Thursday Crossword stuff

I guess I might as well start posting my times on daily crossword puzzles, although compared to Amy the Crossword Fiend and Rex Parker, my times are not going to be too impressive. Also, since I never see them listing any mistakes I have to assume they bat 1000, but I don't and I'll tell you what I missed and why.
Today's NY Times puzzle took me eleven minutes and 55 seconds, which is pretty good for a Thursday for me. (My best so far his year on a NYT Thursday is 10:16.) And I missed one letter, where I had 35 across: Trombonist Winding KA_ intersecting 25 down: Music radio station data: SP_NS. I don't know any trombonists and I had a hard time making the down clue make any sense. It looks pretty obvious now that SPINS is the correct answer, but I put down SPANS, as in the span a radio station covers on the dial -- I guess that's what I was thinking -- and because I thought KAA was a better name for a trombonist than KAI. I also wasted some time on 50 down: "Fear Street" series author. I knew the answer right away, but first had it spelled "Stien" then "Stein" than finally (correctly) "Stine."
On the New York Sun puzzle I finished in 6:36, which is definitely a record for 2007 Sun Thursdays. Everything just kinda fell into place. I didn't miss any letters either. The theme was DEF Jam, which means there were a lot of D's, E's and F's in the puzzle -- three of my favorite crossword letters. I didn't miss any letters on this puzzle, even though I had to guess on one: 39 across was Unit of length used for measuring nuclear distances FER_I and 29 down was Minstrel troupe figure END_AN. I have never been to a minstrel show or had a need to measure anything nuclear, but I guessed the correct letter: M.
I did the Jonesin' puzzle too. I really like this puzzle, although my batting average is lower on this than any other, just because there are so many references you have to be young and hip to get, and I am neither. I did it in 10:55, with one wrong letter, couldn't get the middle letter in 1 Across: Masi of "Heroes (O_A) cuz I don't watch that show, and didn't get the crossing 2 Down: Rivera's wife _AHLO, even though I knew it and I should have got it, but I was looking for a hip, happening Rivera, not the Mexican artist who died in 1957

More Stamford pictures

This is me freaking out about seeing snow -- there was a lot of it actually, not like a lovely blanket of white, frosty goodness, more like a big pile of brownish, rusty crap that wouldn't melt even though the temperature was in the 50's.









This is me at the banquet, that's Tyler Hinman, the King of crosswords visible at the table behind me.


My beautiful wife Kim and I enjoying dinner Friday night.

Robert Loy and Robert Moy

I first ran into Robert Moy at the water cooler between rounds and then I kept running into him all weekend long. He was very nice, and very good at crosswords -- I think he came in like 80th. I guess next year if we can find a Robert Joy and a Robert Koy, we could have our own Friday night team.

Random Stamford Stuff

I'm not going to attempt to put all of the Crossword Puzzle Tournament weekend into anything resembling chronological order. I think Amtrak jostled my brain so bad that a lot of the memories are starting to run together, all the sweet green icing flowing down. So I'll tell you about it as it comes to me.

I met Will Shortz Friday night, got his autograph, told him how much I appreciate his work. He recognized my name -- maybe from all the years I've done the solve-by-mail ACPT option -- and he was the first of many people to tell me that there is a Robert Moy who also competes at the tournament (more about Moy later.) I told him how excited I was to be there and that I would have come before before I hate going North at the end of Spring. And he said, "Well, I've got good news for you. We're moving South next year." (South to Brooklyn, where the 2008 tournament wil be held.) Will Shortz is a visionary. He was at the forefront of the movement that revolutionized crossword puzzles in the late 1970s. There hadn't been any real crossword competitions since the crossword fad of the 1920's, and nobody thought it was a good idea, and now there are lots of people just like me, already looking forward to next year.

I met Merl Reagle too, and he told me about Robert Moy as well. I got to spend a couple of minutes with Peter Gordon, the crossword editor of the New York Sun. I told him I much I enjoyed the Sun's puzzles, but I was still a little irked about one clue from a month or so ago. The clue was "bug midsection" (6 letters). The answer was "SHORTU" as in a short U vowel sound in the middle of the word "bug." I'm fine with the clue, I just thought it should have a question mark to show that it involved some wordplay or misdirection. Anyway, Peter said it wasn't his, it must have been the Times. So that was embarrassing. Although I could still swear it was the Sun. Oh well.

On the the seventh and final puzzle I sat by Scott Weiss, the guy who engineered the first and only three-way tie on Jeopardy. I told him that I saw him do the tie, but I didn't catch the next episode so I didn't know what happened after that. He said he lost, and I asked him if he was still glad that he went for the tie. And he laughed. "No, of course not!"

My goal for my first tournament was to finish in the top 50 per cent. Since there were 700 people there, that meant I was shooting for 349. I got a couple lucky breaks in that the two times I had to guess at a letter (one was for COHO salmon, which I'd never heard of, and one involved a three-letter abbreviation for lawyer, and I couldn't tell if it was "ATT" or "ATY") I guessed right. When the standings were posted on Sunday morning, I was in 158th place. And after the last puzzle I moved up ten spaces to finish at 148. That's top 20 per cent. So that was exciting. (Well, thrilling, actually, but I don't want to sound like too much of a crossword nerd.)

I've heard songs about it, but never seen it

I picked this up at the Starbucks gift shoppy place at the Stamford Marriott -- a very popular place, by the way, althought probably more for the coffee and the Cokes than gopher guts.
More about Stamford soon.

Getting to Connecticut

Crossword puzzles frequently make me laugh. The humor therein is usually pretty corny and often its based on wordplay. And there's nothing I love more than corny puns. (Here's an example from the NY Sun: "Incapable of littering?" NEUTERED. Ha-ha-ha-ha.) Sometimes I laugh out loud -- I think I laughed out loud at least once at the tournament this weekend -- if I remember what it was that prompted that reaction I'll tell you about it.
Today's New York Puzzle made me laugh -- not because it was funny, it wasn't. The theme was pretty straightforward, four signs you don't want to see on the highway: ROAD WORK ONE MILE, LEFT LANE CLOSED, REDUCE SPEED NOW (which, now that I think about it is not a sign I've ever seen before -- I've seen "Reduced Speed Ahead" in lots of podunk speedtrap southern towns, but never one that demanded you reduce your speed immediately; And I hope said podunk traffic enforcers never realize they could give you a ticket for not reducing your speed as soon as they think you've had time to read the sign they hid behind a shrub) and FINES ARE DOUBLED.
I know, not exactly knee-slapping. And my laughter was of the rueful variety. Because the very last word I filled in was 66 Across and the clue was about how to avoid these traffic signs and resultant headaches. And the answer was "TRAIN."
And the reason that gave me a mirthless laugh was because I took the train to Connecticut and I can tell you that you're not avoiding headaches, you're just exchanging one set of headaches for another.
So I want to tell you all about the tournament and how I did, and all the highlights and lowlights of my first (but hopefully not last) crossword puzzle tournament.
But first let's talk about tracks, baby:

One of the the reasons I have not attended the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament before even though I've wanted to for years is because I am a sun-worshipping, winter-hating, Southern boy. By the time I have sneezed and sniffed my way through South Carolina's admittedly pretty mild winter, it just goes against my instincts to go north. In past years, even after planning to attend and once actually paying to go, I usually end up going to Florida to see some Spring Training baseball games instead.
Another problem was how to get through the 800.86 miles between my humble abode and the Stamford Marriott. I hate to fly. It scares me and I usually lose my hearing for 24 hours after I land. It seemed like it would be a big disadvantage to not be able to hear, "Ready, set, solve!" And I have the world's worst sense of direction, a bad relationship with Mapquest (he's lied to me too many times) and a bad habit of slowing down to about 10 mph and looking as stupid as humanly possible when I am confused (as I am always on unfamiliar roads in big cities) which past experience has shown me Yankees don't have much patience with.
So a train seemed like a great solution. I could actually do crossword puzzles all the way to the tournament and be in real fighting trim by the time I got there instead of getting screamed at by irate Northerners or copiously wetting myself and wondering if I'll ever hear again.
And it actually was pretty good on the way up. I could solve crosswords even though I couldn't really read what I wrote because my pencil kept getting derailed by all the bumps, thumps and jostles. You can drink on the train too, but you can't drink much unless you're wealthy cuz beer is $5.00 a bottle, and you might not want to drink much even if you can afford it, cuz train restrooms are only maybe a step above Port-a-potties. Trains in the South are nicer than trains in the North. They're cleaner for one thing -- although one Southern train has a big oniony red stain on its carpet where my chips and salsa flew from my hand and onto the floor. And they have more leg room and nicer footrests -- and better scenery out the window. In the South there are rivers and houses and people and dogwood trees to look at. Up north all you got is garbage, rust and graffiti. Admittedly, trains don't run through the best parts of town. I'm sure there are some lovely rivers and trees up north. (I am equally sure that those rivers and trees are covered in grafitti.)
But anyway we slept most of the way up, left Charleston around 9:00, got into Stamford about 1:00 on Friday afternoon, after having lunch at Penn Station in New York.
It was the ride home that was the problem. There were only two trains leaving Stamford after the tournament heading South. One left at 1:00 in the afternoon on Sunday and I was worried about missing the big play-off and the banquet, so I bought tickets on the other train which left at 1:00 in the morning. I thought it might be all right to and around Stamford, see a few sights, have a leisurely dinner at a nice restaurant. What I didn't know was that right after the tournament the adrenalin I'd been running on would leave my body and all I would want to do was sleep -- and I still had 10 hours before I could board the train and a nineteen hour ride after that. It was a long night and a looong next day. Our train was delayed by a freight train derailment on the tracks ahead of us and we were three hours later getting back to the Promised Land. A tad the worse for wear, as you might imagine.
Next year I'll fly. To Brooklyn. In February.
Wow.

Books I've read in 2007, part 12

Tomorrow night I will get on a train and head to Connecticut for the 30th annual American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. It's my first time competing -- and my first time riding a train since I was a kid. My beautiful wife is coming along with me, so that means motel sex.
So yeah, I am excited.
I bought this book to try and learn more about the tournament and maybe get a glimpse at how crossword constructors think -- Matt Gaffney is one of only a handful of people who make a living making crosswords, and I enjoyed this book a whole lot more than Crossworld. I did get some insight into how crossword puzzles are constructed -- whether that will help me at Stamford remains to be seen -- I got to meet Henry Hook, one of my all-time favorite constructors, and was pleasantly surprised when someone I knew made an appearance in the book -- Stephanie Barna, the editor of the Charleston City Paper, and for whom I did a few articles a few years ago.


I also read this book -- well, "read" might be overstating it, since it's mostly pictures of old 45 record sleeves. But I did think it was interesting that 45 art reached its peak in the 1990s when you couldn't find any of them anywhere.

Hallalujah! Our long nightmare is over!

It must be Summer -- or Spring at the very least. I saw my first Italian Ice girl in the park today, a sure harbinger that that frigid groundhog-worshipping season is over. There might have been a robin or two over there as well. No baseballs though, that other indispitable sign of better days, just a couple of leftover Winter people tossing around a football.
I came up with a theory when I was about six that there were Winter people and Summer people, and although there are a few loose ends I can't quite wrap up, I think I was dead on. I mean, the beautiful, bronzed, healthy people I see in the Summer just cannot be the same people as the withered, pale, sniffly people I see all Winter long. One of the loose ends I can't quite wrap up is how I get stuck with the snifflers every GD groundhog season.

So, hey Summer People! When October comes and y'all go to Hawaii or into hibernation or wherever it is y'all go, take me with you!!!

The Sunday 3-11 New York Times Crossword Puzzle

Unlike some other crossword bloggers, I don't usually post the times it took me to do the puzzle, probably because I'm not that proud of them. But I did today's puzzle in 25 minutes and 55 seconds, which is not a record for me, but it's pretty close. I did have four letters wrong, two of which I feel bad about. For me, there are three types of errata (there's a good crossword word for you) I make in puzzles: the first is just a careless mess-up, the second is one where I guessed too soon and I would have gotten the correct answer if I'd just spent a few more seconds on it. Both of these I berate myself for. But the third type is where two words I just don't know and will never dredge up from my brain no matter how long I sit there chewing on my pencil intersect. Today it was ten-across: "Concord Hymn" writer's inits and 11 down: Early Chinese dynasty -- sorry, never heard of the "Concord Hymn" and as for Chinese dynasties, I can do Han and Ming (a merciless time in Chinese history) and that's about it. I guessed RHE and HEI, trying to use logic ("It's not RTE or they'd've clued it as "route" and it's not PEI, he's an architect.") The correct answer is RWE (for Ralph Waldo Emerson) and the WEI dynasty.
I also missed Kathryn ERBE of some TV show cuz I have never heard of her and it intersected with RONDO, a "Repetitive musical piece" another term I am unfamiliar with. So without some hella luck guessing I was destined to miss two letters. The other two mistakes, however, were entirely my fault, and I don't want to talk about them.

Captain America

Everybody at work knows I'm a comic book reader -- I guess it's the Wonder Woman poster and the Superman toys on my desk that gave me away -- so they've been coming up to me this week and asking me if I'm upset about Captain America's death. I tell no because he isn't dead or won't be for long, not with a big movie deal in the works, don't forget Superman died a few years ago and he got better. (I don't add that with those hacks at Marvel these days he might be better off dead.)
One thing that I think must be confusing to non-comic-readers is that every newspaper article I've seen about this event says that Captain America has been around since 1941 and was killed in the 25th issue of his comic. So, if you didn't know about all the reboots and reborns and "First Issue Collector's Items" you might think (if my math is correct) that the good captain's mag is only published once every 2.64 years.

Things I learned from reading today's NY Times

In an article about George the Second's trip to Brazil and the opposition he has met with, it says "A group of Mayan priests in Guatemala said Friday they would "purify" a sacred site of "bad spirits" after Mr. Bush visits it early next week."
Mayans? I didn't know there were any Mayans left. I thought they were gone like the Incas and the Aztecs. Maybe we can get a couple of them to come to America in January 2009 and purify America of the bad spirits Bush Junior has unleashed.

What I learned from doing today's NY Times Crossword Puzzle

I learned a bunch of stuff -- Gene SARAZEN won the US and British Opens in 1932, a PONIARD is a narrow bladed weapon, Tesla was a SERB -- that I'm sure will stay in my mind for such a brief time it's probably inaccurate to say that I actually learned them.
I did learn one thing I'd like to remember, however. MAENAD, which means (stealing from Wikipedia) "In Greek mythology, Maenads were female worshippers of Dionysus, the Greek god of mystery, wine and intoxication, and the Roman god Bacchus. The word literally translates as "raving ones". They were known as wild, insane women who could not be reasoned with." Although I don't think I've ever come across that word before, I have definitely run across some maenads in my time, and it would be good to know what to call them.

Things I Learned From Today's Crossword Puzzle

This is something I've learned a thousand times from a thousand crossword puzzles, but it never seems to sink in -- "Amah" which means "A housemaid, especially a wet nurse, in India and the Far East." It comes up all the time in crossword puzzles and nowhere else. I am determined to remember it, so I'm thinking mnemonics-- about Asian Mother's Assistant Housekeeper?

"Rhine Tributary" AAR -- Aargh! I hate all rivers and geographic terms.

Maginot -- the clue was "Frenchman with a famous line" and I'm thinking fashion designer, but it turns out to be, according to Dictionary.com "French politician who as minister of war (1922-1924 and 1929-1932) proposed a line of fortification, called the Maginot Line, along France's border with Germany. Thought to be impregnable, the line was bypassed and later captured by the Germans" Unlike Amah, I give myself permission to forget this one as I don't imagine I'll ever see it again.

Katzenjammer. All I know about katzenjammers is from the Katzenjammer Kids comic strip, so I figured katzenjammer must have something to do with bratty kids, but katzenjammer is (again from Dictionary.com): "the discomfort and illness experienced as the aftereffects of excessive drinking; hangover," which I guess pretty well describes parenthood.

Things I learned from doing today's crossword puzzle

A skein is not just a bunch of wound-up yarn. It can also be a flock of geese or ducks in flight.

Usually a three-letter answer to a clue about a Wall Street abbreviation is either MBA or IPO, but today it was ARB, which is short for arbitrager --someone who engages in arbitrage, who purchases securities in one market for immediate resale in another in the hope of profiting from the price differential. As Johnny Carson used to say, "I did not know that."

Jean-Luc Picard would be so proud of me

I've finally learned to enjoy Earl Grey Tea.
It always sounded so cool when he got a cup of it from that atomic synthesizer thing on the Enterprise (but then everything Captain Picard said sounded cool,) and I wanted to like it too, but I just didn't like the bitterness that had to come from bergamot, since Earl Grey is just black tea and bergamot. I always assumed bergamot was some herby, planty thing put in British tea for some reason, maybe cuz Henry VIII drank his that way or something. But bergamot is actually an orange -- well, actually it's a cross between a pear lemon and the Seville orange . The essential oil from the peel that is used to flavor Earl Grey tea is also used in candy, perfumes and in aromatherapy to treat depression. It's definitely an acquired taste, but now that I've acquired it, I really like it. Now if I'm ever on the Enterprise having a spot of tea with Captain Picard, I won't have to wimp out and whisper to the computer: "Lipton, please."

Books I've read in 2007, part 11

When I was 12 years old, I bought every single Marvel comic that came out every week -- not just the big ones like Spider-Man, Avengers and Captain America, but also Millie the Model, Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandoes, Two-Gun Kid, hell, I even bought Iron Man.
I was able to do this with an allowance of one dollar a week.
I make a little more than that now, but I don't think I could afford to buy every Marvel comic book even if I wanted to. Fortunately, I don't want to. Nowadays, I don't follow any character (primarily because Marvel has just about succeeded in ruining all those characters I loved so much) but I still love going to the comic shop on Wednesday and becoming a carefree kid again for a few
minutes, looking at all the cool comics on the shelves. But I only buy Marvel or DC comics when there's a great artist and writer combination on a title (as with Joss Whedon and John Cassaday on "Astonishing X-Men") or a writer who is good enough to make me overlook the artist's shortcomings (like the great Dan Slott's "She-Hulk", where Marvel consistently sticks him with absolute bottom-of-the-barrel artists and he rises above it). (And by the way, there is no artist goood enough to make me overlook crappy writing.) I've been reading "Black Panther" because of the first reason. Reginald Hudlin and Scot Eaton made a great writer-artist team and together they've made me care about this character for the first time in a long time. But I'm afraid I might have to give it up soon, because Eaton is gone, the new artist sucks, and Hudlin is good, but he's not quite Slott-Whedon good.
Too bad cuz this book is top-notch. They bring in just about every 1970's ethnic character Marvel had, including Luke Cage, (the hero for hire that inspired Nicolas Cage to change his name) Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung-Fu, the Falcon, Blade the vampire hunter and even Brother Voodoo, and throws them up against ninjas, Fu Manchu (although they can't use his name anymore since Marvel has lost the rights to that character and it's amusing to see how they get around it) cajun vampires and Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.

Books I've read in 2007, part 10

I've talked about this book before. Everyone who enjoys the combination of words and pictures to tell a story talks about this book. Even though it says "A Graphic Novel" right there on the cover, it's actually a collection of short stories all set in the same tenement during the 1930's. I guess people called it a novel cuz Will Eisner does things here that no one had ever considered doing before in such a vulgar artform as comics, and nobody knew what to call it. Instead of musclemen in garish costumes beating each other up, talking ducks and mice, or teenagers chasing girls to get a kiss, Eisner dealt with real people trying to make their way in a harsh world.
And I do mean harsh, in these pages, a rabbi's beloved daughter dies, a wife-beating street singer misses his one chance to make it, there's rape, adultery, dog-poisoning, pedophilia, alcoholism and lies and despair. Quite a ways from Captain Marvel and the guys.
The reason this book is still read, besides its historical significance, is that Eisner doesn't offer any easy answers, the reader has to try and figure out whether God honors his contract with man or whether we're missing a loophole somewhere.
And also because nobody, but nobody, drew rain half as wet or half as well as Will Eisner.

Books I've read in 2007, part 9

Catsby is unemployed, his girlfriend left him and married a rich guy, all he wants to do is drink and lay around on his friend's kitchen floor.
Sounds like a lot of fun, right? But it isn't. I don't know whether the translation was crappy or if somebody who shouldn't have was trying to be poetic, but a lot of this stuff sounds clunky and you have to go back and try to figure out what was meant.
By the way, this isn't manga, this is "manhwa" which is Korean for manga. Manga of course is Japanese for "whimsical pictures," which is probably why comics are so much more popular in Japan than in the US. It's probably a lot more respectable to read and enjoy Whimsical Pictures than it is to enjoy what my grandmother always called "Funny Books."

Books I've read in 2007, part 8

There are a lot of manga series about a nerdy insecure guy with a monster-sized crush on a girl who is clearly light years out of his league. In a way that's what my two favorite manga series -- "Maison Ikkoku" and "Oh My Goddess" -- are about.
"I's" is a little different, it's about a nerdy insecure guy pursuing two girls way out of his league.

Right-wingers do not get it, part 80,000

I don't know if you're familiar with the Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics, but basically it states that the only reason to pull out of Iraq is because we lack willpower -- supposedly, like Green Lantern, we can do anything is we just have the will and the resolve.
That is so many different kinds of stupid, I don't even know how to comment on it, so I'll let Denny O'Neil do it. Denny O'Neil wrote most of the classic early 70's Green Lantern Green Arrow stories.

Books I've read in 2007, part 7

Wasn't much reading involved here, as this is a book of photos of people kissing. I got it because Tom Robbins wrote the introduction, and he does not disappoint as he makes a strong case for the kiss being mankind's greatest invention.

Books I've read in 2007, part 6

This book did what I wanted it to do. I wanted to learn more about the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament that I will be attending next month. And I do feel like I have a better idea about what to expect, and I did pick up a few pointers about tournament strategy. So I guess I liked the book -- but I didn't like the author -- mainly because he kept making excuses for his (relatively) poor showing in the tournament. If he said that he should have trained with paper and pencil not on the computer once he said it a thousand times -- and he definitely said it once.

Boobs --- in bras and bars

Okay, I need some help here. I cannot figure this out. Thee Southern Belle has an amateur strip contest and the grand prize is a boob job.
Does that make any sense to you?
If you win the contest, doesn't that mean your boobs are pretty impressive and don't need to be surgically altered? Shouldn't the boob job should go to whoever comes in last? then it would be a real booby prize.

Books I've read in 2007, part 5

Pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training next week.
Hallelujah!!
So it's time to throw out your Parka and your TheraFlu and your Ricola cough drops, and get ready for apple pies, hot dogs, blessed sunshine and baseball. And of course one of the cherished rituals of all real baseball fans (i.e. not bullies and cheaters) is despising the accursed New York Yankees. If for some reason you're having a little trouble working a full hate-on for the Bronx Bummers -- after all the Evil Empire is not what it once was, they haven't won a World Series this century (let's keep it that way) -- then this book will get you fired up all over again.

Thoughts as Spring training (finally) nears

I have way too many calendars -- I have a Simpsons calendar, a Get Fuzzy calendar, a Gustav Klimt calendar, a New York Times Crossword Puzzle Page-a-day-thingie, a Gil Elvgren pin-ups calendar and a baseball hall of fame calendar. I have this many cuz when they go on sale for a dollar I stock up. It's true I don't have enough walls to hang all of them, but they're all different. I just noticed looking at the baseball one, that yesterday (Feb 6th) was Babe Ruth's birthday. He would have been a hundred and 12 if he had just taken better care of himself. And the day before that was Hammering Hank Aaron's birthday -- he turned 71. I just thought it was odd that this two men who are linked together forever in baseball lore both have birthdays right in the middle of my previous sun sign, Aquarius.

Books I've read in 2007, part 4

Bill Bryson is one of my favorite writers. He's a linguist and a travel writer; I guess his most famous book is "A Walk in the Wooods" which is an account of his attempt to walk the entire 2,174 mile-long Appalachian Trail, but all of his books are good. Here he talks about growing up in Iowa in the 50s. Nothing much happens, he has a paper route, he loves to read comic books, and every year at the state fair he tries to get into the strip show -- but Bryson is such a great stylist that it's always fun to read, no matter what he's writing about.
Here he talks about candy:
"Perhaps nothing says more about the modest range of pleasures of the age than that the most popular candies of my childhoood were made of wax. You could choose among wax teeth, wax pop bottles, wax barrels, and wax skulls, each filled with a small amount of colored liquid that tasted very like a small dose of cough syrup. You swallowed this with interest if not exactly gratification, then chewed the wax for the next ten or eleven hours. Now you might think there is something wrong with your concept of pleasure when you find yourself paying real money to chew colorless wax, and you would be right of course. But we did it and enjoyed it because we knew no better. And there was, it must be said, something good, something healthily restrained, about eating a product that had neither flavor nor nutritive value."

P.S. to the Previous Post

Gail Parent (the author of "Sheila Levine is etc., etc.") also wrote a couple of books -- "David Meyer is a Mother" and "The Best-Laid Plans" -- that I have very fond memories of. But now I'm not sure I want to seek them out and reread because I'm afraid that time may have hurt them the same way it hurt Sheila Levine. They may have somehow gotten less sexy and less funny than they were back in the 70's and 80's.
On the other hand, Gail Parent was also the head writer for "The Golden Girls," one of the great sitcoms ever. And she also helped create "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" and wrote for the "Mary Tyler Moore Show".
I'll give her another chance.

Books I've read in 2007, part 3

This was one of my favorite books when I was in the 9th or 10th grade. I thought it hilarious and very sexy -- so sexy that I took it to school and had classmates read some of the "goood parts." I've been looking for this book for years, and I finally found it a couple months ago at a book store in Myrtle Beach.
But in rereading it, I found it hard to remember just what those "good parts" were. It doesn't seem sexy nor particularly funny -- a young woman nearing thirty decides to kill herself because she is unmarried and nobody really notices that the poor girl is depressed. Now part of the reason that I didn't find this book-length suicide note as uproariously funny in 2007 as I did in 1974 is because I used to be in the second category of Jean de la Brevure's famous quote ""Life is a tragedy for those who feel, a comedy for those who think" - and now I find myself more and more of a feeler rather than a thinker -- which sounds like I grope women on the bus or something, but I just couldn't laugh at this. It seemed too tragic. I kept thinking she needed to quit worrying about getting married and get on with her life.
Maybe another part of the problem is the cover of the new edition which shows a Twiggy-like model nothing at all like the zaftig Ms. Levine.
One other thing I remember about this book was how excited I was when the movie based on the book came out -- and how disappointed and angry I was after watching the piece of celluloid crap that had nothing to do with the book other than the title. I have never trusted that any movie based on a book will be any good from that day on. And in fact now when I find a book I love, I just hope and pray that they won't make a movie of it.

Books I've read in 2007, part 2

This one required a pretty substantial suspension-of-disbelief quotient, as I really don't believe killers who take pictures of their victims and sometimes of the murder itself would take those pictures to be developed at a public photo lab -- but if they did and if the proprietress were an amateur sleuth then the rest of it makes sense, and it becomes a pretty exciting story

Talk about an oxymoron!

There's no such thing as Conservative Rock and Roll because rock and roll is about sex and drugs and change, and conservatism is about abstinence, sobriety and the status quo. But that didn't stop the morons at the National Review from listing what they consider the top "conservative rock tunes" You really need to read this:
http://scottpeterson.typepad.com/leftofthedial/2006/05/rockin_the_righ.html
Are they joking? I mean, the top, number 1 conservative rock and roll song (according to these idjits) is The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", the one that starts out "We'll be fighting in the streets / With our children at our feet / And the morals that they worship will be gone." That is so far left it's anarchic. The Beatles' "Revolution"? Revolution is a conservative concept? I don't think so, repression, yeah, revolution no. And even the ones that don't directly contradict conservative principles, I think they read too much into. "Janie's Got a Gun" is not an advertisement for the NRA. In "Wouldn't it Be Nice" the Beach Boys are lamenting that they cannot get funky until after they get married, not praising the institution.
Oh, and "Stand By Your Man"? Not by any stretch of the imagination a rock song.
They really don't get it, do they. They never have -- that's why their great God Reagan co-opted The Boss's "Born in the USA" as his theme song. The crepuscular old fart thought it was a flag-waving my-country-right-or-wrong anthem.
Morons.

Books I've read in 2007, part 1

I've had to cut down a lot on my reading now that my job actually requires my attention. When I was in the Port Police I did most of my reading at work. (And if that makes you nervous about maritime security, good, it should.) But I haven't given it up entirely, I just read more discriminately.
"Tuxedo Gin" is certainly no "War and Peace". It's not even "Maison Ikkoku" or "Oh My Goddess" (my two favorite mangas). But it is consistently funny. As soon as I hit one volume that doesn't make me laugh, I'll move it off the docket for something else.
"Tuxedo Gin" is the story of a young man in love with a beautiful girl, he's a boxer about to turn pro. Everything is going his way. Then he dies in a bicycle accident. But that's not the end -- some odd old Buddhist spirit-angel-monk dude descends and tells the guy he can have his body back if he lives out a normal lifespan as an animal. I guess he should have picked a fruit fly or something else that only lived a few days, but he is so besotted with the girl that he chooses to be reincarnated as her favorite animal --which is a penguin. Eventually he comes to be adopted by the girl and -- as they say -- wacky high jinks ensue. The fact that the boy still thinks he's a boxer and tries to fight everyone who menaces Minako (which happens with alarming frequency) is a running gag. And maybe it's just me, but seeing a penguin fighting a man is always funny. So are his attempts to stave off the attentions of lady penguins. Great stuff, highly recommended, especially if you're a fan of offbeat romantic comedies.

Happy Birthday, Julie!

On this date back in 1929, one of my favorite artists, Jules Feiffer, was born. Feiffer had a long-running and, as you can see in the above example, often timeless and prescient strip in the Village Voice called, appropriately enough, Feiffer. It ran for 42 years and won him a Pulitzer prize (then the ageist bastards at the Voice fired him cuz they thought he was too old, but we'll avoid discussing anything unpleasant on his birthday. )

In addition to his cartooning -- which was good enough to get him into the comic book hall of fame, he's also a screenwriter (Carnal Knowledge) playwright (Little Murders) illustrator (The Phantom Tollbooth) and he also has an Oscar to go next to that Pulitzer. And even though Will Eisner usually gets credit for the first graphic novel, I think you can make the case that that distinction belongs to Feiffer for his excellent book Tantrum. (Even though Eisner's A Contract With God was published in 1978 and Tantrum in 1979, A Contract With God is not a novel, I don't care the comic historians say, it's a collection of inter-related short stories.)
Tantrum is about a man who's tired of being a husband, tired of being a father, tired of being a man, who wills himself through a terrific tantrum to regress back to a two-year-old, and what happens after that, which is hilarious and heartbreaking and always thought-provoking.
Since the Voice silenced him, Feiffer has been busy doing childrens' books like The Man in the Ceiling and A Room With a Zoo, all of which I also highly recommend.
Happy 78th, Jules Feiffer, and many more!

G and R Lies

According to VH1, "November Rain" is one of the 20 best music videos ever.
http://www.vh1.com/vspot/index.jhtml?id=1547027
(And in fact Guns and Roses are the only act to have more one video on the list and they have three.) Me, I think it's one of the worst. I've mentioned before how much I love this song, but as with a lot of songs I like, when I watch the video I wonder if the artists have ever read the lyrics. I mean, "November Rain" is about Spring and hope and renewal. The video is about death and loss. What the hell?

Wow, I am fantastic

You know the Bible 98%!

 

Wow! You are awesome! You are a true Biblical scholar, not just a hearer but a personal reader! The books, the characters, the events, the verses - you know it all! You are fantastic!

Ultimate Bible Quiz
Create MySpace Quizzes

Pictures from the Polar Plunge

Your results:
You are Green Lantern

Green Lantern 85% Superman 65% Spider-Man 65% Robin 62% Catwoman 50% The Flash 45% Wonder Woman 42% Supergirl 42% Iron Man 40% Hulk 35% Batman 35%

Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...

Our 38th president passed away died on Tuesday, so in a span of 3 days we've lost the hardest working man in show business and the only US President who was never elected as Prez or VP. In 1976 I was 18 years old so that election was the first one I voted in. I liked Ford and I voted for him -- the last time I ever voted Republican for president. I even invited Jerry and Betty Ford to my high school graduation. They didn't come -- probably afraid (as I was) that I wasn't really going to graduate -- but they sent a lovely signed card, which might have sparked my interest in autograph collecting. (I can't remember now if my first autograph was Gerald Ford or Johnny Rodriguez.)
I have two Gerald Ford autographs in my collection:

An E-mail conversation

Oh no, what have they done to my sweet Betty Cooper? That was the subject heading and it went from a discussion of comic book beauties to -- well, you'll see.



ZAN: Did you not read the post? They made her more contemporary to showcase their "timelessness" and "adaptablility".

ME: I read the post. The Statue of Liberty is timeless. Does that mean we should give her a facelift to make her look more like Britney Spears?

ZAN: Betty and Veronica were already sluts. I admit into evidence:

(And here he linked to a drawing of Betty, Veronica and Archie at the beach. They are enjoying the sunshine and the summer and none of them is wearing anything above the waist.)

ME: Wearing a monokini does not make one a slut.

ZAN: I think that might be part of the definition of slut.

ME: I think you might be a tad provincial. Do you think every woman on the beach in Italy and other European countries is a slut?

ZAN : If the shoe fits. . .

ME: What shoe? Generally, if you're topless at the beach you're barefoot too.

ZAN: You're generalizing.

ME: Good one, Mister Irony.
But seriously, that picture does not look like two sluts and a dude. It looks like Betty and Veronica and Archie having good wholesome American fun at the tops-optional beach.
And anticipating your question: Yes, I would tell my daughters the same thing -- if you've been dating the same boy for 50 years it's okay for him to see you topless.

ZAN: So he's been two timing them for 50 years and that's ok?

ME: He's not two-timing anybody. He's just taking his time making up his mind. So yeah, if you've been dating the same guy for fifty years -- even if it's non-exclusive -- he can see you topless.

ZAN: I can forward that to Cricket and Leah?... and mom?

ME: You can but you don’t have to, I’m putting this whole conversation up on Green Genius tonight. I would do it now but this computer at work gets all wonky when I try to blog.

ZAN: I can't wait. And btw, wonky isn't a word regardless of what google says

ME: Hmmm, that's funny. Dictionary.com says it is:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wonky

but I guess that just means Dictionary.com is a dumb slut now that the walking dictionary is back on the job.

(And this is a reference to Zan once upon a time (when Kim and I could not find the Scrabble dictionary) calling himself the Walking Dictionary until he swore that "Gramps" was not a word -- which he still swears to this day despite the fact that it's in every dictionary ever made.)

ZAN: Dictionary dot com couldn't define themselves out of a wet paper bag. I guess I need to take the reigns again and assume my previous role.

ME: Absolutely. And as reluctant as I am to quibble with the WD himself, I think you mean "reins".

ZAN: Bah.

Old letters

I was looking through my Microsoft Word files and realized with a start that some of the letters in there are almost 11 years old.

Here's a couple from 1996 to the Post and Courier, one of my favorite penpals of the time. Evidently I didn't think much of their TV critic or their book critics.

Dear Editor

The Post and Courier really needs a TV critic.
Yes, I know you have Frank Wooten, but his columns are so full of his right-wing political opinions and constant tiresome slams at Hootie and the Blowfish, he must fancy himself an editorialist or a music critic.
One thing he definitely is not, as evidenced by Friday's spiteful and muddleheaded hatchet job on vegetarians, is a biblical scholar. He misquotes Genesis 1.28. It does not say that man shall have "dominion over the beasts of the field". And he totally ignores the next verse, Genesis 1.29, where God states: "Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat."
His characterization of vegetarians as "kooks" is just another example of Wooten using his column as a place to grind his own personal axes. And bringing Adolf Hitler into it is reprehensible. Hitler was a vegetarain, but so were Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi and St. Francis of Assisi. What does that prove?
It proves that the Post and Courier needs a TV critic.

Sincerely,


Robert Loy

Dear Editor;

Sometimes I wish I subscribed to your right-wing, reactionary rag just so I could angrily cancel my subscription every time you insulted my intelligence -- which is daily.
Lately your book reviews have gotten as muddle-headed as your editorial page. Alan Kovski dismisses Harlan Ellison as a "gusher of cuss words" and his writing in "Edgeworks:Volume One" as dated because it was written in the 1980's and many of his "ideological foes have faded from the limelight." (Although it appears to me that Jerry Falwell and Phyliss Schlafly and others of that evil ilk are still very much with us.)
Is Mark Twain dated? Is Ernest Hemingway? After all, World War Two and the days of riverboats on the Mississippi are over. Does Kovski know that Ellison's book "The Glass Teat" is still required reading in many college media classes even though it ostensibly concerns itself with television of the late 60s and early 70s? Ellison's writing is timeless, as evidenced by his many Hugo and Nebula Awards (for science fiction writing) his Edgar Awards (from the Mystery Writers of America) and Writers Guild of America Awards (for television script writing), as evidenced by the Edgeworks project which is reprinting virtually every word of his 40-some odd books.
That you give some narrow-minded Philistine space to call one of the greatest writers of this century a "gusher of cuss words" makes me mad.
Cancel my * never mind.


Sincerely,


Robert Loy

New Column

This is my new column for Country Standard Time Magazine.

TIME IS NOT ON MY SIDE


I should know better by now.

In fact, I do know better.

I know they’re lying when they try to lure me in, promising it’ll be different this time. I’m completely onto their game.

But somehow or other I fall for it again.

No, I’m not talking about Sarah Evans inviting my wife and me over for another “quiet, wholesome” evening at home. I’m talking about those damn lists that media people love to make, especially at this time of year. The latest one to roil my blood pressure is Time Magazine’s list of the 100 greatest and most influential records ever made. (If your systolic and diastolic are a little low, you can jump start them at http://www.time.com/time/2006/100albums/)

Even before I look at any of the specific albums, I can see Time has gotten off on the wrong foot with me. They’ve broken down the albums by decade and there’s only four from the 1950’s, and nothing earlier than Frank Sinatra’s “In The Wee Small Hours” from 1954. So what about Jimmie Rogers, the father of country music, and the Carter Family, the first family of country music? What about Louis Armstrong, who was more influential than R.E.M. (who are on this list twice) and AC/DC and Metallica – unless by “influential” you mean “influencing crappy garage bands who will never know more than a couple of chords.”

Well, all right, let’s take short-sightedness and rock-centricity as a given, and look at what is here.

Among the usual suspects, “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “Led Zeppelin IV”, that make briefly think this is actually a list of the most overrated albums ever, I see there ain’t much country music – one from the 2000s, two from the 90’s, none from the 80’s, 2 from the 70’s, 2 from the 60’s (although one of them is by Ray Charles, not primarily considered a country artist – and that’s the kind of thing that gives me an insight into how these lists are compiled; they probably get close to the end, and somebody realizes there’s nothing by Ray Charles and somebody else notes they could use another country album from the 60’s and voila, two birds meet their demise with one LP (“Modern Sounds in Country Music”).

No Merle Haggard, no George Jones.

Let me repeat that for you. No Haggard. No Jones. On a list of the greatest and most influential albums of the century!

So somehow country music, which has become arguably the dominant musical genre of modern times, and inarguably was one of the building blocks of rock and roll, did all this without the Hag or the Possum or the Singing Brakemen – despite the fact that you’d be hard-pressed to find any country singer worth his cheese grits who wouldn’t list one or more of these people as influences.

How is that even freaking possible?

All right, all right, I’m going to take a deep breath, try to relax. I know these lists are not meant to be definitive, they’re just to fill pages or bandwidth during the holiday season. At best all they’re meant to do is get readers thinking.

And it’s working.

Me, I’m thinking of canceling my subscription.

Thank Yahweh or Allah. . .

. . . or the Great Spirit or TV-4 Chief Meteorologist Rob Fowler or whoever's in charge of weather for days like yesterday and the day before. If it stays like this all winter -- sunny and 80+ degrees I will not complain.
As an aside to my niece Caroline: I read your offer of compromise to Winter and I must say I think that cursed season ought to jump on that deal. Allowing Jack Frost to hang around from December 15th to January 4th is more than generous on your part. The best I was willing to offer was to let him have his way on the 24th and the 25th of December -- snow if he wants to -- but be gone on the 26th.

addendum

By the way, if you're as upset about the Marvel stamps as I am, don't e-mail them -- well, you can but they're just going to tell you to buy a stamp and send a real letter to:

Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee Stamp Development US Postal Service 1735 North Lynn St Rm 5013 Arlington VA 22209-6432

You might also want to mention what a spiffy-looking piece of postage She-Hulk would make:

Stamp Stuff

Back in July the US Postal Service put out a sheet of first-class (in both senses of the word) stamps honoring Superman, Batman and other DC Comics heroes. I loved the stamps (of course) and other than thinking they probably could have picked a better Wonder Woman picture I had no complaints.
Well now they've announced the new Marvel superhero stamps coming out in Summer 2007, and, hoo boy do I have complaints.

(You can get a better look at them -- along with all the 2007 commemorative stamps, including one honoring the joy of jury duty here.)

For one thing, is this the best the Marvel Universe has to offer as far as female icons? Spider-Woman was slopped together in a hurry because Marvel was afraid some other publisher was going to do something along those lines and they wanted to protect their trademark. She's never been well-done or popular. And Elektra isn't even a hero for God's sake, she's an assassin! She kills people for money; I don't think that should get you on a stamp. Why didn't they use Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman (Marvel's original super-heroine)? Or the Wasp? The Scarlet Witch, Storm, Marvel Girl, the Black Widow, the Black Cat -- even Shanna the She Devil or Aunt May Parker -- all would have been better choices than the two losers they selected.

(All right, I admit it. What I'm really disappointed about is that they didn't use my favorite 8-foot, green-skinned hottie, the She-Hulk. Now this would have made a hella stamp:)

And that's not the only problem. On the backs on the stamps they have information about the characters and artist credits -- only some are incorrect. The Sub-Mariner portrait is credited to Gene Colan and anybody can see that it's actually by John Buscema (well, anybody who's spent their life reading comics.) Captain America is credited to Johnny Romita but any fool can see that's Jack Kirby. John Buscema gets credit for the Hulk portrait and it's actually by Rich Buckler.

Speaking of the Hulk stamp, take a closer look at that one. Notice anything odd?

How about the fact that one earth's mightiest mortals has no muscles in his stomach. That's because when the genuises at the Post Office went lookingh for a picture of the Incredible Hulk -- one of Marvel's most popular characters, who has been around since 1962 -- the best one they could find was one where somebody is standing in front of the She-Hulk's cousin Bruce -- someone they digitally erased and then only halfheartedly touched up the abs. No six-pack for Dr. Banner.

Here's the original cover and the stamp:

Hey, Post Office, I suggest you put Archie and Jughead and the gang at Pop's Choklit Shop on stamps in 2008.

And I suggest you let me pick the pictures of Betty and Veronica.

What poetry is not

It would be hard for me to pick which classic rock band I despise the most out of these three: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Doors. Pink Floyd did the single worst song ever: "Another Brick in the Wall" and convinced people that there was something profound about not being to have your pudding if you didn't eat meat, or in recording Mr. Floyd calling (and hanging up on) Mr. Floyd. Led Zeppelin is just so overrated it's not funny; their best song is probably "Rock and Roll" and that sounds like a third-rate Ramones tribute band.
Then there's the Doors, and among the myriad of annoying things about them -- the name of the band, that damned organ, "Light my Fi-Yur" -- the most annoying has to be their fans, the ones who say "Jim Morrison, he was a poet, man."
No, he wasn't even a good singer. He sure as hell wasn't a poet. Poets understand the importance of making your pronouns agree. They would never write a line like "If they say I never loved, you know they are a liar."
I swear my ears just break out in a rash every time I hear that.

Book Covers

I might have mentioned my love for this book before. This book absolutely blows me away every time I read it, and I cannot wait to read it again. For me it beats Mark Twain, Fyodor Dostoevski, Harlan Ellison, Charles Dickens, Anne Tyler, Alan Moore, and all my other favorite writers. It is my favorite book of all-time and I didn't pick it up for a long time. It kept catching my eye but I didn't (and still don't) like the cover. So I kept putting it back, until one day I read the first couple of pages and couldn't stop, at which point the cover no longer mattered.

I'm not sure what my second favorite book is but it might be "Her Name Was Lola." (And if it's not my second it's definitely in the top five.) It's hard to say what this romantic comedy is about because it's about so many things -- opera, the I Ching, Hindu gods, music, love and destiny. It's heartbreaking and hilarious -- frequently on the same page. And I only picked this up because I liked the cover.

When I was a kid growing up in Richmond, Virginia, my goal was to read every book in the library. It quickly became apparent that was going to be impossible. Now I'm wondering how many magnificent, life-altering books I'm not aware of and wondering what -- if anything -- I can do about it. You can't read all of them and my experience with these two books proves once again that you can't judge a book by its cover. But how else are you supposed to judge it? And what to do about all the great ones that eluding us?

Saddam and Bush - no difference

This is from the (London) Guardian newspaper:

Terry Jones
Tuesday October 10, 2006

Dear President Bush,

I write to you in my capacity as secretary of the World League of Despots.

It is with great pleasure that I am finally able to extend an official invitation to you to join our ranks. For many years, we have watched your efforts to fulfil the requirements necessary to join our number. From the start, we were greatly impressed by your disdain for democratic principles - the way you wrested power from the democratically elected candidate in the 2000 election, and again in 2005 when you managed to swing what was clearly going to be a victory for your opponent.

Contempt for human life has always been a priority requirement for membership of the league, and I and my fellow adjudicators were well aware of your record as governor of Texas when you quadrupled the number of state executions. But your record since seizing power has surpassed even our expectations. The thousands of innocent people in Iraq, who have died so that you could fulfil your declared political objective of establishing "an American force presence in the Middle East", attest to your eligibility to join our ranks.

I cannot, however, disguise the fact that we adjudicators were extremely anxious when you announced your intention to remove from office one of our most stalwart members, Mr Saddam Hussein. However, we need not have worried. According to a recent UN report, you have ensured that there are now even more human rights abuses in Iraq than there were under Saddam. No less than 10% of those in custody are being physically or psychologically abused. Well done!

Of course, your unstinting efforts to make torture an internationally accepted aspect of human life have surpassed everything we could have ever hoped for. I don't think there is a single member of the league who could have imagined, six short years ago, that our activities in tormenting our fellow creatures would once again be recognised as acceptable, civilised behaviour, as it once was in the middle ages.

Despite these achievements, we had, until now, felt unable to extend our invitation to you because you had been unable to fulfil one of our basic requirements: the ability to carry out arbitrary arrests, imprisonment without trial, secret torture and executions at will.

We approved of your attempts to establish the principles of arbitrary arrest under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, but unfortunately it was still restricted to terror suspects. We appreciate that you were hampered by the US constitution, but the restrictions this imposed on your arbitrary powers kept you below the threshold requirements for qualification as a despot.

Now, however, all that has changed. At the end of last month you persuaded the Senate to pass a bill regarding the treatment of detainees. Illegally obtained evidence can now be used against suspects, even if it has been gathered abroad under torture. Anyone you care to accuse can be thrown into prison without the right to a trial or the right to represent themselves.

Officially the legislation is restricted to "enemy combatants", but you have skilfully adapted this definition to include anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the US". This presumably means that anyone who publicly criticises your conduct can be defined as supporting hostilities to the US. You are now free to arrest and imprison anyone you don't like. You've got it in the bag!

It is with great pleasure that we in the World League of Despots note that you have now appropriated to yourself all the powers of arbitrary arrest and torture that Saddam once enjoyed. You are now one of us. Congratulations!

· Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python www.terry-jones.net

Speaking of media whores

I can't believe that Don McLean sold out to General Motors and let Chevrolet use the song "American Pie" in its new series of TV commercials.
And I can't believe Chevrolet would want it. I mean it's a great song but do you really want that image of people driving your car around knowing that one of the next lines is "This'll be the day that I die."?
(I don't think big business "gets" music anyway. Remember when Microsoft came out with a new version of Windows and used the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" to sell it? Yeah, the song about how you "make a grown man cry".)

More on Reginald Denny

Regarding my previous post, I feel kinda bad showing Reginald Denny in that picture where he's lying in the street bleeding because Reggie is definitely not a victim. But I looked all over the Internet and I couldn't find a nice non-bloody headshot of Mr. Denny. And actually that's another reason why he's my hero. After he became unwillingly famous he didn't write a book, he's not out leading forgiveness seminars, you won't see him on "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here" or any other reality show. He left southern California (he had to; the non-forgivers ran him out of town) and moved to Arizona where he became a boat mechanic (according to Wikipedia) which sounds like he retired -- I mean, how many boats are there in Aridamnzona?
The fact that he did not become a media whore is maybe even more amazing than the fact that he forgave the man who fractured his skull. I mean, I think I might get to the point where I could forgive someone for trying to kill me for no reason. But by God I'm going to get at least a book deal out of it.

Can we forgive the forgivers?

See that guy lying in the street in a pool of his own blood? His name is Reginald Denny, he used to be a truck driver in California and someday I hope to be the kind of person he is. He is my hero.
I started thinking about him last Sunday because we talked in church about the Amish and what an amazing people they are, how they are doing the unthinkable -- forgiving the man who murdered several of their children. Everybody agreed that this is the way we should be, we should all strive to be like the Amish in this respect.
I'm not spiritually evolved enough to do that, I don't think, but I hope to be someday. And I did think I should warm my fellow congregants that if you choose to forgive those who hate and harm you, most of the world -- including your friends and family -- will turn on you and harm you even worse than your enemies did. They did it to Jesus. They did it to Reginald Denny.
I guess if most people remember Mr. Denny at all today, it's because he became a symbol of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was driving his concrete truck through South Los Angeles when the Rodney King verdict came down and riots broke out. He was pulled from his truck and savagely beaten. Among other things a man named Damian Monroe Williams threw a concrete block at his head. All this happened on live television.
But I remember Reginald Denny from an appearance about a year later on "The Phil Donahue Show." He was there with the mother of his main assailant and he hugged her and held her hand. Reginald Denny did not just forgive the man who tried to crush his skull. He went to the guy's trial and asked the judge to do something for Mister Williams that Williams had not done -- show mercy.
And oh my God, the audience -- good Christian people all of them, the kind that would have been wearing WWJD bracelets if that particular piece of jewelry had been available in 1993 -- just ripped into him. How can you forgive a man who tried to kill you? they all wanted to know. That's just crazy. There must be something seriously wrong with you. One woman, I'll never forget this, said that for Denny to act the way he was acting (i.e. like Jesus) was proof that he had suffered major brain damage in the attack.
So, if you get to where you can forgive those that hurt you, God bless you. But understand that if you don't live in a community of forgivers, those around you are not going to be able to forgive you for forgiving.

New Column

Once again the deadline for my column snuck up on me. I only had a couple of half-formed ideas about what I might write about. I got lucky again and I think this one turned out all right.
(I am putting this up the way I wrote it. Some changes were made by the editor before it ran, changes that I think weakened the piece.)

Do It Yourself

I’m not going to write a column this month. Instead, at the risk of running myself out of a job, I’m going to teach you the secret of how to write a column – or an essay or an article or a book even. The secret is that powerful.

And I know you don’t already know the secret. Know how I know? Because you have at some point asked a writer: “Where do you get your ideas?” You wouldn’t ask that if you knew the secret because that’s not the way it works at all.

Here’s the secret: Writers don’t write because they know all about a particular topic, they write because they want to know more about that topic.

In other words, writers don’t get ideas, they get questions.

Let me show you how it works. If I had written a column this month I might have written about why the Dixie Chicks were reviled for expressing their political opinions while Tim McGraw gets a pass for expressing remarkably similar sentiments. I wanted to write about this because I’m curious. Is it because the Chicks said what they said on foreign soil? Or is there some misogyny involved?

I don’t know, but I want to know. And somewhere during the writing, researching and ruminating I would have arrived at an answer that satisfied me and hopefully my readers.

I also considered – because I don’t want to give Jeff Remz another heart attack by writing about politics – a column about the song “Feed Jake” by the Pirates of the Mississippi. This is probably my second favorite country song of the 1990’s, despite the fact that it clearly makes no sense. Why am I so hard on some songs for exhibiting lyrical inconsistency and so enraptured by others? Bob Dylan probably would have come up in this one because he’s the king of dodgy lyrics. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Why is that?

(Say it with me.)

I don’t know, but I want to know.

There you have it. Curiosity and a spell checker. You now have all the tools you need to become a first class wordsmith.

All you have to do now is practice looking wise and inscrutable when people ask you where you get your ideas.

Untitled

Walking down Market Street today I saw a street musician tuning up his guitar. He had hung up a sign in his case that said: "FREEBIRD? Never Heard of it!" First it made me laugh, then it made me think -- maybe he's not joking, maybe he really is getting so many requests from misguided Skynyrd fans that he had to put up a sign to shut them up.
Or maybe he can actually play the hell out of Freebird and he's trying to draw you in. I mean, it hadn't occurred to me to shout "Freebird!" until I saw that sign.