Thomas Piketty is a French economist who’s here in the US on a tour for his new book Capital in the Twenty-First Century. He’s a professor at the Paris School of Economics and a purveyor of gibberish and massive bags. When I saw his photo, I was reminded of an e-mail I got from a…
Cautionary tales always become manuals. And win free e-books!
April 17, 2014
I just read an article titled “Ten Things Idiocracy Predicted Would Happen, and Sadly Already Have.” Though I haven’t seen Idiocracy, I’m not surprised. Cautionary tales always become manuals. This phenomenon is not new. And win free e-books by answering a question! I’ll tell you how later. In 1941 Budd Schulberg published a novel titled…
The spiders demand it. And win free e-books!
April 17, 2014
I’ve been reading a lot about the dissatisfaction with the really dumb decisions Facebook is making. Let me tell you why we need Facebook. Or at least why some of us need Facebook: The spiders demand it. And win free e-books! You can benefit from my absolutely horrible experiences over the past year and half….
A new beginning and free e-books!
April 16, 2014
Today I sent out forty review copies of Chasing the Last Whale and Hallucinabulia: the Dream Diary of an Unintended Solitarian. It’s a new beginning! I’m also going to give away ten free Kindle versions of each book. I’ll tell you how you can win it in a second. If you like either or both…
A sign that the apocalypse is imminent
April 15, 2014
We are doomed. The world is about to end. How do I know that the apocalypse is imminent? Because after fifty years, there’s finally a good Japanese pop band. It’s called Tricot, pronouced “tree-ko.” Our destruction won’t be pretty. Tricot may be over before it really begins. Although most English-speaking press say that it’s an…
How screwed are we? THIS screwed.
April 14, 2014
This isn’t the same country it was when I was young. I lived in Tyler, Texas, from 1972 to 1975; Portland, Oregon, from 1981 to 1985; San Francisco, California, from 1991 to 1993; and Los Angeles from 1993 to the present. I’ve never seen such publicly expressed insanity as I’m seeing now. We are screwed….
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part One
April 13, 2014
On April 12, 2014, the novelist Anne Rice posted the following video on her Facebook fan page and asked for comments. I obliged her. In the interest of full disclosure, I was raised a Catholic, like Rice was. She and I both left the church at eighteen, but I never looked back. I was an…
Have we turned a corner?
April 12, 2014
My father was a complex man. He had an astonishing intellect, a streak of brutality, great artistic skill, indestructible narcissism, bursts of amazing compassion, the total inability to admit when he was wrong, an urge to do the right thing, an adamant refusal to do the right thing, and secrets buried so deeply inside that…
The men behind the masks
April 12, 2014
The band Kiss was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10, 2014. Here are the men behind the masks, holding their awards. From the left, they are Paul Stanley (guitar, vocals), Ace Frehley (guitar), Peter Criss (drums), and Gene Simmons (bass, vocals). This was the first time the original lineup…
