I'm The Only Guy In America Who Got What He Wanted

I caught worlds of hell when I told people why I voted for Barack Obama for President. It wasn't when I expressed my displeasure with President Bush - that was expected and arguments could be made logically on both sides. I caught hell because my reason, when people first read it, made them uncomfortable and sounded extreme. "Identity Politics" they call it. Women who vote for women because they are women. Rednecks and reactionaries who vote for rednecks and reactionaries because they are redneck and reactionary. Black people who vote for black people. And so on.

I tried to explain that it wasn't identity politics per se (um, I'm white y'know) but ran deeper than just that. I was shouted down, mostly, by both sides. My liberal friends hated my reason and my conservative friends hated my reason. And if I don't do a good job explaining it now the chances are, if you weren't a reader during the election, YOU are going to hate my reason.

I voted for Barack Obama because he is black.

And I am unapologetic about it. And now, a year and two months later - it turns out - I am the happiest man in America because I got exactly what I wanted.

Check it out - - - President Obama's critics on the Right excoriate him and his policies because he has a "leftist agenda", some call socialism, others - in response to those who did it to President Bush from his first day - were determined to criticize every. last. single. thing he did for whatever reason was handy. It doesn't matter that the deficits and economic collapse happened after Republican-sponsored deregulation and bridges to no where and an entire war in Iraq based on an untruth - it's all Obama's fault now. They are entrenched to do everything they can to block everything he's doing and they will keep doing it because - politically - it works back home.

President Obama's critics on the Left wring their hands and stomp their feet because he hasn't fulfilled one promise and is moving to the center (did he just say off-shore drilling in tonight's speech?? GAH, they proclaim). Forget hope. Hope is down the toilet. Never mind that no matter what he does his own party sabotages him and the obstinate and obtuse Republicans are on automatic pilot with the "no" button. The Democrats are entrenched to do everything they can to sound liberal but act anyway that is politically experdient (whichever works at that moment) because - politically - it works back home.

It's a funny place he finds himself in: The Right says he is moving this country to the Left and the Left says he isn't doing anything at all. It is a wonder how we can have that both ways but there it is.

And me?

I have a black President. Who I voted for strictly because he is black, because electing a black chief executive - no matter what happens once he is in office - is quite simply a seismic shift in American culture. It doesn't automatically end racism, but it changes the paradigm that underpins that particular social disease. He is black. He can succeed or he can fail. He can be criticized on principle. The huff and puff of the race-victim industry doesn't have as much heat, and this will help it send it into a dive. The actual bigots in the world, exposing themselves with this phony (and you can always spot them) "I'm not against him because he's black" (which is a giveaway that that's exactly why they oppose since there's no need to say it if you're just in a discussion about his policies), are being shoved aside by honest critics who don't want to be associated with that kind of bogus crap. To people who doubted it, he can show that there are - and has always been - such a thing as a black American who serves the country. To people who ever wanted to use their race as an excuse, their point is suddenly much weaker than before.

I view the Presidency of Barack Obama as a cultural signpost. It therefore doesn't matter what he does - if anything - on the political sphere. And I have always said - even when President Bush was receiving my ire - that a President always gets too much credit when things go well, and too much blame when things go poorly. We've survived Presidential disasters (Carter, the last Bush) and we're still us. We make it or break it, regardless of the party in power.

And in the history of the country the total transformation of our culture - for the better - in which we all deal with each other across the races more honestly, starts here.

Maybe you still don't get me. But I'm thinking in terms of big units of time and sociological conditions. As a country, having a black President is and was a necessary part of our life as a country because it reaffirms that what we say we believe in is not the basis of a hypocrisy. But it's a real thing. And we actually believe it.

3 or 7 or however many years from now, when President Obama is a private citizen again, no matter what else happens from here on out, this was the best thing that could happen. The shift will be slow and hard and it won't look like anything in the short term. In the bigger picture - it's going to be amazing.

So I got what I voted for. Even if it may take people, if I do say so with all due hubris myself, a longer time to see it than it took me.

I'm the most contented man in America. Well... politically.

Boxes

I'm weary of angry little men making small points in trivial discussions.

The big things are the lives of your children and the people close to you.

That's all I got.

Oh hai, what's this post about?

Sunday Morning Metaphysics

Apparently we made a whole bunch of new dimensions sometime between the last time I looked and now. I heard some guy on the Science Channel (yes I'll watch the Science Channel, you gotta fuckin problem with that?) talking about the 11th Dimension the other day. Something about either Supergravity or strings or something. Yeah String Theory I think. String Theory. Well it has an "official site" and addresses things called "elemental particles" and explains that matter, or even non-matter - I don't know - is made up of tiny strings. Like we have this idea that stuff is made of little particles but they're saying it's actually strings and such. Little elementals beneath the level of tiny tiny strings.

I have no idea why that's important to know except that it seems to have a meaning for everything else we have. Like if everything is made of strings the universe is something else than what we thought it was.

Or maybe it was bubbles. This universe is a bubble and there are other universes and the latest I've heard is that the Big Bang wasn't really a point in space/time exploding into whatever space replaces, but that the Big Bang was actually a collision between two of these universes - bubbles. And apparently that changes everything we thought we knew.

So everything we knew was wrong. Sheh... that keeps happening to me every other day, no news there.

It's like they used to say black holes may be a connector-point between universes or space-time or whatever. I don't know. But that's like been refuted I think and now there's bubbles.

They say this is important because, like space travel and quantum mechanics, the basic understanding of what "is" actually IS changes what we think we can do. And millions of years of the evolution of thought ends up morphing into cell phones that can take movies or something. Anyway it isn't the new ideas themselves, it's what the new ideas mean we can have ideas about. Or something.

Anyway I'm still working on the part of quantum mechanics that says there are things you can't naturally observe because just the act of looking at them changes where they really are.

Work that one over next time you're having a toddy.

I would have been a theoretical physicist or cosmologist or somewhere between the two but I never could grasp all those formulas. I could get into the airy theory but working out the math stopped me cold. So it's more fun to just make fun of it all, being ignorant as I am.

Oh and this probably isn't metaphysics either.

It's like, I don't know what space is expanding into. Like, what is space replacing as the universe expands? I asked a guy that once and he said "we can't ask that question." Which is when I became completely convinced we were talking about two different things.

Hey, good morning. Have your coffee yet?

/physics.

I Want To Be In Steph's Book

I think Steph Waller is actually one of the longest running "blog friends" I've managed to maintain over the years (outside of Brian, the Agent, and of course gino - who I knew from seriously WAY before there were such things as blogs). They are a politically diverse group as well as bringing a varied range of interests with them and I love them all long time. But Steph is going through a writing process right now that is intriguing me.

Everybody works differently. I, for example, have no idea who my characters are going to be when I get started. Hell, I barely know what they're even going to DO in the context of the story when I start. Steph, on the other hand, is one of these writers who really likes to know the characters before she plugs them in. So we've been being highly entertained over the last week or so by a series of character summaries she is putting up on her blog. The fact that these people are so multi-dimensional is pretty damned impressive.

And I admit I'm kinda jealous of the process because it not only looks like fun, it is also probably a good thing for a writer to do. But, no I'd never do it myself. I'm too stubborn to change my process.

What I want, instead, is to be IN the book. I truly think there's a place for me in there somewhere, just as like maybe a cameo, under an assumed name, just in passing. Please?? Pretty please??

So here's my personal study which you may consider as my application. No joke. I'm scaring myself with it, and have probably never revealed as much before. Be kind.

Full Name: RW
Nickname: RW
Birth Date: October 23, 1953
Astrological Sign: Cusp of Libra/Scorpio but non-believer in astrology and other pseudo-sciences.
Birth Place: Chicago
Career: Construction
Musical Style: Sings tolerable, no instruments
Hair Color: Dark brown, currently salting
Hair Style: Tapered, part on whichever side it wants that day. The hair decides.
Facial Features: 15 miles of bad Russian road.
Skin Tone: Slightly more olive than most
Build or Body Type: Thin-ish when he works out. Currently building a sad gut.
Height: 5' 10" in the morning, 5' 9½" by noon. Honest to God.
Weight: 200 is what he'll admit to. More on a bad day. And most days suck.
Mother: Eleanor (deceased)
Father: Walter (deceased)
Mother's Occupation: Production garment worker
Father's Occupation: Welder, Plant Manager
Family Financial Situation: Secure, not rich.
Siblings: 1 sister
Best Friend: Wife
Other Friends: Limited to a small handful of good ones. Many and varied acquaintances.
Home Life During Childhood: Benign neglect, all wants provided, no open displays of affection.
Favorite Toy or Game: Soldiers
Education: Some college
Favorite Subjects: Literature, History, Theoretical Physics
Popular or Loner: A bit of both from time to time.
Health Problems: None evident currently. Probably dies of a heart attack.
Important Experiences or Events: Fatherhood changed everything, though part of the transition was a little rocky with what he believes to be unfortunate lingering effects relative to his wife.
Family Faith: Roman Catholic
Bad Habits: Drinks too much. Tendency to let health matters slide.
Good Habits: Does what he promises.
Best Characteristics: Good listener, sympathetic, stoic.
Worst Characteristics: Talks too slow, doesn’t express his emotions.
Proud of: His daughters.
Embarrassed by: Memories of a million stupid things he’s done all throughout his life that pop up all by themselves without any context to what is happening at the moment making him feel guilty and miserable about the past for no current reason at all.
Driving Style: Tries very hard to be patient. Doesn’t race.
Strong Points: Has a large vocabulary.
Temperament: Mostly quiet and goes along. Has a hard time forgiving people who think he’s an idiot or who insult his family.
Attitude: “A lot of things are none of my business.” Can’t understand why some people never “got” him.
Weakness: Lets people have their way, sometimes to his own detriment.
Fears: Hurting someone, scenarios of loved ones in physical danger.
Secrets: Occasional obsessiveness, moments of low self-esteem, and cyclical self-doubt has led him to do some really, truly, stupid things.
Regrets: Every time he ever hurt someone’s feelings when they didn’t have it coming. He can be a thoughtless prick sometimes, then he kills himself about it later.
Feels Vulnerable When: He does not have all the information.
Pet Peeves: The phrase “it is what it is.” Demanding, domineering people.
Personal Choices: Nothing controversial.
Conflicts: Mostly internal.
Motivation: To be of some value to people.
Goals and Hopes: To live a quiet life surrounded by a small number of valued family and trusted friends. Continue to produce modest, unspectacular, but accomplished writing. No limelight.
Speech Quirks: Has been told “no worries” drives people nuts.
Gestures: Shoulder shrug.
Day or Night Person: It changes.
Introvert or Extrovert: Introvert but not uncomfortable in a crowd.
Optimist or Pessimist: Truly depends on the subject. Seriously.
Music: More interest in the song than the genre. Listens to a wide range, but is picky about the particulars.
Books: Esoteric, avant-garde, out-of-the-mainstream, chance-taking, no rules stuff.
Magazines: Skeptic. Has a regular subscription.
Foods: Blisteringly hot spices, subtle delicacies, hot dogs, big fan of molecular gastronomy, junk food. Eats raw lemons whole.
Drinks: Vodka, absinthe, wine, beer, lemonade, smoothies, 12 year old single malt Scotch, madeira, apple-cranberry juice, Ethiopian sidamo. Outside of a few select flavors of Jones’ doesn’t much care for “soda pop.”
Sports: Above-average knowledge of American football. Horseracing.
Social Issues: Can’t stand bigots but doesn’t like the “race card.”
Colors: No favorites. They’re all good.
Clothing: Dislikes clothes people have to read. Favors three-piece suits when dressing up.
Jewelry: Small wedding ring. Treasured 1924 replica wristwatch.
TV Shows: The American Experience. Frontline. Top Chef.
Movies: Thinks “Treasure of the Sierra Madre” is best ever made. Unforgiven. Oh Brother Where Art Thou. The Illusionist.
Greatest Want: To have financial stability and security when he can’t work any more, without being a burden to his daughters.
Greatest Need: To have somebody tell him he’s doing it right.
Current Home: Same modest house he and his wife bought 27 years ago when the girls were small. It’s just the right size for the two of them now.
Location: Suburban Chicago
Details: Lots of new work done on it. Windows, doors, siding, floors. It’s a lifelong project that is coming together.
Household Furnishings: 100% Stickley-style Arts and Crafts in every room. Some of it authentic.
Most Cherished Possessions: Books. Family photos. Old board games.
Other Homes: None.
Marital Status: Married since 1978.
Children: 2 grown daughters.
Best Friend: Wife
Other Friends: A few.
Cars: Drives a MINI.
Love Life: Settled into a comfortable partnership.
Sexual Turn Ons: Subtlety.
Sexual Turn Offs: Overtness.
Guilty Pleasure: Football.
Talents: Miniatures. Writing. Getting better on the cooking.
Financial Situation: Way too much debt to be comfortable. Savings is probably under-avergae for his age.
Fear: Having to work until the day he dies.
Greatest Strength: Having an open mind.
Greatest Weakness: Being blind to other’s mal-intentions.
Health Problems: Occasional insomnia. Has too big a gut on an otherwise “ok” frame. Long history of genetic dental troubles.
Religion: "Convinced" Quaker since 1986.
Past Careers: Actor, printer, horseplayer, salesman
Past Lovers: No where near as many as some people seem to think. No where near. Not many at all, in fact. Like maybe not even five. Or less. He is constantly amazed by the sexual gymnastics people think he engaged in. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Biggest Mistake: If not doing batshit crazy nonsense that could have jeopardized his marriage, then it's probably walking away from an offer from Malkovich’s people at Steppenwolf years and years ago.
Biggest Achievements: Setting two daughters on their own paths with the ability to know the difference between right and wrong. Hopefully.

DIGGING DEEPER:
1. If RW could have two whole weeks for vacation, go anywhere and do anything he wanted, what and where would it be?
In a New York minute, he would find an out-of-the-way island in the Caribbean and earnestly work on his skin cancer and sclerosis, and wouldn’t care if he sat on the beach the whole time and saw no sights at all.

2. If he had a weakness for one of the seven deadly sins, which one would it be and why?
Easily sloth. He can settle into a big fat nothing faster than anybody he knows.

3. If he could bring one person back to life and spend a whole day with him or her, who would it be and why?
His father, who died when RW was 24, so he could show him he was all worried about nothing.

4. If he won a three-million pound lottery, what would he do with the money?
Quit work. Pay off his bills. Take a very nice yearly vacation (or two), indulge his love of esoteric restaurants, but otherwise live exactly as he is, where he is and how he is. No ostentation and the same fierce guard on his privacy. Think selective reclusivity a'la B. Traven or JD Salinger.

5. If he could change one thing about himself, what would it be?
Every part of his physical appearance that feeds his sometimes poor self-image.

6. What would he do to relax after a bad day?
Drink until he fell asleep. Why change what's working?

7. Where would he go if he wanted to feel comfortable?
His Office upstairs or the Family Room where he could smoke his pipe and slouch.

8. What does he do when he is angry?
Punches imaginary people when nobody can see him do it. Seethes. Tries to invent nefarious plots to get even.

9. How does he feel in a crowd?
Crowds are not a problem. He’s a city boy, after all.

10. If he were asked to describe himself, what would he say?
He’d say he was pretty boring to be around, when all was said and done, because he’d actually rather not go exploring.

11. Where does he want to be in his life ten years from now?
Retired in the place he lives right now, working on his miniatures, his writing, continue taking cooking classes, read everything he promised himself he’d read, go to the racetrack once a week, get together with friends and try out diverse restaurants, dote over his grand daughter. Also see "lottery" question above, only on a smaller scale.

12. A tear jerker is on. How would he react if alone? How would he react if with others?
A romantic tear-jerker would have zero impact. he wouldn't sit still for it. He does man-cry watching Schindler’s List but hides it as best he can.

13. Deep down, what does he really think of himself? Does he think he is fair, moral, honest, etc.?
Deep down he is far too aware of all the faults he thinks he’s hiding from everybody, and he has a list a mile long.

14. What does he think would make a perfect first date?
Easy conversation with no awkward moments, a mutual appreciation for wit and intelligence, and the opportunity for there to be a second date.

15. How important is money to him?
It’s very important, but it doesn’t override ethics or the trust of his family.

The United Schizophrenics of America

NOTE: Schizophrenia is defined as "a mental disorder that makes it difficult to tell the difference between real and unreal experiences, to think logically, to have normal emotional responses, and to behave normally in social situations." There are five types of schizophrenia: Catatonic, Disorganized, Paranoid, Residual, and Undifferentiated. For our purposes today we are speaking of the Paranoid type which is defined further by five specific traits: anger, anxiety, argumentativeness, delusions of persecution or grandeur, and violence. That's the long way around the barn to explain that this country is one big headcase, and if anything more needs to be added as proof just take a look at last night's election results in Massachusetts. Of which I am laughing with my own personal dementia... Topical Hysteria.

By the time President Bush left office we had a stock market collapse, the housing bubble went bust, the budget surplus created under Gingrich/Clinton was gone and replaced by a deficit dug deep and wide, we had troops fighting two wars, our reputation in the world community was in the toilet with even old friends distancing themselves from us, and the de-regulation touted by Republicans since Reagan had blown up in everybody's faces with financial instruments nobody seemed to really understand except for the handful of people who invented them.

President Obama was elected into office with the hope that he would get a handle on all this stuff and set things right.

After a year in office he not only can't get his own party (which is in a majority with or without the Massachusetts seat) to get his plans passed, but the Republican hounds have - since Day 1 - complained, whined, moaned, bitched, cried, shouted, chanted and drooled about everything from the details of his policies to the color of his tie or the hair-do on his wife to the point where they have managed to stick the shit on him, and now everything that happened in the last eight years is his fault. And people believe it.

Rest assured that when the next Republican President is elected the Democratic hounds, who are now taking notes on the modern methods of shit-sticking, will complain and whine and moan and bitch and cry and shout and chant and drool from Day 1 of that administration. (Anger. Argumentativeness.)

The vote for Senator-elect Brown is being touted as the anger of the common man against the wasteful spending going on in Washington. The $720,000,000 a day we've spent on the Iraq "project" for the last 6 years notwithstanding. He voted for the Massachusetts Health Care Reform bill (Chapter 58 of the Acts of 2006) when he was a state senator but got in to the US Senate, apparently, on a promise to categorically vote against the national bill mostly on the support and votes of "everyday working people" who, it turns out, are closer to personal bankruptcy than the people they work for should the current health care system collapse. But nevermind that, we're free American tough MEN and we can take it. (Anxiety. Argumentativeness.)

During the Clinton years there was a vast Right-wing conspiracy out there and during the Bush years the same components of that conspiracy somehow did an about-face and became the limousine liberal elite media boogeyman. (Delusions of persecution.)

And what the airwaves are filled with is very loud misdirection and self-serving ambiguity from people like Olbermann, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Matthews and Beck. Not to mention the mean-spirited screeds of Coulter and the visualized logical fallacies of Michael Moore. (Delusions of grandeur.)

The Democrats can't get anything done, either because there are too many philosophical shades of Democrats (from conservative to moderate to liberal), or their constituency won't let them. When they can't help the cities it's because the suburbs are opposed. They can't help the farmers because industry would complain. They can't help business because the workers would be unhappy. They can't help the workers or the owners will cry about socialism. We can't raise taxes because that's un-American. We can't cut spending because nobody from either party wants their program reduced. Survey after survey points out how much "the American people" mistrust the Congress, but everybody mostly keeps voting to put their particular representative back in office every election. (Difficulty in telling the difference between real and unreal experiences, or thinking logically.)

I'm waiting for the violence part before I pronounce a complete diagnosis. But maybe when pro-lifers kill doctors and animal-righters destroy property and ruin natural eco-systems by releasing animals into habitats they don't belong in I already have my evidence?

I can't tell. I'm too busy being hysterical.

Writer's Meme

Steph says she'd tag me with this meme but I don't like them, which is true, so she won't, and she didn't, except then I came in and said I will, so I am, and here it is. See?

By the way the photo is the cover of a terrific book upon which appears the visage of good old Al Camus himself, raincoat and all. One of these days I'm going to go to Adam's Halloween Party and when I do I'm going as Albert Camus and do just like this - raincoat, slick back my hair, glue an eternal cigarette butt to my lip. It would be cool being the only person there who even remotely cared what the heck i was trying to do.

But I progress.

This is a writer's meme and - hey - aren't we all?

1. What’s the last thing you wrote?
"This is a writer's meme and - hey - aren't we all?"

2. Write poetry?
No.

3. Angsty poetry?
If I don't write poetry why would I be writing angsty poetry? OH my GOD no one understands me... This is just no good. Nothing ever works. Nobody listens to me. I may as well not say ANYthing EVER AGAIN.

4. Favorite genre of writing?
Cult Fiction. The kind that ends up being influential but you remember when it was read by only a few hundred people. The kind that smash speed readers against the rocks and shoals because there are too many ways to read it and they give up. The kind of fiction that fiercely tickles some deep place I didn't know I had and sends me spinning heels over head at how totally brilliant she or he executed that. The kind people roll their eyes at me about when I tell them that last sentence.

5. Most annoying character you’ve ever created?
The me I was between the ages of 14 and 17.

6. Best plot you’ve ever created?
The fantasy about another world where this guy invents gunpowder and wants to introduce it to the King but the magicians and sorcerers try to stop him because they're afraid it will take the place of their magic on the battlefield and put them out of business. But it had another level in that it sort of showed how sometimes progress ruins the magic of things. Yeah I don't know why I never finished that one either.

7. Coolest plot twist you’ve ever created?
Page after page where nothing is happening. Literally. Guy walks around and nothing is happening. At all. I don't think it worked.

8. How often do you get writer’s block?
I don't.

9. Write fan fiction?
No.

10. Do you type or write by hand?
Both. But I just bought one of those voice-to-text mics for my Mac and so I'm trying dictation. It's a little odd but - wow - is it ever great for dialog!

11. Do you save everything you write?
No. In fact 98% of everything I've ever written that hasn't been published is trashed.

12. Do you ever go back to an abandoned idea?
Yes.

13. What’s your favorite thing you’ve ever written?
I think I'm doing my best ever right now, but I end up hating even stuff that's seen print. I think if I were a movie actor I'd never go see myself.

14. What’s everyone else’s favorite story you’ve written?
"Nobody likes what I write. That's sort of like my goal", he said, stretching his hand across his grin to make it seem as if he was actually thinking about it.

15. Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?
No.

16. What’s your favorite setting for your characters?
Inside their heads.

17. How many projects are you working on now?
There's always just one. Even when I'm not.

18. Have you ever won an award for your writing?
No.

19. What are your five favorite words?
Verisimilitude, mendacity, counter-intuitive, dinner, beer.

20. What character have you created that is most like yourself?
All of them.

21. Where do you get your ideas for your characters?
They develop as I go along. I never have a plan. They just happen.

22. Do you favor happy endings?
I favor endings that belong there.

23. Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
Way too much, yes.

24. Does music help you write?
Only before I write, rarely if ever during. Only a fan is allowed (required?) when writing. I don't want anybody else's crap going while I'm making my own crap.

25. Quote something you’ve written. Whatever pops in your head.
Aspirin stops the drums.

EVERYONE is tagged. Mwa haha.

So...

...what's new?

I got nothin'.

Wish it was Spring so I could have a cigar. They're too heavy to smoke inside I think. My train project is over and packed away. I got me one of these because I write long hand and transcribe and that takes so much time and energy away from the creating it's more like a chore than anything else. Now if I wasn't stuck in the middle of two or three projects that have all stalled I'd get to use it. Fun to set up and play with though.

Limping along at work, going from one job to the next, just getting by. There's barely any new construction going on and so many of our builders are taking their time paying us. So the vendors are screaming. Everybody's looking for money. Where do you think it went? Oh wait, 720 million a day pissed away in Iraq for the last 6 years. Yeah what was i thinkin'? No wonder nobody has any money.

I drink too much in the winter. Need to cut back a bit in that area. Putting the belly back on. I hate and love winter both at the same time. Sometimes each way for the same reason. Depends what day you get me. People who live in constant warm are nice folks. People who live in constant warm who wiggle that in front of your face can kiss my ass.

Oh, speaking of kissing my ass... that old company that let me go three years ago because my sales were dipping? They have now gone down from $10 mil a year to just under 4. Cut back to a 4 day week and work staff more than 50%. The guy they hired to pick up my customers was let go. Boy I guess I really screwed them up big time huh? I'd laugh but it's not really funny. There's still a couple people there I wish the best to, but... (snicker).

Yeah big deal. Sometimes I feel such a huge disconnect from everything I can't find anything funny. Or the things I find funny everybody else is just staring at. Or something.

OK... wouldn't a horror story about ghosts be cool if we first assume there ARE no such things as ghosts? I'm thinking...

Why NBC Needs Me

I'm not a fan of the late-night talk show circuit mostly because of the majority of guests. It's like - look, when people talk about themselves I'd like there to be at least more than 20 minutes worth of a body of their work out there before they should have the opportunity to pose for us. Applause signs, "generated" energy by quick music cuts and arm-waving cheerleaders off camera, the whole nine yards - not my thing.

So it's not like I'm all bent out of shape about NBC's cancellation of Jay Leno. In fact I'm pretty sure I really don't give one shit let alone two. But imagine what that means now - five prime hours worth of TV hole just waiting to be filled up. What an opportunity!

I'd say it's a great opportunity but I'm pretty sure NBC is going to not take advantage of it. Probably right now they are looking for the next big Reality Show or whatever else junk they can think up to put in that time slot from Monday to Friday. And I have no doubt they will find some kind of shit and at least something they put up will make them some money or appease their affiliates and we'll all live happily ever after. But just imagine what could be done with this. I'm going to leave the parodies of this to the folks who are inclined that way. Even parody is getting predictable in our days.

Well - what do you know - it just so happens that I have thought about what should go in these time slots. Along the lines of, what would I like to see, kind of thing. And this is exactly why NBC needs to hire me to be their program director. I mean - quite obviously the "professionals" they have in that position aren't very good. An amateur like me could do no worse.

Let's not do another Reality show. Let's do something else. Let's cover 5 areas all television networks need to supply. Crime (cop show), public service, sports, comedy, and "something different". It doesn't matter what night you put these on, and I'll leave the comedy and sports out for now. But I have the other 3 nights covered.

1. Crime (cop show). NYPD Blue was close at the start but it drifted away from the point very quickly. Who cares if a cop is getting a divorce? Yawn. I want the crime and the chase and the detective work and severe reality. I'm thinking no glam, meaning no impossibly cute female detective with a wry sense of humor and a great sense of fashion. Also no muscle-bound young studly minor characters. No ultra-modern equipment or unconventional weaponry. And have a presentational twist. In fact, do it in modern, clear-cut black-and-white to give it a film noir feel and make sure all the characters are like real police and detectives... meaning, mostly normal looking with no sense of fashion and all the wry just happens without being contrived. Sort of along the lines of the old Naked City, updated, but with a sense of mood and place that makes it different than the usual, now-stereotypical, modern cop show.

2. Public Service. Hey here's an idea! Why not give an hour to these guys ( <-- CLICK) and let them actually report all the bullshit coming out of both the Right and the Left? The list of lies spawned for and against "The Health Care Bill" could provide eight shows alone. But why not actually be non-partisan and expose the crap mercilessly no matter where it leads? Huh? Why not? Yeah OK, I'm dreaming, but it would make a GREAT hour. Pure and simple.

3. "Something Different". And here's something else that will never happen. Give an hour and a budget to a few dozen independent film makers and just put their work on a national stage. Just shut up and do it. Maybe if we foster new talent in film making better than we are, we'll get some films that aren't just remakes, special effect extravaganzas with no story, or remakes of special effects extravaganzas with no story.

Another idea I had - along the lines of a "remake" that would actually have some value - would be to make a list of shows that were once on TV, but have been canceled, that still have somewhat of a following or a group that argued against the cancellation and do a one-hour revisit. Just make a list of these kinds of shows from all kinds of eras and give them an hour. Who knows - something in that mix might even make it as a regular again, reborn.

OK so that's 4. But so what, we're talking programming executive here. Basic education isn't one of the higher priorities is it? Sheh - I'm perfect for this job.

NBC - just post something in the comments. I'll get back to you, like, even tonight.

Continental Drift

Free Speech is not an argument for the promulgation of pseudoscience in the classroom.

Putting oil industry lawyers with no scientific background in charge of governmental environment study groups just seems kind of odd, y'know?

Three years of flat average surface temperatures does not negate 150 years of a rising trend line.

Just because it's cold in the winter doesn't mean O'Reilly knows what he's talking about when it comes to global warming.

How did Noah get the platypuses and llamas?

The world won't end in 2012. The Freemasons aren't in charge of the UFOs being piloted by Templars above the North Pole portal leading to the Nazi base camps in the interior of the Earth.

Let's get hack science out of the way and let the stem cell people find cures for terrible diseases.

And tell Dick Cheney nobody cares what he thinks anymore already, yeah?

Infected By Jimmy Today

Once upon a distance, through the filter of madrigal dudence (the very essence of the men of Aran lugging boats along the quay with splinters all up and down the sad typography of their limbs, shorn of all remnant, raiment and sway), I understood the vices inherent in the vicelike maw of Kleptopatra when she stole the man once belonging to Sarah Yayvo in the rain, warlike, spawning generations of reverse amity between the sciences of nature and the sky, hating the other like a Capulet and dowsing itinerant lay preachers with viles of harmonious concordances wrested from the tight-fisted reign of the abject apes who came down from trees to pronunciate axiomatic questionables from a long line of scroll-bearing saints. All the descendants of Noah who, if they're not home must have gone for the groceries in markets across seven continents notwithstanding. And if the pyramids were taught to dance by ancient men from the Moon which astral voyagers taught them the secret Templar principles of the seven and the nine?

But I left it there, unwilling to learn the lesson or at least acting as if it were so, and returned to my calendar counting house waiting for the reaper to sever my node.