A struggling novelist faces middle age. At least 65 percent not depressing.

In the spirit of stimulating under-stimulated minds, my high school would convene assemblies to hear speakers debate the issues of the day. That was the occasion for an event that still rankles me to this day, and, in part, explains the appeal of Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and all of our friends in the T-Par-T. It also explains why, to a trifling but measurable degree, many of us write.

The school hauled out a local yokel from the NRA to do battle with some liberal hippie teacher about, you guessed it, gun control. After they had gone through the expected pantomime of debate—the liberal decried the scourge of guns in our cities, while the NRA representative, honest-to-god, actually said, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”—the floor was opened for questions.

Of course, being an NRA member, the pro-gun fellow trotted out the Second Amendment time and again, really never defending the primacy of or need for guns other than the usual “you have to be able to protect yourself and your family” canard. And I had a line of inquiry for him: What if there were no Second Amendment? Why are guns “good” things to own in a modern world when most of us don’t hunt for our grub? Would people really be defenseless without semi-automatic weapons? Would a citizen’s militia really be able to hold off a government takeover by the military?

I don’t think these were half bad inquiries for a 17-year-old boy, especially since 94.7% of 17-year-old boys’ brains are fixated on sex. Unfortunately, I never got to ask them, because when the moderator pointed to me when I raised my hand, a classmate sitting behind me named Miles jumped up, and, in a voice trying to be far more mature than his years, blurted out the following: Hey, man, how can you say that guns shouldn’t be illegal when the whole point of them is to kill people?

When she was good

In retrospect, it isn’t as stupid a question as I’d like to remember it being, but just imagine it being asked in a disaffected voice with a snarling lip and finger pointed at the stage. Miles was Marlon Brando in “The Wild One” without any intelligence, charisma, good looks, or any semi-redeeming feature. Though I had full sympathy for Miles’s point of view, I had nothing but contempt for how he asked it—or really, I was contemptuous that he got to ask his question and I was silenced.

Granted, I guess Miles was par for the course. Teenagers really aren’t particularly bright or mature, and I couldn’t expect my fellow classmates to be Cicero or Clarence Darrow. But the incident eats at me still, 28 years after the fact. I envision it repeatedly, thinking that had I actually gotten to pose my questions and debate the NRA bozo, I would have annihilated him in battle, and won the gun-control debate. Q.E.D.

My recurring desire to relive that moment is much to my discredit, showing my self-centered nature and desire to be the center of attention, no matter how right or wrong I might have been. Which, if you think about it, is really what makes Glenn Beck go, since we have a college dropout convincing much of the nation that he is smarter and knows better than a former editor of the Harvard Law Review, not to mention a gun-totin’ “grizzly momma” who thinks plain ol’ common sense (which those pointy-headed liberals lack) always trumps nuance or pointed inquiry, and that complicated problems don’t require complex solutions.

Before he discovered carbohydrates

People want their voices heard, and would rather have their own ideas validated than challenged; there is comfort in having someone “speak” for you even if it means they have no command of fact or total command of prejudice. Even though Beck and Limbaugh may actually believe the hateful drek they spout, they realize it does their bank account well, and would say it no matter what they actually thought.

That’s actually one reason I write: nobody speaks for me but me, and I have enough ego and not enough humility to believe my ideas actually matter—you don’t have to read between the lines to see the anger in my voice.

And I still want to throttle poor Miles, who I understand now works at the Kerplonsky’s Carpet Discount Warehouse, supervising the guy from the NRA.

Anybody who has taken any fiction workshop will hear the following: no matter how well-written a sentence, paragraph, passage, or chapter might be, if it doesn't fit the larger narrative, it's gotta go.

You may not hear it phrased so brutishly. One may be treated to churlishness masquerading as advice, largely from fellow workshop attendees who are there only to flaunt their literary chops or have praise heaped upon their own work:

The writer fell in love with his own voice. (Said snottily)

If you can't kill your "children," then you really shouldn't be in this line of work. (Said contemptuously).

Don't bore the reader with digressions about fly fishing and the protagonist's ex-lover dentist-soldier of fortune named Dirk. (Actually, I would listen to that one).

I have deleted thousands of unnecessary words in my day, but what's much harder for me is getting rid of ideas. I collect them like a compulsive hoarder, never trashing a single thought, no matter if the bulk of them are threatening to keel over and smother me like Homer and Langley Collier. I used to count how many ideas I had for plots, characters or structure, but I lost count after about 200.

I found the blog titles in my blog's "drafts" queue. Some have a few hundred words already; others, none at all. To my horror, I realized that many of them were about not writing, but complaints about the world's indifference towards poor, poor pitiful me.

Worse, I could not remember what many of them were actually about.

So, because I need your help, here is a sampling of unfinished or not-started blog ideas residing in my drafts folder. The meaning of some are obvious, but what about those with no apparent meaning at all?

Care to take a guess? Yours is as good as mine.  And if you come up with something clever, I will actually blog about it.

"Verbal Ex-Lax"

"Being Good Vs. Being Good"

"Less Matter and More Art"

"Honesty is Not the Best Policy"

"VEX Contents"

"Genre Fiction: A Genre I Can't Write"

"How to Not Hold Yourself Accountable"

"Zadie vs. Zadie"

"Write Right Baby"

"Readers, Friends, and None of the Above"

"The Greatest Band You've Never Heard"

"Writing the Bookfraud Way! (Badly)"

"Twitter THIS"

And, my personal favorite, the meaning of which is lost on me forever:

"Beckett, Yah"

I know it was about Samuel Beckett, but whether it was his about his haircut, wrinkles or something about his writing forever remains a mystery.

If hell is other people, the ninth rung is other students at State U.

Yes, the worst part of attending a large public university is that with a little luck on test day or a couple of good years at a community college, pretty much any village idiot and his cousin could gain admission, as long as they lived in state. Such was the person who lived across from me my freshman year, a community college transfer by the name of Frank who was by no means stupid, but appeared to have been raised by wolves, racists, or racist wolves.

He once made a derogatory remark about a cheapskate to me by referring to him as "such a Jew," then made matters worse by the ignorant scoundrel's first (and worst) defense: "No, it's not an insult. It's just a common usage." Yeah, maybe from under the rock where you were raised, Frank.

He harbored other unpleasant attitudes that might have made him feel at home at a white supremecist rally. And, tellingly, he was a Clint Eastwood fan.

"Fan" does not do it justice; "insanely obsessed" would suffice. And not just your typical Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, but his movies featuring that all-American vigilante bigot "Dirty Harry" Callahan, who had the charming distinction of hating every ethnic group on the planet.

In an era before DVDs and widespread VCRs, Frank had seen every Dirty Harry movie at least 10 times, and could quote them at length. If I heard Frank say "I gots to know" or "Make my day" one more time…well, you have to ask yourself. Did I shoot six times, or…are you lucky, Frank? Are you lucky, punk?

I was thinking about Frank and his ilk after watching "Invictus," a recent movie that Eastwood directed. It tells the true-life story of Nelson Mandella trying to help build South Africa via rugby and the South African national team, the Springboks, winning the rugby World Cup. 

Inspirational stuff, even if you don't believe for a second Matt Damon is Afrikaans or if you weren't completely distracted by the movie's lousy pacing, crummy dialog, and rugby sequences that look like an eighth-grader choreographed them. Actually, it's way, way off the Clint Eastwood ranch, and shows. 

Although a mess, "Invictus" does have the charm of being adamantly anti-Frank, I mean, anti-racist. Both black and white South Africans are taken to task, of a sort, and all eventually end up cheering on the Springboks, the beloved (by Afrikaans) and despised (by blacks) rugby team to the World Cup championship game, in which they defeat the New Zealand All-Blacks, named for the all-black uniform and the irony of which is not lost on anybody with an I.Q. over 50.

Hey Frank, go ahead. Make my day

That would probably include Frank, who, as I mentioned above, was not a complete moron, though when he claimed Richard Nixon was the greatest president of the 20th century, I had to question not only his brains, but sanity. I wonder if Frank, whose last name (thankfully) escapes my memory and may or may not be having a lucrative career as a lawyer, ever saw "Invictus," and what he'd make of it.

Probably, not much, because like most chunkheads like him, he really believed that Clint Eastwood and Dirty Harry were one and the same. Dirty Harry was an important barometer of American cultural stupidity—say what you will about Clint Eastwood, but he has never stuck me as a fool. He knew that Detective Callahan was not the type of dude with whom you'd want to share afternoon tea, much less run the world. I imagine that he would have probably found many of his Frank-like fans personally distasteful, though, much to his discredit, Eastwood kept taking the paychecks.

In fact, if I were to encounter Frank today, I wouldn't bother arguing with his racist, anti-Semitic worldview. It's just not worth the breath. But he was at least worth a blog entry. The first in a month…

I had written this about a week ago, in my pathetic attempts to be "current" and link the current news o' the larger world to perspectives on the smaller literary community I pretend I'm a member of. To wit, I just ended a sentence with "of." And I was too busy to actually publish this when it had more than three iotas of cultural relevance.  Naturally.

It is not without some irony that one of the top Google searches to turn up both "LeBron James" and "Saul Bellow" are a news page with Bellow's obituary coupled with an item regarding James' desire to be a billionaire. 

As Mr. James takes his act from the cold warrens of Cleveland to South Beach, and Cavaliers fans are burning his jersey in effigy, the literary world takes little notice. Perhaps we should, as this episode reminded me of nothing save for Saul Bellow.

You must obviously see the connection.

Mr. Bellow, a Canadian, Quebec-born–Quebec, that not-so-somber province–and who went at things as he taught himself, free-style, and made himself one of the preeminent American novelists of the 20th Century. A genius, author of one of my favorite novels, and a Nobel Prize winner.

Mr. James, an American, Akron-born–that extremely somber city–and who has also gone at things as he taught himself, free-style, and has fashioned himself one of the world's great professional basketball players (though whether that office is one worth occupying is debatable). An amazing athlete, not one of my favorites, and two-time NBA MVP.

See how they're connected, don't you?

OK, let's start from the start. For those of you currently living in a tree or without any connection to the wider world, LeBron James left the Cavaliers to play for something called the Miami "Heat." Any objective reader can see the mistake in this, for while you can envision a Cavalier, a "Heat" is beggars the imagination. How does a "Heat" dribble, pass or shoot? Is it a bonfire with arms? A female dog at that time of the month? A crappy movie?

You can say, "I'm a Celtic" or "I'm a Sooner" or such, but will anyone ever say, "I'm a Heat"? (Or "I'm a Magic," for that matter?)

I'm a Heat! Douse me with a fire extinguisher, damnit!

The opprobrium aside, I could not give a flip about where or for whom anybody chooses to ply his or her profession, and the nation writ large could show show the same passion about for jobs being sent abroad as Clevelanders had for LeBron leaving, perhaps we would still consider Ohio's largest city a bustling metropolis instead of The Mistake on the Lake.

What James did that was less-than-savory, according to people who write about these things, was that he took what should have been a routine (ok, not "routine") job change and turned into a media circus worthy of Lindsey Lohan, except lacking the interesting bits.

To his credit, James was forthright about his narcissism, and apparently did not leave Cleveland because he dislikes the town or that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is located there, while anybody with more than six brain cells knows it should be in Memphis.

Yet Saul Bellow did a similar thing in 1993–he decamped the University of Chicago, his long-time employer and base, for Boston University.

James: Witness this

I remember reading an interview when it all went down. The thing that struck me, and reminded me of this LeBron James foolishness, was that Bellow basically said he was leaving Chicago because it wasn't literary enough. While ostensibly leaving because he was "tired of passing all the houses of my dead friends," he bemoaned the fact people in his adopted hometown did not recognize him: here he was, already a Nobel laureate, and yet when he ventured around Hyde Park to a 7-11 or perhaps to the North Side to hang out at Kingston Mines or Buddy Guy's, people didn't say, "Hey, it's Saul Bellow, the brilliant, amazing, award-winning novelist!" but instead, "What's this old guy doing at a blues club?"

I have written enough times about Saul Bellow to make it obvious that I have a love-hate relationship with him: I love his work but am not the greatest fan of his personal behavior. And I am not in a position to judge anyone's motives for leaving one university employer to another.

But even that he would admit that he was miffed that he wasn't famous enough in Chicago was jolting. It just shows that no matter how brilliant of mind an artist may be, it offers no protection against rot of the soul. Not that I would know about being brilliant.

If you can tell me why my normal theme isn't loading and how to fix it, and tell me why this   seems to be permanently pasted to the left of my header, not only will you win my eternal gratitude, but also a cash prize that will allow you to feed yourself and one person at Popeye's. Value meals only..

Just think about all that fried chicken goodness…

Please, I'm dying here.

I knew there was a problem when I couldn't read. 

It was not a matter of recognizing letters, making them words, and stringing them into sentences. That I could do just fine. But a certain book, "The Boat," a collection of short stories by Nam Le, threw me into a funk so unfortunate that I, like Will Barrett in "The Second Coming," might as well have fallen into a sand trap off the 15th green and not understood why.

Or maybe it was more like Binx Bolling, the protagonist of Percy's justly famous "The Moviegoer," a man who can only find emotional connection in films or wandering around New Orleans. That's what's happened to me–I seem to have lost the ability to emote save for a few precious things, like movies, or certain books, or my family. So now I'm living in a Walker Percy novel.

There was something about "The Boat" that threw me into immediate despair after reading just a couple of pages, a deep, existential funk Sarte or Kierkegaard would have been proud to have emoted. It was not Le's lyricism or penetrating insight into the human condition that made me shed tears of nihilism inside my soul. To be prosaic about it, the fact Le is talented, young, and actually writing fiction dropped me into a spiral of self-loathing from which sex or drugs or any of the pleasures of the flesh could not be the most addictive of lifelines.

Fortunately, instead I started reading "Revolutionary Road," a novel painfully beautiful on its surface and so corrosive that the pages seem to shed acid. Of course, this immediately lifted my spirits and made me want to write once again. Its author, Richard Yates, writes sentences so immaculate that they could double as English gardens, yet the protagonists, Frank and April Wheeler, are in such an awful state of existence they really could be…in a Walker Percy novel, if they were Catholic, Southern, unable to love or even express emotions.

And you thought your life sucked

So to recap: about three pages into a book by a successful writer turns me into a semi-suicidal mess while a novel by a successful writer turns me back into a writer.

The difference, besides tone, subject matter, and ethnic background of the writers is that Nam Le is alive, while Richard Yates shuffled off this mortal coil about, oh, 30 years ago.

Yes, it's come to whether or not a writer is alive if I'm jealous of him or her. Also, reading writers who are among the living (and, to be fair, only under 40 years old), makes me a nauseated mess of nerve endings ready for a quick hibernation to the psych ward.

Know what I mean?

I had a terrible dream about attending a summer writers' conference, which I've been contemplating doing again. After last night, now I'm not so enthusiastic.

In the dream, I walked into a workshop, and the teacher, a paunchy fellow in his mid-forties with a goatee, looked around the room, and without as much introducing himself, said the following:

Before we start, let's get a few things straight. First of all, I'm not going to be your buddy, I'm not going to hang out with you, and most of all, I'm not going to help your whale-turd of a novel get published—I only have so much of that kind of capital with my agent and publisher, and I'm not going to waste it by submitting to them your cruddy book.

So don't come to me with your manuscripts, because I'm throwing them away as soon as you're out the door. If I do read them, it's for my own amusement. With the emphasis on "amuse."

That leads into my next point. About 98 percent of you are not, I repeat, not going to publish your novel. About the same number of you are not going to publish a collection of stories or have a play produced. Why? Because there's thousands and thousands of more talented people ahead of you in line, with better books, better agents, and more marketing synergy.

Somehow, I feel like I've seen this before

Yes, you heard me, marketing synergy. If you think publishing is unlike any other business, you've been watching too many reruns of "Fantasy Island." If you're well-known already, you've just increased your chances exponentially of getting your book published. What, do you think celebrities can write more than their own name on a contract? Do you think Madonnna or Ethan Hawke or Bill O'Reilly would have gotten published if they weren't on television and in films?

But let's just say—oh, for the hell of it—let's just say that you do manage to get your novel published. And, for the sake of argument, let's say it's a brilliant book, though if you had that much talent, I promise you wouldn't be begging the likes of me for help. Are you delusional enough to think you can make a career out of it?

Look at me—I've published collections of stories and a novel, all to great acclaim. Yet I'm still teaching at Northwest Bubba State Tech, pulling down a massive $35,000 a year and no tenure ahead. Why do you think I'm teaching here this summer? Because some of you will throw yourselves at me for some easy sex? I get plenty of that from undergraduates who think that bedding this hairy, corpulent body will increase their self-esteem or make it as a writer. It's because they're throwing a few grand my way to stand here and bloviate about the meaning of the writer's life.

I mean, if you've taken a week off of work to come here, or if you're a housefrau working on your sixth unpublished book, you've really just wasted your time. Of course your husband or wife wanted you to spend a week here, because that's a week they get to spend unfettered with their girlfriend or boyfriend.

Do not try this at home

So, if you're smart, you'll just sit back, relax, and listen to me say puffed up shite about writers I like, which means you'll get to hear me reading from my collection (which I highly recommend you go out and buy; don't worry, I've got copies in my briefcase now I'll sell you for $5—less than the remaindering pile you'll usually find them).

Maybe you're here for practical writing advice. Just don't worry. I'll dispense lots of gems you could read about in any decent writing book.  "Never start a story with dialog" or "Never describe a lesbian sex scene 'lezzin' out.'" 

But I will say one thing, right now, an ironclad rule you must never, ever, ever use dream sequences. Not in your novel, short story or even your blog. Especially your fuck-ass, suck-ass "blog," Bookfraud!

And then when I woke up.

I remember once, a long time ago, sitting in a library and thumbing through a first-person expose of the medical profession, written in the late 1950s. The author apparently had done some pretty scummy things, and so "Dr. X" wrote anonymously. So when I say "Dr. X" was the name of the author, it was literally "by Dr. X."

Dr. X posed on the cover wearing scrubs and a hood, back to the camera. The not-so-good doctor was not about to be outed for his sins.

Fast forward about 60 years to 2010, when an excerpt of a memoir, "Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man,"*  appears online. If the catty comments are to be believed, the last thing the reading public wants is yet another memoir of a white, upper-class addict. But there it is. 

The excerpt left me less-than-interested, not because it was poorly written, that I lacked sympathy for the writer, or even because I never wondered what a literary agent goes through when he trades his life for some crack (though I always felt my former one had done something similar). The problem is that I feel like I already know what it's like to be a crack addict — because it's been written a million times over already.

It used to be chronicling tawdry excess was not only shocking, but gave a first-person view of a world many of us would rather read about than witness. 

But we have seen the bazillion and one memoirs of addiction, be it addiction to booze, coke, heroin, crack, meth, painkillers, gambling, or sex. We have seen those that are fake or horribly narcissistic (then again, what memoir isn't?), and even those that actually have a greater purpose than mere solipsism. Though any memoir may be superior than those that walked before it, the ground has been covered by a million little semis filled with wet cement.

That the usual compulsive behaviors haven't stopped the memoir industry, which publishers happily embrace as the reading public can't get enough of it. So since running out of topics about the usual compulsive behaviors, there memoirs about addiction insomnia, or to sexual acts depicted in movies with titles such as "Butt Sluts Go Nuts (Vols. 1-34)." 

Dr. X's masterwork did not detail an unquenchable lust for morphine or golf, but was unflinching in its honesty. Today, that won't cut it. As one critic put it, "Candor is surely too epidemic in the popular culture, these days, to qualify any longer as courageous." 

Instead, there are two constants in addiction memoirs: 

1. The author must describe his or her spiral to the bottom, in gory, graphic detail.

2. The author must describe his or her recovery, in gory, graphic detail.

And for this, you get a book contract

The latter condition is important because, face it, if there wasn't a recovery, there wasn't gonna be a book. When was the last time you read a memoir of an addict in the midst of his illness? Who just ain't gonna make it? Probably never (Amy Winehouse or Linsey Lohan, here's your chance!). One senses recovering addicts write their memoirs because it's part of their recovery. 

What all this means, as a writer, is that no longer is it important to say something new or repeat old verities in an interesting manner. Because, once you get past the details, every addiction memoir is pretty much like all the rest: bad childhood, turn to drugs, ruin one's life, recover, write.

I wonder what Bill Wilson would think of all this. A taciturn New Englander and the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, "Bill W." viewed recovery as being uncompromisingly honest in examining one's motives. He would have appreciated that all these crack or heroin or booger-eating addicts got help, but I am sure he would have cast a gimlet eye upon their motivations.

Why did they really need to share their tales of debauchery in print–with their faces plastered on the cover–instead of simply in a roomful of fellow addicts puffing Camel Lights and throwing down black coffee?

Winehouse: words cannot do justice

I think he would hit upon the reason quite quickly: yet another compulsive behavior, the need to write and be noticed. Which, let's face it, is the reason why any of us wretches are doing this writing thing, anyway. At least me.

*Weird coincidence: the person writing the memoir is a literary agent who once contacted Wife, not long before the events described took place. Small world.

The greatest television theme song and opening credits sequence has been ruined–ruined!–with the following remake, to match the new version of the show:

Compare that processed, digitized, lump o' donkey dung to the awesome, kick-ass perfection of the original:

Book 'em, Danno, for murdering the most totally awesome TV music ever.

It's fucking Hawaii Five-0, goddamnit!  The theme song has to kick ass! The new tune makes it sound like CSI: Honolulu.

Now excuse me while I watch another part of my childhood crawl off to die.

There comes a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance, that imitation is suicide, that he must take himself for better, or for worse as his portion. And that "Ni hao kai lan" is the most goddamn awful thing ever in the history of children’s television.

It is the very definition of "animated excrement." Worse than the Mr T. cartoon show. Worse than "Hong Kong Phooey." Even worse than "Wonder Pets."

If China does surpass the United States economically, militarily, or culturally, it won’t be for the obvious reasons. It won’t be the trillions in debt we’re in hock to the Chinese government, China’s increasing nationalism, or a stupid, Glen Beck-esque plot to infuse the kung pao chicken at Mr. Wong’s takeout with enough MSG to kill the entire cast and crew of "The Biggest Loser."

No, it will be "Ni hao Kai lan."

Little Boy is obsessed with this seemingly innocuous show, which features a little Chinese girl named Kai lan and her friends prancing across the countryside. Her friends are a tiger, panda bear, monkey, pink rhino and other assorted cute ‘ums that make me want to take up big game hunting.

Their names are, Rintoo, Tolee, Hoho, and Lulu, respectively. That I know their names without having to consult Wikipedia or Little Boy himself scares the living crap out of me.

Before anyone starts accusing me of being racist or trying to poison Sino-American relations, I realize nobody in China actually knows about this show, or is using it as a means to destroy America (we’re doing a great job of that on our own). I also realize that there’s nothing about a show with Chinese characters that inherently is intended to turn little children anti-American (that’s for The New York Times, damnit!).

But in this global market, children watching "Ni hao" become stifled, uncreative, non-competitive robots. They are junkies, unable to tear themselves away for more productive endeavors, like, say, reading. For evidence of this, see below:

The decline of America in 52 seconds

Is your average three-year-old in China or India watching this drek? I think not! They’re translating the "Decameron" from Italian into Esperanto into Sanskrit! They’re doing differential calculus! They’re reading "Bookfraud"!

"Ni hao" is a traditional greeting in Mandarin, and one must hear it repeated approximately 8,403 times an episode. Not to mention hearing the same songs with the same lyrics and same cloying cuteness that would make Hello Kitty herself toss her Tender Vittles.

Also—and worst of all—little ol’ Kai lan says the exact same thing to close every single episode: "You make my heart feel super happy!" as she cups a heart shape around her chest and a giant valentine floats into the air.

Feel free to get sick yourself.

Children of all ethnicities (and both genders) are fanatical about "Ni hao Kai lan." This is about as welcome a development as when Barney the Dinosaur crawled out of his prehistoric time machine and into the hearts of millions of now-mentally disturbed children.

One knows that that Kai lan has cultural currency (among parents of young children, at least) when Anthony Bordain referenced it in his "No Reservations" television show, telling a befuddled Chinese guide in a restaurant how the dumplings resembled those featured in an episode of Kai lan when Hoho urinated on Tolee’s face or something like that.

Of course, my missive in the great tradition of fathers slamming some part of their children’s youth.  In my youth, more than one parent probably thought "Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood" was vile, and "Fat Albert" represented a problem as pressing as Watergate or SALT II talks. And I realize that I come across as a major league asshole curmudgeon in complaining.

But, yes, like Barney before it, "Ni hao Kai lan" is less about teaching our children valuable lessons about life than being as addictive as heroin or crack; turn "Ni hao" off in the middle of an episoide, and Little Boy turns into Raging Maniac. It’s twice as bad when he doesn’t get to see, say, five episodes in a row.

Consider that after visiting Chinatown of a certain city, Little Boy started wailing. And why?

Banality of evil

"Because I didn’t get to see Kai lan," he said, tears running down his face. Even I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

Then again, perhaps I’m wrong. He’s always thrilled to see it. There’s no sex or violence. We don’t have to hear about Justin Bieber. 

"Why do you like Kai lan so much?" I finally asked him, threatening to shut the show off forevermore.

"Because she’s happy!" he said, literally jumping off the couch.

I put the remote down, marveling at the purity of his joy.

Boy wins, Dad loses. Again.

This blog entry is about me, or the lack of me, or the unfathomable reasons that I have not existed the past six months–Bookfraud, the blogger, not Me, the Man Behind Bookfraud Who Wants to Believe He Looks Like and Gets as Much Action as George Clooney But Looks and Acts Closer to Richard Dawson After a 72-Hour Bender.

It starts like this: When I think of something being "perfect," in the Platonic sense of the word, in that representation is the enemy of the real, in that nothing that can be written, sung, painted, or performed on stage can ever match the Form in which it imperfectly represents, I think of Bach and Glenn Gould.

(Stick with me here.)

I am of limited intellectual capacity and lesser patience, but if a recording of Glenn Gould playing "The Goldberg Variations" was playing in a car, and that car was speeding at 100 miles per hour about to run off a cliff, and if you were to drop me in the driver’s seat, the car would surely dive over the cliff unimpeded because I was thus transfixed. My favorite composer is Beethoven, my favorite pianist is probably Vladimir Horowitz, my favorite rock singer probably Joey Ramone, but if I had to pick one recording that puts me into a state of hypnosis, it’s Glenn Gould playing Bach.  

Now, the last time I wrote regularly in this space, I had a different job, lived in a different city, did not suffer from pestilence or pain. And when I actually wrote in this space at all–that being in August–Tiger Woods was still known as a golfer, when Jay and Conan were still friendly, the Supreme Court had not officially put plutocrats in charge of the United States, and we associated Haiti with a simply terrible history, overwhelming poverty, and helplessness.

For this golfer, perfection no longer entails making a hole in one

I consider those (relatively) stress-free days of 2008 in which I would check four or five blogs each day, usually at the office, without fear of prying eyes or corporate overlords, the latter of which was spending most of its time trying to figure out how avoid government indictments which I can happy testify was not on account of my actions.

No, looking back, I can see when the decent into non-blogging began: when I got laid off last year. I didn’t succumb to depression, nor did I lack subject material or desire, but it was time, that evil crook, which took everything away from me. That, and perennial, pathetic exhaustion.

After our fun-filled trek across this great nation of ours to relocate for a new job, I find myself somewhat settled in. My job keeps me busy, not that I’m complaining, and I am dutifully going to the pool to stave off the knee implants at least until age 60. Totster is entering daycare, Wife is complaining about my fill-in-the-blank fuckup but just every other day, and I have grown bored with surfing the Web for scantily clad ladies. Or naked ones, for that matter.

You talkin’ to me?

What has been hampering me–nay, crippling me–has been this nagging sense of imperfection in all of my deeds. I sit down, intending to write or blog or tap out a sentence of some coherence, and nothing happens. Call it what you like: writer’s block, primal fear, general neurosis, knowing that my words will lack meaning or the likelihood that I will be overwhelmingly imperfect  (see Plato, Glenn Gould).

The best advice I ever got (and the only advice I remember from graduate school) was from a fellow scribe, who said in response to a mediocre story, "You can’t be afraid to suck." And that’s been me–scared to suck.

So here I sit, doing what is the last refuge of writing scoundrels in our Internet age: blogging about blogging.

I promise to all of you to get off my proverbial ass and animate the being once known as the blogger "Bookfraud" once again.

Fortunately, I doubt anybody will bother to read the entire thing. Here’s to negativism!

And here’s the truth about writing, by a non-writer.

Oh fatal ambition!

This is what happens when you decide to better yourself following that pleasantly boring interregnum called "unemployment," get a job and move cross country. You drop off the face of the Internet for several months, lose Internet service altogether, lose the four readers of your blog, and lose contact with the rest of the world.

Right now, our new apartment is a disaster. Little Boy (formerly “Baby” and “Baby-Tot”) insists he lives in his previous city and demands to visit the playgrounds of our former home. Wife is running around like a madwoman and I’m not far behind. I may turn into a woman at this rate.

So, in order to pretend that I still have a “blog” and that I’m a “writer,” I’m posting this “down n’ dirty” entry for now.  Thus I bring you…

Five Hard-Earned Lessons Learned From My Moving Trip

1. If one must attache suitcases to the roof of the rental car, make sure that they are firmly tied down so they don’t fly off on to the Interstate, making Wife nearly have a breakdown, almost causing an accident, forcing the assistance of two state troopers with crewcuts and dour demeanors, and causing you to find the nearest post office where you must mail your suitcase to your new home. Yes, you really can mail a suitcase.

2. Little Boy, now two years old (Now Two! Now Able to Answer "No!" to Everything!), does not like sleeping in hotel rooms with his parents and makes his displeasure known through not sleeping. And making copious noise punctuated by tears.

In addition, the $3.18 Disney TV show (about a talking bear who can drive a car but needs help to learn how to brush his teeth) one orders in the hotel room to pacify Little Boy will only make him go insane with lust for more craptastic $3.18 Disney TV shows and make him cry all evening in withdrawal.

3. DSL is one of the worst technical innovations of the last 400 years and should be put out of its misery with an extremely large-caliber weapon. Also, I cannot think of a suitable acronym for what DSL should stand for, though “Dong Sucking Lousiness” or “Defintely Shitty Linkage” come to mind.

4. Bad moving companies are very, very bad, but good ones are very, very good. We were lucky to have the latter. (Added so you don’t think everything was awful.)

5. No matter how many boxes you’ve opened, there’s more to follow.

If only I could say the same about my blog entries.

My new best friend

Recently seen on the citizens review board of Amazon.com, regarding three different volumes:

The popularity of this book stupifies me—do people like it because they think they are supposed to?

This book was a peice [sic] o’… you know and wasn’t worth the time or effort to read.

Classic or not, I don’t care for this book.

These reviews are for major, major bestsellers, and so perhaps you were thinking they refered to the latest Tom Clancy, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, or Harold Robbins, even though the old cokehead died a few years ago.

But no. These (real) reviews are for Goodnight Moon, Harold and the Purple Crayon, and Babar, respectively. Yes, classic children’s books. These reviewer-parents say the books are of inferior literary quality and are not appropriate for our nation’s youth—I kid you not.

Things only get better from there. Curious George is panned because it promotes cruelty to animals. Other experts slam The Very Hungry Caterpillar because it teaches children to overeat and telling kids that butterflies emerge from cocoons (as opposed to moths) teaches bad science.

Worst of all, my all-time favorite children’s book is taken to the woodshed because it 1) promotes anarchy; 2) will scare children because animals in the book talk and are human-sized; and 3) isn’t about promoting imagination or literacy but is instead a subtle examination of id versus superego and the dynamism of the ego.

I’m sure you realize I’m talking about The Cat in the Hat.

I chanced upon this gems of critical insight after searching for a training potty for Baby-Tot, being that he keeps saying things like "made a poo-poo" and "I’ve got a wee-wee! I’ve got a wee-wee!" Modern parent and writer that I am, I also bought several "how-to" books on helping kids learn how to take a proper dump, and ultimately landed upon the reviews mentioned above. 

What is perhaps more odd than the reviews themselves—hating Dr. Seuss is like hating ice cream—is why anyone would bother. Does one really think their review will stop people from buying (and their children loving) Cars and Trucks and Things That Go? In my earlier, feckless days of youth (I was in my mid-thirties), I would post an occasional review on Amazon, mostly of music and movies. I once slammed a well-known music album that I likened to the vomitus that emerges after doing battle with a bad batch of raw seafood.

This is your id on drugs

Why did I embark on this endeavor of nastiness, full well knowing that it would not make one iota of difference in the greater artistic consciousness of the world? I can’t say for sure, but I remember feeling a distinct sense of self-righteousness when considering the work in question: These people love a total piece of donkey dung! They are deluded! They are wrong! I am right!  But at least I had reasons for these (admittedly) juvenile criticisms.

The beauty of the Internet is that it gives a voice to all, and the horror of the Internet is that it gives a voice to all. You don’t have to go farther than the comments section of most news Web sites to see the bile; if you really want to feel the hate, go to a sports Web site, scroll the comments section, and see why fans of a certain sports team are inherently inferior to fans of a competing sports team based on the fact the former fans were born in Chicago and the latter in St. Louis.

I carry no brief against the amateur critic, but when some nimrod weighs in and slams, say Great Expectations ("The fool author made it up as he went along") or One Hundred Years of Solitude ("Don’t waste your time or money"), it brings the death of literary fiction that much closer. These claims are in the minority, of course, but that somebody felt their empty thoughts were even worth writing down shows some serious hostility to some of the greatest works of literature, like, ever.

That was exquisitely awful

This is not a grad student expounding on a blog or a well-read civilian actually having insights into the book in question. This is like Rush Limbaugh saying waterboarding is not torture or Wall Street bankers don’t earn enough. Or, more to the point, this is just like Rush Limbaugh.

So if you don’t have anything intelligent to say, just shut the fuck up. Which I really, really wish I could make happen to Rush Limbaugh.

Bookfraud, I miss you. Blog again please!

When the lovely and fetching (and brilliant) Voix asks me to blog, how can I say no? Even if she wrote this, like, six months ago.

There’s some good reasons I haven’t  blogged, and some not-so-good ones as well, and I will dispense of the latter before getting to the good stuff.

Bad reasons for not blogging: I haven’t blogged because the Cubs are the Cubs, because I’m still mad about Bernie Madoff, because I’m being disappointed in advance for President Obama, because Republicans still suck ass, because I’m really unhappy with my keyboard, and, finally, I haven’t blogged because a Irish wolfhound looked me in the face and told me if I ever blogged again, he would have to kill me.

Real reason for not blogging: For the first time in my life, I have a Blackberry.

This came with my new job, which I was fortunate enough to land in February and start full-time in March. I will not go into more detail about it save to say it is an excellent position, they’re working me harder than a Marine grunt in basic training, and I’m grateful to be working, as grateful a man who has regained the ability to walk.

So there’s that. Also, we have to move 800 miles away in July as part of my new employment. "We" being me, Wife, and Baby-Tot (ne Baby). We were in my new city of employment a couple of weeks ago and signed a lease for an apartment, thus "sealing" "the deal." 

(Anybody in the market for an overpriced, underloved, and never-will-be-purchased-in-time place to live? Mention Bookfraud.com to the realtor and I’ll give you a 3 percent discount. That’s three-fucking-percent! Off a place nobody is ever going to buy!

My vote for Obama is paying off already!)

Also, my mother was visiting us in April, took a spill and her temple introduced itself to the sidewalk, ended up going to the ER, got stitches, had trouble breathing later that night, went back to the hospital at 2 a.m. in an ambulance that got lost, got a buttload of chest scans, found out that she had pneumonia, and ended up extending her stay a week. A week in an out-of-town hospital, in isolation, no less.

(Did I ever mention that pneumonia was what felled my father? You might imagine I had a little stress no-sleep thing going there.)

After I started my new job—I’m really grateful to have it, did I mention that?—I became just a mite scared of blogging, if only of my new bosses discovering it. (Why they would suddenly discover it is beyond me, but I still had the fear.) Also, a minor point: I’ve been working nights, weekends, and sections of the morning marked by hours lower than "6."

Waldman: Loves Michael Chabon this much

And if it was not just my inability to find the hours to sleep, not to mention blog, I was about as active in the blogosphere overall as Ayelet Waldman is withdrawn and sane, which is to say, not at all.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take, honestly. If I loved Wife more than Baby-Tot, like a certain writer currently in the news, then I guess I could put the little bugger up for adoption, which would have the copasetic effect of giving me time to shower, cut down on the number of communicable diseases I contract, and save expontentially on the food bill. But when I entertain such ideas, Baby-Tot will do something like say "Delicious!" when eating dinner, will ask to hear Yo-Yo Ma, or runs up and gives me a hug, his arms wrapped around my knees.

Plan B it is, then. Baby-Tot will stay.

Maybe I’ll write something in another week, or another six months, or something. Don’t stay up for me.

There it goes again.

The blight known as Facebook has now foisted upon us the "25 Random Things" chain letter, in which people post 25 random factoids about themselves, and tag other Facebook friends to do the same. That bloggers have been doing this type of thing for the last five years appears not to have impeded the popularity of of "25 Random Things."

Being that a) I was tagged,  b) I try to avoid Facebook like light beer and Republicans, and c) I think everyone is getting sick of this, I post my own list, all things that are bad, humiliating, or have other negative connotations. Except for two, one of which involves the greatest TV theme song ever played.

25 RANDOM THINGS ABOUT ME (ALL TRUE) YOU WOULD JUST AS RATHER NOT KNOW

1. The first time I got high, I urinated on something, but I can’t remember what it was.

2. I used to listen to Simon & Garfunkle’s "Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine" on my parent’s turntable and imagine I was on television singing it, dancing and gesticulating to my imagined, adoring life studio audience.  I continued this behavior from age eight until sometime last year. 

3. I’ve gotten in three car accidents, but only two were my fault, and one was when I was 18, so it doesn’t count.

4. My sister made fun of my lousy efforts me during my quixotic quest to be a soccer goalie in high school. In anger, I threw a piece of chicken at her. Like most of my athletic endeavors, it missed the mark.

5. The closest I’ve come to dying, metaphorically speaking, was when a friend and I were driving to a basketball game in high school when a cop pulled us over—my friend was about to light up a joint in the car. The cop, enraged we did not stop immediately, searched the car, padded me down, and gave me three tickets. He didn’t find my friend’s pot. But I saw my life crumbling before my eyes.

6. When I was a teenager, I was a total loser when it came to asking girls out on dates.

7. When I became an adult, I remained a total loser when it came to asking women out on dates.

8. Codicil to #6: Masturbation.

9. Codicil to #7: Masturbation.

10. The number of inappropriate women I’ve slept with far exceeds the number who were actually appropriate. If you’re reading this, and I’ve had sex with you, that means you were definitely appropriate.

11. Once, when The Who were on tour back in the 1980s, they tried to make a stop in a city I was living, but the only night they could play, Billy Joel had booked a concert at the only suitable arena. Joel, who could have moved his concert a day, refused, making 12,000+ wieners happy in the metropolitan area. So if you think Billy Joel is better than The Who, I can’t be friends with you, and I think you suck.

Joel: don’t get me started

12. I have urinated on the basin of my toilet in order to clean it. Try it some time—the remove the blackish buildup from three months of not cleaning, aim right for the heart of the stain.

13. You’ve entered middle age when you have to trim your ear hair. Not that I would know.

14. Next to deaths in my family, the worst two days of my life was when I was eight and my puppy ran away. I cried non-stop over a weekend. I’ll never forget opening the front door and seeing a person in the neighborhood holding my dog. That was probably the happiest moment of my life. The following year, she had puppies, and she lived another 16 years.

15. If you try to tell me about the superiority of cats to dogs, not only will I question your judgment, but your sanity.

16. Jobs that I’ve had include: horse-carriage driver, costumed pizza parlor mascot, pizza delivery driver, McDonald’s indentured servant, camp counsellor, civil servant, cafeteria worker, window washer, hospital policy manual writer, the guy who tries to sell you an apartment when you walk into the front office, pseudo-software writer (fired), twice a busboy for a day (fired from first place, didn’t show up for my second day of work at the latter), survey taker, and temp office worker (I tested out at 90 wpm). Amazingly, none of the jobs panned out as a career.

17. I would tell you the time I was most humiliated, but there are far too many candidates to choose from.

18. There are people in my extended family I don’t like very much. You know who you are, except that I don’t talk to you and you don’t know Bookfraud exists.

19. I have nicknames for bowel movements, including Thunderdump; All-Star Crapathon; Human Shitstorm; Laying a Lincoln Log; Tossing the Whole Bakery, not Just a Loaf.

My favorite, however, has a literary pedigree: Turdgantua.

20. My formula for life: (Times Having Sex*Number of Partners²)+Money When You Die+Number of Children Who Don’t Hate You⁵/(Number of Major Disappointments Involving Women, Money and Publishing+Hospital Visits³)+(Years in Therapy*Money Spent on Therapy). If your number is > 1 when you die, you’ve had a successful life.

21. I watched so much television growing up that I knew each night’s network schedule. As a result, I do not speak a foreign language, play an instrument, cook,mountain climb or participate in any activity that entails paying any attention for more than 15 seconds. However, I know what "Book ‘em, Danno" means. 

Also, I will say without equivocation: the theme song and title credits from "Hawaii Five-0" are the greatest in television history. I mean, that song totally kicks ass. And the tracking shot when they zoom in on Jack Lord at light speed is totally badass. Totally.

I will look for any excuse whatsoever to run this

22. One of my grandmothers was a country Baptist girl who got a nursing degree and made something out of herself. But I was sometimes ashamed of her, and didn’t want her around my friends out of fear she’d say something embarrassing. 

23. I have visited blogs because the subject was sexual. I’ve visited porn sites for the same reason, believe it or not.

24. On more than one occasion, I have reduced someone to tears.

25. All of the above.

Please sir. I want some more.

More? You want more?

Yes, sir.

Ah…just what the hell are you doing here, anyway? Wearin' that fancy suit 'n piece a' silk 'ya neck?

Oh, that. I got my ass fired from the place where I worked for over a decade.

Blimey, I understand. It's just that we don't get too many older 'uns from the 21st Century here. 'Specially those who sound like they come over from the colonies.

The United States hasn't been a colony of England for over 200 years. And I don't understand the dynamics of the space-time continuum myself.

What the 'ell are you talkin' about?

Oh, I meant, "I don't understand the dynamics of the space-time continuum meeself, sir."

That's better, laddie. Oliver Twist, it is?

I've been called worse. Of course, I'm not a fictional character or metaphor for a street urchin.

Stop talkin' in ya' fancy-pants Cambridge talk! Get the feck out of here, you slimy Yank!

Just can I have something to eat? It will serve as a metaphor for feeding my hunger for approval, now that I've been unemployed for several months.

Off with 'ya, I say!

A week later…

You sure have a funny way about you. What's with all the fucked-up dance moves?

Why, I'm the Artful Dodger.

I hate the Dodgers. They swept the Cubs in the playoffs. Get the fuck out of my face.

What? I'm gonna teach you the ways of the streets, m'boy.

Do I look like I need your help?

As a 'atter of fact, you look a bit downtrodden. There's a stain on your scarf.

What is it with you people and ties? And that stain is soup. From the orphanage. But I'm not an orphan. I'm Bookfraud, 21st Century Writer and victim of the financial malaise gripping the world.

Financial crisis, you say? Why, I know just the bloke to help 'ya! He's a Jew!

Guinness as Obi-Yid Kenobi

Don't tell me—his name is Fagan, he has an enormous schnozz, and he makes Shylock look like Jesus.

Egads, the man reads minds! How ya' know?

I was an English major, what else?

Upstairs in a hidden attic, the Artful Dodger leads Bookfraud to a dark corner where a deformed old man with a nose the size of Queen Victoria's left buttock is counting his money.

Stay back, I say! Stay in the light where I can see ya!

Uh, OK. How come I have a feeling I already know you?

Shat up, ya' pathetic ragamuffin!

I'm 44-years old. Do I look like a "ragamuffin"?

Well, blimey, you are a bit on the old side to be doing this type of work.

I don't steal stuff, if that's what you're talking about. Even if I wanted to pick pockets for you, I've got the manual dexterity of an office chair.

What?

Just forget it, old man. I'm not going to steal for you. I'm a writer and I'm looking for a job.

A writer? No wonder 'ya don't 'ave a job! Nobody knows how to read, everyone knows that. And if you did read, why do you need to hire someone to write for 'ya? It's bloody stupid, I say.

I guess things were the same in the 1850s as in 2009.

You do look like you shouldn't be here. What you same your name was?

Bookfraud—it's a pseudonym.

You do fraud on books? You'll fit just nicely 'round here, just nicely!

No, I—

You a regular 'ookkeeper with a crooked streak to ya? We could make so much more with you 'round.

No, no, I chose the name because…oh, never mind. Let's just say I'm not a crooked bookeeper…crooked bookkeeping…why does that ring a…hey—now I recognize you!

Oh, don't tell me you're with the police? I never done nothing illegal in my life!

You're supposed to be Fagan, Dickens' anti-Semitic character in Oliver Twist!

What are you talkin' about? I don't know any Dickens, but me name is Fagan—

You're not Fagan! You're Bernie Madoff! Shit! You've done more to set back Jews than anyone since Barry Manilow! I hate you! You're the reason I'm going to reattach my foreskin!

Off with 'ya! Get out of my attick, you non-interest-paying traitor!

With pleasure! I hate you, Madoff! You've given anti-Semites around the world more reason to hate me! They hate me even more than I hate me! Thanks a lot, you fucking wanker!

Bernie sucks

Why, you…people gave me their money, you buffoon! I only took from other Jews! They were just too stupid to question the returns—

Shut the fuck up! I'm outta here. But I have one question.

An' what might that be?

Can you get me Victoria Beckham's autograph?

I like football as much as the next guy—probably more than the average fan, in fact. I covered my college team for the school newspaper, and still follow them with some fervor. And, being that my best friend in high school’s father worked for the Chicago Bears, I got tickets to games and other assorted ephermera (on which I will elaborate later).

Walter Payton, the late, great Bears running back, is one of my few true sports heroes. I can name the starting lineup of the 1985 Bears, which was one of the greatest NFL teams ever. Some of my fondest memories have to do with football.

So it is not the game of professional football I hold a brief. It is the SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today’s SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! leaves me flat, unmoved, uncaring. For it is no longer a football game, no longer a bunch of oversized men headed for multiple joint replacements slamming into each other. It is our own secular holiday. It is the most-watched, most-advertised event in the United States, making the ratings for Obama’s election and inauguration look like a 3 a.m. weight-loss infomercial.

It is a the source of parties, celebration, sorrow.

It is the pinnacle of human achievement.

It is the SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

say it again, with feeling:

SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(I have a specific image in mind for this. A muscled, bare-chested man, arms raised to the sky, beseeching the gods to grant the SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to mortals. Kind of like Achilles’ screaming at Zeus, or me screaming at my computer when eats a document, minus the muscles and bare chest .)

Now, this is not to judge those of you attending pre-game parties, watching the game for the commercials, football fans interested in the game, or if you are actually a Pittsburgh or Arizona fan. Nor any of you to watch the post-modern "bowl within a bowl" like Bud Bowl, Lingerie Bowl, Puppy Bowl, or Heroin Bowl. Have fun, get drunk, don’t make a pass at your boss’s wife.

That kind of minor innocence is lost on the legion of sportswriters, TV "analysts," programming executives, and any other person with a stake in promoting damn thing. There have been millions of words spilled about the game, both in print and television, micro-analyzing something worth about 10 minutes of pregame.

For it is then it morphs from merely a big game to SUPER BOWL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hype isn’t even the right word for it: deification is more like it.

If you ever think that some people do not take this seriously, I submit to you the following:

I don’t know what is worse: this fan’s bathetic response to the collapse of his beloved Giants, or his unfortunate resemblance to Jonah Hill.

OK, OK, enough of the post-modernist, pseudo-intellectual, uninteresting blather. Here’s the real reason I’m writing this: Pat Summerall, and an incident that illustrates this hot, overhyped mess much better than my hot, overhyped hyperventilating.

For those of you too young or unlikely to have seen Summerall, he is an ex-player who was an NFL sports announcer for CBS and FOX for years, having reached some modicum of fame, particularly with his work with John Madden. Summerall was known for his laconic, terse delivery: "Montana drops back in the pocket…to Rice…touchdown 49ers." He had the type of voice that lent itself to this kind of thing, and was actually quite good at it.

In any case, because of my best friend’s father, I was able to attend the NFC Championship game the year of the glorious ’85 Bears. As part of the package, I got to attend an NFL party the evening before. It was quite the swank affair, with a band, open bar, ice sculptures. Impressive to a college kid like myself.

Among the luminaries attending the party were Pete Rozell, the NFL commissioner, Madden, and Summerall, who would call the game the next afternoon. It was January in Chicago, and the forecast for the next day’s game was well below freezing. But Summerall was dressed like his name dictated the weather: lemon khakis, a white buttondown shirt with open collar, and a cream sportsjacket with thick green tartan stripes. It was as if he were stuck in 1974, about to step on a plane to Bermuda.

I approached Summerall, thinking, what the hell, this guy’s famous, he’s by himself, why not chat him up? Standing alone, Summerall was holding a drink of an amber hue and staring at the scene between sips. I introduced myself, and said I was the guest of B_____. Summerall glanced at me, nodding slightly, saying nothing. My friend’s father had been a sportswriter in a prior life, and I said I was thinking about becoming one professionally as well. I said that B_______ was kind of a role model.

Summerall: You too

This seemed to stir Summerall, for he looked at me with heroic intent. There was no gleam in his eye, nothing but stoic earnestness. He then turned away and stared into the distance. 

"If you follow B_______’s footsteps," he said, "you too will be a champion."

And then he walked away to refresh his drink, his tartan sportsjacket flapping in his wake.

Those were the only words Pat Summerall said to me. It was the greatest, weirdest moment of my life. So as you plunge your chip into your salsa, slam down your eighth beer, or begin to cry like Jonah Hill above, remember to follow B______’s footsteps. You too, will be a champion.

Great. I just updated WordPress, and now all the comments are gone. Technology giveth…

Long before getting food poisoning last Sunday night and its subsequent vomitus Monday morning, before there was Sarah Palin or "Obama Girl," before Baby had been conceived or Bookfraud had made its debut, before Steve Bartman had his date with infamy, before the non-plague of Y2K or the real plague known as "Bush Cheney 2000," even before Girlfriend became Wife, I saw a Neil LaBute film called "Your Friends and Neighbors."

Besides seeing Ben Stiller with a goatee, "Your Friends and Neighbors" was notable for the music accompanying the title sequence: disturbing, basso profundo violence of what sounded like a string quartet whose instruments were on ‘roids. It was loud, cacophonous, and was the most memoriable aspect of the movie (other than Jason Patric playing football with a baby doll).

Move ahead 10 years, to Saturday, 36 hours prior to consuming the extremely bad scallops that led to a 5:30 a.m. technicolor yawn. A friend of Wife’s is a cellist, and upon learning that Baby is about a music-besotted 21-month old as can be, graciously lugged her instrument to our home and gave Baby a concert that included a Bach cello suite, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and several cat-death notes created when Baby tugged on the strings.

For some reason, I thought of "Your Friends and Neighbors" and the soundtrack. The cellist friend didn’t know what I was talking about (though we did note that a group she was in and Kronos Quartet both had covered "Purple Haze").

Following further research that day, I finally discovered the source of the music after a decade. It was a trio who play heavy metal on the cello.

Yes, that you read that correctly.

Apocalyptica (see pictures above and below) are three classically trained cellists (I imagine there’s no other kind) plus a drummer. Of course, they’d have to be from Finland.

Though I am not familiar with Apocalyptica’s entire body of work, and will not become familiar with Apocalyptica’s entire body of work in this or any other lifetime, they are known for playing covers of Metallica songs, including "Enter Sandman," the song from "Your Friends and Neighbors" that had perplexed me all these years.

Even longer before I had seen this movie, I had written in a stupdendously bad novel (one of three stupendously bad novels that have flowed from my fingers) a scene involving a tuba quartet:

“Gerard’s Tuba Quartet No. 3, ‘The dance of the piglets’” the program read.  “A T.U.B.A. command performance.”  Yves Gerard’s third Tuba quartet,  The dance of the piglets, c.1989, represents a return to form for the great French composer.  It reflects Gerard’s obsession with livestock and the deconstruction of agriculture as metaphor, a theme reflected also in his Tuba Concerto in C-major (the “Farmer St. Jean” Concerto) and his famed “Barnyard suite.”

I don’t repeat these silly lines to show the craptastic nature of my writing, but to illustrate that no matter what I or anyone else writes, reality will trump it. Philip Roth’s famous screed that fiction writers cannot compete with the news of the day ("The actuality is continually outdoing our talents, and the culture tosses up figures almost daily that are the envy of any novelist") is made flesh each day: reality beggars the writer’s imagination.

Look at this picture; try not to laugh

This is really why I like to blog, not only to comment on the literary life, because given my literary successes, this would have been a short blog indeed. It’s things like Apocalyptica—I mean, if I had made up such a thing and put it in a short story, the derision from my fiction workshop would have been palpable.

After several months of unemployment, things are looking better. I’ve got a few job leads and some steady freelance work. The worst president since Harding (Nixon included) is gone. Baby is healthy and happy, and Wife hasn’t left me (yet) for the gainfully employed. It’s only a month before Spring Training and the cycle of happiness-despair known as the Chicago Cubs 2009 Season.

In other words, I don’t have a reason to wash myself in the bathos of self-pity, a state that allows me wide leeway not to blog, not to write. You see, I’ve tried to blog; I even wrote some heartfelt encomiums to our new president. But the writing wasn’t any good, and it wasn’t anything you couldn’t have read in 8 billion other blogs.

It’s because of things like Apocalyptica that remind me just why I do this.

So let us give thanks that Obama is president, and greater thanks for heavy metal cello. Rock on, Eicca, Pavvo, Perttu, and Mikko. 

They said unemployment would be a respite.

They said that while the stress of not drawing a paycheck might wear down my fragile psyche, it would be worth the short-term financial burden. For not having to clock in each morning would afford me the time to reflect, to meditate, to discern the true nature of one’s self.

They said I would have time to write. They said I would have time to read. They said I would have more time with Baby.

Of course, they lied.

"They" being friends, family, career counselors, headhunters. To a person, they all said that while getting the axe sucks ass, at least I’ll have the time to catch up with life.

Apparently, all of these people are employed.

In the 21st Century, looking for a job takes far more time than actually working at one. It is more time-consuming than the pursuit of sex, reading Tolstoy in Russian, or trying to find the perfect pasta lifter. Looking for a job is not something you can do in one’s spare time, like, say, blogging or relieving oneself.

Add the fact that jobs are about as plentiful as Mormons in favor of gay marriage, and I am an extremely unhappy fellow.

They also say that a project expands to the amount of time allotted to it, and for this, they are correct. The ironic thing about searching for work in this Internet-dominated, 24-7 environment, is that what makes finding job leads so easy makes actually getting a job so difficult. 

Take job hunting in the Dark Ages, when I was 22 and a freshly minted college graduate, in the late 1980s. One interviewed with companies who sent recruiters to campus. You found a few companies you liked, and sent your resume off and waited. If you were a loser, you scoured the newspaper’s help wanted section.

The Dark Ages

Or, in my case, I sent out my resume and writing samples to several newspaper editors, one of which apparently laughed at my clips so hard he suffered a seizure and inadvertently hired me.

These days, it’s not so simple. Looking for a job is like starting a relationship. You are completely paranoid about every single aspect of the search. You obsess about the things you said, and worry about the things you didn’t say.

Did I apply to the right job? Should I update my resume on Monster.com? How many contacts can I add to LinkedIn? What additional research should I do on Company X, in addition to the 18 volumes I’ve already downloaded?

Even as I write these words, I think of e-mail to write and answer, Web searches to do, resumes to upload. And that doesn’t even count the calls I need to make and the meetings I’ve been trying to schedule.

Is there an echo chamber in here?

Now, I know everybody here wants to know what I think of Roberto Bolano’s 2666, the death of the literary best-seller, and the sorry state of short fiction. You want to know about what I think of our nation electing an African-American president (holy fuck! It actually happened!), the long-term prospects for the Democrats, my learned opinion on Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.

It’s not that I don’t have opinions, or that about 9,334,222,798 other blogs have written more and better words on these topics than I could ever hope to do. It’s that I haven’t had the time. I mean, literally. Anybody reading this who has a blog and who I haven’t visited or commented — that would be all of you — I don’t apologize, but rather say, give me a job, please.

Not because I simply need the money (I do). It’s because I need a life.

This is less a blog entry than an exercise in that thing called writing, which I’ve done precious little of in the past three weeks.

Fun times in Bookfraud-land:

• Trapped in a conference room with a nice, perky lady, a moribund old guy wearing a hearing aid, and a librarian who gives "cliched" new meaning.
• A poor schlub yakking for ten minutes about a computer patch management system.
• Half the room clearing out after lunch.
• The worst computer tutorial in the history of the world.
• Suicidal thoughts.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, this was my introduction to "outplacement services," or a three-month tour of duty that’s supposed to help me find a new job. My previous employer paid for this service, though I would have preferred that they had given me the cash outright.

I arrive early one morning, find a seat in a crowded conference room, and think about ways I can leave gracefully. Enter the perky lady, once an airline employee (no, not a flight attendant), who will be our instructor for the morning.

Our instructor introduces us to the office managing partner, an older fellow who reeks of wisdom and Fixodent, for a pep talk. He tells us that he knows what it’s like to be unemployed, for he’s had to change jobs four times in his life, but there’s positions out there, if you know how to look. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, he says. Though with this economy, "the haystack is twice as big," a comment that effectively reverses the happy caffeinating effects of my Starbucks in a millisecond. I look around the room for a samurai sword to impale myself upon, with no luck.

Then, all the enthusiasm sucked out of the room, we go to work.

The morning features a couple of highlights. First, as a matter of "defining" our skills, the patch-management dude talks about a work-related "challenge," and how he overcame it. How any of this will help anybody find a job I don’t know, and the homunculus residing in my left temple starts tossing pain-tinged darts at my brain.

Not before or after: instead of

Later, everybody has to write a two- or three-sentence explanation of who you are and what you want to do. Stupidly, I volunteer to read mine. 

As I should have expected, it’s ritual humiliation. Double for me, as I’m supposed to be an expert in the art of communication. It’s not punchy enough. It’s got too much information. It just sucks.

We break for lunch, when I wander around the lobby for 45 minutes in a catatonic state of Faulknerian realization that my job is gone left for parts unknown for budgetcuttingpinheads lopping off the department, the interstices of brain and soul and bodyspirit, the accursed soil, bookfraud without direction is bookfraud without faith without hope without…

After a security guard slaps me, I find a sandwich shop and whomp down a lunch of indeterminate matter (carbo, protein, sliced vegetables) and a Diet Coke, then return to a classroom now one-half full, the rest of our former classmates apparently going to job interviews, finishing that novel, or having sex with tranny prostitutes. Then, the fun begins.

The outplacement agency has a members-only Web site to which we will have access. An older, bespectacled woman who looks as if she stumbled out of the dictionary’s entry for "librarian" addresses us, which is appropriate, since she’s the company librarian. Her hair is curled in a helmet, her pantsuit is bright and generous, her shoes are, of course, sensible. The librarian is wearing a pin in the form of a jack-o-lantern, which I somehow feel is a bad sign.

And it is. The librarian gives a presentation on how to use the Web site. Apparently, the presentation has been geared towards first-graders. The librarian tells us how to sign up. How to choose a password. That you have to fill the fields with asterisks and if you want to see another part of the Web site, click on its link. Now in an extremely ungrateful (and unfair) mood, all I can think of is, "How come this idiot has a job and I’m unemployed?"

They’re not lining up to vote

After our computer savant is done, we are released from purgatory. I’m about as fired up as a Frenchman, Jew, or a person with a college degree contemplating a Sarah Palin presidency.  It’s grim.

Things will get better. Two days later, I meet my counselor, not the perky not-a-former-stewardess lady. This person is calm, empathetic, smart, and has several excellent ideas. I actually have some hope here that I might find a decent-paying position.

Then, as I ride the elevator downstairs, it occurs to me. I know what I’m going to do. I envision a job in which I have to work hard, hustle, be creative, but make gargantuan amounts of money. It’s completely legal, and I don’t need to get anyone’s permission or even get hired to do it.

I’m going to become Baby’s talent manager! He’s cute, he’s got a fabulous smile, and has an excellent vocabulary for an 18-month old, including "cheese," "yellow," "boat," "bear," and says "clock" and "flag" without the "l"s. As they say on "American Idol," we’re going to Hollywood!

Care to make a donation?

Well, this is an entry.

As if I had anything to write about besides unemployment.

Talk about bloody depressing.

The Onion is keeping me sane, especially such video nuggets as the following.

Best line: "I’m voting for a man I can imagine drowning a bag of cats." 

I’m voting for Joad!

I’ll have a real entry soon, once this depression lifts or I find a job, which ever comes first. So we’re talking 2010.

Thus ends my winding, wordy, 13-part series.

Now, back to more current topics.

And finding a job.

Any ideas?

 A number of you perceptive folk have asked me, "Bookfraud, it’s been weeks since you posted. What the fuck?"

For this I have no answer, except to tell you I was laid off last week after 11 fun years at my job. 

Yay capitalism.

The following post is far longer than my usual fare, but I feel weirdly entitled to do so, as my job, retirement money, and what reason I had for getting up each morning have now evaporated.

It was a Saturday morning, and I was about 10 years old, furitively watching Memphis Mid-South Wrestling. This show was strictly prohibited in the Bookfraud household, but my father was out of town, and my mother was watching my brother and sister in parts unknown.

A wrestler of great local import was addressing the camera. "I’ll wrestle anyone, anytime, anywhere!" he said to a hapless emcee holding a microphone with an unsteady hand.

"And that includes…" the emcee said.

"Yeah, and that includes the heavyweight champion of the world — Muhammad Ali!"

"And I understand you have an interview with Ali you want to show."

"That’s right, Lance. Now, I haven’t seen this yet, but I guarantee you that I will whip this man in the ring — I don’t care who he is!"

Lance grimaced and nodded, as if he’d seen this type of ridiculous gamesmanship before. And he had. The wrestler, Jerry "The King" Lawler, had a long list of local enemies — Jackie Fargo, Tojo Yamamoto, Dutch Mantell, Bill "Superstar" Dundee. Every week on Memphis Mid-South Wrestling, Lawler, who was currently playing a "heel," would yammer and rant about he was going to put Fargo in the hospital or Dundee out of wrestling.

But this was not Jerry Lawler challenging Dutch Mantell, a man whose body hair could support a wig factory, or Tojo Yamamoto, who was actually Hawaiian. This was Muhammad Ali — The Greatest. The Greatest of All Time.

"Let’s take a look," Lance said, gesturing to the camera.

Ali was standing at an airport gate, wearing a gray trenchcoat buttoned to the neck. It was a couple of months after he’d regained his title by knocking out George Foreman. A small, elderly man with white hair but deft movements held a microphone, standing in front of Ali. (Sadly, it was not Howard Cosell.)

"We’re here with Muhammad Ali, the heavyweight champion of the world," the man said in a nasal voice that sounded as if he was chewing gravel. "Muhammad, first of all, congratulations on reclaiming your title in October–"

"That’s right, Leo. I shocked the world again, didn’t I?"

"You certainly did, Muhammad. Now, I understand that another professional wrestler, Jerry Lawler, has sent you a challenge to meet him in the ring."

Of course, I had seen Ali before on television and in the papers, but today he looked benign, his face a little cheekier than I had remembered.

“Well, let me tell you something, Leo,” began The Greatest, his voice laconic and knowing. “Every day I get telegrams and phone calls and letters from ordinary folk sayin’ they want me to fight them. Now, I ain’t afraid of any man, but  I don’t want to fight no Jerry Lawler King or whatever he says he is. I’m sure he’s a good rassler and all that, but I’ve done finished fighting with them rasslers.”

“O.K. Muhammad,” Leo said in all earnestness, "but Lawler says that you’re scared to go down to Memphis, Tennessee, and fight him. He says you fight him and he’ll beat you, and you’ll no longer be the greatest.”

And then came that grin, wide as a ship’s berth and teeth that seemed to shine on cue. I got shivers.

“Awww, Leo, don’t be givin’ me no jive now.” Ali’s face lit up, his eyes spread wide.

“No, no, Muhammad, he really said that.”

“Well, let me tell you something. Is that camera filming me so that Jerry Lawler King can see me? Will he be able to see this here film? Good. Now everybody watching this, stop talking NOW. Pay attention. I ain’t afraid of nobody, and I’ll fight any man, any time, because I am the greatest fighter, not just of this time, but of all times. 

“Is this going out to Jerry Lawler? Do you hear me Jerry Lawler? You think you know something about boxing, Jerry Lawler, you big ugly hairy wrassler? You don’t know a damn thing about steppin’ in the ring with a pro boxer. And I am a pro!

"You’ve been reading about boxing in all the wrong places. If you want to know any damn thing about boxing, don’t see no Jimmy the Greek, don’t read no Ring magazine, you must come to me, Muhammad Ali. Like I said after I whupped Big George in Kinsasha, Zaire, I am the scholar of boxing! You just some rassler! I am the greatest fighter of all times! I told you all that I was the greatest when I whupped Sonny Liston, and I’m still the greatest!”

Ali crept towards the camera, Leo gamely stepping forward with him. Ali’s features came more into view: round face and bushy eyebrows. He had a wide nose with flashing nostrils but what really got me were his eyes, heavy with intent.

“The goverment took my title away because of my reglion, but God, Allah, is more powerful than any government! I was ready for the Rumble in the Jungle! With Allah’s help I beat big, bad George, and got back the title they took away from me. And everybody—EVERYBODY—said I was gonna get whupped, he was too big, too strong, too powerful and I was gonna get hurt!

"But you see what happened? Allah will make any man, even George Foreman, look like a baby! I told you I would knock out big George! I told you I would shock the world when I beat Sonny Liston! You all said I coudn’t do it! You said I was through! But I’m fast, I’m pretty, I’m the heavyweight champ-ee-on of the world! I must be the greatest!”

Now Ali was throwing punches, slashing uppercuts, tight roundhouse rights, and that famous left jab faster than an eyeblink. Despite his buttoned overcoat, there was a fluidity to Ali’s movements that was breathtaking: one could even tell that he was moving his feet beneath the camera’s range.

“Jerry Lawler, you ain’t nuthin’! Nuthin’! You think you so bad? Let me tell you something about people who are baaaaaaad. I’ve fought Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, Jerry Quarry, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and whupped them all! They’re baaaaaad men! And I beat them all! All of them! Because I am badder! I shook up the world! I am the greatest, Jerry Lawer! I am the greatest fighter of all times! Of all times! OF ALL TIIIIIMES!”

Lawler and Russell: Childhood heroes take a fall

The tape ran out, and the TV went back to the studio: the audience — almost entirely white – had gone wild, laughing and screaming and clapping more furiously than they had for any match that I had seen. Jerry Lawler stood next to Lance Russell, his body angled to the camera; in my eyes, there was suddenly something vaguely inconsequential about him. Lance Russell shook his head, grinning, unable to contain something approaching glee. “Well, King, there you have it,” Lance said.

“Lance, let me tell you something. If Ali comes down here, I’ll show him who’s the King of professional wrestling.”

But it was too late. Lawler tried to keep his stature or even his dignity: he cast a I’m-the-meanest-son-of-a-bitch look at the audience and then at people watching at home. But it was too late. The audience knew it. The viewers knew it. Lawler knew it. Lance Russell knew it. I knew it.

“If Muhammad Ali is too chicken to come down and fight me—”

But his voice couldn’t be heard: the crowd was chanting, a one-word, two-syllable call that cast a spell upon me and made Jerry Lawler awash in resentment. “ALI! ALI! ALI!”

“Now listen here!” Lawler barked.

“ALI! ALI! ALI!”

“I want to say something here! If you rednecks—”

“ALI! ALI! ALI!”
 

And so it went for the next 20 seconds; Lawler would try to tell the audience to shut up, or say something about The Greatest, but the crowd would drown him out, each time hiking up the volume, as if in rejoinder. They cut to a commercial on auto transmissions.

I can’t really describe how radical a scene this was. This was Memphis, only six years after Martin Luther King Jr. had been assinated at the Lorraine Motel. This was Memphis, where you couldn’t spend a day without hearing the word "nigger." This was Memphis, rich with African-American history and thick with bigotry.

And you had a studio full of white, uneducated folk who wouldn’t look a black man in the eye giving Muhammad Ali their love and affection.

This was before I knew of Ali’s cruelty, of torturing Floyd Patterson in the ring for 13 rounds because Patterson called him Cassius Clay, of calling Joe Frazier an Uncle Tom and well before calling Frazier "a gorilla" for the Thrilla in Manila even after Frazier had once paid Ali’s hotel bill because he didn’t have the cash for it, of imitating punch-drunk Jerry Quarry long before Ali’s gift of gab had left him because of boxing-induced Parkinson’s syndrome.

I did not know that Ali had said, “Man, I ain’t got nothing against them Viet Cong” and he had made a stand of conscience that cost him his title, nor that he had four wives and that Angelo Dundee had called him a “pelvic missionary.” I did not know he had repudiated Malcom X under the orders of his spiritual leaders, nor that he later said he regretted that more than anything he had done. He had yet to lose to Leon Spinks and Larry Holmes; he had yet to drop out of the Nation of Islam and become a Muslim. I didn’t know that he’d beaten Sonny Liston and shocked the world. Angelo Dundee, Bundini Brown, the Louisville Syndicate, Elijah Muhammad—those were just words.

I simply saw the most charasmatic person alive, the most alive person alive, someone who Jerry Lawler could not begin to challenge in word nor deed.

There was something outside of my life that was greater, more interesting, more full of life. I needed to find out.
 

 If not for the "Why I Really Write" series, I would title this blog entry "Caught in a Morass of Baseball, Politics, Economic Meltdown, and Mind-Melting Sleep Deprivation."

The Cubs, my team of personal preference, have the best record in the National League, and if they are not prohibitive favorites to reach the World Series, nothing less would entail a defeat of soul- and spirit-crushing dimensions. Being that this is the Cubs, I should prepare for said crushing.

I have also found solace in wasting time "following" the presidential elections, which is another way of saying that I’m surfing the ‘endlessly for 1) comfort in polls saying Obama is winning; 2) comfort in polls saying McCain is losing; and 3) any and all information on the hot mess known as Sarah Palin.

Did I tell you that after the last week’s economic events, I plan to retire when I die?

And for a kid who isn’t yet 18 months, Baby has quite a loud voice. (He also seems to learn new word each day, much to his parents’ delight. None of the words are of the four-letter variety, much to my amazement, since he’s essentially mimicking me.)

Yes, these are excuses for the improper preparation precipitating piss-poor performance on this blog, not to mention the blogs of many others. They’re the same excuses I have for not writing, except in that case, I only have to lie to myself.

Sorry to have to do this, but let me tell you a little about my history of neuroses:

1. One night trying to sleep when I was about eight, I came to the horrifying realization that one day, my grandparents and parents would die, leaving me all alone in the cold, dark universe.

I started to cry, and my father came in to my room; between sobs, I told him of my overwhelming fear. My father explained as best he could that dying was part of life, and that nobody was going to die for a long, long time — certainly not him nor Mom. He gave me a hug and a kiss, and I soon went to sleep, comforted.

I daresay that if that was not one of the defining moments of my childhood, I certainly won’t forget it.

We’re gonna Zoom, Zoom, Zoom-I-Zoom (to my doom)

2. A couple of years after my father staunched my tears, he betrayed me. A children’s television show had debuted on the local public television station featuring a covey of young children as its stars, sort a local version of "Zoom." I harbored a secret desire to be one of the kids on the show. Unfortunately, I had let my father know in passing.

My mother, who was a budding musician at the time, wrote the theme song for the show, so we were invited to a fundraising party for the station. The director of the children’s show happened to strike up a conversation with my father as I stood next to him, and, much to my horror, my father said to him, "[Bookfraud] has something he’d like to say to you about being on the show."

We were standing near a wall with curtains, to where I promptly retreated. I mumbled something through the curtains about wanting to be on the kid’s program, which the director must have interpreted as, "This kid is insane."

3. Every time I asked out or tried to asking out a girl on a date: projecting calm, internalizing agony.

4. When I was in graduate school, I took an undergrad theater class in comedic acting as an elective. As part of the class, each student had to do a 15-minute stand-up routine before a live audience.

Suffice it to say that the five hours preceding my performance were some of the most agonizing minutes of my life. One can interpret this as mere stage fright or, perhaps, wish fulfillment. Despite the fact that my routine went smashingly well, I can’t say it’s was an experience I would want to repeat, despite the fact I loved being the center of attention.

Rock: Not neurotic

5. Also, consider all the rest of my neurotic embarrassing public moments, too many to recount in this space, though if you buy me a few beers and give me a shoulder to cry on, I’d be happy to share them.

If you don’t understand the gist of these anecdotes in relation to writing, you’re probably a well-adjusted, intelligent, and reasonably happy individual who is probably wildly rich and successful.

But if you do understand without further clarification the connection between one’s neuroses and writing, you’re probably a writer.

Congratulations. Or condolences. Whatever is appropriate.

Given the tone and tenor of this presidential campaign, I thought this would be the time to publish this entry.

Also, I don’t have anything else to post.

Being a "creative writer" with lots of "fans" and acolytes, people invariably want to know "Who are your influences?" If I’m in a buoyant mood, I’ll say "Faulkner, Ellison, Atwood, Dickens, etc."

If, as is more likely, I’m in a pissy, angry, enraged mood, about to kill myself or a conservative, I’ll say, "My influences are beer, sex, professional wrestling and extra-absorbent Pampers, and just go away, I hate stupid questions like that."

Actually, nobody has ever asked me about my literary influences, but if they did, I’d probably lie and give them the usual suspects, adding, at the end, "and of course, Chekov."

One name I might not mention is George Orwell, because he isn’t "literary" enough in some quarters, and also because I’ve read only 3 ½ of his books: 1984, Animal Farm, A Collection of Essays, and half of A Homage to Catalonia. And I read the first two books before I was 18, the third when in college, and the last half-volume when I was in my mid-20s.

His work all had its particular impact, but his masterpiece "Politics and the English Language" resonated on the tabula rasa of my young brain unlike few essays before or since.

In short, Orwell decried the decay of language in public discourse in "Politics." In order to hide the truth when it can’t be hidden, politicians and bureaucrats will turn to obfuscation via language. And when language goes bad, liberty will follow.

Torture: it’s not just for despots any more

Orwell lists several examples of bad writing, and then enumerates why they stink. But the key to the entire essay (at least for an impressionable 21-year-old) was just how language related to political argument, circa 1946:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.

It’s an easy jump to the present.

Take, for instance, our current jokers running the White House and their attempt to hide the truth regarding torture. "Enhanced interrogation techniques."* "Black sites." "Extraordinary renditions." "Illegal combantants." These proclamations are bogus and designed to obscure the truth, and when the public accepts them at face value, you get monstrosities like Guantanamo, warrantless searches, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, kidnapping, and out-and-out torture.

Or one can turn to the current election — oh, can you ever — and see lies being turned into "truths" through the currency of language. A know-nothing, incurious governor suddenly has "executive experience" that qualifies her for the vice presidency, for instance. Twisting the meaning of a phrase like "economic fundamentals." And so on.

Unfortunately, we’re fighting a losing battle. Falsehoods like "collateral damage" and "downsizing" have made it into the daily lexicon. Citizens blindly accept bogus language as long as it doesn’t challenge their preconceived notions of wrong and right. People are careless with language, and worse, they don’t seem to care if you make something plural with an apostrophe s, much less use euphemisms that hide meaning.

Waterboarding, skateboarding, what’s the difference?

Now, if I were a true intellectual, I would have repudiated Orwell as a overrated socialist hack, pointing to the ordinariness of his diction as a sign of his simplicity.

But I’m not smart enough to be considered an intellectual, and Orwell’s ideas are still rattling around my brain like an atom in a particle accelerator (or some other clichéd simile that Orwell would have loathed). Orwell may not have been an intellectual either, but he was a brilliant writer, and was so brutally honest as to be painful.

If it didn’t inspire me to pursue writing, Orwell’s essay changed how I view language and how I use it. I think about "Politics and the English Language" every time I write, even if I’m not aware of it.

*It has been pointed out that the Gestapo used the same phrase – "verschaerfte Vernehmung" — to describe their torture techniques.