My Vast Empire

Even though it seems like the fad of blogging has peaked, there are those of us who soldier on, typically in obscurity, getting hits mostly from people googling "I hate symantec" or "beyond fringe peter cook bench." I don't know whether the typical blogger maintains one site or more, but I doubt that many attempt what I've attempted: I have four blogs. (I used to have five, but I deleted one. That blog name now sells jackets. I wonder if I could sue them?) Juggling that many blogs can be cumbersome, and I have thought about deleting or abandoning some of them, but have decided to keep them and use each according to its own purpose.

The following is a summary of how I intend to use each blog:

This, of course, is the central blog. Originally created to promote the radio show I developed, I use it now as a kind of all-purpose emporium of my thoughts and notions. This will continue, with the emphasis being put on social issues (such as my recent post on arts competitions) rather than politics. Flights of whimsy, passing thoughts, and random reflections will predominate.

The next blog I maintain is the one devoted to the progress of my novel, Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. Since the novel is now complete, I will probably use it to track my progress in marketing it. Of course, right now, the most important aspect of it is that it get people to VOTE FOR MY NOVEL in the First Chapters Competition at Gather.com. Join the expectant crowd gathering now and read the first chapter of Michael Drayton, Detective Guy and maybe vote!

The third blog I maintain is now called Shooting Off My Fat Trap, and it features my thoughts on the current political scene. Since I have no illusions about my lack of influence, this is a place where I just spout off and have a good time making fun of our leaders. Try it. It may just be the least successful political blog in the entire blogosphere.

The fourth blog is perhaps my favorite, but it is, unfortunately, dormant. It is called The Conning Tower after the column of the same name by Franklin Pierce Adams. It is a compendium of short, usually light, verse, jokes, anecdotes, and other miscellany. In order to work right, though, it needs outside contributions and only one guy was sending me stuff regularly. That turned out to be a lot of material for me to churn out while holding down a job and living life as I find it. And so, it has gone into a gentle coma, awaiting its opportunity to awaken.

The Novel Competition

You can now read the first chapter of my novel. It will be up for 14 days or until March 27th.

The Competitive Arts

I have been reading lately on Baby Got Books about something called The Tournament of Books at a site called The Morning News. What they do is to set up pairs of books in brackets in imitation of the NCAA basketball format and have judges (I'm not sure what actually qualifies someone as being a judge) decide which book is better. The winner then moves up to the next bracket and the loser is consigned to the dustbin of history.

While on its face this might seem like a rather fun and innocuous pastime, the trouble is that the perpetrators of it forget one thing: Art is not a competition.

Now, of course, they merely represent an entire society that forgets that. We have the Oscars, the Emmys, the Grammys, the Tonys, the Bills, the Freds, and the Nancys, none of which really amounts to a pile of warm spit. There are also, the Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Awards, and many other specifically for books. Now, don't get me wrong, if somebody out there wanted to give me a prize, I would gladly show up and give them thanks for loading me up with this tripe. That's just being polite.

Sports, politics, and war are related elements of the human character. The point of each is to win and pursuit of that victory must be total, dogged, and complete. This is why participants in each are always at risk of cheating--whether by taking performance enhancing drugs or tampering with the mechanisms of voting or using biological or chemical weapons or blowing up innocents with car bombs--since winning is everything, it is easy enough to rationalize winning in unethical ways.

However, there is no cheating in art. The point is not to win, but rather to explain, point out, and question. The artist tries to tell the truth or whatever portion of the truth they think they have a grasp on in as palatable a way as they can figure out how to.

Sports and art exist in different worlds. Sports are based in the objective. Either you get more points or the other guy does. Or fewer, depending on the sport. Even that event in the Olympics that mystifies so many men, that part of the gymnastics programs in which young ladies dance around while holding ribbon-bedecked sticks, is a competition with winners and losers who have been judged by an allegedly unbiased panel of experts. Despite the inherent subjectivity of being rated, there are still specific things that must be done and no amount of stylistic flourishes will compensate for falling off the mat or bumping into a spectator.

Art lives in the subjective. While a consensus concerning the value of a given work can be arrived at over time (usually a period of generations), it will always strike different auditors differently. My experience of "Starry Night" or "Eine Kliene Nachtmusik" or "Hamlet" or "A Tale of Two Cities" will always be different from yours, sometimes radically so. What mystifies one may delight another and no one can really explain why.

While the purveyors of the various arts awards and competitions may have the best of intentions, putting works of art in competition with one another debases them all. It takes the sublime and tries to make it concrete and attempts to reduce the ineffable to the pedestrian. The only exceptions are the Nobel Prize and any Lifetime Achievement awards, both of which reward a body of work for the simple act of being.

You Should Have Gotten It in Writing, Love

I just read a story on E! Online (courtesy of my My Yahoo! homepage--and yes, the Internet makes you type some damned strange things sometimes) concerning the divorce settlement being negotiated between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills:

Under the terms of the couple's alleged agreement, Mills will reportedly drop those demands and will in turn receive $48 in cash, plus a Georgian mansion worth $8 million.

Heather really should've held out for an even $50. Paul's got it. Just look inside his right shoe.

The Contest

I've just posted an item about entering the First Chapters contest on my Michael Drayton, Detective Guy blog

Let's Call It Adieu

I just finished the first complete draft of "Michael Drayton, Detective Guy." It stands at 42,000 words over 18 chapters, and I will submit it to the First Chapters contest tomorrow. I'll post the details about the contest and how people can vote for their favorites. (I believe it involves signing up on Gather.com, but that's free.)

In the meantime, I'm just stunned. After that passes, I'm going to go to work on a non-Drayton short story in the hopes that I can forestall the plunge into depression that usually follows completion of such a task. I'm going to try, as best I can, to not think about Drayton for at least a month. Maybe by then I'll be ready to attack the rewrites.

That's the thing about this writing business: It never stops.

Bed Goes Up, Bed Goes Down

Again with The Simpsons.

There's an episode--a clip show, actually--in which the plot is driven by it being April Fool's Day. Homer plays a series of practical jokes on Bart, and Bart responds by shaking up a beer in a paint mixer and getting Homer to flip the top. In the next shot, we see the roof of the house being blown off by a kind of mushroom cloud. Homer ends up in the hospital, possibly paralyzed for life. Homer entertains himself in the hospital by electronically raising and lowering the head of the bed while saying, "Bed goes up. Bed goes down." (Later someone else imagines him on a cloud in heaven doing the same thing: "Cloud goes up. Cloud goes down.")

I only bring this up because it reminds me of the limited approaches to policy--and the question of how to extricate ourselves from the morass in Iraq in particular--that our political leaders take. Every question devolves to a toggle-switch kind of answer. Stay or go. Fund or withhold. Bed goes up or bed goes down.

It seems to me that there are other ways of looking at this situation than just in binary pairs. I'm on record with thoughts for how to deal with Iraq that, whatever their plusses or minuses, are not just toggle-switch thinking. Good policy cannot be made just by a shortsighted, kneejerk opposition to whatever the other guys advocate. In order to make good policy, our policymakers need to get beyond the pairs of opposites and stick a toe into the great ocean of complex options that might be available.

Or Maybe Some Greenstamps

Well, now that Scooter Libby has been convicted by a jury of his peers, I suspect that it is about time for the President to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom or some comparable honor. O! Scooter! O! Scooter! If you knew they were using you as the fall guy and a patsy, why didn't you cut a plea deal and rat them out? They have no loyalty toward you. People, to them, are merely objects, meant to be used.

Poor sap.

The Homestretch

I did manage to finish the next-to-last chapter yesterday and carved out the beginning of the last chapter as well.

At the rate I've been going, I'll be done by the end of the week.

It's a Novel, But Not a Doo

Back in an earlier life, I worked for a relatively small company, under 100 employees, and we had staff meetings for our entire department of 60 or so people every Wednesday. One Wednesday, one of the supervisors, a black guy named Charles, who was one of the nicest people I've ever met, led the meeting his only flub came right at the end when, instead of bidding us adieu, he said, "Let's call it a doo." Now, I called this a flub, but I actually thought and still think that it is inspired. Even though it's been almost 25 years since I heard it, I will still from time-to-time call it a doo, but only when appropriate to the circumstances.

Well, a few minutes ago, I crossed the 40,000-word threshold on Drayton, which means that even the most persnickety editor will have to consider it a full novel and not a novella. However, that being said, I am not done. I should have the chapter I am working on now done by the end of the day, leaving only the final chapter to write. I'm nearly there. But it's not a doo.

This 'n' That

First, I'm happy to report that the Drayton novel is now up over 39,000 words. I'm about a chapter-and-a-half from the end. And while this chapter is coming out with surprising fluidity, the final one might be a jumble and merely a cascade of revelations. I have 13 days to finish it.

Second, I would like to note that, in fairness, the Bush Administration has suddenly and without warning showed some small amount of sense in its dealings with other countries. From what I've read, Secretary of State Rice has removed the neocon rubber mask she's been wearing for the last six years and has revealed herself as a pragmatist. I'm sure she's making Brent Scowcroft very proud.

The good news is that it only took six years of continuous bungling for Dick Cheney's cabal of fantasists to be discredited. The President himself has been notably quiet lately, which also has to be counted as a good thing.

At any rate, diplomacy has come to replace sabre-rattling as the preferred mode of expression, and I am delighted. If these negotiations with North Korea and Iran and Syria turn out well, and I am hopeful, we might be able to regard this as a true turning point in the progress of our nation.

Give peace a chance. It works.

Drayton Update

I've crossed the 38,000 word barrier just about a minute ago. The story's moving along toward its conclusion, but I can't guarantee that it will be done in time for the contest. Although it just might. For all I know, it'll be done tomorrow. At least in terms of this draft. There will be many hours of rewrites before it is somewhat to the point at which I can in good conscience offend the public with it. But it should be contest-good soon enough.

the shame of the whole thing is that I don't have the time to worry over each sentence and make sure the whole thing sounds right and feels right. The first two-thirds have received that level of attention and seem to show it. This last third may not reach those dizzying heights before March 15th. With any luck, somebody will pay me to fix that part later on.

At any rate, a boy can dream.

Some Things You Just Can't Let Pass

According to the Vice President, "We know that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength, they are invited by the perception of weakness." Like many things Mr. Cheney has said, I find that this statement is not only not something we know, it actually runs contrary to observable reality. Of course, reality is a location that is by its nature disclosed, so he has had little reason to visit it.

Let's look at some facts instead of just accepting broad platitudes, shall we?

Terrorists attacked us on September 11, 2001. Did they do so because they considered us weak? Since we were, at the time, the self-declared "world's only superpower," would it not seem likely that we were considered very powerful indeed? Is it not this very power--military, economic, and social--that scares the bejeebers out of those who would attack us? If weakness were the problem, wouldn't we see daily bombings in Monaco or Lichtenstein?

No. As usual, Mr. Cheney has the problem by the wrong end. He can't imagine a problem that can't be solved with the murder of a few more people. There are other points of view, and I find some of them compelling.

For example, I have recently had the privilege of visiting the King Center here in Atlanta and have had the opportunity to renew my acquaintance with that man's vision. He said many wonderful things, and here's one that speaks to a philosophy that Mr. Cheney will never understand. What Dr. King said was this:

* The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.... The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
o "Strength to Love" (1963)

This is the thing that our current leaders refuse to understand. The answer to terrorism is not war, but love. Social justice will do more to destroy al Qaeda than any number of soldiers and weapons will and will be a much more effective means of spreading democracy, if that really is their true goal. A nation as wealthy and powerful as ours has to develop the courage to try to see other nations not as possible subjects or clients, but as partners. We will do more to improve our security by raising others up than by trying to dominate or control.

Better economic conditions in Mexico and Central America would do much to end illegal immigration. Better economic conditions throughout the Islamic world would do much to undermine al Qaeda and other extremists. It is interesting to note that in England, where Muslims are economically disadvantaged and feel themselves oppressed, home-grown terrorists have sprouted to commit and plan terrible acts. Meanwhile, in the United States, where Muslims have prospered and feel themselves to be afforded open opportunities, home-grown born-Muslim terrorists are unknown.

In the course of the so-called American Century, the United States had only one, true foreign policy victory, and that was the Marshall Plan. By building our enemies up, we made them our friends. Prosperity is the greatest weapon we have.

In a Land Far, Far Away

I just finished reading an article in The New Times that described a PowerPoint presentation that was made by military planners in 2002 concerning the allegedly-as-of-then possible invasion of Iraq. Once the planning reached an actual occupation and post-Saddam period, the slides were stuffed full of puppies and balloons. The biggest job left for our armed forces was going to be sweeping up the rose petals that had been strewn in their path on the way in.

And this is the problem with the current administration: They always plan assuming that things will work exactly as they want them to. It never occurs to them that things might go terribly wrong and that instead of paring the American presence in Iraq down to 5,000 soldiers, we would be "surging" up to 150,000.

Prudent planning always assumes the worst likely outcome. The sunshine and lollipops stay stored in a box until needed. And had a worst-likely-outcome assessment been made of invading Iraq, it never would have happened.

Let's just hope that someone somewhere with some sort of influence will apply the proper kind of analysis to the invasion of Iran that Mr. Bush is now plumping for. Remember: Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.

How Novel

Michael Drayton, Detective Guy is now up over 36,000 words. In fact, I've added more than 4,000 in the last 34 days alone. If I hadn't gone back and cut and rewritten a couple of previous chapters, I'd be even further along. (All numbers I give are net, not gross.) In fact, I went back today and trimmed Chapter 14 yet again--getting rid of some references to two characters who will never show up in this version--which leaves me only 98 words up, as of this writing, rather than maybe 250. But it's not about the word count, really, and I am trying to do a halfway decent job of it, even with a deadline looming over me.

Regardless, I will have a draft done by the middle of next month. If I can manage to work every day instead of 3 days out of every 4, I may even finish early. although, knowing me, it will probably involve a crazed, last-minute dash to an improbable finish.

Are the American People Ready?

There has been a lot of discussion, thanks to the candidacies of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton for president, about whether the American people are yet ready to elect either a black man or any kind of woman. And even though there may be merit in asking these questions, there is another one that occurs to me thanks to a certain person's declaration of candidacy today. And that question is this: Are the American people yet ready to elect as their president some guy named "Mitt"?

I'm sorry, Mr. Romney. The answer is most likely, "not yet." Mitts are for playing catch, not for running countries, at least that's how it will play in the heartland (a land, which, by the way, runs from one coast to the other and top-to-bottom; we all live in the heartland). In our electoral process, qualifications are meaningless and interesting ideas can actually be a detriment. A good name and a good hairdo, though, these are the building blocks for power.

The Novel Grows

I've just broken the 35,000 word barrier on Michael Drayton, Detective Guy. At the rate I'm going, I should have around 40,000 by the time I have to submit it for the contest. My plan is to continue writing somewhat carefully until March 1st. The last couple of chapters might turn out a bit sketchy, but they should get the point across.

All good wishes are gratefully accepted.

Resolution

The current falderal in the Senate concerning the passage of resolution that voices some kind of opposition to the President's planned increase in troops in Iraq stikes me as being just more of the smallminded political jockeying that has come to dominate our legislatures. The Democrats have their eyes on the next election and perhaps the Republicans do, too. Or, perhaps, they are still in the habit of protecting a President who sell each and every one of them out in a New York minute if it suited his needs.

However, whatever the motivations, the machinations going back-and-forth amount to so much nonsense. Nothing of any substance or value is being proposed or defended. It's all about posturing and pretense hidden behind a smokescreen they label "principle." It's all foolishness.

This is what the Democrats think of as reform?

The Jig Is Up

Well, the time has now passed in which all of the companies I have sent proposals to have begun operating in a new fiscal year, and I have not heard from a single one of them. I have not received even the courtesy of a rejection, just silence. Awkward, meaningless silence.

It would seem, though, that the only rational way to approach this would be to assume that no money or air time is forthcoming and that Next in the Series will not be moving forward at any time in the foreseeable future. While not dead, it is certainly in a coma.

I have, however, learned a few things through this process--a process that began more than four years ago. For example, I have learned something of my strengths and limitations. I have learned that my strengths are mostly artistic, and that I am not at all suited to the position of producer. Should someone appear somewhere down the line who had a flair for business and an interest in producing, I would be more than willing to pitch in with the writing, acting, and directing. Any and all who are interested should contact me care of this blog.

I have also confirmed that I am most fundamentally a writer. It's the core of what I do. I like sitting alone and sawing away at a manuscript. It's very fulfilling for me. I think I do a decent job of it, too.

And this speaks to why I am a lousy producer. Producers need to be gregarious and outgoing, two adjectives that are never attached to my name. A producer needs to be part salesman, part banker, and have a jot of accountant thrown in, too. I am none of those things. I'm the guy who likes to join words together in ever-growing groups in order to say to the world (or some small fraction thereof) "This is what reality is like for me. How does this match up with your experience of it?"

And so, I am going to concentrate on writing. I've been working on my novel, Michael Drayton, Detective Guy, with the hope of having a draft finished sometime this spring, with any luck, in time to submit to a contest being held on gather.com. I've submitted a couple of shorter pieces I had hanging around to reasonably sized publications. I have a full slate of writing projects awaiting the time for me concentrate on them.

The work I've done on this show will not go to waste, though. I've identified some shows that are already up and running and out there that take unsolicited contributions. A script should be in the mail somewhere in the next week or so.

The question then becomes: What becomes of this blog? What becomes of the website? The website will just remain as it is. It's not hurting anybody.

The blog? I'm not sure. On the one hand, I'm trying to not give away my writing at the moment. On the other hand, it has its uses. I've always found, in the past on my blog and in others, that threats to quit are usually made at moments of distress and self-pity. Although I'm disappointed at the result of this project, I am not distressed. Despite the sobering effects of getting nowhere fast, I am not sunk in self-pity.

So, all I can say about this blog at the moment is, "We'll see."

Cooperstown

I just read something online in which Barry Bonds was quoted as saying that he thought that Pete Rose and Mark McGuire should have been voted into the Hall of Fame. Forget how self-serving the statement was. Let us consider the proposal on its merits alone.

I think they should be admitted, and their displays kept in a special cheaters' wing to be specially built for them. It could be constructed along the lines of a prison and their busts located behind bars, which is where they belong. And then, a few years on, Barry Bonds could join them there, a great player turned humbug, a wonderful athelete undone by his own hubris and pride.