Zoo Keeper May 2008
We’re having a heat wave in the SF Bay Area. Yeah, it’s muy caliente for F-ing sure. How much sweat can pour from one man’s forehead? A gallon? I must have the most fit forehead in all the land. My forehead could walk the red carpet in Hollywood right now and have no issue being judged negatively by celebrity fashion experts like my former high school classmate, Robert Verdi, who we used to call Bobby. I saw him at my high school reunion in ‘06 and he was tall and handsome with no hair and really nice sunglasses perched on his browridge. After we embraced he said I looked like a “heaping lump of dog crap.” No, he didn’t but it would have made for a better story. So it’s been a while since I wrote and I want to say thank you very much to all of you who wrote me or had comments about my novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. A screen adaptation was written recently and I think it’s very, very good, so the next step is to have more readers weigh in and add notes and all that fun and perhaps one day soon those characters will come to life on screen. Yikes! The nutshell on my current book is that I’m handing it in to my editor at the end of June. The gang will read it and poke at it and my prayers are that I’ll be damn close to finished after that. I love this book I’m writing, I do, I love her/him with all my heart. Books are like babies at first that grow with you and shape themselves over long and sometimes really long periods of your life. This baby was due last year so I’m really ready to push her out. The labor has been a doozy, let me tell you, and I can only see the crown at this point, a blotch of cranium. But don’t worry, the heartbeat is steady, I’ve got plenty of fluids, my support system is intact, mostly because they’ve learned to stop asking me, “how it’s going.” I could probably use a life coach, we all could, unless you are life coach. I need a person who stands behind me in my office and screams, WRITE! in my ear when my mind contemplates going to Youtube to watch dogs fall in bathtubs with infants. WRITE!
“I was.”
“No, you were thinking of going to Youtube and watching animals do hilariously cute things.”
“No I wasn’t. I was thinking, writers have to think before they write or there’s nothing to write, get it? I was writing in my head, okay, a crucial scene in the book that will link so much together and subtly tell fascinating things to the reader without actually telling anything because showing is so much better than telling.”
“Liar.”
“You’re my life coach, why are you calling me names?”
WRITE!
“I am, you dick.”
“I’m your life coach, don’t call me a dick.”
“It’s your name isn’t it?”
“I told you…I prefer Richard.”
Thank you, that’s my first full play. I think we’re going to open in
Minnesota
, then hit
Seattle
and fingers crossed the troupe will land on Broadway right around Christmas time. I think I’ll cast Sir Lawrence Olivier to play Richard and I, of course, will be played by Samuel L Jackson.
Ready for a weird transition? Good.
My daughter is four and the other day she told me that she didn’t like the tan-ish pants I was wearing. She said they were too close in color to the tan-ish jacket I had on. She said I looked like a zoo keeper. I stared down at this little person with her long blond ponytail and perfectly pink skirt and shirt on. It’s like the bad girlfriends I had in college who always had advice on how I should dress. Flannel shirts and Timberlands in August, what’s the problem? A girl named
Shari
didn’t like my boxer underwear either so she bought me some navy blue, banana-hammock Calvin Klein underwear that made my testicles cry. No, I said, I have to wear what works for me. The next time I found myself in the same pants and jacket, I realized she was right. Zoo Keeper. An innate fashion sense inside my four year old. Or maybe four is the new seven.
Transition.
As I mentioned, the plan is to turn my new book in at the end of June. July 1, my family and I are traveling to
London
where my wife has an office. She is in the gaming biz, and has been since the early nineties. If any of you Londoner Myspace friends of mine know a good spot for me to do a reading, please let me know. Perhaps we could set something up. I’ll be in the city until July 18th.
Well thanks again for the support and the patience and the inspiring messages. I’m off now to continue writing one of the great American novels of all time. But first, a little Youtube. Have you seen the one where the parrot reads the constitution while riding a unicycle. It’s terrific.
I decided to cut a few yucky lines from this blog so I’m in the next day and it’s cooler here, less moisture all around. Played eighteen holes of disc golf this morning at
8AM
in a very woodsy and secluded section of
Golden Gate
Park
. It’s the only meditation I get right now.
Love to all,
Joshua
September 12th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Wow, I was sick at the same time your kids were. And same symptoms. [FYI, I was allergic to Goldenrod, might wanna check that out]
I found your book on the, “Look! Books!” shelf in my high school library. My friends jumped when I ran into there and yelled, “THEY HAVE IT HERE!!”
So yeah… anyways.. can’t wait for the movie to someday be in theatres. I can be one of those people who say, “I read he book YEARS ago.” like the same people who read those stupidly long Harry Potter books.
Rambling.
Goodbye. =D
August 12th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Hi Josh,
I read “The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green” last summer and it made me laugh out loud many times. While on a cruise that summer I read the whole book out loud to my 21 year old son. He is an English major who is an aspiring writer. While we are Jewish (I was able to relate to many portions of the book), my wife is a convert and we are not what you would call very culturally/religiously involved, hence I did not want my son to miss out on any of the humour which I felt would be enhanced through sharing my personal experiences while reading – we both became big fans. This year we went on holidays again and took “Peep Show”. While we both read this one individually, we both enjoyed it very much. We are from Toronto and have often travelled to New York over the past few years (I was actually born in Brooklyn and my mom’s family is from New Jersey). We anxiously await your next novel! Cheers and best wishes.
Leon
August 12th, 2010 at 8:41 am
Hi Leon,
Thanks for the very kind words. I’m so glad you and your son enjoy my work. Hey, if you want to write an Amazon review, so people out there know I’m not an author of vampire novels, I would so much appreciate it. Hope your summer’s been a good one. Working on more for you to read. Joshua
September 1st, 2010 at 8:31 pm
I had to read your post twice to get the full meaning of it. I appreciate reading what you have to say. It’s too bad that more people do not comprehend the benefits of coaching. Keep up the good work.