Version53

Can't Say Nothing

2012-03-07T13:57:00.002-06:00

Lucky you, I'm still on regular hours and just awoke. The real overtime starts this Friday so I'm still on normal hours. And because of this I find it impossible to not make a mention of some of the latest goings-on with Anonymous. Lucky you, like I said.

It's Anonymous, whatever that is, that informs most of my outlook these days and - if pushed - I suppose if I had to declare a "party affiliation" these would be the guys I'd probably slide in next to. Democrats, Republicans, Independents, to me it's all the same mush. Relics of the past, to be perfectly frank. So I happily take on new symbols and metaphors - mostly in response to the stasis of modern politics and all the petty nonsense that defines it these days. Or perhaps has always defined it.

The fact of the matter is that, no, I'm not part of Anonymous. This is true mostly because you know who I am. Plus I don't have the mad internet skilz needed to do raids and the kind of civil actions Anonymous is known for. In fact the only direct dealing I've ever had with it is directed at the Church of Scientology's fraud and abuse. And, because the "church" knows me and I never signed onto anything without using my real name, what I'm actually a part of is a subtext known as "Project Chanology." What developed after, or along with, that project went on to Wikileaks, skirting around the Iranian internet blocks, the Arab Spring and, finally, the Occupy movement. Anonymous, or at least people who have some sort of nebulous connection to Anonymous, had a hand in all of that. The DNA can be traced back to the "leaderless group." They've also helped me track down a long lost classmate, but that's neither here nor there.

Anonymous has also battled neo-Nazis, child molesters, and evil neighbors of dying little girls. You should really read this short history to get an idea about the group. And, in that article, you will also see negative stuff. And that right there is the point.

The single most important thing people need to remember is something that runs counter-intuitive to standard analysis. The fact is that anybody can claim to be "Anonymous," and anybody basically has.

I've no doubt that the recent arrests of "hackers" that operated under the Anonymous banner are, in fact, targeted actual regulars within the group. But, like Islam, if you want to view the whole thing as a monument or a monolith you'd be way off track.

When my involvement with Chanology started to taper off, the demands of real life and the pursuit of long neglected dreams taking over, the only thing for sure I could say about the group was that there was - and so far as I can tell still is - a lively debate about internet activity. Denial of Service attacks, website content altered to say embarrassing or opposite views than those intended, are believed by some to be a legitimate tactic in the culture wars. Others think them counter-productive. That's not something that will be resolved soon, because there is no leader. There is the "hive-mind" (Read "on the internet" definition) and there is individual action.

So the recent arrests of people alleged to be part of Anonymous (which, laughably, could be anyone who claimed it whether they did anything or not) did get my attention.

There's a pretty well-informed article here at the Chicago Tribune today, which I strongly recommend you take five minutes to read - if nothing else than because it is one of the more cogent explanations from the "outside" as I've seen in a while. But the thing you have to remember is that what constitutes a "member" of Anonymous ("member of Anonymous" being a term which in and of itself is virtually meaningless) is wide open. You'd be surprised to learn who is part of it or supports it. If you think it's hackers on steroids operating from Mommy's basement you'd be believing exactly what "Anonymous" wants you to believe. The actual participants come from every walk of life. From professionals to people with well-known names. Don't laugh at that.

Laugh at this instead.

Anyway is this the end of Anonymous? Everybody scared off now?

lol...

Where I'll Be

2012-03-05T15:52:00.007-06:00

What starts now is my period of wage slavery at the hands of good church-going Catholics everywhere who only show up on Easter and Christmas. They have a name for that kind of attender but I can't remember what it is. Anyway I owe my income to these folks because for those two holidays we have to put in a ton of overtime making 50% more bulletins than we normally do for all 1722 churches we handle around the country. So I may not be around much as of tomorrow all the way up to Easter. In the meantime I've posted a picture of a pretty little Spanish woman who was part of the anarchist militias in 1937.

Hey I found out today that Rush Limbaugh's show is put on by Clear Channel, and that the company that has Clear Channel in their portfolio is something called Bain Capital. So see? Who says Governor Romney doesn't have conservative credentials? He owns - oh alright used to own - a piece of ol' cyst butt. Seems as though Rush, the voice and conscience of the GOP, is having a little trouble these days. But he'll weather the storm. Losing a few sponsors with so many on the waiting list is not a big deal. There are plenty of companies looking to sell products to conservatives and Republicans. Burial plots. Gout remedies. Viagra. Happy pills. Nazi collectables. Nude photos of Ayn Rand. Phone numbers of available little boys for fun and profit. Bibles. Investment property in Utah. That kind of thing.

Funny if you characterize black people by some stereotype you lose your radio job, but do it to a woman and nothing happens.

To be any part of the Republican Party these days I guess you have to be real crabby. It seems to be their cultural trait nowadays. Angry white guys unite!

I'm hoping and praying for, and willing to actually send money to, Senator Santorum's campaign. I have a driving need to see him carry the GOP banner this fall. Since there will end up being virtually no difference between Governor Romney and President Obama the potential for entertainment this campaign seems very low. We need Senator Santorum now!

I see also where the Speechdollars (it's a word I made up to label the money given by faceless PACS who can now spend unlimited funds on lies and treachery and be protected by the 1st Amendment, meaning that their speech is freer than your speech simply because you can't afford to broadcast your lies like they can broadcast theirs) have been being spent by the millions already just among the Republicans. There's a robocall going around Ohio right now telling people they can "Vote for Santorum and American values or vote for homosexuality and Romney." Wow. Just... wow. I hope you members of the GOP reading this right now are proud of yourselves.

Dumbasses.

So anyway sorry to say you won't be seeing much of my happy happy thoughts for a while. No doubt the conservatives among you are quite satisfied with that. But in the meantime you can always visit my official website that went online a while ago.

Also, get ready for issue #4 of Thrice. I saw some of the first "rushes" from dave2 this weekend and it's so good it will rot your liver. We're guessing it'll be out by the 18th. I may be back for a little while before then. Who knows.

Hey, my old magazine got listed at Read/Write (formerly the Underground Library) in Chicago. Here's our page.

Oh and here's Charlize. Darken her hair and sling a rifle over her shoulder and she could almost be part of the militia. Hmmm...

Keep Going Boyz, Yer Doin Fine

2012-03-02T17:15:00.005-06:00

Well looks like the effort by the Obama administration to take away your guns never happened. Oh wait... they're waiting until after the second term so that they don't have to answer to the electorate right? Yeah I get it. Nice going boys.

Rush Limbaugh has now weighed in on the contraceptive argument, styling a propenent who testified about the issue a "slut."*** Nice going boys.

A sheriff in Arizona, Areola or whatever his name is - best known for his support for child molesters and stiff anti-immigration laws (which would have disallowed his own olive-skinned ancestors no doubt) - is back in the news about President Obama's birth certificate. Oh yes, we're still on this case. Of course trying to prove he is "the outsider" - a Marxist Muslim born in Kenya who supports domestic terrorism and wants to take away your guns - has nothing to do with him being black. Oh hell no. It's about the policies. Nice going boys.

Rick Santorum doesn't like the idea that there shouldn't be an established religion. He believes, much like bin Laden or Jerry Falwell, that religious principles should rule the governing of the country. JFK's inauguration speech - the foundation of neoconservatism btw, makes him want to throw up a little in his mouth. Nice going boys.

The faceless guys who have their fingers on the controls of the GOP, whose only purpose this year is to destroy the influence of the Tea Party and get things back to normal in their party, are doing everything they can to lose the upcoming Presidential election. Just in case you may have been wondering exactly why it is the candidates up for the GOP nomination are such gut-wrenching losers.

And the rank and file conservatives - you know, the angry gun guys sitting at their kitchen table who are looking for any Great White Hope they can possibly find - are doing their level best to justify going along with any one of them. Cuz that's the extent of their intellectual curiosity. Nice going boys. You just handed the election to Obama.

Hope you're happy with that.

Idiots.

--------------
***I see where Catholics might have to offer insurance that provides their employees with contraceptives. And this is a big issue with them because if you're a Catholic the only real birth control you're supposed to use is the "rhythm method." It doesn't matter that prestigious Catholic institutions like Georgetown University have been offering this for years, or that it is estimated that almost 90% of Catholic women have basically told the child abusers and child abuser enablers in the Catholic hierarchy to get lost on this issue, this is a problem of deep moral concern.

All of a sudden. In an election year. Oh hai.

You know, I print and process bulletins for Catholic churches all over the country every week. And all I can say is that before I had this job I felt Catholics - because I was raised as one - were mostly decent, regular people. I still feel that way. Some of my best friends are Catholics. Lol. I have to say though, reading it first hand, that the venom coming from some of the churches (Obama, that putrid liar, quisling Catholics who use contraceptives, blah blah blah) is downright offensive. On the level of private conscience, I have nothing but respect for my Catholic friends. But priests, from now on, shall be addressed only by their first names, since I can no longer recognize the title they bestow on themselves.

Gang Nations

2012-02-27T13:41:00.004-06:00

Really, what's the difference between nations and street gangs?

Both mark off territory and work to defend it. One old school word calls "turf" what another calls "spheres of influence." They have colors, uniforms and hierarchies. They each even have their own version of taxation. Each takes a part of the world and marks it off as "theirs." They can both extol extensive "histories" that belong to them alone. There are citizens and there are homies. They regulate trade and economic activity. They both have systems of "justice" to mitigate any disputes within their realms. Both control by force and compulsion. See what happens if you refuse to pay your taxes. Or your protection money. Declare yourself independent of the larger powers that surround you and you'll find out - from both entities - how far you'll get and how long you'll get to do it. How long has the US been the Crips to Russia's Bloods?

The difference, of course, is seen as one of legitimacy. But what state doesn't coerce its legitimacy? Might makes right. The power dictates. The capacity to redress grievances may differ, but that also differs between nations. You may be able to appeal certain things in the USA, but try to get redress for your concerns in Syria. It's just a matter of degree, really. A neighborhood under the oppression of local gun thugs in Los Angeles or Chicago is the same as being in some countries.

Is it because our "gang" has nicer uniforms and a flag that makes us, or any nation, "better" than a mere gang? Is this only a matter of degree as well? We're proud of our soldiers. So are some neighborhoods I know of. We're proud of our kids when they participate in the life of the nation. We cheer them on and point to them as examples. But the same thing happens in the world of gangs. Some gang members are third and fourth generation already.

And if we feel a rival nation is threatening us, what do we do? Isn't organized warfare between nations the same thing as gang war, when you come right down to it? So what is the difference, if not only a matter of degree?

In the realm of philosophical anarchism - i.e., anarchism separated from the bomb-throwing connotation and seen in the light of an individual's relationship to their community instead - this view raises questions about human nature. What do we construct around ourselves? It's a question of how we become groups, and how these groups interact.

You can't have pure anarchism, at least not for long. Any void will be filled and, in the case of power wrenched from what is established, it will probably be filled by those who have the means and resources to inflict a new level of control. If there were no states, states would form. Take away the controlling power and that vacuum would be filled by another kind of controlling power.

Give that some thought the next time you rise to sing the National Anthem. Hand over heart. Cap off. Gang signs.

Baseball - 6 Reasons Redux

2012-02-26T07:59:00.005-06:00

In honor of the coming baseball season, which seems to be lurching and inching and stalling and taking its ever loving sweet time getting here alfreakinready, I am re-posting my 6 Reasons We're Cooler Than You story from a long ago blog.

The Chicago White Sox, my team you see, are often the redheaded stepchild of Chicago sports. Pushed aside by the vast majority of Chicago baseball fans, who cheer for the Flubs, we evermore seem to be the side show of a side show. And it has ever been thus.

In time diehard fans have learned to relish the marginalization. We wallow in the subculture. The Cubs on the rich north side never fail to sell out, never fail to blow it, never fail to use that continual century of failure as the draw... "just imagine how good you're going to feel when they finally win a World Series." Cough. Coughcoughcough.

Whatever.

The South Side team, always the working class Irish team, the guys that played near the Union Stockyards, the park in the rough neighborhoods, the team in Mayor Daley's part of town (either one), have always been somewhere below the Bears, Cubs, Bulls, and even Blackhawks. The main difference between Cubs and Sox fans has always been; when the Cubs suck and you tell a Cub fan this, you will have excuses thrown your way why anyone can have a bad century. When the Sox suck, it's probably a Sox fan who is telling YOU that. Cub fans show up just to look at the ivy. If the Sox aren't doing well, we'd rather go to a bar and throw darts.

So anyway here's the redux. Wishing they'd start already, even though I have no idea what the hell the Sox think they're doing this year.
--------------------

White Sox - 6 Reasons Why We're Cooler Than You

I was born and raised in Chicago and am a fan of a team known as the White Sox. And, I hate to tell you, but we're just cooler than y'all, and here's 6 reasons why.

1. We're Not The Cubs. I should stop here but I won't. The Sox have always been Chicago's red-headed step child in local sports. Always. The difference between the Cubs and Sox has always been the fact that Cub fans are perceived as the "yuppie" crowd with a minimal understanding of baseball's intricacies and more of an interest in who is calling them on their cell phone. The Sox played just this side of the Union Stockyards where we killed all your beef critters and have been looked on locally as the working class team. It's supposed to be rougher at our games and we were the guys for which they coined the phrase "I went to see a fight and a ballgame broke out!" Well, those are really characterizations that don't make as much sense anymore even if they were truer at one point. But the plain fact is that the only time the two Chicago teams faced each other in the Series the White Sox, then known as the Hitless Wonders, beat the Cubs who had won 116 games that season, in 1906. The last time the Cubs won a World Series was 1908. 102 years since and the Cubs still suck. Jesus... in 102 years even the Red Sox have won more than one World Series. But this has always been a Cub town. In 2005 when the Sox won the Series I will always remember a semblance of the headline in the sports section of the Chicago Tribune in September of that year... in big bold letters across the top of the page"CUBS SNAP FOUR GAME LOSING STREAK" and at the bottom right, in letters half the size "White Sox Clinch Division." Yeah. And Cub uniforms look like pajamas. So there.

2. We're Worse Bad Asses Than You Could Even Ever Imagine. Our guys took money from gamblers and threw the world series of 1919. Fuck the national past time, just gimmee money. The legendary miscreant Arnold Rothstien shows up in the book "The Great Gatsby" and it was his money behind the deal. The conspirators had names like Chick and Hap and Swede and Lefty, and Shoeless Joe, who threw away an entire career with a meal ticket to the Hall of Fame. The kid comes up to him and says "say it ain't so, Joe. Say it ain't so." We're talking the stuff of special legend. I don't care what historical stuff your team has, you don't have this. Only we have this. And for years and years it was an embarrassment to diehard Sox fans but now, with a new take on everything, this kind of criminal behavior is beyond acceptable cool. And the fact that our guys had the balls to do it, and yours ain't, is all you need to know.

3. If You Have It, We Probably Invented It. Those names on the backs of your hero's jersey... no matter what sport you may be talking about? The fireworks that go off when your guy hits a homerun? The effort to improve the food at your local sports venue? Singing "Nana-nana Nana-nana Hey-ey-ey Good-bye" (which pre-dates "We will We will rock you" by at least a decade) when a pitcher from the other team gets pulled after getting the crap knocked out of him? All that came from here and was invented here. We did them first. Each one a product that emerged from the cold old, now torn down, Comiskey Park. The White Sox put the names on the jerseys, had an exploding scoreboard, were the first to widely vary the possibilities and quality of ballpark food, and sang the opposing pitcher off the field while you were still clapping hands in unison to the Mexican Jumping Bean Dance or whatever the hell that was. You sing Hey-ey ey Goodbye all the time now. We did it first. It came from here. We're even PISSED when we hear you do it because it's OURS. End of story.

4. We Still Think Disco Sucks. Disco Demolition Night was a promotion that saw hundreds of people bring their disco records to the park to blow them up in a great big bonfire in the middle of the field between the games of a twilight/night double header (which you don't do anymore either). It turned into basically a riot and we forfeited the second game because they couldn't bring the crowd under control. Not a good memory for a lot of the old school Sox fans but a matter of principle for the rest of us. Disco music, it's clothes, the entire era and everything it stood for SUCKED BIG ELEPHANT BALLS and we were the only ones who were willing to surrender a game in return for saving the world from a fate worse than DEATH. You should kiss us in odd places in gratitude for our ability to hold principle above a mere ballgame. You don't have this either.

5. Bill God Damn Veeck, Sucker. We'll let the folks old enough from Cleveland and St. Louis join in this one, but we had him and the rest of you didn't. See #3 (above) if you want to know who came up with a good portion of that stuff. That was this guy... Bill Veeck, one of the guys who owned the White Sox in our history. Yes that's a wooden leg that's replacing his original leg which he lost in WWII fighting in the Pacific. Yes he had an ashtray carved in his wooden leg with a sliding cover on it. Yes he was the guy who sent the midget up to the plate in St. Louis. Yes the baseball establishment hated him. Yes he's the guy who staged the 10,000 Free Eskimo Pie Night... with the catch that there was 1 winner, and he was promptly given 10,000 Eskimo pies RIGHT THEN AND THERE in the middle of the game. Bill Veeck sold the Sox to the current ownership and spent the rest of his days in the center field bleachers at Wrigley Field, where he worked as a boy and from which he took me to Murphy's after a game and plied me with beer after beer while he talked about philosophy and I can't remember what. Bill Veeck was a friend of mine. Somebody I knew face to face. But that wasn't unusual. There were 10,000 other guys just like me. Oh, there's one more thing Bill did in his life.... he's the guy who planted the famous vines in Wrigley Field. Nothing much.

And Number 6? Sox Fans. We're just more interesting is all. The White Sox have me... some guy named Barack... you know... just... fans.

Good guys wear black. It works this way.

See if it don't.

J' rejette

2012-02-19T05:42:00.011-06:00

I have no idea, if internet ads are tied to where you visit, why I keep getting ads to find singles - especially single men - in my area. I not only have no interest in meeting single men, I also have no interest in meeting single women in my area. Or in any area, for that matter. And for what, exactly? To give them fatherly advice about their boyfriends? Wtf? I did buy my wife some silk pajamas for Christmas, and continue to get ads from the site I bought them from, for which I am grateful because the gift was such a success it shall be repeated on MrsRW's birthday and again for our anniversary. So I don't want to forget where I got them from. But I surely don't need to find single men and women to help me with that. Sheeesh.

***

In a recent internet dust-up I had with some neanderthals regarding the behavior of some of our boys in Afghanistan my critique was finally met with the comment: "until you've been shot at you have no right to say anything." To which I say - bullshit. I've been told I can't say things about black people because I've never been black. I've been told I can't criticize moves baseball teams make because I've never played the game at the professional level. If you say something negative about Israel's policies you're suddenly an anti-Semite (even if Palestinians are also Semites!). But I don't see where it says, in the First Amendment, where there are all these conditions about the voicing of opinions. And if that kind of personal participation is a prerequisite to opinion, then no one can say anything against what I think unless they've been born in 1953 and saw and thought everything I saw and thought up to this time. Because unless they've seen things from my perspective for all this time they should just STFU or something. That's ridiculous. And I continue to say - even though I now make it a point to pointedly ridicule our over-macho'd sunshine patriots and their chicken hawk fandom - that the American flag itself should be enough of a symbol to strike fear into the hearts of the unjust. But I doubt that's what it means anymore in the world anyway. Because we're a bunch of vengeful, malicious, meddlesome cavemen now and have no ownership of justice or truth by any stretch of the imagination. Ugga bugga anythehellway.

***

I still can't fathom how grown men can slobber and fawn over professional athlete heroes. We have a TV in our break room at work and - since we work overnight - there is often ESPN or such similar programming on at all times. And, of course, athlete interviews are the ultimate absurdity...

"We just need to just go out there and take care of business."
"I want to just contribute for the good of the team."
"If we play like we're capable of..."
"Go out there..."
"One day at a time."
"Out there."

And then there's these guys who want desperately to believe in some kind of ultimate goodness. Sitting around the break room stuffing our faces with sandwiches and chili and all, some guys seem to always be the ones saying "oh he's a good guy." or "He does a lot of charity work you know." Or "he's a real down to Earth guy." Really... who cares what these guys do, and how "good" they are? For God's sake they're millionaires who don't really give two shits about us watching them when all is said and done. The whole worship-thing is just as bad as the opposite. "I don't watch basketball because they all wear chains and have their baseball caps on sideways." Seriously? They all do? Oh yeah? Wow.

I purposely avoid athlete interviews because they are useless in the first place. And I seriously don't care about their personal lives or what they do in their spare time or who their girlfriend is nowadays. The same goes for the big game, pre-game hype sessions. Hell I even avoid the national anthem. The whole hand-over-heart crap and suddenly the word "brave" has 47 syllables is a bunch of tripe.

***

But here's something I don't reject at all...

Yep. There's Charlize again dammit. She just can't stay away it seems.

Also? I turned off the capcha codes on the comments. Or at least I think I have. What a stupid ass idea THAT was. Who came up with that? I can't even read the friggin things.

You'll Watch This One I Betcha

2012-02-18T15:14:00.006-06:00

Out of Algeria, 2007 (most of the video was filmed in Spain). So, like, this takes on a whole new meaning when it's done in Algerian, no? I actually really like this. Give it a minute. Islam is a monolith anyone? I especially like watching the kids in the crowd. Whole. New. Meaning.

Welcome to the young people's roots of the Arab Spring...

Because, y'know... rock and roll will never die. And a Johnny Rotten reference as well!

I live for the weekends. 4 days of fun and music and nothing but fun and music, and I God bless ya for it. Oh wait... a Woodstock hippie flashback. Yeah. I'm old. Okay. Hey, I WAS HERE FOR THIS TOO!

Enter Snappy Title Here

2012-02-11T12:43:00.005-06:00

This is now open to anybody who wants to read it. But maybe you should have a glass of whiskey before clicking, or smoke a cigarette out in the cold air first. I'm actually about twice as far ahead as you see there but you might find it interesting. I don't know. Some do. Some don't. Looks like few ever got beyond the third chapter. So if it bores you just walk away. No harm, no foul.

See Elmo in the corner?

I need someone to look at me so as to keep me from flying away sometimes, to paraphrase Peachy.

The other night I got an earful from a good old boy I work with about the Obamination in the White House. I'm pretty ready to just give it up and let you all do whatever you like. If you cast a vote you surrender your personal sovereignty. I'm pretty fed up.

MrsRW has turned me into a Nivea guy, can you believe it? Nivea shave cream, Nivea after shave balm. Time was, even unto last month, I shaved most days or, well, some days, and skipped it the rest of the time. I go to work in a print shop and who cares, y'know? But she's got me all being a proper gentleman and - after a certain age - you realize that the sharp, cooling, gel smells are for the younger guys. Old guys just want to smell clean from all that stuff. So I am now a careful shaver and a Crew forming cream guy. I may look like an old drunk by the lines on my face but I smell good all the time now. So there it is.

Oh wait I forgot to put on my hand cream. BRB, goop.

Okay... I'm back. When you work in a print shop you wrangle big stacks of paper and it's often very dry and the air sometimes gets charged with static electricity from time to time. So your hands get dry and cut up. Paper cuts. And it really doesn't matter how long you work in a print shop, you will get paper cuts. All there is to it. The only thing that happens is you don't squirm and squeam when you get one anymore. Just wrap a bandage around it and go back to work. But on the weekends it is a good thing to smooth up because otherwise you'll have crab hands and your cuts will pinch when you do normal stuff like pick up a sammich to eat.

Did I mention Elmo up in the corner there?

I signed on to this thing at Imagine Sports. You draft a baseball team from 4000 players and then you go up against other guys and the whole thing is on a computerized match-up with some measure of random rhythms and shit. You play 162 games and set your lineup and pick your ball park and all. I named my team the Iola Gasbags. I ended up with some guys I really wanted like Shoeless Joe Jackson, Schoolboy Rowe, Vinegar Bend Mizell, Stuffy McInnis, Spud Davis, Rube Waddell and Boom Boom Beck and Boileryard Clarke. Yes we're the all-name team and we play in the old Baker Bowl. I guess where you play matters in the computerized results thing. So that's fun. Somebody sent me a gift certificate for it so I'm playing for free. I don't know what it costs regularly.

Okay so I'm babbling again. Anyway tell your friends about this place. I need some company.

River Of Raincoats In A Forest Of Faces

2012-02-10T17:16:00.003-06:00

Okay, here's your chance to pile up on me. Go ahead. I probably deserve it for this. I'm about to kill my buzz, so do your worst. I have, have always, and will probably continue, to miss The Sundays.

I know I know... hints of 90's teenage angst and all that. That's the critique. I can see it. No doubt. But you know me, I'm a word guy. And I have always had - what I consider to be - an ear for the synthesis of tune and lyric. Anyway I compliment myself that way. And few bands melded those elements better. Ever. In my HO.

Then one day the lead singer and the main guitar guy - who were already an established pair, personally, before this all got started, simply quit. As in - quit. They said it was time to take the money and run, get out of the race, make some babies, and live like normal people which, to everyone's amazement, they've done. And they've kept doing it for a decade already. When they said goodbye, they meant goodbye.

So that, along with what I felt they did artistically, is even another reason to admire them. Because - again, if you're a long-time reader - you already know that if it isn't the art of the lyric that gets me going, it certainly is artists that disappear from or stay out of the spotlight. Salinger. Traven. All the "Outsiders" I've turned you on to. Need I go on?

So beat me up over how there isn't enough edge or whatever the hell. I couldn't care any less than I do. I dig what they've done.

I'm also under no delusion about posting youtube music videos on blogs. Most people see the icon and run. I get it. Go ahead. That's just how it goes.

but my fantasy? When I decide to give up blogging, all you'll see is this video. And if, one day, this is all you see, you'll know what's up...

"River of raincoats in a forest of faces." Are you kidding me? There were people writing a beautiful turn of lyric like that in the last 20 years? Really??

And I always played this when ever I changed blogs, quit smoking, walked away from a bum job, whatever. It fits everything.

"Your stories were a good read, they were dumb as well." Um. Uh-huh.

So kill me now. Beat me up. I don't care. I miss these guys.

Hypocrites Always Wanna Play Inno-cent

2012-02-07T03:22:00.003-06:00

Just added Lauryn to the iPod. That holy, magical iPod that is cooler than me. No, not asking for your vote here. I did that before but it's not like the votes changed anything.

Hey, here's a cool book I just got...

So it's 3:30 in the morning & what the hell am I doing up? Well, I live here. That's what. No actually I worked overtime today and we got off at Midnight. And here I am.

What do you think of this bit?

In the winter buildings crack and creak with the temperatures and people think this ominous symphony is not the wood in the cold but the midnight killer specific, finally come to work his long awaited killing they always knew was going to happen. Closing in. This is the moment they are about to die. The mad murderer picking just this building among hundreds of buildings, opening just this door among dozens of doors, and choosing just this victim from out of the blue and it’s all over now that death has finally arrived. Any second the always expected black form will crowd the doorway and evil B music will be heard from out the vents. And it turns out to be the heat or lack of heat or a hundred years of wood standing in the same place forever. Everybody wakes up the next morning not dead.

I know you guys aren't up right now. All snoozing away as I write this.

So what are you doing lately anyhow?

All 4 nao.

Um...

2012-02-05T08:21:00.008-06:00

Outside of one or two stalwarts you can count on, my blog reader has been awful quiet lately. I realize that the continual presence of Charlize is putting a lot of you to shame and all but this is ridiculous. I'd like to think you are all self-respectful enough to realize your blogs can catch up to Version53's standard of excellence with just a little bit of work. Come on now.

In the photos I've been picking of her you should by now have noticed a distinct lack of prurient "cheesecake." I think just a classy head shot of my personal icon is sufficient. Besides, long time readers will probably note, suggested sensuality has always been a bigger hit with me than the blatant, obvious kind. I'm actually turned off a little by women who plunge their necklines, wear bright red skirts and almost-all revealing sheer stuff, and vamp around like some kind of sexual robot. I have always been more inclined to find appeal in the moves a woman makes when she is unaware of herself or just being natural. The stuff women do when they're not trying has always been more appealing, and it's always been that way for me. Just in case anyone wanted to know.

Well let's see, what's news around here?

I feel like I'm repeating myself a lot lately. Thrice this and Thrice that. The GOP is a shitbag. Those passing for modern American conservatives need to all die in a fire and blah blah blah. The usual stuff. Has anybody noticed the links to dangerous anarchists being cycled through the sidebar? No? I didn't think so. Oh well. A guy can try.

Boo! Scare ya? Yeah well, whatever.

I'd talk about how a web design service some of us know is pitching in to build a personal website for me, but I may already have. Have I? That's exciting but also a bit perplexing. I have been told by people in the publishing business that writers need to have a "platform" (I keep using that word because that's what has been being described to me) these days so that it is easier for people to represent their work and for publishers to give them a window of opportunity. Here's an article at Poets&Writers that sort of backs that up. A pretty engaging discussion there if you get a chance. I'm gearing up for a campaign to once again try and storm the bastions of ink and paper. But I may end up looking at the small press world - which has been my haunt anyway - if it starts to look a little dreary. The plain fact is that the publishing world seems to be going through a drying-up phase. And the indies are simply exploding. So far as that goes you have to wade through a lot of shit to find good stuff, but good stuff exists. If you read our magazine you'll get some names you need to follow up on. Just sayin'. Again.

But anyway the website thing is perplexing because, as I explained to the designer doing the work on it, on the one hand I'd rather pull a B. Traven and live and work anonymously in the lost hills of Mexico, but the realities are that you have to get published before you can deny the attention. Sort of goofy if you ask me, but that's the truth. So I've had to come up with "I did this" and "I did that" to fill in some of the biographical stuff that has to be posted and - i tell you what - you do that for any length of time and you start to feel like a self-promoting twit.

I have found that putting together the work of other writers is incredibly rewarding. But I think I said that once before too?

So obviously I have nothing new to say except the usual hurr durr.

Hurp... durp...

Sorry.

Separated At Birth?

2012-02-01T06:35:00.002-06:00

Governor Mitt Romney and Guy Smiley...

No... it's the same guy. Silly.

What Part Of No...?

2012-01-30T01:55:00.009-06:00

Sixty-two rejection letters sent out so far for issue 4 of Thrice. There are three works on the "maybe" pile, and ten yet to be read. All-in-all I expect we hit one hundred submissions easy before this is over.

It's not hard to write rejection notes. Sometimes, if the person is obviously sending their material to the wrong place, you can get away with a form letter. People should read the magazine before they submit so they may get an idea as to what we're doing. In truth, however, maybe the first three issues didn't have the complete vision in place yet; so I can't fault people too harshly for what may be my incomplete idea from before. But other times I find myself writing a more personal note. "You lost sight of what tense you're in", or "I was hooked but when it was over I wasn't sure I wanted to be." I try very hard to be constructive. I have kept every rejection letter I have ever gotten (I think) and have them in a box. Anyway... somewhere. So I don't say what some have said in my rejections. There's no need to be a jerk and, to be honest, most people aren't. Even a form rejection can be written with some measure of respect for the trying. I ran into a lot of angry young editors, mad at the world, in the past. I refuse to be one of those. Look out at you from my picture as if I hate you and everybody you know, sucking on a cigarette. No thanks.

But it is a two-way street. Writers can be pips just the same. I got one answer from a rejection almost demanding a detailed explanation as to why what they sent didn't work. I mean, my God, they had an appropriately quirky bio already contained in their cover letter and they seem a little out there, so why on Earth didn't you use my story? That kind of thing. Also "what did you mean when you said...?" Yikes. No, I do not answer letters or emails like that. Two or three submitters have sent something else on the heels of their rejection notes. One has done this twice, giving me three stories to nix. Some people are close. Some people will never get it.

Here's the deal - I want there to be nothing in Thrice except stuff I CAN'T WAIT for you to read. You. You, sitting there reading this right now. I want to look at something and say "This is great, I HAVE to show this to ___." And so far every piece, from some of the more traditional to some that are almost impossible to describe, fits that requirement.

No matter what you do, there are going to be people who don't like it. That's life. And I send rejection letters off knowing that some people will be pissed, some will take it in stride, and others may generate a small crisis for themselves. But something happened over the weekend that made this all superfluous. There have also been people who have questioned what we've put in Thrice. "Disappointed with the fiction," I recall being told at one point. And it's important what people think, because we're putting out an entry into the public media. So it's hard not to look back and ask yourself "what could I have done better?" It's only natural. But, as I said, something happened this weekend that made even this less important.

I'm having a service build me a website. A .com for myself. And I spent some time preparing some background information for them to add to it. While doing this, making a bibliography of my stuff and all that, I also made a list of some of the people who I published in the first zine I had in the early 90s. I published. That's the operative term. It was my call to put them in, amid all the other submissions I chose these people. My people. My picks. And when I looked at the list I realized that it hasn't all been a secret world of my own making, or a mystery achievement nobody knows of. I'm very proud - exceedingly proud - of the voices I picked for the Fiction Review. And we're doing it again. Only this time I have Dave2 as a co-creator, co-founder, and also the adult in the room. :-)

None of these people are great big honking names like Stephen King and all that. 99% of published writers still need to keep their day jobs. That's just how it is. You don't quit your job to "become a writer." You're cursed with it. But what they have done is had actual follow-up careers. They were for real, and I saw it coming. Me, over here. And some of the people who were already somewhat established sent stuff in on their own volition. I asked no one to help.

So the #4 issue of Thrice Fiction is a month or so away. And every last word in it is going to be pretty good. After all, I have a track record of finding people who seem to make something out of their disease.

Here's some folks who made it into the first magazine I did. Some were just getting started, others were established in a small circle and were starting to expand their audiences. I think it's a pretty good group. You should check them out.

Just a few Fiction Review alums...

Thomas Wiloch
Richard Kostelanetz
Paulette Roeske
Hugh Fox
Gorman Bechard (he has the story "A Pretty Girl" which first appeared in the Fiction Review, on his website.
William P. Haynes (aka Elliot)
Sheila E. Murphy
Jack Foley
Lorri Jackson (also pictured on the right side of the title banner above)

Plus there's Charlize Theron up there. So there is that.

O RLY?

2012-01-27T07:28:00.005-06:00

Speaker Gingrich was never a favorite of the Republican brain trust. Since his surge in South Carolina we are seeing a steady drumbeat by the conservative media against him. He bullied too many of his allies and simply alienated the rest.

Now, the majority of Americans aren't even paying a minute's worth of attention to the campaign so far. The only people busy are the true believers and the morbidly interested. But as soon as the electorate gets wind of Gingrich's operational double standard, should he be the GOP nominee, he's going to be buried.

It isn't that he cheated on two wives and has the potential to be going into the White House with one of his mistresses. He could be forgiven, in the modern American mind, for that and divorces and all the rest. That's not the problem.

What's going to strike him dead in the water is when people put 2 and 2 together; specifically that precious moment in history when, because of the Monica Lewinsky debacle, Gingrich publicly said that President Clinton "no longer has the moral authority to lead." - - - After which he went off to his weekend hideaway with the woman he was cheating on his wife with.

You've got to be kidding me. Once people clamp down on that there's no hope for him. As it is the Republican leadership (that unseen blob of state party chairmen and influence holders that actually run the party and wish the Tea Party would dry up and go away) hate him. And the machinery to defuse his candidacy is already starting to churn.

Governor Romney will be hoisted on his own petard. Americans may have been ready to elect a black President, but a goofy Mormon in magic underwear they are not ready for. And all it will take is for the Democrats to simply publish a list of all the things he's changed his views on depending on the circumstances and the temperature. He's practically Obama-lite. Even if he does gain the nomination, and even if by some miracle he does win the election in November, people who like President Obama won't have to worry; they'll be getting the same M.O. and nothing upsetting will happen to their liberal fantasy.

Congressman Paul doesn't stand a canary's chance in a hell full of cats. Why he's even bothering is beyond anybody with half a brain at this point. It's one thing to be a libertarian (a fanciful, important-sounding philosophical apology for what basically amounts to the social economics of Ebenezer Scrooge that often appeals to people who have more education than is probably good for their limited brain capacities), but it is quite another thing to say you are a libertarian, and then pander to the trailer park rank and file by negating long-standing and legitimate libertarian views on immigration, for example. He is not only ridiculous, there's a good chance he's a quack.

Senator Santorum, rounding out the remains of the day that is the Republican field, is - to put a bow on it - categorically unelectable. He would carry South Carolina if the GOP standard bearer, because almost everybody in South Carolina is a nut job. If it weren't for the transplanted people from other places than South Carolina you could still make a case for having James Pettigru's famous take on the place as the official state motto. There isn't even any point in discussing Senator Santorum's chances, pathetic an d narrowly-based as they are. He would simply be destroyed in a general election.

Which all leads me to the conclusion that somewhere along the way the powers that be in the GOP took a look at President Obama's campaign war chest on one hand, and the nutbag Tea Party on the other hand, and said "screw you guys, we're staying home." They'll save their money for when the election is between two new names, hoping that the Tea Party will go back into the Ross Perot hole it crawled out of by then.

It's the only thing I can figure right now.

Love Me I'm A Liberal

2012-01-24T03:18:00.004-06:00

Last night on PBS they ran a new American Masters program on Phil Ochs (you can watch the trailer at the site).I'm pretty certain most folks under 50 won't know about him, any more than they knew what it was really like during the Viet Nam War era - seeing as how there's just so much ignorance and outright revisionism about that time going on. And as for his songs they are probably even more forgotten by what passes for collective memory any more. If you get a chance to see it in rerun go ahead and see what you think. I was sort of reminded about a lot of things I forgot.

Probably two of his most remembered songs are "There But For Fortune" and "I Ain't Marching Anymore." (I must have killed a million men and now they want me back again but I ain't marchin' anymore.").

Anyhow, if you could say that Bob Dylan wrote protest ballads, it would be Ochs who did the anthems. And there's an argument to be made that Dylan didn't really do much beyond a few iconic things that were more or less co-opted by the Left. Ochs organized civil actions in between songs, and was the only performer who came to the Democratic Convention in 68 to perform when all the other acts begged off because it was looking too dangerous.

Phil was not a liberal. He was an unabashed radical. He felt the same way about liberals as, say, Rush Limbaugh feels about them - only from the other direction. I'd forgotten this song, which I shouldn't have; because I do recall being suspicious of liberals when I was sporting the black flag to school every day. I'd forgotten, in my dotage, where that had come from.

This song was the one I liked best.

Ochs succumbed to manic depression and committed suicide in the 70's. In the documentary Billy Bragg does a magnificent rendition of "I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night," a take-off on the song about Joe Hill, and he's in perfect voice with it too.

A person is supposed to be a radical in their youth and grow more conservative as they age. I'm trying my best to do the opposite because nowadays it seems to be the other way around. I get so sad looking at all these young people trying to act like libertarians. Kinda makes me ill thinking I may have somehow helped in some small way to promote that ridiculous, unworkable philosophy.

It was good to see some of the old faces from those times. Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Pete Seeger, and a host of other old activists and roustabouts. You might like them, even if your a freaking Tea Party apologist because none of these people were liberals either.

We need to sing this song again.

Oh look! It's Charlize Theron!

Another Musical Interlude

2012-01-23T02:23:00.002-06:00

Here's a musical interlude but really? Best listened to at 2 in the morning. Not while it's light out so come back later. Seriously.

Oh look! It's Charlize Theron! Son of a gun what's she doing here??

Good News Week!

2012-01-16T13:05:00.010-06:00

Winning $30 on a football pool square game and having the Packers lose at the same time is kind of like waking up with Charlize Theron waiting to serve you breakfast... something that normally wouldn't happen even in a million years but there it is anyway somehow.

I hate to say it but I've been unfaithful. For years and years I idolized Sophie Marceau as my default female starlet icon, but just as sure as I've noticed a seismic shift in my general political outlook I have also noticed that I have become just as equally a female starlet icon slut as well. I guess some people get on one political ideal and one female starlet icon and just ride that bus all the way to the barricade at the edge of the cliff but me... I'm different. I've gone practically full circle now both in my politics and in my selection for female starlet icon.

I started out as an anarchist, wended my way through libertarianism, fell in line with the Old Cause (mostly based on the ideas and outlook of the Republican from Ohio known as Robert Taft), and had my share of run-ins with the school of conservatism known as neocons (who to this day remain nothing more than foreign interventionists with the social politics of Ebenezer Scrooge) who viewed Taft as a monster, somehow. This opened my eyes to conservatives in general and I came to believe that there is no more nobler an ideal than to line every one of them up against a wall and shoot them through the head as soon as possible, yesterday, if only to keep that kind of selfish, whining, pushy, self-righteous, double-talking, hypocrisy out of the gene pool. Nowadays, as a Quaker, I'm not for the shooting them part as much. And lo and behold... I'm a damn anarchist again.

So maybe one day I'll come back to Sophie Marceau as well, but for now I am content in the idea that I am a shape changing, disloyal gadabout who can't be trusted with anything.

Except I still don't like the Packers, or for that matter anybody who does like the Packers. And winning $30 on a football square this past Sunday while watching them flounder around in futility against the big bad New York team from that big bad liberal media center is something that probably would have been fun even when I was an old school conservative. So I guess there are some constants in my life.

Sophie darling, you're a doll. But it's 2012. We need to move on, I'm afraid. The more things change, the more things change.

Hiya Charlize. I think I'd like my orange juice nice and cold.

The Truth

2012-01-14T07:14:00.007-06:00

And so the soulless American political season marches on. I'm over it, how 'bout you? Ron Paul, that great libertarian fraud. Newt Gingrich, the crabby professor. Rick Santorum, the guy we need at the head of the GOP ticket so we can expose the true ugly nature of conservatives in this country once and for fucking all. And a President who can't wait to get millions for his memoirs if he can just skate through the next four years.

I'm over Our Fundamental American Principles - whatever the fuck they are. Oh yeah; hard work, big cars, faith, family, Cocoa Puffs, porn sites and football. I forgot. Plus the right to remain silent in a court of law. And the rising ability of the federal government to pry into your shit. Plus big pants down by your ass and the careful study of Intelligent Design in full knowledge that Gawd created America in the image of heaven or some shit like that. Germany as part of the Axis of Evil. France full of accordions. What's the currency of the United Kingdom...? What's the United Kingdom I never heard of that... Palestine? What's the main religion of people from Israel? Easy... Israeli. What are you, a stupid moran?

I once had a person tell me that kangaroos made it on the Ark because the land masses were all one clump back then. You know, the Pangaea thing. Then they went to their Catholic church where the wafer turns into the actual, no-doubt-about-it body of Christ but we have the gluten-free Jesus too, if you ask for it. Just in case.

I had another person tell me once that since they have to take a drug test to work in a damn grocery store then people who get welfare should have to take a drug test before they get their money from the state. Of course the answer is nobody should have to take a drug test for these things but never mind that - we believe in the Constitution. Like the great "libertarian" Ron Paul who says "Our leaders betrayed the middle class which is forced to compete with welfare-receiving illegal immigrants who will work for almost anything..." - summarily trashing any real libertarian ideal about immigration, pandering to the xenophobes, saying that immigrants get welfare and jobs the middle class deserves. We know our audience. Ron Paul the True Believer. More like horseshit on a stick.

I'm pretty convinced most Americans don't have a conscience. That old saying - "the Bible is like a human, you can get it to say anything you want if you torture it enough." And that tortured collection of fables, tricks, puzzles and games-for kids has been tortured to read God Bless America. The first empire that will never collapse. Stupid Rome. Dumb Pharaohs. Idiotic Brits. What the hell did they know? It's all in the socks-and-sandals and K-Y jelly. They didn't have socks-and-sandals and K-Y jelly. Of COURSE all those old empires failed. Did Alexander have the NFL? Did he? Huh? Did he have Harleys? No he did not. End of argument. We got American Idol and we rule the fucking world. Ha ha haaa. (win!)

How many times will you go back to the polls because it's your American duty to all those busted veterans and dead guys strewn over hundreds of foreign fields put there to protect motherhood, Old Glory and the right to create insurance derivatives? How long will it take you to get dressed to come out of your trailer park long enough to go vote for the party of business owners who would just as soon keep your wages the same from now until forever and send your sons to die in places nobody can even point to on the map? And how did you get into that mindset in the first place? Pay me shit, take my sons, and I will vote for your right to use venture capitalism to inflate the incomes of six guys on your board of directors. Forget Mitt Romney's magic underwear, he's a capitalist. That's all you need to know.

We had to bail out Wall Street and the banks, which were run into the ground with trick, unsound derivatives foolishly created by business leaders trained and educated in all the best schools, and that just proves that what we need in the White House is a business leader trained and educated in all the best schools. It's logical. Do the math. Drain a beer can and do the math. Sheh... stupid liberals don't understand anything.

Okay so South Carolina is next. We need to find that one conservative super hero because Mitt Romney is a moderate and you know - those Mormons want to take over the world (they're like a bunch of damn Freemasons). But for some reason we just can't find the Perfect One. Compromise is a dirty word. Reagan never raised taxes. Eisenhower never warned us about the military industrial complex. That's where the jobs come from. What, are you nuts>

I gotta go pray now. Pray anybody who wishes us ill gets smitten by a drone. Piss on 'em. We'll show them the bastards.

God bless fucking America and all the wonderful Americans in it too.

Musical Interlude

2012-01-09T17:55:00.002-06:00

Like it because it reminds me of stuff from the old pre-FM AM radio days of yore, but still has an up to date sensibility. Makes an old geezer feel like... I dunno... summer on the radio again.

We'll be back with words and words and words and more words in a bit. For now, just go...

Sometimes...

2012-01-04T14:55:00.008-06:00

...I'm not sure if holding down a regular job all the time has been good or bad for my publication record - or lack of one. On the one hand it keeps me grounded in real life, hones people watching and - more importantly - people listening skills. But on the other hand it has chewed up a shit-ton of my time I could have otherwise used following my goals. Oh well. Buying another lottery ticket this Saturday, you can be sure.

Sent out the first large batch of rejection notices for Thrice #4. I have developed quite a huge slush pile or back logged stuff to read. Somebody asked me what I'm reading lately. I answered "a lot of bad fiction."

I think it's funny when I point people to Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of writing, then someone sends me a story they wrote and in the cover letter the writer explains that it was my pointing to Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules that led them to submit to Thrice, and then they proceed to break every one of the god damn rules - meticulously - before I can get to the third page.

I FINALLY got my own copy of the Chicago Manual of Style. Yes I know it is something that, as a writer, I should have had thirty years ago (and the fact is that having it at work-side is more liberating than restricting, seriously). But it was always so expensive. $65 and I just could never justify plunging. Well I got a $50 gift card from work this Christmas and put it all out there for the manual, so that I ended up shelling out only $15. This is OK.

It's a pedant's dream. So don't give me any of your punctuation/grammar guff from here on out. I've got the Gold Standard eight inches from my elbow.

But, seriously, just thumbing through it makes me realize it is not actually something that bottles up and restricts creativity as some have suggested. It is written in such a broad, accessible way, and is so eager to point out antiquated practices in writing that tend to stifle common sense that I am quite surprised. Where have you been all my life?

When all is said and done, I've been somewhat embarrassed by some of the editing faux pas I am responsible for in past issues of Thrice. This will be corrected. Nobody to blame but myself.

You'd think I'd apply what I have learned from the Manual to blog posts, wouldn't you? Yeah... um. Sure! Just look in your Google Reader how many times I posted this entry. I'm never happy...

2012 Starts

2012-01-01T06:07:00.005-06:00

* New Year's Eve started off with the mail, and in it came a check after the sale of MrsRW's stepfather's property in Tennessee. There is a little more coming from the sale of the possessions that were auctioned off but this constitutes probably the last time we get the benefit of a year-end windfall, so we better make the most of it. Back when I was doing national sales and the building market was booming I would usually get year-end bonus checks from 20-30 G and even though I studied hard on how to put that to work for us the plans worked out but never went as well as they could have. We'd wind up having to fix the house - roofs, driveways, siding, the whole bit. And all that sort of took a lot of the steam away from the boon. This time, possibly the last time, we need to work seriously on reducing debt to make every month even more stress-less. We think we have a good plan. But this is the kind of thing I don't understand a lot of "modern couples" doing these days - keeping the money separate. Like, one of them gets a bonus check and that money is THEIRS and the other one's paycheck pays THEIR bills and so on. I guess MrsRW and I grew up in an old fashioned world because we have never done anything but bring all the goods back to the communal nest. Anyway that was deposited on Dec 31 and so there are good expectations, financially, for 2012.

* That in no way is meant to say everything is hunky-dory around here. We still have a major family issue to handle this year and it's close and rather heartbreaking so far. Not something to expound on yet - if ever - but it couldn't be more hurtful. So to be honest the wonderful windfall is really in perspective around here. There are more important things than money, and sometimes they're all screwed up.

* Last night for the first time in I - don't - know - God - how - long MrsRW and I had a New Year's Eve to ourselves. No babysitting (the newest granddaughter is still breastfeeding so that crew didn't go anywhere) and our best friends were out of state visiting family. So I did an old fashioned morning jaunt to a couple of markets and came back home with some steaks from an honest-to-goodness butcher shop like from the old days in the neighborhood, and side dishes from a green grocers'. We got some Veuve Clicquot (the bottle of champagne cost more than the steaks and dinner fixings, can you imagine?) and stayed home with a couple of movies off the cable, and I want to tell you - if you haven't seen these two you need to.

Have I ever steered you wrong on movies?

The first one we watched was called The Help. Notable for a young female cast, sprinkled with small and important roles played by Cicely Tyson, Sissy Spacek and Allison Janney (West Wing). It was absolutely great. How come I NEVER heard of this movie when it came out?

The last one - which we stopped at one point so we could have a midnight smooch - was just as enjoyable though for a different reason. Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris (I keep hearing people say it is his "best ever" and I don't know if that's exactly right, but it SURE is a winner regardless) had MrsRW saying numerous times that this was a movie meant for me. It involved a writer visiting Paris who, at the stroke of midnight, goes back in time in Paris where he meets Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Picasso, Dali, Luis Bunuel, Man Ray, Gertrude Stein, and an enchanting young woman he falls in love with. The two subplots - his rather poorly conceived upcoming marriage to a woman who is cheating on him with a total pedant and the fascinating young lady from the past who turns out to be equally enamored with the even FURTHER past - totally make this flick. Seriously. If you haven't, you ought to. If nothing else it's notable that the whole thing was filmed in Paris and leave us not forget to mention just how beautiful that place is. sigh

* So, typical of me I guess, I see all these movies late in the game and probably long after y'all have seen them already. I'm a putz, what can I say?

* There are a couple of other things to talk about, one being an actual resolution I'm making for myself this year (yeah sometimes I do that, when it's really important like when I quit smoking cigarettes or lost 20 pounds) but this is already long enough and I'm not sure it's even interesting to anybody but me so I'll skip that.

* It's enough to tell you that I am putting my entire reputation on the line for the stuff upcoming in issue #4 of Thrice. I am telling you now - it's going to be the best ever and the writers we're collecting will seriously blow your mind. There's no theme to it this time, except my one guiding principle will be "it has to be something I CAN'T WAIT to show my friends what we discovered." I am frankly head-over-heels about it and there's just only two accepted stories in it so far. But 50 submissions! I guess we got people's attention. So I'm going to be spending much of January reading bad fiction and trying to come up with polite rejection letters; but the stuff that we're taking is going to absolutely blow your mind. I mean it.

All 4 now. Anyway... here we go....

Dumb, Ditzy Blonde?

2011-12-28T14:35:00.003-06:00

I've told the old story about how the local TV stations around Chicago would play marathon old movies after the New Year's midnight countdown was over (this was in the days before cable and VHS tapes, so the only time you could actually see them was in movie theater "retrospectives" or on TV). The biggest things around here, in those days, were the old Marx Brothers and Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers flicks. All from the 30's and none in what we'd now consider great shape.

But it was kind of a tradition around these parts and a lot of us made a habit of trying to stay up and catch them all. They'd sometimes play them until dawn.

I do wonder sometimes if the availability of everything has somehow diminished the properties of anything. Because they were rare to see they were appreciated for the rarity as much as anything else. Now, of course, you can call them up just about any time, any where; and somehow that availability has diminished their impact. Another bit of something or other lost to the modern age I guess. But, in fact, the ability to view those old Marx Brothers movies any time has exposed the bumps and warts we ignored when we couldn't see them any time. So it's harder to extol their virtues to people who may be a little more sophisticated than we were. Oh well.

I still think it is a good idea to look at old movies, especially around New Year's. It's always something of a cultural marker, and I have this weird disease in which I worry - yes worry - about performers and performances of bygone eras being lost to people. We get very caught up in the cartoonish movies of the modern era, and - in my O - we have a tendency to forget what "class" and "style" are; seeing as how the current day audience seems to like special effect more than specialness.

So it's always around New Year's that I think of this. We're revived Nick and Nora around these parts and you liked that. Now trust me on this one. OK?

Her name was Judy Holliday. She died very young (breast cancer in the 60's) and we never got to see her full capacity or talent. Today if she is remembered at all it is as the ditzy blonde in black and white movies from the 50's. Well today's 50's are the 30's of the 60's, so it's time to put her in the same category as all the other revivals we've had around here.

Judy Holliday, as I say, had the reputation as the quintessential dumb blonde. And that's okay... if you say so. But she also had a fully tested IQ of 172.

My favorite quote? "I'm trying to eliminate every vestige of my own personality, style, approach and get into somebody else's skin. Sometimes I feel I've accomplished it. But when I don't, I'm nobody at all, having left myself at home."

I think we missed out when she died in her 40's. Here's one of her best scenes from "Born Yesterday" with Broderick Crawford. And if you don't remember Broderick, there's another guy you should check into. The last thing he ever did before he died was host Saturday Night Live when he was already an older guy. There were few more under-rated actors in Hollywood than him. And this is a gem.

They Keep Trying

2011-12-27T04:07:00.002-06:00

The Blue Meanies tried again to infiltrate my Christmas this year. Sometimes I think there are things I must have done to pull all this vicious wickedness in on myself on what had always been my most favorite time of year. I know I've been crappy to people now and again, and I've tried very hard to forgive people who have done things to me or against me and just move on. That must be the reason that, once every few Christmases, the great karmatic God in the sky feels a need to make a point with me. Whether I've failed as a father or a husband or just as a friend - I don't know. But there seems to be something out there I have to pay for. I'm not going to get into specifics, but it couldn't get much closer to the heart of things I feel are close and precious, when it happens.

MrsRW and I were thinking maybe the whole thing is getting to be too much for people. There's always a lot of stress, a lot of silliness, a lot of feelings on the surface or something. People say cruel things, impose draconian conditions, and sudden;y seem to be different people than they were just a month ago. We usually enter into the spirit of the holiday and are happy to put up lights, the tree, secretly run around looking for gifts, hiding the stuff we're going to put in each other's stockings when the other isn't looking. I can't remember a moment when we wished anyone ill for the holiday. I doubt we ever really did, unless it was like Pol Pot or someone like that.

And this whole thing wasn't helped by massive overtime and a wretched head cold that just doesn't want to go away.

For the first time ever we sat there wondering if maybe we should forgo all the usual family gatherings next year and find a soup kitchen to work at, or a place where less fortunate kids get donated presents handed out to them, or bring fruit baskets to firemen or well... something. Something that isn't part of the great, stressful, mindless orgy of overdone abundance and people playing bumper cars with emotions and jockeying for some kind of munificent attention. Duels for control. Plots for position.

The whole "Christian metaphor" is forgiveness and the granting of another chance. It's what we would want others to grant us, and we are charged with forgiving as we'd like to be forgiven. That's kind of like, you know, the chief prayer and all? Truly there aren't many "Christians" who seem to understand the basic message of their own faith, myself included time after time. The holiday of Christmas is supposed to be about the birth of the guy who gave people that example. And, at least, you're supposed to TRY.

MrsRW's natural father left her mother before she was born. Then she spent a good portion of her early years living with her grandmother because her mother and stepfather had temporary work in another state and they wanted her to go to school here. I've read some of her letters to her Mom from those days, when she was just a little girl telling her distant mother all the news. So I get very upset - and very protective - of her when somebody treats her shabby. Especially when the source of the shabby ought to know better, and be using another approach, considering. I start making lists and rules of my own. In response to someone treating my wife poorly, I become thoroughly un-Christian... as it were.

So we figured it's a stressful time for some people. Some people can't handle all their own internal conflicts and project them onto others, no matter how hurtful, draconian, and pointless it all is. And the holidays just seem to exacerbate the problem.

But in our hearts I know we are still pro-Christmas people. So maybe next year we go do stuff for others and let the instability devour itself without us around. Maybe aim at somebody else for once. Because I'm going to forget I belong to a pacifist church in a minute here.

Because though I will sometimes sit around and say how much I hate, hate, HATE Christmas and what it does to people, I can never really give up on it.

Getting It Off My Chest

2011-12-16T06:39:00.006-06:00

Does Tim Tebow win football games because his team has better Christians? What about the Christians on the other team? Do we really think a God would care about a football game? Have we heard enough of the whining from the flock about how the "media" is crucifying him because of his faith? He's made a big play about having been a virgin and so proud of it and I'd just like to know why nobody ever thinks about the flip side of that? Or is the thought of Tim Tebow wanking himself off in the shower sort of turn people off? Inquiring minds want to know.

Yesterday I heard an interview with an elderly couple. They were being asked about the end of the Iraq War. She said that she's sure it's only happening so that "Obama" can use it during the coming election, and he said "I come from a time when men were men," and then he explained how he hates to see our soldiers come running home with their tails between their legs. That they should stay until they finish the job. This was a husband and wife team. Obviously made for one another. There'd be no point in telling her this date was established by President Bush for the draw down. There would also be no point in explaining to him that we don't play set-piece battles anymore, that warfare is asymmetrical now, and that somehow we managed to do pretty much what we intended to do in Iraq... except of course find the weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist but hey... who is counting? We need to just line them up and shoot them. Then we come home, have a parade, and some hot dogs. And go to church. And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.

Someone I used to know on Facebook put up a post about the Occupy movement and ended their comment with the jab "why don't they just go out and get a job?" And it made me think for a second, you know, like, where? What jobs? Because I have been meaning to ask; you know, those tax reductions that President Bush (the "Bush tax cuts") made that exacerbated the oncoming debt crisis were defended on the grounds that this is the kind of thing that creates jobs. You reduce the tax rates on rich people and you get jobs. Only the thing that happened was that we reduced the tax rates on rich people and we lost jobs. The job market, and the economy, shrunk. And we still don't want to use the money that rich people make today because if we did that would be "job killing." And people buy this. It seems counter-intuitive to me to say we should never "up" the taxes on wealthy people or we'll end up stifling job growth when the last time we gave those people more money they didn't. What?

In fact the #1 criticism from the Tea Party against the Occupy Movement is that all they are protesting for is to get entitlements. But the critiques never finish the thought. It should be "all they are protesting for is to get MY entitlements." We need to be honest.

A few of my friends around the blogosphere have been giving a running critique of the GOp debates as they go forward. And some of the comments are pretty funny. Even lifelong Conservatives are having to scratch their heads about this GOP crew. I've decided to finally give my view a complete airing. As follows... Quite generally the GOP has fielded a list of potential candidates for the presidency who would fulfill all the desires of the GOP rank and file. The nominees have so far proven to be everything Conservatives admire. Pandering liars with the combined IQ of a hint of a shadow. Perfect for Ma and Pa up there in the second paragraph... pathological idiots. Just what the country needs. President Obama is unquestionably one of the most pointless office holders we've had in Washington for some time. He is a "cultural marker" - and as is said "the first one through the wall always gets bloodied." But his meandering, self-serving positions are still a thousand times better than the hateful, mean-spirited, know-best coming out of their mouths.

I think there are a lot of morans in this country. Cough...

An Old Fashioned Christmas

2011-12-13T00:39:00.007-06:00

A history of good ratings and honest advertising...

St. Jude Children's Hospital

Christian Foundation For Children and Aging

Epilepsy Foundation

Goodwill Industries

Doctor's Without Borders

Kiva Microfinance

Any Soldier

Pediatric AIDS Foundation

Guide Dog Foundation

Breast Cancer Research Foundation

Child Find

The Conservation Fund

City of Hope

National Alliance to End Homelessness

American Friends Service Committee

CARE

Catholic Relief Services

Alzheimer's Foundation of America

Big Brothers / Big Sisters

Reasons to be wary: Kars4Kids, The American Cancer Society, Feed the Children. And More.

A Look Behind The Scenes At The Editor's Office

2011-12-09T06:40:00.003-06:00

Okay so this one was pretty funny. Since we started putting out Thrice it's been getting more and more attention from writers and that's the plan so it is a good thing. But you never sit in the editor's chair too long before you have a story to tell relative to the interaction between writers and editors, and as we approach our fourth issue (next March) I finally have one.

I got an email titled "Nevermind"** from a writer who didn't sign his or her name. It came in time stamped at 4:09 and reads, in its entirety;

"Can't even spare a contributor copy? Withdraw my submission from
consideration. I don't need any more glorious lines in my resume,
especially from fly-by-nights."

This was followed by another email time stamped at 4:12, also titled "Nevermind" which said only:

"Don't need any lines in my resume. Withdraw the recent submission."

There was no name attached to it, and no mention of what the title of the piece was. Well I am nothing if not careful with the intentions of artists, so I went through the entire collection of submissions sent to Thrice since we opened the submission process for issue #4 (happily, and somewhat astonishingly, there have been 14 submissions sent to us just in the last two days), looking for a match to the email address of the above emails.

Except there isn't one.

So probably I'm looking at someone who sent a submission with another email address, and then sent their withdrawal from a second email address. Very confusing. However not only am I careful with the sensibilities of artists, I am also prone to be thorough and polite. And so I dutifully responded with:

"Okay, but which one was yours? I don't seem to have one from this email
addy. Thanks."

Short and sweet, no offense taken or even perceived. I am now awaiting reply.

The whole thing is a little screwy because anyone can download a free copy of the magazine to their Kindle, or as a pdf to their computer. The reference the writer, whoever he or she may be, is making is to a line in our submission policy that says "all we can give you right now is a glorious line in your resume" which, I think most anyone would agree, is - if not funny in and of itself - said kind of funny in a self-deprecating kind of way. No?

Anyhow this sets up an interesting scenario. Let's say the writer doesn't respond. Say he or she was drunk when they sent that email and - upon more sober reflection - they don't own up to sending it. And then let's say in my list of accepted stories I happen to like the one he or she sent and dutifully inform them of the fact that they'll be in issue #4. How much would you want to bet that that offended individual wouldn't happily accept our acceptance without any mention of the withdrawal?

I'll tell you what you'd want to bet - nothing. Because their offended nature will heal with the words "we would like to use your story in the next issue..."

And - barring that - if the person tells me which is his or her story, I'll be more than happy to delete it. One less decision to make.

Either way, this is an easy fix.

Maybe I was born to do this?
-------------

** technically the words never and mind joined into one word are only correct in slang applications, as in "pay him no nevermind." It's patois only. Legitimate, certainly, but not entirely right in this case. Nevermind is a band, and can also be a condition, but to just say "nevermind" you should really write it as "never mind." But never mind.

So What Else Is New?

2011-12-05T01:17:00.005-06:00

Well first of all I got myself interviewed by a website called Fictionaut for Thrice Fiction. Those of you who are readers are going to notice a distinct change in the temperature at Thrice next March. I feel as if I've tapped a new resource for voices you have to read to believe. I'm thrilled at the stuff I'm seeing already coming in for it, and guarantee you will be jolted a bit next time out. I can't wait to show you the Irish writer who will be joining our ranks in issue 4. If you liked the addition of Ann Bogle to our mix, wait until you get a load of James Claffey. I don't know why the Brits always seemed to power down on the Irish, seeing as how their contribution to the English language is both legendary and indispensable. Maybe jealousy? Anyway - you're going to truly dig the guy. Or else.

The cartoon over there isn't new, it's old. In fact it's something I made in an old blog post wherein I explain how sick and tired I was of reading people say, in their comments, "that was so funny I spit Coca Cola through my nose all over the keyboard." For a while there that seemed to be the thing to say in blog comments, and I got sick of it early on. So I took a public-domain drawing and changed the dialog bubble to reflect my disdain. Pleh. I found it again going through my old Photobucket album and decided to run it again. Whatever.

Yesterday after Meeting I stopped by a table that had been set up by these women from Guatamala who were selling Fair Trade handcrafts and bought my newest granddaughter a little doll. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I know the Fair Trade thing will meet with her Mommy's approval, the darn thing is as cute as anything, and it is 100% cotton so it smells and feels like something a very little girl would want to sleep with. Of course it is almost as big as she is so there's going to be a little time lag and all but I'm a grandpa and I'm also besotted with the kid. So lay off. But you know how it goes, Quakers are all about handcrafted stuff and giving third world entrepreneurs a chance. I know the common belief is that the liberal bent of our "denomination" would just give everything away, but that's totally not true. We believe in teaching people to fish, and if somebody wants to get their hands in there and do work we're usually the first ones to help. If you are interested go to Mayaworks and check it out for yourself. There's some truly beautiful stuff there.

I'm not having any trouble getting into the Christmas thing this year. A few years back it was as if entire vast sections of my extended family had decided to make it their mission to ruin Christmas for me, but I outlasted them all. I'm even sending out Christmas cards - cheesy ones from Hallmark - to local friends. You want one? Just email me your address and you'll see just how cheesy I can get. We can't be avant-garde cutting edge all the time. Sometimes I'm all sappy. Like with new granddaughters and stuff.

I'm even in the process of writing some long form fiction that is more "usual" than you might expect from me. I don't know if I'm getting old or just wtf. But it certainly seems unstoppable at this point.

Not only that, but I submitted some things to the literary journal world over the past month. The legit kind, the kind affiliated with universities or government grants and stuff. I don't think anything will be accepted because I still can't shake out all the alternate dimensions long enough to make it look like straight fiction and poetry, but who knows. I'll let you know. But it feels good to stretch that muscle again after so long a drought. About time I got back in the mix, and so we'll see what happens.

You know what else feels good? I dumped around 40 people from my Facebook friends list and haven't lost one minute of sleep. They were either posting too much hateful political shit or I've decided they are assholes. Or both. And I feel good about it. So there.

All 4 nao.

Sophie Says Hi... and Thanks, Everybody!

2011-11-30T02:08:00.002-06:00

Little Sophie

2011-11-23T06:54:00.002-06:00

So sometime in the next seven days I'm going to be a grandpa again.

There are small signs that little Sophie is thinking about it, but if she doesn't make up her mind by about this time next Tuesday they are going to induce labor for our daughter Kate.

The reason they will be inducing labor next Tuesday if it doesn't happen by then is that Kate developed a case of pregnancy-specific diabetes that has required her to go on insulin.

And when a pregnant mother takes insulin in this case the longer the pregnancy goes the more of a chance there is that the baby will be stillborn.

Which means they are targeting Tuesday the 29th of November as little Sophie's debut.

Because of all the incidentals and potentials, as you may well imagine, there is always the chance that we're not going to be thinking about too much else around here for a little while.

So I am accepting all prayers from prayers and, if you don't go that way I am also accepting positive thoughts, energy flows, or whatever it is you use when this kind of thing comes up. It is also a good time to speak up, if you've just been a reader and never posted or don't post much, and toss a penny in the well. Kate and Sophie will thank you and I will love you forever. Imagine that!

Many-worlds implies that all possible alternative histories and futures are real, each representing an actual "world" (or "universe").

2011-11-21T12:47:00.005-06:00

I'm not always upbeat and engaged. Sometimes I get downright depressed. Usually it takes the form of some kind of existential thing, and I don't interiorize it; so it's not like a dangerous place for me to be. That doesn't make it any less of a downer.

But there's always your personal list of all possible alternatives wonking around. Just sometimes you'd like the luxury of a look-in from time to time, y'know?

A Strange Relationship With Conversation

2011-11-18T14:28:00.005-06:00

When you are talking and people look away in mid-sentence and start talking to somebody else, this is a bad sign. That happened for weeks in meetings I used to have at one job a while back, and I eventually got fired from that place too. Same thing is true for letters and emails. You'll be going along back and forth with someone and then - slam - they just stop answering, and there were still plenty of things to give and take on.

It takes me so long to warm up to a conversation, whether in person or privately, that when it just stops or gets clamped down or whatever - and it isn't over yet - I have a tendency to say "ok, I won't bother you any more." Because, if you really knew me you'd recognize that I'd rather not have engaged with you in the first place. I'm the kind of person who wants to go home, be home, and stay home. To go out and mingle is something I have to kind of prepare for. In many social settings I usually start out being the guy who waits and watches before jumping in.* So to finally get in on things only to watch the process of communication fumbled, just sort of reinforces my initial desire to have stayed in the background observing in the first place.

I find it's like that with people you talk to where you say "we should get together some time, go out to dinner or whatnot," and it ends there. I guess I'm the type of person who, when I hear that, thinks "ok, we're going to get together soon. Cool." Either getting back to one's life means everything caves back in on you so that you don't follow up with stuff you said you were going to do or you sit there and go "well, they're probably busy so I won't bother them." And all that positive feeling you had when you were actually with the person gets kind of trashed. Either that or the comment wasn't actually sincere in the first place - which is a hundred times worse.

These are exactly the kind of machinations that make me want to be a recluse. I think people should say what they say and mean what they mean. This includes me, because I can well imagine I've done the same things to other people and should just get a mirror before I start whacking at folks. But the fact remains; the stumbling way we communicate with each other - insincerity, insecurity, people who talk and never listen, or folks who are all "oh we just like everything you do," or "I'm looking at you but I don't know what the hell you're talking about and don't care enough to delve into your brain to find out" - is the biggest reason I have a tendency to walk away, go inside, shutter up, and let you have at yourself.

So it takes a while to get me in, and then alienates me when - once I'm in - we're going to stop altogether.

Makes me want to shut the door and turn on an old movie and to hell with you. Sucker me in and then disappear like that. Hmph. How dare you.

Humans bug the snot out of me. Makes me glad I'm glad I'm inhuman...

EDIT TO ADD; And on the subject of hosting and being in my home and whatnot... people need to realize that if I don't care, then you don't get an invite or you don't have the nod that there's an open door, come anytime. If you're here, you're in. And if you're in that means you are welcome and welcomed here. So don't get all stifled. You don't come into my house unless I want you here. So if you're here... you're in. Did that make any sense?

-----------------

* - Unless you are in my home, at which point I transform into the perfect host, making sure everyone feels welcome - another skill that has been lost in the 21st century; being a good host to ALL your guests.

Plus, 10 Things I'm Not Apologizing For

2011-11-14T07:31:00.005-06:00

1. Being against the death penalty. I don't believe a state ought to have the right to do it. I know there's lots of folks who want to see justice done, especially to child abusers and people who kidnap and torture little children and all that. And I certainly get it. But I don't think, in the long run, the people ought to ever give the power of execution to the state. It just shouldn't be done.

2. Being against the Viet Nam War. I'll admit the impetus of my being against it was pure cowardice. Since I faced the possibility of going I actively worked against it, knowing full well that if I was drafted I didn't have any deferments and, in my family, you just go in and that's that. But the more I looked into it the more I saw real reasons to be against it. From the Gulf of Tonkin "incident," which wasn't; to the worry that SouthEast Asia was going to fall to communism, which it didn't. In fact the first thing that happened when the war was over was that Viet Nam and China had a short war of their own. Duh. Where I started to stray from my fellow hippieradicals was when they began blaming the guys that were drafted and went because of it. That crossed the line with me.

3. Having taken just about any drug you can name at one time or another. I didn't say it wasn't stupid, I'm just saying I'm not guilty about it.

4. Liking Motown. It saved my life in high school when I was pretty much a loner, before I found my group. It doesn't matter to me if you don't like it, it has a different meaning for me, so bite me.

5. Being in tacit approval of Occupy Wall Street. Not saying I'm sure they're doin' it right, and I'm certain there are crazies hanging around it just like there are crazies hanging around the Tea Party. But I'd rather identify with these kids than the pole-up-the-ass lawn chair snake flag wavers my own age. A lot of the over-vocal "conservatives" my age are really people who missed out on the 60's and felt very uncool during all that. Truth is they were uncool. In fact they were dull, pointless, boring, and not very bright back then, and they still are all that today. Just the kind of people the GOP likes these days. Just sayin'.

6. Voting for Barack Obama. And I'm doing it again just to spite you. He may be in the lower 33% of Presidents that ever did anything for the country. Not very good at all. But him being reelected will get so many people apoplectic they may croak. Which would be funny, and a positive for the gene pool for all we know.

7. Not believing the Bible should be taken literally. It doesn't even matter to me which version of the Bible you're talking about. Pick one. But really, maybe, it's not so much people who think it should be taken literally as much as it is people who think it should be taken literally and then pick and choose which parts they want to do and not do. Stoning people for working on Sunday... not a good idea. But literal nonetheless. Point is not in the details of what it says - it can't help it, it's the people reading it who are screwed up - but in the things it's used for. One way or the other. The Bible is like a person - torture it enough and you can get it to say anything.

8. Voting Libertarian, and helping the LP, all those years. I'm not apologizing for it. I'm also not saying it wasn't asinine. See #3 above.

9. For being a Scientologist for a year and a half. But I am doing everything I can to see that other people don't make the same mistake.

10. Deleting 0ver 20 names from my Facebook "Friends" list. Though most came on from games and that shit and don't really care, a good number were not from that category. And they can go piss up a rope. So there.

What are you not apologizing for?

My Last Word On Politics

2011-11-12T05:17:00.009-06:00

The Republican state party leaders, upset with the Tea Party for the influence they've taken away from them, are going to make sure Herman Cain gets the nomination for President. The idea is that he will absolutely crash and burn, and the Tea Party's influence will be stunted. Then, in 2016, we will see a serious candidate for the office - picked by the old guard party leaders minus the defunct Tea Party.

The game is this; The oligarchs of the GOP want their power back. So long as the Tea Party is active and organized they have to listen to them and even share their clout. The best way to destroy the influence of the Tea Party is to have Herman Cain run for President. During the campaign he will prove to be an embarrassment one way or another (and there will be more revelations as to his proclivities coming, put out - not by Democrats and the Evil Media, but by the old guard GOP - just like these recent ones were), and there will be a great big "I told you so" - not by the Democrats, but by the old guard GOP state chairmen who have been threatened by said Tea Party.

In the meantime the old line Republicans like the Speaker and other prominent GOP Senators and Congressmen who are not beholden to the Tea Party will continue to court the populist glow generated by this "grass roots movement" while enacting none of their programs under the guise of not having enough votes somewhere, as if the Tea Party didn't really exist, because the Speaker and the rest happen to BE the oligarchs of the GOP who have never wanted to have the Tea Party watching their every move in the first place.

Any threat to the clout, largess, and patronage held by the GOP oligarchs is viewed by them as something to be stunted; but they have to go about it very carefully. The mission is to appear to be doing the will of the Tea Party, but actively ruining their hold and influence in the long run.

The Democrats have already done as much. Barack Obama's upstart campaign - never supported by the Democratic oligarchs from the beginning - took them by storm as well. In response they purposely dumped enough congressional elections to not have a Democratic majority in both houses anymore (like what he had when he took office but oddly wasn't able to get through but around 10% of his programs - for some mysterious reason while the whole world said "the Republicans are headless"), by not backing key candidates and convincing other, big name Democrats, to walk away from politics and leave their seats wide open.

With Obama's policies checked, the bottom-up influx of new blood he brought with him will dissipate as time goes on, and the old Democratic oligarchs will be back at the reins of power. They did much the same in 1972, withholding workers, money, and support for the candidate McGovern so that the young Turks fell flat on their faces and the old guard retained control of the party because... hey... "I told you so."

In 2016 the two candidates will be much like Kerry / Bush; both minions of the oligarchs and not much difference between them, hand-picked by the "pros" and run through the obligatory proceedings to keep up the masquerade that the Peepul actually make the call, and the old guards of the two parties will be back at the throttle without these pesky groundswell movements popping up and getting in the way of their power.

In the meantime regular joes on the internet and on TV will continue to spit at one another fueled by code words, logical fallacies, generalizations, personal attacks and obtuse verbosity much like any political discussion board, blog or posting will demonstrate. Because we are the circus.

A bunch of clowns.

I Survived

2011-11-09T06:21:00.008-06:00

And it also turns out that Rocco is one of the most gracious, thoughtful, and inclusive guys I've seen in some time. Here he is in Donnie Brasco in a scene with Pacino and Depp (click to make larger). It's not that I was expecting him to be some kind of snob or something - I remember him as a pretty quiet guy in school - but I was impressed that he even remembered me and shared some personal asides with me during the proceedings. Now you know I couldn't pass it up, so when they were giving his credits and mentioned that he'd been in "Far and Away" with Tom Cruise I simply had to lean over to him on the stage and whisper "I here Tom Cruise still can't fly," to which - in all honesty - he almost lost it there for a second. So, yeah, a cool dude. When I first walked up to him he seemed pretty glad to see me and shook my hand very warmly. But I did tell him who I was just in case first so he wouldn't be embarrassed.

As for the talk I had to give I had two missions given to me by the organizer, who is a teacher there and also someone who was a fellow alum of ours from that era. If I had an anecdote about Rocco, that would be very much sought after. And if I could say something about the effect teachers have on their students that would also be appropriate. So I parsed it into two parts under the idea that "there are 2 things I share with Rocco Sisto." The first was a thing that happened to us when we were in a play together and the second was our theater director/teacher - which led me into the desired "few positive words" for the faculty.

I decided to go without notes because I knew that if I brought anything up with me to the microphone I'd probably just end up reading it and none of it would have worked. This, of course, made my terrors even more pronounced. I didn't sleep well at all the night before, until I took a little killer and for a while that didn't even seem like it was going to work. Just before we went on stage I completely blanked. I had no recollection of what I planned to say. When it started I wanted the people ahead of me to just keep going. Maybe it would never come my way.

But it was not to be avoided. Sooner or later the ball would be passed to me and I'd have to do something. Somehow.

The way I used to handle it was just to get my feet moving and get up there. No matter how I felt, I just moved. That's how I'd always done it and that's how I did it yesterday. Like somebody who never jumped out of a plane straps a parachute on and just says "oh well what the hell" and jumps, trusting the conclusion to God and the forbearance of reptiles. This is how I always did it. Why not do it now?

Once I got to the microphone I was fine. Because I didn't have notes to check I made eye contact with the audience and engaged them at every moment. They laughed when they should have laughed. I even got (I talked to Sligo after it was over and told him the same, and it's true) one belly laugh. My problem, as it has ever been, is that I can't for the life of me remember what I got the score with. I don't remember what, exactly, it was that I said. But there was supposed to be a laugh there so it worked out. I just didn't gauge how loud it was going to be. But, you know, you get chuckles within the first minute and you know they're with you. They did everything they were supposed to do. So it worked out in the end.

I talked to my wife on the phone and she said I'm just silly. In his email Sligo more or less sounded like he knew nothing bad was going to happen. And a couple people came up to me during the reception afterward and gave me some positive feedback as well. So I guess I did have a support system after all. Well I'll be damned.

I had a picture taken with Rocco on my camera but the person taking it didn't frame the picture well at all and we look like we are standing a hundred miles away. So I'm not putting it on here and of course I have no idea when that chance will ever happen again. Oh well.

During his talk he told a very funny and self-deprecating story about the time he was walking his dog in a park (he lives in Manhattan). He's going along and someone comes up and says "excuse me." And, as he told it, he thought - aha, here it is. Someone recognizes me from something and they're going to tell me how much they like me. But then the person said "I'm a casting director," and - as he explained - he immediately thought - aha, here it is, this guy recognized me and is going to give me the role of a lifetime just like they did with Lana Turner. Then he goes "I said to myself, I'm going to be Lana Turner!!" (you see this is my kind of humor already, I know). And then he said "the guy wanted to know if he could take a picture of my dog."

Turns out Rocco's dog has now done several commercials.

That was pretty funny. He was also pretty up front about the realities of the business. He's not a star, he explained, but a working actor for 30 years and pretty proud of that. He explained that at any given moment a large percentage of actors who are members of their union - I think he said something like 90% - have no jobs. No jobs equals no income. So to be in stuff from Matlock and NYPD Blue and Star Trek (I forgot to tell him how much I enjoyed seeing an Italian Vulcan, dammit) was good enough, considering the obstacles.

Turns out he's going to stay in town a few days and actually give a few lab sessions with the high school actors who are putting on a play this very weekend. So, yeah like I said, a cool dude.

Everything worked out A-Ok. Then I went to work and punched in. Then I worked all night and got home an hour ago. Then I wrote you this. Oh and on the subject of working... the shop looked pretty dismal after all that showbiz stuff but I'm still happy to have a regular paycheck, and even Rocco said his advice to people starting out as actors was "don't quit your day job if you don't have to."

So it turns out Rocco is an OK guy who is very realistic about the way things are but also blessed with a lifetime of working at something he loves. And he doesn't need the stardom everyone seeks at the beginning. By the way he has a new movie out called A Bird of the Air, the trailer of which looks kind of interesting (no he's not in the trailer). But it's like an indie flick so you might have to go some to find it. Here's Rocco's blurb from the cast list.

So anyway if you happen to see the guy in a commercial or another supporting role somewhere with some big name over-acting super star, just nudge the person you're with and say "that's Rocco Sisto. And he's a pretty cool guy."

Late One Night

2011-11-06T01:39:00.004-05:00

Been working long hours. Fifty hours a week. Sometimes more. There's more to come too. From now until the end of the year. I suppose I should be grateful. Time and a half is the workingman's bonus. There won't be any others. Since I work overnight sometimes my mind has a tendency to wander. This is not always a good thing. I hate when I remember things that are embarrassing in some way, out of the blue, and I have to go through feeling stupid all over again, but there I go.

Tuesday is the day I go to my old high school to do seven minutes in front of an assembly being put on to honor Rocco. It would be easier if I didn't have a history of the terrors before I have to go in front of people. But I better get this handled. The only way out is through. I know what I got is humorous enough, but I have to deliver it right. It's the complexity of nailing it that gets me nervous. I know what I wrote, and if it's done well it'll be a great addition to the proceedings. That's the hard part... doing it well.

I used to be pretty good in front of people. I have no confidence now, topped by a poor self-image. It's going to be a struggle, but a major win if I can pull it off. Who knows.

It's the night we push the clocks back an hour and I don't know why we do that. I never knew why we do that. I'm glad to get the extra hour to play with since I'm working Monday and worked this last Friday and am clocking so many damn hours. Tuesday's going to be crazy because I'll be on the clock Monday overnight, then have to show up at the high school Tuesday afternoon, and then go in to work after that - overnight. So I'm either going to be a complete mess or so whacked that everything will go just fine but I won't be able to remember it. I'm getting kind of old here.

To make matters worse my wife will be out of town next week. Not that she can always get available to be a support system for me, but it means I'll be walking into the Tuesday thing alone. Either a Christian before the lions or some other, more positive, metaphor i can't think of right now. But I'm repeating myself.

The whole thing is yet another of my "mystery achievements" - stuff I do that my broader family has no idea is going on. Like stuff I've published, Thrice, this little speech thing. Not that they'd care. I'm just the weird cousin/uncle/brother to those folks. So what the hell. Doesn't matter.

At the same time this week my nephew (more specifically my great-nephew) is being shipped off to Afghanistan and I still don't know what the hell we're bothering for. But he's a Marine, and a Recon Marine to boot (meaning - you know - Marines are assault troops and always the first in... and Recon Marines go in ahead of THEM so... yeah). So in the big picture my little nerve problem is pretty insignificant, by comparison. My wife bought him a St. Michael medal (patron saint of the Marines) and we're not even Catholic. Well he is, so there's that.

I remember when he was a baby. Gad...

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T02:30:00.001-05:00

Alright, I'll Come Back...

2011-10-22T03:48:00.007-05:00

My poor, beleaguered agent has probably given up with "Think Fast" by now. Those who liked it said they can't deal with the length (it's novella-sized), and those that didn't like it at all were probably the honest ones. And in the end it's the typical phenomenon with me; I can't stand to look at it let alone read it anymore. So I hardly care about it by now. But I temper this with the fact that I always feel like that. I think I've said before.

But things keep coming out down my fingers onto a keyboard or out of my mouth and into my Mac version of DragonDictate when I especially need dialog, so there's always a project working. I'm going to try and make his life easier and give him something more traditional and much longer. It's not urban, it's not a genre-bender, and it doesn't seem to have one profanity in the whole thing so far. In fact that would probably be totally out of place this time. It's actually more like magic realism than anything else; which is totally new for me though I love reading it when it's done well. Think Garcia-Marquez, Mahfouz and Paolo. It's a simple premise and still manages to fall into my usual study (solitary individual alienated blah blah etc.). This guy goes off into the Sahara with his life's possessions. He stumbles upon an unknown well that he turns into an oasis and people think he's a holy man or something, but there's a white hyena who knows the guy is full of crap and doesn't miss a chance to tell him so. Working title "The Well At al-Khiba’" - al-Khiba' being Arabic for a star constellation known as The Tent. Anyway maybe he'll have a better time trying to sell something a bit more traditional and mainstream than the usual crap I do. It's not that I'm going in this direction on purpose, just to please somebody. Not at all. It's pouring out of me and I throw away 80% of what comes out so I know it's just like normal. Only a different style. Don't know where it comes from.

But it's been a whirlwind fall so far and it's going to get crazier. The Reunion is over and was dull and downright anti-climactic when compared to the gathering I hosted of the old theater department. And an offshoot of that is that on November 8 I've been invited back to the school to give a short speech and introduce Rocco, as he will be entered into the Ring of Fame or whatever the school calls it. I'm honored to do it because we were in a couple plays together and I've been watching him ever since I saw him in Donnie Brasco with Pacino and Johnny Depp.

The catch here is that one of the reasons I told myself I stopped trying to pursue an acting career (outside of the fact that I stunk) was that I developed a severe and ever-increasing propensity for stage fright. Awful, staggering, murderous stage fright. It got to the point where I didn't want to do anything simply because I didn't want to feel that way any more. So here I go next month back in front of an audience and I'm strangely not petrified right now. I imagine I will get there starting the night before, so there is that. I don't know how I was convinced or why I agreed to do it. Probably off the euphoria of the reunion stuff. I don't know. Anyway here goes nothing. I hope to put a picture up on the blog afterward. If I survive.

My wife just got back from Tennessee where she and her brothers are finally settling their father's estate. The auction is in mid-November and they each stand to get a nice sum after everything is finished. I have been assigned the task of finding the best uses for the bulk of it, investment-wise. Another interest I never fully pursued? Well not really true, I did read the book Warren Buffet considered to be the Bible standard of investing, the one he utilized by the man who was his professor. And I have been able to keep our head above water in this market - in fact I've been buying pretty much all through 2008 to now. Of course everybody took a hit and I'm no different, but I didn't cash in the chips and things are coming back if you pick your stocks right (always compare book-value to the market price, if it's less than what it is selling for in the market you MIGHT have a value buy. That's just the first step, not ALL the steps. But it is where I always start). Anyway this will probably constitute the last influx of resources into our family from outside our own household so I can't screw it up. I'm suggesting a vacation first. That always makes paying off a credit card or two easier to swallow. :-)

So I'm blithering and it's 4 in the God damn morning. I'll cut it right here. Except to say that I'm trying... really hard... to get back to everybody's blogs and to post regularly. I spruced up the joint a little bit. I don't know what it means.

But okay... I'm coming back to the game.

Moneyball

2011-10-02T06:16:00.009-05:00

My first question was 'how do you turn this book into a movie?' Michael Lewis' non-fiction, straight-up baseball insider, journalistic piece on the first-time, gung-ho, willful use of sabermetrics to put together a ball club is not a book for everybody. While it is true that Lewis made the nuts and bolts of front office team management accessible to anyone with an adult attention span and a curiosity about how things work, it's not something everyone would just pick up and start reading. Stat wonks (like Earl and myself) could eat it up. But people who have actual lives might find the book, however uncomplicated it may have been crafted, easy to walk by.

My second question was 'why did it have to be Brad Pitt, can't you find an actual actor to do this?' And I think I'd be forgiven for the query seeing as how - though I've never seen anything he was ever in before - so many people seemed to voice the same question.

And my third question was 'after pestering my wife to come along with me to see it what if it turns out to be a total waste of time?' We don't go to a lot of movies, and she would let me know if it was, to be sure.

Director Bennett Miller answered my first question thus:

You make a movie out of this by combing the background details given in the book on Billy Beane's past and why something like sabermetrics would interest him (he's a 'bonus baby' who gave up a full scholarship to Stanford to go for the big money offered him by major league baseball who then proceeded to become a complete and miserable bust as a player), and really working on the interactions of people when ideas clash for primacy. Throw in the underdog hook, add the personal touch of how a kid (his daughter) deals with stuff when her parents are divorced, at no time pander to the lowest common denominator and underestimate the intelligence of your audience, and top it off with a musical score that gets kind of haunting after a while (because it's basically a movie about an idea inside someone's head), and somehow find a way to film something like this beautifully.

Brad Pitt answered my second question this way;

Apparently he was a force behind getting this project made because he got passionate about the possibilities and translated that into making you forget 'that there is Mr. Jolie Brad Pitt the good-looks glamorous Hollywood movie star'. At the point you might be tempted to dismiss him as a lightweight you also forget that it's Brad Pitt because both his characterization and everything surrounding him has pulled your attention in another direction and you are totally hooked on the story. And if I never see anything else he's done or will do I walk away from Moneyball thinking he's very good at his craft. I had a teacher once who said that the first job of the actor is to allow you to forget who he is and make you believe you're looking at somebody else altogether. Bingo.

MrsRW answered the third question when she said the only real criticism she had was that it might be a tad too long; which is something I'd agree with from a commercial standpoint, though because I got wrapped up in the world it was portraying that didn't seem to bother me - or the people in the theater - too much. In fact I heard some of the things other people have said as they walked out, and was especially impressed with an older lady who loved it and wanted her husband to be sure they call their son to tell him he's GOT to see the movie... "and I can't even stand baseball." Her direct quote.

And the fact is that woman's comment pretty much sums up the experience. If you're a baseball wonk it's nothing but a baseball movie with all this other stuff going on that isn't boring. If you're into human interaction and acting, per se, you'll eat up the dialog that, when appropriate, is either sparkling, hilarious, real and sometimes perfectly mimics those uncomfortable, choppy moments between people who are trying to be cordial but have other stuff going on in their lives. If you're into sentiment and romanticism you've got the underdog thing and the child of a divorce bit. In short you can pretty much make this movie about anything you want it to be.

But the main undercurrent is the power struggle between what is established and what is different. That's what everything else is wrapped around. If there is any anti-establishment sentiment left in your time battered psyche after all these years it will be revived. Probably unless of course you're a Yankee fan. In which case you will come up with any number of reasons why this ain't all that. Seeing as how people who don't know baseball at all will get a little inkling as to why you, in point of fact, are the Evil Empire.

There are any number of things that the literalist could point out that were altered to make the real story it's based on work in a movie format. Jonah Hill's character is a fictionalized interpretation of the real Paul DePodesta, who is neither a dumpy nerd nor "never worked in baseball or ever had a job" before Brad Pitt plucks him out of nowhere. In exchange you get a legitimate contender for Best Supporting Actor at next year's Oscars. This is probably the major point to make. DePodesta is nothing like his composite alter ego that was fabricated in the movie.

Another critique, strangely or not strangely enough, comes from the baseball world itself. The line of questions work like this...

"If Moneyball works so well how come it hasn't produced a championship?"

-or-

"This is a movie about how Billy Beane took a small market team that has had moderate success and some total flops and made it into a small market team that has had moderate success and some total flops. So what?"

And outside of the fact that these questions have nothing to do with the movie they are the comments you will hear regularly from the inside baseball world who are still, to this day, knocking the value of what Oakland accomplished at that time. Of course the simple answer is that most of the the team managements in baseball today are employing some form or version of the techniques and approaches started by the Oakland A's in the era the movie portrays. While it is true that if Beane had nine figures to throw around he would do it, observant and intelligent baseball people have gleaned some truths about player analysis and therefore the game has, in fact, been changed. The goal was to make a competitive team with less than half the resources of the New Yorks and Chicagos of baseball. Insofar as they've done that from time to time the goal is accomplished. And the fact that it's been less successful in the last few years is more a testament to the fact that many other teams have incorporated the techniques and are more properly evaluating talent and its relationship to money, so that there is now less of an opportunity for Oakland to find the hidden gems. That's Moneyball folks.

Plus the fact that the last 300+ words could probably spark most of any controversy that may follow in the comments, should pretty much wrap up the package of why you should go see the movie.

But strip all the above away and what you have is a movie that treats you like a grown-up. Actual dialog. An actual story. You won't like it if you want special effects and a continuous stream of mayhem and unconventional weaponry or fighting disciplines. Though the unconventional idea may be what the whole thing is about.

Recommendation: a must see. Go.

Coming Back

2011-09-26T04:29:00.015-05:00

I don't sense a clock ticking away my time. In a couple of years I guess I will hit a milestone, age-wise, but the idea of 60 never bothered me any more than 50 or 40 or 30 did. I'm way too philosophical or usually drunk to let that get to me. What are you going to do about it anyway? Nothing. The best thing to do is get there with your personality and self-respect still in one piece. The numbers just don't scare me. It's funny because in my twenties I thought they would, but it turns out they don't. So there's that.

I do look at the fact that I've wasted a lot of time doing nothing and haven't accomplished nearly anything I've set out to do beyond being proud of my daughters and convincing my wife to hang around long after she realized how boring I actually am; but once you have grand kids some things don't seem as important as they may have at one time. Suffice to say I am who I am and I'm comfortable in my own skin, as pock-marked and saggy and gray as it is.

Anyway the 40th Reunion is over and I will have a lot of time back for myself.

But it was the Friday thing - the private party outside the general reunion, that may have been my own personal "best thing ever".

I put together a party for Bob Cetera, a teacher we had back in our school days who ran our theater department. I tracked him down, heard him gasp when I called him up more than eight months ago to run the idea by him and set up a date for the event. Then I went to work finding his people - his kids, the students from that era - with enough time to get them all together so we could give him a little fuzzy.

Because mostly of Facebook the core group of people who were involved in that old group were easy enough. The harder ones are not on that social media or went so far afield that there were times all I wound up with was yet another dead end.

Well think, RW! Hey it turns out I know a small group of anonymous hackers who can find anybody if they really wanted to. Gee I don't really know who that might be (hums, taps fingers, rolls eyes at the ceiling). Anyway I contacted some folks and at first they gave me the dreaded "NYPA answer" (Not Your Private Army), but a couple of them remembered stuff I did with and for them in the past and said they'd take a couple minutes in the chase but that was it. AND THEN It turned out I didn't need to call in that chit at all, because on the exact same day they said they found her, the one person I was looking for fell into my lap one week before the event just through the contacts I'd developed doing the normal shtick. That's pretty much my life in a nutshell though.

So the effort to find that "one person who was going to be the cherry on the pie" ended up being overkill, but it is kind of cool to think that a couple people I've never met tried to helped me out. But you know - hell - I figured if they can pop Wikileaks into the public they can find anything or anybody. Turned out it didn't have to be that dramatic. It also turned out the one "big get" of the party only lives a couple of suburbs over. Basically down the road for God's sake.

Talk about feeling like a dummy.

Anyway I'm talking about one particular woman who left a huge impression on everybody before she transferred to another school back in those days. We'll just call her K___ T___. Probably of all the people he had as students she was the one that left the largest impression if only because of what she always brought to the game. That's not discounting anyone else at the shindig - he was overjoyed at every name I mentioned when I told him who was coming. Didn't have to jog his memory at all for anyone. Knew them all as mentioned at the snap of the fingers with the same affection as any other.

I had him come over an hour before the other guests arrived. I wanted him to settle in but I also wanted to monopolize him until I had to go be the host. As we sat there talking and I reviewed who was coming, within twenty minutes he mentioned K___T___'s name just in a general sense of reminiscing. And here's where I want to show you how that happened so you can kind of get why the whole thing was making me so giddy...

I told him I had a surprise for him but didn't give any more information than that. As we talked he or I would mention a name of someone from that program and I'd say "oh yeah I forgot to tell you, he's going to be here tonight." And his eyes would pop. Then he would try to remember an incident or another and I would say "oh yeah, that's so-and-so." And he would say "that's right!" And I'd tell him, "oh yeah, she's going to be here tonight as well." And his jaw would drop. But when her name - this "big get" I was keeping hidden - came up I clammed up. Didn't say a word. I may have even put my hand over my mouth and made like I was rubbing my nose or something just to keep from blurting it out.

So the guests started arriving and it was a wonderful night for him, I'm pretty sure. After all these years - I don't think any of us had any contact with him since we graduated, or at least it was very limited - as each person would come in a new round of hugs and handshakes began.

And when she walked in, I was standing next to him and I said "Bob you remember we were talking about K____ T____ before?" And he said "Sure." And I pointed with my chin and said "she just walked in."

Yeah.

Came off perfect.

That was a good moment, but it's not to say that every last person who showed up didn't mean just as much to him as anybody else. Of course that's why we like him.

Okay so it was only high school. Compared to the big wide world not really anything special beyond the memories and involvement of those people from those days. Meaning not much more to anybody but us, as kids. Few of us tried to be serious about the performing arts after it was over. One of us, Rocco Sisto has been in Carlito's Way and Donnie Brasco, Matlock, The Sopranos and much much more (but truth to tell he was only on the periphery of the group in school and didn't get serious about it until much later) and no I couldn't get him. Another of our group has a son who stars in a theater company off-off Broadway. But, really, none of the rest of us has done much in the way of that line of work. I did try to get into it before I got married but, you know, it's very telling - you could be really really good in high school but when you get to the real world... well... the real world smacks you right in the head. Suffice it to say Malkovich wasn't impressed and we'll leave it at that m'kay?

The thing of it is this party we had Friday was probably one of the top three or four things that ever happened, in amongst all the other stuff I ever worked on. I enjoyed the planning and the organizing a lot. All during the prep I wondered if he ever thought we forgot about him. He's had some heart problems and some surgery and all. I've been out of high school forty years. You know what I mean. I never saw such a together crowd of people - few of whom stayed in close contact with one another either, by the way. Not a wallflower in the bunch, of course, being AHCtors and artISTES.

I've been assured by everyone who was there - and I mean every last person - that it was a top moment for them as well. So there it is. One more "cast and crew" party. I think we did some good.

Of course my "big get" probably thinks I'm a stalker now or something. I probably sent one email too many. Probably fawned and gloated over the accomplishment too much (like, dude, she's right down the freakin road, what's the big deal already for God's sake?). But you know what, those who don't take chances wish they'd have tried when it's too late, with nothing to show for it but a great big regret. So what the hell. I'm glad we didn't let this opportunity pass.

And, in all honesty, the general class reunion I helped organize that came off the following (Saturday) night was fun, and I managed to not make too much of an ass of myself or say too much stupid shit... mostly. But it was kind of pale and anti-climatic for me personally, considering the night before.

I wasn't the only one who didn't want Friday to end. At least that's what people kept telling me.

----------------------------

Clicking the pictures will make them huge!

Left- The cast and crew with the honored guest at far left.
Center- For regular readers here the guy on the left of this picture (Hal) is the actual creator of "Farco Barnes." There's Joanne and my wife on the right.
Right- Anna (in the yellow) is the one who's son is off-off Broadway. Then Donna, Mike and Dennis.

Left- Am I gloating too much with my "big surprise" on my right arm? Yeah probably. Cathy and Jim on my left. But I also think I take the worst pictures in the world so move along... nothing for you here.
Center- You know the man in the dark jacket as "sligo". We just call him Mike.
Right- The Boss (on the right) beside his wife who is holding Kathy, all standing next to Cindy on the far left who - as it turned out - was the only person I really needed to find the one person I felt like I worked hardest to get. Thanks Cindy.

Separated At Birth?

2011-09-02T21:17:00.001-05:00

The Old School Song

2011-09-01T06:34:00.010-05:00

Just three weeks from now and the reunion for the class of 1971 will be over. And it couldn't come fast enough for me as one of the organizers.

In the first place it says something very telling about the dysfunction of a certain group of people when the dope-smoking sociopath of the group ends up holding the money for the party, don't you think?

But now, thanks to the miracle of Facebook, especially, I have confirmed what I thought I knew 40 years ago - that most of my classmates are complete %^^(@#$%.

Let me start out by saying I've never had to sit in front of more vile, hateful, obtuse, adolescent caveman bullshit than I have watching my classmates post their "feelings and opinions" on social media.

In response to the waves of shit I have to read before shutting their posts off completely let me just say,

1. No, people who apply for welfare shouldn't have to take a drug test just because you had to take one to get a job. The correct answer is NO ONE should be required to take a drug test for these things.

2. There are no tax dollars going to a mosque about to be built on the ground where the Twin Towers once stood. And no, the imam trying to build the mosque in lower Manhattan isn't part of al Qaida, he's actually been an adviser to President Bush.

3. I am not aware that anyone is actively trying to take "God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance, at least not as actively as those who put "God" in it in the first place; seeing as how the original version didn't have it.

4. And while we're on the subject I don't understand why people think it's being phased out of schools. I had no idea the Pledge was in such danger until I started inviting my high school classmates to be my friends on Facebook.

5. His name is Barack Obama. Sometimes he's known as President Obama. His name is not Barrack YoMomma, Barack Ubangi, or Barack Obangi. And I must say I find it just a little annoying to think of people pushing 60 who still go all a-titter about these kind of gags.

6. When someone says "she pricked her finger on the spinning wheel" they're saying something from a children's story, they're not talking about somebody's dick.

7. No, President Reagan never had a balanced budget. That didn't happen until President Clinton, and a lot of that was Newt Gingrich's doing - who you don't like because he isn't Sarah Palin. Hello?

8. No, you can't possibly be a conservative Christian and a devotee of Ayn Rand at the same time because according to libertarian objectivism existence takes primacy over consciousness and therefore according to Ayn THERE CAN BE NO GOD. Doofus.

Sigh.

What do you see me as in high school? I mean what do you think I must have been like? You pause here and guess for a second. Then I'm going to tell you and then you tell me how close you came. Okay?

When I was in high school we published "underground" newspapers. We infiltrated the dean's office and "liberated" a locker in which we kept dope, tickets, stuff we didn't want out parents to see, and passed messages back and forth. This was the office of what was known as "Movement Staff," and as far as the school knew that locker was assigned and everything was copesetic. We took acid and went to class. Every other day. We were for civil rights, against Viet Nam, and were quite certain that the general stasis of suburban life was something that would rot your mind, rot your liver, rot your kidney, cucaracha. We ran a hippie for Homecoming Queen and won. We ran Mickey Mouse as a write-in candidate in the student council election (and won).

We were a very small percentage of our school. And none of these people are showing up to the reunion, but me. And I have to sit here looking at pleas to sign the petition to build a wall across the Rio Grande, allow Creationism to be taught in public schools, and stop paying teachers and firemen so much damn money.

I was on the phone with sligo - an occasional poster here and fellow graduate of that year - and he said he didn't realize so many of our classmates were jerks. I wanted to say - or perhaps I did say (I've killed too many brain cells) that I tried to tell him that 40 years ago but nobody was listening.

I'm going to put ten bucks in an envelope and send it to Fred this weekend.

Now that I am facing the results of the present efforts, I seriously need to reconnect with my past. No not high school classmates, the other one.

What I Was Talking About

2011-08-22T17:34:00.004-05:00

Having read the book, I can't figure out how they made a movie out of it. But they did.

You have to figure that a guy like me, who has spent hours making what are called "speed figs" (speed figures) for thoroughbreds just to find an undervalued horse to bet on would easily fall into the system. And I did. An argument can be made that, yeah Oakland has low payrolls and they've had some great teams since Beane took over but where's the championships? - and that would be a good argument. Except the goal was to have a low payroll and still be a winner. Which they did.

Which they did... until recently; because now people are stealing their ideas - which they thought were baseball blasphemy when it got started. So now it's harder. And the thing is, the story is still going on because there really is a Billy Beane (and yes, ladies, he is "movie star" looking) and he really does run the Oakland A's and he still has computer geeks on the payroll. We call them "number guys" in horseracing. Aherrrrm...

What?

2011-08-09T13:27:00.003-05:00

Have to go to work in exactly one hour. The monk part of the week begins again. I veg on my 4 day weekends. No that's not true - but time seems to get away from me. It's like a mini-vacation every week but the problem is that the way things are going I'm finding more and more comfort in shutting everything out. It's an interesting head I live in.

Lately I've been thinking about batting orders. You know, because, that's important. But there seems to be a science to setting out a baseball lineup and lately I've been thinking about it. a lot. What can I say?

Relative to how you set your batting order, there are a handful of different theories about how to set a baseball lineup but the most prevalent is the one that goes...

1. Best speed. Low strikeouts.
2. Hit and run guy, some power OK, low strikeouts.
3. Your best all-around hitter. Hits to all fields.
4. Your Home Run guy. RBI's.
5. Second best Home Run guy. Usually a lower batting avg. than #4, but power.
6. Usually lower avg. and power but reliable under pressure.
7. Lesser version of #6
8. Most often slowest, a lot of times the Catcher to spare his legs. You get what you get.
9. In the National League, this is 99.999% the Pitcher unless the manager is Tony LaRussa. In the American League there's two lines of thought - this is either your worst hitter or your "second lead off man" with good speed but hits for a lower avg. than your #1 guy.

And this is pretty much how it has been since time immemorial. And you don't screw with the old heads in baseball, they know best and they know everything and they know it all much better than you, especially if high school was as advanced a level you ended at.

What I've been thinking, though, is that this is bullshit. The standard baseball lineup only really makes sense if every inning you start with the number 1 guy again. Because by the second or third inning the guy who will be batting first for you isn't your best speed and may be your slowest guy. So unless you start every inning from the top THE FIRST INNING IS THE ONLY POINT OF THE GAME THE LINEUP REALLY MATTERS.

And as the game progresses the lineup becomes less consequential. At any given inning any player may be asked to start things off, and the #1 lead-off man could really only lead-off once the entire game. Worse than that his speed is often negated by the conditions of the game. For example if the #8 batter gets on base and the #9 batter makes an out and fails to advance him, your best speed guy, should he get on base, can only go as far and as fast as the guy ahead of him. A single by the #2 batter in this case may only send your slow Catcher to 3rd, forcing your speed guy to stop at 2nd.

Anyway the point being is that as the game goes on you never know where in the lineup the next turn starts.

There is, actually, only one thing anybody knows for sure about a lineup, and that is OVER THE COURSE OF THE SEASON THE BATTERS AT THE TOP OF THE ORDER ALWAYS HAVE MORE PLATE APPEARANCES THAN THE GUYS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ORDER.

So what you're doing is giving more at-bats to good players, but not your best players. Objective reason will tell you that the #1 batter will come to the plate more times than anyone else. So to put a speed guy / singles hitter in that spot immediately cuts down your chances for getting the most out of your talent. If you put your best hitter in the lead-off spot, regardless of his speed, he will bat more times than anyone else during the course of the season, which improves your overall offense immediately.

There, that's a half hour of baseball. I've got to make my lunch. See how interesting it is in my head? Yeah right.

I'm going to do more on this. But for now, we've established rule #1. Your best hitter (the guy you usually place #3) should be your lead-off man. The whole idea is getting on base and putting pressure on the other team.

More to come...

What I Have To Say For Myself

2011-07-25T18:36:00.003-05:00

Issue #2 of THRICE is now available for free download to your iPad, your Kindle, or just as a PDF. You can also get hard copies if you're willing to pay for it.

Of all the people we've gathered together for this issue I am most personally proud of adding Ann Bogle to the mix. In the first place we are badly under-represented by women voices and in the second place she's really good. So I hope we see more of her as time goes on.

The next issue comes in November and will be themed "TIME." We already have a couple things for it. I think you'll like.

But no, I haven't been to your blogs much and for that I'm truly sorry. I miss it, but I simply have little time. If I scan you in my Reader it's lately the best I can do. I'm ashamed I've missed your radio shows, your troubles, your happies, things you've found, things you're letting go of. In the blogging world it has always been true - if you want visitors you have to visit. And I don't have enough Earth-shattering ground-breaking stuff to attract a wide audience, nor did I ever really seek one out. I will get back to your stories and incidents as soon as I can. For one thing my new schedule - pushing 40 work hours into three days from Tuesday through Thursday - changes everything. My own personal writing is stalled, and I've taken on a few more responsibilities with groups and organizations that somehow keep asking for me to volunteer. I am amazed at those requests, seeing as how if I were given three weeks of totally free time I would probably spend 95% of it alone. But I WILL get out and about to see all your great stuff soon, I promise.

In case I hadn't said anything to you I am going to be a grandfather again this December, God willing. We all know it is a girl and we all know her name is going to be Sophie. I may have made some mistakes with granddaughter #1 here and there or something... I guess?... because I am somewhere 22nd or 35th on her list for some reason, but Sophie will be my redemption for whatever crimes I committed... whatever the hell they were.

My eyes are going weird. I had cataract surgery on both a month and a half ago and I can't stand bright light and sometimes I can see for miles. In fact the farther away something is the better I can see it - which is the total opposite of what I've had the whole rest of my life before now. I need the darkest possible sunglasses but the stuff at the local drug store only goes so dark. Anybody have a lead on really REALLY dark sunglasses? I need them bad. Apparently I am not producing enough tears so they have me on these tear=producing drops. I mean wtf, I can't sit there watching Schindler's List (which is a movie it is officially "OK" for guys to cry at) everyday just to get my eyes wet y'know.

I am continuing to struggle between this spiritual ideal I have had in my head since forever and the complete nihilism that seems like so much truth anymore.

I am very much looking forward to Ken Burns' latest effort at PBS to be shown this Fall called "Prohibition" despite the fact that he basically gave my White Sox the Finger in his last episode of "Baseball" called the 10th Inning (he gave more time to the asshole Cubs' continued failure as an idea than the 3 FARCO seconds he gave the White Sox for winning it all in '05) and his nagging, bothersome apologetics for the South's destructive and heinous passion for State's Rights (which has caused more death, misery and anger in this country than any other single failed concept) in his Civil War. I find his overblown pandering nonsense comforting somehow.

I'm going to watch the Sox play the Tigers on TV in a second. have a nice night.

Sneak A Peek At The Cover...

2011-07-16T14:55:00.000-05:00

2011-07-05T09:05:00.001-05:00

Pah HA HA HA HA HA HA HA... meh...

2011-06-30T13:53:00.004-05:00

So Congress failed to "defund" the Libya thing after all. And there are no war crimes trials being done on President Obama for skirting the "War Powers" Act. All the huff and puff and smoke about the Constitution has faded away. And life goes on as we know it. All the "greatly concerned," "important" and overwrought comments and articles by serious American patriots worried about the erosion of constitutional law in this land (that they only just thought of now, decades after Grenada) ended up being the usual partisan bullshit once again.

And so much for the bluster and indignation of serious-minded people who want to save America from this dangerous black guy in the White House. The GOP has once again manipulated their base on an issue, then walked away from the issue, leaving a steaming pile on shit on the President, which was their only goal anyway, but no real resolution to their manufactured indignation. I don't know what pisses me off more, that normally intelligent, reasonable people continue to allow themselves to be manipulated by country club Republicans, or that the Democrats have no fight in them. The Dems remind me of the old phrase we used to use in the drug days - "he can see the cars, he just can't get out of their way."

Now we've moved on to the debt limit.

In this act the GOP will take their position all the way down to the wire, vehemently demanding no tax adjustments whatsoever and a cut in Social Security and Medicare, until the midnight hour when the the deal both sides have already made will go into motion and the debt ceiling will be raised without any real alteration in anything we can think of off the top of our heads, and the whole thing will not only be forgotten but no one will be able to say what they actually did about it. Then it'll be "it wasn't all we wanted but we have to take little steps to get where we're going."

The truth is that if the debt ceiling isn't raised and the USA defaults on its paper the world economy will smash into a million little pieces and if you think it is bad now you ain't seen nothin' yet. Anyway that's the argument President Reagan used when he wanted the ceiling lifted, and nobody said a whisper about the budget deficits he racked up. They still don't.

But there are political points to make and more steaming piles of shit to leave on President Obama's doorstep that he'll just step over on the way to the next act because he's presumably too dumb to recognize what's going on - OR he's already in "I'm the adult in room" mode (which is what will get him re-elected). And no doubt we'll have to listen to the same "concerned" and "important" commentators - amateur and professional alike - about whatever the hell the next terribly significant issue is that will ruin the country, the Constitution, motherhood, God and baseball.

Or we'll just toss out another tweeting Congressman proud of his balls or something. That always acts as a kind of analgesic. Doesn't really deal with the pain, just makes you forget you have it.

In the meantime there's drug tests for people before they get that awesomely huge welfare check, the campaign to keep GAWD in the Pledge of Allegiance, and all the other bullshit commonly associated with Wal-Mart America's campaign to make this the single most prosaic, irritating, provincial, reactionary, knee-jerk, peckerwood haven, anti-intellectual shit hole of a country you and Abe Lincoln ever saw.

Happy Fourth of July. For duty and humanity... or whatever...

A Month Of Sundays

2011-06-28T13:48:00.005-05:00

Hi. My name is RW. I used to run a blog here, long ago. My posts were up quite regularly and I was happy to participate in a handful of my favorite blogs other people made. I work in a print shop and have interests. I eat food and sleep in a bed when I'm not sleeping on the floor of my office when my back is sore because that somehow helps it don't ask me why. I was born in Chicago and the year I was born Eisenhower was President and the Dodgers were still in Brooklyn. And the A's were still in Philadelphia - which I could never figure out because the Phillies sucked for a generation and the A's were run by Connie Mack and not only had championships but entire dynasties and yet they ended up being the team that left Philadelphia. And though there is a soft spot in my heart for the Phillies what about a bunch of studly guys being named after girl horses? What's that all about anyway? Also I have lost 22 pounds since Christmas but can't seem to bust below 190 which is still my goal. I do a little writing on the side and am co-creator of Thrice Magazine. I have an agent who is busy trying to sell my current novel and I'm about a fourth way finished with another. I bought GT Solar (SOLR) when it was $5.51 a share and still have it. I'm married to MrsRW since 1978 and we have two daughters and one granddaughter and... oh I probably didn't say... but we have another grandchild on the way but we don't know who it is yet. This one will appear as if by magic in December.

I have to leave for work in half an hour and I haven't made my lunch yet but I somehow feel strangely compelled to write down all this useless, trivial shit as if there are people still reading here and I can't actually explain why. I haven't been here in a while because every time I wondered if I should write something here I ended up saying who gives a shit - but not in a forlorn, nobody-likes-me way but rather in a what's=the-big-deal-anyhow kind of way. There's a big difference and I also feel compelled to make that clear because I'm not feeling sorry for myself I just don't feel like talking much, and if you knew me you'd know that's true because if I ever got backed into a corner my answer would be homicide - not suicide - and all my best friends would vouch for that. So it's more like I'd open to the New Post screen, write a few words, and then just flip the screen the finger and go do something else.

My eyes are real good now since the cataract surgery though I don't know about these bifocal lenses, I still can't read very well and need cheaters so far. They tell me it'll be okay within 6 months but I don't know. Whatever. Now all I have to do is figure out how to pay for this all beyond the insurance. I have to go for an EKG this weekend because they didn't like what my heart was doing when I went for the surgery and almost didn't do it but I've had a balky ticker since I was born. Just beats when it wants ever since I can remember and my regular doctor says what's the big fuss, we don't treat these kinds of things but the hospital where I had my eye surgery didn't know me that well so there I go.

Anyway I just thought I'd come along and say hi again because I miss some of you and I'm not dead yet. So... you know... hi and all...

Keeping Your Eyeball on the Ball

2011-05-29T10:02:00.007-05:00

So next Friday I go for the second cataract surgery and if the left eye is any indication of how good my vision will be when they're done after they take the patch off I'll be able to look right through the back of your head.

The difference is astonishing in the eye they've done already; just in general brightness. At work we have these large spools of wire and that wire is transformed into staples that keep the booklets we make together. Out of my new eye the wire on the spool is a bright, sparkling silver. But if I close my left eye and look at it with the eye they haven't done yet it is a dirty, musty gold. And before the operation my right eye was the good one!

It's incredible what you settle for.

It's also amazing how they worked it. I am a guy who has never in his entire life had any surgery of any kind ever done. I've never even had a broken bone that needed setting or anything. I'm also of a weak constitution when it comes to pictures of bloody, squiggly innards. When my wife watches a show where they're doing a real-time surgery or something I depart for the kitchen or elsewhere. I can't watch. I can't even watch when they show operations on animals to save their cute, furry little lives.

So imagine my first surgery. "Oh hai Bob. We're going to give you your very first surgical experience and we're going to CUT OPEN YOUR EYE.

"MAAAAAAAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!"

I thought about all the things you'd expect. Knives coming at me. What if I blink? I like blinking. I usually blink when people come close to my eyes. That kind of thing.

But, as you'd expect (I wouldn't because I'm an idiot), my procedure wasn't the very first eye surgery in the world and they've pretty much got this stuff figured out by now. I remember some good drugs going in and the Indian guy numbing the eye, and a nice girl putting a soft strap over my forehead and then some sing-songy person saying "we're going to tilt you back now" and I'm so loopy I'm all "ok. Do whatever you want. Chop off my nose? That's a good idea, I'll just wait here."

There were shapes and dark colors and I imagine that was the start of the operation and the next thing I know I'm sitting in a chair with a patch over my eye and my hand in a bag of Famous Amos Chocolate Chips.

They let me get my head back. I get dressed. Wife takes me home.

The patch is removed next morning. I am completely floored at how good I can see through it. All I can say is - astonishing.

The very worst part of the whole thing is walking around for two weeks with one great eye and one eye that's still all Farco Barnes. It's okay to drive, I focus ahead and the brain shuts off the right eye like "I don't need your shit" but at work it's a bit disconcerting. I have to go up close, arm's length, far away, back to close and so far I haven't come back home once without a raging headache.

I'm making the most of it though. My first day back to work, three days after the operation, I looked at my guys and said "Jesus, you people are ugly." So I got some points there.

Can't wait for Friday, and can't wait for a week from today when the second patch comes off. I've got to do eye drops for a month - three different kinds every six hours, ten minutes apart. Yeah... geez. It's a pain. But the whole thing is worth it. I've worn glasses since I was in 2nd Grade. I'm 57. I didn't even know what I looked like without glasses because whenever I looked in the mirror without them - I couldn't see me!

It's going to be a short transition period. Then I'll probably get some Preparation H to tighten up the saggy bags under my eyes. It's a model's trick. Got to be runway ready y'know...

DON'T LAUGH

2011-05-27T16:34:00.004-05:00

These are the people who will put Sarah Palin in the White House.

Little Nothings

2011-05-03T13:38:00.008-05:00

Yesterday I was taking the MINI in for it's yearly check-up at the doctor's office and shelling out $600 worth of tune-up shtick and so forth. It's just a "drive in when you feel like it we'll be done in a couple hours" set-up so I always go to the bookstore a little ways down the road to browse, read and have some coffee while I wait.

Of course all this does is reinforce the fact that I find it difficult to read fiction for pleasure any more. I don't get the same enjoyment from it that I used to. It doesn't have anything to do with editing Thrice because when I'm reading submissions people send that's for a whole other reason and I am actively looking for things. I'm talking about the feeling I got when I discovered Bruno Shulz or quite accidentally fell upon the genius of Flann O'Brien (aka Brian O'Nolan). It's not happening for me any more.

It's not because there aren't great things going on out there, even great old things I probably haven't discovered yet. The problem is I can't help but look at everything with a critical eye now. Again that's not because of the Thrice gig. It's more because I've grown more and more vicious regarding my own stuff and I find it carrying on to everything I read.

I mean it's not wholly unusual. Many's the time I would be reading, even in my yoot, something like, say, Arthur Conan Doyle. And I'd be happily wallowing in the atmosphere of the Great Detective's world only to come upon YET ANOTHER example of Doyle's stilted, ridiculous, unreal, affected, and amateurish dialog and throw the book across the room in disgust. So this isn't a new phenomenon.

It's just I find the feeling enhanced as of late.

Like I said, it's not just me-to-others. Mostly it's me-to-myself. I'll open up work I did just yesterday and I don't like the sentence structure or I see that this would have been better said with 40% less verbiage, or that whole paragraph has all the signs of being overworked, or this vignette has no business anywhere in the work at all. And I delete with relish. I think - and this is no exaggeration - I must write 40,000 words for every 2,000 I keep. And that's a conservative estimate.

So I either obviously suck at this or I'm hyper-anal. I guess it depends which day you catch me.

Back at the bookstore - I picked up two "literary" magazines. You know, the well-funded kind nobody in real life actually reads. And I'm going through them and I keep shaking my head. No no no. Oh God don't say it that way. Are you trying to be Victor Hugo? And so forth.

I finished my coffee and decided to head back to the car, convinced I could easily contribute something to either one of these two booklets in the future since what they're accepting is just so much shit.

And then I get home and go through my pile of things never submitted anywhere, only to find I don't like anything in it and no matter what I sent it would need a major overhaul before I'd feel good about presenting it. And there I am, convinced I could do better than these shmucks one minute and certain I don't have anything worthwhile to send the next.

Welcome to my world.

Well that's my lament today. In thirty minutes I've got to go off to my real job. 40 hours in three days begins in 3... 2... 1.

It's okay though. It was pointed out to me that, though my schedule is intense and all-consuming for 72 hours, I only actually work twelve days a month. That's a sustaining thought anyway.

----------------------------------------------------
Oh and, may I be permitted a "blast from the past" from an old blog post of mine? Why yes. Yes I may...

SEPARATED AT BIRTH...?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I just got done telling someone how I dislike celebrating revenge and now I go and republish this photo set. Just kill me now...

Didn't Feel Like Making The Bullets Though

2011-04-26T01:41:00.007-05:00

This was always one of those strange, enigmatic paintings that make you look twice. Ferdinand Hodler's Night from 1890. It's just a little disturbing unless you don't really look at it. Um... what?? Doesn't look like the dude is too happy with it.

Yes and after last night's list I'm sure you see by now that I am attracted to things that are just a little bit off. Oh well... "I cannot fiddle, but I can make a great state of a small city."

Since I'm up most of the night now I just came in from setting out the garbage for the service in the morning. I got some kind of strange little joy rumbling out the garbage can at 1:30 in the morning - the shank of my day - while everybody on the street is asleep.

Got some news today that's kind of interesting. I'm going to have to have surgery on both my eyes to remove cataracts that have decided to hitch a ride. Both eyes. I guess they're pretty bad and when I told the family I got a lecture about how I don't take care of myself. Things don't change much. Anyway these operations are nothing anymore. I get to have a happy pill and when I'm done I won't have to wear glasses anymore, I'm told. And I'm not sure how I feel about that because I've worn glasses since the third grade. I can't even tell you what I look like without glasses. I'm not even sure I WANT to be without glasses. I'll keep you posted. I don't know when this is all going down.

The lack of interest in Facebook and blogs on my part towards others and others towards me has entered another week. I'm not totally sure what to say at this point. I don't want to talk to angry white conservatives anymore. I don't really have an interest in trends. I had a really good idea the other day. Dave2 wrote this cool posting about how he came up with the artwork for the first issue of Thrice. So I was going to do this bit of me going through the stories with empty liquor bottles and mussed up hair and an original concept drawing of a bunch of squiggles as the goal and clocks saying it's late at night and me getting more and more frazzled. And in my head it was pretty funny but then the idea of taking pictures of myself in various conditions just seemed kind of stupid and I dropped it. So just imagine it, k?

It's all due to a lack of enthusiasm I think. Not that all enthusiasm is gone for everything. Far from that. I'm in the usual dead zone that you get into 20,000 words into a novel where you think it's all shit and you want to start on something else. That usually lasts a week or so and then after trying some detours you're back at the first thing you dropped again. Happens all the time. The last thing I did at about this point I just started over. And I've got four starts for this latest thing and hate them all. Just part of the process I think.

I'm ending a 5 day weekend. It was like a little vacation except for the fact that I had to have the stuffing in my ears I picked up in Florida evacuated from my poor impacted ear canals, the eye doctor's appointment and that news, plus the Easter thing (I'm just not a big fan of the traditional Easter fare I think. In fact I think it's becoming more and more inedible to me). Because it's a Catholic company I work for and the work is overnight we didn't go in on Thursday because that would have taken us into Good Friday and that's a no-no. So we worked Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday instead of Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday for 40 hours plus after 5 days off I'll get an extra 8 hours pay for the holiday. Pretty sweet. I hear Thanksgiving is a 6 day weekend around these parts. Well, after my operation at least I'll be able to see what the plant actually looks like!

Plus I am overcome with the idea that if I were the manager of the 1959 Washington Senators I bet I could have made a run for the pennant that year. But maybe that's a book idea. I can't tell any more.

That's it for now kiddies. Ended up once again needing a dump truck to unload my head. For a guy with nothing to say I sure blab a lot.

the schooling

2011-04-25T05:22:00.003-05:00

Through the magic of the internet, you can scan these links while the music is going. Then you can get a degree in RWism! Just what you always wanted!

Julian Macleren-Ross
Francis Stuart
Delmore Schwartz
Julien Gracq
Against Nature
Andre Breton
Flann O'Brien
Dead Souls
Tarantula
Kay Boyle
Arthur Rimbaud
Ann Quin
The Manuscript Found In Saragossa
Robert Musil - The Man Without Qualities
Borges
WE
Knut Hamsun
The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
Bruno Schulz
Gombrowicz

Reflecting Pool - Part Two

2011-04-18T00:12:00.005-05:00

If the opening part of this series didn't bore you enough already I'm about to go into the second part. So if you're passing through you've been warned! You remember this right? It's where i transcribe the self-indulgent notes I wrote to myself about myself by myself at the pool that one week. How self-absorbed can a person get? Well if you're me apparently pretty much. If you need a refresher on this first part go here. If not, don't worry. This can't last too much longer.
---------------------------

The chances are pretty good I'm really not who you may think I am. Maybe I'm not boring, but I can very easily be a boor. Two different things. So much so that it would probably wear thin on you after a while and you'd quickly be looking for something else to do. I'm the guy who asks the stupid, embarrassing and/or unrelenting question that spoils the party, send good and friendly drinking binges into an existential slumber, and ruin Christmas wondering aloud why the neighbor has put a life-sized Santa in his life-sized manger Jesus baby scene. In fact I'll probably want to go over and ask him about it unless you stop me. And the fact of the matter is that the more I drink the deeper that kind of shit gets.

It would be wrong of you to think - at the very moment I've had my ninth vodka lemonade or something - that something profound was going on or something great and noble and wise was about to happen. There may be a germ of something in the babble you'd hear, but hell if I knew what it meant. In fact one of the methods I sometimes use when I do the fiction writing is to work under the influence. I know enough to know that it will shake some ideas out of the stuck place but make no mistake - I have to then struggle with it for hours, sober, to make it readable and understandable. Otherwise it's just the usual unmitigated crap you'd expect from somebody who had too much to drink just then. No I don't do it often. I would get nothing done at all. I'd just spend my time scurrying around trying to figure out what the bloody hell i was getting at. That method is just a matter of kicking at the plaque that collects around an idea in the brain.

Then again if ever we find ourselves at a wedding, a party or any place where that kind of thing is allowed and I have not destroyed it with politics or religion or telling children that there's no such thing as the Easter Bunny, you just might see this old guy still bring some Cabaret Metro style moves to the dance floor. A sad thing? I think not. I'm not bad, actually. Some people call my dancing quirky. Others political. Anarchistic. Evocative of the 80's origins of the hip hop to come. My wife just says it's embarrassing.

So you see I am a bundle of contradictions. For example I truly love my city - not living in Chicago is a strange, scary idea. Yet the idea that there are better places to live than America is not one that bothers me. I'm sure there are. Paris. Dominica. Dublin. Zihuatanejo on Mexico's pacific coast. Any place in Spain. Hell, if I could find a place that had all the stuff in it that Chicago has - minus the willful, proudly ignorant provincials and sickeningly patriotic religionists, national supremacists and run of the mill bigot bible whores who believe any line of bullshit that already feeds their corrupted, under-educated narrow little minds that have the run of the USA - I'd jump at the chance. So long as I could take my granddaughter with me, that is.

Even then I'd end up missing Chicago and have to go back sooner or later if only for a little while. That's just how I roll.

I want to tell the people who stomp the ground and swear to high heaven that their hatred of Barack Obama is not based on the fact that he's black that it may not be obvious to them but they're covering it up poorly and shut up and go back to their Klan meeting. But on the other hand I really don't care what anybody thinks about Barack Obama because really he's nothing special and who cares if he gets bounced next election? All Presidents end up the same kind of crap anyway. So I pretty much just sit and stew any more.

I want to tell all the over-zealous vegans who pour blood on innocent people that I just love hearing pigs squeal when they get whacked because it makes them taste better yum. But on the other hand I'm pretty pissed off at the mega blaster corporate food industry ever since I saw this movie. So I just go about my business and live the damn day out whatever it is.

I want to give stuff away to people who have nothing but I want a 40-room mansion with an enclosed pool for the winter. I want to call myself a philosophical anarchist but would jump at the chance to be a dictator. I'm a recorded member of a pacifist peace church (Quakers) but I fantasize about pushing the teeth back into the throat of any run-of-the-mill Pat Robertson you could think of with my fist.

On top of all this I'm certainly not the guy to trust with a secret. Not because I'd wait for my chance and maliciously spill the beans at the precise moment meant to embarrass you to the greatest possible degree - but because at some point I just forgot it's a damn secret.

So don't tell me nothin'. Really.

(Next and final installment - "Tassels on your God damn stupid ass entrepreneur loafers with a sport coat you prick.")

All 4 nao.

A Short Aside

2011-04-15T06:27:00.004-05:00

I will resume the reflection pool thing in a day or so, but in the meantime I saw this picture and just had to post.

Here is the Libyan dictator's daughter whats-her-name being "defiant."

And I can just hear her reasoning...

So, I'm going to go out and stand behind this podium festooned with cheap-ass electric Christmas lights that look like they're from 1954. I'm going to stand next to this thing that looks like a bombed-out toilet wall combined with some kind of Tim Burton iron sculpture representing something I don't know what.

I'm going to go out there with this face that will have people searching the web for better pictures of me and put this look on it like I've been completely sheltered from reality and have had any kind of harsh truth hidden from me all my life. I have a pretty dress and a pretty thingee that goes around my head and my hand is raised.

You can tell by the look on my face, and the fact that I'm very very happy to see a camera taking a picture of meeeee, that this is my defiant stance. We're the Kadaffies, or however the hell you spell it from one year to the next, and we run this.

Did you get my good side? I'm going to be Queen someday. Queen of busted mud huts and cracked toilet walls and bad light decorations that make no sense at all. Exposed electric cords and all. But this is Libyan expertise in action.

Aren't we great?

Did you get my good side/

Reflecting Pool - Part One

2011-04-10T16:51:00.005-05:00

I am beside a pool alone with a pen, a notebook, sunglasses, lotion and a Minute Maid lemonade spiked with too much vodka the bartender added for me. My wife is in her conference hall conferencing. There's some kind of music on my iPod and there's a copy of the Rough Guide To Cult Fiction down by my feet just in case there's nothing in this pen after all.

I was here like this yesterday and I'll be here like this tomorrow until the evenings when MrsRW will be done with her stuff and we can go to dinner. She knows, better than anyone else, that I am doing exactly the one thing I long for during get-aways. Poolside pen and paper. And lemonade. Cough.

The fact is that even with all the other options around there is basically nothing else I'd rather be doing right at this moment.*** I suppose I could go to the amusement parks around. It's Florida, after all. I could strike up a conversation with some of my fellow conference widows and widowers. I could go see people I know - even family in a couple places fairly close by. But I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing right at this moment. I find I am capable of being equally happy being alone as anything else.

I mentioned to my wife on the way down here on the plane that after careful observation it occurs to me that I can't be insulted. I mean to say you can certainly try, and I'm certain you can find a bunch of things I should be embarrassed about or weaknesses I have that make me very vulnerable. Anything can be said and I am one person who is very far from perfect and bullets are easy to find for me. But the point is you won't get the desired effect. Your shots would certainly hit meat but I'd probably just sit there. I think I've come to the point where the days of taking offense about challenged honor and feeling required to mete out punishment to my detractors are pretty much a thing of the past. It seems to me that before a person can be so sullied as to fight back he'd have to actually care what other people think about him. And there ya go.

Anyway we start from there.

But as I look around the pool there are all the usual suspects. All the types you might imagine at a pool at a hotel at a vacation destination. Kids are jumping and splashing and their parents are making believe they're reading and talking but everybody knows one eye is on the kids. There's people sunning, smiling, making like they're not secretly checking each other out. The women do that the best. Nobody's writing anything but me though. And what I think I see are people who mostly don't like the idea of being alone for any length of time. Whereas for myself I find that I like people very much and I do need contact and interaction from time to time, the thought of protracted periods of time in complete solitude leave me completely untroubled. In fact it sounds like pure bliss.

Oh and just so you know - I am writing this with a pen on actual paper. And so far I haven't stopped or edited one word or phrase since the first word up there (and I'm fighting hard to resist it now as I type it up here.)

Now if you don't know any better you might be someone reading this right now thinking "I'd like to go hang out by the pool with you there RW" but - like I said - if you didn't know any better. Because, really, I'm exceptionally dull. Very dull, in person anyway to be sure. I've always felt I'm a hundred times better a communicator using the written word than with actual verbal interaction. I think too slow for people. Everybody wants to go vaseline machine gun when they talk and I'm careful and slow. So what happens is that I end up being just very willing to let you or whoever else is with us just go ahead and fill all the dead space they want. I'll just listen.

And yet - even though I try to be careful with what I say - I somehow always (and I mean always) find a way to say something that can easily be taken the wrong way. Not because I'm being purposely insolent or callous or trying to be hurtful, but because I haven't gotten out enough of the background subtext to fully explain what I'm doing and you just ran off with what was out there and now you're all mad at me. You never waited for the footnotes. And now I'll never get the chance to explain it well enough, and so I let you have your ball of shit if that's what you want to go kick around.

I'm sure this comes from living in my head for so long. Not as an enforced condition of some kind but by pure choice. Somewhere along the way I decided that what's going on inside my head is stuff I'd rather be messing with than the stuff going on around me. That's not to exclude important dates; kid's birthdays, anniversaries, my wife's accomplishments or family celebrations. I enjoy all of that. But even then I can't stop being 50% in my head during all that. It's just the way they built me.

It's probably a tactic of self-preservation or just insecurity. I've screwed up enough interactions with people to know that I need to watch myself a little closer than most. I'm usually not in the flow. I'll usually blurt something that doesn't make sense without a thousand word explanation. I've already come to a different conclusion than you've just stated. So the quiet and the fortress inside my head is just a sad little strategy.

I can be standing next to you talking about something totally unimportant and have this image of your head exploding all over my shirt. Or wonder what it would be like if you got crazy mad at me and started punching and kicking the shit out of me. No reason. It just happens in there.

I can watch someone right now dive off the side of the pool and imagine what their head would look like split open on the concrete because they missed. Like something vivid is always just around the corner. And my stomach is even a little tight in anticipation that something is about to happen. Something wild or odd or bad. Exploding chests. Ugly emotional outbursts. Heroic sharts.

So, no, you probably really don't want to be here. And, to be honest, you'd probably keep me from writing. So maybe this is good just like it is.

(NEXT: "I'm probably the opposite of whatever you're thinking I am")

___________________
*** This was written long hand Wednesday April 6

I'm Going To Disappear Now...

2011-04-02T02:10:00.007-05:00

On Sunday April 3, 2011 at some point I am going to get on a plane. They are going to let me sit in the 1st Class section from here to Charlotte and then from Charlotte to Florida. And when I'm done with Florida they're going to put me in 1st Class again from there to Charlotte, and then one more time from Charlotte back home to Chicago (the best city on earth). And in all four of those segments I fully intend to be lit before we even take off, staff willing.

As is the usual case with 1st Class, it has nothing to do with me paying the premium to be able to do that. Instead, it has everything to do with MrsRW's miles, which she works on all year long so that her slug of a husband can travel 1st Class with her when we go on vacation - which is what I am about to do as of April 3, 2011. In case I haven't mentioned that. By the way.

Also this is a picture of Mick Jones when he was with The Clash. More on that later.

When I come back from my vacation - which I am in desperate need of after quitting my last job in February that hadn't paid me a paycheck since Christmas Eve that has since sent 1 of four I'm still waiting for, lobbied with Catholic church ladies to get a job in a print shop that prints stuff for Catholic churches, started working three 13 hour days a week at overnight hours, started a fiction magazine with Dave Simmer, continue to add 2-3,000 words on yet another novel, while I patiently wait for my agent to find a home for the last mess I wrote, working all winter so far on my high school's 40th reunion and oh wait I have a meeting of those folks before I get on that plane - I'm going to get me a new suit.

It's going to be this one because I never get a suit without a vest and that's the color to which I will add a lime green tie and pocket handkerchief because that's how I roll and I have no problem with dressing up when it's called for and can pull it off oh you just wait and see.

Then I'm going to do some painting around the house because during that high school reunion (did I mention it's the class of 1971's 40th?) I'm hosting a reception here at the house for a teacher that I have probably 7 alums and their spouses dying to attend the Friday before the reunion dinner.

Here's a great performance by Big Audio Dynamite...

Which includes Mick Jones who used to be with the Clash and who now looks like this...

A fate which is coming for you too, wiseass. Wait and see.

Anyway the point is I probably won't be around much for the next week. I am toying with the idea, seriously, of leaving my MacBook at home and never going online until I get back, hoping my vacation sounds like this.... (I've posted her stuff before, click play, close your eyes and shut up)

...which is sung in Portuguese I think, but which happens to be (in My O) the sexiest language on the planet regardless. I mean of course Portuguese. Be quiet I'm brooking no argument no matter how many times I had to write that...

Not that we're going anywhere where Portuguese is being spoken (I can only wish), but the sound is what our vacation is about to be like, is the point.

You really want to come with.

But you can't.

see you when I get back. If I can remember my name....

Phisophonby

2011-03-28T08:25:00.005-05:00

The professor stood before the class in the lecture hall and put forth an important question about the symbols and metaphors used by Kafka in "The Metamorphosis." What was the significance of blurb and what was the importance of whack and how do these blurbs and whacks relate to the hurr durr urp etc. etc. And one of the more insignificant students who will never amount to much, sitting in the back by the window through which the dirty city was visible over his shoulder raised his hand and was called on. "I don't think there were any symbols used in that story. I think it's a story about a guy who turns into a bug. And it doesn't mean he works too hard and it doesn't mean his Dad is a meanie. He just wakes up and he's a bug and that's it."

"Well if you say that you take out all the magic involved in the writer's craft," the stodgy professor with the broomstick up his ass said. "We may as well say nothing means anything beyond what you see and the deeper meaning that teaches us things has lost all relevance."

But not so. Actually we have no way of knowing what Kafka was symbolizing. He was just writing and the writer decides on what means what in the context of his own viewpoint and personal universe and until we were to get a clearer understanding of his own personal frame of mind it's impossible to say what meant what. Father's slapping you as a bug equating to the Godhead slapping Adam upside the head for the infidelity of the apple and blah blah blah.

The point is that since we've been able to more or less define up to as many as eleven dimensions I'd put all philosophy on hold. Kierkegaard has to have a sock in it for a while and Kant's cant can take a hike for a bit. We've got to see that there's a difference between the claim that "I think, therefore I am" which is the old world and the new claim that "I am, therefore I think," which if you ponder it has other ramifications.

When I was a little boy they told me the universe had no start and will have no end. It just always was and always will be and that's it. Along with this "God" was an old man in the clouds with a white beard who tossed thunderbolts at people who pissed him off and thought nothing of wiping out half his creation or more in one angry fit of artistic temper gone mad.

As I grew up I learned that the universe started from one singularity and from this point there was a huge explosion and everything happened after that. Coincidentally "God" became a thing in need of no gender (what use WOULD a God have for a... gender... cough cough) who was a lot more magnanimous to some people but still an unstable painter more inclined to cut off your ear than his own. But there was change. Now heaven was open to everybody and God damns nothing anymore. He/She/It can be talked to. Like a peer. Like an old buddy who can give you a break. And yet there's this idea that somehow by praying you can change God's mind. Yeah I'd say that's not bloody likely. But anyway. It was a nicer God up there. Or down there. Or around the corner.

But ever since somebody noticed that the universe's expansion is speeding up instead of doing the slowing down that all the models in physics would have always predicted it should do, people are scratching their heads. There's no real reason why contradictory principles now bouncing off each other in the realm of physics should be able to both be true, and yet the postulates explained by relativity seem to exist over in this section while the postulates explained in the quantum view are true over here. And yet they both can't be true because of their contradictions unless there is another explanation about the universe. And so the Big Bang has been losing ground to the concept of that event not being a singular explosion, but instead a collision of two separate universes, or membranes, that created a third space (where we are now) into which truths from the two sponsoring universes deposited their shit. And I'll get back to you about the "God" part.

Somebody said reality is merely what's been agreed upon by the observers. But that can't be right because the next thing that guy did was create Scientology and he was an idiot. So we can do away with that. he also said we got here from another planet in DC-10s and were dumped down volcanoes that geologists will tell you didn't exist at the time he said all that happened. So screw that noise.

No I think probably this colliding membrane scenario will simply be the next step to whatever the big minds work on after that, hopefully while I'm still alive. Because if we have at some point someone saying "this membrane concept leads me to believe that the universe always was and always will be and God is an old man in the clouds and here are my calculations to prove it" I will be right back where i started and so will everybody else.

And then there's Milnor, the guy whose work proved the existence of at least 7 dimensions (not including their differential structures) and has since been working on hyperspheres. So he's probably the guy to blame for all this.

Then Dave gave me this video past summer, after which I found this one...

In short, to make it a bit simpler, I have WAY too much time on my hands...

I Live In Too Many Worlds

2011-03-18T07:12:00.004-05:00

Too many worlds, too far apart, and end up being no where at all.

This is a lament I have. I do too many things that have nothing to do with one another. See if you can reconcile this...

1. I'm editing a fiction magazine and bringing all my old troops from the alternative zine days to flesh out the ranks. I'm happy to see they are wielding their usual magic, and wait until you see who we've got coming. But I mentioned to Dave that what's funny is that my blog friends have no idea I have all this stuff going on with all these writers and all these writers have no idea I do all this blog stuff. So not only is the magazine one of my worlds, it crosses two other worlds of mine.
2. I'm doing novels and have nothing to give the magazine and because I'm doing long prose and working on it religiously every week I've stepped away from blogging and the internet a lot, which also means commenting on my favorite blogs. So I'm not in any of those places because I'm in the other one.
3. I have a new job where I punch a clock and work on equipment folding and stitching and trimming booklets that Catholic churches use. Do you go to Catholic church? I'll bet you we did your bulletin. Maybe even I did your bulletin. How weird would that be? The guys in the print shop don't know anything about my blog or the magazine or the non-blog writers I count as good friends and long time associates and colleagues, and they don't know I edit a magazine and they don't know I've written two novels and am working on a third. They see my old-school tattoo on my right forearm and how am i supposed to say "it's a lyric from Bob Dylan's first album. I got it in Corpus Christi Texas in 1973"? Most of these guys have death head ornate tats and weren't even alive in 1973. I have a wart older than some of these guys. So anyway I'm in the print shop world, which is connected to the Catholic church world and that life doesn't know anything about this other life.
4. I'm doing, by the way, the best fiction of my life and absolutely nobody knows that part.
5. But wait, it gets stranger.
6. I am the chairperson of the Nominating Committee at my Quaker Meeting. That's the committee that puts together all the rosters for all the other committees (Peace and Social Concerns, Outreach, New Meetinghouse, Worship and Ministry, Treasurer, etc. etc. etc.) and we can't find a Treasurer and people are making sounds like they want it to be me. And though these people know I have a new job and a vague idea that i write shit I've never sat down and versed them fully on it. And yet I go to Meeting for Worship at the Quaker Meetinghouse every Sunday and call committee sessions to decide who gets to do what. They would also be shocked to learn I was into punk rock before I was married.
7. Wait a minute... I think I forgot to mention the magazine to MrsRW. She has no interest in that but she'd probably like to know, ya think?? What a doofus I am...
8. The seeds for my red beets, golden beets and arugula arrived from Burpee and some weekend after the frosts are done I'm going to plant them so I can eventually make my beet-arugula-goat cheese salad because, you know, I'm still trying to cook. Though I only cook now when MrsRW is out of town because she'd rather do the old fashioned comfort food stuff.

So I'm in all these worlds but I'm really not in any world at all.

This is what happens when you live in your head. If any of you have kids ever, make sure they don't do that. Have them live in the world... so they can actually be someplace.

ON EDIT: Oh yeah I didn't even finish...

I'm still involved with Anonymous and in the past few months we've added helping the young reformers in the Arab world set up web sites and get around government internet stoppages in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrein and you just wait for what pops next. We haven't stopped doing our best to expose the fraud and abuse of Scientology and some of us have set up all these mirror sites to get around the service denials the CIA set up to block Wikileaks and I sent money to Julian Assange and absolutely NOBODY in Anonymous knows who anybody else is so that's also part of the theme.

Also don't forget the White Sox are going to win the pennant this year and I already have tickets to a Monday night game between the Sox and the minor league team from the North Side called the Cubs or something. And the people I'm going with that night don't know anything about this other stuff except for the new job thing but that's all.

I'm sure there's more, but it's 7:38 Central, I just got home from work and my 4 day weekend starts right now. But I'm not here either so, well there you go...

The Personal Side Of Music

2011-03-12T04:30:00.005-06:00

It's 4:30 AM Saturday morning. I'm on these hours because it's my new job. I think some people are trying to tell me I don't like this, but I'm up to over 8000 words on the piece "Edwin Musick Falls Apart" I showed everybody the other day and though I don't know where it's going (I never have an outline or a plan or something IMPORTANT to say) I like it a lot. I've already forgotten the two years work on "Think Fast" and can hardly recall what it's about even. So I think anybody who assumes I don't like this schedule, this magnificent isolation on the weekends, I think they don't know me very well.

I've been cruising around the net, going in and out of the writing, hooked up to my iPod all night, even had a couple glasses of absinthe. And I'm into music now.

I've told you regulars a million times that I saw Miles Davis' last performance in Chicago before he died but I simply can't shake it. Every time it comes up on my iPod I can see the whole thing all over again. So if you've heard this one before, sorry - move along.

Though he'd recorded this particular ditty and it was available all along, the way he started it - alone on stage right in a spotlight with all the other musicians silent / fiddling around in an intro that at first had nothing to do with the tune to follow - reaching, experimenting, free form, going after it from another place - I will still never forget the audible gasp that passed over the heads of the audience when we all recognized what he was playing.

I've heard live recordings of it from a couple different sources and none of them are worth spit. In fact most are perfectly awful. What Miles did that night in my Chicago, however, was not recorded and surpassed everything. We were all following whatever he was into, and the intro lasted possibly a whole minute and a half before he brought us in to what he was doing.

The best recording is the studio one. Imagine a long, virtuoso, meandering walk into it followed by what's recognizable to you. I tell you true - it was strangely awesome, if only because nobody in the audience saw it coming.

I know there's no way I can explain it, or get anybody to relive what happened that night. But I'm doing my best.

But you see how it is. You want to have everybody enjoy something that happened to you and there's just no way. And I know there's some kind of strange code or standard or whatevertheFarco about what constitutes fine music or not and some people are downright snob pigs about it if it isn't cool enough. But when I hummed a nursery rhyme tune to my grand daughter when she was just six months old and I took care of her for an evening like Mr Mom that was the best music there ever was. So screw that noise.

Around Town

2011-03-07T15:07:00.004-06:00

Received the Spring 2011 issue of Fred Woodworth's The Match! today and, as usual, two hours later I've finally put it down. In this issue Fred discusses his protest of the BODIES EXHIBITION that lasted every day of 142 days through the searing Tucson heat. As usual Fred draws our attention to yet another item we simply choose to walk past without regard and focuses our attention to it in dramatic fashion. That these cadavers, skinned, posed and plasticized, are obtained by dubious means (some are Chinese police torture victims, some are homeless people, none ever gave permission for the use of their bodies) and translated as objects of "art" or "education" (a plasticized cadaver with a basketball in hand? Really?) for a gullible and desensitized American audience visiting the macabre displays by the hundreds of thousands. Until Fred brought to light the source of the bodies I myself thought nothing of it. But these are the victims of a police state. And his recording of justifications given by customers passing his protest (including "who cares, they aren't Christians.") are enlightening. This along with Fred and cohort's usual articles - including in the regular feature "Crap-Detection Department" which excoriates the hilariously hypocritical reactions of this country to the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords in his own town and the mind-numbing "words of wisdom" from President Obama and the chief of Homeland Security that followed; Fred once again demonstrates that there is a legitimate third and sometimes fourth way of looking at things. Whether you go along with his "Journal of Ethical Anarchism" or not, it remains the best magazine in the country. It's free for the asking, but send some stamps anyway to The Match! PO Box 3012 Tucson, AZ 85702.
-----------------------------------------------------

I'm going through my own entanglement right now regarding the individual facing the "corporate structure." My old job - which I left February 18 - still owes me a little over $5300 (before taxes) for salary left unpaid to me over the last few weeks. I have today sent them a certified mail letter explaining that though it is my right to do so right this second, I am giving them until April 15 to make final payment to me or I will be going to the state and seeking the aid of the Wage Collection Act. Looking at the form the state requires me to fill out makes me think the second I do it he's doomed. As soon as any investigator tries to reconcile my stating there are 5 employees there with the fact that only two ever got paychecks that took taxes out of, he's screwed. It's only because of past kindnesses that I'm allowing a window before applying for my rights. More than that, though, I'd rather not drag the government into it on principle. They clearly state it may take up to a year to collect the money from the offending company, and the whole process skirts by the right way to do it - which is to handle it between individuals without the intrusive involvement of a corrupt state like Illinois. Part of me wants to handle it face to face and part of me feels a bit impotent in the face of promises already broken. I hate to be an active critic of government and then rely on it to function in my behalf. There's something very Tea Party about that and it bothers me to no end. I hope he just comes up with the money he owes me.
------------------------------------------------------

I'm very much enjoying the fact that it is Monday afternoon and I am still on my weekend, that I have been on since very early Friday morning and won't end until tomorrow at 3:30 in the afternoon. 24 more hours of liberty as I write this... it's fantastic, I must admit. The bad thing that happened is that I gained almost 2 pounds because I slacked my eating habits last week toward convenience. My goal this year was to get under 200 pounds and stay there. I started at 213 and last week was at 197, but am back to just a tick over 199 now. So the "oh what the hell" stops for Whoppers and Egg McMuffins is hereby over. I'm such a damn hypocrite sometimes. And then I laugh about it. Not good.
------------------------------------------------------

There's going to be some exciting news around here in the field of the written word (no not the book that is currently making the rounds with an actual agent but just as fun) and it's going to include a familiar name or two, so stay tuned.
------------------------------------------------------

I think I need a small libation right about now because, y'know, it's still the weekend like I said. Catch you all later.

More Things On The List

2011-03-05T10:18:00.008-06:00

Absent-mindedly listing some things to do before I finally croak. It's good to have plans but it's one thing to seek the impossible and another to try and see what is doable, even at some stretch of the imagination.

I tend to look at "bucket lists" as being kind of silly because they always usually include really ridiculous and impossible things that are a flight of fancy but are completely unattainable, if not downright unrealistic. The practice is dumb enough without putting things on it that end up being totally stupid.

Yet here I am doing it, tempered by the notion that a realistic list means more than a completely stupid one you're never going to do.

So here are 4 (more) things to add to the list - the rest of which I don't think I ever wrote down anyway, actually - of things to do before I circle the drain and get sucked into the vortex of who-knows-whatever the hell comes next if anything. These are at least somewhat realistic and therefore worth working on...

1. Gibralter

I'm fascinated by the south of Spain because the bullfights are still authentic there (don't hate on me for almost putting bullfight on this list, it's a Hemingway thing okay?) and this is where, I'm told, the idea of tapas came from. And of course that area would be the ultimate venue of choice but, barring that higher echelon of fantasy what really intrigues me is Gibraltar. This is because you have the weather and general nature of southern Spain but you have a preponderance of English being understood anywhere you go. And since I am lazy and American and therefore it is impossible for me to learn any language but the bastardized English we speak here in the states it seems like a good idea. Plus it is not often thought of as a destination, and yet looking at the photos of some of the narrow, winding streets and the overall geography of the odd little place, I'd at least like to try it out and see if my assumptions about this amalgam of Spanish/English thing is what I think it is. Anyway it's probably the hardest on this list but it is, at least, reasonable.

2. Great Grandchildren

There are, of course, a lot of factors involved in this one, but I'm part way there already, sort of. It just has to take some time to get up to that capability. But the thing is I was born in the early 1950's. This means that I knew people who were born in the 19th century and already know people who were born in this, the 21st century. So it's neat to remember the faces of people who were alive when there was a Kaiser and a Czar of Russia, match them up with the faces of people who were around when we landed on the Moon, and look upon the faces of people who never knew, and will never know, a time when there wasn't such a thing as a cell phone or a computer, both of which will be second nature to them as is milk or air. And I just think that's kind of neat, because I know of people born in the 20th century who never met anyone from the 19th and nyah nyah.

3. Open Air Cockpit

A long-standing fantasy of mine - and one that manifested itself in the notion that in a past life I was a member of the Lafayette Escadrille (since debunked, to my way of thinking) has always centered (since I was a small boy) around the exotic aircraft of WWI. Meaning, more than anything else, flying in an open-air cockpit of a plane powered by propeller. Flying lessons being out of the question (that's not what I want) I have looked around for passenger flights and almost got hold of one. There was a service out of a small regional prop-job airport locally that gave such rides to Chicago and back but it went out of business the very summer I had the money set aside to do it. This is still possible and even likely but until I find the time.money/way to get it done it's still on the list. Dammit.

4. Sibelius' 5th

To see a live performance of Sibelius' 5th Symphony, my all time most favorite symphonic (it was written in the 20th century and therefore technically not "classical music") work of all time. This is the only music I have ever heard in my life where my eyes will fill up with wet stuff and I'm not even drunk! I have the whole thing on my iPod but to see it live would sweep me away I know for a fact. And I even put my name on the mailing list of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to keep my eye peeled for a performance if ever they get around to it.

So you see the difference, I think, between possible bucket list shit and ridiculous bucket list shit. It's better to not stray too far from what is possible, I think.

What I'm Looking For

2011-02-28T14:36:00.003-06:00

Yet another post on the work change. Sorry. It's a rather big step at this point. There is still a legitimate question about being on my feet for a whole shift (it's 3 13 hour days folks. That's kinda scary. A little). Health issues. Stuff I didn't have 14 years ago, the last time I was in a print shop.

I'll be working on equipment as pictured here, btw.

I don't want to have to have an opinion. I don't want to have to talk to young entrepreneurs (most of whom - by my experience - are selfish, conceited, snobbish, unaware of their own foibles and sometimes just outright pricks) any more. I don't want to produce a number out of thin air or sit in meetings where people spend hours looking at charts and Power Point and coming to the same decision they would have four hours before anyway.

I don't want to sit in a bar at a convention and have people look at my watch or other people's watches or talk about how much they nailed down in new commissions last month. I don't want to sit at booths at trade shows and say the same thing over and over again to people who are just trying to look interested but really just want to go home.

I'm tired of having to look and sound like an expert at anything. Tired of talking about politics. Tired of caring about the latest news going on in the country or outside the country, or who said what to enrage who about what on the radio or the TV. Who is screwing who in Hollywood.

I remember standing in a gas station about a year ago this time and listening to people talk. Listening to their cadences. The words they skipped over. The fact that nobody talks in complete sentences. I started putting it into what I was writing. The way people actually talk. Not what reads best. Using the exact phrases and expressions. I remember how the book Huckleberry Finn used the language of the time to create a masterpiece. I remember seeing a couple guys standing there talking about the work they were going to do that day. And I remembered all the times people in one strata of the working world would go out of their way to cut down people like these. And I recall participating, being so smug and special now that I was wearing clean shoes every day, in those days.

And every once in a while I'd feel a little envious of the surety. The 1 -2 - 3.

I used to say - wow, what a relief it would be to be on the clock again. Just come in, do your work, punch out and not have to generate a plan of attack for tomorrow. A presentation in the morning. An organizational excuse. To not have to have a strategy. A four step program to greater success. And then have to have other people judge you on what you think and how you think it.

Of course you're not supposed to take steps back. I can tell you right now that people are already working on how they're going to explain themselves at our high school reunion this year. You can count on it. Well I started out on the crew but now I'm the General Manager to the Vice President In Charge Of Looking Out The Window. Well I'm between jobs right now but molecular epidemiology is my field of expertise.

I'm going to say I print and cut and fold stuff. Let people figure it out from there. Say what they want. Think what they want. Kick themselves for pumping up their status and their position so it sounds real good in the program.

But that's not what I'm trying to say in this post. It's not even where I wanted it to go. It's what I'm looking for that counts right now.

Since the late 90's, when I started on the road to corporate/national sales and blah blah blah, I never did jobs I wanted to do. I did the jobs I had to do, and jumped on every opportunity that just laid itself out for me. And I kind of got away from myself in the bargain. It wasn't until I started saying - admitting - that this wasn't the direction I ever wanted that I started back into seriously, purposefully writing again. I was too busy pushing my energy into travel and sales goals and taking this ridiculously unattractive persona and making it presentable to people. Meeting decision makers. Talking to people with those stupid tassels on their shoes.

And I'm sure I'm romanticizing it. But I do remember being in a mix of people I understood, for all their faults. And my faults. And our warts. You could bite into a wet Italian beef sandwich (it's a Chicago thing, sorry) and drip down your chin and onto the wax paper it was wrapped in and no one is sitting there going "oh heavens, how uncouth." You could stop in a tavern on a Friday and the first thing you buy with a paycheck is a big greasy Reuben with a pitcher of beer. For yourself. Go to poker games where there weren't mixed drinks. Or go to poker games at all. Bowling. What about bowling? You could go bowling.

It's relative, of course. This milieu is full of it's own bullshit too. But at least it'll be my bullshit. The bullshit I'm used to, instead of the rarefied kind I've been in for the last 14 years. There's something to that I think.

We'll see.

Sometimes I Don't Know If I Should Keep Going Or Not. Please Don't Answer Like A Sycophant

2011-02-23T21:45:00.003-06:00

The opening of "Edwin Musick Falls Apart"

I

"You've said that before, Dad. You've said it a hundred times before. You always say the same God damn thing every time we watch this movie. You see this movie a hundred times and a hundred times you say the same God damn thing at the same God damn place."
"All I'm saying is Bing Crosby wasn't wearing a jacket in the scene where they walk into the church, and then two seconds later when they light the candles inside he's got a jacket on. Where'd the jacket come from? It’s just another one of those things. People don’t look at it, but pick any movie and there’s cameras in mirrors and microphones overhead and everything. Pick a movie. They screw up all the time."
"And every time you see that shit you say the same thing in the same way every fucking time. Where did the salt shaker go on the table? Why are there no shadows if it’s late afternoon? Why do they have Eddie Collins batting righty in the Black Sox movie? Same thing every damn movie. I don’t know why I come over to watch this shit with you. I really don’t”
“I like it when you come over to watch movies.”
“Yeah but when are you going to come up with something new to say about it? You repeat yourself over and over."
"You don't think it's interesting?"
"Actually Dad? It's fucking boring."
"What about the car you can see in that John Wayne movie? That western where they're going all over buttfuck looking for that girl?"
"I know. I know all about it. You pointed it out to me every time. He shoots the buffalo so the Indians won’t get any meat from it and then there’s a car. I know. We’ve seen it a hundred times, and every time we see it you have to tell me about it all over again. I already fucking know there’s a car. I already fucking know Bing Crosby’s all of a sudden wearing a jacket in the church." The son lights a cigarette.
Edwin Musick pushes four or five peas onto his fork with his fingers. He’s almost done with his plate. He wishes his son would go home already. “And you shouldn’t be smoking those things.”
“Right, Dad.”
“They killed your mother.”
“I know it.”
Everybody said when his wife died twelve years ago he’d fall apart. They had no idea how right they’d be. They should have included his son in that falling apart.
Sometimes Edwin thinks his son is really a prick.
Here he is retired and his wife is dead. There’s never anything to do and it’s hard for him to get around. His son comes over and doesn’t like anything. Then he stinks up the place and goes home mad. Every time. Talk about saying the same thing every time, Edwin thinks, what the hell about that?
“Well, people bought this shit back then,” he points at the screen with his fork. “Now he’s going to take these punks from the street and turn them into a choir because he’s a priest and a fucking genius too. One day they’re stealing turkeys and the next day they’re on the stage with a famous opera singer – who it just so happens he went to high school with. People ate that shit up.”
His son sits behind a cloud of blue smoke. Silent and shaking his head. Watching him point the silverware at the TV, the ceiling, at him. It’s not that he hopes he dies or anything. He’s not that much of a prick. But sometimes he can’t see the point in the old man staying around anymore.
“You could slap a movie together in a few weeks and make a ton of money back then. People didn’t care. Look at Casablanca. They didn’t know it was going to be such an icon. They didn’t know what they had. They just slapped it together. They couldn’t get the people they wanted in it. And when they first come in to Rick’s first Greta Garbo is sitting on one side of her husband and then she’s on the other side from one shot to another.”
“Ingrid Bergman.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You said Greta Garbo.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Dad, you said Greta Garbo is sitting on one side and then the other.”
“No I didn’t. It was Ingrid Bergman.”
“What the fuck ever.”
“What I’m saying is people didn’t care. And now we see all these mistakes and we think, Jesus how stupid were they? But I’m saying people didn’t care. They wanted to be taken away. Swept away and lost. It was the start of the dumbing down of the country. Once the movies started talking and then dramatic radio died people stopped reading. Nobody reads.”
“Dad you know you just now did that other thing again.”
“What other thing?”
“You said ‘nobody reads.’ The way you said ‘nobody reads.’ You say it exactly like that guy in that Peter Sellers movie.”
“What?”
“Sellers is standing there with an apple and he’s an idiot and he just comes out and says he can’t read. And this guy he’s talking to goes ‘nobody reads.’ You just said it with the exact same voice. You always do that.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Oh come on, Dad. You say movie lines all the time. You don’t even know you’re doing it any more.”
“I do?”
“Yes you do. Either that or you’ve fucked me up with that shit now too. Somebody says something and you say a movie line. Fucking fits perfect but it’s from a movie. It used to drive Mom nuts.”
Edwin takes the last piece of white bread and wipes off the whole plate. Folds the slice and puts it in his mouth all in one. His son closes his eyes. More head shaking. He swallows. “Your mother was a saint.”
“Yeah.”
“She was.”
“I’m saying yeah.”
“I can’t get out to the grave though. I haven’t been myself lately.”
“It’s okay Dad. They don’t let you put flowers up any more anyway.”
“They used to. Cemeteries used to mean something.”
“Dad…”
“Jesus I remember the whole family would go out on a Sunday to my grandma’s grave with flowers and they’d weed the plot and make borders around it with black dirt.”
“Dad…”
“And people would cry all over again. Pound the ground and wail and everything.”
“Dad.”
“Yeah. Okay. I guess that part was pretty stupid.”
“Yeah. You done with your plate?”
“Yeah.”
His son puts the cigarette out and gets up. Takes the plate and silverware off the TV table and walks it all into the kitchen. Edwin listens to the water running over the plate in the next room. On the TV screen Bing Crosby and that little Irish actor who was in every movie ever made are sitting at a table eating a stolen turkey. The sound of the water reminds him of the water moving through pipes and into the radiator of his house when he was a boy. His mother always had a fake tree at Christmas. And he’d say “Ma I want a for real tree.” And his mother would say “when you have your own house you can have a for real tree.” Then he grew up and had his own house and they always got for real trees. And his prick of a son would stand there and say “Daddy I want a fake tree.” And he’d say “when you have your own house you can have a fake tree.” And the little prick grew up and puts in fake trees every Christmas. Only he doesn’t have any kids so there’s no one to bug him about a for real tree.
Funny the things the sound of running water does to you when you’re falling apart.
“You sure you can get upstairs alright?” His son came back from the kitchen and asked.
“So now who is repeating themselves? You ask me the same question every time. Every time the same way. Wise guy.”
“Alright then, who the fuck cares?” He wasn’t serious. That’s how they talk. “Is Anna coming in tomorrow?”
“Yeah.”
“You need me to pick up your room? Clothes all over the place?”
“It’s fine. Honest I don’t understand why we hire a lady to come clean up and then we make sure the house is cleaned up before she gets here. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know,” he lights another cigarette. “But that’s how goofy the world is, right Dad?”
“Yeah.”
The blue smoke billows out between them.
“And you’re stinking up my house.”
“You lived with it for thirty years.”
“And I hated every minute of it. Now go away.”
His son gives him a small kiss on the cheek and goes out the door, already pecking away at his cell phone.
“You smell like an ash tray.”
“See you next week Dad.”
“Yeah.”
It takes him a while to push the TV tray out so he can get up out of his chair but once he gets started he picks up a little speed along the way. It’s not hard to walk, just hard to get started walking.
Pick up the place so the little Polish lady can come in and pick up the place, he thinks. Every week the same shit.
And every week he has to make sure the porn magazines are put away so she doesn’t think he’s some kind of pervert. Get the socks and shorts up off the floor in the bedroom. Spray the living room with air freshener so he can get the damn cigarette stink out of the furniture. What the hell does he need her for, he wonders every time. It’s a good thing his son is paying for it because if it was up to him, he wouldn’t.
Of course his son left everything in the sink and can’t be bothered to put anything in the dishwasher. So he opens it up and sets his knife and fork in the holder. Sets the plate in the rack.
Bent over like that, his left eye slips out of its socket and falls into a dirty glass sitting next to the silverware. He reaches down to retrieve it and pokes his hand on the tip of his steak knife pointing straight up from the holder. How many times has he told himself not to put the damn steak knives face up like that?
He starts to bleed.
He gets the other hand digging around in the holder while some kind of clear liquid starts to drip from the empty eye socket. He closes that eye lid. Nobody ever told him his socket would leak something the consistency of shampoo every time his glass eye fell out. He figures maybe he probably should have asked.
“If my glass eye falls out will a viscous liquid seep out of the socket until I put it back in?”
“Why yes Mr. Musick I’m glad you asked that. In fact you’re absolutely correct.”
“And what exactly is it that’s dripping out of my open eye socket doctor?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never heard of that before.”
“Yes but you just said I should expect it.”
“Well, does it happen when your eye falls out?”
“Why yes. Yes it does.”
“Then you should expect it.”
He keeps digging around for it amongst the dirty dishes.
It happens a lot.
One time he was at the bar waiting for a table in a restaurant with his wife. They were both having martinis. And it so happened that he cocked his head just right and at that moment the eye fell right out into his drink.
He went in to get it but pulled up the olive. And if his wife didn’t stop him he would have popped the olive in his eye socket by mistake.
Because he can’t see very well out of the one eye he has left anyway. So when it falls out he has to shoot his hand around to find it. God forbid it falls on the floor some day and just rolls off.
It’s all because the glass eye is the wrong size.
It’s always been the wrong size.
He just didn’t want to bother the guy who fit him with it.
So it falls out sometimes. He figures it’s no big deal.
He finds it next to a spoon that was used for the soup at lunch and so it’s a little smudged when he finally gets it in his fingers.
He rinses it off in the sink, and slides it back in.
Without his wife around sometimes he puts it back in a little crooked. It doesn’t matter. The little Polish lady’s never looked him in the face in all the time since she’s been cleaning for him.
He looks down at his hand and sees a stream of blood glistening across his palm. It’s a pretty deep cut. He balls up his hand into a fist to put pressure on the wound while he walks into the bathroom to get a bandage.
He can never seem to find the bandages.
When his wife was alive she always made sure there were enough of them. And whenever they got low she would be sure to replenish them. The one thing he could never figure out was that she kept changing where she put the box. And it was never in an obvious, convenient spot. It was always under the towels or mixed in amongst the boxes of whatever stuff people have stuffed under the sink. So you had to root around between the sanitary napkins and the toilet paper and the bottles of calamine lotion that were twenty thousand years old. Why there were still sanitary napkins under the sink was a question he couldn’t answer.
Maybe the little Polish lady. Who knows.
Anyway that’s what people probably meant when they said he’d fall apart after his wife died. Nobody there to stop him putting an olive into his eye socket.
The bandages aren’t anywhere. Maybe there aren’t any.
The phone rings.
“Hello.”
“Edwin? Edwin? Is that you?”
“I’m Edwin. Who are you?”
“It’s Joe. How the hell are you?”
“Joe who?”
“Joe. Joe from Taylor-Morgan. The broker. Oh come on, Joe. For Christ’s sake.”
“I’ll be a son of a bitch.”
“Why not? You always were.”
“What the hell are you doing on my phone? You’re not still working for those crooks are you?”
“Oh Christ no. I retired five years after you did. We both got out in time. That place went under a couple years ago when everything went to shit.”
“Yeah I read that. Too bad for Morgan’s daughter. She was one hot piece of ass.”
“She was already fifty when you retired. What the hell?”
“Yeah well they got a name for that now. Mothers I’d Like To Fuck. It’s all over the internet.”
“Yeah okay. Yeah. She was hot. But how the hell are you? Jesus it’s been years already.”
“I know.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. I haven’t been myself these days. But I can still drink you under the table.”
The voice laughed. “I’ll bet you still could. I fall asleep after two beers now. But here’s your chance to show me. I’m going to be in town this weekend and I’d like to buy you a drink. You pick the place and the time. I’m buying the first two rounds.”
“Good. Then you can fall asleep and I won’t have to spend a dime on your ass.”
More laughing. “Sweet bloody Jesus you haven’t changed a God damn bit.”
They agree to meet at Spencer’s, a restaurant up at the interstate. Joe knows exactly the exit and Jesus everything is so built up around there now, isn’t it?
They hang up. Saturday at six thirty. And that’s that.
Doesn’t change the fact that his mess has to get picked up before the lady who picks up comes in tomorrow, but it’s something to look forward to. Have to find a way to get there. That could be a problem. His prick of a son will just moan and groan about having to drive him and pick him up somewhere. Screw him, he figures he won’t even ask him. Call a cab. Call a cab to get there and call a cab back. Money was never the problem. He used to be a broker. A big time broker. Back when brokers made money for their clients instead of just selling what the house had too much of. Like Joe said.
It takes a while but he gets up the stairs and picks up the three pairs of socks on the floor. Can’t let the clean-up lady think he lives like a slob. Even if he lives like a slob.

II

“This is the big thing here in this country. People are a scared of everything. But I assure you, there is no really such a thing as al-Qa'ida. That is invention of the CIA.”
“Yeah. Of course.” Edwin looks across the top of the seat at the young man with the beard and the little white cap made obviously not around here and wonders whatever did he do to deserve this particular cab driver.
“Peoples in America only know one language each. They eat unclean food and have sex in graveyards. This is why I do not want to be buried in a grave here in America. To be lying next to strange womans in the grave. My father would come back from the dead and kill me. He would kill me very hard.”
“That’s interesting.”
“America is a silly country. Everybody is fat. They are a scared of Islam and think every man from there with a beard has a bomb hidden in his haik. Peoples in America say we are all the same from there, never mind the country exactly. People here think the Middle East is all the way to India.”
“Yeah. Geography is a challenge for some people.”
“Do they know where is east or west? I listen to directions from peoples in my cab and I don’t understand them. They think the sun sets in the North. What is education in America? Nothing. Mathematics, literature, science, astronomy, physics, even black holes, this is all in the Qur’an. You can be sure.”
“Yeah.”
“And the truth is there is no such a thing as al-Qa’ida.”
“Got it. You’re right by God. What a bunch of idiots.”
“You can be sure.”
“Then again you’re dressed in a sheet driving a fucking cab taking me to a restaurant by the highway, and you’re pounding on and on about how stupid America is like I’m not even actually sitting here.”
“Oh no no no no no. I am not being insulting. America is a beautiful country. Very beautiful. Very rich. No no no. I make a lot of money here. There is freedom here. There is no freedom in my country. There are no jobs. This is why young peoples are very angry there at America.”
“So you live in a failed state and it’s my fucking fault, right? Your rulers keep the oil money and it never gets down to the street and this is my fucking problem? It’s my fault?”
“No no no no no. No no no no no.”
“Listen. When I stop being your fucking excuse for living in a shit hole we’ll talk about it, okay in the meantime just get me to my fucking restaurant please and do your fucking job maybe?”
“Mister is very angry with me.”
Edwin can see his pearl white teeth smiling up at him from the rear view mirror.
“I just want to get to my restaurant.”
“Have you ever eaten North Africa cuisine?”
“There’s a cuisine in North Africa?”
“Oh yes. Very much. Morocco, Tunisia, and my country in Algeria. Excellent dishes. We invented much of what you eat here. The better things you eat here. I am from a very, very old city there. Annaba. Very ancient. You know this place?”
“Oh sure.”
“Excellent, excellent food. Many restaurants and cafes. It is wonderful. And I even know of a place you can get pizza.”
Yeah and that’s a good reason to go to Algeria.
He gives the driver his fare plus twenty percent for a tip because he can’t remember what the books say you’re supposed to give a cab driver. This makes the driver very happy and he shows his pearl whites all over again.

and then blah blah blah...

Only If You Want To Know

2011-02-22T10:37:00.005-06:00

The photo on the right was taken in the 80's. It includes the Beat revival trio known as the Washington Squares and a fellow by the name of Abbie Hoffman.

I post this because I'm a fan of the Squares for a long time. Though folky/acoustic/retro in all aspects (they like to sing old union songs... or did) they also opened for people like Joan Jett and the Ramones back in those days. And I just downloaded one of my favorite tunes of theirs from their rather small book, and I was just browsing into their past a little and up comes a picture of them and Abbie.

Which reminded me of the very very first blogger meet-up I ever in my life attended here in Chicago wherein I happened to mention Abbie Hoffman and drew blank stares from absolutely everyone at the round table. Nobody knew who he was - or had been. And nobody knew what I was talking about when I tried to explain.

Which sticks in my mind (and in my craw) unto this day not because of anyone's ignorance (they all had their priorities straight, after all) but because I realized at that moment that there were aspects of my past that folks just... hey... not interested in. As in what's the big deal? And they'd probably be right.

So I'm home this week just cruisin' for burgers like Farco Barnes and doing my chores and getting stuff in order for the big time change (I'll be working overnight starting next week) and doing a lot of writing too and this struck me as something to say. Notice no links to Abbie's story. It's out there if you want to know. If not, no worries. Oh and I'm not making any $ from the link to the mp3. It's listed because the Squares have one of the weakest internet presences of any nationally distributed groups I ever saw. Blink and you miss 'em.

Okay now I'm going to wait for the city water dept. to come by and try to figure out why they're not getting a water meter signal back at their HQ. Psst - we stopped our house phone line Jan. 1 and went 100% to cell phones, that's why. I'm sure this has happened to your dept. before, dude. I'm sure this isn't the first time you've seen it.

All for now.

Future's Uncertain

2011-02-15T08:08:00.004-06:00

Anybody on Facebook who reads me knows by now that I'm changing jobs. You also know that one of the reasons I'm changing jobs is because the current job I'm in hasn't paid me since Christmas. I'm not worried it will come so that's not the issue, but I don't see things changing in the construction business for some time and it isn't going to get better soon. There will be the usual spring-summer increase in projects, from which if I don't get the full pay Friday (my last day) I will get it in time. Can't think about that right now though.

I'm doing something I've been thinking about for a while now.

When we were first married my wife was a check-out person at a local food chain and I worked in a print shop. Both of us had to go to work to support ourselves as soon as possible so college wasn't something I ever finished or she even started until well into our married life. Eventually MrsRW became a nurse and from there she's been escalating her game to where she now trains hospital staffs in advanced medical record keeping something-or-other that takes her on the road for one or two weeks a month. I, on the other hand, went from printing to operating a CNC to the unlikely position of sales and made a lot of money during the building boom.

Now that the building boom has turned into the bubble bust you have companies competing for for a smaller and smaller list of jobs. Until the backlog of unoccupied, foreclosed homes gets whittled down new construction (which the company I'm with relies on) will probably not come back. All we're doing now is homes for the super-rich who don't care what the economy is doing, or low-margin renovations. Hence my pay situation.

So I'm going back to the printing world. As in presses and cutters and folders and collators and staplers and gluers and all that kind of thing. It's been about 14 years so there will be a curve through which I will have to re-learn the trades but I figure in a couple of weeks I should have it down. I was lucky enough to have experienced the computerized breakthrough equipment in the industry a little bit before I left it, so I'm hoping I don't look like a complete idiot once I hit the floor again. I started in this trade at 19, and worked for three different companies for almost 25 years - 19 with one before they closed the plant. So it's a bit like coming home.

It's not as lucrative as the job I'm working right now - when I get paid at all - but it will be steady and for all you working people out there the opportunity for "time and a half" looms pretty large around Easter and Christmas. That's because the company I'm working for in two weeks prints and produces fliers, brochures, newsletters, cards, pamphlets, and all manner of paper products strictly and 100% for the Catholic church in America.

Okay you stop laughing now.

Apparently they can't get enough people. There's more work than they can handle and they just added six people. The place is huge and there are three shifts. I'm starting on the overnight shift which works 2 13 and 1 14-hour days in the middle of the week with a 4 day weekend Friday through Monday. It sounds intense, I know, and I'll have to change my internal clock (I've worked 3rd shift before), but the thought of a 4 day weekend offsets any of the other concerns.

I got the job through networking. I know a sales person for a Catholic book publisher who knows two women at a church who use the products of this company and after I'd sent in my application they sort of bombarded the place with recommendations for me. I'm working on sending flowers all around, don't worry!

This sort of makes the point, though, that Monster.com and CareerBuilder and Indeed.com and Snag-A-Job and all those other job sites I've been sending resumes through for the past six months (sometimes 2 a day) and NEVER GOT AN ANSWER FROM have been particularly useless and pointless for me all along. As many times as I sent out applications (and some of these jobs - with my national sales list of builder guys that I know - were perfect fits... oh well) there were never any responses except for bogus multi-level-marketing schemes (read: PONZI). Without a network you got nothing. In my case it was a small group of Catholic church ladies who started a little campaign in my behalf. Well, after the impetus of my friend in the Catholic publishing world.

So I start March 1 and I'm kind of excited because after years of sales and customer service, where your "product" basically has to be made out of thin air, I'm going to once again have my 'product" right in front of me; physical, tangible, and right at hand. It's kind of like that old scene in Coal Miner's Daughter where Loretta Whatshername gets famous and her hick husband goes to work at a car mechanic's and is contented. I've heard people say it sounds like a step down... and though there is a (temporary) dollar hit until I get up to speed I just don't see it that way. I think folks like that are really snobs. Honest work is honest work. I think folks who have a problem with that need to check their luggage on that one.

Now I don't think this will have much to do with the blog here, and I know it's not going to stop the other writing. Plus I've already scaled this down to once a week with determined intent. But who knows? A guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do.

Let it roll.

Predictable Outcomes

2011-02-07T07:24:00.005-06:00

I guess it's becoming obvious. I have officially passed that boundary beyond which a person becomes an agitator and a crank.

During the interminable pregame ceremonial horseshit that happens before the Stupor Bowl I was asked at least once if there was something wrong with me. Once by my own daughter. It wasn't that I was looking like I was sick or had some kind of obvious physical problem or something. If I was really sick no one would say a word. But I guess I'd been rather vocal about what a crock the interminable pregame ceremonial horseshit was. I guess I was vocal to the point of moaning about all the sickly religious God bless our great shit because our shit's the best shit on Earth stuff that they foist on people, who are just happily waiting for two groups of guys in goofy get-ups to start running into each other with malintent at ridiculously high speeds.

I suppose I was rather vocal in my assessment of the proceedings. I guess my comments could be seen as inflammatory. But I should probably also be ashamed of my own predictability.

I was just observing and expressing those observations. I mean right after my family's obligatory race jokes (which are usually centered around the predisposition of some genetic stock to have big lips) everyone sat in reverent amazement at the beauty of our great land when the great blond sang the greatest national anthem in history. They were probably too mesmerized by the fact that "see," "hail," and "brave" had now been expanded to seventeen syllable words. Everyone was so quiet and respectful in their chairs I thought somebody was going to cry. But nobody noticed she sang "reaming" instead of "gleaming," and the person in the kitchen (who was compelled to laugh at all the commercials - even the ones that weren't funny - because this is where the laugh track has to come in) just loves that singer, whoever she was.

I said something in a faux-announcer's voice along the lines of "and now to honor America we proudly present Up With People who will perform the song 'America The Beautiful is Gonna Kick Your Little Commie Ass' from the hit Broadway musical 'Coons And Chinks' in four part harmony accompanied by the WWJB - Who Would Jesus Bomb - Marching Band from Puff Bluff Arkansas."

I don't think that went over too well.

I think my sarcasm was too obvious. That's what tipped it off. I put my hand on my heart and cocked my head as if I was moved in a God Isn't That Great double take when somebody mentioned that we have some representative of our armed forces in 137 countries. I'm sitting there going "WTF are we doing in 137 countries" and everybody else is like "That's so cool, we're in 137 countries." Military personnel in 137 countries protecting our shores. Our great shores next to our great oceans and our fields and valleys. Our great cities. Our tasty water. My land. My air. My waste treatment plants and my public schools with our metal detectors to keep my holy guns out so great American ten year olds don't start happily murdering each other when they pull their great guns out of their great iCarly lunchboxes.

So I kind of put a sock in it once the commercials started. I didn't want to get in the way of what most of the women were watching TV for. Except I didn't really think what people were laughing at was all that funny and every once in a while there was a nervous laugh that didn't even belong there because the commercial wasn't even trying to be funny. What the hell?

Football is very much a product of our great country, somebody said once and I'm paraphrasing now because I can't remember who. We have these strategy meetings punctuated by brief moments of extreme violence, and then we sell stuff.

Now don't get me wrong I do enjoy football. I never miss my Bears and have been a lifelong fan of theirs so that you could say I do bleed blue and orange. But if I ever get to the point where I think it's this shiny American thing that is so amazing we can justify giving neanderthals who can't speak in complete sentences millions upon untold millions of dollars because they can run and jump and throw... just shoot me, okay? If you don't have or can't find a gun just go down to the nearest elementary school. I'm sure you could borrow one of the ones they'd confiscated.

We're the greatest country on Earth. Full of people we can't stand. It was a nightmarish horror when hijacked planes killed 3,000 innocent people whose only crime was they went to work one morning. But you have to know that somewhere someone - in the back of their mind - said "well, that's 3,000 potential bad drivers I don't have to contend with."

It's predictable.

See There's This Little Island

2011-01-28T08:53:00.009-06:00

in the North Sea that has been an independent country since around the 7th century and a long time ago they were attacked by Vikings and they were pretty defenseless until this one king called Ulf the Hermit (because he stayed in a room for almost his whole reign on account of he was so ugly and mean and never washed) decided right after one invasion had left to build a monster maze with twenty foot high walls that they overlaid the whole island with and the next time the Vikings attacked they got lost and starved and eventually they stopped invading because the people would always change where the walls were so nobody could map it but over the centuries they didn't need the maze any more and what with weathering and a couple world wars and nobody taking care of it it wore down to just a few remnants here and there around the island and nobody paid much attention to it until somebody realized that touching the old walls of the maze would cure certain illnesses but then humans being humans they abused it because when they weren't sick they could get high by touching the stones and so a kind of cult developed that the government which by 1980 had become a secret hidden entity wherein nobody even knew what the name of the leader was wanted to clamp down on so they started taking all the leftover walls down.

One night an old friend of a private detective wants to have a meeting at a tavern to talk about his particular case but because his body is literally falling apart (at one point a glass eye pops out of his head and lands in his martini right next to his olive) and as his nurse wheels him out all he can say is "find a way to stop this" but the detective has to find out what he was talking about so he gets on the case by using his Magic 8 Ball which tells him what leads to follow and what to look for and he winds up connecting the maze wall remnants with his friend's terrible affliction but as he gets deeper into the case he comes into contact with a dangerous group of fascists who want to overthrow the government nobody can find and restore the rightful place of the maze in the country's history and stop the destruction of it and they even have armbands with a maze outline that almost looks like a swastika.

And then there's the mountain made up of dead bodies where people are playing a great big game of King of the Hill by trying to get to the top after killing everybody else they can.

Not to mention the little people who live inside the cuckoo clock.

I wonder how it will turn out.

Last But Not Least

2011-01-27T20:40:00.004-06:00

Thanks for looking in on me this week, btw. Chances are somewhat good we go back to once a week after this. I've started writing a story about a detective who uses Magic 8 Ball in place of Dr. Watson. It's okay though, he smokes a pipe.

Tonight completes the week of recipes. This time I did Lamb meatballs with couscous and Feta. And I want to say how surprised I am at how light this went down and how, though I am full, I am not stuffed or overfed or feel sluggish. I take that as a good sign for doing it right. Anyway that's what I'm telling myself.

If you've noticed anything this week I hope you've noticed that none of these dishes I presented take any more than a half an hour to prepare and cook. Some are even less. This is another half hour masterpiece. The reason for that is pretty obvious from a time perspective but also because I've been getting into simpler/shorter the last few months. This one has a bunch of ingredients, but it's easy.

In a bowl you combine
1 lb. ground lamb
1/4 cup dried apricots, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon coriander
1/4 cup of chopped red onion
salt and pepper to taste

Wet those hands and get in there and make some meatballs. On the smallish-side this time. try to use this mess to make 18 to 20. Smaller will help them cook right, but also look better on the plate.

You put these meatballs on a cooking sheet (I lined with aluminum to help the cleanup). You will put them in the oven for 8 minutes at 425/450. Make sure nothing is pink when you think they are done. A little "burn smudge" is good here and there, but don't let them dry out. Lamb is easy and forgiving. Relax.

Make your couscous. LOOKIT THE BOX yeah?
1 cup couscous for this recipe

In a mixing bowl (small one) mix together
3 tablespoons of olive oil
3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice (remember my citrus juicer? Be jealous)
and around 1/4 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
Set that aside. It will become the last thing you use.

Slice up
2 small tomatoes
1/2 cucumber
1 small red onion

Ready?

When the couscous and meatballs are done you lay a bed of the couscous on a plate and put 4/5/6 meatballs on top per plate (remember, they're supposed to be small).
You fan out some sliced tomato and cucumber aside the couscous and toss some red onion slices here and there.

Now take the Feta (As much as you want. They are saying 4 ounces to spread around everybody) and sprinkle it, crumbled on the each plate. Go ahead. Be generous.

To complete, the little dressing you made is now sprinkled over everything on the plate, especially the tomatoes and cucumber. Notice I did not say put salt on those. It's in the dressing. relax.

But the dressing goes on the meat and couscous too, don't forget.

And that's it. Serve baby serve. I found it a very light-feeling dinner. Held my portions to reasonable and am well satisfied. I think you will like.

That ends recipe week. This one, anyway.

Now... you really want me to cook for you, don't you? Admit it. Well? Come on over. I'd be happy to.

Really.

I LOVED IT!

2011-01-26T18:55:00.004-06:00

People on a budget and vegetarians (who can eat mushrooms, sorry Dave) should love love love this VERY filling meatless dinner I made tonight (and practically ate the whole thing myself). This is an Oriental Stir Fry With Peanuts and I could tell at each and every step I took as I made it that I was going to like it. A lot.

This serves 4 but, I have to say, I LIT into this. I'm lucky in that I loves my veggies and so to have a vegetarian dinner is no big whoop for me. Youse that like meat, I could certainly see beef strips or chicken strips in here with no problem. But for tonight, I went the holy way and killed nothing with a face.

But first I want to talk about take out Chinese (this dish is more Japanese than Chinese but it's a lot like the "fried rice" you can get at any take out place.). Did you know that the distribution of the ingredients for take-out (not sit-down, dinner style) is provided by a very narrow channel of providers, like maybe - one all around the country? There are two Chinese take out places near us that we've used back and forth from time to time and BOTH changed their egg rolls to something pretty inedible at the very same time. That kind of made me suspicious, as you'd think here in 'merica they'd be more into competition. But no. The same distributor services both take-outs. And who knows who owns the provider. All I'm sayin'... (insert hidden dragon music).

So okay anyhow...

1 cup of rice gets cooked like a cup of rice. What? Read the damn box.
But here's what you're doing on the side while that's ricing itself...

put
1/4 cup of soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon of Sriracha (I used Tobasco, same burn different day) sauce
2 tablespoons of fresh lime juice (MrsRW got me a citrus juicer for Christmas and this translates into the juice from one actual, real lime... woo hoo!)
in a bowl and whisk all that together. Put it aside.

You have cut
2 organic carrots (hard outside skin shredded off with a peeler)
and
1 red bell pepper, seeds removed
into thin, narrow slices that are not chunky and hurt your cooking time.

You have also cut
7 to 8 ounces of shitake mushrooms (stems removed and tossed)
and 2 scallions
into thin, smaller-than-bite-sized chunks

You have drained
a can of bean sprouts in a strainer

You chop
1/4 cup of Planter's Dry Roasted peanuts

With that...

Heat a big wide pan (or wok if you got) to the point where putting
1 tablespoon of canola oil
can heat perfectly for what is to follow.

First the carrot and pepper strips... 3 minutes constantly stirring
Then the mushrooms and bean sprouts 2 to 3 minutes constantly stirring
[NOTE: People who can't eat mushrooms because of allergies are one thing, but I've always held that people who simply don't like mushrooms never had them prepared right. Cook too long and they are rancid. Cook not long enough and they are rubber.***** I challenge anyone who doesn't like mushrooms - allergies aside - to have mine in something I've made and we'll see what you think then.]

Put in the scallion bits in that whole mess just at the last minute. Stir and stir and keep stirring.

Add the soy sauce/hot sauce/lime juice mixture at the very last and just stir it around to coat.

That's it. You're done.

Fluff out your rice on a plate and scoop the goodies out of the pan and place on top.

Like I said - people who can't live without meat would have an easy time putting beef, chicken, even shrimp in here. I wasn't into faces tonight.

Also - NO SALT. Between the salt in the rice and the soy sauce you're good. If you put more, in my opinion, you ruin it. But at least taste before you add any table salt.

We put FAR too much table salt on our stuff EVEN BEFORE WE EVEN TASTE IT FOR GOD'S SAKE!!!.

This should take about 20-30 minutes tops and serves 4. Unless you were hungry like me...

***** THAT'S BACKWARDS. Too long is rancid, too short is rubber. Sheesh...

This One Sounded Very Weird

2011-01-25T19:37:00.008-06:00

Just about everywhere I've read about this, though, the most usual comment is "deceptively simple." But there's nothing deceptive about it. And you can't get more simple. To be honest I felt I was taking a chance on this because I never heard of such a thing and it doesn't have some great, fancy Italian or French or Greek name. But since you use mild Italian sausage for it I'm going to say it's Italian. But who knows?

Put just a little olive oil in a pan and heat it to just right. Then you take
1 1/2 lb of mild Italian sausage and you brown it - JUST BARELY. Just enough to get the pink off.
In a bowl you put
2 lbs of seedless red grapes (you heard me), removed from the stem
sprinkle lightly (don't overdo this) with thyme and olive oil.
Toss that like a salad.
Heat the oven to 475 and go find an oven-safe bowl that will be big enough to hold everything yet small enough so that you can jumble everything up.
Put a layer of grapes on the bottom.
Set the Italian sausages on top of that.
Put in the rest of the grapes.
Shove it in the oven for 20-30 minutes depending on how you like your sausage. Occasionally mixing the contents.

And... um... that's it. I had that on a plate with some Italian bread on the side and a nice red wine. Here's the deal...

This is just about as inexpensive as you can get and still feed yourself some very complex flavors. Don't use brand new grapes (this was my mistake), but try and use grapes that have been around for a few days so that when it hits the heat the skins break on some. Or, if you've got new grapes, lightly mush them up a little bit (a LITTLE bit). The taste of the grapes changes under the heat, and when the resulting kinda-sauce melds in with the fatty juices from the sausages you've got something really unique.

I've never tasted that before and I cleaned my plate. It's called Italian Sausage and Red Grapes. Duh. You can just have it with bread or put some noodles on the side; whatever you want. You get points from me if you try this and report back.

I dares ya.

Recipe Week!

2011-01-24T18:18:00.009-06:00

Well the book with no name is done. It is making the rounds, currently out and about like the veritable waif it truly is.

On top of that MrsRW is on a week-long business trip far far away.

And there's nobody watching me. I can do anything I decide to do. So there's only one thing I can think of doing right now and that would be...

EATING!!!

And tonight I did a take on that healthful alternative to hamburgers we all love to ~~hate~~ despise. The TURKEY BURGER. I can hear you now, oh joy this cretin is actually going to talk about burgers made out of turkey? Well yes I am. Because I am sitting here below 200 lbs for the first time in years and I am determined to achieve that one resolution I made this year; "Get below 200 and stay there."

And I hate turkey burgers. I truly hate them. I can't stand them, in fact. So why am I making them, you may ask. Because I found a recipe that makes them not only very good but potentially sought after. I kid you not.

This is called TURKEY BURGERS WITH CREAMY ROMAINE SLAW. And it looks like that picture up there in the corner. Here's how it works:

You combine
1 lb. of ground turkey (preferably dark meat if you can find it)
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
Just under 1 tablespoon of fresh thyme, and
2 little scallions chopped up really good
in a bowl. And you wet your hands and you get in there and patty that mess up into four burgers. Four little turkey quarter-pounders. You season each side with salt and pepper and set them aside.

Now you take
2 big leafs of Romaine lettuce and chiffonade the heck out of them (that means you roll them up like a cigar and cut the "cigar" so that you make little strips like cabbage in a slaw).
1 medium carrot gets the living heck chopped out of it
and you combine the lettuce and carrot in a bowl.

Then you take
2 tablespoons of mayo (I used Light because I want to stay under 200 pounds now)
1 tablespoon of white wine vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon of pepper
and you whisk this together in a separate bowl.

After that you heat up some olive oil in a big flat skillet and just when it's perfectly hot you put the turkey burgers in there for 6-7 minutes a side.

While this is going on you toss the romaine/carrot mixture with the mayo/wine vinegar mixture to make a creamy slaw.

Toast 4 soft rolls (with seeds on the top like in the picture) and when the turkey burgers are done they go on the bottom slice of the bun. THEN you take your romaine slaw and cover them suckers up with it and smush the top half back on and voila - a turkey burger people will ASK for again.

The trick is in the slaw. But the combination of thyme in the burger and white wine vinegar in the slaw makes it very savory. And the whole thing takes about 20-30 minutes. And, in truth, if it takes you more than 30 minutes you really need to just go out to a restaurant and quit torturing people m'kay?

The picture shows sliced pickles and potato chips but, you know, I want to stay under 200 so I just popped in a baked potato.

Seriously, though, the dreaded turkey burger (which I can't stand) just made it into my rotation. Well, THIS version anyway.

Bone your aperitif... or whatever they say here...

I Am Not In London

2011-01-17T07:35:00.004-06:00

And Jack the Ripper is not at my door.

Any of you folks who have me on your email list - or more accurately are on MY email list of contacts via hotmail - may have noted a plaintive cry for help late last week. From London, no less. Where apparently I have been taken by Jack the Ripper into a hovel and robbed of all my money. And the American embassy doesn't believe me and the hotel is mad at me and if you don't send me $2000 or some such amount I am going to be boiled in oil at the drop of a hat. It is a bald lie and I am in no way connected to such a wild story.

I have, however, been one of thousands of people who had their hotmail accounts hacked into last week. I can't get back into it because my password has been changed, and I can't get a new password sent to me because the "alternate email" they can contact me at has also been changed. So the account is gone and is now part of a vast network of spam originations sent out to thousands of unsuspecting contacts on every victim's list.

I've had that hotmail account since the years began with 1's. And I basically used it as the contact off the blog (where a lot of you found it) but also as the email addy I had to add onto commercial sites I needed to use and just KNEW it would generate millions of spams sent my way. For those who only have that hotmail addy as the contact info for me you should change it to ehwtfever (at) comcast (dot) net. And, yes, the wtf in the addy means what you think it means.

There were only a handful of old accounts that were still tied to that email account and, luckily because the addy was only stolen for the purposes of spam, none of them were compromised. So I had the opportunity to change all the entry codes to such places as the world-wide bunch of anarchists I play with and so forth.

I have no idea if any pleas for money like that ever work. Anyone who knew me enough to care about whether or not I was in actual trouble who didn't recognize it as bullshit would have just picked up the phone and called me. And everyone else recognizes stuff like that as bullshit. So however these people make money off of that is beyond me. But I suppose it's lucrative enough so that they keep on doing it. I guess if it wasn't they wouldn't bother. But that doesn't mean I can possibly understand how it could be.

Needless to say MSN, which operates hotmail, is perfectly useless in helping account holders fix the problem. The boards where incidents like this are reported is overwhelmed, and the "24 hour guarantee" they will address your problem has been waived. In the meantime they send you to links that tell you how to avoid the problem if it happens again, as well as a how-to for resetting your password. What the links don't tell you is what to do when you can't get back into your account to reset everything. They try to verify that you are the account holder and ask for your alternate email addy. But they don't tell you what to do if the hacker has changed your alternate email addy so that you no longer seem to know what the hell you're talking about. Then they want to know "Did This Help? Yes or No." Hahahaha.

My incident report has been sitting on their board unanswered for days now. And I see where other folks have said "WTF?? It's been two weeks! I need this for my JOOOOOBBBB!!!" Etc.

The weird thing, though, is that I got this hotmail account so very long ago that my alternate email address that I used when I signed up is from a provider that no longer even exists! So what good would that do me anyway?

All of which is proof, I suppose, that I have been connected to the inter-tubes for too long and need to get some fresh air.

They say Whitechapel is a good place for a walk...

Onward And Sideways! Sorta...

2011-01-12T07:54:00.004-06:00

Though it still might be too early to tell, by now you may/may not have gathered a new take on the blog these days. Moving to a weekly post format, and then only when there's something to really say. I have always felt that less is more. Hopefully quality will trump quantity. In any case I've got too many entries where I look back and say... what the hell was I thinking?

It's a product of trying to be more productive and helped me finalize that "book with no name." At last.

And now, I've gone on to the next one - ideas for which began swimming around my head even last month. But I hesitate to say what it is because if I were to look at where I started with the last one and compare it to where I ended up they are two completely different things. Allow me to demonstrate...

The notion for this new one came while I was watching something or other on TV about ancient Egypt. The story was about the occasional pharaoh who was erased from the record or the actions of one pharaoh to erase the memory of one in the past. And I said to myself (I says, says I) "wouldn't it be funny if there was a President we don't know about because all record of him was erased" I says.

And immediately I envision this minor clerk in some government record office finding a document signed with the name of a President nobody ever heard of - the first document found to prove *they* didn't get ALL the evidence destroyed. And it bounds on to cover-ups of cover-ups and is fed by all the weird-o conspiracy theories running rampant out in the real (cough... coughcoughcough) world.

I even began looking through the list of Presidents we've had to see where I could squeeze him in and the most likely place is that bit of weirdness with President Cleveland serving two non-consecutive terms. Not sure exactly how, but something about there.

And from there it went down a side street into a whole dystopian thing. And this - mind you - all in a matter of a week or two and I'm sitting here with an opening scene I stole from something else I wrote and set aside where a guy is sitting at a bar and is literally, physically, falling apart in front of the friend (narrator) he demanded to meet to *tell him something* he's known for years.

And suddenly I'm three miles away from where I started and now if by some chance somebody reads this and steals the idea what can I say? Point being that in two years, maybe three, when I'm done with this one there's really no telling if any part of what I just said will even remotely play a role in what it ends up being.

So there you have it. I'm a nutcase.

And I probably just broke the very rule I started off talking about (re: blogging when there's actually something to say instead of just blithering) by boring you to tears with this latest bit of garbage lightning that goes through my head all the time and may not ever come to anything.

Well, rules were made to be broken. And people with blogs are goofy.

lol Xenu

2011-01-07T15:40:00.005-06:00

Screen writer and producer Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Quantum of Solace, The Next Three Days) is sitting on a book that, when published, promises to blow yet another lid off the corporate religiosity fraud known as Scientology.

Joining a long list of ex-members who have disavowed the cult as well as a slowly growing list of "celebrities" who have discovered they have better things to do, Haggis' initial dust-up with the social invention of science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard began with the issue of Proposition 8 because the "Church" of Scientology joined with the Latter Day Saints in saying that gay people are weird and ought to be illegal or something.

It has always been strange to me why the cult's backing of Prop H8 was such a surprise. One only has to read Scientology "scripture" to see where homosexuality is officially considered an aberration the "church" can actually help you get out of if you shell out enough money. But, oh wait, you would have had to shell out some money to actually READ that "scripture" or else you wouldn't know that - sorry. I wasn't thinking.

Here's a part of the story published in the LA Times this week...

Director Paul Haggis has already been the worst kind of publicity for the Church of Scientology, penning this letter in August 2009 in which he resigned from the group over its support of Proposition 8.

Now he could become more than just a thorn in the church's side. According to this Gawker report, the Oscar winner is shopping a book with New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright about his experience with Scientology –- an experience that he says included, among other things, his wife cutting off contact with her parents at the order of church officials.

Or you can get the whole thing here.

I think because the people just looking for the lulz may have been taking an extended break from working against the cult of Scientology folks have a tendency to think the storm has subsided for our money-grubbing Hubbard space cadets. But they'd be wrong.

We STILL run this.

Learn more about Scientology here at Why We Protest. It ain't over til it's over.

Walkin' One And Only

2011-01-01T11:19:00.011-06:00

"I shudder at how easily people get used to the seemingly intolerable. They are like plastic, easily deformable if slow pressure is applied. And all authoritarians seem to realize after a while that that's all they have to do: push steadily with just the right force - not too hard all at once or a violent breakage will result. Then people will get used to whatever it is instead of refusing to accept it and rebelling....

"I take particular effort to maintain a settled - an anchored - outlook. Frankly it also helps that I never use any of the modern fad digital toys that get people onto the conveyor belt and zipping along so that they don't stay focused in any one place for long enough to notice the big shifts that are happening to everyone else. Huge propaganda, in fact, attempts to see to it that hardly anyone does stop and watch what's going on. If you try to do it they bring to bear a world of jeers and seemingly almost fanatic tactics designed to make you conform."

This from The Match! issue #107 (Summer 2009).

The editor is one Fred Woodworth who has been [publishing The Match! continuously since 1969.

He's a fellow who puts his money where his mouth is. You won't find a web site. Fred doesn't have a computer. He prints The Match! on old school offset printing equipment using press plates burned by solar power. He lives in Tucson, off the power grid, and has taught himself to fix everything from cars to generators.

The Match! can be gotten free just by writing him at

The Match!
PO Box 3012
Tucson, AZ 85702

But everyone sends a donation. The catch is that he returns checks because he doesn't have a bank account. You send cash or stamps. It sounds like an article of faith but it really isn't. This is how he's operated since the late 60's. I sent him a twenty. A week later I got three back issues, a hand-written note saying it was good to hear from me again (I remember contacting him in the early 70's when the zine was getting going and his "ethical anarchism" was getting put out there into the world), and a promise that a new issue was on the way.

Fred is an anarchist. Meaning that all forms of authoritarianism are anathema to his worldview be it Hitler, Stalin, the Jewish Knesset, the Iranian mullahs, the Queen of England, Fox News, the American Left, President Obama, your local peace officer, and even other anarchists who call for violence against the state and any form of statism whatsoever.

Hence he has made a lot of enemies over time.

Because he refuses to use an ISBN system there are bookstores that refuse to carry him or any book he publishes. Other anarchists have called him every name in the book because he's let it be known that violent overthrow is another form of authoritarianism, and he has never feared to call out others who style themselves "anarchist" yet call the police for their own protection or sue people, using the court system, for their own ends. Samples provided if you dig deep enough. A few years back he got very sick, but never had insurance. He managed to get his procedure on the donations of people who spread the word, as he faced off with the local hospital which, knowing his reputation, basically treated him like a dirtbag and refused him even CHARITY services they were known for.

Regular readers familiar with The Match! are familiar with the sections of the magazine "Evil Empire Notes" - collection of how Big Brother is and has been sneaking up on everybody. "Who The Police Beat" - a listing of national police atrocities since last issue, and the "World's Largest Letters Section" which is, literally as described including responses that pull no punches when Fred thinks you're doin' it wrong.

The Match! - A Journal of Ethical Anarchism is something I never figured would have survived all the years since I was a "student activist" in the anti-war movement back in the day. But here it is. Often 75 pages an issue.

Considering all the things and ideas that have passed my way since lo those many years ago, I can't tell you how absolutely refreshing it has been to pick up Fred's work.

I may only agree with 65-80% of what he says. But you have to love a guy who lives like he yaps. Or at least as much as possible considering the world as it is.

If only to read some good old school anarchist philosophy (and the "Technical Topics" in the back of the zine explaining how to keep yourself off the grid) it is worth any donation you can make.

And Fred will NEVER see this. He doesn't have a computer, remember?

YEAR!!!!

2010-12-31T07:00:00.000-06:00

Ow....

New...

2010-12-30T07:08:00.001-06:00

Happy...

2010-12-29T14:37:00.001-06:00

Going Forward

2010-12-28T13:28:00.005-06:00

Man... "Going Forward" ranks right up there with "Go From There," and "It Is What It Is," and "At The End Of The Day" isn't it? Yet another popular phrase that people don't even hear themselves say after a while.

But, you know, going forward I'd just like to say that I'm sitting here thinking 2011 is going to be an interesting year. I'm not saying it's going to be a good year, just interesting. There's a couple things I have going on right now that I haven't mentioned at all that I have some hopes for. One of them a collaboration on a project that came up out of the blue this past fall. Another that is kind of related and kind of not.

I have the next piece of writing already in mind and will be getting this last ridiculously boring thing out into the hands of someone who is going to try and find a home for it in the next week or so.

What are the chances of me finding myself in some other employment by this time next year? Well that's hard to say. I've been looking in earnest for a couple weeks now with little luck. And just in the last few days here all of a sudden we've had an uptick in activity in signed contracts and actual deposits. So who knows? It can't be that the economy is slowly moving again, can it? My work is usually like the proverbial canary in a coal mine. For better or worse. Time will tell.

I just have a general sense that something good is around the corner and I can't really put my finger on it. I'm not so sure it has anything to do with me so much as to the people I'm close to. One person in particular is overdue for great news. But this is nebulous and I don't know what it is at all. Just a sense.

It's just I'm through with years clicking over before I have been paying attention. Jesus, my granddaughter is going to be 8 this coming year. EIGHT? When the hell did that happen and where was i for that all this time?

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens when you grow old. We all know about it and laugh about it and pretty much agree with it. It's sort of like the Betty White Syndrome (which I just now made up) wherein when you get old enough you can pretty much say anything you want and get away with it. I'm sensing a general drift towards that kind of power in my life. We'll see if I just chicken out.

In 2011 we are having our 40th high school reunion and the thing that has struck me the most are the number of people from our class of '71 who have croaked. I still don't know how someone who was generally outside the lines in school manages to get on his SECOND reunion committee in ten years, but I'm beginning to suspect it's because I ended up being one of the people with the least amount of baggage from those years. It still astonishes me the number of people who want nothing to do with this. Not that I don't feel that view is valid, just that I don't understand it. Seems to me a person would have to have baggage to feel that way, no matter how much they say it's just a matter of interest. I look with suspicion upon it.

In 2011 I will be telling you about a slew of things that will be making their way back into the small press world. The time has come to quit sleeping through it all.

In 2011 I am going to get below 200 and stay there.

In 2011 my oldest daughter gets her Masters. She will be a master accountant. But since both of my daughters are already currently making more money than me a year I'm already pretty proud of them.

None of these are resolutions. Resolutions have the character of things that may or may not be. I'm simply telling you "what it is."

Yet another stupid saying like "going forward" and shit like that.

When You Come Right Down To It

2010-12-27T10:43:00.009-06:00

I'm generally an optimist.

I always believe it's not as bad as we think it is. I generally feel there's always a chance. I'm pretty much open to new music, new ideas, new people.

I still think I can do it. I have this feeling that something else can always happen.

People who lay out that negative vibe, even if it is negativity disguised in "trying to help," I can usually set aside and walk away from.

I don't much like to hang out with negative people or people who always have an exception, a cutting remark, a justification for their opinion even when it wasn't called for, a desire to interject their critique about something when the drift of the subject points another way. I try to walk away as much as possible. Stay focused. Don't take it to heart. Keep moving.

You point to something funny and they have to tell you why something about that something is something they don't like.

They're very willing to tell you why you need to get "practical" and "down to earth" and live in the "real world," but their own horizons are steeled into a strict, narrow avenue of what is acceptable. Unless of course someone else is doing the exact thing they just criticized you for, and then "they are a great example."

I long ago realized that I'm not going to make everybody happy. I'm not going to satisfy other people's expectations. Nor am I at the mercy of those expectations.

I'm saying all this but I'm not completely sure why. Maybe it's just my inner Stuart Smalley . Maybe I'm honing in on a "resolution" for the coming year. Yeah I do those sometimes, when they're needed.

I think this one may be needed this year. We shall see, eh?

Happy New Christmas Whatever

2010-12-26T17:01:00.004-06:00

What the hell is this doing here?

Have you ever been with MrsRW and I when we've gone and vacationed in the tropics?

NO???

Well, if you did, you'd understand what this was doing here...

Oh Look! Christmas Bullets!

2010-12-22T09:50:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I took the day off work to take my grand daughter and MrsRW into the city to go see the Goodman Theater's annual production of "A Christmas Carol" and also to have dinner under the Great tree at Macy's. The production this year was rather flat and the food at the Walnut Room was ridiculously horrid. Either the bloom is off the rose for the play or whatever, but it just didn't sparkle like it did in years past. Not sure I was 100% convinced. Still we had SECOND ROW seats (I was wrong about 4th row, what do I know?) and that was fun. But the Walnut Room (this was better when run by Marshall Field's) had an almost three hour wait and my vegetables were cold, dry, and tasted like they were sitting in somebody's basement a second ago. Breakfast is the only thing to go there for. Champagne and waffles they still do well. Dinner... not so much.

Still, seen through the eyes of seven-year-old Emma this was a great day. At the end of the show when people were taking their bows one of the actors specifically pointed her out and waved to her. She lit up and waved back and was on top of the world after. Plus at dinner a fairy came by and sprinkled her with pixie dust and granted her a wish. Plus she said her chicken fingers were fantastic. So it was a success even if MrsRW and I spent most the the day squinting and going "wtF?"

So I don't know. We either go to the Walnut Room for breakfasts only or find another place. or change our tradition. This was unacceptable. The tree was great this year and Emma sat where she could have it in view completely while she ate. We have some decisions to make before next year I guess.

It is just about as gray and icy out there as I have ever seen it. It is an unbelievable gray right now. I'm not sure this gray ever showed up in nature before. Like some redheads I've seen.

I commented yesterday to MrsRW that coming down into the city for Christmas anymore will get you one of two things: A. a justified and eternal conviction that humanity is comprised of a bunch of fucking boneheads worthy of hate, disdain and ridicule or B. Christmas back in the city is just a wonderful, colorful, exhilarating joy.

I'll get back to you on that.

Well you'll wish you were here Christmas Eve because I'm making roast beef for the daughters and their associated peoples. Then Christmas Day at the oldest daughter's with the whole family (plus the shoehorn needed to fit us all in there). You know you want to be at my house Friday though. Admit it.

What I haven't told anybody is that I'm back on the stomach-watch. Sad to say at the opening of this month I was (don't hate me) up to my highest ever weight - 213. Oh dear. Last night I came in at 203. I've been doing a spot of running, cutting all portions, no fast food AT ALL, lots of greens, no milk and TONS OF WATER instead of beer or soda pop or anything else at meals. Plus fresh-squeezed lemonade (from real lemons = no corn syrup from the concentrates) and smoothies. And fruit. And more veggies. But that's 10 pounds in 22 days and probably I have a disease because that's a little drastic don't you think? Maybe I'm dying. Who knows?

Yeah I was worried about this week and the poundage because of the holidays and all. I expected to put a stop to this weight loss as of yesterday but luckily dinner was inedible so I didn't screw it up there. What's amazing is that last weekend i took my daughters to Stephanie Izzard's (you know, Top Chef winner season 4 blah blah blah) place and we p-i-g-g-e-d out BIG time. So again - wtf. I probably have cancer or something and don't know it yet. Best I can figure.

And on a lighter note, in the past week I subscribed to TWO anarchist publications. They're so cute. If I wasn't on somebody's list before I will be now. But oh well I'm dying so who cares.

I should be back in beforehand but if I'm not a Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones. Whether you want it or not.

Where I Am Now

2010-12-16T08:18:00.007-06:00

I already have the idea for my next bit of fiction and can't wait to get going on it. The problem is I'm still not done with the current thing. I'm a little anxious to get started on the new thing and, as expected, I already hate the old thing. But I have promised to send it to someone who wants to try and do something with it in January so I guess I better get that done.

Don't get excited, I hate everything I've ever written. Everything.

If anything I think I've found the voice I've been looking for all these years.
There's not a lot of verbiage anymore. No long-winded paragraphs and descriptions until you've got every last freaking detail.
Don't write the boring stuff; the big, long paragraphs that just make everybody yawn.
Dialog dialog dialog.
As few adjectives as possible.
And one sentence paragraphs. A lot of them. In a row.
Your reader should be on page thirty before they even know it, and wrapped up in the story so that they don't even realize they're that far in.
Take out all the flummery. Distill everything down to as few words as possible. That's the hard part.
Write 6,000 words and cut 5,500 of them. Then do it again tomorrow.
Expect that most of what you did yesterday is shit.
Don't fall in love with anything you create.
Just tell a story and don't be full of yourself. A five-year-old can tell a story.

Hemingway said writing is easy. "All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

Then don't take the blood seriously.

On another front, I've taken out a subscription to an anarchist magazine. Anarchists are so cute. They realize what they're saying is impossible but they keep going for it anyway. I saw a cartoon, said "libertarians are anarchists with money." But if the people who call themselves libertarians - as it is understood these days - knew the anarchist roots of the idea they'd be shocked. Shocked I tell you.

But I was browsing through Quimby's Bookstore the other day and OMG saw issue #103 of The Match. Do you realize I first saw The Match when I was in HIGH SCHOOL??? Like 1969 or '70 (yes, I've been weird for a while now, and your point IS?). The same guy is doing it. Fred has got to be in his 70's by now and has lived pretty much off the grid since forever, spouting what he styles as "ethical anarchism." There is no website, so forget that. You have to really look to find an address to connect with him via snail mail. And if you can manage to get a subscription you have to realize that he has no publishing schedule. You'll get it. But you'll get it when he's done so bugger off.

Still in all that's not the one I just subscribed to, but just the same it's Issue freaking #103 and I think forty years ago it was like Issue #2 or #8 I was looking at.

And NO I'm not joining the movement. I stopped dreaming of the impossible a long time ago. If everything was anarchism the only people in charge would be gangs of roving thugs. Whoever was armed would say what's what. Which is kind of what we have now except on a worldwide scale. So there is that.

Okay so tonight I'll throw out most of yesterday's work and plow in again. It's like a dam broke but most of what comes out is swill.

Another Reason I Love My City

2010-12-15T15:53:00.004-06:00

Because they're all a bunch of bums anyway and furthermore we know it.

But there's some good scene shots in here too.

You wished you lived here. Admit it.

Have fun...

ReOrient

2010-12-13T16:37:00.006-06:00

Just a bit of housekeeper btw. Notice, please, some alterations in the all-important sidebar. I have saved two of my favorite comments from over the years and added them in. I have to say that after starting right along with the internet (beginning with the newsgroups and carrying all the way to streaming video) I've grown a pretty thick internet skin. If any of you have read my shit on other boards or blogs where it looks like I'm pissed off, you got it wrong I'm afraid. From the start, you should know, if you ever want to escape some of the ill-will and mean people on the inter-tubes... all you have to do is turn off your computer. No? Bad guys gone like poof.

So if you have anybody out there who will seriously yell at me - not for-show yelling, I can tell - I'd be more than happy to add them as well.

Brian? Gino? I wish I would have kept the comments from that one-eyed Catholic fascist troll when we were doing the Boileryard. Wut wuz i thinkin...

But ALSO I have added a little thing called "Exceptional People and Things." So far I got two links in it. I'm looking for what blows my mind. It's not a link list or a "give me a link I give you one back" crap. These are going to be things that, if we were in a bar having a couple of drinks and you said "so recommend some things I haven't seen online" I'd lead you here.

The first one, Hyperbole and a Half, is the flat-out funniest blog on the net. Sorry. No contest. End of story. Forget about it. Allie's artwork can be found everywhere from amongst the denizens of Anonymous to kids who have dog stories to tell and swipe an image to print on their report. Hyperbole and a Half) is flat out genius. I'm sure Allie is a long lost daughter of mine from some illicit liason I didn't remember.

Below that is the direct channel to the Wikileaks mirror sites. If you haven't read one cable, then what are you talking about?

And... for the finale... another tune from before 1968 that has been covered by the Punks and deserves to be seen as a true feeder for everything that broke out in the late 70's. Click the link below that says "Enjoy" in red.

Enjoy.

America

2010-12-12T21:39:00.002-06:00

We are the greatest people on Earth. Our form of government is the best. In religious belief and practice we are exactly right. And we are also the best fighters in the world. As a people we are the wisest, politically the most free, and socially the most developed. Other nations may fail and fall; we are safe. Our history is a narrative of the triumph of righteousness among the people. We see these forces working through every generation of our glorious past. Our future growth and success are as certain as the rules of mathematics. Providence is always on our side. We have been divinely selected in order to save and purify the world through our example. If other nations will only accept our religious and political principles, and our general attitude toward life, they soon will be, no doubt, as happy and prosperous as we are.