Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Your little hopes and dreams."
¤ Usage: "Poor fellow, his little hopes and dreams have all be smashed."
¤ Origin: Quipped by a whore, or pre-op transgender man, or a sociopath, or some other lowlife who was engaged in a vicious verbal battle with another lowlife guest on the Jerry Springer show
¤ Notes: While the Jerry Springer show is generally pretty lacking in opportunities for intellectual improvement, you do tend to hear some funny jokes, of the personal insult type.  This was one of the best.  One loser was arguing with another loser, and when one said something about how she'd loved her husband, whom the other lowlife had stolen away, lowlife #1 replied, "Bitch, I don't care about your little hopes and dreams!"

You'll find it applicable to almost every situation in life.  It's the "little" that really makes it work, since that just so perfectly and cruelly diminishes whatever claim to importance the other person might previously have had. -- February 20, 2004

fter an eventful weekend, the blog returns with... a bunch of stuff I wrote several days ago. Well, mostly, anyway.

On Saturday I asked for suggestions about what I should put into some sort of "new site visitor guide" since I figured you guys would have a better perspective on it than I do. A couple of people replied, both saying that basically things are fine as they are. They said the navigation was good enough and logical enough that people could find their way around to the articles and other things and that the daily blogs were the best introduction.  I guess that's good, that they think things are working fine now, but I'd hoped for some more concrete suggestions for changes. I think the daily blogs are a fine introduction, obviously, but they vary so much that someone might show up one day and see just a long review about some obscure film and think, "not for me." Or they might do the same on a day I'm going off about politics, or some social issue, or just posting a bunch of cat pictures.  I guess my point is that I don't want someone to make up their mind and pigeonhole my site on a quick glance, and I think an intro page (assuming anyone clicked to it on the nav bar, which is never a safe bet, no matter how large and obvious the link is made) that listed the various types of stuff here might help prevent that from happening.

You might ask how likely I thought that was, and why I'd want someone for a reader if they read one thing and judged me permanently on it anyway?  Good question.

Anyway, I'll quote some of the mails on that issue in the future, and do or not do a First Time Visitor page, or not.  I've not decided if there's any point in it. I'm sure it would help if I actually updated the 2 year old site design and site mission and other such pages too, since they've got to have way out of date stuff on them by now.  Or so I'd guess, not having read any of them in two years.

Down below you'll find the February mailbag, or at least most of it.  I finished it up Sunday afternoon, and since there's about 2 blogs worth of material there, packed into just 3 emails and my replies, and I didn't have any other large things written for the blog today, I figured I'd just paste it over and that would be that. Hey, feel free to demand your refund if you're displeased.

I'll be doing some more reviews in the days to come, since we hit the library on Saturday and picked up some stuff.  I checked out and read the first Harry Potter book yesterday evening (it's a very fast read) and I also picked up the Tony Hillerman mystery, Hunting Badger.  My dad has been a big fan of his for years and owns all of his books (largely due to me and various B-day/Xmas presents) and while I'm not a big fan of mysteries or the American West where they're set, I figured I might as well give it a try. It's library-itis; everything is free, so you figure what the hell. 

Speaking of "what the hell," I also grabbed Terry Brooks' Elfstones of Shannara.  It's the second book in his ever-expanding fantasy series, and since I want to read a book or two in every popular fantasy series at some point, it's homework. I'd never read any of his work in my life, though I used to see kids carrying the various Shannara paperbacks around constantly in junior high, until I picked up the first book at the La Mesa library a couple of years ago. I wasn't blogging at the time, or didn't think it was worth a blog entry, but I did discuss it some in an email about writing and fantasy, which I quoted on the October 2002 Mailbag (scroll down to the 25th, near the bottom of the page). To quote myself quoting myself:

The Elfstones of Shannara (or whatever the series is called) by Terry Brooks is very popular, and up to at least 10 or 12 books now. I read the first one earlier this year, and found it just terrible. Not so horrible, but such a Tolkien-light, with elements of every other fantasy series mixed in. Young male clueless orphan boy somehow ends up in the middle of this huge adventure (and he's inevitably the one of some ancient prophecy), there's a Gandalf-like mysterious wizard, lots of evil ravening beasts, a stout friend, they set off on a quest pursued by strange black demons, get lost in some long long walk through an evil forest, etc. I'm not even sure I finished it, every element was so familiar and less well done than LotR that I was sort of disgusted. I don't think I even bothered to mention it on the site, it was so unremarkable.

Yet that book was very popular, lead to a trilogy, and has been expanded in a dozen or so other novels in the same world. The point being nothing original, and in fact almost everything very derivative, but still hugely popular (maybe it gets better after the first book).

I honestly don't remember much more than that at this point, and I hardly remembered it then, shortly after having read it. It's really an unremarkable book; almost like a LotR-cover or remix, to use musical terms.  Quite a few of the 1-star reader reviews on Amazon cover this in far greater detail than I could, having forgotten most of Swords by now.  To quote from one of the many 1-star, voted highly helpful reviews:

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

A little less than mildly entertaining, August 12, 2002

First of all, how in the world did Brooks get away with writing this so called classic?! It was almost exactly like Tolkien's masterpiece The Lord of the Rings. It ripped off everything from the valemen, being timid and weak, like the Hobbits, The tall mystical gaurdian Allanon, a character almost exactly like Gandalf. The skull bearers, unusually synonomous to the Nazgul. And Hendel the battle-hardened dwarf, exactly like Gimli. Also Balinor, not quite king of the border town Calahorn, oh yeah, he was also an experienced fighter and ranger/scout, kind of like Aragorn. There are so many other things, so let me list all of them for you. The mist monster, like the water guardian to the mines of Moria, the Elven archers curiously resemble Legolas, The Warlock Lord, kind of like Sauron, The Skull Kingdom being like Mordor, Shady Vale, almost exactly like The Shire, I'm sure I missed some, but you get the point. Don't waste your money on this LOTR clone, instead, go out and buy the real deal.

Besides the cheesy plot, the writing was very mediocre and run of the mill.  Brooks was a lawyer who turned to writing and only took it up full time when this mediocre novel inexplicably became a huge national best seller. However, we all have to start off somewhere. Some good writers might even have gotten their first online popularity doing something cheesy like say, fan fiction? *cough*

Anyway, he was born in 1944 and got the first Shannara book published in 1977, so figure he was in his early 30's when he wrote it.  Okay, I'm getting sick of the parallels now.

Anyway part 2, the first book is very amateurish, both in the plotting and the writing, almost to the point where you're left to wonder how it got published.  Seriously, if Tolkien weren't long dead there might have been a lawsuit over the plot of the first Shannara book.

Brooks apparently learned quickly though, since the complaints about his ripping off Tolkien ended after the first novel.  I'm only 30 or 40 pages into the 2nd one, and it's far better than anything in the first novel.  The writing is still very amateurish, but it's not as boring or full of long slow lulls as the first book was, and the plot, at least, is totally unlike Tolkien.  It's not a great plot, and it all seems pretty familiar, but since he wrote the book in 1982 it's entirely possible that most of the rip offs that have osmosis'ed into my brain and are now fueling my "this isn't original" opinion of the book have been created in the last two decades, and are actually ripping off Brooks.  I don't especially like that the entire plot has been made very clear by page 30, since I really have no doubt what's going to happen, and how it's going to turn out, and I didn't even read the back cover info.

I suppose you could argue that he's just done a good job setting things up early, but for me it's sort of lame when I know everything in advance. The sacred tree is dying, it must be reborn in a "destroy the ring" style fashion (dipping a seed into a volcano), the "chosen one" has to do this, she's obviously the female tree keeper who was sent away, the king's under-appreciated 2nd son is going to be the hero who conveys her along since his snotty older brother just left town, and they're going to spend the whole book just inches ahead of the evil triumvirate of demons who want the tree to die before saving the land miraculously, falling in love in the process, and probably becoming king and queen after the older brother does something stupid and dies heroically.

I could be wrong on some of these points, but they all seem very clear, to the point of being telegraphed, and I'll be surprised if there are any big plot twists or any evidence of dynamic characters.  There certainly weren't in the first Shannara novel.

Despite the above, it might actually be a good book.  I'm not planning on reading any more of them, though I might skip to a more recent one after I read (or give up on) this 2nd one just to see if he's gotten better as a writer, but I'm reading them much more for research and comparative purposes than to get enjoyment from the process.

Harry Potter wasn't much different than that, as it turned out, with one key difference.  I want to read the second one to see more of it and how things progress.  I'll talk more about HP1 tomorrow, since I have a couple of emails from people giving their opinions on the book, and I want to work in their quotes with my own thoughts.

Oh, and we also got a VHS tape at the library, Kevin Smith's Dogma, which I'm watching with Malaya and mildly enjoying thus far. It's had a few good laughs and I like the premise, though for my non-religious and non-Catholic-educated ears, much of it's sort of, "Oh yeah, I heard of that at one point." while Malaya, who was raised Catholic, finds it a lot more familiar. Whether or not she enjoys it more has yet to be determined, since we're only halfway through it.  We'll probably finish it up Monday and I'll do a quick review at some point.  Or not.

Here's a couple of recent Jinxie photos, just to fill out the page with some visual splendor. Or what passes for it around here.

We never use our dining room table for anything other than stacking things on pending them being put away properly somewhere else, and fruit bowl storage. The cats sit on it regularly, mostly to watch us making food in the kitchen, food that's not for them, no matter how much they wish it were.  However they don't usually lie on it to quite the extent that Jinxie is displaying here.

She's recently discovered the subtle joys of sprawling, and can be found, day or night, inside or out, carpet or linoleum, sprawled out on one side, legs pointing four different directions, head down, eyes half open and sleepy.  That's not the pose she's in here, but you can be sure she's on her way to a sprawl. She always is.

Dusty, conversely, hasn't sprawled in months.  He saves it for especially hot days, and a cool surface, such as the concrete of the back patio. Jinxie either likes the posture more, or is hotter with her longer fur, or is more comfortable in a sprawl without a fat belly to weigh her down. Whatever the reason, I wish she'd get over it, since she's very cute when she curls up, either on her feet or on her side, but she's just lazy-looking in a sprawl.  It's the White Trash of cat resting positions.

 

Actually, we got it at Target, and it's an outdoor camping table. It's actually pretty cool; it folds up like an umbrella, stands about knee high, and has two mesh cup holders that work very well.  All that for $5.99.  We wanted to get a TV tray, those folding wooden things that you put in front of a couch or recliner and place food on. However Target only had two types of those, and both came in a set of four, and they cost $30 and $40, respectively. That's three more TV trays than we wanted, and anyway, our couch loveseat is low, as is the purple chair that the cats have pretty well staked their claim on.  We often eat using the hassock for a table, or at least a place to stick our plates while I sit on the couch and Malaya curls up on the carpet, but lately we've been thinking how more plate room wouldn't hurt. Hence the table.

And as I said, we were after the TV tray, but didn't want a set of 4, and didn't want to pay that much, so we eventually wandered to the camping section, and there it was. Works nicely too.  Of course we didn't have it open more than 2 minutes before both cats were sniffing furiously at it, and less than three minutes later Jinxie was on it. Sprawling, no less.

However, given that I was almost 9 months behind on mailbags, there's no telling when/if I'd have ever gotten through all of those and up to February 2004, so if not for the mail crash, this page would quite possibly never have existed. Ahh, the joys of mixed blessings.

Mails are arranged in chronological order, with the earliest on top.

Date: February 23, 2004
From: Anonymous
Subject: 

in case you don't read boingboing:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004772.html

This curious mail came in from an anonymous reader, with no subject or any more text than you see quoted here. Despite that suspect pedigree, the link goes to an excellent blog post about how an aspiring writer (like say, me) should go about trying to obtain an agent, and if said writer needs one at all.  

The whole thing is full of good information, I appreciate the info, and I found the six points of bad agents amusing enough to quote here:

Scam agents are legion. The wiliest ones are constantly refining their approach, and the merely sneaky ones steal riffs from them, so I won’t even try to describe their current cabana acts. For that, see Writer Beware and the Preditors & Editors mirrored sites. Meanwhile, observe the following rules:

1. Never pay them. The real ones make their money by collecting a percentage of what the publisher pays you, and they collect it after the publisher pays it out.

2. Ask to see their client list. If for any reason they refuse to show it to you, run away. If you don’t recognize their authors, be suspicious. If their authors turn out to be published by vanity or subsidy outfits, run away even faster.

3. If they try to refer you to a book doctor or freelance editor, start edging away. If they tell you that “No publisher will look at your book unless it’s been professionally edited,” see earlier remarks regarding fast getaways. (Note: It’s okay for them to do some editing—it’s a normal, if not an invariable practice—as long as they don’t charge anything and it’s a competent edit.)

4. If they try to place your book via a deal that has you paying anything (that includes PublishAmerica’s deal), vide supra.

5. The internet may have given scam agents a vast new playground for their operations, but Google is on your side, not theirs. Use it.

6. In a pinch, Victoria Strauss and Yog Sysop (a.k.a. Jim Macdonald) will always give you the straight dope. If they’re not available, ask at The Rumor Mill, specifically the “Caveat Scrivener” section. They may not know the answers right off, and you sometimes get scammers posting bad information there, but the board has a good track record for collectively muddling through to the truth.

_________________

Date: February 24, 2004
From: Kim
Subject: Your blog -- on being sick

Hiya

Just thought I'd suggest the remote possibility that your more frequent cold or cold-like symptoms might actually be due to some allergy. Something in the area, or in the home, or in a new food that you've tried since being up here. Particularly if you don't have frequent close exposure to the allergen (ie, a food, seasonal pollen, or clothing material) allergies can produce symptoms that can be mistaken for a cold. Unfortunately, many allergies are very hard to pinpoint. I believe lots of people walk around with unknown allergies and think they are 'just prone to colds'.

But it is more likely that it's the stuff you said in your blog. Just more exposure to people in closed environments, plus spousal exposure and 'bad luck' etc. I've come down with half of the colds in my life after being in a crowded movie theater - or it least it feels that way. Theaters are like giant incubators, especially since most of them seem to have lousy ventilation systems.

I suppose your immune system could be adjusting to the colder/wetter weather up here, as well. Some people claim that they always get sick after a drastic change in weather environment......but I don't know if that's just a psychological effect or if there's anything really to it. At any rate, hope you feel better in time for your trip. Being sick in the snow really sucks. :) Tahoe is a really beautiful area, summer and winter - although it's pretty touristy unless you go off the beaten path. 

...

One last thing - I don't know if you addressed this in a blog somewhere, but I'm making a casual request for an 'Authors Note' type of thing at the end of your books. Kind of like Piers Anthony did with his 'Incarnations of Immortality' series (his very long Notes were often better than the novels). With your blogging experience, you'd probably write great Notes. And when you're busy with your serious writing career and have no more time for a regular blog, the Notes could be a kind of replacement.......well, heh, I don't know, maybe you're against such things, but I've always enjoyed authors who did it.

Kim mails me every few weeks, almost always with a lot of good stuff to say.  This one is no exception. I kept meaning to quote this one on the blog and comment on things, but since I never got around to it and it's been 4 weeks, commenting on it here is better than nothing.

Re: colds. When I got sick for the 3rd or 4th time in about 5 months, I posted about it and how annoyed by it I was, since I'd been sick 3 or 4 times in about the last 8 years before I moved up here.  Obvious changes included a new living environment, more frequent excursions and consequently more interactions with other dirty people, cohabitation with someone who has a real job and brings home new germs all the time, cats in the house, and a much colder and more humid environment. It could be any of those things, it could be all of those things, it could be bad luck and none of those things. I'll have to see how I do in the summer and fall, when it's drier here.

It's not just allergies; I've had those frequently for my entire life, though they're much less common (as are were colds) since about 1990, when I stopped eating beef and cut back my other meat and dairy consumption greatly. Like most people, I am lactose intolerant, and while some cheese or occasional ice cream is fine, too much stimulates my body to produce excess mucus, and that equals sneezing, running nose, hacking, etc.  My point is that once I cleaned up my diet, mostly by purging dairy and beef, I stopped getting sick. And even my recent run is a far cry from the old days, when I'd get a cough that inevitably turned into bronchitis every year, usually around Thanksgiving, with sometimes a second bout in the early spring.

The colds I've gotten since I've been living with Malaya have been minor things, more on the lines of 3 or 4 days of feeling shitty, with some degree of sore throat and dry cough.  Too sick to have much energy or go out and exercise, but nothing that would send me to the doctor (if I had a doctor to be sent to or medical insurance to allow me to afford the visit) and in all cases I got over it in less than a week, with no more medicine than taking more vitamin C and echinecia/goldenseal tables.  Yet while far short of life-threatening, it was still annoying, more so each time, and I'd be happy to never again feel that way.

And I have no more idea why I got sick several times in several months, other than to suspect some combination of more exposure to other people's germs, a different climate, and bad luck.

Re: author's notes.  I have always liked those, with my main experience with them coming from various Stephen King novels, and while I've never found his non-fiction (including author's notes) to be very compelling, I do enjoy hearing him (and other authors) talk about his work.  Especially when it's work I've just finished reading and enjoyed. How they got the idea, what resonance it has for them, where the ideas and twists in it came from, etc.

Motivated by Kim's mention of Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series mention, I thumbed through a few of those in the used book store, and was amazed at the size of his notes. I count myself a fan of his Xanth and Apprentice Adept series, or at least I was until they jumped the shark (around book 9 in Xanth, and after the initial trilogy in Adept), but I've never read anything in the Incarnations series. I should also note that I haven't read any of Xanth or Adept since I was about 20, and I mostly enjoyed them in my junior high years, so I can't say how they'll appeal to an adult reader.  Anthony had no author notes in those, or if he did they were so brief or unimpressive that I retain no memory of them.

On the other hand, the last 30 or 40 pages of each Incarnations of Immortality book are taken up by his lengthy, semi-autobiographical ramblings, which eventually get around to relating to something in the book itself.  Or at least so I'm guessing, since I only skimmed the first 10 pages of the note in two books and found them both quickly tiresome as he talked about where he'd lived, how his kids were educated, and other things that had no connection to the novel at all, at least to my skimming eye.  And I'm only assuming that he eventually tied it all in, and that they're good, since Kim says so in her email.

As for my work, as you've likely noticed by now, I do like to talk about things, especially my work, so there's no way I won't be writing, at length, about my writing. The main sticking point I anticipate is my publisher/editor, and whether or not they'd allow me to include brief or extensive author's notes and comments in the book.  If they don't, I'll be putting them on this or whatever my future website is.  I anticipate continuing to write non-fiction stuff on the Internet, about my work or other topics, and I'd like to reply to fan mails on the site (much as I do now, figuring it's better to reply to a good question where everyone can see it, rather than getting that question from 50 different people).  And I don't mean only positive ones when I say "fan mail" since what's the fun in that?  As you've probably noticed, I take great glee in posting and/or replying to flames and weird mails, and the biggest problem would probably be limiting myself to troll-baiting no more than 1/3 or 1/4 of the time, while answering real mails with real questions the other 2/3 or 3/4 of the time.

That will require a great increase in freaky mails, since my mail now is no more than 1 or 2% troll/flame stuff, but I'm confident that with greater celebrity, or at least notoriety, the percentage would increase dramatically.  This is a good thing for the readers too, since weird emails from disturbed people, and my replies to them, make for far more interesting reading than a big long list of "Wow your stroy'z roxors, dood!" quotes.

So yes, I'll have author notes, either in the books or on a website, and they'll probably be far, far more extensive than anyone but the most devoted reader wants to wade through.

_________________

Date: February 25, 2004
From: C
Subject: Beatles, Kurosawa, and the rip offs

I mostly agree with your Malaya in this regard. Just because something was the first, it is not necessarily good. However:
The Beatles is good. The Beatles is good since I grew up listening to them. That is, before I turned 8 or so, my mum used to listen to them all the time. And yes, this was a communist country back then, thanks. To them (my parents), that crap meant more than to most of the intended audience (if we disregard the fact that the intened audience was probably the entire human population). And let me tell you, growing up with something from the cradle just REALLY stays with you, maybe for the rest of your life (as I am slowly turning 26 I am in no position to judge how long it will last, but we'll see). All right, I do not ever play them (even though I have most of their albums), and had not done so since I was 12. But I still like them in the bone.

And mind you, for the same reason is Boney-M good, and that is a lot scarier concept.

But that is not what I wanted to talk about. My (intended) point is, that the Beatles were the first boy band ever. Ok, their music is really not that spectacular, but if you compare them to todays pop, they were at least the first. I realize that for those (like my sister, the poor misguided soul) who actually LIKE the genre this is not much of a reason to listen to them, the rest of the world (the other 5% of the western culture, that is) can use this reasoning to not actually hate them. The point is, that I would refine the Mayala-theorem, so that it only works for those who actually enjoy the genre, but are not fanatical fans.

Ok, some examples. The seven samurai. I love action movies, but am not a crazed movie-fan. To me it is utter unwatchable crap. To my dad, it is ok, since he really hates all action movies, and it was the thing that started the whole mess. And I got a Film major friend, who adores action movies. She loves the seven samurai as well, for it's historic value.

The same applies to The Beatles. I like them (mostly) since I hate the whole genre (the crap they play actually give me a headache), and if I have to pick the one band in the genre then it is still the beatles. Then again, suppose someone would like to listen to slimy dripping crap, they would probably point out that there is better slimey dripping crap out there since the Beatles. --- However, this is obviously disorted view, since thrugh the promotion of the record industry sane judgement is clearly clouded. They brainwash us with so much cr@p that we end up liking stuff we hate. (My favorite quote is that "I am glad that I hate spinach since if I did not hate it I would eat it although I hate the wretched stuff".) I am glad I got no TV or radio, this way I can go on loving Clawfingers without ever starting to dislike Eminem, thank God.

Tragically enough, this email is the only surviving remnant of the February 24, 2004 blog, which I overwrote with the next day's and uploaded over on the server, and thus lost forever.  Generally Google or AlltheWeb.com will come to the rescue in this instance, since what I wanted was displayed online for a full day before I overwrote it, but there's been no luck in recovering it yet, possibly since I didn't notice the problem for several days afterwards and no one still had it in their cache.

My blog was devoted largely to expounding on a theory of Malaya's, one that I initially resisted but have since come to largely agree with.  The theory is that just because something was the first or the originator of something doesn't make it worth embracing or enjoying in later years, other than on it's own merits. She's not saying that everything old is shit, since lots of old stuff still holds up well. But she is saying that just because something was the first to do something, and it's since been copied and recopied, doesn't mean that people discovering it today have any reason to like it.

I threw out several examples of this theory, including I Love Lucy (the first sitcom, innovator of several techniques that define modern TV, but unfunny and boring to modern tastes), and Kurasawa's alleged masterpiece The Seven Samurai (painfully boring and pointless to modern tastes). I also mentioned the Beatles, and used them to segue into another issue, my longstanding observation that people maintain an unhealthy fixation and attachment to whatever crap they liked best when they were kids. 

In a nutshell, The Beatles were a glorified boy band that remains in the public consciousness due to the timeless nature of light pop, but mostly since the hordes of Boomers who grew up with the Beatles and still hold them up as the best band ever. And those Boomers are the ones writing entertainment magazines, music reviews, news articles, etc.  My point is that virtually everyone has a life long affection for whatever music they liked best as a teenager, almost regardless of the quality of it. That's why there's always a revival of some retro style 20 years later, when the people who loved it when they were 15 are now 35 and bored with whatever crap the 15 year olds like today, and are pining for the crap they liked when they were 15.

These theories were presented in greater detail and with more examples in the initial update, which makes it all the sadder that I ate it, and that the Internet refuses to spit it back up.

And as far as C's mail here... he basically seems to be agreeing with me on all points.

So moving on then...

_________________

Date: February 25, 2004
From: Jason
Subject: Re: screwed up kid I was sort of friends with

You angrily wrote:

>> He was pretty much unchanged, still way taller than
>> average and very skinny, but now he was covered in
>> zits and was pretty much a confirmed loser. 

Such a loser that there's no way in hell he'd ever find your website just over a month after you wrote that and respond to it either. 

Goddamn, I had no idea that you hated me so much. I thought you just weren't a very social person. Video games, skateboarding, incredible sarcasm, angst...

Funny thing was I found your site and was skimming through the archives from the last few months seeing what you were up to as it was interesting and I agree with you on most of what you write about. I got to the 1/10/04 read about Ken and Johnny and thought "I wonder if one of those is me and he's changing the names?" Nope. One dose of harsh reality coming right up.

My early childhood was as you surmised pretty fucked up. I accepted the way things were and never knew any other reality. I knew it wasn't normal, but it wasn't all as bad as you detailed and I didn't think it was anything I was going to change so I made the best of it that I could. I wish someone in the professional therapy field would have talked to me as a kid.

I can't explain how much it hurts me to have read what you wrote so verbosely of that loser you knew as a kid. A sort of 'kicked in the stomach' hurt. As we all do, I've grown and changed quite a bit since then. My mom died of Cancer a few years after high school, so there'll be no further polluting of my gene pool from that source. You'll probably take a small delight in knowing that. One more mental box you can check off.

A few minor corrections / updates to get of my chest after being chronicled:

- My dad was the racist supreme not my mom. I got it from him. Took me a few years to develop my own opinions on that and realize how fucked up I, he, and racism was.

- I never thought my mom was quite a psycho. She was never physically abusive, didn't yell at us, never unreasonably punished us. I didn't know what 'normal' was, I just knew that she was different. I've never given much thought to the mental abuse, as I was just glad to get out of there when of age.

She was a single mom trying to get by and pay a mortgage and feed two kids on very little money and no child support or court-mandated alimony. I think she was paranoid and in the way she handled life and angry about her path in life not going where she wanted it to (divorce/deadbeat ex-husband/near poverty). This doesn't excuse what happened, but helps me understand some of why she did it.

As for the house key, she was incredibly anal and said that she didn't want me home alone during the day out of fear that I'd forget to lock the door and the house would get broken into, or that being hungry constantly I'd eventually eat all of our food. Not rational fears by any means. She had other reasons, but those were the two that she used most. 

I don't recall ever spray painting swastikas on anything, as I can't think where I'd ever get spray paint. I can see how you'd think I was pretty horrible based on this memory though. 

You say that you dropped me in 8th grade, but I remember being in somewhat the same circle later than that (11th/12th grade?) when I would hang around with Bill _______, and occasionally Ken _________ and Steve _________ (who were more your friends anyway) and skateboard. I remember being in awe of your skill at video games at Pizza Hut as I didn't have the money to play myself. 

My point being: I'm sorry now that I kept trying to hang around / skateboard with you/steve/ken/bill at the time knowing now how you felt about me and what a loser I was. I wish you would have said something at the time. Might have seemed mean, but would have saved you the future annoyance.

As for basketball, I never liked the sport, and never took an interest in playing it. Largely because everyone would always see how tall I was and ask if I played. I wasn't as clumsy and unathletic as you perceived. I just never cared much for the mainstream sports (basketball/baseball/football/soccer). I have no memory of who the girl was that you refer to. I didn't date anyone until I was 18. 

That's about all I can manage right now, but you make an interesting point about fucked up parents leading to fucked up kids. Growing up in that environment, there were many things that weren't right, but at the same time I can cut her some slack because of many kind generous things that she did as I got older. The bad never erases the good, but it dilutes the "fucked up" generalization from my perspective.

On a different note, I don't know if you remember or not, but when I first knew you and you had that cast on your teeth (yes, that was me also) I recall we were wrestling at some point and I really whacked your upper teeth/cast thing with my knee on accident. You were howling in pain and I felt so bad/scared about doing it that I just snuck out and went home instead of staying to see if you were alright. I don't think I saw you again for a few years, but I'm terribly sorry to cause you such pain at the time and then not even stick around to apologize. 

Good luck with your book, shame for me that you weren't working more on the book on the 10th and less on your blog.

Well, this is an intense one, isn't it?  He's responding to this article, about the Your Childhood Friend's Weird Parents, which I posted on the blog as well when I expanded greatly on the initial version of it. And yes, he's the Jason mentioned in it. And no, I never thought I'd hear from him again. Small Internet.

His email here is slightly edited, but only to delete a few overly-personal parts for Jason's sake, and the names of other kids he mentioned for their sake, but yes he got the names right and yes this is almost certainly the same guy.  Who I hadn't seen in what, 20 years?  And who found my website, somehow, just in time to read this long post about him.  Creepier.

I have no idea how he found the site, but perhaps it's an incredible coincidence and he's just an innocent D2 fan who wandered here from there, or even weirder, maybe he just happened upon my site after some totally random and accidental Google search.  Though I suspect it's more likely that he was Googling childhood acquaintances, tried my name along with some other variable like "San Diego" and wound up here and realized that yes, I was that equally screwed up kid he was sort of friends with back in San Diego in the 80's.

You've got to give him credit, since he was as much, or even more screwed up back in the 5th grade than I describe him being in the article, and to read his email now, he's pretty much overcome his basically awful childhood and seems to be a relatively healthy productive adult.  More so than me, certainly.

His main misconception is in my feelings.

I don't hate him now, and I didn't then. The writing on the childhood friends article page might sound angry, but I didn't do it to vent or hurt anyone.  I was just trying to describe the events objectively and dispassionately, while putting in enough detail (though I'm sure some of it is misremembered) that the reader could understand and get into it. I didn't do it to get even with anyone or hurt them, and I honestly didn't consider that anyone mentioned on the page would ever read it or hear about it.  I certainly didn't put in last names or anything like that, since that would have given it a better chance of being spread around. And it's in no way a comprehensive listing of weirdness from my childhood. It's just a bunch of weird vignettes that I found interesting to remember and write about.

I can't explain how much it hurts me to have read what you wrote so verbosely of that loser you knew as a kid. A sort of 'kicked in the stomach' hurt. As we all do, I've grown and changed quite a bit since then. My mom died of Cancer a few years after high school, so there'll be no further polluting of my gene pool from that source. You'll probably take a small delight in knowing that. One more mental box you can check off.

As for this quote, I feel bad about it, and want to explain to him. I never intended him to read about it, or give him a reminder of how awful his life was back then. I'm glad I never kept a journal of my childhood, and I'm glad no one who knew me well has written about it, since they would elaborate numerous things I was hurt by and felt miserable about, and that is not something I want to read.  I'd certainly have told Jason not to read it, if I'd known he was looking at it.  It's all true, or at least true to my memories, but that doesn't mean I wanted to dredge up all that misery for him (or anyone) at this point. I certainly take no pleasure in his mom being dead.

Looking at his mail, I realize that the thing most missing from that article page is understanding and evaluation. I spent a lot of time detailing weird happenings and describing them, stuff that's funny if it's not you, and I did it in a slick, quick, and cruel way.  Kids don't see into causes, and I just remembered the weird and somewhat mean stuff Jason's mom did to me (and him, and others) and thought she was weird for doing it.  It never occurred to me at the time that she was a very hurt, wounded individual who was just trying to do her own thing and raise her kids as best she could with limited resources. (Which is an accurate description of most adults on earth, even the poor, young, black, welfare-collecting ones who turn out easily media-demonized criminals.) As an adult I realize those things, and have read enough about psychology and human behavior to get into her head to some extent.  And while it's not really in the snarky, take no prisoners style of my usual blog writing, when discussing events of such psychological importance (if only to the principles or others who closely empathize with them) I should be a bit more sensitive, and at least put in some "but they couldn't help it" type remarks after the dissection.

I can't not write it, not while remaining honest to myself and my readers, but I could at least blunt the blow by putting in some more evaluation and objective conclusions. And at least doing that would let Jason know I didn't hate him and didn't hate his mother, and thought I was just relating a bunch of weird events that took place when I was a kid and doing some light psychological insight'ing into the causes and results of those events.

As for now, I have almost no feelings one way or the other for/about Jason, or virtually anyone else I knew when I was in 5th or 6th or 8th or 12th grade.  I know exactly one person I knew in high school, and he's a friend who I last saw in person at his wedding, like 7 years ago, but who I traded letters with constantly during the college years and who I still talk to once in a while online.

I was pretty unhappy during much/most of my childhood, though I did have some friends in high school and wasn't miserable then.  Just bored and disinterested in school and much of life itself.  My method of overcoming childhood traumas has been mostly to forget them, and Jason mentioned several things in his email that I had no memory of at all.  The "banged me with his knee" thing for one, which I have no memory of.

I suppose I could hate him if I wanted to, since I recall some really mean stuff he did to me, though I probably did much the same in return.  One time he slapped a sticker into my long (at the time) hair just as a joke, and I took me an hour and much pain and lost hair to remove it. I also remember one time in my mom's kitchen when we were in 5th grade that I had a bad sunburn on my back, was bending over to pick something up, and he dropped one of the cats on my back, where claws and sliding and pain resulted.

On the other hand, I do believe that the swastika painting incident (Which I don't believe was meant by the painter as a racist attack.  It was more of a "What can I put here to upset people?" angry teen thing, rather than any sort of racist attack or way to single out anyone Jewish) was not him, and was another kid I knew around the same time named Shane. As I said, my childhood memories are pretty faded, and I'm sure I combined some events and merged some identities.

I am pretty sure that another time, Jason and another friend of mine, Ken, had a bunch of large pieces of self-sticking white plastic, and wrote a big diatribe about how "Niggers" shouldn't be in some area, and went and stuck it up on top of a "no littering" sign on one of the canyon "greenway" walkthrough paths on a short cut on the way to Ken's house.  That again, while clearly "racism" wasn't meant as such.  I took no part in the sign or posting it, but I didn't stop them from doing it either, and I watched while it was done, while hoping no one would see it or be offended by it.  I think Ken was just like Jason in that regard, a boy with a racist idiot as a father (though Ken's dad never seemed bad when I talked to him or saw him in later years at the stadium where I used to work.), or who just heard racist stuff and wanted to do something to offend people.  I'm quite sure neither of them ever did anything more serious, never attacked a black person, etc, at least not in the years I knew them.

And thinking about that also proves another point of Jason's that I got wrong, since I didn't know Ken until 8th and 9th grade and he was about my best friend through 9-11th grade or so. So Jason must have been around some in that time, after I mostly hung out with him in 5th grade, since after that I was living with my dad in Texas for a couple of years.  His email points out how the friendship ended in the 5th grade era (He whacked me with his knee wrestling, crept home, and I must have been pissed and never seen him again until I left for 2 years in Texas with dad.)  I have no idea how the friendship or acquaintance with Jason ended in the 8th-10th grade era, but I must have only seen him occasionally then, and almost not at all afterwards, since we never had any classes together in high school. There was that time he was shooting baskets with some girl, that he doesn't remember at all, but I was just riding my skateboard by and we might have nodded, at best.  I remember it since I was so surprised (and somewhat jealous) to see him with a girl, since I had him pegged as a guy who would never date until after high school. And he confirms that much in his mail, at least.

The other thing to keep in mind is that I was just as big, if not a bigger, fuck up than he was then.  I didn't write that article, and I'm not writing this to make myself seem better or smarter or make others seem bad.  I'm just relating events that, in retrospect, seem pretty weird and amusing.  I have almost no emotion about them, or much of anything in my youth, and I'm pretty sure that's not normal.  For example, I remember a lot of events when I was very unhappy, and a few other times (okay, like 2) when I was happy, but none of those emotions seem to remain now. I can think of some guys who I wanted to kill in high school, people who picked on me or something like that, but I have no emotion about them now. And I remember a couple of girls I had a huge crush on, but I don't think back about them fondly or want to meet them and fuck them now to prove I wasn't a loser retroactively. I basically have no emotions or feelings about much of anything from the time I was 8-18 or so, and in my memories I remember how I felt about things then, but I don't feel anything now.  I'm perfectly happy with that, since I'd mostly feel bad about stuff, but I don't really think about it, and it's not like I'm consciously repressing bad feelings; I just don't really care. Stuff happened, way long ago, and oh well, it's in the past now.  I don't want revenge or justice or to make amends about anything from them.  I'd probably get some small measure of satisfaction hearing that Louie Cruz, a total juvenile delinquent who stole my skateboard and tried to get into fights with me numerous times in 8-9th grade, was dying of AIDS in federal prison, but I'm not going to go search all over the Internet to try and find out what he's doing, and if I found out that he was a rich bodyguard/hanger-on to some rap star, I wouldn't be consumed with a desire to bring him down in life.

Movies where someone gets to adulthood and is still obsessed over some girl they knew when they were 11, or a guy who beat them up when they were 9 always seem absurd to me.  I'm like, "Kids do stupid stuff all the time, and forget it in a month. Who cares now?"

As for me in junior high and high school, I outwardly I looked a lot more normal, and was smart and athletic and not burdened parents as weird as Jason's, but I hardly dated at all in high school, primarily due to a lack of effort, and I didn't go to college right afterwards or make anything of myself (still working on that part). And mostly, just because I write about the weird stuff other people I knew were doing when I was a kid, don't for a minute think I'm castigating them or looking down on them or saying I was better.  I was probably a lot worse, at least in terms of personal happiness.

And since the concluding theory of that article page is that the weird behavior of kids is primarily due to their weird parents screwing up their fragile little minds, what does that say about my upbringing?  Both my parents are great and supportive and mature now, but obviously their divorce when I was 7 had a lot more lasting effects on my childhood behavior than I, or they, realized at the time.

You can see one additional email in the full February mailbag, which can be accessed by clicking right here.

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