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Baseball65
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - 03/30/2005 : 14:32:25
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Hi Everybody.
Tennis Tom told me to write it all down,and than ta-da..I meet a publisher from Simon and Schuster(splng?)
Anyways,here's a sample piece of a short...the guy asked me for something right away and I thought this would work.It's actually taken the place of my journaling since it's 100% true.
here's a short from a chapter
The Gnome by Marc Richards
One of my most painful memories I can conjure is the story of the gnome.Maybe he wasn’t a gnome,maybe he was an elf.Sometimes I thought him to be a goblin.
One night shortly after we moved to the states,my mother came out of her bedroom with a floppy rag doll with a long red flannel cap and longer white linen legs.He bore a wry, perhaps sarcastic smile.I was excited as my mother handed it to me.Than she told me of its origin ,and I never wanted to see or touch the thing again.
Being my 6th birthday,I was not too old to still sneak away and play with a doll,particularly because no one else in my family interacted with me all that much…they had all by then receeded into their own worlds of pain and loneliness.
But then I was told who had given me the Gnome.Right before his death,my wandering father,perhaps out of guilt,had driven me to the permanent carnival at Bruges,Belgium to spend the day alone with me.This was a dream come true.To have the attention of my father for a whole day uninterrupted by my siblings or mother,or his obsession with work.
We rode the rides,ate the food,but best of all I had him to my self to talk to for the entire trip to and from the fun and games.I fell asleep on the way home,but it stands out in my memory as the one and only time we were ever alone and I felt special.
Apparently I had looked at this doll and wanted it.When I was not paying attention,my father must have bought it to be given to me at a later date.
Now,a lifetime, and a world away, 9 months post mortem it was mine.I took it in delight,but was horrified when I was told where it had come from.This was the very last connection between my father and I,a toy he had bought me to show his love for me,now only an empty memory of what it was I had really wanted.
It was dirty..it reminded,and it’s knowing smile mocked me.I put it on a shelf over my bed.My childhood was over.It made sure of that.Anytime I turned to it for a reminder of love,it’s painted on smile told me again and again “It’s all your fault…you could have had me,but you are a bad,bad boy and your father is gone now..and it’s all your fault”
I would push him to the back behind some books or some other keepsake,but his eye would catch mine.Through a glass or around a book,Always reminding me.I picked him up at least once in anger and tried to strangle him,but he only laughed more.I couldn’t throw him away…this was my only connection,my only proof that I had once been loved,and yet,such a sorry memory and shame he brought me,I loathed his very existence.
Many housecleanings and garage sales came and went,but I couldn’t manage to shake him.Damn my mother for the albatross! How could she be complicit in such a sinister plot?
He was there to greet me after every failure,after every fight.I came home from my first street whupping to his delight,my first drunk to his glee and my first trip to jail,all the while guilty by his decree.
He laughed as I crawled on the floor in search of more,of a meaning ,of a life.How he shrieked with laughter when the state of California finally concurred with his early prediction; Guilty as charged.
Seventeen years later when my mother had had enough of the family pretending and moved away,he was there as she packed.I was visiting on a pass from another state sponsored facility.He winked at me as she lowered him into the box.
“I saw it all buddy,and you ****ed it up as bad as any boy could have done…I don’t need to live on your shelf anymore,because I live in your head”
And he did.And he does.
Baseball65 |
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Albert
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2005 : 17:36:39
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Hello Baseball 65:
I hate to ask this, but I'm concerned. Can the law use biographical information to press charges against you? Look what happened with Jose Canseco. He ended up implicating himself with his tell all book. |
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Jackie
27 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2005 : 17:49:41
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Marc
Your writing is so powerful...I don't know what to say...the "mother of the world" in me wants to say something to sooth that child. You are a skilled writer...your responses are always so well written...and this personal narrative has such voice. I look forward to reading your book!!
Jackie |
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Baseball65
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2005 : 07:14:59
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Hi Jackie and Albert.
Thanks for taking time to read it.
To Jackie:
I've always held a very Taoist type approach to any experience,and any pain I suffered past a certain age was of my own accounting.The healing was always available,but it wasn't until desperation set in that I ever bothered to look for any.
The family I didn't have has been replaced by one strong beyond comparison
quote:
Blessed are those who mourn ,for they shall be comforted
-Jesus
and Albert...I was never concerned about self incrimination.After I read your response,I amended the preface I had written :
Finding a place to start in a story is like trying to find the start of a rainbow…or the end.
We can see the colors and the arch,a fragment of beauty,but when you look long and hard,there is really nothing there to lean on…it’s all in our perception.An illusion of continuity…things merely are as they are perceived in the moment.If beauty is in the eye of the beholder,than life is in the mind of the present.Too bad we spend so little time there….we’d much rather romanticize the past and speculate on the future.
We all want so badly to compartmentalize our experiences,things inside of us,things outside of us…morals,metaphors and justice.To quantify our experience so there is a relation between action,perception and resolution…no such luck.It keeps going on in spite of our hopes,defeats and vainglories.There it is.
Everything in this account is true,whatever truth is.I’ve never gotten away with anything.If any of the many times I escaped the law disturb you as a reader,you may find consolation and a sense of universal symmetry in the fact that my reprieve from physical incarceration came at the price of inner conviction,and the sentence meted out was more severe than anything the state has to offer.
In the end,every inch of penetration into the darkness requires a mile of repentance and healing.Fortunately for all of us,miracles are real.No matter what you believe.
-Marc
Baseball65 |
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Albert
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2005 : 09:35:01
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Here are some predictions:
-Baseball 65's autobiography gets published.
-A movie is made.
-Baseball 65's old employer who wouldn't allow him to be a perfectionist is hired to build the set.
-Baseball 65 sees to it that the movie's director doesn't allow Baseball 65's old employer to get away with imperfectionism.
Baseball 65 to his old employer: "Yo man, you missed a spot." |
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Baseball65
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2005 : 10:09:19
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That is F-ing FUNNY!
Ya know...In Hollywood it's sort of a running joke/truth that writers aren't allowed near the set or any of the shooting.They inevitably find fault with the direction and protrayal of their literary characters.If they are BIG time,like say a Stephen King,then they are allowed at production meetings and such.
J.K. Rowling of the "Harry Potter" series was saavy enough to have some creative control contractually written into her deal when she signed with Warner Bros....she is the exception,not the rule.
HOWever....I wouldn't hire my own boss for anything.How ironic.He's too messy,too distractable(hops from job to job leaving incomplete work everywhere) and he doesn't get along with others.
How many of you would hire your own boss? I've worked for people who I would hire,but they are only about 1/2 of the people I've worked for.
It's a funny idea to ponder.
Baseball65 |
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Albert
USA
210 Posts |
Posted - 03/31/2005 : 12:47:19
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| I'd hire my present boss. She's the best boss I ever had. She's a "human being" not a control freak. There are others above her that are a pain, but fortunately they tend to go to her and not me. |
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Sample Piece....
