Getting Away from The Machine

Over the weekend I did my best to stay away from my desk and computer. Even though I've been exercising regularly, I get constant problems with my low back and right (mouse-holding) arm, all the way up to my neck.  These things clear up pretty quickly when I'm off in some foreign land, exploring, without the stress of business. I seem to get all worked up and focused while I am writing technical stuff.  You can't just pace around and hope that inspiration hits you like in fiction; you have to read the references, analyze, think logically, and come up with something new or better-written.

I've been pretty much heads-down working on this book for over two months, and the weight of knowing there is so much more to do has carried into the weekends, and I have dome some work here and there on a Saturday or Sunday, but mostly thinking about the project endlessly has worn me out.  And there was the hectic six months or so on the first book -- which still has some lingering details I keep having to take care of. Today.

Henry Miller wrote in Tropic of Cancer,  that he wished there was some way to take "the machine" (typewriter) with him, since some of his best thoughts seemed to come while he was away from it. Well, today, there are a myriad of options. But writing is not dictating, or just thinking, it is sitting down and hitting the keys, or writing thoughts out. Until they come up with a machine that can type out your thoughts, (which I understand is not far off).  Imagine writing by just thinking!  That will be the best!

Mark Twain said in his autobiography that it is impossible to write a biography of a man's life, since his life really is made up of the thousands of thoughts that pass through his head daily.  I have to say, I entertain myself so much all day with constant humorous thoughts that, well, according to Mark Twain, I'm having a pretty good life. If people only knew what swims around in my head! Someday,  maybe I will get closer to getting it down on paper. A writer friend I know who laughs uncontrollably at some of the things I say tells me that in my fiction writing, I'm still holding back, not unleashing the raw humor that I can in person, spontaneously.  I have to work on that more (but you have to have a story line too!).



I've been watching the series Mad Men on Netflix, which is set in the early 1960s on Madison Avenue. I love it.  It delves into the world of business, especially the NYC advertising business, and its portrayal shows you just how different things have become in the work environment over the past 50 years or so.

The men and women in the offices are almost always lighting up a cigarette.  Doctors used to endorse it. Doctors used to smoke in their offices--while with patients! Mothers even smoked at home in front of the kids, which would probably end them up in jail these days for child cruelty.

The executives are drinking in the office, frequently, sometimes even first thing in the morning (this got me started on Bloody Mary's last Sunday morning ;). It's quite common to take a client out for drinks--lots of drinks--and maybe some girls, working girls. And the men have pretty much open access to flirt and insult the secretaries, all of which is passé or illegal in today's politically correct and heavily regulated business world.

So I got to thinking about how hard my father worked, but how he left at 7:30 a.m. and was home by 5:30 p.m., unless he was traveling (where he sat in the back and drank and smoked on the plane), and didn't do any office work to speak of once he was home, and all weekend.

Just think: no email, no voice mail, not even typing--the secretaries did all that.

The working people of yesteryear would not recognize today's work environment.  We are swamped in messages and information, and can hardly get away from it.

I am thinking that as wrong-headed as many things were in the 60's, one thing they had right was they rested, took a break, separated work and home life.  The business world could use more of that today, but I fear there is no turning back. Yes, I'm certain of it.

So how do you deal with this daily, hourly incursion of interruptions and information?  Well,.you can do like I do (once I'm done writing these books!) which is to use these technological advances for your advantage, and to be able to travel and live and work anywhere. I've worked from Mexico for the better part of five years, but also from San Francisco and Las Vegas and D.C., and have even gotten some work done while I  have been traveling in Panama, Europe, and even Cuba (yes, I was able to log in over a slow connection from a state-monitored computer in a hotel lobby).

The ability to work irrespective of time and space is the ideal work situation, and today's tools allow that and provide more freedom for those who work hard to pursue it. But there is a lot of work to getting it set up; you have to make sacrifices and trade-offs as you slowly remove yourself from a physical work environment to a virtual one. It is well worth it, and many are following this path. It's my contention that nearly every job has some angle that allows it to be done online. If you are a car repair person, you may have to have a fix-it or diagnostic manual ghost-written to sell online, and maybe set up a toll-free hotline for second opinions or advice. If you are a teacher, you can create course materials for home-schooled students, or hold video tutoring via Skype, GoToMeeting or other remote communication tools. If your expertise is supply chain management, you can offer consulting services online. If you are a journalist, it's easy - just research and write online. If you have some kind of special expertise, some hard thinking and work and some help from others can get allow you to build an online source of income.

You may not get away from the machine, but at least you will get away from your desk or office building, and you can break up your workday into a more non-linear, fulfilling life experience.

Henry Miller and "Tropic of Cancer"

I finally read "Tropic of Cancer" last week. Great book. Very interesting in terms of style, that is, mixture of styles, unique blending of autobiography and fiction, and also his resultant influence on the next generation of writers.

Some of the book is very direct, stream-of-consciousness realism, including details of sex, pussies and dicks. Even v.d. (Funny, they worried about gonorrhea and syphilis back then, and had unprotected sex with hookers. It was a crap shoot.) At other times it is surreal and flowery stream-of-consciousness existentialist prose that evokes great imagery. I'm not doing it justice since there are other styles and influences interwoven into the work too. It's impossible to name them all and to do so would reduce Miller's work.

What I find really interesting is it was his first book, originally published in Europe 1934 when Miller was 43 years old. Rather old for a writer (I was 45!). He went to Paris in the late 1920s, the roaring 20s, and wrote the book when he was in his late 30s and early 40s. He didn't have much formal training in writing, he read a lot and was mostly self-taught. He got through by taking a succession of toiling jobs, including proofreader for the Chicago Tribune. He went to Paris with no money to become an artist in middle age. He had no money. Just a love of art. And he was a painter too! How cool is all that?

The book was finally published in the U.S. in 1961, which led to a series of obscenity trials. Crazy. They tried to make him out to be a commie.

When you read the book you can feel that there is something great in it, and it keeps you reading. But it doesn't follow any traditional form, or have any kind of traditional or expected plot development. It drove home what I was trying to say last summer when I did a book reading/signing in Berlin and got into a (labored) discussion of the state of literature today. I say just write, do it, and throw out conventions. Invent, create, push the limits, do something different, create new language. (Shakespeare create thousands of new words!) That's the only way anything new will ever develop. In Berlin, I got myself caught in a web of English majors, you know, those non-producing perfectionists who have memorized all the proper uses for the semicolon and all. But they've never written a book, or if they have, they've never published it. They have never put themselves out there to be devoured. So what, really, do they know?

I could see direct linkages from Henry Miller to Bukowski, although little has been made of it. It seems obvious to me. He was a GREAT influence. It starts with the frequent use of harsh words that shock, like "cunt" or "turd" and goes on to be autobiographical and very direct about drinking, sex, and men and women. Bukowski went farther, to the point where sometimes he was beyond disgusting, simply pornographic. But he makes me laugh! There's actually some delicacy or sensitivity in Miller's writing and Bukowski just throws that out the window.

Also, having read Burroughs' "Naked Lunch" and Kerouac's "On the Road" last summer, they are fresh in my mind and I found Miller to be the father for some of their (the Beats') writing, most especially Kerouac's autobiographical stream-of-consciousness style and the freaky surreal stuff that Burroughs gets in to, talking about protoplasm and all. Only Burroughs goes farther so as to sometimes be just plain crazy. I mean, he repeated himself in "Naked Lunch" several times and he jumped all over the place, which reminded me of those types of paintings that are so fucked up and nonsensical the artist has to explain what it is. And I prefer art that I can just look at and appreciate on an intuitive level, art that doesn't require that much thought to see its beauty or genius.

Henry Miller led this extraordinary life, after growing up in Brooklyn and spending time in New York, he lived in Paris and eventually moved out to the California coast in Big Sur and lived to be 88. George Orwell wrote of Miller, "Here in my opinion is the only imaginative prose-writer of the slightest value who has appeared among the English-speaking races for some years past. Even if that is objected to as an overstatement, it will probably be admitted that Miller is a writer out of the ordinary, worth more than a single glance; and after all, he is a completely negative, unconstructive, amoral writer, a mere Jonah, a passive acceptor of evil, a sort of Whitman among the corpses."