An Open Letter from an American Living Abroad

An Open Letter from an American Living Abroad

When it comes to politics I don’t like posting loads of pictures, one line slogans or outraged rants on Facebook – usually followed by rows of exclamation points.  (“!!!!!!!!!!!!!”).  I think it’s better to just take the time to write down your own thoughts, skip the pictures that show a set of horns and pointy little tail drawn on the guy you don’t like, and then let people either read it or not, forward it or not, accept it or not, depending on their own preference.   So, after looking at the issues soberly, here is my take on the upcoming election - do with it what you will.

In an age when everything seems to appear on the internet seconds after it takes place, whether by way of a blog, a YouTube clip or a Twitter/Facebook posting, it’s often hard to organize your thoughts in a way that becomes something better than a bumper sticker slogan. Anyone who turns on their computer is bombarded with an unending stream of images – usually not entirely coherent - but always with a point of view.  It becomes overwhelming (to say the least).  But if the number of times I’ve seen “You’re Fired” or “Get out of the People’s House” photos posted on-line have done anything they’ve at least made me consider the election in terms of a job performance review.  I approach the election now as if it were the following question – “has Barack Obama performed well enough to keep his job or has he underachieved to the level that calls for his removal”?  Despite the efforts of both sides to make this a “character” election, this is really what the election is about.  If you were a boss, (and, in a democracy, you are), would you be entitled to call employee Barack Obama on the carpet and fire him for his performance?  This is the question I asked myself, and, after looking at the matter honestly, these are the answers I came up with.

The Biggest Question – The Economy

First I looked at what is clearly, to most people, the most important issue in the election – the economy.  The world (not just the USA) is currently enveloped in an economic crisis of long-term duration and extreme gravity.  As an American citizen living abroad (Ireland) I can attest to this fact – and I believe I can provide some perspective for people back in the States.  First a bit of recent history – Barack Obama and the Democratic party have attempted to deflect criticism from themselves by pointing to the Bush administration for much of the blame involved in leading the world (not just the U.S.) into this difficulty. I asked myself if this approach is justified.  In all honesty, while there are roots that go back well beyond George Bush, it does appear that there is merit in this accusation.

On at least five separate occasions during the Bush administration the economy suffered through major economic “events” that would have been, by themselves alone, considered sufficiently serious to indicate that some “pass through” effect would have been visited on following presidents.  These include 1) The WorldCom/Enron meltdowns, which had enormous corporate governance implications and seem to have led to no meaningful reform; 2) the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac meltdown, which should have triggered immediate concerns in the housing market; 3) the Bear Stearns collapse which could have been used as an early warning in advance of events that followed (since it, in and of itself, nearly led to economic meltdown a year before the Lehman collapse); 4) the collapse of the American automobile industry which left the country’s manufacturing heartland highly vulnerable and, finally, 5) the global financial meltdown which accompanied the Lehman collapse and led directly to the current extended recession and ongoing crisis.  As I said, even one such event would have led to at least some difficulty for future administrations.  Five events of this magnitude are unprecedented.  While “blame” shouldn’t in and of itself decide how people vote in this particular election there is no reason for anyone to pretend to be shocked or outraged if Obama points a finger at the prior administration in economic matters.  Any analyst, if they are being honest, would have to conclude that he’s entitled to do so.

But it needs to be understood that what really should be looked at is whether the response of the Obama administration to the economic crisis has been effective, not just whether someone else is to blame for it.  Towards this end the major effort undertaken by the current administration was the economic stimulus package, which was (believe it or not) enacted with some crucial Republican support.  The argument over this Act is largely what this election revolves around (though different “catch phrases” are used by each side to describe their core issues).  To some this is “socialism” to others “big government run wild”.  A close reading shows it is neither.

The clear fact is that the stimulus has worked – if not spectacularly then at least in a highly effective manner.  It is also demonstrably less “government centric” than similar, past efforts.  All this is borne out by statistics in the recent book “The New New Deal” by Michael Grunwald, a relatively objective writer.  Grunwald points out that the stimulus package is directly responsible for the creation or saving of 2.5 million jobs and that the unemployment rate, while hovering at around 8%, is significantly better than the 12-13% that would have arisen without its enactment.  As I write this I sit in a country with 15% unemployment and essentially no monetary control.  In Spain that rate is 25%.  Let’s not even talk about Greece.  The difference between the U.S. approach and these countries is that when the crisis hit there was a government in place in America that was willing to act to fill the banking vacuum that the financial crisis had created.  Yes this means deficits – but it also means that an even more catastrophic collapse was averted – giving the country the ability to rebound.  America was strong enough to overcome the stupidity of its financial industry and past governments – it would have been nearly criminally negligent not to flex its muscles to save its own people – and Obama should not be punished for having the fortitude to take this action in the very early days of his administration (when most presidents are still learning how to use the White House phone system).

Still – if this effort had been a step on the slippery road to socialism I could not bring myself to support it.  After all, the reason many of the European countries couldn’t react similarly was because they are so ridiculously invested in their own public sector edifices.  If there weren’t some checks built into the stimulus package to keep it from creating irreversible government dependency – and if they hadn’t worked effectively – then it wouldn’t have been worth it even if it did provide stability.  However, there were such checks built in – and they did work.

When the Act was first voted in the Obama administration looked at whether to invest in enormous projects that had been at the center of the “old” New Deal (like the Boulder Dam or Tennessee Valley Authority).  They quickly realized that projects like these (each of which employed upwards of 5,000 workers just by itself in the 1930’s) would, in the current times, only employ about 5% of that figure due to increased mechanisation and computer driven labor savings.  So instead of opting for this type of ginormous federally run project the stimulus monies have largely been parcelled out pursuant to a closely monitored fund.  The wastage rate as a result of this has been remarkably low (auditors have found losses of only $7.2 million – or .001%) and there is no way to characterize an approach of this type as “big government” in the classic sense.  In point of fact most politicians would never have allowed this type of methodology.  Big projects (rather than the small controlled type) mean big votes.  New airports in Ohio, dams in Colorado, port reconstructions in New Hampshire – those would have been headline makers.  President Obama should not be penalized for refusing to do what most “big government” pols would have loved to do – use that big pool of money to create large vote grabbing photo opportunities for himself.  Instead the mechanism for the stimulus was used in the manner that primarily targeted smaller, less “sexy”, projects.  You can get a description of it what was done here:  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2012/08/the_new_new_deal_a_book_argues_that_president_obama_s_stimulus_has_been_an_astonishing_success.html,  but the main point of this is – the stimulus package worked – and is still working.  Believe me – I live in a place where the economic approach didn’t work – and isn’t working – and you in America could be a hell of a lot worse off.  You can’t fire a guy for being successful – it’s not fair. 

Still – the economy isn’t the only reason to vote one way or the other.  You can find the views of the other side to be so brilliant that you can’t resist them.  You could also have one issue that makes one of the candidates so repulsive you can’t bring yourself to vote for them.  Or you could see the combined weight of all the other issues as so compelling one way or the other you have to vote that way.  Let’s look at those options one by one.

Republican brilliance – Look – as far as I can tell Mitt Romney is not a stupid person, but no one is comparing him to Thomas Jefferson in terms of political philosophy either.  His own campaign brought up the “etch-a-sketch” analogy back during the primaries and he seems to be living up to it in every way.  He is “against” the limited amnesty for illegal aliens granted by President Obama – but he “wouldn’t revoke it” either.  He is “against” the bailout of the auto industry but promises to continue that policy every time he travels the Midwest.  He opposes the regulations imposed on the financial industry – but doesn’t specify which ones will be reversed.  I see very little evidence of a true political philosophy there – Mitt Romney doesn’t want to be your leader – he wants to be your pal.  He wants to be everybody’s buddy – except the “professional victims” who conveniently seem to disappear whenever he walks into a room.  I tend to not like people who want to tell you only what you want to hear.  I’m telling the people reading this what I feel – not what they want to hear – and I’m sure I’ll hear back from plenty of them.  Good – I can take it.  I’m not sure Mr. Romney ever could.  Barack Obama has made a few enemies (understatement) but I’m OK with that to.  I feel I know where he stands – and while I don’t agree with everything he does, I admire his convictions and respect his intentions.  That’s not the way I feel about Mitt.  If Mitt Romney won the first debate (and he did) it was because he made himself into a completely different Mitt position-wise than the one who ran in the Republican primaries.  He was Mitt the chameleon – etch-a-Mitt – Mitt Zelig.  I don’t like or trust that.

There is a person on the Republican side however who does have a clear philosophy.  Paul Ryan cannot be accused of waffling.  However –the role model he cites for his approach to life (Ayn Rand) is perhaps the worst possible example of where I personally would want the country to go.  Rand’s way of thinking is best summed up in a passage from Atlas Shrugged, whose protagonist says "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."  That eliminates just about every Christian tenet in the world – and this from a party that is supposed to revere Christianity.  If Paul Ryan is where the true Republican philosophy can be found it should be rejected – both because your second in command shouldn’t be your leader but mostly because it’s wrong.

Candidate Repulsion – I’ve been told I’m supposed to reject Barack Obama because he is 1) Not a native born American (untrue); 2) A Muslim (untrue and immaterial); 3) In favor of infanticide (untrue and a disgusting accusation that came straight from Mike Huckabee during the Republican Convention);  4) A socialist (untrue – as anyone who has ever run up against a true socialist would know) and – most recently – 5) because I wouldn’t have like his mother (I couldn’t believe this but look here – http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/09/28/obama_conspiracy_theory_movie_dead_mother_s_sex_life_is_target_in_dreams_from_my_real_father_.html someone actually spent the money to send out one million videos of this garbage).  I have now officially reached the point where I am so sick of this approach that even if I had my doubts about the first couple of things I’ve talked about – I’d still vote for Obama.  The level that this has gone to is insane.  Donald Trump (someone who does repulse me) spent a year chasing down the bogus “birth certificate” story – until he was publicly shamed.  You would expect him to be shunned for this – instead he has been rewarded with “chief fund raiser” status.  I don’t know Barack Obama personally – but what I’ve seen I like.  I like the way he treats his wife and kids.  I like that he can sit down and have a discussion about sports that seems pretty rational http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgUYDRvvLp4 .  I like the fact that he seems to think that sitting down and just having a beer with someone you disagreed with is a good way to clear the air: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83sPsoyt-8Q.  In short - he seems like an OK guy.  Why is there this insistence on demonizing him?  This, again, is unfair – and the American people usually are, at the end of the day, fair.  You don’t fire somebody because the bullies are ganging up on him. 

Finally – one word about Mitt Romney’s “47%” comment.  The only way you can get to that number – the only way – is if you include seniors on a fixed income in the mix.  My mother is a cancer survivor who has retired.  I don’t know what she pays in federal income tax but it’s probably pretty low now.  She gets a pension, my Dad’s pension and some social security – and she does pretty well getting by.  But here’s the point – she spent years and years of her life working, raising a family and paying her taxes.  To have someone lump her into a group and label her “dependent” now – after all those years – makes me sick.  And it’s not just her – in that 47% are wounded or elderly veterans, mentally or physically disabled people who still work a job at Mickey D’s because they love to get out and work and people with legitimate problems – none of whom should be tarred with this brush. If there is any one thing that a candidate for President has said in this campaign that does repulse me it’s that “47%” bullshit.  You can tell a lot about a person by what he says when he thinks no one but his buddies are listening.

All the Other Issues Considered – Sure, it’s the economy, stupid – but it’s also everything else. So if Barack Obama was in the wrong about the vast majority of the remaining issues I would vote against him.  However – he’s not.  I’ll pull two big ones out of the fire. 

First “ObamaCare” - I don’t expect everyone to like this piece of legislation – hell, if I was writing it this wouldn’t be the solution I’d draft.  But here’s the thing – we couldn’t continue to do nothing in the area of healthcare – we just couldn’t.  This particular approach – the personal mandate – is the one method which has proven acceptable to both sides albeit not in a way that pleases all, or even most.  Deep down we all know this – but more important is how we know this.  We know it because when this same experiment was tried in a smaller laboratory (Massachusetts) the net result of the political process was almost exactly the same.  And the leader of that first experiment in compromise (which is at the core of effective politics)?  Yup, Mitt Romney.  ObamaCare is RomneyCare – and vice versa.  Again – it is unfair to fire one person from a job and replace him with another when they have shown that given the same set of circumstances they would do exactly the same thing.

Next, gun control.  I support, and support strongly, the right to keep and bear arms.  I keep reading about how anti-gun Obama is – but here is a quote from the Washington Post:

Obama kept his promises to gun owners but not to gun control advocates who have been frustrated by the White House's lack of interest.

The president signed bills allowing guns in national parks and on Amtrak.  He has not pushed for the reinstement of the assualt weapons ban - and Attorney General Eric Holder was reportedly chastised for suggesting he would.  Nor has he moved toward closing the gun-show loophole.           

Doesn’t really sound like someone who is that anti-gun to me.  I also remember the last election cycle – when, after the Supreme Court decision overturning the Washington D.C. ban on handguns reporters flocked to Obama, expecting him to criticize the decision of the conservative court.  Only one problem – they found out that he supported the decision – on constitutional grounds.  It is not fair to throw someone out of their job for disagreeing with you on the issues when they don’t really disagree with you at all.  

This seems to be true with a lot of the people who are foaming at the mouth about the Obama administration on a number of issues.  For instance, I keep seeing how “America’s standing abroad is dropping” – look, I live abroad – and take my word for it – everyone here loves the guy.  Even if you don’t take my word for it – look here:  https://ip-journal.dgap.org/en/ip-journal/topics/discreet-charm-barack-obama .  And this is even when he refuses to play some of the typical diplomatic games with these foreign leaders.  America’s approval ratings abroad are up in every world region bar one.  Up in Asia, up in Europe, up in the emerging African sphere, up in Latin America.  The only place they are down? – yup, the Middle East – the same Middle East that is supposed to be so supportive of the President (because, you know, he’s Muslim and all). So if you’re worried about America’s standing in the world – and America’s standing is just fine, thank you – what are you worried about?

So here is where I’m coming from.  I’ve been an employee, a small business owner and an executive.  I’ve been on both sides of the desk for performance evaluation and I know this much – if you are going to remove someone from their job – take away the thing that is very much a part of who they are – you better be damn sure they deserve it.  I cannot see how anyone, other than the most extreme party zealots, can argue persuasively that a firing is called for here.  And look - I know many of the policies we're talking about don't feel successful. There are a lot of people hurting out there, the world still seems a dangerous place, it seems that the turnaround is taking a long time.  But when you look at what could have happened and how four years in the course of history is actually a very short amount of time, the President's record is a good one.  So Obama gets my vote – not because I’m following any blind party line – but because he’s the best candidate and he deserves four more years.  It’s the only fair choice.

Grantland is up and running

Working on the next White Whale segment and will post soon - in the mean time just wanted to let people know that Grantland, the new Bill Simmons website, is up and running here:  http://www.grantland.com/ - I don't know if this is going to be good but this has huge possibilities.  Worth checking out.

Blogging the Great White Whale - Oh Cap'n, My Cap'n

Through to the 8^th chapter of the book and I now have had the opportunity to meet up with the first of the major characters that Ishmael introduces to the story – the unique Queequeg.  Queequeg, a Fijian, is tattooed from head to toe, is uncommonly massive and shaves himself with a harpoon.  Nowadays Queequeg would play rugby for Leinster, like the current Fijian star, Isa Nacewa http://www.leinsterrugby.ie/profiles/index.php?player=14900&includeref=dynamic .  But back in the 1800’s, Queequeg instead was on the front line of the most dangerous game afoot – the whaling ship.  Even at this early stage of the book the respect that both the narrator, and the other whalers, seem to have for Queequeg is apparent.  I also get the feeling that Queequeg is going to be such a big part of this narrative that we’d be better off leaving an in depth examination of him until a bit later. 

But the early parts of this book are full of other things that are worth talking about.  Melville basically takes the reader on a walking tour of New Bedford, checking in to an inn down by the docks, spending some time in the rough bar associated with this place of accommodation, finding himself sharing a bed with the aforementioned Queequeg, strolling about the town the next morning and stopping in to the local church. 

It is at this church that a rather strange thing happens.  Ishmael is looking around at the plaques on the wall, most of which relate to whaling men lost at sea, when the local preacher wanders in and ascends the pulpit.  Melville describes the pulpit as if it were a ship, and there is indeed a ladder that is used to get into it that is an exact replica of a ship’s ladder – right down to the fact that the preacher pulls it up behind him after he has climbed in.  Melville (through Ishmael) even comments on the symbolism of the act – and it’s symbolism that I’ll talk about next.

Moby Dick is, by every account, full of symbolic meaning at every level.  The whale itself is, as we’ve discussed, perhaps the greatest metaphorical symbol in literature.  The whale means something, the pulpit means something, the fact that Queequeg is tattooed certainly means something – and by “something” I mean something other than an oceanic mammal, a place from which to give sermons or skin markings. 

In fact, my worry is that it will be hard to read the book without the symbolic possibilities getting in the way.  This probably derives more from my built in prejudices concerning the book's “importance” than from anything else, but I’d be willing to place a bet that there are plenty of people who have spent time worrying about the meaning of the “harpoons” in the story while overlooking the fact that they are the long pointy things that get stuck in the whale.

I don’t want to be “that guy” – the one who sees too much behind every image in the book.  First of all, I think it dilutes the value of the truly symbolic images.  Secondly – I think it cheapens the story.  Most of all I don’t want to get hung up on relatively meaningless symbolism because I think that we deal with far too much of it in our everyday lives. 

“What?” you say. (Yep – I saw you).  “He’s crazy – modern storytelling uses much less of heavy metaphors than the type of writing from back in Melville’s day”.

“You’re right” I answer.

“And the most common form of storytelling isn’t even writing anymore – it’s film and television – and while some TV (like “The Wire”) and some film (like “Citizen Kane”) get into literary metaphors and symbols – most of it (like “Scream III” and “The Brady Bunch”) are just light entertainment.”

“You’re right there too” I say (even though deep down I believe that the Brady boys change to frizzy perms symbolized their longing to break the chains of their suburban bondage).

“So how do you think we end up with an overload of symbolism in the 21st century? – what makes you think that we get bombarded by things that aren’t really what they seem but just stand for something else?”

And to this I answer:

                Hot dogs – Armour hot dogs – what kind of kid eats Armour hot dogs?

                Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks

                Tall kids, small kids – even kids with chicken pox

                Eat hot dogs – Armour hot dogs

                The dogs kids love to BITE!

Advertising is pretty much nothing but symbols, and I do not mean that in a good way.  Hot dogs are not really that good for you, and Armour hot dogs aren’t appreciably better than any one of the hundreds of other brands you can get.  But if you grew up during a certain time I pretty much guarantee that five words in to that jingle you remembered the tune and were singing the  words in your head.

The metaphors and symbolism used in advertising are almost never as deep or subliminally sneaky as some would have you believe – and that is, in many ways, the problem.  The usual means by which ads try to hook you is by making you associate the imagery of a cute face, catchy song, sexy model, scary situation or (most often) unfulfilled need with their product.  As a result symbolic imagery in the modern world is not so much associated with intelligence as with absurdity.  We all get hit with so many in–your-face images in advertising that we are simply not prepared to work at recognising and appreciating the subtle ones in literature any more.  Disagree if you will, but I ask you, would you really be loved if you were a processed sausage?  That’s what I was told when I was a kid – and I remember it to this day:

                Oh I wish I was an Oscar Mayer weiner;

                That is what I’d truly like to be –ee-ee

                'Cause if I was an Oscar Mayer weiner;

                Everyone would be in love with me.

I don’t know that changing yourself into a sausage is the road to true love, or, Freudian imagery aside, that the use of it as a symbolic stand in for the road to affection is intellectually challenging – but it sure was catchy.  There are other examples of the lingering effects of the advertising that I grew up with.  For instance – the most memorable seagoing commander of my childhood was not Ahab.  Or Queeg from The Caine Mutiny.  It wasn’t Cook, Hook, or any other hero of the seas.  It was another Captain – Crunch.  (Sorry “Cap’n”).  Cap’n Crunch promised to stand up to milk – and he did.  Cap’n Crunch the cereal tasted all right – but it was made so hard to keep from softening in milk that it was like eating gravel.  Seriously – there used to be little tatters of skin hanging from the roof of your mouth after you finished with the stuff.  Not to mention that the cereal would get so pasty that when you chewed it you could make up a decent school lunch by scraping the leftovers off your teeth when noontime rolled around.  Still – I ate it.

The jingles associated with that multitude of products still reverberate in my head.  Here’s a selection of some of the greatest hits:

                Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce,

                Special orders don’t upset us,

                All we ask is that you let us

                Serve it your way

                HAVE IT YOUR WAY (at Burger King)

McDonalds fired back:

                Twoallbeefpattiesspecialsaucelettucecheesepicklesonionsonassameseedbun.

Of course we would try to twist the words around every once in a while, for instance, the neighbourhood kids did this with one McDonalds jingle:

              McDonalds is your kind of place

              Hamburgs in your face

Pickles up your nose

French fries between your toes –

And don’t forget their chocolate shakes –

They come from polluted lakes

MCDONALDS IS YOUR KIND OF PLACE!

Kawasaki let the good times roll, Giant Glass is who you call when your windshield’s busted, Pepsi claimed a generation  and Coke even changed the words of a hit song so much that to this day I still think of it first when I hear “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing” (“I’d like to buy the world a Coke”).

In addition to the intrepid Crunch, breakfast cereal was sold by a tiger, a toucan, three homosexual elves, a rabbit who never could get the cereal away from kids (give him some Trix for crying out loud), an alien (who remembers Quisp?), a vampire, a ghost, a re-animated strawberry-flavoured corpse, a leprechaun, a wig wearing eighteenth century member of a pacifist sect, a cuckoo, a wizard named Jarvis, a frog, a honey bear and, finally (though I’m sure I’m missing loads of these) a guy I actually went to college with whose brother hated everything.

Advertising teaches you that if you drink a certain type of beer you’ll feel like you’ve been wandering across a clean, crisp Rocky Mountain hillside (I love beer but after a session I more often feel like I’ve fallen off a clear crisp Rocky Mountain hillside), if you use the proper underarm spray you’ll get the best looking women (yep, that worked), if you wear the proper footgear you’ll end up in the Hall of Fame (still working on my speech for Cooperstown), if you don’t buy your parents a special alarm they may fall and never get up and, if you use the proper shampoo, you’ll have a thick, full head of hair (filthy, rotten, no good, LIARS!). 

So I think these days, as advertising bombards us with simplistic images that we really don’t need and probably wish to escape, (thank God for TIVO and SKY Plus, which allow you to fast forward through the commercials) we’ve kind of lost our appetite for images that make you work to grasp their meaning  – however worthwhile understanding those symbols might be.  That’s why reading a book like Moby Dick is good for you – it keeps you sharp. 

So, while I don’t want to be the guy who over-analyzes this book, I also don’t want to skip past the important symbolic moments when the book is obviously saying one thing but telling you more.  That pulpit is important – at this early stage, (without knowing where this will lead), I’d guess Ishmael is telling us that the reason the place from which the preacher tries to reveal God’s truths looks like a replica of a ship is because the real place where you can find those truths is not something that just looks like a ship – but is a ship.  (Now, queue the “Old Spice” jingle).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBeP8yc5P64&feature=related

BLOGGING THE GREAT WHITE WHALE - WHAT'S SO FUNNY?

Now to get started – I can report that I’ve read the first three sections of Moby Dick, which consist of a first part called “Etymology” during which Melville goes through the word for “whale” in multiple languages – including Greek, Hebrew, Latin (Cetus, hence “Cetacean”) Danish (Hvalt), Swedish (Hwal,) Spanish (Ballena) and Fijian (or as Melville puts it “Feejee”, where the word is “Pekee-nuee-nuee”).  He does all this in good humor, saying that the list was provided by a “Late consumptive usher to a grammar school”.  This is followed by a dedication (to Nathaniel Hawthorne) and then “Extracts” – which are a few pages of quotes about whales from books ranging from the Bible (“Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah”) to Blackstone’s Laws (which sets out that sturgeon and whales, when “cast ashore or caught” automatically become the property of the King).  This initially leads me to believe that this book is going to more about whales than people – and maybe it will – but then I recall that each of these quotes is about humans’ perception of the whale – what it is, who it belongs to, what to do with its parts (Hawthorne builds a doorway with a whale’s ribs in Twice Told Tales) and what they look like.  In one quote there is a report of a harpooner who caught a whale that “was white all over”.

Again this section is presented with a bit of a nudge and a wink – it is supposed to have been compiled by a “sub-sub librarian” who belongs to the “hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm”.  I like the fact that Melville is not taking this too seriously and can have a bit of fun with the whole thing – one of the fears I have starting in to this book is that it is going to be too damn “important” – that it will be so shot through with symbolism and heavy messages that I’ll have to fight my way through it like a thigh high snowdrift.

This worry is thankfully soon eased by the tone of the first true “chapter” of the book, called “Loomings”.  It is here that you run in to the famous opening words of the book, the ones everybody knows:

“Call me Ishmael”

I’d always pictured the speaker of these words to be a Moses-like figure (as played by Charlton Heston in a beard) solemnly invoking this phrase as the story begins.  This turns out not to be the case at all.  Ishmael is actually a funny dude – at least so far.  “Call me Ishmael” is less the product of a stuffy after dinner speaker than it is the banter of a used car salesman.  The tone is more like this:

“Hey, you there – my name? Call me Bob.  Listen, funny story - a few years back (don’t even ask how long ago) I decided that I was bored out of my gourd.  You know how it is.  Anyway – when I get like that – I know it’s time to go walkabout.  Well – sail about.  I make for the sea my friend – I make for the sea.  And that’s where I went this time.  But even though the family has a bit of money – I don’t sign on as a passenger.  Passengers have to pay to go aboard – I’d much rather get paid.  So I signed up – as a swabby mind you, not as an officer, and took off on a whaling voyage.  You probably read about it in the papers – you know “Presidential Campaign Enters Final Days”; War Breaks Out In Afghanistan” “Bob Goes Looking for Whales” – the usual headlines.  Anyway – you wouldn’t believe what happened”.

That the first chapter of the book is actually not deadly serious – is in fact kind of funny, got me thinking about what “funny” is.   We’ve all run in to lots of “funny” in our time – and there are different types.  I’ve often seen blurbs on book covers or jackets (not for Moby Dick) that will say something like “Hilarious!” or “A comic trip through the dark underbelly of America”.  Much of the time this is straight out misleading.  For example – I’m looking at “This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff and on the back cover it says the book is “as comic and transcendent as Huckleberry Finn” – on the inside cover it will tell you that it is “richer, darker and funnier” than anything else Wolff has written.  Now – I think This Boy’s Life is a great book – one of the most painfully honest memoirs I’ve ever read – but it ain’t funny and it ain’t Huck Finn.  Same thing applies to Pat Conroy’s The Lords of Discipline, a tremendous novel of racism and abuse at a southern college (Conroy’s alma mater, The Citadel, basically blackballed him for years because he wrote it).  There are blurbs on it that make you feel like you’re picking up a novelisation of Animal House.  The problem here isn’t that the books don’t have moments when the authors relate narratives with a bit of good humor – it’s that these aren’t what the book is about – and to pull those few moments out to try and sell the book as “comic” is misleading.  A truly “comic” novel would be the aforementioned Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – which, while hiding a serious message – sets out to be funny.  Kurt Vonnegut’s books strike me this way as well – except Vonnegut’s books often involve another tool used to make things funny – absurdism.  In the middle of his work outlining the deadliest, most serious event of his life (his survival of the firebombing of Dresden) Vonnegut takes time out to have his protagonist transported to outer space with a pornographic film star.

Then there is another type of humor – let’s call it “hyper-reality”.  The greatest example I ever saw of this was from a writer who worked in Boston when I was just getting out of college.  Her name was Caroline Knapp, and she wrote a column every week for the Boston Phoenix.  Aside from the men who were cruising the back pages for the “escort service” ads, it was the main reason people picked up and read the Phoenix.  The articles often took the form of something called “The Adventures of Alice K” and they outlined the everyday concerns of what must have been Knapp’s alter-ego,” Alice K (not her real initial)”. Everyone would pick up the paper on the T, take a cursory look at the headline – and then flip through looking for Alice K.   If you can track down a copy of the book that eventually resulted (“Alice K’s Guide to Life”) – get it.  It’s hilarious and if you are a human male attempting to figure out the post college single female – well it probably won’t save you, but you might at least catch a clue.  If you’re a woman – this is a book written for you.  Here is an example from one of the chapters – “Alice K’s Male Sensitivity Assessment Quiz”: (to be given to potential boyfriends)

                Explain the connection between:

Elbows and lemons

Hairspray and panty hose

Masking tape and hems

Bananas and PMS

Failed relationships and suicidal depression

Identify the following words and rank them according to the degree of anxiety they provoke:

                Cystitis

                Cellulite

                Celibacy

                 Season basketball tickets

If your girlfriend is traumatized by an extremely bad haircut the correct response is:

a)       “Your hair looks great!”

b)       “Your hair looks great!”

c)        “Your hair looks great!”

d)       “Your hair looks great!”

          

Caroline Knapp was ready to have an incredible career – but got side-tracked by alcoholism.  No matter to her – she overcame it and wrote a great book called “Drinking – A Love Story”.  Then, goddamn it, she got lung cancer and was dead at 42.  If you get a chance to read anything by Caroline Knapp don’t miss out.

There is also writing that just sets out to make you laugh.  For novels I’d recommend Jay Cronley, who wrote books like Funny Farm and Quick Change.  If you can get ‘em, read ‘em – they’re a riot.  Jay Cronley is one of my favourite “hidden” writers – ones that I think I know about and no one else does.  Other people do know about him of course, (otherwise he wouldn’t have published so many books) but he’s sufficiently hidden for me to feel like I’m passing on a secret here.

The comic essay is another great standby – if you like political humor read P.J. O’Rourke – regardless of political persuasion.  Shit, I’m supposed to be a liberal and I like his stuff just fine.  (I’m not really that liberal – I just happen to think Barack Obama was born in America and Sarah Palin and Donald Trump are assholes, which qualifies one for liberal status these days). 

Stand-up comedians are usually good at this type of writing, if you can get them to sit down to write (which is a bit counter-intuitive).  Here’s some of Steve Martin’s “The Sledgehammer – How it Works”:

The novice sledgehammerer (from the German sledgehammeralamalamadingdong) must be familiar with a few terms:

Thunk: the sound the “clanker” (street term for “heavy weighted slug”) makes when wielded against the “stuff” (see next)

                Stuff:  Things that are to be wanged (see next)

                Wang:  The impact of the clanker and the stuff.

                Smithereens:  The result of being wanged.

Woody Allen is pretty good too – this is from his “Selections from the Allen Notebooks”:

Thought – why does man kill?  He kills for food.  And not only food:  frequently there must be a beverage.

Should I marry W?  Not if she won’t tell me the other letters in her name.  And what about her career? How can I ask a woman of her beauty to give up the roller derby?  Decisions…

If you get a chance to check out Allen’s “The Irish Genius” contained in his book Without Feathers it’s worth the glance just to have a laugh at the pretentiousness of a certain type of academic criticism.  Here’s a sample:

Viscous and Sons has announced publication of The Annotated Poems of Sean O’Shawn, the great Irish poet, considered by many to be the most incomprehensible and hence the finest poet of his time.  Abounding in highly personal references, an understanding of O’Shawn’s work requires an intimate knowledge of his life, which, according to scholars, not even he had.

These sorts of short snippets really verge on being “epigrams” and there really was an Irish genius associated with these sorts of short, snappy sayings.  Oscar Wilde was probably known as much for his writings that covered one or two sentences as for his longer works.  Here are a few of his choicest bits:

                One should always be in love.  That is the reason one should never marry.

                We have really everything in common with America these days, except, of course, language.

                The English have a miraculous power of turning wine into water.

                I can resist everything but temptation.

                Always forgive your enemies; it is the thing that annoys them most.

The list of people who were great at this sort of thing is endless.  Mark Twain (“Giving up smoking is easy – I’ve done it thousands of times…”), Noel Coward (“Blown his brains out you say – he must’ve been an incredibly good shot…”), and, of course, Winston Churchill, who reportedly had this exchange with Lady Astor;

                Astor:  “Winston – if you were my husband I would flavor your coffee with poison”.

                Churchill:  “Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it”.

Of course, with all these insults and epigrams flying around it is hard to remember who said what – in fact, there is supposed to have been a good bit of joke stealing going on.  Once, when Oscar Wilde spoke up and said “I wish I’d said that” James Whistler retorted “You will, Oscar, you will.”  (Or at least that’s how the story goes.)

And of course there is humor to be had in the true facts surrounding everyday life.  I love these sorts of items.  I once found a memory aid book that someone had forgotten at a bus stop in Harvard Square.  That amused me for a week.  There are whole books of this sort of thing.  I particularly like the ones where they screw up the headlines in newspapers.  Here are some favorites:

                “Mayor Says D.C. Is Safe Except For Murders” (OK – the politicians are a problem too…)

                “Bush Gets Briefing on Drought; Says Rain Needed to End It” (See what I mean?)

                “Moorpark Residents Enjoy a Communal Dump” (Who needs privacy?)

                “Ability to Swim May Save Children from Drowning” (You don’t say…)

                “Multiple Personality Rapist Sentenced to Two Life Terms” (makes sense to me…)

                “April Slated as Child Abuse Month” (Look out kids…)

                “Include Your Children When Baking Cookies” (Really – look out kids…)

                “Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half” (That’ll teach ‘em)

There are also the odd wedding announcements that make the news, such as the historic wedding of Elizabeth Beers to Thomas Franks (“Beers-Franks”, a perfect couple); Bonnie Lynn Flint’s engagement to Timmy Stone (“Flint-Stone”, meet the …) and the unbelievable union of Robert Love with Mary Theresa Organ.  (People – I have pictures – this really happened).

And then there are just jokes.  The internet has allowed greater circulation of jokes than any other medium since Bob Hope.  There are even types of jokes now – you can categorize the attachments to your e-mail by the type of joke it contains.  There is the straight narrative:

A Mafia boss gets out of prison and goes to visit his accountant, taking along his consigliere. He gets right to the point – “Where’s the three million bucks you embezzled from me?

No answer.

“I said – where’s the three million bucks you embezzled from me?”

No answer.

The consigliere looks at the accountant and says “Boss – the guy’s a deaf-mute – he can’t hear you or speak – I’ll use sign language to let him know what’s goin’ on”.  So the consigliere signs to the accountant “Where’s the three million bucks?”

The accountant looks at him and signs back “I don’t know what you’re talking about”.

The consigliere interprets this to the boss who says “I might be able to send the message a bit more clearly”, pulls out a 9mm Glock and places it against the accountant’s head. The consigliere signs “He needs you to tell him where it is!”       

Panicked the accountant signs back “OK – OK – the money is buried in a brown suitcase in my mother’s back yard!”

“What did he say?” the boss asks.

The consigliere answers; “He says you don’t have the balls to pull the trigger”.

Then there is the “category” joke – be it elephant, blonde, Irish, Polish, Black, Redneck – whatever.  Here’s one that can be used for almost any male group – just to show how interchangeable it is we’ll call the participants a blue, a green and a paisley.

Three guys walk into a bar, a blue, a green and a paisley.  The blue says “This bar’s OK, but I know a bar back in Blueland where when you go in there and buy two beers, the bartender gives you the third one free”. 

The green thinks about this for a while and then says “That’s not bad, but back in Greenia there’s a bar where you buy a beer – and the bartender buys you the next one – all night long.”

The paisley nods his head and says “I’m sure those bars are fine – but in Paisylvania I know a bar where you go in – and they buy you your first drink, and then they buy you your second drink, and then they buy your third drink – and then they take you in the back room and get you laid.”

There is awed silence – and then the green says – “You’ve actually been to this bar?”

The paisley says “No – but my sister has”.

There is also the joke that is not a joke really, but just simply a list.  There’s the list of “drinking trouble-shooters” (Problem:  Beer unusually pale and tasteless.  Answer:  Glass empty.  Solution: Get someone to buy next round).  There is also “How to Shower Like a Man” “How a Woman Proceeds through a Drive Thru ATM”, the list of proposed new State mottoes (West Virginia – “One Big Happy Family – Really”).  My personal favourite is always the list of actual questions asked and answered during cross examinations.

                Lawyer:  “And then he threatened to kill you”

                Witness:  “Yes”

                Lawyer:  “And did he actually kill you?”

or;

                Lawyer:  “Doctor, can you tell us how many autopsies you’ve done on dead people”.

                Witness “All my autopsies are on dead people”.

I love those.

There are also loads of pictures passed around on the internet – and they’re funny too.  I most like the ones of signs that just don’t seem right – like the one that says “Give that June Bride a Good Case of Worms – or Other Fine Bait” or the one outside the church that says “God is Still on the Throne”.

Finally – there is always slapstick.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d_JmZvj6I0

Oh yeah – we were talking about Moby Dick.  The first chapter, in addition to having that famous lead in, does a great job of getting you at ease with your narrator – you know why he’s going to sea, and you’re on his side almost immediately.  But that’s not all – in a perfect bit of foreshadowing the chapter ends with Ishmael’s vision of “one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air”.  This is the whale (but to those of us in the know, it’s also a great description of the view of Mt. Greylock from Pittsfield).

Blogging the Great White Whale - Here's Herman!

Here are a few basic background notes to Melville and Moby Dick before we get started.  (Some of these we’ll look at in much greater detail later on.) Melville was born on August 1, 1819 in Manhattan.  His father was from a Boston based family, his mother from a well-established Hudson Valley, New York, Dutch clan.  Melville’s father was largely unsuccessful at business and died when the boy was 12.  Herman was an intelligent child, but had spotty schooling.  In 1839, to help support himself, Melville went to sea for the first time, and bit later, at age 21 he signed on to a whaling ship, the Acushnet, for an extended voyage.  He stayed on board until the middle of 1842, when he deserted and lived for a time in the islands of the South Pacific.  He hitched on to various ships and made his way back to Boston where he began to write.  He turned out two well-received novels, based on his sailing experiences (Typee and Omoo), and then hit a bit of a dry spell.

During the time of his initial success Melville married and bought a house on Holmes Rd. in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  Named “Arrowhead”, the house became Melville’s home for 13 years, and he farmed the surrounding land and began writing the book that would become Moby Dick in Pittsfield.  During this period Melville also struck up a friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived in nearby Lenox.

Completed and published in 1851, Moby Dick was not met with overwhelming praise – the book’s reception can best be described as “lukewarm”.  Melville would continue to attempt to write, with diminishing success, until 1857, when he largely retired from writing to become a lecturer and later a customs agent in New York.  He died in 1891, a respected man but not a literary superstar.  Melville remained largely a secondary figure in American literature until the 1920’s when his works went through a revival amongst academics and critics.  It was during this period that Moby Dick really entered the pantheon of great American books. 

The bones of the plot were set out in the first blog entry – a narrator (Ishmael) describes the events of his life leading up to and including his service on the whaling ship Pequod.   This ship is commanded by the obsessed Captain Ahab, who seeks after the near legendary white whale known as “Moby Dick” (the full title of the book is “Moby Dick, or The Whale”).  The consequences of Ahab’s quest, both on himself and the other crew members, together with a detailed description of the logistics of a life on board a whaler, make up the bulk of the book.  Or, at least, that’s what I’m told.  We’ll see.  I’ve also been told the book is boring, fascinating, thrilling, an adventure story, a morality tale, a fable, a myth, an odyssey, a hero’s quest, a villain’s saga and the first environmental novel.  As I said, we’ll see.

Oh – and first of all – how about this book being written in Pittsfield!  For those of you who think of Massachusetts as “The Bay State” and picture Cape Cod, the Boston seafront, Nantucket, Gloucester, Plymouth Rock and the other oceanic sites associated with the Commonwealth – let me assure you, you are not thinking of Pittsfield.  The city of Pittsfield is about as far inland as you can get and still be in Massachusetts.  It’s in the Housatonic River Valley, nestled amongst the Berkshire Hills – about 150 miles from the ocean. 

The part of Pittsfield where Melville lived is well known to me.  My grandmother and aunts lived on Holmes Road for a few years, a couple of miles from Melville’s Arrowhead.  The stretch of Holmes Road where Arrowhead sits (it is now a museum) is rural even to this day.  It overlooks fields and forests and a large stream runs nearby.  In Melville’s time it must have been even more out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but fields. 

This is important to remember, for there likely would have been fewer, not more, forests back in Melville’s day.  That’s sometimes hard to grasp because we think of the woods as things that are constantly being cut back.  But, in truth, when farming was much more important in the pre-industrial/early industrial age there were many more cleared fields in the areas around New England than there are now.  This becomes very apparent if you ever spend much time in the woods around the Berkshires – you’ll be walking along through the trees and suddenly trip across a line of stones.  These are the remnants of the rock walls that crisscrossed the fields all through the area. Since about 1900 the woods have actually been creeping back into and reclaiming much of the New England landscape.  If you drive the Mass Turnpike from Springfield to the New York border you go through miles and miles of woodland.  Almost none of it is old growth forest – it was all fields given over to planting or grazing at one point or another.   It was this deforested landscape that Melville looked over – until – off in the distance – he would see one large, rounded greyish-white shape.  That was Mount Greylock, and rumor has it that it was the inspiration for Moby-Dick.  Greylock looks like a whale rising from the waves, and (as noted in this Wikipedia entry:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Greylock), it was what made Melville think of the stories he had heard about ferocious white whales during his travels on the sea. 

So Moby-Dick, perhaps the greatest ocean-going novel ever written, was inspired by a mountain that sits in the farthest inland reaches of Massachusetts, from whose summit you can see perhaps five states (and maybe two countries – I’m not sure if Canada is visible on a good day) – but not a glimpse of the sea.

BLOGGING THE GREAT WHITE WHALE

Here’s the deal.  I’ve never read Moby Dick.  It’s supposed to be right up there on the short list of candidates for “The Great American Novel”, it was largely written about a half hour away from where I grew up, it’s been sitting on bookshelves in the places where I’ve lived for most of my life, it’s sitting on my bookshelf now – and I’ve hardly ever cracked the spine.  I know, as most people do, what the bones of the story are (a narrator relates the tale of how a Captain Ahab obsessively pursues an albino sperm whale), I know the first line (“Call me Ishmael”) – and that’s about it.  Moby Dick is one of those books (Ulysses would be the major example here in Ireland) that is famous for being great and largely unread.  Hell – I was a double major in college (Poly Sci and English) and I didn’t even read it as part of my curriculum.  Melville’s The Confidence Man was the book of his that I read.  Moby Dick? – never bothered.  Damn shame.  Should’ve read it.

So now I’m going to.  Over the next months, years – however long, I’m going to read Moby Dick.  Yes sir, I’m going to attack that great white whale of a book and see what all the fuss is about. I’m also going to blog about what I’ve read – or at least use the parts of the book I’ve read as a jumping off point for a blog.  Evidently Melville writes about loads of things in this book, from the tattoos found on South Sea islanders to the details of the whaling industry.  I’m going to use that variety as a way to explore whatever Melville brings to mind.

Why the hell am I doing this?  Well, in my defense I’ve checked and I am not the first to set out to use the Herman Melville masterpiece as a means to start an extended blog.  There appear to be quite a few others who have set out to give a chapter-by-chapter, blow by blow (notice the way I avoided using the term “thar she” before that) account of their journey through the book.  The scope of Melville’s work is such that it makes people want to treat it as more than something to review, critique or analyse – they also want to “journey” through it.

I’ll admit to having some of that in mind as I set out on this extended session – but more than trying to write about the book in these entries I want to use it as a jumping off point to discuss not only where Melville is going, but where I have been.  The most intriguing thing about Moby Dick is not the story – I’ve seen the story retold in movies and cartoons for crying out loud, but the fact that no one quite seems able to decide “what it all means”.  What does the white whale represent, is it a symbol of – sexual desire?  Is it political?  Is it a metaphor for chasing wealth?  Is it about slavery?  Is it more about Ahab – or Ishmael?  No one seems to be able to decide – with the end result being that it can mean anything to anybody.  That’s what I need – a blank canvas – and that is what you will be, my cetacean friend.

So, yes, over the next few months/years I’m going to write about Melville’s book – but I expect as well to write about other books, breakfast cereals, hobbies, the consistency of mud, music, Presidents, Popes, pizza, higher education, lower education, middle education, stupidity as opposed to intelligence, relativity, relatives, wildlife, walking, running and standing still.  Anything really – because the book is supposed to let you do that.  I’ll tell jokes, ghost stories, prepare lists of things – just drift around in search of – well, whatever the whale is supposed to be.  Hop in the boat if you want to come along.