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"Yesterday's Bitches, 51-60" #51, #52, #53, #54, #55, #56, #57, #58, #59, #60 First... before the bitch. I'd like to extend my apologies and my thanks to those people who—reading my last bitch—decided that I needed cheering up and actually sent me gifts. I was blown away by your generosity and a bit embarrassed that I must have sounded so unbelievably needy. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Though I really am not the best gift receiver, I do appreciate the time, effort, and thoughtfulness that go into something like that. Now don't do it again. I have instant guilt when people do such wonderful things for me; I'm much happier to just bitch about my problems. So next time you feel moved to help me, drop me a line with your phone number and I'll call and just bitch about my problems to you for ten to fifteen minutes. I'll feel guilty about this, too, but I'll forget about it soon. It's hard to forget when people do something so insanely nice for you as packing up a huge box full of comfort food and shipping it through the mail to you, or sending you a reciprocating saw so you can chop up the dogs if you kill them. It was a good way to end the year—knowing that there were people who actually cared enough to go out of their way to try to make me feel better. Now stop it. I work very hard at being bitter. Dumbasses Who Just Don't Get It I think it's pretty obvious what we're doing with Yard Dog Press. We're putting out well-written, entertaining book, we're creating a community of writers, and we're doing everything in our power as a group and as individuals to sell our product. I am, however, constantly reminded that some people just don't get it. I'm especially amused by writers who don't get it, because I figure they should even if no one else does. Allow me to explain. I'm known around conventions and among my associates for being... well a bit of a character. I'm basically a performer, and I love having an audience. In fact, this was my downfall all through school—I totally missed the fact that I was supposed to be there to learn and was instead convinced that it was my duty to make sure that my classmates were entertained. Now that I work at home I see no one until I get to a convention or other social event, so as you might expect I'm on from the time I hit the door till I leave. It's not an act; it's who I am. Most artistic people are similar in their need to entertain, though they aren't necessarily as loud or perhaps as outrageous. Most of the writers and artists who work for us are very outgoing, gregarious people. Everyone who works for us is very talented, but some of them—believe it or not—are very shy, one might even say introverted people who prefer to always entertain with words and from the comfort of some hidden place. Now here's the honest truth: our more-outgoing writers outsell the quiet ones as much as three to one in spite of their talent or past sales at bigger houses, and yet some people still don't get it. A few months ago
we were at a convention down in See... they don't get it. I've been a panelist in the almost empty room next to the room that's so loud you can hardly hear yourself think. But you see I have a sense of humor, and I know that it's so loud because the room is full of audience, and that the room over there is full of audience and ours isn't because OUR panel isn't nearly as entertaining. It happens. But anyway...
down in Apparently some "writer" at the convention—not associated with our house and in fact any house that any of us had ever heard of—said on a panel that she thought that the Road Show was the worst waste of panel time she'd ever seen at a convention, that she couldn't believe that our writers and artists would demean themselves in such a way, and further she asked them to notice that I hadn't gotten up and done any interpretive dance because apparently I didn't want to debase myself before the masses. Not only did she not get it, but she doesn't know me at all. Hell, I'll do damn near anything if I think it might get a laugh, just ask any of my teachers. If she'd seen the whole road show she would have seen me start the whole thing off by singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot with an interpretive dance that you couldn't do with kids in the room. I don't make anyone do interpretive dance unless they want to. In fact, when we're talking Yard Dog Press people you'd be hell bent to make them do anything they didn't want to do. Yes, I'm the editor and the publisher, but we just aren't that sort of company. I don't order them to kiss my ass, and they wouldn't even if I did because they aren't those types of writers and artists. Now I'm sure the humorless bitch found people who agreed with her, but most didn't, and what she did in her moment of putting us down in public was to forever label herself as someone who was anti fun with a stick up her ass. And if she thinks that's what sells books at a Sci-Fi convention, then she just doesn't get it. Selina
Someone Lied to Oprah!!! Personally
I'm not morally outraged by what Frey did. Let's face it, fiction has become a hard sell,
and he found a way in the door. He did what most of us will never do—he got rich and
famous writing. I don't know that I can damn him for that. I don't even know that I find
it unethical to lie to publishers, and agents, and even the general public to sell a book.
Did the book entertain people? Did it give people food for thought? Then does it really
matter whether he spent five years or fifteen minutes in jail? Would I
do it? No, because I'm convinced that if I step even one pinky out of line, lightning
will strike me in the ass—as was proven yesterday when I was ticketed for going
67 in an area that apparently till a month ago was a 65 mile per hour zone. People
lie in their art every day just to make a living. They write books they hate because
they're told what to write and they want a pay check. They write when they don't feel like
it and have no ideas and they just put words on a piece of paper and then sell them,
because once you have a name you can do that sort of shit and get away with it. You buy
the book on their name, expecting a certain amount of professionalism and talent, and wind
up reading something that sucks. Isn't that a lie? What about the
authors who write crap they absolutely don't believe to make money—like my
agnostic friend who writes those fucking Christian sci-fi books because they're easy and
it's good money. As
writers we're really just pissed off that Frey found a way in. I believe he wrote
something very close to him, I believe he wrote just exactly what he wanted. Did he take
poetic license to a new level? Probably not, he just got caught. I haven't heard anyone
yet say that his book sucked or that the writing was bad. He presented it as fact, and not
all of it was. He embellished a lot of it, so what? Are we really mad because he lied, or
are we just pissed off because he cheated and he didn't get caught till it didn't really
matter any more? Would the publishers have bought it if it said “based on a true
story” on the cover? Probably not. He's not saying—because that really would be
the kiss of death in this business—but I imagine that at least his agent, and more
than likely the publisher, told him to proclaim it was autobiographical. Face it, if the
book hadn't done as well as it had, and if Oprah hadn't picked it up, they never would
have gotten caught. If I'm
outraged by the Frey thing at all it's because this sort of gimmick seems to be the only
thing that works to get noticed in this business anymore. Integrity in your art won't get
you anywhere in this business. Talent, perseverance, won't guarantee you any level of
success, but if you can get someone like Oprah to mention your book or wind up
knee deep in some controversy, then you can make a fortune and get all the recognition
you'd ever want to get. Frey
managed to do both, so he's going to be filthy rich and famous while the rest of us
continue to work, hone our craft, and dream of even a modicum of success. Is it fair?
No. Nothing in the publishing business—or life for that matter—is fair, but I'm
not blaming Frey for all this crap. I blame a publishing industry that pushes people to be
unethical and/or untrue to their talent in order to make a living. A
publishing industry that would make a man lie to Oprah. Selina
I’ve bitched about it
before, and I’m sure in these days of trampling on and dancing over the first
amendment I’ll bitch about it again. Selina
Lots To Bitch About …having to take the rap when other
people drop the ball. The following is an example NOT an attempt to chastise anyone. This is not by far the worst or most egregious thing that has happened in the course of running this business. It is, in fact, pretty minor. One of our writers called all upset because he didn’t like his cover art. Meanwhile, he had never bothered to talk to the artist and tell her what he wanted, maybe come to some agreement together. Of course this was made worse by the fact that Lynn couldn’t send him the image until about 15 minutes before we go to print – some computer malfunction I don’t understand – and she didn’t bother to tell me that there was a problem so that I could call and tell the writer so that we could get him the art work in time for him to disapprove. Of course the art work wasn’t the concept I’d told the artist I wanted. That’s not a problem; I expect artists to use their own vision at times. But then one of the reasons the author wasn’t happy with the cover was that it wasn’t the design we had discussed. But again... none of that is my fault. Everything has been ironed out, and everyone is happy, but again a problem I had to deal with that wasn’t my fault – a string of misunderstandings and miscommunications that could have been solved if anyone was talking to anyone else. Now I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I get sick to death of having to deal with problems caused by what other people did or did not do. I’ve done a lot of maintenance work over the years, and here’s the thing. People never want to do maintenance work, so they always want to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible. After all, when you get done with maintenance nothing’s really different – it just looks a little cleaner or runs a little better. So, over the years I’ve gotten really good at trouble shooting and fixing things with a wad of bubble gum, some duct tape and bailing wire, but... I have to know there is a problem and what it is before I can even start to fix it, and in this business that’s not very often the case. I don’t know the bitches aren’t being posted till I run into fans who tell me I’m behind at a convention, and I don’t know the writer isn’t happy with his cover art till we’re damn near ready to go to print with the book and I don’t know that the title is wrong on IHOB till I open the box and realize 200 hundred books have been printed with the wrong title on the cover. Not knowing something needs to be fixed until it’s in a hundred pieces on the floor in front of you is what makes stress. In the carpentry/masonry/landscaping business – which I have done and periodically think of going back to – there is usually some warning that something is about to go horribly wrong. There are signs and sounds you can look for so you can – at least in part – prepare. You hardly ever get completely blindsided because you at least knew this or that was a possibility. Not in the cockamamie bullshit publishing and writing business. You’ll be sitting in your recliner eating your dinner of cold cereal and get a call, or be dripping milk and Captain Crunch on your keyboard and get an E-mail, and suddenly have some huge-assed problem you didn’t know existed because someone, somewhere dropped the ball, and it’s up to you to solve the problem. You’ve got about ten minutes and it’s a damn-near sure bet that when you get done no one’s going to be happy – and here’s the real problem for me – I really want everyone to be happy. I hate ruining someone’s day even if they have just destroyed mine. I know what you’re
thinking, “Stop whining, no one asked you to go into this business,” but that
would make you dead wrong. But I’m not bitter. What really chaps my ass, though, is that my stress could easily be cut in half if only everyone else would do everything else they’re supposed to do. So... now you get my take on what stress really is. Stress is caused from always worrying that someone’s going to drop the ball, you aren’t going to be there to catch it, and then you’re going to be the one to have to clean up the huge mess when the ball hits the ground and shatters into a bazillion little pieces. People who aren’t stressed out don’t worry, and why don’t they worry? Because they know that when they drop the ball some dumbass – like you and me – will have to catch it or clean up the mess. They don’t worry because they don’t actually give one good shit about anything or anyone but themselves, and they’re counting on you to take the blame and fix the problem. So... Blessed are the stressed because they actually give a fuck. Screw the Gas Companies and Save the
World Yeah, I’m worried plenty about higher gas prices because it’s a sure bet people won’t start conserving energy and that means they’re going to have to save money on something. For most of us the first thing to do is to stop purchasing luxury items, and for most people that means books. Since I’m in the book business, both as a writer and a publisher, my butt cheeks flinch every time the price of gas goes up. So ask yourself this question, “Why is it that we’re unable to conserve energy? Why would we rather keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing, burning up a limited resource and polluting our environment then spend the money on a book?” I remember 55 mile an hour speed limits, no gas on Sunday, and discounts for fuel-efficient cars. No one died; in fact, many more people are dying now to keep using great copious amounts of fuel. You want to bring the cost of gas down? Quit using so God damned much! The oil companies have us by the ‘nads, and they know it. They have found a way to make twice as much money on the same amount of product. Don’t we all wish we could do that? Their massive profits are going to hurt every other business, but it will hit the arts the hardest because it always does. Why are people building bigger and bigger houses and driving bigger and bigger cars in the middle of an energy crisis? I heard a bunch of soccer moms whining on the TV about the high gas prices and I quote, “We can’t stop going to work, and we can’t stop going to games, so we’ve given up eating out and other luxuries.” You can’t stop taking your kid to his soccer game? That’s fucking lame. Let’s use up expensive gasoline, pollute the environment, and feed the war machine so our bratty-assed kid doesn’t miss a soccer game. You know what used to happen in neighborhoods before we had all this “organized fun,” people think their kids have to have? Kids got together on the vacant lot or in the biggest yard and they played ball or flew kites just for fun. They built forts and made up garage bands, and guess what? No childhood obesity then. Turn the fucking TV and video game off and send your kids outside. I always had a rule with my son, TV and video games were for bad weather and night time. As long as it was nice out he played outside. We were poor, so he couldn’t be in any sports anyway, but he got more exercise than any kid on the football team and... no gas was used and no broken bones. If you just must let your child play organized sports, then what about a little thing we used to call car pooling? Let the mothers – and to be politically correct, fathers – take turns taking the kids to practice and games. Let the little, fat kids walk to a central place where they can be picked up using the least gas. While they were doing this newscast on the plight of soccer moms, you could see the parking lot and it was just filled with SUVs –what I like to call the downfall of the American economy – you could easily take at least six kids and an adult in each one of those gas-guzzling pieces of shit, so do it. Any car that gets less than 25 miles a gallon should never have only one person in it unless he’s driving to pick up his coworkers. Either everyone pitches in for gas, or you switch who drives each week. Why screw everyone else when it’s the oil companies that are screwing you? When you say you’ll give up eating out, buying this, buying that, going to the movies, buying books, you’re putting other people – and maybe even yourself – out of work, because guess what when the people who do all those jobs get laid off they might not have the money to buy whatever it is you do. Make lists; never run to the supermarket for one thing. Make a list and go out to all the stores you need to go to at one time. Taking the kids to a ball game or visiting a relative? Stop on the way home and go shopping. Every ounce of gas you save takes money out of the oil barons’ pockets and puts money into yours. And you can buy books. If you have the money, get rid of the SUV – admit you never needed it in the first place – and buy a hybrid car or at least one that gets 30 miles to the gallon or more. Want to go to a convention but don’t think you can afford it because of the high price of gas? Find one or more people to go with you and split the cost of the gas and maybe even the hotel room. You’ll find you have even more money to, oh I don’t know, buy some books. If you haven’t already bought one of the huge, energy-sucking piece of shit houses, don’t. Don’t keep your house so hot in the winter that if it were summer you’d have the air on, or so cold in the summer that if it were winter you’d have the heater on. That’s just freaking insane! Turn lights off when you leave a room. Use the florescent bulbs that use less energy. Use fans more and air conditioners less. Shut off the heat and air from rooms in your house that you don’t use. Then you’ll have more money to buy books. Learn to conserve on every level. If we don’t the world won’t last long anyway, much less our namby-pamby life style. Get this straight, people – we don’t have to be completely comfortable all the time. That mind set is one of the things that is making us fat and flabby. It’s all right to occasionally be a little too hot or a little to cold. Run around in shorts and a tank top in the summer. Wear jeans and a sweat shirt in the winter. Clothes are a renewable resource, fossil fuels aren’t. Yeah, I know Scrooge said basically the same thing, but no one is wrong about everything. Except the President. Listen; it’s as simple as this. Would you rather keep your friends and yourself working, or would you rather continue to give the utility and gas companies all your money and thus ensure that thousands more people will be out of work? If everyone sticks to this unfounded belief that we can do without everything but cutting back on our fuel and utility consumption, then that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And about books. Books are completely energy efficient, especially if you’re reading them outside in the sunlight while watching your kids play baseball on the vacant corner lot. Books don’t pollute our environment. They cost considerably less than a tank of gas. You can read your book over and over again, so it’s a completely renewable resource. I guess my real question is why someone would support the war, pollution, and the greedy, blood-sucking oil companies when they could support the arts instead? Think about it a minute. If you did just some of the things I suggested above, how much money would you save? Think of all the other things – like books – you could then buy with that money. You can either be part of the problem or part of the solution. Paying more for the same amount of gas you buy now and then not buying other things – like books – will destroy the economy of our country and put millions – perhaps even yourself – out of work. But by conserving energy and spending the money saved on other things –hell you can buy my books off the net so you don’t have to drive anywhere how great is that – you can help turn the economy around and cut our dependency on foreign oil. So... buy my books and
save the world.
It’s Not an Immigration Problem;
it’s a Religion Problem Listen, just admit that the real problem isn’t how many Mexicans are entering our country illegally, the real problem is that they have no place else to go. Their own country is so over populated that there aren’t enough jobs – except what American corporations are sending down there in an effort to break unions – or enough room for them in their own cities. Our country is over populated, too, and the influx of immigrants only makes it worse, which is why everyone is so pissed off. No one else will say it, so I will – most probably because I’m a huge dumbass who just doesn’t know when to keep my mouth shut – the real problem is religions that don’t let people use contraceptives or worse yet encourage people to just have as many kids as they possibly can. It’s not likely that the current Pope is going to give his followers any relief. No, he’ll insist – as all the others have – that it’s a sin to use contraceptives. This despite the fact that it’s obvious we’re badly over populating our planet, which is in turn destroying our environment and causing dissension. We’re too close together, which is one of the things fueling all the recent plagues. Are you worried about the bird flu? I am. I am because I know that the planet has its own way of dealing with too many of us in one place – it kills us off with germs. I prefer for plagues that kill off most of the population of the planet to be the stuff that we build science fiction stories with, not a reality. But if you check out history, any time an area has gotten too densely populated a plague has come through and killed most everyone off – that or a major war. I also think a third world war should be science fiction fodder and not reality, so my idea is for everyone to replace themselves and then have no more children. Why replace ourselves? Why not just stop having children altogether? Because then we’ll run into the problem Spain’s having now; there aren’t enough people working to take care of the needs of the elderly. They’re having huge economic problems and actually encouraging people to have more kids. So I suggest families have one or two kids and then stop right there. See, medical science has stopped us from having the sort of plague like the Spanish flu we had in the early 1900s which killed a third of the world’s population; however, medical science can only do so much. It didn’t stop the AIDS epidemic, and unless they get their ass on the ball it’s not going to stop the Bird Flu. The planet is actually a living thing; think of us for a minute as a parasite. Most parasites, left unchecked, will eventually kill their host and then move to another. Here’s the problem, people... there isn’t anywhere else for us to go, at least not yet. Anyway, though I might write about it, I hate to think about a future where we just jump from planet to planet, using them up and then moving on. I’d like to think we could all learn from our mistakes and the mistakes of our ancestors, and not leave such a mess for our children. There are too damn many flees on this dog, and since none of us want to jump into the abyss to save her, I think it’s time we stop letting religious dogma stop us from doing what’s right. Stop breeding like flies and assuming that we are more important than any of God’s other creatures. What’s the greater evil, that you thumb your nose at your religious leaders and protect yourselves from unwanted pregnancy and STDs, or that you help to over populate the world thus causing the stories speculative fiction writers have written to become a reality? Selina The Big Lie!!! I know that many of you, like myself, are in a long-term relationship with a woman. This being the case, I’m sure that you all know exactly what I’m talking about when I talk about “The Big Lie.” Yes, I’m talking about the over-ripe bananas she won’t let you throw out because she’s going to make banana bread. Of course none of us have ever eaten this fabled bread of legend and lore, nor have we smelled or even seen it. No, mostly what we see are bananas that grow blacker daily till you can’t walk in the kitchen for the black cloud of fruit flies that swarm you when you walk through the door. You dare not throw them into the trash can or ask if you can because if you do she will scream out at you... “I told you I wanted to make banana bread!” So you wait. Eventually the bugs will suck all the juice from them and leave little, dry, brown husks that hardly resemble the succulent yellow fruit they once were. At this point in time, the light of your life will say to you, “Go ahead and throw those bananas out. I just don’t have time to make banana bread.” Huge sigh. Now you’d think that the next time she threatened banana bread you could just counter with, “Honey, you don’t have the time to make banana bread.” It seems reasonable and even thoughtful, but NO! Color you wrong, because when you say this she will scream at you... “Don’t tell me what I have time for! It’s not rocket science; it doesn’t take that long!” If you are wise – or even relatively intelligent – you will not at this time remind her that she didn’t make banana bread the last time because she “didn’t have time.” No, what you will do is spend the next few days watching the interesting process of dehydration and the mating and life cycles of fruit flies until she once again says she didn’t have time, sighs, and lets you toss out the dried brown husks. Now I know what some of you are asking yourselves why I don’t just eat all the bananas and stop the lying and the waste? Because every time I go to get a banana she says, “Leave some of those for my lunches.” Of course nine times out of ten she forgets to pack a lunch and ends up picking up some crap sandwich, a coke, and a hostess fruit pie at a Quick Trip for $14.95. Never having money is of course the reason why she decided to pack a lunch in the first place. Hence the need for bananas. So that she can then forget to pack the “healthy” lunch she means to pack and spend $14.95 on crappy junk food – hence causing a money shortage which forces us to have a never-ending supply of bananas that have never once brought forth the mystical, often hear of it, have never tasted it lie which is banana bread. Selina The Way Things Are
So I know you all get tired of me bitching about the same things, but here’s the
thing – I’d stop bitching about them if people would stop doing them. I am sooooo fed up with people who only
care about the way things look not about the way they really are. I’ve seen way too much of that lately and have been the
recipient of it too often in the recent past. If you want to judge me, then judge me
by the way I actually treat people, the way you see me treat people, the way you know I
treat you. Don’t judge me according to so called “normal” standards, and
certainly don’t judge me by what some dipwad with a grudge told you. Especially since
nine chances out of ten the dipwad has that grudge because they did something to me and I
reacted instead of letting them kick me for the tenth time. For the record, one of the not so
“normal” things that I do is that I never judge anyone strictly on what another
person – or even persons – says about them. What I’ve heard might make me
watch them and even jump to conclusions about their actions, but even then they usually
have to actually do something horrible to get my disapproval. I don’t judge individual people on
their race, creed, social standing, education, or religion. I judge them as
individuals by how they treat other people and the world. See I don’t care how they
“look,” I only care how they are. If
you have great wealth and horde it doing no good for anyone but yourself, I call you
greedy. If you hold to your political beliefs even when the people you vote for pass laws
that hurt you, your friends, and your family, I call you stupid. If you use your education
to belittle those you consider to be less learned than yourself, I call you arrogant. If
your religious convictions lead you to judge others without knowing them and brings
war to the world, I call you ignorant. There are good people in all groups, but
they are constantly over shadowed by assholes who do hideous things; whole groups of
people will be labeled on the actions of a few. Families constantly judge us –
we’re a disappointment, we didn’t live up to our potential, we’re too fat,
or too skinny, we didn’t go to college, they don’t like our
“choices,” or we didn’t get a good job. I have a son. He’s fat, and I
really don’t give a shit because at the current time he’s actually happy –
and like I said I don’t care how things look. He used to drink way too much and do
stupid things that got him in trouble but he looked like a model. He was always – in
any state – good to his mother. He was always a caring and compassionate boy, but he
scared the hell out of me, so... I’d rather he was fat and happy and not doing
self-destructive things. There are a group of people in my life
who have no respect for me. They judge me only by what I look like to their
friends and not by who I am. I’m openly gay; they hate that. I’m Jewish;
they hate that. I have no formal education, and for them this means I haven’t earned
any respect because I’m not rich – and if you aren’t going to
be formally educated then you need to be rich to earn their respect. Now normally if you don’t like me
on sight and want to judge me, then I’m more or less of the notion that you need to
kiss my ass and I don’t have time for you. But I worked for years to try to gain
these people’s respect because it was important to someone I care about. Finally,
after I fixed all their stuff when it broke, was loyal and honest and all that crap, I
gleaned some small amount of respect from them, and I was happy with that. Then one person
in this group – who has always been a problem because they’re a liar and a
drunk to name their good qualities – started talking crap about me. Of course, since
they already hate me for all those perfectly good reasons, I’m now right back on
their shit list because even though this person has never caused anyone in the group
anything but grief they’re from the inside and I’m not. I tried to pretend like the whole thing
didn’t just chap my fat, hairy ass, but it does to the point of distraction. I have
never done anything but be nice to these people, and they’ve rarely even been cordial
to me. I have never asked a damn thing of them, and they constantly ask me for things. It
took me years to get them to even like me, and now on the word of the group trouble maker
I’m a pariah again. Not because of anything I’ve done
to anyone, but because of how I look to the world at large. It’s easy to heap harsh
judgment on the head of someone who’s as big an oddball as I am. About the time this starts to really
depress the shit out of me I remember all the wonderful people in my life who love me just
the way I am. In fact, they even love me because
of who I am. Hell, even my family – including my father who freaks out because
we’re all fat – loves me. I have lots of wonderful friends and fans who respect
me. Hell, they think I’m the bomb. When I realize this, in the large scheme of things
what does it matter that a handful of small-minded people don’t respect me? Hell they
didn’t like me from the get go, so what have I really lost except... I don’t have to kiss their asses anymore? And if they want me to fix their stuff
they can start kissing mine. Shalom, Selina
When a Polite Society Is Too Polite I’ll be the first one to tell you that I think there are way too many tight asses in this world who pass judgment much too quickly on other people just because they’re different. They want to pass laws and thump on the Bible and tell everyone how to live, who to love, and what to watch and read and write. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone would just mind their own fucking business and let us live our lives? I had a history teacher who put it best when he said, your rights end where another person’s rights begin. Simply put, if I’m not forcing you to do something you don’t want to do then shut up. Turn the TV off, don’t look in my yard or in my windows, don’t eat the food out of my refrigerator, don’t order what I order at the restaurant, don’t blow your smoke in my face. Now if I come into the section of the restaurant that you’re in, or in a bar, or into your house, then I’ve made a decision to live with your smoke, so I should shut up. If you want to scream obscenities about who I am and how I live, then do so all you want to your Nazi friends; however, don’t picket my parade and don’t march down my street screaming hate and crap. See that’s my vision of a polite society – one where everyone accepts people’s rights to live the way they want as long as they don’t bother you in a place where you can’t get away. So when is a polite society too polite? When we allow some utter festering leach on the ass of humanity to live. There is this guy who
haunts If they gave me a get-out-of-jail-free card, I could take a gun and blow this guy’s brains out then go get a sandwich and take a nap. I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking that now I sound psychotic, but then you’ve never met him because anyone who has – even the most namby-pamby pacifist – walks away with the same feeling about him. As modern humans we have turned off that part of ourselves that warns us of danger, but every once in a while even the most logical unbeliever gets a bad feeling. Well, this guy does this to everyone who has ever seen him. So... what do you do? You can’t just shoot the guy – we all know that’s wrong even if it is exactly what we feel like doing. Let’s face it, if we all killed everyone who gave us the creeps a lot of perfectly nice people would be dead just because we were having a bad day. But surely there is some happy medium between killing the guy and just trying to ignore him. Especially since as of now I know of no one who has ever succeeded in ignoring him – he’s that creepy. If this wasn’t such a friggin’ polite society, a bunch of us could all jump him, knock him to the ground, check him for weapons, then kick him out of wherever... well humans are. His rights need to end where our rights begin. If there’s a serial killer on the loose, they need to question him first and then keep him under surveillance. People always wonder how the Jeffrey Dahlmers and John Wayne Gaceys get away with it. Exactly because people fight that little thing inside them that tells them that someone’s just not right. They see things that look wrong and think they have an over-active imagination and rationalize what they’ve seen till the psycho gets caught and they’re pulling bodies out of a freezer or digging them up from under the house. Then suddenly everyone has this insight. We need to be less worried about people’s feelings and more willing to say, “I don’t like you, I don’t trust you, you give me the creeps, go away.” Me... Well, I growl at the guy every time he gets close to me, and that seems to make him go away. I figure psychotic deserves crazy. Selina Let’s All Wake Up and Smell the
Coffee
I
don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting sick and tired of being
treated like a criminal everywhere I go.
It all
started with this administration – didn’t everything? – and how they
reacted to 9/11 and us all being so scared of terrorists that we stood – more or less
– silently and let the government basically take away all our rights so that for all
intents and purposes – if the laws were used as they were written – we might as
well be living in the Old Soviet Union, not even the new Russia.
We’ve
watched – many of you cheering the efforts – as people were black listed for
speaking out against the war and the president. We who have to fly have suffered through
the indignities of searches even though we look nothing at all like Arab terrorists. But
now this whole “treat you like a criminal because somewhere there is one” has
just filtered into every aspect of our lives, and I wonder if most of us have even noticed
it.
A couple
of years ago they started stopping everyone as we left the lumberyard I have been trading
with for twenty years. It seems that “some people” had been putting more wood
and other items on their trucks then they had paid for, and so now every single one of us
every time we go has to stop and have our loads checked. This adds an additional ten
minutes to my trip to the lumber yard.
At
Wal-Mart – and many other large retail stores – if you want to use a
credit card you now have to swipe the damn thing yourself – which wouldn’t
be such a big deal if any two machines worked the same and if they worked the way
they’re supposed to every time. Their reason for doing this was because apparently
“some people” who were checkers occasionally stole card numbers and charged
stuff. The additional time it takes to check out now is between two and five minutes
determined by the length of time it takes to figure out the machine and whether or not
it’s working correctly. Frankly, I used to hand the card to the checker, she swiped
it handed it back, and it took no time at all. She would have to have a photographic
memory to peel my card number off that fast. Double swiping? Well, guess what? How many of
you have used the card thingy and only had to send your card through once? How do we
know Wal-Mart, Inc. isn’t screwing us? I’d trust a person way before I’d
trust a corporation.
Now at
Amazon.com you have to buy something from them to get an account so that you can write a
review which will help sell a book they’re going to make more money on than the
writer or the publisher. They say the reason why they have changed policy is to keep
people from making up dozens of false accounts and writing bogus reviews.
Here’s
my question, why are we all being treated like criminals because of what “some
people” are doing? How many “people” are actually doing these things? Not a
lot. Criminals as a general rule aren’t that bright, and they certainly don’t
have much ambition –unless of course we’re talking corporate criminals and
they’re screwing us all – sometimes because of the laws that have us wasting our
time and being treated like criminals.
Let’s
think about it a minute. You’d have to be pretty motivated to get on Amazon.com make
up several different bogus accounts and names and then write a bunch of bogus reviews.
Hell, it’s hard to get people to write real reviews at the site when they like the
books because it takes time and effort, and most of them are too busy to do it. So how
many times do you think this actually happened? A dozen, two dozen? There are millions of
books on Amazon.com. How many did this sort of thing affect 10... 20? And as a result
people who bought a book someplace else and don’t buy from Amazon.com, but would like
to support a book – which would do nothing but help Amazon make money with no effort
on their part – can’t do so unless they buy something first.
How much
wood do you think was stolen from the lumberyard? After all, their employees load your
truck.
How many
checkers stole customers identities, any? Or was it just that someone might someday? Or
was it just that they are getting us used to doing this so they can get rid of checkers
altogether, use automated checkers and cut their costs while putting people out of work
and completely alleviating the need for any customer service whatsoever?
There’s
an election coming up, and so we’ve seen our president more than ever, and
is he telling us how they’re going to fix our economy, bring back a middle class, do
something about medical costs, the over population of our country, and the rape of our
environment? No, he’s trying to scare the rotten shit out of us, so that we will vote
back in a government who has – in my humble opinion – destroyed the American way
of life, brought back an age of religious stupidity, and has all of us being treated like
criminals and not complaining about it because... after all it could be worse.
How about,
we’re sick to death of things being worse every damn day, and we’d like a chance
– however slim – that things might actually get better? How about we understand
that they’ve only lowered the gas prices now to win the election and that we know the
prices will shot back up right afterwards?
How about
we let people know that we don’t like being treated like criminals everywhere we go
in our own country? Why don’t we let them know with our votes that we
aren’t happy with the way things are, and that we think damn near anything would be
better than what we have now?
I’m
tired of hearing all these idiots talk and talk and fucking talk about how they are
fighting to preserve our freedom when every day we lose more freedoms. Time is the
one thing you can never get back, and I’m sick to death of it taking me longer to do
damn near everything because “some people” are bad. I’m tired of
“some people” making us live in this climate of fear.
One day
our President gives a speech promising that he won’t stop till he’s caught Bin
Laden, and the next he’s saying it’s not important. Does this guy stand for
anything except his need for ultimate power over everyone and everything? People have
called him a puppet, but who’s the puppet? We’re the ones dancing on strings,
quietly accepting that everything sucks, quietly accepting that things will never be the
same again.
Well, as
long as we let the few make rules for the many that’s exactly the way it will be. The
rich have taken over our country and enslaved us, and it’s a sure bet that no one but
the very rich will ever be in power in our lifetimes. But surely among the rich idiots who
run for office there are some who will at least listen to us when we talk. Those who
won’t believe that 52% is a mandate to do whatever the hell they like.
I say
it’s time to clean house. Throw everyone who’s in out and see if the next batch
might just do a better job. The only way we – the people – will ever get clean
election results now is to have our candidates win by a landslide. Anything short of that
the corporate goons who run things will be able to tweak to get their people in, and the
only way to show the government what we don’t want is to vote them all out by
landslides.
Reagan won
by saying over and over, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
Now that’s a damn good question. Ask yourself, are you and the country better off now
than you were before the Republicans captured every branch of our government?
As a
writer and a publisher, my take on things is no doubt different than many of yours, but my
experience is this... Six years ago as a publisher I made more money on fewer titles, and
things are just now starting to get better. As a writer I had no books published for two years because the market
for books – unless you were one of the big five – was just that abysmal. I can
afford medical even less now. As a gay person I watched in disgust as rights we
didn’t yet have were stripped away and our president tried to have a constitutional
amendment passed to make sure that we could legally for now and forever be treated like
second-class citizens. Our first amendment rights to free speech are being constantly
dealt one blow after another. As a writer, few things could be worse. How can you create
openly in a climate of black listing? The cost of everything has gone up, I’m making
less money, and I now get treated like a criminal every where I go.
No, I’m NOT better off.
Are you? A triple Play! #1 Vote, But Not if You're Voting For Them A lot of people will say they want you to vote even if your vote will cancel theirs out. Not me. If you're going to vote for the idiot puppets of the rich then stay home. On the other hand all you dorks who are bitching about everything that’s going on but won't get off your ass to go vote because “it won't matter and you don't like any of the candidates anyway” either quit bitching or get off your ass and run down and vote to get the idiots now in out and see whether the new batch of idiots can do any better – because they'd have to really work at doing worse. I just saw Bill
O’Riley on the view. He asked Rosie O’Donald – when she protested against
the war in O’Riley:
"Why won't you answer my question? Do you want the O’Donald: "How can we win the war when the Sunnis and the Shiites are in a civil war? What does it mean that we win the war? What would have to happen for us to win the war?" O’Riley,
"So you want the Stabilized. What
does that even mean when applied to the And this is exactly the spin that the rich right wing has been putting on everything to get us to sit idly by as they strip us of our rights. While pretending to be fighting for our freedom and protecting us from the threat of terrorism they have stripped us of our human rights. We have sat idly by – no fuck that – we have empowered these rich creeps to pass laws that makes it possible for them to do whatever they want to us without consequence. On October 17th, 2006, the president signed a bill to suspend habeas corpus – our right to a fair and speedy trial – allegedly to be used “only against terrorists," though the definition of a terrorist is extremely broad. Further, the bill "makes possible the permanent detention and torture (as defined by the Geneva Conventions) of anyone - including American citizens - based solely on the decision of the President." It goes on to state that such torture should not be “life threatening or too mentally cruel.” Now I ask you who is going to determine who is a terrorist and how much torture is life threatening or too mentally cruel? The same administration that lied to put us in a war. That every day sends more of our children off to fight that war. That promised us Bin Laden's head on a platter, and now says he isn't a threat. After Bush signed this law, did he call a press conference with a mixed group of journalists and concerned groups to explain himself? No, he held a secret meeting with five of the top conservative radio hosts in the country, people who serve a total of some 30 million idiots who listen to every word they say and believe them over the reality that stares them in the face daily. These rich idiots have an agenda; why can't people see that? They are puppets spewing the lies that keep people voting for idiots dead set on destroying the world and our lives for a profit. These people don't care about the future of our children or the planet, they are short-sighted, money-grubbing fascists who think power and money are the only things worth working and fighting for, as long as they can get us to do the actual fighting and working. They say things like “If you aren't for the war, you aren't supporting our troops” and “If you aren't willing to smile about having your rights taken away, then... well you aren't willing to do whatever it takes to fight terrorism.” This isn't true. I don't believe in this war, but I DO support our troops because they weren't asked whether they thought the war was a good idea or not. Hell, most of those kids dying over there are just that – kids, and not rich kids who were given opportunity and a college education, but poor kids – our kids. These are kids who joined the service right out of high school because they thought it was the only real choice they had to "better" themselves or kids who'd been brain washed by war stories their fathers and grandfathers told and wanted adventure and a chance to make a difference. Watch the recruiting adds on the TV; who are they targeting with those ads? What are they really saying? Hell, most of
the kids dying in this war were in the fucking National Guard. At the worst they thought
they'd be mucking out flood water or directing traffic through tornado-damaged areas,
stopping looting and protecting people as my son's best friend Toby did with his unit in Now Toby is
being shipped to Now Toby is an adult of 25 with a wife, a baby, a mortgage, and a really good job. In other words he now knows what it's all about and would really like to just live his life. But he'll be ripped from his home and his family and sent off to fight a war he doesn't understand, but he'll go willingly because he feels responsible for the guys in his unit who he's already been through so much with he feels like he made a promise and he has to keep it. And what happens if something goes wrong here? Something like Katrina... well exactly what happened with Katrina, there won't be enough manpower or equipment here to take care of the problem. Only next time there will be even less and because of that the casualties could be greater. No thinking person could ever understand this war. It can't protect us from terrorists. At best it's a diversion for terrorists. At worst it gives them a place to train units and a reason for their hatred of us to grow. Think about it, they don't have to come over here to kill Americans. Hell we'll pack our people up and ship them over there for them to kill. I'm not a dove,
not anti-war, but there first needs to be a damn good reason for fighting it – like
we can actually fix something that wouldn't otherwise be fixed. Second we need to know how
we're going to win. The administration keeps declaring success and that we've won, and
then the war just keeps going and nothing of any value at all has happened there. Screw
over there! Protect Those idiot religious nuts have been fighting with each other for centuries and we aren't going to make them get along by being there in harm’s way and shooting at one side or the other determined entirely by who is shooting at us at the moment. I think every
rich fuck – and all the poor ones – who think this war is important ought to get
their asses and their children's asses out on the front line right now. If it's so
important then join the service today and ship out. Why aren't the Bush twins in Because he volunteered? That seems to be a big deal with the right wingers, these people volunteered to serve so they knew what they were getting into. Yes, of course, because EVERY 18 year old knows everything, and if you don't believe it as them. Joy Bahar asked O’Riley if he believed in the war enough that he'd send his son. His answer: "If he volunteered I'd be proud that he went. My nephew is in the army I'm proud of him." An argument then ensued about a draft. And in spite of what O’Riley says, that's where we're headed, and guess what? It still won't be fair because rich people’s kids have never had to serve. Don't take my word for it, check your history books. Hell, ask your friends. Traditionally if you're in college you don't have to go, and who goes to collage? Not the poor. But let's get back to the whole volunteer thing. These people volunteered to get help with bills and college for the most part, but even those who did it for the "right" reasons didn't volunteer to fight for a regime that was stripping us of our rights while sending them off to fight a bull shit war for oil and the president's very own pissing contest. They volunteered to fight to protect our freedom, not to fight in a foreign land as the president strips away our rights one by one as he makes the power of the president very near the power of a dictator. We all agree that North Korea’s Kim Sum Dumb Ass is a nut job, but put his rhetoric up against Bush's – is he much more a nut job than Bush? Now here's the thing. I'm looking at the list of fat, rich idiots that are running for office, and I don't like what any of them have to say. I'm not a conservative or a liberal; I tend to actually put some thought into my views, which real radicals don't. They tend to decide what's right or wrong early in life and then never let the truth get in the way of their beliefs. You know like all the idiots that insist second-hand smoke isn't dangerous and that we don't contribute to global warming. The Republicans
have been in absolute power now for six years. For six years they have held every
branch of the government. They have now over run the Supreme Court. For most of the Not any more. The last six years are a black mark that history won't soon wash away. Say what you like, listen to the radio commentators who've been told what to say by our president and have been brainwashing the brain dead for years, but there is no denying that we gave the Republicans the absolute power they said they needed to fix all that the Democrats had done to our country, and they have utterly and completely destroyed everything that was good about our country in a way that no foreign enemy was ever able to do. Equality has been thrown back twenty years. Nothing has been done to curb medical costs. They have embraced the raping of the planet for profit's sake. They have done not one damn thing to curb our energy dependence. They've put us further into debt than we have ever been before. They gave a massive tax cut to the rich which took money away from environmental, park, and human services projects and made the biggest gap between the haves and the have-nots in this country ever. Five percent of Americans now hold over 55 percent of the wealth. That's what's wrong with the economy. Young men and women – our young men and women, not the rich people who benefit from the war – are dying on foreign soil in a vane attempt to stabilize a country whose religious belief system more or less ensures that it will never be stable and that women will always be treated like cattle. What are we doing there? You can't free people from idiotic, dogmatic beliefs. It's like saying we're going to free the Pentecosts. And we don't live in a free country anymore, people. They can tap our phones, decide we're terrorists and rip us from our homes, imprison and torture us, and we have no recourse. The laws are there – just because they aren't doing it doesn't mean that they can't or that they won't. In fact, I'll go so far as to say they wouldn't bother to pass these laws unless they intended to use them against their enemies, and who are there enemies? Not just terrorists, people, but anyone who disagrees with them. We say we're building democracies, but what about our own? Are we building other democracies at the cost of our own? I think so. I think if the people at the top had their way the whole planet would just have this sort of washed-out version of "democracy" which allows the rich and powerful to grow like fat ticks. Slavery as freedom? It's time to
vote, to show your displeasure at what's happening. Maybe if we show just how pissed off
we are there will be a change. Maybe we really can stop the rich from destroying
everything our forefathers fought and died for. We have to take the power away from the
religious right and the rich Republicans they unwittingly serve. The zealots don't
understand that they've been duped, that the rich and powerful don't care about God any
more than we “godless heathens,” and that in the end if God gets in the way of
what they want they'll toss God out, too. Not in the way the conservatives say the
"liberals" are tossing God out when they demand a separation of church and state
either, but the way What are you saving? I say give the power to the Democrats and then let them know where we think they're dead wrong. Maybe they'll change just to keep their jobs. Maybe we can fix what's been so badly broken. We no longer have a two-party system, people. We have a one party system, and it's not working for the majority of Americans. Maybe we can only save ourselves by having the government so closely split between the two parties that they watch dog each other. I don't vote for people anymore. I vote against them – and there's nothing wrong with that either. For the record, I used to be a Republican. Mostly I'm sure because my parents were. I didn't like the turns they took, didn't like where they were going. See I used my head and jumped off that band wagon when it was no longer playing my tune. My point is I'm not really pro-Democrat either. I don't like a lot of what they stand for (I'm not big on paying people to sit on their asses, leniency towards criminals, gun control, and I believe in capital punishment as long as the class and race lines are lifted) However, having weighed it all out – and knowing that they're really the only alternative – I have decided that myself, my family, my friends, and the planet can live through Democratic policy. I'm not sure that any of us or the planet can survive under Republican leadership. So go to the polls and vote for a change. If you aren't going to vote for a change then don't vote. #2 Submissions I Didn’t Ask for and
Don’t Want So... when it says I’m not reading for anything it means I’m not reading for anything. It doesn’t mean maybe. Now while I don’t mind the occasional e-mail query –especially if it’s from someone I know – I don’t want to be getting unsolicited whole manuscripts in the mail. If you’ve got my contact information, then nine will get you ten that you either got it off the web-site or got it off a flier that had the web-site on it, so... take the time to go to the guidelines page and see if I’m reading for anything. Most of the time I’m not. Why? Because we’re a MICRO PRESS. We only do between four and five perfect bounds and five to six chapbooks a year. Some years we do an anthology. Right now I’m so tired of reading through other people’s work that I’m looking to have a slush-free year next year so that I can do something really strange... LIKE WORK ON MY OWN WRITING PROJECTS! Now you may think that it’s no big deal to send me submissions when I don’t want them, but my time is completely filled up with – well, mostly crap that most of you wouldn’t even think of doing to try to make ends meet and make a meager living. Every time I have to write a rejection letter to some poor shlub when I’m not even looking for anything, it takes me time. Time that would be better spent, oh I don’t know... WRITING MY OWN SHIT SO THAT I CAN MAKE SOME MONEY!!! Recently there has been a new twist on this old, rather tiring, soul-draining, subject – “agents” who are sending me stuff on behalf of their “clients.” Now here’s the list of what’s wrong with this... First, I’m not reading for ANYTHING! Second, almost every big house in this country won’t even look at a manuscript unless it’s agented. I, on the other hand, won’t look at a piece if it IS agented, because our writers don’t make enough money to split it with an agent, and because I sort of like being the bizarro image of the big houses. Third, what’s an agent doing sending me a writer’s manuscript? The whole reason for having an agent is to get into the big houses; you don’t need an agent to get in a small press. We don’t even pay an advance. When I get a tome of a manuscript from some “agent” I really feel sorry for the writer because I immediately think he’s probably so green that he’s paying an “agent” to represent him. At the very least he’s paying for copies of his tome to be sent out. The agent is just surfing the web looking for any house and then shipping the book out and the writer thinks his “represented” book is at some big house just waiting for the first reader when it’s really on my desk waiting for me to find the ten minutes it’s going to take me to write a rejection letter and walk it out to the mail box. Worse are the manuscripts agents send with no SASE because those just go into the trash unanswered – ‘cause I’m not really a total sap. I feel bad about it because I just know some “agent” is getting money from some writer and telling them that their book is out there, but it’s not, it’s in my trash can. (All my friends are now going, “No it’s not in the trash can, she shredded it up and it’s now mulch in her garden” which is actually true, but trash can will make more sense to most of you. Of course some writer whose “agent” told them their book was here and now knows what happened to it might feel better to know that at least it wasn’t a total waste.) For the record WRITERS DON’T PAY AGENTS. Agents make a percentage of what you make when they sell your manuscript. You don’t pay for anything up front. If they don’t think they can sell your work, then they aren’t supposed to take you as a client. Why would they? In the future I will be turning these “agents” in to Predators and Editors because they are misrepresenting themselves to their “clients.” Simply put, if I didn’t ask for it, if it doesn’t say on the site that I’m looking for it, then I don’t want it!!! #3
Lazy Assed Society
My son just built a new fence to keep his dogs in. He put a gate across his road, and you have to open and close it to drive up to the house or when you leave. No big deal, right? Wrong? Everyone except for Meyer and I seem to think that opening and closing that gate and driving through is like climbing mount Everest. They bitch they moan they park outside the gate and walk through. The stand at the gate and yell till he or I open and close it for them. When did people get so fucking lazy! You can now buy hot dogs already in the buns. How hard was it to put a hot dog on a bun? Did someone get a blister doing it? How many hotdogs do you have to put into a bun before you just pitch back and say "This is just too much work!" Have you seen the ads for the detergent ball thing? It stops you from having to measure out detergent and put it in the washer; how hard is that? From the ads and the way they're spilling the crap all over you'd think you need to have the grace of a prima ballerina and a degree in physics to pour the detergent into a cup and then pour that cup into your washer without spilling. So we aren't just lazy we're also freaking idiots with no motor skills. Straining pasta – that's also such a hard job they've made a special pan for it. But wait! Still too much work, so you can buy your pasta already cooked and ready to just heat up in the micro wave. Have you noticed that the fresh produce section and meat market are dwindling in your supper market? That’s because people don't know how to cook any more, and if they do they don't do it because it's too much work. It takes me – sometimes with ten minutes of prep work earlier in the day depending on what I'm cooking – about thirty minutes to cook a meal. While I'm cooking it I'm cleaning or watching TV or talking to Lynn or Meyer. It ain't rocket science. I don't need someone to put my meat on the bun; I don't need to pay four prices to have someone do it for me. If I don't feel like cooking I'll eat out. When I can't measure my laundry detergent and pour it into the machine someone please shoot me! If I can't strain pasta without getting third degree burns I deserve to go to the burn unit and get graphs. The real problem isn't laziness, it's lack of time. We all spend way too much time working, so we're all looking for ways to save some time, and we're an extremely easy mark for any gimmick or gizmo that promises to save us some of that time. But let's look at what we're really doing to ourselves for a minute. How many of you find that you have to work over time and or take a second job just to make your bills? Now ask yourself this, what did you pay for that SUV that you usually drive in alone and that you bought because you spend so much time in the car you wanted it to be nice? How much do you pay for the gas to run it and how much more insurance do you pay on it than you would say a reasonable-sized compact which is really all the room you ever need and which gets great gas mileage and costs half what you paid for the monster? How much more are you paying for all those convenient food items like hot pockets, hot dogs – on the buns, and TV dinners than if you bought real food? How much money do you spend in restaurants? How much actual food would that buy? A butt load. And talk about time, how much time do you spend waiting to be seated, waiting for food, waiting to pay – that’s all time you could have spent at home. Yes, you'd have to cook, but you'd still be home with your family. How much do you spend on all those wonderful time-saving balls of detergent and a billion other things? How much time and how much money does it cost you to go to the gym to work out because you've managed to carefully extract any activity that might make you sweat from your schedule because they take too much time? Are we morons or what? Here's the big secret they don't want you to know. You haven't saved one damn bit of time. All you've done is spent time working and in the gym and the restaurant that you could have spent at home doing all those things that take so much time. Get out of your car, open the gate, drive through, close the gate, and don’t let the dogs out. It's not rocket science. A triple play!! Long over-due, so here are three more. #1 Writers are People, Too Although we’d like to believe otherwise, we are not infallible gods who run the cosmos. We are people just like everyone else, and just like everyone else our words are sometimes ill thought out diatribes more about some crap that’s just happened to us than any deep, sincere hatred or prejudice Case in point, the thing in the middle of Strange Robby – this book, by the way, is one of my best and is available from me or through Amazon, but can be found in no book stores in the entire country although it was released six months ago, but that’s an entirely different bitch. One I’ll do in the future when I’ve had time to think about it or I just might spit out a bunch of shit I’ll wish I hadn’t said later – which is basically what this bitch is about... Anyway, the “thing” in the middle of Strange Robby. At this point in the novel, I really needed the readers to see for a minute that these were real people who these things were happening to, so I was writing a scene in which Tommy and his wife Laura are having one of those useless conversations that couples have where they start out talking about their friends and all their problems – you know, mostly so you don’t have to talk about your own – and it turns into them basically trying to rewrite laws – what do you mean that never happens in your house? Hell it happens here on a regular basis – anyway, the idea was to do this relatively short scene that lets you learn a little more about the characters and sets up a scene where the next day Tommy is telling his partner Spider Webb – so shoot me, I think it’s a cool name – about the conclusion that he and Laura came to through this inane discussion, and as the conversation ends you realize that he’s been telling her this while they are in the middle of a high speed chase. So the normal smacks into the abnormal – and that was the idea. Now I could have had them start their conversation on any number of topics, but that day I had just seen a fat rights activist on the TV who had made a point of asking over and over that we all willingly made concessions for the handicapped, so why couldn’t we do it for the fat? This pissed me off. I’m fat, my partner is fat, my son is fat. I don’t think it’s anything to brag about, but it is the facts. None of us are handicapped by our weight, and if we were that would be our own damn fault. Personally I hate being fat; I’m not going to lie about that. I’m just not willing to quit eating to lose weight because... well, eating is many times the only thing that makes me feel alive at all. This is also a sad but true fact and has a lot to do with books that are released but spend their whole lives in warehouses while I’m running around promoting a book people have to stand on their heads to get. But I’m not bitter. But the point is that I could lose weight if I wanted to bad enough and I don’t feel like I need anyone to change anything to accommodate my weight. That’s worse than me buying my pants bigger than I need them so I can grow into them. Here’s the thing, I’m queer, and therefore don’t have many of the rights everyone else takes for granted, and there is always some jackass saying something hateful on TV and trying to pass even more laws to take away even more of my rights – most of which I already don’t have – so, bigger issues than my fat ass is a tight squeeze in the seat at the movie theater! And this guy just got on my last nerve with his whole “being fat is the same as being handicapped” thing. Tell that to the guy with no legs trying to get up a flight of stairs! So, when I wrote this mundane conversation, I had Tommy and Laura start bitching about their fat friend, graduate into bitching about fat rights, and finally end up deciding that Native Americans should be called by their tribal names. Yes, it was that sort of conversation. I didn’t write this because I hate fat people. I mean for God’s own sake I weigh 227 pounds, and when I wrote the book I weighed 247, so that would really be the pot calling the kettle black. I wrote it because I needed the characters to have one of those conversations so that I could make a point and set up a joke. I started the conversation that way because the guy on the news that morning pissed me off. I’ve only had two people bitch about the “thing” so far – that probably has something to do with the book being highly unavailable – but I’m sure there will be more. I could say that in the future I will pick my words more carefully, but I won’t. The truth is that an author who never lets their work be effected by current events, their own personal problems, their own irrational fears, their likes their dislikes, is too afraid to be a writer. To write a gutsy piece you have to be willing to get your hands dirty; you can’t worry too much about whose feelings might get hurt. Here’s the God’s honest truth. No matter what you write, someone somewhere is going to be pissed off. If you very carefully tried to write something that wouldn’t be offensive to anyone you’d wind up with an unreadable and certainly unlikable piece of fluff and someone would still find reason to be offended. Hell, I know a die-hard
conservative bigot who gets pissed off at Writers are humans. We are affected by everything that streams into our little biological computer, and sometimes that goes right onto the page without the filter. Sometimes you love it, sometimes you hate it, and that’s alright, too. Well that’s all for me. I’ve got to go get me another doughnut. Selina #2 The Differences Between Small Press and Independent Presses I’ve been on dozens of panels concerning the differences between small presses and the big guys, but rarely does anyone ever ask what the actual differences are. Yard Dog Press is a small press. I usually call it a Micro press, but that doesn’t mean we don’t act in a professional manner. In fact, if you ask 99 percent of the people who have worked for us they will tell you that we’re more than professional because a lot of the big houses don’t pay their royalties on time or do all the things they say they’ll do. We do. So... what’s the real difference? An independent house is a big house owned by individuals instead of a big corporation. It may or may not have stockholders, but at the end of the day there are people who own the business and make the decisions instead of some faceless corporate entity. The main thing they have that a small press doesn’t is distribution – the ability to get lots of books out the door and actually into book stores where the public can see them. They have to answer to their distributors and the chains, they have to worry about numbers, and their books roll into and out of the bookstores quickly. With a small house the books will not see mass distribution. There will be smaller print runs with a higher price being paid for the printing of each book. Distribution will be minimal if it exists at all. This is one of the reasons I consider us a micro press – I purposely work at not having distribution to the chains. Why? Because I found out a few years ago – the hard way, which is the way I learn everything – that minimal distribution to the chains was worse for an author – not the press but the author – than no distribution at all. You see, the big independent and corporate houses only care about a book’s numbers at the chains. A small press with minimal distribution in the chains will so completely screw an author’s numbers that none of the big houses will even look at them. That seemed a high price to pay for an author since the sales of a small press book in the chains are almost always abysmal. So... a writer with a small press book with so-called “mass distribution” might make a couple of hundred bucks (if the book does well) and it will ruin their chances to get in at a big house where they might actually make a living. A large or even an independent press will have authors whose careers they made. New authors who started there and became household names and made good money. A small press – if well run – will help its authors make some pocket change and maybe occasionally pay a light bill. They will help new authors start to get a little recognition. They will put out the pet projects of some of the big names who are already well-established in the business, but no one will ever get the exposure at a small press – alone – to become a big star or to even make a living. Once a small press has authors who started with them who, through their books with that house, become household names and make a good living, then that house is no longer a small press; it’s an independent press because if that happens the house is making big bucks, too. |