Dave's Fiction Warehouse

The original cast of MAGA W hat happens when a rapacious, hateful and thoroughly corrupt gasbag gains complete control of a government?  Well, we’re finding out, aren’t we? But this is not specifically about Trump. It’s more about this book I just finished: “ A Fever in the Heartland .”  In it, Timothy Egan relates the sordid saga  of a Trump-like figure who managed to take over the state of Indiana in the early 1920s.  At the height of his power as Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, David C. Stephenson controlled much of the Midwest and believed he had a shot at the White House. If his depravity hadn’t escalated to an actual sex slaying, he might have. Even then it was touch and go. “Fever” is a great example of what Egan does so well: Take well-trod episodes of American history and structure them almost as novels, with villains and heroes and quite a bit of  dramatic tension.  In a lot of fiction, it’s the villain who keeps you turning the pages. You can’t...

Y ou can imagine my pride in discovering that my work is among the millions of pirated books and papers used by Meta to train their newest AI model (dubbed Llama 3).  Thus far I’ve found only three short stories out of the dozen or so I’ve written, but hey: It means I’m in good company! A lot of famous authors are justifiably pissed off. The Atlantic reported on this today. Basically, it describes how Meta employees briefly thought about licensing the material, but quickly decided it would be a lot faster and cheaper just to steal it. Especially since most of it had already been pirated and amassed online via Library Genesis, or LibGen.  Atlantic writer Alex Reisner set up an interactive database so authors can enter their names and see how much of their stuff Meta has scooped up free of charge. That’s how I ended up discovering my stories.    I’m of two minds on this. On one hand, I guess it doesn’t hurt to have my words comprise a synapse or two in the vast Meta h...

A ccording to this piece in the New York Times , more Americans are forgoing the doggy bag  –  apparently unconcerned that there are starving children in Africa who would be delighted to dine on their unfinished mac ’n cheese.   The story says the average American leaves about 53 pounds, or $329 worth, of food on their restaurant plates each year. That’s hard to credit: how many restaurants do these average Americans hit in a year? For me it’s maybe five or 10. No wonder they’re getting fatter . And that’s without cleaning their plates! But back to the takeout box. There appear to be a variety of reasons people don’t ask for them:  young dating couples don’t want to seem cheap, post-covid social stigma about sharing entrees,  the unwillingness to go clubbing with half a Cobb salad at your side.   All of which is another reminder that I have little in common with these crazy “average” Americans.  I rarely leave restaurant food on my plate. I’...

I used to live near the Canadian border. The northern boundary of the folks’ ranch was a stone’s throw from the 49th parallel. There was a switchback road you could drive up to see the border itself – a 20-foot swath in the timber that stretched out to the horizon (that’s my son and brother-in-law in the photo). Even back in the ’70s I remember thinking it was pretty incredible to have such a long, totally undefended border between two sovereign nations. Not even a fence, then. Sometimes, hiking or hunting, we’d stroll across the border just to say we had. Other days we’d drive through the border station at Roosville to pick apples or buy Labatt’s. Each way, the guards would make small talk and wave us through. Then 9/11 happened. Then, 15 years later, so did Trump. Then Covid. And now, an older, meaner and more disordered Trump, who no longer seems to be kidding when he raves about annexing our more civilized neighbor to the north. Plus the tariffs. Don’t get me started about the stup...

A mazon boycott update : Still pretty sure this is the path of wisdom, not to mention a fun way to flip Bezos the bird. Best of all, it’s proving easier than I thought. One star Yesterday our digital meat thermometer quit working. In simpler times, I would have jumped on Amazon and ordered another one. After all, that’s how I acquired the cheap piece of crap that just broke. It was only $11. What a bargain! Then I thought: Wait a minute. Maybe the low, low price has something to do with the low, low quality. It lasted a couple of years and now it’s more plastic for the landfill. Also, it was a pain in the ass that it quit working while my wife was cooking chicken. She had to check for doneness the old-fashioned way. The horror. Anyway, I looked up the best meat thermometers online, careful to ignore the sponsored ads, the cutesy soliloquies from paid influencers, and of course anything Amazon. I found three possibilities – all quite a bit more than $11. No matter; I was going for quali...

O nce again , I’m watching bald eagles with their young. The nest is 145 feet up a pine tree in California’s Big Bear Valley. It’s snowing. You can hear the wind, see the tree moving with the stronger gusts. Occasionally, an eagle will cry out; another might swoop into view with fresh killed food.  For those of us peering at our various screens, it looks bitterly cold. But eagles are creatures of air and altitude. Pretty sure they can handle most any weather. An eagle tending a winter nest is the picture of stoicism. You can almost envy them. They have no better place to be, no better thing to be doing. No concerns beyond this job at hand: keeping their young alive long enough for them to be eagles too. It’s fascinating to watch. More than you’d think. I don’t know how long the average viewing session is for these particular nest-cams, but based on my own experience, I’d say about as long as most TV episodes.  True, nothing much happens. But the same could be said of “Severan...

I s it wrong to find joy in the misfortune of others? Absolutely. Unless one of the others happens to be Leon Musk. Then it’s fine.  The precipitous slide in Tesla’s stock price , the recurring outages on X, the images of flaming and vandalized Cybertrucks: These are a few of my favorite things. Hey, sue me. Sometimes you just have to stop and smell the roses.  The only thing that keeps me from breaking into actual song is knowing that even when Leon loses $100 billion, he remains the richest man in the world. And he still has the ear of the most powerful stupid man in the world, which grants him full access to the treasury of the most wealthy nation in the world. So no matter the vagaries of the market and public opinion, Leon needn’t cut back expenses any time soon.  Also, Trump says he’s buying a Tesla as a show of support for this strange South African immigrant he’s put in charge. That should turn things around! But since it’s Trump, Leon should maybe get it in writ...

E very couple of years, I decide to join the wife in giving up something for Lent, which apparently started today. I’m not particularly religious, but I figure it doesn’t hurt to occasionally practice some self-discipline.  So, what to give up? The most obvious thing would be wine, just because I rarely go a day without a glass or two. But it says here that Lent lasts 40 days, so … no.  It’s a fine line.  You want to give up something that matters, but not something that life would be altogether meaningless without. So I think this year it will be Amazon. Makes sense because I’ve already gone six weeks without ordering anything from Amazon. That’s 42 days, right? Duration of Lent and then some!  Easy peasy. Just kidding. I’m boycotting Amazon for the next 40 days too, and I hope for a long time after that. I expect a few small benefits: a significant reduction in shoddy merchandise around the house; a lot fewer boxes piling up in the garage; the satisfaction that der...

O scar thoughts. Well, only one.  My wife first pointed this out but I tend to agree: celebrity breasts seemed much less enhanced this year. Smaller, more natural. We’ve grown used to seeing the splendid gowns draped over a couple of child-size bowling balls and there was less of that last night. What can it mean? Is it a trend? I was thinking it might be related to the rampant use of Ozempic/Wegovy among the Hollywood set. But Tess pointed out that in the past there have always been really thin women with impossibly large golden globes (my term, not hers). So I don’t know. We’ll be tracking this here at the Warehouse. Can’t comment on the various winners and losers, since (a) I saw only one of the nominated films (“Conclave”), and (b) Hulu decided late in the show that we had witnessed enough and abruptly shut down. I think it had something to do with that endless soliloquy by Adrien Brodie, which added an hour or so to the run time. Still, I hate Hulu and you should too.

K ind of feels like we should be boycotting everything these days. But it’s daunting when you look at the lengthening list of Stuff to Avoid: Anything controlled by Jeff Bezos : Amazon, the Washington Post, Blue Origin, Whole Foods, Audible, Zappos. Anything controlled by Mark Zuckerberg : Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads. Anything controlled by Leon Musk : Tesla, Starlink, X, SpaceX, PayPal, OpenAI, the United States of America. That’s just the beginning. All three men control dozens of other companies I’m too lazy to list. Then you have all these other conglomerates that happily sucked up to Trump on the whole DEI question: Target, Google, Wal-Mart and McDonald’s – to name but a few.  You see the problem: Fighting back is no longer as easy as shunning Hobby Lobby or Mike Lindell’s shitty pillows. This might involve some hardship. It’s our own fault, really. We’ve been taking low-cost convenience for granted; now the oligarchs have grown so fat they can take us for gra...