Imagine Me Gone

Whenever I read a really good book, I like to do a blog post about it to get the word out. I finished reading Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett over this holiday weekend and it was the best book I've read so far this year. Let me say first that I've read all of Haslett's books and I think he's a really great writer. I stumbled on his first book, a short story collection called You Are Not a Stranger Here, when I was at the library looking for another book and enjoyed it so much that I went on to read his second book, a novel called Union Atlantic that's also great. I'd been waiting for him to pump out another book and, thankfully, he has.

Imagine Me Gone tells the story of a family's struggles with mental illness that begins with the father and carried through to one of his sons. The novel is, at times, painful to read when you see how the older brother Michael is just drowning under the weight of his own mind and how his family member (his mother and two siblings) are virtually powerless in their ability to help him. If you've ever dealt with mental illness in your family (and I have so I know), it's exhausting, frustrating, depressing, and everything in between. Haslett does such a masterful job of showing one family's attempts to stay afloat (mentally, financially, socially). Aside from the older brother Michael's mental issues, which take center stage in the novel, Haslett writes beautifully about the younger brother Alec's relationship with a man he meets (Seth) and eventually falls in love with. The passages from Alec's point of view that go into his relationship with Seth are really wonderful.

Weiner

I went to see the documentary on disgraced politician, Anthony Weiner, yesterday. Watching him essentially tank his political career and his life was like watching a train wreck. After he resigned from Congress over texting pictures of his crotch, he decided to run for Mayor of New York City. I was living in Brooklyn when he launched his run for Mayor and, at first, I thought he'd be a great booster for the city. He was born and raised in the city, he was a fighter, he had a big mouth (something you need as Mayor of New York), and people (myself included) were willing to forgive him for his crotch-texting because he told people that behavior was in the past. The documentary shows how he started his campaign and was actually leading in the polls. People were willing to give him a second chance after he left Congress in disgrace. Bloomberg was (finally) leaving office and a lot of people didn't want another billionaire running the city. Weiner, it seemed, was the right guy for the job. Unfortunately, news came out that he hadn't totally turned a new leaf in life and stopped his sexting. He'd kept it up after resigning from Congress and, once again, he was back in the spotlight for his sleazy behavior. His mayoral campaign, that had been going so well, started to implode. His marriage, that already seemed to be on shaky ground, was disintegrating. Essentially, his life was one hot mess. Watching him and his wife Huma in the documentary was, at times, cringeworthy. Anthony Weiner didn't just humiliate himself with his sexting, he humiliated his wife, his campaign staff, and everyone who supported him.

When voting day came for the primaries, I couldn't even remember that Weiner was still on the ballot until I saw it in the movie and I voted in that primary. Even though his campaign was essentially over weeks before voting day, Weiner didn't drop out and I don't think he should have. He had come that far that there was no reason for him not to ride it out until the end. Obviously, he didn't win and DeBlasio is the Mayor.

In this day and age, you'd have to be crazy to run for any kind of political office. Your life is just on display twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. But Weiner knew this, yet he still kept making one bad decision after another and that's why I, ultimately, couldn't support him. (I voted for DeBlasio in the primary and the general election.) Weiner lacked judgment in his personal life and I was afraid that would translate to a lack of judgment in his political life as well.

Make It Ugly, Take It Ugly

I read this expression on Datalounge today in relation to the on-going Gawker/Hulk Hogan lawsuit and it really sums up the whole sordid situation, but it's also a great expression to use now that Trump has secured the number of delegates needed to clinch the Republican nomination. I've said it before and I'll say it again: a Presidential race between Trump and Clinton (really, Trump and anyone) will be nasty, nasty, nasty. The rules of civility go right out the window and Clinton had better get ready to get dirty. All of this talk of rising above the insults and ignoring them is ridiculous. How did taking the high road work out for Bush, Rubio, Cruz, and the others? Not so good.

I read an article in the National Review where the writer begged Mitt Romney to get into the race. Why? So he can lose the nomination a third time? Get real. Speaking of Mittens, I thought about him as I passed by a Papa John's pizza place on the way home from work today. Remember when he used the founder of Papa John's as an example of how a small businessman could have great success during one of his failed campaigns? All the Papa John's founder did was ask his dad for a $10,000 loan so he could start his business. Dad forked over the cash, and the rest was history! Don't you see? The American Dream is possible, folks! Yeah, how many people have a parent ready, willing, and able to give them $10,000 to start a business? I'm just going to take a wild guess and say not many. I'm sure there are more people who can't get a $10K loan from their parents than those who can.

I really believe a lot of these politicos who live in the Beltway or in some bubble of society that keeps them away from the rest of the world are delusional and that goes for people within both political parties. I see the same kind of cluelessness and arrogance when I watch political shows like "Morning Joe." The people on these shows are so far removed from the everyday existence of the masses that they can't even fake their way through understanding what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck or survive on a fixed income.

My Old Hood

Even though I don't live in Brooklyn anymore, I still cyberstalk my old Kensington neighborhood and find out what's going on there. I read recently that a median was put in on Caton Avenue between Ocean Parkway and Ocean Avenue after a child was killed in a hit and run accident a year or so ago. I've also read about (and seen pictures of) new apartments going up in the area. I've been reading about the proposal to run the F train express from Jay Street to Church Avenue which is drawing a lot of criticism and praise. The express would have been great for me during the ride home. I would have just gotten in the last car and walked home from the Church Avenue stop, but I doubt I would have walked to Church in the morning to catch the train from there when the Fort Hamilton Parkway stop was much closer.

People ask me all the time if I miss New York and I do, but I don't see myself moving back there for a variety of reasons. A: The cost of living is too high. B: Being on the grind in New York is exhausting. C: New York was killing me from the inside. Seriously, my physical health was suffering in the city. Still, I largely enjoyed my time there and if I had the money, I might go back, but not to live there permanently. Those days are over. I was talking to a former co-worker a while back who had also left New York and moved back to her hometown of Chicago. She told me she and her husband wanted to go back. I looked at her, pregnant with her third child, and thought, "You're not going back." Three kids in New York? Dream on, dreamer! She only had one child when we worked together in New York and now she's got three. Yeah, your New York days are over, sister, unless you or your husband hit the lottery or come into some large money.

Please, Don't Call

I was at Honeybaked Ham Saturday and the cashier asked for my phone number. I was paying cash yet she asked for a phone number. Even if I wasn't paying cash, what's with the phone number request? I was buying ham! Ham! Why would my telephone number be needed to buy ham slices? I assume the fine folks at Honeybaked wanted to put me on some kind of list where I'll start to receive unsolicited calls about...wait for it...ham! That's the last thing I want or need. It's bad enough I get emails I don't want, but unwanted phone calls are an entirely different ball of wax. My father, whenever he gets asked for his phone number, gives a fake number. "Yes, you can have my number," he'll say. "It's 334-555-5555." I'm too lazy to put forth that kind of effort, so I just refuse to give a number. That usually does the trick. What's surprising is the number of people who just freely give their phone number when asked. The guy ahead of me in line gave his number without any hesitation. Did he think he wouldn't be able to complete his purchase if he didn't comply with their request for information? Wasn't he aware he could simply refuse? Or maybe he likes the idea of possibly being contacted by phone about specials on ham and other assorted Honeybaked items. I understand some stores that request information like your zip code for tracking purposes to see where their customer base is coming from and I have no problem giving my zip. But why is my phone number needed? I don't even have a local phone number. I haven't had a land line in close to ten years so no helpful demographic information would be gained by tracking my cell number.

Don't You Care?

This has been a stressful week for me and I'm glad it's (mostly) over. Someone at my day job keeps putting cans of Coke in the freezers of our communal refrigerators (we have two) and the cans keep, naturally, exploding. This is bad enough, but the idiot who keeps doing this doesn't even come back to clean up the mess he or she made. At first, only one freezer was impacted, so I avoided that one. This morning when I came into work, I saw the other freezer had been destroyed also. What is wrong with people? Is it so hard to clean up behind yourself when you make a mess? Apparently for some folks it is.

In other news, I was asked earlier this week whether I cared about something or not. "Don't you care?" was the question asked. I should have just told the truth and said, "No, I don't!" because I really didn't give two shits about the situation. Maybe I'm having empathy fatigue again. I should do something about that.

TSA Troubles

The more I read about long security lines at O'Hare and Midway, the more I don't want to fly anywhere anytime soon. I'm the kind of person who gets to the airport two hours before my flight, but I've never had to stand in line for more than an hour waiting to go through security. And now that things have really gone to hell, everyone is pointing the finger at everyone else in an effort to lay blame. The TSA says they're understaffed and need more money to hire more agents. But I heard on the news that for every 200 agents that are hired in a given month, more than 100 quit within the first few months of employment. Why keep hiring people if they're just going to quit? Maybe the TSA should start trying to figure out why their turnover is so high and deal with that problem before they get more funds to hire more agents. Then there are the airlines. They blame the TSA for causing passengers to miss flights, but they (and the TSA) also point the finger at the passengers. The lines would move faster, they say, if people followed the rules. Liquids in size-approved bottles. Nothing in your pockets. Laptops out of their carry cases. Shoes off. Bring only the allotted amount of carry on items. Blah, blah, blah. I get it. We need to follow the rules, but some of the problems with passengers come from the airlines themselves. I'm sure many people (myself included) carry on items we're afraid to put in our checked bags because of the rampant theft that goes on in airports. No one is going to pack a computer or any other kind of electronic device on the off chance that it would be stolen from a checked bag. Hence, you have to carry that crap on board so you can watch it. But it's not just the checked stuff that goes missing. People have had items stolen going through the security lines. Money, watches, electronics...the list goes on. While you're getting a dose of radiation and a pat down, someone on the other side of the scanner is running off with your purse, jewelry, wallet, and iPad. Maybe it's time for the military to take over airport screening. While I doubt our men and women in uniform would enjoy having to do this job, I believe they'd probably do a much better job than the TSA is doing at the moment.

Everybody Sucks 2016

My sister and I were out walking around our neighborhood yesterday when we saw a lawn sign that said "Everybody Sucks 2016. The US is doomed." The sign gave me a good laugh, mainly because I do think our 2016 Presidential candidates suck. However, I'm not so pessimistic that I think the country is doomed. In other political news, I saw this comment earlier on Gawker it also made me laugh:

Clinton ‘16: I Gotta Get Mine, So F You™

(I censored this, but I'm sure everyone knows what the F means here.) This is a great slogan, but one that wouldn't necessarily help Hills become more likable. However, it would give her brownie points for honesty.

Overflow!

So I get up this fine Saturday morning and what happens? My toilet overflows. Oy! It had been acting janky for the past week so I shouldn't have been surprised when I had water flowing all over the bathroom floor, yet I was surprised. I had to put on my rain boots, get the mop and bucket, and get to work. My main fear was that the water would start leaking into the apartment below mine, but I got the water mopped up pretty fast so I hope there wasn't time for it to flow to the unit downstairs. Now I've got to wait (and pay) for a plumber to come out this afternoon. The situation could have been a lot worse, I know. What a great way to start the weekend.

BEA

I had the chance to go to BEA (Book Expo America) this week. This year's expo is in Chicago rather than New York, so I was able to go via my day job. I sat in on a few panels and one of them was about authorship in the digital age. The panelists, all authors themselves: Scott Turow, JA Konrath, and Barbara Freethy, held a really interesting discussion that covered topics like self-publishing and author's rights. I've been in publishing for more than ten years as a worker and a writer and it's been fascinating to watch the transitions that are still ongoing in the field. It is nice that in this day and age, you can get your work out there without having to go through a "traditional" publisher and/or agent because of the invention of ebooks and the various platforms that are around now and that's great. Still, just being at BEA showed me that there is still a huge lack of diversity in publishing. Yes, there are more opportunities for people (all kinds of people) to self-publish and/or publish with smaller, non-traditional publishers, but the people working in the field are still largely white and female, particularly in trade publishing. While walking around McCormick Place, viewing the booths of the different publishers, I could count the minority faces I saw on one hand. (Okay, maybe two hands.) Aside from the Asian publishers/distributors there, I didn't see many faces of color and it's really sad that in this year, 2016, publishing is still so homogeneous.

Middle-Aged Baby

I read yesterday that Audra McDonald is pregnant. If you've read my blog, you know that I love Audra's singing. (Really, if you like Broadway music and you get the chance to see her live, do it!) But back to the baby. Audra McDonald and I are the same age. In fact, our birthdays are mere days apart. We're both over forty (and not by two or three years either). I can't even imagine having a baby at my age, but more power to Audra. I hope everything goes well with her pregnancy and congratulations to her and her family. Still, oy! Having a baby when you're young is hard (so I've been told), but having one when you're middle-aged has go to be even harder. I read recently that Janet Jackson is also pregnant (supposedly) and she'll be fifty years old next week! I just can't imagine having a baby when I'm in my latter forties or fifties. But, hey, to each her own.

Deal or No Deal

United Airlines sends me emails of last-minute weekend flight deals offered, but they never seem to offer any deals for places I'd actually like to visit. The flights always seem to be to Lansing, Michigan or Boise, Idaho. No offense to Lansing or Boise, but if I'm going to suffer through long security lines at the airport and all of the other hassles of flying, I'd better be heading to a place I actually want to go. I do wish something would come up for South Dakota. (Yes, South Dakota.) I would like to see Mount Rushmore. 

Chicago (the soundtrack, not the city)

I was listening to the Chicago soundtrack this week (the 1996 Broadway recording, not the movie soundtrack). It really has some great songs. James Naughton as Billy Flynn is simply wonderful. Bebe Neuwirth as Velma is great also. I can't say I enjoy Ann Reinking as Roxie Hart. Her voice grates on me. (How did someone supposedly born in Mississippi and raised in Chicago end up with a Brooklyn accent???) I saw Chicago years ago in Detroit with Robert Urich in the role of Billy Flynn and, while Urich looked great, he sounded awful. The poor man couldn't sing worth a damn, but the ladies in the audience didn't care because he was Robert Urich. Dan Tanna. Spenser: For Hire. I saw the movie version of Chicago also and I liked it, but Richard Gere's singing was awful also. Chicago is still playing on Broadway, I believe. I used to keep up with the revolving cast. I remember one time Usher was cast as Billy Flynn. Usher. No offense against Usher. He's a great singer and his voice is not the problem, but at the time he was cast, I'm sure he was in his 20s. How is someone that young supposed to play seasoned defense attorney Billy Flynn?? In spite of his age, I'm sure he, like Robert Urich, looked great on stage.

And He Smote Them All

So Trump is the "official" Republican presidential nominee. He bumped off all of his competitors to be the victor. Wow. I'm not actually surprised. He's saying the things people in that party want to hear and the other candidates didn't and failed as a result. Now the real cage match begins and you can bet a race between Trump and Clinton will be ugly and dirty, yet highly entertaining. With these two, there are no winners. but voters like myself will have to hold our noses and vote for the lesser of two evils.

Icy!

In today's moment in absurdity, I read about a woman who filed a class-action suit against Starbucks because the claims she was not given the advertised amount of coffee when she got an iced coffee drink because half of the cup was filled with...wait for it..ice! You want an iced coffee. You get an iced coffee. The cup contains coffee and ice. Am I missing something? If this woman wanted less ice, surely she could have told the barista, "Light ice!" during her order and I'm sure the worker would have complied. But to sue because you felt your venti iced mocha whatever had more ice than coffee is just ridiculous. Why order an iced coffee if you don't want ice in the freaking cup? The woman who filed the lawsuit should get a cup of hot, ice-cube-free coffee if she wants her 14 ounce cup to be 14 ounces of pure liquid. Or, better yet, she should get an iced coffee, but not drink it right away. Instead, she should let the ice melt and then she'll get the full cup of (watery) coffee she deserves. Yum!

Teena Marie

I was listening to Teena Marie's greatest hits this weekend and hearing her voice made me sad that, yet again, another great singer died before her time. She was so talented and never, in my opinion, got the fame she deserved. Her big Top 40 hit, "Lovergirl," is hardly her best work, in my opinion. "It Must Be Magic," "Young Love," and "I Need Your Lovin'" are far superior works. In my younger years, I enjoyed listening to Portuguese Love by Teena Marie, but now I can barely stand to hear it. It's one of those songs that I just heard one too many times. Not that it isn't a great song, but it was overplayed in my lifetime, so I had to put it on the shelf.

 In other music-related news, I missed the SNL special of Prince performances over the years when it initially aired, but I watched the show via On Demand over the weekend and really enjoyed it. Most of the songs Prince performed on SNL were new to me (with the exception of "Party Up" and "Let's Go Crazy"), but they were still great. I loved watching and hearing his performance of "Fury." It was really great and the backup singers/dancers were great also.