Yet another lil' gem from back in the day... and you thought no one was thinking about you...
-Joe

P.S. "Dinnertime" the auspicious opening chapter of the soon-to-be-mentioned "All Things Right and Beautiful" will be available soon for your reading pleasure. Check the fiction section for further updates/details...

011604
about 2:45 in the morning…

Okay, so I lied, the website still isn’t up, but I’m being a good little webmonkey and writing stuff for y’all to read once it gets up and running, just to prove I do care about each every one of you (even the ones of you who are here just because you thought you were going to a porn site…).

I suppose I should be doing something a little more constructive. Besides, they’re reshowing the Avs game from earlier (they whooped the Stars, in case you care…) and I forgot to watch it, so I could be doing that. I guess browsing for a “Literary Agent” has irritated me enough to think about frittering time away.

To update, I did finish “Relapse” and it kinda rules. I also (the same weekend, actually) finished “All Things Right and Beautiful” and it definitely rules. So, after a proofreading/editing session earlier today I figured it was time to start doing the obligatory silliness required to make it available to the thronging masses (are you guys thronging yet? Active mulling is acceptable, too…) and let me tell you, what a bunch of crap.

First off, I could be a literary agent for all the formal training it seems necessary to gain the title. There are the ones out there you can tell are good but are either only looking for books with titles like “Love in San Antone” or “Warriors From the Fifth Moon” or some other kinda genre crap or are just, well, fascists.

Now, I mean no offense to the purveyors of national socialism or anything, but when a literary agent says that only the most professional writers with dedication to excellence will be considered, you have to kinda wonder. I think I’m an alright writer. I’m alright at a number of things, actually, but at no time do I take myself seriously enough to say with a straight face that I’m the utmost professional with a dedication to excellence. I don’t like to make an ass of myself and I definitely don’t want to suck—beyond that I’m not going to live, sleep, eat and drink this book any more than I have to. I know it’s hard to believe, but I have a job to go to tomorrow and if I actually walked in with that attitude (as I suspect many of you can relate to) I’d either be beaten and flogged (how “beaten” and “flogged” differentiate, I’m not sure, but I’ve been assured that it’s painfully clear when it’s happening) or laughed out of the building.

So here’s a little dedication to everyone who has the balls and lack of brains to say “I’m a dedicated professional devoted to excellence” and mean it all inclusive—the Reich is waiting for you, buddy. Strap on the jackboots and get to work—the Fuehrer is counting on you.

On the other hand, you’ve got the sap who’s got his neat-o little freebie Geocities or Tripod webpage (complete with pop-up ads, and “webrings”) that was designed using the default background, etc. etc. trying to convince me that he can get me a book deal. Dude, you can’t even get a webdesigner. The market is heading south on tech stuff. Depending what part of the country you’re in there are enough unemployed design guys who’d do your website for a can of soup and the privilege of being indoors.

Now, if you’re idea of being qualified to pimp people’s manuscripts is the fact you’ve read every Star Trek novel written and are pretty sure you know when to use quotation marks in a paragraph, then I don’t want you either. You see, while I’m not a dedicated professional devoted to excellence (or dpdte for brevity’s sake) I’m not fond of putting faith into someone who believes they can get me a book deal because their sister’s ex-boyfriend’s buddy Milt cleans the lobby at Random House.

Thing is, I know enough people out there will probably like “All Things Right and Beautiful” to make a run of it. I also know enough highbrow types won’t know what to do with it because a significant amount of the book deals with plate racks. That and I don’t really have much to say to them. A lot of the book is spent dealing with wonderfully average and uninspired folks who would, for example, think that if you’ve got a couple dogs and a portable television life is pretty good.

If anything I’ve asserted that the book is the ultimate struggle between Good™ and “just fine.” Good™ is all well and good, but tell me the silliness that people read really is any better than something that’s just fine? It’s all packaging and gloss and “All Things…” is pretty much a gloss-free kinda place. I find it relaxing, honestly to look at the world in a “normal” albeit sarcastic kind of way. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to date a starlet, have paparazzi follow me and hang out in my Malibu mansion. I’m sure it’s nice and all, but let’s face it, who among us really wants to have to be petty and shallow enough (in the long run, mind you. In the short run heck, I’d let Eva Mendes or some other “it” girl make out with me if I had to…) to find these acquisitions and status worth trading in our privacy, peace of mind and sense that the world, no matter how flawed, actually operates just fine without us being at the center.

Anyway, I’m rambling like an old man now. The site will be here soon (hopefully). Keep the faith, kids and remember: be Good™—be a dedicated professional devoted to excellence (DPDTE®) not for yourself but the whole of the Fatherland.