Adam Selzer: King of the Wild Frontier

Welcome to the blog! Take a look at the archives for some of the best of the older posts. Or, try these tags:

writing, weird chicago, appetite for deconstruction, pirates of the retail wasteland, I Put a Spell On You

Know what's nice?

When you get a little bottle of wine for making coq au vin.

And when you're done with the meal, there's JUST enough wine left over.


And noodles to spare.


Ah.

We finally told comcast where to stick it.

DirectTV comes on Wednesday, and we're getting a package that includes RFD-TV - home of the BIG JOE POLKA SHOW!


Screw you, comcast. You and all your non-polka-channel havin' schemes.

My original goal was to finish the draft of my smartass history book before the DNC next month.

But now it's changed to "finish it this week." Working like CRAZY on it trying to make sure it's funny enough. 270 pictures have now been catalogued, captioned and arranged, and the MS just fit 500 pages.

In other nonfiction news, the Weird Chicago book should hit the streets next week!

Our new arrival's name is Helena. Here she is, cuddling up behind her new roommate:



She previously lived with a crazy cat lady - literally. When the woman was evicted, she had 40 cats, all of which were in bad shape (some had resorted to cannibalism). They told us she wasn't eating much at the shelter, but she started digging in right away when we brought her home.

She was skittish at first, but only for about, say, 15 minutes. She was sleeping on our bed her first night here! She's now (on day 3) adjusted completely, cuddling with her new roommate (who is thrilled to have a new friend) and chasing him around the living room in the middle of the night at top speed.

I woke up the other night and heard the unmistakeable sound - that high pitched "tinkatinkatinkatink" - that is always played when a cartoon character walks on tiptoes.

Had I not just woken and and still been 3/4th asleep, I would have known right away that Aidan had gotten up and turned on a DVD.

However, in my haze, my first thought was "Oh no! Someone broke into the apartment, and they're tiptoeing around the living room!"

This was a good birthday - #28 for me, if you're keeping track.

Went to Sip, as I do every morning, then took Ronni and Aidan to Wicker Park. There was a farmer's market going and a string quartet playing. It wasn't too hot, even for me (anything over 75 is probably too hot for me).

From there we took the train to Eleven City Diner - my favorite - where I had the Audri (grilled turkey and swiss on a warm challah) and french toast (also challah, with bananas, strawberries, and toasted coconut) and a Dr. Brown's celery soda.

Came home in a food coma. Took a nap, then a walk, then read Nicholas Nickleby on the back porch.

AND, at intervals between, played with our new cat (more about whom soon - that's a whole other post)!

When Aidan goes to bed (very soon), I'm going to watch Some Like it Hot.

Really, what more can you want?

For those who want to come to the "elopement" on Sunday, July 27th, here are details:


Meet up outside of the Edgewater Beach Cafe - 5545 N. Sheridan, Chicago, IL at 10:30 am (come early; parking can be a trick). From there, we'll walk to the beach itself (which is right down the block). Dress casually! We will probably hit a diner afterwards.

And check out our registry for the Disney honeymoon - click here and search Adam Selzer July 2008.

Plugging away 9-5 (or longer) punching up THe Smartass Guide to U.S. History. 244 pictures and counting have been found, captioned, and cleared for publication (almost all are public domain).

I have to make at least one of the pictures today - one of the "assignments" in the book is to make a diorama based on the song Blood on the Risers, (which is also alluded to at the end of I Put a Spell On You; many historical allusions in my other books are explained in this one). I myself plan to spend a chunk of the day making my very own Blood on the Risers Action Playset to be pictured in the book.

I'm on shelfari! Add me! Or just come browse around and see what I've read. Can't get the "embed shelf in livejournal" widget to work just yet.

I feel like singing again. Maybe even recording again. I'm definitey going to start going to work on finishing up the Back Row Hooligans album. Anyone who wants to play on that, remotely or otherwise, please let me know!


Listening to my own live album now - it has my usual trouble of singing like I have gravel in my mouth and playing guitar like I'm using my toes instead of my fingers, but, once surrounded with such luminaries as Mary Crowell on piano, Vixy Dockrey on backing vocals, Amy McNally on violin, and Jeff Brown on accordion, the songs start to sound good! It's up on iTunes - but YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE by clicking here.


I've been calling myself "retired" for the last couple of years - the only shows I've played have been the one at Consonance 2007 and the two coffee shop gigs that became the live album. It was intended to be a sort of "greatest hits" album; an attempt to get most of the best songs in one place and give myself a chance to do a better job on them. Now I'm feeling like maybe playing again.

Aidan asks questions. Lots and lots of questions. Some aren't even REALLY questions, just sort of a reflex - his natural response to any situation seems to be saying "whyyyyy?" in a sort of a sing song voice. Perhaps he'll grow up to be philosophical.

IT's rather exhausting, especially when you're watching TV. He is not the kind of kid who is quiet when watching movies - there are questions to be asked, such as "Why does he live there?" "Why are they on the street?" "Why did he get in that car?" "Why is he wearing black?" "What are they doing?" "Whyyy?"

Last night, I introduced him to "City Lights," Charlie Chaplin's great silent film. He LOVES it - lots of people falling on their butts and getting water thrown on them. AND, since it's silent, none of the questions actually interrupt anything or cause him to miss the jokes.

Can't convince him to go to Wall E. He doesn't like to go to movies that he hasn't already seen on DVD much, apparently. Kids today. I tell ya.

Weird Chicago:The Book is now available for pre-order!

Featuring fresh takes on Chicago's famous ghosts - and a whole bunch of new ghosts that have never been written about before - in addition to history that will fascinate and surprise even the most accomplished Chicago historians!




Pre-order a limited edition copy signed and numbered by all three authors now!

I'm finally organizing my iTunes files in anticipation of the arrival of a new macbook pro tomorrow (!!!!!!) and realized that I DON'T HAVE TOM SMITH'S DIGITAL ACOUSTIC album! I can't find a place to order it online (as a download-for-cash). Is it out there anywhere?

I'm not one of those creepy stage-step-parents, but Aidan wrote a song about the ghost tours I run that I just had to share:

Aidan SINGS!


Speaking of my job, we've now got a really great in that allows us to go poking around one of the coolest old buildings in town - can't give out details, but even if I never find a single spooky thing (and I never REALLY expect to), it's still AWESOME. Half the fun of this job is getting to poke around historical buildings.

I never realized just how many old water towers there were around here - there are a ton. I've been noticing them more ever since I got Aidan hooked on Animaniacs. Now, every time we see one, he'll say "look! That's like where the 'maniacs live!"


He's also made some very impressive Animaniac characters for the wii. I have stuffed Wakko coming in the mail for him - they're hard to find these days!

Ronni's car has been broken into again. Second time in six weeks.
Once again, they didn't take anything - not even the Highlights magazines that could have taught these lowlifes a valuable lesson or two.

No, they didn't even take Aidan's car seat. "Maybe they didn't have a kid thief," he says.

Listening to a bootleg of the "superjam" at Bonnarroo, an event that normally terrifies me on general principal.

The superjam this year was Gogol Bordello (the gypsy punk band) covering Tom Waits songs, gypsy-style, with Les Claypool of Primus. Kirk Hammett from Metallica sits in on a few tracks. Songs played include SEVERAL of my favorite Waits songs, including "Just the Right Bullets," "Cold Cold Ground," "I'll Be Gone," and "Russian Dance." Lots of violin and accordion.


This MAY be the coolest thing I've ever heard. It's all I hoped that the Scarlett Johanson album of Tom Waits songs might be (but certainly wasn't) and a whole lot more.


The only comparably cool thing is the bootleg of the opening night of this summer's Waits tour, in which he has, glory be, a saxophonist in the band, and does a medley of "Rain Dogs" and "Russian Dance." Wish I could make it to one of these shows!

ME: Aidan, look at that big new building!
Aidan: What's that?
Me: it's called Trump Tower
Aidan (skeptically): it looks like a parking garage.
Me: Spoken like a true Chicagoan.

What if you could get the water in your toilet to boil, and you made macaroni and cheese in the toilet? And then your whole toilet was full of macaroni and cheese, and when people came over, you said "hey, you want some mac and cheese? I'll just scoop you some out of the toilet?"


I'm just askin' is all.

I have turned in my middle grade book. The one for "younger readers."

This book kicked my BUTT. I think I have more than half a dozen radically different complete drafts. The problem, really, was to figure out how the "world" worked. The kid in the book wants to be a spy - is this the kind of book where he really IS a spy, really has a SHOT at being a spy, or is it more of a Walter Mitty thing? If it's Walter Mitty, how "real" does the spying become?

Say he needs to break into a room (as he does). Is this the kind of book where it turns out to be full of nothing but old mittens, the kind where there's a treasure in there, or the kind of book where it turns out that the janitor is holding a polka band hostage in there?

I leaned toward the polka band option, but couldn't make it work in such a way that the book still held onto an emotional center that I felt it needed based on the style of the kid's voice.

In the end, it sort of comes midway between being a Pinkwater book and "Skinnybones." Which is what I wanted. It's funny, sad, strange, and beautiful, so it fits all of the things I want my books to be.

I'd relax now, but I'm already fishing around for something ELSE to write. All I have left on the history book is really the picture captions and end of the chapter questions and stuff (which are a lot of fun to write, actually), and I can't really start on the sequel to Lost and Found for a while yet. Maybe I will anyway. Maybe I'll start the top secret MG project that sense argues against. Or revise the top secret YA project that is probably my best book but won't sell (too controversial, and in a non-commercial way).

Or hit the library and figure out the "story" behind the "chicago beatnik" nonfic that I keep wanting to do.

Suggestions? Assignments leading to cash? Concerns?

I introduced Aidan to Animaniacs, which he seemed to have heard of, but not really seen, before. He's hooked.


The fact that he keeps calling them "Adam-maniacs" is quite an honor.

The windmill, the wave....this kid has MOVES!

Hey, everybody!
No offense or anything, but we decided that rather than blowing a pile of money on a ceremony, we'd rather blow it on Disneyworld. So that's we're going to do.


We're moving the date to Sunday, July 27th. The ceremony will be a quick "before anyone asks for our permit" affair at a beach on Lake Michigan - probably Edgewater beach up on the North side. Some transportation from downtown may be available via the Weird Chicago bus.

We'll update with time, etc, very soon! Anyone who wants to come is welcome!


For the record, we're registered at target, but donations to put towards Disneyworld are gratefully accepted, too!

Having made Aidan walk a LOT at the Old Town Art Fair on Sunday, we decided to take a cab home. He seemed enchanted by the idea that you just have to raise your hand and shout "Taxi!" to get a car to show up to drive you right home.

The cab driver turned to Aidan and said "where to, buddy?"

All through the drive, he looked around at the big buildings and grinned while I explained how cabs were one of the ways people who live in big cities, like us, get around. You could tell he felt like a real big shot.

As we pulled up to the corner, he asked "Is Chicago always a magical city?"


You'd better believe it, kid!

Weird trouble with my laptop. Lately, the wireless range has been acting up; it won't stay connected for more than a minute or two if I'm more than 10 feet or so from the router. Same thing happens at the cafe - if I'm not sitting near the router, I have to keep going back to it to re-connect. Took it in to be looked at yesterday, but no one can find anything wrong with it.


Plus, the casing is cracked and the burner's not burning.


Starting to feel like a ticking time bomb as I try to figure out how in the heck I can get a new one if needed...



This is one of those times when life would be much easier if I hadn't blown my credit keeping my car on the road back when I had one.

My cat has this habit of "washing his hands" by banging them on whatever's nearby after every use of the litter box. The other night, he noisily banged against a box.

Voice from the bedroom:

Aidan: What's that?
Me: Crookshanks is washing his hands.
Aidan: Why?
Me: Because he just pooped.
Aidan: He scared me!
Me: He's sorry.
Aidan: Okay.

Aidan, my soon-to-be-stepson, saw part of "Juno" the other night.


He's in the tub now, and from the living room we heard him randomly break out chanting "all babies want to get bowned! All babies want to get bowned!"

The other day, after our trip to Millennium Park, Aidan was very, very nervous about taking the "undergwound twain" home, since he thought it would be very, very dark. He was okay with the light level, but the train scared him mightily.


Today, he said he was ready to try again.

Having survived one trip, he had a BLAST this time. We took him to the library on the blue line, and he was all smiles. Then we rode from there to Margie's Candies so he could see the train come up out of the ground and tun into the El - that was a big hit, too. Bigger than the ice cream itself, even.

What was the average cost of of donuts when the phrase "I'll bet you a dollar to a donut" came in prominence? It's not much of a bet these days, is it?

I Put a Spell On You, my spelling bee satire, is up for pre-order on Amazon ahead of its September release. Only a handful of people have read it so far, but the opinion seems to be that it's my best book yet. Daniel Pinkwater's agent wrote to tell me that she was reading and loving it. How cool is that?

Since teachers can tie it in with any number of lessons - vocabulary, ethics, writing exercises (it has four major first person narrators and a few more who get a chapter each), I've put up a page explaining all of the Watergate references. The whole thing is based on Watergate. This book probably has the most Nixon jokes of any childrens' book ever written. Many people have pointed out to me that kids nowadays weren't even BORN when Nixon resigned, but, well, I wasn't either. You don't need to know a thing about Nixon to find the whole farce hilarious.

Troy and Ken, the other two-thirds of the Weird Chicago gang, came by today to take the back-of-the-book author photo; we then hit Fado (one of the places we've been researching for the book) for lunch, then headed up to Uncle Fun, a joke and toy shop we all enjoy. There, I picked up a whoopee cushion for Aidan, who loves fart noises like no kid I've ever seen.

Going to do some furniture moving soon for a few quick bucks to spend on something silly!


Hitting the library tomorrow; gonna give James Joyce another try.

Excerpt from a Bob Dylan interview published in the UK today:

"“Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval,” he says. “Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama. He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.” He offers a parting handshake. “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future,” he notes as the door closes between us."

I read every Bob Dylan interview that comes out. I've read every one that's ever been published. This is about the most he's said about politics since 1963, and as close as he's ever come to endorsing a candidate before the election (he played at Clinton's inauguration and said kind words after Wellstone died, but that's been about it).

In addition to my cereal hounding, I also enjoy trying any and all new kids of pop (alias soda or what have you) that i see on the shelves.

Today's entry is MOUNTAIN DEW REVOLUTION, a pale, pastel blue form of Mountain Dew, described on the bottle as "DEW infused with wild berry fruit flavor and ginseng."

I don't care much about the ginseng; I've never had much reaction to the stuff. Early in high school I was taking ginseng capsules in the morning in an effort to get some more energy, but I noticed no difference.

Still, while I don't expect to get super powers from this beverage, I WILL say that it's tasty. It's an odd thing - it's as close as I've tasted to a blueberry soda; the taste reminds me of nothing so much as Square Star Shooters, these square lollipops I used to get at the concession stand after little league games that tasted like blueberry pie. Yet, at the same time, it still tastes like a mountain dew, making it that RARE name brand spinoff that actually does seem like a variation on the original, not just a different product with the same logo somewhere on the bottle.

This doesn't knock me out the way, say, black cherry vanilla coke did, or that spiced pepsi from a couple of holiday seasons ago, but it's good stuff. I think it'll taste better out of a can than it does out of a bottle, too, but that's just me. When you have to pick between a can or a bottle, the can will taste better. There's nothing about a can of pop I don't like - I like the weight of it in my hand, the feeling and the sound of popping the top, the condensation on a cold one...everything. Getting stuff out of a fountain is still usually better yet, but it doesn't have that FEEL, y'know?

Okay. My most recent entries are all stuff like "crap," "sad day," "grrr," and "bob barr." Even the "teehee" was more bemused than amused.


Fear not, for all is not doom and gloom up Chicago way. Among the positives:

- Aidan, my soon-to-be-stepson, arrives for the summer on Thursday!
- my new neighbors seem cool
- the Weird Chicago book is going to rock!
- I'm feeling good about the proposal for my fantasy book, which is like Faust for kids. With all of my usual smart-assery.
- I got a really cool bandana promoting Roosevelt and the Progressive Party for president in 1912. They had a heck of a platform, and the bandana looks great on my wall.
- someone actually booked the Chicago Political Tour for a private outing, so I'll get to try out that route! Featuring SEVERAl sites of interet t Roosevelt fans (mostly Teddy, some FDR).
- The Pinball Hall of Fame for Wii ROCKS. The games are great, and the between game scenes in the arcade make it look JUST like you're in an Aladdin's Castle in the 80s. I think they even got the carpet right.
- My efforts to clean have been met with great success and have been praised by leaders throughout the free world.
- The weather is great for grilling lately.
- Found a picture online of a tub toy I had as a kid that I'd been trying to remember. It was called Tub Town. All I could remember was that it had a Fish n Chips shop. I remembered the rest clearly when I saw it.
- Digging Spider-man lately. A lot.
- Having some great meals lately - in addition to grilling, we've lately hit Nookie's twice and 11 City Diner once.

Companies that expect high levels of emotional investment from their employees but can't be bothered to pay them accordingly don't deserve to be in business.


And the people who run them deserve to get smacked upside the head six or seven times. And then be made to work in acid mines.



And I fully believe the federal government ought to be able to enforce the above on them, since the "hand of the market" usually won't, so...nope. I guess I'm not a libertarian.

I came up with some great, big philosophical theory yesterday, but I forgot it before I could blog it. It was a good one, too.

We had a very sad day yesterday. Ronni's cat, Little Lucy, wasn't doing well and had to be taken to the vet, where we found out she was far sicker than we thought. There was really nothing that could be done - treatment was possible, in theory, but such a prolonged stay in the hospital would have been terribly traumatic for her.

She was a very good cat. She never quite learned to get along with my cat, but I'll always remember sleeping on the pillow every night while my cat slept at the foot of the bed in a sort of tentative truce that they seemed to work out every night from about 2 until 6. And how good she was during the move. And her little, chirpy meow. And so many things...

My old nemesis, Bob Barr, is back in the news. He was my congressman when I lived in GA. Here's the information from the fliers I spread around college about him when he was up for re-election in 2000 (which he won, despite my college freshman antics):

• In 1998, Bob Barr was a keynote speaker at a meeting of the Conservative Citizens Council - a white separatist organization which publishes anti-black, anti-latino, and anti-semitic literature. They're known for claiming that interracial marriage is a form of "White Genocide." Barr was photographed embracing the group's leaders.
• Barr has been taken to court twice for failing to pay alimony (he's been married three times). Barr also introduced the anti-gay "Defense of Marriage Act;" he refuses to say which of his marriages he's defending.
• In 1992, Barr was seen licking whipped cream off the chests of two women in bustiers at a benefit for The Leukemia Society. (source: The Washington Post, May 29 and 30, 1996). A few years later, he was among the loudest voices condemning Clinton on moral grounds.
• According to the FEC, Barr took over $55,000 in illegal contributions in 1996.
• Barr has introduced legislature to make certain that people who have been convicted multiple times of beating their children and/or spouse can own all the machine guns that they want. A small wonder, considering how much money Barr has received from the NRA.
• In 1998, Barr impounded the estimated $1.50 it would take to tally a Washington, D.C. vote regarding medical marijuana - in other words, he told the voters of America to shove it.
• In 1999, Barr began a campaign to block Wiccans from practicing their religion on military bases.



One thing that I would have added a year or so later is that after 9/11, Barr was the first to suggest granting Bush "special emergency powers," which, a few months later, was the same way Jar Jar Binks paved the way for the Evil Empire in Attack of the Clones.

So it's quite fascinating to me that the Libertarians believe Barr is one of them, having had some sort of Road to Damascus experience immediately upon leaving office. Everyone has a right to change their mind, but most people familiar with Barr figured out YEARS ago that the guy just says whatever will get his name in the papers.

That's all I'll say against him this year. If he's what the Libertarians want, that's fine - it may put GA into play for Obama. I never did claim to understand what in the world Libertarians were thinking. His nomination supports my belief - which they constantly tell me is wrong - that, at heart, they're really just extreme right-wingers without the religion angle. Barr should be a fine option for people who think McCain is too progressive.

Boy, what IS it with Libertarians and Ayn Rand, anyway? You could get awfully hammered watching this convention if you had to do a shot every time her name came up.

Wandering around, dealing with car crap.

VERY thankful to live in one of the small handful of American cities where car ownership isn't a necessity. Having to mess with 'em always makes me cranky.

Watching the CSPAN footage of the oil company gangsters testifying before the senate yesterday made me awfully proud of my senator for ripping them each a new one. It's nice that they invest in next-gen energy and stuff, but, frankly, I want someone ELSE in charge. The oil people have already demonstrated that they (and I'm saying this as a vocal anti-death penalty guy) should all be drug out into the street and shot. Why should THESE clowns have any say in the next generation of energy? Put 'em all out to pasture. . Hearing them drone on about how they're just hapless victims makes me cranky, too. I think the ideal solution is to come up with a technology that will, at a low consumer cost, convert existing cars into new, cleaner, cheaper technology. But if such technology existed, the oil guys would go out of their way to block it, like they did with street cars in the 50s.

I have CSPAN on again to see if the Libertarians are wacky enough to nominate Bob "Barr Barr Binks" Barr. As often as I disagree with these guys, it IS nice to watch a convention that isn't just a formality.

One of our regular stops on the tour - the Biograph Theatre, near the alley where John Dillinger was shot - was blocked off tonight for the filming of Public Enemies, a Dillinger movie starring Johnny Depp.

However, when I biked up to the area earlier today, they let me wander around and take pictures. The whole street has been redone to look like it's 1934 - old signs and facades everywhere, even old stuff in the windows. The attention to detail is awesome - the bakery has an old menu up, the barber shop has 1930s magazines on the table, etc.

Here's a whole set of pics I took on flickr

During Hurrican Katrina, I worried about Robert Asprin, a fantasy writer with whom I was on friendly terms, who lived in the French Quarter. Then I heard there was a still a bar open there, and I knew Bob would be okay.

A few weeks back, when my agent asked if I knew anything about fantasy writing, I said "Well, I know that the first rule is 'never try to out drink Bob Asprin. He cheats.'" This was true. He even taught me HOW he cheated one time.

Bob died suddenly yesterday morning. He encouraged me to be a writer even though "there's no money in that" back when encouragement was the sort of thing I needed to hear most of all. He even offered me a blurb for a YA novel that I was working on - which turned out to be "How To Get Suspended..." - but the email address I had for him stopped working by the time I was done.

I was looking forward to see him again. I wanted to buy him a drink or nine. I'm now thinking that maybe the best thing to do is have a drink in his honor tonight, and I can almost hear his voice in my ear saying "just one?"

I'm not a big drinker - but I can fake it. He taught me how, after all.

When I was 13 or 14 I worked props on a production of The Good Times Are Killing Me in the basement of the Playhouse, a theatre in Des Moines. My brother, Eli, was playing cousin Steve. The star was a girl who'd been in my first grade class. This wasn't a kid show or anything,it was a grown-up show and it was really artsy, or, anyway, it seemed like it was to me at the time. Hanging out in the basement of a theatre at night night after night, sipping Citrus Consciousness Fruitopia that I got down at the Kwik Stop and talking to vaguely artsy adults who didn't mind swearing in front of me, made me feel like the biggest bohemian in all of Iowa. To top it all off, it was a racially mixed cast - like, a 50-50 mix. There were probably more black people in that basement every night than I'd ever been in a room with in my life. One of them was a writer. Another was always going on about how he'd been shot that week, but I still think he was full of it.

Today I ran across a copy of the book on which the play was based (almost word for word, as it turns out) at the library and realized what a HUGE impact that book had on me as a writer. I could still probably have recited lines from the show, and some of them occasionally flew into my head from time to time, but the full extent to which that show, and the evenings I spent watching it over the monitor from the tech room set up in the lobby, affected me wasn't apparent until just now.


Man, what I wouldn't give for a bottle of Citrus Consciousness right now - but it was the first flavor they dropped.

While in Normal, we stopped at a Meijer that had Count Chocula. Score! Finding that stuff on the shelves this time of year is sort of a trick.

Today, I tried mixing up a bowl of half Count Chocula and half Peanut Butter Kids Crunch (the perfectly serviceable Aldi version of Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch). I have to say - I'm a genius.

A strange thing about the combination, though, is that the marshmallows sort of work against it, providing too much of a sweet taste to a flavor that ought to be straight-up rich. They made the texture a bit awkward, too. But these are minor complaints - the world can never have enough variations on choco-peanut butter cereal.

Ronni's car appears to need a new battery. Thank goodness this happened NOW, not this past weekend when we went downstate.

I haven't had a car since I lived in Georgia, and my experiences with them have been....bad. Partly because mine never quite seemed to have working air conditioning; they were noisy sweatboxes that broke down all the time. When I think of travel by car, I think of breaking down in the middle of nowhere on a scorching hot highway, having to deal with some hillbilly tow truck driver who lectures me about taking my car to mechanics of some race or another, and then having the pleasure of paying - through the nose - for the whole experience. That happened to me over and over. Even when they ran, it was so hot inside of them 9 months out of the year (in Georgia) that it was like riding around in an oven. I hate being hot, and I'm not wild about loud noises, either.

Hence, I hate cars. I hate that most city planning in the last half century (at least) has been based around the idea that everyone will drive everywhere.

We now know (and the gas prices - 4.24 here - are finally shining a light on this for people) that cars are ineffeicient and bad for the planet. Far as I'm concerned, they only thing thing they've got going for them is that they work really well as metaphors (usually for escape or redemption) in Springsteen songs. Time to bring on new ways of getting from place to place. Call me a federalist or what have you, but I'd love it if the government really, really started putting the screws to the auto industry.

Ronni and I haven't decided whether we should keep her car after it's paid off, but I'm pretty sure my vote will be "no."

I've caused a bit of confusion with Pirates of the Retail Wasteland - in the book, Leon is collecting bad album covers at thrift stores. Some of the albums I mention, such as "Satan is Real" by the Louvin Brothers, are real. Others, such as "Saved" by The Voices of Carbondale, and The Wildewood Singers Sing the Beatles, are made up albums that happen to SOUND like the sort of thing you run into the thrift stores a lot.

To clear this up, I've added a page to the website on Leon's Bad Album Covers that feature these and other notable examples from the genre.


Also, there's a new Pirates review over at Ms. Yingling Reads!

We went down to scenic Normal, IL for the Illinois Young Writers Conference, at which I met with about a hundred or so 6th graders and talked about being a writer. Each kid got a copy of "Pirates of the Retail Wasteland," and the campus bookstore - which was well stocked in advance with both of my books - sold out of everything I had about five minutes after the book signing started. Man, that's a nice feeling. Great bunches of kids, too. I don't envy them having seventh and eighth grades in front of them, but, hey, that's 10 more years til they're out of college - maybe the economy will pick up by then!

Dear Oil Companies:
I'd fart in your general direction, but you'd put it in a jar and sell it. Jerks.


Dear Mr. President:
Bad form, Mr. President. But good news: I still don't think you're QUITE as big a jerk as Andrew Johnson was! Of course, he didn't have his finger on the same sort of button that you do.


Dear. Mr. Roosevelt:
You got robbed in 1912, and I know YOU wouldn't have taken this kind of crap from the oil companies. I'll be back in the ballroom you're supposed to haunt several time between now and election day if you want to make any statementss. The MAINSTREAM press has unfairly ignored you for too long, Colonel.

Dear Oil Companies:
Oh, what the hell... pppppppppppbbbbbbbbbbbtttttttttttttt.

I was pretty sure I'd heard every single song the Oldies stations had to offer. How did I ever manage to go so long without ever having heard "Hats Off to Larry" by Del Shannon?