Category: Journal

My initial instinct was that voucher programs are a very bad thing and ought to be killed with fire. However, I’m trying to keep an open mind about these things and I’d have to say that I could easily support a voucher program under a restricted set of circumstances. This is very much a theoretical “work in progress” and subject to reevaluation-a-plenty. Education is, of course, nothing like a traditional “market” so market forces don’t really apply to selecting which school your child should attend. Therefore, any school which accepts vouchers should be a non-profit entity. I think this is pretty uncontroversial. The idea of cutting costs to increase profits is anathema to providing a good education so this should be a non-negotiable requirement. Some schools will have limited resources and not be able to accept every applicant. To ensure that there is no favoritism in selecting students, this selection process must be random. The only exception which makes sense is that students who attended the school the previous year should be automatically accepted should they desire to return, and siblings should be able to attend school with their brothers and/or sisters. No other exceptions should be considered. A “legacy” system has serious opportunities for abuse and giving preference for proximity would reduce the goal of school choice. Obviously, home school would not be eligible for vouchers. The most important restriction is that the “voucher” should cover the entire cost of attending the school for the entire year. There must be no additional costs, not for uniforms or transportation or athletics or anything. If a school accepts vouchers, then that voucher absolutely must cover everything. This ensures true school choice regardless of the economic circumstances or special needs of the students. If all three of these conditions apply, I think I could wholeheartedly get behind the concept of a voucher system. Students would have the most possible choice of schools, which is the stated goal of voucher systems. So long as voucher proponents are willing to go along with these very reasonable suggestions, I’m in. Otherwise, they’re just trying to pull money out of public schools to subsidize wealthy families who are already sending their kids to private schools and that, of course, is wholly unacceptable.  

Now that I’ve completed the first year of my second fifty transits around the sun, I should feel exhausted. I put over five hundred miles on the car today, saw my mother, my sister, and my brother in law and the rest of my fantasy baseball league. We shared stories and saw off the fraction of my father the other owners knew. Unsurprisingly, they saw much of what I saw: Integrity, humor, and a man who wouldn’t complain even when life was treating him like a punching bag.  Springing off from yesterday’s birthday surprises, Nicole made sure that our apartment floor was covered in balloons when I got home. Do you know how hard it is to feel knackered and melancholy when you have a room full of balloons? Oh, and cats, too. Cats plus balloons! To boost my mood a notch or ten, I treated myself to the new New Pornographers single “High Ticket Attractions” And now I’m treating you! So, while I probably should feel exhausted (and my body is certainly pressing that point), I feel giddy. I’m home, my wife is amazing, and I have a new song to play over and over again. When all as said and done, music is my drug of choice and the sugar rush of pure power pop gets me every time.  -RK P.S. C# E A# F#….swoon

Last night my brain wouldn’t shift out of neutral but I was bound and determined to post something in this space. I wrote three posts, hated them all, and finally resorted to the second most LiveJournal-y thing* in the world: a list post. Something went wrong with the whole process and the publish button refused to do anything even remotely resembling publishing. I opened a ticket with SquareSpace. I cursed a bit. I closed the laptop, and I went to sleep.  When I reopened the laptop tonight, it locked up after I entered my password and I had to hard boot. The post was lost forever. My list of “(Non-electronic) Things Which Are Better Now Than They Were 40 Years Ago” will never see the light of day, and the world is none the poorer for it. I feel like there’s a lesson having to do with doing things for the sake of doing them as opposed to doing them when you have reason to do so.  That, however, is a cruddy lesson. Practice and exercise are things you need to do even when you’re not of a mind to do them. However, the trick is to do them well even when you don’t feel it. The trick, for me, is to make sure that I do them well even when I’m not in the mood. Doing lazy work just to keep a streak alive is kind of pointless.  Maybe I’m wrong about this. Maybe there is some value in the discipline of forcing yourself to do things even when your motivation flags. It’s just that going through the motions and doing half ass sit ups or calling your mum and then not really talking or listening, or writing a crummy list post just for the sake of crossing them off the list defeats the purpose of those activities. Fortunately, there’s one thing I can salvage from that post. I really like the photo I ganked from the British Library archive so I’m re-using it as the header for this one. If you’re not familiar with this archive, check it out! It’s chock full o’ interesting images, free of charge.  -RK       * The first being a quiz, obvs.

Sometimes, all it takes to have a good day is to knock out a few things I’ve been dreading. I planned to get them done on Saturday, but I wound up working ~8 hours putting out small but persistent fires and getting too worked up to sit down and concentrate on what I was supposed to be doing. There’s probably a word for knowing what you need to do, setting aside time and space to do it, and finding yourself paralyzed at the thought of actually doing it. Whatever that word it, put it in the list of things which describe me. Anyway…once I sorted the stuff out today? Wow. It was liberating: A day without (much) stress. It helps that it was also a day when my wife was not working and we were able to spend time together, not thinking about working. That is my favorite way to spend time with her by a wide margin. It’s not that we actually did all that much. We shopped around a little bit and bought almost nothing. We did get to play some board games at Vigilante gaming bar (Ticket To Ride lives up to the hype in case you were wondering, and Potion Explosion is a lot of fun once you get past the setup). It was just lovely not to have commitments, not to have things we should be doing but for whatever reason weren’t. Now we’re sitting on the sofa listening to relaxing orchestral music while streaming video of deep sea fangly fishes because I don’t have nearly enough nightmares. I’m surprised how one good day to can make such a difference in my state of mind. I feel energetic, I feel happy, I feel relaxed. I tried to play some stuff on the guitar that I couldn’t play before and, well, I still can’t, but it was fun to try. The opening lick used to give my guitar teacher fits. BTW, Mr. Leo’s Kickstarter is at https://goo.gl/tI2zna . Help this righteous dude get his next album made! They say that contentment and good feelings are not conducive to interesting blog posts.  They know their stuff, don’t they? This has all been a long way of saying that it’s nice to just be somewhere,not feeling that you should be elsewhere or doing something else. Good night, and sleep well. -RK   P.S. The whole Damocles thing always makes me think of Bruce Sterling’s divinely silly short story “The Sword of Damocles.” It’s in his Globalhead story collection if you’re interested.

In case you missed it, the great Ted Leo opened a Kickstarter today to complete and produce his new album. And, 12 hours later, it was fully funded. I’ve always thought that he had unusually avid fans who were eager to support him and I couldn’t be happier to be proven right. Leo’s not just a great musicians; he’s a great guy in the old school punk tradition. In the post major label world, artists my not have the same breadth of support, but I suspect there’s more depth than there was before. In the past, the only way to “make it” in the industry to was to have a gazillion fans and sell a ton of records. Now, it seems that getting as many fans is tougher, but an artist can connect with their with their dedicated fans on a deeper level than was possible before. Anyway, while the Kickstarter is fully funded, the incentives make it worth your while to continue to support, and there are going to be more goodies as more money comes in. I for one am going to be getting not one but two signed post cards to me and to one of my aliases. In case you hadn’t guessed, I’m a fan. After mentioning I’d been reading Wodehouse, my friend Jim recommend I read Jonathan Ames’ Wake Up, Sir!  So, that’s what I did. Ames is the creator of the TV show Bored To Death, which was weird and funny and ended way before its time, and his brings a very similar sense of humor to Wake Up, Sir! There’s obviously a good deal of Wodehouse pastiche going on and its executed well, but that’ll only carry a novel for so long. Fortunately, the protagonist is a nightmare. He’s not Bertie Wooster, he’s two generations removed and he’s exactly the sort of person that makes you think that old people who shake their fists and complain about “kids today” might be on to something.  Comedy novels seldom work make me laugh (Terry Pratchett being the obvious exception), and while I didn’t laugh much, I smiled a lot. This is a funny novel and I’m a little embarrassed that I’d never even heard of it. There are even frequent references to to Raymond Chandler for goodness’ sake! I blame it on Wake Up, Sir! being published during my “not reading” years.  Next up is Tom McHale’s Principato, which was suggested to me by my brother in law. I’d never heard of McHale, but I’m hardly alone in this. I couldn’t find a copy at any of the book stores, used or new, in town. In fact, even Amazon didn’t stock it so I wound up ordering a copy from a shop in England.  McHale’s Wikipedia page is a pretty grim read. He was a critically successful novelist in his 20’s, got a gig as writer-in-residence, wrote several more well-received novels, took a gig teaching at a university, then ended his own life right before he started.  He was compared to Heller, Vonnegut, Updike, and Roth, and now he’s all but forgotten. That’s a cautionary tale or three here, isn’t it? -RK

This one’s going to be a bit of a ramble, so bear with me… We were watching Mr. Show last night because Mr. Show is, in my opinion, the funniest live action comedy show ever produced by these United States. Every time I see it, I’m struck by how they cleverly avoid the problem of coming up with an end to a sketch by just stopping when it was no longer funny and moving on to something else. It’s the same thing Monty Python did and it’s just as effective. Compare this approach to what Saturday Night Live has done since it first aired some time in the pre-Cambrian. No matter how slight the idea, they seem compelled to provide each sketch with an ending. All of the humor has long since been wrung from the concept, but they soldier on painfully (both for the actors and the audience). Good endings are hard to achieve if you try to force them. The trick, then, is knowing when to stop as opposed to insisting on a specific ending at a certain time. Here’s an imaginary G.K. Chesterton from an equally imaginary book*: October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or of shutting a book, did not end a tale. Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: “It is simply a matter,” he explained to April, “of finding a sunny place in a garden, where the light is golden and the grass is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content.” I saw Neal Stephenson at a book signing a good while ago, and he was asked the dreaded “process question.” He said that he didn’t have any set number of words he tried to write each day; he just worked until he wrote what he recognized as a bad sentence. He erased the sentence (he was writing longhand at the time and may still be), put down his pen, and stopped for the day.  While I was thinking about this, I was reminded of the film Stranger Than Fiction. You know the one, the Will Ferrell film where his life is being written by a novelist played by Emma Thompson. On a side note, I feel like Stranger Than Fiction is fading from the public consciousness. It certainly isn’t as widely referenced as the equally-deserving Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. Anyway, if you’re thinking about graceful endings, you really can’t avoid thinking about Stranger Than Fiction. The artistic tension between having the “right” ending and having the ending you want makes for surprisingly effective drama. I feel like Emma Thompson’s character’s choice was informed by the same sentiment the imaginary narrator expressed above, and I like that idea. My mother always tells me that her favorite books have ending that land in such a way that, after reading the last line, she closes the book and exhales “Yeah.” It sounds better in person, trust me. There aren’t a great many that I can think of that end so gracefully. Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods has a coda for the ages. Even if it weren’t one of my favorite novels, it would be worth reading just for the end. The Grapes of Wrath ended beautifully, although I’m a biased Steinbeck fan boy, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.  For a post concerning endings, you’d think I’d have a good one queued up. At least, you would if you didn’t know me.  Ideas which occur to you while soaking in a tub half asleep might, might make for a decent post, but those hazy states of mind rarely provide one with a proper stopping point.  -RK P.S. Songs which end albums well are rare and satisfying things. This doesn’t really fit with the post, but I was thinking about some of my favorite album-enders and I’ll just list them here: Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” (The Downward Spiral) My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon” (Loveless), Radiohead’s “The Tourist” (OK Computer) Spiritualized’s “Cop Shoot Cop” (Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space) Pop Will Eat Itself’s “Wake Up! Time To Die” (This Is The Day…This Is The Hour…This Is This!) Pink Floyd’s “Brain Damage/Eclipse” (Dark Side of the Moon)  The The’s “Lonely Planet” (Dusk) * This is from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. The lines are from a book in the Library of Dreams, a repository of books imagined but never written. They are Gaiman’s imagining of Chesterton’s imagining of the book The Man Who Was October. The Sandman really is extraordinary and you ought to read it. Funny thing is, I enjoyed Gaiman’s imaginary Chesterton a good deal more than the real one.  

I am not what most people would describe as a great planner. I’m going to pause here to allow the people who know me well to finish their laughter, derision, or Tina Fey-esque eye rolls. There. Everyone back? Good. Like most traits, this one is not good or bad in and of itself. I’m perfectly comfortable when plans get changed or canceled and I improvise pretty well, generally getting from point A to point B without much fuss.  That said, a little structure helps a lot. When I was at the absolute lowest point of my life, simply having weekly events to look forward to were invaluable to me. I couldn’t see too far into the future as it seemed dark and scary and not particularly worth experiencing, but the fact that I had a regular Wednesday morning meeting to look forward to broke time into chunks small enough to digest. I couldn’t see the top of the ladder, and I probably would have despaired had I seen how far away it was, but I could focus on that next rung right in front of me. Things aren’t anywhere near that bad now. My life, all in all, is pretty fantastic. It’s much better than me-in-high-school would have believed. But, there’s the general feeling of unease/fear/terror due to having a President who seems bound and determined to destroy everything you like about your country. It doesn’t help that the state government has jumped on board and is, if anything, worse than the President. I’m still struggling to find my feet with the new regime at work. There’s just a great deal of change and uncertainty. To combat this, we’ve already booked a week out in west Texas. We’re heading back out to Marfa, the bookend of our honeymoon,this summer. Knowing that that is on the horizon is a nice, big carrot in front of me. Just hold it together for a few more months and then I get to spend a week with my wife, some books, some adult beverages, and some clothing-optional outdoor hot tubs. Not pictured: The “clothing optional” part So, nope, I’m not a great planner and I doubt I’ll ever be once. It’s just that having a few plans, a few milestones, a little bit of structure, makes the bad stuff seem a good deal less bad. In a funny way, vacations are like the opposite of the ladder analogy. They can get you out of your daily rut of just focusing on what’s directly in front of you. More than a few vacations I’ve been on have served to remind me of just how many things are worse than a rut, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Getting away from it all (or at least as much of “it all” I could leave behind-there are limits in this age of wireless tethers to one’s job) clears the distractions away and gives you a chance to really sink in to what’s important to you. There was more than a little “why am I spending all my time doing that when this is what I want?” the last time we were in Marfa. Granted, they have to pay me to do “that” and I, turn, have to pay to do “this”, so the question answers itself.  I’m getting off-track here, but my point is…wait, there was a point, wasn’t there? My point is that having something to look forward to is an underrated boon, and that the specific thing I am looking forward to right now is a vacation to one of my favorite places on this planet (I say this as someone who hasn’t traveled especially much) and I’ll be spending a week there with my favorite person on this planet. It seems like I could have said that in fewer words, but brevity, like planning-ness (?) isn’t one of my great virtues. Cue the knowing eye rolls.  -RK  

We’re spending the evening together and we’re most definitely not talking about current events. Of course, we’re both exhausted and fell asleep on the sofa, but I’d rather be asleep on the couch, drooling into my shirt (and not her hair, I want to emphasize) with Nicole than an awfully long list of things. So, no update to speak of today. We’re going to make late-night filets mignon and watch 30 Rock and do Jello shots of each other’s backs and all that other stuff people do on Valentine’s Day. If you’re reading this, I hope you’re where you want to be, happy, relaxed, and having a good evening. I know I sure am.   * After our wedding anniversary and Love Day, of course.

I think I have damaged some close friendships due to disagreements regarding the President. I am of the belief that a Trump presidency would be (and so far, is) too damaging to my leftist beliefs to oppose Clinton on the grounds that she wasn’t a good standard bearer for the left. A couple of my friends did not come to the same conclusion; they believed that Clinton would more damaging, and that a Trump victory would force the Democrats to become a true leftist party. Yes, I feel strongly enough about this to make a comic. I’d love to be proven wrong and for this administration to be less monstrous than it has thus far been and for a surge in socialism to take over not just the Democratic party, but the government, from the bottom up to the top. Even if that happens, I’m still going to be angry. I feel like it was one hell of a risk to take, particularly when the people forcing the gamble were the ones who would be most insulated from the consequences. Plus, I just hate having a gun held to me head. On a happier note, Target is now carrying refrigerated “Pizzeria Uno” pies. They’re better than any frozen pizza I’ve had. The cheese, the sauce, and the crust are all thiiiiis close to tasting like a decent delivery pizza. The only problem I had with it was that the top of the crust cooked nicely, but the bottom of the pie didn’t quite harden the way it should have. Still, it was good enough that I’m willing to take another crack at it when I need a pizza fix. In spite of the above paragraph, I’ve been eating much better of late. We’ve cut out foods with added sugar, essentially eliminating sweet drinks and desserts. Minus tonight’s lapse, I should be dropped pounds like nobody’s business. As it turns out, while steroids are magical for curing many, many things, they’re not much good for people who are trying to drop weight. In theory, the better diet should reduce my need for the steroids, so, crossing my fingers, this is just a temporary setback. Tonight, my friend Jim got up on a stage and sang in front of people for the first time in his life. Just thinking about doing something like this gives me the jibblies. Go give him a high five because doing things that scare you is cool unless “being a tool” scares you. It’s like they old PSA said: “Being a tool is NOT cool.” I ran on fumes all of last week and I’m like as not going to be doing the same thing tomorrow (at the very least), so I’m going to call it a night. Sweet dreams, everyone. -RK      

The above image has nothing to do with the post, even obliquely, I just thought it was cool. I love maps.  Recently, my friends have offered some intriguing suggests as to what I should read next. My friends seem to have highly specialized tastes as none of my local book stores carry any of the three books they suggested*. So, last week, I picked up a copy of Chuck Klosterman’s “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” It’s a collection of clever essays on pop culture. When he’s on, I absolutely love Klosterman’s ability to take a single goofy idea and flesh it out into a monster of snark.  When he’s not at the top of his game, he can get a little cringe-worthy. Pop culture criticism, unless it is the finest example of the genre, has an expiration date. What was edgy and provocative looks silly and obtuse in the rear-view mirror, especially when some of it has a whiff of sexism. Remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer ticked off his produce vendor and Jerry had to guy and buy those weird, exotic foods like mangoes and plantains? Some of it reads like that, or even like an old blog post by a guy like, um, me, only slightly less embarrassing. What was most intriguing to me was the essay on journalism. The change in tone when Klosterman went from writing about things he’d seen and started in on things he done was easily the highlight of the book. I’d love to read an entire book on subjects Klosterman can write about with that level of authority, but alas, this one wasn’t it. I finally found a copy of Nnedi Okorafor’s Hugo award winning “Binti” on Tuesday and, an hour later, I was looking forward to the sequel because I’d finished it. I’m a big fan of novellas, but I wish “Binti” had been just a little longer.  That’s about the only complaint I can think of. Okorafor’s a fine storyteller, and if the arc of “Binti” is pretty familiar, it’s well-told and the pages fly by. Her prose is tight, her pacing is brisk without being rushed, and the characters have a life of their own. However, what sets this story above other YA space operas is the imaginative, world-building. This is not yet another universe where everyone is a white American painted with a slightly different skin color or given names to suggest a diversity where none really exists. I love it.  I picked up the sequel today and I expect to tear through it almost as quickly.  -RK * “Principato” by Tom McHale, George Alec Effinger’s “When Gravity Fails,” and “Wake Up, Sir!” by Jonathan Ames. McHale is so obscure that I had to buy from an Amazon affiliate in England. I love how easy that is now. BTW, my book-buying method, in case you’re interested, is: 1. If the author is no longer with us, I’ll start at a local used book store. 2. If the author is still around, or if the book isn’t at the used store, I’ll go to a local indie bookseller. 3. If all else fails, it’s Amazon.