Writing, Publishing & Authorship : 5-14-25

In this session, we discussed project progress, the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing 2025 literary contest, the Taco Bell Quarterly, and writing movements through the 20th century 

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
So yeah, you know, just to update you on things going on in
the world, just finished the North American Fantasy Base book
sale. We'll get the numbers out on
that before too long here. Additionally, next week,

(00:23):
Writer's Block workshop, we're talking about starting a new
writing project applicable for all of us.
I'm in the middle of four of them, less than passively more
in different states of passivity.

(00:44):
Also tomorrow, film 3 Space withChris Hackett.
We do it every Thursday. More than welcome to come and
hang out. We've got an interview tomorrow.
I've also been posting up daily little facts videos from
history, you know, Yeah, you learn a little something it only

(01:06):
it only take you like 5 to 15 seconds a day and you learn a
brand new fact every day on yourtimeline.
No charge. Last little piece of new
business, Bloody sepulchre. It's out.
I'm going to leave it at $1.99 cents.

(01:28):
In fact, for the remainder of this week, I'm waiting on the
audio book to come out. It has already been published to
a few platforms, but it is not yet out on Audible, which is,
you know, for me, one of the thekey crucial sort of platforms.
So I'll do more promo around that once it's made available.

(01:50):
I expect that will be by Friday.You never really know.
I've had it get approved in as short as seven days, typically
no longer than 10. So hopefully, you know, that
would be Friday of this week. I got it in on May 2nd.
I was a little behind on some ofthat stuff.
Well, you know, not behind. It was a, it was a big

(02:11):
production. It took a lot of work.
It's only like half an hour of reading, but more broadly, it
has an audio drama production which had about 100 sound
effects and like 8 different tracks of audio, kind of not

(02:32):
all, not always running concurrently, but at times
running concurrently. I also had to mix down.
It was up to 12 channels, which is kind of a lot, but I mixed
some of those down just to simplify the process.
Bounce them down to stereo as wesay, so that I could work with
them as, as one kind of audio source and then apply effects

(02:59):
and panning and volume to the whole cluster.
All is 1 made things a little bit easier.
You could bust that as well if you're familiar with digital
audio workspaces. I chose to not because you know,
things will move slightly. Sometimes you you bounce things
around as you're doing the production and make slight

(03:21):
adjustments. So I wanted to be able to move
all that stuff or nudge it slightly as I was going.
But yeah, it is done. It is out.
I will be promoting it as soon as it's up on Audible.
Other things I have in the hopper right now working on the

(03:42):
monthly writing article. The article that I write on
writing once a month goes out ofmy sub stack.
If you are connected over there or you have a platform, you
could get it delivered right to your e-mail inbox once a month.
Again, no charge. You know, look at, look at, look
at us out here. We're just giving away the sauce

(04:05):
for free in the grand scheme of things.
You know, some of the other things I'm working on, I've got
another short story that is, youknow, long tail that'll come out
next year. I've got a kind of piece that

(04:28):
snuck up on me and grown to be almost unwieldy that I'm not
announcing yet, but I'm I'm shooting for that to come out in
September. That may come out as an e-book.
It was originally going to be anarticle, but now I'm feeling
that it can be more than just anarticle and I want it to be so

(04:49):
if I can hammer on that it is somewhere around.
It's over 2000 words right now and I'm guessing it'll be about
3 to 4000 when I'm finally finished.
It's a little more, it's non fiction, it's a little more

(05:09):
journalistic expose essay ish inthat sense.
Trying to think of the last thing I got here or last two
things I got here on my agenda. Oh yeah.
Working on intro bookend chapters for the paperback that
will come out this fall. That's in decent shape, but I've

(05:32):
really got to start to hustle onthat.
And then Anunnaki is going to come out as an ebook next month
and an audio book. So I've already tracked that and
have begun the audio book production.
I'm going to try and get that sealed up over the next two
weeks. I don't want to be two days late

(05:53):
on it as I was this month, so I'm going to go into double time
mode as soon as I finish this writing article this week and
get that ready for release either Monday or Tuesday of of
next week. So it'll give me basically two
weeks to get that in shape, which should be no problem.
It is quite short. It's only going to be 6 minutes,
I think 5-6 minutes per side, which is to say it'll have

(06:16):
narration only and audio drama production as well.
It's not going to be anywhere near as involved.
But yeah, nice short, little conversion of the AI film short
I put out in February and added a little bit to it just to kind
of round it out, convert it. Because you know when you put

(06:38):
something on screen, things are occurring on screen that might
not be happening in voice over and text.
So you got to you got to bring some of that onto the page as it
is been very heavy into audio books this year, not only as a
listener, but as a producer and,you know, perhaps a, a critic.

(07:01):
You know, here I am listening toHeidi's chapter by chapter as
well. So what's up?
I'm, I'm eating something. I'm eating.
It's lunchtime here in the the Golden State.
So that's why I wasn't like coming up.
But I felt bad for you. You don't have.
To feel bad for me. Yeah, I'm kidding.

(07:21):
You know, you. You can lead me to hang out to
dry in the sun like that. You know it's fine.
Oh, you know, no, I've been, I've been because I'm back now
she's back. I can get to it.
No, I've been downloading all your critiques.
So the chapters, the audiobook stuff, my God, I took a moment

(07:42):
to, I just want to thank you because I realized how much time
you're having to spend listeningto this.
It's it's literally a one to onetranslation.
However long the the audio trackis, that's how long I have to
listen. This is true, but it's still
overall it's, you know, probably, I'm guessing it's

(08:06):
going to be maybe 16 hours still, it's like a whole week's
part time job, right? I mean, I've been doing it at
least one chapter a day most days.
Yeah, and they're. And it's been for a while.
So I'm I'm like in the last handful of chapters, I think now

(08:28):
maybe 6 chapters or something left 7 chapters so.
So I've got to catch up to you. Well, you know that's on you.
Well, I'm not going. You're going to finish before
me, which is good since your beta litany.
Oh my God, it's a lot. It was a big ask, I realized, so
thank you. It's fine.
We're making it. We're making our way through.

(08:48):
Yes, we are. So what are we talking about?
I just kind of came in while youwere discussing your projects.
Well, you came in to discuss your project is what I'm.
Oh, OK, sure, I can do that. No.
Well, that's one project. Obviously it's pretty

(09:09):
straightforward project. The other one is I got to get
the and here's a question for you guys.
So first I got to get the terms of project.
I'm, I'm, I'm inserting some stuff into Jack's house to.
You're putting more into that. Not tons, Oh my.

(09:31):
God. Enough to ground it.
It's around 23,000 word right now.
I know, what can I say? It's supposed to.
Be a short story. Stubborn.
I'm so stubborn. I'm a really stubborn
individual. So it's gonna, this is I'm gonna
ground that checker. So I think, you know, you have

(09:52):
to be a little stubborn sometimes when you have your
your vision, it has to be what it has to be, right?
But here's the thing. So I noticed this when I was in
KDP. There's a contest, Amazon's got
a contest they're running. Do you guys know about this?
Like a you know, we're going to.I saw it.
You saw it. What do you think of it?

(10:13):
What? I don't know what I think.
I mean, I, I think it exists. I'm probably not going to
participate in any of it. Yeah, I'm not sure what I want
to do. And I'm also it's, it's
confusing the heck out of me. Is it like, does it have to be
published within the period the contest starts or can it already
exist? I have no idea.

(10:34):
I didn't look that closely. I, I sort of did, I mean,
obviously they, they're going todecide something they can sell.
Yeah. I mean.
I'm not going to do anything newfor it, I can tell you that
much. No, I mean no, I'm not.
I'm just I I'm just curious if anyone's had any experience with

(10:56):
any of this stuff and what they think of it.
I don't know if they've ever done this before.
I feel like this is a new thing that they're doing.
I, I don't recall ever seeing itbefore, but that doesn't mean
that it wasn't there. I mean it, it really, if I'm
looking at like the first three or four years of when I was

(11:18):
putting out books, I was only doing one book a year and it was
always kind of in the second-half of the year.
Really the the last third of theyear is when I would really be
kind of paying attention to KDP at, at the bookshelf area of the
platform. So like it's only I would say in

(11:41):
the last year and a half that I've been kind of poking around
in there on AI don't know bimonthly basis this this year
on a monthly basis because I'm often times putting out an ebook
along with the audiobook. So you know, your guess is as
good as mine on that. You might look it up and see if
there were other contests in thepast and see what competed, what

(12:04):
won and you know, how to be competitive and potentially win
amongst the competition there. I, you know, I can't really
offer too much insight on it. I will say I'd notice that it's,
pardon me, when you click on theEnglish 1, you can do it in
different languages. The English 1 is in Britain,

(12:27):
it's in the UK. It takes you to the UK Amazon
site. So it's not actually in the
States, which is interesting, but I'm just throwing this out.
I don't know if anyone knows about it, has any ideas, maybe
someone wants to look into it and maybe I will.
I'll know. I'm not sure what I think.
Well, I mean, I can pull it up right now while we're talking.

(12:48):
You know, we can look what I said.
I can pull it up and look more closely while we're talking.
Yeah, I don't even know if it's of interest to anybody, but.
I mean loosely, but. I know it's like it is and it
isn't maybe. It is and it isn't.
It is if it is, yeah. Well, it it basically what I saw

(13:10):
was you're entering a contest. I'll read it to you.
Submissions are open for our 2025 KDP Literary Prizes.
KD PS Independent Writing competitions recognize
outstanding new books published through KDP.
On May 1st, 2025. We open this year's competition

(13:33):
for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish
language entries and remain openfor submissions until August
31st, 2025. Participation rules, prizes, and
selection processes vary by language.
Please refer to our contest pages for specific rules by

(13:55):
language of entry. Good luck.
So that's what they tell you. Now we're going to open this
other page. We're going to look at Amazon
Literary contests. Here we are on this new page.
We're looking at it. To confirm your book is included
in a contest, go to the contest page from the list above.

(14:16):
Enter your books ASIN in the search bar with the contest name
from the browser's drop down menu.
If your book was selected, it will appear under the contest
name in the search bar. So they are entering contests or
wait to enter the your book needs to be published meet the
criteria. It sounds like they

(14:38):
automatically select this stuff.I don't think I thought when I
looked at that again, it looked like you know you enter it and
then they and then you can confirm that it's been entered
with the ASIN number. That isn't what I'm
understanding. Well, I I see your point because
it's it's confusing. It's not.

(15:00):
Clearly written ironically enough, right?
I don't think that there's any way of entering it.
Either you are entered or you aren't, but you have to.
You have to write. We're showing you items like
dispatch. They dismiss.
OK. It's open to writers publishing

(15:22):
English in any genre. OK publish their work.
Readers play a significant role.Go to my bookshelf.
All right, Make your enroll in KDP Select as well.
So those are the requirements published during the entry
period, May 2025 to August 31st,2025.

(15:45):
Add our keyword to your metadata.
So storyteller UUK, as it turns out, 2025 publish an e-book and
paperback. So you got to be on both and
then enroll in KDP select. So those are the four
requirements. It sounds like regardless that

(16:06):
you're going to, you're going to, if, if you go through that,
yeah, then you're going to get entered and it, it shows the
other finalists from last year, from 2024 as well below that.
Yeah, you know, but the other requirement is that it not be
public or you know, have the rights owned by anyone else.

(16:30):
So it's definitely for people at.
So it's kind of like, it's kind of like American Idol is my best
comparison. It's like you sign a contract to
go on American Idol and if you win, your recording contract is
owned by them, kind of thing, right?
Does that make sense? That's what it looks like to.
Me, I mean, no, at face value, no, but I would say long term, I

(17:00):
would guess that like in some capacity they want to be able to
develop from within. And that being that, like if if
I had to guess, let me finish what's what I'm going to tell
you here is. Specifically what I just

(17:21):
described. They want to make sure that the
material is rights. Owner, I'm not, of course, and
let me tell you why. So this is what a lot of the
speculation has been for the last three or four years around
KDP in service of Amazon Prime. So if you are published with

(17:43):
somebody else, right, then you're working with an agent, a
publisher, potentially multiple agents who would be selling your
book rights not only internationally, but potentially
to get it converted into film. So they are operating as a

(18:05):
studio for Amazon Prime via MGM,which they also purchased.
So if your IP is already in discussion outside of their
purview, outside of their control, well then that makes it
so that potentially they are going to have to deal with

(18:27):
bidding or competition or whatever.
So while to a degree, I think that there's part of this A&R
side of things where they're trying to bring up talent from
within and to also kind of seal it up without having to deal
with any sort of, I don't know, outside oversight or whatever,

(18:56):
you know, like lit agents and managers and people who would
protect you from predatory. The predatory.
Nature. Yeah, the predatory nature of
large conglomerates and enterprises.
The the other side of that is like if they can if they can

(19:17):
spin up talent in their own system, and this has been going
on for 100 years or more, really, if they can spin up
talent from their own system andand have exclusivity on it,
well, you know, that's, that's pretty that's pretty standard
across the board in general. You see that over at Disney's
been doing that for decades. You see that back in old

(19:40):
Hollywood across the board too. So, you know, it's not, it's not
so nefarious in a surface level as it's kind of like the just
the expectation when it comes toartist and repertoire in
general. I mean, it's all, it's all
nefarious and it's all above board at the same time.
I mean, it is what it is, right?But no, what I did read is.

(20:06):
They're, they're doing kind of exactly what you said, they want
to set up a deal. So they have a 30 day
negotiation period with you if you win or something.
Or even if they, there's anothercaveat in there.
Even if they decide that somehowit's marketable and they're
pretty clear about the fact thatfrom what I read that they're

(20:27):
looking for how many sales you have on your books currently or
that kind of thing. They're looking to.
See. To pick something up.
So it's kind of, I don't know, Inever know how I feel about
these contests. I feel good about it.
Sign me up, give me a bunch of money and write these stories.

(20:50):
OK, you do it then. Go for it.
Well, I'm not going to. I'm not going to have anything
out that meets their criteria, criteria within the time frame.
Like it's just not, it's not going to happen for me.
That was the only thing that waswas I was unclear about is it
have to be published within thattime, within now and August
31st, is that the thing? Yes.

(21:13):
OK, OK. That's what I wanted to be clear
about. But that's how you read it.
All right. Cool. 2000 LB literary prize.
I don't know why they're doing this with. £20,000 it was 20,000
a pound sterling, Yes. Not, not, not.

(21:36):
On the scale, yeah, 20,000 lbs. You're just going to get, you
know, generic poundage. Doesn't even matter what kind it
is they're going. To give you what's the, what's
the exchange rate is, it's, it'sprobably closer like $35,000
something. Like that?
No, I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't say that.
I don't know what the rate is right now.

(21:57):
It's it'll it'll give you I think maybe like 25 or 26,000
ish and I'm roughing it. I'm spitballing here, but it's
not going to be 35,000. Just so you know, you don't get
your hopes up that far. Well, I didn't know if it was
$1.65 to a pound, but I don't know what the exchange rate is
so that's probably the wrong information.

(22:19):
That's my only thing. I don't this is sort of a silly
point to even be discussing. Well, but what if you win, you
know? Well, I'd have to put something
out between now and August 31st.Jack's house.
I know I got to get his house out.
You got to finish the damn house.
RIP it. Me and Jack's.
Yeah, that's true. And you have to do all those

(22:42):
other things too. Isn't that meta?
Yeah, well, you know. Yeah, well, I'm working it out.
I was working on it this morning, going through it so.
I got done. We're waiting on the next draft.
I'm going to. Read the next draft.
I know, I know. I got AI, got AI, got to go

(23:03):
through it one more time. So me.
Too. I'm Yep, Yep.
It's a fast read. Matt was reading it on the
plane. My husband was reading it on the
plane. What did he say?
He got to winter. Oh, he got right to winter and
then dropped it, huh? He got right to it.
No, he got right to where? After he kills the guy, nobody's

(23:24):
read this. If anyone wants to beta read the
next version of it, you know, let me know.
So Michael's giving me a pretty much input.
I hate, I hate throwing it at people because it's not, it's
actually a pretty fast read. It's only it's not a.
It's pretty clean, I think. Well, it's easy to read.

(23:45):
Yeah, it's pretty. Yeah, it is.
It's pretty easy to read. So I mean, you know, one's hopes
that people get better at these things as the more you write.
That's the goal, right? Well, I'm trying to get more
encyclopedic as I go. Encyclopedic.

(24:07):
Yeah, House, I'm not. Going to be more challenging to
read. Oh, OK.
I mean there's lots of things I could.
I was just wondering what direction you meant by that
term. Why?
Why do you want to be more challenging?
I like that. You like good enough reason?

(24:28):
Yeah, why not? That's what I like, they say.
You got to do the things you like.
You have to create the things you like, and that's what I
like. So that's what I'm creating.
Fair enough, I think. I mean, that's a good point,
right? I mean, we are our first reader.
I mean, having seriously sat down and started writing is

(24:52):
ruined television for me. I can barely stand watching it
anymore. Brutal.
Every time I read a sentence I'mlike fire.
That was just. I crushed it on that line.
Yeah, well, you enjoy it. It's like you're your first
reader. It's like I, I love that.
What's that line? It's like decide who your reader
is. Who's your first reader?

(25:13):
Who are you writing the story for?
It's like, well, I'm writing forme, right?
I mean, that's the that's the true answer to the question.
I don't always feel that way. Is is.
I'm my first reader. I'm not writing this per SE for
everybody else. I feel that sometimes and I
would say like if I get that feeling a couple of times out of
anything that I work on, that's the ideal, you know, like it,

(25:36):
every line isn't going to be a banger, you know what I mean?
But like, if you get if you get some out of it, then that's
that's pretty good. Ricky, what about you?
Where are you at? What are you working on?
What are you? What are you doing today?
Bought a cat actually. You bought a cat.
No, no, I have a. Cat.

(25:57):
Yeah, his name is Boo Boo Fee. It's what I did is I just bought
him a lion mane hat, so he's going to suck wind later when
they put that on him for a photoshoot.
I've already been I've already been softly threatening him with
that. It's adorable.
It's like ridiculous. It's on the kitchen table and I
don't know, maybe I'll put a pick pick up.

(26:19):
But now I wrote 600 words this morning for dragon volume to
chapter. I think 32 or whatever it is
coming up to the obscurity war which will be 10K of mind
melting violence and power. So I'm looking forward to.
The hell yeah, brother. Yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward

(26:40):
to that. And I'm just drawing this
beautiful property in Marlboro, NJ and chat with you.
I love contests personally, but I don't, you know, I don't
really have a lot of material for that sort of thing.

(27:04):
I'm I'm infrequently inspired byjust a contest.
I would love to do that more on Mountain Timeless.
Like that's the eventual goal iswe gain in numbers and success
that we would do things like that back on 4/20.
Wow. Yeah, I guess that was their

(27:27):
their mindset over at Taco Bell Quarterly because they had a,
they opened their submission forlike Flash.
I think it was like you could be4K, you could be 10K, you could
be like whatever. But you know, you have to you
have to write a story. There's obviously you can't be

(27:48):
Snuffy or Splattery, but it can have like almost any feature you
want in it. And it had to mention something
about Taco Bell. So I wrote this one K thing and
submitted it back on 4/20. I'm still waiting to hear from
it. And I know that's not a contest,
but I participated. So it's sort of like.

(28:10):
For me, it's heating for Paige. Yeah, yeah, they only accept
like a certain amount of people and you get like, I think it's
like $1.50 or whatever if you ifyou win the supreme prize and
you get obviously you get in print.
So she MJ was saying how there'slike a quick rejection, a medium

(28:37):
rejection and like long rejection.
And I haven't gotten the quick one yet.
So I'm only assuming that you know, still on in in in wing
like flying around waiting to happen or not, you know, so.
Well, we're hoping you make it. What 4/20?
420 baby. What's up?

(28:59):
I don't even know what that is. So 420 man 420 bro. 4/24/20 is a
bunch of things, but in modern pothead culture, it's you're
supposed to light up. Yes, 420 is like a pot smoking
holiday and every every day at 4:20 PM you're supposed to light
up. So it's like it's, it's kind of

(29:21):
like a superposition for head culture and stoners and
whatever. And I'm assuming that's why Taco
Bell picked that particular day,because there's other there's
other more dubious implications to 420 which I won't be getting
in. Like this year, it was Easter.
Yeah, and there's it's other things too.

(29:43):
I mean, it does that culture is fairly, fairly turbulent.
You never really understand whatthe hell is going on exactly.
So I don't, I don't know. But I don't know.
I wrote this little 1000 thousand word story about this
this punk who goes to Taco Bell and he goes to eat and he's
eating his last cheesy gordita crunch.

(30:07):
And then this this creature comes into the parking lot into
the restaurant from another world.
And it's just like, oh, I see you have a Taco.
I should really like to have some of that.
And the punks like, I don't knowif I want to give this thing my
my Taco, you know? But by doing so, he saves the

(30:28):
world. And it's a, it's a dinky little
thing, but I, I like it. I thought it was cute.
I actually, you gave me an idea for a story that I would
potentially write for Taco Bell Quarterly, but I guess I'll have
to wait for the next quarter, you know?
Yeah, whenever they open the submission up, I forget.

(30:49):
It's not this frequent thing anymore.
It used to be more so, but I guess.
Quarterly. Yeah, I mean, maybe it's
quarterly, but the way they wereacting was like they were
opening up the the gates of Castle Grayskull to let us in or
whatever, you know, like it was a big deal.
So I guess we'll have to say. But what, what's your what's
your idea? Are you still?
You're still outlining and news flashing and whatever.

(31:13):
Oh you, I mean, you just gave methe idea so like.
Flash happened right now. Right now, literally.
And it would. I love it.
It would revolve around what wasmy favorite Taco Bell product.
Well, don't stop there, Michael.What is that exactly?

(31:36):
Well, it was the the double Decker.
Oh yeah, I lamented. Floss.
Yeah, true hard loss. We were we were bereft that day.
The double Decker Taco Supreme with beef was an old favorite of
mine. I I tend to embrace what I call

(31:57):
the higher evolutionary Taco, which is the Cheesy Gordita
Crunch. Interesting.
I find it to be 1 of and it is technically a double Decker
configuration of Taco. It doesn't do like it does the
hard inside and the gordita outside.
Bound with cheese where? In spirit, though not in name.
Yeah, no, purely in spirit, because the original 1 was the

(32:21):
soft shell bound with beans to the hard shell, and then they
they stacked everything else on top.
I used to rock those things leftand right, believe me.
Yeah, the Santa Fe Chalupa, whenthey had the Santa Fe sauce,
they eliminated that like forever ago.
I I thought that was great. I'm sorry this is turning into a

(32:43):
Taco Bell, but I'm you have to understand everyone that I'm
very chemically, I'm like literally chemically addicted to
this food. It's also relevant.
Yeah, well, it's we are. We are technically talking about
writing, but I'm, I'm slipping farther and farther away from
writing and starting to get hungry, so you know how that
goes. You can't eat books.
It's not Dungeons and Dragons Second Edition after all, so you

(33:06):
can't eat books, but. Wait, what does that mean?
There is this old spell from second edition D&D called Devour
Knowledge, where if you character cast it on themselves,
they could literally devour a book and they would take on the
expertise of the book. Yeah, I don't know.
I'm I'm filled with all sorts ofdoodads and dubious information,

(33:27):
so I'm sorry. Yeah.
Well, oh, sorry, I was yawning. Snuck up on me.
Uh oh. Do you?
Do you need some coffee or do I need to?
Do I need to change the subject?What's?
Going on, it was it, you know, I've been up for a while.
So you know, it's getting it's that point in the afternoon is

(33:50):
what it comes down to. It's not, it's not my interest
in in your narrative, which you know, I'm glued to.
You know, if we're being honest,loving the Taco Bell talk,
loving the writing, and Dungeonsand Dragons aside, I'm fine with
all those things. That's a piece I feel like there

(34:16):
could be a little bit more of inthe songless world, if I'm being
honest, a little bit more. Taco Bell.
Well, yes, I mean, it is the Southwest.
You could have tacos there. But I guess what I'm saying
specifically is the fantasy aspects, the dungeons and the

(34:41):
Dragons. Oh Dragons.
You want a dragon in song list. I mean he is a knight.
There there is one OK book 2 my friend.
Damn, it's coming. The Dragons in book 1.
You just missed him. Oh shit.

(35:01):
He's very He's planted. The seed of the dragon is in
book one. There's even a chapter title.
Oh yeah, that's I'm aware of that.
Dragon Rock. Yeah.
OK. All right.
OK. There, see, I got.
I got you covered. Nice.
You can't skip a dragon. So I got to get all the way to

(35:22):
this. I got to get all the way to the
second book in this series. Just dragon.
Well, yeah. OK.
God help me, I got to work. I'm going to get the Jacks thing
done 1st and then I got to work on that behemoth.
That's as long as the first. Get something done, get it done.
Hey, y'all. Oh my God, don't even I know I'm

(35:45):
I've got. Yeah, I I could be.
I could do better. I'll admit I could be more fast.
I will openly admit to my own failings.
Let's let's do it. But here we are.
Yeah, I mean, I'm. Putting a Coke 0 right now.
Coke Zero, Yeah. Coca-Cola I.

(36:07):
Don't know how it spins into writing, but.
It doesn't. It doesn't really at all.
But there, I suppose it could. You would think that, yeah, the
420 thing's probably not for me.I don't even know that but.
Not my it's my San Francisco hippie, are you anyway?

(36:31):
I'm, I'm, I tried to skip the San Francisco hippie thing.
When you've been around the actual San Francisco hippies,
you really want to not be associated with them.
I just, I mean, the Beats were kind of fun, but they were sort
of pre hippie. They weren't totally hippie, you

(36:52):
know, They still, you know, washed regularly.
Yeah, mostly, mostly, mostly. Mostly.
I mean, you know. Heroin.
And yeah, exactly her Herbert Honkey looked like otherwise,
but I'm pretty sure he was fairly sanitary like.

(37:14):
Unlike WAVY Gravy, you know about WAVY.
WAVY Gravy. Yeah, I know.
I I he, I, I view him as I I mean, I think there comes the
point where the hippie and the beatnik touch fingers like that
great mural. They they did.
They did. In the Sistine Chapel.

(37:38):
They did? Yeah.
You notice how great Ricky's memory works?
Great. Yeah.
No, I there was a point where they made contact at Ken Kesey's
compound where enough of them were cohabitating and hanging
out that it's like at some pointit becomes because you have

(37:58):
Janis Joplin and Allen Ginsburg,you have the Hells Angels and
Hunter Thompson. You have like, what's his face?
Dean Moore, the guy who inspiredDean Moriarty.
Oh damn it. You said Ginsburg already?
Oh. Yeah, No, he wasn't.

(38:19):
Jag Kerouac, who was Dean Moore already?
Don't remember. Yeah, I just can't.
Yeah, I, I should know this and it's just I, I got 50,000
numbers. Dan Moriarty, I got AI, got a
Dan Moriarty. Yeah, no, it was the name he
wrote in. On the road is the character on

(38:42):
the road. The character and he's based on
somebody. I've never read On the Road.
And I feel I knew something about this at some point, but I
I nothing that's I will ever. I know.
I don't really know it other than yeah, he was based on
somebody. I think I know that in passing.
Yeah, he used to. He used to steal cars and he and

(39:05):
Shaq Kalarak would ride a car they stole from the East Coast
until it exploded, and then theywould steal another car.
And because it was so far acrosscountry and it was all just
paperwork, no one knew what theywere doing and they just did it
over and over again. And then eventually this guy who
I'm talking about drove the bus further, which is the Merry
Pranksters. If you talk about Cuckoo's Nest,

(39:29):
he got all like with Timothy Leary and all this other stuff,
and then they got this bus and they were just eating acid and
driving around the country in this bus.
Neil Cassidy. Neil Cassidy.
That's it. Son of AI can't believe I can't.
Dude. Maybe it's 420, maybe that's my
problem, I don't know. It's.
Coming up on it. I had an art teacher just, you

(39:52):
know, when I was in college. I think he ultimately got fired.
He'd worked with Arneson. So we kind of had a claim to
fame. So it was Mark.
What was his name, Mark something I can't remember.
Anyway, he had this house. He lived in the Mission District
in San Francisco. And so we all went over there
and the walls were all decoratedwith acid tab art.

(40:17):
Like he had just all these acid tabs.
He used to have to deactivate them because he would do art
displays of all the the art people would do for the acid
tabs. So I guess if you put a hair
dryer to him, they're no longer viable.
Just fine by me. But I mean, it was.
Yeah. So believe me, I've I've had my

(40:38):
fair share of these people. A little a little birdie.
A little birdie told me once that lysergic acid diethylamide
goes away in the air after a while, so I don't think you
could like lick the walls and gointo the Oh I.
Wouldn't I? I don't I wouldn't I'm I'm not

(40:59):
Michael's read my weird some some of the some of the stranger
passages in in in song lists. I I don't need that.
Right on, right on Groovy. What's up Julian, if you want to
grab a mic, you're you're welcome to come and chat.
We're just hanging out talking about movements of writers, the

(41:24):
beats as it turned into the I don't know, the the hippies, I
guess. What would you call them?
Maybe. There's probably AI.
Don't. Think the hippies and the Beats
are exactly the same thing. No, 100%, they're not the same
thing. What I'm saying is like there's
a penumbra between them where you basically you get the, the

(41:47):
Beat Generation that becomes, you know, the some of those
people bleed over into the psychedelic generation later on.
First you had the Beat, the BeatGeneration, which is the the
Trinity of Burroughs, Cow, Rat, Ginsburg.
Then you had a tendon Beats thathooked on through academic and

(42:07):
through criminality, frankly, throughout the New York area and
all over the country. Then eventually you had this
thing called the, the, the beatnik, then the hipster, and
then you had a hippie. And then there was like hippie
yippie dippies. There was all different kinds.
Then they they turned into yuppies when they got old.

(42:31):
But the, the last phase was the beat reverend.
Like, there was a reverence in the 70s for the beatniks that
even superseded the 60s. And you get a lot of your
radical counterculture almost tothe point of like, like all the
stuff that eventually turns Stony and hateful comes out of

(42:53):
that time. Because they felt like when the
60s ended, there was this failure and that they either had
to repent of it and go the otherway or they had to like double
down and become like almost hostile about it.
And that's like the whole Patti Smith and what's her name?

(43:14):
There's a militant radical that was right.
I mean, I have her stuff. I'm not, I'm not saying like
don't buy it, but she's, I mean,it's, it's intense.
It's intense stuff like, and it's sort of like after that it
just sort of Peters out and becomes this like, cliche, like

(43:34):
I'm, I'm wearing a hat and I have a beard and I'm reading a
book. And that makes me cerebral and
intelligent, you know? And now no one even knows what
the hell any of it is, you know?And then everything just merges
into the postmodern era, doesn'teven get any more designation
the post postmodern era. Yeah, I feel it's departed

(43:57):
completely from what they because they what they wanted
was bohemianism. They wanted freedom, they wanted
artistic expression. Some of them wanted more.
But there wasn't this like universal thing.
It was about reading, reading great works, writing great
works, reading the works you wrote, you know, like the City

(44:19):
Lights bookseller and the the poetry readings that were
contemporary with house publication and things like
that, where they all got together and they were drinking
red wine and, and reading the poems.
It was all very animated. And I was greatly inspired by

(44:40):
that when I was younger, you know?
Well, everybody kind of liked the beats.
I mean, they're just sort of they were.
They were fun until you kind of really found out how much fun
they were not. How much fun were they not?
They were kind of awful people like William Burroughs killed
his wife is. That true?

(45:00):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's a fact. Joan.
Joan Vollmer was slain in MexicoCity at a bar.
Yeah. He was blind drunk and so was
she. Frankly, she used to drink.
I forget what she drank, but in the morning she drank an entire
bottle of hard liquor. Even before she got her day

(45:22):
going. They were both like I guess the
term is raging Alcoholics, although I don't like that term
very much. But she said to him at a.
Which part? It was in a bar in front of many
people. She took a glass and she put it
on her head and she said, OK, it's time for our William Tell

(45:43):
routine. And without missing a beat, as
if it was planned, he pulled. He produced a handgun from his
pocket and he took aim and he was a shootist normally, but he
literally was so drunk he had no, there was no hand to eye
relevance. And he, he, he slew her and it

(46:03):
was this huge thing. He fled.
They're trying to extradite him and he was fleeing from country
to country. And Needless to say, he was
racked with remorse and guilt. But it's like, tell that to her
mom and dad, bro, like, you knowwhat I mean?
Like you could, you could feel bad about it, but Gee whiz, you
know? This is a new story to me.
I'm not you. Didn't know this.

(46:25):
No, I haven't crossed paths withit.
I don't study the beats perhaps as well as I ought to.
Well, yeah, I mean, my favorite Beats story, this one's more
comical is someone was doing a reading.
I can't remember who it was, buthe had a poem that went on for,
like, 30-4 minutes or something like that, or 40 minutes.
And he literally just repeated the same line over and over

(46:48):
again, you know, and for 40 minutes.
And everyone, like, you know, snapped away at him, like,
that's so cool and everything. And he went up to, yeah, I can't
remember the names involved, buthe went up to one of the other
main players in the scene and said, what did you think of the
poem? And the guy said, well, I liked
parts of it. That was that was brilliant

(47:12):
response it. Might have been Ferling Getty
because the only one who was longer than Ginsburg and Ferling
Getty, in my opinion, relies a great deal on refrain.
You know, like Ginsburg has the whole the afterword to how where
he starts with the holy, holy, holy, holy.
You know, I mean, it's a lot of obscenity, so I'm not going to

(47:36):
get into it. But yeah, I if Ginsburg's were
long too, amazingly long. But I think for, I think what
you're, you're talking about Ferro and Getty, I think.
Probably. I can't remember who it was.
Again, I'm not a big study on the Beats.
I kind of know them, obviously, you know, and I, you know, we
all made our pilgrimage to City Lights Books.

(47:58):
I guess it's still there. It must be there.
I was reading about that, Yeah. The here's the thing about
studying movements. I think in general I find myself
dialing into particular authors more than movements because I
I'm not always sure that you canreally have a movement of

(48:21):
authors so much as you have styles that become influential
from anyone author to a lineage.The the lineage of authors who
are writers who are influenced by those things much more so
than an era or an experience influences writers that, you

(48:45):
know, like where I would maybe draw the line there would be
like, you know, what is, what isa beat writer compared to, let's
say like bebop jazz, you know, like that bebop jazz?
Very definable. What is a beat writer, man?

(49:09):
Gosh, I don't know, maybe perhaps less definable, though
the people individually are highly influential.
Yeah, well, the premise behind the Beat Generation was to try
to like a soft transcendence from the the cultural monopoly,

(49:30):
the cultural orthodoxy of the time.
And because of that, you're getting a parallel view of
America. You're getting, you're getting a
view of America that you would because.
And I've heard lots of documentaries and lots of people
who talked about the impactfulness of the Beats and
the relevancy of what it is thatthey did.

(49:53):
And it's important to go like when you're talking about
Ginsburg. Ginsburg was briefly a reporter
for some Newark newspaper, and he was, he basically did the
whole thing to interview the great poet William Carlos
Williams, who was in his community and had written the
book of poetry called Patterson,which I have.

(50:15):
It's a beautiful work, perfect for reading on porches on rainy
days. This, which is what I have over
here. And Ginsburg was trying to get
his whole sense of like how he viewed writing, how he viewed
America, how he viewed because, you know, Ginsburg had his own

(50:36):
angle and and they were all trying to incorporate the
culture directly into their writing.
And Jack Kalrak was writing about an America from a speeding
car going from coast to coast. Or in the earlier stuff he was
doing box cars, like he would hang out with flops.

(51:00):
Like people who don't see peoplefor like days or weeks at a time
because they're they're traveling around trying to
hustle. They don't got a job, they don't
have a place to live. They literally live in box cars.
They're eating baked beans, camping on the side of the road
in the middle of nowhere. Hobos and tramps.
Yeah, yeah. And it's like those people were

(51:23):
to the to the culture of the time.
Those people were an atrocity tobe avoided.
They were like, why would you ever care about something like
that? Why don't you do something
decent with your life is what they would get.
And the beats attitude was like,this is decent.
Like who are you? Like if I want to do this, like
who are you? It's a huge blast of

(51:47):
nonconformity is basically what it is.
And it, it deviates from there. I don't know.
I always wanted to be in a writing movement.
Like, that's why I study them. I studied the Inklings, I
studied the Beats, you know, anykind of salon culture where
artists were getting together toshare their creative work and

(52:09):
try to market their material. I'm, I'm there because I'm
trying to recreate that, you know, I don't know if that'll
happen or if it should happen. Well, aren't we, in a sense,
informally perhaps, a movement of writers?
You know, the Internet makes it so, but these people did it

(52:30):
brick and mortar during the 20thcentury during some very, very
conformed and oppressive times. I've had a, I've had groups on
here that are very, very, you know, they mean a lot to me.
And I've, I've done like, I feellike it's collaboration is the

(52:51):
key, like bounce, at least bouncing ideas.
But even like Co writing works and you know, I, I think getting
together and going over process and self-expression, I think
benefits whoever's doing it. But maybe, maybe I'm a goose.
Maybe I'm wrong. No, I agree with you at a

(53:14):
fundamental level until it gets to the point where I say like on
the art community where they're they start discussing like,
well, what is art? You know, how do you is this art
or is this crap? I don't care about that
conversation and I don't find itto be had by writers in the

(53:38):
analog sense where like it writers aren't asking, is this
writing? You know, like are there words
appearing next to each other? Then we we have writing, whereas
the if you put enough artists together, eventually I feel like

(54:01):
is it art? Is is this an art?
Is that good art? Like, Oh my God.
No, that's, that's part of what their crusade was, because the
whole point with the, with the obscenity trial was that the
mass, the, the moral majority, quote UN quote was telling them
that their work was not art and that it had quote UN quote, no,

(54:25):
no redeeming value, artistic value to society.
And they resented that and it was and it wasn't true.
But with a case like Naked Lunch, that book is basically
insane. And most people, most societies,

(54:45):
the quote behind that book is that no society can survive
Naked Lunch. Like if that became mainstream,
they feel like it's just pure cultural degradation.
I don't agree. But back then, it's easy to see
where they were coming from, youknow?
Sorry, Heidi, I didn't mean to step on you before.
I'm a I'm a real goose when it comes to these beats, you know?

(55:07):
No, you're good. You're good.
I I don't even clearly whatever I was going to say, I don't even
remember. So I'm, I mean, again, it's not
my Forte. I mean, I know them, but I don't
know them on the level that you do.
But yeah, I don't know. You know, if the art thing, I
just wanted to say I think the artists who do that are the

(55:31):
postmodernist artists that everyone's having a conniption
fit about and I'm I'm not a big fan of I, you know, the guys
with crayons and sandbox and in buckets full of sand they dump
over and everyone applauds. It's not.
It's not only them 'cause it, itgoes even to like Warhol and it
it's a conversation even today. Well, I'm not talking about

(55:53):
Warhol. Warhol's one of.
Them Well see the Now we're falling into the trap.
I'm talking the concept of aesthetic classical art.
You can't deny that that's art. That's not see, by trying to
avoid the conversation, we're having a conversation.

(56:19):
We've successfully achieved liftoff.
No. Is it or?
Not because the conversation you're discussing is a bunch of
people who are mentally masturbating at each other, for
lack of a better term. That's the best one I could come
up with. And that's not what I'm talking
about. I'm, I'm saying that that

(56:40):
conversation doesn't happen whenpeople are actually discussing
when they're not playing this postmodernist art game.
That's what I'm saying. It's different.
Yeah, maybe. Maybe a little bit.
We scared Julian away. I will argue with you.
Argue and be wrong, but. OK.

(57:04):
Thanks for clarifying that. Appreciate it.
It's fine. No.
Either everything is the art, orit's it's not.
You can't draw those lines. But that's my point here being
is it's not a, it's not a dialogue you find in the on the
writer side of things with the visual artists and the media

(57:28):
artists, you get that almost inevitably ad infinitum, but on
the writing side. We, our argument is what
qualifies, You know, what shouldwe be writing?
And that the fight all of them is it's like, oh, you can't
write this or you can't write that or you have to have this
type of character. That's the kind of thing we're

(57:50):
doing. It's a different it's it's sort
of the same thing. It's just presented in a in a
different context. But I was, I would say that that
it's that same idea. I don't know.
Yeah, I would say it's very similar idea.
It's a fair analog well for today and we've been at it for

(58:15):
an hour. Are there any closing thoughts?
Any last words or comments that anyone here has today?
Well, this has been a delightfulconversation.
I do love bantering about the the Beats and other like the
Inklings and groups of artists. And one of the reasons I feel

(58:39):
that way is because when you have a writer's movement and
when you're talking about your creative process inadvertently,
when you're sharing that with other writers, you're getting a
mental network, creative networkgoing.
And we all do that when we write, we, we're, we're
connecting conscious to unconscious, which is where the
muse lives, where the inspiration comes from.

(59:02):
But when you do that in a group and when all of them are created
creatives at least, if not creative obsessors, then you're
connecting with their unconsciousness as well.
And to me, that's almost nothingbut but benefit to do that
because you're not, it's not an ego game.
Like they're not sitting there talking about, well, that's not

(59:24):
really art, you see, and there'ssomething wrong with you.
Their attitude is like, how can it be better?
How can it be weirder? How can it be different?
That sounds like something you did before.
Shouldn't you be doing like if it, if it's criticism to fluff
oneself and to be preposterous and pretending at some authority

(59:47):
that they don't have? That's not how that was.
Like they did that for for improvement and better
betterment. And that's probably why we're
talking about them now. I mean, most people don't know
who they are today, but they were massive in the 20th
century. It's undeniable.
And I don't know why they're not.
Bigger other than, of course, their frequency with obscenity

(01:00:11):
and dereliction and madness and all the themes that they they
clung to. And I'm selling my book Orchard
Sun du Crocus, Weird Tales by Richard Andrew Alkis.
It's on Amazon. I put it in the little pill.
Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Heidi.
Thank you. The great ether, the

(01:00:32):
transcendent force. Thank you.
Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Buddha, all those
wonderful things. Thank you.
Hey, this has gone well and enjoy the rest of your day.
Remember, we are now into day four of the May Grand Sumo

(01:00:53):
Tournament. You can catch all the action on
NHK World English Language, Japanese culture programming
broadcast around the world 24 hours a day, seven days a week
via Roku or the Internet. We'll talk again before too
long.