The Golden Age and quality

The Golden Age for pulp magazines occurred 75 years ago in the 1930s, and although I don't have the stats to back it up, probably for general interest fiction magazines as well. I can only guess at a number (and I'm too lazy to look it up, but rest assured, it's close), but back then, there were around a hundred fiction magazines being sold at drugstores and newsstands all over the US. In fact, back then, damn near every magazine had at least one short story between its covers.

(This is an incredibly broad subject, so I'll probably return to different aspects of it at a later date, so don't fret if I omit something.)

Here's something else that'll shock you if you know anything at all about the modern market for short stories; the guys who wrote the stories for these magazines were mostly professional writers. So how is that shocking? It's shocking because there is not one pro short story writer left in this country. Not one! And how can there be when stories sold to the few fiction magazines left only fetch a token payment, or up to $500 or so if you're lucky?

So who are the authors for these publications? They're mostly hobbyists and a few novelists who are slumming because it's good PR. Don't get me wrong, good stories still occasionally get published, but I don't have one doubt that they'd be ten times better if there actually was a chance that the people clacking on their keyboards could realistically turn pro one day.

It's not going to happen and they know it. The worst thing about a situation like this is that it tends to drive people with talent to other endeavors while the hacks, who never seem to get tired of churning out reams of crappy prose, keep at it and have just enough success to keep them from quitting. A look at what happened to the poets will show this to be true. Before about 1920 (or thereabouts), a talented poet could make a living writing poetry. It was a slow process, but at some point, the only poets left (and I use the term loosely) were fatuous gasbags who were only able to label themselves as such because they had cushy jobs as professors.

What I'm getting at is that I believe that we as Americans are missing out on something important here. Obviously, we'll never get back to the way it was in the 30s; television, the Internet, and urban life in general have seen to that, it's just that I think it could be better.

So I have to wonder where the big companies and media moguls fit in this. Not one of the privately owned fiction mags has anything resembling deep pockets, and the university sponsored ones are a complete lost cause, but why can't a really rich guy (or company) in this era of the really rich kick out ten or twenty million bucks and get something going? There are a thousand individuals and companies in this country for whom that would be pocket change.

What's more, my proposal doesn't have to be a money losing proposition. In a nation of 300 million, I find it hard to believe that the top selling fiction mag has a circulation of only 300,00, and the top science fiction magazine does about 70,000. It won't necessarily rake in the bucks, but with enough seed money, a staff committed to quality could take it a long way.

So, if you're a rich dude and this idea appeals to you, my emails at the top right of the page.

DWIs, marijuana, and overkill

I lost my sympathy for Paris Hilton. Not that there was much there to begin with, but when she resorted to having her quack psychiatrist make a bogus diagnosis to get her out of jail early, what little there was evaporated. Apparently, irregardless of what little sense it makes, if you do the crime, you do the time, which in her case is the full 45-day sentence.

My question is: Where's the crime?

Sure, I know, something about a parole violation on a DUI charge or something like that. But still, where's the CRIME? Murder, armed robbery, and embezzlement are all crimes. What she did is worse than a traffic ticket, but is still pretty piss ant and is definitely not a crime.

It's easy to not have sympathy for Paris Hilton, but what about all of these other people who are caught in our current national pastime to sticking to misdemeanor offenders? I am all for law and order, but I don't think for one second that treating slightly tipsy drivers or those who have a piddling amount of dope like criminals make our county any safer. What it does is give criminal records to many decent people, bail bondsmen more business, and fill jails when the space could be put to better use.

I don't do drugs myself, and the fact of the matter is I feel that there are few types of people who are more annoying than the very stoned, but how is someone puffing on a doobie a threat to others or himself? So how is it justified that if a person is unlucky enough to be caught in the act by a cop, he's looking at night in jail, fines that are way out of line, and a criminal record he'll carry around for the rest of his life (records also can never really be expunged).

If you're under 50, statistics say that you've probably smoked pot at some point -- maybe many points -- in your life. So how would it be different if, say, you were busted for smoking weed when you were at college? Would you still have gotten your original post-graduation job? Maybe. With some occupations it'll never come back to haunt you, but in others it will, with law enforcement, military, and medical professions leading the group. So you say that potheads shouldn't be in those professions? Sure, I'll give you that, they shouldn't. But what if those people who were caught are like you probably were. They just did it a couple of times, and unlike you, were unlucky enough to get caught. How does not getting caught make you any better morally?

The above sentiment goes double for DWIs/DUIs. Back in the 80s, state governments started increasing the severity of DWI offenses in response to groups like MADD who rightly lobbied against the fact that many profoundly drunk drivers who injured or killed people mostly got off with a few years probation instead of hard time. The problem is that the people MADD and others are concerned about are on one side of the spectrum, while the rest of us are at the other (and I do mean us, if you drink, you've driven over the legal limit, it's that simple).

The system should come down like a ton of bricks on drivers who are so blitzed they are seeing double, driving all over the road, and stained with their own puke, but what's served by coming down that hard on people at the other end? A case in point is Pete Coors, chairman of Coors Brewing, who, as it turns out, was busted last year for DWI. The cop spotted him not quite stop at a stop sign. Nothing dangerous, it's something we all do. Anyway, long story short, there was nothing Coors was doing that would have hurt anyone (the stop sign was a block from his house), but the cop followed him and Coors blew a breathalyzer reading of slightly over 0.08. He gets taken to the station and had to go through the legal system.

How is that fair to him? Or more importantly, to you or me in the event it ever happens to us (he's rich and can afford Ivy League trained lawyers)? My take is this: If you can walk a straight line, touch your nose, and do the rest, you're not drunk. I'm not saying you should get off completely, but the current system is ridiculous.

And besides, with cops not wasting their time on minor things like these, they can concentrate on those idiots who fire guns into the air on New Year's and the Fourth. How many times have you heard about one of those guys being arrested?

Ahh, the drive-in, we hardly knew ye

There's something magical about being in the exact right place at the exact right time. We, as humans, describe this phenomenon as being everything from a noteworthy coincidence to evidence of God's handiwork. I'm not sure which of those two to ascribe it to, but those are the kind of moments that lit the spark to my life-long love of the drive-in.

Back in the 80s, there were more drive-ins than there are now (although the institution as a whole was well on its way to the lingering death that's happening to it today). Occasionally, you would be driving by one and have a clear view of the screen when whatever B movie they were playing had its obligatory nude scene. Nudity, along with other types of sleaziness have permeated our modern culture, so you might think "so what?". But back then, it was a different era, and to a 12 year old boy without cable, any glimpse of boobity was FREAKING AWESOME!

Unlike a lot of other people, I have no fond memories of sitting in the family car in pajamas with mom and dad watching movies in all of their outdoor glory. The fact is, I never actually saw a movie at one until I was about 20 or so, and when I did go that first time, it was with an evenly mixed group of males and females and about two cases of beer. The crush I had on the blond I was with fizzled shortly thereafter that night, but I am, however, still deeply in love with beer.

Over the years, I saw movies at several different drive-ins, and I always enjoyed the unique atmosphere that they provided; half of the cars usually had families in them and the other half had couples on dates, so there was always a weird mix of family values and sinfulness occurring in the same area.

But alas, everything changes and sometimes it just goes away (the Mission 4, San Antonio's last drive-in, was recently vandalized to the point where repair costs will likely see it shut down). Like large sailing ships, live theater, and cowboys, the drive-in will never vanish entirely, but the time in which it was an active part of culture is gone forever. And that's a shame.