Friday, June 13, 2003

I’ve been a professional writer since 1959 and I still don’t know how to use a computer. But I’ve got to learn fast. I started by submitting pencil written articles and reviews to ‘The Jazz Review’ in 1959. After awhile they started complaining about the extra time they had to spend on typing my articles. I couldn’t type, but my wife could, and she typed my jazz articles and reviews until 1970. In 1972 I was divorced, but was able to get pencil-written jazz pieces published, because the publications I worked for weren’t paying me. After 1975, I quit writing jazz criticism to concentrate on comic book writing, but I started writing about jazz again in the late 1980s. At that time, my second wife Joyce (I’d remarried in 1983), typed for me-- but only if I would read my scribbled pages out loud. Then, I got grief because magazines wanted stuff sent to them by computer. Joyce got me a word processor with a slot for a floppy disc. I learned to hunt and peck, and gave my floppy discs with articles and reviews to her to upload. Things went along well that way until my word processor started falling apart. I couldn’t replace it. It was obsolete. I couldn’t find word processors with slots for floppy discs. That meant I had to learn to use a computer. Joyce is teaching me and she has ordered me a used laptop, which should be here any day now. I’m really technophobic, and I’m scared, but I’ve got to go ahead and learn the computer, there’s no way around it. 9:39:26 AM