Thomas Kinkade Painter of Light™, Writer of Dreck™, Architect of Doom™



Thomas Kinkade Painter of Light™, the colossus who bestrides the mass produced Christian mall art market, has metastasized into the field of literature, among other things.

Not content to ruin one art form, the creator of the Precious Moments/Beanie Babies of wall hangings and throw pillows is now trying his hand at writing.



As a librarian, I’m taking this personally.



If you’re not familiar with his ‘artwork’, he paints excessively quaint, inspirational scenes that make Norman Rockwell’s work look like that of Francis Bacon in comparison. He is an industry unto himself, and has his syrupy and acquisitive tendrils in an ever expanding array of markets, even a gated housing community. Instead of inspiring me to be sweet and devotional, his work makes me want to do something violent and depraved. Or debase myself in some unspeakable way.



Take hope, though – it looks like he has overextended his business empire and he's about to declare bankruptcy. My faith is restored in capitalism - the market does eventually correct itself from certain outrages.



Unfortunately, his recent business troubles haven’t affected his book publishing schedule, which has the same relentless frequency as The New Yorker. He’s already churned out 4 in two years, and he brings the same monstrously cheerful sentimentality and insipidness to his writing that he does to his painting.



Look how some reviewers on Amazon are having a bit of fun with Kinkade and his fans. These are excerpts from reader reviews for the first book in Kinkade's Cape Light series, which has absolutely nothing to do with lesbians or homosexuality in any form.



A powerful Lesbian novel, March 18, 2002

Reviewer: sarah from Denver, Co.

Thomas Kinkade has crafted a touching, original novel about an older gay woman who is the mayor of a small Massachusetts town, and the rich (emotionally) people who inhabit the town. The gay mayor's sister comes to town so the two can take care of their ill mother. What I liked about this book was the "normal" way in which a gay person is "painted."



Good portrayal of gay life in a small town, April 18, 2002

Reviewer: A reader from Noe Valley, San Francisco



Thomas Kinkade skillfully weaves a novel of gay life in a small New England town. Emily, the lesbian mayor, is under attack from Charlie Bates, who plans to oppose her in the upcoming election because he disagrees with her sexual orientation. But Kinkade shows us the errors of Bates, who is blind to the fact that his own wife, Lucy, is also gay, even though she runs the local restaurant, cleverly named "The Clam Box."



A little slice of life in a small town, July 31, 2002

Reviewer: A reader

Kincaid captures the slightly hidden lifestyle of a lesbian in search of a fulfilling life. That rascal is quite subtle, but I think everyone will get the "real" message from this painter of light. I highly recommend it to anyone needing a glimpse into "another side of the light" BRAVO!





Read on as the sincere and legitimate fans of Thomas Kinkade indignantly try to refute the claims about the mayor being a lesbian....



"As far as the lesbian mayor - that is so far off base that it doesn't really deserve a comment - but I am going to do it anyhow. First of all the mayor was married and in love untill after two years her husband was killed - I think there are unresolved emotions there. She also had a child. (sorry hope I don't ruin it for anyone.) I think her and the editor of the newspaper will end up getting together. Secondly - Thomas Kinkade being an upstanding, outspoken Christian - would never write about lesbians. There are enough perverts in the world to do that. "



NOT about lesbianism!!, September 28, 2003

Reviewer: tdmac54 from Cody, WY United States



I don't know where Sarah from Denver got the idea that this book has ANYTHING to do with lesbianism!! It most certainly does not. It is about two sisters, one of whom is the mayor of their hometown, but she was widowed as a young mother. This book, in no way, implies that she's a lesbian. If you have any doubts, read the following two books in the series. I seriously doubt if Thomas Kinkade, a devout Christian, would write a novel that has anything to do with homosexuality, which the Bible says is an "abomination to God". Anyway, the book is enjoyable entertainment, and I found I wanted to read the sequels to find out what happens with the characters next.

Thomas Kinkade Painter of Light™, Writer of Dreck™, Architect of Doom™

Thomas Kinkade Painter of Light™, the colossus who bestrides the mass produced Christian mall art market, has metastasized into the field of literature, among other things.
Not content to ruin one art form, the creator of the Precious Moments/Beanie Babies of wall hangings and throw pillows is now trying his hand at writing.

As a librarian, I’m taking this personally.

If you’re not familiar with his ‘artwork’, he paints excessively quaint, inspirational scenes that make Norman Rockwell’s work look like that of Francis Bacon in comparison. He is an industry unto himself, and has his syrupy and acquisitive tendrils in an ever expanding array of markets, even a gated housing community. Instead of inspiring me to be sweet and devotional, his work makes me want to do something violent and depraved. Or debase myself in some unspeakable way.

Take hope, though – it looks like he has overextended his business empire and he's about to declare bankruptcy. My faith is restored in capitalism - the market does eventually correct itself from certain outrages.

Unfortunately, his recent business troubles haven’t affected his book publishing schedule, which has the same relentless frequency as The New Yorker. He’s already churned out 4 in two years, and he brings the same monstrously cheerful sentimentality and insipidness to his writing that he does to his painting.

Look how some reviewers on Amazon are having a bit of fun with Kinkade and his fans. These are excerpts from reader reviews for the first book in Kinkade's Cape Light series, which has absolutely nothing to do with lesbians or homosexuality in any form.

A powerful Lesbian novel, March 18, 2002
Reviewer: sarah from Denver, Co.
Thomas Kinkade has crafted a touching, original novel about an older gay woman who is the mayor of a small Massachusetts town, and the rich (emotionally) people who inhabit the town. The gay mayor's sister comes to town so the two can take care of their ill mother. What I liked about this book was the "normal" way in which a gay person is "painted."

Good portrayal of gay life in a small town, April 18, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Noe Valley, San Francisco

Thomas Kinkade skillfully weaves a novel of gay life in a small New England town. Emily, the lesbian mayor, is under attack from Charlie Bates, who plans to oppose her in the upcoming election because he disagrees with her sexual orientation. But Kinkade shows us the errors of Bates, who is blind to the fact that his own wife, Lucy, is also gay, even though she runs the local restaurant, cleverly named "The Clam Box."

A little slice of life in a small town, July 31, 2002
Reviewer: A reader
Kincaid captures the slightly hidden lifestyle of a lesbian in search of a fulfilling life. That rascal is quite subtle, but I think everyone will get the "real" message from this painter of light. I highly recommend it to anyone needing a glimpse into "another side of the light" BRAVO!


Read on as the sincere and legitimate fans of Thomas Kinkade indignantly try to refute the claims about the mayor being a lesbian....

"As far as the lesbian mayor - that is so far off base that it doesn't really deserve a comment - but I am going to do it anyhow. First of all the mayor was married and in love untill after two years her husband was killed - I think there are unresolved emotions there. She also had a child. (sorry hope I don't ruin it for anyone.) I think her and the editor of the newspaper will end up getting together. Secondly - Thomas Kinkade being an upstanding, outspoken Christian - would never write about lesbians. There are enough perverts in the world to do that. "

NOT about lesbianism!!, September 28, 2003
Reviewer: tdmac54 from Cody, WY United States

I don't know where Sarah from Denver got the idea that this book has ANYTHING to do with lesbianism!! It most certainly does not. It is about two sisters, one of whom is the mayor of their hometown, but she was widowed as a young mother. This book, in no way, implies that she's a lesbian. If you have any doubts, read the following two books in the series. I seriously doubt if Thomas Kinkade, a devout Christian, would write a novel that has anything to do with homosexuality, which the Bible says is an "abomination to God". Anyway, the book is enjoyable entertainment, and I found I wanted to read the sequels to find out what happens with the characters next.

Now, an open letter to our library patrons



Please do not flush sanitary napkins, paper towels, or syringes down the commode. If you must shoot up in the bathroom, please do not leave arterial spray on the walls. Neither the janitor, nor the shaken mom with toddlers who reported the problem, nor the parade of street people coming in to use the bathroom but now cannot because it's closed appreciates it.



Thank you for your consideration!

Foxylibrarian



Well, the source of this evening's toilet overflow was not tampons as we first naively suspected, but syringes. The bathroom of the branch where I'm working at is now officially closed for the evening.



When I first moved to San Francisco the dotcom situation was heating up and for a while I illegally subletted an apartment in a beautiful Victorian in the Castro that was perfect in every way except for my nimrod roommate, Chuck. Chuck was a nice guy and we got along fine, but Chuck would do things like substitute paper towels for toilet paper after he ran out. For reasons I cannot fathom, he also made a habit of flushing his dental floss down the commode. The old pipes finally became overwhelmed and clogged and there was a massive flood in Chuck's bathroom. Toilet water rich with Chuck's fecal matter rained down all over the downstair's houseproud homosexual couple's antique Oriental rugs. When the absentee landlord appeared to deal with the mess he discovered that none of the original tenants were living at our place. There was a lot of messy damage that would require extensive repairs so I thought it was best to just leave before I was evicted.



The lesson is that toilets are not dumpsters and if they can't handle feminine hygiene products like the sign says, then they can't handle your works, either.

Now, an open letter to our library patrons

Please do not flush sanitary napkins, paper towels, or syringes down the commode. If you must shoot up in the bathroom, please do not leave arterial spray on the walls. Neither the janitor, nor the shaken mom with toddlers who reported the problem, nor the parade of street people coming in to use the bathroom but now cannot because it's closed appreciates it.

Thank you for your consideration!
Foxylibrarian

Well, the source of this evening's toilet overflow was not tampons as we first naively suspected, but syringes. The bathroom of the branch where I'm working at is now officially closed for the evening.

When I first moved to San Francisco the dotcom situation was heating up and for a while I illegally subletted an apartment in a beautiful Victorian in the Castro that was perfect in every way except for my nimrod roommate, Chuck. Chuck was a nice guy and we got along fine, but Chuck would do things like substitute paper towels for toilet paper after he ran out. For reasons I cannot fathom, he also made a habit of flushing his dental floss down the commode. The old pipes finally became overwhelmed and clogged and there was a massive flood in Chuck's bathroom. Toilet water rich with Chuck's fecal matter rained down all over the downstair's houseproud homosexual couple's antique Oriental rugs. When the absentee landlord appeared to deal with the mess he discovered that none of the original tenants were living at our place. There was a lot of messy damage that would require extensive repairs so I thought it was best to just leave before I was evicted.

The lesson is that toilets are not dumpsters and if they can't handle feminine hygiene products like the sign says, then they can't handle your works, either.

An open letter to my fellow male students at Bikram's Yoga College of India



Unless you are a competitive swimmer, Speedos are unacceptable attire at any time, at any place. Let me qualify that: even if you are a competitive swimmer, speedos do not belong in the yoga studio. Nor do manties, tanksuits, thin cotton boxers, or those weird boxer/brief hybrids. The sort of apparel is not pleasing to the ladies. It's repellent. You know what is pleasing? A sense of modesty, decorum, and decency. Those baggy surfer shorts that hit the knees are functional and attractive. Buy some.



I know that you're cognizant of the waterfall of liquid coursing down your arm onto the carpet. Not only is sweat potentially pathogen bearing, it is corrosive. It also makes an ugly stain. My former studio had to close down for days while the owners had to tear up and replace the carpet and part of the floor boards all due to one prodigious, insensitive sweater. Be a decent human being and bring an extra towel and position it so your sweats hits it.



Suffer in Silence! No groans, moans, or other vaguely creepy sexual noises. It's aural harrassment, and you know it. Stop it.



Gum chewing is a vile and trashy habit at any time, but it's just stupid and reckless during Bikram, since there's a strong chocking hazard during the inverted poses. Be considerate and  sensible. If you’re still so firmly stuck in the oral fixation stage of development that you have to chew gum at all times then it's time to see a therapist so you can move on.



Back waxing is not just for the homosexual/metrosexual anymore. If a toddler can grab your back hair by the fist full and swing playfully on it, it’s time to do something about it. There are many (practically) pain free options available. Explore them.



While I'm in Savasana, do not flick or drip sweat on me while as you walk by me on your way out.

An open letter to my fellow male students at Bikram's Yoga College of India

Unless you are a competitive swimmer, Speedos are unacceptable attire at any time, at any place. Let me qualify that: even if you are a competitive swimmer, speedos do not belong in the yoga studio. Nor do manties, tanksuits, thin cotton boxers, or those weird boxer/brief hybrids. The sort of apparel is not pleasing to the ladies. It's repellent. You know what is pleasing? A sense of modesty, decorum, and decency. Those baggy surfer shorts that hit the knees are functional and attractive. Buy some.

I know that you're cognizant of the waterfall of liquid coursing down your arm onto the carpet. Not only is sweat potentially pathogen bearing, it is corrosive. It also makes an ugly stain. My former studio had to close down for days while the owners had to tear up and replace the carpet and part of the floor boards all due to one prodigious, insensitive sweater. Be a decent human being and bring an extra towel and position it so your sweats hits it.

Suffer in Silence! No groans, moans, or other vaguely creepy sexual noises. It's aural harrassment, and you know it. Stop it.

Gum chewing is a vile and trashy habit at any time, but it's just stupid and reckless during Bikram, since there's a strong chocking hazard during the inverted poses. Be considerate and  sensible. If you’re still so firmly stuck in the oral fixation stage of development that you have to chew gum at all times then it's time to see a therapist so you can move on.

Back waxing is not just for the homosexual/metrosexual anymore. If a toddler can grab your back hair by the fist full and swing playfully on it, it’s time to do something about it. There are many (practically) pain free options available. Explore them.

While I'm in Savasana, do not flick or drip sweat on me while as you walk by me on your way out.

'Cause I get a kick out of you



Remember this dreamboat, the paranoid schizophrenic resembling Nick Nolte who assaulted the MUNI driver a couple of months back? (see January 13th entry) The hapless cable car operator had been minding his own business in the new books section when a book caught his eye on the bottom shelve. When he bent over to take a closer look this deranged lunatic ran up behind him and, making sure to put all the momentum and weight of his 200 pound menacing hulk behind him, kicked the MUNI driver right in the ass. A huge fist fight ensued between the two but the MUNI driver prevailed and chased the perpetrator off into the night. I filed a police report and incident report with our own security, but he hasn’t returned to the branch since and I hoped that that was the last I would see of him.



Yesterday I was picking up some extra hours at another branch when I looked up and saw the kicker quietly perusing the current issue of Ladies Home Journal. It was unmistakably him, and he was sitting at the table not 10 feet away from me thumbing through a women's magazine. He had made a lasting impression on me the first time I encountered him, but he made it nice and easy for me to make a positive identification this time because he was wearing the exact same outfit (although a little worse for wear and a few shades darker from the two month accumulation of grime since I had seen him last) as the night he assaulted the MUNI driver. How thoughtful of him. Even though he was behaving himself perfectly I was overcome with dread and slowly and unobtrusively as possible made my way to the children’s reference desk to call security. Because the children's librarian at that branch hates and despises children, she has rigged the phone so you have to enter in this complicated numerical sequence to get an outside line. God knows it’s worth risking my safety so I am not able to dial 911 to ensure some wicked brat cannot use the phone without permission to, say, call his parents to come pick him up from the library. (Our phones don’t dial long distance anyway, so it's not like children were running up long distance charges). After almost tearing up in frustration I finally managed to get an outside line and reach security at The Main, who helpfully told me that it was too close to quittin’ time to send anyone down there, and if I felt like I was in danger to call the police. At that moment the man gathered his filthy belongings and lumbered out without incident.



Even though nothing happened I am still a little rattled. Since I started working at the public library I’ve been determined to maintain this philosophical, fatalistic attitude about what can befall me on the job. I had always been wary about working as a public librarian until I got a temp job in the corporate offices of a consulting company located in the shining office building at 101 California. Not long after I started working there I found out that the offices on the floor used to belong to a law firm and were the site of the infamous 101 California shootings, the first big office place massacre. So here were these lawyers and office personnel who thought that they were as safe as they could be in a fancy office with security and that didn’t help them one bit. If it’s your time, it’s your time, and that’s the way I have to think about it or I would just be a nervous wreck and never want to show up for work, which is the most wonderful job I could ever ask for 99% of the time. I do carry red pepper spray and I plan to start my Krav Maga classes soon, and although the Texas in me wants to buy a handgun I'll refrain for now.

'Cause I get a kick out of you

Remember this dreamboat, the paranoid schizophrenic resembling Nick Nolte who assaulted the MUNI driver a couple of months back? (see January 13th entry) The hapless cable car operator had been minding his own business in the new books section when a book caught his eye on the bottom shelve. When he bent over to take a closer look this deranged lunatic ran up behind him and, making sure to put all the momentum and weight of his 200 pound menacing hulk behind him, kicked the MUNI driver right in the ass. A huge fist fight ensued between the two but the MUNI driver prevailed and chased the perpetrator off into the night. I filed a police report and incident report with our own security, but he hasn’t returned to the branch since and I hoped that that was the last I would see of him.

Yesterday I was picking up some extra hours at another branch when I looked up and saw the kicker quietly perusing the current issue of Ladies Home Journal. It was unmistakably him, and he was sitting at the table not 10 feet away from me thumbing through a women's magazine. He had made a lasting impression on me the first time I encountered him, but he made it nice and easy for me to make a positive identification this time because he was wearing the exact same outfit (although a little worse for wear and a few shades darker from the two month accumulation of grime since I had seen him last) as the night he assaulted the MUNI driver. How thoughtful of him. Even though he was behaving himself perfectly I was overcome with dread and slowly and unobtrusively as possible made my way to the children’s reference desk to call security. Because the children's librarian at that branch hates and despises children, she has rigged the phone so you have to enter in this complicated numerical sequence to get an outside line. God knows it’s worth risking my safety so I am not able to dial 911 to ensure some wicked brat cannot use the phone without permission to, say, call his parents to come pick him up from the library. (Our phones don’t dial long distance anyway, so it's not like children were running up long distance charges). After almost tearing up in frustration I finally managed to get an outside line and reach security at The Main, who helpfully told me that it was too close to quittin’ time to send anyone down there, and if I felt like I was in danger to call the police. At that moment the man gathered his filthy belongings and lumbered out without incident.

Even though nothing happened I am still a little rattled. Since I started working at the public library I’ve been determined to maintain this philosophical, fatalistic attitude about what can befall me on the job. I had always been wary about working as a public librarian until I got a temp job in the corporate offices of a consulting company located in the shining office building at 101 California. Not long after I started working there I found out that the offices on the floor used to belong to a law firm and were the site of the infamous 101 California shootings, the first big office place massacre. So here were these lawyers and office personnel who thought that they were as safe as they could be in a fancy office with security and that didn’t help them one bit. If it’s your time, it’s your time, and that’s the way I have to think about it or I would just be a nervous wreck and never want to show up for work, which is the most wonderful job I could ever ask for 99% of the time. I do carry red pepper spray and I plan to start my Krav Maga classes soon, and although the Texas in me wants to buy a handgun I'll refrain for now.

"Dear, that was all due to the Union army."



From Outside the Magic Circle, the memoir of Virginia Foster Durr, Southern belle turned civil rights activist. This was her father's response when she asked him why some 'negroes' were lighter skinned than others.

"Dear, that was all due to the Union army."

From Outside the Magic Circle, the memoir of Virginia Foster Durr, Southern belle turned civil rights activist. This was her father's response when she asked him why some 'negroes' were lighter skinned than others.

OPRAH, MY OPRAH



"You know folks, I don't blame women for getting upset with men. Do you realize when Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia arrived in Texas this week to meet with President Bush he demanded that no female air traffic controller be allowed to land his flight? Hey Abdullah, I don't think anyone from Saudi Arabia should be telling us how to land a jet anytime soon, okay? [...] You know, just because the women in your country can't see through the burlap sleeping bag you make them wear to shower in, that doesn't mean you can tell our women what to do! That's Oprah's job!"

-- Dennis Miller 3 May 2002



Saturday Night Live has been disappointingly hit or miss lately, but last Saturday's Oprah skit parodying Oprah's 50th birthday episode was brilliant. In the skit, Oprah's studio guest audience, already in a heightened state of excitement to be there on such a momentous and joyful occasion, gets increasingly worked up as Oprah opens each of her gifts. When Oprah announces that all members of the audience will be receving the items as well, the studio audience begins to lose control until it's in one big ecstatic orgy of hysteria. The women scream, sob, tear their hair, and rend their clothes. Like ferocious wild animals, some begin to gnash and gnaw on giant gift turkey breasts still sealed in plastic. The guest audience ends up in an uncontrollable mob free-for-all, tearing each other from limb to limb in this Dioynisian/Maenadic frenzy. Having seen Oprah's 50th birthday party epidode myself, I didn't think the skit was much of an exaggeration.



If you've read my posts before you know that I am in this sort of helpless thrall to Oprah and that I Tivo her show every day. If her topic is some heartbreaking human interest story (like her recent episode on a fistula hospital in Ethiopia), there's nothing more cathartic than to sit down and cry along with Oprah and her audience. If her show is more of a authoritative and directive nature, it's like Oprah is swatting me on the backside with a wooden spoon and scolding me to do right. After she chastens me and sets me straight, it's like she then gives me a hug and envelopes me in her soft bosom, then gives me a hot bath and tucks me into a warm bed. It's heaven, and my day doesn't feel complete without it.

OPRAH, MY OPRAH

"You know folks, I don't blame women for getting upset with men. Do you realize when Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia arrived in Texas this week to meet with President Bush he demanded that no female air traffic controller be allowed to land his flight? Hey Abdullah, I don't think anyone from Saudi Arabia should be telling us how to land a jet anytime soon, okay? [...] You know, just because the women in your country can't see through the burlap sleeping bag you make them wear to shower in, that doesn't mean you can tell our women what to do! That's Oprah's job!"
-- Dennis Miller 3 May 2002

Saturday Night Live has been disappointingly hit or miss lately, but last Saturday's Oprah skit parodying Oprah's 50th birthday episode was brilliant. In the skit, Oprah's studio guest audience, already in a heightened state of excitement to be there on such a momentous and joyful occasion, gets increasingly worked up as Oprah opens each of her gifts. When Oprah announces that all members of the audience will be receving the items as well, the studio audience begins to lose control until it's in one big ecstatic orgy of hysteria. The women scream, sob, tear their hair, and rend their clothes. Like ferocious wild animals, some begin to gnash and gnaw on giant gift turkey breasts still sealed in plastic. The guest audience ends up in an uncontrollable mob free-for-all, tearing each other from limb to limb in this Dioynisian/Maenadic frenzy. Having seen Oprah's 50th birthday party epidode myself, I didn't think the skit was much of an exaggeration.

If you've read my posts before you know that I am in this sort of helpless thrall to Oprah and that I Tivo her show every day. If her topic is some heartbreaking human interest story (like her recent episode on a fistula hospital in Ethiopia), there's nothing more cathartic than to sit down and cry along with Oprah and her audience. If her show is more of a authoritative and directive nature, it's like Oprah is swatting me on the backside with a wooden spoon and scolding me to do right. After she chastens me and sets me straight, it's like she then gives me a hug and envelopes me in her soft bosom, then gives me a hot bath and tucks me into a warm bed. It's heaven, and my day doesn't feel complete without it.

Tobacco Road



I can't decide whether Erskine Caldwell was trying to write an exposé on the abject poverty of rural South during the Great Depression or lurid, exploitative trash. While it certainly is not a Depression literary classic like The Grapes of Wrath, it is a highly entertaining black comedy about the physical and moral squalor of poor white sharecroppers in rural Georgia during the height of the Great Depression. Caldwell’s purpose seems more to ridicule and entertain than to effect social change, because the characters are highly unsympathetic, grotesque caricatures who are active agents in their own misfortune as they try to eke out a living from the exhausted and depleted soil of the sand hills of Georgia.



The central character is the Jeeter family patriarch, Jed, a shiftless sharecropper who daydreams of raising a big cotton crop but never quite gets around to doing the work that that would entail. The only thing he’s capable of producing seems to be children, of which he has 17 (best that he can recollect), who all flee the farm for marriage or the mills of Augusta as soon as they reach adolescence, never to be seen or heard from by their parents again. This saddens Jed, not because he misses his children, but because he thinks that they should be sending money home. He and his wife and remaining children are lethargic and anemic from hookworm, and suffer from various other 3rd world nutritional diseases like pellagra and rickets. Picture the inbred backwoods cretins of Deliverance (also set in rural Georgia). But Burt and friends would have been safe from being stalked, terrorized, and raped by Jeeter and kin, because that would require the Jeeters' having the gumption to get up off their porch and expend some energy.



Whatever the literary merit of Tobacco Road, the Jeeters remain in our national consciousness and have affected perceptions and stereotypes of the rural South ever since it was published (it was also made into a long running Broadway play and a movie), much to the dismay of the those interested in Southern boosterism. Jed and his family were clearly inspiration for the Clampetts of The Beverly Hillbillies. One of Jed Jeeter's daughters is even named Ellie May, although his Ellie May is a harelipped half-wit who is perpetually in heat, not at all like the comely but wholesome animal healer Ellie May Clampett.

Tobacco Road

I can't decide whether Erskine Caldwell was trying to write an exposé on the abject poverty of rural South during the Great Depression or lurid, exploitative trash. While it certainly is not a Depression literary classic like The Grapes of Wrath, it is a highly entertaining black comedy about the physical and moral squalor of poor white sharecroppers in rural Georgia during the height of the Great Depression. Caldwell’s purpose seems more to ridicule and entertain than to effect social change, because the characters are highly unsympathetic, grotesque caricatures who are active agents in their own misfortune as they try to eke out a living from the exhausted and depleted soil of the sand hills of Georgia.

The central character is the Jeeter family patriarch, Jed, a shiftless sharecropper who daydreams of raising a big cotton crop but never quite gets around to doing the work that that would entail. The only thing he’s capable of producing seems to be children, of which he has 17 (best that he can recollect), who all flee the farm for marriage or the mills of Augusta as soon as they reach adolescence, never to be seen or heard from by their parents again. This saddens Jed, not because he misses his children, but because he thinks that they should be sending money home. He and his wife and remaining children are lethargic and anemic from hookworm, and suffer from various other 3rd world nutritional diseases like pellagra and rickets. Picture the inbred backwoods cretins of Deliverance (also set in rural Georgia). But Burt and friends would have been safe from being stalked, terrorized, and raped by Jeeter and kin, because that would require the Jeeters' having the gumption to get up off their porch and expend some energy.

Whatever the literary merit of Tobacco Road, the Jeeters remain in our national consciousness and have affected perceptions and stereotypes of the rural South ever since it was published (it was also made into a long running Broadway play and a movie), much to the dismay of the those interested in Southern boosterism. Jed and his family were clearly inspiration for the Clampetts of The Beverly Hillbillies. One of Jed Jeeter's daughters is even named Ellie May, although his Ellie May is a harelipped half-wit who is perpetually in heat, not at all like the comely but wholesome animal healer Ellie May Clampett.

Profiles in Homelessness: The Loretta Story



After a trip the post office I was caught in a downpour of rain and hail uncharacteristic for this city. I was walking with my head down against the wind and almost collided with local homeless vamp Loretta as she was wretchedly making her way toward the church steps. She has really not been looking good lately, so please...don't get too attached. Her lifestyle on the streets is taking a real toll and her eye is infected and swollen shut again and she is still on crutches. Later when I was at the reference desk I asked the Fiesty Old Broad about her. The FOB knows everyone’s business in this neighborhood and she gave me a brief history of Loretta’s life.



Although she came from a well-to-do family, her mother was an alcoholic and Loretta ran off and married a black ex-con drug dealer when she was 17 and had a whole passel of bi-racial children with him. She soon tired of domesticity and began to hit the bottle hard and have affairs. She hatched up a plot to have her husband arrested so her boyfriend could move in with her and they could live happily ever after on her husband’s drug money. Her plan backfired when the police couldn’t find any of the contraband after they came to search the house, and soon after the police left her husband gave her a good and solid beating and threw her out. She slinked off to Sacramento and never saw her husband or her children again.



She was living in a homeless encampment down by the river in **** when she somehow bewitched a Mormon prison guard with a serious savior complex into marrying her. Being a good Mormon he was temperate and naive to the ways her devious and manipulative alcoholic mind worked. He wised up pretty quickly, though, and it was not too long before he threw her out too. Having blown her last chance at lower-middle class respectability, she became a permanent resident of the street and residential hotels of this city. Even though the state and various charitable institutions have sent her to rehab and halfway houses countless times, she cannot remain off the streets.



The FOB actually took her in to her apartment and nursed Loretta through pneumonia last year. Loretta was the model patient, until the FOB said,



"Loretta, you're almost well and you've been sober for 12 days. How about we see about getting you in rehab?"



"Uh-uh. It's the first of the month tomorrow, and I'm going to go get my check and get drunk."



"Get the hell out of my house."



Even though she is pushing fifty, her face ravaged from exposure, her body fat and swollen from drinking, she has retained enough of her charm so that she is the belle of this neighborhood’s homeless. At this point she is not too choosy, but she does prefer black men and she always has an entourage around her to do her bidding. She rewards them frequently for their troubles in the bathroom stall of the park until the police come and break it up. I promise to do my best to get a picture of her before she dies and is buried courtesy of the state.

Profiles in Homelessness: The Loretta Story

After a trip the post office I was caught in a downpour of rain and hail uncharacteristic for this city. I was walking with my head down against the wind and almost collided with local homeless vamp Loretta as she was wretchedly making her way toward the church steps. She has really not been looking good lately, so please...don't get too attached. Her lifestyle on the streets is taking a real toll and her eye is infected and swollen shut again and she is still on crutches. Later when I was at the reference desk I asked the Fiesty Old Broad about her. The FOB knows everyone’s business in this neighborhood and she gave me a brief history of Loretta’s life.

Although she came from a well-to-do family, her mother was an alcoholic and Loretta ran off and married a black ex-con drug dealer when she was 17 and had a whole passel of bi-racial children with him. She soon tired of domesticity and began to hit the bottle hard and have affairs. She hatched up a plot to have her husband arrested so her boyfriend could move in with her and they could live happily ever after on her husband’s drug money. Her plan backfired when the police couldn’t find any of the contraband after they came to search the house, and soon after the police left her husband gave her a good and solid beating and threw her out. She slinked off to Sacramento and never saw her husband or her children again.

She was living in a homeless encampment down by the river in **** when she somehow bewitched a Mormon prison guard with a serious savior complex into marrying her. Being a good Mormon he was temperate and naive to the ways her devious and manipulative alcoholic mind worked. He wised up pretty quickly, though, and it was not too long before he threw her out too. Having blown her last chance at lower-middle class respectability, she became a permanent resident of the street and residential hotels of this city. Even though the state and various charitable institutions have sent her to rehab and halfway houses countless times, she cannot remain off the streets.

The FOB actually took her in to her apartment and nursed Loretta through pneumonia last year. Loretta was the model patient, until the FOB said,

"Loretta, you're almost well and you've been sober for 12 days. How about we see about getting you in rehab?"

"Uh-uh. It's the first of the month tomorrow, and I'm going to go get my check and get drunk."

"Get the hell out of my house."

Even though she is pushing fifty, her face ravaged from exposure, her body fat and swollen from drinking, she has retained enough of her charm so that she is the belle of this neighborhood’s homeless. At this point she is not too choosy, but she does prefer black men and she always has an entourage around her to do her bidding. She rewards them frequently for their troubles in the bathroom stall of the park until the police come and break it up. I promise to do my best to get a picture of her before she dies and is buried courtesy of the state.

Yesterday's blog entry had me musing on the scourge of meth and I was reminded of a friend whose brother was sent to court ordered rehab up near Humboldt County for a DUI. Practically everyone else in that rehab was there for meth, which has become an intractable problem in rural California (make that rural America). Many of his fellow patients were missing fingers, hands and even forearms because they had blown them off being careless in their sloppy bathtub labs. Meth is also hell on your teeth, from either the poor nutritional choices the drug leads you to or just utter neglect, and what few his fellow patients had remaining were black and rotten with decay. I bet 'Family Day' at rehab was something else.



Meth is absolute poison. Few people realize that the Matthew Shepard's killers had been up several days on meth, and that probably had a lot more to do with the utter barbarity of his killing than homophobia or 'gay panic.' Because with meth you're not just dealing with the drugs effects on your brain but also sleep deprivation, so users become delusional and paranoid and violent, especially in the final stages, called tweaking. Supposedly it's impossible for mental health professionals to distinguish someone who's tweaking from someone suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.



Although meth ravages your looks, heroin perversely preserves them, like a youth elixir. My friend who is a social worker says that some of her heroin clients look twenty years younger than their actual age. Well, as long as you don't look at their veins. My cousin Garrett who worked needle exchange said that they would hand out vein charts because addicts who had burned out all of their veins would just plunge the needle into their skin in sheer frustration after searching for hours unsuccessfully for a good vein, which would cause these these horrible abscesses (and a disappointing high). One time someone with a black abscess on his arm about the size of a cupcake asked him,



"Do you mind if I have some of that antibiotic ointment?"



Like a little Neosporin was going to fix that right up.

Yesterday's blog entry had me musing on the scourge of meth and I was reminded of a friend whose brother was sent to court ordered rehab up near Humboldt County for a DUI. Practically everyone else in that rehab was there for meth, which has become an intractable problem in rural California (make that rural America). Many of his fellow patients were missing fingers, hands and even forearms because they had blown them off being careless in their sloppy bathtub labs. Meth is also hell on your teeth, from either the poor nutritional choices the drug leads you to or just utter neglect, and what few his fellow patients had remaining were black and rotten with decay. I bet 'Family Day' at rehab was something else.

Meth is absolute poison. Few people realize that the Matthew Shepard's killers had been up several days on meth, and that probably had a lot more to do with the utter barbarity of his killing than homophobia or 'gay panic.' Because with meth you're not just dealing with the drugs effects on your brain but also sleep deprivation, so users become delusional and paranoid and violent, especially in the final stages, called tweaking. Supposedly it's impossible for mental health professionals to distinguish someone who's tweaking from someone suffering from paranoid schizophrenia.

Although meth ravages your looks, heroin perversely preserves them, like a youth elixir. My friend who is a social worker says that some of her heroin clients look twenty years younger than their actual age. Well, as long as you don't look at their veins. My cousin Garrett who worked needle exchange said that they would hand out vein charts because addicts who had burned out all of their veins would just plunge the needle into their skin in sheer frustration after searching for hours unsuccessfully for a good vein, which would cause these these horrible abscesses (and a disappointing high). One time someone with a black abscess on his arm about the size of a cupcake asked him,

"Do you mind if I have some of that antibiotic ointment?"

Like a little Neosporin was going to fix that right up.

Porn Dude says, "Take it from me, man..."



Remember the hippie porn enthusiast who liked to cruise porn sites at our very public internet terminals? One day I glanced over and noticed that he was engrossed in a video of a woman on his screen who could only be doing one of two things, one of which was bobbing for apples, which I didn't think likely. I alerted my boss who had a little talk with him and he agreed to visit more family appropriate sites while at the library or to go down to the more private terminals at the Main.



Well, besides being addicted to free porn he's a big fat liar because on each of his subsequent visits to the library he has had to be warned again and again about his taste in internet sites. I also have noticed that he wears the exact same tie-dye everyday, and it has become increasingly filthy and his dreadlocks more matted. Sometimes there is a fine hygiene line between hippies and street people, but I suspect that this guy is actually living on the street or in one of those depressing residential hotels that this city has way too many of.



Well, my boss reported to me the other morning that he saw Porn Dude writhing on the ground outside the bakery down the street, sobbing and screaming to all the passerbyers giving him a wide berth,



"NEVER smoke meth, man!"



The Voice of Experience recovered enough to dust himself off and pay the library a visit a few hours after his public service announcement, and although I watched closely I did not catch him on any inappropriate sites. Maybe he is trying to clean up his act, and he's starting by curtailing his internet porn and trying to get the word about the dangers of smoking methamphetamine.



Someone who shall remain nameless basically accused of me of quashing Porn Fan's civil liberties because I alerted my manager to the HIGHLY inappropriate sites he was visting at our public terminals that have children walking by them at all times. This person's lame-o argument was:



"Well, it's just that I'm a libertarian. He should be able to look at whatever he wants at the library."



To which Elizabeth responded, "If you were really a libertarian you wouldn't believe in libraries in the FIRST place!"



"Oh."

Porn Dude says, "Take it from me, man..."

Remember the hippie porn enthusiast who liked to cruise porn sites at our very public internet terminals? One day I glanced over and noticed that he was engrossed in a video of a woman on his screen who could only be doing one of two things, one of which was bobbing for apples, which I didn't think likely. I alerted my boss who had a little talk with him and he agreed to visit more family appropriate sites while at the library or to go down to the more private terminals at the Main.

Well, besides being addicted to free porn he's a big fat liar because on each of his subsequent visits to the library he has had to be warned again and again about his taste in internet sites. I also have noticed that he wears the exact same tie-dye everyday, and it has become increasingly filthy and his dreadlocks more matted. Sometimes there is a fine hygiene line between hippies and street people, but I suspect that this guy is actually living on the street or in one of those depressing residential hotels that this city has way too many of.

Well, my boss reported to me the other morning that he saw Porn Dude writhing on the ground outside the bakery down the street, sobbing and screaming to all the passerbyers giving him a wide berth,

"NEVER smoke meth, man!"

The Voice of Experience recovered enough to dust himself off and pay the library a visit a few hours after his public service announcement, and although I watched closely I did not catch him on any inappropriate sites. Maybe he is trying to clean up his act, and he's starting by curtailing his internet porn and trying to get the word about the dangers of smoking methamphetamine.

Someone who shall remain nameless basically accused of me of quashing Porn Fan's civil liberties because I alerted my manager to the HIGHLY inappropriate sites he was visting at our public terminals that have children walking by them at all times. This person's lame-o argument was:

"Well, it's just that I'm a libertarian. He should be able to look at whatever he wants at the library."

To which Elizabeth responded, "If you were really a libertarian you wouldn't believe in libraries in the FIRST place!"

"Oh."