Runnin' Rum

You what this country needs? You don't? Well, I'll tell you.
   We some good old-fashioned civil disobedience.
   There's a grand tradition of American defiance of authority, hell, it's how our founding fathers started the whole mess in the first place. You got your tax rebellions, your revolutionary wars, your fights against slavery, for women's suffrage, for civil rights, against the Vietnam war, etc. etc. etc. The list just goes on.
   Lately, though, we seem to have become a nation of whiny bitches.
   Yes, I mean you. And me, too. And your neighbor, and the guy across the street. And for sure the corrupt politicians and evil corporate overlords. Nobody wants to take a stand about anything, and it's kind of pissing me off. Where are the suffragettes? Where are the civil rights workers? Where are the rum runners?
   Yup, I count those guys in the list. Running rum - which gave us NASCAR - started during Prohibition, that well-meaning but ultimately misguided attempt at legislating morality. People weren't going to stop drinking alcohol, especially since they'd been doing it for millennia, but they couldn't buy liquor any longer.
   That's when modern invention met ancient beverage. Enterprising young men who had automobiles, which had only recently been mass-produced, put homemade liquor in the trunk and let supply meet demand. Sure, it was mostly a mercantile transaction, but it was defiance of authority in the grand American tradition.
   I think the problem nowadays is that too many people are comfortable. We got it pretty good, all things considered, and any dissatisfaction we feel with our lives isn't so bad that we're compelled to think about the reasons why or to do anything to change our situation. We guard what little we have instead of thinking of the larger picture of inequity and institutionalized greed that we could help eliminate. So the filthy rich get filthier, our air and water become more polluted, and people who would have starved to death had they been born in a third world country find themselves elected to be our government representatives. And you and I sit on our couches watching TV and getting fatter.
   Makes me want to load some bathtub gin into my truck and drive into the hills to avoid the revenuers.

I Want My Rat Pack

A friend of mine once gave me a picture, a charcoal drawing from a photo of Frank Sinatra and his cronies around a pool table. Evidently the artist stuck Joey Bishop in there, even though he's not in the photo. It goes with another picture I got in Vegas of the crew outside the Sands marquee with their names plastered on it.
   Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey. The Rat Pack. Everything that was wrong and right with early 1960's America wrapped up in five guys who put on shows.
   I want my own Rat Pack. I'd be Frank - of course - the Chairman of the Board. Frank was mobbed-up (allegedly), but the Mafia now is not what it was fifty years ago. I'd need something else, some other corrupt, pervasive influence to taint every accomplishment I'll ever have. Fox News. That's it. I'll get in tight with those guys, that's a stain that'll never come out.
   Then I need my trusty, arguably-more-talented sidekick like Deano. Needs to be a bit of a drunk, and something of a womanizer. Charlie Sheen. There you are. He's my Deano.
   I need a black guy too, like Sammy. There aren't nearly the barriers to black performers there were fifty years ago - no one turns a firehose on black folks having lunch - but I'd need someone equally willing to put himself out there for the betterment of us all. There can be only one. Flavor Flav.*
   And then I need my politically-connected guy, the man with his finger on the pulse of the ruling class, a la Peter Lawford. With just a moment of thought I came up with the perfect person. George Clooney.
   Now I need my Joey Bishop. My second banana. The guy who's going to laugh at all my jokes, even if they're not funny. Especially if they're not funny. Who else could I pick but Andy Richter?
   And there you have it. The 21st Century Rat Pack: Me, Charlie Sheen, Flavor Flav, George Clooney, and Andy Richter. When I'm not so busy I'll photoshop a group portrait and post it.
   Somebody get these guys on the phone, Vegas is waiting.


* did you know the Flavor went to cooking school? Me neither. It's weird to think of him with a legit job like a chef. Kind of illusion-shattering.

Stop Being Curious

I like to know stuff. Actually, I guess it's better to say that I like to find stuff out. When I was in college I worked in the library - I used to say 'libary' to make my boss angry - and I tried to learn something new every day, even if it was some completely random fact I learned off an out-of-date atlas. Like Zimbabwe used to be Rhosdesia, stuff like that.
   Sometime, though, curiosity can be a bad thing. Ignorance really is bliss.
   I got a thing in the mail for a local dry cleaner, I'm sure everyone gets them for their local dry cleaners too. Twenty dollars off an order of $70 or more, if you're interested and want to ship your clothes to Pasadena for some reason.
   Anyway, I got to wondering what dry cleaners use to clean clothes. So I hit the internet and had a look. Mistake. Big mistake.
   Dry cleaning fluid is tetrachloroethylene, which sounds like something crazy people in the Middle East use for chemical warfare. The best thing you can say for it is that it won't catch fire. Other than that, it's nothing good. It's a carcinogen and a degreaser for auto parts, for God's sake, why would I want my clothes put in that?
   I should have just left well enough alone, but evidently I didn't learn my lesson from a couple of months ago, and I just had to go digging. I swear, if I find one more thing that's bad for me that I assumed was okay, I'm going to go live in a convent.
   Yeah, you heard me.


COMMUTE: there - 40 minutes      back - 50 minutes. Ride share Thursday my ass...
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 79 days

From My Bookshelf

I read a lot. A LOT. Magazines, books, stuff on the Internet, books I've written myself, words and words and words and words and words. In the past few years I've leaned towards non-fiction books - seeing as how I write my own fiction - and I try to keep informed on advances in science through magazines. I also love Vanity Fair, even though I sound really fey when I admit that. I haven't been reading a lot of fiction, until recently when I paid another visit to Movie World in Burbank. I picked up this book, which reminded me why I started reading in the first place.

Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs
   This is pulp fiction at its grandest achievement, done by a master. Make no mistake, it's not high literature, the story is about a 1930's man who rockets to Venus and becomes leader of the noble savages there. It was written in that amazing time between 1900 and the advent of World War II, when pulp magazines ruled the news stands and the stories were ripping yarns of high adventure and base betrayal. I loved this stuff as a kid, it's what got me reading in the first place, and coming back to it now is like visiting my old college campus, familiar and yet with surprises I forgot I knew about.

   Edgar Rice Burroughs is the titan of early sci-fi responsible for Tarzan, John Carter of Mars, and Pellucidar (Hollow Earth). Tarzana, CA is named for Tarzan - really - and since Pirates of Venus was written in the 30's, the protagonist leaves from Tarzana to go to his rocket ship. Written towards the end of Burroughs's life and career, the Venus series borrows heavily from everything he'd written before, and he even mentions Tarzan and Pellucidar in the first chapter, but that doesn't detract from the work one bit. Every boy should read this. Twice.

Quote: (you're gonna love this)
'I pressed her to me for an instant; I kissed her, and then I gave her over to the birdman.
   "Hurry!" I cried. "They come!"
   Spreading his powerful wings, he rose from the ground, while Duare stretched her hands toward me. "Do not send me away from you, Carson! Do not send me away! I love you!"
   But it was too late, I would not have called her back could I have done so, for the armed men were upon me.
   Thus I went into captivity in the land of Noobol, an adventure that is no part of this story; but I went with the knowledge that the woman I loved, loved me, and I was happy.'