It’s About Time (I changed the title of this blog)

Not quite ten years ago, I started this blog for a variety of reasons.  Since then, a lot has changed, including the reasons for continuing to write and what I write about.  Actually, just about everything has changed except the title.  I’ve been wanting to do that, too, but couldn’t think of a title that stuck with me, reflected exactly what I wanted to be all about.  And then it hit me.

I’ve been reading American Lighting, about the bombing of the LA Times Building back in 1910 and the intersection of three prominent Americans – Billy Burns, the famous detective who “cracked the case;” Clarence Darrow, who defended the labor-leader perpetrators; and D. W. Griffith, the famous director, who had absolutely nothing to do with these events but somehow author Howard Blum wove him into the narrative.  As a history, it’s a bit clunky, but Blum mostly pulls it off.

But briefly mentioned in the text (he had more to do with the story than Griffith) is E. W. Scripps, and the reference to him as “The Old Crank.”  Turns out that’s not quite right – it’s DAMNED OLD CRANK, which was also the title of his autobiography.  I knew about Scripps, of course – started the Detroit News and later a chain of newspapers, then created UPI, etc., etc.  Ohio University’s School of Journalism is named after him.  At some point, I’ll have to find a copy of the bio and read more about the man, if nothing more than to find out what made him tick other than his prolific consumption of cigars and whiskey – he was reported to drink about a gallon a day.

So why use Damned Old Crank for the title of this blog?  Is that a reference to the great journalism I hope to accomplish here?  A tip o’ the hat to Scripp’s moxie and drive?

Nah.  It’s just that I not only consider myself a Damned Old Crank, but others do, too.

My Sister-in-Law’s nickname for me is “Mr. Bombastic.”  I can get like that, for sure.  My wife says that as I’ve aged I’ve gotten crankier – she blames the fact that our social skills have been dulled for the last 15 months due to COVID, while I think I come off that was because my voice is going (I now speak in a raspy old-man growl due to throat irritation mixed with actually being irritated by other people).

The old “Wanna Bet” title partly reflected the original purpose of the blog (to talk about gambling) and a personal attitude.  Back in the day, that was my Dad’s rejoinder (and mine) to a challenge or a claim that something we uttered was incorrect.  “Wanna Bet?” Dad would bellow, and I adopted the same phrase and defiant position.  Later in life, when Mona and I faced one hurdle after another, we’d respond a bit differently (though still defiant): “Oh, yeah?  Well, fuck you!”  No, seriously.  It was like a precursor to the “Hold my beer” prompt, and it became our rallying cry when faced with whatever challenge life threw our way.

Now that we’re retired, the challenges are fewer (though no less daunting), and while, “Oh yeah, well fuck you” sounds like a great blog title to ME, I kept thinking I could do a bit better (and come off less crass).  So Damned Old Crank it is.

Your comments and sass are welcome, and no, I don’t plan to change the picture just yet even though it’s 25 years old, because it’s STILL the biggest check I’ve ever received from writing (both figurative and literally).  Maybe someday once I’ve lost as much hair as Scripps, but not now.

485 Verbal

No, do not buy this.

I just finished the book “The Stepmother” and have two issues, which leads to two different complaints.  As noted, I am not the guy one thinks about when one thinks of “literary criticism.”  The “485 Verbal” of the title refers to my old SAT scores (barely above the minimum).  I have no real excuse except that I spent too much time on the match portion (685 score) and that just totally dogged it (pretty sure my PSAT was a lot better, but I don’t remember).  My wife and I laugh about SAT scores now because we both denied reality and obtained degrees and professions NOT in our strong suits.  I studied Communications and went into radio, while she took up accounting and became a CPA despite a low SAT score in Math (her Verbal score was 700-something).

But I digress…

Before I discuss my issues with “The Stepmother,” a brief plot summary:  Poor single mom acts as a personal trainer to a rich millionaire who falls in love with her and asks her to marry him.  She accepts, which pisses off his three adult kids (who are true leeches on the family fortune).  There is a threat to her life, but she survives and marries him, and then shortly after, HE dies in an accident which looks like was targeted for her, but instead, she winds up charged for the crime.  The rest of the book is about how she tries to figure out who really did it with the help of a friendly cop (who she falls in love with) and her attorney.  There are a couple of plot twists, but nothing too complicated and it gets predictable near the end.  That’s not my issue, although it didn’t help my “enjoyment” of the novel.

No, what grinds my gears is (a), horrible grammatical mistakes, and (b) the tendency to tell, not show, which is a cardinal sin in writing.

Now explaining the concept of “show, don’t tell” to a non-writer/reader is akin to explaining critical race theory to a Republican.  Even though we call it storytelling, one should SHOW the action, not TELL about it. 

Is Mary angry?  How angry?  Don’t tell us she’s very angry – show us?  Did she grimace?  Bite her lip?  Snarl?  Slam her hand against the window?  Throw a pot at someone?  SHOW us.  In this book, there was far too much telling when it would have been easy to show (the plot practically begs for it).  I noticed it pretty quickly and went back to read the critical reviews online, and I wish I had done so before buying the book (fortunately it was a used book, dirt cheap, but still).

And then, once you’ve shown us, don’t try to tell us what you’ve shown.  More than once, there was a line like, “Dammit,” she snapped angrily.  The “angrily” is superfluous; how else does one snap the word “Dammit?”  How about, “Dammit,” she snapped lustfully?  “Dammit,” she snapped gaily?  Nah.  It makes one wonder if the novel was edited or proofed.

Even more evidence of a lack of editing or proofing was the grammatical errors.  Desert instead of dessert (three times!), breath instead of breathe, not rather than now, draws instead of drawers, and other faux pas. Every time I came across one, I snapped, “DAMMIT,” and angrily, too.

I did so because “The Stepmother” isn’t a one-off.  It’s one of SEVEN books by this author, all with similar dreadful titles (The Babysitter, The Trophy Wife, The Daughter-in-Law, etc).  Oh, wait, there’s more – Diana Diamond is a pseudonym for New York Times best-selling author William P. Kennedy.  In other words, he should know better.

It’s also not a one-off because it’s an indictment of just how stupid we’re becoming.  This book got decent reviews.  It’s apparent to me that many readers never noticed the errors or the “telling, not showing” problems.  This is why there are lots of Facebook pages like “America's Cultural Decline Into Idiocy (ACDII)” with sign errors or other examples of our mental decline, and they never seem to run out of examples, do they?  That’s one of my complaints.

And “The Stepmother” isn’t the first book I’ve read with all these flaws.  Last month I finished “Mr. Churchill’s Secretary,” which again had an exciting-sounding plot but suffered from poor (OK, shitty) execution.  If you read the reviews you see many were hoodwinked into thinking this was a great read (enough so that the author has ground out 10 similar novels in a short time), but if you read the critical ones, you’d know better than to waste your hard-earned money.

The other complaint is more personal – how does this crap get published, while I can’t get anyone interested in any of my works?  The first novel was rejected 128 times, and only one agent/publisher asked for the entire manuscript (and then rejected it, but rightly so – eventually I will make corrections and try again).  More rejections were perfunctory; “…regrettably, your project is not a right fit for our agency,” “…it is not the type of book I am considering at this time,” “however, this project doesn’t sound right for me,” etc.  Novel #2 isn’t faring much better.  If there's anyone who wants to read it, let me know.

I guess what I need to do is write a mystery, claim I can do a series of them with pithy-sounding titles, and push like crazy.  I already have Grammarly installed, what more can I do?

The Winds of Change? (post COVID)

Which direction you wanna go?

Events over the last few days make me remember the classic Buffalo Springfield hit, For What it’s Worth…

There's something happening here.
But what it is ain't exactly clear.

With COVID vaccines on the rise and cases on the decline, folks are looking ahead to that magic moment when things are “back to normal” (full disclosure – we’re nowhere near that yet, so keep your shirts on).  The thing is, there are two camps – the “back” camp and the “how about we try to make things a little better now that we know stuff” camp.

We now know that, yes, you CAN have a large part of your staff work successfully at home.  Bonus:  many employees LOVE this and can get more work done or do better at home that at the office, what we call a win-win situation.  Who could have known?

We now know that those individuals who work for companies that must have in-person employees (service jobs, hospitals, restaurants, etc.) are very concerned about staying safe (not sick with COVID) and making a decent wage.  Many employers have experienced labor shortages as they try to reopen, but are amazed to find those shortages disappear when they offer a living wage and/or insist that all employees are vaccinated.  It’s better for both employees and the company.  Who could have known?

We now know that people LOVE to vote by mail, and that more people actually vote when you make it easier to vote.  Who could have known?

And so on.

A year ago, I cringed when I kept hearing people yip about “getting back to normal” (one has to remember that the former guy was in charge and things were anything but “normal”), and I continually offered the option that maybe, just maybe, we could put on our progressive hats and try to think about ways to make things better.  There are so many damn problems we need to deal with – infrastructure, climate change, income inequality, and so on, and it seems like only half of the country is offering solutions and/or partial solutions to these issues.

The other half just wants to “go back to normal.”

Well, guess what?

I am starting to see real rebellion in doing just that.

And it’s gratifying.

Slowly but surely, we lurch forward.  We always do.  This decade isn’t like the 1980s, which wasn’t like the 1950s, and so on.  Much of the draconian discussion about “going back” is getting the blowback it deserves.  One thing I haven’t mentioned is the “get the kids back to school” argument.  Seems like most everyone is insistent in reopening schools whether it’s safe or not (it might have more to do with Mom or Dad wanting to get back to work vs. getting the best education for Johnny or Jennifer), but there’s actually some who see the benefits of remote learning (like working from home; some can, some can’t).  I know I was born 60 years too soon, as I would LOVE to learn at home via a computer.  In elementary school I did a lot of “remote” learning – I was sick part of the time and in two grades I finished the coursework early, so was assigned extra “independent work” to do at home/library; and I LOVED IT.  And there’s evidence that some kids thrive in the new environment.

So, the next time someone suggests we’re closer to “getting back to normal,” tell them, “Gosh, I hope not.”

It can be so much better if we make it so.  So, make it so.