blog

I just finished…

…”Achilles in Vietnam” by Jonathan Shay, MD. The book was highly recommended by my pal Budd, who knew Shay from high school. Shay went on to become a psychologist who worked with Vietnam vets suffering from PTSD. His approach in writing about them is to compare and contrast our military’s and our society’s treatment of combat veterans who have suffered loss, grief and rage with that of the Greeks, as recounted by Homer in “The Iliad.” The Greeks seem to have done it better.

The book did not have as powerful and effect on me as it did on Budd, but I learned a thing or two or three or four. You could spend your time a lot less wisely than reading it.

Marketing

“Cheesesteak: The West Philadelphia Years: A Rememboir” is out (Spruce Hill Press. POB 9492. Berkeley 94709. $20, including postage.) It looks great. No reviews are in (or expected), but Adele was caught laughing when she read it. (She also said that in the author’s portrait on the back I looked “even more dissipated than in the original.”)

UPS delivered the shipment early Friday morning, which was nice. It meant I could get to Staple’s to stock up on the least expensive mailers into which I could squeeze one and then to the USPO where I could price one so-squozen in order to purchase the stamps required to mail them as cheaply as I could. (“Allow five-to-seven business days for delivery.”) Then I started stuffing envelopes.

Saturday morning, I put my marketing plan into operation. I trundled off to the French with a stack and my “Buy Bob’s Book Sign,” accompanied by Adele for moral support. We sold four, all to people with whom I have been known to chat. Others within this same degree of consanguinity did not bite. Strangers (and semi-strangers) did not glance in my direction.

Morning two, Adele stayed home. No one bought. (I guess I need a babe in the booth.) An Asian-American woman (a stranger!) picked up a copy, asked if I was part of a Berkeley tradition, put it down, and said, “Good luck.” An artist/musician picked one up, put it down, and said nothing. An anthropology professor emeritus offered to gtrade me a copy of his book he’d self-published after writing it for his grandchildren.

Hap, who bought one yesterday, said he’d read half and found it “hilarious.”

The Horror! The Horror! Ghastly Ingels and the Art of Real Yuch

My latest is up at http://www.tcj.com/the-horror-the-horror-graham-ingels-and-the-art-of-real-yuch/

It begins:

As this volume’s only contributor to have actually read – and suffered the loss of EC comics – as a kid, I feel the weight of a generation – well, a thin, weird slice of a generation – on my shoulders. Like the one alone, you know, escaped to tell you. Like the last surviving veteran of a momentous battle, though this battle’s heart-wrenching outcome, the gutting of EC following the imposition of the Comic Code of 1954, was worth only two square inches in the local press. (I retain the Philadelphia Bulletin’s actual story, preserved behind Scotch tape on blotting paper, as a personally tailored flagellant if you doubt me.)

The Road Goes On Forever

My latest is up at http://bit.ly/1YkaqqX

It begins:

Peter Kurt Woerner’s “Odyssey” is one hundred cubic inches and 3.4 pounds of gorgeous and compelling viewing/reading. $45 to him, 44 Kendall, New Haven, CT 06512 brings a copy.

Woerner and I were Friends’ Central Class of ‘60. He was personable, good looking, a stellar athlete, and dater of debutantes. To a Jewish kid from West Philly he seemed a Prince of the Main Line. He’d “secret” societied at Yale, then M.Arch’d it. We’d gone 50 years without contact. His book landed, unexpected as a flying saucer.

Allen Dulles

My friend and most trusted political adviser, Budd, hates Allen Dulles. This may surprise those who have not woken up with Mr. Dulles on their mind since before the break-up of the Beatles, but he seems needed fuel for those who believes that those who do not remember history are condemned and wish to remind themselves and others what evil the USA can do.

Budd has been reading a biography of Dulles by David Talbot, a journalist of impeccable… Well, a journalist impeccably ideologically straight-jacketed. Budd is clear on Talbot’s bent, but he still led off our last get-together by fingering Dulles for offing Patrice Lumumba, another figure long absent from “Jeopardy”‘s big board.

Sure, Dulles was probably evil, but Henry Kissinger, whom Budd admires and who is still with us, probably has more blood on his hands. And granted Lumumba’s execution, without due process of semblance of trial, was an abominable act; and while the Congolese and Belgians were more directly implicated, Dulles could easily have gone down as a co-conspirator. But bigger-picture (and sardonic humor)-wise, given went on in the next 50 years in the various states the British, French, and Belgians left behind them, how confident can we be that the Congo citizenry would have been better off if Lumumba had been left in place than if Joseph Mobutu hadn’t been maneuvered to replace him?

I can’t tell from Wikipedia what total body-count Mobutu rolled up while at his nation’s helm, but he did seem to have gutted the country financially, while, in good capitalist fashion, enriching himself unduly. On the other hand, Julius Nyere, who seems to have shared Lumumba’s more socialist inclination, left Tanzania “one of the poorest, least developed, and most foreign aid dependent countries in the world.”

I mean, I think the world can regularly be counted on to throw up evil men, like landslides or earthquakes or famines, to destroy hundreds or thousands or millions. I’ve said this before but maybe, given that, you’ve just got to step back and take the long view. Like President Obama said in the NYT today (in the Styles section, of all places), “(T)he fact is the world is wealthier, healthier, better educated, less violent, more tolerant, more morally conscious, and more attentive to the vulnerable than it has ever been.”

It may be good to get as angry as Budd does, but keep that in mind too.

Confessions of Media Baronhood (cont.)

Word has received me that the shipping of “Cheesesteak,” the maiden effort of my publishing empire, has been delayed due to the malfunction of my printer’s binder. It, hopefully, will arrive by the end of next week.

Once I have a copy in had, I can take it to Staple’s and see what is the least expensive mailer in which it will fit and stock up on those. Then once I have one inside the mailer, I can take it to the post office and learn the least expensive way to mail it. (Keep that overhead down.)

Meanwhile, I have invested in a rubber stamp for addressing the envelopes: $4.99, plus $5.00 for postage. (Keep those man hours down too.)

update

I received an apologetic and explanatory e-mail from the fellow who requested my article. He seems the victim of others’ machinations and betrayals. I withdraw all snarky remarks I made.
(Didn’t say anything about my payment though.)

This Writing Life (con.)

Constant readers with unimpaired memories will recall my invitation a year and a half or so ago to contribute an essay to a book/catalog which would accompany a (at least) two-museum tour of original EC Comic art. My topic was to be EC’s horror comics, with concentration on the genre’s master, Graham “Ghastly” Ingles. The topic appealed; the promised check (by my standards) good; and I jumped on the offer.

I got into it. I reviewed all of EC’s horror books. I checked numerous secondary sources for information, quotes, and color. I found people to interview, who no one in the comic world and ever interviewed. And — kick of all kicks — I discovered what had happened to Ingles, who, comic world legend had it, had seemingly disappeared, reclusive, bitter, after the imposition of the Code in 1954 had wiped horror from the four-color universe.

The first bad news I received from the curator of the exhibit was that he couldn’t pay me right away, after all. The second bad news was, not only had the tour not expanded, one of the museums on board had cancelled. The third was… Well, there was no more news.

Last week I sent him an e-mail. He excitedly reported that the exhibition would open in two weeks. If I cared to come to Oregon — on my own dime — he would comp me to the event. (I declined.) And, oh yeah, there would be no book/catalogue. “Maybe… in a year or two” he would release an anthology. No mention was made of my money (and I was too polite to press him).

I said I did not care to wait. The Comics Journal will be posting my piece on line any day now.

Stay tuned.

The Death of Prince

Place: The Health Club
Time: A few days ago

“Prince died.”
“Prince died.”
“Prince died.”
“Prince died.”
“Prince died.”
“Prince died.”
“So did Pearl Washington,” I said.
“Who’s she?”
I did not mention Chyna.

Robert Reich Walks Into A Cafe

“Orange juice to go. And a bagel with cream cheese and tomato to go.”
“What kind of bagel?” Jose says
“I always get confused. What are these?” Robert Reich points.
“Raisin.”
“Raisin.”
“$4.55.”
“$4.55?”
“Is more in Washington?” Jose says.
“You in Washington on business?” Angel says.
“Business.”
“Pleasure?”
Robert Reich shakes head, smiles. “Never pleasure.”
“Do you know Mr. Obama, yourself?”
“He’s very good. Not on everything. But he’s a good man.”