Meet Genxcore

We recently connected with Genxcore and have shared our conversation below.

GenXCore, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Resilience… For much of my life I was the kind of person who would climb a majestic snow-covered mountain only to abandon the ascent at the most critical juncture in favor of ennui and rebellion. There are numerous terms for this type of behavior: self-destructive, low self-esteem, fear of failure. All appropriate. David Bowie referred to it as “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory;” Johnny Thunders infers much of the same in Born to Lose. As such, I must admit that when Bold Journey reached out for an interview, I was hesitant to expand upon my personal challenges and how I overcame them. A small voice wondered, why does it matter? What do I have to offer that isn’t laden in self-importance or, worse, antipathy and blame? Isn’t there enough of that going around nowadays? Luckily, I have a few good friends who helped me see that the interview is not about me; it’s about one person, one Bold Journey reader, who may be going through exactly what I have already been through, and if my experience can in some way help, or provide solace during a time of struggle, I am here for that.

So how did I overcome such crippling handicaps and as a single parent raise two sons, go back to college in my 40s, earn a master’s degree, go on to write the well-received and somewhat critically acclaimed novel “California Roadkill?” The answer is a monumental amount of failure. That’s how. Not a great answer, is it? I certainly didn’t like it. But it was and is my Truth and—to get to the end, resilience and perseverance attained—one should start at the beginning.

When I was a child, we moved once a year every year until I left home at age 17 (I felt 35!). My mother was what I would call a take no shit 70s style third wave feminist hippie Boomer who was more into Dylan than The Beatles. At age 13, her father, my grandfather, was murdered in an early morning liquor store robbery. Imagine that, if you will. With a high school education and zero financial or emotional support from an absent hard drinking husband (my father), she worked hard to raise both me and my younger brother. Somehow, we were fed, we were clothed, and we were loved. But every time we would get close to a semblance of security, something would happen: a raise of the rent, a layoff, a necessary escape after another late-night drunken drama with my father. We couldn’t catch a break. And yet I never saw her miss a day of work. Ever. That’s resilience!

Me? I’m not like that. At least, I wasn’t like that. My character was more in line with the somewhat demeaning if proverbial, But he has such potential. If only he would…

Started at an early age, quitting, and like a virus it spread to all corners of my life. First it was with sports, then it was with school; then it was with music and relationships, employment and apartments. Year after year, one after the other, something would happen, a setback of some kind, and I would quit. The worst part? I was completely unaware, so lost was I in rationalization and false equivalency, false pride, inverse moral superiority; all of it unconscious, normalized. To be fair to myself, it was also habitual, a learned behavior from an early life of instability and abandonment (he just never came back).

I overcame this way of living after a series of degradations post the Great Financial Crisis of 2009. Divorce. Bankruptcy. Food stamps. Unable to secure gainful employment or permanent shelter; having to rely on others. Ugh! Failure. It was a hard and ugly blow to my then fragile if outsized ego; an ego I would have sworn I didn’t have. It was during this time of self-loathing that I had a moment, small and profound, wherein I deeply (and I do mean deeply) knew I had no one to blame but myself; it was swim or die. One never knows how close they really are to the street. But I did. “All it takes,” the Joker says, “is a little push.” Fair has nothing to do with it. And justified excuses for self-destructive behavior are always the hardest to let go; conversely, to effect change, letting go is the most crucial component.

At some desperate point, a friend suggested going back to school. School! Did I tell you I dropped out of high school in the last month of my Senior Year? Yeah, that was me. So, trust me when I tell you that not one bit of my friend’s suggestion made any sense. But I had two things going for me and this is important: I was desperate, and I was willing to take another person’s direction. So, contrary to my what the **** is school going to do for my food insecurity and employment concerns, I enrolled in a couple of Community College courses in … creative writing.

Wait, did he say creative writing?

It’s a valid question and yes that is exactly what I did. Though this probably speaks more to my sensibility for financial sabotage and self-destructive decision making skills (the artistic life is not for everyone), I did have a reason.
In my 2009 welter of anxiety and dread, I had a realization: There was one thing I did not quit, and that was writing. I had just always done it. How does one know they are anything if that is just what they do? So I went a little further, a forty-something taught by twenty-somethings, and won a few writing scholarships. It made no sense. I barely scraped by, financial aid, a temp gig here and there. Friends and family thought I was crazy. But I had caught fire and the days, some of them grueling, laden with insecurity—not a lot of dates that’s for sure, not too any people interested in a forty-year old college student—became weeks, then months, then years. Like my mother, I worked hard. I persevered and twelve years later: an MFA, two sons thriving in their respective endeavors: one, a happily married producer and director of live broadcast eSport events; the other, a musician in his senior year at art school prepping for college applications; a published novel. Gainful employment at the Writers Guild of America.

Not bad, right? Out of the ash or something to that effect…

And the irony of the novel being my way out is not lost on me. Of all the art forms it is perhaps the most arduous, a marathon. Yet here I stand. Resilience from failure, from watching my mother go to work every day; sometimes two, three jobs just to make it happen. I have found we do not hear what people say so much as we watch what they do. In this, I learned from the best.

And if I can do it, so can you.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

Currently, I am in the third and final draft of California Roadkill 2; it’s tentatively titled The In Between. The reader and fan response to the first book have been overwhelmingly positive and beyond my expectations. People are connecting to what it represents, some of the larger themes of displacement and change, the California diaspora, so I have built out a line of California Roadkill merchandise which, along with my book, are currently on sale via my website: www.genxcore.com.

I have an upcoming book signing event at the Book Fair in Belmont Shores on Sunday, September 22, 2024 from 11:00 AM 3:00 PM. The address is: 5200 E. 2nd Street Long Beach, CA, 90803. Please come by and say hello! I love meeting and talking with readers and fellow book geeks; we are really the cool ones—ha!

I also volunteer at My Friends Place, an organization here in Hollywood that helps our local youth (ages 12-24) currently experiencing homelessness, and run a writer’s workshop. We read and write and engage in discussion on classical texts such as Auden, as well as more modern works by writers like Jason Reynolds. The kids are wonderful, insightful, and intelligent. Way smarter than I was at their age!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Resilience. Perseverance. Willingness.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” for its movement and artistry, and Hubert Selby Jr.’s “Last Exit to Brooklyn” for its musicality and compassion.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://genxcore.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/genxcore/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GenXCore0

Image Credits

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