1:58 a.m. PDT — It’s Friday again and there’s nothing in my head. Nothing but this: I was talking to a contributor this week, a wise old fellow and very accomplished guy, and he said, kinda out of the blue: “Someone’s gonna write a book about you someday Mike.”
I felt a lot of relief hearing this because—Jesus Christ, maybe THEY can make sense of this. ANY of it. I’m in the middle of a war that never ends, not enough money, not enough time, nothing’s working, my body’s on the fritz. Eyes don’t work, hip flexors suddenly won’t flex, balance is bad, now can’t swallow…what the fuck? Is this normal, is this just getting old, is this the cerebral palsy, or is it something else? Some new pennysworth of weight to carry? And underneath it all my hands and wrists and elbows ache, as whatever it was that tried to kill me before leaks out of my joints like battery acid…
Is everyone’s life like this? Sound off in the comments.
Must push through. I’m surrounded and outnumbered and the only thing left to do is ATTACK. All directions. All the time. Maximum bravado. Bandana on the head, knife between the teeth (sharp edge OUT). A daring plan that just might work. I’ll try to leave clues, a written record of who did what, for the book—but the essential things will be forgotten like they always are, the crazy bravery that ended in annihilation…or victory.
How did I get here? I am a quiet person. Truly. By nature I prefer loafing and reading spy novels and playing cards with pretty smart women. I don’t drink, don’t drive fast, and yet…at 54, I find myself outnumbered, surrounded, counting bullets, sharpening sticks.
In July I spent a week in Michigan where my parents have built a pleasure dome. It was very lovely there in the green, splashing in the lake. Eating local potato chips, shouting “EMBRACE LIFE!” as the water slooshed against my testicles and I had no choice but to dive in. Wearing goggles so I don’t wash out my contacts. I am a cautious man.
Now I’m back at my desk, it’s late and I’m weeks behind on design and my contacts are like glue. I’m listening to songs that comfort me somehow—“Tomorrow Never Knows.” Realizing for the millionth time that comedy just can’t DO what I want it to do, it’s too constructed, too constricted, too depressive, an anesthetic, the sound of a mind howling in pain and hoping to hear others howl back. Realizing modern comedy can’t connect like music, it never could, how it rewards illness, attracts it even, and wishing like fuck I’d gone into anything else—painting or movies or pop.
And tonight there is a deadline, and I have nothing to say. Nothing at all. I’m so burnt I apologized to my ex-writing partner on the phone. “Sorry there are no jokes today. I’m so wrecked and worn down I’m having trouble not slurring my words. Just know I love you, and will take care of you as best I can, for as long as there is a you.”
I owe him money, because of course I do, because wars cost money. I’ll pay him back someday, someday times ten, because I’m gonna WIN.
Somebody laughed at me last month, someone who doesn’t think I can pull it off. I attract these kind of Looky-Lous. I don’t mind; I’m used to it. For as long as I can remember my life has had two constants: crazy victories and folks who didn’t think I could do it, because they mistook me for normal people. My God, if only! Is there a pill I can take? Sound off in the comments.
After 54 years, I try to be kind and gracious; I try not to say I told you so. I try to say things like “See? This means YOU can do something great, too!” They never do, but I never stop believing in them. I know all it takes is crazy bravery. Constant attack, in all directions. When you’re tired, when you’re hungry, when you’re slurring your motherfucking words—because there are spreads to be designed. A scrap of beauty to be squeezed out of some lines a bit of color and three typefaces stolen from the Yale College Design Department in 1989. And maybe someday someone somewhere will make sense of it all in a book. Will it be a catalog of triumphs, or a cautionary tale? Am I nuts? Don’t ask me. Seriously, do not ask—I’m on deadline.
Now it’s the shank of the evening as they say, and even water makes me nauseous. I like to write late at night—it feels like I’m sneaking up on something. A Beatles song is playing because of course it is, one of the songs I sang at top voice that night in August 2005 when Kate and I were driving through the Rockies towards LA, towards our future, barreling in the pitch black towards the hardest ten years of my life, where every plan would break down and every part in my body would scream and flex and be turned into electric steel. “Roll up roll up for the magical mystery tour, step right this way…” I’m singing louder and louder, as we drive in the pitch black, on a lane-and-a-half wide road with a sheer thousand foot drop just outside the passenger side window. Don’t look over, don’t look back, just look forward.
I was so terrified when we got to the Strater Hotel I grabbed a pillow and screamed and screamed. The fear wouldn’t stop until 2015. And of course I didn’t die, just like all the other times I easily could’ve died, and the only reason I can think of is: still got work to do.
Sorry this isn’t funnier. I’m changing. I’m not scared any more. Not depressed or even angry. Life is what it is. And I must fight. I’m no longer afraid of the dark—the dark is when I work. Good for sneaking up on it, whatever it is. I’ll let you know when I catch it.
Oh head spins. Nausea. I don’t have much more in the tank. Gotta bring this home.
This evening I watched Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about Apocalypse Now; I’ve grown to love Coppola’s Vietnam movie, which I saw in the theaters with my Uncle David. I watch it regularly as deep background for my book about young Julius Caesar; the Social Wars were like Vietnam, dirty bloody guerrilla war, where everything is too real/unreal. Caesar’s one of the couple of mostly plotted novels I’ll write once I can hand off Bystander. Safely, though—because I love it, and will take care of it as best I can, for as long as there is a me.
All I can do is work as hard as possible, trust in my training, trust in the hours and hours listening to The Beatles, who knew best how to do what I want to do. Digging myself out for you, all the people I don’t know, I’ll never meet, but for some crazy reason believe in. Trusting in taste, intuition, kindness, a deep wish to give pleasure, to connect. Trying not to worry about five decades of wreckage, the accumulation of mistakes and character flaws. Just digging it out. Here’s me, today, right now. Lightheaded, weary, but no hiding either, no flurry of jokes. Just the waves lapping against my ankles my knees my thighs, getting colder getting colder, so…EMBRACE LIFE!
And maybe someone else can make sense of it all. Someday. In the book.
As a prize for reading all the way down, here’s a video of a very rare TV comedy from 1969, Turn-On. It’s so choppy I felt myself getting overwhelmed watching it, but it’s undeniably a precursor to a lot of stuff going on now. Take a watch, see what you think.
