Innocent Bystander

Friday Foto #178...

  Fun with filters...#10 in a series, and the last one, I promise! Lately I've been playing  with some of the filters in the iPad app called CameraBag. This is my favorite one...it's called "Plastic" and it adds a vignette effect plus it over-saturates the colors. If some of these photos look familiar, they're old favorites that I re-energized with this filter.  This one is from San Francisco again, and is from John's up there...purportedly one of the original Maltese Falcons at a place Dashiell Hammett supposedly ate at.

To see more of my photos, Friday or otherwise, click here!

 

 

Learning to love the salad...

As I type these very words, I am eating a salad for lunch (it helps to have an extra appendage...oh, and an extra arm, too). Over the past two weeks I have eaten numerous salads. I figure I'll be eating even more in the days, weeks, months, and--God willing--years ahead.

Two weeks ago I went in for a regularly-scheduled doctor's appointment and found out my hemoglobin numbers were out of whack (that's a medical term). I have flirted with Type 2 diabetes since high school. They were minor flirtations: A note back and forth, the failed promise of a date or two, some furtive fumblings in the backseat of a 1986 Oldsmobile. But now I find we are intricately entwined, dating as it were. And I don't like the evil bitch one bit.

I'm not on insulin. I have added a second oral medication to my arsenal of daily pills (okay, six, plus a vitamin twice a day...a gummy vitamin, in fact; the world would be a much better place if all medications came in gummy form, trust me on this). My doctor gave me his version of a "Come to Jesus" talk about how serious this was, what my future may hold, and maybe I should get used to the fact that I'm getting older and this might be the natural progression of the disease. In other words, that quiet girl in the corner of my pancreas was becoming more vocal and aggressive.

I admit that a lot of this is due to my crappy eating habits. I have gotten into a rut of fast food, sweet snacks, and easy enticements, and that is my main problem. When I was first put on an oral medication for my diabetes, it worked really well. TOO well. It seemed like I could cheat all I wanted and go for a blood test every 3 months and see that I was still within my threshold for good testing results. No more.

So here I sit eating another salad. All the bad things I relied on are gone now. Those new Snickers Peanut Butter Squares which I adored, have become a chaste and distant romance, admired from afar but not unwrapped. Honey Nut Cheerios have become just plain ol' Cheerios, begrudgingly at least, even though the diabetes nurse/therapist I visited on Monday told me to try a nice Kashi cereal, to which I replied, "I'd rather cut up the box and put milk on it." Actually that visit was very good. I was taught the proper way to poke myself (it's not as fun as it sounds, trust me) to draw blood so I can monitor my glucose levels.

And so far, my numbers are good--a little high in the afternoon--but good nonetheless. I'm walking more--or trying to--but one of the things about my new diabetes drug is to stay out of the sun, so that hampers it a bit. We've had some cool, cloudy Sundays, and the past two I've walked 2.8 miles and 2.7 miles respectively. Not long distances by any stretch of the imagination, but long for me.

So life is changing a bit, decidedly for the better. I have a bit more energy and I feel more like myself. I also seem to be in a better mood, but that could change any minute, as quickly as the ocean that borders downtown San Diego. You've been forewarned.

Parker and Richard Stark are back: Butcher's Moon, Comeback, Backflash...

The three "latest" Richard Stark/Parker novels are out from University of Chicago Press and as always, they don't disappoint. If you're like me and reading Donald Westlake's seminal crime series for the first go-round as they're released again--most unavailable for many years--you're in for a treat each time another trio comes out. Sadly, we're nearing the end of the line with only six more Parker books to go. Westlake--who wrote the entire series of 24 under the pen name Richard Stark--died in 2008.

This trio of novels features the last of the original Parker series, Butcher's Moon, originally published in 1974, before Stark--and Parker--took 22 years off to return with the aptly-titled Comeback in 1997. Westlake intimated that Parker spent part of that time in prison (I'm not sure were "author" Richard Stark was), but the series continues as if it never stopped. The only obvious references to more modern times reflect how the world had changed in those two-plus decades: the Internet, ATMs, different car manufacturers, etc. Parker's Comeback was as if he never left.

Butcher's Moon is a great book, one of the best in the entire series. It reunites Parker with a number of his old cronies who have worked in other books with him and even takes them back to do battle with the bad guys from Slayground, the novel which features the thief trapped in a closed amusement park. Seems that Parker hid the money he was escaping with somewhere in the park and now he wants it back. Only problem is, someone else has found it. Parker and company once again stage an elaborate heist that not only takes down the people who took his original money, but the whole organized crime syndicate in the town where the park is located. Stark/Westlake must have known it was time for Parker to go away, and he heads out with a bang.

When we next visit Parker, he's involved with knocking over a television evangelist who stages profitable stadium shows. Comeback is the first Parker novel in 22 years, but it's as if he never left. No reference is made to where he was or what he's been doing. It's just another heist, except it's told in Stark's inimitable fashion. The fact that the author just started up again with the character, just like a couple of months have passed between jobs, speaks volumes on Westlake's comfort and familiarity with Parker.

The next novel in the series (#18) is Backflash and Parker and company (again, Stark brings back a number of old "friends" that we've met before in previous novels) rip off a floating casino on the Hudson River in New York state. This is the first Parker novel I had a bit of a problem with. It's a very slow starter, and the ramp-up to the actual heist takes forever (it doesn't start until halfway through the book) and Stark keeps throwing characters at us. The back half of the book, though, is pure Parker as the heist goes off without a hitch. It's when Parker and friends make shore that it all goes in the crapper.

There is something very different about these three novels: Parker gets away with the money in all of them. One of the ironic points of Stark's earlier books in the series is that many times life--or human nature--interfere with Parker's best-laid plans and he ends up without the money at the end of the heist. He always comes out whole and intact, but without the prize. I liked that about the books, that human factor, that one final monkey wrench thrown into the well-oiled machine of Parker's meticulous plans. But these three novels--not without their own last-minute complications--at least allow Parker and his crew to get away with the cash.

This series also features new introductions by noted crime/mystery writer Lawrence Block, and for once University of Chicago Press gets it right: Block writes a new intro for each book, giving us the background on his friend Donald Westlake and how Parker went away and then came back. Previous intros in the series were placed in all three currently-released books, which was annoying. I kind of suspect that this was Block's doing more than the publishers. Given the chance to praise his old friend, the author stepped up to the plate and hit three home runs.

The Killing...

Even though it aired its fifth episode last night, I'm still kind of on the fence about The Killing, the new series on AMC. I'm emotionally invested enough in the series to want to watch it through all 13 episodes, to see who the killer really is, but I know I'm not going to like it.

The Killing takes us through the investigation of a teenage girl's death. That girl--Rosie Larsen--is found dead in the trunk of a car submerged in a lake. The car belongs to the campaign of a local politician, Darren Richmond (Billy Campbell), who is running for mayor of Seattle (he also has a dark past with a wife who was murdered). The show also plays major attention to the grieving parents, played by Brent Sexton and Michelle Forbes, whose lives must go on with their two young sons, despite the loss of their daughter. And heading up both the investigation and the show are two cops, Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) and her new partner Joel Kinnaman (Stephen Holder). Linden is about to leave the Seattle police to move to Sonoma with her husband-to-be. She also comes with the requisite problem son, a teenager who's none too sure about the move or the new dad, and a dark secret that may involve the death of another teenager in a case she was obsessed with. Kinnaman, an undercover cop who was working the drug beat, may have been undercover too long. He too has his secrets.

Developed from a Danish TV series (Forbrydelsen) by American producer Veena Sud (Cold Case), The Killing is stylish, well-acted, and very atmospheric. It is also the most unrelentingly sad and depressing TV show I've ever seen. It rains constantly. People cry constantly. No one smiles. Enos, who is a beautiful woman, is made to look as absolutely dowdy as possible as detective Linden. Holder, as her partner Kinnaman, looks more like a twitchy drug addict than a cop. Billy Campbell plays the world's only politician who doesn't smile while actively campaigning. Sexton and Forbes are excellent as the dead girl's parents, but they have seemingly regularly-scheduled breakdowns each episode. And did I mention it rains? All. The. Time.

And here's where it all falls apart for me: The sadness coupled with actors that I can't quite like, plus a propensity for each episode to feature the "suspect of the week." I left last night's episode feeling the school teacher suspect was a total red herring, and maybe the girl's dad has something going on beyond his grief. The mayoral election thing is a tedious plotline, almost seeming to be filler, despite the connection of the girl's death to the campaign car.

Some critics have likened The Killing to Twin Peaks, the ground-breaking ABC series co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The only things the two shows have in common are a dead high school girl and a very soggy Northwest location. The Killing lacks all of Twin Peaks' quirky charm and off-kilter humor. It's deadly serious, as perhaps a show called "The Killing" should be. But it's also morbid and joyless, and the show's resolution had better make 13 weeks of tears and sadness worth the emotional journey.

My Easter story...

Like that other candy-related holiday--Halloween--I'm not real big on Easter. I kind of don't get it. The Christians (of which, I suppose, I am a begrudging member) have extended the "holiday" into a whole 5-day orgy of death, resurrection, and Godliness. I mean there's "Holy Thursday," "Good Friday," "Easter Sunday," and "Easter Monday." I'm sure Saturday, nestled right there smack in the middle has some kind of significance, too, like maybe the wake of Jesus or something, where everybody got drunk, but I don't know what it's officially called. And really: Easter Monday? Did they plan for a day to recuperate from all that candy and egg-inspired nausea?

So I honestly can't tell you that Easter means anything or inspires any fond memories. Well, there's one, but I'm not sure it's fond or not. I must have been 9 or 10 years old, one Easter Sunday, when the Easter Bunny made a personal visit to yours truly...

Easter Sunday in our house meant church, one of the few Sundays out of the year where my mom--a less-than-devout Sunday school teacher (she bitched and moaned about it all the time, but I think she enjoyed it) made us go to church, us being my older brother Rick and I. My dad...forget it. He'd drop us off, go pick up the morning newspapers (the Allentown Morning Call and the Reading Eagle) and have a smoke at the Y Cigar Store, his own personal place of worship. By the age of 10, church had become something to endure for me, even though we had this spiffy new church up on the hill that was beautiful. As usual, my mom had a hard time getting me out of bed and finally resorted to coming in, yanking the covers off me and then yelling in great surprise, "WHAT DID YOU DO?!!"

My bed--and me--were covered in some kind of brown goo, which could either be chocolate or something far, far worse. My mom--bless her heart--immediately went to the dark side. "YOU'RE TOO OLD TO BE DOING THIS!  I'M NOT CLEANING IT UP! THESE SHEETS ARE RUINED!" went the continual lament, until my brother bolted out of bed in the room next door and stood sheepishly at my bedroom door and confessed.

He had thought it would be funny to hide some small chocolate Easter eggs in my bed while I was sleeping, under the covers and near my feet, so I could wake up and think the Easter bunny came and visited, I guess. But I was always a thrasher, so the eggs were drawn up closer to me. I repeatedly rolled around on them and mashed them up and they escaped their little, colorful foil wrappers to smear all over my PJs and the sheets, melting from my body heat, thus offering, your honor, evidence that I had crapped myself during the night.

My mom was relieved that wasn't the case--as was I--but still pissed. If an Easter bunny was in plain sight, I'm sure he would have been strangled. We all recovered and begrudgingly went off to church, but if I remember correctly, those baskets of chocolate eggs sat uneaten that Easter, met with uneasy stares and queasy stomachs.

On Comics: Stumptown, Mister Wonderful, and the "return" of Peanuts...

Here's three new books--graphic novels, if you are so inclined to use that fancy-schmancy word for good ol' American comics--that are as different as night and day and...well, night again.

First off, Greg Rucka's Stumptown is now in a beautiful hardbound graphic novel (there's that phrase again) format which collects the Oni Press 4-issue mini-series into one great-looking book. With art by Matthew Southworth that is very much in the vein of Michael Lark, Stumptown chronicles the story of Dex Parios, a private investigator operating in rainy Portland, Oregon. This story features her search for a missing girl with ties to both the local Indian casino and a crime lord. Rucka is at his best when he mixes his trademark female characters (Rene Montoya in Gotham Central, Carrie Stetko in Whiteout, Tara Chace in Queen & Country) with noir, and Portland provides the perfect setting for a damp, mysterious tale. The coloring adds a nice murky level to the story, too, and the production on this collection makes it a little objet d'art itself.

Daniel Clowes is back with his second book in two years (with a third on the way in the Fall) with Mister Wonderful, a collection of his strips from the New York Times Magazine, with new material added. This oblong little gem from Pantheon Books is a rare love story from the usually cynical--one might say bitter, but he's mellowing--Mr. Clowes. It tells the tale of Marshall and Natalie, an older pair who meet on a blind date. Both of them are a little crazy, but that doesn't stop Marshall from being immediately smitten. Mister Wonderful is a bit of a departure for Clowes, but it's nonetheless well...wonderful.

Finally, the Peanuts gang is back--not that they ever really left us--in a brand-new graphic novel published by BOOM! Studios via their Kaboom! imprint. Happiness is a Warm Blanket, Charlie Brown is an adaptation of the recent DVD movie and the first graphic novel to feature the characters of Charles M. Schulz. It's written by comic strip creator Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and Schulz son Craig Schulz, with art direction by Paige Braddock and Andy Beall, and art by Bob and Vicki Scott. That art is utterly charming, too, perfectly capturing that mid-60s era of Schulz's Peanuts that is the Charlie Brown I first discovered as a kid. The story itself reads like a Peanuts "greatest hits" compilation, hitting all the proper Schulz moments, but tells its own tale of Linus's repeated efforts to get back his blanket. It's been over a decade since we've seen any real new Peanuts comics stuff and this is a welcome--and respectful--addition.

Friday Foto #177...

  Fun with filters...#9 in a series. Collect them all! Lately I've been playing  with some of the filters in the iPad app called CameraBag. This is my favorite one...it's called "Plastic" and it adds a vignette effect plus it over-saturates the colors. If some of these photos look familiar, they're old favorites that I re-energized with this filter.  More from San Francisco, this time the Palace of Fine Arts (I think!).

To see more of my photos, Friday or otherwise, click here!

 

 

Off the books...

With Borders finally sighing its last gasp of 80-90% off book-selling frenzy, downtown San Diego is left with the harsh reality that it no longer has a bookstore.

When I first started visiting San Diego in 1992, downtown was full of bookstores. There was a whole gathering of them up near and off Broadway, including Wahrenbrock's Book House, the used bookstore that held out the longest. The side streets near its Broadway location where dotted with smaller stores and there was even--for a couple of years, at least--a comic book store in the same general vicinity. All of them are gone now.

Horton Plaza had two major bookstores (three, if you count Le Travel Store, which had a large travel book selection, and was also in HP back then; it currently exists on Fourth Ave, and still has a nice section of books), a Doubleday (which is also sadly gone from New York City...one of my favorite Fifth Ave. bookstores there) and a B. Dalton. After a while, I believe the Doubleday turned into a Waldens, which went away when Borders (the corporate parent of Waldens) opened downtown in 2004 or so, in a building they built at the corner of G Street and Sixth Avenue. That building--which I drive past every day on my way to the freeway that takes me to work--is now sadly--forlornly--empty. A narrow Borders sign hangs from its G Street side, marking a kind of bookstore ghost town, or ghost building at least. It's a shame, both from the standpoint of no bookstores downtown, but also because it's a beautiful building.

B. Dalton closed in Horton Plaza a year or two ago, to be replaced by a Crown Books. Someone evidently bought the Crown name, which was a chain of bookstores here in California (and possibly elsewhere, for all I know) when I first moved out here back in 1998. There were at least three I frequented, because they had huge discounts at that point in time. The new incarnation of Crown can also be categorized as a discount bookstore, but it unfortunately only features remaindered editions (if you need a copy of Frommer's Unofficial Guide to Disney World, 2005, they have you covered) and books that probably should not have been published in the first place. (Seriously...one of the 2011 calendars they had on display pre-Christmas was titled "Rats." I'm assuming it wasn't a best seller, but I was shocked enough to grab a photo of it, since I figured no one would believe me. Maybe it's big with research scientists. Or cats.) 

There is one small bookstore in the touristy enclave of Seaport Village, down behind the waterfront hotels and the Convention Center. It's called Upstart Crow, and while it has a small but nice selection of books, it also has a large amount of tourist claptrap. The nearest big bookstores to downtown is the still-existing (but don't blink) Borders in Mission Valley, the Booksmart in Point Loma, and a few remaining used bookstores in Hillcrest, along Fifth Avenue, between University and Pennsylvania. There's also a Barnes & Noble in Hazard Center in Mission Valley.

And that's all folks. The world of books in downtown San Diego has dwindled away to nothing. Some may call it poetic justice (pun intended) that the chains have fallen apart. I call it just plain sad.

The wit and wisdom of...

Collected for your reading pleasure...my recent "status updates" on Facebook. Oh, no...don't thank me now. Just buy the book when it comes out.

Donald Trump claims the United States is a laughingstock around the world...finally, a topic at which Trump is an expert.

All this talk about the budget deal made me wonder...do we really need a senator from Nevada? Wouldn't we be better off with a pit boss or a showgirl?

I'm giving up Facebook for Lent. I'll update my status regularly to let you know how it's going.

I can't wait for Russell Brand in the "Tiny Tim Story."

I hate that Watson guy on Jeopardy. He's so full of himself.

Brian Williams has appeared on 30 Rock so many times I half expect him to go to Liz Lemon covering the crisis in Egypt.

Playing in the Pro Bowl must be like going to the prom with your cousin.

Thursday night's Tonight Show: Musical guest Justin Bieber, actor Jay Mohr, hosted by Jay Leno. It's the Tonight Show they show 24 hours a day in Hell.

If Spider-Man the comic book was postponed as many times as Spider-Man the Broadway musical, Steve Ditko would still be drawing it.

Today's epiphany: I have only myself to blame for that empty roll of toilet paper.

Four scariest words ever on a TV promo: "Paula Abdul is back!"

Why do I feel I've already seen every movie Vince Vaughn will ever make?

Just about ready to utter the sexiest three-word sentence in the English language: "Four-day weekend."

It's my favorite stupid news story day!

Yes, folks it's Tax Day, the day your income tax return is due to the IRS. And a lot of people milk this until the very last minute, short of filing for an extension.

But no matter how early--or late--you do your taxes, you can bet on one sure thing: Every f*cking local TV news station will have a live reporter standing in front of the main branch of the Post Office, watching people drive up and interviewing them.

I could never figure out why news directors and executive producers got such a collective hard-on (my apologies to female news execs) about this particular story. It's about people putting off paying a bill, plain and simple. Where's the big surprise in that? Are they hoping one of the procrastinators will go postal in the line to reach the mailboxes and kill a reporter or two? Or is it some kind of "News Producing 101" story that all reporters/producers are taught in what passes for journalism school these days (along with, undoubtedly, hair and make-up classes, and advanced hair and make-up classes).

I just saw my first report on this particular Tax Day on my station of preference (this being an extremely relative term), CBS8 here in San Diego. It's usual features reporter was out there, grinning that shit-eating grin like he always does no matter what he covers, in line at the Post Office over on Midway Drive. I longed for a cop to show up, reciting the old standard, "Move along people...nothing to see here," because on Tax Day, there really is nothing to see, except basic human nature at work, no matter what TV news shows tell you.