What Happens When You Wear Out Your Welcome?

It’s going to happen whether you like it or not?

I wrote a post a while ago about becoming invisible in your old age. I turn eighty in a few months. I know quite a few classmates follow this blog, and we are all in this together, so you probably will get what I’m saying.

I remember as a youngster looking at my grandmother and thinking, why is she still here? (She was only 72) I thought people didn’t live that long. I didn’t give her the respect she deserved. Sorry Grandmom. Of course, Kurt Vonnegut said we live too long. He said: “You had your children. You wrote your book. Now don't be greedy.” I just got to the writing part late.

The average lifespan for an American these days is 77 and falling, so I’m past my “use by” date. This puts a little urgency in what I want to accomplish before re-entering the universal consciousness. I have completed three of my writing projects, The Pogo Stick Kid, Scoundrels & Seafarers and Too Decent to Die. Too Decent…, which I started in 1996. It was ¾ finished so it didn’t take long to complete.

What has happened, I believe, is that I have worn out my welcome by continually notifying you on my mailing list, who are mainly friends, relatives and classmates. I’ve come to this conclusion because I am getting less and less response as I publish. I mean, these are books and e-books you can get for a couple bucks, but people get tired of being solicited. I get it.

The sad part is, these are really good books. The Pogo Stick Kid illustrations are top notch and it’s a great fairy tale. Kids love it. Scoundrels… is totally unique. I examine not only the pirates and privateers, but the impact they had on the success of the Revolutionary War by supplying the Colonial Army, plus there are all sorts of interesting little known facts about New Jersey. I have been asked by the Atlantic County historical society to make a presentation about the book. Eventually it will take it’s place among the historical documents of the State as a unique reference. The work is not for naught.

Too Decent To Die is my best work to date. I took a noir, Elmore Leonard approach stylistically, and created a great vigilante revenge plot. A plot carried out by a regular guy who turns assassin to make an infamous name for himself on the way out. How? By knocking off ruthless, slimy billionaires. It includes a pretty interesting ex-Hoboken cop turned private eye, who moves to Atlantic City and gets a big break hunting down the assassin by hooking up with the villain’s girlfriend. Pretty sexy and violent with good well-defined characters. Got hardly a tick on the interest board from you guys.

Here's where I came to the conclusion that I’m wearing out my welcome. I feel bad about bugging you to take a look at my work, but if I don’t do it, it obviously won’t get done. I can’t blame anybody for lack of interest; my own wife and kids don’t even look at my work (and my daughter runs a book store). I’m like Rodney Dangerfield. “I can’t get no respect!”

But here’s the thing. So what? These are good books I wanted to write. I have five more in the works, and time is getting short, so yeah, I’m going to be cranking them out. And I will be bothering you to buy them and support my writing habit. I still have a few good friends who buy everything I write, so thanks to them so very much .

What is most interesting to me is that. assuming humans survive, and I do have descendants, four or five generations from now they will be able to dust off an ancient book or file and my name will be on it, and they will get an idea of who I was; what I thought, and who’s genes they carry Think about it, how many people have personal written documents from that far back. Some, but very few. Their ancestors lived, worked, procreated, but they know little about them. So that’s where the big payoff for me is. Knowing that I will connect with the future. I know, not very Zen, ego and all, but, again, so what?

My next project is a difficult one. I’m doing a mini-biography on the first female mayor in New Jersey called Madam Mayor: The Trailblazing Journey of Rebecca Estell Bourgeois Winston, whose family’s name is on the town of Estelle Manor here in South Jersey. There is very little written about her, which means plodding through written historical documentation. But she is a worthy historical cause, and I promised my sweet cousin Diane, I would do this.

After that, I am updated a previous book Trumped. I’m calling it Trumped 2, (a farcical, R-rated, sci-fi work in the near future when the war between the sexes gets literal); two of my plays, Back to the Warning Track & Dying Like Ignacio, plus a frightening screen play I wrote, Don’t Go That Way, that I am putting put into novel form (who reads plays or a film script?) So, I’ll be distracted until they carry me away. I made the covers already. When I do that, it makes the project real for me.

I created this promo video for Scoundrels & Seafarers for you to take a look at. Let me know what you think. And buy my frikkin’ books already. They only cost a couple bucks, and you can’t take it with you, in case you thought you could.

Here's my unique take on how pirates and privateers helped win the Revolutionary War. (It loads quicker on YouTube.)

SEE ALL MY WORKS ON AMAZON