How I got so cosmic (or not)

This being the inaugural post on my blog – yesterday’s placeholder does not really count – I suppose I should formally introduce myself. Right up front I will state that I am really not all that cosmic (does it show?). I adopted the name “Cosmic Connie” in 1995, when I was preparing to publish my parody of the new age/self-help/motivational subcultures. Cosmic Connie just seemed to be a logical name, inasmuch as the book was called Cosmic Relief: Honoring and Celebrating The Global Paradigm Shaft. Also, like many of us, I am a sucker for alliteration.

That’s the short answer about how I got to be Cosmic Connie. If you want longer answers, and have quite a bit of time to waste, here is the unvarnished truth about my cosmic origins.

Despite the fact that my moniker was more self-parody than anything, I got called on it a few years back by another person who went by the name Cosmic Connie. She was a fortune teller who, presumably, was a little more on the “cosmic” side than I. She wrote me an email with the subject line, “I am the REAL Cosmic Connie.” Actually she wasn’t all that indignant; she just wanted to let me know of her existence. I told her there was room enough in the vast cosmos for us to co-exist peacefully. At the time, in fact, there were numerous other references to “Cosmic Connie” on the Web as well. It’s just one of those obvious names, like “Fast Eddie” or “Dr. Bob” (I have known several Fast Eddies and Dr. Bobs, and I bet you have too).Cosmic Relief was, as I mentioned above, a parody of the new age and self-help cultures, with a few jabs at corporate America thrown in for good measure. It was partly the result of my disillusionment with these subcultures, and partly the product of my longstanding need to satirize everything around me. I actually started writing satires when I was in second or third grade. (I started writing books years before that – before I could even write – but that’s another story altogether.***)

Cosmic Relief was not a book, per se; it was more like a magazine parody, a spoof of those freebie new-age/healthy-lifestyle publications that are available in most areas of the US. There were plenty of spoof articles and ad parodies – the latter being rather primitive, since all I had at the time was vector clip art – but it was the thought that counted. My reasoning was that if a publisher chose to pick up this project, they could re-create the ads and use photographs. (On the other hand, most of the publications I was satirizing were of such poor production quality anyway that the point seemed unimportant.)

For quite some time before I chose to self-publish, I did try to get a real honest-to-goodness trade publisher to pick up Cosmic Relief. I sent preliminary editions – you couldn’t exactly call them manuscripts – to numerous publishers and agents. In return I got a lot of positive remarks about how funny the material was, but again and again, I learned that “it just does not suit our needs at this time.” Anyone heard that one before? At one point I even sent the material to one of my favorite humorists, Dave Barry, and he graciously offered to send it to his agent. In short order I got a polite letter back from the agent, who said he was not taking on any new clients at the time. Well, that was a new one for me. (He did, however, add that in any case, he was not the right agent for this material, so at least I was still on familiar ground.)

I will not pretend I wasn’t disappointed by the numerous rejections, but I was not all that surprised. I knew I had created a work that was hard to place. It wasn’t a parody of a specific publication, and many of the jokes may have been a bit obscure at the time. In any case I was certainly not bitter about it. At that time, I happened to be learning more and more about self-publishing. So that’s what I ultimately did, with the help of my business partner – and the love of my life – Ron Kaye.

The book was a critical success, but not a commercial one. I imagine it would have done far better if I had done more to distribute it, and, especially, to promote it, including and especially developing my “Cosmic Connie” persona. But there were real books to write, and real clients, and real life. My main satisfaction was seeing the book in print. I also loved getting emails and letters and phone calls from people who enjoyed the book. One phone call that especially delighted me was from the silly sage Swami Beyondananda, whom I greatly admire because, even though he may actually be enlightened, he is also an inveterate punster like me. He is also, I might add, cosmic. He said he was pleased and impressed to see someone committing the same type of humor as he, without stealing any of his jokes. High praise, indeed.

Beyond the silliness, Cosmic Relief had a marginally serious message, reflected in an essay I published at the back of the book, A Few Words From The Wet Blanket At The Mystics' Orgy. I can't imagine being a wet blanket at anyone's orgy these days, but I had a stronger sense of purpose back then. And now…and now…I have this blog, another place for me to hold forth on the silliness of pop culture. I will not promise to stick strictly to the new age, or to self-help and motivation, or to the absurdity of the business world – but that doesn’t really matter. After all, as many of the new-age folks like to say, everything is interrelated. I just want to have a good time here. And I hope you do too.

*** Come to think of it, I believe my longstanding love of writing satire has helped me in my “day job” of ghostwriting. They both involve imitation, taking on the voice of another; the difference, I suppose, is in the intent..