Man Martin's Blog, page 158

Amercan Idle

I have a great new concept for a reality TV show all about the life of a living, working writer.  Think about it, what is more exciting and glamorous than being a writer?
In a typical episode, he'd get up make some coffee, and then stretch out on his couch in his boxer shorts staring at the computer.  Every once in a while he'd actually type something.  "Woo," you'd think, "this can't possibly be real.  It must be scripted."  Then, just at the moment you could cut the tension with a knife, he'd get up and make more coffee.  Some of the coffee he'd drink, and some he'd spill.  Sometimes he'd actually mutter to himself, "That's pretty good coffee."
The show would be inter-cut with interviews, like his wife could talk about how she wishes he'd wipe up his damn coffee spills once in a while, and maybe his neighbor could come on about how if he insists on working in his boxer shorts, the least he could do is stay away from the picture windows.
Then - back to the action.  He's staring at his computer again, and you can just tell he's really concentrating on something.  His eyes are closed, he's thinking so hard.  What is he working on?  A hard-boiled detective thriller?  A scathing book review?  An insightful personal essay chock-full of epiphany and wry wisdom?
Then he'd begin to snore.
Cut to commercial.

Wine Not?

Wine drinkers used to be the biggest snoots on the planet.  They would yap on and on about how this wine tasted pleasantly of oak or that one of sawdust, or this one had notes of spice or burnt leaves or whatever.  And what's this with wine having notes?  Are they drinking or listening to it?

Lately, however, they've become much more broadminded.  There is no varietal that is inherently better than another, they say.  Don't worry about what others think.  The idea is to drink a lot of wine and discover what you like.  It's all a matter of taste.  Some people prefer the robust flavor of an Argentinian Malbec.  Others like Boone's Farm Blackberry.  Find what suits your palette.

I like this approach, especially the part about drinking a lot of wine, and I applaud the International Brotherhood of Wine Drinkers, or whoever the governing body is, for their advanced views.  Now if only this attitude could spread to other areas of our culture.

For example clothes.  Why can't we apply our attitudes about wine to clothes?  Try on a lot of clothes, as many as you can.  Wear a tuxedo, some overalls, a cowboy costume.  Dress in a gorilla suit for a day, see what you think of it.  Try on a kilt, you might be surprised.  The idea is to find what you like.  And sure, some people like wearing starched button-down shirts and neckties, nothing wrong with that. But maybe you prefer just wearing your boxer shorts and an old tee-shirt with a ketchup stain.  If you're afraid to wear your favorite clothes just because of what people might think - your wife, the neighbors, the cops - you're short-changing yourself of the whole pleasure of getting dressed.  Wake up in the morning and put on your favorite and most comfortable shoes.  And that's it.  It's all up to you.

The Last Western Black Rhinoceros Tells All

So what's it like being extinct, everyone wants to know.

Actually it's not so bad.  Really.  Oh sure, I miss mating, browsing for food, and charging termite mounds, but non-existence isn't so bad, either.  Besides in a lot of ways, I guess we had it coming.

For example, in spite of being herbivorous, we were pretty aggressive as rhinos go.  You can ask anyone, "Name an aggressive rhino," and they'd come back with, "The Western Black Rhino."  Wouldn't have to think about it for a second.  If you're critically endangered in the first place, being aggressive doesn't pay off.  You need to be cuter.  Like penguins.  Of course, dodos were pretty non-aggressive and look what happened to them.  Maybe the trick is to look cute but be willing to kick serious butt if necessary.  For example, polar bears, fierce, yes, but way adorable to look at.  If anyone can hang in there, it'll be polar bears; they're too valuable to the Coca-Cola company to let go extinct.

An in retrospect, the whole horn thing was a big mistake.  Sure you could use it to charge termite mounds, but having something on your face that looks like an erect penis is just asking for it.  I can see that now.  I don't blame the poachers one bit for hunting us to get their hands on rhinoceros horn.  I nearly had a chance to mate myself - long story, I won't go into it - and if I had mated, I'm sure I'd have done whatever it took to get the chance of doing it again, even if it meant wiping out a whole other subspecies.  If I could give one piece of advice to horned animals, it would be to evolve flaccid horns.  No one's going to hunt an animal with a big droopy old horn hanging over his nose like a punctured balloon.

And besides, cheer up.  I'm just one subspecies.  There are plenty of other subspecies of black rhinos out there.  For example, there's the north-eastern black rhinos - oh wait, they're extinct too.  And the southern black rhinoceros, they're gone.  But I think there's still one chobe black rhinoceros down in Uganda.  So don't beat yourselves up about it.  Like you take White Rhinos.  At one time there were fewer than fifty of those, and now there are fourteen thousand.  Way to go, White Rhinos.

So chillax, it's not over yet.  Oh, wait.  It is for me.

The Next Big Thing

Chris Bundy teacher, raconteur, man of mystery, and author of Baby You're a Rich Man (C&R Press) invited me to participate in "The Next Big Thing" wherein I answer ten questions about my work.  Here are the questions and answers; watch this space for upcoming link to the next author/victim participant.

1) What is the title of your latest book?
Paradise Dogs

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
One evening on our anniversary my wife and I were watching TV (this will give you an idea what interesting lives we lead) and there was a documentary on about making hot dogs.  I was riveted, but the documentary seemed to go on forever, and I felt apologetic for watching it, so I kept asking Nancy if there weren't something else she'd rather see, but she said, no, she wanted to watch as well.  I'm telling you, it was spell-binding.  Anyway, one place they showed made fried hot dogs.  I told Nancy someone was missing a bet; Georgians love hot dogs and adore anything fried.  The person who introduced fried hot dogs here would make a fortune.  That night I had a dream that Nancy and I had opened a fried-hot-dog restaurant with some friends of ours in Athens, Georgia.  To understand the full glory of the concept, you have to remember that Athens is home to the University of Georgia, where the mascot is the bulldog.  There is a hot dog joint in Athens, but it's the Varsity, which is really a Georgia Tech restaurant, the rival team.  Anyway, in the dream it was a home game, and the place was packed with customers right up to the walls; we were shoveling hot dogs and rings across the counter as fast as we could, and the till was so full of money, it wouldn't close - it was jammed open, and tens and twenties were falling on the floor to be trampled underfoot as we rushed back and forth from the window bringing food.  I woke up the next morning in a lather, convinced we needed to sell the house and move to Athens to open a hot dog restaurant.  Cooler heads, thank God, prevailed, and I realized while I didn't want to own a hot dog restaurant, it might be fun to write about one.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
Here's a toughie, and may explain why my fiction has not earned me the widespread love and six-figure deals I so clearly deserve: my writing doesn't fit neatly into a marketable slot.  My agent is pleased to call it Literary Fiction, but it's not what people think of when they think Literary Fiction.  No one has ever accused me of Realism, but nor do I write Fantasy or even Magical Realism.  The closest analogue I suppose would be a cartoon, which is not surprising given that I was a syndicated cartoonist for many years.  If you look closely at the Man Martin World, you will discover a preponderance of primary colors, everything - even the sun and clouds - has a firm black outline, and in moments of extreme turmoil, sweat literally jumps from my characters' foreheads in sets of three drops.  As far as the stories themselves, and no one could be more astonished at this than I am, what I write are love stories, but again, these are not the sort of love stories that people who like to read love stories would normally want to read.  It is a hard row to hoe being a genius as I am, but that is the cross I have to bear.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
I think Gary Busey would make a good Adam Newman.  He doesn't look the way Adam does in the book, but he has the right quality of lunatic energy: he's the sort of person you love but can't actually stand to be around.  Walt Disney has a small but vital cameo, and I think Johnny Depp might do a good job at that.  Most of the major characters, and minor ones too, are a little "mad."

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Alcoholic entrepreneur longing to reunite with his estranged first wife proves himself capable of solving everyone's problems but his own.

6) Who published your book?
Thomas Dunne

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
This I can readily answer because I know I was working on an early version during my last year at GSU, which would have been 2007.  The book was published in 2011, and it took a year to find a publisher and another year to find print.  So 2011 - 2 = 2009 and 2009 - 2007 = 2.  I can say with confidence it took me two years.  Two grueling, unspeakable years.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Paradise Dogs has been compared to Confederacy of Dunces, which I think is pretty apt.  The arcs of the characters are very similar.  In each case, the protagonist is a wrecking ball in his own life who manages to bring order to everyone else's.  Ignatius even works as a hot dog vendor for a time.  Coincidence... or conspiracy?  You decide.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
I think #2 already answers this, but since there's a "who" in the question, I'd have to say my father.  Like Adam Newman, he was an alcoholic, and a lot of the material about Adam came straight from Dad.  For example, he proposed to my mother by acquiring a dozen loose diamonds and pouring them in her lap with a "Take your pick.  We'll set it in a ring later."  He was larger than life in a lot of ways, but I never really knew him because - thank goodness - we left him when I was five.  There is nothing adorable and cute about alcoholism, it is a devastating illness for victims and families, but in some ways Paradise Dogs is a fantasy about a bonding adventure he and I might have had - might have had if we lived in a universe of primary colors where clouds were outlined in black and when people got really upset, three drops of sweat would pop from their foreheads in triangular formation.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
The book is about pre-Disney Florida, a place which no longer exists and many believe never did.

Why Privacy Matters

In a recent conversation about the Snowden case, a friend opined that NSA surveillance was justified by the threat of nuclear terrorism.  Should we neglect such measures now and, say, Chicago were leveled by a nuclear weapon, the resulting backlash would be a loss of civil liberties far greater than anything we currently face.  In any case, she said, analyzing the metadata of our phone calls and so forth is no cause for worry so long as it is conducted by a government "responsive to the will of the people."

Leaving aside to what extent a government is "responsive to the will of the people" when it conducts surveillance in secret, that phrase, the will of the people, becomes more chilling the more I think of it.  The will of the people, the will of the people.  If only the people weren't so damn willful.   
Think for a moment of all the consequences to those who at one time or another have run afoul of the will of the people: Bridget Bishop hanged for being a witch on the evidence, among other things, that she wore odd costumes not in keeping with Puritan propriety; Marie Equi arrested and sentenced to three years for making a speech opposing America's involvement in World War I.  The speech occurred one month after the armistice with Germany; James Wakasa shot by an army private for attempted escape - he was standing within five feet inside the fence of his internment camp. Wakasa's offense was being a Japanese American after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  The private was court-martialed but found "not guilty;" Ring Lardner, a humorist and script writer, sentenced to a year in prison and fined $1000 for refusing to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee about his Communist Sympathies.  Blacklisted thereafter, he moved to England and found work writing under various pseudonyms; in 1958 Richard and Mildred Loving arrested in their bedroom for violating Virginia's anti-miscegenation law.  Their sentence was suspended by a judge on provision they leave Virginia and not return for 25 years.  
Each of these cases was the act of duly appointed or elected government agents and agencies acting in response to the people's will.  There is no telling how many others have suffered under the collective weight of the people's will, lives and careers ruined for being gay, for holding unconventional religious  or political views, or being of the wrong ethnicity.  As I write this, Paula Deen's career is on the line because she admitted in a deposition to having once used "the N-word" in a private conversation.  Her plea should sound a note of caution to us all, saying if there were anyone who'd never said something they'd regretted and wished to take back to "please take a stone and throw it at me as hard at my head so it kills me. "
The will of the people, the will of the people.  Dear Lord, is there anything more tyrannical, fickle, and unpredictable than the will of the people?  Is there any specter more frightening than a government allowed to do anything that the people will?
Do not mistake, I love my fellow humans.  Like Linus of the old Peanuts cartoon, I love mankind; it's only people I can't stand.

How We Met

Artist's Re-CreationOn this day was Nancy Martin born, and for her birthday, I thought I'd recount a story some of you readers will have heard before: how we met.

I was in John Blair's History of English Drama at Georgia College in Milledgeville, Georgia, when I discovered I was sitting next to the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen.  This is no hyperbole but a verifiable fact.  Look up the word "angel" in any good dictionary and examine the illustration.  Slim, long blond hair, blue eyes, the works.  I knew it would be impolite to gawk at her, although that is what I most wanted to do.  I certainly didn't have the nerve to speak to her.

Then came the day my friend Charles "Drip" Waldrip was to do a presentation on a play called 'Tis Pity She's a Whore.  (I do not make this title up - like everything else in this blog, it is 100% fact.)  He'd asked me to interrupt the beginning of his presentation - note this: he asked me - like an old Johnny Carson bit when Ed McMahon would interrupt and Carson would come back with something like, "Not so fast, Tuna Breath."  So Drip gets up to do his bit, and I go into my spiel, and I'm really riffing and going on perhaps a tad longer than planned, so Nancy - who was not in on our little plan - seizes the Riverside Shakespeare, hardbound and eight inches thick, and wallops me over the head with a "Shut up!"

This brought a halt to the proceedings, and after it was made clear to her I was not being boorish but was actually a planned part of the presentation, she was apologetic, and the ice between us was broken.

Some time later I ran into her on the steps of the college library and we fell into conversation.  It was the first real conversation we'd had, and I tell you, I was masterful.  You'd have been so impressed.  Charming, erudite, glib.  It also helped I was wearing my favorite pants.  They were corduroy, made with four red-and-blue panels so from the front one leg was blue and the other red, and from the back, the opposite legs were red and blue.  This was the late '70's and such garments were not considered bizarre, although I have always possessed a unique fashion sense.  We parted, and I congratulated myself for making such a good impression, but then I looked down and discovered the whole time my pants - the fancy red and blue corduroys - had been unzipped.  I consoled myself that in the full light of my charm, she had probably not noticed.

Then came the day I asked her out for the first time.  My technique, suavity itself, I pass on for use by future generations.  I waited for the whole class to arrive and told several classmates I intended to ask her out.  (I may not have mentioned, but she and I sat in the front.)  When she arrived, I said in a clear, steady voice, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Speaking of movies, would you go out to see Fast Break with Gabe Kaplan?"  (No one had been speaking of movies, the abrupt non sequitur was the very essence of my pickup line.)  Nancy found twenty pairs of eyes staring in expectation at her as she framed an answer.  She really had no choice.

After we'd dated a while and were officially boy- and girlfriend, I asked her about the first conversation we'd had in front of the library and if she remembered it.  "Vividly," she said.  "Your fly was down."

This July makes 31 years we've been married.  We still have the Riverside Shakespeare.

Dog Talk

This is for any skeptics out there who doubt the intelligence of our four-footed friends.

While Nancy and I were out of town recently, Zoe stayed with our our neighbor Cathy who has a Morkie (Maltese and Yorkie) named Mia.  When we returned, Cathy told me she'd discovered our dogs have different ways of communicating.  As she puts it, Mia is a literalist and Zoe is... well... something else.  When Mia wants to go out, for example, she will bark at the door.  If she's hungry, she'll bark at her supper dish, and so forth.  Zoe, on the other hand, will do the same thing no matter what she wants - push her nose against your hand and whine plaintively; this can mean anything from feed me to let me outside.  Mia seems to be saying, "I'm having a problem with the fact my supper dish is empty;" whereas, Zoe's message is, "I want something.  You're the human.  You figure it out."

But wait, there's more.

Cathy claims, and this strains the credulity of even yours truly, that Zoe and Mia somehow talk to each other.  One evening, again this is Cathy's account, I did not see it myself, Mia began barking at Zoe's supper dish to let Cathy know Zoe was hungry.  Sure enough, when Cathy put food in it, Zoe dug in while Mia turned her attention to other matters.

What do you think of that, you skeptics?  Proof positive, is what I call it.  And as for those of you considering impugning my dog's intelligence for not having the sense to bark at her own supper dish, how many times have you laid around the house in general discontent, wanting something but not knowing what, whining and grumbling about life in general until someone suggested you fix yourself a snack or maybe just go outside?

My Sister's Epic Journey

An Illustration of My Favorite Scene from the Epic, in which
Grendel's Mother Sits on Top of Beowulf, Endeavoring to
Poke Him with a KnifeMy sister recently completed her PhD in Medieval Studies.  Last weekend, Nancy and I drove to Iowa to celebrate.

It was epic, and I use this word advisedly.

Her dissertation puts forth a radical interpretation of Beowulf, which you may remember concerns the title character doing battle with various monsters and their family members until he's finally done in by a dragon and given a burial at sea.  In many ways it's typical of epics from Gilgamesh to The Aeneid in which the hero faces and overcomes one highly improbable peril after another.  But unlike The Odyssey, which is so firmly rooted in Greek culture you couldn't pry it loose with a backhoe, or The Aeneid, which was transcribed so many times, you couldn't throw a rock in Imperial Rome without hitting a copy, of the Beowulf manuscript, there was only one copy.  It was mis-cataloged, mislaid, and burned by fire.  Following the fire mishap, it suffered a botched restoration job.  All this time there was only the single copy, and no one knew precisely what it was about.  Beowulf was not fully (mis)translated until 1815, the year the Grimms published the first edition of Tales.

And so the manuscript, hung by its teeth from various precipices, being "rescued" time and again only to find itself in new peril, but surviving, although battle-scarred, against every odd and in the face of every hostile chance.  The manuscript itself is an epic hero.

And so is my sister Nettie.  Starting as a peripatetic story-teller, in Mississippi, she became entranced with the epic.  Her fascination took her from the familiar south to the exotic clime of Iowa, an epic journey that covered many miles and many years.  Not to mention toil and sweat.  Make no mistake: an academician does battle - especially one with challenging new insights: battle with older, better established theories - battle with the difficulties of translation not only across the barrier of language, but of time and culture.  Battle with Grendel, Grendel's mom, and the dragon.  Battle against self-doubt.  Battle with Beowulf.

But she made it.  My sister.  The hero.

Best New Concept Shows

Three and a Half Mad Men: Wise-cracking ad-exec shares apartment with loser brother and his precocious son.  Lots of sexy babes, risque double-entendres, and dark musings about the abyss of existential longing of the Twentieth Century.

Walking Deadwood: Various factions - including Local Boss Al Swearingen and lawman Seth Bullock - wrestle for control of the outlaw town in the Dakota Territory during the Gold Rush of the 1870's.  With zombies.

Big Breaking Bad Theory: In order to help aspiring actress Penny pay for her chemotherapy, geeky scientist Leonoard begins "cooking" crystal meth.

Post-Modern Family: Two generations of families laugh and learn exposing their personal foibles, deconstructing one another, in this "mockumentary."

Blues Clues SVU: Blue clashes over a murder case with the district attorney when the investigation points to a high-profile serial rapist.

How I Stay Motivated

People look at me in astonishment and wonder, gasping in surprise.  "Gasp, gasp," they gasp.  "You used to look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.  Now you look like a somewhat more athletic Pillsbury Doughboy.  What is your secret?"

Well, I can tell you, it's not easy finding time for the gym, but if you're really motivated, you can do it.  It's not easy in my case because my own life is such a whirlwind of activity.  I wake up each day at 5:00 AM.  Then immediately, I go back to sleep because, hey, 5:00 AM.  Then once I get up, I log right into my computer and stare at Facebook for an hour or so.  This is a crucial part of my day because I keep track of the people in my network plus see if they've posted any kitten videos.  This is followed by a good, mental-health-inducing nap.  Then I flip through channels on the tv.  I've been rewatching Arrested Development, which I think I've seen all the way through about three times, but the funny thing is, no matter how many times I watch it, I always catch something new.  Maybe because the first three times I saw it, I kept falling asleep.  I still cap-nap during the show, thus ensuring at least one more enjoyable viewing.  Then back to Facebook to see if there's any new updates.  Then a nap maybe, or squeeze in another episode of Arrested Development.  I also like to spend about an hour a day just sitting and staring.

You might wonder with such a go-go-go schedule how I possibly make time to exercise.  Well, it's all about motivation, and for motivation, I depend on Nancy.

She'll say, "Since you're just lying there, why don't you...?" and whatever comes next will be intrinsically motivating.  Maybe she'll suggest I do some laundry, or build a nesting box for the chickens, or clean out the gutters.  It doesn't really matter, because as soon as she says "Since you're just lying there..." I'm up like a shot and off to the gym.

Instant motivation.