The House has approved President Obama’s economic stimulus package on a straight party-line vote: Not one Republican voted for it. The LA Times ventured a guess why:

For their part, Republicans showed remarkable unanimity. On major economic issues, typically a few moderate Republicans stray from the party line. This time, they seemed to be concerned chiefly with re-establishing their bona fides as fiscal conservatives, deriding excessive government spending while returning to their pro-tax-cut credo.

This begs the question: Where were these fiscal conservatives the past eight years when we could have used them? The massive deficits of 2001-2008 didn’t arrive by FedEx this January 20th.

Over at the Washington Post, George F. Will parses the package for the GOP. I’ll sum it up: Defer to the President — who, as Will points out, “received nearly 53 percent of the popular vote — better than Ronald Reagan’s 50.7 percent in 1980” — but don’t support pork projects not tied to stimulus. That seems fair — except these guys have no credibility on the issue. (See above.) And voting as a uniform bloc against the package? That doesn’t reflect individual thoughtfulness. That’s a crude political calculation. We’ll know within two years, if not far sooner, if it was a smart one.

I guess if Julian Barnes calls Updike’s “Rabbit” quadrilogy “the great masterpiece of postwar American fiction,” then I should read it. (Or them.) Because I’ll follow Barnes anywhere. And I’m certainly enjoying his latest right now.

Lee likes Hulk fists. Keeps them where people that visit Lee can see them and use them if they are lucky. They are big and thick like Hulk’s fists, but rubbery soft — not like Hulk! Bang them and they talk like Hulk! “Hulk Smash!” or sometimes “GRRROARRRR!”

Lee goes home and what does he find on kitchen table? New Hulk game. It is great. Like old Operation game, but operate on Hulk instead! Hulk not need operation, but Hulk gets the joke. And old Hulk games made Hulk sad. Bad games, and bad drawings by Sal Buscema. Why they have Sal Buscema draw Hulk so much for so many years? Argh. Best part of new Hulk Operation game:  Have to remove toxic fart from Hulk! Look for yourself!

Except on box it looks like Hulk fart comes out on its own. Into Spider-Man’s face! Lee’s little boy loves this and Hulk loves this and Hulk is going to do it to Spider-Man next Secret War for sure.

John Updike has died.

While I’m not an admirer of his work per se — some suburban lives are better left unexamined — I do admire his powerful ability to convey the unsaid and deeply felt, especially in his earlier short stories.

Traffic is up — in LA, and to this blog. So I decided I’d check to see what search terms people are using to find this blog. In descending order of frequency, here’s what people searched for over the past three months, only to find me. (And you’ll find my comments at the very end.)

lee wochner 43
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laura linney 33
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http //leewochner.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/beanbeach.jpg 2
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it is already impossible to live on social security alone. if the government gives benefits to illegal aliens who have never contributed to the plan where does that leave those of us who have paid into social security all our working lives? 1
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which is better name larry or lawrence

Of course, I have a few thoughts about this:

1. Laura Linney has lots of fans. Who knew? I guess there is a market for brainy talented women. Good. But why are they winding up here? In the two-and-a-half years of writing this blog, I’ve mentioned her once. And unlike with Kate Winslet, I didn’t post a topless photo.
2. Paul Auster has lots of fans too. (“Augie Wren’s Christmas Story” is by Mr. Auster. Originally it was told, by Harvey Keitel, in the movie “Smoke.” Then it was published as a book.)
3. I’ve removed from these search listings the names of friends and loved ones. I’ll tell you why. I’ve written here before about “internet death”: finding out via the internet that someone you know has died. Well, someone searched “(insert name of Lee’s friend here) dies.” It was for a friend I hadn’t spoken with in a few months. My blood ran cold. I checked and he’s still alive.
4. Someone Googled “april.” And this blog came up. As well as 1 out of every 12 other websites in the universe.
5. Someone searched for “people.” This search makes me think that some people shouldn’t have Google or computers or electricity. Perhaps the only less-defined search one could perform than “people” would be “a” or “the.” Or, actually, “e.”
6. What’s with the straw? Someone wants to know “can you receive social security benefits after you take your strawman back.” Me? Not so much. Someone else searched “make you eat out of straw illegal.” If it isn’t, it should be.
7. What’s with the Larry? So many Larry searches. Larry larry larry. Including this one: “which is better name larry or lawrence.” The latter. Here’s why:

(Sorry, Larry.)

This video comes courtesy of San Diego band The New Forward. I hope you like it, but not too much — because they already broke up. I’m very late to this parade, especially given that I knew the lead singer; we have a mentor in common, David Scott Milton. To me, he was a very influential teacher of writing; to her, she’s Dad. Yes, I remember Abby (or “Ava,” as the band’s site calls her) when she was a little girl, and also several years ago when she was still in high school and my clueless mid-30’s playwright friend was hitting on her one night when David brought her to see one of my plays.

(David, by the way, is still very much with us, and is working on a new play. And let’s keep it that way, always.)

Anyway, here’s the video. I think you’ll agree that as a lead singer she’s quite animated.

Thanks to good friend Doug Hackney for making me aware of this.

I’ll tell you what I told Doug:  Superman has saved the world innumerable times. Wonder Woman has sometimes played a role in that. Spider-Man, by contrast, is incapable of paying the rent or keeping track of Aunt May.

Until this Saturday, I couldn’t figure out why I was constantly running out of change. I always keep coins in the armrest of my car so that I can pay parking meters. I know to do that, because the parking outside Moving Arts, where I lead my weekly playwriting workshop, is metered. It has been for about 12 years; for the four years before that, it was free. For 12 years I haven’t had to scrounge around for change, but now, for the second week in a row I was asking everybody else in the workshop if they had change for a couple of bucks.

That was when I realized:  I was ask for change for a couple of bucks. The City of Los Angeles had raised the price of parking. “They doubled the price of parking,” I said. But then someone corrected me:  “No, they quadrupled the price of parking.” It used to be 25¢ an hour — effective January 1st, it’s 25¢ for 15 minutes.

A quick search on the internet revealed that yes, the City has raised these meter rates all over the place, and yes, people are hopping mad. More changes are on the way. Until now, parking at a meter was free after 6 p.m.; soon it’ll be paid parking until 8 p.m. and, no doubt, upward. The Daily News says that the City is projecting $18 million in new revenue from these parking schemes.

I don’t think it’s the increase in the price to park that has me so agitated. After all, the price to use a parking lot is more like $8-$28. (That’s why they’re called lots.)  No, it’s the fact that these meters don’t take credit cards — something almost all new meters do. The cost of a parking ticket, by the way, is $45 — and they patrol diligently outside our theatre. Which leads me to wonder aloud if the reason that the City hasn’t put in parking meters that will accept credit cards is because they’d rather dispense parking tickets.

This post, where I said that I read one to two books a week, was greeted with much curiosity by people I’ve run into around town. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, the questions ran the gamut from A to B: “How do you do that?” and “Oh yeah? What were they?” The first is easy to answer: by doing that. The second is the reason behind this post.

I just finished The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Five years ago, my brother Ray, who hadn’t read a novel in perhaps 20 years, marveled over it and warned me that it would make me cry (as it did him). He was right. It made me cry twice. That’s tough to do. (I’m very much of the school “Get over it.”) It had another result as well: Now I hate the Taliban more than ever. That’s the power of fiction.

A side note on this book. In that same post, I noted the conversation with businessmen who read No books. Nothing. None at all. Yesterday I had a meeting with three guys in pharmaceuticals, two of them owners of the company. They’re obviously smart men. I said to them what I say to a number of people I write corporate copy for: “I still read great Russian novels, but nobody else does.” This is shorthand for: The text has to be brief. But this time, still under the spell of “The Kite Runner,” I added, “Right now, I’m reading a novel by an Afghani.” Guy #1 says, “What is it?” I tell him. He says, “I read that.” Guy #2 chimes in: “I read that too.” Then we talk about the book, three men in their 40’s or 50’s who’ve been deeply moved by the same novel. (What are the odds?) And my brother being the fourth. One of the guys volunteers, re the author’s latest, “His new one’s even better.” On the way out, the one partner started to talk art with me — visual art. It turns out that all the paintings in the office are by him. And they’re really good. What did he want to discuss? German Expressionism. It was tempting to hang out just to talk about that further. (I almost brought up “The Testament of Dr. Mabuse,” my obsession for which continues (as I discussed here and here and here.))

I also read How The World Works by my friend Doug Hackney. This also made me cry, but for a different reason: I wish I knew then what Doug knows now. Doug was in business intelligence business before people knew what business intelligence was. If this book is any indication, beauty may be skin deep, but smarts go all the way through.