by David Henry Sterry
October 1, Book Soup, Hollywood. October 2, Barnes & Noble, Santa Monica. October 3, Vromans, Pasadena. I love LA. Actually, I do love LA. I went from being a prostitute to Disney screenwriter in LA. Of course, many people would say those two jobs have a lot in common. And I suppose, upon reflection, they do. By the way, did you hear the one about the idiot actress? She slept with the screenwriter. I have assembled what I think will be a fantastic panel for the LA events. Andy Behrman, an astonishing human being who wrote a great book called Electroboy, and who I've known for many years. As will Jenoyne Adams, and possibly a couple of very special guests. I've spent the last three or four days sending out e-mail after e-mail after e-mail to people in LA and San Francisco, trying to make sure I reach the vast audience of people who are interested in memoir. In my experience, the citizens of LA and San Francisco believe they are extraordinarily special human beings who have at least one memoir in them, if not a whole series of them. And often times they are right. And I did track down Josh Wolff Shenk this week. He runs a writing program down in Washington College. He wrote me a really nice e-mail. I think we're going to go down in the spring sometime and do an event down there. It took me five e-mails, and over a year to get him. And this is what I tell writers who are amateurs who want to be professionals. Do not stop sending sweet, kind, gracious e-mails until someone tells you to cease and desist, or they give you what you want. Now I have to find panelists for the event at book revue in Huntington Long Island. Apparently it's a great bookstore. And I thought of an interesting idea for NPR. I'm going to read the memoirs of Barak Obama and John McCain and evaluate their candidacies by their memoirs, through the eyes of a memoirist. And I thought of that idea because I got the message back from NPR that unless it's about the election, nobody gives a shit. And I've also been thinking about how to turn Master of Ceremonies into a musical. Someone in the press suggested that in the UK, and I already had that idea. I think it lends itself beautifully to the form. So you see, I'm trying to always work the micro and macro, the big picture and the little picture, the grand and the minute. Speaking of which, I fell asleep during the debates. I was exhausted. I have been exhausted for one year and one week. Which is how old Olive is. But I felt like Barak Obama wasn't as great as I wanted him to be, and John McCain wasn't as bad as I wanted him to be. And I don't understand Barak Obama doesn't talk about John McCain being so heavily involved in the savings and loan scandal. How similar that is to what's going on now. The Republicans have been digging this hole for 25 years, writing these gigantic checks for themselves, getting rich richer richest. And now the checks are bouncing, the arteries are clogged, the veins are blocked, and the coronary is bringing America to its knees. While McCain and his cronies, corpulent and bloated, look all indignant, point their finger and blame anything that moves, screaming, "Look what they did, the bastards! Only we can fix this! Look at this beautiful new suit we have for the Emperor!" Except they're not holding a new suit, they're holding the same suit the Emperor already has on. Only the Emperor is naked, he has no clothes. Anyway, that's my two cents worth, and with inflation, I owe you over $1000 now.
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