In case you haven't figured it out, I've been fighting off a bad depression for several weeks, and right now it pretty much has me where it wants me. I look at my neglected LJ and I feel sorry that I have so few words for the people who helped me, literally, through the failure of the federal levees and its aftermath. But words, even enough to make a blog entry, just feel so ... goddamn ... heavy right now. I'm still trying to struggle along with it, give you some content, make myself find something to say. But more often I find myself posting on Twitter, which people I respect have called inane, lazy, grunting. Maybe it is, maybe that's why I still have the energy for it. How much challenge can there be in 140 characters? Even I can handle that. If you miss me, and God knows I miss so many of you, come see me there:

http://twitter.com/docbrite

I was dismayed to hear from greygirlbeast that Livejournal is "on life support" because of newer, shinier social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. I'm no longer on Facebook, but I've been having way too much fun on Twitter (as @docbrite, if you didn't get the memo). Obviously I need to get my ass back here more frequently. So here, for old times' sake, is a stupid LJ survey. It's called "The Self-Esteem Meme," and I picked it because the phrase "self-esteem" never fails to amuse me.

( I feel good about ME because I'm the best ME I can be! )

Well, that eases my mind considerably, even if I did have my first oh-my-God-I'm-leaving-my-home-and-my-cats-and-my-city-and-going-5000-miles-away-soon panic attack today.

Just a reminder: Because I'm in the process of cleaning out/remodeling my office (yeah, yeah, I know I've been in that process for about two months now; it's a big job and my stamina isn't the greatest these days), I haven't been using my computer as much as usual. Which is stupid, because it's a laptop -- i.e. designed for carrying around -- and if I don't want to hang out in my chaotic office, I should just go get it and bring it somewhere else, as I've done now (I'm posting this in bed). Instead, when I do post anywhere these days, it's usually on Twitter because Twitter is more easily accessible from my iPhone. I hope this won't continue to be the case once I get the renovation done, but for now, come see me @docbrite. (You don't have to join Twitter in order to read tweets -- something I didn't realize before I joined.)

Because I know I haven't been posting many photos lately (I'm still futzing around with new computer software/old camera software), here is a slightly blurry camera phone picture of me, Chris, Russell, and our dear, notorious friend Dale, a.k.a. Dr. Death, the mortician who helped me with so much hands-on research back in the day (Russell was Dale's date, and I'm very sorry I cannot remember his last name) at Commander's Palace last night. There was no special occasion, but as Dale says, it's always a special occasion when we get together, and he wanted to take us during his brief visit from his still-rebuilding home of Galveston, where he has been working constantly from the first wave of drowning victims to the recent surge of suicides similar to our post-federal-levee-failure one. Things got very gay indeed, but if Chris says a combination of champagne, other substances, and Dale's encouragement caused me to write any bad words such as, say, BUNGHOLE on him in permanent ink while he was passed out in his easy chair from his two cocktails after we got home, he is, of course, lying.



Please note that I am wearing my cocksucker suit, although you can't see it very well.

I'm sorry I am too lazy to write up the dinner, but it was exquisite. Chef Tory McPhail just gets better and better. theferrett, the Foie Gras du Monde with the coffee and beignets is more delectable than ever, if you can believe that.

Still no word on why Facebook disabled my account, and at this point I'm pretty much thinking fuck 'em. I enjoyed getting back in touch with a bunch of people there and meeting a bunch of new ones, but if they don't want me and my 2000 friends, I'll just become a Twit when I get back from Chicago.

My Facebook account has been disabled, and I have no idea why. Is there something wrong with the site, or do I just suck so bad that even Facebook doesn't want me? My last status update was, " ... is worried about my hypothalamus. If my brain is worrying about my brain, does that make me meta?" I don't think that violates any FB TOS ...

(Actually, come to think of it, my Amazon Connect page recently disappeared too. I didn't care enough at the the time to try to find out why, but this is clearly a conspiracy!)

I'm off to the parades in a little while (please, God, don't let it rain on poor Oshun again), but in the meantime, if your life has been bereft of goofy horror-writer lulz lately, there are some fine ones to be found here.

INTERNET GOOD: You can Google old classmates you hated and find out about the miserable, boring, uncreative lives they are now living.

INTERNET BAD: Occasionally you find out that one of them is living in a gorgeous villa in Trieste, Italy, even though the bitch is still so dumb she can't spell "Trieste."

... all to hell and back, but what the FUCK is this so-called "ticky box" that appeared when I went to edit a typo in the previous entry?

I hereby give my authorization to reproduce and/or distribute any part or all of my Content by third parties, with the identification of the name and source, but without any modification. This authorization is remuneration free. Except as stated herein, none of the Content may be transferred, copied, republished and distributed in any form or by any means for commercial use.

Uh, that would be a big NO. I don't generally mind if someone quotes from this journal with attribution (and even if I do mind, fair use allows a certain amount of quoting), but why on earth would I check a box authorizing absolutely anybody to do so, in any amount and for any reason, forever and ever? Where is the "ticky box" enabling me to receive a box of chocolates filled with steel bolts that pop out and run straight through both cheeks? Why does LJ not encourage me to "opt in" for Anthrax Ripple and Cockroach Cluster?

I know several of you on my friends list are already following or posting about this, but it's fucked up enough to deserve wider attention.

1. Writer/editor Steve Berman (mroctober), in a brief LJ rundown (not even a review) of the anthology Unspeakable Horrors, makes the one-line comment on the story "The Portico Angel" by author Kevin W. Reardon: "[A] bad opening crippled this story for me plus the various relationships felt off." He receives a long, butthurt e-mail from Reardon, replies politely, and puts the whole thing aside, as any professional would do.

2. A couple of weeks later, Berman posts about his depression over not writing. The entry receives an anonymous comment urging Berman to commit suicide -- typical troll spew, but more disturbing than average because of its coherence and seriousness of intent. It's the kind of message that makes you think it might push a certain type of depressive toward actually harming himself. In a later comment, the anonymous poster again urges Berman to jump from his window, this time suggesting he take his cat with him (naturally, that was the part that really pissed some people off).

3. Of course it turns out that the anonymous poster is butthurt author Kevin W. Reardon, a.k.a. Cole A. Adams. Upon being exposed, he claims he thought Berman knew it was him all the time, and yet again reiterates his desire to see Berman commit suicide, freely admitting that his animosity is based on that one-line comment by Berman on Reardon's story and that he would, in fact, be thrilled if he had managed to cause Berman harm. When Berman's friends point out that urging editors to kill themselves is not the best way to build a career, he responds that he isn't in it for the "career"; unlike Berman and the rest of us money-grubbing, award-chasing hacks, he is Only About The Art.

4. As of last night, Steve Berman reports that Reardon/Cole has threatened his life. (Yes, he has contacted the police.)

5. These soap operas, made possible by writers' and editors' accessibility online, are entertaining until they happen to you or someone you care about. I don't know Steve Berman*, but I know he has done good work and doesn't deserve to be harassed by some wingnut wannabe artiste. He wouldn't deserve it if he had said Reardon's story was the worst piece of shit he'd ever read and he hoped Reardon would never write another word. It's called criticism. If you publish your work, you will experience it. It will not always be nice. Sometimes it may make you gnash your teeth, rend your garments, and/or fantasize about doing terrible things to the critics in question. If, however, you respond by sending the critics hate mail and threatening their lives, you will admittedly solve your own problem, as you will be extremely unlikely to ever get anything else published and thus will never again have to bear the sting of a bad review.

*I don't know Kevin W. Reardon either, or his writing, but just the fact that he is apparently a gay horror writer would have made me kindly disposed to him if I'd heard about him under other circumstances. See how this stuff works?

I didn't really get to finish earlier because I had a friend coming over. My previous post was provoked in part (accidental alliteration!) by coming across a reference to my alleged habit of "demanding" drugs via my journal. While I never "demanded" anything, there were certainly times when I was in severe pain, couldn't get in touch with my orthopedist, and hinted very strongly that I wouldn't be averse to pharmaceutical donations. Little pain-vacations, as I thought of them. I remain hugely grateful to the people who helped me at those times -- and someone almost always did -- but it was still a tacky, distasteful habit, and I'm sorry the rest of you had to read it.

The thing is, I knew there were readers out there who could and would help me, and I didn't always know how else to get in touch with them, and even if I did, it wasn't always easy for me to ask them directly for help. (Why it should be easier to embarrass myself before thousands of readers is a good question, but I don't have an answer for it at the moment.) And they did help me, and saved me a lot of pain. I really, truly tried to post the "hints" only when I was in serious physical pain, not when I just wanted the shit, though what with rebound pain and all, it isn't always easy to make that distinction.

Of course, the person to whom I owe the most gratitude is Chris, who put up with all this stupid behavior and kept loving me and did not leave me even when he spent every day worrying that he might come home from work and find me dead. Without him, my family, my closest friends, and Our Lady of Good Counsel (especially Father Pat), I probably would have been.

What else? Well, I heard a secret I'm not allowed to tell. I hate it when people say that, but if this one turns out to be true, it could seriously rock my world. In a good way. I hope to be reporting more fully on this within the week. And I had a prime bone-in ribeye dry-aged for 45 days at Delmonico a few nights ago. It arrived a bit rarer than I had ordered it (I said mid-rare; it teetered right on the edge of Pretty Goddamn Rare), which did not bother me at all, but did awaken certain primal urges I'm still trying to quash.

Here's why it is bad to give advice to people who didn't ask for it. This poor kid. He has no idea what he's doing wrong, no idea why people might be snarking about it (only possible conclusion: THEY MUST BE ELITIST MEANIES!!!), and no hope of fixing it as long as he maintains that butthurt-newbie defensive posture.

[Slightly sympathetic paragraph deleted because, in further comments on pgtremblay's journal, this joker has made clear that he's one of these paranoid wannabes who believe that if they don't become famous writers/editors, it's not because of any lack of talent, but because of the ELITIST HORROR CABAL HOLDING THEM DOWN. At least he hasn't mentioned how we are all gay (yet).]

Thank God for elitism, or we'd all be reading stories edited by people who think spelling, grammar, writing talent, and payment for work are just barricades thrown in their way by The Man.

It has come to my attention that I misspelled weaboo in yesterday's post, so that people unfamiliar with this useful term were unable to look up its definition. As with so many things on the Internet, I knew this phenomenon existed years before I found out there was a name for it. Oh, and if anyone wants to get his/her panties in a wad over my use of the term, don't bother. I dated someone who drew himself as an anime rakshasa, seriously wanted to be a ninja, and frequently quoted from Sun Tzu's The Art of War. I'm entitled, dammit.

For anyone following the church closing/vigil situation at St. Henry and Our Lady of Good Counsel [note: I don't appear in the linked video, but it will catch people up a little; I'll probably be on WDSU News at 6:00], I'll know a whole lot more after our meeting tonight ... so for now, reader questions! I've been saving some up, and this seems like an interesting pair. Apologies for not attributing them, but I have the list of questions scribbled on a piece of paper in my desk drawer with no indication of who sent them to me.

What's your opinion on self-publishing?

I don't think there's anything wrong with it if you go in with your eyes open and are honest with yourself and others about what you're doing (i.e. paying a company to print -- as opposed to "publish" -- your work so you can give away and/or sell a limited number of copies). I have no patience with the self-aggrandizing idiots who think having their name on an error-ridden vanity-press book makes them a "published author" and expect the thing to be reviewed, carried by bookstores, etc. on an equal footing with actual professionally published books, though if you can get your self-published book into stores, more power to you. I've bought self-published stuff at bookstores before, and it didn't always suck. I'd advise starting with local, independent stores, particularly if your material has some kind of local hook.

I've occasionally had friends suggest that I self-publish and sell my own books ("Cut out the middleman and keep all the money for yourself!"), which sounds like a great idea to them until I invoke the image of myself trying to haul tens of thousands of books to the post office. I'm not a bestselling author, but I do sell way more copies than I am capable of processing on my own. I won't even get into the logistics of catalogs, distributors, etc., because it's not interesting to most people, and if you are interested, there are better places to find out about it than the blog of a cranky writer.

What's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to you on the internet?

Ah, such an embarrassment of riches to choose from ... but I guess I'd have to say the childfree weaboos who named their Livejournal community after me, then banned me from the community when I commented to ask why.

The only effect of Ike we have seen so far (besides the reflexive panic earlier in the week) is a wonderful cool, gusty wind that made cutting the yard this evening a pleasure. I have a dear friend in Galveston, and if they are expecting anything under a Category 4, he generally hunkers down and defends his property, like us. I think he will be safe, but he has a house full of gorgeous antiques, and I'd hate to see them damaged by a post-storm-surge flood. He lives inland, on N Street -- anybody know how that area is faring?

I cannot wish any real harm on Houston, it being Frankie's hometown and all, but I do hope the pus-brained pinhead who (POSTING FROM THERE) once told me on a friend's blog how stupid I was to live in New Orleans gets his roof blown off and drowns staring up at it in amazement, as turkeys are said to do.

Occasionally I become far too entertained by the Internet. After barely touching it for weeks, I'll start compulsively checking customers_suck to see what new atrocities are being perpetrated on the workers of the world and stupid_free to watch human train wrecks in general.

The granddaddy (or perhaps grandma would be a better word in this case) of human train wrecks -- author train wrecks, even -- I've seen lately is this thread about an author who stalked a fan for giving her a three-star Amazon review. You can make fun of romance writers if you like (I've never read a romance novel myself, so cannot comment fairly one way or the other), but judging by the comments here, these ladies are far tougher than I. I wouldn't actually stalk a reader, but I have violated several of the rules they seem to have little trouble following. I've commented, sometimes snarkily, on Amazon reviews here in my journal and (very occasionally, always briefly, almost always in case of factual error) on the reviews themselves. Twice, I think, I've asked readers to post good reviews if they felt so inclined: once right after Liquor hit the stores and I was nervous and wanted to see something up there; once because somebody had just posted a borderline-troll review, and while I didn't think it should be removed, I hated to see it just sitting there at the top of the page. In retrospect, both of these were probably mistakes. I don't think I've ever asked readers to go and vote that bad reviews were unhelpful (or, in the nauseating parlance of the reader-stalking author discussed above, asked for "clickies"). If I have, I shouldn't have. I've never asked for a review to be taken down simply because it was unfavorable to the book, but I've had obvious troll reviews (e.g. personal slams; one-sentence "This sux" jobs; people who admit they haven't read the book) removed. Of course all of these violate Amazon's reviewing rules and technically it is their responsibility to remove such reviews without anyone having to ask, but I don't see how they could ever get to all of them, and I'm not sure I see anything wrong with giving them a heads-up. Does the fact that I did this somehow make the good reviews less valid? Was I "gaming the system"? Twenty-three years after my first fiction sale, am I still hideously unprofessional?

In related but far less wankish news, there's an interesting discussion on greygirlbeast's journal about the possibility of authors offending readers with our opinions. I always figure that somebody is going to get offended no matter what I say (witness the recent hate letter posted by officialgaiman, whose journal is at least 95% nice, informative, and non-confrontational), or whether I say anything at all. There are a few topics I try to stay away from (veganism, fanfic) because they're just not worth the hassle, and I have trained myself off the bad habits of railing about Amazon on a weekly basis and hectoring readers to buy my books because I'm so fucking generous as to provide this wonderful free blog. I particularly regret ever having done this last, both because it's rude and presumptuous and because, after living through the past three years, it seems so utterly unimportant to me whether any one person chooses to buy my books or not. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate it tremendously when they do, but it's hard to believe I once took such umbrage when they didn't.

Anyway, we're having our former neighbor over for dinner, and I'm making crawfish etouffee, so I better make like an amoeba and split.

I'm thinking of contacting one of the trash TV networks and pitching a reality show called Delachaise Wives. God knows there's enough material there to rot the brain of anyone who enjoys that sort of thing. In the latest development, one of them finds it necessary to pose as an expatriate Delachaise fan who just happens to have meticulously gleaned my blog for material to provide personal insults couched in smarmy fake sympathy. (In a nutshell, I'm a has-been druggie who takes advantage of my poor, stupid readers' generosity and blows money on guns and designer cats while whining about how poor I am. Maybe I'd be less poor if the owners of the Delachaise paid Chris the money they owe him -- or, here's an idea, had paid him what he was worth in the first place instead of using his talent to subsidize their drinking -- but never mind.)

Ah well ... if I was married to an abusive alcoholic whose bar couldn't even make a Top 85 list, I guess maybe I'd want to pretend I lived in Belgium too.

Here's a very simple message for Evan, Trace, Ed, and Joanne. When Chris departed, you told R.J. that you dreaded seeing what I would write about your place. Until the anonymous posts started, I had no intention of saying anything other than that Chris had left. Despite the hundreds of petty roadblocks you threw in his way (e.g. Trace, the Delachaise's nominal "designer," refusing to lay out and print the menus because she and Evan had had a fight), the job was a wonderful opportunity for him and I truly didn't want its aftermath to turn ugly. Believe me, I'd be really fucking happy to never think about any of you yuppie wetbrains again. There are only two (2) things you must do to get me to shut up about you and your place forever. Both of them are things anyone with a modicum of class would already have done without prompting, but since it's you, I'll spell them out:

1. Pay Chris the rest of the money you owe him.

2. Stop making cowardly anonymous posts on food message boards, blogs, etc. in which you pose as impartial customers who just happen to be building up the Delachaise by taking potshots at Chris. If you have something to say about Chris' tenure at your establishment, find the balls to say it under your own name. Even if you had the brains and/or verbal skills to disguise your intentions, you still give yourselves away by saying the same things over and over in posts that purport to be by different people. The major reason Chris left a job he had enjoyed and thrived in is because he couldn't stand to work for stupid people anymore. If you want to make your previous acts of stupidity look like drops of spit in the ocean, then by all means just keep talking.

=================================

GLOSSARY FOR THIS ENTRY, in case the addressees don't have a dictionary handy:

Meticulous (adj): Careful; thorough.

Glean (v): To gather slowly and patiently.

Nominal (adj): In name only; named as a matter of form, rather than due to any actual value.

Modicum (n): A moderate or small quantity.

Tenure (n): Period or term of holding a position.

Spit (n): Fluid produced by the salivary glands; also, what the one cocktail (a bourbon & soda) I ever ordered at the Delachaise tasted like.

For anyone still interested in the Wikipedia mini-drama, please get therapy I just posted the following message on my entry's discussion page:

After yesterday's tempest in a teapot, I've gone over Wikipedia's guidelines and cannot find anything prohibiting the sort of basic information I've been adding to or correcting in this entry. I've also been advised by a senior Wikipedia administrator that I have done nothing to violate policy. Thus, I don't think Rimbaud 2's "request" is valid, and unless Wikipedia decides to ban me to prevent me from doing so, I will continue editing my entry when and as I wish.

In other news, I can't get an appointment with my orthopedist until July 29. That's what being a loyal patient for 12 years does for you, I guess. No word yet on whether he will call in an emergency prescription without having seen me since February, but I'm betting not. I know some folks wonder how anyone can be "stupid" enough to buy drugs on the street. I'm not considering going back to that -- it compromised my privacy beyond belief; besides, I hardly see any of those people anymore, and good riddance -- but I'm remembering very vividly how and why I allowed myself to be that "stupid."

Most of my dreams lately center around leg pain (I'm never sure if I am actually feeling it in my sleep or just conjuring it up very vividly) and trying to make doctor's appointments. Last night, though, I had a detailed (and, I must admit, extremely hot) sex dream involving a dear male friend, someone I have no business dragging into such dreams. Yes, he is as handsome and charming as they come (so to speak), and we love each other, but that's not what our friendship is about. Besides, I am a happily married man. So fie on that! Away with it! Luckily (I suppose), he is thousands of miles away and not likely to be closer any time soon. (Oh, but that moment in the mall fountain, with the silk blanket ... all right, I'm shutting up now.)

I just received the following message from a Wikipedia administrator (according to the date stamp, it was actually sent back in May, but I don't log into Wikipedia all that often):

You are one of my favorite authors and, as a writer myself, one of my major influences. I noticed in the History page of your entry here that you have been editing it yourself. I've checked over the entry and found nothing really wrong with your edits--so I am assuming that you're not out to make yourself look better or anything. In any case, I request that you please stop editing your own entry. I request this because, not counting the few bad apples that vandalize articles, the majority of users here on Wikipedia aim to create and maintain factual, balanced, and non-biased entries.

This makes wikipedia users such as I leery.

If there is something unaddressed, or if you believe that something is false, please address it on your official website and/or provide a link to an interview or site with the info. That way, us wikipedians can put it in the entry and have a citation for it.

Thank you for your cooperation. And if you ever get the urge to edit your entry again, please refer to this wiki article about the Stephen Colbert and think about the consiquences of your actions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colbert_Report#Wikipedia_references

Yours Truly, Rimbaud 2 (talk) 17:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I particularly love this statement:

You editing an entry on yourself makes it unbalanced and biased because, well, your [sic] editing an entry about yourself.

This has to be one of the most bizarre examples of logic I've come across in a while: "X equals Y because, well, X equals Y." I realize the guy was trying to be nice here, but given that he's basically accusing me of making my entry unbalanced and biased, I'd just as soon he had skipped the butt-kissing.

So -- despite the fact that other contributors to my entry, while well-meaning, frequently get their facts wrong, and that I have only edited the entry to correct those facts, update bibliography information, remove occasional vandalism, and once to add a paragraph about my use of recurring characters -- I will no longer be editing my Wikipedia entry. I regret having made the mistake of being honest enough to do so under my own name in the first place.

[ETA: I removed from my entry the paragraph about my use of recurring characters. Obviously, if Wikipedia disagrees with this deletion, they can restore it. As best I can recall, this is the only thing I have contributed to the entry other than small factual corrections (e.g. misspelled titles), bibliography updates, and removal of vandalism. I've asked Wikipedia administration to clarify their policy: Are people forbidden to edit their own entries, or are they merely "strongly discouraged"? Unless expressly forbidden to do so, I will continue to update the entry's bibliography, correct factual errors, and remove vandalism, which seems fairer to the reader than creating a pseudonym or asking someone else to make the changes on my behalf. One administrator referred me to a page explaining why Wikipedia discourages autobiographical entries, but going by these guidelines, I still don't believe my contributions (with the possible exception of the paragraph I removed, though the fact that I write about recurring characters is certainly verifiable) have violated any of their policies.

This is a dull subject and I won't say anything else about it here, but I do regret that Wikipedia chose to handle this matter as they did. In the past, when I've had any reason to tangle with Wikipedia administrators, they were sympathetic and helpful even when I had inadvertently (and stupidly) violated a rule. The communications I've received from them today, while nominally polite, struck me as needlessly condescending, presumptuous, and accusatory, and did nothing to increase my regard for Wikipedia.]