Tod Goldberg

Where The Sea Used To Be

Yesterday, I went with my sister Linda and her husband Dustin to the Salton Sea to take a few pictures and look around some. It's a bizarre and inspiring place for me -- I've set a couple stories there in the past, including "Rise, John Wayne, and Rebuke Them" from Simplify and a new one called "The Salt" which will be appearing in an anthology soon -- and Linda has always wanted to go and see what there is to see for her own artistic purposes. We only visited a small portion of the Sea -- the small towns of Desert Shores, Salton Beach and Salton City along the south side of the sea running along 86S, but it still chewed up three hours.

Since it's not yet summer, the smell wasn't too awful, but there were a ton of dead fish to be found rotting along the banks, as well as enormous pelicans (or, at least I think they were pelicans) with these beautiful black-striped under wings. I was creeping along what I thought was sand, but which was actually a well-disguised salt bog in order to get a shot of the birds when, well, I learned that sand was a bog, let out a little yelp, and the birds went flying Jurassic Park-like into the wild, thought Dustin got a shot of them midflight. Dustin has already posted a bunch of really excellent photos in his flickr, which you can see here, and I'm sure Linda will upload hers soon, so I'll put up a link to that shortly as well. 

...And One Day, We Will Rule The Short Story World!

Today was a pretty good mail day in the Goldberg home. Personally, I'm rooting for Wendy.

Pay Us Like You Owe Us For All The Years That You Hoed Us

Literally, my entire family is affected by the writer's strike, but like Jay-Z once said, I ain't a businessman, I'm a business, man.

Things I Learned Going To And Coming Back From A Funeral

I've spent the last few days traveling for the funeral of my grandmother -- not a sad thing, I assure you, as she had a full 95 years on this planet, most of them spent doing precisely what she wanted and in the company of the people she loved the most, which sounds like a fine way to live a life -- and along the way I figured out a few things.

1. Dan Fouts is happy to chat. I know this because we had a conversation in the Salt Lake City Airport. I was standing in front of a sunglass hut while my sister Linda tried on glasses when I spotted someone who looked vaguely familiar. Had we gone to school together? No. Too old. Is he a writer? No, too physically fit. Is he in the NFL Hall of Fame? Yes. Yes, he is. He's Dan Fouts.

Me: Hey Dan.

Dan: (looking down and thinking about, I'm assuming, the way he used to dismantle the Raiders every season, or perhaps thanking god his life is better than JJ Jeffersons, or wondering why the fuck he never got to the Super Bowl during the height of Air Coryell, or perhaps just really tired from announcing the USC game a few hours earlier...he then looks up and sees me smiling at him and sort of, you know, waving like a fucking dork, nonetheless, he breaks into a wide smile) Hey, how you doing?

Linda: Who was that?

Me: Dan Fouts.

Linda: Who is that?

Me: One of the greatest QBs in NFL history.

Linda: And you're friends with him?

Me: No, just thought I'd say hi.

2. Delta's planes -- at least the ones I flew on -- have seats yanked from old Soviet era Aeroflots that double as torture devices. As a Jew, I'm thinking of making a complaint to the JDL about the anti-Semitism of the chairs.

3. People in Walla Walla, god bless 'em, are fat.

4. Apparently, outside of Southern California, it's fall. I had to scrape ice off of the Grand Prix I rented in Walla Walla.

5. Why do car rental agencies have cars you've never heard of? At the Pasco airport, I was offered an Avenger. I don't know who makes the Avenger, but I have a stated rule that I do not drive cars that could also be superheroes or Arena Football League teams. I imagine the same people who own Avengers also own Ford Contours and they drive around solving crimes and helping those who cannot help themselves.

6. What is about the products in the SkyMall catalog that make them look so appealing in flight but so unappealing when you get home? I don't think, in retrospect, that I actually need an AeroGarden, but yesterday over Utah, it sure seemed like one helluva an idea.

7. Just because you're at something called an International Film Festival -- like, say, the Sweet Onion International Film Festival in Walla Walla -- that doesn't mean you're in Cannes and thus you shouldn't look like you're trying to be in Cannes when you're really in cold ass Eastern Washington.

8. It's weird going to a city and seeing your own name on top of a building, which is the case in Walla Walla, where my middle name, Barer, is graced atop an old building in the middle of the city that once was owned by my peoples. I'll post a photo sometime soon. It made me feel very powerful...and that led to me feeling very, very evil.

9. Going back to places you haven't visited in over 20 years makes you think of weird things and triggers memories you'd long forgotten, which then makes you wonder how many other things you've left behind, unthought of, over the years.

10. I hope to live a long and happy life, but I wonder how difficult it must be to live 20 years longer than the person you loved the most. 

Not To Be Jewed

I've been thinking about my Papa Dave, my late grandfather, recently as my Nana, his wife, has taken a turn towards the sweet hereafter lately -- at 95, she's lived long enough that passing isn't such a sadness as it is a relief in my mind, since I hate to see how little of her remains, or how little has been left each time I've seen her or spoken to her, and, moreover, how difficult it must be to live 20+ years longer than the person you loved the most -- and remembered that my cousin Danny told me an interesting story the other day about my Papa Dave, a story he'd first read on his father's blog (and here I note, yes, every single person in our family has a blog...it makes keeping in touch much, much easier) and which I'll reprint below. Tonight I'll be interviewing my sisters at the Borders in Westwood and in a funny way this anecdote about my grandfather -- he's the Uncle Dave in this scenario -- reminds me of something he once told me while we were fishing and which I suspect he told all of us kids at one point or another, which invariably has led to a least a little bit of our combined success: You don't need to take any crap from anyone. From my cousin Alan's blog:

The customer is always right.

Just finished, I hope, a misunderstanding with a phone kiosk operator at the discount warehouse

Jean got tired of being jerked around and talked to a few management people and finally found one who put his foot on the neck of the offender and he made things right.

As we plugged in the final computer entries I had a flashback probably sixty or more years ago.

The main store front at our place was sixty feet from the front door to the rear. Behind was a driveway between the store and the warehoue.

In those days a popular product was steel wire rope cable used for loading hay.

I was standing in the driveway with my dad and Uncle Dave when a man approached.

Throwing a role of cable on the ground he asserted that the cable was no good and he wanted his money back.

Uncle Dave examined the cable and responded that there was an appearance of abuse while being used.

The man flew into a rage. "I knew you Jew Sons of ----". He didn't finish his statement.

Uncle Dave spun the man who was at least as tall as he was. Picked him up by his belt and collar and "bums rushed" him the sixty feet to the front door propelled him out where he lost his balance and fell. As the man gathered his wits, the roll of cable came flying out after him and the door slammed behind him.

The other onlookers present began debating as to whether the guy should have been beat up on the premises or whether there was a liability incurred by throwing him out on a public street.

I, of course, was taken aback this was totally out of character but it was explained to me that the merchandise was purchased prior to haying season and now that the season was over and the cable had been used and abused the guy wanted his money back.

The ethnic slur was not to be tolerated.

The End Of The Internet

My mother is on Facebook (scroll to the bottom...she's the Jan Curran who looks like me, in drag.)

This isn't as bad as when she sold her used socks on eBay, started blogging, or, back in the day, met "British spies" on AOL who later flew to America and took photos of her silver while she slept, but it's just as spiritually enervating.

On the upside, my mother hasn't started writing fan fiction, doesn't have a LiveJournal, isn't one of Neal F. Guye's friends on MySpace and, to the best of my understanding, hasn't remarried again, so there's that.

[Oh...and the contest continues....]

October Is The Busiest Month

If you've ever wanted to meet me in public but felt like you just weren't given enough opportunities -- not as though that's actually the case, since I'll sign books at a fucking Sonic --  then October is your month to make good on all of your dreams as I'll be doing events all month, including one Holy Shit, I Can't Believe I Get To Do This event. Here's how it breaks down:

October 6th, 12:30pm, Rancho Mirage Public Library. The Rancho Mirage Public Library is hosting a series of events beginning with this installment in conjunction with UC-Riverside's Palm Desert Graduate Center (where I teach in the MFA program) focusing on Desert Writing, which I guess makes me a natural choice. I'll be joined by a most excellent coterie of distinguished desert-like writers, including Susan Straight, Rob Roberge, Gayle Brandeis, Lisa Teasley and Thom Racina. Steven Biller, my editor at Palm Springs Life, and Tom Lutz, my boss at UCR, will be firing questions at us, we'll all be doing a little reading, and there is a high likelihood of wine and cheese.

October 14th, 4pm, Borders Books in Westwood. It takes a lot to get me out of the house on a Sunday during football season, but I'm setting the tivo up and leaving for an event in honor of the release of Corrina Wycoff's debut collection O Street, published by OV Books, the geniuses who believed Simplify should be manifested into this world. Corrina will be joined by yours truly, Rob Roberge (who apparently is stalking me) and Kate Millikin for an afternoon delight of spirited readings from four writers published at some point by the good people at Other Voices.

October 18th, 7pm, Hammer Museum, Westwood. I'm not reading here, but Amy Hempel is and if you have a chance to see Amy Hempel live and in person, you need to go and do that. And since I had your attention, I figured, you know, I should tell you to go since I know I'll be there to make good on my belief she's actually Emmylou Harris.

October 19th, 7pm, Duttons Books in Brentwood. The fall issue of the Santa Monica Review has just come out and I'll be reading from my new story in the issue, along with Monica Wali and Diane Gurman. I'm feeling like there will be wine and cheese here, too.

October 23rd, 7pm, Borders Westwood. I'll be in between my sisters Karen & Linda, asking probing questions about their new book, Journal Revolution. There will be no cheese and wine here, but there will absolutely be cake. Lots of cake.

October 25th, 7:30pm, Fine Arts Theatre, Beverly Hills. This is the Holy Shit, I Can't Believe I Get To Do This event: I'll be in conversation with Richard Russo as part of the wonderful program presented by the Writers Bloc and Town Hall Los Angeles. Tickets are $20 and be purchased here. I'm a huge fan of Russo's and count Empire Falls as one of my favorite novels of all time, so this is a huge thrill for me. Last year, the good humans at the Writers Bloc had me interview Richard Ford and since I didn't, you know, throw up on the stage from nerves, have apparently decided I'm worthy of continuing to interview my literary heroes. Now, if only Robertson Davies weren't dead...

Yes, We Are All Media Whores

My sisters Karen & Linda filed a video blog this week from the backseat of a car as part of their world-wide promotion for their new book Journal Revolution. It was a really good idea and I thought, Hey, you know, Lee & I should do something like that! But then I realized that there's no way Lee & I could fit our egos into the same frame of a video, much less the backseat of a car. So, alas, you'll have to suffice with the Karen & Linda show (and if you want to see the Karen & Linda show with a touch of Tod, come to the Borders in Westwood on October 23rd, where I'll be interviewing my sisters):