September Words of Wisdom

I was happy anywhere I could see the ocean. --Ai Yazawa

Politicians should wear sponsor jackets like Nascar drivers, then we know who owns them. --Robin Williams

The best revenge is not to be like your enemy. --Marcus Aurelius

The percentage of good police is much higher than the percentage of good politicians...So what should we really be defunding? --Burgess Owens

If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. --C.S. Lewis

If you're depressed you're living in the past. If you're anxious you're living in the future. If you're at peace you're living in the present. --Tzu Lao

Common people will believe anything if frightened. But critically thinking people will find the truth through the smokescreen of fear. Listen to critical thinkers, not fearful reactors. --Dr. Suzanne Humphries

Often it is those who live quietly, modestly, and contentedly with a simple life who are the happiest. --Joshua Becker

People will come to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
--Neil Postman

Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. --Iain Thomas (has also been attributed to Kurt Vonnegut)

Serious writers write, inspired or not. Over time they discover that routine is a better friend than inspiration. --Ralph Keyes

If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are. --Mother Teresa

There is no person so severely punished as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse. --Seneca

The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. --G.K. Chesterton

Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it. 

--St. John of the Cross

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. 

--Karl Popper

Life is short, but there is always enough time for courtesy. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way. --Jennifer J. Freeman

I've never lost a game. I just ran out of time. --Michael Jordan

It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life. --J.R.R. Tolkien

I've had a sign over my typewriter for over 25 years now, which reads 'Don't think!' You must never think at the typewriter - you must feel. Your intellect is always buried in that feeling anyway. --Ray Bradbury

Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. --Eric Hoffer

Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will - then your life will flow well. --Epictetus

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise. --Victor Hugo

Recent reading: "All I Ever Wanted: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir"

 

All I Ever Wanted: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir by Kathy Valentine

The recent Go-Go's documentary on Showtime sent me on a big fat nostalgia-fest about 1980's Los Angeles and the 80's in general, plus I was a big fan of the band back in the day. One of the many things I took away from the doc was that among all the Go-Go's, bassist Kathy Valentine was the one who really seemed to understand what they had, how amazing it was, and how lucky they were to have it. As the band crumbled around her Valentine tried desperately - and unsuccessfully - to keep them together. It made me want to read her memoir, released earlier this year.

Growing up in Texas, Valentine was "raised" by a single mother who was more interested in having a good time than in parenting. As a result Valentine grew up without a lot of supervision and she grew up fast. She lost her virginity before she even entered her teens, requiring an abortion at age twelve. Her mother turned it into a fun trip to California, abortions not being available in Texas at the time. 

During a trip to her mother's native England, Valentine saw Suzi Quatro perform on Top of the Pops and was riveted by the idea that a woman could be more than an ornamental lead singer backed by men, or part of a girl group programmed by men. Upon returning home she began learning to play the guitar and became obsessed with being in a rock band. She attended countless shows and became a student of music and musicians. And she eventually started playing in bands. 

At nineteen Valentine decided to try her luck in Los Angeles. There, in late 1980 she met Charlotte Caffey, a member of the Go-Go's, who although not yet signed to a label were enormously popular in the L.A. music scene. The Go-Go's had a problem: they were scheduled to play a series of shows over New Year's but their bass player, Margot Olavarria, was ill. Caffey asked Valentine if she could play bass. Valentine, a guitarist, said yes, then spent three cocaine-fueled days and nights learning to play a borrowed bass and the Go-Go's songs. 

By the time the shows were over and the new year had been rung in, Valentine was in love with the band and they seemed to return the sentiment. Margot, who had been with the band through much of their growing popularity was unceremoniously dumped, although there was more to it according to the documentary: she had been voicing dissatisfaction with the band's changing sound. The Go-Go's had begun as part of the 1970's L.A. punk scene, but by 1980 they had drifted toward a decidedly non-punk girl-pop sound and image that would soon take the world by storm. Valentine was deemed a better fit and the invitation to join the Go-Go's gave her not only the band, but also the family she had always craved. It also gave her a Go-Go's dependent identity that would make it difficult to function when the band imploded a few years later.

The Go-Go's were finally signed by I.R.S. Records and proceeded to make history when their debut album Beauty and the Beat became the first album by an all-female band who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to top the charts. Suddenly, they were stars.

One thing I noticed from both the doc and Valentine's book is that for as hard as the Go-Go's worked to become successful, once they achieved success and stardom they often didn't seem to want to work to keep it, nor did they seem at times to appreciate it. They complained about the production on the album that would make them world-famous. They complained about having to make the "Our Lips Are Sealed" video that put them in heavy rotation on MTV and boosted their visibility. I can remember a clip from back in the Go-Go's heyday of Belinda Carlisle being interviewed while she signed some albums or posters (I can't remember which) and she complained about having to be in an office signing autographs instead of being at the beach. I remember wondering what the hell she was complaining about. She was in such an enviable position, and one she'd worked hard for. I couldn't figure out what her problem was.

Another thing I thought was odd was that despite their hard-partying ways, no one in the band seemed to realize that Caffey had a serious, years-long heroin addiction. When Paula Jean Brown joined the band after Jane Weidlin's departure, she picked up on it right away. In fact it was Brown who flat-out asked what they were going to do about it. And it was Brown, who had experience dealing with addicts and interventions, who helped Caffey into rehab, probably saving her life. 

The Go-Go's achieved overwhelming fame and success at relatively young ages - they were in their early-mid twenties, and as Valentine describes herself, seemingly with the maturity of teenagers. Despite the fun they had together, they could also be insensitive to each other at times. Weidlin's departure was partially fueled by the band's refusal of her request to sing one single song on their third album, Talk Show. It wasn't even one of the singles and she made the request because the song was important to her. Being turned down was the beginning of the end of her Go-Go's days.

There were also hard feelings about the discrepancy in their paychecks - as the primary songwriters, Caffey and Weidlin out-earned the others to a point where it festered. Never mind that it required them to do a lot of work the others weren't doing. 

But the cruelest act of all was when Carlisle and Caffey decided to end the band without including Valentine or drummer Gina Schock (much less newbie Brown) in the decision. Kathy and Gina were suddenly summoned to the band's manager's office where they were blindsided by the news that the Go-Go's were no more, news that was delivered coldly by Belinda and Charlotte. Valentine's dreams and the only real family she'd ever been a part of were over and there wasn't a thing she could do about it, and it left her floundering. Her heavy drinking and cocaine use didn't help.

Valentine spent several years attempting to recreate the magic of being part of a successful band, but was never able to duplicate the experience of the Go-Go's. When she finally got sober she also seems to have grown up and gotten not just older, but wiser. If I have a complaint about the memoir, it's that she rushes through the years following her sobriety and the first Go-Go's reunion. 

And even after that first triumphant reunion, there are issues. Valentine makes a barely passing reference to being "fired" by the band in 2012 but doesn't elaborate beyond that; her wikipedia page indicates that she had to drop out of a Go-Go's tour due to a broken wrist, but also filed suit against her former bandmates in 2013. Ever the dysfunctional family that can't quite seem to go their separate ways, Valentine has toured with the band since then. Ever the peacemaker, Kathy doesn't seem to be able to ever completely quit this group of women, no matter what they put her through. I don't think it's insignificant in the documentary (which I thought was excellent) that each Go-Go was interviewed separately. We only see them come together again as a band for yet another reunion at the very end of the film. I came away from both the documentary and the book feeling like Kathy deserved better.

I'm glad that Valentine seems to have made peace with the demons of her earlier years, but I wish she had spent more time in the book on her later years and the Go-Go's on again/off again relationship, plus it also left me wanting to know more about her post-non-Go-Go's life. But All I Ever Wanted is still an impressive memoir of rock & roll, bygone eras, the sheer love of music, and a really admirable woman and musician. 

Gina spoke up: "It's our band, too; you can't just decide it's over." Belinda looked Gina dead in the eye and told her, "Yes, we can."

Suddenly Charlotte proclaimed, "I write the hits and she is the voice." It enraged me. How dare she? After everything, after the tours and radio visits and shows and interviews that gave us our careers, all of it done together, Miss Hits and Miss Voice were tossing us aside with less emotion than getting rid of old clothes.

Customer service fail: Blogger edition

So Blogger has come up with a "new interface" that everyone seems to hate but they have decided to force on users. This is my first post under the new version and like many other users, I hate it. I'm a big fan of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And it wasn't broke. So for some reason they decided to not just break it, but fuck it up.

Another thing I noticed, as I searched "Help" is that they have locked and disabled commenting on almost EVERY SINGLE THREAD that criticizes the new version. REALLY???

Here are just a few examples:

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. And even what I'm seeing on the screen typing this is clunky as fuck. God knows what it will look like when I post it.

For years I've been hearing about how WordPress is the go-to platform for blogs. I tried it out at one point and did not find it anywhere as user friendly as Blogger. I don't want to switch. But if Blogger doesn't get its shit together and actually listen to its users, I may have to become part of an exodus. I don't want to, but this new version just sucks. I am literally looking at the images on my screen and can't read them. 

Whoever came up with this "upgrade" should never again be allowed anywhere near a job that even remotely involves computers, blogging, and/or web design. And locking damn near every conversation in Help that complains about how awful the new version is...well let's just say we've reached a new level of customer service fail. Not a good look, Blogger.

The return of South Park

Recently I've been thinking about South Park and how - when it eventually returned - they would handle this year's events. Specifically, I wondered how they would parody a world that has become beyond parody.

Turns out they're already back in production and return on September 30. And they're coming back in style - with a 1-hour season premiere. From South Park's Instagram:

There's even a preview clip!

Please note that this episode airs at 8pm, not their usual 10pm, although according to the press release they're going to show it three consecutive times so you have no excuse to miss it.

I hadn't even heard about the show returning, and suddenly all this! Sweet!

He's not wrong

Bonkers. We've gone beyond The Twilight Zone. I'm not sure even Rod Serling would know what to make of this crazy world today.

No joke, this exists: You can get married at a Taco Bell

And yes, of course, it's in Las Vegas.

For $600 you get:

Includes, among other things, a sauce packet garter and bow-tie,
sauce packet bouquet (which is a loaner, in case you need something
borrowed), t-shirts, a 12-pack of tacos, and a Cinnabon cake.

Taco Bell Chihuahua not included.

Look, I love their greasy food as much as the next person. I'm not even going to try and be a food snob about this - there's something in their meat sauce and mild sauce that is like crack to me. But I don't think even I could get drunk enough to get married in a Taco Bell, even if it's legit. Not to mention for $600 I'm going to want a lot more than 12 measly tacos, and I'll be taking that sauce packet bouquet home with me, thank you very much.

This almost makes getting hitched by an Elvis impersonator look like a legit decision made by sober adults serious about the sanctity of marriage.

And don't think I won't use this in a story someday, because I totally will.

However, to each his own, live and let live, yadda yadda yadda. So if you would actually like to get married in a Taco Bell (which no one will ever judge you for) you can check out the deets at Taco Bell Wedding.

19 years...

Hard to believe it was so long ago. I'm not sure we've learned from it.

 

 

As always, this ad featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales brings it all back. The ad was aired only once, as Budweiser did not want to give impression of exploiting the 9/11 attacks for advertising purposes. It lives forever on the internet.

#NeverForget

Well, this sucks

What I want:

What I've got:

What I feel like doing:

August Words of Wisdom

Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don't wish it were easier; wish you were better. --Jim Rohn

Discontent, blaming, complaining, self-pity cannot serve as a foundation for a good future, no matter how much effort you make. --Eckhart Tolle

If it is not right, do not do it. If it is not true, do not say it. --Marcus Aurelius

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master. --Epictetus

We are all equal in the eyes of the stove. --Jacques Pepin

A mistake repeated more than once is a decision. --Paulo Coelho

The deeds you do may be the only sermon some people will hear today.
--St. Francis of Assisi

You must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the winds...What you cannot turn to good, you must at least make as little bad as you can. --St. Thomas More

To live a life of virtue, you have to become consistent, even when it isn't convenient, comfortable, or easy. --Epictetus

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old. --Peter Drucker

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
--Marcus Aurelius

Her soul belongs to summertime;
Graceful footsteps on warm sands.
A heart that leaps in ocean waves;
Sea salt memory in her hands.
--Angie Weiland-Crosby

The little things? The little moments? They aren't little. --John Zabat-Zinn

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people that you are, you aren't. --Margaret Thatcher

Pay attention to your insecurities. They are not there to taunt you but to show you where to heal. --Unknown

In a world full of trends, I want to be a classic. --Iman

It's your obligation to speak the truth, and everyone can either take it or leave it. But truth must be in us. We live in such a poverty of truth today. --Mother Angelica

Feel what you need to feel and then let it go. Do not let it consume you.
--Dhiman

We don't need to look like men or talk like men to be powerful. We can be powerful in our own way, our own feminine way. --Zooey Deschanel

Just that you do the right thing. --Marcus Aurelius

Artists are people driven by the tension between the desire to communicate and the desire to hide. --D.W. Winnicott

Recent reading: "High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess"

High Concept: Don Simpson and the Hollywood Culture of Excess

by Charles Fleming

Don Simpson was one of the most successful movie producers of the 1980's and 1990's. Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, his producing partner, were responsible for wildly popular films including Flashdance, Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, Crimson Tide and The Rock, scoring with what became known as "high concept" films. Despised by most critics but loved by paying audiences, this approach propelled Simpson to the highest level of Hollywood. But his success also allowed him to indulge in behavior that was incredibly self-destructive and that would kill him at the age of fifty-two.

Simpson's demons are all the more sad because of his immense talent. He was a scholar of the golden era of Hollywood. He had a gift for analyzing scripts, an instinct for what audiences wanted to both see and feel, and a keen grasp of pop culture. For Flashdance, he utilized the then-fledgling MTV to help promote the film, which spawned two hits songs. It was a win-win - MTV needed the content and every time a Flashdance video aired on the channel it was a free ad for the movie.

Despite his hit-making gifts, Simpson also embodied the worst cliches of Hollywood power players. He once greeted a reporter by asking him what time it was, then followed that with, "Four o'clock. You know what I like to do at four o'clock? I like to pour myself a big drink, lay out a few lines and abuse a screenwriter. Have a seat."  The reporter sat and watched Simpson do just that. In that order.

Simpson's alcohol use almost derailed his career when he was only in his thirties. A successful Paramount executive at the time, his drinking became such an issue with his superiors that they fired him, offering the traditional producer deal in return for him leaving quietly. That's when he hooked up with Bruckheimer and the box-office bonanza commenced.

Simpson also developed an affinity for hookers. He forged relationships with Madame Alex and Heidi Fleiss, two of the most notorious madams in Los Angeles. His drug and alcohol use became legendary even by Hollywood standards. The list of prescriptions he held at the time of his death is staggering - roughly twenty different drugs. One post-mortem investigation found that his monthly expenditure for prescription drugs was over $60,000...and that's in mid-nineties dollars. It's almost as if his death at a relatively young age wasn't so much a tragedy, but a miracle that he survived that long.

On top of his substance intake, Simpson also struggled with internal demons and insecurities that manifested in weight issues and multiple, grotesque plastic surgeries. Among these was having fat injected into his penis to increase its size, and having time-release testosterone implants in his buttocks to increase his sex drive and energy level. That last one backfired on the Days of Thunder set when the time-release aspect failed, "flooding his system with very high doses of the aggression-inducing hormone." Simpson flew into a rage while arguing with Bruckheimer, reportedly ripping a door off a production vehicle.

Fleming does a fantastic job of recreating the Hollywood of the eighties and nineties, with its big name movers and shakers, over-the-top lifestyles, the intertwined relationships, and the toll all of this took on those who lived it. And no one represented that lifestyle, era, or paid the price like Simpson.

One thing that I did find darkly humorous were statements made in the aftermath of the end of the Simpson/Bruckheimer partnership. No longer able to deal with the excesses and resulting craziness, and hoping some tough love would shock Simpson into dealing with his addictions, Bruckheimer ended their professional union in 1995. Almost everyone seemed convinced that Simpson could be successful on his own, but that Bruckheimer wouldn't. As it turned out Simpson would be dead within months, and as far as Bruckheimer is concerned...well, I think we all know how wrong the naysayers were about his post-Don Simpson accomplishments.

What Bruckheimer did not say, but what close friends and employees knew, was that he had simply had enough. Since the peak of their high-concept high in the mid-1980's, Simpson had been on an almost nonstop bender, a perpetual attempt to live his life at the very edge of every extreme. It had worn badly on his health and on his ability to function as a producer. It had also worn badly on Bruckheimer's patience.

COVID-19 claims another victim

Last March when Left Coast Crime San Diego had to shut down on its first day, all eyes looked forward to next year's conference scheduled for April 2021 in Albuquerque. I know mine were.

Today came this news:

Hot off the press: Left Coast Crime 2021 Rescheduled to 2022

Due to the uncertainty of holding large gatherings in the spring of 2021, the Left Coast Crime 2021 convention has been rescheduled for April 7–10, 2022 – same place, same week in April, just a year later.

The Left Coast Crime national committee is making this decision now because we cannot count on having favorable government policies and the hotel's ability to provide necessary services by next spring, as well as the willingness of our Left Coast Crime community to travel with confidence. We’ve been in continual conversations with hotel personnel and sought assurances from the State of New Mexico, but no one can say when conventions can resume, even in 2021.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm sick of the new normal.

I do want to give props to the LCC organizers for the work they're doing. Hopefully by the time April 2022 rolls around we will all get to see their hard work finally reach fruition.

Stranger than fiction

Talk about life imitating art, and not in a good way: In 2019, British student Jessica Johnson wrote a short story that earned her an Orwell Youth Prize...only to have her dystopian tale come to life, and at her own expense no less. It's pretty crazy.

I don't know much about the British education system, so I'm not exactly sure what is meant by certain terms like A-level and Sixth Form, but here is the gist of the situation:

• In 2019, Jessica won an Orwell Youth Prize for her story "A Band Apart". Set in 2029, it envisions a future in which merit and grades are only a part of student performance assessment - another factor is an algorithm that rewards or penalizes each student depending on their background. This combination results in them being assigned to one of three "bands". Band 1 is the most advantageous because it affords these students better education and more prestigious, lucrative careers like doctor or lawyer. Band 2 provides decent jobs like teacher or administration, while Band 3 dooms those students to menial, low-paying jobs. The result is a caste system that makes it difficult for lower-class individuals to rise above their current station in life, and often penalizes smart, hard-working students.

• Jessica needed an A in her English Literature class to qualify for a scholarship and retain her university admission. She was on her way to doing just that when classes were shut down earlier this year due to COVID-19 and final exams were canceled. For some reason, the decision was made to to add a "formula" to grades given by teachers based on work up to the point of the shutdown.

• According to this article (bold mine), "About 40% of A-level results - published on Thursday - were downgraded from teachers' assessments by exams regulator Ofqual, which used a formula based on schools' prior grades." Johnson was one of those affected - the "formula" dropped her grade from an A to a B, which would have cost her both the scholarship and her university admission. This is exactly what happened in "A Band Apart" - despite hard work, some students were hobbled by unrelated factors out of their control.

Luckily, according to this article, her A grade has been restored. Jessica reflected on the irony of her experience:

"I've fallen into my story. It's crazy," said Jessica Johnson, a student at Ashton Sixth Form College in Greater Manchester. "I based it on the educational inequality I already saw. I just exaggerated that inequality and added the algorithm. But I really didn't think it would come true as quick as it did!"

This whole story reminded me of a quote regarding George Orwell's novel 1984. I don't remember where I saw it and I couldn't discover who originally made the statement, but it really resonates: "1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual." There's a great piece about the quote here.

You can read "A Band Apart" here. Gotta admit, I'm impressed with her as a writer. I hope she goes far.