Christopher Moore at Kepler's Books in Menlo Park, CA

Christopher Moore can be described in one word: wacky. He's like Dave Barry, if Barry had no inhibitions. 

Moore was at Kepler's Books promoting his new novel, Noir (2018). Before signing books, he gave a "commencement speech," hat and all, with several points of advice: "Face your fears... unless it's fire." And "You'll probably get VD [venereal disease] but not at the zoo. Probably." 

It's unclear if Moore, who studied anthropology at Ohio State, graduated from any college. The Q&A session revealed other interesting tidbits. Moore's grandfather, a military veteran, loved to read. When out at sea, servicemen had lots of free time, and sometimes, his grandfather would read "a book a day." His love of reading passed down to his son, who became a police officer. Moore would observe his father reading at home and he, too, "read a lot." Moore's influences include Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, and Carl Hiassen (like Dave Barry, also a Miami Herald columnist).

What was he like as a teenager? "A smart*ss. No one likes a smart*ss and now I get paid to be one." 

Will his novels ever be made into movies? Moore explained "getting optioned means nothing." In other words, just because someone or a company buys a book's movie rights doesn't mean a movie will get made. More likely, the option to make a film will be passed on or shopped around in perpetuity. 

My favorite Moore book is Bloodsucking Fiends (1995) and I was disappointed in the sequel, You Suck (2007), which felt forced. As Moore became more popular, he sought inspiration by leaving the inner workings of his own mind and using details learned while traveling. I prefer Moore's unhinged comedy more than his reality-fantasy hybrid (e.g., he traveled to the Dead Sea to research a book about Christ's fictional childhood friend), but fans implored me to give Lamb (2002) a chance. I haven't read Noir (2018) yet, but it looks complex, and I'll probably write down all the different characters' names to keep them straight. 

When it came time to sign my book, I asked him to sign it to "Bloodsucking Fiends." Moore, perhaps unaccustomed to someone wackier than himself, questioned why I wanted him to sign it that way, but eventually acquiesced, adding a quizzical "Okay!" He gave fans mini alien figures with his signature imprinted on the aliens' foreheads. Moore's wackiness is unparalleled but I wish he'd recapture the effortless humor he had when writing about his true interest: horror. 

Bobby Douglas: the American Wrestling Legend You've Never Heard Of

Bobby Douglas is a great man--no reasonable person can disagree. He and his wife have made numerous sacrifices for the sport of wrestling, perhaps more than any other family not named Schultz. 

After reading Craig Sesker's biography, you'll wonder why Mr. Douglas hasn't been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Douglas was born poor and black in America when either trait should have confined him to a lifetime of neglect. Instead, despite his small stature, Douglas entered a wrestling mat, and the rest is history: "Wrestling is my best friend... it saved my life. I truly believe that. It saved my life." (pp. 172) 

Younger wrestling fans will have difficulty remembering a time when Jordan Burroughs wasn't the face of American wrestling, or when Kevin Jackson and Kenny Monday weren't household names. Sesker's gift as a writer is ensuring you realize once upon a time, it was different: "Bobby Eddie Douglas was born near the beginning of WWII in Bellaire, Ohio. He was raised in nearby Blaine, a tiny eastern Ohio community of around 150 people." (pp. 14) "When his uncle returned home... from the Korean War with a white German wife, members of the KKK burned a cross... 'Everybody carried some sort of weapon to defend themselves...'" (pp. 21) "We were so hungry... I knew we were poor because I was always hungry." (pp. 42)

And it continues, cards so stacked against Douglas, you have to wonder if the Biblical Job had it easy by comparison: "His grandparents were illiterate. When they received letters in the mail, they handed them to a young Bobby to read to them." (pp. 21) Douglas even has a south side of Chicago connection: his aunt lived there, "in the ghetto," and used Douglas as a numbers "runner" in the summers: "Douglas would run gambling slips and collect money for the lottery.. At times, Douglas [a kid weighing about 50 pounds] would be carrying several hundred dollars in his pocket." (pp. 22-23)

At this point, I imagined a cross between LeBron James (born and raised in a small town in Ohio) and JAY-Z (also raised in the projects and who carried today's equivalent of hundreds of dollars, 2,000 USD, as a drug dealer), only to realize America's curse for poor young black men in any era: unless you develop a talent at the highest levels, you'll be stuck wherever you are because decades of segregation cut you off from opportunities others take for granted. 

Despite his small town background, Douglas's warm, authentic personality helped him transition to different neighborhoods seamlessly, even in Tokyo. In every story, he is universally likable as a wrestler, recruiter, or coach. For example, Sesker tells us a story about Douglas up against the dirtiest coaches (and wrestlers) in America, the Brands brothers. After an opposing wrestler uses a dangerous and illegal move, Coach Douglas "felt [the] move was unintentional." (pp. 128) Everyone but Douglas seems to know the move was pre-meditated, even Sesker, who uses the word "illegal" four times on the page. Afterwards, an Ohio State wrestling coach informs Douglas, "That [injury default] was the wrong thing to do." (Id.) Douglas, of course, disagrees. In the end, the greatest American tactician not named John Smith refused to win on a technicality even when his own wrestler was injured in an illegal move. And on and on it goes, Douglas always being the better man, the reader feeling smaller and smaller with each passing page. 

We find out Douglas is father to a child, now a man, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia; he coached the first West Coast college team to a national wrestling championship, only to be harassed by an incoming Arizona State athletic director for going 20,000 USD over budget; he feels responsible for the unexpected suicide of a wrestler he'd recruited ("I told [the parents] I'd take care of their son like he was my son"); and he remains married to his first girlfriend, Jackie. 

The most unexpected story in the book involves one of Douglas's best students, Cael Sanderson. Sanderson was undefeated in college and today coaches America's top-ranked college wrestling program at Penn State. Douglas coached him to college and Olympic victories, but that wasn't enough for Sanderson to avoid placing his own interests above his coach's. After two years as an assistant coach under Douglas at Iowa State, Sanderson appears to have issued an ultimatum to Iowa State's athletic director, Jamie Pollard, demanding to be made head coach at Iowa State or he'd leave to Ohio State. Coach "Douglas still had three years left on his contract," but that didn't matter to Iowa State: "I'm willing to give you one more year," said Pollard. (pp. 148) And just like that, Douglas was out, and Sanderson in. Perhaps karma took notice, because Sanderson only coached at Iowa State three years, from 2006 to 2009, and then transferred to Penn State. At Iowa State, Sanderson failed to win a national championship. 

Sesker has done an incredible job writing Douglas's story. His writing style is straightforward, making his book easily translatable into any language. I can think of only one other book that is similar, Jack August's Adversity is my Angel, about Raul H. Castro (who, interestingly, also has an Arizona connection). If I had my way, Sesker's and August's books would be required reading for every 9th grade American boy. For now, I hope you'll discover these gems on your own and gift them to your sons.

(Sesker's book is difficult to find online. You can reach him directly at sesker493 at yahoo.com to order a copy.) 

Propaganda, Brought by Your Own Tax Dollars

Former President Obama (2018): "Special interests, foreign governments, etc. can, in fact, manipulate and propagandize." What if at least one of those special interests is your own government? In Peter Richardson's A Bomb in Every Issue (2009), we learn the CIA directly or indirectly funded numerous liberal and conservative organizations, including ones with Gloria Steinem, the AFL-CIO, and William F. Buckley, Jr. 

Problematically, we don't know which cultural change organizations weren't funded by the CIA. In other words, government interference may have cost Americans leaders who could have delivered more honest or less divisive commentary but who didn't have the numbers or influence at the exact time of the CIA's involvement. Funding x rather than y meant anything independent--anything related to y and not x--was at a disadvantage, tilting the media towards CIA-picked cultural leaders. As a result, almost everything you see and read might have been curated for you by a secretive, non-transparent government agency. If that's not propaganda, what is? And why isn't the president of the United States talking about it? 

Bonus: "The agency's goals were to counter similar groups under Soviet control abroad and to recruit foreign students." The only reason we know any of this is because an insider--we'd call him a whistleblower today--hadn't signed an NDA and provided documents to a journalist at an independent publication. The independent publication, The Ramparts, had a distinctive strategy: raise hell and keep on raising it until national media, always late to the game, finally picked up the story. 

Bonus: a world where secretive organizations can manipulate winners requires not just irresponsible funding but online manipulation (SEO, etc.). If the top 25 hits on Google's search engine can be curated for you by one or more intelligence organizations, can you believe anything you see and hear? 

Relationships: Exquisitely Complex

Most people expect to settle down when they're older and use youth to explore as many avenues as they can, not minding cul de sacs. People say dating gets easier with age because we know ourselves better, but anyone single and over 30 knows the conventional wisdom is wrong. By the time we are 30 or 35, we respond in different ways to different people based on what happened to us at 7, 14, and 21. Partners having a fuller history of each other are better equipped to deal with conflicts than new occupiers. 

In the past two years, I've searched the globe for answers only for my heart to return to a place I visited sixteen years ago. Realizing my choice couldn't have been a coincidence, I'll share my thoughts so we can both be a little less clueless about love. 

A person meeting a potential partner at 34 will notice certain tics and file them in his memory bank, but he won't know their origin or how to work around them until years later because of incomplete data. At some point, he'll tell himself "Women are crazy," excluding the part about men being stupid. In contrast, a man dating a 19 or 25 years old woman will have an easier time molding himself to her and may even have the exact details necessary to understand her. The earlier man, Australopithecus Agápi, has an advantage: younger women, like younger men, are less sure of themselves and have fewer reservations about opening up to either gender. The advantage of youth is assumed mutual ignorance, which acts as its own truth serum. Meanwhile, a man who stays with a partner from 28 or 35 will know almost nothing about her history, thus having a much worse chance at accomplishing the one thing we all want: to be understood. 

I used to wonder why baby pictures are so captivating. We are viewing a tabula rasa, but we look anyway, trying to glean the history we've missed. A part of us must know each passing year in a person's life is a year of personal knowledge we lack to solve the mystery that is him or her. Strangely, we give children, but not adults, the benefit of the doubt when meeting for the first time, despite our lesser knowledge. And yet, adults in new relationships are forging boundaries just like children who seek independence within protective frameworks. 

Perhaps we've forgotten one of humanity's guidelines: explorers seeking to settle in mature places should enter knowing others have trampled there before, leaving footprints of uncertain providence. Surely we've forgotten because otherwise, we'd be more forgiving and far more frightened when exploring new avenues in adulthood that were so effortless in youth. 

I met a woman when she and I were 22 and 21 years old. When we re-acquainted in our late thirties, little had changed. Of course that cannot be true, but it feels so because I captured three months' of youth's unguarded moments, time that allowed me to upload some of her source code. Every smile, every twitch, and every tear created a Rosetta Stone that still translates input flawlessly decades later. Now consider how few modern couples have three months of continuous, unguarded time together and then research marital happiness rates. For this reason, parental love is often stronger than romantic love because a unique zero-day foundation holds up the relationship, and all parties know it can be repaired but not replaced. The breaking of the parental bond is the worst psychic wound possible because it robs us of the ability to keep a zero-day historian in our lives, someone who can provide an undamaged Rosetta Stone. 

Rossetta Stone in London's British Museum.

I met another woman in her thirties recently, and we felt an instant bond. I can't tell you why we felt a bond so quickly, but it surprised us both. I saw through her hard armor instantly, and she knew she could clang her metal swords and flail around me without judgment. We trusted each other because our subconscious played matchmaker, knowing our hearts were damaged but willing to play to the right beat. Nevertheless, my absence during her unguarded years means she will remain an exquisite mystery. Thankfully, I don't need her source code to know her toughness is matched only by her tenderness, and when she lashes out, it is not to hurt me, but to scare away the tinkerers trying to hollow out her armor. And so it goes between us, many miles apart, she clanging her swords and me shielded by the knowledge her unpredictable curtness and too-polite texts are fear no one will ever be able to write her Rosetta Stone. 

When older people date today, they are too busy trying to impress each other when all they really ought to do is listen for the sound of armored plates. It is through those sounds you'll discover the level of effort you'll need to complete your journey. The trick, since you'll probably lack a Rosetta Stone, is to find someone whose heart is willing to play with yours. Whom will you ask to dance? 

The Internet and North America, Summarized in One Tweet

If a picture is worth a thousand words, allow me fewer to explain the following photo. The problem with modern society is not the internet or technology, but the lack of humility omnipresent in North American culture. Such a culture will provide fantastic entertainment but not much in the way of substance. Are you ready for the most North American comment ever? 

"I'm not a lawyer but this seems quite illegal." It's a Canadian speaking, so one might chalk it up to a desire to politely agree with the principle of equality, except for one thing: the ProPublica article referenced is fantastic. Even if you glean nothing else from it, a high schooler would, after three paragraphs, understand the ADEA is complex. Really, really complex. 

Unfortunately, most North American voters haven't realized they've outsourced justice to hordes of lawyers who continue to add complexity to protect their jobs and fees. Even if conservatives manage to cut laws, civil procedure and evidentiary rules will maintain a bulwark against common sense and the common citizen. It's not surprising democracy is reeling when the model isn't justice for all but deterrence through selective prosecution. 

In 2002, when I studied law in Singapore, also a common law country, I was struck by the humility of the educated class. None of my questions were deemed odd, and the one or two borderline insulting ones (about population control) were answered substantively. Working class citizens were social and content, and the worst a person could say about them was that their warmth exceeded their ambition. Despite lacking urgent reasons to worry about social harmony, Singapore's mostly Chinese elites, not to be accused of a lack of effort, were busy trying different programs to reduce income inequality. I'm not a Singaporean, but this seems quite lovely. 

Would the last intellectual out of North America please remember to turn off the lights? 

Conversation May 3, 2018: 

Me: "Do you know you have no privacy in America?" 

Very Nice 18 Years Old Cashier: "Yes." 

Me: "Does it bother you?" 

Her: [frowns, then shrugs] 

Me: "Do you trust your gov?" 

Her: [shakes head] 

Me: "I guess the problem is there's nothing we can do about it." 

Her: "Yes."

Frank Church on the NSA and Surveillance in 1975

Frank Church, on the NSA in 1975: https://youtu.be/YAG1N4a84Dk 

Without proper oversight of the NSA, "no American will have any privacy left... there would be no way to fight back ... the capacity is there to make tyranny total." 

Fast forward to 2017: https://youtu.be/dkoi7sZvWiU 

The technology in the video is at least one year old. Without the independent ability to determine whether information is true, independent media cannot exist. In an age of "deepfakes," reporters and editors must be part-journalists, part-tech-forensics, but only a few will have the resources to do forensics well. 

Furthermore, if journalists need security-level clearance to ascertain the difference between real and fake, what happens to well-intentioned whistleblower and citizen-produced tips? Numerous problems exist with the aforementioned scenario, not least of all the ability to disrupt honest, diligent journalism as well as any investigation. 

From Robert Scheer's They Know Everything about You (2015)

Journalists wouldn't be the only ones dependent on the government to vet information--so would local police departments lacking military-grade technology. In such a world, the only reliable sources would be high-level government-affiliated with no independent checks and balances. In short, independent journalism could be easily disrupted while lesser funded local governments couldn't realistically decouple themselves from federal corruption or mismanagement. 

The capacity to make tyranny total existed in 1975. Have checks and balances increased or decreased since then? 

Robert Scheer's They Know Everything about You (Book Review)

Edward Snowden started the transparency but Robert Scheer provides it in context. The inefficacy and profligacy of America's national security apparatus are worse than you imagine. Obama's presidency expanded the security state far more than anyone knew until whistleblowers emerged. A few quick points: 

1. American taxpayers have spent 500 billion USD for intelligence since 9/11. Scheer explains how almost all the programs didn't work or had to be scrapped. The main problem wasn't data gathering but connecting the dots to gain useful information. (Update: Such profligate spending is deemed acceptable because much, if not most, of the revenue is funding native-born American citizens, including military veterans, or allied military R&D. The calculus of government spending means if it costs the CIA 100,000 analyst jobs for native-born citizens to equal the same insights as one politically-disconnected immigrant Iranian, politicians are willing to look the other way.)

2. America's expenditures were useless because the government attacked the wrong problem (and the wrong country, but that's another book). When you realize most law enforcement employees are men, it's not surprising communication is the issue. 

Imagine analyzing a relationship between a husband and wife. Whom would you trust more to predict substantive behavior if the couple knew they were being watched? A person with all online data on both persons or a close friend who communicates well with one of them? 

3. Much of the government's post-9/11 approach to combating terrorism is being used for psychological ops, i.e., how to engineer consent, potentially even against America's own citizens. Also, if legal "rebellions" or dissent can be predicted through software and algorithms, why wouldn't such algorithms be used one day to block the spread of "dangerous" or dissenting ideas? Why not use it to predict and catch whistleblowers, preventing another Snowden? (By the way, do you see the connection between Facebook and facial recognition technology; Alexa/Siri and voice recognition technology; and genealogical profiles and criminal investigations?) 

4. One example: let's say you're critical of a defense contractor or the president online. Software exists that will scoop up your comment and save it in a database--forever. The question is whether the software can differentiate between peaceful libertarians and potentially dangerous anti-government persons (McVeigh, Kaczynski, etc.). What is the assurance, with black-box government funding and military contracting/outsourcing, of avoiding actions that will chill speech? What is the assurance an algorithm won't be fooled by deepfakes or digital spoofing?

5. We jail journalists in America. See Barrett Brown. 

6. The worst part about all the money we've spent is that these trillion-dollar systems can be gamed with millions of dollars. For instance, overwhelming spying software with useless or false info/code is a common intelligence tactic. Note, however, such tactics can be used by ordinary citizens against these same programs. If all of us began discussing bombs--as part of our goal to write interesting screenplays, of course--we could render useless much of the surveillance software in existence. (Foreign governments and hacker outfits have already discovered this flaw, leading us into a new era of diplomacy where no one knows the rules for a proportionate response to ever-escalating online attacks.) There's even a simpler approach: if everyone just shut off their phones for one week, so-called anti-terrorism surveillance programs (but not advertising programs) would be ineffective. 

Snowden tells an anecdote about this issue: one terrorist stool pigeon receives a phone call directing him to a location. On the way there, he's killed by a drone. Another terrorist receives a text with instructions on how to make a bomb. Upon ordering fertilizer, he's killed by a drone. A third terrorist delivers a handwritten note by bicycle with instructions on where to find explosives. He succeeds. 

 7. Every mid-sized American city in 2001 could have looked like Tokyo today if taxpayer dollars had been spent on infrastructure. Instead, we decided to spend our money on propaganda and surveillance software that can be made useless through simple cooperation, an analog approach, or foreign hackers. If that sounds fine, try a different thought experiment: imagine a country with police officers on every street corner who can peer into your home if a judge the police union helped elect gives them permission. Incorporate factors such as anonymous or well-meaning but incorrect crime tips. What are the substantive differences between such a scenario and current reality? 

© Matthew Rafat (2018)