The Lay of My Land

Quick Book Report: I am a third of the way through The Lay of the Land, Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe trilogy. It's a fine series of books and it deserves a place on the same shelf as John Updike's Rabbit novels. The sentences are longer in this installment ans yet the voice is friendly and so calm. Frank's second wife has left him for her first husband whom all thought was dead; he has two adult children; an ex-wife who is checking in with him and his health is at odds with his optimism. Or it might be the source of it. He has prostate cancer and he realizes that in his mid-fifties, he is in what he calls his premanent period.

I should continue on this book but I also bought A Conspiracy of Paper, a historical novel about intrigue at the London Stock Exchange in the 1800s. I read most of the author;'s other stock exchange and funy clothes novel, The Coffee Trader. It was good but it was due back at the library. I'll be returning to it.

Quick Gadget Report: I am typing this on my new Apple MacBook. I am in love but I think Nora may love it more. She wants to make movies, burn DVDs and load music on a pink iPod. She has asked Santa for it and I know for a fact that he will deliver. I have yet to plug in my Dell Jukebox, but my new Mac might die of laughter. I think there might be an iPod Nano in my future too.

Quick Blog Report: Kevin Drum had a good line about James Baker's Iraq Situation Group report. Has any document disappeared into irrelevancy so quickly? The retired SecDef Donald Rumsfeld says he hasn't read it but for the summary and the President clearly won't read it. Frankly, I doubt if even his father, a man who he adores, could talk him out of his position on Iraq.

Andrew Sullivan had a smart and frightening throwaway line, an aside on his blog. Perhaps we should leave and let the Middle East have the war that it so desperately wants. Could it comes to that? Clearly, oil plays a factor in our presence there though one must admit that we could have occupied the country without building a dictatorship and call it Shell Oil-stan. Who could stop us? Would we care about this irrational region if there were no oil is the question. The West would throw up its hands and allow the players to kill themselves much like what happens in Africa.

No Cure Afterall?

Feeling under the weather, I found myself doing something I never, ever do. I watched Larry King Live for more than five minutes. The guest was Dr. James Dobson, the ultra-conservative founder of Foundation of the Family.

King mentioned the disgraced minister Ted Haggard who was forced to step down after his drug-fueled rompings with a gay escort became news before the election. Dobson, a true man of God, says he didn't have the time to minister to Haggard as he returns to the fold. He admitted the process, which also includes curing Haggard of his desires, could take years.

The good doctor is just too busy.

Or perhaps he is too upset by the timing of Haggard's news or he knows that deep down these curing sessions almost never, ever work. As Josh Marshall points out, wouldn't a Haggard cure be a great endorsement for the post-gay crowd?

Some friend.

A Landwhat?!

Waters did its first ever German-language edition. As Europe becomes a true financial powerhouse -- too many regs in New York so launch that IPO in London, baby! -- Waters needed to expand its scope. Makes sense. As a NY boy, I tend to focus on Wall Street stories and my British-born publisher wants our magazine to be truly global. (How we can do this with three editors in NY and London is another matter).

So, we hire writers, one in Germany, and we create an issue. We hire a translation bureau and hire a proof reader who is skilled in the language. So far, so Teutonic.

Anyway, due to an editing and art direction (apparently) error, we have a serious typo on our cover. The cover!

Instead of saying, in German, Deutsche Boerse: A New Landscape, it seems that we dropped off the letter T in the last word.

It reads: Deutsche Boerse: A New Land Sheep.

The Nov-Dec Book Dilemma

Okay, I've finished a great novel -- The Emporer's Children by Claire Massud -- and I am still looking for another great one. I picked up Elmore Leonard's Mr. Paradise at JFK on the way to London because he's great for some downtime and I like those trade paperbacks. But where is my next great book?

I have Lay of the Land by Richard Ford and that looks promising. Picked it up in London and iot has one of those fabric bookmarks. So classy and sa doamned annoying. I don't know what to do with the thing! I could cut it off but hey, that's not nice. I ordered an old copy of Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream by paleocon John Derbyshire. I like the Derb's comments on The Corner of the National Review web site and this is supposed to be a charming little book, but we'll see.

In the mean time, the object of my lust is this: A new MacBook. There's a program at work that allows you to buy one at a discount and a few dollars are taken out of each paycheck to pay it off. Way cool. All I see when I look at this baby are the novels I want to write, the podcasts and songs to record for my fan base, and the videos to shoot and edit. See? I am not even a Mac owner and I'm already insufferable.

London Times

Being in London during the 06 elections and you feel a tad under water. The Beeb reported the main news -- good day for dems, bad for W -- but they didn't report the races I wanted to hear about.

In Westchester, my son's therapist's brother-in-law ran against a Republican, Sue Kelly. He's John Hall, the lead singer of Orleans. I had to wait to read about his return. It turns out that Kelly ranaway from a reporter on video when asked about Mark Foley, the congressman with a thing for teenage pages.

I was also interested in the Attorney general race. I liked Jeanine Pirro as the Westchester AG but she ran a lousy campaign against Hillary that even George Pataki urged her to drop out. And she was caught on tape urging a top NYPD official to bug her husband's yacht because of a long-brewing affair. Jeanine P is one of those odd contradictions: she fights for women's rights, she is smart and tough but seems addicted to her scumbag husband. That is why her initial race with Hillary would have been something to watch.

Still, couldn't vote for Andrew Cuomo. He needs to be stopped and now.

London was fun. The weather held out and it's a city with a ton of energy. The neighborhoods last for about a block or two and I cannot walk for long without getting lost. Oh, but for NYC's grid system...

Not all was fun for some. One morning, outside the hotel, a maid was furiously scrubbing the sidewalk. According to the clerk, there had been a stabbing. Couldn't wait to get back to Manhattan after that.

But even that didn't compare to a cab ride where I was lectured on the ultimate terrorists, George W. Bush. He ranted about the terrors of the F-16 and the B-52 bomber and no one mentions that. "And don't get me started on bloody Israel." So, here it comes. I paid the fare and he said that one day Americans would be lucky enough to go to Cuba like the rest of the world. Ah, sweet Cuba. Fine cigars, teen prostitutes and jails for homosexuals. Sounds so civilized, no?

Can She Be Stopped?

Okay, let's talk Hillary. Pundit and editorialist John Podhoretz has a new book dedicated to the post-Senate career of Hillary Clinton -- Can She Be Stopped? -- and he is not hopeful for the Republicans in '08. Can she be stopped indeed? My question is, should she?

I didn't vote for the First Lady back in 2000 -- not because she was a carpetbagger who looked like she was about to hurl when she talked about her favorite team, the New York Yankees. I didn't vote for her because she was a liberal hell-bent on turning us into Sweden or France. So, why the Lazio support?

I didn't feel that the senate seat of my state should go towards marriage therapy. When a man cheats on his wife and humiliates her, he has to make some amends and offer some gifts. A promise to never cheat again; time in a therapist's couch; a nice cruise or a convertible and boob job. These are all understandable concessions, but the senate seat for the state of New York? No, thank you.

That said, Hil has been a fine neo-con senator. She supported the war in Afghanistan and the liberation of Iraq. (I am sure she overheard or sat in on some scary Saddam horror stories as First Lady and brings them with her in the well of the Senate). She has supported the troops and done a fine job of bringing defense dollars to a job-strapped upstate New York.

So, why won't I vote for her?

Simple: she is going to turn.

In order to get the nomination, Sen. Clinton will have to renounce the Bush administration, her vote on the war and the efforts the troops are making in trying to build a democracy in a land that has known a brutal dictator for the past three decades.

She must accept the nod of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore and the folks of the MoveOn and others. Just look at the pathetic response Sen. John McCain received at The New School in Madison Square Garden. For a liberal institution where an open mind to different ideas is supposed to be cornerstone of the school's mission, the senator and war hero was mocked and heckled for his calls for civility and tolerance. Does Sen. Clinton really think that those students or anyone who reads The Daily Kos will ever vote for her with her pro-America record?

After she wins her senate race in New York, she will move to the center and then rush to the Left faster than a feminist at an autograph session for the WNBA.

Turn, turn, turn.

Treats for the Senses

Some things I am enjoying these days:

Eyes: I saw two terrific DVDs, courtesy of the Briarcliff Manor Library. Sylvia, everyone's favorite angsty poet/pre-feminist martyr starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and Swimming Pool starring the ever alluring Charlotte Rampling and some French chick who spends half the movie topless. Both flicks deal with writers trying to make sense of their inner worlds and the female leads wer both wonderful. Paltrow looks wonderful as a honey blonde and she captured Plath's ambition and ultimate breakdown. Rampling not only doesn't wear any make-up, she seems to have been dipped in khaki. Despite this near-criminal act, she remains ever mysterious and radiant. For you Rampling Fetishists, go kill an hour here.

Ears: Just ripped the debut disk from Arctic Monkeys and it sounds like fast, lean punk played by kids who never heard the word 'irony.' Just what the doctor ordered.

Taste: I attended a cocktail party and asked for a scotch. The bartender -- a slim Asian gal hired to fit the modern Japanese theme of the slick restaurant -- said "I knew you were going to order that." After a Glen Livet, I ordered a Johnny Walker Black. Mmmmm.

Smell: Bought a dozen bars of Ivory Soap. If you don't feel clean after using the best soap on the planet, you have OCD, my friend.

Feel: Right now I am loving Lightning Fields by Dana Spiotta. She writes about three women trying to make sense of life in late 90s LA. One character is a personal shopper for businessmen with too much moeny and no taste. She expands to specialty restaurants that cater to people's specific dietary needs and only seats four people a night. Models and actresses quake as they thank her for cooking their macrbiotic meals so that they consume hearly zero calories in the course of a $600 meal. Little do they know that the chef uses a stick of butter in each meal.

Failure Watch Along the Right

This will make news on Monday in the blogosphere: William F. Buckley declares the US' adventure in Iraq a failure just one week after Francis F declared the death of neo-conservatism in the New York Times Magazine. It's a good time to be an anti-war neocon; your words will be hailed as brave and certain quarters of the media will welcome you with open arms.

Ah, a sensible conservative, who would have thought?. Like the character of The Good German in the WWII films of the 50s, liberals respect only those neocons who have turned against the liberation of Iraq. Would the editors of the NYT Magazine have given Richard Perle or William Kristol four pages to argue that we should stay the course? Of course not.

That said, WFB's piece is more important because it it published in his weekly column and on the National Review web site, the online arm of the journal he founded in 1950. He has yet to call for the withdrawal of troops but his words will mark a turning point in the argument of the war. In the way that fashion designers often create bold and unwearable items, the basic ideas often trickle down to the shoping mall months later: the height of the skirt, the cut of the shoulder, even the overall color scheme.

Likewise, WFB's ideas may signal a greenlight to neocons that the war is over and the mission unaccomplished.

More Unrest in Iraq?

As if we needed more bad news from Iraq, it seems the opening bell of the civil war has been rung. This week's bombing of the Shiite shrine -- a gorgeous structure -- may be the turning point of sending the liberated and struggling democracy towards utter chaos. Of course, un-cool heads have already blamed US forces and Israel for the attack because, after all, no rational Muslim would ever desecrate a holy place in the heart of Islam. Then again, these are the same folks who hate it when US forces chase insurgents into mosques only to find a cache of weapons in a house of worship.

So what do the US Army and Marines do if a full scale civil war does break out? Do they take a side or stay neutral and try to establish order? Is order even possible?

Let's hope so.

American of the Year

I now know whom every junior high school should be named after. Behold:

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley says, 'We want to turn over the Port of Baltimore, the home of the Star Spangled Banner, to the United Arab Emirates? Not so long as I'm mayor and not so long as I have breath in my body.'"

Post Port-um Depression

What is the Bush White House smoking? I am Odd Man Out at work as the only employee who readily admits he voted for W. in '04 and wishes he cast the ballot for him in '00, although we have plenty of little old ladies who voted for Pat Buchanan to thank in the mean time.

But handing over the ports to the United Arab Emirates -- what the fork?! Do we really have to say outloud how awesomely bad this idea is? Sure, the fact that two of the 9/11 hijackers hail from the UAE does not mean that an entire nation can be painted with the same brush, but why are we leaving our ports in the hands of a people who may hire locals who harbor an interest in our absolute demise? It could be an American citizen but statistically speaking, the vast majority of people who wish us ill fit a certain profile.

And now John McCain is supporting President Bush, who promises to veto any legislation to overturn this rule. I had no idea that tone-deafness was contagious.

In all of this mess, one thing must be noted: The Left has discovered racial profiling. The same folks who fainted at the thought of passing a wand over Middle Eastern men between the ages of 20 and 45 at our airports now refuse to allow an Arab nation to oversee the ports of NY, NJ and Miami. Welcome to the real world, folks. It only took you four years.

Cheney of Fools

This has to be a pretty good week for the White House. Last week, White House officials were reportedly cringing about this week’s upcoming hearings on Hurricane Katrina and Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before a Senate sub-committee. Instead, the media has been chasing the minute-by-minute details of the Cheney hunting accident from the previous weekend. Ah, a perfect non-scandal. Meanwhile, Salon and other news agencies released photos of the alleged torture from the Abu Ghraib prison. Instead of discussing the photos -– and the dangers these images might put our soldiers in -– the media is chasing an embarrassing discharge of a shotgun on a Texas ranch. The heavy breathing on the Loony Left is limitless for one simple reason: Dick Cheney is evil and everything he says or touches must therefore be evil. Look at the photos that the local NY newspapers have chosen: all Cheney, all sneer. I can only hope that some clueless Democrats will demand hearings on the accident to discuss hunting and gun ownership in general. Maybe, if we are lucky, these hearings will be chaired by Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton and have testimony by folks from PETA and Rosie O’Donnell. Pennsylvania, Ohio and maybe even Florida will be Republican for a generation.

Last of a Dead Breed

Six days ago, Dell announced that it would no longer manufacturer its Dell DJ. My wife just asked why and I said "Everyone and their grandmother has an iPod."

Except me, of course. I have now joined the ranks of Corvair, Tucker and DeSoto drivers. Now, anyone know where I can get a can of New Coke?

Officers and Gentlemen

Just finished Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh and it was fine. It's the second book of his 'Sword of Honour' trilogy about a Catholic officer serving in the second world war. Waugh has a sharp and unforgiving eye for the officers of old England who knew that this new war was very different from the first. One character remarks that unlike WWI, no one will write poetry about the battles they were fighting. No Sigfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and others.

If you've overdosed on Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan, read OaG as a tonic."

A Writer Writes

It's been a good and bad week of writers. Let's start with the good news.

This is one of the best magazine pieces I've read in ages. I not only wished I wrote it, but I could see how it could easily appear in The New Yorker with a few minor edits. Great stuff.

Nora Vincent, a lesbian neo-con, hasn't been around for a while and I've missed her. I even mentioned her as a possible replacement for the repititious Maureen "Men are dumb because no one will marry me" Dowd. Now, Vincent has a book about her adventures dressed as a guy, called Self-Made Man. It wasn't a walk in the park, she tells us. Listen to Instapundit and his wife interview her here.

It was a very bad week for shallow, dishonest writers. First, James Frey took his lumps from Oprah when he admits that his drug rehab memoir was mostly fiction. (Duh, says most of the publishing industry who declined to publish the book when it was pitched as a novel).

But the writer dressing-down of the week has to go to Hugh Hewitt grilling of LA Times columnist/snarky lisper Joel Stein. He wrote a some-what brave if embarassing column that claims that since he does not support the war he refuses to support the troops. He does not wish them ill but neither does he admire them or the job they are trying to perform in hellish circumstances.

You have to admire Stein's bravery and I bet there are a ton of anti-war Lefties who wish they could say what Steine wrote. (A while back, a neighbor almost came out and wished for another attack on US troop as we saw in Black Hawk Down right before the election. It would be horrible, she said, but maybe it could help things...)

Hewitt did his usual shtick, which is to show that reporters and media members are reliably liberal and therefore anti-war/freedom/Bush. Stein's shallow answers and the realization that he could have been more precise is truly embarassing. Back to the gossip pages, Joel.

Mullets in Aisle Three

Here are three things I will admit to in this blog and nowhere else:

1. I am not looking forward to the day that John Updike dies. I check the obits for his name and I miss the man already. That said, I hope there's a few unpublished books in his desk that will see the light of day after he passes. Can you define selfish anymore pathetic and sweatier than that?

2. I daydream about flying a fighter jet, playing drums in a power-pop band and directing a film. It's called Ships at Night, about a young, callow naval officer who makes a critical mistake and his communication ship is captured by the Nazis. The senior officers are kept in captivity and tortured while the crew and the young, disgraced officer are sent on a humiliating PR mission around pre-war Europe to promote the might of the Nazis. They escape their captors and rescue their commanding officers and the damned boat too. They pick up a few refugees -- a family with a precocious girl and a mute boy and a young Jewish computer (what they called female mathematicians in the 30s) -- along the way and escape to freedom.

3. The last CD I burned to my Dell DJ MP3 player is Flashback: The Best of .38 Special.

Hold on Loosely, y'all!

Smile for the Camera

The public is eager to feast its eyes on two unpublished pictures. In celebrity-obsessed America, the first is the ultrasound image of Angelina and Brad's baby. In Washington, which has been called Hollywood for ugly people, it's a picture of the President shaking hands with scumbag lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Like the picture and video clips of Bill Clinton embracing his favorite thong-snapping, pizza delivery gal, reporters and critics want to show W. within 25 yards of the worst briber in, oh, as many years.

Does this prove guilt by association? Doesn't matter. The Anti-Bush Left wants to imply that because the President took a few pictures with one spectacularly bad man, he and his administration is the worst in history. No matter that the Commander-in-Chief has his picture taken with hundreds if not thousands of people each year.

I mean, Jimmy Carter had his picture taken with Yassir Arafat and Michael Moore. It doesn't mean that he's an anti-American demagogue.

Wait, on second thought...

Arrrrrr, Matey

It's been a weekend of depressing news: Two miners found dead in West Virginia, a whale dies as rescuers try to remove it from the Thames in London, and the parents of a kidnapped US reporter plead for their daughter's life. The only highpoint was something that should be from a movie: Sailors from the cruise missile destroyer USS Winston Churchill capture a pirate boat off the coast of Somalia.

Avast, ye hearties.

(Oh, and the official first draft of my freelancing piece is done, thank you).

A Little Victory Lap

Last night at the Incisive Media awards ceremony, Waters won Magazine of the Year. My publisher called from the London event and he was ecstatic. The New York office heard the news in real-time because a few of us were huddled around the speakerphone as a co-worker gave us the play-by-play. When our magazine was announced, the cheers shook the ceiling.

Congratulations to Eugene Grygo, colleague and cohort, for winning Scoop of the Year. Much deserved.

On Beauty and Gigolos

I finished Zadie Smith's On Beauty a couple of weeks ago and it's still swirling around in my head. She writes such great characters that even though they have their limitations and go their separate ways, you want them to remain together in the same household. And for a long book, you want it to be even longer. I avoided her White Teeth follow-up, The Autograph Man because it received some harsh reviews and seemed like a perfect example of the sophomore slump. Forget that, I'm getting it this weekend.

In the meantime, I'm reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Peter Biskind's take on the new Hollywood generation of the '70s. It's a great book and I get to hop around -- this chapter here, that section there. I've heard a lot of these stories before but not in one volume and the portraits really stick out. Steven Spielberg seems like the ultimate loser schlub, which didn't jibe with the boy wonder coverage he received after Close Encounters. And Francis Coppola practically deserved his exile and stangnant career for his behavior before, during and after Apocalypse Now.

But my favorite character has to be Paul Schrader. I'm on a Schrader kick these days. I borrowed the Auto Focus DVD from the Briarcliff Library for the third time and played the flick with his voice over commentary. He's a so-so filmmaker but his stories are great. I read somewhere that a person would rather discuss his films than actually see them and he had a point. Schrader is intellectual, articulate and has a world weary view of the world around him. And he sounds like a mixture of Truman Capote and a high school gym teacher/teen minister. I am trying to find a DVD of American Gigolo with his commentary but no luck. Isn't that film 25 years-old now?