I solved a musical mystery today. The mystery was this: every time I visited a certain bathroom at my place of work, I would leave humming Black Cow by Steely Dan. About the third time it happened, I stopped dead in my tracks and said, What the hell? If it weren’t so funny, it might have freaked me out. When it kept happening, I figured it was just me, not the mystery bathroom. For some reason known only to the deepest recesses of my psyche, that bathroom was always going to be my Steely Dan Black Cow trigger. But this morning I was in this same bathroom and then, when I reached for the automatic paper towel dispenser, I heard it: the dispenser whined the first two notes of Black Cow’s distinctive opening.

I was relieved about this (no pun). I like to know where my music comes from. My head is always filled with music. I mean, I have a sound track playing all the time. And it’s a good one, though limited to the music I’ve heard most often. Although I don’t have perfect pitch, I have a sharp ear for sounds and, as a result, I hear tunes exactly as they sound on the radio or an MP3 player. This may explain why I don’t walk around listening to an MP3 player.

In elementary school music class, which met once a week, I was made aware of my sensitivity to sound when we were told to listen to recorded instruments and guess what they were. After our initial introduction to each instrument — everything from oboe to mouth harp — I never guessed wrong. Even when listening to a symphony, I could pick out which instrument was playing each part. Had I been given some encouragement, I might have played an instrument other than the drums. But our music teacher, the notorious child-hating Mr. Harvey, encouraged nobody to do anything.

My head is full of hymns too. These are Protestant hymns from my childhood. They come to me unbidden and, really, I don’t mind them. One from my recent playlist is “My Father’s World.” Its lyrics are fitted to a traditional English tune. The age of the tune probably accounts for its strength. Here’s a traditional example, if you care to listen. And here’s Christian pop star Amy Grant’s version.

I have long assumed that everybody has a non-stop music player in his or her head. But is this true? Maybe you have something different. I can’t really turn mine off. It’s just there, ever playing. I can change the selection but not always, like the other day when the Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” was stuck in there for too long. Sometimes I have to give in and sing the song — loudly. The good thing is that I can update my selections. One of my favorite fairly recent additions is Nada Surf’s “Always Love.”

I should add that my internal player is no match for the real thing. By “real,” I mean full spectrum sound that comes from a CD on a good stereo system. I recall the days when my friends and I would simply sit for hours and listen to music on the stereo. It was our work, actually — what you were supposed to do as a teenager. I’m not sure what youngsters do nowadays. That is, I don’t imagine they gather to listen to music like this because nowadays each is in his or her own pod. Is that a good thing?

My parents didn’t listen to music, though my mother played piano and has a lovely singing voice. I got the impression that, once you were a grown-up, you were supposed to give up music. We Baby Boomers defide that rule. I still buy CDs to support the bands I like. And I compress them for portable play too, though I don’t like the MP3 format. I’m happy to say that, when I’m listening to music outside my head, the player inside goes silent.

Related posts

• Why Writing? (2)
• Where Are Your Manners? (0)
• My Mistake! (6)

It’s a good word. By “good,” I mean a word that does the work it’s made for. If you believe in progress, you should conclude that f**k — the expletive — is the product of arduous field-testing and development. Centuries of testing. No other English word comes close to expressing abject outrage and frustration. I use it whenever my work around the house goes awry. I start with “Oh my f**king God!” then end with “Oh just f**k me!” This may go on for a while. It’s quite therapeutic.


If we didn’t have f**k, we’d have to invent it. Therein lies the irony of every objection to the word. Saying “snap!” or “fudgedragon!” just isn’t going to cut it. Any honest person will admit as much. For all their good intentions, those who prefer a substitute are playing a fool’s game: in saying “fudge,” the speaker derives satisfaction not from voicing the innocuous replacement but, rather, from thinking of the real word, f**k, and then reveling in the fact that he/she hasn’t said it aloud. Fudge is to f**k what methadone is to heroin. You’re still using an expletive; it’s just not a very good one.


All of this came to mind recently when Jill and I watched the first few episodes of the HBO series, “Boardwalk Empire.” The show features Steve Buschemi as an Atlantic City crime boss in the 1920s. It has a good cast, lavish sets, and producer Martin Scorcese. But, by the third episode, I tired of the show for two reasons: I didn’t really care about the characters (I need somebody to root for) and everybody was saying f**k a lot. I mean a lot. This struck me as wholly unrealistic.

Granted, gangster types nowadays say f**k in every sentence. But do you really think that 1920s-era gangsters did this? No doubt they enjoyed saying f**k, but society and its constraints were such that one f**k went a long way. When 1920s-era gangsters said f**k, they probably said it only when it really meant something. On “Boardwalk Empire,” they say it with every breath: “I don’t fucking know, but I think he’s fucking making a mistake. Right? Let’s fucking get out of here.”



I remember in the late 1980s and early 1990s when stand-up comedians started saying f**k a lot in their monologues. A typical opening would go something like this: “I was fucking sleeping, okay? And then I woke up and fucking thought, ‘What the fuck?’ I found myself in a fucking Dumpster, fucking reeking of puke and pee….” It got old fast because f**k became a kind of bad-ass place holder instead of a powerful expletive. And its overuse suggested that this new generation of comics lacked the confidence to sail solo. They needed to say f**k a lot to keep their audience off guard.


That’s the problem with “Boardwalk Empire”: the actors seem unsure of their dialogue and so, to make it stick, they keep saying f**k, as if this anachronistic over-usage would jar us into thinking we’re in the company of some really bad-ass 1920s-era gangsters. But, actually, f**k’s overuse only makes me feel that I’m in the company of writers who have little imagination.


I didn’t start saying f**k until I was eighteen. That’s how I was brought up. But, man, when I finally started using the word, I felt its power and used it accordingly. Which is to say: I used it when it really meant something. In short, I won’t overuse because I respect the word for the good work it does. There’s still a certain novelty to hearing a child say f**k, but it seems it won’t be novel for long because f**k is becoming as common among youngsters as crap was in my day. So, yes, I worry about the demise of this formidable word, even as I acknowledge that it is probably too late to wonder, Are we wearing out f**k?

Related posts

• No related posts.

I’m on the road this week, promoting From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story in North Carolina, my home state. But the camper van is not ready. It’s so not ready that pots and pans are flying around in the back, cabinet doors are swinging open, latches are rattling loose, light shades are careening in their sconces, and tools are skating across the floor like hockey pucks. When I make a quick stop, the futon heaves off its bench seat and lands behind me with such force I feel a sudden breeze. The solar panels on my roof aren’t working and so I’m calling the solar supply people in New Mexico every other day. My inverter (converts power from the batteries) wasn’t working until this morning, when I finally figured it out. But its remote control panel still doesn’t work. And the last time I tried to plug into external power at an RV park, I got a shower of sparks from the outlet.

That’s when I realized that I had forgotten to connect the neutral lines to my AC panel. And right there is my problem — the electrical system. I didn’t have time to get my van ready for this trip because I spent all of my time, these last few weeks, trying to put together my electrical panel. It’s one of the most complicated how-to things I’ve ever done. RV electronics are identical to boat electronics. And boat electronics are significantly different than house electronics. To make sure I didn’t blow up the van, I consulted with Peter, a marine electrician in Annapolis.



A tall Irish man with a sunburnt face, Peter looked at my work with skepticism. He kept pulling at loose wires and asking, “What’s this?” He sold me a lot of stuff I didn’t know I needed. Like fuse boxes to keep my van from blowing up. “You need a fuse here,” he’d say, “and here.” So many fuses! Then there was the differences between ground wires and neutral wires. They seem to do the same thing but they don’t. Never mind that both get anchored the same way. I wanted to have this job done two weeks ago and really thought I was close when I went to Peter’s shop for his inspection. But then he pointed out all the things I had done wrong. So I worked feverishly outside of Peter’s shop, thinking I’d have it done by the end of the day.

But then, at the day’s end, I was far, far from finished. And I had so many questions! I asked Peter if he’d be around the next day because I really wanted to be done the next day. Peter grimaced, then looked at me kind of sadly and said, “You’ve got to take this more seriously, Ron. What you’ve done looks terrible — really a mess. If you don’t do it right, it’ll fuck up for sure.” I nodded in agreement, feeling a bit like I had whenever my father used to tell me, Ron, you do it once and you do it right, then you won’t have to do it over again.

So Peter sold me the kinds of cables the pros use. And more fuses. And then I went home and tore out everything I had done and started over. It took for-frigging-ever. But, man, it’s looking nice now. And when I returned to Peter, he was much happier and no longer felt compelled to send me a disclaimer that would have said, “I have informed you of …. and you are hereby warned about …. I am not liable for ….. ”

But there are, of course, glitches in any new system. With the exception of the spark shower I created because of those missing neutral lines, I believe I’ve got the wiring down. It’s the equipment I’m not sure of. Control boxes and such. And now that I’m on the road, I am getting a real-world view of the many little things I have to do to make the van hold together. Latches for cabinet doors would help, for example.

As for the tour itself, it was a little overwhelming at first — because the van seemed to be falling apart and the weather was frigid (snow in Asheville) — but now I’m getting more accustomed to the routine. Last night in Charlotte, where I know no one, I thought I’d be alone at my table at the back of the book store but then eight folks from Historic Charlotte showed up. Thank God. I’m not doing a reading, exactly, I’m doing a presentation/talk: I’ve got a slide show! If I get at least 5 people to the reading and then sell 5 books, I consider it a success. The added bonus is if the book store asks me to sign 10 copies, which means the store is committed to selling them.



I’ve done a couple of TV morning talk shows. TV at that level is anything but glamorous. Nobody’s going to give you make-up, for instance, though the anchors are wearing plenty. The anchors have notes about your book given to them by the producer, which they glance over in the sixty seconds before the cameras go on. You get 3-6 minutes for the interview and good luck keeping your focus. Try not to think of all the viewers who have taken this opportunity to go to the bathroom. Then it’s over, the anchor nods a polite see-ya!, the tech pulls off your mic, and the next thing you know, you’re in the parking lot, squinting at the sky and wondering what’s for lunch.


I’m in Greensboro tonight, then Chapel Hill on Saturday. The big book tour — in the company of Cleo, our bassett hound — doesn’t start until May. That’s plenty of time to get the van ready, isn’t it?

Related posts

• How to Sell A Book in America: the 66-City Tour (0)
• Sorting Through An American Dream (0)
• How I Blew Up the Water Tank in My Camper Van (2)
• Why This Love Story Was So Hard to Write (2)
• Why I’m Back in School (0)

Cheetah, Tarzan’s chimpanzee sidekick, died today at the age of 80. Yes, it’s remarkable that a chimp could live to be that old. But more remarkable is Cheetah’s legacy. Bear with me. Cheetah was the first famous friendly ape. He introduced generations of children to the notion that 1) animals can be our allies, 2) our primate cousins are bright and should be given some consideration, even respect, and 3) we can love a creature that isn’t quite human and isn’t quite animal. In many respects, Cheetah was one step away from ET and R2-D2.


We Baby Boomers grew up watching Tarzan movies on Saturday morning TV. When we played “Tarzan” in our back yards, many of us took the role of Cheetah and channeled the wild, monkey-smart side of our selves. This helped us become more empathetic. It made many of us into animal lovers. Ultimately, playing Cheetah embued some of us with the kind of humane optimism and feeling that gave rise to PETA and other animal rescue societies. If most people today find chimps and their brethren cute, Cheetah — and his many successors in film — was instrumental in shaping their perception.


It wasn’t always so. With the discovery of the “new world” in the early days of exploration (1500-1700s), monkeys fascinated Westerners, who brought them back as curios. But the great apes, like chimps and orangutans, were always considered suspect. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1841), features a killer orangutan, for instance. Never mind that you would be hard-pressed to rouse the ire of any orangutan (a thoroughly peaceable tribe), unless, say, you stole its banana. When white explorers disovered gorillas in “darkest Africa,” in 1847, these apes were considered to be man-killers, based solely on their fierce appearance. It is but a short hop from this early perception to the 1933’s film King Kong, the sad tale of a giant ape taken captive and ill-used by Westerners.


As sympathetic as King Kong was to the great ape, the movie nonetheless perpetuated the myth that apes are killers — a myth that movie makers exploited fully in a spate of killer-gorilla films of the 1940s and 50s, like White Pongo (1945) and Bride of the Gorilla (1951 — starring Raymond Burr of “Perry Mason” fame). Cheetah’s kind and humorous example stood in opposition to all of this. Cheetah often saved the day, braving great danger (lions!) to carry his message home. Cheetah was always good for a smile and a friendly pat of your hand.


It is rumored that, in real life, Cheetah was something of an asshole. So it is, and has been, with many Hollywood stars. It is rumored too that this incredibly long-lived chimp was not the real Cheetah. No matter. Whether this now-dead chimp was the true Cheetah or a pretender, we acknowledge today that Cheetah is gone. In doing so, we acknowledge that Cheetah made a different, helping us humans think more kindly of our extended primate family and, in turn, of all creatures who, from distance, look not quite like us.

Related posts

• No related posts.

If you haven’t heard of book trailers, that’s understandable. They’re something new and, so far, untested. But they appear to be growing in popularity. Book trailers are like movie trailers, except they’re for books. You may wonder why anyone would produce a trailer for a book because, at first glance, it doesn’t make sense: a video that promotes a text? A movie trailer, on the other hand, make sense because it’s simply an extension of the movie: excerpts from the film itself. But there’s no rule that says a certain medium, like text, must confine its advertising to that same medium. So, video trailers are to books what audio (radio) trailers are to movies or print ads are to music albums. At bottom, the book trailer is an indication of how we’re mixing media to good effect these days.

I made an animated trailer for my illustrated novel, Kiss Me, Stranger, because a trailer made sense — it brings the book alive and puts the story in front of readers in a very direct and (I hope) intriguing way: Kiss Me Stranger trailer. Think of the book trailer as a pitch to prospective readers. It’s the most direct, effective pitch you can make because it employs sight and sound, music and motion. Static text can’t compete at this level. If you send an e-mail blast out to 1,000 prospective readers, chances are more of them will take the time to view a brief video than read a paragraph synopsis.

Still, many writers look askance at book trailers. Terese Svoboda, who made a trailer (her fourth) for her latest novel, Bohemian Girl admits: “Making a book trailer can be very expensive and time consuming, the time which could be better spent writing or in conversation about your new book.” Bohemian Girl Trailer here.

Steve Almond, who made a trailer to promote his latest story collection, God Bless America, adds, “Trailers probably are a waste of time and money — if you spend time and money on them. Mine cost me a grand total of maybe ten hours to make. Given that I waste that much time avoiding writing most days, I figured it was worth
a shot. My ‘pay’ to the amazing young women who filmed and edited (Burnt Twig Productions) is a gift basket that will include books and homemade CDs”: God Bless America trailer.

Even though I don’t have a filmmaking background like Terese Svoboda, I made my own trailer, animating it still-by-still in Photoshop, simply because I had no other resources. I asked friends to serve as voice talent, then recruited a splendid composer friend, David Smooke, to do the score. All for free. My second trailer — From Animal House to Our House: A Love Story – was also low budget, except this time a filmmaker friend, David Grossbach, offered to shoot it for me: From Our House to Animal House: A Love Story.

Obviously, it helps to network. Or, better yet, like Jessica Anya Blau, to be married to a filmmaker. The trailer to her first book, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, is the work of a professional with an auteur’s flare (the same David Grossbach) : The Summer of Nake Swim Parties trailer. The trailer for her new book, Drinking Closer to Home is something completely different.

Carolyn Parkhurst was willing to pay for production to make a trailer for her novel, The Nobodies Album, but found “most … video production companies … were looking for corporate projects, not a quirky, low-budget, one-time deal.” So she emailed her friends for help and one of them introduced her to just the right filmmaker, Gabriel Rhodes. “He and cinematographer Hope Hall were great at throwing around ideas and putting the whole thing together”: The Nobodies Album trailer.

Michael Downs, for his debut story collection, The Greatest Show, enjoyed a similar experience with filmmaker Brian McDermott, who “shaped [my idea] in so many ways. . . . He found performers and scheduled the filming.” Downs is convinced that it’s more than worth it to “spend the money on a pro.” He also points out that making a video trailer is one of the few opportunities writers have to collaborate with other artists: “[My trailer] stands alone … as the collaboration of five artists, thrilling and disturbing in its own ways – far better than anything I could have imagined on my own”: the Greatest Show trailer.

Should every writer try to make a trailer? Carolyn Parkhurst says she’ll make another “only if I have an idea that will engage and entertain people.” “Don’t do it,” Michael Downs advises, “unless you have an idea that has a shot at going viral.” Steve Almond says, “If I do [make another trailer], it would only be to have FUN. It should feel like a creative act, not a promotional one.” I agree: if it’s not creative fun, why bother?

If you do make a trailer, Terese Svoboda says, “keep it simple and, if at all possible, funny.” And, cautions Jessica Anya Blau, “Make it shorter than you think–60 to 90 seconds. People don’t realize that three minutes is too long to ask someone to watch something that’s not about them!” “Try to find a student filmmaker,” Steve Almond suggests, “someone who’ll work on it with you as a creative act … Honestly, with the current technology, there’s no reason not to make your own trailer, if you have an idea that excites you.”

For me, it’s a creative challenge. I like making things. Why not a book trailer? Carolyn Parkhurst sums it up aptly for American writers at this literary/marketing juncture: “The book industry is at a weird moment right now. It’s less clear than it used to be what’s going to make people buy one book instead of another. We’re all throwing ideas around, and any strategy an author comes up with has as much chance of being successful as a strategy a publicist comes up with. But none of us seem to know quite what to do.”

This post originally appeared on the Baltimore Sun blog, Read Street

Related posts

• Got Music? (0)