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What I'm Bitching About Today:
#1 The Lady of the (Written in April) As a farmer, I would like to order rain only when I need it. The
ground here is saturated, so this new rain is just making my place look like a model of
the I'd like to place this order with the rain guy. I'd like one inch of rain twice a week through the growing season, with a week of dry weather just before I till. I don't think that's too much to ask. The ground was too wet to till but I did it yesterday anyway because it was as dry as it was likely to be for awhile and I needed to plant. I got some plants in and planted the peas—they go into a hill so too much wet won't do them in. I will have to wait to plant everything else because torrential rains wash out small seeds—you then wind up with a mixture of vegetables all coming up in the lowest part of your garden—and it has a tendency to rot large seeds. My neighbor just tilled a spot for a garden and in fact I've noticed that all around us people who don't normally put in gardens are doing it this year. Why? Because of the recession. Will growing a garden really save them that much money? Not really. It's grain and animal products which are skyrocketing. They are doing it because it's human nature. Things are really bad, the economy is collapsing, and food is the most basic of needs right after air and water. Growing food helps them feel more in control. Hell I'll just come right out and say that's why I do it. People are putting in gardens because they are scared and this is the way they are comforting themselves. They definitely are heading in the right direction. Food supplies are being corrupted all the time now because they are trying to grow more and more food on less and less land. (Note that this was written in April, long before the tomato/cilantro scare.—L) Gardeners will be eating better, healthier food. Growing plants will make oxygen and eat CO2. They have found that gardening helps people deal with stress, too, so it's win, win, win. But as someone who's always had a garden and kept animals I'm going to tell you the most important reason that everyone ought to be growing at least some herbs in pots in their apartment windows. The weather is completely whacked. People are blaming bio fuels for the high price of feed and therefore the high price of animal products, and it is at least in part to blame, but the main problem was that most of the corn belt had such screwed weather last year that they only got one crop and then droughts in the southeast killed off hay fields and forced ranchers to feed more grain. The truth is we don't know what the weather is going to do or where the next drought or flood is going to wipe out one or more crops. (Note again that this was written in April, long before the recent floods that have cost the country one third to one half of its corn crop this year.—L) That small garden in your yard, those herbs in your window, are important not just as a hedge against inflation but because we could be looking at massive food shortages as the weather becomes increasingly more erratic. Normally I would have already put in a spring crop. I couldn't because the ground is too wet. Now I still have lettuce, carrots and beets in my cold frame but if I don't get those things in the ground in the next couple of weeks there is no way they will make because they need cool—not cold—nights. So... Go buy some seeds or some plants and stick them in the ground. Selina
#2 The Jew Thing For months now I've had a fan just filling my e-mail box with loads of political crap. I agreed with most of it that I bothered to read at all, so I just let it slide even though every day I spend a big chunk of my time cleaning out my e-mail box from the loads of crap. But today she sent this piece about how the Jews are a bunch of racists who want to make sure their population never has Jews in a minority and oh the poor Palestinians. I told her to take me off her lists and in short terms why. Now here's the thing. I'm a Reform Jew and not a Zionist, but I have friends—living and dead—who lived through the Holocaust and have first-hand accounts of what happens when A) the Jews are demonized and B) there is no Jewish home land.
I am sick to death of hearing about the
plight of the poor Palestinians and how their home land was stolen from them and... They
were a nomadic people! What homeland? People seem to forget all the attacks that prompted
the Israelis to seize the Mostly a bunch of bleeding-heart doves who you'd think would know better have decided that the Palestinians are the underdogs and so they're going to pick on the Jews... Yes that's right, let's all pick on the Jews, because no matter who or what you are, no matter how liberal and broad minded, it's all right to pick on the Jews.
And who are these left wingers
defending? Muslim extremists who go on suicide bombing missions to kill not military
personal but civilian targets, that’s who. These people treat their women like
cattle... Excuse me they treat their livestock better than they treat their women. Now
you're all saying most Palestinians are peace-loving people just trying to live their
lives and... Are they? Are they really? They condone—even worship and praise—suicide
bombers. They deny Have good people been caught up in the midst of what only a few have done? No doubt. Do those "good people" know who the real bad guys are? Probably not—and neither do we on any given day.
For a bunch of American activists who
have—in most cases—never felt the very real sting of prejudice to brand Jews
racist because they don't want to become a minority in Israel shows just how out of touch
with reality these activists really are. Take it from a big Jewish Dyke living in the big
middle of the Christian Bible Belt. As a Jew I've had my car vandalized—not once but
twice—while it was parked at the temple. The So... I know from experience what it's like to be in a real minority surrounded by people that hate me, but none of them have nuclear war heads and so far none of them have driven a car full of bombs through the front of my house. I don't consider myself to be a religious person. Spiritual maybe, religious no. I'm a reform Jew because it allows me to think and I don't like anything that tells me I'm not allowed to think certain things or explore what I believe on a daily basis. I'm tired of everyone pussy footing around afraid to say the truth. Religion is a huge problem and the root of all the problems in the world. It doesn't save people it stifles and kills them in masses like nothing else ever has. I'm just going to tell the absolute truth and if anyone doesn't like it they can kiss my ass because it's a sure bet I won't like what they have to say, either. Fundamentalist religions of all kinds—mine, yours, and everyone else's—are vessels of evil. And I mean evil, too. Before you have a complete little religious meltdown, check out history. Human sacrifice... for religion. Wars... for religion. Persecution of entire races of people... for religion. Can there be anything more wicked than molesting a child? When's the last time a month went by that you didn't hear of some religious official molesting a kid? Blaise Pascal said, "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Flip Religious leaders get up there and tell their sheep—so called because they have no minds of their own—that this, that, and the other thing are all sins. Stupid shit like masturbation, drinking, sex, thinking bad things—all sins in someone's belief and you're going to go to hell and burn and burn. Bull shit! All bullshit! Homosexuality is a sin, so is feminism, and questioning religious leaders is a sin and not spending most of your life praying to something you never see, or hear, or feel is a sin. Really? Oh and here's my favorite one. Believing what anyone who isn't in our particular branch of our religion—that's a sin, too. And once you have convinced yourself that everyone but the people you go to church with are sinners and therefore all going to hell, then don't try to tell me that you have love for your fellow. To me thinking that someone deserves to go to hell and burn forever because they don't believe a man came to earth and was tortured to death for their sins means you hate that person. One of the reasons I'm a Reform Jew... We don't believe in hell. We don't believe everyone who isn't Jewish is a sinner. But the truth is I'd be happy to be nothing at all. I don't need a religious affiliation to feel complete. This one works for me. I understand agnostics, I understand atheists, in fact some of the most ethical and certainly the least hung-up people I've ever known have been atheists. I respect their conviction not to believe and have to admit that they can prove what they believe and that I can't. I understand moderates of all religions and creeds as long as they don't try to tell me what to believe. I don't understand when people blindly follow something that is obviously so flawed. I don't understand American liberals choosing to band together to go after the Jews to save the Palestinians who would spit on every single other thing they stand for as being blasphemous. For one thing a woman wrote this article and if they had their way women wouldn't even be taught to write. If you're going to fight for a people, maybe you ought to know what they really believe and what you're really fighting for. It's really not all about what's right is right. Some times, most times, it really is about choosing the lesser of two evils. Selina
#3 Science Fiction Conventions More
Important Than You Think?
My dad is a major bigot. He raised me to be a bigot. Yep, I spouted all the stupid shit he'd taught me with the same hatred till I was in my twenties. Of course this was no doubt aided by the fact that I was a big queer and had been stuck in an arranged marriage at sixteen to a thirty-four year old pervert to keep me from being gay. That sort of thing will do something to your mind; it will do something to your soul. My son’s father purposely kept me in the middle of nowhere. I had no contact with the outside world so I really didn't get a chance to grow. Writing was really all I had back in the dark ages I was forced to live in. I was a homophobic bigot because everyone had it better than I did, and by God if I could suffer in silence so could everyone else. I might have stayed like that forever if not for the world in my head and fandom. I went to my first Convention at twenty-two with my friend Walt who was much younger than I was and still closer to my age than my husband. Walt, braver than I am, came out before I did. Lee grudgingly let me go with Walt to the convention. Those three days changed the course of my life. I started to realize that everything I had been told by my father was utter and complete bullshit. I started to see people as people and to understand that maybe there wasn't anything wrong with me at all. It would still be years before I could come to terms with my homosexuality but the bigotry evaporated with my ignorance of other people and cultures. My writing started to mature, I started to mature, and while I had to have a complete mental breakdown first, I finally was able to embrace who I was and come to terms with it—all because of fandom. Because of the people I met on the convention circuit. Fandom is an open and mostly honest society filled with seekers and sages and—above all else—acceptance of other people. Quite unlike any other group I have EVER been associated with. Some of my colleagues have just come right out and asked me why I have so much patience with even the geekiest, smelliest fan, and the reason is simple—they had patience with me. Without fandom I'd still be in a mental and physical hole somewhere, if I was alive at all. I wouldn't have a career, I wouldn't have my sanity—quit laughing fuckers!—I would still be some closed-minded idiot living like a hermit thinking that death was preferable to my life and bitter for whole different reasons than I am now. I've met all of my best friends—expect for Walter and Brand who entered Fandom with me but who I knew before—through fandom. I found the SCA and therefore my wife because of Fandom. Conventions let me meet and reach people I never would have gotten to and opened my mind. I might some day write an autobiography titled... HOW SCIENCE FICTION SAVED ME because it really did. It's why I hate to see any con-com fighting because it's like my extended family. I know that they supply such an important, safe place for closed minds to be opened. Last night a seventeen-year-old girl came over to have me work on her knee. At first impression nice kid—a little flaky but what seventeen-year-old dyke from a small town isn't? At one point she opens her mouth and just the most ignorant bigoted crap spews out of her head, and my first instinct is to just write her off but... Well at least she's already come to terms with being gay. At that age I was just as ignorant, just as stupid, married to a man, and just completely denying everything that I was. I told her why I thought what she was saying was crap and I'll continue to do so. Maybe I'll take this kid to a convention or two, get her out of the hole she lives in, and see if there may be hope. I heard an old friend of mine—one I met at a convention—talking a few months ago about why he thought science fiction convention attendance was down. He said it was because we're all a bunch of geeks and that the internet has connected us, that shows like HEROES, which has been embraced by even the mundane, and the sci-fi channel have taken away the isolation we felt and we don't need conventions anymore. I think this is not just wrong, but dead wrong. I think now more than ever we don't need to separate ourselves from the larger group and stare into our computer screens. It's becoming acceptable to be bigoted again and I don't think it should ever be acceptable to not look at people one at a time. If you must judge them, do so based on their character not because of what they look like. The human connection is ALL important now. Science fiction conventions—it may sound frivolous to those of us who don't know—are important because they allow a microcosm of acceptance in an increasingly polarized world. We need to encourage interaction with our fellow humans, not say it's good enough to talk to each other on line. This is great, but as we've talked about before, this medium allows a certain level of misunderstanding that physical speech doesn't. When you are talking to someone you can have a discussion and their tone and body language will tell you when they understand you. If there is a misunderstanding, you can correct it on the spot. We are humans; we need to touch one another, to talk to each other face to face. For me to say something and you to tell me why I'm wrong and have all of this settled in minutes instead of days or weeks or not at all. If Walter's father—knowing that he and I loved science fiction—hadn't picked up a flyer from a mall in Tulsa when he was on a business trip we never would have gone to that first convention. I don't know where I'd be right now but it would be bad. When I hear that a convention hasn't advertised locally, that they don't put out flyers any more, all I can think is that somewhere someone is stuck, and now they'll never find their way out. Selina
#4 The Real Cost In Time A convention really costs me about six to eight days. I spend one day packing and getting ready to go. If I have to drive more than twelve hours—pushing past the limits of what I can do in a day—that can add extra days. At a normal convention I spend three days at the convention. Then I get to drive home—usually arriving home after midnight. I'll spend the next day unpacking and doing the books. Then the next day I spend doing just what absolutely has to be done because I am just completely wiped out. Now I'm really done in for about a week, but guess what? NOTHING got done while I was gone and I can't afford to just kick back and get some rest because now I'm playing catch up and in a big way. I do this 12 to 15 times a year. Now I do enjoy the conventions. (See bitch #3 above.) I love the people and they—the conventions and the fans—are an important part of the business of small press. However... I'm sick of fans and mundane alike thinking that these trips are some sort of vacation for me. I come home and all my family and friends ask about my "vacation." Vacation! Except for the fact that I lose six to eight days of work—which by the way I then have to make up because there is no one to do my job while I'm gone—it is nothing remotely like a vacation. I'm packing hundreds of pounds of books, unpacking them, and setting them up. Every waking minute I am at the convention I am doing public speaking—which I love because let's face it I'm an exhibitionist, but is none the less tiring—or trying to sell books. If I can't sell books I'm just screwed because then I'm busting my ass and using time that could be more wisely spent, to lose money. So, if the books aren't selling I have enough stress that I'm about to implode but I can't let the public know that, so feel very sorry for the people sitting behind the booth because they are getting an earful of angst. My favorite line at these times, "I'm hemorrhaging money." Imagine hearing that fifty times in ten minutes.
You are a writer, now you have to be
able to sell books. When you are also a publisher you MUST sell books. New authors…
Well let's just say this isn't a good time to be a new author. It's impossible to get into
the big houses unless you have money to go to Let me tell you all the things that make me have to smile while I try to bite my tongue right off at convention. Fans who say, "I only buy half-price or used books." Thanks, thanks a whole lot for nothing. The publisher doesn't get paid, I don't get paid, some anonymous third party makes the money, and... Well as far as I'm concerned you might as well be illiterate because you aren't supporting the authors you read and are more or less guaranteeing that their numbers will crash and they won't be able to sell their next book. You don't care, though, because you'll just read someone else's used book. Now I understand trying a new writer out by buying a used or half-price book first, but these people say they ONLY buy used or half priced books. So what are they doing at my table getting their grubby fingerprints all over books someone else will pay for so that they can know what to shop for in the used stores? Thanks, thanks for nothing! People will balk about the price of a trade paperback, but have you seen the price of everything else lately? They'll be at a convention and think nothing of dropping twenty bucks on dinner at the hotel restaurant or two hundred dollars at the hotel bar, but they'll have a meltdown when they see a book costs sixteen bucks. We have to carry food with us and eat and drink out of the con-suite. We eat about one meal a day out, but the rest of the time we're eating catch as catch can. I spend most of the convention hungry, working my ass off and hoping it was even worth my time to be there because for me the convention isn't a "Vacation," it's work. Which leads to another thing that makes me grind my teeth. “Work? You don't work, you play. Writing isn't work." Good, then if it's so easy why don't you do it!? I love writing, but the business of it, the actual selling and trying to make a living, is a constant struggle, eighteen hour days and having people tell you all the time that you have it easy because you don't have to "work hard." Like they do. That just makes my ass want a dip of snuff. I wish every asshole who thinks I don't have to work would have to follow me around and do everything I do for just one day. Then let's see if they still want to call me "easy money." Here's another one I love. "I have this idea for a story—or—I have this D & D character—and if you use it you can keep half the money." Yeah, that's quite the deal for me because I don't have any ideas of my own. I'd just love to bust my ass writing and promoting a novel so that I can give you half the money. Come on... When I co-write with someone I make damn sure they do half the work because I'll be damned if they'll get half the money if they don't do half the work. Coming up with an idea is the easy part. Again, if it's such a good idea, write the fucking thing yourself! I have more ideas than I will ever be able to get down and I'm a really fast writer so that's saying something. I don't need help getting ideas. Buy a fucking book. That's what I need you to do. Buy a book. I don't need your help writing them, I need your help selling them. The one that makes me nearly violent is to have people walk up to the dealer’s table, I start talking to them, and they'll say, "I don't like a hard sell. I like to figure out what I want on my own." Then they'll pick up one or two books flip them over and move on. First, I know when to hard sell and when to back off. Second, I know everything about every book on the table. If they'd let me I'd ask what they like, they'd tell me, and I'd point them in the direction of a book they might like. Third... Well, if they always walk around with that stick up their ass I doubt they'd like any of our books anyway. Why can't people understand that we are there to sell books? There is NO other reason for us to be there. Many of them have jobs where they don't have to put themselves out there to be ridiculed and lied to, but can't they imagine how it would be to have a job where their livelihood depended entirely on getting another person to buy something? People hear you talking about all the places you go and they'll say, "That must be so great to get to go to all those really cool places."
Ah, yes. I get to go to really cool
places and see the inside of hotels. I don't have the time to do anything fun. From the
time I get to the convention ‘til I leave I have to be trying to sell books. I rarely
even leave to eat. It's all about selling the books. I have been to probably a dozen
conventions in Because if I don't sell enough books then I can't justify the real very loss of my time—days away from the computer and my work, away from my farm and my family and my life. Not to mention the huge expenditure of my energy. The truth is I rarely sell enough books to make it worth the effort. Usually it's just all about selling enough to pay for the trip and the cost of product. So the next time you have the urge to tell me how you only buy used books, how easy I've got it, you want to give me your idea and give you half the money, don't want me to try to sell you a book, or want to talk about all the cool places I've been, please stop yourself. Take a moment to take a good look at my eyes, and if they're glowing just bite your tongue and move on because the next time, the very next time might just be the time I rip someone's head off and shit in the hole.
Selina |
