Craig Davidson

Wednesday, March 26th

Rust and Bone---A Italia!

Hi All,

Heard from my friend (and publisher, and translator) Marco that the Italian version of Rust and Bone will be out soon. Or is out? I don't know.

http://www.webster.it/libri-ruggine_ossa_davidson_craig_einaudi-9788806185077.htm

... you buy? You buy? Well, maybe not, if you're not Italian. But if you are ... you buy?

I'm not sure what the Emo-looking boy peering out the window has to do with the stories, but again, it's been years since I wrote them so maybe there is such a character in the stories I've forgotten about. Or perhaps such images sell well in Italy. Oddly, it would be the perfect cover for my next book: THE MELANCHOLY BOY WHO NEEDS A HAIRCUT. Actually, I do quite like the cover.

Shout outs to all my Italian brothers and sisters at Eleanore Rigby, Edizione BD, and everyone I met when I was in Italy last November. I don't know if I'll be back with this book, but maybe I'll just steal across the ocean in a crate of bananas and start showing up in Italian bookstores, anyway!

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.26.08 @ 11:59 PM EST [link]

Thursday, March 20th

Herald Article

Hi All,

Well, an article from my home paper, the Calgary Herald. Read it, why not? Or not. Again, that photo! Why do I let photographers talk me into embarrassing poses?

PHOTOG: Straddle the chair.

ME: Why? [Do it anyway.]

PHOTOG: Do you have any photos of you doing steroids? Pull up that old shirtless boxing photo on your computer, why not?

ME: Why? [Doing it anyway].

PHOTOG: [aside, to himself]: Now that you look like a complete, chair-straddling fool who, for all anyone knows, sits staring at half-naked pictures of himself on his computer all day ... now I can take a picture.

The article makes me sound like a douche, too. Then again, maybe I am a douche---sort of like hearing your voice on a tape player and saying, "Is THAT how I sound?" I don't feel like a douche, talking, but again, maybe so.

Another, more interesting photo sent to me today. It's on my MySpace page, where the tumbleweeds blow. There was a line in a Bret Easton book, THE INFORMERS, where a character says, "Ally Sheedy looks good beaten up." I think that's the same with me: I look better photoshopped to look beaten up. Plus it's the first time I've ever had my face on a magazine cover, and the first, and perhaps last, time my name will be above Harlan Coben and Michael Chabon's. Just once. It is enough. I think it's sort of neat-looking.

Thanks to Michelle from the Herald for conducting the interview.
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/reallife/story.html?id=9dcbab40-ad8b-40db-b261-c5548ed493f9

http://www.myspace.com/craig_b_davidson

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.20.08 @ 12:16 PM EST [link]

Tuesday, March 18th

Here's...

...a .pdf of the Steroids article, to download, for free. It was sent by my new email pal from Bodybuilding.com. Also, for the sake of fairness, I will link to the thread where it occurs, where I'm called, amongst other things, a liar, a jagoff, a yellow journalist (I wish I was a journalist, yellow or otherwise! I'd be making a decent living, at least), and a "queerbait" by the same guy I thought I'd made amends with. This is the way it goes with the Internet: amicable one minute, calling you queerbait the next. The whole liar aspect is sort of annoying. I mean, there's a picture of me jacking the crap into my ass. Unless that's vegetable oil in there. I wish to hell it was. I'll say this for the benefit of people who may come here from that forum:

I'm a fiction writer. I've never been fact-checked. As a fiction writer, if I want a character to have 3 eyes, I give that character 3 eyes. I don't have to explain myself. For this, nonfiction, yes, of course I did. I spent 1.5 hours on the phone with the Esquire fact checker over this article. She called doctors, she hammered me on the facts. This whole 30 to 13 grams of protein seems a problem. I found this online:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/food3.htm

... so there I see 13g protein on the label. I'm sure some cans have 30g protein---in fact, I'm sure I've eaten cans with 30 gms protein. Basically, with James Frey and all the others out there, magazines have become hyperaware of falsities. The article wouldn't have run if it was full of lies. I would've been paid a kill fee, at best, or maybe just told to fuck off. As I would've deserved. It has to be understood: experiences differ. I've said to someone who asked: "first of all, I'd never recommend steroids. But if you're going to do them, understand your genetic history. If you've got good genes, a good family history of athletic parents and so forth, steroids might twine with the good genetic history and benefit you, for all I know. That said, if you've got bad genetics, like the Davidsons (bless my family, but we're not athletes), steroids might just make things worse." Which is what they did for me. My body may've been a Murphy's Law of steroid abuse. I have no idea. Certainly I know people who've had more pleasurable steroiding experiences. This was mine. I'll defend myself no further, because I know in my heart it's not needed.

Another misconception about the article: the photos are deceiving, simply in their order. The first one, where I'm filling myself with drugs, is AT THE END OF MY CYCLE. That is what roids did to me. Made me fat and disgusting. The second one is when I HAVE NO STEROIDS IN ME. That is from last summer, over a year since I did steroids, at my boxing match with Jonathan Ames. That is me, naturally, after lots of cardio, very little weight training, and a lot of boxing training.

So. Read the article and judge for yourself. Anyone who's read this blog for awhile knows, I've been hammered before and I'm sure will be hammered again. I'll post all the links as I made a promise I would.

http://www.youshare.com/view.php?file=EsquireApril08-Roids.pdf

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=106542271

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=106543131

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 03.18.08 @ 12:08 AM EST [link]

Monday, March 17th

Reaction to the steroid article in Esquire ...

... has been mixed. I've been emailed from everyone to a 14-year old girl whose letter was peppered with e-text semaphore to a father who said he was going to share it with his two sons to ... well, not everyone dug it. No less than I expected. I don't know the last thing I wrote that met with universal acceptance; it may've been the fingerpainting I did at 3, and my parents aren't the most subjective arbiters of talent.

Now, those who've emailed me know: I do email back. I don't think this makes me unique as a writer, as I have more time than most to reply. If I ever 'hit it big' as the saying goes, I would like to think I'll still reply to everybody, probably in shorter missives. And if you send me a nasty email, there's a better chance we'll have a few email exchanges. Thankfully this does not happen much. My general policy is: if I'm getting hammered in a public forum I don't reply. It's a waste of time and will make you go bananas. But privately, through email, yes, sure, let's have a little tete-a-tete. I hope this doesn't act as an encouragement to anyone because really, I don't like exchanging heated messages.

So yesterday I get an interesting email from a guy who's read the article and has a bone to pick. We go back and forth and eventually it ends amicably enough. He seems like an okay fellow, just looking for a reaction. Fair enough. So I guess he posted the entirety of the exchange on Bodybuilding.com. Another poster emailed me today saying I should go check it out, so I did. I'm somewhat versed with message boards---in fact, I spent a lot of time on a board called freakzonline while researching the steroids I was going to take---and they can be fun, informative, helpful, if potential time-sucks.

So, anyway, you can go read our email exchange, then follow the developing debate. WARNING: copious avatars featuring shirtless guys taking digi-camera self-portraits in their bathroom mirrors.

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=106553571

All best, Craig.

PS: anyone know what 'negged' means, exactly?
Craig Davidson on 03.17.08 @ 07:01 PM EST [link]

Tuesday, March 11th

Esquire---Roiding!

Hi All,

Well, I was going to link to it, and I will if and when it shows up online, but if you want to head to your nearest newstand, pick up the April 2008 ESQUIRE (George Clooney cover), you can read my piece on steroid abuse. The last draft I saw it was called: BITCH TITS, RAISIN BALLS, AND THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING STRONGMAN. That title, based on some emails I have received, may now be: LOOK AT ME! I'M A BIG, STRONG BOY! I have not yet seen a copy of the magazine way out here in the wilds of Calgary. It may soon be up on the Esquire site, but it may or may not come with photos, and really, the photos make for some interesting viewing, providing you equate 'interesting viewing' with 'wacky redheaded writer plunging needles into his fat ass.' If so, then really, you shall be riveted.

Craig Davidson on 03.11.08 @ 01:41 PM EST [more..]

Thursday, March 6th

Quit My Job

Hi All,

Well, how long was it going to last, anyway? I mean, really? Well, so what? Well, to be honest, I thought a bit longer than this. Didn't even make it three months. But someone once told me that you're not worth your salt unless you quit at least one job. So I'm worth my salt, now, I suppose. I mean, I've been fired a few times, most notably as a bartender for my infamous (to my small circle of friends) 'Vodka Slime' incident, where I sent out vodka and apple juice instead of vodka and Seven Up and was summarily fired not long after that vile concoction curdled in some poor bastard's mouth. But quit? No, never. Or, I mean, I've had to leave jobs because something else came up in my life---in fact, that was what I expected to happen with this library gig---but never just, "Hey, man, take this job and restaff it!" sort of a thing.

Well, it wasn't a big kerfuffle. Me actually quitting, that is. I don't have anything against anyone I worked with, really, but I must admit that I no longer seem capable of working in a "structured" environment. With "rules" and "dress codes" and "daily hours of operation" and all the rest of that malarkey. Bah! And I don't really like being told what to do. Or sometimes not. And, uh, I don't like wearing dressy shoes. So, as you can see, really, they left me with no option.

But that's okay, because I've got a few pennies to rub together and, weirdly, my 2+ months at the Shaganappi library were full of such incident, so dramatic---seriously! a few days, at least---that I ended up writing it all into a story, which I'm going to try to sell, such is the habit of writers, in order to coldly profit upon my experiences.

Well, that's it. I guess I need to find another job. Preferrably one where I work on my own, to the beat of my own internal drummer, on a faroff planet---or, if no planets are hiring, an asteroid.

Check back next week. An article I wrote should be out by then, and I will link to it. I've already been getting emails about it, so hopefully you will find it interesting.

All best,
Your Humbly Unemployed Blogger Who Will Work For a Ham Sandwich.

Craig Davidson on 03.06.08 @ 06:41 PM EST [link]