tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-135744712024-03-14T00:55:53.311-04:00Hawking Up HairballsChuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.comBlogger277125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-856212280078411322010-08-11T05:44:00.002-04:002010-08-11T06:17:23.462-04:00Where You Been, Chuck?<span style="font-family:Arial;">Call me lazy. Better though to call it a hiatus, but I haven't been here for a while. I haven't got a real excuse. I just didn't feel like messing with it, and I don't know how consistent I will be in the future, but I got tired of bitching and moaning about the state of the world, of the economy, etc. I think I'll refrain from that in the future, though I've said that before.<br /><br />I thought I might pass along a couple of writing exercises that I ran across in a book entitled, "Naming The World". This book consists of a series of exercises for the creative writer. These exercises have mainly been contributed by writers and teaches of creative writing in universities.<br /><br />One thing that struck me as I perused the book was just how different writers can be. There's a tendency to think that the creative process is pretty much the same for everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I remember hearing an interview with Richard Powers. He was talking about how he had written his latest novel with speech recognition software. In other words, he had spoken into a microphone, and his software had converted it into type in his word processing program. He felt that it was more natural to compose his novel that way. I believe him, but with this reservation. It's more natural for him, but not necessarily for others.<br /><br />I could never write like that. I'm too much of a brooder when it comes to writing. I have to put down some ideas, impressions, metaphors, etc. on the page before I even think in terms of phrases, and sentences, not to mention whole paragraphs. Only then do I type it out in my word processor. I do read my work out loud after having composed it, in order to get a sense of the music of my language, but that's at the end of the process. Like I suggested above, it's different strokes and all that.<br /><br />There were a couple of exercises in "Naming The World" that intrigued me. The first one suggested listing all of the things that a character touched, handled, or used in a story or novel, this by way of coming to a greater understanding of the character. I'll have to try that. I don't know if it will work for me, but I'll see. It makes sense though. We are what we do, and the same goes for fictional characters. Doing means using or handling objects, so the objects that the character interacts with should give me some insights into the character.<br /><br />The second exercise was a suggestion on how to write the dialog of non-native speakers of English. Take a number of English sentences and translate them into the character's native language using something like Google's translate function. Then, take the resulting sentences, and retranslate them into English. (You have to actually retype the resulting sentences. If you click the button that translates it back, you just get your original copy.) You will find some awkward constructions showing up, and it is just those awkward constructions that non-native speakers will tend to use. I tried a few sentences, and it seemed to work. Unfortunately for the purposes of this exercise, these translation functions keep getting better and better, and those awkward constructions are bound to disappear over time.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-50079925562137599452010-04-01T06:59:00.000-04:002010-04-01T07:00:45.899-04:00Sometimes The Truth<span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>“'We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,' said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.”</em><br /><br />The above comes from an article in the March 27 edition of the NY Times. As some have pointed out, that amounts to a de facto admission of war crimes. Not that anything will ever come of it. In a better country, in better times, the public would be outraged that its military engaged in such practices, but not now, not in the age of the American imperium.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-46573100669867135322010-03-31T09:49:00.002-04:002010-03-31T09:53:07.263-04:00A Nation of Nut Bags?<span style="font-family:Arial;">We're a nation of nut bags. How else to explain numbers like these. A Harris poll taken between March first and eighth came up with this little gem. 14% of those surveyed think that Barack Obama is the Antichrist. That's right, the Antichrist. Now, I have no use for Obama. Like all but a handful of high office holders these days, he's a tool of the oligarchs, but come on. I find it hard to credit that 14% of people even believe in a mythical figure like the Antichrist, and that's the 14% who don't like Obama. I'm sure there are also those who support him who also believe in this boogeyman.<br /><br />Here's some other numbers from the same poll that are equally mind-boggling. 32% of respondents said Obama is Muslim, 29% said he wants to turn sovereignty over to one world government, and 25% said he wasn't born in the USA and wasn't a citizen. These sorts of things are just plain denials of fact. Maybe we should go ahead and change the name of the country to something like the Disney States of America. We could get Bruce Springsteen to sing, “Born in the DSA” and replace the bald eagle as national symbol with Mickey Mouse.<br /><br />As Chris Hedges points out in his excellent book <em>Empire of Illusion</em>, we Americans are the most deluded people on the planet. Given the power of modern media, particularly television, we're probably the most deluded people ever. Quite a distinction, that.<br /><br />Speaking of Chris Hedges, he feels that we're a people who are yearning for fascism. Here's a link to an article where he talks about it. I'd say it's a must-read.<br /><a href="http://www.alternet.org/news/146226/hedges%3A_is_america_yearning_for_fascism">http://www.alternet.org/news/146226/hedges%3A_is_america_yearning_for_fascism</a></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-78269647611592156342010-03-23T07:10:00.001-04:002010-03-23T07:12:26.752-04:00The Health Care Bill<span style="font-family:Arial;">So, the health care bill has passed, and I suppose there are those of a liberal persuasion who are celebrating. Just what they are celebrating, I can't say. It's in the executive suites of the insurance industry that the champagne corks are really popping. They pretty much got everything they wanted in the bill.<br /><br />This health care bill represents a massive transfer of wealth from the besieged middle class to the insurance companies. Here's what I mean. For a family making $66,000 a year, annual premiums will amount to more than $8,000 a year. In addition, they will be responsible for over $5800 in out of pocket expenses a year before the benefits kick in. Some coverage that is. It means that there will be people who won't be able to afford to use their health insurance because of those out of pocket expenses.<br /><br />Some might say that this is a first step. Apparently, the likes of Paul Krugman believes that, but I see no evidence of it. If anything, experience teaches us otherwise. Take the prescription drug insurance for those on Medicare. As one who is availing himself of it, I have to say that it is wholly inadequate. It saves you some money on prescriptions, but not much. At the time it was being discussed in Congress, organizations that claimed to advocate for older citizens, organizations like AARP, supported the bill. When criticized, they said that they were getting behind it because it was a first step. I won't be holding my breath until that second step comes. The same goes for this health care bill. It's the one we're stuck with for at least a generation.<br /><br />There are a few sops for the public in the bill, but the benefits that come from them are illusory. For example, insurance companies will be prohibited from dropping individuals when they become sick. However, the bill does not empower any regulatory body to enforce this provision of the bill. What then is to stop the insurance companies from ignoring it?<br /><br />The fact is that, to quote the site that I'm linking to below, “This bill is almost identical to the plan written by AHIP, the insurance company trade association, in 2009.” So, with President Obama and his changes, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The wealthy and powerful continue to wage their class war against the rest of us, and more and more wealth is still being transferred upward.<br /><br />Here's a link to myths about the health care bill. <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/28632876/Fire-Dog-Lake-Health-Care-Bill-Myths">http://www.scribd.com/doc/28632876/Fire-Dog-Lake-Health-Care-Bill-Myths</a><br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-22599015885078757592010-03-03T06:30:00.001-05:002010-03-03T06:33:32.968-05:00Factotum<span style="font-family:Arial;">The other day, I watched the movie <em>Factotum</em> on the Independent Film Channel. It's based upon the Charles Bukowski novel by the same name. It wasn't much of a movie. The protagonist, Henry Chinaski, bounces from one shitty job to the next. He never keeps any of them for long. He gets fired from each and every one of them, either because he gets fed up and tells the boss to fuck off, or because he goes on a drunken binge and starts missing work. The story's a grim one, and the movie's failure to fully commit to that view of the world is one of its big weaknesses.<br /><br />Matt Dillon plays Chinaski, and he tries his best. It's obvious that he's done his research. He's got the same way of speaking that Bukowski had, and the same way of holding himself, but that's not enough. In Bukowski's books, the Chinaski character is so down and out that he is beyond despair, and he just doesn't care anymore. Dillon fails to communicate that, probably because it's not something he's ever been familiar with. Then there's the casting problem. Dillon is too much of a pretty boy. Like Bukowski himself, Chinaski is ugly. They should have chosen an actor with more of a downtrodden manner.<br /><br />As for Bukowski himself, I would argue that he was the last of the Beats. He's of a different generation from guys like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, but the literary project is the same. Not only that, I would also maintain that Bukowski's work represents the deadend of Beat romanticism. What happens if you devote yourself completely to writing, refuse to compromise, and hang with it no matter what? If you're lucky, and you have to be damned lucky, you'll have some success and find a way to earn a living on your writing. If you aren't lucky, you'll end up like Chinaski, leading a skid row sort of life as you bounce from one soul-sucking job to the other. Bukowski saw this too, and embraced it, though he was one of the fortunate ones in the end. In the closing scene, Chinaski talks about how you have to give yourself over to writing, and keep on with it no matter what, even if you end up on the streets, sleeping on park benches. That's a hard road to walk but Bukowski was a man who was prepared to walk it. That's what separates him from his imitators.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-50493756926211037812010-02-22T15:21:00.001-05:002010-02-22T15:22:39.636-05:00An Update<span style="font-family:Arial;">No requests for my manuscript as a result of that first chapter. What kind of conclusion should I draw from that? Not much of one really, since few people read this blog, and I know that to be a fact because hits are monitored by Sitemeter.<br /><br />It doesn't help that I go for long stretches of time without posting. If you want to build up a readership on these things, you pretty much have to post every day. However, this time I have a good excuse. I've been making pretty good progress on my new novel whose working title is “Getting What You Need”, and I'm pretty well written out for the day after putting in time on the novel.<br /><br />I've decided to stay away from political posts as such. There's nothing positive that I can think of to say, and other sites do a much better job of making the points that I would like to. On that note, I'm linking to a piece on the Smirking Chimp web site. I really like it, and there's very little in it that I don't agree with.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26932">http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/26932</a><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-81695034199753388942010-02-03T18:14:00.001-05:002010-02-03T18:17:51.850-05:00Buster Bungle's Big Top<span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>I'm posting the first chapter of my novel, “Buster Bungle's Big Top”. Who knows, maybe someone who's an agent or is associated with a publisher will stumble upon it and request the manuscript. Stranger things have happened.</em><br /><br />The Hellcat was a big, fire-engine red bike that was built for speed. Neal Bobwhite was bent down over its handlebars pushing it to a hundred miles an hour in the HOV lane of the expressway. He leaned into the left turn ahead and cursed when he blew by the highway patrol car that was parked hard up against the concrete barrier that ran down the middle of the highway. Neal shot on over to the rightmost lane and slowed to the speed limit as he took the first exit. He glanced into the rearview mirror, but the cruiser wasn’t following. They rarely did. The bike was too fast and maneuverable. <br /><br />He turned onto a four-lane street in a rough neighborhood, but it was a neighborhood that he recognized. He had lived there as a small boy, back before his mother had remarried. The Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise on the first corner had been one of his favorite places to eat, but it was now a rib joint called Daddy D’s. The McDonald’s wasn’t new, but the Checkers was. Another block down, a check-cashing business advertised payday and title loans. It occupied the yellow-brick building where his mother had worked as a receptionist for an insurance agency. Neal could remember the way the women who had worked there had doted on him, stuffing him with cookies, candy, and cake.<br /><br />Just ahead, a homeless man was sprawled face down on the sidewalk. The way he lay, he seemed broken, as though he had fallen from a great height. Another unkempt man was bent over him. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then eased a half-empty pint of whiskey from the pocket of the unconscious man’s pants. As Neal rode past, the man held the bottle up in front of him and grinned like he’d hit the Cash 3 in the lottery.<br /><br />Neal slowed for a light and came to a stop. On the right was a convenience store that Neal had known as a Seven Eleven. It was now called H&H, and it had become the kind of place where the cashier had to work behind bulletproof glass. Neal could recall going there to buy bottles of Coca-Cola and small bags of peanuts back when he was a boy. He’d pour the nuts into the bottle with the Coke. They would float to the top, and he would eat one or two with each sip that he took.<br /><br />An emaciated, white woman was out in front of the store talking to the young, black men who were in the tricked-out, yellow SUV that was parked there. Her hair was a tangled mass of greasy, blonde curls, and she had on a tattered dress of the sort that might once have been worn in a wedding, though it was now dirty, gray, and ripped. The men in the SUV were having fun with her, teasing and taunting as though she were witless or mad. She reeled away from them, throwing a hand in disgust.<br />She was so frail and wasted that she looked like she might just collapse to the asphalt and expire, but then she saw Neal staring at her, and she drew herself up into a sober posture while smoothing the dress against her body. The light had changed, but Neal had pulled over to the curb. He didn’t know why, but she had something to say, and he wanted to see what it would be. He lifted the visor of his motorcycle helmet.<br /><br />“You wanna party?” she asked.<br /><br />Her eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks sunken. Her skin had a pallid cast, and her breath was so foul that it smelled as though she were rotting from the inside out.<br /><br />“Here? On my motorcycle?”<br /><br />She flung a skinny arm toward the intersecting street. “There’s a park up there.”<br /><br />“I don’t think so, not today.”<br /><br />She licked her top lip and her eyes lost their focus. She swooned momentarily, then caught herself before falling. “Maybe you can let me hold ten dollars.”<br /><br />“So you can get something to eat?”<br /><br />“I need me something to eat,” she said.<br /><br />She wouldn’t eat. She’d buy dope instead, and Neal wasn’t going to give her a ten for that, but then he looked her over again. Who the hell was he to judge? His parents would have scorned the woman. That right there was reason enough to give her the money. If she used it to buy dope, then so be it. He pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He didn’t have a ten, so he took out a twenty. She snatched it from his hand as though she were afraid that he would change his mind about giving it to her.<br /><br />“Are you sure you don’t want to party?” she asked. “I could give you a BJ.”<br /><br />“No, just keep the money.”<br /><br />She nodded, though it seemed more like she’d just let her head fall. When she brought it up again, she raised her arm and pointed it in the direction he was traveling. “Are you going down there?”<br /><br />“Yeah, I guess so.”<br /><br />“No, no, no,” she said, throwing her head from side to side. “You don’t wanna do that. That’s where the devil cats are.” She leaned closer, her foul exhalations making Neal breathe through his mouth. “You should hear them at night. They’ll steal your soul away.”<br /><br />“Steal my soul, huh?”<br /><br />“And they won’t give it back.”<br /><br />With that she was gone, waving wildly to someone in a car that was behind him. Neal dropped his visor and engaged the transmission. The light had changed, so he let a few cars pass, then shot out into traffic in front of a semi that was downshifting to grind up the rise ahead. Neal topped the slope and descended into to what had once been a hollow, and a dark one at that, judging by the stand of pines that still shadowed the land on the right. To the left a circus had been set up between a supermarket and a strip mall. The mall was unfamiliar, but Neal remembered the supermarket as a Winn-Dixie, though it now bore the name of ValuCheck. A row of paper signs in its display windows advertised collard greens, pork chops, corn on the cob, and ground beef.<br /><br />Neal slowed to read the sign that hung from the motor home that was parked out in front of the circus, but the semi behind him was building up speed as it came downhill, and the driver let him have it with his horn. Neal popped the throttle and the Hellcat jumped ahead, shooting across the oncoming traffic and into the strip mall.<br /><br />Neal parked, and got off of his bike. The circus was a shabby affair. There was a one-pole tent with a short vestibule extending out from the entrance. Its broad, red-and-white stripes had weathered to ugly shades of pink and gray. The battered motor home from which the sign hung apparently served as the ticket office. On the far side of the lot were a ferris wheel and a merry-go-round. Both had seen better days. A couple of the wheel’s spokes were bent, and overall it looked so rickety that it might well collapse the next time it was started up. The merry-go-round was tilted to one side, and the whole thing just seemed to sag, as though it had succumbed to gravity and would never move again.<br /><br />Only now that he had stopped did Neal realize just how brutally hot it really was. He took off his helmet and shook his head. Beads of sweat flew from his brush cut. He ran a hand over the top of his head, then put the helmet down on the seat of the bike. His pulse was pounding at his temples, and he needed a cold drink, but first he wanted to see that sign, so he walked on over for a look.<br /><br />“Buster Bungle’s Big Top” ran along the top of the sign in black, block letters. In a smaller cursive below was another line, “Featuring Selena Sable and Her Cats”. This Selena had been rendered beneath in a top hat, tails, fishnet stockings, and knee-high boots. Her hands were in the air in the manner of a choir leader conducting her singers. Three black cats in a row were leaping over her outstretched arms. The technique was crude, like some cartoonist’s version of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Selena’s legs were too long, her arms too short, and the features of her face distorted. The cats had been portrayed in primitive and abstract fashion, like stylized Sumerian lions on a stone wall.<br /><br />Devil cats, huh? They were probably toothless relics that were too old for a real circus, and that Selena was undoubtedly some old hag who was just hanging onto a performing career as best she could. Neal turned from the sign and cursed himself for a fool. It was time to get home, and into the pool.<br /><br />He paused to stare up into the sky, where the sun was beating down on him like a hammer on red-hot metal. Maybe he hadn’t been drinking enough fluids. It could have been a bug or a virus. Whatever it was, the pulse was still pounding in his temples, and he suddenly felt lightheaded as he walked back to his bike. He was telling himself that he needed to stop for that cold drink when, all of a sudden, a loud boom came from out of the sky. He jerked and went all to jelly inside. His arms and legs shook like the limbs of a tree in a gale. He sank to his knees and then, as his head began to spin, went down on all fours.<br /><br />The next thing he knew, he was staring down at the red clay beneath him. There was vomitus on the ground between his hands. He grimaced at the sight of it, and spit as he tried to expel the taste of it from his mouth. What the fuck had that been all about? He rose up onto his knees and took a deep breath, then climbed back up onto shaky feet. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he peered up into the sky again. He saw a few puffy, white clouds, but nothing that could have caused a lightning strike. His eyes went back to the circus. He brushed the red clay dust from the knees of his jeans, then peered into the sky one last time. He was no epileptic, so it had to have been lightning. He’d heard of it striking from a clear, blue sky. Though he was still unsteady, he walked briskly back to his bike.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-70122566997853059302010-02-02T03:45:00.001-05:002010-02-02T03:48:11.389-05:00More On Agent Queries<span style="font-family:Arial;">I sent out several more agent queries last night. Here's how it works. A site called Preditors & Editors has a listing of agents. There are quite literally hundreds of them. A very small number of them are specifically recommended by the site. Another small number are blackmarked. A few of these blackmarked agents are out and out crooks. A couple of them are even under prosecution for fraud. Most just engage in unethical, but not illegal, practices. The biggest one consists of charging a reading fee for reading your manuscript. No legitimate agent will do that.<br /><br />That still leaves hundreds of agents to consider, the overwhelming majority of which the site is neutral about, so I write down the names of forty or fifty and start searching for them on Google. If they don't have a web site, I don't bother with them. That eliminates a lot, though most of those who don't have web sites are no longer in the business or are agent wannabees who are operating out of their homes. At the end of it all, I'll end up with anywhere from a couple to a half dozen to whom I will email a query. The actual emailing is the easy part. It only takes a couple of minutes.<br /><br />Pretty much all of the agents want the same sort of information in your query. However, they all seem to want it in a slightly different format. Maybe I'm hurting my chances of acceptance, but I refuse to compose a different letter for each agent I query. They all get the same one.<br /><br />One agent's site pretty much gave the game away. It had a FAQ and one of the questions there asked what made for a successful query letter. The answer was that the querying process should be viewed as a job interview, and that, as such, it helps if you come with a reference. This site suggested that if someone the agent knows recommended you, then you should include that in the first sentence of your query. Ah, yes, like everything else, it helps a lot if you know someone. That's not good news for a misanthropic, old recluse like me. <br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-41713728612291972112010-02-01T15:41:00.001-05:002010-02-01T15:43:10.381-05:00Novel News<span style="font-family:Arial;">Well, in regards to my novel <em>Buster Bungle's Big Top</em>, I've sent out 39 queries to literary agents and I've received twelve rejections. Of course, there might be more unknown rejections. Some agents don't reply to queries unless they're interested. It's really quite discouraging. You know, if they were looking at the manuscript and rejecting it, I could tell myself that perhaps the novel wasn't that good, and I could put some more work into it, but they aren't even asking to see the manuscript.<br /><br />I've realized that I have a number of things going against me, other than the sheer crush of numbers. (The better agents claim to get fifty to sixty queries a day.) For one thing, I had assumed that most agents were people who loved good books, but had to deal in trashy commercial fiction in order to make a living. How naïve of me. The impression I've gotten after viewing over fifty web sites is that most agents aren't truly literate. In their spare time, they probably read the kinds of books that they represent.<br /><br />Then there's my age. Agents are looking for authors that they can have a long-term relationship with, so they aren't likely to be interested in someone who's sixty-five years old. Add on to that, the matter of genre. They all want you to slot your work into a predetermined genre like mystery, romance, scifi, literary, etc. However, the best descriptive phrase for <em>Buster Bungle's Big Top</em> is Southern Gothic, but that isn't one of their categories. In fact, Southern literature in general seems to be out these days.<br /><br />On a brighter note, I'm starting work on a new novel. I don't have a working title yet, though it too is Southern Gothic. I tried something different this time. I took a lot of notes and plotted it out in detail before actually starting to write. I ended up with some 30,000 words of notes and I'm pleased with the results. Now that I've started writing, it's going very smoothly. Since I know where the story's going, I only have to concern myself with the writing, and that's making things a lot easier. This is definitely the way I'm going to do things in the future.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-68272509033146276932010-01-26T05:09:00.002-05:002010-01-26T05:11:32.664-05:00James Lee Burke<span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>”On the burnt-out end of a July day in Southwest Texas, in a crossroads community whose only economic importance had depended on its relationship to a roach paste factory the EPA had shut down twenty years before, a young man driving a car without window glass stopped by an abandoned blue-and-white stucco filling station that had once sold Pure gas during the Depression and was now home to bats and clusters of tumbleweed. Next to the filling station was a mechanic's shed whose desiccated boards lay collapsed upon a rusted pickup truck with four flat bald tires. At the intersection a stoplight hung from a horizontal cable strung between two power poles, its plastic covers shot out by .22 rifles.”</em><br /><br />James Lee Burke is the finest writer among those who currently publish in the crime genre in the USA. Whoever is number two isn't even close. As they might say in the sports world, there ain't a one of them who could carry Burke's jockstrap. In a way, it's a shame that he writes in the genre. He could have really done some damage as a serious novelist had he chosen to do so, but he just keeps churning out a book a year, and it's remarkable that he's as good as he is with that kind of production.<br /><br />The above passage is from his latest book, <em>Rain Gods</em>. It's a sample of why he's so good. That paragraph really sets the scene. And how does he do it? With details, my friends, with details. “On the burnt-out end of a July day in Southwest Texas” tells us that it's deep summer and the adjective “burnt-out” suggests the desolation that is characteristic of that part of Texas. Burke doesn't just tell us that there's a shut-down factory in the town. He gives us the details. The car without window glass is another nice detail, suggesting that the young man driving it is one of society's losers. The collapsed mechanic's shed is nicely described, and instead of just saying that the stoplight's plastic covers had been busted out, Burke tells us that they'd been shot out. That reminds us that this is a place where gun violence just might come easily.<br /><br />Not all of Burke's prose in <em>Rain Gods</em> comes up to that paragraph, nor is it realistic to expect it to, given the way Burke churns out his novels. And a couple of turns in the plots made me groan a bit. They were just too expected and cliched. He didn't seem to want to let any of the “good guys” get killed, when the logic of his narrative seemed to dictate that they should have been. His main villain is over the top as well, but that's something that's to be expected in this genre. If one's a fan of crime fiction, this one isn't to be missed.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-17514586109668304432010-01-21T16:19:00.001-05:002010-01-21T16:21:14.139-05:00An Exercise In Futility?<span style="font-family:Arial;">I've been getting busy with querying agents for my novel <em>Buster Bungle's Big Top</em>. It's tedious work but thankfully most of them now take email queries. That saves a lot of time and money. Still, I must confess that it feels like an exercise in futility, sort of like trying to fund your kid's college education by playing the lottery. According to the agencies themselves, they get around fifty queries a day and they only accept a handful of new clients every year, so you can see the kinds of odds that a new author faces.<br /><br />Some of you are undoubtedly thinking that I should perhaps consider self-publication, whether of a traditional book or an e-book. That's a hypothetical option but, from a practical standpoint, it's a no-go. You'll drop a couple of grand on a traditional book and end up with boxes of unsold books in a back room of your house or apartment. And, yes, I'm aware of the print-on-demand services, but they turn out not to be substantially cheaper. As for e-books, there's not much cost in offering them for sale on a web site. However, the fact is, in either case, that most novels will be lucky to sell fifty copies through such outlets. I would hope for a bigger audience than that.<br /><br />So, the question is, what to do? I guess I'll keep sending out the queries, though I feel like an idiot for doing so, given that I'm not the sort of person who plays the lottery. I know when the odds are stacked against me. In the end though, I'll probably self-publish an e-book and set up a web site for myself, though the thought of having to resort to that really angers me. But, you know what they say about beggars.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-89274224611242762392010-01-13T04:15:00.001-05:002010-01-13T04:16:28.419-05:00Ranting On<span style="font-family:Arial;">In my previous post, I confessed to hating greeters. I've been thinking about that and I've decided that the truth is that I just plain hate the human race. I'm a damned misanthrope. It's the reason I've come to live such a reclusive existence. People just aren't worth the trouble. My two cats make better companions.<br /><br />Upon reflection, how can one not be a misanthrope? Just look at the track record of the human race. There are wars, racism, genocide, all of which lead to indiscriminate killing on a wide scale. And remember, those of the Book, like Christians, Jews, and Islamists, say that we are made in the image of their God. That right there is reason enough for atheism.<br /><br />Now, most people are pleasant enough one on one, but it's been my experience that, at best, people disappoint you and, at worst they use you or stab you in the back. Even in marriage, which is supposedly the most intimate of relationships, people disappoint. As a college friend of mine said upon getting divorced, marriage is just two people, each trying to get his or her own way. A lifetime of observation tells me that this is true. In any intimate relationship, one of the partners will assert his or her dominance and the other partner will accept it, or the relationship will be dissolved.<br /><br />All that said, I can't say that I wish the worst for people, and I take no joy from events like the earthquake in Haiti. The poor bastards. Not only have they suffered under US imperialism, but now the just and merciful God slaps them with a horrible earthquake. Just and merciful, my ass.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-4432626044204418012010-01-07T05:46:00.001-05:002010-01-07T05:48:30.770-05:00Just Leave Me Alone!<span style="font-family:Arial;">I hate greeters. You know who I'm talking about, those people at the entrance to various stores who are there to greet you as you enter. As far as I'm concerned, they're more annoying than anything else. I mean, for Chrissakes, I'm going to the store because there are things I need to buy, not because I want exchange pleasantries with some grinning fool.<br /><br />I'm guessing that these stores think that greeters make for a positive shopping experience. A marketing firm somewhere probably did a study that shows people buy more when there are greeters at the door. Then again maybe not. In a lot of these stores, if you're leaving with an item that is too big to fit in a bag, like a large container of cat litter, they ask to see your receipt as you exit. You don't have to show them your receipt, and I always refuse to do so. What's the point of it then? It's just an annoyance.<br /><br />Perhaps they think greeters deter shoplifting. Or maybe they deter those who might make a dash for the exit with their arms full of goods that they haven't paid for, though I can't imagine the people who work these jobs stepping in front of an escaping thief. Most of the greeters seem to be elderly, and they would just get run over.<br /><br />I'd like to be rude to greeters, but I just can't do it. If the job were a career choice, that would be one thing. If it were something you could take an associate's degree in, like those offered by those bogus schools that advertise on late-night TV, then I'd really lay into them. That's not the case though. I suspect that greeters are the most poorly paid of the people who work in the stores. They're probably on the lowest rung of the employment scale, so I can't bring myself to be nasty. For the same reason, I always make a point of tipping generously at restaurants. Why make the lives of those who have shitty jobs any more difficult than they already are?<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-54642941039451504912010-01-04T05:46:00.002-05:002010-01-04T05:52:31.751-05:00Lest I Needed More Proof<span style="font-family:Arial;">For a few hours there the other day, I thought that I might have been wrong. I thought that there just might be a God. And what would make me incline toward that conclusion? It was the news that Rush Limbaugh had been taken to the hospital with chest pains, and that he was listed in serious condition. When I read that on the internet, I slid on out of my chair, and to my knees. I put my hands together, looked skyward, and I prayed. Yes, I did. I actually prayed. Please, please, God, cast him down into the perdition that he deserves, and without a supply of oxycontin to get him through.<br /><br />I should have known better. No one was there at the hospital to drive a stake through his black, black heart, and the darker spirits stirred themselves to help him rally. The next thing I knew, the news was that he was resting comfortably. They didn't know what had caused his chest pains, perhaps the spasming of an artery. Or, perhaps the bitter bile that flows through his veins in place of blood.<br /><br />Not long after, there was Limbaugh, standing before a microphone after being released from the hospital. He was proclaiming that he could say from personal experience that there is nothing wrong with the healthcare system. What can one say in response to that? Of course, there isn't, not if you're a man of Limbaugh's means. He undoubtedly has one of those boutique medical insurance policies that guarantees first-class service.<br /><br />That's one of the truly sad things about life. There is no justice in the world, nor can one expect it in some hereafter. The bastards prevail, and the masses suffer.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-86265425379044086362010-01-03T14:02:00.001-05:002010-01-03T14:04:20.880-05:00You Could Be Next<span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>"If you don't have enough evidence to charge someone criminally but you think he's illegal, we can make him disappear." Those chilling words were spoken by James Pendergraph, then executive director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Office of State and Local Coordination, at a conference of police and sheriffs in August 2008.</em><br /><br />The above quotation comes from an article in The Nation about America's immigration prisons. Along the same lines, a poll showed that 58% of the people felt that the Nigerian who tried to blow up that jet should be tortured. Just how stupid can people be? As Chris Hedges pointed out in a recent piece, due process is gone in the USA, for citizen and non-citizen alike. If the executive branch declares a person an enemy combatant, he can be spirited away to some secret prison without access to a lawyer or to the protections that once applied in this country. It doesn't matter whether or not he's a citizen.<br /><br />It's ironic. These right-wing assholes are always railing about the government but, at the same time, they have such faith in the various police agencies. If government is corrupt and oppressive, what makes them think that the police agencies are any different? And they do trust the police. That's why they don't mind the restrictions on our civil and human rights. They believe that if the police think you're guilty of a crime, then you must have done something wrong.<br /><br />All I can say is, good luck, folks. The Great Recession is nowhere near over. The Wall Street scum may be doing all right, but the average person is still suffering. Sooner or later, they're going to feel the need to take action, to demonstrate and protest. Wait and you'll see it, those demonstrators and protesters will start being designated as enemy combatants.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-78482460676475184522009-12-28T12:29:00.000-05:002009-12-28T12:30:51.561-05:00Human Sandbags<span style="font-family:Arial;">Was there any indignity that wasn't visited upon blacks in the days of slavery, and then later during the segregation era? One wonders. Check this out, a New York Times item from 1912.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E0CEFD6143CE633A25752C1A9629C946396D6CF">http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9E0CEFD6143CE633A25752C1A9629C946396D6CF</a><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-66216175693280080712009-12-24T09:46:00.001-05:002009-12-24T09:48:42.190-05:00An Odious World<span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>”One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.”</em><br /><br />The above comes from Francois-Rene Chateaubriand, who is credited as the founder of French Romanticism. I had to laugh upon reading it. I found it right on the mark, for I have to admit that I am often guilty of thinking myself a superior person simply because I look upon the world with a cynical eye.<br /><br />Just recently I was thinking that I am of an age where I really should write a will. Not that I have financial resources that amount to much, but it might save my family members some hassles when I die. That got me to thinking about what I wanted in the will. I definitely want to be cremated. Fuck the Christians and their resurrection of the flesh. Besides, cemeteries are just good parks ruined.<br /><br />Then there's the matter of what I want done with my ashes. Oh, I know what I'd dearly love. I'd love to have them scattered on a garbage dump. That's how odious I think the world is. I'd rather that my ashes mingle with the world's detritus than with anything else.<br /><br />I won't do it, of course. It would upset the surviving family members, and what would be the point of that? There is an alternative though. Perhaps if some hot, young beauty could be found who would agree to rub my ashes all over her perfect body. Yeah, that right there, that's the ticket. She could start with her breasts, move on down to her belly, ash-dirtied hands going right for the sweet spot, and, and,...<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-78319001340794362622009-12-22T08:23:00.001-05:002009-12-22T08:24:39.932-05:00On Obama's Leadership, Or Lack Thereof<span style="font-family:Arial;">I'm linking to a great article about Obama's approach to leadership. The following quotation from the article sums it up. “He (Obama) can't seem to muster the passion to fight for any of what he believes in, whatever that is. He'd make a great queen -- his ceremonial addresses are magnificent -- but he prefers to fly Air Force One at 60,000 feet and 'stay above the fray.'”<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/drew-westen/leadership-obama-style-an_b_398813.html</a><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-31699247071228778962009-12-21T02:13:00.002-05:002009-12-21T02:17:27.757-05:00The Great Recession<span style="font-family:Arial;">I was watching the Bill Moyers show on PBS yesterday when he did a profile of this guy who started a community organizing group in Boston, with the purpose of preventing foreclosures and forcing the banks to let people stay in their foreclosed homes as rental tenants. I wish I could recall his name, but I was doing other things when the piece was on and I wasn't playing close attention. He's an admirable fellow though. He doesn't organize his group in a top down fashion. The purpose of the group is to get people to take control of their lives by fighting back. It's the only way to do things and expect them to work.<br /><br />So, I was only half watching the show when something struck me. They were talking about how the group was demonstrating at the home of someone who was being foreclosed on. A representative of the bank was there and he told the group that it wasn't personal, that it was just the market.<br /><br />It's just the market. That got me to thinking. I sometimes find myself shaking my head at the ideas that are put forth to justify the actions of the banksters and others. They're so obviously wrong. What I forget to think about is that these wrong ideas have consequences. These flawed ideologies empower those who work for the real villains, the bank employee, for example. I'm sure he doesn't like what he's doing to people, but he can console himself with the idea that it's just the market at work, which is like a force of nature that we messs with at our peril.<br /><br />I also watched a segment of 60 Minutes. It was about Wilmington, Ohio, where Airborne Express had been headquartered. Airborne employed 10,000 people there, all of whom were laid off after Airborne was acquired by DHL. The reason I mention it, is this. I've been wondering what the powers that be will end up calling the current financial crisis. It's obviously more than a garden variety recession and they're allergic to the use of the “D” word. Well, the reporter who was doing the segment called it the Great Recession. Bingo! I think they've found it.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-88530277552297429602009-12-13T10:22:00.001-05:002009-12-13T10:23:53.527-05:00Broken Americans?<span style="font-family:Arial;">Are American's a broken people? That's the question asked in the article to which I link below, and the answer is in the affirmative. The author thinks that's why we see so little active protest against the anti-people policies that have been coming out of Washington for quite some time.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/politics/144529/are_americans_a_broken_people_why_we%27ve_stopped_fighting_back_against_the_forces_of_oppression">http://www.alternet.org/politics/144529/are_americans_a_broken_people_why_we%27ve_stopped_fighting_back_against_the_forces_of_oppression</a><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-11111319534058513402009-12-13T04:20:00.003-05:002009-12-13T04:30:19.309-05:00Money-Laundering Banks<span style="font-family:Arial;">How about this, ladies and gents. According to the Guardian, the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime claims that the global banking system was saved from collapse at the height of the financial crisis by billions of dollars of drug money. Is it any surprise? Not to me, but if I'd written it before this statement from the UN official appeared, there are people who would have accused me of being a conspiracy theorist.<br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims">http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims</a></p></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-59532811346023675252009-12-11T10:19:00.001-05:002009-12-11T10:21:10.914-05:00Oh, The Disney Horror!<span style="font-family:Arial;">Mickey Mouse is reportedly in tears. Goofy is wandering the streets of Disney World in shock,and Donald Duck has fled south to join his avian cousins in warmer climes. And what has spurred this uproar in the world of Disney? Well, it seems that one Patrick Disney Miller, Walt's 42-year-old grandson, has been arrested for “possession of a firearm by a felon”.<br /><br />So, the Disney scion was strapped and he's a felon. How rich! According to the article that I read, the nature of the felony is not currently available. Disney fans are probably praying that it's a drug charge. That's almost to be expected of the offspring of the wealthy and famous. The worst probably has them lying awake at night. What if the man is a pedophile? Or, horror of horrors, what if he was caught getting a bit too intimate with the Disney fauna? What if it was something laughable, like distributing Disney porn? You know, comics of Goofy on Donald sex, or Daisy on Minny. The public wants to know for God's sake. Where is the National Inquirer when you really need them?!<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-72308340118730929252009-12-11T03:01:00.001-05:002009-12-11T03:03:54.625-05:00Torches And Pitchforks Watch<span style="font-family:Arial;">Oh, yeah, ye banksters. Be afraid, be very afraid.</span><br /><p><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span> </p><p><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/12/pitchfork-watch-vigilante-justice-against-banking-interests-rising.html">http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/12/pitchfork-watch-vigilante-justice-against-banking-interests-rising.html</a><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /></p></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-6696910767685450092009-12-10T17:11:00.002-05:002009-12-10T17:16:42.036-05:00Getting Ideas<span style="font-family:Arial;">I've been telling myself that I wouldn't write so much about politics. It would probably be healthier if I didn't, but I can't stop. It's all just so outrageous. However, in this entry, I'm going to get back to the topic of writing.<br /><br />People occasionally ask me how one gets ideas for writing. They seem to think that this is a difficult thing to do. I perused an article on just this topic by Dan Simmons, a successful scifi novelist. He says that he frequently has people come up to him at parties and such, telling him that they've got a great idea for a novel. They suggest things like, why don't you write the novel and we'll split the proceeds. They seem to think that coming up with the ideas is the hard part. Simmons, of course, politely declines. The fact is that ideas are easy to come by. It's the implementation that's a bitch.<br /><br />So, how do you go about it? Well, there are certain exercises. Here's one. Take three unrelated words and turn them into a story. I'm looking at an example now. It's in the book <em>Immediate Fiction: A Complete Writing Course</em>: albino, pistol and strawberry. An idea immediately comes to mind, admittedly not a very good one, but a viable idea nonetheless. You see, there's this hit man who has a passion for strawberries. He munches on them while waiting for his victims, and he always leaves one in their mouths. There's this police detective who is assigned to catch the hit man. He's an albino who is so without pigment that he is almost invisible by the light of the midday sun, and he catches the hit man when the hit man fails to see him at high noon. Like I said, not that good, but viable.<br /><br />However, I generally get my ideas in the form of a character in a certain situation. Here's one that came to me recently. I was thinking of those guys who propose to their girl friends at baseball games and such. That's pretty mundane, but what if the girl turned him down? That's a little more interesting, but it's probably happened a number of times. However, think of this scenario. The proposal comes up on the message board between innings. The stadium camera is on the couple. When the proposal is made, the woman gets a shocked expression on her face. Once she gets over the initial shock, she jumps to her feet and says, “No! No! No! This is our first date!” She then flees the stadium. Now you're getting more interesting. However, that's not something I'm going to follow up on. The kind of character that would pull such a stunt isn't of much interest to me.<br /><br />In the end, coming up with story ideas boils down to the same thing, no matter what the technique you use to get yourself going. It's directed daydreaming and, like anything else, it takes a certain amount of effort to learn, but it starts to come naturally soon enough. Unless you fight it, which some people do. They fear where the demons of the imagination will take them. You can't worry about that though. You've got to kiss your demons, then kick them in the ass, and tell them to get to work. You've got a story to write!<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13574471.post-44903804850408055072009-12-10T12:05:00.002-05:002009-12-10T12:08:33.908-05:00Contempt For Obama<span style="font-family:Arial;">As I've made abundantly clear, I'm no fan of Obama. However, I have been willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in regard to his motives. I thought it quite possible that he meant well, but has been caught up in the constraints of the office and the political realities in the USA. However, I'm no longer willing to give him that benefit of a doubt. I now have contempt for Obama. He's a moral degenerate.<br /><br />What pushed it over the line for me? It was some things he said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, a speech that he gave just a few short days after announcing an escalation of the war in Afghanistan. He justified that escalation by saying that sometimes nonviolence doesn't work. As an example, he gave Hitler and Germany. He's right. A nonviolent campaign wouldn't have stopped Hitler. He had to be opposed with military force. But look what Obama's doing. He's comparing the war in Afghanistan to the war to stop Hitler. However, the comparison isn't apt. In this war, we're more in the role of the Nazis than anything else. We're the country that's invaded Afghanistan, the country that has forced a government on those people run by a CIA asset whose brother is a drug lord, the country that's made it clear that we're going to stay until we've bent them to our will.<br /><br />Politics is said to be the art of the possible. Okay, I'll go along with that. But what was possible in regards to Afghanistan and the Peace prize? If Obama really feels that the war in Afghanistan is necessary, then he should have declined the prize. That would have been the honest thing to do. It is even possible that, had he handled it right, he could have accrued some political capital. But, no. He had to have his prize, so he conflated war with peace, just like every other president before him. Of course, that implies a definition of peace that is quite different from what you would find in the dictionary. When American politicians talk, peace is a state where the other nations of the world passively accept the dominion of the USA.<br /></span>Chuck Oliveroshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09195467154207850276noreply@blogger.com0