1 Step Beyond

I Don't Know Why

2010-08-12T08:58:00.005-05:00

Test Run

2010-08-10T23:35:00.001-05:00

Restless Head Syndrome

2010-08-10T09:05:00.003-05:00

I've toyed with the idea of changing the blog venue again. The first one I did in the way early 2000's was a political thing that ran it's course and then the second one was a restaurant/food thing that was too narrow and whenever I wanted to talk about other stuff than movies/food/music etc., it was way out of place and then there's this one which had a good start but kind of goes all over and I'm not sure what I want it to do, if anything, at this point. I'd like to say "I blog for me" but that would be a lie. The people who want to do that and can do that are lucky. I can never and have never been able to get rid of or discount the audience. Mostly because if it was "personal" writing you'd never see it. It would stay personal and in long hand and not be broadcast all over creation forever. I think bloggers who "personal blog" have way more guts than I do. there is only so far I will let anybody in unless I get to know them personally & see them regularly. Not to mention like what I see. I'll only go so far online.

This isn't really a big, heavy thing though. Mostly I get bored and want to try something new. I like setting up a new blog. It's like a new coat of paint. And because I'm pretty OC when you come right down to it I want it perfect. I need to have the url match the title in some fashion and have it all themed out somehow. I know... I can be such a housefrau right?

The other thing is that I am often embarrassed by past posts. I have to be honest, I change my mind so often about stuff I'll bet I could find a post I made somewhere in bloggoland that refutes another post I made in bloggoland at another time, proving once and for all that it probably isn't a good idea to try and get a fix on what I actually believe one day to the next.

I've also noticed that no matter who you are and what your blog is and what you write about, the "crew" changes over time. You look back at the folks who comment now and compare them to the ones at the start and only a bare few stalwarts remain. And I think this is a natural thing with blogs. People come and go. Sometimes we get tired of each other's usual shit, y'know? It happens. Other times you come upon a blog and go "where's THIS been?" And you're in. I think it works a lot just like relationships IRL. It's only natural.

So I've been working on a new place for a few days and will unveil soon. But this and the others - all the others - will be going away. I'm a slash and burn guy. Plus there's one blog I have that has a lot of stuff that will soon be submitted to publishers and agents and they don't like it to be sitting there when they look at your stuff.

So if there's anything you wanted... go get it now or forget about it.

The fun will happen sooner than later!

What You Don't Know Can't Hurt Me

2010-08-09T07:06:00.006-05:00

My mistake is that I need to ask people if they are kidding or they are serious before I act on the signals they give that should be telling me if they are kidding or serious, because sometimes people give whatever signal at whatever time just to confuse you as to whether or not they mean one thing or the other. Right?

I'd save myself, I think, a lot of trouble if I did that. Whatever it is I just said.

Over the weekend, in a generally positive social setting, I was reminded of something I did 40 years ago by someone who had a smile on their face, right there in front of everyone in what I thought was a convivial setting. Thinking, because this same person just moments before was instructing me on how people just get over things in the past and that's the way of the world, I figured they were sort of making a big joke about this thing I did and so I played along. I thought. But somewhere between my ear and my mouth it turned out I must have missed a sign telling me that - no - this thing I did was something they weren't ready to get past, except everything was done in this crooked smile to make it look like they were just kidding, and no matter which way I took it, it was the wrong way to take it. And in our group even people who (should?) know me better were doing the opposite of rescuing me from this trap I found myself in, siding with the person who had the crooked smile sending the mixed signals. Whichever way their wind was blowing at that moment.

I mean to say I didn't realize I was being chastised for something I did 40 years ago in front of the group. I thought I was being teased and it's a no big deal joke so if I teased back that's what you do and we're laughing only we stopped laughing somewhere along the way. What I guess I didn't realize was that I was, actually yes, being chastised for real in front of the group - only I wasn't because of the goofy smile - but if I took it seriously I'd have been wrong. Except it was serious again when I tried to make a joke about it.

At about that point was when I decided I couldn't wait for the night to be over and I have to admit scratching my head about what the hell that was all about all Sunday long. To the point it wouldn't actually matter to me if I saw these people again or not because when i thought it was just teasing I played along until it was serious after which it was obvious I was taking everything too seriously.

Can I just ask what the heck I do to pull this kind of shit in? I recognize I have to be careful about that question because if the people I hang with heard me say it they'd say I was taking it too seriously. Unless I kept making a joke about it in which case I would be viewed as insensitive because (as I was told) "well obviously it still bothers them."

It would never occur to me to wait for a moment in a group conversation mixed with opinion and memory to openly chastise someone for something they did 40 years ago. If I was pulling somebody's leg it would be a leg pull and would (shouldn't it?) end in some kind of self- deprecating joke just to reinforce the idea that I wasn't blowing anybody any shit and I'm as big a bozo as anybody else here and what started out as a gag ought to end as one so hahaha have another drink.

Or - for the love of God - am I doing that wrong too?

Come to think of it this isn't the first time it's happened with this combination. Once, in the middle of a Christmas holiday get together I was asked about the group I hung with on Sundays* and tried to explain it as best I could, only to be given a long list of reasons why I had it all wrong and, in the end, was actually told - in these exactly words - "that's exactly how Charles Manson got started." And I know they knew what they were saying because the next morning at breakfast they came over very subdued and were wondering if I was pissed off. Which, because I'm the next thing to a follower of Charles Manson I'm not supposed to be. So this isn't the first time I've been seemingly ambushed where no matter what I do the set-up is I'm just wrong. About whatever.

And all this even though in the last ten years or so I have made a concerted effort to - a willful, obvious, determined effort - to let everybody "in" who wanted "in" and go out of my way to communicate and exchange with people I had little in common with over the years. As we wind down I figured it would be really a good idea if I was just, you know, FRIENDLY?

There are reasons I find it very easy to stay out of social settings and go along quite happily with things just like that. There are reasons a quiet YEAR OR TWO at home without mingling with any friends or my extended family does not seem like a sad hardship whatsoever. There are reasons why I used to hold everybody at arm's length and never - if ever - let anybody into that last mile.

This kind of thing is one of those reasons.

___________________________________________________
* I'm a recorded member of the Religious Society of Friends

You Won't Want To Miss The Next Exciting Episode Of...

2010-08-06T09:58:00.009-05:00

OK, well, we tried out the manchego cheese last night on that salad and it's a new favorite. Turns out I did have the authentic Spanish kind & watch my back... I'm going back in!

MrsRW is finally back from Boston and tomorrow we're having our favorite fellow gourmets (our restaurant roving partners) over for some tapas, which I am going to make from scratch / by hand / all by myself.

Here's the menu...

Prawns and bacon... Patatas Bravas... Red Onion and Orange Salad

Assorted olives... Meatballs in tomato sauce... Manchego and Serrano Ham

Deviled eggs... Apple and Walnut combo

Hope I don't screw it up. Have a nice weekend!

Old School Bullets

2010-08-05T08:38:00.008-05:00

I'd probably find it easier to believe you when you tell me "it's not about his race, I just don't like his policies" in the parlor if I didn't hear you telling jokes about big lips and Velcro in the kitchen.

I think it comes down to this... marriages fail because of selfishness. One way or another. It will always come down to somebody being selfish. Conversely I think they succeed on the foundation of unselfishness. Distill every issue down and see if I'm wrong. I can't talk about women but for guys it's like this; It stopped being about you the day you got married. Any dick can make a baby, it takes a man to be a father. Get over yourself. If your wife and kids aren't happy, you're doin' it wrong. Thus endeth the lesson.

There seems to be a vast ocean of people who want to get in the big leagues without doing any of the slog work in the minors. Unless you are a savant, talent is generally raw and doesn't become anything until it is honed. That's why they call it a craft I think. You worked at it. Most people who become an overnight success do so after years of obscurity and grunt work. It used to be called "dues" in the old days. Turns out you still have to pay them. You can do it before, or after, you hit the big leagues. But you have to pay them one way or another.

I think people who are all about supremacy of any flavor or reason never really saw a picture of just how minuscule the Earth is in comparison to the rest of the universe.

It's not that you have the sound system in your car at full roar with everything but the bass line turned off as if to announce your presence in such a way that we're supposed to cower at your power and natural intimidation, vibrating your vehicle and everything else in a thirty foot radius to the beat of your aura. I get that. That's not what bugs me. What gets me is that this is just so 90's. Dude....

I never really started to write fiction well until I stopped describing what characters looked like, used nothing other than 'said' to describe a character's verbiage, and finally got the idea that something has to be happening all the time. After almost 40 years, I've been writing fiction at a top level for two whole days now.

If you are a young entrepreneur (under 35) who has had a little success in your life you automatically have a long road to go to get me to believe you are not a complete asshole. I hate to lump a group of people together like that because that's how racists get started, but please see the fourth bullet above and kindly stick it up your ass you sarcastic entitled son of a whore.

Have a nice day.

RW Eats Alone

2010-08-03T08:02:00.006-05:00

I do 98% of the food prep in our house. I like it and I've even taken some basic classes in a few things. But I do it also out of necessity because my wife - who is a far, far better cook than I am - is on the road half the time now.

I started doing the cooking when I was separated from my last job and had - what I look back on now - one of the best summers of my adult life. I was out of work for about three months, just at about the same time we used to have summer vacations when we were kids. That was about three years ago, I think, and there has been more than one morning this summer where I wished I was out of work again (a feeling that lasts about thirty seconds until I wake up and thank God I have a job at all). But it was a beautiful time, strangely devoid of angst and concern about getting employment again, in which I did all the cooking, raised vegetables in the garden, returned once again to the writing crap, and truly reveled in re-experiencing that "endless day" summer vacation phenomenon we all had when we were kids (why can't we bottle that?).

So, in looking at the blog, I'm running out of things to say.

It's boring for people when I get on too long about the writing - every other blogger in the world is working on their damn book - and how much can you talk about it? "Oh I did a helluva paragraph today, my God it was beautiful!!" Yeah right... I seriously do want to back away from politics because I'm convinced I'm the only person on Earth who has my viewpoint (a combination of Old Right isolationism and anarcho-syndicalist economics). And I have given up on following along on Top Chef like I did in years past simply because it's been done.

So how about... you want to know what I'm making? Yeah, this'll last for a couple of weeks, right?

Well too bad, that's what I'm posting. So BLEGH!

Turkey Manchego Salad (By Sara Quessenberry, August 2010)

Serves 4
Total Time: 15m

* 1/4 cup olive oil
* 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
* 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
* kosher salt and black pepper
* 2 medium carrots, grated (about 1 cup)
* 4 ounces green beans (about 1⁄4 pound), sliced crosswise
* 4 scallions, sliced
* 1 head romaine lettuce, torn into pieces
* 3/4 pound sliced roasted deli turkey
* 4 ounces Manchego cheese, sliced

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, lime juice, cumin, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Add the carrots, green beans, and scallions and toss to coat.
2. Divide the lettuce, turkey, and cheese among bowls and top with the carrot mixture.

I've never had manchego cheese (it's Mexican / Spanish) but I'm told it's light-flavored. And when I saw this recipe I hesitated because I'm not very high on turkey/chicken etc. salads from restaurants. They're always either too cold or too stiff or not fresh enough. But I'm using some good old-fashioned roasted turkey breast from the deli and everything else - everything - comes off the local/organic pipeline. Where possible, anyway. It's pretty inexpensive and takes 15 minutes, so if I add a whole lot more turkey than it calls for it should be fine. A nice white wine and some bread on the side and I'll be fine. This is scheduled for Thursday. I'll let ya know.

Should I do more of this?

Act Your Age

2010-08-02T07:43:00.005-05:00

So okay, I don't understand it because I haven't done much of anything that's been different over the years but cripes guys, sometimes I just goddamn hurt in the morning. Like the base of my spine feels kind of weak when I first get up and sometimes there's a really ba-ha-had twinge that makes me wince a little bit when I get out of bed. For about three weeks the knuckle under my index finger felt like it was getting a great big case of arthritis and I couldn't get rid of the pain no matter what I took or did. Now it's gone. But I sure as hell can't eat greasy food anymore. Holy man, my stomach just can't take it. I don't know if that's a function of having been more careful about what I do eat over the past year or so and the body is just saying oh for God's SAKE or if the old gut - after years of abuse - is finally just not working like it used to. I cut grass yesterday and - in that humidity - I was wiped out. We had a local Taste Of... fest in our town this weekend and - the plan was - after taking MrsRW to the airport Sunday, I was to go home and cut the grass, shower up, and then head on down to The Taste to supply myself with dinner. I got as far as the shower... and decided to make a couple of hot dogs and collapse on the couch.

In my thirties I was dedicated to a workout regimen that resulted in a nice little six-pack mid-section and all that stuff. Bells and whistles and yadda yadda. Oh I was seriously ripped. We'd go on vacation & I'd still get up early to work out. That kind of thing. Even though I have never been completely UN-active I don't work out like that any more and I am seriously flabbed. I also notice that, when I get motivated and back into it for any length of time it takes, like, three times as long to see any results. But mostly I just make an excuse and go have a beer and put my feet up and forget about it. What motivates me now is seeing guys around my age have this gut that sort of juts out to what looks like an actual ridge above a cascading belly. Like, skinny legs and skinny arms and this great big tub with a detailed promontory just below their chest. It like has a sharp edge just before it bellies out. That's weird. I'll admit my mid-section needs a lot of work but it doesn't have that ledge so it's not all bad. Well, not usually. Cough. But what the hell are we thinking, guys? How one look at something near to that in the mirror doesn't get a person back to running is beyond me. And yet... it doesn't seem like my running does all that. And sometimes the best thing to do is just come home and have a beer. Oh well.

Anyway I do notice the same strength isn't in my fingers. I seem to need new glasses every six months or something. I'm not thirty and I'm not forty. In three years I hit the big 6-0. If I croak when my father did that means I have four years to live. As of last month both daughters are now in their thirties. Older women - women my age - are looking pretty damn good to me. I get winded faster. There are curious twinges once in a while in places I didn't know I had. I heal up from cuts and bruises slower. ~~And it takes more and more vodka to get a buzz~~. And I can't drink like I used to without wanting to just go to sleep or take a couple aspirin because it gave me a damn headache.

But I've never been more at peace with shit in my whole life. Isn't that weird? Now if I could just get my wife to change her mind about not letting me get a pork pie hat life would probably be pretty damn near perfect.

A Guide For People Not Going To BlogHer

2010-07-30T08:17:00.003-05:00

For the other 99% of the blogodehexahydrophosphersphere that isn't going to Blogher, a handy dandy guide of how to survive the event.

1. It's okay to be jealous that other people besides you will be going to New York. Outside of Chicago (where I was born and raised and therefore what follows is completely understandable by all but the most obtuse among us) New York is my second favorite town in the whole world. If you have not been to New York you must go to New York, at least once in your life, because it is the iconic city of the entire world. This is where the modern city was invented. In the first place I think sometimes that the "New Yorkers are mean" thing is overblown. I never met a New Yorker who wasn't helpful. Sarcastic while being helpful, yes. Amused at your blatant stupidity, certainly. Ultimately wondering how they can disabuse you of your naivety - oh you bet. My experience says that 99% of the time they will do everything they can to help you out. But yes, it's perfectly okay to be jealous of people who are going to New York. That's what it's there for.

side note; Those going should taste all the street food you can find because the chances are high nothing you try will disappoint you whatsoever. I would recommend getting in at McArthur/LongIsland/Islip airport. New York's little secret and an exceptionally easy in-and-out airport out on the island. But be careful traveling on Long Island; they're not kidding about the LIE (it can be one from time to time), and since there are seventeen streets/roads/avenues named Jerusalem on Long Island, get onto Manhattan as soon as possible before you get completely lost.

2. Accept the fact that for the next few days it's all about them. What happens to people who find themselves in New York for the first time is they think this is a bigger deal that it really is. Don't get me wrong, New York is the ultimate cool. But it changes once you've been there a few times. It gets more comfortable and less mysterious but just as fantastic. The thing is, at first, a lot of people (especially the ones from The Sticks and - to a New Yorker - that's anybody not from New York) get the idea that because they are in New York they are suddenly hot shit. This will show up in their blog posts. Just smile and wait for something there to beat them down and get them back to reality because, heh heh heh, something will.

3. Find a suitable activity to assuage your feelings of inadequacy. Add another stake to your tomato plant that is spreading all over the place. Drink a lot. Stay up late. Don't go to church. You know, real dangerous stuff.

4. Read past all the "I want to live there" posts that will soon follow. There are folks who, after one visit, are certain this is the thing for them. A lot of those kind of people actually try it. Unless they have a direct tie to someone who already lives there or have some kind of existing connection there, most New Yorkers barely tolerate them, and they may last a year. Sometimes. Be ready with the blanket and bourbon routine when they come whimpering back home.

5. If they return home a Yankee fan. Kill them. Immediately.

6. Plot your revenge. Start planning on that Paris trip. It's about the only thing you can plausibly, arguably, top them with at some point in the future. Unless they've been there too. In which case you're screwed.

7. Immerse yourself in your local culture and celebrate who you are and where you are from while other bloggers are doing this fairly dumb thing in a pretty great place. Quite frankly, BlogHer is dumb even if New York is very, very cool. It was in Chicago last year and I stopped by the hotel to visit and have dinner with a few friends who were in town for the event but, to be honest, it's a sorority binge with a frat house contingent swirling around a couple of interesting events and a larger slew of completely pointless other ones. It is basically the ultimate expression of femnetworking at its top, including the really cool drunkenness (yes!) and really awful occasional petty squabble (uh... meh). To occupy your time instead of being there and participating, go to your friendly local produce / sustainable resource / nice wine list restaurant and stay one glass of dessert wine longer than usual. Find a bookstore and add an old classic from the 19th century to your library, reading optional. Write nice, congratulatory comments on the posts of those who are swimming in it and posting about every stroke. Curl up in your own bed and make whatever you want for breakfast. That should do it.

To those on their way - have a great trip. The original Papaya King is closed for renovation so tough luck there. But oh well. The rest of us will be leaving a light on for ya. It's the one in the middle...

Dimocasy In Amercrina

2010-07-29T13:40:00.008-05:00

President Obama was on a program called "The View" and a chirpy little headline on the Comcast news area said "Obama Not Invited To Chelsea's Wedding." What followed was some fluff about the visit and a few clips. Harmless, pointless, mostly meaningless. That is until the denizens came out to comment.

The internet has been here a long, long time, and can be manipulated in many ways by savvy users. One of the tricks that appeared early on was the "opposite posting" that purposefully makes the side you disagree with look bad. There are ways to tell what may or may not be real. I've presented that here, with my opinion - which is certainly fallible - along with some other quotes from the discussion board which added over 200 comments in a matter of minutes, mostly of questionable origin and bizarre taint. My observations are in blue. Some of the comments we can just let stand alone.
__________________________

OPAL
I will be watching President Obama tomorrow,i believe that he is a super person and someday will be thought of as a great President.It is so transparent,what the conservatives are trying to do to him,destroy his presidency. It will backfire in the end,i have a lot of faith in his decency and intelligence .If Lizzy acts like the nasty person she is, i hope that one of the other ladies trips her right on stage.

ANNIE
DEAR OPAL…WHAT KIND OF DRUGS ARE YOU ON????? A SUPER PERSON????? ARE YOU CRAZY??? HE HAS DESTROYED OUR COUNTRY…..BUSH WAS A SAINT COMPARED TO THIS SO CALLED GUY….THIS GUY IS THE WORST RATINGS GUY EVER….ANYONE I TALK TO HATES THE GUY…HE HAS HAD MORE DEATH THREATS THAN ANY OTHER PRESS..400% MORE…..THATS YOUR GUY !!!!! (ACCORDING TO THE NEWS)
THIS GUY HAS A RATING OF THE 1ST YR…OF 42% LIKE HIM….BUSH SR.. HAD A 78% LIKING…AND BUSH JR HAD A 68% RATING…SO THAT SORT OF TELLS IT ALL….TIRED OF HIS LIES…AND STUPID FACES HE MAKES……THE SO CALLED BAD STRETCH IS BECAUSE OF OBAMA..NOONE ELSE !!!!!!!!
A PATHETIC PRES….AND CAN’T WAIT TILL HE’S GONE…2012 OR BEFORE……..

This exchange happened very early. The thread had not taken off yet and it was attached to this article from the article announcing him being a guest the day before. There are some classic signs here. Inability to space sentences, writing in all caps, the appearance of the internet's most talked about celebrity (Peter NOONE), multiple punctuation marks, questionable subject/verb structure, and so on. I believe these two were real. It was not developed enough for the guys from 4chan to notice at this point.

LISKA
Why don’t the to jerk of..ahead of me go to Texas to live with the cheerleader mother fuc…,that’s where the oily, disgusting conservatives belong. Bush,bim ,rah, maybe he can get you all the hel. down there with a cheer.

I dunno. Could be. The word "disgusting" bothers me here. You?

Irene
It is so easy for Obama to go on the view. No one will ask him any really important questions. It will be a love sit in between everyone except Elizabeth. Why doesn’t he go on fox and answer some really hard questions. Better yet why doesn’t stay in Washington and do his job and get some very needed jobs in this country. He needs to stop blaming Bush this is now his problem. It is his spending and catering to the unions, and trying to make our nation in to a socialist government that has put our country in this mess.

I say real. For one thing it is an attempt to form a concise line of thought. She uses a capital letter in her name as well. Someone who is telling you their name.

who sane
Obambi on the View? Of course a wimp like Bee Ohh fits right in with the hen fest…
Aside from being able to read a teleprompeter he is an inept CLOD. A blundering buffoon..
Look ..
UP in the sky
Its a bird
its a plane..
NO it’s Teleprompter Boy..
able to spend OTHER peoples money in a single bill
able to read a single sentence of a teleprompter in a single breath..
Notice HOW teleprompter boy doesn’t do REAL interviews? Only a liberal henfest like this..
Without his teleprompter he is an illirate moron..
I am SO embarrassed this idiot is our POTUS
More so I am ashamed of democrats liberals and all of you welfare loving Obambi acolytes..
Hope.. blah blah blah change blah blah blah 140 days as a senator blah blah blah racist friends .. I am BEEE-OOH teleprompter boy.

At least it is a little creative. But the humor missed the mark. Nothing like calling someone illiterate and spelling it "illirate" for just the right touch of internet justice.

rebecca
Obama and his minions are driving this country into the ground. He is draining us of money, forcing his bad policies through, making sure Washington, D.C. has all of the new jobs, threatening people if they do not agree with him, and dragging his feet during this oil spill catastrophe. How many times did he play golf during the oil spill? Maybe the spill is exactly what he desired since he is such an outspoken environmentalist. Maybe this disaster played right into his hands. Now there is a nightmare thought. Actually this is a nightmare administration.

This could have been a legitimate starting point, but it was ruined by the claim the President is "making sure Washington D.C. has all of the new jobs" and asking how many times he played golf "during the oil spill". What?

BJ
Oscar your brainwashed. Go watch fox and be led around by your nose a little longer.

oscar
Hey BJ….when you wrote “your” the first time…did you mean “you’re”….then you went and used “your” again, 10 words later. Count the letters on your keyboard…there should be 26….unless you’ve got the FisherPrice version……how old are you anyway?
YOU are the embarrassment in the country you spoke of above…..you get all your news from Rachel, and Keith….if, that is, your Mommy lets you stay up late.

suzie
as another person said, LUCKILY i don’t watch the view and i can’t believe that the president of the united states, took the time to go on the view? what a disgrace to our country, to think he found the time, when our country is falling apart. doesn’t say much for us AMERICANS. he should have shown his support for our boys scouts, instead of promoting himself with one sided statements, on a show, where no one has the brains to ask him anything important.

If you read capitalized words as meaning to be stressed in the tone of conversation this one is kinda confusing. I wound up trying to *get* the motivation for the caps.

BJ
Oscar if I cared that much about my grammar on here i would just check the spell check, does it make you feel impressive to grade my comments. hey i forgot to capitalize some letters on this comment, I guess that makes me wrong about everything right lol….

JDE
The comments from the New Republican KKK, Skn Heads, Tea Party clan is exactly why I’m becomming an Independent! They sound exactly like the old news clips of Hitler and his Nazi party just before WII! Jezz what’s happened to our Republican Party?

Fake as a three dollar bill. Meant to be a back-handed cut at the claims made by the wingnuts on the Left regarding the wingnuts on the Right. I'd be surprised if any one with more than a year's worth of experience on the intertubes bought it. Unless they were one of the wingnuts I guess.

scott
WEATHER OR NOT YOU HEMRHOIDS WANT TO HEAR THIS OR NOT.MR OBAMA WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY TO BE BEST PRESIDENT EVER.

libs suck
ALL U OBAMA LOVERS ARE BRAINWASHED SOCIALISTS.YOU ARE THE ENEMY.

Stephanie
I am proud to say I did not vote for him. He’s such a putz….

I kind of like the putz line. It seems so... I don't know... so tame and cute.

william
Why deesn’t he just stick to what he does best and that is playing up to the muslems and downing Americans.

PatKat
I use to repect our Pres but him going on the View shows me what an all-time LOW this country is on! What a dim wit! The View of all places for a President to walk on! I’d have had some residual of repect toward Obama if he’d gone on Letterman instead—ugh!!!

DERALICT
WHAT AN IDIOT!! DOES HE REALLY THINK BY CONTINUING TO GET THE SPOTLIGHT ON HIM AT ALL TIMES THAT THIS IS GOING TO HELP HIM? I FOR ONE DID NOT VOTE FOR HIM NOR WILL I EVER VOTE FOR HIM!!HE IS NOTHING BUT AN ATENTION SEEKER WHO DOES NOT KNOW THE FIRST THING ABOUT REACHING OUT TO PUBLIC!!! GOD HELP US IF HE WINS A SECOND TERM!! CANADA IS STARTING TO SOUND REAL GOOD!!!

john d
No wonder more and more Repulicans are becomming Independents. My old party has become mean and hateful to every idea thats not far right! Guess it just the way they were raised! What shocking is they profess to be Christian Yet they don’t sound Christian or act like Christ!

All kind of verbal mayhem followed by yet another feeble attempt (probably the same guy who did it before) at showing how the "tactics" from the Right are supposed to be alienating people. The catch is that usually when people consider leaving their affiliations it generally is so much more thoughtful than hate/Nazi/Christian yadda yadda yadda.

RacerJim
Obama is a great dispicable presence. That is no matter how hard his supporters try to deny he has divided this country more than any other POTUS in history.
Obama has indeed shown a great knowledge of many things, especially as to how to become POTUS/CiC despite being ineligible and having no pertinent experience.
Screw you, Barack HUSSEIN Obama aka Barry Soetoro. “We the people…” of America are gonna get you.

RacerJim is like who sane's dad? POTUS and Hussein. I could be wrong I guess. Maybe who sane's meds kicked in.

IBB
All I can say is that the Lord sent the President to us and the hater better watch out.

Tim
Osoma+ Oboma on The View? I guess the saying is true…. MISERY LOVES COMPANY! ……, GO REPUBLICANS!!

Internet tough guy and a really odd cheerleading chant.

Dorothy
Our so called President has no substance or insight on no one but himself. He should be doing government business, here he is on The View. I dis-credit his character. I understand the old adage: “I will not vote for a mixed race person for president, because he is of a mixed race and not full American. He is Nigeria descendant and caucasian as his mother. To be full blood American we must be all American and nothing else. He is not an actor and definitely not a celebrity. He did not impressed me nor my family. Matter of fact I don’t support him in “NOTHING”. He has actually screwed up everything for the taxpayers and nothing he can say will impress me. I take God our Creator as my President He is everywhere at the same time. So his time is almost up and nothing has changed. I would rather have the previous President George W. Bush as president at least we knew where he stood and could voice our opinion . He listen whether he respond , but consideration was given. Whether you agree with me or not I really don’t care because he is just mere man God created. He is muslin is he not????????????????????

"so-called president" is a bit of a stretch. There are better ways to say phony I'm thinkin'. I'm saying real though. There is a sense of earnestness that can't be duplicated by someone of the opposite view.

Glenn
President Obama is doing the best he can given the fact the mess he inherited and also the people that have divided this country ie.. Fix News, the chickehawks, rightwingnuts, birthers, teabaggers, etc.
We are behind you Mr. President.

Michael
We should have another civil war. Republicans versus Democrats. The Blue and the Red. Bet ya you would wish you were a Republican then! Democrats rely on “government” to fix our poor country while Republicans hold people responsible for their own problems. How about some middle ground where I’m not paying to raise my neighbors child? Then he grows up and robs my house because that’s what people who receive constant handouts become. Fix your own problems if you want to “fix” the country.

And I would recommend we put Glenn and Michael right in front when the shooting starts.

jacob
Barack n Roll!
If you dont like our president then you can GTFO of this country you unpatriotic swine!
USA!!!

Jacob
@michael you should be tried and charged with treason for that one you unpatriotic Terrorist! why dont you go to the desert and find you buddy bin laden to kick it with!

Viola
Obama HAD to come on the View to get the attention of you idiots that only watch FOX! If the Republicans are so great, what are their answers to all of our problems? More tax cuts for the rich? Oh that’s right none of the Republicans have lost their jobs, have sickness in their families or have lost their homes. Only us Democrats are stupid or lazy enough to need help.

jacob and Jacob... 4chan arrives. Viola is too excited. That one is real.

Martin
How bout all u people that r critizing obama go to hell.He’s doing wat he can all the jobs and the tough strech has been made by the people. So stop acting like little girls pointing a finger at someone else and suk it up. And bush, bush is 1 of the worst presidents. He did not only cause the war, but since there was a war he basiclly did the 9/11 tragedy. IT was bush’s fault. And didnt u hear wat he said. “When i took office, we were lossing 750,000 jobs per month.So all the lazy dumbasses saying that its his fault. Its not its bushs fault.

libs suck
TO CATSY you moron do you not know the constitution a PRESIDENT cannot spend one DIME WITHOUT CONGRESSES APPROVAL.The repubs ran congress until 2006 and we had a deficit of 210 bill.Then the libs or the dems took over.In 2007 the deficit doubled and in 2007 an election year it went to a trillion. Now who do you think voted for this if you said congress hey guess what you’d be right.Oh and by the way the your hero voted aye and he was all for the porkulus package.And for you people who say it was bush.s policies all the libs had to do was say screw you george but they didnt did they.

Kris
Watch the obama deception everyone. All presidents are just puppets and Barry is a good one. But while everyone is being hypnotized/brainwashed by him they are turning us into a fascist nation. Also watch ENDGAME.

FINALLY - the Third Option! Freemasons probably.

scott
I LOVE THESE SO CALLED PATRIATIC AMERICANS WHO DON’T SEEM TO BE ABLE TO PASS A 5TH GRADE HISTORY TEST, yOU MAY WISH TO LAY THE BLAME FOR THE COUNTRYS PROBLEM AT THE FEET OF THIS PRESIDENT BUT ANYBODY WHO HAS A BRAIN IN THIER HEAD KNOWS THAT THIS IS THE RESULT OF THESE IDIOT POLITICIANS GIVING TAX BREAKS THAT BENEFITS BIG CORPORATIONS FAR MORE THAN THE AVERAGE GUY AND THEN SIT BACK AS THESE GREEDY SLUBS TAKE THE TAX BREAKS AND THE JOBS OFF SHORE TO SAVE EVEN MORE MONEY AND PRETEND THAT ALL OF A SUDDEN THIS PRESIDENT IS SPENDING CRAZY YET HAD HE DONE NOTHING WE WOULD ALL PROBABLY BE STANDING IN BREAD LINES. WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN IS THAT THESE IDIOTS WHO RUN AROUND TALKING ABOUT SOMEBODY TAKING THIER GUNS (EVEN THOUGH THEY NEVER CAN SHOW YOU ONE WORD WHERE OR WHO SAID IT) AND THE MORONS WHO TALK ABOUT THIER TAXS BEING RAISED (TOO STUPID TO REALIZE MOST OF THEM HAVE GOTTEN A TAX BREAK)ALONG WITH THE BOOBS WHO RUN AROUND WITH THOSE RIDICULOUS SIGNS “DON’T TREAD ON ME”( WE NEED SIGNS LIKE THAT WITH THE SNAKE GETTING PEED ON) ALL OF THEM NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS NOT JUST YOUR COUNTRY AND PEOPLE COULD CARE LESS ABOUT YOUR LOUD MOUTH COMMENTARY. IT IS BRAINLESS PODS LIKE THEM WHO HAD NO PROBLEM WITH THE REPUBLICANS THE LAST EIGHT YEARS AND ALL OF A SUDDEN THEY HAVE A POINT OF VIEW. WELL THE MAJOR POINT OF VIEW NOW SAYS SIT DOWN SHUT UP AND SHOVE IT WHILE THE REST OF US TRY TO FIND THE WAY OUT OF THIS CRAP THAT YOUR COMPLICITY HELPED GET US INTO.

Ow. My cochlea.

GADAWG
I’ve just spent thirty minutes of my time reading these comments, the majority of them written by people who 1)can’t spell worth a damn, 2)are ignorant as Hell, and 3)are probably not working, especially if they watched “The View”. I am ashamed of myself for spending part of my lunch hour (you see, I’m at work) reading this garbage. Never again…

It wasn't me I swear.

Alright Already

2010-07-29T07:46:00.005-05:00

Serious for a minute, I shall now eradicate any good will still pointed in my direction by a few friends who have strong opinions about this issue toward one side or the other, other than the one about to be expressed.

For over 60 years now there has been a problem in the Middle East. In 40 years it will be 100 years, and if the past is any indicator not much will change from now to there. But the world has been on the brink of World War III - what, twice? Three times? - over the ongoing argument in the region. It is the centerpiece of any random manifesto espoused by any random terrorist group (I won't insult Islam by calling any of them Muslims). One side says the world created a phony state to appease its guilt over attempted genocide and in so doing displaced the lives and livelihoods of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of innocents. The other side says there is precedent going back thousands upon thousands of years as to why they should be there.

The Palestinians under Arafat were once classically described by a pundit whose name I wish I could recall as a group that never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Israelis hide behind a wall that conveniently says if you criticize Israel you are a bigoted anti-Semitic. When an Egyptian leader worked on peace his own people killed him. When an Israeli leader worked on peace his own people killed him. Every US President and a slew of leaders from all over the world have crashed and burned trying to find peace in the Middle East. In fact the only US President that accomplished anything there happened to have been one of the greater disasters in Presidential history for other reasons. And the wingnut factions from both sides see nothing wrong with blowing up birthday parties or bulldozing somebody's house without so much more than a warning six seconds before they start the engines, unless they're just using a rocket to respond to the other guy's.

The thing of it is... I don't know, actually, why we give a shit any more.

All conflict has its own dynamics. It ends or continues for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons it continues is because those in conflict find some advantage in its continuing. When conflict no longer has a benefit one side or the other, or both, work seriously to resolve it. No matter what has been tried, it seems, the conflict in the Middle East never seems to solve. A cynical man can wonder, if the previous premise is true, if this thing just won't go away because those involved don't really want it to.

Power bases in the Middle East - specifically those belonging to Israelis and Palestinians - seem to very much depend on the attitude of the leadership toward the other side. Get too friendly and you may be killed. Maintain a constant, affordable level of intransigence and you may be in power for years and years. And if that is true the coin of the realm in this region isn't oil or water, it's intransigence. Because that is what gets you power. It fuels more stuff than oil in those parts.

If a President seems too friendly to the Palestinians there is a groundswell of chatter about how he isn't willing to stand by our best friend in the region, the only democracy in the Middle East and he flaunts losing money and votes in the next election. So in the campaign he's got to categorically state that we will maintain our ties to our best friend in the region. It doesn't matter that this is fallacious. Israel has engaged in espionage against the US in the past, Turkey has been a democracy just about as long and has steadfastly supported the US in its actions against other countries who are culturally closer to Turkey than to Israel, but what the hell who is counting. We go on with our act never noticing that whenever we say only democracy or best friend in the region we're slapping Turkey right in the chops. Yet they remain. But, in the campaign, his local opponents will picture him sidling up to terrorists and giving a terrorist fist-bump to his wife, for God's sake.

If a President connects strongly to Israel he incurs the wrath of wild-eyed morons with a hard-on for the 8th century who think that killing people, whose only real crime was that they went to work one day, by the thousands is a holy thing that will please God. He is also accused of ignoring an enforced diaspora of innocent people and he's dashed most hopes of seeming to be an honest broker the next time he gets a halo up his ass and wants to bring peace to the Middle east.

And if he tries to navigate a middle ground, because of the severe polarized version of politics we live under now in this country, everybody hates him. Right, Left, John and Jane. No matter who tries what it isn't good enough. There is always a sticking point that brings everything to a full stop. Every few years they go back to killing each other's children and then we have a reconciliation and then it breaks down on intransigence and there's tanks and rockets and extremists on both sides and then it stops and we talk some more. until somebody mentions Jerusalem and here we go again.

I think the time has come, and has long passed, for someone - anyone - to stand up and say you people are screwy. Enough. Alright already.

At some point - since we can't criticize Israel without someone saying we're anti-Semitic and we can't criticize the Palestinians without someone wanting to blow us up - the right course of action is (finally) going to be I don't care anymore. You guys figure it out for yourselves. I'm busy with other, more important shit than your shit.

It won't happen, of course, because there's too much political capital to be gained and lost by preserving the conflict. It helps energize your base one way or the other and there's enough money an influence tied to which side you are on to get anybody to say it. But it ought to be said. It ought to be said because it's already beyond stupid.

But in 2048, mark my word, there will still be political leaders in our country who will put forward the idea that if we elect them they will help bring peace to the Middle East. And that will happen because any time a man or woman of morals and courage who is either Israeli or Palestinian stands up to fix it - meaning a reasonable compromise - he or she will be killed, viciously, by the very forces of intransigence that are benefiting from the conflict. Unreasoning pride and obtuse willfulness pass for policy there. And they have condemned their own future generations to the dance.

It's long since time to quit listening to the music.

50 Things I Don't Care About Anymore, If I Ever Did

2010-07-27T11:37:00.009-05:00

1. What makes you really really really happy
2. What kind of beer you drink
3. Israelis and Palestinians
4. The number of gang-bangers killed in Chicago over the last two months
5. Glenn Beck
6. What you think about "The Health Care Bill"
7. Chelsea Clinton
8. Afghanistan
9. Who is supposed to be doing who in the blogosphere
10. What you think about President Obama
11. President Obama
12. What a person who idolizes the 8th century thinks about the country I live in
13. Your IQ
14. Who will be the youngest person to ever sail around the world single-handed
15. The World Cup
16. Iraq
17. The Wikileaks Afghanistan documents
18. Who did what to your people or my people two hundred years ago
19. People who still hate France
20. Which party dominates the Senate after the fall elections
21. Where the hell Waziristan is or why I should want to know in the first place
22. How small/big/new/old/condition your house is
23. Kate Gosselin
24. Kate Gosselin's Husband Whatshisname
25. Their kids
26. Any random housewife from New Jersey
27. Gorden Ramsay
28. Future Vampire movies
29. Angelina Jolie
30. Oliver Stone
31. The NRA
32. Dick Cheney
33. Which side you are on
34. What crap you invented so you could put me on "that" list
35. Just exactly how much of a bitch/bastard you can be
36. What you don't like about stuff I do like
37. The Pope guy
38. Whether or not there ever is peace in the Middle East
39. People who still think Scientology is an actual religion
40. Xenu's 1950's-style prison planes and/or the volcanoes that didn't exist yet when you and I were supposedly tossed into them (see #39)
41. Young entrepreneurs. Especially young female entrepreneurs who are convinced they are hot but really look like a goggle-eyed snapping turtle (see #29)
42. How many people respond to my posts or visit this blog
43. Republicans
44. Al Franken
45. Young Pakistanis who are convinced the CIA attacked the towers so the US could have an excuse to kill Muslims
46. Moronic, blithering, fat-ass illiterates exactly my age who still believe Barack Obama is either a Muslim or not born here
47. What I say to telemarketers
48. What you think of me
49. PETA
50. The Chicago Cubs

Oh yeah... uh... OK... bang...

2010-07-26T13:53:00.004-05:00

The single most fascinating person in all history (outside of Jan Zizka, the blind guy who defeated the Pope's armies), to me, is a guy by the name of Nestor Makhno (no, no links, you go if you want). Makhno was a Ukrainian revolutionary who, during the Russian Revolution, fought against both the Bolsheviks (off and on) and the Royalists. He was a reader of a guy named Bakunin which made him, theoretically, a libertarian-anarchist. He wrote the book on infiltration tactics (wedding party doing a ceremonial march down the street, they get into their target location, rip off the wedding clothes & start shooting up the place), his army marched behind the traditional black flag of anarchism, he'd liberate towns from one side or the other and tell the people "okay, you figure out how you want to run yourselves" and go off, he didn't like the communists and had to escape when the Bolsheviks won, then ended up in Paris where he worked as a carpenter and stage-hand at the Paris Opera, at film-studios, and finally at a Renault factory. He died there in 1934. What's funny is the smear attempt by the Soviets even into the Cold War about his character. So to this day you have to take what people say about him with a grain of salt. he was supposed to be a drunk, an anti-semite (oh come on, one of his best friends was Emma Goldman for God's sake). Why no movie about this guy? Cripes that's a damn EPIC.

Hey you really get a pantheon of people nobody ever heard of around here huh? Nestor Makhno, Opal Whitely, Henry Darger, B. Traven. I should maybe call this the "most famous people you never heard of" blog. Or something.

Mrs RW is in Portland, Oregon - OH and am I jealous. I hear that's a great little town. She likes all the coffee shops she's seen so far because Mrs RW bleeds coffee if you stab her. In all my business travels I never got to Portland. Wah.

I've decided the tomatoes that are growing in the garden like WEEDS are going to go into about two dozen jars of marinara and spaghetti sauces and I'm going to can them all & put them on the shelf. You are jealous. I know, I know.

I should break the 20,000 word threshold any day now. But I've already gone back to kill whatever adverbs and adjectives that are getting in the way of all the good terse goin' on. This is a city story, after all. With skinheads and a beautiful waitress and guns. Anyway I really got a kick out of Elmore Leonard's famous "Ten Tips For Writers." Especially the part about the hoopdedoodle. But because of his rules I had to A. Change the opening. B. "Find" every use of the world "suddenly" and delete it (nyah-nyah, there were only 3 in the first 15,000 words), and C. Get rid of the hoopededoodle. I know a lot of writers hedge about cutting adverbs and adjectives, but just try it. Go put "ly" in your "find" and cut it every time it's a modifier and see if it doesn't read better. IT DOES.

I've long ago gotten over being so protective and egotistical about my work that I refuse to learn something or try something new. If you're an established author you can have a lame try now and then and still get another chance. When nobody knows you that first time at-bat has to be a hit. At least a double. Otherwise it's no-go. I have the swing. let's wait for that one pitch.

Next month the Yankees are in town and I'll be at one of those games. Last year I went to 2 of the 3 when they were in town and the White Sox won both by something like 35 to 6 or something. Replay!

OK So As We Skid Into The Weekend...

2010-07-23T14:34:00.004-05:00

If you did something stupid, apologize for it. If you did nothing, say so. Try to talk him down. But if he won't let it go and worse comes to worse - remember - feet spread to the width of your shoulders, knees slightly bent. Keep alert. It's not going to hurt. Grab his head and put him on the ground.

Fighting is ultimately pretty stupid. Even more comical if one or both of the people involved is drunk. You'd think everybody'd know that by now, but no - every generation has to figure it our for themselves. And you can pretty much believe, on this hot summer weekend, that there'll be all kinds of bozos getting into it in the next 48 hours. Rummies. People have to realize that fighting is a waste of a good buzz. But what are you going to do? That's life.

Actually I've decided I really need people to be stupid. That thing I've been writing (15,000 presentable words and still going) requires there be interest, comic relief, disgust, and fear of violent public displays. The main character has a pistol in the top drawer of his nightstand. in the bottom drawer are tens of thousands of dollars he has in bundles that he's saved up over the years from his job. But I can't decide if it's a Ruger GP100 (above) or an 8-shot Blackhawk (bottom). The GP100 makes more sense and is less, I don't know, extravagant in a realistic setting, but "8-shot Blackhawk" sounds so cool in a literary sense. It fills out sentences real nice. Of course after a while it's just "a Blackhawk." But when you introduce it (because, after all it is a character in this) and say "my 8-shot Blackhawk" it just reads nice. I don't know. It would be more realistic if he had the Ruger GP100. I'll figure it out.

Also I know this is working because, as usual, I can't come up with a title to save my life. All my titles suck the big one.

In the meantime, tonight it's grilled chicken, baked potatoes, and asparagus with a sprinkle of balsamic vinegar all on the grill. My wife bought a strawberry-rhubarb pie (my favorite) for desert and we have two friends coming over who rescue greyhounds.

And wine. So no writing tonight. I have to tell you - after a long LONG period of creative stagnation - it's a torrent lately. I almost hate to have company, but hell it's the weekend and I don't feel like fighting nobody...

RW As A Boy

2010-07-21T08:08:00.010-05:00

I was a Marvel kid. Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko. And it was a long time ago. And Marvel will forever be associated with the taste of these cookies, but not the Keebler ones - the ones whoever made them in the 60's. Maybe it was pre-Keebler keebler. Who knows anymore. There also isn't any Lambrecht's cheesecake anymore either. That was a local Chicago bakery at the time and hasn't existed for decades. Riverview closed down 43 years ago. And come to think of it when I was born Adolf Hitler had only been dead eight years. that's like, one more year from here to 9/11. Which is why Hitler still made appearances in our comic books. But they have brought this back and I just ordered some. Nyah - nyah.

Anyway you gurls can turn away now because we're going to talk about comic books.

As I said - a Marvel kid. Everything from Sgt Fury (Nick Fury in later life) to the original appearance of Iron Man in "Tales of Suspense." That Iron Man cover is something you may want to click just to get a hold of his original outfit. Kinda clunky but hey - it was the 60's and we didn't have flexible iron yet. I think Stan Lee invented it.

One of the classic covers and stories from the Fantastic Four was the Hate Monger, still a sought-after issue. Don't dare tell of the Hate Monger's true identity (it was Hitler) revealed at the end of the story. My personal Fantastic Four story has to do with the 1964 New York World's Fair which we went to that summer. I remember buying a copy of a Fantastic Four in this huge hotel lobby and thinking "wow, I'm in new York - that's where the Fantastic Four live in the story." I was 11 - deal with it. And a lot of people didn't know that Spider Man first appeared in Amazing Stories. Yes - I had that issue. Yes I was forced to toss it by a clean-campaigning Mom. Along with my COMPLETE SET of Mars Attacks cards. That's right, I said "complete." And I made it complete the old-fashioned way. By buying from the candy store on the street we lived in in Chicago and then trading up. Sigh....

Silver Surfer came when I was in my teens and his philosophical bent and conundrums coincided with my first venture into mind-altering stuff. It was also the last comic I read in the Marvel universe. We were beyond comics after that I'm afraid. I don't know if Hitler showed up in any of those. i don't remember. On the right is what the original X-Men looked like. Clickable for history buffs. I had that issue too. Jeez...

And Daredevil has made a little noise again recently. He kinda looked like a kook with devil ears in a yellow suit at first. That outfit only lasted a few issues. But along with Iron man, I thought it might be fun to see the pre-icon style.

Comics are now illustrated novels and there is no doubt that the artwork and technical presentation of the modern version (especially the eye-popping stuff I see in the book-stores) is far beyond anything here. But then we had six newspapers in Chicago at that time as well. And the Sunday comics were what you bought the paper for. And they still didn't have lights in Wrigley Field. And I could stay out until the streetlights came on. And I didn't have to set "play dates" with friends, all I had to do was stand in front of their house and yell "Yo Joooo-eeeeeee" because it was considered rude for a kid to knock on a door when it wasn't Halloween.

Jesus that was another world wasn't it?

Anyway, thought you guys would get a kick at seeing the old school stuff.

Mucho Kudos to Coverbrowser for the bulk of these covers

Budda-Budda Pow Peeeeeeeeooooooo Thud

2010-07-19T16:18:00.003-05:00

Budda budda is old school comics for automatic weapon fire. The thud is when a bullet hits something important. But I don't think they ever used it in the Golden or the Silver ages of comics, to be honest with you.

Do you ever sit there and think maybe you're too old to get started on a writing career? Like maybe somebody said they liked that piece you did that you never published and now you're getting up there and you have no discipline and time keeps on tickin tickin tickin? Well... the single greatest Academy Award acceptance speech was given by Alfred Hitchcock after getting a lifetime achievement award. They rolled out clips of all his films and gave testimonials and his stars gave anecdotes and then there was a big presentation about how he changed cinema or something along those lines, and when they handed him the award the crowd rose to their feet and cheered and held a standing ovation for an extended period of time and then everybody settled in to hear the Great Man speak. He leaned into the microphone, said "Thank. You." And walked off the stage. Brilliant. But did you know that he made "...“Dial M for Murder,” “Rear Window,” “To Catch a Thief,” “The Trouble with Harry,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” and “Psycho”—one of the greatest runs by a director in history—between his fifty-fourth and sixty-first birthdays."? Here's an old article published by the New Yorker a few years ago about the topic of age you might be interested in.

I'm taking Tuesday off and going to the zoo with my granddaughter. We've been taking her there since she was just past a baby and now she's headed to 2nd grade next fall and this is kind of a big deal. So no work tomorrow. Too bad so sad.

I've been thinking about bloggers I've known in the past. Especially the ones who aren't here anymore. The ones who lumped me in with other bloggers they didn't like and stopped coming by because of that. The ones who took something I said the wrong way and decided to get miffed about it and hate me forever. The ones who are just better than 9/10ths of the other human race because of their puffy education or their perfect skin or whatever the heck. The ones who never got over George Bush being a dope and try to make up for it with the usual conservative blah blah blah blah thud. The ones who you discover later are just jealous of any success you had in your life no matter how small and insignificant. Yes I actually thought about all those missing bloggers who got so hyped on themselves they just decided to walk off. Then I thought about supper. I'm hungry.

Hey this weekend my wife and I found an absinthe bar that had those little dripper dispensers that dribble ever so slowly into the glass so like they're supposed to. Then I went to have dinner. I ordered rabbit. And this was in the FAR suburbs yet! We're going back. I am a big fan of Lucid absinthe but I had my first glass of Pernod Saturday. When my fingertips got warm I knew I had a new favorite! But I did reinforce the time honored verity - absinthe goes with NO food folks. I munched on a little cup of escargot and after a sip of the Pernod my mouth felt decidedly like the bottom of a swamp. It is axiomatic - no food with absinthe. Take some before dinner and that's that. Eeesh...

Sometimes...

2010-07-15T17:08:00.004-05:00

...you can tell who is actually wishing you success by the amount of support they're giving you while you struggle. And is the converse proof of the otherwise? Salient.

Sometimes... no matter how good you try to be with the food you eat and that you feed to your family, there's nothing like a huge cheeseburger that's totally bad for you. Nothing.

Sometimes... a person can take a little thing that was done or said and turn it into a great big drama and then chill so that it looks like they're above it but all the time they did everything they could to manipulate everybody to see things their way. And by now the "oh I don't think about that" bullshit is everywhere.

Sometimes... you have to not give in to the temptation to agree with every last thing someone is crying to you about if only to help them get a backbone or put their petty shit into perspective.

Sometimes... you have to be willing to admit that you're as full of shit as anybody else. And keep a check mark next to the names of those who won't admit it. Because those are the real dangerous people in the world.

Sometimes... you have to wonder why the world gets cranked about six innocent civilians getting killed in a US drone attack that takes out fourteen Taliban, but says nothing when an al Qaida homicide bomber kills sixty seven people just squeezing turnips in a freakin' city market while minding their own business. Look a little skewered to you? It do to me.

Sometimes... I think I'm the only sane person on earth. Unless I'm thinking I'm the true idiot of the world. Chicken and egg I guess.

Hard To Find Since The Internet

2010-07-13T08:53:00.005-05:00

Question was brought up where to find the few of my things ever to have seen the dark of print and you have to remember that it all basically happened just as the last gasp of the alternative print scene was gagging on a cocaine spoon and the internet was about to wipe us all out. But if you think about it it was a logical progression. The kind of people hanging around the last great altzine explosion in the late 80's/early 90's would, some anyway, eventually move to anime, 4chan (no link and NSFW), Encyclopedia Dramatica (no link and NSFW) also zombies. Though I of course was a good boy and just stayed home mostly. Also my support was wrenched out from under me and the *established* fiction world was never in my universe. This however has changed as I approach croaking, and I have stopped 'experimenting" and just write now. Ya think.

There is not a remaining record of a lot of it, and what exists still is back issues, though some are actually listed as out of print.

The LA Times called Version90 "fiction, poetry, and reviews of a resolutely postmodern variety. All this and more is intensely illustrated with eye-catching photographs and unusual (but not obtrusive) graphics. Version 90 is intent on filling a gap that many of us didn't know existed." And I was lucky enough to be included in the first two issues. It was published in Massachusetts when it was going. The last known place you may be able to find any is this bookstore. Maybe. If they still have any.

Slipstream is a better known and - I believe - still functioning poetry magazine out of (upstate?) New York. Issue #11 is where I got to be one of the *others* included behind Bukowski. But I know that #11 is no longer in print. Says so right here.

A lot of stuff is in back issues of John M. Bennett's Lost and Found Times. he still sells lots of back issues & even complete sets. Just a warning, it was my surrealist phase so it's not what you're seeing now.

Mallife (a cover of which is pictured above) put me in #s 17 and 19. The blurb for that troop explained Mallife by saying "its pages (and magnetic tape) have showcased some the strangest and most original voices in the marginal and underground mail network, jammed together in a not-so-easy to read, mix and match casserole." It was also published by Mike Miskowski's BombShelterProps, which was responsible for my only ISBN# for a little novella titled The Move, but you will note it is out of print 'cuz it isn't listed here where you can still get other remnants.

And I'm not linking to the recently self-published novel at LuLu because it is vastly different now than what it looked like then, is better edited and... is edited in the first place. I don't like that version much anymore. In fact i kind of hate it. The new version is and will be better.

But that leads me to the other thing. I'm not sure I like ANY of my old stuff any more. I've gotten more into more traditional prose with fewer influences by the dadaists, farther removed from the punk scene, plus I'm old now etc. In other words the new stuff is actually now READABLE and more UNDERSTANDABLE. So I'm not touting these old relics and won't get a cent if you seek them out & don't care.

The key difference between good fiction writing and bad fiction writing is simple. Just tell a damn story. Something I should have told myself years ago probably.

I'm not sure I really like anything listed here.

ON EDIT: There were other altzines that took work. Asylum, Paper Radio, Sub Rosa, and a few others but good luck finding even a mention of them anywhere. Internet killed the radio star...

ON FURTHER EDIT - Sorry to keep popping up in your feeder but I forgot a link that will give you a wider background of that era/movement/whatever. Factsheet5 was the walking original where I think now the only source is Utne Reader (no link, no likee). So I guess the internet wasn't a completely bad thing.

Marblehead Shmarblehead

2010-07-12T08:56:00.004-05:00

MrsRW, now the world traveler, spent the weekend in Marblehead because last week she had meetings at her corporate offices and this week they're making an online video of the course she teaches so she's also now going to be an internet teaching star. because of the two week thing she opted to stay in Marblehead over the weekend instead of schlepping back home and then schlepping back there on Sunday to get an early start on Monday. Outside of that was probably the smart thing to do I'm not so sure it was the smart thing to do. It's pretty boring around here.

For one thing I'm not answering text messages. Screw text messages. My fingers are too fat to answer, it's like the rules change every time I try to use it and I think it's a screwed up idea anyhow. So if you text me (hear me DAUGHTERS??) I'm ignoring you. Call me, talk to me, don't type at me.

I tend to degenerate when my wife is gone for long stretches of time. I mean I don't become a stalker and forget to take showers and stuff. But I do tend to forget to put the dishes away and run my clothes down before doing a load or two. I mean I do the cooking anyway which includes the clean-up so it's not that it's something I'm not used to; it's just I don't automatically clean up immediately following like I normally do. Yesterday I did a load of my jeans and then realized I forgot two pair because they were... gulp... on the floor. OK so it's picked up now but Jesus...

I've been productive, pushing the novel well past 10,000 presentable words and seeing very clearly not only where it is going but able to see 30,000 in the near future and what they will contain. It has more to do with the simplicity of the idea than the "free time" of MrsRW being out of town because I would have had the same amount of time if she was here (we give each other tons of space and don't freak out about one of us working in their office for long stretches of time). I keep thinking of The Old Man and the Sea because it's 20,000 words about a guy fishing with small vignettes in front and back to make bookends. But it's a fishing story, and that's it. I'm keeping it simple. It's merely a story about a guy who becomes infatuated with a waitress in a combination dry cleaners and hamburger joint. Don't laugh. It happened to me in Corpus Christi in the early 70s. There really was a place like that and the guy had two daughters. All I'm saying.

No but the meals are not an issue because, like I said, I cook anyway. On a positive note I can eat my damn sardines INSIDE the house when she's away. So there is that.

I just wish she would have come home on the weekend is all. One week at home after this week and then poof off to Portland. So OK I will console myself with my sardines. What? They're wild caught. give me a break.

Sooner or Later

2010-07-09T08:19:00.002-05:00

I'm going to rub you the wrong way. I don't know who you are or how cool you are or whatever. Somewhere down the road I'm going to do something, say something, that's going to make you crunch the skin on your forehead and utter the f word in the middle of the what the and the was that.

I may have the best of intentions but sometimes I say or do or write stuff that either confuses people or just ticks them off. And my junk can be pretty unrelenting because, after all this time, I may not know a way to be different about it. I can be aloof, unsympathetic, and downright mean, but generally I've found that it doesn't take all that much to get people a little wanked, and some of my best work - apparently - has been of the unconscious variety.

For some reason ever since I can remember I seemed to have a gift for saying something other people tell me they would have never said. Maybe I honestly never see the problem with it but it has always seemed to touch somebody off. I'm told I have a stubborn mindset and can be unmovable and unshakable in my outlook, but I honestly don't see that. the fact is I get cranky when i feel other people are that way and feel I'm always the one bending and agreeing or shrugging.

I feel like I do go out of my way not to say or do the wrong thing to or at someone. But every once in a while I am honestly surprised - nay shocked - to find out that something that came out of my mouth in all innocent honesty was taken as a declaration of war by someone, or had people rolling on the floor clutching their sides while I'm sitting there wondering what the hell was so funny. Like the time we were talking about the reunion and someone said well she feels like she wasn't connected to the class that much and I said well she shouldn't feel like that, whoever the hell she was. I didn't think that was going to bring the house down but I guess it did. It was said in all honesty. What?

But that's not the main thing, that's just an example.

So I don't know. If it hasn't happened to you yet, wait for it. I'll get around to it I guess. I just wish sometimes people weren't so serious all the time. A few words here and there aren't life and death. No one is keeping score. or, if anyone is keeping score, they shouldn't.

In the meantime, look at what the bloody hell THESE crazies are up to, and have a nice weekend. If you want to.

The link.

The embed...

iPod Monday on a Thursday. Shaddup.

2010-07-07T23:42:00.004-05:00

You rate each one as they randomly occur on my Shuffle, but you must listen until the hook or you can't play. Go....

A= I'd hit it
B= Good One
C= Better than just ok
D= Meh-be
E= Yawn
F= Please no more
G= What the hell is THIS crap??

1, Violin playing goth vegan fellow Chicagoan conservatory student leukemia survivor. What?
2. Don't get him excited.
3. Residue of my jazz phase circa late 80's/early 90's. You shoulda been there with us til 4 in the morning.
4. I like alone. So?
5. Summed it up at the time...

You Know That Feeling...

2010-07-06T10:13:00.003-05:00

...where a lot of stuff is happening all around you and people are busy and happy and involved and you feel like a serene, smug little Buddha apart from all of it? That thing where you know you could sit on the front stoop or the back porch with your legs crossed watching everybody run around in the summer sun but you are neither compelled to move or look too deeply into what people are doing? That sort of lazy feeling that has you focused on your business but you know everything is handled that can be handled and you're confident the next step will open itself up with the push of a button? Like it's all right there on the tip of the jar just waiting to be poured and you can pour it or not at any given moment per your own call? It's sort of like you're watching two people have a very bitter dispute about their personal politics and they're trying very hard no to get all over-heated but it's really getting close some times and, even though you have an opinion, you've decided to open another beer instead?

You know, that thing where you know for a fact that because of the dumb things you've done and said in your life there are easily a bunch of people out there somewhere who, even if they don't know your name, really can't think of any words more vile than they've already used to describe you but you know that to be hurt by that kind of thing you first have to care about what their opinions are? You know, the oblivious thing? Where it's nice to have company and nice to have no company and nice to go over somewhere and nice to go no where all at the same time?

Where you can see it, the whole thing, right in front of you and all that's left is to just open your mouth and say it and it's solid? The part where water is enough and you've decided to give every last person a break? You don't have anything against anybody and you don't have that sudden anger welling up just at the thought of something that can piss you off, because nothing you can think of is pissing you off right now? You know, the light blue one next to the box of crackers.

Yeah. That one.

See you on the other side of this place, wherever this place I am at is.

Opal

2010-07-02T08:06:00.004-05:00

Henry Darger, Francis Stuart, and JB Murray. Outcasts and outsiders all. Darger labored for decades on his private fantasy and created a staggering manuscript so large it will probably never be printed in its entirety. Stuart was a brilliantly disturbing writer whose belief in fascism found him socially ostracized and his work sometimes nearly impossible to find. The illiterate Murray created magical paintings with hidden written messages sent to him by God that could only be seen through a glass filled with well water from his home.

Whatever the side stories, the work is the thing, and the value of it all has been recognized by the great houses that pronounce what is art.

Let's add Opal Whiteley, controversy and all.

"a long time ago this road had a longing to go across the river, and some that had understanding made it a bridge to go across on."

The story goes... a little girl, mostly alone, living with her adoptive parents in the Oregon lumber camps just at the start of the 20th century, writes a diary on little scraps of paper with a crayon. Though there is only one digit in her age and she is barely schooled, she is a prodigy, and her diary approaches a kind of linear poetry. The diary of a little girl in the woods where sprites and animals are named and everything you can see is perfectly alive and able to sing to you.

Published in 1920 after first being torn to pieces and stored in boxes and then "discovered" by an editor of an influential New York magazine, it becomes a national sensation.

It also attracts charges of fraud. A little girl could not possibly have done this. Yet how to explain the state of the diary - nearly destroyed requiring it to be pieced together before it could be transcribed. Whiteley claims to be the daughter of a famous naturalist and beaten as a child by those parents in Oregon. She falls in and out of public consciousness. Is sent away from India after charges of sexual dalliances with a mystical cleric. She is hailed as a genius. She is charged with being the center of an exotic hoax. During World War II she is found living, destitute, in London where she rummages through the smoking shells of bombed out buildings for food, though she surrounds herself with books and madness. She ends her life in an asylum for the insane where she acts for all the world as a princess and dies in the 1990s. Scholars call the diary an elaborate and overly-sentimental game played on the world by the editor who "discovered" her. Others are convinced the work could only have been done by someone with an other-worldly view and that it is, indeed, the diary of a very special young girl. But it goes on for hundreds of pages, and some say betrays knowledge and understandings a little girl in a lumber camp could never have had in the early 1900's. Analysis of the paper and crayon show definitively that the material is correct to that era. But Opal saved everything.

What does her work look like?

Between the ranch-house and the house we live in is the singing creek where the willows grow. We have conversations. And there I do dabble my toes beside the willows. I feel the feels of gladness they do feel. And often it is I go from the willows to the meeting of the road . That is just in front of the ranch-house. There the road does have divides . It goes three ways.

One way the road does go to the house of Sadie McKibben . It doesn't stop when it gets to her house, but mostly I do. The road just goes on to the mill town a little way away. In its going it goes over a hill. Sometimes -- the times Sadie McKibben isn't at home -- I do go with Brave Horatius to the top of the hill. We look looks down upon the mill town. Then we do face about and come again home. Always we make stops at the house of Sadie McKibben. Her house -- it is close to the mill by the far woods . That mill makes a lot of noise. It can do two things at once. It makes the noises and also it does saw the logs into boards. About the mill do live some people, mostly menfolks. There does live the good man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice.

From
The Diary of Opal Whiteley.

Prodigy or hoaxster. Magic or madness. Darger. Murray. Stuart.

And Whiteley.

Another Dumptruck To Unload My Head

2010-06-29T07:42:00.004-05:00

Check the date in the line from this movie... "June twenty-ninth. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 pushups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight."

Sometimes people's acts wear a little thin.

You go along for years and years and everything is just fine and then you have to sit back once in a while and say "...know what? I don't really care for that shit right now." And maybe it was building up for a while and you just didn't notice. Maybe you get tired of explaining yourself to some intransigent dolt over and over. Or maybe you just don't care what people think of you after a while. It is also possible, or more likely, they may be thinking the same thing about you. So comes a time when it's different. Things have to be different.

I don't do a good job on my friendships. I let them slide sometimes. They go out. It's like I know a lot of people and everything but there aren't any real close friends. No confidants. Nobody I'd make a fund raiser for. Nobody outside of family I'd cry for if they croaked. That's true in my walking around life and my internet associations. I can have fun and talk to people and participate but I'm not ever really excited about it. Sometimes people's acts wear a little thin.

It's like my wife says sometimes, I'd make a great hermit. Being solitary never bugged me. I never get lonely. I never have. So people come and go and if they aren't here where I am they're somewhere else and it isn't any more significant than that. Ever just want to look at someone and say - you're just so full of shit. But if you do that it's over. Really over. So you don't. Plus I never get bored. I don't understand bored. People saying they wouldn't want to retire or anything because they'd get bored. What the hell. I never have enough time to do the things I want to do and work is just a big bother.

The plain fact is that people come and go in your life. I mean you hang onto the family you chose (spouse, kids) and that's the most important thing of anything. But the family you didn't get to pick can basically sometimes go spinning off into the cosmos and, outside of the nostalgia thing, the grief is pretty over after a while. Bad thing is it's been the same thing with friends for me. Maybe it's the ones I pick. I mean - the one guy I was best man for stopped having anything to do with me because I used to beat him at games once in a while, can you believe it, and the one thing you don't do is beat him at games. So yeah my picks haven't probably been the smartest.

You know people get in their cars and their life is so ordered. There's clean sheets and they like their coffee just so and they're in charge and they're picky as shit about every little detail and they know everything better than anyone around them and I just don't get it. Can anybody really be that together? Does anybody want to be? Oh yes in the building trades we see those types a lot. "I want iron balusters on my staircase but I like the white poplar can you get me a picture of white iron balusters and bring a sample to my office..." Er... no, because there's no such a thing as a white iron baluster unless you have it painted and do you want that meeting before or after you go to Cape Cod and do your nails?

See what I'm talking about? I have a mean streak. She's being very nice and just doesn't know how it works and really hasn't done anything nasty or petty to me but I go right off the end of it and characterize the poor woman like that. Nasty that way I guess.

So all this isn't really a lament as much as it is a heads up. Summer's here and the time is right, etc. If I drop people like a diseased limb they shouldn't feel bad. They're really not missing anything. I make acquaintances not friends really. I haven't found one person who could do it and probably I never tried. I know hundreds of people from all parts of my life - maybe thousands and we talk and laugh and shake hands and sit and drink and everything but I'm not sure. There's places nobody is allowed. I never ask for help. I try to give it but I'm usually too dumb to see you need it. There's no "go to" person. But I never thought of having one. No harm, no foul.

Where's This Been?

2010-06-28T08:42:00.003-05:00

This morning I'm turning left on my arrow and the guy coming right at us from the other direction decides to blow his red light and turn with us. I pull immediately in front of him - hard - and he brakes harder and leans on his horn. We get caught side by side by a train. He's glaring at me from his SUV, I'm laughing and pointing at him from my MINI. He buttons down his automatic window and yells something that was probably pretty stupid like "This is an SUV, jackass". I really didn't hear him but it was kind of along the lines of "I have a big car" or something. I say, very calmly but clearly, "you had a red light you rolled right through and you give me the horn. What's it like in that universe you live in?" He swore some more and gave me the finger. I didn't feel like it this morning, so I just smiled. Normally I'd get all pissed off and really spoil a good part of my day hatin' on him, but I was in a good spot and even he couldn't ruin it. It's ok. Tonight when he's all alone he'll realize what he did but I'll still be a jackass in his mind. Oh well. Can't explain it, just wasn't interested in his shit this morning.

Hey where's this been? First five tracks on shuffle for the iPod. New time period. You rate it per the scale / only rule is you have to wait until the hook before you knee jerk it. You knee jerk it, you lose. I'm not sure if they're repeating yet. I'm NOT going back to look. Give me a break.

A= I'd hit it
B= Good One
C= Better than just ok
D= Meh-be
E= Yawn
F= Please no more
G= What the hell is THIS crap??

1. Proof of punk's rockabilly roots. Covered by Sid once.
2. Post Clash Jones.
3. Unexpected on the album when it came out. Think John Fahey.
4. I like quite a few of theirs.
5. Original King of the Emo kids? Yeah, but I like the guitar.

EDIT TO ADD: I'm gettin' kinda pissed at iLike (what used to be LALA) for cutting down the versions sporadically to 30 second samples and I'm thinking of going all youtube on this. If you have the same problem let me know. These guys are turning into a bunch of assholes.)