Ferris Bueller, You're My Hero

Congratulations to Jay Leno and Taylor Hicks offspring, Lyman Feero on being shortlisted for the Spinetingler Magazine's Best Short Story Award. The Switch was originally published in ThugLit. Now, due to my modest nature I don't want to take credit for critiquing the story and pushing him to submit it or anything; but I will. Two words for Lyman: You're welcome.

Oh OK, so I really didn't have much to do with the story being so good, I guess that was all him.

Remember to check out the short lists and vote before Dec. 30.

Leno

Hicks

Love Child

Allowing Certain Words

Recently, while surfing some comics sites, I came upon an interesting critique of Garth Ennis's work. In this piece, the writer, an American black man, wrote that Ennis, a white (Northern) Irishman, didn't have the right to use (and I'll pause here for those who do not like the N word, this is your chance to stop reading because I'll probably use it once or twice during this post) the word nigger. The use in question appears in issue 12 of Ennis's The Boys when a Russian character, not black, refers to another character, also not black, as "my nigger".

I think this brings up an appropriate topic for writers to discuss: are there any words in which we are not allowed to use? Are there certain words that can only be used by certain people? My answer is no.

First, let's differentiate between the use of the word by the writer and the use of the word by a character. If the word is coming directly from the writer's own perspective, then he or she deserve every bit of criticism that comes his/her way. But I still don't think one should be censored. Here's an example: recently someone I know came upon a dilemma regarding another person's submission for a workshop. The submission in question was quite awful to begin with, however it was also incredibly offensive and down right racist. Now the piece was not from a character point of view, but from the writer's own opinion. The question raised was whether the material should be allowed in the workshop at all. My answer was that it should be allowed, and that the participants had the responsibility to tell him or her that it was a racist piece of shit. I mean really dish it out.

The usage of the word in the comic however appears because it is what this character, one kind of familiar with American vernacular through rap music and some movies (the most obvious one being Training Day), would say to someone. Granted, the character comes from the mind of the writer, but does that limit the writer from writing this type of character? One needs to write him truthfully. That is the job of the writer, no matter his or her race.

The criticism of Ennis's work states that a white writer doesn't have the right to use the word, but it's OK for someone who's black. I can understand someone being offended by the word and not liking it used in any variation by anyone, but does the argument stand when certain people are allowed and others are not? By this logic would I be allowed to write prairie nigger since I'm Indian?

For better or worse, nigger is a part of the modern American vernacular, used by some as a form of comraderie and others as a racist slur, depending on how it's pronounced. (However, if you have a Maine accent and all of your R's sound like A's it's hard to tell which way you intend it.) To deny a writer a part of that vernacular is to cripple him from finding any type of truth in life and turn all writing into superficial gunk. Granted, The Boys will not bring any kind of incredible insight into the human condition, but it will give us a clue of what a certain character is like.

Now, I'm not so completely daft as to not realize racism is a problem in this country. Believe me, I come across plenty of people during my day who have zero clue that what they say to me is offensive, as if contacting an office that deals with Indian issues gives them free range on expressing their ignorant views. But I'm not about to stop a writer from using terms like redskin (if I did I'd have a Hell of time with Sports pages during this time of year).

I think censoring writers is just a way of ignoring reality. If we prevent someone (and does it matter what the writer's race is?) from reflecting the truth, what are we accomplishing? It won't make the problems of racism go away, it would probably have an opposite effect.

Here endth the rant.

Mailer

The death of Norman Mailer over the weekend has left a hole. Yes, he was a great writer, but I'm not talking about his contribution to American literature, no, what I'm talking about is the massive persona that was Mailer. Mailer was equally known for his lifestyle as much as for his writing. Of course, it helped that Mailer was frequently in the limelight for other endevours, such as running for mayor of New York, biting off a piece of Rip Torn's ear and stabbing his wife. I mean, is there a writer alive who even comes close to filling Mailer's legend, or is the culture of the celebrity writer dead as well?

Has the fascination of characters like Mailer turned to empty shells like Paris Hilton? What does that say about America when we choose to focus on the exploits of the intellectually bankrupt (no, not bankrupt; that insinuates there were some brains to begin with; more like just enough mental power to walk and breath) rather than the bad behavior of someone who has at least a thought or two, no matter if you may agree with those thoughts or not? And if there aren't any intellectual bad boys (or girls) out there, perhaps we should invent some. If the mass media can make Nicole Richie a household name, surely they can exaggerate the exploits of some writer out there. (OK, you have your James Freys and J.T. Leroys; but how about someone with talent who actually makes meaningful contributions to American letters?)

Mailer once said that the novel was on its way out, which is perhaps a forced polemic of a egotistical man whose books were never the universally accepted darlings he thought they should be; but there may be some truth in there in regards to the literary environment. There are no big personalities anymore. Sure, there are well-known writers, but not one of them can capture our imagination like Mailer. Which of today's writers are willing to resort to fistfighting with just a hint of provocation? Isn't there some dark part of you that would love to hear about Jonathan Lethem and Michael Chabon getting into a wrestling match at some National Book Awards party?

Let's Shuffle

I was electrocuted yesterday. I just finished a test in Criminology. Time for brainless activity. What's playing on the iPod?

Foo Fighters "Miracle", In Your Honor

Mary Chapin Carpenter "Dreamland", Party Doll & Other Favorites

Bruce Springsteen "Light of Day", In Concert

Radiohead "Knives Out", Amnesiac

Pearl Jam "Glorified G", Vs.

Sugar Ray "Fly (Acoustic)", WBCN Naked

Bjork "Army of Me", Tank Girl Soundtrack (I love this soundtrack. I also love the movie, too.)

Bjork "5 Years", Homogenic

Metallica "Bleeding Me", Load (You gotta love the sperm and blood artwork on the cover.)



Red Hot Chili Peppers "Johnny, Kick a Hole in the Sky", Mother's Milk (One of my favorite albums. Definitely a desert island choice. But I guess with iPods nowadays you can bring everything with you on a desert island)

Prince "Purple Rain", The Hits/The B-Sides (Great song, bad movie)

The Beastie Boys "Shambala", Ill Communication

Rage Against the Machine "Testify", The Battle of Los Angeles

The Beastie Boys "Jimmy James", Check Your Head

Guns N' Roses "Dust N' Bones", Use Your Illusion I

Thievery Corporation "Lebanese Blonde", Garden State Soundtrack

Avril Lavigne "He Wasn't", Under My Skin (What? You gotta problem that? Yeah, I like Avril, what of it?)

INXS "Suicide Blonde", X

Public Enemy with Anthrax "Bring Tha Noize" Apocalypse 91...The Enemy Strikes Black

Paul McCartney & Wings "Jet", Wings Greatest

The Who "See Me, Hear Me", Tommy (Another desert island album)

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy "You and Me and the Bottle Makes 3 (Baby)", Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

Bill Withers "Who is He (And What is He to You?)", Jackie Brown soundtrack

Eddie Izzard "Jesus and the Dinosaurs", Circle

Bruce Springsteen "The River" The River (One of the best songs ever. I listen to it whenever I need some inspiration.)

Bob Woodward "Track 06 of Disc 06", State of Denial (Whoops. Tough to dance to.)

Percy Sledge "It Tears Me Up", Hard Revolution (They should demand Pelecanos create a complition promo CD for all of his books)

Bob Woodward "Track 04 of Disc 02", State of Denial (WTF?)

Led Zepplin "Ramble On", Led Zepplin II (Greatest reference to Gollum in heavy metal history)

Well, I suppose I've had enough fun. Wouldn't want to get too excited here.

Maine Literary Festival and Me

I don't belong here. That was my primary thought on the first night of the Maine Literary Festival; and to tell you the truth, it was my primary thought throughout the entire weekend. I felt like an outcast with absolutely no peers. Most in attendance were wealthy and older, while those closer to my age were among the authors featured, and all of them were much more successful than I am.

The festival was held in Camden, Maine, which, if you’re not familiar with it, is a town with a slightly higher income per capita than the rest of the state. OK, greatly higher. To tell you the truth there aren't many true Mainers who live in Camden; few of us can afford it. Most residents are from away. This distinction has a few degrees of categorization: 1) Very nice, 2) Benign, but annoying, 3) Complete douche bag. Unfortunately for category 1 people, it is category 3 people who tend to stick in our minds and sully our attitudes; even though Cat 3's are usually the minority. What can I say? You throw a douche bag into the mix, the flavor changes. Anyway…

There were some interesting topics, especially the last day, which focused on the mystery genre. The mystery panel even touched upon the current debate started by Rickards on the status of the genre, thanks to yours truly who supplied the question. The general consensus was that the genre isn't in a rut and didn't need a shot in the arm. I disagree somewhat, not that I would have been able to express this opinion. Questions were written down on cards, which took away a lot of the spontaneity and intimacy of an intellectual exchange between panelists and audience members. And you had to be quick in writing down those questions because there were only so many minutes allotted for Q&A. I actually wrote the Rickards question before the panel started.

And that was my biggest pet peeve of the conference: the strict time schedule. The woman "in charge" was a tyrant with a stopwatch. The schedule was more important than content. She made sure every panel was done promptly as the itinerary dictated - to the minute. She was like some fascist's wet dream. You could actually see the power going to her head as she dictated the entire weekend. It was like watching that psychology experiment where they observed people who got off on shocking others, only without the electricity. However, if she could have found some frayed wires, I think most of us would have been fucked.

There were some interesting people there: Tess Gerritsen, Matthew Pearl, Sarah Langan, Kate Flora, Joe Hill, Owen King, etc. Most of whom I talked to, at least briefly. But to demonstrate what kind of a dork I am, I didn’t talk with Tess Gerritsen for two reasons: I know that Tess is not her real first name, it’s actually Terry (it’s kind of funny to listen while some people call her Tess and some people call her Terry), so I had this fear that if I called her Terry it would be too familiar and she would look at me like I was one of those deranged fans who’s about ten seconds away from handing her their pancreas in a jar. The second reason is I have met her a few times and talked with her, but I also know from her blog that she can’t remember faces and names (don’t ask me how I can remember that, I just do.), so I didn’t want to come up to her like she should recognize me, but I also didn’t want to come up to her like we’ve never met before and have her say, “Hey, you’re the guy with the pancreas.” So, like the incredible introvert that I am, I didn’t talk with her for two of the stupidest reasons imaginable. BTW - Tess is a Cat 1.

Life of the Party

The Life of the Party, a new flash fiction piece, is up at DZ Allen's Muzzle Flash. It's sort of John Cheever meets Sam Peckinpah.



To tell you the truth I totally forgot about it until I received an e-mail this morning. It's neat to have a story that's been gone from your mind for so long that you're able to enjoy it somewhat objectively. I hope you like.

Tired

Every once and awhile I get kinda bored with crime fiction. It usually happens after I finish a mediocre, or worse, absolutely horrible, crime fiction novel. It seems that all the good books are unique, but the mediocre ones are all the same. While I'm sure it won't take me long to get out of this funk, this latest crisis of faith (OK, that's a bit exaggerated, but you get the idea) has taken me to the point where I'm tired of defending the lowest common denominator in our genre so that the best writers get a little bit of respect.

I come from an MFA background. Rather than starting from scratch by myself, I went to school to learn how to write - if anyone can really learn how to write, but I digress. Being a genre writer in an MFA program is fucking hard because you need to constantly defend genre writing. You can't let on that you think there is plenty of horrible shit sitting on the mystery and speculative fiction (or alternative fiction) shelves because that will only give these nimrod idiots grounds to prove their prejudices. Well, if you think it's crap, why should I even care? I think this is where I should mention that most of the literary fiction MFA students out there are complete dolts who are so lacking in their reading knowledge that it isn't funny. They can be quite ignorant.

Now you're saying to yourself, but Steve didn't you come from the only MFA program in the country with a popular fiction track? Why yes I did, in fact The Atlantic even pointed out the uniqueness of this particular program; but just because one of the leading magazines in the country managed to focus on this characteristic doesn't necessarily mean that the majority of students from the other genres, some of the faculty or the administration understands and appreciates this.

So why am I in this funk? Two reasons that happened to intersect over the past couple of days. The first was reading, well not a bad book, but a plainly average one. It had all the elements of good mystery/crime/thriller books from the past, but it just didn't do it for me. I finally sped read through the last third of the book to finish it. After I put it back on the shelf, I went to find another book, but I didn't want to discover another average book. (I finally read through the first 30 pages of Don Delillo's Underworld, which had been sitting on the shelf since it was published 10 years ago.)

This reading misadventure came on top of the perennial pop fiction student push to hire useful faculty for the MFA program I attended. Now you're thinking, why must the pop fic student body continually suggest and push for appropriate faculty while the other genres are taken care of? Good question. They shouldn't. That should be up to the people who actually run the damn thing, because that's their fucking job. The task of finding faculty and recruiting them has constantly been deferred to the pop fic students and the pop fic faculty. Truthfully, if any influence outside of the administration whose responsibilty it is to suggest and push for pop fic faculty it is the alumni, of which I am apart of, however almost all the popfic alumni have been so burned by the administration while we were students doing exactly the same thing current students are doing, that there is a part of us that doesn't really give a fuck. Well, that's not entirely true - we care about the current students getting a good education, we care that the faculty may be rundown by the struggle and we care about the reputation of the program, if only as a selfish consideration of the worth of our degrees.

It's no secret that I'm not a fan of the current director of the program (however, I am a fan of most of the faculty who do an incredible job), but it's not because I'm an asshole, despite what other alums have called me because of my vocal criticism (this is usually from the ones dangling out of the director's ass anyway). This reason for my displeasure is that I can see what this program can become. It is the only pop fiction MFA out there. Can you imagine what it would be under the right guidence? This could be the place where genre fiction scholars and teachers could congregate and push popular fiction into an incredible new direction. Imagine a truly academic pursuit of genre writing. But that's being squandered, actually it's being completely ignored. After The Atlantic pointed out that this was the only pop fic program in the country, and was what made our MFA program standout from the rest, do you know how many references the administrations made to the article? How many ads were created to promote this? How many e-mails went out to students and alumni and donators? ZERO. None. Nil.

So, instead of continually fighting the unwinable fight of proving that genre writing is worthy of study by defending all genre writing, I'm going to revert to a much higher ground. Instead of saying that all genre writing is deserving (it's not), I'm going to call a spade a spade. I'm going to promote my idea of good genre writing and stop letting others push me into deferring to the lowest sludge when I talk about it. There are some in genre writing who will disagree with me, and that's OK, but I can't stop myself from saying what is good, what is bad and what isn't deserving of academic or artistic respect.

I have no idea if what I wrote makes any sense, and I'm too busy taking care of a semi-sick kid to go back and review it; but I hope you get my meaning.

Here endith the rant.

Excuse Me While I Become An Insufferable Bastard

HOLY FUCKIN' SHIT, BABY!

Everybody Riverdance.

Censor Me, Censor You

Will there ever be a time when the arts won't be under fire from "concerned" citizens who think they are the arbitrators of what people should and should not see, review and read? A school in Guilford, Connecticut has forced an English teacher to resign after he gave one of his students a copy of Daniel Clowes's excellent Eightball. The book was consider obscene for its depiction of graphic sex and violence - none of which actually appears on the page. The teacher also faced possible criminal charges as the Guilford Police Department investigated the matter, but the Connecticut state's attorney's office refused to prosecute. What the fuck?



Why is it that the only conversation in this country regarding literature concerns people trying to get certain books banned? With fewer people actually reading (that includes these "guardians of good taste" actually reading the books they are trying to ban) and society in general becoming more and more ignorant of arts and culture, shouldn't the national conversation turn toward the glories of books and reading rather than the "evils" with which the written word is trying to corrupt the world? Shouldn't these righteous idiots who trash Harry Potter for its "satanic" messages be happy that their children are showing an interest in reading? Besides, doesn't Harry celebrate Christmas in the books? The parents in the middle of this Guildford controversy should have encouraged their child when she showed some interest in a book. The reason the teacher gave her Clowes's book in the first place was he thought a graphic novel would help get her excited about (or at least mildly aware of) the joy of reading after she failed to read any of the books assigned to her over the summer. Again, what the fuck? I guess ignorance is preferable to the possibility of corrupting our children's souls. Give me a break.

By the way, If you don't know Clowes's work, he is arguably one of the best graphic novelists of our time, having written the classic Ghost World, required reading for any serious graphic novel reader. Hell, any serious reader should check out Clowes's work.

A similar controversy erupted here in Maine last year when "concerned" citizens wanted Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted removed from a local high school's curriculum. Thankfully there were enough sensible parents and school committee members who defended the educational merits of the book and made sure it remained in the school.

Sox

I just wanted everyone to know that I will be wearing my Varitek jersey tonight (and every night through the series) and - very importantly - I haven't washed it. I'm sorry that I forgot to wear the jersey during games 2, 3 and 4 of the ALCS - my bad.

CBS Sportsline has Boston as the heavy favorite tonight.



Oh, and one more message for the Yankees:

What Goes Through Every Writer's Head

360

A total of 360 lousy words today, or rather yesterday; but for the past three days that averages out to about 700. Nothing spectacular, but at least I keep going.