I used to spend hours engaging in online fights with strangers. Every single day. For years. It was a way to express my rage. And it was utterly destructive for everyone. It attracted maniacs, one of whom stalked me for about seven months. After long online fights, I felt worse than I did before. I’d…
The upside of being Christopher Walken
December 21, 2013
I love Christopher Walken. His acting career, I mean. I know nothing about him personally, except for one quote that describes me perfectly. We’ll get to that in a minute. He’s always great, even if the movie isn’t. Some of his best performances are in Catch Me if You Can, The Rundown, Sleepy Hollow, Suicide…
Actions have consequences
December 17, 2013
It’s my new obsession: actions have consequences. Always be aware that what you do today may haunt you for the rest of your life. The proudly communist, rabidly anti-gun, pathologically Republican-hating, completely dead loser who attacked Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, on Friday 13, 2013, was a huge fan of the The Anarchist Cookbook,…
Can humor always be found?
December 17, 2013
Yesterday Robert Schulslaper interviewed me at length for Fanfare. The question of my sense of humor came up a few times. I have a rather dark sense of humor. It’s not completely dark; for example I find this ad extremely funny. The two actresses are absolute geniuses. This Monty Python sketch can still make me…
Smarm versus snark
December 15, 2013
I followed a series of links in pursuit of the claim that more and more publications and writers have chosen to stop producing negative book reviews. Though I don’t read my reviews, it’s only because they aren’t written for me. I know what’s in the book. If the review is negative, what am I supposed…
Why I love the moon
December 11, 2013
Ever since childhood the moon has fascinated me. The full moon was amazing; I saw a rabbit playing a conga. The Japanese say the rabbit is pounding rice to make mochi. I’ve always loved crescent-moon faces, such as in this photo. It’s a perfect illustration of my feelings about the moon, because along with my…
A very bad man, part one
December 1, 2013
We live in a golden age of flim-flammery. A lot of you reading this are depressed and aghast at what you see; my parents were too. They couldn’t believe how the world had changed since they were born. So to give you a sense of proportion, I’ll tell the story of the most merciless, predatory,…
A very bad man, part two
December 1, 2013
There was no sense of order at all, piles of debris having simply been dumped wherever a clear space had existed. It was a scene of such devastation that I immediately lost all desire to browse and decided to leave. I greeted Larry and engaged him in our ritualized banter, but his heart wasn’t in…