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Friday, February 5, 2010"Penguins," My "Blasphemous" Christian Book, Finally Returns Home
My first book, "Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang: Why I Do the Things I Do, by God" (as told to John Shore), is the only thing I've ever written that I think is perfect. (You never feel that way about anything you write---especially years later.) The story of that book is so unbelievable that if I told it to you, you'd swear I made it up. It involves, for instance:
A Christian agent stealing the idea for the book, giving it to a more established Christian author, and that author---knowing the book's origins---gladly running with the idea (and ultimately using it to create a truly awful book published and heavily promoted by a huge Christian publisher who was only too happy to substitute it for my book, which they had been considering publishing, but were hesitant about since I wasn't a known author).
Christian publishers reading the manuscript, declaring that no Christian publisher would ever publish a book written in the voice of God (and also that it was, as one leading Christian publishing executive wrote to tell me, "sheer blasphemy" to suggest that God has a sense of humor)---and then rushing to print books by name-authors, written in the voice of God.
My learning just how true it is that publishers prefer an author with a recognizable name. (And also that many in the Christian publishing industry aren't, to say the least, exactly burdened by the sort of ethical constraints one would hope they would be---a lesson that I'm sad to say in the years between then and now has been too often reinforced.)
The book being picked up for representation by Deborah Schneider, of Gelfman Schneider, one of the most successful and respected "mainstream" literary agents in the world.
The heads of the largest American publishing houses all responding to the manuscript in the exact same way, which is, "We personally love this book, and would love to publish it. But we can't, because: A. We have no idea how to market to Christians, and B. We're afraid this book might anger Christians---and no publisher wants that kind of headache."
How I---the tireless and imminently honorable Deborah having done virtually all she could---ended up selling the book to its publisher (for more money than they'd ever paid for a book in their 100-plus year history).
How the newly-hired, Big Deal Christian Book Marketing woman who acquired my book for its publisher quit the publisher three weeks later. (Never good.)
How its publisher so mishandled the book (that was their lead title for its season) that ... well, for instance, when I received in the mail the large envelope from the publisher that was supposed to contain the book's pre-press publicity materials, what I found inside was actual garbage: expired coupons, balled up newspapers, broken CD covers, a smashed styrofoam cup, etc.
And that's just some of the stuff that I can tell you.
But the big news---the massively good and big news to me and my wife---is that, as of yesterday, I once again own the rights to this book! After literally years of trying to get it back, I finally own my book again! I now have in my garage the 1,500 remaining copies of Penguins, Pain and the Whole Shebang, and hold in my hands a contract that reverts all rights to Penguins from the publisher back to me.
Ahhhh. Feel the joy.
One day this book is going to make me a ridiculous amount of money. (Which is hardly why I wrote it; but there it is.) I know it like I know my name. And now I'm back in control of that.
First I brought back all rights and the remaining copies to I'm OK--You're Not, and now I've done the same with Penguins.
Oh, but yayeth.
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Email: johnshore@sbcglobal.net
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Thursday, January 28, 2010Heeeeeere's STINKY!
A couple of years ago a friend of mine showed me a stack of photocopied cartoons featuring a dog named Stinky (www.stinkydog.com), created and drawn by Samantha McCullough. I instantly fell in love with the image of Stinky. I was so enthused that I contacted Sam, and asked her if there was anything I could do to participate in the great fun that was clearly All Things Stinky.
She then read some of my stuff, and together we decided that it might be fun if I wrote some captions for her collection of Stinky doing ... oddball Stinky stuff. So she sent me maybe thirty of her best Stinky drawings, and for about a week I lost my mind. All I did was walk around the house trying to think of funny Stinky captions. I became obsessed to the point of actually walking into walls and putting my slippers on the wrong foot.
So I wrote the captions, and she did up a bunch of one-panels with them, and then ... then I'm not sure what happened. I think life happened. She's a busy mom, and had a Stinky store wherein she sold many Stinky T-shirts, hats, and coffee mugs, and just then I got involved with this four-book co-authoriship deal, and we just sort of never did anything with the cartoons.
This morning I was going through my files, and there were our old Stinky cartoons! So I emailed Samantha, asked her if I could run them on my blog, and she said of course.
So here's the first two! We have no idea if anyone but us will think these are funny, but if any of you
miscreantsguys do, I'll start running these every once in awhile.But don't you love this dog? (We keep on our bed a stuffed Stinky doll Sam once sent me. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.)
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Email: johnshore@sbcglobal.net
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010Conservative vs. Liberal Christianity: Which is Better?
I know a lot of Christians, and they're split pretty evenly between conservative and liberal.
I like the conservative Christians, mainly because they're so clear about what they believe. They know what the Bible says; they know who they are; they know what they're doing in life; boom---they're solid. The whole "backbone of America" thing is no joke; the strongest trees, after all, have the deepest roots. Not a lot of wafflers in the conservative camp. Plus, they're super dedicated. Conservative Christians don't wonder if they're in the mood; they go to church. They go to Bible study. They show up for the church functions. They actually do stuff. Conservative Christians also tend to be, in practice, extremely loving. Liberal Christians think conservative Christians are harshly judgmental, and sort of fundamentally (ha, ha) hardhearted. They think that if, in the middle of the night, a clearly gay guy showed up at the home of a Christian conservative in need of help, he'd summarily get a door slammed in his face. But he wouldn't. All the conservative Christians I've ever known are serious about putting God's love into practice. The fact that they're so sure of what they believe makes them more open to new thoughts, ideas, and experiences. If you're sure of who you are, you're a lot more open to discovering who others are. When things get rough, it's good to know a conservative.
On the other hand, conservative Christians can be too sure they're right about everything. It's too easy, when you're a conservative, to boil down what you believe into a really simple set of assertions, and to then never again question or allow those assertions to evolve (har, har). Then it just becomes about rules; then it's too easy to make everything about who is and isn't on the right side of right. When it comes to something as complex as God and history, it's too easy for "keeping it simple" to become "keeping it stupid"---which too easily becomes "keeping it mean-spirited." Conservatives have a troubling propensity for closing their minds.
I like liberal Christians because they're so generous with their love and respect. They're seriously focused on God's love, and they're not afraid to insist that anything that hinders that love must be suspect. They love Jesus; Jesus preached love; they're all about loving as Jesus did, period. Also, I like the way liberal Christians are so thoughtful. They listen. They reflect. They refine. They search. They question. They study. They understand that part of their job as Christians is to actively try to access the mind and heart of God, and they're disinclined to let anything interfere with that goal. They're not afraid to get inspired. They live with the confidence that God will never fault them for loving too much.
On the other hand, liberal Christians can waffle like IHOP on a Sunday morning. They too often fall prey to thinking that the emotions of their loving feelings is really all they need to guide them, with the result that they never feel a need to be clear on what they actually believe at all. Maybe Jesus was mainly a social activist. Maybe the cross is a metaphor. Maybe Jesus walking on water was an optical illusion. And so on, until they may as well be astrologers. Yet for all their comfortable ambiguity, liberal Christians can also be altogether too smug, too sure, too condescending toward those who take the Gospel as gospel. They tend to think they're smarter than they are. In the main, the problem with liberal Christians is that they can stay so busy remaining lofty and above it all that their rubber never hits the road. Many of them are better with compassion as a theory than a practice.
In the end, who cares? Everything's got its positive and negative aspects. All that matters, spiritually, is that each of us finds the place on the liberal-conservative spectrum where we're most comfortable. Each of us has to carve for ourselves our own niche, the one that's perfectly suited to us.
And from there all we have to do is live, love, pay attention, listen to God, and let him pull us ever closer to his divine and glorious reality.
Here's to the idea that we'll all eventually end up in exactly the same place.
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Email: johnshore@sbcglobal.net
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Sunday, January 24, 2010My New Age Translation of the Lord's Prayer
After yesterday's The Church of Evolutionary Karmic Auras--and More!, I tried to imagine what prayers in a New Age church might sound like. So then I figured maybe like this:Our genderless spirit counselor,
who art in everything,
honored be thy many names.
Thy new age come,
thy will be manifested,
on this and all cosmic planes.
Break with us our daily gluten-free unleavened bread,
and forgive us our bad karma, as we forgive those who project their bad karma onto us.
Lead us not into negative vibrations,
but deliver us from organized religion.
For ours is the coming cosmic unity, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.
Namaste.Connected post: yesterday's The Church of Evolutionary Karmic Auras--and More!
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Email: johnshore@sbcglobal.net
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Saturday, January 23, 2010Spaghetti Sauce, Disgusting Jokes, Love
I'm sitting on the other side of the table. But that's our kitchen.
As I write this, my wife is in the kitchen making spaghetti sauce.
I just said to her, "Are you feeling saucy?" In response she gave me that look she gives me when she wants to help me understand the wearying depth of her burden.
Anyway, spaghetti sauce! I thought I was going to tell you how we make ours, but how boring would that be? Who doesn't know how to make spaghetti sauce? A few cans of tomato puree, some bell peppers and mushrooms, two or three cups of steamed Brussels sprouts ... and you're ready to eat!
We put wine in ours. Or we would have, this time, if my wife hadn't naively left the bottle here on the table right next to me.
But it's cool; in about a half hour, I'll just vomit into the sauce.
No, but for real: it's an exceptionally sweet pleasure for me to be sitting here at our dining room table on a Saturday evening watching my wife cook. She never gets to; for the past 25 years I, alas (what with the stay-at-home-writing thing I do) have been our cook. But of the two of us, she's by far the more natural (and naturally gifted) cook.
Plus, this moment's all ... old school style. I practically feel like busing out a pipe, having a martini, and real quick buying a dog that I could immediately train to bring me my slippers.
I mean, she's in the kitchen, cooking, and wearing an apron.
It's like she died and went to heaven. And took me with her.
Which I suppose will one day be about what happens, either way.
But before then, the whole Domesticity thing we've been doing for so long now pretty wholly works.
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Email: johnshore@sbcglobal.net
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