Hey, There's A Dead Guy in the Living Room

Hail and Farewell

Jeff Cohen

So that was it. We hope you liked it.

This is the 3464th post on HEY THERE'S A DEAD GUY IN THE LIVING ROOM, and unless someone else parachutes in and decides to add some thoughts, it is the last. We've had quite a good run here but it's time to shut off the lights and lock the doors before we stop saying anything anyone wants to hear.

For me DEAD GUY has been any number of things. It started when Deni Dietz and I defected from Murderati a long, long time ago and thought we'd start our own blog, but we didn't want to examine crime fiction strictly from an author's point of view. So we recruited editors, publishers, readers, librarians, reviewers, agents and booksellers, among others, to provide perspective we as writers couldn't offer. 

I'll continue to post blogs every now and again (look next Tuesday for sure) and hope you'll look for those moments, but as for DEAD GUY, this is the end of the line, and that's because we have all agreed it's better to go out while we're still wanted and not overstay our welcome.

But it wasn't all about publishing. The rule among us at DEAD GUY was that there were no rules. If you wanted to post about your section of the crime fiction world, great. If not, go for it. I have personally posted about digitizing my vinyl record collection, interviewed my daughter, had my dog write a guest post, talked about my health issues (ad nauseam), ranted about having to master barre chords, introduced a pseudonym, shamelessly promoted my work, bragged about blurbs, discussed the importance of making attractive letters when filling in a crossword puzzle, mentioned comedians I especially admire and occasionally made dives into such popular subjects as religion and politics. I recall once explaining how to deal with the atheist on your Christmas card list.

This blog has been more than a simple repository for my random thoughts. I've made good friends here. I've managed to blow off steam or express emotional truths when I had to. It served as a steam valve when I needed it. And a couple of times it served to let me write silly song lyrics. 

The most gratifying part of the weekly post was to connect with those who decided to visit us here. Hearing from readers and other writers, among many others, was a great comfort and sometimes an ego stroke when it was most needed. Writers write because we want to communicate something. Knowing that people were taking notice was a very large help at times.

For me the schedule forced me to write whether I had a great idea in mind or not. Some of my favorite posts were those that came when I was backed against a deadline wall. 

Everyone who has ever posted here will tell you that coming up with a post every week could be a trial. It's not easy to keep going and not repeat oneself. There have been nights that I've sat here looking at a blank screen for an hour wondering what would appear on the blog page at 12:00 a.m. that Monday. The closest I've ever come to believing in "Writer's Block" has been related to these posts. But I still don't believe.

The people with whom I've been part of DEAD GUY are amazing, smart, funny, warm and dedicated. I am grateful and honored to have been associated with each and all of them. I won't mention all the names here because I'm certain to forget some and that would bother me deeply even if it wouldn't rankle those I failed to cite. But assume if you've read a post here and it wasn't one of mine that it was written by someone I admire greatly, someone who inspires awe in me. I thank each of them. 

For those who have chosen to check in here every day or every week or once a year, we can't possibly thank you enough. It has been wonderful being part of your lives. Don't mourn the DEAD GUY. We stopped because we didn't want to disappoint you. You deserve our best. We hope we've given it to you. Thanks for everything.

 

 

Oh. And pitchers and catchers report in 44 days.

SONGWRITING: Or an Essay on MUSE Radio and Wild Horses

Since the post on Sept. 25 discussed Circe Link and her songwriting I thought it only fair she get a fair chance at presenting her own point of view. Circe is a wildly talented musician, singer and songwriter (among many other creative things) whose music is well worth knowing and who writes songs pretty much on a daily basis. I'll leave the rest to her:

Circe Link

First off let me say I am honored and delighted Jeff reached out and asked me to guest post about one of my favorite things in the world, the creative process and more specifically songwriting.

I am constantly inspired by my fellow artists, mighty wielders of the pen, Jeff included of course, and the community we form in support of one another is essential to keeping the arts alive!

Onward….

It seems the Muse is a fickle creature and when she so deigns to appear at your shoulder either in enchanted indigo night or red eyed hung over jittery morning, one must obey her whispers to get your lazy ass out of bed take a notes.

Some strange places I have written songs: 

Traffic jams, airplanes, bank lines, bathrooms - many many bathrooms, movie theaters, museums, hotels, subways, back stage, and inappropriately during many social events such as intimate dinners … you get the  idea.

My mind is like a pit-bull with an idea (probably nicer and less dangerous…probably), or a squirrel with a nut. Once I have captured the inkling, it’s almost an obsession that lurks no matter what I may be trying to accomplish elsewhere. I’ll admit it’s a pleasurable obsession and turning the various rough and rocky stones of ideas over and over in my mind until they are smooth, effortless and compliant is not so unlike sucking on a nice hard candy. Yum!

To say I don’t have many concentrated hours at my desk with my guitar in hand would be untrue because naturally that is a huge part of the endeavor. However, the spark, the ribbon, the ephemeral smoke, the invisible butterflies that I seek that many find hard to find at all, are everywhere if one is listening. Or looking. And if you don’t have that, you ain’t got nothing.

I have known many a songwriter, and generally speaking most artists are in kind in this way, that complain they can not find the place to start. They say that words and lyrics are the most challenging thing, and that they feel inspired by the musical aspects of their songs but what to say is a torturous thing that keeps them from even starting. To that I say, just give up.

Give up and get over trying to be perfect, because that little voice that we all have deep inside, some not so deep inside, is full of shit. It’s not usually that they can’t think of an idea or theme to illustrate with their song, it’s the devil, a priori assassin saying “This had better be good pal… you’re no McCartney or Lennon.” Essentially it’s not that you can’t think of something, it’s that you think what you think isn’t good enough. And it definitely isn’t if you never try.

Some silly ideas I have come up with to writes songs about: 

From the perspective of a stripe on a shirt of a man whose wife is a volunteer for a homeless shelter, about a girl who makes her old love letters into paper boats and sets them in the water, a divine hotel where drunks find salvation or suicide, a dandelion on the freeway, a woman who obeys her husband just like their pet dog with slippers and newspaper, luggage, a matinee theatre ticket taker who wants to be a great film director… you get the idea.

And then there is practice. Write all the songs, the good ones, the bad ones, the ones you don’t like, the ones that sound like someone else should be writing them, because it’s all good practice. Not that I’m a baseball nut (I miss you Vin Scully The Cotton Candy Haired Poet of Chavez Ravine) but lose the games you gotta lose, so you can win the ones you can. I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time anymore writing songs I don’t care for, but as the Muse requires I absolutely write them down and get them out of the way so she has more room to breathe, I guess it’s pretty crowded in there. I had a friend who was a personal assistant for Neil Simon, and she asked him one day how he did it? How he was so amazingly good? And he told her that he writes every day, gets up goes into his office or study or whatever the room was, closes the door and writes. Even when he doesn’t want to, and it presupposes even when he has nothing to say. Just keep pushing that rock up the hill li'l Sisyphus.

As far as the musical aspect is concerned I have always heard what I like to call a Cosmic Radio Station that is broadcasting endlessly in the expanding universe, and all one has to do is find the best spot on the dial (I’m having visions of myself with a tinfoil hat on next time I play guitar)

If I want to I can sit down and tune in and hear a hundred melodies, a thousand, an endless supply of aural offerings that bubble up from this most likely unconscious collective of places. Once one has tickled my fancy I pull her in like a wild pony, walk her around the pen for awhile as I hear her story, or sometimes try and force one on her, then I bring in the song whisperer. My partner in both life and music is the musical phenom called Christian Nesmith and he can tame just about any creature I dredge up from the Lovecraftian depths where my Muse often hangs out. We collaborate upon the basic foundation I have pulled together, sometimes it’s like sculpting where we take things away, sometimes we add, and sometimes we even scrap the whole thing and move on, and on and on. But we have found a dance that works for us, and while sometimes the songs are all my own creaky and weak on new born legs I’ve learned a few things from him about horses err …. songs! The effect he has had on my writing has been profound and he has made me a better writer and musician for which I am evermore indebted.

Some things I have though about while writing this:

Who the heck will even read this? Will anyone be benefited by it? I hope Jeff will help me correct my punctuation, I should have a glass of water, I really love using images and metaphors maybe too much which is funny, it’s time to go write a song… you get the idea.

Two books I would advise any writer or artist to read:

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Songwriters on Songwriting by Paul Zollo

 

 

And Of Course Henry the Horse Dances the Waltz

Jeff Cohen

As you may have heard if you were living on Earth this past week, it was in fact 50 years ago today (last week). A half-century ago a bunch of guys and no women got together in London to record some music and unleash it upon what could hardly be described as an unsuspecting public. The Beatles were unable to order a pizza without some kind of scrutiny and it had been, after all, an eternity (seven months) since they'd made any new music.

So they created  Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

And yes, the ensuing hysteria upon its release was justified; the music was wonderful. The recording techniques crafted sounds that had literally never been heard before. The songwriting was at a level the musicians had been building toward for a couple of years now, but rose above what had come before in complexity and in some places honesty. Where Rubber Soul and Revolver had seen the four Moptops (please) evolve musically, Pepper busted the door down and insisted rather stridently that this was now Art.

With the half-century mark being reached it was not just inevitable but necessary that the Beatles marketing machine, still very much alive and well after all these years, note the occasion with some perspective. And a bunch of products to be bought. As it turned out, there was a four-disc reconsideration of Pepper that included a remixed stereo version, the original mono version and two discs worth of outtakes and alternate versions (which, in contrast to alternative facts, actually exist).

As it happens this year also marks--as I have noted here before--the 30th anniversary of my wife having made a foolish error in marrying me. Knowing that I am a dedicated Beatles lunatic she decided very generously to make a gift of the Pepper mega-set (which also includes Blu-Ray and DVD versions of a Making of Sgt. Pepper documentary made in the innocent days of 1992 when the album was only 25 years old, although I'm sure it seemed older at the time.

So through a series of circumstances that included sending the enormous box set (it also comes with a book I haven't even looked at yet that must weigh 20 pounds) back because of defects and receiving a working copy, I have been listening nonstop to Pepper for a week now.

I have to tell you, I'm a little sick of it.

This may seem blasphemous to the Beatles maniacs within the sound of my keyboard, but  Pepper has never been my favorite of the canon. I lean toward the aforementioned Rubber Soul and Abbey Road as high water marks. Yes, Pepper was incredibly innovative and interesting and I'm not saying I don't like it, but it's an arm's-length kind of album that doesn't care if you like it or not and I was nine years old when it came out. It was, to be honest, a little scary for someone of that age, although it certainly isn't now. I have the American government to be afraid of these days.

The songs themselves, on extremely close examination (which this set surely invites) are mostly pretty conventional. Lovely Rita or Fixing a Hole could have appeared on the Beatles album immediately preceding or following Pepper. Something like When I'm Sixty-Four (which doesn't seem all that amusing anymore) harkens back to the British music halls. The opening medley of the title song and A Little Help From My Friends is a lot of fun and promises a sort of concept album that doesn't really materialize.

The album's masterpieces come, not surprisingly, from John Lennon. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds (and you can believe the story about the initials or not) is surreal in a way the Beatles hadn't been before. A Day in the Life is mundane and terrifying at the same time, which isn't easy to do. Lennon's voice is intentional eerie. Nobody did that better than he did.

All the hoopla and fanfare that have come with the 50th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper are justified. It was a turning point in popular culture and bands have now spend a half a century trying to catch up. Bravo. As a work of art, it is to be admired and applauded, but it does not wish to be loved. That's okay, but there are others these unmatched musicians made that connect emotionally more completely.

Oh, and She's Leaving Home is about a young woman moving out and getting her own apartment. The melodrama, effective as it is, is a bit much.

Stairway to Heaven (The Last Dance)

Josh Getzler

 

It happened this morning like it happens every year. The emails started at 3 AM—Happy New Year! Welcome Back! So…about that manuscript. By 10 in the morning, there were eight; by noon, 14. Today is the first business day of the new year, and everyone wanted to get rolling.

 

Publishing is such a cyclical industry that anyone who’s been involved in any aspect of it knows the rhythm of the year—which is kind of like a school year: Business gets going right after Labor Day, with a peak right before and after the October Frankfurt Book Fair and a frantic burst of dealmaking right after Thanksgiving as agents and editors try to finish their calendar years with ONE LAST DEAL before everyone starts to depart for winter break.

 

Then there are crickets for two weeks, as authors finish their NaNoWriMo edits, agents write their new pitches and look through the Fall’s subs that didn’t quite get traction, working to inject new energy. There is a sustained energy to the industry through March, when it begins to be Fair Season—Bologna (for children’s books) leads to London (for everything), then a break for six weeks or so, then the big BEA convention that begins the summer season.

 

Summer is a crap shoot. Back in The Day, it was a dead zone, with editors disappearing to the Hamptons and nothing getting done. Nowadays, however, the industry slows, but doesn’t stop. Everyone takes a break, but it’s rolling. Consecutive rather than simultaneous. So sometimes it’s possible to make things happen, and sometimes it’s not.

 

But everyone knows about the first workday after New Years. We’ve all had a vacation, and had slowed down for a couple of weeks before we left. Authors get itchy—they know that they can’t expect much for around four weeks, so by the time Christmas break is over, it’s TIME.

 

Hence, 14 gentle nudges in the first morning of the new year. And I’m fine with that (as long as “Hi, yes, I’m on it” is an acceptable response).

 

I’ve been blogging on Hey, There’s a Dead Guy in the Living Room pretty much every Tuesday for five and a half trips around this publishing cycle, from the very beginning of Hannigan Salky Getzler in 2011 until today. And it’s been fascinating to explore this industry—as well as music, politics, parenting (sometimes), sports, and other arts. I’ve had three assistants. Approximately 20 interns. Three offices. One New York Times Best Seller. Two USA Today Best Sellers. A bunch of successes, and some books that never caught the public’s fancy the way I thought they should.

 

All three of my kids became teenagers during this time period, and they, as well as my wife, Amanda, have dealt with my Tuesday evening freakouts, where we’ll be watching TV or reading at 10:30 at night, and all of a sudden I’d say “Oh NO, it’s TUESDAY!” and run into our bedroom where the desktop sits.

 

I’ve written blog posts in Florida and Prague, London (a bunch of times) and assorted conferences. Sometimes I punted, and posted a photo with a caption. Sometimes, though, I’d spend a thousand words on an esoteric topic within the publishing world.

 

This blog definitely helped me improve my visibility—my Q rating, as it were—and many prospective clients cite the blog in their queries. And the most popular blog post of my tenure here was about “The Modifier Zone,” where I go through a few first pages to show how writers sometimes frontload their manuscripts with adjectives—presumably to show me that they know big words—before settling down to their true styles. (The fact is, though, that probably the TRULY most popular posts of my time were written not by me, but by my son Joe, who can continue on his own blog at Skidmore next year.)

 

But I started to realize this year that I needed to wind down. I’ve really written a lot the past five years, and found that I was boring myself. I didn’t want to write another post about queries, or marketing ebooks, or the changing bookselling attitudes in the UK. It’s not that I was not enjoying writing, but that I wasn’t enjoying the deadlines, the relentlessness of time passing. And I kind of want to write different things—maybe more about being a parent, or about music, or even some fiction…but that’s really not what Dead Guy is about. Mostly, I need to recharge the batteries and start over in a different way.   

 

When I was a teenager, and went to camp, the weekly socials (we had socials) always ended with Stairway to Heaven, so the party could end...but slowly, over 8 minutes. That's really what I've been doing the past weeks--wrapping up slowly, so I didn't actually have to turn on the lights and go back to my bunk. But it's time. So…thanks for reading! I’ve loved the feedback, the friends I’ve made through the blog, the challenge of consistent writing, the way it’s let me organize my thoughts. It’s probably made me a better agent. It’s definitely made me a better writer.

 

And particular thanks to Jeff and Lynne (whose thumbnail always seemed to appear on my Facebook links to my posts) and Terri and Jessy and the rest of the Dead Guys. Hopefully Jeff will let me guest post once in a while if I ask nicely, when something relevant comes up. I look forward to reading everyone’s posts, and to hearing how the NEXT Dead Agent Guy analyzes the publishing industry.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pPvNqOb6RA

 

Nothing of Substance

Jeff Cohen

• They play John Lennon's "Imagine" in Times Square right before the ball drops every year. I don't think anybody really listens to the lyrics.
• As is my family's custom, we watched the Marx Brothers on New Year's Eve. This year, one of the selections was DUCK SOUP. It was eerily prescient. ("If you think this country's bad off now, just wait 'til I get through with it.")
• I thought the Yule Log might be the silliest thing to watch on TV when I was a kid. Now I realize it's tuning in to watch time pass while a million people stand for hours in the cold with silly hats and no bathroom.
• Watching a marathon of The Twilight Zone on a holiday weekend based strictly on the passage of time is a little cruel.
• Baseball should have no offseason. After the World Series, an alternative Major League should begin for four months playing only in warm climates.
• Every once in a while I just can't play guitar. (I'm never really very good.) I can't make simple chords. I figure what little ability I had is leaving me. Then I cut my fingernails and go, "Oh yeah."
• At the end of each year I look for a wall calendar for my office and end up making my own on iPhoto. This year it's pictures of acoustic guitars. 
• Some people look at the beginning of the year as a chance for a sort of rebirth, an opportunity to take stock and make adjustments to improve themselves. I think there's something wrong with those people.
• Every year the Farmer's Almanac tells us in the Northeast that we're going to have a horrendously difficult winter. It's right about half the time.
• The Weather Channel has to stop naming winter storms. That's just stupid.
• People ask me what kind of music I have on when I'm writing. Right now I'm listening to Gerry Rafferty. 
• If I never have to go another wedding that doesn't involve one of my children, I'm fine with that.
• How happy are clams, really?
• Go see LaLa Land. It's an end-of-the-year movie that's not depressing. How often do you get one of those?
• I just read The Daily Show: The Book. I am more convinced than ever that Jon Stewart is a genius and while he is clearly happier, we are lessened by his absence on television.
• Hey. I hope you have a really good year. For the record, I'd like to do the same. Let's put some effort into that.

 

Pitchers and catchers report in 43 days.

See Ya, 2016! (And Don't Come Back!)

Jeff Cohen

A quick post today because it's the day after Christmas, there are five days to New Year's Eve (or as my daughter Eve calls it, "New Year's Me"), and almost everybody's off work today.

It's been an exhausting year and it ain't getting any easier as it draws to a close. Personally, there have been ups and downs. Externally it's been mostly downs, but that's a topic for another time and place. And there's no point in recapping all that's gone on.

Let's just end this day, this week, this year with the hope that things will improve. I know; it doesn't really seem like that's a realistic expectation right now, but it's possible. And keep in mind that we have some small say in our conditions if not our destinies. We can make our voices heard. We can disagree when we disagree and do so loudly. We can demand. 

Some things will be beyond our control, surely. But a new year represents, metaphorically, a re-beginning despite it actually being a continuation. You will not feel that much different next Sunday than you do the day before, depending on how much celebrating you do Saturday night. It's like your birthday--you're technically a year older, but you worked your way up to that moment by living through all the other ones--and you'll be pretty much the same when it comes. Time is a concept we have created to ensure we can be late for meetings.

So here are my wishes for everyone who writes or reads this little blog we've put together: May you get all you deserve and maybe a little bit more. May you stay vigilant and conscious. May you enjoy your work and cherish those you love. Have a little fun. See at least one comedy. Read a book or four. Do all you can to enjoy yourself, but do no harm to yourself or anyone else. Pet a dog. Have a piece of cake. Try to understand, if not agree with, the other side of an argument. Care about people you don't know. Watch a baseball game. Go to the movies and DON'T TALK. See a live play. Listen to music, some maybe that you haven't heard before. Stay out of the hospital but maybe go to the gym. 

And above all, do what makes you happy.

Here's to 2017. We don't know what it'll be. But there is hope in the idea that it could be anything.

It's Just My Opinion

Jeff Cohen

After reading Erin's Friday post I was... well, inspired is probably going too far. But I did take her point about the "unpopular opinions" fad going around Facebook. Yes, people were looking at that prompt and thinking they had to post things that were inherently negative: I hate this, I think this thing everybody likes is stupid, and so on. I have in fact contributed to the problem (saying that I can't stand The Wizard of Oz, an opinion I have expressed here).

And since I think we have rarely been in a situation that required positivity more than the present day, I'd like to be part of the solution. So here are 10--mostly unrelated to crime fiction publishing--positive opinions.

10 Positive But Unpopular Opinions

1. I actually like the Electric Light Orchestra. "Serious" listeners to pop music think Jeff Lynne's 70s band that mixed classical strings and occasionally horns into the arrangement is silly and a sign that one is easily misled. I disagree. Trying something different often resulted in some spurts of genius (There has never been an arrangement besides Lynne's of Roll Over Beethoven that included actual Beethoven) and even though the later years were fairly disposable as Lynne lost interest ("The music plays/so loud and clear/but somehow I can't make you hear/the dream is gone") much of what is there is still worth listening to.

2. I think baseball is infinitely more exciting than football. "Baseball is a slow sport." Sure. If you're not paying attention. You want to be a casual fan who only has to look up every once in a while when 22 men try to knock each other down? Enjoy American football. For a "fast sport," I've never seen an activity that has so much downtime. But hey, to each his own. For me, the fact that something can happen at any time in a baseball game, and the situations that develop around each pitch make it a nail biter from beginning to end.

3. I think there should be cursing in cozy mysteries. I get it--many readers want a clean, safe space to read about violence, death and avarice. That's fine. There should be such a thing without question. But when I write a character who stumbles over a murdered corpse and has to say, "Oh, drat!" I think there should be an alternative. Perhaps two versions of each book should be issued: One with "bad" language and one sanitized for your protection. I don't think people who want a "clean" version are wrong. I just don't think they're all the readers.

4. I'm all for saying "happy holidays." People already think I'm a lefty liberal idiot, so I might as well go the whole way. What's wrong with acknowledging that not everybody celebrates Christmas? What's wrong with noting that not everybody celebrates ANYTHING? Those who rail against "political correctness" are missing the point. It's about accommodating those not in the majority to make everyone feel more comfortable. Where's the problem with that? 

5. I still think Superman is the best hero. Keep your dark brooding types. Think of a better argument in favor of fair immigration: A being from another place comes here, has enough power to take us over and make us do his bidding, and instead decides to use his unique abilities and help in any way he can. There are lessons here and they aren't about who has the best things.

6. I think the Beatles are better than Beyonce. This is not to diminish Ms. Knowles at all. I thought the Beatles were better than Michael Jackson, Elton John and whatever other act was supposed to surpass them. Come up with better songwriting, better musicianship, more innovation and... you can't.

7. I think newspapers will survive. Yes, there will be massive changes and there will be downsizing. But I'm encouraged by the fact that the best investigative, in-depth reporting done during this past election cycle (about which no more will be said) was done by Newsweek and the Washington Post, followed by the New York Times. And in the week after the election, 41,000 people bought subscriptions to the New York Times.

8. I think independent bookstores can prevail over online sellers, and will. Sure, you can buy anything--literally--online and have it at your door within two days. But when you need a suggestion for your next read, do you want it to come from another reader, or from a algorithm? I once had a site recommend a certain DVD to me because I had bought a vacuum cleaner from them. The signs are there. Independent bookstores rule.

9. I think comedy is about to have a renaissance. And I don't mean just because political satire will be EVERYWHERE. I think the tide is turning in comedy and there will be a wider range of product to take in. It doesn't all have to be raunch or children's animation and nothing else, and soon we'll see that it's not. The recent Ghostbusters wasn't a great movie, but it did show off a tiny sample of the talents of Kate McKinnon, and she's going to be huge.

10. I believe the next four years will lead to something good. It'll take a while and it won't be fun, but activists will be born. Already the actor Michael Sheen has announced that he is no longer the actor Michael Sheen and is now the activist Michael Sheen. And the thing about activists is they're the people who get stuff done. Because they're, you know, active.

 

Last positive note: Pitchers and catchers report in 56 days. Happy holidays, to those who celebrate!

Signs That You Aren't Funny

Jeff Cohen

I have often, in this space and elsewhere, urged those who are not funny to avoid trying to write comedy. This is not stated from a superior point of view, in that I am actually quite incapable of writing an entire story that is serious. I understand the impulse to do the other, but I'm here to warn the humor-impaired off the impulse. It won't be good for you and it won't be good for anyone else.

But the question that might arise from that statement is clear: How can I be sure I'm not funny? It's a reasonable query and one that should be addressed seriously. Alas, if you read that previous paragraph, you know I'm not the man for the job if those are the criteria.

So let's consider it: You think you might not be funny, and that's a problem because you'd like to write a funny story. How can you be certain? Maybe you're hilarious and you don't know it. Or, conversely, it's possible you are the least funny person on the planet but you believe yourself to be the reincarnation of Groucho Marx. Either way, you need a little guidance, and I'm here to help.

Signs You Aren't Funny

• You say something in the spirit of humor and nothing happens. Crickets chirp. People look uncomfortable. If anyone's still wearing a wristwatch, s/he looks at it. This is a clear signal. Think of writing a tragedy. You're suited to it.
• Someone asks you how you're doing and your impulse is to respond, "As well as Donald Trump." Now you haven't just not said something funny, you have waded into a political statement and worse, nobody knows what you mean. The only thing you've demonstrated is an ability to annoy people on both sides of the aisle. Think about becoming a speech writer. For Donald Trump.
• You say something you think is hilarious and people take you seriously. "Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease," you say. "What are the odds?" Your friend explains patiently that the condition is called ALS and it just took on the name of the famous Yankee AFTER he passed away from it and... Never mind. You're not funny.
• You, a rabbi, a priest and a minister walk into a bar and nobody thinks that's at all amusing. 
• Your favorite comedian of all time is Señor Wences.
• Your idea of a riotous comedy film is something directed by Ingmar Bergman.
• You wish W.C. Fields had just gone to an AA meeting. Just one. That poor man.
• You try to charm a woman you just met with your wit and find out from a friend later that she was listening to a hockey game in one ear.
• You think Seth Rogen should option Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis as a starring vehicle for himself. Wait. That's not a bad idea. Scratch that. Forget I said anything. Get me Seth Rogen's phone number.
• Someone asks who your favorite Marx Brother is and you answer, seriously, "Karl."
• Worse, "Gummo."
• Your idea of a gag present is a Target gift card.
• You walk into a party ready to slay them all with your ready wit and before you can speak everybody asks, "What's wrong?"

I hope this has proven to be the public service for which it was intended. Meanwhile, keep in mind that THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND isn't just out there buying itself. Same is true of WRITTEN OFF. And I'm just getting ready for SPOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Stay tuned.

So Good They're Bad

Guest Post by Joe Newman-Getzler

Recently, I watched a video by movie reviewer The Nostalgia Critic (ne Doug Walker). It was an editorial called “Can a Film Be So Good It’s Bad?” This caught my eye immediately. Naturally, there’s the old adage that a product that isn’t technically well-made but is still enjoyable is “so bad, it’s good.” This can apply to silly songs like Psy’s “Gangnam Style” or infamously poor movies like Troll 2. They aren’t necessarily good, per se, but there’s still an undeniable charm that those who take them at face value might miss. So, how do you reverse that? If a film provides no reasons for complaint, how can you reasonably say you dislike it?

The Critic explains, using films like Cinema Paradisio, The Truman Show, and E.T. as personal examples, that sometimes there are films that he can’t argue are bad, but which are so pristine that it almost provides a disconnect between the film and its audience. It’s not to fault the films’ creators for a good product, but sometimes the combination of a uniformly great film and boatloads of praise is enough to keep him from forming an emotional connection with the movie, which is an important distinction. (For the curious, here’s the video: https://youtu.be/KJhGSRJhWcU).

I was intrigued. I realized that this has actually happened to me more than a few times; that feeling of “I know it was great, I think it’s great…but why am I not inclined to see/hear/read it again?” The most recent time this happened to me was when I was discussing the book All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr with my grandmother. I had read it as a summer reading book and she had read it before I did. Now, just to be clear: All the Light We Cannot See is a terrific book. The characters are interesting and the cliffhangers each chapter ends on make the book’s 530 or so pages go by all the quicker. It won the Pulitzer. So it’s got that going for it.

And yet, when I finished it, I realized I had nothing to say about except, “It’s great.” Suddenly, all that intensity I felt while reading the book was drained from me the moment I put it down. My grandmother said the same thing (besides feeling that some of the character arcs were unfinished), and we had both felt the same way after reading another much-praised book, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. While I was reading it, the travails of Hazel and Augustus were absolutely world-consuming, but when I finished? “It was great. Nothing about it that was bad.”

Therein lies the problem: that lack of an emotional connection Nostalgia Critic pointed out. I’ve read a lot of books that are roughly on par with the two I’ve mentioned, quality-wise, which I could say wholeheartedly I’d read over and over again. Part of why I connect to the things I connect to is because they’re great for very specific reasons. Why is Purple Rain one of my favorite albums? Because of the music’s infectious energy, the fact that it’s an aural carnival where you’re invited and Prince’s slinky charm bursts through on every perfect track. That’s specific, right? So, why is All the Light We Cannot See a good book? Well, the two leads are both very sympathetic for very similar reasons, and the atmosphere is very evocative. It’s easier to be specific about great things I personally enjoy. Works that are “so good, it’s bad” tend to be good for very general reasons, and pinpointing what makes them enjoyable just leads to adjectives that you can apply to any number of other works.

You might say that if a work is “so good, it’s bad,” that makes it overrated, right? You see what everyone else likes, but it doesn’t speak to you personally. Well, that disconnect is definitely a part of it, but I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. If something’s overrated, that means its significance has been grossly overstated (such as, say, “Hotel California,” to me). With “so good, it’s bad,” you like it while it’s going on and can recollect enjoying it afterwards, but there’s just something that keeps you from going back for more. There’s nothing overblown about its reputation, but somehow that reputation also keeps you from being sucked in.

How does one avoid this? Well, I don’t think you really can. There was a time where I thought things were in black and white. It’s either got to be bad or good, and everyone has to agree that it’s bad or good. When I was a huge Disney buff (a huger buff than I am now, at least), I thought that there was nobody out there who didn’t like Beauty and the Beast. It’s impossible! And yet, the internet proved me wrong quite quickly. Sometimes you wonder if you’re watching the same thing as everyone else, but in the end, everyone has different tastes, and it’s the most minute distinction that separates a fan from a dissenter. So, you’ll never please everybody, and that’s okay.

If anything, being “so good, it’s bad” should almost be an honor. In a way, it’s almost saying that something is too great. The greatness is so overpowering that even people who don’t want to watch or read it again still say it’s fantastic. It’s so good, you’ll be overcome by its goodness.

And isn’t that just the mother of all backhanded compliments?

Joe Newman-Getzler is a rising Senior at York Prep School in New York City. He watches a LOT of YouTube, and occasionally learns something from it.

Questions? We've Got Answers!

Jeff Cohen

First: I am very sorry to note that last Thursday marked the final airing for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. Having inherited the time slot of a phenomenon it was unfair of Comedy Central to believe the ratings would be maintained, particularly after another phenomenon left The Daily Show leading into this program. But I'm glad I got to know Mike Yard, Grace Parra,Holly Walker, Robin Thede and Jordan Carlos and saw some of the wonderful work they could do. Mr. Wilmore, don't let anyone tell you your show wasn't good enough. If this year has taught us anything, it is that quality is rarely the defining factor in popularity contests.

On to business: This week I opened the discussion to those on Twitter and Facebook this week to see if there were questions readers/visitors/total strangers might have for the author (that's me). There were no rules posted. So I should have known what to expect.

A quick word: I'll be updating throughout the day, so if you want to add a question, feel free to comment below and I'll get to it sooner rather than later.

Keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are those of the author and not people who aren't the author. Because that would be silly. So with the upcoming release of THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND  now only a few (2) weeks away, let's begin there.  

Jack Getze: Do you and E.J. do things together--besides writing books, I mean?

What are you implying, Jack? Must E.J. and I have our seconds contact you? (I've been listening to the Hamilton cast album too much.)

Arlene Cassidy: What's the best opening line ever?

It used to be "come here often?" but now I believe it's something on the order of, "I saw your profile and just couldn't resist."

(Actually it's probably, "Call me Ishmael." Everybody knows that one. Best one I ever wrote is likely, "The guy in Row S, Seat 18 was dead, all right.")

Bill Davis: How many times have you considered bumping off Elliot?

I assume Bill refers to Elliot Freed, protagonist of the Comedy Tonight (Double Feature) mystery series. I never considered bumping off Elliot, Bill. For one thing, he narrates the books, so that would leave a lot of empty pages. (Elliot fans: There is news forthcoming. No, not a new book, but news. I'll tell you when I can.)

Jack Getze (who apparently can't get enough): How do you keep track of all the characters in your several series? Any charts or special files?

I actually keep a "Bible" file on the Asperger's, Mysterious Detective and Agent to the Paws series because I tend to lose track of details like number of siblings and type of car the character drives. I never had to do that when I was writing just one or two series.

Ken Cohen (no relation--he's my cousin): How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?

Six.

John R. Rymer: Why is Trump still here?

Where?

Robert Walker: What is the cosmic explanation for how Jeff Cohen came into being?

I could ask my mother but that would probably lead to some very uncomfortable images in my head and who needs that?

Dawn: How do you write such spectacular dialogue? When I write, dialogue always feels painful and stilted, to the point where I feel like I must have a bit of Aspergers because I don't know how to have a normal conversation!

Thanks for the lovely compliment! For me dialogue is the best part of writing. I just come up with a first line and then let my characters have a conversation. The better you know your characters, the more effortless and realistic the dialogue will seem. (I say "seem" because it's never effortless!) I write as much dialogue as I want and then cut out the parts I don't need. 

You're Stealing. Stop It.

Jeff Cohen

There are a multitude of disturbing trends in today's society. One of them is running for president, but that's not the point here. The bottom line is, it's virtually impossible, no matter what one's point of view might be, to watch the news, read the news or download the damn news without being upset (often horrified) about what you see.

And the political or global issues are not the only sources of outrage and anxiety, not by a long shot. There are some wonderful things about the current version of the modern age, and I'd list them here but right at the moment I'm having a hard time remembering what they are. Trust me, I know they exist. I'll think of them tomorrow.

What concerns me at the moment that won't upset people whose ideologies are not in line with my own? The decline of simple rules of grammar, punctuation, usage and syntax, to begin with. I teach people at the college level who can't tell the difference between you're and your. I see posts and documents indicating that even those who have completed advanced degrees don't bother to use apostrophes properly. You'd be amazed how many people think the sentence, "Lots of woman do the same thing" is perfectly acceptable.

And then there is the odd sense of entitlement among those--and I do not limit this to millennials and young people, as I have seen done--who believe that entertainment is a right. These are individuals with working brains who don't see the problem in downloading music off "free" sites, who will buy bootleg copies of movies before they are released to DVD, who steal a cable TV signal and believe they are somehow completing a victory over "the system."

Well, I'm "the system." Nice to meet you.

There are any number of online sites that right now, today, will let you read books that I spent months writing and to which I own the copyrights and they will not charge you for those books because they themselves did not pay for them. The site might charge visitors a fee as a "subscription," but trust me, when they send you the file with my name (or my other name) on it and you read the book, I am receiving a grand total of nothing for it.

The idea that somehow this is a victimless crime, that no one is losing out when you "beat the system" by getting free entertainment, is crap. I hear the argument all the time that there's no harm in a bootleg download of a movie because "Tom Cruise already has enough money." Maybe so, but guess what--the key grip doesn't. The Foley artist needs a salary, and if revenues go down, she won't get any. The guy who cleans the recording studio isn't getting paid when the artist can no longer afford to book the place because nobody is paying for the art.

I have close friends and relatives who see no harm in finding "free" entertainment. They seem to feel they're being clever, winning a victory over a corrupt system. I see them stealing. Period. 

Right now, I am contracted to write four separate mystery series which some of you read and hopefully enjoy. If sales don't hit the right numbers--and no, I have no clue what those numbers might be because the publishing industry changes its standards about every 20 minutes--I will no longer be releasing any books at all. Because I need to make a living and pay the bills. This is true of every author, every singer, every filmmaker, every producer, every actor, every screenwriter and all the people who serve the industries they inhabit. 

If you're taking copyrighted content from a source that doesn't compensate the creators of that content, you're stealing. Pure and simple. You're not being a Robin Hood outlaw. You're robbing from everybody and keeping everything. At most the only concerns you're keeping alive are the ones that steal from artists. 

I object.

Hamilton, the Monkees and Paul Simon. Among Others.

Jeff Cohen

It's summer (finally!) and that means things tend to slow down. The publishing business is pretty much on hiatus until Labor Day (except for writers, who plow on throughout, and no doubt agents, right Josh?). All there is for me to do is write and tell you once again that WRITTEN OUT is now available from Crooked Lane. I won't mention the very positive review of the upcoming THE QUESTION OF THE FELONIOUS FRIEND from Kirkus Reviews, although now I have mentioned it so you know what I liar I am.

But since the pace is a little more relaxed at this time of year, I thought maybe we could devote today to a slightly off-topic topic. Lately, after a spate of... a while... I started listening to some new music, albeit not all from new artists. I am after all a geezer and should not be expected to keep on the cutting edge of new material. But assuming there might be a few other tail-end Baby Boomers checking in here every week, let's look at some new releases because they've been on my mind and for no other reason. 

First, a quick mention of methodology: I pay for the music I listen to, just as I pay for the books I read, the movies I see and the food I eat. I do not steal other people's work. If you do, please don't mention it to me. My stomach is so easily upset. 

As for the way I critique music: Like everything else in the arts, it's completely subjective. I like what I like. You like what you like. In all probability they are not exactly the same. That's okay. It doesn't mean one of us is right and the other wrong. It means I like what I like and you like what you like. Good. More employed artists that way. So onto the latest:

After a spate of only 40-something years, The Monkees (of all people) have put out a new album of music and not another "Greatest Hits" or "Unheard Tracks" rehash. This is new material, albeit some that really is from forever ago but you've never heard it before. And it was produced, played, sung and arranged this year, not in 1966 for the most part.

I'll admit that when I heard the news I was, let's say, skeptical. But it turns out Good Times really is a very good album. It opens with Micky Dolenz, finally starting to get credit for having a really good voice that hasn't lost very much at all since the "hey-hey" days, duetting with of all people the late Harry Nilsson--and a young Nilsson, to boot. The album's title song is taken from a demo tape Nilsson (who wrote for the band when it was a TV phenomenon) made but that was never recorded by the Monkees. Here Dolenz, who was a close friend of Nilsson, gets to play with his pal one last time and it's a great deal of fun.

Besides Nilsson, songs are written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Neil Diamond, Rivers Cuomo of Weezer, and band members Peter Tork, Michael Nesmith and Dolenz, among others. 

Much of the album hits the same emotional points as a vintage Monkees album but the production by Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne (with whom I played softball when I was in my twenties and he was maybe 12) is impeccable and not at all dated. Yes, the 13 tracks are probably two too many but the whole album comes in at less than 40 minutes and is garnering respect from those who would have dismissed the band in its heyday. (And yes, Nesmith took part and has a couple of lead vocals. The late Davy Jones does get a vocal on Love to Love taken from old tapes, and it's nice to hear him one last time.)

After a break of a mere five years, Paul Simon is back with Stranger to Stranger, which has been getting massive critical acclaim and incorporates exotic instruments and sounds that seem to have inspired the brilliant songwriter and performer. The problem is, listening to the album is too much like work. It was probably a lot more fun to record it than to hear it.

It's not that Simon doesn't have good ideas--he always has good ideas--but the melodies are more like a grumpy man mumbling than a great artist spreading his wings. Simon has clearly decided that there's no reason to appeal to a listening audience anymore (in other words, no hooks), meaning he can make music just for himself. That's fine. An artist should be free to express himself as he sees fit. And a few of the tracks (like the single Wristband) are interesting to hear. But overall, I've only gotten all the way through it twice and I had to force myself to pay attention. It might be great, for all I know, but it hasn't stuck with me at all, and I am a long-time Paul Simon fan. He is one of the few artists (I can think of only the one) to whom I have written a fan letter. This one just didn't grab me.

On the other hand, as virtually everyone on the planet now knows, the original cast recording of the resplendent Hamilton will get into your head and never leave. That's fine, because you won't want to banish it ever.

You'll recall--if you're a regular reader and given to such things--that my family and I saw the musical a couple of weeks ago after a seemingly endless wait having bought tickets before last Thanksgiving. As a last birthday surprise for my wife--the occasion for which said tickets were purchased--the recording was waiting in the glove compartment of her car when we were driving home from the performance. It went into the CD player then and I don't think has been out since.

It's one thing to hear a middle-aged Jewish woman quoting rap lyrics around the house or having a 27-year-old explain the Presidential election of 1800 to you a few times (or more). It's another to get repeated listenings to a work this diverse (ethnically and stylistically) and truly appreciate the scope and the ambition of the whole score. It's a marvel to hear and better than that, it's so entertaining that the music, which ranges from hip hop to speed rap to pop to Broadway to girl groups and back again, will occupy your mind. 

I managed to steal the CD from my wife's car and make a condensed copy for my car. It hasn't been out of the player for a couple of weeks. It probably won't leave for some time.

Not brand new, but anything by Circe Link and Christian Nesmith (see Michael Nesmith, above, and note that he is frequently referred to here as "Papa Nez") is worth hearing. Take a listen. Smart lyrics, genius arrangements and some of the friendliest music you'll ever hear. Their latest is a collection of covers called Side Dishes which is fascinating but the original albums are the real treats. Either way, what's not to like?

Guest Post: Deafened By The Boss

Joe Newman-Getzler

(Note from Josh: 35 years ago, my cousin Glen took me to the Brendan Byrne Arena somewhere in the swamps of Jersey to see Bruce Springsteen in concert on his tour supporting The River. I had heard about the experience of a Springsteen concert--the energy, the ferver of the fans, the way Bruce left it all on stage. And I left the Meadowlands in awe. This winter and spring, Springsteen has been on the road again, now 67 years old, still playing The River--and so much more. When my son Joe, who's almost 17, was infuriated that my wife and I got tickets to a show without him, we figured out a way to get him a ticket to another concert. We went last night. Here's his report.)

 

      You can only hope to make so many people happy and on such a large scale. On Monday night, I caught Bruce Springsteen on the final stop of his The River tour, in which he and the E Street Band played the entirety of the 1980 double album followed by an hour and a half of bonus goodies. I was accompanied by my dad and some friends from our synagogue who were courteous enough to invite us. Barclays Center was packed to the gills with men and women of all ages (including Chris Christie, apparently), setting an attendance record for the venue. Aside from The River, it was nothing but crowd-pleasing classics and covers. Aside from the ones from The River, there were no bummer tracks to be found - nothing from The Rising, no “Born in the U.S.A.” The Boss came to please, and boy did he.

            Before I proceed with the review itself, let me just add that this was something of a coming-of-age experience for me. It felt almost ceremonial having my father take me: he was a Bruce Springsteen fan years before I was even born, and he was ready to make sure this budding music enthusiast could share in that experience with him. Getting to discuss music with Dad has helped us bond a lot, so getting to share music with as big a venue as this was an experience I’ll never forget.

 

            In short, this was a classic rock fan’s dream come true. Nothing but the hits - “Born to Run,” “Rosalita,” “Thunder Road,” “10th Avenue Freeze-Out,” and lord knows how many others. There were moments of Bruce grabbing his sidemen by the shoulders and having them belt into the microphone with him. He thrust the mic into the crowd, knowing full well that he’d be greeted with a thousand voices knowing each song by heart. Crowd-surfing! Selfie-taking! Covers of The Isley Brothers and John Lee Hooker! Even a transcendent Purple Rain. Inviting fans onstage to dance and sing along. If he was tired, he didn’t show it: it was his last U.S. tour stop and he aimed to please.

            Truth be told, I only heard The River for the first time right before the show. In his opening remarks, Bruce^[1] said it was his attempt at being more mature and introspective following his grittier early records - an album encompassing a thousand emotions and styles at once. Honestly, hearing it live helped me appreciate this a lot more than I did just listening to it. His melody skills evolved, incorporating his earlier Phil Spector-influenced sound while also taking some clear influence from the changing musical trends at the time (Songs like “I’m a Rocker” or “You Can Look [But You Better Not Touch]” would fit in well with the slowly emerging garage rock of the ‘80s). Certainly, it’s got a pretty wide range of styles: slow ballads (“Independence Day”), down-home honky-tonk (“Cadillac Ranch”), gospel (“Fade Away”), and, of course, the tales of troubadours in love/dealing with life that are so very Bruce Springsteen (“The Ties That Bind, “Jackson Cage”). Not every song is created equal - the slower ones tend to drag (note from Josh: One day you'll like them more...)- but with the way the Barclays crowd shouted along with all of them, you’d figure every they were all standards by now.

            Bruce just feels like a guy who's so happy to be doing what he’s doing. For the roughly three and a half hours of non-stop performing, he always had a huge grin on his face, playing his tracks with gusto and palling around with the band and the audience. One especially adorable moment came when, during the requests, he brought up a 10-year-old girl whose sign declared she knew every word to “Blinded by the Light” and put her to the test. Everyone sang along and cheered in encouragement, and it was capped off with her getting her poster signed and the Boss admitting she knew the words better than him. After a while, it felt less like a concert and more like a family reunion. All of us were united by a love for Bruce and his music, so whether we came from New York or New Jersey or Mars, we all shouted along and screamed our lungs out because you can only experience something like this once in a while. He’s a Kennedy Center Honoree and inductee into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, but most importantly, Bruce Springsteen is a happy, nice guy who wants to put on a show for us. As long as he has that ability, I say we let him and I hope you can all have an experience like this (with Bruce or otherwise) at some point in your life. Sometimes, the idols are idols for a reason.

            Thanks, Dad!

^[1] For he is Bruce (or The Boss), not Springsteen. Doesn’t matter if you’ve met him or not; it feels like he’s on a first-name basis with everybody.

The No Fun...Week

Josh Getzler

 

So in the past week...

 

...Two of my daughters got the Norwalk Virus and we did a lot of head-holding and commiserating...

 

...The dog developed a parasite (didn't hold head...lots of tummy-rubs)...

 

...Oldest Child realized he was a second-semester junior in high school and freaked out a bit...

 

...the Super Bowl was unwatchable...

 

...as was the political campaign...

 

BUT...

 

...Next week, the dog goes to obedience school (we call it Dogwarts)...

 

...my wife and I will spend Valentines Day night watching a Smiths cover band called the Sons and Heirs (because that's how we roll)...

 

...and then the Boy and I get to go visit colleges together. He's preparing 19 hours of mixtapes...

 

...and then we will have a book party at Book Culture in NYC for The Yid (where there ought to be vodka, or at least borscht)...

 

Life will be sweet.

Out Came The...

 

Josh Getzler

 

It started the second day we were in Florida over break. My son Joe went to Hot Topic (!) in the Aventura Mall (!!) and came back with 13 new t-shirts. He was very proud of himself—he could wear a different band every Friday at school for the next three months, and never have to think about it.

 

To me, though, the fascinating thing was the selection of groups he chose—there was Nirvana, Bob Marley, Morrissey…OK, also Imagine Dragons, but you can’t have everything. (Full disclosure: I’m just trying to be snotty—we saw Imagine Dragons in concert last summer and they were a lot of fun, if man-bunned.)  

 

Then my wife Amanda texted me from the gym:

“My Alternative radio station just played Rancid. Have you ever HEARD THEM???”

 

“LA Clash.”

 

“OMG buy them NOW.”

 

Then we were trying to decide what to watch on New Year’s Eve. Second choice was When Harry Met Sally, but we ended up going with…Rocky. ONE. The first time I saw Rocky I was seventy blocks down in Miami Beach with my parents and Joe’s namesake, my grandfather, who needed to take a Nitro pill during the fight scene.

 

Was this 2016? Or 1976? 1985? 1997?

 

Then I looked over at the couch, and there were my daughters, one earbud each, watching Tyler Oakley or Todrick on Youtube, littlest in her new Panic! At the Disco t-shirt, and I knew that I hadn’t gone through a wormhole.

 

May everyone have a great 2016. And if you have a black coat, black shoes, black hat, Cadillac, so much the better…  

Here's How To Win! (It's Easy!)

Jeff Cohen

Contest announcement: You can win one of 10 FREE copies of the new Haunted Guesthouse novel GHOST IN THE WIND!  Here's all you need to do:

First, read the post below, because I took the time to write it. Once you're done with that, post a comment here at DEAD GUY on the topic: Why I should have a FREE copy of GHOST IN THE WIND. This is a completely arbitrary and subjective contest, so don't expect fairness. I will promise not to give away copies just because someone is a pal. 

Comments will be judged in three criteria, and you don't have to score in all three to win: 1. Sincerity. Don't just say, "I really really really want it." Consider WHY you want it and let us know.

2. Originality. Let's see some interesting responses. "I'm a great person" might or might not be true, but is it really going to grab the judge's (that is, my) eye?

3. Is it funny? 

Keep in mind that this contest is open to all readers except those who already have a free copy of GHOST IN THE WIND and are just piling on. It doesn't matter if you've never read a Guesthouse book before because the premise is explained in every book. You'll catch up in no time flat. 

Winners will be announced at noon on Tuesday, December 1 so Josh can't use this as an excuse not to post tomorrow. Those who win copies will have to email me directly with a snail mail address to get the book.

That's it! 10 copies of GHOST IN THE WIND await! Get commenting!

 

On p. 107 of GHOST IN THE WIND, the seventh novel in the Haunted Guesthouse mystery series (which, as it turns out, will be published TOMORROW), there begins a scene that has only a tangential effect on the plot overall. But it is probably my favorite of any in the book from beginning to end. 

The scene, whose context I won't trouble you with because the book comes out tomorrow and I want you to read the whole thing, concerns itself with an impromptu concert performed at Alison Kerby's Jersey Shore guesthouse. The musicians are all incredibly accomplished, very famous, charismatic and dead.

They're all ghosts.

For the uninitiated, the conceit of the Guesthouse series is that Alison bought herself a large Victorian in her childhood hometown on the Jersey Shore to turn into a guesthouse. Through a series of circumstances that began with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEED (lately a USA Today bestseller, only five years after its release!) Alison gains the ability to see and hear ghosts, two of whom have taken up residence in the house she shares with her guests and her daughter Melissa. Hilarity, one hopes, ensues.

In GHOST IN THE WIND, the theme is literally musical. Alison is approached by Vance McTernan, a ghost who wants to know exactly how his daughter Vanessa died, not believing the medical examiner's conclusion that the cause was an allergic reaction. Alison, who never wants to start an investigation (that's the thing that usually appeals to her in-house ghost investigator Paul Harrison) dives at the chance for personal reasons. Vance is--was--the leader of the Jingles, one of Alison's favorite bands from the 60s (she's an oldies freak) and she's starstruck. Paul is skeptical and tries to steer her clear.

When their disagreement is discussed, Alison is inclined to listen to Paul (who after all is named after two Beatles) and stay away from the dangerous investigation. And then comes the concert, which Vance arranges in Alison's house.

Let's just say that all your favorite dead musicians--or at least many of mine--show up.

Writing the scene, it was necessary to choose not only the performers but the songs they would play, and believe me, none of those choices was easy. Vance, of course, would be involved, but I'd made him up so he was relegated to a back-up role playing percussion. Bigger names stood closer to the microphones, if there were microphones. It didn't matter, since most of the living people in the room couldn't hear anything but the instruments anyway.

In the logic of the series, it was necessary to keep the band fairly local. That is, the musicians were to be those who had died in the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania tristate area. Yes, it would be possible for ghosts to travel long distances (they can, for example, hop a plane or train without most living people knowing about it), but it's less likely and I didn't want to have to explain where everyone came from.

You won't find names here because THE BOOK COMES OUT TOMORROW but suffice it to say I stacked the deck as well as I could, put in a front man to end all front men and I gave them two songs to play that appealed to the strengths of the band I assembled. I had a great deal of fun writing it and hope the reader finds the same pleasure in it.

But you might never hear Baker Street the same way again.

 

P.S. I have not consulted with my DEAD GUY colleagues, but again this week I am forced to offer sympathies and outrage to the families and community of the victims in Colorado Springs. I don't care what your religious or political convictions are. You don't get to shoot people. Ever. 

Here Comes the General

Josh Getzler

The past couple of months have seen something unique happen in my house. My wife the history teacher, our three teen/tween kids and I actually agree on how we wish to be entertained. With the exception of an occasional foray into the new One Direction album or a belly rub for Layla the Puppy, our home is All Hamilton, All The Time. At any time of day or night, when one of us is angry at the kids we will threaten to “send a fully-armed battalion…to remind you of my love…da da da DA da, da da da da Daaaai da da.”

 

Hamilton of course is the perfect intersecting area of our family’s Venn Diagram of Interest, where there is history, brilliant writing, hip hop (and almost every other genre of music you can think of) and politics all wrapped into a two hour musical. (Hey, maybe I love it so much because it is at any moment more interesting and inspiring than anything happening in the real politics of the present, but I promised myself I wouldn’t talk politics on the blog until March.) It’s gorgeously acted, a lock to win a clutch of Tonys, and is the brainchild of the guy from The Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Miranda, who at 35 is ridiculously accomplished (look him up), is also the cousin of a kid at my two older children’s school. The headmaster there locked him in to speak to the students early this fall, before the soundtrack to Hamilton was number 1 on the Rap charts and Miranda had  Freestyled with Jimmy Fallon and the show sold out until NEXT October. They let parents attend, and so last week Amanda and I went to hear what a theatrical genius would say to a bunch of teenagers.

Turns out that Miranda has his finger on the pulse not just of 18^th Century American history, but on the psyche of the 21^st Century Teen as well. He spoke without a note for almost an hour about getting to where he is now by surrounding himself with smart people, figuring out what he wanted to do, and then doing it, over and over, improving and tweaking and keeping his Ass in the Seat.

Our son the Artsy Theater and Music and Animation kid, was enthralled. He’d been into Hamilton since he saw it with Amanda over the summer when my back was out and he took my place. Miranda is a role model to him of the best sort, and when he heard that Miranda was going to be speaking at school, he stayed up until midnight for three nights drawing a cartoon of the cast of Hamilton entirely comprised of Looney Tunes characters. It was inspired, and he had the opportunity to give it to Miranda backstage (and then have his life made when Miranda tweeted a photo of the picture).

 

 

But what Miranda said and Joe understood, and what I thought was so cool and relevant for so many of the people I work with in my life in publishing is this: If you figure out (early, much of the time; but whenever) what you want to do—whether that’s writing a novel or composing a song or swimming fast or trading derivatives—you need to immerse yourself in it with great passion and intensity. You need to practice, even if you are gifted. You need to figure out the best ways to meet the right people, to put yourself in the most advantageous position possible, even if that is difficult and requires tremendous patience. (To paraphrase one of his most famous lines—possibly so inspiringly used because it is so much about his own ambitions—you need to figure out how to be in the Room Where It Happens.)

And it’s not that this is completely new advice, for sure (although it was interesting that his view was so not about being well-rounded, but rather about being expert in your field of passion first, then smoothing out the edges). But what held Joe’s attention, and all 600 others’ in that room that day, was that this kid from Washington Heights, who made the first Secretary of the Treasury Hot in 2015 by making him a rapper, was saying it and was his own best example.

We're Really Not Kidding. Help!

Josh Getzler

I'm away from my desk today, so I asked Jeff to put up again his post looking for support for our fellow Dead Guy, Erin Mitchell. It's plenty important enough that you can wait a week to hear about why you shouldn't write in the passive voice or curse in middle grade books, or whatever else I was coming up with today. Back next week. Go Mets (Yes, I said that--maybe my next post will be defending my right to say that after having worked with the Yankees for 9 years--or maybe it's obvious from that!)

We here at DEAD GUY are taking today to urge you to donate to what we believe is the worthiest cause on the planet.

Our very own Erin Mitchell.

As she has documented quite eloquently, Erin's been having some pretty serious health issues, and as anyone in the United States knows about such things, it has not been inexpensive. She is self-insured, so the bills are mounting pretty staggeringly. We believe Erin should not have to shoulder the burden alone while she's dealing with so much at the same time.

So there is a grassroots (that is to say, crowdsourcing) movement to try and help, which was set up by Ellen Clair Lamb. Many have contributed (including some on this blog), and if you are able to do so, we'd urge you to send what you can.

Anyone who has read Erin's posts here or encountered her elsewhere know she is an amazing woman, one whose wit and general good humor coexist with strong views and a sense of right and justice. She is being dealt a hand she doesn't deserve, and the overwhelming cost of health care in America should not be something she has to contend with when she's fighting a much more important fight. 

If you can spare a few bucks, we'd appreciate it if you would take a look. If you can't, why not comment below and let Erin know how much you like reading her here on DEAD GUY or elsewhere. In fact, why not do both?

She's already overwhelmed with a situation. Let's overwhelm her with how much people care.

We do. You get well soon, Erin. We want you back here on Fridays.

Quick Shots

Jeff Cohen

For reasons that defy explanation I spent some time going back over my own Facebook and Twitter posts last week. Don't worry; I haven't been hacked and nobody's suing me (as far as I know). But it did lead to a few short pieces I sort of liked that didn't show up anywhere else and didn't have another forum until now.

In other words, I didn't have a post for this week.

So here are a few highlights in case you're not connected with me on Twitter or Facebook. (If you'd like to be, click here or here!):

• It weirds me out when people post Happy Birthday wishes to dead celebrities. How happy is it going to be for them, really?
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie opens next week. As a fan of the original series, I'm going to start not seeing it now.
• Bruce Springsteen: "I'm sick of sittin' 'round here, tryin' to write this book." 
  Me: "I'm sick of sittin' 'round here, tryin' to sing this song."
• After decades of careful observation and deep thought, I have come to an irrefutable conclusion: People are crazy.
• In keeping with current trends I'm releasing a new Aaron Tucker novel, Go Set Your Watch, in which it is revealed that Aaron is really a six-foot-tall Protestant with no sense of humor.
• What bothers me is more people seem to believe in a zombie apocalypse than in a climate change crisis.
• I have never considered Mickey Mouse an interesting character. Give me Bugs Bunny every time.
• This Wednesday will be my 30th anniversary as a freelancer. I wonder what I'm getting me as a gift.
• I have as much self-discipline as the next guy, assuming the next guy is Bart Simpson.
• I don't care how many years it's been, Ferris Bueller was a smug spoiled rich entitled brat who deserved comeuppance, not lionization.
• You're making a western about a guy and his three sons on a ranch called the Ponderosa. So where does BONANZA come from?
• I don't drink whiskey. Anything that tastes that bad should at least make you stop coughing.
• I have determined after exhaustive research that "Sunrise Sunset" is the most depressing song ever written.
• The only way you can pull yourself up by your bootstraps is if you're hanging by your feet.
• I mean, who names their kid "Opie," anyway? "Opie Taylor for the defense, your honor." Just not a good idea.
• Today I attended a faculty retreat. I wanted to make it a faculty advance, but apparently there weren't any other colleges we wanted to invade.
• The movie I'm REALLY waiting desperately to see? ISRAELI SNIPER: The Dr. Ruth Story.
• I get emails from the chief of the Rutgers police department every now and again. His name is Kenneth B. Cop. I can't tell you how happy that makes me.
• Most baffling movie title ever: Beach Blanket Bingo. What does that even MEAN?
• After the shark eats Robert Shaw in JAWS, he doesn't get the guy stuffed and mounted on a piece of driftwood to hang on his wall. All I'm sayin'.
• I'll listen to an audiobook of the Bible, but only if it's read by the author.
• Whatever happened to Centigrade?
• I don't believe in dumplings. I've never seen anyone dumple.
• Why aren't they called "bakies"?
• Yes, you said that out loud. Can we retire that joke now?
• I don't get a wax museum. I've always wanted there to be a wick coming out of each of the statues' heads.
• I'm not good at living in the moment. I can live in the epoch.
• You can't become a writer. You either are or you're not. You can become a GOOD writer.
• Can we have a list of Republicans NOT running for president? It would be so much quicker.
• Cheap horror movie idea: VILLAGE OF THE DARNED. It stars sock puppets.
• We should acknowledge that anyone who thinks s/he is qualified to be President of the U.S. must be crazy and is therefore ineligible.
• Has it never occurred to anyone else that Santa Claus is Jewish? Who else works Christmas Eve?
• It's hard for me to respect any man who voluntarily wears a tie every day to work.
• If there's anything older than yesterday's news, it's yesterday's sports news.
• Do you think anyone ever called Vincent Price "Vinnie"?
• Radical idea: How about we commemorate Memorial Day by considering the idea that maybe there's a better way to solve our problems than war?
• After the war on terror, can we go after melancholy? I hate that emotion.
• I had this great tweet I was going to use last night. But I've forgotten it. Trust me, it was hilarious.
• Quite frankly, anyone who can't believe it's not butter needs to try butter.
• He sees you when you're sleeping. He knows when you're awake. I think there's a case to be made that Santa Claus works for the NSA.
• People have to stop saying, "Merry Christmas Eve." I'm sure my daughter Eve is flattered, but we're Jewish.
• The analysis just came back. As it turns out, Soylent Green is actually made from kelp. Sorry.
• Stop trying to change the world. The world is fine. Change the people. They're the ones messing everything up.
• Nobody has a normal life.

Radio Silence

Josh Getzler

My wife and I spent much of the last week on the road. We went from New York City to Newport, Rhode Island; then went up to Boston(-ish) to pick up our son from his summer program; back down to New York. So we had several extended drives where we were alone in the car (or with a sleeping kid, who had stayed up till 2 AM with his friends and could barely put two words together).

We were around 45 minutes from the Henry Hudson Parkway on the way home when we turned on the radio for the first time—and then only to listen to the traffic report.  We hadn’t intended to have a non-radio-oriented trip, but it happened.

If you knew me at, really, any time of my life, this would seem really weird and out of character. I’ve been a DJ, an inveterate mixtape creater, and never without music. If I knew during college that I was going to have 10 hours in a car, I would have made seven mixes with different themes, each with a name describing, say, the counties I wanted to be in while the mix was playing. (Yes, I was impossible.) Not making any mixes—or even putting on the radio to see what is hot on campuses in, say, Connecticut—would have been inconceivable.

Amanda and I remarked on the silence of our trip—and, in fact, how welcome it was. Our lives are so hectic, so filled with voices, with ambient noise, that without thinking of it we used our trip to decompress, to detox ourselves. We solved assorted problems in our lives; organized our autumn a bit; thought about what we needed to do to help our kids. We didn’t need to sing along to Vampire Weekend or Steely Dan or the Pogues or whatever. We got to reconnect and reset ourselves, and to have a little quiet for ourselves. And it was good.

Since You (Sort Of) Asked...

Jeff Cohen

In response to Terri's post last week, I thought it was just too much fun not to play along, so here are my answers (and we hope you're feeling much better very soon, Terri!). Your mileage may vary:

1. What time did you get up this morning? About 7. Don’t sleep like I used to. 

2. How do you like your steak? Medium well.

3. What was the last movie you saw? The Wrecking Crew (documentary).

4. What is your favorite TV show? The Daily Show with (for the next few weeks) Jon Stewart.

5. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be? Maybe the San Diego area. Maybe Oregon. But I love New Jersey except the winters.

6. What did you have for breakfast today? I never eat breakfast.

7. What is your favorite cuisine? Italian. I’m from Jersey.

8. What foods do you dislike? Fish. All fish. Yes, even that one.

9. Favorite Place to Eat? The kitchen. Or Brother Jimmy’s in New Brunswick.

10. Favorite dressing? Isn't that covered under #12, below?

11. What kind of vehicle do you drive? Prius c. Yes, I’m that smug. (51 mpg!)

12. What are your favorite clothes? Jeans, t-shirt, sneakers.

13. Where would you visit if you had the chance? Paris, Australia, Florence, maybe Japan. I'd drive cross country if I had the time and the money.

14. Cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full? No. If it's full I'll drink it and if it's empty I'll fill it up.

15. Where would you want to retire? Retire? Writers don’t retire. We keel over at our keyboards.

16. Favorite time of day? When my wife gets home.

17. Where were you born? Newark, NJ.

18. What is your favorite sport to watch? Baseball. Only. 

19. Bird watcher? No. I don't watch anteaters, either. Animals deserve their privacy.

20. Are you a morning person or a night person? Night. It's when I usually write.

21. Do you have any pets? Yes, a beagle named Gizmo.

22. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share? More books coming!

23. What did you want to be when you were little? Taller. I still do.

24. What is your best childhood memory? Playing at the swim club with Dad.

25. Are you a cat or dog person? Dog.

26. Are you married? Only for 28 years. So far.

27. Always wear your seat belt? Yes.

28. Been in a car accident? Yes, but not a serious one. Never anyone hurt.

29. Any pet peeves? The dog is a brat.

30. Favorite Pizza Toppings? Peppers, onions, meatballs, garlic.

31. Favorite Flower? The ones on birthday cakes.

32. Favorite ice cream? Chocolate chip cookie from Thomas Sweets in New Brunswick, NJ.

33. Favorite fast food restaurant? Closest I get to fast food is Tastee Sub in Edison, NJ.

34. How many times did you fail your driver's test? Never.

35. From whom did you get your last email? That I actually read? I think Josh.

36. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Ticketmaster.

37. Do anything spontaneous lately? Answered these questions.

38. Like your job? Love my job. Want to keep my job. Buy some books.

39. Broccoli? If with cheese.

40. What was your favorite vacation? Rome.

41. Last person you went out to dinner with? My wife, son, daughter and daughter’s friend.

42. What are you listening to right now? Mr. Dieingly Sad by the Critters (iTunes is on shuffle).

43. What is your favorite color? Blue.

44. How many tattoos do you have? None. I don’t get it.

45. What time did you finish this quiz? 11:10 pm.

46. Coffee Drinker? Decaf iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts. Never hot coffee.

What's Your Fantasy Set List?

Jeff Cohen

Every writer struggles like a mad person to be read. We start without any connections at all, and hopefully our work reaches an editor with some sympathy, then an editorial staff that agrees, and with luck, some readers who see what the writer saw and respond to it (I met a few this weekend at Malice Domestic, and they are lovely).

And then the writer will do anything--anything--to avoid writing again. We procrastinate. We perform tasks we truly hate doing. We do laundry. We go to the drug store. Some writers, I'm told, actually clean the house. I've never been that desperate.

Instead, I have my guitar.

I play, and not very well. But that thing keeps me sane, and that's a fact. When I'm stuck on a story point or simply can't motivate myself to the file of the latest novel, I reach for it. It's on a stand right next to my desk, never more than a few feet away. I am, my family will tell you, much easier to live with when I play regularly.

And I have my imaginary play list, for the performance I'll never give because, well, I'm really not that good. But I play it for me, especially when the weather is warm and I can sit out on the front steps and take in the day. 

I don't write songs, you should know. The whole set list is comprised of covers, songs written and performed by people much better than me in their previous incarnations. It's not about the astonishing quality of the performance (and you can interpret "astonishing quality" any way you like, but I know what I mean). It's heavy into the oldies because I'm getting pretty old myself. And it's very heavily weighted to songs that don't have a lot of difficult chords because see previous references to me not being that good.

The point, after all, is to clear my mind of writing problems, have some fun, and imagine that I sound much better than I do.

The Set List (Order will vary)

1. You Can Close Your Eyes (James Taylor, despite his appalling taste in baseball teams)
2. Here Comes the Sun (Beatles
3. Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)
4. Time Between Trains (Susan Werner)
5. Guy Fawkes Day (Paul Melancon)
6. Stuck in the Middle (Stealer's Wheel)
7. Mother Nature's Son (Beatles)
8. Up Around the Bend (Creedence Clearwater Revival, and yes, I do it acoustic)
9. Mexico (James Taylor)
10. Recently (Jim Croce)
11. Only the Good Die Young (Billy Joel)
12. Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard (Paul Simon)
13. Revolution 1 (the slower acoustic version--Beatles)
14. Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy--Jim Croce)
15. Fly Like A Bird (Boz Scaggs)
16. Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills)
17. Jeff Lynne (Paul Melancon)
18. Walking To You (Everything But the Girl)
19. Blackbird (Beatles)
20. Country Road (James Taylor)

Good night! Thank you! Make sure you tip your waitress!

Hey. A man can dream.

A '69 Chevy with a 396

Josh Getzler

 

Last night, our son came into our room and made a pronouncement. He does this occasionally, and I always wonder what THIS one will be. “Guys,” he said, kind of ominously, "I’ve thought a lot about it and decided that…my favorite music…” he paused. Dramatically… “is funk from 1960s and 1970s. And even a little ‘80s.”

OK. I mean, there are many things a 15 year old boy can pronounce that would be much more worrisome than an abiding passion for Parliament, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, and Prince. And it made me think back to when I was a little younger than Joe is now. I knew I loved all different kinds of music. But there was that one day, when I was on the Jersey shore during the summer, and my parents took me for ice cream at Carvel, and we walked down the street past the local record store.

It was a shrine, to a gaunt, serious, curly-haired guy with a guitar. All over the store there were white posters. There might have been other albums for sale, but none were displayed. It was all about two words. BRUCE. And DARKNESS.

 

Over the next several years I listened to a lot of music, from the Grateful Dead to the Replacements to the Talking Heads and (even) Styx. But from that moment in that store with my ice cream cone and BRUCE. DARKNESS…there was something special about Springsteen. I saw him in the good times (The River tour) and the...less good (The Juliana Years of Tunnel of Love) and the epic stadium shows. I spent hours trying to memorize his patter before Growin' Up and listened to a bootleg from my cousin Glen on a cassette in my parents' car the day after our dog Missy died on my watch when I was 18.

I thought about that this morning as I got on the subway on the way to work. I thought about Joe’s passion for Superstition and Mothership Connection, and how wonderful it is to discover something and to love it. And I wondered whether one day when he's 46 he'll turn on his music and skip over whatever his kids have turned him on to, and go to Give up the Funk.

And I turned on my iPod and spent the next 30 minutes back in New Jersey as a pre-teen, listening to BRUCE. DARKNESS.

I'm No Ringo. And Neither Are You. (Unless Ringo is reading this which would be awesome!)

Jeff Cohen

In 1968, when I was a wee lad, Mickey Mantle decided not to play baseball anymore. Since I was indeed a wee lad, and Mantle was my idol of the moment, this was a huge thing. 

Less than two years later, it was announced that the Beatles were disbanding, and would no longer record or perform as a group. And if you thought the Mantle thing was big, this was universe-sized. We were stunned. No Beatles? How was that even possible?

Immediately, in both cases, the speculation began: Who would be the next Mickey Mantle? Who would be the next Beatles? I recall reading an interview with Ringo Starr in Rolling Stone (back when you could trust what they said) where he was asked the question: Who's going to be the next Beatles?

Ringo was diplomatic about it, as ever, and even suggested a few people (I think Elton John was among the names mentioned), but he knew the truth, and pretty much said so:

There is no Next Beatles. There is no Next Mantle.

What there will be is someone who is who they are. Is that too oblique? There's no point in trying to duplicate something that moves you. It can't happen the same way twice. 

There never was a Casablanca II but there was Star Wars. There never was Back With the Wind but there was To Kill a Mockingbird. No new Peanuts but Doonesbury and Calvin and Hobbes. Nobody ever managed to recreate I Love Lucy, but instead we got The Dick Van Dyke Show. Which, I'm sorry, was better.

So when writers try to emulate or piggyback on the enormous success of some phenomenon, when they try to be the next Harry Potter or the next James Patterson or the next Gone Girl, they're asking for trouble. Is is possible to achieve some popular success based on something that has been immensely lucrative before? Certainly. Remember that 50 Shades of Grey allegedly began as Twilight fan fiction.

But can a writer really take something that preceded his/her work and create a new phenomenon? Particularly, one that has the same emotional and societal impact as what came before? It's unlikely, because writing something that isn't what you chose to write, what moved you enough to sit in that chair and type all those words, is a losing proposition.

Instead of a new Mantle, there came (only 30 years later) Derek Jeter. A totally different type of player, but a wonderful one in his own way. 

Instead of the Next Beatles, we got Elton John and Michael Jackson and Carole King and Fleetwood Mac and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Adele. Depending on your taste, you got NWO or Eminem or Wu Tang Clan or Josh Groban or Justin Bieber, if he's your thing. There is no Next Beatles, but there are people expressing themselves whose work you might take to your heart.

If you're writing, write for yourself first but keep an audience in mind. Don't write something because that's what publishers are looking for now or because some great big huge phenomenon just hit and you think you can change a few details around and make it something new. Write what you would write even if nobody was going to read it. ESPECIALLY write what you'd write if nobody was going to read it.

Writing is an art form, a craft and a job. But before anything else, it's a form of expression. What's the point of expressing someone else's thought, particularly when they've done that already?

There is no Next Beatles. Be you.

The Importance of the Concert T-shirt

Josh Getzler

Last night, my wife Amanda and I took our two older kids—almost 16 year old Joe and 12 year old daughter JJ—to see Billy Joel play his monthly club date at Madison Square Garden in an intimate performance for 19,000 of his closest friends. Amanda and I had seen him a few months ago, and these two of our three children went crazy and begged us for tickets as a Chanukah present. (Child #3, 11 year old daughter Ita, declined the ticket because the names of the musicians were not Harry, Liam or Niall, and the only thing that matters is 1D, duh (eye roll).

The night before we went, Amanda and I had a discussion of what kind of concessions crap the kids would be allowed to eat and drink, and whether we’d try to get sandwiches through security. But then we got to the discussion of whether part of the present was a concert t-shirt if they enjoyed the show, Amanda was skeptical. “They’re forty dollars and they’ll grow out of them. They don’t need shirts.” I was appalled, no more so than because she was wearing my tattered tie-dyed Dylan and the Dead t-shirt from 1987, which she co-opted to knock around in because of its worn perfection.

Let me tell you my feelings about concert t-shirts. I fundamentally believe they are ineffable symbols of growing up; they provide memories of happy moments, of watching musicians you have heard playing songs you know, pumping your arms and tilting your head back and singing; or pogoing in a club or holding hands during a date.

In my high school, wearing your t-shirt from the previous night’s big concert—at the time it would have been the Rolling Stones or U2 or Springsteen or the Dead, or for one month in eighth grade The Kinks; and if you were in certain social groups Black Sabbath or Rush or even Dio; or in others the Ramones or in others The Smiths—gave you stature, signified who you wanted to be that day. (It also was a big deal if you wore one of those t-shirts on a Tuesday or Wednesday because that meant your parents gave you a degree of freedom, and also could afford to get you frivolous tickets to a band on a school night.)

Of course, those t-shirts from the early 80s didn’t cost any $40. They were ten dollars in the parking lot of the Brendan Byrne Arena, and they were black and they had the dates and cities of the tour on the back. Often they had three-quarter-length jersey sleeves in different bright colors—I remember a Jethro Tull Broadsword and the Beast jersey with incongruous powder blue sleeves that I wore until I couldn’t see Ian Anderson’s freaky eyes anymore. But I could replay that concert better than if I could see videos on YouTube when I put on that t-shirt, much in the way that I could remember being underwhelmed by the long and not-terribly-exciting show that the Dead put on with Dylan that day at Giants Stadium. I just loved that particular tie-dye shirt.

And the concert t-shirt was also the symbol of a particular time. By the time I was in college I no longer needed a concert shirt—I had limited spending money when I went to see bands, and usually bought beer instead. So these thin, faded shirts got thinner and more ragged (and eventually considerably snugger) as I got older, and became the memories of adolescence with their own kind of nostalgic purity.

So when I looked over during Only the Good Die Young and saw the kids laughing and singing along, I knew that we needed to do it. There were no black market shirts in the lobby of the Garden, or in the corridor leading to the subway; so we went to the stand and got them their shirts. A little better quality, and softer and somewhat more artsy--and neither kid wanted the jersey--but cool. They both wear uniforms stop school so they couldn’t wear the silent brag of the Morning After t-shirt (but they had posted about the show on Facebook and Instagram anyway, so that was taken care of before the second encore). But when I came home and JJ ran out of her room to say hi, she had on her Still Rock n Roll To Me shirt. And I felt unreasonably proud.   

A little Perspective On a(nother) Snowy Morning in Chelsea

Josh Getzler

 

On one hand, I’m tired, stressed-out, and am juggling a million important things in work and at home. I want my children to be happy and well-adjusted, the bills to be paid, my clients to be satisfied, and have a chance to talk to my wife over supper before 9:30 on an average weeknight. And it’s snowing. Again. I never want to see my boots and gloves again.

On the other hand, I have boots and gloves and a warm office and a family that loves me (most of the time). I am trying to tweak plot points in novels and arguing over marketing plans, not singing doo-wop in the subway for handouts or dodging rockets in Donetsk or wondering whether my job will still be around in six months.

Plus my son just asked me whether I think 16 is a good age to start listening to Led Zeppelin.

Have a good day, and watch out for those bustles in your hedge rows.

Big Shot

Josh Getzler

 

In the summer of 1980, I spent a month at Chase Tennis Camp in a boarding school in Pennsylvania. I’d gone to camp before, but this was the first time it wasn’t in the woods with bunks, but rather a dorm setup with a roommate.

 

My roommate was a kid from Long Island named David, also 12 years old; fine kid, we got along well.  He was a slob, if I recall, but, I mean, we were 12 year old boys, so I’m sure he felt the same about me.

 

The first night we were there, David took out a little Panasonic cassette recorder and a home-made cassette. 60 minutes. I asked him what was on it.

 

“My Bar Mitzvah studying. I told my mother I’d listen every night.”

 

“You have headphones?”

 

“Um…no.”

 

So that was the last time his bar mitzvah was mentioned, and side A of the tape was never played.

 

Side B, on the other hand, contained the first half of the album Glass Houses by Billy Joel (You May Be Right through All For Leyna), which had just been released. For those of you reading this born post-cassettes, the optimal length of cassette was 90 minutes, because the typical album in the late 70s through the 80s was approximately 45 minutes, so you could fit two on one tape. The 60 minute tapes were annoying because you really couldn’t do anything with them without wasting a lot of time or cutting off the last three or four songs (or one song if you liked prog rock or live albums).

 

Sorry, digressed. In any case, for one month, therefore, I listened to Side A of Glass Houses, then the side would end, then there would be around 10 minutes of silence, and then the tape recorder would turn off with an enormously loud CLICK-THWAP, which would wake me up; and because Dave was my first roommate who also snored, it would take me forever to go back to sleep. Repressed memories…

 

I bring all this up because this evening, my wife, Amanda, and I, along with Amanda’s brother and his wife, and another couple of friends of ours, went to hear Billy Joel play in his “Residency” at Madison Square Garden. I’d never seen him, though so much of his music was part of my life (although I confess it was probably 10 years before I could hear Side 1 of Glass Houses after Chase Tennis Camp). The reviews of these shows, which he does once a month like Britney in Vegas only more badass, have been good, and it appears that at least some of his sloppiness of the past decade are behind him. And even though he has had the bald-and-grey-goatee look for a while now, I do kind of miss the scrawny kid from Long Island with the mop of brown hair.

 

And he gave us a two and a half hour throwback to a time of saxophones and story-songs, to the Entertainer and Paul the Real Estate Novelist and Virginia (and even Uptown Girls). And every time he sang a beautiful, tender love song like Always a Woman or Just the Way You Are, he concluded with, “And then we got divorced.” Everyone knew every song. And unlike U2, whom we’d seen a few years ago at a stadium where it might as well have been on TV it was produced and remote, this felt relaxed and fun, even as his band was ridiculous. And he even brought on Sting and John Mellencamp for cameos (it was a great show, albeit extremely…non-diverse).

 

This has been a long fall. I had surgery on my shoulder, we planned and executed my daughter’s bat mitzvah (she did not have a cassette of her part), and watched business fluctuate and get busier and busier. But as I stood there at the end and waved goodbye to Brender and Eddie, I realized that, as Amanda’s grandmother used to say—and which she said to our daughter on Sunday—“Kid, you got it good.”

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

 

Don't Do As I Say OR As I Do...

Jeff Cohen

Note: For an update on the MISSING HEAD CHALLENGE, see below. You'll want to read this.

Seriously: Have I ever given you any indication that I know how to get thousands of people to look at a blog piece? On a good day, I get 200 people to visit here.

You're a little ticked off now, right? Think I misled you?

But marketing is a necessity to the author. (Don't ask, "The author of what?" Just go with it.) It's not about trickery and it's not about lying to the reader. Do those things and you might get someone to take a look. Once. What are you going to do now that you've annoyed them? What have you accomplished?

I can't claim to have the magical formula that will bring the thundering hordes to your blog post, your Facebook page, your web site or your front door. Anyone who tells you they know for sure is lying or mistaken. But I can tell you what certainly DOESN'T work, and I can say so with confidence, since I have tried each one and watched it fail in a spectacular fashion.

1. Promising a visitor something you can't deliver. (See above.) This is especially good at getting people mad at you. Because the intelligent ones will realize immediately that you're a fraud, and the less intelligent ones will try what you advocate, fail, and blame you.
2. Making general statements based only on your experience. If you want to blog about yourself, that's fine. I do it sometimes, and posts about my daughter, my dog and my wife have attracted some of the larger audiences I've gotten here. But don't try to extrapolate your experience and make the reader think it will definitely apply under any circumstance. You don't know, because your experience is just that--yours.
3. Stating something without doing the research. If you want to make a statement, make it. But be sure you're right. I have gone off on a tear at times here and made statements that, when I was typing them, felt great--only to find out I was astonishingly wrong. Colossally wrong. I mean, wrong. Check first.
4. Politics, religion--what could go wrong? Everything. Write about the "forbidden" topics if you want. That's your right. But go in knowing for sure that your opinions are definitely going to piss some people off. And maybe you know in your heart they're just wrong, and what the hell--maybe they are. It won't convince them of anything and it won't make them less mad. It's fine to do if that's the kind of blog you want, but don't be naive about it--you're going to annoy. Be prepared to deal with the consequences.
5. Making your post a flat-out sales pitch for your book. I have done this one (see two weeks ago, sort of) and I promise you I will do so again. That's perfectly fine--this is a forum about crime fiction and I write crime fiction. The reader is always free to click elsewhere. But doing nothing BUT hawking your book is just going to bore and irritate. The fiction you write isn't the only place you have to worry about entertaining an audience. And by the way, I have a book that came out last Wednesday and another coming in less than two months.

This week's reminder: The MISSING HEAD CHALLENGE is now extended to this Wednesday, October 15! Before then, buy a copy of THE QUESTION OF THE MISSING HEAD by E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen and take a photo of yourself with the book (or title page of the ebook). Post said picture on Facebook or Twitter for all (especially me, so tag me on it) to see. For everyone who does that on  I will donate $3 to ASPEN, the Autism SPectrum Education Network, and our own Josh Getzler's HSG Agency will match the donation. And our own Terri Bischoff's Midnight Ink will match THAT donation. And our very own Marilyn Thiele will add $1 each, to bring the total to $10 per picture! That pledge is good for the first 100 people to post--be one of them! 

Also: I'll be at the Barnes & Noble in East Brunswick, NJ on Tuesday (Oct. 14) at 7 p.m., talking (because try and get me to stop), signing and taking MISSING HEAD CHALLENGE pictures with anyone who has a copy of the book. Come by if you can--Cathy Genna of the B&N there really knows how to put on a show!

U2, Spam, Amazon, and Competing On Price

Josh Getzler

Like many of you (I’d guess most of you), I received a very cheerful email from iTunes this morning, letting me know that I was one of the lucky 500 MILLION account holders music lovers who received, free of charge, the new album by U2 in their iTunes library. Then they said the following:

 Never before have this many people owned an album — let alone on the day it was released. This is a big moment in music history. And you're a part of it.

OK, let’s talk about this for real for a minute. What U2 did, fundamentally, was participate in a publicity program not unlike a Kindle free book promotion, only iTunes eliminated the step where you need to get the ebook into your device—it simply put it there. And frankly, that’s fine, if perhaps cheesy. But then to call it “a big moment in music history” where “never before have this many people owned an album” is eye-rollingly disingenuous. What’s more, it speaks to numerous arguments about value/worth/price of a product.

When I began to work in minor league baseball in 1996, I took over an organization in upstate New York which had, for five years, effectively given away its tickets to every game through a (badly thought-out and inefficient) coupon system that made it unnecessary for any fan to pay for a ticket. The previous operators reasoned that they would make their fiscal nut by getting people into the park for free, then having them purchase food, beer, and merchandise. Didn’t work. Going to a game was thought of as, first and foremost, a Cheap Night Out, and fans were not in fact spending more money on hot dogs because they had budgeted a certain amount for the evening and then had more because of the free tickets. Rather, they spent the same amount or less, because everyone knew that the tickets were going to be free—they had no value, so there was no real savings. The first thing we did when we arrived in town was to set a real value for tickets—albeit a very low number—and while fewer people came initially (because they resented paying for something all of a sudden which had previously been free), those who did actually spent more on food and merch because their expectations had shifted from being a Cheap night to a Fun night.

There have been lots of conversations recently, in the Hachette/Amazon fight, over the way Amazon has stated that less expensive ebooks sell more copies, and therefore will pass the break-even point with the current pricing models and make authors more money while charging less to the customer. I think there are legitimate arguments to be made on both sides of this. But there is also a significant danger in basing a policy on lowering prices all the time for all products. Amazon itself saw this a few years ago when WalMart stood up to it, and there was a Race To Free for a number of titles. For one or two instances, a retailer can deal with it (and the authors were receiving full royalties so they didn’t suffer, even as it cost Amazon and WalMart money—much as Apple is losing sales on U2 albums in the interest of a splash and enormous distribution). But as a policy…tough to maintain. Amazon clearly believes it has the winning algorithms to make more money for itself while charging its customers less and paying its authors more. If it emerges victorious, we will have to see.

Which brings me back to U2. I’ve been a fan of this band for more than 30 years (JEEZ!)  I saw them for the first time at 16, and again at 43. I’ve bought all their albums, and worn out many of them. They haven’t been particularly in the forefront of my mind since I saw them at Giants Stadium a few years ago and thought they were…fine. But when I’m on shuffle and Sunday Bloody Sunday or Beautiful Day or Magnificent comes on, I realize that they are the hall of famers they are.

They also release a TON of odds and sods and remixes and dub versions and acoustic demos, so when I got word that they were releasing their new album for free, I figured it was one of those. Which is to say, because it was for free, I figured it had (virtually) no value. It was just going to be a gimmick, and would be worthy of the eye rolling, and would take U2 further out of the middle of my consciousness.

Then I actually listened to it, and thought it was terrific. It’s new, but hearkens back to The Old Stuff I Love, and feels like a real ALBUM, with an overarching theme (albeit a possibly pretentious one, but hey, it’s Bono) and soaring choruses etc. And I suspect, that by simply spamming it to half a billion people, they’ve actually UNDERSOLD it. How about that?

 

Quick Note: I’m going to be going on the Disabled List for a couple of weeks for shoulder surgery. This slot will be taken by some terrific guests—Danielle Burby will write next week, and author Todd Moss (The Golden Hour) the week after. See you down the line! 

 

Don't Be Newark Airport

Jeff Cohen

My home state of New Jersey has something of an image problem, and it is one that can teach us all something about first impressions, images, perception and memory. In other words, you can learn a lot about writing a story and promoting it if you think about New Jersey.

Yes, I'm serious.

The thing about my beloved home--and no, I don't mean that ironically--is that it is a compressed version of the United States. Very compressed. We're the third smallest state, and yet we have the most densely packed population per square mile. There are almost 9-million people here, and you have to figure at least some of them are not being held against their will.

In New Jersey, one finds some of the most famous beaches in the country. We have lovely suburban areas sitting right to some very accessible and cosmopolitan cities. Great restaurants, hiking, historical areas, theme parks, skiing (if you're into that sort of thing), professional sports teams, casinos, performing arts centers, cultural events, theater, swimming, fishing, music, comedy, film, nature, and one-of-a-kind sights like Lucy the Elephant, which I will not picture here because you just have to see Lucy to believe it.

But there's a problem with the state's image: we are seen, for the most part, as a toxic waste dump run by the mob. Yes, there's political corruption in New Jersey and guess what--there is wherever you're living, too. We actually seem to be better at uncovering and dealing with it than other places, so it gets more publicity.

I believe the problem with New Jersey's image is much more basic, and much simpler to explain than a perception of politicians who close down bridges as forms of retribution or gangsters who somehow aren't quite good enough to work in the big city.

It's Newark Liberty International Airport.

To be more specific, the problem is that most people who don't live in this area come to New Jersey through the airport, which is mostly in Elizabeth, if the truth is told. You get out of the airport, and no matter which way you're headed--onto the train to get to Manhattan or south on the NJ Turnpike--you have to pass through the area surrounding the airport to get to any of the other lovely images I've posted today. And this is what you'll see:

That's the first impression you'll get. So people come to New Jersey--admittedly they're usually on their way to New York or Philadelphia and too cheap to fly into those airports--and when asked about the Garden State, their minds will flash onto the image above. (And we're not even discussing the smell.) When they could be seeing something completely different:

So what's the lesson to take away? If you're writing, make sure you start off at a gallop. Get something into your first chapter, preferably your first page (bookstore browsers are notoriously fickle and have short attention spans) that will grab the reader's interest and make your book a must-buy.

And consider the first words anyone will see online about your book. Think about how you want to introduce it. As Terri's post last Thursday points out, cover copy is written well in advance of the pub date. Be involved with your editor, the publicist on your book and anyone else on the team that creates the final package. Make the right first impression.

Be the Pine Barrens. Be Met Life Stadium. Be the Jersey Shore. Be Atlantic City, if you must.

Don't be Newark Airport.

Click Bait

Josh Getzler

So a friend of mine, editor and author Bryon Quertermous, late of Angry Robot and Exhibit A, took his family to Disney World. In his absence I'm going to be stepping in for him later in the week on his website (www.bryonquertermous.com), but I thought I'd tease it with a little background and explanation on the topic.

It started when I read a Facebook post by Ron Currie, Jr. last week with a link to the Warren Zevon song Boom-Boom Mancini (from the amazing album Sentimental Hygene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZS3uDu8jy8) saying that the next time someone wants to know how to write stories, Ron would guide him to Zevon.

 

I would say that’s a great start. And it got me thinking about the artists I listen to whose songs are themselves narratives. These troubadours have always appealed to me, and I’m going to use my time on Bryon’s site to talk about several of my favorites.

 

But as I was thinking about which songs to discuss, it occurred to me that it was going to appear weird if I didn’t explain something: This particular set of artists—perhaps because I was riffing off Zevon—is specifically white, male, and (in a general sense) rock. Not hip hop, not country, not female (and Lord knows there are many great narrative voices in all three, so don’t comment about the lack of, say, Biggie or Johnny Cash or Suzanne Vega or Renaissance). Perhaps we’ll get there. And I’m not going to do Tom Waits because he’s kind of like Bonnie Raitt to me—I know I’m supposed to like them, and I understand their talent, but, I just can’t…

 

So check in tomorrow over at Bryon’s site. Then comment there, here, on Facebook—I’d love to hear your thoughts, opinions, people I missed, why I’m nuts, and why you’re all rushing to download the catalog of a broken up pub band from Australia that writes songs about cannibals and war and lovers finding time to talk between work shifts and a lonely divorced man who loves Saturdays because every Saturday is Father’s Day. (Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYKNqftCkSQ)

And then maybe next time we’ll get into songs by female country rappers.

Somebody Get Me Mel Brooks's Phone Number!

Jeff Cohen

You never know who may be listening to you--Paul McCartney, "Take It Away"

How about those Academy Awards, huh? Were you shocked? I was stunned.

I'm lying. I wrote this a week before the Oscars. Hey. Life gets in the way sometimes.

Still, thinking about the glamor and silliness of Hollywood--and the best thing about the Academy Awards is how silly they are--got me to wondering. My writing has certainly not made me a household name, and I'm perfectly fine with that. But if I'm being accurate (to the best of my knowledge), my books have, in the past few years especially, sold conservatively in the tens of thousands, and that's probably an underestimate. 

So after a while you start thinking that maybe one or two of those mass market paperbacks has made it into the hands of a famous person. 

It's sort of a cool thought. Who might be a fan of the Haunted Guesthouse series? There's no way of knowing, really, unless said celebrity were to reach out and communicate with the author (that's me). And so far, they haven't, with one exception, who was a friend before the series started and has blurbed a couple of the books.

Erin posted a while back about the impression an author leaves when making public his/her thoughts about politics or some other sensitive topic. The flip side of that is wondering whether someone whose positions I support might be reading my work.

Or what if it's someone with whom I disagree vehemently? What would that say about my novel?

So in order to prevent myself considerable embarrassment (after this display of undigestible hubris), I've decided to provide a list of celebrities whom I hope are or will be fans of my work. Because you never know.

My Hoped-For Famous Fans

• Mel Brooks: Always at the top of my list, unless Harpo Marx is resurrected. If someone knows how I can get Mel a copy of any of my books, don't hesitate to get in touch;
• Jon Stewart: The smartest comedian at work for the past 15 years. Can take an incredibly obvious joke and still make it hilarious. I don't even care if he likes the book; I just want him to read one;
• Queen Latifah: Hey, a fellow alum of Frank H. Morrell High School and multitalented performer. Jersey girl with attitude, someone I'd be proud to have as a reader;
• Ringo Starr: The People's Beatle and funniest of the bunch;
• Steven Spielberg: Let's face it--if he were a loyal reader, Josh and I would have heard from him by now;
• Derek Jeter: Not only an unparalleled athlete entering his final campaign, but an aspiring publisher--someone get this man a book!
• Bette Midler: Because she's damn funny;
• Craig Ferguson: Doing the funniest, most subversive talk show on the air, and a fan of crime fiction who books authors on his show. Yeah, you could do worse;
• Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Simply the coolest guy in any room he enters. A superstar astrophysicist? You know if Dr. T. likes your work, you must be smart;
• Bill Murray: I'm not sure why, because I don't think he'd like my work, but I want to hope he would;
• George Clooney: This generation's attempt at Cary Grant, falling a little short but way closer than most of us get. Smart, talented, committed; what's not to like?
• Tina Fey: She's really funny, and if she publicly said she liked my books, my wife would be impressed with me for the first time this millennium;
• Gene Wilder: The best comic actor of the past 50 years, and an author in his own write.

To be fair, of course (or even not to be fair), it's probably right to list a few celebs who, if they are fans of my work, I'd appreciate keeping it to themselves:

Thanks-But-No-Thanks List

• Ted Nugent: Yeah, and his music is lousy, too:
• Mel Gibson: I hold a grudge. Move on;
• Rush Limbaugh: You shouldn't have to ask why;
• The Duck Dynasty Guy: I'm almost ashamed to have a beard because of you;
• The Boston Red Sox: Nothing personal. It's a religious thing;
• Alec Baldwin: Luckily, he's getting out of public life, so that will never become an issue;
• Vladimir Putin: Keep your shirt on, Vlad. I didn't watch your Olympics, either, so we're even;
• John Travolta: If he can't get my name right, he's not going to be much help anyway; *
• Justin Bieber: Get help, man--or just get better advice, and listen to it;
• Isabel Allende: You know why.

For the record: I doubt any of these people has ever been in the same room with one of my books, but this is a fantasy league sort of thing, where you get to choose the names and assume they'll go along with you--or not. So that's my list. What's yours?

 

P.S. Recently the world of comedy has lost its grandfather and its funny uncle. Rest in peace, Sid Caesar and Harold Ramis. It doesn't matter how old you were; either way, it was much too soon. This is a world that can't afford to lose the laughs.

*Added after the Oscars

I'm Back! Wanna See the New Stairs? (Updated)

Jeff Cohen

BALTIMORE, MD--It's not about baseball. Not this time of year, although there are stirrings in Florida that can cause a fan's heart to hope. It's not about the impending retirement of the noble Derek Jeter or the welcome relief from the year-long sabbatical imposed on Mr. Rod. No, I'm not in Baltimore this weekend, staying within spitting distance of Oriole Park at Camden Yards, for the baseball. It isn't here yet.

I'm here because a squirrel got into my attic.

A few months ago, we woke up one morning to a nasty scratching sound in our bedroom wall. This is not something you want to wake up hearing, but it was undeniable and just as unmistakable. Something was living inside our walls, and that something was larger than a mouse.

You can be all anthropomorphic about squirrels and how "cute" they are if you want, but when one has taken up residence in your attic, it's just a rat with a fuzzy tail, and one that can do a good deal of damage. So we had an "animal control expert" come by, and he determined exactly how Rocky was getting inside our house. There was a hole in the soffet next to our attic window.

I asked him if the hole could be plugged, and Mr. Ranger shook his head. "You need a roofer for that," he said.

Well, the time had come. We'd been living in this house for just about 20 years, perhaps to the day, and had not addressed our roof except for a few patches after Hurricane Sandy had her way with the entire state of New Jersey and its neighbors. So the roof now had to be replaced.

That's not why I'm in Baltimore. Hang on.

After batting around the idea of a new roof for a few days, Jessica and I decided it was best for a number of reasons, not the least of which involves our partners in all endeavors the IRS, to take our a home equity loan to pay for the roof. And if you're taking out a loan, you might as well get a few other things done. So we had a number of windows replaced too, just to experience the thrill (once this interminable winter, um, terminables) of opening a window and not having to prop it open with a book (I know, book lovers, but it's a cruel reality).

Still not the reason I'm in Barry Levinson's backyard. I'm getting there. Here. Wait.

Besides the roof and the windows, we had to prioitize the 15-million things that we could have chosen to fix in our ramshackle abode. And the one area (besides that roof) we'd been working hard not to discuss all these years was the staircase.

Our stairs, which go from the living room up to the bedrooms, were in desperate need of replacement. We'd talked to our contractor friend who lives across the street some time ago about repairing them because of the hideous, cacophonous creaking that caused us to pause the television anytime someone would walk up or down, or put the phone on mute because of the noise. And our contractor pal had informed us that repair wasn't an option. These stairs had to be ripped out and new ones put in. And he intimated, without actually coming out and saying it, that it was best we do so before someone were to head for the living room taking the local and end up there via the express. If you know what I mean.

So this weekend, two gentlemen (including our across-the-street neighbor) ripped up our staircase and installed a new and--since I can now verify it--vastly improved one. But it took the better part of three days, and there was no way to get up to our bedrooms while that was happening.

We decided on this particular weekend because it was one of the few coming up during which we had no plans, and initially assumed we'd book a couple of hotel rooms (one for us, one for our son the budding filmmaker and job seeker) and wait out the devastation. And then it occurred to me that if you're going to have a couple of hotel rooms anyway, it might be an idea to, you know, go somewhere.

It had to be within driving distance, and given the kind of weather we've been having since roughly Halloween, cancellable if necessary. And it might be a nice idea if we had an event, a destination, in mind for at least one day. So I started searching around.

And it turned out that this weekend, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra was playing a series of themes from science fiction film and television, featuring our host, George Takei. And since we're all big Takei fans in this house, the deal was done. 

We returned Monday, before Josh's shift at the movie theater was to begin, to a lovely new and completely functional staircase, having enjoyed some film music presented by a distinguished group of musicians and an iconic actor and Internet personality. (Alas, there was no time to see Edgar Allan Poe's home as well.)

So greetings from Baltimore, Maryland, everybody. Except we're back in New Jersey now, and supposedly things will (sigh) return to normal. Sort of.

There's still painting and maybe a new floor in the kitchen to discuss. 

Damn squirrel.

 

*No squirrels were harmed in the posting of this blog.

John, Paul, George, Ringo, and E.J. Copperman?

Jeff Cohen

There was much hoopla in the past few weeks about the date, 50 years ago last night, that a rock and roll group from England appeared on an American television show and "changed history." (You can't actually change history; you can make history. Once it's history, well, that's history. If you know what I mean.)

Nonetheless, I was not as ambivalent to the overblown festivities as I would normally be. I'm a lifelong (pretty much) fan of the Beatles, still think their music is fresh and amazing, and enjoy watching them be appreciated by those of all generations. So although the coverage was certainly disproportional to any event ever, it was not as irritating--to me--as almost anything else would have been.

This is not going to be another one of those this-is-how-the-Beatles-changed-my-life stories, I promise. I was all of six years old when Ed Sullivan put them on a bill with Tessie O'Shea, Myron Cohen (no relation) and a very young Davy Jones, in the cast of Broadway's Oliver at the time. Frankly, I wasn't all that impressed that night, and wasn't until I got to hear the studio recordings, on which there was no hysterical screaming by teenage girls. (After all, I was six. Girls? Ugh.)

No, my appreciation of what those four men accomplished goes in another direction, and I think somewhat deeper than most. What the Ed Sullivan performances show me are four guys who were just starting, who were used to the spotlight but not the United States, and who could have easily been exactly what the adults in the suits and ties were saying they were--a passing fad fueled by silly children.

Instead, they became probably the signature musicians of the century and their music is still relevant enough that today's artists cover their songs. Not bad.

I write books for a living. And in those books, I make up stories. If you want to call that an art form, I'm not going to argue, but it feels like entertainment to me. That is not to denigrate what I and my colleagues do; I have long droned on here about my high opinion of popular enterainment, and will not take back a word of that now.

The admiration I have for what John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr did is based in their ability to start as light entertainers and then grow into really great artists who were also fantastic entertainers. They never disappointed (unless you watched Magical Mystery Tour expecting a coherent film), but they also didn't rest on their laurels. They didn't stagnate.

George Martin, the producer of almost all Beatles recordings, has often said that one thing he loved about the group was that "they never gave me the same thing to do twice." The songwriters in the group were conscious of the danger in repetition; they wanted to progress with each new recording, and what is most amazing is that they actually did.

I have been struggling lately with the feeling that I want to write something really notable, something that would stretch me into new areas, uncomfortable places (as a writer) and hit new heights for me. (Don't worry; this happens periodically. It'll blow over.) I don't want to stop writing the things I write; I love those--but I like to think there's something more as well.

Unfortunately, I suffer from a common malady among such entertainers as myself. I'm not sure what my limits are (I know; you're not supposed to have any, but we are given a finite amount of talent without an inventory of how much we have). And even such a revered writer as George Bernard Shaw, late in his life, was urged by a rather nervy acquaintance--Harpo Marx--to write something new.

Shaw looked over, stared Harpo straight in the eye, and asked, "Got any ideas?"

Yeah, I haven't hit on that yet.

And that is what, for me, is the defining genius of the Beatles. Given the opportunity to milk their success into a year or two of tremendous wealth and fame, they chose instead to push the envelope. The group recorded 13 albums of about 14 songs each. In a seven-year recording career. Writing almost all the material themselves, while touring almost nonstop for the first four years. That's astonishing.

The more they recorded, the more innovative they became. String sections in rock and roll? Why not? Backwards lyrics? Bass lines that were sung instead of played? Songs with false endings, concept albums, extended medleys of new material that didn't have anything to do with each other but managed to come together cohesively. Done, done and done.

A Hard Day's Night. Day Tripper. Yesterday. In My Life. Help! A Day in the Life. Here Comes the Sun. Hey Jude. I'm just getting warmed up.

So those of us who entertain for a living should take a hint from those four "youngsters from Liverpool," as the condescending and avuncular Ed Sullivan said. Don't rest on your laurels. Don't simply write what you've written before. Challenge the conventional. Write to entertain oneself as well as an audience. Try things that aren't supposed to be done and see if they work.

It doesn't hurt if you're a brilliant artist. Or four. But since none of us knows if that term applies to us, we must operate on the assumption that if we try hard enough, we can find out. Maybe we are brilliant artists, and we just don't know it yet.

Turned out John, Paul, George and Ringo fit into that category. But ironically in the end, the love they took was not at all equal to the love they made. Countless millions were touched by the music those four men created. And they were repaid very well monetarily, no doubt. They also lost all chance at anything resembling privacy, their fame eventually drove wedges into their personal friendships, each one went through a divorce, one was shot and another died of cancer after being knifed by a madman.

Oddly, our memories of them are usually happy ones. We celebrate their work and we remember them fondly. And sometimes, when we dare to place ourselves in similar categories, we wonder, since they did it, if we can become great artists just by pushing ourselves to the limit. And maybe a little bit further.

Got any ideas?

 

P.S. Pitchers and catchers report in 4 days.

Talent

Josh Getzler

 

 

Over the last several weeks, I've felt like I've been on some kind of nostalgia tour. I went to Mariano Rivera's retirement game at Yankee Stadium, where all the of players I lived and died with (and some of whom played for me in my Previous Life in Baseball) came on the field and honored Mo. The next week we went to see Mike Piazza inducted into the Mets' hall of fame (where among the old-timers honoring Piazza was Bud Harrelson, the shortstop from 40 years ago whose replica jersey was the first I ever wore--and which I got in exchange for giving up my Blanket...). This evening my wife and I saw Steely Dan play songs from junior high; tomorrow we're seeing Sting; and Thursday, Rodriguez (from Searching for Sugar Man), whose 1970 album became a thoroughly improbable hit in South Africa and whose career was resurrected in 2011.

 

Besides being our entire entertainment budget for the second six months of 2013, these events tell me something I think of when I hear of a new gimmick in books or music or art. Ultimately, and overwhelmingly often, talent will out. Mariano's cutter was his one pitch (basically--don't quibble, Cohen), which he threw over and over. Steely Dan played 40 year old songs and messed with them enough that they were fresh but still recognizable. They were jazz; ephemeral and improvisational, where Mo was relentless and repetitive.

 

And they were both brilliant.  

Marriage Mysteries

Jessy Randall

I've been married for thirteen years, and I've known my husband for over twenty years, so you would think that in terms of our getting to know each other there would be no mysteries left. You would THINK.

My daughter has been singing us a lot of songs she learned at camp this summer. Most of these songs are by definition extremely repetitive, with way too many verses. One might describe them as a bit boring. Imagine my surprise, then, as Celie launched into a version of "Bill Grogan's Goat" at the dinner table, and suddenly my husband was singing along, in perfect counterpoint!

Turns out Ross was in a barbershop quartet when he was in middle school. WHO KNEW? Not me, HIS OWN WIFE. Now I have to wonder what other surprises are waiting for me.

"And flagged the traaaaaaaaaaaain..."

 

Your Opinions May Vary...

Jeff Cohen

Things I Wouldn't Miss If They Vanished Forever

1. Alex Rodriguez
2. The words "yummy" and "hubby"
3. "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch
4. Under the Dome
5. Every reality show ever
6. Frozen yogurt (yeah, it's real healthy)
7. "Stronger Than the Storm" and its star
8. Michael Kay
9. Snow
10. Alex Rodriguez

Things I Miss Terribly When They're Away for a Day

1. My wife, son, and/or daughter
2. The Daily Show
3. My car (I live in New Jersey)
4. The sun
5. My guitar
6. Diet Coke
7. Baseball
8. My reading glasses
9. Writing
10. Derek Jeter (that's just to make Alex Rodriguez mad)

                    Things I'm Glad Haven't Gone Away Forever

1. The Beatles
2. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (I own it on DVD)
3. Bill Cosby
4. Jeopardy! (although I haven't actually watched it in years)
5. The Marx Brothers
6. Mariano Rivera (I can say that for another month and a half)
7. Star Trek (the new movies don't count)
8. Readers
9. Libraries
10. Books

Things I'm Sorry Are Gone Forever

1. John Lennon
2. George Harrison
3. Phil Rizzuto
4. Dad
5. The real Yankee Stadium
6. My hair's original color
7. Newsweek
8. The middle class
9. Larry Gelbart
10. Mr. Copper T. Dog

Things I'd Miss If They Left

1. Newspapers
2. Saturday mail delivery
3. Landlines (cell phones don't sound as good, and I don't care what you say)
4. Saturday morning cartoons (I don't watch, but in principle)
5. Birthday cards in the mail (not e-cards)
6. Polar ice caps
7. Movie theaters
8. Sonny's Bagels in South Orange, NJ
9. Vinyl records
10. Paper books

Things I'm Glad Are Back

1. Some Like It Hot-Buttered
2. It Happened One Knife
3. A Night at the Operation (coming this Thursday, August 15!)
4. Jon Stewart (in 22 days and yes, John Oliver is doing a fine job) 

A Beautiful Summer Day

Josh Getzler

 

Today was the most beautiful day of the summer. It was lucky, then, that I had tickets to see Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds Five and Guster in Brooklyn. Because you know what? Sometimes it's just too gorgeous to blog about publishing. Back to it next week. Happy Summer! 

 

 

Born to Run—to Camp Ramah

Josh Getzler

Every year on the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, WPLJ radio in New York broadcasts its morning show from Jenkinson’s Pier in Point Pleasant, New Jersey. There are bands playing live, the atmosphere is festive. I used to listen every year I worked in baseball as I drove from my apartment in Manhattan to the ballpark in Staten Island. And every year, the highlight of the broadcast was the same: The traffic guy, Joe Nolan, would get up on stage and tell a long story about his father taking him out to the shore in the summer, and how now, as a father himself, he marveled at his own life. Then he would pause, yell “1, 2, 3, 4!” and bust into a highly emotional, slightly off-key but marvelous Born to Run. I once found myself feeling oddly choked up on the New Jersey Turnpike as I yelled along with Joe Nolan.

I feel like every summer I write a blog post about the day my girls go to camp. It has to do with being a dad of daughters who are still little but grow more worldy and somewhat more inscrutable by the day, even as they are still willing to hug me and still cry when they get on the bus. Only now it’s for seven weeks straight, and that’s a long time.

And every year I talk about what they read, and what they read on, as technology changes and they become more sophisticated and plugged in. Which is why it was fascinating to me that this year they went without e-readers at all, and simply took their books with them the old fashioned way—weighing down their backpacks and crammed among the lip gloss and the illicit granola bars and the sunscreen, in hardcover and paperback.

Now this is not a judgment—I’m not proud that they’re reading print books or disappointed that they aren’t reading on machines (or vice versa, if that’s even logical). Rather, it was interesting, and I was thinking about why. And I came up with a couple of answers:

The first is that a couple of years ago, when I first started chronicling the kids’ adventures in reading, they read shorter books. Therefore we could load, say, 117 My Weird School books onto the Kindle and send them on their way. Now that they are older, they read longer books, but fewer of them, and with more words per page. And they mess around all evening when they might be reading, doing things like talking to their friends and (ahem, girls) writing letters to their parents, who miss them. They’ll get through the books they bring, but don’t need as much of an inventory.

The second (although the first was more than one point), is that they are fundamentally indifferent to the platform on which they read. They have so many options at this point, and they are all “normal” now, as opposed to a couple of years ago when it was cool to read on a tablet, that they go with the most convenient (and frequently best looking). And in this case, the one they don’t need to plug in or keep safe from, say, getting wet.

So this morning I stood with a hundred or so other parents (around a third of whom were crying at any given time), waving vaguely at the tinted window where we think we saw our particular kid’s face flit by, though it could be Maya. My son, who just started a writing program and is now going to have my wife and me to himself for a couple of months, was waving frantically saying “I’ll miss you, I’ll miss you…heh.” Several of the other parents were people I went to school with myself, now with dogs on leashes and smaller children who haven’t yet started day camp holding on to them. I stepped back for a minute, looked around, and started humming Born to Run.

85 and Sunny? Thumbs Down!

Jeff Cohen

Author's note: The following post contains no review of Man of Steel nor complaints about reviews of my books. That is entirely true. For my views on the new Superman movie, get in touch--I'll be glad to share. A day is long enough to think about it. For my ideas on reviews people have posted about my books: Everyone's entitled to an opinion. I hope they're all carefully considered.

One day last week I was checking the weather online. I know, a person could just look out the window and find out what the local weather is like, but thunderstorms had been forecast and I wanted to look at the map to see if one was in the area.

ANYWAY, I went to my local weather page to check, and saw a feature I'd never noticed before: Next to the forecast for today's weather were two icons, one labeled "love" and the other "ugh." A visitor to this site would click on either of those to indicate his/her level of approval on the weather.

On the weather.

It's possible that we're becoming a little too enamored of our own opinions.

Online reviews tend to come from... anybody, without any indication of background or qualification. I could write opera reviews. I know nothing, at all, about opera. How would you know?

There was a time, children, when in order to be a serious film critic, one actually had to have a background in film. In order to offer a public opinion on theater, it was generally assumed that a person had seen, let's say, a Shakespeare play performed live at least once. A music critic would be required to demonstrate a knowledge of the difference between Beethoven and Marvin Hamlisch.

I'm not going to get into the area of book reviews, because 1. Most of the reviewers of my books have been very kind and 2. If I said anything negative about those who weren't, it would be seen as sour grapes (which it might or might not be).

The point is that these days, the saying "everybody's a critic" has become a literal truth. The Internet, in all its glory, has opened the doors for comment to every person with a connection via computer, smartphone, tablet, or ESP. And that, I'm afraid, like most things online, has been taken to unwieldy extremes.

I will occasionally drop some opinions in this space on film or television. I have some background in that area, and no, I don't think that a person is an expert only when accredited by a paying media company. But the instant gratification of Twitter and Facebook and lord knows what other sites I completely don't understand has led to what I call No Impulse Control Reviews--those things we say in the rush of a new experience that we haven't really had a chance to think about yet.

For example: I am a lifelong Superman fan. I grew up on the George Reeves (seen here with McTavish, in case you think I'm lying) version, possibly the most popularly maligned, but I was four and he was Superman, however much in reruns. This weekend (in fact, yesterday) I went to see the new film trying to "reimagine the franchise" (every time I hear a phrase like that I thank my good fortune that my Hollywood dreams were never realized), Man of Steel. And I was sure, based on all the pre-release hype that went on, that I was destined to hate it.

Relax, I'm not enough of a hypocrite to offer an instant review of a movie in a post complaining about knee-jerk reviews. But that's the point--I haven't really had time to think it through and offer an intelligent opinion yet. The difference is that I know that, so I'm not going to give in to the impulse.

Anyone who's had a chance to view me in profile knows that I certainly don't repress every wrong impulse I have. But I do try to exercise control of the ones I can. 

We're given too many opportunities these days to express our opinions. Every web site we see asks us for feedback. Every time we make a purchase online, we are immediately asked to take a survey about our "buying experience." Every company from which we've ever bought a product wants us to "like" it on Facebook. 

Do I really like a detergent? A toilet paper? A fax machine? No. They're there and I use them. The only time I'm likely to notice one over another is if there's a problem. I don't have an opinion on everything. Why am I being asked for one?

(Oddly, the opinions we have on things like politics and religion are the ones most people would rather not hear. But whether or not I "like" Dunkin' Donuts? Do tell!)

Please don't take this the wrong way: I don't want people to stop reviewing things. I especially don't want people to stop reviewing my work, even if they don't care much for it (although, I'm not encouraging you to do so if that's your opinion). But I do think we need to take a breath and do a little thinking before we express an opinion that's going out to an untold number of strangers.

Easy. Take a moment. That's it. Now... what do you think? Did you like today's weather?

eBay violin detective

Jessy Randall

It's an old story: wife walks in on husband looking at embarrassing things on the computer. It happened to me this week. I caught my husband, author Ross Gresham, looking at ... violins.

Ross is addicted to comparing violin prices on eBay, even though our daughter already has a perfectly good violin. (I have also found him checking local real estate prices even though we have no intention of buying or selling a house, and shopping for hideous Jeff Jones wall art he knows could never cross our threshold.)

After the recent surprise walk-in, Ross told me about some detective work he was doing on a particular eBay violin. Anyone who bids on eBay items knows to check a seller's reputation: it's right there for all to see -- percentage of positive feedback, how many sales, more. But sometimes reputable-looking sellers ... aren't. (He put it this way: "So the seller in these cases plays folksy and ignorant, luring you to swoop in for a good deal. It's probably not even immoral. You're trying to rip them off; they rip you off."

Scammy violins are fairly easy to spot on eBay -- the sellers will say things like "Label states 'Stradivarius ... 1716' but it's probably not really that old." Yeah, probably not, dude, because you put the fake label in it yourself. (Reputable sellers will quote the label but also state clearly that the violin is a Stradivarius reproduction.) That said, there are good violin bargains to be found.

Ross recently found a violin that looked like it might be dramatically underpriced, so he began the usual detective work. The seller's reputation was good, and she hadn't made a lot of sales, so it might make sense she'd underprice a violin. The description was amateurish, but the pictures suggested the violin was old and high-quality.

BUT. Ross then checked the seller's ID history, and it turned out she (or he) operated on eBay with a few different IDs. With one ID s/he was selling a single old-looking violin (starting bid $300) and a few antiques, but with another ID s/he had bought a dozen Chinese violins for about $100 each. With that same ID s/he had also bought varnish, presumably to fake-age the violins!

If you lack violin street-smarts (is that an oxymoron?), Ross recommends Toolhaus, a free database of eBay feedback. It allows anyone with an eBay login to see feedback removed by a user, mutual-positive-feedback arrangements, and other tricks. You can also read up on violin fakery at various sites such as this one (which starts by saying "So, you think you found a Stradivarius? Unfortunately you probably didn't") or this one (which offers a little spot-the-fake quiz for Stradivarius labels).

If you're a scammy violin seller and I just foiled your plans, well, here is the smallest violin in the world playing just for you.

(With sound: http://youtu.be/q5ODhIFawfs?t=1m20s)

Guest Post--Classics, Inc.

(NOTE FROM JOSH: I was sitting down to write this evening when the Boy, two days done with Middle School but not yet a Freshman, tells me to step aside. “You’re tired,” he says. “I’ve been thinking about something.”

Clearly he has been. And he’s not shy about discussing it. I hope I miss the train to Weenieville.

JG)

Classics, Inc.

By Joe Newman-Getzler

                What is a “classic”? Depending on whom you ask the answers could vary wildly. For some, a classic could be a book like Murder on the Orient Express, a movie like Casablanca, or a song like “Let It Be”. To others, a classic could be a book like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a movie like Johnny Dangerously, or a song like “Boom! Shake the Room." This need not only apply to books. The term “classic” can also be applied to anything from a good joke to a memorable sports play. But what, indeed, is a classic? And how does it unify these many different things?

                To most people, a classic is merely a thing that stays in their head for a long time, usually for a positive reason. But to some, the name goes much deeper than that. A classic means a piece of cultural significance, something considered a great thing that all should love and cherish for its greatness. Typically, there is a predetermined set of “classics” for any kind of genre or type. For example, if you want a “classic” book, the names that’ll probably come up would be books like Animal Farm, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, or Gone with the Wind. A “classic” movie? You’d probably see names like Citizen Kane, Some Like it Hot, or Singin’ in the Rain. But should we have our classics defined for us? Or should we form our own opinions on what is classic and what’s not?

                This is a question that has been troubling me for a while now: what’s a classic and what’s not? The reason this has been rumbling through my mind is because lately I have been trying to give myself a “classical” film and literary experience. Summer’s just begun, and now that I have gobs upon gobs of time to spend, I want to fill them with great books and great movies. For the former, my family has been supplying me with tons of great books like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye. And yes, they are great. But I will admit, my standards for classics are pretty low. The whole school year was peppered with classic books in my English class, like The Woman Warrior, The Chosen, Animal Farm, you name it. But my ideas of classics are Dave Barry is Not Making This Up, Bugs Bunny: 50 Years and Only One Gray Hare, and There Is No Dog. And yet, Mom and Dad say not to read those over and over. Read The Hobbit. Come on! It’s only 500 pages long, you wuss!

                Movies are another area of “classics” that drive me crazy, though for a different reason. While I would consider myself a rather decent film lover, there are still so many movies I haven’t seen that I feel pressured by myself to watch. Seriously?, I ask myself. You haven’t seen Citizen Kane? Jaws? The Dark Knight? You, sir, are on the train straight to Weenieville. And even my gym teacher’s let into me about my lack of film exposure: he spent 10 minutes telling me how I simply must watch The Empire Strikes Back in order to truly deem myself a Star Wars fan (BTW, I’ve only seen A New Hope and Return of the Jedi. That fact led to not only the aforementioned monologue, but another about how I should watch the prequels because, yeah, they suck, but I MUST have the complete Star Wars experience.) And yet, I also feel that there are a great many films that I truly love and yet many don’t even think of in the same league as “classics.” Seriously, does nobody but me consider UHF a classic? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory better than the Gene Wilder one? I feel so lonely.

                It’s times like this when I start to think about how subjective a term “classic” is. Can only what has been previously called a classic be a classic? Can others come up with their own “classic” films to share with the world? That is my hope. While, naturally, classic books and movies are to be revered and respected, they aren’t the only good books and movies out there! I wish more people would realize that. And YES, I am going to watch The Empire Strikes Back this summer. But the prequels? Hmm. Maybe. But for now…keep on readin’.                                                                                                    

The Greatest Thing Over The World

Josh Getzler

Every night, my wife and I record BBC World News and watch during dinner. We find that it’s the only broadcast that actually reports news, rather than hours of political commentary of one stripe or the other.

And every night, after the half hour is over, we look at each other and say “the world is coming to an end.”

Except last night. Last night, there was a long report about Commander Chris Hadfield, a Canadian astronaut who spent five months living on the International Space Station. While he was there, Commander Hadfield, who is 53 and trim and effortlessly charming, Tweeted about life in Space. He didn’t talk only about the elevated scientific experiments he was performing, but how to eat spinach or brush his teeth in zero gravity. It’s amazing, riveting journalism in 140 character chunks.

Commander Hadfield returned from space last week, but before he did, he performed his piece de resistance—he recorded a music video of himself singing a slightly rewritten version of David Bowie’s 1969 song Space Oddity (Major Tom). Of course in the original, Major Tom loses contact with Ground Control and presumably hurtles off into the abyss. It’s brilliant, but ultimately depressing. In this version, Commander Hadfield sings about strapping into his pod and coming home, his time in space complete and successful. The video has been viewed millions of times now. Even David Bowie himself retweeted it, approvingly.  

What’s remarkable about this video is that it is completely, whole-heartedly positive. Space, in HD, is gorgeous. Stunning. Commander Hadfield is not commenting on President Obama’s troubles or chaos in Syria. He’s just making music, in space, floating in his tin can. It’s brilliantly uplifting. And in this time of war, famine, global warming, tornadoes in the Plains, political and religious strife worldwide, the idea of unbridled joy is even more overwhelmingly rejuvenating. Take a look. And enjoy your day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poZCINzxzrQ

PS--Back to books next week--thanks for the suggestions last week!

Perfection

Josh Getzler

 

Last night I began a column about the power of a Kindle Daily Deal on book sales, but assorted children needed attending to and I had to leave it. I realized as I was thinking about it though, that the end of the story isn't told yet--I want to see what kind of tail we get on it before discussing the results, so let's wait a week.

 

In the meantime, I had a long back and forth with my cousin Matt Resnick today. He posted on Facebook about having listened to "The Perfect Album" today, and asked what his Friends thought it was. A number of people weighed in--Rubber Soul, Aja, Beethoven's Ninth, Born to Run, Pet Sounds. And it got us into questions of perfection and what makes a perfect album. Is it production values (at which point you could make a case for Boston or Paul's Boutique) or an individual's opinion on genius of songwriting or concept or music (Freewheeling Bob Dylan, perhaps, or Dark Side of the Moon or Sinead O'Connor's The Lion and the Cobra, or the Smiths' Queen is Dead or Purple Rain or Bob Mould's Workbook or...you get the point.)

 

Of course, this is an impossible argument, as much as it's fun to do. I have perfect albums that the artists themselves don't even think is their best work (I like U2's War better than Joshua Tree, REM's Reckoning better than Out of Time, and I can listen to Terrapin Station or American Idiot for days and days). It also changes by genre--you can't compare Tannheuser to Rumours, really, or Candide to London Calling.

 

It's clear that you can do the same in books (and we do here all the time--how do you compare Pride & Prejudice to Moby Dick, or Wolf Hall to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Even within genres, a cozy is different from a police procedural (mostly) is different from a spy novel. Your idea of perfection might be The Corrections; your friend's could be Crime and Punishment or Harry Potter (but which one? Heh!) or Love in the Time of Cholera or Foucault's Pendulum or Easy Rawlings. But it's always a good time.

 

Oh, and Matt was listening to Kind of Blue. Hard to argue there... 

Waiting To Buy Tickets At Tower Records

Josh Getzler

When I was in high school, there was an enormous Tower Records store on 66th Street and Broadway, right in front of the subway station I used to get home from school. I spent a serious amount of time in Tower Records, learning about Jimi Hendrix and Depeche Mode, Prince and The Replacements, browsing the racks of LPs and reading liner notes, which were their own metaliturature.

No, I’m not going to spent the next 500 words mourning the death of the record store (though I could) or comparing the slow death of Tower Records to what appears to be a similar death spiral of retail Barnes and Nobles stores (again, I could). But I am going to discuss, somewhat wistfully I suppose, another aspect of the Tower Records experience that is gone and which I miss: The Ticketmaster line.

I was talking to one of the guys I share my office with the other day, and mentioned that tickets for a particular concert I wanted to see had sold out at the price I wanted to pay. And I said, in a kind of throwaway line, that pressing refresh on the Live Nation website was nowhere near as much fun as it had been to wait on line for tickets to, say, Jethro Tull or Rush or the Kinks in eighth or ninth grade.

Actually, it wasn’t that much fun to wait. You had to line up around the Tower Records store up Broadway to 67th Street, then around toward Amsterdam, and couldn’t get in until the store opened at 9 in the morning. It was cold and boring and the smell of stale weed gets old. I didn’t do it often. But there was still a shared sense of community with other teenagers to wait to get tickets to a show, and you’d talk about how you hoped they’d only play Old Stuff because the new album sucked and did you see them the LAST time they were in New York—no, not the Friday night show, I heard that was terrible, but the Saturday night one when Joey Ramone came onstage for the encore and, well, looked like he was going to fall over but he was SO COOL!

And then the door would open and you’d go in and wait some more (but warm, now) and you’d hold each other’s places to (finally) go to the bathroom and talk about how you hope that they would just open the stupid register already because last time they sold out the first show in 11 minutes, but you’d get it and pay the cash you collected from your friends and get your tickets and bounce out and start the countdown to the actual show (and maybe buy the new album and see if it really did suck).

Then the next week, you’d walk past Tower Records and see another line of teenagers, for another concert, maybe dressed more metal or punk or new wave and you’d ask some tired kid “who’s coming?” and either nod approvingly or shrug, and get on the subway.

Look, it’s way more efficient to buy tickets (or books or albums or…toothpaste) on line than it is to wait all night on Broadway or shlep to the grocery store. Tower Records is out of business (a whole other column), replaced by Raymour & Flanagan, and nobody is waiting up all night for a new sofa. Teenagers meet on YouTube and Instagram to talk about whose songs suck, and take videos on their smartphones when they’re actually at the concerts. There are great advantages to our virtual world. But somehow that conversation the other day brought me back to the excitement and enthusiasm of an adolescent community experience which has gone the way of Joey Ramone sightings and liner notes.

Ruminations on CSN and Tony Gwynn

Josh Getzler

So it's 11:34 and I'm in danger of missing another week's blog day. This time it was not a Jewish holiday and not a conference and not a literary reading, but a Crosby Stills and Nash concert. I was skeptical when we bought ticket--the last time we saw them was 10 years ago, when my wife was pregnant with child #3(who got a great in utero contact high), and they were OLD. But terrific. And we left happy and satisfied that we'd gotten to see them, kind of like when we saw Tony Gwynn in the last year he played for the Padres and we'd shlepped out to Shea to see him just so we could say we saw him. But I digress.

So CSN (without Young, or Tony Gwynn for that matter) was back, at the Beacon Theater (very appropriate now, and Winchester Cathedral was perfect there, just saying), and they are now at least seven years past OLD. And they were fabulous. OK, so after nine months of touring (this is the last set of shows) Stills is finished and could barely croak out Love the One You're With. But the surprise MVP was David Crosby, who could have been MVP for being able to stand at this point. But he has a voice like an angel (still), and was thin(ner) and fit(ter), and the group wisely centered the playlist around his proggy stuff. So we got Guinevere and Winchester and Deja Vu and Stills could play guitar and all the happy fogies like us got to sit back and relax.

As we were leaving we both realized that the upshot was this: We spend so much time listening to top 40 these days because of our kids, it was nice to go to an old school rock concert with black t-shirts and guitars and Hammond organs and singers who allowed themselves to be ragged.

Of course, we're also kind of excited that next week brings us Ke$ha's new album. (Don't be a hater, now!)

 

Inviolate time

Josh Getzler

In this new world of constant accessibility, where the ability to receive (and therefore deal with) emails, text messages and phone calls on the subway, in bed, walking down the street...everywhere and at any time, it is increasingly difficult to come up with boundaries, with unreachable time. I was thinking about this at Starbucks this morning, between meetings, when I was "just checking my email" for a half an hour, the ice in my coffee melting as my stress level rose. I suddenly thought that it would be wonderful to Turn Off for a while, just enjoy the coffee and decompress. Then I pressed Send--I've been too busy for too many days, with too much upcoming busy-ness to take that particular half hour to smell the coffee.

For so many of us, this compulsive attention to communication is both freeing and shackling. We are no longer tied to a desk to do our jobs or our homes to talk to our families and friends. But we are also, then, always available, and sometimes don't want to be. It can become manic. Annoying to spouses and kids. Unhealthy.

I have two times each week where I am offline; one through ritual, one through choice. Both are vital to my mental health for different reasons. The first is that I observe the Jewish sabbath. As such I don't do many of the activities that make up my week, including talk on the phone and use my email. What I do is rest--read, walk, spend time with my family and many friends, and generally recharge my batteries. If I didn't have those 25 hours each week, I would have burned out several times by now. 

My other inviolate time is from 3:30-4 PM every Friday, when I take a drum lesson in between my daughter's and my son's. He's the family drum pioneer, starting more than two years ago. We got an electronic drum kit, so our grouchy downstairs neighbors would have less to complain about. And I found myself, almost every night as I went to say goodnight to him, idly picking up the sticks and tapping until my wife wanted to kill me. Finally I approached Joe's teacher, the amazing, ever patient Brad Meehan, and asked if he would take me on as well. While I played bad Talking Heads covers on guitar in a band in high school, I'd never played drums except on my steering wheel.

I loved it immediately. I was not natural. I took forever to learn a new beat, a new song. I never have time to practice (the neighbors are glad). But it's a half-hour a week of joy for me, when I don't need to think of the manuscripts teed up on my kindle, or the submissions I need to make, or the follow-up calls, or the bills to pay. Over the last year and a half I've learned Green Day and reggae, salsa and backbeat. My youngest daughter (the true pop star in the family--she dressed as Ke$ha for purim, god help me) decided to join the party, and now Brad deals with three of us every week.

For me, the drums have become a vital anchor to my week. I'm incredibly off-kilter when I need to miss time, particularly when it's unplanned. And if one of the kids can't make it, and I get an extra 15 minutes of playtime, it's like a snow day in elementary school. I don't need to practice two hours a day to achieve that happiness, either (though I'd be a LOT better!). Just that half-hour a week.

And last Sunday (sorry FB friends for the repeat), I got to play on a real set, on a real stage in a rock club, at Brad's students' recital. I did a Cowboy Mouth song from the late '80's, Jenny Says, right after Joe's Footloose and before Ita's California Gurls (and three after the 4 year old did We Will Rock You!). Here's a link. 

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=3549405728288

Am I ridiculous? Possibly. But ecstatic--if goofy--and far away from the responsibilities and pressures of daily life. And that's healthy.  

But is it Art?

Jeff Cohen

Here's how oddly my mind is working these days:

Ben's post on Friday (and if you haven't read it yet, go and do so now; I'll wait) got me to thinking. The video of Harry Crews discussing what is and is not "art" really stirred all sorts of feelings in me. 

I agreed with everything he said--particularly about not enjoying writing, but loving having written--until he started defining what he did as being an "artist." Now, I'm not arguing for a moment that Harry Crews isn't an artist. 

What I'm saying is that I'm not an artist.

In the tradition of other great cowards, I'm going to qualify that statement even further: I am not suggesting that what I do isn't art in the broadest sense. In other words, I'm not saying that other authors who write the same kind of book as I do are not artists. I make no such claim for anyone other than myself.

All I can say for sure is that when I'm writing, which is most of the time, what I'm doing doesn't feel like creating art. It feels like a job, a craft. Sometimes it resembles a magic act, pulling out certain tricks that will get the point across. Other times it's a question of allowing the characters enough freedom to do what they're going to do and not getting in their way too much.

In any event, typing away with "Feel the Sun" by The Goldbergs in my headphones doesn't really seem to be the sort of solitary, solemn, serious and immortality-seeking activity art is "supposed" to be.

Part of this statement, of course, is tied to the fact that I can't really tell you much about art. I'll go to museums with my wife because she loves them, but I'll tell you the truth--I get nothing out of it. We went to Rome in 2006 and saw works by Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo and probably another Ninja Turtle, and while I admired the craft as something I sure as hell couldn't do, the emotion of it, the story, the message the artist was trying to communicate, all that was lost on me. Some of them were very pretty, though.

The same is true of the works I've seen by Picasso, the operas by... anybody, the great novels of Melville, Hemingway, Hawthorne and some Dickens (he could spin a tale). It's a mystery to me. There are things universally accepted as classic and artistic, and I'll prefer to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark again or re-read Flanagan's Run by Tom McNab. Or listen to The Goldbergs.

I fully accept that this is a failing of my own. I've seen many great paintings (living near New York will help you do that), and never viewed one that I didn't feel would have been better if it could have moved. I wanted the rest of the story. One frame out of a movie, no matter how brilliantly composed, never really reaches me.

This, I'm guessing, infuses my view of my own work. I read over things I've written, and I have ego enough (believe me) to enjoy them when there's enough distance between my typing "THE END" and the reading. I think I'm pretty good at what I do. I think more people should read my books. I think I fill a need.

But art? What the hell is art, anyway?

P.S. OLD HAUNTS by E.J. Copperman will be published in 29 days. I don't feel like it's art, but maybe you have a different definition. I hope it's a good story well told.

P.P.S. Pitchers and catchers report in 41 days.

Theatre, Writing, and Pictures of My Dog

Jeff Cohen

New York: One day we Garden Staters are going to be condescended to one time too many, remember you live on an island, and cut you off. I'm just saying.

First of all, for those who have been asking, we went to see THE ARTIST on Christmas Day. It was very good, different (clearly), inventive. My life did not change in a significant way, but I enjoyed it, and that's enough. Later in the week we went to see Lysistrata Jones on Broadway. Fun, breezy, very well performed. Not getting nearly enough press.

On to new business:

*I'm writing something new, without a contract, just for myself (until I finish it and send it to Josh). Not a mystery, not like anything that's come before. And it's scaring the living hell out of me. (No, it's not horror. It won't scare YOU...)

*I've been listening to music lately by Paul Melancon and The Goldbergs. Leave it to me that my "new music" is five-to-eight years old.

*Far too many of the artists I listen to are now dead. Last year I lost Gerry Rafferty and Phoebe Snow. To go with George Harrison, John Lennon, Jim Croce, Eric Woolfson, Harry Chapin, Harry Nilsson, Elliot Smith and Cass Elliott (among others), that's just too much. This is part of getting older, and like most of getting older, I could do without it.

*I can't wait for Wednesday, just so I won't have to hear about Iowa again for another four years. Except when my wife talks about her college years.

*On January 1, the New York Times printed a special section on the Oscars. Dear New York Times: That's too soon. I can still remember who won some of the awards last year.

*I won't be going to Malice Domestic this year. I'm sorry about that; I wish I could go, but it's not possible. The travel budget won't allow it, and it happens to fall on the weekend of my 25th wedding anniversary. I like being married more than I like being an author, so I'll be back at Malice in 2013. Probably not as the guest of honor, but that's understandable.

*Winter break is just long enough to get used to having the kids back home. They they go back to school and we go through the whole "empty nest" thing again. It's cruel, in a weird way.

*Dear Dick Clark: Retire.

*I've been digitizing family photos, and therefore have been looking through every picture we've pretty much ever taken. What's interesting is how the dog has aged. His snout is now almost all white. It's a preview of coming attractions for my beard.

*Where's Old Zealand? (If this is to be believed, it's an island off Denmark.) 

*To Whomever is in charge of weather: What we're getting in the Northeast right now is just fine. Don't change a thing. Until April.

*Just to mention it: OLD HAUNTS by E.J. Copperman will be published five weeks from tomorrow. A to-the-second countdown can be found here. But who's counting?

*Pitchers and catchers report in 49 days. 

*Getting ready to teach again, starting next week. I always get nervous ahead of time. Isn't that odd?

*Got an amplifier for my acoustic 12-string as a gift. Had no idea how frightening it would be to actually hear what it sounds like when I play.

*I don't understand the animosity toward the Post Office. Who else is going to carry something of yours across the country for 45 cents?

*My son's enthusiasm is persuading me that I should take a look at DOCTOR WHO. Not sure if or when I will, but his opinion is usually pretty valid.

*Josh Getzler is a really good agent. Shannon Jamieson Vazquez is an incredibly talented editor. The readers I hear from are enthusiastic and intelligent. I am really lucky.

*For those who responded: My son Josh's film SCAVENGERS has exceeded the budget amount he was hoping for--we're blown away by the response. Thank you all. Shooting will begin right after OLD HAUNTS publishes in February.

No, These Are NOT Opinions.

Jeff Cohen

1. Best Enterprise captain? Kirk.

2. Best band? Beatles.

3. Best Bond? Connery.

4. Best director? Hitchcock.

5. Best team? Yankees (I'll allow for bias here, plus 27 championships).

6. Best Yankee? Gehrig. Seriously. Look up the numbers; they're frightening.

7. Best computer? Apple.

8. Best state? The one you live in.

9. Best religion? No such thing.

10. Best political party? Independent.

11. Best American president? Lincoln.

12. Best stand-up comedian? Cosby.

13. Best television comedy? The Dick Van Dyke Show.

14. Best writing method? Yours.

15. Best American novel? That's a stupid question.

16. Best novel ever? See previous answer.

17. Best movie? There are literally hundreds.

18. Best Beatles album? Rubber Soul.

19. Best Marx Brother? Harpo. 

20. Second best (very close to being best) Marx Brother? Groucho.

21. Best Marx Brothers movie? Any from ANIMAL CRACKERS to DUCK SOUP.

22. Best current screenwriter? Aaron Sorkin.

23. Best screenwriter ever? Bill Goldman or Ernest Lehman.

24. Best action movie? RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

25. Best STAR WARS movie? STAR WARS. No, there's no such thing as A NEW HOPE.

26. Best sport? Baseball.

27. Best sexual position? In favor.

28. Best actor? Bogart.

29. Best actress? Not sure there's just one. Hepburn (K.), Jean Arthur, Blythe Danner... I could go on. 

30. Best TV drama? The West Wing.

31. Best Hitchcock movie? NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

32. Best ice cream? Why, is there a bad one?

33. Best current TV show? The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

 

I'm sure no one disagrees. Right?