Planning on a plan of action

I was thinking I'd write to the bitch who labeled my books porn, since she clearly doesn't know what the hell she's talking about...but the fact is, she's not the one who got them dropped. Amazon is.  And now they won't even e-mail me on my queries as to why they did it.  So they're the ones in the crosshairs, now, buddy.  Lie to me that you don't withdraw books when I know you've done that to 2 of mine.

But I can't do anything till I'm back to Buffalo...and it looks like I've been extended a day down here.  there's a lot more to do than we expected.  We'll have to see how tomorrow goes.  If it's anything like today, I'll be dead meat by the time Wednesday runs around.

Linkage

If you want to see someone in action who had nothing better to do with her time than find crap to bitch about, here's the link.

http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-amazon-sells-sex-toys-despite-111210,0,6717092.story


I'm beat and have to be up early, so nothing more to post.

I've achieved infamy

Got a better idea of why my books were dropped by Amazon.  It seems a few months ago it was discovered a man in Colorado had self-published a book through Amazon about how to be a pedophile and it garnered national attention.  Being one of those people who thinks pedophiles are diseased and to be avoided, and because I haven't been watching the news due to being so sick of what's happening in Washington thanks to Obama's cowardice, I hadn't heard anything about it.  Anyway, his book was removed and he's currently under police protection because he's getting death threats even though, technically speaking, he hadn't broken any laws.  Hmph, the cops'll protect a creep writing about having sex with children but they run hammer and tongs after a guy revealing corruption in our government.  The irony is too obscene.

So...about a month ago, a "reporter" for the Seattle Fox affiliate checked Amazon's online catalog to see if the book had really been removed, and discovered they carry a LOT of erotica (and, apparently, sex toys).  She did a report on it...and guess which book lead the way?  "How To Rape A Straight Guy."  I guess that explains why there was a sudden spike in sales.

Well, Amazon got spooked and pulled it along with the second volume of "Rape In Holding Cell 6" and the kindle of both HTRASG and RIHC6, v1.  And then they lied to me and said they don't do that sort of thing.  That the publisher pulled it.  He had a big laugh at that.

However, he also says I should lay low until this blows over and even wants me to remove some of the other posts I made about the situation.  Problem is, that won't work.

1. It makes me look like I'm ashamed of my books and I am not.  HTRASG is a strong indictment of society's casual cruelty towards people it deems unworthy, and it shows what happens when you treat a man like a dog his whole life -- you wind up betting bitten.  RIHC6 deals with corruption in the criminal "justice" system that is so bad, people are getting away with murder...even as it points out that revenge only leads to madness.

2. It's already out there.  If someone wants to find my writings online, they can.  Google my name and my books come up.  So even if I wanted to run and hide, I couldn't.  Not for long.  And then it would look a hundred times worse than it does now.

Besides, you can still get HTRASG through Barnes & Noble and other places; those come up on Google, too.  And my other books -- Porno Manifesto and Bobby Carapisi -- are still up, as is the paperback of RIHC6v1.

Now here I am -- fulfilling Andy Warhol's famous saying.  Be interesting to see what happens next.

Amazon dropped two books and two Kindles

Two of my books -- "How To Rape A Straight Guy" and "Rape In Holding Cell 6, volume 2" -- have been taken off Amazon's list.  So have the Kindle editions of HTRASG and RIHC6,v1.  Word I'm getting is that 1 (one) person complained about the content, but that information is second hand.  I can't get the bastards at Amazon to respond to me.  The publisher is looking into it.

This isn't the first time some twit at Amazon yanked my book off the market, and they wound up putting it back up after a bit of legal action...as in breach of contract.  Guess we'll go through that, again.  But as of now, I'm too pissed off to continue.

Bastards.

Back to the NYC

Thursday I'm en route back to NYC to do a packing job for an auction house.  I spent the last couple days making some passepartouts (protective folders to hold documents and letters) and enjoying the non-stop snow.  I know I'm supposed to be irritated by it, but I'm finding I like the feeling of it.  I know if I had to work outside or drive around in it a lot I'd probably feel differently, but as of now it's still a wondrous occasion.

Anyway, I return to the great white way Monday, if all goes well.  We'll see.  I'm staying in Yonkers, for some reason (I didn't make the accommodations, this time) which will be an adventure.  I think.

My mind is drifting back to sketching, lately.  I finished a rework of LD and will probably input it once I get back from NYC, but I'm getting the bug to work up a piece of art.  It's been so long since I've done anything serious in that.  Jeez, almost 2 years.  Time vanishes when you don't pay attention, doesn't it?

I would love to comment on Obama caving to the GOP, again, but bitchin' and whinin' are banned, dammit.

I did find out I cannot cook a steak.  Burgers, great.  All sorts of casseroles and veggies, no problem.  But I bought a nice NY Cut of steak and marinated it in Teriyaki Sauce and seared it in a frying pan and damn near charcoaled  it.  I think I should have done the broiling thing.  Maybe next time.

No word on when "Bobby Carapisi 3" is coming out, yet.  Looks like it will be after the New Year.

Snow, snow, snow

That's what it did all day and is still doing.  I brushed 4" off my car this morning; I dug out of 6" more this evening.  Should be interesting to see how much there is by tomorrow.  It was "fun" to drive in.  The last time I did this much snow during a commute was in Detroit, and that was mainly rural-suburbia and I had a huge Pontiac Grand Am to slog through the ice with.  This time, it's my little Honda...but it didn't seem to mind the mush and slow going.  Of course, I didn't make it out of second gear going home.

The one sour note?  I was going to buy some ground beef at this butcher's near me but he'd closed early.  Dammit.  I was planning to make hash for dinner.

Ah...but that reminds me -- cheese soup.

2 cans of Campbell's Cheddar Cheese soup concentrate (I know, I'm cheating, but I don't care)
2 large tomatoes, diced
4 scallions diced (including the green shoots)
1 cup Cheddar Cheese, shredded
1 cup Monterrey Jack Cheese, shredded
1 tablespoon butter

Mix all the ingredients together along with two soup cans of water and heat over a medium flame, stirring constantly until at a boil.  Then lower heat to a simmer and let cook for ten minutes, stirring things up, every minute.  Serve with crackers.

I've also added a couple tablespoons of Philadelphia Cream Cheese to the mix, but it doesn't melt well with everything else and you're left with white dots in the soup that sort of look unappetizing, even thought they taste great.  Another interesting thing to add is Velveeta.  It also shifts the flavor a little.

Of course, this is VERY rich and will kill any diet you're on...so no dessert if you make this.  Unless I AM taking on the mantle of Marie Callendar, in which case it's all fattening so don't worry about it...and you should have a slice of apple pie to top the meal off.

Apple pie.  DAMN that sounds good.

Scalloped potatoes

That's what I'm making for dinner.  Brutally rich and delicious and not at all good for me, which is why they're so wonderful.  And the recipe is EASY.

1 can Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup (NOT that low-sodium crap).
5 medium Russet potatoes
1 smallish onion cut in half-rings
1 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese (I like the extra sharp but regular is all right)
1/2 cup shredded Monterrey Jack Cheese (buy it this way; it's easier)
2 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese

Peel and cut the potatoes in whole, round slices, then in a bowl mix the mushroom soup, half a soup can of water, onions, the Monterrey Jack, Parmesan and half the Cheddar Cheese.

Once blended, mix in the potatoes, making sure they are all separated and well coated by the mix (I use my hands to do this but I'm a guy so it's acceptable) then pour it all into a casserole dish.  Sprinkle the rest of the cheddar cheese on top, cover it  and bake at 350 degrees for an hour and ten minutes.

Salt and pepper to taste (tho' I never actually wind up adding salt; the mushroom soup has plenty).

Next will be my recipe for Cheese soup, which is even WORSE for you.  I'm feeling very Betty Crocker, right now...or is it Marie Callender?

I could live off this crap...and HAVE lived off potatoes, before.  Guess there's more Irish in me than I thought.

Off to New York City on Thursday for a job.  This one, I'm flying blind on but hope to have fun and am actually looking forward to seeing some of the books I'm packing.  Many of them are fore-edge -- meaning the edge of the book's papers will reveal a painting if held in the right way.  Very cool.

I should set a story in the world of antiquarian books.  Maybe a cataloger who looks like Chris Evans but is shy is accused of stealing a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle (VERY expensive) and has to clear his name with the help of a French customs official...or Italian (those two are the harshest when it comes to antiquarian books being sent in and out of the country)...who looks like Olivier Martinez did in "Horseman on the Roof".  Things begin to heat up until they discover they're really long-lost brothers meant to inherit a massive fortune ensconced in a castle in western Germany...which also holds the one and only copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle that has a misprinted page and is priceless (and part of the fortune; best to diversify in these things, you know)...and the evil genius behind them being separated is controlled by a dog named Mike who's really the psychic channel for a wicked witch named Dolores.  She wants the Chronicle to use its ink to cast a spell on the world that will make her its ruler, but the ink must be mingled with the blood of one of the brothers and nobody knows which one so both must be taken and tested but one saves the other when he turns out to be a werewolf and...and I think I've gone off the deep end, storywise.

Still...does anyone hear a mingling of "Twilight", "Harry Potter" and "The DaVinci Code" here?

I have a favorite pair of pants

They're big and green and clunky, with holes around the cargo-pockets, back pockets (two of which I sewed up because they were showing aspect of me that should not be seen) and a new one in the crotch area.  Yet still I wear them because they fit right and feel right.  I'll probably keep doing so till they fall apart or become illegal to wear outside my apartment.

It's the same with certain movies I like.  I can watch "The Women" (1939) and "The Maltese Falcon" (1941) and "The Big Sleep" (the 1946 re-shoot, not the 1945 edition that's been making the rounds) and "The Bourne Series" with Matt Damon over and over.  I like how they fit together and just enjoy the process of the story in each one.  While there are other films that are just as good and considered classics that I've only seen once and have no interest in seeing, again.  "The Godfather 1 & 2" for instance.  Brilliant movies but viewing them once was plenty.

Works with music, too.  I have CDs by Enigma and Depeche Mode that I listen to, over and over.  I won't buy a Cd if I don't think I'll feel that way about it.

Then there's my writing.  I can reread some of my work over and over and want to change nothing in it, while other bits I tinker with, incessantly, even to the point of absurdity.  I just seem to know when something is right, in my own brain, then it's right and that is all there is to it, and no matter how many times I return to it, nothing will change.  I guess that's when I know when to end my work on a story, when it reads right.

LD will be a long process, when it comes to this, because I like my characters and want them to be happy.  And for once I'm not rushing or pushing as hard as I normally do.  I'm going through and working on a new draft to make certain it's clear and clean...and some parts just don't work, yet.  But they will.  I know it.

How lovely it is to be able to trust your characters.

The Emperor Has No Balls

Freezing Out Hope


By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: December 2, 2010
After the Democratic “shellacking” in the midterm elections, everyone wondered how President Obama would respond. Would he show what he was made of? Would he stand firm for the values he believes in, even in the face of political adversity?

Paul Krugman

On Monday, we got the answer: he announced a pay freeze for federal workers. This was an announcement that had it all. It was transparently cynical; it was trivial in scale, but misguided in direction; and by making the announcement, Mr. Obama effectively conceded the policy argument to the very people who are seeking — successfully, it seems — to destroy him.

So I guess we are, in fact, seeing what Mr. Obama is made of.

About that pay freeze: the president likes to talk about “teachable moments.” Well, in this case he seems eager to teach Americans something false.

The truth is that America’s long-run deficit problem has nothing at all to do with overpaid federal workers. For one thing, those workers aren’t overpaid. Federal salaries are, on average, somewhat less than those of private-sector workers with equivalent qualifications. And, anyway, employee pay is only a small fraction of federal expenses; even cutting the payroll in half would reduce total spending less than 3 percent.

So freezing federal pay is cynical deficit-reduction theater. It’s a (literally) cheap trick that only sounds impressive to people who don’t know anything about budget realities. The actual savings, about $5 billion over two years, are chump change given the scale of the deficit.

Anyway, slashing federal spending at a time when the economy is depressed is exactly the wrong thing to do. Just ask Federal Reserve officials, who have lately been more or less pleading for some help in their efforts to promote faster job growth.

Meanwhile, there’s a real deficit issue on the table: whether tax cuts for the wealthy will, as Republicans demand, be extended. Just as a reminder, over the next 75 years the cost of making those tax cuts permanent would be roughly equal to the entire expected financial shortfall of Social Security. Mr. Obama’s pay ploy might, just might, have been justified if he had used the announcement of a freeze as an occasion to take a strong stand against Republican demands — to declare that at a time when deficits are an important issue, tax breaks for the wealthiest aren’t acceptable.

But he didn’t. Instead, he apparently intended the pay freeze announcement as a peace gesture to Republicans the day before a bipartisan summit. At that meeting, Mr. Obama, who has faced two years of complete scorched-earth opposition, declared that he had failed to reach out sufficiently to his implacable enemies. He did not, as far as anyone knows, wear a sign on his back saying “Kick me,” although he might as well have.

There were no comparable gestures from the other side. Instead, Senate Republicans declared that none of the rest of the legislation on the table — legislation that includes such things as a strategic arms treaty that’s vital to national security — would be acted on until the tax-cut issue was resolved, presumably on their terms.

It’s hard to escape the impression that Republicans have taken Mr. Obama’s measure — that they’re calling his bluff in the belief that he can be counted on to fold. And it’s also hard to escape the impression that they’re right.

The real question is what Mr. Obama and his inner circle are thinking. Do they really believe, after all this time, that gestures of appeasement to the G.O.P. will elicit a good-faith response?

What’s even more puzzling is the apparent indifference of the Obama team to the effect of such gestures on their supporters. One would have expected a candidate who rode the enthusiasm of activists to an upset victory in the Democratic primary to realize that this enthusiasm was an important asset. Instead, however, Mr. Obama almost seems as if he’s trying, systematically, to disappoint his once-fervent supporters, to convince the people who put him where he is that they made an embarrassing mistake.

Whatever is going on inside the White House, from the outside it looks like moral collapse — a complete failure of purpose and loss of direction.

So what are Democrats to do? The answer, increasingly, seems to be that they’ll have to strike out on their own. In particular, Democrats in Congress still have the ability to put their opponents on the spot — as they did on Thursday when they forced a vote on extending middle-class tax cuts, putting Republicans in the awkward position of voting against the middle class to safeguard tax cuts for the rich.

It would be much easier, of course, for Democrats to draw a line if Mr. Obama would do his part. But all indications are that the party will have to look elsewhere for the leadership it needs.
-------------------------------

I knew he wasn't a true progressive.  I never completely trusted him to be what he said he'd be.  But did he have to make even MY low expectations seem too high?

Granted, the racism and hatred from the right wing nuts wasn't easy to deal with, but running from bullies only makes them worse.  Sometimes you HAVE to fight back, even if you know you're going to lose.  I've been in 5 fights in my life and lost all of them.  One even put me in the hospital overnight.  But I still won't back down in the face of someone threatening me.  I've even pulled back from friends who've tried to force me to do something I didn't want to do.

What's sad is, this experience will be used against any other person of color...and even against a woman (unless she's a freak like Sarah Palin)...as an excuse not to vote them into the presidency.  "They just can't take it," will be the new racist, misogynistic line.  And Obama's helping prove them right by proving he's got no balls.

I know gloom and doom was banished...but this needed to be said.  I'll now go the rest of the month without whining.  Promise.

LD Redux

I'm doing a quick polish of "The Lyons' Den" just for consistency and clarity, and I really have fallen in love with Daniel and Van.  They're Yin and Yang personified, in direct partnership with Ace and Carmen (his secretary).  I have a copy of "Pan's Labyrinth" from Netflix to watch...I've had it a week...and I get more out of working with my guys on the story than even thinking about watching a movie.

I MAY watch "The Apartment" again, since LD has become closer in tone to that than to a Marx Brothers flick or "His Girl Friday."  There's still the farce but there's also the seriousness of it.  Guess I got too carried away with the idea of doing something like "The Man Who Came To Dinner" and let myself shift to working on "Arsenic and Old Lace."

But having Ace tell the story and watching Van interact with Daniel brings me a surprising peace.  It's all come together under him, and that makes me happy.

A good aspect of working on this book is, I can ignore the stupidity in Washington over Unemployment Benefits and tax cuts for the rich.  Crap like that both infuriates and depresses me...and I don't want that, right now.

So I'm halfway through this polish and then will input the changes and THEN I'll let it go for a while, to get some perspective and see if I still love my guys after a couple months.

Somehow, I think I will.