The Sad Face Of It

I went to San Francisco and went to the Public Library cause I heard they had a Writer's Workshop and I thought it might be like New Orleans. There was this guy, who was actually a lot older (probably in his sixties and this was 1978 or so, so he's probably dead now. He ran the Workshop. He had been an actor, and had gone in to have some plastic surgery done when he was in his forties and there had been a mistake made and one side of his face was paralyzed. He sued and sued and had a couple more operations to try to repair the damage and then to try to repair the damage that aging does to a paralyzed face. Anyway, he was not wonderful. He would tell anyone that would listen about how his life had been shattered and he had nothing left and his career was basically gone forever And so he was writing. He would stand up in front of a room with all the chairs facing him and he would call on you and then you would stand and read and then he would critique thoroughly and then let others comment and then he would move on. His writing was dumb. He didn't really know much about the whole process. I went back a couple more times, but it wasn't fun and he really was an asshole.