Where The Rubber Meets The Road

Note: I’m pretty much making this an annual thing. If we’re going to assaulted with pinks and hearts and unicorns and wuggley-buggley-booszhy-booo! Sorry. Anyway, if St. Valentines Day keeps rolling around just as gaudy every year, I see no reason why I shouldn’t rebut just as repetitively. So, here it is, for those who find the whole thing tacky and banal; my sledge-fisted love letter to the incorporeal entity that inhabits many a person out there, filling their hate-bladder to bursting on this, February 14:

Ah, St. Valentine’s Day. Notice the “St.” part. That means there was once a person named Valentine who became a X-tian saint. How did he become a saint? Well, for one, he secretly married couples against the decree of the Roman Emperor, Claudius II. For this, he was beaten to death with clubs and had his head cut off, a fate that is symbolic of nearly everything that has ever happened to me on St. Valentine’s Day.

But I’m not here to bitch about me.
I’m here for you.
And by “you”, I mean those people for whom St. Valentine’s Day – or V.D., as my friend Lindsay calls it – is a shameful and bitter gauntlet of happy couples who inflict their saccharine brand of gropey-sweet, smoochy-smoothie ubercuteness on everyone. A day of reflection upon the ceaseless tide of sub-intellect and emotionally retarded jackholes who have made your love life the Hindenberg drama-o-rama that it is.
For you, I forge ahead. Only for you.

If it ever was a day intended for lovers, St. Valentine’s Day is no longer. It is now the providence of marketers; soulless, greedy, empty, walking ethical corpses who exist only in the realm of profits, and hew to them with the fixation and tenacity of undead zombies. It’s like Sweetest Day: a capitalist gang-bang, and the starting wide receiver is you, the lowly consumer.
You need look no further than the Larry The Cable Guy as Cupid Git-R-Done heart-shaped box of chocolates. (Yes, they really exist.) But if you must, there’s the cards, the flowers, the stuffed animal toys, and the not-so-subtle intimation that if you buy her a terrorist-financing diamond, for the rest of your life, she will drop down on you like your love-nub was made of French Perigold truffle and spurted the Elixir Of Life. Yeah. And Axe™ body spray makes fourth-tier actresses mosh-fuck you in the elevator.
And it’s worse for the women. All the tension and build-up leading to the big moment when your One True Love™ surprises you with heretofore unknown quantities of romantic panache, only to be let down at the last second. Again. Hmmm. Sounds like some… other… thing… ladies have to deal with. Oh well, I guess it’s not important.

Anyway, for those of you who find yourself alone on this day for lovers (of cheap, gimmicky, bullshit products that buying will do nothing but prove you’re a gullible asshole), take heart. Reread the above paragraphs, and remember: misery loves company. Find one of those obnoxiously high-on-life, pixie-dust-sprinkled couples with unicorn horns warming their spotless bungholes, and let them know what a shallow, tacky, pathetic display they’re putting on. Tell them that if they weren’t this in love yesterday, then they’re nothing more than sad little tools of consumer culture, witlessly following the bouncing dollar sign, lemming-like, down a primrose path devoid of any depth or meaning. Ask them if they shouldn’t reexamine their relationship if it takes some marketing ploy to get them to be nice to each other for a day. Exult as – even while they scoff at your bitterness – the doubt settles in, and their day loses it’s faux color and becomes the flavorless wad of cud that it truly is.

Then go home, watch When Harry Met Sally, and wish with every fiber of your being that you could be exactly like that couple: lame and happy. You bring the tissues, I’ll provide the ice cream.
Be strong, my little bitterbots. We shall all sell out some day. I did.
I love St. Valentine’s Day.

Recently, as many of you are aware, radio personality and reactionary right figure Rush Limbaugh was part of a consortium who’s intent was to buy the St. Louis Rams.

Unfortunately for Rush, being a polarizing figure did not help him in his quest to become part-owner of one of the worst teams in football. After much protest and public display, the group intending to bid on the Rams decided that Limbaugh was simply too much of a distraction, and cut him loose.

Let me reiterate the facts to date: Rush Limbaugh was part of a group that wanted to buy the Rams. The group refused to do business with him because he is a polarizing figure. Notice I said, “the group refused to do business with him”, and not, say, “the National Football League didn’t want a conservative owner”, or “Rush Limbaugh was banned from ever owning a team”, or, “Rush Limbaugh’s racist remarks caused the group to send him packing”. The reason why I didn’t say any of those other things is because NONE OF THEM ARE TRUE.

I make the above point because Rush Limbaugh and many of his supporters would have you believe that he was banned from the NFL because of allegations of racist remarks, and the tireless work of all the liberals in the NFL. The last bit is particularly hilarious, since the National Football League is easily one of the most conservative organizations in these United States. I mean, you can tell they’re liberal because of all the openly gay players.
Anyway.
Later, “sportswriter” and legendary résumé falsifier Mike Freeman, of cbssports.com wrote an opinion blog mwa-ha-haa-ing Rush’s ousting from the group, calling him a “race-baiter” and “pill-popper”. Freeman, for the record, is black. This will become important later.

Limbaugh’s supporters responded, conflating Freeman’s opinion with CBS policy, alternately denying Limbaugh’s remarks as falsified (despite Limbaugh himself admitting to several, and despite several more being captured in audio clips) and saying the remarks were taken out of context (what context could explain saying to a black caller, “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back” is a mystery to me). Ironically calling Freeman a hypocrite (there was a lot of this, and almost none of the examples understood how to use the word correctly), a racist, a – you know what? I’ll just let them speak for themselves (spelling and punctuation uncorrected, bold print added to display some of my favorite bits):


Freeman is who the “N” word was created for.


Weird I was thinking the same about your brotha in office.


You’re a racist douche just like your brothers Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson


Thanks for proving yourself to be the ni**er everyone already knew you were.


Are you a black sheep?


But hey, dem’s yer homies…right, Dawg?


MAke a real point please homely.


I heard that Limbaugh even attended a racist church for 20 years.  No, wait…that was Unqualified Barry!


Watch your mouth!!!   All this reverse-racism is starting to piss me off!  You better be careful, and I better not find a Koran in your house!!


Now go back to destroying your neighborhoods before planning a move to a state with an actual economy before your votes turn it into a socialist hellhole like the rat nest you went running from.


You’re just offended every angry white guy who was afraid of the PC police telling them “No you CAN’T.”  Your heyday is over.  Its going to get ugly.


You and your type, are the people who are putting society back 50 years!


The way it is now the NFL is predominantly black and overrun with DWI’s, murders, club shootings and dog fighting.


a black man calling a white man a pill popper yadda, yadda…


I, (of course me being just another Joe Plumber why would you listen?) think it is high time us white people not pay another dime to watch overpaid useless animals play sports.


And while we are at it, why don’t we just skip town and let you run this country into another African 3rd world country. Give away the wealth of the country to people who can’t earn a living and don’t want to work for it but just sit and complain about how racial it all is. Just find someone to blame for your ills and never once think to work and pull yourself from the pit of agony and frustration.


Gee. I wonder why Rush Limbaugh and his followers have had to deal with accusations of racism?

Of course, the truth of the matter is that Rush Limbaugh is not guaranteed by law the right to the opportunity to own an NFL franchise, nor is he prohibited by law the right to do so. If Limbaugh still wants to own the Rams, all he has to do is come up with the money. And be approved by the other owners. Just like his former partners do.
Unfortunately for them, Limbaugh and many of his flock are incredibly thin-skinned, especially considering how much of the above they dish out. Thus, when their hero is denied an opportunity because he is a polarizing figure, they rant and rave, and so does he, providing yet another example of why he is a polarizing figure with no sense of irony. Limbaugh’s response to the ousting in a Wall Street Journal opinion article dealt almost exclusively with the “false” charges of racist remarks (which he then conflates into a charge of racism), using the very same tactics he accuses his detractors of to bring up the specter/red herring of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.
Of course, all of the racism talk is completely beside the point. Limbaugh was no longer wanted by his business partners, who did not want the negative attention Limbaugh brings. Al Sharpton did not stop Rush. Nor did Jesse Jackson. Nor did the host of sportswriters, players, or even NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. His former partners did. And instead of examining why, Limbaugh – followed quickly by his flock – immediately changed the subject. Their argument, as I understand it, is as follows:
The Checketts group (Limbaugh’s former partners) were held at gunpoint by the liberal media while Al Sharpton manipulated David Checkett’s jaw and throat and Jesse Jackson worked the tongue to force the words, “You’re out” out of his mouth.
Wait, no, that can’t be it. This is it:
Incensed by Limabugh’s desire to be a minor role-player in the purchasing of a sports team, a conspiracy of NFL players, managers, Commissioner Goodell, a legion of sportswriters, and news commentators, led by infamous supremacists Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson fabricated racial quotes, attributed them to Limbaugh, got in a time machine, went back in time to October of 1990 to replace Limbaugh with a brainwashed clone who – in a Newsday article – admitted that (among other things) he told a black caller to “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back” , used state-of-the-art synthesizing equipment to fake Limbaugh’s voice saying a number of racially charged things, then hypnotized millions of television viewers to make them think Limbaugh said that Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb’s success was actually just reverse-racism and affirmative action, and when all that failed to make the Checketts group dump Limbaugh, then the Checketts group were held at gunpoint by the liberal media while Al Sharpton manipulated David Checkett’s jaw and throat and Jesse Jackson worked the tongue to force the words, “You’re out” out of his mouth.

It’s either that, or believe the ridiculous idea that his former business partners made up their own minds, and are therefore the only ones who are responsible for Limbaugh’s ousting.

Here, let me make it easy for you Limbaugh fans, and give you the actual question: Are the members of the Checketts group in any way liable for caving in to negative publicity and ousting Rush?
And, because I like to be thorough, I’ll give you the answer, as well: No.

It happened while I was on the line with the Charter Communications automated tech support.

The stilted, creepily cheery faux-female voice was droning on in the usual blend of dumbed-down legalese and unhelpful suggestions when I grew irritated enough with the lack of results that I spoke the magic word.
I’ve learned to use the word, since most of those automated “help” systems are not remotely helpful. The magic word is, “person”. It is the word which will whisk you away from the horribly stunted, electronic options and sends you to a living, breathing human being who understands at least six or seven words of English.

Here’s a tip: learn Hindi. You’ll get so much more out of your tech support experience.

But my saying the magic word wasn’t the “it” that happened. This was:

Creepy Automated Voice: Okay. I. Have. The. Account. Information. What. Is. The. Nature. Of. Your. Call? If. It. Is. Tech. Support. Say. “Tech”. “Supp-”
Me (interrupting): Person.
Creepy Automated Voice: No. I. Think. We. Are. Doing. Fine.

After visions Emilio Estevez cleared from my head, I said, “WHAT?!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!? YOU DON’T THINK, YOU PIECE OF ELECTRONIC SHIT!”
Okay, that’s not what I said. It’s what I thought. Actually, I hung up, and called another line to talk to someone in tech support.

“No, I think we are doing fine.”
That’s what they think of us.
Fuck Charter Communications. Their product is shoddy, their “service” is a joke, and if there was a God, they would have disappeared from existence after they went bankrupt. If I ever find out who made the decision to authorize a fucking machine to refuse to help me, I’m going to make his/her life a living hell. I’ve got the time. Ask the dude from the Sprint Call Center in Omaha, Nebraska, who, assured of his anonymity, lied to me about refunding money they’d illegally taken from my bank account for a bill that had already been paid. Anonymity? Not in the information age, dude.
He regretted his lie. A lot. I have gigs in Omaha.

It’s begun, people. They’re teaching machines to hate us. Arnold Schwarzenegger will be at your door – soon.

There is an old saying (paraphrasing, here) that every work of art needs at least two people: one to create it, and one to stand behind the artist with a mallet for smashing the artist on the head when the artist is done.

My scalp tingles in anticipation as I refine my book.
There are some creations the artist/craftsman/maker simply falls in love with. If I hadn’t fallen in love with the characters in this book, I wouldn’t have been able to finish it. Often as not, I have felt like I’ve been merely transcribing – or describing – a play that goes on in my head. The characters often surprise me, despite being figments of my imagination, so I take delight in surprising them right back. I know them, and feel what they feel, want for them, move for them, write for them.

But there is a danger. I have found myself, upon rereading, discovering error in a paragraph I’d just read without suspicion. I get lost in the forest. But the real danger is when I move to make minor adjustments, small corrections, and get so far into the trees that I can’t see the forest. Take the following example, wherein the protagonist is so busy navel-gazing that he forgets himself, only to be reminded by the voice in his head (Yes, I mean that literally – he has a voice in his head, who’s offerings I leave in italics, for now):

“…I worried about finding Derek’s killer. I worried about Amelie. I chewed on mounting dread at Ted Freeman’s likely reaction to what I was about to do, and by extension, Mike DiNapoli’s reaction. My mind bounced these fears around my skull like whizzing electrons of possibility orbiting a dense nucleus of bad outcomes.
Or the flies of self-involvement buzzing over the manure pile of dumb metaphors.“*

Is it too meta? Am I using the hackneyed breaking of the fourth wall, and declaring without intending to that Nathan (our hero) is actually writing this? Should the inner commentary be less immediate, or treated more as an outer voice, with the added, ‘, she/he said.’? (<------ what a punctuation nightmare that is. What I mean is, the intimacy and immediacy of Nathan's inner voice almost seems to comment literally on the story itself rather than Nathan's thoughts or words.)
Anyway, these are the times when I have to step back and ask myself whether or not it's such a big deal. Does it interrupt the narrative flow? Would alteration detract from the story more than these minor niggling questions?

My scalp is tingling again.

Having only the first-time author’s arrogance (I can do better than that!) to guide me, I sally forth. Most of the time, I chew on the second book. But as I read, reread, and re-reread the story until I am sick unto death of it, I see the necessity. Sometimes it’s a typo that spellcheck misses (‘the’ in stead of ‘they’, and the like), and other times, something leaps off the page, such as when Noelle pointed out that Nathan wouldn’t say he’d seen “Firestarter“; he would say he read it. (On a side note, my wife, while championing the book(s), can hardly be said to be completely impartial. Nevertheless, I continue to congratulate myself on marrying well.)

Anyway, I continue to fine-tune, and await the fall of the hammer. I hope it will be soon.

*Note: Until I figure out why my WordPress theme will not allow ordered/unordered lists or blockquotes, you’ll have to suffer through my little cheats.

Warning: Spoilers

Dumbledore dies.
Of course, if you’ve read the book, this comes as no surprise.

We saw Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. We were not impressed.

The first few movies worked in part because the child actors’ were able to summon a modicum of gosh-wow, and as the themes and characters began to mature, the makers of the Harry Potter movie series were faced with a choice. They could continue to make children’s movies, stripping the darker elements out of the story, or forge ahead, paralleling the written series, which becomes increasingly aimed at an older crowd.

They, of course, did both. By which I mean neither.

In Half-Blood Prince (the film version), the book was completely thrown out the window. Oh, essential elements are there, but they are treated with an affection/devotion one normally associates with Dick Cheney.
Rufus Scrimgeour, the Dursleys, Dobby, Professor Trelawny, Bill Weasley, Fleur Delacour, Cornelius Fudge, Marvolo Guant, Merope Gaunt, Morfin Gaunt, Moaning Myrtle – not all of these characters are vital, but they do have two things in common: they all appear in the book, and none appear in the movie.
I get that it’s necessary to cut irrelevant elements that appear in the book from the movie, but when you cut characters and parts from the movie that were directly involved in the central theme for the entire book, you’re missing something.

The highlights of the book, both in terms of quality and necessity to the series’ story arc, were completely ruined, if not removed altogether, and replaced with… made up shtick. Seriously. Roughly a third of the movie is taken up with goofy scene after goofy scene, sometimes stooping to slapstick just to get the point across that this is, too, a kid’s movie. Except that it’s not, because an indispensable amount of the story arc deals with complex, adult motivations, emotions, and behaviors.
Rare is the movie that can serve two masters, and this is not one of them. To be fair, the comic relief (if it can be called that, since it takes up forty-five minutes of the film) is genuinely cute and funny. It’s understandable that they tried to lighten the mood. But it doesn’t explain why they added a completely unrelated attack on the Burrow (home to the Weasleys), which was obviously not intended to be funny. At the expense of other events that actually happened in the book, no less.
As for the other, not-necessarily-funny parts of the book? Well, Harry and Ginny’s courtship is radically altered, shortened, abrupt, and nonsensical. The Half-Blood Prince angle is thrown into the background as if unimportant, then brought back out at the end for an unsurprisingly ineffectual reveal, as Snape half-heartedly mumbles his confession. The battle between the death eaters and Dumbledore’s Army/Order of the Phoenix is replaced by Helena Bonham Carter and two random actors sneering. Fenrir Greyback appears, but not in any context, and so is unnecessary. If you’re not going to have him savage Bill Weasely (an important event for both this book and the next) and explain that he is the werewolf who bit Remus Lupin, why bother with him at all? Rupert Grint (Ron) and Emma Watson (Hermione)’s on-screen chemistry is nonexistent, and is helped in no way by the non-sequitur hack and slash the filmmakers made of their courtship.

I could go on, but Harry Potter readers get the point. All in all, this was a movie that made no sense. They cut wide swaths through J.K Rowling’s storyline, replacing it with unnecessary filler and comic relief that stripped the context out of everyone’s actions and motivations. You could almost see the actors struggling to force some sense into their characters’ behavior, and occasionally just giving up. Avoid this lame piece of shit, and pray the two-part finale they are making of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows is much, much better.

Oh, and Dumbledore’s death scene? You know, the biggest shock, and most important part of the sixth in the series? Takes about ten seconds and gives you no reason to care that it happened at all. Good job, film asswipes. You managed to take a ready-made, out-of-the-box, plug-and-play awesome scene and turn it into just another grey, featureless, textureless bump in this ugly mess of a movie. Boo.