Priorities

My, what a lot of posts to a guy who can't write, about a "conspiracy" which doesn't exist. It sure seems to me like an effort to derail what I'm doing. So be it. I've been fighting demi-puppets-- and "Harland"-- for seven years. There's no end to them. Invariably, they lack integrity and truthfulness-- no one more than Harland.

PEN
This organization is a house of cards. Points that can be brought up: how the bulk of money expended goes for salaries; the current Director making two-and-a-half times what the Director made ten years ago. (Did your wage or salary go up that much? Mine hasn't!) That their awards to writers consistently go to the affluent kind, famous or not-so-famous, who don't need the bucks. This from a "dissent" oriented organization. That there was dissent within PEN in the 90's over the organization's kowtowing to rich people. The dissenters lost the battle.

DIRTY TRICKS
These of course continue. (I'm still waiting for my blog to be freed up.) Latest are fake, badly written poems sent to some outfit called poetry.com under my name, with my real e-mail address but a fake Detroit snail address. The poems are a caricature of what I do. The question being, if there's no literary establishment, why some people are going to so much trouble to defend it.

MYSELF
Someone asked about my background. Yes, I focus on the class war in this country-- something I've been aware of since I was a kid. During high school my family lived on "the other side of the tracks"-- actually a newly built expressway. We'd moved into an area that had been vacant land until in the Fifties cheap 30 or 40-foot-lot houses were thrown up; where we lived had no school district so we had to attend a school miles away in a more affluent district. Myself and my siblings and our friends were the poorest kids in school. "There goes a Wenclas." We fought other students almost daily. The stories I could tell are endless. My factory worker father was sick most of the time-- I was working 38 hours a week in a restaurant, cooking beef rounds and washing pots, to pay my share in the house. In class the next morning I'd be sleeping in the back row, still emanating the beef smell which I could never seem to wash off, the other kids shaking their heads at me in disgust. Sometimes I never went home; both my parents had, er, drinking problems, which for many years, starting at sixteen, I inherited. The family battles in our tiny house were constant. Etc etc. Do you really want to hear this? I don't. It's something I'd rather forget-- but it did mold my attitudes; gave me a taste of the real world which further experiences reinforced.

THE HARLAND QUESTION
"Oh Goneril! You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face."
This is a talented person who has been holding a grudge against me for seven years. Justified? Probably in part. I wish the person would move on. The individual hasn't been answering my e-mails, so seems unwilling to address the real problems between us. I have no inclination to keep fighting this person.
p.s. Has it occurred to no one that Harland is a woman?

MY BLOGS
"Harland" in some sense is correct that the questions raised here, between the underground and the establishment, will ultimately be decided by THE WRITING. I'm willing to accept that challenge. I'll have a remark put up on my Happy Lit blog about this.

Given a choice, at this moment in time I'll take my Literary Mystery blog over this one. That's where my further opinions regarding Harland and the other detestable people of the literary world will be found. I have some very entertaining chapters to come-- including new characters like evil clown "Roody McDoody" and masked villain "The Assassin." I plan to have fun, and hope my remaining readers will also.

As for this blog, I've shut down comments-- I just don't have time for all the noise and attacks, sorry. Interpret it as you like. I have a backlog of half-a-dozen posts or so-- some fairly good-- which will go up when I get to it. The same for the Happy Lit blog. I have two or three reviews to post at my new review blog. Otherwise I'll be taking a well-deserved break from all except "Mystery" and "Detroit." (Oh yes, I am living here full-time, but will likely move on when I can, leaving no forwarding address. Detroit is a landscape of misery, a vortex of negativity which drains all who fall into its path.)

Later. . . .