J.J. Webb remembers Michael McNeilley, 1947 - 2001

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In Memory - Michael McNeilley
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So the computer screen passes writers at me on a constantly evolving Internet and this one blues piece, in '93, holds my screen a long time with its intricacies. I ask, "who the hell is this guy McNeilley?" The screen says, 'editor of the Olympia Review, in Olympia, Washington.' Within a few days there is an introduction. Within a few more days there's plotting. A few more, collaboration. And one day, friendship.

The collaboration started on one of the Internet's first Ezines. An Art and Literary Ezine called 'The Hawk' had started in '93. Michael became the fiction editor of 'The Hawk' just before its second issue. When the Ezine became 'poetry only' in '95, its name was changed to 'ZeroCity'. And Michael and I became its co-editors.

A recluse, I know friendships with other reclusive men and women who do the same kinds of things with their reclusive natures. Write. Carve. Sculpt. Paint. They want to be alone, mostly, to examine the insides of their imaginations and to distort time, or so some have told me. Some of those friends, when called to oppose their natural, comfortable routines, come out of their seclusion gregarious, self-assured, eager, even arrogant in their approach to their friends. Demanding. Imposing. Exciting. Provocative. That friend is the most stimulating and dangerous kind of friend. Including major investments of time in revelation of naked spirit to another. And fear, too, of being overwhelmed. Of being too influenced.

Michael McNeilley pushed writers at me faster than I thought possible. Where he found them didn't matter
to me. We'd decided to do an Ezine and the fact he was three times faster than me at finding writers only
bothered me a little bit. Eventually, I told him I felt like we were in a competition and I was running second.
He said, "Great! You are the man with the perfect life AND you want to come in first in everything you do, too?
You greedy thing. So, when did this become a competition?"

"You think I have a perfect life?"
"You think you don't?"
* * *
A few weeks ago, during a discussion on the history of poetry on the Internet, Robert Sward informed me of a 1996 magazine article on Internet Ezines. He said the Ezine Michael and I had edited was mentioned favorably, though only Michael had been listed as editor. Grrrrrr. And the article was written a decade ago.

* * *
"Tell me again, why did we agree to release tomorrow?"
"We thought it would be less work?"
"At least there's only Virg and three others left to format."
"Michael, your buddy Virg is a dick. You know that?"

"Easy now, Virgil and I go way back. What's the problem?"
"He's a lawyer. Let's start there. That alone's enough, but
he's a 'know-it-all' too, and he thinks he's a better writer
than me ..."

"Well, that's probably true .."
".. hell, he thinks he's a better writer than you."

"The dick! You think we should can his pieces from the issue?"

* * *
On the next to last day of June, 2002, we spread Michael McNeilley's ashes around one of the trees in the redwood cathedral here at the Poetry Grove. Stephanie and Thom, his ex-wife and son, Jeff, one of his boyhood friends, and I scattered the ashes. My wife and daughter watched. We read poetry by Auden and by Michael. We talked about heart attacks and dying young, about turtles and Napoleon. We talked about Michael, his brother, his wives, his sons, his daughter, his poetry. We remembered him with his friends and his acquaintances. We drove out to Big Basin and Stephanie spread some of his ashes around one of the trees near 'the mother of the forest', a spot he'd taken a liking to when he visited in '99.

There were stories of Washington, New York, New Mexico, Texas and a dozen other places. Stories of drum beats on wooden legs and reckless ramblings in a gold convertible. There were conjectures on how many lives he'd saved, how many wars he'd settled, how many he had waged.

We ate steak and corn and baked potatoes on the balcony under the oak tree where Michael spent time staring out at Empire Ridge in the distance. No one can look out at these huge trees, this beautiful forest, these Holy Cross Mountains and not see heaven. And certainly, heaven is where Michael McNeilley belongs.
--Beau Blue
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McNeilley was founding director of the National Student News Service; worked as a reporter and correspondent in Washington, DC; His stories and poems have appeared in hundreds of magazines, Ezines, anthologies and broadsides, including the New York Quarterly, Poet, Chicago Review, Oyster Boy Review, Cross-Connect, Mississippi Review, Chiron Review, Poetry Motel, Minotaur, Slipstream, Cafe Review, Pink Cadillac, and many others. He was editor of the Olympia Review in Olympia Washington, publisher & editor of the 'Olympia Review Anthology'. He was co-editor with JJ Webb of the online Ezine ZeroCity from 1994 to 1998. His books and broadsides include 'Love & Beer', and 'My religion is your ass' (with Mere Smith) from Techline, 'Situational Reality' from Dream Horse Press, 'McNeilley's Monsters' & '10 by mcn' from Cruzio Communications.

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Beau Blue (JJ Webb) - Blue's books & recordings include 'Appalachian Canticles' (Jarus Books, 1979), 'Human Tricks' (A Little Licks Record, 1981), 'in the Electric Shadows' (A daVinci Media publication, 1994). He was co-editor with Michael McNeilley of the online Ezine ZeroCity from 1994 to 1998. A performance poet and storyteller, Blue has performed extensively in Northern California, Oregon and Nevada for the last 30 years. He lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains

Beau Blue Presents - http://members.cruzio.com/~jjwebb
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Introduction - Writers' Friendship / Writers' Enmity

A Web Del Sol series compiled and edited by Robert Sward.

[photo: Left to Right, Mike Neff, Joan Houlihan, Robert Sward - AWP Conference, Palm Springs, CA]

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As visitors to Web Del Sol / Perihelion will see, we've transferred essays and poems from that website, our home for many years, to this new venue, which remains open to contributors on the theme: Writers' Friendship. Our thanks to Joan Houlihan for generously hosting us at Perihelion. Our thanks, too, to Mike Neff, a friend, colleague and founder of Web Del Sol. Mike Neff has been absolutely tireless in writing, editing and publishing quality work on the Web since 1995. He has done more for the small press and what we used to call "the little magazine scene" than anyone I know. He's a man of boundless energy and inexhaustible enthusiasm and, for me, one of the most generous people I've encountered, on or off the Net. Who more than Mike has applied his skills and knowledge of html and computer programming in this amazing way? And done so, steadily, for over twenty years? When I think of Writers' Friendship I think, what else? Mike Neff.

For those who haven't yet visited, "Web Del Sol is an online resource for writers featuring contemporary literature and poetry. Contains chapbook, photography, small presses, art, reviews, interviews... and is among the most content-rich literary websites on the Internet... it's a directory and host site, and..."

For more, see http://webdelsol.com

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Queries and comments welcome!

Introduction

"Humility is not a virtue propitious to the artist. It is often pride,
emulation, avarice, malice—all the odious qualities—which drive a man
to compete, elaborate, refine, destroy, renew his work until he has
made something that gratifies his pride and envy and greed. And in
doing so he enriches the world more than the generous and good, though
he may lose his own soul in the process. That is the paradox of
artistic achievement." So says novelist Evelyn Waugh.

If Waugh is right, then what is it like for one writer driven by
pride, emulation, avarice and malice, to sustain a friendship with
another?

Writer and editor Ted Solotaroff claimed aggression is a writer's main
source of energy, "the fuel for all those stories and poems about
betrayal and bad luck relationships... plus anything else a person
wants to write about."

Years ago at the University of Illinois one of my professors observed
that a recurring theme in Shakespeare's plays was that of betrayal.
Much of the fuel for Shakespeare's poems and plays came, he said, from
the poet's own experience of betrayal and/or friendship gone awry.

Betrayal is one element. Another is jealousy.

In Some Instructions on the Writing Life, Anne Lamott speaks of
jealousy:

"...If you continue to write," Lamott observes, "you are probably
going to have to deal with [jealousy] because some wonderful, dazzling
successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry,
undeserving writers you know—people who are, in other words, not you.

"It can wreak just the tiniest bit of havoc with your self-esteem to
find that you are hoping for small bad things to happen to this friend—
for, say, her head to blow up... You get all caught up in such [a]
fantasy because you feel, once again, like the kid outside the candy-
store window, and you believe that this friend, this friend whom you
now hate, has all the candy. You believe that success is bringing this
friend inordinate joy and serenity and security and that her days are
easier."

"Just remember," Lamott suggests, "some of the loneliest, most
miserable, neurotic, despicable people we know have been the most
successful in the world."

But that raises the question: Do the good guys have to finish last?

As writers, can we take the jealousy and aggression we might feel and
use them to spur us on? Or do we let them frustrate and block us?

"How do writers and poets stand writers and poets?” This is
the place to check out Raymond Carver, James Houston, William Minor,
Lola Haskins, Laurence Lieberman, and others in our Writers’ Friendship, Writers’ Enmity
series.

Yes, one can erupt both into and out of friendship. I think of Julia
Cameron who, on a positive note, speaks of "before, during and after
friends... Those rare and wonderful people who love and accept us no
matter what our current creative shape or size...”

On the other hand, Lola Haskins, author of The Rim Benders, speaks of
Writers' Friendships in academia:

"I've heard stories... where certain writers seem to have peed on
their four corners, to make sure interlopers are aware that only they,
the purveyors of urine, and their students are welcome within their
borders. And if someone tries to cross that line, he or she finds out
what that odd odor means...

[Of friends and fellow writers]:

"...We buy each others' books and tell people about each others' work.
To be fair, we've often become friends in the first place because we
did like each other’s work. If you think about it, how much more
deeply can you know someone than by living with his/her poetry?"

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The following has to do with aging, friendship and Strunk & White,
where one writer-teacher chose to turn for solace:

TURNING 60

The first 40 years of life give us the text; the next 30 supply the
commentary on it... --Schopenhauer

1. GRAMMAR AS HYMNAL

...Seeking solace in a review of grammar, I turned to Strunk & White's
Elements of Style. Standing at attention,
opening to the section on usage, I chanted and sang—
uniting my voice with the voices of others, the vast chorus
of the lovers of English.

We sing of verb tense, past, present and future.
We sing the harmony of simple tenses.
We lift our voice in praise of action words,
and the function of verb tense.

We sing of grammar which is our compass
providing, as it does, clues as to how
we might navigate the future,
at the same time it
illuminates the past.

As a teacher, I talk. That's present.
For thirty years as a teacher, I talked. That's past.
It may only be part time, but I will talk. That's future.

2. LIVING THE FUTURE PERFECT

I will have invoked the muse.

I will have remembered to give thanks, knowing our origins
are in the invisible, and that we once possessed boundless energy,
but were formless, and that we are here to know 'the things of the
heart through touching.'

I will have remembered, too, that there is only one thing
we all possess equally and that is our loneliness.

I will have loved.
You will have loved.
We will have loved.

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"Turning 60" reprinted from The Collected Poems, Black Moss Press, 2006 (second printing).

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Robert Sward has taught at Cornell University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and UC Santa Cruz. A Fulbright scholar and Guggenheim Fellow, he was chosen by Lucille Clifton to receive a Villa Montalvo Literary Arts Award. His 30 books include Four Incarnations (Coffee House Press) and Heavenly Sex. His most recent books, The CollectedPoems and God is in the Cracks, are now in their second printing. Sward’s New & Selected, will be published by Red Hen Press.

Robert@robertsward.com
http://www.robertsward.com

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