Serious Whimsy » Jolana Malkston

Who Took The Good Out Of Goodreads?

Aug 272013

I recently joined Goodreads at the urging of several of my writer friends. At the time, I was enthused about being a part of this social media site where readers and writers share their love of the written word. Sadly, my enthusiasm was short lived, because very soon afterward I discovered something wicked that way came and it took the good out of Goodreads for me.

One of my writer friends emailed me shortly after I joined to tell me that her book was savaged by an anonymous Goodreads member (whom I shall refer to as Miss Incompetent Reviewer), who posted an anonymous, ruinously inaccurate and abusive review. Well, no surprise there. Guerrilla reviewers don’t have the guts to own their anonymous lies. These nasties hide behind cutesy user names and attack with impunity and undisguised glee.

The nasty Miss Incompetent Reviewer gave my friend’s book one lone star. I’m not sure what book she actually read because Miss Incompetent Reviewer maligned the book she reviewed for supposedly containing lurid anti-women story arcs that never appeared in my friend’s book. Miss Incompetent Reviewer then had the gall to wrap up her disparaging, off the mark review by admitting she didn’t read the entire book—only what she termed “significant blocks of it to feel comfortable with rating and commenting.”

Seriously? Miss Incompetent Reviewer felt comfortable reviewing a book she barely read? That blows my mind. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting down on my knees to give thanks that Miss Incompetent Reviewer will never review books for The New York Times Sunday Book Review. If that is what she aspires to, she had better set her sights a lot lower. A whole lot lower. Below sea level lower. To the Earth’s core lower.

I have to wonder if Miss Incompetent Reviewer could actually be Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer. She may well get off on smearing reputations to cause others pain. I tried to imagine what she says to herself when she wakes every morning. Does she say, “What should I do to make someone’s life miserable today?” Maybe she says, “I want to hurt someone where she lives today.” Or she might say, “I will utterly destroy someone today, crush her like a bug, make her wish she was never born, and get my Troll cronies to pile on too.” I imagine she says all three while cackling and rubbing her wart-covered hands together over her cauldron.

As I write this, I’m still trying to fathom how Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer can be so cruel to another human being, a person she may never have met and doesn’t even know. What demon drives her to do this? Is it envy? What ever it may be, it’s senseless. I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it.

Oh, hold on. I just remembered something I once read. . .

I’m back. Something about Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer’s perverse behavior triggered my memory. I’m holding a book I read about seven or eight years ago. The book’s title is The Sociopath Next Door: The Ruthless Versus the Rest of Us by Martha Stout, Ph.D. (Broadway Books, New York, 2005). I just pulled it off my bookshelf, and I’m skimming through it to see if what I suspect might be true.

FYI: in this book, Dr. Stout reveals that one in twenty-five ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience and can do anything at all without feeling guilty. If you haven’t read this book, please do. It is an excellent crash course in sociopathic behavior—the behavior of those who are without conscience and feel no guilt or remorse for their anti-social actions, are unable to feel normal emotions such as love, joy, empathy or sympathy but have learned to fake them, and to whom truth and lies are interchangeable. Author Jonathan Kellerman described The Sociopath Next Door as: “A chillingly accurate portrayal of evil—the decent person’s guide to indecency.” Forewarned is forearmed.

Eureka! I found the mother lode. I discovered Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer on page 76 of The Sociopath Next Door. Her perverse behavior brands her a covetous sociopath. Dr. Stout describes the covetous sociopath in alarming detail:

“ . . . when lack of conscience and covetousness occur together in the same individual, a fascinating and frightening picture emerges. Since it is simply not possible to steal and have for oneself the most valuable ‘possessions’ of another person—beauty, intelligence, success, a strong character—the covetous sociopath settles for besmirching or damaging enviable qualities in others so that they will not have them, either, or at least not be able to enjoy them so much.

“ . . . The covetous sociopath thinks that life has cheated her somehow, has not given her nearly the same bounty as other people, and so she must even the existential score by robbing people, by secretly causing destruction in other lives. She believes she has been slighted by nature, circumstances, and destiny, and that diminishing other people is her only means of being powerful. Retribution, usually against people who have no idea that they have been targeted, is the most important activity in the covetous sociopath’s life, her highest priority.”

Just reading those passages made my flesh crawl. Dr. Stout’s description fits Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer like a proverbial glove.

I suspect there is good reason to believe that Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer is a covetous sociopath as described above by Dr. Stout. Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer gives every indication of being a wannabe writer who does not have the talent to create, so she settled instead for the capacity to destroy. Her modus operandi is to post anonymous inaccurate and abusive reviews of books for the twisted satisfaction of destroying the reputations and careers of published authors, simply because a career as a published author is denied Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer by lack of talent and imagination. If Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer cannot succeed as a writer, then no other writer may be allow to succeed either. This would be sad if it were not so terribly sick.

Until Goodreads puts an end to anonymous reviews, Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer and her Troll Cronies will continue to take more and more of the good out of Goodreads. Eventually, all the legitimate members will depart in disgust leaving only Miss Sadistic Incompetent Reviewer and the Trolls—and then there will be nothing good about Goodreads, and the domain name will have to change to NoGoodreads.com.

Up All Night

Serious Whimsy 5 Responses »

Aug 202013

I am in my home office at work in the wee small hours of the morning. I suppose I could claim inspiration struck, and I wanted to preserve my brilliance on my MacBook Pro before my memory faded. I suppose I could make that claim to save face because nearly everyone I know is aware that I get my best ideas late at night. I suppose I could get away with it, except for the fact that my extremities are shaking like Aspen leaves in a Rocky Mountain breeze.

If you guessed that Macho Guy is away and I’m home alone tonight with little bitty Schnoodle Dog, go to the head of the class. Something about Macho Guy’s absence overnight sends my already overactive imagination into overdrive.

Schnoodle Dog is fourteen now. He lost his hearing a few months back, and there went my early warning system—that extra time to call 9-1-1 before a break in could occur. Yes, we have a home security system, but if the intruder-alert siren ever went off when Macho Guy was gone, I’d go into cardiac arrest and Schnoodle Dog is unfamiliar with CPR.

I have yet to learn why this house is so blessed quiet when Macho Guy is at home, but the moment he hits the road on an overnight trip the scary symphony of creaks and squeaks, thumps and bumps rises to a crescendo.

Um, I heard something. Be right back—I hope.

False alarm. It was just the wind behaving badly. The wind always picks up as soon as Macho Guy pulls out of the driveway and it lasts throughout the night. The wind is currently thrusting the tips of a Maple tree’s limbs back and forth against the eaves and siding, eliciting loud and ominous scraping that sounds as if an ax murderer is trying to carve a new doorway into the house.

I’ve been in this type of hair-raising situation before. A number of years back, when my boys were little, Macho Guy left on one of his regular overnight business trips. I couldn’t sleep that night, of course. I tried to concentrate on writing to keep my mind off the probability that at any moment a gang of hardened criminals would escape from the nearby county jail and head straight to my doorstep because they knew I was home alone with two small children and a very lovable Labrador retriever.

The lovable Labrador—who usually didn’t do anything but eat, sleep and foul our neighbor’s lawn—suddenly leapt to his feet and began growling and barking with uncharacteristic ferocity. After scraping myself off the ceiling, I flipped on the intercom’s monitor and heard definite signs of activity in the carport. Macho Guy wasn’t due back for another day, and the lovable Labrador always recognized the sound of his car and never barked when he came home. Something was amiss. The logical course of action to take was panic, which I did.

I had difficulty finding one finger still in working order to use to punch in the sheriff department’s emergency phone number. I was experiencing the condition commonly known as “paralyzed with fear.” My mouth was dry and my voice shaky when I informed the dispatcher of my predicament. Then I hung up, grasped a fireplace poker with shaking, sweating hands, and checked on the boys. The lovable Labrador’s growl grew deeper and his bark louder. To this day, I marvel at how the boys managed to sleep through the entire ruckus.

A few century-long minutes later, a patrol car roared into our driveway. I resumed breathing and listened for the inevitable sounds of a shootout. The phone rang instead. It was the sheriff’s department dispatcher.

“The Deputy would like you to step outside so he can talk to you.”

“Why does he want me to go out there? Why can’t he come inside?”

“He says he’s afraid of your dog.”

He’s afraid? What did he think I was?

I set the poker aside and went outside to meet Deputy Stoutheart. He was standing beside his patrol car grinning sheepishly. He explained that he’d been bitten by a lot of dogs whose owners assured him were harmless, and he didn’t want it to happen again.

“Your dog sounds pretty mean, ma’am. I don’t think you have to worry about anyone breaking in. I wouldn’t go in there with that dog of yours, and I’ve got a gun.”

Deputy Stoutheart told me that as he drove up, he saw a large tomcat jumping from car roof to car roof in the carport, and the cat was doubtless the culprit who made the noises the lovable Labrador and I heard. A stray cat scratched the lovable Lab on the nose once, so a cat’s presence on his turf would certainly account for the Lab’s state of agitation. I went back inside the house feeling somewhat relieved.

Tonight I don’t have the lovable Labrador retriever with his deep growl and mean, ferocious bark to keep intruders at bay. Schnoodle Dog is a lap dog. Schnoodle Dog is a lover not a fighter, and as I mentioned earlier, he’s deaf. Schnoodle Dog can’t hear all the creaks and squeaks, the thumps and bumps, and the scratching, but I can. I definitely can. I absolutely and most certainly can.

Yikes! What the heck was that? It sounded like an alpine avalanche!

Whew! Just another false alarm. The refrigerator’s icemaker just kicked out another batch of cubes. That gadget is noisier than a cement mixer. It’s so loud I can hear it from my office. No wonder it sort of startled me. Well, alarmed me, maybe. Okay, it scared me spitless.

It is so, so late. I should call it quits for the night. I’m too exhausted to get any more writing done. I almost nodded off while attempting to proofread the previous paragraph. If I don’t get to bed soon, I know I’ll fall asleep face down onto this keyboard and wake with a qwerty-embossed face.

I hope I don’t have nightmares. That just wouldn’t be fair.

Jamie Lee Curtis For President!

Serious Whimsy 3 Responses »

Aug 132013

Now that I have your attention, I’ll tell you why I’m nominating Jamie Lee.

Several years ago, Jamie Lee Curtis decided to age gracefully and to free American women from the futility of aspiring to the unrealistic airbrushed depiction of female beauty trumpeted by Hollywood and Madison Avenue. In a More magazine article, she revealed what she had to go through—cosmetic surgery, for one thing—to be and to remain “glamorous.” To drive her message home, she insisted that she would only pose for photos as “Glam Jamie Lee” in the pages of More if the magazine also published a photo of the real Jamie Lee without makeup and in plain underwear only—no push up bra, no Spanx and no airbrushing away the imperfections. The publishers of More agreed to her terms, and Jamie Lee Curtis did what no film star before her dared to do. She let the world see the unvarnished Jamie Lee Curtis. The middle-aged Jamie Lee Curtis. The real Jamie Lee Curtis.

Wow. That photo spread could have ended her career in Hollywood and she knew it. Tell me that didn’t take guts. Believe it or not, she didn’t stop there. Next, Jamie Lee stopped dying her hair and allowed it to gray naturally. Deciding to age gracefully was a gamble for a movie star but it paid off. Jamie Lee single-handedly rallied a generation of middle-aged American women to thumb their noses at Madison Avenue’s advertising scare tactics. More was inundated with letters from women who stopped dying their hair and thanked Jamie Lee for telling it like it is and for giving them the courage to be themselves.

Because of her daring, she became every middle-aged woman’s champion. Because of her honesty, she became every middle-aged woman’s inspiration. Because of her caring, she became every middle-aged woman’s best friend. And her popularity soared. Take that, Hollywood. Read it and weep, Madison Avenue.

I so wish that article had appeared before I found my first gray hair, because back before the Jamie Lee Curtis revolution, I was still under the impression that my youth and my life would be over once I turned gray. Dark brown hair (in which a single gray hair shines like a lighthouse beacon) runs in my family. Prematurely gray hair runs in my husband’s family. For him, finding that first gray hair at twenty was an amusing “What the hell is that doing there?” moment. For me, finding my first gray hair at thirty-two was a traumatic “No! No! Oh, God, no!” moment followed by copious weeping.

A couple of years ago, I mustered enough courage to join Jamie Lee’s revolution. I stopped dyeing my hair, and I actually like my natural look better. It’s the real me. Surprisingly enough, I receive more compliments on my hair now than I did when I dyed it. One of these days, I’ll get around to having another professional portrait done, and I’ll replace the website’s photo of the “Glam Jolana.” (You’re laughing. I can hear you. Stop it!)

I think Jamie Lee Curtis deserves a medal for sparing future generations of women from enduring the same trauma I did. She understands what it means to be a woman as only another woman can. I’m betting she would make women’s issues a priority of her administration if she were elected.

So, I repeat: Jamie Lee Curtis for President! 🙂

Tee Fore Two Too Many

Serious Whimsy 2 Responses »

Aug 062013

I think Robert Louis Stevenson had it all wrong. He wrote that Dr. Jekyll morphed into Mr. Hyde after drinking a chemical concoction. My suspicion is that the hideous transformation actually took place out on a golf course.

If you disagree, try playing a round of golf with your meekest friend and see what happens after that first double bogey. Male golfers cuss, throw fits and fling their clubs every which way. After a missed putt, some of the most genteel ladies I know make the Incredible Hulk look like a pussycat.

My husband loves the game of golf. He plays regularly and watches it endlessly on TV. He once had visions of the two of us traveling in our golden years to play the best golf courses in every state of the union, so he urged me to take up the game. He even tried to make a golfer out of me himself. The operative word is tried.

It was difficult for me to take his instructions seriously. How could I? He told me to keep my head down, keep my eye on the ball, keep my left arm straight, keep my knees bent, stick my butt out, and explode my hips as I swung a huge club at a tiny ball set up on a spindly little tee—and expected me to hit it. Maybe I shouldn’t have laughed, but damn!

Since I was a beginner, he decided we should play only nine holes on my first outing. I was more than fine with that. I approached the first green in a zigzag pattern and reached it in fifteen strokes. Um, more like thirty strokes if you want to be technical and count the whiffs. As a consequence, I received a stern lecture on the evils of slow play. I should strive to be behind the group in front of me, not in front of the group behind me. What?

In fairness to the impatient foursome behind us, my “instructor” signaled them to play through. After his third double bogey, he grumbled that my slow, erratic play had thrown his rhythm off and his score was suffering as a consequence. He suggested through clenched teeth that I play every other hole from that point on so I wouldn’t tire myself. He assured me that he wasn’t upset with me. Of course, he wasn’t upset. He was livid. Hell hath no fury like a golfer over par. By the time we reached the sixth tee, I was the caddy.

Perhaps he wanted to experience the agony of defeat again so he could truly appreciate the thrill of victory—if it ever came his way—because he decided to give me one more chance at the ninth and final tee. He came to regret it. I zigzagged to the green as before. My fairway technique, such as it was, hadn’t improved. If anything, it had deteriorated. So had my putting, and that seemed to undermine his putting proficiency as well.

I’m not certain he deserved the benefit of the doubt for what happened next. He said he was sorry. He said it was an accident. He said it slipped out of his hand, that he never meant to throw it, and that he certainly wasn’t aiming at me. Nevertheless, his putter missed my head by mere inches after his triple bogey on number nine.

And there’s the undeniable proof. My darling husband didn’t need a chemical concoction to change him from Dr, Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. All it took was a triple bogey. Q.E.D.

The Fish Out Of Water—Goes Fishing?

Serious Whimsy 4 Responses »

Jul 302013

Opposites do attract. It’s a fact. I know it to be true. My husband and I are living proof.

We met on a blind date while I was studying for my master’s degree and he was serving on an army base in the South. He was a small town boy from the Midwest. I was a big city girl from the East. My family lived in a duplex apartment with six different locks on the door. His family lived in a house with a front porch and a back yard, and they never locked their doors. His back yard was filled with grass and flowers and a strawberry patch. My backyard was a concrete slab. He saw countless brilliant stars in the clear night sky. I saw—actually, I never did see the night sky, but I did see lots of smog. He drank clear, crisp, fresh country well water. I drank chemically treated hard city water that one could almost chew, and somehow I survived without mutating into a Marvel Comics super hero.

Hmmm. I think there’s a romance novel in there somewhere, but I digress.

We were definitely polar opposites, and it was never more evident than on my first fishing trip with my in-laws—my very first fishing trip ever—on the river not far from the small town in which they lived. By coincidence, it also happened to be the largest river in North America—the Mississippi. The Mighty Mississippi. Mark Twain’s Mississippi. They took the city girl who had never been west of New Jersey out onto the legendary Mississippi for her first taste of the sporting life. As if that weren’t intimidating enough, the plan included teaching the fish out of water to catch fish. I did my best to convince myself I was up to the task. If I could catch a cab in Manhattan during rush hour, surely I could catch a fish.

I remembered seeing a demonstration of how to operate a fishing rod and how to cast a line in a film I saw with my dad. It came back to me as I watched my husband and father-in-law demonstrate casting for me. I actually knew what they were talking about, but their verbal instructions left out an important step I remembered—the reel release at twelve o’clock high. I didn’t say a word. My husband baited my hook and indicated it was my turn.

I said a silent prayer and cast my line, and the cast was—perfect! My father-in-law almost fell out of the boat. When I told my new hubby what a great teacher he was, he looked as if he had been smacked across the forehead with a two by four. My mother-in-law cheered. My young brother-in-law said, “Okay, but can she catch a fish?”

Yes, she could, and she did. The score was three fish for me to zero fish for my new hubby when I asked him to bait my hook for me again. Wounded male pride reared its ugly head. He glowered at me, and with a scowl on his face and a growl in his voice, he said, “If you want to be a fisherman, bait your own damn hook.” Whoa. Where did that come from? I found his attitude difficult to comprehend. I was making a terrific impression on his family. I thought he would be proud of me. Another glance at his stony expression assured me that was not the case and also made it clear he wasn’t about to bait my hook again. I suspected the honeymoon might finally be over.

The previous evening, the family spared me the late-night flashlight hunt for their favorite bait—night crawlers. Thanks to my hubby’s dented ego, I would no longer be spared the equally nauseating task of baiting my own hook. The word slimy does not begin to describe the sensation one experiences when hand encounters worm. I awarded myself points for not hurling. Reaching into that can of night crawlers and baiting my own hook with one of those bloody, squirming creatures was an act of matchless courage for a city girl. Undaunted, I did it again and again and caught more fish. My grumpy hubby only caught one teeny-tiny fish all day. Served the envious stinker right.

The day would have been perfect but for one minor detail. On second thought, it wasn’t a minor detail. It was a major detail. Actually, it was a critical detail. There were no powder rooms on the section of the river where we were fishing. The men didn’t need one. They just landed on a sand bar and ran behind the trees to answer the call of nature. My hubby tried to convince me to follow their example, but I was just too citified to do it. I was sure some creature lurked in the bushes and was just waiting for me to drop my drawers so it could take a bite out of my a—um—hind end.

Eventually, we found what is known in the vernacular as an outhouse. It was out, all right—out on the very end of an extremely long pier. When I opened the door to this so-called privy, I knew in an instant that this would prove to be an experience I could laugh about in my old age. I couldn’t laugh about it right then, of course, but I knew that one day I could entertain my grandchildren with this little horror story.

Naturally, there was no porcelain facility. The privy’s designers had eliminated all that complex equipment in favor of far less intricate and eminently practical plumbing. I’m certain it was installed to appeal to tourists because in had a spectacular view of the river below—through the large round hole cut into the bench seat within. The view actually moved me to tears.

I can laugh about it now. In fact, it gets funnier every year, but there’s one thing I’m serious about. On a day when I go fishing, I don’t drink anything at all from the moment I awake until the moment the boat returns to shore—and that’s no laughing matter.