Life is stranger than fiction
“Ordinary life is serious stuff.”
Remembering Harvey Pekar. I thought this was worth passing on.
[This is adapted from some things Harvey wrote in American Splendor, a cartoon strip in a magazine. He was a Jew with roots in Poland. The NYT Book Review: "Pekar lets all of life flood into his panels: the humdrum and the heroic, the gritty and the grand." The Chicago Sun-Times: "[Pekar] has a vision that makes daily city life – a ride on the bus, a run-in with a boss, or simply buying bread – dramatic.”]
I Gotta Work To Pay The Bills
It’s 5:15 AM, just before I HAVE to get up.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be Fifty-four.
One more year and I’ll be Fifty-five AND
I’ll have my thirty years in with the VA.
But I can’t retire on that pension – 56%
of my present salary. Oh! Oh!
When I was Forty I thought I could do it.
Now the time is HERE and I CAN’T.
SO, what’s the end for me? WORK!
Work until I DROP! HAH!
My income as a writer isn’t good enough
to fill in the shortfall. Golden years!!!
You get OLD, can’t rest. Work, work, work -
then the GRAVE!
Meanwhile, your health goes. CANCER.
A deteriorating hip. Oh I’m scared
of getting a hip replacement. A week
in the hospital with those antiseptic smells.
Crazy people screaming at night.
So you can’t sleep. And they wake you up!
I’d rather keep on limping the rest of my life.
The pain’s not too bad. I can do my work.
But now I see the END!
You work – to keep alive – to DIE.
You kid yourself into thinking that stuff matters.
I’m so scared to get up out of this bed.
I’m TERRIFIED. But there’s only one way
for me to go since I’m not gonna KILL myself.
Push up outta this bed, and get inta the
dumb routine. Get involved in the boring work.
That way you don’t think about DEATH,
at least not for a while.
Get tired. Go home. Read a book.
(One you’re supposed to do a review on.)
Nod off at 7:30 with your CLOTHES on.
The LUCKY ones think it means something.
Wish I did. Work – to live – to DIE.
But I got PUBLISHED! In a real magazine!
In the best Jazz magazine in the country!
A nationally distributed magazine!
Plus I wrote for Downbeat!
It made me feel like something more than
a file clerk in Cleveland (which I am).
And record and CD reviews.
At least I get paid a reasonable amount.
And I still love listening to the music.
The first writing I ever had published
was when I was 19, by the “Jazz Review.”
For the next 17 years I wrote for a variety
of American, Canadian, and English Magazines.
I focused on great musicians who had been
ignored, but who were fantastic!
Well, let’s get this thing going.
I think if you feel rotten most of the time,
you’re always gonna feel lousy,
Your glass is always gonna be half empty.
Anyway, I look at it this way –
anything that doesn’t kill me
could be the basis of one of my stories.
YEAHHH!
[PS: Hope is why Jesus is important. John 16:33.]
Remembering Harvey Pekar. I thought this was worth passing on.
[This is adapted from some things Harvey wrote in American Splendor, a cartoon strip in a magazine. He was a Jew with roots in Poland. The NYT Book Review: "Pekar lets all of life flood into his panels: the humdrum and the heroic, the gritty and the grand." The Chicago Sun-Times: "[Pekar] has a vision that makes daily city life – a ride on the bus, a run-in with a boss, or simply buying bread – dramatic.”]
I Gotta Work To Pay The Bills
It’s 5:15 AM, just before I HAVE to get up.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be Fifty-four.
One more year and I’ll be Fifty-five AND
I’ll have my thirty years in with the VA.
But I can’t retire on that pension – 56%
of my present salary. Oh! Oh!
When I was Forty I thought I could do it.
Now the time is HERE and I CAN’T.
SO, what’s the end for me? WORK!
Work until I DROP! HAH!
My income as a writer isn’t good enough
to fill in the shortfall. Golden years!!!
You get OLD, can’t rest. Work, work, work -
then the GRAVE!
Meanwhile, your health goes. CANCER.
A deteriorating hip. Oh I’m scared
of getting a hip replacement. A week
in the hospital with those antiseptic smells.
Crazy people screaming at night.
So you can’t sleep. And they wake you up!
I’d rather keep on limping the rest of my life.
The pain’s not too bad. I can do my work.
But now I see the END!
You work – to keep alive – to DIE.
You kid yourself into thinking that stuff matters.
I’m so scared to get up out of this bed.
I’m TERRIFIED. But there’s only one way
for me to go since I’m not gonna KILL myself.
Push up outta this bed, and get inta the
dumb routine. Get involved in the boring work.
That way you don’t think about DEATH,
at least not for a while.
Get tired. Go home. Read a book.
(One you’re supposed to do a review on.)
Nod off at 7:30 with your CLOTHES on.
The LUCKY ones think it means something.
Wish I did. Work – to live – to DIE.
But I got PUBLISHED! In a real magazine!
In the best Jazz magazine in the country!
A nationally distributed magazine!
Plus I wrote for Downbeat!
It made me feel like something more than
a file clerk in Cleveland (which I am).
And record and CD reviews.
At least I get paid a reasonable amount.
And I still love listening to the music.
The first writing I ever had published
was when I was 19, by the “Jazz Review.”
For the next 17 years I wrote for a variety
of American, Canadian, and English Magazines.
I focused on great musicians who had been
ignored, but who were fantastic!
Well, let’s get this thing going.
I think if you feel rotten most of the time,
you’re always gonna feel lousy,
Your glass is always gonna be half empty.
Anyway, I look at it this way –
anything that doesn’t kill me
could be the basis of one of my stories.
YEAHHH!
[PS: Hope is why Jesus is important. John 16:33.]
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