Research Configuration

Must-have reading.

Fresh off the heels of a visit to the emergency room of our local hospital last weekend, creating breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the same seven-pound ham four days in a row, and landing dangerously close to falling behind in the rent by two months, Rodger is in the mood tonight for another book to read as research for his next column for Pop Matters.

This book is not on the list over in the sidebar (“Rodger’s Research Needs”) — as I say, it’s a brand new request not related to his next novel. His deadline for the next Deconstruction Zone is December 7.

I’ve linked the book cover to Alibris dot com, where you can find copies (as of this writing) ranging in price from $4.12 to $175.99, your choice, if you choose to accept this mission and send this book Rodger’s way.

Weekend Reading: “Trace Goes to Summer Camp”

I wrote this piece of “fan fiction” in July 2006. It’s patterned after The Trace Stories by Rodger Jacobs.

Trace Goes to Summer Camp
by Hurricane Shirley

“It’s nine-thirty in the goddamn morning and I’m down to a jar of instant, what the fuck do you want?”

The joys of show biz.

“Is that any way to answer the phone? You need a vacation, Trace.”

“How can I afford a vacation when I can’t even pay my rent? There better be a point to this call, Norman.”

“I saw an ad this morning I have to read you. Check this out: Enjoy a week in the magnificent Cascade Mountains…”

“I don’t do mountains.”

“Rejuvenate body and spirit with fresh air, organic food…”

“I don’t do health retreats, asswipe.”

“…all in the supportive company of your fellow flakers from across America…”

“Psoriasis summer camp! Are you fucking kidding me?!”

“…The world’s first and only psoriasis nudist camp offers bird watching hikes, organized outdoor games…”

“Stop! Psoriasis nudist camp!? I’m hanging up, Norman. Call me back when you’re not stoned.”

“Speaking of organized outdoor games, I need a script ASAP. We’re doing another Wet T-Shirt Contest.”

“No fucking way. I told you, no more porn.”

“T and A isn’t porn. Besides, you just said you can’t pay your rent.”

“So?”

“So you neeeeeeed to write this script, Trace.”

“I knew there was a reason you called.”

“What else do you have to work on today?”

“I’m busy all day.”

“Busy! Doing what, watching your bills pile up?”

“Watching the clock. Only six hours to go until Happy Hour at the Acapulco. I’ve got a favorite stool at the end of the bar.”

“Ah, that’s your idea of ‘camping out,’ is it?”

“Yep.”

“Listen, finish your damn coffee and write me a Wet T-Shirt script … Trace? Hello? Trace?”

<<<>>>

The Trace Stories were a series of semi-autobiographical flash fiction pieces posted on Rodger’s old blog 8763 Wonderland between July 2005 and November 2006. During that time period, eight pieces of Trace fan fiction were published at Wonderland.

In September 2007, 72 Trace stories were welded together to form Rodger’s first novel, The Furthest Palm. That manuscript is currently under review with the publishing outfit Two Dollar Radio.

Crunch Time

“It’s getting better, but we’ve still got a ways to go” is a popular phrase with the White House these days and the phrase is just as popular at our humble abode.

On the “getting better” side:  the latest unemployment benefits extension passed by the Senate may kick in any day now and that would give me a biweekly income; Rodger’s mini-documentary script-writing client promised him a weekly paycheck in email. On the “ways to go” side:  the lawyers in charge of the contract got it into their heads that Rodger will be paid on a per-script basis, which is not workable and not what Rodger asked for.

Feeling a bit ragged of late.

We are at an important financial crossroads in our evolution as a two-person household and it comes at a time when Rodger is at an important place in his writing career: he is ready to write his next novel, especially now that two of the five books he needs for research have been donated.

Thankfully, our landlord is compassionate enough to let us stay even though we are a month behind in our rent payments. But even that miraculous arrangement is in jeopardy. Our latest rent check was turned in a few days late this month, and is due to hit the bank tomorrow. Once that clears, we won’t have a cent left, and there are three weeks to go before the next known income arrives.

Update 11/13: Rent check appears to have cleared, electric bill thought to be due today successfully postponed until 11/23, food $$ on the way from a lovely friend. Thank you! Rodger is peacefully spending the afternoon catching up on some reading.

A Gift from the Garbage Gods

A blessed object indeed.

This just in, literally: Rodger went to check the mail a few minutes ago and I sat down at the computer to get a few hours’ work in. A few moments later I got the buh-gee-zuz scared out of me when an excited Irish whisper came darting through the open window: “Hey, are you dressed right now?”

Turns out he had discovered a file cabinet near the garbage enclosure . The cabinet is not that old, not that dirty or beat up, and has some sort of plywood square screwed loosely onto the top (I envision a lamp there).

To understand our joyous moment, you have to imagine our legion of file folders stuffed into boxes in the living room and taking up dresser drawers.

Try and take that, Thomas Pynchon!

Thank you, Universe!!

Negotiate This

The joys of contract negotiation.

Over the weekend, Rodger really struggled with his next Deconstruction Zone column for Pop Matters. He felt drained, he said, by his previous column. Perhaps. But yesterday he figured out he has another infection going on. These things happen when you have severe psoriasis.

He got the column banged out (quite literally) Sunday night, however. Then last night, when he should have been resting, he was banging out alternative text for his new freelance writing contract (the one we’ve both been going on about for weeks now).

On top of that, a writer Rodger greatly admires sent him a manuscript to read. As soon as it arrived yesterday, Rodger sat right down and read the whole thing. He then stayed up late to send his colleague some thoughtful comments and analysis.

He’s sleeping in as I write this posting; hopefully today the infection will have eased up a bit so he doesn’t have to do a round of antibiotics, which tend to wipe him out even further.

Obviously his spirit is stronger than his body, which happens with creative types on occasion.

Once again, I leave you with Charles Dickens:

“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?”