Month: April 2022

  • ODDS and ENDS: KBJ, Anti-Rent Protests, Tottenham, and Hiking

    (I drink coffee and know things.)

    Ketanji Brown Jackson will be on the Supreme Court. That’s a pretty big fucking deal. I like it when American institutions start looking more like America. The process was pretty disgraceful, but I want to focus on the fact that we are a step closer to getting to RBG’s dream, which was an all-woman Supreme Court. Come this Summer, there will be four women on the Court. I think the next Justice should also be a woman, and this way one of the three Branches of Government will be Woman majority. But, I do digress. What I keep thinking about is how representation matters. My daughter is seeing more women in leadership roles in the nation. And I also know, there are a bunch of little girls that are going to school today, and their teachers are going to show them a picture of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and those little girls are going to see someone who looks like them, doing important and great things. That matters. That’s huge.

    I just found this out today, but in upstate New York, back in the 1840’s, there was an Anti-Rent War. It had to do with back rent being owed under the manor system that traced back to the old Dutch Colony days of New Amsterdam. Reading up on it, I had two thoughts. First, early America really didn’t like the rule of law, and took up arms pretty quick. Second, if you protest enough, you can get the law changed in your favor. Basically, people broke a 200-year-old system of land ownership and leasing because the rent was too damn high. It happened in the past, so what’s to say that it can’t happen again.

    Tottenham has found a way to get to fourth place in the Premiere League. There is no way they will catch Man City or Liverpool, but if things got really crazy, they could pass Chelsea for third by the end of the season. But, this is Tottenham we are talking about. They do have problems closing out. They need to beat Aston Villa if they want to keep ahead of Arsenal. I will say this, if the Spurs can stay up and qualify for the Champions League, there is a chance Harry Kane might stick around. Just saying.

    Anyone want to go hiking? I know I do.

  • Not Feeling It (Unedited)

    I have been looking at this computer for an hour now, and I really can’t get anything to work.

    I thought about writing about how the Baseball season starts today, but I’m just not excited about it. In fact, there are a bunch of articles out today talking about how over blown the payrolls are for the top teams, and the whole league is skewed to the big market rich clubs. There really isn’t anything I can add to that conversation other than to say people have been making that complaint since I was a kid, so not much has really changed in thirty years.

    And it is a cold rainy day, which might be adding to my inability to focus, let alone produce something. I do set my own deadline to get something about around 11am, but I don’t always make it. It’s a guideline, not rally a hard rule. The point being to get something up to at least accomplish one thing each day. Check the box, you know, so I can say I did something.

    What I really would like to do is go back to bed. I am on my third cup of coffee, and I could doze off right now if I stopped moving and closed my eyes. That sounds nice.

    But no, I have a lunch to make for my wife, and I promised myself that I would outline a new story today. Then there is some reading to catch up on, the kid to gather from school, and a dinner to make. Somewhere in there I will play UNO with the kid, as she has become quite good at it, and I want to encourage her healthy competitive side.

    Which is to say, I’m not feeling it today.

    (I even did the stupid “button” thing that lazy essay writers do. I might even throw in some puns, which smart people claim makes you sound smart, but we all know makes you sound dumb.)

    Anyway, not feeling it…

  • Short Story Review: “The Pub with No Beer” by Kevin Barry

    (The short story, “The Pub with No Beer” by Kevin Barry, appeared in the April 11th, 2022 issue of The New Yorker.)

    There is a lot of regret in literature, you know? Memories and ghosts from the past speaking to characters in the present. I mean, I get it. It’s what we all do with our lives. We think about the past, and wonder if we made the right decisions, or we just allow ourselves to bathe in the melancholy memories of a day dream. But we have to watch out, and not allow ourselves to wallow in the past.

    Unfortunately, “The Pub with No Beer” has a bit of the wallow to it. Though the language and skill of writing that Kevin Barry has is impressive, the story never really gains any traction, nor gets beyond well worn stereotypes. The owner of an Irish pub, which is situated along the coast arrives at his, due to Covid, closed pub and cleans the place up. As he does this, he has memories of people who used to frequent the place, along with a caller at the door, concluding with a memory of the owners father. To be blunt, nothing happens. I feel like the intention was that each memory, and act of cleaning the pub, was building to something. Yet the execution of that intention manifested in a protagonist starting the story and ending the story in the same emotional spot. Nothing was gained, through action or insight, thus making the story feel like it was just passing time.

    Stories of this ilk do irk me; these “character study/nothing happens” short stories just confound me. I think this does get into the realm of lit theory, which is that for a story, any type of story, to be successful or even satisfying, either the protagonist or the reader has to gain insight, or a realization, or accomplish something, which was impeded by either an external or internal force. Even stories based in naturalism and realism still need a plot and a climax. Something has to happen. That’s what makes it a story.

  • Rejection

    Tuesday morning is when I go grocery shopping for my family. This chore takes me out of Harlem and to the 93rd Street Trader Joe’s, which means if I do this right, it will take me an hour to do. I listen to music, and read on the subway. It’s personal time for me, so I try to keep it to enjoying things that make me feel better.

    I read on the subway trip down, and had a nice stroll through the UWS to get to the store. Shopping was fine, not too many people. When I got to checking out, I was going to use my phone to tap and pay, when I saw on my screen that I had got an email from a magazine I had submitted a story to.

    Curiosity got the better of me, and I opened the email, knowing that I already knew what the response was going to be, but I still wanted to see it. They were rejecting my story. Like I said, I had a feeling a knew what the response would be. But, clearly I must have looked disappointed, as the woman ringing me up asked, “You okay?”

    I guess I did get my hopes up.

    Even though I told myself not to. Funny how even though I prepare myself for this, I still set myself up. Oh well. I have to come to love every step of the process, even the ugly soul crushing parts.

    I was a theatre major in college, and I had a professor who would say that to us, that you had to enjoy all the steps in the process of becoming a professional, which, according to him, is the only way you will be able to survive the ups and downs of a career in the arts.

    I always thought that advice was bullshit. Who the hell likes being rejected?

    No one likes being rejected.

    But I can see his point. To get accepted, you got to put yourself out there. The more you can enjoy getting out there, the less the rejection stings.

    Well, four down, one more to go, and that will complete my first round of submissions. Then I have to go find another set of magazines to submit to.

    Process keeps on going.

  • Wise or Just Really, Really Cynical

    I always thought of myself as a very wise man. I think the wisest I have ever been was when I was between the age of 17 to 19. Just ask my parents. Sadly, it’s been downhill since then.

    Being that I am 45, an outsider might look at me, or really just my age, and ask, “What wisdom have you learned in all of your years?”

    And the only true bit of wisdom that I have, which I can pass on, is that if, on a weekend, you are going to cross the George Washington Bridge back into Manhattan, then you got to do it before 4pm. You can take that to the bank. Rock solid advice that I gained through experience, and has yet to let me down.

    But wisdom can lead to cynicism.

    And I say all of this because of a drug commercial that I saw on tv early this morning, you know with the morning news shows that try to cheer you up. In the commercial, a middle-aged woman, and due to the gray hair, I would say that they are implying that she is closer to 60 than 50, is working at a grocery store. She has a condition of unintentional body movements due to mental health. Luckily, there is a drug for that now.

    Even though I have watched this commercial without giving it much thought, for what seems like a month, something dawned on me today; This ad is implying that a late middle-aged woman, who is a stocker at a local grocery store, is somehow earning enough money from this job to afford health insurance, either through her company or the market place, and the insurance is the type that will cover the cost of this drug. And she is doing all of this while, and I know this to be true because she is using this drug, she is dealing with mental health issues.

    I said all of this to my wife, while following up by asking her, “Am I reading too much into this, or is my cynicism justified?”

    Just so you know, the drugs name is AUSTEDO, and 60 pills will cost you, with a coupon at CVS, $6,810. Without the coupon, it’s $10,706.94. AND just so you also know, the parent company that makes AUSTEDO is Teva Pharmaceuticals, which has been sued for price fixing, and for over prescribing opioids. They have settled a bunch of law suits for hundreds of millions of dollars. They don’t have a stellar track record of late.

    My cynicism is the evidence of my wisdom. Though, I can admit, it does lead me to have a pessimistic view of the world. But, it could be worse. I could be in the marketing department of Teva, trying to push an overpriced, bankrupt educing drug on the world.