New Novel in Works

I'm working on a new novel: tentative title is Best Served Cold. It's about a couple of homeless guys who attempt an elaborate revenge on a hedge fund manager who purposely tripped one of them in a coffee shop.

As you would expect if you have read my stuff before, things come off the tracks in bizarre and wondrous ways. There is a Colombian drug cartel, a task force of bent cops, a reality TV show featuring the divorcees of South Beach, a Colombian assassin who loves romance novels, and a self-styled witch from Trinidad and Tobago. Explained in the process: a more hopeful solution to homelessness, how reality TV leaves its viewers stewing in their own depravity, why it's a bad idea to see too many women at the same time, and how to practice detachment and self-denial in the midst of plenty. Think of it as a kind of modern take on the Book of Job without all those long-winded and judgmental friends . . . and maybe a few more vulgarities 'cause, you know, profanity is my second language.

I decided to use NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) to jump start productivity, and two weeks in, I've already accumulated over 43 thousand words, some of which are pretty funny, or at least it seems so to me. With a little luck the first draft should be finished mid-December. Another month should do for edits and proof-reading and yield a clean beta-test version. Anyone interested in being a beta reader, let me know here in the comments, or via e-mail and I'll put you on the list.

I imagine every author uses beta readers a little differently, so here is an of what I'd be looking for. I provide you with an e-pub or mobi file of the book. (I may be able to do other formats, including hard print. We'll see.) You read the book and send me feedback about what you liked, what didn't work for you, what you might like to see added or deleted or rearranged or whatever. It's kind of like a focus group.

I use your comments and suggestions to do the final rewrite and then publish. You get a free signed copy of the finished work, and if you give me something that saves my authorly ass from embarrasment or poverty, I'll even mention you in the forward. That's as good a deal as I can make.

The aim is to make the book as engaging and entertaining as possible for my readers, enabling me to sell a lot of books and ultimately to buy the Cadillac I covet. Thanks for your interest in my work.

A Little Rhyming Philosophy

with apologies to Jonathan Swift and Augustus De Morgan

You Know It's True!

Drug Test the Rich?

 I keep seeing a post or posts on Facebook and Twitter supporting drug testing of welfare recipients as a prerequisite to their receiving any money. At first blush, this seems an entirely reasonable position to take. No one in their right mind wants to see tax dollars used to support a drug or alcohol habit, and requiring testing would, if this were the only issue, be a reasonable and viable way to prevent that happening. Unfortunately, the mere use of drugs and alcohol by people on welfare is not the only issue involved. It is not even the most important one.

So far, in virtually every state that such laws have been enacted, the cost to the state of the drug testing has exceeded the amount of money saved by denying benefits to those who tested positive. The reason? You have to test everyone, but the percentage of welfare applicants testing positive for drug use is actually less than the national average for all citizens. In other words, we are spending money to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.

We do this a lot—usually at the behest of a Republican ideologue who is busy spending our money needlessly when he is not otherwise engaged in accusing the Democrats of spending our money needlessly. The upshot is that we deny benefits and assistance to people who actually could use it in order to provide a windfall to people who were already doing pretty well for themselves.

In the case of drug testing welfare applicants, the only people to benefit from these laws are the labs who provide the testing. In Florida, one of the primary labs providing such testing is owned by the wife of the governor. Pretty sure she doesn't need the money to feed her children, so—you know—FAIL!

I wonder how the folks who support this kind of draconian legislation think that it will work. The irony is that it only works at all if you stop thinking before your thinking comes to a kind of logical conclusion. I imagine it would actually look something like this:

1. If you take away a crack whore's welfare money, she will not stop buying crack. What she will actually stop buying is food for her children because, you know—crack helps you get through times of no money better than money helps you get through times of no crack, and being stoned makes it easier to tolerate the crying of hungry babies, whereas withdrawal from crack will make you want to throw your well-fed babies out the window.
2. When the crack babies begin to starve, they will be taken away from their mothers and placed in shelters and foster homes where the burden of feeding them will fall on different programs from the ones that were feeding them before. The cost of feeding them will not change very much, although if it does change it will probably go up because shelters and foster homes cost more than actual parents. When you look at the crack babies' former program expenditures, however, it will appear as though there have been some savings even though there has only been a transfer of costs from one program to another.
3. Notwithstanding that there are no actual savings, the apparent savings will be transferred to rich people in the form of tax cuts in the sincere, if misguided, hope that they will use the money to create jobs for the rest of us.
4. The wealthy, who have already created all the jobs they plan to—none, will actually use the money to buy champagne, cocaine, and prostitutes. (If you think about it, this is the fairest possible outcome. I mean why should poor people get to luxuriate in the care-free indulgences of addiction, when that kind of happy leisure ought to be reserved for the rich who truly deserve it?)
5. And so we come full circle. The effect of our enlightened new laws will be:
   1. slight increase in the cost of feeding crack babies as foster homes and shelters get more money to feed children than do their parents
   2. reduced tax revenues and increasing deficits because the wealthy are contributing less and the poor are costing more
   3. increased demand for and therefore higher prices for drugs because the rich don't care how much they pay for coke if the money is coming from poor children
   4. increase in crime rates to pay for higher priced drugs because you still gotta smoke that shit no matter what it costs

So maybe it wouldn't look just like that, but I bet I'm closer to reality than you are. All I'm saying is you have to think about this stuff before you spout it on Facebook because there are a lot of people there who will take what you say at face value if the first sentence makes even a little sense. Why? Because that's almost always as far as they are going to read.

A surprisingly simple solution to homelessness: provide housing!

When I first saw this picture, I had to wonder how many people have
looked at it and decided the dude doesn't deserve an apartment
if he can't keep it cleaner. 

This is a great and thought-provoking article on a saner and more compassionate approach to homelessness. If you've got some extra time, follow the link in the article to the Malcolm Gladwell piece from New Yorker on "Million-Dollar Murray." It's another eye-opener made doubly relevant in that it also points up the extreme high costs to society of a health care system that doesn't provide preventive and maintenance medical care options for those who can't afford it on their own. If you think those costs go away if they are not born by the government (taxpayers) in some systemic way, you are sorely mistaken.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah

My Super Power

My wife pointed out the other day that I have a real talent for rationalizing procrastination. She said it's my super power. She may be correct as I think I have yet to actually use it.

Kofia Kat

He only looks this serene when his next meal is in sight.

Panamabra - cool venom!

Mongoose, my ass!

The Sheikh

Not Rudolph Valentino perhaps, but imposing and handsome nonetheless!
. . . and way more manly.

Shemagh Kat

I love this little guy!

Meerkat in Shemagh - looks like vigilance.

. . . and occasionally he rhymes.

Sticky Fingers and a Stiff Upper Lip

nothing exudes confidence like a monocle and bowler!

Not Your Hogwarts Owl

wiseass owl with attitude to spare

Oh, for an Opposable Thumb

with an opposable thumb he could sip a martini too. 

Fedora Bob

as if he weren't cool enough already!