Chuck, I'm currently making my way through Not Forever (slowly so I can savor it). I'm fully aware of how cheesy this is going to sound, but I promise you I'm 100% sincere when I say it. This is one of those incredibly, incredibly rare books where as I'm reading it I'm already sad because I'll never again get to have the experience of reading it for the first time. It's that good. You really have outdone yourself with this one.
Just before I left on tour I sat in a cafe and listened to old farts tell each other, "All the magic's gone from the playa. Serves those rich bastards right for appropriating our festival."
Can’t even hunt politicians through the streets with a bow and arrow anymore without being put on a terrorist watchlist. It’s political correctness gone mad!
I want to know more about it in the context of needs, rather than denying a possibility to introduce it. Im guessing that needs means attention and validation, at least in part.
I have tended to write protagonists who ignore their needs, and other characters who do these inauthentic mental gymnastics.
In Consider this you say "The inauthentic way the character gets their need met" or something close to that. Its kind of in passing and my brain has been stuck on this idea for days.
And you wouldnt hit me, youd choke me. You already have.
Ouch. My guts are spilled all over the landscape already. Between the Rogan show and Esquire magazine. In October I go on Soft White Underbelly -- I'm the first 'public' figure they've asked -- and I'm sure I'll spill even more guts there.
I need to get back to writing. Forty pages into the new sci-fi novel, and very stoked.
"Soft White Underbelly" is a YouTube channel that usually revolves around interviews with very interesting people with dark, brutal stories. Videos tend to focus on sex work, drug addictions, mental illnesses, homelessness, and alcoholism.
Right? What can I offered that compares to that inbred family? I listen to the show all the time, and talked seriously to Mark before committing to it. It seems like a strange fit, but he's liked some of the stuff I've said about "not looking good."
You're talking about The Whitakers. I haven't seen that video yet but I did see a clip of one of them, sorta barking, and leading the cameraman toward a grave.
Hah! I got something to look forward to in October!
And I want a Chuck memoir too. A real fat tome. Everything you ever wanted to know about Chuck in one volume for $29.99. We'll even get that guy who wrote the big Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson.
That's why I wrote 'Tell-All.' Because someday someone will usurp my life and get it all wrong. Years ago Wikipedia reported that I was married to a beauty queen, lived in a castle on the ocean, and drank human blood. What could I write that compares to the fantasy? People's projections will always outstrip reality.
I still love that clip of Cheryl Strayed talking to George Stroumboulopoulos about how you'd suggest things for her memoir during workshop which didn't happen and you said it was all for the sake of the story haha
The person who really, really broke my heart was the former Playboy model. Her up-beat, chirpy delivery was such a disconnect from the events she recounted. That contrast was jarring.
I don't know her, but I have known someone very much like her. I love these contrasts. Like songs with heart wrenching lyrics that are upbeat, and in a major key. Holding the balance simultaneously.
Chuck does spill his guts on everything. So much so that at one moment you are asking yourself is this a piece of colon or is this small intestine? Ahh it's all just sausage casing anyways.
There was this call centre job where someone once told him “Give me your number, and I’ll call you back and interrupt dinner.” This was in the before times. When call display didn’t exist yet.
Yeah I miss the screams at that job. The Creams the flavored creams. Stupid autocorrect, I used to mix them together in the break room before adding to my burnt coffee each morning. That was only real liminal event.
As one who’s done many tours, once you’ve wrapped your wet undies in a towel, put in on the floor and step on it. Turn it and walk again. It’s easier than wringing.
In my past life, I was an actor and spent most of the late 80s/early90s crisscrossing the country in shows ranging from Annie to Sunday in the Park. Probably slept in more than a thousand hotels.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. If you have any inclination, I encourage you to come to New York story night. You must have some interesting stories based on your on the road experiences.
They can work for any part, especially the Call and the Climax. Excellent tool for creating rabbit holes into confusion or self-discovery. Hunter S. Thompson even managed to make them the Normal World.
Reading about your first job washing dishes, reminded me of washing dishes at that age also. Watching kids eat off the plates that were just brought back, having the women that cooked, chase me to the back room trying to grab my thirteen year old manhood with tongs. It was a hell of a scene!
The smell of bleach takes me right back there. Washing off and reusing those cellophane-wrapped packets of soda crackers that go out with salad after salad. Nobody ever ate them, and we must've reused the same crackers a dozen times.
Sometimes bleach in a restaurant just smells like bleach. Other times it smells like dirty feet mixed with bleach. I still don't know why it produces that sour, dirty dog/feet smell sometimes.
Denver’s happy to have you! I can’t believe they don’t have a proper place for underwear washing at Hotel Teatro... or the Hyatt on 17th... I’m going to have a word with those ppl at The Brown Palace.. (am I warm?!)
I want to write a story involving adult babies for the possibility of doing what you suggested, coming up with rules and games. Also, I need to avoid writing it like Fight Club. First rule of Baby Club is never talk like a grown up.
The adult baby thing is incredible. Be sure to read 'Geek Love' to check out the part where people are pruned down to limb-less torsos so they must be diapered and cared for for the rest of their lives. That will help you avoid the same territory in your work, okay?
Reading this was great timing for me. In my memoir I've just arrived at a Carnevale party dressed as a Volcano goddess and a fireman in Venetian opera house has just kissed me within an inch of my life. Should I slap him and report sexual harassment? Or enjoy it? I'm happily married but can't really blame him. I'm smoking hot.
It's the dress-up equivalent of shooting guns at a moving car I suppose. Have a great reading! I'm from CO and love the TC. They have underwear stores in Denver btw.
Similar thing going on in Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead. Each inmate would get a chance to get blind drunk for a couple of days while the others hid him from the guards .
Yeah, I know, but I can dream.
Hmmmm... I've had students in advertising. It doesn't look fantastic, and the burn-out rate is fairly high.
Chuck, I'm currently making my way through Not Forever (slowly so I can savor it). I'm fully aware of how cheesy this is going to sound, but I promise you I'm 100% sincere when I say it. This is one of those incredibly, incredibly rare books where as I'm reading it I'm already sad because I'll never again get to have the experience of reading it for the first time. It's that good. You really have outdone yourself with this one.
Wow, thanks. It broke my heart to finish this one. I didn't want it to end either.
Karin, your super secret box of mega swag from Chuck is already in the mail. You made his broken heart soar with this one.
The most recent Burning Man was an absolute horror show; like Fyre Festival level of bad. You love to see it.
Just before I left on tour I sat in a cafe and listened to old farts tell each other, "All the magic's gone from the playa. Serves those rich bastards right for appropriating our festival."
Amen
First rule. Don't talk about The Game.
My game that saves the world is one were trucks pull into diner parking lots with a politicians roped to their hoods instead of deer.
And it's.... onto the No Fly List for you.
Can’t even hunt politicians through the streets with a bow and arrow anymore without being put on a terrorist watchlist. It’s political correctness gone mad!
I bought a bow last week and am taking up hunting this year. But I wont be drinking or camping or reducing vomit au jus on an engine block.
Why is it that your characters always get their needs met in an inauthentic way? Just because its more interesting?
Being inauthentic creates tension and allows for the eventual breakdown. "You know for a fact that I'd never, ever, hit you?"
I want to know more about it in the context of needs, rather than denying a possibility to introduce it. Im guessing that needs means attention and validation, at least in part.
I have tended to write protagonists who ignore their needs, and other characters who do these inauthentic mental gymnastics.
In Consider this you say "The inauthentic way the character gets their need met" or something close to that. Its kind of in passing and my brain has been stuck on this idea for days.
And you wouldnt hit me, youd choke me. You already have.
Please tell me you are working on your Memoirs 🙏🏼
Ouch. My guts are spilled all over the landscape already. Between the Rogan show and Esquire magazine. In October I go on Soft White Underbelly -- I'm the first 'public' figure they've asked -- and I'm sure I'll spill even more guts there.
I need to get back to writing. Forty pages into the new sci-fi novel, and very stoked.
Mark seems like an amazing human being.
OMG I love soft white underbelly. They've interviewed sex workers, drug addicts, and someone who raped his own mother.
"Soft White Underbelly" is a YouTube channel that usually revolves around interviews with very interesting people with dark, brutal stories. Videos tend to focus on sex work, drug addictions, mental illnesses, homelessness, and alcoholism.
https://www.youtube.com/@SoftWhiteUnderbelly/featured
Right? What can I offered that compares to that inbred family? I listen to the show all the time, and talked seriously to Mark before committing to it. It seems like a strange fit, but he's liked some of the stuff I've said about "not looking good."
You're talking about The Whitakers. I haven't seen that video yet but I did see a clip of one of them, sorta barking, and leading the cameraman toward a grave.
Hah! I got something to look forward to in October!
You could write a story about double first cousins.
And I want a Chuck memoir too. A real fat tome. Everything you ever wanted to know about Chuck in one volume for $29.99. We'll even get that guy who wrote the big Steve Jobs biography, Walter Isaacson.
That's why I wrote 'Tell-All.' Because someday someone will usurp my life and get it all wrong. Years ago Wikipedia reported that I was married to a beauty queen, lived in a castle on the ocean, and drank human blood. What could I write that compares to the fantasy? People's projections will always outstrip reality.
I still love that clip of Cheryl Strayed talking to George Stroumboulopoulos about how you'd suggest things for her memoir during workshop which didn't happen and you said it was all for the sake of the story haha
Watched them all multiple times. That is why I am sure the Memoirs would surpass everything. Metaphors are great up to a point :). 🫶🏼
The person who really, really broke my heart was the former Playboy model. Her up-beat, chirpy delivery was such a disconnect from the events she recounted. That contrast was jarring.
haha!
I don't know her, but I have known someone very much like her. I love these contrasts. Like songs with heart wrenching lyrics that are upbeat, and in a major key. Holding the balance simultaneously.
Oh my god I thought I had a fever dream reading a comment that your next one was going to be sci-fi. I am most pleased that it was reality.
Chuck does spill his guts on everything. So much so that at one moment you are asking yourself is this a piece of colon or is this small intestine? Ahh it's all just sausage casing anyways.
In your line of work you should should know a colon from a small intestine. Your small talk is brutal.
Wait, what is his line of work? Crime scene cleaner? Coroner? Proctologist? I bet it's one of those cool jobs.
He's the line lead at a sausage factory
Ding ding ding, I think we have a weiner!
If only that was the case, Abe Frohman would be proud. Now after that last hung jury maybe I should agree with you.
There was this call centre job where someone once told him “Give me your number, and I’ll call you back and interrupt dinner.” This was in the before times. When call display didn’t exist yet.
Yeah I miss the screams at that job. The Creams the flavored creams. Stupid autocorrect, I used to mix them together in the break room before adding to my burnt coffee each morning. That was only real liminal event.
Flavored coffee creamer, the opiate of the corporate grunt
Chuck, professional courtesy please. Your readers don't need to know my real job. Please allow me to seem mundane because that is what I am.
Mundane Cook
As one who’s done many tours, once you’ve wrapped your wet undies in a towel, put in on the floor and step on it. Turn it and walk again. It’s easier than wringing.
The hair dryer helps also. Secrets of life on the road.
Or towel warmers, if you’re so lucky.
Poor people have towel warmers too. They just pull double duty.
Single wide trailers have the washer and dryer in the bathroom. Old home with boilers have a radiator within reach of the shower.
Do you mind sharing touring in what capacity?
In my past life, I was an actor and spent most of the late 80s/early90s crisscrossing the country in shows ranging from Annie to Sunday in the Park. Probably slept in more than a thousand hotels.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing. If you have any inclination, I encourage you to come to New York story night. You must have some interesting stories based on your on the road experiences.
I now work backstage (what, and quit show business?) so I’m usually working. If there’s ever a Monday story night, I would definitely come!
It's usually the second and fourth Monday of the month at the Churchill on 28th.
Great story.
Glad to see Joseph Campbell’s Jungian Hero campfire tales endure.
Clean underwear optional.
How do liminoid events tie to the Hero's Journey?
They can work for any part, especially the Call and the Climax. Excellent tool for creating rabbit holes into confusion or self-discovery. Hunter S. Thompson even managed to make them the Normal World.
They only work if you make it back to the campfire.
Fist one to fall asleep at the sleepover gets their bra, or in your case underwear, frozen.
Lol “fist.” Interesting typo.
That's why you never wanna be the first one to fall asleep at a sleepover lol
Shout out to John for getting me to read Trickster
Theres another Hyde book that Chuck recommends that I need to read. About sacrificing your life to creativity, or something like that.
See the above.
Now check out 'The Gift' by Hyde. That book is a big reason why I throw stuff at events. Amazing book.
Added to my list!
Hooray for John for indoctrinating me too
Reading about your first job washing dishes, reminded me of washing dishes at that age also. Watching kids eat off the plates that were just brought back, having the women that cooked, chase me to the back room trying to grab my thirteen year old manhood with tongs. It was a hell of a scene!
The smell of bleach takes me right back there. Washing off and reusing those cellophane-wrapped packets of soda crackers that go out with salad after salad. Nobody ever ate them, and we must've reused the same crackers a dozen times.
Sometimes bleach in a restaurant just smells like bleach. Other times it smells like dirty feet mixed with bleach. I still don't know why it produces that sour, dirty dog/feet smell sometimes.
Denver’s happy to have you! I can’t believe they don’t have a proper place for underwear washing at Hotel Teatro... or the Hyatt on 17th... I’m going to have a word with those ppl at The Brown Palace.. (am I warm?!)
Hah! I'm out at the 'Burbs in a noisy hotel. Buying all my meals at the supermarket a block away.
I want to write a story involving adult babies for the possibility of doing what you suggested, coming up with rules and games. Also, I need to avoid writing it like Fight Club. First rule of Baby Club is never talk like a grown up.
The adult baby thing is incredible. Be sure to read 'Geek Love' to check out the part where people are pruned down to limb-less torsos so they must be diapered and cared for for the rest of their lives. That will help you avoid the same territory in your work, okay?
Reading this was great timing for me. In my memoir I've just arrived at a Carnevale party dressed as a Volcano goddess and a fireman in Venetian opera house has just kissed me within an inch of my life. Should I slap him and report sexual harassment? Or enjoy it? I'm happily married but can't really blame him. I'm smoking hot.
It's the dress-up equivalent of shooting guns at a moving car I suppose. Have a great reading! I'm from CO and love the TC. They have underwear stores in Denver btw.
Similar thing going on in Dostoevsky's The House of the Dead. Each inmate would get a chance to get blind drunk for a couple of days while the others hid him from the guards .
Interesting...