Back From the Amazon

There's been a lot of heated discussion lately, rising to a shrillness like that of Occupy, about the choice to buy from Amazon or to buy from independent bookstores.  I'll probably get burned at the stake for this post, but I thought I would offer up my take on the fight, as a writer, as a reader, and as someone who has lived in a graduating increase of immediate, surrounding population.  (What does that have to do with the price of eggs, you ask?  It will become apparent in a moment.)

So I'll start simply with the argument for the independent bookstore:

• I love bookstores;
• I love bookstores the way an alcoholic loves bars.  I could go home and drink, too, but it's more fun to drink with people;
• I love bookstores with a funky personality;
• I love bookstores that I can walk to, from work or from home;
• I love paper books.  I read more this year than I have in any other year (part of the perks of unemployment), and I still didn't read down the stack of books that I had accumulated from bookstores throughout the Bay Area over the years;
• I love having a stack of traditional books to read next to my bed;
• I love new and used bookstores.

Mark you, these are my reasons.  They aren't reasons for you to go, dear reader, but reasons you might go.

Now, my argument for buying from Amazon:

• I rent movies from Amazon.  Because I read so many books over the course of my free time, I don't spend enough time watching movies to warrant a Netflix subscription, and renting two movies a month from Amazon is cheaper than watching two movies a month on Netflix;
• I have a Kindle.  My primary reasons for loving the Kindle are listed here, but here's the short span--it's light and I can carry a whole freaking stack of books on it.  I can read the whole freaking stack on my phone, my laptop, or my Kindle.  And if I read the whole freaking stack on the Kindle the newsprint background (no, I do not own, nor will I ever own, a Kindle Fire) and the ability to increase the type size means my eyes get a break without my glasses.  If you have ever been a city commuter on mass transit, that lightweight aspect is a big thing;
• Some books are still cheaper on the Kindle (I don't know for how much longer, but they are);
• Sometimes Amazon is the only place to find a particular book, unless you want to wait a long turn-around time to order it from the local bookstore.  Case in point (and this book was on environmentalism).  I ended up getting that book from Green Apple here in the City, but that's because I held out and waited;
• I like the reviews on EVERYTHING in Amazon.  Not just selections that critics or bookstore employees deemed worthy to read, but anything I pick up and am torn about reading (although I have to admit, more and more I go to GoodReads for that);
• I haven't always lived in a great big, gloriously messy, cluttered and wonderful City.  The last known address before San Francisco was Sunnyvale, and the bookstores in the South and Central areas of the Peninsula aren't as numerous as they are here (rephrase:  NOT WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE).  Before that, I lived in Southwest Missouri, where there were library bookstores, a bookstore out by Chesterfield Village in Springfield, and the two chains, Borders and Barnes and Noble.  Before THAT, Branson, Missouri, which I think had a library...yep, it will get worse...lastly, before that, in Northwest Ohio, where one very small hole-in-the-wall bookstore existed five miles from me, one chain (Waldenbooks, Defiance Mall, Defiance Ohio) 30 minutes from me...or, if I was feeling really adventurous, bookstores an hour west or an hour east in either Fort Wayne, Indiana or Toledo, Ohio, respectively.  If I still lived in any of those places, with the exception of, well, here, for crying out loud, I would probably be ordering from Amazon.

*****

My mother loved books--her favorites fell under the category of children's literature, but when she passed my brother informed me that an adult favorite of hers was Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," which makes sense in the fact that my mother could love ANYTHING, no matter how depressing--and we had quite the collection growing up.  My grandmother on my father's side also loved books, and she lived with us in an addition that was built on the original house, so more than once during my childhood I would catch my father shaking his head as he looked around him and muttering, "God help us if a lighted match drops in here."  (He was a good one to talk--the guy was hooked on Reader's Digest magazine, In Fisherman, and Cabela's catalogs.)  The most books my mother had by one publisher could be spotted within four steps of walking in the door--she probably had every Reader's Digest Condensed Book ever published.  Condensed books were the scourge of literary society at that time, but I have enjoyed one or two in my day (one was a novel about the life of Annie Oakley, and watch it, the book is hard to find, so I had to give you a link to AMAZON...).  Every generation has its devils.

My belief is simple--there's room for all of it.  Mr. Russo wants to do away with Amazon.  Mr. Manjoo wants to do away with the independent bookstore.  Extremists.  

Here's the deal.

If I can possess and readily use writing instruments that are as varied and progressive as the fountain pen to the gel writer to the laptop to the iPhone, then I will want the same variety in my reading instruments.  I'm willing to read a damn scroll if I find it entertaining, and I have stood in line and went online for both fountain pens and paperbacks alike.  Why do we all have to fall in a neat, well-mannered row?  Why oh why do we all have to be the same?

Onward, dear reader, however you may roam.

That Song by Buffalo Springfield, or, The Myth of Sisyphus on the Floor of a BART Station

Blogger's Note:  I will not respond to comments to this post.  Rip me a new one on your own.

Ah, yes, Monday, and time for another set of protests from our friends at Anonymous or No Justice No BART.  I feel for commuters.  I feel for the general public.

I feel like more and more of my posts these days should open with an apology.  This one won't.  I have been reading all kinds of input on the BART protests since July, and last week I almost thought that I wouldn't have a desire to write this post--Anonymous came up with something closer to making sense than anything else they had previously tried by trying a "Spare the Fare Day" with the gates, but that wasn't exactly what I was thinking of.  (And it didn't exactly work out for them, either.)

I should probably take a couple of steps back for a second.

First of all, I'm going to dwell on "Moneyball" again for about the length of a sentence or two.  Reading "Moneyball" taught me that the best player in baseball has accomplishment, proven experience of winning through small steps, and not just sex appeal and "heart."  The best baseball player has proven himself:  in high school, in college, in the minors.

So, Anonymous?  No Justice No BART?  Let's remove your "heart" and media sex appeal from the equation and consider this situation.

Ready?  Show me your accomplishment.

You need to hit BART with competition.  Period.  I don't know what that "competition" is, exactly; chartered buses over the span?  But make it easier, sexier, to NOT ride BART, with a viable alternative other than sitting on the bridge.  You need to hit BART in the moneybags.  Make it sexy to not...ride...BART.  I'm sure there are corporate enemies of BART who would love to fund their downfall.  To convince these enemies to back your better idea you do need a very important trait, though:  professionalism.

You can demonstrate, yes, but you can't demonstrate professionalism.  That's your biggest problem.  It's like a batter that can't get on base.  "Look!  I can hit!" you say, but you're only hitting pop-ups and fouls.  You need to get on base.

Tell me, how professional do you look with a bunch of masks you won't keep on ("Whaddo I wanna wear a mask for when I can be on TELEVISION???")?  How rational do you look yelling in the face of cops who can't change the policy or action of one of their fellow men in arms while they're standing in formation protecting the public?  How rational do you look shutting down traffic on Market Street and angering the public?  Who, in fact, are you saving?

It's too late to save those men who died.  And if BART really wanted to stop these cases of mistaking guns for tasers, they would have already felt enough public pressure to do just that.  But they won't if the only protesters and media bring the drama.  Things won't change until you have the public overwhelmingly on your side.  And right now the protesters and media have the wrong poster children. The public is dismayed, yes.  Outraged?  Nope.  The BART police haven't shot the wrong person yet.  Will they?  The odds are there.  It just doesn't look inevitable.

Bottom line:  if these protest groups want to change BART, they have to get the public behind them.  I don't care what right is being violated here--you can't accomplish anything without the public behind you.  (Hint:  Getting innocent bystanders/commuters hurt or killed in your protests won't do it.  Just sayin'.)  If you don't get the public behind you, BART looks like the sane one.  I'm not saying they ARE the sane one, they just LOOK like it.  That is all you need to continue your actions.

I can show you calm, rational, effective grass roots movement.  It was called Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.  It was called the Civil Rights movement of the 60's (on the minority side, not on the law enforcement side).  Did both of those movements hit all of their targets?  Nope.  But they made a DAMN FINE START.  I'm not sure what Anonymous's and No Justice No BART's objectives are.  I'm sure there are printed documents somewhere (knowing our luck written in crayon left-handed), but the point is, if your public doesn't know from your actions what your goal is, then you're just wasting your breath.

Sadly, some of those protesting don't even know the particulars.

You can protest smarter.

You protest smarter?  Hell, I'll join you.  I'll write your demands.  I'll meet with BART myself.

That's not the goal, though, is it?  The goal, ultimately, is to get on camera, isn't it?  And that's all the commitment you want.  If you wanted actual change, you would have a message your public could get behind once that camera is on you.

But what do I know?  I'm just counting stats in the cheap seats at the ballpark on this one.

P.S. - This song is the inspiration for the title of today's post.  My apologies to Albert C.