From the Engine Room

his post is the 200th for the Little Engine which first pulled out of the station in December 2007. Started as a way of publicly shaming myself to consistently make progress on whatever literary project I was working on at the time, the Engine continues to chug along allowing me to think through stories, characters, approaches and to push forward.

Every once in a while I check out the Engine's stats. Lately, a few numbers have caught my eye. First, readership is up about 33%. I assume this is either the result of worthy reading, cleverly placed hyperlinks and labels on my part...or what we may refer to as the "Pre-Date Internet Creep Check." Thank you, ladies.

Second, the Engine consistently gets readers from Russia. The Engine's most popular post since it's inception? A piece on Chinese drinking songs. I have reason to believe that the two are directly related.

Third, how do folks find the Engine? More often than not they search my name. There are some, though, who have searched my name + chapstick + poem. This is a very specific search by people who are most likely up to no good; probably even less good than the Russians. I know what they're looking for, but unfortunately for them, it has never appeared in this blog. And, apparently, anywhere else on the internets. Till now.

Here now, from A Midas Spring (2005), the answer to "my name + chapstick + poem", "I'd Smile More, But I Lost My Chapstick":

I'd smile more,
but I lost my chapstick.
I'd say more,
but the corners of my lips are cracked.
I am at the mercy
of tubed petroleum.

Glasses of milk prove deficient
and pacifiers socially so.
Lollipops are a viable alternative.
Your kiss may only add salt to this wound.

I can learn sign language
or I can gesticulate my way through.
But neither
bring the fluency
of a well-greased grin.

For those interested in the beats put down the night 'Chapstick' premiered in the East Village, peep DJ Sleep.

Project Updates: Cookie-Wise Pablo got a second round of sketches which I'll post soon with content and the Any Color You Want screenplay chugs along as it nears its October 31st deadline. All in all, progress.

The Page That Proves I Exist

oments after the Tigers eliminated the Yankees, I sat down to make progress on the Any Color You Want screenplay for the second time today. I wrote about eight lines all of which were about as good as the Yankees' swings at Fister, Sanchez, Verlander and Scherzer. I packed it in early, frustrated and without a good idea of what the next line would be, never mind the next 60 pages.

It's nights like these you'd think I'd consider hanging it up for good. Admittedly, I've been winging it lately with only vague prep done in advance, assuming it'll just come to me - if not in this draft, then in draft number nine. Creative writing, especially longer pieces (90+ pages), risks failure with every line. It is humbling. When done right, I'd argue, it's exhausting.

So why continue?

After watching a rather pale and very bearded dude for a year write from a distance, a beautiful woman once penned a poem that she handed over shortly before we parted ways. In it she included a question that has motivated me ever since. The question? "...and where's the page that proves you exist?" I'd like to think she was not referring to my long form birth certificate.

I write for a number of reasons. Writing allows me to flesh out my thoughts. It's cheaper than therapy. And novel ideas provide a fantastic high. I also write so that one day I can scribble, "The page that proves I exist," in her dedication.

Savvy Sketches

ood news on the Hooey Savvy front: Stephanie Concepcion of Staten Island has submitted her first series of sketches for Cookie-Wise Pablo. Each sketch corresponds with a couplet from the story. In return, I've submitted my thoughts and suggestions to keep the ball rolling. Here's a first look.

O captain! My captain!

eath. Taxes. And the New York Yankees. Three things I can pencil in every year.

When asked why I like baseball, a game some complain is too slow, is boring, doesn't have enough action, I allude to Bart Giamatti's essay, "The Green Fields of the Mind":

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

And:

"Whatever the reason, it seemed to me that I was investing more and more in baseball, making the game do more of the work that keeps time fat and slow and lazy. I was counting on the game's deep patterns, three strikes, three outs, three times three innings, and its deepest impulse, to go out and back, to leave and to return home, to set the order of the day and to organize the daylight."

More than any other sport, baseball mirrors our lives in its dailyness and in its grueling schedule. We wake up, go to work and return home in the same way baseball players run out to their positions inning after inning, day after day and return home afterward. More than any other sport, the fans can identify with the players' long season and not only wish them success, but survival through one year to the next. The game's parallel existence mirrors our own continued existence.

Fans of all baseball teams are free to claim this parallel. Few fans, though, can make a claim for immortality through their teams. Every year teams such as the Cubs, the Red Sox and the Yankees stay in the same location and wear the same uniforms they extend their lives past the lengths of our own. And in the same vein as "you don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the other guy to not get eaten", anything older than you or your direct memory is that much closer to immortality.

A few years ago Brian Cashman, the general manager of the Yankees said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Our fans count on the Yankees on a daily basis." I understood that to mean a few things. First, no matter how crappy our day, the Yankees will end it well. Second, no matter how unfair the day, the Yankees will play the game the right way and in winning, will (in a very small and personal way) level the scales of justice. Third, no matter how tempting the short cut, the high standard of the Yankees  -and their subsequent success - will give us something to emulate.

Cashman spoke of the entire franchise, but he could have been speaking about just one player: Derek Sanderson Jeter.

The Captain injured his ankle last night and it seems he will miss the rest of the playoffs. Saying he will be missed is an understatement. I refuse to write his eulogy today: That's like making his Yankeeography in 2002 (which they did) as there's more to come.

Some may argue that the Yankees and their fans have hit Giamatti's "stop." Even Whitman's poem, "O Captain! My Captain!" does not end well for its leader. Nor did it for Mr. Keating in Dead Poets Society who also invoked Uncle Walt. But rather than sulk in loss, Keating's students atop desks picked up the mantle of captain, each of their own ship.

No, the game continues. And last I checked, the Stadium is still in the Bronx and the Yankees still wear pinstripes. Jeter will play another day. The Yankees will play today.

Thank you, Bobby

ver 13 years ago, shortly before walking across the stage, I ran into my college president, Bobby Vagt, and asked him what I had to offer a world that, in 1999, seemed to be doing just fine. In fact, unemployment was so low that even a year later the New York Times ran a piece about a community that's unemployment rate was so low that they'd taken to hiring ex-cons and...wait for it...liberal arts grads.

Without missing a beat, Bobby told me, "You know how to read, to write and to communicate." I didn't take much solace in those words at the time. I mean, the literacy rate in the U.S. is pretty high and, to some, grunting is a valid form of communication. Everyone knows how to do those things I thought.

No matter what my occupation has been over the years, I've continued to write on my own year by year putting together a portfolio of work while also continuing to read and to communicate what's on my mind be it in English, Spanish or New Yorkese.

Having dealt with people older and younger than myself, from different experiences and places and of different education levels, I've come to understand what the president meant that day: He meant that most people do not know how to read insightfully, to write clearly and to communicate consistently and clearly.

The other day I met with the president of a non-profit consultancy looking for a grant-writer. He bemoaned the lack of good writers out there. I smiled and thought of Bobby. Today I formally accepted their offer to be a grant writer.

If I've learned anything of the years (other than never to doubt Brian Cashman), it's that those who stick with something, who are not distracted and who make progress everyday are those who will most likely achieve their goals. In a small way, this new position is a testament to that.

And now...Game 4 of the ALDS. Go Yanks!

The Hot Stove

etting definitive goals over a short period of time coupled with a healthy dose of self-bullying has worked well for my literary output historically. Which leads us to my latest challenge: 112 scenes by November 1st or the end of the World Series (whichever comes last), in other words, approximately five scenes a day.

Because I take literary criticism about as well as first time mothers take backhanded compliments about their newborns, sometimes it takes a while to admit the criticism is spot on and I need to change my baby, if you will.

And so I am. The first 14 pages of the screenplay for Any Color You Want (ACYW) stays; the next 88 go to the recycling bin along with a number of characters that I enjoyed creating, scenes I enjoyed writing and a story I enjoyed working on for a few years.

In comes the characters, scenes and story I should have written the first time around instead of taking a more round-about route. While the round-about route made for a good story, by avoiding the question I laid out early on ("How would locals react to foreigners setting up a Peace Corps office in the U.S.?" or, "Can we ever accept foreign help?") I also avoided the hallmark of good dramatic writing: vigorously rubbing conflicting characters and ideas directly against each other and enjoying the sparks.

If you groaned when you saw the ACYW acronym, thinking perhaps, perchance!, I'd finally laid it to rest, well, you're not alone. Part of me groaned too. But think about this: Knows all those bands that had killer first albums and dud sophomore efforts shortly thereafter? They just burst on the scene, right? Came out of nowhere with this great material, right? Nah. Chances are they'd been playing that first album for years before anyone knew who they were. That crappy second album? That's their record label rushing them to put something out to capitalize on their popularity.

Has ACYW been on the stove for a while? You bet it has. It just needs to reduce some more. You can't hurry a good stock.

Progress Report: Cookie-Wise Pablo is with the illustrator! The Boston Squeeze is on the back burner till I hit the depths of winter and get the itch to grab Bull Durham or The Bad News Bears  before pitchers and catchers report. The series of seven kids books I wrote a few weeks ago? Still on ice. And then there's another screenplay in the works that's either blasphemous or wicked awesome. Hopefully both. But that's for another time. As you can see, I take writing a lot like baking: One project in the oven, one on the rack cooling, one setting up in the fridge, another on the table waiting to be placed out while I nibble on the works of others keeping my taste buds sharp.

What We're Doing Here

n the spring of 2009, a friend introduced me to chardonnay from California's Russian River Valley. I immediately had a favorite new beverage. I can only liken its buttery flavor to Rat's description of Bean's Apple Cider from The Fantastic Mr Fox as "liquid gold." Shortly thereafter, an adamant East Coaster began planning my his first trip to the West Coast.

A month before the trip, almost exactly a year later, I asked friends in the NYC fine dining world where to eat. Everyone had their favorite spots and old haunts. Cyrus, a contemporary French restaurant in Healdsburg, California, came up more than once. I made the reservation and thought nothing more of it.

Coming from NYC and from what was at the time the Best New Restaurant in America (Marea) according to James Beard, I thought I knew what fine dining was. I thought I had been to the top of that mountain. Thankfully, I was very wrong.

My three hour, 17 course meal at Cyrus was the greatest dining experience of my life. It was such a complete experience (they even gave me a copy of my menu as a memento), that I sent them a handwritten thank you note when I returned home.

To my friends from the Michael White days, no disrespect. My meals at Alto, Convivio, Marea, Osteria Morini and Ai Fiori were akin to eating with family and as such, hold a very special place.

Cyrus made their intentions crystal clear from the moment I sat down. Repeatedly, throughout the course of the evening, servers, sommeliers et al would bring me something and say, "We want to show you what we're doing here." Through a 17 course charm offensive, they quite effectively put me in my place.

In San Francisco days before, I had learned that city chefs liked to put fresh, local, organic produce on one's plate quite satisfied with themselves. That wasn't enough at Cyrus. At Cyrus, that's where the dish began. Then they showed you what they could do with that fresh, local, organic produce. Course after course after course.

For far too long my rule was: The only greens I eat are M&Ms. To be fair, they knew I was coming in and where I was coming from. It would have been very poor form not to clean my plate. But at Cyrus, Chef Douglas Keane got me to eat things I would have never tried otherwise. Chef Keane could have told me it was car tire reduced in Drano and I would have lapped it up.

Sadly, Cyrus is closing its doors on October 29th. Not only are we losing a great restaurant led by a great chef, but we're losing Nick Peyton, Cyrus' co-owner (with Chef Keane) and de facto maître d' par excellence. The man should run a school on how to run a joint. He makes Rick Blaine look like a bumbling amateur.

Before I even left the table that night I had learned something important: I had learned how far I had come as a cook at Marea, but I also knew how much further Marea and I had to go to reach Cyrus' level. I may no longer cook professionally, but I can appreciate majestic mountains such as Cyrus and the challenge of climbing to their peak.