If writers are my rock stars, Christopher Moore is my Jagger. So when I heard that he would be at the Brookline Booksmith on April 2 to promote his new novel, Bite Me, I took the day off work, drove an hour, paid meter parking, and waited in two lines.

How was it? As his narrator, 16-year-old Goth Abby Normal, would say, he rocked my stripey socks.

First, he was late. But, in all fairness, he had to get there from Boston in Good Friday traffic. Among his easy-going, devoted fans, only one beefy gent complained about a minor inconvenience that no one could control. The rest of us did Madlibs with the staff. We used plenty of word substitutes from Moore's work: sequined love nun, Minty Fresh, shaved vampire cat. The usual.

Moore called from the road and greeted us via the store manager's cell phone:

Moore: "Hello everyone."
Us: "Hello Chris/Christopher/Mr. Moore/Man!"
Moore: "So… what are you wearing?"

Once he arrived, he explained to us newbies that he does not do readings at his readings. He would entertain us for a while, answer questions, then sign books and take pictures. He said it would be like sex, with him smelling like magic marker at the end. I guess that made us his groupies.

In the used-book basement of an indie bookstore, while drinking coffee and taking pictures (with flash!), Moore opened up to his fans. We heard the stuff of legend. Did you know you could have fake testicles — nu-ticals — implanted, like they do for neutered dogs? Moore's got seven of them! (Sadly, we could not take pictures, even without flash.) The man who rewrote King Lear from the point of view of the Fool sold insurance before writing black-comedy novels. The lack of controversy over Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Friend disappoints him to this day. (Ironically, on that Good Friday, Lamb sold out. Also, at the end of this hysterically funny book, religious or not, you will cry.) To create the voice of Abby Normal for his second vampire book, You Suck (the sequel to Bloodsucking Fiends), he risked an FBI raid to find inspiration on Goth teen message boards. For Bite Me, the last of the trilogy of non-sparkly vamps, he discovered that those same message boards were gone, the underworld moderators presumably having grown up and moved on. The lack of intelligent, literate creativity (however mopey) saddens him. How else could a middle-aged man have brought this to life: "I started to feel like a malodorous soupcon of mashed assholes, as Lautreamont so aptly put it."  (See his recent HuffPo piece about the Web-based, linguistic can of woop-ass the digital natives are pioneering).

Moore turned out to be quite the sweet talker, too. He probably tells all the regions this, but he said he loves the Northeast the most for the book-smart types (or, as the Midwest calls us, commie liberals) and asked if it bothered us Bostonians that the Tea Partiers have so dubbed themselves.

Us: "Nah."
Moore: "Good, cuz they're stupid."

After about an hour he promised that his future work will contain more heinous fuckery most foul (i.e., messed-up situations), and the line reformed throughout the store for the signing. Those who could not fit into the basement to hear him speak were first in line, fairly. We waited about two hours, browsing through fiction, bargain, and biography. Suddenly, it was my turn. The Man was right in front of me. I had my brand new copy of Bite Me open and my boyfriend readying the camera. I managed to not fall to my knees and chant "I'm not worthy" or "Ohmygod I've read, like, all your books." I may be one of his biggest fans, but I didn't want to show it.

Moore made it easy. He thanked us for coming, signed the book, and joked with us. He's approachable, friendly, and talkative. And, unlike useless famous actors and singers that people usually worship, he didn't have a handler nearby with a headset saying, "Please do not touch Mr. Moore." That helped, too. But I still asked if it would, um, be ok if I could have my picture taken with him. He not only said of course, he offered to make a funny face. Just as I had made it through acting cool, my boyfriend ratted me out. Told him I'd read all the books, that I've waited months to see him, and skipped work. Moore thought I deserved free stuff for that and gave me a little black promotional t-shirt with the book's title written across the front.  That's probably when I let loose the "ohmygodthankyouthankyou," and proceeded to literally skip out the front door.

Now my book reads "OMFG, Christopher Moore," my chest reads "Bite Me," and the next time he's around to promote his next book, I'll be there.

Jennifer Leblanc

Since her unfortunate introduction to the rest of the country last summer (thanks a lot, McCain!), Sarah Palin has proven herself to be many things: corrupt, incapable of debate, completely ignorant of foreign affairs,  hypocrite (charging that Obama "palled around with terrorists while she and her husband belonged to a political group that once asked Iran for help in seceding from the U.S.), a liar (by claiming that her husband had never been an AIP member when he was — even McCain staff knew that), unwilling to take advice, and unable to either form or convey a simple thought. After reading her editorial in The Wall Street Journal today, I'm convinced that she has just plain lost her mind. In this embarrassing opinion piece (opinion indeed), she writes:

…is it any wonder that many of the sick and elderly are concerned that the Democrats' proposals will ultimately lead to rationing of their health care by — dare I say it — death panels? Establishment voices dismissed that phrase, but it rang true for many Americans.

Let me explain that last sentence — even though legal and media fact checkers (and anyone who has ever read the healthcare bill) have repeatedly shown that death panels were a myth, a blatant lie, Palin doesn't need those pesky facts to get in her way. She said it, Republicans regurgitated it, and fear-ridden, ill-informed Americans believed it. Hence, it must be true! 
She just can't let it go. The term "death panels" must play in her mind like a loop. She must cling to it, mentally, like a reassuring mantra.

Or maybe it makes her feel special. Much like when she told the McCain staff that she loved saying "palling around with terrorists," she just loves saying "death panels." Because when she does, people pay attention to her. Like they did when she was Miss Wasilla. Like they did when she was a fancy tee-vee sports reporter. Like the salespeople at Nordstrom did when she had $180,000 to spend.

But why is anyone listening anymore? And, more importantly, the part that scares me — what future vicious, damaging fabrications will her followers believe?

Jennifer Leblanc

The late Tony Snow, while serving as White House press secretary for the Bush administration, declared on television that racism was dead. For white people, it was. The election of Barack Obama to the White House resurrected the monster. But, as in all scary stories, the monster has come back a little different. Now, instead of whites exhibiting racism toward blacks (totally a thing of the past), conservatives now say that (gasp!) blacks are racist towards white people!

The horror.

By stating a fact — that police have acted unjustly toward minorities — a fact that no one in their right (or left) mind would dispute, President Obama has incited the following statement from one (screaming, lunatic, hissy-fit thrower) Glenn Beck: "[Obama has] a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture…I'm not saying he doesn't like white people…This guy is, I believe, a racist."

Don't forget un-American, too. You know how they know? He doesn't drink American beer!

For the "Beer Summit" at the White House involving the professor and the cop (you know the story), Fox News (home of the unfair and mentally unbalanced, where Glenn Beck resides) did not see anything newsworthy in the affair, except for the fact that Obama chose to drink Bud Light. This Bud's for you. Bud. Weis. Er. Bud Light. Regular ole Bud. Bestselling beer in America.

But…not American owned. Obama also would've struck out if he had chosen Busch, Michelob, Corona, Miller (It's not Miller time anymore, I guess — they're owned by Brits) or Coors (dang Canadians). I guess the White House should've checked this site to see what the non-racist, true patriots would drink. 

So, to all you Americans about to celebrate the weekend with a nice cold beer, your better think twice about what you order, pinko.

Oh yeah, the point of the Beer Summit…What was that again? Oh yeah, I remember: It does not matter what President Obama does during his time in office — he will still be a black man, and he still can't win with ignorant white people.

Let's talk about:  Blue Moon vs. Red Stripe: What does the beer choice say about the drinker? (Um, the taste?)
 

Jennifer Leblanc

From CNN:

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it.

Ah, the evangelical mind. God forbid we believe in evolution, but torturing other human beings is A-OK.

Can I get an Amen from my fellow secular liberals?!

Jennifer Leblanc

Bruno is meant to "expose the rampant homophobia across the United States." The title character, a gay Austrian fashion reporter, "appears to have anal sex with a man on camera." The MPAA had a hissy fit over the dude-on-dude scene and handed down the harshest rating a non-porn film can earn.

Yet last month, The Last House on the Left was released with an R rating, and critics and audiences alike shunned it over the detailed, graphic, violent rape scene. One critic called it "stomach-churningly anti-human." The MPAA shrugged and gave it an R rating.

A teenage girl is brutally assaulted — yawn. Two adult men engaging in non-violent consensual intercourse — madness! In a review of the documentary, This Film is Not Yet Rated (which exposes the biases of the board members — and the board members themselves), Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter noted:

Board decisions in recent years reveal a strong middle-class, male, heterosexual bias. The board has declared that female orgasms in certain films go on "too long," and it comes down hard on shots of female pubic hair. Gay sex receives harsher treatment than straight sex. Graphic violence, even against women, skates free of the dreaded NC-17 rating.

The MPAA's answer to the anti-gay accusation: "We don't try to set standards, we just try to reflect them." Translation: "White, middle-class America hates the gays, so we do, too."

Jennifer Leblanc

Ron Howard is considering working on "an adaptation of The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft — which is a graphic novel from Mac Carter and Jeff Blitz that takes elements of Lovecraft's struggles in real life and combines them with a fantastical element that includes transforming all of his darkest nightmares into reality"

You want to know Lovecraft's darkest nightmare? Barack Obama as president.
Artists, Lovecraft readers, and gothic/emo students everywhere have also chosen to ignore Lovecraft's larger-than-life racism and how intertwined his hatred was with his work. It's not enough that a bunch of "fans" gather at his grave in Providence every year to "celebrate" the man. A fan-created Lovecraft website contains a page explaining the misconceptions about the author. They don't even touch racism. They don't even try to justify any of the following:

The mass of contemporary Jews are hopeless as far as America is concerned. They are the product of alien blood, & inherit alien ideals, impulses, & emotions which forever preclude the possibility of wholesale assimilation…

The primal savage or ape merely looks about his native forest to find a mate; the exalted Aryan should lift his eyes to the worlds of space and consider his relation to infinity!!!!

Let's not be bothered by things like truth, reality, and history. Let's all go to the movies!

Jennifer Leblanc

I’ve been acting silly lately. I’ve spent my time thinking about the people out there who have lost their jobs, their homes, their healthcare, even their health. I’ve thought about those who sleep in their cars, on relatives’ couches, or on park benches. I should’ve been thinking about the people in this country who are truly suffering: bankers’ girlfriends and Brown University students.

I’m always a bit late to the game, so I just discovered Dating a Banker Anonymous, a blog written by the wives and girlfriends of Wall Street’s finest (the financial rats who, in the absence of the regulation cat, destroyed our economy) who are learning to go without the necessities. That is, go without jewelry, opera tickets, facials, weekend trips to Europe, decent sex, and large allowances. These women thought they had attained their goal — you know, relationships based on the exchange of sex for money. If they can’t be distracted by shiny things, they might have to face the fact that they serve no real purpose in life.

Initially, I thought, like many others, that this was a joke. As the days go by, it appears that these women are very real and very serious. A beauty writer (Seriously? Beauty writer? Could you be more useless?) in New York told The New York Times: "One of his best friends told me that my job is now to keep him calm and keep him from dying at the age of 35," Ms. [Dawn Spinner] Davis said. "It’s not what I signed up for."

That whole sickness-health/richer-poorer thing…who knew you were supposed to mean it?

The media has mentioned a "feminist backlash," but I have no doubt that behind every foot-stamping girlfriend is a pouting, empty-handed banker.

The suffering is not limited to Wall Street. It extends all the way to Thayer Street…in Providence, Rhode Island, home to Brown University. Brown students are best known to my fellow locals for blindly walking straight into oncoming traffic on a daily basis. I guess a high SAT score means never having to look both ways before crossing the street. Anyway, Thayer Street is the trendy, crowded shopping center of the college hill universe. Vintage clothing stores, an art house movie theatre, and, of course, a Starbucks line the busy one-way road. All was right in the Brown world…until two pizza joints opened too close to each other. And now, like, ohmygod, the young are lost. A freshman writer in the Brown Daily Herald student newspaper complains,

The war between Antonio’s and Nice Slice is affecting thousands of Brown students…the central location of Antonio’s and Nice Slice on Thayer and their close proximity to one another makes choosing one pizzeria over the other particularly grueling.

The unemployment rate in Rhode Island has reached ten percent. A few weeks ago, a homeless man froze to death while sleeping under a bridge. But…too many pizza options…what’s a boy to do? Surely not volunteer, or fundraise, or even be aware of the world around you. When the tough gets going, take to the blog! Take the student newspaper’s editorial page! You’re spoiled as hell, and you’re not gonna take it anymore!

Jennifer Leblanc

Is there blood coming out of my eyes?

I don't like the auto bailout plan any more than the next person. I don't for one second believe that this will save the jobs of auto workers, the plants they work in, or the towns they live in. I do believe that CEOs will continue to earn fat bonuses and fly privately. It also galls me that wealthy Americans have sneered about welfare queens and irresponsible behavior (No investment portfolio? Madness!). It's just plain different when old white millionaires have their hands out — who cares that they've driven these gigantic companies into the ground? (For the love of Pete — whoever that is — are ya gonna stop making $#%@*& Hummers already?) Republicans and moneyed conservatives also rail against government interference — deregulate! Drill baby drill! Unless we're talking about your private sex life or begging Congress for billions. But the world markets crashed overnight on news of the Senate not passing the deal, and I was certain our market would follow today. Eventually, it will. What is an American citizen to think?

Yesterday I read that Democrats quietly slipped into the deal a pay raise for federal judges. "District judges and lawmakers now earn $169,300 a year… There is concern among many policymakers that judges are not paid enough relative to the importance of their offices…" That's tough. Teachers and nurses everywhere feel your pain.

This morning I learned that the deal fell apart in the Senate because Republicans wanted auto workers to have their wages cut significantly. Now now, auto workers — think of the poor, disadvantaged judges.

Now I'm reading in Salon about Republican politicians who voted against the deal and benefit from having foreign auto plants in their states.

I ask you again — is there blood coming out of my eyes?

There's a special place in hell for Republican senator Bob Corker, whose area does have one domestic plant…which will soon close (they need to make room for the Volkswagen plant coming to his Tennessee town). It was Corker vs. the auto-workers union:

             …Mr. Corker admitted to the union's representatives that
             discussions over wages were "largely about politics in the
             G.O.P. caucus."

             Mr. Corker said he proposed that wages and benefits of 
             U.A.W. members be competitive with lower rates at American
             plants run by foreign rivals…Without that agreement, Mr.
             Corker said he could not sell a compromise to other Republicans.

Apparently, this is how it works now: Republicans so badly want to screw over American workers that they will bring financial disaster to foreign markets. 

Republicans — made in America!

Jennifer Leblanc

From CNN: Huckabee, Palin Top List of 2012 GOP Contenders, Polls Says.

Well, isn’t that special? A lying moron and a white-supremacist evangelical. You stay classy, Republicans!

Jennifer Leblanc

A Wal-Mart worker is trampled to death on Black Friday. To those of you who killed him, to those of you who stood by, those of you who tried to trample his co-workers as they tried to help him, and to those who complained when the store was closed due to the tragedy — you all make me almost ashamed to be a human being. Nothing you can buy, no matter what the price or how badly a loved one wanted it, is worth killing someone.

Jennifer Leblanc