Personal

The Long Update

I hate doing the “oh I’ve been away” part of this entry. Makes me feel like a chump, but I haven’t been. I dropped a new issue of Cram, got a poem published, found employment, and in a sense regained the part of myself I had been missing for a while. Vagueness of that last part aside, I feel and think clearer now than I have in a long time. Now, for the details.

Cram

Things did slow down a bit, mainly because both Cindy was busy with her new gig and I was in a state of flux for a good chunk of 2012. I’m still really grateful that we have been able to pull this off as much as we can, but I’m still hungry. I’ve been researching to write an essay for the blog, seeing as we need more content than the weekly Crams. Also trying to make moves with other ideas stirring in my head. also doing a project with Phil and Cindy with me on, of course, story duty.

I’m Going Going, Back Back, To Jersey Jersey

In I’m officially back in the mother country of New Jerusalem. The best way to describe my feelings is this: picture an archaeologist trying find his oldest tomb. Then picture that person now trying to ship ancient relics to a mausoleum, only to return and find out no matter how much you can move, the haul is endless and makes it a  Sisyphean nightmare. That was just in the second week alone. I’m lucky I have a place to stand in my old room.

However, it has its moment of greatness. Holding my sister’s and her husband’s wedding rings as my part as her witness to her civil wedding was something worth being home for. That was a while back now, after reunions with old friends and abusing my ability at reconnecting with the newer ones, and blacking out for a good portion of the summer due to helping preparing for the (happy) clusterfuck that was my sister’s wedding party. I actually got back into the swing of writing because of this. and made up a magic realism story about a pilgrim coming home to a family of gods. A the moment there’s only one entry, but I’m cleaning up the next part which is an epic poem about the family dog.

The Job, Or How How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Become A Woman on the Internet


I finally found employment after a year of not having any. It’s not at all like what I was doing in SF. I’m still staring at Excel sheets, of course, but that’s interspersed with a crap-load of comments I put up under the pseudonym of Jamie. To date, Jamie is a mother, dancer, crafts and superbike enthusiast, nurse, customer sales rep, and recently Portuguese. I’ve had the opportunity to write blog posts, which is great. There’s a serious difficulty with the distractions of working from a home office however. I’m sure I’ll get it down right.

Badass and Published

That’s what I said I’ll be a few years back. Out of a lark it finally happened, thanks to Saul Williams and his Chorus book. Of the 97 poems in the book I’m number 21. To see a poem that I wrote in my sleep-deprived night owl phase back in 05 come to light in 2012 is crazy. I’ve been dabbling in poetry again, to see if I still have it. I probably don’t but you never know.

That’s it for now. you can find me on Twitter (@TheJesusGaray) and Tumblr (jesusgaray.tumblr.com), fyi. I’ll put up some of the content I put up there here.

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Cram Magazine

A Call to Cram

So for the last two months I’ve been talking with Cindy Raspiller about making a magazine. From my perspective, I’ve read things from people who aren’t getting more exposure for it. Now that is attributed by some people to the disastrous signal-to-noise ratio in content that is apparent  on the internet, but that’s something any good editor could figure out. What bothers the hell out of me is that almost-obsessive need for exclusivity, the way we’re making gated communities out of what we read. The thought why should I have to read multiple magazines to get my fix? has been in my mind for months now, and now I think I have found a way of putting it out there.

I know there will be people who put out the already-old saying “print media is dead”, but what they don’t realize when they’re reading an article from an iPad screen or grabbing an article from an online publication is that diversification is the name of the game now. You must, for the sake of getting the content out there, to find new ways of getting cool things out there faster than the other guy.

Another thing that we talked about was, as we both have full-time jobs now, how to keep your creativity going when you have a job or two. Things are still pretty touch-and-go for opportunities here in the US, but that shouldn’t stop an artist and writer to throw away their dreams of making their work known. It can be done, it just takes someone to give them a shot.

That’s why I’m a part of Cram Magazine. I want the people who have something to show or something to say that don’t want to just leave it to chance for the gates to open for us. Sometimes you just have to start knocking them down, one great magazine at a time. Who wants in?

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