The James Gang

No one talked as Jesse moved—it was as if his acts were miracles of invention wonderous to behold.

― Ron Hansen

According to the US Census Bureau, "James" is the 80th most common surname in the country. 

But, despite the surname's prevalence, you have to think hard to name a notorious James.

Wild West outlaw Jesse James is always the first James who comes to mind; but the cast of characters with that surname is in fact broad, particularly when you consider famous folks from the UK with that name—where it's the 45th most common surname, according to Forebears—and Americans and Brits who've adopted James as a stage name.

The gallery includes:

The ubiquitous comic actor Kevin James (whose real name is Kevin Knipfing).

The British actor Lily James (whose real name is Lily Thomson). She stars in "The Dig."

The actor Clifton James. His casting in numerous films as as the archetypal Southern sheriff cemented his fame. 

The TV game-show host Dennis James (whose real name was Demie Sposa). The "Dean of Game Shows," James hosted TV's first such program in 1946.

The actress Susan James (whose real name is Susan Miller). She always calls herself Susan Saint James—appropriate given her support of the Special Olympics.

The singer-songwriter Rick James (whose real name was James Johnson). He's known for hits like "Super Freak." Crack addiction wrecked his life and career.

The R&B singer Etta James (whose real name was Jamesetta Hawkins). She is best know for her rendition of "At Last."

The rock musician Tommy James (whose real name is Thomas Jackson). His band Tommy James and the Shondells is best known for "I Think We're Alone Now." 

The slide guitarist Elmore James (whose real name was Elmore Brooks). He's named by George Harrison in the Beatles' song "For You Blue," as John Lennon mimics James' signature sound.

The big band leader Harry James. He's best known today for the classic "You Made Me Love You," used by Woody Allen as the theme song of "Hannah and Her Sisters." 

The jazz keyboardist and composer Bob James (not the be confused with the intrepid artist and blogger of the same name). He's best known for his "Theme from Taxi."

The novelist Henry James, author of The Turn of the Screw and The Wings of the Dove.

The philosopher William James (Henry's brother). His work inspired AA.

The British mystery writer P.D. James.

The British erotic novelist E.L. James (whose real name is Erika Mitchell). She's best known for the racy Fifty Shades of Grey.

The professional basketball player LeBron James.

The serial wife killer "Rattlesnake" James (whose real name was Raymond Lisenba). Rattlesnake James was the last man executed by hanging in the state of California. Quite an honor!

Experts

Two months ago this weekend, I slipped on the ice on my driveway and broke five bones in my left ankle.

Too late to help me, experts at the University of Amsterdam have just discovered why ice is slippery.

While physicists previously believed that ice is slippery due to a layer of water on the ice's surface, it turns out "vibrating molecules" on the surface act as a lubricant that counteracts friction, causing ass-over-teakettle spills like mine.

That settles that. Thank heaven for ice experts.

How do experts become experts, anyway?

According to "expert on experts" Roger Kneebone, no matter their specialties, experts progress through the same "guild system" around during the Middle Ages.

"As an apprentice you start by knowing nothing, so you spend years in someone’s workshop, doing what they tell you in the way they prescribe," he says. 

"As a journeyman you go out into the world to ply your trade as an independent craftsman. 

"In the final stage, as a master, you establish your workshop with apprentices of your own, and the wheel comes full circle."

If you want to be called an expert, Kneebone says, there's no escaping years of tedium, followed by years of self-reliance, followed by years of responsibility for others' work.

A six-week online course doesn't cut it.

Experts, moreover, never call themselves that, because they know full mastery of their chosen fields is impossible, Kneebone says.

Only chumps call themselves "experts."

A Useful Metaphor for Curing Writer's Block

 

Writing nonfiction is like sculpture, a matter of shaping
the research into the finished thing.

— Joan Didion

All weekend I've been obsessed about a seven-year-old who's suffering writer's block. Her challenge is no small matter: the block is so immovable, it's affecting her schoolwork.

Despite all the ready advice for overcoming writer's block, writers of every age struggle with beginnings.

I certainly did, until I encountered a metaphor for writing that helped me leave writer's block behind.

Writing is like sculpting in clay.

Professional sculptors use a metal frame called an "armature" that audiences never see. It serves to undergird the clay form. 

Your first draft is like that armature: although ugly and crude, it allows you quickly to start adding and subtracting bits of clay—words—to produce the final form.

With your armature built, creating a second, third, fourth and fifth draft becomes easy, because you're simply adding and removing words as you work to refine the form. Audiences never see that activity, either. 

All they see, for better or worse, is your published piece.

Just as no sculptor ever sweats the armature, no writer should never sweat the first draft. 

Who cares if it's weird and unsightly—no one will ever know.

The Dying Animal

 

Make no mistake, we're dealing with a dying animal.

A new survey from American Enterprise Institute reveals that one in four GOP members believes, "if elected leaders will not protect America, the people must do it themselves, even if it requires violent actions."

Who are these insurrectionists? 

You know who they are. 

They're white guys from the country with guns and trucks. 

They never read, never travel, and never watch anything on TV but Fox and A&E.

They dress like life's an audition for Born Losers; hold no or only menial jobs; and—when exogamous—are drawn to tattooed slatterns. 

They're often high all day on Four Roses or Percocet or both. 

High or sober, they despise lesbians and uppity women (who're the same thing). They despise gays. They despise Arabs, Asians, Blacks, Jews, Latinos, and Native Americans.

Most of all, they loathe the Whites whose parents demanded they apply themselves at school, grow up to be responsible adults, secure well-paying jobs, pay taxes, and save. 

They loathe Whites who have achieved those things, but don't acknowledge the last part: they believe only Jesus saves.

This Confederacy of Dunces has no future in our meritocracy. It belongs to a breed of ne'er-do-wells that's dying.

And as every game warden knows, a dying animal is a desperate one.

So how should you deal with a dying animal?

The best way, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, is to provide them "peaceful release."

Because gassing, poisoning, drowning, decompression, electrocution and shooting are all deemed inhumane, according to the association, animal euthanasia via an injection of sodium pentobarbital is recommended.

But we're not speaking of animals—not literally; and anyway, we need first to administer all those millions of Covid vaccines.

So I recommend that the government mail every insurrectionist a $2,500 check and a one-way ticket to Uzbekistan.

The insurrectionists will feel right at home there, where the natives don't take kindly to women, gays, most people of color, and white adults, either.

A Mulligan Mashup

Everyone's entitled to a mulligan.

— Sen. Mike Lee

Utah's Mike Lee told Fox News this week that Donald Trump should be forgiven for inciting violent insurrection. "Everyone's entitled to a mulligan," he said. 

Sen. Lee's reprieve isn't Trump's first. Evangelical leader Tony Perkins also gave the former president a "mulligan" for porking porn star Stormy Daniels.

A mulligan—meaning a "second chance"—comes from golf.

Called by Sports Illustrated "the most significant innovation in the lowering of golf scores this side of cheating," the mulligan is named after Buddy Mulligan, a legendary Depression-Era golfer from New Jersey who demanded a warmup shot whenever he teed off.

Anti-immigrant sentiment among Wasps—whose exclusive clubs were being "invaded" by Irish-American golfers at the time—assured mulligan stuck. They relished the name, because, in their minds, all Irishmen cheated. (The term for a second chance could just have well been a cohen.)

Off the green as well, mulligan has a storied past, beginning in the 19th century.

In that century, barkeeps would place a bottle of whiskey on the bar for customers to sample. They called the bottle of free booze a mulligan.

Inmates called a prison guard a mulligan.

And hobos called the meat-and-potatoes stew they made mulligan. 

The hobos' mulligan derived from the name the nation's newspaper reporters gave to the dinners whipped up by Coxey's Army, a ragtag militia of 10,000 unemployed men who stormed the US Capitol in 1894, demanding federal jobs.

In labeling the marchers' meals mulligan, those reporters were recalling, of course, "Irish stew," a cheap chowder made from leftovers; but they were also recalling "The Mulligan Guard," a pop hit of the day written by the comedy team Harrigan and Hart. 

"The Mulligan Guard" mocked the low-class Irishmen who gathered in mobs to parade the streets of New York whenever they felt the urge to look tough. 

The song was based in part on an actual militia group run by James Mulligan, a horseshoer and ward-heeler active in Tammany Hall throughout the Gilded Age, and parodied the antics of the same militias Martin Scorsese depicted a century later in Gangs of New York.

Harrigan and Hart, alas, bear no relation to 20th century songwriters Rodgers and Hart, even though the latter mentioned mulligan stew in the first line of their classic "The Lady is a Tramp."