May 20, 1994
Shit got real blurry in the early Nineties. Portrait by Chuck Close.
Dear Grant,
“Without work all life goes rotten,” Camus said.
I have come up with a new idea. A personalized magazine called DOGGIE STYLE, whose primary editorial focus is Attractive Young Athletic Women Scantily Attired & Shot From The Rear. Flesh, fishing, food, field & track will be covered extensively. I knew you’d like it. Video reviews, the latest on Tonya & Nancy. Dog cartoons.
Because each issue is created for just a single subscriber, subscription costs are necessarily high. One year – $25,000, two years – $45,000, three years – $60,000. The longer you subscribe, the more money you save. Obviously, this is a limited market. For example, you are the only person I know who could possibly afford DOGGIE STYLE.
However, because of your friendship and continued support, I am willing to offer – can’t believe I’m doing this – a complimentary subscription. You are officially my first subscriber.
I came back from applying for a job as a part-time graveyard-shift alarm company dispatcher and found my ex-dogs Sandy and Money waiting on my doorstep, along with a woman who looked a lot like Hiawatha.
The Woman Who Looks A Lot Like Hiawatha claims to have missed me tremendously. She loves me without reservation – “I don’t need a reservation,” she quips – apologizes for being the bane of my existence for the past three years, agrees I was right and she was wrong.
She sees the errors of her ways, has changed said ways, thinks I’m the best thing since the three-speed battery-operated vibrator with the flexible nubs, not to mention a potential genius as a writer, a wonderful man besides.
The Woman Who Looks A Lot Like Hiawatha wants to support me in every way she can. Basically made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Forced on me drugs, sex, let me watch television and listen to country & western music. Gave me the puppy to sleep with.
That’s when I knew The Woman Who Looks Like Hiawatha was up to something. Started to get suspicious. So I asked her, “What have you done with the real Hiawatha? Where is she hidden?”
Turns out there’s a catch. “Be straight with me,” The Woman Who Looks Like Hiawatha says. “Once or twice a day.”
Okay, so, here’s the deal. Regular, a lesser man might say excessive, sex, avoidance of all alcoholic beverages; two definitions of our new motto: BEING STRAIGHT. I am also to try to win some grants. Win scholarships, if I expect to go to college. We can afford, The Woman Who Looks Like Hiawatha tells me, to pursue our art, if we pursue like we’re serious. Which is actually what I had decided to do with my life. Mother asks how long I expect The Woman Who Looks Like Hiawatha to act so wonderfully. To which I responded, as long as we’re together.
Here’s the plan. The Woman Who Looks Like Hiawatha will pick me up at the conclusion of my housesitting and aboard Merry Miler, accompanied by Money and Sandy, we’ll head to the Yachats area, which is the place most frequently mentioned by Oregonians when asked, if you could live anywhere in the state, where would you live. Yachats. Pronounced Ya-hots. We will basically set up our own writers’ retreat. “The Woman…” has something like eight-hundred pages of a first draft of her first novel. I have seventy pages. It’s a start.
About my bicycle, please hold until I get a new home, probably soon in Yachats. Thank you. Truly appreciate your consideration.
By the way, it’s been two weeks since I applied for that part-time, graveyard shift alarm company job. Still waiting to hear. I did apply for a position as editor of Utne Reader. Can’t imagine more than a couple thousand people will apply. They want someone with “neo-Luddite tendencies.”
Don’t know what that means exactly.
Wish me luck.