Scott Lax

 

I was and remain a huge fan of the Beatles, and of John Lennon, who died thirty years ago. He was murdered by a sick and twisted and murderous young man that held a copy of one of the great novels in American 20th Century literature, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. That man and the bullets in his handgun forever changed American culture for the worse. Anything in art can be twisted, even literature. Lennon and McCartney's "Helter Skelter" was likewise used by the sick and twisted twisted and murderous Charles Manson, who also forever changed the face of American culture for the worse.

The night John Lennon was murdered was a snowy night in Northeast Ohio, like it was this year on the night of Dec. 8, the 30th anniversary of John's death. There was a white-out blizzard and I as heard the news while I was driving I felt devastated by the news of Lennon. Talk about your end of innocence; a cultural touch-stone was gone with the pull of a trigger; not just Lennon, but the group that influenced so many of us.

In many ways, I don't think the music world has ever fully recovered from it, nor has the culture of celebrity. Though we lost many - Hendrix and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and Janis Joplin and Buddy Holly and the list goes on and on, Lennon's murder, as seemingly random and starkly cruel as it was - given that he was on his way home to his home, to his young son, after a day's work recording an album that cemented his personal transition to a domestic yet artistic persona, shook popular culture and music to its core.

I want to remember John for being a man who knew he was flawed, however talented or even brilliant he was; a man who knew he blew it with his earlier child-rearing and wanted so badly to make up for it with his son, Sean. A man who had finally come to terms with being a husband and father, as well as an artist.

So I send my sympathy out to his family and to his fans. One thing about John is that he wanted to live a long time; he said so in his last interview. But he didn't make it. To honor his art and his memory is to live life as well as we can, always trying to improve, always loving as best we can, always being honest with ourselves. That's John Lennon's legacy to me.  Read More 

My new column is up on THE FATHER LIFE MAGAZINE. It's called, "Letter to my Unborn Son, Part Two." I hope you check it out - you can read it by clicking the link to the left.

While I still speak to organizations and schools, sometimes as author-in-residence, I've made the decision to stop teaching on a regular basis.

There are two reasons. The first is that I have a lot of writing to do, and in multiple genres. I have a novel at market; a book of short stories in progress; a nonfiction memoir in progress; two magazine columns; anda screenplay in progress. Not to mention other writing assignments.

The second reason is that world of higher education has slammed the door on accomplishment - e.g. being published, excellent teaching evaluations, and teaching skill - in favor of the acquisition of degrees, of M.A.s, M.F.As and Ph.D.s. I have a B.A. and that's it; and in the 2011 world of higher education, that's that.

Degrees are a wonderful thing; they're difficult to get, and are an achievement I admire. But I went another route when I began writing. I learned from great authors, I studied on my own, and I wrote and wrote and wrote, producing hundreds of published columns, essays and features, a literary novel, a produced play and a produced feature film. I've taught hundreds of students, if not more. (You can read some testimonials below.)

In 2010/2011, this is not enough to get my foot in the door of the academy. One university professor said to me a few years ago: "Do you understand why you can't get in the door?" I said no. "What do you think we sell here?" he asked me. "An education?" I replied. "No," he said. "We sell degrees. How do you think it will look if a guy with a B.A. is teaching students whom we want to get masters degrees?"

I cannot tell you how many times I've heard the same basic message, including from three university presidents, two deans, a headmaster, and a number of English Department heads. This is what they say it's about now, in our post-post modern era: "Accreditation." That means degrees; that means money to universities; that means you pay to play...or to teach.

I've taught for other organizations, literary organizations and such, and in general, it was a wonderful experience, especially with the students.

And I've taught for my own Chagrin Valley Writers' Workshop, which I loved. But I acted as administrator and teacher. It became too much, and took too much away from my own writing.

To my students whom I've taught over the past eight years or so: thank you. I enjoyed working with so many of you.

So a final few words. If you want to be a professional, full-time writer, my suggestion to you is to write, to study good and great writing, to be humble, and then to write some more. Then wake up and do it again, and realize that writing is a difficult career choice, but an immensely rewarding one in the sense of expressing your mind, heart and soul. Write cleanly and from the heart. Don't get cute. Don't be clever. Just tell a story.

If you want to teach, especially at a college level, I strongly advise you to get as many degrees as you can and teach the children well. But if you want to be a writer, as well as an academic, try not to let those with lots of degrees and little talent discourage you, or otherwise damage your writing. I've had numerous former M.F.A. students ask me to help them undo the damage from accredited courses they took that were taught by hacks.

I'm sorry the academy has gone in this direction, but it has. As my old Bread Loaf acquaintance, and a special teacher and writer, David Huddle, once said to me, as I was getting in my car for the long drive back to Cleveland from the Green Mountains: "Good luck with your writing. And good luck with your life."

And so to you.  Read More 

Given that our corrupted economy - courtesy off banks, Wall Street, and manufacturers that have outsourced most of our jobs, agribusiness, and the politicians that enabled this plunder of farm and factory alike - is in shambles, I still think there is hope.

You probably already read blogs about local farming and organic food, and that's a good thing, but not always possible. We can all try to buy local food; if we can't, we can't. Local food is terrific, but canned orange juice and Dinty Moore's Beef Stew aren't the reason our country is screwed up. That's just elitist nonsense. If you can't afford food, now that's a real problem.

I'm talking about lots of products... real American made products. Toys that are simple and made of wood or cloth and made by Americans; good clothes that last, made in America; and so much more. I'll post some of those products on occasion, because I believe, as a former industrial salesman (though a liberal that believes in sustainable, environmentally sound food and manufacturing) that "Made in America" is the one thing that can save us from a Depression - one that is inevitable if we unemployment continues apace.

I like Chinese people. I like Mexican people. I like French people, and generally prefer their wine, though not exclusively. I like people from all over the world, and there are products that we need to import, from Central American bananas to Italian suits (and French wine). But if we don't do more to reclaim our industrial and agricultural foundations, we'll actually become that Third World country that The Huffington Post writes about. We need to make things, including energy producers (like wind farms), and alternative transportation (like trains, those things that move the masses around the world, which we can't seem to get right.) We need to sell things -from cutting tools to clothes to local farm-raised food to toys -that are made by artisans, craftspeople, farmers, vintners, brewers and manufacturers that are in the USA. People need jobs, and for there to be jobs, companies have to make things. That's how we solve unemployment. Read More 

With millions of new writers these days (given that blogging, not to mention tweeting, is by nature writing), I think that Reynolds Price, the prolific and accomplished poet, novelist, essayist and professor, had it right years ago, before blogging and tweeting. He's talking about teaching writing, but this can hold true for all aspects of the art and craft of writing, I suspect:

"American writing teachers are much too kind generally, too kind to the point of perjury. Flannery O'Conner, in her sidewinder way, said a dead-true thing: 'Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them.' She apparently meant more or less the same thing that I mean by saying 'Quit if you can. Don't take this up at all lightly.' If the person persists and starts sending me his or her published books, then I'm often interested and try to like the work and say that I do. Writing is a fearsome but grand vocation -- potentially healing but like wise deadly."

Great writers like Reynolds Price are not accidents, nor are they glib and amateur bloggers, of which there are many. What's wonderful about the explosion of amateur writing on the Internet is that people are writing. That's good enough. But it doesn't make one a writer necessarily; it makes a blogger someone who writes. Reynolds Price is a writer. That's an altogether different thing from one who puts words on a page on a blog.

Which leads me to my conclusion: Read good writers, not just bloggers. If you're an aspiring writer, you need to read those who are professional and developed, like Reynolds Price. Read More 

THE FATHER LIFE - the men's magazine for dad's - published my first wine column today. (You can read it by clicking the logo to the left.)

I'm excited to be writing about something I enjoy and respect - wine and the wine-making world. I hope you have a chance to read it.

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
- Dwight David Eisenhower (American 34th President, 1953-61; b.1890; d.1969)

When honoring our veterans - including my dad, who served during World War II, and three of my cousins who served in Vietnam - I think it's important to avoid jingoism and theatrics.

War is hell - only those who have fought it or been inside it can truly know that fact. President Eisenhower knew it, for he saw it as a five-star general and Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces. He was one of those who helped to save the world from the most dire threat we've ever known, from the insanity of militarism and fascism and hatred. What Eisenhower and others accomplished in World War II is one thing I honor. They are the reason I can write this now.

Yet he hated war, so much that he believed you did all you could to avoid it. Eisenhower was no Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or George W. Bush -- all chicken-hawks who avoided service but like to thump their chests and play soldier.

This post is to honor those who really served and sacrificed. As for those who are more than willing to send others off to war, this day is not for you.

Thank you to my dad, and to my cousins, and to all of those who gave so much. If you want to read a brilliant book about the inside of a war, read the novel, THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O'Brien, the great American author and Vietnam Veteran. Read More 

A good example of what I wrote in my previous posting is in David Denby's review of "Fair Game," the feature film about Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson and the Bush Administration, which stars Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.

Here's an excerpt from Denby's review: "Watching this movie, we think, Did it really happen? Yes, it did: the United States went to war without a good reason. Wilson and Plame, husband and wife, are minor players in his disaster, and the movie doesn't make them out to be anything more, but it's faithful to what they endured at the hands of an irrational and dishonest White House."

That's not exactly a politically objective piece. But it's moral, because Denby is showing us what he believes, and using it as context for part of his review. It's a review, not reportage, so he has a right and maybe even a responsibility to do that.

Many of us writers have stayed silent too long, worrying about offending readers, clients or whomever. Meanwhile, the lunatic fringe of the right wing are amassing power. Liberal and progressive writers: I hope you join me in speaking out. If you have political beliefs, but are hiding them behind your food or reality show recap blogs, or whatever your literary form is, you're ceding the political landscape to those who couldn't care less what anyone thinks. It's time for liberal and progressive writers to grow a pair or two and speak out. Don't let the wing-nuts take over our country. The "founding fathers" those wing-nuts are fond of misquoting, or quoting out of context, were intellectuals. It's okay to be an intellectual. It's okay to be liberal in your thinking. And it's good to be a real American. Let them know that we're real Americans, too. Read More 

"A writer who takes political, social or literary positions must act only with the means that are his. These means are the writer's words." - Jean Paul Sartre, on refusing the Nobel Prize.

I think at last I understand this. While I am somewhat active in social and civic causes, I've found - often to my frustration - that I am far more effective at trying to effect change or express a viewpoint through writing than any other activity.

I'm not a politician, though politics affects my life and I feel deeply about what I believe to be right, and to be wrong in this country. A barbaric and cruel health care system, for starters; an educational system that is so systemically flawed as to be caving in upon itself, for another; a disturbing movement of frighteningly ignorant Tea Partiers that are in danger of dismantling national civility and progress. On the other hand, we are the land of a lot of compassionate and creative people.

I'm not a true civic leader, though I lend my limited abilities to causes I believe in. I'm not a business leader, or motivational speaker, though I speak to many groups. If I motivate them, good; if not, I'm not going to use glib techniques or gimmicks to try to get people to write everyday, for example. People will do what they will; all I can do is share my experience with them, and if that resonates, they'll act on it. If it doesn't, they'll go have lunch.

After all, I am just a writer. I have learned to embrace this, for I realize it's what life has given me to use. My only truly effective means to effect change or people's ways of looking at things - or to entertain - are through my written words. Read More 

It seems that this blog gets quite a few more hits than the other pages on my site, so if you're interested in taking the last workshop class I'll be teaching for at least a year, please hit the Educational Services link, above. After this workshop I will sometimes be available for manuscript consultations.