Literature Matters

I've been Spring cleaning and getting organized a little better lately. I've put a lot of comics and stuff up on eBay and a lot of books up on Swaptree. I'm going through the books I want to keep and deciding why I want to keep them. If I don't have a good reason I'll swap it. My books are organized by subject matter. We'll start with ART:Certainly there was never any doubt I was going to keep this one. These tame-by-today's-standards cartoons remind me so much of sneaking peeks at my Dad's collection of True Magazines when I was a kid. And Dan DeCarlo was the definitive Archie cartoonist. He created Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Josie and the Pussycats. And the fact that a lot of the girls in these toons look like Veronica and Betty and others I've been crushing on since prepubesence makes this a must-have. In fact, there's a volume 2 I've been on the lookout for. If you see it at a reasonable price let me know.
Bookplates are one of those old-fashioned things that I just love. This book has the bookplates of famous people -- everybody from Harpo Marx to Herbert Hoover.
Sigmund Freud had a picture of a nude dude on his book plate. Hmmm, I wonder what that signifies.
Jack London's bookplate could be in honor of "The Call of the Wild" or "The Sea Wolf" or even "White Fang":Evidently Harry Houdini is the only guy arrogant enough to have a picture of himself on his own bookplates.My favorite -- probably because I'm such an Aubrey Beardsley fan -- is this one he designed for John O'Fallon Miller:More tomorrow.

More Books I've Read in 2009

A new book from Tom Robbins is always cause for celebration. I can honestly say that his works -- notably "Jitterbug Perfume" and "Still Life With Woodpecker" changed my way of thinking on a what-looks-like-permanent basis. So, that is why it pains me to say that "B is For Beer" did not do it for me. I applaud him for trying something different --- in this case a grown-up book for kids -- but kids are not Robbins's natural audience, and a lot of his trademark digressions -- usually the best parts of his books -- came off as kind of cutesy and therefore annoying. There were several clever turns of phrase, and if you know nothing of beer history or how the alcoholic elixir is created, you can learn a thing or two. Otherwise, you'd be better off rereading "Jitterbug."

End of an era?

There are several contests that I enter on a regular basis -- NPR Weekend Edition Sunday Puzzle, the Car Talk Puzzler, and Games World of Puzzles contests chief among them. I've won the runner-up prize at World of Puzzles a couple of times and have the t-shirts to prove it, but as yet no big money. (And actually the money's not as big as it used to be; for years the prize was 1,000 dollars -- a few years ago they halved it to 500.) Anyway, I went to go pick the new issue of World of Puzzles and for the first time ever there was no contest. No explanation, no announcements, but I have a feeling that this is another sign of Big Trouble in Magazine Land, and there will be no more contests in GWoP. Which means my last chance is for last month's contest -- The Jigsaw Crossword Contest, which ends Monday, June 1st. Wish me luck.

More Books I've Read in 2009

It's been a while since I posted one of these literary updates. I guess all you MBIRI2009 fans are thinking I've forgotten how to read. But such is not the case. I unfortunately have limited free time and I spend much of that now working out and reading fitness magazines and blogs. And then foam-rolling to recover from my workouts -- oh, and eating several times a day and shopping a couple times a day. But I still make time to read. I read these two books a while back.
And I liked them both, but I don't remember enough particulars about either to blog much about. This is the book that I'm reading in the bathroom.
And I gotta tell the back cover irks me every time I pick it up. Particularly this sentence: "Whilst grateful for the success he has endured, on the whole he (Dolenz) would rather have been a physician." What irks me about this sentence? Well, besides the attitude and the ego, there's the word "whilst". What kind of archaic, crepuscular word is "whilst"? I don't think I've ever seen anyone other Dolenz and some of the more florid Victorians use that word non-ironically. Then there's the word "endured". You endured your success, Mickey? Somehow managed to survive the money, the parties and the groupies? What a testament to the human spirit. Anybody who got rich and famous with no more than that thimbleful of talent you possess should be more grateful for that success. And whilst millions of music-lovers might wish you had become a physician instead, it's most unbecoming of you to cry about how tough it's been enduring your good fortune.
And just yesterday I finished this book:Here's it the copyright and library info that irks me, specifically this classification: "1. Graphic novels -- Switzerland -- translated into English"
Why does that tick me off? Because it's not a novel, graphic or otherwise, it's a memoir. Literary snobs have been reluctant to admit that comics can be literary and now that they have no choice they have forgotten the distinction between fiction and non-fiction and call everything with pictures a graphic "novel."
The boook itself I enjoyed very much, about a young man coming to grips with his lover's (and his lover's child's) HIV. The only thing that took a little getting used to was the fact that he drew the young lady in question's eyes so big even a manga editor would say, "Whoa, that's just not right."

Cool Things Other People Said

(Thanks to my brother John for suggesting the title of this post).

Every month Esquire Magazine publishes a feature where famous and sometimes not-so-famous people talk about what they've learned during their lifetime on earth. I always enjoy this feature, but the only time I ever cut one out and hung it on my bulletin board was Alice Cooper. Among his words of wisdom are these two I highlighted:

Never be late. When you're late, what you're saying is that your time is more important than the other person's time. That's pretty egotistical.

You have to treat your wife like you treated her first you first met her and were trying to get her in bed.

Music Matters

My love affair with music took a back burner as my hearing deteriorated, but it's been rekindled as I've been striving toward fitness. My criteria for judging it has changed however. I used to be a total lyric man, caring not a whit for beat or melody. (When the kids were young we used to play the "humming game" where you took turns humming a song and competing to see who could name it first. I reeked at this game -- not only couldn't guess a lyricless tune but lacked the rhythm to even hum one of my own favorites.) Now I judge songs by how good they are to work out to. So I guess you could say I'm not more concerned about beat and melody, but lyrics are still important -- they have to be positive if not inspirational. I can't work out to a track with a downbeat message. "Check Yes, Juliet" by We the Kings is a hard rocking anthem about young love that is great to work out with. Their followup "Skyway Avenue" has a similar sound but lyrics with suicidal imagery. Not very sweat-inspiring. For me anyway.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying if you too are looking for good workout music, you should download the free song of the week from I-Tunes. It's "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked" by Ida Maria. Great beat and inspirational lyrics. (Well, if you're like most people and your main reason for working out is to look good naked. )

BTW, I've already bought more brand new CDs this year than last. Last year I bought a grand total of one -- "All Rebel Rockers" from Michael Franti and Spearhead. This year I've purchased "Middle Cyclone" from Neko Case and "The '59 Sound" from The Gaslight Anthem. I liked what I'd heard from Neko's CD -- particularly "People Got a Lot of Nerve" and "This Tornado Loves You" but I decided to buy the CD because of the last track -- "Marais la Nuit" which is 31 minutes and 39 seconds of frogs croaking. I'm always looking for some new white noise to mask my tinitus when I go to sleep and right now I'm enjoying frogs more than waves and waterfalls, and for some reason you couldn't download just this track; it was only available on the album.
Gaslight Anthem I've written about before, but I just love these guys. I don't think I've been this excited about a band since I first heard the Ramones. I was introduced to them and the title track to their new album on one of the music blogs I read, loved it, downloaded another ("Great Expectations" which manages to reference both Charles Dickens and Bob Seger -- and actually "The '59 Sound" references Dickens too, now that I think about it; I'm starting to gain new insight into why I love this band), loved it, downloaded "Here's Looking at You, Kid", which is way too slow to cut it as a workout song but it's one of my favorites nonetheless. The line "Tell her it's all right" blows me away every single time I hear it in context. When it turned out that I liked "Old White Lincoln" just as much as the three previous downloads I figured I might as get the whole album. Good decision. These guys rock -- I mean, real rock, like hip-hop never infiltrated the artform.

Interesting quotes I found while blog-surfing

"My Grandparent’s generation used to call the Republicans the cocktail party because they were the party of the wealthy, for the wealthy. They still are, they just have better PR."

Living in a post-print world

I got a call from Jeff Remz yesterday. He's the editor of Country Standard Time, the music magazine for which I have plied my pen for the past thirteen years or so. He was calling to tell me that he was folding the magazine as of the current issue. I should have seen it coming. After all, just a few minutes prior to his call, I had read that Blender and Maxim magazines were both going under. There are staff cuts and forced furloughs at the New York Times and Washington Post. Now that I think about it, print publications are dying off faster that a boozer's brain cells. Fantasy and Science Fiction, for which I have also written for the past few years, recently went from monthly to bi-monthly, US News and World Report went from a weekly to a monthly. Even Playboy is not immune to the tide threatening to engulf all printed periodicals. Hef's magazine will no longer publish an August issue. (A great loss, if you ask me, as Miss August was invariably my favorite playmate.) A quick internet search shows that in the last few months Cosmo Girl, Men's Lifestyle, Domino, Genre, Playgirl, Country Home and Wondertime have all ceased publication or gone online only. 525 magazines folded in 2008 and more than 50 already this year.
That makes me sad. I love paper. I still subscribe to or read most issues of several magazines, including Rolling Stone, The Sporting News, TV Guide, Harper's, Games, Smithsonian and a few more. I hope they continue to publish but I wouldn't be at all surprised if they joined the others in the magazine mausoleum. Now, I don't think we're going to be living in a magazineless world any time soon. People and US are healthy enough to ensure that people will be reading them at the gym and pissing me off in the process for years to come.
But I don't think kids today will ever look forward to updates on a website anywhere near as much as I looked forward to the new issue of my favorite periodical. All my life I've done this. I grew up in a world where Time and Life were always around. When I was a little kid I had a subscription to Highlights and I loved finding the hidden pictures and learning about manners with Goofus and Gallant. Shortly after that I discovered 16 magazine and devoured every issue, learning what the Monkees and Paul Revere and the Raiders were up to. After that it was Mad and Cracked. All of the Marvel comics from Avengers to X-Men. Then National Lampoon and High Times and Modern Man in high school and college. (I'm only mildly embarrassed to admit that in the tenth grade I had a subscription to Rona Barrett's Gossip magazine.) And there's a long list of magazines I've loved as an adult too. The late, lamented Spy for one. Comics Buyers Guide, The New Yorker, Found, FHM, Mental Floss, Vegetarian Times, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, the Modern Drunkard and many more. Some still publishing, others gone forever.
I don't know what to say about this or what to think. I know everything changes, and just like everybody else I'm spending more time browsing around online than I am with a book or a magazine in my lap, so maybe it's partly my own fault.
Maybe it's better if you don't know what you've got till it's gone. That way you don't have to watch it die slowly before your eyes.

On a a day like today, Global Warming sounds like an ideal we should be all be working to accomplish, but Emily Deschanel (in character evidently, as Doctor Temperance Brennan) makes a compelling -- and funny -- case against it:

Oooh, you're a holiday, such a holiday.

Wednesday, March 4th is National Grammar Day. If you're looking for a way to celebrate you could buy a T-shirt:

Or you could go and listen to the Rock and Roll Bad Grammar Hall of Fame.

http://www.playlist.com/playlist/11642599691/standalone

(By the way, I definitely think the Doors belong at the top of this list, but I think they picked the wrong song. True, "Till the stars fall from the sky for you and I" (from "Touch Me") is an egregious grammatical sin, but I find "If they say I never loved you, you know they are a liar" (from "L.A. Woman") much more painful to the ear.)

If you want to get me a present, then remember that apostrophes are for contractions and possessives but Never ever for plurals.

And don't ever call Jim Morrison a poet.

Not Sprung yet

It was a beautiful warm day today and I went for the first walk in the park in a long time. It felt a lot like Spring, but even if I hadn't heard the weather report and known that more cold weather was on the way I'd have known it wasn't quite that time of year yet. Some people look for flowers or birds as harbingers of that season I've looked forward to all winter long, but to me the first sign of Spring is the initial sighting of one of the Italian Ice Girls and there were none to be found.

Music Matters

Nowadays I judge music pretty much by this one criterion -- how inspirational is it to work out to? So, I'm not downloading a lot of slow songs, but I had to make an exception for this remarkable track from Gaslight Anthem "Here's Looking At You, Kid." It's a hauntingly beautiful love song to every girl who ever rejected the singer or broke his heart. (By the way, most of Gaslight Anthem's stuff is great rock and roll workout music, albeit a tinge morbid at times. They and Marah are my two favorite bands at the moment. I'm happy to say it looks like I was wrong: there may indeed be rock and roll after Guns and Roses.)
Note: The song is only 3:33 don't ask me why this "video" goes on so much longer.

My favorite line from a movie nobody likes but me.

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement."

Jai Ho!

I actually saw one of the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar this year -- which is unusual. And the one I saw - "Slumdog Millionaire" - won. So now of course it's getting a wider release, playing at the multiplexes and not just the "art" theaters. If you've seen the trailer you might get the impression that this one of those feel-good sensation movies, and it is very romantic, very colorful and ultimately life-affirming. But a lot of it is difficult to watch -- children endure abject poverty, see their murder murdered, are intentionally blinded to make them better beggars, and have to jump into a pool of excrement to escape outhouse imprisonment. The main character is forced to stand by as the love of his life is raped by his own brother. Not exactly warm and fuzzy stuff that.
The Jai Ho dance sequence over the closing credits however -- now that's feel-good. Judging by the number of amateur versions of this dance popping up on YouTube, it's about to become a craze. Here's the original:

More people who piss me off at the gym

1.) The Rack Addict. This is the guy who picks up a pair of dumbells and stands so close to the rack he's almost touching it -- inevitably right in front of the weights I need. If he could back off a couple inches I could get them, but either because he's worried he's not going to be able to handle those 30-pounders or -- more likely -- he can't bear to be that far away from his reflected biceps in the mirror, he won't back off.

2.) The Moaner. I will defend to the death -- well, maybe not to the death, but to the bruising anyway -- your right to grunt when you work out. (I refused to even consider a gym in my area that outlaws grunting.) But that's an involuntary reaction to exertion and as such, understandable, but not the guy who picks up a weight and immediately starts moaning like he's auditioning for a porno. What is wrong with your wiring? If lifting weights gets you off that much, you really need to invest in a home gym.

Parenthood

Being a parent is a thankless job. But sometimes if you're lucky you get something a whole lot better than a thank you. My daughter Leah was having trouble sleeping last night, so she wrote in her blog. She wrote about family and friends, dogs and children, birth and death, and about her parents:

Funny at times how you never wanted to listen to parents. Telling you things you should do, date who, things that they thought weren't the best choices. Then one day you wake up and realize so much. I wanted to find a man just like my Dad. I did, and love him dearly and so do they. I want to be just like my Mom. Best thing of all, My parents have the best relationship I've ever seen, heard of. I love them so much for showing me how people should be married. I hope in 15 years I feel just like them. I want what they have everyday. Its a true love that doesn't come with age or knowledge. They found their soulmates and it shows every time I see them together.

Leah, you know me pretty well, so I'm sure you know that your feeling this way and saying this to the whole wide blogosphere means a lot to me. But I don't think you know how much. Thank you. I love you and am so proud to have you as my daughter.

Dollhouse

Joss Whedon has a new show premiering on Fox tonight, and you'd think I'd be overjoyed -- after his "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" "Angel" and "Firefly" are three of my all time favorite TV shows -- but truthfully I have mixed feelings. I think he's a great writer and I'm looking forward to some of that great dialogue that he's so justly famous for, but the premise of this thing sounds not-too-promising (A group of people who have had their memories erased, led by Eliza Dushku's Echo, can be hired to do just about any task. But there's no emotional connection) and I liked Eliza Dushku as the bad slayer Faith in "Buffy" but I don't think she's a great actress. There have been so many changes made to this show already and Fox put it on Friday night, which is where they bury shows they have no faith in -- and there's a pun in there somewhere, since Faith is in it but let's not go there -- so it doesn't feel like a hit show.

And I'd really like to see Whedon do more comic book writing or more independent stuff like "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", so yeah, I'd say "mixed" pretty much sums up my feelings. But I'll be watching, of course.

And more books I've read in 2009.

I don't usually sit down and read a cookbook, but that's probably because most cookbooks aren't as entertaining a read as "Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin." His love of food and of cooking is evident on every page. I particularly appreciated the almost 30-pages he devotes to eggs and I can't wait to try some of the recipes. (I love me some eggs now.) And his description of foods is great too. "This soup (Cream of Garlic) doesn't get too thick. It has a nice, fluffy texture to it, like nipples when you suck on them."

Who could refuse a soup like that? I also like what he has to say about the customer not always being right and the people that he kicks out of his restaurant on a daily basis: "Some people tell me they're deathly allergic to something and that I have to make sure it's not in their food. I kick them out, too. I don't want to be responsible for anybody's life-or-death situation. I tell them they should go eat at a hospital. Often after I do that, they'll back down and tell me, well, they're not that allergic. And then I really want them to leave because now I know they're assholes.""

I also read "We Can Still Be Friends" by Mawil, but I don't recommend it. It's a slight story of a guy striking out with girls. Over and over and over.

more books I've read in 2009

All picture books this go-round.

I'd been hearing lots of good things about the new Iron Fist comic, but I held off from checking it out for two reasons -- 1. back in the bronze age, I was always a bigger fan of Shang-Chi, the Master of Kung Fu then I was of Iron Fist and the others that came along during the brief kung fu craze, and 2. it looked pretty dark and I've had enough dark. I did pick up the first hardback collection though, and I liked it, even though it wasn't as good as those old Shang-Chi comics (not that I expected it to be) and it was dark, if not in tone than in amounts of black, brown and dark gray ink used.

Mr. Freeze is my favorite Batman villain. He's not really into crime for the money or the fame of the ego-tripping, he does the dirty deeds he does out of love for his wife, and the efforts that run him afoul of the law and Batman are usually directed at trying to awaken her from her cryogenic coma.
But that's not why I picked up "Batman: Snow" It was because I saw the name J.H. Williams III. J.H. Williams III is an amazing artist who helped make Alan Moore's Promethea one of my favorite comic series ever. Unfortunately, Williams didn't draw this book, he wrote it and all I can say about his writing abilities is that he should probably stick to art.

I also read Astonishing X-Men Volume 3 (again) and Volume 4.
Now this is more like it. Joss Whedon is an absolute genius and John Cassaday is one of the few modern artists who would have been able to find work during the silver age. (Most of them now take too many shortcuts to even be considered alongside Kirby and Colan and Buscema.) Whedon had me alternately on the edge of my seat or cracking up at some of his brilliant dialogue. As much as I love Buffy and Angel and am looking forward to Dollhouse, I think I like Whedon even better in comics, especially when he has a master like John Cassaday bringing his vision to magnificent fruition.

the day the music died

I wanted to take a minute to acknowledge the genius of Buddy Holly, who died in a plane crash 50 years ago today. Buddy influenced everybody from Elvis to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones. His songs like "Peggy Sue" "That'll Be the Day" "Rave On" "Maybe Baby" "Everyday" have been covered by everybody from John Mellencamp to Jimmy Page, from Blondie to Bruce Springsteen. This skinny kid from Lubbock Texas forever blurred the line between geek and chic, cuz this guy was so groovy he could make even hornrimmed glasses look cool -- just ask John Lennon. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Holly #13 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. February 3rd, 1959 has been called "the day the music died."

Buddy Holly was only 22 years old.

SA4QE

Next Wednesday one of my favorite writers, Russell Hoban, will turn 84 years old. He's the favorite of a lot of other people as well, and they're not content to just reread his magnificent works of fiction and beam him well wishes and positivity. No, they've started a celebration on Hoban's birthday that is known as SA4QE. And what you do on that day is print out a favorite quote from Hoban on yellow paper and place it in a prominent public place, then post about it (with pix if possible) on the SA4QE website. I'm telling you about it now, so you can go procure a Hoban book and pick out a thought that you want to share with the world -- and I guarantee you will find several in any of his books -- and join us.

This is the quote I have selected. It's from The Medusa Frequency:

"Fidelity is a matter of perception; nobody is unfaithful to the sea or to the mountains or to death; once recognized they fill the heart. . . Anyone who loves, anyone who perceives the other person fully can only be faithful, can never be unfaithful to the sea and the mountains and the death in that person, so pitiful and heroic is it to be a human being."

Russell Hoban

SA4QE.com

More books I've read in 2009

I was a big fan of Dan Slott's run as writer on She-Hulk. His encyclopedic knowledge of Marvel history and his refusal to take anything too seriously particularly endeared me to him. I was sorry to see him go, but I felt Shulkie would be in good hands with Peter David at the helm. He's a great writer-- his novel Imzadi is one of my all-time favorite books, rising above Star Trek novels to become literature, and during his run on She-Hulk's cousin's book "The Incredible Hulk" was the last time I cared about that book or that character. That said, I had a hard time adjusting to the change in tone in this book, and not just tone but just about everything changed. A new artist --- which should be a good thing as the last one would be ennobled by the word "incompetent", but this one is only marginally better. She-Hulk is no longer a lawyer, she's become a bounty hunter after being disbarred. She's traveling around the country with a Skrull companion who likes to shape-shift into Shulkie's alter ego Jennifer Walters for no reason other than to mess with the reader. We get no explanation for this, nor for her cynical attitude which is new too. The last story was the best, perhaps not coincidentally because it took place mostly in a courtroom and featured one prominent player from the Slott days. It was an enjoyable waste of a couple of hours, but I really would have appreciated it if Peter David had backed up for a minute and let this old She-Hulk fan get reoriented.

More Books I've read in 2009

I picked up "The Alcoholic" because I saw it was drawn by Dean Haspiel, who is one of my favorite artists -- he does the best "American Splendor" stories among others -- and one of my favorite writers too; his recurring character Billy Dogma -- "the last romantic antihero" -- is a role model of mine.
Sadly, Haspiel did not write this. Jonathan Ames did and while I applaud Ames for pulling no punches in this thinly-veiled autobiographical novel and his willingness to bring to light his sins and failings (not just bringing them to light but revelling in them), I have to say that before the book was over I was tired of him whining about losing a friend and having his heartbroken like these were things that happened only to him and not to everyone who lives to the age of 12.
On the plus side, Haspiel's art was gorgeous and kept me reading after I had lost sympathy with the protagonist.

Art

For a change I'm not going to complain about how I never have time to read. I'm going to complain about how I never have time to draw. I love to draw and the fact that I've never been particularly good at it does not diminish my enjoyment of it one whit. I recently came across a sketchbook of mine from a couple years ago and found a few drawings that were not too horrible:

(Warning naked humans and clothed reptiles ahead)




Yes, my favorite thing to draw is people, particularly female people. But that's not all, I also like to draw alligators

And speaking of lizards, I also drew this caricature of the man who up till about eight years ago held the distinction of being America's worst president.I think my best one is probably this bored flapper here. It's a total ripoff of John Held, Jr. But I love John Held Jr. It was too big to fit on the scanner, but here's most of it:

The first book I read in 2009

I'm really bad about reading books other people recommend for me. I appreciate them doing so, but I have such a backlog of books I want to read that have been sitting in my TBR (To Be Read) pile for years in some cases that I don't feel like I have time to get to these recommendations, and I feel guilty about it. My mom's been telling me about Georgette Heyer for a while now, suggesting I try one of her books, and it's been on my mental TBRAMTBRLR (To Be Read After My To Be Read List is Read), but when she gave me a copy of "The Grand Sophy" I started reading it and got hooked. It's a Regency Romance, a term I was not familiar with, but according to Wikipedia, Regencies "feature a great deal of intelligent, fast-paced dialog between the protagonists and very little explicit sex or discussion of sex." I made the mistake of letting the office busybody at work see it and she stuck up her nose and expressed surprise that I would read a "girl book." But I'll read anything that's well written, and this certainly was. My mother and most of the critics compare Georgette Heyer to Jane Austen and I think that comparison is an apt one, but the way Sophy broke up all the wrong relationships and got all the right people together reminded me of P.G. Wosehouse -- although I don't think Sir Plum ever had one of his heroines shoot somebody in the arm to make one of her schemes work out right.

By Request

I'm not sure where the tradition of my niece Emily and me mugging for the camera every time there's a family gathering -- sometimes we pose first and then demand that people get out their cameras -- but it's been going on for a while. My sister probably has enough pictures of us to wallpaper her living room. Because there are so many of them I left off the one of us that was taken at this years Polar Bear Plunge, and I've been catching some flak about it. So by request here it is: (and now I remember why we insist on taking these pictures -- it's cuz we're so gosh-darn photogenic.)

Damn it!

The January 8th issue of Rolling Stone has an article about all the harmful last-minute regulations Bush and his minions are enacting during their final days. It's a long article unfortunately, because they're doing everything from allowing loaded weapons in our National Parks to gutting the Endangered Species Act. And now the SOB's pre-empting Bones to give a speech. Please, please, just shut up and go away. You've done enough, we've heard enough and had enough. Let us heal from the damage you've done.

Happy Birthday, Jack London!

Jack London was born John Wellman on January 12th, 1876. His mother was a spiritualist who claimed to channel an ancient Indian chief and his father was an astrologer, who wanted Flora Wellman to abort the fetus. She refused to do so although she did then shoot herself. Both mother and child fotunately survived. Mom gave the baby to a former slave named Virginia Prentiss who raised him.
Jack London was a hobo, a sailor, a gold-rusher. And in his spare time he wrote classic masterpieces of fiction like "The Call of the Wild" "White Fang" and "The Sea Wolf." He died way too young -- at age 40, but that probably didn't bother him much. This was the Jack London credo:

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

My 501st post

Warning: If you're not a comic book nerd, you're not going to have any idea what I'm talking about here. In fact, even if you're a regular CB nerd you might not know what I'm talking about. But if you appreciate Belgian comic books too, I have a question for you.
If you've ever been on Facebook you've seen this silhouette:
It's the default image for members who do not upload pictures of themselves. What I want to know is why they chose as their model for this picture the reporter known as Tintin?

My 500th post

What I've learned about Love.

There are four phases of love, and if you can actually make it through and maintain an awareness at all four levels you will be as enlightened as the Buddha. But most people just ping-pong back and forth between the first two phases.

Phase one is when you first fall in love. And the person that you fall in love with seems to be just perfect and the thought of living life without them seems pointless and cruel. You adore everything about this person, even their quirky faults that you would find offputting in someone else seem endearing in the loved one.

And then comes phase two, where reality sets. This is where you realize that far from being perfect, your partner is actually nothing more than a regular person briefly disguised as an angel. The scales fall from your eyes, those quirks become unbearably annoying and the words of Jorge Luis Borge ring in your ears: "To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god." From this phase most people either end the relationship and start another religion with another false god or they life a lie -- a life without love.

But if you don't give up, and you keep loving that person even when it's difficult, you eventually get to phase three, and in this phase you let go of judging and embrace understanding. In phase three you realize that you were right when you thought that person was perfect. They really are perfect -- just the way God made them -- once you understand why they are the way they are. If you ever have a choice between being loved or being understood, choose to be understood because if you are understood you will be loved as well. But if you're loved without being understood you're not really loved at all. That's just phase one infatuation and compared to phase three love it's the difference between a matchstick and a star.

Getting to phase three takes time and dedication and when you get there you realize you're just getting started -- because the truth is everyone is perfect and deserving of love. That's when you glimpse the enormity of phase four. Staying in phase four for more than a glimpse is something few people have ever done, but it's a goal to shoot for. It certainly seems like a better way to reach nirvana than meditating in a cave in Tibet.

Polar Bear Plunge '09

If you look back at the pictures from the Polar Bear Plunge one year ago you'll see I was 60 pounds heavier. 2008 has been a bad year for the economy and the world in general but a good year for me. I stuck with my new years fitness resolution all year and feel better than I have in decades. This was our third annual polar plunge, and it was a lot of fun. The day got off to a great start when I beat my brother at the great body fat percentage wager, which meant I didn't have to buy drinks at Snapper Jack's prior to the plunge -- which is good, because there were a lot of drinks drunk. The plunge itself didn't seem as crowded as years past, maybe because both Clemson and USC were playing (poorly, as it turned out) in bowl games, and not as well organized as years past either. There was no official sign-in or anything. I managed to snag the last two souvenir towels -- and that was two hours before the plunge, and I don't see how they benefited the Lowcountry Food Bank much, judging by the slim pickings in the bucket I threw my black beans and tuna offerings into.

But, as you'll see, none of that stopped us from enjoying ourselves by freezing our asses off:

My beloved and I before the madness got started

My brother John (with lovely daughter Caroline) looks for courage in a flask -- or is he drowning his sorrows over losing the body fat bet?
Not a six-pack yet, but better than the keg I had in January 08.
Even the towel holders have fun. My sister Susan and my wife Kim.
Hannah, the youngest and arguably cutest member of our group. Me, my son-in-law John and my daughter Leah.
I am in such a hurry to get to Andolini's and eat pizza I don't have time to put on a shirt.






Happy New Year, everybody!

To tell you the truth, I don't remember much about the ride home.

The last book I read in 2008

Happy new year, everybody!
And happy 90th birthday, Jerome David Salinger.
Let's close the book, so to speak, on my literary endeavors of 08. The last book I read in 2008 was "Hemingway's Chair", which was the best novel I've read by an ex-Monty Python member. It was just okay, actually. A Hemingway-worshipping postal employee gets a measure of revenge when the Postal Service promotes a crooked jerk instead of him. How could it have been better? Well, he could have got the girl. Or, he could have been slightly less psychotic.