There’s No Point in Reading This, It’s Nothing But Blogging and a Shameless Ask

Hey everybody.  This isn’t going to be an attempt at comedy so much as a general update on the existence of metten.  I hope I’ll get an hour or so to write tonight because I have a mock half done, but I’ve been busy and shit.

I put in notice at my job at the beginning of this month and it felt really good.  It is not hyperbole when I say that the place was killing me.  I am fatter than I’ve ever been and I am relying too much on the old crutches that I use when the stress is turned up to 11. I always get the job done without complaint, but the stress takes its toll in other ways.  Someone close to me sneered when I told him this and he responded that if I wasn’t able to separate the job from the person, I probably didn’t deserve to have the job in the first place. Man up, grow a set, etc…

While the way that it was said was designed to bust my balls, it is most decidedly true.  I took an extremely high stress job extremely seriously…and personally…and it was going to give me a heart attack at age 35. So I quit.  The problem is that I was making close to six figures…and in two weeks and two days that will be gone.  At least the economy is in good shape…I’m sure the job market is pretty strong too.

Last year I filled out the paperwork and started a small business. Then bought a little restaurant in a small town that’s about 100 miles east of Kansas City.  I spent my youth working in restaurants and I know what I am doing, but I haven’t had any time to invest in it.  The place has tremendous income potential, but it has a slow money leak at the moment due to neglect.  Hopefully leaving my job will give me some time to devote to turning the place around.  Unfortunately, that will take some investment (see the second to last sentence in the previous paragraph).

I am also in the process of buying a second commercial property and setting up a new restaurant and convenience store.  I also have one additional project in the works that I am too scared to talk about…but if it gets funded things are going to be pretty cool for my little business.  It’s not going to replace the lost income, but it will cross a few things of my lifelong to-do list.

Speaking of the lifelong to-do list – I am proud to tell you guys that the creative endeavors that I was forced to abandon in order to do my soul-sucking job have started to see new life. First, my old band is slowly beginning to rehearse together every once in a while.  We’ll never win a Grammy, but it feels good to play music again.  I’d give you the link to the album we released ten years ago, but I don’t think it’s for sale any more.

Further, I have recently gotten a little bit of voice work (that I am sure you will hear about in the coming months) and I have pulled my “novel” off the shelf and am working on it again. The current version of the book took me several years to write and I am fiercely proud of it.  Most people that have read it have returned with positive reviews and minor suggestions here and there, but there are at least three people who never finished it…or it was so bad they couldn’t bring themselves to comment on it.  If you are one of those people – fuck you.  Especially if you are one of the people that asked me if you could read it.  I mean aggressively and angrily, fuck you – all joking aside, I am seriously pissed at these people.  Honestly, can you think of a bigger insult than to have someone agree to be an early reader of a guy’s first novel (or worse to beg to read it) and then not bother to ever speak about it again…or even give an explanation why?  I’d rather be hit in the face with a shovel. I mean, if it sucks, or I suck, I need to know about it…that’s the bad side about being an early reader, you shitheads.

If an author chooses you as an early reader, there are all sorts of positives:  first, you get to see the book before anyone else.  Also, the author clearly feels that you would be a good judge as to the quality or marketability of the work.  If you’re picked as an early reader, you should be proud.  The downside is that if the book is no good, it is your responsibility to let the author know in some gentle way.  If you never even finish it, you are an asshole of the highest order.  I am seething just thinking about these people.  Fuckers.  I want to fight them…and I might if I ever see them.

Anyway, Smoking Fish read it (most of it anyway), liked it and agreed to publish it.  All I have to do is get off my fat ass and finish the last two rewrites.  It was supposed to come out in time for the holiday season, but I am not entirely sure if I’ll make it. Maybe it would be a better Martin Luther King, Jr. Day present.

Finally, now that I am no longer a public servant, I am going to take another crack at standup.  I have done it, and I have never bombed or died or anything – but no one has ever pulled me aside and offered me a sitcom or anything either.  I have studied the craft and know what I am doing, but it has always been a matter of taking the time to make the bits great.  Hopefully my new found unemployment will act as a catalyst to action.

To sum up, I am at a crossroads in life.  A very cliche-ey crossroads, in fact.  I have officially left my relatively high-paying job that made me miserable in order to pursue the things that make me less miserable.   If I wish to succeed, I am going to need your help.  I know you don’t owe me or anything, but I sure could use a hand.  If I have something out and you have money – please buy it.  If you have a venue, please book me.  If you need copy written, please hire me.  If you need voice work done – please hire me.  If you are or you know a literary agent or publisher who works in the stuff I write, please sign me. If you are one of the people that agreed (or begged) to read an early copy of my book and then didn’t respond with comments, please blow me.