Pilot’s Truck Stop (another chain, like Love’s) just west of the Arizona border.
I first want to clear up a couple things re my last couple posts, wherein I more or less collided with Jan Irvin and then Clint Richardson. A couple of you suggested that I’m wasting my time and whatever talent I have on folks like them.
Not so, no matter how that is meant. These two guys are worth my time precisely because they both have contributed quite a bit in exposing the matrix of lies and deceptions we are constantly bombarded with, and which I believe is now coming to some sort of culmination.
In fact, I recommend both as sources of information. This may sound hypocritical, even unbelievable, especially in the case of Irvin, given the stupendous lack of self-reflection evident in his correspondence with me.
Irvin’s work over the past few years is what makes him a worthwhile subject of scrutiny. But rather go on any further on this, my suggestion (for those of you who are interested in where we’re going as a species) is that you check out his podcasts (gnosticmedia.com). Just keep in mind what you know of him from me as a sort of filter through which you accept, or do not accept, the information he offers. Ditto Clint Richardson.
The baby/bath water aphorism comes to mind here.
But anyway: barring some unforeseen circumstance, that’s that as far as Irvin (and his ‘Are you a Jew?’ cohort) goes. Okay? On we move…
My personal circumstances have changed drastically and I really should have seen this coming: I can’t take my rig into Mexico, not presently. In 2008 – due to circumstances that I won’t bore you with – I left Mexico without checking my car out. Which means even six years later I’m on the computer as having a vehicle in Mexico. You’re only allowed one. Poof. Can’t get a permit.
So my plan to cruise on back to Saladita and spend most of the winter there, writing, editing film and – most importantly – getting my ass back into a warm water point break, is not going to happen. SoCal and wetsuits will have to do…
This change in circumstance brings me to a subject I’ve been wanting to broach with you guys:
This blog – which is the rationale for changing the way I live – is not going the way I’d hoped it would, much as I love the lifestyle itself. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about:
Each time I send out a post I immediately get a clutch of Unsubscribes. As a writer/filmmaker it’s one thing for folks to decide not to cough cash to buy your book or watch your movie, but it’s a whole other level of rejection when your audience ‘doesn’t want to hear it’ from you for free.
I suspect that a major factor in this phenomenon is related to my attitude toward… well, bullshit. Lies and deceits of all sorts. For some reason I thought that most people – at least those that are not habitual bullshitters themselves, i.e., outright sociopaths (let’s face it, we all bullshit now and then) – would find my finger-pointing in some sense enlightening, if not pleasant, to experience. (That I only harangue when I’m nearly 100% sure I’m right on any given subject is important. I don’t believe the blog-bailouts are due to my having my facts out of whack.)
You might have noticed that according to Mail Chimp I have over 4,000 subscribers. Aside from the Unsubscribes, it’s also dispiriting that so few of the 4,000 actually click whatever links I provide, usually a film or ‘Postcard’ I do. And some are pretty good, I think, like the Fundy film (but even that resulted in bailouts). But, for example, my last Postcard, the Creepy Mountain one, garnered (so far) less than 300 views (I do suspect that Youtube’s stats are questionable).
Still another bummer:
Donations have tapered off pretty drastically, even with my offer of two Water Time DVDs for just $15 of help. Maybe I have to actually ask:
Please help out with a $15 donation and I’ll send the signed DVDs!
For $100 you get a signed Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? Plus – and this is a new offer – an audio book of Cosmic Banditos, also signed. (Use the link on the sidebar for DVDs, and go here for a larger donation, including the $100.)
If you like what I’m doing please be advised that without a little help… well, I’d have to figure out something else to do with what remains of my life…
You must understand, and it’s of such importance that I’m going to repeat it yet again: You, via this blog, are the reason for my current lifestyle. Although there are other reasons for my having left Montauk, ‘given up house and home’, the road life and my desire to chronicle it via writings and imagery is why I am where I’m at, geographically (an obscure trucks top on Route 10) and creatively. A weakness of spirit though it may be, I need an audience. That I’m losing it, week by week, post by post, essay by essay, film by film (I lost subscribers with my Fundy film, for chrissakes!), is dispiriting.
Any help in increasing my audience would be most appreciated. And let me know what you’ve done so I can thank you.
But back to the subject of What to do? Is there a bright side to the Mexico prohibition? Maybe. What I plan to do is enter my Fundy film in 50 upcoming film festivals, hoping to get accepted to 10 or more, then travel the country to each one (I’ll strategically space them in time and geography) and make a film about my wanderings and how the festivals go. This footage, along with what I’m doing on truck stops and truckers, plus Water Time Part Two plus my film on Why I Left Montauk will all add up to one film, Always Open.
A major project. Plus this blog, posted along the way.
That’s the plan. Your help, via bucks and feedback, is most welcome.
That I can so easily write and – most amazingly – make various sorts of images, from stills, to my time lapse ‘Postcards’ to full blown films like Fundy; A Study of Time and Tide, and then nearly instantaneously have you experience them, is the flip side to the technocracy that threatens to not only enslave us (actively, rather than passively, which is now the case).
When I arrived at this truck stop last night, I took a look at the truck lot and the angle of the setting sun and came up with this (I’ll be using music in my Postcards from now on):
Don’t you love the Talking Heads?
Allan
Btw, I’m visiting a subscriber who lives near here and already stopped in on another, in New Mexico (we had a great time). Let me know if I’m passing close by you, and you’d like to say hi. (Don’t be offended if I decide to keep on truckin’. It’ll depend on my mood. There are times when I just don’t want to socialize. It’s a quirk I have.)