*****
This week has been the celebration of The United States of America’s 250th birthday! As awesome as this is (USA! USA! USA!), 50 years ago I was around for something even better, the U.S.A.’s 200th birthday celebration back in 1976!
Yeah, technically July 4th is not a birthday celebration, but you know what I mean. We can debate about the date of the U.S.A.’s birthday another time. Today, I have a story to retell!
*****
I was 10 when the United States turned 200 years old. It was a big deal back then, but at the time, the meaning of the 4th of July was lost on me. As an adult, I understand July 4th is the annual celebration of the signing and approval of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.
I understand how important the following sentence from The Declaration of Independence is:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
That one sentence had a bunch of concepts that were unique way back in 1776.
As an adult, I appreciate how momentous the signing of that document was and how it began the process of liberating the colonies and forming one of the greatest nations in the world. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand all this. Back when I was 10, the 4th of July was about shooting off fireworks. And 1976 was a great year to shoot off fireworks.
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Back then I lived in a rural town. It wasn’t a suburb. It was a small town over an hour away from the closest city. Nobody ever came to our town to visit. You only went there to live.
I don’t want to sound crude and perpetuate stereotypes, but my friends and I were all pale with necks of red. When we went shirtless during the summer, you could tell what we had worn the rest of the year by the borders of red along our necks. I wore collared pullover shirts, so I had a v-neck of red. Most of my friends wore t-shirts or sweaters, so their necks of red were all circular. Now people can’t tell that I have a neck of red because I wear long sleeve collared shirts and ties most of the time. I am a middle-aged, clean cut guy who speaks properly.
Summer days in a rural town in 1976 could be kind of boring. There was no cable television. We had one movie theater, but it took at least a year for a good movie to get there after it had been released. It was 1976, and we still hadn’t seen the movie Jaws yet. Everybody wanted to see Jaws. We didn’t even live near a beach. We had a lake, but we weren’t supposed to swim in it because some horses had taken dumps in it and a kid had gone blind because of the bacteria. Looking back, our lake was more dangerous than a beach, and we didn’t have any sharks.
Since we were bored, we wandered around a lot that day. We threw rocks at a kid from another neighborhood, but we didn’t really try to hit him. It was fun just scaring him. We rode our bikes to a nearby cliff and threw stuff (nothing alive) off of it.
We were looking forward to the fireworks that night. Our parents would let us light firecrackers and run around with the sparklers. But none of that would get started until it got dark, and that was hours and hours away. We had to find stuff to do to kill the time.
There were probably six of us riding our bikes around, but none of their names are important to the story (because I’m trying to keep it short). We were all within a grade or two of each other. After a while, one or two kids would go home and then another kid or two would take his place. We were interchangeable. I went home once and ate lunch and read comic books and then got on my bike until I found them again.
Things picked up later in the afternoon when we ran into Ray. My mom didn’t like Ray. He was the only boy who wasn’t allowed to come over to my house. He was about three years older than the rest of us, and he didn’t have any friends his own age. He cussed all the time and smoked cigarettes, and his parents were never home, so he was fun to hang out with. He also had a couple big dogs (but I don’t remember the breed because back then Rottweilers and pit bulls weren’t popular).
“C’mere!” he yelled at us from down the street. He didn’t have a bike, but this day he had a box. We gathered around him and peeked inside. I didn’t recognize the contents. I knew they were something like really big firecrackers, thick red cardboard tubes with long wicks sticking out, but they were far bigger than anything my dad let me light off. I didn’t want to look stupid, so I kept my mouth shut and pretended like I knew what they were called.
“What’s that?” some other kid asked.
“M-80s!” Ray said proudly. I had never heard of an M-80 before. A few other kids had, and so they made some exaggerated gasping sounds.
“Where did you get them?” a kid asked.
“Older brother. He left them lying around.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“What do you think, dipsh*t!” Ray said. “We’re going to blow some sh*t up!”
And with that, our 4th of July started early.
*****
To be continued in 4th of July Story: Waiting for Fireworks.
*****
And here is my one and only novel, a pro-American romantic comedy from a male’s point-of-view. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
Internet book lists are nothing new. For as long as I’ve been writing for this blog, I’ve been rating and mocking various book lists that rank famous, influential works of literature, such as this latest from The Guardian. Even though everybody knows that these lists are clickbait, they’re still fun to read.
Yeah, book lists might be mock worthy, but I admit that I like to compare my personal preferences with those of other book readers. The lists usually place the novels into groups of 10 or 100 and then attempt to justify each book’s ranking. When it comes to ranking importance or influence, it’s interesting to see how various perspectives or identities shape how people evaluate the importance or influence of works of literature and popular culture.
Sometimes book readers get mad that a certain book is on a list but not ranked higher (or lower). To me, just what’s on the list is the interesting part (except maybe the top spots). Arguing about the actual placement is just being petty, especially if you start slinging insults. It’s happened to me on my own blog! Haha!
Rating books is so subjective that I wonder about the emotional stability of people who get angry over someone else’s differing opinion about a book. I mean, frothing at the mouth, pounding the keyboard, ALL CAPPING insults, SWATting houses type of angry. It’s bad enough when people do that over politics, but books? C’mon, dude!
Even though I know not to get angry at selections that I disagree with, I still occasionally roll my eyes a little, especially at choices that seem pretentious, generic, or narrow. For example, I almost disregard lists that place Ulysses or Finnegans Wake (both by James Joyce) too high on their lists. To me, both books require far too much background knowledge for most readers to get anything out of reading the novels except frustration.
I even wonder how many people have read either or both Ulysses and Finnegans Wake because they’re ‘supposed’ to. For all I know, readers have been intentionally brainwashed into believing that to be taken seriously as a literary critic, you a have to have read (and fully appreciated) one or both of these novels. I blame literary brainwashing. If you get mad at me for having that opinion, you’ve been brainwashed. If you just disagree with me but don’t care what I think, then that’s cool.
Each judge in the recent list from The Guardian had his/her own unique choices that readers can review, which is great for starting literary discussions but is also great for showing how pointless the endeavor is if you’re truly attempting to rank the books. I guess a list like this can still get a lot of needed website views, though I don’t know if it works as much as it used to. Or maybe it never really worked, and I’m the only one dumb enough to keep reading these lists.
One noteworthy element in The Guardian’s current book ranking is that To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee isn’t on it. I know that’s more of an American novel than a British literary treasure, but there seemed to be enough judges from the States to influence the polling, unless the American judges had other notions or didn’t rank it high enough on their ballots. Either way, I thought that its absence was noteworthy, but I don’t care either way. Again, maybe it makes only certain American-centric lists, and I haven’t seen enough recent book lists to notice.
Even more bizarre than the internet list of book rankings is the book list of book rankings. Over the last few years I’ve seen books that rank books. I admit that I’ll read a book that ranks books, but I’d never buy a book that ranks books. Maybe it would be a good coffee table book, but I have better coffee table books, and they’re not even about books.
Writing a book that ranks great books is almost like making a movie that ranks the best movies. Some of us might watch a video that ranks movies, but would anybody pay money to sit in a movie theater and watch a full length feature that ranks the greatest movies of all time? I’m seriously asking the question because I don’t know the answer to it. Maybe people would if they knew that the movie about great movies was a really great movie and not just a movie about great movies.
If I ever write my own real book about book lists, I’ll title it 1,000,000,000 Books You Must Read Before You Die!!!! I’ll use the word ‘must’ instead of ‘should’ because readers need to feel a sense of urgency before they buy a book like this. The soft sell approach doesn’t work, even though it’s the approach I’ve always been comfortable with. People have always told me that I should get out of my comfort zone more often and be more assertive, so here’s my chance.
After I publish my 1,000,000,000 Books You Must Read Before You Die!!!! opus, those same people might claim that I was going too far. Haha! That’s how it works. They always want control, and they always want you to doubt yourself, but I’ll show them. I won’t just make a book about the top billion best books; I’ll also make it a GREAT book about the top billon best books. Great execution can sometimes overcome a really bad idea.
If you’ve gotten this far, I hope that you don’t feel cheated. You had to know from the title that this was either satire or clickbait or both. I mean, c’mon (the word “c’mon” usually isn’t a good argument, but I think it works here)! I haven’t read a billion books. I’m pretty sure nobody has even read a million books. Maybe some speed reading egghead out there will claim to have read one million books, but nobody will believe it. At least, statistically, nobody will believe it. Maybe it’s plausible for one person to read a million books, maybe, but one billion?
To those who are angry that I didn’t actually list a billion books, just know that this blog post was me stepping out of my comfort zone. Plus, you’re brainwashed.
But enough about what I think! What about you? How seriously do you take the Best Book lists? What consistent selection makes you roll your eyes (even though you know that you shouldn’t care)? Do you feel cheated that I don’t actually have a list of a billion books? What worthy book do you think gets neglected on book lists, even though you know you shouldn’t care?
*****
Man, I hope my ONE novel is one of the 1,000,000,000 best books ever written.
It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
*****
For more Dysfunctional Literacy, see…
Harry The Dirty Dog vs. Dirty, The Hairy Dog
A Time To Kill vs. To Kill A Mockingbird
Why Should I Read This? Ulysses by James Joyce
How to Write an Award-Winning Novel starring… The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Self improvement has been a big thing for decades, and reading a lot of books is an easy way to improve your life. Reading real books gets you off the screens and engages your brain in ways that most other activities can’t. While there’a a small subset of young men who are obsessed with a new trend called looksmaxxing, where they do everything possible-including cosmetic surgery- to improve their appearances, I’m more obsessed with what is occasionally referred to as book maxxing.
To me, book maxxing is way better than looksmaxxing. I’m at the age where nobody cares what I look like anyway. All I have to do is not be disgusting and not smell bad. Basically, I just make sure to shower and groom myself everyday, and I’m good. It takes the pressure off.
Because women prefer men with strong jaws (probably always have, probably always will), some men today are going so far as to have cosmetic surgery done. All I did (back in the 1980s and beyond) to hide my weak chin was to grow a short beard. Men with weak chins are at a disadvantage because everybody assumes we’re… weak, and since I’m a skinny guy with a weak chin and a quiet voice, I had to find other ways to compensate.
I’m not complaining. Everybody has to compensate for their weak areas… except really attractive people… and really rich people. That’s okay. Looks fade, and rich people can go broke too. At least I’m tall. Tall lasts a lifetime, even when I’ve been broke. I think today that’s called ‘cope.’ In my day, it was called ‘coping.’
Anyway, I’m too old to looksmax, and even if I were young enough, it probably wouldn’t quite be my thing. At my age, I prefer to book max. I want to read as much as I can and learn as much as I can in the time that I have left. I don’t mean that in a morbid way. Nobody really knows how much time they have left, but as we get older, we become more aware that our time is limited. I want to stay healthy and keep my brain sharp. Reading by itself isn’t enough, but synthesizing new information and applying it in useful ways is a huge step in the right direction, and that’s where book maxxing comes into play.
My approach to book maxxing is to read as many books that I want to read as I can. You know, the books that I’m actually interested in. Book maxxing isn’t about putting a bunch of attractive noteworthy books on your shelves as conversation starters. That’s what a coffee table is for. Just be sure nobody uses the books as coasters for their drinks… unless the books were written by James Patterson.
If you’re a reader, and you’re interested in book maxxing, here are four easy suggestions:
SAMPLE LOTS OF BOOKS
With so many books available online for free (some even legally free), it’s easy to sample books without committing to them. Online book sellers often provide a free sample before purchasing a book, and since new books tend to be expensive, we almost have a responsibility to carefully preview these books before throwing down money on them. It’s especially useful to preview nonfiction books about current issues. Not only are these types of new books expensive, but their information will probably be outdated in a few months.
Plus, most informational books about current issues get to the point in the first section before getting into the minute details that only experts would find useful. For example, my brain doesn’t connect with science (despite me reading science fiction), but I understand the fundamentals, so the most useful section of any current non fiction book about a specialized field will be the first section.
Once the author really gets going, I often get mentally lost anyway, so there’s no reason for me to read any further. Every reader will have different specialties, so when you book max, just apply that sampling strategy to the genres of your choosing.
FINISH ONLY THE BOOKS YOU’RE INTERESTED IN
Some readers think they need to finish every book they start reading. Maybe that theoretically applies to assigned school reading, but most of us aren’t in school anymore. If you choose to finish every book that you start reading, I’m not going to tell you not to, but you’re not book maxxing, and that means you’re not one of the cool readers.
Instead, you’re one of THOSE readers. Cough, cough.
GO TO THE LIBRARY
You can check out a bunch of books from the public library. What’s better than access to free books? Yeah, the selection might not always be the greatest, especially with the new books. So what? Just grab a few books that you’ve never heard of before, and maybe you’ll be surprised. You don’t have to finish every book that you start. Just read enough to get the idea and move on. Finish only the books that you really get into. And quickly return the books you know that you won’t finish so that the books don’t languish uselessly in your home for weeks on end. Other people want to read those books too, you know!
READ CLASSIC COMIC BOOKS
Old classic comic books (comics that retell illustrated versions of classic novels) are a great way to get decent summaries of difficult (for me) to read novels. These are easy to find/purchase online, and they’re inexpensive because most current comic collectors aren’t interested in them. The illustrations in these 1940s and 1950s comics might seem crude by today’s comic book standards, but the stories are easier (in my opinion) to follow than those in some of the more current versions. Plus, you can get a bunch of these really cheap. Have I mentioned that already?
I’m not saying that reading a classic comic book is a replacement for reading the real thing. It just makes it easy for me to decide if I’m interested enough in the story to put the time and effort into reading the real book. Remember, we’re talking about book maxxing here.
As far as maxxing trends go, book maxxing is probably the one most guaranteed to be successful. Too many other maxxing trends require validation from others for the participant to feel like the maxxing has been worth the time, effort, and money. If some dude spends months at the gym and a fortune on surgery (that will probably cause problems in the future), and nobody notices, then the maxxing has been a waste of time. With books, no validation is required except your own.
But enough about what I think! What about you? What are some of the ways that you book max? Leave a comment below. If you don’t, then you’re one of THOSE book readers. Cough. Cough.
For more Dysfunctional Literacy, read…
G.O.A.T. vs. Goat: The Battle of Generational Slang
The Golden Hawk by Frank Yerby- Uh,… isn’t that rape?
Is This Self-Help Book Still Relevant? How To Win Friends And Influence People
Remember the good old days when authors used to get accused of plagiarism? It wasn’t that long ago. But now plagiarism seems to be out, and using A.I. is in. In the past few months, several authors that I’m aware of have been accused of using AI. in their novels and short fiction.
I’m not surprised that authors are using A.I. Writers have always done stuff like that to get ahead, especially when there’s money, status, or sexual opportunities involved. Some writers will use A.I. just to experiment. Some will use it to compare/contrast it with their own writing. And some will use it to cheat the system. I’d be shocked if nobody tried it.
Even though I despise the potential overuse of A.I. in daily life, if I were an A.I. author (I’m not, but if I were), I would just own up to it. I would act proud. I would call myself an A.I. pioneer. I would brag about how little time and effort it took me to write my book. I would say that if it’s okay for authors to have ghost writers, then I can have A.I. I’d call everybody else jealous. I mean, I’d be acting like a jerk, and I’d be full of bunk, but if I were cheating by using A.I., I’d go all out.
I’ve seen so much bad writing in my time (I’ve been one of the many offenders) that I know that clumsy writers could be falsely accused of using A.I., turning this into the literary version of the Salem Witch Trials with accusations flying around and innocent authors getting burned at the metaphorical stake. If rival authors and spiteful readers can leave fake online reviews to burn writers they don’t like (hey, it happens!), they’ll have no problem making intentionally false accusations of using A.I. in their books.
Despite my wariness of A.I., I’m not concerned about false accusations being leveled against me. For one, I don’t use A.I. in my writing. I’m also pretty irrelevant as a writer. Even if I did use A.I. in my writing, I don’t think anybody would care. If a bunch of critics start making that accusation, it might actually make me feel more relevant. I still won’t do it.
Even though there are A.I. detection computer programs to catch potential offenders, I don’t care enough to use one, and I think it’s silly to use a computer program to catch computer generated written content. To me, bad writing is bad writing. Besides, most of the stuff that I now read was written decades ago, long before any of this computer generated stuff existed. My reading material might have been plagiarized the old fashioned way, but at least it wasn’t created by a Large Language Model.
One way that critics spot potential A.I. use is to catch an abundance of meaningless metaphors. A.I. seems to love using meaningless metaphors, which might flow off the tongue when you read them but don’t make sense when you think about them. I’m pretty sure that some authors count on readers being so enthralled with the prose that they don’t pay attention to the word salad (I think that’s the current phrase for it) that is being used. At least that’s why real human authors use meaningless metaphors. A.I. authors use meaningless metaphors because the LLMs can’t be programmed to adjust to every possible situation, so sometimes the LLM has to wing it. And that’s where the fun begins.
When I was teaching, I didn’t have to deal with A.I., but plagiarism was still a thing. Students thought copy/pasting a paragraph and changing one word was an effective way to fool a teacher and get an A on an essay. I learned early on that accusing a student of plagiarism only led to a strong denial, even when the student was almost (or completely) illiterate.
Instead of arguing with students and parents, I had students in class hand write versions of their essays from scratch and matched them with the compositions that they had brought in from home. Even though I haven’t been in a public school classroom for years, I think that strategy would still work today (if students are still capable of hand writing) as long as teachers are willing to read all of the messy papers they’re going to get. Maybe it’s not worth the effort.
When I was a teacher, I usually could tell when a student had cheated on an essay because I knew the student and how the student spoke and used language in general. As a casual reader, though, I don’t usually recognize when a published writer cheats in his or her writing. I don’t know how that author speaks or uses language. I often don’t know the author’s motivations. Is the author trying to be artistic, or is the author trying to make a quick buck?
Even when I was a college student, plagiarism was treated as a scandal. Way back in 1988 during the Democratic primary for president, goofball presidential candidate U.S. Senator Joe Biden got caught plagiarizing from a speech given by a British politician that nobody in the United States had heard of. This was considered so scandalous back then that the goofball senator backed out of the primary.
Considering what other presidential candidates (and presidents) had/have done before and since, plagiarizing from a British political speech that wasn’t delivered by Margaret Thatcher doesn’t seem like such a big deal now. At least Joe Biden didn’t use A.I.
Even though I mock A.I. a lot on this blog, I admit that I’ve used it a couple times in the past year. I used an A.I. tool to come up with a title for one of my blog posts. It gave me a few suggestions, and one of them was kind of good, so I used half of it for my article’s title. Another time I used an A.I. tool to write a listing for a set of books that I was selling online. That time, the A.I. sucked (language was generic and too vague to be helpful to a buyer), so I’ve stuck with writing my own listings.
Some tech geeks and corporate overlords claim that A.I. is the future and that everybody had better get on board or risk getting left behind. Skeptics say that A.I. is an overvalued tool that will end up bankrupting a bunch of overhyped investors. I don’t know who’s more correct. But I do know that whenever there’s a tool available to help people cheat the process (whatever that process may be), cheaters will use it. I’m just not going to be the one who tries to figure all that stuff out.
*****
I didn’t use A.I. to. write my ONE novel. I didn’t plagiarize either.
*****
It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
For more Dysfunctional Literacy, see…
The Literary Rants: The Oxford Comma
Indie Author Self-Promotion Strategy: Lying
Challenges in Teaching: Feeling Mediocre
Bad Lessons in Famous Books: The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins
People my age laugh a lot at the movie Caddyshack, but I don’t know if the humor carries over to the younger generations. When Ted Knight’s character Judge Smails says, “You’ll get nothing and like it!” to his obnoxious grandson, everybody my age laughs because we relate to it. All of us heard our parents say something similar, and they said it with straight faces.
Dads didn’t necessarily say, “You’ll get nothing…” It usually started off with something like, “Yer gonna clean yer plate, and yer gonna like it!” or “Yer gonna keep yer mouth shut, and yer gonna like it!” or “Yer gonna do what I tell you, and yer gonna like it!”
I’ve never heard a mom finish her admonitions with “… and you’ll like it!” It might have happened in someone else’s life, but not in mine. “You’ll (insert demand), and you’ll like it!” is a dad thing. And no matter who said it, whether it was Judge Smails in the country club or my dad at the dinner table, kids knew that “You’ll (insert action), and you’ll like it” was about control. The parents were telling us what to do AND how we were going to feel about it.
Nowadays, the same people who laugh at “You’ll get nothing and like it!” will get suspicious of anybody who defends the quote “You’ll own nothing and be happy.” Supposedly, the quote came from a Danish politician whose essay about technology leading to a utopia was published by the World Economic Forum, and she has since claimed that the quote was taken out of context.
Yeah, the quote was probably taken out of context, but who cares? Everything is taken out of context today. Even though I’m a huge fan of context, I dislike utopias and if anybody can overcome lack of context, it’s a member of the WEF who probably has so much money that he/she doesn’t need to care what the average person who’s not going to own anything thinks.
Plus, if the WEF wants to claim that the quote has been taken out of context, then maybe the WEF should do better at making sure that the world economies aren’t crushing the average person. At least, a lot of average people perceive the economy as oppressive to the average person. Even though I don’t like the phrase “perception is reality,” people’s perceptions do influence their behavior, and consumer behavior affects the economy a lot. If too many people believe that the economy is weak, then important parts of the economy get hurt.
To me, it seems weird that somebody in the WEF (not to be confused with the Wrestling Entertainment Federation) would try imagining a utopia. Why would rich people try imagining utopias? Is that really what they do? I guess it’s better than eating babies (I might be mixing up conspiracy theories). From the elite’s point of view, we average people are going to complain about the elite no matter what they do. Eat babies? We complain. Write about utopias? We complain. No wonder they’re (allegedly) trying to destroy us. All we do is gripe!
As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a fan of utopias (just so you know, I’m not a fan of eating babies either) because utopia would only work if everybody had good intentions and if there were no greed, lust. jealousy, or violence. The idea of a utopia ignores human nature, unfortunately, and I’m guessing that a member of the WEF probably has to be a bit consumed with greed and wouldn’t be satisfied with owning nothing. It’s just an impression, not a judgement. I admit that I could be wrong.
If it sounds like I’m judging, I know that I really should focus on my own life and how I choose to live it. That’s why the “You will own nothing and be happy” quote doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers other people. The idea of not being ruled by your possessions is almost Biblical, so the idea of not owning much doesn’t bother me.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and consuming insect destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor consuming insect destroy and where thieves do not break in or steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21
*****
That’s pretty solid advice, no matter what your spiritual leanings are. I know some readers might automatically tune out when I mention anything religious (Hey! I’ve been there), but even if you don’t believe in God or if you dislike Christianity (or elements of it), you can still recognize that there might be some wisdom in The Sermon on the Mount. Or maybe you can’t.
Either way, the point is that if you don’t really care about the stuff you own, then you might not feel as threatened by the “you will own nothing” quote. Even so, that WEF attitude seems kind of tone deaf. “Own nothing” is way out there. I think we are fine with owning stuff. We’re just not supposed to love our possessions or even care about them that much.
At least with Jesus’s advice, you have a choice. You can decide to overvalue your possessions, or you can see them merely as temporary tools to get you through the day and help you to enjoy your life. If you choose to treasure your possessions, the consequence is being ruled by your possessions. But if your possessions run your life, it was your choice. It wasn’t the WEF’s. It was yours, and you’ve been warned about it.
Wealth inequity/inequality has always been around throughout history. Getting mad at that is almost like getting mad at biology or the weather (I know there’s a segment of people fighting biology right now, and I shake my fist at the clouds at least once a week). There are only a few aspects of my life that I fully control. I can’t control the WEF, but I can control whether or not I watch Caddyshack today. And since it’s my choice, I’d rather laugh at “You’ll get nothing and like it!” than get mad at “You’ll own nothing and be happy.”
*****
I can’t believe that I didn’t use the line “You’ll get nothing and like it!” in my ONE novel. What a wasted opportunity!
It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
For more, see…
Helen Keller vs. the Moon Landing: Battle of the Historical Hoaxes!
G.O.A.T. vs. Goat: The Battle of Generational Slang
Hondo by Louis L’Amour vs. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry! What is the best western ever?
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2012 vs. the Oscars and the Heisman Trophy
“It’s just a rough draft!”
That’s what my older brother could say if I ever pointed out the spelling error in this unfinished Dummo Mouse comic strip (see below) from the early 1980s. But I’d never mention it as a criticism. I know that he knows how to spell ‘valuable.’ He would have fixed it when he got around to inking it, which he never did.
I don’t think I noticed the spelling error the first (or second/third) time I read this. I was too busy looking at all the background details in each panel.
The spelling errors in the Marvel comics aren’t as easy for me to dismiss. Yeah, to some extent these comic books were meant for kids, but standard grammar, punctuation, and spelling rules are/were expected to be followed. Plus, these comics went through the editorial process where several experienced creators (I don’t know how many) looked over the pages before they were approved for publication.
Dummo Mouse? The editorial board was just my older brother. And he wasn’t even finished yet!
For more Dummo (most of which have no spelling errors) see…
Dummo Mouse and Friends: The Intro
Sunday Comics: Dummo Mouse and the Hero’s Journey
Weekend Comics! Dummo Mouse and Stan Lee Word Balloons
Or start here to read the complete series The Lost Adventures of “Calloway the Castaway” Episode 1
Sometimes I get ideas for stories that I know that I’m not capable of writing, so I don’t even make the attempt. My latest is a science fiction story set in the near future, but I don’t have a specific year in mind. It’s one of those “technology conquers or kills humanity stories,” but it’s not like a bunch of terminators murdering humans or computers making up their own rules and overruling the now helpless humans.
As I’ve frequently mentioned in the past, I have some limitations in my writing that would prevent me from doing a good job with a story like this. I’m not that good at writing descriptions, which would be important in setting up both the imagery and mood in the story. I’m especially weak with figurative language. I’m a very straightforward writer.
I also don’t know enough science lingo to make the story credible to its potential audience. Yeah, I could do some research, but I’d still probably mess up some stupid minor detail that I didn’t even think was important enough to check and end up ruining all suspension of disbelief from genre readers.
The future in this story wouldn’t look much different than what things look like now, and that takes care of a problem that some old science fiction stories have where the author envisions a specific visual setting for a specific date, and then we reach that specific date in real life and things don’t look anything like what the science fiction author described. Even the first Terminator movie said Skynet took over in 1997. I was alive in 1997, and 1997 was nothing like that.
Terminator? 2001: A Space Odyssey? The writers got those years completely wrong! What a bunch of hacks!! I don’t want to get burned by choosing the wrong year. To counter this, my story takes place in an unspecified time, and the future will look a lot like today but with a few dystopian differences.
Since my interests aren’t science oriented, I’d have to focus more on the social structure elements, setting it in a future where AI/technology is running everything (that’s not going to be shocking to any sci-fi readers). At first, everything seems great because everybody gets a universal living income promised by the corporate visionaries, and most people have easy lives at first.
You know how it is with visionaries, though; they might have cool ideas, but somebody (sometimes it’s the visionaries themselves) always ruins the cool idea with greed and shortsightedness. With a cashless social credit system, corporations start controlling the money flow, the information, and even the news/history that people think they know. Most people aren’t even aware of how everything is being controlled, so this life is okay with some people, but for others, a very few others, who think they understand what’s going on, well… they can’t do much about it.
This would be typical sci-fi in that it plays with people’s fears of the future. Most people my age are suspicious of technology moving too quickly, and a lot of us are wary of stuff like A.I. (when we’re not falling for the fake pictures and videos). Plus, we really like water. Whether the stories are true or not (they probably are), people are concerned about water shortages and data centers that (allegedly) make those shortages worse. It just makes sense then to play up to those and other fears about corporations and A.I. in my story (that I’ll probably never write).
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my story sounds like nothing new. A lot of sci-fi stories have this basic premise, but most stories like this are action oriented, with some heroic figures battling robots or computer generated threats. Not this story. Lack of action is the downfall of many stories, so I’ll need to replace robot battles and explosions with sexual tension, humor, banter, and a good bar fight. That’s a combination that I can handle.
The two protagonists, a historian with forbidden information and a rebel who lives outside the social credit system, are opposite genders with opposing viewpoints about what to do about the corporate system. Of course, they become attracted to each other because of the intensity of their shared conflicts. Of course.
I guess nowadays they don’t have to be opposite genders. They could be same gender or even cross species, and nobody would even bat an eye when the sexual tensions rise. If anything, readers might roll their eyes as things progress. Yawn! This again?
If I really wanted to get readers’ attention, I could write a controversial multi-character ‘scene’ (you know what I’m talking about) that crosses genders and species and aliens. I could do it. I could write that. And I could actually make it good, maybe even great! But it’s not my thing. It’s not how I choose to roll. That’s one reason that I’m a literary nobody. That and my skills are limited.
Setting up that weird scene might be difficult anyway because in this future that kind of activity is rare: men and women generally don’t like each other (most of that due to corporate manipulation that intentionally pits every demographic against each other in order to make individuals less independent and more vulnerable against abusive corporate practices). However, the two protagonists work really well together in a couple high-stress situations, and we know what happens then, especially if both the male and the female are physically attractive, which they would be because I’d write them like that.
Next, I’d need some kind of bar fight. Bar fights aren’t mandatory, but they can be iconic. The cantina scene from Star Wars? Everybody remembers that, and the moments of violence didn’t even last long, but it revealed character. And there was some humor involved. And to me, the original movie will always just be just Star Wars.
A story like this needs humor too, so along with the banter I’ll throw in throw in the crazy conspiracy theorist because, you know, they can come across as kind of funny and crazy at the same time (you gotta believe me, man!). Conspiracy theorists are often right that the story being fed to the public is wrong, but then they get bogged down trying to figure out what actually happened.
Unfortunately, since most theorists don’t have access to enough information to correctly put the pieces of the puzzles together correctly, they end up committed to theories that are wrong and/or spectacularly stupid and therefore ruin their credibility completely, and everybody else feels even more strongly that the original big lies are true. And then their commitments to bad ideas comes across as funny to everybody else. That’s how it works, man!
In this case, the conspiracy theorist will be something artificially generated, like a talking cat or dog or weird looking alien type creature. The reader knows (or suspects) that the dog/cat/alien is fake because … duh… that’s what A.I. does (especially in the future, though a science nerd might have a better technical term for this). But the two protagonists are in some ways just as brain rotted from the environment that even they can be fooled and not suspect it.
We don’t find out if the crazy conspiracy theorist is helping or leading them to their doom at the behest of its creators until the end of the story (and even I’m not sure yet), but it will be hilarious with its commentary along the way. And then working the techno-alien conspiracy theorist into the… uh.. weird scene… THAT would be a lot of fun! I could write all that!
As I mentioned earlier, the two protagonists have conflicting goals. The historian wants to destroy the system. The rebel doesn’t like the system but doesn’t want it to just go away without a replacement system ready. As they rant to each other about their viewpoints, the historian argues that the system is evil and needs to be crushed at all costs while the outsider counters that masses of people would starve or be killed in the ensuing chaos if the system were to just vanish. The historian declares that no such system could be established without the current system gone first, and blah, blah, blah, the sexual tension rises…
Even though banter, bar fights, humor, and semi-adult content can cover up a lot of weak points in my writing, it might not make up for my gaps, which is why I probably won’t try writing something like this. Then again, trying it while relying heavily on my strengths and disregarding my weaknesses might be really fun to write. And if I went all-out on it, it might be really fun to read!
I’m not looking for validation about this. I’m just explaining my thoughts about writing.
How would all this end? Would the historian use her knowledge to destroy the system? Would the rebel succeed at preserving the system and helping people thrive within it? Or would they be led to their own doom by the techno-alien conspiracy theorist?
We’ll probably never know. These are just ideas, and some of these go beyond my limitations. For all I know, it’s already been written, but if it has, I bet it doesn’t have a weird sex scene in it. And if it does, I bet I could write a better one. But that’s just not the way I roll.
*****
I admire cartoonist Gary Larsen because he didn’t let his self-admitted artistic limitations prevent him from becoming one of the most successful comic strip artists of my generation. He found a way to make the combination of his strengths and limitations work. And then he retired when he wanted to. Great job, Gary!
*****
When I wrote my ONE novel, I stuck to my strengths and subjects that I knew about!
It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!
Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets blindsided by reality!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon !
Over the last few months, I’ve been writing more blog posts about comic books and old comic strips, and some of these have turned into my favorite recent posts. Unfortunately, I haven’t organized these comic posts as I’ve written them, so sometimes I can’t find my own writing (not finding stuff might be age-related, but I’m not sure because I’ve always been a little absentminded).
Speaking of absentmindedness, you should have seen my desk back in the old days. It was pretty bad. Now that almost everything is digitized, my desk isn’t so messy, but in the days of paper documentation? Yeesh! Piles of paper documentation, that’s something that I don’t miss!
Piles of comic books? I’m still a sucker to see what’s new.
COMIC BOOKS:
A Kid Threw Up at the Comic Book Show (It’s not gross. I promise!)
Old Man Reviews Manga: Vinland Saga Books One to Eleven by Makoto Yukimura
Jack Kirby: The True Creator of the Marvel Universe?
Why The Fantastic Four was once “The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”
I Took My Copy of The Incredible Hulk #181 to School!
Mag-NETT-o vs. Mag-NEET-o: The Magneto Supervillain Pronunciation Debate!
COMIC STRIPS:
Fond Memories of the Sunday Funnies
Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts, and the Five-Minute Birthday Party
Charlie Brown in Peanuts vs. Crash Davis in Bull Durham
Three Days of Mute… guest starring Mad cartoonist Sergio Aragones!!
Prince Valiant by Hal Foster: Too Good For the Sunday Comics?
Robin Hood: Men in Tights vs. Don Martin in Sherwood Forest
Happy Birthday to Everybody Every Day… starring Charles Schulz and Peanuts
Fond Memories Of The Goofs Who Ruined Christmas
When WordPress notified me of my 15th anniversary of Dysfunctional Literacy, I was almost ready. I missed my tenth anniversary five years ago because there was a lot of crazy stuff going on in my personal life. Most of the crazy stuff has resolved itself (not necessarily in the best ways possible, but still resolved) and has been replaced by other crazy stuff that isn’t nearly so crazy. At least it hasn’t been as crazy recently. And hopefully won’t be again for a while.
I like the variety of stuff that I’ve written on my blog over the last 15 years. Even though my writing style is somewhat (or very) limited, I haven’t limited myself to one type of blog post. I don’t only write book reviews. I write stories (that are mostly true). I write social commentary. I write about comic books and comic strips. And of course, I write book reviews, but now my reviews focus on old books because that’s what I like to read now (for some reason). The only thing I don’t write is poetry.
I respect poetry, though. I respect poetry so much that I don’t try writing it.
I wouldn’t say that the articles that I mention below are my greatest hits, but these MIGHT represent the variety of stuff that I write about.
Here’s the first segment from my first blog serial called “Long Story.” It’s about a long story that I wrote in high school. I originally wrote it (the blog serial “Long Story,” NOT the long story that I wrote in high school) in 2012, but this is an edit from 2020 with a link to the original.
Long Story: Teachers With Unfortunate Last Names
Here are a few other much shorter blog serials (if that’s your thing):
The Tale of the Almost-Expired Milk
Childhood Ghost Story- The Prologue
Awkward Moments in Dating: The Homepage
*****
Here’s a stand alone blog post. Even in 2013, I was making fun of George R.R. Martin not finishing A Game of Thrones. Haha!
Ender’s Game vs. The Hunger Games vs. A Game of Thrones
Here’s my novel The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy. Yeah, I say it’s a romantic comedy, but it’s from a guy’s point of view, so sometimes people don’t get the point. Most romantic comedies are about a woman with a chaotic life who falls for an extremely attractive man with an orderly life (or some variation). The Sunset Rises is instead about an average guy with an orderly life who falls for a really attractive woman with a chaotic life, and then hilarious chaos ensues. Of course, there’a a lot more to it than that, but I don’t like relying on spoilers, especially spoilers for something that I’ve written.
Looking back, maybe it was a bad idea for a novel, but I like trying bad ideas sometimes, and I really like my one novel. That’s it. That’s the only novel I’m ever going to write. I’m no James Patterson.
Some people my age get nostalgic about the past, but there’s a lot of stuff that I’m glad has changed. Whenever I get anti-nostalgic, which really doesn’t happen very often, I write one of my Old Things That Are Tough To Explain articles. Here’s where you can find most of them.
About ten years ago, my older brother found the original drawings of a bunch of comic strips that he had published in our local small town newspaper in the early 1980s. His dream at the time was to be a syndicated comic strip creator, but stuff like that is a long shot for people like us with little money and no connections. Once my brother got married and started raising his kids, other things became more important to him (we all know the story).
When I ran out of his original Calloway the Castaway comic strips, I then started running his unpublished (and sometimes unfinished) Dummo Mouse cartoons. Even though the last of the Dummo Mouse cartoons aren’t inked, they’re my favorites, but I’ve slowed down posting them because I want to give each one a better introduction than what I’ve normally been writing for them.
For some of my older brother’s comic strips from the 1980s, see…
The Lost Adventures of “Calloway the Castaway” Episode 1
Dummo Mouse and Friends: The Intro
There are a lot more categories and topics (such as Dysfunctional Book Reviews and comic books) that I’ve covered on this blog over the years, but my title claimed that this was going to be a short blog post, so I should hold myself to that. If you like what you’ve seen so far, look around some more, and if you really like what you’ve read… buy my book! I mean… ahem… if you really like what you’ve read, please buy my book (but only if you can afford it in today’s economy).
Censorship and book banning are two issues that never seem to go away. Everybody says they’re against censorship and banning, but books are still getting banned and/or censored, so somebody has to be pro-ban or pro-censorship. Sometimes people get the two concepts confused, but the difference is pretty easy. Censorship is when the content is changed, and banning is when a government makes the book disappear.
Sometimes I’ll censor my own stuff, usually profanity, because using the actual word detracts from the point that I’m trying to make. You’ll see what I mean in a moment. I’ve even self-banned a few blog posts that I’ve written because I regretted my words later. I’m not providing links.
Censorship/banning is kind of like the death penalty. A lot of people are squeamish about giving the government that kind of power, but every once in a while there’s a case where almost everybody agrees that THAT motherF***er needs to die.
See what I mean? I can make my point without spelling out the word. If I had spelled out the word, some readers would have focused exclusively on the word and not have cared about the point I was trying to make. Self-censorship can sometimes be effective.
Book banning can be a little extreme. When a government bans a book, the book then just disappears as if it never existed, kind of like most 1990s websites. A community deciding to get rid of a book in a school or public library is not quite the same thing, though, especially if you can just go to the book store and buy the controversial book yourself. We might disagree about what books should go into a public library, and there could be some awesomely vitriolic arguments over that, but maybe communities should have the right to make that decision, especially those people who are paying the taxes or whose kids are forced to attend those schools.
Sometimes censorship and banning are done in the name of…(dramatic pause) the children. I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to causes for children. Whenever charities claim to be raising money to help or save… (dramatic pause) the children, I get a little suspicious. After all, scammers are known for using children as props to get what they want, whether that be power or money. I understand why they do this. Who wants to be the heartless cad who says no to the children? But banning books isn’t the same thing as raising money. All you have to do for banning is to get rid of some of those weird or offensive books from the elementary or middle school libraries.
People from both sides of the political spectrum want to interfere with books. Conservatives sometimes want to censor/ban the ‘sexual stuff’ (you know what I mean), and liberals sometimes want to censor the racial stuff (you know what I mean). The ‘racial stuff’ tends to be old, and the ‘sexual stuff’ tends to be new. Liberals seem to be okay with changing the offensive content (What’s wrong with getting rid of racist content, you bigot!), and conservatives don’t want the overly progressive stuff in the children’s section (Why are you pushing this sexual stuff on kids, you perverts!).
I’m not a fan of ‘book banning’ (I put the word ‘banning’ in quotes because I don’t think of what’s going on in communities as really ‘banning’), but at least the book banners are honest about their intentions. The censors are sometimes sneakier, just saying that they’re only changing a word or two. Yeah, right. We know what that means. And we know what that leads to.
Changing the content of an old book that’s deemed offensive by today’s standards seems almost normal now. Usually it’s something that’s insensitive or downright offensive. I think of stuff like And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street by Dr. Seuss, which had a few illustrations that were okay at the time it was published but were later considered offensive and have since been changed (to something less offensive to the people who were offended and something more offensive to people who originally were NOT offended.). Some of the original language in a few Roald Dahl books has been changed, including the word ‘fat’ which was then replaced with the word with ‘enormous.’
The word ‘fat’ is offensive?
When I was a kid back in the 1970s, I was made fun of for being a skinny stick just as much as the overweight kids were made fun of for being fat blobs. I think the issue now is that today there are many more people who are overweight than there are people who are underweight, so their opinions matter more. I blame the proliferation of cheap processed food. I’m not sure ‘enormous’ is a better choice of words either. ‘Enormous’ has several meanings. ‘Fat’ is just fat. Even a kid understands that.
Then there’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, which has a bunch of usages of the word that shall not be named, not even in the context of the word that shall not be named being used. Some modern readers suggest that there should be a ‘safe’ version with a replacement word, but I don’t know. To me, old fiction is like a historical document. An old book shows you how people of any given time period thought through their own words and attitudes, not those of a historian who might have an unknown agenda. If you change the old book, then you change the history, and you give the crazy doubters (you know, the ones who doubt Helen Keller and the moon landing) the reason to doubt in the first place.
Even though my daughter hasn’t turned out to be a reader for pleasure, my wife and I provided her with a wide variety of children’s books when she was younger. She had new books (well, they were new at the time), old books, a couple books that were considered progressive at the time, and even a couple books that would be considered problematic today (the uncensored old versions. I provide my family with only the good stuff). I don’t think she was damaged by either type of offensive book (despite the possible intentions of some of the authors).
If the local community decided to get rid of any of the books I enjoyed in the public library, I’d be annoyed, but I wouldn’t get worked up about it. I wouldn’t call anybody a fascist over it (unless they actually started burning the books). I wouldn’t protest or block traffic. I might write a strongly worded letter, but I’m sure nobody would read it or be persuaded by it. If the state decided to get rid of a book entirely, I’d go out and buy it just to see what was going on with it (unless it was written by James Patterson). When Stephen King self-banned his novella Rage, I bought a Richard Bachman (his pseudonym at the time) collection/anthology just to have my own copy of the story. That’s how I am.
In short, I guess I’m one of those hypocrites who claims to be against banning and censorship unless I’m kind of for it or don’t care enough about the book to get worked up about it. Hypocrisy isn’t the worst thing in the world, especially if we’re honest about it. Self-admitting hypocrisy keeps me from getting self-righteous about my beliefs, and self-righteousness is way worse than hypocrisy. I’m rambling. I guess I’m against book banning and censorship, but every once in a while, not very often, there’ll be that one book where I think to myself (who else am I going to think to?), yeah, that motherf***ing book needs to go away!
*****
For more Literary Rants (or rambles), see…
The Literary Rants: Must-Read Novels!!
Dysfunctional Literacy 