PRIMARY MUSINGS

Why should anyone give a damn what I think about the upcoming Presidential Election? Why should anyone give a damn what any one voter thinks? But, I've got this blog, so I'm going to use it to disseminate at least some of my political views.

Here's what I think about the upcoming Presidential Primaries:

First off, no matter who the Democrat Party candidate is in the November election, I'll probably end up voting for her, or him. We've had too much of the Republicans for the past eight years no matter who their nominee is. Things have tilted too far to their side. The country needs some balance and to get it, things are going to have to tilt back to the other side for a little while. Not to mention that the next president will certainly appoint at least one supreme court judge and the country cannot take the risk that the appointee will be heavily influenced by the religious right.

Plus, someone's got to cut back on war spending, and it isn't going to be the Republicans.

The funny thing is that people still labor under the delusion that one party is the party of sound fiscal policy and the other isn't. It's just not true. Both parties are profligate spenders. Both parties figure they can buy our votes through how they spend money.

The difference is that the Republicans overspend on "defense" and the Democrats want to overspend on domestic policies. Traditionally, the Republicans are the ones who actually believe in a free lunch. They want to spend without raising taxes. When they accuse the Democrats of being "tax and spend" - at least that makes sense. Don't tax, but spend anyhow is about as dumb a policy as there is. The Republicans just spend on different things than the Democrats do.

And the Republicans get away with that for eight, sometimes twelve years at a time, then the Democrats get elected and have no choice but to raise taxes to pay for all the massive Republican defense spending and tax cut backs. So then the Democrats get painted as the party that raises taxes and the Republicans get elected again. It's a pretty good political strategy and a really lousy fiscal one.

So, I'm not going to even worry about who the Republican nominee is going to be. Whoever it is, they aren't getting my vote - as amusing as I think Ron Paul is.

As for the Democrats, my top three choices for the nomination come from among the six serious candidates. (I say "serious" because I don't believe Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel ever had a snowball's chance in hell of winning the nomination, and even if they did, neither of them would be my choice anyhow.) But my top three are the least likely to get the nomination: Richardson, Biden and Dodd.

Richardson is my candidate of choice. He's got the widest range of experience, has proved himself an effective governor, and has some very bright ideas. Problem is, he's a lousy candidate. He lacks charisma, is sometimes too honest, and puts his foot in his mouth when he's tired - just like most people do, but presidential candidates need to learn to keep their mouths shut.

So, what of the other three, who seem to have a chance at the nomination?

I don't like John Edwards. I don't trust him, and he scares me. If you can really believe what he says - and I have my doubts about that - he has a near complete lack of understanding of the global economy, or the way that the global economy and trade affect the U.S. If, as President, he could actually do what he says he would like to do - which, luckily, he couldn't - in terms of trade policy, he would severely set back our economy. The U.S. would lose a great many more jobs than it has already. Any possible recession, would threaten to become a full blown depression, and it would take down a lot of other countries with it. I'm sorry about your father's job John, but we are the world's most developed, technologically advanced economy; there is no sane reason that t-shirts or socks should be manufactured in North Carolina. Maybe with all of your trial lawyer fees you can afford to buy undergarments made in America, but most people can't. We need better, new economy jobs, not to protect the old jobs that other countries can now do as well and cheaper.

Luckily, I don't really think he's got a hope in hell, anyhow.

So that leaves us with Hillary and Obama, and I'm okay with either of them.

I also worry, though, that either of them will have a more difficult time getting elected than they ought to.

Despite being one of the more moderate, centrist senators, who has received high marks for her willingness and ability to work with the Republicans, Hillary is still a very divisive figure. The Republicans don't just not agree with her, they hate her. And they're ready for her. I am certain that they have both barrels locked and loaded and ready to hurt her in all sorts of ways the moment she gets the nomination. They've been preparing for her for the past three years. I still think she can win, but it will be a whole lot closer than it ought to be. And, as much as I hate her stance on the Iraq War, I think she'd be a good president and surround herself with good advisors. And, though I would prefer our first woman president to be a completely self-made woman, rather than the wife of a previous president, I would be happy to see the breaking of that glass ceiling in any event.

As for Obama, as much as I would love to believe that race wouldn't be an issue in a presidential election, I don't believe that. It won't be a huge issue - most of the people who won't vote for a black man, wouldn't vote for a Democrat either - but I think it would still be a big enough issue as to also make an Obama election a whole lot tighter than it should be. And, with his short track record in national politics, a very close election will make it harder for him to govern effectively. I don't worry too much about the experience factor. I think an awful lot of what goes into making a good president is the people he or she is surrounded by. And I think he'd appoint good people. Also, being black, and having lived in Indonesia as a child, I think he'd be well-situated for beginning the vital process of improving relations with the Islamic world.

So, who am I going to vote for in the California Primary? I don't know. I'll probably vote for Richardson anyhow in the hope that he gets enough votes that whoever's the nominee has to pick him for vice-president or Secretary of State.

Now I'll try to get back to some more amusing topic in my next blog post.

Sunday Scribblings - Holiday Memories - 12/23/07

This week’s prompt was initially a great disappointment to me. At first, I thought I had nothing to offer, as I am not a Holiday person. I endure the holiday season, but do not look forward to it or revel in it. Christmas has not been important to me since my children have grown up and New Years, like Valentine’s Day, is not a celebration for a single man and I have been single now for over 21 years. I was geared up to end the year with a flurry of shining wit but I feared my holiday memories would turn into whining shit. Then something came to mind that I felt compelled to share. This is primarily written to entertain Lucy, who has become a fan of my writing and often the only reason I bother.


I was stationed at Aviano Air Base, in northern Italy, in the late seventies. I resided with my wife and three young children in the small town of Porcia, a suburb of Pordenone. We were about 40 miles from Venice, which has nothing to do with this story, but I just think it was heaven to live that close to Venice. We were the only Americans living in a small apartment complex. My children adjusted quickly, as children always do, and quickly picked up the language from playing with the Italian children in the neighborhood. As Italians are generally of the Catholic persuasion and take the command to “go forth and multiply” quite literally, there were lots of issue to play with.

As Christmas came near I decided to do something nice for the neighborhood children. I hired an American who played Santa Claus for several functions on the base to come to my neighborhood and entertain the kids. I loaded him up with candy and small presents, which he was to deliver at a preset time. I made sure he would arrive when all the neighborhood children were outside playing in our dead-end street. I had my camera at the ready and he drove up as planned.

What I did not know was that for Italian children, there is no real Santa Claus. Presents come from La Befana, a witch, who is never seen. You can only imagine their terror when this fat, bearded, fool dressed in bright red ejected himself from his Fiat, and trod towards them shouting, “Ho Ho Ho.” The kids screamed and scattered. It would have been no different had Godzilla arrived in the neighborhood. Some kids could be seen with wide eyes peering out of their windows. The only kids left to receive Santa were my own, who had no idea what had happened to their friends. I should have done a little research into Italian Christmas traditions.


While I have your attention (poor assumption) a couple of anecdotes about our life in Italy come to mind. The apartment building we lived in housed six families and as I previously mentioned five were Italian. Italian women shop daily for fresh food and buy almost no prepackaged foods. Also, they throw nothing away. As a result there was one small garbage can to serve all six families. It was more than sufficient for all tenants, except us. After a few weeks of our humongous heaps of disposable everything dominating the refuse area someone hauled in a small dumpster. It was obvious that it was for our use. I surmised that as it had our last name stenciled on it. Nothing gets past me.

My oldest son’s bicycle was in disrepair and since I have no handyman skills whatsoever and my tool chest consists of a screwdriver and a hammer (with which I have done some remarkable work) we tossed the bike out. The next day one of the neighbor kids was riding it. It was not only fixed but also looked and worked better than ever. I am pretty sure that I had assembled it wrong from the beginning. My son said, “Dad, that boy is riding my bike.” I had to explain the concept of finder’s keepers, loser’s weepers.

Another time I found that one of my neighbors, Lucio, had left his car lights on. Finding his car locked I went to his door and knocked. He answered, and I was ushered in and had to eat and drink. Italian hospitality does not permit one to enter a home without consuming mass quantities.


My three years in Italy taught me much about their culture and customs. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I did get a chance to teach my Italian friends a bit about my culture. Italians did not eat corn on the cob. This was 30 years ago and things may have changed. But then, they only grew field corn, which is fed to livestock and did not grow sweet corn for human consumption. Corn was considered only fit for animals. I introduced them to corn on the cob and until my departure I was always required to bring some corn from the base.
We had an occasional neighborhood cookout, though they had never seen a Weber grill, the men were soon drawn to mine. It is a guy thing. When I left Italy, I left my Weber grill to Lucio. I am certain that it is still functioning.

Sunday Scribblings - Dance - 12/16/07

I am a hetorosexual, middle-aged white man. By definition, I am rhythmically challenged. But, if I consume the right amount of alcohol I will sometimes attempt to dance. It is the same amount of Jack Daniels that encourages me to take the microphone at a Karaoke. I am equally not proficient at both arts. I will address dance in this blog and save my Karaoke nightmares for a future submission.



On the dance floor I am often mistaken for someone having a seizure and as a result the onlookers feel pity and compassion instead of disgust and horror. So I have that going for me. There have been occasions in my life where I have had to dance sober. There are only a very few reasons for me ever attempting that endeavor. The first reason is that women nearly universally love to dance. I have been involved with women who insisted that dancing was the only real way to express my affection for them. Though I suggested other ways, I somehow ended up on the dance floor. Come to think of it that is the only reason I have ever danced without performance enhancing substances. But, though they work for Barry Bonds, they do nothing to enhance my dancing ability. Dancing without intoxication is a painful ordeal, much like dentistry without Novocain. I am aware that there is a beat to the music but it is not possible to command my body to respond to it. Slow dancing, though more enjoyable, particularly with the right female body type, presents an additional problem. Finding a space for my size 12 shoes to occupy that is not already taken. While slow dancing, my shoes seem to grow to clown-sized proportions.


In my high school days I always went to the weekend dances. I would usually be required to dance the last dance of the evening if I had any hopes of leaving with someone. Lucky for me, they always announced the last dance. After an evening of standing by the speakers being cool (and ruining my hearing for life), or watching the band, pretending I knew something about playing an instrument, sometimes even breaking into air guitar (we invented that), while the girls danced with each other much of the night, I would pounce on an unsuspecting girl, like a lion on a gazelle. I, like most of my friends, felt much too cool to dance throughout the evening, but one dance was a small price to pay for the possibility of second base and the much higher probability of striking out on three pitches. And no one would see me anyway because all the other guys were also scurrying to find what they hoped to be a horizontal dance partner. You had to move fast to get one of the easy girls. They were in short supply in those days. Of course, the girls had been dancing all evening and were at a stage of sweatiness that added to the allure.

I do enjoy watching people dance. It always amazes me when I go to a club and everyone knows all those line dances by heart. Everyone except me, that is. Do they practice at home? I haven’t been to a party in ages that didn’t include the Cha Cha Slide at some time during the night:

Slide to the left
Take it back now yal
One hop this time
Right foot lets stomp
Left foot lets stomp
Cha Cha now yal
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I risk losing my man card for admitting this, but I love to watch “Dancing With the Stars.” The grace, the elegance, the skimpy costumes. I love watching dance in the same way I enjoy watching courtroom dramas, but I don’t wish to participate in either activity.

IKE TURNER, 1931-2007

So what if I was 16 and horny. So what if I was in the front row at the Shrine and looking up the very short skirts of the Ikettes, two of whom were not wearing underwear. Sure, Tina had that voice. And those legs. But for me, it was all about Ike.

There he was, in a white suit with a black t-shirt. He spent a lot of his time with his back turned to the crowd, hardly moving. But oh-my-fucking-god; the sounds that came out of that man's guitar. (Only Hendrix did more. He'd played in Ike's band once. But there were times when I liked Ike better.) And the control he had over the band. (As far as controlling a band went, the only one I ever saw who came close to Ike was Frank Zappa. He was in fair second place.)

Now he's dead at 76, and too many people don't know who he was, don't know what they missed, what they'll be missing. Ike Turner was, at the very least, the missing link between blues and rock and roll. In any sensible, realistic list of the creators of modern American music, he'd be a shoo-in for the pantheon.

Too many people know him from the movies. Sure What's Love Got To Do With It was a good bio-pic. But it didn't tell his story, certainly not the whole story, or even the important parts. There's even some controversy over how accurate it was. Some of that controversy has even been fed by Tina herself in interviews in the years since.

In the years after he broke up with Tina, Ike's life spun largely out of control. But he always kept working. Last year he won a Grammy for his album Risin' With the Blues. It's a very good record, one that will give you a taste of what he was capable of. But only a small taste.

Seeing him live was always the best. There are no albums that capture that. Certainly none of the ones with Tina.

The last time I saw Ike was at a small club in Los Feliz, here in Los Angeles. He mostly played keyboard. He was also an accomplished pianist. The band was totally in his control. The first half was magical. Then there was a break.

After the break it got sort of pathetic. He brought a Tina clone on stage. She had great cleavage. A very short skirt. An okay voice. But she wasn't Tina. And even worse, working with her to try and recapture some past glory days, Ike wasn't Ike.

And Ike, all by himself with his guitar and his band, man, that was always way more than enough. I'm gonna miss him.

Here's some assorted pictures that I like. I found them online.

CRIME FIGHTING WITH BOOKS

Far too many girls in poor countries are sold into sexual and other forms of slavery by their families. Cambodia, being one of the poorest countries in the world, is no exception.

My latest book, GRAVE IMPORTS, is set in Cambodia. Though it deals with the theft of the country's antiquities, a vital part of the story is the social and economic context in which it takes place.

I hope you enjoy the book. Above all, I want it to be entertaining. But if you get anything more than simple amusement out of reading GRAVE IMPORTS, I hope it's an awareness of the terrible problems facing the people of Cambodia.

And of course, I'm hoping to make some money from having written the book. I am trying to earn a living here. But I also want to give something back. Besides making you aware of the problems in Cambodia, I want to do something a bit more concrete.

I've donated money from my advance, and will continue to do so from royalties, for GRAVE IMPORTS to a group called American Assistance for Cambodia (AAfC), that I think is doing very important, and good, work in the country.

You can click on the banner above or below and learn more about AAfC and how you can help its efforts to keep Cambodian girls in school and out of the brothels and sweatshops. And besides the satisfaction of knowing you've helped an important effort, you'll get something extra as a thank you in return.

Dumpster Diving -The Free Market System at Work

I generally don't have enough ambition or inspiration to write more than one blog a week (if that), but an event occurred that was worthy of a narrative:

Early one morning, I was throwing a bag of garbage into the dumpster and accidentally flung my keys with it. Looking into the dumpster I could see the keys on the floor, far out of reach. I did not know if I could physically climb in and out of the dumpster, but I knew for sure that I was not going to try.

There were three middle-school aged boys standing not far away waiting for their school bus. I walked over to them and asked “one of you want to make five bucks?” The look on their faces revealed I had made a poor choice of words.
I quickly recovered and as soon as I assured them that I was not asking them to perform any altar boy duties, they walked over to the dumpster to have a look. To be honest, I would have performed a reach around on the Archbishop of Canterbury before I would crawl into that stinky, slimy, container.

As we discussed my predicament, I realized that many elements of the free market system were at work here. It was determined that no one was willing to dumpster dive for five bucks, though I know that everyone has their price. Then the negotiations began. The larger of the boys, Bryan, volunteered that the smaller of the boys, Eric, would do it for $10. So Bryan was acting as Eric’s agent, or if a priest would have been present, his pimp.


What Bryan and Eric did not know is that the market would have supported $50. They could provide a service that I was in urgent need of. I had a tee-time in 30 minutes and their bus was due. The third boy, Ned, who looked neither agile enough to perform the task nor intelligent enough to negotiate, just watched the proceedings with mouth agape. He actually looked like a Ned. I did not think he was a stranger to dumpsters, but the size of this one baffled him. After all, this one unit supports a 50 unit condominium. It is quite cavernous. I believe that if Ned had entered the dumpster, the quality of the dumpster's contents would have been reduced significantly. But, I was secretly hoping for Ned to do the dumpster diving as he was wearing a Boston Red Sox hat, causing me to instantly dislike him, and question his lineage. But the irony of him entering a green monster was not lost on me.



So Eric climbed in and retrieved the keys. Before he could climb out of the dumpster the school bus arrived and Bryan and Ned ran off, leaving the third Musketeer (or Stooge) deep in the bowels of the dark, green, maggot-infested cave. The intense heat of the south always seems to make smelly, nasty stuff moreso. He yelled at them, but the walls of the container returned his voice to him. After a few slips into the fetid mire, he ejected himself from the dumpster. I thanked him and handed him $10. He looked at me and said, “great, how am I going to get to school?” I would have given him a ride, but he stunk to high heaven, and had streaks of unknown substances all over him. No way was he getting into my Beemer. He had completed the contract and received compensation. Our business was done.

FAREWELL, OLD PAL

To those of you who haven't ever been serious about photography, or had a favorite pair of old shoes, this is going to probably seem silly. Tomorrow morning at 11 am, I am getting rid of my Leica equipment.


I'm not much of a gearhead when it comes to taking pictures, which is why, oddly, since I became serious about it in college I have mostly used one of the most expensive, finely-crafted cameras in the world - a rangefinder Leica M.

For me, a Leica has become the highest quality point and shoot. It is an extension of my eye. It is the means by which my brain freezes visual frames. When I'm using it, I don't think about it. My brain sees something, the Leica captures it. The camera allows for the minimum of interference between what my brain sees and the picture I get.

And when I'm carrying it around, it's like I'm not carrying anything around. It's just another part of my body; part of the brain-eye structure that just happens to hang on a strap around my neck or fit snugly into my hand. It's like that great old pair of shoes that you aren't even aware are on your feet.

For the first 20 or so years that I had Leicas, I didn't even have a light meter. In the way that your eye adjusts to the light, well somehow my camera and I adjusted along with it. For that matter, in spite of the fact that Leicas are probably the most concise focusing cameras ever invented, I rarely bothered focusing, either. I just knew what lens did what and positioned myself accordingly. I never had any problems with exposure or focus.

But film cameras are becoming more of a pain in the ass to use. I no longer have a darkroom, and even if I did, I just don't have the need, time or inclination to spend hours on end working in one. Having used a couple of lower end digital cameras for a while, I can hardly get around to taking film I shoot to the lab, then picking it up, then sorting it, then scanning the slides I want to do something with. I've been using my Leica less and less, and my digital point and shoots more and more.

When I went to Alaska I took both a digital camera and my Leica. It was the first time I'd taken the Leica out for several months. I loaded it with good, slow slide film behind a very wide angle (12mm) lens to capture the immense scenery. I loved using it, as always. Every time I'd hear the snick of the shutter it was like an old dear lover, whispering in my ear.

It took me nearly a month to get around to taking the film to the lab, and another three days to bother picking it back up again. (It had been ready in two hours.) I sorted it on a light table, tossed out about eighty percent of the slides - because of difficult light, I'd bracketed a lot, and have still not got around to running the slides I saved through my film scanner.

I've long since downloaded, edited, filed, posted and made use of the many more photos I took with the digital camera I brought to Alaska.

Since it was announced, last year, I've toyed with the idea of buying the new Leica M8 - the first digital rangefinder Leica. It looks very much like all the other Leicas made since the M3 came out in 1954. It feels almost the same in the hand; a little fatter, a touch taller, no film advance or rewind lever, solidly built - though not quite so much as the film Leicas I've used.

But the M8, well, it just seems like it asserts itself, as if it wants to make sure that you know damn well it's a technical marvel. It requires messing with menus, marking special codes on the lenses, putting special filters on wide angle lenses because of bad digital color shifts; and to get the picture you took in your head seems to require mucking around an awful lot with Photoshop afterwards.

And on top of all that, the M8 costs about five thousand dollars, plus another thousand or more by the time I get all my lenses coded, buy the filters and get ready to use it.

I can buy a new Nikon D300 digital SLR with all the lenses and filters and geegaws and doodads that I could possibly want to use with it, for less than it would cost me to buy an M8 to use with my existing lenses. I like Leica lenses a lot better than Nikon lenses. But Nikon lenses are still excellent. I can sell my current Leica and lenses and related geegaws and doodads for more than enough money to cover the Nikon and everything, as well as a second Nikon body if I want one, and still have money left over - a lot of money left over if I don't spring for the second Nikon body.

So that's what I'm going to do. Tomorrow at 11 am. At a place called PopFlash Photo in Thousand Oaks. They're going to take my Leica equipment on consignment and sell it for me. Even with their twenty percent cut, it's going to work out for the best.

But I'll be losing out on an old and dear friend. I might take some of the money though, and buy an old, used Leica with one lens; an M3 or an M2, like the first Leicas I ever used. Hopefully someone will still make film for at least another dozen years or so.

I do not have photos of all the Leicas that I've personally owned over the years. The photo at the top of this blog is of my current Leica, the M7 that I'm taking to PopFlash tomorrow.

But here, in order, are pictures of the various models of Leica M that I've owned over the years - since 1973 when I bought my first, used M3 for $250 with a 50mm Summicron lens. I think it is a thing of truly great, simple beauty.

Sunday Scribblings - "Walk" - 12/2/07

After missing Sunday Scribblings last week due to a Thanksgiving trip into a land where there is no INTERNET or cell phones (I will call this land that time forgot, rural Georgia.) I was anxious to attack this week’s topic with a vengeance. But unfortunately, the prompt “walk” did not immediately cause anything to surface from my cluttered mind, and anyone who knows me knows I am not prone to exerting much effort. So it appeared that I was about to have a two-week run of non-productivity from my writer’s garret. Actually, I don’t have a writer’s garret, but it sounds much more authorly than where I actually write, in the master bedroom of my condo. Actually, both bedrooms are the same size, but master bedroom rings of affluence.

As is usually the case, my blogs tend to write themselves, and this was no exception. I need to preface my submission (this is not it, just the dramatic buildup) by stating that I am an avid moviegoer. I have mentioned this in previous blogs. And though I have seen some really bad movies, I have never, ever walked out of one. I paid my $5.00 (I usually go to matinees) and, damn it, I am going to get my money’s worth!! I also, always have it in the back of my mind that the film will get better if I wait it out, much like life. Sometimes it never does, much like life.





I also need to tell you that I am a huge fan of Stephen King. He is by far my favorite author. I know that some of you will immediately turn up your nose and think, “how can anyone read such drivel when Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Kafka have not been fully explored.” For some reason, my vocalization of that quote includes a very posh British accent. Well, my blogs should indicate that I am not smart enough to interpret classic works and need King’s ability to paint a word picture for me. I read for entertainment, the same reasons I go to the movies. I would rather watch Jack Black than Sir Lawrence Olivier, though I appreciate both. I am not deep.





It is also important that you know that I know that adapting a Stephen King work to film is a crapshoot. While there have been some classics: Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, The Shining (Jack, need I say more), and the Dead Zone (Christopher Walken makes any film better). There have also been some stinkers: Children of the Corn (I think that if you name your son Malakai, you can expect trouble), Maximum Overdrive (When your star is Emilio Estevez, probably not gonna get Oscar consideration), and Dreamcatcher (did they even read the book?), to name a few. But even the worst of those had some merit and I watched them all until the credits rolled.






But this weekend I saw “The Mist”. Or at least I saw some of it. I enjoy suspense. I am entertained when a film makes the entire audience jump at once. But I don’t like pure gore. Not Al, not Tipper, not gore for the sake of gore. I am also a fan of suspension of reality, but not for the entire length of the movie. Great book, lousy film.



For the first time in my cinematic life, I walked out. The end.