Yanks Lose ALCS, 3 Games to 2

Photos: Jose Altuve's Gem Mint 10 rookie card, from my collection.

Yanks lose 4-0 and go home as the Houston Astros move on to the World Series. So despite Judge's 50+ homers, a high-powered offense, and getting past the heavily-favored Indians, the Yanks go home. What. A Damn. Shame.

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Photo: from its Goodreads page

More a morality tale / fairy tale than novel (or novella), and a lot more Chizmar than King, but still an okay read that goes by fast. Since it's more of a fairy story, the characterizations are purposely light, the action is more to learn from than to entertain, and it's all supposed to be a slight breeze. To expect more is to be disappointed.

The ending didn't work for me, as it's more explanation than resolution. Richard Farris (AKA, Randall Flagg) will disappoint, as he seems like someone kinder than we know him to be. Here, he's more like the old man from Hearts in Atlantis than the badass from The Stand and The Dark Tower. He should've been called someone else here, with different initials. He's really a different character. In this way, he's more of a disappointment than is the talky, explanatory ending itself, but the book is so slight that you really won't mind. Like all morality tales, the ending is explained too much and is too completely wrapped up. I would've rather had something extra left over to think about, but that won't happen here. Is it more Gwendy, the box, or just life itself? You'll be told, which is a bummer. Should've been left more open-ended.

And, lastly, you won't see anything Dark Tower-ish here. Mr. R.F. and the box are just extras stepping out. You won't be able to place them within the Dark Tower's milieu, so don't try. There's no leftover strand, or beam, and those worlds don't influence this one in this book. If you want a standalone book that has tendrils and whispers of The Dark Tower, check out King's The Wind Through the Keyhole, which was quite a bit better, and released to very little fanfare. That one is a Dark Tower rejected section or chapter if I've ever seen one.

So you'll have to take this book on its own purposely slight merits, and judge them by those. I think it's pretty clear to see where King starts off and Chizmar takes over. This would've been darker, more ponderous and a lot less slight if King had written a bigger chunk of it. My guess is that King started it, maybe the first two or three chapters, and included the kite scene and maybe a hat scene or two, but let Chizmar take it. My guess is he figured The Wind Through the Keyhole was one Dark Tower standalone enough, and he didn't need another one. I'm guessing Chizmar stayed as far away from The Tower as he could. Perhaps he was asked to.

This one was more of a curiousity for me. I don't consider it part of the King canon and I won't be buying one for my entire First Edition Stephen King book collection. My copy was from the library, where it will return tomorrow. So if you want a quick little book / morality tale that's maybe 20% King, max, give this one a shot. It's not bad, but it's not King. If you have other King books that you need to get to, you're probably better off doing that.

Sleeping Beauties by Stephen King and Owen King

Photo: Hardcover book from its Goodreads page.

Very long fantasy / morality tale, mostly well-written, with a little more craft than usual, which I don't mean in a bad way. The story pace and structure is similar to Under the Dome, as it's more of a series of things that are happening between lots of different characters, most of them not fantastic or scary. As in both long books, there is an underlying mystery behind them (Why is the dome happening? Is it a test? Why are the cocoons happening? Are they a test?) that probably won't surprise you when it concludes, but the reading pleasure is watching it get there.

I wasn't particularly swayed by the sudden change of heart of the other major character, if you will, who is the foil/antagonist to the Clint, the prison psychiatrist. It ends the way it does, and that's fine, but this guy's primary character trait just sort of dissipates. It didn't ruin anything for me, but it didn't jettison me towards the ending, either. Which is fine.

The characters are well drawn and fleshed out, though you wouldn't know one of them was a minority if the book didn't flat out tell you. That may be part of the point of the book, or it may be a fault in character development. You'll be the judge. You'll also have to judge about Evie's character, which is largely and purposely kept in the dark. The authors don't supply too many answers about her, except that she is maybe The Day the Earth Stood Still for the menfolk, I guess.

The premise will keep you thinking the most, I suppose. It's an interesting premise that nonetheless has many flaws. It's very heavy on the idea that most men suck for many reasons, and that women are primarily their victims. You won't get any argument from me on either point, except to say that I have known my share of unthinking and unfeeling women as well, though of course they by and large do not cause as much danger and damage towards men as men have towards women. (Though I'm thinking right now of a couple who were up there, almost manly in their destructiveness.)

I'm not sure it's helpful to broadly generalize like this, though of course there's no argument about the fact that, overall, generally, men have treated women like garbage since the first caveman struck a cavewoman over the head with his club and thought that was love. It wasn't, and it isn't, and men have been pretty stupid about it ever since. But, again, I know plenty of women who have been stupid about love, too, amongst them the women who defend men who are stupid about love. We could go back and forth on this forever, which is the problem with overreaching generalizations. It's not helpful to talk overall, generally, about anything. Every man is not an asshole just like not every woman is a victim. More men, of course, are violent assholes than are women, and more women, of course, are victims of violent assholes than are men.

But it's probably less productive to grossly generalize. It's maybe more productive to single out the assholes amongst the men, rather than insist that all men are assholes. We're not all Harvey Weinstein or O.J. or even much less examples of them. There are some very, very good guys out there who have always treated women well. Probably it's better to single out the major and the minor assholes out there and then simply stay away from them, or give them treatment, etc. This book never presents that as an option, as it paints a broad stroke over all the guys, including the two main characters, who could not be more different in temperament, but who are both painted the same colors anyway.

The book does end on a realistically melancholic note, as things fall apart because the center could not hold for anyone. You may wonder at the ending, and if the decision made at the end would really be made. That'll have to be up to you, as well. Until then you've got a fantasy / morality tale, with a very large dose of Walking Dead as the prison was under siege. In the end, this one is good, not great, not especially memorable outside of its premise, and a quick read despite its large size.

Toxic People

Photo: from theodysseyonline.com

                                        9 Traits of Toxic People:

1. They talk more than they listen. They are truly narcissistic and manage to make everything about themselves.

2. They are completely unwilling to learn from their mistakes. Frankly, they’ll never accept that they’re capable of making mistakes.

3. They exaggerate everything. Drama seems to incessantly follow them around.

4. They are compulsive and often unrepentant liars.

5. They force relationships. They value relationships for the outward superficiality and not for any real connection.

6. Everything is judged by the experience they’ve had. Their experience is the only one that seems to count.

7. They have to talk you down to keep their own self-esteem up.

8. They’re very controlling and domineering people.

9. They completely lack tack and diplomacy. They don’t care if they hurt other’s feelings.

How do I handle these people? I run away. I mean that literally. I ran into one at a yard sale recently, someone from my past. I didn't say a word. Just turned around quickly, jogged to my car and left. I must've looked like the village idiot, but this person was truly dangerous to my psyche.

Goodbye 2015 -- Affluenza

Photo: Ethan "Affluenza" Couch. By the Associated Press, December 28, 2015

And, his mother, also from the AP.  Read about them below. For the whole article, go here.

Good riddance to 2015!  Say goodbye to:

Ethan Couch, who drunkenly plowed into a disabled vehicle and the 4 people servicing it, all of whom died. This happened when he was 16, in Texas. During the sentencing phase, his lawyer said he suffered from "affluenza" because his parents were so rich and had spoiled him so much, he didn't know right from wrong. This apparently worked, because the judge gave him 10 years' probation! Rather than feeling responsible, he attended a party where alcohol was served, though in fairness the video does not show him drinking any. I don't know if that matters in terms of his probation, though. I'm guessing it violates it, because soon he and his mother threw a going-away party, then split for Mexico, crossing the border in an SUV (and after paying someone off, because I don't think people on probation can leave the country without permission, which he wouldn't have gotten because he missed a mandatory court date and a rehab stint). U.S. authorities finally tracked them down because they'd ordered a pizza over the phone, possibly with a credit card. The mother was flown back to L.A. and arrested (While living together after her divorce, she placed her son's bed in her own bedroom, saying he was her "protector."  Ewwwwww!!), but Couch won an appeal in a Mexican court, and is still in Mexico, fighting extradition. The prosecutor said this could take anywhere between a few days, to a few months, to perhaps years.

This nauseating story speaks for itself. But I have to ask: That judge gave him 10 years' probation (and a stint in rehab) for killing four people and crippling two others--if he did so because he believed Couch was too rich and too spoiled to know right from wrong, then doesn't this judge also have to give stupefyingly light sentences to someone very poor, who grew up so poor and abused that he also didn't know right from wrong?

Just sayin'.

So, Affluenza Ethan Couch, goodbye, man. And, by the way, that Mexican detention center you're in until the extradition mess gets worked out--that can't be any better than any American juvie center or rehab for rich kids. Again, just sayin'.  Oh, and one more thing: Do these two look haunted by their misdeeds to you? That first one is a sociopath if I've ever seen one. And the mom? Proud of it all.

More Goodbye 2015 entries to come. Why do you want to say goodbye to 2015?

Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

Photo: Book's cover, from its Wikipedia page.  Great cover!

Very specifically-written account of the murders committed by Dr. Marcel Petoit, of which there may have been 27, or 150, or anything in between, by David King.  In Nazi-occupied Paris, he would advertize his services as a Resistance-fighter, as a man who could get Jews and others out of the country, to Argentina and to freedom.  His orders were to not tell anyone.  To carry as much money as possible, sewn into their clothes.  To remove all identifying tags.  To pack all of their most valuable belongings into two suitcases and to bring them on the day they were to get away.  He'd have them meet him at an address, at an apartment condo affixed with a gas chamber, a scope that allowed him to see the suffering from the gas, or from the poison he might've injected them with.  He became very rich.

The book shows a lot of the Paris of the time, from existentialists Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir (it was cool to hear about them; I studied them while getting my philosophy degree, but I didn't get to learn a lot about their daily lives), to the daily struggles of everyone else at the time, to the way the police department worked in its tug of war with the Nazis in power, to many other things.  Petoit's crimes over so long proved the maxim of the best way to get away with something huge and terrible: To do so in the wide open, because nobody will believe it, and those who do will willfully ignore it.

It covers the trial, which was a farce of the highest order.  In a French trial, the judge, the accused, the prosecution, and any lawyer of any of the other civil defendants can all ask a question, interrupt, and say anything at any time.  So can the judge, and any of the assistant judges he has next to him.  So can any member of the jury.  This, as you may imagine, would create a chaos that I still have trouble understanding.  How anything is proven, or disproven, and judged upon is a mystery.  But Petoit was found guilty, and guillotined.  His last moments exhibit a perhaps-psychotic calm that is also beyond belief.

The subject matter saves the book, in a way, because the author displays a very dry, matter-of-fact writing style that could bore had the subject been more pedestrian.  I had no trouble putting it down, though I did want to continue.  A better job could perhaps be done with all this, though I do understand, perhaps, that the author may have felt such an approach was necessary in order to make sense and order out of all the chaos.  I have not read any of his other work, so I can't say if this is just his style, or not.

Worth a read, though Petoit's manic behavior, and his apparent ability to impress so many very well-educated and otherwise hard to impress people, may turn the reader off a little.  A Jekyll-and-Hyde person, Petoit was both a celebrated and altruistic doctor, and a mass-murderer, serial-killer-for-profit, and perhaps fifty other types of person, all at the same time, and was in and out of institutions frequently.  It was also clear that he worked for the Gestapo, and that he may have started this killing spree getting rid of other Gestapo workers--and then started killing everyone, including Jews desperate to get out of France.

Sickening, yet compulsively readable.

My Day in Court

Photo: Movie promo poster of The Verdict from its Wikipedia page.  Loved this movie.  One of Paul Newman's two best roles, in my opinion, right up there with Nobody's Fool.

I've been away for awhile again, as my PC is still unusable right now, as my upstairs is still getting renovated.  Though I should have the time soon to put my office back together, and then I'll get one of these babies posted every three days or so, like I usually do.

Anyway, the new experience this week was when I spent Friday in court--not for something I did wrong, either.  I've been an onlooker in a courtroom a few times, but I've never testified with a lawyer before.  (I did testify once in front of a judge because of a speeding ticket I got as a college student, but that's another blog entry.)  I learned a few things:

--Possibly even more than justice, judges want expediency.  Mine had over 50 cases of its type to get through on Friday alone; he had a system that moved, moved, moved.  Open folder.  Say names.  Get the lawyer to say what kind of case it is (contest, etc.).  This took awhile.  At the end of it, he practically begged everyone to talk to the parties in the hallway and reach a conclusion themselves; otherwise he had several days of cases in front of him at that time, never mind the others in the upcoming days.  I can see that life would be hellish if many of those aren't settled by the parties.  To my surprise, many of them were.  So he called them up, asked the plaintiff what the deal was, and told the defendants that these agreements were now also court orders.  He asked if everyone understood the agreements, if they entered them of their own free will, and if they had any other questions for him.  He got rid of maybe 1/3 of his docket this way.  He was very happy when people solved the problems themselves, and said so.  He had sort of a sense of humor.

--Judges take the cases in front of other judges.  Not like divorce cases, as in the infamous mistake by Brian de Palma in The Untouchables, but simple matters like mine.  So a courtroom cop came into the courtroom and told my courtroom's cop that the judge next door was out of cases and was willing to take some of his.  My judge said he wasn't ready for that, as he had just one case at that time to send over.  Like his butt was on fire, my lawyer jumped up and said our case was of the same type, and that we were willing to go next door immediately.  The judge okayed this.  On the way over, me and my lawyer went over a few things, and then suddenly I was in front of the (smiling, classy and attractive) judge, saying my Yesses and Nos nervously (the judge seemed to be giving me one of those understanding smiles) and then she ruled in my favor for everything I was asking for.  Once in front of the judge, the whole thing took about twenty seconds.

--It's not just a tv or movie thing: apparently crossing The Bar is a serious thing.  I blissfully walked up to my lawyer to let him know the court had misspelled something important, and he practically pushed me into the hallway.  Embarrassed, and with a nervous smile, he told me that the courtroom cop would've tackled me to the floor if he'd been in the room.  (I hadn't noticed that he wasn't; my venture wasn't a planned thing.)  I'm curious now as to how the judge took it, or if he'd even noticed.

--My lawyer clapped me on the back and said that I'd done a great job.  He's done that a million times and probably forget how nerve-wracking it can be.  If I put him on my job's stage, I bet he'd be nervous as hell, too.

--Only movie and tv courtrooms look polished and ornately wooden.  Mine had a flat, grey carpet from around 1982, and it had folds and bumps in it, too.  I was hoping someone would trip over those, but nobody did.  The judge's desk and chair, and the witness box, were simple wooden things, nothing special, and the podiums for the defendant and plaintiff were low-grade wood and something else I can't place.  The snazziest part of the courtroom were the lawyers' chairs.  Everyone else got thin wooden pews.  The Bar, which I crossed, seemed like nice, but faux, marble.

--About 50 cases for 5 lawyers.  Two of them seemed to represent at least half of all of the individuals and companies.  And the lawyers are into expediency almost as much as the judges are.  Mine jumped up like his butt was on fire to get us into the other courtroom because he couldn't wait to get out of there.

--Not to judge, but you can tell the plaintiffs from the defendants.  The plaintiffs, such as myself, wore suits or other professional clothing and ties.  The defendants, and I do mean all of them, wore ripped gym pants, or jeans from another decade, and were often unshowered and overall icky.  One guy's scalp was red and rashy, and another woman looked like she hadn't showered or changed her clothing in this calendar year.  One defendant leaned on the podium, and spoke and interrupted the judge like he owned the place.  He lost.  What are these people thinking?

--The only thing worse than looking and behaving like that is not showing up at all.  Mine didn't.  The plaintiff's lawyer asks for an immediate judgment, and they always get it in their favor.  Fast.  When I went to the other judge's courtroom, the first thing she said was: "I assume you're in front of me now because the other party didn't show up?"  When my lawyer said, "Yes, your Honor," she sat there and clearly waited for us to be done with our act so she could make her judgment for us.  And when you don't show up, the plaintiff's lawyer will ask the judge to also award court costs and lawyer fees, which my judge did.  Can't get blood from a stone, but we got the judgments, anyway.

--Very disappointing: No gavels, and no pounding of gavels.  Apparently that's for effect on the screen.  And no one said anything excessively stupid, like on Judge Judy, so there weren't any speeches or moralizing, either.

--Judges mediate as much, if not more, than they judge.