Category Archives: and Modern American Life

and Modern American Life, The Writing Life

Steven Womack’s Seven Rules Of Success

Steven Womack’s Seven Rules Of Success

1) Be The Luckiest Son Of A Bitch On The Planet!

Nothing—not talent, determination, or effort—trumps luck, and if you’re not lucky, then that’s evidence you’re not worthy of success!

2) Always Be Right!

Winners are always right! Only losers are ever wrong!

3) Never, Ever, Make A Mistake!

If you make mistakes, then you’re a loser. The only thing worse than making a mistake is admitting you made a mistake.

4) Always Have Only The Good Stuff Happen To You!

If nothing bad ever happens to you, then by definition you are a success!

5)Never Fail At Anything!

Losers fail. Winners win. End of story.

6) Make A Ton Of Money!

After all, that’s how we measure it, right?

7) Never, Ever Pay Any Attention To Stupid Lists Of Rules of Success

Figure it out on your own. Everyone’s path is different. When you’re successful, you’ll know it.

and Modern American Life, The Writing Life

On the 45th Anniversary of FALILV

Timothy Denevi on the 45th Anniversary of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas…

Age changes your perspective in the weirdist ways. When I was in high school I read Kerouac’s On The Road and it was the most romantic, adventuresome, epic journey of all time. I hitchhiked cross-country (south to north) on less than five bucks, from New Orleans to upstate Vermont, to see a girlfriend, inspired by Kerouac and Neal Cassady and the rest of those guys…

Thirty-five years later, I reread OTR while working on my MFA at Southampton College. I was nearly fifty, with a new baby and a new marriage, and desperately trying to finish the degree to hold onto my teaching job.

And all I could think of, as a middle-aged parent, about the characters in On The Road was how depressed and lost they all were. “Get some Prozac and see a shrink,” I kept saying to myself.

Kerouac did, of course, drink himself to death…

First-Edition_FearLoathing-207x300Now, Timothy Denevi (a writer I’ve just discovered) has just published a 45-year retrospective piece on Hunter Thompsons’ Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, another book that blew me away in my early twenties. Thompson’s “savage journey into the heart of the American Dream” made me want to bite off as big a piece of life as I could…

After reading this article, though, and having seen a couple of documentaries on Thompson–who toward the end of his life was a hopeless drunk, an obnoxious jerk, and a parody of himself–I’m glad I stayed away from the ether. As Thompson wrote, nothing was as scary as a man in the depths of an ether binge…

http://americanshortfiction.org/…/hunter-thompson-oscar-ac…/