R E A L M E N

R  E  A  L    M  E  N

“Real men pick up after themselves”…I heard this as a tag-line on a Public Service Announcement on a cable channel the other evening and it made me think. The point of the spot was about litter and being man enough to pick it up, even if someone else had dropped it. I cannot stand when some slovenly pig uses the world as his personal trash can, dropping food wrappers, drink cups, bottles, cans or anything more properly disposed of in a trash receptacle. I have always made a practice of putting trash where it belonged, whether at a fast food restaurant or at a camp site, so at first I didn’t give much thought to the message.

Then, on reflection, a second interpretation occurred to me, a different take on the message than those involved in producing might have intended. Real men pick up after themselves, they do not walk away form their responsibilities; they do not create a mess and then shrug off the consequences, as if it were all someone else’s burden to clean up. Real men do not father children and then walk away as if they were merely another inconvenient article of trash to be tossed away. They do not leave one lover for another for the thrill of the chase, to prove their manhood or to demonstrate their charm. Real men understand the need for a father figure in their children’s lives, and for a partner to help with the day-to-day effort that goes into raising children. They also recognize their mate’s need for support, material, financial and emotional, as the years pass by

Real men do not take advantage of the weak or disadvantaged; they do not need to profit by another’s infirmity or inability to respond. A man is known by his acts, and those who act badly are not “real” men, by my definition, nor my father’s, nor by the definition of those whom I’ve known or read and respect. Starting with the earliest role models in the Bible and continuing through the panoply of history, including the examples in literature, “real” men have always been those who display courage, grace, humility, courtesy, humor, honesty, dependability, self-reliance, and steadfastness as their innate qualities.

While I cannot claim to display all these qualities 100% of the time, I have always believed these qualities are of inestimable value in determining my character and the character of others. Whether one considers Joseph ( of the many-colored coat) or Daniel in the Bible, the Count of Monte Cristo or Rhett Butler in fiction, John Wayne or Cary Grant in any of their movies, “real” men always were the ones to be counted on; though they may make mistakes, they came to the right conclusions, made the right decisions, did the right thing, even when it might cost them dearly. A “real” man’s motto could be “Might does not make right”, based on these examples and the many more to be found in all areas of our culture.

If it seems the world today does not value these qualities, based on what we hear in what passes for “music”, or see in the actions of anti-heroes in popular movies and TV programs, one only has to look at the popularity of movies such as “The Passion of the Christ”, or “What Women Want”, or even “Finding Nemo” to find proof that the opposite is in fact true. The values that demonstrate “real” manhood will never go out of date, or become passé, because these values reflect the yearning we all feel to be more than merely another cipher, just another face in the crowd; the longing for a better world and to be better people is what has driven society to improve itself from the earliest cave dwellings to the putative “shining cities” we all wish were a reality of today’s world. That the cities aren’t shining, but are dangerous havens for all manner of miscreants, can be blamed, in part, on those who are not “real” men, merely overgrown boys who haven’t found, or aren’t looking for, the courage, grace, humility, courtesy, humor, honesty, dependability, self-reliance, and steadfastness within themselves that would take them that one giant step into “real” manhood.

There are those types in small cities, towns and hamlets, too, but it is harder to be anonymous in those places; people are less willing to tolerate bad behavior and the continued residence of the malefactor when he lives nearby. It is easier to be a punk in a gang, or in the crowded city where everyone is desperately trying to maintain their own personal space in the face of constant intrusion by strangers. In the smaller towns, people are less desensitized and thus less likely to tolerate a welsher, a deviant, a boor, a wife-beater, a rapist, or the guy who thinks he shouldn’t have to support his kids. Some of these types may congregate at the local bar and congratulate each other on their success at avoiding responsibility, but the rest of the community is vividly aware of their actual status, not of “real” manhood, but that of “loser”, a condition not easily rectified. Since “misery loves company”, they will attract other losers, but they will not achieve the respect accorded “real” men. Some may even be clever enough to conceal the truth for some time, but in the same way “real” value will always shine through the grit and the grime, the lack of those qualities of a “real” man will eventually be revealed and leave them exposed as aging children of the male persuasion.

my rant about change

T H E    S I X T I E S

When those who did referred to the "turbulent" decade, even they only captured the half of it. The WW2 gang were all in their maturity, taking on the responsibilities of their respective arenas; America and Americans suddenly thrust into the spotlight, dictating policy around the world, creating a post-war reality vastly different than their fathers. Riots, marches, red-necks and crackers confronting a changing socio-economic revolution, a strange little bush war in some tiny country near the equator south of China, the Big Baaad Wolf from K-O-R-E-E-E-E-A, brrrr. All these, plus the coming of age of countless young men and women, collectively referred to as the “Baby Boom“, all of some talent, for good or ill (or worse), each intent on a passage across the span of their lives, in a consumptive rather than productive manner. The infusion of the Beatles, the Berkley scene of freeee speech and freeeee-er love led to the Swinging Sixties; the birth of the Consumer Society (?) set off a cultural clash striking to the core of Western culture, because, after all, we were kings of the world, weren't we? We, the America that had emerged from WWII as hero and undisputed (at least in our own mind) world leader, were by this time in the habit of telling every one else in the world what to do, to some extent or other, interfering liberally wherever we pleased, along an uneasy division with the "communist" menace, enforcing a nascent Pax Americana. The Military-Industrial menace didn't like the Post-War strutting of the Soviets, who had taken the world to the brink of the nuclear nightmare in the fall of 1962 by way of the Cuban Missile Crisis; in Southeast Asia that dirty little war was getting dirtier courtesy of the Nightly News, while at home racial unrest generated tremendous civil turmoil, which in turn led the crime and control system touted as Law and Order to take on a life of its own, as an archetype.

The rest of the world was still recuperating from the effect of two "world" wars, while US engineers and hustlers of every stripe scattered about a world they knew somewhat well, courtesy of their solicitous "Uncle" Sam, seeking bargains, treasures, opportunities, "targets of opportunity", in nooks and crannies across the world. Developing World Strategy focused on the "first" world, with its attendant "2nd" world of underlings and such, ignoring a vast part of the world's population as the Third World, those misfortunates whose lack of status doomed them to a twilight world of semi-consciousness and diminished expectations, prey to whoever wanted what they had. The profound conflicts that arose between someone from "back on the farm", and someone to whom a means was just a way to an end, generated the "GAP", a widening such as between mountains, with far-off clouds and all.

The Rock Era, The Draft Era, the VietNam Era, the deaths by murder of one after another leader, troubles in Africa, Lebanon, Cuba came rat-a-tat, along with the onset of the Drug Culture (legal, not-so and "other") altering the perception of the problems, pro and con, as the Modern World emerged. The generation coming of age, the so-called "Youth" Culture, in reality the onslaught of "Boomer" Culture, tilted the world toward an urban rather than agronomic society, exchanging the ethos of one for the other as dominant in American society. In the arena of International Dominance, American interests were enforcing the early versions of Pax Americana with sometimes more, and too often less, cordial relations depending on who was Americanus and who wasn't. Some may dispute the results but it was gooood to be the KING. It wasn't very good to NOT be the King in many parts of the world. Some would hold, it was damn near miserable to be NOT. As in any society, a system of fairness has to be maintained, else there be a "palace" revolution, and we'll have ourselves a NEW king, thank you very much. It should have come as no surprise then, when "fairness" and bluster and cajoling/bribing/supporting, resulted in tremendous levels of enmity directed at the “Yankee“ who would not go home.

VietNam flared up as a gnat grown to a glowworm, mutated into a flying insect that couldn't be shooed away until suddenly it was a bumble bee, loose inside the gates of our society, predatory and menacing, increasingly malevolent until one day it was the Africanized swarm boring into our consciousness, the angry buzzing a constant background noise, further rifting the generations, and now, the classes. War and the threat of war kept the dogs at bay, the lesson of the great conflict well-learned in the main, but misinterpreted by the military-political alliance that was stumbling into the blastfurnace of VietNam. The casualties included two brothers slain, one a vibrant popular president with human flaws, who had just begun to consider getting us out of VietNam soon, the younger more intense, more intellectual, whose base mainly consisted of those who wanted out of VietNam NOW. The powers-that-be were threatened by the "Camelot" of the Kennedy presidency, were doubly impacted by Bobby's hippie, Anti-War following. The attendant death of Martin Luther King, a strong voice for moderation in the pursuit of Civil Rights goals, led to increased tension with Black Panther and Nation of Islam organizers; the Counter Culture excesses, and the headiness that came from the kids identifying as such, further alienated the opposite sides of society.

Space, from the thrill of a super cannon shot for Alan Shepherd, to the trials and triumphs of the Mercury astronauts, and ultimately the Gemini and the Apollo teams who pushed the envelope even farther into the stratosphere, gave the world a shining example of what was good about American ingenuity. Life was by turns good, tumultuous, trying, dangerous and challenging, as the Generation Gap widened into a chasm, the conflicts between the Old Guard and the Counter Culture took on near-militaristic tones, the Civil Rights movement splintered into militant Black Panthers and those trying to assimilate along the lines endorsed by Martin Luther King. Television came of age during the Kennedy assassination and matured during the course of the VietNam War, bringing the violence in the jungle into our living rooms in living (and dying) color. Coverage of the moon landing of Apollo 12 on July 20, 1969, provided the coda for the decade, a triumph of American can-do and know-how and a by-then long-dead, but long-missed, president who exhorted the country to discover what was best in the national character, as well as what was best for the national interest. The state of the union at the outset of that challenge bore only passing resemblance to the state of our union at the end. The world was forever changed, never to be the same again.

Bad Memories

There is NO excuse for anyone stealing a child's innocence, for abusing or harming a child in anyway. Either shortly before she left or immediately after, my son's mother got involved with a guy just released from prison. He hung out at the gym she went to, sang the tune she wanted to hear, then turned out to be "your worst nightmare", not to put too fine a point on it. The Conditions of Parole he was released under specifically stated he was "not to be around children", but he quite casually violated that restriction within a week after release, when he came with her to pick our sons up for the weekend. He went to meet his parole office and to formally sign those conditions on Monday.

I did not know anything about his history, at the time, I just knew I DID NOT LIKE HIM, IMMEDIATELY. Some people just strike you that way, and I put it down to the natural feelings of betrayal and intrusion I was experiencing. I found all this out two years later, after he added murder to his repertoire, when her sister came to tell me, because she was angry that my ex had admitted this to her, but also claimed she couldn‘t “help“ herself. He showed up, fresh from jail, the next day (actually his second tour since this all-too-real soap opera started), with the ex, but I couldn't do anything, because I had no proof AND no idea how bad a piece of garbage he really was--denying visitation in CA can be grounds for losing your children, particularly so for single fathers--so I let my sons go with them. In all honesty, I didn’t know at the time exactly what his crimes had been, except for two rapes and the murder, which the authorities could not pin on him, because there were “no witnesses”--it had happened in prison, where nobody “sees“ anything--or I would never have let them go, rules or not.

Monday I was on the phone to my attorney, hired an investigator and by Friday had proof, more damning than I had expected. The investigator had first called on Tuesday to ask me “You’re not thing about hiring this guy, are you?“ I told him I wasn’t and asked him why. He said, “Because this guy is dirty.“ I told him I needed to have something to take to the OSC Hearing on Friday and he said he would go back and get me what I needed. The next day, though, he called to tell me that the information he had been looking at the day before had disappeared! I felt as is the floor was opening up to swallow me, blackness at the edge of my vision. I pled with him to find out what happened to it, after quizzing him to be sure that what he had been looking at was indeed the same guy. Unknown to us, California law had just changed, to restrict access on parolees, after two weeks following their release from prison, to requests from the police and Superior Court judges. My guy had been using a computer in a Municipal Court judge’s office, and, as such, could not access the records! He told me he would do what he could and I begged him to do something, anything, to help me protect my children from this animal. Late the next evening, Thursday, he called and asked when I had to be in court. I told him I had to be at the lawyer’s office at 12:30 p.m., then we would go across to the courthouse for the Order to Show Cause Hearing. He said he had spoken with a member of the Parole Board and they “didn’t want this guy anywhere near children--any children”. He said he was going to drive to the board member’s office to pick up a copy of the “Conditions of Parole” for me and he would meet me at the lawyer’s office. For the first time in a week, I felt a glimmer of relief from the fear that had a death grip on my heart. When I pulled up at the lawyer’s office, the investigator, a big bear of a guy, stepped out of his pickup--I almost cried at the sight.

The sad part is the mother of my sons refused to admit there was any danger to them, insisting I was "only trying to get (her) back"! AS if! She told the judge I was overreacting, and trying to cause her grief. She denied knowing anything about the guy’s previous history, although she had called his parole officer and had told her sister all the details. It's been almost 15 years and I am still angry about it. When I told the guy's parole officer about the violation, he mumbled some excuses about how many he had to supervise, how difficult it was and how he'd "have a talk" with the guy. During all this, the jerk tried to front me off, telling me, "If you were a man, you'd step out and we'd take care of this like a man"...I said, "What, Dave, if I whip your sorry a**, I don't have to worry about my kids? If you whip mine, it'll be OK for you to molest them?" He tried to give me THE LOOK, and said, "One of these days, you're gonna open your door and BAM! Lights out!" I looked at him and said, "You know what, Dave? I'm a VietNam Vet. Know what they say about VietNam Vets? They're ALL crazy. Don't ever come around my house or my kids without your Kevlar underwear on and your life insurance paid up, ‘cause they'll be hauling your sorry a** off in a body bag!" He jumped in his car and raced off; I kept serious protection close at hand for over 2 years.

I had to return to court four times with my ex, because she would not abide by the orders. At one point, she told a judge (we saw a different one each time) she was “no longer seeing” the guy; a month later, she married him in jail. I found out, by accident, when she was late showing up for her alternate weekend visitation. I called her apartment and guess who answered! Whe she did arrive, I asked, “Why is D*** at your apartment?” She said, “None of your business!” I had just a few minutes before learned she was planning on taking them out of state on a “camping trip” that I knew nothing about, so I was in no mood for that answer. By this time, I had sole physical and legal custody of the children, and was more secure about denying visitation. I told her she could explain it to the judge, that on Monday I’d be back in Court, seeking another restraining order. The sad fact is you cannot keep the bad guy from access to your children, you can only restrict a parents rights to visitation! I did not like the fact that my sons would not be able to see their mother, but I was fed up to here with the lies and half-truths I was getting from her.

When we had our day in court, she shoed up, dressed to the nines, doing her best to flirt with the judge without appearing to do so, and generally disregarding any potential danger to our sons. She told the judge the same old story about how this was another pathetic attempt on my part to get her back, as is I would have touched her with a 20 foot pole (double the usual standard!). He asked me what my objection to her seeing the children was based on, and I tried to explain the nearly four years of deception and dissembling she had displayed with not sign of remorse or recognition of the potential for lasting harm to our children this jerk represented. I was trying to cover a lot of ground, to a judge with the attention span of a gerbil, who had been leering at all the women who had been in his courtroom that afternoon, smirking and acting like a 65 year old teenager with rampant hormones. He cut me off several times, telling me these things were in the past, and that he didn’t see their relevance, but I kept coming back on point, referring to a bulging notebook full of souvenirs of the many visits I had had to the judicial system regarding my children’s safety. The third or fourth time he cut me off, I told him, “Your honor, if you will just refer to the Family Court Service (FCS) report, you will see…” He cut me off again, with “It is Family Court Services job to make recommendations, it is mine to make rulings!” My heart sank, I didn’t know what to do, except I knew I’d be seeing another judge, this time for the cold-blooded murder of the jerk who was the cause of all this, and why didn’t I just start with this pompous ass, I mean he wasn’t even a real judge, he was a Commissioner, a temporary judge, if you will, and what did he know?

I think some of this must have shown in my face, because he stared at me for several minutes. My ex was standing off to her side, smirking at me, thinking she’s pulled the wool over another stupid guy’s eyes, when the judge announced that he would be right back after he conferred with FCS! With that he strode out of the room and was gone for almost 20 minutes. When he returned, he stalked straight to the bench, looking at neither me nor my ex wife, sat down and then looked at both of us, then directly at her. He sai, “Young lady, what concerns me is that you don’t seem to be hearing what everyone is telling you.” My ears must be deceiving me! I listened intently as he continued, her jaw dropping, “This person you’ve got yourelf involved with is garbage! If you ever let him come around your children and you don’t pick them up and start running down the street, screaming at the top of your lungs for the nearest policeman, I will put you in jail for child endangerment! Do you understand me? He is not to be within 2 city blocks of you at any time, for any reason, ever.” He glared at her, and I was shouting “Yes”, inside, to myself, that finally someone was saying what I had wanted said all along. She slunk out of the courtroom after whispering, “Yes, your honor.”

Two years later she showed up to pick up the boys for a weekend visit and told me she was pregnant, and that she was moving away from the animal. It turned out she didn’t trust him as much as she said she did. After the child was born, she moved several times, trying to stay away from him. He was violated once because he went to a town where she was living without registering with the police there, a requirement for sex offenders. One night, she called and said she was moving away, please don’t ell any one, to get away from him. He called me several times, trying to get me to tell him where she was, once saying, “You know, Bruce, we have a lot in common.” I said, “D***, we have NOTHING in common, except you’re supposed to be a male human being, but I wouldn’t believe it without a doctor’s sayso.” He whined about how he wanted to see his son, and eventually quit calling. His mother kept it up, for almost two years, even once telling me she wanted to leave her house to my sons if I would just tell her where her grandson was. I said, no, thank you, no. He’s in jail no on the three-strikes law, for 25 to life, a sad burden for her son to carry, particularly since he is using the courts to force her to bring the child to visit him in prison.

This experience colored my life indelibly for nearly 10 years, and my children hardly saw their mother during that time. I felt as if I was in one of those nightmares where you’re trying to run away, but it’s like you’re running through knee-deep molasses, unable to do more than just stay out of reach. I looked at potential romantic partners suspiciously, in a hold-at-arms-length manner, which did nothing for my social calendar, I can tell you! Now, fifteen years later I’m still angry about it, less than I was at the time, sure, but it’s something that doesn’t go away easily, if at all.

O n t h e r o a d t o f i n d o u t . . .

O n  t h e  r o a d  t o  f I n d  o u t . . .

I love to travel! I’ve done quite a bit of it over the years, more than most, unless you’re a long-haul truck driver or a airline pilot, and those don’t count anyway, because usually they just go back and forth to the same places….although from time to time I think about the romance of driving back and forth across the country, steering a big rig over America’s Interstates, watching the rise and fall of the Rockies through the windshield, the ebb and flow of traffic through cities and out into the countryside. Then, in a moment of clarity and sanity, I think of the downsides: ‘roids, and bad coffee, and worse drivers, and even worse traffic jams, cold dashes of water all over my lovely fantasy. Perhaps, instead, I could hit the Lotto, for tens of millions, of course, and buy one of those grotesquely huge motor homes, tow a full-size four-door pickup behind it (you understand why I would need to hit the Lotto now, don’tcha?) and take off on a tour of personal favorites and long postponed visits to places I’ve always wanted to see. There are people who do this, of course, they’re called “full-timers”, modern vagabonds of the highways, usually older retired folks. I just want to do this before I’m ready for the rocking chair on the front porch.

We did something very like this, when I was a kid, of course, and I got tired of it, mostly because it interfered with my social life, and with the associated social skills that are essential to growing up. I did enjoy it, though, and for the first 12 years after I left home, I continued, in milder fashion, the family tradition, spending three years in the Army traveling across the country, to Europe, back across the country, to VietNam, back across the country, being discharged on the East Coast and, one last time, back across the country. Then it was a year in LA, followed by almost a year traveling around the West, ending up in Houston for three years, moving to Albuquerque, for college, for four years, interspersed with several trips around the Northwest with my folks, before relocating to Arizona for a couple years and then, finally, to my present location, where I have lived now for 28 years.

I’ve traveled from here, certainly, including two trips to Hawaii, and to Seattle and Vancouver, San Antonio, Washington, DC, New York, Orlando and San Francisco, numerous times. In 1987, we acquired a nice travel trailer and set out on a 5,800 mile odyssey that took us up through Salt Lake City, Jackson WY, Yellowstone, Missoula MT, north to Flathead Lake and Glacier NP, then down across Idaho to Portland, to attend a convention. When we left we zigged around to visit Crater Lake, the Coastal Redwoods at Crescent City, down to Yosemite Valley for three days, then toward home. Coming out of the mountains south of Yosemite, descending into the Big Valley, north of Fresno, the temperature was over 100 degrees. We’d been used to 85 degree days and I wasn’t ready to go back to the desert heat just yet, so we took a left turn and drove up to Sequoia/King’s Canyon NP, to stretch our vacation in the cool forests to the very end. The next year we took a similar tour, only 5,000 miles that took us through Idaho and Nevada. We’ve been to the Grand Canyon several times, just a few years ago traveling into it from Zion NP to the North Rim. After Christmas, 1998, at my parents we drove up through central Arizona, visiting the old mining town of Jerome, old Anasazi ruins at Montezuma’s Castle, Walnut Canyon and Wupatki, looking at dinosaur footprints near Tuba City, before entering the Grand Canyon from the east.

We, my sons and I, and various adventurous girlfriends, have driven repeatedly up and down Highway 395, to Lee Vining and Mono Lake, the eastern entrance, over Tioga Pass, to Yosemite. The drive up to the park’s eastern entrance is an eye-popping climb up into the high reaches of the Sierra, not for the easily distracted as the vista can be nearly a hundred miles out and thousands of feet down! We like to camp at the bottom, near lee Vining, so we can travel to Mono Lake, Bodie, Mammoth and Fire Creek, a natural hot spring system in a flowing river just south of Mamoth. In fact, whenever we travel up or down 395, we have to stop for a leisurely soak in Fire Creek.

One of my brothers live in central Washington, just a short distance off Highway 395, north of the Tri-Cities of Pasco, Kennewick and Richland. We’ve driven up there, a number of times, returning down 395 to home. Driving into Alturas is a “cut”, made to level the highway when it was constructed, where the dominant black lava, customary in that region, overlays a brilliant band of red lava. Dramatic and thought-provoking, it is sights like these that reward the traveler beyond the norm. Standing beside this phenomenon, the questions come fast and furious. Where did the red lava come from? Why is the black lava overlaid atop the red, as if icing on a cake? Why is there so much lava in this area? Just to the south is Mt Lassen, a dormant volcano with a violent history, and to the west are Mt Shasta and Crater Lake, the latter a picturesque example of the after effects of volcanic explosion. To the northwest is Mt Hood, and the other Volcanoes of the Cascade Range. In fact, Northern California, Oregon, Washington, Western Idaho and northwestern Nevada sit atop some 7,000 ft of lava, a mantle over a mile thick. A mysterious clue left behind of the time when all the volcanoes in the Cascades belched fire, smoke, ash and incredible quantities of molten rock.

There are many places left to travel to, places off the beaten track, places I’ve seen, but want to see again, places that call on the night wind, a siren song of the highway, luring me once again into my car, to set out for the horizon, no destination set. I cannot understand why anyone would not want to join me, after all, it’s the same urge that brought our forefathers to this this continent, then led them across the prairies, over massive, ice-covered mountains and burning deserts, to the western coasts. We read about it in our history books, why shouldn’t we go see where those pioneers traveled? I can’t think of a single reason why not….let’s go.

More Art for Any Wall

1  A Star Is Torn--The artist as viewed by those who would  share in the fame and fortune.

2.  Losing My Mind--The result of too many crises too early in the day.

3  Muscle of Love--The heart after a close encounter of the personal kind.

4.  Oh My!--Good clean fun breaking out all over the place.

5.  Starring--A star emerging from the chaos of creation.

6.  The Wave--Ebb and flow within the give and take of the everyday world.

7.  Wishin' and Hopin'--Flights of fancy take wing in the cosmic consciousness.

8.  You Can't Get There From Here--The eternal truth of things, be they freeway, love or dreams.

On Writing

The Writers Craft,

or

a fragile vessel tossed upon a sea of troubled ink

     I have written various pieces over my life, some humorous, some self-conscious attempts at “writing”, some merely scribbles of a few lines that popped into my mind at odd times. I am forever coming across some scrap of paper, envelope, napkin or even cardboard that I used to preserve a thought important at that moment. Some give me pause, I’m struck by the import of the stray thought so preserved. Some strike me as examples of how trite, corny and uninspired I can be without half trying. I keep all these scraps as reminders of my journey; signposts, if you will, on the road to self-discovery and actualization.

     At times, the words come tumbling out, all in the right order, the phrasing so tight and appropriate it seems to write itself. I stand in awe at times like those, more witness than participant, as the work unfolds and takes shape. On these, I do little editing or rewriting. Other pieces struggle to see the light of day, caught in the pull between mind and pen, words fighting to get out, pell-mell, like frightened spectators at a soccer game when a riot erupts. Sometimes the work gets set aside, never to be revisited, sometimes I keep returning, wanting to complete the thought that inspired me.

     I’ve never been a “touchy-feely” kind of writer, scribbling down the events of the day in a breezy style. I tend to reflect on things, trying to see both sides, working to understand the implications or motivations of those involved. The mysteries of life intrigue me and I am drawn toward trying to resolve at least the ones that involve or interest me. I claim no special license or authority to do so, merely the application of whatever talent I may possess and the lessons I’ve learned in life, strained through a twisted psyche that refuses to take “no” as answer. My interests span the universe, no pun intended, from the hard science of deep space exploration to the science fiction of space travel and all points in between.

     I am fascinated by history; the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, World Wars I and II, the old West, the Age of Antiquity all hold thrall over my imagination, having caused me countless hours lost in dusty tomes numerous over the years. I appreciate those writers who recreate the times so cannily, they transport the reader as if by time machine. Even those writers less adroit, when writing of personal experience, bring an immediacy to their subject that transcends syntax and grammar. When I was young, I devoured The Great Escape and Guadalcanal Diary, The Count of Monte Cristo and Gone With The Wind, fascinated by the intensity of the author’s evocation of the historical period and circumstances. I was forever influenced to aspire to such artistry by books such as there, wherein phrases flew like daggers, descriptions evoked people as real as any I saw day to day, and the world encompassed in them became as lifelike as is ever possible when the written word is the medium.

     Did my topic switch here, from “writing” to “reading”? Not at all, because the writer plies his craft for the reader, it is a symbiotic relationship, each one feeding the other. When I hear people say “I don’t read” or any of the variants on that theme, I think, as I’m gnashing my teeth, “You have no idea what you are missing!” If ignorance is bliss, there are those who are in heaven. I can no more imagine not reading than I can imagine not breathing. The worlds opened for exploration far exceed any televised offering, with a richness of detail and depth that outstrips any movie treatment. Perhaps that is why, when we see a movie made from a book we have read, the movie is a pale imitation, whole sections pared away to meet the constraints of time and ego.

     Sometimes new treatments of oft-filmed books deviate completely from the original, incorporating the director’s vision, although all too often that vision seems to involve far more explosions than the author had. The recent movie versions of The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy are a good case in point. Both of these works, by Robert Ludlum, are well-plotted and well-crafted thrillers, dense with detail and sub-plotting, the characters well-realized, fleshed out with backgrounds and psychological motivations. The first filmversion, a TV mini-series with Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith is relatively faithful to the book, with cutting mostly limited to expository passages. The recent big screen version is first and foremost a vehicle for Mark Wahlberg, sacrificing whole sections and characterizations for “plotting” purposes, reducing the female lead to almost nothing, the bad guys to cartoonish louts and eliminates the sub-plot of chasing a real assassin named “Carlos”. In the sequel, in the opening minutes the movie leaves the book behind completely, when Marie is killed as she and Jason Bourne are hiding, on the run, in India. I understand why so many writers over the years have left Hollywood in disgust, outraged by the treatment their work have been subjected to, in the interests of “making a good movie”. Writing and movie-making are not similar arts, requiring different approaches to achieve their ends, and, to paraphrase, “ne’er the twain shall meet”. Well, perhaps until the Lord of the Rings….but that’s another story, for another day!

Friends

I’ve never been able to rely on the security of friends. When I was young, we moved so often, my “friends” were an ever-shifting group of new faces, some barely known long enough to remember their names, most never known long or well enough to be true “friends”. I was young enough then to rebound and keep trying, each time we moved into a new neighborhood, seeking out those who were not outright hostile, working at not being too “new” or “different”, making every effort to fit in and belong. Sometimes those efforts paid off in what, for me, were real friendships, but, alas, we would move again and, like Sisyphus, I would begin my trudge up Mt Friendship once again.

In high school, after high school, after high school, the strain of this constant immersion in new social situations clashed with my own growing self-awareness in socializing. At a time when young people are beginning to take their first mature steps into the social hemisphere of their lives, I was still at the crawling stage. I knew things, but I didn’t know people, at least not much beyond the cruelty of strangers I had experienced all too often as the “new kid”. I was more alone, in the midst of crowds, because I didn’t know when someone might be kidding, anymore than I knew when they were being sincere. I developed a shield of sarcasm, smart-aleckiness and superiority as defense mechanisms to cope with and cover for my social inexperience and blunders. The more I flailed around, the more mistakes I made and, of course, the more I was penalized by those who, after all, had gone through these baby steps some time before.

School doesn’t last though, and, once again, we moved on. I’d had enough, though, and left home through the only avenue available to me, by joining the army. In the Army, a different set of rules were enforced, although again I didn’t quite have the necessary requirements. Strength and physical prowess were more highly regarded than intelligence and cunning; unfortunately for me, my age prevented me from taking advantage of the opportunities those skills might have offered. My friendships in the army were, by nature, fleeting, again, and those in VietNam particularly so, for good reasons or other, due to the circumstances of the situation. My best friend during that time died a matter of weeks after returning from RVN. Others weren’t lucky enough to get out of the country, but that was expected, even ghoulishly joked about. We were young and didn’t expect to live forever, no matter how immortal we might have felt. A conundrum to end all conundrums, much like whistling past the graveyard, which in this case was populated by others just like us, by guys we’d known and shared a cigarette, or a warm beer, with only last week. Added to the mortality rate was the normal, for the VietNam Era military, rate of turnover due to what was called “rotation“. Those lucky enough to survive the meat grinder were scheduled to return, or “rotate”, home one year after arriving at the gates of hell, also known as Cam Ranh Bay, for most of us. The closer, or “shorter” to the date one got, the more careful, the less willing to tempt fate one also became. This had a inescapable effect on friendships, in part due to understandable self-preservation, in part to the hardening of the heart to avoid the pain of the loss of another friend and fellow combatant. Your friends celebrated your “short”-ness, exulting in your escape from the clutches of death as a sign of their own potential redemption.

A Different Way of Looking

1   Heart of a Star

2  On the Edge

3  Rockin'

4  Starfield

5  Windswept

6 The Clown Wept

A triumphant heart

I have LOTS of these, I'll share more from time to time.  They are meant to be turned.  I've shown 2 turns here.

 

 

Looking for the One and Only

Like most people, I long to have someone close, someone I can always rely on, who relies on me as well, someone who is my best friend and biggest booster, someone to whom I can never fully explain how much I love her, because words aren't enough, it just takes time and examples....someone to whom a "life sentence" is a gift. Idealism/romanticism run rampant, in the imperfect world we live in, I know. I believe in these things in complete disregard for the harsher realities the world is forever trying to distract me with, in the firm conviction that she is there, somewhere, trying as hard to reach me as I am her.

She will recognize the true me, see the inner me for the knight-in-shining-armor/little-boy/cary-grant-in-the-rough I know myself to be. I will see her as the guardian-angel/little-girl/Sophia-Loren-meets-Bridgit-Bardot-as-the-ultimate-sex-kitten she wants me to see her as. We will both overlook the little flaws in our makeup and appreciate the wonder in our one-ness. We will make love with such passion it threatens to burst into flame, while feeding each other chocolate-covered cherries in between sips of scented wine, laying in a tangle of arms, legs and various body parts that blurs where one begins and the other ends. We will communicate in a blend of spoken words and mental telepathy, as one starts a sentence and the other finishes it, instantly knowing fully what we are trying to communicate, clearly and without misunderstanding.

Sadly, the reality will be somewhat different, wrinkles and fumbling attempts and missteps, each of us trying to put forward our best face; somehow the heart will see through the superficial reality, the awkward outside, to the real person inside. That's my version, my dream anyway, of love conquering all...that the inner voice we are all ruled by will ultimately steer us toward what we want. Sometimes, too often, we don't have the good sense to recognize what we are seeking when it arrives, being human and vain, being convinced by Hollywood and TV of what "real" romance is, being human and prone to error, stumbling toward ecstasy like kids blindfolded, trying to pin the tail on the donkey, sometimes hitting the target.

This is the true miracle of being human, of actually connecting with that kindred spirit, that one in a million, who is me/you in every way that counts and you/me in the others, a yin for the yang, a key for the lock that keeps our heart safe from intruders and violators. The very possibility keeps the heart young, keeps the lamp trimmed and burning, in the window, for those who would see, for the one who seeks, for the one.

                                                                       

astro-wheel

I designed this wheel in the '70's to communicate the inter-connectedness of all the signs to one another, in short a true wheel, blending from one to the next.

starz

My symbol....it's unfolding as it develops, a metaphor.

only a passing hippie

my alter ego