Tag: French Revolution

Take Me Home

Tuesday morning and we made it through Monday. I was correct; after running errands yesterday I was very tired when I got home from work. I spent some time with Sparky and did some chores, but overall, didn’t do a lot once I got home. We did watch some Arrested Development, too, before I went to bed. It’s very cold again this morning, but I’ll just wear layers to work and it’s also super cool that I came home to a warm apartment yesterday (as opposed to how it felt when I got up yesterday morning in the bitter, bitter cold–okay, maybe I was the bitter one and not the cold). Tonight I have to get the mail on the way home, before settling in to get my chores done and maybe do some reading and writing. I feel like I’ve already acclimated back into my regular life, but it’s also still relatively early in the week. There’s no telling how I will feel by Thursday. And next week is jury duty, and this weekend is not only parades but rain, so not sure how that is going to go at all for parade season.

I did breakthrough yesterday on something I’m working on with a bunch of other writers (to be honest, I’ve done very little thus far and have basically been one of those who came along for the ride) and did the things I was supposed to have been doing mostly yesterday, and must say I was very pleased with the result. Huzzah! I felt very accomplished, I have to say; that’s been hanging over my head for months, and I’ve certainly been checked out since the election. I’m not sure that I’m checking back in completely–it’s kind of been nice staying insular in my own little world these past few months–and I do think, going forward, that some of the decisions I’ve made about my peace and peace of mind are going to be a definitive priority in my life. I don’t need people upsetting me and/or pissing me off, and the methodology I use for social media now–annoy me and you’re blocked–is going to be the foundation for dealing with people from now on. I used to let things slide with people, and it’s definitely worn me down and out with those folks…because they always get worse. So, yeah–no more Mr. Nice Gay.

And I am finished apologizing to other people for not living up to their expectations. That is your problem, and it’s never going to be mine. I disappointed you? That’s on you.

Just like I got tired of people telling me, in excruciating detail, of what a bad person I am and a terrible friend. Well, I never claimed to be anything other than who I am. You don’t like it? I don’t give a fuck.

We’ll see how long that lasts, won’t we?

Probably not long. I think sometimes I might have too much empathy? I mean, I feel bad for fictional characters that don’t exist, too.

But I am going to try to not let the bastards get me down, and I feel like the best way for me to fight back, given my old age, is to write. Writing is activism, and always should be. Writers have changed the world for the better–the writings of French philosophers about the ancien regime and its abuses eventually led to the French Revolution; Marx and Lenin also wrote manifestos; and that’s not taking into consideration all the writers who opposed tyranny and wrote about freedom and justice led to our own revolution–and the Civil War. I am not a journalist nor a political scientist nor a historian, but I’ve read enough history and followed politics (and the combination of the two) over the course of my life to understand where all this bullshit we’re dealing with originally came from1, and while I am certain, better analysis of things would come from experts in that field…but I can write about them as a citizen, what I think about these issues and why, can’t I?

And I could never be as entirely wrong about everything as MAGAs and Andrew Sullivan.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines. Have a great day, Constant Reader, and I’ll be here again tomorrow morning.

  1. Helpful hint: remember how Hilary Rodham Clinton was mocked for talking about a “vast right-wing conspiracy” in the 1990s? Once again, she was right–and had people listened to her maybe we wouldn’t be where we are, here today. ↩︎

La Marseillaise

Nothing to me was more amusing in the “brou-ha-ha” that triggered MAGAs during the Paris Opening Ceremonies. Their myopic and narrow view of what art and history can be, as well as their whining about blasphemy (while being the target audience for the Trump Blasphemy Bible), made me laugh really hard as I watched it unfold on-line the other night. Nothing shows American tribalism in its purest form (and earns us the scorn and mockery of the world) than criticizing the art and culture and history of another country–one that has existed centuries and centuries longer than ours can ever dream of lasting–and being offended by probably one of those strongest and most respected cultures of all time in the fucking world is why Europe is currently laughing at us as uncultured idiots.

(And for the record, there would be no United States without France. Period. We had no navy and therefore couldn’t have trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown. Know your own fucking history, MAGA morons, and miss me with all the “We saved France from the Germans twice!” bullshit. We were repaying a debt that can never be fully repaid, and if you think the French aren’t grateful–they honor our fallen soldiers far more than we do…especially taking into consideration the MAGA’s hero wouldn’t even visit the cemeteries in Normandy because it was “raining”, i.e. “it takes too long to do my face and hair to go out into the rain.”)

My personal favorites were the uneducated whines about the French mocking Marie Antoinette by showing her holding her head and singing from the disembodied face. Um, the French hated her, and whether she was to blame for France’s cratering economy or not is besides the point. She wasn’t a martyr, and the French have never regretted executing either her or her husband Louis XVI. France doesn’t regret its revolution and toppling its monarchy in the least. There is no revisionist history in France, like how the Russians have done with rehabilitating the Romanovs–and that was more about distancing themselves from the Bolsheviks more than anything else. There have been a lot of books over the years that have tried to rehabilitate her, and make modern readers have sympathy for her. I’ve never really understood this, even as I myself was convinced into pitying her for being stupid and pretty vapid (Victoria Holt’s The Queen’s Confession was the first of these apologist books I read) and getting unfairly blamed by the French people for their problems–which existed long before she came from Vienna to be their dauphine and eventual queen.

In a nutshell, she never had a chance with the French people. She was Austrian, and Austria had been a mortal enemy of France’s since the marriage of Maximilian of Austria to Mary of Burgundy in 1476. The rise of Prussia as a militaristic power in the early eighteenth century had both France and Austria alarmed; so France changed its natural alliance with Prussia (an enemy of Austria’s) and partnered up with Austria and Russia. The result was the Seven Years’ War, which ended with France losing its global empire and bankrupting the country–which was already on shaky economic ground. The unpopular alliance with Austria was further cemented by the marriage of the young dauphin to the Austrian princess in 1770. The people and court hated her almost from the start, but even without the “enemy princess” stuff, she was the symbol of a hated alliance that had cost the country a lot of its pride and income sources, making the economic issues in France even worse1. The smears from rival factions at court–in which politics were treated as a game everyone was playing, for good or bad, no matter how much it weakened the monarchy and aristocracy–or even more egregious: how it weakened and destabilized France on the world stage. The inequality in France–and the carelessness of the aristocracy in believing the people would never rise against them–was a gathering storm all through the 1780’s, and even worse, the French support of the American Revolution caused France to default on its debt not once but twice that decade. Louis XVI was an ineffectual king at a time when France needed a strong king who could take the reins and fix things with reform, but it was not to be.

And in the end, the Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789, and four years later the French executed their by-then deposed king and queen–and most of the aristocracy that hadn’t fled abroad when they could.

The French are very proud of their revolution; their national anthem (this entry’s title) was the song of the French Revolution, and their national flag is the flag of the revolution. Why would anyone think the French have rehabilitated the reputations and historical views of the king and queen they executed in a revolution that is still a source of national pride?

I’ve always found the way English and American writers love to rehabilitate the reputations of reviled kings and queens throughout history. Do the British celebrate Charles I as an English martyr and saint? They do not–although modern writers definitely are apologists for him and his awful wife. The way Americans–the original anti-monarchists in the world–are so fascinated by royalty and apologists for their awfulness is an irony that would have confused the founders…as well as how many Americans seem to be on board with authoritarianism.

Seriously, Americans. Read a fucking book sometime, and stop embarrassing us all on the world stage.

French Olympic gold and silver medalist for ice dancing Guillaume Cizeron.
  1. This is why Les Liaisons Dangereuses was such an electrifying work when it was published in the 1780s; we’ve enjoyed it as a modern entertainment, but the time that has passed since it was published has removed the sting from what was at the time an indictment of the French aristocracy’s immorality. ↩︎

True Faith

Saturday morning and I am about to head back out to Metairie; I just got an email that my computer is repaired and ready for pick-up! This is very exciting, obviously–I am terribly relieved to not have to buy a new one–and I am excited to have a desktop computer again. Hurray for a big screen to make up for my failing eyes! I am also going to be dropping off books later today at the library sale, and donating beads to ARC of New Orleans; the living room is slowly being dragged back from hoarder’s hell and starting to look functional and bearable and usable again, which is incredibly lovely. I managed to hang one of the laundry room doors by myself yesterday; this morning I’ll also be rehanging the other door, clearing up more space and opening up the living room even further.

We finished watching The Crime of the Century last night–quelle surprise, disgusting piece of shit Marsha Blackburn helped pass a bill gutting the DEA’s ability to investigate and punish drug companies for lying to the public, reminding viewers again she’s always been trash and a cosplay Christian without a soul–and the documentary is further evidence that our country and our system has been corrupted and is broken. It’s more than a little infuriating to know that so many people have died and/or become addicted thanks to the complicity of our elected officials, and there is never any accountability for corporations or the rich. Back in the 1990’s I used to simply shake my head and thin we are becoming very similar, as a nation, to 1780′ France and the last days of Czarist Russia and when it comes the second American revolution will be far worse than either of those revolutions, which were widespread and incredibly bloody…I hope I don’t live long enough to see it or experience it, quite frankly. I had an idea–when don’t I have one?–back then for a book about a dystopian future after the collapse of our government and society; dystopias aren’t so much in vogue anymore, but it’s still a valid idea and concept, but it’s been foremost in my brain lately.

We also started watching Halston on Netflix last night, and it’s quite fun; definitely worth watching for the acting, and Ewan MacGregor is fantastic in the title role. I’ve actually been thinking about the 1970’s a lot lately; not sure why I’ve been going down this nostalgic trip down memory lane, but I have been and so Halston kind of plays into that for me. It has everything to do, no doubt, with my idea to write a book about a suburban serial killer, a la the Candyman/Gacy, called Where the Boys Die; I’ve been looking up things (classmates.com has copies of my high school yearbooks even; mine were lost years ago) all over the place when I get bored and when I don’t feel like reading or writing. What will eventually happen with that, I don’t know–if anything–but I realize this morning that I haven’t been writing much this month–I’ve definitely been off, if not my rocker, but my game. I kind of have been ever since my desktop computer ceased functioning properly; I don’t think getting my computer back is going to be some kind of magic cure-all, but it should be a start.

After I dropped off the computer at the Apple Store and while I was waiting for my next appointment, I stopped at the Barnes and Noble on Veterans’ to kill time. I can’t remember the last time I set foot in a B&N; obviously it was pre-pandemic, but it was much longer ago than that, obviously. It was a bit strange to be in such a public space (the Apple Store opens two hours before the rest of the mall, so walking through the almost-deserted halls and past all the closed stores had a sort of Night of the Living Dead feel to it–I know that’s probably not the right zombie/Romero film, but I’ve actually never seen any of those so sue me) but B&N was more confined and had more people–it was still pretty empty, but it was a strange experience. But it was lovely being in a bookstore–I resisted the urge to spend hundreds of dollars and limited myself to a lovely, inexpensive B&N edition of The Iliad and The Odyssey–and it was also interesting to walk around looking at books and seeing so many friends on the shelves, tables, and end-caps. The MWA handbook, How to Write a Mystery, was prominently displayed on the NEW RELEASES shelves, and I found myself examining books and just enjoying being around books.

Speaking of which, I started reading Robyn Gigl’s By Way of Sorrow, and am enjoying it. I need to get it finished, though, so I can read From Here to Eternity on my trip next week (yikes, I leave on Thursday).

So, my plan for today is to get my computer set up again, rehang the other door, run those errands and swing by the grocery store as well. With all of these other things taken care of, I also intend to clean today so tomorrow I will have the day free to answer emails, do some writing, and go to the gym….then it’s three days of work and the trip to Kentucky, and then before I know it, May will be ending and it will be June. #madness.

And on that note, I need to get cleaned up so I can head out to the Lakeside mall. Happy Saturday, Constant Reader!

Picture to Burn

Good morning, Constant Reader! It’s my official release day for my latest Todd Gregory tome, Wicked Frat Boy Ways, which I am kind of excited about. For one thing, I love the cover. For another, I am kind of proud of this book. I did something completely different than anything I’ve ever done before, and it’s also an homage to one of my favorite stories of all time: Les Liaisons Dangereuses. (I’ve also discovered that young people will just look at me blankly when I mention that; or even say Dangerous Liaisons, the award winning film with Glenn Close and John Malkovich from the late 1980’s; however, mention Cruel Intentions with Ryan Phillippe and Sara Michelle Gellar, and their eyes will light up.) It’s a wonderful story; after all, to date, there are four film versions thus far, and a stage version. The Glenn Close movie inspired Madonna’s MTV Video Awards performance of “Vogue”–which I absolutely loved. I am a sucker for the costumes of that era; Bourbon France (1589-1792) is one of my favorite periods of history; the French Revolution is endlessly fascinating to me (Les Liaisons Dangereuses was set in the early 1780’s, and there are those who call the at-the-time scandalous novel as one of the flagstones in the pathway to the French Revolution, by pointing out the corruption and evil behavior that boredom amongst the wealthy and spoiled aristocracy in France to a wider audience); and so my personal favorite film version of the story are the Glenn Close with the Annette Bening/Colin Firth Valmont coming in second. But Cruel Intentions is also very well done, and both Phillippe and Gellar inhabit the evil characters absolutely perfectly. I’ve always wanted to do my own version of the story; but I wanted to follow the novel (which I absolutely loved, and have reread several times) more so than the film.

I’ve played with the idea a lot over the years; the trick is that the novel is epistolary. The epistolary novel was very popular in previous centuries (Dracula is also epistolary for the most part; a mix of letters and diary entries), although it has fallen out of favor in modern times. I’ve always thought they were great; it was a way to get inside character heads much more so than just alternating third-person point of views, and it’s even harder to do alternating first person point of views–which I also didn’t know how to do, and was afraid to try (Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying is perhaps the best example of this ever published). I thought about doing it in the form of emails years ago, and then. after Bold Strokes agreed to publish it, tried to figure out how to do it with modern technology–a combination of texts messages, emails, Facebook posts, etc. But that would also be a formatting nightmare for the technical side of publishing;  I even asked the formatter how it could be done, and the response wasn’t encouraging.

And then I reread one of my favorite books, The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis, and I saw how it could be done–alternating first person point of view, present tense; in other words, tell the story in the present from the point of view of characters as it is happening to them, so you can also see, as in the letters, how their perspectives change and how the manipulations happen, and how they really feel. Yes, it was similar to how Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying, but at the same time, it was a challenge I wanted to take on: an erotic novel with a strong plot, told in the present tense, in alternating first person point of view.

Instead of using the same Beta Kappa chapter at CSU-Polk, I moved it to another campus; one that is more rich and more elite: the University of California at San Felice (a shout out to Margaret Millar, who used San Felice in some of her novels as a stand-in for Santa Barbara), on the California coast a few hours north of Los Angeles. I had the character of Brandon Benson, from Games Frat Boys Play, transfer and now he’s a senior, friends with Phil Connors, chapter president. Phil and Brandon are the primary characters in the story; the others the chess pieces they move around the board; Ricky Monterro is the nephew of a very wealthy self-made lawyer who is president of the alumni association, and a recent drop out from the seminary at Notre Dame who’s just realized he doesn’t want to be a priest, preferring to live openly and honestly as a gay man; Dylan, an incoming transfer from UCLA who is engaged to a soldier on a tour in the Middle East; and Kenny, a shy young gay virgin with no self-esteem who falls head over heels for Ricky at first sight.

Jordy from Games Frat Boys Play even makes an appearance, having rented a house on Fire Island for the summer, which is where Brandon and Dylan first run into each other.

Damn, this book was fun to write. Hope it’s as fun to read!

Wicked Frat Boy Ways_final