"This is ridiculous"

At various times during the 2008 Presidential campaign, in moments of frustration, Barack Obama would tell David Axelrod that someday he would write a book about the election and the title would be “This is Ridiculous.” This is according to “Game Change,” by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Many of you probably read it already, this due to my inadvertently putting myself on the wait list at the library for the large print version, which in Florida can add substantially to the wait time.

But I had to read it. I started The Daily Blank in January 2008, not to be specifically about the election, but inevitably, we spent a lot of time on the topic and I followed it more closely than any before it. We all were very invested in the process that year, and this book does a wonderful job of recapping the major events and giving them a perspective that was impossible to have as the events were taking place.

The book is remarkable in several ways. It is eminently readable, and manages to infuse drama into a narrative in which the reader knows the outcome. Some of its most sensational revelations have been well reported since it was published in January of this year, but they are all the more sensational when read in the context of the story arc. Some of the event and conversations the authors reveal are stunning; so much so one has to wonder about the accuracy, but I’m aware of no challenges to anything reported in the book, and after four months without a law suit or a major hissy fit I think we can assume they got it right.

However, as enjoyable as it was to read on one level, I ultimately found the book depressing. It not only confirms, but amplifies, the impression I have of Presidential politics as being more theater than substance.

Obama, Clinton and McCain were stars. Like Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, or Jack Nicholson. They hired professional political consultants who acted as their producers, script writers, marketers, and road managers. They cast various lesser politicians in supporting roles based more on their images rather than their abilities. They wrote different scripts for different audiences. They counter-program the way executives at NBC do against CBS. The press did its part by reviewing the shows they produced 24/7; building audiences without offering much insight into the show’s meanings or purpose.

If more than ten pages of the book were devoted to issues of political substance, I’d be surprised, but then, why should they have done so? That would have been beside the point. It would have seemed ridiculous.

Three things I like

I recommend “Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival,” by Norman Ollestad. It was a father’s day gift from my son, which coincidentally turned out to be a fascinating look at four generations of fathers and sons from one family, although the book is primarily about the author and his father, also named Norman.

Norman the elder was an extreme sports guy before the term existed. For Norman the younger’s first birthday in 1969, big Norm strapped the kid onto his back and took him out surfing off the Malibu beach where they lived.

The focal point of the story was a February 1979 airplane ride over the San Gabriel Mountains that went badly. The pilot, Big Norm, and his girlfriend were killed. Little Norm, then aged 11, had to hike down from over 8000 feet, in the dead of winter, to survive. It is an amazing tale, very well told, although I agree with the Times review, which found the cross-cutting format a bit annoying. Never-the-less, the cross-cutting to some of father and son’s adventures before the crash, especially their trip to Mexico, were almost as thrilling as the crash. This is a terrific, and very fast, read.

As popular as the blues are, it is difficult to hear new blues music. You won’t see the latest blues stars hosting SNL, or playing on the Plaza for the Today Show. So I was really happy to discover Murphy’s Saloon, a podcast available both online and via i-Tunes.

The host is Murphy. I don’t know much about him except that he is Chicago-based, and kind of a goofily, earnest, blues-nerd, who gets all the releases from labels like Alligator and Blind Pig early, and pulls together great cuts for the show. He intersperses them with artist info, a lame-joke-of-the-week, and shout-outs to fans around the globe. Any more talking would be too much, but Murphy grows on you and there is nothing at all wrong with his taste in music.

Finally, I really like David Brooks. He is smart, funny, well-informed, and opinionated without being partisan. These are all the things I wanted to be when I was writing about politics, but reading Brooks twice a week guaranteed me two days of feeling inadequate out of every seven.
Read what he had to say today about leaving health care reform to the Senate. I guarantee you that you will feel smarter after reading it, which is how I almost always feel after reading anything by him.

Book: "Father and Son"

Larry Brown writes about the people in whom no one is interested. Call them poor white trash, trailer park people, red necks. Even these terms exalt some of them for whom Wal-Mart is aspirational shopping.

But these are real people with the same emotions and problems and dreams as the rest of us, but they are perched so perilously close to the edge of complete ruin that everyday life situations take on an air of dramatic anticipation that is missing from the stories of the middle class and their betters.

"Father and Son" is one of Brown’s early works and a strong example of his ability to know the people around whom he grew up. The title might refer to any of 4-5 pairs of fathers and sons woven into the story, most prominently half-brothers Glenn and Bobby and their father Virgil. Glenn and Bobby are evil and good, and the book follows, and eventually resolves their relationship.

Brown’s work is not so much plot driven as it is psychologically insightful and stylistically unique. The language is raw but elegant; poetic but plain. It is detailed and yet stripped of ornamentation. The New York Times compared this work to Faulkner.

Brown was born in 1951 and spent 17 years as an Oxford, Mississippi fireman. He never attended college but learned his craft by writing hundreds of short stories and books over 20 years and reading hundreds of rejection letters before an editor saw the power and originality in his work. The movie "Big Bad Love" is based on one of his short stories. He died a few years ago.

I recommend this, and anything else I’ve read by him, to anyone interested in reading an original voice.