Where the hell am I?
November 07, 2005 // Link
That, in a nutshell, is the question on everybody’s mind. Well, the mind of everybody who wrote me to ask where the hell I am.
And it’s a good question. Let’s look at the facts:
FACT: I posted just one blog entries in September, and two in October. While that rate of growth could lead to 78 posts next August, it probably won’t.
FACT: I haven’t podcasted in two months.
FACT: I haven’t responded to the letters I’ve received asking The Question That’s On Everybody’s Mind Who Asks The Question, or TQTOEMWATQ as it was called in an October 19 New York Post article entitled “Distraught Internet’s Plea: Come Back Carrington”
FACT: I lied about the New York Post article. It was actually October 20.
FACT: That’s a lie, too.
FACT: TQTOEMWATQ is what grammarians call a “perfect spelling.” That’s the spelling of a thing as pronounced with a mouth full of that thing. So, TQTOEMWATQ is the word “tomato” as said with a mouth full of tomato.
FACT: TWATTHWANUFALI is the perfect spelling of “that’s another lie,” which is generally the sound a politician makes when he sneezes. Or speaks.
And that’s the facts, Jack. What conclusion can we draw from them? Let’s put on our science hats, fire up our bunsen burners, and try not to blow up the science lab. Again. Sprinkle the magnesium into the open flame, do the square root of an impressively large number, cut the red wire...no, the green wire...no, the red—
CONCLUSION: Carrington is a lazy bastard.
Our conclusion seems to fit the facts and our lab coats are not on fire, so I’d say that was a successful experiment. Four out of five dentists agree. At least four. Maybe four and a half. Okay, four dentists plus one very tiny dentist out of five would agree.
[aside]
Not with that statement in particular, necessarily, but just in general. They’re very agreeable, those dentists. It must be all the clown paintings. Or the gas.
[end of aside]
But the underlying question that’s on everybody’s mind is WHY has Carrington become such a lazy bastard, and perhaps more importantly what can we do about it?
E-mail clearly isn’t working, although that may be because so many of you send HTML formatted e-mail and I scoff at your selfish newbie hotmailiness. Plus, there was that little “that’s it, EVERYONE is going in my killfile!” incident. Overreaction is only fun when it’s immeasurably disproportionate, I always say.
Unsubscribing from the podcast isn’t working, because I don’t give a pair of fetid dingo’s kidneys about the size of my audience. Frankly, I don’t like most of you and I wouldn’t go to your parties if you invited me. Which you don’t. But even if you did, I wouldn’t go. Probably. Why don’t you invite me to your parties? What did I ever do to you?
I promised myself I wouldn’t cry.
Actually, I promised myself I wouldn’t climb up into a bell tower with a rifle and start thinning out the neighborhood, but it amounts to the same thing. Broken promises, broken hearts. Sucking chest wounds. It’ll all end in tears, I know it.
Getting my telephone number from various domain name whois listings and calling me at home to awkwardly ask why I don’t produce podcasts or webcomics any more doesn’t work, as two of you now know. (Hi Ron. Hi Jessica.) That ends in tears, too. Well: tears, restraining orders, denial-of-service attacks...it’s all the same to me. I lump it all under audience relations, and file it under F for “file this properly later.”
My F file is the biggest of them all. In fact, it’s the only with with anything in it, which makes it much easier to locate stuff because I know anything I might be looking for is filed under F. I could run the government.
I should run the government.
I should run the government into the ground.
See how these thoughts get away from me? See why you shouldn’t call me at home at 11 pm your time which is 2 am my time (Hi Jessica) and ask me why I don’t make Movie Punks any more? You’re only going to ruin it for everyone else.
So what can we do, collectively, to Stop Carrington’s Laziness? My guess is: nothing. I suspect we are powerless against the might of my writer’s block, my boredom of repetition, my despair over unfinished projects, my terrible dress sense.
Perhaps there are some things about me that just cannot be known. The Carrington Uncertainty Principle. It might apply to my motivations. And my responses to encouragement. And why I buy the ties I do, when I know they can’t possibly match any outfit I own. But it does not apply to the perfect spelling of my name, which is CWRRNGHTNGH. (Hi Ron.) But it does seem to apply to most everything else.
So my motives are unfathomable, my actions unpredictable? Is this a lost cause? ‘Cause, if so, this was a pretty damn useless blog entry, don’t you think?
Although, perhaps...just perhaps...a fresh start? A do-over? A sort of witness protection program for creative wankers like me who find themselves drowning in to-do lists and to-write lists and to-podcast lists and to-film lists and to-build lists and to-program lists and to-list lists.
You know, that’s just crazy enough it might work.
Call me Eddie. I’m new around here. Write a poem? Me? No, not my sort of thing. A novel? Not bloody likely. Webcomics and podcasts? Never heard of them. Make a movie? Sounds hard. Blogging? What’s blogging? Oh, that sort of looks like fun...
And the circle of internet life is complete.
Stay tuned for a new podcast that not one of you will find interesting. Plus a redesign of this site to shunt the blog off to the side and refocus on a new series of Eat My Words articles more opinionated than ever. Plus maybe, just maybe mind you, I might answer some of my e-mail.
Baby steps.
I have to write a novel (part one)
November 22, 2005 // Link
I have a deadline. A big deadline. An all capitals BIG DEADLINE that looms. That LOOMS. It blocks the sun. It has gravity. It probably has storm troopers. And most of all, it ticks.
I have to write a novel. Not only do I have to write a novel, but I have to write it in time. In time for what, you ask? (Or would ask if this was a conversation. But it’s not, it’s a blog. So stop interrupting.)
At the end of high school, I had an English assignment to write an essay about the future, or about my future, or something like that. Maybe it was about your future. Whatever. I wrote about me.
I wrote an essay on why I wanted to be a writer. There’s no use quibbling or pretending I meant something vague that might include blogger or screenwriter; by “writer” I meant “author,” and by “author” I meant “novelist.”
My essay was one of three winners for a contest I didn’t know that I’d entered. My teacher submitted the essay for me, and I only found out about it when I learned that I was one of the winners. The winning essays were placed in a time capsule in the Xerox Tower building here in Toronto (in what was North York back then).
My essay still sits encased in a clear plexiglass shell in the lobby, along with silver medalist Shawn O’Sullivan’s boxing gloves, a program signed by the cast of Cats, a book by Timothy Findley, and a letter from mayor Mel Lastman to the future mayor of North York (it begins, “Dear Myself...”)
That time capsule has become one of the defining things in my life. That public declaration of my biggest creative goal gave me a fixed deadline to measure my success or failure. For years I’ve known that I’d one day attend the capsule opening ceremony to claim success or admit failure both in public and, far more importantly, to myself.
I’d be a novelist by that day, or I’d be a failure. Period.
And yet, I have not written a novel. The days and years have flitted by and I cannot honestly say I’ve made more than the merest progress.
Oh, I’ve written some things: stage plays, screenplays, poems, blogs entries, podcasts, essays, columns, comics, stories, technical manuals, jokes, eulogies, love letters, legal documents, and lots of other lies. But not a novel. Never a novel.
And last week I realized that the time capsule might be due to be opened as early as next year.
Tick tick tick.
(Next: Part Two, which is also not a novel.)
I have to write a novel (part two)
November 28, 2005 // Link
Dinner was served as part of the time capsule closing ceremony. At my table was author Timothy Findley and the cast of Cats. There may have been other people, too, but I was still shaking off the effects of puberty (often literally) so I mostly just stared at the Cats ladies.
At some point Timothy Findley brought out a stack of his latest novel, Not Wanted On The Voyage, to sign for anyone who wanted one. I’d already read one of his books and found it not to my liking, so like the snot-nosed brat I was I declined a copy of the book.
[aside]
Yes, I realize that’s just the sort of action that would come back to bite me in the ass Karma-wise if this was a fictional tale of a would-be novelist. Luckily, this is not fiction so there’s no such thing as Karma here. Nor the Easter Bunny and God, in case you were keeping track.
[end of aside]
Findley didn’t have a pen on him so he asked if anyone had one he could borrow for the signings. I leant him mine, feeling smugly prepared. Please reread the “snot-nosed brat” comment above.
Eventually we adjourned to the lobby to see the sealed capsule and hear some speeches. Or perhaps that was before dinner. I can’t recall because this was a billion years ago, roughly.
I do remember something quite clearly, however. Something that struck me as I was leaving, and that I’ve recalled and recounted ever since. And that something is this:
TIMOTHY FINDLEY STOLE MY PEN.
[aside]
That’s not Karma, that’s coincidence. Some other people might call it petty theft, but those would be people less fearful than me of being sued by an author’s estate so I’m going to stick with, um, “premeditated coincidence.”
[end of aside]
So here I am, many years older and no novel richer, ready to head up to the Xerox Tower lobby and look at the date on the capsule’s plaque to see just how early/late/screwed I am.
I’ll bring my camera.