I’ve had 180 page views from Russia this year.



And all I can say is:
ti takaya dobraya. Spasiba.
(You’re so kind. Thank You)

and can you tell me who you are, what you want,
and if I should be afraid?



HEARD, SEEN, FOUND, THOUGHT, AND SOON TO BE FORGOTTEN


A bright and glorious future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.

The recent tragic cruise ship accident is all the sadder considering what we now know about the cowardly captain and his abandonment of ship when lives were at stake and chaos reigned. I knew I had heard there was something fishy about Italian ships—and unsurprisingly it was from Noel Coward who said:

"I only travel on Italian ships. In the event of sinking, there’s none of that ‘women and children first’ nonsense!"


Ford Automobile Company Chief executive, Henry Ford II,
and the leader of the automobile workers union, Walter Reuther,
upon reviewing the new advanced machinery operating at the plant:

Henry Ford II: Walter, how are you going to get those robots to pay your union dues?
Walter Reuther: Henry, how are you going to get them to buy your cars?

And the problem is much worse now. Obama says he wants to create more jobs at home, but business is turning more and more work over to machines—and giving what’s left to third world parties who can get cheap (very cheap) labor. Those jobs are not coming back. How many pole dancers, burger flippers and reality TV stars does it take to turn an economy around?

Obama Agonistes is on my mind a lot these days. We all knew it would come to this (didn't we?) All that poetic hope and promise turning to mud-slinging cynicism and scape-goating. But no surprise. The general public only knows what they're told, and all they're told is what works for the tellers, and all that works for the tellers is tall-tales and horror fiction. I don't have a clue as to how best to address issues re: Fiscal Failure, Iranian militarism, Unemployment, Credit crisis, European debt, American debt, China trade...not a clue, not even a hint of an idea of a clue. And yet there are so many who are so much less informed and thoughtful than I who seem to know exactly what we (he) should be doing. And the two ton elephant in the room is that we are living in an Oligarchy and Obama has less power and influence than the guys doing 2 minute spiels about looming socialism on FoxNews. But none of it would bother me much (at this late date in my life when there's not much in the political realm I haven't seen before at least three times over) except for the obvious (to me) element of racism. I've argued with friends who don't agree, and I've patiently considered all i've seen and heard, but I think racism is what lies beneath the surface of much of the anti-Obama sentiment. And it's a racism that carries with it all the tell-tale signs of rabid ignorant hate born of fear of everything and anything that is THE OTHER. It's not just a black thing...it's THE THING thing.
The monster can be a Commie, or a Martian. Obama is one of The Others to many americans. And I think that's what has emboldened so many incompetent, incoherent, and unelectable would be candidates to throw their hats in the ring.
Subconsciously, people like Newt and Perry and Mitt and the rest of them must all feel that their chances are vastly improved by simply being something other than THE OTHER. Mitt's mormonism is nothing compared to Barack's otherness--and Newt's shameful and scandalous past pales before what people consider to be Barack's strange, exotic, and dark (in every way) family history. The whole thing makes me sick and I feel sick just writing about it, so I'll stop.

If every dogma has its day, how'd Newt Gingrich get two?

Jay Z will be performing at Carnegie Hall next week.
Tickets price ranges from 500 to 2500 dollars.
Who’s going? NBA players?

'Civilisation is hideously fragile. There's not much between us and the horrors underneath. Just a coat of varnish.'
A Coat of Varnish-- CP Snow

From a book review:
" it's a story with a beginning, a muddle, and an end."

Mario Cuomo said “you campaign in poetry and govern in prose."

Went to the "Outsider" art show with Ellen. The Outsider label is repellent to me. "Folk" I guess is the old term. So why switch to Outsider? What is Insider art? OK, I get it, these are "un-trained" "un-schooled" artists. Right, like Ray Charles? Louis Armstrong? Stevie Wonder? The Beatles? It all looks like art to me. And most of it looked like it took a helluva lot of skill and discipline and technique. Only critics, dealers, PR people and profiteers have anything to gain from using the label "Outsider". As for the exhibit...almost too much to take in, like an all you eat buffet-- you get full before you can even taste half of it. But much of it is terrific. So much of art strives to be super-human and larger than life that it feels refreshing when it's simply human and life size. BTW: some of the art had price tags that seemed targeted to anything but "folk" ...guess if you're an insider who likes Outsider, you can get the inside track on who's gonna be the next big Outsider and drop 35 grand on his/her Outsider painting and show it off to all your insider friends.

July 18 1963: The Beatles recorded:

The best things in life are free
But you can keep ’em for the birds and bees
Now give me money
That’s what I want

Then...

January 29 1964 they recorded:
I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend
If it makes you feel all right
I'll get you anything my friend
If it makes you feel all right
'Cause I don't care too much for money
For money can't buy me love

Damn, they sure got rich fast.


100% Blue Agave for the 1%. Went to a friend’s house, asked for Tequila. He fetches a blue box. Very fancy one. Inside Box is classy little booklet, some kind of certificate, and a bottle of Tequila. Price: $250.00. I’m speechless. Relieved to hear he didn’t pay for it--got it free (long story) Whew. He pours me some. Nice taste. Is it 10 times better than a $25.00 bottle ? Well I guess it is if you think it is…but I’m sure I’d fail a taste test just trying to determine that it was even different from the others. Wonder if any of those harvesting the Agave, stirring the vat, or filling the kegs down in Mexico know what it’s selling for in the US.





"Dutch" Treat

When I heard Elmore Leonard speak a few nights back, he talked about his now famous (and published in a book of its own that I'm sure his publisher wanted more than he did) rules of writing. You gotta love rules like this. So Un-Rule like, and so like him to make them so simple and plain.

Reading his new book Raylan --and best I can say is it's better than no Leonard at all. Not that it's bad, but he set the bar so high over the years that it may be too much to ask that he always maintain it--specially at the age of 86! His book before this one was not one I'd recommend either--but it did have a spark of experimentation that made it strangely provocative. In this new one, more than anything else I'm struck by the further simplification of an already bare- bones style. Leonard is the master of the sharp, short and sweet cut to the chase page turner--and in this book he's honed it to the point of the surreal. Characters and situations are introduced and developed in such quick strokes that almost nothing rings true in terms of the world most of us live in. Reminds me of painters like Matisse and DeKooning whose late works reduced color and form to the barest essentials and sometimes even the essentials went out the window. It's like an impression of the impressionistic--where what is left out becomes more the focus than what is included. But I'm not sure it works in fiction writing. I'm only halfway through, but already I can tell that this is not really a novel, but a series of situations and barely connected snapshots of a world where everyone is playing a quintessential "Elmore Leonard" type in a quintessential Elmore Leonard narrative. And the dialogue, for which he is so deservingly famous has been reduced to such a spareness, that at times you think you're reading Beckett or Pinter, albeit with a hearty appetite for deadly physical force. UPDATE: I read further since penning the above. The second narrative thread in Raylan is very good. Coal Mining town in post industrial America through a lens of hard boiled Sopranoesque real Politik. Emile Zola would have approved.