What Passes For A Blooper Reel

Hi. So today, in between another long series of pieces (Elsewhere Series 4 (Part Four) will be on the French Revolution and should appear by Friday), I wanted to take time out and try for a good-natured, self-depricating piece that might allow those of you who seem to like my narratives the idea that not everything is so apocalyptically doom-and-gloom in my view of the world. Sure, most of it is, but I have long referred to myself as a “good-natured pessimist,” someone so convinced that nothing good can ever happen that when it inevitably does I am genuinely happy. Those of you who see the world as a wonderful place, always, with “rare moments” of horror must be tremendously disappointed individuals.

Anyway, I began this site nearly a year ago (it would probably make sense to publish this on the actual anniversary on June 18, but the premise of Recording Editorial History has changed and developed significantly since then, so time itself is a relative quantity), but Recording Editorial History itself goes back more than twenty-five years, back when I was a young and far more ambitious writer, publishing my first professional work and seeing myself winning a Nobel Prize for Literature by the age I am today.

I have seventeen notebooks filled with various rants and commentaries about whatever it was that was annoying me back in the early 1990s through the mid-2000s, scribbles mixed in with abandoned short stories and ideas for novels and screenplays I never got around to writing (some I still believe to be pretty good, although I will still never write them)–even chapters from longer works that have since transformed into something entirely new. These journals are significant only to me (unless someone for some reason in the future decides to write a biography of my weird, boring, and occasionally radical life–then these notebooks have value) as they tell me how far I have come in life, how many dreams have gone unfulfilled, and just how stupid I was when I was young.

Those pieces were far less honed and way more vicious than anything I publish today. This essay will be the 273rd one published here (although there have been a number of pieces republished, but they usually have some brief introduction, some serious re-writes, or at the very least a bit of editing), and this makes me rather proud. I write these, mostly, first thing in the morning, nearly every day. They are really just lingual callestethnics to gear me up for the professional work later in the day–kind of like cracking my knuckles before a fight. Often the theme bleeds over into my other work, and this is helpful too, a two-way street where one side often inspires the other.

What I wanted to provide today is a few excepts from the numerous pieces I have abandoned here, either because I lost interest, didn’t like them, or believed them to be utter nonsense. One piece was actually publsihed but was later withdrawn because I suggested that someone close to me had done something they may or may not have done (I still think that they probably did), and I will not quote from that. But I will now offer a brief overview of my errors, nastiness, drunkenness, and occasional outright idiocy. Enjoy:

In the beginning I used to title everything with a simple “Recording Editorial History” followed by the date and a vague reference to the time (“early morning,” “high noon,” “unbearably late,” et cetera.) Since I was between projects at the time this site was re-imagined, sometimes more than one piece would show up in a day. Sometimes, out of pure exhaustion (I do not sleep either soundly or very much), a third or even fourth essay was begun and would usually end with a “huh?”

Late at night to early morning, July 30, 2018:

— I find myself with a little time to fit in here before my intended break for the first two weeks of August. I have been burning and burning on every side, rampaging through one long, extensive and emotionally demoralizing project, that I convince myself is a masterpiece. I have worked very long and very hard on this, revised and revised for YEARS until here, now.

In addition I decided to finally see if I can make any money out of this rushing, rhythmic passion that I splatter down on the page (or is it online? Are we living in a world where paper will soon be a thing of the past? I mean, what would make corporate billionaires stop producing a profitable product? Perhaps resources are scare? What if all the Truffula trees have died? And why has the price of bottled oxygen gone up so much? I shoulda bought stock in that. In hearing aids too.) That’s just a pompous way of saying I’ve decided to try and market myself as I evolve into a place of revelation!–

No. No no no. That is getting carried away. This is about a devestating psychological state where you somehow hear in your voice the signs of a prophet. Nobody else has to hear it . . .–NO! That is why it is revelation! It is a secret knowledge reserved only for you! You sometimes consider yourself to be a true prophet, a reincarnation of any of the number of deities of the past, and that it is your worldly mission to carry on the new gospel into the gaping mouth of the world. And this can more or less define the character of the so-called ‘artist’ (–shit, if I didn’t think that, why would I be talking about and humiliating myself like this, sometimes, when I stop being, sort of, an asshole? So feel free to disregard; I am talking about this demon of inner instinct that sometimes possesses our souls–think, what do you most passionately believe? Who is your god, really?) I’m just saying that this is my god, and the recruitment office is closed. Fuck you, fuck your gods and fuck your gods with my god, and fuck you anyway, you fucking fucks! Fucking Fuckers Fucking Fuck!

You see how easily the jigsaw, musical rhythm of a language can drive someone bat shit, sometimes. It can flow on forever with a pace that makes you dance to the end of all time. The discovery of language is what got us trying to understand one another. With apes it was intense and certainly intelligible passion. Screaming and screaming and screaming at their confused children. Mama never taught them how to get along. Mama only taught them to survive.

But language changed that, mama started telling baby to calm down. Mama said, come sit with me, child. Let me hear about yourself.

Now of course most mothers are barely better than some of those ape bitches; the mothers shrieking at their children about how they blame them for destroying all of life’s possibilities. It is always about them. It’s what about Me? Self-pity. A smirk.

I can convince myself that this is worth making my life a more urgent series of disappointments, those happening right now, as I take on so much more than I’ve ever proven capable.

Hard work is an injection, because the harder you work at something, not only do you get beaten down and old faster than you ever have before, but you start fantasizing yourself a genius–not just merely slick and stylish. You raise your work to heaven and say ‘Here Motherfucker. This is The Word!’

And if somehow you convince yourself that this is reality, it is only a matter of time until you try to form a cult. This is ambition. Remember: In the beginning, there was the word. The dawn of humanity came when that first messiah of the people looked up to the sky and said ‘There has to be something more–!’ This was ‘The Word.’

So ‘God’ is Imagination. Imagination came to the world when trying to answer the very first question, ‘Why am I here?’ The very question God apparently asks at the beginning of the bible. Who Art Thou? Why am I me? This is all the exact same question. God sounds an awful lot like an accident thrown into a vortex whose

Yeah . . . I was very drunk at this time and the “demoralizing project” referenced was a since abandoned interest I had in an old story of mine, that I had a new idea for, that also did not work. I have mentioned before that I sometimes suffer from wavering psychiatric conditions and this sort of babble is an example either of my not bothering with my medicine or having the booze truly impact its effectiveness. Or maybe I was high in some other way. Either way . . . huh?

Other abandoned pieces are really just very rough drafts of some of my longer works: There are versions of something I have since stopped publishing here as I compose a history book on American opinion during every Presidential administration since our founding, many of them rough and facturally inaccurate (that now book has helped me learn how to research like a professional historian). There is an abandoned Elsewhere piece too, one that will show up differently in the future. It was meant to be Part Twelve of Series 3 and I called it Greenland: A Horror Story You’ve Probably Never Heard Before. Not only is the title unfair, both my exhaustion and momentary lack of interest are apparent in a short introduction that was all I wrote:

This will be the final part of Elsewhere Series 3, which has consumed quite a bit of the past few months of my life. Series 4 will resume shortly, focusing even more intricately on Africa and Asia, as well as a serious consideration of European nations never elevated to ’empires.’ The reason I am ending this portion of narratives involves the sheer amount of work required when I have projects offering substantially more income in the works. I plan on close to two weeks of current events essays (likely with an expanded international voice) after today’s study. I mean, I have yet to call President Trump a criminal in spite of his indifference to outside interference, since the Mueller Report. I need to reiterate this point about the most aloofly selfish leader in the world. But that is for later, for easier times when the transparency of corruption is all that is needed to justify the point. For a place like Greenland, which for some reason is still as large as Africa on modern maps despite reality, we need facts that transcend the urgent silliness of what you or I believe.

We can disregard the fact that Series 4 of Elsewhere is entirely different than what I had planned (it was really my study of the Magna Carta era that changed the direction), but, if nothing else, the editorials after Series 3 did, in many ways, follow as planned. I just wrote more about animal welfare, because that is a passionate issue for me.

There are variations on other pieces that I subsequently published. Here’s a rundown of a few titles of works you and I will never see:

Is There a Difference Between Modern Liberals and Fascists? (a response to the whiny stereotype of a liberal who I declared more right-wing in their absolutism than an evangelical Christian or Islamic fundamentalist.)

Joy in the Misery of Others (exactly what it sounds like)

The Price of Self-Promotion (literally me patting myself on the back for the official beginning of my current major biographical project)

Why Memories Sometimes Fade Away (which was about a momentary, hypocondrical terror that I was developing early onset Alzheimer’s disease)

Notes of Suburban Darkness (an angry piece about how much I loath some of my neighbors and their anxious pettiness)

Fuck It: Let’s Talk About Race! (essentially something I had already written, and far better before)

Family: A Reason Why (pure self-therapy after having a nasty fight with my wife and me justifying why we stay together–not for your eyes!)

Some pieces never even got a title. Here are a few examples:

So, so, let’s talk about something else I’ve been drinking–i’m pretty drunk, and here I am leaving Baltimore, Maryland. It was a day trip, the family and I (including the mother-in-law) deciding that a nice, mostly local day out of town was a good idea.

We had a blast, although, since I am who I am, it seems my job to tear everything to pieces. But . . . But . . . What went wrong? What was the problem? Why am I so miserable?

Let’s go into this for a moment. Wanna hear about the awfulness of my life?

and, Untitled:

(Next One . . .)

I actually saved that one. I have no idea what the plan was.

There is another one called One Day:

The shortest . . .

The ellipsis is actually there.

Another, a Recording Editorial History titled piece:

There are days whe

I must have been interrupted and came back with a different idea than whatever was lost.

To end, here are two more, or at least what there is of them. These are the real blooper reels. First, The Grinch, and Other American Realities from November, 2018:

I took my family to see the new Grinch movie. Going all the way back to my early childhood, this character (and I know that many of you are agreeing with me) was one of my absolute favorites. Dr. Seuss himself was a master, the last epic poet (See Yertle the Turtle https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?isbn=9780394800875&n=100121503&cm_sp=mbc-_-ISBN-_-used). Along with The Sneeches, these stories of arrogance and prejudice are the one’s the truly inspired me growing up. Everyone may have their favorite Dr. Seuss stories–even if they never liked him, that is a story in itself. But for me it was the villains, always the bad guys, the immoral who must someday learn their lesson, that fascinated me. Perhaps you can guess where my reading preferences went as I got older.

On my LinkedIn account I describe myself professionally as ‘A freelance horror writer of bleak comedies.’ This is mostly true. I am a published author, and make just enough to survive day-after-day writing. My professional work is mostly non-fiction these days. Recording Editorial History proves to be the pond of slime that expands to become my philosophy of the world.

But I was talking about The Grinch.

Here’s the problem: I began this on the day we planned to see The Grinch. We never got around to it. I wanted to make a social parallel about human selfishness and bitterness, comparing all of us to the great character with a heart “two sizes too small.” I suppose I have covered that without Dr. Seuss’ support elsewhere.

One last example because I must go read more about Germany from the Revolution of 1848 to the end of World War II (for Part Five of Series 4). This is an abandoned American Fairy Tale, since greatly modified and improved. It’s title, then, was “The Evolution of Hearing:”

Once upon a time people wouldn’t listen to each other. Now, the temporal or historical ‘once’ in this otherwise ordinary statement, in this instance, does not have to represent any specific era, because it seems pretty obvious that this can be reflected over any moment of our being. But there have still been ups and downs within this behavioral constant. There is the mark of interference and the evolution of distractions to take into consideration before making a defining or absolute statement. Sure, people have always been self-involved, but was there a moment when our solipsistic indifference to other beings within our world abruptly expanded? Did something happen to cause this socially apocalyptic collapse? Anyone? Or am I simply talking to myself?

Mayhew Bethemel finally completely lost his hearing two weeks after his fourteenth birthday. His favorite present had been those new headphones–the highly anticipated, remarkably fluid and light, and outrageously expensive ear-sized speakers being promoted by the rapper Ruffy-Tuffy on his website ruffytuffysruffstuff.com. Whenever you clicked on the page you received a high treble blare of such shrieking that dogs would cover their ears with their arms and howl with pain. Other than a few varying pictures of Ruffy-Tuffy–the sixteen year old son of the movie star Sherrod Lawson wearing designer ripped jeans and other designer rags, a pained smile on his face flaunting the sharp platinum he had had an orthodontist plaster onto his teeth, star-struck teenage girls looking both nervous and overwhelmed with uncertain lust–every other link on the site was designed to sell the visitor something. There were downloads of the latest singles; hats, clothes, shoes and random other apparel; you could even purchase a kindle biography of the young man, a study of his infancy in Hollywood, the celebrities who had been at his birthday parties, and his rumored friendship with LeBron James’ son. One could subscribe to Ruffy-Tuffy’s YouTube channel, that featured the young man and a few of his clownish friends challenging one another to perform strange tasks, or make fun of each another while they played video games. Or, of course, you could buy a pair of the almost flesh-like headphones that would prove to blow people’s eardrums out in a remarkably short span of time.

When Mayhew went deaf, he was quite possibly the only person who noticed. His parents were far too busy interviewing lawyers for the lawsuit, and his friends were still able to communicate with him via text, and once the pain subsided, anyway, it wasn’t like much of his life was changed, so Mayhew began to forget about it.

The opening “Once upon a time . . .” is the worst opening I have ever written to one of these pieces. It provides nothing to enhance the story as it is meant to, and is in no way the thematic summary ambition attempts to make them. It is terrible writing too, angry for some reason, misdirected. And while the description of the rapper “Ruffy-Tuffy” I honestly like (minor changes in the re-write), the thing as it stands above is just awful. I am ashamed of it. And I choose to leave you with this example of a writer at his absolute worst.