Tag Archives: Mason Loika

How I Became a Lesbian

It’s Happened, It’s Live

Leave a comment

Several times over the last 96 hours, my overactive brain found multiple reasons for failure in this book venture. Then Wednesday afternoon (3:37 pm Pacific Time), less than an hour before my ritual 420 observance, Amazon Corporation’s word came down:

IT’S LIVE.

My thanks go to many people. Feelings of gratitude are filling my soul.

When you order my book, make sure you see my name. Plus I’m the only author with “and other stories” in the title.

One more thing: The Kindle version is not available yet. Once that changes, I will post an update here. But don’t be shy. You can order a print copy today for $29.41.

How I Became a Lesbian

10 more days to launch

Leave a comment

Amazon has revised my book release date. It is now May 6.

Today actually was the deadline for pre-publication work, not the book release date. I apologize for letting impatience get the best of me; I know you are impatient too.

Although I’m embarrassed about confusing the book’s availability, I’m still excited. To use a military term, here’s the “straight skinny.”

How I Became a Lesbian (and other stories) is set for release on Monday, May 6. The memoir/love story consists of 432 pages with 32 color photographs. The softcover sale price will be set at $29.99, and Amazon reserves the right to increase the asking price 30 days after launch. For those who prefer Kindle, the book will be available the same day — on May 6th — for $6.99.

After three years and six months writing this beast, with 18 challenging chapters and an epilogue describing how indeed I became a lesbian, I took a deep breath. But only for a couple days. Then followed three intense months of initial edits followed by another four months to oversee Amazon’s publication process, all with proofreading galore.

Whew! None of my 15 years as a photojournalist can compare, especially since a next-door neighbor unintentionally set a smoldering fire to my townhouse with all my work inside. Fortunately, I arrived home in time to call the fire department and have them put it out.

I’ve written and/or edited two other books, but those were for other people. This book is mine, all mine, and was inspired by love for Alice.

So don’t get your panties in a bunch. The book is almost ready! I’ll keep you posted as events warrant. And the photo above — which is NOT in the book — was taken 12 years ago when Alice proudly escorted me to Cape May, New Jersey. Those were fine times.

How I Became a Lesbian

On the Precipice of Publication

3 Comments

The wait is almost over. Then perhaps I can have my teeth whitened.

For six months last year, I pitched New York literary agents with book proposals for 74,000 words, 38 photos and four clippings, all connected to “How I Became A Lesbian (and other stories)”. The agents referred me to websites upon which to put my work, but I found myself waiting around for broken promises. Realizing I’m not getting any younger, I asked a sophisticate in our neighborhood for advice.

He suggested that I partner with Amazon.

As a former deejay on K-POT – an L.A. pirate radio station – at first, I was amused. But I checked out Amazon Publications, and invading literary society kept appealing to my non-conformist mindset.

Consequently, it’s appropriate now to announce that Amazon and I are working together. Amazon is a publisher well-connected to the Internet, and its commitment to the environment is apparent, because it creates print-on-demand books.

Amazon is currently making final touches to the heart-rending product of our journey. And Alice approves. After all, she danced on [American] Bandstand.

Keep tuned.

Quakers

A Blast from the Past

2 Comments

If I were to die tomorrow, I would like to be remembered as a man of peace, perhaps stupidly so. That’s why I joined the Quakers.

I once revered Judaism as reflecting wisdom from the ancients, and I sought favor from its followers. The vengeance being wrought no longer reflects that noble idea.

In my memoir/love story is an original poem written during the Vietnam War. There is no time like the present to realize it is relevant again.

Where have all the flowers gone?

“Yes, Sing On”©

Unsettled leaves of night float by
Falling from treetops in anguished cry,
Meadowlarks scream for all their worth
Trumpeting the end of this gray-green Earth,
And yes, sing on,
Oh God, sing on,
The days of discovery have found no one.

I wandered through heaven to find myself,
Encountered instead a harmless elf,
A figure of speech he seemed to me
And out of his mouth flew a bumblebee,
And yes, sing on,
Oh God, sing on,
The days of discovery have found no one.

The weather report calls for mushroom clouds,
Peyote prisms in a nuclear crowd,
While butterflies argue with tsetse flies,
Isn’t it funny how time goes by?
And yes, sing on,
Oh God, sing on,
The days of discovery have found no one.

How I Became a Lesbian

Nearing the Finish Line

2 Comments

When I started my memoir/love story, I was numb from loss. Yet I was given a mission.

The love of my life, Alice McCormick, had me promise “to write” ONE DAY before she left this planet. I was not about to let her down.

Then the Aphasia Network stepped in to comfort my loss. Sixty-three days after discovering Alice’s lifeless body, I was invited into a grief session on Zoom but paired with two naive, early-year students. With nothing else to talk about, I sought their input to determine a politically correct way to identify a racial epithet that neighbors and my grandfather used in the 1950s.

The two of them had no clue. They hit the PANIC button. Then they disappeared into the comforting arms of a supervisor who condemned my speech.

Welcome to cancel culture, and the scourge of it. I am anything BUT a racist; yet that word was hurled later at me. Is it because I emerged from that world and wanted to report on it? Do we choose to ignore how much African Americans have evolved since their squalid beginnings?

It makes me wonder what qualifies as history.

I learned about discrimination firsthand in Princeton, New Jersey, because I could not travel with much-whiter boys to perform in 1950s Ohio. That kind of stupidity never fails to enrage me, but I persevere.

I’m running on the fumes. Maybe reviving my Go Fund Me account would help.

No matter what, I’m writing the last two chapters. They’re about Alice.

My Amazon love
How I Became a Lesbian

Three-year progress report

3 Comments

The gazebo appearing above was Alice McCormick’s pride and joy.

Ever since her passing three years ago, I’ve been working on the book she wanted me to write. It’s called How I Became a Lesbian (and other stories).”

Chapters 1-17 are complete. Chapter 18 finishes up life in Bucks County before Alice. It will include prime concerts, Grandfather Many Crows, meditation at Pebble Hill, Danawa Buchanan and revisiting the American Boychoir in Princeton.

I’m now 80 years old. Once I finish #18, I’m able – finally – to write about Alice.

That’s the latest. I’m preparing to look for an agent and see if a professional is suitably intrigued. Soon after that happens, I anticipate this website will be overhauled.

Longview

A Birthday to Savor

5 Comments

Thanks to everyone for your enjoyable birthday remembrances. Facebook is, indeed, a social medium.

The photo above was made possible by my one-time sister-in-law, Mary Schenck, who called a Longview bakery on Commerce Avenue named the Sugar Pearl. Mary asked if they could prepare an Amaretto liqueur cake to make my 80th milestone birthday a special one to remember.

Boy, did they! Not only did I receive a VIP-worthy delivery from the bakery’s owner, but this sweetheart of an all-natural-ingredients marvel measures 8 inches in diameter and 4¼ inches in height. That’s mammoth!

I attempted to take a selfie sitting next to the cake, but it doesn’t do justice to either of us. I’ll post it anyway, because the pressure now is on. I must make a dinner worthy of this sweet introduction to my dining room. What about spare ribs? And what about a sauce that celebrates my father when he functioned as a sous chef at the Waldorf-Astoria? Over egg noodles, of course.

I haven’t left this plane of existence, yet. I’m sticking around, because I have to finish this book-length homage praising the pitfalls of life. I survived because of some dedicated women who loved me, and it’s time I give something back.

Thanks for my great birthday memories!

Anticipating the first bite of a bakery’s masterpiece.
Bucks County

Over the Hump

Leave a comment

Why did I leave the “Gold Coast” of South Florida? I had to examine that determination, and chronicle why working for the Miami Herald disaffected me.

The hurdles of writing about those times are behind me now. I’m getting ready to document some amazing experiences in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and its flagship newspaper, the Bucks County Herald.

The photo above of an unidentified Quaker salutes the mission of Pebble Hill church, the closest thing to heaven on earth. What an interesting assortment of photos I have.

Mason

An Electronic Greeting

Leave a comment

Amid the Christmas/Chanukah cards you see this season, this one’s being promoted on Facebook: the social medium we love to hate.

Well, considering how much we pay for Internet service, it’s time – since I am one of billions inhabiting this crazy planet – to get on board.

So this is my humble card, with a little news.

Over the Christmas holidays, Kremlin-based Russians who hate my liberal ass have been trying to hack this website over the Christmas holidays, because of a previous post characterizing Vladimir Putin as an elite troublemaker.

That’s too bad. He’s making a nasty bed for all Russians to lie in, and the country has to change from within.

As you might infer from the photo above, there’s only a place-setting for one. Nevertheless, I dine at an Alice McCormick-inspired holiday table, and I thought you’d like to see it.

I have one wish for the approaching New Year, keeping in mind America finally left Afghanistan. Russia should leave Ukraine alone.

That is all. That is enough.

May we have peace worldwide in 2023.

A big shout-out to all the volunteers who spent Christmas supporting the Salvation Army.