Ferguson.

In line with my new directive to actually speak my mind...

The police officer didn't get charged with a crime by the grand jury.  I'm not entirely surprised.  Putting aside my personal feelings on the subject, without incontrovertible video proof, there was no way that grand jury was going to charge a cop for shooting a black kid.    And as Ferguson, MO burns in rage and goes to war with itself, the narrative now changes to the media head-shaking about the violent and uncivilized citizens of this broken-hearted city, all while subtly implying that somehow, he deserved it.  That, like Trayvon Martin, if he just decided to be Black somewhere else, none of this would have happened.

Okay, maybe that was a little more personal feeling than I intended.

The problem for me is that the narrative should be concern about the increasing militarization of our police force.  The fact that police seem to seek confrontation more than ever.  That there is shockingly little psych evaluation of police officers before they fire a shot, instead of after the fact.  That racial profiling, that many men and women of color-- including myself--  have had to endure, is still the go-to method of determining likely criminals.  But we will likely hear none of this.

We instead hear the garbage spewed forth by people like Rudy Giuliani, stating that police brutality or overreaction isn't the issue, black-on-black crime is the issue.  This is somehow our fault.

I'm going to sidestep the racial issue.  I'm going to table the police brutality issue.  A city burns tonight.  We should all be concerned as to why.

Something to Talk About

I haven't written in my blog in a while.

There are comfortable reasons why.  I've been busy at work, I've been on vacation, I've been working on other writing projects.  I've been busy finding a new apartment and preparing to move there.  I've been busy living.

All of these things are true.  None of them are the real reason.  I haven't written in my blog of late because I haven't had anything to say.

In January, while anticipating my novel's release, I made what could only be called a business decision when I decided that I would not write about politics or race or religion or my opinion on any of the controversy of the day.  I didn't want to offend and alienate potential customers.  I was afraid.  Consequently, I haven't had much to talk about because politics, race, and religion seem to be the top three conversation pieces in this country.  So, in my effort to not offend anyone, I've essentially silenced myself.

It's a messed up commentary on the world we live in today.  But we'll put that aside for now.

It is a thought process that has bled over into my personal life, and I find myself silent more often than not when a situation demands to be called out.  I've let things pass because I've felt it was inappropriate to comment on it, or unwise to alienate certain people.  Jeez, I'm strategizing my personal life!

When you're young and you have nothing to lose, you tend to speak your mind more; after all what difference does it make if some random person doesn't like you.  But as you get older, an you acquire stuff -- possessions, careers, respectability -- you get less likely to risk the trappings of comfort and adulthood by speaking your mind.  So in holding on to your stuff, you kind of lose your compass.

And to that I say, f**k that.

I will speak my mind more. I will say what people may not like to hear, not to be controversial, or to be funny per se.  I won't do it to be crass or clever.  I'll do it because I want to be honest with myself, and honor the things I believe in.  I want to question the things that I don't understand, and expose the things that make no sense.

I want to have something to talk about.

Oh, yeah, coincidentally-but-not-really, there was a grand jury verdict today that caused a little hubbub.  Make no mistake I'll have something to say about that.

Review: Aerie by Anne Riley

I met Anne Riley at an author event at Jan's Paperbacks in Portland, Oregon this past summer.  We shared a table, talked writing and sold some books.  She's a very interesting and pleasant lady with roots in the area, and I have to say in the past year involving promotion of my own work, that one day in July was probably the best day possible.  At the end of the day we exchanged purchases of work.  Anne read and reviewed The Favorite, and I read Aerie with every intention of reviewing it.  I'm horribly late.  That introduction (and a hearty apology to Anne) aside, here's my review of Aerie.

Aerie by Anne Riley

Okay, I don't do romance novels.

I'm not normally for overtly sticky stories about longing and temptation, about the internal struggle between what you want and what's good for you, about the normally melodramatic reasons why a hero or heroine would deny themselves the right person that's standing right in front of them.  Nothing against the genre, but I always found those stories to be kind of hokey.  So, all things being honest and equal, it's hard to say that I opened the book with an open mind.

It didn't take long to convince me.

Aerie tosses aside the normal convention of impossibly many hero and damsel-in-distress, and instead plays a budding romance against a strong workplace drama and with legal and techno elements.  It's sounds like a weird recipe that shouldn't work when you say it out loud, but like a peanut-butter bacon cheeseburger the first bite is surprisingly satisfying of all tastes.

The story centers on high powered systems analyst Cara Larson, whose tech firm Pyramid is contracted by Liam Scofield, CEO of an outdoor-wear company, to help develop a computerized distribution and payment system for his company.  The year is 1991 and the system is quite literally ahead of it's pre-worldwide web time.  The potential of this system to revolutionize the way business is done is recognized by Cara's bosses at Pyramid as well as the lawyers working for Liam's company WindWear, so when they systematically try to cut Liam out of his potentially billion-dollar idea, Cara and Liam work frantically to save it.  In the midst of this is the love-at-first-sight drama between Cara and Liam, the potential romantic rival in Liam's lawyer Lauren Janelle, and even a heaping helping of corporate greed.

Anne Riley's mastery of the tech aspects of Aerie draw you into a realistic world of pre-Internet computer jargon that is easy enough to follow even if you don't have a degree in computer engineering.  She makes that part of the world she's created plausible and accessible, which is no easy feat, making us care about the product everyone is fighting over.  However that would mean nothing without good characters.  Ms. Riley's leads, Cara and Liam, are very well-developed and even if you are like me and not a romance buff, how and why they're into each other makes sense, even though for much of the book their organizations are pitted against each other.  It's very West Side Story.

Anne Riley has created a very appealing romantic story that, like the movie Jerry Maguire, slips the romance in under a Trojan Horse of typically guy stuff, like money and tech.  Even though the romantic part seemed a little hokey to me, I really enjoyed this book.

Rating: 5 of 5 stars.

Captain Clutch (short post)

Okay. Wow.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the final season of Derek Jeter, shortstop and captain of the Yankees.  He's the all-time team leader in, well, most offensive categories not already topped by Babe Ruth.  This entire season has been a sort of tribute to the Captain, despite the lackluster performance of the team.  There have been commercials and gifts, fan tributes and the ever-present "De-rek Jee-ter" chants wherever he's gone.

Until tonight, though, there hasn't been a moment.  No flip play.  No Mr. November.

This hasn't been a banner year for the Yankees.  We're not making the playoffs.  Injuries have kicked the hell out of the team.  We score at Mets-like levels.  Our saving grace is that the Red Sox suck worse.  Jeter has had an especially lackluster season.  But -- and I've said this in conversation with friends -- you give me a list of players to have up in a make-or-break situation, if Jeter's name is on it, he's my guy.

Take today, for instance.  In his final game at Yankee Stadium, he came up in three key situations: first inning with the Yankees down 2-0, he bangs an RBI double off the left field wall, and scores one batter later, tying the game; fifth inning with the bases loaded, he slaps an RBI grounder that gets turned into a 2 run error, Yankees up 4-2.

And the big one.

Bottom of the 9th, game tied at 5.  Jeter comes up with a runner on second and his a walk-off RBI single.  In his final at-bat at Yankee Stadium.  With the sold-out crowd expecting magic.  The perfect capper to a charmed career.

That, my friends, is what it means to be clutch.

It is totally en vogue to hate the Yankees; ask any Met fan, and you will hear -- at length -- why the Yankees are an abomination, about how the fans are douchebags, about how we bought all of our championships, and mostly, how Derek Jeter is probably the most overrated player since Yogi Berea or Joe DiMaggio. But I would like to think even the most ardent of haters have to give props to what can only be described as a "Field of Dreams" moment from a guy who seems to have made a Hall of Fame career of big moments.

So I take this time to join in the "Thank You Derek" chant, and raise a glass to salute Derek Jeter for the finest 20 years of my baseball fandom.

Remember, Remember

I haven't forgotten.

Usually on September 11, I'll post my favorite picture of Lower Manhattan post terrorist attack, one taken from Jersey and depicting the Tribute in Light, where high-intensity lamps are shone skyward from the footprints of the World Trade Center.  The lamps are aimed and positioned in such a way that it looks like two towers of light standing watch over the city, a haunting afterimage of what was once there.  The picture I have of that has the lights hitting cloud cover and stopping.  It's quite pretty.

I didn't do that this year.

Every year on September 11, I wax poetic about the loss of life we endured that day, about how my city came together and for a few weeks.  The city was more humane, more human.

I didn't do that either.

It's not because I forgot.  I could never forget.  Neither could anyone who was cognitively alive that day.  Or anyone who has any kind of documentary channel.  I remember the before, and that memory pains me for the after.  I didn't do my usual thing because somewhere along the line thirteen years later, as I relocated 3,000 miles away, September 11 became just another day.

I don't mean that to disrespect the families who lost loved ones in that attack, as this will never be just another day for them.  However these days I'm living in an area where, beyond a passing mention about the terror attack, it's been just business as usual.  They didn't show on TV or play on the radio the reading of the names of the lost.  September 11 birthdays aren't some tragic cosmic joke.  The people I know here only ask me about it when they find out I'm from New York.  And in the course of day-to-day interaction without the shawl of grief and mourning, it's just another day.

The site has been built over.  One World Trade is now complete.  The 9/11 museum immortalizes the event and the aftermath.  Lower Manhattan looks like this now:

And the world keeps spinning.

One Year Later

I had every intention of posting last week.

I was going to post a review of a novel a friend of mine wrote.  I was going to post what this actually is: musings about the anniversary of my Dad's death.  But I couldn't do it.  My Dad's death in particular, I couldn't write about last week.  It's so much deeper than just his passing.

That event kicked in motion what's been the most interesting year of my life.

My dad died and I had to take out a loan on the car I had just paid off.  I needed the money for a last minute flight to , New York.  I used the remainder to publish The Favorite.  I started learning valuable skills which I can and will use throughout my writing career (marketing skills, speaking skills, etc.). And ultimately, I fulfilled a dream my dad had for me.

I remember a car ride when I was in my early teens with my dad and my brother.  I forget what started it, but I do remember, vividly, him talking about picking something and being good at it.  "Even if it's a bank robber," he said, "find something you love and keep doing it.". I'll be honest, when he said those words, even for years after, I can't say I was applying them on purpose.  They didn't inspire me to do what I wanted to.  Lately though, I've been thinking about him, a lot.  I suppose it's natural, his passing is still relatively fresh.  And I don't know why, but those words in particular, from a random day in New York more than 20 years ago bubbled up to the surface.

I'm doing what I love.  And I won't stop.

My Dad's last great gift to me was the means to accomplish a dream, and the means to take a very wild ride.

"Protect Everyone Smaller Than You"

Robin Williams passed away yesterday at 63 from an apparent suicide.

I was initially not going to comment on this, to write about it, because I didn't want to be seen as jumping on the bandwagon.  How silly of me.  Expression of grief and loss as a community and a species is not bandwagon jumping.

It goes without saying I was, and remain, a huge fan of Robin Williams' work.  He was a great comic, a great comedian, and an even better character actor.  I watched reruns of Mork & Mindy as a kid.  It was very far ahead of its time.  He's remembered for the roles that made us feel good (Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets' Society, Good Will Hunting), but there are two of his movies in particular that are appointment viewing.

Hook was amazing in updating the Peter Pan story, to the point where in my mind, Peter Pan and Robin Williams are one and the same.  It's the kind of casting that is a complete no-brainer, and left an indelible mark on my life.  I have made an effort, actually, to live my life according to one line he delivers toward the end of the movie, where he tells the Lost Boys to "protect everyone smaller than you."  (The smallest Lost Boy then asks him "Who do I protect?" and he says "Neverbugs.  Little ones.")

And then there's the creepy store attendant he plays ingeniously in One Hour Photo.  If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it for you.

Much will be made about the demons he faced, about depression as mental illness, and about suicide.  Perhaps that's something to write about later.  But today we light a candle for one of the best our species had to offer.  And wherever he is now, we can be sure he's entertaining the hell out of them.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Williams.  The world has lost an irreplaceable spark of madness.