by John Scalzi
But since most readers aren’t sociologist or historians, there’s another approach, which is reading it for the fun of it. The selection of entries you’ll find covers a wide range of topics, tones and time, but the idea for all of them is that they are (or should be) entertaining—because if they’re not keeping your attention, why would you come back to read any more? I’m not a precious writer; I don’t usually write for the art’s sake, because I’m really not that good. I write because among other things I like the idea of people reading my stuff. I write to be read. This is not to say that I write blandly to keep from offending—with a book title like Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded that should be obvious enough—but I do try to write so that even if people disagree vehemently with me (and if you read the comments at Whatever, you’ll see that they do), they’ll still get something out of the reading experience. It’s my hope that even when I write something that pisses you off, you’ll still get some enjoyment out of how it was phrased.
Time capsule, new media, entertainment: However you approach the writing in the book, I hope it speaks to you. And remember that if you like what you read, there’s more where that came from: http://whatever.scalzi.com. I’ll be there. Swing on by.
Until then: Enjoy.
John Scalzi
May 11, 2008
A NOTE ON THE
ORGANIZATION OF
THIS BOOK
As you flip through this book you will notice that the entries are apparently not organized in any particular order: entries from a decade ago butt up against entries of recent vintage, and there is no rhyme or reason to why one topic follow another. But in fact there is a reason: Because arranging it so is very much how things are at Whatever. The whole point of the site is that I write whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want to. Readers never know what they’re getting next (and for that matter I generally never know what I’m going to write next). As goes the blog, so goes the book. I hope you have fun with it.
DISCLAIMER
For everyone who needs one, the following disclaimer:
1. Everything here is my opinion, and mine alone.
2. Occasionally, I am completely full of shit.
3. Well, all right, fine, more than occasionally.
4. On occasion I will also opine on things I know little or nothing about.
5. Which is fine, because the US Constitution says I can.
6. So there.
7. I’m not interested in being fair.
8. I am occasionally petty, nasty, snappish and rude. I’m also occasionally a tremendously sweet guy. You never know which you’re going to get.
9. Unless you have been told specifically by me otherwise, no, as a matter of fact, I don’t care what you think about me or my opinions.
10. I do try to be polite when I tell you that.
11. But I can’t promise anything.
12. This is done by me for the purposes of my own amusement, and exists and updates entirely at my whim. If I decide to go away for a day, or a week, or forever, then I will.
I think that’s it for now.
JESUS’ DICKHEADS
A Hindu chaplain was called to offer a prayer at the US Senate yesterday; the response of some Christian nutbags was to slip in and disrupt the prayer because the Hindu chaplain wasn’t giving his shoutout to Jesus. They were trundled out, the prayer was given, and yet, somehow, the Republic did not fall. I think we can all thank Vishnu for that.
Look, this one is simple: Some people really and truly believe that what Jesus wants is for them to be dicks to everyone who isn’t their particular, mushy-headed stripe of Christian. And if it’s what Jesus wants, then it can’t be wrong. Now, I’m entirely sure that in their minds they can come up with a better explanation for their activities than “Jesus wants me to be a dick”—they may actually be able to find some internal calculus that has them being a dick out of love for us godless idolaters and saving our worthless heathen souls, even—but the rest of us can call it for what it is. And also, of course, when these Dicks for Jesus try to offer up some alternate explanation for their behavior, I think it’s fair to remind them of a number of things:
1. Whatever the rationale, they’re being dicks.
2. At no point in the Bible does Jesus say “be a dick in My name.”
3. Lots of other Christians seem to get through life without feeling called upon to be a dick in the service of Christ.
4. Indeed, when many of these Christians discover to their dismay that they’ve been a dick about something, they will frequently fall to their knees and say, “Forgive me, Lord, for I have been a total dick.”
5. And He does.
6. That’s a hint.
Now, the chances of any of this penetrating the mental shield of righteousness is pretty low, so you shouldn’t expect anything more than a slightly befuddled look that shades into the growing suspicion that they’re jeopardizing their very souls conversing with one such as you, you and your heathen logic. But it’s worth a try, and if it doesn’t work, at least they know what you think of their somewhat less-than-Christlike behavior. Because nothing digs at the heart of a Christdick more than the knowledge that someone thinks they’re doing their Christianity wrong. Gets ‘em all defensive and huffy, which is better than them being smug and self-righteous, in my book.
HOLDEN
CAULFIELD IN
MIDDLE AGE
Holden Caulfield turned 50 this last week, and if the imaginary, fictional world in which he lives has any parallel with ours, right about now, he’s got a kid who is now the age Holden was in The Catcher in the Rye, and that kid is just driving him nuts. Wouldn’t that be a kick.
I never got Holden Caulfield anyway. This partially due to having my own reading tastes bend towards science fiction as a teen rather than the genre of Alienated Teen Literature, of which Catcher is, of course, the classic. If you were going to give me a teenage hero, give me Heinlein’s Starman Jones: He traveled the galaxy and memorized entire books of log tables and became captain of a starship (for procedural reasons, granted). All Holden did was bitch, bitch, bitch. Put Holden at the controls of a starship and he’d implode from stress. Not my hero, thanks.
(Actually, if you’re going to give me a teenage hero, give me Joan of Arc. There’s an achiever for you: Kicks English tail and saves France, despite suffering from profound schizophrenia (Shaw argues that the voices were an expression of the “Evolutionary Appetite,” but in truth, there’s no reason they couldn’t be both). Thank God she wasn’t born in the 20th century; they would have medicated her ass into catatonia, and then the Germans would have been able to roll right over the French forces at the start of WWII! Hmmmmm.)
But it’s also partially due to the nature of Holden, and my own nature as well. Holden is justly famous in the literary pantheon as being the first major teenage literary character to be allowed to note that the world was a tremendously screwed up place, and to have an intellectually appropriate response to that fact. All the other literary teens of the age were solving low-grade mysteries or having boy’s own adventures or what not, and, golly, they were always polite and respectful to their elders. Holden was the proverbial turd in that punchbowl, and arriving as he did in the early 50s, just in time for rock n’ roll and the first mass teen market, he offered the blueprint and pathology for teenage sullenness that’s still fervently followed to this day (although, admittedly, the tattoos and piercings these days are a new touch).
However, I was not especially pained as a teen, and all attempts in that direction ended up as sort of twee, rather than genuinely dark and isolating. It was too bad, really, since I was all set up to accept Holden as a soulmate. I mean, I went to boarding school, I was somewhat sensitive, I had all that bundled up energy of wanting to change the world and not knowing quite how to do it. But I just didn’t have that certain something—mistrust of society, desire for someone to encapsulate all my inexpressible teenage emotions, basically suspicious and snotty nature, or whatever
—that would make me go cuckoo for Caulfield. I suppose it’s a shortcoming. I failed angst in high school. They let me graduate anyway.
Fact is, I liked neither Holden nor the book. One can recognize the book has a certain literary merit without needing to like the thing, of course. But it’s more to the point to say that Holden has a certain fundamental passivity that I dislike—the desire for people and things to be different without the accompanying acceptance of personal responsibility to effect those changes. To go back to Heinlein and his juvie novels, his teenage characters are not very big on internal lives, but they’re also the sort who go out, do things, fail, do things again, and eventually get it right. Holden merely wishes, ultimately a man of inaction. He’s a failure—a particularly attractive failure if you’re of a certain age and disposition, admittedly, but a failure nonetheless. I remember reading the book as a teen and being irritated with Holden for that reason; I couldn’t see why he required any sympathy from me, or why I should empathize with him.
It’s been a fortunate thing that Salinger has sat back and rested on his increasingly thorny laurels for the last several decades, because in doing so he’s spared us inevitable Catcher sequel, in which we learn whatever happened to that freaky Caulfield kid. Here’s what I think. After a certain amount of time faking being deprogrammed, Holden goes to Brown and after graduation eventually gets a job at an ad firm, where, thanks to his ability to pitch products to “the kids,” he does very well. He gets married, has a couple of kids, gets divorced, becomes a high-functioning alcoholic but is nevertheless eased towards the door with a generous buyout, and after that—well, after that, who cares? Sooner or later, the rest of one’s life becomes a coda.
Big Holden fans will no doubt be upset with the life of hypocritical mediocrity I’ve provided for their anti-hero, but really, unless he committed suicide shortly after the end of the novel (not at all unlikely, given his creator’s literary tendencies), he has to have caved. He was too passive to do otherwise. No Holden fan would be at all satisfied with this, of course—which may be one of the reasons Salinger packed it in. It’s better for everyone involved if Holden’s life coda begins before he’s out of his teens. Everyone walks away happy, except, of course, for Holden himself. But that’s as it should be.
HOW TO SEND
ME HATE MAIL
Got some hate mail yesterday for my column about a cartoon from liberal Ted Rall, who attracts frothing conservatives like Angelina Jolie attracts questioning co-eds. However, it wasn’t really choice hate mail, so I think it’s a good time to offer up a primer on How To Send Me Hate Mail. Please pay attention, since these are valuable tips for composing winning hate mails that will stand out from the crowd.
First off, let’s be clear that I do make a distinction between hate mail and people who disagree with me and e-mail to say so. E-mail me with a legitimate comment or question, no matter how negative, and I typically respond civilly. In Scalzi’s World, it’s not a crime to disagree with me, even if it does speak poorly regarding your judgment. However, if you just e-mail spew, I consider it hate mail and respond as such. Now that we’re all clear, here are my Hate Mail Tips:
1. Don’t Expect Too Much.
The fact is, hate mail really doesn’t bother me, since fundamentally, if you’re not my wife, a member of my immediate circle of family and friends, or a client, I don’t actually give a damn about what you think of me. Life’s too short to sweat other people’s opinion, especially the sort of algae-grazers who have nothing better to do than write hate mail. Really, what useful person has the time for that? So, despite your best efforts, I’m just not likely to collapse into a heap of self-loathing on the basis of your hate mail. Sorry to disappoint; it’s just the way I am.
Since I don’t take hate mail to heart, what I’m looking for in hate mail is pure entertainment value. Which brings us to point number 2:
2. Be Creative.
Honestly, if you’re going to take the time to tell me how much you hate me, make some effort to do it in a way that’s not going to bore me. I’ve been called an “asshole” so many times in hate mail that it’s just lost all its charm, as have all the major profanities. So, I take points off for profanities, unless they’re used in really new and exciting ways. Here’s a quick workshop on that, using that old reliable, “Fucker”:
“Fucker”— No good. Plain. Uninspiring. Trite. Hardly registers a blip. Needs oomph. Needs…a modifer!
“Toad Fucker”—Better. “Toad” is not the usual modifier here, so that’s good, and of course it’s an interesting mental visual. But let’s assume that any single modifier of “Fucker” is already old news, especially when it involves a noun springing from the animal kingdom. What we really need to do is to fuse “Fucker” to a string of truly interesting words. Like:
“Choad Mongering Krill Fucker”—Now we’re talking. This insult works on so many levels. “Choad,” of course, is a great piece of slang, not nearly utilized to its full potential in everyday invective, so it’s still a nice fresh slap to start the insult. “Mongering,” likewise a great verb: Sounds great, first off, but also obscure enough to thrill—after all, who mongers very much anymore? “Krill Fucker” implies that you’re so hard up you’d screw a baleen whale’s morning snack and, inasmuch as krill are microscopic shrimp, it also says you have a dinky little wanger (otherwise, of course, how could you fuck a krill? It’d just break apart). Finally, the phrase lends itself to multiple variations: “Dick Whoring Shrimp Porker,” for example. The possibilities really are endless.
(While we’re vaguely on the subject of animals, if you’re going to compare someone to an animal, remember that lower orders of primates are intrinsically funny. Some of my favorites phrases: “Trepanned Lemur,” “Ass-Mastering Aye-Aye,” and “Enema-swilling Loris.” Best of all, you don’t even have to modify “bush baby.”)
Remember, I get a lot of hate mail. To really register, you have to do the work. The satisfaction of knowing I’m really paying attention makes it worth the effort.
3. Prepare to Be Graded.
If I don’t think your hate mail is up to snuff, I’ll send it back with the suggestion you try harder. For example, yesterday someone sent me a message which was, in its entirety: “You’re a prick, an’ so’s your little fuckin’ friend” (referring to Ted Rall). I sent back, asking if that was really the best this guy could do, mentioning that I’d gotten better insults from retarded monkeys (as you can see, I don’t respond back to such slack efforts with my “A” material).
The response: “Go fuck yourself, you nitwit.” Again, not especially compelling. “A trepanned lemur could do better,” I gently suggested, bringing out the lemurs in a bid to inspire my correspondent. “Please try again.” He countered by saying Ted and I were “tremendous fucking idiots,” which, in my book, was still rather disappointing. To his credit, however, he did appreciate the lemur reference. Which just goes to prove my point.
Look, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a little effort when it comes to hate mail, so if I don’t think the effort’s there, I’m going to call you on it. On the flipside, if you come up with a choice piece of spew, I’ll compliment you on your form, and if it’s really good, I’ll probably start using it as a .sig quote for my e-mail. Here’s one of my favorites:
“You can continue to be a negative force in the universe, spewing putrid venom, childish disdain, and unmitigated disgust for everyone who doesn’t offer you sex or money—or whatever else it is that you might like.”
I mean, how can you not appreciate the craft? I used that as a .sig quote for months.
4. Be Accurate.
The hate mailer in the first part of tip 3 called me a “fuckwit cartoonist,” which would be a passable insult (“fuckwit” is okay) were it not for the fact that I’m not a cartoonist nor have I ever been. The guy just assumed that since I was talking about Ted, I was a cartoonist myself. I pointed out his error and the guy got all huffy—like his erroneous assumptio
n was somehow my fault! Just remember that when you assume, you make an “ass”-mastering aye-aye out of “u” and “me.” I’ll be watching for those little slip-ups.
Hopefully these tips will inspire those of you who aspire to write me hate mail to new and ever more creative heights. Good luck! I’ll be waiting to see what you come up with—and I’ll be sure to let you know just what I think of your efforts.
THE CHILD ON
THE TRAIN
About a week after Krissy completed the first trimester of her pregnancy, she went in to the doctor to have a routine checkup for herself and her baby. While she was being examined, the doctor had difficulty finding the baby’s heartbeat. This in itself was not unusual—at just over three months, a fetus is still a small thing. The sound of its nascent heartbeat is easy to lose in the other sounds of the body. But by the next day, Krissy had begun to spot and bleed, and shortly thereafter she miscarried. As with nearly a quarter of all pregnancies, the processes that form and shape a life had stopped at a certain point well short of completion, and for whatever reason this child would not be born. It was a death in the family.
By and large, we kept the matter to ourselves, telling the people who needed to know—family and close friends—but otherwise saying nothing. I had written about Krissy’s pregnancy on my Web site, as I had written about Krissy’s first pregnancy—and why not, since a pregnancy (at least in the context of a happily married and financially secure couple) is a happy thing. For a writer, there’s a lot of material to discuss, so long as it’s done in a tasteful manner that doesn’t have one’s pregnant wife planning to beat one in the head with a pan. But a miscarriage is obviously something different. There’s no way to write on one’s Web site, in a breezy and conversational style, that a pregnancy has ceased.
