After a one week break, seductivepeach.com is back. We hope all of our readers who celebrate Thanksgiving had a wonderful holiday. We certainly did. Among other things, we noted a distinct uptick in sales of Zendoscopy, always a welcome finding. It’s also been tremendously gratifying to see the steadily increasing number of visitors to the blog, which seems to have persisted despite our taking the Thanksgiving week off.

And while we’re on the subject of upticks, I’d also like to acknowledge the increasing reach of seductivepeach.com. We’re now read in 45 countries around the world. Of particular note is that we’re being read in places like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, countries that would not necessarily be expected to have readers checking into a blog with an openly secular orientation.

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In this season of crass commercialism, the ads keep rolling in. My computer is being deluged with unwanted ads from vendors, many of whom are sending multiple ads each day. And the television ads are out in full force, especially the automobile ads. Folks who say they disapprove of all this holiday shilling seem to forget their reservations and flock to the supposed bargains proffered from every direction. What’s really remarkable about this is the simple fact that the majority of deals aren’t all that great. Things get much better after the holidays, but people don’t want to wait and don’t give a hoot over the fact that so many people who have to work on Thanksgiving are truly angry and resentful over it. Particularly obnoxious and cynical is this year’s backing up of “Black Friday” into “Gray Thursday”. I’m sure RadioShack employees just loved going to work at 8 AM on Thanksgiving morning, getting four hours off in the afternoon “to be with their families”, and then having to report back to work at 5 PM. And all this for a company that’s been showing losses for ten straight quarters. Wonder how much business they did on Thanksgiving…

Got a spam e-mail from a local retailer announcing that their “Cyber Monday” was underway “today”. That was last Sunday. Then, on Monday, they announced “Cyber Monday” was being extended. Go figure.

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It came out last weekend that the current change in weather patterns has not altered deniers’ disbelief in human-accelerated climate change. Apparently, people are sticking to their desired, erroneous beliefs despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and without regard for what current trends portend for generations to come. If the 1960’s are sometimes thought of as the peak period of “me generation” behavior, one only needs to look at what’s going on now to realize that human selfishness and willful ignorance have progressed far beyond what anyone saw back in the days of turn on, tune in, and drop out. Besides, at least in the ’60s the behavior was understandable in the light of disillusionment over the Vietnam War and assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, and Malcolm X.

Much of my book, Zendoscopy, is set during the 1960’s, but it doesn’t address the “me” stuff or, in fact, the politics of the time. It’s about those of us who came of age awkwardly in a world of rapidly changing realities and were, in some ways, seeking an out from a figurative parallel universe. On a personal level, maybe one day I’ll write about the aroma of marijuana that permeated my college days, although it’d have to be from the outside since I was pretty much an observer rather than a participant. When it came to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I seemed back then to hit on only one of them: rock and roll. That, however, is another story for another time.

I’ve mentioned it previously in the blog and on my Facebook page, but here is a reminder to mark your calendar for the 25^th of January, when I’ll be doing a reading from Zendoscopy and signing copies at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena. If you’ve already bought the book, bring it to the store and I’ll sign it anyway. Should be a lot of fun.