Scribbles

There's always something to say

So I read a very interesting interview today, written on a site called HOBART, where the interviewer was talking to a Cuban-American writer by the name of Alex Perez. He attended the Iowa writers program which is one of the best ones around. He gave his impression of what it was like being middle-class Cuban-American in among all those elite Ivy-league rich White boys. A different take on life for this middle-class White-boy—oaky, Old Man by now (I’m 64 in case you didn’t know). But like every young boy he had dreams of becoming a professional baseball player (up here in Canada, it’s hockey, but it’s the same thing.) So writing wasn’t his first choice.

As I was reading it, I was reminded of my own son’s take on how today’s Culture has shifted. He (Perez) was talking about the publishing industry and how it was now run by middle-age White women who came into it with a “Woke” attitude. Now, I’ve always dismissed it when my son told me how Hollywood has changed by wanting to show the empowerment of women. I used to think, oh, here we go again. I was dismissive, if anything, and I’ve since come to learn that it’s just plain wrong. He always used STAR WARS as his prime example. And what’s wrong with STAR WARS, I would say? He’d always respond by saying they’ve ruined the franchise. A little over the top, I used to say. He’d respond by asking how it was possible Rey could fly the Millennium Falcon, having grown up a poor orphan on some back water planet in the middle of nowhere? She’d never flown anything in her life, and now she knows how to fly a ship? Okay, I didn’t have an explanation. His explanation was that the woman who was the head of Disney studios, said that the franchise needed to have stronger female leads. He said it had become WOKE. That was first time I’d ever heard of that expression.

Now, I’m not going to go on about WOKE and PC, and all that other shit. I merely bring it up because I’ve started writing this new story. I only have about 4600 words, so I’m basically just fleshing it out. But it feels good writing it. It feels good because I haven’t written anything since Steve. (Those of you who don’t know about Steve can read about him in the I’M SORRY STEVE, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT entry from a couple of months ago.) He’s the reason I haven’t been writing lately. All the stories I’ve been putting up are old…ish. But anyway, the story idea came to me as a title: MY FATHER’S CHINESE WHORE. Not exactly politically correct, or so I’ve been told. But it takes place in 1956. Now how many here actually remember 1956? One of my oldest subscribers (and I love her dearly,) was born in 1952—the same year as my brother, which is why I remember it—and, of course, my oldest brother (also on here) and as old as dirt, at 75. I doubt if he remembers 1956 because he was only nine and that’s the year the family came to Canada. But the point is it’s 1956. Does anybody actually know what the world was like in 1956? Well, Ike was the President; Nasser was the president of Egypt, and the world stood on the brink of another World War because of the Suez Crisis.

Are we all on board with this? So this is the “background” of the story. I know I spoke about this story before, but when I did, I didn’t know where it was going. It’s narrated by a child, in hindsight. He’s recalling his life leading up to his mother’s death. I’m not going to say that everything I write from now on is going to involve death and dying, that would just be depressing, but I’m not going to hold back on things. I’ve already decided that the dying mother hates her brother—and if not hates, then simply tolerates him. But why, I’ve had to ask myself. Yes, exactly. Why? Now why would a mother hate her brother? You don’t really bring the problems of childhood/sibling rivalry with you into adulthood, do you? You tend to forget them. So what could the brother have done to his sister that she’s going to be cold, aloof, or standoffish with him? There can only be one answer in my mind. The uncle behaved inappropriately with her son, but she can’t prove it. If she could prove it, he’d be out of her life. She obviously hasn’t confronted him about it, because she only has her son’s word. But it isn’t the Narrator who was “abused”, or suspected of have been abused, but the other son. The athlete. The bookworm. (Oh, you don’t know that about him yet. Sorry.)

And what does all of this have to do with the interview concerning Alex Perez, the Cuban-American writer I was reading about earlier? (oh yeah, here’s the link in case I forget to put it up later: https://www.hobartpulp.com/web_features/alex-perez-on-the-iowa-s-writers-workshop-baseball-and-growing-up-cuban-american-in-america )

Alex was a fiction writer, but changed his mind and decided to write about Politics and Culture, and writing and literature, and pretty well anything that crosses his mind. He said that writers these days are afraid to write things that people will look at as Politically Incorrect, which is one of the reasons he gave up on writing fiction and decided to tell the truth. I’ve never done that, shied away from being politically incorrect, I mean. He said the writers shy away because the middle-age White WOKE women have jobs in magazines where they decide who gets to read what, and if they feel you don’t have proper representation as far as, (what is it my sone calls it?), the Alphabet groups, they aren’t going to publish you. It doesn’t matter if what you write is culturally significant, or historically accurate, you have to have representation. Another thing you can’t do is Cultural Appropriation. So I can’t write a story about a Chinese whore in Italy because I don’t understand the Chinese culture. Well, I guess I don’t, but I can research the parts I need to know.

This all leads me to believe that if I were to write this story and try to publish it anywhere, it wouldn’t see the light of day. Those White WOKE women would be screaming bloody murder for too many different reasons. But here’s the interesting part. I’ve been trying to figure Reddit out. I thought if I could get my stories out on Reddit, I might be able to catch a few subscribers (no luck.) But for that story alone—I put THE AFRICAN SONGBOOK up as well—I got 1600 read in less than 48 hours. That’s quite the shock. I got over 4800 for four parts of the SONGBOOK in the same amount of time. This writing thing may eventually work out. I’m over 50 subscribers so far having just entered my 5th month. So I hope you guys are thinking about hitting that SHARE button. If there’s 50 of you, and each of you has at least 100 followers, that’s 5000. Can we say exponentially?