John Ramsey Miller

There’s this new book, O, about President Obama that was written by an anonymous author, just as the book PRIMARY COLORS was published with the author being the anonymous columnist Joe Klein. I mean PC was supposed to be fiction, right? It wasn’t actually about Bill Clinton, who was one of the best Republican presidents ever. I’m sure it’s a marketing ploy (since who needs another book about a sitting president?) just as I’m sure the publisher will swear that the reason for the anonymous tag is to insure truthfulness. I’m sure that was done because Obama would have the NSA black-baggers disappear the author if they could somehow discover who he or she is. Because it’s a huge secret on the order of who really killed JFK. I can think of lots of books that should have been written anonymously, like THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran or anything by Stephenie Meyer. Jus a’ kidding Steph. Seriously, anonymous is a punk-out. Stand up and take your medicine.

When I was young, my father was a Methodist minister, so I was a hellion of the first order. (stop me if I’ve told you this before). I didn’t get into trouble, I lived in trouble. I believed it was my calling. I got caught at it with amazing regularity due to my youth and inexperience, but I got better at evading detection as I grew older. Luckily I aged out of hell raising as an art form, having done no lasting damage to anyone, or to myself. The point of this confession is to say that after having done something actionable, someone sent my father a letter detailing my marauding one evening. It was perfectly written and should have convicted me to a severe grounding, except for the fact that they had signed the letter, “A concerned citizen”. After reading it to me, my father tore up the letter and tossed it into the trash, saying that if the person didn’t have the spine to sign the letter, he could not take it seriously. Being a liberal, I suspect he felt that I had the right to be confronted by my accuser. I also suspect that a Baptist minister would have, in similar circumstance, whipped his son, happy to take the word of a cowardly vigilante.

Another reason I’m talking about “anons” is because my daughter-in-law has a beauty salon and it’s a first class operation, and she’s a very talented hair stylist. She even does my hair with all my cowlicks––that’s how good she is. She is listed on a local site that highlights commercial businesses of note, and there’s a place for customer comments underneath, and you get stars just like an Amazon rating system. Well she was nominated for “Beauty Shop of the Year” and the next day someone wrote a nasty review saying that she smelled like cigarettes, dressed in trashy outfits, talked behind her customers backs, made lewd jokes about passersby, left “bleed marks” from a bad dye job, etc… It was signed anonymous. My son’s wife, the most wonderful and hard working person I know, has fifteen excellent reviews below that one. She is sure the comment was left by her main competitor because some of the detractor’s comments included beauty shop trade terms, too technical for a patron to use. There’s this beautician who hates my daughter-in-law due to losing a huge wedding party of a bride and her bridesmaids gig–but that’s another story involving my youngest son who’s getting married in June. But she’ll never know and she can’t get the comment taken off even though it’s totally a lie. And, it’s a small southern town we live in.

I agree with my father, who died on my birthday three years ago. Anybody who won’t sign their name and take responsibility for their words, is more than likely a coward and is probably just throwing monkey crap through the bars at the audience. If you can’t use your name due to the fact that you might be fired or set upon, then I say keep your damned opinion to yourself and live with it.

I tend to say idiotic things that I shouldn’t say and put my name on it. I once traded six columns to my local newspaper in exchange for an antique granite body slab that came out of a funeral home. What I wrote lit fires all over the community, but that’s another story. My wife (and more than a few others) tell me that some of my critical social filters must be clogged with dust balls. I am cognizant of the fact that a lot of my opinions would be best left unshared, or anonymous, but I’m not apt to do anything at this point in my life that makes sense.

By the way, as of last week my first novel THE LAST FAMILY, published in 1996 is now an eBook, which means that all of my novels are available in electronic format from Bantam/Dell. And I don’t have to worry about the pages yellowing.

My apologies but there will be no blog post today. After over 4 inches of rain fell in 12 hours our house flooded so we are trying to get it all sorted out. Will be back next week with an update but, most importantly, my family and I are all fine.
Clare

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

It has been an extremely interesting week, one of highs and lows. I had a wonderful professional and personal high that is still playing itself out, a circumstance where I was able to help a kind and decent person at a time when they needed it. You can read about that elsewhere http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/life/stories/2011/02/04/you-and-me-writer-identified.html?sid=101 if you wish. But let’s talk about the “low” here, at length. I have sometimes forgotten in the course of my postings that this blog is called The Kill Zone, so I will get back on track here and now.

I read crime fiction because I am fascinated with the battle between good and evil. I know that the lines are often blurred, but not necessarily to the extent that they are indistinguishable. Yet every bad guy, if you will, represents a failure on some level, perhaps unavoidable, perhaps otherwise, but a failure and a tragedy still. We all know a number of folks who for one reason or another — or for perhaps no discernable reason at all — fall off of the rails.

My younger son, who is now in his late 20s, had a childhood friend who I will call “Todd” for purposes of this discussion. Todd, when he was attending grade school with my son, gave little indication that he would have troubles later in life. He was raised in an intact family with loving parents, and if he occasionally experienced some impulse control problems, they never reached the stage that would portend the disaster his adult life has become. My son and Todd lost touch when we moved to a different school district in the area, even though I kept in contact with Todd’s parents as they intermittently relayed tales of what was turning into a slow-motion train wreck. Todd was barely into his teens when he was arrested for shoplifting. Other troubles followed. He began to have trouble with drug use; his folks placed him a tough rehab program which, to all outward appearances, he successfully completed. They took him to South Carolina over a Christmas weekend to celebrate his success. They had been there for two days when Todd‘s father called me, almost hysterical. Todd had gone out with some friends to walk the beach and within a half-hour had been arrested for armed robbery. Charged as an adult, he spent six months in a jail awaiting trial. By the time Todd finally returned home, his course seemed to be set. Trouble seemed to dip and swirl around him. When Todd’s father died of cancer, Todd could not attend the funeral because he was sitting in an Ohio prison, having been convicted of yet another offense. His mother, a sweet and kind person who devoted her life to her son and husband, had the appearance and demeanor of someone who had been shell-shocked. Just so.

Todd was in the news again this week. The area had been plagued by a period of gas station robberies and Todd was charged as the alleged perpetrator. In his booking photo, wearing a dirty wife beater and a scripted tattoo across his left arm and chest, he bears but a faint resemblance to the little boy who with my younger son played with Transformers and shared respective bedrooms like brothers. In the picture it is Todd who looks shell-shocked this time, vaguely dazed, perhaps by the state of his life at this point, perhaps wondering how and why he wound up on the downhill road he is on. Or perhaps I am projecting my own questions, wondering why him, and not my own son, since they were so alike in so many ways. The chill I have felt since seeing his picture, however, has nothing to do with the weather. And I doubt that there is a book that I could read that would conclusively answer my questions.

By John Gilstrap
I pen this week’s post from Bakersfield, California, where I’m teaching a two-day seminar on safety and health issues in the recycling industry. It’s a great class so far, packed with a lot of motivated and enthusiastic students. The fact that it took me 17 hours to get here, thanks to Mama Nature doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the process, but it does mean that I’m tired. With tired comes cranky.

And nothing spins me up quite like unsolicited recorded phone calls.
I felt my pocket buzzing while I was in the middle of my lecture and of course ignored it because, well, I was in the middle of my lecture. During the break, I looked at my phone and found an 866 number, identified as “unknown.” I remember a friend of mine telling me about online reverse phone lookup websites that can identify unknown and scam callers, and would have saved me a lot of time!

I called the number back and reached a recorded greeting that told me, “be aware that we are a debt collector.” I suspected that it was either a scam or a wrong number, so after a minute or two on hold, I hung up and went back to work.

Then I got to thinking. This has been the year of compromised credit cards for us. It’s happened at least four times. While we’re current on all our bills, was it possible that something slipped through? There’s also the matter of a denied medical claim that we’re still negotiating with the insurance company. Could that be the problem? I really wish I’d just known how to check phone number ownership, it could have saved me such a headache.

They called back when I could actually take the call, and it turns out that a Mr. and Mrs. Ngyuen are behind on their house payments. The call goes like this:

“If this is Mr. or Mrs. Ngyuen, press one. If not, press two.”

I press two.

“If you need a moment to bring them to the phone, press one. If this is the wrong number, press two.”

I press two.

“If you want to stop receiving these phone calls, press one.”

I press one. (Really. Does anyone NOT want to stop receiving these calls?)

“To be removed from the call list, you must talk to a customer service representative. Please hold.”

I hold. For six minutes, being told regularly how important my phone call is.

Finally, a young man answers, “Hello?”

“Hello?” I say. “Really? That’s it? Hello?”

“Who is this?” he asks.

“You called me,” I say.

“Are you looking for the modification department?”

“I don’t know what a modification department is. I’m calling to be taken off your list.”

“What list?”

“The one you called me from.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I think you have the wrong number.”

“It can’t be the wrong number,” I say. “I pressed one.”

“One what?”

“The number one. You called me. Your recording told me to press one to get taken off the list. I can’t have called a wrong number.”

“Oh,” he says. “Let me pass you to someone who can take you off the list.”

“What list?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“I few seconds ago, you didn’t know what the list is. How are you going to take me off of it if you don’t know what it is?”

“I’ll transfer you to someone.”

“Let me talk to your supervisor.”

“I’ll transfer you to someone.”

“You’re not listening. I’m already talking to someone. Another someone doesn’t do me any good. I want to talk to your supervisor.”

“He’s not available.”

“I’ll talk to his supervisor, then.”

“Please hold.”

I endure three more minutes of assurances that my call is important.

“Um, sir? They weren’t available.”

“Your supervisor’s supervisor?”

“No sir. Someone else.”

“So if someone’s not there, that means no one’s there. Are you in a room by yourself?”

“No, sir.”

“Then someone must be there.”

“Sir, if you can just give me your phone number, we can take you off the list.”

“The right list? The one I want to be taken off of?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The list you don’t know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you can guarantee that I’ll be removed.”

“I think so.”

I give him the number. “And what about the Ngyuens?” I ask.

“Excuse me?”

“The Ngyuens. The ones who are behind on their payments. Someone should call them and let them know.”

“Um.”

“They’re not at this number. I think we’ve established that.”

“They must have had that number before you.”

“This is a cell phone. I’ve had this number for over ten years.”

“Sir, I’ll tell the right person, and they’ll take the number off the list.”

“Okay,” I say. “I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

“I understand, sir. Neither do I.”