Making the Clackity Noise

Buffering [Sonny Payne]

When I was a percussionist in high school, we were responsible for keeping the jazz band, full orchestra, concert band, and marching band in time, and we did so through a haze of marijuana and hormones and passed-down stories of some guy’s uncle who saw Gene Krupa perform a 12-minute solo using every part of a high hat while eschewing the rest of the kit. And to this day, when I see videos like this, I get an urge to skip class and go make out with a bassoonist in a sound-proof practice room. After all, life is short, and lunch period is even shorter.

Did you read that? That was swell. One hundred five words. Less than half a page.

That’s all it took for this person (whom I’m pretty sure I’ve never met) to make my day. Now I want to follow this person or star this person or favr this person or whatever the fuck au courant verb box I need to mash on in order to see more things like that.

Yes, I realize I am — already, again, seemingly forever — carrying on like that weird relative who always smells of gin and Starlight mints as he threatens to “set you up with a sweet Doobie Brothers mix.” I love Starlight mints, but please don’t misunderstand me.

I genuinely enjoy looking at oversaturated pictures of coltish women I’ll never meet. I’m always game to make fun of “improperly” punctuated “signs.” And God knows I love reading (and posting) elliptical quotes from famous books I never finished reading. Stipulated.

But, brother. Do I ever wish more people would write little stories like Buffering’s. It’s just so wonderful. You know?

I mean, Jesus Christ, people, LOOK. We have keyboards! Literally right in front of us. Right this second.

You have one, too, right? See it? Really look. No, look down. Down there. No, not that. That’s your enormous energy drink. No, not that either. That’s your ironic Garfield lamp.

Okay, here: Remember last week when your phone battery croaked, but you were frantic to tell something called a Facebook wall that you were “yeah still po0opn lots since teh yuck tacoz rofl bt OTOh fuck yeah top up my side salad for xtra dollar bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Remember that? Okay, good. That. That was the keyboard that you were using then. It’s the keyboard that helped make the Facebook wall get your words on it. That was the clackity noise. That was the keyboard.

Please use that keyboard to talk about your life sometimes.

Your real life. Not just the canned version of life on which we slap adhesive labels like happy or sad, poor or rich, employed or unemployed, “eating lunch” or “hatin’ life”, “it’s complicated” or “serial entrepreneur,” “meh” or “whatever.”

Tear off your fucking labels.

Tell me something that happened. Use the names of people you’d forgotten about, and say what you’d thought would happen but didn’t. Write down what part of the song was playing when you slammed the door only to realize you had to go back inside for your car keys. Can you remember when you were still little enough to hide under the kitchen sink where it smelled like ammonia and Comet and old sponges? What was the color of the clunky old car your Dad would let you help steer. What brand did he smoke?

My Dad smoked Winstons, from a red and gold pack that never seemed to empty. Lots and lots of Winstons. And, I loved when my Dad would let me help steer the vomit-green Pontiac with the plastic seats down the maniac curves of Boomer Road. I’d sit on his lap in this giant, ridiculous automobile, with cigarette smoke swirling around our heads and out the cracked window, listening to a Reds game on WLW, laughing and steering.

My Dad had the same name as me and he never should have smoked as much as he did. And, I swear to God, thirty-five years later, I can still see his big hands on the wheel, and still smell those Winstons, and still hear Joe Nuxhall’s call, as Pete Rose stretches another double into an impossible head-first triple, and as I type this, I’m just remembering that whenever we were pulling out of my Grandparents’ driveway, my Dad would always flip the vomit-green Pontiac’s lights on and off three times. Blink. Blink. Blink.

That’s how we said goodbye.

Man.

Okay, so, that’s what was in my keyboard just now. I didn’t know it was in there when I sat down to compliment Buffering on his 105 words that made me think about how I love little stories. This is why writing is fucked up and awesome and makes a 42-year-old man cry about cigarettes and Pete Rose and an ugly green car on a perfectly temperate Sunday afternoon.

Your keyboard will have different things in it than mine does, of course. But, it’s impossible to know what’s in there until you’ve made the clackity noise for a few minutes. You think you know what’s in there. But you don’t. It’s not your brain that makes the clackity noise, it’s your fingers.

Your brain helps you to breathe and to buy beer and to pretend to understand Kant and to use Spanish to ask the hot waitress for “mas salsa,” and, thank God, your brain is a boon companion at helping you avoid deadly attacks by bears, monsters, and SEO marketers.

But, your brain’s a piece-of-shit writer. I know this, because mine is too. So, let me assure you that there’s no point in waiting for your brain to start making the clackity noise for you. It can’t. That’s all on you, and on me, and on each of our extant fingers.

Weird thing is I still have to relearn this every single day. Hand to God. The only way I can tell I’m relearning this is I notice that the keyboard has been making the clackity noise for several contiguous minutes. I see that words have started to come out and sometimes they’re good and almost always they’re not and increasingly I’m not all that worried about it either way.

I’ve learned that my job is to just sit down and start making the clackity noise. If I make the clackity noise long enough every day, the “writing” seems to take care of itself. On the other hand, if there’s no clackity noise, no writing. No little stories. The stories may be in there, alongside God knows what else, but there’s no way to know. You must make the noise.

You can totally do this. I know you know that. I mean to say, I know you know you know that you own a fucking keyboard and understand how to use it.

But, you do need to be reminded of what that keyboard can help you make. I need to be reminded. Everybody needs to be reminded. Just because we know it doesn’t mean we’re actually making the clackity noise happen. Far from it.

Maybe just try it. You don’t even have to show anyone. Make the clackity noise until a little story falls out. Just a little bit and just for a little while. Just until you notice one tiny, dumb, pointless story that the keyboard wanted you to remember.

Today, the clackity noise helped me remember my Dad. I wonder who’s in your keyboard and what brand he’s smoking.

Anyhow. Thanks, Buffering.

I was also in band, I enjoyed pot, and I still think Gene Krupa is the tits.

Yep. Little stories are the internet’s native and ideal art form.

Apart from the coltish women, the email from old friends, and the low-bit WAV files of Dr. Who quotes, I think it was the little stories that got me most excited about hearing that modem start to hiss. It’s definitely what keeps me excited today.

Little dumb stories that I never expected.

[Pontiac photo from the insanely fun OldCarBrocures.com. 1984 Band photo from my insanely depressing high school years]

Mystery Writers of America is proud to announce on the 201st anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, its Nominees for the 2010 Edgar Allan Poe Awards, honoring the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television published or produced in 2009. The Edgar® Awards will be presented to thewinners at our 64th Gala Banquet, April 29, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City.

BEST NOVEL
The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (Random House – Alfred A. Knopf)
The Odds by Kathleen George (Minotaur Books)
The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books)
Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston (Random House – Ballantine Books)
Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett (HarperCollins)
A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano (Grand Central Publishing)
Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley (Simon & Schuster – Touchstone)
The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (MIRA Books)
A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books)
Black Water Rising by Attica Locke (HarperCollins)
In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur Books)

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)
Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano (Akashic Books)
The Lord God Bird by Russell Hill (Pleasure Boat Studio – Caravel Books)
Body Blows by Marc Strange (Dundurn Press – Castle Street Mysteries)
The Herring-Seller’s Apprentice by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)

BEST FACT CRIME
Columbine by Dave Cullen (Hachette Book Group – Twelve)
Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde by Jeff Guinn (Simon & Schuster)
The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston’s Racial Divide by Dick Lehr (HarperCollins)
Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo (The Penguin Press)
Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti (Random House – Alfred A. Knopf)

BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James (Random House – Alfred A. Knopf)
The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler (Hachette Book Group – Little, Brown and Company)
Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King by Lisa Rogak (Thomas Dunne Books)
The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press)
The Stephen King Illustrated Companion by Bev Vincent (Fall River Press)

BEST SHORT STORY
“Last Fair Deal Gone Down” – Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins (Busted Flush Press)
“Femme Sole” – Boston Noir by Dana Cameron (Akashic Books)
“Digby, Attorney at Law” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Jim Fusilli (Dell Magazines)
“Animal Rescue” – Boston Noir by Dennis Lehane (Akashic Books
“Amapola” – Phoenix Noir by Luis Alberto Urrea (Akashic Books)

BEST JUVENILE
The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity by Mac Barnett (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Beil (Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf)
Closed for the Season by Mary Downing Hahn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books)
Creepy Crawly Crime by Aaron Reynolds (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers)
The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer (Penguin Young Readers Group – Philomel Books)

BEST YOUNG ADULT
Reality Check by Peter Abrahams (HarperCollins Children’s Books – HarperTeen)
If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)
The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford (Penguin Young Readers Group – Viking Children’s Books)
Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone by Dene Low (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s Books)
Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)

BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
“Place of Execution,” Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (PBS/WGBH Boston)
“Strike Three” – The Closer, Teleplay by Steven Kane (Warner Bros TV for TNT)
“Look What He Dug Up This Time” – Damages, Teleplay by Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler &
Daniel Zelman (FX Networks)
“Grilled” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by George Mastras (AMC/Sony)
“Living the Dream” – Dexter, Teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)

ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“A Dreadful Day” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Dan Warthman (Dell Magazines)

GRAND MASTER
Dorothy Gilman

RAVEN AWARDS
Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmont, Pennsylvania
Zev Buffman, International Mystery Writers’ Festival

ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
Poisoned Pen Press (Barbara Peters & Robert Rosenwald)

THE SIMON & SCHUSTER – MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
Awakening by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books)
Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof by Blaize Clement (Minotaur Books)
Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron (HarperCollins – William Morrow)
Lethal Vintage by Nadia Gordon (Chronicle Books)
Dial H for Hitchcock by Susan Kandel (HarperCollins)

January 19, 2010

Robert B. Parker is Dead

At the age of 77, “just sitting at his desk” at his home in the Boston area, according to his U.K. publisher Quercus, Robert B. Parker is dead. I’m really not sure how to process this. Not at all. I suppose it’s exactly the way the author best known for his Spenser private detective novels, who by the latter portion of his career was up to publishing three novels a year, working at a five to ten page-a-day clip, should die – doing exactly what he was doing, day in, day out.

He is survived by his wife, Joan, and his sons, David, a choreographer, and Daniel, an actor. Several more novels will be published in 2010, including SPLIT IMAGE, the newest Jesse Stone novel (out February 23) and BLUE-EYED DEVIL, an Appaloosa novel (out on May 4). Much, much more soon, and something tells me a whole lot of tributes will be rolling in over the next day or two. In the meantime, some choice tributes and links:

• Bullets & Beer – the in-depth RBP site
• Robert B. Parker’s blog, last updated in May
• The Thrilling Detective on all of RBP’s P.I. novels
• Don Swaim interviews RBP in 1984 and 1986
• Mystery Ink’s RBP Tribute, in honor of his Gumshoe Award for Lifetime Achievement
• Bill Crider on “a writer I’ve followed faithfully since the appearance of his very first book.”
• Laura Ann Gilman, who used to work at Putnam, which was Parker’s longtime American publisher