The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.: 09.2005

9.30.2005:

12:06 AM

You know... I never really felt old until they put the 90's music channel on MusicChoice. Now, I'm officially listening to "oldies", and I actually like it.

And that is sad. But honestly, there hasn't been good music on the playlist of any public formatted radio or music station since 1997. Soooooooooooo I'm old, and I guess that's what I'll have to live with.

And now, I must end this posting, for I must go change my Depends and apply a topical hemmorhoid cream to my ANUS. And drink FiberCon or something... Whatever old people drink or eat that makes them smell like aspirin and formaldahyde all day.

Just a small note before I go: Ugly Kid Joe covering Harry Chapin's "Cat in the Cradle" was, and still is, a fucking travesty.

Just thought I'd mention that.

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9.28.2005:

2:06 PM

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Step 1: Create Book Layout Template for Chapters and Stories
Step 2: Include Forward
Step 3: Write End of Book stuff (thanks, appendix, etc.)
Step 4: Write Beginning of Book stuff (copyright, legal info, title page, etc)
Step 5: Write Introduction & Table of Contents
Step 6: Put it all together, Print Test Copies
Step 7: Mail Test Copies to Test Readers
Step 8: Receive Test Copies, Make Edits, Include Bonus Stories
Step 9: Finalize Book - final sweep
Step 10: Print & Ship
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You may notice I took Step 1 off my "done" list. This is because I didn't follow the 2nd piece of advice I gave you all about laying out a book. I've found a much much much better way to do it all, so I'm starting it over. Whee.

But I did get a lot of the beginning crap done. This Is Not Art is now an official company in the eyes of B&N and Amazon, since I got my block o' ISBN's and SAM number.

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9.27.2005:

2:02 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------
Step 1: Create Book Layout Template for Chapters and Stories
Step 2: Include Forward
Step 3: Write End of Book stuff (thanks, appendix, etc.)
Step 4: Write Beginning of Book stuff (copyright, legal info, title page, etc)
Step 5: Write Introduction & Table of Contents
Step 6: Put it all together, Print Test Copies
Step 7: Mail Test Copies to Test Readers
Step 8: Receive Test Copies, Make Edits, Include Bonus Stories
Step 9: Finalize Book - final sweep
Step 10: Print & Ship
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I can say the following things concerning laying out a book:

1) Thank GOD for Adobe InDesign, because Quark is an absolute peice of crap.
2) If you decide to lay out a book, read the book about doing it first. You'll save yourself a lot of time and headaches.
3) After all the hiccups and do-overs and oopses, it's actually a lot of fun to do.
and
4) Next time, I'm hiring this out.

But it IS really exciting and I'm having a good time doing it. I'm actually getting nervous... The more I put into the final book, the more interested I get in hearing feedback and wondering what people will think, which makes me nervous. All I can imagine is a bunch of people getting the book in the mail and going "Uh... I paid for THIS?!?"

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9.26.2005:

6:37 PM

Have you ever had that feeling when listening to an album or reading a book or viewing a painting or (insert enjoying a form of media here) where you just wish, just for a second, that you were the one who made it?

Not that you wish you could do something LIKE it - I get that feeling all the time. I constantly daydream and wish that I was much more brilliant than I am ever capable of being and could come up with some of the things that I've seen and enjoyed.

I'm actually talking about taking a work and literally going back into time and doing it yourself from square one, then releasing it. Not for the glory of it all, but just for the knowledge that you were genius enough to come up with it yourself. You could even put it out under the original artist's name and it wouldn't matter to you at all - all you want is to know you were capable of doing something that fantastic at least once in your life?

I am listening to Pink Floyd's "Animals" right now, and that's the feeling I have about this record. I know that most Pink Floyd / classic rock chronicalists will pick "Dark Side of the Moon" or "The Wall" or "Wish You Were Here" (or, if they REALLY know what they're talking about, "Piper at the Gates of Dawn") as the greatest records in Pink Floyd's catalogue, and I agree with them. It's just that "Animals" has that... thing. I can't explain it at all and would sound like a complete buffoon if I tried. All I can say is that the coheison of this record, from beginning to end, is stunning. It plays like one piece, each individual part geniously written and performed. It speaks to me on a level that the others don't.

So there you go. If I could hijack one work created in the history of the world and do it myself, "Animals" by Pink Floyd would be it. Or maybe "De-Loused in the Comatorium" by The Mars Volta. Or "Grace" by Jeff Buckley. Or maybe the movie "Fight Club" (because - and I know I'm going to piss someone off with this statement, but I don't care, it's just a fact - the book sucked). Or perhaps the painting of the dogs playing poker... I don't know.

In fact, I'd just take everything. Because that's how much of a hack I am.

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9.23.2005:

2:37 AM

I was contacted by an old friend from high school recently who found me through a search on Google. He told me he performed this search after being informed by another classmate of ours that I was writing stories on the internet and, contrary to the news of the day, I am -- in fact -- still alive.

Yep. Still alive. Which is great news, I have to say.

Apparently, there was a rumor going around that, shortly after graduation, I had died. Now, this is shocking news in and of itself. I was quite taken aback by my impromptu obituary, because as far as I have been able to tell, I've been missing out on sweet, sweet release from this mortal coil for the past 9 years or so. But more shocking than the fact that I was supposedly dead was finding out the manner in which I met my demise.

According to rumor -- and I am not kidding here, this is the way by which someone decided to start telling people I had left this mortal coil -- I fell out of the Mind Bender roller coaster at Six Flags over Georgia after removing my safety restraint and standing up in the car while in the middle of a loop-de-loop. I apparently slid past the lap rail and fell several hundred feet, where I died on impact.

I FELL? Out of a fucking ROLLER COASTER? THIS is how I died?

Come the fuck on, man... I mean, yeah, it's amusing, and it definitely sounds like something I'd do (mostly because I had a season pass to Six Flags for a few years while in high school and did this all the freakin' time). But how fair is it to spread rumors about someone that they died on an amusment park ride?

I mean, wouldn't that make the papers? Surely my death would have been at least somewhat newsworthy -- not by virtue of the fact that it was me, but because someone sliding from the car of a roller coaster at Georgia's largest amusement park would have caused the reporters in our area to salivate uncontrollably.

Wait.

Maybe I AM dead.

Maybe I'm imagining all of this, trying my best to cope with the fact that I'm stuck in some sort of internet-enabled purgatory. And all of the goofy crap that happens to me is just God and the Devil having fun taking turns at the "Joe Dial" all day. That's gotta be it... That's the ONLY explination for the reason people keep coming up to me and singing Hendrix tunes, thinking they're so friggin clever! And that fucking "Hi, My name is Joe, I have a wife and 3 kids and I work in a button factory" song... The mere fact that it exists is proof that I'm at least headed to hell.

Nah. That's silly.

But I will say that I'm flattered that this particular individual was so moved by the news of my persistant mortal state that he felt compelled to email me. You're a good man, Charlie Brown (not his real name, but he knows what it means, and he'll probably hunt me down and kill me now, thus sparking NEW news for people to discuss at the next reunion that, even if I was alive, I wouldn't go to, because reunions exist for the sole purpose of proving to everyone you knew that you aren't nearly as pathetic as they all thought you would be, and I am. So there's no use in going).

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9.21.2005:

10:25 PM

This song smells like fall to me
I can feel the cool autumn breeze in the bright ring of the strumming of the opening chords
The fallen leaves are swept up and dance right through me
And I can smell the coming winter on the wind
I'm whirred around
I spin with my arms out and my eyes closed and a smile on my face until I fall to the ground
All without even leaving my chair

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9.19.2005:

8:54 PM

Step 1: Create Book Layout Template for Chapters and Stories
Step 2: Include Forward
Step 3: Write End of Book stuff (thanks, appendix, etc.)
Step 4: Write Beginning of Book stuff (copyright, legal info, title page, etc)
Step 5: Write Introduction & Table of Contents
Step 6: Put it all together, Print Test Copies
Step 7: Mail Test Copies to Test Readers
Step 8: Receive Test Copies, Make Edits, Include Bonus Stories
Step 9: Finalize Book - final sweep
Step 10: Print & Ship

Above is the 10 step process I have to follow to finish the book and get it out the door. I'll be updating this blog as I finish each step in the process, including whatever notes are included in the process. Fun crap, eh?

I won't be including the website template for MI2 or any of the sales / marketing crap here, mostly because I don't yet know what I'm going to do for all of that. But when I do, you better believe I'll bore the living crap out of you with it!

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9.12.2005:

Re: ---

11:09 AM

You look MAHHHVALOUS

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The Journal of Joe The Peacock. Yay.

9.30.2005:

9.28.2005:

9.27.2005:

9.26.2005:

9.23.2005:

9.21.2005:

9.19.2005:

9.12.2005:

Re: ---

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