Working the Program

When my rented modem died on the morning of the Fourth of July, my second response, after the inevitable expression of numerous colorful terms, was to reconcile myself to at least one day without the Ubiquitous Umbilical, as this was a holiday and I didn’t feel inclined to wrestle with a call center’s third string operators.

 

“Oh, dearie me, whatever shall I do?” my Fluttery Old Maid Self bemoaned. My Stoic Self replied, “Suffer for a few days until Qwest gets a replacement to me. Us. Whatever.” So, being stalwart and true as only a crusty old pirate cap’n can be, I girded up for a few days in the Virtual Void. Now seventy-two hours have passed, and more, and I’m ready to swear off, at least as far as being able to log on 24/7. In other words, no more home Internet access for Ye Cap’n, at least for the foreseeable future.

 

“Golly gee whiz, Cap’n,” you ask in your charming if juvenile way. “What brought that on?” While hardware failure was the trigger, I think what was the clincher was the realization that the night before I had spent hours watching crappy movies, culminating in the viewing of “Godzilla vs Mothra” for the unknownth time. I had known for awhile on some level that Netflix, Hulu and other streamers no longer satisfy; the movies you want to watch simply aren’t available (although to be fair to the providers, and according to their own count of my ratings and viewing history, I have apparently watched so many movies and TV series over the years—5000 or so, and those are just the ones I can remember—so there just might not be all that many left). But after one of far too many bleary-eyed evenings in front of the screen, fixed on bad flicks, or just the old “bored and surfing for crap in general” routine, I think my Wise Old Grandma Self finally decided it was time to say, “Haven’t you had enough?”

 

Let’s not fool ourselves, for some of us, the Web can be an addictive thing, not so much for content as availability—kind of like Olde English 800 or Marlboro. In fact, I think it’s become a recognized phenomena in professional circles. So what’s the First Step in battling the Demon Net? The same as with any compulsive behavior: admitting you have a problem.

 

Done.

 

So then I took an inventory. On the “pro-home-access” side, I came up with: a) can watch good movies occasionally, b) can stream TV, too, particularly The Rachel Maddow Show, c) can chat with folks online, many of whom have become good friends, d) can do banking and ordering online from my desktop, e) can do extensive research quickly and conveniently. On the “con” side, however, I came up with concepts which, ironically, included many of the former, to wit: a) watching too many movies, most either total garbage or ones I’d seen before, to the point where the process took up far too much of my time, b) chatting can indeed take up too much time as well, c) too many “flame wars” with trolls and other idiots, d) too much “impulse buying” from Amazon, e) an expense of over $60/month, f) the ability of the NSA and other three-letter abominations, as well as corporate entities, to monitor my shopping and surfing tastes and thus manipulate my behavior–“Hey, since you like Hendrix, we have several posters, t-shirts, toilet bowl brushes…” I could probably go on, but you get the idea.

 

Be assured, there are some things I’ll no doubt miss, including Facebook friends, Hartmann-chat buddies and of course the Rachel Maddow Show, which I will no longer be able to stream; that last one will be particularly difficult. The cons, however, are far outweighed by the pros of Internetlessness, at least for me. On-line banking and mail-ordering, for instance, while not as convenient as before, will still be available enough at cyber cafes to still make the process effective; and if need be, there’s always the phone (which, by the way, also applies to said buddies, if they wish). Also, the results of any research project usually can wait until the next time I can get to Wikipedia; if not, well, I actually have an appreciable library of real books to utilize. And I really think an hour a day, three-four times a week, is plenty of time for social networking; remember, I’m not ending my web-presence as much as limiting it.

 

There’s this to consider, too: with age sixty coming up in a little over a month, I think it’s way past time that I got serious about THE MAGNUM OPUS, especially since I’ve been fooling around with it in one form or another for over thirty-five years. And not having the sweet siren call of the Web ever lurking in the background should aid that effort immensely.

 

Will I ever return? That is not impossible. But for now, the peace and quiet, and the freed-up opportunity to actually do other things I need and want to do, or at least have been neglecting, has made it worthwhile already. Thus it seems fitting that my modem chose Independence Day to resign itself to plastic heaven. Free at last, free at last, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m free at last.

 

So, I’ll see you online…just not so much.

Quit laughing, James

James would have appreciated the farce, I think.

Last year, I wrote here about the passing of my friend Mildred Jackson.  As often is the case, her husband James followed her not long afterward, on Nov 2 of this year.  Today was the memorial service, which I intended to attend.  Therein lay my peril.

Getting up in the morning is nothing unusual.  Folks have been doing it as long as there have been folks.  I’ve been doing it myself for nearly sixty years, mostly without noteworthy mishap–well, except for that rather extended bit of nonsense when I was a little kid (sorry, Mom).  But in accordance with both Murphy’s and Bombeck’s Laws, this morning was the morning that plans went a bit awry, in ways that now upon reflection seem like the plot for a low-level sit-com.

Most of us who bother to shave would agree that it’s a simple enough process, yet not one without its pitfalls.  Thus, it is always a good idea to delay the practice of applying a very sharp blade to one’s skin until fully awake.  I didn’t this time, and as a consequence left a blade-wide slice in my chin, where the razor turned inwards just a second before my face did.  Okay, get the toilet paper, look like an idiot for awhile; no big problem.  Should anyone ask, I got it in a cutlass-fight with one of the King’s men, and took ye wound a’fore slitting him stem-to-stern.  In other words, shut up.

I still had a few hours to go before the memorial, so I decided to kill some time by going down to my favorite local coffee shop for awhile.

 

A few preliminary words are perhaps in order here.  While the neighborhood I live in isn’t really know for its violent crime (unless you count the time some good ol’ boy in a jacked-up rig ran over the neighbors’ car at four in the morning), it’s not exactly a gated community, either.  Therefore, just to be cautious, I always carry a small can of pepper spray, usually in my front pants pocket for easy grabbing should the need arise.  For that very reason, I also walk with my hand in that pocket.  Today was no different.

What was different, however, was that somehow the safety catch on the trigger had found its way into the “off” position, meaning it was ready to fire.  What’s worse, somehow (again) the trigger, despite being recessed into the cylinder cap, got slightly depressed.  I say “slightly” because having tried the thing out when I first got it–foolishly, in a fairly enclosed area–I became quite familiar with the intensity of the effect even the blow-back can generate.  Had this thing blasted out a full shot, I would have doubtlessly known about it soon, and with extreme certainty.

But I didn’t realize it right away.  In fact, as I strolled along, I slowly became aware of–how to put this delicately–a lot more excitement in my pants than I’ve had in a long time.  Remember:  front pants pocket.  The hullabaloo continued to increase, until even I began to realize that this was more than could be explained by a bad reaction to laundry detergent residue, or a subconscious detection of stray pheromones wafting about the Springfield downtown area (noted for its wealth of “adult clubs”, if you catch my drift) after a busy Friday night.

By now I had made it to the coffee place–actually, I had to wander around for a half-hour, because this being Saturday, they opened later than during the week.  After getting my drink–did the lady at the counter wrinkle her nose at me because of some faint whiff of capsicum , or was it just for general principles?–I sat down at my usual table, and began to set up my netbook.  It was while waiting for the thing to boot that I became aware myself of some trace fragrance that made me think of peppery Chinese food.  Since that didn’t fit well with the menu there, I did a little surreptitious sniffing around and eventually found the source–the apparent source, that is–to be the hand that had been in my “loaded pocket”.

Now while I don’t claim to be the most alert person in the world, by now I was starting toget an idea what might have happened.  Add that to what was now a full-blown rock concert going on in my shorts, and I was pretty much certain.  So casually (I pretended) I headed for the toilet, did a quick check, and found that not only the pocket liner but the–ahem–layer of cotton beneath were beet-red from the mix of pepper and oil that makes up the ammunition of these little defensive shooters.  Perhaps more to the point, a region of the human body well-known for its sensitivity to stimuli, caustic or otherwise, was also showing a similar coloration, one not entirely from the active ingredient’s staining properties.  And to top off the misery…remember I said I had a nice cut on my face?  It should be easy to imagine that I might have drew it pensively across fresh slice, as well as scratched my nose or rubbed my eyes with the contaminated extremity, before I realized the likely resultant effect.

Fortunately, I had enough time to head back home, shower again, change clothes and make it to the service.  Unfortunately, all through the event, the chemical irritation hadn’t let up, which resulted not only in me fidgeting more than usual, but in a runny nose and teary eyes as well.  This being a memorial, no doubt people were thinking, “Gee, they must have been close.”  I have no idea what they thought of my flaming cutlass-wound; a failed attempt at hari-kari over the loss?
It’s later now, I’m back home, and the inflammation is just one more bad memory.  I’ve gained more respect for pepper spray, too.

I’m just glad it wasn’t a pocket .38 I was carrying.

Crusty’s New York Adventure

So why am I sitting in a restaurant between Rachel Maddow and Kent Jones, and no one’s throwing punches?  That requires a little history.

When I was a kid, I used to take old newspaper photos, cut ‘n’ paste them (with actual scissors and real paste) onto typewriter paper, then type up accompanying satirical comments, all for the amusement of friends–a kind of early, self-made “Onion”.  My efforts were largely a success, at least in the limited venue of the Elkhart, IN, public school system.  Hell, the faculty hated them, so to me that positively shouted, “You’re doing it right!”  I grew up and went on to other things, but the love of that particular kind of “fake-news satire” stuck.

Six years ago, health difficulties pushed me into an early retirement–not entirely unwillingly, I confess–and I found myself with a wealth of free time on my hands.  Being of a political bent (in more ways than one), I tuned into the then-new Air America Radio, and soon was pleased to hear someone reading, of all things, satirical fake-news, with the added touch of a Walter-Winchell-esque voice styling.  I had found Kent Jones, one of the wits behind AAR’s “Unfiltered” radio program, along with Lizz Winstead, Chuck D and a previously-unknown news-reader named Rachel Maddow.

Now anyone with more than a passing knowledge of AAR knows that it went through many shark-jumping episodes before finally going belly-up.  One of these involved Winstead and Chuck D moving on, and Rachel getting her own cleverly-named “Rachel Maddow Show”, backed up by Kent as a sort of “pop-culture” observer and commentator.  For reasons not entirely clear even to me, I soon became an active, or overactive, blogger on her adjunct website, as did a handful of other people whom were also following Rachel’s career.  Things went along swimmingly, in that we all clicked personally, to the point of fast and genuine (if electronic) friendship; and when Rachel once made a sort of off-handed comment about some information she had received from her “science advisory board”, four of us readily and without being asked took on the ad hoc mantel, dubbing ourselves thusly (even though only one of us is, in grownup life, an actual sciencey-scientist).  So it was that the Rachel Maddow Show Science Advisory Board was born.

Flash forward to the present, to find Dr Maddow with her own much-deserved TV show, along with her irrepressible sidekick, Mr Jones, and the SAB still going strong.  Through a series of intense negotiations and several often-bewildering (to me) conference calls, facilitated by our illustrious Chair, Madame Chemgirl, we (the board members, and others) were all finally able to get together in NYC–to actually meet in person–with the added hope of having dinner with Rachel and Kent.  I say “hope” simply because the news business being as fluid as it is, people in the profession might understandably be called away at a moment’s notice to deal with new crises, or other opportunities as they arise.  Case in point:  Rachel has been to the Gulf Coast at least twice now since the latest BP crime, and just a few days before our scheduled potential meeting she was in LA doing Maher’s show.  The tension mounted; would she be back in time? wouldn’t she?  should I avoid gassy foods a full week ahead of time?

I arrived in NYC–well, technically Newark–very, very early on Saturday, where I was met by Chemgirl, who was to be my gracious (and extremely patient) hostess for the next few days.  And for those few days, under her more-than-capable guidance, I was to see a good portion of Manhattan–possibly the most incredible urban structure on Earth, something far more esthetically rich and vibrant than anything Paolo Soleri could ever imagine.

A disclaimer is probably in order here.  I’m a born-and-bred small-town boy, and as such not much of a fan of big cities.  I’ve been to a few–Chicago (many times), Louisville (spent a year there one  day, badda-bing), Cincinnati, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Bangkok–and with the exception of the Big Easy, went away unimpressed:  too many people, too much pushing and shoving, noise, traffic, and no easy way out; crime and soot and soulless towers of steel and glass, with the greater share of the denizens scurrying about down below.  In short, a warren of murderously insane rats, and far too many of them.

I was soon to change my mind…about New York, anyway.  I think I can say in all honesty that the Borough of Manhattan is something entirely different from any other over-built conglomeration I’ve ever experienced.  It’s as if the most dynamic elements of the vast multi-ethnic mélange that is American culture had been shoehorned into a couple dozen insular square miles, then left to develop on its own in a peculiar hot-house of architectural wonders, incongruous juxtapositions and historic import, to finally produce at some point a sort of “population-density phase-change”.  Just as a solid becomes a liquid at a certain temperature, then a gas, then a plasma, so might a huge city, under certain unique circumstances,  shift in some nebulous but very real way, becoming instead a human phenomena, something so different from just one more “big city” that it’s almost impossible to describe, yet when witnessed, equally impossible to deny.  It’s not for nothing, nor is it just another example of typically human provincial pride, that NYC is known as “America’s City”; it is, in my humble opinion, the concentrated wealth of the American experience, distilled and ready for imbibing, 24/7/365.  “The City That Never Sleeps”, indeed; hell, it barely pauses to take a breath.

For example, in four days time I:  walked through Central Park, down Broadway (with its famous Theater District), Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, into and through Times Square (once at 12:30 AM, and it was still blasting), and past Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Chelsea Hotel (where apparently every well-known writer, musician, artist and hog-caller in the world has stayed, and occasionally died); saw Macy’s, Grant’s Tomb (and found out who was buried there), and the Bette Midler “Adopt-a-Highway sign on Maj Deegan Highway, the Bronx; visited Ellis Island, the lobby of the Empire State Building, the Strand bookstore (the proud possessor of a room so full of hoary tomes that it nearly reeks of leather and fine old paper) and the Penn Station/Madison Square Garden complex; rode the subway numerous times, where I participated in an adventure that combined live entertainment (including, of course, a hopping hairy guy in the frilly dress) with an olfactory milieu that must be experienced to be believed, let alone described.  We also visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, specifically the Egyptian section (where I’m afraid this old Nilophile talked my hostess’ ear off for a good solid two hours–I said she was patient), and the King Tut exhibit (where I talked everyone‘s ear off), as well as a basement improv comedy troop that has us all rolling in the aisles.  In short, I think I saw well over half of all the sights we’ve all seen in movies or on TV, or read about somewhere.  Indeed, it would be easier to list the number of places I’ve just mentioned with which most people, here and around the world, have not heard of.  That alone would be heady enough.

But I had been kind of expecting all that; here’s what really stunned me.  Manhattan has a resident population, according to Wikipedia, of over 1.6 million, which works out to a density averaging 70,000 per square mile…about twenty times that of Eugene/Springfield, OR, my home town.  Add all the tourists, off-island workers and just plain visitors, and that figure probably goes up to at least the 100K mark.  Yet instead of all the pushing, shoving and general ill-mannered behavior one would expect to find in a much smaller but just as packed crowd of my fellow Southern Willamette Valley denizens, Manhattanites not only would not stand right in middle of the areas of busiest foot traffic or bottlenecks just because that’s where they happened to stop, they would–automatically, without being asked–adjust their own line of travel so as not to interfere with someone else’s; all calmly and matter-of-factually, not just as a ploy to have praise heaped on them for being “thoughtful”.  “People respect each other’s space,” Kent told me, and I think he’s right.  The reason I think may be simple logistics:  it’s as if everyone–rich, poor, male, female, busy shopper or half-drunk street person–realized at some point that for anyone to function at all in this highly compact mass of humanity, everyone has to quietly, almost reflexively, facilitate the general flow…in other words, to stay out of everyone’s way.  Eugeneans, despite their much- (and largely self-) ballyhooed “friendliness”, could learn a little something of genuine thoughtfulness from the so-called “cold and rude” New Yorker.  So could the gun-nuts who parrot Heinlein’s, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life”, when it seems that population density may be a better–or at least lest violent–way of achieving polite social interaction (besides, the Wild West was well-armed, yet hardly mannerly–perhaps in part because it was also thinly populated?)

Sociopolitical speculation aside, however, as the picture shows, we all did finally hook up with Dr Maddow and Mr Jones, and enjoyed an evening of laughter and good camaraderie.  For that, I thank not only Dina, but the rest of the crowd:  Joyce, Debbie, Billy, Chip, Ryan, Susan and Kelly, and of course Rachel and Kent, and not just for dinner but for an unforgettable adventure in The Big Apple.  It was a trip that changed a lot of my preconceived notions, particularly about urban existence; when faced with the wonders of Manhattan, I can now see the attraction that huge metropolitan areas can exert…especially when one ends up on that final night on Bleecker Street, in Greenwich Village, scarfing down a piece of the cheesecake that New York is justly famous for.

But would I move there to live?  No way; even with all the conveniences and marvels, the weather still sucks mightily.  Despite the relatively cool weather, the humidity was almost unbearable; and having grown up in snow country, I can well imagine what winters must be like there.  So while I look forward to my next visit, I’m not in any way, shape or form seriously considering relocation.  Even if I could afford it.

Oh, and before I forget:  the hopping subway guy, in the dress.  Someone really should tell him that backless is not the way he should go, for reasons that are thankfully not apparent in this shot.

My Dinner with Maddow, Part One

Thank you, Chris Baty

Like many people whom are intrinsically uncertain of their ability to perform a given act, yet desperate to do so successfully, I have spent literally decades dithering.  I know I wanted to write a novel, I thought I had as much writing talent as most of the authors who do get published–perhaps even more–and I felt certain that given half a chance I could actually, some day, produce something worthwhile.  But when it came to the reality of the effort, I balked.  It wasn’t the work; writing to me, while indeed difficult and laborious in the extreme (you don’t think so?  try it sometime, if you never have), nevertheless for the most part is a great enjoyment.

No, in the end, it was simply the self-doubt about whether or not I could really produce something as complex as a novel.

Short stories are, in comparison, relatively easy:  few characters, one or two basic themes, beginning, middle, end, finish in a day or two, move on.  But full-length novels are something else entirely, much more than just a story that’s longer than others.  The expectation of the reader–and he or she must be paramount in a writer’s concern; if you’re going to presume take money and time from a person for a packet of entertainment, you’d better damn well deliver–is for in-depth and consistent portrayal of more than one character, at least a handful of sub-plots, well-crafted descriptions of settings, and little, or better, no extemporaneous material, no matter how much it might satisfy your own selfish desires.  And the reader–whether or not he or she is mindful of doing so–also wants to see this all seamlessly and harmonically interwoven into the greater narrative.  Think of a browsing deer, a copse of trees, a lowering sky and the warm yellow window of a distant cottage, all in a fine tapestry depicting the totality of a winter panorama with each element present, unique and identifiable, yet in balance with rather than overwhelming the rest of the scene.

In other words, you, as a writer, has to pay attention to detail, continuity and style, and maintain them all over a mass of words than can number well into the six-figures.  It’s difficult, it’s daunting, and it can scare the living shit out of you, so much so that when faced with the task, you can easily find yourself paralyzed.

Enter, Chris Baty and NaNoWriMo:  NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth.  What it is, and does, are pretty much implicit in the title.  To participate, one must take an idea for a story of a minimum of 50,000 words and drive through to that goal in the thirty days of November.  It’s a simple as that.  But what it accomplishes, for me anyway, is two-fold:  not only did I have to discipline myself to write 1667 words per day, at least on average, but because the time was limited, I couldn’t find excuses to worry about minor plot points, such as whether a character’s actions in one situation might be completely consistent with the nuances of his or her personality as depicted earlier in the work, or if I should name a critical street after This or That figure or feature, or if indeed a certain government office has exactly the mission that I claimed it does.  In short, if a problem ain’t critical, then move along.  This is just first draft, you know.  As Liz Engstrom, another great teacher of the craft, always says:  fix it in the rewrite.

So this year, not only did I reach the goal, I went beyond it, having well over 60,000 words today, the last day of the project.  Better yet, since I’m not concerned at present with all those little flaws that will inevitably arise during the course of a work, I can look back on what I have accomplished, and find that overall, I like it.  And I think others will, too, once it is polished up.  Which means, not only may I actually finish the rough draft–I think 70-80K words will do it–but I am more hopeful than I have ever been that I will then go on through the second, and then final drafts, and after that, seriously beginning looking for a publisher.

Thanks, Chris.  Couldn’t have done it without you.  Oh, and you, too, Liz.

Mary Travers (1936-2009) RIP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjy2HCdV6BA

And still no peace.  We never learn.

Brilliant idea!

Many of you may recall that during the Bush Administration there were “Free Speech Zones” set up at GOP functions so the lackeys of the rich wouldn’t have to put up with embarrassing truths being fired at them.  I’m thinking now that the Obama Administration should do something along the same lines, but from a different direction, ie, ”Free Gun Zones”.

Imagine if you will, barbed wire enclosures full of gun nuts strutting around like banty roosters, with all the ordnance they want strapped to their mangy little camo-clad carcasses.  What a picture, eh?  Then, if they want to exercise that ol’ 2nd Amendment right, well, who better to practice on than their own paranoid, brown-rice-eating, gold-bullion-hording, sandbagged-compound-dwelling, country-n-western-listening, flag-saluting, conspiracy-elaborating selves?

Hell, as a public service, the Secret Service could even provide them with reasonable amounts of ammo in various calibers, free of charge.  Think of it as “redistributing the wealth”, crazed-pinhead-militia-style!

Maybe I should email this to the White House, see what they say.  Or see how long it takes before I get a knock at the door and some nice men in cheap suits ask me if I’m doing anything the next 10-20 years.  Which I’m not, as it turns out.

The Last True Journalist

There are people whom I admire–Michael Moore, Rachel Maddow, Paul Ehrlich and Ralph Nader are the living ones.  But I can’t really say I have heroes.  Heroes per se tend to disappoint, to have feet of clay; to be all too human.   Thus, despite the many good works performed by the aforementioned and a paltry few others, at the end of the day I would not want to emulate them.   In other words, “Role model” is a term I rarely find useful.

But occasionally, our species of gibbering, club-wielding ape produces an individual about whom even a raging cynic and misanthrope such as myself can feel safe in saying:  “If most of us were like this person, this world would not be the hell-hole of hypocrisy that it is”.    So it was that when I heard of Walter Cronkite’s death this morning, it was as if the last candle in a dark, dark room had gone out.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Walter Cronkite.  Naive I might have been, but nevertheless I thought that if people could only get the unvarnished facts, they would ignore the lies of the narcissistic sociopaths in business, in government, in religion and yes, even in journalism, and thus rise up and eliminate the injustices that humans commit against their fellows by the billions, day in and day out.  To me, there could be no higher calling, nor more needful one; honest reporting–getting the facts of current events to the voting public, pure and unvarnished–was, and indeed still is, the foundation upon which a successful democracy is built.  And no one in my memory fit the bill better than Walter Cronkite.

I know what some are thinking right now:  there’s no such thing as completely unbiased reporting.  And if one uses the principle of reductio ad abusurdum, then they’re right–there will always be a flavor of personal prejudice in any news story.  But applying more reasonable standards, I feel it is still possible enough that people of good will can look at an incident or a principle, make note of all the more salient aspects, and then describe them with a high degree of accuracy, in spite of their own opinions.

Walter Cronkite did just that, and people respected him for it, and trusted him even when they didn’t like what he was saying.  What better evidence, than when LBJ finally said:  “”If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”  Nowadays, however, media figures have become 7-8-figure entertainment personalities bought and paid for by the rich and powerful.  And the US has suffered for it.  Would George Bush have ever gotten into office if it hadn’t been for the well-dressed and -coiffed venal mouthpieces disguised as credible, objective reporters whom acted as if his “victories” were credible?  Would self-serving arguments against overpopulation, global warming, and universal health care be treated with anything more than the contempt they deserve?  Would the tag-along cheerleaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly be seen as anything more than the lying, manipulative demagogues that they really are?

When I’ve seen what journalism has become, I despair; when I remember Walter Cronkite, I mourne.  And in the end, I’m glad I instead found more honest work sweeping floors and driving trucks.

A Three-and-a-Half Decade First

I just got back from the first funeral I’ve been to in nearly 35 years.  Here’s the announcement.

Mildred

I don’t have much to add to what was said better by others, nor will I linger over my heated disgust at the phonies whom treated Mildred like dirt while she was alive but then suddenly got all teared up when the microphone was in their hands.  All I know is that Mildred was one of the few people I could be ornery with in this oh-so-PC town, and not only would she not stick her nose in the air, or scold me like some constipated school-marm, but she would ornery me back, and give as good as she got, and sometimes even more.

Goodbye, Mildred.  I’ll miss you more than you’d realize; more than even I would have guessed.

Well. How ’bout that?

Before I go any further, I want to make it clear:  I have not been going around saying over and over again, “We offer a laurel and a hearty handshake to you, our new…president”.  I have not.  Well, not over and over again, anyway.

I hope that’s clear.

Moving right along…as most who know me are aware, I’m not a big Obama fan, even if I did vote for him.  To me, he’s no more than another “corporations-above-all-else fake Democrat”, just like Bill Clinton.  And while I will give him the same six-month grace period I give all new Presidents–even the out-going microcephalus–I have a strong feeling that by July 20th he’ll have shown his true flag, and it will have a $ prominently displayed in the center.

That said, I was sitting here this AM with a big cuppa, staring at the election results on this here typewriter-with-the-TV-on-it, when it finally hit me:  the President of the United States is a black man.  Okay, to be strictly accurate, someone whose ethnicity isn’t purely European.  But the point is, for the first time in history the Chief Exec isn’t all lily-white.  I guess I knew it had to happen someday, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever live to see it.  And he wasn’t just elected in overwhelming numbers by the traditional progressive demographics–women, racial minorities, gays–but by many white working class males as well, including among them card-carrying Republicans and Reagan Democrats.  Hell, even Indiana, my old home state, where once the Klan ruled from the State House and the Governor’s Mansion, has apparently gone for the multi-racial candidate.  Not by a huge margin by any means, but for this usually solid red state with such a tradition of racial hatred to have close results at all for a non-white is simply amazing.

Could it be, then, this country has finally turned a corner?  Has the US finally gotten beyond that long national nightmare of knee-jerk racism that has sat on the national character like a titanic turd ever since–even before–its inception?  Don’t get me wrong, the racist fools are still here, and probably will be for decades, if not forever.  But now, I think we’re seeing the shift to sanity.  Indeed, many of us who did vote for Obama–myself included–may have done so because of the GOP’s blatant pandering to the American bigot in the final few months of the campaign.  Remember the “Obama Waffles” and the shouts of “He’s a terrorist!” and “He’s an Arab!”, even “Kill him!” at McCain/Palin rallies?  That’s what ultimately convinced me to vote for Obama:  not because he’s the Great Progressive Hope (which he isn’t) who will turn this country around (he might, but not as much as many believe), but simply because a vote for Barack Hussein Obama was a vote against the ravening, brainless hate-mongers that have helped make of the United States a nation that is viewed world-wide as unfit to claim global leadership.

And if nothing else, at least now when the President opens his mouth, he won’t sound like a complete and utter idiot.  What a change we can believe in.

Can’t Sleep

It’s midnight, it’s raining, and there’s a lonely train horn sounding off in the darkness, not breaking the peace so much as emphasizing it.  It’s a weeknight, and sane people are wrapped in Morpheus’ cottony arms (so what am I doing up?  Well, I did say “sane”).  It gets like this sometimes:  even with the medication (doctor-approved, pharmacy-supplied), the snoozes just don’t come.  The brain refuses to shut-down, I fidget, and then one of my arthritic joints flares up and bingo:  instant insomnia.

So I struggle up and turn this machine on.  As much as I loathe the lion’s share of what computers and the Internet have done to American culture–at least as big an impact as TV was back in the Fifties, and we all have seen how that went–they have most definitely been a boon to those of us who don’t, or can’t get out much.  It’s all there, quite literally at one’s fingertips:  chatrooms from all over the world, news when you want it, email that came earlier, just waiting to be read and answered (if appropriate), even movies-on-demand, if you’ve got Netflix, high-speed access and don’t mind watching the crap the company generally provides for that service.

But at least that latter element can help put one to sleep.  Now there’s an idea.  Maybe I’ll see if Netflix has the complete series of Gilligan’s Island.  Guaranteed, I’ll be nodding before Episode One’s over.

Ta.

I hates snow; I hates it, me precious.

We are in the midst of one of our rare Southern Willamette Valley snowfalls this week:  ~4″ on the ground, highs barely above freezing, light snow on and off, with more of the same predicted for the next seven days or so.  Kids are loving it, naturally, since all it takes is a single flake to send the schools into closing-conniptions–and it makes for a welcome change from the usual endless drizzle the Pacific Northwest if famous for.  Plus there are the usual fender-benders when the many inexperienced–or stupid–drivers unused to such a phenomenon inevitably think they can just barrel along at their standard rate of speed, tilting back a gallon of Starbuck’s, cell-phone glued firmly to ear (and head placed firmly elsewhere), and nothing will happen.  Even more amusing–unless you’re directly involved, of course–are the micro-wits in 4-wheel drive vehicles.  Hey, Gomer, it ain’t magic; I don’t care how many tires you got spinning, when you hit ice, you’re gonna skid.  Period.

So, except for the occassional trip to Ye Grocery Store, Ye Cap’n is going to spend the week indoors.  I grew up around this crap, and I can’t wait for it to be gone.  It’s hard to get around in, it gets dirty-ugly really quick from car exhaust and other human effluvia, it melts and then freezes again, making more slippery conditions, it gets tracked into the house, and it’s just damn cold.  And wet.  And generally miserable.

In other words, it loses it’s questionable charm quickly after one has to deal with it in the real world.

Hancock

I don’t think I’ve ever recommended a flick here–or if I have, it’s been awhile.  But I’m going to now.

To be clear, I’ve been a Will Smith fan for some time; ever since Men in Black, I guess, but particularly now, as he’s gotten older and matured as an actor.  Some may remember the recent release of I, Robot.  I know, I know:  Asimov, who, while excelling in science writing (I never understood stellar physics until I read his straight-forward The Universe as a kid), left much to be desired as a fictioneer.  Yet with a weak idea and a weaker script, Robot managed to pull out of Ye Cap’n a 3-out-of-5 star rating simply because of Smith’s credible performance.

Now I’m sure many have seen the trailers for Hancock, and thought “Huh; street-drunk super-hero.  Okay, probably funny.”  And it is, without question.  In spots.  But it’s also more than that.  The prat-falls–and -flies–and -crashes into roadsigns, buildings, and birds–soon gives way to the question the viewer should have been asking from the get-go, and one we should all pose when confronted with a tippler living at the bottom of society:  why?  What makes someone–particularly someone with so much going for him, ie, Superman-like powers–dive into a bottle?  And even more telling, what can finally allow him to crawl out?

The answer, at least in this instance, will surprise you.  It did me, as did the agonized humanity that eventually was laid out as the story progressed, and which in my opinion, Will Smith portrayed with more conviction than I had expected.  The one puts-it-all-into-focus line, in a restaurant about mid-way through, he delivered with an understated pathos that still resonates with this dried-out rummy.

Watch it, by all means.  It’s definitely a 5-star, despite the weak reviews it got from professional critics (those frustrated wannabes that could never do, or teach, so they slam the creative efforts of others with bitter rage poorly disguised as urbane wit).  And it seems a lot of the young males that expect a certain set of rules to apply to superhero stories were also disappointed when Hancock didn’t deliver the preferred archetype.  Their loss:  it was better than the raging green giant, the angst-ridden teenage web-slinger, or the ponderous schizophrenia of a caped Gothamite.

Indeed, Hancock shows what it really means to be a hero, super- or otherwise
.

Just a quick one

Since I seem to be advocating performance art here now, here’s another one:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8pk4-wMUGA.  Habib Koite, Malian guitar virtuoso.  Take a listen, see if he doesn’t sound every bit as smooth and flawless as Mr Carlos Santana.

I had never heard of him before this evening, and the manner in which I did was remarkable in itself.  I have stated before my utter loathing of Bill Gates and Microsoft in general, as well as the new operating “system”, Vista.  But this ditty was one of the “sample music” tunes included along with the OS, and damned if it doesn’t make it almost worth the cost, outrage and heartbreak.

I said “almost”.

A Literary Phenomenon

Over the years Ye Cap’n has managed to collect a few hundred books–500-600, at a guess.  And being a lazy bastard, when I finish one I tend to just stick it anywhere there’s a gap in one of my many bookcases, including the top of an extant row if there ‘s enough room between that line of books and the next shelf.  As you might guess, after awhile my shelves have started to look like one of those old woodcarvings of an alchemist’s library, filled to overflowing with tomes piled helter-skelter, threatening to collapse at the slightest homonoculus’ breath.  Which is not so bad; I’ve lived in worse conditions.

But the other day, when I went to look for my copy of Herodotus’ Histories, at first I couldn’t find it.  Hours later, I did manage to locate the volume in question, but by then I was seething at my own sloth, and all the extra work I suffered as a consequence.

So, I decided to do something about it:  I decided to “organize” my books.

How best to proceed was my next problem.  Dewey Decimal?  So passe.  Universal Decimal Classification?  Too complex.  Library of Congress Classification?  Too governmenty.

So I came up with the YCPMCS–Ye Cap’n's Personal Microcephalesque Classification System.  To detail the (admittedly often vague and haphazard) categories and characteristics would be time-consuming, and to you, Dear Reader, no doubt boring (meaning, I would be embarrassed if anyone knew how my alleged mind is arranged).  Nevertheless, it seems to be working.

But here’s the problem.  One of the reasons I hesitated to do all this work was the realization that even if the shelves were organized, there wouldn’t be enough room for every book (remember, I’ve stuck a lot of books on top of an already-full row).  And while some might say, “Hell, I’ll just by another bookcase”, Ye Cap’n, living in drydock as he has these many years, has no room for another big piece of furniture in his tiny berth.  So naturally I thought, “Okay, I’ll just throw out the books I likely never will re-read or refer to”.

Five big grocery bags, filled to overflowing.  That’s what I have sitting in the corner, taking up precious space while I wait for various and sundry folks to come by and take what they want (or can sell; being without a vessel of my own, hauling that cargo of that volume is beyond my capabilities, so if they can make a few bucks in this economy, more power).  But at least I have room on my shelves now, right?

Wrong.  Somehow, after getting rid of a lot of books (100?  Around that), I still don’t have enough room in my bookcases.

You know how individual socks tend to vanish into a far-off continuum that is linked directly to every dryer in the universe?  Apparently when it comes to books, the reverse is true:  they seem to be deliberately slipped through some wormhole by another alchemist tired of his/her own unwieldy collection, a wormhole that is hardwired directly to my library.

Either that, or my books are having some kind of twisted sexual congress, and multiplying on their own.  A frightening thought:  what would be the consequences of, say, George Carlin’s When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? mating with Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra?  The mind, as they say, boggles.

It could be worse, though; I could have something written by Ann Coulter.

I can’t believe I wrote this

Sometimes, it startles one to see what one might write while half-asleep, and with a lot of the encultured sensors turned off, or at least operating at low efficiencies.

Some weeks ago, I had been challenged to write a “fairy tale” by those who know I don’t dabble in that genre.  After finally agreeing to do so (sort of), I let it go, and let it go, and let it go.  Then, last night, for some reason perhaps known only to Jung and other crazy people, I felt moved to write something.  To “get it over with”.

I finished it in just a couple hours; 1500 words, no more.  And I have to admit, I have finally managed to offend myself.  I’ll still go ahead and show it to those who put up the dare, hoping that this will be the last time they ever ask me to do that again.  But as far as actually submitting it for publication somewhere?  Hustler would be my first choice, and then only under a pseudonym, like say, oh, I don’t know…how about Jorge U U Arbusto?  Think about it.

It’s the ducks. Or maybe the cheese.

When the family and I, plus the goat, first moved to the south side of East Westville, we were greeted with hoots of derision by the local Spittoon Polishers And Masons (SPAM).  It seems they had heard of our clan penchant (pronounced “tendency”) for straining duck grease through old Lyndard Skynard t-shirts, and were dismayed enough to protest our advent into their moderately oil-free community.  For two weeks they kept up a non-stop marathon of clog-dancing, yak-bone whittling and playing “Elmo Lincoln Sings Aida” over and over again on a Victrola the size of Rush Limbaugh’s left cheek (hauled around for just such occasions on a flat-bed eighteen-wheeler supplied by the Clive Barker Auto Works).  But it did them no good; we were here to stay, as Aunt Finchknapper proved when she set her false teeth on fire and ran right straight at the crowd wearing nothing but a chemise made of leechee nuts.

After the National Guard–consisting of two mentally-challenged twelve-year-olds–calmed matters down, the townsfolk finally gave up and began to drift away, singularly, in small groups, or all at once, until the sidewalk was free and clear.

That was when we set up the “Head Cheese and Ox Burger” stand out front.  We made a tidy sum before the health department closed us down…enough to replace Aunt Finchknapper’s dentures.  Her chemise was never the same again, though, but it tasted great with filtered duck!

It ain’t as simple as “evil Somali pirates”

You probably won’t see me referencing Ron Kuby very often, but this time I think he’s got it more right than wrong.

http://airamerica.com/doingtime/blog/2009/apr/09/doing-time-defense-ready-somali-pirates-your-honor.

In addition to being “eco-warriors”, at least to a certain degree, the so-called Somali pirates seem to be doing a bit of the Robin Hood thing, too, by spending a significant portion of their “ill-gotten wealth” (which, by the way, they have arguably liberated from real pirates, ie, rich corporations) in Somalia itself–a nation that has experienced quite a lot of hunger lately, thanks in large part to a decade or two of civil war.  So when these alleged criminals–or “Somali Volunteer Coast Guard”, as they apparently reference themselves–bring outside resources into their various communities, they are in effect helping to alleviate that hunger in a very real way.  And quite frankly, the pictures I’ve seen of the crew of the USA-registered cargo ship, which was recently attacked by the Somalis, depict people who are, like most Americans, pretty damn well-fed–so it’s very hard for me to have much sympathy them, especially since so far they don’t seem to be in any real danger.   That goes especially for the skipper, whom, as of this writing, is still being held by the SVCG; I mean, a dead hostage isn’t going to bring in much in the way of a ransom, you know.

There’s an old, old story, wherein a pirate, being captured and brought before Alexander the Great, said that when he, the pirate, stole small, he was called a criminal, but when Alexander stole large, he was a “conqueror”.   That’s reminiscent of the practice in the modern US of giving pot dealers 20-to-life at hard labor, while a white collar criminal, on those rare occasions when s/he even gets convicted, let alone tried, ends up doing at most a few months at a federal country club.

While I’m not necessarily defending the actions of the Somalis (nor necessarily condemning it, either), it remains that there is another perspective to this story than the official one, that of “dastardly African sea-wolves being mean to wonderful European merchants just out to make an honest dollar” (yeah, right). I expect mainstream media to parrot what the governments of the West tell them; I would like to think that the “opposition press” would be a little more critical of that position, but apparently most of them are on board as well.  Is this what we have to expect of journalism in the Obama Age?  No dissent from any quarter, left, right, center, or off-the-wall?

That would be a real crime.

Another GSW Goes Into the History Books

Well, figuratively, anyway.  True, we’ve had a couple of anthologies published with varying success, both compiled from years of stories all composed  in 24 (approximately) hours beginning Friday evening, then read aloud over the course of the following Saturday night.  But mostly the whole thing’s been about getting together with old friends, having good food, good fun and many laughs, and occasionally getting a wee bit freaked out (thanks for the “finger food”, Christina!).  This one was no different–except that having wireless Internet access now makes my own research-heavy attempts easier…or at least more redolent of a scholarly bouquet.

Make no mistake, generally I have lamented the 21st-Centurization of Siltcoos Station (http://www.lanecc.edu/florence/siltcoos/ ; be sure to check out the “Photos” section).  When I first started coming to the Ghost Story Weekend some 13-14 years ago (since then having missed but one), out of the 15 or so attendees only a couple of us had laptops; the rest wrote out everything in longhand.  Add to that the fact that there was no phone service (not even cell; we’re quite a distance from the nearest town), and one had the feeling of a true “retreat”, where the rest of the world kept its nonsense temporarily to itself.  It was just the writers, their muses, and a quiet lakeside locale.

Enter Cybernetica, in the form of satellite-dish communications, telephones included.  True, having access to various scholarly websites gives my forays into the hauntings of the Mediterranean of the Late Third Century, BC, a bit more authenticity, or so I flatter myself.  Also, the ability to communicate with folks back at the old homestead can ease some of the distracting concern that one’s house might have been burgled or nuked in one’s absence.  And need I even mention the benefits to writers provided by  portable computers, printers, and so forth?

Still, with the slowly-eroding isolation, I miss as well the ratty old furniture, the bats collecting in the eaves, the doors and windows that often stuck, and the overall battered ambiance of buildings built back in the ’20′s, in a climate that is unkind to wood frames and shingles.  I’m afraid that the current aspect is one of stale, bright humdrum, the soullessness of an atmosphere designed specifically to offend no one, yet in doing so also inspiring no one.  Call it, “architectual correctness”; the Muzak of habitation.  Good with the bad, I suppose…yet those old chairs, though admittedly tattered, chipped and sprung, fit Ye Cap’n's broad “aft deck” much better than these stylish “seating modules” with which we’re now inflicted.  And the venerable, if much-repainted, metal bunk beds, hideously uncomfortable though they might have been, lent an air of summer camp to the proceedings, complete with 2:00 AM gab-sessions with the guy up top, buzzing insects and spilled soda pop.  Even the missing baseboards, half-rotted foundations and bat-guano-coated exteriors were to be appreciated for the air of hoary individuality with which they once graced these backwoods hideaways.

No more.  Form marches on, it’s hobnailed boots trampling substance into the lakeside mud.  And a little bit more of the beloved funk of life slips away in to sad, sterile sameness.

That does it!

It’s official:  the American movie industry is as dead as GM.  Once one of the few things the US did right any more, yet now the same lack of innovation and foresight that doomed Detroit has settled over Hollywood like a fat stinking pile of cow whomp.

They are going to do a remake of–hold on to your chosen body part–Highlander!

This is insane.  Is no older, almost-perfect movie now safe from these hacks?  Citizen Kane, Grapes of Wrath, Metropolis…are they ALL going to suffer from the brainless, clay-footed, short-term-profit-driven madness in the front office?

I mean, come on; it’s not like there aren’t thousands of fledgling authors out there, everyone of them capable of delivering a salable commodity.  Hell, give me ten grand and six months and I’ll produce something that will out-gross Tom Cruise’s War of the Worlds 2.0, or Sutherland’s Body Snatchers, Jr, or Reaves’ Day the Earth Stood Still Again.  But noooooo, the suits would rather play it timid, operating on the entirely untenable notion that “if they liked it before, they’ll like it a hunderd times!”

Well, I’m stating right now,that I for one will never see Highlander Remake.  Ever.  And when it comes out, I’m going to write to the studio–and to the papers–and tell them EXACTLY why.   Who knows, maybe I can get Obama to chime in.  After all, the US can’t afford to lose any more industry, even if all it is, is flicks.

My Dinner With Rachel