Hey! I’ve Published a
Book …
And You Can Have Your
Very Own Copy
I know what you’re saying
– “Tell me more, Art.” Well, it’s entitled Explanations & Alibis and
it’s a potpourri of short pieces – “Outtakes, short takes, stories & essays
(and movie reviews!) culled from a lifetime in the journalism racket.” A
couple—three, four of them—have appeared in other places, but you haven’t read
them, the rest of them is stuff emptied out of the notebooks I’ve been filling
up for decades.
Let’s do the specifics (because I’ve been asked to). We
have 15 separate “chapters” covering reporting, recollections & ruminations
about… our current political battlelines; the history of the LA’s Laurel Canyon
music scene; the tragic death of Robin Williams; casting “Hamlet”; ringside for
the Klitscho-Jennngs heavyweight-title fight; every movie Hollywood ever made
about Mars (the planet); “Alice Cooper Meets the Press”; “My Trip to Boston” (a
short story; fiction); “Every Stinking
Movie I Ever Saw in Vietnam”; ruminations on Fascism; a natural history
of the cockroach; and “Notes from Rehab”
(mine, yes, but what you can expect should it happen to be yours).
None of that float your boat? Buy copies for all the people
you don’t like. Birthday presents.
It’s available from Amazon (what isn’t?) and you can – and should
– have your very own copy. Go on the computer; go to amazon.com; and in the
search field type Arthur Durbano … zap! You’re right on the page. Fill in the
prompts, and Jeff Bezos will send you a
copy. $10.95. Cheaper than a Napoletano Brothers Italian hoagie! And lasts
longer! And once you’ve read it twice, you can regift it!
Now here’s the interesting part. If you’re reading this, it’s
because you know me. (Or vaguely remember me.) If you’re not family (or an
ex-in-law), you’re among our tribe of former or still-in-there-swinging or at
least still aspiring ink-stained wretches genetically hard-wired to write and
morally driven to reward a usually uncaring world with the undeserved pleasure of
reading the stuff we’ve labored so long to reward you with.
The problem has always been getting someone to publish it.
I don’t know anyone at Scribners. I don’t know anyonea at
Random House (a division of Penguin Random House LLC New York) either. And this
won’t surprise you, I don’t know any literary agents either. But in looking for
them I have become acquainted with any number of bunco artists who will be
delighted to make my great American novels “publishable” in exchange for a
generous fee.
You talk on the phone with even one of these people and presto-chango!
you are on a list.
The last guy who called me (from a phone number on the Eastern
Shore of Maryland) promised to get a book of mine in print for a mere $200.
He called like three or four times (I thought of our old TV GUIDE
joke: “If you’re talking to me, your career must really be in trouble…”) and
then he let slip the word “Kindle.”
WTF!!! I know what that is. They publish it. You do All
the Other Stuff. And suddenly, you know what? I’m all in. I’ll try it.
Now over the years, I have written four novels,
contemporary fiction/romantic comedy. One of them is set entirely in Vietnam (For
Your Consideration: Timothée Chalamet runs the US Army Information Office in
Qui Nhon!) … My last one is about a movie critic consigned to making the best
out of being stuck in a nursing home. It’s all gold dust. Nobody is enthused:
“You want an advance?!” All right, I’ll give Kindle a shot, but fuck
paying Mr. Eastern Shore 200 anythings. I’ll do it myself.,
Ah, but I’m not giving away the gold dust to Amazon. (Not just
yet.) I’ll cook up something—which I already have! Twenty years; thirty years; more
of stuff in my notebooks. Stuff originally in the various novels that works by
itself … stuff that just piqued my interest and I just wrote it down … stuff
that might have gone into another book I’ll never get around to writing. I
mean, I tried my best to make Explanations stand on its own.
“Notes from Rehab” (all true; no stretchers) is probably
the best thing in it. (Maybe it should have led off instead of hitting in the 9
hole). I like the Laurel Canyon piece (and the way Alice Cooper keeps showing
up in this book). Klitscho-Jennings is blow-by-blow accurate. And Bryant
Jennings is still active, with a career record of 27-4 (15 KOs). His next fight
is next month! Anyway, the book is just meant to entertain . . . Oh, and as for
that joke, if you don’t like the book, “your money will be grudgingly refunded”?
That ain’t going to happen.
