Michael Jay Tucker

Hello! Hello!

I’m Michael Jay Tucker, and I’m delighted to meet you.

I’ve been a writer for, well, waaaaay longer than I care to admit. To give you an idea just how long I’ve been in the game, I spent a bunch of years in the computer trade press …where I, er, ah, blush, covered the introduction of the IBM PC. Feel free to shudder, and chortle, at that thought. Because yes, it means, that I date back to when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Though, my career did give me one small claim to fame. I interviewed Steve Jobs just after he got kicked out of Apple, and just before Apple’s Board came begging him to come back. Interesting man, to say the least. Think Lorenzo de' Medici meets cybernetics.

I’ve done several computer books — some of which now come under the heading of Fantastically Obsolete Antique, like the ones I co-authored on the Texas Instruments TI99/4A and the Commodore 64—but in recent years I’ve also done a great many other non-technical books that (I hope) will survive a bit longer. For instance, I’ve written a biography of Seward Collins (And Then They Loved Him), who has the bizarre dual distinction of being, first, one of the lovers of Dorothy Parker (and very nearly her husband), and, much later, a self-described American Fascist.

Truth be told, as near as I can tell from his papers and writings, he never really was a Fascist. His ideology sounds a lot more like late nineteenth century Catholic social theory with a heavy dose of G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. Why he called that “Fascism” is a puzzle to me. Maybe he just liked to watch people squirm when he said it.

Certainly, it wasn’t the best career decision he ever made, and come December 7, 1941, things got very complicated for him, indeed. But, go see the book if you want to hear the rest of the story. It’s a bit expensive to buy, but I understand it is in a lot of University libraries.)

But my most recent publication, and the one I’m most proud of at the moment, is Padre, which is the story of my parents in the last few years of their life. Honestly, it was a hard book to write. There was a lot of grief to explore there. But, they were fascinating people, and their lives were rather amazing. They had both come up from quite serious poverty (my mother, I think, knew real hunger as a child), and both became astonishing successes in adulthood, him as a physicist at Sandia Laboratories, and her as a teacher and an academic…and both of them as real estate entrepreneurs when they elected to “retire.”

Oh, and the name Padre? Obviously, that has to do with my dad, but also with South Padre Island, Texas, where my parents had a home, and where I subsequently scattered their ashes. (Don’t worry, folks. I did it way up north, where there aren’t any roads and the hotels are far away.) They loved the island, in their way. It was their refuge from work and the Albuquerque winter, which can be rather bitter. The city is in a high desert, after all, over 5000 feet above sea level. You’ll find cactus there, yes, but not palm trees and balmy breezes.

There is one pity in that, though. If they loved SPI, I’m not sure that the island ever noticed them. After they passed on, I looked around to see if there was anyone there I should inform about their going—their friends, I mean. There were almost none—a few folks they’d done business with, and no one else. Well, perhaps it was to expected. The town is a visitors’ community, where (for most) transition is the norm, and a certain anonymity is part of the package. Plus, my parents were private people. So, maybe all for the best.

But, moving on…

If you look at my list of books, you’ll also see a lot of volumes marked “explosive-cargo.” What’s that? you ask? So glad you want to know, I respond.

Way back in the closing decades of the last century, before there were blogs, before there was Facebook, before there was even an Internet, there was something called a “zine,” short for “magazine.” Zines were usually amateur publications in which one or more individuals would offer their comments about the world to all and sundry. Usually it was Xeroxed, or, before that, mimeographed, and mailed.

Then, with the coming of the ‘net, the e-zine come along. This was just like a regular zine, except that it went out by email rather than post. And, for some bizarre reason, I ended up doing one. I called it “explosive-cargo” (long story. I’ll explain later), and I wrote it for years, and years, and years. Some of the postings were meant to be funny, some were political, some were just personal essays.

I finally gave it up because e-zines went the way of all good things. As I say, they were replaced by blogs, and then by social media, and heaven only knows what will take their place in future. Maybe something in virtual reality…

But, I have been slowly gathering up all the explosive-cargo (Xcargo) postings and publishing them as books — sometimes by myself, other times through Belfort & Bastion LLC. Either way, you can find most of the Xcargo books on Amazon.

I am surprised by how well some of the Xcargo postings have held up, particularly since many of them are now several decades old. But, alas, many of the problems we had in the 1980s and 1990s we still have now.

And, sometimes jokes also last. Not always. But sometimes.

And that’s me at the moment.

Oh, I ought to also mention that I’ve taken a turn for video and limited action animation in the last few years. You can see some of my work on my Vimeo page, which is here: https://vimeo.com/mjt1957

Give them a glance and let me know what you think. Basically, they’re essays that just happen to be in audiovisual form. You might say that Xcargo lives on…but now it flickers and makes a noise.

Like I say, give me a shout if you like. Until then, take care, and…

Onward and upward.

Cheers

Mjt