A Legend Only In His Own Mind

In honor of the legendary Don Martin and his even more legendary hero, Karbunkle, Floyd M. Orr has released his earlier books in various e-book formats. Timeline of America is still available directly from iUniverse for $6.00 in the old format, but newer versions have been released at Amazon and Smashwords. The Last Horizon is available at Amazon and Smashwords. Ker-Splash is currently available only at Amazon in the original paperback and the new Kindle formats. Plastic Ozone Daydream is now available in a new e-book version at both Amazon and Smashwords.

The very complex formatting of Daydream and Timeline has been reworked into a smoother, more widely spaced format for both the Kindle and Smashwords versions. The author is currently working on the development of a new, completely updated version of Ker-Splash to be released early next year, immediately after all the 2010 boat models have been introduced at the boatshows nationwide.

Consider the photo a special tribute to Don Martin. This is the cover of his 1969 release, with Karbunkle doing his thing in the kitchen. Below is the link to the new press release announcing all the new developments. Thank you.

A Legend Only In His Own Mind

New E-book Versions

The special sale prices of the Kindle versions of my four books ended Friday, so the regular price of $4.80 each is back in effect. The Last Horizon: Feminine Sexuality & The Class System and Timeline of America: Sound Bytes from the Consumer Culture have just been released at Smashwords. This means that these two books are now available in any digital book format. Horizon is priced at $2.99 and Timeline at $3.99.

Timeline has been restored to its original, pre-release format with line spacing between every year in the timelines. These spaces had been deleted in the original paperback version for the sole purpose of holding the page count and the cover price of the paperback as low as possible. (Amazon just recently reduced the price of the Timeline paperback from $21.95 to $19.75.) The 300 pages of the paperback version are very tightly packed with a Size 11 font and a word count well over 100,000. If the new electronic version was in printed form, it would be at least 400 pages, and possibly closer to 500. See what I meant by Godzilla stuffed into a briefcase? When the Kindle price was returned to $4.80, the new, more spacious version was uploaded, so all future buyers of the Kindle version, even from Amazon, will receive the easier to read edition.

My two earlier books, Plastic Ozone Daydream and Ker-Splash, will become available in all electronic formats at Smashwords soon.

Special Kindle Prices

All four of my books are on sale at the very special price in the Kindle format of only $1.60 each until Mayday. The prices will return to the regular $4.80 each on 5/1/09. What a bargain!

Special Prices at Amazon!

The Kindle Releases

All four of my books have now been released in the new Kindle format. Priced at $4.80 each at Amazon, they are all now more of a bargain than ever before. Although The Last Horizon and Timeline of America have been available in the Kindle format for a while, the releases of Plastic Ozone Daydream and Ker-Splash! are new. Being non-fiction, semi-reference books, my works are somewhat more complicated to convert to the needs of the Kindle reader than are most fictional novels. I know that I still have a bit of work to do to clear out some of the unnecessary page spacing and sharpen up certain title subheadings and such, but this drive for perfection is one of the reasons I have embarked on my extensive research for The Kindle Report over on my PODBRAM blog.

The photo is of the 2008 Malibu Corvette ski boat, the only motorized vehicle on earth that truly splits the difference between The Corvette Chronicles and Recreational Power Boaters Guide, which are, of course, the subtitles of my two new Kindle releases. This particular recreational power boat is the result of a joint venture between Malibu Boats and Chevrolet, and it has functioned as the showroom traffic attraction for the Malibu brand for a number of years. Of course it is featured in Ker-Splash! as one very interesting ski boat.

The Kindle versions of any book will always have a number of qualities that lean heavily on convenience for their appeal at the expense of the quality of the packaging. Plastic Ozone Daydream contains thirty-something photos and graphics, as well as tons of specially formatted back matter that the Kindle version will never be able to match. On the other hand, you can play the audio track to listen to Daydream as a talking book if you own a Kindle 2. One of the better elements of the Kindle phenomenon is that books can be updated quite readily at any time. I know the 2000 date listed on Daydream appears ancient, but the book is about classic Corvettes, not new ones, and it does include all models up through the early years of the C5. Besides that, the book was officially released on December 30th. Like the legendary movie The Graduate that everybody thinks of as a product of 1968, even though Benjamin's Alfa Romeo Duetto Spyder was actually built in only one year, 1967. Like the movie released in NYC-only on December 21st, my first book is a 2000 model in copyright date only.

The main difference between the 2002 release date of Ker-Splash! and now is that a lot of the boat builders discussed in the book are now out of business. Of course that was my point in writing Ker-Splash! in the first place. It was a very special time in America that was about to become extinct, a time when recreational boating, even with brand new boats, was still somewhat affordable as a source of family recreation. I have been contemplating the release of an updated version of Ker-Splash! in the easily modifiable Kindle format only. The reason I have not done this already is that I really don't think it would be worth all the time such an update would require to research and develop. Although Ker-Splash! has been my best-selling book in many venues, I am hesitant to think that it would be as popular as a Kindle book. If I change my mind about any of this in the future, my readers of this blog will be the first to know.

Some of you may have already come across Kindle books that may have been released with current, as opposed to truthful, copyright dates listed. Of course I shall never do such a thing. The four books I have released in this format will remain with their true, original copyright dates unless or until I choose to significantly update one or more of them. If that happens, the newer date will reflect significant updating of the material, not just a cover or title change.

I can assure all my potential readers that if you want to read the most imaginative stories and articles about classic Corvettes available, then Daydream is your book. It is actually a decent deal in the print format due to the completeness of the photos and graphics, as well as the ability to quickly utilize the table of contents. There will never be a later, updated version. Although the electronic audio track in the Kindle version is technically present, the nuance and perfection of the printed version leaves it in the dust.

The most likely of the four books to ever receive an updated version is Timeline of America. Its nature clearly leaves the future open for a continuation of its timelines. As it is, Timeline is the bargain of the bunch in its Kindle version. The Kindle formatting may leave a little to be desired, but the material is all there and the price is less than a quarter as much. As with Ker-Splash!, the biggest drawback to an update would be the enormous amount of work required to complete the project. The reason Timeline was released in 2006 in the first place was that I could so clearly see the upcoming burst of the housing bubble and its subsequent financial crisis. The cover photo is a photographic allegory: we were at the top of the hill of the housing market at that time. There was nowhere to go but down.

The most likely of my books to receive a sequel is The Last Horizon. More than the other releases, it was conceived from the beginning as the introduction to a series. I have a lot more to say on the subject of Feminine Sexuality & The Class System, especially The Class System part. If the national economy in general, and the book business in particular, continues on its current pathway, I can easily envision the follow-up to Horizon as a Kindle-only book.

As a footnote to this post, I want to add that I still have a few printed copies of all four books available for reviewing. If you are seriously interested in reading one of my books for review, either on an official review blog or at Amazon, you can leave a comment on this post and I shall get back to you.

2010: Timeline for a Psychotic Nation

Like most of us, I assume, sometimes I wonder what it's really all about, and what our place is meant to be in this world. You could easily make the case that I have been religiously obsessed with the issue for most of my life. Although I feel as if I am genuinely in touch with my contemporary environment at all times, my compulsion has always been to try to extrapolate the future from the past. My hobbies, my career choices, and all my writings, which began in the mid-Sixties, have led up to this point. Once you have peered into the depth of humanity, you become Mr. Hyde and you become unable to return to the quiet naivete of Dr. J. The never-ending quest for knowledge becomes both the journey and the destination.

The title of this piece originates from a short list of the elements of modern American madness that I made up back in 2005. At least I think that was the year. It may have been '04. I had intended it to become the title of my next book, the sequel to Timeline of America. This sequel would have represented the Mr. Hyde of The Consumer Culture, the result of decades of pointless, relentless, wretched excess to the detriment of the sanity of all of us as a nation. Timeline of America slings the reader through the arrows of timeless bliss as we have consumed ourselves into oblivion. Timeline is a celebration of what American life used to be. 2010 is almost here and the journey is almost complete.

Allow me the indulgence for a moment to explain how my first three books are relevant as prequels to 2010. Wallowing in the heady subterfuge of classic Corvette mania, Plastic Ozone Daydream is a storyline full of Republicans as told by a Democrat. Once Corvette mania has crossed the line into a Wall Street influenced world in which the cost of the car has become more powerful than its engine, then what we have is a fantasy. Ker-Splash! took the fantasy to the water at a time when the same madness was rapidly overtaking the family boating market. The Last Horizon flashed back to the topics of my earliest writing, although the text was composed completely in this century. The Last Horizon is a detailed study of herd behavior, a unique, entertaining treatise on the way this behavior transcends psychology and sociology to become a monster much larger, and more insidious, than you might have imagined, although you have probably been living with this Darwinian beast all your life. The first two books are entertaining lessons describing exactly how money rules our culture through the development of our adult toys. Horizon explains our obsessions with the intricacies of social power based on sexual attractiveness.

Any expert who has proclaimed that Depression 2.0 was invisible up until the fog miraculously lifted late in 2008 is either lying or a madman. I have been watching its approach since 1970. Few crises of the past decades have surprised me as they leaped upon the national stage, and this one is no different. Anyone with half a brain who has simply been paying attention could have seen any of it coming at us like a runaway train. I have been referring to it as the bear in the closet for years. The bear simply refers to the way the American citizenry so belligerently insist on imitating sheep and lemmings. If a Martian examined our culture from deep space, he might conclude that our religion is that mob rule is never wrong.

2010 is going to be a state of mind that we have never experienced before. The most important detail of which I am most unsure at this moment is whether or not the USA will continue bashing into hard objects as we continue falling through all of 2010, or will we crash land by the end of 2009, leaving us all to wander our splattered universe in a state of shock through next year. As I stated earlier, my hobby has always been the extrapolation of the future through an examination of the past. I selected 2010 as the big year of reckoning based generally on how long it takes for a catastrophic psychosocial event to soak into and alter a cultural entity. The relentless sellout to Wall Street for short-term profits with excessively low interest rates was obviously the leading driver of the housing bubble. There is no doubt in my mind that Alan Greenspan is the most guilty person on earth as the causation of the bubble, although I am sure he will have a lot of company in hell when he arrives.

I don't have a strong opinion about the controversial government bailout plan, as I don't think we shall ever know exactly what would have been the right choice until it has become far too late to do anything about it. I have no patience with the madness of all the Republicans, media, and some Democrats, who are relentlessly bashing Obama, though. As I have so often said, America cannot win The Civil War. By that I mean that as long as we are squabbling among ourselves like two children over a favorite toy, we are unquestionably going down with the ship. Yes, I do strongly feel that Republicans, conservatives, right-wingers, and evangelicals are 98% of the problem in this regard. They are the ones who started the first civil war and their descendants are the ones fanning the flames now. A wise person once said that race would be the downfall of America. I want to amend that concept just a bit to say that although it was once most certainly true, I think the balance of the madness has ever so slowly shifted to money over the long continuum of our history as a nation. Two intelligent people could get into a slap-fight over whether or not this sea change has actually occurred, but a debate over the issue might never end. I think the issue lies mostly in exactly how you choose to look at it, but I want to ask you this question. Is Obama being attacked from all sides right now because he is the country's first black President, or because he wants to take the country back from Wall Street and give it to the citizens?

There's nothing else out there. This is another one of my sayings I have worn out since the late Nineties. America desperately needs to face the simple fact that all products and markets have a distinct lifespan, and so do most ideas and cultural concepts. All the fruits of our vaunted consumer culture are reaching ripe old age. This was the single negative concept I espoused in Timeline of America: Sound Bytes from the Consumer Culture. The reader can see the same pattern repeated over and over again in the timelines. We made all the big advances years ago. We changed the way we live with everything from cars to television sets, from computers to cell phones, from washing machines to microwave ovens. We have reached the point at which all we have left to say is "These go to eleven". Wile E. Coyote is just frantically spinning his legs before he realizes there is no cliff below his feet, only air. We can never buy our way back to reality through the consumer culture. Our past imperialisms must die a slow death and contractions must become our faces of the future. Home Depot will never again open a new superstore every forty-eight hours. We must relearn how to live like compassionate human beings again.

Population and demographics have held the top step of my soapbox since The Sixties. There is absolutely nothing on the horizon that is going to diminish the power of this cultural, economic, and environmental issue. The evangelicals may as well begin getting over their hemorrhoids concerning our culture's treatment of sex and procreation. No amount of Preparation H is going to cure what ails them if they don't. The seismic shift has already rattled our cultural foundation. Most of us believe in both God and science, and there isn't much ammunition left in the bandoliers of the crazier members of our society. I think the re-election of George Bush in 2004 was the turning point. Many of us looked back on that most unfortunate event and saw that America had, indeed, stepped off the sanity train without a helmet. Now that 2010 is almost upon us, we can reflect back on the good old days of our consumer culture. We can also look to the future and bring the Brave New World to our lost souls before Mother Nature does it for us. I hope we all know that we should never try to fool Mother Nature.

See Also: Timeline for a Psychotic Nation
DNA: Unscrambling the Message
America Cannot Win The Civil War
Go Back to Sleep America, Your Government is in Control
The New Americanism and the Return to Quality

Save the Wolf Pups

Sarah Palin is the cruelest enemy of Alaskan wildlife that the United States has ever known. I read Jack London's White Fang for the first time a couple of years ago, and the story was a bit hard to handle, even for a sixty-year-old like me. Believe me when I say the Disney movie version was cleaned up quite a bit from the cruelties recanted in the original book. The half-wolf of the book was orphaned with just enough age and experience to survive after finding adoptive humans, even careless, cruel ones. The innocent little baby pups sleeping in their dens that Sarah Palin and her redneck cronies want to mercilessly murder in the name of predator control will not have it so good. These babies will never venture out into the new spring sunshine to chase butterflies or tussle with their litter mates. Ruthless infanticide will follow the killing of their parents. Governor Palin has relentlessly stuffed the Alaskan Department of Game with big game hunters and profiteers while shoving aside those proffering a scientific view of proper conservation of Alaska's rarer species.

I have been one of America's biggest fans of werewolves for the past fifty years. I revel in the intelligent works of screenwriter John Sayles. His version of The Howling presents werewolves in a more complete, human style of psychodrama than anyone in movie or literary history. But even as a kid watching the previews of the little-known, 1956 movie The Werewolf, I knew it was all just a fantasy, a game of how to pump up the adrenaline. Sarah Palin is the real monster. She has no compassion whatsoever for the baby wolves or bear cubs she is so hell-bent on destroying for profit. Her plans for Alaskan wildlife are nothing less than monstrous, and she must be stopped. The only way to do that is to discredit her, to expose the beast she really is to the voting public at large in both Alaska and the U. S. in general.

There are many things we can do to stop this slaughter of babies by this monster in a skirt and expensive eyeglasses. We can support the Wolf Song of Alaska with our hearts and our donations of time and money. The Alaska Dispatch has covered this travesty in far more complete and accurate detail than I can from my warm environment down here in Texas. The Sarah Palin Truth Squad has done their part to publicize this wildlife conservation nightmare. Alaskan wilderness author Bill Sherwonit has done his part, too. His Living with Wilderness will take you places you may not have realized existed. Palin has placed a bloody $150 bounty on the forepaws of wolves and the hunting of wolves from aircraft has been consistently supported by this bloodthirsty governor.

The Mudflats posted an excellent article on the subject last week. The story was even sent to The Huffington Post, who so graciously placed it in an obscure position away from the site's home page. This fit of wolf pup and bear cub compassion was effected after 3 p.m. last Friday, at which time a tremendous horde of animal lovers read this important story. Ashley Judd needs to know about the great white hunter's chickenshit gassing of wolf dens and the cruel snaring of bear paws. Remember the baby seal hunts that the American public once thought was so delightful? Well, these cub and pup killings must be just as much fun to watch because the Alaskan supporters of this lovely sport are encouraging the participation of all their young offspring. They want ten-year-olds to get in on the fun, too! It worked out well for the Heaths and Palins; why not for the latest generation of Alaskan youth? Teach your kids well: unnecessary killing and slaughter is fun for the whole family!

The Wicked Witch of Wasilla and her bloodthirsty family must be stopped. Don't hold your breath for Arianna Huffington to do it. She wants this abomination of a politician on her news pages. The witch is nothing but a cash cow to The Huffington Post and the rest of the mainstream media. Haven't you noticed how little they present stories that will actually stop the bitch in her bloody, political tracks? Sure, they will milk any benign piece of caribou crap that the witch slings their way, as long as it never actually causes the voting public to wake up to the travesty. Sarah Palin is nothing more than Anna Nicole Smith without the big boobs or Lindsay Lohan without the talent. I pick on Arianna only because she is supposedly on the side of logic and compassion. We already know what CNN and the Fox Holier Than Thou Hens are up to, but it's high time we faced the power and greed of Arianna, too. Americans hate animal cruelty more than anything this side of child molesters and missing attractive white kids, especially that involving cute, cuddly mammals (whether they are, in actuality, cuddly or not). We must all work diligently to somehow keep this story in the news. Nothing else has the obvious potential to stop the raging witch more effectively and permanently. Is Jon Stewart the last real American patriot left on the boob tube? It sure looks that way.

Things You Can Do to Help the Wolf Pups & Other Alaskan Wildlife
Stop Alaska's Aerial Wolf Killing Program

Cat of the Day

Betta Splendens

That sounds like a name for a cat orgasm to me. Siamese Fighting Fish, eh? You don't look so tough to me. Come out here and put up your dukes! I'll show you who's the king of the castle!


(Photo courtesy Dianne K. Salerni)