What early tongue so sweet saluteth me? Young son, it argues a distemper'd head So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed. Care keeps his watch in every old man's eye, And where care lodges sleep will never lie, But where unbruised youth with unstuff'd brain Doth couch his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign. Therefore they earliness doth me assure Thou are uprous'd with some distemperature; Or, if not so, then here I hit it right: Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.
Last night I got to throw a wrap party for Olde English's complex, wonderful, hilarious new video "iPhone Day" (I was the technical director!*). The video stars Ben and Caleb as two guys who can't wait to get the new iPhone. Afterwards I DJ'd. When I got done around 6:30AM I drove up to central park to get in line for tickets to see Shakespeare in the park. I camped out in line, which is something I've never done befroe. They started giving them out at 1PM. Then I met up with Ben and Caleb from Olde English, who camped out in line at the Apple store because they couldn't wait to get the new iPhone.
Anyway, it's four in the afternoon and I'm just getting home from DJ'ing last night. I like having a weblog because it's the only place I can quote Shakespeare without looking like a complete asshole.
It doesn't pay to try, All the smart boys know why, It doesn't mean I didn't try, I just never know why. Feel so cold and all alone, Cause baby, you're not at home. And when I'm home Big deal, I'm still alone.
Feel so restless, I am, Beat my head against a pole Try to knock some sense, down in my bones. And even though they don't show, The scars aren't so old And when they go, They let you know
You're just a bastard kid, And you got no name Cause you're living with me, We're one and the same
And even though they dont show, They scars aren't so old And when they go, They let you know
You can't put your arms around a memory You can't put your arms around a memory You can't put your arms around a memory So Don't try, don't try
Why isn't all of Brooklyn parading in the streets about how they saved this summer in music? and why the fuck isn't everyone talking about this album: Mark Ronson -Version.
(William Blake + Dante) / (Shakespeare x Breakups) = My Unconcious
You were in my dream last night. I escaped the bullshit of the city and went away to my grandparents house for a weekend of writing and relaxing and not being in New York City. My happiest memories took place in this small house on lake Michigan, which has since been torn down. Whenever I can't sleep I try to imagine how the wood panelling smelled and what it would be like to walk around in it again. All of my tattoos are of things I saw or learned about there.
My grandmother suggested I break away from the city and do something different so she gave me a shotgun to shoot. It was dark out and I missed the sunset, which is not only my favorite thing in the world but one of my tattoos. I went out into the waning twighlight and took aim at the first thing I saw in the sky and shot it. I searched the dark beach for movement. Some kind of downed creature wimpered as its great wings flapped. I felt like I always feel. Like an asshole. I looked into the night vision scope (which the gun in my unconcious has and it has the color and resolution of a Paris Hilton tape) and instead of seeing a bird I saw a stark white golden retriever with wings, crying in pain.
Even in my dreams I am not cruel or naive or optimistic. I took aim to put the docile beast of my unconcious out of misery, missed once and got him right in the face in a disturbing and violent buck shot that I knew had killed whatever this was. I walked over to check on it and found that I was mistaken. It wasn't a flying retriever I had shot out of the sky. I had shot something in the sky, but whatever I shot again on the beach was no mythical creature. It was two lovers, making out under the stars. And one of them was you.
Yesterday was kind of a shitty day anyway. It was one of those days where a few things catch up with you and everyone tells you you're an asshole. I understand that I have a personality that I project and that repeat exposure could probably get annoying. Of course I am this way because I'm convinced most of the time that everyone hates me and so instead I try to be Mr. Awesome as much as I can. But when that gets old it just ends up that everyone hates me.
It's pretty much the main reason Nikki broke up with me.
But this parity of opinion makes my most successful stories. As much as I'd like to have a website full of tales of how awesome I was when I DJ'd that new club and how much my new agent loves me (the thrill in writing that half sentence confirms how much I would love it)--it wouldn't make for very good stories. The best stories are the ones where I'm accidentally end up looking like an asshole.
Here's an old one:
I was working in the coffee shop on campus for the two weeks before graduation. The reason that I had to do this was because the day I paid my security deposit in Chicago I lost my fancy restaurant job and had no money left for the rest of college. The oldest restaurant in the county had a foreclosure on the worst easter of my life--one that started with the revelational that a girlfriend was cheating on me, continued through my sudden last shift, and one I would have ended somewhere between the phone call from my mother about how my grandmother had a stroke and one from Ben about a friend of ours from high school who died in Iraq.
The cafe in school was nice enough to let me fill in shifts while everyone else took their finals and dealt with mini-crisises. It's great to work in the one cafe on campus because all the cute girls come in and you get to ask their names and find out their four-digit phone numbers. Your professors get to see you working and they understand why your papers are late. One day this sweet girl came in with her mother and I tried to say something nice to her because I remembered reading something about her husband in the paper that day.
I know her father's name because he was indicted in the Iran Contra scandal and I have the same full name as Oliver North's lawyer. As I can't say enough: this isn't a story about anyone but me. She is a very sweet girl and I'm sure her father is probably a very nice guy who pets stray dogs and gives to Bono's charities and no doubt the 80s were a difficult time for her family.
I posted about this long ago because this is a journal of Brendan's daily fumbles. I did not use her name or anyone else's of course. The story is that a woman came into my cafe and I barely remembered something in the paper about her husband getting a job or an award.
"Hey, tell your husband congratulations."
"Congratulations for what?"
"Didn't he just get a big appointment in the Bush cabinet?" I meant, or beleived that I meant every word in that sentence.
"No," her mother said.
"Or not the cabinet, and I don't think it was an official post. But I'm sure it was him."
"No," mother said. "He was falsely accused of being the CIA leak." [If you recall it was either Carl Rove, Scooter Libby or...that other guy that no one remembers] She stormed away.
Yesterday--three years later-- was crappy, I already said this. These past few weeks I've let myself believe that Nikki will wake up one day and beg me to come back. This is not the case. And as much as I make it seem like her problem, the break up is my fault and we'll never be happy again until I learn how to be a human being. Also I was supposed to hear from a new agent last week and she still hasn't written me back. I owe two grand in taxes. Eight hundred to the electric company. And my rent check just bounced because I had exactly the money I needed in the account but then I just had to fucking get a $.99 song on itunes.
Anyway I get this email:
Brendan,
I don't know if you remember me. I was in your class at Kenyon.
I am a fan of the podcast LOVE AND RADIO and heard your cameo on it and followed the link to your blog from their website. I was browsing around it and clicked on MAY 2004 because that is when we graduated and I was interested to read if other's frame of mind during that time of year was the same as mine.
Couldn't help but notice your post from May 4 2004 where you write about meeting the mother of one of my best friends-and where you discuss what an asshole you think her brother is and make the, incorrect may I add, assumption that he spends money on drugs, and call her father a criminal and mocked the pain her mother has experienced.
I can tell from your post how thrilling it was for you to brush up against someone so notorious and then run home and post about it in your blog. [Guilty -b] I find it interesting that you would write and call ["Stephanie"] a sweetheart and then post gleefully about how terrible you think her family is and how you seem to take such pleasure in the fact that her father was indicted.
I'm not going to defend her father, let's just say I don't know anything about it. But I do think it says something about you that you would take what was a tremendously painful period in someone's life and use it as your blog fodder. Especially when that is someone that you profess to think is a sweetheart.
I showed it to her; she is probably my best friend in the entire world, and I think she deserves to know who smiles to her face and then writes that kind of shit about her behind her back. It was three years ago; maybe you've grown up. who knows.
nice mention on mediabistro and gawker btw.
Love&Peace,
A Girl from College
My complex in general is that I think everyone else think's I'm an asshole. And so now I know that someone thinks I'm an asshole and it makes me feel...like an asshole.
My New York age is 37 and that makes me feel really fucken old.
"This New York age puts you into a middle category between young and old (but not "middle age" per se). Be proud. You've got a nice balance between going out hard-core and staying in. You care about culture but also like some quiet nights. Keep it up, but think about expanding your horizons in the other directions. Head to Studio B or Anthology Film Archives for the first time, or finally check out the Village Vanguard or Elaine's for a dose of old-school NYC. "
In Hell, Don Juan was met by the Devil. The Devil informs him that everyone in Hell was cast in a role. The Devil then presents him with a Jester's suit -- "You'll make an excellent fool", he is told. Don Juan is insulted by this, protesting that no other man was his equal, "I am the man who made a thousand conquests!" Intrigued by the claim, the Devil tells him that if he can correctly name one of his conquests, he would not have to wear the suit. Thus the parade of women began, and not once could he name one correctly. Finally, one woman stands before him, tears on her face. "Yes," the Devil says, "this is the one woman who truly loved you." Don Juan looks into her eyes helplessly, then turns to the Devil and says, "Give me the suit."
Today after ten years of living with a diagnosis, I called a doctor to ask about treatment for ADD. I know it's the easy way out and I probably shouldn't get involved and my research is going well, but I thought I should look into it. I just seem to spend too much time living with early onset alzeimers. I'll open my microwave after not being home for a few days and say, "So there's that Indian food I had!"
The other day I was on the street and a 50 year old fit, woman stopped right in front of me. "Hey Brendan! How's the new novel going, ohmygod is this Nikki?" She turned to my close friend's girlfriend and I said it was not. "Oh sorry! Hope I didn't give anything away! Here a strange mother runs up and embarasses you just like that! HA! Anyway: loved the underwear. Gotta run!"
I have no idea who she is, what she's talking about. What underwear we're discussing. I called my mother and said her name phonetically and she had not idea either. It just gets old not spending much time on planet earth.
Many, many artists had ADD and many of them don't discover this until after they've won a Nobel prize or translated 9 volumes from ancient Greek. Actually, I only know this because I had a slew of professor who all had the same story of having to get tested when their over-diagnosed children turned out to prefer video games to math class.
Since I grew up in Christian Science I actively don't trust medical companies or the medical practice. It was, however, a huge source of shame and embarassment as a kid to turn up sick or defective. I realized that it probably still is for me when I called in for an appointment. "Do you have anything today?"
"No."
"Okay. What about monday?"
"Why do you need it today?"
"Because I have the day off. But I have monday through thursday off so..."
"What's wrong with you?"
"Pardon?"
"The doctor wants to know about all patients calling for the same day."
"I'm not calling for the same day I'm calling for an appointment."
"Then what's wrong with you?"
Maybe I have bigger problems than occasionally not being into reading pages of literary criticism because I said: "Nothing. What's the fuck's wrong with you?"
"I don't think that's any of your business. You think there's something wrong with me? You a doctor, now?"
"Great, now you know how I feel. Yes. I do think there's something wrong with you if you fucken ask tactful questions like that over the phone. Who the fuck trained you, burger king?"
I hung up the phone. And since then I've been able to focus very well.
When I got the call from The Observer I knew right away that the only thing I could help them with would be a story entitled, "Lonely Area Loser Apparently Also Writing Some Kind of Novel." I remember being a journalist and talking to people on the phone, knowing full well that I would make them look like assholes in the story. So I let her.
I've been at this just long enough that I don't really get my hopes up anymore. Of course I put myself to sleep over the last week dreaming of getting a call from the paper about how the interview went so great that they want to shoot pictures of me, the young hard working author as I try to make ends meet in my hard, working class DJ'ing job. And since I'm more ridiculous than any chick-lit novel profiled in the story I was already stressing out about whether my friend at Gucci could get me an outfit in time and where I would put all the flowers that all the lit agents sent me. (FYI: I don't have time for flowers, but if you must: send potted plants for my garden.)
Of course I also thought: a) who the fuck reads the observer? Agents? No. Agents don't know how to read. They just listen to NPR all day and dictate rejection letters while they think of synonyms for "engaging" and "flaccid." Then they go to lunch. b) No matter what, something is going to get reported wrong and it will go down on my permanent record.
The article came out today. It's 4 pages online and I'm in the very end. I slept late today because I was out late last night DJ'ing and drinking and when I woke up I had a message from Pete about how Gawker called me a crybaby for whining about how I can only write novels because I stay out late DJ'ing and Drinking. A well-circulated publishing blog said pretty much the same thing.
Maybe you've never had the wonderously deflating experience of being quoted in print, but it's the exact experience of hearing your own voice on someone's answering machine. Do I really sounds like a high-pitched, nasal, whiney tool? Yes:
Yet, still, the dreamers dream. Brendan Sullivan, 25, moved to New York after studying creative writing at Kenyon College in Ohio.
He hasn’t landed a book deal for his novel, but is determined to find a publisher. “Writing has ruined my life and cost me many, many girlfriends,” he wrote in an e-mail. “I have thrown away several careers and one college degree to spend my time working in bars, D.J.’ing in bars and drinking my rejection letters away. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy, and I’ve made many of them since I started …. I also abandoned my agent with words harsher than those I’ve saved for lost loves.”
Mr. Sullivan has held 27 jobs to support his writing career, from selling chapstick on the street to being a night guard in an art gallery (“That was my favorite job ever, because I just sat in a chair and read novels all day,” Mr. Sullivan added.)
He is currently working on his second novel. His first one, well, “There are eight drafts of it—they’re in my basement right now,” he said in a phone interview from his Fort Greene apartment. He trashed the novel after he got into a public fight with his first agent and decided to start anew. “You have to learn how to suppress your gag reflex in order to get anything out. Like in love, you make a lot of mistakes and you learn from them.”
It's a perfectly fine story and the author did a very good job of researching the article, whose main focus is not about how fucking great Brendan Sullivan's life has been since the handsome, talented writer graduated from Kenyon College. It's actually about how even published authors with big contracts are struggling, poor and often depressed.
Oh, and since I'm such a classy novelist from a respected institution of literature, that line about "gag reflex" was actually a blow-job joke about why I admire female and gay male authors.
It's kind of funny and probably flattering that I completely agree with both of the blogs about what an asshole I am. First:
To be fair, I'm generally sympathetic to the point of view presented by the New York Observer about why a big book deal can prove to be a curse. And the comments made by [five authors who no doubt google themselves every hour and shouldn't be mentions] are generally interesting and entertaining. But then I read the words of 25 year old aspiring writer Brendan Sullivan (left, with Planned TV Arts publicist Peter Horan) and my sympathy kind of goes away:
"[Quote about writing ruining my life and relationships, and may I add that seeing your quotes quoted in another story is like hearing your 911 call on the news.]"
Hmm, maybe some of those "27 jobs" Sullivan's had since moving from Kenyon College in Ohio will actually, I don't know, give him real ideas to write about instead of what he learned in school?
And then gawker
Authors Are Self-Dramatizing Crybabies Pity the poor souls still laboring under the delusion that book-writing can potentially be a lucrative, fulfilling career. Or, like, don't! Today, we learn of some of the pitfalls and dashed expectations that, yes, even published authors find themselves coming up against. Such as: even a six-figure advance isn't really enough to live on for a year once your agent's 15% comission has been subtracted and you've had to pay for your own permissions. Also, did you know that writing alone in your room all day can be depressing?
Yes, it's hard. Even professional bloggers like Rachel Sklar find themselves unprepared for the challenges. "I wasn't going out, I wasn't shopping.... I berated myself and may have had a few meltdowns," she says of her twice-postponed guidebook about being a contemporary Jew. Oh noes! But at least she's not as hard up as recent Kenyon graduate Brendan Sullivan, who, at 25, has "thrown away several careers and one college degree to spend my time working in bars, D.J.'ing in bars and drinking my rejection letters away." Drinking! Not shopping! Not making a lot of money! People with book deals turn out to be Just Like Us.
Now that's just fucken funny.
The comments are even better:
-Not a success by 25?!?! He might as well give up RIGHT NOW. At least he's drinking. Very likely we will soon see a book about his very life, bartending, dj-ing and drinking while wasting a college degree - he can't get an advance on that premise?
As for the rest of us, never say die and all that
-Rejection-inspired drinking?? How terribly unique and fresh! Especially at 25....Wow, I bet there is a truly fascinating book inside that alcohol-addled brain. Please let it be set in modern-day Brooklyn, please!!!
-I would love to see sad, drunken, failed author DJ.
Maybe I'll put a turntable near my bedroom mirror.
-Yeah, note to 25 year old failure and cut-rate gossip columnist-- there was a guy who died unknown and bankrupt wrote a book about a white whale. Might want to look him up. (Twatwaffle) [This one is my personal favorite since we all know I have a big white whale every time I think about Melville.]
-Plus that whale book guy died forgotten at age 72; so, Brendan, you still have a chance to spend 47 more years of D.J.'ing in bars and drinking while writing a novel exemplifying the most sonorous use of prose by an American in the 21st century, which might be rediscovered posthumously.
-Brendan Sullivan (best initials EVER!) makes me embarassed to be a Kenyon drop-out.
-Can someone explain why a 25-year old was interviewed for his insights on his life as a writer? He hasn't even finished with his juvenilia yet.
These people inhabit their clichés: the writer's tortured soul, suffering for their art, they must choose between their woman or their writing . . . Amazing. They are still holding on to that old chestnut.
