Microdosing Monday: July 1st

Microdosing Monday:July 1st

Fuck shit, here comes Monday again. Half the year is gone, or half the year remains, depending on which glass you’re drinking from. We’re halfway through all the Mondays we’ll live through this year and this is already sounding like something bigger than a microdose.

I spent some days last week, sun up to sundown, painting and working on my camper that I named the Scrapes of Wrath. Living in the camper and trying to remodel it at the same time has seen halting progress, but waiting for checks in the mail and saving for car repairs has kept me grounded and in place more, so I took advantage of the stillness to get a lot accomplished, including getting my writers desk and studio work space finally finished, thanks to some generous help from my friend Jereme Bryant, who helped me repurpose a closet door from the camper into a bad ass, 6 foot long desk.

There’ll be a big update blog post about camper life forthcoming, and there’s still a lot of work to do on my 172.5 sq ft writer’s shack on wheels, but removing my old temporary desk, painting, and building, painting and installing the new desk required me to live without my desktop computer for five days, a nerve wracking thing for a writer. 90% of my finished product with writing comes off the desktop. But the big computer is back up and purring, and the writing comes an inch at a time, like a tug of war match between my brain and my heart.

This is a newsletter to update you about my life and my writing, so I’ll condense several good somethings into this: lots of great things continue to be said about my latest novel The Dead and the Desperate (Roadside Press, 2023.) If you haven’t yet, you should get a copy, in hardback or paperback, and read the damn thing.

I was supposed to host my July virtual open mic on Friday July 5th, this fucking Friday, but as fate would have it, I’ve got a few things going on this week that make my schedule unreliable. Will keep everyone updated as I go, but that’s on pause and will likely be rescheduled.

Hey now, it’s July and you know what that means. It’s Insomniacathon time. That’s right, suckas, the poets, musicians and other nefarious performers will be taking over the historic chapel of St Philip Neri in Louisville KY for 57 consecutive hours of performance art. Friday the 26th-Sunday the 28th. Tickets are on sale. Get them from the link that I’ll try to post. Thanks to host Ron Whitehead and Kent Fielding for all their work on this, and for their kind invitation for me to participate. This is allegedly brother Ron Whitehead’s last Insomniacathon. You wouldn’t want to miss that. I wouldn’t.

(Couldn’t post Insomniacathon link here look in comments)

It’s July, so you know what that means. It’s the month I start planning out my November reading tour. The tour will take me from Ohio to Los Angeles, and many points between there and back.

Books I loved the last week:

The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. It features hundreds of American poets, dozens of styles of poetry, and is my all-time favorite book. It is my text book. My Bible. I read from it often, and although I’ve been loving other books, this one brings my writer heart alive like no other collection of words has ever done.

It’s summer and baby, this is exactly what I was picturing when I signed up for camper life. I spend half my time outdoors, and the other half indoors with my trusty sidekick cat, working on our tiny home, and writing manifestos for the working class.

My friend’s pup Chandler and me writing poems the other day

My roomie Hunter S. Tomcat and me having coffee this morning

Thank you for all your support.

Love,

Dan

Ps. I listened to Herbie Mann’s Memphis Underground while writing this. One of my favorite Jazz albums.