Sirius seriously sucks

I know I've talked about this before, but damn, I just can't believe that when XM and Sirius merged the geniuses behind the satellite radio monopoly got together and said, "Let's get rid of our progressive country station and play shit that would have been considered progressive in the nineteen-goddamn-seventies." I've been trying to give that frigging outlaw country station a chance but it just infuriates me. Do you know who they played on my ride home from work tonight? The Flying Burrito Brothers, David Allan Coe and Johnny Horton. Johnny Fucking Horton y'all -- who died in 1960 and I'm sure would be amazed to learn that he's an outlaw. Oh, and I also heard "Jingle Bells" done in all fart noises and a song from the idiot disc jockey (don't even get me started on their moronic DJ's) some dipshit named Mojo Nixon who did a Christmas song to the tune of "Louie, Louie." It was excruciating. Unbearable. On the old XM 12 what most of the artists had in common was that they were stretching the definition of what country music could be. Now what the artists on channel 12 have in common is that they're all dead -- or in the case of that egomaniacal name-dropped David Allan Coe it's just his career that's dead. Look, I love classic country but we've already got an oldies station for when I want to hear Johnny Horton. Can't we have one that plays new country? Not that Faith and Tim crap I can get for free on WEZL -- I mean progressive country -- Reckless Kelley, Chris Knight, Jim Lauderdale -- the stuff XM played before this damned merger.

It's not plagiarism if you cite your sources

This is from Ken Levine's rave review of the movie "Nixon / Frost":

I had only one problem with this movie. If it had been released ten years ago it would have had a thousand times the impact it does today. What seemed so shocking, so unthinkable back then – a United States president lying to the American people and covering up a botched break-in – is nothing in comparison to what Bush, Cheney, Rove, & Co. have done. Nixon shoplifted a Snickers bar compared to these Visigoths. And at least Nixon was tortured by his actions for the rest of his life. When George Bush has his comparable interview in a few years with Tyra Banks I’m sure there will be no such remorse. He may have destroyed the country and the world but at least he spared Vegas.

An open letter to XM Radio

Dear XM;
It's hard to know when to let go, especially in a relationship that has been as close as ours. I was one of your biggest fans, constantly singing your praises to anyone who would listen. Very few days went by that I didn't have XM on in my car and when I did I missed you so much I couldn't stand to go back to FM and just left the radio off, preferring to commune with my thoughts -- many of those thoughts were about how much I loved XM.

And now, I'm ready to cancel my subscription.

I was against this merger with Sirius from the very beginning for several reasons mostly having to do with not trusting big business mergers, which inevitably lead to fewer choices and higher prices. But also because Sirius didn't have anything that I wanted. You tried to get me excited about the merger by telling me what all I could get from Sirius -- Howard Stern, Martha Stewart, Nascar and the NFL. Wow! I hate Howard Stern, couldn't care less about Martha Stewart and have no interest in any sport other than baseball -- which I already had with XM, and was one of -- okay, the -- reason I chose XM in the first place.

And you merged anyway, didn't you? I found out when I turned on my XM to one of my two favorite channels -- XMX, channel 2 which I could count on to play "Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour" all day on Wednesday, and "Bill Anderson Visits With the Legends" all day Tuesday as well as Tom Petty's Buried Treasure show in Thursday -- and it was gone. Just gone, nothing in its place, nothing on channel 2. I went to my other favorite channel --- the alt-country channel, channel 12 and it's now called "Outlaw Country" a description I haven't heard since the 70's -- and I guess it's apt, because this channel doesn't play cutting edge-country; it plays stuff that was cutting edge in 1977 -- a lot of Waylon and Johnny Cash and other stuff you can already find on the classic country stations. Seriously, most of these outlaws are long dead, hasn't the statute of limitations run out? I felt like I was in a time warp, and I had no way now to find new alt-country artists. But I wanted to be fair, so I gave Outlaw Country a chance -- and in addition to a lot of dead guys you also played Neil Young and Tom Petty (neither of which are country or cutting-edge. Did they get a parking ticket sometime? is that why you consider them outlaws?) And then I heard "Black Betty" from Ramjam.
Ramjam? No, I get why you're called outlaw country -- it ought to be against the law for a country station to play Ramjam.


And of course there's no baseball in the winter. So you tell me, why shouldn't I cancel my subscription?

Sincerely,

Robert Loy

More Books I've read in 2008

Oh My Goddess is my second favorite manga -- I don't think anything will ever top Maison Ikkoku, which is not only my favorite manga, it's my favorite comic book series period and my favorite romantic comedy ever. I love the romance and the humor and the spiritual aspects of the story, but my eyes kind of glaze over when they go into one of their extended motorcycle race sequences as they do in this volume. The second half was only a little bit better as Keichi and Belldandy take a road trip to a hot springs -- unfortunately accompanied by Chihiro who puts a damper on any possible romance. I am looking forward to volume 25 however, as a new goddess is introduced in this book and she says an object known as an "angel eater" has been stolen.
Joss Whedon never disappoints me. He is an amazing genius. The man responsible for Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel and Firefly on television -- not to mention the best superhero-run I've seen on a comic this century (on "Astonishing X-Men" with the great John Cassaday) turns his attention here to Marvel's Runaways. I followed this comic when it first came out but lost interest somewhere along the way, but all I need to see is the name "Whedon" and I'm forking out money for the hardcover edition. (It looks like Marvel knows that's all we Joss Whedon people need to see, look how much bigger the author's name is than the title of the book.) This is a great story. The kids get mixed up with the Kingpin, fall afoul of the Punisher and get stuck in 1907. Whedon makes it all look so easy, the perfect blend of action, romance and laugh-out loud humor.

Notice anything unusual about this sales flyer? (Other than the place is called "Books a Million" and they're hawking games?) The Scrabble player whose point of view we share is cheating -- he's got eight letter tiles and you're only allowed seven. (Not that it helps him much. It's still a pretty crappy rack. )

Two -- maybe three reasons -- to celebrate today.

1.) Justice is slow sometimes, but today -- finally -- O.J. Simpson -- the dumbest man in the world -- was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison. Why do I call him the dumbest man in the world? Well, if you got away with butchering two people, you'd probably be the most law-abiding citizen ever -- no speeding, no jaywalking, no spitting on the sidewalk; it would never occur to you to commit armed robbery and kidnap. That's because you're not the dumbest person in the world.

2.) Today is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of prohibition. So raise your glass and give a toast to the right to drink legally -- even absinthe, if you so desire. I'll be raising my glass too, but since I'm in a body-fat contest with my brother, I'll be toasting with unsweetened iced tea.

Today is also the birthday of my third-grade teacher, which I remember because I adored her. She was the only teacher I ever had with enough sense to pick me as her pet. Happy birthday, Miss Sobel, wherever you are!

Congratulations, I'm a winner!

Three contests I enter on a regular basis -- NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle, the Car Talk Puzzler (also on NPR) and Games World of Puzzles. The last one has the best prize -- 500 dollars. So I was excited when I got home yesterday and found an envelope from Games World of Puzzles, a real envelope with 42 cents postage, not a subscription come-on. I opened it up and it said,

Dear Robert,

Congratulations. You're a winner.

I had already thought of 501 different ways to spend my prize when I read a little further and learned that I was a runner-up prize winner, which means I get a Games T-shirt. Which is cool, don't get me wrong, but I've already won two of them, and they're not as cool as 500 dollars.

BTW, I forgot how I won the first T-shirt, but I won the second one by pointing out a mistake in one of their crossword puzzles, when they somehow referred to the bird known as the Baltimore oriole. I pointed out that there's no such thing. The bird formerly known as the Baltimore oriole is now called the Northern oriole. And the only Baltimore Oriole now is the perennially-sucky baseball team.
Which reminds me. The World Series was like a hundred years ago. Why isn't it baseball season already?

Something very scary happened today. I heard Mike Huckabee on NPR talking about the bailout -- and I agreed with what he said on the subject. Now that I've reserached it further I still agree with him -- so much that I can barely restrain from shouting "Amen, Brother!"

Frankly, I’m disappointed and disgusted . . . as I watch them attempt to strong-arm a bailout of some of America’s biggest corporations by asking the taxpayers to suck up the staggering results of the hubris, greed, and arrogance of those who sought to make a quick buck by throwing the dice. They lost, but want the rest of us to cover their bets so they won’t be effected in their lavish lifestyles as they figure out how to spend their tens of millions and in some cases, hundreds of millions in bonuses and compensation which was their reward for not only sinking their companies, but basically doing the same to the entire American economy.

This is not money that Congress is risking from THEIR pockets or future, but ours. Many if not most of us have already experienced lost value on our homes, retirement accounts, and pensions. Now they’d like for us to assume some further risks so they won’t have to.
What happened to the “free market” idea? Is that only our view when we WIN and when we LOSE, we ask the government to come in and take away the pain? If you are a small business owner, is this the way it works at your place? When you have a bad month, a bad year, or face having to close, can you go up to Congress and get them to write YOU a fat check to take away your risk?

Now, I can look at this in a lot of different ways to minimize the panic that agreeing with a Republican causes in me -- It was bound to happen sooner or later that a Republican would be right about something, and I was against the bailout long before I read this; it's not like Huckabee talked me into it, and hey, I still disagreed vehemently with everything else he said -- but it's still scary. I'm a proud yellow dog Democrat like my paternal grandmother. I never heard her say anything kind about the GOP -- and I was shocked by how much this sweet old woman hated Nancy Reagan's guts -- until one day I heard her say she kind of liked Barbara Bush. It scared the heck out of me and I tried to get her back on track but she wouldn't back down on her admiration of this she-beast that spawned the SOB who tried his damndest to ruin this country.

As I feared it was all downhill for my grandmother from then on. And I guess it doesn't look good for me either. But I can't help it, and I won't lie. Mike Huckabee is right, the bailout is wrong.

More books I've read in 2008

Had some extra time over the T-giving holidays and actually got to do some reading:
Actually, I've been reading this one for sometime now. It's not the type of book you sit down and read cover to cover. It's a hilarious (if you like the dry British wit as much as I do) instruction manual teaching you how do things like "Go To Church" "Fix Things" "Be Happily Married" ("Sexual excitement may start to wane in a marriage and so you should think of all sorts of different ways to spice up the last few days of your honeymoon.") or "Go to a Barber" ("When you're young you wonder why old men with receding hair bother going to the barber. The answer is that they have more hair growing out of their ears and nose than you have growing out of your head. Similarly, older men wonder why young men bother when they leave looking more idiotic than when they came in.")Some people say that comics (or graphic novels if you will) can do everything that prose novels do. I say yes, but it's rare. Craig Thompson's "Blankets" certainly qualifies as a "real" novel but it took Thompson over 600 pages to tell his story, not many artists are willing to draw that many pictures. "Shortcomings" by Adrain Tomine is more like a short story or a novella, but a smart insightful short story, one that will stick in my memory. It's about an Asian-American guy and his struggles with racial acceptance -- not so much acceptance by others of his race, but of self acceptance of his race. He has a lot of issues, but the book doesn't take itself too seriously. There's a lot of funny stuff in there too, mostly from his eternally-randy lesbian best friend.

More people who piss me off at the gym

The guy who leaves the gym and heads straight to get a stack of McGriddles. One thing every trainer worth a damn stresses is the importance of diet. It's somewhere between 50 to 85 per cent of the battle to lose fat and gain muscle. No matter how hard you sweat in the gym, you can't outtrain a bad diet. You're wasting your time.

And speaking of wasting ones time, what's up with the guy who does the exact same routine every day? Look, I'm sure that behind the back dumbbell thing your high school football coach taught you in 1982 is a great exercise, but it's time to mix things a little bit. I mean, look at you, you're fat as hell. It ain't working; try something else.

The guy who parks his sweaty ass on the bench where I'm doing my bench presses. I'm in the middle of a super set, that's the only reason I got up. I left my towel and my water bottle right there to stake my claim. Now I gotta lay my head down right where you just flooded the place with ass sweat. Give me a break.

The guy singing along to his Ipod at the top of his lungs. C'mon, dude, you can't sing. And even if you could, not everybody loves the Ramones and the Bay City Rollers as much as you do. . . Oh, wait a minute, this guy's not annoying. He's me. Never mind.

I still do reviews for Country Standard Time. I don't always post them here because I've been getting a lot of mediocre CDs lately and it's hard to write a good review about a mediocre album. A crappy album -- now that's an easy and fun review to write, which is why I was excited when the editor assigned this record to me to review:
And hallelujah! it turned out to be just as crappy as I'd hoped it would be. This is the review I turned in:

Randy Owen

"One on One"

Broken Bow Records


Randy Owen was the lead singer of the popular band Alabama – popular with fans if not critics who got tired of them doing the same song over and over under different titles, i.e. is there really a nickel's worth of difference between Born Country; Down Home; Tennessee River; High Cotton; Song of the South – all the way back to their first hit single My Home's in Alabama. Perhaps realizing that they had exhausted all the possible ways to express the "I'm a happy redneck" sentiment, Alabama retired in 2003 to count their money and pat themselves on the back for their contributions to country music – making it blander and more repetitious.
This project does not feel like a typical Alabama album, for which I'm grateful as the wall I used to beat my head against when I was required to review them is not as sturdy as it used to be. On the other hand it does not feel like it took five years to put together – witness the misspellings in the press kit ("I Confess was a love song in the vain (sic) of Sweet Home Alabama ") and even in the song titles (No One can Love You Anymore – quick grammar lesson, unless you're talking about someone who's passed away or otherwise become unlovable, it's two words, Randy "any more".)
One difference is a sparseness of instrumentation. It's as though Owen doesn't want anything to overshadow his voice, which would be all right if the lyrics were better. Oh, they're not bland, on Slow and Steady a breathy Owen croons "I want to kiss you all over from your head down to your feet" (podophilia didn't pop up often in Alabama songs.) Braid My Hair (about children with life-threatening diseases) sounds genuine and compassionate until you get to the last track on the album, the 9/11-themed Pray Me Back Home (although predictably referred to "911" in the liner notes) and you realize he's just pushing all the buttons and pulling out all the stops – he actually recites "The Lord's Prayer" AND "The Pledge of Allegiance" on this one, and still the only praying most listeners will do after listening to it is for Randy to reretire.
-- Robert Loy

I knew he was going to cut the line about me banging my head against the wall because he has a rule against the first person singular pronouns, as hard and fast a rule as it is arbitrary. I just write my review and make him take out any "I's" or "me's". But that's not all he did. He cut out that whole second paragraph wherein I give Mr. Owen a much needed grammar and spelling lesson. It just boggled my mind that a professional CD would be released with that much illiteracy. The editor also added the line about John Rich producing the album. He asked me why I hadn't mentioned that and I said because I didn't think Rich would want it on his resume. Here's the review he ran:

Randy Owen was the lead singer of the popular band Alabama - popular with fans if not critics who got tired of them doing the same song over and over under different titles, i.e. is there really a nickel's worth of difference between Born Country; Down Home; Tennessee River; High Cotton; Song of the South - all the way back to their first hit single My Home's in Alabama. Perhaps realizing that they had exhausted all the possible ways to express the "I'm a happy redneck" sentiment, Alabama retired in 2003 to count their money and pat themselves on the back for their contributions to country music - making it blander and more repetitious.

This John-Rich produced project does not feel like a typical Alabama album. One difference is a sparseness of instrumentation. It's as though Owen doesn't want anything to overshadow his voice, which would be all right if the lyrics were better. Oh, they're not bland, on Slow and Steady, a breathy Owen croons "I want to kiss you all over from your head down to your feet" (podophilia didn't pop up often in Alabama songs.) Braid My Hair (about children with life-threatening diseases) sounds genuine and compassionate until you get to the last track, the 9/11-themed Pray Me Back Home (although predictably referred to "911" in the liner notes) and you realize he's just pushing all the buttons and pulling out all the stops - he actually recites "The Lord's Prayer" and "The Pledge of Allegiance" on this one, and still the only praying most listeners will do after listening to it is for Randy to reretire.

Still not a positive review, but I really think he took much of the punch out of it. I mean if you know that nobody bothered to proofread the song titles to see if they made sense, that really tells you all you need to know about an album.

puzzlers

I try to enter the Car Talk puzzle contests every week, but a lot of times they're way too logical for me. I can do word puzzles, can't do math puzzles, and can usually struggle through logic puzzles even though they give me a headache. The puzzler last week was about baseball:

RAY: This came from a fellow named Harold Pressberg, who says this puzzler occurred to him after looking at the box score of a game between the Mets and the Cards. He was checking the stats for a certain relief pitcher of the Mets who came in at the start of the 7th inning.

Now when you look at the box score, it says things like Innings pitched, 1. Hits, 0. So he pitched an inning and allowed no hits. Runs, 1. Earned runs, 1. Strikeouts, 1. Bases on balls, 0.

So, in other words, he pitched one inning, and in doing so, he recorded 3 outs, gave up no hits or walks, and was still charged with an earned run.

How was this possible?

Well, I knew the answer right away. And this what I e-mailed them.

There's a lot of ways this could happen. Here's one: The pitcher strikes out the first batter, but the catcher drops the third strike and the runner advances to first. Next batter sacrifices him over to second. Runner steals third. Next batter hits a sacrifice fly, scoring the runner. Third batter grounds out. The pitcher's line would read 1 inning pitched, 1 strikeout, 1 run, 1 earned run, no hits, no walks.

Well, guess what -- I didn't win. They didn't even acknowledge my answer as an acceptable alternative. Here's their answer:

RAY: Here's the answer. It turns out he pitched the seventh inning and he did pretty much exactly that, he struck out a guy, didn't walk anybody, and didn't allow any runs in the seventh inning. In the eighth inning, he comes out, hits the first batter with a pitch. The manager takes him out and brings in another pitcher. That guy gives up a home run.

TOM: Oh.

RAY: The first pitcher gets charged with an earned run because he hit the batter. But because he didn't record any outs in the next inning, he didn't get charged with pitching part of an inning. According to the box score, he pitched one full inning.

That's one way. Like I said there are several ways. Maybe they don't know that a run that scores after a runner advances on a dropped third strike counts as an earned run, but it does. You could look it up.

I was a kid I was a picky eater. The battles between me and my dad over whether or not I was going to eat my green peas are legendary and epic. (And yes, now I love green peas and harass restaurants that don't serve it often enough, an irony that is not lost on my father.)
As a teenager I pretty much lived on peanut butter and cheese sandwiches. As a young man I became a vegetarian and for a time a vegan.
Picky, picky, picky.
But raising kids in general and particularly picky eater kids changed me. Watching them turn up their noses at stuff they'd never even tasted or picking their food apart because they thought they might have spotted a microgram of an onion or something else from the vegetable kingdom in it convinced me that I did not want to be a picky eater any more. I wanted to learn to love more food, all food. In just the past two or three years I have learned to appreciate beets, plums, bananas, figs, peaches, fish, shrimp, pumpkin, broccoli, kale and quinoa. I eat beef and pork now too, although every time I eat it I know it means I'm going to have to spend a little more time in either Hindu or Muslim hell, respectively.
But there are still a few things I haven't worked up the courage or the desire to try -- shellfish, mostly. And I can't get out of it any more by reminding people that God hates shellfish. (see Leviticus chapter 11, verses 9-12) . I might as well include the Christian one in my afterlife tour of hells. (Although the bad thing about the Christian hell as opposed to the Hindu hell is that it's forever, Hindu Hell is temporary.)
Anyway, this weekend we had a party for my father-in-law's 60th birthday. And it was an oyster roast. And I knew I had to give the slimy mucus creatures a chance.

The first one was not as revolting as I thought it would be, i.e. it didn't make me hurl immediately. But it was gooey and unappetizing. Someone said they didn't want gooey oysters (the only kind there was as far as I knew) and the next batch was cooked longer. And I tried one of those two and I can tell you that a chewy oyster is worse than a gooey oyster.
But I proved I'm not picky or afraid of shellfish hell.

Busiest website in the world today

Drpepper.com. Why? Because they promised to give everyone in America a free 20 oz Dr. Pepper if the Guns and Roses album "Chinese Democracy" was released before the end of the year. Considering that Axl Rose (the only thing left of G and R) has spent 14 million dollars and 14 years working on the thing, it must have looked like the very definition of a safe bet.
But guess what? In the words of Leonard Cohen, "Democracy" is coming to the USA. (If you consider Best Buy part of the USA.)

By the way, as much as I would love to believe that this a great album, a return to form for the last great rock and roll band, I don't see any way it can be anything other than a disappointment -- even if it is great, it will be a disappointment. No album is worth waiting 14 years and spending 14 mill.
I am however glad to see that this album continues the trend of vinyl LPs becoming more popular again. Real music instead of ones and zeros. That's a good thing.

Give peas a chance

Every restaurant I go to I have the same conversation with the waitperson and then with Kim. With very little variation this is how it goes:

Waitperson: Hi, my name is (whatever) and I'll be your server tonight. Yes sir, you have a question?

Me: Yes, I do. What is the soup of the day?

WP: It's broccoli and cheese (or chicken chili or loaded baked potato).

Me: I see. How long have you worked here?

WP: I've been here for two years (or ten years or five months).

Me: And in all that time that you've been working here, has the soup of the day ever been split pea?

WP: (without any hesitation whatsoever) No sir.

Me: I see. Thank you.

(Waitperson departs -- I assume to get our drinks, Kim assumes to tell everybody in the kitchen about the weirdo at table eight.)

Kim: Why do you do that? You know it's never split pea. You're the only person in the world that likes that stuff.

Me: You know I'm not. What about your Uncle Mike?

Kim: Well, I guess they figure selling two bowls of split pea soup is not worth making their other customers sick to their stomachs.

There is a restaurant near us that specializes in soup -- it's called "Ladles." And every day for the last couple of weeks I go to their website to see what is the soup of the day. So far no split peas. Today it's General Tso's Chicken Soup. Isn't that weirder than split peas?
The only good thing about winter is that soup tastes so good when it's cold outside. But it's starting to look like if I'm going to get any of my favorite soup I'm going to have to open my own restaurant to compete with Ladles. I'm going to have to keep my overhead low in case Kim is right and my Uncle-in-law Mike is my only customer.

I'm not the only one who hates adverbs

Shaking Things Up

Like my workout music playlist -- and my workout itself -- my pre and post workout shake keeps changing. (And that is one shake by the way, I drink half before a workout, half after.) What I had this morning was fairly typical.

1/2 cup milk I prefer kefir just because its got a lot of probiotics; it's also got a pretty high price tag so I don't always have it. Milk works fine as a substitute.

1/2 cup cottage cheese This is the most recent addition to my shake. I always thought of cottage cheese as the half-rotten milk dieters ate in the 1970's. But it's made with whey and it has 4 times as much protein as milk, so lately I've started using half cottage cheese, half milk or kefir for my base.

Protein powder. I keep playing around with these. I've used pea and hemp protein, but stick mostly to whey. Right now I'm using Greens Plus Whey Protein. I love Greens Plus and I was using their powder in my shakes -- it's an easy way to get a couple of servings of vegetables in first thing in the morning -- but when I can afford it I get their protein powder with greens. It is pricey so I'll probably be going back to a cheaper whey when I run out. I don't use soy protein powder, by the way, but I don't share the current soyphobia. I don't think it will make men's breasts grow or any of that nonsense (otherwise every guy in Japan would look like Dolly Parton) but I don't seek out soy either. There's enough of it in our diets already. It's the protein source in Kashi Go Lean cereal, which I eat every day, for example.

Kale. Speaking of greens. When my brother mentioned a while back that he put broccoli in his shakes, I thought that was the weirdest thing I'd ever heard. Now I think broccoli is okay but not quite green enough for me. I prefer spinach or kale.

Blackberries. I always have some kind of fruit -- berries are best in my book; my favorite is the rasp but black and blue work too, I've also used bananas, peaches, nectarines, plums. For people who find it difficult to get the recommended 5 servings a day of fruit and vegetables, all I can say is the sun's not even up yet and I've already had four.

PB2. Another fairly recent addition. PB2 is such a great idea it's a wonder nobody thought of it before. It's peanut butter with all the fat removed. It makes any shake into a peanut butter shake without all the fat of PB1.

2 egg whites. More protein.

1/2 cup wheat bran. Or psyllium husks. What can I say? I'm a fiber freak. By the way, this affects the taste of the shake much more all the green stuff. If you don't like a grainy texture to your shake you might want to scale back on the bran.

By now with all the fruits and veggies and powders in there, my shake is a little dry. A lot of mornings I'll thin it out with crushed ice, but it was colder than a hag's areola this a.m. so I used some leftover cold tea.

Delicious and very filling.

More books I've read in 2008

I don't have as time to read as I'd like, now that I'm using my limited spare time to improve my body and not my mind. But there are some writers who when they come out with a new book, I do what I have to do to make time to read it. Russell Hoban is one, and even though the last book of his I read Linger Awhile was a bit of a disappointment, I am still actively anticipating getting my hands on his newest one My Tango With Barbara Strozzi. Jonathan Carroll is another one. I've always enjoyed his metaphysical novels, even though most of them did not have satisfying endings. Then came White Apples, wherein a likable womanizer discovers that he actually died some time back (without apparently noticing) and has been brought back to the land of the living because his unborn son will be the savior of humanity and he has to teach the boy what happens after you die (difficult, since he doesn't remember anything about it). It's weird, thought-provoking, dreamy and funny like all of his books, but White Apples is my favorite because Carroll really delivers on the set-up here and ties it all together in the end, even though I didn't think there was any way he'd be able to -- and it's also my favorite because at its heart this cosmos-spanning novel is a love story about a man and a woman.
I wish I liked The Ghost in Love as much but I didn't. For one thing the title is misleading, the titular ghost is not a ghost and the love it has for the protagonist's ex-girlfriend is not a big part of the story. The bad guys didn't seem very threatening. It just seemed to me that the ideas in this one were more psychobabble than the spiritual insights I expect from Carroll. I didn't hate it, and I'll wait to see if this means he peaked with White Apples.
(One other writer in this must-read category for me is Mil Millington, and he has a new one out too Instructions For Living Someone Else's Life but I'm waiting till January to read this one when I can get an autographed copy from the author.)
I also read Home Truths from David Lodge because I heard Mister Lodge on the radio talking about his new book Deaf Sentence, a comedy about losing one's hearing. I wanted that book because I'm losing my hearing and having a hard time finding anything amusing about it. I went online and put it on reserve at my local library, but when I went to pick it up -- after receiving an e-mail that it was ready -- they couldn't find it, so I got this instead. It's a short novella about a couple of writers who try to get revenge on a reporter who did a hatchet job on one of them. It's based on a play and it's obvious since it's almost all dialogue -- but witty dialogue, so no complaints.

Well, you knew he wasn't going to be a good sport

Maybe they should change the rules so that if you're elected president you start work in the White House the next day. George Bush who certainly did his best to ruin this country still has 2 months to be president and evidently he's going to spend them the same way he spent the first eight years -- screwing over the poor and middle-class, this time by reducing the number of services available under Medicaid, despite the fact that he knows President Obama is just going to undo his evil handiwork. According to the New York Times this is "the first of an expected avalanche of post-election regulations" so brace yourself, I guess W's taking no chances on securing his legacy as America's worst president ever.
And me, I just hope I live long enough to understand why a working class person would ever vote Republican. All they do is pay lip service to you and your needs and then spend their terms making themselves and their rich-ass friends even more obscenely wealthy.

People who piss me off, part one

Today in church we did an exercise where you write about someone you're angry or upset with and the first thing I said was, "I'm going to need more than that one sheet of paper." The point of course was to get to some kind of understanding and eventually peace. At least I think that's the point. I was too busy making a list of people who piss me off. Since I was planning to go to the gym that afternoon I started there.

PEOPLE WHO PISS ME OFF AT THE GYM

1.) The Dumper. I mean, who takes a shit at the gym? What are you, homeless? I seriously do not understand why they even have toilets at public places. Urinals, yes. But there's no way I'm sitting down and going on that seat that people have pissed on and puked on unless I have a dire and immediate gastric emergency. And even then I'll probably end up going in my pants while speeding home to my own lovely toilet.

2.) The Gum Chewer. I don't know why I find this so irksome. All of a sudden I'm Miss Vevon, my eleventh grade english teacher who hating gum chewing more than she hated dangling participles or anything else on earth. I just think there's a time and a place for chewing gum -- although right now I can only think of one, and that's when you're going up in the mountains or otherwise experiencing a sudden change in altitude. And chin-ups don't count.

3.) The Nudists. Why, why, why do some guys insist on strutting around naked? You've got a towel in your hand, why don't you wrap it around yourself. Cover up that rusty old ass and micro dick. I mean, seriously, what is the point?

4.) The Ladies Man. The guy who only goes to the gym to flirt with the ladies. Again, time and place, Romeo. If you worked on your physique as hard as you work on your pick-up lines, maybe you'd get a better response.

5.) Larry the Cable Guy. This is the guy who works out in jeans and an old button-down shirt with the sleeves torn off. Buy some sweats, dude. They're right there in Wal-Mart not tooo far from the chewing tobacco.

6.) Mr. Top-heavy. These are the guys with huge arms, huge chests and scrawny little bird legs. Quit doing all those curls and do some squats or something to develop your lower body or you are going to crumble.

7.) The Narcissist. This is the guy who does all his exercises in front of a mirror and is unable to hide his admiration for his own body.

8.) The Guy Who Blow Dries his Testicles. This guy should be drawn and quartered.

nanowrimo Day 2

I did 1651 words on my NaNoWriMo novel today for a total of 3387, so I'm right on schedule. I also know what's going to happen next, which is a first. It reminds me of my favorite quote about writing. It's from E.L. Doctorow:
Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

If We Make it Through November

November is National Novel Writing Month, when nutjobs all across the globe try to write a complete novel in one month. Sounds impossible, right? And it would be except for the fact that there's one word missing from the mission -- that word is "good." You don't have to write a good novel as long as it's 50,000 words. As founder Chris Baty says on the website, "It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly. Make no mistake: you will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down".
Which still ain't easy. You need to average 1660 words or so a day to complete NaNoWriMo. I wrote 1736 words yesterday and it took me 2 and a half hours. I'm not going to have that much time most days, nowhere near. Especially as whatever free time I have will still need to be spent at the gym. (I'm leaving the fat-loss portion of my fitness program now and moving into the hypertrophy portion. Although I bought a body-fat percentage scale yesterday and it says I'm at 19.1% BF which is down about 10% from the first time I checked it in April and God knows how much since I started this path in January but still higher than I want to be.)
I'm going back to the book now. Wish me luck. In the following post I put up what I slaved over yesterday. If you want to comment on it, remember the rules of NaNoWriMo

NaNoWrimo

CHAPTER ONE

“I was having a bad week, your honor. A really bad week. I’m talking from-hell type a week, you know what I mean? I had sprained my shoulder getting out of the way of a demonic minivan that seemed determined on running me down no matter which way I tried to avoid that fate. Myrna – that’s my hairdresser – well, ex-hairdresser now – had completely messed up my hair. She ruined it. I mean, look at this, would you go anywhere with your hair looking like this?”
“The plaintiff may not have noticed but I don’t have any hair at all. If I had your locks I would be grateful for them and try to fix them on my next appointment.”
Great, a funny judge. My lucky streak continues. I forced out the best fake chuckle I could muster under the circumstances, which only seemed to antagonize him. Maybe he wasn’t being funny. Maybe he really did want my fried, hacked-off orangeish hair. We can work this out, your honor. Just let me go and I’ll give you every tress.
“And my favorite TV show got canceled before we even found out who Carly was going to marry. And then this morning I was late for work. Again. And again it was not my fault. According to the radio there was an overturned chicken truck on the interstate blocking traffic for miles.
“An overturned chicken truck. That’s the kind of week I was having, your honor. How does that even happen? Do all the hens all decide to lay their eggs on one side of the truck and the weight of all that albumen tips the thing over?”
“That’s neither here nor there, Ms. Masterson. As much as I’d love to spend the day discussing possible causes of poultry pile-ups I do have other cases on my docket.”
“Right. Sorry, your honor. So, ordinarily when I’m stuck in traffic, I try to use the time to get something done – usually prep for a meeting at work or planning an upcoming party, but even if it’s just filing my nails I figure I might as well get something out of the situation. So I was reaching for my purse when I realized I’d left the sodding thing at home. And of course in addition to my emery board and my drivers license, it had everything I needed for that meeting with the Smith-Klein corporation that I was already late for
“And that was when I threw up my hands. ‘Great!’ I said, ‘that’s just great!.’ And I just kinda asked heaven – even though I don’t believe in heaven or God or any of that claptrap and before you say anything, yes, I realize that’s neither here nor there – ‘What else could go wrong?’
“Like, I said, I’m not a believer, but wouldn’t you know, for once heaven answered. The lady behind me – her over there with her hair all tamped down on one side like that where you can tell she never stops talking and should really invest in a bluetooth if you ask me – well, she was evidently lost in a deep cell phone dream, and hallucinated that the gridlock surrounding us was actually a smoothly functioning chickenless municipal thoroughfare and ran into my back bumper knocking my little Prius into the SUV in front of me and throwing my shoulder – which had been edging its way slowly back into his socket – almost through the windshield and up onto my now crumpled-up hood.
“When I got out to give her a good cussing-out – which must be the thing to do in these circumstances, since the tattooed bruiser in the SUV, who as you can see looks a whole lot like Joseph Stalin only not near as friendly was rappeling down from his gas-guzzler to give me one too. Which he did, your honor, and it was a much meaner and more menacing cussing than I gave Suzy Cellphone there.”
I stopped there because the judge was holding up his hand. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“The court is prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, Ms. Masterson, and assume that you misheard the question and are answering a whole lot of questions the court never asked in the hopes that you might stumble upon the correct question. To save us both some time however, why don’t I repeat it? Why did you push the gentleman there into a ditch?”
“That’s exactly the question I am answering, your honor. But it won’t make much sense if you don’t have any background on the situation.”
I could tell by the way he smirked that he didn’t think it made a whole hell of a lot of sense even with the background information, and I had to admit he had a point.
“All right, so I’m cussing out Suzy Cellphone, Joe Stalin there is cussing – and threatening – me, when up walks this guy. ” And I turn to point to the guy who more than anybody was responsible for my being where I was. He was sitting in the front row of the court but he wasn’t paying any attention. He was gazing out the window, looking at something that commanded his full attention. Maybe they were already working on building my gallows out there, who knows.
“As you can see, he’s all scruffy and unshaven, and I have no idea where he came from, where his car was or what in the hell he wanted from me. I thought at first he might be homeless but you don’t get that kind of flawless skin living out on the street and he didn’t talk like a homeless guy or smell like one either.”
The judge held up one finger and brought it crashing down onto his desk or pulpit or whatever you call that thing he sits behind. And although I don’t speak sign language I knew he meant “Get to the point.”
“So he walks up from out of nowhere in the middle of all this cussing and blaming that’s going on and he starts apologizing. For what I have no idea. But he’s all like, ‘Oh, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.’ At first I ignored him. I mean with the day I’m having the last thing I need is some nutjob with flawless features to go blithering on about how he somehow caused this accident even though as far as I can tell he doesn’t even have a car. Then the light goes on, and I think I know who he might be.
“But I don’t get a chance to ask him cuz right then Stalin there grabbed my shoulder – the sore one I told you about – and spun me back around cuz he evidently has a strong preference for spewing profanity in my face rather than at the back of my head. Suzy cellphone was still chatting all this time, by the way, and I think we all assumed that she was talking to the police, until she goes, ‘Okay, Randy, I’ll see you tonight. I love you too’ and even makes this little kissy-kiss bye-bye sound.
“Well, I wanted to take that phone and shove it up – I mean, fling it somewhere, maybe through Josef’s back window or something. But I don’t. I show restraint and suggest her next call be to 911. Then I turn around to the homeless guy who’s still apologizing and I say, ‘Are you the guy who was driving the chicken truck?’
“And he goes ‘Chicken truck? What chicken truck?’
“And I go, ‘If you’re not the guy who caused this traffic jam, then who the hell are you?’ and he goes, ‘I’m Hershel, your guardian angel.’
“That was when I pushed him into the ditch and I’m sorry I did that, your honor. But as I think I’ve demonstrated, I was having a bad week and an even worse day, so I was in no mood for crazy talk.”

After that they put Hershel or whatever his name was up on the stand. He said no, he wasn’t hurt, no, he didn’t want to press charges, what he meant when he said he was a guardian angel was that he was a good Samaritan and he wanted to see if he could help in any way.
He was charming as all hell and the judge not only bought it, but it seemed to imbue him with such goodwill toward man that he let us all go, he even dismissed the ticket the cop had given me for driving without my license, though he did give me a stern warning that if was caught driving without it in my possession again the sentence he would give me give would curl my hair even worse than it already had been.
By the time we got out of the courtroom it was after eleven o’clock. My meeting was long over. So too was my career probably, since my cellphone was still at home in my purse and I never even called to explain to my boss why I wasn’t there.
I was standing outside at the curb waiting for a trusting cabdriver to come by, one who looked like he would believe me when I told him that although I had no money I would be able to pay him when we got to my house, when homeless Hershel walked up beside me.
“I really am sorry about everything that happened today,” he said.
“Is that all you know how to say? ‘I’m sorry’?”
He smiled. “No, I also know how to say ‘Can I buy you a cup of coffee or some lunch to make up for the trouble I’ve caused.’ ”
I was about to point out that he had only caused a small percentage of my woes, but I felt like I had used up my quota of verbiage for the week on the judge – who didn’t appreciate it half as much as he appreciated the few honeyed words from Hershel – and besides, all I wanted to do was get home to an overflowing bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream and the Discovery Channel. I did not want any more penitent palaver with this lunatic.
“Look, I’m too tired to be polite, so I’ll just tell you flat out I don’t like coffee and I don’t like you. So

One of my favorite websites is Bookmooch.com, where you can trade books you don't want for books you do. I've gotten some pretty cool stuff there and for the most part the fact that the books have been previously enjoyed is not a problem, but I really do not want a used copy of this book.

Shorpy

One of my favorite blogs is Shorpy: The 100-year Photo Blog, which as you might guess shows rare pictures from the last century of our history -- fascinating pictures. I'm mostly interested in stuff from the 1920's because that's an era I'm obsessed with, but I can always find something there of interest. Here's a shot of Charleston SC's King Street in 1915:

Doesn't look all that different today. Not quite as many Model T's maybe, and they did pave over those railroad tracks that ran down the middle of the road -- How did that work anyway? having a train drive down the middle of your busiest street?

Well, I thought it was funny. . .

I wonder if this guy

made mayonaisse when he grew up.

Thanks, Mr. Kettle

This is the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. (And by funny I mean pathetic.)



Kid Rock lecturing us about how bad it is to steal music.
Kid Damn Rock.
I'll wait for a second or two while that sinks in. Mr. Rock, whose whole career is based on ripping off other artists' styles, and his biggest hit ever "All Summer Long" steals from Lynyrd Skynyrd and Warren Zevon. (And don't call it sampling, as Kid himself would say, "Stealing is stealing.")
Go away, Kid, your fifteen minutes are up.

More books I've read in 2008

Kirby: King of Comics by Mark Evanier.
I have to confess that even though I grew up reading those great silver age Marvel Comics, Jack Kirby was never my favorite artist. I couldn't get past some of his stylistic quirks, such as the square fingers. Then there was the fact that although nobody could draw alien technology and weaponry and crackling energy like Jack Kirby, his women were always, well, homely and square-fingered. And at that stage in my life I much preferred a pretty girl (like John Romita's Gwen Stacy or John Buscema's Shalla Bal) to any piece of machinery. Now that I know a little more about the history of comics I understand more about how Jack Kirby revolutionized the artform. Before Kirby, comics were flat and two-dimensional. Jack brought them to life and his characters and his action popped off the page. So many of the boundaries that he broke were copied by everybody who came after him that a punk kid like me didn't understand what a pioneer he was. And not only a pioneer but a helluva nice guy with no business acumen and who was too trusting of people and as a result he got screwed over by just about every company he worked for --- especially Marvel.

The Quitter by Harvey Pekar and Dean Haspiel.
What can I say about Harvey Pekar? If you don't like him and find his comic series American Splendor to be a self-indulgent exercise in naval-gazing you're not going to like this graphic memoir of his school-age and early adult years. Me, I think what he does is pretty amazing, just by being more honest than most writers dare he can make his admittedly-pretty-boring life into compelling pieces of literature. Pekar has had a lot of great artists draw American Splendor but for my money Dean Haspiel is the best. Of course I'm a big fan of Haspiel and his ultra-romantic anti-hero Billy Dogma anyway.

They just don't come any cooler than Paul Newman -- a hella handsome guy who refused to play pretty boy roles, preferring to challenge himself with roles of oddballs, loners, losers and criminals. A guy who started selling his homemade salad dressing as a joke and ended up with a food corporation that gave 250 million dollars to charity. A guy who stayed married to the same woman for 50 years (the lovely Joanne Woodward) and who was such a staunch liberal that he made President Nixon's fabled Enemies List. (Newman always said this was his proudest achievement. ) When I asked him to sign a bookplate for the book he wrote with A.E. Hotchner about Newman's Own Foods Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good he graciously acceded. If you'd like to honor Paul Newman in the way he would have appreciated best click here.

How great is Mark Twain?

Here is the American Library Association's list of most challenged authors 2007.

1) Robert Cormier
2) Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
3) Mark Twain
4) Toni Morrison
5) Philip Pullman
6) Kevin Henkes
7) Lois Lowry
8) Chris Crutcher
9) Lauren Myracle
10) Joann Sfar

Mark Twain's been dead for 98 years and he still gets the bronze medal. (By the way, next week is Banned Books Week -- tell the book-burners (like Sarah Palin) to go to hell; read a banned book and buy one for a young person you love.)

Potty talk

I don't know why this cracked me up but it did. My favorite thrift store is really good about checking out the electronics and other stuff they sell. They'll usually put a little notation on the price tag, something like "Works good" "Needs work" or something like that. But I guess they couldn't get any of their minimum-wage employees to take this in-home porta-potty for a test drive:

Music

I think the Ipod I received for my fiftieth birthday was the best gift I've ever received. Certainly without it I would not have been able to lose all this weight -- 52 and a half pounds at last weigh-in, 171 down from 223.5 -- because I would not have been able to do all the workouts without the music to inspire me -- and not just the music; I love listening to podcasts like "This American Life" and "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" while I walk, and maybe something fitness-related like "The Fitcast" while lifting weights.
But mostly it's the music. And the rekindling of my love for that art form "the least disagreeable of all noises". I used to live for the music and even now something from the Ramones or David Bowie or Grand Funk Railroad can send me back in time quicker than anything H.G. Wells ever dreamed of. But over the years my passion cooled. Part of the reason was that I didn't have time or disposable income to devote to music, with a full-time job and a hectic family life. Part of the reason was the tinnitus which has robbed me of some of my hearing. (That ringing in my ears by the way is probably not entirely unrelated to my previous adoration of music -- take care of your ears, kids. Practice safe music) And part of the reason was either -- and I'm honestly not sure which -- I either got old as dirt or music started to suck.
Anyway, I got an Ipod and after filling it up with all my CDs and downloading all the old stuff I've bought before as LPs, 45s, CDs, cassettes, et cetera, I went looking for new music. And boy, did I find it -- the great Americana sounds of Reckless Kelly, the high energy pop-punk of We The Kings, the positive vibrations of Michael Franti and Spearhead that actually got me to do something I haven't done in over a decade -- buy a CD, this one and I recommend it highly -- and my latest obsession, the hard-to-describe 29-member Swedish glee-club slash rock band "I'm From Barcelona." I've also found some old stuff I was not familiar with -- I keep changing my workout music playlist, but right now the first song on there is "Saved" by Laverne Baker recorded in 1961 and beginning "I used to smoke; I used to drink; I used to smoke, drink and dance the hootchie-koo" all of which is true in my case, (albeit my hootchie-koo dancing was never that impressive.) I've also rediscovered how some of my old favorites can be re-considered as workout anthems. One of the lines that gets me pumping hard is "I'm gonna strut like a cock until I'm ninety-nine" from Grand Funk's "Walk Like a Man." Similarly the Raspberries' "Go All the Way" is no longer a power pop sex track. "Go All the Way" now means don't give up, finish your HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).
And really, I probably take lyrics (and song titles) way too seriously, you know that Clash song that starts "You say you stand by your man / Tell me something I dont understand /You said you love me and thats a fact / Then you left me, said you felt trapped" and the chorus that goes "Did you stand by me? No, not at all". It's a great song, lots of energy, but I had to move it way down on my playlist because although these lines are never sung, the name of the song is "Train in Vain" and that's the last thing I want to do.

More books I've read in 2008

Who are you calling a meathead? I can still read.

Now I've heard it all

Pretty much everyone has gotten used to the more compact me by now. Sometimes I'll run into someone I haven't seen in a long while and their surprise is always fun. As are the comments people make that prove they don't get it, i.e. "You better start eating again" when, as anyone who was paying attention would know, I eat all the time. I heard a new one today though. Somebody told me I needed to gain some weight back. That being thin was making me look older. It actually made sense when they explained it -- fat fills in all the wrinkles and now I've got nothing to fill them with.
Oh well, I'd rather be wrinkled than fat.

Hooray for me

It's official. I weighed in at 172 today, which means I've lost 51 pounds this year -- well, 51 and a half to be exact. Which is pretty amazing considering I've trained myself for the most part -- and I have a lot to learn. (This morning the janitor at the gym corrected my form on the lat pulldown.) My brother who's been working out forever was going to help me train, but then he got back together with his girlfriend and evidently he can't do both. So anyway hooray for me!

It's weird cuz people at work ask me how I did it, how I've lost so much weight and when I tell them they don't believe me -- or maybe it's more accurate to say they don't hear me. They want to know if I'm starving myself or eating cabbage soup or something. And when I tell them I eat more now than I did when I was fat, you can see that it doesn't sink in. But it's true, I do eat more -- although I drink a lot less. And that's one of the great things about working out is it allows you to eat -- and I love to eat.

While I'm passing out hoorays, let me give one to Kim. My beautiful child-bride turns 40 today. Happy birthday, baby.

Dear John McCain

How dumb do you think we are?



"Let me just offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second crowd: change is coming."
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, the Republican presidential nominee.


Try to fight off the Alzheimers, Johnny. The old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first, country-second crowd is you -- well, you and your butt-buddy, George W. Get the fuck out of here, you crepuscular old fart.

God Bless You, Mary Ellen Baker!

I'm not going to kid you -- there was no way I was going to vote for John McCain no matter who he picked as his running mate. He could have picked Krishna and I wouldn't vote for them. I think George Bush and Karl Rove and eight years of them and their minions have pretty much ruined this once-great nation and brought us to the brink of World War III for no reason whatsoever, and John McCain has been way up Bush's ass the whole way, going so far as to say we should stay in Iraq for a hundred years if that's how long it takes us to shove democracy down their throats.
But picking Sarah Palin as his running mate made that impossibility even more impossible. Now not only would hell have to freeze over but Satan would have to join the Ice Follies. It's bad enough that she's a hypocrite; I expect that from Republicans. She's a gun nut and a religious fascist. Again, not too far from the party line. But the one thing I can never forgive, the one thing that in my mind brands you as the absolute lowest form of life: She's a book-burner.
From Time.com:
(A)s mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
Please everybody let's send this idiot back to the frozen North.

I don't know if the stereotype of the dumb jock is valid or not, but ever since I've been working out I've been doing significantly less reading. Part of it is just temporal logistics -- I only have so much time and that time is mostly used for walking and weight-lifting now. But that's not the whole story, though. I do have some time to read but when I do I don't enjoy it very much and I usually end up turning on the television instead. There's just so much great stuff on these days -- Gavin and Stacy, Reaper, Pushing Daisies, The Biggest Loser and my favorite of all which has its 2-hour season premiere tonight (and it's kinda scary how excited I am) -- Bones. People who have known me for a long time and never seen me watch anything other than romantic comedies are surprised I like this show. My wife can't believe it. But despite the presence of serial killers and rotting corpses it's actually very funny and very romantic. The writing and acting are second to none and Emily Deschanel is just stunningly gorgeous.

Check it out.

I think it's time I get serious about writing again, although I'm not sure how I'm going to manage that since I'm still serious about fitness and intend to remain so, I still have two teenagers yet to raise and God knows that's serious business. And then there's that dead end job of mine, which is not that serious but it is time-consuming.
It seems to me that the first thing I need to do to get back into writing is to declutter my office and my hard drive. That may be an excuse to postpone writing, those things are sneaky, but it feels important. Here is a poem that I found amongst my Microsoft Word documents. It's by Samuel Hazo; I have no idea where I found it, but I can see why I kept it.

The Nearness That Is All
by Samuel Hazo

Love's what Shakespeare never
said by saying, "You have
bereft me of all words, lady."
Love is the man who siphoned
phlegm from his ill wife's throat
three times a day for seven
years.
Love's what the Arabs
mean when they bless those
with children: "May God keep them
for you."
Or why a mother
whispers to her suckling, "May you
bury me."
Love's how the ten-year
widow speaks of her buried
husband in the present tense.
Love lets the man with one leg
and seven children envy no man
living and none dead.
Love
leaves no one alone but, oh,
lonely, lonelier, loneliest
at midnight in another country.
Love is jealousy's mother
and father.
Love's how death
creates a different nearness
but kills nothing.
Love
makes lovers rise from each
loving wanting more.
Love
says impossibility's possible
always.
Love saddens glad
days for no bad reason.
Love gladdens sad days
for no good reason.
Love
mocks equivalence.
Love is.

Happy Anniversary

When Kim and I got married in 1993 between us we had four divorces, three kids (and another on the way), two student loans but only one job. We had only known each other for 11 months, not long enough to know that we were complete opposites in so many ways. And I had a mullet. So understandably there were people who thought it wouldn't last.
But it has not only lasted but flourished. Sometimes we wonder why it is that we have such a happy marriage. Is there one right person -- a soul mate -- and if you find him or her does everything fall into place? Or is it because we've learned from previous relationships and previous mistakes and patterns of behavior? Is it because at a certain point we both decided we would rather make each other laugh than be right and prove some point?
Or maybe it was because we picked a special day to get married. August 29th certainly seems like a magical date to me. People say that August is the only month without a holiday in it, but it doesn't seem that way to me. I have never understood how people can forget their anniversary. I start looking forward to mine in February.
So maybe that's it. Maybe August 29th is a magical marriage day. It's certainly a special day this year, more special than usual. It's our 15th anniversary -- which is the crystal anniversary. And we are celebrating tonight with a huge party for a couple hundred friends, it will be catered with gourmet food and lots of beer and wine. There will be a DJ and dancing and professional photographers there to document the event.
But this party is not for us. It's for my oldest daughter Leah who is getting married today. I have to admit when she first said she wanted to get married on our anniversary I wished she would have chosen another day. It was a selfish thought. I wanted that day to just always be about nothing but me and Kim. But now I realize what a compliment it is to us and I'm glad she chose this day to tie the knot. It's a magical day -- doubly so now. And Leah has found the right guy. As long as they remember it's better to laugh than win an argument I have no doubts that there's will be a long and happy union.
Happy anniversary, Kim. And thank you for 15 wonderful years.
And happy anniversary, Leah and John. Here's wishing you many more.

collecting

I've put my collecting on hiatus. I haven't bought any comic books for months. I'm using my postcards to enter Games World of Puzzles contests. And I haven't been sending off for any autographs either. But I haven't given wondering when a celebrity dies if I already have his or her signature. I went 1 for 2 lately. I didn't have Bernie Mac's but I did have Isaac Hayes.

The reason for my change of habits is the fact that my daughter is getting married in (OMG!) less than two weeks, and you would not believe how much that costs. I still collect stuff that doesn't cost anything like literary references to the song "MacArthur Park" (although I haven't seen any of those around lately either) and retronyms. A retronym for those of you who don't know is a new word for an old thing, a word that didn't need to exist until advances in technology mandated it. "Rotary phone" is a retronym. (Before push button phones they were just called telephones.) As are "push mower" and "manual transmission." I found one just the other day. Someone made reference to a "printzine" (as opposed to an e-zine.) Back in my day we just called them magazines.

We Have a Winner

Well, the Big Beer Belt Buckle giveaway is over and the Random Number Generator has spoken, our winner is Jenny. Congratulations and thanks to all who entered. I will definitely do this again.

Free stuff

Well, I just found out that this is Bloggy Giveaway Carnival time, when generous bloggers give stuff away for free. Sounds like fun. I'm going to give away a genuine Guinness belt buckle (that would be the bottom buckle on this tower of buckles. All you have to do is leave a comment wherein you mention your favorite beer -- or if you don't like beer leave a comment explaining why you want a beer buckle even though you're not a beer drinker. After midnight on August 1st. one winner will be selected at random.
Good luck.

This is the sign out in front of a bar a few miles down the road from my house, and every time I pass it I wonder what the name of the place is supposed to be. Is it really "Ally" Cats? as in "All the cats in this club are comrades" or did the owner mean to call it "Alley Cats" and, being the product of South Carolina public schools, was unable to successfully spell "Alley"? But then shouldn't the sign-maker have said something like, "Um, that's not really how you spell "alley." Or is this some kooky hip-hop spelling like "Boyz" or "Sk8er"?

I'm going to call them and see what they say when they answer the phone. I'll just mumble something about a wrong number and hang up afterwards.

Oh, wouldn't you know it, they're not in the phone book.

Or maybe I'm just now looking in the right place. I looked under "Alley" and "Ally". Is there another way to misspell "alley"?

To my friends and co-workers

Most of y'all know I like comic books. Even if we've never had a discussion about graphic novels or the genius of Alan Moore, you've see the toys and posters scattered around my workplace and the Green Lantern tattoo on my finger. And that's fine, I'm not ashamed. If you want to talk about sequential art or what a great collection you had as a kid before your mom made you throw them out, I'm right there.
But why in the name of Krypton do y'all assume that because I like reading comic books that automatically means whenever a new superhero movie comes that means I'll be standing in line with my cape and mask on waiting to buy a ticket. Haven't I explained to y'all over and over that I don't love movies? That if I get a couple hours free time I'd rather read a book or go for a walk? And if I do go to a movie it probably won't be some overblown dumbed-down Hollywooded-up desecration of something I hold dear?
Why? Why? Why?
Y'all don't even ask me if I'm going to see "Dark Knight" (or "Iron Man" or "Hulk" or "Hellboy" or whatever) you say, "Have you seen "Dark Knight" (or "Iron Man") yet?" or "How did you like "Hulk"?" Even though I explained to y'all last summer when the questions were all about how I liked "Fantastic Four 2" and "Spider-Man 3" that I haven't seen those movies, and have neither plans nor desire to see them.
When you push it and ask what's my favorite comic book movie, I say "American Splendor" because it is, by far. But you just look at me blankly. When I elaborate and say, "Oh, you mean superhero comic book movie? The last one of those I liked was "Superman 2" back in 1978 or whenever it was."
So to sum up, I do not like superhero comic book movies, I do not like them in a box or with a fox, I do not like them, Sam I Am.
So stop asking.

And now part two: (Warning: Those of you who still cannot fathom how someone could love reading comic books but not like viewing movies based on comic books should read no further. This next part will make your brain explode.)
There are at least two more blockbuster movies coming out this year "Watchmen" and "The Spirit." Both of these are based on comic books, and not just any comic books but two of the best ever. I love both of these books and not only will I NOT be going to see the movie, I may be picketing outside the theater, protesting that these movies should not have been made. Why wouldn't I go see movies based on books I love?
One reason: They're going to suck.
How do I know they're going to suck?
Two reasons: 1.) Past experience. Hollywood has already ruined several of Alan Moore's works -- "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" "From Hell" "V For Vendetta" and there is no reason to believe they'll do any better with his magnum opus "Watchmen." Frank Miller is associated with "The Spirit" and Miller is a tasteless, talentless idjit, and I hope he stays in Hollywood and out of comics, since Hollywood is already morally and creatively bankrupt and he can do less damage there.
2.) (And this gets right to the heart of that matter) Some books don't have to be made into movies, in fact shouldn't be. They're meant to be read and something essential is lost when they are viewed. One of the most respected and influential books of the 20th century is "The Catcher in the Rye" but it's never been filmed. Why? Because it's unfilmable and Jerome David Salinger is smart enough to realize that. We're meant to commune with Holden Caulfield one on one via the printed word, not in a sticky seat with a bunch of strangers talking on their cell phones, via the moving picture. If Hollywood made a movie of "Catcher" they'd have to turn Holden into a gangster or a detective, something they understand. And it would be a disaster -- like "Watchmen."

The Carlin Column

This is my new column for Country Standard Time Magazine:

CARLIN ON COUNTRY


The great thing about having a column is that you can talk about whatever it is you want to talk about as long as you can tie it however tangentially to the subject at hand, which in this case is country music.
But right now I want to talk about George Carlin, who recently passed away at the age of 71. Carlin was a genius, a real hero of mine, one of the only people I think can mentioned in the same breath as Lenny Bruce and Mark Twain. He was fearless and he did what so few comics do – he talked about real issues, how messed up things are – and he did it in a way that made you laugh – albeit sometimes ruefully.
So all I have to do is listen to all his old albums, find a reference to country music and tie it all together.
Okay, I’m back, I’ve had my thoughts provoked and my ribs tickled by lines like:

Let a smile be your umbrella, and you'll end up with a face full of rain.

And:

Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a broker?

And:

The IQ and the life expectancy of the average American recently passed each other going in opposite directions.

But nothing about country music. I even went back and watched most of Carlin’s HBO shows and got to relive him talking about the difference between baseball and football, and was amazed again at how seemingly effortlessly and amusingly he want right to the heart of why I love the national pastime:

“Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls, late hitting and unnecessary roughness.
“Baseball has the sacrifice.
“In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic feeling; emotions may run high or low, but there's not too much unpleasantness.
“In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at least twenty-seven times you're capable of taking the life of a fellow human being.

I even found some evidence that Carlin was more romantic than he gets credit for:

Sex without love has its place, and it's pretty cool, but when you have it hand in hand with deep commitment and respect and caring, it's nine thousand times better.

But again, nothing about country music. I reread his books like "Napalm and Silly Putty" and "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" Nothing on country music. A Google search came up fruitless too. (Although I did learn that some extreme fundamentalist Christians picketed outside Carlin’s funeral, something that I know would have pleased him immensely.) Just when I was afraid I was going to have to give up and talk about something other than the brilliant comedian I wanted to talk about, I stumbled across the January 1982 issue of Playboy magazine. Why did I save that? No, not because of the fulsome charms of Miss January, but because there’s an interview with George Carlin. And in it he talks about country music, and as he did with most every other topic he touched on, had some profound things to say on the subject:


PLAYBOY: Did you ever get into country music?

CARLIN: Oh, I loved real country music. Again, not the kind they manufacture in Nashville. I loved bluegrass and the real country people, you know, like Bill Monroe and Hank Williams. . . I love those strains of stark reality: hopelessness, sorrow, broken love, death. Like authentic R&B, authentic country music speaks for a people, and the similarities and differences between the two forms have always fascinated me. . . The freedom that a black expresses by merely walking down the street is even more evident when he sings onstage. By contrast, the white Protestant Southern country man singing onstage barely moves his body. . . But the lyrics those two men will write are precisely the opposite. The black man sings in symbolic terms about jelly rolls and sugar pies, while the white man tells you exactly what's on his mind. "Ohhh, a truck ran over my baaa-by in the ro-o-o-ad." It's a marvelous paradox that tells us so much about those two cultures.

I’ve changed my mind about one thing. Sometimes the best part of writing a column is doing the research.

Blast From the Past

Although I'm sure you can't tell by the sporadic blogging here, but I used to be a very faithful journal keeper, wrote every day for about ten years. Lately I've been rereading some of the older ones. It's a lot of fun reading about when the kids were still cute and still liked us, and about things that happened that would otherwise be lost in the murky mists of time. And then there are the ones that I cringe when I read cuz I can't believe I was ever that dense. Take this entry for example. You would not believe how much I've learned about marriage, women and conversation since this happened. (Annotations from the modern me in red)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1ST 1995

On the third day of our third year of marriage Kim and I got into a little tiff -- we never fight we just tiff -- it was a fairly typical one for us -- in fact an almost word-for-word clone of one a couple of weeks ago.
Here, recorded for posterity, only slightly one-sided, is what happened.
I returned from the library, my wife, who had been a bit beneath the weather, was watching TV, specifically "The Young and the Restless." I said, "How's that girl?"
She said, "What girl?"
I pointed at her and said, "That girl!"
She said, "I'm not Marlo Thomas." (There are lots of places in this exchange where I could have prevented this from becoming unpleasant. This is probably the first. I should have just laughed at the joke.)
I said, "I'm surprised you're familiar with that show. It must have gone off the air in 1971, you were only three." (This is probably the second. At the time I was still inordinately proud of my wife's youth, but sometimes trying to express that pride could come off as insulting.)
She said, "Did it last that long?"
I walked into our bedroom, retrieved a reference book, looked it up, went back into the living room and said:
"Well, I was close, it actually lasted until 1972." (And that is definitely the third. What an annoying know-it-all. I'm still a know-it-all, that hasn't changed. But I'm a much quieter know-it-all now.)
Or started to say that. Kim held up one hand that meant either "Shut up" "Go away" or "Go away and shut up."
This upset me because she has said that "As The World Turns" is the only soap opera she cares about, and we had this exact same fight -- I mean tiff -- during the "Young and the Restless" a while back. Then she said the reason she told me to be quiet was because the character was buying a wedding ring. Nobody was buying a ring today. (And here is where the cringing really gets intense. This guy here is really in need of a clue.)
I said, "I hope you come to me and say 'How come you don't talk to me anymore?' and I'll say, 'I tried.' " (Crrrrringe)
And things went downhill from there. All patched up now though.

I read this to Kim the other night, and she said, "Well, we've been together for fifteen years and so far I've never been tempted to ask how come you don't talk to me." You can probably figure out why.