December 2, 2022
That photo looks like I should be out painting in a cornfield, with the crows, short an ear.
Who would have thought that just by meeting my mule Claire (she does exist and is all that I say about her, and then some), on the back roads of Berthoud Colorado, that my life would change forever. The contents of the above photo proves that.
But I guess the groundwork was completed long before I moved to Colorado.
When I went to bed last night, my wife rolled over and said, “you know, I’ve been thinking about your latest book, and I don’t know how your mother survived raising you and your brothers.” Lisa knows what she’s talking about. She got to see me and my siblings at our best, which means at society’s worst. Crazy woman still married me. Thanks for that.
The truth of the matter is that Mom ultimately didn’t survive in the physical sense. Although she waited long enough in corporeal form to see my grandson Lucian (yep, from TCT) be born before she crossed the veil. But she’s always around. She always drew the ghosts into our home in the Bronx while she lived. A real spectral lightning rod. She was a lot of fun. Mad as a Hatter some times – I had to get it from somewhere – which always added to our family’s collective joy. But I feel her around me everyday. Even at my worst, those times when I broke her heart, my Mom never stopped believing in me. Loving me.
Mom was a reader, like her father before her. She loved reading my short stories back in the day. She especially loved the one about BJ – whom she loved like her own – called “Why Kings Die.” (Side note – Colin Broderick published that short story in the first issue of his Literary Magazine – Everyman – back in the early 90s. Thanks brother.) I incorporated that character and story into Finding Jimmy Moran. BJ was incredible. Still is.
My readers will have met my siblings in TWA. They all exist. They all are real. The only way I could contain my brothers’ very real and powerful personalities in the first book was to kill them off and lock them behind the veil. I’m still waiting for the collective beating they owe me. It’s coming, I can feel it. When you least expect it. . . . My sister was my salvation.
I bring them all back in Finding Jimmy Moran. And they are true to form.
I also bring back my grandfather, Spaghetti. He is worth the price of admission all on his own. I worshipped him.
I’m not Jimmy Moran. I could never be that cool. That smart. That lucky. But I did loan him my childhood. My family. My friends. And they are all every bit as cool as I represented in FJM.
My friends in the Old Fuckers Club all make their appearances. Multiple times.
I tell those friends that are living that this was my way of immortalizing them. I felt I owed them that for keeping me alive and giving me a wonderful, magical childhood. I also included a lot of dead friends, whose personalities just would not stay silent.
Whenever anyone picks up these books, those friends all get to come back together and play. And now these books are out there in print, so there’s no stopping us.
I also loaned Jimmy my dreams. But in writing his story he’s given those dreams all back to me, and made them all come true. Thanks Jimmy.
Well, it’s Friday, a day for dreaming.
But now I need to check back into reality.
A kitty needs cuddling, rounds need to be completed, and torture to be experienced.
But you fine, five readers go out there and enjoy the shit out of the promise that Friday always offers you.
Keep dreaming.
If you keep at it long enough, they will come true.
Have a great day.
