Wherefore art thou Tony Noland?
Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from?
The fact is…
I was born in a log cabin that I built with my own two hands.
I rose from the foam of a wine-dark sea, my body silken smooth and beautiful and smelling of lilacs.
I crash-landed on this planet as an infant, the last survivor of a doomed world.
I sprang fully formed from the forehead of the King of the Gods.
I was bitten by a radioactive spider.
My origins are shrouded in mystery.
My birth and eduction are a matter of public record.
I was born to a half-scrap of a woman who didn’t want me and wouldn’t have kept me if she’d been paid to do it.
I was the apple of my father’s eye.
I grew up hungry… hungry and cold.
I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth.
I was weak and sickly as a child, regularly trapped in my room for weeks on end by a series of grave illnesses, having only my Chaucer, my Shakespeare and my Pope for company.
I was strong as an ox and clever as a fox, and when you got that on your side, brother, you don’t suffer for the lack of book learnin’.
I matured slowly, and with great difficulty. I was never what you might call a “ladies man”.
I had ‘em lined up from the seventh grade onward, and that’s no joke. Trust me, I learned early on that chicks really dig a nice smile, a good line of bullshit and double-jointed thumbs.
I was a sensitive plant. I was a delicate flower. I was imbued with an innate appreciation for the finer vibrations of the human soul.
I could drink longer, punch harder, belch louder, and piss further than any other man in the Yukon.
~~~*~~~
All of these literary aspects of my origin, these truths and these lies, this self-created and self-sustaining mythology… these are where I come from. At one time or another, I was all of these things, in whole or in part. I am made up of the books I read, those I chose for myself and those pushed at me.
I am, and have always been, made of words.
Skills and abilities were laid across my brow when I was born, some in great measure, some as only a glimmering. Language and thought, yes, but more importantly, I was born with a deep capacity for both compassion and loathing. Directed either towards others or toward myself, I have exercised both of these with great energy throughout my life. They fuel almost everything I do, including my writing.
I’ve been writing steadily for twenty years or so. I started to keep from going crazy. Hundreds of thousands of words, spilled out in notebooks and journals. Private episodes of self-examination intended for no one’s eyes but my own, interesting thought pieces written for public consumption, and then later a series of trivial blogs, short fiction, long fiction, serial fiction and, throughout it all, poetry from the shallow end of the pool. This writing, this flood of words–it’s how I calm the buzz of thoughts that crowd my mind in every waking hour. It’s not quite hypergraphia, as almost all of it is coherent, but it is like a pressure relief valve that lets me function. I write because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be fit to live with.
Of course, while that fundamental fact remains as true now as it was when I first discovered writing, I’ll admit that I’ve moved up the motivational ladder a bit since I first began. Now, I not only want to write to improve MY life, I want to write to improve YOUR life. My stories can be funny and interesting. Odds are, you’d probably like them. Since I decided to start sharing my stories, they’ve gotten progressively better.
So to wrap this up, let me re-introduce myself: Tony Noland, writer, blogger, sometime editor and part-time poet.
You aren’t a cartoon! Darn, I was going for fullformed from the forehead of the King of the Gods.
“You aren’t a cartoon!”
I suspect there are some who might argue that point with you.
Great post, Tony! I loved the itch in my brain trying to place the origin quotes. It’s true – we’re the sum of the authors and origins we come across as readers, and so much more.
“I had ‘em lined up from the seventh grade onward, and that’s no joke. Trust me, I learned early on that chicks really dig a nice smile, a good line of bullshit and double-jointed thumbs.”
Oh please tell me what book this is from – I have to read it!
Is that ‘Even Cowgirls Get The Blues”… isn’t there something in there about double jointed thumbs? Or was it big thumbs?
But surely not, Tony? Where art thou?
As a matter of fact, Jodi, both of my thumbs are double jointed. That comes in handy more often than you might think.
Cassie, I made that line up. Just for you, I’ll include it in the book I’m writing, so you can read it there.
In truth, though, my strategy with girls was always to have a nice smile, be up front about what I want out of a potential relationship and to demonstrate the recreational value of my double jointed thumbs. I am AWESOME at thumb wars.
I can also wiggle my ears independently of each other, but that’s much less impressive than you might think.
Fantastic introduction especially the line about “I was a sensitive plant” Will look forward to reading your work.
Thanks, Olive! That bit of Shelley came to me by way of P.G. Wodehouse.
“I crash-landed on this planet as an infant, the last survivor of a doomed world.”
This will forever be my mental image of you.
This is the image I’d always had.
You guys are silly.
Brilliant Tony – simply brilliant
I do what I can!
“Who am I? Why am I here? Where did I come from?”
Followed up by “What year is it? Who’s the President?”
Tony then falls to his knees in front of the ruins of the Statue of Liberty screaming “Damn you all to hellllll!!!
“And what was in that drink, anyway?”
Awesome post — I can definitely relate to it. I sprang into being much like you did as a writer. I cringe to think that my mother has a box of my old journals somewhere. I filled probably 1000 pages by the time I was 18.
I’ve always been a reader, with wide interests. I wrote lots of fiction when I was in grade school, but it was strongly discouraged. I started consistently writing in journals in my early twenties and blogging in my late twenties. I didn’t write fiction again until my mid thirties; I just wish I’d picked it up again sooner!