Although I hope that the voice in your head sounds reasonable as you read the following (if anybody reads the following), feel free to hear it in a “You-kids-get-off-my-lawn!” tone if you’re into that kind of thing (and I know many of us are into that kind of thing these days).
The Republican Party no longer exists. . . .
My parents were Republicans and good people. My in-laws were Republicans and good people. I had—have—many friends who were—are—Republicans. These folks—from my parents to current friends—hold conservative values on government and economics. All well and good.
Or rather, all was well and good until actual Republicans and conservatives disappeared from this world by 1) leaving it like my parents and in-laws have done or 2) hiding—voiceless—in a daze of shock and disbelief at how their party and its ideology have been hijacked or 3) drinking the Kool-Aid and crossing over to the side of the hijackers.
Yes, the Republican Party—the GOP—still exists by name and in the news and on election ballots, but its traditional values have been trampled in the mud of their own sweat and blood by the mean and the ignorant and the arrogant, by downright idiots and the downright power hungry and the downright power hungry idiots. I know Jesus warned against calling anyone a fool (Matthew 5:22), but these days I find that admonition more difficult to abide by than most of the Ten Commandments.
Today’s so-called Republican Party is characterized by fear and its brood—anger, jealousy, anxiety. Shame and guilt often accompany fear, but today’s “Republicans” seem dead to these, probably, I think, because they no longer have a moral compass and thus lack any capacity for guilt and shame.
The things so-called Republicans fear are many: fear of the Other (typically identified by the shallow markers of skin color and makeup), fear of sharing (power, prestige, money, etc.), fear of losing (power, prestige, money, etc.), fear of the future, fear of the past (history as it actually happened, for example, or wrongs committed for power, prestige, money, etc.). Many Republicans of today (like their idiot golden—more orange really—idol/idle leader) do not recognize and will not admit these fears, but this is where the above mentioned ignorance and arrogance come in.
Conservative values are characterized not by what is right or wrong but by what is likely to keep them safe from the many, many fears they have (see above) and keep them comfortable in their judgments of what they deem right and keep them smug in their self-righteousness—all with an attitude that says, “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, y’all sit down and shut the fuck up a minute. We got this.”
Here’s an idea. Fear the Super Pigs, why dontcha:
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“This Is Not All” is a new song that has been with me for a while. In fact, I’ve had much of it written for several years, so I suppose it’s more accurate to say that it’s a newly completed song. It’s so newly completed that I haven’t even learned it yet. Still, that didn’t stop me from trying to play it at a recent gig on the Barnett Patio. I flubbed a bunch of it, especially toward the end, but it’s now out there in the world. I’ll continue to work on the music, but I feel like the lyrics are finished and say what I want them to say.
The first verse began with hiking a trail—going on a ramble, as my friend Scott Honeycutt calls it. The lines borrow some sentiments from Emerson, Thoreau, and Dickinson (and many others, I’m sure). We too often go out into nature, as Emerson and Thoreau caution us, looking for the big payoff in the scenery—a dramatic waterfall, the colors of autumn leaves, the mountaintop view of distance (even to the moon). Emerson writes in “Beauty,” the third chapter of Nature, “Go out of the house to see the moon, and ’tis mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey.”
But the trail offers much at which to wonder that is seen only if we turn our eyes away from the big picture, away from the big expectations, and look down—not necessarily down, but just look.
Not all the wonder along the trail is to be found in woods and sky— look closer. It’s the tiny frog hidden in clover and that creature in the dust with a hundred legs or more. It’s in how I find my way home and that flower I never noticed by the door.
I like the last two lines in particular. Have you ever thought about how wonderful it is that you can—as long as you have a sound mind—find your way home? And you probably know many different ways to get home. Consider the Keb’ Mo’ song “More Thank One Way Home.” Take that as realistically or metaphorically as you wish.
As for the last line, Emily Dickinson writes in her poem 446 (Franklin; “This was a Poet”) that the poet
Distills amazing sense From Ordinary Meanings – And Attar* so immense
From the familiar species That perished by the Door – We wonder it was not Ourselves Arrested it – before –
(*Attar = fragrance)
Here, Dickison suggests—as Emerson does in his essay “The Poet”—that the poet (or the poetic eye) sees the richness, even the strangeness and wonder, in the familiar. Although those without the poet’s vision are subject to a kind of “ceaseless Poverty,” we still have the potential to understand and be enriched through that vision. That is, once the poet points out the wonder in the “familiar species / That perished by the Door”—”that flower I never noticed by the door”—we are enriched second-hand.
The second verse of “This Is Not All” sticks with wonder and the wonderful:
Not all the wonder along the way is waiting somewhere far ahead— look closer. A little boy runs in cape and mask, another stands shirtless in a barnyard banging a drum. A little girl learns to cartwheel, And another stands by the road and sticks out her thumb.
The idea here is that when we travel, whether on the road or trail or metaphorically through life, we often let the destination or goal loom so large in our minds that we ignore or lose sight of what is wonderful “along the way.” Consider the old adage that the journey is more important than the destination. The “little boy” is my son Raleigh, who had a vivid imagination and a love of costume.
The image of the other boy is from my travels at some point some years ago. I was driving in Indiana or Illinois or Iowa—somewhere with corn to the horizon. Just off the interstate was a large farmhouse, a big barn to the right of it (in the background, corn to the horizon from which a storm approached). In the barnyard, this kid—a teenager, at least—sat behind a full drum set and seemed in the middle of a massive rock ‘n’ roll show drum solo. A vivid, amazing scene!
The cartwheeling and hitchhiking girls are less real images than they are contrasts in innocence and experience, security and danger. But each of these has in it an element of wonder.
The song takes a dark turn to look at evil. The third verse recognizes that we leave ourselves open to the threatening workings of evil if we believe that it exists only in obvious places—”the terrorist and thief.”
Not all the evil in the world is in the terrorist and thief— look closer. It’s in the thousand faces of ignorance— political and corporate and religious. It’s in the hate and hunger and the trumped-up fights that pit them against us.
Ignorance is possibly the worst evil in our world today. Many of us seem to be getting to the point where we can’t see anything except through the lenses of ignorance, rage, and prejudice, our desire to win at all cost (while too ignorant to count the ultimate cost), our desire to “own” ______ [insert your fear/hate here], the devotion of our time and minds and hearts to conspiracy (which even if real probably has little to do with you and your little you might brighten). Charles Dickens wrote in his last scene with the Ghost of Christmas Present about “a boy and girl” that Scrooge spots hiding under the skirts of the Ghost’s robe, children [y]ellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish. . . .” When Scrooge asks if they are the children of the Ghost of Christmas Present, the spirit answers,
“‘They are Man’s. . . . And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it! . . . Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!'”
Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol
In our devaluing of education and of ourselves along with it, we have opened the door wide to all sorts of evil. The ignorant parents and grandparents and legislators slander teachers as misleading and “indoctrinating” their students. The ignorant revel in their ignorance as their badge of difference from the educated and the expert. (This is what Dickens refers to when he writes, “Admit it for your factious [that is, divisive] purposes, and make it worse!”). Thomas Jefferson—author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence—wrote elsewhere that “the spirit of the people [is not] infallible” and we “will become . . careless. A single zealot may commence persecutor, and better men be his victims.” I think the “single zealot” is now among us in Donald Trump, who is Dickens’s boy Ignorance personified. Beware! “Deny it” and experience the “Doom” he brings.
And yet perhaps there is still goodness. Fear and hate cannot survive honest expressions of love between people, between peoples, between us. Someone who becomes friends with—who comes to love—that which is feared, be it a skin color or a faith system or an identity (LGBTQ+) or whatever, usually finds it difficult, if not impossible, to fear and hate the person that has now become, to them, a human being—recognizing another as a human being, as a child of God (if you will). And that’s what it’s about, I think, opening up of ourselves to see the humanity in everybody. It is in this recognition and love that fear and hate begin to wither and die for lack of nourishment.
That said, I suspect we’re too far gone into ignorance—and an arrogance that prevents us from recognizing our ignorance—to survive.
Still, for the song, I lifted up my mind and heart and wrote a bridge and a fourth verse and tied it all together with a refrain “This Is Not All,” which first appears after the second verse and then repeats after the third and at the end.
The means of control are more than out of our hands— they’re far beyond our reach. But we can love, and love’s the root and height of all and love’s the root and height of each.
Not all the goodness in the world is to be found in church and child— look closer. It’s in the unshackled hearts that lift us high above the right or wrong or Right or Left— my friend’s warm hand in mine and true emotions honestly expressed.
This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than we can own, more than we can protect. This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than can be known, so much more than we expect. This is not all!
This Is Not All
Not all the wonder along the trail is to be found in woods and sky— look closer. It’s the tiny frog hidden in clover and that creature in the dust with a hundred legs or more. It’s in how I find my way home and that flower I never noticed by the door.
Not all the wonder along the way is waiting somewhere far ahead— look closer. A little boy runs in cape and mask, another stands shirtless in a barnyard banging a drum. A little girl learns to cartwheel, And another stands by the road and sticks out her thumb.
This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than we can own, more than we can protect. This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than can be known, so much more than we expect. This is not all!
Not all the evil in the world is in the terrorist and thief— look closer. It’s in the thousand faces of ignorance— political and corporate and religious. It’s in the hate and hunger and the trumped-up fights that put them against us.
This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than we can own, more than we can protect. This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than can be known, so much more than we expect. This is not all!
The means of control are more than out of our hands— they’re far beyond our reach. But we can love, and love’s the root and height of all and love’s the root and height of each.
Not all the goodness in the world is to be found in church and child— look closer. It’s in the unshackled hearts that lift us high above the right or wrong or Right or Left— my friend’s warm hand in mine and true emotions honestly expressed.
This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than we can own, more than we can protect. This is not all, no, this is not all! Out there is more than can be known, so much more than we expect. This is not all!
Wishing a happy birthday to Leesa! Age is just a number (for the most part — excepting the odd pain here and there), and she doesn’t look or act her age in all the best ways!
This year, I gave her what I gave her last year — tickets so see and hear Keb’ Mo’! (We saw him with Lane and Raleigh in Boone last year. This year the two of us saw him in Morganton.)
Kevin wished Leesa a happy birthday from the stage of CoMMA (City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium) and played a song she’d requested via text: Hand It Over. As Leesa said, “It brought the house down!”
He also ended the show — maybe the next to last song — with Leesa’s other favorite, a song that you could easily imagine he wrote about her: She Just Wants to Dance!
And here’s a little something in celebration of her from her other favorite singer/songwriter: Soulmates!
[Due to excessive commenting from Russian bots, I have stopped allowing comments on this blog. If you are not a Russian bot (or a bot of any other persuasion) and would like to comment, please email me at michaelamoscody@gmail.com.]
[Due to excessive commenting from Russian bots, I have stopped allowing comments on this blog. If you are not a Russian bot (or a bot of any other persuasion) and would like to comment, please email me at michaelamoscody@gmail.com.]
I’m late to this anthology party, but I’m glad to be here finally and having fun.
What party? Again, I’m late to this, but it seems that a whole new world of opportunities has opened for creative writers of fiction (flash fiction and short stories), poems, and creative nonfiction (again, flash and short). The literary and not-so-literary magazines were once about the only places I could go to try and publish my short stories individually, but now I’ve sat up and taken notice of several anthologies looking for material that I might’ve already written or might yet write.
I’ve had a couple of gratifying successes so far. . . .
Every year, Bouchercon (aka the World Mystery Convention) publishes an anthology of traditional crime stories set in or related to the city hosting that year’s meeting. This year, Bouchercon 2024 meets in Nashville, TN. So, I took an old song of mine — “I Could Be the One” — and used it as a prop in a story about theft of intellectual property on Music Row. The story was accepted! The anthology titled Tales of Music, Murder and Mayhem: Bouchercon Anthology 2024 will be released by late August. Here’s a link to the now closed call for submissions I responded to. Every year, the Bouchercon anthology benefits a charity local to the host city, and this year, sales of the anthology will benefit Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. And get this — Dolly is writing the introduction! More on this anthology as the publication date comes nearer.
One thing I think is cool about “I Could Be the One” is that it turned out to be a prequel to my novel Streets of Nashville, forthcoming from Madville Publishing in April 2025. More on that soon as well.
My next anthology success will appear in Madville‘s Wild Wind: Poems and Stories Inspired by the Songs of Robert Earl Keen, coming in November 2024. Here’s just a bit about what’s in it: “The poems and short stories here are each inspired by Keen’s songs, some expansions of themes of Keen’s songs, others move in creative directions suggested by the characters in his work.” I found a Keen song called “Carolina” and built from its lyrics a story of the same name. Keen’s lyrical story is set in Asheville, NC, and includes hints of sleepwalking and murder. I had some fun adapting some of my scholarly interest in Charles Brockden Brown — his use of somnambulism and a couple of his character names — into a piece of crime noir.
(Not sure if that’s the official cover pictured)
In addition to these two successes, I have two hopefuls out there — one “on submission,” as they say in the biz, and one I’ve just begun writing. I’ve already submitted “Pontiac” in response to Cowboy Jamboree Press’s call for an anthology to be called Texas Wind, intended to be a collection of creative nonfiction and fiction “incited” by Texas-based songwriters such as Guy Clark, Keen, Nanci Griffith, Jerry Jeff Walker, Steve Earle, and others. My story is based on Lyle Lovett’s song by the same name from his 1987 album of the same name (his second album). Here’s hoping! (If you’re writing and have something that might work for Texas Wind, submissions are supposed to be accepted up until August 1, 2024.)
The other hopeful will be — I have only a couple of ideas and a couple of paragraphs so far — submitted to the Bouchercon 2025 anthology call for submission. The meeting will take place in New Orleans, LA, so the stories should be set in or related to the Crescent City. I read a lot about that area in James Lee Burke‘s Dave Robicheaux novels, not that I’m going to do anything other than be inspired by Burke’s magnificent prose. Again, I have only a couple of paragraphs, which I like, but I haven’t found a story yet. I’m thinking about my Dr. John Riddle, Professor of English from Runion State University, who is in New Orleans for a literary conference. Something bad’s going to happen, I guess.
As you can tell from my experiences above, these are generally themed anthologies. They’re organized around a central idea or subject. For example, the call for submissions might be for an anthology of stories related to a particular place or a particular genre or a particular person and so on. And these are often the brainchildren of smaller presses — that is, not something the big publishing houses are interested in.
Here are some examples:
Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology from my heroes at Madville Publishing. Here’s a bit about what’s inside: “54 poets’ takes on often-unsung facets of this diamond in a rhinestone world—calling in Dolly’s impeccable comedic timing, her lyric mastery, her business acumen, and her Dollyverse advocacy.”
Burning Down the House: Crime Fiction Incited by the Songs of the Talking Heads from Shotgun Honey. Here’s what’s inside and why: “A charity anthology to benefit the fight against climate change, . . . a dazzling exploration of what crime fiction can entail — deftly mixing grimy crime, small-town grit lit, literary noir, and tales that blend crime with speculative fiction, sci-fi, road trip comedy, magical realism, and horror.” Also from Shotgun Honey, Thicker Than Water, “tales featuring female protagonist who navigate the precarious boundaries of the darker spaces of humanity,” created and sold to support breast cancer research.
Motel: An Anthology, from the folks at Cowboy Jamboree Press. Several of my X friends have pieces in Motel. Here’s bit about what’s inside and why: “On lost, lonely highways, deep in the American heartlands and skirting the shady edges of cities, once ubiquitous motels have faded, some into ruin, others transformed from way station to permanent residence. MOTEL captures the heartbreak, desperation and indeed magic of motels.”
Bishop Rider Lives: An Anthology of Retribution and A Beast Without a Name: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Music of Steely Dan from the folks at Down & Out Books. Beau Johnson’s Bishop Rider lives again in the former: “The fifteen stories in this anthology both brand new tales and written by some of the biggest names working in crime fiction and horror today. . . . Come for the rage, stay for the dismemberment. See how a dead man makes them burn.” And in the latter, “These twelve tales interpret shady pasts, dubious presents, and doomed futures. There’s no hiding inside a hall of rock and sand from stories as deliciously wicked and terrifically twisty as the jazz-rock noir that inspired them.”
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