Michael Schein

Conversations Across Borders

mschein — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:47:34 +0000

Conversations Across Borders is an online literary journal created by Port Townsend Writers Conference program director Jordan Hartt. This month’s edition features work by former WA Poet Laureate Sam Green, and others, including your humble correspondent. Download the work for a small fee; proceeds to a good literary cause each month. This month support goes to the cancer treatment for Margarita Donnelly, one of the four founders of Calyx magazine. Please take a peek, and buy a poem for only $2!

http://www.conversationsacrossborders.org/cablitmag/current/currentissue.html

RIP Lt. Bradshaw

mschein — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 02:29:25 +0000

Just heard that Peter Bergman of the Firesign Theatre died Friday. Happily, they were too weird for prime time, and helped me catch my first glimpses of the insanity that pulls the strings in this wild rickshaw ride. Sure, Waiting for the Electrician (or Someone Like Him), Don’t Touch that Dwarf (Hand me the Pliers), The Further Adventures of Nick Danger Third Eye, and We’re All Bozos on this Bus, not to mention more recent favorites like Boom Dot Bust, probably didn’t win any awards for great literature, but to my mind they stand alongside Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, Sometimes a Great Notion, Confederacy of Dunces, and Gravity’s Rainbow, as great achievements of hippy wizardom. So, smooth sailing, Lt. Bradshaw. You never got your own show with all the girls, but you got everything you ever asked for . . . “Give Me Immortality, or Give Me Death!”

May I moon you?

mschein — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 04:21:54 +0000

Writing when you don’t know where you are going is a special pleasure in this teleological society. There’s the rigor of confronting oneself, of asking what’s really going on, bub? What is going on today with Michael? Michael is excited about the prospect of selling our house in Ballard and downsizing. (OK, let’s quit this megalomaniacal third person stuff – sounds like Nixon talking about “the President.”) I am eager and nervous about the AB Bard book, The Killer Poet’s Guide to Immortality, that my new company is attempting to birth. I know I’m trying to do the best work I can, and – like so many writers – I’m trying to be confident enough to take all the rejection, though often I worry that my work isn’t good enough. That’s OK – I’m true to the muse, and we do communicate, don’t we? That’s one of the toughest things for humans to do, so woo-hoo, look at us! Ah, there’s the rub. Perhaps I spend too much energy clawing my way towards something I can barely name or imagine. Success? Recognition? Money? It’s all bullshit, man, I know that, but I don’t always live that. I imagine that success holds the promise of transcendence – when transcendence is hanging in that moonrise tonight. Did you see it? Took my breath away. No rejections, no reviews, no sales scans, just a big, fat, orange moon, hanging on the horizon, inviting wonder.

Call for edgy X-Mas poems & stories

mschein — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 23:46:24 +0000

Announcing WRY INK PUBLISHING, LLC – www.wryink.com
First up – submissions are open for the Twisted X-Mas Anthology. Poetry & short prose welcome. Please visit the website for guidelines & then SUBMIT. You could be the next Sedaris elf. Or whatever. Stir your inner x-mas creature. Deadline 5/31.

Go Tara Go! (a call to action)

mschein — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:26:38 +0000

Carol & I attended an inspirational fund-raiser for Tara Hardy tonight at Freemont Abbey. Outstanding poetry performances that were funny and joyous and profound. Tara was an ever-deepening manifestation of her grateful, clear-eyed, fully alive & heartfelt self. What a gift to ears she is! & what a gift is community uniting to help a friend in need. Listen up, all ye who seek wisdom. It enters when we are blown wide open.
If you want to donate to help Tara, CLICK HERE. Thank-you!
Shanti, shanti, shanti . . .

Diversity & Racism

mschein — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 03:24:58 +0000

My daughter just lost her job due to the color of her skin.
She has worked hard all her life. She studied hard in college, earning high marks in history. She lived in a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, commuting on the subway to Manhattan to attend one of the finest urban graduate schools, known for its teaching program. She worked for free, volunteering at several schools. She went deeply into debt to graduate at the top of her class with a Masters in Education in history and social studies. As part of her rigorous training, she student taught at an inner-city school, where the kids loved “Mizz A.” In her final evaluation, the supervising teacher praised her compassion and enthusiasm. Streetwise kids of all colors and religions cried when she left.
Like all but a handful of new graduates in her department, my daughter was unable to find steady work her first year out of school. It was hard on us all. She substitute taught. She tended bar. She moved back in with us. All she wanted to do was to teach middle or high school kids. Don’t we need teachers? Isn’t education the key to economic recovery and global competitiveness? But the investment banks and insurers had vacuumed all the money out of our economy, and school districts around the country were forced to lay off teachers, creating a pool of experienced applicants who would always beat out the new graduates for the scarce job openings.
I told her, “Stick with it. You’re good at what you do; you’re passionate; we need teachers. You’ll get your chance.”
The only openings were in the private schools. After hundreds of rejections and dead ends, my daughter was among the few fortunate recent graduates to land a real teaching job. Sure, it was an 80% time job replacing a teacher on sabbatical, but it was a foot in the door at a good Eastside private school. I was naïve enough to tell her she was on her way. “Do the great job I know you can do, and they’ll find a place for you in the future.”
For you see, as a father, I had the same dream for my daughters that Martin Luther King had for his: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
I am proud to say that my daughter did the kind of job you see in those exhilarating movies like Mr. Holland’s Opus or To Sir with Love. She inspired! Many of her students will remember her as the teacher who changed their lives. Not only were her evaluations stellar, but parents spontaneously wrote and called to commend her work with their middle-school kids.
As a bonus, my daughter is a trained musician and singer. When the school suddenly needed someone to conduct the orchestra, she was able to step in and do a great job. That’s what special teachers can do.
A job opened up at the school. A real, full-time spot in the middle school social studies program. The administration opened the position to competitive application. My daughter’s supervisor was appalled; letters of support for her poured in from her teaching colleagues. But you already know the end of this story. The one thing my daughter had no control over – the color of her skin – determined that no matter what she had done or what she could do in the future, she would not be re-hired.
Did I mention that she is Caucasian? The school calls it diversity. I would call it racism. I do not make that charge lightly. I am a liberal; I understand that affirmative action was a reasonable remedy for past wrongs. But it was necessarily a temporary remedy, because it punishes new generations for the sins of those who came before. It institutionalizes racism, and “group guilt.”
I call “diversity” racism for two reasons. First, it is an excuse for judging applicants based on the color of their skin. This is contrary to the fundamental American principle that “all men are created equal,” deserving to be judged on their own merits. Second, it is based on the assumption that children cannot learn as well from persons of other races. This is false. Children are filled with love, not prejudice – until we teach them that it all comes down to race. Sadly, that’s what “diversity” hiring does.
Racism is no less poisonous when turned against a white person. Don’t tell me that my daughter has had the greater opportunities. She got into UW on her own merits. She worked for everything. We aren’t wealthy.
So long as we judge people on the color of their skin, nobody is safe. Today, racial minorities benefit. Tomorrow, the tables may turn. The only real protection against discrimination for all races is discrimination against none. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” – Martin Luther King.
Who suffers from this form of racism? Obviously, great teachers like my daughter. If not for the accident of race she would have her pick of jobs, even in this economy. But the reality is, we all suffer. The children suffer, because they are deprived of a proven teacher who has shown she can inspire them. The school suffers from needless controversy and the disillusionment of faculty. Society suffers because racial strife is exacerbated. Once again, we confront the hard truth that all are not of equal worth.
What are the lessons for our children? That no matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, it all comes down to the color of your skin. For shame.

Leavenworth I love you!

mschein — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 01:25:11 +0000

Call me a sucker for kitsch, lederhosen & polkas, but really it is the mountains everywhere, A Book for All Seasons, and Red Bird cafe a/k/a Good Mood Food, that made our recent trip memorable. Pat, Lilly-Anne & the gang kindly hosted this lesser-known scribe & my dear wife in the Sherlock Holmes room of the Innsbrucker Inn, a quaintly decorated literary establishment right in the heart of town. On Friday night I got a chance to talk WA history & Bones Beneath Our Feet while showing historical slides at the local library. The next day, I met with a number of interesting local readers at the bookstore. It is such a pleasure watching a twenty-something choose between Catch-22 & War&Peace.
Not to leave you in suspense, she chose Tolstoy. Ambitious! Ah, youth . . .
This seems to have about wrapped up the many BONES appearances. I’m ready to move on to my new venture – Wry Ink Publishing – and our first release, set for April. More on that later. Don’t worry – I’m too busy to yodel.

Just Deceits hits #1?!

mschein — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:33:32 +0000

Ahh, the mystery of the internet, the e-world, the unknown. My first novel, JUST DECEITS: A HISTORICAL COURTROOM MYSTERY, hit #1 on the paid KINDLE list in the legal thrillers category this past week. I’m delighted – it is such a great read – but also somewhat mystified and humbled by the alchemy of the eBook. Here’s a book that came out from a tiny Seattle press in 2008, with NO reviews, NO marketing, nothing, nada, zip – one that in the old lit world would have been deader than last week’s newspaper in the blink of an eye, instead gradually climbing, climbing, like the Little Engine that Could, through the never-out-of-print ranks of the undead eBooks, till BANG-O! with a little help from a few free download promotions, suddenly it takes off. Listen up, dear fellow writers: the primary lesson here is, give away free books! Counter-intuitive, but well worth it. And with eBooks, it’s easier, since after all, they don’t cost anything to give away. I will also add that I’m not even sure that JUST DECEITS is a legal thriller. It certainly isn’t the John Grisham Scott Turow Bob Dugoni type book, since it is a historical novel as well as a courtroom drama. But who cares? It hit #3 in the historical novel category on paid KINDLE downloads, too. So, if you’re looking for a great read – please try JUST DECEITS. & here’s a secret: you don’t even need a Kindle. It is available at Secret Garden Books or on Amazon in old-fashioned trade paperback too. Write on!

Bon Voyage Nellie!

mschein — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:06:35 +0000

How sweet it has been to have our daughter back for almost a month. She’s a freshman at George Washington U, way across the country in that other Washington. It’s a place she’s growing to love, and the place where she’s growing by leaps & bounds. A place to which she returns tomorrow. She’s not independent – it’s all fueled by parental support – but in all other respects she’s now an adult, and we’re simply the booster rockets falling back towards earth. She’ll be doing an internship with the Democratic Governors Ass’n, and a heavy load of credits, followed by summer who knows where – and all we can do is sit back and cheer & worry & be happy for her. In the words of Kahlil Gibran:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Bon Voyage, Nellie! We love you in ways you may someday understand, in ways we do not even understand ourselves . . .

Just Deceits beats Bones, but that’s not all folks!

mschein — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 01:45:30 +0000

Laid up with a case of 2nd book-itis. JUST DECEITS consistently outsells BONES BENEATH OUR FEET. What do I care? I wrote them both. The good news is that I’ve got a 3rd in the wings, waiting to fly. & like every next book ever written, this one is the very very bestest in the whole wide woild, the next MOBY DICK and HOWL and CUCKOO’s NEST wrapped in one roasted banana peel. A book not yet cooked is such a delightful fantasy – like a lover merely imagined. No inlaws, arguments over money, or hairs in the sink yet. Just the pure platonic form of literature, the great seductress, the oracle that answers all quests. Onward! Spit in the Reaper’s Eye, wink at the void, and have a pretty good weekend too. Hell, it might even snow in Seattle – stranger things have happened.