JOURNAL 2014: The Life of an Unknown Writer

Description

Journal 2014:  The Life of an Unknown Writer is the 12th yearly journal written by San Francisco author Joseph Sutton. The main topics Sutton covered in 2014 were: Writing, Self-Publishing, the San Francisco Giants’ World Series Run, the Beatles Sgt. Pepper Album, Exercise, Weight Loss/Gain, Climate Change, and much, much more.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014 – Cold, Cold, Cold

My wrist is killing me.  It started bothering me a few months ago.  I wish I knew what caused it to become weak.  Was it my nightly chore of cleaning the heavy, cast-iron pan that Joan bought and used and after some research found out that cast-iron is not good for cooking, that it’s poisonous in a way?  Or it might be that my wrist is arthritic.  So today I’m wearing a wristband to remind me not to use it as much and to be careful with it.

It’s New Year’s Day and it’s the first time in a long time that I’m not watching every college football games on TV, although I intend to watch Stanford and Michigan State in the Rose Bowl.  As a young teenager, growing up in Los Angeles, I had dreams of one day playing in the Rose Bowl.  That’s why I went to play for the University of Oregon.  My first year there, we went to the second annual Liberty Bowl.  Yesterday was the 53rd annual Liberty Bowl.  It’s not up there with the big bowl games, but at least I can say I played on a team that went to a bowl game, even though I didn’t get into the game.  I actually didn’t want to get into the game.

It was 15 degrees at the beginning of the game on December 17, 1960.  The field was frozen, like cement.  My feet were freezing.  I, along with a bunch of my teammates, was standing on top of the bench to get some warmth from the infrared heaters above us.  Part of my helmet melted that day because I stood too close and too long to one of the heaters.  When it was time to turn my equipment in, the equipment manager asked me why my helmet was dented.  My answer to him was, “I hit a Penn State player real hard.”  I wonder if he believed me?  Probably not.  So to get back to the game we played in the City of Brotherly Love—cold, cold, cold is the only word that comes to mind.  I remember we scored the first touchdown, but then got run over by a strong Penn State team.  The final score was 41-12.  Because it was so cold that day, only 17,000 people were in attendance at Philadelphia Stadium, a stadium that no longer exists.  Our minds weren’t in the game because it was so damn COLD.  I don’t know about the Penn State players, but none of my Oregon teammates ever experienced playing in such harsh conditions.

I almost did get into the game.  It was when Max Coley, our backfield coach, looked at me standing on the bench, his eyes asking me if I wanted to enter the fray, and I quickly turned away from him.  Why did I do that with a national TV audience and my family in Los Angeles looking on?  Because my feet were frozen.  I remember in the locker room at halftime, I took my cleats off and placed my feet against the steam heater to warm them, which didn’t help.  What I’m saying is, and I’ll say it to my dying day, it was very cold in Philly that day.

And now I’m going to leave my computer to watch the 2014 Rose Bowl game on a beautiful, warm day in California.  [Note:  Michigan State defeated Stanford 24-20.]

Sunday, January 5, 2014 – The 49ers and Luck and Timing

I just got home from watching the 49ers win a playoff game against the Green Bay Packers.  The game began in four degree weather, but as it progressed the wind chill dipped to 14 degrees below zero.  Green Bay had 82,000 fans rooting their lungs out and the 49ers won under the most severe conditions a team can play in.

I was in heaven watching the game at my son Ray’s house two miles from where Joan and I live.  Ray has two roommates.  Their living room was packed with all their friends.  All of us smoked grass and drank beer.  A great gang of men.  They’re a pleasure to be with.  All are in their early-30s.

I can’t say enough about the Niners, they played a heroic game in arctic conditions.  They defeated Green Bay 23-20 behind a mix of big defensive plays, huge Colin Kaepernick runs and passes, Michael Crabtree catches, and a game-winning field goal by Phil Dawson just before time expired.

I revised my article “You’re as Good as Hemingway” yesterday.  I think it will need another day or two or three of revising before I start sending it out.

My argument in the article is to let unknown writers that we are as good as Hemingway, Shakespeare, Jack London or any other writer that’s ever lived.  Why?  Because all writers are human beings.  Human Beings!  Known writers of the past ate, drank, and worked at their desks, we unknowns eat, drink, and work at our desks.  Why are known writers considered better than us?  Yes, yes, I know, they had or have ability and unique voices, but we unknowns have ability and unique voices, too.  Why are Melville or Twain or Bellow considered better than us?  They’re not.  We unknowns have imaginations like them.  We express ourselves like them.  I believe it’s due to Luck and Timing that they’re considered better than us.  Come on, famous writers aren’t better than us, and we’re not better than them.  We’re writers.  We’re equals.

Sunday, January 19, 2014 – Football Sunday

The San Francisco 49ers are going to play the Seattle Seahawks later today.  Whichever team wins will go to the Super Bowl and play either the New England Patriots or the Denver Broncos.  A lot of people think the 49ers and Seahawks are stronger than either the Patriots or Broncos, hence, today is the real Super Bowl.  I have no idea who’s going to win.  I can only hope the 49ers do.  The only thing that’s holding me back from saying the 49ers will win is that loud crowd in Seattle they call The Twelfth Man.  Both teams are evenly matched.  Both teams have great defenses, great running backs, and young, talented quarterbacks.  The quarterback for Seattle is Russell Wilson, a very elusive runner and decent passer.  San Francisco’s quarterback is Colin Kaepernick, a swift, slashing runner with a canon of an arm.

I’ll be going to watch the game at my son’s house with a bunch of his friends.  But before I go, I need to walk along Ocean Beach.  I need my hour of exercise every day, not only for my health but to keep my weight down.

After the game

The Seattle Seahawks beat our 49ers 23-17.  It was an exciting game to the very end!  The 49ers were on Seattle’s 15-yard line with 30 seconds left to play.  It was a Kaepernick pass intended for Michael Crabtree that was deflected by Seattle’s defensive back Richard Sherman into the hands of his teammate, linebacker Michael Smith.  End of game.

Denver and Peyton Manning defeated New England and Tom Brady 26-16.  That game was kid gloves compared to the heavyweight fight between Seattle and San Francisco.  [Note:  Seattle, two weeks later, defeated Denver in the Super Bowl 43-8]

Tuesday, January 28, 2014 – My Writing Rant

Yesterday Darien Marshall interviewed me on his radio show in Philadelphia.  We talked about writing, the writing process, rejections, writer’s block, and how we unknown writers are equal to all writers of the past and present.  I told Darien that I tried for many years to get the attention of literary agents (gatekeepers for publishers) and came up empty.  So what did I do?  I stopped querying and sending my work to them and said to myself, “I’m tired of getting rejections from those pompous asses who think they know talent when they see it.  I like what I write, therefore I’m going to start publishing my own books.”

That’s what I ranted about on Darien’s show.  I’m a cheerleader for unknown writers.  I try to tell them that they’re just as creative as any writer that’s ever lived.  A writer can’t get down on himself if he’s rejected and can’t find an outlet for his work.  If he can’t find an outlet, the world of print-on-demand and e-books is now available.

Sunday, February 9, 2014 – The Better I Feel

Luck and Timing.  George Clooney, who was being interviewed on the Charlie Rose Show last night, said, and I paraphrase, “It was luck that helped me break out of the pack.”  Yes, luck is a large factor in getting published—as is timing.  I know whereof I speak.  My book, Words of Wellness:  A Treasury of Quotations for Well-Being, I was told by my editor at Hay House, was what they were looking for when my query letter and sample quotations arrived at their office.  That’s how I got my first book published in 1991.  Luck and Timing.

And then eight years later my novel Morning Pages and short story collection The Immortal Mouth and Other Stories were accepted by Creative Arts Book Company.  Although Creative Arts went under three years after my books were published, its publisher, Don Ellis, became my editor and book shepherd.  Don has helped me self-publish seven books because I feel my writing would be better off published instead of sitting on my computer’s desktop.  I don’t make much money as a self-publisher, but the more books I produce, the better I feel, and the better I feel—isn’t that what life is all about?

Sunday, March 9, 2014 – The Steve Richmond Story

My friend David Kahn told me in a phone conversation today what Steve Richmond told him way back in our junior high school days, as to why it was Richmond’s choice not to speak to me, when all these years I thought it was my choice not to speak to him.  You see, Richmond, in grammar school, told a lie to the principal about me, which got me into trouble for a whole week.  I thought he lied to the principal because he was jealous of my being a better athlete than him.  Because he got me into trouble, I vowed never to speak to Richmond again.  David Kahn related Richmond’s side of the story, that I had called him a monkey.  Richmond, by the way, really did look like a monkey with an oval-shaped head, large lips, and large, protruding ears.  I must have said that to him in the heat of battle on the playing field in the fifth grade, for we never spoke another word to each other, even though we were in the same class in grammar school and the same sports club in junior high.  So that’s why Steve Richmond never spoke to me—I had called him a monkey.

Monday, March 10, 2014 – Writers Who Have Self-Published

I’ve gone over my article “You’re as Good as Hemingway” something like 200 times and I’m still working on it.  It was rejected by the New York Times Magazine.  I’ll now try Writer’s Digest.  I rarely send articles or short stories to magazines, whereas I used to do it a lot.  I used to enter contests, too, where I’d send $5-$15 checks as a reading fee.  What I learned about writing contests was that I was throwing my money to the wind.  I self-publish now.  No more rejections.  No more waiting weeks or months to see if a story, article, or book has been accepted.  Luckily I can afford to self-publish, otherwise I’d be sending my work to magazines, agents, editors, and publishers and getting rejected right and left.  I’d be punch drunk with rejections in the very competitive field of wanting to get paid for my writing.  Everyone who writes wants to be paid and recognized for their work.  Yes, I admit it, I want to be recognized and paid, but I’m willing and able to publish my own books instead of getting rejected all the time.  Walt Whitman paid to publish Leaves of Grass.  Thomas Paine self-published Common Sense.  Many other great writers paid to publish their own works.  Here’s a list of self-publishers I just found on the Internet:

Deepak Chopra, Gertrude Stein, Zane Grey, Upton Sinclair, Carl Sandburg, Ezra Pound, Mark Twain, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Stephen Crane, George Bernard Shaw, Anais Nin, Virginia Wolff, e.e. cummings, Edgar Allen Poe, Rudyard Kipling, Henry David Thoreau, Benjamin Franklin, Alexandre Dumas, W.E.B. DuBois, Beatrix Potter, Margaret Atwood, Frank Baum, William Blake, Ernest Hemingway, Julia Cameron, Charles Dickens, Willa Cather, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, James Joyce, Stephen King, D.H. Lawrence, James Patterson, Marcel Proust, JK Rowling, William Strunk, Leo Tolstoy, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, WB Yeats, Louis L’Amour, Rod McKuen.

Sunday, March 16, 2014 – Ernie English’s Party

I ate and drank too much last night at Ernie English’s party in the Berkeley hills.  It’s a once-a-year event he throws where live music is played, and Ernie and others read their poetry.  I, of course, read my latest creation, “You’re as Good as Hemingway.”  One guy came up to me afterwards and said it was a very inspirational piece.

Here’s the article:

You’re as Good as Hemingway

 When I began my writing career I wanted to be as good as Hemingway.  It wasn’t until many years later that I realized I was as good as Hemingway, or any other writer that’s ever lived.

I took my first stab at writing in 1970 at the age of 30.  No doubt I would be successful at it due to the subject I was writing about:  a teacher in a black ghetto high school who relinquishes his authority and lets his students teach.  It was an experiment in participatory democracy that I thought would go over big with the American public.  I called my novel A Class of Leaders, based on my teaching experience at Fremont High in South Central Los Angeles.  I finished the first draft in four months.  After spending two years reworking it, my book was ready for publication.  Over a period of three years I sent the manuscript and a cover letter to a whole host of agents and publishers and was rejected by every one of them.

Over the years, while writing other books, I kept revising A Class of Leaders.  And finally, forty years later, it was published—by me.  It was having confidence in my ability that led to my publishing it.  That’s when I realized I was as good as Hemingway or any other writer who ever picked up a pen or typed on a keyboard.  Confidence.

And you, all you unknown writers out there, whether published or unpublished, you, just like me, are as good as Hemingway or any other writer who has ever lived.  That’s what you have to plant in your mind if you’re a serious writer.  It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, you still have to fervently believe you’re as good as any writer who has ever lived.  You shouldn’t have to wait 40 years, like me, to find out.

If you’re a writer, you write words.  Hemingway, Whitman, Twain, London, Saroyan, and Kerouac wrote words, just like you do, and they became famous with their unique voices.  Well, you too were gifted with a distinct voice, which makes you the absolute equal of those great writers.  The only difference is, they became famous.  Tell me, what is fame other than timing, luck, and ability?  As long as you have a passion to write and confidence in your ability, that’s all you need to keep going as a writer.

You’re the equal of any writer because you either struggle or don’t struggle putting words and sentences together.  The writers I’ve mentioned were human beings.  They woke up in the morning or afternoon, had their coffee, breakfast, cigarette, alcohol or drug and got to work, just like you and I get to work.  They wrote down their thoughts and produced stories, poems, essays and novels, just like you and I do.  Who’s to say that their thoughts and imaginations were better than ours.  Why even think that any writer is better than you?  They’re not.  Even today’s writers like Philip Roth, Amy Tan, and Joan Didion—they’re not better than you, you’re as good as they are.  They just had timing and luck on their side.

Here’s what it all boils down to:  you’re as good as any writer who ever put words on paper or a computer screen.  And let’s hope you live to a ripe old age, for if you keep writing you might be recognized for your efforts someday.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014 – Father and Son and Windy Hill

My memoir Father and Son: Thirty Years of Growing Up Together is ready to go to Medius Printing.  I should get 250 copies from them sometime by the end of next week.  Tomorrow Don Ellis and I are going to discuss the strategy for selling my book.  Number one, it would be a good Father’s Day gift.  I can maybe sell bookstores on that line alone.  I can also say Father and Son is probably the longest that any father has ever written about his relationship with his son.  Thirty years!

Today I went to my water aerobics class, like I’ve been doing for the past 15 years.  I think I’m getting into the best shape of my life.  We’re being pushed to exert ourselves throughout the workout.  I’m getting stronger and my stamina is improving.  Like last week, when my friend Lou Berman and I went for a walk up Windy Hill, west of Palo Alto.  It took us two hours to reach the top, an uphill climb that I made for the first time.  Twice before, Lou and I were at Windy Hill, and I made it only halfway up.  Lou has done it a number of times.  But it goes to show that I’m getting in shape with our water aerobics instructors, Barbara McCormick and Kathy Bender, spurring us on.  Lou called me the next day after our walk and wanted to know how I was feeling.  “Lou,” I said, “I’m feeling fine.  In the old days I might have been dead tired, but today I woke up and got to my water aerobics class.  I’m in great shape.  Nothing to worry about.”

Wednesday, March 26, 2014 – Introduction

After working and reworking the Introduction to The Life and Death of Abraham Massry and Other Stories, here’s the final version:

On the first day back from the 1947 winter holidays in Los Angeles, my second grade teacher, Mrs. Worthington, called on everyone in class to stand at their desk and say what he or she received for Christmas.  Mrs. Worthington didn’t know that the subject of Christmas in front of my classmates made me uneasy.

“What did you get for Christmas, Patty, Jerry, Barbara, Ronnie, Richard, Diane, Anita?”  They all stood, one at a time, and told the class what they received.

What am I going to do? I thought.  I’m Syrian Jewish.  We don’t celebrate Christmas.  We don’t even give Hanukkah presents.  What should I do?

“What did you get for Christmas, Joseph?”

I stood up and was speechless.

“Well, Joseph, what did you get?”

“I…I got an electric train,” I said, feeling like a worm.

That incident has never left my memory.  It taught me a great lesson:  to never again be ashamed of who and what I was.

There’s a civil war raging in Syria as I write.  It saddens me that Aleppo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, is being reduced to rubble.  I had always wished to visit Aleppo someday, the city of my ancestors, but now, because of my age and the destruction I read about every day, I don’t think that day will ever come to pass.

My mother’s parents emigrated from Aleppo at the very dawn of the 20th century.  They were among the first Syrian Jews to settle in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.  My father, also from Aleppo, sailed with his family to America after World War I in 1919 and settled in the Lower East Side.  He and my mother met in Brooklyn and were married in 1927.

In the Lower East Side, the much larger number of Yiddish-speaking European Jews didn’t recognize the Arabic-speaking Jews as Jewish because of their different language and olive-colored skin.  This sense of alienation and culture shock led the Syrian Jews to band together and help one another adjust to life in America.  The more settled immigrants helped the newcomers (like my father and his family), providing them with a place to stay and goods to peddle.  Instead of assimilating into the masses, the Syrian Jews strengthened their identity by following the religious, ethnic, and cultural customs they brought from Syria.

The community of Syrian Jews moved to permanent residences in Brooklyn in the 1920s.  As the community grew, it became more assimilated into American society, while at the same time it continued to nurture and preserve its culture and values.  Today a sizable number of Syrian Jews—estimated between 80,000 and 100,000—reside in the New York metropolitan area with the greatest number living in Brooklyn.

The Syrian Jews have always been a business people.  Their means to succeed in America has mostly been through business rather than scholarship.  They still do business with one another, as they did in Syria, dealing mainly in apparel, textiles and, after World War II, electronics.

Many young men and women have gone on to college and joined the professional ranks but they, like the community as a whole, still cling to the traditions and customs of the past.  As a consequence, the Syrian Jews are an insular people, mainly socializing and intermarrying within their own community.

I was born in Brooklyn, but my family moved to Los Angeles in 1941 when I was a year old.  Instead of growing up in the large, inward-looking community of Brooklyn’s Syrian Jews, I grew up as American as any American kid in the wide-open spaces of Los Angeles of the 1940s and ’50s.  There was a small community of Syrian Jews that my parents socialized with and, during the two major holidays of Passover and Yom Kippur, the community gathered together in a social hall as a makeshift synagogue.  Other than the holidays and the parties that my parents hosted, I was never in the company of Syrian Jews.

Of all the boys born to my father’s four brothers and one sister and my mother’s four brothers and three sisters, my oldest brother Charles was the first to break away from the tradition of a son joining his father in business.  My brother set a precedent for me to follow.  It gave me permission to do what I wanted to do in life and not what tradition demanded.  In this story collection, I’ve done my best to relate my Syrian Jewish experience.

Friday, April 4, 2014 – Take Care of Earth and My Bad Shoulder

I’m picturing the redwoods where Joan, Raymond, and I used to camp out over the years.  I love the redwoods.  There’s something about them that brings peace to the soul.  They’ve taught me to take care of Earth.  Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring taught me how harmful pesticides are to nature and all living beings on Earth.  Paul Ehrlich, who wrote The Population Bomb, taught me that too many people on Earth is not a good thing.  Vance Packard’s The Waste Makers taught me how advertising taps into our subconscious to make us keep buying things that we really don’t need.

Every time I move my right shoulder the wrong way, I feel pain.  It stems from being a quarterback in high school, from coaching Little Leaguers who I pitched to at every practice for two years, and from being the father of a baseball player who I’d go out and pitch to a hell of a lot of times.  I threw and pitched my arm out.  I’m feeling it now at the age of 73.

I’m ready to eat in solitude and watch the Warriors while Joan is visiting our son Sol, his wife Jang, and our two-year-old grandson Olby in Chicago.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014 – Racism Rears Its Head

The BIG news today was the banning of L.A. Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling, a well-known racist to his players, coaches, apartment tenants, fellow NBA owners, and the Media.  The man finally got his due.  He was banned from ever attending an NBA game or to have anything to do with the Clippers, a team he’s owned since 1981.  He was fined the maximum of $2.5 million by the new NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver.  A job well done by Silver, a man who made a very strong statement against Sterling and racism.  You see, Donald Sterling was recorded telling his mistress, a woman with Black and Latino blood in her, that he didn’t want to see her putting photos of her with any Black man on Facebook and he went on a long diatribe about how the Black people are the scum of the Earth, “vermin” he called them.  And so in this day and age of racist bigots across the country, Commissioner Adam Silver said that this type of behavior will not take place in the NBA where close to 75% of the players are Black.  That’s the BIG news of the day, and to top it off, the Clippers are going to play the Warriors tonight.  Both teams have two wins and two loses in the first round of the playoffs.  Whichever team wins four games goes on to the next round.  All four games have been very exciting, by the way.  The day the news broke about Sterling, the Clippers played the Warriors here in Oakland and got drubbed by the Warriors.  Before the game, the Clippers team put on a silent protest against Sterling by wearing their warm-up jerseys inside out.  They also wore black socks and black wrist bands.  Everyone in the country is going to watch the game tonight to see if they can bounce back on their home court.  I hope they don’t bounce back, because I want the Warriors advancing in the playoffs.

Thursday, May 1, 2014 – Grunt Work

I’ve been going to different bookstores in San Francisco with Father and Son.  Some stores have taken a few copies and some have taken six.  Yesterday at Bird and Beckett, Eric Whittington took only one copy.  That’s a slap in my face by Eric, my oldest customer.  I had a book reading at his store 14 years ago, my first book reading ever, and he sold close to 30 books of Morning Pages that night.  And now he tells me that if I were well-known or reviewed in the Chronicle he’d take more copies.

So what am I going to do?  Cry about it?  No, no, no.  I’m going to go out and sell as many books as I can (actually leave my books on consignment).

I was almost going to pass up Dayenu today, a gift shop located in the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, but decided to go in and show Hiroko, the owner, The YEARS the Giants Won the Series and Father and Son.  She took three of each.

Tom Gartner, book buyer for Books Inc. in the Marina District, wasn’t in for the second time in a week.  He’s a good customer of mine and I’ll keep trying him whenever I’m in the area.

I’ve been very busy trying to get Father and Son into bookstores around the Bay Area, sending out e-mails, putting it on my website, sending 25 copies to my nationwide distributor in New York (BCH Fulfillment), and writing a Press Release.  You name it, I do it, and I’m getting tired of taking care of the grunt work that a self-publisher has to do.

Monday, May 12, 2014 – Better to Write Twaddle, Anything, Than Nothing at All

On my desk are several things I have to get to before I forget.  One is a quote from Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle that I found in the  “Books” section:  “Writing something bad is always better than sitting around wishing you could write something good.”  I like J. Robert Lennon’s quote, author of See You in Paradise:  Stories.  His thinking is very similar to mine.  It reminds me of what Katherine Mansfield and William Saroyan have written about writing.  Mansfield wrote, “Better to write twaddle, anything, than nothing at all.”  And Saroyan wrote:  “Write, and be damned.  Write, and let the form be damned.  Don’t imagine you are to write with your intelligence, because either you have it or you don’t, and when you do have it, it is always in the feet, not in the mind.  Intelligence is a much misunderstood thing.  It is not the thing writers write with, so write, and don’t expect to be intelligent…just write, and don’t expect to write one way and not another, any way will do.”

I’m proud that Joan and I have cut down our monthly water bill from $90 a month to $30 a month, ever since Governor Jerry Brown told Californians to cut our water bills 20%.  We’ve cut it 66%, meaning Joan and I are very conscious of how we use water in our house.  Every time I turn on the faucet I think of using the bare minimum.  When I get in the shower, for instance, I get wet, turn the water off, soap down, then rinse off.  That saves gallons of water that Joan and I used to use.  Washing the dishes, brushing my teeth, I think of saving as much water as possible.  Our philosophy in the bathroom is, “If it’s yellow let it mellow; if it’s brown flush it down.”  Water conservation is constantly on my mind, so much so that I’ve had to tell a few men at the YMCA to stop wasting water.

The basketball playoffs are going on without the Warriors’ Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andrew Bogut, Andre Iguodala, and David Lee.  They gave the L.A. Clippers a run for their money in the seventh game of the first playoff series and came up five points short.

Thursday, May 15, 2014 – Bill Hellums and the Giants

I took Bill Hellums out to lunch today for his 73rd birthday.  Bill has lost close to 60 pounds.  We’re the only two men in the water aerobics class, but we’ve known each other from past years at the Y.  We actually met in the sauna many years ago.  He says he’s losing weight because he wants to get down to his high school weight of 200 pounds (he’s 6’2″) before he has knee surgery next month.  As of today, he weighs 207.  Bill and I usually talk about everything under the sun, such as climate change, politics, world affairs, famines in Africa, droughts in California and Africa, our wives, our houses, nuclear energy (which he wholeheartedly believes in), our health, our weight, our diets, drinking alcohol, and so on and so forth.  Bill has his opinions, and I’m always curious to know what he thinks.  He also knows a lot of eating places here in town and I always rely on him to come up with an establishment that I’ve never been to.  Today we went to a Mexican taqueria where they serve large dishes for reasonable prices.  I ordered a burrito and it was the biggest I’ve ever eaten.  I actually ate 2/3 of it and brought the other third home.

Yesterday I went to AT&T Park to see the Giants play the Braves.  It was 90 degrees and the ball, especially for the Giants, was flying out of the park.  Three women in my water aerobics class and I sat in a shaded part of the park, way up on the third deck under an overhang.  The Giants hit three home runs and are now third in all the majors in home runs.  San Francisco beat Atlanta 10-4.  Hunter Pence got four hits in five at bats.  Gregor Blanco stole three bases and scored three times.  Pablo Sandoval seems to be turning around his hitting woes of the past month-and-a-half by starting to get base hits.  Brandon Crawford is like a vacuum with his glove at shortstop, scooping up anything he can touch to throw batters out.  The Giants have the second best record in all of baseball:  26 and 15.

Saturday, May 17, 2014 – My Weight

My weight is up to 198 when it should be going down toward 185.  I cut down on breakfast this morning.  Last night I drank three glasses of wine.  Not good.  I’m going to have to cut down on alcohol consumption.  I have to do it because I’m not losing weight, I’m too close to the 200 mark, even though I work out six or seven days a week.  I’m reverting back to my old ways again.  It seems like I haven’t learned from taking the Kaiser weight loss program that I started three years ago when I got down to 170 pounds.  That means I’ve gained close to 30 pounds back out of the 50 I lost.  This cannot go on.  I have to watch what I eat.

I see what’s happening with my weight and it makes me unhappy and tired, plus I’m not sleeping well at night.  I’ve got to watch what goes into my stomach.  If I can see a sign of losing weight, it’ll give me hope that I can get down to 185 pounds.  Even 190 would be a great success.  So here goes another try at calorie control.  For my own good.  For a future of less aggravation.  For a time when I hope I’ll have strength in my old age.  I hope I won’t have to depend on anyone when that time comes.  I want to be as strong as my mother, Jean Sutton, who passed away alone in her own house, still shopping, still cooking, still cleaning, still moving, still sociable to the very end.

Friday, May 30, 2014 – George and Joe Go for a Walk Along the Embarcadero

I went on a long walk with my friend George Krevsky today.  We met at the Ferry Building at 10:30 a.m., took a couple of tokes of a joint, and started walking south on the Embarcadero.  George told me about his 97-year-old mother Fanny in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who I’ve met several times in the past.  Life gets very tough at 97, and if I read his thoughts correctly, Fanny doesn’t have much longer to live.

George says his body is falling apart, and for the first time in his life he says he’s starting to feel his age at 74.  He says he has to get a hearing aid, his eyesight is dwindling, and he’s dealing with diabetes.

It never fails, whenever I’ve had a couple of puffs of pot and am out for a walk with a friend, I bring up the idea of making a movie—this time of George and me walking along the Embarcadero and filming it as we express our thoughts, gripes, problems, accomplishments, and whatever else hits our fancy.  Not only is the camera filming our conversation, it’s capturing the beauty of San Francisco Bay, the Bay Bridge, and Claes Oldenburg’s “Cupid’s Span,” a huge sculpture of a bow and arrow, the arrow sticking halfway into the heart of the earth.  Further south, next to where the Giants play baseball at AT&T Park, is a tall sculpture by Mark di Suvero called “Sea Change,” where its circular top moves with the wind.

I said on my pot-loaded brain to George, “There’s only one requirement to making the film, and that is we have to smoke a joint before we shoot.”  I almost got him to agree with me, but then he started getting practical and asked, “How are we going to raise the money?  What’s our selling point?  How are we going to distribute the film?”  Good questions all, and that ended the idea of our making a film together.

George and I kept on walking and squawking on this beautiful spring day.  On our way back to the Ferry Building, we ate lunch at Red’s Java House.

Friday, June 6, 2014 – I’m Losing Weight

Today I put my short story collection The Life and Death of Abraham Massry and Other Stories on Amazon Kindle.  It’s been on my mind for a whole week, and I finally got it off my mind and can concentrate on the 75 other things I have to do related to writing.

Joan left for Chicago this past Monday, and I’ve been eating protein in the form of chicken and turkey and a hell of a lot of vegetables and fruit.  She’ll be gone for a total of three weeks.  Earlier this week I weighed 201.  Today I weighed 196.  I’ve lost weight because I work out very hard and for the last three days I’ve cut out the three no-no’s of wine, vodka, and popcorn.

Sunday, June 8, 2014 – What is Truth?

This afternoon I talked on the phone with my friend Nate Wirt in Houston and he said he was angry at me for telling him last week that I didn’t need to be talked to about believing in Christ the Savior.  Christ is the TRUTH for Nate, the absolute TRUTH.  But what of the other religions that believe in the TRUTH?  He said that they didn’t know any better.  So how can you talk to a person who says his TRUTH is the only TRUTH?

I said to Nate, “When one tries to change another person’s belief, it’s not the right thing to do.  Do unto others as you would want them do unto you.  I don’t want to change your belief, Nate, I just don’t want you trying to change mine.  I do unto you as I would want you doing unto me.  I have my own belief, but am I constantly barraging you with it?  Not at all.  You’ll never change my mind, for I see through the bullshit you believe.  It’s superstition, it’s myth, it’s a fairytale, but do I try to change you into believing what I believe?  NO!”

Saturday, June 21, 2014 – My Weight, the World’s Troubles, and the Giants

I’m back up to 200 pounds.  Two weeks ago I weighed 196.  I feel like I’m in the best shape of my life, except I now weigh too much.  Why do I weigh so much?  I eat too much.  I drink a shot of alcohol before dinner on a daily basis.  I know it’s not good but I keep doing it.  Why?  Well, with Joan being in Chicago, I’ve been all alone.  She cooks healthy, great meals.  I cook, except I eat too damn much and watch too much TV, what with the Giants and the World Cup going on.  Nothing else on TV grabs my interest except for Real Time with Bill Maher every Friday night.  The man has the best show on TV, talking about what’s going on in the world, and what’s going on is a big fucking mess.  I just read in the paper today that over 50 million people have been displaced due to wars going on around the world.

How can we end war?  I’ve thought of the solution, such as cutting down on the birthrate of nations, but how are tribal hatreds going to end, such as the Sunnis and the Shiites in Iraq.  The Muslims are fighting amongst themselves, and that’s where most of the displaced persons are coming from.  In Syria, three or four million have fled the country.  Syria, the country where my father and my mother’s parents came from, is turning into rubble as I write.  Constant fighting, constant killing.  Tribe against tribe, thinking that their way of religion is the only way.  How stupid can we humans be?  Actually, we ARE stupid.

My good friend Charles Lewman brought up the idea that I should write an article about Syria for the Op-Ed page of the Chronicle.  Well, what the hell can I say about the land of my ancestors?  What can I say that will stop the insanity going on in Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Sudan, and Egypt?  Even in this country, the Republicans hate a half Black, half White man living in the White House.  I think Barack Obama is trying to do the best he can, but the Republicans are so adamantly against him.  The Republicans, they don’t care about our country, all they want is power.  So they go against common sense things like Medicare for all and replacing the infrastructure of our country.

Oh, so many things are wrong in this world.  Do I let it get me down?  Yes, sometimes I do.  I just see my country going down the drain with gridlock in our nation’s capital.  All because half this country is racist.  Oh, how I wish I could help solve all the world’s problems.  As Bertrand Russell once wrote, “The only time the people of the world will ever unite is when we’re threatened by creatures from outer space.”

The Giants are in a monstrous slump.  They’ve lost 9 out of 10 games.  It happens to every major league baseball team in a season that goes on for 162 games.  This is their time to slump.  When will they break out of it?  Let’s hope it’s tonight.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014 – Write Now! and a Traffic Ticket

I might take a writing workshop at Folio Books with a woman by the name of Kathy Dalle Molle, an editor and writer for the Noe Valley Voice.  I met her after my book reading the other night at Folio Books.  She said she bought my book Write Now! and got the idea of naming the workshop after it.  I was so overtaken by her naming the workshop after my book that I gave her my other book on writing, My Writing Year:  Making Sense of Being a Writer.

I have to look into a goddamn $100 traffic ticket I got for not stopping fully at a stop sign.  I’m not sure if I’m going to fight it or not.  At least the ticket taught me a lesson:  STOP COMPLETELY AT ALL STOP SIGNS.

Saturday, June 28, 1914 – The Giants, the World Cup, and Capitalism

The Giants are losing, losing, losing.  I went to a game the other night with my neighbor Bernie Schneider.  The Giants lost to Cincinnati 4-1.  It was the game after Tim Lincecum pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres.  So what happened in the second game with Cincinnati last night?  The Giants lost again, 6-2.  I think they’ve won only four games out of 20 and are now two games up on the Dodgers.  At one time they were 9 1/2 games ahead of the Dodgers.  Things just aren’t going their way, except for Lincecum’s no-hitter.  The Giants play Cincinnati tonight for the third game of a four-game series.  They’ve got to break out of their slump.

I turned on the Brazil-Chile World Cup game late this morning and it went into overtime.  It was 1-1 when overtime ended and then, to break the tie, both teams went to a shootout where five players from each team, one at a time, duel it out with the opposing team’s goalkeeper from 12 yards out.  Brazil won the shootout 3-2.  Both teams were completely exhausted.  They had played 125 minutes instead of the 90 minutes that a regular soccer game takes.  It was a great match.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed with all the writing things I have to do.  I should be glad, as a writer, that I have so much to do.  I surely don’t sit on my ass and wonder what the hell I should write each day.  I have unfinished short stories to work on, I have Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, and my website to take care of.  I have journal writing to do.  I have bookstores to call and visit.  How does one market one’s books?  That’s the big question that faces all of us unknown writers.

I see commercials on TV and the Internet, I hear them on radio, I come across ads on billboards, newspapers, and magazines.  That’s what every person sees and hears every day of his life.  Thousands of things are thrown at us to buy, buy, buy.  It’s called Capitalism.  What I’m trying to say is, those companies that advertise, they have the money to deluge us day in and day out to buy their deodorant, dish soap, car, prescription drug, hamburger, or whatever.  What is a writer, especially an unknown writer to do in today’s world?  Hire a publicist?  I did that last year and spent $7500 in three months for her to get me book readings, reviews, and interviews.  I sold only a few books through her.  To be recognized, one has to spend money on a daily basis for a long period of time to be recognized in this world.  I try, I really do.  I try to think of this way or that, and only on a rare occasion does someone buy a book of mine in a bookstore or pay with their credit card to read an e-book of mine on Kindle or Smashwords.

Saturday, July 12, 2014 – Confidence

The Giants won last night against the Diamondbacks 5-0.  Tim Lincecum was the big news.  In his last four starts he’s pitched 30 innings and only one run has been scored on him.  A fabulous feat.  Good old Timmy is back to where he was four years ago.  It’s all in the head.  Yes, confidence is so important for athletes and writers and anyone else who needs it in their profession.  Confidence.  It’s the major key for a successful career.

What do I have to do to get my confidence back?  Confidence is such an elusive word.  Lincecum lost it for three years up until four games ago.  And now he’s back on track.  I need to get back on track like him.

Sunday, July 13, 2014 – The World Cup

The World Cup is over.  Germany defeated Argentina 1-0 in overtime.  It was an interesting World Cup.  I got to watch the great Lionel Messi of Argentina.  But the most exciting player I saw in the three weeks of the Cup was Arjen Robben of the Netherlands.  Every time he touched the ball, he created something.  Messi created, but not as much as Robben.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014 – Life in the Universe

My two friends from the YMCA, Dave Bogdonavich and Mike Slater—I was with them at Mike’s house tonight as we were watching the 2014 All-Star Baseball game.  The American League defeated the National League, which means the American League gets home-field advantage in the World Series.

During the game we talked about the universe.  Mike said he’s reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything.  He said that Bryson writes about the universe and how improbable, how miraculous that we live on a planet, the only planet that we presently know of that supports life.  Bryson, according to Mike, believes the Earth is a very unique planet.  I don’t believe that.  I, along with Dave, believe that there are an untold number of Earth-like planets, not only in the universe but in our own Milky Way galaxy.  They might not have the life forms like there are on Earth, but there must be life going on in some form, probably in as many forms as there are on Earth.  I can’t prove any of what I’ve just said, but it seems so logical that there are other planets in the universe like Earth.

Sunday, July 20, 1914 – All Men and Women are Created Equal and My Body Parts

I’m always striving to make an impression in the world.  Why would I be a writer if I didn’t want to make an impression?  Do I write for myself?  Yes, I write for myself, but I also write for others.  That’s why I work on my writing every day, to make my work as interesting and as understandable as possible.  I don’t need to become rich for my work, but at the same time, I would like to be compensated for it.  I put a lot of effort into my writing.  It might not be the greatest writing in the world, but even if it isn’t the greatest, it’s my writing, which happens to be the greatest writing in the world.  It’s me.  I believe that all men and women are created equal—that we are endowed with our own unique qualities and abilities.

A screw was put into my mouth for a tooth implant three days ago.  Today I went for a walk along the Great Highway.  As I was walking, I was thinking of what my body has gone through in my life, especially in the last decade.  I’ve lost hair on top of my head, I’ve had problems with my teeth, I have a hearing aid in each ear, I’ve had cataract surgery, I wear glasses, I’ve lost and gained weight (I have a belly right now), I’ve had two hip operations, and right now both of my knees are starting to bother me.  That’s the news of my body parts.

Friday, July 25, 2014 – The Book Business

The book business is going through hard times, mainly because people can now buy e-books and read them on the Internet for a much lower price than a printed book.  All my books are on Kindle and Smashwords.  All told, I make maybe $200-$300 a year on the Internet.  When I print a book, though, I lose money.  When I put it on Kindle and Smashwords, at least I get a little something out of it.

Sunday, July 27, 2014 – The Giants and Procrastinating About Writing

The Giants have been embarrassed by the Dodgers, scoring only one run in two games.  The third game is tonight.  If they don’t break out of this hitless and runless funk, they ain’t goin’ nowhere in the pennant race.  They produced only two hits last night and five hits the night before that.  “If you can’t hittee the ball, you can’t scoree runs,” said Confucius.

The Giants sell the stadium out two nights in a row and so what happens?—every fan falls asleep.  I turned both games off near the end.  Pitching tonight is their new pitcher, Jake Peavy, who they traded two Triple-A pitchers for.  Let’s hope he can hold the Dodgers from sweeping the series.  The Giants have to start hitting the goddamn ball so as to awaken their fans.  [Note:  the Giants lost 4-3.]

I read a “Pearls Before Swine” cartoon by Stephan Pastis in the Chronicle today that I can definitely identify with.  One of Pastis’ characters, Pig, wants to write but keeps procrastinating because he’s either hungry or there are a bunch of other things to do instead of sitting down and writing.

Before I got to my desk today, I didn’t feel like writing.  I said to myself, “What the hell am I going to write about without repeating myself?”  I actually had to force myself to sit down at my desk and start writing, because I can do a lot of other things like Pig, such as doing my laundry, going for a walk, picking weeds out front, listening to Marty Lurie talk about the Giants on radio, or eating a snack.  A writer, all he has to say to himself is, “I’m not going for a walk (or whatever else there is to do) until I finish writing in my journal today.  Forget the laundry, forget a snack, forget a walk.  Do what you were meant to do and start WRITING, goddammit.”

Wednesday, July 30, 2014 – Fixing a Hole

Yesterday I got an idea that could give me some incentive to work on a project for a while.  It has to do with the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.  The idea came to me while I was conversing with my friend Lou Berman over a cup of coffee in a Half Moon Bay coffeehouse yesterday after our walk.  While talking with Lou, I heard a Beatles song playing as soft background music.  It gave me the idea to pick my favorite Beatles album, Sgt. Pepper, and write a story about each song in the album.  The stories don’t necessarily have to be what the Beatles meant it to be, but it will have to do with what comes to mind as I’m writing about that song title.

I’m going to choose one title to see what comes of my idea, and that title shall be “Fixing a Hole.”

I’ve fixed many a hole or problem in my life.  What problems have I fixed?  They are so innumerable that I don’t know where to begin.  The greatest problem solver, though, is saying you’re sorry.

“I’m sorry,” which I’ve said to my wife many times over the years.  “I’m sorry, dear Joan, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.  We’re not in our right minds.  Let’s stop arguing and hold each other, and I swear I’ll never do what I’ve done to you ever again.  Believe me when I say this:  Everything I’ve done in the past to hurt you, everything I’m doing now that hurts you, and everything I do in the future that hurts you, I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry.  Please forgive me.”

And that is how I fix getting into a hole with my wife, by truly saying I’m sorry, and that if she ever gets mad at me again, I’m sorry before it even happens.

I believe the main hole to fix is with those you love.  My son Ray, oh, I’ve done him wrong many times in the past, and I’ve apologized.  That’s the key, to apologize.  To truly mean you’re sorry for hurting someone’s feelings is the way to go.

Yes, all it takes is, “I’m sorry,” “I apologize,” “I was wrong.”  That’s all it takes to fix a hole where the rain gets in and keeps my mind from wandering where it will go-oh.

Friday, August 8, 2014 – Good Morning, Good Morning

This is a story of the Beatles’ song “Good Morning, Good Morning.”

“Good morning, good morning,” our man says as he rock-climbs past his pool mates.  It’s 9:55 in the morning.  Our man, as usual, is late to his 9:45 water aerobics class.  Betsy says “Hello, Joe” as he passes her.  Luby says “Hello.”  Marcy says “Hello.”  Kathy is the instructor.  Our man warms up as Kathy is leading the group of 28 others in arm and leg exercises.

Everyone has a flotation belt around his or her waist, which keeps them vertical in the water.  “Get ready to run for a minute,” Kathy says.  “Tighten your abdominals.  Ready…run.”  Our man starts running in place as fast as he can with his arms going back and forth and his legs going up and down, just like when he ran the 100-yard dash in high school.  He works out hard, as hard as he can at the age of 74.  He wants to be in the best shape possible and so he runs and runs, remembering to breathe through his nose and letting the air out through his mouth.

Our man loves water aerobics.  It’s the only exercise that’s never bored him.  He used to jog.  Boring.  He used to swim laps.  Really boring.  Water aerobics is getting him in the best shape of his life, better than when he was in high school or college.

Kathy marks each quarter-minute.  “We’re on the last stretch now,”  she says.  This is when our man turns it on as fast as he can possibly go.  He wants to finish strong.  The minute is up and he’s breathing hard, really hard.

After doing a whole bunch of arm and leg movements for 55 minutes, plus five minutes of stretching, the class is over at 10:45.  Since our man came late, he stays in the pool to finish up the ten minutes he lost.  After finishing, he climbs out of the pool and walks into the dry sauna to see his good friend Bill Hellums in there.  “Good morning, Bill.”  Our man loves talking to Bill because he’s knowledgeable about the current events of the day.  Our man asks Bill his opinion of what’s going on in Iraq and Syria.

In the shower, he makes sure he doesn’t waste water because of the very bad drought that’s going on in California.

After dressing, he drives home to make a lunch of cut-up vegetables in a hot miso broth.  An hour later, it’s time for him to get to his desk.  He has so many things to do.  He wants to write an entry in his journal.  He wants to finish revising a short story.  He wants to finish writing query letters to agents about his two latest books.  Sometimes he feels overwhelmed with what he has to do.  But today, after a great workout, our man feels calm, collected, and ready to take on the world.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014 – When I’m Sixty-Four

This is a story of the Beatles’ song “When I’m Sixty-Four.”

Today I just turned 44.  I’m married, have a son and a daughter, I’m healthy and I have a good job.  My wife also enjoys her job.  Our son has graduated high school and will be going to college in the fall.  Our daughter will be a junior in high school.  What will our lives be like when I’m 64?

My hair will probably thin and turn gray.  I’ll still be working and so will my wife.  My son will probably be married and have a child or two.  My daughter will also be married and have a child or two.

That’s all I can predict.  So what does it feel like to be 44?  I feel good is all I can say.  The world is crumbling as I write.  Israel and the Palestinians are still at odds with each other.  Russian separatists are fighting to take over Ukraine.  American soldiers are still fighting in Iraq.  Racism still reigns in the United States.  The North Korean leader is out of his mind.  The icebergs in the North and South Poles are melting.  When I’m 64 we’ll be having terrible droughts and famines and hurricanes and the coastal cities will be inundated with water.

I ask myself, “What can I do about all these problems going on in the world?”  I do my utmost to raise our children to be thoughtful, compassionate, humble.  I wish with all my heart that they and future generations will be able to live on this planet where we seem to be polluting it to no end.  Oh, there are many good things going on in the world, but the bad things always seem to smother the good.  Greed is taking over.  The greedy don’t seem to realize that there are future generations that will live on this planet, not only we humans but also animal and plant life.  We have to take care of our planet so as not to burden future generations.

I only have the power to take care of my own little world, and that’s to be aware of what’s going on, to recognize propaganda and misinformation when I see it, to treat every human I meet as an equal, to take care of myself mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally.  I can only control my own thoughts, actions, and feelings.  I don’t want to control people, nor do I want them controlling me.

I didn’t go to work today because of my birthday.  My family took me out to an Italian restaurant for dinner.  My colleagues, at the office yesterday, never treated me so kindly because of my birthday.  Forty-four is my lucky number.  When I blew out the candles at the restaurant, I made my usual wish—that I hope our marriage will last till my dying day and that our kids will be upstanding citizens.

I think we humans will somehow save ourselves from disaster.  I think of my family, who I love so much, and it makes me want to cry out of happiness.  I also think of all the suffering in the world, and it makes me want to cry out of sadness.

Friday, September 5, 2014 – Visiting Southern California

I’ve dropped my idea of naming my short stories from the Sgt. Pepper album.  I asked James Daigh in Carlsbad last week, when I was down south for eight days, if I should name my short stories after each song in the Sgt. Pepper album.  James got out a sheet of paper and wrote down the positives and negatives and we only got to one positive and one negative.  The positive was that it would attract people to read my stories.  The negative was that if I named my stories after the song titles that had nothing to do with the Beatles’ lyrics, then people would be turned off right away.  That was the deciding factor of my nixing the whole idea.

Yes, I spent eight days in L.A., visiting Charles Lewman for two-and-a-half days while staying at my nephew Ray Sutton’s house in Laguna Beach.  Charles and his wife Karen live eight miles south in Monarch Beach.  His house is not private enough for three people, that’s why I stayed at Ray and his wife Stacy’s house for three nights, drinking coffee in the morning and coming home to go to bed at night.  I hope I wasn’t a bother to Ray.  I didn’t see Stacy at all, who was camping out with their three daughters, ages 11, 8, and 5.  Audrey, Natalie, and Marie, the Sutton sisters.  Poor Ray, I’m sure he would have loved to have had a son, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

The weather was in the 90s the whole time I was down there.  One night I stayed in Carlsbad at James Daigh’s house.  His wife Marla was in Portland, and we both got high on grass and spent the day eating at a great Mexican restaurant, talking, discussing, philosophizing, and then going to a Hooters for dinner so James could maybe find a model for a photo book he had in mind.  He talked to two young Hooter women who seemed interested in modeling, and then we headed back to his house to watch a movie he assisted in directing:  Frankenstein Island with Cameron Mitchell, Steve Brodie, and John Carradine.  The film, meant to be serious, was so bad it was funny.  I couldn’t help but laugh throughout the movie.

Anyway, two days before I spent a day with James, Charles Lewman and I talked and philosophized and ate and walked and sat and walked some more and talked about everything under the sun.  You name it, we talked about it.  From the beginning of the universe to football.

I spent four days at my cousin Vic Sutton’s house in the Hollywood hills.  Luckily he had a pool where I could cool off and do my water exercise.  The temperature, for all the days I was in southern California, was in the 90s.  And I mustn’t forget the annual softball game of those of us who went to Bancroft Junior High and Fairfax High in the mid- to late 1950s that Louie Ryave, our junior high baseball coach, organizes each year.  This annual meeting at Rancho Park on Pico and Motor has been going on for 20 years.  I’ve attended 10 of those years.  After each game, without fail, Pink’s hot dogs are served.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014 – Questions

Every time I think of reading during the day, I think of J. Krishnamurti who said something to the effect that people read too much, they don’t write enough.  Well, I’m a writer, and I took J. Krishna’s words to heart to sit down in front of my computer screen to write instead of read, to be active and not passive.

Right now I’m writing at a fast clip.  What the hell can I write about?  My walk today?  My sleeping?  My not sleeping?  My thoughts?  My actions?  My breakfast, lunch, or dinner?  What the hell can I write about?  Nothing is coming to the fore.  Can I write about my childhood?  What about my teenage years?  What about my parents, Raymond and Jean Sutton?  What about my five brothers?  What about my cousins who I grew up with?  What about talking on the phone to Charles Lewman every Monday at five p.m.?  What about my visit to Southern California?  What about our friends Steve and Leah Carey from Portland who visited us a few weeks back?  What about calling Lou Berman for a walk?  We haven’t walked in a couple of months.  What about calling George Krevsky for a walk?  What about taking Joan to Kaiser early in the morning tomorrow to get a cortisone shot in her hip that’s giving her so much pain?  What about Joan’s friend Kathy Everitt, who died while having hip surgery?  What about my son Ray paying me on time every month for the loan I gave him for his Toyota Camry?  What about him and his girlfriend Ashley?  Are they thinking of living together?

Thursday, September 11, 2014 – Book Offer

I just finished writing a letter to everyone on my e-mail list.  Here is what I sent them:

Dear Friends,

A good friend of mine recently told me, “Joe, doing business without advertising is like winking at an attractive person in the dark.  You know what you’re doing but nobody else does.”

Well, I’m turning the lights on and hope you notice my wink with this “Two Books for $12 Offer.”

Order any combination of two of my books at www.joesutt.com and pay only $12.  Shipping is FREE.

The only stipulation is, you have to write a $12 check to me and send it to my address.  Warning:  Don’t click on “Add to Cart” under any of my books unless you want to go through PayPal and pay the regular price for just one book, plus tax and shipping.  You don’t want to do that, do you?

“Two Books for $12.”  Don’t think only of yourself, think of a relative or friend who might be interested in one or two of my books.  Check out the selection at www.joesutt.com

Here’s winkin’ at yuh, kid,

Joe Sutton

Address and phone # here

Thursday, September 25, 2014 – Giants Clinch a Wild Card Spot

Today the Giants clinched a wild card spot and will play the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The location of the one game playoff has yet to be decided.  The Giants, as of today, are one game behind the Pirates.  So let’s hope the Pirates lose their next four games and the Giants win the next four and they’ll have their one game playoff in San Francisco.  Go Giants!!

Thursday, October 2, 2014 – The Giants and My Book Offer

The Giants won the wild card game last night against the Pirates 8-0 in Pittsburgh.  Madison Bumgarner shined like a shooting star, shutting out the Pirates in this do-or-die game by pitching a four-hitter.  The other hero was shortstop Brandon Crawford, who hit a grand slam home run in the fourth inning against Edinson Volquez.  That quieted the Pirates’ fans.  It was silence at PNC Park for the remainder of the game.  Brandon Belt (two hits) is back in the lineup after breaking a finger and having a concussion that kept him out of 90-plus games.  Pablo Sandoval, the Panda, is back to his hitting ways with two hits.  Joe Panik, the Giants’ rookie second baseman, had three hits in his playoff debut.  He’s like the second-coming of the Giants’ 2012 World Series team when Marco Scutaro joined them halfway through that season.  Hunter Pence worries me.  He can’t hit the ball out of the infield.  He’s such a good player, but he has about 5 hits in his last 40 or so at bats.  That’s not a good sign for a fifth-place hitter with power.  Buster Posey is Buster Posey, solid and dependable as a hitter and catcher.  Tomorrow afternoon the Giants will play the Washington Nationals in Washington.  Washington has the best record in the National League this year.  The first two games will be played there and the next two games in San Francisco.  If a fifth game is necessary, it will be played in Washington.  All I can say is, “GO GIANTS!!!!”

I sent an e-mail letter to all my contacts last month.  Out of more than the three hundred I sent it to, I received only two replies.  The e-mail was about my “Two books for $12 Offer.”  What does a writer have to do nowadays to sell his books?  The answer escapes me.  I have a lot of boxes of books in our garage and all I got rid of were eight books, six of one book that my neighbor Bernie Schneider ordered and two books for George Russell, a fellow I haven’t seen since our days at Bancroft Junior High in Hollywood.  I don’t recall ever speaking with George at Bancroft, but he told Don Ellis last year, at a breakfast place that both frequent in Berkeley, that I was one of the best high school athletes in L.A. in the late fifties.

Friday, October 3, 2014 – Climate Change

It’s very hot in the Bay Area today.  The heatwave started yesterday and will probably continue through the weekend.  That’s the usual October weather in these here parts, but no doubt global warming is going on around the world.  I’ve written about this before, but I’ll say it again:  there will be EXTREME weather conditions on Earth in the years to come.  This is due to carbon dioxide in Earth’s lower atmosphere, causing a greenhouse effect that traps radiation from escaping Earth’s surface.  It’s like the Earth can hardly breathe.  Why?  Because of the two leading sources of energy on our planet—coal and oil.  We have to replace those fossil fuels pronto, but we all know it’s going to go at a snail’s pace for the nations of the world to get behind this looming disaster we’re facing.

I was talking to Alba Chase in my water aerobics class this week.  She just returned from a cruise to Alaska.  She said it was sad seeing glaciers breaking up right in front of her.  There are people who deny that climate change is produced by us humans.  They say it’s just the Earth’s climate cycle.  The greedy and ignorant are influencing the thoughts of half the world.

Sunday, October 5, 2014 – The National League Division Series

Baseball is a game of numbers. Well, a big, big number for the Giants took place last night in Washington, D.C.  It was the second game of the Division Series with the Washington Nationals that tied the major league record for the longest game in postseason history:  18 innings.  But the time it took to play the game, 6 hours and 23 minutes, was the longest in all of major league postseason history.  Eighteen innings equals two games in one.  Tim Hudson started the game for the Giants and went 7 1/3 innings with only one-run scored on him.  Jordan Zimmerman of the Nationals pitched fantastic scoreless ball for 8 2/3 innings before he was taken out of the game after walking Joe Panik in the top of the ninth.  Manager Matt Williams, former Giants All-Star third baseman in the 1980s, replaced Zimmerman with reliever, Drew Storen, who immediately gave up a single to Buster Posey.  Men on first and second with two outs in the top of the ninth, Nationals leading 1-0, and up walks the Panda, Pablo Sandoval.  Pablo, batting left-handed, hit a line shot down the third base line for a double that scored Panik.  Tim Flannery, the Giants third base coach waved Buster in on the play and Buster, in an extremely close play at home plate, was called out.  The game was tied 1-1 for nine more innings.  In the top of the 18th, Brandon Belt got what the Giants were hoping for:  a home run into the second deck of right field that took the steam out of the Nationals.  The Giants were up 2-1, but the game wasn’t over because the Nationals had last at bats.

In the bottom of the 18th, Hunter Strickland, a rookie who throws 95-100 MPH, saved the game for the Giants.  It took him 24 pitches to do it.

I’m happy.  The Giants have won three straight postseason games so far.  All they have to do is beat the Nationals in one of three games and they’ll face either the Dodgers or Cardinals in the Championship Series.  Tomorrow they play the Nationals here.  After winning an 18-inning nail-biter that must have been a huge blow to the Washington team, it seems like they should win tomorrow’s game, but you really never know how a team will respond after a disappointing loss.  Here’s wishing the Giants the very best.  Go Giants!!!!

Yesterday I went to Jerry and Cathy Lipkin’s house in Vallejo.  They bought it a couple of months ago and threw a huge house party for about 50 people.  There was so much food, dessert, and drink I didn’t know where to begin.  I had a couple of beers and because I was going to have to drive home 50 miles, I drank about four or five soft drinks.  Jerry had the Giants-Nationals game turned on and about half the people watched the game while the other half was outside on the patio in the 90-degree heat.  I, of course, watched this unending game and started home in the 11th inning.

I called my son Ray and he said he fasted yesterday on Yom Kippur even though a bunch of people watched the game at his house.  I told him I was at Jerry and Cathy’s house with so much food that I didn’t fast.  I probably wouldn’t have fasted anyway, for I am not a religious man and never was, although I fasted for years during Yom Kippur, the main reason being, I wanted to lose weight.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014 – Four Speed-Writing Assignments

Earlier this evening I attended a writers workshop that was named after a book of mine.  Kathy Della-Molle was the leader of the Write Now! Writers Workshop.  She gave us four assignments to write as fast as we could in 10-minute segments.

First assignment:  “A Thank You Note.”

A thank you note to my mother, Jean Sutton, who was a most vibrant being.  She was a sergeant in the house of six boys.  “Joe,” she would yell, “take out the garbage.”  “Bob, wash the dishes.”  “Charles, set the table.”  “Maurice, go upstairs and fix your bed.”  “David, clean the bathroom sink.”  “Albert, bring your wash downstairs.”

She surely was and had to be a sergeant in command of the house.  Dad went to work six days a week to his linen store downtown.  Mom was the boss in our four-bedroom house.

Mom had to shop for eight of us.  I can remember going on shopping excursions with her as a young boy, always talking to the head of the produce department to buy oranges, apples, or carrots in bulk.  She had to cook every night.  She did the washing of everyone’s clothes and hung them up in the L.A. sun on the three clotheslines in our backyard.  She was a very hard worker, and I want to thank her for all that she did for us.

Mom loved to dance and sing.  She could have been Fred Astaire’s dance partner instead of Ginger Rogers if she hadn’t gotten married and had so many kids.  She had great energy and set an example for us to eat correctly and to stay in top physical condition.

She passed away one night in a house that she lived all alone in and kept it going till she was 81.  And then one night she went to bed and passed away without saying goodbye to anyone.  She was strong to the very end.

Thanks, Mom, for setting an example in both life and death for me to follow.

Second assignment:  “The Worst Date of My Life.”

I rang the doorbell.  Oscar Levant opened the door.

“I’m here for Marcia,” I said.

“Come on in,” said this famous piano player and movie star of the ’40s and ’50s who shook my hand as I told him my name.

Marcia and I were going to a party that night.  It was our first date.  I had picked her up early at her house in Beverly Hills and we had about an hour or so to kill before the party in Hollywood began.

I brought up the idea of going to a cocktail lounge.  “Fine, let’s go,” she said.

The cocktail lounge was on Sunset and Wilcox.  All I wanted to do was to kill some time so we could find out about each other.  I parked my car and we walked to the front entrance of the lounge.  The man at the door said there was a cover charge of $20 per person because Lionel Hampton, the famous xylophone player was performing that night.  Forty dollars just to kill an hour, I thought.  I didn’t want to act like a skinflint on my first date with Marcia, so I forked over $40.  Then, when we entered, we found out there was a one-drink minimum per person, $10 per drink.

As things turned out in 1964 when I was 24, my remembrance of what happened after that is almost nil.  Marcia was attractive and all, but the money that flowed out of my wallet that night for a fellow who was going to graduate school at Cal State L.A. and didn’t have a job or much money—well, it turned me off to Marcia completely.

We drove to the party and I don’t remember if I even talked to her.  Poor me.  Poor Marcia.

And so that was the night I took out Oscar Levant’s daughter.  I don’t even remember dropping her off at home.  I never called her again.  It was the worst date of my life because I didn’t have much money in those days and it broke me completely for I don’t know how long afterwards.  Sixty bucks thrown to the wind in one hour.  Lionel Hampton didn’t even impress this depressed person that night.

Third assignment:  “A Time I Asked a Teacher for Help.”

For the life of me, I can’t remember a time of ever asking a teacher for help.  Maybe I really did ask a teacher (I must have in all those years of schooling), but I can’t remember at this moment as I write as fast as I can.

Selma Avenue School?  No remembrance.  Gardner Street School?  I can’t remember asking a teacher for help.  Bancroft Junior High?  Not an inkling of remembering.  Fairfax High School?  Nothing comes to mind.  Valley Junior College?  I can’t think of one time.  The University of Oregon?  No, although I should have asked my football coach for help.  You see, I woke up late in the morning of our first scrimmage that season, my first year on the team.  I limped as fast as I could to the locker room.  I entered the trainer’s room and not one soul was there.  Everyone was outside at the scrimmage.  I had a very weak knee that I needed the trainer to tape for me, but no one was there to help me.  What to do?

I put on my pads, pants, jersey, and football shoes and limped out to our first scrimmage of the season, a most important scrimmage, and stood on the sideline.  And then, ten minutes later, my name was called.  What did I do?  I just stood there and shook my head.  I was staying put rather than risking a major injury to my knee.  I was going against the coach’s order.  This is unheard of on a football field.  I just stood there and the coach started walking toward me, yelling, “Sutton, you’re never going to play for the University of Oregon as long as I’m the coach here!”  All this was said for every player on the team to hear.

Well, my knee eventually healed, but the coach, who I should have asked for help, rarely gave me a chance to get into a game in the two years I was on the team.

Maybe that’s a great fault of mine, not asking for help.

The Fourth assignment was to finish a sentence that started with “Before I leave…”

Before I leave the Write Now! Writers Workshop tonight I want to tell you all that I’m very happy I came.  Why?  Because it brought out thoughts and words I never thought or expressed, and for this writer, I am always seeking new thoughts to write about.

This workshop has done that for me, and I think Kathy Dalle-Molle has something going here that can help many writers in the future.

And so, before I leave you tonight, I want to thank Kathy for making me stretch my mind more than I ever thought I would.

Saturday, October 11, 2014 – The Giants Win the Division Series

This past Tuesday, the Giants beat the Nationals 3-2 in the fourth game of the Division Series to advance to the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.  Joe Panik, the Giants’ rookie second baseman, such a valuable addition to the team this year, a young man of 23 who is playing like an seasoned pro, scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the seventh inning.

Tuesday, October 14, 2014 – Ground Attack

The Giants “Ground Attack” has won another game.  They now lead the Cardinals 2-1 in the best of seven series to see which team goes to the World Series against, it seems, the Kansas City Royals, who now lead the Baltimore Orioles 3-0 in the American League Championship Series.

Ground attack.  Tenth inning.  Brandon Crawford, who walked, was on second; Juan Perez was on first after hitting a line single to left.  Gregor Blanco lays down a bunt to advance Crawford and Perez and starts sprinting to first base when Cardinals’ pitcher Randy Choate picks the ball up and throws wildly to first.  Crawford scores to win the game.  Ground attack means that they’re scoring in the most unusual ways—on errors, passed balls, and wild pitches.  The last game against the Washington Nationals was won on a wild pitch.  The Giants play two more games in San Francisco, and let’s hope they’ll win both games so they won’t have to return to St. Louis, where they lost the second game of the series in the 10th inning on a home run by Kolten Wong.  But before Wong hit his homer, the Giants were down and came back with their Ground Attack, when Matt Duffy scored from second on a wild pitch to tie the game.  Both teams are almost equal in that they don’t give up, they grind and hustle and it ain’t over till it’s over with either team.

Thursday, October 16, 2014 – The Giants and Book Sales

The Giants “Ground Attack” is still going.  Last night, they were down 4-3 in the sixth inning.  The first batter Juan Perez walked, Brandon Crawford singled, and then a sacrifice bunt by Matt Duffy.  Men on second and third, one out.  Gregor Blanco, with the Cardinals’ infield playing in, hit a ground ball to first baseman Matt Adams, who gloved the ball and threw home to get Perez, except the ball was poorly thrown and catcher A.J. Pierzynski couldn’t hold onto it as Perez slid home headfirst to tie the game at 4-4.  That play left Crawford on third and Blanco on first.  Joe Panik then hit a ground ball to Adams at first, who touched the bag for an out.  He then threw to second to get Blanco, but the ball was thrown wildly to shortstop Jhonny Peralta, which made it easy for Brandon Crawford to score from third, making it 5-4 Giants.  Ground Attack at work.  Blanco was on second when Buster Posey singled him home to make the score 6-4, and that’s how the Giants came from behind, winning three of four games against the Cardinals.  The “Ground Attack” did it again.  The Giants have scored 12 of their last 20 runs without a base hit.

Tonight they play game five of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park with Madison Bumgarner pitching.  If the Giants win, they will play the Kansas City Royals in Kansas City this coming Tuesday in the World Series.

There are other things going on in the world.  There is the threat of Ebola that could lead to a nightmarish future for the world’s population if it isn’t stopped in its tracks.  There’s the Islamic State trying to form a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.  Poor Iraq and Syria, both states are crumbling before of our eyes with Muslim Sunnis fighting Muslim Shiites.  What a mess it is in the Middle East.

None of my books have sold well except for The Year the Giants Won the Series, my first book about the Giants’ climb to win the 2010 World Series.  My second book, The YEARS the Giants Won the Series, where I combined the 2010 and 2012 World Series seasons, didn’t sell well.  There are many boxes of books in the garage not only of The YEARS, but boxes of Morning Pages, Father and Son, and my two writing books, Write Now! and My Writing Year.

I chose to be a writer and I chose to publish my own books, but self-publishing has been a losing cause for me, monetarily speaking, although it’s been a great experience.  My latest book,

The Life and Death of Abraham Massry, is now an e-book on the Internet.  I didn’t print this book or hire a graphic designer, I created the front cover myself, a picture of my father’s father, who died in Syria before my father sailed to America in 1919.

How much do I make on all my e-books?  Maybe $20 a month.  Four or five years ago it used to be $40 a month, but now there are double or triple the e-books people can choose from on the Internet.

Why did I choose to be a writer?  Because I write what I like to read and I’m my own boss.  Even if I’m never recognized by the public, I still feel like I’m the equal of any writer that’s ever lived.

Saturday, October 18, 2014 – Penny Kaplan

All of a sudden I’m thinking of a girl who asked me out to the Senior Prom at Fairfax High in 1958.  Penny Kaplan.  I never paid any attention to her in either junior high or high school.  But she must have wanted to go out with me in high school, for why would she ask me out to the Prom?  She was a schemer, Penny was.  She had this guy, Ronnie Separsky, who sat next to me in Homer Hummel’s first period choir class, telling me of his sexual exploits with her throughout the semester.  And lo and behold, who should ask me to the Senior Prom?  Penny Kaplan.

Oh boy, I thought, this might be the first time I can make it with a girl.  You see, I was a virgin for all my 17 years and all I could do at that age was think of having sex with a girl, and finally my chance would come with Penny.

And guess what?  After the prom, we drove up to the Hollywood hills, overlooking the glittering lights of Los Angeles.

We started kissing.  Cars in those days didn’t have two separate front seats or seat belts like they have today, they were made so three people could sit in the front seat.  We were kissing and Penny seemed so hot and ready, except she had on a 1950s prom dress with all the bullshit under it that the girls of the 1950s wore.  Penny got on top of my lap.  We were facing each other and she started rubbing my prick and I started feeling her breasts.  Yes, there we were, in my mom’s 1949 four-door green Plymouth and, man, we were really going at it.  I was touching a girl’s boobs for the first time.  Every other girl before that quickly took my hand away if I got near them.  Penny and I were warmed up and ready to go.  I had a rubber in my wallet for just such an occasion—all because Separsky told me that Penny was ready to go as far as we wanted with each other.

With the windows steamed up, our tongues digging into each other’s mouth, Penny breathing heavily—we were ready to do it right there in the front seat of my mom’s car, when we were startled out of our wits by a knocking on the passenger-side window.  Two cops, goddammit.  They told us to roll down the window.  “You better stop what you’re doing,” one of them said.  “There are people up here who are on the lookout for lovers like you, people who take advantage.”  This was around the time of Caryl Chessman, who was convicted of raping a couple of women in the Hollywood hills.

I drove Penny home.  Because of what happened with the cops, it turned me off about keeping in touch with her.  It wasn’t until 50 years later, at our high school reunion in 2008, that Penny told me that she and Separsky had set me up to say YES to her when she asked me to the prom.  But the trauma of being interrupted by two cops while making out with her left a bad taste in my mouth.  I wouldn’t have had to suffer two more years of virginity if it wasn’t for those goddamn cops.

Monday, October 20, 2014 – Go Giants!!!!

Jerry Lipkin and I have been working on getting the Giants to win in the playoffs and World Series for the past three out of five years.  What we do is for one of us (it doesn’t matter who) to call the other on the day of the game to wish the Giants luck.  We did it all the way through the playoffs this year and all the way through the playoffs and World Series years of 2010 and 2012.  We are going to keep the ball rolling by doing it for this year’s World Series.

The two of us are part of the particles and spirituality of the Giants’ winning ways.  It’s a superstition, of course, for one of us to call and talk to the other on the day of the game.  We can’t leave a message, we have to actually talk to the other person to wish the Giants the best of luck in their quest for a third World Series title.  Other Giants fans have their own wild and crazy superstitions about launching them into the World Series, such as wearing the same socks, tee-shirt, underwear, pants, or baseball cap on the day of the game.  Believe me, we Giants fans are just important to their winning ways as the Giants are.  And so I want to pay homage to the Giants and to all their fans who have done everything they possibly can to propel them past the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Washington Nationals, and the St. Louis Cardinals to get to this year’s World Series against the Kansas City Royals.  Go Giants!!!!

Wednesday, October 22, 2014 – First Game of the World Series

I’ve got to make this real fast, for I have an appointment with Dr. Bugatto in an hour at Kaiser.  The first thing that comes to mind is the first game of the 2014 World Series.  The two MVPs of the game that the Giants won 7-1 over Kansas City are Madison Bumgarner and Hunter Pence.  Bumgarner, known as MadBum, pitched seven innings and had only one run scored on him, a home run by the Royals’ catcher, Salvador Perez.  Great performance, great outing.  MadBum now stands among the immortals of scoreless innings pitched in World Series play.  I forget the number, something like 25 scoreless innings pitched in three World Series games over a span of three World Series.  Christy Mathewson, Bob Gipson, and Sandy Koufax are among the other immortals.  And the second MVP of the first game is the Giants’ right fielder, Hunter Pence.  Hunter, with a man on base in the first inning last night, hit a monstrous home run over the right center field wall for a two-run homer.  The Giants had scored a run before his home run, when Pablo Sandoval doubled home Gregor Blanco and as Tim Flannery, the Giants third base coach, waved in the slow-footed Buster Posey, a decision that, oh, well, I’ll explain after I write about Pence’s homer, a homer that broke the game wide open for the Giants.  It was similar to Pablo’s first home run against Detroit in the first game of the 2012 Series.  The three runs the Giants scored in the first inning was all they needed because MadBum was pitch perfect.  Pence also got a double in his next at bat.  Pablo got two hits, Posey one, hit except he was thrown out at home plate for the third or fourth time this postseason.  I blame Tim Flannery for sending Buster home.  Flannery doesn’t realize that Buster’s the slowest guy on the team because he’s a catcher who crouches throughout most games of the season, and all the games of this postseason.  Flannery, WAKE UP, Posey is SLOW, don’t send him home again, ever, for as long as you’re the third base coach and for as long as Buster is the catcher of the Giants.

Thursday, October 23, 2014 – Scam E-Mails

I’ve been going over my e-mails, deleting a hell of a lot of them from this politician or that organization, all asking for money.  That’s most of the e-mails I receive around election time:  “Money.  We need money.”  Well, I haven’t given any money at all because I get asked around 30-40 times a day.  I just can’t give to everyone who asks, even if they have the same values I have.  That’s what the Internet has bred, people and organizations always asking for money.  And I still get those fake letters from Africa or Russia telling me that they want to GIVE me a million dollars.  People must be replying to their scams, for why would they keep sending that crap out.  I got one from “my bank” today.  It had my bank’s logo and all, but I read the paragraph it sent and it was either awkward English in parts or a word or two was misspelled.  They keep coming at you, these scammers.  They just won’t give up, because there must be more gullible people or saps in the world than me.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014 – The Giants and Joan’s Upcoming Hip Surgery

The Giants lost 10-0 last night in the sixth game of the World Series.  It was a laugher for the Kansas City team.  Enough said about that game.

Tonight is the seventh and final game and no one knows who will win until the final out is made.  The home team usually wins nine times out of ten in World Series play when it comes down the seventh and final game.  But I hold that the “shoot your wad” theory might be in effect.  It usually happens that the team who scores a laugher in one game will lose the next game.  The Royals, in other words, have shot their wad, and tonight it should be the Giants to turn last night’s poor showing into a victory.

Joan told me she’s going to have hip surgery with Dr. Curtis Kiest at Kaiser on January 20, 2015.  That’s a little more than two-and-a-half months from now.  My two hip surgeries took place in January, both done by Dr. Kiest.  Joan wants me to stay in the hospital with her after the surgery.  She brought up my first surgery where I wanted water and I couldn’t get anyone to bring it to me my first night in the hospital.  She doesn’t want that to happen to her, and it’s a great idea of hers for me to be with her through the night to make sure everything’s on the up and up and that she gets what she needs immediately.

The first few days are rough after surgery.  It’s hard to move in bed and when you do move it’s painful.  But at least she’ll have me around to take care of her.  She was around the house for me a couple of days after surgery and then left me alone to fend for myself with a walker and to make my own breakfast and lunch.  It made me stronger instead of relying on her.  I hope she’ll be strong after surgery.  She needs to attend more water aerobics classes to gain that strength.  She should go at least three days a week.  Nowadays she goes just once a week.  She has got to get the thought in her mind to workout hard, which will help her to recover faster.

Thursday, October 30, 2014 – Seventh Game of the World Series

The final game of the World Series had a heart-stopping finish to it.  With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, a man on third, the Kansas City crowd standing and shouting their lungs out, the Royals were on the verge of tying the score.  But then there was a pop-up and the game was over.  The Giants and their fans breathed a giant sigh of relief before they erupted with total JOY.

The final score was 3-2 in what turned out to be one of the most exciting, riveting seventh games of any World Series ever played.  Madison Bumgarner will go down in history as one of the greatest World Series pitchers of all time.  He won two previous games in the Series with only one run scored on him, and then after only two days’ rest, he entered the game in the fifth inning to relieve Jeremy Affeldt, who had relieved Tim Hudson in the second inning.  The score was tied 2-2 in the fifth when MadBum entered, and for the next five innings, he pitched a splendid, extraordinary, fantastic two-hitter without allowing a run to score.

With Kansas City trailing the Giants 3-2 in the ninth with two outs, the Royals’ Alex Gordon slapped a sinking liner to left-center, giving hope to the K.C. fans and dread to the San Francisco fans.  The ball was hit in front of center fielder Gregor Blanco, who had a notion of catching it on the fly but then got caught in no-man’s land.  The ball skipped by him and rolled to the left field wall.  Juan Perez, in left field, made a mad dash after the ball, but he bobbled it and had to chase another 12 feet for it, before he picked it up and threw to the cutoff man, Brandon Crawford.

Should Alex Gordon have tried to tie the score, or should he have stayed on third like he did?  That’s probably the big question Kansas City fans will be debating to their dying day.  It seems like Gordon, had he tried to go home, would have been thrown out easily by Crawford, who possesses a strong, accurate arm.  And so Gordon stood on third with two outs as the big, powerful Salvador Perez stood in the batter’s box.

Who would be the hero, MadBum or Perez?  Who’s side would the baseball gods favor?  Salvador Perez was the only man to score against MadBum in the Series, hitting a home run off him in Game 1.  The goat of the game would surely be Gregor Blanco if the Royals either tied the score or pulled out a victory.  If that happened, Blanco would have been driven out of San Francisco never to be seen again.  As it turned out, MadBum, after six grueling, tense pitches, won his duel with Perez, who popped-out to third-baseman Pablo Sandoval in foul ground.  I will never forget what Pablo did after catching the ball.  He fell backwards and sprawled his arms and legs in utter relief before jumping to his feet to join his teammates in the celebration.

The Giants are World Series champions for the third time in five years.

Friday, November 21, 2014 – Chicago

Joan and I are in 25-degree Chicago.  I just got back to Sol and Jang’s condo on Commonwealth and Fullerton, next to Lincoln Park, after taking their dog Hannah for a walk.  It’s a great area to live in in Chicago—next to Lincoln Park and a couple of blocks from Clark Street where all types of shops, ethnic restaurants, and coffeehouses are located.

I’ve brought along my Giants III manuscript to revise.  I’ve already done quite a bit of revision on it.

The flight from San Francisco was uneventful, plus the CTA train and bus I took went smoothly (Joan came a week before me).  It took around 45 minutes to get here from O’Hare, all for $5.  The Midwest is having a cold spell.  It’s been in the low-20s for the past week in Chicago.

Olby gave me a warm welcome when I arrived.  He can communicate with us now.  He can talk, count, and he knows the alphabet.  He has a million toys to play with, actually too many, plus he picked up after himself yesterday.  He’s a quick learner.  He seems very smart.  He’s more open to others than I could have imagined at 2 1/2 years.  He calls me Grandpa Joe.  He let me hold him and hug him this morning before he went off to pre-school with Jang.

Sleep is so important for me and all human beings.  It seems like I didn’t sleep at all my first night here.  I was either hot or cold, and there I lay in a dark room, hoping to fall asleep.  It seems like I didn’t sleep, but I must have.

President Obama just gave five million Latinos, mainly from Mexico, full rights.  Good old Obama, I’m for almost any decision he makes.  He means well, whereas George Bush2 was an ass, and the two presidential candidates who faced Obama, John McCain and Mitt Romney, were not up to par.  It was Romney who said “Corporations are people, my friend.”  Well, corporations are NOT people, my friend.

Thursday, November 27, 2014 – Booze and the Middle East

Olby always has something in his hands, especially a toy truck.

The other day, Joan, Sol, and I went shopping for wine and spirits for a Thanksgiving party that is going to take place in Evanston today.  Sol and Jang’s good friends, the hosts, are having about 25 people over.  Anyway, we ended up spending $600 for booze, wine, beer, ice and cups, and it was way too much for a party of 25—all because the hosts gave Sol a list of what to buy.  Well, I ain’t going to argue, except I have to say one thing, and that is the hosts of the party are going to have booze in their house for the next five years.  Every time I think of all that booze we bought drives me crazy, so I’ll stop thinking of it this very minute.

I’ve been reading Longitudes and Attitudes by Thomas Friedman, columnist of the New York Times.  It’s about the before and after of 9/11.  It’s about the autocratic Arab states that refuse to think of the future.  All they want to do is learn the Koran and not study science, philosophy, or any other subjects that should be offered in their schools.  It’s just rote memorization of the Koran that they can think of.  What imbeciles those religious fanatics are putting on their people.  Religion, religion, religion instead of thinking, thinking, thinking.  It’s such a sad state of affairs in that region.  Only a very small percentage of the population thinks.  The rest are sheep, wanting to destroy Israel, the United States, and anything that has to do with rational thinking.  And Israel isn’t making it any easier on itself by building more settlements in the West Bank.  The Israeli leadership is just as stupid as the Arab leaders.

Friday, November 28, 2014 – The 49ers and Cold, Cold Chicago

Ray and Ashley are flying back to San Francisco today.  Joan and I will be leaving on Tuesday, December 2, on Virgin American.

I have a semi-hangover this morning from last night’s Thanksgiving dinner in Evanston.  It was a big, big dinner for about 25 people.  A lot of booze and wine and talk and noise and watching a part of the 49er game where they stunk up the place in Santa Clara against the Seattle Seahawks.  There was no imagination for the offense.  Quarterback Colin Kaepernick is not improving but is regressing.  He can’t throw well, his decision-making is slow, he’s just not working out like we all thought he would.  He actually stinks.  I, a great backer of his for two years, can’t stand to see him play.  It’s time to replace him with Blaine Gabbert.  Coach Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman, the offensive coordinator, have no imagination.  No screen passes.  No rollouts.  No running plays for Kaepernick.  Do something different, fellas, because you’re getting too predictable for the defenses you face each week.  Get off your duffs, Harbaugh and Roman, get some creativity going with your offense.

It’s like 20 degrees outside today.  As soon as I finish this entry, I’m going for a walk with Hannah.  I’ve got to get moving.  I’ve been sitting all day in this cold Midwest metropolis.  It’s almost 3:30 p.m.  Joan and I have yet to go downtown to the Art Institute to see the Impressionists.

Joan and I are doing our best to help out with Hannah and Olby.  The kid is very smart at 2 1/2.  He can understand completely what people are saying.  He gets a little ornery at times, but on the whole you can see he’s going to grow up to be very intelligent.

The people I’ve come across in Chicago have been very nice, especially a young man who helped me catch Hannah when her leash came loose from my grip last week.  I couldn’t corral her, but along came this jogger who saved the day for me.

I look out the window and see gray skies.  It’s cold out there.  I believe my coat, sweatshirt, hat and gloves will be fine in this weather, but it’s my pants that the cold penetrates.  Anyway, it’s time for me to go for a walk in cold, cold Chicago.

Saturday, November 29, 2014 – Write Your Head Off

One of the thoughts I had today was, “Why do I write?”  I’ve always wanted to be a writer.  I thought to myself, Gee, I’d like to write a book someday.  I want to be remembered just like Mark Twain, Jack London, and Ernest Hemingway.  Those guys will live forever.  I, too, want to live forever.  I’d like to be like them.

And so it came to pass on the day I turned 29, August 20, 1969, that I started writing my first book that turned out to the called A Class of Leaders.  I had never written a book before.  I had never taken a class in writing.  If I took a class today I’d probably fail.  You see, I don’t like to be told that these are the rules of writing and that you have to follow them, if that’s what’s conveyed by a teacher in a writing class.  Oh, over the years I’ve learned that the main character in a novel must change, but I rarely even follow that “rule.”  That’s why I became a writer, so I didn’t have to follow anyone’s rules except my own, and that my only rule was to make a novel, story, or essay as interesting as possible.

But as I write my journal entries, I find that most of them aren’t interesting, at least when I’m writing them.  They’re just humdrum accounts of my thoughts and observations.  But I keep writing journal entries to practice writing and also to give an account of what’s happening in my world and today’s world.  I actually don’t write enough journal entries.  I wish I had time to do them every day, but as the record shows, I don’t write every day.  When I do write, I usually write as fast as I can without thinking, without hesitating, just so I can practice what I like to do most, which is to let the words pour out of me, to let my subconscious rise to the top and out through my fingers and onto the computer screen, where it’s so beautiful to see sentences form.

Write, I say to myself, write as fast as you can.  Write your head off.  It doesn’t matter if you make sense or not, just put words on the screen and see what comes out.  Don’t let the editor peering over your shoulder tell you that that isn’t the right word or right thought or if your punctuation isn’t correct.  Just write, Joe, write to bring up ideas so that maybe those ideas can be extended or pursued in depth later on.

Monday, December 1, 2014 – Two Big Mistakes

On my walk with Hannah this morning, it was cold, cold, cold.  I made a big mistake.  I walked farther today with her than at any other time in the past 10 days.  It was 10 degrees out there.  That would have been all right if I had walked maybe a few blocks with her, but we walked two miles into Lincoln Park and two miles back.  My hands were frozen.  I was worried about getting frostbite.  I kept blowing into my hands through my knit gloves.  It was the coldest I’ve ever been.  Maybe Hannah was as cold as I was because I forgot to put her coat on before we left the condo.  Anyway, when we finally got back home, it took me a while to recuperate.  My whole body was shivering.  I immersed my hands in warm water.  Joan quickly made canned chicken soup for me.  I made the wrong decision by walking too far in the cold.  I’ll never do that again.

We humans are so prone to make big mistakes in our lives.  One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was living with Gretchen Van Aken in Portland in 1975.  Boy, what a mistake that was!  We met on the shore in Seaside, Oregon, both of us on vacation from Portland, both of us alone, and in less than ten minutes we were having sex amid the many tangled logs and driftwood that had washed up on the beach.  Gretchen was married and had a daughter.

We met clandestinely for a few weeks.  I kept trying to call it quits with her because I felt guilty about going behind her husband’s back.  “We can’t go on like this, Gretchen.  It’s not right.  Let’s just end it right now and say goodbye.”

But she kept calling me, and it was hard to say NO.  Then she told her husband about our affair and invited me to their house one evening so I could meet him and their nine–year-old daughter.  Gretchen had it all planned out:  I was going to rescue her from an unhappy marriage.  “I’m moving in with Joe,” she told her husband that night, surprising the hell out of me.  All I had to say was, “Wait a minute, Gretchen, I don’t want to live with you,” but I chickened out.  All I could think of was my prick.  There’s an old Syrian saying that goes:  Bi jej kabil rosh maeel (When your dick is big your brain is small).

As soon as she moved into my small apartment in the southeast section of Portland on 32nd Avenue, we found we were completely incompatible.  She liked rich and fatty foods; I didn’t.  She wanted to go out every night; I didn’t.  She was a Republican; I was a Democrat.  We couldn’t even sleep in the same double bed together; she hogging it and almost pushing me off every night.  We ended up sleeping in separate beds.  She also wanted me to be something other than the writer and substitute teacher that I was.  It was an impossible situation.  A couple of months later, thank goodness, she came home and announced, “I slept with another man, Joe.  I’m moving in with him.”  I can honestly say that I was relieved to no end.  Because of Gretchen, I wasted three or four months out of my life.

Friday, December 12, 2014 – Two New Books

I’ve been working on my third Giants World Series book and a collection of short stories.  I don’t know the name of the Giants book yet, but I know the name of my story collection.  It’s called The Bar of Soap and Other Stories.  The title story, “The Bar of Soap,” is about a homeless poet who was bequeathed a bar of soap from his multi-millionaire father.  There’s another story about a fisherman in Long Island whose fishing boat blew up and he and his assistant were floating in the Atlantic for two-and-a-half days as they held on to a hatch cover.  It was a true story that my poker friend Ralph Yanello told me about his cousin, Gerald Ettari.  Another story is called “Sam’s Story,” about a man who is all of a sudden laid off after working 28 years for the same company; there’s a story about me being pickpocketed on a subway car in Paris and Joan saving the day; there’s a story about a cruel mother-in-law; there’s even a story about a lemon called “Lenny the Lemon.”  There are about 30 stories in the collection.

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