I tried to ignore it. Personally, I didn't need to be reminded that things get vicious during a custody battle - where one's only course of action is to denigrate the parenting skills of the other while humbly praising your own, where it's your obligation to prove to the court that your own child isn't doing as well with your mate as they are with you. Every custody battle contains testimony that one parent is producing a demon from hell whereas the other is producing the next Dalai Lama. Remember Kramer vs. Kramer, where Kramer loses custody because the kid falls off a jungle gym? Totally standard practice. Happens hundreds of times a day in family court, where moms and dads routinely testify that the other is an incompetent parent.

 

So a famous actress, Kim Basinger, "went public" with a tape of hubby leaving a message on his daughter's answer machine, a famous actor, Alec Baldwin, out of context, frustrated that she seems to be avoiding his calls, seemingly putting down his own daughter while actually denigrating his partner's parenting skills, once again, standard practice in a custody battle.

 

So that's not the story. Happens every day. Who gives a shit.

 

The story is that someone "went public" with something immensely private that happens every day and the media went "good idea," let's tell everyone. Christ, if Sanjaya "went public" with the fact he took a dump today, they'd ask him to recreate the event on The Tonight Show.

 

Since every parent on the planet earth has gotten one good look at their kid's room and called them a pig, obviously a celebrity calling their kid a pig isn't "news" by any stretch of the imagination. Mr. Conspiracy says it's just like the Clinton affair, the right wing media simply using another opportunity to take a potshot at a vocal lefty.

 

I can't imagine this item passing my desk and deciding it was news. Just because someone "goes public" with something doesn't make it news. That the media was so easily manipulated in a custody battle is thoroughly insulting.

 

I downloaded the MP3 and it's embarrassing to listen to, clearly a private matter, one piece of a conversation that sounds bad out of context. The overwhelming feeling isn't anger at Baldwin but anger at the bastards who invaded his privacy. Ken Starr was the bad guy, not Bill Clinton, and Kim Basinger's the bad guy here, not Alec Baldwin.

 

At the same time that too many parents were burying their children, one mother was burying her ex, with the media's help. Why did the media decide to take sides in this custody battle? The mother certainly made the same sort of disparaging remarks about the state of her daughter while in the father's custody, only the father either wasn't devious enough to tape it or vindictive enough to air it.

 

When I was involved in my own custody battle, I was ordered by the judge to take a parenting class. I resented it, like we all resent doing things we're forced to do, but that didn't stop me from actually learning something. My instructor, Dr. Jayne Major, turned out to be damn good at teaching things to people who might not want to learn.

 

The number one lesson that I carried with me was that kids believe you. Obvious one would think, but follow-through's a bitch. Of course they believe you when you say "Don't touch a hot stove" or "Brushing your teeth prevents cavities." The problem is they also believe you when you say "You're an idiot." If your child does something stupid or clumsy or acts obnoxious, as all children do on occasion, if you respond by saying "You're so clumsy" or "You're obnoxious" or "You're so stupid," they don't see it as criticism, they see it as a mandate. They believe you. They think "I shouldn't touch a hot stove," "I should brush my teeth,"  "I'm clumsy," "I'm obnoxious," or "I'm stupid," and they carry that with them throughout their lives. (In my case, "You'll never amount to anything." Thanks dad.)

 

There's a really easy solution. Don't personalize it. Don't say "You're clumsy," say "That was really clumsy." Don't say "You're obnoxious," say "How could you act so obnoxious?" Don't say "You're stupid," say "That was a really stupid thing to do," or even better, "For someone so bright, that was really stupid."

 

That's a lesson Alec Baldwin still hasn't learned. Instead of saying to his daughter "You're a rude, thoughtless little pig," he should have followed Dr. Major's advice and said something less destructive, something we've all said to our kids, "What are you, a fucking pig?" Now THAT would have been good parenting.

 

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?"

- Harry Warner, 1927 -

 

Secret Bullshit

by Paul Krassner

 

    I've been alternating between reading The Secret and The Truth About Bullshit. Funny how complementary these two disparate books can be, which has led me to the concept of Secret Bullshit, based on a psychological notion that in order to deceive others you need to deceive yourself.

    So, take the CBS lawyers who agreed to the stipulation in Don Imus contract that he be given a warning before being fired for doing what they hired him to do in the first place, known as the dog has one bite clause. Well, their secret bullshit - bound to become their defense in court - is that although Imus wasn't warned after referring to Washington Post media columnist Howard Kurtz as a "boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jewboy," they still had the right to fire him for saying "nappy-headed hos."

    Now there's Deborah Jeane Palfrey, the D.C. Madam, who wants all those former clients to follow the lead of ex-Deputy Secretary of State Randall Tobias and testify that they also hired those gals only for a massage, never for sex. OK, everybody say, "Yeah, right." Ironically, once they're outed, won't they gladly reinforce Palfrey's secret bullshit with their own in order to correspond with what they must now tell their wives?

    And finally, the spectacle of ten white male Republican presidential candidates all vying to become the leader of the western world by competing to see which one most disbelieves in evolution, has itself become the Dinosaur Follies. Their utter disdain for stem cell research and their unquestioning support of the invasion-turned-occupation of Iraq are two sides of that same secret bullshit.

    You can watch secret bullshit becoming public bullshit as the language becomes increasingly perverted, ranging from the Bush doctrine that the new winning is not winning, to the cavalier morphing of the word debate to mean that candidates are not permitted to ask each other any questions - the very antithesis of what a debate originally meant.

    "They should call it an AA meeting," my wife Nancy observed. "No cross-talk allowed." She is an instinctive detector of secret bullshit when expressed publicly, that transcends political correctness. As the pundits discuss the merits of stiffer sentences for hate crimes, Nancy wonders aloud, "And what are the others - love crimes?"

 

Scumbags of the Week

 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has decided that their copyright on the word "Oscar" applies to anyone who dares to simply make comments on the Oscar. They filed suit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, accusing the Web site oscarwatch.com of trademark infringement. The action seeks injunctive relief plus damages, but AMPAS' attorney said the big aim is to halt the site's use of the Oscar name.

According to Yahoo, "AMPAS in February ordered site proprietor Sasha Stone to cease operating under her current domain registration and threatened legal action if the order went unmet. The Academy suggested in March that Stone might remedy the situation by switching to a different domain name and limiting any use of the name Oscarwatch to subdomains within the site, according to the AMPAS suit.

Contacted by a reporter for comment, Stone said: "I am not trying to exploit the Academy's trademark to offer competing goods and services. Rather, I am offering commentary that directly addresses the Oscars awards, a topic of great interest to the general public, thanks largely to the efforts of the Academy itself. I believe that the use of (Oscarwatch) to describe commentary about the Oscars is that of fair use."

 

Letters about My Childhood

 

Amazing story. 

- Jeff Crook

 

My Childhood is a fabulous read. Life is a trip. Thanks. Do more of this.

- Frank Cavestani

 

If you were a stand-up, I'd stand in the back and watch you. 

- Larry Hankin

 

Mr. Dare,

    I don't know what are your plans for an autobiography, if you have written the full scale of it or intend to promote your writings as such, but I was completely captivated. Surely, this is the premise of a memorable screenplay, at the very least.

    One of life's insults that perplexes me most is how truly brilliant minds of creative genius so often seem to be perpetually at odds with realizing their full potential and the ability to lay claim to greatness, primarily in the form of significant recognition and cold hard cash.

    I, for one, would pay the price of a hardcover to read it - a new hardcover from one of those expensive hotel book shops with organic bagels and espresso served in porcelain demi tasse. In other words, surely the story of your life would sell well.

    I have been in that position a few times at school, seen the kid who is obviously gifted on a level far beyond his peers and instructors, stuck in the corner, struggling with the strictures of cookie-cutter education, doodling ideas that speak of talents the rest of us can only marvel. And I have seen what just a few words of encouragement and understanding can do to help them see that those years coming of age are such a small part of the great expanse of destiny. It staggers the imagination what those kids could accomplish if only more of their educators had the wisdom and resources to cultivate their abilities.

    Thank you for sharing your personal struggles. Few biographies, in my opinion, prove more interesting than a life lived in full pursuit of breaking free from the status quo.

- Kristen Twedt

 

Michael,

This is a wonderful piece you've written and should be a chapter in a book of your life. You don't need a therapist, you just need to continue to believe in how smart you are, how well you write, and how someday, someone is going to realize this and do something for you.

- Larry Grobel

 

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert Heinlein. I found it in the school library when I was in third grade.

- Robin Reed

 

War of the Worlds. Bought it at my first bookfair at school. Hadn't learned yet that the cover art rarely has anything to do with contents, but this one,surprisingly, did. Actually I (should)have to say Tom Sawyer, as our 3rd grade teacher was reading it out loud and I figured out that I could read ahead and know what was going on before everyone else. Even then I was a smart ass little prick.

- Fred Robinson

 

    At age eight I read Tom Sawyer, and loved it. A year later I read Huckleberry Finn, and was unimpressed. As an adult the former is basically a kid's book. The latter I acknowledge is by far the greater work. Still, one cannot escape the treasured literary reference of swinging a dead rat at the end of a string to escape drudgery or toil.

    Now that the obligatory truth is out of the way - hey, the name IS bookmonger for a reason - Dr. Cobb's Game by R.V. Cassill, which I read between the two Twain works, was what lead me to discover that books began my love of books. It contained what I would later learn is forbidden knowledge. F'rinstance, it is amazing the uses which can be found for a sable hair artist's brush.

- Herr Bookmonger

 

Does The Cat in the Hat count? Oh, you mean adult books. Oddly it was Arthur Hailey's Hotel.

- Michelle

 

    What book turned me on to books? That's hard to answer, since I can't remember a time when I wasn't into books. Perhaps it was the Tom Swift Jr. series, which my mother used to read to us before we could read. Perhaps it was My Father's Dragon, which I read in first grade, and was the first time I actively sought out sequels. Dr. Seuss, Andre Norton, Beverly Clearly, Edward Eager, Mark Twain, Robert Heinlein... many more, going back so far I don't remember the first encounter.

    A true story: One afternoon, I was watching a rerun of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. It was an episode entitled The Jar staring Pat Butram, an old friend from Green Acres. Even through it was daylight and I was safe at home, The Jar scared the shit out of me. The credit came on: from a story by Ray Bradbury. I ran to my bedroom, checked the several Bradbury anthologies on my To Be Read shelf. Sure enough, The Jar was in October Country.

    I had read a lot of Bradbury up to that point, mostly his science fiction such as The Martian Chronicles, but geeze. To this day, I have never read October Country or any of the horror anthologies.

- TTFN, Baron Dave Romm

 

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

- Harry Marsh

 

Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut got me started.

- Rick in Maryland

 

Conan the Conqueror by Robert E. Howard. Picked it up at a garage sale when I was in 5th grade.

- Jeff Crook

 

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding and Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (I read them both about the same time in JHS.) I'd read a bunch of juvy sci-fi before that, but these really turned my attitude to reading into a serious Jones. Am I the only one who ever notices that Elizabeth Taylor was the only age appropriate casting in the love triangle in the screen version of the latter?

- Mary Jane Hovanec

 

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* but were Afraid to Ask by David Reuben

- Joe

 

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. I'm a girl but I really wanted to ride that raft with him and Huck.

- Linda Clause

 

Having read literally thousands of books in my life it is tough to name just one. But if I was going to pick one "life-changing" book it would have to be The Stand by Stephen King. King turned me onto a whole new genre of reading and let me know that long novels could be both interesting and entertaining. I have never looked back.

- Paul Croft

 

Tom Sawyer.

- Villy

 

Wind in The Willows, when I was 5.

- Paul

 

In my case, it was two: The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer and The Carpetbaggers by Harold Robbins, of all things. My Dad was a voracious reader of all kinds of things, from literature to slop, and he had the books laying around the house. When he found out I had read them, I thought he'd be mad, but he just laughed. I was in grade school at the time and smart enough not to turn in any book reports on the two steamy bestsellers, which I'm pretty sure back then would have led to his arrest for corrupting the morals of a minor.

- R. S. Janes