Toyota problems: 2.8 in a million

Reader Mr. T (not related to the TV personality) sent me this link to a NY Times blog. It's by Robert Wright and it's about Toyotas.

My back-of-the-envelope calculations (explained in a footnote below) suggest that if you drive one of the Toyotas recalled for acceleration problems and don’t bother to comply with the recall, your chances of being involved in a fatal accident over the next two years because of the unfixed problem are a bit worse than one in a million — 2.8 in a million, to be more exact. Meanwhile, your chances of being killed in a car accident during the next two years just by virtue of being an American are one in 5,244.

I'm sick of hearing about Toyotas, to be quite frank (except for this blog post, with which I totally agree), but I'm happy the "news" replaced Tiger Woods as the top story.

Now I notice that Toyota is running a heck of a lot of commercials these days. Will it do any good in light of the feeding frenzy that is going on? Who knows?

Let's talk about what the stars wore to the Oscars. Now that's some real news!

Michael Jackson dead

Well I heard about this a while ago - the Huffington Post via TMZ broke the news well before the traditional media - but I was kind of hoping they were overstating the case.

Not that I'm a big fan of Jackson's but I used to be.

Poor guy.

Missed it by that much

Wow, I did not know that the "Burn Notice" dude was from Amesbury!

In that case, I won't say anything rude ... no, I actually watch the show ...

With two seasons as the star of television’s hit series “Burn Notice” under his belt, the streets of Miami may now be familiar to Jeffrey Donovan, but not as familiar as the streets of Amesbury where he grew up.

Donovan will return home next week to accept an Amesbury Educational Foundation Inc. Hall of Honor award.

OK - you talked me into it - so I'll only say that the main woman is way, way too scrawny to be doing the things she supposedly does on the show.

Of course, I've totally missed getting press entry to this ceremony, since "next week" is now "last week." Figures.

In a town called Malice ... I mean, Meryton ...

My sister Sarah (who has no love for Jane Austen) sent this link to me and my other sister (who do love Austen).

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
Quirk Books

Love the book's cover ... Elizabeth Bennett with red eyes, zombie mouth and blood spatter on her gown ...

Now I expect to get 1,001 Austen fans flocking on here, like they did the last time I wrote about Jane Austen.

I love her, I do!

Take me out to the ball game

Here it is, 11:38 p.m., and I'm posting to my blog.

I was reading Entertainment Weekly today (hate the new format). It's one of the few mags I actually read, although I hardly know any of the 'stars' or musicians they write about. How can this person be a star if I've never heard of him or her?

Anyway, I always like Stephen King's columns. I'm not the biggest fan of his books, but his pieces in EW always make me smile, if not laugh.

Last week he was writing about how TV ruined baseball.

FIRST PARAGRAPH: Yes, it's a column about baseball. But before you click away (grumbling, ''If I wanted to read about sports, I'd subscribe to Sports Illustrated), let me add it's also about TV and greed. Have you ever noticed that those two simply go together like peanut butter and jelly, or ''Cheech? (That's supposed to be "Cheech and Chong.")

LAST PARAGRAPH: I tell myself I'm cynical — hardened to all this — and mostly I am, but I'm still amazed at how corrupting television can be...although there's no doubt MLB has loved being corrupted. Someone ought to give them a pants-down butt whippin'. Except I'm afraid it's already too late. As one ESPN commentator put it recently, ''Commerce trumps conscience every time.''

I had actually forgotten that baseball games used to be on during the day, but when I think back, I can remember clearly that I watched my Detroit Tigers (even World Series games) in daylight. It was summer, and school was out.

That concluding sentence, ''Commerce trumps conscience every time,'' sent a chill down my spine. I know that it's true, but so few people really ever say it out loud.

We should all remember that as the next few days and weeks unfold. I'm hearing rumblings and grumblings.

By the way - Dave's not here, man.

The dog that didn't bark in the night

The AP pulled the trigger on CNN by being the first to announce that conservative columnist/television commentator Robert Novak has a brain tumor.

Novak was a staple on CNN's "Crossfire" for years. Oops, I guess he left to go over to Fox News. Don't you hate when that happens?

In fact, I still don't see the news on the CNN.com home page, although they do report that actor Kelsey Grammer has been hospitalized after feeling faint and that singer Amy Winehouse was rushed to the hospital today.

Last week, Novak was in big trouble - and I mean BIG trouble - for hitting a man with his car and carrying on driving until a bicyclist stopped him. I saw some video of his explanation, which was basically, "I didn't know I hit him."

The bicyclist described the person who was hit as being "sort of splayed onto his windshield."

Well, after apparently paying his HUGE fine of $50 for hitting someone and taking off, the 77-year-old took off for Cape Cod, where he fell ill (according to the AP report) and was rushed to Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Although the reporters following Novak to his car after the "incident" last week kept asking him if he felt alright before hitting the man, I guess no one else saw any red flags.

I thought he was just being a scumbag, the poor guy. Now I feel sorry for him.

Live and let live

I finished Crazy for God this morning. It really stirred me up, like good writing should.

Frank Schaeffer has exposed himself to the world - and I have to say that if I had known he and his father, Francis Schaeffer, were mostly responsible for the Religious Right being a major part of the political process in this country, I might have been tempted to clout him while he was signing the book. (He regrets it now.)

As another example of how no one is just one thing, his father seemed like someone I would have enjoyed talking with, even though he abused his wife. He was one of those people who was steeped in theology, but who lived and thought as a social liberal.

Both of Schaeffer's parents more or less lived a lie. His father probably would have been content, and possibly less abusive, if he had followed his inclination and followed a profession in the arts. His mother (I'm not sure if she's still alive) would have been less a "crazed" person if she had been allowed to be a dancer.

I found it interesting, as I always do in these cases, that while holding others to a high moral standard, they forgave Frank for his transgressions.

(She reminded me a lot of my mother. In fact, the whole relationship between his mother and father reminded me of my parents.)

It all kind of gives credence to Obama's assertion that people who are desperately unhappy with their lot cling to organized religion. (And I'm not saying that everyone who is religious is desperately unhappy.) I'm still uncertain about the guns part, but it's still a matter of control, who has it, and what you do with it.

Young Frank talked his father into joining forces with the likes of Pat Robertson (who they believed to be nut cases) to stir up religious fervor over Roe v. Wade, arguably the "decider" in American political elections.

It's a good read, a real page turner. Look at his picture, or look at him if you get the chance, and you will see the whole book etched in his face.

Crazy for God

By the way, I am now reading Crazy for God, by local Frank Schaeffer. So far, I'm really liking this as well. We've got some good writers around here.

This is a memoir about his growing up the son of two famous evangelicals. It's interesting for more than just the religious aspect, however, because the family's ministry was based in Switzerland, and I love his descriptions of the chalet and the village where they lived.

So far he's only 15 years old so I've got a ways to go.

Probems of all kinds

Well I've got problems - with the blog, with Comcast, with my computer, with my psyche, whatever.

But I want to post about identity. I finished The Garden of Last Days (Dubus' new book) this morning and it did not break my heart. It is brilliant, but it did not break my heart.

It made me think. My thoughts led me to what he said to me yesterday, about remembering my hair. And then I was posting comments and Bubba had used the word "progressive," and I started to think about labels.

I am neither black nor white, American or English or Barbadian or Irish, not totally liberal in my thinking (although I am definitely not a conservative in any way, shape or form) and I'm sick and tired of people judging or making assessments about me because of how I look.

I envy all of you who can say definitively what you are, because I cannot. I envy all of you who can say that someone remembered you because of your good character (or bad character, as the case may be) and not because of your racial makeup.

I wish it were different, but it's not. It's not different anywhere else, either.

This weekend, in addition to the incident yesterday, I was part of another interaction in which I felt I was being assessed and found to be wanting, based on my appearance. I'm not going to go into that one but believe me, it did not make me feel very good.

I'm down in the dumps, not because of the book, but the book contributed to it. I recommend that everyone read it, and House of Sand and Fog (I have not read his other novel, Bluesman) and maybe you'll get some perspective into what it's like to be superficially JUDGED and also what it's like to be the JUDGE.

That's it. Oh, except I wish I had that garden.

Me and Andre Dubus

I was just at The Tannery and I ran into Andre Dubus.

When I say, "ran into," I really mean I engaged his wife, Fontaine, in conversation outside The Nutcracker Bakery and then she looked past me and said, "Andre! Gillian is reading your book!"

Suddenly Andre Dubus was in front of me, shaking my hand and claiming to remember my hair and face, but not me, necessarily. Huh.

I mean, it's fine he didn't remember me. He must have people coming up and saying, "Remember me? ... & etc." multiple times a day. And to be honest, if I'd seen him, I probably would have let them go on their merry way. I think he was at Jabberwocky while she was outside with the dog.

What the "huh" was for is that people remember me by my hair. But then he's very direct (understatement).

He actually put his hand on his heart and asked me if I was liking the book, so far. I'm not very far along, but I like it just fine, so far. I told him I'd re-read House of Sand and Fog before starting the new book, and he said something like, "Oh, poor you."

So that's my most recent brush with fame, if you will.

Dubus at Tendercrop

Hey, go to the comments on this post. If you want to see a video of local author Andre Dubus III talking about his new book, that is.

What's especially cool is that he is filmed, in part, at Tendercrop Farm in Newbury. I have actually seen him in there myself, but that was before I met him and I didn't want to impose.

Potential imposition did not stop the young woman ringing up his purchases, though. She engaged him in a conversation about him coming to speak at one of her college classes and he just as engagingly asked her how her writing was coming along.

I'm still re-reading House of Sand and Fog, but I was thinking the other day about how both books have words in them that imply safety - "house" and "garden." I wonder if that was deliberate?

Anyway, Dubus says in the vid that someone told him they hated all the characters in House of Sand and Fog. Well, all but one of them certainly are challenged, in one way or another. The only one, however, that I did not like was the policeman.

I did not like him because he is an enabler. But he is a necessary part of the drama.

Two locals in the news

A reader has alerted me via email to 2 Newburyport-area people who are featured in today's Globe.

The first is Andre Dubus III, in the form of a review of his new novel, The Garden of Last Days. I had coincidentally just an hour or so before bought the book at Jabberwocky. I also bought a replacement copy of House of Sand and Fog, Dubus' last novel before this one.

Of course, I have not read The Garden of Last Days yet. But I did read the review in the Globe, just 2 days after having read an equally glowing review by Stephen King in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly. (I can't find that piece on the EW website. If it's on there, they're making it too difficult to find.)

I met Andre Dubus' mother, Pat Dubus (and the man himself) last December at the Geiger Crisis Center gala. Suzanne Dubus, the executive director of the center, is Andre's sister.

I told Pat how much I had loved House of Sand and Fog and how it had made me cry. She told me that this one would break my heart. I related this exchange to the clerk at Jabberwocky and she said, "It's beautifully written - but it will break your heart."

I read the first page of both books a few minutes ago (I plan to re-read House of Sand and Fog before starting the new one). The man can grab you from the get-go. Out of respect for his mastery of the written word, I won't relay the bizarre aspects of my one and only meeting with him.

I am kind of peeved, however, at how much of the story the Globe review gives away (King was more sparing), but it's not going to stop me from reading the book.

***

The second piece is in the Globe magazine and is a short Q&A featuring Eureka!, the toy store that is affiliated with Jabberwocky, in the Tannery. The piece focuses on beach toys, but Eureka! is always worth a visit, if you have kids or are shopping for kids.

Nancy Streeter, the owner, is the sister of Sue Little, who owns Jabberwocky.

Developing story

Under the headline "Developing Story," CNN.com has this announcement: Comic actor Harvey Korman dies at 81.

I'm sorry about Korman (although he was never one of my favorites), but really, is this a "developing" story? The other day it was a "developing story" that Sydney Pollack died.

The man is dead; the story says what he died from, what films/TV shows he appeared in, who his survivors are - what more is there to develop? Is there going to be a resurrection?

Wardrobe watch

OK, so this has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read (from the Boston Globe).

Does Dunkin' Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin' Donuts boycott. "The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad," Malkin yowls in her syndicated column.

Following what the Globe calls the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere, Dunkin' Donuts caved and yanked the ad. This apparently has satisfied Malkin.

So now we've got to worry about what scarves we wear. I actually own a scarf that has a fringe on it like that. Guess I won't be appearing in it anytime soon.

I think we should just yank Fox News off the air and have done with it.

There goes da judge: RIP Dick Martin

Oh my, the second of the duo that gave us such a kick when I was a kid has passed away. Dick Martin died yesterday of respiratory failure. Well, he was 86.

This report, from CNN, sparked some memories:

"Laugh-in," which debuted in January 1968, was unlike any comedy-variety show before it. Rather than relying on a series of tightly scripted song-and-dance segments, it offered up a steady, almost stream-of-consciousness run of non-sequitur jokes, political satire and madhouse antics from a cast of talented young actors and comedians that also included Ruth Buzzi, Arte Johnson, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley and announcer Gary Owens ...

Against this backdrop, audiences were taken from scene to scene by quick, sometimes psychedelic-looking visual cuts, where they might see Hawn, Worley and other women dancing in bathing suits with political slogans, or sometimes just nonsense, painted on their bodies. Other times, Gibson, clutching a flower, would recite nonsensical poetry or Johnson would impersonate a comical Nazi spy.

Verrrrry interesting ...

"Laugh-In" was responsible for bringing Goldie Hawn and Lily Tomlin into our lives.

I never did get the "Here come da judge" gag, until I read this, today. And who can forget Richard Nixon portentously yelping, "Sock it to ME!"

Anyway, the fickle finger of fate finally pointed in Martin's direction. His comedic partner, Dan Rowan, died in 1987.

Pizza

In the course of the tipsy trio's trek through Amesbury last night, I mentioned the pizza poll that Tom Salemi had posted on his blog.


Who knew bringing up Papa Gino's would spark such a debate between the other 2 members of the group? Not because it's a chain but because one of the trio said emphatically that the building should be knocked down and replaced with a, if I remember correctly, Chicago deep-dish pizza place.


I think proposing that the building be knocked down was a little extreme, but it served to show how passionate a discussion about pizza can become.


The other person aside from me was defending Papa Gino's at risk of later being thrown from the vehicle (the deep-dish fan was our driver). I, of course, just lapped it all up like a cat presented with a bowl of cream and tried to store it in my addled brain, for later publication on here.


This morning I was viewing a clip on You Tube of Thursday's Letterman show - the one where Obama delivered the Top 10 list. Before that, though, Letterman announced that people should cease being friends with anyone whose favorite pizza was a plain cheese pie.

I'm not that crazy about pizza, but I sorta felt that same way at the Barking Dog when the deep-dish diva looked up from her plate and said to me, "Why, what's wrong with Fox News? I like Fox News."

Obviously I had just dished dirt on Fox News; it was the culmination of a scathing lecture I was delivering on Rupert Murdoch. I thought that was the last, best blow I could deliver - "and he owns Fox News!"

Hey, she was the one who asked me what was so bad about Rupert Murdoch.

"Why do I even have anything to do with you?" I replied (but I was laughing).

An evening out in Amesbury

Three of us "girls" went to the Barking Dog last night. It was not in response to this story in the Daily News, about how the "Phantom Gourmet" rated the pub/restaurant a "hidden jewel." I had actually forgot about that.

We had gone to an open studio for an Amesbury artist, Edith Heyck. I could have dropped a few hundred dollars on 2 paintings I really loved but I'm a poor starving blogger who appreciates the finer things in life ... it's almost as if I were born to blog for a wealthy person.

Anyway, back to the Barking Dog. It was crammed full. Never having been there on a Friday night, or any other weekend night, I have no way of judging if that's the norm or if people flocked there because of the Phantom.

The service was kinda slow, but the wait staff was very pleasant and the steak tip grinder was very good. But so was the one I had earlier in the week, at Starboard Galley. The latter, however, does not make mojitos.

Cher and Baba were gaga

Television tell-all is certainly getting the most bang for the buck these days. First Cher today or next week either confessed or is going to confess to a romantic relationship with a young Tom Cruise, you know, "despite their huge age gap."

On Tuesday, Barbara Walters is apparently going to confess to Oprah a love affair with a married man.

It was former United States Sen. Edward Brooke of - you guessed it - Massachusetts.

From CNN:

Appearing on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" scheduled to air Tuesday, Walters shares details of her relationship with Brooke that lasted several years in the 1970s, according to a transcript of the show provided to The Associated Press.

A moderate Republican from Massachusetts who took office in 1967, Brooke was the first African-American to be popularly elected to the Senate. Both he and Walters knew that public knowledge of their affair could have ruined his career as well as hers, Walters says.

Well I am shocked. I am scandalized! - Who knew that a reputable newspaper would print such a ghastly photo (of Cher and Cruise together in 2002)? It looks as if he is about to take a bit out of her wax effigy at Madame Tussaud's.

More musings on blogging

Speaking of blogging, I suspect that many people I know and communicate with often check on here frequently to see if I've put some offhand comment they may have made in my presence on here.


In fact, one of my neighbors used to preface everything he said to me with, "This isn't for you to put in the paper ..." and then proceed to tell me some innocuous story that had no relevance to anyone but himself, or myself on occasion.

But sometimes he would, because he's lived here a long time and knows everything that's going on, give me a lead that he would make clear was a lead. A couple of them turned into stories.

I tried when I was on the Current, and I still do try, not to put stuff that people say that's not relevant to what I'm writing about (and then I don't identify the person, as is a rule, I would guess, of blogging), is too personal (to them), or may cast them in a bad light. Unless it's a public official or anyone else speaking publicly.

Having said that, I can't resist sharing a couple of things I heard over last weekend at events revolving around the Literary Festival. (And if someone can tell me why the 'o' key on my laptop has suddenly become sticky, I'd really appreciate it!)


"Are you you, or are you your brother?"
Said to Chris Sidford, twin brother of local architect Andy Sidford. I don't know if the person meant, "Are you you (Andy), or are you (his) brother?" or if he meant, "Are you you (the brother), or are you your brother (Andy)?"

"You know, it was the (book) where the pirate was always trying to get into her cove."
Said to me, who almost did a spit-take across the table, at the dinner to open the literary festival, by a writer of my acquaintance. Oh how we laughed. I'm sure my 2 cosmos and her chocatini at Mission Oak Grille previous to dinner helped fuel our hilarity. She was trying to remember the name of Daphne du Maurier's novel, Jamaica Inn, which is about a young woman, a pirate and I gather, a cove.

The narrative line

I think last weekend's literary festival also has prompted much of the musing I've been doing yesterday and today.

As someone who did not write for years and years, who thought of herself as a vendor manager or an admin assistant who wrote on the side, or who rather had that narrative line running through her head but never wrote it down, it's rather a shock to my system to have a group of people who consider me to be a writer first and foremost.

I have always struggled with my identity. Unfortunately, I missed The Latino Boom program at this weekend's festival (so much going on at the same time) where I understand they discussed this very topic. At the post-festival party I did have the opportunity to speak with one of the participants, Sergio Troncoso.

He, too, had that struggle until he decided to give everything else up and devote himself to being a writer. Author Frank Schaeffer said much the same during the festival.

"I found what I should have been doing all along at age 39," he said.

I went from being a writer to not being one then back again over a span of years that I don't regret in the least. What else would I have to write about if I had not been the person who bought stuff for Kuwaiti royalty, if I had not met so many interesting people while working for a startup Internet company or not had such horrible experiences at the two publishing companies (haven't mentioned the book publisher I worked for, except in the "About Me" section, but it's how I ended up living in Newburyport so it's significant).

Well, there is my life: born in England, grew up to age 7 on Barbados, transplanted to rural Michigan at age 7, never interacted with extended family I was connected to by blood until I was in my 20s, etc.

And then there are all those quirky and wonderful people I know here, some of whom I complain about ad nauseum to others but still value as part of my panorama, if not outright love in a pleasingly platonic way.