The Green Monster

Jealousy.  My most hated feeling.  There's a monster inside of me, one that looks at other people's success and points to it while accusing me of failure, ineptitude and laziness. 

That said, let's congratulate Stephanie Kallos for the success her debut novel has garnered.  It's been chosen by the Today show [at linked site, scroll to bottom] for their book club selection, which guarantees Stephanie a national readership.  This is, for a writer, hitting the big time.  She will be the toast of literary clubs all over the country, and join the rarified ranks of the Name Writers: Barbara Kingsolver, Alice Sebold, Julia Glass.

Stephanie used to be an actor in Seattle, and worked with me on a production of The Comedy of Errors at the Tacoma Actors' Guild many, many years ago.

So, how's that novel coming?

This past weekend was our firm Christmas party, and many people know that I've been taking writing classes and that I am working on a large project and so I kept getting the question, "so, how's that novel coming?"

It's the literary equivalent of "been doing any acting lately?"  It's meant to be a friendly inquiry, not the inference of abject failure the interrogee takes it for.  This is the nadir of the creative process.  You reach a point where you're absolutely bereft of inspiration--where your characters are willful and rebellious and they simply won't do whatever you tell them to do.  So, you have to write reams of scenes which may never make it between the covers of the book because you have to keep writing or you stop, and to stop means death.  So you try things out.  You have them go here, go there, follow each other, find clues, get hints, etc., all in order to have your critique group say, "Oh!  This is the Scooby-Doo ending!"  At which point you crumple up the pages and take another stab at it. 

The perfect response to these creative questions is, "Oh, the novel?  It's progressing quite nicely, thank you."  Which is the truth, even though it doesn't feel like the truth.

All Hail Apple and Itunes

Apple computer is revolutionizing the music industry courtesy of Napster.  The Apple Ipod is the most exciting audio device to have appeared on the scene since the Victrola.  Infinitely portable, it holds up to 40 GB of information, whether those be songs, files, or other data, and they communicate with computers, the internet, and your home and car stereos.  The cheaper knockoffs that have proliferated in the market during the past six months--I think I saw my first Ipod commercial with the dancers in silhouette this past summer, maybe this past spring--bear testiment to a market that has not been saturated, and supports, like the portable PC industry, a broad range of specifications that appeal to different kinds of users for a multitude of reasons.  If cost is your sole concern, get something other than an Ipod.  If having the most solid-state, dependable, functional, and versatile device is your cuppa, then you can't do better than the Ipod.  This device will destroy the CD industry.  We're not talking now of the music industry, but the manufacturers of music CDs.  Optical disks have become as cluttering as tapes and videotapes.  And they're far more fragile than first believed.  A unit that keeps an entire library of music CDs in the space taken up by a deck of cards is a boon to all Feng Shui masters and consumers who are tired of scratched disks and broken jewel cases.  Kudos to Apple for creating the most user friendly and exciting portable device on the planet (this year at least).  I'm getting one for myself for Christmas and I can't wait. 

Why Gay People should Still Matter to the Democrats

Okay, this is just a work in progress.  I'm not sure exactly what my reasoning is going to be--that's the great thing about a blog--you can put half-baked ideas out for public consumption.  But here it is.  The democrats should not abandon the gay community, as so many, including former President Bill Clinton (long may he live), have suggested.  The biggest reason is that the gay community is an extremely good lightning rod--attracting all kinds of vitrioloc hatred from the ultra right wing. 

We are a country which has shifted past conservative and liberal (which might have been true at one point in the 1970's) to progressive conservative, and ultra-reactionary neo-conservative.  True liberal voices are marginalized to such a degree that they sound as nutty as Al Sharpton.  The right wing likes to play at being a "big tent" and "compassionate" but these words are meaningless and hypocritical.  The culture warriors of the 90's, Bat Puchanan and Jessie Helms proved that the direct, self-righteous approach doesn't energize the base like softer, gentler diatribes "protecting marriage."  When you're "protecting marriage" you're for something, not against something.  This kind of Orwellian logic has permiated right wing talking points on Capital Hill.  Everyone from the President to Rick Santorum to Ralph Reed and Rush Limbaugh are all on the same page.  Obvious hatred and racism doesn't work: so they've disguised it as being something else.

However, they can't control all their people all the time.  Thus, at the local level, the two-barrelled approach to gay hate is alive and well.  That's what makes gays such valuable allies to the democrats.  The ultra-right wing John Birch pounding nut balls can't help themselves.  They go right for the jugular spouting about a "gay agenda to indoctrinate children."  These are talking points that are 10 years old and out of sync with the party at the national level.  Thus they are exposed for the rampant pathologically phobic hatemongers they truly are. 

Anger Management

Anger is a difficult thing for a recovering addict.  The Big Book calls it "the dubious luxury of normal men."  We are encouraged, taught, maniupulated, cajoled and programmed to avoid anger.  However, anger, like breathing, is involuntary and inevitable.  That's because our demands from life are not always met.  We don't keep our minds on the way things are--but concentrate on the way things should be.  Thus our pique when the world forces us to acknowledge that life must be lived on its terms, not the terms we dictate.  That said, it is much more difficult to control anger than it is to control the expression of anger.  Anger will be felt, it's part psyche, part physiological, part neurological.  It is as powerful as love or jealousy.  We don't have an option not to feel angry if we are to encounter the world.  We do have an option of declining to express that anger outwardly towards others. 

Restraint of tongue and pen is one mantra suggested by the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Practicing tolerance and acceptance is another. 

Why am I concentrating on this?  Because I have had two extremely vivid episodes of anger in the past few days.  One I reacted to, the other I tried to forget.  My reactionary response took the form a flame e-mail, which I subsequently tried to ameliorate by writing the recipient back and telling him that it was an expression of affection and to please not be offended.  Surprisingly enough, it worked, although maybe I didn't fool him and he simply declined to get into a pissing match. 

Debate and Switch

Why can't people change their minds?  Why can't people admit that they were misinformed, that upon further consideration and based on new information, their opinions have altered from their previously held positions?  Why is this seen as indecisiveness rather than as a thoughtful, methodical process of enlightenment?

Strom Thurmond and George Wallace were able to do that--to rise above their racist pasts, admit they were wrong, wrong, wrong about issue of race, and become viable political entities again.  That is regarded as studious and rational.  Maybe only right wingers are permitted that kind of self-examination.

Right Wing Deceit

The right wing learned from 1988.  They know that getting all righteous about social issues does not play well, it energizes the opposition rather than their own base.  Better to couch their extremism in reassuring terms that allows their base to practice hateful political acts while still feeling good about themselves.  Thus while trying to get anti-gay marriage amendments passed in 11 states, supporters denied that the amendments would restrict benefits and rights to gay people, that such amendments were about protecting marriage "only."

That was deception pure and simple.  Republican lawmakers in Michigan want to tear up negotiated contracts with unions that require benefits for gay partners of state employees.  So much for being about the protection of marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution.  These amendments are, and always have been, about denying equal rights to a segment of the population which is largely unpopular in an effort to get that segment to shut up and disappear.  Their spin is hypocritical and mendacious.  The same is true for the Federal Amendment.  We've only seen the tip of the iceberg.  Gay hate is alive and well in USA.