Today I turn 33 years old. It has been brought to my attention that this is the age Jesus was when he died.  I have not yet decided whether I will let this fact depress me or fill me with gratitude — but I must say, I’m trying my best not to do the compare/contrast thing:

What have you done with your 33 years, Bill?  Healed the lame and the sick?  Started the world’s largest religion?  Why not?  Too “busy?”  Didn’t want to wake up that early?  Had some TV shows you just had to watch?

Yeah, that’s a game you don’t win.  And I’m told it’s bad form to compare yourself to Jesus, even for the sake of self-deprecating musing, so I’ll stop that line of thought right here.  Anyhow, I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.  I actually have a lot to be thankful for on this birthday. Between getting married and publishing my first novel, this has probably been the most eventful year of my life.  I will be hard-pressed to match this level of excitement and good fortune in my 34th year.

But then, I like to give myself lofty goals …

In the meantime, we have the day to day.  I’m still making ends meet by teaching at a wealthy private school on the west side of Los Angeles. I’ve been filling vacancies, hopping from one maternity leave to another, in an effort to avoid the complications of full-time employment such as report cards, take-home grading, and time-sucking extracurricular faculty pow-wows.  Does this allow me enough time to write?  There’s never enough time.  That said, it’s better than many other day jobs I’ve had and infinitely more fulfilling.

Up until recently, I’ve been spending my time in the kindergarten, which has been good for the soul if bad for the immune system (I was sick for the first month-and-a-half of 2009).  Now I am in the 6th grade, where I will stay for the remainder of the school year.  It’s a whole new, challenging, grade-conscious, puberty-ridden world, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it in future posts.

Speaking of future posts, I do plan on writing some.  I’m working on another book review, and I have a lot more things I plan on sharing once I get the time to do so.  Apologies for the continued blog neglect.  These next couple months should be busy ones.  I’m hoping to have this new screenplay squared away soon, which will mean starting my film agent search sometime in the next couple months.  Then, on June 2nd, the paperback version of The Scandal Plan will hit bookshelves near you.  More on these stories as they evolve.

For now, I’m 33.  Given the alternative, I’ll take it.  Jesus didn’t make it to 34.  God willing, I will. Thanks to all those who’ve sent me birthday wishes this week.  I feel the love.  It’s warm, and I dig it, and I dig all of you.

Much love,
b

- My new screenplay.  This holiday season, I finally had a draft that I was ready to show others.  I’ve already given it to two of my usual readers, one of those being my wife.  I’m not too far from the finish line with this one, and that’s exciting.  It’s a romantic comedy, not at all political, and perhaps that’s for the best, given the current climate.  More on this, to be sure …

- Israel.  I don’t have time to do justice to this subject now, but the recent conflict has certainly been foremost in my thoughts.  Specifically, I continue to be outraged at the double standard the international community applies to Israel’s self-defense. If a European country were under rocket attack from one of its neighbors, nobody would be talking about “proportional” responses.  On the other hand, I continue to be frustrated by Israel’s inability to properly anticipate and shape world opinion.  5.5 million Jews and not a single PR genius?  Why didn’t the world know about these rocket attacks before Israel’s counter-attack?  Why wasn’t Israel screaming bloody murder in the UN and the international media?  The terrorists know how to work the press.  Why not Israel?

- MLK.  If Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, I have no doubt that he’d want us all to go to work on Monday and skip work Tuesday to watch the inauguration.  Sigh.  The idea of a Tivo-ed inauguration just doesn’t seem as romantic.

- Football.  Is there a more exciting offensive player right now than Larry Fitzgerald?  Is there a more exciting defensive player than Troy Polamalu?  Very much enjoying the playoffs, even though I no longer care who wins at this point.  I’m also looking forward to the end of NFL madness so I’ll be able to be more productive with my Sundays.

- Weather.  Has been wonderful.  Highs in the low 80s in LA all weekend.  This makes me happy.

- Lyrics.  I recently bought Seal’s album “System,” and I really want to like it.  I love his first three albums and much of his fourth, but I’m having trouble with this one.  Part of it is the electronic clubby danciness of it, but a big stumbling block is the lyrics.  Example: “What have we done? One of us came undone. Which one?”  Urg.  And what about the radio track: “I want you to always feel amazing”  Really, Seal?  The word “amazing” is about as lyrically imaginative as the word “great” or “nice.”  Lyrics like these feel phoned in.  And while we’re on the subject of lyrics, I am irked every time I hear that Killers song that asks: “Are we human, or are we dancer?”  What? Is that supposed to be playful like Beck or deep like Radiohead or just specifically designed to annoy me like Howie Mandell?  Perhaps this lyric wouldn’t bother me so much if only I could get it out of my head.

- Slumdog Millionaire.  Finally saw it.  Loved it.  Danny Boyle rocks me.  Great script too. Simon Beaufoy plays two of the most classic story archetypes to perfection: the rags to riches story and the love conquers all story. Add in an electrifying score, the rich canvas of India, and stellar performances, and you have a prescription for a worldwide phenomenon, the sort of movie everyone will tell their friends to go see.  Go see it.

In the meantime, sit tight, party hard, and have yourself a rich and meaningful ChanuChristmaKwanzAuldLangSynica.

Here it is:

MAYBE YOU SHOULDN’T VOTE

Voting is a skill. It’s like basketball. Not everyone is good at it. Sure, everyone likes to think he or she is a good voter, just like everyone likes to think he or she is attractive and has a sense of humor. Sadly, the numbers do not support these claims. If everyone was a brilliant voter, we would never elect bad leaders, and the last eight years might have turned out quite differently. So this election year, before you step into a voting booth and possibly screw things up for the rest of us, I ask that you take a moment to answer the following questions and determine whether you have the skill and the know-how to vote responsibly for our next president.

1. Do you feel you made a mistake in 2004 when you voted for George W. Bush?
If your answer is yes, then maybe you’re just not good at voting. Every single thing you probably hate about Bush’s second term was either already in evidence during his first term or was a direct result of actions taken during those first four years. The arrogant foreign policy, the massive deficits, the deregulation, the cronyism, the wasteful spending, the endless war, the bad environmental policies–all this was on the table in 2004. In fact, Bush probably made more mistakes in his first term than in his second. But why didn’t that sway your vote when it mattered? Perhaps you were uninformed or perhaps you were misinformed. Perhaps you were fully aware of Bush’s faults but chose to cast your vote on the basis of personality rather than policy. We’ll deal with all of these points in a moment. For now, you should ask yourself this: if I got it totally wrong in 2004, how do I know I won’t get it wrong again in 2008?

2. Do you believe Barack Obama is a Muslim? Do you believe he “pals around with terrorists”? Do you believe John McCain wants us to be at war in Iraq for one hundred years?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to ask yourself where you are getting your information. If you actually believe any of these voluminously debunked claims, your grasp on reality might be looser than you realize, and this could very well make you a bad voter (see next question).

3. Do you believe any of the following to be unbiased and even-handed sources for political news: The Drudge Report, The Huffington Post, Air America, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, or the Fox News Network?
Seriously? There’s nothing wrong with getting your partisan fix, but you need to know the difference between news that attempts to be objective and “news” with an agenda. If you are relying on any of the above as your exclusive source of news, then you are watching the world through a skewed lens, you are hearing only one side of the story, and this doesn’t make you a good voter. Spend a few months varying your media diet, and then maybe you’ll be ready to step into a voting booth.

4. Are your political opinions easily swayed by forwarded e-mails, messages on your answering machine, or frightening campaign commercials?
If yes, you might be a bad voter.

5. Do you vote based on who you feel is the more “patriotic” candidate? Do you worry about having a president who is a member of the “elite?”
These are made up issues, meant to distract you from real things like the economy and foreign policy. If you fall for this stuff, it might be an indicator of poor voting skills. Every president in U.S. history–the good ones and the bad ones–have been both elite and intensely patriotic. McCain and Obama are no exceptions. To ask who loves their country more is akin to asking which candidate is a bigger fan of oxygen. Nobody would ever put him or herself through the public rectal exam that is a modern political campaign without a passionate love of country. As for being a member of the “elite,” just remember that Franklin Roosevelt, who couldn’t be more elite if he bathed in money, was also the president who probably did more for the working man than any in our history. The lesson: these labels don’t matter. If they matter to you, you may not be a good voter.

6. Are you planning to vote a certain way because of Barack Obama’s skin color or Sarah Palin’s gender?
If yes, what century are you living in? Please do not vote.

7. Are you afraid of accidentally electing a socialist president to the White House?
Please reread the responses to questions 2 through 6.

8. Do you want your president to be just like you?
Are you the most brilliant person you know? Are you smart enough and experienced enough to be the sort of president whose face is put on currency? If you are not, then I, for one, do NOT want a president who is just like you. You shouldn’t either. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Roosevelt were not ordinary men. Good voters vote for extraordinary. Or at least they try.

9. Are you upset because you don’t know where the candidates stand on the major issues? Do you feel there is no real difference between the two candidates?
If you answer yes to either question, you clearly have not been paying attention. Barack Obama and John McCain represent two very different philosophies of government, and if you don’t understand that, please don’t vote. These men have spent the last two years explaining where they plan to take the country. If you still don’t know where they stand, then go online and do some research. If you’re too lazy to figure out the differences between the two candidates, or if you plan on waiting until you are in the voting booth to listen to what your gut tells you, then please do not vote. This election is too important to be left to the mood swings and ignorant guesswork of bad voters like you.

You’ve reached the end of the quiz. Thank you for taking this time for self-examination. Now let’s be honest: How did you do? Are you a good voter or a bad one? If you’ve just discovered that you are a bad voter, do not despair. Remember, not everyone can be good at everything. I, for example, am terrible at bowling. That’s okay. There’s no reason to feel ashamed. And there is an upside too. This year, you don’t need to vote! You are officially absolved of your responsibility. Across the nation, millions of more skilled voters will happily pick up the slack, and we will shatter participation records even without you. So, on November 4th, I ask you to take it easy this time. Please, for the love of your country, stay at home.

[Do you have opinions about what makes a good voter? If you have questions you would add to this quiz, please let me know by leaving a comment. I'll post the best questions soon.]

If you happen to be reading my blog and have not yet read my book (a small demographic, I’m sure), you may suspect the book to be quite the polemic–particularly given my last two posts. Rest assured, this is not the case.  I take great pains to avoid beating anyone over the head with a political agenda in my fiction.  The book is meant to be enjoyable for readers of all political persuasions, and my goal as a satirist is to raise questions rather than answer them.  So please forgive me if I get a bit heated in my blog posts these days. We’ve reached that all-too-familiar moment in the political season where I start to fear the rest of the country is living in a different reality than I am, one in which facts are subjective, where up is down and down is up and who wears lipstick is more important than who lives or dies.  It’s crazy season.

I’ve included the text here:

I’ve been waiting for a good sex scandal all summer long. No, I’m not a voyeur or a pervert or a committed schadenfreudist—at least not any more than is socially acceptable—but I am a political satirist with a novel to sell, and as such, the financial and humanitarian sectors of my brain are frequently in conflict.

The Scandal Plan, or: How to Win the Presidency by Cheating On Your Wife, is—not surprisingly—about a sex scandal. A fake one. It’s the story of Senator Ben Phillips, a straight-laced, over-qualified, under-exciting Democratic presidential candidate in the tradition of Al Gore and John Kerry. He’s got great ideas, but you wouldn’t want to have a beer with him—and that’s why he’s getting killed in the polls. His campaign’s brilliant solution is to invent a sex scandal. Not a big one. Just a long-ago indiscretion that can be discovered: something the senator will have learned from, something he can bounce back from, something that can humanize him, something that might make him the tiniest bit cooler. Needless to say, nothing goes as planned.

To write a political satire is to be constantly looking over your shoulder. Is my story still relevant? What if Candidate X wins? What about Candidate Y? How does today’s news affect my story? Jon Stewart has it easy. He takes yesterday’s headlines and skewers them on tonight’s show. Guaranteed freshness. With my book, it took four and a half years for the original idea to travel from conception to publication – the satirical equivalent of firing a bullet into a time machine and crossing your fingers. I don’t recommend it.

The slow motion birth of this novel has often filled me with conflicting emotions, most notably in the wake of the 2004 election. I was crushed (crushed!) by John Kerry’s loss. But not completely. While I was convinced that another four years of George W. Bush would be devastating for the country (and the world), while this depressed me like nobody’s business, I couldn’t ignore that tiny guilty voice in my head that whispered: “This is really good for your book! This is confirmation of every argument you make! This means you have a real chance of being published!”

Such is the satirist’s dilemma: what’s good for business is usually bad for humanity.

Throughout this process, I’ve found comfort by telling myself that the underlying themes of my novel (our need to relate to our elected officials, our craving for redemption narratives, our preference for style over substance, the compromises we make in the name of ambition) are all fairly timeless. I also remind myself that this book is a fast-paced comic adventure first, and a satire second. The characters—a pubescent political reporter working for a teenybopper magazine, the campaign manager who has regular conversations with God, the over-sexed middle-aged bombshell who can’t find Mr. Right, the presidential candidate still hung up on high school, and the linguistically challenged Mexican chauffeur who thinks he’s James Bond—their appeal is not affected by the whims of the current news cycle.

Still, my eyes are glued to CNN. And when Hillary’s tears remind voters how important it is for a candidate to be perceived as “human,” or when John McCain is suspiciously linked to a female lobbyist on the front page of the New York Times, I view these events through the lens of my book.

That’s why I’ve been waiting for a sex scandal, and now I’ve finally got one. I was sad that it had to be John Edwards at the center of this particular spectacle because I had always liked him and his wife. But a sex scandal was a sex scandal, and attention had to be paid.

Was the Edwards situation a precise echo of the premise of my book? No. There were eerie parallels, to be sure, but differences as well. Never mind that; sometimes you must go to press with the scandal you have, not the scandal you want. That’s why, as soon as the John Edwards story hit the news, I e-mailed my publicist: “What can we do with this? Can this help us?” I frantically wrote an article for the Huffington Post relating the scandal to my book and offering pointers for future politicians on how to make the most of their own sex scandals.

Do I feel bad about trying to use the Edwards family’s embarrassment to try to shine a light on my book? Yes. Would I have done anything differently? No. Because even with a major publisher and great reviews, a political satire by a first-time novelist like myself does not have the luxury of an advertising budget. Such books are considered—surprise, surprise—too big a risk. That’s why I must take every opportunity I can get.

It remains to be seen whether the escapades of John Edwards will actually influence my book sales or whether any pundits or bloggers will pick up on the parallels and decide to give the subject their attention. Either way, I will remain absorbed by political news for the remainder of the 2008 election and beyond. Because I care passionately about the state of our country and our world. Because, above all else, I want what is best for humanity. And because the paperback version of The Scandal Plan comes out next June, and I want a bigger apartment.

“It’s not that I have a fear of commitment,” I said. “I want to commit. I’m just afraid of making the wrong commitment.”

She looked at me and laughed. “Bill, you do realize that’s exactly what fear of commitment is.” I couldn’t argue with such wisdom.

Commitment has always been a tricky subject for me. I’m reminded of this today, as I take the leap with a new commitment: a blog. Can I really commit to being a blogger? The lifestyle? The attitude? The wardrobe? And what about the hours? I’m always complaining to my friends that I never have enough time to write. Do I really want to cut into that precious time for the sake of a blog?

If there’s one thing I learned from our current president, it is the importance of setting expectations low. George W. did this in 2000, most notably with respect to debating, where he was reputed to be at a terrible disadvantage against the more experienced Al Gore. The pre-debate spin set the bar so low for W. that all he had to do was show up and deliver a semi-competent performance to be declared winner. And that’s exactly what happened.

I’ve applied this Bushian lesson of low-expectation-setting (both consciously and unconsciously) to many aspects of my life, including my relationships. From early on in my relationship with C, I adopted the decidedly unromantic strategy of telling her exactly what was on my mind. This included all the doubts and anxieties and assorted crap that most girlfriends would rather not hear. Did she lose sleep over this? Yes, and for that I’m sorry. But the strategy worked. Because she knew me to be a commitment-wary boyfriend, she expected very little of me, and I made sure to more than meet those expectations. Then, when I finally proposed, it was a wonderful surprise (well, almost, but that’s another story…).

So what does this have to do with my blog? I’d love to use this inaugural post to promise you daily dispatches brimming with insight and wit, regularly scheduled updates on my adventures as a writer, and constant commentary on politics, entertainment, and the peculiarities of life. But I can’t do that. While I hope to entertain, inform, and amuse through my blogging, I think it is important for me to set some realistic (some may call them “low”) expectations up front. If you are about to enter into a blogger/reader relationship with me, you need to know what to expect:

I won’t buy you flowers.
I won’t call the next day.
I will occasionally be crude.
I will use sentence fragments. Frequently.
I will sometimes write just to hear the sound of my own voice.
I will sometimes not write at all.
I will sometimes tease you with entries almost every day, and then, out of the blue, you won’t hear from me for almost a month.
There’s a chance I might show up drunk.
I will probably make fun of your relatives.
Sometimes, you may hate me.
Sometimes, it will seem that all I really care about is the sex.

But if all that is okay with you, if your eyes are open, if you’re fully aware of the choice you are making, and don’t mind entering into this kind of blogger/reader relationship, then I say let’s get this thing started.

Let the fun begin…