Girl in a Cage

Liner Notes for my Penultimate 80's Playlist, Part 2.

If you're just tuning in, we're running through the tracks on my Penultimate 80's playlist on mog.com.  Tracks 1-20 were covered in the previous post.

 

21. Going Down to Liverpool-- The Bangles.  An all-female band from LA covering a song by an English dude with a girl's name who used to be in the Soft Boys.  Weird, but it works. I really like the guitar solo.

22.Head Over Heels-- Go-Go's.  Seriously. If you don't recognize the genius of the Go-Go's, somebody should punch you right in the junk.  Preferably me.

23.Heartbreaker, Part I and II-- Zapp.  The pride of Hamilton Ohio brings us more excellent Southwestern Ohio funk. I suppose one could argue that Roger's love of the vocoder brought us our current auto-tune hell, but I still love all things Roger and Zapp.  I once painted "Heartbreaker" on the legs of Elizabeth Denton's jeans because she inexplicably wasn't smitten with a chubby, braces-clad, foul-mouthed, sour-dispositioned, bad-hair-having troll.  Still a good tune, though.

24.Hero Takes a Fall--The Bangles.  This one still stands up, in my opinion.  Great melody, and great lyrics. I listen to this one a lot when I'm thinking about people I hate that everybody else likes.

25.Hungry Like the Wolf-- Duran Duran.  Sure, their clothes were ridiculous. Sure, they owe their success to their videos.  And yet, this is a completely kickass song about lust.  And you can't really have too many of those.

26.I Can Make You Dance, Part 1-- Zapp.  O, Roger, you did make us dance! You did!  Even those of us who were too inhibited to do it well!

27.I Need Love--LL Cool J.  In which LL vows to stop his heartbreakin' ways and find a nice girl and settle down.  No idea how that worked out, but while we're on the LL subject, people have reviled all the baseball players who plumped up like Michelin men on steroids, but the rappers who did the same thing have escaped our opprobrium. Where's LL's congressional inquiry?  Anyway, I like this song.  LL knows that feigning vulnerability is a playa's top strategy.  Dee Dee Ramone complained that this song showed how rap was getting soft.  Which is why he made the immortal "Standing in the Spotlight" album.

28.If You Leave--Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark. Annoying, stupid band name, and the song is forever associated with an annoying, stupid movie.  But I like it anyway.

29. In a Big Country--Big Country.  They started an unfortunate pre-grunge flannel trend among me and my friends that lasted pretty much until grunge started, and then we had an excuse to continue. Still, I always had a soft spot for this band. They're known as a one-hit wonder but actually put out three very good records. And then a horrible one. 

30.In My House--Mary Jane Girls.  Rick James was ever the biter, as we said in the 80's, or the swag-jacker, as my kids might say.  Prince had a girl group, so Rick had to have one too.  And yet this, I think, is every bit as good as Vanity 6's "Nasty Girl," if not quite as good as Appolonia 6's "Sex Shooter." They used to show this video on WTBS's "Friday Night Videos" all the time.  That was like MTV for those of us who could only afford basic cable.  (True!  Not only did MTV once play music, it was also once not a basic cable channel!). I feel like I saw this video every time I came home from a date in my senior year of high school.

31.Jailhouse Rap--The Fat Boys.  I sold many records to used record stores in my day, and I never regretted any of the sales except this one.  I had this on vinyl!  Anyway, I love the Fat Boys, and this tale of how they ended up behind bars due to their pressing need for snacks is my favorite of their tracks.  

32.Jessie's Girl--Rick Springfield.  Now this one I know I have killed at karaoke.  Perhaps in my high school years, I identified a bit closely with our hapless narrator, whose friend has a girl he wants to date and who can't understand why she's not interested.  Sigh...

33.Johnny Come Home--Fine Young Cannibals.  They would hit it big a few years later, but I always really liked this one, which seems especially deep for a pop song.  "What is wrong in my life, that I must get drunk every night?"  

34.Karma Chameleon--Culture Club.  Fantastic bass line, fantastic melody, weird riverboat gambling video.  I love it. Never get sick of it.

35.Let the Music Play--Shannon.  A huge and awesome hit.  I remember hearing it for the first time in Sarah Stoehr's car, and she was two years older than me and deigned to let me ride in her car, so, you know, it was awesome. (For more on Sarah and my crush thereon, check out my contribution to this fine anthology.)

We're halfway done!  More soon!

Liner Notes for my Penultimate 80's Playlist. Part 1

A week or so ago, I made a colossal 80's playlist over at good ol' MOG.  I felt the need to offer some explanations for my selections.  I came up with a bunch of rules that governed my selections but found that I broke most of them several times.  So, pretty much, it's just a bunch of songs I like. Here we go!

1. 867-5309 (Jenny)-- Tommy Tutone.  A great song about longing for the unattainable.  Though I never called a bathroom wall phone number, the sentiment resonated with me as a teen.

2. 99 Luftballons--Nena.  I prefer the German version, as I think the vocal is better.  For an excellent vocal in English, please see the 7 Seconds cover.  One of the many songs we got in the 80's, the upshot of which were "OH MY GOD!  The idiots who run our countries have nukes! We're all gonna die!"  And people wonder why we're all so screwed up...

3. Ah! Leah!--Donnie Iris.  I dunno.  I just like it.  I liked his "Buddy Holly with a white fro" look.  I like the fact that the title looked so stupid.  I liked that it was one of the few songs they played on rock radio at the time that was neither from the 60's nor incredibly horrible.

4.All Hell's Breakin' Loose--KISS.  Believe it or not, it was a big deal when these hideous men took their makeup off for the first time.  I like this one because it's got the weird spoken verses. "I am cool! I am the breeze!"

5.All Night Long (All Night)--Lionel Richie.  Well, first of all, this really exemplifies the unnecessary parenthetical phrase trend that marred so many 80's songs.  Lionel was dangerously uncool even in the 80's, but I found this song completely irresistible.

6.Best Friend--English Beat.--It's a putdown of a narcissist.  And you can dance to it!

7.Breakout--Swing Out Sister-- This song, for me, is like nice wallpaper.  It's certainly not great art, but it seems to make the room a lot more pleasant.

8.Buffalo Stance--Nenah Cherry--I like this because a) it's ridiculous-- have you ever tried hanging in a buffalo stance for more than about ten seconds?  Painful!  and b) it was inescapable at college parties for about a year.

9.Can't Stop the World-- Go-Go's.  I have always loved the Go-Go's.  This song is a great power pop pep talk. I needed a lot of those as a teen.

10. Centerfold--J. Geils Band.  I just always thought this was a clever idea for a song.  Though the last verse is kinda date-rapey and creepy. 

11.Church of the Poison Mind--Culture Club. Culture Club was renowned for Boy George's gender-bending persona, but they put out some (to my ears) very good r&B-influenced pop.  Also Bob Dylan named this as the church he belonged to in some interview in the 80's.

12 Don't Change--INXS.  I like this song, though I was disappointed to find that the lyric isn't actually "I found a dime I had lost." I saw them open for Men At Work in '83.  Both bands put on an excellent show.

13. Down Under--Men At Work.  So, for some reason this song about being from Australia featuring all kinds of Aussie slang that none of us understood became a monster hit.  Good tune!

14.Erotic City--Prince. This doesn't really fit in with most of the list, but it was a huge party hit in the 80's.  At the time, it was probably the single dirtiest thing I'd ever heard.  It's still pretty dirty.  Good ol' Prince.  I liked him a lot better when he had a dirty mind.  Bonus: At least some of this track was recorded in my hometown of Cincinnati, OH, on the same night Prince rocked Riverfront Coliseum on the Purple Rain tour.

15.Everything She Wants--Wham!  I think George Michael is a better singer than people give him credit for.  I like what he does here with the "My God--I don't even think that I love you" part.  He really makes it sound like he just had this epiphany while he was singing.

16.Everywhere That I'm Not--Translator.  I really enjoyed this song about missing someone when I was in the ninth grade.  (I'm finding there are a lot of songs about longing and loss on this list. Hmmm). I'm not sure it's actually aged very well, but I have a nostalgic soft spot for it.

17.Faith-- George Michael.  Don't hate. You know this is a good song. You know you wind up singing it every time you hear it. 

18. (Keep Feeling) Fascination---Human League.  To my ears, a way more interesting song than "Don't You Want Me."  Fun, poppy, and some unnecessary parentheses! 

19. Freak-A-Zoid-- Midnight Star.  The dance funk of the 80's really gets short shrift these days, but Cincinnati's Midnight Star absolutely killed it with this whole record.  I am a little confused as to why freak-a-zoid robots need winding up, but my friend Eric explained that it's actually "Steamfunk." 

20.Freedom--Wham!  Kind of an Elton John ripoff, but what a delicious one!  I may have sung this at karaoke.  Or I may have just intended to.

Well,I've got 50 more songs to go, so I'm gonna have to break this post up....

 

 

Madonna vs. Gaga

So Madonna's apparently honked off because Lady Gaga's "Born this Way"  ripped off her song "Express Yourself."  An entirely valid claim, in my opinion.  Let's go to the videos! (Sorry about the ads.  And have you noticed that no matter how spotty your connection is, the ad always loads smoothly and looks great?)

 

  

So, as I said, fair criticism.  EXCEPT: Madge conveniently forgets that her song was a ripoff of The Staples Singers' "Respect Yourself."  Like, a really shameless ripoff. Just as shameless as Gaga's ripoff of Madonna. Compare the chorus, which starts at about 1:04:

 

All artists are inspired by each other and consciously or unconsciously appropriate things they've seen, heard, or read before.  I don't really think either Madonna or Lady Gaga should be ashamed or anything.  But it is a pretty stunning act of hypocrisy to denounce someone else for ripping off your own ripoff. 

It is hard to get older. It's got to be hard to be Madonna and know that you were once on top of the pop world, and you're now an oldies act, relegated to the Super Bowl halftime show, which you're apparently not allowed to play if you've released a good album since 1988.  (The Black Eyed Peas apparently got special dispensation to play the geezer spot since they've never put out a good album.) The Super Bowl halftime show is about keeping old people with money watching so they'll see the Cadillac ads--it's not about showcasing hot musical talent.

Madonna has fought aging at every turn, such that the curvy beauty of the 1980's is now an angular,  bizarrely muscular surgically-enhanced ghoul. Her attempted defiance of the inevitable march of years now looks especially pathetic, and lashing out at someone who is still relevant to popular culture seems like an act of desperation.

I used to admire Madonna for the same reason I admire Lady Gaga: she was an apparently fearless provocateur (or, I suppose, provocateuse).  But now, apparently, she's just a cranky old lady.

Let's Hear it For the Library

I see a lot of stuff on the internet about the urgency of saving independent bookstores.  When Slate writer Farhad Manjoo wrote about his dislike for independent bookstores, people rose up from all corners of the internet to denounce him. (here's a nice summary of the whole affair) Some said stuff about how bookstores are a sacred public trust and the custodians of literary culture and such things.

I love independent bookstores. I love browsing in them and getting recommendations and the company of other people who like books.  I would like independent bookstores even more if so many of them didn't have such desultory genre fiction sections.  But I do like them a lot. 

But two things. One: if you want to support and save independent bookstores, go shop at one.  Period.  You don't need to waste what little energy you have for advocacy advocating for independent bookstores. They are businesses. If they make enough money, they will survive.  And if they don't, they won't. 

The other thing: Bookstores are awesome, but they are not guardians of literary culture.  That would be the public library.  Because while bookstores make literature available to anyone who can pay for it, libraries ensure that knowledge and culture are available for free. And I'm not just talking about books.  Those people who can't afford a computer or internet access can still use the awesome research power of the internet for free at the library. They've got movies and music too.

And this isn't just a benefit to the completely broke among us.  I, for example, read more books than I can afford to buy.  Two weeks ago, I took about eighty dollars worth of books out of the library.  I will get through all four books before the month is out without straining my already tight family budget by eighty bucks.  And the books, which I will only read once (I'm not a rereader), will not become decorations in my already full bookshelves, but will, rather, go back so they can be read by other people.

Another example.  A while back, I wanted to do some research on Lon Chaney for a project that never wound up getting off the ground.  I found that what most people regard as the best biography of Lon Chaney is out of print.  Amazon offered to put me in touch with some used booksellers who would kindly sell me a copy for 45 bucks.  I went to the library and got it for free. 

Commerce is not under threat in our society, but the very idea of the public good is under threat.  As long as there's money to be made, people will sell books.  But we live with the very real danger that government funding will be eliminated for things like libraries that provide an intangible, immeasurable, yet critical benefit like general access to information, like an introduction to the world of literature, like a society in which everyone has the ability to be well-informed as well as entertained regardless of income.

So do yourself and your community a favor and go check some books out of the library.  They can use circulation figures to justify their budgets.  And you'll be helping the authors you check out--libraries pay attention to which authors circulate, and they buy more of their books. At least this is what I gather from following librarians on twitter.

And the next time you feel the urge to advocate for the guardians of local literary culture, call up your mayor or city council representative or whoever and tell them how much you love the library.  Libraries don't ask for your money (except as a small percentage of whatever local taxes you pay)--but they can sure use your voice.

Image of the Boston Public Library's Reading Room courtesy of flickr user John W. Schultze, who shared the image under a creative commons license.  Another awesome thing about the BPL is that anyone can go and read and study in this gorgeous space.  You usually have to shell out a bundle for private university tuition to get access to spaces like this.

On Gym Etiquette

So you made a resolution to join the gym.  Welcome!  Of course each gym has its own culture, but even still, you're probably seeing a range of behaviors in the gym, and you're wondering if what you're seeing is acceptible behavior or if the people doing it are widely-despised douches.  I'm here to help!

In a group class:

That guy who was in the spin room before everybody and pretty much does his own workout, ignoring the teacher, and then leaves 20 minutes early?  Douche!  There are plenty of spots where you can run your own workout. Leave the spots in group classes for people who actually want to participate.  (Please note: I'm not talking about being unable to keep up, which will happen to you in your first fitness class.  People who give you dirty looks because your fitness level is not equal to theirs are also douches. Ignore them.  Or better yet, keep coming to the gym and get really fit and then say, "hi haters!")

On the floor:

That guy (or gal, 'cause I've seen this from both) who sits on the machine and reads an entire section of the newspaper between sets?  Douche.  You never know who might be wanting to use the equipment you're using, even when the gym isn't crowded. It's one thing to sit on the machine for thirty seconds to a minute between sets, but that guy's perched there for like five minutes.  This is so he can go around truthfully saying, "Dude, I put in an hour at the gym today," while leaving out the fact that he was actually only exercising for eight and a half minutes out of sixty.

The guy who leaves the plates on the barbells to "save" his bench while he does a circuit?  The guy who does one set on a bench and abandons it but leaves the plates on the bar? Douche.  Presumably their parents never taught them to put their toys away.  But you know better!

In the Locker Room

I can't speak to what happens in the women's locker room (feel free to add in the comments, though), but here's some tips from the men's:

The dude who spreads a towel out in front of his locker and dries off and then splashes baby powder everywhere and generally takes up a ton of space?  Douche.  You have to make certain concessions to the fact that you're in a crowded room.  All of your home bathroom routines may not fly here.  This one is extra annoying. 

The guy who takes up precious bench space with all of his clothes so that you have to awkwardly hop around to put your shoes on?  Douche.

The guys who assume everyone in hearing distance shares their misogyny, or homophobia, or political views or wants to hear intimate details of their marital life?  Douchey-douche-douches.  It's a weird space that's both pubic and private, but in the area of making loud political, religious, or bigotry-related comments, let's just assume it's a public place.

The guy preening naked in front of the mirror?  Not really a douche, but generally looked at as a weirdo.  Avoid this behavior.

I hope you find your gym experience to be a positive one despite the presence of the aforementioned douches.  Thanks for being a good gym citizen, and welcome!

The Worst Thing I Ever Wrote

I don't reread my own work very often. (Though, it has to be said, way more often than I reread anybody else's work.)  One reason is that I often come across sentences that make me cringe, that seem awkward or corny or just wrong in some way. 

Still, there's almost nothing I would change about what I've written. They are, for the most part, accurate reflections of where I was (in an emotional and creative sense) when I was writing them, and if they don't match up to what I would do now, well, I can write something new now.  I'm not an obsessive tinkerer. 

And even though I've written some stuff that was unnecessarily mean, particularly in my memoirs,  I wouldn't change it in future editions  (assuming there ever are any future editions). Because, when I hurt people I care about, the damage I did with my words can't be undone. And when I hurt people I don't care about, I don't give a shit.

But there's one sentence I hate with a passion, and one that, should there ever be any future editions, I will insist  be changed.  It's from Losing My Faculties. I'm not going to quote it exactly here because I really can't stand that I wrote it.  But basically I compared some gathering of people at the charter school where I worked to a funeral for someone who'd been murdered. 

I was trying to get at the idea that there was a lot of anger coupled with the sadness. And I remember being really proud of coming up with that metaphor. But at the time I wrote that, I'd never been to a funeral for someone who'd been murdered.  I've since been to two, (in an attempt to show support for family members I know. I was not acquainted with either victim) the most recent of which was last night.

And this experience has really made me hate the fact that I used this facile, lazy metaphor. Because it's a terrible comparison.  Losing a job is to having a loved one get murdered as stubbing your toe is to being tortured to death.  You could maybe argue that they're on the same continuum, but they're so far apart as to make the comparison deeply insulting.

I seem to remember the normally odious Boston sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy renouncing his use of the "cancer in the clubhouse" metaphor after his child was diagnosed with cancer, basically saying that comparing anybody's performance in a work environment to a fatal disease was offensively stupid.  (I can't find the column or any reference to it on the internet, so perhaps it was somebody else and Shaughnessy is even more odious than I thought.)

If anybody else made the comparison between their work situation and the funeral of a murder victim, I'd probably blog about how offensively stupid they were. 

So fair is fair: I hate that sentence.  And I hate that I wrote it.  And if you've had a loved one murdered, I'm really sorry for using that metaphor for such a comparitively trivial thing.  I will take it out if I'm ever given the opportunity to do so.

In the meantime, if you read that sentence and want to slap the shit out of the dumbass who wrote it, well, all I can say is you're not alone.

Stuff I Liked in 2011

As 2011 enters garbage time and sends in the scrubs, I think it's appropriate to think about the stuff I really liked this year.  Please note that not everything on this list came out this year; it's just stuff I enjoyed during this year.

Sherlock: This modern-day reimagining of Sherlock Holmes is completely awesome.  Great performances from both Holmes and Watson, great atmosphere, riveting storylines.  I think the new season is underway or about to be underway in the UK.  Hoping we get it soon.

Angles: It's not First Impressions of Earth, but it's close. Which means it's the second-best Strokes record.

MOG: I've liked this for a long time, but I finally tried the mobile app that allows unlimited downloads of music so you don't have to use your bandwidth with streaming.  I don't really buy music anymore--I just listen to everything on MOG.

Attack the Block:  Yes, you can make a completely kickass action movie with a brain in its head.  And yes, you can make a movie about life in the city and poverty and inequality and class differences without making a mopey piece of crap that nobody wants to see.  My favorite movie of the year.

Zombina and the Skeletones: Using the aformentioned MOG app, I downloaded their entire catalog.  Great horror-themed power pop.  So pretty much all of my favorite genres put together.

Harley Poe: Best thing to come out of Indiana since Larry Bird.  Mutant offspring of the Violent Femmes and the Misfits, they make adrenalized americana/horror.  A few weeks went by when this was the only thing I wanted to listen to.

The League: I resisted watching a comedy about guys with a fantasy football league because I don't care about fantasy football. But it turns out this isn't about fantasy football, but rather about a group of hilarious sociopaths in the It's Always Sunny and Seinfeld traditions.  The actors are all really funny and the writing is fatnastic.  The Thanksgiving episode this year was one of the best half-hour comedies I've ever seen.  Watch for Jeff Goldblum's vinegar strokes.

St. Valentine's Day Massacre--Since I cancelled Sirius, I've fallen out of touch with Little Steven's rock and roll empire, but this record by the Cocktail Slippers is fantastic.  Produced by Little Steven, it's a beautful slice of hard-rockin' girl group goodness.

Captain America--This one pleasantly surprised me.  I've never been the hugest fan of ol' Cap.  I always found him the least compelling of the Avengers.  So I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this movie. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and Hugo Weaving is probably still burping after the really amazing amount of scenery he chewed as the Red Skull.  (And if you're going to play a nazi mad scientist with a red skull for a head, you damn well better go big.)  A really fun summer movie.

Netflix--It's been a tough year for Netflix, but it remains my entire family's go-to source for televised entertainment.  We discovered Hard Times of R.J. Berger and Trailer Park Boys through it and were able to tear through all the episodes in no time.  Sure, it doesn't have all the newest releases, but I'm usually interested in stuff a little weirder than the newest releases anyway.  Like Theatre of Blood or Deep Red, both of which I caught on Netflix this year. 

The Summer I Learned to Fly--I already wrote about Dana Reinhardt's excellent book at length. Have you read it yet?  Why the hell not?

Anno Dracula--Kim Newman's vision of Victorian England in which Dracula is the Prince Consort was incredibly clever and compelling.

The New 52--Yes, DC comics did stumble on a few titles, but rebooting your entire line is a gutsy move and seemed designed to allow casual readers (like me) a way in to the DC universe even if we didn't know the last 20 years of continuity by heart.

Tabletop RPGs.--Thanks to my friend Kevin, I returned to tabletop RPG's this year.  I played a lot of Mutants and Masterminds, a smattering of D&D, and a one-off (and ridiculously fun) game of Reform School Ninja Girls.  I am not making that up.  Tabletop RPGs aren't just games; they're also collaborative story creation, and I have found them to be incredibly energizing to my own creativity and storytelling.  And tons of fun as well.

Bright Sided--Barbara Ehrenreich's jeremiad against our national cult of relentless, unrealistic positivity was funny, incisive, and ultimately reassuring.  If you think The Secret is crap, you're not alone, and this book really explains in depth how pernicious always looking on the bright side can be.

Evernote--I keep everything from shopping lists to notes for my next novel on this.  It fits very nicely with the way I think. I can put things down in a messy and chaotic way and still find them instantly wherever I am. 

Reed Gunther--a comic book about a rootin' tootin' bear-riding, monster-fighting, somewhat cowardly cowboy.  Great fun.

American Horror Story--yeah, the ending was a little bit tone-deaf as far as I was concerned--we went from a harrowing  horror story to Beetlejuice in the space of one episode, but still, this show was great.  Clues to the story were parceled out in appropriate dribs and drabs as the season progressed, and it was just generally much darker and weirder than anything you usually see on TV.  All the performances were great, but Taissa Farmiga's performance as the sullen, suicidal teen completely held the show together.  Really couldn't believe the creator of Glee brought us this.  I'm looking forward to next season: new cast, new house, new stories. 

Occupy--Yes, it was a somewhat goofy protest.  But, for the first time in a long time, it put economic inequality and injustice back into our national conversation.  It's pretty easy to make fun of the hippies camping out, but the super-rich have been sticking it to everybody for the better part of 30 years.  What has anybody else done to try and stop it?

The Perks of Teaching

One of my regrets about Losing My Faculties is that I feel like I may have been too negative about teaching. I wrote it during a bad time in my life and so may have put too much emphasis on the low pay, the chronic disrespect, the incompetent adminstrators...well, you get the idea. 

So here, by way of trying, in an albeit very small way, to balance the scales a little bit, is a nice teaching moment I had yesterday.

I walked out of my office and over to Downtown Crossing.  Where I saw one of my former students getting ready to perform some Christmas Carols.  We said hi and had a brief conversation, and I decided to hang out and watch the show. While I was standing there, a bunch of my current students walked by.  They said hi and we exchanged jokes, and I felt good about that.

The concert began. The performers were really talented singers, and they were really doing a great job with the Christmas carols.

And then I saw another former student from another school standing at the edge of the crowd and went over and said hi to him and had a nice conversation and listened to the music.

And I thought, well, this is a really cool thing about teaching.  All the bad stuff is true, but it's also given me the opportunity to meet and interact with a lot of really interesting people.  People who, when I bump into them randomly on the street, I'm glad to see.  And who are glad to see me. (or at least pretending very skillfully, which is fine too.)

So, yeah, I've chosen a profession that's never going to make me a lot of money, but in that moment, seeing students from three different jobs at more or less the same time, well,at the risk of getting too George Bailey about the whole thing, I felt rich indeed.

Seth's Terrible Advice for Writers

Internet marketing huckster Seth Godin is at it again. Apparently he started some  publishing house with Amazon, and it was such a huge success that he's shutting it down.  I don't get it either.  But in his blog post where he declares victory and leaves, he says this:

Permission is still the most important and valuable asset of the web (and of publishing). The core group of 50,000 subscribers to the Domino blog made all the difference in getting the word out and turning each of our books into a bestseller. It still amazes me how few online merchants and traditional publishers (and even authors) have done the hard work necessary to create this asset. If you're an author in search of success and you don't pursue this with singleminded passion, you're making a serious error. (See #2 on my advice for authors post from five years ago, or the last part of my other advice for authors post from six years ago.)

If you don't feel like clicking through, I'll summarize Seth's advice: you have to spend years building an audience for your blog and then use this asset to sell your book.  This is what Seth wants you to pursue with singleminded passion.

Now, I've always been mystified by this guy's popularity.  For reasons that escape me, he's built an army of people who hang on his every word.  And I guess he sells a lot of books about marketing and hucksterism or something.  

But I will tell you this:  his advice is terrible.  He thinks because it worked for him, it can work for you, but it can't.  Here's why.

If you write fiction, it's very difficult to translate a blog audience into a fiction buying audience.  (Yes, Cory Doctorow did it. Name someone else.) It's also very tough to build a blog audience if you're just writing whatever random crap interests you,as I do here.  When I was being very assiduous about updating every day (this is back when I was writing full time, so I had time to do that), I got about 60 views a day.  Now I get between 20 and 40.  I am grateful to everyone who ever thought the crap I spew forth here was worth reading, but there were never enough of you to build a career on.  

And if you write nonfiction, well, I'm afraid the wild west era of staking a claim to your corner of the internets and establishing an audience is pretty much over.  Too many other people have been at it too long.  Into celebrity gossip?  Why would I read you when Perez Hilton, TMZ, and Gawker have that covered from all angles? Interested in gadgets?  With Mashable, Techcrunch, and Gizmodo out there, why would I read you?  Want to rant about how publishing sucks and you are smarter than everybody else?  J.A. Konrath has that market cornered.  Want to pull prounouncements about the future out of your butt?  Sorry, but Seth Godin's been at it for years.

Outliers who don't understand that they are outliers are annoying.  At least traditionally published bestselling authors don't run around going, "Oh, everybody should do what I did."  They understand that there's a certain amount of luck involved in their success, as in everyone's.  

There is no blueprint.  

My advice is this: ignore everybody's advice. Including mine.

Read Reed Gunther

I've had conversations with a number of people (including the fine folks at JP Comics & Games) recently about the unrelenting grimness of a lot of comics these days.  I'm a huge fan of things dark and grim, and yet, at the same time, I didn't start reading comics because they were dark, brooding reflections on the nature of evil and such. I started reading them because they were fun. I want there to be grim comics. And I want there to be wacky fun comics too.  And those are getting harder and harder to find.

One person I had this conversation with at New York Comic Con was Shane Houghton, co-creator (with his brother Chris) of Reed Gunther. He assured me that his comic was a fun adventure that would appeal to everyone.  I bought the first five issues (well, I actually bought the first two, but then Shane nicely gave me the next three after I gave him a copy of The Mall of Cthulhu), and I finally read them this weekend.

I'm happy to report that this comic is a total delight.  It follows the adventures of a cowboy and his loyal bear as they travel across the country to--well, I don't wanna spoil it, but let's just say there is an evil idol involved, as well as a ton of monsters and some very bad humans as well.  And a spunky gal who runs her own cattle ranch.  It's funny, fun, lighthearted and even touching in spots. And the art really brings the cartoony fun as well, and there are a couple of really virtuosic panels that made me go "whoa!" . The trade paperback collection is just out, and I really recommend that you pick this up and check it out. (though I don't know if it features the entire double-wide cover of issue 5, which is really great--it's worth buying issue 5 just for the cover even if you have the trade paperback)  It's a blast.