Author Archives: Zachary Klein

NUT CRACKING TIME

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Since I began these posts, I’ve written about politics more than enough times.  But given the election is right around the corner, I refuse to stop.  It’s just too damn important.

According to Gore Vidal:  “The United States has one business party with two right-wing factions” he observed, “the Democrats and the Republicans.”

A sentiment I share, but this is one election where the devil is in the details.  And these details have profound meaning for our country.  The way we view government, individual liberties, civil rights, and the nature of the compact—or non-compact—we as people make with each other.

I believe in government.  Not the way this one is run.  Not the crude gluttony of our politicians.  Not the lies, misrepresentations, and “gotchas” that constitute campaigns for political office.  Not the obscene amount of money it takes to run for the smallest public office.  All of this is horrific.  But I still believe in government.

Only government has the potential to create the type of society in which I want to live.  A society where each citizen is assured of food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, and a decent paying job.  Only government has the potential of protecting people against racism, crime, and social hatred.

Potential isn’t reality and the reality is our government caters to the rich and powerful, who continue to generate giant profits off peoples’ housing problems, peoples’ job issues, peoples’ health good or bad, and government welfare.  Worse, at this moment in time, there is no Teddy Roosevelt or Dwight Eisenhower or FDR standing in the wings to change what we have—a country moving rapidly toward the world that William Gibson envisioned in his great book Neuromancer  written appropriately in 1984.  A world controlled hook, line, and sinker by multinational corporations with government being a mirthless joke.

So why then is this election so important when both candidates answer to the Swells?

From where I sit, the importance lies with the slightly different direction and philosophical underpinnings of the two  parties.  These are not my father’s Republicans.  They aren’t even mine.  These New Republicans have no Clifford Cases, no Nelson Rockefellers, no Jacob Javitzs—hell, they have no Richard Nixons, something I never thought I would possibly write.

These New Republicans have Ayn Rand and her belief in Social Darwinism.  These New Republicans have an inbred hatred for government, no matter how it’s run.  Survival of the fittest might have made sense in various historical periods, but now it is nothing more than thinly veiled sadism.  Fuck those who can’t help themselves, but give gobs of subsidies to the “job-creators,” a misnomer for “profit-makers.”

But those profits trickle down.  Right.  Like the guy who walked into the bar and asked for a “trickle down,” which the bartender promptly poured and handed to the richest white man in the room.  That’s what trickle down has meant and will always mean.

The New Republicans Social Darwinism is the worst possible thing that can happen to our people.  To create a country built upon it will grind what little remains of our social compact, our humanity, into dust.

The irony is that the New Republicans have managed to cloak survival of the fittest under the shroud of “family values.”  Protect the fetus, which really means women of wealth get abortions by doctors while the poor, and working people are forced into back alleys—all the while outlawing contraception, which reduces the need for that which The New Republicans say they abhor.  (I’d really like to know the over/under of the New Republicans, who have adopted a child.)  Repeal Obamacare (a really sad excuse for national healthcare) and let those who can’t afford insurance take their children to emergency rooms while wealthy people receive the best healthcare money can buy.  These are “family values?”

Gut social security.  (I know, you can have a voucher—eye-roll here.)  Get rid of the Department of Education.  And finally pack the Supreme Court with folks who believe people of color, the openly gay, and women, operate on an even playing field with white men.  This is what we want?  These aren’t my family values.

From here, it looks like slash and burn.  Yet we really are in all this together—if you exclude the multinationals and those 2% the Occupiers talk about.  We need to care for those like ourselves and those less fortunate.  We need government to rebuild our infrastructure (the real job provider) as well as reduce deficits.  We need government to make certain there’s enough affordable housing to go around and to make sure that people aren’t left in the fumes of those who have full pockets and just want more.  And we all need a court that doesn’t define a corporation as a person.

The Democrats aren’t going to turn government on its head and move in the direction I’d like to see.  Far from it.  But nuances are meaningful.  Them devilish details.  The Democrats (at least the ones I’d vote for, who unfortunately aren’t like Bernie Sanders) are simply not invested in the same draconian measures the New Republicans desire.

I too want to take back our government, but don’t want a country where every man, woman, and child is expected to care only about themselves and pretend that’s “progress.”  Family values are interwoven with community values, which are interwoven with national values.  And I believe this election sets the stage for what our society and culture will eventually become.

TWO-FACED LIES AND BULLSHIT

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And I’m not even talking Romney.

The day after the first presidential debate, I wrote a rough draft for today’s post, trying to exorcise my fury about Romney’s neck breaking flip-flops and outright lies.  I also wrote about Obama’s incomprehensible somnolence and lackadaisical performance.

Problem was, so did the rest of the world.  Since there’s no reason to repeat much repeated news and opinion, I’m bringing the election closer to home: the Massachusetts Senate race between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown that has garnered national attention.

For weeks we have been pummeled upside the head with Brown ads that attack Warren’s assertion that she is part Native American because she has no papers to prove it.  Since her employers have publicly said that she had been hired on the basis of her skills rather than background, one might think Brown would stop the attacks.  Not Mr. Brown.

Then what’s good for the goose… I’d like Scott Brown to prove he’s a Caucasian male. Don’t talk to me about skin color, which is often misleading.  I want something more than what he was told by his family.  On top of that, I demand to see proof that if he actually is a Caucasian male, he was never given a leg up throughout his life because of it.  I want all his previous employers to publicly proclaim that Brown had never jumped past a person of color or a woman of any color because of the box he checked.  Your turn, Scott.

Then, just to be clear about his constant claims of “bipartisanship,” let’s peek at some of Mr. Brown’s Senate voting record:

A study of Republican Scott Brown’s voting record in the U.S. Senate by ProgressMass reveals that, when Brown had the opportunity to oppose Republican obstruction in the U.S. Senate and demonstrate bipartisan leadership, he voted overwhelmingly with his Republican colleagues.  This finding runs directly counter to Republican Scott Brown’s recent claims of bipartisanship.  Brown voted with his Republican colleagues at a rate of over 75% (over 93% prior to Elizabeth Warren’s entry into the Senate race) to block legislation that had the support of 50 or more Senators, measures that would have passed the U.S. Senate on a so-called “up-or-down vote,” according to the ProgressMass review of Brown’s Senate record.  In other words, during his tenure in the U.S. Senate, when Republican Scott Brown was faced with a choice between bipartisan leadership and partisan obstruction, Brown chose partisan obstruction over bipartisan leadership 3 to 1.

Among the 40 measures with majority support in the U.S. Senate that Republican Scott Brown voted with his Republican colleagues to obstruct were:

4/26/10: S. 3217, Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (Senate Vote 124)
The bill was the original financial regulatory reform bill, increasing accountability and transparency, and ending “too big to fail.”

7/27/10: S. 3628, Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act (Senate Vote 220)
This bill would have increased transparency of corporate and special-interest money in national political campaigns, in response to the notorious Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court, as well as prohibited foreign influence in federal elections.

9/28/10: S. 3816, Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act (Senate Vote 242)
This bill would have given companies a two-year payroll tax holiday on new employees who replace workers doing similar jobs overseas, as well as revoked provisions of the tax code that encourage companies to outsource their workforce.

11/17/10: S. 3772, Paycheck Fairness Act (Senate Vote 249)
This bill would have provided more effective remedies to victims of gender-based discrimination in the payment of wages.

12/8/10: S. 3985, Emergency Senior Citizens Relief Act of 2010 (Senate Vote 267)
This bill would have provided a one-time payment of $250 to all Social Security recipients to help compensate for the lack of a cost-of-living adjustment.

12/9/10: H.R. 847, James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 (Senate Vote 269)
This was the original version of the 9/11 first responders bill to improve health services and provide financial compensation for 9/11 first responders who were exposed to dangerous toxins and were now sick as a result.  The bill would establish a federal program to provide medical monitoring and treatment for first responders, provide initial health screenings for people who were in the area at the time of the attack and may be at risk, and reopen the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund to provide compensation for losses and harm as an alternative to the current litigation system.

5/4/11: S. 493, Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer Reauthorization Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 64)
This bill would reauthorize the “Small Business Innovation Research” (SBIR) and “Small Business Technology Transfer” (STTR) programs, which Scott Brown earlier said provided “vital resources to small businesses nationwide, and this reauthorization is incredibly important for Massachusetts and our country,” and signed on as a co-sponsor of the measure before Republicans lined up behind a competing measure.

5/17/11: S. 940, Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act (Senate Vote 72)
This bill would have eliminated five tax subsidies for U.S. oil companies and closed a loophole that oil companies exploit to disguise foreign royalty payments as taxes and reduce their domestic tax bill.  Resulting savings would have been applied to reducing federal budget deficits.

10/11/11: S. 1660, American Jobs Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 160)
The bill would have created an estimated 1.9 million jobs nationwide, including 16,000 in Massachusetts.  It would have extended several stimulus measures scheduled to expire at the end of 2011, including the employee payroll tax holiday, and extended unemployment insurance, helping over 170,000 Massachusetts residents.  It also included several measures designed to prevent layoffs and encourage businesses to hire new workers, including: $35 billion in aid to local governments to help slow job losses in the public sector, about $100 billion in various infrastructure improvement programs, tax credits for businesses that hire long-term unemployed workers, and reductions in the level of payroll taxes that businesses have to pay.

10/20/11: S. 1723, Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 177)
This bill would have invested $35 billion in state and local governments, including $591 million in Massachusetts, to prevent layoffs of public workers and first responders, including an estimated 6,300 education jobs in Massachusetts.  The spending would have been offset by a 0.5% surtax on all income earned above $1 million.

11/3/11: S. 1769, Rebuild America Jobs Act (Senate Vote 195)
This bill would have invested $50 billion in infrastructure repair, plus another $10 billion in an infrastructure bank, which would provide loans for private, revenue-generating infrastructure projects.  The spending would have been offset with a 0.5% surtax on all income earned above $1 million.  The measure would have created an estimated 11,000 jobs in Massachusetts and invested $850 million in the Commonwealth’s infrastructure.

12/1/11: S. 1917, Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 219)
This bill would have reduced employment tax rates in calendar year 2012 (payroll tax holiday period) for both employers and employees to 3.1%.

12/8/11: S. 1944, Middle Class Tax Cut Act of 2011 (Senate Vote 224)
This bill would have extended through 2012 the reduction in employment taxes for employees and the self-employed.

3/29/12: S. 2204, Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act (Senate Vote 63)
This bill would have limited or repealed certain tax benefits for major oil companies while extending a number of energy efficiency and renewable energy tax credits.

4/16/12: S. 2230, Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012 (Senate Vote 65)
Known as the Buffett Rule, this bill would have enhanced tax fairness by ensuring a 30% effective tax rate on income exceeding $1 million.

And while this is not Brown’s entire voting record, it sure doesn’t reflect anything close to bipartisanship.  (Which side are you on, Brown, which side are you on?)  It’s Romneyesque.  Two-faced lies and bullshit.  Is it any wonder this so-called Caucasian male is reduced to ugly personal attacks?

“The most violent element in society is ignorance. “
Emma Goldman

I MAKE STUFF UP

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  One of the two T-shirts I bought while we were hanging in Provincetown last week.  The other is pictured on my Zachary Klein Facebook Authors Page, which, if you check it out, please “Like” the page.

I bought this shirt because it is funny, it is true, and it made me think about what fiction really is.  Where is the line between reality and a reflection of reality?  What is that line?  These aren’t entirely new questions because countless people, who have read my Matt Jacob books, have asked how I was able to do as much drugs and drink as my hero and still write a book.

Clearly they believed that Matt Jacob was me rather than a make-believe character.  There’s part of that conflation I appreciate.  It suggests that Matt, my character, is believable enough to be real; and, as a novelist, that is rewarding.  It’s less rewarding to be thought of as a drunken dope addict, but hey, if that’s the price I pay to create interesting characters, so be it.

Actually I begin each book pondering about themes.  What undercurrents of life do I want to think about and explore?  Betrayal?  Ass-biting from the past?  Manipulation?  Lies?  There’s gotta be an overarching idea I’m interested in before I start writing.  Then, it’s how will my characters relate in their own way to the particular theme while still surprising me with aspects of their personality.  Writing a series makes that a little easier because I’ve grown to know some of my cast better and better which means I’m able to dig deeper and deeper into who they really are.  On the other hand, it’s often a lot of fun to introduce the new characters and have the opportunity to discover who they are over the course of the book.

While there’s a difference between detective fiction and straight fiction, there really is a tremendous overlap.  In both cases a story to be told, characters to come alive, situations that need to feel real and a writers’ job to avoid false notes all along the story’s way.

And though detective fiction has a certain form, as someone who works in that area I see my job as pushing the form into different shapes and directions.

A funny incident from my legacy publishing years.  (And a harbinger of much worse things that came.)  I was having lunch with my editor and his assistant concerning TWO WAY TOLL before the book was written.  The editor told me that I was such a good storyteller that I needn’t worry about having the murder within the first forty pages, which was the general rule of thumb for mysteries.  Yet, the very first thing I heard once the book was delivered was, “There’s no murder in the first forty pages.  You know better than that.”  Even after being reminded about our previous luncheon conversation, there was a significant tug of war before they accepted the book as written.

I want more out of my writing than formula.  In fact, I want the individual characters and their relationships front and center.  To me, they should be of greater importance than the “who done it,” which means drawing on interior lives readers can relate to and relationships between these characters that ring true.

That doesn’t mean I short shrift the storyline.  I actually like the challenge of plotting–however difficult it is for me to conjure up that which allows for my people priorities.

Sounds a lot like a literary novel, doesn’t it?  So why am I so committed to detective fiction?  I’ve mentioned in earlier posts that I think of detective fiction as uniquely American and filled with the same potential as jazz—the opportunity to riff and play and experiment with the form with each book I write.  Fresh and new fascinates me.

So what does this have to do with that Provincetown t-shirt?  For me it suggests one of writing’s most difficult challenges.  “Keeping it real” but using imagination to do so.  I’m not interested in rendering my friends’ lives public.  In an interview on my website in the Happenings section, I talk about how a part of me is in each of my characters, but that “part” of me isn’t me and nor are the relationships within the book mine.  Unless I can absorb the internal lives of people I know and meet, unless I can understand the relationships that surround me and transform, transform, transform what I’ve learned in ways that relate to readers, I’ll never be able to “make stuff up.”

BEAUTIFUL DAYS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD

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Throughout the past few years many aspects of Boston have been depicted in books (George V. Higgins, Dennis Lehane, Robert Parker novels and more) as well as in the cinema.  Most recently, Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, The Departed to name only a few.  Not surprisingly the reader or viewer is mostly treated to the underbelly of the underworld–though there have been some exceptions—Good Will Hunting, for example.

As a detective fiction writer, I too use Boston as a background for my mysteries.  But the alpha and omega of my town is neither the crime world or its historical significance and the preservation of that history.

Boston’s real backbone is its neighborhoods—each with their own name and often cultural differences.  The North End, seat of our Italian population, South Boston (about which much has been written and filmed), and many others like the South End, Roxbury, and Dorchester.

I live in Jamaica Plain (JP), one of Boston’s most diverse neighborhood with a mix of Irish, Hispanic, gentrified Whites, African Americans, gay men and lesbians, and Asians.  During my thirty years of living here, I’ve watched the housing market undercut a swatch of that diversification with house and rental prices.  Still, there’s a reasonably decent mix of community people, which, in a provincial city, is pretty difficult to find.

Over the course of a year there are Dominican and, Puerto Rican festivals, Little League, Wake Up The Earth parades and celebrations.  There are farmer’s markets, night time lantern walks around Jamaica Pond (about a mile and a half in circumference), and in the deep of winter, public Caribbean parties.

But my favorite community weekend is Jamaica Plain Open Studios (JPOS) when local artists and crafts people line the streets, open their houses and apartments, use public spaces and local businesses to exhibit their work.  Begun around 1993 after the JP Multicultural Arts Center was forced to close for economic reasons, the yearly September event draws people from the entire city.  In fact, other Boston neighborhoods (Roslindale, South Boston, etc) have followed suit with their own Open Studio days.

I’m sure Boston isn’t the only city that showcases its local artists, nor the only one with open studio weekends–whatever they’re called.  But JPOS is mine and I want to present some sights from this past weekend.

This watercolor above by Peter Bass is of JP Center, the heart of the neighborhood and one of the major locations of JPOS.  Churches, theaters and  public buildings present groups of artists’ work; individual artists open their homes.

      

Here are some examples of what we saw in the Center.  The first artist below turned out to be an old book rep friend of mine who has become a landscape designer and jewelry maker, Barbara Trainer and second two below are the work of Anna Koon.

                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other end of JP was home to factories and their workers’ housing.  Another center for artists is a restored brewery, now home to an annex of Sam Adams, and other factories that have been converted to artist spaces.

More jewelry, more crafts, more art.  We spent an extra long time in the studio of Maggie Carberry, whose work hangs in our kitchen and in the dining room of my in-laws.

Lest you think this show is just for adults, let me add one last picture:

I would love people to put their own community pictures on my author page on Facebook.  And if you feel like it, it would be great if you “liked” the page.

 

MOVING IN

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First post in my new place, my books are finally up for sale, and there are a few housekeeping issues I’d like to touch upon.

BOOK PRICING:
I’ve always been conflicted about what to charge for my work.  This was especially true when I worked as a counselor.  Then its roots came from the notion that social services ought to be free.  While I was at Project Place, we pulled this off with help from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, some federal funding, private donations and a pay scale collectively determined by need.

When I struck out on my own, no one offered to underpin my salary.  Still, I was incredibly uncomfortable with the fees clinical psychologists were charging their clients, even more so, psychiatrists.  I knew I wasn’t going to get involved with insurance for a myriad of reasons so I had to figure out what I considered fair.

I began checking with crafts people and artists about their “hourly” wage and tried to follow their lead.  Problem was, their lead led to financial disaster.  I was a single parent for half the week and had mouths to feed.  Ten to twelve bucks or barter for more than an hour of work just couldn’t cut it.

So I changed and began charging the hourly rate that each of my clients earned.  For those who earned nothing, I charged nothing.  For those who made a lot of money per hour, that was my fee.  This is how I got paid through most of my years as a counselor.

When I decided I to change careers and write, I knew the termination process with my clients was going to take a significant amount of time.  So I returned to my Project Place headset  and simply placed an open guitar case by my office door and told people to throw in what they thought the session had been worth.  (I probably made more money per session with the open case than I had previously.  Should have stuck with my roots from the get go.)

When I took the plunge at becoming an online novelist, I also decided to man up, not to shuck and jive about the price or worth of my books.  But of course I did so in my usual–not so logical–fashion.  I thought back to when I was young and the cost of a paperback was $4.95.  I liked the number, thought it fair given what it takes to write a novel (as long as there are enough $4.95s, of course) and decided to go with it.

Not so fast.  Apparently some places that distribute e-books demand a minimum of $4.99 per book.  I’d rather $4.95, but it is what it is and I hope my readers find it fair.

I also know that a great many e-book authors do 99 cent specials, free giveaways for certain periods of time, and move their book prices up and down.  I prefer not to get into that game.  And while I can easily imagine some contests like the Goodreads one I did where books are given as a prize, I do intend to keep my e-book prices at $4.99 unless I run into compelling reasons (like distributors) to change it.  Believe me, if that happens, I’ll post about it.

GLITCHES:
I’m sure there are or will be some with the new site.  Working the backend of this baby is more complicated than the original, so get ready for some operator errors.  Please let me hear about any problems you might encounter by writing me from the “Contact Zach” page.  I will jump right on it.  But don’t feel contacting me is just meant for website issues or feedback.  Feel free to get in touch with me about anything, especially writing.  One of the major reasons I decided to go net rather than traditional is the opportunity to actually converse with my readers. So, if you tell your friends about this site, my books and posts, (see WORD OF MOUTH, two posts below), tell them they can write me too.  As anyone who has seen my Facebook comments can attest, I enjoy communicating with people whether I agree with them or not.

And finally:

YOUR PREVIOUS COMMENTS:
Every Monday post from the old site had to be cut and pasted into the new one.  Had I done the same with each comment, this site would still be just a dream.  Although I have every comment ever written in a folder on my computer–as well as every reply–the comments cut and paste process begins from this past July.  I wish I could have moved them all since I know folks spent time and effort writing them.

So look over my new digs, find the problems and the stuff you like, buy a book if you’re so inclined, but most of all, please bring your friends to visit.  I like company.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, “I’m with you kid.  Let’s go.” ~ Maya Angelou