Lobotomized, basement-dwelling video-game addicts, those deluded into believing that reality television is about reality, and the illiterate victims of No Child Left Behind.
For the rest of you, those who read and especially those who write, there is a revolution going on. And no, it won't be televised.
The printed and electronic pages have never been filled with more selection, more vital content, more sheer word volume, than right now. Authors seem to be plying their craft at exponential rates. Every category of each genre has a multitude of artists wending and weaving words to delight your eyes.
And the mainstream media doesn't have a clue on how to make a buck off all of it. So they ignore it.
You say you don’t see it? No doubt. There’s a brick wall been built before you, blocking your view. And the name of a large chain bookstore might just be on the front of that wall. Don’t walk through their door! No, you might suffocate on the other side.
Are you happy eating food that comes straight out of the box? Everything tastes the same, bland, mushy and not very much like food at all? Well if you like that generic food service taste of food that hardly contains any real food in it, if you like eating plastic...
Fran Upman exists and writes, and writes and exists, necessarily in one -- or both -- of those orders. Check out her impassioned opinion about writing and life, as well as her creative fiction at Fran's Writing Whatever , where this piece originally appeared in a slightly different form. (JDF)
Supposedly, a "commercial" fiction writer asked an "independent" bookstore for directions to a chain bookstore post-doing a signing at that independent bookstore. A commercial fiction writer did a signing at an independent bookstore. At an independent bookstore. Let me repeat that: at an independent bookstore. A commercial fiction writer did a signing at an independent bookstore. And the bookstore then complained that the commercial writer asked directions to a commercial bookstore.
There is a lame old expression that goes: "Into every life some rain must fall." If this is true than O.D.B. must live every day of his cranky exitence in a monsoon. Is he one of those people who talks (I guess "writes" is what I mean) about the weather, while being unable to do anything about it? Well he is standing in the rain (I'm extending the metaphor ok?), so you don't have to. Does this mean he's all wet? You decide. But remember: "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." (JDF)
Notes From A Dissonant Ole Man #4
I must admit. The O.D.B. does live out here in the country. There is not a lot out here. Sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes it's a bad thing. You can call me a hermit of sorts. I don't bother anyone and no one bothers me. When I found out that our so-called president Bush was going to be speaking at a commencement ceremony in the nearest major city, the O.D.B. needed to gather the troops around here and take a road trip.
In Outlaw spirit I'm going to rip off OW's own Victor Schwartzman's intro to his Todd Moore interview from a while back, just because I can. "Todd Moore is the real deal as an Outsider Writer. Arguably America's finest underground poet..." (Get more of him at www.saintvituspress.com.)
And then there's this, which is about The Name is Dillinger, Moore's most important work and a poem that marked a life change for him: "...Someday it may be said that Todd Moore was the greatest of the American poets since Sandburg. Why wait? Read anything you can get by him, now." That wasn't from some little litzine either, it was from the L.A. Times.
This may be one of the most reasonable "rants" you ever read at Outsider Writers, but it is no doubt worth a read. Enjoy. And learn. (JDF)
NAMING THE OUTLAW: WHERE IT BEGAN
Todd Moore
If you are looking for the origins of Outlaw Poetry, you’ll have to dig through the rubble of much that has gone before. You might have to go as far back as Francois Villon the French poet priest who was also a thief and a murderer. Before that, maybe you could refer to Dante’s INFERNO for the names of the poets who were also criminals. Before that the mists of time set in but I am sure that outlaw poets have been with us from the beginning of time. Wherever you find a civilization which has oppressed its artists and thinkers, you will find poets who have made the existential decision to speak out against it, to write poetry in extremis, to use the blood and the scream as the central metaphors of their work.
Well, here he is, OW!'s very own Everyman...O.D.B. You know him, you love him and (he thinks) you can't live without his opinion on stuff you didn't even know you cared about. Actually he makes a few good points -- for a change! (That's a joke O.D.B. -- don't get all worked up and send your goons out to break my blue pencils again.) This installment is running completely unedited, as the O.D.B. believes it is more "authentic" and honest in this "raw" and natural form. Riiigggghhht. (JDF)
Notes From A Dissonant Ole Man #3
The O.D.B. is stuck home today with car trouble, three hundred bucks for a new radiator. Ouch! So rather than contribute to the muck of society, I guess I have some time to rant, as the O.D.B. falls deeper in debt. Not faster than the country, but hey. The first thing on my plate people saying stupid things on TV, which would inevitably lead me to Don Imus, if you are a nationally syndicated radio host, and your show is being shown on MSNBC why would you make a racist comment like calling a group of young black women “nappy headed hoes” or “jigaboos”? The sad fact is that negative attention is still attention in today’s society. Some twisted people may like what he said and start watching or listening to the show. Even people that he offended may watch the show just to see just what he says next. What did he get for it? Well the TV and radio contracts canceled because sponsors were pulling out, damn what the people say right?
Click below to learn more about OW's first book and the winner of the Jack Micheline Memorial Award.
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The Naked Opinion 
