Hurry, Buy a Book -- So I Can Write More

I read recently that record album sales are down 11 percent from the year before. That's where the domino effect starts to crimp creativity. Not only are the big stars hurting on sales, but the little guy will have a harder time of becoming a pop star icon, let alone making a living at making music.

The same goes for people who write. Whether they are writing short stories, novels, poetry, nonfiction, after a while if there is no audience, the disincentive to go on can be overwhelming.

The similarities between free music downloads and reading everything for free online may point to the same target, that disincentive to create.

If a copyright on a work has no  meaning and the artist cannot earn rewards for work, we all might as well become actuaries somewhere.

I'd write more, but only if you buy one or more of my 19 books.

Just a few of my book titles.

A Father's Place

A Father's Place

Dads explain what’s fair or unfair and moms decide when it is okay to go out and play. When she tells her friend she has to go in but goes out five minutes later to play with someone else, Dad says how would you feel if they did that to you? She knows how she would feel and pledges not to do it again. But dad knows that she will, and when she does, she’ll remember what her dad said. Maybe.

Dads are their children’s protectors. Dads chase the mon¬sters out of the closet at night. Dads have a special hug that resolves a nightmare’s terror. Dads are as tall as the sky and can reach the cookies moms hide on the top shelf.

Dads have to be dads sometimes. That means they have to yell and maybe spank. Any child can tell you that nobody hits as hard as daddies can. Not even Grandpa. Yet after every repri¬mand comes the guilt of being a daddy. Dads want to be kids, but too often get trapped into being adults.



Dads are as old as forever. They listen to ‘old people’ music like Led Zeppelin and the Beatles. Their car radios are set to all¬ talk stations. Yet, with their own children, dads are forever young. They play horse, hide and seek and checkers when they are in the mood and decide to make time. Dads don’t like to play checkers too much because they lose a lot.
On a hot summer day, dads will chase you around with a water pistol, and sometimes even let you sneak up on them with the garden hose.
Dads have the largest, strongest hands in the world. Little girls in their cradles tightly grab their dad’s index finger and it’s as big as the world outside. But for dads, they see that those small hands hold so much. They hold the future and all dad’s hopes. They instill the fear of God in Dad when he senses the responsi¬bility in that precious grip.

Dads fix everything. But, what they actually do is take it to their side of the basement and shelve it until everyone forgets whatever it was that was broken.
from A Father's Place, an Eclectic Collection
by Anthony Buccino

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.
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An easy date to remember

Letter of introduction

... She was taller than me then. Her presence in my French class always made my day. Her hair was dark and very long, and sometimes it tangled in front of her face and she had to brush it away. She dressed conservatively with long skirts and baggy pants. Never glamorous, pretty much the way you’d want your sister to dress. She was bright, being a friend of mine for a time notwithstanding. Yes, and she wore braces when I knew her.

I took her to see the double feature at the Royal, or maybe it was the Center, in Bloomfield Center. Then, afterwards, we went to IHOP for a bite. We met another kid I knew (not too well, actually); he asked me if she was my sister. Fortunately, I don’t remember if I said anything witty, I doubt it.



I decided to make a habit about reading movie reviews before I took dates to them. One movie we saw that night had Marlo Thomas as an unwed mother. She talked about taking the pill, and never making love because no one might ever ask her, or not taking the pill and getting pregnant. At the end of the movie, she breast-fed the baby. It was some first date. I squirmed in my seat, and even now, I can remember how sweaty my palms were when that movie ended.

The other movie was about a cowboy named Zachariah, and it was biblically significant. All that went right over my Catholic head.

At IHOP, my date had a strawberry shake and told me there were real strawberries in it. I didn’t have anything witty to say. I called my mom to come pick us up. We brought her home. Every time I called to talk to her, her mom said she was out with Jeff.

I stopped bothering her April 14, that year. It was an easy date to remember. That was when Lincoln was shot and when the Titanic sank.

Talk about irony, didn’t know anything about her, really. I learned later her father was a minister, so she probably understood all that Bible stuff in the movie. And later, I learned that Jeff was her brother.

In my yearbook, the next year, she wrote, “It was nice.” I saw her once since then, at a funeral, but I couldn’t say to her what was racing around in my mind. But like I say, she wasn’t there, at the reunion. Her brother was. He was bald, and he sang a solo. She still adds music to my words but it’s a soft tune...

A Father's Place, an eclectic collection
by Anthony Buccino

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

A Hare-Raising Story

That old tale of Murphy the Easter bunny ...

I bought Murphy the Rabbit for my wife last year just before Easter.

That Murphy made it a full year with us is a great achievement in a house where the average pet fish lasts about three months. To tell the truth, I never really expected my wife to take care of the rabbit even if, theoretically, it was hers.

Every Easter for the six years we’ve been married, Dawn has talked about getting a pet rabbit like the little white bunny she had as a child. Another dependent was just what I needed. Of course, my wife, clever English teacher that she is, had her arguments all ready. This rabbit would save us money.



“If we got a bunny, we could keep it in fat Libby’s (our dog’s) old crate,” she reasoned. “Anyway, the crate’s just rusting away in the garage, so we wouldn’t have to buy anything new - except the rabbit and some food.”

That is the usual selling point of everything w: buy: Once bought we are done paying. It never works out that way, though.

In the pet store my wife told me, “I tested all the bunnies like we did the dog. You know, make a little noise and see which one sneaks up to investigate. This brown one here looks like Murphy.”




This Murphy had milk chocolate fluff for fur and looked as if it had been somewhere it shouldn’t have, because the tips of its fur were a smoky, dirty gray.

“Why not get a traditional white bunny? They’re the kind that deliver the eggs -and the chocolates,” I suggested. The look in her eyes told me it was not a discussion. This was Murphy.

from A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection
by Anthony Buccino

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Copyright © 2009 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

Who Knew?

Rating:98% positive over the past 12 months (237 ratings.) 1101 lifetime ratings.

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Comments: SIGNED w/INSCRIPTION by Author on Title Page! 1st Edition (Stated), 1st Printing 1991 Cherry Blossom Press (Nutley, NJ) Trade Paperback; text clean/UNMARKED; color cover surface near mint/mild edge + corner wear; spine strong + uncreased; NOT x-library; No remainder mark; Not book club; 153 pages + 6 preliminary pgs; 3 sections: Prose (26 pieces), Reviews (2), and Fiction (7 stories); most of this collection previously published in Belleville Times, Bloomfield Life, Independent Press,+ New Jersey Monthly; wrap-around color cover photography + design by Thomas Francisco; gift quality inscribed collectible copy of 16-year-old out-of-print paperback.

If I didn't write the book myself, I'd want to buy it!

Why would anyone want to buy an old book when they could just as easily download it to their computer or Kindle?

I guess if I knew that, I wouldn't be writing the books I'd be helping other people sell theirs.

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Photos and content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

One Night In The Town Pub

BLOOMFIELD, N.J. -- The waiter took three hot, steaming trays from the flat top of the Dutch door and maneuvered his way to the bar. "He's new here?" I asked.

"No," my fiancée said, he wasn't new, that she remembered him. We had been here at the Town Pub about a hundred times before we got engaged outside in the parking lot - and a hundred times since.

The young man had dark hair, a thick neck and his muscles bulged like Harvey Lembeck's cronies. I wondered aloud if he was a weight lifter or a football player.

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Copyright © 1976-2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

How Many Hammers Is Enough?

Strange, it is, to sense the memories that suddenly swim to the surface like the picture in my head of my father as the ragtag kid who swam from the bottom of the Passaic River with a handful of mud, "See, wise guys? I really did swim to the bottom!"

Dad was a good swimmer, a very strong swimmer. It's not an inherited skill. It wasn't until my late teens that I knowingly approached water that was deeper than my Adam's Apple. Swimming is something a dad should teach his son before the boat starts to leak.

Building things was Dad's claim to fame. He never took complete credit for a building or a house, but he earned his pride in a job well done. His pride was of a true craftsman who looked back every time and said, "I built it with my own hands and tools. No one could have done it better." ...

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Copyright © 1983-2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

A FATHER'S PLACE

"I wasn't more than five years old the night my father grabbed me with his vise-like hands on his jackhammer arms and swung me over the banister of our second story back porch.

Swinging me side to side 20 feet in the air above the concrete sidewalk, Dad and I were having fun. I was safe, safe from the world in his strong hands. Mother's screams of terror stilled my shrieks of joy.

That night, Dad and I bonded, though neither of us knew the lexicon. The image of that night dangles daily in the bittersweet memories my father left me. ..."

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Copyright © 1990-2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

Hello In There

This is a sad sweet song by John Prine. I love it to death.



One essay in A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection shares this title.

Hello in There

Comes a time in life when we pass our prime. The kids grow up. We grow old. The kids have kids of their own, and they all have less time for us.

We suddenly have enough time for our spouse, who may not be around after waiting so patiently for our time. And when we have finally got all the time in the world, there is no one with whom to share it.

Our prime is the most active, thriving, successful stage of life. And long ago, when we were children and the concept of the prime of our lives was as hard to grasp as understanding the planets we could not even see beyond the stars.

Back then, we were told that our time in heaven would be so much like the prime of our lives. That was something that al¬though we could not understand, we took it on faith.

We had faith that we would live long, happy lives and would enjoy our prime before it fleeted away with our youth. And we watched carefully, when we had time, for our prime to arrive so that we could savor every moment.

In the meantime, our lives came and went, our children laughed and cried, were married, had children of their own, and finally, waited for their prime to come so they could savor its rich, delicate joy....

Copyright © 2008 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission.

25th Anniversary

Strange, it is, to sense the memories that suddenly swim to the surface like the picture in my head of my father as the ragtag kid who swam from the bottom of the Passaic River with a handful of mud, "See, wise guys? I really did swim to the bottom!"

Read More of How Many Hammers Are Enough

A Father's Place, An Eclectic Collection

I wasn't more than five years old the night my father grabbed me with his vise-like hands on his jackhammer arms and swung me over the banister of our second story back porch.

Swinging me side to side 20 feet in the air above the concrete sidewalk, Dad and I were having fun. I was safe, safe from the world in his strong hands. Mother's screams of terror stilled my shrieks of joy.

Read more of A Father's Place

Copyright © 2005 by Anthony Buccino, all rights reserved. Content may not be used for commercial purposes without written permission. Updated May 2008

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