THE HARLEM DIARIES #2: APRIL 17, 2020

NYC, John Steinbeck, Assholes, Self-Awareness

Photo by Mike C. Valdivia on Unsplash

*From The Harlem Diaries, my book-length collection of journal entries throughout Covid. (Unpublished.)

APRIL 17, 2020

Dear Jack,

It’s been a while since I just wrote autobiographical journal pieces…which is fairly ironic since I did that constantly before and now, during Covid, I’ve barely done it at all. This may be the first one, officially. (Though I did an essay on my experience with Harlem’s response to the pandemic.) Of course much of the reason is that I pumped out the first draft of Running Solo Book 2 in less than a full month, which I worked on every single day, sending a chapter a day to Landa, who gave me helpful feedback. (She’s solid.)

And then I wrote the Covid essay which Landa, my mom, and Jake (also a writer) read; all three loved it. My mom had good feedback and I did several drafts until she was happy. She felt inspired and did her own essay about it from her perspective in Ojai in the middle of being in escrow for the house in SB.

It’s 8:30am, CA time. (11:30 my time here in NYC.) I am, of course, at home. I’ve moved the writing desk and computer into my bedroom. I did that probably a month ago now, or close to that, to avoid the noise of the basketball players, those fucking teenage/early twenties lunatics. But it didn’t matter because the city came and finally—thank God—took down the hoops and locked the black iron gate.

I just got back from a morning walk. Amazingly, totally organically, I’ve been sleeping round 11:30/midnight, going out hard, like clockwork waking up round 1:30/2/3 am, eating a light snack, passing back out and waking up round 6:30, 6:45, 7 am, and getting right up no problem! Isn’t that odd? Maybe it’s just the excess energy I have from not going to other parts of NYC, from not doing my normal exhausting routine a la the subway ride and physical meetings, etc etc. But I am certainly emotionally drained, and even to some extent physically, too. (Just from the emotional fatigue, I think, and from a lot of walks around The Hood.)

But the grocery store, which I just did again, was tiring. The waiting in line. The bad energy. The frantic search for what you need. Masks, questionable glares. But it’s yet another sunny, gorgeous spring mid-April day. Can’t complain about that. Been doing the Writing 12-step [AA] meeting Wednesdays at 6. A men’s meeting Mondays at 8. And other random meetings. Keeping in touch with family and friends. Connected. It’s good.

I feel—generally—pretty okay. (Except for feeling dizzy right now.) I have a routine each day. Up early, tea, read (also plowing through Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey), read more, text with X and other friends (mostly X), write, emails, submit work, etc etc etc. Take a walk. Call someone. Meeting. Night walk. It’s working. My days seem to be more or less “full,” and that’s a good thing.

Been reading—plowing through, really—the Steinbeck biography, by Jackson L. Benson, which is over 1,000 pages and is considered to be The Definitive Steinbeck Biography. Course it came out in 1984, only 14 years after Steinbeck’s death in 1968. Benson said it took 13 years to write, including research, etc. So he must have started right after Steinbeck died; maybe he’d even started it when Stein was still alive and kicking.

I love Steinbeck, his life and philosophy. What a wild, insecure, flawed genius. The Grapes of Wrath—the title pulled from the Battle Hymn of the Republic—almost destroyed him. Associated Farmers were after him, trying to convince everyone he was a “secret Red” (a Communist), and at first much of the public loathed him. Grapes was banned in many places, including in Kern County, CA. His books were burned, seen as “indecent” and “obscene.” (Just like Henry Miller’s books in the 30s and, later, Ginsberg’s “Howl” etc.)

Transgressive, serious art is often hated, loathed, challenged, seen as “obscene.” When did we get to the point where people started thinking that art needed to be “careful” and “safe”? That is the most dangerous, idiotic notion for ART; that, actually, is the very death of art, as Bret Easton Ellis says in White.

But I love how Steinbeck was such a goddamn free-thinker; they tried to label him as a socialist or communist but he was neither; really, he was a typical New Deal Democrat. He did support farm labor over the bosses and farmers. He felt the laborers were being  taken advantage of and he didn’t like that. He always fought against “middleclass respectability.” Steinbeck came from the middle class, and he therefore needed to reject it, especially when it came specifically to Salinas, CA.

But Steinbeck’s desire and single-mindedness and ambition and drive around his writing is profound and impressive. In six months he pumped out 200,000 words…which was Grapes, the first draft. He wrote prodigiously. He had also done an absurd amount of research for the book; mostly this involved literally working with the migrants in the sanitary government camps. He got to know some of the migrants and some of the camp leaders. He even talked a few times personally to FDR; he encouraged the president to create Central/S. American anti-Nazi propaganda to counteract the Nazi propaganda hitting the same areas.

Eventually, after Grapes came out in summer of 1939, around 40/41 it won both the National Book Award and a Pulitzer. Eleanor Roosevelt publicly praised the book and said she’d seen the camps and that it was accurate, dispelling the Assoc Farmers-started myth that it was all bullshit. It was a #1 NYT bestseller for a whole year. He became monumentally famous. He was living with Carol in the house in Los Gatos. He was sad, annoyed by fame and constant letters and visitors, and was drinking way too much. He was also in constant pain from his Neuritis.

Throughout his life, Steinbeck maintained a strong belief in biology and science as well as in Greek Myth. He was well-read yet semi-uneducated but he didn’t care. He loathed academicians. He had done six years at Stanford but had not taken a degree. He used the college for his benefit, taking only the classes he was genuinely interested in. He didn’t care ultimately about The Hallowed Degree, as most people do. That wasn’t what interested him.

While other writers were interested in fame, notoriety, financial success, creating their own myths (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sartre), Steinbeck was genuinely fascinated, captured and intrigued by writing itself; the process, the work involved, the quality. That certainly made and makes, posthumously, him unique. Many are much more interested in sales and fame and publicity than in the actual writing itself. It’s the same for many artists and musicians, etc. I myself am probably 80/20, writing being 80, 20 being my desire for recognition, fame, critical respect, financial success, etc. Maybe even 70/30.

I have been very productive, writing-wise. I feel fulfilled as far as that goes, in terms specifically of the writing itself, I mean. Not in terms of publication or nailing a literary agent, neither of which have happened yet still, of course. (I have dozens of published stories but I mean as of recent, and I mean a book.)

I read some pages X sent. He is a very good writer. I was relieved. D.K. said this, too. It’s always worrisome when a friend asks for your critique because often it turns out to be total shit. D.K. read Z’s screenplay finally, the one Z said was incredible and very strong. (I haven’t texted with Z in probably 3-4 weeks now. Last time we met, back in I think maybe early-mid Feb, at the café on 111^th/Amsterdam, he was acting like a bit of an asshole and I’ve always picked that vibe up from him: Selfish, arrogant, un-self-aware. He’s a good guy but I just don’t enjoy spending time with him, really. It’s ok but I always feel like he’s judging me. He probably is.)

Anyway, X finally read his screenplay. He told me this via text. I asked how it was; X—I must admit to my somewhat sick, mean-spirited delight—said it was “God-awful,” and went on to say it was just terribly bad. I laughed. I told him I wasn’t surprised. It didn’t seem like he’d gotten much help or editing or feedback done on it. X doesn’t seem to think he really needs feedback. Apparently because he’s just that good. Except, you know, no one is that good. That’s where the naïve arrogance comes in. But also: He takes himself very, very seriously.

Maybe I’m being too hard on the guy. Am I? It’s possible. Who am I? I am certainly not perfect. I am no peach. I can be an asshole sometimes myself. I can be judgmental, arrogant, etc. Yet, I am a lot softer and more open and forgiving. And a lot more self-aware, which is key. I have much more depth and heart, like Steinbeck.

I see myself almost as a 21^st century Steinbeck in a way. Not in terms of my actual writing style; that is very different. (And obviously not in terms of talent: I am nothing compared to the master.) But in terms of our aesthetic; in terms of the way in which we view ART and civilization and The World and people and ourselves. We come from a similar background. Salinas isn’t even that far from Ojai and Ventura, 250 miles north of where I grew up. He’s writing about California. My place. My people. I feel a strong connection and bond to his life and writing, that’s what I am saying. He, too, fled to NYC, in his mid-late 20s briefly and then again, once famous, at age 39/40. Just like me.

M