If You Read My Book, I Won't Read Yours

I'll buy it, but I probably won't read it.

I don’t know if this happened to you, but it happened to me. And it’s my blog.

I used to read kid’s books when I was a kid. You know, those little books with the cardboard covers. I started leaning toward non-fiction when I got older, in part because I liked history, and in part because the writing was much more straight-forward. I didn’t have to wade through all the ‘stylistic’ stuff.

I remember wondering why I couldn’t seem to read the ‘classics’. My parents bought me ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ when I was 12, and I couldn’t get through 2 chapters. It seemed too dense, so many words. I couldn’t get inside it.

And yet, years later, I went through ‘The Power Broker’, a 1200-page biography of Robert Moses, in 3 days. I was fascinated.

When I got to college I took Lit courses, but they seemed so tricky. They wanted you to read indecipherable stuff like ‘The Dubliners’, and then have an opinion about it. I wrote ‘I don’t get it’, and got an F.

Up until then, I thought I might be a writer. I liked stories, and my vocabulary was pretty good. But the idea of having to have a ‘style’ intimidated me to the point that I never wrote anything except checks.

Eventually I found my means of expression in songwriting, and of course the rest is history. And I like history.

When I was 40-ish, I was challenged by a girlfriend some of you may know, to collaborate on a screenplay. This was a revelation - I could write dialogue (does anyone use the ‘ue’ anymore?). It was easy for me…all I had to do was think of what a person would say, and write it. This was the kind of writing I was meant to do!

A few years later, she challenged me to co-write a musical. That was a bit harder, as I had to figure out how to use the music to tell the story, and how to write for actual characters, instead of a generic rock singer, or me. But I figured it out, and we wrote a good show. It got her into graduate school, on a scholarship.

A few years later, she again gave me a challenge, but this time I had to fly solo. We created a sketch comedy/variety show, and I was tasked to write the sketches. I figured it out (with some notable failures) somehow, and the show ran 15 years. The ‘she’ was, of course, Liv Cummins, and the show was “Saturday Night Liv”. Really!

I’d had a friend, back before I had begun to write, who got an opportunity to intern on Saturday Night Live (the NBC one). He was hired on the basis of his witty entries in the contests they used to run in the back of New York Magazine. He often made it to the finalist level, and caught the notice of Herb Sargent, SNL’s head writer, and a veteran comedy maven. I actually went to 30 Rock with Greg when he was summoned, although I had to wait in the lobby. He got the gig.

He came down from his meeting with Herb, and said to me ‘he wants me to write a sketch. What should I write about?’ I said ‘how should I know?’

This friend went on to win several Emmys as a writer for Dennis Miller, Chris Rock and others, until his personality got him blacklisted from the business. I forgot to mention…he was a bit of a psycho.

The weird part was, I had no thought of following his lead. I really had no idea how to write. Or what to write. This was also before computers, so what to write on was also an issue. I had been so traumatized by thinking the only legit writing had to be ultra stylized, filled with multisyllabic profundities, and obsessed with describing everything (the furniture in the room, clothing, the weather, facial features of each character, intensive psychological analysis of all the made-up characters) that I couldn’t imagine typing (on a typewriter!) word one.

I’m not sure why I couldn’t get past what I was taught. I wrote a lot in high school, but only for myself. I rarely submitted anything, and hated writing book reports and such. But the stuff I wrote for myself was unique, and not entirely awful. I guess I didn’t want to be criticized, though I was anyway, usually for not doing assignments.

When I got to college, after a 5 year stretch in 3 high schools, I decided to become a film major. This was 1973. I wanted to create short films that could accompany pop songs. I was told that was not filmmaking. After 2 years at Bard, being told I wasn’t doing stuff right, I transferred to a community college that had video equipment. Yes, I invented the music video. Or at least, I was one of the pioneers. Ok, I was a schnook who had dreams.

All this to say, I’m now 68 and still don’t read fiction, don’t write ‘fancy’, and don’t give a damn (ok, a little). In 2019, I finally wrote a full-length memoir called ‘Kid69’, about my experiences as a 15/16 year old in 1969. Many kudos followed, although I have trouble believing any of them, since the experts at Bard told me I had no clue. I just figure people try to be nice when you’re an old guy, writing his first book, and a biographical one at that. That’s what I figure.

And a few months ago, I wrote my first solo musical, based on a webseries I didn’t sell, called ‘Band Boy’. Now I’m turning it into a film. A full-length film version of a musical written for the stage. I’m shooting it as a hybrid, with the look of a stage production, but shot like a film. What a dumb idea…I’m saying it now, before the experts get to it.

I have no idea how to do this. I haven’t made a film since the 70s. And I didn’t know how then. But I’m doing it anyway. It’s a massive project with a teeny budget. It’s actually a lot of money for me, but nothing compared to what films cost, done right. I hired actors, recorded music, brought in a tech staff to operate cameras, lights, et al (al is quite tasty). I’m finally at a point in my life where I’m not in debt and my credit is good enough that I can borrow enough to do this, with a realistic chance of being able to pay it back. The film itself will make no money. I don’t care.

I don’t expect any recognition for all this, but I’m hoping in 50 years or so, maybe Steven Spielberg will do a remake.

On April 24, we begin shooting. The film, that is. Maybe I should read a book on how to do it.

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you can order my memoir ‘kid69’ on amazon, or at sandymcknight.bandcamp.com.

there’s even an audio version, if you don’t like to read.