Report to the Southern front July 4, 1985

  

Happy Independence Day.

I went to the eye doctor yesterday and came away with prescription for eye glasses. It seems my excessive use of my computer (as a typewriter) has caused me to lose my vision for distance.

Curse progress.

But on the other hand, the computer is a blessing – no more carbon paper, or trips to the library copy machine, I can print out all the copies of stuff I want. And once I put together another hundred and fifty dollars, I’ll be able to design our zine on it.

Some good news on that front, too. A local left wing radio station in New York City spent two hours talking about how good our zine was, bringing even more suckers into our little realm.

I just talked with my uncle Harold. He seems to be doing better in his little man cave in the mountains above Greenwood Lake. He turned out to be something of a hermit. But then all that side of my family have something odd about them.

Meanwhile, I’ve registered for college, bound and determined to get my degree. Although the real reason is to have access to their printing equipment. The zine needs to go out, especially now that we’re making a break through into interesting circles. I figure if we just keep pumping them out, sooner or later people will come to accept us.

Our next issue is due to come out on July 8, a vaguely Alice and Wonderland theme. Two of the stories are as high brow as some of the stories were in the past. When you get it, read “Street Eyes” first. It might shock you.

Enough of me. How are things down there on the Southern plantation? What’s up with you and school, your brothers, life in general?

From what I can gather from your letters, you seem pretty up. If so, stay that way, and write me more. And look out for me, your northern writer cousin. I might pop in on you some day.

 

Stay Sane

Al Sullivan

 

 1985 menu


email to Al Sullivan

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An old nemesis December 11, 1985

Image
    Surisky hated me from early on in grammar school, although “hate” may be too strong a word to describe his reaction to me. I was simply available to him for abuse, Third grade was pivotal for both of us. Prior to that, we were simply feeling our way through Catholic School routine, emerging eventually as whole personalities from the muck of early childhood. He came across as a thug, trying to convey the image of a tough guy. He wore a leather jacket and spiked boots, and snuck into see James Dean movies. Third grade was tough on everybody, including the teachers, who considered us the worst class in the history of the school – even in the safe grades of Kindergarten, First and Second. Two of the three nuns retired after passing us on. But it was in the third grade that we began to work our magic, driving even the stout-hearted nuns crazy. Later, the nuns tried to break our spirit. But we fully represented our age and had the full impact of the 1960s behin...
Read more

The clock is ticking July 18, 1985

Image
  We’re talking love here – silly fictional love with all the connotations of disaster. I seem to be on the meat chopping block with Safire looking for qualities in me that are lacking in her husband. The fact that there is a husband in the first place greatly disturbs me. All this said, I’m uncertain as to why I haven’t ended this already, except to know she is too much like my ex-wife to pass up without a closer examination. Even the way she thinks: slow, methodical, going from point A to point B. It has only been a week since she blurted out drunk that she wanted me in bed. It seems like much longer. And she hints of something more permanent, suggesting that I might fill in for her husband for a much longer duration. The night before last she suggested I come see her in her trailer, as if she is legally separated from her husband, when in fact she is supposed to be biding time until he finds them both a place to live in Baltimore. This is the same kind of smoke and...
Read more

Pauly leaves Passaic for the final time July 24, 1985

Image
    Pauly is leaving Passaic again. This comes after two years of us rubbing shoulders after he had been cast out of paradise in Towaco, after his goddess, Jane, went and married that man Pauly calls “a bum.” This has been a tough two years, filled with Pauly’s typical manipulation, his usual shaping of reality to his own needs often at other people’s (mine) expense. When Pauly first came I had Fran’s cultist brother as a temporary guest and Pauly spent most of his time trying to push me into getting that guest out. A few months later – in November – Fran got the ax from her ex and changed her mind about moving in with me after I had committed the spare room to Pauly. He assumed she meant more to me than he did and was already packing when I told Fran no. She had no place to go except for her father’s house, a father she had a love/hate relationship with, and she held it against me, even though we continued to see each other romantically. Pauly being Pauly drove ...
Read more