"What the artist owes the world is his work; not a model for living.” - Harry CrewsI want to tell you about a favorite writer of mine that I first read in the 70's, a real tough guy named Harry Crews, but before I share him with you, I want to release a little head steam after reading about the 75 San Diego State University students who were busted yesterday for drugs and drug dealing operations after a 5 month undercover investigation.
This wasn't about some pot party, this was about a group of students - quite a large group that involved 7 fraternities - who were actively involved in the drug trade, using, among other things, their cell phones to openly advertise the sale of cocaine via text messages. You know, that add-on the phone companies push to kids like drugs, so that the kids can text while like, driving their sleek automobiles they crash into each other, killing themselves and other drivers. Yes, you're right, I'm on a rant here, but I told you that already.
It obviously was not enough for these spoiled little monsters to have mommy and daddy pay their tuition (oh, I know some of you are going to say maybe some of them paid their own way -yeah, right. A kid who works and pays her own way through college is probably not likely to blow it all being part of a drug ring. She might dance topless or work at Wendy's. I know this because I always had to work and pay my way when I went to college and I knew other young people who did too, and none of us were about to piss it away engaging in major illegal activities).
Nope, for this bunch of yahoos, having everything just wasn't enough, they just had to become dope dealers on a large enough scale that the DEA ran a 5 month long investigation before busting them. One report quoted: "Profits may have been used to finance fraternity operations. Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security."
Oh, joy. I feel a lot safer knowing these kids are going to run the world in a few years. One of the lads even dumbly inquired whether or not his arrest and incarceration would have an effect on him becoming a federal law enforcement officer. Duh! And what's really sad in all this is that the investigation was prompted by the drug overdose death of another student.
I personally find myself at times unable to summon up an ounce of compassion for certain people (even though I know I probably should). Such is the case with this group of pampered juveniles, most of which I'm guessing, rightly or wrongly, have had the world handed to them and that the toughest part of their day is figuring out where they're going to party this weekend. Well, now 75 of them will hopefully be partying at the county jail and maybe having some reality slapped upside their empty skulls.
Rant over. Now for Crews.
First of all, Harry Crews is now 72 or 73 years old and his body, if not his soul, is breaking down to the point where he no longer does book tours and all that foolishness, but he can still whip the ass of just about every writer out there and I wouldn't want to tangle with him even if I had a loyal pit-bull I'd raised from puppyhood.
Crews is one of those writers who, ever since his early pieces in the 70's for Playboy and Esquire, has developed a cult following, probably because his themes of brutality, snake-handlers, sexual perverts, and all manner of southern blood and gore, isn't exactly everyone's beach reading. It's a verifiable fact too, that women buy most of the fiction today - that men, young men most especially, would prefer to play video games, drink beer and chase pussy and have no time or inclination to read. Oh, if these lads only knew that there are writers out there who write about the very things that turn a young man's fancy (with the exception of video games) maybe more of them would read guys like Harry Crews and then go on to read others too. I fear it is asking too much, however.
What I admire about Crews is he is a man's man and he writes that way and always has, without apology for who he is or what he writes about. But even in his most lustful, heartbreaking novels, he is at times almost lyrical in exposing a man's heart, be it black or otherwise, and brings humanity to its knees, in either prayer or defeat, but he always brings an electric prose. I still recall most vividly the scene in one of his essays in Blood & Grits, of him and a pal and fat waitress rolling into Johnson City, Tennessee. A must read for anyone who wants to be introduced to Crews, the deep south, and drinking and whoring and trying to keep it all between the lines. Crews should be read by everyone who admires a writer spilling his own blood on the page and holding nothing back. Too much fiction today is tepid and uninteresting and plays it overly safe. Too much of today's fiction has no soul or backbone or heart. Too much of today's fiction is like dancing with a three-day old corpse. Give me a writer who's characters will punch my lights out (Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock is just such a book) and screw me in the back of a 10X40 singlewide trailer and share their last beer with me and make me end up crying over their miserable ordinary and fantastic lives. This is what every reader of fiction should demand.
Crews' titles alone are worth the price of admission: Searching for The Wrong-Eyed Jesus, A Feast of Snakes, Scar Lover, and his latest (2006), An American Family: The Baby with the Curious Markings.
Crews's work is often labeled as Southern Gothic, for it's locations and darkness, but someone more aptly described it as GritLit - The best grit lit is filled with ornery, deranged, and desperate characters who are fueled by violence, sex, and alcohol.
Yup, that's Harry.
He's old now, limps around on bad knees somewhere in Florida and by reputation won't turn away a young writer from his door. But if you're a young or aspiring writer, just make sure you have the grit to knock on his door because he may be banging out his next book and in the middle of something that's stolen his mind. Keep on writing Harry, outlast all of us if you can.
STUFF THAT HAPPENED ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
The American Medical Association was founded in Philly (1847) and right after that my doctor's visit bill doubled.
This is the birthdays of Gabby Hayes and Robert Browning. They say Gabby was so ugly the doctor slapped his mama.
Big Sal says I should use this poem today in keeping with the most dire nature of the rest of the post. I never argue with Big Sal when she's in one of her moods, so here it is:
Wrong Headed
Something went wrong in his head
This smiling cherub boy. Somewhere
Between the birthing cry and his
Teens, he got whacky notions about
Love and sex and women, how
They scorned him, except for the worst
Of them and he sort of went nuts, he
Would later describe it as to a reporter.
And began to search them out
The bad ones, like rotten fruit in
Lovely bowls that painters might
Be seduced to paint, their lips
Bright red like apples, their eyes
The color of grapes, the fuzz
On their cheeks like peaches of course.
He would find them at night
Standing on the city corners where
The light is always diffused as
If in a film noir starring Humphrey
Bogart, under street lights.
The passing cars whose beams
Would light them up like bright
Objects at a carnival and he would
Stop and one would lean in and
Begin the negotiations: “Blow job
Twenty dollars, all the way, fifty,
What’re you looking for, hon?”
And then they would drive off and
Never been seen or heard from again
Until some guy walking his dog
Or some kids riding their bikes went
Off into the bushes to smoke daddy’s
Cigarettes and discover them.
This went on for years and when the
Police finally caught him, as they say
Dead to rights, their blood on his
Hands he admitted to all the others
They did not know about – these missing
Women whom no one missed and
Where he left them and so on. It was
All true, they found the bones where he
Said they’d find them, and they found
The cheap jewelry and plastic shoes
And so on and so forth, exactly as he
Described. Then convicted, they put him on
Death row and he waited out his days
Reading the Bible and so on and so forth
Until it came the night he was to take
That final walk dressed all in white
Like some Jesus, only his hair cut short
His face shaven, his teeth brushed.
And as he lay there upon the gurney
In the same position as if they’d nailed
Him to a cross, his arms straight out to
The side, his ankles strapped down so the
Only thing he could move was his head
And waited for the first of the needles
To enter his vein, he thought of a
Happy childhood, of playing with the
Other kids, war and cowboys and so forth
Of the little blonde girl who lived next
Store who first raised in him the suspicion
That he was somehow different. A man
Walked in and spoke his name and
Nothing more, except, “You are going
To feel a poke” – like the time his
Mother had taken him to the doctor.
And all the faces of all the women
Their lips painted so brightly red
Their eyes dark as grapes came
To him in that last moment before
His life began to evaporate and like
So many others he is forgotten
And they are forgotten except on
Rare occasions when they are remembered.
be well, don't be like those you detest, feed a hungry man, woman or child, or better still, all three, and don't sleep with the fishes.
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