Oddball Magazine Publishes their final podcast of 2020: One I recorded with them in August

This fun podcast, recorded in August with Oddball Foundation's Jason Wright.was a great time and full of timeless references. Honored that this was saved for their final podcast of the year, 12/25/20. We go off the cuff, and off the rails often.

 

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Most Viewed Blog Posts 2020---Pandemically Viewed more

So here is the annual list (with links in red), with notes in purple about why people went there. It's not as good as the Top 10 Horror Films, but 2020 was indeed a horror. Of note, the Top 1 about Virtual Dire was second most viewed blog post EVER, going back to 2010. The #3 about my piece in Ink in Thirds, from 2018, made the list that year, and in 2019---and is now 8th most viewed all time because of Joe Pesci!

In this year's Top 10 there are

30% about actual published work of mine, 20% about Virtual Fridays Dire,  and 10% each on: a) a cancelled event that people are googling to see if it was cancelled, b) My sobriety,  c) stories in Wilderness House, d) a memorial post. and e) Joe Pesci saying, "Do I amuse you?" 

 On with the countdown

1) Feeling Cooped Up With No Where to Go? Special Dire Series is going on Zoom, EVERY FRIDAY with a great feature and open mic

UPDATE 4/23 -Features will read 10-15 at either 7 PM or 8 PM, their preference. To see these events go to Virtual Fridays Dire Literary ...

NOTE: This got viewed because it's a good event and the schedule is on it! Virtual Dire made people have something to look forward to every Friday. 

2) On 11/06/10, my life started, and why I am grateful for 2020

         Ten--a big round number for my sobriety.     When my journey started, I didn’t think I could go a day, a week, a month and certai...

NOTE: I like that people like to read about my sobriety. I try hard to make this post meaningful, and I try hard so there will be another one of these the following year.

3) I'm funny how, I mean funny like I'm a clown, I amuse you? I make you laugh, I'm here to f***in' amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?

Here's an example of a great acceptance letter via Ink in Thirds, (their new issue out today):   Hi Timothy! Thank you for subm...

NOTE: Joe Pesci and movie quote by Joe Pesci

4) Kleptoparasitic published in Boston Literary Magazine, and the story behind the story (poem).

 I am happy to announce my poem, Kleptoparasitc was published in Boston Literary Magazine To hear the poem, look further down this post...

NOTE: Published piece that got momentum because it appear in BLM, a Robin Stratton of Big Table Production

5) Flash Piece, "Ambien Beatle," published in Oddball Magazine

     I'm grateful that my friends at Oddball published my story (click link >>>>), " Ambien Beatle , " but I want...

NOTE: Flash piece using Beatles lyrics. YEP. 

6) THE BOSTON NATIONAL POETRY MONTH FESTIVAL April 10 and 11th, 2010--I'm reading Saturday at 12:30

THE BOSTON NATIONAL POETRY MONTH FESTIVAL April 10 and 11th, 2010 CO-SPONSORS: Tapestry of Voices & Kaji Aso Studio in partnership w...

NOTE: This post from 2010 is about an annual event, which was cancelled in 2020. Please google tell me if it's going to not get cancelled by COVID-19 precautions. 

7) It should always end in "I love you"

       Of all the posts and remembrances that people have posted about Nadine Darling, the one that most rang true was, "The last words...

NOTE: Will be missed and always loved by many

8) Fall Issue of Wilderness House Literary Review is out. The link to full issue is in the blog

     Ah, the Wilderness..It's great to get away, with everything happening in the World.       I'm proud to show you fiction I selec...

NOTE: Such good fiction in this issue. Also, pandemically speaking the number of submissions here have been overwhelming. Isolations creates time to write, time to submit. 

9) Interview up on MassPoetry regarding the Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series, to benefit Independent Bookstores

UPDATE 5/4: I'm no longer accepting queries for being a feature.  Apologies in advance. Today there is an interview up about Virtual ...

NOTE: Good interview, and there was a lot of interest in Virtual Dire Literary Series, just starting in April. In this interview it is said, "Well, maybe I'll have features."

10) How to find my latest published piece, "It's a New Year," in Right Hand Pointing #140

 I've decided to start submitting again, so I picked an old favorite Right Hand Pointing  who has gratefully published me ten times in ...

NOTE: A flash piece out this summer about a New Years Eve relationship in conversation. Perfect for an end of the year blog. 

Now, happy New Year all. It's 2021 soon.  Do the right thing and let's get some of our lives back this year.. 

 

2020: My Year in Publishing, without anything else having to do with 2020

 So, hey Mr. Tally man, I'll tally you all my bananas, right here! We won't mention Election Fraud, (see ya' later, Donnie), Covid-19 (hope to never see you), or life's often challenging lifey-moments (see them somewhere in this blog) 

   

Besides all of that in 2020 was, my tallies were 3 Flash Fictions, 7 Poems, 1 Essay and 3 Podcasts. Slow, consistent, and pandemic friendly. I acted as Fiction Editor for Wilderness House Literary Review for their four seasons of issues. 

     I also hosted 33 Virtual Friday Dire Literary Series events on Zoom. The line-ups are HERE  and from Sept. on the videos of the features can be viewed HERE

Flash Fictions

"The New Coach" , October 26, 2020 Boog City, #137, Baseball Issue

"It's a New Year" , September 1, 2020 Right Hand Pointing, #140, scroll to the bottom

'"Ambien Beatle" January 29, 2020 Oddball Magazine

Poetry

"New York Confession"
December 11, 2020 Live Nude Poems

“When You Have This Connection”
“How Lucia Joyce Was Treated”
“Midwinter Aficionado”
“Thinking In Long Distant Relations”
"Canticle"
April 27, 2020, Muddy River Poetry Review

"Kleptoparasitic"
April, 2020 Boston Literary Magazine

Non-Fiction/Essays

June 2, 2020, WorkIt Health
"Being Of Service in the Age of Corona"

Podcasts

December 25, 2020, Oddball Show with Jason Wright
"The Oddball Podcast"

July 10, 2020, Assiduous Dust with Joshua Corwin

"Assiduous Dust #8"

May 20, 2020, Poetry in the Bar, with Helen Bloom
"Poetry In the Bar"

Autumn 2020: Featured at Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series (and a few bonus videos)

 This blog starts in 5...4...3...2...1. 

Okay. That is how I count out most of the beginnings of these videos. Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series started in April, but I didn't start recording until July---enough to have all the Fall line-up to captured below. 

Things had not been fool-proof production wise as Jessica Keener's reading was caught on video after she started, and I didn't have a decent microphone until October.  

Also if you want to look ahead. Here is the Winter Schedule

To see more videos of Dire features in the future, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel. The zoom recordings may look small, but the live stream on the Facebook platform gets 300 views, plus the YouTube videos get another few hundred. That's quite a crowd for a reading!

9/11, Carly Israel 

9/18, Daphne Kalotay

9/25, Ryan Ridge

10/2, Marge Piercy

10/9, Kerry Beth Neville

10/16, Yuyutsu Sharma

10/23, Chris Joseph

10/30, Elizabeth Gordon McKim

11/6, Diana Spechler

11/13, Jonathan Escoffrey

11/20, Dewitt Henry

11/27, Brian Sonia-Wallace

12/4, Rebecca Fishow

12/11, Marguerite Bouvard

12/18, Pamela Painter

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Here are a few from the summer, when I first started recording these. 

7/31, Kim Chinquee

8/7, Jessica Keener

8/21, Amy King

2021 Winter Schedule for Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series (Jan-April 2021)

     Features will read 10 minutes at either 7 PM or 8 PM, their preference. To see these events on live stream join Virtual Fridays Dire Literary Series Group on Facebook or message me for information. All feature segments get uploaded to YouTube, and you have the option to subscribe.  Our  features are followed or preceded by the best open mic in the world, so bring your best stuff. For previous features see HERE

Note: I no longer accept queries for features. 

Gate crash Prevention

Because of pranks, perversion, and racism which will not be tolerated, here are some guidelines I will be using some of the following at various times.

1) People will be Automatically muted when entering, only host can unmute you, at any time

2) Eliminate Chat

3) Eliminate screen share

4) Lock Dire at 715 so even if you get booted out by mistake, you may not be able to re-enter--sorry.

5) Block camera ability for any interlopers that are frustrated by all of the above.

6) Not post the event on Twitter

7) Not publicly post Dire link to zoom

7) Immediately remove offending animal. 

UPDATE 4/1/21. To see any of these readers, check out the videos HERE

January 

8 Rick Moody 

15 Laurette Folk

22 Mark Saba

29 Sarah Anne Johnson

February 

5 Jennifer Haigh and Josh Barkan

12 Keetje Kuipers

   19 January O'Neil

26 Elle Nash

March

5 Danielle Zaccagnino

12 Marty Beckerman

19 Nathan Graziano

26 Steven Cramer

Sneak peek at April

2 Easter Weekend- OFF

9 The all-open mic One Year Anniversary Event

16 Sandra Simonds

23 George Wallace

It should always end in "I love you"

      

Of all the posts and remembrances that people have posted about Nadine Darling, the one that most rang true was, "The last words we said to each other was 'I love you.' I'm glad for that." These were the last words she had said to me as well, but that was more than 18 months ago, way before moving to Medford, Oregon. I'm not glad for that--I don't do well keeping up with people. Yesterday, when I received a call from my friend Rusty informing me that she had passed from complications of liver failure, I had no words. I actually had no words, and I felt useless that I could not process the information or say or do anything for the person on the other end either.  I've now be able to process, with the help of others memories and grief. Here are some thoughts.

     I was always wowed by her writing, that pure talent, and use of metaphor. The human element in it. It seemed so natural.

     Nadine and I met at Scrawl, an on-line writing workshop, and whenever we participated in the Flash and Chat, (an exercise where you write for an hour and give a critique to everyone else who had written), it made me want to either be better, or quit writing. It was that good, and produced in an hour!  How was that possible? It was like magic. One thing I've often mentioned is when I am stuck with my own writing, I'll read one of her pieces, just to feel it---to live in its cadence, and explode out of it with something of my own. 

    Nadine and I shared a love of pop culture, and made often fun of it. When writing my novel, The Thursday Appointments of Bill Sloan, which is loaded with 70's satire, I used to run things by her to see if they rang true or were too obscure. Nothing was ever too obscure, as she knew them all, from the Brady Bunch to Musical Youth.  She was also kind enough to offer a blurb for my next book, which I know, is a very gracious gesture to do.

     Then there was the Dire Literary Series. Before Nadine took over an evening of Dire for her book launch she had attended earlier, and telling me how I was a cross between Chuck Barris and Gene Rayburn. Then she made me Gene Rayburn at the launch. It was probably the most fun and memorable live Dire Literary series in the 18 years I did it live. I let her plan everything. She wrote scripts to act out about Oxi-Clean that evening, and re-created the Match Game--with set, sound effects etc. Of course there was a reading from her book, She Came From Beyond, complete with a dog in her lap. Most of this evening was caught on video and I previously posted it HERE.

    When the series ended, or when I thought it had ended before the zoom pandemic version, Nadine was asked to feature with an All-Star lineup. "Of course, I'd be honored," she replied.

    These things, all of them combined, always made people feel that they were valued and important. It was one of her strengths. She also was a huge battler for women's rights, the toxic masculinity syndrome, the rights and treatment of those LGBTQ community. The energy and bluntness that she and her friends had regarding such social issues helped me redefine where I should be and how I should act---and for an old stubborn white man, reprogramming my learned behavior was.  

     I am shocked and saddened that she is gone, and my heart breaks for the love of her life, Ken, their three young children and her four step children. She was described as a wonderful mother and pet owner. One of her friends wrote: "Nadine was so worried about how Christmas would be for these children. One of the last things she worked on was a Christmas list for them. We want to do our best to honor Nadine by giving her children a happy Christmas despite their profound loss." HERE

        One thing I've always said is to not waste life's time. I wish you all to remember that, remember her especially, to always end interactions with those whom you care about with "I love you."

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Some of my favorites 

It's All True, from Smokelong Quarterly

Puppy Wonderland from Eclectica

Haircut from Pank

Amazing Animal Facts from Alice blue Review

Her review the movie Rudy  - boy did it piss off a lot of men.

Below was taken from a reading in 2006, in Salem, Ma. The other parts of the reading were on separate links, not included, and what I was reading back then, I'm not necessarily proud of, but Nadine killed that day per usual.

New York Confession published in Live Nude Poems today. Here's the story behind it.

Former site of Nightingale's

      Very happy to have "New York Confessions" published today in Live Nude Poems. (click link to read it, and continue reading others at the site).  I have Editors Heather Sullivan and Rusty Barnes to thank for that, and grateful for their support.

Here's the story behind this story:

Sometimes we confess things.Sometimes we confess years later. 

Here's my confession. 

Ted Koppel on Nightline 11:30 PM

Pictured above is Manhattan, 2nd and Avenue C. Back in the late 80's I heard Ted Koppel on Nightline reporting about the "new" drug becoming an epidemic in New York City. "It was called crack cocaine," he said. "Easy to find on the streets of New York and was an inexpensive form of the powdered version of the drug cocaine."

 I recognized the street corner in the report on television  and the bar on 2nd and Avenue C, where a deal was going down, which at the time was called Nightingale's. That was all I needed to know. I jumped in my car from Massachusetts and and was on that street corner by 4 AM getting high. 

     The poem, "New York Confession," tell this story but it also tells of the way New York City used to be in in all it's gritty glory, which for good or for bad, has been replaced, ignored, or glossed over today.