| Jewish holidays |
[22 May 2012|03:25am] |
You know I love Shavuos. I love staying up all night studying. I love the break. In fact, in my most burnt out state concerning converting, it was Shavuos that really focused my energies and reminded me that I loved Judaism (of course, the fact that I spent the time in "burnout" mode trying to get my ex-girlfriend back and once she was back, I was once again going to shul means that I was pretty damn mercenary in my decision making process. I wanted the girlfriend and the Judaism. Knew I couldn't have both. Hell, probably couldn't have the girlfriend in the long term regardless - well not as a girlfriend. We're still friends. I really should call her. Or email her. Just to say hi. Damn, it's been awhile. I'm a bad friend) and it was a total reminder of what I loved about college but religious.
And I still look forward to Shavuos. Ok, this year my omer count has been screwy and I missed a few days but I keep getting back.
But you know what I hate - the fact that Shavuos is coming right in the middle of the busy season which means that every single thing that I do right now needs to be done RIGHT NOW and it can't be pushed off until the weekend because I am not going to have a working weekend. I mean that's awesome, right? Because I keep bitching about losing my Sundays to work and I really bitched about it this last Sunday when I was inside and outside was beautiful. But tomorrow I gotta finish an 8 page paper on experimental film (somewhere in that I am going to slip in the phrase "what is this shit?") and then I got stuff that's due on Wednesday. Only I can't wait until Wednesday because it needs to be done right now because I am not going to wait until Wednesday and then get stuck with a whole bunch of work that needs to be done on Friday afternoon. No. Can't have that.
I am also going to a wedding in Los Angeles on the weekend after Shavuos but that's something that I can maybe possibly work around. I will take my laptop. I can do some work. But I am still going to crush all that work into the Tuesday-Thursday next week between the end of Shavuous and staying up on Thursday night to catch a 630 flight. I could say getting up early but since its 330 now and I was planning on getting to bed at midnight tonight - yeah I'm more likely to just stay up.
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| Jewish Voices - the shitty little newspaper that could not |
[22 May 2012|01:49am] |
I have a friend on FB that I met because I interviewed for Jewish Voices for an editor position. Apparently the newspaper is run by some Israeli guy who LOVES Glenn Beck and never met a pro-Israel position he didn't love. That's not why I didn't get the job. I write term papers for college students. A job is a job and money is money. However, I was overqualified and I knew that I was overqualified as soon as I got to the office and realized that even though I had never been an editor at a newspaper, I still knew more about running a place like that than anyone there. Besides that the writers were "volunteers" (no pay) and the writing was really shitty. So I was happy that the job went to some librarian.
Anyhow, I have done my best to mock Jewish Voices whenever I can because frankly, it's a terribly written newspaper that makes most of its circulation from telling paranoid Brooklyn Jews that the sky is falling and that their paranoia is justified. It's mostly a friendly jibing for this friend who really should get out of the damn place and STOP WORKING FOR AN ISRAELI, but I am mostly polite.
Only recently, he went out looking for new writers and stating that it was a FUN job. Of course, advertising a writing gig that pays in "FUN" or "exposure" or "networking opportunities" or anything but "money" is my red flag. Of course, it's not Daniel's fault that he works for a fucking Israeli who can't be bothered to PAY for any of the material that is going into his newspaper. And it's not his fault that there are dozens of stupid writers who are willing to be assholes and take part in a system of exploitation. But it IS problematic when he starts acting like he believes in any of the bullshit about how working for a shitty local non-paying paper is some kind of opportunity. Yeah, he got to meet Shmucky Boteach because Shmucky Boteach is a fucking media whore. But that's not an opportunity. That's a terrible date.
Today, he was bitching because all of the writers that he got on short notice were 6 hours late on their deadline. I tried to be sarcastic but not too sarcastic since he knew my position (something like "there's something I should be saying here") but he got pissed. Ok, he was already pissed but he did strike back with "just because you can't get into Jewish Voices doesn't mean you should sour things."
Which is funny because if I wrote for Jewish Voices, they'd be begging me to keep writing for them. Seriously, it's a terrible terrible newspaper. And I would say that if it had an editorial policy that agreed with my particular biases complete with a weekly "Best of Christopher Hitchens" reprint, because it doesn't pay the writers so garbage in garbage out.
This guy has got to get away from this newspaper. Seriously, it's not his fault that he works for a newspaper that contributes to the systematic exploitation of writers and the bullshit idea that writers should work for free. But on the other hand, Jewish Voices DOES exploit writers and plays off of the belief that they should work for free and as long as he works for this bullshit newspaper, he is going to get stuck editing some of the most putrid prose this side of a book by Open Casket or Undead Press.
But yeah, just in case you don't get the point - Jewish Voices is a terrible newspaper because it does NOT pay the writers. If Jewish Voices were to PAY the writers, maybe Jewish Voices would not be such a shitty shitty newspaper. It doesn't matter that Jewish Voices has a pro-Glenn Beck bias (as silly as that might be) but if only Jewish Voices were to PAY THE WRITERS then Jewish Voices - the Brooklyn based newspaper for rightwing cranks who wear yarmulkes - might actually sound like the kind of newspaper that adults read. But as it stands, Jewish Voices uses "volunteer" writers and they are the worst writers available because only really shitty writers would be dumb enough to think that writing for Jewish Voices is a stepping stone to anything but more bad columns in Jewish Voices.
I wonder if Google caught that yet.
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| It's official. Mayim Bialik creeps me the fuck out |
[20 May 2012|01:54pm] |
For Orthodox Jews, Mayim Bialik is like our Sandy Kovacs or whatever Jewish baseball player was famous when egg cream was around. Jews are represented in the media and some would say over-represented in the media but Orthodox Jews - that's a tough one. Oh sure, we've tried to latch on to Dr. Laura, Kirk Douglas and Jackie Mason. But seriously, these people just don't work for us - too stereotypical, too old, too much of an evil bitch, etc. (ok there was a time when Dr. Laura was THE Jewish celebrity beloved of Orthodox Jewish communities. And then her feelings got hurt when she was not declared the moshiach.) Beyond that, what are we going to see emulating us? The Jews who light candles on Friday night, look for meal invites, eat kosher and attempt to find kosher alternatives to bacon? Who play way too much Settlers of Katan until it becomes obvious that Fima wins every damn game? There's that Israeli show about Orthodox Jewish singles. We can always laugh at The Chosen. There are only so many times you can watch The Big Lebowski and not everyone wants to hear Shomer Fucking Shabbos at the Shabbos table.
Apparently no one is lining up to talk about Tim Lieder, author of a few stories and publisher of many fine titles with Dybbuk Press.
So Mayim Bialik became the frum Jewish celebrity - famous, shomer negia (even on television where she plays a character just as autistic as Sheldon), keeps kosher and brings up Jewish topics on her FB fan page. Oh sure, she's a vegan and she's famous for starring on some REALLY BAD television shows. But hey, we'll pretend that The Big Bang Theory is decent or at least not condescending in the way it panders to geek culture and makes bullying out to be HILARIOUS at least when done by an autistic manchild.
But now she's got Attachment Parenting on her brain. And suddenly all the other stuff - the vegan lifestyle, the Orthodox Judaism - it all comes together in one very smug package. Oh don't get me wrong. There are plenty of Orthodox Jews and even baali tshuva Orthodox Jews who are NOT smug assholes who like to push the superiority that they think they've discovered in Judaism on everyone else. There are plenty of Vegans who are cool and don't preach the Vegan gospel at every opportunity. There are plenty of Attachment Parenting advocates who aren't Stepford Wives who in the immortal words of the song "Pregnant Women are Smug" find everything beyond motherhood to be so trivial.
But you got someone who is into AP, Veganism AND Orthodox Judaism - you got a recipe for a person who is a smug asshole who sees their way as the best way. It's the overlap of non-asshole contingent in these groups.
So now the Mayim Bialik FB fan page is just full of bits about how Shmucky Boteach is wrong in declaring AP parents weird, pride that her kid is the poster child for breastfeeding into toddler years and people saying that she knows best because she's the mother and she has experience over the "experts." That sounds great until you realize that experience and academic knowledge are two different things and that experience is not going to automatically trump academic knowledge. It could. But not always. For example, doctors and midwives did not wash their hands until the middle of the 19th century and this wonderful TRADITIONAL method of child birth killed millions. Yet when the hygiene standards were introduced, they were resisted for the same reasons - because some so-called "expert" tells doctors to wash their hands, he automatically thinks he's better than all these doctors who have YEARS of experience.
So that's creepy. Also Attachment Parenting seems to reduce women to baby machines and the extremes of staying with the kid 24/7 just doesn't sound healthy for anyone. I wonder how betrayed they will feel when their kids really want to be left alone. No seriously, get the fuck out of my room and put that away. I'm 11.
Also, she doesn't vaccinate her kids and she uses pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo to justify the decision. So dangerously smug.
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| Short word on non-paying markets |
[19 May 2012|11:45pm] |
Mandy DeGeit (sorry I have been calling her Mary) is selling the story that Tony G butchered on Kindle for 99 cents and I do hope that she makes money at it. That's a smart way to capitalize on a viral blog post. If you are the author of a post that goes viral, definitely promote the shit out of yourself. This is why I've been trying to get an article on Cracked for about 3 months (VERY close on three of them - and no time - especially not this weekend when I have about 7 things to finish by tomorrow night) in hopes that out of the 400,000 or so people who read those articles, a couple hundred will follow the link in the author bio at the end.
However, I stated that I wasn't going to buy it because she is too inexperienced in the writing world to avoid non-paying market. The person I was replying to claimed that it doesn't mean that because business acumen and good writing are two different things and I wouldn't think that everyone with business acumen is a good writer, would I?
Of course, that's a logical fallacy. One of the most basic ones. A means B but B does not necessarily mean A. Now if I were to say that A and only A means B, then yes, B would mean A.
And I am not going to tell you how long ago it was that I took that Logic class.
Regardless, I stand by the statement that a decent writer has enough experience to know that you don't give your stories away for free. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't talented writers who have stories in free markets - but these aren't their best stories. These are the stories that they gave away. The talent is not yet developed enough to produce stories that I would want to read.
So a writer who does not have the (very minimal) business acumen to know that they should not give their stories to free markets has not been around long enough to write stories that are worth reading. That's true if they are submitting to Tony G or the dozens of non-paying markets that you find on duotrope.
one caveat: the literary college magazine non-paying sales can be leveraged for professor jobs so maybe they got something going.
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| random comic cover |
[18 May 2012|03:14am] |
I actually looked this one up. Apparently Black Mask is a business rival who was humiliated by Bruce Wayne. And then became a major crime figure.
But really, Little Orphan Batman is beating the shit out of Indiana Jones with the decapitated head of Darkseid (take that, Kirby!)
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| Editing as such |
[17 May 2012|11:49am] |
One of the things about the Mary De Geit (Degeit) fiasco is that it talks about what an editor can and cannot do. I really did hear Tony G say something about how he doesn't like to edit anyone at AnthoCon. I'm not just making that up. Apparently, when he does edit a work, he decides to completely rewrite it so that in some way he is self-publishing.
A lot of people are also saying that the major publishers don't edit that way. Of course, the major publishers have the luxury of working with professional writers who have already honed their craft.
( blah blah the editor does this... )
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| Anthony Giangregorio - Internet Tough Guy |
[16 May 2012|08:48pm] |
I posted this back in November when Giangregorio found my blog. This is the original post - http://marlowe1.livejournal.com/1984953.html - but I wrote a lot and this is the part that's really hilarious:Open Casket Press has no such capacity for insight. As you might remember, I recently castigated Open Casket in this post and this followup. Basically, I was saying that I met him at Anthocon, tried talking to the owner for about 10 minutes before realizing that he was a complete idiot and then looked at his Web site and discovered that he was even stupider than I thought. This is the market that a writer needs to avoid if a writer has ANY aspirations to doing this as a living. He offers a "complimentary copy" for stories as long as they are above 4000 words and you don' t live outside the U.S. He also demands that you put your story into single spaced format with the margins just so, meaning that the whole Ctrl-A function eludes him but really meaning that he will take absolutely no responsibility for editing your story before it goes out into the world (I believe he actually said that he respects the writers too much to edit their stories at Anthocon) so any typo, any phrase that doesn't look right - there it goes out into the world in some shitty anthology that he churns out on a monthly basis it seems like.
He finally discovered my blog entries. Must have been easy considering that no one reviews his books except for the writers that he dupes into giving their stories to him. So this is his response:
TIM LIEDER
i saw those hateful things you said about me on the internet and for the life of me dont understand why you did this. i have found people are very brave on the internet. lets see you put your money where your mouth is. give me your phone number and i will call you or i can give you mine and if you have something to say to me, then call me and tell me what your problem is. instead of bitching on the internet, why didnt you come over to me and talk to me about anything you felt was an issue? but to go head and then slander me on the internet, why, i dont understand this mentality. hope you reply. also, i am posting this on the OCP FB page so everyone else out there can know how you act. And I DARE you to want to call me and discuss this like men.
The fact of the matter is that I wrote those entries precisely because I didn't know how much of an idiot he was when I met him. By the time I found his Web site, I couldn't called him a stupid asshole to his face since I was on a bus back to New York. But once I made those statements, I stand by them. I really have nothing to add to them. If you don't pay the writers and you don't even take the time to EDIT their stories, then you are a terrible market and no one should write with you. I'm supposed to call him and talk about this issue? Maybe I should call up my fundamentalist Christian aunt and explain why Jesus is bullshit while I'm at it. If he can't figure out what I'm saying after I've written it twice on my livejournal, then I really don't think that he's going to get it when I talk to him in person. I tried to explain and got:
Ok, my friend, I look forward to meeting you in person and (shaking) your hand. Are you gonna be at NeEcon in July? I will, and i will be looking for you. keep an eye out for me.
Oh and Tim, my wife cant wait to meet you too. She has a few "choice" words to say to you and about your ancestry.
ok, i'm done with you, youre not worth my time. See you in July asshole.
Ooh, a vague threat that doesn't even reach Nick Pacione levels of delusion. And he has a wife who thinks that "your mother is a whore" is going to leave me shaking. I wonder if I should go to NeCon. Apparently Joe Hill goes and I would love to meet him.
Anyhow I responded by saying that if I saw him at NeCon or Anthocon that I would make sure to inform anyone that he was talking to that he was a non-paying, non-editing market and they might as well stick their stories up on their blogs if they think that he's going to do anything for them. In fact, blog stories are going to get more "exposure" which is really the only thing that you are offered from this kind of market. As a bonus, you don't get stuck with a shitty book full of terrible stories.
I also mentioned that if he ever deemed to pay the writers or edit the stories that I would take him off the shit list of publishers I mock on a semi-regular basis. I'm not going to say that I would apologize to him because I stand by what I said.
His last salvo after banning me (because you always have to get the last word in and there's no way that you could ever see your press being mocked further in any forum after you ban someone on FB)
you are some piece of work, pal. i cant wait to meet you. be looking for you next year at anthocon.
Again, note the vague threat that doesn't really say that he's going to do anything. What's he gonna do? Sweat on me? Have his wife yell at me? Cry when I repeat everything I say here?
Obviously what he's not going to do is listen to any criticism. He is the ultimate in pathetic losers who think that they can make a go at publishing. He will not pay the writers. He will not edit the stories. Instead, he will put out book after book of bullshit bad writing and wonder why people avoid him at Cons when he's trying to get them to give him stories all the while saying choice things like "my books don't sell well" as if that is some accident of fate instead of the direct result of his neglect of putting any effort into actually putting out decent books. I still love the fact that he is threatening me with HIS WIFE. His wife is going to say things about my ancestry. Does she have a lot of off-color and offensive jokes about Hungarians?
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| Tony G bitches and threatens some more |
[16 May 2012|08:37pm] |
Open Casket Guy uses a veiled threat to put a woman in her place. As much as he has a history of making these kinds of threats (he's not Nicky but he's pretty vile), I do hope that she calls the police on him. Regardless, this should be publicized because whether he intended to come over and do her harm (highly unlikely) or make her think that he was coming over (most likely but still a form of assault), this is not behavior that should be tolerated in anyone.
I'm sure he makes a lovely dinner guest.
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| Judaism and gay marriage |
[15 May 2012|04:31pm] |
Running out the door but I have become increasingly irritated with the Orthodox Jews who are falling back on the "it's explicitly forbidden in the Torah and we should push that on the rest of the country." argument. So irritated that I start bringing up all the creepy shit that the Torah (Oral more than Written) claims is integral to a "traditional marriage" - marrying 12 year old girls, buying them from their fathers, polygamy, rape victims marrying their rapists with the only recourse being a bridal price and the fact that the rapist can never divorce her.
That last one Rabbi Goldberger in Saint Louis Park tried to mitigate by saying that it wasn't really like that rape and someone mentioned serial rapists and he said that it's a bigger punishment because the guy gets stuck with a lot of wives. No one laughed at the lame joke. Rabbi Goldberger is one of those assholes advocating for an anti-gay marriage amendment in Minnesota - or at least he was back in 2004. He is really obsessed with gay dudes. He also seems more focused on what women wear.
I bet he LOVES the part of the wedding where men get to dance with each other.
Just saying.
But seriously, I didn't think I'd get pissed off enough to bring up the horrifying shit that was once considered Traditional Marriage - we study it but we don't follow it. Oh we have fallen so much from the Torah that we refrain from buying 12 year old girls.
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| Tony G strikes again - gets called an idiot by Neil Gaiman |
[14 May 2012|11:45pm] |
I'm almost jealous. I don't think Neil Gaiman knows about me. He certainly hasn't submitted any Bible themed stories to King David & The Spiders from Mars (even reprints for $100 advance against royalties). But he did call Tony G an idiot for this story - http://mandydegeit.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/when-publishing-goes-wrong-starring-undead-press/
You can go to http://marlowe1.livejournal.com/1979914.html and see my encounter with him. The difference between his self-image and his actual skills was astounding. Man, he really TALKED like he knew everything about publishing (you can see that in the Mandy blog post where he tells her how publishing is done) but everything coming out of his mouth was utterly stupid and without merit. Hell, according to my friend, he was heard trying to get someone to submit to his press (Undead, Open Casket - it changed) by telling them that he didn't sell many books.
I do have one caveat in the Tony G bashing - it's not like he sounds like a publishing company that you want to work with from his Web site. The pay is idiotic (complimentary copy as long as you live in the United States and it's over 4000 words - wouldn't want to put you out) and his page is full of lines like WE ARE ACCEPTING NOVEL AND NOVELLA (40k min word count but more is better) SUBMISSIONS FOR ZOMBIE FICTION, APOCALYPTIC FICTION AND MAYBE EVEN REGULAR HORROR IF THE STORY IS SPECIAL. These aren't the kind of things that writers should be trained to look out for. These are the kind of things that ANYONE should be able to spot. If the editor of a publishing company writes in all caps and doesn't quite know how to write, then that's a big indicator that there's no point in submitting.
Oh sure, there are plenty of people who want to be writers and see their names in print and they are going to submit regardless, under the mistaken impression that this will somehow give them writing careers. But we all have to learn eventually. With Tony G, some people just learn much sooner.
Addendum: What I find ironic is the fact that when I met him, one of the things he said was that he was reluctant to edit anyone's story. Like he didn't think he had the right. Now I find out he's putting dog rape scenes in the stories that he obtains. Damn.
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| Spoilers - a discussion |
[14 May 2012|01:48pm] |
I have been reading a lot of stories for King David and the Spiders from Mars that bored me because I knew what was happening in them. Of course, that's the problem with editing an anthology based on a text that I know well. I'm sure that if I edited an anthology on stories based on the Bagavhad-Ghita, I would totally read these stories with fresh eyes, but as it stands, I know the stories. I know how Saul dies. I know what happens to Saul's killer. I know that it doesn't go well with him when he visits the Witch of Endor.
This adds just one more level of critical smarm. I don't just want stories based on Bible stories. I want stories based on Bible stories that surprise and entertain me, even when I know the endings. Of course, that's what I got in She Nailed a Stake Through His Head. I know what's going to happen to Lyda's poor protagonist, married to Samson and not Delilah. I know what's going to happen with the Witch of Endor story. The Jonah story is told in reverse with the ending first. Some of the stories take radical departures from the text or write stories that are not readily apparent from the texts, but there are quite a few of them in which the story is well known.
I forgot how many stories I read in the slush pile where I was bored. And it's not the writer's fault that I'm bored with these stories so much. In one case, I told the writer to change the names so it's not obvious that they are the Bible characters. But for the most part, I am reading stories where I've already been spoiled and I'm looking for reasons to keep reading. The characters and writing need to be compelling because they are holding up the lack of a plot. I need characters who are more than their story functions. They cannot be the Wily Assassin or the Crazy King. There must be something else to them.
And so the best stories are ones that cannot be spoiled. I am reading plenty of stories where the spoiler happened in Sunday School or college (you think they would teach us Samuel in Sunday School?) and I've read them several times. I want stories that are spoiler proof. But I wonder if I am putting too much pressure on myself and the writers. I found maybe 2-3 stories that I love so far and a lot that I put in the Maybe pile - not entirely certain if I want to buy them.
Still I'm watching Before Sunset and loving it all over again. I know the story. I've told other people the story. Hell, Linklater is really doing nothing much more than "Don't get on the plane!" only varying it up (by comparison Before Sunrise was LOVE MONTAGE only without the music or the jump cuts or anything afterwards). And the really classic books, I can read them over and over again.
I suppose that's what I want to publish with Dybbuk Press - classics. In the most basic definition of the term - books that you can read now, in ten years, books that your kids can read that are still relevant.
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| Standard Submission Format - it's fun. It's easy. It will keep me from rejecting your story unread. |
[14 May 2012|02:35am] |
I often bitch/complain/criticize editors for putting out bullshit submission guidelines. There are editors who have yet to figure out that there's an internet (or that the people who choose NOT to print out their stories and spend money on stamps and SASE's are actually talented writers who don't have time for your bullshit). There are the editors who ask for single spaced, 11 point font with exact margins. There are even those editors who want to read your story BLIND as in no contact information whatsoever because it's all about the words, man! No name recognition is going to taint my editing process. I don't want you to think that I'm rejecting you because I don't KNOW you, man!
These are bullshit games that editors play. They always have the same bullshit excuse about how they know they can't work with a writer if the writers doesn't toe the line. The problem is that these people aren't putting out quality work. David Baker had a publishing company before I had one (I think it was called Rabid) and if the one book (out of three) that he put out was any indication, he REALLY loved books written by people who were told "oh all those stories you tell me about the real estate business are SO FASCINATING. No really, you should write a book. You really should write a book. In fact, you should write a book so much that I would be careful about telling me those stories lest someone STEALS them from you and makes a million off of your stories." (This is my best explanation for the phrase "I should write a book. All my friends tell me that I should write a book.")
But yeah, non-Standard Submissions that ask for shit like single spaced or 11 point fonts or NO COURIER are signs of mental illness. An editor that adheres to these weird guidelines because he wants to see if you are willing to change shit up in order to get into his zine is not worth the trouble.
The printout only editors are fucking dinosaurs. Yes, email is much faster than printing a story out and sending it via the post office. You know what else is faster than taking the long way? EVERYTHING. Including porn. But are we going to say that those VHS tapes are better porn than internet porn? No fucking way. Yes, it's easier to send an email. And you know what? It's so much easier to send an email that the good writers who actually write the kind of stories that you would suck a crackhead's dick to get are NOT SENDING THEM TO YOU. Because you're a fucking dinosaur.
Of course, the editors with the no contact information guidelines are idiots. We're not in college guys. We don't give a flying fuck if you publish stories that your bud sent you. Readers only care if the stories are good or bad and it doesn't matter if you guys have a prior relationship.
But Standard Submission Format - it's easy. You can read it without straining your eyes. Right there on the first page is your fucking contact information. Is that so hard? And I'm not going to be a douchebag and reject stories for not adhering to all the tenets of Standard (if you want to send a story in Garamond font, be my guest. Oh hell. I'll be generous. I can even read your comic sans masterpiece - probably after I change the font to courier). But fucking be familiar with it at least.
Anyhow I just rejected two stories in a row for not adhering to Standard Submission. The first one I was nice and said that I had read it or at least skimmed it and might have done more if it was in Standard (as in this story had a chance for further consideration) but the second one - very short note.
It might have been the most brilliant story in the world but the fact that I had to look up the email address of origin means rejection.
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| OMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....like zen dude |
[13 May 2012|09:40pm] |
We don't really believe most of the stuff that we think we believe. Most of the time we just WANT to believe in this stuff. We may feel like total shit when we contradict ourselves because the need for the belief has passed.
That's not to say that you don't really believe in Marxism, Christianity, Judaism, G-d, the American Dream, etc.
But most of the time when you think that you believe something strongly and you spout off about it at every opportunity you get, usually you just think that you NEED to have that belief in order to make your life easier.
Usually for me that means that I believe that I'm TOTALLY IN LOVE with a woman who doesn't need or want me for any purpose beyond the adoration that strokes her ego, and after awhile not even that. (Hi Dassie) Afterwards, it turns out that I didn't want to get into the messy loneliness of dating so I just fixated on one woman and had a sad little self-involved infatuation. Because it's still better than dating an abusive woman. Or a drug addict.
But there were other points in which I believed in Kahane, fundamentalist Christianity, Wicca, radical leftwing politics, etc.
Of course, the way to figure out if the belief is just standing in for an emotional need usually lies in the intensity of the belief. And of course, the intensity is even better at fooling one into believing that the belief is solid and unchanging.
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| Annoyances |
[13 May 2012|09:32pm] |
Bristol Palin says stupid shit on her blog. The fact that she's related to a polarizing political figure means that this kind of stupid shit is news. Of course, the next day she wrote something fairly intelligent about how women shouldn't be judged by their appearances, especially when they are not wearing make-up and how this turns us all into jackals. This does not get picked up by every news organization in the nation or mocked on SNL.
On the other hand, Malaysia convenes a court and convicts Bush and Cheney of war crimes. Of course, at this point we throw around the term war crimes so often that it's meaningless. Used to mean that war crimes were confined to acts of genocide and the use of weapons so horrific that they were banned. But hey, good job Malaysia. Now if only you guys can refrain from electing an antisemitic president, maybe someone will take you seriously.
But back to Bristol Palin. The statement was on the blog. It's a stupid statement written by a 23 year old woman who got pushed into the media center by her mother's vice presidency run (and her unfortunate decision to have unprotected sex in 2008). But really, she's a young woman with stupid opinions.
I think I was ready to go to her blog and respond to that. I really felt like responding.
The thing about this attention is that it's not only giving weight to someone who really doesn't need this kind of attention, but it's also unfairly setting the wolves on someone who doesn't really need that kind of attention. Oh sure, I would love the kind of attention that Bristol Palin gets. Hell, it would be hilarious to read on CNN "Tim Lieder Calls Jello Biafra a Fossil who caters to Angry College Students." But even I would be a little wary of the attention (unless of course the first line of the story read "Tim Lieder, author and editor of several books including Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre and She Nailed a Stake Through His head, stated yesterday..." because that would drive up my sales) and hundreds of people coming to my blog to tell me what a fucking asshole I am for saying that?
Not a good sign.
So basically, the attention paid to Brisol Palin bothers me twice.
1. She is a 23 year old woman who said a stupid thing and doesn't really have much claim to being an expert at anything.
2. She is a 23 year old woman who said a stupid thing and that does not justify hundreds of people rushing over to her blog to tell her that she's a skank whore (not that I've read the comments section, but it's amazing how people can meet your expectations).
23 year old people should be stupid.
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| Jello Biafra - you poor bastard |
[13 May 2012|10:30am] |
I recently read an editorial by Biafra in Al Jazeera about his ambivalence towards the boycott Israel movement that's sweeping the annoying rock musician contingent. He said that he went there on his own and met with Israeli club owners who were just as much against actions in Gaza as everyone boycotting it. That wasn't so important as the tone of the article - defensive, attempting to convince everyone that he's still just as committed to radical politics as he's ever been, calling upon people to stop with the infighting - the same as it ever was.
Reminded me of his lecture at the U of MN where he criticized Nirvana for censoring their CD's for sale at K Mart, ranted against the ascent of Hollywood Video and Blockbuster and lectured on the rise of the Christian Right, stating that "they hate us just as much as we hate them." (it got a big cheer - second only to his suggestion that we give Noam Chomsky a job in the White House as Minister of Finance or whatever - holy fuck that'd be a terrible idea - can you imagine that professional scold with actual power?)
He wrapped up that lecture with a call for leftwing radicals to stop the infighting and stop condemning each other for not upholding a standard (something along the lines of the vegetarians and the vegans should stop fighting and should stop looking down their noses at meat-eating comrades if the point is to protest a war). It was almost the same thing he was stating in the Al Jazeera article.
The problem with this thesis is that Jello Biafra has one particular audience - the pissed off, overtly political student (whether its high school or college). And no matter how much he may decry the way his audience falls into smaller and smaller fringe groups, that's what they do. By definition, a college radical is smug and self-righteous. Biafra's target audience gets off on having the moral high ground and it's usually a moral high ground that is opposed to their parents' beliefs in some way. If you get off on having the moral high ground, you may talk a good game about how everyone should get together to fight oppression, but you are going to be actively looking for ways to be the People's Judea Front instead of the People's Front of Judea.
So Jello Biafra may bitch and rant about how no one can come together for whatever leftwing cause he finds important, but he cultivates that extreme sectarianism. If you are the kind of person to get along with everyone and see things from other people's viewpoints, actively looking for compromise, you don't listen to Jello Biafra - except in maybe a nostalgic "was I really this pompous" way.
And it's not even the good nostalgia either. No one loses their virginity to a Dead Kennedys album.
Also, I don't think that Blockbuster heralded a theocratic dictatorship. And porn survived just fine, thank you.
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| One of those Moshe moments |
[13 May 2012|01:44am] |
When Moshe Herz was my roommate (I'm told from reliable sources that his entire family is full of villainy and bitterness) he came back from Florida where he went with his sidekick Jay. They had been in Florida for Pesach because apparently that's where young drunk Jews go for the the Singles scene when they want to avoid their families. I saw him in Shul where he greeted me with surprise at my hair (it was just blue then) and then I said a few things to the girl that he was hitting on (in his sketchy way) and I thought nothing of it.
Instead he was pissed. Normally I don't give a fuck about Moshe or his attempts at hitting on women but apparently I threw off his game or some bullshit like that. He would bitch about it a few times. Whenever I saw him talking to females, I was supposed to back off, stay away, leave him to his prey. Whatever.
But since that night I was eating with his friend Jay, I ended up with him bitching about how I had cock blocked him. Meanwhile Jay was trying to make conversation about some football player they met in Florida who was always fucking women (yeah, he's a celebrity. They are called groupies). Only Moshe didn't care. He was just eating and staring at me. Of course, every time Jay asked for help in the kitchen I would help. Moshe just sat. Because Moshe doesn't get up or do shit for anyone.
By the end of the meal, I helped Jay a little but I finally just left because I didn't really give a shit about cleaning up after Jay. Besides that, not once did Jay ask Moshe to help with anything. Not that Mose would help. He's a spoiled entitled creep.
And now Moshe is in Florida in law school - a law school that he chose for its proximity to beaches. Well he's probably dropped out by now.
But if he hasn't - DO NOT hire him as your lawyer. Seriously, this guy is too fucking lazy for words.
Amazing how that memory strikes. Just the three of us - Moshe eating and staring at me. Jay going "he's got like 20 numbers of women that he could fuck at any moment" and me wondering when it's going to end.
That might be the worst Shabbos meal I've endured. Usually I like Shabbos meals. There's also Baruch Cline the lubavitch bully who is racist, but that wasn't as creepy. Just bothersome.
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| King David & the Spiders from Mars update |
[13 May 2012|12:34am] |
Just in case anyone is checking this blog because they submitted to King David & the Spiders from Mars, I have 33 stories left to read from the slush pile. The oldest one says that I put it in the folder on March 14. The next one is March 16. So if you submitted a story in the first half of March and haven't heard back from me, I am still considering it.
I read it once. I put it in the Maybe file because I wanted to give it careful consideration before rejecting or accepting it. This is the triage part of the slush pile reading.
I should get through the Unread pile this week. It's been crazy with the term papers but I know how frustrating it is to wait for a submission response. So I do apologize to everyone who has submitted. My goal is to get a TOC by mid-June.
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| Dr Doom knows how to PAAAARTAY!!!! |
[12 May 2012|10:20pm] |
My friend loaned me her copy of a collected works of the Uncanny X-Men - somewhere in between when Jean Grey died for the first time (RIP broccoli planet) and before I started reading it in the mid-80s (Storm's mohawk is a fucking cultural icon)!
But I just looked at this and I had to laugh and laugh. Knowing that this cover is supposed to mean that Dr. Doom came in and just beat the crap out of everyone does not mitigate the fact that this looks like the best fucking party in Marvel history. It's the cup that does it. He could have just been holding up a big old fist or scepter or something tacky. But he's got a jewel-encrusted cup that you know did not come from the Xavier Kitchen.
So it's a party! And it's Doom's party! And if you didn't come to party, what are you doing with Doom? Oh sure, Kitty Pryde wasn't invited because she's underage and Cyclops is having one of his existential crises. I'm sure Beast has better things to do and no one invites Ice Man to these things. But Nightcrawler and Colossus are just going to be nursing some hangovers. Angel probably flew into the roof while Wolverine is waiting for the next lap dance.
As for Storm - well, she's going to claim that NOTHING happened. Oh sure, they went into her room for a while but they weren't DOING ANYTHING. Just TALKING. And sure it got a little loud and there were moans, but that just meant that they had a disagreement over politics and stuff and besides it's none of your business, so stop looking at me like that.
The X-Men/Fantastic Four Team-ups will never be the same again.
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