Take Five
The trick is to make it up on the hill before school lets out and before–fucking-A! See how life slams you in the chops? I was going to say before cars full of testosterone and hormone crazed teenagers come barreling up the hill, which they’ll be doing in about fifteen minutes, but before I could write that down I became aware that someone was up close and staring thru my rolled-up window, a guy wearing earmuffs and with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Whatcha doin’?” he said thru the closed window.
“Writing,” I said without looking up.
“Cool!” he said, and continued staring in. When I didn’t respond, he said, “Whatcha writing?”
“Personal,” I said, still not looking up.
“Cool!” he said again.
I looked up then. “Look, have a nice day, okay?” I said.
“You too!” he said, still grinning to beat the band, and then he moved on.
I didn’t plan on writing about some grinning fool in earmuffs when I drove up here. I didn’t even plan on writing about the imminent onslaught of teenagers. What I had in mind was to somehow capture the emptiness I felt inside when I heard that Dave Brubeck had died. But feelings like that are hard to capture in words. In some ways we take our Brubecks for granted until they’re gone, and then that empty feeling sets in.
Well–take five, Dave. Here comes America’s future, roaring up the hill with their pugnacious music blasting out of all four speakers.
HCOLOM PRESS is the heir to Vagabond Press, which began as a main player in the Mimeo Revolution of the Sixties and continued publishing right into the jaws of the new millennium. HCOLOM PRESS embodies the spirit of Vagabond Press, retooled for the times we live in.
Hcolom is Moloch spelled backwards. Moloch is an Old Testament deity to which children were sacrificed, a practice society still engages in with increased enthusiasm. Consumerism is the new Moloch, manifesting itself like cancer in war, politics, the arts and religion, in every nook and cranny of human endeavor, draining the intrinsic beauty out of life and mutilating the innocence and magic of childhood with its commercial meat hook. HCOLOM PRESS intends to publish books that by their nature repudiate this pernicious force–novels, poetry, children’s books and books that transcend genre.
Our launch book, in June of 2006, was John Bennett’s novel, Tire Grabbers, a fable of sorts, a reality book rooted in the fantasy of our times, the story of the coming of Moloch and the children who rise up in rebellion against it.
Books of kindred spirit will follow close on its heels. Go for it by clicking here… or hit the Hcolom logo above…