Life Choices

So there we were, arguing about tipping. Some of us saying that we always tip a lot because we know that jobs which are mostly tips tend to be difficult, low-paying jobs; and then this one guy who said that it was unfair to expect him to tip well for poor service. 

Hm. Fairness. He went on to say that maybe jobs such as waiting tables were difficult and low-paying, but that people had such jobs because they had made poor life choices, and that it would be unfair to him, again, to expect him to pay to help people because of the choices they had made.

 

It seems really amazing to me that I have to explain this to anyone, but apparently I do: Life isn't fair. It isn't remotely fair. Not everyone has the same sort of things to choose among. For example, one person who's turning 16 in the US might have the choice of a brand-new Tesla or a brand-new BMW as a 16th-birthday present; a second 16-year-old might get a 10-year-old Chevy in poor condition for their birthday and be expected to be grateful for it; and a third one might have the choice of working long hours for tips after school and eventually being able to buy their own car, or walking.

And still other 16-year-olds might be faced with much worse choices still, yes, even in the US. Some never had the chance to take Driver's Ed, never went to school, are living on the streets. 

A couple of years later, one kid might have the choice of going to Harvard, all expenses paid, or Princeton, all expenses paid. Another might have the choice of going to Harvard and going heavily into dept, or going to Indiana State and going into somewhat less debt, or going to Indiana State and taking on no debt, but having to work full-time while studying. Etc. Not everyone has the same choices. It seems incredible to me that I have to explain such things to anyone, but apparently I do. Some people have incredible advantages, but don't appreciate them.

I'll give you an extreme example. This will sound impossible, but it's a true story: about 50 years ago, one guy got $1 million dollars from his father to help him start out in the real estate business. And 50 years later, as a billionaire, he's still complaining about how difficult his life has been, and how he's been treated very unfairly, and how he was forced to start out "with only a small $1 million loan from my father."

And I bet that guy is a lousy tipper. I don't actually know, I just have a feeling.

And let me just add another incredibly obvious thing about choices and tipping, because apparently it's actually not obvious to everyone: a lot of us very rarely have the opportunity to tip someone to begin with, because we can't afford to eat out. The last time I gave a tip, I think, was over a year ago, at a car wash. I tipped big, because I believe in tipping big. But I don't think I've been to car wash, or a restaurant, since then. Not only because of COVID but also because I couldn't have afforded it if there was no pandemic.

And if I start to feel sorry for myself, I need to remind myself that there are many people, all around me in this prosperous city which does an amazing job of looking out for the less fortunate, who don't have a car and can't afford to buy one, not even an old broken down car. I only had part of a driver's ed course back in the 1970's, but some people didn't even have the choice of going to school when they were 16. And a lot of these people who don't have cars are still much better off than others, because they have homes.

A lot of people in this world never live to be 16 years old. And everybody knows everything I've said in this post. None of this is any kind of a secret.

So, Mr goes-to-restauraunts every-day, lousy-tipper complaining-about lousy-service: I don't want to hear about how those waitresses you abuse should've made better choices if they don't appreciate your impolite behavior and small tips. I probably could make this point even more obviously clear if I weren't so angry right now. But I think a lot of the reason you don't understand any of this is because you're really not even listening to me or any of the many other people trying to explain such elementary, obvious things to you, because you're far too busy reading Ayn Rand and feeling sorry for yourself because Democrats are wrecking the stock market.

Electrical Power to the People!

There are probably 400,000,000,000,000,000,000 idiots -- approximately, give or take -- raving full-time about how EV's don't have enough range. They're wrong. I could fill whole posts with the details of the ways in which they are wrong, but if we could somehow distract them from this topic, and get them raving full-time about how there need to be more charging options instead, that could really do some good.

I'm not just talking about fast-charge options -- the public places where you pull up in your EV and plug it in and then pay when you're done, like a gas station except with electricity instead of gas. This is cheaper than putting gas into a conventional car, but it's not as cheap as plugging an EV into a regular wall socket overnight. I'm also talking about houses with garages. A lot of people who own EV's seldom or never use those public charging stations, because they plug their cars into regular sockets

 

overnight. This takes longer than the public charging stations, but it's also much cheaper. 

So people who own their own houses save money by plugging their EV's in overnight, while poor people who can't afford the price of a new EV to begin with also tend not to own their own houses, and usually don't have any wall sockets which they can easily plug their used EV's into overnight. Maybe they could get a 100-foot extension cord and run it from their 2012 Nissan Leaf parked on the street up the side of their apartment building, in the window of their 3rd-floor apartment and into the wall socket and charge their electric cars while they sleep the way that rich people do. Maybe. But it would be difficult, and the problems would be much greater still if they lived on the 10th floor. 

Similarly, many employers offer free EV charging to their employees, but we're usually talking about employees who are already well-paid. Similarly, Tesla offers free public charging to many Tesla owners -- but again, Teslas are even more expensive than other EV's. And that's just one of the problems with owning a Tesla. 

And electricity is much more widely available in the US and Europe than in some poorer regions of the world.

You see the pattern here. It's easy for you to get those famous huge energy savings by owning an EV -- but in most cases, you can only get the FULL savings if you're rich enough not to really need those savings. It's the infamous Tom Petty It's Ab-So-Lute-Lute-Ly Backwards Law of Microeconomics again. Poorer people will still save money buying electricity for their cars instead of gasoline, but generally not as much money. Let's get those 400,000,000,000,000,000,000 idiots raving about giving poor people their own houses with garages with wall outlets in them -- they could talk to Jimmy Carter and some of his associates about that one -- or giving them very cheap or free electricity some other way. Then, those 400,000,000,000,000,000,000 idiots would actually be accomplishing something.

So, It's Valentines' Day,

and I'm confidently looking forward to being showered with lavish gifts by my many passionate admirers.

Do I actually know that someone currently admires me passionately enough to give any sort of Valentine's Day gift?

No.

Do I get something every Valentine's Day?

No.

Not even a card?

Sometimes not even a card. Some years, all I got was a Valentine's Day card from my Mom, which in some ways was worse than getting nothing. Still, it shows you how great my Mom was. Love you, Mom, you're the best, happy Valentine's Day, RIP. And they make Valentine's Day cards that say From Mom to my Son, which makes it a little less weird. Thank you, Hallmark, for making it less weird.

So why am I confidently looking forward to a completely different kind of Valentine's Day today?

Because they say that confidence is sexy.

Are they right about that?

I have no idea.

Who are they, anyway?

Beats me.

Whatever kind of Valentine's Day I end up having, there are some people who no doubt will be showered with lavish gifts by passionate admirers today. For example, Scarlett Johansson.

Seems perfectly reasonable and right that she would be showered with lavish gifts from many admirers today. I almost feel bad about not getting her a Valentine's Day gift myself, and I've never met her. You know who else is going to be showered with lavish Valentine's Day gifts from admirers today? Donald Trump. And that doesn't seem right. You threw up a little bit in your mouth just thinking about it, didn't you? And you're somewhat annoyed with me for bringing it up. Sorry, but I was trying to make a point, and I think I made it. Donald Trump on Valentine's Day illustrates the Tom-Petty-It's-Ab-So-Lute-Ly-Back-Wards Law of Microeconomics particularly well.

So if I socialized more, would I have better chances of getting Valentine's Day gifts?

No doubt. No doubt at all about that. I'd also have better chances of being married or having a girlfriend or something.

Is being autistic, so that it's more difficult and stressful for me to socialize than it is for most people, a valid excuse for this Valentine's Day predicament of mine?

Yeah, probably, but whether it's valid or not, excuses are not nearly as likely to get me many lavish Valentine's Day gifts, as getting out there and mixing it up with the other humans. Exactly the same as with other people, autistic and not.

Do I think Scarlett Johansson is awesome?

Yes. Yes, I do. She's gorgeous, intelligent, talented, has a good sense of humor, and, although I've never met her, from what I hear, she's also a real mensch. I could be wrong, but I think she's awesome. Happy Valentine's Day, Scarlett Johansson!

Tom Petty

Irony: a FB user claims that it's Tom Petty's fault that his father was an alcoholic and drug addict; and that same FB user has a cover photo with the words "MY DESTINY IS MY OWN!" Yes, folks, that's irony. Unintentional irony.

30 years ago or so, Tom Petty described one of the fundamental ironies of life in this land: when you get rich and famous, all of a sudden you get lots of stuff for free, which you could easily buy now, and which you badly needed back when you couldn't afford it.

Petty was very intelligent, very perceptive, very sensitive to the plight of the poor and abused. A lot of that intelligence went into his lyrics. He also was very talented musically. This combination made for songs which touched people. Those songs made us feel as if we knew him personally. We didn't know him, but if felt as if we did. He wasn't that FB user's father, but it felt as if he was. So a lot of us feel today as if we've lost a good friend, or a father or brother or cousin.

So maybe cut us a little bit of slack for a change.

Petty was born in Gainesville, Florida, in 1950, was inspired to be a musician by Elvis and the Beatles, dropped out of high school shortly before graduation to concentrate full-time on playing in a band, and BAM! just like that, 11 or 12 years later, suddenly he could afford to buy all the Nike shoes he wanted, and he didn't even have to anymore.



It's not just millions of us listeners who have been blown away by his single "Free Fallin'" -- Petty himself said he was amazed when the song came out of him. He said it was like a bolt of lightning which came from nowhere.

Of course, it came from the same place as all of the other great songs which Petty wrote or co-wrote. Still, it just goes to show that if you work very hard for decades at something you care about, you might have moments where what you produce is so good that it even surprises you.

Not to step on yr shoes if yr favorite Tom Petty recording is something other than "Free Fallin'". There are many, many great Tom Petty recordings. I'm going to stop now. RIP, Mr Petty. And thanks.

The Volksbühne Berlin and Chris Dercon

I finally un-followed whats-her-name ("I'll never forget what's her-name") on Facebook, because I couldn't stand her posts protesting Chris Dercon's impending leadership of the Volksbühne Berlin any more.

Of course, she and the people who commented agreeing with her didn't put it that way: they weren't talking about Chris Dercon coming to the Volksbühne and taking over for Frank Castorf: they were talking about the end of the Volksbühne; no, the end of serious theatre in Berlin; no, the end of serious theatre, period; no, the end of the world. Besides the Facebook posts she also has attended protests outside the Volksbühne. Did she actually organize and lead these protests? I don't know. Has she worked as an actress at the Volksbühne? I'm not sure about that either.

Just in case someone doesn't know: I've never seen a performance at the Volksbühne. I've seen lots and lots of pictures of productions, and a few videoclips, and read some reviews, and read some of the plays performed there. But I've never actually been there; ergo, by definition, I don't know what I'm talking about.

My first reaction, when She Who Has Been Unfollowed began her torrent of furious posts, was that it all seemed rather overdone for what was, ironically, a rather elite affair. I was assuming a greater similarity to a theatre culture with which I am actually familiar -- big-time commercial theatre in NYC -- than there actually is. Tickets to a Broadway or Off-Broadway or even some Off-Off-Broadway shows are expensive enough to make it quite an exclusive affair. Not to mention the comps: the many tickets given absolutely free to big shots who could afford perfectly well to pay full price, because it's ab-so-lute-ly backwards.

But I figured I'd better do some research before just wading into the middle of all of that Facebook lamentation and calling them all silly elitist drama queens. And it turned out that I was wrong: tickets for the Volksbühne are much less expensive than those for a Broadway play: no ticket costs more than 40 Euros; retirees and low-income people pay about half price; and some people who qualify on the basis of need can get several tickets per season free.

My next reaction was to say that they could've taken all of the energy they'd expending being furious about something which hasn't happened yet and might be quite different than what they expect, and used it to start their own damn theatre company. And they could. But, as I continued to research the Volksbühne, I learned that, in addition to the money taken in at the box office, the state of Berlin gave the Volksbühne 184 Euros for every ticket sold in 2009, and 141 Euros for every ticket sold in 2010 (these are the latest statistics I could find). And I imagine that they get the use of that theatre building right in the middle of Berlin rent-free, too.



Okay, so, yeah, they could start their own company, but starting one like the Volksbühne might be harder than I had imagined.

So I was wrong about all of that, and drastically under-informed about how German theatre in general works, and I've never seen a production at the Volksbühne, never seen one directed by Castorf, or by Dercon. So do I still actually have a freakin' problem with the protesters?

Yes. One word which is frequently used by them when they describe the way in which Dercon is going to destroy the the Volksbühne is "international." They foresee Volksbühne productions which will be slick, safe, aimed at garnering international prizes. And no longer the distinctly Berliner theatre they love. Dercon ain't even a gosh-dang German, he's a furriner, a Belgian.

What kind of God-damned Communist objects to internationalism? Provincial Communists. That's what kind. I've never been to the Volksbühne, but I have by gosh been to Berlin, and it's magnificent, and one of the things which makes it so is its openness to the world.

The whole world.

And, and, I do believe that while some international prizes are given to slick and safe theatre productions, others aren't. So that if the Volksbühne under Dercon's leadership does win some international prizes, it won't mean that everything the protesters said was correct. Although no doubt they will claim that it does.

Notebooks

Like many, many other people, I've been writing in Moleskine notebooks for years. Currently I'm writing in a Shinola notebook. Like the Moleskines I use, the Shinola is pocket-sized with a soft cover, designed for comfort as I take it with me everywhere I go.

I got the Shinola notebook when I went into the Shinola store in downtown Ann Arbor to look at the Shinola watches. All very good-looking watches, and all way out of my price range. And if I did have that kind of money, I'd be looking for a mechanical watch, and all the watches Shinola makes are still battery-powered, unfortunately.

But I saw the notebooks while I was there, and I bought one.

Compared to a Moleskine, it's good. The cover has a completely different texture. Not sure which one I like better. The Shinola feels tougher, more solidly-made, but I don't know that I can actually quantify the relative toughnesses of Moleskine and Shinola. The elastic band on the Shinola broke, which never happened to any of the approximately 2 dozen Moleskines I've filled up with my scribbles. However, I don't know whether that means that the strap on the Shinola is not as tough. Since I got the Shinola, my writing habits have changed significantly: a lot which previously might have gone first into a notebook and then into this blog has been into the blog without being written in a notebook first. But I still keep my rule about writing something in a notebook every single day. This means that it's taking me many more days to fill up the Shinola than it ever took me to fill up a Moleskine. So the strap on the Shinola may have been as strong as those on Moleskines, and may have broken simply because I opened up closed the Shinola so many times.

By the way: although the Moleskines had gotten me thoroughly used to having an elastic strap to hold the notebook shut, and although it was rather traumatic for me when the strap on the Shinola broke -- I haven't really missed it much. Not having the strap anymore really hasn't made much difference to me, hasn't led to any inconvenience or spilling or what have you.

Anyway: using the Shinola notebook, and not finding it to be grossly inferior to a Moleskine, may have been what it was which started me thinking about still other brands of notebooks. Something I would really like would be a notebook which is pocket-sized or smaller, with plain, unruled paper, and a lot of pages. Twice as many as your usual notebook, or even more. Moleskine has items which fill all of these requirements except for the plain paper: some of their yearly planners have as many as "400" pages or more. I put "400" in quotation marks, because Moleskine -- and some or most or all other manufacturers of such items -- count each piece of paper twice, once for the front and once for the back. So, a Moleskine with "400" pages has 200 sheets of paper in it.

So I did a Google search for better than moleskine, found some other brands which some other people like better than Moleskine (Leuchtturm appears to be especially well-liked), and looked at what was available in those brands on Amazon -- and I still haven't found that elusive notebook, pocket-sized or smaller, with "400" or "500" or so plain pages in it.

And then I reminded myself that I don't have all that much money, and that I do have 4 Moleskines which I had bought before I got the Shinola, and that it's taking me longer these days to fill up a notebook, so that it will be quite a long time before I actually run out of the notebooks I have.

If I were to win a Nobel Prize, or something like that, it might be less extravagant for me to hunt down exactly the kind of notebook I want -- or even to have them custom-made for me. But of course, if I won the Nobel Prize, the chances would increase tremendously that I would be showered with any and every kind of swanky notebook absolutely free of charge, because, as the Tom Petty It's-Ab-So-Lute-Ly-Back-Wards Law of Microeconomics teaches us -- it's ab-so-lute-ly backwards. (It occurs to me that Tom Petty said that around 1985, when he and his band had been rich and famous for a relatively short period of time, and the memory of poverty was still relatively fresh. I wonder whether today, after 3 more decades of being more and more rich and famous, and therefore receiving ever greater big piles of stuff for ab-so-lute-ly free, he has changed his mind completely, and now finds that this arrangement makes perfect sense and is thoroughly just and fair and right, and therefore doesn't want some nobody blogger reminding people of what he said once in 1985 about certain things being backwards and whatnot. I doubt it, but who knows.)

Did you notice all the fancy-looking pocket-sized notebooks with elastic straps used by the reporters in the press conferences in "Boardwalk Empire"? Did you wonder whether they were all Moleskines or all some other brand, all given to the production company for free, because very often companies give big piles of groovy stuff to people making movies and TV shows, absolutely free, and that's sometimes why those companies' names are in the big lists of "Thanks To:" in the end credits, and did you squint and try to find Moleskine in those lists which whizzed by so quickly at the end of each episode of "Boardwalk Empire," and did you wonder what the actors playing those reporters actually wrote in those notebooks, imagining that the method actors tried to actually write what a reporter in Atlantic City or New York City in the 1920's might write, while the non-method actors wrote entirely different things, or perhaps drew satiric doodles of the method actors? Not to mention all of the above, but with the pens they were writing with, whether they were all given to the production company by Cross or what have you? And whether some of those actors might have turned down the free stuff because they already had their own stuff which they liked better? And how much of the free stuff the actors are allowed to keep after the show wraps, and how much stuff they keep that they're not supposed to keep, and whether maybe some actors are having career difficulties and they don't know why, and the reason why is because the word has gotten around that they steal way too much of the stuff they're supposed to give back? (There were also some very cool-looking notebooks in the first Guy Ritchie-Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes movie.)

If you don't notice and wonder and squint looking for and speculate about those kinds of things, my friend, then you are very different than I.

Exile, A (The) Literary Quarterly

I obtained, I do not remember when or how, Exile: A Literary Quarterly, vol 16, no 4, copyright 1992. Probably between 1994 and 1997 in NYC, where I obtained many books and literary journals for free or nearly free. I know I didn't pay anywhere near the price listed on the front cover, $25.00, neither 25 American nor Canadian dollars. Exile is published in Canada.

Like its price, Exile: A Literary Quarterly, vol 16, no 4 is huge for a literary Journal: over 500 large-format pages, around 8 1/2 by 11 inches, I'm guessing. The paper is thick, the volume weighs so much more than any other volume of a literary or scholarly journal I've ever hefted.

Is it also much, much bigger than any other volume of Exile, I'm wondering? I had never seen a different number of the publication, although I'd seen a few more copies of vol 16, no 4, until I bought a copy of Exile: The Literary Quarterly, vol 27, no 1, published in 2003 -- bought it via Amazon Marketplace a few years ago. The Amazon listing didn't say how many pages it had. Imagine my disappointment when it arrived, just over 140 smaller-format pages, about an inch less tall and an inch less wide than the big one from 1992.

The front cover of the one from 1992 has a photo of an Irish poet I'd never heard of, John Montague. Had he just passed away, was the 1992 number so much bigger because it was a tribute issue to Montague? No. He's also published in the 1998 issue, which mentions that he "became, in 1998, the first Ireland Professor of Poetry." He's still alive now at age 87.

Sometime between 1992 and 1998 they changed the A in the name of the quarterly to a the. But there's no doubt that it is the same publication. among the many hints are the identical quotations from Borduas ("Together we will undertake[...]") and Cortazar ("The only true exile[...]") at the beginning of each volume, and the identical editor, Barry Callaghan, replaced some time between 1992 and 1998 by his son Michael.

Maybe all of the earlier numbers are indeed like vol 16 no 4, which would be great, because it is awesome not only in size but also in the selection of authors and artists whose work is printed there: Atwood. Pasolini. William Kennedy. That Montague guy. Croatians, Swedes, Germans, many, many Canadians. On and on.

The prospect is too great. I can't believe it, it's too good to believe, that one number after the next was just as immense and impressive as that one, 4 times a year for years. Vol 16, no 4 must have been a special occasion, for some reason which I have not yet been able to discern.

I cannot find out for sure now by buying every number of Exile, A and The, currently for sale on Amazon. That is not within my current budget. If I win the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature the week after next, I'll be able to buy them all -- but if I win the Nobel I probably won't have to buy any of them, because someone at Exile will read this, and, instead of helping someone who actually needs it, will send me every back issue for free, because of the Tom Petty Ab-So-Lute-Ly Backwards Law of Microeconomics. I suppose it's possible that some nearby university library has every issue of Exile.

Wait, maybe I have discerned why vol 16, no 4 is so splendacious and large: the publisher/editor/poet Barry Callaghan slips in an Afterword just before that long huge list of contributors, mentioning that his dad, Morley, had recently passed, and that "these books, these fifteen years in exile, are dedicated to him."

Hm. I'd read that Afterword before but somehow I never put the huge size and immense quality of this number together with the dedication of fifteen years' worth of the journal by Barry Callaghan to the memory of his Dad.

Now, after 20 years of wondering and having read the Afterward several times, now suddenly it seems obvious.

You see, I'm really not terribly bright. Please help me, someone.

In conclusion, France is a land of many contrasts, and literary journals are fun and mysterious and show how big and rich the world is. Not so much like most TV.

What Do I Have In Common With James Joyce And Ludwig Wittgenstein?

Well, first of all, obviously, they could write their asses off, like I can. They were autistic, I'm autistic. Joyce (1882 -1941) and Wittgenstein (1889-1951) didn't win the Nobel Prize in Literature (and it's not awarded posthumously), and I haven't won it yet. I'm not dead, but I'm freakin 54. Dead, no, grumpy, yes.

Doeblin, Musil, Allen Ginsberg, Ezra Pound, -- didn't win Nobels. All those Scandanavian writers nobody's ever heard of who won the Nobel Prize for Literature, you know who didn't? August Strindberg and Henrik Ibsen.

Today they announced the 2015 Literature Nobel, and as you can see, I'm not taking it well. They awarded it to some Belorussian lady, I'm sure she's a wonderful person and very deserving, yada yada, and that her books are magnificent, blah blah blah.

So. Maybe I'll have a great year between now and next October, a huge year, become rich and famous. If I do, of course, it will greatly increase my odds of winning a Nobel ("for his hilarious, poignant and profound blog posts about why he deserves it"), and of course, because of the Tom Petty Ab-So-Lute-Ly Backwards Law of Microeconomics, it will also mean that I will no longer NEED one.

James Joyce really could've used one, that guy dedicated himself to his art, and his art didn't sell during his lifetime. Vincent Van Gogh all over again except that Joyce handled the commercial failure and lack of fame much better. (And better than I am at the moment, yeah, yeah.) I don't know whether Wittgenstein really needed a Nobel, he had a day job as a Cambridge professor.

But it still woulda been nice.

Still. Most Nobel laureates have been magnificent writers, that's why I feel I'm not going out on a limb to say that Svetlana Alexievich probably is too. Who knows, maybe she's so magnificent, and the prize will give her enough recognition, that it will be she who finally turns human life away from its nightmarish aspects, and then I won't need a Nobel even if I don't make a huge splash.

Whatever.

I Haven't Watched Charlie Rose In Over 30 Years

One of the best jobs I've ever had was also one of the worst in that the wages were exploitatively low: $80 a week in 1995-96. I was an usher in a theatre showing Steve Martin's play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. (Movie stars' salaries make headlines, but there are a lot of low-paying and even non-paying jobs in show business, and the producers and studio execs who make more than movie stars and manage to keep their finances out of the news make money off of the movie stars, and the people being paid very little in non-union jobs, and the people not being paid at all. Unionize.)



I could've gone home when the play started, but night after night I stayed and watch the play. It was incredible. It's set in 1904, in the Lapine Agile, a bar in Paris where Picasso hung out at the time. Albert Einstein was never there, but this play is not strictly realistic, and in this play he pops in. 1904 was shortly before he published the papers on relativity and photoelectronics which made him famous. In the play the proprietors of the bar have a ridiculously, hopelessly, unnecessarily complicated system of bookkeeping, which it seems they will never untangle, but young Albert quickly does some amazingly complicated math in his head to help them out. Then people ask him to tell them about himself. Instead of saying he's working on academic papers, the way he puts it is that he's writing a 70-page book about "everything." Someone asks him how many people would have to read his book for him to consider it a success, and he gets the same abstracted expression of his face that he had just a little while ago when he was doing the complicated math in his head to his the bar's owners with their messed-up accounting; and after a while he answers, "One. But it has to be Max Planck."

That doesn't make Einstein as different from other writers as some might think. Sure, all other things being equal, the more people who read my blog, the better. But one person reading my blog, or something else I've written, and then commenting favorably on it, could make me a successful writer all at once -- if that person is Oprah Winfrey.

Or possibly if it were Charlie Rose. I'm not entirely sure about that. Like I say, I stopped watching his shows 30 years ago, because the way that he constantly interrupted his guests, not only verbally, which was bad enough, but also by waving his great big stupid hand in their faces for them to shut up, was driving me mad. So why did I watch his show to begin with? Because he had very interesting guests. And I gather he still does. I gather this partly by channel-surfing past his show and seeing the face of some extremely-interesting person -- as interesting as Cate Blanchett and Salman Rushdie and 4 different Presidents and Harold Bloom -- and partly by hearing extremely-interesting people talk about having been on his show in venues other than his show. Does the amazing list of guests make me want to repent and give Rose another try after 30+ years, see if he's become somewhat less unbearable? No. On the contrary, it make me angry that all of those amazing people continue to prop this jerk up by appearing on his show.

I hope I've made the intensity and unreasonableness of my dislike for Charlie Rose vividly clear.

Still, I suppose that Rose could make me famous. Not Oprah's Book Club-famous, probably, but he could give me a huge boost. I think sometimes about whether I would refuse to appear on his show. I know, I just finished denouncing a teeming host of wonderful people for appearing on his show. I also suspect that I've made it impossible that Rose will ever want to interview me, with this post, if it wasn't already impossible because of other things I've said and written. But maybe Rose is a very magnanimous guy. Maybe he doesn't interrupt nearly as much. Maybe he's stopped with the waving of that big hand in his guests' faces.

(The fact that the guests were so great, even 30 years ago, was what made the interruptions so unbearable. You can understand that, right? I tuned in to watch -- say, Steve Martin, or Ted Kennedy, not to watch Rose talk about Martin or Kennedy while they struggled to get a word in edgewise. Hot tip, Charlie: if you're fortunate enough to have a great speaker appear on your show, LET HIM OR HER SPEAK YOU BIG GOON!!!)

Whether or not to grit my teeth and betray my principles -- and maybe take a strong prescription pill or 3 -- and go on "Charlie Rose" -- that's the sort of dilemma I want to have. And just like the Tom Petty Ab-So-Lute-Ly Bassackwards Law of Microeconomics, the more likely it is that I will ever have a chance to appear on the show, the less likely it will be that I will have any incentive to do so, because, although Charlie Rose could single-massive-handedly make me rich and famous, it's unlikely that he would want me as a guest unless I were already rich and famous, or at the very least, already speeding toward rich and famous.

Anyhow. Whether Oprah or Charlie are ever involved at all in my career rise, or even if they both actively oppose my rise because I've criticized them, if they're petty that way -- the more people who read my blog, the better. I'm doing everything I can think of to get the attention of the publishers and agents and other people who could help my career, including asking my readers, repeatedly, begging them, to mention my blog whenever and wherever they can. My ambition is naked. Yr darn tootin it is. I'm not trying in the least to hide that fact that I want to be a huge, huge, huge success. I know that some people advise those who are ambitious to hide their ambition, to pretend to be humble, and even pretend not to want honours and promotions. (But take the honours and promotions anyway of course, just pretend to do it unwillingly and with protestations of unworthiness.)

Whatever. I'm going a different way. It's one less thing people can accuse me of being insincere about.

Let's Get Serious And Get Me the 2015 Nobel Prize For Literature

For one thing, it would be a resounding slap in the face of the Tom Petty Law of Microeconomics, which is: It's Ab-So-Lute-Ly Backwards. This law occurred to Tom in the 1980's after he and the Heartbreakers had become superstars, and Nike, having noticed that several of the bandmembers seemed to favor their shoes, invited them to some Nike warehouse in order to give them all the free shoes and other Nike items they wanted. The band chose so much stuff that it wasn't clear at first exactly how they were going to be physically able to haul it all away, until some bright Nike employee went and fetched some huge beautiful supple leather Nike bags which were also given to them free, and it was about then when it occurred to Tom that It Was All Backwards, because it had not been too long before that when the band had been so poor that one free pair of shoes for just one of them would have made a significant positive impact on their economic outlook, but back then nobody was giving them free stuff, cause the world doesn't just go around handing free stuff to poor people cause if it did how would they stay poor?! and now they could easily have afforded to buy all of the shoes and book and shirts and jackets and other Nike clothes they were being given, and even those magnificent huge leather bags (the bags seem to have really impressed Tom), but it was all just a fraction of the free stuff they were getting because they were rich and famous, and the rich and famous get tons of SWAG ("Stuff We All Get") because It's. All. Backwards.

Because It's All Backwards, The Nobel Prize with its seven-figure cash component is generally given to writers who are massively successful, who already have massive book deals, some even huger film deals as well, and therefore don't actually need the cash component of the Nobel.

Well, I actually do. (Of course, Microeconomic Backwardness being what it is, as soon as I win the 2015 Nobel for Literature, the publicity will lead directly to book deals and other sources of income and Stuff so that very very soon, I won't need those seven figures Because. It's All. Bass. Ackwards. I am not immune to the Bassackwardness.)

One other thing may be bothering some of you: wondering whether I actually write well enough to deserve the 2015 Nobel. It's okay, you don't have to be afraid to admit this to me if that's what you're thinking. It doesn't upset or surprise me. You probably aren't familiar with all of the schmucks who've won this thing. Go read some Eyvind Johnson, Harry Martinson, Heinrich Boell, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Frans Eemil Sillanpää, Pearl Buck, Erik Axel Karlfeldt, Sigrid Undset, Karl Adolph Gjellerup, Henrik Pontoppidan, Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam, Selma Ottilia Lovisa Lagerlöf and Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson, and then come back here and try to look me in the eye and tell me they all wrote better than I do. (Heads up: you won't be able to do it, because it's a dirty, dirty lie.)

Don't get me wrong: most of the Nobel laureates for literature are great writers. But clearly, greatness is not the only qualification for the prize. And even it were: c'mon. I'm pretty good.

And so to business: I don't know exactly who all of the regular readers of this blog are. It's possible that among you are enough Nobel laureates for literature and others responsible for awarding the prize that this is already a done deal, in which case: I sincerely thank you in advance.

But there is the possibility that few of those people read this blog regularly, in which case, you, my other readers, must bring it to their attention. Mention whenever and wherever you can that I'm a wonderful writer and that I should get the Nobel this year.

I realize that, even after all of the excellent points I've made in this post, some of you probably still think I'm silly, and are laughing. So -- tell people that. That's a perfectly acceptable recommendation, in my opinion: "Oh, this idiot, what he writes is just so absurd that it makes me laugh and laugh, and shake with laughter with tears pouring down both cheeks, laughter which consumes and relaxes me until I feel as if I'd had a wonderful long full-body massage." That's a positive statement, it will encourage others to read me, and among those others will be some with enough taste that they'll want to mention to still others that I deserve the Nobel, and so on and so forth. It's all good, Homestyle! Don't think that your contribution to this worthy campaign is too small! It's not! We must all pull together on this rope.

I can offer one more incentive: imagine being part of a campaign which results in a Nobel laureate whose Nobel Lecture, in its entirety, will be the following:

thnk yu verr much pleez

It will be the best-known, best-loved, most-often-cited Nobel Lecture of all time.

(Hemingway -- ha! Please. He's a joke! "He kissed her hard. She pulled away, whispered 'You b-st-rd' and held him tight again. Over her shoulder he looked at the Seine." Okay, I'm out. I can't write that badly on purpose for longer than 3 short sentences without collapsing in a heap of laughter.)

The Tom Petty "It's Ab-So-Lute-Ly Backwards" Theory Of Economics

Not long after they had suddenly become rich and famous, around 1980 or so, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were contacted by Nike. Someone at Nike had noticed that several members of the band seemed to like to wear Nikes. The band were invited up to Nike headquarters in Seattle to take their pick of the latest Nike stuff. Not just shoes but also jackets and shirts and hats and boots and whatever. All free, of course. Nike's point of view was that these guys wearing that stuff was cheap advertising for them. Whether Nike's reasoning was economically sound or not here, Tom and his band soon had picked out so much really nice free stuff that they were starting to wonder just how best to haul it all back home. A Nike employee said not to worry, ran off and soon re-appeared with all sorts of really nice leather bags. Also free, just in case you wouldn't have assumed that.

It was about this time, as Tom was admiring how beautiful these bags were, with really soft and supple leather and linings inside which were luxurious to the touch and so forth, that he realized that, in his own words, "It's ab-so-lute-ly backwards." It had not been very long ago that the economic circumstances of the band were such that a new pair of sneakers were a purchase which had to be thought about carefully, and their shoes often got holes in them before it seemed practical to replace them. Now that they could afford to buy any new shoes they wanted, more shoes than anyone really needed, and really nice luggage to haul all those shoes around in, they didn't have to anymore. (Whether Tom and his band had been flown up to Seattle and back home again in one of Nike's corporate jets or whether they just dropped in when they were in Seattle on other business, I don't know.)

A few years after that, Stephen King, who had already earned many millions of dollars from his fiction and from movie and television screenplays and screen adaptations of his work, was making his debut as a feature-film director on Maximum Overdrive. In addition to his salaries as director and screenplay author (based on his short story "Trucks"), King got a $1000 per diem during shooting, which he never touched. King was not necessarily what you'd call obese in those days, but he wasn't missing a lot of meals either. Apparently he got all he wanted to eat from the caterers on set, then every evening he would come back to the hotel suite he wasn't paying for and toss the envelope with the tax-free $1000 per diem onto the bed he wasn't using, making a substantial pile of envelopes by the time shooting was done.

That was in the mid-80's. Surely the biggest Hollywood per diems today, for, say, George Clooney or Ron Howard or Steven Spielberg, make that $1000 seem pretty pathetic. (You know that villa on Lake Como in Ocean's Twelve where Toulour lived, where Ocean confronted Toulour? In real life that was Clooney's house -- no, excuse me: it was one of his houses. It might still be, I don't know. Maybe in the meantime he's traded up to a fancier Lake Como villa, if there is one.)

It may sound as if I'm enviously sniping at some of the rich and famous, but I'm really not. For one thing, all the people I've mentioned here are rich Democrats. Better them than the Koch brothers. Much better. All I'm saying is that I've discovered a very basic principle of economics, or, to be more precise, that principle was pointed out to me by Tom Petty: if you want to have all sorts of wealth flowing into your possession without your even having to ask for it, the surest way to achieve that is to get into a position where you don't have the slightest need for it.