The Politics of the F Bomb

I know a woman who was threatened with the loss of her job at a company because she used the Fbomb. Apparently the manager called her into the office and said that he had reports she had been throwing Fbombs around. The woman didn't know what he was talking about. The company was Christian based and very conservative. The woman was a liberal Democrat and had made her views known. The manager said that if he had any more reports of her using the Fbomb then he would have to think about terminating her. The woman admitted she had used the fbomb once in the office. The manager said he had numerous reports of her fbombing.

This woman said the manager said she had a bad side. He went on to say that she had to use her good side and not fbomb anymore. The woman didn't know what he meant by good side or bad side. Well obviously your bad side commits the fbombs he pointed out. But that is just a form of expression the woman protested. Well I don't want Corporate to hear about this he said ominously.  I can't have anymore reports of fbombs the manager finished. The woman was very nervous because she didn't know who said it. She sat in her cubicle and was very quiet. Apparently another woman whom she had a political discussion with had reported her use of the fbomb.

The fbomb is used in our movies and literature and television. We hear it at the Academy Awards. Clark Gable would have said it if he could have at the end of Gone With The Wind. Adults like to control people by what they can and cannot say. I know a man who said he cannot stand to hear the fbomb. He said it offends him deeply. I said it sounded like a personal problem. There are clearly two groups in the world now. Fbombers and those who would stop the fbombers. Freedom of Speech might be invoked. Political coercion might be cited. Pettiness. Venality. Childishness. Prudishness.
You know what...fuck it.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

Even writers have to throw a punch

Ebooks are all the rage but ubiquity should not be a cover for getting free downloads. The Internet enjoys free reign because it is new and this has allowed it to keep one step ahead of the great fist of restraint. But authors and everyone else with a book knows that what happened to the music business is happening to publishing. Just because you can get a book on the Internet does not mean we should just go oh well anybody can download anything they want now. They can't.

The IPOD motif of books has not arrived. The Kindle while  very good is a poor substitute for the book. It just isnt the same. Sorry. But reading from a screen is reading from a screen. Now as an author who wants exposure I don't particularly mind the free downloads. The writers first goal after getting published is to get read and availability is a big deal. But right behind that you wouldn't mind getting paid either. This is hard stuff for writers who are used to existing on nothing. Average income for writers...nine grand. Och.

So you have these creatures who are used to getting screwed over  and making very little. Now they are going to have to stand up and say don't download my book for free! Thank God for the Authors Guild. They do most of the heavy lifting but individual writers have to decide if they want their books disseminated for free or not. Again you are torn between getting read and getting paid. The big hitters not so much.

But when you come down to it, getting paid legitimizes the work. You have to give value to your work first and hopefully the public will follow. These are changing times, but writers are used to that. The difference now is that people who are used to working alone will have to stand up for themselves and their work and get involved  or risk being pushed around yet again.

Even writers have to learn to throw a punch.
http://www.billhazelgrove.com/

You Can't take the N-WORD out of the Huckleberry

No sir. You cant. Cant do it. The N-WORD is as much a part of Huckleberry Finn as the Mississippi or Jim or Huck or the Duke or the King or the Widow or his drunken no good father. You can not take a piece out of the painting just because you don't like the color. Nor can you take a word from the book because you don't like the word. You just can't do it because you happen to be a Twain scholar (so called) in the year of our Lord 2011 and think that you have the right to tinker with someone else's book because you want high school students to read it. You dont' own that right and the faster you are dust the better.

Mr. Twain did not prefer the word slave over his colloquialism. It is not a matter of offence. Literature or art or books do not bow to the latest PC movement. If it did we would have no art, no books, no music. For literature cannot be made to bow to some man's idea he knows more than the author. He don't. He never did. He never will. The author made the book and it is stone for better or worse. Forget that the offending word now comes out nine year olds IPOD. It does. I have heard it more than once. Or that our most famous rappers broadcast that word the way you would say hello now. Forget all that. You do not tinker with a man's book who is not around to defend it.

But if Mr. Twain were here he would surely laugh and then he would be angry as hell. He cared about his words so much that in his autobiography he took out the commas and exclamation marks and little inflections his typist had put in for flow. In my second novel Tobacco Sticks I too used the NWORD. A man who listened to one of my readings with repetitive NWORDS came up to me at the end. I was very nervous as he was an African American. He nodded to me and said I liked your reading.  Now would he have liked it more if I had taken out the offending words? Should I care that he liked it? Or should a book stand as written regardless of the consequences?

Sad to say we will pass on and Huckleberry Finn will persevere. Our all important ultra self conscious sensibilities will pass on too. And mabye some boy or girl somewhere will pick up Mr. Twain's book or some adult and he or she will read it and laugh and be entertained and maybe offended and maybe cry and maybe throw the book down in disgust. But he or she should not be restricted from reading the book as it was written. Censorship of any kind is an insult to all and the gravest of insults to Mr. Twain's book. You just can't have your cake and eat it too. The man whose biography is selling so many copies the press cannot keep up would not condone such a bastardization. You just can't take the NWORD out of the Huckleberry and still have Huckleberry Finn. It just don't work that-a-way.

http://www.billhazelgrove.com/
Rocket Man should roll out this month