This ain't TRASH!

People love gossip.  Oh, sure, there are some high-brow folks who will scrunch their noses at the thought of gossip filling the air, but you can still catch them sneaking a peek at "People" for news about Angelina and Brad's latest public snit, or what Jennifer says about that noticeable tummy bump.

Humans just love to hear—and talk about —other people.

"Writing Trash and Hunting Buffalo" is my new e-book about gossip. More particularly it's about a Vietnam vet turned gossip columnist who writes biting articles about Hollywood elite in order to bring them back to Earth.

Of course, this book complicates things by infusing symbolism, bitter rivalries, head-strong personalities and personal tics throughout its pages.

For example, the buffalo in the title (and the Warriors who hunt them) represent a dying visage/ideal of our past. They have a link to the main character too, but you'll have to figure out why.

I wrote this book partly because I had these memories of going to Grandma's house in Hays, Kansas as a child and finding these glitzy gossip rags on her coffee table. When the adults weren't looking, I'd grab a few and go to the basement to look them over. As a testosterone-laden kid I mainly liked the pictures of scantily-clad, young starlets. However, thinking back to those memories as an adult, the contrast of the strait-laced Midwestern older woman reading these Babylon chronicles really struck a nerve. So the book points out this internal war between the stereotypical concepts of the Midwest versus The Hollywood jet-set.

Although I knew it would have a Midwestern aspect, initially I thought the main character would be from Iowa. As a Star Trek fan I wanted to give a nod to Captain Kirk as I always choose him over Picard in the debate over the best captain of the Enterprise. I eventually settled on Hutchinson, Kansas as the character's childhood home because of an article I once saw in the 80s that said that city had more millionaires per capita than anywhere (one of the characters is rich).  Okay, my parents lived there for a number of years and that may have been a slight factor too. 

Probably the biggest underlying theme of the book concerns what happens to your soul when you become the thing you despise.  The main character is a pretty straight-as-an-arrow Midwesterner thrown amongst a hedonistic, money-grubbing society he absolutely hates. He has some childhood issues that feed his animosity and reinforce his contempt for those who believe they are superior.  This pretty much makes him a walking time bomb. Yes, it's not light reading.

Okay, it's no Hemingway novel, but I do pay homage to him with a quote from the main character: "To a writer, a bar is the most important place in his life—after the desk his typewriter sits on."

After all, Hemingway was a hard-drinking journalist/novelist.  

Speaking of journalist/novelists, I also had to mention the University of Texas in the book. The main character received his journalism degree from there. I did this partly because Walter Cronkite studied there (yes, a journalism God), but I also earned a journalism degree from UT. As a side note, they used to offer a class called "The journalist as novelist."  Clever link to Hemingway, eh? Sadly, I never got to take the course.

 

So BUY TRASH.  You'll love the characters and get excited about the barroom fights, but maybe you'll also love the internal struggle to maintain your soul while surrounded by a world alien to your beliefs. Happy hunting.

The Thurber Brigade does not apologize for this sidestep (even though it's the third in a row). James Thurber would love TRASH.

First Contact

“…There is no starship mission more dangerous than that of First Contact. We never know what we will face when we open the door on a new world, how we will be greeted, what exactly the dangers will be.”  Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 4, episode 15, “First Contact.”)

Some angry feminists have the idea that every time a man approaches a woman he doesn't know and speaks to her, it's sexual harassment. She doesn't want to be bothered they say, or else state she has not done anything to warrant the intrusion. If the continuation of the species were left to women such as this, we'd be extinct in no time. Because it is up to man to make First Contact since females are too afraid to make any attempt.

 

Well, unless the guy is a rock star, pro athlete or movie star. Going up to a complete stranger is impossible for women. Too scary.

I should point out that I wouldn't be here if my father hadn't made First Contact with the beautiful young woman behind the counter of a small drug store. He had just rolled into a small Kansas town on a surveying project and was entranced. This is not a unique story, of course. A large portion of the US populace are happy couples because some guy walked up to a complete stranger and asked her out on a date.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, some men are subtle and clever, some are Neanderthals and resort to catcalls.  Also in the same vein, The Brigade discussed how men are required to throw out lines to meet women. Women will critique these lines, but would never attempt the endeavor themselves. It's too frightening for them; too much of a risk of getting rejected. 

 

So it's up to the male of the species to take the risk. To make First Contact. Oddly, women will often tell guys to "buck up" and take it (risk) like a man—even though they wouldn't dream of doing it themselves.

Interestingly, some women will make an attempt to meet a man they might know from work or some party where they might have had a brief chat (i.e. not a stranger), but never via a verbal message. Instead they attempt some elaborate scheme.

For example, I vaguely remember a woman writing about her scheme, either in a blog or newspaper personal essay, about trying to meet this handsome guy who had said "hi" to her in a park while jogging (wow, almost a stranger, except she had run past him many times before). Of course, in the story she never made mention of just going up to the guy and introducing herself.

The great plan failed, as might be expected, when instead of attracting her target some other "older" guy approached her instead. No it wasn't me, although I did take offense that she brought up his age and made it sound hideous. Come on, I'm not that old. Maybe. Anyway, she wasn't interested in this old guy and the end result is that she is not enjoying dating bliss with the handsome guy either.

In a lot of these schemes women dream up they usually believe they can offer signs to the man (yeah, I've blogged about these signs too) or else believe that men have ESP.

 

We don't.

 For example, one time while in a drug store a cute female seemed to follow me around. Even looking at athlete's foot spray when I stopped there. Not having ESP I wasn't sure if she was interested or was coincidentally looking for the same products that I was and her huge, mean boyfriend was waiting patiently for her around the next aisle (yeah, experienced that one). Needless to say, we never spoke.

A long time ago I remember a Cathy comic strip  in which Cathy and her friends were sitting around a table in a café. She brought up how it was the male who had to make First Contact, take all the risks, and that women would only come on board when they were absolutely sure they were safe. The other women just shrugged, said there was no reason to change now and nonchalantly went on to order their food.

In other words, even though women demand equality in everything, they don't mean it applies to social situations.  AND they admit/support the concept.

So perhaps by the time we achieve intergalactic space travel and trek to distant galaxies, women will have become equal to men—even in social settings. Until that faaarrrr off time, men will have to continue to wear the redshirts on those perilous away missions and initiate First Contact with the Femaliens they encounter.

(What? You were expecting another Thurber Sidestep? Sorry, but The Brigade believed it was time to quit getting angry at all the crap going on out there, from bad cops to loud-mouth, idiotic politicians, and get back to The War Between Men and Women. You're welcome.)

Ahhh, Thurber

I'm Getting Emotional

There was this interesting Deep Space Nine episode years ago that had a wandering group of refugees visiting the station.  The group were farmers looking for a new planet to settle. What set them apart was that they were a matriarchal society. Yes, an oddity, a society in which women were in all the positions of power.

When Major Kira  asked their leader why women were in charge and not men she answered, with a laugh, “oh, my dear! Men are far too emotional to be in charge.”

My guess is that Kira thought to herself “Ain't that the truth!” Of course in her universe as well as ours, it's the reverse. Men are in all the positions of power. Oh, there may be a handful of congresswomen, etc. but it's mainly men.

The problem is—men may indeed be too emotional.  Of course, right now you're saying to your computer screen (you realize you're talking to yourself, right?) “But Jay, didn't Barbara Jordan once say, authoritatively, that all men had their emotions surgically removed at birth?” or something like that.

Yes she did (sort of), and I think women, and perhaps society, have accepted that belief. The thing is that it's wrong. They accept this belief because it's women who have been allowed to establish the definition of emotion and love for the past four or five decades.

The evidence isn't there though.

For example, look at the thousands of male fans at a football game (male/female ratio about 100/1). 

They have their faces painted, thumping their chests, screaming at the top of their lungs all for the love of their team. That's not emotion?

Crimes of passion.  You know, something like a lover discovers his beloved with another man and kills him (often the woman too). That's not emotion? Of course it is! And sadly, it's mainly men who do it. Um, what I mean is that it's sad that they resort to violence, not sad that it's not more women.

And nine times out of ten that person honking at you and giving you the finger while passing you on the road during rush hour is male.  That's right, that emotion on the road is rage. A very powerful and overwhelming emotion. Mostly male.

So by now you may be picking up on a trend.  These emotions I've been mentioning are rather, um, violent. They are emotions though.  Women choose to ignore them because they define emotions as less violent. Caring, compassion, love and kindness are the emotions that women respect and believe in and have convinced society are the only true emotions. 

Men have these, but are better known for shouting at the ref then for picking up that turtle and moving it off the road.  Because of this, men get saddled with the stereotype of being emotionless.

Women don't help the situation either. Not just in that they are allowed to define the parameters of emotions, but also they have the habit of stating that men who do show emotions (the emotions they accept) are weaklings.  Oddly, they declare this shortly after telling their girlfriends how they wish their man would open up more.

That's right, no matter the emotion we men show, women will have some objection to it.  Yell at the TV because your team just fumbled and she'll say you are too impulsive or excessive.  Drop a few tears and your a pansy boy.

Sheesh.

So it's time we changed things and admit that men are way more emotional then women.  If that happens we men might also agree to let more women into positions of power. In fact, we'd probably welcome this because then more of us could just stay home and watch sports on TV.

Wow.  I'm about to get emotional about that thought. 

  (for more pictures to get emotional about go to http://www.scavengeinc.com/p-951-sexy-referee-costume.aspx)