evicting the leggy book cover models in waiting

Stayed up way too late last night.

Partying? Hardly.

Talking to some exotic LA-based nymphomaniac actress who will do anything to get a part in my movie? Not likely.

Watching old movies and talking to myself? Some night, yes, but not last night. (You ought to hear those conversations when they occur, though. They are like arguments between my enfranchised personality facets, and none of them play fair).

No, working on the cover for THEOCRICIDE. Brain melt down. The material is almost complete. But I am looking for a...hold it. Why am I looking for a model? Do I think I need a hot female on my cover to sell books? Think again. 101 GREAT LOVE POEMS outsold FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER and LOVE GODS OF A FORGOTTEN RELIGION combined. No, SNAP, there's an epiphany for you (or, in honor of my late, great friend Mary Jo, an EPIFANNY).

I see the cover now. Perfect. Shut down the camera and send the boom man home for the evening. That's a take. Thank you, whatever minority voting wedge of my preconscious came up with the idea. Thank you very much. No cheesecake, just genius.

You know, one day I may be shot/stabbed/beaten to death/defenestrated by a deranged person who has never even read my work because they thought there must be something inherently evil to me. The same kind of people who, during the "evil books" fanatacism of the seventies, burned library copies of THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE as they presumed with a witch in the title, it must be the work of Satan. Aeons ago, in junior high, I loaned a book to a friend of mine, called "The Games Satan Plays" which was about how an unwholesome interest in the occult could be spiritually detrimental. Her mother saw the title and threw it out, thinking it was trying to win her over to the devil.

Sigh. People need to get up off their couches and ask questions, not just accept ignorance as a de facto excuse for their actions. I remember a Bloom County strip where two characters are talking and one of them quotes Marx that "Religion is the opiate of the mases." Which makes the point that many people use it, not as a means to discovery, but a means to sedation. Just ask the people using it for political leverage. Anyway, when questioned on the meaning of that line, before the character can respond, the TV set thinks "Marx ain't seen nothing yet."

Okay, back to work...God did not put me on this planet to waste time and oxygen.