[Rant] Fear the Hayride

Fear the Hayride: When will these threats to the safety of our children finally be addressed? Who will so the courage to stand up to this terror? If not us, who? If not now, when?

I am speaking, of course, of the horrible scourge of hayrides. And I am speaking, of course, sarcastically.

The outskirts of Ann Arbor is peppered with little cider mills and farmer's markets and other homespun, quasi-rural , family-oriented sites of interest. Most open up in late summer and go until it gets too cold. Some of them are dedicated facilities, some are working farms. I don't go to them very often but they are one of the charming points of living on the cusp of the rural and the suburban. Most of these establishments offer hayrides -- horse-drawn wagons filled with bales of hay on which you (mostly children) ride around the grounds for a small price.

A couple of weeks ago, at one local market, there was a hayride accident. It was a bad one. The driver fell off and was possibly hit by the wagon or stepped on by one of the horse -- details are confused as usual in such circumstances -- and the result was tragic. It looks like the driver may be paralyzed. It's a horrible thing to have happen.

But in our brave new world, we can't see an accident as an accident and mourn the tragic outcome. We have to have a scandal. We have to have moral indignation. We have to sue and legislate.

As part of a diligent journalistic crusade, AnnArbor.com has discovered that there is no state agency regulating hayrides! How can this be? It turns out there have been two -- TWO!!! -- hayride accidents in the last two years. Not two this season or even two in the same place. Just plain two. So of the hundreds of hayrides and thousands of hayriders, there have been two accidents. No wonder we want to get the government involved.

Amy Hogg said many people don't understand the risks from hayrides. "I've tried so hard to educate people on makeshift hayrides and how dangerous they are," she said. "They don't realize that this isn't a freak accident. This is happening a lot."

She said she made up her own slogan to try to educate people."If it wasn't built with sides it wasn't meant for rides," she said.

Evidently, two is a lot and requires education and regulation. You can tell because of the rhyming catchphrase.

You'd have to be blind not to see the way this will play out.

• Somebody, perhaps the aforementioned Amy Hogg, forms an interest group: Mothers Against Agricultural Violence. Despite having a total membership of four (including Betty from up the street who only ever came to the first meeting and just ate a muffin then had to leave) they find some a congressman willing to champion legislation in the hopes of building some family-values cred.


• Regulatory legislation slides into law in some sort of omnibus bill. The three lawmakers that actually read the hayride legislation aren't enthusiastic about it but they can't risk being painted as heartlessly pro-business.


• A new office of Agricultural Entertainment is created and filled with bureaucrats charged with implementing the regulation. They conclude that,
  1. All hayride drivers must take a safety certification course -$50
  2. All hayride operators must be licensed - $125/year
  3. All hayride wagons must be modified with fixed seating, including three point restraints, and guardrails - $2500/wagon
  4. All riders under the age of 18 must wear helmets - $600
  5. Any hayride with a capacity of 5 or greater must have a hydraulic lift to accommodate the differently-abled - $3000/wagon
  6. All hayrides proprietors are subject to annual inspection - $200/year.


• AnnArbor.com runs a human interest story about the grass roots success of Mother's Against Agricultural Violence with photos of determined looking women and smiling happy children.


• Hayride operators struggle to meet these new requirements. They try to raise prices to cover them but that just cuts into the volume.


• AnnArbor.com runs a human interest story about the economic struggles of hayride proprietors featuring photos of downtrodden looking rural workers.


• Hayride operators band together to form an interest group, The Society for Farm Heritage Preservation. Despite the fact that only two of their members are actual farmers, they find a state congressman willing to champion legislation in the hopes of building some limited government cred.


• The Hayride Tax Relief Credit slides into law in some sort of omnibus bill, the three lawmakers that actually read the hayride legislation aren't enthusiastic about it but they can't risk being caricatured as hindering small business, and besides, the property tax increase will cover it.


• The following summer, in an effort to win a prize offered by the cable show Who's America's Biggest Assclown?, a teenager unbuckles his safety harness, tears off his helmet, moons the other riders, and leaps from a hay wagon on to a passing dirt bike driven by a friend. Not surprisingly he cracks his skull and breaks about thirty-seven bones and ends up in a coma. But the video taken by his cohort gets the most hits on you tube for five days running.


• His parents sue for 5 million dollars arguing the restraints and helmets are too easily removed. They settle for 50 thousand, 25 of which goes to their lawyers and another 12 goes to the IRS.


• Insurance companies, spooked by the risk, quadruple the price of liability coverage.


• By the end of the next summer, hayrides have nearly all disappeared. A start-up firm attempts to market a Virtual Hayride app for the iPhone. It never catches on, despite an AnnArbor.com feature about all the jobs it will bringing to the area.


• In the year 2032, somebody circulates a list regarding the characteristics of the high school graduating class. In addition to "Never heard of a fax machine" and "Vanuatu has always been underwater" there is "Never been on a hayride."

But that's just a guess.

(Addendum 1: For those of you have been following my occasional references to signaling and how so much of what we do is little more than identity proclamation, this situation is a face-slapping example.)

(Addendum 2: If you're interested in a humorous take on this sort of thing, I strongly recommend the comic novel Big Babies, by Sherwood Kiraly. It's a lighthearted, and good-hearted, story of a fellow who invents a head-to-toe protective covering for children. It's actually about the fellow's relationship with his brother, but the baby armor is the MacGuffin. Good work; similar to something I might write. Of course, like all good comic novels, it appears to be out of print.)

[Good Links] Link Slam

Link Slam: Michigan themed odds and sods from around the web...

You couldn't out drink an old lady from Michigan. No, seriously.

I'll spare you the walk-to-class-barefoot comparisons, but good grief the young 'uns got it made.

Apropos of last month's rant, someone noticed there's a new model Camry.

The Chicago Tribune discovers a 125 year old, continuously operating cider mill, about a mile from my house.

The New York Times spends 36 hours in Ann Arbor and loves anything that reminds them of New York.

The Month That Was - August 2011

The Month That Was - August 2011: The signs are all there. School starting. Football Saturdays. Cooler evenings. We march in steadily into fall. Next month I shall have to do a full assessment of my 50th summer. It also means the end of mowing is on the horizon.

Still waiting for next month are any book reviews. Add two more to the list: I'm Gone, by Jean Echenoz, and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I have things to say about both of them and the other books I've read over the past couple of months, but I have been loading this site with far too many book reviews so I holding off for a while. I may do a round-up at some point.

Meanwhile, this made me smile.

[Good Links] Don't Believe Everything You Think
[Travel] California Life
[Cars] The New Camrys Are Out!
[Travel] Grasping for Vegas

[Good Links] Don't Believe Everything You Think

Don't Believe Everything You Think: As you know I am a big fan of Robin Hanson's website Overcoming Bias. Although many topics are addressed over there, the Big Kahuna issue is described in this post:

More generally, we humans not only do things, we explain why we do things. Individuals and organizations stand ready to give reasons why we do each of the things we do. While such explanations are often self-serving, they are usually considered the standard default in ordinary conversation, popular media, and in academia.

The most powerful insufficiently-appreciated insight I've ever learned is the one intellectual legacy I'd leave, if I could leave only one: we are often wrong about why we do things. Yes it is hardly original, and it might sound trivial, but few appreciate its full depth.

This, if fully appreciated, is perhaps the single most audacious topic ever broached. It will require counter-intuitive thinking and openness to the potential truth of the "illogical" or "unreasonable" on roughly the same scale of something like quantum mechanics. The topics are also similar in that they are concepts we are not designed to comprehend. Consider the parallels. Nothing in the history of human experience would make spooky action at a distance or an upper bound to velocity or probabilistic existence intuitive by common sense. Similarly, through untold millennia we have developed the brain wiring that compels us towards certain forms of bias and self-delusion in social interactions. So how do you find The Truth when it requires outthinking your own brain? This stuff will make your head explode.

The question of why we think what we think is deeply pervasive; it's not just for big questions. Case in point, I recently had a discussion with a friend who was considering buying her daughter her first car. We discussed the propriety of it and how to decide on the right model, etc. My friend was zeroed in a new car, a safe and fuel efficient one. I blanched at the idea of buying a new car for a college sophomore. To paraphrase Louis CK, at that age all they have done is slurp things up for nearly two decades -- they slurp up food and money and clothes and ipods and done absolutely nothing in return except be snotty and disaffected. Now you want to let her slurp up a new car? At that age they should only be driving clap out piles of junk that cost less than the required insurance.

I suspect a majority of folks would have the same reaction. But why? What is the reason I feel so negatively about it. I could go on about the potential for spoilage, the need to teach self-sufficiency, and to reinforce the appreciation of benefits, and blah, blah, blah. But strictly considered, I have no objective basis for any of those opinions. I have never seen a rigorous scientific study of the effect on future development of buying a new car for a nineteen-year-old, nor have I seen some kind of regression analysis relating first car purchase price to long term happiness. Where do I get these opinions?

There are a number of angles to take on answering that question. (The answer "culture" is really a non-answer. A) Where did culture get those beliefs? and B) there is a body of scientific evidence to that strongly indicates many of our biases transcend culture.) One possible twist on it is that I am trying to send a signal about what sort of person I am. In the guise of reasoned analysis, I am really just shouting to the world of my frugality and sense of fairness. As Ed Harris (playing John Glenn) described himself in The Right Stuff, I'm "a lonely beacon of restraint and self-sacrifice in a squall of car-crazies." If true, this would also make me thoroughly insufferable.

Robin might point out that the hunter-gatherer societies of my ancestors had strong norms to suppress any notions of elitism and individuality and I might be tapped into those tendencies, as opposed to agricultural-industrial societies that value symbols of status.

Whatever the case, you can see this tiny, almost insignificant conversation is rife with unknowns. Imagine what happens when big issues come into play. We are constitutionally designed to have powerful and visceral reactions when our most cherished beliefs are called into question. Rationality and reason are going to be the first casualties, making further discussion self-defeating. On his blog Robin has addressed such things as the value of charity, the purpose of schools, the efficacy of medical treatment -- in all these cases, you may feel compelled to rethink what you think about why you are in favor of them, that is, if you can get past the primal indignation.

Of course, you can get all Meta with this. What's the real reason anyone is interested in real reasons? But that's pointlessly glib. The larger question is, given we actually develop a significant body of information in this arena, what do we do with it? Do we, out of devotion to The Truth, try to fight our programming when it seems irrational, or do we shrug and fatalistically trundle on as designed, under the assumption that evolution has already identified the best path? I have no idea. But whatever we do, I'm pretty sure it ends with my head exploding.

[Travel] California Life

California Life: Year 2 in getting Miss Anna settled at college, a new one on the West Coast, involved arranging a trip to Orange County -- Laguna Niguel, to be exact -- with about a week's notice. I really can't describe how such last minute decisions arise because I am incapable of understanding them; they are simply beyond my comprehension. I just accept.

I have been to So Cal many times, but I gravitate to San Diego. Laguna Niguel sits slightly inland from Laguna Beach and Dana Point, just south of the sprawl of L.A.

I don't get L.A. I was there once, saw most of it, but I don't understand the attraction it holds for some people. It seems to me like a place that is mostly notable for being notable. Decent weather, but you can get that in lots of places. Showy beaches, but you can get that in lots of places. Vibrant nightlife, but you can get... You see where I'm going with this. But I suppose if you are interested in being, or being around, a celebrity, or if you have some abiding interest in the entertainment industry it can make or break you. Apart from that, it's just a big crowded city with a sub-normal transportation profile.

Head south, though, and things start to make sense. As suburbs go, Laguna Niguel is a nice one. It is built up stem to stern into cleanly divided neighborhood style developments -- some town houses, some apartment complexes (nothing over two stories), some single family homes -- most of it among pleasant landscaping. Moderately to decidedly upscale. The hills roll gently among malls, shopping centers, office parks, etc. Roads are wide and navigation is straightforward. Most of the young folk in the area refer to it as a bubble, as if it was somehow isolated from the realities of the world around it. Young people say that derisively. Old folks know the world around it ain't so great.

Slide from inland to the shore and things get truly lovely. We bedded down each night in Dana Point at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort, and let me say that in all my travels, I don't think I have encountered better service anywhere. Everyone seemed happy to go above and beyond, from the gift shop clerk who opened a nearby boutique just for us to the valets who packed huge boxes of stuff in the car without even being asked. Just outstanding in every respect. Throw in a sweet lounge with copious outdoor seating, a terrific breakfast buffet, and beautiful foliage and grounds you get a real top tier experience. A+ to Marriott for this one.

Here's another thing: No mosquitoes. All summer I have been unable to go into my back yard without drenching myself in Deep Woods Off. Here in So Cal there was nary a little bugger to slap. This lack of annoyance, along with the nearly persistent ocean breeze and the interminable sunshine, gives one a sense of why So Cal attracts those interested in a more relaxed lifestyle. If you really want to experience the attractive power of Southern California, the span between San Diego and L.A. is what you want to explore - Del Mar up to Laguna Beach. As skeptical as I have been (and still am to some extent) of California life, had I come to this area as a young man with an unconstrained future, I may have just stayed in the bubble. It's that good. I fear we may have seen the last of Anna.

[Cars] The New Camrys Are Out!

The New Camrys Are Out!: So what? Outside of car journals, the release of a new model Camry will get a collective yawn and an article or two and a few repackaged press releases. Whether Toyota has been affected by the twin terrors of unintended acceleration and earthquake/tidal wave/nuclear meltdowns doesn't seem to have ratcheted up the popular interest. Nearly all newsworthy events are only fractionally as important as their coverage suggests. The release of a new model of what is still the most popular car in the U.S. by a long shot and probably the most successful car in history appears to be getting the opposite treatment.

Well, maybe it's just me. As you know, I have owned Camrys for nearly 19 years now. That amounts to two cars -- a '93 and an '02. In some circles, people like me are referred to as "beige". I prefer "unpretentious". Were it not for the damn house, I would probably be looking into getting Camry number 3 right now, but it's not a slam dunk anymore. I would consider other cars in that class now -- Hyundai Sonata, Ford Fusion (or maybe even Taurus), Nissan Altima - mainly because my current '02 Camry, while trusty as a Border Collie, is not up to the build quality of the '93. That car was a revelation to me, and that generation Camry was something of a high-water mark in automotive quality.

The fact of the matter is that things have changed so much over the years that buying a new car doesn't make much sense in most normal circumstances. Actually, unless it's a total basket case, the thing that almost always makes the most sense is keeping the car you have, if you own it outright, and just paying for repairs as they come. Even if you have to budget $2000 a year for repairs and maintenance, you're still ahead of having car payments. This is evidenced in the market by the fact the used car prices are historically high.

So you've got a lot going on. You've got Toyota trying to recover from a dubious-at-best scandal and a natural disaster, you've got competitors that have leveled the field, and you've got the industry evolving in such a way that used cars are where all the action is. In the midst of this, the premier car of its time gets a redesign. You would think there would be more interest.

Anyway, here are three reviews of the new Camry that I found insightful: at TTAC, at AutoSavant, and an alternative at TTAC.

As for me, I am strictly in the keep it running as long as you can camp, thanks to the house. Although, if I happened to stumble across a VERY low mileage version of one of those 3rd generation Camrys (92-96), I'd probably jump on it. Maybe I should start trolling the used car lots down in the Florida for a little ol' lady special. It'd be good for a couple hundred thousand miles, which is to say, it might be the last car I ever drive.

Tangentially, Curbside Classic posted an inspired recap of the most notorious auto liability scandals. It caused me to reminisce wistfully about my old Pinto.

[Travel] Grasping for Vegas

Grasping for Vegas: It's been an outlier of a year for me, especially in the realm of travel. Basically I've done little and what I have done hasn't really been anything all that new. I even missed my traditional Memorial Day in Manhattan and Labor Day in Chicago jaunts, primarily due to the house and other scheduling issues. So naturally I am desperate to at least renew my longest standing tradition: Thanksgiving in Vegas. Especially since things in Vegas seem to be penduluming back to the upswing.

There has been a spate of interesting news that suggests that the doldrums that set in after the overbuilding around the turn of the millennium might be over. You'll recall that several years ago, everyone had huge plans for sprawling development complexes. The Harrah's group had something called Echelon Place planned on the north strip designed to compete directly with City Center, which was going to be MGM's attempt at recreating the Greenwich Village mid-Strip. George Clooney and a group were putting together plans for a resort along Harmon corridor (the "hip strip", gag me) which was going to require coat and tie and bring a taste of old school class back to Vegas. Hilton and Marriott had luxury hotel plans. Not surprisingly, virtually all these dreams popped along with the real estate bubble. The hit was doubled when Macau came on as a high end gambling destination, robbing Vegas of a chunk of Asian business.

Some projects managed to survive, although the reasoning behind not axing them may have been questionable. City Center morphed from a high concept remake of Manhattan into a set of hotels and shops, but at least it made it. One of the hotels, Aria, stole a good deal of high-stakes poker mojo from Bellagio, and another super-high ender, the Mandarin Oriental, set a new standard for the casino-less traditional luxury set, which had previous been owned by Four Seasons. It also ended up with an independent neighbor, The Cosmopolitan, designed to complete with Wynn and featuring the only rooms on the strip with balconies. Everything else was pretty much cancelled or is sitting in limbo like an underwater house.

But, there are signs of life. A number of properties took the opportunity to do full on renovations (The Tropicana on the Strip and the Plaza downtown). A number of places re-did their rooms (Bellagio, Mirage, some MGM). Caesars is opening a new tower in January. But the big project that appears as though it may see the light of day is The Linq. A truly stupid name, but this is Caesars half-a-billion dollar renovation of the area surrounding the Flamingo, O'Sheas, and Imperial Palace (Dr. Hahn's evil fortress) -- you may know the area as Carnival Court. If you ever walked the Strip in that area you know there is a point where you are required to snake through a deeply annoying open air shopping center with cheap carnival booths and a decent outdoor bar with mediocre live bands playing (although there is a Ghirardelli's). Apparently the plan is to turn that into a full on outdoor shopping/social area that contains the world's largest observation wheel.

When that's all sorted out and The Linq makes its debut in June 2013 (fingers crossed, altho, Caesars says the project is already fully funded), it will feature up to 40 restaurants, bars, retailers and nightlife options. But, where the brilliance may lie is in the percentages. The Linq will be 70 percent restaurants and bars, many featuring rooftop lounges and open air dining. i.e., the perfect stopping point for tourists on foot looking for a bit of refreshment after wandering The Strip. Caesars' own numbers say some 20 million folks walk past that location a year. ka-ching

More info is here.

70% of 40 = 28 bars and restaurants. Niiiice. That won't help me until 2013 or so, but it's good that things are looking up. For now I'm anxious to check out the new hotels and restaurants this November.

Lastly, I find I am going to have to hate Bill Barnwell from Grantland, and formerly of Football Outsiders. He has apparently up and moved to the Strip to gamble on football and write about it full time. Yes, I hate him. Righteously so.

The Month That Was - July 2011

The Month That Was - July 2011: So the summer peak has passed. It has been the hottest July on record for this area, but there is no denying the growing shortness of daylight. For this month, let me tell you about what I am not going to tell you about.

I am not going to write about the long weekend I took in Rehoboth Beach, DE. In terms of activities it was little different than the trip I took there back in February (apart from a somewhat disastrous 5K run with an overarching Penn State influence). I am not going to do any book reviews. I have been reading, of course. Specifically: It's All Greek to Me by Charlotte HIggins, Half-Made World by Felix Gilman, Driving Like Crazy by P.J. O'Rourke, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee, and Playback by Raymond Chandler. I will drench you with comments on these and others in the near future, but I have been putting too many book reviews up so -- a break from that this month. I am not going to talk about my writing project since I left it in percolation mode (that means I ignored it) all month.

Most importantly, I am not going to talk about my lawn.

[TV] Comedies Tonight
[Tech] Phone Fristration
[House and Home] Critter Wars
[Good Links] Premium Clickage

[TV] Comedies Tonight

Comedies Tonight: Consider Seinfeld the mold-busting, outside-the-box, ur-comedy. Here's where some recent comedies exist in relation to it.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- Seinfeld, if it was populated by degenerate douchebags. It's many years into its run and is getting a little long in the tooth, but at its best it's a good as obnoxious cretin comedy can be. Danny DeVito remains one of the most unfairly unheralded comic actors in history.

Workaholics-- Seinfeld, if it was populated by pathetic weenies dimwits. Or maybe it's more like The Office if all the characters were given lobotomies. Or maybe it's just a serialized combination of The Jerk and Dumb and Dumber. I gotta bet one or all of those descriptions was use to pitch this show. Is it odd I would find such a show funny? Not really. As with the Always Sunny... guys, the hapless characters make you drop your guard and the timing, with a certain ad-libbed feel to it, is good for drop dead guffaws.

Wilfred -- Kind of an anti-Seinfeld. The main hobbit from Lord of the Rings is a suicidal depressed nebbish. His hot neighbor has a dog, which everyone else sees as a dog, but he sees as an adult man in dog suit who pretty much takes over his pathetic life and shows him how to live. Essentially, it's Mr. Ed, if Mr. Ed was an id manifestation and a drug fiend. Not Seinfeld at all, just run of the mill episodic sitcom, lots of toilet humor, and a lesson in every episode -- pretty standard stuff except for the dog gimmick. Its value comes from relieving you from ever watching Lord of the Rings again without picturing Mr. Frodo bonging himself silly next to a guy in a dog costume.

Louie -- Seinfeldian in that it stars a stand-up comic and is often bookended by shots of his live performance. I suppose it is also related in that it can be a strange sort of comedy of manners, although from a more personal perspective than a social one. Some people rave about this. I'm not so sure. It's less outright comical and more intriguing. It's like someone took the "it's funny, because it's true" aspect of comedy and went whole hog on the "it's true" end of things. Which makes it almost more of a dramedy. I'm really not sure what to make of Louie. At times cerebral, at times farcical, at times surreal, at times dull. It's rarely flat-out funny, but it is oddly fascinating.

Curb Your Enthusiam -- Seinfeld Part 2. (If you didn't know, Larry David was one of the producers of Seinfeld and the original model for George Castanza.) I can either love or hate this show. When it narrows it's scope and focuses intensely on Larry David's neuroses it gets tedious. This season, I'm loving it. It's getting ensemble-y as Larry's friends kind of take larger roles now that his divorce is done. It makes you realize how much he brought to the table with Seinfeld. In fact, his Curb ensemble has many similarities. He's George, of course. His buddy Jeff is roughly Jerry. His insane "urban" houseguest, Leon, is Kramer. Richard Lewis is, effectively, Elaine. Funkhouser is roughly Putty, in my estimation. Honestly, at its best, Curb... matches Seinfeld and kind of makes you wish they had kept going after all. At its worst it's just a bland exercise in discomfort comedy, but this season has been one of the best.

Archer -- Absolutely hands down the show that makes me laugh the most (which is kind of the main point of comedy). An animated super-spy agency satire. Ungodly comic timing, especially from H. Jon Benjamin as the voice of Sterling Archer. Also, a show that's not afraid to make obscure allusions and count on the audience to get it. For example this exchange:

Cyril: I'm not sure that's technically irony.
Archer: What? This is like O Henry and Alanis Morissette had a baby and named it this exact situation.

Or flat out comedy:

Cyril: Will I get to learn karate?
Archer: Karate? The Dane Cook of martial arts? No, ISIS agents use Krav Maga.
Cyril: Krav..?
Archer: We've got an ex-MOSSAD guy, comes in on Thursday.
Cyril: Neato.
Archer: Yeah, Tuesdays he does a really rigorous spin class.

This will lose everything in the translation, but if you see the scene, you will have witnessed perfect comic timing:

Archer: Shut up, I have to go. And if I find one single dog hair when I get back, I'll rub sand in your dead little eyes.
Woodhouse (Archer's butler): Very good, sir.
Archer: I also need you to go buy sand. I don't know if they grade it... but... ... ... coarse.

That last one may be one of the funniest exchanges in comedy history. I could quote these guys all day. Nothing really to do with Seinfeld, except in the "nobody hugs, nobody learns" sense. Just funny, funny people turned loose on funny, funny scripts.

So what have we learned from this brief survey? Not much. I was looking for a common thread that might define the current fashion of comedy and I don't see one. For quite a while now, traditional gags and sketch comedy have been out of favor. Comedy has had a tendency to be some combination of potty humor (especially in the movies) and situation discomfort. But while the above shows contain elements of those two, there is something more there. Absurd narcissism is big too - there's a fair amount of goings on where the comedy stems from self-absorbed characters debating the meaningless aspects of their own concerns while disaster and drama sweep around them. And of course, irony; we still live in a hyper-ironic age (like O Henry and Alanis Morissette had a baby...). There is nothing earth-shattering about these shows but they are at least creative, some uniquely so. If there is no game-changer here, at least nobody is operating off a formulaic concept. The state of TV comedy is sound and promising.

[Tech] Phaone Frustration

Phone Frustration: T-Mobile has been the bane of my existence. I have always had a weak signal at my office. But over the last few months it has become non-existent, despite the fact that their coverage map indicates that I should have four bar reception. In fact, I get no reception in about a 1 mile radius around my office. Beyond that, it quickly reverts to normal. So essentially that means that unless I go out to lunch, I am incommunicado most of the day. I have delivery jockeys and repair grunts who need to contact me and I can't just give out my cell, because their messages won't reach me until I get home at night.

An online chat with a T-mobile rep over this problem was comically useless. I am not certain the rep actually understood what a cell phone was. I explained that I get no signal. He asked if I was able to make calls. I said no, you can't make calls without a signal. He asked if I have data access. I said no. He asked what happens when I try to go to the web. I said I don't have data access, just calls and text. He asked if I could do something using jargon I never heard of. I said no. I have no signal. I cannot make calls. I cannot send texts. I cannot do anything with my phone. He asked if was able to make any calls at all. At this point I asked whether he understood what I meant when I said I have no signal and whether he had any experience using a cell phone. I am not sure he wasn't just jerking me around. He asked me to read him the id number from the sim chip in my phone. I asked him if it was really necessary for me to do that, which of course it was, to him. So I pulled the sim chip out of my phone and read him the number. He then said I would be contacted within seven days with follow-up. Naturally I never heard from them again.

The more I think about it the more I think he was just yanking my chain for entertainment's sake, waiting for the pink slip to come after the AT&T merger gets approved. I am half-tempted to get back on line and jerk one of their reps around for good measure, but I doubt I'd get the same one.

Here's the problem. I'd go with AT&T or Verizon in a heartbeat, but I pay less than $200 per year in prepaid charges. That would go up significantly with either AT&T or Verizon since every day I use the phone would be another dollar. Sprint, Virgin, etc., all have poor or non-existent coverage in my area so I'd be back in the same boat with them.

I don't know what to do. If I go with and AT&T or Verizon prepaid plan, I'll be paying more than I am now for the same thing. Well, not really the same thing because there won't be a huge portion of the day where I have no signal. But still, if I am going to pay more, shouldn't I just go all the way and get a smartphone? But that'll run me about $80/month for the most basic service with data. Considering I am an extremely light phone user, and will likely be an equally light data user, it just seems outrageous. For a two year contract, plus whatever it costs for the phone itself, that'll be around two grand more than I'm paying now. And didn't I go most of my life without a cell phone? I should be dropping thousands of dollars for one now, when I have a big fat mortgage payment? Two grand would cover some furnishings.

You see the convoluted situation? I have no doubt that it's time to get smart; either a cheap, used iPhone or maybe an Android of some sort. It'll pain me to do it, though.

[House and Home] Critter Wars

Critter Wars: I never signed up to abandon civilization. First it was bears and feral pigs. Now we have rabid bats. The latest one was hornets, and it hit close to home. Specifically right in my back yard.

I had just finished mowing the lawn in 90 degree heat, very proud that I got it done in under 2 hours. So I took the weed-whipper out to hit the edging around the trees and in the backyard next to my deck I look up and see the most terrifyingly enormous hornets nest in recorded history, hanging off a low lying branch. Click here to see what it looked like. A hideous construct. Like a miniature version of a hive from Aliens. Amazingly I had just mowed all around it, my head had to be within a couple of feet of it at some point, and never even noticed it was there. It's a wonder I didn't get swarmed. In fact, that's exactly what the hornet guy told me.

Yeah, I hired a hornet guy. You see I did some internet research on how to rid myself of these critters and the advice boiled down to: 1) Wait until dusk when they are all back in their nest, 2) Wear thick clothing, 3) Wear eye protection, 4) Make sure you spray directly into the entry hole, 5) Wear your running shoes in case you miss. As if that wasn't enough, the Hornet Guy explained to me that when they go on the attack, hornets target the carbon dioxide from your exhales, so they head straight for the mouth and nose.

Nooope. No way. You handle it, Hornet Guy. I'll watch from the living room window.

Hornet Guy followed none of the rules. He did it mid-morning, in a t-shirt and jeans, without any eyewear. He did not, however, miss. He nailed the nest first time with some kind of dust, not a spray. He then backed away to give the beasties a little time to die in peace. Finally he went back and essentially beat the now defunct nest of the tree limb with a stick. And that was that. He got buzzed by a couple a strays that had avoided the dusting, but he didn't get stung.

Less dramatic, but more vexing, is the fact that the "Coral Carpet" perennial ground cover I planted in the front garden is getting nibbled at by some spiteful creature of unknown genus. At first I though it was probably bunnies -- evil bunnies -- but it might be birds. I don't think it's the deer, but I haven't ruled them out. Nice to know that I spent a days worth of time and money planting these things only to have it turn out to be expensive bird food.

Honestly, it's all enough to make a guy yearn for a concrete jungle. Which reminds me, I miss Manhattan.

[Good Links] Premium Clickage

Premium Clickage: Assorted odds and ends, haphazardly gathered over the past couple of months.

• From 1954 to 1998 the most popular name for boys in the US was Michael, except for one year: 1960 -- the year I was born. The name that that was tops that year? David. Just from my first name, you could take a good guess at my age. Interestingly by 1989 David had dropped from the top five, never to return.
• I happen to think Roger Ebert is a braying ass who happens to write an excellent movie review, which includes, as a subtalent, blow-coke-out-your-nose put-downs.
• Detroit just keeps on giving. "[T]he working-class district on the southeast corner of Eight Mile Road and the I-75 Service Drive... made international news last month after FOX 2 publicized its citizens' very loud cry for help. A hand-painted billboard visible from the highway that read: WARNING THIS AREA INFESTED BY CRACKHEADS." Turns out the house is owned by BGE properties, a company in Lathrup Village (used to be a very nice suburban enclave next to Southfield back in the '60s/'70s). The reporter's official queries to BGE were taken by someone calling himself "Broadway Benjamin." No, really. I can't imagine how crackheads got in there.
• A couple of good articles popped up regarding the current Best Show on TV, Breaking Bad. At Grantland, " Because TV is so simultaneously personal (it exists inside your home) and so utterly universal (it exists inside everyone's home), people care about it with an atypical brand of conversational ferocity...". At The New York Times, "Television is really good at protecting the franchise," [series creator Vince] Gilligan said. "It's good at keeping the Korean War going for 11 seasons, like 'M*A*S*H.' It's good at keeping Marshal Dillon policing his little town for 20 years. By their very nature TV shows are open-ended. So I thought, Wouldn't it be interesting to have a show that takes the protagonist and transforms him into the antagonist?" The show is currently in negotiations over how it's final season will play out. Don't start watching live at the point. Stream it from season one to catch up. It's worth it.
• Since I skipped out on any book reviews this time, you might read this appreciation, and accurate updating, of Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, by Paul Fussell, a wonderful book on the difference class attributes in the U.S. (cultural not political, except tangentially). It first came out in 1983. I think I read it around '85. But I remember much of it to this day, and see its accuracy still. Sharp and witty, fast and fascinating. Should you read it? Yes, unqualified.

The Month That Was - June 2011

The Month That Was - June 2011: Another busy month. I now have a tenant in my old condo and so am officially a slumlord, of sorts. I've been working on repairs of the old place and maintenance and doing minor upgrades -- the hardest part of which is trying to get everyone's timing right. But by and large, that's going well, which is good because if I tried to sell the place now I'd take a big fat loss. On the other hand, it might be better to take the loss, and the tax benefit, and start getting return on whatever money I could get out of it. I could debate the prospects endlessly, simultaneously curing your insomnia.

Here in the greater Dexter area, the big news this month was the appearance of a bear. Just a young'un. They are guessing about a two year old, probably just recently off in the world on his own. There were reports of a momma, but that hasn't been verified. Of course we were immediately inundated with public service messages about how to handle encounters. It was a minor pop culture phenomenon and most everyone I know was thrilled. (Me? Not so much. See below.)

I am effectively done with the first draft of my latest writing project. I'm not ready to talk about it extensively, but I will say it's not like what I have done before. In fact, it isn't really even original fiction. It will be Kindle only, I know that. And if the audience for my novels was in the dozens, the audience for this will be lucky to crack double digits. With each passing work, writing makes me feel like Don Quixote.

Speaking of books, I read a ton this month. You get hit with the standard two reviews but there was a third book I finished which was solely to indulge my inner child. A while back I read the entire series of "independent reader" books by Rick Riordan featuring Percy Jackson and the Olympians. (All my adult friends were reading Harry Potter, so I had to be different.) Like all such books, they are completely manipulative and contrived (which is what young readers need), but so what, they were entertaining. He's started a second series in the same universe, The Lost Hero being the first. I won't bother to review it until I've completed the whole series which will probably be years away since the second book doesn't come until fall and there will probably be five total. Still, highly recommended for a young reader (say 10-12) or as a bedtime series for a younger child (say 6-8).

I do realize I've been deluging your with book reviews the last few months. Maybe next month we can get some TV reviews going. Or something else new. Worse comes to worse, I could go back to writing about football (oh, wait...).

[Books] Book Look: Positively Fifth Street
[Books] Book Look: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
[Rant] A Day in My Life
[Dexter] Bear Bearings
[Detroit] Spitting on the Hand that Feeds It

[Books] Book Look: Positively Fifth Street

Book Look: Positively Fifth Street, by Jim McManus: My new official favorite poker book. Jim McManus was a writer and teacher at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and serious amateur poker player when he scored a gem of an assignment from Harper's magazine: cover the World Series of Poker along with the sensational murder trial in the death Ted Binion, the now former owner of the casino where the World Series was happening. In addition to his journalistic duties, he uses the side games to parlay his magazine advance into buy in for the big tournament. Participatory journalism.

The core thread of the book is McManus' path through the tournament, but every curious and informative side angle is given treatment. We get some background on the history of poker, especially with its evolution from Texas roadhouses to Vegas glitz. We get brief descriptions of some of the legendary players. We get some bio background on McManus himself. We get a thorough discussion of the b-story: the sordid murder of Ted Binion.

The Binion family plays a key role in turning poker from Wild West anarchy into a glamorous and semi-respectable pastime. It was at their Horseshoe Casino in downtown Vegas where the WSOP experienced its meteoric growth in popularity. In the case of Ted, however, along with his skill at managing gaming risk, politicians, mobsters, and poor-schmuck gamblers, came a predilection for fast drugs and expensive women.

Binion was murdered by his lowlife simian bodyguard and sleazy hooker girlfriend, who were cheating on him and after his millions. The details of both the murder itself (at least as imagined by McManus) and their behavior during and after are borderline comic absurdity. Honestly, if I was to script the most cliche-laden cop show murder I could imagine, it would be what played out in real life among these three.

It sounds like a confused gumbo of topics but they link up serendipitously. McManus, it turns out is a pretty solid family man, but he must react to and try to understand the lurid Binion case, the business of throwing great gobs of money on to the table, and some sordid casino types, which eventually ends up with him getting in trouble with his wife for having a lap dance at one of those sprawling Vegas strip clubs. He is good on the topics of temptation and weakness, both subtle and gross.

Also serendipitous is that this is a document of a certain activity at a kind of peak. This was a point in the short but beautiful run of truly glamorous poker, and of the monstrous popularity of Vegas itself. Over the subsequent few years, random nondescript internet players would swamp every tournament but at the turn of the millennium it was still dominated by colorful big names. And even as late as 2000, Binion's was loaded with old Vegas atmosphere and tradition. By 2004 the WSOP would be sold to casino giant Harrah's and the Horseshoe to another gaming giant. Reading Positively Fifth Street now one can't help but sense that Those Were the Days.

At playing cards McManus does very, very well, perhaps a bit to his own surprise. He makes the final table finishing fifth and winning a boat load of prize money in the process. McManus leans on some low-end playing experience but what is most engaging is that he constantly goes back to poker literature and how-to strategy guides for inspiration. Throughout the tournament he often finds himself heads-up with big name players whose books and advice he's idolized. Best of all is how absolutely normal a player he reveals himself to be, at least in the sense of his moment to moment actions. He accidentally string bets (acts like he's going to call then raises), doesn't quite identify all the possible hands (never mind get the probabilities right), he makes bets when he knows he shouldn't and checks when he knows he should raise. In other words, he plays just like me (and probably you). It's endearing. He is also exceptionally skilled at describing the action -- very exciting stuff.

Should you read Positively Fifth Street? Yep. If you like poker, or are curious about poker, or gambling in general, or Vegas in general, or maybe even as true crime it'll work for you. But what it's really about is the temptation of vice. Ted Binion yielded completely and fatally to vice. McManus is willing to risk pretty much his whole advance to get into the tournament but, at his most libertine, can't go beyond a lap dance. Where do you fall on the spectrum? If you've ever been tempted by the dark side, you will recognize feelings that drive the people in this book.

[Books] How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

Book Look: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, by Charles Yu: Just when you think there was nothing left to make out of time travel stories, somebody comes up with something new. The protagonist uses time travel for the purpose of avoiding pain and hiding from life, or, as he describes it, living chronologically.

The protagonist, also named Yu, has deep connections to time travel. His father devoted his life to the invention of a time machine only to have it fail when demo-ing it to an investor. It turns out someone else had been working on similar idea and ended up with the glory. Devastated by this failure, his father used his machine to disappear into a parallel time/space and Yu's been searching for him ever since. His mother, given to depression and passive aggression, has locked herself into a time loop to escape her own pain. For Yu's part, he's become a time machine repairman, which seems to mostly consist of popping in on other time travelers when their machines have broken down because they tried to change the past. All the while, he lives his entire life inside his own time machine, with its hyper-feminine artificial intelligence for a girlfriend and a holographic, yet "ontologically valid", dog as a companion.

The narrative is alternately loaded down with ironic and semi-satirical time travel/metaphysical exposition, which ranges from snicker-worthy to tedious (although mostly the former). As Yu flits from universe to universe you lose track of the when and where of things (kind of like Inception), but that's OK. The metaphoric aspect of the time travel is what counts here. It's very well done and quite clever, the way he keeps the story human.

Should you read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe? You'll need a strong streak of geek, or the time travel aspect will chase you away. Otherwise yes, it's an engaging book all the way around, with a thoughtful core about our inability to escape the past; getting lost in time and fear of moving forward; playing it safe. So we beat on, time machines against entropic swells, borne ceaselessly into nonlinear reality.

[Rant] A Day in My Life

A Day in My Life: A simple description of a typical Saturday, for no good reason. Nothing terribly interesting happens. Just trying to personalize things a bit.

I sleep in, which means I don't worry about getting out of bed until 9. I can get up earlier, but only if feel like it. Since it's Saturday and I pretty much won't have any significant social interaction with anyone who cares, I don't shave and cover my mangy head with a baseball cap. I have a beloved friend who has told me I look ridiculous in hats, and it's almost certainly true, but like I said, today is a grub day. I slap on a t-shirt, cargo shorts and sandals and hop in the Camry. I immediately remember that it is due for an oil change and its annual detailing. I vow to get it done next week, as I have each of the last three of weeks.

Sleeping late also means I have little time to waste so breakfast will be fast food. I stop at the McDonalds near my office. I eat a good deal of fast food. Perhaps too much, but I am not of the belief that it is inherently unhealthy. If you don't overindulge and supersize things, you don't get a ton of calories and as long as you make up for it by veggie oriented eating the rest of the time, you're fine. Plus, you get in and out in 10 minutes and spend about $4. I rarely carry-out; I almost always order at the counter and eat in. I keep a book with me in the car and I take the opportunity to knock off a chapter while I'm shoveling the breakfast burrito in my face. The current book is How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (reviewed above).

From McDonald's to the office. I have a leftover issue that I probably won't be able to resolve until Monday which will be a bit of a black mark for me, so I'll see if any brilliant solution comes to me by staring at my computer screen. Joyfully, I arrive to an email that says one of my employees has gone above-and-beyond to take care of it. A big dose of awesome. Now I can use the extra time to get some personal stuff done. I have a tenant renting my condo and, not realizing I needed to, I never notified the condo association. This resulted in a sternly worded letter and some paperwork to fill out, so I take the opportunity to shamelessly use the company fax machine to send the stuff over. I then hop on the web to try to get the utilities switched over but it turns out I can't do that without the tenant's SSN. I'll be seeing the tenant tomorrow when I get the garage cleared out so I'll deal with it then.

Speaking of shameless, I go to the candy machine and see that there is a dangling bag of M&Ms. That means I can get two bags for the price of one, which approximates theft, but then these machines have shorted me regularly enough in the past so it's probably more of a wash. I briefly munch on M&Ms while I surf the web in my ongoing hunt for a cheap smartphone plan for ATT or Verizon (I have given up on T-Mobile) when I receive an email from another dear friend who is about to move to England for three years along with her husband and two-year old. She points out that the 2012 Olympics in London would be the perfect opportunity for a visit, and I immediate realize that I will be semi-obsessed with trying to plan it for the next few weeks. We'll see. But the cumulative force of everything I have yet to do drives me out of the office and back on the road in short order.

I plan to hit Abbot's Nursery, but I'm zoning out to Sirius and zip right past the freeway exit so I continue on to Bed Bath and Beyond where I need to buy a shower caddy. The one I want only comes in brushed nickel and everything else in my master bath is polished brass, so I just buy an inexpensive one as a placeholder until I find what I want, then I'll move the cheap one to the upstairs bathroom. I also snag some placemats since I ate dinner the other night on two layers of paper towels. I am disgusted with the level of girliness I am displaying. Worse, I forgot my coupons.

I check out and throw the housewares in the trunk and backtrack to Abbott's. I had some landscaping ideas early in the season, but after a fair amount of rotting wood siding was discovered, I decided I would hold off on any major landscaping projects until that gets sorted out and I see where I am with money. Still, I have some serious bare patches in my gardens that it wouldn't hurt to address if only in a small way. I see some good stuff at Abbott's -- I like the Asian Lillys and some of the other perennials, but I quickly realize I need to make some measurements and maybe even sketches before I make any decisions.

So I head back home to address lawn and garden issue number one: getting the sprinklers going. Programming them turns out to be a breeze, the problem is that, while the program kicks in and countdowns occur as expected, no water is coming out of the nozzles. There is a valve somewhere to turn on the water, but the problem is I have no idea where it is. Fifteen minutes or so of searching about doesn't help and I can't find any documentation so I'm stuck. I make a call to the local sprinkler guy, get voice mail, and leave a message. Frustrated, I take the opportunity to call for another bit of maintenance I have been meaning to get done: have an external keypad set up for my garage door.

I call the local garage door guy and he makes me read some numbers off the garage door closer to him. He tells me $45 if I just want the unit and install it myself, another $45 for him to install it. Since I have no bloody clue how to install one or even where to find the wires I tell him to do it. He says he'll be over shortly. I use the interval to re-pot a lucky bamboo, and to spray vinegar on some weeds that have intruded into the cracks in my driveway. (Vinegar is supposed to be a cheap, organic trick for slaying weeds.)

The garage door guy appears and it takes him all of ten minutes. It turns out these things are wireless. "Installation" involves nothing more than screwing it into the door frame. The joke is on me. I would call it a life lesson but odds are I will never have to install a garage door opener so it's really just a loss. I write the guy a check.

Having failed to get the sprinklers working and having gotten soaked on the door opener keypad, I need to blow off some steam. I decide to bike to Pinckney Rec Area, about 8 miles away, do a criminally hilly five mile trail run around Crooked Lake, then ride back. Sure enough, as soon as I'm ready to leave, the sprinkler guy calls back. His turn to get voice mail; I'm geared up to go.

The ride over is pretty sweet and quick and I'm feeling good. I lock up my bike and walk by the shore of Silver Lake passing all the swimmers and picnickers and find the Crooked Lake trailhead. I set a steady rate, about nine minute miles, knowing full it won't last through the hills. And it doesn't. Between the hills -- some so steep you could only technically call my pace a run -- and the bugs -- this passes through essentially a thickly wooded swamp -- I finish in at a 10 minute mile average, which is exactly what I ran when I did the organized race here a couple of months ago. At least his time I have the excuse of the bike ride and the bugs to slow me down. The good news is that I crossed paths with what looked to be a turkey hen and about eight chicks. They say there are a ton of turkeys around this year. In fact, Washtenaw County is rich with wildlife -- coyotes, fox, turkeys, and scariest of all, feral pigs. And now we have a bear or two for the first time in living memory.

Sucking down about a gallon of water from the fountain I make a note-to-self that it's time to start swimming outside. Silver Lake is where all the triathletes train swimming laps around the buoys and I'm tired of the pool. The ride home is, if anything, nicer that the ride there.

I get back and I am tired. 16 miles of riding and five miles of hard hill running. It's quarter to seven and I need some food. I'm not up for cooking so I decide to treat myself to one of my favorites: Pad Thai from No Thai at North Campus. I take the scenic route along the river to get there. Chicken Pad Thai, medium spicy, Diet Coke. I sit and eat and read another chapter.

Before I'm done for the evening I have to follow my discipline. On the way home I stop at Barnes and Noble, further treat myself to a piece of key lime pie, and work on my writing project (still not at the point I can discuss it, but my confidence level is about 95%). The next time I look up it's 9PM. I drive home, stop and pick up my mail, pay a couple of bills on line, including an outrageous one to a periodontist that I have very mixed feelings about. I pack my gear for a 10AM class at the gym tomorrow and now I am toast. I crack open a beer and zone in front of the TV to write this overlong post.

At this exact moment I look up and it's 2AM and Empire Strikes Back is being re-run in HD. Obi Wan says "That boy is our last hope." Yoda replies "No, there is another." I change the channel to High Stakes Poker at Bellagio. Doyle Brunson has a set but he doesn't realize someone else has the same set with a higher kicker. Or maybe he does because he mucks it. I would have gone broke on that hand.

It's bedtime. My final thoughts: 1) I ate poorly today; something that I will correct tomorrow -- double up on veggies, 2) I left the damn shower caddy in the trunk of my car. Sigh. Goodnight.

[Dexter] Bear Bearings

Bear Bearings: It was first spotted at Hudson Mills Metro Park. There were two witnesses, but when the rangers searched, they saw no evidence. People I know dismissed it as probably just a big labradoodle. Then somebody got a photo. It was a young black bear; an adolescent probably just newly on his own. PSAs went out about what to do in a bear encounter. The reactions were telling.

It became a minor phenomenon. Everyone I know said it was cool. A twitter feed and facebook page popped up. T-shirts are still available.

Internet forums then began lighting up with people who tried to be even cooler by mocking the furor and claiming not to understand why everyone thinks it's a big deal. Often they peppered their comments with humble brags about how much time they spent up north where bears are more common and yet they never had any problem.

The DNR set up a trap with the intent of catching it and putting a collar on it.

What nobody did was even consider that the bear is dangerous and should be caught and removed from the area. No, we are supposed to live in harmony with it. After all, ask anyone and they will tell you it just wants to get along with us. Clearly it's an Animal Planet planet.

Here's a new flash. IT'S A BEAR, ok? A BEAR. It doesn't know it's supposed to just live and let live. It doesn't have a sense of its place in the community. It doesn't do any sort of moral reasoning at all. It is a highly intelligent predatory creature that, even as an adolescent, is higher on the food chain than anything else around here.

Sure enough, after the fun and games reality begins to set in. Less than a mile up the road from me, some poor woman had her chicken coop raided and destroyed. She now says that the Momma bear is present also, although the DNR hasn't verified that. This is how it starts. Note the quote: "They'll come right in front of my door and sit down. They'll let me get in a foot of them; they're not afraid of me at all." I cannot emphasize this enough: THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING.

Here's how this will play out. Somebody will find a half-eaten Chihuahua on their back porch. Or maybe somebody's golden retriever will barrel through their electric fence and into the woods, never to return. Then it will start to dawn on people. There might even be an outcry to remove the bear(s), but probably they'll just blame the dog owners. What the poo-poo'ers and nature ennoblers don't realize is that they are being completely cavalier about the danger to human life. What are they going to say when someone child happens to be playing in the back yard when Momma Bear comes by? Are they going to take responsibility for treating their fantasy version of nature as reality? No, of course not. They'll probably blame the parents for not watch more closely because, as we all know, all good parents should be capable of keeping a 24/7 watch on their children.

There is a reason human beings have gathered in cities and built fences and weapons. Nature is not on our side. Not when we were wandering the African veldt 25,000 years ago and not in Dexter, Michigan in 2011. Live and let live is not an option, no matter what Animal Planet tells you.

Besides, don't we have enough trouble with feral pigs?

[Detroit] Spitting on the Hand that Feeds It

Spitting on the Hand that Feeds It: This story tells you everything you need to know about Detroit. The city is getting a massive amount of philanthropic assistance from the Kresge Foundation:

Kresge has invested more than $100 million in Detroit's transformation, funding a riverfront promenade, building greenways and backing incentives for entrepreneurs.

In return, they get contempt. The Mayor can't accept somebody else getting some credit:

"Everyone talks about Kresge, Kresge, Kresge," the mayor said in an interview. "We're pleased with the support we're getting from them, but... Kresge is not doing this in a vacuum by themselves."

A city executive is indignant that these outsiders won't just give them the money without strings attached:

"People want to know that their interests are being represented," says Marja Winters, the city's deputy planning chief and co-leader of Detroit Works. "Someone who doesn't live here can't accurately represent their interests."

Presumably she'd rather just let people suffer before she sacrificed control, I mean, they've done right by the people so far, haven't they?

I once encountered a bum in front of a diner who told me he was hungry and hadn't eaten in days. I offered to buy him a burger inside. He said, "F**k you. Just give me the five dollars." I didn't. My advice to Kresge is to find something of real value to do with their money because Detroit is pathologically self-destructive and despite everything that has happened -- all the devestation and degradation and death of the past 50 years -- they are still not ready to change.

The Month That Was - May 2011

The Month That Was - May 2011: We went from one of the snowiest winters recent memory to the rainiest spring in 25 years. Honestly, I feel like some kind of farmer doing nothing but talking about the weather, but it's been pretty intense and it has a much greater affect on me than it used to. The good news is that we did have two straight days of rain free weather so I go to cut a relatively dry lawn and was able to finish it in under two hours. You can't imagine how excited I was. Seriously, I did a brief but poignant happy dance when I was done. (A friend of mine set the over/under for me contracting with a mowing service for the 4th of July.)

Somehow, I feel busy despite that fact that I didn't do much this month. Got a quick trip down to FL done get Miss Anna packed up after her last freshmen year final. Details below. I skipped out on my planned trip to NYC for Memorial Day, just because I put it off for so long that the price became exorbitant. Lame, I know.

I am writing something, it's just too early to discuss yet.

I bought two new pairs of running shoes and got my road bike in order. Now I'm in the market for a mountain bike because I have really taken to running the trails at nearby Pinckney Recreation Area, including the world famous Potowatami Trail, and I want to try biking them this year. I have not ordered from them yet, but Bikes Direct seems to have bikes with pretty solid components available for about half retail price. Of course you have to tack on another $100-150 for your local bike shop to build it, but still, as cheap as it gets. I'll let you know how it works out.

Just seems like I'm ticking off the months without too much drama. A blessing I suppose.

[Good Links] Top Grade Linkage
[Travel] Reliving in Florida
[Books] Book Look: This Side of Paradise
[Detroit] Failed City Porn

[Good Links] Top Grade Linkage

Top Grade Linkage: A quick round up of some good reading and miscellaneous nonsense:

• The story of a master thief.

  Blanchard almost overshot the castle, slowing himself just enough by skidding along a pitched gable. Sliding down the tiles, arms and legs flailing for a grip, Blanchard managed to save himself from falling four stories by grabbing a railing at the roof's edge...The real trick was ensuring that the spring-loaded mechanism the [gem] was sitting on didn't register that the weight above it had changed. Of course, he had that covered, too: He reached into his pocket and deftly replaced Elisabeth's bejeweled hairpin with the gift-store fake.

  I would have thought such people only existed on TV shows.


• I recently had a problem with ants living in some rotted wood siding. I'm guessing they were some innocuous breed and not Argentinean Ants or I would be in real trouble.

  I have found ants in my underwear. Lots of them, which I didn't find until I put the underwear on. As a person who has had ants in his underwear, however, I have to say that what makes their presence particularly irksome is not the momentary discomfort but rather the knowledge of why they're there. They're not just passing through, you see, on their way to somewhere else. They're not in your underwear by accident. They're nation-building. They're extending the range of their civilization, and they're doing it in your drawers.



• An actual night club bill from Vegas. Nearly $200,000 for a night in Tryst, a night club at Wynn. Nearly 150 large in champagne. Nearly $200 for Fiji water. Note the tip. Actually tips, plural. $29581 gratuity. Then another $29581 under "other tip". Then of course, there's the gratuity line so you can fill in more. Ah, Vegas...


• The market is a cruel a mistress for the writer.

  Mr. Grossman, who has been compared to both J.K. Rowling and Jay McInerney, tried his hand at literary fiction before turning to fantasy. He says supernatural fiction is fast becoming a dominant strain of contemporary literature. 'We are the mainstream,' he says. 'Literary fiction is a subculture.'

  Time for me to put some vampires or zombies in my stuff, I guess. Actually this is not all that new. Literature has always had a supernatural bent: Gods in greek theatre, horrors of Hell in Dante, witches and ghosts in Shakespeare, etc. Fiction is lies, after all.


• Robin Hanson discusses how irrational bike helmet regulations are from a safety perspective. Actually, he's commenting on the nature of status as it relates to safety regulations. But bike helmets, as you know, are one of my personal hobby horses. I'm in favor of a world where riding without a helmet is a source of glory.


• Paul Theroux is always interesting on travel. His upcoming Tao of Travel will likely be a must.

[Travel] Reliving in Florida

Reliving in Florida: Another run down to North Miami, this time to pick up Miss Anna at the end of her freshman year. It is astounding how much crap can be fit in a closet-sized dorm room. Honestly, when you figure in the cost of the plane tickets, rental car, hotel rooms, and package shipping, it would have been cheaper to have her leave everything for charity and just replace it when she got home. In any event, it was a full day of disassembling, packing, cleaning, and hauling packages to UPS (whose agents we got to know on a first name basis). Of course there were good-byes to be said, both sad and happy; a fair amount of dramatic emotional churn.

Not just for Anna. All sorts of cues had me reliving my freshman year. Smoldering conflicts brought to a head at the last minute before leaving. Glad to be done with school, sad to miss your friends. Knowing you should be an adult and make use of the summer, but not really having a good idea how. Not knowing what to do with yourself, and so acting with ego and false confidence on confused and counterproductive intentions. Just generally being a mess of a human being. It's a frustrating and frightening time of life, although you don't know any better. And there are no words to make it easier. Even the promise of having an eighteen-year-old's health wouldn't make me want to relive that time.

Funny thing is that as soon as the boxes were shipped, we reverted to formula. Kate and Anna and I have been on innumerable little vacations together, all immensely pleasurable, and the next morning we found ourselves bombing north for Orlando, Universal Studios in our sights.

We checked into the Loews Royal Pacific Resort, one of the three that are located inside the grounds itself (along with Loews Portofino Bay and the Hard Rock). It's a decent enough place, nice pool, lots of activities, free water taxi to the key points in the park. But there are problems. We had a horrendous time getting housekeeping to make up the room. By the time 5 o'clock came around we started making inquiries. The strange thing was that everyone reacted like it was completely normal. By 7pm an angry call from me to the Manager on Duty finally got some action. Kate's poignant comment: "Do they realize that a room is no good unless you can actually use it?" There were other service oddities, such as general confusion about when the park opened for early admission, but I will say there was no sign of rudeness or disaffection among the staff. It's a nice place and it's possible we just had one bad experience, but I would try Hard Rock first if I had to do it again.

As far as theme parks go Universal Studios is as good as Disney. It's not quite so sprawling across the land and it sticks to more traditional amusement park stuff, but these are not bad things. Universal consists of three sections: 1) Universal Studios Park, 2) Islands of Adventure, and 3) Universal Citywalk. In theory Universal Studios is a "movie themed" park, Islands of Adventure contains variously themed "islands", in practice most of the "islands" in Island of Adventure are movie themed, so really there is little difference between the two proper amusement parks. Citywalk is kind of like Downtown Disney, basically a high-energy outdoor mall -- restaurants, shops, etc.

Both the amusement parks are heavy into "3-D experiences" which used to be pretty pathetic, if I recall correctly from the early Star Wars themed ones I saw at Disney many years ago. The latest ones are killer, though, and the Harry Potter one at Islands of Adventure is truly astonishing. Essentially it's a mild roller coaster through a darkened building which, in concert with 3-d animations, animatronics, and plain old fire and water, makes for quite a wild ride. You find yourself playing quidditch then being attacked by dementors and so forth. Just slightly less interesting was the hot ride from a couple of years ago, Spiderman 3-D. Same sort of thing.

One of the best things about staying at an in-park hotel is that you get early access to the park. One hour early. So you can get in at 8am instead of 9am. I don't think we waited more than 5 minutes for any ride and we pretty much covered the whole of Islands of Adventure, including lunch, by noon. Nice. I'm not much for theme parks, but Universal Studios is a good time. Reliving childhood there would be something I could stand.

[Books] Book Look: This Side of Paradise

Book Look: This Side of Paradise, by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Keeping with the above theme of college days, my main read this month was F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. Note that while I have linked this to the Kindle version on Amazon (free), it is long past its copyright expiration so you can snag it for free from just about anywhere on-line. Gutenberg.org is a good place to start for the Kindle averse.

This is the story of a wealthy, spoiled boy with a flighty mother and disconnected father. He is sent to boarding school; goes on to Princeton; falls in love and has his heart broken. Along the way, almost tangentially, his parents die, he fights in WW1, and goes broke. We are given detailed descriptions of his innermost thoughts and feelings at school, especially at Princeton, his impressions of those around him, and his evolving desires and ideas. But his reaction to his parents deaths is little more than annoyance, we hear nothing about his war experiences despite being in combat, and his reaction to the vaporization of his family fortune is blase.

It sounds reversed doesn't it? The huge dramatic events in his life are mere sideshow, but all the details of his identity and ego development are the topic of the book. And that is a stroke of genius, because that is what it is like to be that age: completely self-consumed. The self-obsession of the main character is exaggerated contrast to the external events around him. Clever way to zero in on a young man's ego.

This Side of Paradise is F. Scott Fitzgerald's version of "The Book Everyone has In Them." For most it's the "college experience/coming of age book" although there are variations that have nothing to do with college. It is the documentation of the painful birth of an adult, or at least the start of the ongoing process of adulthood. Someone we know once wrote a book called Apple Pie along the same lines.

The eternal commonality is there. The deluded self-opinion, the disregard for that which does not directly affect you, the misguided attempts at self-definition and the corresponding attraction to charismatic, pseudo-intellectual ideas and people. Also there is the pain and uncertainty, which in retrospect from a fully lived life can seem almost quaint and precious, but as lived it is devastating.

This Side of Paradise is set pre-WW1 for the most part, so despite the familiar themes and feelings, things are different. Most of the young characters speak in florid semi-cryptic poetics, more concerned with the impression their words leave as opposed to clarity of communication. But there is still shameless college pranksterism and debauchery, here among the elite at Princeton, and which I witness in Ann Arbor to this day. The writing often seems self-indulgent, but again that kind of plays into the themes. This was his first novel and Fitzgerald was not quite Fitzgerald yet, but the core of the talent that eventually produced Tender is the Night and Gatsby is discernible.

Should you read This Side of Paradise? Not until you have read Gatsby or Tender. It doesn't measure up to those in any way. Allow me some self-indulgence and suggest you read Paradise after reading Apple Pie. I'd be curious to hear what parallels you could draw.

[Detroit] Failed City Porn

Failed City Porn: Something I haven't done in a while: Completely gratuitous stores about the degradation of Detroit.

• Illiteracy in Detroit is around 47%. That's not a surprise. Though I was born in Detroit, I grew up in the city of Southfield which is on Detroit's northern border, just across the famed Eight Mile Road. Southfield's illiteracy rate is 24%, which is third-world-ish. It was a nasty place to grow up, but at least we could read and write our way out back then. I guess maybe we all did.


• One booming business in Detroit: demolishing abandoned homes.


• The Irish trad/punk band Flogging Molly wrote their latest set of songs in and about Detroit. They admit it makes little difference: "I don't have any answers. I sing for other people's frustrations." Just hope the songs are catchy.


• In contrast, Grand Rapids (second largest city in MI and furniture capitol of the world) was labeled one of America's Dying Cities" and they responded with a video of pretty much the whole city lip-synching "American Pie". Not sure whether that actually makes sense, but it's pretty cool.

The Month That Was - April 2011

The Month That Was - April 2011: Waterworld. At least it seems that way. Spring has brought some new little twists on homeownership travails as detailed below, but I am getting more comfortable with these things. Soon I will be able to set aside my obsession with sorting out my house and get back to writing or travel or whatever.

Speaking of writing, Misspent Youth is now available on Kindle. Woo hoo. $4.84. Barely more than a latte. Go download it now. (I assume you are aware you don't need a Kindle to read Kindle books.) Same deal as with all my books: buy a copy and leave a nice review on Amazon and I'll be your BFF.

Speaking of travel, photos from my last trip to Florida -- Palm Beach and the Dry Tortugas -- are now up on Smugmug. Good desktop background fodder.

Speaking of whatever, I ran ten miles for the first time in the hopes of doing a half marathon somewhere this summer. I have my eye on one out in Deadwood, but it's an open question as to whether I'll make it.

[Books] Book Look: Lay the Favorite
[Books] Book Look: The Devil's Alternative
[Movies] Flick Check (HD Version)
[House and Home] Waging War on Nature

[Books] Book Look: Lay the Favorite

Book Look: Lay the Favorite, by Beth Raymer: This was a fun book that appealed to the gambler in me. It's a memoir of a girl's rather oddball way of coming of age. Her plans to work in her boyfriend's family restaurant crash along with their relationship so Beth finds herself broke and rudderless. She wanders into a couple sleazy occupations: An in-home erotic dance service although she never drifts into having sex with her customers, and pornographic modeling, although she never actually poses for other people, she takes pictures of herself and photoshops herself into sexy twins. (At this point, I have to admit my BS detector went off. It seems awfully convenient that she could skirt the outer edges of prostitution and pornography yet manages never to cross the line into becoming "one of them". But that may say more about my cynicism than her candidness.)

In search of better work while waiting tables in a diner, one of her customers sends her to meet a professional gambler named Dinky. There begins her foray into the semi-legal world of sports handicapping. We are treated to a fascinating review of Dinky's life -- how his gambling got started, how it progressed from picking winners to making book, how he skirted the law, how his operation in Las Vegas functions. Beth starts out as essentially a gofer, but in time is taking bets and making six figure cash exchanges. All this is set in the halcyon days of Vegas before the crash -- it was like catnip to me.

When Dinky's operation starts to get in trouble Beth moves on from there and gets involved with a new corporation running an internet sports book out of the Caribbean. Her things get even stranger what with political unrest, rampant hookers, gang threats. It too eventually folds.

In the end, Beth actually rips off a fairly large sum from a lying, dirtbag gambler and heads for somewhere warm, presumably to write this book.

Lay the favorite is lively and good humored. It is an especially entertaining variation on the first book that everyone has in them somewhere concerning how they came to find a place in the adult world. Much of its charm lies in the characters who float in and out like comic book gangster wannabes and assorted operators of various stripe.

It is flawed in number of ways, however. First, from a gamblers perspective, it portrays absolutely nothing of what's involved in running a successful sports book. We are told these folks follow games and research obsessively, but we are given little on the process of how it is done or what they are specifically looking for. At one point Raymer throws out a bit of psychology suggesting that at the core of all gamblers is a powerful desire to lose. This is a sharp and accurate insight from my experience, yet we are given absolutely no follow up on it, she simply returns to describing the events of her life.

More importantly from a dramatic perspective, over the course of the book Beth goes on a journey to nowhere. At the outset she is a lost, capricious, morally confused girl. At the end she is a lost, capricious and morally confused girl. The overall sense is that we were just treated to a string of interesting events with no real point. Not that it makes the book unenjoyable. As I said at the outset, it was a fun read and if that's enough for you, then the answer to the question "Should I read Lay the Favorite?" is yes.

By the way Lay the Favorite is being made into a movie. The character of Dinky is being played by Bruce Willis. In the book, Dinky, is a huge, hideous, obese slob. Of course, that wouldn't play in Hollywood, so you get Bruce Willis. God only knows what they're going to make of this. Sounds like it might be related to the book in name only. Typical Hollywood, eh?

[Books] Book Look: The Devil's Alternative

Book Look: The Devils Alternative by Frederick Forsyth: When it comes to cold war thrillers, Frederick Forsyth is everyone's daddy. He wrote such movie fodder as Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File. When William F. Buckley wanted to start writing his own cold war fiction he told his publisher he wanted to write something like Forsyth. And now having read The Devil's Alternative, the source of the tone, pacing and style of Tom Clancy's The Hunt For Red October and Red Storm Rising have become quite clear. So yeah, Forsyth's a genre monster.

When I delve into genre fiction it's almost always either a spy thriller or a mystery. Mysteries tend to be more flexible; they can span great stretches of time and vary anywhere from screwball comedy to high concept art. Spy thrillers seem to be more limited. Some have literary aspirations and most people mention John Le Carre as an example of the literary bent of spy novels. I'm not sure I'm on board with that. Le Carre writes more subtly and with a greater capability to dramatize than most, but I'm not sure I would call any spy novels "literary" other than at the margin.

And that's not condescension. Genre writing takes as much talent and dedication as mainstream fiction; even more for well written works that find new angles and insights within the standard constraints. So when I say I feel lukewarm about The Devil's Advocate it's simply because it's heavy on the aspects of the spy genre that aren't to my taste.

Released in 1979 and set a couple of years into an imagined future, we are in the heart of the spy writer's glory days of the Cold War. (Spy writers really have never recovered from the fall of the Berlin Wall. Islamic terrorism is just too crude and dirty by comparison.) Due to twin disaster of nature and incompetence, the Soviet Union is facing a crop failure that will inevitably lead to famine. Separately, a Ukrainian dissident has committed a terrorist act that he hopes will inspire rebellion in other nations subjugated by Russians. Despite being mortal enemies, the U.S. does not want such chaos to ensue since it will likely lead to the downfall of the Soviet premier and his replacement by a super hawk and inevitably change the cold war to hot. These twin threats and their resolution become linked over the course of the novel and we are treated to cast of international characters, nicely diverse in motivation, all with a role to play for good or evil. And, of course, a surprise twist at the very end.

The Devils Aternative reads like a movie yet to be made -- mix in a leading man (say a Christian Bale type), a good side man (Morgan Freeman would work; doesn't he always?), maybe a call backs to the genre (Harrison Ford as someone's superior officer; Michael Caine as a spymaster) and crack director (not Michael Bay please) and you got yourself a summer blockbuster. You could write the script nearly scene for scene with the novel (maybe that will be my next project).

It's about the perfect spy thriller and where it falls down for me is not a shortcoming of the book but my lack of appreciation for comprehensive technical description. The book is about a third too long. There are longish stretches where the technical points and procedures are explained in very thorough detail, something that is key for the genre fans. This adds to the realism and fires the imagination of readers (I won't call them spy-nerds, but if I did it would not be an insult) who are the bread and butter targets of espionage/military writers. A description of the inner workings of an oil laden supertanker is riveting to some. Not me. I would rather you cut to the chase because to me it doesn't matter. As long as the plot is plausible, I'm happy. I don't need proof. But that's why I am not the main target audience here. By the half-way point I found myself skipping and skimming to get to the resolution.

Should you read The Devils Alternative? If you love espionage ala Ludlum and Clancy, then yes. Read it now. You will not be disappointed. If you're looking for something to distract yourself with while your cable is out and you can't get the latest action flick -- sure. Otherwise...meh. You could do worse, but you may find it grueling in parts. Feel free to skip ahead now and then.

[Movies] Flick Check (HD Version)

Flick Check (HD Version): Since I now have that beautiful 65" plasma HD screen I figured I better view a couple of effects heavy movies to see what's up.

Inception -- Uh...what? It was visually stunning beyond my imagination, but I can't for the life of me figure out what was going on. I'll grant you I'm old and my mind is going, but still. I am reminded of an episode from the X-Files called Jose Chung's From Outer Space written by the brilliant Darin Morgan. At one point in that script we were three flashbacks deep, yet we never had any doubt where we were in the story. Not so in Inception. It was like drilling down in a fractal. Every view was different but how they connected was lost. Very pretty to look at though.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I -- Boring, even in high def. Even more boring than the Half Blood Prince. There are huge swaths of this movie given over to meaningful looks and pointless handwringing. I've never liked the replacement Dumbledore and he's at his worst here, at least he's dead now (Ack! Forget the Spoiler Alert!). It's getting repetitive what with horrible things happening but Harry always succeeding through the love of others. And what's with this whole Horcrux thing. Suddenly, out-of-the-blue, we find out about these horcrux thingies that can stop Voldemort. Deus Ex Machina, my friends. Still you gotta watch 'em to see how it turns out now, you're fully invested. But you don't have to admire it.

[House and Home] Waging War on Nature

Waging War on Nature: We had an enormous amount of snow this winter. It has all melted, plus it has been raining all Spring and the cricks-a-risin! The Huron River is much higher than I have ever seen it. Seriously, this is a huge issue. My lawn has lots of 45 degree slopes which give my little John Deere tractor fits in when it's wet. As the weight shifts off one side it just spins its wheels and leaves tread patches when the ground is wet (no limited-slip differential on lawn tractors that I know of). I was lucky to get my lawn done in one of the small open windows of clear days with a minimum of damage. Others, not so much. As I write this it's May 1st and some of my neighbors have six inch high grass and no clear days forecast. Some of them are looking having eight to ten inches of grass to mow before they can get to it. Horror.

More troublesome are box elder bugs. I had a swarm outside my back window -- literally thousands of them. They are harmless -- no sting, no bite, no eat stuff. But they are everywhere, and they get inside too, to escape the cold at night. For a while I was squishing five or six a day. You can call an exterminator to come out and spray for them, but another way to kill them is with soapy water, plain dishwashing liquid. So for the last month I been going out back before sunset with a spray bottle of soap and water and wiping out as many as I can. I think I can finally declare victory...or maybe they are just regrouping.

More annoying are woodpeckers. Prior to buying the house, one had savaged the chimney which now needs boards replaced (I got some money off on closing for that). Lately one had taken to actually pecking at a metal chimney nice and early in the AM. Apparently they do this to attract mates. If you have never had the experience, it is a near equivalent to being awoken by some jackhammer tiles near your bed. My initial reaction to this was to price out a bb gun, but that turns out to be illegal for some silly reason. So a couple of mornings I just went outside in my jammies and whipped a rock at the little bastard while voicing strong words. I think he got the message. I'll never look at Woody Woodpecker the same way again.

All this is important to me as I am now one of the local landed gentry. This is what we country folk fret over.