Junot Said
Monday’s Theme Music
I heard “Abacab” by Genesis on the radio yesterday. It’s unusual to hear it on the radio.
The song is sort of hypnotic in its sounds and words, but not very deep. Because it’s hypnotic and I’m simple prey for these things, it hung around in my head’s stream for the rest of the day and was still there this morning. But thinking about “Abacab” and Genesis, I started thinking about Mike +The Mechanics, and their music. Mike is Mike Rutherford of Genesis, and their albums and performances were side projects to his Genesis existence.
Mike +the Mechanics’ music isn’t very deep, either, but fit well on the radio stations of the time. “Silent Running,” with its chorus of “Can you hear me?”, was their first hit, so I thought I’d go with that.
The Matters & The Change
Stormy Daniels was on Sixty Minutes. I watched. Didn’t learn anything new. Her situation with Donald Trump isn’t changing anything.
Nor will Karen McDougal’s situation with Donald Trump change anything.
Nor will what the other sixteen women who claimed, with graphic details, how he sexually assaulted and molested them, change anything.
Trump supporters will not, or do not, care for the most part. A few outliers will quit supporting him for this behavior. Most of Trump’s supporters will not. They’ll say, as Rush Limbaugh has said, “Bill Clinton,” cherry-picking exactly what happened, and twisting memory into making history different. And, or, Trump supporters will say that his personal behavior doesn’t matter, that it’s his political agenda, and what he’d doing, draining the swamp, that matters.
All that infuriates Democrats, many Independents, and those on the left. They’re disgusted when this behavior is uncovered, no matter who the person is, from Bill Clinton to Al Franken, to Hollywood actors and producers. Anger and support withdrawal usually quickly follows.
It’s been pointed out multiple times that Trump hasn’t drained the swamp with the quality of people he’s selected for his cabinet and leadership positions. Trump claims the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were huge mistakes, but he hired one of the architects, John Bolton, to be his NSC advisor, and John Bolton is hiring more of the thinkers behind PNAC and the horrific continuing wars of the Middle East. That’s one more point that seems to prove that what Trump says doesn’t matter, just as he said he’d never be on vacation as POTUS, and never go golfing, because he’d be too busy.
The children’s protests, walk-outs, and March for Our Lives won’t matter either, to Trump supporters and the NRA. They’re doing their damn best to ensure that the narratives are twisted to fit into a surreal political reality.
In the larger context of our politics, it all matters to the world’s citizens. What Trump and his supporters say, how they say it, and what they do, reveal enormous logic gulfs, and shreds their claims to ethics and morals. They can’t see it, won’t acknowledge it, or, when they acknowledge it, rationalize that it doesn’t matter.
No, the best that can be said about these matters is that America’s youth are bending more sharply to the left and equality every day.
Left is such an easy label, but we’re forced to use it, because gun control and equality are defined as left issues. So, every mass murder in a school followed by nothing more than thoughts and prayers pushes America’s youth further left. Every action against equality for transgender people and the LGBT citizens of America that Trump announces, like his ban on who can serve in the military, pushes them further left.
Because here is the funny thing. Not many of the youngest American generations watch television. They don’t read the mainstream media. They find their own news. Those children who organized, who hear Trump’s words and see how his statements don’t align with his behavior, how he flat-out flips on issues and lies about what’s going on, are being pushed further to the left. Every time they go through these lock outs and lock downs in their schools, and hide in fear, they think, “I am tired of this. It’s not fair.” That’s what they said this weekend. And they move further to the left.
Which isn’t good news for Democrats and the Democratic Party. That party holds itself in the center. It’s opportunistic, short on principles and leadership, and doesn’t offer a great vision for America itself. No, this isn’t about whether Hillary should have won, would have won, or did win. Hillary, despite what so many on the right say, has nothing to do with it.
This is about, for example, stripping away the laws put in place after the last economic meltdown, which is what Democrats and Republicans in Congress just did. This is about, as Trump supporters have pointed out, business as usual in Washington D.C., and the merry-go-round of elected officials and lobbyists, and the influence of money in politics.
Trump wasn’t the answer to that.
Neither was Hillary.
No, this is about a new political will that’s growing and shaping itself. It’s growing among the young people. I’m not sure what shape it’ll take. I’m old, male, and white. They, the young, no matter what their color, race, gender and sexual identity, don’t think as I do. They create their own spin, decide their own truths, and pursue their own actions. Egged on by the high costs of living in America, dwindling opportunity, and failed government leadership, they’re moving away from the institutions and norms that were set up as the functioning center for the last one hundred years. Fewer of them are driving, so cars matter less. Manufacturing had already drifted away and they, the young, no longer see it as the savior it was after World War II. Money matters less because they have to do without it. Bankers have already betrayed them, and revealed their infinite greed, so the young have grown up not trusting them.
Water matters more because they see and experience what happens without it. The environment happens more because they see the impact of the plastic dumped into our waters. Equality matters more, because they know people who are transgender, and LGBT, and recognize them as equals and friends, regardless of the law.
And that is the change that matters, because they are bold and powerful, and growing in numbers. When they finally take control, it’ll be something to behold.
Choice of Direction
As I take up the next chapter, I’m faced with sudden choices. I thought the path was clearly defined when the chapter was begun, yet, when I wrote it, it took unexpected twists and ended up somewhere else. Once there, I saw two new options — and then a third, and a fourth. That forces the writing phase that I call “sitting at a computer with a cup of coffee and staring out a window thinking.”
I know I won’t be able to decide in this session. In a way, it’s like a chess match, where multiple future moves are considered. No, I’ll probably finish the coffee and get up without writing another word, and then I’ll go walk for a while and continue to think. I probably won’t decide while I’m walking, either. I’ll continue to think about the options and moves until I return to write like crazy tomorrow. Then, without making a conscious choice, I’ll begin writing, and let it take me.
That’s the process: realize, and think, letting it brew and simmer, and then write by letting the words take me. When I’m in these moments, I’m reminded of the scenes in Stranger than Fiction when Emma Thompson, as the author, Karen Eiffel, smokes cigarettes and wanders around, considering ways to kill her main character.
I so enjoy those scenes.
The Winding Road
As the current sub-plot and story line of my work in progress winds along like a leisurely country drive, I curb impatience to be done. If I had to describe myself, impatient is a word I’d consistently employ. I’m continuously monitoring and struggling with my impatient urges to be done, to move on, to get there, to get finished, etc.
Today, motoring through the scenes I planned to write, I realized that I wasn’t as close to being finished with the work in progress that I’d hoped and believed. I’m enjoying writing it. It’s weird to say that it’s a leisurely write, because I write several thousand words a day (knock on wood – don’t want to scare off the muses), and edit it every day. Yes, I’m a writer that edits as I go, because my writing is an organic garden in progress, and requires constant attention. I usually edit the volume in progress (number four), but sometimes jump back and edit the others. They’re all beta, and will require more work when they’re done before they’re finished.
I want this series done so I can go on to other books that I’ve begun or planned. One is from a story idea a fan sent me. “What can you do with this concept?” she asked. Answering her, I ended up writing about forty pages. I stumbled across it last night, and enjoyed what I read, and remembered what else was planned, and I feel like I owe her to finish it.
The second project that I want to continue is the third novel in my Life Lessons mystery series. Readers of the first two books have asked several times, “When is the third one coming out?” Soon, I promise, as soon as I finish this work in progress. I’d written five chapters of it before getting distracted by the current concept, and read some of that last night, and remembered, “Oh, yes, there’s so much to write here.” I had several more sequels planned in the series and had a broad outline of that developed. And, as I write this fourth volume of the current WIP, a fifth volume keeps tugging on my sleeve.
Not enough time, you know? Those are just a few of the dozen items in the writing bucket. But, c’est le vie, this is the writing life.
Now time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Sunday’s Theme Music
This song streamed into my head while I was shaving this morning. There’s no evidence for why this song emerged from my mind’s general morning chaos. The song came out when I was eight years old, but it’s a ubiquitous melody with an easy, harmonic hook. The Beach Boys were known for those harmonies.
The Men At The March
I was at the March for Our Lives event in Medford, Oregon, with about a thousand others yesterday, when I spied a Pittsburgh Steelers hat on a tall individual. It was a crowded space, but eventually, finding him beside me, I said, “Hey, a Steelers fan,” because so am I. Laughing, he pointed at my USAF Retired hat. “And you’re retired from the Air Force,” he said. “Like my Dad.”
His father had retired from the Air Force and moved back to Pittsburgh, PA. We chatted and uncovered that we’d lived in the same Pittsburgh neighborhoods decades ago. He was fifteen years younger than me, but we’d attended the same schools, including Turner Elementary School on Laketon Road in Wilkinsburg. Like me, he’d followed a convoluted path to reach Oregon. My last stop before Oregon was Half Moon Bay, California, and his last stop was Madison, Wisconsin. He’d only been in Oregon three years. As a military brat, he was familiar with the places where I’d been assigned, and I knew his locations.
Besides politics, we talked about the changes back in the Pittsburgh area, and the Google location there, which we’d both visited. Six degrees of separation, small world, et cetera. He was like a familiar face in the crowd, to finish the cliche trifecta.
Floofphasic Sleep
Floofphasic Sleep (catfinition) – a pattern of slumber habits directed or influenced by feline activity.
In use: “Floofphasic sleep became his norm as he rose at midnight to bring the cats into the house, three to let the scamperfloof out of the house, and again at four to let them back in.”
Michael Seidel, writer 