Yes. The Marketing Side of the Business is Growing.

So I guess I'm both a hack and a flack now. Cool. I suppose this means I should buy drinks for myself at MediaBistro parties.

What shall I call this particular outreach? How about "Scourge of Europe Publicity"?

"We pillage the publishing world." It's got that Joy-type of subtlety all over it. Oozing from its every pore.

If a Tar Baby is a Black Person

. . . what are the implications of my working so near the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles? Is that, like, a ghetto for saber-toothed tigers?

Cal Tech Girl is starting to get irritated, as anyone who owns a dictionary in this day and age must.

The L.A. Times is Flummoxed.

Mysteries within mysteries.

Patterico tries to play Sherlock Holmes in the wake of the dark, murky Seattle shootings.

"Air Conditioning for Your Head"

I'm really starting to like Matt Elson's artwork. Though he offers conventional snow scenes, he tweaks the colors in some of them and transcends photorealism that way. His portraits are really, really strange and wonderful. Classically trained, he uses interesting techniques, such as photoshopping photographs to provide fresh inspiration for the paintings themselves.

"If You Start Typing, Your Unconscious Will Solve That Problem," He Tells Me.

"It's solving it now," I reply.

"Really? 'Cause it looks like you're just sitting around making yourself miserable."

"By that logic, you aren't working when you go lie down in the middle of the day."

He looks at me. "That's just more of your smart talk."

Where Are the Servants?

They should be cutting up watermelon for me.

And revising Chapter Two.

And working out that thing in Chapter Six.

And cleaning my kitchen.

One cannot get good help these days . . .

Reynolds on the MSM Spinning the Seattle Shooting

With Tim McVeigh they were happy to generalize guilt, all the way from the NRA to Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich. Here, the "climate of opinion" in subcultures producing terrorists seems to get less attention, or to be processed in more of a "why do they hate us?" fashion. I wonder why?

It's certainly a mystery. More here.

The Gun Fad

Wish we'd talked about this last weekend, Rusty. Great to meet you, though. I'll just echo what everyone else has said: get a revolver (.38 Special or .357, please), get some training, spend a little time at the range. Keep it away from kids, and the untrained.

And have fun. Firearms are the greatest.

Via Insty.

Too Late, Mr. Auden. Mr. Kipling. Mr. Gibson.

Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.
—W.H. Auden, attempting to redact material from a Sheriff's arrest report

Attila the Hub on Mel Gibson

"It has to be mortifying for a man to publicly apologize for having gotten drunk and said things that made him sound like Al Sharpton sounds sober."

Yes. And I admire Gibson for his public statement: he's acting like a stand-up guy.

The bulk of this issue is between him and his family. But he let his fans down, too. So in my own small way I can forgive. I cannot forget, though. I'll never forget.

Sorry, Mel.

I know alcohol and testosterone are a potent combination, but the antisemitism had to come from somewhere. It's pretty much over between you and me, Doll.

No one can ever take away your achievements, however. And this doesn't make The Passion of the Christ retroactively anti-Jewish.

Once in a while, one has to distinguish between an artist's work and his ugliest thoughts. This is one of those times.

"Hadji Girl"

Buy it.

Regarding the Islamofascists: I'll be a lot more sensitive to their feelings when they stop trying to kill Americans, Jews, and other "infidels." That homicidal mania thing is grating, if you want to know the truth.

In the meantime, the money will make its way to members of the U.S.M.C. somehow, and that's all that matters.

Via Raven.

My Characters

. . . appear very shallow to me right now. It appears that they are showing an inordinate interest in food and sex.

I guess I should try to instill some values in them. But why do I have to do everything?

Oh. Right.

I Love the Smell of Fisking in the Morning.

Darleen Click just cut Amanda Marcotte a new vagina over the latter's anti-Israeli bigotry.

Not that a second vagina wouldn't come in handy now and then, mind you . . . there isn't necessarily anything wrong with that double-barrelled lifestyle.

"What About When You Asked Him for His Phone Number?"

"I did that out of his earshot, so it doesn't count. Besides, I meant it ironically."

"Ironically?"

"Yes. It was a wry commentary on the fact that he's way too young for me."

"You go crazy when the weather gets hot."

"Yes. But I wasn't flirting with the waiter. And that's final."

"Well," She Says, "There's No Harm in Flirting."

"I was not flirting," I reply. "That kid was young enough to be . . . my younger brother."

"You don't have a younger brother."

"So you admit that he was fair game?"

"Do you admit that you were flirting?"

"With a 30-year-old? No. But you're welcome to make a citizen's arrest."

Who is Socrates' Gadfly?

I admit that I'm puzzled. He's been all over the R.L. Hymers cult for years and years. A shadowy figure, he's granted interviews about his experience in the Hymers "church" and written letters to the editors of various periodicals. He participates in the Yahoo group devoted to warning people about the cultic attributes of Bob Hymers' "ministry."

I know most of these people. But Socrates operates from the shadows. Very mysterious.

Lunch Today

. . . with my ex-girlfriend. The one who married my former boyfriend. (No, no: not the boyfriend who cheated on her with me—the one who saw her on the side [with my full knowledge and consent] while he was living with me.)

I swear I don't understand why you guys can't keep this all straight. It's easy as pie.

No, Really.

It's like being in charge of making the vinaigrette when one person at dinner is into the health benefits of olive oil, and another is afraid of the calories, so she wants it to be 90% vinegar. Then the first one accuses you of trying to take the enamel off her teeth.

I'm supposed to develop my characters first, but then everyone wants the body to show up immediately. The advice is all contradictory.

Writing is too hard. I think I need to learn a real trade. I'd make a good truck driver, for instance.

Nobody Likes Me.

More precisely, they don't like my introductory chapter. Too chatty. Doesn't lead us into the story soon enough. Too clever. Blah blah blah. I'll keep going. Meanwhile, I'll start investigating when the bodies show up in various murder mysteries whose authors I respect.

The challenge is to keep writing the missing middle chapters, even as I focus on the beginning chapters and the last ones when I read aloud in my high-intensity workshop.

And to be prepared to encounter the occasional Philistine who just doesn't see my brilliance.

An Early Lunch with the Old Man Today.

I walk him to his car. We are talking about my favorite subject.

"What are the chances," he asks, "that you're a selfish asshole?"

"They're quite good," I tell him. "But I make up for my selfishness by being really, really greedy."

He laughs. "Very nice." And he kisses me goodbye, gets into his Infiniti, and drives off.

What

. . . is the driving force behind your life? What animates you? What's your main goal as you walk through your days? The most important thing?

Dear Abby,

My mother's on the warpath again. Would it be unethical for me to sneak her an extra Prozac? Or is there any point: she appears pretty determined to have a fight with me tomorrow.

Oh, well. It's like my middle-aged acne—it'll keep me young.

Oh, That Joni.

She's smart.

People don't know how to love They taste it and toss it Turn it off and on Like a bathtub faucet Oh sometimes the light Can be so hard to find-- At least the moon at the window-- The thieves left that behind.

When Planning a Party . . .

one must make the assumptions that:

1) the date selected many weeks ahead of time will fall during a heat wave, and

2) one will get one's period on the day the party begins, incurring cramps and the necessity for steady doses of codeine.

Therefore, it behooves one to clean the house on the weekend previous to that of the potluck itself. Hey—at least I remembered the appetizers this time.

Tips for Dealing with the Heat

. . . courtesy of one of today's birthday boys.

(Also having birthdays today: Justene's teenage girls, who turn 15 today, and Prof. Fractal, who should be 45 if I'm remembering the formula correctly.)

At 8:00 p.m.

I checked the thermometer in the breezeway area of the garage. It had finally dipped below 100 degrees.

And still, we're too stubborn to turn on the AC.

Tomorrow, though, it'll be different: we're having people over at night, and I'll be straightening up during the day. So when I get up I'm turning on the air.

This is a big deal for Methodists: we tend to convince ourselves that unnecessary expenditures will send us to hell. Where, I've been told, the AC is spotty at best.

Jauhara

. . . posts a timely set of Bob Dylan lyrics.

So, Who Designs

. . . Bob Hymers' website?

I mean, that thing is as ugly as . . . well, it's as ugly as sin. It's as ugly as the man's miserable life's mission of turning people off to Christianity and to all religion/morality. Ugly inside, ugly outside.

P.S. Also—unattractive. In case I wasn't being clear.

When It's Hot,

don't just sit around with a pillow on your lap and a hot powerbook on top of the pillow.

It won't help at all, you know.

This has been a public service announcement.

I Update My Niece on My Crime-Novel Progress

I'm working with two different crit groups. My regular writing teacher is turning into a Nazi (she must think I need it) and my new "novel teacher" is a Nazi from the get-go. I will either achieve Great Things, or end up as a lampshade.

Do You Suppose Iran Promised

. . . that it wouldn't come in Syria's mouth?

Whaaaaaaaat? I asked a question.

"Bekaa Valley 26809,

I used to call that number all the time,
But the last time that I called it, you hung up cryin'."

—with apologies to David Cassidy and the entire Partridge Family

"And Then She Got Really Angry."

Well now, I knew this girl. It's true she had read Sophocles in a fairly good translation And caught that bitter allusion to the sea, But all the time he was talking she had in mind The notion of what his whiskers would feel like On the back of her neck . . . ."

From "The Dover Bitch," by Anthony Hecht—in which Matthew Arnold doesn't really come off all that well if you want to know the truth about it

Kinky Omelet Variations

Martin G. used to add two teaspoons of flour to the eggs, and then strain the egg mixture. That would remove some of the white, along with any unblended flour. His family insisted that this made the final product, technically, a crepe.

Zora used to whip up the eggs, so that they'd almost get fluffy--notwithstanding the presence of yolk--and then put in some Worchestershire sauce. Since she claimed to be vegetarian, I always allowed myself to believe the Worchestershire sauce was vegetarian, and was free of anchovies. Of course, I might have been wrong.

Sean's Got Video

. . . of Malkin attempting the Cindy Sheehan fast. Rugged; very rugged.

Harrell Notes

. . . that the people at A.N.S.W.E.R. are not asleep at the switch!

No, sirree: they're having an "emergency march." In a month.

What I Do on Those Occasions When Women Seem to Really Fucking Hate Me.

Option 1: I try to have compassion for them.

Option 2: With every action I take, I assert the notion that I'm smarter than they are, and better-looking. That both men and women desire me beyond all belief. That I'm creative, and that my erstwhile blue-collar family has managed to put together a shitload of money.

As I get older, I seem to be able to take the high road more and more. But I don't do it every time.

The Importance of Making Omelets.

Now that I've developed an omelet filling that we all three (mother, husband and self) can live with, it might be time to stop making them in sequence. With a MoFo twelve-inch omelet pan, I could simply produce one really butch omelet.

Though it might be a challenge to turn it. And there is the margarine vs. butter debate. (That one is solvable: I'll use olive oil. Healthier that way, anyway.)

Good food is such a fundamental pleasure in life. I'm glad my first few boyfriends taught me to cook.

Beloved Palestinians: Shhh.

Youssef Ibrahim has some mighty tough love for his Arab brothers:

. . . Your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery . . .

Darleen

. . . rescued a cute cockatiel.

Please.

Please.

Nevermind.

Please.

You know how it is: one is always bargaining with life. Especially those who were born without the gift of contentment.

My Mother's Prius

. . . arrived Thursday.

Okay: so it looks like a miniature hump-backed whale. On a certain level, however, you must admit that there's something charming about a car without a GPS system that nonetheless includes a screeen—through which one controls the AC and the stereo, and gains all kinds of handy-dandy information.

I insisted she get the one with the iPod jack. In case, um, she ever gets an iPod.

So. Human Nature.

Essentially dark, or is there some hope?

Discuss.

It's Too Hot To Work.

I'll be in bed with a juicy George Friedman book on precision-guided munitions.

Ta-ta.

Happy Bastille Day.

Try not to, um . . . keep your wits about you, okay?

So, I Took the Re-Write of Chapter One to My Crit Group.

They weren't nearly as thrilled by it as I had been.

A few of them actually thought some improvements could be made to it.

I'm left with one possible conclusion: MY WRITING GROUP IS TEH SUXXOR!

Time to get with people that appreciate my genius. This is the litmus test: when I read, do people fall down on their knees? If not, I'm taking my manuscript and going home.

I mean it.

Misha

. . . is a brute. And I'm shocked—shocked!—at his rhetoric.

"Shake Hands with Beef"

There are just layers upon layers, aren't there?

Is it a vegetarian anthem?

Does it compare, in its fly's-world-view, the eating of meat with the consuming of fecal matter?

Is it a commentary on the psychological arteriosclerosis of life in a whitebread trailer park?

Or is it yet another adolescent explosion of testosterone?—not that there's anything wrong with that.

Defending Greenwald:

Sure. Threatening a two-year-old with sexual predation and violence is exactly the same as rhetorically "threatening" overwhemingly powerful unelected public figures in their golden years whose actions deprive private citizens of their homes.

Gotcha. You're just a reasoning machine, aren't you?

[Inside blogball; apologies all around.]

The Only Reason Isreal Still Exists

. . . is that it refuses to fuck around.

So I'm happy—and sick at heart. Both.

Just like in Afghanistan. Just like in Iraq.

The world has turned into a maximum-security prison, and if we don't fight, we don't survive.

But I don't have to like it, do I?

"What Is This Pirates of the Caribbean Craze?"

Hog asks.

"Two words," I reply. "Johnny Depp."

"I can understand that," he tells me. "He is hot."

"And two more words: Orlando Bloom."

"He doesn't do it for me. All he gets is a sort of mercy hard-on. With Johnny, it's 45 degrees. But not in a gay way, mind you."

"Understood."

So I'm on the Cell Phone with Hog Beatty

. . . who's walking around the Promenade in Santa Monica.

Suddenly: "Lord have mercy," he exclaims. "I've got to go."

He calls me ten minutes later. "That must have been fast work," I tell him. "Did you get a phone number?"

"There were three of them. They were just like walking truffles. But I had to go because a colleague of mine called at that moment. He's married, and when I described what I was looking at he accused me of trying to get him in trouble."

"That would imply you were willing to share," I remark.

Commuter Train Attack

PJ Media has a roundup, of course.

I wonder if the folks at The New York Times will get any sleep tonight. They shouldn't.

Is It Possible

. . . that the terrorists haven't been reading Dale Carnegie lately?

India will be the next country to lead the world, after our influence fades. And they will understand the threat posed by terrorism; I'm sure of that.

And, yup, I do think it's the Islamofascists this time: look at the calendar. Happy fucking 7/11.

With a Hat Tip to Erica Jong

I'm starting to think that the world is obsessed with finishing its crime novel. Sure, people talk about other stuff. But what they're really wondering is how many chapters one can spend wrapping up loose ends after the final revelation, without it all becoming tedious, a la that horrible movie AI.

Darleen Has

. . . new kittens. They sound like particularly smart ones.

The Bangles Played

. . . for my birthday. Unfortunately, they did it out in Milwaukee.

Ace

. . . on the World Cup:

Be proud, France. Another "moral victory," which is just like a true victory, except without the actual "victory," which, let's face it, is an "Anglo-American cultural hegemonic concept" anyway.

Thanks, Darrell.

The tank top fits perfectly. I put it on when we got back from mass, and I've been wearing it all day. Attila the Hub got a pic, which I'll send you once it's downloaded.

My Brother Calls Today.

I tell him I'm working on the manuscript of my crime novel.

"How far along are you?" he asks.

"I have a five-chapter gap. There's just this spot in the middle where I've got 'em outlined a little, but it's very vague. I feel like I've got nothin.'"

"Five out of how many?"

"It looks like 25 at this point."

Pause. My little sister might actually pull this thing off.

"Send it to me when you've finished the draft," he finally says. So I got another beta tester lined up.

At Ralph's

. . . the young checkers are joking about the middle-aged. I can't help but smile. The clerk with the pierced nose looks up and says, "we couldn't be talking about you; you can't be more than 25 years old."

"Forty-four," I tell him.

"She's lying," he remarks to the boxboy.

"You want to see my ID? It's forty-four today," I respond.

The 50-ish man behind me says, "really? It's my birthday, too."

"July people rawk," I tell him. And I smile.

I Just Remembered the Problem.

Writing is hard. Really hard.

When You Say

. . . that something is unacceptable, try to figure out why it is that you have such trouble accepting it.

I had a boyfriend who loved to use that word: everything I did, everything in the relationship, was unacceptable. Or, as he put it, "unacCEPtable."

Finally, Professor Fractal began to do impressions of him saying, "that's unacCEPtable. Our problems are insurMOUNTable. All the postulates I've been using up to this point are inapPLICable."

Art for Art's Sake

What constitutes art? How central is craft in true art?

And, whose work do you dig the most: 1) the old masters, 2) the impressionists, 3) Picasso/Kandinsky et al.?

Should art support linear thought or complement it?

Should it be representational, or abstract?

Should it delight the eye, or get one to think?

Another Service Package

. . . from Little Miss Attila:

Get your zen koans right here!

A monk asked Kegon, "How does an enligthtened one return to the ordinary world?" Kegon replied, "A broken mirror never reflects again; fallen flowers never go back to the old branches."

"It's All Too Much

. . . for me to take."

(I mean that in the good way.)

Is It Normal

. . . to be angry when people die?

Death makes me positively livid at times. Am I the only person other than Edna St. Vincent Millay to have this reaction?

Sullivan Should Get Married.

Maybe his husband could keep him from making a fool of himself. Maybe.

The Word "Liberal"

. . . has become as meaningless as the words "feminist," "sexist," and "conservative."

We are all Humpty Dumpty now, talking past each other in a sort of linguistic masturbation.

Via Insty.

"Remember That Dragonfly You Saw?"

"Well," I tell him, "I'm not positive it was a dragonfly. But I knew my mother was wrong, and it was no hummingbird."

"It was a bat," he replies. "I saw it sleeping in the garage."

"Another predator?" I ask. "That rawks."

"It's a nice supplement to the owls."

There's a Nice Tribute Here

. . . to Viola Elder.

What isn't said is that she was able to handle with grace the death of one son after his drug problem killed him. As I understand it, there's nothing tougher for a parent than to bury a child. I interviewed her once; she and her husband sat in front of me at the Liberty Film Festival last October, so I introduced myself and spoke with her briefly.

What a woman. What a blessing she was.

Gay Marriage! Oh, no!

The sky is falling!

Sunday Night

. . . I wanted to see a war movie. We've seen The American Revolution too recently, and our copy of Band of Brothers is, of all things, on VHS—and totally shredded at this point. Unwatchable.

So we saw Saving Private Ryan. It's a tough one.

It certainly put my problems in perspective, though.

PJ Media

. . . has a nice mini-roundup on those cute little North Korean missiles: "Ready, Aim, Fizz."

For True Pyromaniacs, Of Course,

. . . there's a great discussion going over at Goldstein's place.

He's been talking to his own patriotism, much in the way W.B. Yeats held discussions between his self and his soul. (Although Yeats didn't get harangued for drinking Mexican beer in his underwear, if I recall correctly.)

The Crowds Are Showing Up.

Everyone wants to see the fireworks from the ridge near our house that overlooks the Rose Bowl. I've gone out there a few times on the 4th: you can see all the displays across the San Gabriel Valley, eight or nine of 'em. Kinda cool.

So, as usual, everyone's parked in front of our house and they are all yammering at each other as they walk up the street to jockey for position.

I may walk up there after it starts. Though I am the one does the grilling around here, so I did get a pyromania fix today.

InstaDirtyOldMan

. . . is running Little Debbie's image. On the Fourth of July, no less. How very sad.

Harrell

. . . has a nice tribute up for the Fourth of July; I can do no better, so here you go.

Enjoy your gardenburgers, hamburgers, kabobs, pasta salad, pork loin, edamame, watermelon, strawberry shortcake, and homemade granita.

But especially—enjoy living here, with our bill-of-rights glamour: "We've got a groovy thing, goin', Baby; got a groovy thing."

Hot Cuppa Joe

. . . Lieberman, that is. The idea isn't without merit, ya know.

Via InstaDirtyOldMan.

You Know How I Hate To Play the Birthday Card . . .

But I'm turning 44 this coming Sunday; that's a hell of a caliber.

Attila Girl's Wish List

Joy's Wish List

If you really love me, however, you'll buy a Platinum/Gold blogad.

And Speaking of Fireworks . . .

Joan C. has a splendid guide to cunnilingus as part of her Oral Sex for Dummies series.

I guess it must still be Blog Sweeps week, since Joan is pandering to her readership. Right there in the gutter, that one. (I, on the other hand, am an advocate for your right to know.)

"Yeah; I Know What You're Going to Say . . .

'If you're so smart, why aren't you poor?'"

—adapted from 1000 Clowns

More on Acidman.

K. was able to follow the drama right up to the end; she has a good roundup of memorial posts on the ever-complicated Rob Smith.

I just didn't happen to dig his blog, though I'm sure I would have liked him in person. I hadn't been to his site in some months when he died.

Someone should write a biography of him, including the best of his posts. You know: the Gut Rumbles Digest or some such. I'd read it.

Light Blogging for the Next Few Days

I'm kicking the fiction-writing into high gear, partly due to the fact that I have a novel-writing class that starts on July 12th—and partly due to my very best critic (Attila the Hub) expressing an interest in seeing the manuscript at this point. (He hasn't looked at it in three years.)

"But it sucks," I tell him. "You don't want to read it."

"The sooner you finish it, the sooner you can get rid of it. It's a good thing, to hate your project."

Perhaps. It all depends on whether one wants to creep out from under the rock one lives under. [Insert exoskeletal reference here.]

In Honor of Blog Sweeps Week

I give you a site dedicated entirely to male shirtlessness. Apparently, it's a "lifestyle choice"! I love lifestyle choices.