Broadsided by Life...

Have you ever felt like life has broadsided you and then run off like a hit-and-run driver?

Well, that's how I feel right now. I was just living life, minding my own business and trying to find a way to make a living, and then, wham...I found out that I'm losing my place to live by the end of August. Just like that. Nothing I did. What happened was that when my cousin invited me to live with his family, he forgot to check the rules of the reverse mortgage on the house. Turns out, no one who is not on the mortgage is allowed to live here. So, combined with a couple of other things he forgot to take into consideration, I'm out. I guess I'm lucky that I've got until the end of next month to get a plan in place.

And I do have a plan. You can read about it here. I think it is a good plan. But it is going to take some money, money that I don't have right now, which is why I've started the gofundme.com campaign that the link above leads to.

I'm not asking for a handout so much as for a hand up. And I'm doing all I can to help myself. I'm trying to sell my belongings, which I can't take with me when I move to the East Coast, anyway. Unfortunately, the yard sale I had on Saturday as part of this effort earned me a total of about $90. This isn't even enough to buy my train ticket, which is the only essential right now. I've got to get to where the jobs are, since there clearly aren't any jobs - at least for me - here in California. If there were, I suspect that I would have found at least one of them in two and a half years of looking.

The reason I set my goal for my fundraising efforts so high - at $5,000 - is that I'd like to be able to put a roof over my head and a little bit of food on the table while I'm looking for work once I arrive in the East. I don't think that is too much to hope for, as it is very difficult to find work from the streets. I will actually start to apply for jobs before I leave; I'm just waiting until I have my train ticket in hand so that I can let prospective employers to know when I will be in the East and available for interviews and to work.

I hope you will click over to the link above and read all about my plan. If you can't help, I understand. It's tough for everyone right now. And I want to thank those who have already helped. If you can help, even a little, I will appreciate it greatly.

Paper cuts, paper cutting, and music that is louder than necessary...

Yeah. I intended to be back on a more regular basis. Really.

But, you see, I got this paper cut on my finger...

No, it isn't the beginning of a joke. I really did have the paper cut from hell. Right on the tip of that most useful of fingers (that would be the one in the middle). And, even with a Band-Aid on it, keyboarding was, well, uncomfortable. And, I don't know why, but my paper cuts always take forever to heal. Other stuff - my cuts, scrapes, bruises - always heal really fast, but not the paper cuts.

But now I think I'm all healed. At least, I hope so.

Now, this is funny. Just for the shits and giggles, I searched "paper cuts" in Bing images. I do these things sometimes when I'm bored. And there were a couple of people displaying actual cuts from paper. But mostly what appeared were things like this:

And this:

Both very pretty, and both things I'd never be able to do - I didn't get the graphic arts gene - but very much not what I was expecting to see. But I thought I'd share.

The things I do to amuse myself on a Saturday night. Then again, I have to do something to distract myself from the local neighborhood noise polluter. For the past three hours or so, there has been what sounds like live music blasting from somewhere in the neighborhood. It wouldn't be so bad if it was good music. Alas, it is not. It's probably a good thing I had a long nap this afternoon, because I'd hate to try to go to sleep with that going on.

Ah, well. Because I try to find the silver lining in every situation, I can say that it least the music is better than the joker who was setting off firecrackers last night. Sounded like a cannon going off. Repeatedly.

Hope you all are having, or have had, a Saturday night that is as exciting - or not - as you want it to be.

Down on Santa Monica Pier...

This is where I went yesterday:

And I rode on this (it's from the 1920s, I think):

And I watched this:

And I saw this (and had lunch at the place behind the sign...the burgers and fries are wonderful):

Passed this on the way to the pier while driving through Topanga Canyon:

Theatricum Botanicum was founded in 1973 by actor Will Geer (you might remember him as Grandpa Walton on "The Waltons" television series in the 1970s), but its roots to back to the 1950s when Geer was blacklisted during the McCarthy era and opened a theater on the property to give other blacklisted entertainers a place to practice their arts. After Geer died in 1978, his family and others decided to turn the facility into a professional repertory theater. Apropos to my visit to Santa Monica Pier, the main stage at the theater is built from wood salvaged when the Pier sustained serious damage in a storm in 1983. To all appearances from when we drove by on Sunday, the theater is alive and well, with an event going on as we passed by.

And saw this while traveling down Pacific Coast Highway:

This was once actress Thelma Todd's home (upstairs) and a café she opened (downstairs). It's also where she died, in 1935, in the garage, with the car still running. It was ruled an accident (or possibly suicide) at the time, but some say she was murdered although a grand jury was not able to find any evidence to prove it.

So, that's my Sunday, and a little bit of film history and gossip for Movie Monday. Actually, the Pier itself has a place in film history, with appearances in many films and television episodes over the years.

How was your weekend?

Just a note: None of these are my photos; Bing Images is my friend.

I said I'd do it, and now I have...

I recently finished reading my way through J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels.

I had already seen the movies, so I pretty much knew how things would turn out. And so the did; the movies, as it turns out, were in the main faithful to the books. I know that there were arguments among diehard fans of the books about what was left in, what was left out, and what was changed. As I read the books, I was aware of some of the changes and omissions, but they mostly didn't bother me as I read. My philosophy about books into movies, whether I saw the films first or read the books, is that what is on the page and what is on the screen are two different worlds. It's how I'm able to enjoy the television series "Bones" and also enjoy the books written by Kathy Reichs that provided the inspiration for the series, which share pretty much nothing but the name of the title character.

This, of course, is not the case with the Harry Potter books and films. The thing that surprises me, really, is that the films are so like the books. It was a difficult thing to achieve, I think, in the face of the fact that in adapting such a long and complex (yes, despite being written for a young adult audience, the books as Rowling wrote them comprise a pretty complex whole) series of books for the screen meant that it would be necessary to pick and choose the details to be retained and those to be omitted. I've only seen a couple of other films based on books that I've read, that have been able to retain the illusion that it was the book up there on the screen. It is an illusion, of course, in all cases, and the ability to create that illusion is a rare and wonderful thing.

However, as faithful as the films were able to be to the books, enough had to be left out that there were things in the story told by the movies that I just didn't understand, even after repeated viewings. Which is why I've finally read the books. Friends who had both read the books and seen the films had told me that things would be much clearer after I read the books.

They were absolutely right.

Now, I have to say that some of the explanations came in bursts of info-dump that Rowling might have been able to find other ways to accomplish. On the other hand, I'm glad those scenes were there. I don't know how many times, while I was reading, I found myself saying to myself (sometimes out loud), "So, that's what that was about." Or, "Now I understand why that happened that way." Now, however, I need to go back and watch the films from the perspective of having read the books.

The quibble about the info-dumps, I hasten to add, is just that: a minor quibble. I think that J. K. Rowling accomplished something quite amazing in her books. While writing for a younger audience, she was able to weave a story that has also kept millions of adult readers entranced over a period of many years. She has been quoted as saying that she came up with the idea for the story of the Boy Who Lived while on a train in 1990. The first volume was published in the UK in 1997 and in the US in 1998. The final book was published in 2007. She managed, as far as I could see in my reading, to retain the consistency of the story she was telling through all that time and work, and especially through all the hype as the books found and audience and became so immensely popular.

I'm glad I read the books. I'll probably read the series again. But, to be honest, I'm also glad I waited to read them until well after all the books had been published. I would have hated waiting between books to see what happened next. I'm going through that right now with another series of books I've been reading, and it's driving me a bit crazy that the third book won't be out until mid-July. It's driving me so crazy that I've recently re-read the first book and am working my way through the second book again now. If I had known when I picked up the first volume, "A Discovery of Witches", by Deborah Harkness, I would have just left it alone until all the books had been published, as I did with the Potter series.

Once again, a school decides that "Athletics good, Arts bad"...

Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor.

You see, I just read a news story that made me roll my eyes so hard that I fell over backwards.

It seems that a primary school in Elwood, New York, has cancelled a two-day, year-end kindergarten show, citing the need for the kindergarteners to spend the time preparing for "college and career" and "concentrating on preparation for first grade". The school suggested they attend a later "Game Day". While the article (from Today Parents) did not specify what that Game Day will entail, in my experience grammar school game days focus on athletic events.

The cancellation of the kindergarten show, which involves the children singing and performing plays and the required rehearsals beforehand, caused an uproar as both parents and students protested. After the protests, the school's interim principal sent another letter which further justified the decision to cancel the show this way:

The reason for eliminating the Kindergarten show is simple. We are responsible for preparing children for college and career with valuable lifelong skills and know that we can best do that by having them become strong readers, writers, coworkers and problem solvers

Please do not fault us for making professional decisions that we know will never be able to please everyone. But know that we are making these decisions with the interests of all children in mind

So, the position is that participating in performance arts do not give children "lifelong skills"? What about the discipline and dedication needed to prepare and give such a performance? In the documentary "Shakespeare High", which is about high school students participating in the annual Shakespeare Festival put on by the drama teachers group in Southern California, actor Kevin Spacey (who took part in Festival when he was a student at Chatsworth High School) says that participation in the performing arts is not just good for students planning on going into show business, but gives benefit to students going into non-performance careers by giving them the confidence they need to be successful in whatever field they eventually enter.

Maybe especially, in this case, what about the students who aren't good at or just don't enjoy the athletics required in Game Day activities, but who enjoy and are good at dancing, singing and acting? Don't they count? Why are these athletic events being privileged over performance arts?

Oh, yeah. Now I remember. Athletes are revered in our culture as heroes, while actors and singers and dancers are often viewed as soft, coddled and self-indulgent. Except, you know, that it takes a lot of discipline and dedication to succeed in the ultra-competitive world of the performing arts. Dancing, for example. I've worked with a ballet company before as a props handler, and dancers are the best-conditioned, most disciplined people I've ever seen. I've also participated in theater productions in backstage capacities and I've seen first-hand all the skills that are necessary to put on a production that are applicable to all areas of life. As just one example, a performer in a play has to memorize his or her lines. If those school administrators cannot see that an ability to memorize material will help their students in college and career, they don't know their business very well.

As usual, arts activities are the first to fall while athletics are always among the last things to go.

Don't get me wrong. I love sports, not so much as a participant any more (although I used to compete in both softball and volleyball), but definitely as a spectator. But I get kind of disgusted sometimes at how athletics and athletes are privileged in our culture over the arts.

The only thing that dismays me is that one parent quoted in the article I've linked to above blamed the cancellation of the kindergarten show on Common Core. This dispute is not the fault of any particular teaching system or philosophy. The attitudes behind it have been around since long before Common Core was a gleam in some educator's eye and will be around long after Common Core has gone the way of the New Math and every other educational fad.

And they call the wind...

So.

The East Wind is blowing today. You have no idea how happy this makes me. Even though it also means it's going to be very hot, I've been waiting for this every since I moved back to Southern California.

I love the wind. I always have. I grew up with it, and I missed it all the years I lived in Central California, where the wind almost never blows. What they call "wind" can be just a slight breeze.

Oh, the San Joaquin Valley gets a breeze sometimes. But a real wind? Once or twice a year, maybe. Which is probably good for them, because a lot of people there (including the weather forecasters) freak out when there's even just a little bit of a breeze.

I've had people criticize me for my affection for the East Wind (which you all might have heard called the Santa Ana Winds, but when I was growing up, we only ever called it the East Wind). I am fully aware that it can create havoc. Really. Trees down. And it comes with low humidity that increases fire danger, especially when the state is in a drought as it is presently. Then, if a fire does start, the wind makes it more difficult to control and extinguish.

I know all that. I lived with it as I grew up.

On the other hand...

This particular sort of wind makes me feel invigorated (even when it comes with excessively high temperatures). I get stuff accomplished. This is all good, although my teachers all through school hated it, because the wind apparently had the same effect on all the kids, making it very difficult to teach anything. But, when I was a kid, I didn't see that as my problem.

You also get views like this:

Although I have to admit that the view is like this a lot more these days than there were when I was growing up and the air quality around here was much worse than it is now. Back when I was growing up, East Wind days were often the only days you could see the mountains. Here in the San Fernando Valley, you can see the mountains nearly every day now.

In any case, I've got wind today. Here's hoping for none of the negative repercussions that can come with the East Wind and lots of the advantages.

Donald Sterling puts both feet in his mouth, chews vigorously...

Welcome to the 19th century.

Wait. What? It's the 21st century? How can you tell, considering what Donald Sterling, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, is alleged to have said - on tape - to V. Stiviano, his girlfriend/mistress/archivist (that's her claim, anyway)/whatever function she has in his life.

Yes. I know. I've posted here before deploring the depth in which things that the wealthy and famous do and say are reported in the media. But sometimes you've just got to stop and say, "What the hell?" and talk about something stupid that has been done or said. This is one of those times.

For those of you who haven't been keeping up, gossipmongers TMZ reported on Friday that Sterling had been taped making statements that were, to say the least, racist. Along with the report, they released a portion of the tape, in which a voice purported to be Sterling's, said things that you might expect would have come out of the mouth of a plantation owner in the Old South before the Civil War. While requesting that the woman he was talking to not bring African Americans with her to Clippers games and not post pictures of them on her Instagram account Sterling, who has not denied that it is his voice on the tape, said of the players on his team, the majority of whom are African Americans, "I support them and give them food, and clothes, and cars, and houses." Not that they earn their salaries, but that he supports them and gives them things, apparently out of what he considers the goodness of his heart.

None of this is apparently a surprise to anyone who knows Sterling. The reporting I've been hearing - and I've been hearing a lot of reporting on the story, since it is local to my area - is that it has long been known that Sterling is a bigot.

Sterling (or whoever it is on the tape), who is Jewish, also makes statements on the tape asserting the belief that what he calls "Black Jews" are inferior to "White Jews". I think it is interesting that around this whole discussion, Stiviano makes the very good point that because he is Jewish, he should understand discrimination and not indulge in it. Which also brings up the point that, as the owner of real estate, Sterling is known to have discriminated against minorities and families with children - he settled a civil case for doing those things for nearly $3 million in 2009. He has also been accused of age discrimination in hiring and firing practices, although that suit was not successful.

Clearly, Donald Sterling is not a nice man. The National Basketball Association is investigating his alleged statements, and many people both inside and outside the basketball community have called for his ownership of the team to be stripped from him. I'm not sure that is legally possible, although it may be that the NBA has some sort of contractual obligation on the part of team owners not to do or say things that are embarrassing to the organization - which is what this is, at the very least, considering that the majority of NBA players are African-American.

I'm fine with "ignorant folks" as President Obama put it in a statement regarding the situation, opening their mouths and exposing their own ignorance. It lets me know who to stay away from, and whose products not to buy - and which team's games not to patronize. But, as the political and religious Right are so fond of saying (and this may be the one instance in which I agree with them), free speech is not necessarily free of consequences. And I suspect that Sterling is going to be ostracized for the things he has allegedly said, for the attitudes he has expressed, both within the basketball community and in the larger community.

I think he has no one to blame but himself.

What has fascinated me the most as this story has been reported in the media here in Los Angeles, is all the footage of Sterling, sitting at games with this sort of fake smile on his face, as if it hurts him so much to be in the arena with all the peons, as if he feels himself so superior to the rest of the world. I believe that this attitude has finally come around to bite him in the ass, not the least because one of the photos that Sterling was complaining about Stiviano posting was of her with former basketball player and current part-owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team Ervin "Magic" Johnson. It isn't going to escape notice when someone (Sterling) says that they don't want someone to "broadcast" or "promote" that the other person (Stiviano, in this case) is associating with him.

Honestly? I don't care what Sterling thinks. People are allowed to have whatever attitudes they want, no matter how politically and socially unacceptable they are. But when someone is so vocally disdainful of people, at some point people who don't hold those attitudes are going to push back. And that's them, exercising their free speech. Like when Magic Johnson posted on Twitter that he will not go to any more Clippers games as long as Sterling owns the team.

Goodness knows, I can't afford to go to basketball games. If I could, though, I certainly wouldn't attend any Clippers games, either, as long as Sterling owns the team.

Music Sunday, the Return: You Like Song Lists? Then This Book is For You

A NOTE: You're going to have to click through to YouTube to watch the videos I've included today. Sorry.

So I found this book at the library yesterday: 1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die and 10,001 You Must Download, edited by Robert Dimery (2010, Quintessence Books; 960 pages).

And, no, I'm not going to read the whole thing straight through. It isn't that kind of book, but more the kind you dip into here and there when the spirit moves you. Also, it's a little heavy to hold, to read for very long at a time. But it is an interesting book, with some of the opinions expressed by the contributors a little surprising.

An example: One of the 1,001 songs highlighted in the book is the Paul Revere & The Raiders cover of "(I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone)", recorded before the more well-known version by The Monkees. I wasn't aware until last year sometime that the band had even recorded the song, which is a little surprising considering that I was a bit Raiders fan back in the day (and still am, to be honest). Now, the Raiders have not gotten a lot of respect, either when they were recording or in the time since then. So I was a little taken aback, in a good way, when the contributor who wrote about this song started his short essay with this: "History has been unkind to one of the great bands of the Sixties", attributing this to the costumes they wore, and then continues a few lines later with this: "Bizarrely, the men in the tricornered hats were the first great punk band."

Really? That had never occurred to me.

Later on in the piece, he also holds that Mark Lindsay's vocals on the song put into doubt "Iggy Pop's claim to the title of 'Godfather of Punk'." Amazing, and again, something I'd never really thought about.



So, you know, there are some surprises in this book. Another surprise is that no Beatles song earlier than "Ticket to Ride" (1965) makes the cut into the 1,001 (the others are "A Day in the Life", "Eleanor Rigby", "Hey Jude", "Strawberry Fields Forever", and "Tomorrow Never Knows"), although a total of 32 Beatles songs make the cut into the 10,001 songs to download. Personally, I would have put "Help" as one of the 1,001, but that's just me.



One thing is clear - the contributors didn't stick to Top 40 songs when compiling these lists. I'm astounded at the number of songs and artists that made the 1,001 that I've never heard of. Some of this I can understand, especially from the Sixties. I had access only to AM radio (I didn't own a radio that received FM broadcasts until I was a teenager) and the music that was played on television. I didn't have the money to go out and buy records on an experimental basis. But there are also songs by artists I know that I just have never heard, or if I've heard them I'm not aware of it.

It's a fascinating book. If you are a fan of popular music anytime between the early 20th century, and especially between the 1950s and 2010, you will probably find something here to interest you, or to argue with. There is a short chapter on songs from before 1950, and then chapters for each decade since up until the book's publication date.

And, yes, they really do have the full 10,001 list of songs to download in an appendix at the end of the book. You might want to bring along a magnifying glass before you tackle those pages, though. While it takes over 50 pages to include all those songs, the print is still a little small.

Adventures in moving...Nature's Own Alarm Clock

And...once again, it's been awhile since I posted.

I had thought that once I got the move accomplished, I would be back to blogging on a regular basis. I was, as it turns out, wrong.

It isn't that I haven't had things to say. Or time to say them. But, adjusting to being in a new place, getting settled in, and everything that entails is taking more mental and emotional energy than I expected it to.

And, it isn't that I'm not happy to be here. I'm very happy to be here. It's just...oh, I don't know. Different. Even though I've moved back to the general area where I grew up, it's taking some readjusting to my surroundings. To adjust to living with different people. Even though I know them, I haven't lived with them before, and the rhythms of life are different from those I'm used to.

I have made some progress in getting settled. I'm getting quite a bit of work done on my writing projects. I (finally) got to the library to get a library card and checked some books out. So, I'm feeling on pretty strong ground on those accounts.

And...speaking of ground, steady and not, one of the things that has thrown me for a bit of a loop is the fact that last week on Monday I was awakened at 6:25 a.m. by what I have come to think of as Nature's Own Alarm Clock, also known as an earthquake. It isn't the first time that has happened to me, goodness knows. I've been in several large quakes, albeit not always close to the epicenter of them. Growing up in Southern California and then living in Central California, there were plenty of quakes through the years. But quakes in the center of the state are not the same thing as quakes in Southern California.

This one, which you might have seen referred to in the media as the Shamrock Shake, since it happened on St. Patrick's Day, was close enough and big enough (at 4.4 magnitude) to wake me up from a deep sleep and, frankly, frightened the crap out of me. I think that's because it took me so by surprise. At any rate, since then my anxiety level has been a little higher - although that's getting a bit better now. There for a couple of days, though, I was jumping at every little noise. Ridiculous, I know, especially for someone who has always lived in earthquake country.

Although, for some reason, ever since the quake, I feel like I've been welcomed properly back to the area. So, you know, it doesn't have to do that again any time soon as far as I'm concerned.

At any rate, I'm not making any more predictions about when I'll be back to regular blogging. I hope that it will be sooner rather than later, so watch this space. There are some things that have been in the news that I really want to talk about. I also have some things to say about getting reacquainted with the old stomping ground and the things that have changed since I lived here before...and the things that have, amazingly, remained the same.

The cult - and culture - of popularity...

I really need for these "most popular" lists to just go away now. The gist of them always seems to be that just because something is popular, that it is necessarily worth of everyone's attention.

Well, no.

But, you're probably wondering what brought this tirade on. It's this article, from a site called Scribd, which got together with Parade magazine (which is sort of like the Reader's Digest of newspaper inserts) to find out what was the most read e-book in each state in the United States.

Maybe I just haven't been paying attention, but I've never heard of most of these books. I've read exactly two of the books on the list - Prayers for the Dead, by Faye Kellerman, which is the most-read e-book in Connecticut; and Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman, the most popular e-book in Wisconsin. I've also seen the film made from the most popular e-book in Missouri - that would be The Princess Diaries, by Meg Cabot. Also, I do recognize a good number of the authors' names on the list. But I have to admit that, just from the titles, I don't think most of those books would be very interesting to me.

The thing is, I don't see the usefulness of lists like this. I'm not interested in reading something just because everyone else is reading it. I want to read books that are of interest to me. Yeah, I might see something on this list, or on another "most popular" list, that I was not aware of, and read it, or see a movie, or listen to a piece of music, depending on the topic of the list. And that's fine. But I don't appreciate having something sold to me on the basis that I should be interested in it just because other people seem to be interested in it.

Maybe that's a flaw in my upbringing. I was raised to believe - and I do believe - that popularity does not equal worth. Take television programs, for example. I understand that a lot of people watch so-called "reality" shows - things like Survivor, The Bachelor, and the various competition shows. I have no interest in most of those. In fact, to be honest, I've never watched most of them.

I used to watch Big Brother. I think the concept is interesting as a sociological experiment, and so I tuned in for a couple of seasons. But, when it became clear that the emphasis of the competition was on seeing who could lie and deceive the most, and that this was seen as just "playing the game" and a good thing, I tuned out. It just got ugly. As far as I've been able to tell, the same is true on shows like Survivor. They make it look like lying, cheating, and being generally a rotten human being are acceptable ways of treating one's fellow human beings. I can't support that by watching.

But, these shows are popular and so are considered a good thing, when they clearly are part of the problem, culturally speaking. I really think US culture has gotten meaner partly due to the popularity of shows like this. And so, as far as I'm concerned, popular does not equal "good" or "valuable".

Now, I'm not saying that the books on the list I linked at the beginning of this post are not good or not valuable. Some of them might well be very good. But I am saying that the implication of such lists - that because something is popular, everyone should be equally interested in them - is a false premise. It's like saying that the music at the top of the Billboard charts is always "good" music simply because people are buying that music. This is also a false premise; people are often buying that music because it has been successfully marketed, and not because it has any intrinsic value.

Personally, I have a difficult time with the idea that I should like - and buy - Justin Timberlake's music, or Lady Gaga's music, or anyone else's music, just because other people do. Or that I should read the books on the linked list just because a lot of other people have read them. Or that I should go out to the theater and see 300: Rise of an Empire just because it topped the box office last week.

Okay. I'll stop kvetching now. But, really, I guess the overarching theme here is that you should go out and find what you like, rather than letting a "most-popular" list, or a best-seller list, or even a blogger like me, tell you what you should read or watch or listen to. In my case, I might make suggestions. I might even say, look, I think you should see this or read that or listen to the other. But you should also feel free to say, "Eh. That doesn't sound like something I'm interested in."

When I go to Boston, I'm going to wear trousers and not a skirt...

This is just insane. Insane, I tell you.

The highest court in Massachusetts has ruled that it is legal for people to take pictures looking up a person's clothes. The reasoning for this decision included that the women had no reasonable expectation of privacy because the individuals in the case were riding public transportation in Boston. Additionally, the court ruled that a crime had not been committed because those photographed were not nude or partially nude at the time the photos were taken.

Apparently the statutes under with the perpetrator was prosecuted were poorly written, and there is also talk that the laws will be changed. As far as I can see, that's too little too late, even if you accept the reasoning, which I don't. What's even worse is that the ruling was written by a woman. I'm left wondering if she would have felt the same way if she had been one of the women who had someone stick a cell phone up her skirt to take a picture of her. I also wonder if the reasoning would also hold if someone had taken their hand and reached up under women's skirts.

I think there is a growing idea among some people that a person has no expectation of privacy at all and in any manner when they are in public. As far as I'm concerned, this is a dangerous trend. This ruling takes that to an extreme in that it essentially says that it's fine if someone walks up to me and surreptitiously takes a photo of my underwear - or of my private parts if I don't happen to be wearing underwear. It also indicates to me that if someone does that to me and I don't like it, I don't have any recourse - if I caught them and kicked them in the teeth for doing it, I'd be the one to get in trouble. I'd get charged for battery, but they wouldn't get charged with assault (which does not require any touching) for doing something to me that I did not consent to. Because, you know, going out in public is not implicit consent for people to take photos of my private parts or the underwear covering them.

I'll be honest. I think this ruling is wrong-headed and disrespectful, and it makes me angry enough that I can't even think of what else to say about it. And so, I'll leave it at that, with this question: "Justice Botsford, how would you like it if someone walked into your courtroom, which is after all a public place, and took a photo of you under your robes? Would that be acceptable? Or would you get mad as hell and have the person arrested and taken away? I suspect you would not like it at all, so how can you read the law to say that it's all right if it happens to other women?"

Move accomplished...

So, okay. It's Monday. So, Movie Monday. And last night the Academy Awards were handed out. I watched the show, and thought it was okay - certainly an improvement over some past shows. And I was going to write about that.

But...I'm still sort of getting settled in after my move. I've still barely started unpacking. I've slept 8 hours last night (long for me), and I slept 11 hours Saturday night, the day of the move. So, I'm still in recovery mode after the past week, which was long and complicated and busy, busy, busy.

Not to mention that the weather on Saturday was awful. Riding in a 26-foot U-Haul truck, towing a car on a car-carrier is not fun when the wind is blowing and it's pouring down rain. Fortunately the driver, my now-ex-roommate's son, did a very good job at the wheel. Then, when we arrived at my new place, while it was not raining at first, it started pouring before we got everything inside. But, we did get everything inside eventually, although I was soaked to the skin by the time that happened. I was not the only one.

The good news is, it's supposed to be much warmer and drier for the rest of the week, so maybe I'll get everything settled and in its place within the next few days.

Meanwhile, I think I'm going to have a little lunch. It's past one and I'm getting hungry.

But, like I said, watch this space. I plan to be back more regularly going forward.

Getting closer to moving day...

The packing is almost done.

This is a minor miracle, considering that it is still six days until the move actually happens.

Oh, I still have things to do. Last-minute packing, doing the change-of-address thing at the post office. A trip to the Laundromat just before packing the last-minute things. Taking the last two books I have out of the library back. Washing down the walls in my bedroom. Taking the cable equipment down to UPS to send it back to the provider. But, for the most part, I've got things ready to go, and many of those last-minute things can't happen until Thursday or Friday.

I can spend some of that time checking out the job situation where I'm going. That's one of the things I most love about the Internet. I can do things like look for a job before the move is accomplished. However, I'm not actually applying for anything until I am physically in the new location. Yes, it is often weeks before you get a reply back when you send out of resume. But it isn't, sometimes, and I'd feel really stupid to get an e-mail or call back the next day, saying, "Can you come for an interview tomorrow?" So, the actual applications/resumes will have to wait.

But, I can say that I'm excited about the possibilities. There are actual jobs in my field where I'm moving. And, if something doesn't turn up right away - and I'm realistic enough to know that it might not - there's always tutoring. I'll be living within a few miles of a 4-year college and a 2-year community college. That means a lot of potential students. So, I will work on getting the word out that I tutor as soon as I arrive and get settled in. Which should take a day or two, considering that I don't have that much to unpack.

The only thing that's really bothering me about the move is that it's going to take a little while for me to get a library card. The library system there requires a piece of business mail as proof of address before issuing a card. But I don't really get that much business mail. I'm going to check to see if they'll accept someone vouching for me instead; I remember that when I was a kid and living with my family away from home for a few weeks due to my father's job, the library let me get a library card with a note from the people we were renting from. We'll see. The good news is, once I get the library card, the local library branch is apparently just a couple of blocks away from where I'll be living.

So - that's the latest update. T-minus six days and counting, with most of the packing already done and only a few last-minute things left to do. Blogging should resume more regularly as soon as I get moved and get the Wi-Fi there figured out. Which might be a bit of a chore, as my laptop is sometimes reluctant to talk to new-to-it systems.

Now, if YouTube would just start talking to my computer again. After a few days of behaving itself, normally, YouTube seems to be going through another round of changes or something. Which is why there is no Music Sunday again. I'm looking forward to getting back to those, and to Movie Monday, and regular blogging in general.

Update and report on progress...

Well, it's now ten days until moving day, nine days until the day the moving truck will be loaded, and eight days until all the packing has to be done.

I've been busy. Which is why I haven't been here. But, the packing is nearly done - I've just got CDs and DVDs left, plus my SCA garb. There's also the last-minute packing which will not be done until the last packing day - clothes, bedding, and kitchen stuff - but there's not really much of that, either, and shouldn't take more than an hour or two.

I've also got a few last minute things other than packing to take care of - change of address at the post office, get the cable equipment back to the cable company, take the last couple of books back to the library, and so forth - but all those things are only time-consuming, not difficult, and those will be taken care of next week.

And, also, there are some more things to throw out, but that can't even be done until Friday after the garbage has come and there is room in the cans again. The neighbors to the north moved recently and no one has moved in to their apartment, and so we can use their cans, too. Miss the neighbors, but having the extra trash capacity is a good thing.

I don't know if I mentioned it in my previous post, but I've also been looking online at the job possibilities where I'm relocating to, and I'm pleased with what I'm seeing - actual jobs in my field. I haven't started actually applying for anything, yet, of course, since I'm not there to go on interviews yet. But I've identified several possibilities and expect more to come up if those are filled by the time I get down there and get settled in and am ready to start looking for work seriously.

Oh, and my computer appears to be talking to YouTube again, so Music Sunday and Movie Monday will both be back soon, I hope.

Now it's time to go get some more packing done, but I wanted to post this update, since it's been a week since I've posted anything.

Ch-ch-ch-changes...

I know.

I said that I was going to be posting more regularly.

But, no. I didn't lie. Really.

Do you know how much time and energy it takes to get ready to move? Well, here's a hint: It takes a lot of both.

And, it isn't just the packing. It's all the other stuff that has to get done. Wrapping up stuff here, for example. I had a short writing job that I had to finish. And there's people to say good-bye to, and organizational ties to wrap up.

Which explains, I think, why I haven't been spending much time around here. And why I probably won't be for the next little while. I hope to look in from time to time, maybe give an update on how things are progressing.

Having said that, I do want to say that this move in a good thing. A very good thing, in fact. There are more jobs available where I'm moving. I like the weather better where I'm moving. I like the area where I'm going. Which makes sense. It's the area where I grew up. I still know people there. Not a lot, but enough.

Look at it this way. Once I'm moved and settled in (and I don't have that much stuff, so it shouldn't take me that long to get settled), I'll have lots of new things to write about, not least because I'm moving to the second-largest city in the United States. That means there are places to go, things to see, stories to tell.

But, for now, back to the sorting and packing.

Being a storyteller isn't always an easy thing, and here's one reason why...

I just happened onto the most interesting question. At least, from my point of view as a writer, I find it fascinating. Of course, it's controversial. All the best questions are.

The question is this: What country should fictional villains be from?

Perhaps it could also be asked as, What ethnic group should fictional villains be from, because the dilemma comes up in that form from time to time as well.

You know how it goes. Someone writes a book or makes a movie or an episode of a TV series, and someone gets bent out of shape because the bad guy is obviously from a specific nation or appears to be of a particular ethnic background, and someone starts shouting about stereotyping and bigotry. If the villain is specifically referred to as being from Mexico, some people get upset about that. Or the bad guy in a movie appears to be from an Arab background, other people start jumping up and down and accusing everyone involved of being both racist and prejudiced with regard to religion.

And, honestly, it isn't just nationality and ethnic groups. I've heard of cases where a fictional bad guy (person?) is a woman, and some people start complaining about sexism. Or the villain is referred to as or appears to be gay, and there are claims of homophobia.

See? This is a question that can get quite complicated. This is especially true because there is the potential for cries of "foul" no matter how you, as a writer or a filmmaker, identify your villain. Even the white guys can get mad, if you make a white male the bad guy. Talk about a no-win situation.

I wonder if there would be an outcry if the "bad guy" turned out to be a computer.

Oh,, wait. That happened. Remember "2001: A Space Odyssey"? I don't recall that anyone got that upset that HAL turned out to be homicidal, but I might just not be reading the right web sites.

I think the big problem here is that this dilemma is the Kobayashi Maru of writing/storytelling dilemmas. For those of you who are not "Star Trek" fans, Kobayashi Maru is a test of character given to Starfleet cadets. It posits what turns out to be essentially a no-win situation. Similarly, the writer cannot win in assigning a nationality or an ethnic background to their villain.

It isn't as big a dilemma for the writer. The writer can choose, if he or she wishes, to not write anything about the villain's nationality, ethnicity, or religion. Not so the filmmaker - whoever plays the villain will look like somebody, whether a specific background is intended or not.

I suppose that one can cut the knot of this question and say that this wouldn't be a problem if people would quit being so sensitive about things like this. Unfortunately, realistically, that isn't going to happen.

The realistic solution, I suppose, is to either stay away from as much identification of nationality or ethnicity as possible with regard to the villain, or else just make the villain whatever he or she must be to serve the story and just not worry about the inevitable fallout.

I know. I'm avoiding the real question, as originally stated. But that's part of the Kobayashi Maru. You can treat the issue as a no-win situation, or you can redefine the question.

I choose to redefine the question by saying that you don't have to search for a "safe" nationality for the villain. You can skirt the question, or you can just do what you're going to do with the understanding that someone might give you grief for it. Personally, I prefer telling the story without the villain having to be any specific nationality or ethnicity. But if you're writing a story in which that is integral to the plot, you can't do that. And in that case, you have to understand that there very well might be questions raised about why you made the storytelling choices you did, that you had to make your villain from such a specific background.

No, really. Does your villain really have to be black? Or white? Or Asian? Or European? Or male? Or female? Or gay? Or straight? Why?

And, honestly, if you can't take those questions, and if you don't have good answers for them, maybe you shouldn't be a writer.

One less place to buy a smoke...

I wonder if this is the beginning of a trend.

News reports, like this one from MSN, are reporting that the drugstore chain CVS will stop selling tobacco products by October. This is kind of a big thing, considering that it is reported that CVS, which is the second-largest drugstore chain in the United States, will lose around $2 billion dollars in revenue by dropping these products. That's a lot of cash any way you look at it.

CVS isn't the first retailer to stop selling cigars, cigarettes, and chewing tobacco; Target stores do not sell them. However, Walgreen's, the nation's biggest drugstore chain, still sells them, as does Wal-Mart, which also contains pharmacies in its stores.

Spokesmen for CVS have said that the move to drop tobacco products from its offerings is part of a move to work with doctors and hospitals more closely to improve its customers' health. This is in line with the trend in recent years to install clinics right in drugstores that both CVS and Walgreen's have joined. These clinics do things like offer immunizations and help their customers manage chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure.

I think this is an interesting move, but I wonder if there is going to be any push-back from the tobacco industry. It isn't as if that $2 billion dollars worth of cigarettes and other tobacco products is going to put much of a dent in the earnings of tobacco companies - according to the article linked above, about $107.7 billion dollars worth of tobacco products are sold in the United States every year. This, even though only about 18 percent of the nation's population are now smokers, down from close to half of all Americans who smoked or chewed in 1970. Still, the tobacco industry has been fairly aggressive in the past about asserting its rights and about denying that there is anything unhealthy about its products. So, it will be interesting to watch how this unfolds.

I have to say, I suppose, as a matter of full disclosure, that I am not a smoker and I never have been, and that I don't really understand the appeal of sucking hot smoke into one's lungs. It isn't something that makes any sense to me at all. Even though I grew up with a father who smoked, I was never even tempted to try it. And I was never tempted when, in junior high and high school, a lot of my friends smoked. Which, of course, means that I also don't understand the militant non-smokers who seem to believe that smoking should never be shown in entertainment because, OMG, if the kiddies see it, they're going to want to try it. This wasn't my experience at all.

So, I don't see the CVS move as any sort of problem. And, you know, it isn't as if the retailer has any sort of obligation to carry a product - tobacco or anything else - if it doesn't want to. It isn't as if anyone who smokes is going to be denied access to their cigarettes because CVS will stop selling them. And, it does seem sort of incongruous for a business that is based around health care to sell something that, when used correctly, is harmful to one's health and to the health of those around them.

More hiccups...

So...I had this whole post mapped out. It was to include some clips from YouTube. Which doesn't seem to be working for me today. Figures, considering how things have been going around here lately.

At any rate...I won't be doing that post. Not tonight, anyway. We'll see what happens tomorrow.

There are days when I hate technology.

A slight change of schedule, and a little social commentary...

I know that today is supposed to be Movie Monday.

However, I think the only proper subject for any post about film today is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who died yesterday at age 46. I can't do that yet. Hoffman was one of my favorite actors, and while I'm past the denial phase I've pretty much moved on to anger about his death. Pisses me right off that something like that could happen to such a talented individual. His career, which was much, much too short, deserves a thorough retrospective. I don't think I can stand to do that yet. Yes, I'm that much of a fan of his work. And so, I'm putting off Movie Monday for a day or two.

Anyway, there are other things for me to be angry about, things that won't make me sad and miserable on top of my anger, and so instead today, I'm going to write about Super Bowl ads, and specifically about the Coca-Cola ad that has a few very vocal people so up in arms. This ad, in fact:



Apparently, there are people who are angry that Coke had the gall (as they see it) to make an ad in which the song "America the Beautiful" is sung in other languages than English. Something about it being "un-American" to do that, or something. Here's a liberal reaction to the angry reaction, from the politicsusa.com website.

I have a couple of things to point out to those who were disturbed by the ad. First of all, look at a map. "America" does not equal the United States. If you do look at a map, you'll see that there is North America and there is South America. Covers a lot of territory, all of it "America" and a lot of languages spoken. Second, those of us who live in the United States come from a lot of different places and from a diversity of language backgrounds, and people who come here to live don't forget their native tongues just because they learn English when they come to live here, and sometimes they even use those languages even though they live here. This is not a sin. Third, Coca-Cola is trying to sell a product, not "Balkanize" the nation, as Allen West wrote on his blog this morning. He seems to think that because some people used different languages in a commercial, Coca-Cola is advocating that no one who comes to this country to live should ever learn English and that each culture group should keep to itself with some sort of an "us versus them" attitude.

I don't know what ad Allen West watched yesterday, but I'm fairly certain it wasn't the one I saw posted on YouTube (and just about everywhere else) this morning. But, as people like West to do on a fairly regular basis these days, he is reading things into the ad that just aren't there. And, honestly, I'd say that West and his comrades are the ones doing more than anyone to Balkanize the United States, by asserting that they themselves are the only "real" Americans and then going out of their way to marginalize and "other" every group they don't like: the poor, immigrants, gays, non-Christians, and anyone else who doesn't pass their political and social litmus tests.

You know, it kind of reminds me of the reactions to this, in 1968:



And this, in 1969:



There was a fairly huge outcry against both of these performances of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the time by those who seemed to feel that there is only One Correct Way to honor the United States. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is a bunch of crap. Whether some people like it or not, we are a huge and diverse nation, and "one size fits all" usually ends up not fitting anyone very well.

Personally, I enjoyed John Scalzi's take on the current controversy, which I hope you will read, and which includes some historical context for "America the Beautiful".

I don't know. I just have a difficult time understanding why some people get so exercised about things that really are trivial. Coca-Cola wasn't trying to be political. They were just trying to sell their product, and almost anyone who knows anything about advertising will tell you that getting political is generally going to upset more people than it is going to pull in to buy whatever it is that is being advertising. That's Coca-Cola's agenda - selling soft drinks - nothing more and nothing less.

I just wish Allen West and the others who seem to feel compelled to read political motives into everything need to lighten up a little bit and understand that not everything is a conspiracy against them and their particular political agenda.

Music Sunday: The "I've been off reading music books" edition

So.

Due to unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances, I was mostly away from Music Sunday for a couple of weeks. But, I'm back, and in the meantime I've been reading books about music.

No, really. Since the middle of January I've read four music-related books and am now working my way through the fifth. The ones I've finished reading are:

1) 27: A History of the 27 Club Through the Lives of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, by Howard Sounes (2013, Da Capo Press; 359 pages)
2) Lennon: The Man, the Myth, the Music - The Definitive Life, by Tim Riley (2011, Hyperion; 765 pages)
3) Ticket to Ride: Inside the Beatles 1965 Tour that Changed the World, by Larry Kane (2003, Running Press; 272 pages)
4) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, by Eric Burdon with J. Marshall Craig (2001, Thunder's Mouth Press; 326 pages)

And right now I'm reading Beatles vs. Stones, by John McMillian (2013, Simon and Schuster; 304 pages).

These are all good books, although I suspect that Sounes just wrote 27 so that he could write about Amy Winehouse. Still, he does a good job covering the lives and deaths of the other 27 Club members that he highlights. Riley's book is long, but it is comprehensive, perhaps a little too comprehensive in its detail about recording sessions, but that is a minor quibble. I very much liked the way that Riley seemed to go out of his way to not forgive the times that Lennon acted like an ass, but also gave context as to why he might have been acting that way and also related that Lennon also had times when he was kind and generous and thoughtful. I've read other biographies of Lennon and have found that some writers either try to make him a saint or make him a demon when in fact he seems to have been a very complicated man. Kane's book was more historical in nature and, despite the title, covers both the 1964 and 1965 American tours (he was the only American journalist who traveled with the band the full length of both tours). He also goes out of his way to show that the members of the Beatles were full human beings rather than cutout cardboard figures. He didn't try to whitewash flaws out of existence, but he didn't try to portray any of them, or the support staff who toured with them, as completely flawed. And Burdon's memoir...well, it must have been good, because I more or less read it in one sitting. It seems to jump around in time a lot, but that is a minor quibble. I like that he doesn't approach his life the way some rock stars do, trying to play down the adventures and misadventures of their lives, but plainly says, "these are the things I did, and I might regret some of them now but I'm not going to deny them at this point."

The book I'm reading now, Beatles vs. Stones, is more academic in tone, but that's to be expected since McMillian is an historian and an assistant professor of history at Georgia State University. So far (and I'm on page 109 at the moment) it seems to me he's leaning more toward being as Stones fan than a Beatles fan even though he declines in his introduction to say which band he favors although he admits that he does have "a preference for one group over the other" (p. 5).

At any rate, these books highlight the lives of people who have made some classic music, and since it is Music Sunday, of course I'm going to share some if it with you. I will say that I have probably shared some of these songs before, but all these people have made music that stands up (I think) to repeated listenings.

But, I'm going to start out with something I know I haven't share before, because I didn't know it existed until a couple of days ago. Anyone who grew up in the 1970s probably knows the Three Dog Night version of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come". That 1970 cover went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. But the first recording of the song was by Eric Burdon and the Animals in 1966, although it was never released as a single and ended up on the 1967 album "Eric is Here", and the band playing behind Burdon is not the Animals, but the Horace Ott Orchestra. This original version is edgier than the more commercial-sounding Three Dog Night version:



Here's a live performance of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" from Burdon and the Animals at Wembley Empire Pool at the New Musical Express poll winners' concert on April 11, 1965:



I found a clip of the Beatles singing "All My Loving" at the Hollywood Bowl concert on their 1964 tour of the United States. This show took place on my 8th birthday, I lived in Southern California at the time, and even at the age of 8 I was very bitter that I didn't get to go to the concert:



One of the notable details in this early clip of a live Rolling Stones performance of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" is that there look to have been a lot more males in the audience than in audiences for the Beatles' shows. And, if that young gentleman in the audience shown near the end of the song is any indication, some of them were as emotional about their favorite band as the girls were. This was the first single by the Rolling stones to go to number 1 in the United States:



Jim Morrison was not only a singer, but a poet as well. His poetry has gotten mixed reviews over the years, but I quite like some of the things he wrote. A few years after Morrison's death, the rest of the Doors got together and put some of his recorded poetry on record along with music. This cut from the resulting album, "American Prayer" (released 1978, with the spoken word parts recorded in 1969 and 1970), called "Stoned Immaculate", shows a crossover between what the Doors recorded as a band and what Morrison was doing with the written word:



Since I'm running out of room for today's post, I'll just end with this, my favorite Janis Joplin song. Don't get me wrong; I like all of her work. However, this song just seems...perfect. So, here is Janis, and "Mercedes Benz", from the album "Pearl" (1971):