ten after two

started on the book tonight, the title in microsoft word is "the long awaited and much anticipated book."

very seldom do i confess weakness here in my dialogue with you but must admit the task in front of me is daunting. i do not know that if inside of me is the ability to give these stories their just due.

you see, as a verbal storyteller i have an inate ability to "know" when the audience "gets it." i can feel you getting it. the verbal word carries more connotations than the written word. these connotations are conveyed by tone and emphasis and are heard, so to speak, on many different levels. somehow, and i really don't know how, but somehow, i know when the audience, as a whole, has heard and understood what i just said. writing it, i cannot feel you. because of that i feel an obligation to put in more words to explain the connotations of the word that i really want to use. but then again, on the other hand, i do not want to bury the beauty of the story beneath a mountain of words.

the only time i ever had creative sessions of writing were when i was alone with my dying ellen out on our farm in the middle of nowhere and late at night as ellen would sleep and when the wind would blow and the coyotes would howl i would sit alone with my thoughts and write vampire poems full of dark and dangerous images. it was the only way to confront my fears and to gird myself for the coming day's battle that i had no choice but to fight. i will include them in the book.

i have so many tales to tell and you, as an audience member, have heard only a small percentage of the overall catalogue. i escaped from l.a. county jail. there are very few people in the whole country that can make that statement. how i did it is quite a story and one that i have never shared with a comedy club audience.

i saw and heard things in orleans parish prison in the 1950's that stir my sould today. if i can find the words to write that capture those "things" and put them on the paper in proper sequence your soul will be stirred as well for it is a story of man's better side coming out even when embroiled in the direst of circumstances. if i fail to find just the exact right words it becomes just another story of not so glorious days.

i can write of gun smuggling and assassinations, of cons and scams and poker hands. of life in the fast lane complete with limos and private planes. stories of women and children and the cad i have been.

to be good, it has to be honest and honesty is, far and away, not the easiest of policies.

and these are my thoughts at ten after two in the morning.