I wish I could claim this as my own idea, but I didn't make this one up. I did, however, jump on the bandwagon as soon as I heard about it. Like I did parachute pants back in 1984.
I'm going to try to read a book a week in 2013.
Yup, a book a week. That's 52 books, for those of you with weak calendar skills. 52 books. That's a lot. I own a lot of books, and I read a lot of stuff that's not books, but, man... 52 books is a lot of books no matter how you slice it.
Well... how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So I need to get a list together. I think of necessity I'll need to branch out from my regular reading habits, because, let's face it, even the best Harlequin novels get a little formulaic after 12 or 13 of them.
I figure I'll buy a few books, but I'll probably go to the library for most, there's a branch just down the street. With a playground! It's not creepy for a single guy with no kids to hang out at a library playground, is it? Nah, didn't think so.
But what to get? I think I'll start by re-reading a few that I haven't in a while. Fiction. Like 'The Hobbit.' I have not read that since... my junior year in high school? Something like that. And I'll need to read 'Fahrenheit 451' again too. There's a non-fiction 'Rise of the Greeks' that I haven't read in 20 years. Maybe 'Cosmos' although I don't think I could get through that in a week.
But there has to be new stuff too. Lots of new stuff. New to me, at least. Guess I need to see what's hot on the lists these days.
Suggestions? I'd love to hear what people who are not me are reading these days.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Sunday, December 23, 2012
You're Both Wrong
Guns.
Guns bad. Guns good. Guns all melted down. Guns on every hip.
The 'debate' about guns in America shows how polarized every argument has become. How fractious. How divisive. How insanely one-sided each side is. Both sides are dedicated to being right, not to listening to other opinions and coming to a middle ground. It's how all political discourse has devolved the past ten years or so.*
Here are the two arguments, at least as far as I can pick them apart:
1) No guns. No one should have any kind of gun ever, at all, for any reason. Having a gun makes you an evil person deserving of contempt. If we still had stockades you gun owners would be in them. We'd advocate for your execution if that weren't such a glaring irony that even we can see it.
2) Guns are American. If you don't own a gun you're a panty-waist urbanite who's probably a closeted homosexual and for sure a socialist. The only solution to gun violence is to put more guns out there. You're a fool if you don't own a gun, want to own a gun, or love the smell of cordite in the morning. If you were a real American you'd have a conceal/carry permit already.
Polar opposite arguments occupying the fringes of the reality of the situation are never the right argument to make. Taking either of these extreme positions is a way to shut down the conversation, not to find any real solution. The two sides that are talking are talking at cross-purposes, trying to anticipate the other side's points instead of making their own.
Gun control - I don't think the people who advocate 'gun control' know what they mean. Two words - three syllables - tossed into the wind do not constitute a proposed solution. It's just someone outraged by a situation who wants that situation never to happen again.
Gun rights - I think these people know exactly what they mean, but what they mean is 'ain't nobody gonna take my guns from me.' This is the opposite tack, it's someone outraged by the outrage, who feels threatened and wants to protect their own interests at all costs, even to the detriment of society.
They're both wrong. And they're both childish. The real truth and the real solution is somewhere in the middle, but it's a middle the extremists on both side refuse to admit exists. It's there, though, waiting for well-reasoned, rational people to have a good, hard, honest look at it. Here are some realities America will have to acknowledge if we're going to keep crazy people from killing children:
1. There's no way any government is going to be able to confiscate firearms. I don't own a gun myself, but I would fight any effort to round them up. That's too National Socialist for me. Yes, gun violence is bad, but so is drunk driving and we're not calling for automobile confiscations.
2. It is far, far, far too easy for anyone to buy a firearm. In Texas, for instance, there are no firearm licenses. Anyone can buy a gun from a dealer if they pass a background check. Anyone can buy a gun from another private citizen with no check at all. We title and license our cars, we could do the same for guns.
3. There is no reason for a private citizen to own a military-grade weapon designed to kill people.
4. There is no reason to assume that if a person owns a gun he or she is an irresponsible redneck.
5. You can disagree with someone without wanting to abrogate their civil rights.
6. You can't predict what crazy people are going to do. That's the definition of crazy.
7. As a society we can't ignore those people who need mental health care or pretend they don't exist.
8. Legislation based on 'the last bad thing that happened' is reactionary and does no one any good. Just think TSA and taking off our Goddamned shoes for years now. Our lawmakers need to get out in front of issues, not trudge along behind like the pooper-scoopers at a parade.
So, both sides, listen up: no more talking points, no more high-school debate rhetorical flourishes, no more shouting past the other side instead of talking to them. This is for-real, no-shit grownup stuff happening here, so you both need to behave like adults. Have the tough talk, make the tough decisions, and realize that neither of you is going to get 100% of what you want. Adults compromise, they come to an agreement, they get things done. So do it.
* I blame Baby Boomers, like I blame them for almost everything.
Guns bad. Guns good. Guns all melted down. Guns on every hip.
The 'debate' about guns in America shows how polarized every argument has become. How fractious. How divisive. How insanely one-sided each side is. Both sides are dedicated to being right, not to listening to other opinions and coming to a middle ground. It's how all political discourse has devolved the past ten years or so.*
Here are the two arguments, at least as far as I can pick them apart:
1) No guns. No one should have any kind of gun ever, at all, for any reason. Having a gun makes you an evil person deserving of contempt. If we still had stockades you gun owners would be in them. We'd advocate for your execution if that weren't such a glaring irony that even we can see it.
2) Guns are American. If you don't own a gun you're a panty-waist urbanite who's probably a closeted homosexual and for sure a socialist. The only solution to gun violence is to put more guns out there. You're a fool if you don't own a gun, want to own a gun, or love the smell of cordite in the morning. If you were a real American you'd have a conceal/carry permit already.
Polar opposite arguments occupying the fringes of the reality of the situation are never the right argument to make. Taking either of these extreme positions is a way to shut down the conversation, not to find any real solution. The two sides that are talking are talking at cross-purposes, trying to anticipate the other side's points instead of making their own.
Gun control - I don't think the people who advocate 'gun control' know what they mean. Two words - three syllables - tossed into the wind do not constitute a proposed solution. It's just someone outraged by a situation who wants that situation never to happen again.
Gun rights - I think these people know exactly what they mean, but what they mean is 'ain't nobody gonna take my guns from me.' This is the opposite tack, it's someone outraged by the outrage, who feels threatened and wants to protect their own interests at all costs, even to the detriment of society.
They're both wrong. And they're both childish. The real truth and the real solution is somewhere in the middle, but it's a middle the extremists on both side refuse to admit exists. It's there, though, waiting for well-reasoned, rational people to have a good, hard, honest look at it. Here are some realities America will have to acknowledge if we're going to keep crazy people from killing children:
1. There's no way any government is going to be able to confiscate firearms. I don't own a gun myself, but I would fight any effort to round them up. That's too National Socialist for me. Yes, gun violence is bad, but so is drunk driving and we're not calling for automobile confiscations.
2. It is far, far, far too easy for anyone to buy a firearm. In Texas, for instance, there are no firearm licenses. Anyone can buy a gun from a dealer if they pass a background check. Anyone can buy a gun from another private citizen with no check at all. We title and license our cars, we could do the same for guns.
3. There is no reason for a private citizen to own a military-grade weapon designed to kill people.
4. There is no reason to assume that if a person owns a gun he or she is an irresponsible redneck.
5. You can disagree with someone without wanting to abrogate their civil rights.
6. You can't predict what crazy people are going to do. That's the definition of crazy.
7. As a society we can't ignore those people who need mental health care or pretend they don't exist.
8. Legislation based on 'the last bad thing that happened' is reactionary and does no one any good. Just think TSA and taking off our Goddamned shoes for years now. Our lawmakers need to get out in front of issues, not trudge along behind like the pooper-scoopers at a parade.
So, both sides, listen up: no more talking points, no more high-school debate rhetorical flourishes, no more shouting past the other side instead of talking to them. This is for-real, no-shit grownup stuff happening here, so you both need to behave like adults. Have the tough talk, make the tough decisions, and realize that neither of you is going to get 100% of what you want. Adults compromise, they come to an agreement, they get things done. So do it.
* I blame Baby Boomers, like I blame them for almost everything.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Tales From My Past - The Rainbow
Some people have a certain talent and other people aspire to it. This was never more apparent to me than when I went with a friend of mine to the Rainbow in LA.
For those not 'clued in' the Rainbow is a restaurant/bar/tiny music venue on Sodom's main street, Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, Caliornia. This was the last place John Belushi ate before he went back to the Chateau Marmont and let some chick inject him with a lethal cocktail of cocaine and heroin. The Rainbow kind of wears that last meal like a badge of honor, which tells you all you need to know about Los Angeles.
In any event, musicians can book some time in the Rainbow's upstairs 'space,' which is - no lie - their barely-converted attic. There's room for, at best, ten people, though more often crowd in. When the Rainbow doesn't have a real musician booked, they'll let aspiring musicians have an hour. For free, they don't pay non-professionals.
Which is where my friend Sergio* comes in. Sergio* was an intellectual property attorney by day, a poet-with-a-soul-and-guitar by night. His undergrad degree was in poetry. Really. So he thought of himself as a singer/songwriter like James Taylor. He managed to get one of the weekday free-hours at the Rainbow and invited his friends to come. So I did. A trek to Hollywood at night is always a measure of your show of support for your friends.
Sergio* set up, alone on the tiny stage, and he did his best. He let his reedy voice ring out, he stumbled through the chords on his ill-tuned guitar, and he muscled through. He was... okay. It was his first live performance ever and it wasn't miserable and he didn't completely embarrass himself. While it wasn't terrible, it wasn't all that good either. Meh.
Then the next two dudes started to set up. This was about 11 PM on a Wednesday, and these two guys had clearly just gotten up. Or come to. Still with bed-head and still in the clothes they had passed out in the night before. They had a bass drum, a snare, a high-hat, and one guitar. Two dudes and a minimalist drum set-up.
They killed.
I mean it, they tore the place down, built it back up, and tore it down again. They were fantastic, amazing, and incredible. They put Sergio* to shame. These two guys were musicians. Real ones. Sergio* was just an attorney with a guitar.
From that moment on I've always tried to measure people's aspirations versus their talents. Sergio* had grand aspirations and a bit of talent. I don't know what kind of aspirations those two LA wastoids had, but they had talent for music like I've seldom seen. I wish I would have written down their names, so I could see where they are now. Dead or millionaires, I'm guessing.
It's an important lesson. Know your talents, and recognize your aspirations. If your talents overlap your aspirations you're going to be successful. If the two are not related you'll probably spend years chasing a dream you're just not suited to.
* not his real name. I swear.
For those not 'clued in' the Rainbow is a restaurant/bar/tiny music venue on Sodom's main street, Sunset Blvd. in Los Angeles, Caliornia. This was the last place John Belushi ate before he went back to the Chateau Marmont and let some chick inject him with a lethal cocktail of cocaine and heroin. The Rainbow kind of wears that last meal like a badge of honor, which tells you all you need to know about Los Angeles.
In any event, musicians can book some time in the Rainbow's upstairs 'space,' which is - no lie - their barely-converted attic. There's room for, at best, ten people, though more often crowd in. When the Rainbow doesn't have a real musician booked, they'll let aspiring musicians have an hour. For free, they don't pay non-professionals.
Which is where my friend Sergio* comes in. Sergio* was an intellectual property attorney by day, a poet-with-a-soul-and-guitar by night. His undergrad degree was in poetry. Really. So he thought of himself as a singer/songwriter like James Taylor. He managed to get one of the weekday free-hours at the Rainbow and invited his friends to come. So I did. A trek to Hollywood at night is always a measure of your show of support for your friends.
Sergio* set up, alone on the tiny stage, and he did his best. He let his reedy voice ring out, he stumbled through the chords on his ill-tuned guitar, and he muscled through. He was... okay. It was his first live performance ever and it wasn't miserable and he didn't completely embarrass himself. While it wasn't terrible, it wasn't all that good either. Meh.
Then the next two dudes started to set up. This was about 11 PM on a Wednesday, and these two guys had clearly just gotten up. Or come to. Still with bed-head and still in the clothes they had passed out in the night before. They had a bass drum, a snare, a high-hat, and one guitar. Two dudes and a minimalist drum set-up.
They killed.
I mean it, they tore the place down, built it back up, and tore it down again. They were fantastic, amazing, and incredible. They put Sergio* to shame. These two guys were musicians. Real ones. Sergio* was just an attorney with a guitar.
From that moment on I've always tried to measure people's aspirations versus their talents. Sergio* had grand aspirations and a bit of talent. I don't know what kind of aspirations those two LA wastoids had, but they had talent for music like I've seldom seen. I wish I would have written down their names, so I could see where they are now. Dead or millionaires, I'm guessing.
It's an important lesson. Know your talents, and recognize your aspirations. If your talents overlap your aspirations you're going to be successful. If the two are not related you'll probably spend years chasing a dream you're just not suited to.
* not his real name. I swear.
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