Troubled by a few lines...

[Rekrab]

Writers eat scones?

Sure. They didn't have any muffins I liked, so I settled for a scone. Any port in a storm. The funny thing is that I did this routine maybe a dozen times, once a month while my wife was going to a hair stylist she liked in Portland, which is about an hour drive from our home. I didn't pick out this coffee shop because it was cool -- only because it was a block from the hair place and the only place open within a mile or so where I could get coffee. So for a year I sat in there and wrote in my little pad like some hipster. Recently, I heard that it's considered the place to be seen in that neighborhood, frequented by celebs, etc. I couldn't tell you much about it. A Starbucks on Hawthorne, I think. I am so Portlandia.

 

[mjp]

Writing in public smacks of performance to me. I've never understood it. I tried to do it a couple of times when I've had to kill a lot of time in a certain place, but the results were shit, so I stopped trying. I suppose if what you're writing requires absolutely no concentration it would be fine. But sitting there "writing about the characters who walk in" - wow. If that was my only option or opportunity to get anything down, I'd quit writing all together. Which I'm sure would be no great loss to anyone, but there you go.

Writing aside, sitting in a god damn Starbucks or wherever with your face in a computer is just douchebag behavior. If you walk in to the Starbucks on Colorado here in old town Pasadena, at any given time you'll see 20 or 30 empty-headed morons staring at Mac Books or iPhones. Because, you know, they just have so much important shit that can't wait. It has to be carried out in public. So everyone can see how awesome they are, with their awesome devices and $200 t-shirts. It's just awesome. It makes me want to roll a couple of hand grenades in there. Give the survivors something to blog about.

Not that I have a strong opinion on the subject one way or another.

 

[Digney in Burnaby]

I remember back in the 1970s Harlan Ellison would sit in a store-front window on occasion writing his short stories. Another time he took titles from various callers on a radio show and wrote stories from that. One of the titles was Hitler Painted Roses, which he found out originally came from Steve Richmond. He acknowledged that and gave credit.

I think he just wanted people to realize writing isn't anything but sex mis..., no, anything but sitting down and doing it. Writing, that is.

 

[mjp]

Well that's performance, innit.

 

[schiz666]

Dude -- 666 is so awesome to have in your username. It's like, the devil! Fuckin-a!

u r fcking delusional.
oh, your mother showed you her vulva..........so lick it hard, but don't try. lick her ass too.

 

[Black Swan]

Halloween is coming up, I can tell! :jesus:

 

[mjp]

u r fcking delusional.

Did it take you 5 1/2 years to read my post? Or was it like 3 years, then you spent 2 1/2 years crafting your response?

Either way, congratulations. Sounds like the Polish Internet is speeding up.

 

[esart]

I know it sounds like I'm a pretentious performance artist, "writing in public," but I used to do it when I was younger (pre-computer age), but not because I was trying to show the world I was a writer. I had nowhere else to write. My family was nuts and I couldn't write there. If I wasn't staying there, I was predominantly couch surfing and didn't have a home.

And I did write about the things I saw - all the freaky people that walked into the old Tiny Naylor's coffee shop I frequented in Studio City before they tore it down. A sad day indeed. It was one of the last coffee shops with that great mid-century architecture I grew to love, with all that gaudy decor. Incredible chandeliers! I'd write about the waitresses that had worked there for over 30 years, the 50-year old Latino busboys, and the regulars barflies that ate alone at the counters after 2 AM.

It was a 24-hour place and down the street were three different gay bars, two that put on incredible drag shows, one in particular called the Queen Mary, and everyone would come to Tiny Naylor's after the shows at 2:30 or so, still in their glittery dresses, makeup and gowns. It was quite an affair.

My poetry and my short stories were not very good at that time, and I have no idea if I'm all that much better now, but I was only a kid then after all. I probably only had a few good usable lines here and there. Nothing that worked all the way through. I wrote at that coffee shop for many years, from 14 until I was in my 20s and they tore it down. I tried to write in other places after that, but it was never the same. I couldn't do it.

I tried writing at a place called the Onyx, which was really the first "coffee house" in LA near Sunset Junction. Lots of freaks there too, but they were all of the bohemian nature, not freaks by accident. Then...over the course of a year, everybody started to write there. They wrote, they sketched, they drew. It became the place to come and "be" an artist and "be" interesting. So, I stopped bringing a notebook. I didn't want to be like everyone else. Plus, I think I had a place to live by then.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

"Hey boys, just a little deadhead
Who's watching, who's watching?
I's just a little deadhead
With too much trouble for me to shake
Oh, the weather and the blindin' ache
Was ridin' high until the '89 quake
Hit the Santa Cruz garden mall
Like a wrecking ball"

Wrecking Ball,
Miss Gillian Welch

 

[hoochmonkey9]

"I wish I was a little bit taller
I wish I was a baller
I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her
I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat
And a six four Impala."

I Wish,
Mr. Skee-Lo

 

[LickTheStar]

I mean... I've been holding back some things for about seven years now, but my retorts won't be supereffective until we hit 10 soo... you've got that to look forward to.

 

[Otto jr]

It makes me want to roll a couple of hand grenades in there. Give the survivors something to blog about.

I meant to have a good hardy laugh about this line five years ago, but I just got around to it today.
AH HA HA HA HA...HA!

 

[mjp's attorney]

It should be stressed that not only does Mr. Phillips NOT intend to "roll a couple of hand grenades" into any public place, but quite to the contrary, he denounces such behavior and is in fact known throughout his community as a peaceful, loving man whose kindness and philanthropy is revered and respected.

For the record, and to make his intentions perfectly clear, what he meant by "20 or 30 empty-headed morons staring at Mac Books or iPhones [at a] Starbucks" was "20 or 30 of my brothers and sisters carrying out important work and recreational activities."

I hope this sheds some light on the gravity and reality of the situation, and any similarly misunderstood situations or statements made in the past or the future.

Thank you.