His Name was Jim...

“You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”

--- George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

No wordy speech from me today. Instead, to coincide with my review at Miz Love and Crew Love Books (see entire review here) of Rick R. Reed's novel, Caregiver, I invited Rick to be my host for the day. He's going to share the story behind the book with us, and we're going to have the privilege of getting a glimpse at what makes this book so beautiful. 

Before he takes the floor, http://www.rickrreed.com/  as well as his blog http://rickrreedreality.blogspot.com/ . 

So...let me now hand over the blog reins to Mr. Rick Reed...

His name was Jim. He's the reason I wrote my novel, Caregiver. People who come to the book without my personal history might come to it with the idea that it's simply a fictional love story set in a time when AIDS was a death sentence (1991).

But Caregiver is much more. It's based on the life and death of my friend, Jim, for whom I was an AIDS buddy when I volunteered at the Tampa AIDS Network back in '91.

I call Jim Adam in the book, but everything that happens to him in the novel happened in real life--sickness, dying, life, jail and, ultimately, love, which never dies.

The book is a tribute to him and its messages--that love can arise from loss and that one person can come into a life and mark it for eternity--I hope resonate.

Below is the real story of Jim and me, which originally appeared in an Alyson anthology called, Last Date.

I’m driving north on Florida State Route 75. It’s August and the flat land stretching out on either side of the highway looks baked. The slash pines, palms, and cypress trees stand like stalwart sentinels against the blistering sun: brave.

The car hums along, the whirr of the air conditioning compressor keeping me company. I’m too jazzed to listen to music.

           

I’m on my way to a date with Jim. It’s been a while since I’ve seen him, since he moved from the Tampa Bay area up north to Raiford, which is a good three hours away. I can’t blame Jim for the move (it wasn’t his choice), but it’s been hard not being able to see him the past month. Oh sure, we’ve written and Jim’s a great one for letters, especially since he can draw hilarious caricatures of the people he’s meeting in his new home.

But there’s a disturbing edge to his letters, too, and I know some of these people have been less than kind to Jim. The name-calling, for one thing, breaks my heart. But thank God Jim has a sense of humor, otherwise I don’t know how he’d get through each day.

           

I know he’s been hanging on for this date, which we’ve had planned for a while.

           

Finally, an afternoon with Jim. I didn’t know, four months ago, that I would grow to love him so quickly.

           

I drive on, the broad expanses of rough grass and hearty trees being replaced every so often by strip malls and towns with names like Ocala. The pavement shimmers before me in the heat. My tires hum. An armadillo hurries alongside the road. A mosquito splats against the windshield, leaving a swath of blood.

***

           

I remember the first time I met Jim. It was another blistering summer day (funny how in my memories of the two years I lived in Florida, it’s always summer, even when the memory took place in December or February). Jim and I had been set up and these kinds of dates always put me on edge: they never worked out.

           

When Jim answered the door, I was sure that this set-up date would work out like all the others: completely inappropriate. Other people never seemed to have the capacity to pick someone out for myself that I would choose on my own.

And this guy who opened the door immediately put me on my guard. I mean, I enjoy a good drag show at the local bar as much as the next guy, but here in Brandon, Florida (a suburb of Tampa, full of kids, trimmed lawns, and swimming pools), a smart little black dress and pearls just seemed out of place, especially on a very handsome blond man with great blue eyes and a nice, tight build.

           

But there was Jim, all smiles and beckoning me to come inside. I went into the little bungalow he lived in with a roommate (who was at work). The place was typical Florida, one-story, stucco, with a schefflera bush in the front yard, and that peculiar, tougher-than-nails, fire-ant infested grass on the front lawn. Inside, pastel walls and beige furniture completed the picture. The Golden Girls could have used the place for a set.

           

And there was Jim, smiling at me in his sensible matron’s outfit and just putting the finish creases on a little ironing he was doing just before I rang the bell. The whole scene made me think of a cross between June Cleaver and RuPaul.

           

I wasn’t sure what to say. But that really didn’t matter, because Jim was more than ready to take over (once he’d made certain I had a fruity cocktail in my hand, even though it wasn’t yet noon), telling me all about his recent move down here from Chicago (I had the same story to tell, but I wasn’t to learn until much later how very different our respective moves to the sunshine state were), his love for Barbra (need I add a last name here?), and how his health was improving under the abundant Florida sun.

           

I learned fast that day that clothes don’t always make the man and that Jim would turn out to be one of the bravest men I’d ever met.

***

           

It’s been a long drive and I’m glad to finally be pulling up in front of Jim’s new home. Raiford, Florida is north central Florida…typical of the state, but not the kind of look one usually associates with Florida (white sand beaches, aqua-marine waters, palm trees swaying in the salty breeze): Raiford is kind of grim and parched looking, especially the wide open spaces where Jim’s new home sits. It’s surrounded by dry brown grass…stretching infinitely to a blazing blue sky, where the sun beats down, relentless.

           

A tall fence surrounds Jim’s new home, with no nod to adornment (Jim, with his graphic design background and his love for the visual arts, I’m sure, did not approve). This fence was made of foreboding chain link and twice the height of a good-sized man, topped with razor-sharp circles of barbed wire. The only thing that looks halfway decent is the curving arch over the entrance drive and the stone monument just beside it. The arch tells visitors, in curving steel, that this is the Florida State Prison. The stone monument spells it out further: Department of Corrections, Florida State Prison.

           

This is where they send the big boys: the felons.

           

I can’t imagine Jim inside. He’s been hanging on for our date.

           

I can’t wait to see him.

***

           

When Jim and I went on our first date (after our getting-acquainted morning cocktail hour at his house) we went to Ft. DeSoto beach, a beautiful stretch of white sand just off of St. Petersburg Beach. Because it’s in a state park, the beach is backed up not by high-rises with balconies overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, but with a view that nature intended. Instead of bricks and mortar (and the attendant Florida tourists), Ft. DeSoto beach has only sand dunes, sea grass, and mangroves as a backdrop. It’s another blazing hot day and I’ve brought lunch for Jim and me (with a thermos full of mai tais…Jim’s favorite) and we spend the entire afternoon listening to the waves roll in and watching a matronly pair wade along the shoreline, net bags in hand, collecting starfish and shells.

           

Jim tells me about the last job he had before he went on this extended period of unemployment and how he worked as a graphic designer. He tells me about what led to his dismissal: picking up a stranger one night and bringing him back to his workplace. Out of lube, and always imaginative, Jim went into his supervisor’s cube and found some very creative use for the waxy (and slippery) substance those in the cosmetology trade call lipstick. The couple made quite a mess, not the least of which was Jim’s being fired the next day.

           

Jim was like that: a little imp, unable to play by the rules.

           

Life has a way of biting those who go against its conventions by biting them in the ass.

***

           

Getting into the Florida State Prison is a lot easier than getting out, but there are some obstacles. In order to arrange for my date with Jim, I had to go through the chaplain, who put me on the very short list of visitors who could come and visit him (not that there was a long list of admirers waiting to be put on that list; only Jim’s family so far had come to check him out in his new digs—and they had made the trip all the way from Downer’s Grove, Illinois). Once inside the prison, I had to go through an anteroom, where I had to sign in and then subject myself to being frisked, right down to removing my boots to ensure I wasn’t securing a file in the heel or something. I understood the precautions, silly as they were. Yet Jim was in no shape to escape, even if I had somehow managed to smuggle in everything he would need to slip through Raiford’s well-guarded walls.

           

Security wasn’t as tight for my last couple of dates with Jim, which had taken place at the Hillsborough County Jail. There, things weren’t as grim, or as lonely. I would line up with a whole room full of chattering visitors, get checked in, and then be off to converse with Jim through a wall of Plexiglas, under the admiring eyes of some of the other inmates. Jealousy is such a petty thing, and particularly annoying when you’re trying to have an intimate moment with your date, while those behind him wonder what it would take to make you their bitch.

           

But that was before Jim’s case was adjudicated and they sent him north, to the state prison. That was before Jim began to get really sick.

***

           

Now, a guard down a colorless hallway leads me to the prison infirmary. I know this will be my last date with Jim and it’s hard not to recall all the laughs we shared before he was caught (he had violated his parole in Illinois, where he had been convicted of grand theft auto) at various beaches along the Gulf of Mexico, in Cuban restaurants, just listening to music at my apartment.

           

It’s also hard not to remember the additional details that brought him here: how, in a fit of depression, he had set fire to his roommate’s house. What did he have to be depressed about, anyway? He was only dying from AIDS (this was in the early 1990s and the drug cocktails that would keep many of his brethren living full lives were still on the horizon), isolated, and on the run from the law. Why be sad when he could number his only friends (me) at the number one? Why be sad when my friendship was not borne out of a common love for the arts and sarcastic observations about life, but instead courtesy of the Tampa Aids Network, where I had volunteered to be an AIDS buddy and was assigned to Jim?

           

I wasn’t sure I wanted to see Jim. He had written me, before he was confined to the infirmary, about how the other inmates taunted him and called him Spot, because of the Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions that covered him from head to toe (and continued, even now, to eat his fragile body and soul alive). I didn’t know what to expect. The last time I had seen him, he was still vibrant, still Jim: a little blond man with a quick smile and bottomless kindness.

           

I knew he had deteriorated…and I knew it was going to be bad.

***

           

Jim was alone in the room of the infirmary where they had done, I suppose, what they could to ensure his comfort. Other beds awaited other inmates, with maladies less deadly, I hoped, than Jim’s.

           

And there he was. Asleep. He looked frail and vulnerable, not at all what you’d imagine if you thought of the terms “convicted felon” or “state pen inmate.” His face, once tanned and vibrant, was covered with purple sores. My Jim had turned into a monster in the short time that had elapsed since we last saw one another.

           

He turned to me and opened his eyes. At least his eyes, blue as those waters we once sat beside, had stayed the same. It took him a minute or two to recognize me, but when he did, he smiled. I moved close to the bed and took his hand. With my other hand, I touched his forehead, where a fever raced around inside, hot as the air outside these prison walls.

           

I don’t remember what we talked about on our last date. Probably not much; Jim drifted in and out of sleep while I stood beside him, sometimes even in the middle of a sentence: mine or even his own. He did manage to tell me about his parents’ visit the day before, how his mother had collapsed in grief the moment she saw him.

           

I wanted this last time of ours together to be meaningful. But what, really, is there to say, at life’s end? I leaned in close and kissed him, my cheek brushing up against one of the lesions. It felt crusty.

           

The only thing left to say, really, at the end of life, or even the end of a perfect date are three words: “I love you.” Jim whispered back, “I love you, too,” and then he fell asleep.

           

I crept away.

           

Jim died the next day. The chaplain very kindly told me, when he called, that he thought Jim had hung on long enough to see me. I hung up the phone and slipped outside to my patio and looked across the surface of the pond just steps away. A wind rippled across the deep green water, making the grass at the water’s edge sway. A white ibis pecked at something along the shore.

           

I thought of a silly drawing Jim had sent me a couple months ago. It was a colored pencil caricature of a fat middle-aged woman I had written about; she was naked and riding a surfboard. Jim had called it “Amelia’s Hawaiian Adventure.”

           

The picture made me laugh when all I really wanted to do was cry. But my eyes were dry. Maybe it was just Jim’s influence as he looked down, trying to replace grief with hilarity. I laughed until I was almost breathless and had to sit down, cross-legged, on the concrete.

Finally my laughs turned to sobs and I faced away from the pond and toward the sliding glass doors. The glass was bright with sun and I swore I could see Jim reflected there. He mouthed some words and I strained to read them through my tears. “Glad you could drop by.” I swallowed, containing myself and think: me too, Jim. Someone else might think our last date was kind of sucky, but for me it was perfect. After all, a perfect date is marked by a timeless connection and an intimacy borne of true love. Maybe I didn’t get the chance to bring you flowers or candy, but this date we had…well, it will be the one that will always stand out in my mind as my best, because I like to think that I sent you off, free, with the words “I love you,” lingering in your mind.

Apology to a Book...

“No name-calling truly bites deep unless, in some dark part of us, we believe it. If we are confident enough then it is just noise.”  ― Laurell K. Hamilton, A Stroke of Midnight


If you haven't already thought I was certifiable (crazy, that is) by now...well, you will after this blog.

But I came to terms with something recently and I wanted to share it.

Last year, my very first book, Candy G, was published.

Like all new authors, I was in the clouds. The entire experience from writing the words The End to the offering of a contract to the first glimpse of the cover to THE event...its release.

And, then, like all authors---new and veteran---I got reviews.

Most authors may have much more confidence that I; feedback may not affect them. Bad reviews may just glide off them like water on a duck's back. Good feedback may just be taken in stride.

Not me.

Oh, I got many wonderful reviews...some I didn't even have to pay for! (Joking, joking). Even some of the not-so-good reviews cited some very good, strong positives about my writing. Most importantly, many took my book seriously. My chest swelled, of course, with pride.

But here's the kicker.

Those weeds---those unavoidable yet necessary weeds called negative feedback---cropped up in my lovely garden of praise.

In retrospect (you know how you remember the harsh stuff more than anything else?), I think the worst hit to my pride was for a reviewer to call the plot 'silly'. Ouch. 
To compound the fracture of the embarrassment, the reviewer's tone was---and gods, how I hate this word---snarky. It made fun of the plot. To have my book mocked on a very well-known review site in such a demeaning fashion was hurtful, especially as I was a new author. Welcome to the world of thick skin development! Double ouch.In my smashed ego-vision, I saw the reviewer as a sort of Skut Farkas, making fun of my silly story and taunting me to run home and tell my mommy.

Oh, hey, I'm not arguing and I'm not pitying myself. I'll be the first to admit the plot probably was kind of silly. I learned the hard way---which I have to admit might be the best way---that plotting is not my strong suit in writing. I DO have many strengths, but, alas, plot creation may not be among them.

Even this realization doesn't discourage me. I'll learn to put the iron to my writing weaknesses. To acknowledge those issues and thereby work on them can only improve my skills.

What DOES bother me is that I took that one weed and held it close to my heart, clung to it and, for some reason, set it as the standard for my self-confidence.

After that review, I even found myself warning potential readers, Hey, the plot is pretty silly, just warning you. Or, Hope you enjoy my silly little book.

Tragically, I constantly referred to my book as silly. And I meant it. I really believed---because someone poked fun at my book---it was a piece of garbage.

Shame on me.

Recently, after the first year had passed, after I'd resigned myself to having a 'silly' book to my  name, after apologizing constantly for the book itself---I took a look at Candy G.

And you know what?

I just about cried---first, just from reliving the memories of writing it, the pride in being accepted by the publisher, the thrill of it all. And, finally, I cried because I'll be damned if I didn't see my baby through new eyes, and actually found myself admitting it wasn't such a bad book after all. It had its good points as well as its bad, and I was sorry that I'd spent so much negative time on being embarrassed by it.

It was a first book. Some write perfect first books. I did not. Yes, the silly plot hadn't miraculously changed in a year's time. It was still there. But I finally allowed myself the pride I should have had all along. I realized what was THE silly thing was to have judged and condemned my own work based on one comment in one review. I'm not saying I should not take the feedback seriously. I should. And I do.

But I shouldn't have lost my pride in my work---which put the shadows of doubt on any future works, in my ability---based on one little neutron of negativity.

I'll always embrace humility in my work, but I'll write to the best of my ability and I'll try to embrace my pride as well. A happy medium of both, I hope.

So...Candy G...I owe you an apology for letting myself ever be ashamed of you. You weren't such a bad little book after all.

The Wall and the Door...

“Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. ”  --  Coco Chanel


After a long, exhausting battle of trying to beat my characters into submission, to keep them within the original little pod of imagination they sprang from---I had a revelation.

I suppose you could say my characters and I had a revelation. Or was it a battle of wills, a tug-of-war over who they were supposed to be?

It was simple, really, and liberating.

Some time ago, I'd already made the decision to expand my
repertoire to include my love for male/female romance.

The truth? Even then, as excited as I had been to reach this decision, I still felt a little guilt, the tiny feeling that I was betraying my genre, the m/m romance. Can one even betray a genre? I didn't know, but I felt uneasy anyway.

Many authors of the m/m genre are exclusive, will readily tell you they will not---cannot---write hetero romance. And I respect that. They have their reasons, and I understand them.

Hell, I love my male/male romance so much, it is such a powerful force for me. In fact, my latest WIP had begun its telling as het romance. There it was, a story which had been formulating forever. And, when my fingers touched the keyboard, the characters came to life as men. Who knew?

They knew.

But, still, there remained that sad little empty feelilng. One of my characters---one of the first romance heroes I ever concocted, a straight man---who I wrote so many stories about but never finished---still remained patiently on the sidelines while I passed over him again and again.

I, personally, find it hard to deny that woman in me that begs for romance between a man and a woman. But, as strong as that inner pleading was, I still denied it. Part of me was afraid to mix genres. In reality, I see now the urge may not have been strong enough---not ready yet---and I wasn't really denying, I just simply wasn't ready.

But then something happened that told me it really wasn't my decision at all. Something that revealed to me that I am really only a set of fingers bringing characters---who are already alive and bursting with the need to be born---from my heart and into the written word.

And it was a very simple thing.

I'd struggled with a WIP. A male/male romance. Put it away for a bit. I love, love, love the characters, the plot, the setting. Why, the main character---the namesake of the story---is a man after my own heart, essentially the man of my dreams. A wonderful Latino, even patterned after my favorite Hispanic leading man, Eduardo Yanez.

Eduardo Yanez

And then it hit me. I knew what was wrong. The character was not gay. When this realization dawned on me, it troubled me. Damn, it was like killing a loved one. You no longer exist. I can't write you. You're not YOU anymore.

But, yes, he still IS himself. He just prefers women, and he's meant to be with a woman.

Once the guilt---yes, guilt---eased, I felt the most amazing, rejuvinating energy. I was not betraying my character. I was not turning my back on a genre.

I was simply acknowledging a fact. I was accepting it. And it was wonderful.

By restricting myself to a genre, I'm---and I only speak for myself---I'm denying characters in my head who have no place else to go if I do not write them. I'm turning my creativity into a 'planned parenthood' of sorts. I'm using an unnatural selective system.

Now please do not get me wrong. Some authors are only comfortable with one genre. And they are following their natural instincts as writers. They are following the voices that speak to them individually.

And THAT is what I'm talking about. Natural instinct as to what you must write. Many only hear hetero voices. Many only hear male/male characters in their hearts. Some, like me, hear both.

Those voices---whoever is speaking to the author---are what the author must heed.

Upon accepting this, I cannot describe the exhileration I experienced. It was a natural thing, as beauiful and right as the ocean rushing to shore. And to know that I could no more confine my characters to one box than I could actually keep that ocean from rushing to that shore was pure freedom.

I'm happy.

And please, again, understand that I only speak for myself. This is a strictly personal experience.

Hey, my male/female romance may flop. Honestly, it doesn't matter. It can't matter. Because I can't, even if I tried, stifle their voices. My characters will be what they will be, and I'll love them just as they are.

Well, once they tell me who they are, that is.

I Used to Be Indecisive...Now I'm Not Sure...

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.  ~Sylvia Plath

Today I turned over the manuscript for my latest story, PURLY GATES (under my Vastine Bondurant pen name) to be formatted for publication. 

I finally had to relinquish it, let it go, let it be done. A fellow author told me---and I loved her way of putting this---that the painter just has to know when the work is done, and she has to lay down the paint brush and say, It is finished.

So I did just that. Laid down the paint brush.

After sending the manuscript off to the formatter, I had to stifle the urge to shout, Wait! One more thing! I'm sure something's missing! Don't work on it yet! Let me take just...one...more...look! It's going go be self-published, after all. Surely subject to much more scrutiny than if I'd submitted to a traditional publisher. Get it back! It's not ready! That internal doubt screamed again. But, no. I just let it go and resolved that I'd done the best I could.  Two full edits, numerous betas. Let it go. 

Most of you know how long a second book was in the works for me. Forever, or so it seemed. My first novella, CANDY G, was released March 2, 2011. 

I've always chalked this tortoise pace up to just...slow writing. Hey, I'm slow as molasses! It' just my pace, and that's all there is to it!

But during the process of getting Purly Gates ready for publication, it hit me---I mean like a piano falling from a building---what my biggest writing obstacle is. Why I sit and stare at the computer screen---the starting words for sentences, scenes, paragraphs, poised just out of reach of my brain. Scenes as clear as day, as vivid as any scene in any movie. But stalled somewhere between the brain and the fingers. 

Doubt. No confidence in my own ability to transport the words from my head to the screen. 

I realized I'm one of those authors who panics and freezes---simply CANNOT grasp the old proverbial trapeze bar---without a partner, without the safety of a net.

What I mean by that is: I realized I need constant reinforcement. Constant. Approval from others for every word, every thought. Sounds quite silly, but it's the truth. Yes, I need that other partner on the trapeze in order to perform. If there is no other swing, no hand to grab---someone to assure me this word is correct, that this thought is logical---then I can't...swing. 

One little word of disagreement during a critique and I immediately cave. I instantly doubt my own ability to create. I freeze. As silly as it seems, I often even want to just rely on that other person to tell me what to say. I am that unsure.

And that slows my writing down to a near non-existent pace. It paralyzes me, this indecisiveness. It is crippling. 

I wonder---and desire it with all my heart---to know how other authors manage to swing on their own trapeze, to walk the tightrope without that safety net? How do they just...know...when their own voice is right-on? When perhaps the other voice is wrong? 

Where does this confidence come from? With time? Experience? When do you learn to trust yourself, to know when to disagree with certain feedback and stick with it?

I remember once during the writing of a story, I'd painted a scene: a garage apartment on a residential piece of property. A long gravel driveway led to the detached garage and the dwelling above it. Someone reading this scene corrected me, told me a subdivision in a barrio district such as I'd written would not have a long drive. The yards in these areas were too small, they insisted.

True to my usual insecurity, I almost made the correction, almost changed to property to fit the other person's vision. 

But...but...NO! What was I thinking? I was painting this scene straight from life. The very description of a garage apartment in a low-rent district in my home town, a lot I passed daily on my way to work. Wait just a minute! See what I'm saying? 

Even for something I wrote from experience, right out of real life, I almost changed this image, almost altered the very nuance of the scene I was creating. Almost. I refused to change it. I'd say I was proud of myself for relying on my own instinct and vision, but...hey...I nearly succumbed to my doubt. I actually halted, froze, and got discouraged. Actually sat there thinking I just can't do this. I can't rely on the images in my head, I can't depend on my own choice of words. I suck at this.

I'd love to say I'm writing this blog because I've overcome this crippling condition. But I haven't. I merely realized, for the first time ever, that it IS a problem, that it is THE problem in my writing. 

George Canning said, Indecision and delays are the parents of failure. And that is true. Painfully so for me. 

I don't know if time will be my savior, if simply writing, writing, writing will build my confidence. And by the way. How the hell did I ever GET so insecure about my writing in the first place? Is it a matter of putting too much weight on the input of others? IS their word gospel? How do you know when it is and when it ISN'T the gospel according to someone else?

Just when do you learn to swing without the net? No, I don't mean without feedback at all. No way. It is crucial for me. But when will I reach the point I just...know...I'm right? 

I think, when I reach this point, I'll write faster, I'll be more sure of what I DO write. 

But, until then, I'll just think of the of the words of Oscar Levant and smile. Once I make up my mind, I'm full of indecision. 

 

Bullying, 1920's Style...Rudy, the Beautiful Gardener's Boy...

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself.  What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us.  ~~~Hermann Hesse

Rudolph Valentino, The Conquering Power

Everyone knows I'm a sappy Rudolph Valentino fan. In this girl's opinion, he was...hell, he still is...one of the most beautiful men in the history of film.

I've studied him extensively, read just about every biography ever written about him. Did you know he was an accomplisehd poet, that a collection of his poems (link here) is available even today?

To know anything about him is to know he was also---quite apart from his smoldering, exotic screen persona---a very down-to-earth, congenial person.

If one's knowledge of him is only limited to the connection between him and his legendary sex symbol status, they might not be aware that he just happened to be a victim of a very public attack against his sexuality---a target of malicious bullying.

On July 18, 1926, an anonymous author posted an editorial in the Chicago Tribune, directly ambushing Valentino and pinning the demorilzation of the world'd masculinity on the film star.

Here is the astonishing editorial in its entirety.

A new public ballroom was opened on the north side a few days ago, a truely handsome place and apparently well run. The pleasant impression lasts until one steps into the men's washroom and finds there on the wall a contraption of glass tubes and levers and a slot for thre insertion of a coin. The glass tubes contain a fluffy pink solid, and beneath them one reads an amazing legend which runs something like this: "Insert coin. Hold personal puff beneath the tube. Then pull the lever."

A powder vending machine! In a men's washroom! Homo Americanus! Why didn't some one quietly drown Rudolph Guglielmo [sic] , alias Valentino, years ago?

And was the pink powder machine pulled from from the wall or ignored? Itwas not . It was used. We personally saw two "men"-- as young lady contributors to the Voice of the people are wont to describe the breed-- step up, insert coin, hold kerchief beneath the spout, pull the lever, then take the pretty pink stuff and put it on their cheeks in front the mirrior.

Another member of this department, one of the most benevolent men on earth, burst raging into the office the other day because he had seen a young "man" combing his pomaded hair in the elevator. But we claim our pink powder story beats his all hollow.

It is time for a matriarchy if the male of the species allows such things to persist. Better a rule by masculine women than by effeminate men. Man began to slip, we are beginning to believe, when he discarded the straight razor for the safety pattern. We shall not be surprised when we hear that the safety razor has given way to the depilatory.

Who or what is to blame is what puzzles us. Is this degeneration into effeminacy a cognate reaction with pacifism to the virilities and the realities of the war? Are pink powder and parlor pinks in any way related? How does one reconcile masculine cosmetics, shieks, floppy pants, and slave bracelets with a disregard for law and an aptitude for crime more in keeping with the frontier of half a century ago than a twentieth-century metropolis?

Do women like the type of "man" who pats pink powder on his face in a public washroom and arranges his coiffure in a public elevator? Do woman at heart belong to the Wilsonian era of " I didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier"? What has become of the old "caveman" line?

It is strange social phenomenon and one that is running its course not only here in america but in Europe as well. Chicago may have its powder puffs; London has its dancing men and Paris its gigolos. Down with Decatur; up with Elinor Glyn. Hollywood is the national school of masculinity. Rudy, the beautiful gardener's boy, is the prototype of the American male.

Hell's bells. Oh, sugar.                                           --Chicago Tribune, July18, 1926

This horrific attack enraged Valentino to the point he even challenged the cowardly author of the article to come forward, make himself known. The film star staged a very public boxing match with the composer, to prove to the public that he indeed was not a pink powder puff, that he was a man.

The penman of the editorial never showed his face.

Valentino's sexuality has been a seat of hot debate for over 86 years. Whether he truly was homosexual or bi-sexual, no one will ever know. The man himself, though, found it important to be considered masculine, not to be judged by his appearance, his jewelry, his make-up or his hair, his love god persona. Or---most importantly---for his remarkable looks.

This attack, like so many of its kind, had a dramatic effect on Valentino. Historians claim the fury this ignited inside him which never ceased to boil, was the ultimate cause of his death from a perforated ulcer in August, 1926. I agree.

I always wondered about the coward who posted the editorial. What did he/she think when Valentino succumbed to the poisoning in his system from this ulcer's perforation? Did they feel any guilt, or were they happy that the 'Pink Powder Puff' passed on?

Did they realize they'd failed miserably when their hate-filled tirade did not stop the fashions trends, when men continued to sleek their hair with pomade and wore more jewelry than ever? What a sad loss of time and energy, to have done so much damage for so little impact on society. A whisper of a roar blowing in the wind.

To show you just how much this attack bothered the film star, do you know what his first words just out of surgery for the perforated ulcer? Did I behave like a pink powder puff or like a man?

The whole tragedy of Valentino---dead at 31 years old---is bad enough for me, makes my heart ache. But to know that question was the first thing on his mind after waking from surgery just twists the sad knife even more.

I'd never really thought about his expererience as a classic case of bullying before, but it is---after all---exactly that. And it's sobering to think just how long hatred has manifested itself in such forms. Forever. And forever.

An entity so aged and powerful seems impossible to ever conquer. But I refuse to believe it can't be done.

Lest They Cease to Interest Us...

There are persons who, when they cease to shock us, cease to interest us. ~F.H. Bradley, Aphorisms

I'd hesitated to ever write on this subject, to ever voice my feelings. Why? What could EVER lock the lips of the outspoken C. Zampa?

Fear.

I've been silenced by fear, rendered dumb by it.

But when I came across the above quotation, the 'nature' of the beast I'd feared became clear to me and I suddenly recognized it for what it was: a very small, very meaningless, very sad monster. Not even a monster, but more like that Wizard behind the screen. An illusion of power that really is just...well, a being hiding behind a screen.

Recently I witnessed a storm of cyclone proportions in the literary world. I cannot even tell you how it started, as I---as usual---walked into the middle of the unsettled waters after they'd been stirred to tidal wave strength. But by the time I DID venture into the surf, it had become what appeared to be a lynch mob, out to hang an author.

The mob grew to horrific proportions, being egged on by what seemed a small handful who led the chants to kill, kill, kill, begging for blood, blood, blood. A literal cyber crucifixion took place. A blatant attempt to ruin, to slaughter.

I won't even say what the crowd's accusations were. To me, since it was not grounded by fact but by bitter whispers that grew into roars of meanness, I walked away.

Even so, coward that I am, I lay low, hoping those searchlights of hatred never find me lurking in the shadows. What if I displease this angry horde? What if I say something---even accidentally---to draw their wrath? Will MY book be next? Will they crucify ME?

There it is. Fear. And I'm ashamed to admit it. I'm embarrassed to confess I would choose not to voice my disapproval for mob mentatlity due to fear of retaliation, for terror that my own book might be targeted, that I as an author would be the next victim. I regret the fear that my own success would be somehow impeded was greater than my couarge to stand up to the cruelty, to say I do not like it, that is wrong.

It IS wrong. It's bullying. And I suspect the same voices at the front lines of the terror brigades are surely the very same who unite in anger over bullying in schools, yet do not realize they are just as bad.

Voices that hold court in such demeaning form go beyond the bounds of the critic. Alice Duer Miller said, If it's very painful for you to criticize your friends - you're safe in doing it.  But if you take the slightest pleasure in it, that's the time to hold your tongue. 

Truer words.

And their power---their ability to generate fear---in my eyes anyway, is lessened by the fact that they indeed conduct themselves so in order to shock, to draw attention, to insure a consistent crowd. And if the curious minds who feed their insatiable need for attention at the expense of their peers---for it IS their own peers they target---ever walked away, bored with the high-octane snark? Would the cruelty wither and die?

Unfortunately, I don't suspect to see that happen any time soon. So, in the meantime, I'll cling to this thought by Andre Gide, There are very few monsters who warrant the fear we have of them. 

And, sure, I'll remain in fear that because I've spoken---oh, hell, it would take even less to spark bitter minds---they will set their sights on me.

And I'll write. Knowing my voice of dissent will surely draw them like the scent of blood to a vampire or raw meat to a hungry lion, I'll still write.

Others who stood in such arenas have survived. Proof that the animosity only has a brief moment to wail before the rubber-neckers get bored and walk away, waiting for the next uproar.

And while I continue to write and while I probably continue to cower, I'll pray every night to keep my heart in its rightful place and I truly will keep that golden rule, to do unto my peers as I would have them do unto me.

In the dictionary, the word for this rule is: RESPECT.

Birthings and Good Ol' Southern Fried...Jealousy...

If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939

Today is my baby's birthday. Well, my 'book baby', that is. A year ago this day was the release of my very first book, Candy G.

In a post last year, I compared the process---the writing, the release of the book and its future after it hits the public---to birthing a baby.

In looking back over the past year, I've found the experience is still parallel to parenting. Maybe even more so.

Now that my baby's been on his own, he's---in a manner of speaking---in public school. And, just as with my flesh-and-blood child, I've only been able to sit on the sidelines and watch, cheer him on, cry when he gets dumped on, cry happy tears when he makes new friends and sometimes---yes, I'll admit it---get my Irish up when he gets attacked.

Candy G has met with some wonderful feedback. He's encountered some not-so-wonderful feedback as well. Let's say he's a very well-rounded boy.

One facet of this experience, though---one that I find a little disturbing and comical at the same time---is that, like our real kids, our books sometimes bring out that other side of parenting. The not-so-pretty side. Jealousy. Competiveness with our baby's peers.

I'm not hesitant to step forward and admit I sometimes find myself harboring this unattractive parental flaw.

Picture it. Your baby's a new kid on the block. You want him to be accepted, to make friends. Just as your baby who gets passed up for the team, who doesn't make cheerleading, who isn't popular, there is that bit of ache on your part. Whether it's rational or not, it just is. It's a parent thing. Pride.

Sure, it hurts to see the popular kids get snatched up by the big, well-kown review sites, to have a year pass only to see your baby was just never big enough to capture their interest.
I'd be lying to say that does not smart just a tad.

But, I had to look at it in this light: if your child cried to you that another child didn't like them, would you tell them to try to force that other kid to accept them? No, you would not. Would you encourage your offspring to cry, tell them to withdraw because someone out there doesn't take to them? Again, no. You wouldn't.

It does sting when a reader just flat does not like your book. It's easy for that old jealousy to seep in when they brag about the books they love but not yours.

I'm only human, and the envy does find its way into my gut sometimes. But, with a year behind me since my book's release, my outlook has broadened to accept the bad with the good. I've finally learned not to take it personal.

I'd love to pretend I don't feel envy from time to time when I compare my work to other books, when I try to measure my own talent side-by-side against other authors. Some have gifts I simply do not have. Once more in that real kid to-literary child comparison: some kids are good in sports, some are not. Some kids have musical talents. Some don't. Same with authors.

Think about this, though. Is it wise for a parent to push its child into doing that which it cannot do, that which it isn't inclined to do, only because other kids can do it? Do I even have to ask you to answer that? The answer is of course not. If the child does possess a strength that could be nurtured, then fine---nurture it. Again, the same applies to our writing. As authors, we should cultivate our own strengths, our own gifts. And we all do have our own unique gifts.

Oh, I will work my ass off to improve my writing. But only for my writing's sake, not to compete. I strongly feel that competition---when triggered by an unhealthy dose of envy---can strangle our creativity. We're no longer writing for the love of it. We're no longer listening to our inner voice, where beauty and all things creative reside, we're following whispers that are coercing us to imitate others. Would we encourage our children to do this? Well, I hope not.

I get envious, too---or is it simply frustration?---when other authors are able to produce books faster than me. After all, I certainly thought I'd have had at least one book out during this year. But I haven't. I occasionally whine, why can't I write that fast? Why, why, why?

But my pace is my pace, plain and simple. I figure as long as I am writing, I'm happy. Those future children will come along in their own good time.

In the meantime, I found another writing quote that made me smile, seemed to address me and my book/child parallel.

Sydney J. Harris said, The beauty of "spacing" children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones - which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones.

So see? My slow pace is simply meant to be. Maybe I am going to have a chance---with this lull between books---to learn and learn and learn.


At any rate, it has been a good year. A wonderful experience that---just like with my real child---I would not trade for the world.


So happy birthday, Candy G. You've been a good son any mom would be proud of!