Christopher Moore's Blog

Okay, kids, here it is. You did it once, you can do it again.

A Dirty Job is nominated in the category of best Fiction, best Audio Book, and Best Book of the Year. Be sure to vote in all three categories, and vote early and often:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13737563/

The argument goes, that because he has been a leader in the senate, because he did not personally hold the sword that killed tens of thousands, that he is not accountable. Joe Lieberman is whom I’m talking about, of course.

He got his clock cleaned tonight in the Democratic primary in Connecticut.

But let me remind Joe of another Jewish leader. A guy named Moses, who had also served for many years, and who also accomplished a lot for his people, but because he rebelled against the Lord’s commandment, was not allowed to enter the Promised Land.

Moses, it turns out, was not allowed to run as independent because the Jew thing wasn’t working out for him, and Joe Lieberman should not be allowed to change the race because the race did not favor him. That is a distinctly Republican thing to do, and Joe needs to be smote upside the head for even thinking about it.

And while I’m punishing this metaphor, it turns out that the God of Abraham got his forgiveness on after fourteen-hundred or so years, and he said, “Know what? You repent and say that I’m your one and only, and I’ll give you a pass. And to show you I’m sincere on this, I’ll kill this Jewish kid, who is my son.” (I’m paraphrasing.) So there you go. But there was the repent thing. And believe me, I’m only dragging god into this because Joe drags god into it all the time.

Repent, get redemption.

But Joe didn’t repent. Joe voted for the war. Hell, nearly everybody voted for the war. But when they found out that the reasons they were given for voting for the war were false, and that all the estimates of how the war would be fought and won turned out to be wrong, the smart and ethical people said, “You know what, that was a bad decision. I repent. I’m sorry. I don’t support this war.”

Not Joe.

Know what Joe? You don’t get to go. And as soon as I post this blog, I’m sending a note to the DNC, letting them know that if they support Lieberman from here on out, I’m done with them. No money, no support from me. I’ll write my senators and congressmen, and let them know too, that any support for Lieberman and I’m done with them. I will oppose them and campaign against them if they support this guy.

In early 2000 or maybe it was 99, when Al Gore picked Lieberman for a running mate I was thrilled. I was thrilled because Gore had the guts to pick a Jewish candidate, and I had just spent three years researching and writing Lamb, and I had learned a lot about the Jewish people, and I thought it was courageous thing for Gore to do. Now I have to admit, I had no idea how Lieberman operated. I didn’t know his voting record, and I hadn’t heard him speak, so I guess I was guilty of, what would you call it? Semitism? Yes, I was thrilled just because the guy was Jewish. Mea Culpa. I repent.

I now oppose him, not because of his religion, but because of his actions. The friend of my enemy is my enemy, to turn the phrase around. When someone as visible and powerful in the party as Lieberman was, aligns with George Bush, then sticks with him after he knows the guy has committed crimes against humanity, well, no promised land for you Joe. I seldom post anything quite this personally political, and I may take it down in a couple of days, but for now I’m calling on the eight of you who agree with me about these things, actively oppose Lieberman’s run as an independent in Connecticut. He betrayed the party once, how do you think he’s going to behave once he’s sent to Washington with Republican and Independent votes.

(And how many lame “Say it ain’t so, Joe” headlines are we going to see today? Maybe I’ll be the first one with a lame Moses metaphor, though?)

Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=105568#105568

I finally sent in my new book, so last week I went back to the gym after like five years. This is a real gym, too, not a small town gym, where everyone is old and more out of shape than you, which I sort of liked, by the way. And not like the gym in Hawaii, which was at a golf course, where there were just too many Bush supporters being all proud of what complete sheep they were while they vocally celebrated the ass-fucking that the evil bastard was giving their country. You know, patriots.

No, this is a real gym, with a jillion aerobic machines, and many, many machines that I dont know how to use at all. (I got all tangled up in one today that was either for your deltoids, your hip rotators, or your spinal erectors but evidently I didnt use it right because when I was finished I felt like Id been molested by a Transformer. ) And you dont have to worry about peoples political views because the Night at the Roxbury club music is cranked so loud that you couldnt hear them anyway. (But I must say, its perfect mood music for being molested by a Transformer. Hmmm.)

But thats not what I’m writing about. What I’m writing about, is sporting equipment company icons. We all know the ubiquitous Nike checkmark, and the Adidas three stripes, the Etonic and Asic mass of stripes that look like someone let a kid go with a Spirograph on them. We know Puma, and Pony, and Champion, and the New Balance N. If there’s anything youre going to get in athletic apparel it logoized. I get it. I understand the Pony’s pony, Puma’s puma, they are symbols of speed, agility, athleticism. I get it.

So then this girl goes by while I’m trying to extricate myself from the reverse cross-over simulated booger-flicker machine, which requires like three weeks of David Blaine training to get out of, evidently, because I lost skin and part of an ear, but anyway, this girl goes by, and she,s got a moose on the hip of her sweatpants. (Sorry, workout pants. They would only be sweatpants if they cost less than $80.) No, I was not gawking. I simply noticed. A MOOSE?

No, it wasnt like the team logo for the Northeastern Saskatoon City College fighting Mooses either. No, I would have known that. And it would have been a big Bullwinkle mama-jama, with an antler on either cheek and GO MOOSES prominently printed just below her tramp stamp tattoo of a fairy felating a unicorn that she’s so going to love explaining to her grandchildren. No, this was like a small, logoized moose. And Im thinking, what was the thinking behind that?

As an aside, let me say, that this young woman was in the hip, thigh, bottom department, ample. The moose was not ironic as in "I’m so totally confident in my sinewy elliptically trained low-carb ass, that by putting a moose on my hip you will just laugh — ha, ha." No, this was more of a case of, "Oh my god, theres a moose on my sweatpants, but they were all out of the black and white Holstein model. It doesnt call attention to my size, does it?"

Why? Why? Why? What was the company thinking? They’ll be saying: "Look at the antlers on that chick?" And if even if you use the moose and deer hunter term "rack", the moose was on the wrong part of the outfit.

A gazelle, an impala, even an ibex would be a better athletic symbol, and thats if youre just sticking to the deer family. Hell, a wildebeest would be better, because, — well — I-d just like to see what the whole line of wildebeest athletic wear would look like. And come up with slogans. But that aside, what were they thinking?

I’m not blaming the girl. I’m sure she bought her workout stuff for the same reason I bought my, "Everyone Gets a Hug" built-in athletic supporter workout and incontinence shorts, because they were on the sale rack at Ross. No, I blame the manufacturer.

You guys, clear the inventory and get back to work on the logo design board. May I suggest wildebeest. Or bunnies. Go with that whole sick ,Japanese cute-is-sexy thing. It makes more sense than mooses, for fuck’s sake.

Anyway, that was my day at the gym. Its not that bad. I’m going back tomorrow. With my ear all taped up. (Dont get me started on the shirts with penguins on them.)

Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=105165#105165

So, I have to tell you, I’m a little disappointed. I’ve been on Myspace for over a week now and no one has lured me to a remote location to have sex with me, nor have they lured me to a remote location to rob me, nor has anyone stolen my identity and bought a Boeing 767 and filled it with hookers and cocaine while pretending to be me, despite what is left of a very impressive four-figure credit limit on my Gold Visa. (And they don’t just give those to everyone – you often have to have a pulse.)

I don’t blame MySpace. This is not the first time technology has let me down. Not ten years ago I started playing violent video games. I like to fly my cyber-freak flag from the cockpit of a giant robot, because you have not reigned terror until you have reigned terror down from a 100 tons of rocket-armed Kyoto iron. That’s just the way I roll. But I have also Quaked and Doomed and Wolfensteined, I have Half Lifed and even Warcrafted. I have raised and destroyed Empires, shot peasants out of catapults, (and you have not trebucheted, until you’ve trebucheted a half-dozen medieval milk-maids into the side of the Cathedral at Notre Dame, let me tell you), and kicked a hooker to death in the midst of a little Grand Theft Auto. I have popped hapless noobs in the head with a silenced 9mm., and mowed down platoons of red bastards with a souped-up warthog, but despite promises to the contrary, by congress and people who focus on the family, I am yet to destroy a single city or perpetrate a single massacre in real life. I guess what I’m saying is, where is the love?

I still escort spiders out of the house in a pan kept for that purpose, rather than smashing them. I say excuse me to people on the bus when they bump into me, and when propositioned by the hookers down on Broadway, (which happens a lot, because I am smoking hot ) I always say, “no thank you”. I hardly ever say, “I don’t know–How much to kick you to death?” In fact, the closest thing to violence I have perpetrated in the last year was last week when I was on the phone with a tech support person in Bangalore, who kept reading me the same section out of the manual, despite my telling her eight times that I already tried that, so I told her that when I hung up I was going to go have a burger and I hoped it was her grandma. But Holy Spray-Cheese Jesus on a Cracker, she wouldn’t listen. Still, not really violence.

No, it turns out, according to this Stephen Green* guy and three million Iraqis, the thing that turns young people to violence, (this one will blow you away) is sending them to the desert, giving them a gun, and telling them to go kill people. I feel a little ripped off. I may have to slaughter some Orcs to assuage my bruised psyche.

Nope, I haven’t been molested on MySpace, I don’t have a brain tumor from my cell phone, I have not taken to molesting turtles from exposure to Internet porn, I haven’t joined a Satanic cult from listening to streaming Ozzy, I haven’t kicked a single hooker to death or even stolen a car from playing video games, I haven’t turned into a gelatinous torso-boy from watching TV, I haven’t gotten swept to Nigeria and fleeced of a fortune, I haven’t lost the ability to punctuate and capitalize from texting, and I haven’t had to take in a homeless Metallica band member who was impoverished by MP3 downloads.

My Internet tubes are completely congested with paranoia, and yet none of those things have come to pass. Here I sit, blogging for my eight virtual friends, all of whom are probably pirates, biding their time between stealing software and setting each other on fire and posting it on YouTube, and luring each other to remote locations to trade Shikira bootlegs, while they wait for their Nigerian passports to come through. And all I can say is:

Hey Technology? You lied to me!

Carry on.

(I’m adding here, that in the week that I’ve been on MySpace, I have had no less than fifty technical errors, including trying to post this blog. The biggest lie of technology is is that it will even do what it’s designed to do, let alone change your character. Just make the fucking thing work, okay? You can corrupt me if you have time left over. )

*the psycho soldier who led the gang rape and murder of a 14 year old Iraqi girl and her family. Great column in the Washington Post on him yesterday 8/1/06. Unfortunately, I can’t find the URL to link it.

Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=104358#104358

The smell of rotting hippies filled the air, and it wasn’t helped by the 109 degree temperature. The security and logistics guys all looked like my dad, middle-aged guys, affable and earnest about their work. (I write this, realizing that to the untrained eye, I also look like my dad, but until I walk into the bathroom in the morning, and that old guy in the mirror frightens me, I am always and forever, nineteen in my mind.) The security guys, the guitar technicians the sound engineers, the bus drivers, were all middle-aged and professional, and strangely, not sweating, despite the fact that hell had sprung a leak in Concord and was spewing fire out over the Bay – or maybe that was just my impression.

The bus was outfitted like a spaceship for bored whores. Maybe more masculine. Not so pink. But, you know, nice. Fridge, flat screen and stuff.

“We’re on in eight,” Bill said into the mike on his shoulder. (Bill looks like a strange crossbreeding experiment between Santa Claus and Rambo, and he is no more in his element than when he’s doing logistic work for the band.) He nodded to us and said, “Would love to hang out, but we have to get these guys on in eight minutes.” Then he left the bus.

“We’d better get to our seats,” Susan Nash said. She led us out of the air-conditioned bus into the East Bay version of the inferno, through the back-stage area where more middle-aged guys checked our crew badges, and to our seats. We’d only just sat down when four old guys walked out on the stage and started playing. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, were on tour. Some 38 years after they played at Woodstock, they threw down on Truth and Justice and Freedom — and they were pissed. It rocked.

I was at a lecture once, where I heard the science fiction writer Fredrick Pohl speak, and he was asked, as writer’s always are, if he had any advice for aspiring writers.

“Yes,” he said. “Have something to say.”

Sounds easier than what the student wanted to hear, yet it’s the hardest and truest thing he could have said. For any artist, having something to say is what makes the difference between creating art out of passion, and just marking time. It’s easy enough to get your indignation on when you’re eighteen, twenty, even twenty five, but to have something to say, and to have the skill to entertain and inspire while saying it, well that’s the mark of the vitality of an artist, not how high he can jump or what kind of brain-jarring head-banging he can perform.

But at the age when most of us are either looking for a track-suit embroidered with rhinestone poodles, or considering spending the balance of our being in a bass boat, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are still out there, with something to say, and saying it well. They played for over three hours, and the whole time, you could see the fire in their eyes and their joy in making music, in getting it right.

Great air turbines spewed mist over the stage, as CSNY banged out the first forty five minutes of angry songs, many from Neil Young’s newest album, Living With War.

Well, you guys know that they were preachin’ to the converted – I’ve been fairly vocal about my opposition to this war since before it was a war, and you won’t get on my good side any more quickly than by starting a conversation with, “How did this evil fucktard get elected anyway?” So I can’t pretend to be unbiased about the content, and I really don’t know squat about music, so I can’t comment on that, but I do know something about being an artist, and I’m always willing to learn more, and what I learned tonight was that you have to keep carrying a passion, challenging yourself, getting up in the morning with a purpose, and endurance is defined by maintaining your sense of outrage.

Neil Young looks like he is pissed off when he sings every song – even “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”. He looks like he would kick love’s ass for doing it too, if he didn’t have this concert to play. He’d drown love in it’s own bath water. Fucking love. It’s hard to keep that kind of hard-on well into your sixties, I think we all know that from commercials, yet Neil belts out “Let’s Impeach the President” with every bit as much conviction as he belted out OHIO thirty years ago. (My dad was a highway patrolman working a riot squad at Kent State when the shootings took place, so this song has a special poignancy for me, but I’ll write about that another time.)

When Stephen Stills sings “there’s something happening here”, it gives me chills more now than when I was a kid, and Vietnam was still a very real storm on my personal horizon. When Nash sings “we can change the world” from his song, Chicago, an appeal, years ago, for Stills and Crosby to come to Chicago to benefit the defense of friend who was being persecuted, you know he believes it. I know he believes it. That’s what the fuck he’s doing up there in the first place.

They gave us a breather then, with Nash and Crosby doing the ever so sweet Guinnevere, Stills belting out Southern Cross, Young doing Only Love can Break your Heart, Nash doing Our House, reminding us that these guys are not just a bunch of angry fucks talking about freedom and justice and keeping your kids alive and out of harms way because that’s their schtick — they know why freedom and family are important. (More on this some other time. ) Then they came back with another forty-five minutes of protest and indignation, new songs mixed with old — the old made relevant and vital once again, because, frankly, that same kind of evil shit is going on again.

At first I thought that there was no one under fifty at the concert, but that was largely because we were in the nice seats where you either know someone or you have a buttload of disposable income. But as the concert ended, and everyone cheered, I looked back and there were a lot of kids there too, and instead of the lighters, they were holding cell phones, the blue screens lighting up the whole amphitheater. (Yes, I know it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a concert. Shut up.) Whatever these guys were saying was reaching people across four decades, and here were kids holding up their cell phones, right next to geezers with defibrillators built right into their bongs. I was verklempt.

Like I said, this isn’t a review. I was a guest of Graham and Susan Nash, because Susan is a mad woman and will befriend anyone, so a review would be necessarily biased. What I needed to write, what I was inspired to write, is what I took away from the concert as an artist. I’m about the finish up my tenth book, I’m decidedly beginning the final approach to the great dirt nap, but more than losing my vertical leap, my sub ten-second hundred yard dash time, or my pound railroad stakes into oak beams erections, I worry about losing my edge, about seeing that scary old guy in the mirror some morning and him not having a word to say to me. So that’s what I took away from the CSNY Freedom of Speech Concert. Hope.

You can be vital and creative and passionate and rock the free fucking world was long as you are taking in air, as long as you want. You just have to want it. So thanks guys, for that. Thanks Graham, thanks Susan, thanks Bill, thanks Nile. Carry on.

Comments: http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=103518#103518

It’s gotten to be almost superfluous to note that our president is an embarrassment. From deflecting foreign policy questions with pork allusions, to neck-rubbing the German Chancellor, to reducing the conflict in the Middle East to a "cut that shit out" comment, this week alone could stand as monument to his stupidity, but in the next few days he will crown that stupidity by vetoing the stem cell research bill passed by the senate today.

Just when you thought he couldn’t’ get any dumber, here he comes again, bottle rocket in his ass, ready to fire another round into the sum of human accomplishment.

Today, press secretary Tony Snow said, "The President will not allow any legislation to pass that goes down the slippery slope of taking human life to save human life."

Okay.

So what, exactly, is the rational for the 30,000 civilians dead in Iraq? Wasn’t that taking human life to save human life? (I mean if we believe the Neo-con rap, I"m not even talking about stark reality, I’m talking about drinking the koolaid here.) I’m not even bringing up WMD, "seen as liberators", "the oil will pay for the whole thing", "it will bring stability to the Middle East", and "we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here" rationales. I’m just talking about, "George, why did you have all those people killed?"

And of course, the answer is, "To save them from being killed."

So George Bush will veto a bill, that only allows research on embryos that would be discarded anyway. (From fertility clinics, leftover from families who only like their children in less-freakish litters of five or less.) In other words, he’s not saving anyone. It will be legal to flush them down the commode, or dance the meringue on them, but extract stem cells from them that may possibly save lives? No way. No funding for that.

One more time for the fundies who are chanting "they’re babies, they’re babies". THEY ARE STILL GOING TO BE THROWN AWAY. THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BECOME CHILDREN. THEY ARE GOING TO BECOME SEWAGE.

What’s next, no blood transfusions? No organ transplants? ("Well, yes, he was brain-dead, but he’s potential human life, if someone reanimated him. And even though we’re having him cremated anyway, which would make reanimation really tough, we will not allow his organs to be used to save the lives of a half-dozen people.") This is not reductio ad absurdum, kids. This is a fair analogy. Okay, it’s a little r-a-a, but still…

The fact is, if you want to keep human embryos from being destroyed, then outlaw fertility clinics. Because isn’t fertilizing multiple eggs when you know that only one or two will be implanted in the womb the definition of "destroying human life to create human life"? I mean, you knew you couldn’t use them all, what did you think would happen with the extras?

There is a point where stupidity can be so extreme that it actually becomes evil. (And I define evil here as "behavior that defies reason to cause needless suffering".)

Well, Mr. President, if you weren’t there before, you certainly get on the Evil A-list now. (Although I think killing the 30,000 plus all the coalition troops pretty-much had your spot assured.)

George Bush is in his last term, but you senators and congress-persons who think that you are somehow placating your constituents by not voting for the bill to veto-proof it, well, you are betting on the stupidity of the American people to buy your bullshit again in the mid-terms,(I wonder how many fetuses you can get in a swift boat?) but someone may actually take the time to explain this one to the people, and at that point, even mildly stupid people may still recognize evil when they see it, and may turn on you. We can only hope.

Now, fly my monkeys, explain to your fundie friends that defeating this bill saves nothing, preserves nothing, it is NOT PRO LIFE. It wastes a chance at ending some people’s suffering. Anyone (from either party) who votes against this needs to be taken down in the fall.

I realize I’m stating the obvious here, and I apologize for that, but I needed to vent. You should read Scott Adams’ blog. He’s funny like every day.

Comments? http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?t=8184

Sorry this took so long, kids, I was in Santa Barbara teaching and didn’t have the computer resources or time to get them posted. More to come when I get the time. As you’re already realizing, probably, these bi-atches are big files are and going to take some time to load. Be sure to scroll around… – Chris

MORE TO COME

Comments http://bbs.chrismoore.com/viewtopic.php?p=100402#100402

So, for Fathers’ Day I walked from the Bay Bridge to Fisherman’s Wharf, where I was going to buy crab meat for a salad, but I forgot. I did look at art. I looked at the piece of a welded metal mother and daughter, which they brought in from Burning Man and installed on the Embarcadero; I photographed a morning moon over the Transamerica Pyramid, then Coit Tower, I saw a building that has a four-story bronze monolith in the lobby — so you could kind of do your own 2001 Space Odessy right outside your apartment if you wanted. I looked at paintings and photographs at the Embarcadero Weekend Art Market, and then I went to the Safeway and bought greens, but I did not buy crab meat. I forgot, and I walked back to the Bay Bridge, where we’re staying temporarily. (All Troll Apartments)

Then we drove over the Bay Bridge to see a play, and we got there early, because Charlee thought we might get lost, and there was some kind of festival going on in Berkeley, with a bunch of African Americans drumming and selling African stuff and it was like a big Black flea market. Occasionally some woman would jump in the middle of the drumming circle, and just dance her ass off, and then she wouldn’t. It was very spontaneous and rhythmic and real — and when each round sort of wound down, the drummers seemed to show all manner of expression on their faces, from bliss to anger — as if the drums had dropped them off in different neighborhoods and they’d all been to different parties, despite sharing the same rhythm for the whole time.

Then we went to see King Lear, put on by the Shotgun Players — and it had that sort of "Yes, he plays Cornwall and builds the sets and takes the tickets" feel of a small theater group, and you know what? It fucking rocked! They were so good, and the play was so good, and the language was so good — I was absolutely transported. And because it was Fathers’ Day, it turned out to be sort of an ironic comedy instead of a tragedy.

And I’m sharing this, because I normally don’t do these, "Guess what I did today" entries, because I was just sort of joyous in all the creativity that I saw around me, the beauty, yes, but just the joy of creation — I get that way some times, after spending hours in a great art museum — after a while I start seeing art in everything, I start seeing it in a composition, an image, a juxtaposition, in how an old lady eats her green beans.

That was yesterday.

Today I moved everything I own with three Samoans who were twice my size and half my age, and I’m still buzzing from the art yesterday, even though my hands are cramping so badly I can barely type and my back feels like I’ve been beaten with a baseball bat.

It occurrs to me, that most of the stuff we moved, and there was a metric shitload of stuff, was marked either "office" or "kitchen", and hardly any of it was marked, "bedroom". We spend nearly a third of our life sleeping, but it requires almost no equipment. Are we more perfect when we sleep? Is there something to be said for the lack of device required to put together the stuff from which dreams are made? Hmmmm… I’ll ponder it.

In Dirty Job I use the phrase, "art happens" a couple of time, and I realize, now, that where art happens is in the mind. Art is the temple we build to imagination, and I guess, by seeing the skill and passion that others put into their art, it gives us a glimpse of the god in us all. Who knows, I’m just happy to be here, where people are thinking and creating, and the state of mind it’s putting me in makes me feel like the universe is ringing my bell.