Publishing and pain

A very good article in the Village Voice looks at the state of publishing from the perspective of a successful mid-list author. The hook for the story is how the guy, exhausted and disillusioned on a book tour from hell, managed to piss off some anonymous bloggers who proceeded to french-fry him online until he backed down. But the larger, more interesting issues addressed by the piece have to do with the desperate, almost flailing actions of book publicists, who don't understand the general uselessness of book tours for novelists, and the sad delusions of the novelists themselves, who think their book tour will be like a victory lap in front of informed crowds of fans and then find it amounts to appearing to empty rows of chairs in small towns where... but read for yourself:

Then comes the Friday night in Winnetka, Illinois, when you pull up to a street where the only light is coming from the bookstore, and you realize this won't be good. There's one customer inside, and the reading is canceled, but you talk him into buying a book anyway... There's the afternoon in a small, depressed Arkansas town when... the promised crowd and the television film crew have all been canceled, preempted by a big football game. Three middle-aged women walk in, escorting their senile grandmother, who they've brought back to town after an absence of 70 years to see what she remembers, which is nothing. The bookstore owner flips a thumb at you: "Why don't you do your little show for them?" And you do, dear reader, you do.

The piece captures the reality of what being a "successful" author -- one with good reviews and middling best-sellers to their name -- must really be like. For all those (like me) with unpublished novels who imagine (as I used to) that their lives will change when they're published, it's a good reality check.

Still, I know getting published means something. I have books on the shelves with my name on the spine. That doesn't mean I never have to work again, but it's something.

technorati: publishing

Things I had to look up: feuilleton

In a piece on Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives, Paul Berman makes a comparison to:

A few years ago, Mario Vargas Llosa published an op-ed newspaper column about how he had given up smoking thanks to some useful tips from Gabriel García Márquez, and I came away thinking that I and 1 million other newspaper readers might very well have gone on following Vargas Llosa's nicotine narrative through another 300 feuilleton installments, if only he had chosen to natter on. It was because of that same confident mix of self-assured relaxation and electric high alert.

WTF? Some sort of 19th century... what? Turns out that it is:

1. The part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, criticism, and the like; also something printed in this section.
2. A novel published in installments.
3. A short literary piece.

Here's part of the example they give: "Finally, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung offers tongue-in-cheek reading of the situation on the front page of its feuilleton section..."

I see. So the NYT Book Review, or the Insight section of the Chronicle's Sunday paper, are feuilletons (pronounced (FOI-i-ton).

Berman goes on:

In other parts of the world, in regions distant from Latin America—or so my wanton theorizing leads me to suppose—the pitiable champions of literature dwell under oppressive clouds of relentless doubt and irony, and are nervously stimulated by a bleak suspicion that anything they write must surely be a lie, and their own work is merely a game, and their avid readers don't really give a damn, and literature's last remaining purpose is to arch an eyebrow. But not in Latin America. The Latin Americans compose their narratives with a cheerful élan akin to that of the Victorian novelists. They do not think that literature is a lie. They are madly in love with their own inexhaustibly lush and wealthy literary tradition, and they feel a duty to push their tradition forward into the experimental future in the name of every decent hope of mankind and of Latin America; and their piety toward the past and zeal for the future fill their voices with the lovely and seductive vibrato of supreme self-confidence. I don't vouch for the universal explanatory power of my own theory, and yet something like this does seem to account for The Savage Detectives.

What a depressing paragraph that is -- self-hating and hopeless, it embodies the "oppressive clouds of relentless self-doubt" that the writer speaks of. So then I had to look up the writer, Berman. His Wikipedia article makes him sound sort of like Joan Didion, only he seems never to have published any novels.

Xmas is hard on farmilies

This ad from the Craigslist rants and raves section is too extreme even for me to reprint, but if the last sentence is any indication, somebody's family Xmas was a hard one.

Friends' sites, links and projects

San Francisco author Michelle Richmond had a reader so entranced with her novel The Year of Fog that he took a Flickr photo set of the places and things mentioned in the book. The novel is being developed for the screen by Newmarket Films.

Stephen Elliott and some other folks have a new online magazine, The Rumpus, and they're having a benefit reading on Jan. 14.

Xmas forecast

It's cold and rainy and intermittently sunny and blustery here at the House of Cats and Rhinos. We're gettin' up slow, having crossed the Bay Bridge after midnight on our way back from Xmas in Walnut Creek. Fortunately there was no backup at the toll plaza, since only about 4 lanes were open and most of the drivers took about a minute and a half each to grok the concepts of "toll" and "four dollars."

For Xmas, I think I'm going to give myself the present of self-publishing my Rat Pack novel. Why not let people read the damn thing. It'll take a while to get that into the pipeline, though, since the formatting has to be right or the resulting book will look like crap.

Looking forward to a week off, too. That's the scene here. Back to regularly scheduled programming soon.

Immature content only

On Friday I mentioned the CNet editor who self-published his novel and then wrote a long column about doing so. Now it seems (courtesy Galleycat) Apple won't allow his book to be sold as an e-book for the iPhone because of a single line in which "a teenage girl telling a detective that she overheard her friend asking a gentleman caller to '(love) me like you mean it,' just with a slightly more emphatic verb." The story goes on to speculate just how this phrase came to the attention of Apple, quoting a developer: "What would happen if I (a Romanian) would publish an e-book filled with Romanian obscenities? -- would Apple's staff need to learn Romanian... and read the entire ebook ... to make sure this doesn't happen?"

But the part of the story that caught my attention was lower down, in a section recounting Apple's struggle to keep iPhone apps SFW:

Apple's definition of "objectionable" has been questioned before. After initially balking, Apple finally relented to the extremely influential fart joke lobby last week and permitted applications such as Pull My Finger and iFart Mobile (ranked 3rd and 10th, respectively, among paid App Store applications at the moment) under what was described as a "Mature" section.

Really? Sounds like apps with names like that should be in an "Immature" section.

technorati: books, Apple, censorship

It's Bad Behavior Tuesday™! -- holiday feeling edition

A guy who was on the plane that crashed in Denver on Saturday sent Twitter messages about the experience, beginning with "Holy fucking shit I wasbjust in a plane crash!" (sic) After being taken back to the airport terminal, he wrote that passengers were being held in the airline's lounge but weren't given drinks. "You have your wits scared out of you, drag your butt out of a flaming ball of wreckage and you can't even get a vodka-tonic," he complained: "boo." His username? 2drinksbehind.

The CEO of Fry's, a West Coast electronics retailer, is being accused of scamming $65 million from the company in kickbacks from suppliers.

Today's fake: The New York Times apologized yesterday after publishing a fake letter to the editor purporting to be from the mayor of Paris.

Today's hoax: Publisher Jane Daniel is now speaking openly about having published a years-long hoax in which author Mischa Defonseca claimed to have survived the Holocaust as a child by living with wolves in a forest. Daniel is speaking openly, that is, because she has just published her own book about her role in the hoax. See my previous entry on the hoax.

In Colorado Springs, this headline says it all: Man Found Outside With Pants Down May Lose Legs.

'Sopranos' actor acquitted in cop shooting

In what must be a happy holiday story for, well, his family, former actor Lillo Brancato Jr. has been acquitted on felony murder charges in the 2005 shooting death of an off-duty cop.

Brancato, who will be remembered for shooting the Christopher character in the series' second season (the episode entitled "Full Leather Jacket"), also appeared with Sopranos co-star Drea DiMatteo in the 2001 Abel Ferrera film 'R Xmas.

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard says 'I never said I was heterosexual'

The Colorado Springs paper has seen the documentary "The Rise and Fall of Ted Haggard," which will be shown on HBO next month, and has these tidbits:

• Haggard, pronounced "one hundred percent heterosexual" after his three-week rehabilitation experience following his 2006 implosion, says "he never claimed to be heterosexual, as was once reported, and he continues to struggle with same-sex attraction. But he's committed to living a heterosexual life because he believes it's better for children to be raised by a mother and a father."
• Haggard's wife says she stayed with him to restore honor to the family, in some mixed-up way.
• Haggard now works selling insurance -- not so far from being a salvation-selling preacher -- but has not yet been successful at it and says, "Right now, I am a loser."

He sure comes off that way. Welcome to the real world, Ted! Maybe that other foamer will have to get a job, too.

Update: On Open.Salon.com, a former member of Haggard's church and babysitter for Haggard's children comments on his attempts to parlay the documentary into more fame.

technorati: Ted Haggard, New Life Church, Colorado Springs

Two articles about the state of publishing

Two articles/blog postings caught my eye today.

Courtesy Galleycat, a long, almost obsessively comprehensive article by a CNet editor about self-publishing his novel. He compares services, makes strategy suggestions, and comes to the conclusion that you have to spend the money a real publisher would have spent on your book if you want it to be good at all. But at least it's published then.

Then in Huffington Post, someone writes about the publishing industry's seeming disinterest in publishing books male readers would want to read.

Since the novel I wrote for a local small press was designed specifically for the male market, but turned down by the publisher and dumped back in my lap for a small kill fee with the restriction that I can only self-publish it, these two articles coincide with my own writing career, such as it is at the moment.

That's right -- the novel I signed a contract for in 2007 and wrote in six months, more or less to order, was rejected, and I'll wind up self-publishing it. I'll be sure to publicize it here, once I go through many of the steps outlined by that self-publishing article (but without spending all that money on the book).

technorati: books, publishing, self-publishing, reading

Focus on the Fundies: Give money so he can 'minister without hindrance'

For a few months I've been monitoring the ravings of a Pentacostal preacher who is madly trying to establish a nationwide "ministry" dedicated to ridding American cities of Satanic influence. I first noticed him when he made some passing comment about how the Colorado mountain tourist town of Manitou Springs is well-known as a Satanic base camp.* Since then, I've seen him move spastically around the country, from Kansas City to Detroit, attempting to gather followers.

Recently he's been begging openly for money, and a blog posting yesterday really takes the cake for shameless solicitation. Emphasis mine.

Biblically it's clear that believers live in a different economic system, and I'm convinced that the church is called to be financial forerunners -- we are called to lead the way by giving our way out of this recession.

We pray you would consider this to be fertile and good soil for your seed in 2009. In fact, we have many challenges right this very moment, and we'd like to invite you to give before the end of 2008. Your gifts are tax-deductible... Would you invest in this ministry of teaching, planting and revival? Your donation will help us as we... (m)inister in the cities of the earth without any financial hindrance. God has moved powerfully in Detroit and other places through the ministry in 2008. Due to a timely rumbling in this city, we will be ministering in Detroit 6 times (at least) in the first half of 2009 alone.

So he goes to economically devastated Detroit and invites followers to "Give our way out of this recession." And how will he use that money? To help the poor of Detroit? To retrain auto workers being thrown out of their jobs?

Your donation will help us as we... (d)evote ourselves to the time consuming yet deeply important ministries of prayer and study. It's common for full-time prayer missionaries to devote 6 hours or more to prayer each day. (And to)
Focus on our call to author prophetic materials. I've had a book burning in my spirit for over two years, yet have not had the time to start it.

Nice! He wants to spend hours of day in prayer, and the rest of the time writing a book. Me too, dude!

To top it all off, he illustrates his plea with a picture of his family. Is it a nice soft-toned picture of them wearing sweaters around a Christmas tree? No, they're all looking glumly into the camera with tape over their mouths with the word "LIFE" written on the tape. (A one-year-old baby is spared this discomfort; they stuck the LIFE label on its chest.) I guess the point is, If you don't send him money, it's the same thing as gagging him and his whole family.

If only it were so.

* cached web page

technorati: fundamentalists, Christianists, far-right, evangelicals, bipolar

Another ray of sunlight: arch-conservative Paul Weyrich dies

Far-right foamer Paul Weyrich, a conservative activist who founded the Heritage Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation, has died at age 66.

Weyrich was one of the main people behind anti-gay measures, using them to motivate hysterical Christianists and hateful conservatives to the polls where they would elect more neocon Republicans -- a scam that continues to work to this day. In this sample of his work, from the Media Matters website, Weyrich comments in 2006 on the Mark Foley scandal:

WEYRICH: Here is the real problem. It has been known for many years that Congressman Foley was a homosexual. Homosexuals tend to be preoccupied with sex. The idea that he should be continued -- or should have been continued as chairman of the Committee on Missing and Exploited Children is, you know, given their knowledge of that, is just outrageous.

NPR host Nichelle NORRIS: Now before we go on, I think I can say, Mr. Weyrich, that there are quite a few people who would take exception to the statement that homosexuals are preoccupied with sex.

WEYRICH: Well, I don't care whether they take exception to it. It happens to be true. I mean --

NORRIS: That is your opinion.

WEYRICH: Well, it's not my opinion. It's the opinion of many psychologists and psychiatrists who have to deal with them.

technorati: right-wing, conservatives, Weyrich

Focus on the Fundies: Haggard pushes himself back in the spotlight

Ted Haggard, the disgraced megachurch leader whose outing as a meth-snorting Big Gay embarrassed the Christian Right just prior to the 2006 midterm elections, has agreed to promote an HBO documentary about his rise and fall.

The documentary, "The Trials of Ted Haggard," was shot by Alexandra Pelosi, who earlier made an HBO documentary "Friends of God," which also featured Haggard. The film is scheduled to air on HBO next month.

Haggard startled observers earlier this fall by appearing in the pulpit of a rural Illinois megachurch as a "Christian businessman" talking of his rise an fall as a star of the conservative Christian Evangelical movement, and now he's pushing himself into the spotlight on television. It's not enough for him to appear in a documentary; he's so starved for attention that he also signs on to promote the film, which I suspect will show him as a complete lying douchebag. What a media whore!

technorati: Ted Haggard, fundamentalists, Alexandra Pelosi

Things I had to look up: Boethius

After I sent this article on Buddhist-Christian contacts during the 8th century to a friend, she replied, "like boethius, they were busy and a' thinkin' during them there dark ages!!"

Due to my lack of a comprehensive liberal arts education, however, I had no idea who Boethius was. In this case the Wikipedia article was helpful enough for the likes of me. Known to the Roman Catholic Church as St. Severinus Boethius, the 6th century scholar and administrator was dedicated to preserving concepts of classical philosophy; he is credited with developing a three-layered classification of music as well as the Wheel of Fortune. (Cue music from Carmina Burana.)

On Open Salon: The 'spiritual, not religious' cliché

The vision of an infinitude of solitaries all practicing their own tiny, self-wrought "spirituality" is really a vision of spiritual death. Instead, I believe spiritual health depends on a recognition of interdependence, service to and with others, and participation in a cultural tradition that has the potential to beautify and conserve society.

More at my Open.Salon.com page.

Because, in Iraq, there are no cream pies

During a press conference in Iraq, as President Push was speaking alongside the Iraqi prime minister, a man hurled two shoes at Bush, one after the other. In this screen capture, Bush ducks the first shoe:

Click the picture to go to BBC tape of the event. Extra points to the man for getting off both throws before he was jumped upon and beaten to a pulp.

Meanwhile, someone burned down Sarah Palin's Wasilla, AK church. Sheesh!

Bettie Page, 1924-2009

Bettie Page, inspiration for young women across America and an icon of the 20th century as surely as Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor, died today at age 85. A selection of her classic pinup photographs, as well as drawings of her classic image, appear with an obituary on her website.

technorati: Bettie Page

Et tu, Blago?

I would mercilessly go after this story if the accused were a Republican, so in the interest of balance and fairness, let me rip Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich a new one for exhibiting new lows in cynicism and corruption. The two-term governor, formerly a three-term congressman, was arrested today under an indictment courtesy well-known U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, previously famous for prosecuting Scooter Libby.

Among Blagojevich's alleged crimes, one stands out: he intended to offer an appointment to Barack Obama's seat in the Senate to the highest bidder. Fitzgerald said today he purposely arrested Blago to prevent this, among other things, from happening. Disgusting.

Details of the indictment include Blagojevich saying "I'm going to keep this Senate option for me a real possibility, you know, and therefore I can drive a hard bargain. You hear what I'm saying? And if I don't get what I want and I'm not satisfied with it, then I'll just take the Senate seat myself... (A Senate seat) is a f---ing valuable thing; you just don't give it away for nothing."

technorati: Blagojevich

Nine-year-old gets a book deal

A nine-year-old boy who wrote a book titled "How to Talk to Girls" is the toast of the internet this week, and on top of it all, he now has a movie deal. 20th Century Fox will adapt the how-to advice into a charming comedic vehicle for its next doomed child star.

Perhaps the young man can follow up his success with "How to Talk to Publicists," "How to Survive the Onset of Puberty While in Rehab," and "How to Sue Your Parents For All That Money They Said You Were Getting."

technorati: books, publishing, book deals

Hitler might not have survived internet mockery, Nobel prize winner says

In his speech Sunday accepting the Nobel Prize in literature, French writer Jean Marie Gustav Le Clezio suggested that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler might not have been able to survive for long if the internet had existed in his day, saying "Hitler's criminal plot would not have succeeded - ridicule might have prevented it from ever seeing the light of day."

The story is illustrated with an example of what that mockery might have looked like: an lol-hitler, if you will, with the caption "I Can Has Sudentenland?" (A reference, of course, to the classic lolcat site ICanHasCheezburger.)

technorati: Le Clezio

Karaoke crowd freaks when actual rock singer shows up

Mickey Dolenz, who sang many of the Monkees' hits, was having dinner at Elaine's in New York when someone realized that people in a karaoke club a few doors away were all singing along to one of his hits, "I'm a Believer." Dolenz was summoned, entered the karaoke bar, and the result was pandemonium.

The best part of the story was that it was a coincidence that Dolenz was nearby when the song -- which was repopularized in the 2001 film Shrek (YouTube clip here) -- was chosen by the under-20s at the karaoke club; they didn't know he was near.

Satire is dead, no 892134892: Praying with SUVs

A black church in Detroit blessed members who work in the nearly kaput auto industry as "three gleaming sport utility vehicles" shared the stage. In a nod to ecumenism, each car was from one of the Big 3 automakers.

Reinforcing the impression that these people are really stupid was a quotation from a church leader that "We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this coming week," a sentence I had to read five times before I understood it. (In fairness, it was intended to be heard, not read. But I'm not sure the speaker knows, or cares, that "midnight" is not an adjective.)

technorati: bailout, auto industry, churchesa>, Pentacostals

Today in politics: fearing hoax, Florida congresswoman twice hangs up on Obama

The hoaxing of Sarah Palin no doubt still fresh in her mind, a Florida congresswoman twice hung up on President-Elect Barack Obama when he called to ask her help on coming legislation.

technorati: hoaxes, fakes

You say you want a revolution?

May 1968 -- revolution is in the air around the world, but Paul McCartney and Andy Williams are having a nice lunch. From the book "The Beatles: a Diary" by Barry Miles and Chris Charlesworth:

May 21, 1968: Paul and Jane [Asher] had lunch with Andy Williams and his French wife [the singer and actress] Claudine Colbert. That evening they attended his final Royal Albert Hall show and the end-of-the-show party afterward.

It must have been very relaxing.

technorati: Beatles, Andy Williams, Sixties

Another sign God doesn't approve of heterosexual marriage

Woman swept out to sea during marriage proposal

NESKOWIN, Ore. — A romantic marriage proposal on the Oregon coast turned deadly for the bride-to-be when a wave swept her out to sea.

Scott Napper planned to pop the question to Leafil Alforque, 22, at a spot near Neskowin Beach that got its name from couples ready to marry.

Napper said the tide had receded around Proposal Rock on Saturday when the couple began to walk to it. He planned to propose and give her the ring he carried in his pocket.

About 10 feet from the rock, a wave around 3 feet high suddenly came toward them. "I turned into it to keep from getting pulled under it," Napper said.

By the time he turned to find Alforque, only 4-foot-11 and 93 pounds, she had been caught by the receding waters. "She was about 30 feet away, getting swept away," Napper said.

The 45-year-old Silverton man tore off his jacket to get rid of any extra weight, and when he looked up again she was gone. "That's the last I saw of her," he said Wednesday, breaking into tears.

Did you catch the name of the place? "Proposal Rock." I'll bet the Native Americans called it something else, like "Virgin Sacrifice Rock."

Career Day: Technical writer

Courtesy a post on the blog of the fabulous and attractive Janice Erlbaum, I came across these five generic questions. You can see for yourself how she answers them from her perspective as a full-time nonfiction writer; I thought I'd give them a try from my perspective.

0) What's your job?

Technical writer at a big software company. I write manuals that tell customers how to install, configure and use our products.

1) When you were in high school, was this the career that you were most interested in? If yes, how did you accomplish your goals? If no, how did you choose this career?

When I was in high school, I had never heard of the job "technical writer," nor was I interested in computers (very few people in the early to mid 70s were exposed to computers, as Malcolm Gladwell points out in his recent book "Outliers," in which he says that the fact that Bill Gates was lucky enough to have a computer at his high school contributed to Gates' destiny), but I was definitely interested in being a writer, already working on short stories and plays. I was in the Creative Writing class in my senior year, and I had been keeping a diary since the beginning of my time in high school.

2) What is the education and training for this career?

Most technical writers I've met are like me: we have had little or no technical training. One of the maxims in the tech writing field is that you can train a writer about software, but it's very hard to train an engineer to write.

The training I had that contributed to my ability to do this job was, mainly, learning to write film criticism, and also training later in life as a high school teacher. From the first, I learned many good writing skills; from the second, I learned good ways to present information.

If you're a young person and think the job sounds good, I'd say the best thing you can do is work on your written communication -- clear, concise, unambiguous writing.

3) Can you please take me through a typical day that you might have?

I get to work around 9:00, screw around for a while reading email, then start tackling something that has to do with my job. There are several ways to start. I could:

• Look at a bug report that points out something incorrect or lacking about one of the manuals I'm responsible for.
• Look at a specification for one of the new features the engineers are working on.
• Work on one of the lists I keep just to keep track of all the different things I have to remember, do, and plan for.

I'll work a few hours, and I usually have lunch around 1:00 or 1:30. There's often a meeting in the morning or afternoon that lasts from 30 to 60 minutes, in which I meet with other employees and share information about current projects, because it helps to have others' insights on how something works (or is broken, which is often the case). I'll work some more until 4:30 or 5:30.

The actual work consists of writing new material, or editing old material, in these software manuals -- which are between 40 and 400 pages of instructions on how to install and use our software. We write the manuals in FrameMaker, and I use a utility called SnagIt to take screenshots of the software as illustrations. We publish the manuals using Adobe Acrobat, creating PDF files, and that's the only way we distribute them -- we don't have paper manuals printed.

In order to write about the software, I have to install, configure and use it myself. I have to talk to software coders, testers and managers to understand why a feature exists and how it works. I have to read specifications -- documents written by engineers and managers that explain how the software should function, and what under-the-covers work they have to do to make it work right. Since those documents are written only for other engineers who are working on the guts of our software, I have to selectively take only the parts of them that the customer -- the "end user" -- will care about.

4) What do you like the most about your job? What do you like the least?

The best thing about this job is the high pay. Starting salary for a junior tech writer is in the 50-60K range. With over 10 years experience, I make over $100K.

The worst thing about the job is working for a huge company with bureaucratic systems that get in the way more than they help.

5) What is the employment outlook for jobs in this career over the next 3-5 years?

Not bad. I thought that after the software industry bubble popped in 2000-2002, I might never work in high tech again. But the industry recovered and I was hired again in 2004 and have been exmployed ever since. The current economic climate is plenty scary, and a lot of people in high tech are losing their jobs -- not me yet, fortunately. But the industry will come back when the economy does.

Other posts in which I write about technical writing:
* Other posts about technical writing

technorati: technical writing, working, jobs

Kaboom at dawn

In my neighborhood I often hear disturbances -- morning, noon and night. Even when I'm sleeping, a part of me is vigilant. But even when I hear something, I don't necessarily rush out the door. Especially if I'm in bed.

Last night, close to dawn, I heard a voice, or maybe more than one, on the street, maybe some other noises -- I was half-asleep. Then a man yelled loudly, "Hey!!" If he had yelled again, I would have gotten up, but there was no more yelling, so I thought maybe I can go back to sleep. Then a car horn started sounding continuously -- a small Japanese car, judging from the "beeeeeeep." It lasted about a minute, and I thought, shit, somebody's just picking up a co-worker -- first he yelled and now he's honking. But after a minute or so, the car's horn shattered into two different notes and then died out. Then: BLAM!

I got up, walked to the front windows in the living room and looked out. A few doors up, a car was engulfed in flames, a ball of fire about 15 feet in diameter. Standing naked in the cold living room, I dialed 911, but by the time I was talking to them, I heard sirens already.

No way was I getting back to sleep after that, and it was almost 6:00 a.m. anyway. So while the firemen put out the fire, I took a shower and got dressed. By the time I got down to the street about a half hour later, the fire truck was pulling away and there was just a cop car, with a cop walking around the scene and making notes. The destroyed car was a small convertible with stuff piled in the back seat -- clothing and books that had partially burned up. Black burned mess, including several partially burned books, were all over the street and sidewalk, sitting in puddles of water.

By the time I left the house to go to church 45 minutes later, even the car had been towed away.

Obama voters sinned: Roman Catholic priests

A Catholic priest in Modesto, Calif. has told parishioners that voting for Obama was a sin that must be confessed and forgiven before they receive church sacraments (courtesy Huffington Post). It's not the first time, according to the Modesto Bee story; a priest in South Carolina told his parishioners the same.

At least The Catholics require an actual act before condemning people. You may recall the Alabama city administrator who told the NYT that people who aren't disappointed by Obama's victory "need to be at the altar" to ask forgiveness.

The Central Valley where Modesto is located is one of the most socially conservative areas of California. Churches in the region's Episcopal diocese left the national Episcopal church last year over the national body's endorsement of an openly gay bishop -- not in their diocese but in New Hampshire -- and voters in Stanislaus County, where Modesto is located, voted 68 to 32 percent in favor of anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 earlier this month.

technorati: Roman Catholics, Obama, Christian Right

One good use for Christmas displays

From the LA Times: Candy cane lawn ornament is used to subdue attacker

Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard is preaching again

For some reason, disgraced, defrocked religious leaders always seem to be able to attract new or old followers by allowing the suckers to "forgive" them and thus feel virtuous. And in America, there has never been a shortage of either. Disgraced Colorado Springs megachurch leader Ted Haggard, whose outing as a meth-snorting, gay prostitute-paying hypocrite played a role in 2006's Republican election debacle, and in the disillusionment of right-wing Christians with the Republican party, is preaching again, appearing at a rural Illinois church.

Then the 50-year-old president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a symbol of the relationship between the Christian Right and the Republican Party, Haggard was outed by the male prostitute whom he had patronized and bought drugs from over several years in Colorado. His very public fall, coming just days before the 2006 election, was preceded a month earlier by the fall of Mark Foley, and marked the beginning of the end of Republican domination of electoral politics in the U.S. for several years.

Be sure to read to the end of today's story where an elder of Haggard's former church compares him to a "mouse" in his present state.

Update: Courtesy Jeff Sharlett, here's an ABC News story -- with audio excerpts from Haggard's sermon if you play the video.

technorati: Ted Haggard, Christians, televangelists

Wal-Mart employee trampled as doors opened

A Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death, and four other people were taken to area hospitals, when the Long Island store opened this morning. Among the bargains at the store were a 50-inch plasma TV and a nice vacuum cleaner.

A giddy shopper in Atlanta, meanwhile, rejoiced over a bargain on a designer t-shirt, saying "We have to marinate in our deals." I wonder if that's quite what she meant.

Astronauts relieved as toilet functions with flying colors

NASA was relieved to find that a space toilet was working right, allowing astronauts to recycle piss as drinking water. The gizmo is essential for NASA's plan to double the number of people in orbit.

Meanwhile, you remember the bonehead play earlier this week when a space walker let a tool bag drift away. An Australian hobbyist has captured the debris in a photo.

technorati: space travel, NASA, toilet, pissing

Things I had to look up: fraught

Cris asked, "Is 'fraught' the past tense of the verb 'freight'?"

Huh, good question. Dictionary.com says the words are related. Fraught comes from a Middle Low German word meaning "freight money," which I take to mean the same thing we meant when we ask, "What's the freight on that?" -- that is, the shipping charge, however metaphorical.

Candace Gingrich to Newt: You're the past

Worth reading: Huffington Post piece by Candace Gingrich in which she advises her brother, the scary clown:

This (LGBT movement) is a movement of the people that you most fear. It's a movement of progress -- and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

technorati: Newt Gingrich

JFK assassination day: the 45th anniversary

Today's the 45th anniversary of JFK's assassination, an event so roundly discussed over the last 45 years that almost no one is mentioning it. I found an article in the Dallas Morning News, but not even the NYT marked it.

Oh, and if you ever had an idea to form a band called the Grassy Knolls -- it's been done.

Things I had to look up: Enarch (n.)

From David Brooks' column in the NYT:

Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life -- that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. ... And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.

What the hell? It sounds like some kind of weird science fiction term. But I found this:

"Enarchy" derives from the acronym ENA, "Ecole Nationale d'Administration", which selects the 25 years old. students who will take the top chief executive jobs in high civil services. Graduate of this school are called "enarchs."

Not sure how you count that in dollars; I suppose Brooks means "Ivy Leaguers and their ilk."

technorati: words, columnists, David Brooks

Indian tech employee dies in fun team-building event

In one of the idiotic team-building exercises run by Western companies to foster fun and solidarity among their workers, Nokia-Siemens ran a pie-eating contest in their office in Guragon, India, leading to the choking death of a 22-year-old employee.

Such antics, and their unintended consequences, are the subject of the novel I'm just finishing up, Bangalored.

technorati: Bangalore, India, outsourcing

A very nice mention

Thanks to Alexis McKinnis, the sex columnist for the Twin Cities' vita.mn, for today's very complimentary mention of my book How I Adore You. In answer to someone asking for pointers on learning something about power play, she writes:

If you need some inspiration, pick up a copy of Mark Pritchard's "How I Adore You." It's a collection of erotic short stories that mostly focuses on different degrees of BDSM. The first story, "Pretend," is so tastefully salacious that you won't need much more to inspire you, though you probably won't want to put the book down until you hit the back cover.

I'm a fan of Alexis' writing too, and I hope she writes a book someday soon so I can return the favor.

technorati: Alexis McKinnis, sex columnists,

Gingrich: it takes one to know one

Here's Newt Gingrich on Fox's Bill O'Reilly show Friday, speaking in answer to an open question O'Reilly put to him about protests against California's anti-gay Proposition 8:

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.

... I think when the left -- when the radicals lost the vote in California, they are determined to impose their will on this country no matter what the popular opinion, no matter what the law of the land. You've watched them, for example, in Massachusetts, basically drive the Catholic Church out of running adoption services, drive Catholic hospitals out of offering any services, because they impose secular rules that are fundamentally sinful from the standpoint, you know.

What the fuck planet is he talking about?

First of all he uses the classic right-wing tactic of accusing the other side of what you're already doing; in this case it's "fascism," and to that all I can say is, it takes one to know one.

Secondly, what the fuck is he doing, talking about what "traditional religion" is, what is or is not taught in Sunday School, what is sinful? He's a freaking politician. He hasn't had a day of religious training in his life, not since he left the Sunday School he must be referring to. (Unlike O'Reilly, who at least went to a Jesuit secondary school.) He is talking completely out of his ass.

Gingrich is determined to use the next three and a half years to position himself for a presidential run. He thinks enough time has passed since his infamous ethical problems lost him his House seat and he became a laughingstock for shutting down the government in 1995. And he's putting himself out front and center now, while Republicans are flailing, to see whether any of their wounded, run-over dogs will wag their tails.

One look at his scary-clown face should be enough to dissuade anybody from ever voting for him again, but if not, his record should be enough to convince people how toxic he is.

technorati: Newt Gingrich, crypto-fascism, Bill O'Reilly

Blue and beige seemingly ruled book design this year

That's a screen capture from a Galleycat posting about the upcoming National Books Awards; it depicts the five finalists in fiction and non-fiction. Go to the post and you'll see the nominees in the other two categories, poetry and Young People's Literature. Has anybody pointed out that, including the five poetry books (not pictured above), just about all the book covers use only two colors, blue and beige? The poetry books have a little bit of pale yellow and (daring!) on one, a panel colored a subdued orange. What is up with that??

technorati: book design

Fight the power

Man accused of driving in the buff on interstate

The Associated Press

Thursday, November 6, 2008; 6:21 PM

SOUTHBURY, Conn. -- A 30-year-old man faces criminal charges after police said he was spotted driving nude on Interstate 84 in Southbury. Troopers said the man was driving nude on I-84 Wednesday morning near Exit 14, near the state police barracks.

The man, charged with public indecency and breach of peace, was released on a $1,000 bond and is due in Waterbury Superior Court on Nov. 19.

Shit, you meant that's illegal!? I've never gotten caught.

What will anti-8 protests accomplish?

This post may shock my friends, but I am sort of in agreement with this sentence in the LA Times today on today's nationwide protests against anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives such as California's Prop. 8:

And it remains uncertain whether the aggressive tactics ultimately advance the activists' goal: Either having the California Supreme Court throw out Proposition 8 or persuading voters in a new election that gay marriage should be legal in the state.

Right, there is already a lawsuit trying to stop the implementation of Prop. 8, so exactly what are the protests going to accomplish? Of course it's fine to give people an emotional outlet. But I think the reason why people are going to these demonstrations is -- for some of them -- guilt that they didn't do more to stop Prop. 8 before the election.

As I grow older, I look on street protests more and more as simply being theater. And there's nothing wrong with theater, to the extent that it motivates people to do something more than go to demonstrations. But if I were one of the people behind Prop. 8 -- a Catholic bishop, a Republican activist, a Mormon panjandrum -- I might look at the demonstrations and simply smirk. Just as Obama supporters are now feeling a good deal of smugness.

I also wonder: if Prop. 8 had been defeated and anti-abortion Prop. 4 won, would there be these nationwide demonstrations? And why not?

technorati: gay marriage, Prop. 8, protests, demonstrations, gay

Today's hoax: fake pundit not really a 'McCain adviser'

A person(a) named Martin Eisenstadt was behind the assertion that Sarah Palin didn't know whether Africa was a continent or a country, people have reported this week. Now it turns out that "Martin Eisenstadt," his blog, his supposed status as adviser to McCain, and his "Harding Institute" are all an elaborate hoax played out for months. Among the media outlets that were taken in by various postings and press releases made by "Eisenstadt" -- actually the creation of two filmmakers -- were Mother Jones, the LA Times, the New Republic, and most recently with the fake Palin story, MSNBC.

My favorite bit of the story is that the filmmakers based his name on the notion that "all the neocons in the Bush administration had Jewish last names and Christian first names."

I read much of the article to Cris, who said, "It isn't very funny."

I said, "It's meta-funny -- it's making fun of the whole superstructure of blogs, pundits, opinionators and so forth who form a sort of mulch that feeds the news cycle." (I thought I was clever for coining a neologism, but "opinionator" turns out already to be in common use.)

technorati: fakes, hoaxes, Martin Eisenstadt

The year in blogs

I was sad to read today that Valleywag, a tech industry gossip blog I read because I work in the high tech industry, will be collapsed into its parent property, Gawker. As I wrote two years ago, I stopped reading Gawker a long time ago, and it would be a pain to have to start again, because I really don't want to have to sift through a bunch of crap about... oh, just to take a random example from today, Alex Kuczynski.

I know, who? Thank goodness, then, for RSS and Google Reader. I hope the Valleywag-only posts will have their own feed. Of course, there's always Silicon Alley Insider.

Speaking of Gawker properties, io9, their science and sci-fi-related property -- whose queen Annalee Newitz I interviewed early this year -- always makes me want to surf porn. I don't know why.

My new favorite blog site of the year (new to me, that is)? The Politico site. But now that the election's over I have the feeling I won't find it as compelling.

I wish Michelle Obama would start a blog. That could be awesome. But in the meantime, let me offer this post on Jezebel by writer Megan Carpentier. Recounting the opening today of the Republican Governor's Conference, she writes in part:

Former GOP pollster/strategist Frank Luntz took his turn shitting on the party and McCain today, too, saying, among other things, that "Stevie Wonder reads a teleprompter better than John McCain." Luntz, who was a GOP star in 1994, is so far up Newt Gringrich's ass that he knows what donor's cock Gincrich just finished sucking to fund his campaign in 2012 from the taste alone.

Suddenly I have something to look forward to.

technorati: gawker, valleywag, io9

Today's fake: woman stages daughter's kidnapping

A British woman staged her 9-year-old daughter's kidnapping, going so far as to drug the girl and tie her to a roof beam in order to gain access to £50,000 in reward money. The 33-year-old woman is on trial with a 40-year-old male acquaintance who claims he had acted "under duress" with the girl's mother telling him what to do. The British press is having a field day with the case, calling the man "pervy ex-lover of abducted Shannon Matthews's mum" and "vile."

Graphic novel by Jason Little

I don't know how I stumbled on it, but here's a site called New Partisan with a great portion of a graphic novel by Jason Little, "Motel Art Improvement Service." Fun!

technorati: Jason Little, comix

Focus on the Fundies: Still stuck in early stages of grief

The NYT did an article about hillbillies who are shocked at Obama's victory. Finding a remote county seat, they walked into City Hall and started chatter with "the" (sic) administrative assistant who, asked for his reaction to Obama's election, said:

This is a community that's supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks. If they're not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.

That's one Don Dollar, in Vernon, Alabama, seat of Lamar County, where 76% of residents voted for John McCain -- a 5% increase over the number who voted for George Bush in 2004.

By "to be at the altar" he is not suggesting marriage, but contrition. Fundamentalist churches have "altar calls" in which people are invited to dedicate, or rededicate, themselves to Christ.

I think he's saying, "I thought everybody here was just like me. I can't believe almost a quarter of people aren't. And since I do everything I'm told, anybody not like me must be a sinner.

"Of course, they aren't so far like me that they don't share my religio-cultural context, so surely they belong to a church just like mine, with identical values. I fully expect them to feel they have sinned in not mourning the victory of the Democrat, and to repent of it."

The word "Deliverance" comes to mind -- the film, not the doctrine.

Link to churches in and around Vernon, AL. Five of the first ten are Baptist, two others are Church of Christ, and one is simply a "Full Gospel Worship Center."

technorati: fundamentalists, Baptists, Alabama, election, Christians, sin, repentance, white trash

Chicken-or-egg question

"Sunset Boulevard" is being shown in rotation on TCM these days, and it brings to mind a question I've never seen properly addressed: Which came first, Gloria Swanson's portrayal of the compensating, overly made-up past-it movie star Norma Desmond -- or the campy, overly made-up, deliberately outrageous drag queen who, explicitly or not, evokes her? Did the makeup artist on the film consciously or unconsciously imitate the way drag queens portrayed women, or did drag queens use "Sunset Boulevard," with its misogynist portrayal of a washed-up, delusional former star, as a Rosetta stone for their own complex portrayals of femininity and self-hatred? If Norma Desmond had never been conjured by Billy Wilder and Gloria Swanson, would they have had to create her anyway? (Or was Joan Crawford enough?)

technorati: drag, cinema, Billy Wilder, film, Gloria Swanson

Focus on the Fundies: Dobson 'jubilant' over anti-gay election wins

Focus on the Family head James Dobson was "jubilant" over passage of gay marriage bans in Florida, California and Arizona, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. While Dobson praised the election of Barack Obama as "historic," he also said he was concerned that Obama is "in favor of much of the homosexual agency" (sic -- don't know whether this is a typo in the news story or just a brain fart by the sexegenarian Dobson; he undoubtedly meant to refer to the well-known, if non-existent, homosexual agenda).

Dobson's group contributed half a million dollars to help pass California's Proposition 8, which intends to amend the state's constitution to disallow gay marriage. Pro-marriage groups sued Thursday to keep the vote from being enforced.

technorati: James Dobson, Focus on the Family, gay marriage

The first thing I've seen that makes me like Sarah Palin

Now that it's safe to do so.

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.

That's from a Newsweek article rounding up bits and pieces from the campaign.

technorati: Palin

Where the bigots are

Look at this map from the New York Times, showing the change in voting, county by county, from 2004 to 2008. For example, it shows how Indiana changed from a red to a blue state.

But the most interesting thing it shows is which areas of the country got more conservative in the last four years:
- hillbillies, who are bigots through and through
- areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, where all the black people moved away

Focus on the Fundies: sad faces in Colorado Springs

In El Paso County, Colo. where Colorado Springs is located, votes by the Christianists still went heavily to McCain:

Also, they re-elected their Republican congressman.

technorati: Colorado Springs, election

Vote-shy

technorati: Palin

My near-misses with the near-famous, part 1

In August 2002 I went to L.A. to do a reading for Too Beautiful, the first edition of my first book. It was a strange event, held at the Hustler Store in Hollywood. Of all the writers who appeared, I was the only one who actually read anything; everyone else just talked for a few minutes. Among those appearing was a woman who did a strange sort of grad-student presentation about bukkake porn almost illegible blown-up photos that had been turned into a sort of black-and-white poster-sized comic book. She had "researched" the subject by attending the filming of a bukkake video, but was at pains to say that she, personally, was not into it. My whole reaction was, yeah, whatever. This turned out to be Suzannah Breslin, who has become internet-famous. Just as I didn't get her presentation, if that's what it was, I have never really gotten her blog or her writing.

technorati: Suzannah Breslin

Twitter your voting experience

Read this Silicon Alley Insider post to learn how to code a message to Twitter on your voting experience.

Focus on the Fundies: Anti-abortion prop, vague fears stoke New Lifers

Salon visited New Life Church, Ted Haggard's old stomping grounds, now somewhat diminished by changing demographics and Bush fatigue. In addition to the kind of sentiments you'd expect -- one woman had "heard Obama wanted to change the flag and the symbols of the country somehow. 'He wants it to be this one big -- I don't know -- it's not America. It's going to be something else, and I don't know what it's going to be'" -- the writer found a former Bush supporter ready to vote for Obama. It's people like the last guy who are going to give Colorado to Obama this time.

Read previous posts about New Life Church.

technorati: New Life Church, Colorado Springs, election

CNN map shows early voting patterns

A map on CNN shows early voting statistics. I tried to post a screenshot, but it didn't work, so just hit this link and see for yourself. Mouse over a state to see, for example, that about 225,000 more Democrats than Republicans have voted early in Florida.

technorati: election, early voting, map

Vox populi

I was in the break room at work, where a TV was playing CNN. A slip showed Sen. Ted Stevens leaving an office building as Wolf Blitzer narrated, "One day after being convicted on corruption charges, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says he wants to get back on the campaign trail."

A janitor was sitting there watching. "A crook, and he wants to campaign!" the guy said. "'Look at me, I just got convicted, vote for me.' He's just a big crook!"

I said something about how I guessed he already had his campaign donations in hand so why not get out there and spend them.

"That's all they're there for," the janitor declared. "Crookery!"

technorati: Republicans, Ted Stevens, CNN

Dumbass of the day

Rep. Steve King, warming up a crowd at a Palin rally in Iowa:

Obama is ACORN. ... When I see Obama, I see ACORN branded on his forehead.

What the fuck does that even mean? He sees black people with brands? He thinks that Obama is in thrall to this non-profit community development group? What he meant was: ""When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship," King said. "There is no freedom to the left. It's always to our side of the aisle."

"Lurch" -- yes.

technorati: Republicans, Steve King, ACORN

Rocky lost

Enraged by reports of finger-pointing and defeatism among senior aides -- including a long NYT Magazine piece that's well worth reading -- McCain yesterday took the stage to the theme from "Rocky," declaring he would fight to the end.

Failing to take into account that Rocky was set up to lose and did, in fact, lose. For some reason Americans find this story reassuring; cf. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the Chicago Cubs, etc. Well-known Republicans continued their predictions of doom.

But even before this development, someone has identified a new neurosis, maverick personality disorder, to describe the McCain-Palin identity.

technorati: McCain, Republicans, maverick

Today's fake: GOP volunteer charged with making false report

Well, that didn't take long: The young McCain volunteer who said she was attacked by a black man who carved a (backwards) "B" on her face has been charged with making a false police report after admitting the story was false.

I mean:

Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the "B" was backward, Bryant said.

"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."

It's Bad Behavior Thursday™! -- Emergency 911 edition

John McCain's brother was stuck in traffic, so he called 911 to complain. When the dumbfounded operator asked him "Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic?" he yelled "Fuck you!" and hung up. So the operator called him back, got voice mail, and left a message. So he calls 911 again to complain about the operator who left him a message.

Joe McCain: Somebody gave me this riot act about the violation of police.
Operator: Did you just call 911 in reference to this?
Joe McCain: Yeah.
Operator: 911 is to be used for emergencies only, not just because you're sitting in traffic.

Video at the link above. The traffic in question was on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge just south of Alexandria, VA near the nation's capital; amusing that only a few weeks ago the same Joe McCain said the area was "Communist", possibly reaching for the same sentiment a McCain campaign adviser was trying to express earlier this week when she said Northern Virginia was not "the real Virginia."

In other election news, a Politico columnist says the RNCC is running out of fingers and toes to count the dozens of House seats the GOP will lose this time around. And morale among McCain staffers is said to be so low as to resemble the classic formation of a cratering political campaign, the dreaded circular firing squad.

Tra-la!

technorati: police, Joe McCain, 911 tape

As polls suggest big lead, 'Democrats' gloom deepens'

This story is hilarious:

Democrats' gloom deepens

The Democrats are poised on the brink of victory. And they cannot stand it. The news is too good. Something has to go wrong.

On Saturday, Charlie Cook, an independent analyst and author of the Cook Report, wrote: "This election isn't over, but it is looking very bad for Republicans -- and seems to be getting worse."

This plunged the Democrats into a deep gloom. Good news is always bad news for them.

Ha ha ha! It's funny because it's true.

The other funny thing in that article is when the writer suggests that Obama has such a lead in money raised that he could, like Oprah, just buy everybody a Pontiac. No! Make it a green car, built by American workers. Now that's change I can believe in.

technorati: Democrats, politics, polls, campaign

Obama visits NC diner, gets mixed reception but lots of grub

Obama visited a diner in North Carolina and got a generally respectful reception except for one nutbag. Most reports are focusing on her, but note the last graf of the story (emphasis mine):

Obama ordered some food to go for himself and his aides. They ordered chicken, collards, baked beans, slaw and wings. The tab was $13.91.

Now that's value. And that's the white diner -- the one for black folks was down the block.

technorati: Obama, North Carolina, economy

Strippers are the cowboys of the 21st century

It came to me while I was viewing this comic strip (which has a great joke in the last panel, but -- warning to A. -- contains "the Z word"): strippers are the cowboys of today.

In the last century, the cowboy in his many guises -- sheriff, outlaw, drunk, cowhand, bandido, gaucho, cattle baron, oil baron, redneck -- was the blank slate on which politicians, artists, real estate developers and an infinite number of children drew their dreams, anxieties, pieties, and truisms. The object of, and receptacle for, nostalgia for all we imagined we had lost in the transition to mechanized, bounded society, the cowboy represented manliness, rebellion, independence, self-reliance, and strength. Ronald Reagan (an actor) and George W. Bush (scion of a rich east coast family) self-identified with this figure, and by applying the "maverick" label to himself, Republican presidential candidate John McCain attempts to do the same.

In the last ten years we've been seeing stripper culture saturate society -- as in the Bratz dolls, movies like Showgirls, weird institutions like strippers at birthday parties, and so on. It seems like everybody knows what a lap dance is, and -- in San Francisco, at least -- it seems like everybody knows somebody who has been or is a stripper, is dating a stripper, or at least fantasizes about being one.

The comic strip convinced me. Until now it has been: police versus the zombies, doctors versus the zombies, ordinary people versus the zombies; now strippers versus the zombies. Now this is the transitional moment. Instead of going on with the zombie meme, which I think has been completely played out (and yes, there has just been a movie about zombie strippers), from now on everything's going to be about strippers. Stripper lawyers, stripper crime-fighters, stripper real estate mavens, stripper executives, etc. They may not be actual strippers, just as the sheriff in a western film wasn't actually a cowboy; he merely embodied what were supposed to be cowboy values. The "stripper politician," say, might not really take her clothes off for pay, but she is going to embody stripper values.

And what are stripper values? In a way, a little like what were supposed to be cowboy values: independence, horniness, toughness, panache, daring; being sort of an outlaw even if you are, say, a cop (cf. Dirty Harry, Serpico, the Die Hard films, etc.) Substitute over-amped femininity for being macho, and voilá:

Sorry -- I guess that was even scarier than zombies.

technorati: sex work, strippers, zeitgeist

The Astyk Award: first winner

The NYT has an article about people who victimize their families in the name of environmentalism: a mother "couldn't find a (Little League baseball) league that wasn't a long drive," so her 6-year-old is stuck playing catch with her in the yard; in the winter they heat with a wood stove and the average indoor temp is 52 degrees. A man is collecting every bit of waste his family generates, including the recyclables, and blogging about it. And so forth.

Perhaps we need a companion to the Stolpa Award, which recognizes people who fit into the "Too stupid to live" category but manage to menace their whole family in the bargain. All right, let's name it after, and give the first award to, the mother who can't be bothered to live in the 20th (much less the 21st) century: The Astyk Award. (Although the article itself contains another phrase which is wonderfully evocative: dark green.)

I mean, really -- you want to reduce your carbon footprint? Don't have kids. She has four.

technorati: waste, recycling, green

Bad behavior extra: foamer's comments lead to avalanche of donations -- for opponent

On Friday, arch-conservative nutbag Michele Bachmann, a first-term US Representative from Minnesota, suggested the media investigate members of Congress to determine whether they hold "un-American" views:

By today, disgusted contributors from across the country had donated nearly $500,000 to her opponent, one El Tinklenberg, a former Methodist minister, mayor of Blaine, Minn., and state transportation commissioner.

I just sent him $50.

technorati: Republicans, Bachmann

It's Bad Behavior Saturday™! -- scare tactics edition

A firm hired by the GOP to register voters is under investigation in three states for duping voters into registering as Republicans when they thought they were only signing a petition. In southern California the firm, Young Political Majors (YPM), set up a table outside a supermarket and told voters they were signing a petition to increase penalties for child molesters.

There are so many ways this is fucked up. Primarily the hoax, of course, but also the use of a cliched red flag -- child molestation -- as a ruse, as if "penalties for child molesters" was some sort of magic incantation similar to "three strikes and you're out" or "no child left behind."

In San Bernardino County, two men were sentenced to four years in prison for robbing a paraplegic man in his home. And in Florida, a prostitute was arrested after she robbed a man who died while she was having sex with him in his car.

Actress Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia in "The Brady Bunch," was a drug-addicted mess who traded sex for drugs as a teenager and "led an off-screen life of nonstop debauchery." That makes it sound much more fun to read about than it probably is, in her just-released tell-all.

Las Vegas police, the DEA and the FBI are investigating reports that a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a Mexican meth gang in retaliation after the child's grandfather failed to pay them for millions of dollars worth of drugs. The grandfather -- a 51-year-old handyman with three mortgages on his home who also seems to have ties to the recording industry -- has not been seen for months. Update: Oops: Grampa has been arrested in California, the Amber Alert for the lad has been canceled, though further update: police were still looking for the kid as of 3 pm.

A program in Australia to snitch on neighbors you suspect of welfare fraud garnered more than 100,000 tips in a year. That news story introduced me for the first time to the expression "to dob in" which seems to mean to inform on someone.

Today's fake: Stephen Hoch, whose inflated resume got him a $300K job as Washington State University Provost. Amazingly, Hoch is not only complaining that the Provost job did not give him enough power, but is being permitted to return to his previous post with the U. as a professor, at $245K.

Finally, two examples of people whose collapse has been more spectacular than the slight fame they achieved. A former Milwaukee alderman, already convicted of bribery and other charges, may have falsified records in order to get a new driver's license after being convicted of DUI. And an actor who appeared in a small part on several episodes of "The Sopranos," Lillo Brancato, will be tried for murder later this month in a case where a cop was killed during a 2005 burglary. Brancato attempted suicide in Rikers in 2006 when the gravity of his situation hit him; he's been there ever since. By the way, Brancato appeared with fellow Sopranos actor Drea DiMatteo in a 2001 film by director Abel Ferrera, 'R Xmas, which "follows them through a nightmarish Christmas Eve in which the husband is kidnapped and beaten up by a corrupt policeman (Ice-T) and two accomplices, and the wife dashes around accumulating the king's ransom necessary to set him free."

technorati: Republicans, voter fraud

Reporter visits New Life Church, manages not to mention Ted Haggard

On Huffington Post, a reporter visits Colorado Springs, and writes 1600 words about New Life Church without mentioning its disgraced founder Ted Haggard. How impressively fair.

Strangest thing in the story is her description of "a half-used tray of communion wine, its thimbles of juice with frayed pull-tops." They have little bitty juice containers with pull-tops for communion? Now that's déclassé.

technorati: New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Ted Haggard