It's my own tear-jerking sob story, but it's one that I will tell you anyway. My audience is in no position whatsoever to turn their noses up at whatever material I may deign to deliver. It's a free show, remember?
The only reason I'm posting here on Blogger is because my account at typepad is suspended because I don't have the seventeen dollars or whatever to pay for it for the month. My debit card doesn't work. No money in the account.
I long ago put out of my head the thought of partaking of this New Golden Age of Comedy that is inexorably marching across the earth. So I figured that I could make this endeavor self-sustaining by charging for tickets. It was never my intention to get rich. Paying the bills would have been perfectly adequate.
Let's go through this one more time. This is not a free show. How the (mathematically likely) thousands of people in my audience came to believe that I work for free, I do not know. I have stopped trying to figure it out.
I gave up a very good job three years ago because I knew full well that if I continued at that job that I would stop writing. I don't write for my own benefit; I write for yours. Trust me, I can enjoy the brilliance of my own work without committing it to paper; it's already in my head for my convenient perusal.
Had I remained at that job, my house would now be paid off. Far from being paid off, the mortgage is now one month past due.
It is true that being materially wealthy is quite anathema to the life that I need to lead in order to have the moral authority that I require. For certain moral authority reasons, I need to be of simple means. That's just how the bargain works, and I don't care because my needs are very simple anyway.
I don't know what the issue here is. Is my audience cheap? I don't believe that. If my writing propagates as wide as it appears to, then I find it very difficult to believe that not a single person would see fit to buying a ticket. There appears to be some concerted effort to see that I not get paid. Why? I don't know. Maybe some erroneously believe that it would put me in some kind of legal or political trouble. If that is your concern, forget about it. I can handle myself.
I don't think it's too much to ask for room and board. If I volunteer to help a friend paint his house, I don't expect to get paid. But I do kind of expect a sandwich at lunchtime and a stool to sit on. If I drive a friend to the airport, I don't expect to get paid. But I do kind of expect him to buy the gas burned getting there.
I have a mortgage held by Chittenden Bank, Bellows Falls in the amount of approximately $130,000.
I want it paid off. Figure it out.
And pay it off within a week so that I can derive intelligence from any confirmation or non-confirmation of mortgage retirement at the bank. Because if it's not paid off in a week then that means that no one intends to pay it off at all, which means that I will then know that and I will figure out a way to continue paying the mortgage.
...and I will then also know what caliber of audience I am dealing with. If you refuse to speak to me, that's fine; I WILL figure out a way to make you speak volumes through your inaction.
I am happy to work for you. But you are responsible for my upkeep. Figure it out.
