Since I’ve accepted that Ghosts and Ballyhoo can no longer be professionally marketed, I may as well explain what I did to try and publicize it. The overwhelming majority of radio hosts don’t read the books that their guests have written. I had to prepare talking points so that they could fake it. Mike Albee…
For Tony
April 20, 2014
This post is for Tony. It’s part of the chapter titled “Lessons Learned,” from Ghosts and Ballyhoo. Things Just Might Turn Out All Right When I was sixteen, I died. It was an attack of irregular heartbeat, the primary cause of death from cardiac arrest. Medications have kept my episodes under control since 2007, except…
Cautionary tales always become manuals. And win free e-books!
April 17, 2014
I just read an article titled “Ten Things Idiocracy Predicted Would Happen, and Sadly Already Have.” Though I haven’t seen Idiocracy, I’m not surprised. Cautionary tales always become manuals. This phenomenon is not new. And win free e-books by answering a question! I’ll tell you how later. In 1941 Budd Schulberg published a novel titled…
The spiders demand it. And win free e-books!
April 17, 2014
I’ve been reading a lot about the dissatisfaction with the really dumb decisions Facebook is making. Let me tell you why we need Facebook. Or at least why some of us need Facebook: The spiders demand it. And win free e-books! You can benefit from my absolutely horrible experiences over the past year and half….
A new beginning and free e-books!
April 16, 2014
Today I sent out forty review copies of Chasing the Last Whale and Hallucinabulia: the Dream Diary of an Unintended Solitarian. It’s a new beginning! I’m also going to give away ten free Kindle versions of each book. I’ll tell you how you can win it in a second. If you like either or both…
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part One
April 13, 2014
On April 12, 2014, the novelist Anne Rice posted the following video on her Facebook fan page and asked for comments. I obliged her. In the interest of full disclosure, I was raised a Catholic, like Rice was. She and I both left the church at eighteen, but I never looked back. I was an…
Goodbye is Forever
April 9, 2014
On page 267 of Ghosts and Ballyhoo, I describe how the Cardinal Ghost Carmen explained why the Arcadia song “Goodbye is Forever” choked me up. She said it was just a matter of the harmonies eliciting an emotional response. To her it was only a song. Many women—including my mother—have told me that it’s much…
I should’ve published this review
March 31, 2014
When the fake book publicist Mike Albee “represented” me, he urged me to pay for a review of Chasing the Last Whale, Volume Two of the Ghosts Trilogy. The reviewer was Clarion. Mike told me this would be a great investment. As it turns out, the reviewer gave Whale three out of five stars. Authors…
Accepting and letting go
March 30, 2014
I wrote this August 13, 2013. Mom died exactly two months later. When my brother Eric was here to say goodbye to Mom, he and Tim and I had the most important conversations that the three of us had ever had. I’m very pleased at what an extraordinary man Eric has turned out to be….