PHONE: “Is Mr. Champion there?”

ME: “Who may I ask is calling?”

PHONE: “I’m from the Republican National Committee. Do you have a few moments of time?”

ME: “How did you get my name?”

PHONE: “Are you a Republican?”

ME: “I asked you a question first. How did you get my name?”

PHONE: “Are you a Republican?”

ME: “Wow, you’re a one-trick pony. Look, I’d like you to take my name off your list and never call me again.”

PHONE: “Sure. Obviously, you’re a Repubican.”

ME: “What makes you say that?”

PHONE: “Obviously, you’re a Republican.”

ME: “If you say so…” (hangs up)

Like 99.99% of the blogosphere, I’m white and I’m male. Sometimes, I get an erection. In fact, it’s safe to say that writing long libertarian screeds on copyright and the horrors of government regulation (get off my lawn, G-men!) gets me hotter and friskier than the Jenna Jameson videos I rent from the video store (also white, also male, also libertarian, but perhaps a scad dirtier).

Why, if it weren’t for the power of the blogosphere (which is more truthful than those Communists writing for the New York Times), it’s safe to say that I’d be giving speeches at my local Rotary International chapter about the Important Issues of Our Time and inviting other white men for cocktails at the Elks Lodge to discuss the merits of how to wiggle out of paying too much capital gains tax. (Damn government!) Some of you fools in the peanut gallery haven’t lived until you’ve spent six hours of your life figuring out legitimate ways to trademark the crack of your ass. And, by golly, you’ll find my asscrack on file in the U.S. Patents and Trademarks Office. Why? Because that’s what America is all about!

We practice actual journalism out here in the blogosphere. We’ve sent our people out to the conventions to sit around and do nothing. What more do you want of us?

If these pesky minorities or those cute little intellectual chicks actually wanted to blog, then by the Good Grace of God, they’d be doing it! If the impoverished masses actually cared enough about their opinions, then they’d quit one of their two jobs at Starbuck’s and climb into the saddle, riding out the magic with other good Americans.

And if they cared enough about popularity, then they’d be ingratiating themselves with the likes of Jeff Jarvis and Glenn Reynolds, aping every opinion with the gusto of a Trekkie fawning over Leonard Nimoy. If they knew what was good for them, they’d spend all of their spare time tying the Number of the Beast to Dan Rather.

I may not read blogs that disagree with me, largely because my guidance counselor has suggested it might spike my blood presure. The last thing anyone needs in this golden age is differing opinions. But out here in the electronic frontier, we’re creating a democratic elite. The kind of sensible realm ruled by white males who all agree with each other. So why won’t you put away your silly Noam Chomsky books and join us?

I wish to apologize for my speech this morning at SXSW. Had I known that my revelations would send shockwaves through the weblogging commnity, I would have, of course, been honest and forthright about the night I spent with Nicolette Sheridan playing touch football and the resultant FCC investigations.

But no matter. Now that you all know that Dr. Mabuse is an online persona that I adopted out of manic depression and that Edward Champion does not in fact exist, now that you know that Champion was modeled after an autistic cabana boy who spent twelve years of his life trying to read William Gaddis’ The Recognitions, only to die at the age of thirty-one while cleaning an Olympic-sized swimming pool with a small toilet brush, I realize that I will have to return my Bloggie Award for Lifetime Achievement While Staring at a Laptop.

I can accept this. I am a prevaricator and a married woman. I have deceived you. And I say again, without a jot of guilt, that I am, in fact, Ayelet Waldman and have been engaged in morose thoughts since 1995.

All this time, I thought I could make a solid living writing Mommy-Track Mysteries and have a quiet life of privilege contemplating the benefits of muesli. But when I started this blog and the other one, I got a little carried away. I couldn’t stop describing how good the sex was with Michael every time he came home from writing a comic book movie. You would too if you saw how nice his ass was. I think we can all agree that Pulitzer Prize winners, particularly ones that you’re married to, can make anyone feel all tingly.

Hopefully, this does not mean the end of Return of the Reluctant. My therapist has suggested that turning this weblog over to the Unitarian Universalists is a start. Dennis, a suicidal young man who first saw God in a pastrami sandwich, has agreed to step in as we all come to terms with the disturbing truth. I hope you can all invite Dennis into your lives as readily as you accepted “Dr. Mabuse.”

In an article on Tom DeLay’s ethics, the Washington Post has quoted an anonymous Repubican political consultant: “If death comes from a thousand cuts, Tom DeLay is into a couple hundred, and it’s getting up there.”

What follows are the abandoned remarks that went through the political consultant’s brain shortly before he decided on the above:

1. “If Washington is a tuna fish sandiwch, Tom DeLay is the can of Starfish waiting to be cracked open.”

2. “That is the sound of a thousand bad things coming Tom’s way.”

3. “Expect DeLays in traffic. The interstate just got ugly. Labor Day ugly.”

4. “Fate is a poor man’s barbeque and Tom DeLay doesn’t have ID for the check cashing corner. Washington likes itself some ribs.”

5. “Tom DeLay’s a pair of stiletto heels draped over a PAC man’s libido. At best, he’ll blow his career in fifteen minutes.”

Pete points out that the litblogs have retained inveterate acronyms for literary folks. I couldn’t agree more with his concerns, particularly when these acronyms often refer to multiple people. In an effort to address this growing concern, here’s a short but by no means comprehensive list:

AL: An author who wins too many awards.

DFW: Any author who has read too much Nabokov. Alternatively loved or hated by the litblog community, depending upon how personally they take footnotes.

E—–: He who shall not be named.

Hitch: Any Fleet Street blowhard who drinks and smokes too much.

Hot Lips: Sam Lipsyte, the somewhat sctaological though entertaining author of Home Land. Earned nickname after repeated brown-nosing by the Believer and Gawker people. Often kisses and tells.

J-Franz: An obscure French author who sometimes finds his way onto book covers. A master of disguise, appearing as either ultimate dork or A-1 hunk. Therapy financed by David Remnick.

JSF: Not specifically pertaining to Jonathan Safran Foer, but any overeager author who sends hundreds of emails to a journalist.

Mary-Rob: A writer who can’t stop writing in epistolary form.

Mitch: Not David Mitchell, but any deity worshipped by literary fanboys.

Roth, David Lee: Any older writer held in critical esteem who can’t stop writing about penises.

Woodman: A filmmaker in decline who enjoys women one sixth his age.

Let it not be said that the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch falls in line with the sleazy incest de rigueur within the New York publishing world. This week, we find ourselves caught in a minor ethical quandary. The upshot is this: While said conflict of interest is picayune, it nevertheless prevents us from fulflling our duties and assessing this week’s NYTBR with fairness, integrity and due diligence. We’re ashamed to come across as such sanctimonious Boy Scouts. But we’re men of our word. And therein lies the rub.

It’s a pity, because this leaves the wonderful Jonathan Ames (who, as previously stated, we shall promote with every visceral fiber) flailing in the dust. And Tanenhaus himself would have likely passed at least two of the three tests.

Again, we wish to assure our readers that we would like nothing more than to send Mr. Tanenhaus a brownie or tear the NYTBR a new one, depending upon Tanenhaus’ efforts and the severity of our Sunday morning hangovers. But while not as foppishly off base as Barth’s Ebenezer Cooke, we are, believe it or not, devoted to certain things.

The fact that it is a preternaturally sunny day in this City of Fog or that the drum circle in Golden Gate Park is alive and thrumming does not grant us succor.

Until next week…

DOES SAM GET HIS BROWNIE?: Inconclusive

when you have nothing to say
and you’re a star on the skids and can’t use punctuation
let alone rhyme
and you’ve read too much don marquis
why not start a blog

i’m rosie and nobody loves me
they don’t understand that most stars are illiterate
they say that there are some things you’re not supposed
to talk about
so insert a fuck and malaise and rebuild your fan base

that girl who bagged my groceries was hot

i forgive them. i only mean to entertain
and here you are sitting through endless screens of my drivel
hurray
for
me

For those looking for related reading to the Tanenhaus Brownie Watch, Ron has revived Maslin Watch.

Well, it looks like Tori Amos screwed over the good folks at the Booksmith, one of my favorite independent bookstores in San Francisco and a local neighborhood haven for hardcovers.

This isn’t really much of a surprise, as the superstahs always seem to have “sudden and unforeseeable changes” in their schedule that prevent them from attending signings, at least as originally lined up. The difference here, however, is that Amos gave only four days’ notice without even bothering to set up a new date, let alone offering to sign additional copies of her book.

While the Booksmith is honoring returns and refunds for those who preordered signed copies of Amos’ book, I really hope Amos’ discourtesy isn’t too much of a financial burden on the Booksmith. Perhaps Ms. Amos is so out of touch with others that she can’t understand that the Booksmith is a small store that sometimes depends upon gargantuan egos like Amos’ to stay afloat.

In the interests of preserving literary decency and maintaining auctorial sanity, we have joined the Rake’s campaign to remain silent about authors who sound like something you can buy a dozen of at the supermarket. We figure this will add a few years to our lives and focus our fury towards more deserving targets.

Hey, Meg Wolitzer! Please shut up about your Puritanical hang-ups, check yourself into therapy, and get over yourself. The notion that novelists should refrain from writing about sex because, heaven forbid, their children might grow up and be permanently mortified is one of the kookiest, New Agey, and self-affirmative dollops of bullshit I’ve heard of since the Quirkyalone movement.

The true “horror” here is seeing someone obsess so much about the naughty bits that her parents wrote. Most of us in the real world have no problem coming to terms with the idea that other family members not only have sex, but, if they happen to be novelists, happen to write about this very seminal aspect (no pun intended) of the human condition, among many other things. If Meg Wolitzer is indeed “a novelist,” then she should understand that the subconscious is very different from the conscious, that a parent should probably be judged on their maternal and paternal gestures rather than their novels, and that characters do not necessarily reflect the total beings of their authors.

Or to put it another way: if Wolitzer’s looking for fey titiliation, then maybe she might want to incorporate Jude Law, a vat of chocolate fudge, three hermaphrodite midgets, leather chaps, and plenty of rope instead of Mommy’s Dirty Novel.

For those who weren’t annoyed by DFW’s recent article (who knew that visual representations of footnotes could divide the litblog community?), Jeff has the scoop on Ziegler’s attempts to interview DFW. (Short answer: DFW is too shy and dislikes interviews.) Ziegler apparently plan to go over the article over several shows. Whether Ziegler plans an aural equivalent to footnotes is anyone’s guess.

SEEN: “An Evening with Supervisor Ross Mirakimi”

Beyond the false intimacy implied by a throng listening to a city supervisor drone on in a lecture hall, there’s the nagging insinuation that good old Ross is going to honor his audience with a cabaret act. In which case, he’d have our full-fledged support, but only if singing in the style of Burt Bacharach became part of the quorum.

TownOnline: “Literary agents say there is a $5 million advance waiting if she decides to publish her prison memoirs.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

My cellmate Alice finally took my advice about the jumpsuit. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, aside from avoiding the pitfalls of insider trading and never underestimating the value of appearing naked beneath bedsheets, it’s that you can always make your interior space your own — even when you’re confronted with limitations. Alice was able to get an orange scrunchee to match the jumpsuit from Leona, the black marketeer of the penitentiary. Leona demanded four packs of cigarettes for this. I thought this was a high price. But as she explained, “I don’t deal with no friends of gard’nin’ hos!” The scrunchee, which was later confiscated by a guard, helped to bring out the color in Alice’s eyes.

In fact, I think the scrunchee was one of the reasons that Alice stopped beating me up on a nightly basis. Not that I minded. It didn’t cut into my routine too much. Even in the joint, I still slept about four hours a night. And I was just about getting through to Alice. Before the scrunchee incident, she was beginning to try out my bed-making technique.

I talked with the warden about planting some azaleas and daisies in the exercise yard. The warden, who never really liked my television show, told me in an endearing voice, “Get back in line, Prisoner 9927431!” When I pointed out that wearnig a boutonniere might make his uniform less drab and his day more cheerful, he threw me into the hole.

In solitary confinement, I was able to plan out my comeback scheme. The HGTV people were sending me offer letters. And I had already planned out the potential profits in designer anklet bracelets.

I recommend prison to everyone. Everyone should at least try it once. You learn how to be disciplined. You make new friends. And you have a lot of time to think about things.

The United States isn’t the only nation facing school library budget shortfalls. Our friends to the north seem to be having severe problems too. Aside from contending with obsolete books, despite the rise in books checked out by students, there aren’t enough librarians to go around.

George Lucas has announced that the new Star Wars movie is not for kids. Of course not. The new movie is for fortysomething fanboys who still live with their parents.

The Scottish, still reeling from the failed “Edinburgh is the Center of the Literary Universe” campaign, are now planning a Scottish dictionary. Since no one here seems to have the vision of James A.H. Murray and there’s no VC to speak of, “secret scribblings” are being auctioned off instead: a poem by JK Rowling and a draft version of what may or may not be the last Rebus novel. Chris Robinson, the leader of this project, claims that she used “sheer brass neck” to get these drafts. And this might be the problem. Anyone even remotely familiar with the Sunday morning hangover knows about sheer brass necks and how this physical condition often leaves one clamoring out of the bed around noon. Brass balls, on the other hand, go well beyond Alec Baldwin and are generally good when paired up with ambition and a focused plan. Had Robinson offered say a date with Irvine Welsh rather than turgid tetrameter quatrains from Ms. Rowling, we’d be more in her corner.

Alice Thomas Ellis has passed on. Any novelist who dresses exclusively in black is, as far as we’re concerned, worth lowering your hat over.

The Hollywood Reporter needs to understand that “Disney” and “rebels” do not belong in the same headline, unless Roy Disney leads a beer hall putsch. In which case, we should be very concerned with this sort of thing.

Here’s a David Lodge essay I missed from last year on Nabokov’s Pnin (and this is an excerpt from the introduction that appeared in the Everyman’s Library version). The novel, as we all know was an insurance policy in the event that Lolita couldn’t find a publisher. But Lodge offers some valuable info on Pnin’s inspiration, which was, in all likelihood, historian Marc Szeftel. Lodge is quite right in acknowledging Pnin as a prototype of the campus novel, but I wish he had conducted a more thorough inventory of Pnin‘s influence, which is broader than even Lodge gives credit for. Updike’s Bech books, for one, is clearly inspired by Pnin.

Alex Beam tears Joe Queenan a new one, pointing out Queenan’s hypocrisy in complaining about “the jackass at The Boston Globe who always gives my books bad reviews” and Queenan’s measly sales. Queenan Country only sold 6,124 copies. (via Bookdwarf)

My bed was too comfortable today. I didn’t want to leave. I had found one of the five good spots on my futon. There was interesting stuff on the radio. And now I am contending with overpaid boors who throw temper tantrums over picayune crap.

Like Jimmy Beck (though sans hangover), the Cruel Overlords of Life are preventing me from posting witty ramblings, or even going into nice reminiscences about grandmothers. Factor in chronic insomnia and you get the sluggish portrait in full. It’s going to be light today and tomorrow because of assholes. We apologize, but we’re chipper. The bastards haven’t gotten us down and we’re pro-active.

PEN/Faulkner nominees: Jerome Charyn’s The Green Lantern, Edwidge Dandicat’s The Dew Breaker, Ha Jin’s War Trash, Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, and Steve Yarbrough’s Prisoners of War.

Despite last month’s successful efforts to remove all copies of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code from bookstores, the book continues to sell. Da Vinci Code readers have been exiting bookstores with one or two copies in their bags, even when their credit card receipts show that they’ve purchased three or four copies. Industry experts are at a loss to explain the book’s sustained popularity, but Saks Fifth Avenue has reported that “Dan Brown books are a handy accessory” and are “thicker and more convincing than a coffee-table book.”

Umberto Eco is still awaiting his cut from the book’s obscene profits.

The new covers for the next Harry Potter book were revealed yesterday. The British cover features Harry and Dumbledore with fire sticks in their hands, surrounded by flames. The U.S. cover has Harry and Dumbledore standing over a basin giving off a green light. And the cover Al Qaeda version has Harry and Dumbledore burning an American flag, with Evil Bert laughing in the distance.

NYT Corrections: “A report in the New York pages yesterday in the new feature headed “Ink,” about the Rev. Al Sharpton’s weight-loss plan, misstated the frequency of his workouts in some copies. He exercises three times weekly, not three times a day.”

Damn. I really wanted to see Sharpton become either a triathlete or the next Subway Diet posterboy. Thank you for spoiling my fantasy, Gray Lady!

The Rake weighs in on the no-love-for-Foer issue, ties it in with Dave Eggers, and points to this Salon interview. Since the Rake has weighed in quite eloquently on Foer, I’ll contend solely with Eggers:

What he said. I was coaxed into another anti-Eggers rant, which was originally here, and is now in absentia, but that section can be found in this post if you look hard enough.

Tayari Jones has an amusing take on publicity photos. Even more amazing is that Jones’ story involves Richard Powers taking the final image. (via Beatrice)