Dave Matthes's Blog - Posts Tagged "whiskey"

This is more or less a response to the innumerable armies of sheltered minds questioning my motives as a writer...questions that may or may not need answering simply because I'm tired of explaining myself ceaselessly in as few words as "I don't give a fat fuckin' fuck about getting paid for my writing".



I've written little ditties and short stories most of my life since taking a little summer camp course at my elementary school between Kindergarten and First Grade. Granted, they were terrible and repetitive and as directionless as a snowflake. But eventually after seeing how changeless my stories had become, I decided to devote my pending "talent" to being as different and original as possible, whether it be through dialog, story, themes, or even as simple as prose. To this day I do my best to continue that tradition.



That being said...being self-published as I am, does not promise a paycheck or even a surplus of earnings. Every copy of one of my books I sell, I acquire two maybe three to four dollars, which isn't much. I've done some research on this, and have been told by many, that in order to really make it big in the author-world, or to "get rich" so to speak, is to conform to a system of standards in which the very System itself controls. In other words, you sell yourself into becoming a "Genre Writer", to solely appeal to a particular brand of audience. Take this further and perhaps more dramatically, you cease to be a writer and your work no longer becomes your own. I refuse to end up like this.

Being self-published, I am able to write what I want, and KEEP what I want. I don't have to worry about impressing anyone, or selling my intelligence, etc. I write for myself in my way without the fear of having the change ANYTHING based on a contract. The first names that come to mind: Stephen King, Chuck P, as popular as they are, only write to a certain audience, generally. From what I've read, most of their work is a steady reworking of one book to another...they recycle. This is NOT writing. This is "conforming", and an embarrassment to the world of invention. They are NOT artists and their type of person will remain a warning sign to me on my shit-stricken road of life. I'm not even going to elaborate on the drenched, toilet paper pages "writers" like Stephanie Meyer and E. L. James have shat out. Real artists and favorists of intelligent creativity already know what I'm talking about.



Being a writer, to me, is all about the individual. It has nothing to do with the audience. Whoever happens to come across my work and "get it" or understand it, good on them. But that has never been and never will (unless I go senile one day, which with my family genes is very, very likely) be my intention. This all may sound like a rant, but you can usually tell the level of intelligence a person harbors by the amount of conformity they allow themselves to be plagued by. For instance, society seems partial to roboticizing everyone who's willing or not, and all those who refuse said "standards" are immediately cast as strange or delinquent. Now, that's not to say that because fucking a cow is frowned upon by the general population that I'm going to rebel and get up off my fat black ass and go snog the nearest cow. But there is a certain level that we owe ourselves as "civilized folk" to fall into. With writing, this I cannot do at all. Conformity is the line that divides being an artist and simply wandering about as an advocate of the writing "profession".



To write is to have a voice, and we all have one. Painters, Arborists, sculptors, lyricists...they all have a voice. But the more we subjugate our talents and abilities to the throws of money and contracts and standards and rules and boundaries simply for the money, the less we exist as true artists. I write not for fame or recognition or for a paycheck, but to immortalize the endless bullshit that seems to inflict itself upon my life with the single hope being that IF someone reads it, they will at least gather something immaterial and substantial enough to remember for their own selves.

Every Saturday evening... join me, Dave Matthes, on YouTube as I read to you my gloriously clit-flicking, sweet obscenity-flinging literature from the comfort of a freshly drawn hot bubble bath whilst drinking good whiskey.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

Currently, it's 1:48 a.m. on the dot, and I'm drinking my third glass of Jameson Black Barrel poured from a decanter in the fashion of a glass-blown ship in a bottle (I'm running out, too. I'll probably pick up a new bottle to refill it later today). I haven't engaged in this specific ritual for probably at least a few years, mostly due to my work schedule but also maybe because I probably shouldn't anymore, if my slightly-advancing age (I'll only be 35 on the 22nd of this month, but when I say "advancing age" I really mean, lengthy experience, with the drink, which dates back at least twenty years, the highest concentration of "study" taking place between the years of 2010 and 2016, if memory is still reliable) has anything to say about it.

I've recently completed the second book in my latest literary endeavor, The Two Revolvers Saga, and am awaiting reviews from several readers prior to the release of said novel on November 29th. I've also reached the final day of my first vacation from work in years. So that may be why I'm drinking this heavily, this early in the morning. It's okay. Really. I'm a writer, remember? And I used to write about whiskey all the time; whiskey, sex, and all that wannabe Bukowski nonsense that all the cool kids are doing in excess these days. I'm allowed to do this sort of thing, at least every once in a while. I used to write alcohol and orgasm(or lack thereof) drenched poetry, but now I'm belly-button deep in post-apocalyptic westerns, a strange turn of events for me, but not unwelcome. I invite change, like most people, if I'm not already combatting it.

I haven't released a poetry collection in two years. I find this a little odd, but maybe necessary for my own evolution as a writer. I started one, that isn't really a poetry collection but more or less a novella written in poem form. Sort of a modern day Beowulf if it was written by Hunter S. Thompson, at least that's the best way I can describe it in its current form. To date, I have around 150 pages written, including 25some new poems within its pages. It may never see the light of day though, probably for the best. Who knows, maybe I'll die suddenly one day (is there any other respectable way?) and my cat will publish it in my name posthumously. That seems like something that would happen to me. Women have done worse, including my wife (but then again I've done worse to her) and so the only love to be found in this world when all the women in it have drank their fill of your soul is in the warm cuddles of a cat. I'll never deny that.

This drink is so good, I just want it to be known. And with each passing second, I hate the idea of returning to work on Thursday more and more and more. Who knows when my next vacation will be. Not this year, anyway. At least I can still write, I think, anyway. I have at least three more novels to write, all of them post-apocalyptic westerns. After that, maybe I'll release the Beowulf-Hunter S. Thompson mess, and maybe, just maybe, someone will remember there was in fact a time during which I wrote a poem about the monstrous, beautiful breasts of the colored girl who stole my virginity. Sometimes I wonder where in the world she got off to, like now, actually. Hope she's okay. We'll see. Winter is dead, and it's always summer anymore. And summer is the season of dead hope for us would-be writers, and the playground of rich, blessed, white women who go to church at least two days a week with their mutant kids.