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Ginny Good, A Mostly True Story:

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2005

December 13, 2005

Anyone who does anything for money doesn't do anything at all. I just made that up. I might have been channeling Kenny Rogers but that don't make it any less true. Ha! I've also finally stuck up the complete Audio Book of Ginny Good. Here's what I just said to some prissy person who was curious about my "accomplishments" at Cinematical:

"Ah, my children...I'm 63, yes indeed, and what I've accomplished is 1) I'm the best writer alive and 2) I've made one of the coolest works of art ever made. Check it out. Click this:

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/ggcha.html

I accomplished both those things all on my own, without any money or any education or any grants or any publicity or any help from anyone, and I give everything I do away for free. When any of your precious studio execs accomplish anything approaching either of those two things, let me know. I'm doing 'em a favor. Whoever makes a movie out of any of my books is gonna make the best movie he or she or they or it ever made. I don't need them, they need me."

The Audio Book of Ginny Good is very simply one of the greatest literary achievements of all time. I know you'll have to wait for some so-called critic to tell you that, due to you being so brainwashed from birth and all, but darlin' I'm telling you now. Go listen to it and see for yourself. The chapter numbers are linked to audio files. Download them. Listen to them. Enjoy them. Be entertained and edified and illuminated. Copy the whole fifteen hour extravaganza onto a CD...or just a chapter or two, anything you want. Give copies of the CD to people as Christmas presents. Print out the index as liner notes if you want to do it up right.

Oh, and to answer the questions about why I don't take people's e-mail addresses down when they ask me to, call it a policy. People are who they are, they do what they do and I ferreted them out fair and square...res ipsa loquitur, I always say. Everyone's got a no submissions policy. Big whoop. There are exceptions to every rule ever made. I stick people on my little list primarily to keep a record of the thousands of agents, lawyers, managers, producers and studio guys who dissed the best book that's been published in decades, a book that's eventually going to make one of the best movies ever made. It gives me great personal satisfaction and it will give posterity a little insight into how closed-minded and unimaginative movie guys were back at the turn of the century. Who knows, if they look wrong enough long enough, maybe their stupid policies will someday change...but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.

December 2, 2005

Here's some feedback form the Variety article:

Dear Mr. Jones: I presume you know that the main reason companies (like us) do not accept unsolicited material is simply because we otherwise run the risk of someone down the line suing us, claiming the idea for a movie we just made was contained in a script they sent to us 5 years ago. There are a lot of scripts out there that have similar themes and, often, the exact same subject matter, especially with regard to historical or contemporary figures. Not only can we not categorize them all by every possible criteria that might be duplicable, but even if we could, why would we want to negate the opportunity to produce one fabulous script about a subject simply because sometime in the distant past we got a script about the same subject matter....possibly a far inferior script? That is why we and most other production companies do not accept unsolicited material. If you already knew this, then my apologies for wasting your time. If you didn't know this (and you don't mention it in the opening to your list of contacts), then I hope this was enlightening. I wish the above were not necessary. I, personally, would love to be able to accept and read all of these wonderful scripts floating around by unrepresented writers who are trying to break into a business that is a bitch and a half to break into, but the realities of our litigious society makes it so. Rail at the lawyers, not at the production companies. Regards. Yes, I'm aware of the argument and don't fault anyone for buying into it but I don't. The burden of proof for plagiarism is pretty high and as long as studios produce only what they get spoon-fed by agents who only give a rat's ass about making money and making money only the only thing anyone's ever gonna get to go see at the movies is mind-numbing, brainwashed, money-grubbing schlock. Things change. People like me come along and help change them. That getting sued stuff is a crock. Studios would do well to rid themeslves of the stale, incestuous relationships they have with agents, read some real books or some real scripts themselves (that's what interns are for, to weed out the crap from the decent stuff), and make a real movie or two for a change. You can be the first. Go listen to my free fifteen hour audio book: http://everyonewhosanyone.com/ggcha.html

November 24, 2005

A week or so ago I stuck up the audio version of the greatest single chapter in all literature. Here it is in print:

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/ggsyn19.html

It lasts about as long as an episode of Desperate Housewives—without the commercials that rot your brains and keep you dancing on the strings your owners keep you dancing on. People get what they deserve. Most deserve to be slaves. They are. Even their owners are slaves. They deserve to be. I deserve to be the best writer alive. I am. Ha!

November 8, 2005

Okay, I've been having a bit of a contretemps with some VP, Litigation Counsel chick over at NBC Universal, an almost wholly-owned subsidiary of General Electric (an $800 billion company, ranked #2 on the Forbes list). She's trying to shut my whole website down, around a gigabyte of stuff...three years work, three novels, fourteen hours of audio and close to two thousand pages if it were in a book, all of which I'm giving away for free, don't advertise, no pop-ups, no registration, etc...and all because someone at Universal Studios got an e-mail or two he or she didn't want to get (and not necessarily even based on the information litsed on my site since their e-mail addresses are fairly easy to find on Google...sheesh).

The whole saga will give you a pretty good idea why there's been no decent writing published, produced or promoted in the English-speaking world in the last twenty years. There are plenty of good writers but they're never published or produced or promoted because, number one, they have something to say (which is what makes them good writers) and number two, what they have to say is anathema to the Nazi propaganda machine that keeps the culture of greed, slaughter, slavery, starvation and money-grubbing, ghoulish excess chugging along.

There are therefore no decent agents, editors, publishers or movie guys in the English-speaking world 'cause anyone worth his or her salt wouldn't have anything to do with the horsepiss that "sells." If you've had a book published or a movie produced in the last twenty years, you suck as a writer...Philip Roth, E. L. Doctorow, Grisham, Dan Brown, King, Albom, Almond, Irving, Tartt, that frou-frou Eggers guy, T. C. Boyle, the Franzen fellow who dissed Oprah—oh, my gosh, how brave, how defiant—Joan Didion crying herself another river, poor Bob Dylan cashing in on who he used to be, Anne Rice "imagining" what it must have been like to be Jesus when he was a kid...in Egypt, no less...Holy Christ, etc., etc., they all suck as writers (not to mention the self-help dweebs, political fear-mongers, genre geeks, fantasy fops and revisionist history hacks who clutter up "bestseller" lists from Tupelo to Timbuktu who suck even worse if you can imagine such a thing), but guys like Charlie Rose and Michiko and that Yardley goon go gaga over that garbage and so therefore do "readers" and "moviegoers." Sorry, boys and girls, but facts is facts. Most of them are smart enough to know what chicken schlubs they are, too. Oh, well.

There are also, therefore, no decent readers. If all you're allowed to read or see at the movies (and all that ever gets hyped by the money-grubbing, Nazi propaganda machine) is the preposterous pap churned out and promoted by the pantywaist publishing industry, the schlock movie business and the pusillanimous press, you're gonna think that puke is worth reading or seeing at the movies. It's snot. Ha! It's what turns brave, free Americans into slaves and brainless sycophants; it's what keeps them in line, what makes sure they stay the good little Germans their Nazi "betters" need them to be.

If you want to hear what decent writing sounds like, listen to these .mp3s of Ginny Good, the best audio book ever made—each chapter of which is more enlightening, edifying, instructive AND entertianing than ALL the bogus bolshevik churned out by the so-called "entertainment" industry in the last twenty years...a few trillion dollars and all you've got to show for it is Nazi propaganda. Yikes. They're free. Download 'em. Put 'em onto CDs. Play 'em on your iPods.

Of course nobody's ever gonna listen to ANY of these chapters 'cause none of the money-grubbing gefilte fish and giddy twits who run the Nazi propaganda industry can figure out a way to make himself or herself a nickel or two hyping free stuff...and people only pay attention to what they get hyped into paying attention to by the money-grubbing Nazi propaganda industry...like the good little Germans their betters need them to be. Slavery? Senseless slaughter? Rape? Murder? Starvation? Genocide? Nah, we don't go in for that sort of thing. We like liberty. We tell the truth. We're free. We're brave. Our Nazi betters tell us so. Bill Gates has twice as much money as all 26 million people in Afghanistan put together. That's the way it should be. One American is worth 52 million towelheads any day, right? We count on our Nazi betters to tell us what's best for us. We believe them. We listen. We mind our Ps and Qs. They're the professionals. You wanna build concentration camps? You wanna demonize a billion Muslims so you can kill 'em with impunity? Knock yourself out. We look away from what our Nazi betters don't want us to see; we deny what our Nazi betters don't want us to admit. They wouldn't lead us astray for mere money, would they? Nah. Mark Twain wouldn't let 'em. Wait. He's dead. Uh-oh.

October 4, 2005

Okay, I just finished Chapter Thirty-Two. Holy shit, is it ever good. Now I gotta go stick up the new chapter and brag about how cool I am some more. People say I do hyperbole. I say hyperbole, my ass; I'm a master of understatement. I can't help it if the audio book of Ginny Good is the Sistine Chapel of the 21st Century, the Taj Mahal of today. There's not a single chapter in the whole thing that doesn't kick the total crap out of any book or movie made anywhere in the world in the last twenty years. Big whoop. That's just telling the unvarnished truth. Ha! Believe It Or Not!

Most people wouldn't know the unvarnished truth if it bit 'em on the ass, however. Most people are utterly brainwashed by the pipsqueaks who sell the putrid puke that passes for books and movies these days, completely brainwashed into thinking the putrid puke they buy is good and good stuff is crappy 'cause there's all kinds of putrid crap to sell and precious little good stuff. Oh, well. I'll just keep on making good stuff and let God sort it out.

September 26, 2005

People suck. Americans, mostly. It's not their fault. It's a chicken and egg thing. If all you ever know is that money is the only thing of any value, all you're ever going to be is a money-grubbing goon. I'm sick of dicking with the dweebs who don't know that the love of money really is the root of all evil. How can anyone not know that? Well, when there's no free speech and no free press they can't know it, is the short answer. "Shut up, slave, you're free. Trust me."

If you want to see some other things that have been going on during the three years my website's been poking a little good-natured fun at agents, editors, publishers, book critics, movie guys and sundry other purveyors of the gross, tasteless, useless, worthless, mind-numbingly dull, destructive schlock that has passed itself off as literature or "art" so far this century, keep reading.

Why these morons get huffy with me for putting their stupid names on my innocent little list makes no sense. They're allegedly in the business of finding stuff worth publishing, promoting and making movies out of, right? Ha! That's a big lie. They're exclusively in the business of peddling the putrid, preposterous puke they've brainwashed the poor public into thinking is worth buying. Wake up, people. Quit buying the junk you get conned into spending your hard-earned money on. It's junk. Spending money on it is how you stay a slave. Ack. Never mind. People suck. Americans, mostly. It's not their fault. It's a chicken and egg thing. If all you ever hear is that money is the only thing of any value all you're ever going to be is a money-grubbing slave.

I'm glad the media twits and Pulitzer pansies and Oscar goons and Emmy geeks and Foundation frat boys who promote the garbage they call books and movies and "entertainment" these days haven't paid any attention to my stuff 'cause my stuff just keeps getting better and better and the garbage they promote just keeps getting worse and worse. Their children will be proud: "My daddy promoted preposterous puke his whole life, died a stupid slave and left me a trust fund so I can promote preposterous puke and die a stupid slave, too."

What a country. Let's spread it around the world so North Koreans and Iranians and Jordanians and Saudis can have the chance to spend lots of money on useless junk and die stupid slaves like "brave, free" Americans.

September 7, 2005

Wow. I just got done making the best single chapter of any audio book ever made. It's also the best single chapter of any book ever written going clear back to before Gutenberg was born. Listen to it and see. It's free. That's why it's so good. I don't have to pander to the dimwits, giggly twits and money-grubbing goons who publish, produce and promote the putrid puke they call books and movies these days:

http://everyonewhosanyone.com/ggsyn19.html

It's pretty cool having made the most gorgeous, funniest, saddest, most important, edifying, instructive, enlightening, entertaining work of lasting literature and cathartic art made anywhere in the world so far this century. I must be proud. I am. Ginny Good is The Great American Novel and it ain't even fiction.

I'm aware that most of you have been brainwashed into believing that the insipid hogwash and mindless twaddle your owners have you addicted to is the only stuff that matters 'cause it makes them money. Ha! What fools these mortals be. So, unless you want to hear something worth listening to for a change or read something worth reading for a change, don't listen to the audio book of Ginny Good and don't read the real book of Ginny Good! You'll be corrupted forever. You'll go immediately to hell.

Some people think I'm nuts. I'm not. I have proof. I'm certifiably more sane than most. Some smart guy over in England who calls himself Grumpy Old Bookman says Ginny Good is a work of art; check it out: Gerard Jones: Ginny Good. And that, furthermore: "Gerard Jones is not a crackpot. He is saner than most of us. And he is a really talented writer. He is a great success, in the sense that, in this memoir, he has accomplished exactly what he set out to do. And if you and I could write half as well as Gerard we would have cause to feel pretty pleased with ourselves." Ha! How 'bout them apples, Michiko and Yardley and Tanenhaus and Kipen and the rest of you sniveling book critic twerps? Of course, according to the poor, useless saps in the entertainment and media industries, anyone who thinks I'm not nuts has gotta be nuts himself or herself. Anyone who doesn't love money to the exclusion of all other things has got to be completely crazy, right? Oh, yeah.

"If the book is good, is about something you know, and is truly written, and reading it over you see that this is so, you can let the boys yip and the noise will have that pleasant sound coyotes make on a very cold night when they are out in the snow and you are in your cabin."

If you want to see the ONLY sort of semi "real" review Ginny Good got, click these links: January Magazine and Best of 2004. It got some kind of Independent Publisher Award for Best Memoir/Autobiography of 2004, too, and if you want to read a bunch of reviews by actual people who read the thing, click this: Ginny Good Reviews. I like the ones who talk about how it made 'em laugh and cry at the same time.

If you want to see an e-mail I'm still in the middle of sending out to around 11,000 of the highest paid media, movie and publishing people just to prove yet again how utterly worthless and destructive they are, click this: About This Directory. If you want to see a sample page of the next edition of EWA which is gonna include a section called "Propagandaville," around 5,000 press and media boys and girls who see to it you stay down in the holes they're in, to go along with the 6,000 entertainment industry goombahs who see to it that nothing worth seeing or hearing or reading or writing ever gets seen, heard, read or written. G.

June 4, 2005

Here's the most recent of about a billion little chats I've had with "writers" over the years, the poor struggling buggers:

Thank you for this web site. I have mailed out about 30 inquiries, most based on your lists. I have received a few decent "no thank you" responses, but most have not even bothered to send my post paid envelope back. Why is it that the end users and real authorities can see my ability, but the lit. agents can't?

Lit agents ask one thing and one thing only: Will this book make me money? What lit agents think will make money has nothing to do with ability or skill. I ask one thing: Do I tell the truth as best I know it? I'd way rather be right than rich. Thanks. G.

Gerard, Thanks for the simple answer on what turns on a Lit agent: MONEY! Ok, lets say I am the worst writer in the world. What is it about what I write that makes the agents choose or desire my work? Or, what is it that sells? I'm not selling out. I can write good material for friends and relatives. I can even write for humanity, however if I am not lauded somewhere, at sometime, for something, my work will simply be considered not relevant. So get the sales first, then I will have the status to write what is cultural, and of classic style. So what sells? Please don't tell me cheap detective novels, or sub-pornographic e-mail sex! I won't go there.

What sells is the lies people tell themselves to keep from knowing the ruthless truth. Hey, that's a pome. Sort of. G.

May 25, 2005

Gerard, though you have never heard of me, I thought I would write and say hello. See, I was trying to get my pathetically autobiographical novels published when I came across your directory. Bravo. I liked the smartass straight-talk you dished out, and it impelled me to buy Ginny Good. Just finished it last night, in fact, and it is one of the best contemporary works I have read in about a decade. The last chapter was especially poignant...even in a book full of poignancies. Best to you and yours.

Cool, and you're right, it's a good book but nobody's ever gonna know that 'cause nobody's ever gonna read the sucker 'cause it didn't get the expensive hype big publishers buy for the drivel they publish...like reviews in the NY Times (or anywhere else, for that matter) and Pulitzers and National Book Awards and the rest of the meaningless, mindless, money-grubbing claptrap and crap the "free" press sells. Go to Amazon and say it's a slick book to make up for some of the dickweeds who didn't read it but said it sucked 'cause they're mean and thoughtless and envious and narrow-minded and brainwashed and wanna stay that way. Thanks. G.

Hey, GG just won some kind of IPPY Award as the best autobiography/memoir published anywhere in the world in 2004. It's about time. Them Pulitzer goons and National Book Award dweebs and all the rest of the mindless, money-grubbing book award people and mindless, money-grubbing book review boys and girls (except for Linda Richards at January Magazine) don't know their asses from holes in the ground...and you can tell 'em I said so, too. Ha!

"...Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever! For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me..."

Job says that when he gets bummed out. If you wanna see what I say when I get bummed out, go read all the other stuff in this whole humongo website.Thanks. G.

Gerard Jones
everyone@everyonewhosanyone.com

May 12, 2005

I adore my little rants. They tickle me pink. This latest one is a response to an e-mail I got from a pleasant-sounding black guy which started out: "First of all I would just like to extend my gratitude to you for having the fortitude to speak out against these farcical literary agents, publishers, movie agents, movie studios and idependent movie producers. It is my opinion that no agency, individual or private interest entity should have the right to stifle the voices and expression of thousands of authors and writers around this country." Ha! My kind of guy. Here's what I said to him:

Oh, let's add the print, broadcast and Internet media ("Propagandaville") to the mix, too. This free press, free speech horseshit is horseshit. You can say anything you want, sure, but the poor saps who've been brainwashed to do nothing more than consume horseshit from the day they were born aren't gonna get access to anything but the horseshit they've been brainwashed to consume 'cause nobody's gonna pay anyone to tell 'em about anything any different. In fact, anyone with any so-called say-so is gonna go out of his or her way to see to it that nothing worth reading, writing, seeing, hearing, etc. ever gets read, written, seen or heard. Who's gonna kill the silly geese who go around laying all them golden eggs? I don't even blame anyone. As long as slaves think they have slaves of their own everything's gonna be hunky-dory. Tiger Woods is owned by his agents, managers, lawyers and PR people. So is Montel and Travis Smiley and Tom Joyner...and Ben Affleck and J-Lo and Larry King and O'Reilly and Imus and Howard Stern and Oprah and Letterman the rest of the sports, entertainment and media dweebs who keep "brave, free" Americans wallowing in the same abject, all-consuming utter slavery they're wallowing in themselves. They don't rock no boats, they don't misspeak or misbehave in any manner inconsistent with the making of money. Snoop-Dogg can be any kind of criminal he wants to be as long as he keeps making money for his agents, managers, lawyers and PR people...and the agents, managers, lawyers and PR people are owned by the manufacturers of the horseshit that gets consumed and the people who manufacture the horseshit are owned by money itself. Nickels and dimes own and operate most everyone and most everything in America. Truth is money, money truth; beauty is money; money beauty. Poor Shelley would have had a cow. That scrawny Hilton chick is slick 'cause she spends the gross national product of Mongolia on her Chihuahua...and little girls want nothing more than to grow up and prostitute themselves in every way imaginable so they too can someday maybe spend the gross national product of Mongolia on their Chihuahuas. Same with Donald Trump and his goofy toupee; goofy guys the world over aspire to make money so the can buy the kinds of babes Donald Trump buys. Yikes. Slavery was never abolished it just got more ecumenical. There's no way to get at these brainwashed losers who were born and bred to do nothing but consume. The best you can hope to do is to crack yourself up by pointing out the obvious and trust that one or two other people might be cracked up by you cracking yourself up. Thanks. G.

May Day, 2005

I'm gonna make this simple. The way it works is that in order to be a big-time "writer" these days, the first thing you have to do is to have absolutely nothing worth saying to say and say it in some clever, smarmy, kiss-ass, suck-up, so-called "entertaining" way that will keep the people who buy the superfluous crap from knowing what brainwashed suckers they are. Then you have to get yourself a mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up literary agent and a mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up publisher, win some mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up awards, get a mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up movie agent, movie studio and movie producer to make a mindless, money-grubbing, suck-up movie out of your mindless, money-grubbing, suck-up book and finally you have to get yourself a bunch of mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up media dweebs to create a little mindless, money-grubbing, suck-up hype and buzz about your mindless, money-grubbing, suck-up book.

Hype and buzz is all anyone ever buys or sells or pays any attention whatsoever to and the only thing that gets hyped and buzzed is the mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, worthless, useless, suck-up, senseless, thoughtless, laughably badly-written quasi-religious hogwash, preposterous political potboilers, jingoistic junk, cretinous neo-conservative claptrap, loser leftist liberal lunacy, funny ha-ha boy bullshit, self-help drivel, fantasy folderol and genre garbage that big-time "writers" churn out like so much cheap sausage. Whatever happened to some approximation of literature? No, no, don't answer that. The mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up suckers who call themselves free, brave Americans buy what they're told to buy, think what they're told to think and say and read and write whatever mindless, money-grubbing, suck-up twaddle it "pays" to say and read and write. Period.

Ah, humanity. As it was in the beginning it is now and ever shall be nothing but pusillanimous puppets on strings...but what that means is that the next logical step in the process of becoming a big-time "writer" is that you have to get yourself some hype and buzz from mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up media dweebs so I'm sending a press release out to around 5,000 of 'em. Then I'm gonna come out with a Fifth Edition which will include a whole new section of broadcast and print media writers and editors to go along with the "Publishing" and "Tinseltown" sections. I'm gonna call it "Propagandaville."

When I'm done I'll have a grand total of 11,000 agents, editors, publishers, movie guys and media dweebs to rag on, when the mood strikes me, for being the mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up, thought-executing morons they are. Yippee! Maybe in fifty years media goons too, like agents, editors, publishers and movie goons, will know that the love of money is the root of all evil, will know too that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God, will lay not up for themselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt but will lay up for themselves treasures in heaven, maybe they too will know that where their treasure is, there will their hearts be also...but I doubt it. What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Talk about a generation of mindless, money-grubbing, suck-up vipers, yikes.

Oh, it doesn't hurt to create a little controversy along the way, either—like, try to get yourself called anti-Semitic by some bunch of mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up fascists, if you can. One of these days I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield, gonna stick my sword in the golden sand down by the riverside, but not today.

If you want to read the press release I'm sending out to all these media dweebs and a bunch of other stuff there is to know about this little website, click this: About This Directory. Wish me luck. Or not. When you're used to being lied to all your lives you're not gonna care much for someone telling the truth for a change. Which would you rather be, a lying, mindless, money-grubbing, brainwashed, suck-up slave or a poor, truthful, writer with something worth saying to say? Awake! Arise! Let the scales fall from your eyes! G.

March 26, 2005

What's the big whoop about this smiling, blinking rutabaga down in Florida? Empathy? Kinship? The rest of the persistent vegetables in America identify with her? Let's take a quick ABC/NBC/CNN/Fox News poll. Ah, just as I suspected. Half of the rest of the persistent vegetables are scared someone's gonna come along and remove his or her feeding tube and the other half wants someone to come along and remove his or her feeding tube. Meanwhile, during the fifteen years the chick with the cognitive capacity of cornmeal mush was kept alive, how many people whose brains were not cornmeal mush died of starvation and dehydration around the world? Hundreds of millions, that's how many. They weren't Amuricans, though. They didn't get the ratings. There was no conflict, no drama. Watching them die of hunger and thirst wouldn't have sold many Elantras. Selling Elantras is the salient thing. Ah, what we did for money, what we do for money, oh...my...gosh. G.

March 13, 2005

Wow, can I ever not believe the vanity of some people. The chick whose questions about some of my truths about Jews didn't appreciate being on my website so here's the answers without the questions:

Ah, so many truths, so little time. I specifically mentioned that I have no quibble whatsoever with the vast majority of Jews...it's the Jews in the entertainment industry who don't do anything except for filthy lucre that I had "a bone or two to pick with." Yippee for most Jews, boo to the money-grubbing, thought-executing entertainment industry, Jews and Gentiles too, was the gist. There just happens to be more Jews than Gentiles in the industry, that's all. You could look it up. Thanks. G.

Nope. Couldn't be 'cause I'm not. All I did was stick up some statistics, a few irrefutable facts. The "one group of capitalists" that runs the entertainment industry are simply doing their jobs as overseers and getting out of it what they get out of it, money, power, influence, etc. They're by no means the only overseers and they're employed by their owners, yes, without whom they would be superfulous. I just pointed out that "liberty" and "freedom" and "democracy" and "entertainment" and "advertising" and "politics" and "religion" and the various other "opiates of the people" have replaced chains and shackles and whips to keep the institution of slavery alive and well...nothing new, don't worry, just pointing out the obvious. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. In the meantime. In between time. Ain't we got fun. If someone's got a lousy job...and being an overseer of slaves is in my opinion the lousiest of lousy jobs...aren't you doing 'em a favor by pointing it out? Would you let some guy walk around with his fly unzipped or would you tell him about it? Or some chick walk around with spinach between her teeth? When someone pisses me off I generally like to piss him or her off back, so there's most likely a little of that going on, too. G.

No I don't: "I do have a bit of a bone to pick with the entertainment industry as a whole, however, and by its nature that means I have a bone to pick with a bunch of Jews. I'm sure I've got a bone or two to pick with some bunch of Gentiles or other, too. I'm definitely not pissed off just at Jews." When you're one of the best writers who's ever lived and when the only book you've ever had published after writing stuff for forty years is hand's-down the best book published anywhere in the world so far this century and your other books are pretty good too and your stuff has been rejected 120,000 times without having been read because no one in the entertainment industry "thinks" it will make him or her any money and what they do think will make them money is really putrid, stupid, inept, fantasy bullshit and mindless twaddle you'd be a little ticked, too, unless you were exactly the sort of slave you might unwittingly be. I'm just an uppity white boy. Uppity niggers never got very far, either, as I recall. Emmett Till whistled at a white girl when he was fourteen years old and look what happened to him. Of course, on the other hand, there was Martin Luther King, as well. G.

I like my agent. She's cool. She's not a money-grubbing twat or she wouldn't have been my agent. If you were Salinger or Twain or Nabokov or Flannery O'Connor or Celine or a few other writers I can think of off the top of my head who are as good or better than me, very few of whom are still alive, and your stuff was rejected 120,000 times by every agent, publisher and movie producer in the known universe and beyond and the one book you did get published didn't get a single itsy-bitsy blurb from any "book critics" (well, except from the ONE who actually read it and it was her pick as the best nonfiction book of 2004) and anyone else with any brains who ever read the thing thought it was the bee's knees wouldn't you call the 6,000 or so people who rejected your work 120,000 times a name or two, too, Jews and Gentiles, alike? If you wouldn't, I guess you're happy being a slave, a mushroom, a toad, and like nothing better than to kiss your master's ass and like being kept in the dark and fed the bullshit he or she feeds you; if you would, you'd get called uppity and an anti-Semite and all sorts of other untoward things. That's cool with me. Martin Luther King got called a name or two, didn't he? Call me anything you want. I'm an uppity anti-Semite and I'm okay. And as for reading my book, hey, go read the sucker, I'm not stopping you. Think of it as an IQ test. If you realize what a great book it is after you've read it then you'll know you have at least a half a brain and if you don't you'll know you don't. It's worth the price of the book just to find out whether you have half a brain or not. The main trouble with the entertainment industry is that kids these days have had such putrid crap shoved down their throats by the money-grubbing twats (Jews and Gentiles and Hotentots alike) who run the entertainment industry they think that putrid crap is worth reading or writing. Yikes. Who's gonna tell 'em if I don't? "Hey, yo, boys and girls, that putrid crap you've been getting shoved down your gullible throats as long as you've been alive ain't worth reading or writing. It sucks. It's stupid. Don't read it. Don't write it. Stop and think for yourselves for a minute or two if you can." Thanks. G.

March 5, 2005 (Ginny Good's 64th Birthday)

Okay. But tell me, how the hell can I submit a script to an agent in Hollywood? Literary is one thing, but a script? Almost seems impossible if you don't know anyone...all those CAA e-mail addresses are nice, but pretty much useless when none of them reply. Don't know how to push this script to the right people...

"Literary" agents in LA work primarily with screenplays. None of 'em reply to me either so the short answer is: Heck if I know. I'm pretty much convinced that if you want to sell a script you have to move to LA and schmooze. Get a job driving a limo. Maybe Bryan Lourd will like the way you handle a steering wheel and have some flunky read your script...but the flunky will be trying to peddle his or her own script so he or she will tell Bryan Lourd your script sucks. The entertainment industry is a giant, mindless, heartless, artless, senseless, lumbering, money-grubbing moron.

I'm one of the best writers who's ever lived and everything I've ever written has been rejected in one way or another by all the agents, editors, publishers and movie producers in the English-speaking world...upwards of 80,000 times, give or take...not to mention by book critics and their idiotic ilk. If you actually get an agent or a publisher, or a production company buys your script after it has been dutifully submitted through a WGA signatory agent, you can be fairly certain that your work totally sucks. Lots of bad writing doesn't get produced, either, but no good writing does...so, like, if you don't get your stuff produced there's still a slim chance that it's worth having written. New York and Hollywood won't touch anything worth reading or writing or making into a movie with a ten-foot pole. If you want to sell your work, make it sound as much like the other crap they've bought and sold over the last twenty years and you might get an agent.

By all means, don't write anything worth reading or writing or getting made into a movie. That's anathema. Agents, editors, publishers and production companies only pay attention to the same tired crap that's made them money in the past. Crap sells. Write it. All they pay any attention whatsoever to is money. They love money. They adore money. They worship money. They eat, sleep, drink, breathe and take baths in money. Money rocks their world. Money isn't everything, it's the only thing. It's all that matters. They think it buys them half a brain, think it buys them affection, loyalty, adulation, respect. Ha! Little do they know that the love of money is the root of all evil.

February 19, 2005

I read Ginny in two days...You've written a helluva book. Maybe it's a great book. I'm not good with great, though. Most everyone thinks Moby Dick is great, but I find sections of it boring. I didn't find anything boring in your book. I don't think I've read anything like it. The only book I could come up with that's even slightly similar is Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy. It's billed as fiction, but I think it's really memoir. But it's only a slice of a life, while Ginny is the whole pie of several lives. This is part of its power. We all know life is tough, but your book shows this heavy rain falling on people—all the hits they take: the pain, the little triumphs, the disappointments, the clashes, the reversals, the slow beating-down (in most cases), or the standing tall (in some cases), over a lifetime. It illustrates just how tough life can be lived year after year—start to finish, at least in the cases of Ginny and Elliot. But you're still standing. You've seen some shit, man. Your breezy style is deceptive. There's some craft here. I like the way you outline your characters, and then go into scenes with them. I liked that you saved your father until last, when the book needed an uplifting spirit. Your writing is excellent, sometimes superb. The detail in the LSD scene in the redwoods is brilliant. On page 329 you say, "We're all a bunch of fucking water spiders skimming over the surface of everything, face to face with nothing but our own stupid reflections." This may be the best description of the human dilemma/comedy/tragedy I've ever seen. I'm trying to think of some negatives to balance this out a little. I wondered why you hung in there with that dizzy cunt Ginny for so long. But that's not a comment on artistic merit. I guess I know why: love is stupid...Ginny is the definitive sixties book. It's the one that should go in the time capsule. I think your life has become a modern work of art. You've got your book, and you've got your ongoing everyonewhosanyone gig. You're out there—playing on the stage. I think the book will be a hit. Eventually enough people will start to talk about it and that tipping point thing will happen. If I ever get out to Oregon I'm going to look up so we can play some golf. I'm pretty good. I think we'd have fun.

I'm tired. I shot two over for nine holes yesterday and eight over for nine holes today. I suck at golf, but we'll play if you ever get out here, sure. It is a good book, I know. It was hard to write and I'm glad it took as long to get published as it did 'cause it kept getting better...and there's still a few little things wrong with it that I'd fix if it ever got published by a publisher anyone paid any attention to, like book review boys and girls and the twerps at bookstores, which it won't. Why are these guys such chickens? Are they really the people we want choosing what books are worth reading and what books aren't worth reading? Deciding what books are worth writing and what books aren't worth writing? Apparently so. We keep buying the crap they sell. I guess the answer is we love being kept in the dark and fed horseshit like the mushrooms we are, waiting to be harvested. Ha! A nation of 'shrooms patiently going with the flow, calling ourselves brave, calling ourselves free, while we're sliced up and diced up and fried in fat and drizzled over Chateaubriand in our owners' mansions. I have fun ragging on the morons in the entertainment industry, but that's all just a hobby, my real goal in life is to be a lion-tamer. Ginny was a cool chick. She grew me up, got me smart, made me pretty tough, all in all, pretty truthful. Je regret jack. It's technically nonfiction, I guess, but what fiction is I have no idea and don't see much point in writing it other than to make money. Was what Celine wrote fiction? Not much good fiction I've ever seen is fiction at all so why not just call a spade a spade? "I'm using everyone's real name. They can all sue me." I did a lot of crafty stuff that makes it read like fiction. That was my intention, at any rate, and the book turned out fine by me. It's kind of cool to sit down and read a decent piece of writing for a change. People for the most part don't even know how to make a sentence anymore. Thanks. G.

January 31, 2005

2004 NBCC Award Finalists

Okay, that's it. The National Book Critics Circle eats shit. Ginny Good was not even nominated! Holy Christ, are you guys crazy or what? Ginny Good is the one Great American Novel published in the last fifty years...and it ain't even fiction. It's the book you've been waiting to come along since you were a starry-eyed kid and fell in love with the written word. It's the book you lived your life to read and you didn't read it 'cause there wasn't any money "attached" to it. What the hell are you thinking? Read some of the reviews it got by real readers, not the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, LA Times money-grubbing twats who only review money-grubbing twat books. There's not a single paragraph in Ginny Good that does not kick the living crap out of all the books on your silly little list put together. It should win your dork prize for every category you've got, it's the best Fiction, the best General Nonfiction, the best Biography the best Autobiography, the best Poetry and the best Criticism book published in America since maybe Lolita fifty years ago and you dickwads didn't even nominate the sucker! You did a heck of a job of spreading your nominations out among the top money-grubbing publishers, however; covering all the bases, I guess. Now are they all supposed to bid on which book wins? Why don't you just conduct a money-grubbing twat auction in the first place? You obviously don't give a rat's ass about which book is the best book but only which publishing company pays the most money. I'm glad Ginny Good didn't get nominated for your stupid prize. In fifty years you're gonna look like the idiots you are. Bob Dylan, my ass. I've got absolutely nothing against the guy as writer of songs but as a writer of prose Ginny Good tears Bob Dylan's bullshit book into a million shitty pieces and blows them in the wind. Thanks. G.

Dear Mr. Jones, I'm sorry your book was not among the NBCC finalists. We carefully consider every book that comes out in 2004 in the appropriate categories, and our board of volunteer critics recommends from those books, a very long list, which we pare down to a shorter list, until we finally work it down to our list of finalists. There are lots of disappointed authors, undoubtedly. And there are lots of awards for which to be nominated. We're opinionated, impassioned, proud of what we do, and beholden to no one. And we work extremely hard. I appreciate your passion and dedication to your writing, and we welcome someone who asks us why a book didn't make the list. What none of us appreciates is an abusive letter like the one you wrote to me. It was unprofessional, to say the least, and unnecessarily nasty. I understand and appreciate your anger, but you have made a judgment about people and an organization that you do not know based on the things that you said. And, you certainly haven't endeared yourself to this critic. Please don't be so quick to dismiss the people who volunteer their time to champion writers and literature with your false allegations and vitriol. There are plenty of people to be angry at in this world -- the NBCC are not among them. Sincerely, Kera Bolonik

Of course I disagree. I very much doubt that anyone with any brains read Ginny Good. If he or she had, it would have been not only one of your nominations but would have won the sucker flat-out in a bunch of different categories. My allegations are not false, my vitriol is not without justification and this smarmed-up goody-goody "professionalism" you guys seem so keen on is what's preventing books worth reading from being published and therefore preventing books worth writing from being written and therefore preventing books worth reading from being read. It's a vicious circle. I know whereof I speak. I'm angry with all sorts of things, sure. I also crack myself up and thereby soothe my sinsick soul...I told my friend my wrath, my wrath did end, etc. Go see the little rant I stuck up on my website yesterday:

http://everyonewhosanyone.com

I'm sure it'll offend you. Cool. You guys need on occasion to be offended. But I'm also angry with the NBCC. Sorry I've not endeared myself to you but I've endeared myself to me. Thanks. G.

Well, sir, since you have so much leisure time on your hands, start your own foundation, your own award, and award your own work. Have a great time!

Okey-dokey. I've already done that. I'm one of the best writers who's ever lived. Ginny Good is easily the best book published anywhere in the world thus far this century. Even you would agree were you to read it; but you won't, of course. You like to wallow in the PC gibberish you and your cohorts go around getting giddy over. Wallow away. Call bad books good all you want, welcome to Animal Farm. Falsehood is beauty; beauty falsehood, that's all you need to know...and the next time some dipshit Random House rep buys you lunch you'll think you've arrived. You have. That's all you're ever gonna get. I hope it's worth it. Thanks. G.

January 16, 2005

Hey man, what can we say? Not much, for you have just about said it all. So, we'll just say what everyone else has been thinking and saying but who mostly have been either too busy or too frightened to say so: Gerard Guru Jones (aka Robin, the Hood) the best thing that ever happened to the publishing industry since Moses brought down those first two pages from the mountain. We owe you some manna man, and that'll be on its way in the mail in two weeks. We look forward to reading GG by GG. We see the light, The Guru Gerard fan club.

Wow! A Fan Club...okay, that's it, I'm moving to Australia. You wanna know why? I'll tell you why. America is a idiot, that's why. The love of money has turned the good old US of A into an ugly, scummy, evil, vile, back-stabbing liar, a loathsome, self-absorbed, murderous cesspool of pettiness, instant gratification, idiotic politics, corruption, constant advertising, perpetual propaganda, continuous deception, nonstop lawyers and cops and nit-pickers and nay-sayers and Nazis and ass-kissers and gadgets and greed, a disease-infested, fen-sucked bog of miserable, brainwashed, obsequious slaves living in fear and fantasy and intentional mediocrity, exactly the way their owners want them to be—calling themselves free, calling themselves brave. Holy Christ, it ain't a fit place for man nor beast, Australia, here I come. Or wait, maybe it's me. Nah. I don't even like money. What a weird thing to love. Money. But the poor people of America have no choice. The love of money is all they're taught from the day they're born. I'm gonna go be an Aborigine. Yippee! Hey, what do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? A stick. Ha! G.

January 8, 2005

A guy gave me fifty bucks and I sent him a free book and another guy gave me ten bucks on PayPal in the last month and a half. Some other people gave me around forty bucks, including twenty bucks in gambling winnings. Yippee! Nobody's given me any money through Amazon since the beginning of November, 2004. That's okay. Man don't live my money alone. Well, you know, some men don't. I know of at least one guy who doesn't. I'm one of the best writers who's ever lived. Ginny Good is easily one of the best books published anywhere in the world so far this century and nobody's ever heard of it. This little directory is more comprehensive and useful than anything you can buy anywhere for any amount of money, and it's free. It's only fitting that I should die of starvation in the gutter. I'll be in good company. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Ha!

Gerard: Please feel free to publish this note (though I have no desire to see it in print or not), but please don't include any name information. As a writer who has paid hundreds and maybe thousands of dollars over the years for various writing references and services, I am convinced your site is one of the most useful and moneysaving of all. Publishers and agents are so very willing to profit from our efforts, but at the same time they pass on every expense and throw up every possible obstacle. Your site is a genuine opportunity to lay low some of those barriers. I've wondered this past week how profitable your reference venture might be. And I can't even describe how disappointed I was to read tonight how little—effectively not at all—people have been helping you with this site. How anyone can feel good about benefiting from the information and not financially supporting the effort...well, I don't understand and certainly don't intend to stand within the shadow of that group shame. I still hold to the fantasy that it all comes full circle. Keep up the effort, and I intend to be among those that have and will continue to play a small part in returning the favor.

Oh, I don't care too much for money but notes of appreciation are cool. After I pay the fifteen bucks it costs me to buy them from the publisher and mail out the free books I mail out to people who give me money and add in the money people give me anonymously and take away the free books I send to movie guys who don't give me money, I get an average of sixty to eighty bucks a month "profit." I work around sixty hours a week (no time-and-a-half for overtime, no insurance, no vacation pay), so I make around twenty-five cents an hour—maybe less, I never figured it out. Man, I should sue myself for unfair labor practices or boycott myself for running a sweatshop. But even at twenty-five cents an hour I make as much money as most people on the planet. There are billions of people who make less than that. If I cared about money I'd write advertising jingles or blockbuster schlock or stupid movies or vacuous sitcoms or any of the thousands of other absurd things people get paid to do to keep the mindless, slave-based economy of America alive and well. Keep people whistling while they work, yeah, yeah, that's what we'll pay big bucks to have our books and movies and music to do. Books and movies and music that make Americans think it's a treat to beat their feet in the Mississippi mud, that's what we'll buy and sell...get 'em to owe their soul to the company store and you're golden. Keep 'em stupid. Give 'em their fix of sports and music and movies and politics and watch 'em gladly work at thousands of other even more absurd jobs that ensure that the rich get richer, to ensure that the rich stay rich enough to pay for the entertainment they buy to feed the slaves they own. Land of the free, home of the brave, oh, yeah. I like pointing out the fact that the best things in life really are free. Writing a great book is something money simply can't buy. Not many people have ever done it, maybe three people so far this century, including me, and it's something almost everyone would love to be able to do. I wouldn't trade writing a great book for a billion dollars. Rupert Murdoch, eat your heart out. Ha!

You gave me a grand total of thirty bucks so I'll send you a free book if you want one. Let me know. People's value and the value of things, per se, books, cars, movies, etc. is generally judged by how much money they're worth or how much money they make. It's systemic. It's also sort of sickening. The US has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to kill and maim and torture people in Afghanistan and Iraq and has a hard time coming up with 350 million to prevent the death of countless people in Indonesia. How much more does it cost to kill and maim and torture a person than it does to save a person's life? A lot. I'm not about to change the whole whacked culture, but I'm sure not gonna buy into it, either. That's the least I can do. I always like doing the least I can do. If I get around to sticking your nice note up I won't say who you are. I don't say who anyone is, I don't think. Do I? No. Well, agents and editors and publishers and movie guys, yeah, but it's their job to say what they say...or what they don't say. Thanks. G.

Hey, Gerard: I promise to buy a book, but let's work it out on the next payment—yeah, I intend to pay a few more as I go. I'll be funneling a number of friends (and their payments, I hope) your way soon. And if I make it solidly through Hollywood's glittering gates or New York's bestseller archway before you, I'll remember your efforts and the help they have provided.

Well, I'm just gonna send you a free book, anyway. I have your address. You can't stop me. Ha! G.

January 1, 2005

Hi Gerard, I don't know if you noticed, but Ginny Good was one of my own picks for Best of 2004 on January Magazine. Happy holidays! Linda

Aw. That's so cool. I don't know if the list is supposed to be hierarchical but if it is Ginny Good is number nine of the twenty best nonfiction books in the world—Alexander the Great and Bob Dylan kicked Ginny Good's cute ass but Ginny Good kicked the ass of Bill Clinton and Dale Peck, and I take extra pride in the fact that GG's the only nonfiction on the list picked by the editor herself. You guys are way more astute and discriminating than the boneheads at the New York Times and the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle—those bozos only read books big publishers pay 'em to read and wouldn't know a good book if it bit 'em on the ass. The only criterion the gobbed-up, money-grubbing twits have for what's good and what's not good is whether it makes a lot of cold, hard cash or not...same with the book awards the gobbed-up, money-grubbing book award boys and girls sell to the highest bidder. Ah, what a culture. That was a good essay on "the book," by the way. They are convenient little buggers, aren't they? People in the book selling business call 'em "units." Sheesh. They're in it to make a living, sure, but what a silly thing to be in anything for. Thanks. G.

2004

December 25, 2004

"For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth."

Merry Christmas, everybody. Really, seriously, everybody. Merry Christmas to Jews. Merry Christmas to Muslims. Merry Christmas to Voodoo boys and Shinto girls; merry Christmas to Indians, merry Christmas to Chinamen, merry Christmas to all God's chillin' no matter how different from me they may be. I gotta go let little children wear me to a frazzle.

(Update, December 29, 2004. Subject: "Your epithet of Chinese"

Gerard, I'm going to assume you don't know this, but "Chinamen" is to Chinese as the "N" word is to African-Americans. Mele Kalikimaka

Hey, Mele, of course I know that but I have a kinship with the Chinese, they're the last, best, brightest, most reasonable hope for the salvation of civilization and the continuation of the species on this woebegone planet. When all my beautiful books get translated into Mandarin and Cantonese I'll posthumously get the respect and adoration I so richly deserve—me and Louis-Ferdinand Celine. He called 'em yellow hordes, but had an underlying affection for the Chinese as the rightful heirs of the Earth and the saviors of the human race. I don't use knee-jerk correct words. African-Americans call African-Americans "Nigger" all day and all night. It's a term of endearment. Fathers and teachers, I ponder, what exactly is an African-American? I maintain it is in the grand scheme of things a way more pejorative term than most pejorative of terms. I'm pretty sure the hip Chinese call each other Chinamen. I think of myself as a hip Chinaman. Mele Kalikimaka to you, too. I knew "Mele" wasn't your real name. That was a joke. I cracked myself up. I figured you'd think I was stupid. I don't mind being thought of as stupid if I can get myself a chuckle out of it. What's in a word? I call people all sorts of untoward things but with underlying affection...and when I hear people calling people the "right" thing which by its very nature almost never has underlying affection, it makes me cringe. Those words are lies. They're hypocrisy. The people they call those words know it, too. You think they're stupid? You think people can't hear what's under all those "right" words? They can. Call a spade a spade I always say. Thanks. G.)

December 20, 2004

I saw that Sam Tanenhaus guy talking on TV about what The New York Times chose as the "best" books of the year yesterday. He might have been talking to that chick who was boning that Kerik character Bush picked to be the boss of something but I doubt it. I was more interested in hearing what this stick-up-his-ass Tanenhaus dipshit was gonna say about Ginny Good. I waited and waited. He didn't say diddly. I couldn't believe my ears. Ginny Good was not mentioned as one of the best books of the year according to the editorial staff of the book section of The New York Times. The New York Times eats shit, that's why. There's not a single paragraph in Ginny Good that doesn't kick the living piss out of the entire pile of crap The New York Times calls the "best" books of the year. Pfssh. Ginny Good's the best book of the century...well, you know, so far, anyway...and if some of those suckwads read anything other than what their smarmed-up publicist buddies told 'em to read, or paid 'em to read, they'd know it, too. Here's what real people say about GG:

"First of all I would like to say that your book Ginny Good completely turned my soul inside out. Ginny was one of the most lambent pieces of writing I've ever read. It ripped me apart on the inside so much that I couldn't function for days. There's nothing I love more than a good old fashioned tragedy. Yours was the best of tragedies, top notch Greek quality, I must say."

"Manohmanohmanohmanohman!!!! What an amazing book!! What an absolutely fucking amazing book!!"

"It made me cry."

"Ginny Good is an excruciating coming of age at a time when the world was falling apart. Masterfully, Jones touches on the politics, the people and the way it felt to breathe the air of the Haight. After a while you get the idea you'd follow him anywhere."

"I was not reminded of any other book when I put this book down, and so I can only come to one conclusion: this is a great and new kind of literature!"

"Given the stranglehold the pretentious, incestuous McSweeney's school of thought has on 'literary fiction' these days, one can only consider Gerard Jones' self-professed lack of education a blessing. Why, just imagine--a writer who actually saves outlandish metaphor for scenes in which it's appropriate (such as the first acid trip). Comparisons with Salinger and Twain are not overstated, for Jones has the rare ability to express a brilliant intellect in an accessible, dare I say folksy, manner."

"This is a great mind at work. Don't be fooled by this author. He is precisely clever. His cleverness can be missed easily as the word by word cadence is rhythmical, a delightful read."

"To describe the "plot" in too much detail would diminish the book. In the end, this book is about voice and it's Jones' voice that carves this book into the reader's soul. It's like a long evening of fascinating conversation and recollection. Though not a short book, it can be read in one gulp—it's so seamless and effortless and is obviously the work of a tremendous craftsman."

"With so much formula copycat stuff about it's great to read a book that actually means something. To the author, and to me. It's heartfelt, real, and incredibly funny."

"The book is full of gorgeous, insightful little gems of imagery that I wanted to color with a highlighter. And the ending just *soars*... sublimely perfect. I can see that my copy is going to get all cruddy with thumbprints and soda can circles from sitting on my night table...I've got three kids, and it's been a long time since I had the time, energy, or room within me to let a book suck me in the way this one did. When I got my copy of Lolita, years ago, the cover quote was, 'The only convincing love story of our century.' That was the 20th century, however, and as far as that quote goes, the torch ought to be passed to Ginny Good."

"Applause for the real truth being told, after decades of fairy tales and wanna be remembrances. Gerard Jones deserves more attention in a world too quick to make fiction a reality. His voice is stunningly honest and wise—a relief in these times when one can barely believe the daily news on television."

"Ginny Good is a great name for the book because this woman was, although petite in appearance, bigger than life. Anyone who knew her knew she was a big deal on a small planet."

Modesty prevents me from going on, and on, and on, but the point is that real readers don't pay these New York Times twats to read books worth reading or writing so they don't and books worth reading or writing don't get read or written. The stupid twats toe the line their owners tell 'em to toe. Woe, oh, woe. Oh, well. Nobody wants anyone poking holes in the fabric of society the stupid twats have so carefully woven over the last twenty years or so and that most certainly includes this Tanenhaus twit and his buddies Michiko and Maslin and the rest of stupid twats at The New York Times. Stick with the program, boys and girls. Take the money and run. Don't let a little thing like saying something worth saying get in the way getting a hefty paycheck and being invited to all the right parties.

Ginny Good's probably not gonna win the bullshit Pulitzer or that National Book Critics Circle piece of commercial crap award, either. It already didn't win the National Stupid Twat Award but that's only because the publisher didn't pay the money to buy a bunch of tickets to the National Stupid Twat award ceremony. The Pulitzer and the NBCC award he paid the money to get considered for and GG better win the both the suckers for both fiction and nonfiction or I'm gonna have to call more people more names.

When in disgrace with fortune in stupid twats' eyes
I all lone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope
Featur'd like some stupid twat, like some other stupid twat with friends posses'd
Desiring this stupid twat's art, and that stupid twat's scope
With what I most enjoy contented least

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising
Haply I think on me - and then my state
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate

For my sweet self remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Do I crack myself up or what?

Yes.

I do.

Ha!

December 14, 2004

Virtue is its own reward, yeah, but another is getting told nice things by people you don't know. I got a letter in the mail yesterday from a person with a name that could just as easily be a boy's name as a girl's name, with no return address, and in which were enclosed five non-sequential one-dollar bills. I admit I had to look up "lambent" ("flickering lightly over or on a surface, effortlessly light or brilliant") but after some thought I took it as a compliment. Here's parts of what the letter said:

"...First of all I would like to say that your book "Ginny Good" completely turned my soul inside out. "Ginny" was one of the most lambent pieces of writing I've ever read. It ripped me apart on the inside so much that I couldn't function for days. There's nothing I love more than a good old fashioned tragedy. Yours was the best of tragedies, top notch Greek quality, I must say...

"...Ok, here's my take on why the critics won't review your book. They won't review it because it's not "Museum Writing." Henry Miller said that if your writing doesn't catch fire, if it doesn't inflame the world, then it's no good. The critics only want to sleepwalk through their reviews and if they read your book they're going to have to think. They don't want to do that...

"...I know you want a lot of people to read your book and a lot of people should read it, but realistically they're not going to with the way things are set up. But that's ok because the few people that do, are so engulfed and changed by it that that is an accomplishment in itself...

"...Start going to college campuses and you sell your book out of the trunk of your car. I remember back in the day when EZE, the rapper, the one who died of AIDS in 1987, sold his music out of the trunk of his car until he got the ball rolling on word of mouth...

"...Anyway, thank you for allowing me to live in the 60's for a few hours. It was the most awesome experience I have had in a very long time. I used to think that living in the 60's and early 70's was one huge harmonious party that everyone was invited to, but you tell it the way it really happened and that makes it all the more fascinating. Take care and keep writing. Your stories are the bomb. I loved Esmeralda by the way..."

December 5, 2004

Man, nobody's given me a single nickel in the last three weeks...not one thin dime in twenty-three days. Oh, well. Virtue is its own reward. I just figured out that the people on my little list, Sumner Redstone, Kirk Kerkorian, Rupert Murdoch, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, Oprah, etc., all six thousand of the poor buggers, probably make an aggregate of around a trillion dollars a year and what warms the cockles of my heart is that they could all get together, spend that trillion dollars buying all the talent they could possibly buy and still not write a book as good as Ginny Good. It's true. They couldn't. And they all really, really want to, too. They can't. I can. I did. Ha! They're gonna live their lies and die and rot and be forgot and I'm not. They're the emperors. They're not wearing any clothes. Shhh. It's a secret. The emperors have plenty of clothes, indescribably beautiful clothes, oh yeah. They do; it's true, trust them. Heh.

November 22, 2004

I'm still fiddling with Hollywood. I forget why. Wait. I wrote one of the coolest, most significant, funniest, smartest, most honest, heartbreaking, edifying, illuminating books ever published in all American literature going clear back to whenever whoever came over on the Mayflower landed wherever they landed and I wanna get me some movie guys to make a movie out of it, that's why. For their sakes, mainly—and for the sake of all mankind, of course. I already did what I wanted to do.

Hollywood guys are probably just as stupid as the stupid twats who run the book business, but I won't know that until I find out for myself. I found out about publishing guys. Boy, Howdy, did I ever! They're even stupider than I thought. I have proof, overwhelming documentary evidence: this little website is a three-year, two thousand page testament to the ignorance of the self-serving, self-aggrandizing, chicken-hearted, stupid, money-grubbing twats who run every aspect of the book publishing business, including book review twits, bookseller nitwits, the dupes and pompous dopes who give out prizes for "literary excellence," the morons who teach "creative writing," etc., etc., etc., all of whom succeed in absolutely nothing but making money and keeping readers from reading anything worth reading and keeping writers from writing anything worth writing. It's a vicious circle. Nothing worth reading ever gets published 'cause the stupid twats who run the book business think it won't make any money so nobody ever writes anything worth writing 'cause it'll never get published—check out what just won the National Book Award for nonfiction; that 9/11 Commission Report hogwash, oh my gosh. This website should've won the sucker. Ginny Good should've won the thing for both fiction and nonfiction but Ginny Good wasn't considered, it was ignored; scroll down to the e-mail I sent them National Book Award twats on August 1, 2004. Next year they're gonna call it the National Stupid Twat Award. Garrison Keilor and Judy Blume can fite over it, tooth and nail.

People buy hype. Big whoop. Hey, maybe I'll come up with some hype of my own. An ad campaign. Buttons. Yes. I want more people to read my beautiful book so I'm gonna make me up some buttons with a picture on them of that raggedy white daisy against a blue sky that's on the cover of Ginny Good. The buttons will say one of three things: "Ignorant Stupid Twat," or "Stupid Twat," or "Not Stupid Twat." Be the first one on your block to not be a stupid twat. Ha! You can do it, yeah, yeah, anyone with even half a brain can, it's easy, it's fun, it's above all different. All you gotta do is read Ginny Good. If you like it, you're not a stupid twat and you get a "Not Stupid Twat" button. How simple is that?

The vast majority of the buttons will go to those people who haven't read Ginny Good, but don't like it. They obviously don't have to read a book to know it's no good. With two or three minor exceptions, every agent, editor, publisher, book reviewer and bookseller in the world gets that button. They and their ilk will walk around proud as peacocks with pretty blue and white "Ignorant Stupid Twat" buttons on their lapels. You don't think they wouldn't wear them, do you? They're not ashamed of being ignorant stupid twats, are they? Nah. They love it. They go around singing the ignorant stupid twat song, "I'm an ignorant, stupid twat and I'm okay." If they were ashamed of being an ignorant stupid twat they'd read Ginny Good, like it, and get themselves a "Not Stupid Twat" button. They're ignorant stupid twats 'cause that's exactly what they wanna be, it's what they need to be...it pays the bills. You can't blame 'em for that, right? Hell, yeah, you can. I do. To these ignorant stupid twats, money isn't everything it's the only thing. The notion that the love of money is the root of all evil escapes these ignorant stupid twats; that's why they're ignorant stupid twats. Oh, well. The ones who get the plain "Stupid Twat" buttons are the ones who read Ginny Good and didn't like it 'cause they only like books the ignorant stupid twats tell 'em to like. I don't have high hopes that Hollywood's gonna be much different but it might surprise me so I'm gonna just keep on doing it and see; I'm as open-minded as can be.

November 13, 2004

Man, I've been too busy being Joe Hollywood to pay much mind to the world situation lately. There was an election? Someone won? How quaint. There's still that same old everywhere war going on, right? The one where if you're not with us you're with the terrorists? Hey, I'm with us, I'm with us, whoever we are. Thank heaven for global terror...without it what would little boys do? Play golf? I hate golf, I'll take global terror any day. I suck at golf, that's why. The Rasta man beat me at golf. The Rasta man never beats me at golf. I always beat the Rasta man, but the Rasta man beat me. He is one happy Rasta man. Yeah, yeah, he had to make a long putt on the last hole to do it, but that rat Rasta man made the long putt on the last hole and beat me at golf, fair and square. I did run across some kind of a writer's website you might wanna check out: Backspace, the Writers Place. How I found it was they stuck up all kinds of stuff about me and my little website.

October 2, 2004

Oh, man, I have to stop being Joe Hollywood for awhile and talk about the New York Times Book Review. Rats. If you wanna see what the NYTBR says about my little website, click this: The Widening Web of Digital Lit By DAVID ORR, Published: October 3, 2004. If you can't open the link, it's an essay that says stuff about a bunch of other cool people, too, like Dennis Loy Johnson (who was kind and thoughtful and generous and unselfish enough to have put a picture of "recently under appreciated" Ginny Good up on the index page at his revitalized MobyLives site), but here's what it says about me. Ha!

Everyone Who's Anyone in Adult Trade Publishing (www.everyonewhosanyone.com): One of the great treasures of the Web, this site is a listing of every agent and publisher the writer Gerard Jones contacted in his quest to get his various manuscripts published -- in other words, everyone who's anyone. Jones has reproduced many of his e-mail exchanges with his targets verbatim, which in some cases makes the publishing community look like decent, sensitive people doing the best work they can in a difficult field (here's to you, Daniel Menaker!). Other times, not so much. Either way, the site will tell you more about the book world than any five ''How-to-Publish'' treatises combined.

"...any five 'How-to-Publish' treatises combined." Ha! I like that. And it's true. Hey, here's what it says in some other language, too:

Now if I can get that Michiko chick or that Maslin chick or one of them other book reviewer boys or girls they've got over there to read GINNY GOOD, the book that provided the impetus for my slick little website and the book that hasn't gotten any real book reviews by anyone anywhere 'cause real book reviewers conspire with agents, editors and publishers to see to it that nothing worth reading or writing gets written or read, I'll be cooking with gas. Ah, posterity, I might as well trust to it.

September 10, 2004

I'm sort of mellowed-out at the moment 'cause I can't do much 'til my sister gets back from Disney World where she took my mommy to see the hurricanes.

About the only thing I have to say at the moment is that I had a nice little e-mail chat with some guy over in Brooklyn. He thinks I'm a genius. Genius and three bucks will get you a frothy cup of coffee at some froufrou restaurant these days. I guess I'd rather be a genius than have a fancy cup of coffee but if anyone had the common decency to Give Me Money for all this free stuff I could do both. Sheesh.

Dear Gerard Jones, I came across your site just this past weekend. I have to say that it is truly amazing and inspiring. I have been trying for a little while now to get some material published, much in the same way that you have already succeeded in doing. Coming across your site gives me hope.

I read an excerpt of Ginny Good, and I felt compelled to buy a copy. What I read of the novel I found to be excellent and probably one of the best books to come along in quite a while. The feel and mood you set in just that opening chapter of the book is realistic and full of a colorful imagery of another time, a time when history was being made. The rest of the world really needs to know about all that was happening during this period, but for one reason or another, their interests lie elsewhere.

I have always been interested in this decade, and have never had my hunger for material related to it satisfied, and that is why when your book came along, I was so very, very interested. I find everything from everyday life, to the complexities of the sixties of great interest. Changes that took place during this period affect us to this day.

I also believe that your site, Everyone who's everyone, etc., is going to also affect publishing for some time to come in much the same way. It is an eye opener, and brings out into the open all the correspondence and communication that goes on behind closed envelopes.

Anyway, I then found a section on your site, after I had already ordered my copy of Ginny Good, where I can purchase the book directly from you. Perhaps when your next book comes out, I will do it that way. Or maybe I'll buy another copy of Ginny Good to give away as a gift to someone I know.

You are a genius! And the agencies of the world have much to fear. They act as if they are gods, believing they have the power of life and death over the careers of unpublished and aspiring writers. You have proven that they do not have all the power and that if one truly wishes to get published, we must take a very active, proactive role in getting to our goals. Keep up the great work. You are truly an inspiration. Sincerely...

Someday somebody's gonna understand and appreciate me and my work, separately and together. It'll be one at a time at first, but it'll get to be more and more every day for a long, long time. Or, you know, not. Heh. Thanks. G.

Dear Gerard Jones, I think that being appreciated as a writer and a visionary is a slow process, but one that just sneaks up on you, and before you realize it, you are there. I think that with Ginny Good, and with your site, you are already leaving an important mark, and the appreciation and recognition may arrive sooner than you might think, and in a much bigger way that you first imagined. It will if there is any justice in this world. You've really done a good thing, with the site, and with your book. Keep up the great work. You have the guts that the rest of us wish we had. Take care...

I really do have a thing about virtue being its own reward. It is. Plenty of people work a lot harder than I ever did with way less recognition, but little notes like yours make me happy. Hey, go do a review on Amazon...or, you know, whip up something for the New York Times or The New Yorker since there doesn't seem to be anyone over there with brains enough to know a good book when they hear about one...and they've definitely heard about this one. Oh, well. Thanks. G.

September 2, 2004

How how am I gonna whine that nobody reviewed my little book? Check it out:

Manohmanohmanohmanohman!!!! What an amazing book!! What an absolutely fucking amazing book!!

There is a lake up near Anaconda Montana, Silver Lake, that the locals won't fish or boat or water-ski or do any of that stuff on because they say nobody knows for sure how deep it is. Not only that, but the water is unusually cold and clear...fall in and you die of hypothermia or drown before your fishing buddies even notice you're missing, So I'm standing on the shore of Sliver Lake, and it's a nice little lake, with the mountains and the lodge-pole pines reflected on the surface, and I can see the roundish brown pebbles under the first few feet of water, and the sunlight is dancing and reflecting and refracting off its surface and it's a beautiful hot day in August by the side of a pretty lake. And all of a sudden, I can see down into the water, and down, and down...and it begins to dawn on me that the local beer-drinking sportsmen are right: there's no bottom to the thing. As a matter of fact, it may go on forever, it may have distant galaxies and nebulae in it, great empty spaces of such profound loneliness and grief that of course you would freeze to death before you even swam a stroke. And then, just as suddenly, I'm looking at the surface of the lake again, where a handful of mallards are bobbing companionably about, and it's a hot day in August with a little breeze in the tops of the pines, and my whole life has led me to this place.

That's one thing reading Ginny Good was like. You are, well, you are the real thing. Your book is the real thing. Absolutely beautiful writing. Damned near perfect. Maybe even flawless. Yow. Thank you.

Wait. Did you read the book or just look at the pictures? G.

August 17, 2004

Hey, people, I'm not getting rid of this little website, don't worry...it's still gonna be here, I'm just not gonna be paying much attention to it. I was bummed for a day or two 'cause of Google pissing me off and my sister pissing me off and my mother's poor dying kitty Cinderella pissing me off...but the website's done, is the thing. I'm gonna come up with a Fourth Edition in September or so, and after that I can bag it even more.

Y'all can look gift horses in the mouth all you want—and most of you have looked this particular gift horse in the mouth for two years. If I had any brains Everyone Who's Anyone in Adult Trade Publishing wouldn't be a gift horse anymore. I'd password protect the sucker and charge you up the wazoo to get access to it and gob it up with advertising, but I don't have any brains. I don't want any brains. People with brains are idiots. They think people only appreciate what they have to pay for...and that's probably true. Man, I'm so tempted to charge money for this thing. And my sister so wants me to, but I'm not gonna.

Here's why: MobyLives Guest Column

August 7, 2004

Okay, that's it. I've been doing this website for two years. Happy Anniversary to me! I'm sick of it. I'll still keep it updated but it's just no fun anymore. After two years of giving my fellow "writers" a little free insight into the wonderful world of adult trade publishing I'm gonna do something entirely different for awhile—what that's gonna be I ain't quite sure yet.

Most of what I've learned during the last two years, I already knew—like that the vast majority of literary agents, editors and publishers don't give a rat's ass about anything but making money as easily and as inconsiderately as they possibly can. Big whoop. With the exception of Ginny Good and a very few other books which will still be being read fifty years from now, there was nothing published in the last twenty years that didn't waste the paper it was printed on. The publishing industry turns out $25 billion in adult trade books a year—that's half a trillion dollars that have been wasted since 1984.

It's a simple marketing equation. Spend a lot of money hyping a book and it's gonna sell a bunch of copies, turn a small profit and make everyone happy. The book itself is superfluous. It could just as easily be corn flakes...Knopf Corn Flakes, Scribner Corn Flakes...the marketing equation is all that matters. Agents, editors and publishers could hype good books rather than bad books and they would make the same amount of money if not more, but they're an envious, insecure lot who prefer to produce the worthless books that most accurately reflect their shallow values, their emptiness, their drab, silly, uninteresting lives as drones who mindlessly make money and spend money with nothing to show for it...and find plenty of cowardly booksellers, book review editors and idiot media idols who make and waste even more money promoting the godawful stuff for them. I pity the poor trees that got themselves made into the paper that was besmirched by the words these dweebs made money selling. They would have been better off as firewood.

I did learn one thing I didn't already know. Sorry to break it to you, boys and girls, but if you've somehow managed to get yourself a literary agent who's sold your book to an editor at a big publishing house, the overwhelming likelihood is that your book sucks, that it's not worth the paper it's printed on, that some bunch of marketing geeks think it's stupid enough to sell to the people they're accustomed to selling books to. That's it. That's your book's only value. That's it sucks enough to sell. The good news is that if you can't get a literary agent who won't rob you that means that you're not gonna get published by a big publisher and your book therefore stands some minuscule chance of having been worth writing. Virtue is its own reward.

Of course you don't want to hear that, literary agents and editors and publishers don't want to hear it, the people who buy the stupid books and sell the stupid books and promote the stupid books don't want to hear it, nobody wants to hear it, but facts is facts. These guys have no clue what a good book even is anymore. They're schlock peddlers, first, foremost, last, always and only...and that they pass themselves off as the guardians of any kind of literature at all, let alone good literature or great literature, makes it pretty funny in a sad, sickening sort of way. They're the guardians of schlock. Schlock sells. They're the guardians of superficiality and stupidity. Superficiality and stupidity sells. Selling is good. Books that sell are good. That's the definition. Yikes.

Don't look at me. It's not my fault. I don't read their stupid books. I write good books, instead, and even if I just read them myself and nobody else ever reads them I'm way better off in the long run, in the grand scheme of things, than I would be if I tried to please these useless, heartless, brainless, shameless, moneygrubbing morons.

Okay, the end. Maybe I'll write a whole 'nother book about what slavish, chickenshit idiots everybody but me and my mommy and her poor dying kitty Cinderella is. That would doubtless be a big bestseller. G.

August 1, 2004

Hey, some guy over in Denmark gave me forty bucks to get himself a free copy of Ginny Good to give to his girlfriend. Yippee! Go see What People Say. Oh, and there's a new review by a guy named William McKeen who's the boss of the Department of Journalism at the University of Florida. It's not in the New York Times yet, no, but the book is still better than anything the New York Times has reviewed in the last twenty years. Poor New York Times book reviewers—and the hundreds and hundreds of other book reviewers who haven't taken a look at the thing—they can't help it that they're led around by the noses by the marketing departments of big publishing houses. They'll catch on pretty soon. I have every confidence in them. Go see the new review (and all the rest of them—there's getting to be a whole bunch) here: Ginny Good Reviews.

July 31, 2004

I need a pedicure. Raccoons came in the house and ate the poor dying kitty's kitty food. One of them wouldn't leave. I poked at him with a cane my mother inherited from Laverna Fields, her friend with Alzheimer's, and he bit the cane. So I squirted him with Windex. He didn't care. I threw a spoon at him. He ducked. I threw an empty coffee can at him and missed by a mile. He was a cute little bugger but he was gonna bite me so I didn't know quite what to do. I called him names. He was impervious to insults. He finally sauntered out the back door. I have ANOTHER toothache and took one of the Darvons I got from the last toothache I had. Now I gotta go golfing. G.

July 15, 2004

I woke up this morning with blood all over my pillow and when I looked in the mirror there was dried blood that had dripped out of both sides of my mouth. In the movies when blood comes out of their mouth you know it's all she wrote. I haven't investigated further yet, but I think it's from getting a tooth pulled a week ago. Something might be wrong. My mommy's in the shower or I'd go see what's up with all this blood. I think it's not bleeding at the moment but it's a matter of some curiosity nonetheless.

While I was making coffee there was a young deer in the backyard. I couldn't tell whether it was a boy or a girl but I supposed it slept outside last night and that got me to thinking about all the things that had never been inside a house much less owned a computer, things that get to feel the sun go down and the sun come up.

A woman just told me that looking at a newborn baby sets off a hormonal chain reaction in her body that makes her feel like she's lactating. She had a doctor who told her she was an animal. He might have been right. I'm officially a great-grandfather is how this all came up. Jayde. Eight pounds something. I haven't had a chance to see what any chicks think about that yet but I bet not many chicks have messed with a great-grandfather before.

June 17, 2004

Hey, it's my birthday...if I got a cake there'd be too many candles on it to blow out, but I ain't gonna get a cake. I ain't gonna get jack. If I had any blessings I'd count 'em, don't worry. I'm gonna get Social Security pretty soon, that might be a blessing. Maybe I won't die of starvation in the gutter after all, but I was sort of looking forward to dying of starvation in the gutter. Man, I must have some blessings. I wrote this book that people a hundred years from now are still gonna be reading—that was sort of slick—but nobody's reading the sucker now 'cause no book review guys are writing book reviews about it 'cause they're all too busy saying inane stuff about stupid books that came out from big publishers with hotshot marketing departments. Oh, well. Some of the more enlightened media guys have taken a look at it, like Steve Duin at The Oregonian:

"...a legendary character like Virginia Good...(Gerard Jones) has captured her—and her chaotic decade —in "Ginny Good" (Monkfish, $16.95 paperback, 350 pages), the book that bears her name...In the process, Jones has proved that the best revenge against literary agents isn't a Web site that reveals their addresses but a memoir that exposes their lack of imagination...For frustrated writers, then, there is Jones' Web site. For frustrated readers, there is 'Ginny Good'...Jones didn't invent the main characters in this memoir—Elliot, Melanie and Ginny—but he spent 19 years bringing them back to life...Jones doesn't glamorize any of it. Nor does he edit the recording. 'That was one of the decisions I made: When in doubt, tell the truth,' he said...That's what I loved about 'Ginny Good.' I wasn't there for the Sixties, in any way that mattered, but there's no mistaking that this book captures a time in the life of its characters when everything was still fresh and unformed, especially their untested hearts..."

And Nicholas Clee, editor of The Bookseller, had this to say in his column in The Guardian:

"...I have been reading a rather wonderful memoir...It is called Ginny Good, and it is written by Gerard Jones, who came to my attention with his website, everyonewhosanyone.com, a listing of more than 2,000 publishers and agents in his native US and in Canada, the UK and Ireland...It is the story of his life in the hippy culture of the US West Coast in the 1960s and 70s, and of his relationship with Virginia Good, a volatile child of that era. It is direct, funny and touching. Getting published should have been straightforward, surely. But the problem is how to market this book. Yes, he is a gifted writer, but that is a hard quality to sell. There is also the matter of precedent. In the time I've been writing about the book trade, I've come across quite a few memoirists such as Jones, dismayed that publishers have failed to appreciate their work; none of them, before him, has had any talent. It's difficult to prove yourself the exception..."

And a guy named Andrew Scot Bolsinger, editor of The Daily Tidings, said this:

"...Jones' memoirs are so down and dirty true that it strips away all the fantasy, glory and magic of lives utterly turned inside out by drug use, physical and emotional abuse, rampant sex and all that was once simply known as 'The '60s.'...Jones simply has a story to tell, about his life and those he came in contact with during the '60s and early '70s, mostly in San Francisco...It's all too true, which makes reading it pretty important...the book is not heavy or sad. Jones approaches the tell-all story with a light and witty hand...the stories come in a matter-of-fact way that accentuates their humor and clarity. The sadness behind some of the stories sneaks up on you...even more compelling than Ginny is the clear-eyed look at the drugged up world of the '60s. All the icons of the era make cameos in the book, including The Grateful Dead, Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary...Jones and Ginny moved in the same circles, saw the same events unfolding. But modern interpretation of these colorful times is what Jones hopes to correct with his book...Crisp writing moves the first half of the book along back to the '60s, as it uncoils like a huge slinky through four decades of memories, only to recoil forward to present day Ashland in the second half...in the middle is the climactic moment, according to Jones--what he simply calls 'the acid chapter.'...After the acid chapter, the inevitable decline ensues. Fate takes its toll. The '60s close, another era moves on...Now, with the perspective of many years, a silver lining emerges from the sadness...for whatever the book 'Ginny Good' is, it's true...And the truth really does set you free."

But here's the preface to what's still my favorite reader review:

"Hey Gerard, finished Ginny Good today. I put up the promised Amazon review a few minutes ago; it's copied below, just for your edification. I was willing to say it sucked if it sucked. Unfortunately, I absolutely LOVED it. I'm never going to read a memoir again. I'd rather believe stuff that tears at you like that is fictional. Crap... it made "Angela's Ashes" look like a Harlequin Romance. I'm Mormon, by the way. Got a kick out of the surprisingly big Mormon presence in the book, the whole Joseph Smith story and all that. Thanks for spreading the gospel in your own special way... HA!"

You can see the rest, along with a bunch of other reviews by clicking this: Ginny Good Reviews. Here are some excerpts from more of them:

"..the result are the characters who parade through the pages of this very important book...Jones has written an extremely honest book...it really should be an imperative that all people over the age of forty read this book...the despair and emptiness that sometimes these characters reveal is so powerful the feelings are almost palpable...I was not reminded of any other book when I put this book down, and so I can only come to one conclusion: this is a great and new kind of literature!"

"Gerard Jones' debut Ginny Good is way more than good, it's great. No, let's not be bashful. It's awesome! Why? Because its voice really is unique in literature today. With so much formula copy-cat stuff about it's great to read a book that actually means something. To the author, and to me. It's heart-felt, real, and incredibly funny. From the books wonderful opening lines: 'I'm using everyone's real name. They can all sue me.' To the bizarre 'bird' incident in the final few pages, this book sings sweeter than a sky full of nightingales. Mr. Jones' prose are tight, considered, and memorable. His characters are vividly portrayed. His experience and understanding of the sixties and seventies means he can create realistic settings. Details, moods, insights. They are all there. You can taste California. Feel those heady times in your bones. Yet Mr. Jones' own powerful voice is never far away. His humour is razor-sharp...If I could give ten freaking stars on amazon I would have no hesitation! Hell, why stop there? Why not twenty! Well done Mr. Jones. I hope Ginny Good becomes an international bestseller. Gritty, no bull writing deserves to be read by as wide a readership as possible. Thank you."

Hey, maybe I've got some blessings after all, but it still sort of sucks that a "...wonderful, important, gritty, no bull, heartfelt, real, honest, incredibly funny, direct, touching, vivid book, a great and new kind of literature that makes Angela's Ashes look like a Harlequin Romance, etc..." is being pretty much ignored...especially by booksellers and book critics in San Francisco who should be jumping all over the thing, those rats. You can lead horses to water, etc. And it's being ignored by libraries 'cause it didn't get reviewed in any of the magazines that librarians rely on to acquire books. And it's being ignored by colleges and universtiies where it should be used as a textbook in American Studies classes up the wazoo, for the same reason. No reviews. Oh, well, I'm gonna go get myself a day-old cake, buy three boxes of candles and see if I can't blow them all out. Thanks. G.

May 22, 2004

Hey, something sort of slick just dawned on me. The adult trade publishing industry is a $25 billion per year business and GINNY GOOD is by far the best book that's been produced by it in the last twenty years, so does that make GG a five hundred billion dollar ($500,000,000,000) book? Yes. And if you could get a signed copy of a half a trillion dollar book for thirty bucks ($30), would I be doing you a favor, or what? Yes. G.