According to their very cool site: The goal of The 2020 Newsletter project, created by Kristen Tsetsi and Alan Davis, is to gather a cross-section of experiences from as wide a variety of people as possible and to publish them here. Many of those experiences will be compiled in the print and e-anthology The 2020 Newsletter, 100 percent of whose proceeds will be donated to the United Way Covid-19 Community Response And Recovery Fund, helping “communities around the world respond, recover and rebuild to be more equitable and resilient.”
All of this is pretty cool. When I was asked to contribute I thought the introduction to my book 2020 Poems (you can buy it if you want) would be a good addition. The essay has already appeared on my blog, so it's been around---just as I have.
***************************************
Which brings me to, I've been around so long that I was in a band on the regional Billboard Magazine Top 100 list alongside Prince, Elvis Costello, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Stevie Nicks
Now that has to be some sort of Trivia question what will never be asked, or if asked, would be only answered correctly by the readers of this blog. Then again, a lot of people HATE trivia.
I have a Number 1 best-seller on Amazon! So grateful!
My book was released in Kindle form to my Advanced Reader Team and pre-orders put it The Number 1 best-seller on Amazon in five categories for
New releases,
1) Poems About Death,
2) Poems About Nature..
2) Aging Parents/Elder Care,
4) Death,Grief/loss and
5) Alcoholism
Thank you for your purchase!! Awesome to be on lists with Mary Oliver, Rupi Kaur, Emily Dickenson, Margaret Atwood, and Edgar Allen Poe
Paperback is out next week, and Kindle will go up to regular price then too, but I'm super excited.
Fun times being on Linda McHenry's podcast The Writer's Word today, recorded last week. I talk about writing in different genres, and disciplines. Also, my new, soon to be released any second book, Poems of 2020
If you are doing this, congratulations! Dry January made me reflect on my use before recovery, so here are some questions which I use to be able to answer yes to nearly all of them--well, yes, I wrote this..
1. Did you STOP reading this post because you saw the image, you don’t want to deal with questions about alcohol and how they relate to you? SKIP TO THE BOTTOM THEN
2. Did you resolve to give up drinking or using for Dry January or as a New Year’s Resolution and already feel you have blown it?
3. Are you juggling or not paying bills/eating less/using fewer utilities (turning heat barely on)/ having worrisome debt, but your spending on alcohol remains untouched?
4. Is alcohol or drugs your coping mechanism, but somehow it’s still hard to cope?
5. Are you really, really, really looking forward to February 1 or have you considered dry January to be an impossible task?
6. Are you relieved when you drive past a police officer, who doesn’t pull you over, after a typical day/night of use?
7. Are you tired every morning or have a hangover because of your typical usage?
8. Are your best plans of productivity diminished after your first drink?
9. Do you have a medical condition which would be better if you didn’t drink or use but still drink and use?
10. Do you wait all day for work to end so you can drink asap?
11. Do you wait until the kids are in bed or your spouse/significant other/family is in bed or occupied with something to drink how you want?
12. Are you choosing new friends with one of the variables being whether they drink or not?
13. Are you choosing new romantic relationships with one of the variables being whether they drink or not?
14. Does your use make you dislike yourself?
15. Are you ending up in situations solely because your judgment has been changed?
16. Do you feel any strong emotion about running out or not having alcohol in your home?
17. Do you think people in recovery or either “under the bridge” type low-lifes or “just too damn happy”? aka-You are not “like” them?
-------------------------------------
There is no “if you answered yes to a number (usually 1 or more) of these in this you might be…..” It’s meant for folks to take a look at if what they do represents normal drinking. Thirty days of dryness can start any time, not just January 1, and if you want to and can’t there is help to get you there. If you go 30 days and you are finding it was difficult most days to do so, there is help as well. If you don’t feel better after 30 days, no problem…I’m not telling you what to do. If you’ve read this and think you can do better with your use, you deserve that----nearly everyone I know in recovery now has a better life---even if life is still difficult, the handling of it is not as much so. They are the best people I know, and they are or were just like you.
“Tell me where to go,” one poem plaintively asks, in this collection written in the midst of a pandemic. Timothy Gager manages to capture the chaos, the confusion, the despair, and the existential strangeness of those (of these) days. By the time this book reaches you, I pray we will be on the other side. If not, then these poems will bring you comfort. If so, then these poems will be a document from a time that will not be believed.
--Nick Flynn, American Poet, Memoirist and Playwright
Timothy Gager’s 2020 is a harsh ride through the dark tunnels of our turbulent times when even the leaves are threatening and the poet stands alone witnessing the tree of his life… an exquisite 2021 New Year treat one can treasure to master misery in more difficult years of the Pandemic ahead.
--Yuyutsu Sharma, Himalayan Poet, Author of Annapurna Poems and A Blizzard in my Bones: New York Poems
I love that Timothy Gager opens 2020 with a gratitude list. This time-proven Alcoholics Anonymous tool for when “life is difficult” begins a collection of poems that navigates a world damaged by pandemic, cruel politics, ailing and dying parents. Isolation can be lethal for the alcoholic and loneliness is “the handcuff.” As a person in recovery and poet, I was struck by the explosive truths in these poems that confront all of us. 2020 is a collection I’ll return to again and again to be reminded of the strength of words, of love, and to “kiss the ground I once fell on.”
--Jennifer Martelli, author of The Uncanny Valley and My Tarantella
This will be out on Big Table Publishing (Robin Stratton). The cover was created by Matt Siditsky.
The fiction in the Wilderness House Literary Review were difficult to make decisions about. We had so many of them. Check them out, and congratulate Steve Glines for their 60th issue. As always the full issue can be found HERE.
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.
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?"
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.
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.
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.
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."
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
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.
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!
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.
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, SheCame 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."
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.
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.
