Girl in a Cage

No More Cash For You, Plouffe!

Dear David Plouffe: I am in receipt of your email asking me for a contribution to defray the cost of the inauguration. Here's why I won't be contributing.

As you may suspect, it does come down to Rick Warren for me. 

Let me say that on an intellectual level, I understand the selection of Rick Warren, and I have to say it is a brilliant move.  It's an effort to split the Republican base and create a progressive majority.  It's a way of saying, "Hey, evangelicals, you can hate fags and still support progressive policies!"  I get it.  Those of us who support equality for gays and lesbians have no other place to go, so you throw the queers under the bus in what is pretty much the definition of a symbolic gesture in order to reassure those filled with fear and hate that they can support your policies without being overrun by scary fags and dykes. 

Indeed, the progressive backlash against Rick Warren's selection is actually part of the game plan, because it shows that Obama is a different kind of politician, one who's not afraid to take on his party's base.  This is Bill Clinton's Sister Souljah play, and, indeed, I'm familiar with this play because I've seen it run on African Americans so many times.  (So what it really shows is that Obama is not a different kind of politician at all. And why do you suppose it's only Democrats who feel the need to take on their base?)

Which only goes to show that Barack Obama has killer political instincts and will probably be a very effective president. 

Intellectually, I understand this, and I can even appreciate it as good political strategy, and I understand that this middle finger raised to gays and lesbians and those who care about them may, in the long run, actually lead to a progressive coalition that will make life in this country for gays and lesbians better.

None of this changes the fact that it's wrong.  Pandering to hatred is always wrong, denying people's humanity is wrong, and standing against love is wrong.  It wasn't the intellectual appeal that got me to open my wallet; it was the fact that this campaign was able to overcome my cynicism and make me believe there was actually something different going on.

But now I see that there is nothing different going on here, and whatever is going on here, I, as a supporter of equality for gays and lesbians, am not invited.  I get why you've put some distance between the president-elect and me, but you can't push me away with one hand and ask me for money with the other.  It's tacky.

Don't get me wrong--I'm still happy about our choice of president, and I'm glad to see the other team playing defense for a change.  I just wish I'd been invited to the party.

But I wasn't, so no more cash for you.

Terror, Trains

A couple of highlights from my recent soujourn in the Garden and Empire States.

Yesterday, we went for lunch at the Jekyll and Hyde Club near Columbus Circle.  Now, I like to think I'm too much of a sophisticated urbanite to fall into a tourist trap like this, but, hey, it's kinda horror-related.  Plus, you try taking a pack o' kids to that authentic hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurant that you read about on chowhound. 

So, is this particular theme restaurant/tourist trap worth the trip?  I have to say yes.  The food, as you'd expect, is mediocre, but you go for the experience and entertainment. (And, as a vegetarian, I'm used to mediocre food at pretty much any family dining establishment.  This place is actually no worse than Uno's or TGI Friday's in that respect.) Which involves talking animatronic decor and roaming characters who interact with you in creepy and/or corny ways.  So, production values-wise, it was nearly the equal of a ride at Disney World (I mean this as a compliment).  The prices are exhorbitant, of course, but you're paying for the strolling actors and the light up Frankenstein and such.  I liked it.  I'd go again.

Can't say the same for the Holiday Train show at the New York Botanical Garden.  The whole thing consists of miniature New York landmarks made of plant parts with little model trains chugging through.  It was cool and enjoyable, but was it worth 20 bucks?  Survey said....BZZZZT!  And was it worth standing in line for an hour?  (!!!)  BZZZT again.  They just sold way way too many tickets, so by the time we finally got to see the exhibit, its coolness was diminished by the long wait.  I mean, I've waited that long and had life-changing roller coaster rides at the end, so some plant houses and model trains just didn't really cut it.

Back home, after the kids were all asleep, I caught the first half of The Midnight Meat Train on the in-laws' On Demand.  It's an adaptation of a Clive Barker short story, and it's very well done--well-acted , shot by somebody who knows what he's doing, featuring dialogue that's  not laughable.  So far so good, but the movie has two fatal flaws.  1.) CGI.  If you're going to make a movie about a guy who bashes people's heads in with a big hammer (and, really, why wouldn't you), you're just cheating the audience if you serve up CGI gore. That eye popping out and landing on the floor was like the fakest thing I've ever seen. 2.)Clive Barker has no sense of humor.  This is what I don't like about his work.  I mean, take Hellraiser, for example--how can you serve up that hooey about killer Rubik's cubes and guys with pins in their heads with a totally straight face?  And how can you make a movie called The Midnight Meat Train that's not funny at all? 

My Next Career Move: Steal From Asians.

If you follow movies even a little bit, you know that these days, pretty much every horror movie that does not have "Saw" in the title is a remake of an Asian horror movie. I haven't seen many of these--just The Ring, which, admittedly, scared the bejesus out of me--but it's clear that if you want financing for a horror movie, all you have to do is say you are remaking a successful Asian horror movie.

Aside about my recent adventures in this area:  I just watched the original Chinese version of The Eye, which I really liked--some pretty creepy set pieces, and a really great twist about two-thirds of the way through.  But, yeah, the idea--woman has cornea transplant and can suddenly see the dead, like the similarly gifted suicide whose corneas she got--is an old retread dating back at least as far as 1924's Hands of Orlac (it was obviously not corneas in that one, but still, the idea that transplanted body parts can mess you up is the same). So everybody's stealing from somebody, which I suppose is important to remember. 
Here's the trailer for the original Chinese version of The Eye:

and here's the trailer for the remake, which you can pretty much tell sucks just from the trailer:

Okay, so how does this relate to me and my career? 

Well, one of the biggest YA books of the year is Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I haven't read this, but it's selling a lot, it's making a lot of year-end best lists, many of the librarians I hang with online are really into it, (yeah, I hang with librarians online.  You know how I feel about librarians.) and, oh yeah, it's a complete ripoff of a Japanese book from 1999.

Here's the Amazon description of The Hunger Games:  Katniss is a 16-year-old girl living with her mother and younger sister in the poorest district of Panem, the remains of what used be the United States. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games." The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed. When Kat's sister is chosen by lottery, Kat steps up to go in her place.

And here's the Amazon description of Koushun Takami's Battle Royale (which I have read):Battle Royale, a high-octane thriller about senseless youth violence, is one of Japan's best-selling - and most controversial - novels. As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old gangster director Kinji Fukusaku.

Notice any similarities?  I sure as hell do!

So what's the lesson here?  I guess, for me, I have to start studying the Japanese bestseller lists.  Maybe I should write a book for cell phones....

Pointless Listmaking

A lot of people say to me, "Brendan!  I know you're a big Belle and Sebastian fan--what are your 15 favorite songs by this fine Scottish band?"

Nobody's ever actually said that to me, but if they did, here's how I'd reply.

1.She's Losing It
2.The Gate
3.The Boy With the Arab Strap
4.Judy and the Dream of Horses (Live--from the itunes "B&S Play If You're Feeling Sinister" which is superior to the studio album)
5.Dirty Dream Number Two
6.Expectations
7.Another Sunny Day
8.I Could Be Dreaming
9.I'm a Cuckoo
10.This is Just a Modern Rock Song
11.Sleep The Clock Around
12. I Don't Love Anyone
13.Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying. (Live--see above)
14.String Bean Jean
15. Me and the Major (Live, etc.)

"Brendan," they continue (or, again, they would if anyone ever actually said this to me) "are those the Belle and Sebastian songs you've listened to the most, as counted by your ever-vigilant itunes play counter?"

"Uh, no," I'd reply.  "It's just a list I pulled out of my butt."
"Well, but you'd say your list accurately reflects your favorite songs?"
"Definitely.  I mean, the actual ranking is arbitrary and depends a lot on my mood of course, but I'm confident that these are pretty much my top 15."

Let's go to the MP3s.  Here, as counted by itunes, are the B&S songs I've actually listened to the most.

1.The Gate
2. Mayfly (live)
3.The Boy With the Arab Strap
4.Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying (live)
5.Another Sunny Day
6.Me and the Major
7.Dirty Dream Number Two
8.Seeing Other People
9.Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying (studio)
10. Step Into My Office, Baby
11.Wrapped Up in Books
12.Judy and the Dream of Horses (live)
13.Lazy Line Painter Jane
14.Judy and the Dream of Horses (studio)
15.She's Losing It

What can I make of this?  Besides the fact that I really like "The Gate" a lot?  Is the song you listen to the most the same as your favorite?  I don't know.  "Manitoba" is unquestionably my favorite Frank Black song, but I don't listen to it all that often because of the emotional reaction it provokes.  Could you love a song because it fits a certain mood perfectly, but not listen to it that often because you're not in that mood very often?  Can you, as I have done, argue with a straight face that If You're Feeling Sinister is not the best Belle and Sebastian album when songs from that album occupy 6 of your top 15 spots? 

And, of course, the biggest question of all:  Who cares!  Why the hell are you even thinking about this crap?  Don't you have more important things to do?

Yes I do, and I suppose I'd better go do them.

Free book on my phone!

So I downloaded Charlie Huston's Six Bad Things onto my iphone. 

It was free! 

I downloaded Stanza, the free ebook reader, and then got Six Bad Things for free from Random House.  (Yes, the very same publisher that publishes my adult novels.  Once I saw that they were giving books away for the iphone, I got in touch and said, "yo, Random House!  Could you give one of my books away for iphone owners?  Maybe Long Way Back, which is criminally underappreciated and has sold a quite embarrassing number of copies?"  "No F'n way!" they said.  Yes, folks, it's the second best novel I've ever written, and I literally can't give it away.  Not that I'm bitter. )

Okay, so let's just say I have a little writerly crush on Charlie Huston.  Never met him in person, not completely convinced he's not a nom de plume, but damn, every book I pick up of his I wish I had written. 

The iphone reading experience: not bad!  Not as good as the Kindle, but not bad, and comes with a lot of advantages. Okay, just one advantage, really, which is that I always have it with me.  I am able to lose myself in the text, even with the increased number of page turns, and I just always have it! I never have to remember to bring it somewhere. 

Having said this, would I pay to read a book on my iphone?  I kinda don't think so.  The price point for most iphone apps is pretty low, so that makes spending ten bucks on a book, which I do happily on my Kindle, seem kind of extravagant.  (American Heritage dictionary for the iphone is 30 bucks!  WTF!)

But, I do like the option, and I do think I'll probably keep a free book or two loaded in my phone at all times.  Just because I freakin' can!

By the way, Six Bad Things rocks.  I have to say I don't dig the straight crime novels as much as the vampire crime novels, but it's still really good.  Every time I finish one of Huston's vampire novels, I want nothing more than to get my hands on the next one, whereas when I finish one of his crime novels, I want nothing more than to shower.  Still, it's a very entertaining read.

Poop is Funny, Volume 2.

I'm kinda interested in the whole microblogging thing, a la twitter.  

Most people, myself included, use it to post dumb little things.  I tend to write a little something if I've had a particularly good meal, or I've enjoyed a movie or tv show, or if something really stupid happens, or if I have good book news. 

But some people are turning this into some kind of bizarre art form.  There's this guy, for example, or, I mean, guy I suppose is stretching it.  Being, I suppose is more accurate.

But the one who is really pushing the twitter envelope, the one who may well have discovered the very reason this service was invented, is this guy.  And yes, I'm sure it's a guy.

Yes, this person, whoever he may be, updates the world, or, more accurately, the 14 of us who regularly follow his updates, about the workings of his lower intestine.

People, including 4 people that I live with, say to me, "Why the hell would you want to read regular updates about a guy's shit?"

And all I can do is quote Danny DeVito again: "Because poop is funny!"

Another Hero Has Failed Me.

Noted with displeasure this item in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago.

Prince, whose work I have long loved, who is the greatest guitarist alive, and who is a hero to the shorter man, is an asshole. 

I suppose this shouldn't come as any surprise--he can't seem to keep a band together, and few of his former proteges seem to be on speaking terms with him.  But still.

"And then on the opposite end of the spectrum you’ve got blue, you’ve got the Democrats, and they’re, like, ‘You can do whatever you want.’ Gay marriage, whatever. But neither of them is right.”

When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’ ”

Geez, Prince, your entire career is built on people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever!  And that's why we loved you!   Now the guy who once performed in fishnet stockings while asking "Am I straight or gay?" comes out against gay marriage. 

I suppose Prince's old songs--the ones from back when he could still write a song instead of just a(n admittedly funky) groove instead of a song--are still good, but what I loved about them--the horniness, the spiritual seeking, the uncertainty--have been tainted by the knowledge of what their creator has become.

I guess Minor Threat said it better than I can, so here they are doing "Filler."  

Love For Lordi

The other night, I watched the Lordi movie, Dark Floors. (Available on DVD in the USA as part of the Ghost House Underground series).

Now, my love of Lordi is boundless--I also downloaded their new album, Deadache. Lordi gets very little love on these shores, which is I think because they have a sense of humor, which is an unforgivable sin in the eyes of most metalheads.  Also, some people claim that they rip off GWAR.  Who ripped off KISS.  Saying somebody ripped off GWAR is a bit like saying somebody ripped off John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.  Second generation ripoffs don't count.  And, unlike GWAR, Lordi writes songs that don't completely suck ass. 

Take this from "Girls Go Chopping"-- "Go berserk Miss Piggy Style/Kermie's Legs will fry."  How, how, how can anyone not love a metal band in full latex monster costumes who have the cojones to name check the muppets?

Anyway, back to the movie.  Let's just say that KISS themselves set the bar incredibly low in the "vanity project of band in makeup" category with their exquisitely awful made-for-tv epic, Kiss Meets The Phantom of the Park. 

Dark Floors, though, is not going for cheese.  Rather, it intends to be a genuinely creepy horror movie that happens to feature the members of Lordi in what amount to cameos.

It's set in a haunted hospital, or possibly a hospital in another dimension, or possibly the afterlife.  It's kinda unclear.  There's a lot of clever stuff with the distortion of time, and there are a lot of actually scary parts.  I mean, hospitals are scary.

Does the movie work completey?  Sadly, no.  The ending is incomprehensible, which is very annoying.  And though the movie was shot in Finland, where there are surely no black people, and where, indeed, you'd probably have to go to Copenhagen or Amsterdam to find a black actor, they still flew in a black guy to be the first one to die.  Isn't it time this horror movie cliche was dispensed with forever?  Apparently not. 

So yeah, it's not a perfect movie (there are also a couple of things that characters do for the express purpose of getting killed that strain credulity to the breaking point), but it is actually a decent one.  If you like horror movies, it's worth watching.  And yeah, it's better than Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. 

Viva Lordi!

Just because I like you, here's a snippet of Kiss Meets the Phantom. And here's the Dark Floors trailer:

Throw Your Arms Around The World

The celebrity sing-along benefits of the 1980's have been pretty widely mocked and derided.  I think this is mostly unfair.  Though of course I do enjoy this particular derision:

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Let's take the case of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and its instigator, Bob Geldof. It started the whole trend, and it's easily mocked because the people the song was about, starving Ethiopians, were, for the most part, not Christians and so therefore probably didn't care it was Christmas.  Also, Phil Collins participated.

 Still, while this is not the best of the 1980's benefit songs, it is a pretty good one:  It basically cribs its sentiment from the Kinks' "Father Christmas", and there are a lot worse songs to steal from.  So despite the fact that it's a Christmas song, it's not treacly:  "And the Christmas bells that ring out/Are the clanging chimes of doom/Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you." 

And, it's a Christmas song, which has guaranteed it a much longer shelf life than any of the similar songs.  This is a smart and nifty trick to ensure the charity-bound royalties keep coming year after year. You hear "Do They Know It's Christmas" every year, and it's been many years (though surely not enough) since I've heard "We Are The World." (Prince was scorned at the time for only contributing a song to the album and avoiding the recording of the single, but you can still listen to "4 The Tears in Your Eyes" without vomiting, which is pretty much impossible to do with "We Are The World."  Having said that, Prince is on my shit list right now--more on that in a future entry.)

And so it's easy to mock a bunch of rich musicians for getting together and putting together a song instead of doing something more, and more effective, and apparently the whole Live Aid thing wasn't too successful at getting the food into the hands of the starving, but I think it's important not to succumb to the cynic's excuse:  "your attempt to do something is not perfect, therefore I am justified in doing nothing." 

Doing something about evil and injustice is always better than doing nothing.  

And Bob Geldof shamed a lot of wealthy people into doing something for people who had less than them.  In a pretty materialistic decade full of BMWs and Polo Shirts, this alternative story was going out:  if you have a lot, you have a responsibility to give back.  That's a pretty good message, and who knows how many people were impacted by it in some way? 

Anyway, here's Bob, Sting, George Michael, Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17, Boy George, That Guy from The Human League, Simon LeBon, Paul Young, Bono, those fetchin' gals from Bananarama looking delightfully like they just rolled out of bed, and (shudder) Phil Collins with an imperfect attempt to do something worthwhile with their fame:

And here's the best benefit song of the 1980's:

Buy Books, Bitches!

Well, Random House (which just "reorganized"--there's an unfortunate amount of that going on in publishing these days) has this books=gifts campaign trying to get people to give books as holiday gifts.  It's a good idea, but I think my title for the campaign is catchier.  

Books, even hardcovers, remain a tremendous entertainment value.  For 25 bucks, you can get a new DVD and spend two hours max being entertained.  You can also get a used video game that probably wasn't any good in the first place (because the good ones command over 40 bucks used) but might give you a few hours of entertainment.  Or you can buy a brand spankin' new hardcover book.  Or two paperbacks!  Possibly even 3 if you play your cards right, sale-wise.  

And a book is a nice, thoughtful gift--even if the recipient doesn't like, or even never opens it, it shows that you were really thinking about them and who they are and what they might like.

Here's the only rule.  When you give a book as a gift, you must never, never ask about it.  If it gets read and enjoyed, you'll hear about it.  If you hassle people about whether they're reading, your "gift" becomes burdensome, and fewer people will want to give or receive books as gifts.  So hand over the book and then shut up.  

Apart from my own oevre, which I of course recommend strongly, here are some books I think would make lovely gifts:

YA Novels:  Someone, I can't remember who, described YA novels as "novels without all the bullshit."  They tend to be quick, easy, entertaining reads, and many deal with interesting and deep issues without boring the hell out of you.  Give these to teens or adults you love:

Charles deLint, The Blue Girl.  It's hard to be the new girl in school. Especially when contact with semi-malevolent fairies turns you blue from head to toe and ghosts develop stalker-ish crushes on you.  

Larry Doyle, I Love You, Beth Cooper.  A really funny book about a dork's graduation night, it reads like a novelization of the funniest teen movie never made.  Which it is.  It started life as a movie treatment, became a novel, and is now becoming a movie again.  If you like those Judd Apatow "raunchy, but with a big heart" comedies, you'll love this.

China Mieville, Un Lun Dun--Don't you hate it when you discover a parallel city below your own, and your best friend becomes the chosen one who has to save the place, but then she falls down on the job and you have to do it even though you don't fulfill the ancient prophecy?  Me too!

Neil Gaiman--Graveyard Book.  One of the best things I've ever read.  Definitely a classic of children's literature.  Give it to kids, and they'll pass it on to their own kids.

Horror/Fantasy Type of stuff.  Yeah, a lot of the YA books I recommended fell into that category too. So sue me.  

Charlie Huston--The Joe Pitt Casebooks, starting with Already Dead.  Under most people's radar, Charlie Huston is creating the noir Harry Potter--an engrossing, fully-realized world and a story that starts small and keeps growing bigger and bigger.  If you like detective stories and you prefer your vampires thirsty and brutal rather than wan and romantic, these books are for you.

Dan Simmons, The Terror--A 19th-century Artcic expedition winds up with two ships stuck in the ice.  Gory complications ensue.

Liz Williams, Snake Agent.  It's a fantasy!  It's a horror novel!  It's a police procedural!  It's a buddy comedy!  It's all of the above!

Non Fiction:

David Hadju, The Ten-Cent Plague-- it's about the anti-comic book hysteria of the 50's, but is pretty enlightening about how any of these "blame our real or imagined problems on a pop culture scapegoat" phenomena get started.

Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic--If you drive in the United States, you need to read this book.

Books by friends of mine that are really good even though I understand my recommendation may be kinda suspect:

Dana Reinhardt, How to Build a House--a great YA novel about a girl who volunteers to build a house in a disaster-ridden community and ends up coming to terms with how her own home has been destroyed.

Tasha Alexander, And Only To Deceive--first in a series of mysteries set in Victorian England.  I enjoyed it immensely--the whole "is the dead husband really who he appeared to be?" plot was very engaging, and the main character really appeared to be a Victorian woman rather than a modern woman dropped into a Victorian setting.  Great for mystery lovers, history buffs, and Anglophiles.

Lauren Groff, The Monsters of Templeton--Can you go home again, especially when you have a difficult relationship with your mom, you've screwed up your life royally, there's a mystery at the heart of your identity, and there's a monster in the lake in the middle of town?  Read and find out!