Manon Lescaut (an opera review post)

Yeah, yeah, I have no image for you for this one, either. I'm just not excited about the cover of the opera book enough to want to go to the trouble of getting a picture of it. Visualize this: a strand of pearls on a glossy, black tabletop with a few scattered pearls lying around it.
There you go. If you can get that picture in your head, you have the cover of the program.

The opera is much better than the program cover but, then, it is Puccini.

Manon Lescaut is based on the French novel L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut published in 1731. It's one of two operas based on this work, the other being Manon by Messenet, and both are still popular and rotation today. Without having seen the other one, I'm going to say that the Puccini one is better. Hey, it's Puccini!

Here's what I found amusing from this opera:
Part of the opera takes place in the wastelands of Louisiana. Wait, let me make that more clear: It takes place in the desert wastelands of Louisiana. Of course, having grown up in Louisiana, when I heard this, it made me laugh and wonder what the heck Puccini was thinking. I mean, he wrote Lescaut in 1890; everyone knew there were no deserts in Louisiana in 1890. It was kind of like, what the heck?

Then, I realized that it was based on a novel from the early 1700s, and Louisiana was a huge territory in the 1700s. Something like 1/3 of the total area of what is now the United States. When the novel was written, there were wastelands in Louisiana, and the opera is set during the same time period as the novel, so the it all suddenly made sense. Still, it was funny, and that's going to be the thing that most sticks with me about this opera.

The next thing is that Manon was much abused. She was an incredible beauty that her parents were sending off to a nunnery, which means the character is probably somewhere in the 14-16 year old range. The opera opens with a rich old white guy attempting to kidnap her to take her away to be his sex slave. It ends, as with all Puccini operas, in tragedy. In tragedy in the wastelands of Louisiana.

This production was good. It's not the best Puccini I've seen, but it might be the one with the most complexities and nuance, including a scene of prostitute branding which was quite horrific.

Brian Jagde, whom I have mentioned many times before, played des Grieux and was as good as always. Lianna Haroutounian was Manon and was a good match. The only real issue with the production was the death scene at the end, which I'm not going to try to explain, but I'm sure was a directing problem. Beyond that, though, it was a great production with great performances.

Christmas Corner Sale

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to..."
Hold on a minute; white Christmases have never been a thing for me. However, that didn't stop me from dreaming about them when I was a kid. I mean, that's what we're taught as kids, right? It's not really Christmas unless it's a white... Hmm... You could go so many ways with that these days. BUT!
I'm talking about snow, here, and let's leave it at that.

Snow is not exactly common in Louisiana.

Imagine putting kids into a magic wish house around Christmas time in a place where it doesn't snow...
Oh, yeah, I did!

I even wrote it down and, starting today, it's on sale!
Which means you should go buy it. Look, I even gave you a link!

Now, it's true that this is technically a sequel to The House on the Corner, but I think it reads just fine as a stand alone. But I won't complain if you want to go get House, first, and give it a read just so you're all caught up when you get to Christmas.

Anyway...
Go pick up your 66% off copy of Christmas on the Corner today!
And, you know, help a guy out. Spread the news around. Or give it as a gift!

Merry Christmas!

Concerning TRU

I've made no secret of the fact that I used to work at Toys R Us, so it's with the kind of fascination of watching a train wreck that I have been paying attention to them "suddenly" going out of business. Sure, I get that it's surprising to some, but this is by no means sudden, whatever they would have you believe. And maybe I wouldn't have said anything about this at all, but...

There's always a "but."

But TRU (Toys R Us, but I'm going to refer to them as TRU) has, evidently, blamed their woes on millennials, the seeming punching bag these days of corporate America and of Boomers in general. ["Boomers" means "Baby Boomers." More on them in some future post.] "If only millennials were having more babies, we would be making enough money to stay open. It's all your fault for not giving us your money." As if just the fact of millennials having babies would drive them into the open arms (or doors, as the case may be) of a local TRU or Babies R Us store.

The truth of the matter is that TRU has been on the verge of going out of business for at least the last 20 years, it being 20 years ago that I last worked for them, and they were teetering on the brink even then. The further truth of the matter is that TRU is a shitty company and has been for at least the last 30 years, 30 years ago being when I first worked for them when I still lived in Louisiana. They're a shitty company, and they actually deserve to go out of business.

Why would I say they deserve it? Well, because they've had 30 fucking years to do something to improve their business model and, yet, they have refused to do so. They've just gone ahead with the what seems to be the driving philosophy of the Boomer generation: Did you fail the first time? Well try again using the same method but do it faster and harder. In fact, keeping doing that same thing over and over again; eventually, you have to succeed.

Right?

Evidently not.

So, yes, Toys R Us definitively deserves to go out of business.

Oh, hey, breaking news right in the middle of me working on this piece: It seems that the founder of TRU has died. At the age of 94. One of the things TRU is saying about him is how much he loved the customer. Well, I didn't know the guy, so that may well be true, but I do know that TRU definitely did not love their customers. Their customers were only second their employees as enemies.

When I first worked for TRU back around 1990, it was official company policy to not help customers. The extent that we were allowed to help someone was to walk them to the aisle where something should be located. If something was not on the shelf, we were instructed to tell customers that it was out of stock. Even if we knew it was not out of stock and was, indeed, sitting in the store room. Retrieving something from the storeroom was a big NO. You see, it just wasn't cost effective for employees to spend time helping customers.

Note: I was once reprimanded (at the store I worked at in Louisiana) for getting something down off the overstock shelf for a customer. Now, this was a thing we were supposed to do because, if we didn't, customers would do things like try to climb the shelving units to get stuff down. But, you know, we employees had access to ladders, and the customer could see the item he wanted. As it turns out, a manager was watching me and timing me. Because I had to go get a ladder from the stockroom (and put it back when I was through), it took me more than five minutes to help the customer, so I got in trouble.

By the time I worked for them in the late 90s after I moved out to California, they had somewhat revised their customer assistance policy. We were at least supposed to look like we were trying to help them out. If someone asked for something not on the shelf, we were to go and "check" the stockroom for it. If it was something we knew we had back there, we could even go fetch it... as long as it didn't take up too much time. Otherwise, we were to go to the stockroom, wait a moment, then go back out and tell the customer that, no, we didn't have the item.

Note: This could really backfire on people. I always did the job of actually checking for an item if a customer asked but, then, I knew how to use the tools provided for us to do so and was good at it. It was always bad when a customer asked one employee about something and was told we were out of stock but, then, asked a different employee (say, me) for the item who then went and got it for them. Yeah, that happened more than once.

As bad as they were to customers, it was nothing compared to the way they treated employees. Employees were the true enemy, all of them thieves waiting to happen. Not to mention the fact that they wanted to be paid! All that and they didn't even offer an employee discount program (though they did finally institute that some years after I quit working for them; it was an effort to cut down on all of the employee turnover, but I'm pretty sure it didn't really work).

I'm not really going to get into how bad TRU was to employees back when I worked there. This post is already long, and getting into that can of worms might turn into a novel, and not a novel I would want to write. Or enjoy writing.

Back to the point, though: Even back in the 90s, TRU was struggling to avoid bankruptcy. They routinely identified parts of their business model which was siphoning off their profits, but, really, they could never convince themselves to look beyond theft prevention, both by customers and by employees, and it was this antagonistic stance they took with everyone which ultimately prevented them from climbing out of the hole they kept digging for themselves. As a company, they were very much like the current Republican run government and their fakepresident. I'm so looking forward to the day when they, too, go out of business.

What I've Learned from Politics

I've learned that I'm tired of politics. Seriously, I'm not really a political person anyway. Yeah, I see you laughing there, but you should go check this post to understand what I'm talking about.

I've learned that I really liked it when I didn't have to pay attention to the political realm EVERY SINGLE FUCKING DAY. I think this must be what it's like to live with an abusive alcoholic. You have to always be on guard, always on watch, always paying attention. God, it's tiring. If nothing else, Obama gave us a kind of stability that allowed us to pursue our own lives but, now, every day there is something new and every week, seemingly, some new catastrophe. Because if there's one thing you can count on is that Trump #fakepresident will get drunk every weekend and go on some kind of twitter-rage so that each week begins with some kind of horrible drama.

I've learned that one man can make a difference, but it's not a good one. Political stress is everywhere, not just here but all across the world, and a great deal of it is being caused by ONE FUCKING ASSHOLE with the power to wage nuclear war #fakepresident, and I don't mean the chubby baby in North Korea. The whole world is on edge because of the toddler the US put in the highest office in the world.

I've learned that some people I thought once were pretty decent people have been vile undercover racists and worse all along. I've learned that people who, at this point, are still supporting Trump #fakepresident have no redemption in store for them. If you support a racist, fascist, Nazi-lover; you are a racist, fascist, Nazi-lover. Sorry, you don't get to be a Trump #fakepresident supporter and also try to claim that you're not racist. Not anymore. Not ever, really, but certainly not after Charlottesville and Trump's #fakepresident refusal to condemn the Nazi-instigated violence.

I mean, fuck, even some of the worst Republicans out there, real assholes themselves (Rubio, Hatch), immediately condemned the acts of the Nazis. How hard is it to condemn Nazis? Too hard for Trump #fakepresident and Sessions. So, yeah, Sessions called it domestic terrorism, but it was obvious that he was forced into that position with his whole, "it meets the legal definition" bullshit.

I've learned that the GOP are even bigger assholes than I thought. And complete cowards.

I've learned that talking politics is good for blog traffic, which isn't something I considered when I started doing political posts.

I've also learned that the increased traffic does not lead to more comments or book sales. Which, admittedly, was not a motivation for making the political posts (again, see the link provided above), but it would have been nice. Would be nice.

I've learned to not respond to people who say things like "prove it." It doesn't matter what data or evidence you show them, they will continually tell you that that data and evidence are fake, something they've learned from their Russian-Nazi master #fakepresident.

I've learned that Texas is the hand basket. Except for Austin. Texas has politicians as bad as #fakepresident. It makes me ashamed to have been there and so glad to be away from there.

I've learned that Nazis don't give up. David Duke is still around and pushing his racist KKK agenda decades after trying to be governor of Louisiana. Louisiana is probably the handle of the hand basket.

I've learned that books like 1984 and Fahrenheit 451 never quit being relevant.

I've learned that intolerance is a thing that can't be tolerated. At all. If it could be tolerated at all, we wouldn't have Nazis inciting violence again and heading us toward a New Civil War. Also, you can see this post where I first talked about that.

I've learned that it's never too late to punch a Nazi in the face.

Trump's Economic Plan: Hydraulic Mining

These past few weeks, I've been talking about this trip through gold country that my wife and I took at the beginning of May. It was an enlightening and educational trip aside from the fact that it was just a lot of fun. I mean, I didn't even talk about how we made sourdough pancakes roughly based on the way miners' would have eaten them (evidently pancakes were kind of a thing because sourdough was fairly portable) or any of the other food we made (all amazing!) or any of the places we ate at. Of course, I also didn't talk about the mosquitoes, which reached a horrible peak the night we stayed at Indian Grinding Rock.

And I'm still not going to talk about any of that stuff:
1. Because I don't want to talk about the mosquitoes.
2. I don't have pictures of any of the food, and I probably wouldn't remember all the things anyway.

But I do want to talk some more about hydraulic mining and how Trump wants us to return to those days.

I mentioned that we stayed a couple of nights in a miners' cabin in North Bloomfield. North Bloomfield which now has a population of 8-12 (yes, that's actually what the sign said). However, at one point, North Bloomfield had a population of something in the 2000 range and was a "thriving" mining town. I say "thriving" because, obviously, it was only thriving via illusion. So let's talk about that...

The town of North Bloomfield was settled as a mining town, which means all of the industry there revolved around gold mining. Gold mining for "the Man." Let's just be clear about this, this was not a town settled by "small business" miners working for themselves and making a living at it. This was a town run by the North Bloomfield Mining and Gravel Company. The miners worked for them, and the miners made shit wages. The miners made shit wages while the owners of the mining company got rich. Super rich.

And remember, this is what the area looks like more than a century later:

Of course, at the time, none of the trees in the foreground were there. Everything below the treeline in  the background was wiped out by the hydraulic mining. Remember, this is a picture I took to be "attractive;" I didn't take any of what's left down in the canyon where it's still full of scummy water and piled rocks. Most of this area will never fully recover. [How do I know? Because there are similar areas to this where the Romans did the same kind of thing to gold mine more than 2000 years ago, and that land still hasn't recovered, either.]

But jobs, right? The destruction of this land supported the jobs and livelihood of 2000 people. But, you know, the government got involved and made hydraulic mining illegal and, so, today, North Bloomfield has a population of 8-12.

By Trump logic, though, we should strike down that regulation against hydraulic mining and put those miners back to work! Put them back to work making their shit wages so that the Mining Corporation could continue to get fat and rich (like a tick) off of them. But, you know, jobs!

Now, let's look at why the state of California stepped in and shut down hydraulic mining, because it wasn't because they wanted to flex some government muscles and put people out of work.

A view across some of the gravel piles and sparse vegetation on the edge of the "pit."

All of this hydraulic mining was happening up in the mountains, and it used a lot of water. "A lot of water" is an understatement. I'm talking about millions of gallons of water a day. All of the water and everything it carried with it went... down. Whole towns got covered in mud and rock and there was devastating flooding in the Sacramento valley, the most fertile area of California and, possibly, the whole United States, considering how much of the nation's food is grown here. Farms and lives were destroyed. Food that was being grown for broader consumption was destroyed so that a few corporation owners could get rich. And, you know, pay shit wages to their employees.

Some of what was coming out of the mountains even made it out into San Francisco Bay, causing even more environmental damage.

So, sure, there were 2000 people in this one town benefiting from the mining and a lot of those people had jobs related to the mining. And there were some other nearby towns that had jobs dependent upon the mining, like Lake City, which existed to upkeep one of the water reservoirs they used to power the water cannons.

But the environmental damage was extensive, to say the least, and the lives affected by the damage they mining corporation was causing was way more than 2000. Seriously, did you get the part where there were whole towns buried in mud due to the runoff from the mine? And entire seasons of crops were lost due to the flooding. So, yes, the State of California stepped in and made hydraulic mining illegal, but it wasn't without a legal fight because the corporation owners didn't want to quit. They didn't care about the damage they were causing because they were getting rich. Richer. They were getting more rich.

When hydraulic mining was made illegal, people moved away from North Bloomfield. Lake City doesn't even exist anymore. Yes, jobs were lost. Those people, though, went on to other things, because that's what you do. So, sure, jobs were lost, and I'm sure that was horrible for those people, especially the shop owners who suddenly no longer had enough business to stay open. But the net effect was tremendously for the good. Incalculably for the good.

Let's not mince words:

Trump's plan for coal, for bringing back coal mining jobs, is the same as if he came to California and made hydraulic mining legal again. There's still gold in them there hills. Billions of dollars worth. It wasn't a lack of gold that made people stop mining. It was the environmental cost.

And the environmental cost of coal is just as high. Climate change is real. The flooding and the droughts and the effects on our ability to produce crops is just as real as the flood waters and debris coming out of the Sierra Nevadas to cover the Sacramento plain and destroy... everything.

The best part is this:

He doesn't care about the jobs. He wants to pay shit wages, too. He's one of the corporation ticks wanting to suck you dry while he gets rich. And I hear you, "But Trump doesn't own coal mines!" (Actually, we don't know that since, you know, he won't release his tax returns.) Sure, Trump doesn't own any coal mines, but his buddies do, and, with them, it's all about scratching each others' backs.

Do I feel bad for the people who will and are losing their jobs because of the dying coal industry? Sure, I do. But I also believe the cost is too high to support the metaphoric 2000 jobs of a few miners at the expense of the rest of the world, because, yes, it is the rest of the world. For the moment, though, why don't you go to south Louisiana and talk to the folks there who are losing their coastline due to climate change. People who are having to move due to the destruction that other people are causing so that a few (a few!) can get rich. Richer. So that a few can get even more rich.

The monster in the mountain. (Doesn't it look like a Pac-Man ghost?)

It's Come To My Attention

It's come to my attention that there are those of Trump supporters who wish I had never been born. To paraphrase what was said, "The world be a better place if you had never been in it." Which, you know, is ironically amusing coming from the side of the political line which wants to make abortion something that doesn't exist.

But the attitude is something I've come to expect from those on the Right, the Conservatives, the ones who believe that only they have the right to be full people. Yes, freedom of religion but only as long as everyone practices religion exactly as they do. Yes, freedom of speech as long as people never disagree with them. Oh, and if you have some other shade of skin than "white," you better be really rich and willing to contribute a lot of green to get to play in the club.

[A recent study has shown that insurance companies consistently charge minorities up to 30% more for car insurance than they charge whites within the same risk bracket. No, there is no reason for this other than that they are not white.]

For me, the thing that makes this situation so hilarious <he said, ironically> is that the person with the specific "complaint" that finally inspired me to write this post is someone who consistently came into my space to complain about the things I was saying. I wasn't going into his spaces and calling him names or saying bad things about Trump supporters at his house or anything like that. No, he was going out of his way to come to my place and, then, getting offended by it. Over and over again.

Because, you know, that's the way Conservatives like to do it: They like to get mortally (yes, mortally) offended by things that happen nowhere near them, have nothing to do with them, and will never affect them. It's like this:
When I was a teenager growing up in Louisiana (a horrible, Hellish place that I would never wish on anyone) [And I'm not just talking about the weather in regard to Louisiana or the mosquitoes. They have the highest incarceration rate of anywhere in the world! One of the worst education systems in the country. And the politics... Look, despite the fact that we currently have Trump as president, the politics in Louisiana are... well, I'll sum it up this way: Edwin Edwards, David Duke, and Bobby Jindal.]
But I digress... Let me start over:
When I was a teenager growing up in Louisiana, people used to fervently wish and pray for the day that California would suffer a catastrophic earthquake and fall off into the ocean. Why? Because California was filled with gays and hedonism and anyone who would live in California deserved... well, God's judgement, but God's judgement was always something along the lines of Sodom and Gamorrah, because Californians didn't deserve to live. When I was a kid, California was just about the last place I ever wanted or expected to live, not least because I didn't expect it to still exist the way people talked.

Of course, it was while I was a teenager that I started having... issues... at church because of my own views. Frequently, my own views had to do with my much more accurate interpretation of the Bible. Not even the youth pastor or pastor ever came away from a disagreement with me about the Bible in which they didn't at the very least say, "You're not wrong." And my other view which said, "Why does it matter what other people do in their own homes if it's not affecting you?" [This was something I most often said when someone was going off about homosexuality.] The response was always, "Because it's wrong!" And I would say, "So is adultery, but you're not advocating for cheaters to die." [That's kind of a personal pet peeve, that "Christians" spend so much time slamming people of other sexual orientations while mostly ignoring infidelity, which must be at least an equivalent kind of sin, and I would say it's worse.]

What Conservatives/Fundamentalists (of all types) need to learn is this:
The planet is not yours. You do not own it. You do not have control of it. You share it with other people and YOU (you fascist asshole) need to learn how to SHARE. That means you need to learn how to live with people who don't believe the same things you do AND you need to QUIT trying to control other people. Also, consider your actions before you take them: If they could hurt someone else (like, if, you're going to put an oil pipeline that could leak near someone's water source, DON'T do it), don't do that thing. Also, also, corporations are not people and shouldn't be treated as such. Also some more, reducing your profits when you are still making a profit is NOT hurting you, especially if it's making someone else's life better.

I could go on.

All of that to say this:
If Trump supporters are getting tweaked enough by the things I say that they are more than wishing that I wasn't saying them, GOOD! I'm going to keep saying them. Because, you know, at this point, if you are still supporting Trump, you're either just an outright asshole (uneducated, racist, -ist-ist) or you'r clinging to Trump out of stubbornness because you don't want to admit that you were wrong, which makes you an asshole. Either way, you're an asshole.
Oh, or you're a Republican congressman who has no spine or no morality. That also makes you an asshole.

And, sure, I get that if you're a Trump supporter that you, in all likelihood, think that I'm the asshole, BUT, you know what, you DON'T HAVE TO COME INTO MY SPACE. So, really, if you disagree with me, stop engaging with the things I say.

The Education Divide, Not a Myth

Talking about education is not something I'm unfamiliar with. Aside from the fact that I've worked as a teacher both in the South and in California, I did a whole series about education as it relates to my younger son, my middle child.

In relation to the recent election and Trump's victory, there has been a lot of reporting about the uneducated, or under educated, white people who voted for Trump. Not to mention that Republicans, conservatives, tend to fall into that same group. Sorry, the data (science!) shows the truth: Conservatives tend to be less intelligent and/or less educated than liberals. Maybe that's why conservatives also tend to hate science so much.

Look, I'm not saying that there are NO smart Republicans/conservatives out there but, on the whole, they tend to be the duller knives in the drawer.

Yes, it's all well and good to talk about studies and data and science, but your opinion is just as good as my facts, right? Well, let me give you a practical example of how all of this plays out in the real world. What I'm about to talk about is NOT science; it is my personal experience and, while subjective, it's also an objective look back at my past.

As I've mentioned before, I grew up in the South, and I also grew up in the Church. Like all typical church kids, I had two groups of friends: the people I went to school with and the people in my youth group at church. In some ways, both of these groups were atypical.

First, church kids are always atypical. The real church kids, at any rate. I'm not talking about the ones who go on Sunday mornings because their parents (moms) make them; I'm talking about the youth group kids who are involved in all the stuff: Sunday morning, Sunday night, midweek youth group, even choir. Those kids are a fairly small population from any high school.

However, my high school, as I've mentioned before, was also atypical. It was one of the first magnet schools in the nation and was (and still is) the top ranked high school in Louisiana. So, yeah, Louisiana: That's not saying much. BUT! At a time when Louisiana was ranked somewhere around 48th in education (not that it's not still down there), my high school was one of the top ranked high schools in the NATION. Top 10 for years. I think it was #3 at some point, even.

Needless to say, I didn't have the typical Southern education, and neither did any of the other teenagers I went to high school with.

Surely I have a point beyond bragging, right? I do! And this is it:

Of the people I'm still in touch with (more than a few) with whom I went to church, the ones who went to regular high schools and received a typical Louisiana education, well, they pretty much all voted for Trump. The exceptions are all female. Every dude I went to church with, every under-educated one of them, voted for Trump.

Now, of the people I went to high school with... Wait, let me drive this point home: You had to be smart to get into this school to begin with and, even so, half of the freshman class EVERY YEAR failed out because they couldn't cut it. So we, at my high school, were both on the smarter end of the scale and receiving a superior education.

Now, of the people I went to high school with with whom I am still in touch (more than a few), nearly all of them supported Clinton. I know of two exceptions: one male, one female (but she was also a church kid, and that kind of conservatism tends to skew things (I say that from my own experience)).

I could go on with this, but I think it's pretty clear. And, sure, some of the people in my youth group went on to higher education, but many of them did not. Those that did didn't go to universities that anyone would consider top notch, and I'm pretty sure, for most people, if you haven't encountered an education that makes you think, requires you to think, before you're out of high school, college is too late.

The truth is that conservatism is based around accepting what you're told without question, Questioning is the enemy. Questioning things that come your way can overcome confirmation bias, and Republicans/conservatives are much more susceptible to confirmation bias than liberals. That's why 85-90% of the fake news during the election was pro-Trump/anti-Clinton. One of the biggest peddlers of fake news stories during the election said they tried, also, on Democrats but just couldn't get Democrats to take the bait.

Look, I'm not trying to offend anyone, not this time. If you feel offended, it's probably because you know this is you. That's not my fault. I'm not calling anyone stupid. [Okay, there is ONE person I would gladly call stupid, but I've already done that, and I don't think he reads my blog anyway.] To some extent, intellect is a choice, because intellectual curiosity is a choice. YOU can choose to not just accept the shit you're eating. YOU can choose to educate yourself.

Stop reading and listening to Right Wing propaganda. Find the news and information that is objective, the places reporting FACTS, not opinions, and follow that, instead. Listen, the only reason the media is "liberal" is because the Right is SO FAR RIGHT that everything else looks liberal. Facts and data and SCIENCE are not "liberal;" they just are. So...

If you don't want the "Coastal Liberal Elites" looking down on you and thinking you're stupid (and sometimes calling you stupid), start educating yourselves on the actual data. And, you know, maybe read the Constitution and look at the laws that Trump is already violating.

Make a difference.

Claude (pictures I like)

It is commonly thought that Claude is an albino alligator.
It's not true.
Claude started out a normal alligator in the swamps of Louisiana.
He had friends. Mostly other 'gators, you know, but Claude was a bit less inclusive than most of his kind and, one day, befriended a young boy. Young boys with 'gator friends aren't so uncommon in the wilds of the bayou. It's just that it usually doesn't end well.
Neither did this one but not for the reasons you might think.

While out playing one day, Claude and his friend human came across an old shack out in the swamp. It seemed abandoned. Being curious, as one might expect of a 'gator willing to have a human friend (and vice verse), they investigated.

Claude, being a 'gator, managed to escape, but what he saw of what happened to the boy drained him of all of his color.

He's happy, now, to live in the museum. It means he's safe.
He tries not to think about the boy.

Growing Up In the Race Divide (part 1)

I grew up in the South. I don't mean the quasi-South like Missouri or Tennessee; I mean the deep South. Louisiana. Even so, I grew up without any idea that race should ever be an issue. I'm not sure why this was so other than that my parents weren't particularly racist. They weren't particularly un-racist, either. For instance, at some point when I was a kid, I remember my dad using the term "porch monkeys," and I had no idea what he was talking about. When I asked, because I couldn't find the monkeys, no one would explain to me what he meant, so, I suppose, he was ashamed enough for having said it (and my mom ashamed of him) that no one would explain it. Later, when someone did finally explain it to me, I still didn't understand. The term just didn't make sense to me; it was years before I understood that it was a racial slur.

The Oscars this year, "the best and whitest," have me thinking a lot about race and how and where I grew up. I am not much a product of my environment. For instance, I don't have an accent. Someone asked me recently about how long it took me to get rid of it after I moved to California, but, see, I never had an accent. And, no, there is no explanation for that, because my family most definitely does have an accent. In fact, I can barely understand my brother anymore.

I went to a desegregated elementary school. Of course, I didn't know that. I'm not sure any of us knew that when we were kids. I don't know for sure if it made a difference, though. The school was mixed, sure, but the classes, on the whole, were not. I never realized that until now in thinking about all of this. Supposedly, the classes were divided based upon ability and, to some extent, I'm sure that's true, because there were a few black kids in my classes, but, mostly, the black kids were in one class, and the white kids were in the other class. I'm pretty sure there were no white kids in any of the "black" classes. The white kids got a white teacher, and the black kids got a black teacher. Except 1st grade: In first grade, both teachers were black, but that was the only black teacher I had until I got to middle school.

The principal, though, was black: Mr. Hudson. I loved Mr. Hudson. By the time I was in first grade, he called me Dr. Leon. I was Dr. Leon to him all the way through 4th grade, my last year at that school. He said it was because of all my brains. Or something like that. He was always very serious with me and would shake my hand when he saw me in the hall. Evidently, race wasn't an issue for him, and he was the first adult male I admired other than my grandfather.

Middle school... I went to an experimental middle school. It was following in the footsteps of the experimental high school I would soon go to. These were some of the first magnet schools in the country and an aberration in Louisiana. I suppose the logic was that if they could get magnet schools to work in Louisiana, which was (and still is) among the worst educated states in the country, then they could get them to work anywhere. And they did work. CPMHS was in the top ten high schools in the country the entire time I was there. In Louisiana.

So, yeah, I had some black teachers in middle school and in high school... but they weren't academic teachers. They were P.E. teachers and an art teacher. The only exception to that was my biology teacher in high school. However, she barely counts, because they let her go half way through the year, because she was not able to handle the academic load of teaching the AP Bio II class. This class was geared toward academic decathlon training, so they had to find someone able to teach that class above all else. Just to be clear, she was not the only teacher let go from Magnet because the teacher couldn't handle the academic load in the advanced classes, and it was her first year teaching.

Also, to be clear, there were some black teachers of academic classes at my high school, but I was in all honors and advanced classes, and they didn't teach any of those.

My high school didn't have the regular team sports associated with high school. No football, no basketball, no baseball. We had what our principal called "Olympic sports": tennis, fencing, track. I only say that to reinforce that this was an academic school. There was testing to get in and you had to maintain a certain GPA to stay there. Each year, we lost about half of the freshman class. As opposed to my elementary school, at which the more advanced classes were more than 90% white, there were plenty of black students at my high school, and they weren't there to play sports. These were smart kids who had done the work to get into a kind of elite school. As I was reminded frequently by my friends at other high schools, we were the "nerd school."

Mostly, though, I want to focus on my elementary school, since it was a typical school in Shreveport. [I would like to think that my high school was more merit-based in its decisions on teacher hiring, and I think that it probably was because of the emphasis on the academic decathlon.] It makes me sad, now, thinking back, that my school got by by following the letter of the law while discarding the spirit of it, and I'm sure that my school was indicative of the "way things were." Probably not just in Louisiana, either. I have to assume that this was the way all schools got around desegregation all through the South. "Sure, we'll have mixed schools, but no one said anything about the classes."

"If it's not on the shelf..."

One of the summer jobs I had while I was in college was working at Toys R Us. I've mentioned that I worked there before, but I don't think I mentioned that I worked there on two separate occasions, the first being while I was in college. It... didn't go well.

See, there was a problem: I was too helpful. No, seriously. At the time, TRU had a policy about helping customers: We were allowed to take the customer to the place in the store where any given item ought to be but, if it wasn't there, we were to say, "If it's not on the shelf, we don't have it." Even if there was a box of the item on the overstock shelf (on the aisle just above the items), we were to tell the customers that line. I couldn't bring myself to do it; it was virtually always a lie.

I got more commendations from customers than any other... oh, wait, I was the only employee that summer to have customers comment that I had done a good job to management. Enough so that it was brought up in a store meeting. And, yet, I was reprimanded for helping customers during my first performance review. During my second, I was told I "wasn't working out" and let go. Oh, yeah, also because I was "anti-social" and did things like read during my breaks rather than go outside and smoke with everyone else. [Yes, I was told that part of why I was being let go was non-work-related behavior. (And the not smoking was specifically mentioned.)]

Jump forward several years. I had moved to CA a few months before, and I needed a job. I needed a job like "right now." TRU was running an ad that they were hiring, so I went in. Yes, even having worked there before, I was willing to go. I needed the job. And I wasn't in LA anymore, so I was hoping things would be different.

And they were different. One of the things that had changed during my absence was a shift in corporate thought from "the customers get in the way of the job" to "the customer is the job." When I was hired in CA, I was told "the customer always comes first." It was a huge difference. So huge in fact that not only was I not "let go" after my "trial period" (or whatever it's called), I was promoted faster than anyone else working in that location. Basically, as soon as they were able to promote me (because TRU has policies about minimum times before someone can be promoted), they did. And again. And again. Until I quit (which is a long story and not applicable to this).

Which brings me to my point: I didn't change. I had the same attitude and behaviors working at TRU the second time as I did the first time. It was Toys R Us that changed. They changed what they were looking for in an employee, so I went from being someone who "wasn't working out" to someone who was very valuable (they tried to talk me into staying more than once when I quit). Oh, and I was still reading during my lunches and breaks, too.

If I had try to change who I was, the way I was, when I went and tried to get the job after I moved, I wouldn't have been right for it, and I would have been "let go" again because "it wasn't working out." Writing books works that way, too. If you spend your time trying to adapt to the market, trying to fit in with the current trend, you'll always be a step or two behind. You can't help but be, because you're too busy reacting to an organism that changes faster than anyone can keep up with. When you just do your thing, eventually, it will come into alignment with you.

At least for a while.

I'm sure that at some point (if it hasn't happened already), TRU will go back to their attitude that the customers are an evil which have to be endured, just as readers will one day go back to the attitude that vampires are an evil which have to be endured. [As my son would say, "See what I did there?"] Basically, trends change. Find your thing and stick with it.

And, if anyone ever tells you, "If it's not on the shelf, we don't have it," don't believe them. Right now, that's Target's line, but I make them go look.

Pajama Pants (an Indie Life post)

For quite a while now it has been acceptable, even if not incredibly fashionable, for women to go out in public in their pajama pants. Okay, maybe, acceptable isn't the word I'm looking for there, but it is fairly common, the whole going out in public pajama pants. I don't go a week without seeing a few women in their PJs at the grocery store. I'm sure that schools having frequent PJ days doesn't help this pajama pant trend. At any rate, it's something I've just had to get used to, because... well, it's not illegal or anything (except in the place I grew up. Almost. At least, they're trying to make it illegal there).

I suppose I had grown used to the whole thing. At least, I had until just recently. As I mentioned, I went to this Magic tournament not that long ago and, at the tournament, there were a couple of guys there in pajama pants. I was kind of blown away, because I hadn't ever seen guys out in public in pajama pants before. One of the guys had on black Hello Kitty PJ pants that all of the girls kept remarking on. Yeah, I'm sure it was some kind of statement beyond "I was too lazy to put on real pants." I blew that whole thing off, though, as it was a midnight event at a place where, I'm sure, these guys hang out all the time. And they were young guys, early twenties at the oldest. Maybe it was to be expected?

BUT!
But the next day I had to make a trip to the grocery store (the Saturday before the super bowl (NIGHTMARE!)), and at the grocery store were TWO grown men in pajama pants! GROWN MEN! One of them was at least a decade older than me. What the heck? When did this pajama pants thing extend to men, too? Did I miss that memo? It's possible. I mean, I don't actually check my "guy" in-box all that often (it's usually full of stupidity and spam, anyway, so what's the point, right?), but you'd think there would be some kind of special heading on the note that men are now, also, going to be wearing pajama pants in public.

I don't approve.

And, no, I can't tell you why it's an issue for me now that guys are doing, but it is. Actually, I suppose it's always been an issue for me, but I'd gotten used to it. Used to women doing it, I mean. Seeing men do it, too, was... jarring. And all I could think was, "If you can't bother to put on real clothes, please just stay home." It's not about your comfort; it's about the effort you're willing to go to to be presentable, and, if you can't make the effort, any effort, just don't go out in public.

Now, let me say this: I don't expect you to wear a suit. Or a dress. Or whatever. I don't expect that you will be dressed in your best possible attire every single day. Not all people can afford suits, anyway (I haven't owned one since I was about 10), so this isn't about how much your clothes cost or anything like that. I wear jeans. If you want me to dress up, I wear my better jeans, but they're still jeans. But jeans are made to be worn in public; pajama pants are not.

Publishing your book without editing it is like going out in public in pajama pants. It says, "I didn't feel like going to the effort to get dressed." Or, um, I didn't feel like going to the effort to make my book presentable for the public.

And, look, I'm not saying you need to go out and buy a "book suit" (spending tons of money on hiring an editor (which I talked about here)), but I do think you ought to dress as if you're going out in public. With your book, that means make the effort. Act like you're sending your book out in public, because, guess what, you are. Which is why I don't let my kids go out in their pajama pants. If they're going out in public, I make them dress like they are, and, believe me, my daughter has tried frequently enough that she no longer asks. "But, Dad, it's just the grocery store." "Yes, which is out in public, so, if you want to go, get dressed."

Really, it's not much to ask, I don't think. If you can't be bothered to put on clothes, please stay home.

This post has been brought to you in part by Indie Life.

12 Years a Slave

I grew up in Louisiana. The best thing I've ever had to say about that is that I was not born there. Fortunately, though, in having to grow up in Louisiana, I did at least grow up in the best part of the state. Well, the least Louisiana-ish part of the state. And I went to the best high school in the state (which is still the best high school in the state the last time I checked). At the time I went there, at a time when Louisiana was ranked around 47 in education, my high school was one of the top ranked high schools in the nation. That's an aberration that no longer exists.

All of that to say that my educational experience was in no way typical of the area in which I lived and, actually, not typical to most of the nation as a whole. At least not at that time.

And all of that to say that the evils of slavery were strongly impressed upon us, and I picked up a firm belief that all men should be treated equally. At the time, I thought these things were normal for all people; it wasn't until later (only a couple or few years, actually) that I realized that a belief in equality is not a universal belief. In fact, it's a minority belief.

With all of that in mind, it was somewhat difficult to sit through 12 Years a Slave, which is set in Louisiana.

And not just set in Louisiana; being a true story, that's where it actually happened. And with that comes the acknowledgement that a lot of the beliefs displayed in the movie are still very much prevalent. That makes me sad. I mean, I grew up around people that routinely referred to unemployed African Americans as "porch monkeys" or "porch niggers" and knew plenty of people that believed "blacks" would be better off if they were still slaves.

Let me state explicitly at this point that I grew up in what was probably the least racist part of Louisiana and Louisiana is probably not the most racist state in the south, although Louisiana did do a good job of trying to elect a KKK dude as governor in the early 90s. That still horrifies me, especially so considering that David Duke got the majority of the white vote, something he claimed as a victory.

12 Years a Slave is possibly the most brutal movie about slavery I've ever seen. It's unflinching in its portrayal of the inhumanity involved in selling slaves and the attitude of them being nothing more than just, basically, livestock. This is summed up no better than a line delivered by Mistress Ford to a female slave just separated from her children, "You'll forget about your children soon enough," as if she was a dog being separated from her pups. Of course, Eliza did not forget about her children.

However, as brutal as the film is, it is very much detached from the emotion of the things that are happening in most circumstances. You see the horror, but you don't really feel it. In that, it's almost like watching a documentary. It's more clinical than visceral, a drawback for a movie like this, and I'm not sure what causes the disconnect. It's not a lack in the quality of the acting.

Chiwetel Ejiofor does a great job of bewilderment after he's kidnapped at the beginning of the movie. He make us believe in the unreality of his situation. At least, it's unreal from his perspective. Solomon Northup was, after all, born a free man and the idea that he's been taken into slavery is a bit beyond his conception. The problem, I think, with the movie overall is that Ejiofor never really seems to believe in the situation he's in. It's as if every moment he's waiting to wake up, and that may have been what made me feel removed from the action of the movie. I'm not sure that's all of it, but I know that's some of it.

Michael Fassbender, on the other hand, is completely "within" his character, Edwin Epps. Fassbender is not someone I've thought much of as an actor thus far. Not that I've thought he was bad, he's just been someone I've mostly shrugged off as, "eh, what's the big deal?" But he did a great job as Epps. He was completely believable as cruel and erratic. And Sarah Paulson, who played his wife, was wonderful(ly horrible) as his cold, bitter wife.

Many of the other actors were also quite good in their smaller roles. Giamatti, Cumberbatch, and Pitt were more than adequate, but their roles didn't require anything more of them than to be the kind of characters they frequently are. Pitt, in particular, seems to have chosen hos role specifically (he did produce it) to deliver the message he wanted to deliver, and he fit well in that part. Paul Dano was also quite good. Actually, Dano is good enough that I always have a hard time remembering who he is when I see him on screen. He seems to gravitate toward parts that are kind of slimy, but he fits so well into them, that he mostly disappears.

The most unsatisfactory part of the movie, though (and this is kind of spoilery, but, if you have any grasp of racial history in the United States, it shouldn't be anything unexpected or surprising), is the bad guys go unpunished. Of course, this is because the bad guys went unpunished, so it's more that it's an unsatisfactory part of history; no fault of the movie. It does, however, stir up feelings over the injustice of how Northup was treated. That's actually a positive aspect of the movie, because you should feel that Northup was treated unjustly. He was treated unjustly.

It was a good movie but not one that I felt was great. There's almost no way it won't get a best picture nomination, but I don't think it's going to win. I don't think it ought to win. From a movie standpoint, it was just missing... something. Something ineffable, I guess. That doesn't make it a movie you shouldn't see, though. Evidently, the message that all men should be treated equally is still a message that needs to be delivered.

The Rewards of Failure (an Indie Life post)

As I've mentioned before, I had a non-standard educational experience. At least, it was non-standard for when I was in school. Much of the experimental stuff they did with us when I was in school is standard now. We were part of what they called a "pilot program" to see if what they did with us would work on a broader scale. Yes, I was a guinea pig, me and my friends.

The specific thing I want to talk about right now is algebra. When I was a kid, the belief was that algebra was a high school specific class. Kids younger than about 15 just could not understand it or retain it, so it wasn't taught below the high school level. My friend "Parker" and I presented them with some amount of difficulty, though. Here's a rundown:

1. Sometime after Christmas during the fourth grade, our teacher took the two of us aside and told us that she had nothing she could teach us; it wouldn't be fair to the rest of the class. Therefore, she gave us our math books and told us to just do whatever. We finished that math book almost immediately. She gave us the fifth grade math book. We worked through that one, turning in the assignments (all of them) as we went. We finished that one. She gave us the sixth grade math book, and we did the same to it. She dug up some alternate sixth grade text book, and we started to work on  that one, but, alas, school ended. We did all of that within a few months.
2. We were moved to a different school for fifth grade, one with a brand new special program for kids like us from all over the Parish (this was in Louisiana, not a Catholic thing). However, they still didn't know what to do with the two of us in regards to math because we were so much more advanced than any of the other kids. So they, um, just stuck us in the sixth grade math class, which didn't win us any friends, because we had to be singled out of the class, a couple of fifth graders, and given special work that none of the other kids could do. Mostly, though, we were just left to ourselves, because, again, the teacher didn't have time to spend on just two kids with special needs (it sounds bad when I say it like that, doesn't it?).
3. For sixth grade, they brought in a special teacher for us and grouped us with the other sixth graders in the special program we were in. They, also, were too advanced for the regular sixth grade math class. We worked through a couple of seventh grade math books but, still, no algebra.
4. Things changed, again, for seventh grade. There was a restructuring of the entire education system in Caddo Parish (maybe all of Louisiana, but I don't know about that). Sixth grade was moved from elementary school to middle school (in fact, it was that year that they switched from calling them "junior highs" to "middle schools") and a new middle school was opened, a Magnet school (following a couple of years behind the opening of the Magnet high school (the first one in the state and one of the first in the country)). The program we were in was going to be located at the Magnet school, and they were going to try us (all of us in the Gateway program) in pre-algebra.
5. Eighth grade. They were going to try for the very first time (at least, in Louisiana; I don't know about anywhere else) teaching algebra to middle schoolers. One special class of eighth grade algebra students in the whole of Louisiana. And this is where it gets interesting and is the point of all of this.

See, there was a catch to this special, trial algebra class. Not only did we have to pass the class for it to count for high school credit, we had to pass an algebra proficiency test at the end of the year to show that we had retained enough of the information for it to count as high school credit. Otherwise? Well, otherwise, for anyone not passing the test, algebra would have to be retaken. No one thought much of that test during the school year. Standardized tests were easy, right? I mean, we were a group of about 30 high achieving students and standardized tests were... snacks.

The test took place on a Saturday after school had ended for the year. Yes, we had to go take a test during summer break. [But, then, my creative writing class was horrified recently to learn that I had assigned summer reading, too, so taking a test during the summer wasn't that big a deal, I guess.] A couple or few weeks later, I got the results in the mail. I had passed. But, not only had I passed, I had aced the test. Not a single incorrect answer. "Parker" was the same.

Then we got the call. I know about the call, because I was the one that answered the phone, and my parents weren't home, so they just talked to me about it. In retrospect, I'm not sure how wise it was for them to talk to a 14-year-old about all of this, but it is what they did. As it turned out, not only were "Parker" and I the only two students to get 100% on the test, we were the only two students that passed the test. Which is not what they called to tell me, not exactly, anyway. No, what they called to tell me, so that I would not be upset about it, is that they had decided that they were going to throw out the test and just go off of the class grades to determine who would get algebra credit and go on to geometry. They were worried that I would find out that other people had not passed the test and, yet, were in geometry with me, and they didn't want me (or "Parker") making an issue of it. They didn't want us to talk about it.

Fortunately for them, at the time, I didn't much care and just shrugged it off with a "sure, I won't talk about it or tell anyone my test scores" (except for "Parker," because he and I had already communicated about it, so, when they told me I was one of only two kids to pass the test, I knew the other one was "Parker" without them having to tell me anything else). Since then, though, I've developed quite a bit of ambivalence over the whole situation.

On the one hand, I understand the "everyone failed; our standards must have been too high" mentality. We just dealt with a similar kind of thing with my oldest son in his history class. There was an essay assignment with a fairly specific instruction set. If any particular student did not follow the instructions, s/he received a 0 on the assignment. That's pretty hardcore, but I understand that. So my son's classmates started getting their papers back, and everyone was getting a 0. Everyone. That went on until everyone had gotten their papers back... everyone except my son. All 0s. My son was kind of freaking out, especially since it took nearly two months for him to get his paper back. I can only assume it was because the teacher actually had to read and grade my son's essay, because he was the only one in the classroom to follow the instructions. He got a 95. Not just the only "A" in the class, but the only grade that wasn't a 0. So, on the one hand, I have to think the teacher wasn't quite doing his job if more than 95% of the class failed at the task. On the other hand, if my son can follow the instructions, a boy who can't remember from week to week where to put the trash cans when he moves them down to the curb for pick up, any of those students should have been able to follow the instructions. So, you know, I get the board (or whoever it was making the decision about the algebra class) deciding to do away with the test and just going with the class grades.

But, on the other hand, I have an issue with lowering the bar to meet the standards of failure. It was made clear to us going in that we had to both pass the class and pass the test to get credit, so it seems wrong on some fundamental level to shrug and say, "oh, well" and allow in everyone that only passed the class. Which is not to say that I know what they should have done instead. Maybe, the test was too hard; I don't know.

All of this does remind me of the current state of independent publishing, though. Which is not to say that I think we should go back to the artificial gatekeepers of traditional publishing; I certainly don't. I do think that we've adopted an attitude of accepting failure as normal, though. As a community of independently published authors, I think that is totally what we've done. Part of it is because we've, basically, decided that no one should fail because, if people were to fail, nearly everyone would fail. We've lowered the bar to meet the standards of failure. We've lowered it so far that in many cases it not even okay to say, "Hey, this doesn't measure up. You need to learn to spell and punctuate or you need to hire a (good) editor."

Here's the thing: While it's true that some of those kids that were passed up into geometry did just fine and went on successfully through their math classes, many of those kids also failed the geometry course and, because of that, failed out of the school completely (about half of the freshman class each year failed to maintain the requisite GPA to stay in the school). If those kids had been required to re-take the algebra class, not only may they have been successful in geometry when they got to it, but they may have also been able to keep a GPA that would have allowed them to continue on at the Magnet school.

In the same way, if we would have the strength or courage or whatever it is we are generally lacking in the self publishing world to say to some of these authors who are throwing their... efforts... out into the world via the Kindle (and I say Kindle, because that's where most of them go, but, you know, whatever platform), "Hey, this piece of work fails the grammar test; you need to go back to work on it," or "Your story structure in this piece is really rather flat; maybe, you should spend some time study the way a plot works," or, just in general, pointing out where work needs to be done, well, maybe, more of these people would start putting out stories that "pass the test."

Really, this world of independent publishing is not like the algebra class thing in that, if you failed the class, it only affected you. However, pumping the indie world with works that don't pass reflect badly on all indie authors. In that, we should stand up and say, "Hey, we want people to respect indie publishing, so take this back until it's ready."

And, sure, I hear a lot of you getting ready to tell me how subjective it all is, but, when it comes to grammar and punctuation, it's not subjective, and, as a writer, if you can't learn to actually do the math, so to speak, you need to go back and take that algebra class again. Or get someone that can do it to help you out. That's all there is to it, really, because it doesn't matter how good your story is if people can't find it due to the piss poor writing.

So... I know it seems somehow kinder when we just cheer everyone on and tell each other what an amazing job we're all doing, but that kind of thing just brings us all down in the end. It lowers the bar until failure is success, at least to us. All those other people looking in from the outside just see a pile of steaming crap. Raising that bar up above the fumes helps us all. It lets other people know that there is something valuable in indie publishing. There is good to be found there. And helps those beneath the bar to become stronger writers as they strive to "pass the test."

This post has been brought to you by Indie Life.

How To Win at Magic: Part 3: Playing the Deck (or "It's All in the Timing")

Okay, so you've collected your cards, and you've built your deck, now you need to play the game. Now, it's time to win! Right? Right! That's what this is all about.

There are two basic schools of thought about winning at Magic:
1. It's the deck.
2. It's the player.
As with most extreme positions, it's a combination of the two. The best player in the world can't win with a crappy deck, and the best deck in the world isn't going to help a crappy player. But, since we've dealt with the deck building (on a very superficial level), let's deal with the crappy player. Um, I mean, let's deal with playing the game.

There are, of course, too many different deck types and styles to go into any specific detail about how to win with any particular deck, but there is one general reason why people lose with even the best decks possible. That reason is bad timing. Yeah, playing Magic is more than a little like being good at telling jokes. Jokes are all about the timing, too. But, then, so are books.

Here, let me give you an example:
There is this card:

Before this card was removed from the game, it was the most common first turn spell in the game. I'm just gonna say that there is no reason to throw a "Lightning Bolt" on the first turn of the game. That's what's called bad timing. Despite its appearance, the bolt is a very versatile card, and using it on the first turn is a waste of something that could turn out to be more useful later on.

In similar fashion, players of blue tend to be very prone to using

at their first opportunity. I don't know about you, but the first spell I play is never my best card, so you wasting a "Counterspell" on it only helps me out. What I really used to love watching in tournaments is when someone would throw a "Lightning Bolt" on his first turn, and the other player would counter it. The most amusing thing about that was that one of those players was still gonna win.

So I want to jump back to my "Mr. Suitcase" example from the last post. Specifically, I want to talk about Mr. SouthLA. He waltzed into the store sometime during the summer of '94, literally, with a briefcase full of the top cards. I'm talking, like, 20 or "Black Lotuses" and everything else that implies. He had just moved up from south Louisiana to open a law office. No, I don't actually have any idea whether he was a good lawyer or not, but I will say I would never have hired him based on his Magic skills. Or lack thereof. See, he thought that merely the fact that he owned all of these cards that rest of us could only salivate over (it actually took me a really long time to build my complete collection of Beta/Unlimited and Arabian Nights (because we never got those sets in Shreveport, and it didn't take long before they were impossible to order) made him the best player in the city.

Oh, how wrong he was.

See, he had a timing problem, and, although he could build decks that only the rest of us could dream about, he didn't know how to play them. He never really got it, either. The fact that he had all of  these amazing cards often allowed him to play through his whole hand, or pretty close to it, on his first turn. The problem was that, once he'd done that, he had nothing left to play, and everyone knew it. There was no reason to wonder what he might have in his hand or anything, because we all knew he had nothing.

Of course, he started complaining that it was the fault of his deck. So he and I did a little experiment. We switched decks. Let me make it clear, here, that my decks were mostly composed of common cards. There were a few rares here and there but, mostly, commons, and I would just beat the stuffing out of him, and he couldn't understand why. I mean, his cards were better, right? That must mean his deck was better, too? Okay, his deck was pretty good. Anyway, we switched decks, and I proceeded to kick the snot of him with his deck. Which made him mad, so we switched back. And I knocked the stuffing out of him. I'm sure you get the idea.

The point is that winning at Magic is not all in the deck. It's also in the playing of the deck. The biggest issue most people have with being effective players is patience. You can't just play through everything in your hand as you draw it. There's lots of waiting and knowing when to use specific cards.

Which is a lot like writing. It doesn't matter how good your story idea is if you don't know how to plot it out. You can't just throw everything at your reader at once and expect people to want to keep going.

A while back, I read this particular paranormal mystery book, because, for some reason, people love the series, and I figured I may as well see what was up with it. Did I say it was a mystery? Well, that's what it said, anyway. So I was reading this nearly 300 page long book, and I hit about page 85, and, bam!, there's the killer revealed right there. But I'm thinking "no way" because I'm only on page 85, and there's no way she'd just lay it right out there for us and in front of her protagonist, too. So I kept reading, and it was increasingly apparent that I'd pinpointed the killer, but I kept thinking "no way" because it couldn't be that easy, right? There must be some kind of twist that I couldn't see coming! These books were popular, so it just could not be that easy. Her protagonist could not be that dumb, right? Well, it was that easy, and her protagonist was that dumb, and I never read another one of those books. And I'm still not sure how, after reading that first book, anyone would ever continue on to read a second one. At nay rate, the author cast her "Lightning Bolt" on the first turn and, then, continued to play through everything in her hand in the same way until she had nothing left to play but 200 pages left to write. It's the holding back that keeps the readers reading, not the giving away.

Like telling a good joke, timing is everything. In Magic and in writing. Seriously, I always loved when my opponent would go first and hit me with a "Lightning Bolt" on his first turn, then, on my first turn, I'd drop a

and a

And, yet, the same people would do that same kind of thing over and over, because they could not resist playing the card just because they could play the card. That's seldom a good reason for doing anything.

Here's the thing, people don't fear an empty hand. Because I was known for holding back, for always having something ready, I was able to win games even when I had a big hand full of nothing. They'd hold back in fear of what they were scared was in my hand; all it took from me was, "Are you sure you want to do that?" That's the same kind of feeling you want your readers to have. You want them to have that tension over what might be coming, even if what's coming isn't really that bad. It's the tension that keeps the reader going, and it's the release of tension, the relief or the horror, that gives the reader enjoyment.

Contrary to the evidence I've given (with the Kird Ape deck), my favorite types of decks were the ones that were slow builds and allowed me to control the game.  As a writer, I want to control the game in the same way. Keep the player going just enough to allow them to think he had a chance and, then, slam! killing blow! I mean, keep the reader going... yeah, that's what I meant.

And some cards:

The deck I built around this card was so powerful that people forfeited to me (in tournaments) rather than play against it. I even won one because my final opponent refused to play against the deck. It was another of those decks that I made because the card was considered useless, and it's one of my favorite decks ever. I was actually banned from playing it, because so many people refused to play against it.

Land destruction was always one of my favorite deck types.

As were decks designed to do away with my opponent's library.

How To Win at Magic: Part 2b: Collecting the Deck

As I mentioned, when we first started playing Magic, we didn't have a lot of cards. My one friend brought back, basically, a handful of cards from his trip to California, and we all ooh'd and ah'd over them, mostly for the art. We didn't even really know for sure how to play, because he didn't have a rule book, and he didn't even have enough cards to make more than one semi-serviceable deck. The first order for cards that we made was slightly conservative, because we hadn't played yet and didn't know what it would be like. When we got that first order, many of us (me) didn't even get enough basic land cards to be able to choose what color we were going to play. We had to play based on the land we had. You can't make a blue deck if you only have 4 islands, you know? Sure you do.

In some ways, those early games were the most fun. We had a limited card pool to draw on, everything was new and exciting, and there was a lot of sharing of ideas and card trading and all sorts of things so that people could try to get enough of whatever color they wanted to play in order to make a deck.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, from the point of view of walking into a tournament, those decks sucked. Hard. It didn't really matter to us, though, because we were having fun, and, in all actuality, we were learning to really play the game because we had limited tools to play with and had to be innovative. In short, it was a good learning environment. And, well, tournaments weren't really a thing yet, anyway.

But we, all of us, continued playing and increasing the number of cards we had little by little. We increased our tools and we increased our skills and we got more competitive with what we were doing, which only lead to more card buying. There were two schools of thought about this ought to work:
1. You buy packs and you play with what you get. Trading with other players is okay, too.
2. You go out and buy the cards you want on an individual basis. You pay more per card, but you're assured of getting the care you want rather than buying 10, 20, or 50 packs without getting that one card you need.

I was (and am) more of type 1. I really don't like buying cards individually and would much rather buy packs to get the cards that I want. I ended with, well, everything I needed that way. Most of the time. That's how I built almost all of my collected sets.
We had a guy in our group, though, that was a type 2, and he started special ordering all sorts of individual cards through the mail. It wasn't very happy making for a lot of people in the group. Several of them (one of them being my cousin) really gave him a hard time about it.

There became a nickname for that kind of behavior: Mr. Suitcase. That was the general term given to anyone that bought up all the "most powerful" cards and carried them around with them. We had one of those guys at the comic shop. He'd come up from south Louisiana with a briefcase full of the "power 9" and other top cards. The thought, by a lot of these people, was that owning those cards and putting them in your deck insured that you would win. We'll talk more about that later.

But it was true... to an extent. Having better cards, increasing the tools you had at your disposal, allowed you to build a better deck. The more cards you have, the more options you have. The more options you have, the better your deck can be. Having a better deck is the first step to winning at Magic. I mean, before you can play, you have to build the deck, so building the best deck you can is the first step on that journey. I've known a lot of good players that couldn't build a deck that was worth spit, whether they had the cards for it or not.

Anyway, what I found kind of interesting about the whole "Mr. Suitcase" thing is that it was only applied to people that cherry picked their cards. I would have many more cards and, actually, sort of needed a suitcase for mine, because I'd buy boxes of cards all at once, but, since I was relying on the "luck of the draw," it was okay that I had that many cards. It always seemed a distinction without a difference to me, but, you know, oh well. I wasn't derided for it like Mr. South-Louisiana or the guy in my gaming group.

All of that aside, if you did tournament play, there would come a time when you ended up having to buy a card or two to make a deck ready for a tournament. Here is the very first card I bought all by itself:

It was another card I was known for. The limit for any individual card in a deck (other than basic land) is, generally, four, and I only had three of these guys and wanted a fourth for a big tournament and couldn't find anyone willing to trade one. I'd been making hard trades for the three I had, so, really, there just wasn't anyone left that had extras they wanted to trade, so I broke down and bought my fourth one. I won that tournament, too. Ironically, a few weeks later, after I'd gone to all of that effort to get four "Forks," the card became "restricted." A restricted card was limited to only one in a tournament deck. I still have those four Forks, though.

Writing is a lot like this process of collecting cards. You start out with a very limited tool set as a kid. As you grow, you add to your collection which allows for greater innovation in your writing. You can do more. There are two ways to increase the size of your writing tool kit:
1. Writing
2. Reading
I suggest both.

To be a good writer, you need to increase the size of your collection. That's all there is to it. You're not ever going to have anything worth reading (to a larger audience), if you don't go beyond, "See Spot run." That's a very limited collection, and you can forget making it in a tournament with a deck like that. If you see what I mean.

Here are a few other cards that were highly sought after in the early days:

This used to be the second highest priced card in Magic and certainly had a time when it was the most sought after. I think it's fallen a bit, but it's still in the top 10, I'm sure with prices in the $1000.00 range.

I always preferred this one, though. Better art and could go in any deck.

Speaking of going in any deck, the Sol Ring was a must. It was restricted, of course.

This was another card that was common in every deck. At the time, it was the most sought after card from  the Arabian Nights expansion. It's dropped to second place, these days, though, and is only worth $250.

The Nightmare... just because I like the art.

Allegory of the Miniatures (part 5)

That time back in Shreveport was the last time I spent any considerable amount of time painting for other people, although I have sold some figures here and there in the last many years. Most for way too cheap. For instance, I wish I hadn't sold this one, at least not at what I let it go for:

But that's not really the point.

Before I get to the point, here's the last army type group of miniatures I painted. I intended to sell them when I started out on them, but, by the time I was finished with them, I decided I wanted to keep them. It's a group of Eldar troops from Warhammer 40,000.

The main thing here is learning to know what you're good at and recognizing it as such. When you're good at something but go around denying it, it comes off as fake or lame. Either you are so insecure that you have no faith in yourself and refuse to believe other people when they compliment you or you're just playing at the denial to get people to pump you up with comments like, "no, you really are good." Neither option works to your benefit. People get tired of being around someone that refuses to believe in his/herself, and false modesty, eventually, becomes offensive and tiresome as well.

Saying, "I'm good at this," or, even, "I'm better than you at this," is not arrogant when it's demonstrably true; otherwise, it's just delusional. And it's not the same thing as going around acting as if you are the king of the world. Arrogance is saying "I'm better than you at this; therefore, I am better than you." I'm a better football player, so I am better. I'm president of the student council, so I am better. I make more money than you, so I am better. The value of a person is not dependent upon a skill.

Likewise, humility is not acting as if you're not as good as other people. Humility is lifting other people up. Helping to elevate them. Being willing to bend down and give someone a hand. It doesn't do anyone any good when you can see that someone needs help with something and, yet, you go around self-effacingly saying, "no, really, you're great!" to that person and not helping them. Humility is being willing to get down in the ditch in your best suit and pulling someone out of the mess they're in. Humility is saying being aware that having more money or more power or more fame does not make you more worthy of person-ness.

So, as I've said in the past, yes, it's important to know where your skills are lacking, important to know in what areas you need to ask for help, but it's equally important to know what you're good at so that you know when to offer a hand to someone else that could use some help.

I am not the best painter out there. Far from it. If you want to see some really great painting, look up the Golden Demon winners from the miniature contest that Games Workshop does every year. Those things are amazing, and I sometimes wish I had invested the time to get that good. However, I was the best painter in the group I hung out with and, probably in that corner of Louisiana. If there was anyone better he was sequestered in a basement somewhere not letting anyone see what he was doing. At that point, it doesn't really matter anyway.

I spent a lot of time painting with my friends and showing them different techniques, not hoarding my knowledge. Yeah, I spent time putting myself out of business, as it were. The guy who bought me all the paints used to come over and paint with me all the time. We'd get two miniatures of the same type, and I'd show him what I was doing while he tried to reproduce it. And my cousin... well, my cousin would come over and paint so that he could get me to "help" him on the detail stuff that he couldn't do. Yeah, it was his way to get out of paying me to paint for him, but, hey, it gave me someone to talk to when I'd otherwise have been sitting there alone.

As the title says, all of this is an allegory. When I talk about grammar and punctuation, it is no way meant to be about "being better than anyone." I am, however, better at grammar and punctuation. No, I don't know that about each and every one of you individually, but I do know that in a general sense I'm better at grammar and punctuation. So, if I talk about comma usage, it's not about me going off about being better; it's about me trying to give you the tools to also be better. Like sitting down and painting with you and showing you how to do a proper dry brush stroke. If I review a book and talk about repetitive use of the word "then," it's not about me saying that I'm a better writer or a better person; it's to point out that there is such a thing as overuse of that word. I'm sure I have my own word reliances of which I may not always be aware. Like suddenly.

Anyway... I hate the idea of explaining an analogy, but, after you work with kids long enough, you kind of learn to explain everything. Better to explain it than to leave it open to someone not getting the point. So, if you know what I was talking about this whole time, that was great. If you didn't, don't tell anyone. Just say, "oh, yeah, I knew you were talking about grammar all along" and let it go at that.

Which is not to say that the painting story wasn't true; it was. I also felt like talking about painting. One of these days I'll get back to it for a little while.