Booksellers

Posted on June 25, 2013 by gumbywan

Another quickie, this time more serious but still delivered in my always erudite yet entertaining style. Barnes and Noble (B&N from here on out) looks like it is on the ropes and may even go the route of Borders; big losses and a prediction of more big losses. Not good. However there might be a silver lining to this which I will elucidate later.

B&N has made all the wrong moves IMHO, some of which I will speak of here. First, the Nook Tablet: B&N failed to capitalize on it when it was ahead of Kindle Fire in the e-book market. Also, although nobody else seems to pick up on this, Nook Tablet lack of apps versus the Kindle Fire and lack of ability to load third party Android apps on it (Kindle could do this, at least at that time). To a techy like me this was a killer for B&N’s tablet reader (I actually own both the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet so I kinda know what I’m saying here). There was no way the Nook was going to catch the Kindle even with B&N’s in store presence.

Second, Nook’s more limited e-book catalog and B&N’s clumsy and unattractive site. These are additional killers for me although from time to time I find Nook titles ahead of Kindle and some books on Nook that are not in the Amazon catalog (weird).

Third, too much floor space dedicated to non-book crap (see above) and Nook without compensating for the more limited book floor space. A lot of investor and marketing types would disagree with me but I’m right even without the MBA. I’m a real customer. I love books, especially real ones. The only advantage B&N has over Amazon is brick and mortar stores. You simply cannot browse books at Amazon despite the “Look Inside” feature. Some people, the kind that go to bookstores (dummy MBA), like to touch books; like to smell, feel, and peruse a few of the tomes. B&N corporate types think that by putting more non-book and Nook crap, and fewer real books in the stores they will boost sales. Readers shun most of this crap and non-reader knuckle draggers don’t go into bookstores unless they are those idiots in the cafe with laptops and tablets that pretentiously pretend to be writing the next Great American Novel (they only ever buy one drink and take up all the good tables all day). But I digress… Even the readers who do the “browse, scan, and switch to Amazon” usually can’t help leaving the store with something if they could find anything they might be interested in. Book lovers are suckers for the impulse buy.

Fourth, I think B&N devotes too much space to the wrong genres, not because I hate those genres but because they don’t sell in BOOKSTORES. For instance, I know Paranormal Romance is supposed to be a big thing with teens and young women (I think some older women are sneaking these in too). I never see anyone browsing this space in the store. They must be getting these books elsewhere, probably WalMart or Target or Sams. At the same time I always see someone (or two) in the Graphic Novel section which they have squeezed down to two shelf columns. Now I’m no fool, unlike B&N merchandising types; B&N is trying to appeal to the wrong demographic. The average (and remember 50% of the people are ALWAYS below average for anything) WalMart customer never sets foot in a bookstore. I know I have two B&Ns and many WalMarts in my metro area and I have utilized both. (I hate WalMart. It has to be the grimmest shopping experience on earth. I have more fun at Sams Club.). Just scan the crowds, you’ll see what I mean. But the dummies at B&N just look at sales numbers from publishers and “the buzz” in the business. They are ultimately too lazy to go walk around in stores and do a POS stint to absorb the obvious.

Expect a lot of store closures. I know in my town where there are two B&Ns one has gotta close soon. A good feeding frenzy for book buyers who want short term bargains and all that crap in the front of the store.

I promised you a silver lining and I’m not here to disappoint (heh, heh, heh). Independent bookstores, the ones that managed to stay open, should get a boost from a B&N demise unless Amazon decides to get into bricks & mortar in a big way. I don’t think the latter is likely once they knock off B&N. The independents will be the only place where the real book lover can go to handle a real physical book (besides the few BAMS). Now independent bookstores have their own set of problems, like lack of focus on small presses and/or regional printed matter and an over-reliance on big publishers. Most of these problems are caused by bookstore owners with blinders on or an old notion of the market. Most should have some on-line presence in addition if they are going to survive.

Man Oh Man look at where we are! I said this would be quick and it wasn’t but you are getting used to me disappointing you (heh, heh, heh). Since it’s topical, soon to spoil like rotten fruit, I’ll publish it now. I usually sit on these pearls for awhile and I actually have a few, okay one, in the hopper so I can hone what is already an almost perfect blog post, but your brain will explode if I unleash too much profound knowledge too fast.

Go buy a real book from a real store before it’s too late! Oh, and the Blackhawks won the Lord Stanley Cup!

Physical Fitness

Posted on June 24, 2013 by gumbywan

By now you’ve probably started to model your life around this blog. That’s what I’m here for. Between my Grandfather and myself, we know pretty much everything there is to know, so relying on this blog when making big life decisions is a good thing for you to do. That’s what I’m here for. Ooops, already said that. Well you know what they say about repetition being the…

Let’s now turn our weary heads to look at something I’ve begun to notice: those little oval stickers on cars that say “13.2” or “26.4.” It’s a secret code between a secret society of fitness nuts that we, the slovenly, are not supposed to know. Except they really do want us to figure this out so we can ask them: “When did you run your last half-marathon?” or something like that. For some stupid reason these people put this magic number on their car or t-shirt and we are supposed to be clever enough to break their code and realize that 13.2 is how many miles are in a half-marathon. So what? Why didn’t they just put a sticker on their car that said “Ask me about how I ran my last half-marathon?” No, I’m supposed to play dumb and say: “Hey, What’s that 13.2 sticker for?”

First, yours truly has zero interest in your current jag of ego-stretching self-torture that you like to call fitness. Second, I know nothing about it. I don’t know or want to know anything about your shoes, your special running shorts, your iPhone running app, your running social network, your training regimen. Remember you are talking to someone who has zero interest already in spectator sports where they actually keep score, so watching, hearing, thinking about a little thing like running faster has no appeal; especially listening to your self-torture sagas, isn’t on today’s to-do list.

I used to try to run. Actually ran a few races but I found I hated it. I have some physical debilities which we won’t go into here that makes running a pretty painful and unrewarding experience anyway. Let’s call it a physical limitation. That got me thinking about exercise and physical fitness in general.

Exercise is always painful. It is always harder to do than not do, as Hamlet or Yoda would say. I mean what’s so bad about being lazy? Why are we so crazy about exercise? We take the idea of a pleasant walk hither and yon to some extreme painful sweating, pounding, breathing, agonizing speed obsession. There you have it. “I can run a Marathon just like some Greek messenger with a Post-it Note did a coupla thousand years ago.” Big deal! They didn’t have cell phones back then so this was pretty much the only form of speedy communication. Pick up the phone! Why do we imitate this poor sucker who probably had to do this or he wasn’t getting any dinner?

It makes me feel better…

What? You felt better while you were trying to come up that steep hill at 10 mph than you would have if you had been sitting with me having a few watching Spongebob Squarepants? I don’t think so. Oh you meant afterwards, like when you puke your gravy at the finish line and have to drink only Gatorade for two days straight to get rid of that headache and the trots. That feelin’ better. I tell you what, I feel a little winded when I get up to get another cold one from the fridge, so why don’t you put on those fancy shoes you just bought and get me a brew and then we’ll both be feelin’ a whole lot better.

So now we have established the universal rule that all exercise that’s going to be “good” for you is also going to be painful and boring while you are doing it.

Our next hurdle:

You’ll live longer…

Yeah, so you can torture yourself with more marathons. Here I introduce the science of the “life extension equation.” The principle is simple: exercise effort time (feelin’ bad time) has to be less than life extension time for exercise to be a net gain in life. So, say I run a marathon in four hours (what is a reasonable time? doesn’t matter just for example), if my life is extended by only four more hours I want my money back. See 4 hours of pain = four hours longer life is the game breaker. If I can’t at least get more life extension than time I’ve spent in exercise hell then I’m a loser.

Well this is easy, sure you’re gonna get more than four hours of life back for running that marathon (versus Spongebob + Beer). Now wait a minute. The devil is in the details. How do we define the feelin’ bad time, the torture time? Is it only the actual exercise time, or is it something else? Maybe we should include the training time, or the warmup time, or the time it took to drive, fly, bike to the event. But hey, those were all “feel good time” life wasters, weren’t they. Yeah sure. But were they as good as they could have been? (Spongebob + Beer) To be fair you’ve gotta include all the time you spent jogging, preparing, training, shopping, etc. for the marathon as bad feelin’ time. No way were they as fun as Spongebob+Beer time.

I’m pretty sure when you total it all up you would have been better off in the old life extension equation spending your time with me watching Spongebob and drinkin’ beer.

So I don’t run, I don’t go to any gym, I don’t own any exercise equipment (=clothes racks). When I go for a walk it’s to get somewhere, or listen to the tweet tweets (Mother Nature), or an excuse to listen to an audiobook or some loud music my family hates. I don’t wanna live longer if it includes some self flagellation ritual I have to exchange daily for my life to be extended.

Because I figure when I go there are going to be three options: nada, Spongebob+Beer, or a Treadmill machine and I won’t get to pick when the so-called inevitable comes at whatever time of life. I’ll know when I get there if I’ve been good.

I Told Ya So…

Posted on June 20, 2013 by gumbywan

Just a quickie here. “Ethics” was kind of a special edition because of some muckraking and yellow journalism that just couldn’t wait. I’ve gone over this post four or five times and every fact is dead true. There isn’t a lie or exaggeration in it. Pretty good for one of my posts, huh?

Well I’m feeling pretty good today. Why? For one the Dunbar thing went down just as I predicted. “Willy” is the “monthly read” from now ’til August something in Literary Darkness on GR (lends a new meaning to darkness). So I’m only one for one you say. Oh no effendi, I’m batting two for two today. Go back and look at “Suckers” from a week or so ago, then look at the DJIA today, then look at your 401K. Was it chicken day at your house? The farmer didn’t bring any chicken feed today did he? And your investments are also going to look like chicken feed if you don’t do something about it real soon. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so. BTW I bailed out last Friday. I’m feeling like the cat that ate the canary.

Ethics

Posted on June 19, 2013 by gumbywan

Robert Dunbar is a really good writer. Most people would categorize his writing as horror but he would chafe a bit at that. He is a genre bender and his prose is on the literary side along a sort of Hemingway path. Good Stuff. I think his novel Willy is brilliant. I liken it to A Catcher in the Rye. His short story collection Martyrs and Monsters is excellent. Buy it. Buy both of them right now, you won’t regret it. I own all of his books.

Now I come to the theme of my present post. Mr. Dunbar and I have had a little disagreement, let’s call it a matter of ethics. Nothing illegal going on here, let’s get that straight also. Mr. Dunbar is a moderator for a little group called Literary Darkness on the ego-driven biblio-social network GoodReads, which is now owned by Amazon I might add. Now this group has a monthly book reading. The group sort of nominates a book and we sort of vote on it and read it and discuss it that month. Kinda cool for a swell-head like me. Some time ago the group read Dunbar’s story collection Martyrs and Monsters. Well and fine. This month the chattering in the monthly reading thread was trending towards picking another of Dunbar’s books, a brilliant novel entitled Willy.

There is a little “cult of personality” going on in this group as well. Robert doesn’t encourage it but he doesn’t discourage it either. He’s a big time, okay not Stephen King big, but bigger than all of us are, writer and pretty good. It’s not his fault that the masses don’t go for class. But on the other side intelligent members of this group do fawn just a bit at Mr. Dunbar’s feet. He’s polite, responsive, a good moderator, and answers all queries which is a big deal to fans of a real talented writer.

Well your’s truly starts to smell something fishy in Denmark. I jump into the thread and say Robert’s a good guy and his books are good and all, but doesn’t it seem a little funny that another of Dunbar’s books (he only has 7) is coming up in this group as a monthly read. Now I don’t accuse Robert of priming this at all. He’s not pumping it. But he also is not politely bowing out. See where I’m going?

There are well over a thousand people in this reading group. It is not called Robert Dunbar’s Reading Group, it is called Literary Darkness. A group called Robert Dunbar’s Reading Group should read Mr. Dunbar’s books just like the Robert McCammon group reads all of Robert McCammon’s books. See I’m from Chicago and a big fan of calling a spade a spade and not messing around. No hidden agendas here.

Well, Dunbar deletes my post. It’s gone. Pfffft. He doesn’t tell me in the group or privately that he has done this evil thing. I notice it when I go back to the thread to see the new posts. It’s just gone. Now you know me, I never get excited. Mr. Dunbar and I have a terse private exchange of messages when I call him out, also in private. I ask what’s the deal? He basically says that the group has been clamoring for this for two years. So what, that is not the point. Taking the high road when both the high and low are offered is the point. Are we getting anywhere? There is also an intimation, no, more than an intimation, that yours truly is a little too negative. Hmmm. So the world of literary criticism and discussion is supposed to be fairies and rainbows (see below) especially when it comes to Mr. Dunbar’s creations?

If this goes down, as I think it will, and it will, it will (how much wood woulda woodchuck chuck..?) just be too bad. I don’t have any heroes anymore but I would expect an intelligent and talented person who certainly appears to not be a hypocrite to take the high road when it is offered. Start a separate group to discuss Dunbar’s books. Start a “Buddy Read” with the author as moderator on the side, but don’t intentionally or unintentionally hijack the whole Literary Darkness group monthly read when it smells of merchandising and not literary criticism.

Lighten Up

Posted on June 19, 2013 by gumbywan

Some people have taken umbrage at my musings about Bluegrass Music. Apparently these folks take life so seriously that they think my opinion 1) matters to anyone, 2) is to be taken as 100% at face value. Now seriously folks, the operative term here should be sarcasm. Bluegrass musicians are some of the most accomplished folk musicians in the world. I can appreciate their talent while at the same time I cannot bear to listen to them. It just isn’t my gig. I hate it. My apparently feeble attempt at humor in the piece was so lame that it was misconstrued as the ravings of a hydrophobic dog on Bluegrass music. Either I didn’t write things very well or you are not the sharpest tool in the shed. I know which one I’m going to bet on.

Now seriously, how can anyone take life so damn, well, seriously? Daily life is usually the most humorous thing imaginable. I mean unless the current situation in front of you involves death or you losing everything then it’s not fodder for tears. Make a joke. Have a laugh. Lighten up. People are always running up to me saying: “It’s a nightmare.” “We’re doomed.” “We’re porked.” I always ask: did anyone die? Did anyone go out of business. Did the ground just open up and swallow someone? No. I say: “Well this is just the first sign that the apocalypse is imminent.” The conference room goes quiet. Everyone in the immediate group is dead serious. About what? The world’s going to end! Again, I don’t think so. Lighten up.

There is enough grim news in the real world so your sorry insignificant little problems are a source of laughter for me and they should be for you. See the humor in the everyday occurrences. See the humor in your useless job. See the humor in your whacked out family, see the humor in the fact that you have no idea why you do 95% of the things you do, see the humor in that driver texting and fixing her hair at the same time. Bill Monroe (rest his soul) will still be there when you get back. In all seriousness folks, lighten up!

Comb Over

Posted on June 10, 2013 by gumbywan

What’s the deal with comb overs? You know those guys like Donald Trump et al that take a huge hunk of hair from the side of their heads and whip it over the top and then sweep it back so they can try to fool people they are not bald. Maybe if you asked them they would say that they weren’t trying to cover a bald spot but really want to style their hair that way. That’s what Trump would probably say. It’s the same thing with the rug-up-top (“Oh, it looks so natural I never would have known!”). Nobody wants the rug. Nobody wants the comb over.

And nobody wants to style their hair like a comb over. If they did then guys that still had a full mop would be doing the same thing: shave their heads except for one side and let it grow real long, like 16 inches, and then do the over and back thing with it. Did you ever see anyone with a full head of hair do that? I didn’t think so.

There are various disadvantages to each chrome remedy; the lid can just blow away, then there’s the swimming and shower problems, what to do with it during sex, etc. At least the comb over is gonna stay put, sorta.

The technical problems with the comb over are fluid transport and gravity. At some point there is going to be a hurricane or a tornado or you’ll be getting out of a helicopter and then it’s either in your eyes and mouth or it’s trying to imitate old glory. Either way, it’s not a pretty sight. You end up looking like a Misfits fan with a devil lock hangin’ down in front.

Why not just embrace the cue ball? Either shave it so the leftovers aren’t weird or just shave it all. Baldo is cool now. All sorts of guys, even guys with a full crop shave their head. Black men have a real advantage here since they have the pigmentation to really pull it off well. White guys, and the paler the worse it is, have that funky pink, pasty, potentially spotty dome to deal with. However, it still grooves sometimes. Get a tan and it sits better.

Some guys do have a physical disadvantage here and for them the situation is hopeless; guys that were attacked by an ax murderer at some previous time or guys that ate too much MSG before we knew that it gave you swell-head, for example. They are doomed to wear some freaky scar on the top of their heads that looks like a second mouth or people start whispering about “The Hills Have Eyes” when they’re around. But nobody said the universe is fair and a comb over is not going to change that.

What do guys think they are doing with a comb over? Who are they trying to impress? Unless you have a lot of money you are invisible to teenage girls no matter what you look like once you pass the magic three-oh, so why bother with them? Chicks your own age are starting to have their own high mileage issues so you are better off there, but really when you get in bed they are not going to wanna see that huge hunk of hair hangin’ in their face. The pool is going to be off limits too. And kite flying.

Face it and go with it. Stop looking the fool when you try to fool everyone. Whatever little you’ve got make it so it doesn’t go berserk in a high wind and make you look like Viktor Frankenstein.

Faster and Louder

Posted on June 6, 2013 by gumbywan

It’s a well known fact that all music is better when played faster and louder, just like all music is better if it includes robot voices. From punk rock to opera to new age I listen to all my music at an ear shattering volume, always have. My kids tell me I’m going to lose my hearing to which I always reply: “What?” I figure at my age if I haven’t lost all my hearing by now it doesn’t really matter if I go partially deaf later. When I die I will either not care or get to listen to all the music I want to at an ear shattering volume.

My family hates my music. My wife used to share some of my interests but gradually has spurned almost everything I like. She moved on to the one music that almost nobody actually likes: Bluegrass. I hate banjos. I hate them in any kind of music not just Bluegrass but this probably is at least partially the reason I hate Bluegrass so much. For instance, I hate Bela Fleck. I wouldn’t care what he played, I’d hate it because it has banjos in it. I have extrapolated this to the generalization that nobody really likes Bluegrass music even though for some reason nobody will say so. I think it’s one of those things like asking a group of people where they want to go eat and nobody says anything even though they each have a place they really want to go. Somebody ends up picking somewhere that everyone else hates but nobody will say they don’t want to eat there because they think everyone else does. Does that make any sense? So people are afraid to say they hate Bluegrass because they don’t want to offend anyone even though they all really hate it.

I tried to give my children a good musical education with healthy doses of bands like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Depeche Mode, The Toy Dolls as well as a side dose of classical music. It stuck for awhile. My oldest daughter still has tastes that are the closest to mine but I also find some of her music just noise and too avant-garde for my childish tastes. My middle daughter pretty much only listens to Asian pop music, K-Pop, J-Pop, etc. She’s in Japan now for study abroad so you can imagine she is in seventh heaven. My youngest daughter listens to Broadway musicals, Barbara Streisand, Judy Garland, you get the picture. I can stand these in small doses only. So you can see my comprehensive musical education had little to no effect on them, although my middle daughter once told me, “Nobody likes Bluegrass,” so some things were not completely ignored.

Faster and louder is the same way. Everyone really likes their music played faster and louder and with robot voices in it too, but are afraid to say it because they think everyone else will think they are stupid. If everybody would just ‘fess up, somebody take the first courageous step, then the music that gets played on the radio for instance would get a lot better when they started playing the music people really want to hear instead of say, singer-songwriter stuff.

So that’s why I’m here, to tell the truth in this blog. I have now taken that first courageous step. All you sheep can now feel safe jumping on my bandwagon and admitting what you really like.

I gotta go now and listen to some Teenage Bottlerocket.

Suckers

Posted on June 4, 2013 by gumbywan

We’re all suckers. Everyone of us; marks, dupes, half-wits, morons, dumb-asses, you name it. Why, because the universe doesn’t actually work the way we think it does nor the way everyone told us, even in academia, it does. The real why is outliers; unpredictable and profound ways the future does not resemble the past. And sometimes you cannot avoid it. That’s why we’re all suckers.

Take the chicken for example. For 1,000 days the farmer brings it food; every day food, and even more food each day as it grows bigger. The chicken likes the farmer, he even tries to get at the front of the line when he comes out to feed the other chickens because then you get even more chicken feed. Then on day 1,001 the farmer comes out and chops off his head. The chicken is a sucker, a mark, a fool. Why? Obvious right. In hind sight, even though the farmer never came out with a cleaver to cut anyone else’s head off in the past 1,000 days, he shoulda known this could happen. Right. We’re that smart. Suckers.

In fact the chicken should have been trying to escape from the coop those 1,000 days instead of being at the front of the line so he could be the first sucker, every minute of those 1,000 days, escape, at least when he was fat and happy he should have been trying to get out of that coop and get away. He shoulda seen it comin’ just like we would have. Right? Serves him right, the sucker.

We would have known better. We would have taken a lesson from the past and applied it to life today and avoided being the sucker. Right. Suckers.

I’ll give one example: the real estate bubble that popped in 2008 and took the world economy into “The Great Recession.” Everyone lost their retirement savings, pension fund savings were depleted, even world governments (Iceland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain) went into the dumper. In hindsight we shoulda, woulda, coulda, avoided this. We shoulda known everyone wasn’t going to live in Las Vegas or Dublin eventually. We shoulda known those nebulous mortgage backed securities were potentially pretty shaky. Right. Suckers.

In fact, we had an advantage over the chicken, we actually had prior knowledge that this could happen. Remember the Internet bubble in 2000? Everyone’s gonna want to buy their dog food on-line eventually. Right. Look up “Tulip Mania” for an example a long, long time ago. Go ahead, Google it, this’ll still be here when you’re done. Alright, everyone (no one) back? Suckers.

Outliers, I finally get to my point. History, economics, politics, even science, just about everything is ultimately mainly because of the outlier (head chopping day), not the average (feeding day). Most of our hindsight is worthless. Those nice rising graphs about Pets.com stock. Worthless, all stocks tend to rise in a rising market. Tomorrow is going to be just like yesterday. The graphs tell us so. Financial advisors tell us so, politicians tell us so, historians tell us so, and even some scientists (THEY should know better) tell us so. When they make their graphs they omit the outlier, (That was just one day. Look at the trend, that can’t happen again, it’s too far out of the norm. Something was wrong that day. And the real kicker: The numbers don’t support it!) we can safely ignore it. If anyone says any of these things to you, get as far away as possible from them. They’re suckers and they want to make you one. Blood sucking vampires and werewolves that will change you into one of them overnight. A sucker.

History is the facts conveniently packaged where the historian decides in hindsight what to include and what to ignore (If you don’t believe read the basis for the criticism of most history papers) and combines them into a linear narrative and almost always they will ignore the outlier when predicting the future from that past history. Life isn’t linear, it’s real bumpy and dominated by the outlier. Numbers that work in the idealized realms of science (sometimes, be careful) and mathematics don’t work in the squishier realms of the real world. Suckers.

Why is this relevant now? Simple: The Dow Jones Industrial Average, DJIA. Look at the graphs and then throw them away. Don’t be a sucker. But most of you will keep on being suckers, the sheep herded every day by the media, advisors, politicians, city councilmen, the doom sayers. You’re gonna keep your mutual fund in the stock market too long. But don’t worry because even if it crashes things will get better, they always do, and it can’t happen again anyway. It never did before, sucker.

If you have the slightest interest in this and how to potentially not be a sucker please read

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He conveys it so much better and in a more entertaining style. I never had an original idea in my life so that’s where it came from.

On your marks, get set, (fill in the blank)

Posted on May 31, 2013 by gumbywan

I joined GoodReads a couple of years ago and toyed with some other runner and fitness social networks and the whole thing got me started on thinking about the entire topic of ego-driven social networks and the strange range of behaviors they elicit from various people. I should have known from my experience in amateur radio that ego-driven social networks were going to let me down.

In 1994 I became a licensed amateur radio operator. I had always had an interest in listening to exotic broadcasts via shortwave or am radio (most of this is gone with the internet now), but I thought it might be fun to be able to actually talk on the radio, so to make a long story short I did all the things necessary and was issued an amateur radio license by the FCC in the good ol’ USA. Now I could get On The Air as they say. I wanted to talk to people all over the world about all sorts of interesting things. I was soon disabused of this fancy. All amateur radio operators wanted to talk about was their radio, or setup as it were, and how many different places they had briefly contacted. That was it. Most people just wanted to “log” me as a contact after a brief howdy-do and move on. Nobody wanted to talk about the historical aspects of Russian literature or even what the country they were in was like. Nothing. Nada. Dead boring. In my whole time when I was “active,” and this spanned years, I only had two interesting conversations and these were with missionaries in South America. Dudes that were way out in the real jungle. Joseph Conrad stuff. Cool. Needless to say I lost interest although I do renew my license every decade and could still rig up a set with a car battery and an antenna in an emergency.

So a few years later here comes the internet. Social networks. Cool places where people from all over the world could talk about stuff and really have a global society and a global conversation. Scratch that. All people wanted to talk about was recipes or how their dog just did something funny or they just got porked by their boyfriend. No Russian Literature, no sharing of the music of my country. Grandkids! Nothing interesting or mind expanding. Nada. Zilch.

Needless to say I “lost interest.” I still like seeing my nieces and nephews and how cute your cat is and how religious fanatics in Claptrap, Texas are persecuting United Way volunteers, really, but that only goes so far, and not very.

Now here comes ego-driven social networks, first mostly around fitness and running and other destructive compulsive behaviors like that. But a few start cropping up around music and video games and wow, books! Now finally I have found it, what I’m looking for, somebody who wants to converse globally about the historical development of Russian literature, and so forth: GoodReads. I put my modest reading accomplishments into the system in a flurry. I have up till now mostly kept track of this to avoid reading something twice (life is too short). I never cared about how many pages I read or how many books in a year. Sometimes I like to live more than I do read. I joined Groups I was interested in, got Friends with similar interests (from looking at their books), read the books my “Groups” were reading. Tried to start some conversations about say “the transcendent in Stephen King.” Guess what. Nada. Zilch. Almost nothing. So what did I find? The same thing I saw on Facebook: recipes, games, jokes, lists, nonsense, everything except a serious conversation about what was in a book. Even in Groups that were supposed to have topics I was exposed to things like “The Family Feud” game. Don’t you have anything better to do, like maybe read?

After a few months I figured out what the primary driver of these networks was: how many damn x’s you could do in y. In GR’s case essentially how fast you read. In my case, how much of my dreary life I devoted to reading. 85% of the population on GR only lists and rates their books. That’s it. Something you could accomplish on a spreadsheet. Few ever review anything. Fewer ever give input to any meaningful book discussion. This didn’t make reading more fun or interesting, now it seemed like a task. For the first six months I did learn a lot because I had fallen out of keeping up with my favorite genres and subjects, but after this time I had most of the primary sources locked into my search that I rarely used GR to find anything. I never read reviews before reading a book I know I want to read. I rarely look at one after I read a book. Think about it, why would you? Occasionally you can find someone who is seriously interested in a book but most of the in-depth reviewers are more interested in garnering their own shabby little accolades and not conveying any useful information. I do look at ratings sometimes but ratings are so manipulated and my tastes run so counter to the mainstream that I don’t trust the average GR rater especially if they don’t write a review.

In the end the ego-driven social network like GoodReads appeals to the compulsive introvert. Geeks you might say. People who think it is meaningful or something to be proud of when they simply finish a book. Compulsive list makers who measure their accomplishments in how long the list is or how many things they can tick off of it. This leads to the underlying problem: introverts are not going to open up with their feelings or ideas because they take any disagreement as a personal attack; even on a social network where you don’t have to look ’em in the eye. Hence, few reviews. Introverts lack the self-confidence to engage in conflict, even intellectual ones, and stating an opinion is opening a door to vulnerability.

So I only look at GR once a day maybe or more if I’m stuck in a queue. I do try to write reviews which as you can tell from this blog aren’t the most well written or insightful but I figure if I take the time to log a book I at least can dash off a 5-minute review.

D minus

Posted on May 28, 2013 by gumbywan

Having worked for The Man for most of my life and always attempting to get/do the best I can while not working too too hard, I started to think about the positive aspects of underachieving. Since life has a finite span, why not take it easy and get as much leisure time in as possible? Why work so hard for anything except what you like to do? And if someone’s gettin’ paid to do it, it ain’t called a hobby but another four-letter word that starts with a “w”, and I do not want to have to do it. Besides lowered expectations are the key to never getting disappointed and a happier life in the first place. Aren’t they?

Let me tell you a little, absolutely true story. When I was in High School I knew a guy who was our Zen master. He didn’t know it, but we did. His name was Rob A., but that’s not important. We called him The Dead Man. On a certain day and at a certain time that he could tell you, when roll call for the day was being called, the Dead Man decided not to care anymore. He decided the key to a happy life was not caring. Why this time? Just luck sorta. At roll call or attendance the teachers would always get Rob’s last name wrong. He heard Anders, Anderson, Anthony, Andrews, etc. but never the correct last name. He tried to correct whoever was taking attendance each and every time, to no avail. On this particular morning though Rob decided to become the Dead Man. He just said “Okay” when his name was called incorrectly and life was beautiful, if somewhat more planar in elevations.

The Dead Man had all sorts of interesting consequences to his changes in outlook. He only ever had one new pencil and one sheet of blank paper for that day and if either was lost or stolen would not finish anything else for the day, even tests. When asked why he was turning in a blank test he would reply: “I lost my pencil.” The teacher of course asked him why he didn’t ask to borrow a writing instrument and he would reply: “I lost my pencil and I don’t care.” If this useless train went on for too long the Dead Man would inevitably finish it by saying: “Alright, okay,” and that was it. He was done. He would not speak again on it. He had ceased to care about it or answering the useless question again. Once again a happy Dead Man.

But this is not what made him our Zen Master. I remember the day another friend said we were going to be in the class block with The Dead Man. He said it was going to be great. We couldn’t wait for next Fall (actually we hated school so next Fall could be a millennium away even with the Dead Man in our classes and it wouldn’t be far enough off). Well next Fall came of course and during the first week the teachers were sorting out how things were going to work. The teacher told us and showed us clearly what was going to be necessary to get an A, a B, or a C. Normal stuff except the Dead Man raised his hand. Now this in itself signaled an event of earth shattering importance. The Dead Man never raised his hand. He answers if called upon, but he never volunteers. Never. If he gets things wrong it is the usual “alright, okay.” Anyway, the teacher asks the Dead Man, “Do you have a question, Rob?” And the Dead Man replies with the single most important question you could ask in your life: “How much do you have to do to get a D-minus?” This of course brought the house down, but he was clearly serious. And he was right. He had captured the essence of a fulfilled life: not caring and a D-minus effort.

We were the snooty kids; the “gifted” children in our school so we were in all the “advanced” classes. The Dead Man had figured it out. All he had to do to graduate high school and go to college was get a report card peppered with C’s D’s, and D-minuses. They had to graduate him as long as he didn’t fail, get an “F.” Brilliant! He had perfected, in the academic world anyway, the art of getting by with just the minimum. Just squeaking by. He was going to college no matter what since he was smart. His SAT’s were going to be outstanding (as long as he didn’t lose that pencil) so grades were a non-issue. He was going to the big in-state college anyway. He had two full years ahead of not caring rack time sewn up.

It turned out that actually getting a D-minus was one of the hardest things imaginable. Harder than getting an A. You had to beg for it and that required at least C effort. Teachers loved giving out B’s and C’s and D’s and even F’s but a D-minus was almost impossible to get. The Dead Man actually graduated without getting a single D-minus. It was unattainable. This proves how little a D-minus effort takes. The Dead Man was a pretty smart guy really and even though he never took notes or did any homework he did well above average in school. Tests cinched it for him, unless he lost that damn pencil. However, he had clarified for all of us, for the rest of our lives, the philosophy to follow to maximize happiness: do the absolute minimum to get by, get a D-minus.

So, to make my already long story even longer I began thinking recently how you could apply this principle to every part of your life: work, yard maintenance, car repair, and on and on. The amount of free time it opens up is incredible. I’ve even found a way to solve the unemployment problem in the world. If everyone could embrace the concepts of not caring and just getting by, what I call the D-minus Principle, everyone will be happy, or as happy as someone without cares can be. See what I mean? The other beauty of my system is it’s totally dependent on you alone. You are now pretty much your own boss because instead of putting in all the time and effort to do an A+ job, you are now going to do just enough to do a D-minus job, just enough to not get fired. It has no dependence on your coworkers, your spouse, your church, or anyone else. Whatever they do doesn’t reflect on your D-minus performance. The only effort is the little bit it requires to find out how you can get a D-minus instead of an F. The benefit of the doubt is usually all it takes. In fact, it is to your benefit if only a few people take my advice, but once they see the benefits everyone will want to slouch on board.

Now think about it. If everyone embraced this principle then everything in the world will tend toward a D-minus, just good enough not to fail. This means actually more workers will be needed to do even a substandard job just to get by. You’ll need tons of them to get even the smallest complex task accomplished. Voila, no unemployment. Sure things will get crappier in general, kind of like they used to be in those good ol’ days you’ve been pining for anyway, but hey it doesn’t matter. Example: your car breaks down more because now everything is based on just getting by on the minimum. Where’s the problem? You already don’t care right? That was the first part of the principle. But on top of that you’re trying to do a D-minus job at work and that means weaseling out of the maximum number of days at work without getting fired. You call in, late of course, ’cause you’re sleepin’ in today, and say “Hey my car’s broken I won’t be in today.” Benefit of the doubt remember? In addition your boss is doing a D-minus job so that involves not reporting how many workers are laying out each day and firing you to hire anyone else is going to take at least a C-level effort. The system reinforces itself. Full employment – maximum leisure time for everyone. Perfect.

You know what? I’m not going to even proofread this before I post it and I’m not attaching any photos or links or anything. You know what, I’m going to push the “Publish” button right now. Know why? I wanna watch WWE Raw and kill a few brews. Because I’ve got better things, more fun things, to do now and I’ve already put in a D-minus effort.

Welcome to my dreary life…

Hide the razorblades…

Author Archives: gumbywan