My wife and I have a subscription to The New Yorker but we have yet to receive out copy of the magazine with the so-called constorversial cover that depicts Barack Obama as a Islamic Muslim Extremist and his wife, Michelle Obama, as an angry black woman radical toting a gun. Whether this cartoon cover art is offensive or not, I’m not really interested in debating anymore, but I want my copy, dammit! And I want it now.

Colleen emailed The New Yorker tha we had not yet received our copy of this issue. And this is the reply we got:

Dear Mr. Lopez:

 

We are sorry to inform you that the issue you requested is no longer available.

 

We have extended your subscription one issue for each issue requested.

The new expiration date will appear on your address label in the near future.

 

You may visit our website to access your account online at http://www.newyorker.com/

 

Simply click on “Subscription Questions” in the upper right corner of the main page, and you will be directed to the Customer Care page to access your account.

 

Your account number will be required for entry: 540707932

 

If you should need further assistance, please be sure to include all previous e-mail correspondence.

 

Thank you again for your interest in The New Yorker.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jayme

 

Customer’s email address: Colleen.Carlin@marketstrategies.com

Case id: 5988847

No longer available? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I tell you what it means. That The New Yorker editorial board is bunch of pussies. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know what they were doing when they put this cartoon on the cover of their magazine. And now that it has garnered negative press they pull it. Talk about your journalistic integrity. I am fucking disgusted.

Now, I’ve been reading The New Yorker since I started college, discovering it when I was in community college — what can I say? I grew up in a very blue collar neighborhood and in a household where we read the two Detroit newspapers and maybe Michigan Out-of-Doors, Field and Stream, Fly Fisherman, House and Garden and Family Circle — and began subscribing when I was an undergrad at Eastern Michigan University. I’ve had lapses in my subscription, at times when I could ill-afford to pay for a magazine because I had to pay rent and bills and eat, but I’ve always reupped ASAP. Now, I’m seriously considering just cancelling my subscription and ditching the magazine for good.

Perhaps that’s petty and reactionary. But I really don’t give a shit. If, as a journalistic entity, going to go out on a limb like they did with that cover, they need to stand by it. Or don’t do it to begin with.

I monitor the news mostly via CNN’s web page, but I’m beginning to think that maybe that isn’t such a good idea. Check this CNN article about a so-called terrorist attack near the hotel where Obama will be staying in Israel.

The headline reads: Backhoe attack injures 5 near Obama’s Jerusalem hotel.

But when you read the article you learn that it is the hotel where Obama will be staying when he is in Jerusalem. He isn’t there now, and wasn’t there when the so-called attack actually happened.

Is it too much to ask for honest, straight forward reporting that does not twist an incident to make it seem more dire than it actually is. Although I have to say a guy running amoke in down Jerusalem on a backhoe seems pretty fucking dramatic

Slackonomics is a new book by Lisa Chamberlain.

An explication on Generation X. Just my kind of thing, I’d normally run right out and buy it, but the economy being what it is I wanted to make sure it was worth the scratch before laying down any green. I’m only a couple or chapters into it but already I’m sure it is worth the $25 cover price, although on Amazon.com it is $16.50 plus shipping. So…

I was a little leery before reading it, dreading that it might be another dull book about economics, even if it was the economics of Generation X. It is anything but dull. I dig the inside dust cover description that describes it as “One part Freakonomics, on part Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” Of course, I’ve only read Freakonomics, not Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. But still.

The thing was I was feeling pretty good that I was going to dig this book from the beginning. First, the dedication reads thusly:

For my mother, who taught me very little about money but a lot about creativity.

And then in the introduction she explains how she, when shopping the idea for this book around, resisted making it a self-help book, but eventually relented, teaming up with a personal finance planner, although luckily, she says, that idea never came to pass. Chamberlain was relieved. Because….

Bookstores shelves are already littered with Suze Orman-like personal finance how-tos for the “young, fabulous and broke.” But Generation X is not so young anymore, and when we were, “fabulous” was not cool.

With or without the self-help crap, the book I would have written shortly after having penned an article for the New York Observer in January 2004 titled “Generation X: Born Under a Bad Economic Sign,” would not have been this one.

Specifically, it was the line in bold – With or without the self-help crap — that let me know that I was in good Generation X company. And that I would get this book.

Chamberlain’s premise for the book, as she lays it out in the introduction:

The premise of Slackonomics is that not since the Industrial Revolution has a generation been so whipsawed by the economy, from Mcjobs to outsourcing, mind-boggling income inequality to two unprecedented back-to-back bubbles (with more to come?). But that isn’t the whole story. IN this book’s subtitle is the phrase “creative destruction,” a concept developed by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpter to describe how caitalism renews itself through seemingly sudden economic convulsions. Stagnant industries are destroy and people get hurt in the churn (think General Motors), while creative ideas and new industries — driven by entrepreneurs — are able to flourish (think Google). This happened during the Industrial Revolution, and it’s happening again with the information/technology revolution. Creative Destruction 2.0.

If there was any further doubt in my minds it was instantly wiped away, because you know you’re dealing with a true Generation X woman when she titles one of the chapters in her book, specifically the chapter about feminism and GenXer women, Cunt.

In any case, Slackonimcs is the author’s term for Generation X’s particular economic predicament, history, mind-set, etc. And it is more than just some hip, pop culture, ironic wink. There’s good, quality stuff in here.

I know what you’re thinking. What can I possibly say about gas prices that hasn’t already been said? Nothing original, I’d imagine. And yet I feel the need to tell my personal little tale.

Thursday last week I saw gas for $3.97/gal at Speedway. Unfortunately, my car was already full up. I found it interesting, in a consiracy theory kind of way, that gas prices started tickig down AFTER the 4th of July weekend. Bastards!

This weekend we filled up our Accord at a BP for $3.99/gal. But we had to pay cash. I hadn’t realized it until I was inside asking for $30 on pump 4 that I hadn’t uttered any version of the phrase in, well, years I’m guessing.

Back when my wife and I were not yet married and living in Madison Heights, before we’d moved on up to B’ham into our plush 1,100 sq ft ranch on a slab, ie sans basement, located East of the tracks, which effectively meant that I was not among the elite of this rather moneyed town, I didn’t use a debt or credit card to pay for gas. I always paid cash. It was Collen that got me to switch over. I tend to be of the Generation X ilk that does not take to new technology quickly, although I don’t think using a card to pay at the pump was really all that new at the time.

Anyhoo… I’m wondering if I’ll begin keeping more cash on hand to pay for gas, since it is often considerably cheaper to pay in dead presidents rather than with the polymer slate. (nifty phrasing, huh).

Here we go again.

Baby Boomers, their revolution to change the world when they were young, wide-eyed, and idealistic having failed, are set to give it another go. In retirement. So blathers fellow Boomer, Nicholas Kristoff in his NY Times Sunday column this week.

“We often think of those trying to save the world as bright-eyed young people,” Kristoff opines, suggesting that now that the Boomers are swiftly becoming wrinkly old retired geezers that notion will be changing, because of course only the Boomers can save the world. Or so they believe in their collective, solopsistic borg-like mind. It is more true to say that they are the only ones who would be arrogant to make such a claim. As they did before. And how did that work out….? Just splendidly I’m sure they’d argue. But I’m going with not so well.

Anyhoo…

Some 78 million American baby boomers are now beginning to retire, and one survey this year by a research institute found that half of boomers are interested in starting such new careers with a positive social impact. If we boomers decide to use our retirement to change the world, rather than our golf game, our dodderdom will have consequences for society every bit as profound as our youth did.

There it is in bold folks, the nauseatingly deluded optimism of a self-centered generation. I don’t know about anyone else but just the idea of a second Boomer attempt at revolutionizing the world not only makes my queasy it makes me nervous.

But perhaps I should be so cynical. I know, I know. It is the default Generation X mode, but this could be good thing.

Yeah, that was I began to think, reading about Peter Agre,

a medical doctor who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2003 for research on … on … well, on something to do with cell membranes that I still don’t understand. Dr. Agre could have run his lab indefinitely but was restless to assume a challenge that would more directly affect society.

He thought about politics, but ended up taking on a fancy administrative position at Duke University, thinking he could help shape students and education. Then he became restless again, and this year he took a substantial pay cut to head the Malaria Research Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

Until he was quoted thusly:

“It wasn’t a matter of being a Mother Teresa,” Dr. Agre said. “It was a matter of, ‘Boy, that sounds like fun!’ ”

Gag me with Ginsu! What kind of crap is that. Hey, it’s great that the guy wants to good. More fucking power to him. But don’t deal me that bullshit that it’s, oh, so fun. Yipee!

But still if the guy manages to overcome malaria, as he hopes to do, who really cares if does it with a Polly Anna grin on his face.

Of course leave it to the Boomers to “redefine” a new stage in life, so they can avoid from slipping into irrelevance:

Marc Freedman, author of a book called “Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life,” notes that adolescence is a relatively modern concept; until the 19th century teenagers normally were treated as adults. In the same way, he says, a new life stage is emerging — the period of 10, 20 or even 30 years after one’s main career is completed but before infirmity sets in.

I would argue that what some of this graying Boomers believe is a new way of thinking is actually replicating the kind of things that Generation X would do. They are thinking/acting like GenXers. For example:

another general in the war on malaria is Rob Mather, a British management consultant who — thank heaven! — isn’t very handy with a TV remote. Mr. Mather was trying to turn off his set in June 2003 when he accidentally flipped to another channel and was riveted by the image of a 5-year-old girl who was struggling to overcome severe burns all over her body.

Mr. Mather suggested to several friends that they swim as a fund-raiser for the girl. Because Mr. Mather is relentless, the swim ended up involving 10,000 people in 73 countries and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Bowled over by the possibilities of mobilizing people for good causes, Mr. Mather set up a swim the next year to raise money against malaria — and this time 250,000 participated. He left the business world and founded a group called Against Malaria, now one of the world’s leading organizations battling the disease.

Of course he does it with a typically Boomer twist:

Mr. Mather browbeats businesses into donating services and covering overhead — “we have 17 legal firms working for us, and we’ve never paid a legal bill” — so every dollar donated to the organization ends up actually used to buy bed nets for families that can’t afford them.

Still, it is for a good cause. I won’t ague that. If people are being helped it is all too the good. But as the ending of this column implies that at the root of such Boomer motivation is accolades:

If more people take on encore careers like that, the boomers who arrived on the scene by igniting a sexual revolution could leave by staging a give-back revolution. Boomers just may be remembered more for what they did in their 60s than for what they did in the Sixties.

The point is to be remembered. If people get helped along the way, cool, but it won’t be just that good was done, but it was Boomers that done it.

In keeping with my interest in not-so-famous, not-so-famous-anymore and never-really-was-all-that-famous-to-begin-with actors and such, check this video from slate.com taken during a visit a Hollywood Collectors Show.

Of the now “D-List” celebs featured in this video, I’ve met Lou Ferrigno, aka The Incredible Hulk, from the 70s TV series not the recent movies. At The Italian Heritage Festival held annually in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where my parents are from and where I still have relatives. Lou was the celebrity dago that year. Another year I shook Joe Dimaggio’s hand, but I was too young to know who he was. When my dad asked me if I knew who he was, I said, “Yeah. That’s the Mr. Coffee guy.”

I have never met Ami Dolenz, daughter of Mickey Dolenz of The Monkees, but man would I like to. Has she got some serious hooters or what? I have seen the movies Ticks. So bad it was cool! Although IMDB list it under the title of Infested. Actually she look like she’s had a pretty descent career. She was in Can’t Buy Me Love, another cool 80s Teen Angst film. Not twisted like Heathers. Very romantic, though. How could it not be, staring the teenage Patrick Dempsey, aka McDreamy. Ami played Fran, but I’m not exactly sure who that was. I’ve have to see it again. I should anyway. Dolenz also played Sloan in the TV version of Ferris Bueller. And this year she has two movies coming out: 1) 2012 Doomsday ; and 2) Room and Board.

Wife and I are watching Heathers tonight. It is one of the best teen movies of the 80s. A cool, twisted dark comedy about teen suicide. And it has got to hold the record for great one-liners. They’re like fucking endless. Watching Heathers was Colleen’s idea. I’m not sure what brought it on. The other day she happened to mention that she thought her brother, a recent film school grad, should watch it. I agree.

Heahters came out in 1989. Same year NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine came out, right? Dark and twisted must have been in the air that year. Maybe that’s why I fled to Ypsilanti, to hide in Jones Hall on the campus of Eastern Michigan University. I knew it was coming. I could sense it somehow. Smell it.

Anyhoo… one of my favorite pointless activities is to search the web to find out what’s become of actors from old movies. In this case, Kim Walker, who played Heather Chandler, the head Heather, the first one to bite it in the movie.

Turns out KIm Walker died in 2001 of — wait for it — a brain tumor. Yeah. One of her more memorable lines in the movie was “Did you eat a brain tumor for breakfast.” Eep. Cue the Twilight Zone music. I learned this from a website called Find a Death. It provides details of the deaths of famous people, including photos of things like their homes and even headstones. Walker’s headstone is posted on it.

According to wikipedia.org:

She was dating co-star Christian Slater, but during the filming of Heathers, Slater ended their relationship and afterwards began dating the film’s star, Winona Ryder.

That’s harsh! Ouch!

Walk had mostly supporting roles after Heathers. She was in Say Anything. But retired from the business and 1990s according to IMDB. The last thing she was in something called Killing Cinderella.

Lisanne Falk, who played Heather McNamara, the chearleader, also had supporting role in Say Anything. The last thing she did was Casablanca in 2002, a short film.

Vernoica’s old friend, unpopular friend, Betty, is Renee Estevez, Martin Sheen’s daughter. She had a recurring role on West Wing.

The subject of This American life this week is Life after Death. On my way home from the grocery story I caught the story about the guy who, when he was 18, accidentally hit a girl on a bike with his car, and that girl died. He charts the effect the experience had on his life over the years and he’d wish for the girl had things turned out differently, had he swerved a different way, rolled his car as the investigators told him he sure would have, and died, mainly for her to forget, to not be haunted by the event. It was a very captivating story, one of those ones that I sat in my car in the driveway to finish listening to.

Anyway. It got me thinking if it was possible, if you met someone like this guy, would it be possible to know this thing about him without knowing you knew it. To sense it at some level. I’m not necessarily talking about someone with extra human abilities or anything like that. Just the right person meeting this guy and somehow knowing without being told, or “getting it” at some level. To be able to say in some way that I know it is about him, I just don’t know what it is. Does that make sense? Can it?

I don’t know. I just feel as if there’s been times when I’ve met a person I’ve felt like I could say, I get what it is about that person that makes them the way they are, I just can’t tell you what it is.

I think I may be suffering from low blood sugar.

Surfing the net I came across a blog that hipped me to some good short stories.

The Road to Cordoba, by Stuart Dybek.

Ask for Pain, by Julie Orringer.

Battle Mountain, by Walter Kirn.

I confess that I’ve not yet read the Kirn story but I am almost always impressed with his work. I think that I liked the Dybek story the better than the Orringer story, but I like Orringer’s title. More GenX-ish, you know. But all are worth checking out.

While in Iowa over the 4th of July, my cuz and I took a day trip to the Field of Dreams baseball field, which is still in tact, a tourist destination. I’m not exactly a big baseball fan but I liked the movie, and there is something magical about a baseball field, uniquely American, especially when it is set in the midst of a corn field.

It was gorgeous day too.

The house by the field is beautiful. This is a view of the side of it. It has a big wrap around porch. Reminded me of the big back porch on my grandparents’ house in West Virginia. As kids my cuz and I would play there, sit there during rain storms, eat watermelon there, sitting on the banisters. It wasn’t a wrap around porch but still.

The swing was perhaps the best part. My grandparents’ porch had a similar swing, although it swung from stand not chains attached to the ceiling.

There were trees along the side of the house, tall pines. It was a nice spot, cool and shady.

The house through the trees with cuz in John.

Here is the house from the front. It is up on a sort of hill. And I’m pretty sure there was no fence in the movie. Of course, you get up close and see that the white picket fence is not made of wood but plastic, the kind of durable fencing you buy at Lowe’s. I suppose in the grand scheme of things it is no big deal but I still found it disappointing.

There is no admission to see the field, walk on it, play on it. There were kids their taking pitches from their dads. Getting hits, rounding the bases. It was pretty cool.

I had to knee before the Field of Dreams.

Cuz John is a bit more irreverent than I and preferred to stand.

As I said I like this movie. It was one of those ones that I could watch over and over again. I mean, I don’t think that it is spectacular art. But just really enjoyable film. It’s a movie I especially like to watch in the summer time, for I suppose obvious reasons. The book that it is based on is also good — Shoeless Joe. Although I’d always remembered it as titles Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa. But I think that perhaps that was the original short story that the novel was based on. In any case, it is a great baseball story.

Interesting note (or perhaps not): the writer in the movie, played by James Earl Jones, was changed from the book. In the book the writer is JD Salinger. But I have to imagine that Salinger did not want himself portrayed in the movie. He may have fought it. Or perhaps the movie makers didn’t want to piss him off. Or perhaps they just wanted Jones in the movie. He’s a hell of an actor, and the voice of Darth Vader. “Luke. I am your father.”

Anyway. I’m glad I got to go. There something quite interesting about visiting places that have bee captured in movies. The Field of Dreams is certainly captivating.