John Boehner — Man of Principle

January 7, 2011Politics and Culture, Things that Piss Me off from The NY TimesBirther belief, Birthers, John Boehner, John Boehner and BirthersMarion

In a recent interview, the newly appointed Speaker of the House, John Boehner took a brave and courageous stand for all of us who believe in the sanctity of the fundamental rights handed down to us by the blessed Founders in their infinite wisdom.

When asked about the strong Birther-faith expressed by twelve in the Congressional delegation of the party he leads, Boehner made clear that he does not share their beliefs, yet he upholds their right to believe as they choose.

He sees them as a “slice of America” like apple pie and guns, a part of “the melting pot” — not just elected officials, but men and women entitled to maintain their own values and traditions. He stands up for principle, telling the reporter, “It’s not up to me to tell them what to think.”

It made me weep. (There’s a lot of that going around these days). Like any good student of the USS Constitution, I’m sure Congressman Boehner was inspired by the Flushing Remonstrance written in 1657 to advocate for the rights of Quakers in the New Amsterdam colony. The signers of the Remonstrance, who were not themselves Quakers, were willing to risk punishment to defend the rights of others. Many historians look at the Remonstrance as helping to pave the way for our own sacred Bill of Rights, much the same way that Moses paved the way for Jesus.

Like the signers of the Remonstrance, some of whom were jailed or deported, Boehner may face consequences for his brave stance. I’m sure he will handle himself with the utmost dignity in the face of criticism and ridicule by the iron-fisted media lapdogs of liberalism.

I wonder if Boehner will go even further in supporting tax-exempt status for Birther organizations and allowing Birthers the same rights and protections that other such believers enjoy. There is no room for religious discrimination in these United States! Those of us who practice other faiths can learn from the Birthers, who have held fast to their beliefs even when logic and reason pointed in other directions. Perhaps Boehner will propose a pardon for the Birther army physician now in jail for refusing to deploy because it was against the tenants of his faith. Or maybe he could lead the way by nominating Dr. Orly Taitz, Esquire, as our first openly-Birther federal judge.

Like Boehner, I do not share the Birther’s Creed, yet I too understand that none of us are free until we all are, and we must join in their struggle. If you wouldn’t want a Birther buying the house next door to you, or don’t support equal pay for Birthers, or their right to marry — I would ask you to examine your beliefs, look into your heart, and ask yourself, “What would John Boehner do?”

To put it another way — if you can’t imagine voting someday for a Birther President, then you are not a true American.

I Don’t Get No Respect — The Drawback of Self Publishing (Part I — I Was Wrong)

January 6, 2011true story, writing/blogging/publishing relatedMarion

(I started out aiming to write a blog about self-publishing on Kindle. This was like that Sterne fellow attempting to write a short-story about the night his main character was conceived. I got a bit lost and realized it would take me a few years to get to the point. So, I’m going to publish this as a series of blog posts. This is the first. I’ll be back.)

Many years ago, I attended an MFA program at one of those fancy schools. Fat lot of good it did me, though it was great fun at the time — actually getting to meet and talk literature with famous writers, though the fact that even they needed the teaching gigs should have told me something.

Still it wasn’t till a couple of years after graduating that I got my first legitimate publication and it had nothing to do with any connections through the program. The story happened to get picked from a slush pile for The Quarterly, a literary magazine edited by the notorious Gordon Lish. It did lead to an agent’s contacting me to suggest I submit a novel, if I had one. I didn’t. Nor did I have anything else to interest Mr. Lish.

In any case, a couple of years later, deciding I needed an actual profession, I pretty much stopped trying to write fiction and went to social work school — a decision greeted with some suspicion by my family.

“Are you doing this to help people or to gather material?” My father asked.

“Yes,” I said.

But I never gave up on the idea of writing. I was just waiting for something, and eventually it came.

I always thought, based on no evidence, that I was supposed to be a novelist, not a short story writer. I wasn’t great at concision. I needed that broader canvas. (Or as some may suspect — I am pompous and long-winded). I was certain that if I wrote it, publication would come.

I was wrong.

Bialystock, O’Donnell and Bloom

December 30, 2010Politics and Culture, Things that Piss Me off from The NY TimesChristine O'Donnell, political humor, political satire, The ProducersMarion

Perennial failed Delaware senate candidate, Christine O’Donnell, is now facing a federal investigation to determine if she used campaign contributions to pay off personal expenses.

The investigation should come as no surprise. Questions about her finances and use of previous campaign funds were raised during last fall’s run. O’Donnell has a shaky financial history, including filing for bankruptcy. The 41 year-old, not only had never won a general election, but also did not have much of an employment record. Other than her infamous long-ago guest television appearances as a “youth abstinence advocate”, her services as a pundit were not often called upon.

But what if O’Donnell is really smarter than we all could have imagined? What if she not only never had any intention of winning, but didn’t even want to come close?

And what if the mastermind behind her scheme was not some notorious Republican strategist? Perhaps she came up with the plan herself, inspired not by the writings of Sun Tzu, but by the work of one Melvin Kaminsky, better known to the world as Mel Brooks.

Imagine O’Donnell, sitting around her modest home sometime in 2009. She’s waiting for the phone to ring, hoping Bill Maher will finally return her calls and invite her on his HBO show, which would at least give her an appearance fee and some exposure. She’s ignoring the umpteenth phone message left by her father, telling her once again it’s not too late to enroll in clown-college and learn an honest trade. She goes through her bills, while absently flipping the channels and leaves on some old movie. It’ll only be days before she loses even her basic cable.

The movie has just started. She’s seen it before, and is only half-watching. The down-on-his-heels producer is playing sexy games with some old lady.

The whole scene reminds Christine of the Tea-Partiers, whom she has lately been trying to cultivate. None of them under eighty! Yeech.

Now the accountant is auditing the books, asking the producer about some discrepancy. The producer, points out that the show lost money anyway, so what does it matter?

“Been there, honey,” Christine says aloud, remembering how bad things had gotten in 2008.

And suddenly there’s a spark in the accountant’s eye, and he mentions that under the right circumstances a man could make more money with a flop . . .

An idea pops into Christine head. She had started out as an acting major and had long been aware that politics is theater.

Re-energized she thinks about an office she probably wouldn’t win. It’s obvious. The senate seat she’s lost twice before!

“You can do this, Christine!” She tells herself.

The beauty of it is she doesn’t even have to win the primary. If she can paint Mike Castle as an elitist, she should still be able to bring in the bucks for a write-in with the support of enough old ladies and grumpy old men. She’ll just have to “dabble into” Tea Party Land for a while. And like the movie, the worse she does in the election, the less likely anyone is to look into where the money went.

She sets things in motion — hires inexperienced staff, manages to alienate even previous conservative supporters, avoids the press or messes up when interviewed — and yet in a surprise upset, she wins the primary. While she’s still a long-shot, things are getting scary. She’s not in it, to win it.

But then her old secret-crush, Bill Maher comes through with those long ago guest appearances, releasing them to youtube where they go viral.

“What a moron, I was!” Christine mumbles, watching a clip. She laughs at her own inanity. Meantime the dollars keep rolling in, and the best part is Bill Maher’s new found desire for her.

“Who’s sorry now, bi-atch?” she says watching him plead for her to make an appearance on his show — a show she can finally afford to watch on HBO.

She thinks of a line from the movie that inspired her candidacy, “Flaunt it baby! Flaunt it.” She buys herself new clothes — mostly designer suits like the kind Sarah Palin bought with RNC funds, even gets herself designer eye-glasses though she still has perfect vision. Then she shops for a condo.

Now, even Rove is a reluctant supporter. They can’t stop talking about her on MSBNC where Pat Buchanan enthusiastically outlines a scenario that involves the libtards overselling the old anti-masturbation rants, while Tea-Party fever propels her into the Senate.

She nearly panics. Winning the election would mean actually having to work as a senator, plus all those contributors would be expecting her to do something for the money. It would be worse than the old days, where a guy would buy you dinner and expect S-E-X. And if the Dems see her as a real threat, they’re more likely to investigate.

So she decides she has to take it a step further, and she comes up with the “I am not a witch,” commercial. Comedy gold!

“Those fools,” Christine says to herself while watching an actress imitating her on Saturday Night Life. “You can’t parody a parody!” Then she becomes aware of what her left hand is doing while her right is holding the remote. She turns off the set and takes a cold shower.

Election night comes off without a hitch. No need for a recount! Her concession is perfect. She wonders if she just should have stuck with acting all along. Everyone said she was a real Sally Fields-type and could have done well.

She realizes she’s taking a risk. In the movie, they were going to take the money and run off to Brazil, but she loves her country too darn much to leave. Besides she doesn’t even know how to speak Brazilian, and any day Fox will call and offer her a show. If she gets a Fox contract, then even if the feds come after her, she can pay back the campaign money with change to spare. Hadn’t Palin proved that losing could legally be so much more lucrative than winning?

But the call from Fox never comes.

“That damn Rove. What a hater!” It makes her cry, realizing her dreams of shopping with Sarah or maybe even babysitting her kids will never come to pass.

Disgruntled campaign staffers are talking, and the feds are moving in. Still, she can’t help giggling as she recalls how they attempted to blow up the theater in that movie. She knows violence is not the answer, and decides instead to issue a press release blaming Joe Biden. Though she hopes her fellow Tea-Partiers will come to her aide, in her heart, she fears the jig is up.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Christine laments. “I picked a seat I couldn’t win, ran the worst campaign, and even lost as planned! Where did I go right?”

Book Review: The Dead Beat by Cody James — Voice, She Has It

December 9, 2010book reviewsMarion

The Dead Beat, by Cody James is currently up for the “Not the Booker Prize.” In honor of this achievement, I’m giving this old post a sticky and keeping it up for a day or two.

Some writers create books full of non-stop action and noise. Others take hundreds of pages to tell sprawling stories that span generations. Cody James writes pitch-perfect short-novels in which the world is revealed to us in the smallest details.

I fell under the hypnotic spell of James’ prose when reading her first novel, Babylon — which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be available at the moment. (I hope it’s reissued soon,) Her second novel, The Dead Beat, is not a disappointment.

The Dead Beat is set during the summer of 1997 in and around San Francisco. Adam, a blocked writer and meth addict is our narrator. He lives in the usual squalor with his fellow-junkie friends. Not much happens. A comet comes and goes as do a couple of girlfriends and jobs. Resolutions are made and broken. It all leads somewhere, sort of.

But you don’t read James for her plots. You read her for the voice, the inimitable, bewitching rhythm that gets into your head and builds itself a home.

A writer to whom she’s arguably comparable is Flannery O’Connor though Bukowski might be a more obvious choice. O’Connor was famous for her Catholicism, and James is a self-avowed Satanist, but both are astute observers able to capture the human condition concisely. Both offer their characters (and readers) momentary glimpses of a greater truth — what O’Connor defined as “grace.” Neither is ever guilty of sentimentality, and both write in prose sharp enough to draw blood.

In The Dead Beat, James has the technical challenge of telling the story in the first person through Adam. She must filter her voice to fit him. It’s always a bit of magic when a writer can pull this off, whether it’s Samuel Clemens convincing us he’s Huck Finn or Nabokov masquerading as Humbert. Adam is probably more reliable than either of those two, but he’s still limited. — dead pan, shut down, often high, looking for drugs or in withdrawal.

The grace here is not heaven sent. If there is a greater power at work, it’s one that comes from community — however warped. Adam and his roommates care for each other as best they can. The transcendent is what’s left of their humanity — what the addiction hasn’t yet destroyed — their ability to be kind to each other — to connect. It’s the sometimes goofy conversations about every day stuff that show us these lost souls — the debate about whether “uncomfort” is a word, whether pot heads are more annoying than coke heads, and of course whether anything has any meaning at all.

This is a novel in which characters struggle to find a reason to go on living, yet it’s strangely life affirming. James has brought us Adam’s truth, and ultimately it’s our truth as well, one with which we all struggle and can identify.