The View from Hemingway's Attic

Obama Going Bulworth

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:04:00 +0000

Remember that movie Bulworth? Warren Beatty vehicle for a Senator who suddenly tells it like it really is. The movie died. I saw it. There was the moment the Warren character started rapping and really saying the way things were but after that it sort of just fell apart. But the President apparently said something about going Bulworth. Can you blame him? What would he say if he said what he really thought? It would not be pretty.

You are talking about a President who has been under siege and now the Indians are circling the wagons. So if the President said what he thought he might start with a simple. Well you got what you wanted. As the New York Times pointed out the beautiful thing is the triple play scandal knocks out the fact that government has come to a standstill. No legislation gets passed. Forget guns we cant even fill the posts of government. The House is a nonstarter. Nothing passes. And now with the scandals taking precedent we are effectively OUT OF ORDER as a country.

And as the Sequester rolls on we will be in a Clintonesque swamp from here on out. Birthers will fuse with Tea Party with far right Corporate/Conservative interests to take their best shot. Impeachment is a bridge too far but nullifying the President is a wing shot worth taking. And why not? Our Bulworth cannot really say the deck was stacked. That he was the first President filibustered by the government. That the campaign against him never stopped.

We know what the real deal is. It is something moving in the backwaters of our history but we cannot voice it. It is too depressing. Really only one man can go Bulworth and he isn't ready yet. But when you have nothing to lose...then...sometimes even a bad movie can get second life.

Rocket Man...the American Dream upside down

Living in our phones

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:47:00 +0000

So you are rolling along and the lady with the STOP sign holds up her hand. And so you sit there and wait and while you wait you check your phone. And there is nothing there but there might be and it is better than just sitting there because existence has become boring. And while you are waiting you see a woman who looks like she could kick your ass and she is wearing a bandanna in the smoky light of just paved hot tar and she is looking at her hand and you realize that in the middle of the hot sun breathing in the heavy petroleum wafting on that steaming asphalt she too is checking her phone. And it hits you...nobody lives in this world anymore.

Because there might be something in that phone that will take her out of this world. She might be taken away from getting cooked on a street and sucking up all sorts of toxins while hot spewing tar and asphalt is laid down by a giant machine with then guys hanging off it and suddenly you see that all these guys are staring at their hands too. They too are looking for the magic life that screen provides. Take me away. Take me to Oz. It might you know and there might be a wizard and a rainbow...anything is better than this crappy existence.

And if no one is living in this life anymore where are we living. Some sort of cyber world where a promise of something greater is just a text or an email or a tweet or a picture away. Something than this grinding malaise of the every day that is existence. And so we see cops and firemen and construction workers and soldiers and sailors and painters and sculptors...the world squinting at their hands because that little world holds so much promise.

So you check your phone one more time as the lady turns her sign from STOP to SLOW. And you proceed on and pass through the crappy world of the every day. But cheer up. There is a text or an email quivering on the horizon. Bailing us out once again.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Lampooning The American Dad

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:09:00 +0000

The new sport in satire is the American Dad. Take the show American Dad. Or South Park. Or The Simpsons. The patriarch is the buffoon who is a caricature of authority. Seth Johnson's South Park makes out dads to be stupid, perverted, hideous, comical. Anything but respectable. And what can American dads do but role. Lets face it. Being the heavy is always going to be lampooned. But where did this lets roast dad genre come from?

Certainly Ward Cleaver didn't start it. Dad was cool. He came home from work and kissed June and handled the Beave and never lost his shit. He was the man in charge who never broke a sweat even as The Beave raised hell. And from there we go to Father Knows Best or Family Affair or Gidget or Happy Days or Dick Van Dyke. Dad did progress. Pick up on Bill Cosbys dad. He was pretty cool and kind of a hard ass. He would crack the whip but he knew the score. So dad went from the distanced Ward Cleaver to a hipster dad.

And then...then dad went sideways. He became not respectable at all. In fact dad became the guy to be disparaged. Or he became the totem pole for all that is wrong with bourgeois living. The magnet for every crappy thing that can be attached to living in a suburb and raising a family. Ted Bundy was the precursor of this animated dad who garners no respect and only derision. Like metafiction we doubt not only the man but the institution. No one can win because the whole paradigm of having a family in America is suspect. Dad being the easiest target

And why not? Suburban sprawl brings no respect. It is a lifestyle choice of the man predicated on raising kids in bland safe surroundings. So the blanding applies to moms and dads but dads are the blandest of all. Totems left over from the Greatest Generation they are respected by neither their wives or kids and left to hide in garages or in basements or to leer at young women.

So what to do. Nothing. You are either a dad or you are not. And the people who are lampooning are now dads too. They know there is little to be done to escape their fate. Of course you could always not watch I suppose.

Rocket Man...the American Dream Turned upside Down

The Impeachment of President Obama

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:55:00 +0000

If you listen to Glenn Beck then you heard the "I" word. Beck and others are foaming at the mouth and so is everyone else on the far right. Left out in the desert of liberal politics and a rapidly changing demographic they are now lapping the water of Watergate while screaming Benghazi, IRS persecution and now infringement of the press. The triumvirate of the Perfect Storm of Second Term Scandals has presented it's ugly head and we are now in for a Clintonesque investigation that could suck up the remaining thirteen hundred days.

And where there is smoke there is fire. Maybe. But of course the firemen have been sniffing a long time now haven't they? And from birthers to Socialism the President has been suspect for a long time and then came Benghazi and the triple play. Does anyone doubt this then is the first Presidential debate of 2016? Of course it is. President Obama is not the quarry all"I" words aside but Hillary Clinton is much better sport. Imagine knocking out a front runner before the race begins.

And that is exactly the point. If we accept the "black copter thesis" that is behind the failure of gun control and every push back from the right from Obamacare to spending money on education then we have to see the logical conclusion is to dismantle government as it stands. Austerity or sequester is simply "starve the beast politics" in action or Paul Ryans Ayn Rand philosophy taken to the epicenter of government. Survival of the fittest. Let the poor die and decrease the surplus population.

But I digress. So the impeachment of Obama would be a grand prize in the sport of modern scorched earth politics where the election never ends and warfare is the order of the day. Lets face it democracy or our plutocracy has become a war between two well armed opponents and we are merely spectators. One does wonder where it will all end. A Nixonian farewell salute? How sad that would be...

And what a sour victory for the victors and then what...a pardon by Joe Biden. A Frost/Obama interview. Tell me Mr. President did you let the American people down? Ah...that would be the frosting on the cake of political vengeance.

Rocket Man...the upside down American Dream

Working Alone

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:58:00 +0000

There is a service in New York and maybe other places that allows people who work alone to hang with other people. We are fast becoming a nation of people who work from home with the Internet hubbing out to our work pods like the spider it is and people interacting less and less telephonically if at all until there is only the soft pitter patter of fingers on keys and the ticking clock and the distant airplane and the dust motes falling all around. This then is the modern office environment of the twenty first century. A nation of Bob Cratchets in their cells. Please sir another lump of coal.

But at least Cratchet had Scrooge to interact with. He could ask him for coal or another candle or listen to Scrooge bitch about giving him off for Christmas. We twenty first century office workers are entirely solitary. We have no interaction except for the proton beams shooting out at us from our screens and the occasional call from a mother or father or telemarketer. Other than that we are united unto ourselves and now that the halcyon cool of working at home has worn off we are really a nation of lonely disconnected workers.

Gone is the interaction of The Office. The goofy weird guy hanging out by the copier or the anal retentive office manager who everyone rips on nonstop. Gone is Jerry the old guy who still trudges in or Suzy the loose secretary who everyone secretly leers at and talks about her husband Hank who is a Harley dude and works in a body shop. The whole low level drama of office politics does not exist and so that leaves us with just our work. What a drag. No distraction except surfing which can be as boring and depressing as watching television.

So we go to Starbucks. We go to the store. We go anywhere to break it up. We hang in the kitchen and talk to our spouse. We go for a run. A bike. Anything to break up the thin gruel of being a self motivator and sitting down to our daily drudgery. Yeah. Its cool. You can wear your pajamas. You can work in your underwear. You can sleep in. But the work is still there and it is just you and you will have to do it eventually.

All by yourself.

www.williamhazelgrove.com
Rocket Man...the American Dream turned upside down

Five Things you Should know about The Great Gatsby

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Wed, 08 May 2013 15:56:00 +0000

If you read The Great Gatsby or did not read The Great Gatsby here are five things you should know.

1. The green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Pivotal symbol of the book. This is the light Gatsby holds his hands out to as if embracing God. This represents (so literary interp profs tell us) the future, the dream Gatsby does not yet possess because he doesn't possess the golden girl yet. The green light across the bay from his mansion represents his impossible desire (ironically) to repeat the past and it represents the American Dream in all it's promise. How is that for a dock light?

2. Famous line number one of The Great Gatsby. "Can't repeat the past, of course you can repeat the past!" This Gatsby's response to Nick Caraway when he says you cannot repeat the past. He is referring to Gatsby's affair with Daisy when he was young and that he cannot duplicate. This line then sums up Gatsby's credo. Of course he can repeat the past and he will do it. He will remake his life and grab the beauty he had once before. But of course he is doomed.

3. The famous shirt throwing scene. Gatsby throws brand new shirts into the air for Daisy who breaks down because she has never seen such beautiful shirts before. Interpret this one as you will but the critics hold this scene up as a metaphor for Gatsby's dream and his doom. Daisy loves the shirts at the same time she knows noone can possesses such beauty. She and Gatsby are doomed but she loves the dream. She will never leave Tom and marry Gatsby. She knows this even if he doesn't. There are also interps on this scene as to sex. The shirts represent the sexual ecstasy she can have with Gatsby. Also it shows Gatsby believes his dream can be bought.

4.Famous line two and three. "The man wears a pink suit!" Tom Buchanan throwing dispersion on Gatsby. He is already pointing out that Gatsby is a charlatan, a bootlegger, and that he will never stand up to the light of day. Or at least to Daisy. Famous line three. "So I drove on toward death." Nick Carroway line presaging the demise of Gatsby and Toms girlfriend Myrtle and his own mortality. He has just realized he turned thirty.

5. Famous Ending. "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." This is the final sentence of the novel. And what Fitzgerald is doing is summing up America. The lines before run..."No matter, tomorrow we will run faster, jump higher until...so we beat on..." That we are doomed. That we are chained by our own ghosts even as reach for what we cannot see. That the America Dream of always wanting more will never make us happy because our happiness is behind us.

There. Now go talk about the book.

Rocket Man...the upside down American Dream

Five Things You Dont Know About The Great Gatsby

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:01:00 +0000

Here are five things you don't know about The Great Gatsby:

1. Fitzgerald was not crazy about the name and preferred High Hatted Golden Lover or Trimalchio. Even just before printing he thought about changing the name an his editor Max Perkins said it was too late.

2. The critical reception for The Great Gatsby was not good. The novel was criticized for being tawdry and superficial. And for being too short. Only a few reviewers realized The Great Gatsby was something great.

3. The book did not sell well. It barely sold out it's first printing and Fitzgerald made more money off the sale of the movie rights than the book. He had to go back to writing Saturday Evening Post stories to make money.

4. When Fitzgerald died The Great Gatsby was not out of print. It was worse than that. It was sitting in warehouses with virtually no demand. Effectively being out of print at his death.

5. There have been two movies made of The Great Gatsby. The first one was a silent film made in the twenties. The second one was made in the seventies by Francis Ford Coppola with Robert Redford. The reviews were not good and the movie was not a big hit with the public. The feeling was that the novel is too literary, too dependent on Fitzgerald's prose to ever be made into a good movie. We will see.

Rocket Man...the American Dream Upside Down

The Hucksterism of Self Publishing

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:39:00 +0000

You get it all the time now. The stories of someone who self published something and it became that something that made a million dollars. The stories fly at us from every corner, from every person who wants to sell us the formula to make that something to make that something make a cool million. The first twenty or so of these stories you read with interest. They are bait and switch stories. Do this and this will happen to you. We see this in mortgages and the lottery. One ticket baby and you are set. I will give you this low low low 1.5%. Now it has happened to the new industry of instant self publishing and business is booming.

But like the low low mortgage you will never get and the lottery you will never win you are being suckered by the oldest con in the book. This is the snake oil of the literary world now. You can make a million dollars by publishing a book. All you have to do is buy my method, my database, my editing, my publishing, my site, my ad, my email blast. These all use the same come-on that is tried and true. I will be the one who beats the odds and make a million dollars too! Only you wont.

I wont bore you with stats. We have heard them before. But I will bore you with facts. Fact. You want somebody to pay you to publish your book. Why? Because they have skin in the game then. You at least have a silent partner. Fact. Even with a traditional publisher selling books is a ball busting game. You have to work and work and work and then you have to work some more. And then nothing happens. Fact. If you go the route of self publishing with nothing more than the desire to make a million dollars you will fail.

Why. Because it is not set up that way. Self publishing is for the person who has paid his or dues and now wants to bring their voice to the literary community. This is the mission. The goal of making a million dollars is commerce. Even those that comodify selling books move on because there are easier things to sell than books. Another fact. You will publish your book and no store will carry it. Another fact. It will be available on the Internet with a million other books. Fact. You will own your book and a few friends. The rest will be in your garage.

So if you are reading about the guy who turned around and published his book and made a million dollars then know the con. That guy is selling whatever he is selling and dragging a line though the water and many fish will bite. We are an instant world of gratification which makes an instant world of suckers. You want to self publish and bring your vision, your words, your reason for being to the world. Go for it. There is nothing more honorable than that.

You want to make a million bucks. Go buy a lottery ticket. At least you only get conned for a few bucks.

Rocket Man...the American Dream upside down

Every Ghost Story is a Love Story: The life of David Foster Wallace

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 21:24:00 +0000

Just finished this biography of David Foster Wallace but it was strange since his death still seems very recent. I had tried Infinite Jest before he died and fell off the wagon around page 200. I should say it was too difficult for me at the time. I did read A Supposedly Fun Thing I Will Never Do Again his book of essays. Very good. So I had not given the either of these books much thought and then I read his biography and started reading Infinite Jest again. But to the biography.

Wallace is a fascinating character and as a writer just about the top of the mountain .There are few writers who can make Franzen seem like easy reading but Wallace does. This is hard because Wallace had such a crippling disease so wrapped up with his writing. His genius and his virulent depression seemed to occupy the same room. And when the depression overtook him there was little he could do but wait for the drugs or electroshock back it off.

But the story of his life between all this and his brilliant fiction he wrote while he wrestled with the beast is illuminating. And like Wallace and his writing this review will not sum up the writer or his work because he is too complex. The biography does seem to skim though his life at times and it does end very abruptly with his suicide. Shocking in a way.

And so really all one is left with is Infinite Jest. Which is the way it should be. I think he is all in there and so really it is the book that has to be read. I am making my way through it slowly and with respect. If not awe.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Why Gatsby Will Always Elude Film

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:39:00 +0000

We all saw Coppola's effort to capture The Great Gatsby with Redford and Mia Farrow mooning after each other in seventies grandeur. Great clothing. Great cars. Great music. Terrible movie. And yet here was Fitzgerald's masterpiece, but of course Coppola's problem was he was too in love with the novel. He tried to interject Fitzgerald's prose wherever he could and it was like laying silk on charcoal. "Cant repeat the past, of course you can old sport!' Redford choked on that one.

And if the characters didn't choke on the prose then the narrator did. "I have been turning over some advice my father gave me once...." The stertorous Nick Caraway years before he was a TD Waterhouse mouthpiece just couldn't handle those lines without dropping them like lead into the Long Island Sound. And why shouldn't he? Voice overs are tricky anyway and literary voice overs feel like syrup dribbled all over perfectly good scenes. Scream when the metaphors become too much.

But metaphor was Fitzgerald's gift and that elegiac elegant prose does not translate to the eye or the ear. It was meant to be read. Sadly for DiCaprio and everyone else involved in the new attempt to bring Gatsby to the twenty first century they will only succeed in sending people to find the book. And even if they update the story will not translate. The intelligence of Fitzgerald and any first rate novelist is they understand the keening of a read line of prose and its impress on human consciousness. No amount of CG will ever bail out a visual medium in this area.

And so we will be left with the plot without the fine linen. And so, we will beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaseless to the novel. And not the film.

Rocket Man...The American dream turned upside down

Gatsby's American Dream

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:57:00 +0000

With the new movie almost out it is fitting to reflect on the American Dream once again as put forth by Jay Gatsby. I assume you read the book and know Gatsby's story of bootlegger turned landed gentry and ready to secure the girl of his dreams Daisy Buchanan. Ah the green light at the end of the dock that means so much. Gatsby's dream. The American dream. That beacon in the Long Island night that represents all we want but cannot obtain.

And of course Gatsby is done in by the darkness of the American Dream. It is the price right? We know now the high price of the dream because we have been living it for the last five years. Only a few can hit such heights and those that do usually lose some part of themselves as Gatsby did. Fitzgerald put forth the idea that this dream comes with too high a price and in fact it can kill you which of course it did with Gatsby.

And we are now at a point where the American dream has turned upside down. Our houses worth less than we owe, jobs still scarce, money not abundant. And we are looking now for something we might have missed and left behind us. And of course there is nothing new as Fitzgerald says at the end of Gatsby in the most eloquent line in American literature. "So we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past."

Still so true.

Rocket Man...the American Dream upside down

Americans Dont Like To Wait

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:06:00 +0000

The sequester will decimate the poor and cut all sorts of programs we don't even know about. But Americans don't like to wait for anything and now they are having to wait at the airports. Uh Oh. This one will blow up in the face of whoever is blamed for the sequester. Americans don't like lines and they don't like to be late. Guess what...we are going to be late and we will stand in lines now.

And people are already running. They are already saying it is not their fault. It is just beginning. It will get worse and the sequester is going to really stink up the political fortunes for whatever party gets it hung around their neck. So let the games begin. Sequster hot potato. Who was at fault and who will feel the voters rath.

American Dream upside down

Should You Stay in Your Home or Walk

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 17:45:00 +0000

You are upside down in your mortgage. You will never claw back that hundred grand in lost equity. You say well this is my home. Your taxes are high. They will never come down. Your mortgage is high and worse you cannot refinance because your house is inverted. You are stuck in an over valued asset that is bleeding you dry and you are on the same footing as a renter. In fact it is worse than a renter. You owe the bank for the full amount of your mortgage. A phantom tied to a value that vanished five years ago. Should you stay or go?

Ten million people are facing this dilemma. When rich people have a bad investment they walk. Middle class morality does not exist .But for the millions stuck in upside down homes there is really only two options .Keep paying on a depreciating asset if you can or you walk out of your house and start over. A short sale perhaps. A deed in Lieu (give it back to the bank) Or good old foreclosure where you get to squat for a couple years before your house goes to auction.

These are the options for a large segment of the population and none of them are good. Walk and your credit is trashed. Stay and have nothing to show. Strategic default is what they call walking now. Jingle Mail. Everyone one has to face this one and figure out their own bailout plan. But sitting will only work so long. If you take your medicine then you can start over. Don't take your medicine and stick it out and hope values could come back. Not likely.

So there it is. Stay or Go. The medicine is bitter but waiting only prolongs the disease.

Rocket Man...the American dream upside down

Cowards in Congress

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:03:00 +0000

Political courage is nothing compared to being shot with an AR15. You would think Congress could show a little balls and take on the NRA but they are just cowards. So the children who were shot that day have no voice. Not the old men who sold their souls to a gun lobby. It is not a second amendment issue and it is not the black copters are coming. It is electability. We have a problem because we have men who are the lowest form of human life. We have craven men who sell our children down the river for a buck.

And you may be a gun enthusiast. You may believe in the black copters. But you should know they didn't vote for you. They voted to keep their jobs. And they will betray you too when the highest bidder calls. You may say well I can keep my guns and not get a background check but when your wife dies from cancer from a chemical found in your backyard by a company that pays off Congress to look the other way you will be mad as hell. The way we are now.

Because you were outgunned at the start. The deck was stacked. We have people who can be bought in our Congress and that means none of us are safe. We are only worth the price of re election. So now it is guns. But one day it will be the tainted drinking water or your safety in the factory and you will be sold down the river along with the rest of us. So lock and load for now.

But those guns wont help you when your turn comes .

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Lets Put the Lobbyist in Congress

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:48:00 +0000

They are already there so lets just get the old white guys out of Congress and put in the lobbyists. They could then hack it out between them. The gun lobby could square off with the pharmaceutical lobby and they could make a deal with the tobacco lobby and the food lobby and the chemical lobby and the bank lobby. And all those guys in suits could just go home and quit wasting our time and you know we wouldn't have to even pay the lobbyists.

An oligarchy is rule by the wealthy or rule by the lobbyists and that is what we have. So lets cut out all this election hooey because it doesn't matter who we elect they work for the people who pay them. And that would be the gun lobby as we saw today. On a different day it would be the drug lobby. Does it really matter who it is anymore. One thing we know is it is not us who they are representing.

And so we just roll along. The middle class at least doesn't have to pay attention to the whole election cycle anymore because it doesn't even matter who is President. Congress just undercuts him or rather the lobbyists. So send home all those goofy guys in suits. Lets get those smart dressing lobbyists in there. At the least it will make better television.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Boston Marathon Attack Brings Back 9/11 Demons

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:48:00 +0000

The Boston Marathon attack brings up those old 9/11 monsters. The first one is fear and the response to that is to run. My wife and I made our decision to move away from Chicago based in no small part on the fear of another attack after 9/11. There were circles on nuclear blast maps that showed we would be in the kill zone should a dirty bomb hit the windy city. There were other issues yes (small hosue) but the overall feeling was get the hell away from the terror that would be coming to Chicago. So we did.

And now years later we have made peace with that decision as there were other factors, but watching the Boston Marathon coverage you get that old "oh shit." Are they going to hit again? So the people who live in Boston and who have always felt safe now feel vulnerable. In the week after 9/11 when I went to Chicago the city was empty. It was bizarre but no one wanted to be around when a plane hit the John Hancock or the Sears Tower. And of course being close to the airport left that weird silence when the planes were grounded.

And I know we should not be so cowered by terrorists. That we should go about our lives. But couldn't we make a case that as a country fear has ruled our politics, ruined our economy and caused two wars that we are still suffering from? And so now we have the Boston Marathon. People are just beginning to understand what happened. But when the smoke clears there will be those that will make decisions based on perceived risks.

It seems like the ghost of 9/11 is still there.

Rocket Man...The funniest novel since Russo's Straight Man." Chicago Sun Times

Why Congress is so pathetic

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 17:50:00 +0000

Congressman on both sides of the aisle are pathetic on this one. The whole country wants background checks but Democrats and Republican Congressmen are not worried about the country or what happened to the children of Sandy Hook or preventing the next tragedy. They are not worried about the common good or the common safety or about people getting shot. They are not worried about school children all over the country. They are worried about their jobs.
How pathetic.

Nobody else in the country has job security why should these clowns. Alright. The first thing we have to do is turn over Congress because they are not doing their jobs. The irony of course is that if they did their jobs they might keep their jobs. But they are so worried that the NRA or the Right Wing of the Right Wing or the Conservatives or the Christian Right or somebody might take their jobs if they vote their conscience. And we are supposed to re elect people like that?

I got one for you. Whatever happened to...DOING THE RIGHT THING? I mean I know it is very Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra but isn't that what they are supposed to do???? Aren't they supposed to do what they think is right not what they think will allow them to keep their jobs? And we accept this. That is what is amazing. Oh right. Yeah. They should keep their jobs while we lose ours and get shot and our kids are put at risk.

To coin an old phrase. Throw the bums out. All of them. Lets just start over and roll the dice. We cannot do any worse.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

The Real Difference between a Book and an E-Book

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:53:00 +0000

It is a matter of the way you read it. I know a man who brags he reads a thousand books on his Kindle. I don't doubt it. The Kindle takes a book and turns it into the equivalent of an IPOD tune or a picture on your hard drive. Getting rid of the physicality of the book changes it. We no longer experience the book we experience an E File on a hard disk that is not so different from any other file on a hard drive. It has to be dealt with and then returned to oblivion. So the real difference between a book and an E Book is the experience.

One experiences a book. Literature we experience pulp we finish. In other words the ebook becomes something to be dealt with quickly. Accomplished. It goes back to that old saying that Midwesterners read for self improvement while Southerners read for pleasure. What are we reading for then with an Ebook? Is it the I better watch so many hours of Jeopardy so my brain doesn't turn to mush morphed into I better read this book so I can get to the next book and the next book so I can eventually say I read a thousand books.

Take it another way. The physical creature in our lap changes the experience. The book is experienced as a thing .The page turns slowly. It falls to the next page. The digital experience is a swipe a silent movement of a page appearing and then vanishing for the next silent swipe. Like a painting versus a picture of a painting the experience is changed. Ask anyone who prints out a picture versus looking at it on your phone. One is ephemeral the other is there for all time

So we may think we have all the answers with our Kindles and Nooks but like the IPOD the experience has morphed and changed. Digitization is all bout economy and convenience. That was never art and never will be.

www.billhazelgrove.com

Killing Yourself for your book

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 19:23:00 +0000

Writing it was hard but that doesn't compare to marketing it. In fact the writing is very nice in comparison with long quiet stretches. Then you go into the hell of online marketing. Think of taking on the whole world and beating your head against the wall. Add to that the pipe is clogged with millions of authors who found they could publish that book with a keyboard stroke. It is like the internet...empowering but eviscerating in the sheer numbers.

But you do it. You send your books to everyone who will listen and each book is like starting over. And each time the rules change. Try getting on radio. Try getting on television. Try getting reviews. It can happen but it requires ten times the energy that writing the book took. And then of course there is no guarantee at all it will come to anything.

So you better write something you believe in because you will need something to keep you plowing ahead when every bit of your being says this is too hard.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Five Things You Can Do To Keep Your House

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 17:47:00 +0000

I'm amazed at how many people I talk to who are in the process of losing their homes and yet they have a good income. Somehow they missed a payment and slid into two thirty day late or worse they go into three late payments and now they cannot come up with the money. I know a man who lost his home and still does not understand how people can afford to pay their mortgage. And he had a good income! But here we go. Five Ways to keep your home.

1. Pay your mortgage first. Always. Simple right. Do you know how many people pay credit cards first or medical bills? And then they don't have the money for their mortgage. The very first thing you do is pay your mortgage above all else. Then whatever is left over you pay your utilities. Keep the lights on and the home heated. Then food. Then credit cards. Then medical.

2.If you are late then negotiate with the bank right away. Pay late but pay. Even if you are month behind. They cannot initiate foreclosure if you send in your payment.

3.Go for a loan modification. If you are late then you are a perfect candidate. In fact they wont consider you for a loan mod unless you are late. If you get it they will reset your mortgage. Keep paying during the loan mod even if they tell you not too. What happens is people don't pay and then they don't get it and owe like ten grand.

4. If you go into foreclosure go to court and enter the case. You don't need a lawyer. You pay fifty dollars and you enter your side of the case. They will continue it. Go back and they will continue it. Go back and they will continue it. This can go on for years. I know a woman who asked for her deed and they couldn't produce it. She has been in her home for five years since the foreclosure began.

5. Don't leave your home. I know more people who leave their home after the first court appearance notice. Don't do it. Illinois is running years behind in their foreclosure process and your loan mod could come through at any time. But the bottom line is you can probably stay in your home for years beyond the initial filing of foreclosure.

There. Five things to keep your home. Good luck.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

The Shame of Not Paying Your Mortgage

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:48:00 +0000

In my novel Rocket Man the protagonist contemplates not paying his mortgage many times. Underwater and unable to move he sees no way out. Certainly with one in four mortgages underwater millions have considered doing just this. Walking away from their homes to start over. The statistics on this are hard to find but it is on the rise to the point where Freddy Mac is now offering a program that allows borrowers to do just that...walk away.

But middle class shame keeps many people in place paying on an upside down asset they will never come out of. The rich have no such shame. If they have a bad investment they toss it aside and give it back to the bank. They have no sense of shame or middle class morality. But a lot of people do to the point that when you read articles about who has walked away from their mortgages they wont give their names even years later.

We have been shamed into thinking it was our failure. Somehow the derivative players who used our homes like picks in an elaborate game of poker were caused by us. When our houses were cleaned out we had no control. When the Ponzi scheme hit the traders ran for cover and were bailed out but the middle class was stuck with the empty bottles and tattered streamers of that party. We were stuck with worthless homes.

Strategic default they call it. That is what savvy people call it. Some would say it is a rationalization but this morality has been applied fairly. The banks were bailed out and were never held accountable for loan products that sold borrowers down the river. Yet middle class people are expected to stay in a house that is upside down with taxes based on a value that no longer exists.

I one time lamented to my mother in law that I should have been smarter financially. She looked at me and said, Jesus Christ, it was a depression. There was nothing you could do. She should know. She went through the first one.

Rocket Man...the American dream upside down

Those Confederate Flags

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 18:11:00 +0000

Two countries. That is what we have now. No big shock. But driving to Florida and back to Chicago I couldn't help notice the increase in Confederate flags. Not just small ones on mailboxes or on the back of pickup trucks. I'm talking Arlington Cemetery size flags. You know stadium flags that stand out by the highway because they are so damn big. And I had to wonder who was putting up these flags but you couldn't really tell. The point was there are more of them and they really mean something different now.

I am from Virginia and saw my share of Confederate flags as a kid. They were just part of living in the South. But now they seem to be a bigger statement like the billboard that said GET US OFF THE US TITANIC in Georgia. That Titanic being the United States or Obamaland. And these flags are not really the old relics of the lost cause. That is how I used to see them. A heritage of the South and one that we cannot be ashamed of...but now they seem to represent our polarized nation if not out right secession. Or just hate.

And so you really start to realize we do have two counties. I talked to a woman the other day who said she thought that was great. The states should be allowed to leave she continued. Well. I think we fought a war to prevent that and it was very bloody. But her view is that we are different and she sees no coming together. People should be allowed to be who they are and live the way they want. 1861 does not seem that far away when you hear that.

Rocket Man...the American dream upside down
www.williamhazelgrove.com

The Hyperactive Moment

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:31:00 +0000

We do not live in the moment anymore. We live in the hyperactive moment. One moment to the next. We know longer know what the moment is. Computers have done this to us. The speed of our lives is such that we can not afford to stay in the moment. We have to be to the next or we will get left behind. Sure. Go ahead and lose that phone or that computer. You will be living in a tent. There is nothing less than survival at stake.

We think about it. On vacation. We slow down some then. And we think about slowing down and enjoying the moment but even then our phone is going off. Even then we are afraid of missing something and we look to the next moment. That is why we are always checking our phones. The present moment is no longer enough. There must be something better coming.

And we wonder why kids have ADD. Is it the kids or is it the speed of our life. We cannot afford to have our kids take their time. They will be left behind and nothing less than their survival is at stake or so we thing. So we run even faster. Lose another moment to the next and before we know it we are all out and we are not even sure we have lived at all.

Rocket Man...the American dream upside down

www.williamhazelgrove.com

The Driving Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 14:15:00 +0000

We recently went to Florida. We drove. Plane fares were high. You know so let's take the family vacation and drive. This goes all the way back to when I was a kid and we took driving vacations across the country. Fond memories of being in the back of a station wagon with dad driving and mom navigating What fun! So we begin. The drive immediately asserts itself as an exercise of interminable boredom. That is what you forget. That there is absolutely nothing to do for twenty three hours. Except to eat.

And we ate. McDonalds. Panera. Burger King. Every gas station under the sun where we bought just about every thing they had to offer. And then you sit in your electric chair and don't move. I drive and drive and drive. The landscape is interesting for a while and then it is not. It is just scenery to the brain thudding exercise of driving a car down a road with trucks and cars and people honking and cutting you off. What fun!

And the car becomes a rolling garbage truck. Amazing the amount of garbage such a trip can produce. But we start to fill up and have to unload at every stop and fill fifty five gallon drums with our fast food detritus. And then we get close and push through and by now you are bleary eyed and bloated from sitting and eating for two days. You have come to hate the capsule you have been stuck in for two days and swear never ever to do this again.

And when you arrive you feel like a voyager who has reached a distant planet. You will never do this again. NO more Wallyworld. No more Chevy Chase in Vacation. You are done. Sure you are.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

One in Five Now ADHD

noreply@blogger.com (William Hazelgrove) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 18:51:00 +0000

Take five kids and now one of them is ADHD. Attention deficit hyperactive disorder. And this fifth kid is on either Ritalin, Vyvanase, or Adderall. And that is amazing. Rampant. A plague. An epidemic. Something. But there it is. You know it as a parent because every other parent you talk to their kid is on one of those drugs. And you come to accept that we are a nation where our kids just can't pay attention. But this seems to be the case. Or have we become a nation that cannot accept any deviations from the new normal?

Put this next to the ninety percent rise in autism since 2000 and a scary picture starts to emerge. But lets go back to this ADHD diagnosis that is applied to the fifth kid in every group. The experts say this statistic cannot be true. They point to the drug companies pedaling their wares as a big culprit. But they also point to parents who will do anything to make sure little Suzy or Johnny is getting good grades in school. It's little Johnny who is really screwed.

Boys. They are the fifth kid. Boys are diagnosed at something like twenty percent more than girls. Those darn boys just wont stay in their seat. They wont listen. Give them the drug. And they do. The problem is these drugs have awful side affects. They kill the appetite. Stunt growth. Their addictive. They ruin sleep. They wear off and the kid falls off a cliff. The drugs make kids edgy, temperamental, and worse they become a life prescription.

It is very hard for the parent to fight back against the physician and the teacher or the school that says your son or daughter is ADHD and we recommend this medication. But that is what parents should do. The drug should be the last resort not the first choice. Obviously there are many kids who need these drugs but many are on them who might just be a little edgy, restless. Or maybe they are someone who goes to the beat of a different drummer. You know an individual.

I know I was.

www.williamhazelgrove.com

Rocket Man...the American dream upside down
http://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Man-William-Elliott-Hazelgrove/dp/1938467582/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359822181&sr=1-4&keywords=rocket+man,