Influences Part 3: Mike Royko

     My mom is 91 and has moved into an assisted living facility. A lot of stuff from her house got thrown out, other things sold in an estate sale. What was left were the important things, the things that regardless of monetary value, mean the most to our family. These are the things that define who we are. In the end, it comes down to the contents of a few cardboard boxes.

     I finally got a chance to go through a couple of these boxes. They were filled with old photos, work done by us children when we were in school, and various mementos of a lifetime. There was a bell-shaped Christmas ornament my grandmother hung on the tree the year my father was born. There were pictures of my grandfather in his World War I uniform, and postcards from the lodge my dad once owned. But something I came across really surprised me, something that meant a lot to more than just my family.

     I came across two old newspapers, over thirty years old. One was the last issue of the Chicago Daily News, a paper that had been around 102 years. The other was an issue of the Chicago Tribune. What stuck out for me was that Mike Royko was on the cover of both of them. In the Daily News, it was Mike Royko who was permitted to write the obituary for the paper that was perhaps best known for, well, Mike Royko. In The Tribune, the front page announced that Mike Royko would be joining their paper to write his daily column.

     That’s how important Mike Royko was to us, that these two papers made it into these boxes of family memorabilia. And not just to my dad, or to me, or someone else, but to just about the whole family. And we weren’t that kind of family that agreed on everything political, either. I remember some intense arguments in the house and even a fair amount of yelling. But Mike Royko was the kind of guy that cut through all of the nonsense and got to the heart of the matter. He was able to speak to the conservative and the liberal with a common sense manner and Joe Average style of language. Everybody liked him.

     Well, not everybody. Mike Royko never shied away from going after the powerful and the corrupt, the kind of people that tried to make you see life through their eyes, tried to sell you their story and make it look right. He was merciless at humbling the mighty, tearing to shreds stories built on faulty premises. And as he did so, he was able to make you laugh. Because, see, when someone shows you an absurdity and builds it up so much that it starts to make sense, and then he pokes that bloated bubble of absurdity with a few well-sharpened points, that’s what humor is all about.

     There were many years I read his article on an almost daily basis, and I was always amazed at the way he could be so consistently perceptive and witty. And likeable. Those were formative years for me. His column would be the highlight of the newspaper, no matter what was going on in the world or how my sports teams were doing. Royko’s column usually spoke to the most important matters of the day and more often than not gave the definitive perspective on it.

     In my best moments as a writer, when words and ideas flow from my pen or keyboard, I permit myself to think I am somehow channeling Mike Royko, that somehow I am able to keep his spirit alive through my writing. This is pure egotism on my part, but it is undeniable that Mike Royko has influenced not only my writing but who I am as a human being.

Let me give you this one little taste, one of thousands of pieces he wrote over the years:

A Rich Lesson In Citizenship

Mike Royko

It`s always poignant when a boatload of half-starved Haitians tries to land in this country, only to be turned away because they don`t qualify.

But that`s the way our immigration laws are written. Not just anybody can become an American.

People can`t come here only because they want to improve themselves economically, as the skinny Haitians do.

If that were the only qualification, half the hungry world would be streaming into this country.

Thus, we have the limited immigration quotas, most of which have long waiting lists. And we take some people who are fleeing communist tyranny. (If you happen to be fleeing from a right-wing tyrant, you have a real problem.)

We also admit people who have a skill in short supply here. That`s how many foreign doctors and nurses made it.

So I`m a little puzzled by the matter-of-fact way Rupert Murdoch announced that he intends to quickly become a citizen of this country.

I don`t see how Murdoch qualifies.

For one thing, he`s not fleeing communism or any other form of tyranny. He`s already a citizen of Australia, which is a very nice, freedom-loving country. He`s treated with great respect in Australia because he`s rich and powerful, and anybody who doesn`t treat him with respect will feel bad in the morning.

Nor does he have a skill that is in short supply. By profession, Murdoch is a greedy, money-grubbing, power-seeking, status-climbing cad.

Since when is that skill in short supply? Stroll along Chicago`s LaSalle Street or New York`s Wall Street, and you`ll see thousands of greedy, money-grubbing, power-seeking cads.

Just read the financial pages. It`s all corporate raids, greenmail, hostile takeovers and other forms of modern-day piracy. If John Dillinger were alive, he`d put away his pistol, get an MBA, and if he could pull off a big enough heist, he`d be invited to join the best clubs.

So why does Murdoch want to become a citizen?

For the very same reason that those rejected Haitians and all the Mexican illegals want to come here - except on a much grander, greedier scale.

He`s already incredibly rich, but he wants more and more. That, in turn, will allow him to exercise more and more political influence.

Now, you might think that a man who is already one of the richest, most powerful men in Australia, and who owns newspapers and magazines all over the United States and in England, would be content with his bottom line.

But not Murdoch. Hundreds of millions aren`t enough. He wants billions. He wants all he can get, and then some.

To get it, he`s set out to buy a chain of TV stations in some of America`s major cities, creating his own network. That way, he will make even more money while tinkering with the minds of the viewers.

But a sensible law stands in his way. Because of the potential of television to scramble, shrink or soften our brains, only an American citizen can own more than a minority interest in a TV station.

And because of that restriction alone, Murdoch says he is going to become a citizen of this country.

Well, that doesn`t seem fair. If a Haitian on a leaky boat can`t come here to improve his pitiful economic condition, why should a bloated millionaire be welcome? And for the opportunity to earn a living, the Haitian would be willing to sweep stables, behead chickens or clean toilets. Murdoch? His approach has been to fire American workers and break unions in order to increase his own cash flow.

We might also consider the question of character, of which Murdoch has little.

For one thing, he is a proven ingrate. His willingness to switch national loyalties establishes that. If you had more money than you could ever spend, would you consider giving up your American citizenship just to add to the pile?

But Murdoch is willing to wave goodbye to Australia, because he`s already taken as much as he can out of his homeland. And in England, where he also wheels and deals, the antimonopoly laws frustrate him.

He`s also a proven liar. Only 18 months ago, when he bought the Chicago Sun-Times, he vowed to improve the paper and said he was making a journalistic commitment to this city. Some commitment. He promptly trashed and gutted that once-fine paper. And now he`s casually put it up for sale because he wants to switch to the TV business.

Finally, why would we want to give citizenship to somebody who has contempt for Americans? In his heart, if such an organ exists, Murdoch thinks we`re boobs. That`s why he publishes boob-mentality newspapers. He thinks that`s all we can understand. And he hires only Australian or English editors because he thinks American editors don`t understand what boobs Americans really are.

So if Murdoch is allowed to become a citizen - while we`re turning away people who are running from death squads or starvation - then we should make one small change in the plans to renovate the Statue of Liberty.

Get rid of the torch. Just have the lady hold up her hand - with the middle finger extended.

A Letter To Myself

Shortly after I graduated college, my dad died. Life seemed to get hectic after that, and somehow the aspirations I had that got me through college somehow got put on the back burner. I was an English Major who desired to be a writer, and for twelve years I did not write. I got married and raised a son and looked after my mother and somehow the whole passion for writing got lost in the shuffle. I kind of kept up with my other passion, music, as is recorded below, but it never really got me where I wanted to be. Below is the first bit of writing I did after those 12 years, a message to the person I was back then.

This is me writing. I have not done this in 12 years. 

Hi, me. I haven’t talked to you in a while. Don’t be mad, I have been busy doing all of the things you would have wanted me to do. I have been taking care of business. I have been trying to maintain relationships, although I’ve never been good at that sort of thing. I have been scouring the world wide web in search of all of the arcane information you were always so interested in. I have tried to keep in touch with you  but there has been  some barrier between us. I will not blame myself as you are so wont to do. But I have missed you, and so I have decided to come home to visit. I would like to live here but it seems a difficult thing to do. But I see that you are here with me now. Time is a river which we must step out of from time to time. You live there always but I am always being swept along. I must confess that were it not for computer problems, I would not be saying hi now. It is an accident, but a happy accident. I can feel you here now, much stronger than I normally feel myself. You have found yourself a hole within time where the things of the moment pass harmlessly by. I live in the moment and yet am constantly harassed by both the past and future. I fear death, both for myself and those I hold dear, without appreciating the live I am given. I am surrounded by the now without any appreciation of it. I experience and then move on without reflection. I eat without digesting, resulting in an ever upset stomach. I cry over the past without fond memories and worry over the future without hope.  My present is a constant toil without recompense. But in all that I do I have struggled to stay true to you, which is my consolation. I have worked to keep the people you love worthy of the love you have for them, as well as repay the debts you owe them. In this brief time with you I find more happiness than the countless hours I spend in the pursuit of distraction. It would surely bring a smile to me to know that you could find humor in my present situation, even if you were laughing at my expense. I know that you will never be me and I will never be you, but together we can be us. Something can be passed on-- both ways--hopefully the best of us both. Everything I have done has been compromised. No-one you love has been given the love they deserve, but we are not as big as we would like. 
     Here follows a brief synopsis of the last 12 years. Dad died. Got married. Learned to play flute. Saw Anglagard, Echolyn, and Caravan play live. 

As it is now 7 years since I wrote that, reading this again is levels of strange to me now. So if I may indulge myself once again, let me say a word or two to the person I was in 2008: I'm glad you did not lose heart. You did not feel at the time much faith, but I admire you more for fighting the battle while lacking it. I remember that time, wanting so passionately to do something with what you had been trained to do, and fearing you did not have the time, or the talent, or the luck or the whatever. But perseverance pays off, and perhaps faith is not always what it appears to be. I am the person you are, as well as the person you were. We are all the same person even though we're at different stages of being. And the person you are now, plagued by doubt as you may be, will eventually see his way through to the other side. Desire will win out. I wish I could tell you that, but it will be good enough to take the baton you have handed me and finish the race. I'm not there yet, but I am heartened by the effort you have shown, and confident of what I can do.

If You Are An Artist, The World Is In Your Hands

WARNING: In over 130 blog posts, I don’t believe I have ever resorted to vulgarity of any kind. However, I find it hard to avoid using a few vulgarisms on this occasion. Please forgive me if their use offends you and I will try to keep their use to a bare minimum in the future.

     I’ve been around the writing game long enough now to identify a certain attitude. It is one that is shared with critics of all art today, one that feels the need to heap scorn upon anyone who attempts a loftier style or desires to accomplish something more than amuse and distract their audience. To anyone who does not sufficiently amuse them, to anyone who makes them uncomfortable and makes them think a little, they use words such as pompous, pretentious, or arrogant.

     I have an answer to such criticism, one which I hope you won’t find too elitist or arty. Fuck you. You call me pretentious? I call you intellectual and moral cowards. You are too afraid to attempt what can and should be done and so you attack others for making the attempt. You masturbate because you are afraid to procreate. You play at life when you should be living it.

     To artists and audience alike I say to you: demand more! Be more! We ARE more than what some would make us. We have souls, we have purpose. Life has meaning!

     Artists today, especially when in pursuit of fame and cash, are unafraid to transgress any moral sensibility but they flee from any critical thought that might separate them from the safety of the herd or the cash of their potential customers. They are willing to dream up any sexual perversion, any sick violence in order to titillate their fans. Money has somehow wormed its way between artists and their audience when there should be no barriers between us. This is not a fucking business transaction, this is human communication at its most basic and honest level.

     Be men. Not men as we now describe them, crude, violent and stupid. Be men in daring to seek the truth and defend truth even when it is unpopular Be women. Do not indulge incessantly in adolescent fantasies but instead become the strong intelligent women the world needs. Be human beings and not pawns in a marketing game. Dare. Get out of the kiddy pool and think thoughts that make you uncomfortable. Brave putting down in you art your deepest darkest fears and hopes. Expose your most hidden selves to the light. Dream a dream that is worth sharing.

     The world needs changing but you are too timid to admit you have the power to make it better. It is up to you, no one else can do your job, share the perspective that only you have. You are important—nay, vital to this world, and it’s time you shook off your doubts and realized it.

It is up to you to show the world that ideas can accomplish what bullets cannot.

     Be bold, my friends, be bold. Not bold in expressing prejudice or hatred, but in expressing new ideas and optimism. Not bold to shock or offend but bold in order to enlighten and inspire.

     A culture whose artists are afraid to push further is a culture in decline. That is the power you possess as artists, to keep your culture afloat and moving ahead, to reach new shores and new heights previously unimagined.

     Do not be afraid to fail. Nor should you feel the need to accept society’s judgment of what success or failure is. Do not try to fit yourself into the cattle chutes called genres, but instead blaze your own trail, create what you see and feel, let what is inside of you be what it is meant to be.

     You owe it to yourself. You owe it to everyone who has influenced you, those who gave you a sense of wonder when in your childhood you picked up a book, gazed at a picture, or were enraptured by a song. And you owe it to a future that deserves the same as you received, art that speaks to the heart and the mind without further considerations of any baser motives. This is life. Art is life. Art is the communication that speaks to those whom you have never met nor will meet. It is the passing on of beauty and vitality. And it is in your hands.

The Eternal Now

Here's a short little bit of a book I'm slowly accumulating as I write other books. I have different names for it, including "The Laws Of Perception":

Patience

The journey shall no doubt test your patience from time to time. We have become accustomed to the ticking of the clock, the whistle that summons us to work and tells us when it is time to go. We are constantly reminded of the passing of time, of the value of time and the evils of spending it frivolously. But in the marking out of our lives in grids and blocks of months, days, hours, and minutes, we lose track of the actual flow. We atomize time until the actual living, the actual essence of the flow is chopped up. And as we chop up time into smaller and smaller pieces we begin to feel like none of these little instants are big enough to accomplish anything at all. In all of the pieces, the seconds and the minute and the hours and the days we lose track of the now, which is where everything happens. So take the opportunity to experience the now. Do you feel it? You are alive, and life is a miracle. Can you feel it? Allow yourself to do so, because that is why you are here. This is the now, you are experiencing the now. You are alive now. You feel good in the now.

And in the time you have taken to read that last paragraph, you experienced many nows. It is a different “now” as you read this than the “now” I first mentioned. At least that is the way it appears to one who is concerned with the clock or the calendar. In fact, the now is ever constant and never changing. The now that you experience is the same now as you have always experienced. It is a place outside of time, a destination to which you can always return. It is where the aged you can discover the youthful you. While all the world changes, the now does not. It is a place within you of peace, faith, security, truth. It is a oneness. It is a spring that never runs dry.

You have time, my friend, it does not have you. You have time for all of the things you want to do, despite all the things you feel you need to do. It is a matter of perception, it is the difference between pursuing what you desire and fleeing from what you fear. The energy required for both is the same but the motivation makes the world of difference.

So please come with me on this journey inward. Together we will find the things that truly matter to us, beauty and truth and joy and purpose and a sense of being where we are meant to be. The path will not always be straight, direct, but no journey is. Sometimes it will feel as if you were lost or going in the wrong direction. Sometimes it will feel that the destination is not worth the journey. But more often you will find yourself distracted from the course. You will occasionally waken to the reality that you have somehow veered far from the path and wondered how you had forgotten about it. And finding it again you will realize the feeling it gives you is no different than the feeling it gave you forty years ago. The now is no different now than it was then. And finding it, you will realize you have returned home. When you are in the now, you are where you are meant to be. And despite what it may sometimes seem, you are always in the now.

A Look Into The Past (The Mauretania)

I had the idea of writing a novel that takes place a century ago and spans pretty much the whole globe. A fun idea, sure, but I had no idea how much research it was going to involve. I guess I should have known. There are so many questions relating to New York City alone. Did some sections still have gas lights? What styles were in fashion for men and women of various stations in life? Were trolleys prominent, and what was the ratio of cars/buses/horses? And while people dressed and spoke and lived a certain way in New York, how would they be living in a small town in Louisiana? All these things to be researched and we haven’t even left The U.S.A yet.

It’s an enjoyable process, or at least it would be if I could afford a year off work to do it. Still, it’s fun to immerse oneself in a different era. I’m running into a lot of fascinating information. I was having a real hard time trying to come up with information on the ship Mauretania. We tend to take for granted that everything we want is a Google search away, but it is not. But take a look at this website I found: http://heritage-3d.com/M/1.html

Based on a few old black and white pictures of the 1^st Class Smoking room of the Mauretania:

This person painstakingly came up with a color recreation of what it must have looked like:

Truly impressive work by whoever runs the website, not to mention the craftsmanship that went into the actual ship.

Below is a short sample of writing I did based upon the color recreation. It needs a second or third coat of paint on it (i.e. a few rewrites), but hopefully it shows some of the inspiration I had from seeing a re-rendering of what must have been a tremendous work of art.

The next room was the first-class smoking lounge. Above them was a glass arch that ran the length of the room, giving it the best of both the indoors and outdoors. Cunningly placed mirrors amongst the wood-paneled walls gave the room a feeling of vastness as though the room had no real defined limits. Teal chairs and oak tables were placed in geometric patterns that were a mixture of lines and intersecting circles. Blue sky intruded through the ceiling and, combined with the greenery of the chairs and carpet and the various wood pillars, he suddenly felt as if he were entering into a forest of trees. The marvel of man’s abilities hit him, the heights that humans were able to reach. Here was floating architecture as astounding as any cathedral or palace. The Twentieth Century, barely a decade old, was already making its mark on history.

Oh, and the book will most likely be called Seven Stones. I'm about 30,000 words into the first draft. It involves magic, the supernatural, and a possible re-emergence of Pangea. It might even tie in to some of those books that are on the upper right of this blog page :)

Adulthood’s End Part 3 (The Illusion Of Choice)

     If there is one thing capitalism provides it’s choice. Go to your typical supermarket and you’ll find more options for frozen French Fries than is good for you. Seriously, you could waste the better part of an hour making sure you get the best value and the best option available. Same with the soda aisle: the variety screams out to us from the bright colors that decorate every box of cans. True too of bottled water. This is where it gets kinda weird: Why does anybody need 100 different varieties of bottled water? Can anyone tell me the difference? Nevertheless, this is America and you deserve 100 varieties of waters to choose from. Anything less would be socialism.

     But while 100 varieties of bottled water may seem like far more choices than we could possibly want, perhaps it is less than we actually need. Perhaps the mountain of plastic bottles blinds us to the option we’d actually prefer.

     Who having an option between clean, cheap tap water would prefer lugging home cases of the stuff from the supermarket? Who would prefer polluting the environment with plastic when we could totally eliminate the waste, again by providing drinking water through the tap? Who would prefer wasting our precious resources—in this case oil used in the production of plastic—when we could avoid all that? Especially when the Middle East is such a mess, it seems a shame to send our troops over there to fight and die for plastic bottles we really don’t need. Or for the fuel required for the trucks to unnecessarily ship bottles of water across the country.

     So who would come up with such a crazy system? Someone out to make a buck. Nobody’s going to get rich providing cheap tap water, especially when the government tends to stick its nose into such matters and make sure water will be available and affordable to even the poorest of us. So in the long run, those various different bottled water companies are not competing against each other, how can they? How can one of them make the claim that their water is better than the next guy’s? You can only do so much with a picture of a snow-capped mountain. There are only so many buzz words such as “pure”, “natural”, “life”, and “healthful” you can slap on the label and still keep them large enough to attract the eye.

     Of course, some try to argue they use less plastic than the typical bottled water, as if conservation of plastic were an argument they should bring up. Nestle’s Pure Life package proudly states it has an “eco-bottle”. Re-read that sentence just to drive home the idea of how screwed up we as a society are. If you wonder why people can’t think anymore it’s because vapid advertisement has broken our brains. Words don’t mean anything anymore, they’re just supposed to sound nice. And reassuring.

     So whose water you buy doesn’t matter, just so it comes in a bottle. Same with soda. Pepsi doesn’t mind if you buy Coke and Coke doesn’t care if you cheat on it with the occasional Pepsi. The important thing is you consume teeth-rotting diabetes juice because, after all, a rising tide floats all boats. And it works the same way with politics, only in reverse. In politics, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent not to entice you to buy but to turn you off from the entire process. They don’t care if you vote Democrat or Republican, their goal is to make you so disgusted with politics that you don’t vote at all.

     That’s the system we’ve worked out as a society. These are the choices you have. Well, not really, they are the choices that are laid out for you. These are the choices they want you to make, the world they try to fashion for you. But your choices are as vast as you can imagine them to be. You don’t have to buy their vision, you don’t have to fit your mind inside of the box they have prepared for you. It’s a small world offered and in the end we humans deserve better than the world they envision. Next time you are presented with a choice of a bottled of water or a can of soda, remember there’s always beer ;)

The End Of Adulthood Part 2

     It was the latter part of the 1970s and our president was discussing the fuel shortage. He gave a simple suggestion to turn our heat down a few degrees and wear a sweater if we were cold. It was the sort of advice our parents would have given us and that was the problem. You see, the first generation of children raised on television were now grown up and we did not want to listen to our parents anymore. We preferred to listen to our televisions because the television always told us what we wanted to hear. The television told us we deserved a break today, that sugary snacks were good for us, women were made to be ogled and there were no repercussions to casual sex. And so a new politician emerged to tell us of the new and improved classic homemade way of doing things. The television had a lovechild and he was called Ronald Reagan. He would explain our world the way we wanted to hear it, just like all those other neat guys on TV. We wanted a handsome and winning personality, not our stuffy old dad. We wanted Ronald Reagan, not Jimmy Carter. Hannity, not Colmes.

     We could have whatever we wanted. You go, girl, you deserve it. We could have whiter teeth AND fresher breath. We didn’t have to live with ring around the collar or waxy yellow build up anymore. And so when the voters went to the polls in November of 1980, the changes that had begun in the 1950s had finally come to fruition.

     The shift had taken place and the rift between generations, the one television had caused, was glossed over. Never again would we have to listen to adults. Nor would we ever be expected to become adults ourselves. We were all free now to leave the unpleasantness of making difficult decisions behind us. The only choosing we had to make was whether we would drink Miller Lite or Bud Light. We were the Pepsi generation and we were never going to grow old (or up).

     There was a new authority now, although we never chose to really think about it that way. We didn’t need parents anymore nor did we have to become them. We could be friends to our children rather than rule makers or—God forbid—role models. We could spend the time we weren’t making money to spend it. We could buy for a second time all the toys of our youth and never have to be responsible for anything. Because, after all, authority was not given to us, it belonged to the market place. By merely choosing between Pepsi or Coke, magic forces would make the world into a Heaven for us all. Authority was decreed through television waves that mystically travelled through the air and into the privacy of our houses. Complex decision making was uncool, we wanted our nation’s problems to be solved as easily and completely as Jack Tripper’s problems were every Tuesday night on ABC.

     As for getting older, well, that was something our parents did. We would have none of that, because growing older meant taking on responsibility, and television would take that burden from us. All we had to do was stay up on the latest trends, buy the products that were currently trendy. We just had to listen to the same music our kids did, pretend to find some value in it. Forget about finding meaning in our own lives, we had to find ways to relate to our children, even if in the end all we did was validate the line being sold to them by the advertisers.

     And when the lines and the droopiness and receding hairlines and e.d. showed up, well television was there with the answers. Our skin could look as smooth as Joan Rivers’, our boobs as perky as any saline-bag celebrity. And for guys, hey, it was just like the 60’s, only the drugs now were Rogaine and Viagra. Death was only an illusion, which meant we never had to worry too much about figuring what life was all about. All we had to do was hang onto our youth. All we had to do was keep flunking Maturity 101 so we never had to graduate.