Month: January 2017

I’m A PLAID

Have you told you that I’m a PLAID? I may have. You may have deduced it.

PLAID:

Progressive

Libertarian

Activist

Independent

Democrat

I’m a Progressive, believing that we should be moving forward in the arenas of justice, freedom and equality, along with protecting our planet. I’m also a progressive that leans toward socialism (perhaps making me a PLAIDS) because I don’t believe that making money off everything and the free market is the answer to every problem.

You can also say I’m a Feminist, but I consider that as part of the broader arc of being a Progressive. Equal rights are equal rights, equal opportunity is equal opportunity, and equal freedom is equal freedom.

I’m dismayed that technology has become so consumer oriented. I accept it with a large dose of regret, but I understand money makes money and fuels ideas. Being principled is challenging and requires courage. I often find myself lacking the courage to live up to my beliefs, and keep kicking myself in the ass to be more cognizant of what’s going on, to live up to my principles, and not be a sheeple.

Besides being Progressive, I’m a Libertarian. Government overreach does exist. Knee-jerk reactions are often embedded into laws that become destructive in practice. Once in law, removing it from the books is problematic, and it comes back and bites us in the ass.

As an Activist. I actively voice my politics through letters, donations, demonstrations and activities. I pursue knowledge and truth. Sometimes, too many times, it seems, I don’t like what I find. Then, weary, I withdraw from my activism to recharge, re-balance and start afresh. Change is a constant; as part of that, I must change. To do that, I need to be able to identify my boundaries and horizons. Otherwise, I can’t go forward.

And I’m an Independent. The I could also be for Idealist. I believe we should have principled leaders with vision who do not live in a protective bubble of privilege but serve us and endure the same problems and situations as as. But wealth and power has its perks, and most people succumb to enjoying the perks to the point that they’re taken for granted and ultimately abused, leading to greater abuses.

I end up as a Democrat, with a sigh, because our two party system dominates the system, writing and enforcing laws, customs and loopholes to protect their power and accomodate them. I wanted a black POTUS but did not believe Barack Obama was the best person to achieve that change. I watched and listened during his primary campaign as he pivoted from being a progressive to becoming a solid centrist. I understood that was politics to win the greater vote but also speculated that it could be more. I wondered where he would govern when he won. He described himself as a Reagan Moderate in later interviews and his actions and positions agree with that description. He is less of a leader and visionary than I wanted and more of a political manager.

Likewise, I believe we’re as long overdue for a female POTUS as we were for a black POTUS, but Hillary Clinton was not the person for that role. Neither was Jill Stein. I prefer Elizabeth Warren to both. She speaks to me more than Jill or Hillary.

There I am, in a complex crucible that barely begins to capture my politics and thinking.

0

Today’s Theme Music

Look at that light. Smell that air: inhale; exhale.

Smells like the eighties doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so, too.

Does it ever happen to you, that you wake up refreshed from a delicious night of sleep and you feel so young, that you feel like a different person, that you feel like a younger person?

Yeah, me, neither.

But I awoke thinking about the 1980s. I had a good time in that era. So how ’bout a little Pat Benatar. Let’s go back with her to those days before the Internet captured us.

I choose this song because its beat and pop-culture music craft. Once again, I’d never seen this video before, as with many others I share here, and honestly, watching it, I cringe. But it’s a good song to sing to yourself, walking around or sitting around, gathering strength to do things. Sing to yourself, “We are strong.”

Here is ‘Love Is A Battlefield’ from 1983.

0

Friday the Thirteenth: The Sequel

You read it here first: it’s Friday the thirteenth.

There will be two this year, a trend that will continue until 2020.

You probably read it somewhere else first. It’s ‘always’ news.

I’m not superstitious. Friday the 13th doesn’t bother me. I believe a zillion people are affected to some degree. They were probably preparing to cope with the date. I only knew today was Friday the thirteenth because I read it somewhere.

I reacted when I read it. It’s Friday? Already? The thirteenth?  Is is still January and 2017? Man, this year is just flying past me.

I used to fly with some pilots who were terribly superstitious. Their nervousness over their superstitions shredded my patience. One of them always avoided flights on Friday the thirteenth if it could be done, and no joking about Friday the thirteenth or their superstitions could be tolerated. No, no, no, don’t joke about that. Then there was the order of processes for preparing for flight, lucky pens…maddening. None of it could be joked about, either.

Dealing with a nervous pilot isn’t fun.

You have some folks who are full-on, one hundred percent superstitious. I’m more like two percent. I have some idiosyncrasies, like not having my back to the door, but that came from the military drumming it into me through recurring anti-terrorism training.

“DON’T SIT WITH YOUR BACK TO THE DOOR. POSITION YOURSELF WHERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE ROOM. ALWAYS SCAN YOUR ENVIRONMENT. AVOID SITTING IN CORNERS. ALWAYS KNOW THE LOCATIONS OF YOUR PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EXITS. TRY TO HAVE A THIRD ONE AVAILABLE. DO NOT FOLLOW PATTERNS. DON’T TAKE THE SAME ROUTE TO WORK. DO NOT FOLLOW A RECURRING, PREDICTABLE TIME-TABLE. ALWAYS EAT ALL OF YOUR VEGETABLES. BE SURE TO CLEAN YOUR PLATE. ALWAYS WEAR CLEAN UNDERWEAR. IS IT COLD OUT? MAYBE YOU SHOULD WEAR A JACKET.”

Sorry, I transitioned from hearing the military voice to hearing Mom’s voice. They often sound alike in tone and nature.

I wasn’t aware of how much I’d embraced the whole back to the door thing. It was my wife that noticed. She always acquiesced to my seating preference and I never gave it deliberate thought. Then, years after returning to America and leaving the military, we went to a restaurant. She casually mentioned, “I know you can’t see the door from there. I’ll watch it for you.”

I was affronted, indignant, outraged, I tell you. She laughed at my response. “You always have to see the door.”

“I do?”

I’ve been working on it since then. Here at the coffee shop, I make a huge effort to sit with my back to the door. Writing about it right now awakens my awareness. I feel extremely uncomfortable and a little vulnerable.

Fortunately, I can see the door reflected in my laptop’s screen.

8

Today’s Theme Music

Ah, it’s Friday. Are you comfortably numb? Will a couple Davids help?

Here is Davids Bowie and Gilmore, addressing the question of our numbness in 2006, doing the Pink Floyd classic in concert.

0

Remember…?

Tulipmania struck the civilized world in the sixteen hundreds. Do you remember that?

Do you remember when sock hops were really big in America?

Remember, “Longer, lower, wider?” That was often a new American car’s greatest advertising claim. One of the cars that bucked against that trend was the American Motors Rambler. Surely you recall it. You must remember the Corvair, right?

Do you remember drive-in theaters, or movies that cost fifty cents to see? Do you know what it means to drop a dime and why we say that?

How ’bout Pacman and Ms. Pacman? Do those games set off any memory chimes?

Do you remember ‘big hair’ and Members Only jackets? What about eight-track cassette decks?

I know you must remember 45s and LPs. What of Child’s Place and Children’s Palace do you remember?

Did you have a Walkman?  Do you now, or did you ever, own a Beta Max, or a VHS player? Do you now, or did you ever, own a Polaroid Land Camera, an eight millimeter projector, or an Instamatic Camera?

Do you remember erector sets and Lincoln logs? Are you familiar with Silly Putty, Super Balls and pet rocks? Perhaps, instead, you knew Hula Hoops.

Do you remember the Teapot Dome scandal, or the Keating Five, and Enron?

Perhaps you’re familiar with ESSO.

Do you remember G.C. Murphy? Man, we loved going to the mall and shopping at that five and dime, where we could buy sub sandwiches for a dollar.

What about S.S. Kreske’s? Remember when they became K-Mart, and remember when Sears bought K-Mart?

Remember when Craftsman Tools was part of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and their mail order catalogs? Sears, Roebuck and Company became Sears, and Sears is selling Craftsman Tools to Black and Decker.

And remember the U.S.S.R., and the Berlin Wall?

I’m just curious about what you remember, and what will be remembered in this age of selfies, Walmart, iPhones, Costco, Sam’s Club, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Remember Netscape Navigator, or Mosaic?

Do you remember Yahoo? Because Yahoo will be Altaba once Verizon completes its purchase of Yahoo. Speaking of which, do you remember MCI?

I wonder, how long will we remember Altaba?

8

The Beer Group

The beer group met last night, and I attended. Naturally, conversations rotated around weather, movies, literature, science, Trump and murder.

The murder is the worse topic of the moment. A twelve-year-old boy, Zeke, stabbed his fifty-two-year-old Mother to death and injured his older sister. We were asking why this happened. Three of the beerites personally know the family. Zeke was a loner, without many friends. The family seemed well off, living in a 4,000 square foot home in a good location. They’d just moved in in 2015.

The father was away. He flew home to this situation yesterday afternoon, his wife in the morgue, killed by his son, his son in a juvenile lock-up, and his daughter in the hospital, injured by his son.

Returning to more comfortable topics, several members told of bad weather experiences, sliding off roads, breaking axles, encountering abandoned vehicles, having chains snap. Then it was to the movies, where nobody save me has seen anything recently except ‘Rogue One’. 

That was astonishing; ‘Fences’ was a play here last year and several went to see it. It was mildly surprising to learn they didn’t see the movie. I’d seen the movie and was eager to discuss and the rest. A few were talking about going to see ‘La La Land’ because of the Golden Globe Awards won. None had seen ‘Manchester by the Sea’, ‘Loving’, ‘Moonlight’, ‘Florence Foster Jenkins’. Two others had seen ‘Arrival’. Most surprising was that none had seen ‘Hidden Figures’. Several of them were engineers in the space program in 1962 and were working on the problems highlighted in the movie. I’d think they’d want to see how the era was portrayed, if nothing else.

But no; they waxed on about different problems and the creative solutions found for them, and the challenges of new math, or of coping with the complexities of shifting variables very quickly and things never experienced before.

TRump, of course, was villified. Not all were Hillary supporters, but none present can stand TRump. With head-shaking and angry voices, we talked about his press conference, the urine leaks, the Conway interview with Seth Meyers, the recall of the ambassadors, and his plan to turn his finances over to family members.

Ed, celebrating his eighty-fourth year, bought the beer and pizza. The rest of us donated twenty dollars to the cause of supporting STEM in school and after-school activities in local poor and under-privileged areas.

The establishment was still offering that porter that we all detest, and will continue offering it until the keg is gone. Fortunately, we endured with some local Ashland Amber and Ninkasi’s Total Domination IPA. It was a good evening in the warmth of friendship, and a pleasant way to whittle off a few hours of life.

3

Today’s Theme Music

I don’t think times were ever simpler in my lifetime. They were complicated and busy, and got more complicated and busy. But I nostalgically remember a time when I was younger and matters were simpler for me. They were most likely because I was young and not burdened with a life of personal history and adult choices. That doesn’t matter; I still enjoy remembering them.

That brings out the young Billy Joel for me. He seemed to come out of nowhere in 1973, and was definitely not the sort of music I usually listened to, which was dominated by Pink Floyd, the Who, Frank Zappa, the Stones, ZZ Top…you get it. But a zeitgeist of folk rock seemed to sweep pop-culture in that, my high school junior year, and Billy Joel became entrenched on the airwaves.

Here is ‘Piano Man’. 

0

Tough, Exhausting, Rewarding

It was a breakthrough day of writing like crazy. Don’t want to stop, but must. My Fitbit is buzzing, “Hey, move.” The coffee is long gone. Even the cup is gone. Lindsey came by thirty minutes ago, saw it was empty, and offered to take it for me.

Arriving at this writing moment today had required a lot of preparatory thinking about what was happening, and why. Then, I had to assume an alien’s thinking. He’d been mostly like a Human with some telepathic links with those of his own species and race. But now, his breakthrough had arrived. It challenged me to be him and experience his thinking and behavior as my own.

I guess this is character writing’s version of character acting.

It’s been tough, exhausting, rewarding, with a brutal beauty to the process and result. I want to write on but it’s been hours here, over three hours, I realize, looking at the time. I want to go on, but I remember something I once read about leaving more to write, because it’s easier to pick up that thread and continue.

So I’ll stop now. I’m going to try to take a walk but I feel taxed from writing like crazy, and as a side issue, I’m hungry, and I haven’t eaten yet, today. So, fini.

For now.

0

Today’s Theme Music

A string of dreams, like winter storms, have been affecting me. They’ve featured my late father-in-law and my Dad. I had an excellent relationship with the former, so-so with the latter. The dreams aren’t dark so much as they’re long, involved, thick and impenetrable. I need something to distract me, something a little lighter, for today’s music.

The radio delivered the answer in the car yesterday. I’ve seen late, great (words we’ll need to use more and more often for others, after 2016) B.B. King once in concert. I don’t recall if he sang this song then but I have a vivid memory of him singing him. I assume I must have seen him singing it during a television broadcast.

Here is B.B. King with ‘Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens’.

0

I Do Not Explain

I think every writer wrestles with the balance of how much to share. Editors and alpha writers can help with the insights but while the process is ongoing, you’re mostly on your own.

I do not explain the complicated Travail social structure. I do not share Travail Mavarish Seth Ted’s vision, nor the visions of Seth Zed and Seth Mee decas later. I don’t explain decas, stellavel, vyhlla, vyhllaminiums, vyllasethin, or vhyllasetha. I don’t tell what a masq is, nor how they came to be worn. I don’t explain the history of Concentrates. You need to learn these things from the context. Some of that is too ingrained in the characters’ ways to ever be explained. It would be like Humans explaining how and why we’ve come to brush our teeth and the history of the tooth brush.

I don’t explain the involved history between the Sabards, Travail, Monad, Humans and Profemie, and the deeper history of the Travail Exnila and Travail Englis, Humans, Profemie and Monad. I know that history. I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve written a great deal in the novel bible and other documents. I tell much more about the Wrinkle and its existence in the novel, and why Pram made the choice to be a Colossus, and I tell about his starship, the Pentagon. I guess I’m fond of writing about the starships.

I think about all this frequently in between beginning scenes. Should I tell more? If so, how do I tell it without becoming historian, reporting on these linkages? I think about ‘Lord of the Rings’, Asimov’s Foundation series, and Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’, Michener’s sprawling novels, television shows such as ‘The Expanse’, ‘The Colony’, ‘Dark Matters’ and ‘Stranger Things’, and older shows like ‘Star Trek’ and ‘Firefly’. Those are just the apex material of my thinking pyramid as I write this novel. Each character, era, society and culture maintains its histories. The connections weave through my head and form a substantial fabric, but how much should be shared with the reader?

I pause now to explain this because I write to learn what I think, and to confess and cleanse my writing soul. I confess because I hit the reader with these terms within the novel’s first two paragraphs. Grab on, hold on, if you can. I admit, I like writing like this. To steal one of James Tiptree, Jr’s short story titles to express my approach, it’s the only neat thing to do.

My confession is over. Half of my mocha remains. And look: the coffee shop has emptied. The staff’s voices echo across the space. The rain has stopped and sunshine is visible. It looks like it could be a pleasant walk today.

That’s for later. Time to return to writing like crazy, at least one more time.

 

3

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑