Frost on the TMA strike:

Who drives this train I think I know.
His fat ass is not in there, though.
He will not see me walking here
Or feel my feet frostbit with snow.

My baby boy must think it's queer
To stroll so far when the train's so near
Amidst the blares and frozen scum
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his rattle a long shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the BLEEP
Of angry fares as tempers break.

The city is dank, cold with sleet,
But I've Santa's promises to keep,
And miles to walk before I sleep,
And miles to walk before I sleep.

Roundup of JACOB fixes over last few weeks.

I haven't actually been doing them but I've been listing them, which is better than nothing. The subconcious is churning away, and I'll let it keep on going. Though, actually, I think most of the major problems are close to solve-ed...

...

I've got a kibbutz in JACOB but I don't know enough about them to know whether or not they are like the kibbutz I've got... actually the kibbutz ain't even in there, it is merely ALLUDED to, but I still don't know enough about them.
this is an easy fix, though . Just have it be a special Kibbutz, a business meant to teach and toughen spoiled American princes and princesses. Summer camp to turn a Jewish Paris Hilton into a Jewish Sarah Connor.
May as well have Jenny explain it to Jacob that way, too. Easy enough.


I just remembered... Have Jenny make unconcious gestures indicating she wants to get it on with Jake all the time... then, when she's trying to get the dad, have her use the same signals consciously.

Didn't want to forget that.

Now I'm thinking I should just weasel through the entire book. Do the absolute bare minimum necessary to get a working copy- this might be the best way, as well as the fastest way, to get JACOB done.

I get a lot of good ideas in the car in the morning. Okay.
Have Jenny go into the club towards the END of the show, when women are just throwing money. Jenny was a gymnast in college, she's used to heavily ripped guys- but there were a couple of guys at every tournament whose bodies seemed designed to make women, to make HER, go nuts. Jacob's like one of those guys.
She stares at him and then feels embrarassed- a shameful flush of heat makes her look at the floor, but then she looks again. Her eyes go on him, off, on, off.

She could not keep her eyes off him for more than a few seconds, but then she couldn't look at him for more than a few seconds before looking away in shame. "Put your fucking clothes on," she said under her breath.


Then she'll wait around while Jacob works the table, until she gets pissed and works the waiter- and then Jacob will:

a) tell her to fuck off- setting up the amphitheater
or
b) sit down with her before he tells her to fuck off.

advantage of b is that she can start to do all the body language stuff... But maybe she should just do it at the amphitheater...

Problem: Prologue SUCKS!
Solution--
Use the voice recording only with the -click- -click- -click- action. (COULD ALSO MENTION THAT SALAHUDDIN'S PREFERRED METHOD OF KILLING PEOPLE IS IN ACTION HERE?)

Problem: Prologue doesn't jibe with later publishing date of JACOB.
Solution--
Have JACOB be just one of many stories about the recovery of the horse pills.

Problem: Chapter 1 is waay too long.
Solution: I'm thinking I'm going to have Jacob working one table (he gets paid to have drinks with female customers after the show) and have Jenny waiting her turn at another table, and have one woman's time run out... and she'll take out a black pen and draw her number on Jacob's hand, and the woman at the next table with lick Jacob's hand with her tongue and use her hand to rub off the old number, and then write down her number atop it...

Problem: Chapter 2 The AMPHITEHATER has a lot of shitty writing.
Solution: Rewrite. Keep the protest.

Problem: Chapter 3... This one's okay, I think.

Problem: Chapter 4 The Deliver Man- I keep calling the deliver man "the delivery man," which sucks but.
Solution: Call him "Salahuddin." Find and Replace. DONE.

Problem: Chapter 5 The Message- Why kill off Rodney? Should Rodney be a CIA plant? (find out at the very end- and THAT'S why the CIA is covering Kestine's house? It is basically an aside?)

Problem Chapter 6: Why would Jenny tell Jake about the message? And how would they be able to crack the code?
Solution: DON'T have them break the code. It is enough that Kestine got a heavily encoded message from a suspicious source.

Problem Chapter 7: It is okay, but make it so Jake hates Arabs because of his experience in Pakistan, too?

1. Jenny should be raped in the boat. And she should tell Jacob about his mom being alive because of that. Cut out the entire love scene story. Jenny sacrifices herself to save us.
(More believable and less melodramatic)

2. Agghhh I can't remember. I HATE that. Oh yeah, the Gnome. There's a problem, about why Jenny should be trying to get Jacob to help her get into the prof's house. So could have Jenny's boss talking to The Gnome. The Gnome is one of the guys, or the group, that tries to do the dot connecting people talked so much about after 911. He/They have unlimited access to all documents the government has and he/they are the ones who found the Jacob/prof connection and suggested this way of getting into her computer.

This paring process is moving along. One by one I'm killing off a lot of the crappiest stuff... It would be good to make a list of the NEW JACOB. A list of chapters, which one's have been written, which have been written off, and kind of see where it is at.

So now I'm thinking I can get the same idea across better like so...

I'm thinking I'm going to have Jacob working one table (he gets paid to have drinks with female customers after the show) and have Jenny waiting her turn at another table, and have one woman's time run out... and she'll take out a black pen and draw her number on Jacob's hand, and the woman at the next table with lick Jacob's hand with her tongue and use her hand to rub off the old number, and then write down her number atop it...

Anyway, on to JACOB, on to part 3 of the ongoing saga- how to write novels and not get paid for shit for them.

Jacob should probably grad in like '98 so he's got some experience before he's sent to the CIA's contracted evil mentory dude. Shall I call him Biff? (Oh, the despair is palpable. Dig the starving artist despair of Harkonnendog y'all... taste of it, sniff it, roll around in it like a puppy rolls upon the corpse of a dead rat left on the lawn by the cat, REVEL IN IT!!!)

Okay, enough of that. (But wait, you ask, why the despair now instead of before? Well, I just found out that- of the 19 copies of CLOWN which have sold, thereby garnering me a full $74.00 in royalties, 10 were bought my mom... LOL!!! Oh 'tis a sweet bittery taste- in fact I would say it is much like Heinz catchup, in that all the flavors of the palate are there- that's actually a fascinating essay btw, on catchup. No, really. Anyway, thank you Mom, love you.)

So Jacob is what, 98 - 17= he was born in 81 I guess. May as well make him a Libra, so October. Okay dokey. So in pre-October ought-five he's 24 - yeah... maybe make him a year older, you can go to school late if you're an October plus baby- so he's 25. That's about right.

All this stuff is so elementary- none of this was necessary for CLOWN because Clown took the frame of my life. I really lacked discipline while I wrote the rough of JACOB... I was distracted by my then girlfriend/now wife. Anyway...

Okay, I had another scene in mind, involving evil mentor... or did I? If I did I don't remember. HiGlish!

He's supposed to be a college kid but he fought in Somalia? No way. Woke up this morning and that just popped into my head. So now I'm thinking forget the entire Somalia thing- he was loaned to the CIA by the Marines so that he could work under a Jordanian intelligence guy in Pakistan to find bin Laden... and he gets hurt- captured/killed/tortured, whatever, over near the Afghan Pakistan border. That way he can still be pretty young when this novel takes place...

Update:
Okay, why does Jake need to be a Marine at all then? Why can't he just join the CIA in the wake of 911??? Wouldn't that make more sense, in many ways... Hrm... Farg! Then he spends two years in Pakistan or whatever and comes back? I guess...

Okay, CIA, NSA, something A it is. No longer a Marine- or a SEAL, or whatever- straight from highschool into CIA... ???? WHAT?!?! THAT'S RETARDED! Okay... From Marine to CIA- makes sense actually. Jake graduates class of 2000, joins up. In wake of 911 CIA raids people who can help them- Jake is already in Marine intelligence 'cause he got tagged because of his looks, insane language skills, etc., and he gets put in an immersion program and sent to Pakistan to help the contractors the CIA has hired to make up for the lack of humint... so he's a marine on loan to the CIA who has him working under a Jordanian expat American in Afghanistan. Why a Jordanian? why not a Pakistani or Afghani? an Afghani- Either way it works. The main thing is one of the fattest pieces of cellulite has been cut. Thank God!

Okay, so how does Jake get hurt? Gotta be friendly fire because that would explain, in part, why he's so pissed.

BUT WAIT!!! He's supposed to do evil shit so that he hates America, remember? So now this entire fugging line of thought his blown. Asshole! What were you thinking???? WHAT THE FUCK YOU WASTED TWO HOURS ON THIS SHIT!!! That's what I get for acting on something I woke up thinking...

But wait... Maybe I don't need Jake to hate America because he did evil shit? WAIT!!! What if he does do evil shit? What if he helps to torture people- what if he gets caught up in his mentor's game and does a bunch of shit, evil shit, for the flag, and it all ends up being for nothing... or for Evil Mentor's money... then you've still got the redemption thing at the end- also you've got a better reason for him wanting to commit suicide at the end... This works. So SOMALIA's out, EVIL MENTOR IN PASHTUN LANDS is in. Okay...

And have the marines teaching him Arabic BEFORE 911... Islamist terrorism was happening before then so it makes sense. Okay...

And then amoral EM fixes him... wow. hmm. gotta take a crap I'll be back.

When I first got here I could not believe the dust, the squalor, the pain... I used to think Calvinists were assholes, you know? Calvinists think they were destined by God to lead good lives and that's why they were so blessed, and since God is just that meant they deserved to be blessed... But when you come to a place like Somalia you understand it.

How the fuck can you live with yourself when you see how much these people suffer. Not the assholes who cause the suffering- but the KIDS! This place is hell. So now I think Calvinists were just rationalizing, and I can hardly blame them. This place sucks.

Anyway, for the record, I arrived in Somalia weighing about 225 with, I'd guess, like six percent bodyfat. I mean I was ripped and very strong. I was a friggin' stallion ready to race. Three months later I weight 165- no joke, and I had about 0.1 percent bodyfat and I was addicted to Kafiyeh and I was functionally retarded. Well, retarded is going too far. But my brain really didn't work anymore. You see these starving Somalis running around with AKs and shooting them by sticking them around the corner or over their heads and you think they're cowards. But really, they're high and their brains don't have any sugar and they just- they're just STUPID. I know because that was me.

There are two kinds of MIOs. (Marine Intelligence Operatives). The first kind basically gets attached to a battallion and he helps plan attacks- spies out the locals- tries to find out who the enemy is and what they'll do- the kind of stuff that isn't even classified, you know. The second kind does shit like plan feints or use computer viruses to knock out missile detection radar sytem computers.

The third kind does spy shit. Now this third kind is a response to the CIA's decision to stop developing HUMINT resources in the late 80's. The Marines felt they needed HUMINT, especially given the new non-Cold War enemies. But they had little experience with it, so they went to the Israelis. The Israelis said no so the Marines went to a man names Ivan Romansky- yes, it is a made-up name- I'll never tell so don't ask.

Ivan was in his late thirties when I met him. He had no accent, but I don't believe he was an American. I don't believe he was any nationality. He got paid to do a job and he did it, and that was about it. What you need to understand about Ivan is that he was
1) 100% results oriented
2) he was a tech geek
3) he believed, with absolute conviction, that humans were robots.

3) is a BIG deal because it made him absolutely amoral. He thought the brain was a supercomputer- the body was a robot- (I'm really simplifying this because, as he explained many times, he considered the entire body to be a part of the computer- he thought a brain alone could not fuction- that it NEEDED a body to have self-awareness)- and that things like pain and love and hope and etc. were just software. The best software resulted in more replication.

So, take this to an extreme, and you understand that Ivan didn't think any more about shooting a person than a kid playing a video game thinks about shooting a video game construct. He didn't think of HIMSELF as anything more than video game construct, for that matter. But he did think he was better than everybody else in that he felt he was more self-aware of the fact that he WAS a video game construct.

Imagine you wrote a program that contained a character that was programmed to think it was self-aware. Okay, is it? No. It is programmed to think so. That's what Ivan thought of people. Now imagine that construct decides, one day, that it IS a program designed to be self-aware. NOW is it self-aware? Yeah. That's what Ivan thought of himself.

More important, Ivan wanted to learn
a) how to manipulate the code
b) in order to, eventually manipulate his own code
c) so that he could plug into the program that created the environment he lived and
d) manipulate that.

Okay, so Ivan wanted to become God. Or, a Wizard or something like that, at the least. And the Marines in Somalia hired him as a civilian contractor because Jordanians had used him with great results and recommended him.

Now, for all that- the weird thing is that Ivan liked me. I mean he was not immune to emotion, anymore than you are immune to liking your dog. And, in fact, he loved me and admired me the way a hunter would love a great pitbull. I was the equivalent of a champion pit fighting dog, to the kind of man who gets off on fighthing dogs, if you see what I mean. Besides, I made the guy a ton of money. And the more money he had, the more he could spend on finding different ways to manipulate people's codes.

...

Okay that's the end. Now I've got this character Ivan down. And I didn't before. I don't need to keep the Jordan stuff or the Marine intelligence stuff- but now I've FINALLY got a handle on Ivan, including a name (which, again, I don't need to keep).

The problems are
1. this isn't CLOWN and I can't just throw freewheeling exposition into JACOB
2. can't have the Marines contracting this guy STUPID
3. can't have them lending a Marine to him if they did STUPID

or... maybe I can do 2 and 3... I don't know.

But it makes more sense to make the guy a higher ranking dude in Marine intelligence, a Colonel or something, who has been like this all along but has hidden it until recently. Why isn't he hiding it, how does Jacob know about it? (Jacob needs to know about it for the reader to know because JACOB is written in 3rd person limited omniscience) Because Ivan has been getting high on his own supply, a little bit??? Hmm...

More problems:

4. how do introduce this? another flashback? JACOB has way too many already. Invade Jacob's dream- have Jacob explain it to Jenny?

Now THAT has some possibilities. What if Jacob is pissed because Ivan messed with his head? But then Ivan is the one that gets rid of his pain later, too... That could be cool, maybe. It is still just another flashback though.

I could do it part dream and part Jenny. Shit, THAT is probably the way to do it... Have Jacob just mention it to Jenny on the quad overlooking the protest, then have him dream about it after he fucks what's her name... This scene.

...

"This is a worm," Ivan said. "Dimethyltryptamine, aka DMT aka N,N-dimethyltryptamine."
"Okay."
"Crackers have been using this in South America for centuries. Good stuff."
"You want me to take it."
"Yup."
Jacob ate the pill.
"We've got a couple of minutes before it kicks in."
"What's it like?"
"Well, it isn't like kefiyah, or MDMA, or anything you've tried so far. This is soul-changing stuff. When you come out of it, odds are you'll think you had a mystical experience. You'll think you opened a portal into a different dimension and had a conversation with an intelligence that is the equivalent, brain-wattage wise, of you to an ant. But look, it WON'T BE REAL. When you first come back you'll think it was real, and you'll be angry with me for saying it isn't, but remember that I told you what you'll experience before you experienced it, okay?"
"A mystical experience?"
"Yeah. You'll think- the trademark of a mystical experience is NOT that you think you're seeing God, okay, it is that it seems MORE real than reality. I've done DMT quite a few times and when you're on it reality is more real. And real life, which this IS, don't be fooled, this IS real life, this IS an external reality, okay? But when you come off the DMT you will feel like this is a dream because the intensity of the DMT experience is so much more palpable than reality."
"What the fuck does this have to do with catching druglords, sir?"
"This is the stuff, Jacob. I pop the guy with DMT and when he comes off it- when he's in that window where he can pay attention to me but still remembers the DMT experience, I represent myself to him as a prophet and he'll tell me everything. Everything. Because the real world is no longer real to him, and because I'm the door to the real world. You understand? I use the MDMA, or acid, when I can't get this. MDMA is a firefly to DMT's lightning. The only thing is it is so strong it might fuck you up for life. I mean people have taken this and become mystics."
"Why do I have to take it?"
"Because I need to know the real reason you're here. I'm going to question you when you come off it. I'm going to make sure you're not here to entrap me. I gave you the MDMA because I wanted us to bond, and you seem okay. I feel like I can trust you. They used to give that to married couples in counseling. We got friendly quick right. But I've cracked my own code quite a bit lately, so I need to be more careful. " But Jacob wasn't listening anymore. His eyes were wide, his pupils were dialated.
"Oh my God," Jacob said.

Alright! Just sold another so 149!!!

I know it is pathetic but still :)

JACOB 'foreiforget it...

I've got a kibbutz in JACOB but I don't know enough about them to know whether or not they are like the kibbutz I've got... actually the kibbutz ain't even in there, it is merely ALLUDED to, but I still don't know enough about them.
this is an easy fix, though . Just have it be a special Kibbutz, a business meant to teach and toughen spoiled American princes and princesses. Summer camp to turn a Jewish Paris Hilton into a Jewish Sarah Connor.
May as well have Jenny explain it to Jacob that way, too. Easy enough.

Up to $134.00 now.. .Yay.

And yeah, I'm serious, lol.

Two more copies have sold

so I'm at 22 now... and I sold these for cash and so I made more on them than the standard four bucks per so I've now made $110.00... :)

JACOB Before I forget

I just remembered... Have Jenny make unconcious gestures indicating she wants to get it on with Jake all the time... then, when she's trying to get the dad, have her use the same signals consciously.

Didn't want to forget that.

Tammy Bruce is a genius.

I'd say great minds think alike, but I'm not that familiar with Tammy Bruce and I lack a great mind. Of course Tammy Bruce may have a great mind, which would mean we DON'T think alike, generally, but we thought alike this once. Blah blah blah.

Anyway, yesterday the Althouse mentioned the Golden Globes and I commented on the best drama nominees, though I've seen none of them. This morning I saw the Instapundit and Ace of Spades linked to a Tammy Bruce article about them.

The thing is, Tammy Bruce saw these movies, and I did not. But as you’ll see, I didn’t really need to see them to know them. The movie titles are regular, my comments are italicized, and Tammy Bruce’s are bolded. So-

Movie Title:
Me over at Althouse yesterday:
Tammy Bruce:

Brokeback Mountain:
Gay cowboys sans pudding victimized by evil mainstream attitudes-
A love story between two gay sheepherders (erroneously labeled 'cowboys' by the media, I suppose because they wear hats).

The Constant Gardener:
bureacrat victimized by evil government and private entities-
A film about, as one movie-going reviewer noted, "...the horrors of big business and the way they are willing to experiment on the poor to achieve their goals..."

Good Night, and Good Luck:
reporter trying to defend people victimized by evil government-
A film portraying as noble the efforts of journalists to demonize and "take down" a US Senator whose anti-communist policies they did not like.

A History of Violence:
regular guy being persecuted by evil gangster-
The demonization of the average mid-western American man as someone who is no hero, but a cold-blooded killer at heart.
(I missed a little bit on this one, bummer)

Match Point:
neurotic loser being persecuted by sexual desire-

And lastly, a Woody Allen film about infidelity. Well, he should know.

Pretty close. And our conclusions?

Hrm... Every one of these movies sounds boring.

Hollywood honchos continue to wring their hands over why you've stopped going to the movies. They blame ticket prices and DVD availability. They had better start considering the fact that filmmakers are so disconnected, so nihilistic, that the hopelessness and hostility they feel toward the world now permeates their work. Americans will no longer go see movies which are nothing more than the manifestation of the backwash of malignant narcissists. We're also sick and tired of listening to actors lecture us about how awful the US is…

Tammy Bruce and I agree that they are boring. She says it better than I do, or at least longer, but I think neither of us said WHY these kinds of movies are boring. They are boring because they are cliché. These movies are like the ubiquitous blue jeans every single nonconformist in America wore in the sixties.

You aren’t daring if you do the same thing all your peers are doing, but with a twist. And you aren’t subversive if you make millions of dollars doing it and/or get invited to great big award shows. And you aren’t original if your movie parrots MSM talking points. You just suck.

Don't get me wrong. These might be excellent movies. But for those of us who want something different, something original, they don't work.

I've edited the title of this post because it was a bad joke.

Thought on the Riots in Australia

The Aussie yobs were NOT just responding to what happened last week, they were responding to a pattern of harrassment and intimidation. The no-go areas of major European cities are the result of this kind of harassment...

But Austrailia isn't Europe, and a beach, especially a surfing beach, is VALUABLE. And it isn't valuable to middle aged men or old men, or to women. It is valuable to young, physically brave, physically powerful young men. I would be SHOCKED if the Austrailian surfers were intimidated off of a surfing beach, or allowed people to intimidate their women off of a surfing beach.

If a group of Muslims, or any group, started harassing local girls or life guards on a surfing beach in Hawaii the violence would be IMMEDIATE, instant. And if the surfers were badly outnumbered it would be same-day, probably same-hour, and the surfers would start with fists, and if that didn't work they would move to bats and knives, and if that didn't work they would move on to guns.

And I wouldn't blame them, to be honest. I mean if my daughter ever told me she was afraid to go to a beach because someone told her she'd better dress more modestly if she didn't want to be raped I'd fucking lose it. I would call by brother-in-law and tell him what happened and ask him to meet me at the beach and I would get my machete and put it in my car, drive to my parents house and get a gun just in case, (I don't have one of my own) and I'd go to that beach and find someone who looked like the person my daughter described. If there was one guy I would talk to him and if it WAS him I'd beat the living shit out of him and probably piss on his face after I choked him unconscious. And if he beat the shit out of me my brother in law would beat the shit out of him.

And there's nothing wrong with that, is there? I mean the police can't really do anything in that situation, but you can't really tolerate that kind of shit, can you?

JACOB new theory.

Now I'm thinking I should just weasel through the entire book. Do the absolute bare minimum necessary to get a working copy- this might be the best way, as well as the fastest way, to get JACOB done.

JACOB CHAPTER 1 new idea.

I get a lot of good ideas in the car in the morning. Okay.
Have Jenny go into the club towards the END of the show, when women are just throwing money. Jenny was a gymnast in college, she's used to heavily ripped guys- but there were a couple of guys at every tournament whose bodies seemed designed to make women, to make HER, go nuts. Jacob's like one of those guys.
She stares at him and then feels embrarassed- a shameful flush of heat makes her look at the floor, but then she looks again. Her eyes go on him, off, on, off.

She could not keep her eyes off him for more than a few seconds, but then she couldn't look at him for more than a few seconds before looking away in shame. "Put your fucking clothes on," she said under her breath.


Then she'll wait around while Jacob works the table, until she gets pissed and works the waiter- and then Jacob will:

a) tell her to fuck off- setting up the amphitheater
or
b) sit down with her before he tells her to fuck off.

advantage of b is that she can start to do all the body language stuff... But maybe she should just do it at the amphitheater...

Top Five Reasons to Keep Norv Turner

1. You can't blame Norv for outrageous officiating.
The refs cost us both KC games and the first San Diego game. And I don't mean there were a couple of minor bad calls or non-calls. These three games were flat-out STOLEN from the Raiders. Our record is 7-5 rather than 4-8 otherwise.

2. Our two best players have been injured.
Randy Moss, our best offensive player, has not been Randy Moss since October 16th, when he was brazenly interfered with by two Chargers on a deep pass. The blatant pass interference was not called, and Moss sustained injuries to his ribs, pelvis, and groin. Since then Moss has been Ashley Lelie, NOT Randy Moss.
Charles Woodson, our best defensive player, broke his leg on October 23rd.
Every team sustains its share of injuries. The Raiders, for example, have also lost Langston Walker, Derrick Gibson, and Warren Sapp for the season, and had many players miss individual games. But effectively losing your BEST player on both defense and offense is unusual and difficult to overcome.

3. Norv Turner has done an excellent job of drafting, trading, and getting free agents, in his two years as head coach.
Trades
Basically we traded Philip Buchanon, Doug Jolley, Napoleon Harris, and the 7th overall pick for Lamont Jordan, Randy Moss, and the 23rd overall pick, which netted us a starting cornerback. Not one of the players we traded is starting!!!
Drafts
This year's class: Fabian Washington has been solid, Kirk Morrisson has been spectacular. Walter looked great in the preseason and may have a future, and Stanford Routt showed signs that he may be a great player once he gains more experience.
Last year's class: Robert Gallery, Jake Grove, and Stuart Schweigert have all been solid starters for us this year. Johhny Morant may be a starter in the future.
Free Agents
Derrick Burgess. He is young, he is a stud, he is a team player, and he has 11 sacks. Compare him, to say, Trace Armstrong. 'Nuff said.

4. The Raiders have had a brutal schedule.
This is no excuse, especially given the winnable games we have lost. But it is a mitigating factor. I mean imagine we were Chicago, and we got to face Detroit, Green Bay, and Minnesota twice each. I've no doubt we would have a winning record now. Denver, San Diego, and Kansas City rank 3, 4, and 8, respectively, in the best of the power rankings poll.

5. Kerry Collins Sucks
Time and again Kerry has blown throws that would have resulted in touchdowns early in games, and blown short, crucial third-down completions late in games. Time and again our receivers have had to make spectacular catches that should have been easy catches with yards after the catch. Time and again Kerry has thrown the ball away when he faced little or no pressure.

The difference between a quarter back who makes plays and a quarterback that blows plays was glaringly obvious versus San Diego. Brees feels intense pressure, runs away from it, and makes a beautiful on the run pass resulting in a 3rd-down conversion inside the 5 yard line. The Chargers end up with 7 points. Kerry feels non-existent pressure, fumbles his footwork, doesn't see Randy Moss wide open, and heaves an all-arm throw over a double-covered Jerry Porter and out of bounds. Brees throws a picture-perfect pass to a covered wide receiver resulting in a crucial 3rd down conversion. Kerry throws an ugly duck behind a wide open Courtney Anderson that results in another 3-and-out.

There is a synergistic relationship between a head coach and a quaterback, yes. Some of Kerry Collins' failings are therefore Norv Turner's fault. But Collins' faults are too many and too obvious and too severe to blame on Norv Turner.Imagine Dan Pastorini had not been injured in 1980, when the Raiders were 2-3. Flores would not have started Plunkett. We would not have made the playoffs as wild card nor won the Super Bowl. We may well have had a losing season. Imagine Brady did not replace the injured Bledsoe, for that matter.

Conclusion.
Norv Turner should be given one more chance, one more year, to right the ship, and return the Raiders to glory.

GO RAIDERS!!!

Comments are greatly appreciated, even criticism, so don't be shy. For more Harkonnendog Raider click the links below:

1. 8 Raider Predictions Revisited 10/07/2005
2. 8 Raider Predictions for 2005 season 06/28/2005
3. Plunkett: Best Raider QB Ever? 5/19/2005
4. And yes MORE incompetent Raider reporting! 3/17/2005
5. More incompetence from the Bay Area media 3/4/2005
6. Monte Poole and Tim Kawakami = Sad but Funny 2/24/2005

(This is mostly a blog about my novels- trying to write them, publish them, actually making rather than losing money from selling them, with some politics and criticism once in a while. Thanks for stopping by!)

JACOB probs-

First, don't forget to buy CLOWN. :)

Here's the link if you'd like to purchase it or learn more.

That is http://www.lulu.com/content/182896 for those who prefer to cut and paste into their browser.
Here's the link if you'd like to purchase it or learn more.

That is http://www.lulu.com/content/182896 for those who prefer to cut and paste into their browser.

Problem: Prologue SUCKS!
Solution--
Use the voice recording only with the -click- -click- -click- action. (COULD ALSO MENTION THAT SALAHUDDIN'S PREFERRED METHOD OF KILLING PEOPLE IS IN ACTION HERE?)

Problem: Prologue doesn't jibe with later publishing date of JACOB.
Solution--
Have JACOB be just one of many stories about the recovery of the horse pills.

Problem: Chapter 1 is waay too long.
Solution: I'm thinking I'm going to have Jacob working one table (he gets paid to have drinks with female customers after the show) and have Jenny waiting her turn at another table, and have one woman's time run out... and she'll take out a black pen and draw her number on Jacob's hand, and the woman at the next table with lick Jacob's hand with her tongue and use her hand to rub off the old number, and then write down her number atop it...

Problem: Chapter 2 The AMPHITEHATER has a lot of shitty writing.
Solution: Rewrite. Keep the protest.

Problem: Chapter 3... This one's okay, I think.

Problem: Chapter 4 The Deliver Man- I keep calling the deliver man "the delivery man," which sucks but.
Solution: Call him "Salahuddin." Find and Replace. DONE.

Problem: Chapter 5 The Message- Why kill off Rodney? Should Rodney be a CIA plant? (find out at the very end- and THAT'S why the CIA is covering Kestine's house? It is basically an aside?)

Problem Chapter 6: Why would Jenny tell Jake about the message? And how would they be able to crack the code?
Solution: DON'T have them break the code. It is enough that Kestine got a heavily encoded message from a suspicious source.

Problem Chapter 7: It is okay, but make it so Jake hates Arabs because of his experience in Pakistan, too?

A new story blogging carnival is up.

The story blogging carnival is at this link.

They are nice enough to host CLOWN excerpts- prologue and chapter 1. I don't seem to get much linkage from them, but at least they make the effort, so click and show some love!

JACOB thoughts during the drive to work.

1. Jenny should be raped in the boat. And she should tell Jacob about his mom being alive because of that. Cut out the entire love scene story. Jenny sacrifices herself to save us.
(More believable and less melodramatic)

2. Agghhh I can't remember. I HATE that. Oh yeah, the Gnome. There's a problem, about why Jenny should be trying to get Jacob to help her get into the prof's house. So could have Jenny's boss talking to The Gnome. The Gnome is one of the guys, or the group, that tries to do the dot connecting people talked so much about after 911. He/They have unlimited access to all documents the government has and he/they are the ones who found the Jacob/prof connection and suggested this way of getting into her computer.

This paring process is moving along. One by one I'm killing off a lot of the crappiest stuff... It would be good to make a list of the NEW JACOB. A list of chapters, which one's have been written, which have been written off, and kind of see where it is at.

Prologue and Chapter 1 of CLOWN

Prologue.

I don’t know who’s going to read this. The guy said to use all the paper I wanted, and to just tell everything, especially what was going on in my head.
I started writing three hours ago and I guess I’ve had a lot on my mind because it just keeps on coming out. After the Timothy McVeigh bombing all these magazines had headlines basically asking “why is man evil?” I’m not saying I’m evil, or why some people are, but I can explain myself, at least. I mean I can explain the why from my perspective. Anyway, I guess nobody is allowed to tell people what I write and all, but I don’t want you to think I suck either.
I want you to know I’m not sugarcoating anything or trying to make myself look good. You need to keep that in mind because if you judge me the way you’d judge a person who was just trying to make you like him, then you’ll hate me. Some of what I’ve already written kind of scares me so I assume you’ll be really freaked out or whatever. But remember, I’m not saying I think I should think this way, I’m just saying I do.
This is honest.

Chapter 1. Tuesday Morning.

I didn’t dream at all the night before, or if I did I don’t remember. Psychiatrists say you always dream, and if you think you haven’t that just means you forgot. This dream book I bought says that if you could remember every detail of every dream you’d ever had, you’d understand everything you’ve ever not understood about yourself. I thought that was great. Then I realized it wouldn’t necessarily mean you could change or improve yourself.
Would an evil man who didn’t know he was evil until he discovered it through his dreams want to change? If you were evil you wouldn’t care in the first place, right? Maybe that’s a bad example. What if you were a coward, and had acted cowardly often enough to know it, but had somehow fooled yourself, rationalized it away, so that you didn‘t? Would you be able to change when you found out? I don’t know. What if you learned you were weak willed, or plain stupid? I don’t think you could do anything about either of those.
So would you want to know you were stupid? I mean you’re already stupid, isn’t it worse to be ignorant too? Or is ignorance of the fact that you’re stupid bliss? I had a friend back in Hawaii, real local bruddah-bruddah kind of guy, named Mike, who said this about a friend of his: “I tell you wat, brah; he stay stupid but he knows he stay stupid. ‘Dat makes him almost smaht.”
I thought that was pretty good. I’d rather know too. At least I could be almost ‘smaht’ if I knew.
Anyway, I didn’t dream at all the night before, or if I did I don’t remember. My cell phone’s alarm function rang me awake at 6:45 a.m., and the sun already filled my room. During a Seattle summer, assuming there are no clouds, the sun shines for 15 or 16 hours a day. It was September 5th and I knew I could look forward to sunlight until after nine that night. Hawaii’s weather is wonderful, I mean we never have Seattle’s long winter nights, but we never get the crazy-long summer days either.
Lately I’d awoken with what I call the ‘gloom and dooms,’ this powerful sense that I’ve forgotten something crucial and won’t remember until it is too late. They come and go, there’s no controlling them, and I had them bad. I lay on the bed, stared at my white ceiling, and tried to remember what I’d forgotten. Eventually I recalled how often I feel this way when I wake, and that I never remember anything, so I got up for work. Every time I get the gloom and dooms I waste ten or fifteen minutes lying in bed trying to figure out what I forgot. Every single time all I remember is that I never remember anything except for the fact that I never remember anything.
Nobody knows how anyone else’s head works, but I believe my brain is less attached to my ego, my id, than most peoples’. I get caught up in these cyclic thought circle jerks all the time. You’d think, when I woke with a gloom and doom, that I’d remember there’s nothing to remember right away, but I don’t. Or I’ll be with a group of people talking and forget I’m with a group of people because I’m so into what they’re saying. So I stand there with my mouth open and my eyes wide. I look like an idiot when I stand like that. I know because two different people have told me so. But I can’t seem to help it. My brain’s not attached the way theirs are. The way yours probably is.
I live next to the University of Washington. The UW campus is glorious. That’s a big word, I know. It deserves that kind of word. Almost everything is made of red bricks. Half the buildings look like gothic cathedrals, the other half have different styles, but stay with the red brick motif, and are nearly as beautiful in their own ways. And between the buildings are meadows and squares and massive evergreen, pine, and magnolia trees. Almost sixty thousand students attend UW every semester, more people than live on the entire island of Kauai.
Since I’d moved to Seattle, just over three years before, I’d always lived around UW. A lot of the students don’t know how fantastic it is because it is theirs, but having attended the hodgepodge ad hoc nonsensical colonial / 70’s industrial mix that the University of Hawaii at Manoa campus is, I can’t help but be in awe of the UW campus. I lived there to be near that beauty.
Plus housing around there is cheap.
The bad feeling I’d awoken with still bugged me after I’d dressed and shaved for work, so I decided to walk through the campus. Usually I just walked up 19th to The Ave. Walking through the campus was less direct but I had time and thought it would cheer me up. I entered the campus on the north side, from the area called Frat Row because it is a neighborhood of fraternity and sorority houses. At seven there were only a couple of students out and about. It was like walking through a park or museum. I didn’t feel better. Instead I felt like an invader. No, like an unwanted tourist. Who was I kidding? I didn’t belong there.
Eventually I cut east, toward the Ave., where I would catch my bus to downtown Seattle and my workplace. The eastern entrance of UW is guarded, or overseen, by a titanic statue of George Washington, in cloak, with sword. I approached the back of the statue wondering if George ever felt like just quitting, just falling on that big ass sword. As soon as I’d passed the pedestal he stands upon I looked up to see George’s face, but for some reason I couldn’t meet his eyes.
I felt bad for him, forever vigilant for a bunch of kids who probably wouldn’t bother to wipe the crow crap off his feet. And I felt even worse when I thought that he might see what the students were like. See how weak and unworthy they were. A bunch of idiot kids who’d never . . . and then it hit me, hard, that most of the kids at UW probably did deserve to be his legacy. It was just I who did not.
And that sucked. Who needs epiphanies when you can’t make amends? I walked away from him, ashamed.
Near my regular stop there’s a poster shop. They change the posters in the windows at random times and I liked checking for new posters and then really studying them. I like studying movie posters as if they’re fine art pieces. I separate the poster from the movie and look for the message, for the “social significance,” the “play of light,” and whatever the hell else I guess people who like paintings and other visual art look for. I know dick about paintings and sculpture, I just guess what people are supposed to be trying to find, and I started doing it one day just because I got bored waiting for the bus. You’d be surprised how much you can get out of a movie poster if you take it seriously.
The same old Angela’s Ashes and The Hurricane and Raiders of the Lost Ark posters shared the window. They’d been there for a couple of weeks. The first two were photos, artistically done, powerful in their own way, but still just photos. And I’d already played my art game with the Raiders of the Lost Ark poster.
I checked my watch and tried not to think about Big George. Then I took another look at the Raiders of the Lost Ark poster. Basically it shows Harrison Ford standing in the foreground on this little hillock, sort of phallic, and he’s holding a golden head above him and it is shining and there are all these huddled figures around him and a girl is on her knees with her arms wrapped around his legs. And, you know, you look at that and you think of yourself or imagine yourself or tickle yourself that you’re Harrison Ford and this hot chick is on your legs (or if you’re a woman maybe that you’re the hot chick, I don’t know, whatever) and you’re surrounded by all these huddled lesser types that are deferential to your superior manhood. It isn’t something you think about. It just works. I guess it is how escapism works generally.
But this time I looked at the poster and then looked at my reflection in the glass. It was a trick of the light and where I was standing. If I made my eyes focus on the window glass I saw a clear reflection of myself, but when I squinted a little I saw Indy through the glass. Indy’s face has this strong chin. My face is almost chinless. I’ve got like, a nubbin in the middle, but in the middle of such a small chin it doesn’t count. I squinted. You’d call Indy swarthy. Focus change. I’m pale. He’s got full, brown hair. Focus change. Wispy, receded, dirty blonde. Indy’s a man’s man, burly, strong. I’m a... wimp. Thin. Soft. It was a trick of the light. The reflection was different enough from a mirror’s reflection that I could look at myself as if I didn’t recognize my reflection. I saw myself as others see me, or as I’d see a stranger.
For the first time in my life, at the age of 27, I realized that I was one of the weak, deferential, afraid-of-the-main-man, huddled figures. In poetic terms, I was one of the people who “lead lives of quiet desperation.” I’d imagined, as a kid, even as an adult, even the day before, that I was like Indy. Never had I imagined that I’d be one of those deathly pale, rib protruding, kowtowed, weak men.
I stood there, mouth agape, eyes locked onto the poster, trying to grasp exactly what had happened to me, until the bus came.


THANKS FOR READING THE PROLOGUE AND FIRST CHAPTER OF CLOWN.


Here's the link if you'd like to purchase it or learn more.

That is http://www.lulu.com/content/182896 for those who prefer to cut and paste into their browser.

Sold another copy of CLOWN!

I'm up to 20. WHOO-HOO!

Here's the link if you'd like to purchase it.

That' is http://www.lulu.com/content/182896 for those who prefer to cut and paste into their browser.





I've yet to read a review of it... So for those of you who have read it, whether you liked it not, please email me at theronm1971@hotmail.com

Mahalo!

BAD Christian!!! BAD! BAD!

First we're repped by the Weavers, who constantly whine about how they are put upon and how people are rude to them when they are the problem. ALWAYS. In case you don't know who the Weavers are they are the family in The Amazing Race whose husband/father was killed in an auto accident. The mom is a strange combination of wonderful, to her kids, and annoying and rude and defensive and nutso, to everybody else. The two daughters are big boned and they talk about how awesome they are because they are Christian while wearing, get this, skin-tight t-shirt material shorts that end about 3/5ths of the way up the thigh when the waistbands aren't rolled DOWN. But they are rolled down, so... aghh.

And of course they are of that generation that thinks skin-tight shirts that expose mid-riffs are cool, and being fat should not stop one from being cool, even if the result is disgusting. The youngest child, a boy, has not yet been ruined by this family. Hopefully, when he pulls the kind of stupid attitude his sisters pull, the kids at his school will beat him up and snap him out of it. Don't get me wrong. I like him. I want the best for him- and that would be it. Of course the mom might home-school him then...

Anyway, those are the reality-show Christians I was aware of, and I was bummed.

Now we're repped by this crazy fatty. You know, I can see it. You've got God, you've got love, you've got... I mean you don't really need approval, you know? GOD loves you! What do you care about what America thinks, right?

BUT WTF! YOU ARE ACTIVELY DISCOURAGING OTHER PEOPLE FROM GOING TO GOD BY BEING SUCH FUCKING IDIOTS!!!!!! YOU GIVE US A BAD NAME! BE NOBLE AND MAGNANIMOUS AND BRAVE!!! DON'T BE PETTY STUPID ASSHOLES!!! AGGGHHHHH!!!!

That is all.

Showing vs. Telling. Chapter 1.

You're supposed to show, not tell, when writing. Or at least that's what they say... I took it very much to heart in the 1st chapter of JACOB. Jacob is a male stripper and I SHOWED his striptease act and showed Jenny Day's reaction to it and... er... I mean it is okay for what it is, I probably spent 40 hours on 3 pages after all the rewriting... but what it is is a written description of a male strip show, which = the suck, I think.

But really I probably blew it by trying to show Jacob is hot that way- 'cause that doesn't show it, that TELLS it. You know?

So now I'm thinking I can get the same idea across better like so...

I'm thinking I'm going to have Jacob working one table (he gets paid to have drinks with female customers after the show) and have Jenny waiting her turn at another table, and have one woman's time run out... and she'll take out a black pen and draw her number on Jacob's hand, and the woman at the next table with lick Jacob's hand with her tongue and use her hand to rub off the old number, and then write down her number atop it...

I know this kind of thing happens because it happened to me.

This is about five years back. I was working at a youth hostel- and I was attracted to a new guest, a pouty/dirty little nugget of a blonde- can't remember her name, let's call her Tassie. So I was trying to make some time with Tassie but Tassie wasn't diggin' it. She was cool, she just wasn't going for it.

My boss, friend, and best friend's wife, Nam, must have overheard. She comes out of the office, says hi to Tassie, draws a heart on the back of my hand, and goes back into the office. Tassie grabs my hand, lick/kisses it, and wipes the heart away. Well, done deal, I figured, and it was. Ha ha ha. Good times. Good times...

"Tassie," who was kind of crazy- for some reason every woman I made love to at the hostel was- is the first person who paid me for a book. I let her read NEVA, my first novel, and she didn't give it back. Instead she gave me ten bucks. Believe me, it wasn't for the sex, 'cause I had a control issue that evening, lol. As Nam put it though, "As long as you put inside you won."

HAHAHAHA.

Later on today I'll try to actually write this chapter.