I did or who I talked to there was no keeping me from theatre. Of course, let me keep this in perspective. I was a lost young soul who had found something that preoccupied his mind a bit longer than what was between some bimbo’s legs or just below her chin. I found refuge in reading dialog – it had become an alternative to all the krapp prose work required for English major courses and while reading it I could live it!

There was one professor in college that said to me: “you should only take this class as prerequisite course. Just get through it with a C or if you feel you must with a B. But leave this sort of stuff to the people who can understand it.” I’m not BSing anyone here. That was actually said to me some twenty years ago by a rinki-dink college professor for a course in theatre history.

I think I got a C in that class. Still, the only books I ever bought to read then were plays. I loved it because, as I’ve said in previous post, my mind worked just like a stage – three walls and an audience. I constantly had new ideas, which to this day hasn’t ceased, where I would fill those three walls with characters and their goings-on. Of all those fine arts courses I took in college, as silly as they were, I learned only one thing: if you want to live in a world of creativity and art (to me, that which makes us human) don't listen to anyone who thinks they can even come near teaching it.

So I’m gonna continue on this path because… college and professors suck.

The jpg above is a copy of the write-up from a local paper in Düsseldorf regarding the theatrical trailer that was performed to promote the premier of my play “The Good Criminal” (Der gute Kriminelle). Sorry, but it's only in German.

National Geographic does a Judas

Popular = Good Life

Well, it’s finally come full circle. Da Vinci Snot – the film – has been released. And did you get a shot of that train delivering the privileged few from London to Cannes? Tom Hanks looked overly debonair and Ron Howard, that freaky child actor who was constantly the subject of my spit balls on the TV screen when I was kid, looked so… At least “glamour” isn’t a pre-requisite for showing up at Cannes. And to top it off, I thought the gerbils that were stuck up my ass would come flying out and singing after witnessing that publicity stunt.

For a while I thought that the filming of Dan’s plagiary would mark the end of this really big and neat-o popularity display. I thought finally I could find some peace from all the imbeciles coming to me with: Tommi, can you explain to me again the story of Mary having to wave through storm and peril while pregnant on her refuge seeking trek on a donkey (the same one JC used, btw) from Jerusalem to Egypt after the crucifixion? Or they would ask: Tommi, could you explain to me again the conflict Jesus had with his disciples, especially that big-war-mongering-assassin-leader-type-guy, Peter? And then there is my favourite: Tommi, tell me again the story of Jesus’ resurrection and who he sees first so as to create a metaphor reincarnating the concept of Adam and Eve and paradise.

You see, it all began in 2004. Da Vinci Snot, the book, was quite popular but I had promised myself a long time ago to avoid certain things because life is too short.

• Don’t read poorly written books or books that adhere to a formula dictated by publishers.
• Popularity is evidence enough of something not being worth reading.

Now don’t get your thongs all in a wilily. I got nothin’ against others reading this krapp. In fact, it’s a great source of personal entertainment because I’m the guy who read almost all the secondary literature regarding Dan Brown’s wife’s passion. At this point in my failed life Dan’s plagiarism will go down as a personal highlight since for the first time I can openly share my knowledge and very few amongst the college educated working class compulsives can come near my intellectual prowess on the subject. People who read Da Vinci Snot see right away when they look at me that I’m a guy who knows more than, goodness forbid, Dan’s wife – the real author of the book. But enough about moi.

Irony as truth and justice and…

The other day my lovely girlfriend returned from a business trip. As usual, when she arrives from a hard day of work, I have a bottle of Proseco chilled and am waiting to serve her a glass while asking whether or not she’s had a bad day. She usually responds in the positive – she’s desperately optimistic – and then sips from the glass and I observe how the Italian sparkling wine soothes her lovely but troubled soul. On this day, to my reluctant surprise, she changed the subject to one of my favourites.
“I have something for you,” she said.
Like a kid expecting wonders from a father who travels too much I became overtly excited. I stood back and sipped my whiskey to keep calm. My chick handed me a small paper carton with “Neuhaus” and “Lufthansa” written on it. Since she’s on an eternal diet, she brings me the delicious chocolate that business class affords you after paying inflated prices.
“Thank you very much,” I said, putting the chocolate on the counter thinking that she was also the one that wants me to go on a diet.
We continued the small talk regarding her business trip until it bored both of us. Then she realized something.
“I have another gift for you,” she said.
She turned and ran off to the foyer and returned with an English copy of National Geographic with the cover title “The Judas Gospel”. Of course I had seen this in Germany but I rarely pay the price to buy this sort of thing. An intellectual like me should have such stuff simply sent to him. Right?
The first thing I asked my chick was if she had paid for the magazine.
“No, I took it from the hotel in London.”
Good.

The next morn, with coffee and toast, I embarked on reading NG’s article. My conclusion from a journalistic point-of-view: the article sucks. My conclusion from a (bad) writer’s point of view: the article sucks. The author of this article makes a living at this and I can’t – that should clarify everything. I could have written it better using my toes, finger paint and stealing pictures from pre-school bible study books. The timeline covering two pages was ok and also the small picture of Judas by Leonardo was nice. But the rest was junk, junk, junk. This is why I stopped reading NG and others like it. Let me give you an example that I’m sure the author came up with all by his lonesome:

The notion of “gospels” that contradict the canonical four in the New Testament is deeply unsettling to some, as I was reminded at lunch with Meyer at a Washington, D.C., restaurant. Brimming with enthusiasm, the ebullient academic polished off a plate of chicken salad while discoursing non-stop on the beliefs in the Judas gospel. “This is really exciting,” he exclaimed. “This explains why Judas is singled out by Jesus as the best of the disciples. The others didn’t get it.”
The lunch time crowd had emptied out, and we were alone in the restaurant, deep in the second century A.D. when the maitre d’ hesitantly handed Meyer a note. It read simply, “God spoke a book.” The cryptic message had been called in anonymously, with instructions that it be delivered immediately to the diner who had ordered chicken salad. Someone seated nearby had apparently thought Meyer was casting doubt on the Bible as the word of God.

Excuse me for a moment while I write and express my frustration in French: What the fuck does the author of this article think he’s writing about? Back to English: Isn’t this supposed to be about an historical find?

Ok. What are we dealing with here? This is an article about an old document. You don’t have to sell me that. Just write me something interesting about it. Interesting doesn’t equate with popular. Interesting in this context is facts and research.

Anyone see the irony here? NG releases its May 2006 issue to correspond with the release of Da Vinci Snot. And that’s fine. Get on the band wagon. But NG has had the Judas document for… how many years now? Ok, I’m down with this increase your numbers kinda thing – but then to have the author, Mr. Andrew Cockburn, include the above mentioned passage? What the hell for? Oh yeah, because, according to popularity statistics, the compulsive workforce, especially the higher academics, will think it’s cute.

National Geographic – you suck.

It’s not enough that the moguls of media rule the collective imagination of useless eaters and compulsive labourers. But now, in all walks of print and publishing, the same shit gets regurgitated over and over and over and over – independent of the context so the creators of this krapp can look cute. Cute equals popular. Da Vinci Snot is bad enough with its conspiring innuendo and silly mockery of albinos and written at the same level as pre-school bible study picture books. But when a half-witted journalist thinks while typing an article about a significant historical find, “Hey, why not put a little Da Vinci in there somewhere…”

Man, when will this end?

If this is what the compulsives of this world want, then who am I to judge. But when a journalist tries to copy the same shit that another “popular” author already copied, well, I’m a bit at wits end here.

Judas

If this continues then my fear that the world can only get stupider is coming true. Dan Brown, with his wife hidden behind a curtain and his publisher sucking cocktails in Barbados, will probably receive an academy award, a Pulitzer and Nobel Prize. He will then run for public office as a republican in the US northeast and eventually win the presidency by a very small majority because he has promised lower taxes and fuel efficient hotrods and…

Yeah. Let’s all really get into not what Judas could have been but what he actually did. We do it to each other every day of our lives. So, like Donna Summer sings, Let’s Dance. Let’s do the Judas…

Rant on.

tgs

HP scanners suck and so too do the mice

Remember the days when hitting the key combination ctrl+s saved your ass and the work you were hacking into your computer? I’m talking 1982, here. Well, for whatever reason, today I forgot what the concept of ctrl+s means. This is attributable to one of two things: drink or laziness. Let me repeat: I forgot the concept of the key combination; I did not forget the key combination. After working on something for a few hours I mistakenly, thinking I was managing data, threw away all my work. Yes, I am one who switched from Mac to PC a few years back. Stop laughing. This is a very sad day. What does this have to do with ctrl+s? It's the concept that we've all forgotten: protecting ourselves from the abuse of all this industrialization and technology, etc. Our protection is only a mouse movement away or a click of the left button. Life and everything in it sucks. I yearn for the days and clarity of the past – oh, what suffrage.

When the PC first started making the rounds it was required that a person know a few basics about it. These basics had nothing to do with the inner workings of the device, nor did they have to do with programming or understanding of “software”. The basics were nothing more than understanding a few archaic concepts. None of these concepts were ever written down nor were they talked about among the geeks and then allowed to trickle down to the rest of us. They include:

• Only put something into it that you’re willing to lose.
• ctrl+alt+del.
• More than half of that which gives a PC functionality is superficial and only there to make you pay more for hardware.
• There is no such thing as “software”. PCs are driven by atomically small mice sent here from the edge of the galaxy.
• You “buy” software so that “hardware” can be made. It’s never the other way around. “Hardware” is the last of the three human inventions. The other two inventions were the wheel and the pencil.
• A pencil can do the same thing as hardware.

The PC almost died in the mid to late eighties. Think IBM PC-junior and green or yellow monochrome screens. It was obvious, if this was to be the last of the three allowed human inventions, it couldn’t be allowed to just die out. One day while all the geeks were panicking someone came up with a really cool idea: connect the devices giving Sheople the capacity to move beyond their putrid and trite existence – which is the whole point of inventions, to keep the Sheople at bay, keep them from rioting too much, etc., etc. Also add a little color to make it more like the TV. It worked perfectly. The scary thing is we are still in the infantile stages of it all. Hopefully the herder of the universe, who tolerates the three inventions, will protect the Sheople who have obviously gone astray. But that’s another post.

Where do I get this all this about “hardware” and “software” and the three inventions? Well, does no one else think about why everything is broken in our lives?

As I said, today I lost data and I'm really ticked off. I have millions of words written either with a pencil or a typewriter and I’m not going to take it lightly that I’m a loser writer. If you’ve read any of this weblog then you know this is my way of fighting back. If no publisher wants me or no lit agent is willing to work for his/her living then I’ll just have to go it alone. This is what technology is for. So to coincide with finally starting a weblog I bought a scanner. And it sucks. In fact, the last time I used a scanner, about ten years ago, which was actually borrowed because they were too expensive to buy, it did pretty much the same thing this new scanner does. It just gets in the way and collects dust.

So this is my post about the last of the three inventions and how screwed up everything is. It’s time to start spreading some truth. Charlie Sheen isn’t the only one out there who can speak his mind.

It's really unbelievable that a scanner bought in 2006 works no differently than the first scanner I used around 1996. Even the software, I mean, the mice that drive it, suck. The connection to the PC sucks – just like back then. Ever since hooking the thing up my PC is running weird. You would think that T H E Y finally got it together – that’s right, the mice. You would think that the mice finally saw the light and could do what Apple mice do – make it all work together – or at least make it look that way. And let me not forget OCR. This is the real disappointment. I have so many typed pages of text and now they will stay that way because the mice today are no different then yesterday – and they should be different – they should be better – I should be able to write with snot on a brick and OCR should be able to read it into my PC.

Honestly, do you think, after reading a bit of this weblog, that perhaps I’m such a bad writer, that the reason I lose scanned data is because the mice know how bad a writer I am and somehow sabotage what I’m doing?

Nothing works, whether it’s a scanner or a plumber or political system. So it can’t just be me. Can it?

Goodness gracious we’re all going nowhere fast. tgs

Taxi for a Rose

Anyone out there ever done one of those one-hundred-word writing contests? Anyone ever won one? If so, send me an email. I'd like to correspond with such a person – and of course read your contest entry. When I was still full of hope about becoming a writer I tried everything. One-hundred-word, fifty-word, three-and-half-word contests. Nothing worked. No wonder. Even then my writing sucked.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail

Ever since I left the nest I was somewhat obsessed with Jesus. Not in a religious sense, mind you. Being the product of the broken American dream, as a child, I thought Jesus was a pretty cool dude because we had something in common.

Wasn’t he also a child of misconstrued parenthood?

The perspective offered me of religion and Jesus was through two lenses. I was baptised protestant but raised, via second marriage of my mother, Catholic. I have to admit, I like the Catholic side. But I’m a male and am still border-line stupid. Although they can be easy-going, I found Protestants to be more tyrannical, albeit less painful as the Catholics which, at times, equal back of hand whipping with ruler. I like the pain, I guess.

As I got older religion became nothing more than selling snake oil. As usual, we Americans branded it, packaged it, distributed it and then ran it through the gauntlet of yearly statistics and quarterly revenue devices. For a while there I was so put off by the Pauline Evangelicals that I ran out of their way. If I saw one coming down the street – they’re easy to spot with that stupid grin on their face and short sleeve shirts with ties – I would cross it. But they spread like wild-fire. Relief came only in the form of sin and expatriation. The sin? I took to bangin’ bimbo evangelical daughters. Expatriation? I moved to Europe where religion was where it belonged: in people and in(side) the church. Of course there were the few by-standers distributing booklets but I never once heard an evangelical in-your-face request whether or not Jesus was in my heart after I moved to Europe. And the bimbos are easier, too.

When I moved to Europe I spent my first few Christmas’s alone. In this manner, I think, I found God. I did so by picking both my melancholy and an old bible up off the floor. It was a great time because I was able to focus on reading – except the chicks I hired that cost extra on Christmas to help clear my mind. The bible is a very interesting read – so too, btw, is the Koran, Lao Tse, and the list goes on.

But the questions followed me. And I couldn’t find answers. What was Christ like as a child? What kind of mischief was he up to as a teenager? How much money or worth did those three kings actually give him when he was born? What happened to his father Joseph? What is a crucifixion and how does it actually kill you? Who are all the Mary’s mentioned in the bible? Is there an explanation for the miracles? Was there also a last dessert?

Like so many others born into the humdrum of middle class I have been waddling through life wanting some meaning beyond what I could purchase, religious or not. I continued asking questions between the hectic of modern work-stress and keeping my head above trickle down economics and bangin’ bimbos. Then, sometime after that very odd day in September in 2001 all of the questions I had been asking regarding religion started to intertwine and brew. Like, what do Muslims mean when they refer to a fight against “Zion”?

While on a trip to the States I went into a bookstore in St. Petersburg, FL., and in front of me was a pile of the last series of hardbacks of Dan Brown’s infamous novel. Of course I had heard about it. At that time it had sold something like three hundred and a quarter billion copies. But having read about it and having promised myself life was too short for sub-standard writing, I thought maybe I should give this one a shot. I grabbed one of the copies and started reading right there in front of the pile. I knew for a book to sell so many copies it could only be written at a third-grade level. Ok, woo me.

But noooooooooo!

I got through around twenty pages when an elderly Englishman working part-time at the store came by to offer me a handkerchief.

-You ok, sonny-boy, he asked.
-This is awful.
-Indeed. But it is naught worth the tears. May I suggest you read this…?

The gentle man handed to me what he called “the source” of Brown’s story. It was a thick paperback, umpteen thousands of pages, titled “Holy Blood, Holy Grail.” He told me to take it with a grain of salt but at the least it was a more interesting read. I wiped my eyes dry from tears of boredom, paid for the recommended book, read it in three days and have been cursing Dan Brown ever since.

Not because of its entertainment value, which is quite high, nor because of its conspiracy-theory par excellence, no, HBHG knocked my socks off because the authors, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, asked and tried to answer many of the question I had been asking most of my life about Jesus. The essence of this book is very simple: the truth is out there just put some effort into finding it. Is HBHG truth? I do not know. In publishing circles it’s a “pseudo-history”. That should say enough. But I don’t care. In all of my years I’ve concluded three things must come from books:

1. Good writing. (Except for my own!)
2. Teach me something.
3. Entertainment value should NOT exceed 1 and 2.

Subsequently this book led to many others. Here a partial list:

The Messianic Legacy (the sequel by same authors)
The Woman with the Alabaster Jar (Margaret Starbird)
The Gospel According to the Son (Norman Mailer)
Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco. Watch out for a post to come on this one! What a master piece.)
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (Author unknown)
The Gnostic Gospels (Elaine Pagels)

Dan Brown begins his infamous abundantly sold book by stating that what he is writing is based on fact? But he is a liar. It is, in reality, based on plagiarism. At least the authors of HBHG are avid in admitting that what they have written could be complete nonsense – but at least they did all the research for their work. And one can only give the authors respect because HBHG really does contain a lot of stuff that I’m sure makes a few historians cringe. Yet throughout the book there is effort in clarifying their position and how they came to it. What HBHG is not is a book that attempts to intertwine you in a silly story the formula for which has been said and done a thousand times over.

Ka-ching

Whoopee.

Good luck finding truth in the world yet to come.

-tgs-