They just now called from the car mechanic. If I do everything they're suggesting, it's going to set me back a bit over three thousand bucks. They offered to have me come in and look at it, but there's a problem. I wouldn't know what I was looking at. I don't know enough about cars to reasonably judge whether I'm begin scammed or not. Most people don't.
If I had the time I could pick up the car and get a second opinion. That would be the smart shopper thing to do. But I don't have the time. The place I take my car - the dealer (I know, I know) - is expensive, but they've always done good (so far as I can tell), fast work and my experiences with them in the past have led me to conclude that they are basically pretty honest.
And I need the car no later than Thursday afternoon - this being Tuesday morning - and the other (independent) mechanic I know can't usually keep a promise to get me the car by a specific time. The car has 125,000 miles on it and hasn't required a whole lot of expensive maintenance so far. I'm about to embark on five to six thousand miles of hard driving on my book tour. So I'm stuck.
All of which makes me think of other aggravating expenses in my life, most notably healthcare.
Since I expect that my body - it's only got 56 years on it - will hold up until after my book tour, I've postponed the treadmill stress test that my doctor thinks I should have. And I'm shopping around for a discount.
My doctor, who I think is a great doctor, charges around $1,800 for a treadmill stress test. That comes on the heels of my having been hit with a bill for $939 for a recent routine visit for a blood workup and an EKG. (My despicable insurance company did fork over $426 for the visit, otherwise the bill would have been $1,366.) The insurance isn't likely to cover any of the stress test.
The thing is, a treadmill stress test is pretty simple. So long as the monitors are positioned correctly and the machine is in decent working order, any idiot can administer one. Hell, even I could administer one to myself if I had to. There can be a little diagnostic art to interpreting the results, but none of this comes from the rocket science side of medicine.
So I'm looking for somewhere cheap, or at least cheaper, to get my stress test. I can have them send the results to my doctor - who will no doubt charge more than I'll be happy about to look them over.
This is, of course, especially of interest during an election year. Both candidates for president say they want to fix healthcare in this country. Neither one of them really has much hope in hell of doing anything about it.
Part of the problem is that healthcare is one of the areas in which free market economics don't work. They can't work. The incentives are skewed.
In most industries the free market creates incentives for companies to provide as high quality goods and services as they can, at competitive prices, so that their customers keep coming back for more.
But, if you are "lucky" enough to have health insurance, your insurance company makes more money when it doesn't provide you with the products you've paid for, than when it does.
It is far more profitable to sell insurance to people who won't use it, or who won't use it much, than it is to people who actually need it. And that's what insurance companies try to do. That's their free market incentive.
You can't really blame them. No company exists out of the goodness of its own heart. They exist to make money. Most of the time, the "enlightened self-interest" of free markets works out pretty well for everyone involved.
But healthcare is a necessity. And when it comes to necessities, the free market can easily get bent out of shape. Sooner or later, everyone needs healthcare to some degree or another. Society at large has a high stake in people remaining relatively healthy.
There is a very good reason why pretty much every single other industrialized nation on the planet has a national, government subsidized (whether administered by the government or not) healthcare system. It is the only way to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number of people.
Some things do require government money, regulation, oversight and even participation. Healthcare is one of them. I'd love to hear one of the presidential candidates own up to that. They'd probably lose some votes. But they'd sure gain my respect.
21 October 2008
20 October 2008
DRIVE BYS AND ROCK AND ROLL
First off, the 2008 Eric Stone Drive By Book Tour of America is underway. So far I have delighted and confused audiences in Houston, Thousand Oaks and Westwood Village (Los Angeles). My quest to take pictures of everyone who buys one of my books and has me sign it at a book event, goes on. The evidence is here. There have been a few people who wouldn't let me immortalize them, and a few who I have missed. But the pictures will keep coming.
But now, before I return to the subject of my book touring, I want to say a little something about rock & roll.
Rock & roll and assigned seating are an oxymoron. I've mellowed, slightly. There was a time when I didn't think it was rock and roll unless at some point in the course of the proceedings, you began to get worried about what would happen if the place you were hearing it in caught fire. I still always check the fire exits when I first get into a place, but I rarely concern myself with them after that.
Saturday night I went with some friends to see Patti Smith at The Orpheum in downtown Los Angeles. It is a beautifully restored, magnificent theater from the 1920s. The sound was excellent. But there were assigned seats, narrow aisles and not much chance to wander around or dance or anything else of that nature.
I've seen Patti Smith, maybe five or six times over the years, the first time being in the early 1980s or late '70s. She's 61 now, on the ripe side for rock & roll and I was a bit concerned before the show, and if the truth be told, during its first half, that she was moving a bit beyond her sell by date. But in the end, she really cranked it up big for the best live versions I've ever heard her do of Horses, Gloria and then an encore of Rock & Roll Nigger. The woman can still rock with the best of them. (Gives us 56 year olds some hope.)
Still, it was a shame about those damn assigned seats.
In Houston I was at Murder By the Book, for the third time. It's a big store that has always been very supportive of me and they manage to turn out a good sized crowd. Thanks yet again. I'll be back.
Earlier in the day I was having a coffee with my pal Sheri, a Houston cop. She looked around the place and estimated that about eighty percent of the people there were armed. Now I don't worry one lick about Sheri packing heat. As a matter of fact I find it reassuring. She knows what she's doing. She's well trained in how to use, care for and store her guns, and my guess is she's a pretty good shot. But if something erupted in that coffee shop, I'd hate to have my life depend on the ability of all those other people to know what they're doing and to remain level headed enough under fire to not fill me full of holes by mistake. Guns are like any other tool, they're only as good as the person using them. The difference is that a fuckwit with a hammer can do a whole lot less damage than one with a pistol.
I came back to L.A. and on Saturday I had an event at Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks. It's a small, but nicely stocked, store with a very enthusiastic crowd of readers. I always get more people turning up there to see me than I expect, and it's always, as it was this time, a great audience. They were getting ready for Michael Connelly the next day. They were going to hold his event in the parking lot. Something for me to aspire to.
Sunday was my official West Coast Launch Party at The Mystery Bookstore in Westwood Village (near UCLA.) The first job I ever had in my life was in a bookstore right across the street from where The Mystery Bookstore now is: Book Bargain Center, a mix of used bookstore, Leftist bookstore and headshop. So every time I have an event here, I feel like I'm coming home. They also tend to get my biggest crowds - 30 or more people at each event so far. Yesterday there were Indonesian snacks - from a great little Indonesian market and cafe on National Blvd. called Simpang Asia, as well as my show of Indonesian music and photos that seemed to be well received. FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL is the store's Crime Club selection this month, for which I am very grateful.
I've now got a few days off to get some writing done. The next book, SHANGHAIED, is likely to come out next June, so I've got to get a cleanish manuscript to Alison my editor by the end of November. To work.
But now, before I return to the subject of my book touring, I want to say a little something about rock & roll.
Rock & roll and assigned seating are an oxymoron. I've mellowed, slightly. There was a time when I didn't think it was rock and roll unless at some point in the course of the proceedings, you began to get worried about what would happen if the place you were hearing it in caught fire. I still always check the fire exits when I first get into a place, but I rarely concern myself with them after that.
Saturday night I went with some friends to see Patti Smith at The Orpheum in downtown Los Angeles. It is a beautifully restored, magnificent theater from the 1920s. The sound was excellent. But there were assigned seats, narrow aisles and not much chance to wander around or dance or anything else of that nature.
I've seen Patti Smith, maybe five or six times over the years, the first time being in the early 1980s or late '70s. She's 61 now, on the ripe side for rock & roll and I was a bit concerned before the show, and if the truth be told, during its first half, that she was moving a bit beyond her sell by date. But in the end, she really cranked it up big for the best live versions I've ever heard her do of Horses, Gloria and then an encore of Rock & Roll Nigger. The woman can still rock with the best of them. (Gives us 56 year olds some hope.)
Still, it was a shame about those damn assigned seats.
In Houston I was at Murder By the Book, for the third time. It's a big store that has always been very supportive of me and they manage to turn out a good sized crowd. Thanks yet again. I'll be back.
Earlier in the day I was having a coffee with my pal Sheri, a Houston cop. She looked around the place and estimated that about eighty percent of the people there were armed. Now I don't worry one lick about Sheri packing heat. As a matter of fact I find it reassuring. She knows what she's doing. She's well trained in how to use, care for and store her guns, and my guess is she's a pretty good shot. But if something erupted in that coffee shop, I'd hate to have my life depend on the ability of all those other people to know what they're doing and to remain level headed enough under fire to not fill me full of holes by mistake. Guns are like any other tool, they're only as good as the person using them. The difference is that a fuckwit with a hammer can do a whole lot less damage than one with a pistol.
I came back to L.A. and on Saturday I had an event at Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks. It's a small, but nicely stocked, store with a very enthusiastic crowd of readers. I always get more people turning up there to see me than I expect, and it's always, as it was this time, a great audience. They were getting ready for Michael Connelly the next day. They were going to hold his event in the parking lot. Something for me to aspire to.
Sunday was my official West Coast Launch Party at The Mystery Bookstore in Westwood Village (near UCLA.) The first job I ever had in my life was in a bookstore right across the street from where The Mystery Bookstore now is: Book Bargain Center, a mix of used bookstore, Leftist bookstore and headshop. So every time I have an event here, I feel like I'm coming home. They also tend to get my biggest crowds - 30 or more people at each event so far. Yesterday there were Indonesian snacks - from a great little Indonesian market and cafe on National Blvd. called Simpang Asia, as well as my show of Indonesian music and photos that seemed to be well received. FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL is the store's Crime Club selection this month, for which I am very grateful.
I've now got a few days off to get some writing done. The next book, SHANGHAIED, is likely to come out next June, so I've got to get a cleanish manuscript to Alison my editor by the end of November. To work.
12 October 2008
SIGN POSTS
One of the best things about book touring is the chance to meet people who are buying my books. I suppose some writers eventually get over the sense of humbling pride and downright astonishment that there are strangers out there willing to fork over good money to read something they’ve written. I’m nowhere close to that yet, and I hope I never get there. To do what I do is a great privilege.
So I’m taking pictures of everyone I sign any of my books for on this tour. These are people I want to remember and to in some way recognize in my blog.
I already took pictures earlier this year of everyone who got a signed Advanced Reading Copy of FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL at Book Expo America in Los Angeles. You can see those photos here at my Flickr page.
Now that this year’s Eric Stone Drive By Book Tour ’08 has got underway at Bouchercon in Baltimore, let the picture taking begin.
The new book wasn’t fully out in time for Bouchercon, but my publisher, the estimable Bleak House Books, cranked out some fast paperbacks so that there’d be some available at the conference. Not everyone managed to get a copy tracked me down to have me sign their book, but I've shot the ones who did. Since I can't figure out any easy way to post all of these photos on this blog. To see them, you can go to this Flickr page.
Meanwhile, here's some more photos from around Bouchercon.
My publisher Ben and editor Alison locked in mortal combat.
It is better to have your publisher at your feet, than at your throat.
A pair of unshaven publishing industry reprobates.
The audience for the panel I was on at Bouchercon. Considering my panel was competing with Lawrence Block - a very big name - it was well attended.
Tasha Alexander, a fellow writer with my editor, Alison Janssen in a cozy hotel lobby nook. Or is it a cranny? Alison should know, she's an excellent editor.
So I’m taking pictures of everyone I sign any of my books for on this tour. These are people I want to remember and to in some way recognize in my blog.
I already took pictures earlier this year of everyone who got a signed Advanced Reading Copy of FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL at Book Expo America in Los Angeles. You can see those photos here at my Flickr page.
Now that this year’s Eric Stone Drive By Book Tour ’08 has got underway at Bouchercon in Baltimore, let the picture taking begin.
The new book wasn’t fully out in time for Bouchercon, but my publisher, the estimable Bleak House Books, cranked out some fast paperbacks so that there’d be some available at the conference. Not everyone managed to get a copy tracked me down to have me sign their book, but I've shot the ones who did. Since I can't figure out any easy way to post all of these photos on this blog. To see them, you can go to this Flickr page.
Meanwhile, here's some more photos from around Bouchercon.
My publisher Ben and editor Alison locked in mortal combat.
It is better to have your publisher at your feet, than at your throat.
A pair of unshaven publishing industry reprobates.
The audience for the panel I was on at Bouchercon. Considering my panel was competing with Lawrence Block - a very big name - it was well attended.
Tasha Alexander, a fellow writer with my editor, Alison Janssen in a cozy hotel lobby nook. Or is it a cranny? Alison should know, she's an excellent editor.
10 October 2008
BOUCHERING AROUND BALTIMORE
Sure, it's plenty of fun hanging out in the hotel bar with my fellow authors during Bouchercon. And the panels, well, they're pretty entertaining, and the bookroom is a grand place to sit around and talk to booksellers, who are, after all, on the front lines of this business. But it is all too rare that anyone manages to get out of the hotel and wander around town and that is a terrible shame.
Especially here, because Baltimore is a town well worth wandering.
My first night here I went with a friend to Obrycki's Crab House where we ate astoundingly good steamed, peppered crabs. They cover the table with paper, give you a hammer and a smallish knife, and a bib, and away you go. Great eating.
Mostly though you end up eating in the hotel coffee shop or bar because it's convenient. And most of the time the hotel coffee shop and bar are overpriced and undergood.
Today, however, I ventured out for a walk rather than going to a couple of the big publishing company parties. Somehow I was able to resist the allure of free booze, for a long walk along Baltimore's beautiful waterfront and into some of its great neighborhoods. I have long said that if anyone were to hold a gun to my head and tell me that I had to move to the East Coast of the U.S., I would happily comply by moving here to Baltimore. My walk today simply further convinced me of that.
Here's some photographic evidence:
Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
The Inner Harbor development.
Barnes & Nobel in the Inner Harbor.
The National Aquarium.
Condos in an old warehouse / factory building near the Inner Harbor.
The Can Co. Building.
A perch on top of an old row house.
Neighborhood diner somewhere north and east of Fells Point.
The monument to the Katyn martyrs - Polish victims of Stalinism.
Some sort of Eastern European church in the distance.
Waterfront condo development.
In spite of Baltimore being the site of the National Aquarium, I took this jellyfish picture off of a jetty along the waterfront.
It's an excellent drinking town. But I'm not sure these guys are why.
Especially here, because Baltimore is a town well worth wandering.
My first night here I went with a friend to Obrycki's Crab House where we ate astoundingly good steamed, peppered crabs. They cover the table with paper, give you a hammer and a smallish knife, and a bib, and away you go. Great eating.
Mostly though you end up eating in the hotel coffee shop or bar because it's convenient. And most of the time the hotel coffee shop and bar are overpriced and undergood.
Today, however, I ventured out for a walk rather than going to a couple of the big publishing company parties. Somehow I was able to resist the allure of free booze, for a long walk along Baltimore's beautiful waterfront and into some of its great neighborhoods. I have long said that if anyone were to hold a gun to my head and tell me that I had to move to the East Coast of the U.S., I would happily comply by moving here to Baltimore. My walk today simply further convinced me of that.
Here's some photographic evidence:
Baltimore's Inner Harbor.
The Inner Harbor development.
Barnes & Nobel in the Inner Harbor.
The National Aquarium.
Condos in an old warehouse / factory building near the Inner Harbor.
The Can Co. Building.
A perch on top of an old row house.
Neighborhood diner somewhere north and east of Fells Point.
The monument to the Katyn martyrs - Polish victims of Stalinism.
Some sort of Eastern European church in the distance.
Waterfront condo development.
In spite of Baltimore being the site of the National Aquarium, I took this jellyfish picture off of a jetty along the waterfront.
It's an excellent drinking town. But I'm not sure these guys are why.
09 October 2008
I GUESS I WASN'T JOKING AFTER ALL
Here it is, possibly the single most important vote that some senators and representatives are going to make in their whole careers and...
THANK GOD, OREGON'S CHILDRENS' WOODEN TOY ARROW INDUSTRY IS SAVED! THE PUERTO RICAN RUM INDUSTRY WILL THRIVE TO DISTILL ANOTHER DAY.
Earmarks. Of course there were earmarks on the economic bailout / rescue bill.
JUST HOW SHAMELESS ARE THESE PEOPLE?
That wasn't really a question.
Mark Twain said: "America has no distinctly criminal class, excepting maybe Congress." It is as true today as it was in Twain's time.
I'm at Bouchercon in Baltimore. It's the huge annual mystery readers and writers confab and is as fun, and at times useful, as ever. Large amounts of booze are being drunk - some of it probably Puerto Rican rum at that. Plenty of both inebriated and sober talk about writing and publishing is in the wind. Some people are sneaking around the hotel corridors. Awards are being given out. Books are being signed. It's like any convention anywhere, I suppose. For us writers, who spend our days sitting alone in front of computer screens or pads of paper - I even know one who still uses manual typewriters - it's a welcome and necessary reminder that we are part of a community, an industry and that no matter if we write about serial killers or cats solving crimes, we share a common cause and bond. I like it.
THANK GOD, OREGON'S CHILDRENS' WOODEN TOY ARROW INDUSTRY IS SAVED! THE PUERTO RICAN RUM INDUSTRY WILL THRIVE TO DISTILL ANOTHER DAY.
Earmarks. Of course there were earmarks on the economic bailout / rescue bill.
JUST HOW SHAMELESS ARE THESE PEOPLE?
That wasn't really a question.
Mark Twain said: "America has no distinctly criminal class, excepting maybe Congress." It is as true today as it was in Twain's time.
I'm at Bouchercon in Baltimore. It's the huge annual mystery readers and writers confab and is as fun, and at times useful, as ever. Large amounts of booze are being drunk - some of it probably Puerto Rican rum at that. Plenty of both inebriated and sober talk about writing and publishing is in the wind. Some people are sneaking around the hotel corridors. Awards are being given out. Books are being signed. It's like any convention anywhere, I suppose. For us writers, who spend our days sitting alone in front of computer screens or pads of paper - I even know one who still uses manual typewriters - it's a welcome and necessary reminder that we are part of a community, an industry and that no matter if we write about serial killers or cats solving crimes, we share a common cause and bond. I like it.
01 October 2008
MAIN STREET AND WALL STREET ARE STUCK WITH EACH OTHER, SO GET OVER IT
First off, a soothing note for my readers who don't give a rat's ass for my political / economic rants, raves and, obviously well-informed opinions: next week I'll be in Baltimore for Bouchercon. That is essentially going to be the kick off of my Fall 2008 Drive-By Book Tour. So soon you'll get your fill of amusing anecdotes from the treacherous road of book promotions. Still, in the meantime:
What's all this constant bullshit and whining about "Main Street" this and "Wall Street" that?
This morning I saw a story in my L.A. Times headlined: "Lehman collapse suspends Ritz renovation." That's as good a place as any to understand why you can't possibly separate the needs and activities of "Main Street" from those of "Wall Street."
Lehman Brothers was the primary lender to the Ritz Carlton, Rancho Mirage hotel. Lehman goes belly up, the money stops flowing to the hotel group, then on to the construction companies involved in the project and everything comes to a crashing halt. Think about what that means.
How many workers have now lost their jobs because of the halt in construction?
How many suppliers of materials to that job - many of them small,local companies - have now lost a customer? If too many of their customers disappear, how many people are they going to have to lay off?
How many local businesses are losing the laid off workers as customers because they now have to pinch even more pennies to get by, or even have to move out of the area to find work elsewhere? And, once again, if their business suffers, sooner or later they're going to have to lay off workers.
What does that do to the local tax base, and consequently things like school funding, police and fire services, road repairs, etc.
I could spend a very long time listing all of the potential negative affects that the halt in construction on this one major project will have, due to the bankruptcy of a huge "Wall Street" institution.
And you can bet that there are plenty of small companies that borrowed money from Lehman Brothers, too. And they're scrambling like mad to find someone to take up those loans so that they can continue to do business. And these days, until things are worked out, they're not finding those loans. What's happening to their workers and suppliers and communities?
The worst pain of the collapse of Lehman Brothers is being felt all along "Main Street." Like it or not, "Main Street" has a huge vested interest in the health of "Wall Street."
Where do you think the money comes from for all those small and other business loans? Who's providing the credit cards, the mortgages, the student loans, the insurance policies, the management of 401-K and pension fund money, the trade finance, etc?
Now it is true that that money isn't made by "Wall Street." It is made, earned, generated by "Main Street" and then filtered through "Wall Street" for purposes of management, manipulation and protection.
And that's a necessary part of the process. If a stranger comes to you and asks for a loan to buy a house in your neighborhood, are you going to directly loan them the money? If the Ritz Carlton wants to build a fancy new hotel in your town and that's going to create a lot of jobs and knock on business opportunities, are you going to reach into your pocket to loan them the money? Of course not.
You put your money in the bank, buy stocks and bonds with it, etc. all so that big institutions can more efficiently put it to work - hopefully paying you something for the right to use your money - and you don't have to personally take the risks involved in making those loans or higher risk investments.
The problem isn't the system. The system - sort of a partnership between Main and Wall Streets - actually works quite well so long as everyone does their part in good faith. The problem rose when, for all sorts of reasons and made possible by willy-nilly ill-thought out deregulation without concurrent oversight, the stewards of all that money that was raised on Main Street, started taking enormous, ill-considered risks with the money. And, the people on Main Street did the same thing; taking out loans they couldn't really afford. Everyone figured that a steady, never-ending upward spiral of the economy would let them get away with it.
Only it came crashing down, as it was inevitably bound to. Regardless of who should take the blame for it, all of us now need a bailout. Even those of us who played no part in causing the problem. A bailout is not a good thing. But it's a necessity. We are in a situation where a bailout of Wall Street is also a bailout of Main Street. You just can't separate the two.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be well thought out. There ought to be some potential for taxpayers to recoup their money, if not even make a profit. There needs to be oversight so that we aren't simply throwing good money away. There needs to be a means of ensuring that the avaricious assholes and nitwits who got us into this mess to begin with don't reap windfall profits from saving their asses from the mess they got us into. (And that means all of those people: no big executive parachutes, and also no debt relief for people who snapped up two, three, four houses using sub-prime loans that anyone with a lick of sense knew were too good [sounding] to be true.)
But that's all there ought to be. Right now the job is to stop the bleeding and settle things down so that they can get better. Once the patient is stabilized there will be plenty of time for figuring out what to do to make sure this doesn't happen again. It's not unlike a heart attack. Diagnose it, treat it, and only after the patient is back in the recovery room read him the riot act about how he needs to lay off the triple bacon cheeseburgers, fries and super-sized drinks and maybe throw in a little exercise from time to time.
In this morning's paper I also read about the Senate bailout bill that will be voted on today. It includes a provision mandating that companies above a certain size that provide health coverage to their employees, have to make sure the coverage treats mental and physical ailments equally.
HUH? What the fuck does that have to do with it? What's next, a bunch of earmarks finding their way onto the bailout bill? Ted Stevens may be on trial, but I'm sure he can think of something to attach to the bill, a rail line to nowhere perhaps.
What's all this constant bullshit and whining about "Main Street" this and "Wall Street" that?
This morning I saw a story in my L.A. Times headlined: "Lehman collapse suspends Ritz renovation." That's as good a place as any to understand why you can't possibly separate the needs and activities of "Main Street" from those of "Wall Street."
Lehman Brothers was the primary lender to the Ritz Carlton, Rancho Mirage hotel. Lehman goes belly up, the money stops flowing to the hotel group, then on to the construction companies involved in the project and everything comes to a crashing halt. Think about what that means.
How many workers have now lost their jobs because of the halt in construction?
How many suppliers of materials to that job - many of them small,local companies - have now lost a customer? If too many of their customers disappear, how many people are they going to have to lay off?
How many local businesses are losing the laid off workers as customers because they now have to pinch even more pennies to get by, or even have to move out of the area to find work elsewhere? And, once again, if their business suffers, sooner or later they're going to have to lay off workers.
What does that do to the local tax base, and consequently things like school funding, police and fire services, road repairs, etc.
I could spend a very long time listing all of the potential negative affects that the halt in construction on this one major project will have, due to the bankruptcy of a huge "Wall Street" institution.
And you can bet that there are plenty of small companies that borrowed money from Lehman Brothers, too. And they're scrambling like mad to find someone to take up those loans so that they can continue to do business. And these days, until things are worked out, they're not finding those loans. What's happening to their workers and suppliers and communities?
The worst pain of the collapse of Lehman Brothers is being felt all along "Main Street." Like it or not, "Main Street" has a huge vested interest in the health of "Wall Street."
Where do you think the money comes from for all those small and other business loans? Who's providing the credit cards, the mortgages, the student loans, the insurance policies, the management of 401-K and pension fund money, the trade finance, etc?
Now it is true that that money isn't made by "Wall Street." It is made, earned, generated by "Main Street" and then filtered through "Wall Street" for purposes of management, manipulation and protection.
And that's a necessary part of the process. If a stranger comes to you and asks for a loan to buy a house in your neighborhood, are you going to directly loan them the money? If the Ritz Carlton wants to build a fancy new hotel in your town and that's going to create a lot of jobs and knock on business opportunities, are you going to reach into your pocket to loan them the money? Of course not.
You put your money in the bank, buy stocks and bonds with it, etc. all so that big institutions can more efficiently put it to work - hopefully paying you something for the right to use your money - and you don't have to personally take the risks involved in making those loans or higher risk investments.
The problem isn't the system. The system - sort of a partnership between Main and Wall Streets - actually works quite well so long as everyone does their part in good faith. The problem rose when, for all sorts of reasons and made possible by willy-nilly ill-thought out deregulation without concurrent oversight, the stewards of all that money that was raised on Main Street, started taking enormous, ill-considered risks with the money. And, the people on Main Street did the same thing; taking out loans they couldn't really afford. Everyone figured that a steady, never-ending upward spiral of the economy would let them get away with it.
Only it came crashing down, as it was inevitably bound to. Regardless of who should take the blame for it, all of us now need a bailout. Even those of us who played no part in causing the problem. A bailout is not a good thing. But it's a necessity. We are in a situation where a bailout of Wall Street is also a bailout of Main Street. You just can't separate the two.
That doesn't mean it shouldn't be well thought out. There ought to be some potential for taxpayers to recoup their money, if not even make a profit. There needs to be oversight so that we aren't simply throwing good money away. There needs to be a means of ensuring that the avaricious assholes and nitwits who got us into this mess to begin with don't reap windfall profits from saving their asses from the mess they got us into. (And that means all of those people: no big executive parachutes, and also no debt relief for people who snapped up two, three, four houses using sub-prime loans that anyone with a lick of sense knew were too good [sounding] to be true.)
But that's all there ought to be. Right now the job is to stop the bleeding and settle things down so that they can get better. Once the patient is stabilized there will be plenty of time for figuring out what to do to make sure this doesn't happen again. It's not unlike a heart attack. Diagnose it, treat it, and only after the patient is back in the recovery room read him the riot act about how he needs to lay off the triple bacon cheeseburgers, fries and super-sized drinks and maybe throw in a little exercise from time to time.
In this morning's paper I also read about the Senate bailout bill that will be voted on today. It includes a provision mandating that companies above a certain size that provide health coverage to their employees, have to make sure the coverage treats mental and physical ailments equally.
HUH? What the fuck does that have to do with it? What's next, a bunch of earmarks finding their way onto the bailout bill? Ted Stevens may be on trial, but I'm sure he can think of something to attach to the bill, a rail line to nowhere perhaps.
23 September 2008
POINTING THE FINGER, GIVING THE FINGER
It might be easier to simply state who isn't to blame for the current financial meltdown that is in some way going to screw almost all of us:
Honest, not overly greedy bankers, brokers and CEOs. Believe it or not, there are some.
Honest members of congress and scrupulous regulators. Well, I'm not so sure there are any of those. But I can always hope. Do they even allow that ancient Greek guy with the lantern to wander the halls of Congress?
Honest realtors. There must be some. I know of at least a couple who have tried to discourage potential customers from buying houses that they couldn't really afford.
Informed, careful borrowers and home buyers. Yep, there are some of these folk, too. People who know how to balance a checkbook better than the government does.
Of course it's a whole lot more fun to cast blame, to give the finger to the crooks, miscreants and feckless morons who got us into this fix. Who are these swine (I shouldn't say that, I like pigs)...Who are these evildoers (to lift a phrase from one of the chief evildoers himself) and fuckwits?
Our lame duck, shit for brains, president. He may have put aside his coke habit and disco shoes in the late '80s, but he's done his best to promote the ugly attitude of "greed is good." His profligate spending, at the same time as his slavish devotion to tax-cutting - mostly for his cronies and those of his ilk - have led the country into a state where if it was a corporation it would have no choice other than to file for bankruptcy.
Our corrupt, lobbyist tit-sucking, pipe-dreaming Congress. Maybe it's an honest mistake - fat chance of that - maybe they are a glass-is-half-full crowd on the Hill and they think that people are basically good and that left alone to their own devises they will be honest and good and work for common benefit. Why else would they be so quick to deregulate as much as they could - not, in itself a terrible idea - but without realizing that deregulation requires oversight and that some things actually do work better when they are regulated because otherwise bad people will, oddly enough, do bad things that throw it all into imbalance.
Alan Fucking Greenspan. Yeah, we all loved him when things were cruising nicely along and housing prices and stock prices were booming and the dollar was strong and all that. And yeah, he coined the term "irrational exuberance" to warn us all that we might be cruising for a bruising. He should have listened to himself. He kept lowering interest rates, over and over and over again and that just added rocket fuel to all of our irrational exuberance. And when the rocket ran out of gas before getting into permanent orbit - watch out below. What he was pushing was the financial equivalent of crack.
Corporate irregular regulators. In spite of what the white haired, ill-informed old fart running for president has to say, not so much the SEC. Sure there were plenty of artificially inflated stock prices on the market, but that was due to the artificially inflated economy as a whole, not so much to stock fraud, which is what the SEC is supposed to oversee. But, in spite of deregulation and in spite of Executive, Congressional and Corporate efforts to thwart the work of corporate and financial regulatory agencies, those agencies do actually exist and they could have done something, or at least said something. Instead, they just rolled over and allowed everyone to get away with whatever they wanted.
Greedy, short-sighted, thieving corporate executives. They've been so busy lining their own pockets that they have come close to killing the goose that's laying their own golden eggs. Of course they don't really mind, because they've stacked the deck so that even when they fail, their fall is cushioned with ludicrously large payoffs for having screwed up, or in some cases, having been caught cheating. They have no incentive to do good for their customers, the economy as a whole or even their own shareholders if they can still rake in seven, eight and nine figure severance packages when they fuck up.
Stupid, complacent, short-sighted shareholders, especially institutional shareholders. The first line of defense against corporate fuck ups shouldn't have to be regulators, it should be corporations' own shareholders. They have more at stake and so they ought to be more vigilant than anyone else when it comes to oversight. Mom and pop shareholders with their small portfolios are pretty much just along for the ride, they have no clout. But institutions, with their large portfolios, can make a real difference in corporate governance, if they can see past the quarterly reports - which they usually can't because they tend to suffer from the same willful myopia that infects too many corporate executives. If major shareholders see something going on that might hurt the long term prospects of a company, even if it looks good in the quarterly reports, they need to throw the bums out, and they need to take away the perks of failure when they do. When they don't, they're making their own bed of nails, and helping to make ours, too.
Speed freak, action-junkie greedy speculators. There are some very good uses for financial instruments like short selling, derivatives, hedge funds, etc. When they are used properly they help keep markets stable. But when people start seeing them as the means to turn a quick buck, and they all start piling on at once to try and move the market rather than adjust to it or simply to protect themselves from its fluctuations, they can quickly destabilize the market. Some of these assholes, too many of them, prefer volatile, wild markets, that's where they make the most money.
Greedy, lazy and corrupt realtors. Not everybody should buy their own home. Plenty of people can't really afford it. For other people, it doesn't make financial sense in their current circumstances. But there are more than enough realtors out there who are happy to convince them otherwise. They want their commissions. They get those commissions no matter how bad a deal gets made, so long as the deal gets made. A new homeowner can default on their loan a month after escrow closes, and it's no concern to the realtor who put together the deal. Their check is already banked.
Crooked, slimeball mortgage brokers. The greedy, uncaring realtor's best friend. They knew what they were doing but they didn't care. "Of course you can afford this house. I know a guy. First month's free." They knew they could package all those crappy loans into big juicy bundles that helped pump up the quarterly reports that everyone paid so much attention to and sell them on the bogus basis that, "sure, some of these are gonna crap out, but it's a risk worth taking because of the ones that won't fall apart and the property market's gonna keep going up anyhow, right?" Yeah, right.
Venal, loan-sharking credit card pushers. Just like some people can't actually afford to buy a house, some people ought to live on a "pay as you go" basis. It's got so that you don't even need credit to get a credit card. Whoopee, free money! At least that's what all those TV ads and credit card pushers on college campuses would like us to believe. Two percent APR for balance transfers. Oh boy! What they do is no different than what a heroin pusher does, only its more profitable.
Media fuckwits and pundits (which ought to be a swear word unto itself.) I don't give a shit whether they're liberal or conservative, what they mostly are is stupid and unable to live up to the task of being the most important watchdog this country ought to have. Analysis? "We don't need no stinking analysis," is what they'd say if they were honest, since that seems to be their real attitude. Why weren't all the so-called experts warning us all about this stuff for a long time now? Surely they weren't that stupid as to buy into it all? Well, apparently they were that stupid. They just got hypnotized by all the big numbers, because they figured that was something they could get their audiences all jacked up on. If mortgage brokers and credit card issuers were pushing heroin, the media's been shoving meth crystal into our brains.
You and me. (Well, not so much me, the only debt I've got is a good, solid mortgage that I can afford. I don't even use credit cards.) Now don't get me wrong, some people have little choice but to use credit cards, and for some people it does make sense to do almost whatever they have to, to buy a house. But let's face it, buying a house is, for most people, the biggest, most important expense they will ever incur. While there is plenty of blame to go around, part of that blame must be shouldered by people who leapt before they looked. When you're about to spend the most money you've ever spent, on something of vital importance to you and your family's future, you have to do your homework. If you don't understand something, you need to get it explained to you in a way that you do understand. If something seems too good to be true - "Credit, income, job? Oh, you don't need those to buy this house, I can get you a mortgage without even filling out any paperwork." - you need to assume that it is too good to be true. And if you don't, you're being a fool and you need to share in the blame when things go wrong. Even in a market where everyone is for the most part honest, the concept of "let the buyer beware" is vital to its smooth running.
Yes, we have a lousy educational system in this country, especially when it comes to teaching people about such things as fiscal responsibility. (And it's not like the government is setting a good example, either.) But everyone, when doing something, anything, significant, has to bear at least some responsibility for knowing what they're doing.
And yes, there are unscrupulous people out there who will lie to you, or at least deceive and confuse you, to get you to do things that aren't good for you. And if you're not aware of that already, grow up, fast. Con men have long been successful preying on the unthinking greed and stupidity of their victims. That's what's been going on in huge parts of the housing and credit markets. Sure, the con men are bad guys and ought to be stopped, locked away if they've actually violated any laws. But that doesn't entirely let their victims off the hook for being greedy or stupid or culpable in the mess that this country now finds itself in. "I didn't know that I should try and understand all that confusing paperwork involved in the biggest expenditure of my entire life, and the mortgage guy said I didn't need to," is an excuse that doesn't cut it.
Do I even need to say anything about people who max out their credit cards buying shit they don't really need and can't afford: giant flatscreen TVs, gas-guzzling SUVs, cruises, lost weekends in Vegas, whatever? And then they transfer the debt from one card to the next, maxing out one higher credit limit after the next, until they can't do that anymore and presto chango they're in some sort of huge financial trouble and contributing to the economy's problems when they default.
There are plenty of people who have no choice but to resort to credit cards to pay for legitimate necessities: food, clothing, housing, transportation. And those people are exempt from what I'm about to say.
But there are plenty more who have overextended themselves on consumer crap because they think that's their god given right as Americans - the most powerful, richest people on the planet. To them, I'd like to shout out a hearty - FUCK YOU! If there was any way to cut you morons out of any bailout programs, I'd be happy to do it.
For that matter I'd be thrilled to cut pretty much any of the miscreants listed above out of any bailout program. Or at least limit their participation in it to the bare necessities for preventing a total economic meltdown. I'm not sure how, or if, that could be accomplished. But it seems like giving Bush and Paulson carte blanche to do it the way they want to is just going to encourage too many of these crooks and cretins to eventually do the same things all over again.
Honest, not overly greedy bankers, brokers and CEOs. Believe it or not, there are some.
Honest members of congress and scrupulous regulators. Well, I'm not so sure there are any of those. But I can always hope. Do they even allow that ancient Greek guy with the lantern to wander the halls of Congress?
Honest realtors. There must be some. I know of at least a couple who have tried to discourage potential customers from buying houses that they couldn't really afford.
Informed, careful borrowers and home buyers. Yep, there are some of these folk, too. People who know how to balance a checkbook better than the government does.
Of course it's a whole lot more fun to cast blame, to give the finger to the crooks, miscreants and feckless morons who got us into this fix. Who are these swine (I shouldn't say that, I like pigs)...Who are these evildoers (to lift a phrase from one of the chief evildoers himself) and fuckwits?
Our lame duck, shit for brains, president. He may have put aside his coke habit and disco shoes in the late '80s, but he's done his best to promote the ugly attitude of "greed is good." His profligate spending, at the same time as his slavish devotion to tax-cutting - mostly for his cronies and those of his ilk - have led the country into a state where if it was a corporation it would have no choice other than to file for bankruptcy.
Our corrupt, lobbyist tit-sucking, pipe-dreaming Congress. Maybe it's an honest mistake - fat chance of that - maybe they are a glass-is-half-full crowd on the Hill and they think that people are basically good and that left alone to their own devises they will be honest and good and work for common benefit. Why else would they be so quick to deregulate as much as they could - not, in itself a terrible idea - but without realizing that deregulation requires oversight and that some things actually do work better when they are regulated because otherwise bad people will, oddly enough, do bad things that throw it all into imbalance.
Alan Fucking Greenspan. Yeah, we all loved him when things were cruising nicely along and housing prices and stock prices were booming and the dollar was strong and all that. And yeah, he coined the term "irrational exuberance" to warn us all that we might be cruising for a bruising. He should have listened to himself. He kept lowering interest rates, over and over and over again and that just added rocket fuel to all of our irrational exuberance. And when the rocket ran out of gas before getting into permanent orbit - watch out below. What he was pushing was the financial equivalent of crack.
Corporate irregular regulators. In spite of what the white haired, ill-informed old fart running for president has to say, not so much the SEC. Sure there were plenty of artificially inflated stock prices on the market, but that was due to the artificially inflated economy as a whole, not so much to stock fraud, which is what the SEC is supposed to oversee. But, in spite of deregulation and in spite of Executive, Congressional and Corporate efforts to thwart the work of corporate and financial regulatory agencies, those agencies do actually exist and they could have done something, or at least said something. Instead, they just rolled over and allowed everyone to get away with whatever they wanted.
Greedy, short-sighted, thieving corporate executives. They've been so busy lining their own pockets that they have come close to killing the goose that's laying their own golden eggs. Of course they don't really mind, because they've stacked the deck so that even when they fail, their fall is cushioned with ludicrously large payoffs for having screwed up, or in some cases, having been caught cheating. They have no incentive to do good for their customers, the economy as a whole or even their own shareholders if they can still rake in seven, eight and nine figure severance packages when they fuck up.
Stupid, complacent, short-sighted shareholders, especially institutional shareholders. The first line of defense against corporate fuck ups shouldn't have to be regulators, it should be corporations' own shareholders. They have more at stake and so they ought to be more vigilant than anyone else when it comes to oversight. Mom and pop shareholders with their small portfolios are pretty much just along for the ride, they have no clout. But institutions, with their large portfolios, can make a real difference in corporate governance, if they can see past the quarterly reports - which they usually can't because they tend to suffer from the same willful myopia that infects too many corporate executives. If major shareholders see something going on that might hurt the long term prospects of a company, even if it looks good in the quarterly reports, they need to throw the bums out, and they need to take away the perks of failure when they do. When they don't, they're making their own bed of nails, and helping to make ours, too.
Speed freak, action-junkie greedy speculators. There are some very good uses for financial instruments like short selling, derivatives, hedge funds, etc. When they are used properly they help keep markets stable. But when people start seeing them as the means to turn a quick buck, and they all start piling on at once to try and move the market rather than adjust to it or simply to protect themselves from its fluctuations, they can quickly destabilize the market. Some of these assholes, too many of them, prefer volatile, wild markets, that's where they make the most money.
Greedy, lazy and corrupt realtors. Not everybody should buy their own home. Plenty of people can't really afford it. For other people, it doesn't make financial sense in their current circumstances. But there are more than enough realtors out there who are happy to convince them otherwise. They want their commissions. They get those commissions no matter how bad a deal gets made, so long as the deal gets made. A new homeowner can default on their loan a month after escrow closes, and it's no concern to the realtor who put together the deal. Their check is already banked.
Crooked, slimeball mortgage brokers. The greedy, uncaring realtor's best friend. They knew what they were doing but they didn't care. "Of course you can afford this house. I know a guy. First month's free." They knew they could package all those crappy loans into big juicy bundles that helped pump up the quarterly reports that everyone paid so much attention to and sell them on the bogus basis that, "sure, some of these are gonna crap out, but it's a risk worth taking because of the ones that won't fall apart and the property market's gonna keep going up anyhow, right?" Yeah, right.
Venal, loan-sharking credit card pushers. Just like some people can't actually afford to buy a house, some people ought to live on a "pay as you go" basis. It's got so that you don't even need credit to get a credit card. Whoopee, free money! At least that's what all those TV ads and credit card pushers on college campuses would like us to believe. Two percent APR for balance transfers. Oh boy! What they do is no different than what a heroin pusher does, only its more profitable.
Media fuckwits and pundits (which ought to be a swear word unto itself.) I don't give a shit whether they're liberal or conservative, what they mostly are is stupid and unable to live up to the task of being the most important watchdog this country ought to have. Analysis? "We don't need no stinking analysis," is what they'd say if they were honest, since that seems to be their real attitude. Why weren't all the so-called experts warning us all about this stuff for a long time now? Surely they weren't that stupid as to buy into it all? Well, apparently they were that stupid. They just got hypnotized by all the big numbers, because they figured that was something they could get their audiences all jacked up on. If mortgage brokers and credit card issuers were pushing heroin, the media's been shoving meth crystal into our brains.
You and me. (Well, not so much me, the only debt I've got is a good, solid mortgage that I can afford. I don't even use credit cards.) Now don't get me wrong, some people have little choice but to use credit cards, and for some people it does make sense to do almost whatever they have to, to buy a house. But let's face it, buying a house is, for most people, the biggest, most important expense they will ever incur. While there is plenty of blame to go around, part of that blame must be shouldered by people who leapt before they looked. When you're about to spend the most money you've ever spent, on something of vital importance to you and your family's future, you have to do your homework. If you don't understand something, you need to get it explained to you in a way that you do understand. If something seems too good to be true - "Credit, income, job? Oh, you don't need those to buy this house, I can get you a mortgage without even filling out any paperwork." - you need to assume that it is too good to be true. And if you don't, you're being a fool and you need to share in the blame when things go wrong. Even in a market where everyone is for the most part honest, the concept of "let the buyer beware" is vital to its smooth running.
Yes, we have a lousy educational system in this country, especially when it comes to teaching people about such things as fiscal responsibility. (And it's not like the government is setting a good example, either.) But everyone, when doing something, anything, significant, has to bear at least some responsibility for knowing what they're doing.
And yes, there are unscrupulous people out there who will lie to you, or at least deceive and confuse you, to get you to do things that aren't good for you. And if you're not aware of that already, grow up, fast. Con men have long been successful preying on the unthinking greed and stupidity of their victims. That's what's been going on in huge parts of the housing and credit markets. Sure, the con men are bad guys and ought to be stopped, locked away if they've actually violated any laws. But that doesn't entirely let their victims off the hook for being greedy or stupid or culpable in the mess that this country now finds itself in. "I didn't know that I should try and understand all that confusing paperwork involved in the biggest expenditure of my entire life, and the mortgage guy said I didn't need to," is an excuse that doesn't cut it.
Do I even need to say anything about people who max out their credit cards buying shit they don't really need and can't afford: giant flatscreen TVs, gas-guzzling SUVs, cruises, lost weekends in Vegas, whatever? And then they transfer the debt from one card to the next, maxing out one higher credit limit after the next, until they can't do that anymore and presto chango they're in some sort of huge financial trouble and contributing to the economy's problems when they default.
There are plenty of people who have no choice but to resort to credit cards to pay for legitimate necessities: food, clothing, housing, transportation. And those people are exempt from what I'm about to say.
But there are plenty more who have overextended themselves on consumer crap because they think that's their god given right as Americans - the most powerful, richest people on the planet. To them, I'd like to shout out a hearty - FUCK YOU! If there was any way to cut you morons out of any bailout programs, I'd be happy to do it.
For that matter I'd be thrilled to cut pretty much any of the miscreants listed above out of any bailout program. Or at least limit their participation in it to the bare necessities for preventing a total economic meltdown. I'm not sure how, or if, that could be accomplished. But it seems like giving Bush and Paulson carte blanche to do it the way they want to is just going to encourage too many of these crooks and cretins to eventually do the same things all over again.
03 September 2008
HERE'S WHY BRISTOL PALIN'S PREGNANCY IS POLITICALLY RELEVANT
Because her mom, Sarah Palin, candidate for vice president of the United States, as governor of Alaska, cut state funding for teen pregnancy programs.
Because her mom has strongly opposed sex education in public schools - something that has been shown over and over again to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy.
Because her mom has strongly opposed access to information on contraception, as well as contraception itself, to teenagers.
Because her mom is opposed to legal abortion, even in circumstances such as pregnancy resulting from rape or where a continued pregnancy threatens the life of the pregnant woman.
Need I also point out that less funding for teen pregnancy programs, lack of sex education and lack of information about and/or access to contraception all result in more abortions, not fewer abortions.
Sure, I feel bad for Bristol Palin and the young fellow who is no doubt being herded into a shotgun wedding. What they are going through ought to be a family matter and none of the rest of our business. What they do about their problems should be their own personal choice.
But it is our business for the very reason that Sarah Palin wants to create a world in which none of us have the personal choice to deal with these same sorts of problems in the way that we want to. She wants a world in which these problems crop up more frequently, not less so, because she lives in some fantasy Christian world in which faith and "morality" trump reason, logic and practicality.
Now that she is the Republican candidate for vice president, running with the oldest man to ever run for president, her medieval, ignorant nonsense cannot simply be dismissed as a matter of her, and her family's, personal choice. It is not merely the lunatic raving of some nutjob religious crank on a street corner; or even the silly notions of the ill-informed soccer mom next door. It is something that could have a very real impact on every one of us.
I feel bad for Bristol Palin. I feel bad for her because she was raised in "the bosom of a loving Christian family" that did its best to keep her in the dark about the real choices that all people ought to be able to make for themselves in an informed manner. Now that family is having to deal with the real world consequences of their ignorance. And the fact that they are, and that Bristol's mom wants to be elected to within a fast-aging heartbeat of the most powerful job on the planet, seems pretty damn relevant to me.
Because her mom has strongly opposed sex education in public schools - something that has been shown over and over again to reduce the incidence of teenage pregnancy.
Because her mom has strongly opposed access to information on contraception, as well as contraception itself, to teenagers.
Because her mom is opposed to legal abortion, even in circumstances such as pregnancy resulting from rape or where a continued pregnancy threatens the life of the pregnant woman.
Need I also point out that less funding for teen pregnancy programs, lack of sex education and lack of information about and/or access to contraception all result in more abortions, not fewer abortions.
Sure, I feel bad for Bristol Palin and the young fellow who is no doubt being herded into a shotgun wedding. What they are going through ought to be a family matter and none of the rest of our business. What they do about their problems should be their own personal choice.
But it is our business for the very reason that Sarah Palin wants to create a world in which none of us have the personal choice to deal with these same sorts of problems in the way that we want to. She wants a world in which these problems crop up more frequently, not less so, because she lives in some fantasy Christian world in which faith and "morality" trump reason, logic and practicality.
Now that she is the Republican candidate for vice president, running with the oldest man to ever run for president, her medieval, ignorant nonsense cannot simply be dismissed as a matter of her, and her family's, personal choice. It is not merely the lunatic raving of some nutjob religious crank on a street corner; or even the silly notions of the ill-informed soccer mom next door. It is something that could have a very real impact on every one of us.
I feel bad for Bristol Palin. I feel bad for her because she was raised in "the bosom of a loving Christian family" that did its best to keep her in the dark about the real choices that all people ought to be able to make for themselves in an informed manner. Now that family is having to deal with the real world consequences of their ignorance. And the fact that they are, and that Bristol's mom wants to be elected to within a fast-aging heartbeat of the most powerful job on the planet, seems pretty damn relevant to me.
25 August 2008
SOME ASSORTED THOUGHTS ON THE OLYMPICS AND THE DEMOCRATS
FORTY ONE BILLION DOLLARS! That's what China spent on the Olympics. Sure the country has the biggest cash surplus of any country on the planet at the moment. But it's also got 800 to 900 million people who live on two dollars a day or less.
I enjoyed watching Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps and the Brazilian women's volleyball team as much as anyone. But I would have happily foregone those pleasures if that FORTY ONE BILLION DOLLARS had been spent on something that benefited at least some of those impoverished, oppressed Chinese people.
And these figures don't even account for the cost to a number of farmers who lost this year's crops due to diversion of water from their farms to the creation of the sailing and kayaking venues; or the fact that the fancy new facilities were built in the same way that most government building projects are built in China - with near slave labor.
Sure the Chinese got to wallow in national pride. And now Beijing has some pretty new sports venues. And here in the U.S. we got some great TV to watch - albeit with really inane commentary for the most part.
But I'm sorry, the Olympics isn't worth it. IT WAS DISGUSTING.
And speaking of stupidly expensive exercises; the Democratic Convention kicks off today.
This is, of course, to anoint one of the two men who are going to spend OVER A BILLION DOLLARS trying to get elected by telling us, among other lies, how responsible they are going to be with our money.
Before I start excoriating the Democrats (I'll excoriate the Republicans during their convention) for being fuckwits, let's get a couple of things straight.
I'm a registered independent.
I mostly vote for Democratic Party candidates - although I have voted for a few Republicans over the years and once or twice when I really couldn't stomach voting for either, I voted for third party candidates without a hope in hell of winning in the hope they'd get enough votes to stir the pot up a little. (I never, by the way, voted for Ralph Nader. I think he was a fine consumer advocate. Other than that, I think he's a cretin.)
I am going to vote for Barack Obama, and happily so. I think one more term of a Republican administration at this point will seal the deal on the destruction - for at least a generation to come - of many of the things I love about this country.
We cannot afford any more of this nonsense about cutting taxes at the same time as boosting spending enormously to pay for ill-advised, in the long run unwinnable, wars justified through lies.
We cannot afford any more of the remarkable culture of financial malfeasance without at least some effective oversight - that the Republicans have been more responsible for than the Democrats. I'm all in favor of free markets, but at a certain point certain unregulated economic activities, even so-called "free market" ones, can skew the free market in ways that make it not work. There is a difference between "free" markets and "anarchic" markets where the strong have free rein to cheat, lie, steal and generally crush the weak.
We desperately need to repair our relations with the rest of the world. Barack Obama is far better positioned to accomplish that than John McCain.
And, maybe most importantly, the next president is going to appoint, minimally one, possibly as many as three, Supreme Court justices. The current court already leans further to the right than is good for our civil rights and liberties, as well as the environment. Balance needs to be restored. A Republican president will - and candidate McCain has already said that he will - appoint similar justices to the appointments made by GW Bush. That will complete the transition of the court to the right wing, for a generation or more. No American who loves the ideals that this country was founded upon, could possibly want that.
OKAY, SO IT'S CLEAR - I WILL VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA. I might even contribute some money, maybe a little work, to his campaign.
That said, THE DEMOCRATS ARE IDIOTS AND THEY COULD WELL LOSE THIS ELECTION BECAUSE THEY ARE TERRIBLE CAMPAIGNERS.
The recent kerfuffle over McCain's failure to know how many houses he owns, is a case in point. McCain, stupidly, admitted to not knowing. Obama then blew a perfectly good opportunity to take the high road, cut off any attack response from the McCain campaign, and put his message across.
Because Obama attacked McCain for being an out of touch rich guy, he opened himself up to being attacked back: "Wait a minute there, buster, you too." (At the current rate, it's going to take me somewhere between sixty and eighty years to earn the four plus million bucks Obama took in last year. And I'm above the national average.)
The fact is, anyone who gets as far as the two final candidates, is going to be out of touch with the daily lives of ordinary people. They're not going to the grocery store to shop. They're not pumping their own gas. They're not wondering if they can afford to take their family to a ballgame.
But that's got nothing whatsoever to do with their ability as president to deal with the problems of ordinary people. Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the American common man's greatest friend of the Twentieth Century, came from a life of fabulous wealth and privilege. Hell, if you're a leftist and you're still worried about it; Frederich Engels supported his poorer pal Karl Marx with the wealth from his family's textile mills.
What Obama could have said is something along the lines of: "Sure McCain's out of touch [a nice little dig there], neither of us is living the day to day life of the average American. The difference is in what we plan to do about it. My plan is better. Here's why..." He would have cut off any counterattack at the knees and he could have taken an opportunity to get one of his most important points across.
But, he didn't. And that's because politics in this country has been distilled down to attack and defend. Usually it's the Republicans attacking and the Democrats defending - which is one reason the Democrats have been losers so much in most of the years since Richard Nixon. A charge, which is leveled first and usually easy to sum up in a few short words, is always going to be better remembered than a response, no matter how well reasoned, which comes second and more often than not requires a more complex or nuanced explanation. The whole point of an attack is to get it in first and make it simple. That's nearly as effective with a lie as it is with the truth. The Democrats have lost over the years by playing the Republicans' game.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think there might be an argument to be made in favor of "promote."
>>>Sure, us pampered candidates are out of touch with ordinary Americans, but I'm a good study, I've got good advisers and here's what I plan to do about it. What's the other guy got?<<<
>>>Sure I'm more charismatic than my opponent. But I'm smart, too, because here's how I plan to use that to get things done that need doing and here's what I'm going to do. What's the other guy got?<<<
But, what's going to happen, and is already happening, is that the Democrats are going to fall into the Republicans trap just like they always do. Obama's plan actually lowers taxes for a whole lot more people than McCain's does. But because McCain's plan lowers taxes on the wealthy - who make the biggest stink about taxes - he's trying to pass himself off as the tax cutter of the two. And since he made the charge first, it is more likely to stick even though it's total bullshit.
What happened to: >>>Hey, eight years of huge expenditures at the same time as big tax cuts have left our country in a terrible financial position. We are going to have to raise some money. That's going to mean some higher taxes for some people. I plan to squeeze some of that from the pockets of the people who can most easily afford it and ease up on a lot of you who are being most hurt by this financial mess. What's the other guy got?<<<
But, unfortunately, this one, like all elections, will deteriorate into the usual politely veneered name calling - with surrogates permitted to strip off the veneer and outright attack the other guy.
If that's the case, I suppose - SIGH - the Democrats ought to start doing it first, fastest and most viciously so as to put the Republicans on the defensive for a change. And that's going to make me like them even less than I already do. But I'll still like them better than the Republicans.
I enjoyed watching Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps and the Brazilian women's volleyball team as much as anyone. But I would have happily foregone those pleasures if that FORTY ONE BILLION DOLLARS had been spent on something that benefited at least some of those impoverished, oppressed Chinese people.
And these figures don't even account for the cost to a number of farmers who lost this year's crops due to diversion of water from their farms to the creation of the sailing and kayaking venues; or the fact that the fancy new facilities were built in the same way that most government building projects are built in China - with near slave labor.
Sure the Chinese got to wallow in national pride. And now Beijing has some pretty new sports venues. And here in the U.S. we got some great TV to watch - albeit with really inane commentary for the most part.
But I'm sorry, the Olympics isn't worth it. IT WAS DISGUSTING.
And speaking of stupidly expensive exercises; the Democratic Convention kicks off today.
This is, of course, to anoint one of the two men who are going to spend OVER A BILLION DOLLARS trying to get elected by telling us, among other lies, how responsible they are going to be with our money.
Before I start excoriating the Democrats (I'll excoriate the Republicans during their convention) for being fuckwits, let's get a couple of things straight.
I'm a registered independent.
I mostly vote for Democratic Party candidates - although I have voted for a few Republicans over the years and once or twice when I really couldn't stomach voting for either, I voted for third party candidates without a hope in hell of winning in the hope they'd get enough votes to stir the pot up a little. (I never, by the way, voted for Ralph Nader. I think he was a fine consumer advocate. Other than that, I think he's a cretin.)
I am going to vote for Barack Obama, and happily so. I think one more term of a Republican administration at this point will seal the deal on the destruction - for at least a generation to come - of many of the things I love about this country.
We cannot afford any more of this nonsense about cutting taxes at the same time as boosting spending enormously to pay for ill-advised, in the long run unwinnable, wars justified through lies.
We cannot afford any more of the remarkable culture of financial malfeasance without at least some effective oversight - that the Republicans have been more responsible for than the Democrats. I'm all in favor of free markets, but at a certain point certain unregulated economic activities, even so-called "free market" ones, can skew the free market in ways that make it not work. There is a difference between "free" markets and "anarchic" markets where the strong have free rein to cheat, lie, steal and generally crush the weak.
We desperately need to repair our relations with the rest of the world. Barack Obama is far better positioned to accomplish that than John McCain.
And, maybe most importantly, the next president is going to appoint, minimally one, possibly as many as three, Supreme Court justices. The current court already leans further to the right than is good for our civil rights and liberties, as well as the environment. Balance needs to be restored. A Republican president will - and candidate McCain has already said that he will - appoint similar justices to the appointments made by GW Bush. That will complete the transition of the court to the right wing, for a generation or more. No American who loves the ideals that this country was founded upon, could possibly want that.
OKAY, SO IT'S CLEAR - I WILL VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA. I might even contribute some money, maybe a little work, to his campaign.
That said, THE DEMOCRATS ARE IDIOTS AND THEY COULD WELL LOSE THIS ELECTION BECAUSE THEY ARE TERRIBLE CAMPAIGNERS.
The recent kerfuffle over McCain's failure to know how many houses he owns, is a case in point. McCain, stupidly, admitted to not knowing. Obama then blew a perfectly good opportunity to take the high road, cut off any attack response from the McCain campaign, and put his message across.
Because Obama attacked McCain for being an out of touch rich guy, he opened himself up to being attacked back: "Wait a minute there, buster, you too." (At the current rate, it's going to take me somewhere between sixty and eighty years to earn the four plus million bucks Obama took in last year. And I'm above the national average.)
The fact is, anyone who gets as far as the two final candidates, is going to be out of touch with the daily lives of ordinary people. They're not going to the grocery store to shop. They're not pumping their own gas. They're not wondering if they can afford to take their family to a ballgame.
But that's got nothing whatsoever to do with their ability as president to deal with the problems of ordinary people. Franklin Roosevelt, arguably the American common man's greatest friend of the Twentieth Century, came from a life of fabulous wealth and privilege. Hell, if you're a leftist and you're still worried about it; Frederich Engels supported his poorer pal Karl Marx with the wealth from his family's textile mills.
What Obama could have said is something along the lines of: "Sure McCain's out of touch [a nice little dig there], neither of us is living the day to day life of the average American. The difference is in what we plan to do about it. My plan is better. Here's why..." He would have cut off any counterattack at the knees and he could have taken an opportunity to get one of his most important points across.
But, he didn't. And that's because politics in this country has been distilled down to attack and defend. Usually it's the Republicans attacking and the Democrats defending - which is one reason the Democrats have been losers so much in most of the years since Richard Nixon. A charge, which is leveled first and usually easy to sum up in a few short words, is always going to be better remembered than a response, no matter how well reasoned, which comes second and more often than not requires a more complex or nuanced explanation. The whole point of an attack is to get it in first and make it simple. That's nearly as effective with a lie as it is with the truth. The Democrats have lost over the years by playing the Republicans' game.
Maybe I'm naive, but I think there might be an argument to be made in favor of "promote."
>>>Sure, us pampered candidates are out of touch with ordinary Americans, but I'm a good study, I've got good advisers and here's what I plan to do about it. What's the other guy got?<<<
>>>Sure I'm more charismatic than my opponent. But I'm smart, too, because here's how I plan to use that to get things done that need doing and here's what I'm going to do. What's the other guy got?<<<
But, what's going to happen, and is already happening, is that the Democrats are going to fall into the Republicans trap just like they always do. Obama's plan actually lowers taxes for a whole lot more people than McCain's does. But because McCain's plan lowers taxes on the wealthy - who make the biggest stink about taxes - he's trying to pass himself off as the tax cutter of the two. And since he made the charge first, it is more likely to stick even though it's total bullshit.
What happened to: >>>Hey, eight years of huge expenditures at the same time as big tax cuts have left our country in a terrible financial position. We are going to have to raise some money. That's going to mean some higher taxes for some people. I plan to squeeze some of that from the pockets of the people who can most easily afford it and ease up on a lot of you who are being most hurt by this financial mess. What's the other guy got?<<<
But, unfortunately, this one, like all elections, will deteriorate into the usual politely veneered name calling - with surrogates permitted to strip off the veneer and outright attack the other guy.
If that's the case, I suppose - SIGH - the Democrats ought to start doing it first, fastest and most viciously so as to put the Republicans on the defensive for a change. And that's going to make me like them even less than I already do. But I'll still like them better than the Republicans.
30 July 2008
NOT EATEN BY BEARS
Yep, that's right, I survived the trip to Montana. I haven't, however, been able to find any updates on the fate of the besieged Russian scientists. Perhaps they have all been eaten and word has yet to get out. I hope not. Much as I think bears should be entitled to eat those people who encroach upon their territory - the food chain should not be tinkered with - I think the people who are being threatened with being consumed, should be able to fight back.
In Montana, while driving from my father's house to the west entrance of Glacier National Park, I did pass this place.
"Your Car is Your Cage" is one of the very best slogans I have ever encountered. So good that I've had moments of thinking I should have it tattooed upon my body. I would have to personalize it: "My Car is My Cage." It says so much about life in Los Angeles. I suppose it also says a lot about me that I can write that, believe it, and yet I love living here. I guess that, much like a long term zoo animal, I have become habituated to my environment.
I could never live in Montana. There's just not enough variety, not enough noise, not enough people, not enough of everything. While I was there I had occasion to think about California. It is arguably the single most varied, diverse - geographically, geologically, culturally, socially, economically, in every which way - place on the planet.
Still, I'm happy to visit other places and Montana certainly was beautiful:
The "Going to the Sun" highway in Glacier National Park. 
Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park. 
McDonald Creek, Glacier National Park. 
My father, Martin Stone on the trail. The guy is astounding. The reason that I, and the rest of the family, were there was his 80th birthday. He led us all on a four mile hike. He was a bit disappointed with that. He had a much more strenuous 12-mile hike in mind that he could normally easily do. But, due to a recent problem with one of his legs he had to settle for the lesser march. Good thing. By the last third of a 12-mile hike he'd have had to carry me on his back. The thing is, he probably could. Plus, if that had been the case it would have made it far too easy for the bears to eat the both of us.
My upcoming book, FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL, is dedicated to my father. If you like my books, if you find some of what I write in this blog of interest, if there are things you like or find interesting about the way I look at the world and write about what I see, you can thank, or blame, my father for a lot of that. I, for one, thank and love him for it.
In Montana, while driving from my father's house to the west entrance of Glacier National Park, I did pass this place.
"Your Car is Your Cage" is one of the very best slogans I have ever encountered. So good that I've had moments of thinking I should have it tattooed upon my body. I would have to personalize it: "My Car is My Cage." It says so much about life in Los Angeles. I suppose it also says a lot about me that I can write that, believe it, and yet I love living here. I guess that, much like a long term zoo animal, I have become habituated to my environment.I could never live in Montana. There's just not enough variety, not enough noise, not enough people, not enough of everything. While I was there I had occasion to think about California. It is arguably the single most varied, diverse - geographically, geologically, culturally, socially, economically, in every which way - place on the planet.
Still, I'm happy to visit other places and Montana certainly was beautiful:
The "Going to the Sun" highway in Glacier National Park. 
Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park. 
McDonald Creek, Glacier National Park. 
My father, Martin Stone on the trail. The guy is astounding. The reason that I, and the rest of the family, were there was his 80th birthday. He led us all on a four mile hike. He was a bit disappointed with that. He had a much more strenuous 12-mile hike in mind that he could normally easily do. But, due to a recent problem with one of his legs he had to settle for the lesser march. Good thing. By the last third of a 12-mile hike he'd have had to carry me on his back. The thing is, he probably could. Plus, if that had been the case it would have made it far too easy for the bears to eat the both of us. My upcoming book, FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL, is dedicated to my father. If you like my books, if you find some of what I write in this blog of interest, if there are things you like or find interesting about the way I look at the world and write about what I see, you can thank, or blame, my father for a lot of that. I, for one, thank and love him for it.
24 July 2008
EATEN BY BEARS
They tell you that when you encounter a bear in the wild you're supposed to make yourself look big, make noise, stand your ground. If one actually charges you, fight back with all you've got, or play dead. There seems to be some disagreement on the matter.
Here's what I think. You're not going to win a fight with a bear. The bear is going to kill you and eat you. If you fight back, at least that will get your adrenalin pumping overtime. That will help your endorphins to kick in. And then it won't hurt as much when you are being eaten.
Or, if you are really lucky, your feeble attempts at fighting the bear will result in the bear killing you quick, rather than toying with you. And that's gotta be better than being eaten alive.
This is on my mind because tomorrow I am going to Montana. To a place where they have grizzly bears. Oh yeah, and I came across this article (click on the headline to read the whole, horrifying story): MAN EATING BEARS KILL TWO SCIENTISTS AND LAY SIEGE TO SURVIVORS TRAPPED IN REMOTE FOREST BASE.
Civilization has been a long, arduous march away from the woods. And I like to think of myself as a civilized man.
I once flew for three-and-a-half hours in a single-engined plane, not too far over unbroken forest canopy to a mud landing strip in the highlands of Central Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. At one point we flew over the wreckage of an identical plane that had crash-landed onto the tops of the hundred or more foot tall trees.
None of that made me nervous. The two day trek along a well-kept path in the jungle to a remote longhouse of the Kenyah tribe, was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
I nearly died of fright when a snake flew overhead.
That's right, flew. It was a bright blue snake, poisonous of course. It actually glides from tree to tree by flattening out its body and catching air. The other people in my party were delighted to catch a glimpse of this wonder of nature. I just felt inadequately armed and armored.
The last time I went camping was around 1977 or '78. My then girlfriend Chris, and I, went to the Stanley Basin in Idaho. Even I will admit that it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We spent the day fly-fishing. Well, she did, I'm incompetent at that sort of thing. She caught dinner and I cleaned it and cooked it. I'm good at that sort of thing. (But I must confess that I don't like trout, no matter how fresh. I prefer saltwater fish.) We went to sleep in our bags under the trees - no tent, but we were near the car.
In the morning I was woken up by a terrible chattering. I looked straight up into the gaping maws of doom. I shrieked, rolled away from the tree, broke from my sleeping bag and made a mad dash for the safety of the car. Chris, terrified by my reaction, quickly followed.
It was a squirrel. Clinging upside down to the tree, staring into my face and nattering on about something or another. Hey, maybe it was a rabid squirrel.
I don't like the woods. They scare me. I realize it's illogical, but drop me off in the middle of the most violence-prone, crime-ridden urban neighborhood in the world and I might be wary, but I'm comfortable.
I know full well that bears and squirrels and flying snakes don't carry guns; and that I'm about a thousand times (or more) more likely to be shot to death by a fellow human than I am to be eaten, poisoned or scratched to death by any other animal. But that's just the way it is.
Those of you who like the woods should be glad. You don't have me around to mess them up for you.
Here's what I think. You're not going to win a fight with a bear. The bear is going to kill you and eat you. If you fight back, at least that will get your adrenalin pumping overtime. That will help your endorphins to kick in. And then it won't hurt as much when you are being eaten.
Or, if you are really lucky, your feeble attempts at fighting the bear will result in the bear killing you quick, rather than toying with you. And that's gotta be better than being eaten alive.
This is on my mind because tomorrow I am going to Montana. To a place where they have grizzly bears. Oh yeah, and I came across this article (click on the headline to read the whole, horrifying story): MAN EATING BEARS KILL TWO SCIENTISTS AND LAY SIEGE TO SURVIVORS TRAPPED IN REMOTE FOREST BASE.
Civilization has been a long, arduous march away from the woods. And I like to think of myself as a civilized man.
I once flew for three-and-a-half hours in a single-engined plane, not too far over unbroken forest canopy to a mud landing strip in the highlands of Central Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo. At one point we flew over the wreckage of an identical plane that had crash-landed onto the tops of the hundred or more foot tall trees.
None of that made me nervous. The two day trek along a well-kept path in the jungle to a remote longhouse of the Kenyah tribe, was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.
I nearly died of fright when a snake flew overhead.
That's right, flew. It was a bright blue snake, poisonous of course. It actually glides from tree to tree by flattening out its body and catching air. The other people in my party were delighted to catch a glimpse of this wonder of nature. I just felt inadequately armed and armored.
The last time I went camping was around 1977 or '78. My then girlfriend Chris, and I, went to the Stanley Basin in Idaho. Even I will admit that it is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. We spent the day fly-fishing. Well, she did, I'm incompetent at that sort of thing. She caught dinner and I cleaned it and cooked it. I'm good at that sort of thing. (But I must confess that I don't like trout, no matter how fresh. I prefer saltwater fish.) We went to sleep in our bags under the trees - no tent, but we were near the car.
In the morning I was woken up by a terrible chattering. I looked straight up into the gaping maws of doom. I shrieked, rolled away from the tree, broke from my sleeping bag and made a mad dash for the safety of the car. Chris, terrified by my reaction, quickly followed.
It was a squirrel. Clinging upside down to the tree, staring into my face and nattering on about something or another. Hey, maybe it was a rabid squirrel.
I don't like the woods. They scare me. I realize it's illogical, but drop me off in the middle of the most violence-prone, crime-ridden urban neighborhood in the world and I might be wary, but I'm comfortable.
I know full well that bears and squirrels and flying snakes don't carry guns; and that I'm about a thousand times (or more) more likely to be shot to death by a fellow human than I am to be eaten, poisoned or scratched to death by any other animal. But that's just the way it is.
Those of you who like the woods should be glad. You don't have me around to mess them up for you.
30 June 2008
SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE KINDLE
Recently, my publisher and agent have been looking into licensing the rights to publish my books for Amazon's Kindle. Several writer friends now have Kindles and have carried on enthusiastically about them. I'm not so sure.
One writer friend is currently reading a new book on a Kindle. The book was bought for less than the price of the hardback, or a trade paperback and there is every chance that the author received a much lower royalty on that sale than he would have on a traditional book sale. (And, if his contract is anything like mine, he probably only got half of the royalty (minus his agent's 15% of course), while the book's traditional publisher got the other half.) Good for my friend who saved money on the book and loves the Kindle. Good for Amazon who made most of the money. Good for the publisher who got half the royalty at virtually no cost to itself. Not so good for the author.
I've got some questions:
• What are the royalties on Kindle sales? How often are statements issued? How often are they paid?
• Is there any sort of advance payment?
• Is Amazon’s right to publish for the Kindle, exclusive? Is there a limit, time or otherwise, to that exclusivity? Kindle is a proprietary technology, so if they get exclusive rights to a book, it is very much as if we licensed the right to sell a book only to Barnes & Noble and not to Borders or any other bookstores. That seems like a bad idea. At the moment there isn’t much competition for Kindle – although Sony makes an e-book reader – but in the future there will be.
• If we, or our agent, upload the book ourselves (in essence, make the sale ourselves), how is that affected by the existing contract with our traditional publisher – the one that says they get 50% of e-book sale proceeds - but, presumably only if they make that sale, because the contract only gives them “non-exclusive” rights to license subsidiary rights.
• On the other hand, if we (my agent and I) are uploading the version of my books that my traditional publisher worked on – editing, formatting, cover art, etc. – then they probably are entitled to some percentage, even if they didn’t make the “sale.” But, probably it should be less than 50% since they aren’t having to produce and distribute an actual book, and we’re doing the work to upload the book, or the manuscript or whatever. If that is the case, what percent are they entitled to?
A lot of these issues are similar to those that led the screenwriters to go on strike last year. But, we book authors don't have the same sort of clout - very few of us have networks, advertisers and viewers dependent on our output.
At the moment, sales of e-books for the Kindle - and for Sony's reader - are pretty small. But they're growing. And as the technology improves, as more reading machines come on the market, as more books are available at lower prices, that market is going to grow - fast. And unless writers' contracts reflect these technological and market changes, writers are going to be on the losing end.
My standing instructions to the lawyer who reviews my contracts are: "As a writer, I realize that I'm going to get screwed. Just make sure that they use enough lube." The Kindle is going to require an additional application of grease to my contracts before I’m happy with it.
One writer friend is currently reading a new book on a Kindle. The book was bought for less than the price of the hardback, or a trade paperback and there is every chance that the author received a much lower royalty on that sale than he would have on a traditional book sale. (And, if his contract is anything like mine, he probably only got half of the royalty (minus his agent's 15% of course), while the book's traditional publisher got the other half.) Good for my friend who saved money on the book and loves the Kindle. Good for Amazon who made most of the money. Good for the publisher who got half the royalty at virtually no cost to itself. Not so good for the author.
I've got some questions:
• What are the royalties on Kindle sales? How often are statements issued? How often are they paid?
• Is there any sort of advance payment?
• Is Amazon’s right to publish for the Kindle, exclusive? Is there a limit, time or otherwise, to that exclusivity? Kindle is a proprietary technology, so if they get exclusive rights to a book, it is very much as if we licensed the right to sell a book only to Barnes & Noble and not to Borders or any other bookstores. That seems like a bad idea. At the moment there isn’t much competition for Kindle – although Sony makes an e-book reader – but in the future there will be.
• If we, or our agent, upload the book ourselves (in essence, make the sale ourselves), how is that affected by the existing contract with our traditional publisher – the one that says they get 50% of e-book sale proceeds - but, presumably only if they make that sale, because the contract only gives them “non-exclusive” rights to license subsidiary rights.
• On the other hand, if we (my agent and I) are uploading the version of my books that my traditional publisher worked on – editing, formatting, cover art, etc. – then they probably are entitled to some percentage, even if they didn’t make the “sale.” But, probably it should be less than 50% since they aren’t having to produce and distribute an actual book, and we’re doing the work to upload the book, or the manuscript or whatever. If that is the case, what percent are they entitled to?
A lot of these issues are similar to those that led the screenwriters to go on strike last year. But, we book authors don't have the same sort of clout - very few of us have networks, advertisers and viewers dependent on our output.
At the moment, sales of e-books for the Kindle - and for Sony's reader - are pretty small. But they're growing. And as the technology improves, as more reading machines come on the market, as more books are available at lower prices, that market is going to grow - fast. And unless writers' contracts reflect these technological and market changes, writers are going to be on the losing end.
My standing instructions to the lawyer who reviews my contracts are: "As a writer, I realize that I'm going to get screwed. Just make sure that they use enough lube." The Kindle is going to require an additional application of grease to my contracts before I’m happy with it.
28 June 2008
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA & THE U.S.
Yesterday, June 27, Emma Goldman was 139 years old. So long as there is anyone left alive who loves freedom and who loves the U.S. for the real reasons that it is great, she lives on. It is fitting that the celebration of her birth should come close to July Fourth, Independence Day.
Here's what she had to say about the U.S. while she was on trial for speaking out against the draft during the First World War - another "war for democracy." (I think I may have blogged about this before, but it bears repeating, especially during an election year.)
"Who is the real patriot, or rather what is the kind of patriotism that we represent? The kind of patriotism we represent is the kind of patriotism which loves America with open eyes. Our relation towards America is the same as the relation of a man who loves a woman, who is enchanted by her beauty and yet who cannot be blind to her defects. And so I wish to state here, in my own behalf and in behalf of hundreds of thousands whom you decry and state to be antipatriotic, that we love America, we love her beauty, we love her riches, we love her mountains and her forests, and above all we love the people who have produced her wealth and riches, who have created all her beauty, we love the dreamers and the philosophers and the thinkers who are giving America liberty. But that must not make us blind to the social faults of America. That cannot compel us to be inarticulate to the terrible wrongs committed in the name of the country.
"We simply insist, regardless of all protests to the contrary, that this war is not a war for democracy. If it were a war for the purpose of making democracy safe for the world, we would say that democracy must first be safe for America before it can be safe for the world."
Emma Goldman came here from Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. My family showed up about twenty-five years later from Poland, the Ukraine and Romania. And like pretty much everyone else who shows up here, they all came looking for something better; for freedom, opportunity, elbow-room, to live in a society where they could be largely left alone to be themselves. And for the most part, with some terrible exceptions, they found all that.
And they also found each other. Last weekend, here in Los Angeles, I went to a free music festival in Pasadena. There were bands from Mexico, Cambodia, Africa, South America, even places as exotic and foreign as Europe and New York. Earlier in the day I'd had an Armenian lunch. That night my friends and I had a Chinese dinner. And that is not an atypical weekend for many people in America's big cities.
At its greatest, the U.S. isn't a melting pot, it's a stew in which you can taste and savor all of the individual ingredients while also getting the strong flavor of the whole.
And I'm pretty sure that's one of the things that Emma Goldman loved about this country. And one of the things that she understood it takes open eyes and vigilance and tolerance and agitation and speaking up to protect.
On Independence Day we can best celebrate the U.S. both by our willingness to fight for the many things that are right about this country, and against those that are wrong.
By the way: To celebrate both Emma and the U.S.'s birthdays, I made a donation to the Emma Goldman Papers Project at UC Berkeley. The project is laboring to publish a comprehensive four-volume set of Emma Goldman's papers: speeches, letters, articles, pamphlets. This is a treasure that should not be lost. If you're interested in learning more about Emma Goldman, and about the Papers Project, (or in making a donation of your own), you can click here.
02 June 2008
BOOK EXHIBITIONISM & UNALIENABLE RIGHTS AND WRONGS
Book Expo America was in Los Angeles this year. My publisher, Bleak House Books, was there and so was I. It was astounding, a reminder that despite all the creativity involved, I'm part of an industry. What I do is not really all that different than someone who stamps and molds widgets that are then sold to hardware stores. Not deep down at the heart of the matter, in any event.
A couple of complaints:
I, and a lot of other authors at BEA, gave away advanced reading copies (ARCs) of our upcoming books. There was a gigantic autograph area specifically for that purpose. People lined up to get them. Some of those lined up were used and collectible booksellers who wanted nothing more than to get some free stock for their stores. They have no intention of carrying the final product, the one that my publisher sells and that I get royalties for. When those people asked me for a signed ARC, I politely and cheerfully gave them one. But inside I felt like slapping them silly.
Kindles, or something like them, are probably the wave of the future; one of them at least. The tsunami of the future more like. But I'm suspicious. My most recent publishing contract says that I split the proceeds from the sale of electronic rights 50-50 with my publisher. (My agent gets 15 percent of my part of that, too.) When an actual paper copy of one of my books sells, I get a percentage of the cover price from every sale. Electronic rights are usually a one time deal, having nothing to do with how many individual books are sold. (Even if they were calculated on each sale, e-books generally sell for less than half the price of "real" books.) I ran into a few fellow authors who seemed very enthusiastic about Kindles. There is no doubt that the growth of e-publishing is inevitable and I am not one to stand in the way of "progress." Still, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that this is just another way that us authors are going to get fucked.
But, despite my complaints, I had a grand old time at BEA. There are too many pictures to post here, so you can go to my set of them at Flickr.
NOW FOR SOME POLITICAL PONTIFICATION
Are there any legal limits on how the constitution, of the U.S. or California, can be amended? This is an important question.
If an amendment is passed by congress, a state legislature or referendum (in the case of California) and then ratified as required, by definition what it pertains to becomes "constitutional."
Recently, the California Supreme Court overturned the state ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional. They could do that because the ban was a mere law, it wasn't part of the state's constitution. So, opponents of gay marriage now want to pass a constitutional amendment that could not be overturned by the (state) court.
This brings up the question of, can you pass a constitutional amendment about anything? Are there no “unalienable” rights?
What if Congress passed a constitutional amendment, and two-thirds of the states ratified it, that revoked the 14th and 19th amendments, disenfranchising everyone other than white males? There's nothing unconstitutional about that.
Far fetched? Maybe. Prohibition was passed, then repealed. Germany in the 1920s and early '30s was chaotic but democratic. Hitler was elected, then amended the German constitution to create a legal foundation for everything he did.
The initial founding document of the United States, preceding the Constitution by a little over 11 years, is the Declaration of Independence. In its second paragraph it states: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..."
Here's a question: does the Declaration of Independence have any actual legal standing? If so, does that mean that some rights are "unalienable"; meaning that they can't be taken away, not even by amending the constitution? And does it also really mean that all "men" (the modern interpretation of which would be "people") share in those unalienable rights?
Is marriage, and its attendant package of legal and financial protections and responsibilities, one of those rights? In spite of divorce rates and a few couples I know, doesn't marriage have something to do with the "pursuit of happiness?"
If indeed all people share rights (and responsibilities) equally, can even a constitutional amendment apportion those rights unequally? Is there some higher, legal power, or basis, than even the Constitution?
I hope so.
A couple of complaints:
I, and a lot of other authors at BEA, gave away advanced reading copies (ARCs) of our upcoming books. There was a gigantic autograph area specifically for that purpose. People lined up to get them. Some of those lined up were used and collectible booksellers who wanted nothing more than to get some free stock for their stores. They have no intention of carrying the final product, the one that my publisher sells and that I get royalties for. When those people asked me for a signed ARC, I politely and cheerfully gave them one. But inside I felt like slapping them silly.
Kindles, or something like them, are probably the wave of the future; one of them at least. The tsunami of the future more like. But I'm suspicious. My most recent publishing contract says that I split the proceeds from the sale of electronic rights 50-50 with my publisher. (My agent gets 15 percent of my part of that, too.) When an actual paper copy of one of my books sells, I get a percentage of the cover price from every sale. Electronic rights are usually a one time deal, having nothing to do with how many individual books are sold. (Even if they were calculated on each sale, e-books generally sell for less than half the price of "real" books.) I ran into a few fellow authors who seemed very enthusiastic about Kindles. There is no doubt that the growth of e-publishing is inevitable and I am not one to stand in the way of "progress." Still, it is becoming increasingly clear to me that this is just another way that us authors are going to get fucked.
But, despite my complaints, I had a grand old time at BEA. There are too many pictures to post here, so you can go to my set of them at Flickr.
NOW FOR SOME POLITICAL PONTIFICATION
Are there any legal limits on how the constitution, of the U.S. or California, can be amended? This is an important question.
If an amendment is passed by congress, a state legislature or referendum (in the case of California) and then ratified as required, by definition what it pertains to becomes "constitutional."
Recently, the California Supreme Court overturned the state ban on gay marriage as unconstitutional. They could do that because the ban was a mere law, it wasn't part of the state's constitution. So, opponents of gay marriage now want to pass a constitutional amendment that could not be overturned by the (state) court.
This brings up the question of, can you pass a constitutional amendment about anything? Are there no “unalienable” rights?
What if Congress passed a constitutional amendment, and two-thirds of the states ratified it, that revoked the 14th and 19th amendments, disenfranchising everyone other than white males? There's nothing unconstitutional about that.
Far fetched? Maybe. Prohibition was passed, then repealed. Germany in the 1920s and early '30s was chaotic but democratic. Hitler was elected, then amended the German constitution to create a legal foundation for everything he did.
The initial founding document of the United States, preceding the Constitution by a little over 11 years, is the Declaration of Independence. In its second paragraph it states: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness..."
Here's a question: does the Declaration of Independence have any actual legal standing? If so, does that mean that some rights are "unalienable"; meaning that they can't be taken away, not even by amending the constitution? And does it also really mean that all "men" (the modern interpretation of which would be "people") share in those unalienable rights?
Is marriage, and its attendant package of legal and financial protections and responsibilities, one of those rights? In spite of divorce rates and a few couples I know, doesn't marriage have something to do with the "pursuit of happiness?"
If indeed all people share rights (and responsibilities) equally, can even a constitutional amendment apportion those rights unequally? Is there some higher, legal power, or basis, than even the Constitution?
I hope so.
25 May 2008
ME AND OBAMA'S MAMA
The other night I was talking with a friend about what we'd like to do if we weren't writers. There isn't much. I love what I do.
But I did mention that I used to know someone in Indonesia who had the greatest job that I ever heard of.
I met Ann Sutoro when I was working for Asian Business magazine and interviewing people for a cover story on what the private sector can do to help alleviate poverty. She was an economic anthropologist working for Bank Rakyat Indonesia, the rural development bank of the country. She was in charge of the bank's microfinance program.
From her office in Jakarta, Ann would pick out an impoverished village somewhere in the country. She'd travel there, spend several weeks getting to know the place, getting to know the movers and shakers in the village, who had the brightest entrepreneurial spirit, the best ideas. About 95% of the time the people she came up with were women. Then she'd go back to Jakarta and write up a report.
Loaning this woman US$70 would enable her to get a small refrigerator for her food stall, and among other things she could then stock medicine for curing river blindness in kids. Another woman could use 40 bucks to buy some equipment to better husk rice, so there'd be less waste and she could build up her business. For 65, yet another woman could get a second loom for weaving cloth and expand her business. It was all little loans, but it meant big improvements in the lives of whole villages. (And the default rates on the loans was much lower than it was on the big loans other banks made to corporations or wealthy individuals.)
Ann would write up her report, get the money from the bank, then return to the village to dispense the loans. She got to play fairy godmother to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. And best of all it wasn't charity. She was simply helping them to help themselves.
I liked her, a lot, the moment I met her. We became friendly and for several years, whenever I was in Jakarta I'd give her a call. We'd have a drink, a meal, hang out talking in her beautiful house in Jakarta. She had a great, quirky, sense of humor, was kind and decent to a fault and was just plain whip smart, one of the sharpest people I've ever known. I envied her her job, admired her tremendously and always looked forward to seeing her.
She died of cancer in 1995 and it was a tremendous loss. I've thought of her often over the years. Whenever the subject of great things to do with one's life comes up, I always trot out the story of Ann Sutoro. Because of her, if I ever went back to school, it would be to study economic anthropology. (Easy to say, though, not much real risk of that.)
Today, I was trying to think up a subject for this blog entry and I was thinking about my conversation of the other night. I thought I'd write about a few of the world's best jobs, so Ann immediately popped into my head. Just for the hell of it, I googled her, not really expecting to find much, if anything. What I found out is that she was Barack Obama's mother.
There's much that I like and admire about Obama. But, as with all politicians, there is also much about him that makes me suspicious and nervous. But I do know one thing for sure. He comes from a very good family. At least on his mother's side.
But I did mention that I used to know someone in Indonesia who had the greatest job that I ever heard of.
I met Ann Sutoro when I was working for Asian Business magazine and interviewing people for a cover story on what the private sector can do to help alleviate poverty. She was an economic anthropologist working for Bank Rakyat Indonesia, the rural development bank of the country. She was in charge of the bank's microfinance program.
From her office in Jakarta, Ann would pick out an impoverished village somewhere in the country. She'd travel there, spend several weeks getting to know the place, getting to know the movers and shakers in the village, who had the brightest entrepreneurial spirit, the best ideas. About 95% of the time the people she came up with were women. Then she'd go back to Jakarta and write up a report.
Loaning this woman US$70 would enable her to get a small refrigerator for her food stall, and among other things she could then stock medicine for curing river blindness in kids. Another woman could use 40 bucks to buy some equipment to better husk rice, so there'd be less waste and she could build up her business. For 65, yet another woman could get a second loom for weaving cloth and expand her business. It was all little loans, but it meant big improvements in the lives of whole villages. (And the default rates on the loans was much lower than it was on the big loans other banks made to corporations or wealthy individuals.)
Ann would write up her report, get the money from the bank, then return to the village to dispense the loans. She got to play fairy godmother to hundreds, maybe thousands of people. And best of all it wasn't charity. She was simply helping them to help themselves.
I liked her, a lot, the moment I met her. We became friendly and for several years, whenever I was in Jakarta I'd give her a call. We'd have a drink, a meal, hang out talking in her beautiful house in Jakarta. She had a great, quirky, sense of humor, was kind and decent to a fault and was just plain whip smart, one of the sharpest people I've ever known. I envied her her job, admired her tremendously and always looked forward to seeing her.
She died of cancer in 1995 and it was a tremendous loss. I've thought of her often over the years. Whenever the subject of great things to do with one's life comes up, I always trot out the story of Ann Sutoro. Because of her, if I ever went back to school, it would be to study economic anthropology. (Easy to say, though, not much real risk of that.)
Today, I was trying to think up a subject for this blog entry and I was thinking about my conversation of the other night. I thought I'd write about a few of the world's best jobs, so Ann immediately popped into my head. Just for the hell of it, I googled her, not really expecting to find much, if anything. What I found out is that she was Barack Obama's mother.
There's much that I like and admire about Obama. But, as with all politicians, there is also much about him that makes me suspicious and nervous. But I do know one thing for sure. He comes from a very good family. At least on his mother's side.
14 May 2008
"DESIRE TO LAUGH*" - ALBERT HOFFMANN 1906-2008 - AND THE LATEST ON TACO TRUCKS BELOW
Albert Hoffmann, the scientist who discovered / invented / synthesized LSD, died recently at the age of 102. That has given me the occasion to pause and reflect, fondly, upon my own history with LSD.
And that's right, I wrote "fondly." LSD was good for me. It made my life better. I have not taken it since 1970, but I took an awful lot of it before I stopped and I'm glad I did.
Now there are those of you out there reading this who are probably thinking: "I hope he doesn't have children." Well, not to worry, I don't. If I did, I wouldn't suggest to them that they ought to drop acid. But I'd have a tough time discouraging them.
There are others of you out there reading this who are probably thinking: "That stuff must have scrambled his brains." And I suppose you're right. It did. But I like the way my brains have been scrambled and I'm doing just fine with them mixed-up that way.
The first time I took LSD was in September 1966 (I was fourteen), about two weeks before it became illegal in California. I had traded a UCLA professor a bag of mediocre Mexican pot for a dosed sugar cube. Over the next three and a half or so years, I probably took acid between two and three hundred times. It was easy to lose track.
Now I'm not about to say that LSD will work wonders for everybody, or anybody. There is every chance that I was simply lucky not to have wound up a screaming, drooling, non-functional maniac. Some of my friends did, at least temporarily. A couple of them, near as I can tell, have never fully recovered.
When I dropped acid with friends I was always assigned the job of "maintenance foreman." That meant I took care of us. If there were tickets to be bought for something, activities to be organized, shopping to get done, talking to "the man" if "the man" showed up, driving; that's what I did. I even learned to drive a stick shift when I was stoned on acid and a friend needed to go somewhere and had forgot how to drive.
So, here's what LSD did for me.
It made me, mentally, stronger. I guess in the Nietzschean sense of "what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger." I don't fully believe that. Some of the things that don't kill you, can maim you. But still, in some of my most formative years I dealt with a lot of really strange and challenging stuff in a wide variety of circumstances. No matter how bizarre the world around me got, or at least the world as I was seeing it, I learned to cope with it. To this day I am very difficult to freak out. I tend to stay calm under stress. Sure, I have little explosions every now and then when things aren't going my way. But I tend to settle back into equilibrium pretty quick.
It helped give me a great deal of tolerance for things that might otherwise strike me as weird, strange, abnormal. I hardly think of anything as abnormal or normal anymore. When something seems weird or strange, I find it more interesting than threatening. That helps my powers of observation.
It taught me to see colors better than I might have otherwise. One of the things that LSD does is to enhance your sensitivity to color, kind of like boosting the saturation setting in Photoshop. I do take pretty good pictures, if I do say so myself, and I think LSD is partly responsible for that.
Same with patterns. Under the influence of acid I never hallucinated anything that wasn't actually there. I tried, and it never worked. (I've had to depend on the occasional high fever attending a recurrent episode of malaria for that.) But I did perceive complex patterns where none, probably, really existed. Part of my approach to photography, and much of my writing for that matter, is to find some kind of order, structure, pattern in the chaos that makes up the real world.
Who knows if I killed off a bunch of brain cells or not? Maybe I could have been smarter or saner. I don't know and I don't care. I'm smart and sane enough as I've ever needed to be. Either that or deluded enough to think that I am. And so far at least, I've escaped the attention of the nice men in the white coats.
So in my case, I want to celebrate the memory of Albert Hoffmann. And give a nod of thanks to Augustus Owsley Stanley III who certainly did more than his fair share to help psychedelicize my adolescence.
* According to the recent obituary in The Economist, "desire to laugh," were the last words Hoffmann was able to write in his lab journal after he first, deliberately, took a dose of LSD.
TACO TRUCK UPDATE
At midnight last night, the new, onerous LA County Taco Truck ordinance came into being. A brave group of taqueros has banded together to resist. Once more I ventured into East L.A. with pals - the toothsome Christa Faust and Bill Krauss, a fine fellow taco lover. Here's the poster for the event we attended, followed by some photographic evidence:
Tacos El Galuzo
Channel 34 was there
Cabeza - YUM!
Taco truck fine diners
And that's right, I wrote "fondly." LSD was good for me. It made my life better. I have not taken it since 1970, but I took an awful lot of it before I stopped and I'm glad I did.
Now there are those of you out there reading this who are probably thinking: "I hope he doesn't have children." Well, not to worry, I don't. If I did, I wouldn't suggest to them that they ought to drop acid. But I'd have a tough time discouraging them.
There are others of you out there reading this who are probably thinking: "That stuff must have scrambled his brains." And I suppose you're right. It did. But I like the way my brains have been scrambled and I'm doing just fine with them mixed-up that way.
The first time I took LSD was in September 1966 (I was fourteen), about two weeks before it became illegal in California. I had traded a UCLA professor a bag of mediocre Mexican pot for a dosed sugar cube. Over the next three and a half or so years, I probably took acid between two and three hundred times. It was easy to lose track.
Now I'm not about to say that LSD will work wonders for everybody, or anybody. There is every chance that I was simply lucky not to have wound up a screaming, drooling, non-functional maniac. Some of my friends did, at least temporarily. A couple of them, near as I can tell, have never fully recovered.
When I dropped acid with friends I was always assigned the job of "maintenance foreman." That meant I took care of us. If there were tickets to be bought for something, activities to be organized, shopping to get done, talking to "the man" if "the man" showed up, driving; that's what I did. I even learned to drive a stick shift when I was stoned on acid and a friend needed to go somewhere and had forgot how to drive.
So, here's what LSD did for me.
It made me, mentally, stronger. I guess in the Nietzschean sense of "what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger." I don't fully believe that. Some of the things that don't kill you, can maim you. But still, in some of my most formative years I dealt with a lot of really strange and challenging stuff in a wide variety of circumstances. No matter how bizarre the world around me got, or at least the world as I was seeing it, I learned to cope with it. To this day I am very difficult to freak out. I tend to stay calm under stress. Sure, I have little explosions every now and then when things aren't going my way. But I tend to settle back into equilibrium pretty quick.
It helped give me a great deal of tolerance for things that might otherwise strike me as weird, strange, abnormal. I hardly think of anything as abnormal or normal anymore. When something seems weird or strange, I find it more interesting than threatening. That helps my powers of observation.
It taught me to see colors better than I might have otherwise. One of the things that LSD does is to enhance your sensitivity to color, kind of like boosting the saturation setting in Photoshop. I do take pretty good pictures, if I do say so myself, and I think LSD is partly responsible for that.
Same with patterns. Under the influence of acid I never hallucinated anything that wasn't actually there. I tried, and it never worked. (I've had to depend on the occasional high fever attending a recurrent episode of malaria for that.) But I did perceive complex patterns where none, probably, really existed. Part of my approach to photography, and much of my writing for that matter, is to find some kind of order, structure, pattern in the chaos that makes up the real world.
Who knows if I killed off a bunch of brain cells or not? Maybe I could have been smarter or saner. I don't know and I don't care. I'm smart and sane enough as I've ever needed to be. Either that or deluded enough to think that I am. And so far at least, I've escaped the attention of the nice men in the white coats.
So in my case, I want to celebrate the memory of Albert Hoffmann. And give a nod of thanks to Augustus Owsley Stanley III who certainly did more than his fair share to help psychedelicize my adolescence.
* According to the recent obituary in The Economist, "desire to laugh," were the last words Hoffmann was able to write in his lab journal after he first, deliberately, took a dose of LSD.
TACO TRUCK UPDATE
At midnight last night, the new, onerous LA County Taco Truck ordinance came into being. A brave group of taqueros has banded together to resist. Once more I ventured into East L.A. with pals - the toothsome Christa Faust and Bill Krauss, a fine fellow taco lover. Here's the poster for the event we attended, followed by some photographic evidence:
Tacos El Galuzo
Channel 34 was there
Cabeza - YUM!
Taco truck fine diners
02 May 2008
THE FIRST EVER RUNNING OF THE TACOS - OR WHY I'VE GOT A CRUSH ON CHRISTA FAUST
I've always admired Christa's writing (www.christafaust.com). HOODTOWN is one of the best, quirkiest, most fully-realized novels I've read in a long time. The other two books I've read by her ain't no slouches neither. The woman can write.
But boy howdy can she also eat:
Last night was Taco Truck Night here in Los Angeles. The misguided L.A. County Board of Supervisors, egged on by developers and restaurateurs, passed a law that would put hundreds, perhaps thousands, of taco trucks out of business. Even the L.A. Times has editorialized against the law. A whole lot of people depend on the trucks for cheap, tasty food, and few of the trucks are in real competition with brick and mortar restaurants. Even if they were in competition, isn't that what our economic system is supposed to be about?
To quote the L.A. Times editorial of today, May 2: "If providing cheap, tasty food that puts competitors out of business were a crime, the late McDonald's mogul Ray Kroc would have died in prison." Okay, so I disagree with the word "tasty" in that sentence. But still, you get the idea.
So last night, Christa, who is always up for an adventure, culinary or otherwise, unchained herself from her deadline burdened computer; brought along another writer pal, Nathan Long, and the three of us headed to East L.A. in my car to do our part to support taco trucks on their special night.
I was thinking to hit two, perhaps three of my favorite trucks and carts, eat a taco at each and retire happily sated from the field of battle. But Christa, whose slight but muscular, nicely illustrated frame belies her remarkable gustatory gusto, was having none of that.
Our first truck was La Korita, parked in a gas station two blocks east of Soto on Olympic. Nathan and I had carne asada, Christa the carnitas. For me, the real highlight of La Korita is its freshly made tortillas. The carne asada is also among the best in town. (The photographic evidence is above.)
Then we cruised up Soto in search of a place called La Estrella, but were distracted by the paintings of the Blessed Virgin, Jesus and a taquero with his al pastor wheel on the side of Tacos El Pecas, parked at a car wash. The tacos al pastor were good, not spectacular, but I have encountered few taco truck tacos that aren't at least good. Here's the evidence (Christa slurping an horchata):
From there we cruised north on Soto to Whittier Blvd. and turned east. There are often illegal taco carts along the sidewalk just west of the cemetery on Whittier. We were not disappointed. We stopped at the first one we saw - I don't recall seeing a name on the cart. It was on the north side of the street near Mott St. It was excellent al pastor.
We then passed a number of inviting carts, trucks and a chicken grill as we headed further east, past the 710 freeway, past the old Huggy Boy radio studio which is now a church of some sort. We were taking a break to simply cruise and take in the sights, sounds and smells of East L.A. - one of the great pleasures of life, especially on a hot summer night. Last night wasn't one of those, but it was close enough.
I was taking us to my favorite taco cart. At night, the southwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Hicks - a few blocks west of Gage - is home to what is, in my humble opinion, the finest al pastor to be had north of the border. Christa and Nathan seemed to agree. And they know their al pastor.
After that we were beginning to think we were filling up, so we thought to head toward Eagle Rock and Glassell Park where the fellows who organized Taco Truck Night have their home truck - La Estrella on York Ave. around Avenue 54.
But once again we were distracted. I was pointing out Los Cinco Puntos - a carniceria at the triangular corner of Cesar Chavez, Lorena and Indiana, where one can find the best carnitas and handmade tortillas in the city - when we noticed Cemitas Tepeaca and its colorful neon exclaiming "Cemitas, Tacos y Burritos." Better yet, it was parked in front of what looked like an interesting mural. (East L.A. walls are covered with great art, some of it truly great art. Just driving around and paying attention is as good as a visit to a museum or several great galleries.)
I don't know if Cemitas Tepeaca makes its own carnitas or gets it from Cinco Puntos, but they were superb tacos. While the al pastor place we went to just before it is the taco cart I'd most like to be stranded on a desert island with, this was the most interesting, colorful, and still extremely tasty stop of the night.
Finally we made it to La Estrella on York. It was, being an increasingly gentrifying neighborhood, and home to the organizers of the event, the only taco truck at which we saw any sort of large crowd of hipsters and foodies. And Spanish language news radio and TV reporters as well, of course. It was a fun scene, good to see that at least some people had come out for the event. But the carne asada tacos were the most disappointing fare of the night. They weren't bad, but they weren't all that good either. Still, a very big thank you is called for to the guys who organized the night, the petition and are working hard in the fight for taco trucks. You can find their website here: http://saveourtacotrucks.org/
After those, our sixth tacos (actually seven for Nathan who had two at the start of the trek), we decided to head home. But along the way we had to pass my favorite taco cart in Christa and my neighborhood (Silverlake) - the al pastor wheel at Fletcher and Larga, across from the U-Haul. It wasn't in us to simply drive by. So we finished off the night there, with excellent al pastor and what might be my favorite salsa roja in town - a bit thinner than most, but with a good, solid bite and a nice tickle of vinegar.
My car was low on its rims on the drive home. The three of us were groaning, belching, way too full but plenty content. Little more got done last night. It didn't need to. I don't know that we saved the taco trucks. But it was a splendid effort.
But boy howdy can she also eat:
Last night was Taco Truck Night here in Los Angeles. The misguided L.A. County Board of Supervisors, egged on by developers and restaurateurs, passed a law that would put hundreds, perhaps thousands, of taco trucks out of business. Even the L.A. Times has editorialized against the law. A whole lot of people depend on the trucks for cheap, tasty food, and few of the trucks are in real competition with brick and mortar restaurants. Even if they were in competition, isn't that what our economic system is supposed to be about?
To quote the L.A. Times editorial of today, May 2: "If providing cheap, tasty food that puts competitors out of business were a crime, the late McDonald's mogul Ray Kroc would have died in prison." Okay, so I disagree with the word "tasty" in that sentence. But still, you get the idea.
So last night, Christa, who is always up for an adventure, culinary or otherwise, unchained herself from her deadline burdened computer; brought along another writer pal, Nathan Long, and the three of us headed to East L.A. in my car to do our part to support taco trucks on their special night.
I was thinking to hit two, perhaps three of my favorite trucks and carts, eat a taco at each and retire happily sated from the field of battle. But Christa, whose slight but muscular, nicely illustrated frame belies her remarkable gustatory gusto, was having none of that.
Our first truck was La Korita, parked in a gas station two blocks east of Soto on Olympic. Nathan and I had carne asada, Christa the carnitas. For me, the real highlight of La Korita is its freshly made tortillas. The carne asada is also among the best in town. (The photographic evidence is above.)
Then we cruised up Soto in search of a place called La Estrella, but were distracted by the paintings of the Blessed Virgin, Jesus and a taquero with his al pastor wheel on the side of Tacos El Pecas, parked at a car wash. The tacos al pastor were good, not spectacular, but I have encountered few taco truck tacos that aren't at least good. Here's the evidence (Christa slurping an horchata):
From there we cruised north on Soto to Whittier Blvd. and turned east. There are often illegal taco carts along the sidewalk just west of the cemetery on Whittier. We were not disappointed. We stopped at the first one we saw - I don't recall seeing a name on the cart. It was on the north side of the street near Mott St. It was excellent al pastor.
We then passed a number of inviting carts, trucks and a chicken grill as we headed further east, past the 710 freeway, past the old Huggy Boy radio studio which is now a church of some sort. We were taking a break to simply cruise and take in the sights, sounds and smells of East L.A. - one of the great pleasures of life, especially on a hot summer night. Last night wasn't one of those, but it was close enough.
I was taking us to my favorite taco cart. At night, the southwest corner of Cesar Chavez and Hicks - a few blocks west of Gage - is home to what is, in my humble opinion, the finest al pastor to be had north of the border. Christa and Nathan seemed to agree. And they know their al pastor.
After that we were beginning to think we were filling up, so we thought to head toward Eagle Rock and Glassell Park where the fellows who organized Taco Truck Night have their home truck - La Estrella on York Ave. around Avenue 54.
But once again we were distracted. I was pointing out Los Cinco Puntos - a carniceria at the triangular corner of Cesar Chavez, Lorena and Indiana, where one can find the best carnitas and handmade tortillas in the city - when we noticed Cemitas Tepeaca and its colorful neon exclaiming "Cemitas, Tacos y Burritos." Better yet, it was parked in front of what looked like an interesting mural. (East L.A. walls are covered with great art, some of it truly great art. Just driving around and paying attention is as good as a visit to a museum or several great galleries.)
I don't know if Cemitas Tepeaca makes its own carnitas or gets it from Cinco Puntos, but they were superb tacos. While the al pastor place we went to just before it is the taco cart I'd most like to be stranded on a desert island with, this was the most interesting, colorful, and still extremely tasty stop of the night.
Finally we made it to La Estrella on York. It was, being an increasingly gentrifying neighborhood, and home to the organizers of the event, the only taco truck at which we saw any sort of large crowd of hipsters and foodies. And Spanish language news radio and TV reporters as well, of course. It was a fun scene, good to see that at least some people had come out for the event. But the carne asada tacos were the most disappointing fare of the night. They weren't bad, but they weren't all that good either. Still, a very big thank you is called for to the guys who organized the night, the petition and are working hard in the fight for taco trucks. You can find their website here: http://saveourtacotrucks.org/
After those, our sixth tacos (actually seven for Nathan who had two at the start of the trek), we decided to head home. But along the way we had to pass my favorite taco cart in Christa and my neighborhood (Silverlake) - the al pastor wheel at Fletcher and Larga, across from the U-Haul. It wasn't in us to simply drive by. So we finished off the night there, with excellent al pastor and what might be my favorite salsa roja in town - a bit thinner than most, but with a good, solid bite and a nice tickle of vinegar.
My car was low on its rims on the drive home. The three of us were groaning, belching, way too full but plenty content. Little more got done last night. It didn't need to. I don't know that we saved the taco trucks. But it was a splendid effort.
26 March 2008
THANK YOU, BILL
Here's some quotes from a speech that Bill Clinton gave a couple of days ago in West Virginia:
"If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office...Let's just saddle up and have an argument. What's the matter with that? That's what America's about, right?"
He's right. At least that's what this country's supposed to be about. People have a bunch of different ideas, they get together and argue about them - sometimes the arguments even get a bit heated - and then they vote on it and the argument that has been most persuasive wins.
That's how democracy is supposed to work. Sure, it's not very efficient. Sometimes it's not even very civil. Undoubtedly some good ideas get voted down and some bad ones are enacted. Most of the time we end up voting for someone who's imperfect. (Can you imagine that; an imperfect politician? Gosh.) But so far it does seem to be the only way in which a government can manage to please a whole lot of people, a lot of the time.
Problem is that we've come to believe that this idea or that one is absolutely right or wrong, so argument with it is irrational. That's what the Bush Administration has been trying to do; make us all shut up and not argue because they're right and that's all there is to it.
Well, as a vast majority of people in this country now know, that's not all there is to it.
But the kind of right-wrong, black-white thinking that the administration has crammed down our throats, and in which the media has been complicit, has screwed us up in all sorts of ways.
Increasingly I have been hearing Obama and Hillary supporters say that they won't vote for the other one if their candidate isn't nominated. Are they nuts? They seem to think there's something wrong with the two candidates arguing and duking it out for the nomination.
But that's how it's supposed to work. Even when they insult each other, that's how it's supposed to work. And when your candidate doesn't get the nomination, what you're supposed to do is shrug your shoulders, say "maybe next time," and vote for the better of the choices that you've ended up with.
The thing about all this fighting and up and down and talk of right and wrong is that it's just a natural part of the process of things settling down into somewhere in the comfortable middle. You can talk all you want about change, but the great genius of democracy isn't radical change, it's the leveling affect that it has. When it works, it allows for measured, rational, slow but sure change; the sort that in the long run does the most real good and is the longest lasting. Too many of us, however, have become too impatient for that.
We've also got our heads deeply embedded up our asses over the economy. We catastrophize nearly everything. But a stable economy has its ups and downs. That, as in politics, is how it finds its smooth running middle.
The least stable economy is one that doesn't go through the occasional wild mood swing. Inflation, recession, expanding bubbles, bursting bubbles, are all natural in a growing, healthy economy.
I spent a while on the phone last week trying to convince a friend that they hadn't really "lost" several hundred thousand dollars in the stock and property markets.
"Have you sold any stocks or property at a loss?"
"No."
"Are you going to have to? Do you have a subprime loan or any upcoming payments for something that are going to require you to sell something at a loss? Or do you need to borrow some money against your portfolio?"
"No."
"So you haven't really lost any money, have you?"
"Well, my portfolio is down 15 percent and I can't sell my house for what I could have last year, and and and..."
All I can say is, you haven't lost any money, you've lost your common sense.
There are plenty of people who do have subprime mortgages and who do have payments they need to cash out some investments to make and other such things. And yes, those people are going to lose money. But most people, aren't. Just like any roller coaster, if you sit there and hang on, the track's going to eventually smooth out. If you try to bail out on a big hill or curve, you're probably going to get hurt.
Americans are so busy thinking that everything is supposed to be perfect - and that they have some sort of inalienable right to a free lunch - that they go into a huge tailspin when things aren't just the way they want them to be.
Well, nothing's ever going to be exactly the way you want it to be. Get over it. You're just making things worse for yourself and everybody else when you overreact.
Meanwhile, here's some pretty pictures from a recent excursion out to the California State Poppy Reserve near Lancaster in the far northeast corner of Los Angeles County:
"If a politician doesn't wanna get beat up, he shouldn't run for office...Let's just saddle up and have an argument. What's the matter with that? That's what America's about, right?"
He's right. At least that's what this country's supposed to be about. People have a bunch of different ideas, they get together and argue about them - sometimes the arguments even get a bit heated - and then they vote on it and the argument that has been most persuasive wins.
That's how democracy is supposed to work. Sure, it's not very efficient. Sometimes it's not even very civil. Undoubtedly some good ideas get voted down and some bad ones are enacted. Most of the time we end up voting for someone who's imperfect. (Can you imagine that; an imperfect politician? Gosh.) But so far it does seem to be the only way in which a government can manage to please a whole lot of people, a lot of the time.
Problem is that we've come to believe that this idea or that one is absolutely right or wrong, so argument with it is irrational. That's what the Bush Administration has been trying to do; make us all shut up and not argue because they're right and that's all there is to it.
Well, as a vast majority of people in this country now know, that's not all there is to it.
But the kind of right-wrong, black-white thinking that the administration has crammed down our throats, and in which the media has been complicit, has screwed us up in all sorts of ways.
Increasingly I have been hearing Obama and Hillary supporters say that they won't vote for the other one if their candidate isn't nominated. Are they nuts? They seem to think there's something wrong with the two candidates arguing and duking it out for the nomination.
But that's how it's supposed to work. Even when they insult each other, that's how it's supposed to work. And when your candidate doesn't get the nomination, what you're supposed to do is shrug your shoulders, say "maybe next time," and vote for the better of the choices that you've ended up with.
The thing about all this fighting and up and down and talk of right and wrong is that it's just a natural part of the process of things settling down into somewhere in the comfortable middle. You can talk all you want about change, but the great genius of democracy isn't radical change, it's the leveling affect that it has. When it works, it allows for measured, rational, slow but sure change; the sort that in the long run does the most real good and is the longest lasting. Too many of us, however, have become too impatient for that.
We've also got our heads deeply embedded up our asses over the economy. We catastrophize nearly everything. But a stable economy has its ups and downs. That, as in politics, is how it finds its smooth running middle.
The least stable economy is one that doesn't go through the occasional wild mood swing. Inflation, recession, expanding bubbles, bursting bubbles, are all natural in a growing, healthy economy.
I spent a while on the phone last week trying to convince a friend that they hadn't really "lost" several hundred thousand dollars in the stock and property markets.
"Have you sold any stocks or property at a loss?"
"No."
"Are you going to have to? Do you have a subprime loan or any upcoming payments for something that are going to require you to sell something at a loss? Or do you need to borrow some money against your portfolio?"
"No."
"So you haven't really lost any money, have you?"
"Well, my portfolio is down 15 percent and I can't sell my house for what I could have last year, and and and..."
All I can say is, you haven't lost any money, you've lost your common sense.
There are plenty of people who do have subprime mortgages and who do have payments they need to cash out some investments to make and other such things. And yes, those people are going to lose money. But most people, aren't. Just like any roller coaster, if you sit there and hang on, the track's going to eventually smooth out. If you try to bail out on a big hill or curve, you're probably going to get hurt.
Americans are so busy thinking that everything is supposed to be perfect - and that they have some sort of inalienable right to a free lunch - that they go into a huge tailspin when things aren't just the way they want them to be.
Well, nothing's ever going to be exactly the way you want it to be. Get over it. You're just making things worse for yourself and everybody else when you overreact.
Meanwhile, here's some pretty pictures from a recent excursion out to the California State Poppy Reserve near Lancaster in the far northeast corner of Los Angeles County:
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