Happy Christmas, Friends

My December message to all of you

I appreciate this platform that allows me to remain in touch with the people I used to be in contact with before getting banned everywhere else. And I try to be honest with you guys. Because (to quote Orson Welles) isn’t that the fun of it? There’s a liberating joy in dropping pretense. So that’s what I’d like to do for this, my Christmas epistle.

This was not my best year. Gout for the first six months (none since August…I think eliminating Gout-Get Foot-Fuckerup Breakfast Cereal from my diet finally did the trick), a rat taking up residence in my laundry room in February (my solution? I walled up the corridor. Rather than finding out how he was getting in I just walled up the entire place. And yes, I put a skeleton in there so that after I stroke out and die and some real estate bimbo hires beans to break through the wall they’ll think I Cask of Amontillado’d some poor fucker and scream AY DIOS MIO! Esqueleto malvado!!!!).

But most of all…

This was the year I had to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never get another book published. I started the year with a determination to fight my “unpublishable author” status and I think it’s hilarious that in January I was like “this is the year I fight” and within a few weeks I was like “YARRRR I’m crippled with gout!” because that foreshadowed how the fight would go.

Poorly. It would go poorly. I would lose.

Still, it’s one of my favorite gags. “Dude proclaims steely determination only to immediately fall on his ass.” William Sessions, fired as FBI director by Bill Clinton in July 1993, holds a press conference to declare “hell no I’m not going and I will fight this man who wants to politicize the agency,” then promptly turns from the mic and falls on his face, breaking his elbow. Desmond Llewelyn in December 1999 told he’s being fired from the role of Q in the James Bond franchise because he’s too old appears at a book signing to declare “I’ll fight this! I’m still young at heart and full of life” only to leave the event and collide head-on with a Fiat and die. And me, starting off 2024 like “this is the year I FIGHT to reclaim my ability to be published” only to spend the first six months in bed screaming “I CAN’T FUCKING WALK!”

I always appreciate a good joke, even if it’s on me.

And it certainly was. Five publishers, in-person meetings, Zooms, emails throughout the year, and the exact same resolution. It’s just not going to happen. This is a slight oversimplification, but basically I’m too revisionist for mainstream publishers and not revisionist enough for BASED ones, and even putting all that aside the fact that I’m banned on Amazon kills any possibility of a deal with anyone. No publisher wants an author who doesn’t pander to an extreme (I don’t blame them for that; publishers need to earn a living and extremists are the ones who spend), and no publisher wants an author who’s Amazon-banned.

So it’s over. 2024 was the year I tried; 2025 will be the year I accept defeat. That’s my point about dropping pretense. I tried, I failed, and I’m okay admitting that. Amazon wins, Wikipedia wins, and I’m well and truly vanquished. There’s no shame in fighting and losing. The only shame is in not having fought.

And please, for fuck’s sake, please stop leaving comments like “DURR WELL WHY DON’T YOO SELF-PUBLISH? DURR DURR I’D BYE YER BERK!”

Stop with that shit. I know you mean well but stop. Self-publishing is only profitable if you have access to Amazon, which I don’t. Also, real authors - and if you’ll forgive me, I do consider myself a real author - get advances. That’s money paid in advance for the work you do, so that you’re not writing on spec like some college intern. All publishers give advances. I got advances from Feral House. It’s how it’s done. I can’t write a book for free on the hope that maybe 30 of you will buy it.

Because you know where that’ll leave me?

In debt. And I’m barely keeping my head above water as it is.

So yeah, the dream’s dead. No more books from Dave. And I have to be okay with it. To whatever extent the situation is fair or unfair, it’s just how things are.

Wake up, Johanna, another bright red day.
We learn, Johanna, to say…..goodbye.

That’s from Sweeney Todd (I am, after all, a hetero theater faggot). Sweeney’s saying goodbye to the hope of ever finding his daughter. He’s saying goodbye to a dream.

We learn to say goodbye.

If I can’t learn to do that, I’ll drink myself to death. Which I’m not against on principle but I can’t abide the nausea. Nausea makes me sober up.

I wish it didn’t.

This is a brief but instructive clip: Ann Coulter, my great friend, mentioning me on a podcast a week ago and immediately having to defend me against claims I’m a “denier.”

God bless her, she’s the best. But it’s just so tiring. Tiring for me, tiring for the friends who have to defend me.

Time for me to pull back a little. Takimag pays the bills, and those of you who buy me a beer every now and then help provide the food. Taki keeps the lights on, and you guys buy me burgers. And it makes me happy, and grateful.

And I am grateful. To all of you. Thank you for your readership and support. This might seem like a depressing Christmas message but it isn’t. Because it’s being read by friends who appreciate my work.

I love you guys!

Have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a cretinous Kwanzaa.

Sincerely,

Ol’ Dave

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