“Oh, dearie me, whatever shall I do?” my Fluttery Old Maid Self bemoaned. My Stoic Self replied, “Suffer for a few days until Qwest gets a replacement to me. Us. Whatever.” So, being stalwart and true as only a crusty old pirate cap’n can be, I girded up for a few days in the Virtual Void. Now seventy-two hours have passed, and more, and I’m ready to swear off, at least as far as being able to log on 24/7. In other words, no more home Internet access for Ye Cap’n, at least for the foreseeable future.

“Golly gee whiz, Cap’n,” you ask in your charming if juvenile way. “What brought that on?” While hardware failure was the trigger, I think what was the clincher was the realization that the night before I had spent hours watching crappy movies, culminating in the viewing of “Godzilla vs Mothra” for the unknownth time. I had known for awhile on some level that Netflix, Hulu and other streamers no longer satisfy; the movies you want to watch simply aren’t available (although to be fair to the providers, and according to their own count of my ratings and viewing history, I have apparently watched so many movies and TV series over the years—5000 or so, and those are just the ones I can remember—so there just might not be all that many left). But after one of far too many bleary-eyed evenings in front of the screen, fixed on bad flicks, or just the old “bored and surfing for crap in general” routine, I think my Wise Old Grandma Self finally decided it was time to say, “Haven’t you had enough?”

Let’s not fool ourselves, for some of us, the Web can be an addictive thing, not so much for content as availability—kind of like Olde English 800 or Marlboro. In fact, I think it’s become a recognized phenomena in professional circles. So what’s the First Step in battling the Demon Net? The same as with any compulsive behavior: admitting you have a problem.

Done.

So then I took an inventory. On the “pro-home-access” side, I came up with: a) can watch good movies occasionally, b) can stream TV, too, particularly The Rachel Maddow Show, c) can chat with folks online, many of whom have become good friends, d) can do banking and ordering online from my desktop, e) can do extensive research quickly and conveniently. On the “con” side, however, I came up with concepts which, ironically, included many of the former, to wit: a) watching too many movies, most either total garbage or ones I’d seen before, to the point where the process took up far too much of my time, b) chatting can indeed take up too much time as well, c) too many “flame wars” with trolls and other idiots, d) too much “impulse buying” from Amazon, e) an expense of over $60/month, f) the ability of the NSA and other three-letter abominations, as well as corporate entities, to monitor my shopping and surfing tastes and thus manipulate my behavior–“Hey, since you like Hendrix, we have several posters, t-shirts, toilet bowl brushes…” I could probably go on, but you get the idea.

Be assured, there are some things I’ll no doubt miss, including Facebook friends, Hartmann-chat buddies and of course the Rachel Maddow Show, which I will no longer be able to stream; that last one will be particularly difficult. The cons, however, are far outweighed by the pros of Internetlessness, at least for me. On-line banking and mail-ordering, for instance, while not as convenient as before, will still be available enough at cyber cafes to still make the process effective; and if need be, there’s always the phone (which, by the way, also applies to said buddies, if they wish). Also, the results of any research project usually can wait until the next time I can get to Wikipedia; if not, well, I actually have an appreciable library of real books to utilize. And I really think an hour a day, three-four times a week, is plenty of time for social networking; remember, I’m not ending my web-presence as much as limiting it.

There’s this to consider, too: with age sixty coming up in a little over a month, I think it’s way past time that I got serious about THE MAGNUM OPUS, especially since I’ve been fooling around with it in one form or another for over thirty-five years. And not having the sweet siren call of the Web ever lurking in the background should aid that effort immensely.

Will I ever return? That is not impossible. But for now, the peace and quiet, and the freed-up opportunity to actually do other things I need and want to do, or at least have been neglecting, has made it worthwhile already. Thus it seems fitting that my modem chose Independence Day to resign itself to plastic heaven. Free at last, free at last, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m free at last.

So, I’ll see you online…just not so much.

Last year, I wrote here about the passing of my friend Mildred Jackson.  As often is the case, her husband James followed her not long afterward, on Nov 2 of this year.  Today was the memorial service, which I intended to attend.  Therein lay my peril.

Getting up in the morning is nothing unusual.  Folks have been doing it as long as there have been folks.  I’ve been doing it myself for nearly sixty years, mostly without noteworthy mishap–well, except for that rather extended bit of nonsense when I was a little kid (sorry, Mom).  But in accordance with both Murphy’s and Bombeck’s Laws, this morning was the morning that plans went a bit awry, in ways that now upon reflection seem like the plot for a low-level sit-com.

Most of us who bother to shave would agree that it’s a simple enough process, yet not one without its pitfalls.  Thus, it is always a good idea to delay the practice of applying a very sharp blade to one’s skin until fully awake.  I didn’t this time, and as a consequence left a blade-wide slice in my chin, where the razor turned inwards just a second before my face did.  Okay, get the toilet paper, look like an idiot for awhile; no big problem.  Should anyone ask, I got it in a cutlass-fight with one of the King’s men, and took ye wound a’fore slitting him stem-to-stern.  In other words, shut up.

I still had a few hours to go before the memorial, so I decided to kill some time by going down to my favorite local coffee shop for awhile.

A few preliminary words are perhaps in order here.  While the neighborhood I live in isn’t really know for its violent crime (unless you count the time some good ol’ boy in a jacked-up rig ran over the neighbors’ car at four in the morning), it’s not exactly a gated community, either.  Therefore, just to be cautious, I always carry a small can of pepper spray, usually in my front pants pocket for easy grabbing should the need arise.  For that very reason, I also walk with my hand in that pocket.  Today was no different.

What was different, however, was that somehow the safety catch on the trigger had found its way into the “off” position, meaning it was ready to fire.  What’s worse, somehow (again) the trigger, despite being recessed into the cylinder cap, got slightly depressed.  I say “slightly” because having tried the thing out when I first got it–foolishly, in a fairly enclosed area–I became quite familiar with the intensity of the effect even the blow-back can generate.  Had this thing blasted out a full shot, I would have doubtlessly known about it soon, and with extreme certainty.

But I didn’t realize it right away.  In fact, as I strolled along, I slowly became aware of–how to put this delicately–a lot more excitement in my pants than I’ve had in a long time.  Remember:  front pants pocket.  The hullabaloo continued to increase, until even I began to realize that this was more than could be explained by a bad reaction to laundry detergent residue, or a subconscious detection of stray pheromones wafting about the Springfield downtown area (noted for its wealth of “adult clubs”, if you catch my drift) after a busy Friday night.

By now I had made it to the coffee place–actually, I had to wander around for a half-hour, because this being Saturday, they opened later than during the week.  After getting my drink–did the lady at the counter wrinkle her nose at me because of some faint whiff of capsicum , or was it just for general principles?–I sat down at my usual table, and began to set up my netbook.  It was while waiting for the thing to boot that I became aware myself of some trace fragrance that made me think of peppery Chinese food.  Since that didn’t fit well with the menu there, I did a little surreptitious sniffing around and eventually found the source–the apparent source, that is–to be the hand that had been in my “loaded pocket”.

Now while I don’t claim to be the most alert person in the world, by now I was starting toget an idea what might have happened.  Add that to what was now a full-blown rock concert going on in my shorts, and I was pretty much certain.  So casually (I pretended) I headed for the toilet, did a quick check, and found that not only the pocket liner but the–ahem–layer of cotton beneath were beet-red from the mix of pepper and oil that makes up the ammunition of these little defensive shooters.  Perhaps more to the point, a region of the human body well-known for its sensitivity to stimuli, caustic or otherwise, was also showing a similar coloration, one not entirely from the active ingredient’s staining properties.  And to top off the misery…remember I said I had a nice cut on my face?  It should be easy to imagine that I might have drew it pensively across fresh slice, as well as scratched my nose or rubbed my eyes with the contaminated extremity, before I realized the likely resultant effect.

Fortunately, I had enough time to head back home, shower again, change clothes and make it to the service.  Unfortunately, all through the event, the chemical irritation hadn’t let up, which resulted not only in me fidgeting more than usual, but in a runny nose and teary eyes as well.  This being a memorial, no doubt people were thinking, “Gee, they must have been close.”  I have no idea what they thought of my flaming cutlass-wound; a failed attempt at hari-kari over the loss?
It’s later now, I’m back home, and the inflammation is just one more bad memory.  I’ve gained more respect for pepper spray, too.

I’m just glad it wasn’t a pocket .38 I was carrying.

So why am I sitting in a restaurant between Rachel Maddow and Kent Jones, and no one’s throwing punches?  That requires a little history.

When I was a kid, I used to take old newspaper photos, cut ‘n’ paste them (with actual scissors and real paste) onto typewriter paper, then type up accompanying satirical comments, all for the amusement of friends–a kind of early, self-made “Onion”.  My efforts were largely a success, at least in the limited venue of the Elkhart, IN, public school system.  Hell, the faculty hated them, so to me that positively shouted, “You’re doing it right!”  I grew up and went on to other things, but the love of that particular kind of “fake-news satire” stuck.

Six years ago, health difficulties pushed me into an early retirement–not entirely unwillingly, I confess–and I found myself with a wealth of free time on my hands.  Being of a political bent (in more ways than one), I tuned into the then-new Air America Radio, and soon was pleased to hear someone reading, of all things, satirical fake-news, with the added touch of a Walter-Winchell-esque voice styling.  I had found Kent Jones, one of the wits behind AAR’s “Unfiltered” radio program, along with Lizz Winstead, Chuck D and a previously-unknown news-reader named Rachel Maddow.

Now anyone with more than a passing knowledge of AAR knows that it went through many shark-jumping episodes before finally going belly-up.  One of these involved Winstead and Chuck D moving on, and Rachel getting her own cleverly-named “Rachel Maddow Show”, backed up by Kent as a sort of “pop-culture” observer and commentator.  For reasons not entirely clear even to me, I soon became an active, or overactive, blogger on her adjunct website, as did a handful of other people whom were also following Rachel’s career.  Things went along swimmingly, in that we all clicked personally, to the point of fast and genuine (if electronic) friendship; and when Rachel once made a sort of off-handed comment about some information she had received from her “science advisory board”, four of us readily and without being asked took on the ad hoc mantel, dubbing ourselves thusly (even though only one of us is, in grownup life, an actual sciencey-scientist).  So it was that the Rachel Maddow Show Science Advisory Board was born.

Flash forward to the present, to find Dr Maddow with her own much-deserved TV show, along with her irrepressible sidekick, Mr Jones, and the SAB still going strong.  Through a series of intense negotiations and several often-bewildering (to me) conference calls, facilitated by our illustrious Chair, Madame Chemgirl, we (the board members, and others) were all finally able to get together in NYC–to actually meet in person–with the added hope of having dinner with Rachel and Kent.  I say “hope” simply because the news business being as fluid as it is, people in the profession might understandably be called away at a moment’s notice to deal with new crises, or other opportunities as they arise.  Case in point:  Rachel has been to the Gulf Coast at least twice now since the latest BP crime, and just a few days before our scheduled potential meeting she was in LA doing Maher’s show.  The tension mounted; would she be back in time? wouldn’t she?  should I avoid gassy foods a full week ahead of time?

I arrived in NYC–well, technically Newark–very, very early on Saturday, where I was met by Chemgirl, who was to be my gracious (and extremely patient) hostess for the next few days.  And for those few days, under her more-than-capable guidance, I was to see a good portion of Manhattan–possibly the most incredible urban structure on Earth, something far more esthetically rich and vibrant than anything Paolo Soleri could ever imagine.

A disclaimer is probably in order here.  I’m a born-and-bred small-town boy, and as such not much of a fan of big cities.  I’ve been to a few–Chicago (many times), Louisville (spent a year there one  day, badda-bing), Cincinnati, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Bangkok–and with the exception of the Big Easy, went away unimpressed:  too many people, too much pushing and shoving, noise, traffic, and no easy way out; crime and soot and soulless towers of steel and glass, with the greater share of the denizens scurrying about down below.  In short, a warren of murderously insane rats, and far too many of them.

I was soon to change my mind…about New York, anyway.  I think I can say in all honesty that the Borough of Manhattan is something entirely different from any other over-built conglomeration I’ve ever experienced.  It’s as if the most dynamic elements of the vast multi-ethnic mélange that is American culture had been shoehorned into a couple dozen insular square miles, then left to develop on its own in a peculiar hot-house of architectural wonders, incongruous juxtapositions and historic import, to finally produce at some point a sort of “population-density phase-change”.  Just as a solid becomes a liquid at a certain temperature, then a gas, then a plasma, so might a huge city, under certain unique circumstances,  shift in some nebulous but very real way, becoming instead a human phenomena, something so different from just one more “big city” that it’s almost impossible to describe, yet when witnessed, equally impossible to deny.  It’s not for nothing, nor is it just another example of typically human provincial pride, that NYC is known as “America’s City”; it is, in my humble opinion, the concentrated wealth of the American experience, distilled and ready for imbibing, 24/7/365.  “The City That Never Sleeps”, indeed; hell, it barely pauses to take a breath.

For example, in four days time I:  walked through Central Park, down Broadway (with its famous Theater District), Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, into and through Times Square (once at 12:30 AM, and it was still blasting), and past Radio City Music Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Chelsea Hotel (where apparently every well-known writer, musician, artist and hog-caller in the world has stayed, and occasionally died); saw Macy’s, Grant’s Tomb (and found out who was buried there), and the Bette Midler “Adopt-a-Highway sign on Maj Deegan Highway, the Bronx; visited Ellis Island, the lobby of the Empire State Building, the Strand bookstore (the proud possessor of a room so full of hoary tomes that it nearly reeks of leather and fine old paper) and the Penn Station/Madison Square Garden complex; rode the subway numerous times, where I participated in an adventure that combined live entertainment (including, of course, a hopping hairy guy in the frilly dress) with an olfactory milieu that must be experienced to be believed, let alone described.  We also visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, specifically the Egyptian section (where I’m afraid this old Nilophile talked my hostess’ ear off for a good solid two hours–I said she was patient), and the King Tut exhibit (where I talked everyone‘s ear off), as well as a basement improv comedy troop that has us all rolling in the aisles.  In short, I think I saw well over half of all the sights we’ve all seen in movies or on TV, or read about somewhere.  Indeed, it would be easier to list the number of places I’ve just mentioned with which most people, here and around the world, have not heard of.  That alone would be heady enough.

But I had been kind of expecting all that; here’s what really stunned me.  Manhattan has a resident population, according to Wikipedia, of over 1.6 million, which works out to a density averaging 70,000 per square mile…about twenty times that of Eugene/Springfield, OR, my home town.  Add all the tourists, off-island workers and just plain visitors, and that figure probably goes up to at least the 100K mark.  Yet instead of all the pushing, shoving and general ill-mannered behavior one would expect to find in a much smaller but just as packed crowd of my fellow Southern Willamette Valley denizens, Manhattanites not only would not stand right in middle of the areas of busiest foot traffic or bottlenecks just because that’s where they happened to stop, they would–automatically, without being asked–adjust their own line of travel so as not to interfere with someone else’s; all calmly and matter-of-factually, not just as a ploy to have praise heaped on them for being “thoughtful”.  “People respect each other’s space,” Kent told me, and I think he’s right.  The reason I think may be simple logistics:  it’s as if everyone–rich, poor, male, female, busy shopper or half-drunk street person–realized at some point that for anyone to function at all in this highly compact mass of humanity, everyone has to quietly, almost reflexively, facilitate the general flow…in other words, to stay out of everyone’s way.  Eugeneans, despite their much- (and largely self-) ballyhooed “friendliness”, could learn a little something of genuine thoughtfulness from the so-called “cold and rude” New Yorker.  So could the gun-nuts who parrot Heinlein’s, “An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life”, when it seems that population density may be a better–or at least lest violent–way of achieving polite social interaction (besides, the Wild West was well-armed, yet hardly mannerly–perhaps in part because it was also thinly populated?)

Sociopolitical speculation aside, however, as the picture shows, we all did finally hook up with Dr Maddow and Mr Jones, and enjoyed an evening of laughter and good camaraderie.  For that, I thank not only Dina, but the rest of the crowd:  Joyce, Debbie, Billy, Chip, Ryan, Susan and Kelly, and of course Rachel and Kent, and not just for dinner but for an unforgettable adventure in The Big Apple.  It was a trip that changed a lot of my preconceived notions, particularly about urban existence; when faced with the wonders of Manhattan, I can now see the attraction that huge metropolitan areas can exert…especially when one ends up on that final night on Bleecker Street, in Greenwich Village, scarfing down a piece of the cheesecake that New York is justly famous for.

But would I move there to live?  No way; even with all the conveniences and marvels, the weather still sucks mightily.  Despite the relatively cool weather, the humidity was almost unbearable; and having grown up in snow country, I can well imagine what winters must be like there.  So while I look forward to my next visit, I’m not in any way, shape or form seriously considering relocation.  Even if I could afford it.

Oh, and before I forget:  the hopping subway guy, in the dress.  Someone really should tell him that backless is not the way he should go, for reasons that are thankfully not apparent in this shot.

No, in the end, it was simply the self-doubt about whether or not I could really produce something as complex as a novel.

Short stories are, in comparison, relatively easy:  few characters, one or two basic themes, beginning, middle, end, finish in a day or two, move on.  But full-length novels are something else entirely, much more than just a story that’s longer than others.  The expectation of the reader–and he or she must be paramount in a writer’s concern; if you’re going to presume take money and time from a person for a packet of entertainment, you’d better damn well deliver–is for in-depth and consistent portrayal of more than one character, at least a handful of sub-plots, well-crafted descriptions of settings, and little, or better, no extemporaneous material, no matter how much it might satisfy your own selfish desires.  And the reader–whether or not he or she is mindful of doing so–also wants to see this all seamlessly and harmonically interwoven into the greater narrative.  Think of a browsing deer, a copse of trees, a lowering sky and the warm yellow window of a distant cottage, all in a fine tapestry depicting the totality of a winter panorama with each element present, unique and identifiable, yet in balance with rather than overwhelming the rest of the scene.

In other words, you, as a writer, has to pay attention to detail, continuity and style, and maintain them all over a mass of words than can number well into the six-figures.  It’s difficult, it’s daunting, and it can scare the living shit out of you, so much so that when faced with the task, you can easily find yourself paralyzed.

Enter, Chris Baty and NaNoWriMo:  NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth.  What it is, and does, are pretty much implicit in the title.  To participate, one must take an idea for a story of a minimum of 50,000 words and drive through to that goal in the thirty days of November.  It’s a simple as that.  But what it accomplishes, for me anyway, is two-fold:  not only did I have to discipline myself to write 1667 words per day, at least on average, but because the time was limited, I couldn’t find excuses to worry about minor plot points, such as whether a character’s actions in one situation might be completely consistent with the nuances of his or her personality as depicted earlier in the work, or if I should name a critical street after This or That figure or feature, or if indeed a certain government office has exactly the mission that I claimed it does.  In short, if a problem ain’t critical, then move along.  This is just first draft, you know.  As Liz Engstrom, another great teacher of the craft, always says:  fix it in the rewrite.

So this year, not only did I reach the goal, I went beyond it, having well over 60,000 words today, the last day of the project.  Better yet, since I’m not concerned at present with all those little flaws that will inevitably arise during the course of a work, I can look back on what I have accomplished, and find that overall, I like it.  And I think others will, too, once it is polished up.  Which means, not only may I actually finish the rough draft–I think 70-80K words will do it–but I am more hopeful than I have ever been that I will then go on through the second, and then final drafts, and after that, seriously beginning looking for a publisher.

Thanks, Chris.  Couldn’t have done it without you.  Oh, and you, too, Liz.

And still no peace.  We never learn.

But occasionally, our species of gibbering, club-wielding ape produces an individual about whom even a raging cynic and misanthrope such as myself can feel safe in saying:  “If most of us were like this person, this world would not be the hell-hole of hypocrisy that it is”.    So it was that when I heard of Walter Cronkite’s death this morning, it was as if the last candle in a dark, dark room had gone out.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Walter Cronkite.  Naive I might have been, but nevertheless I thought that if people could only get the unvarnished facts, they would ignore the lies of the narcissistic sociopaths in business, in government, in religion and yes, even in journalism, and thus rise up and eliminate the injustices that humans commit against their fellows by the billions, day in and day out.  To me, there could be no higher calling, nor more needful one; honest reporting–getting the facts of current events to the voting public, pure and unvarnished–was, and indeed still is, the foundation upon which a successful democracy is built.  And no one in my memory fit the bill better than Walter Cronkite.

I know what some are thinking right now:  there’s no such thing as completely unbiased reporting.  And if one uses the principle of reductio ad abusurdum, then they’re right–there will always be a flavor of personal prejudice in any news story.  But applying more reasonable standards, I feel it is still possible enough that people of good will can look at an incident or a principle, make note of all the more salient aspects, and then describe them with a high degree of accuracy, in spite of their own opinions.

Walter Cronkite did just that, and people respected him for it, and trusted him even when they didn’t like what he was saying.  What better evidence, than when LBJ finally said:  “”If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”  Nowadays, however, media figures have become 7-8-figure entertainment personalities bought and paid for by the rich and powerful.  And the US has suffered for it.  Would George Bush have ever gotten into office if it hadn’t been for the well-dressed and -coiffed venal mouthpieces disguised as credible, objective reporters whom acted as if his “victories” were credible?  Would self-serving arguments against overpopulation, global warming, and universal health care be treated with anything more than the contempt they deserve?  Would the tag-along cheerleaders such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly be seen as anything more than the lying, manipulative demagogues that they really are?

When I’ve seen what journalism has become, I despair; when I remember Walter Cronkite, I mourne.  And in the end, I’m glad I instead found more honest work sweeping floors and driving trucks.

Mildred

I don’t have much to add to what was said better by others, nor will I linger over my heated disgust at the phonies whom treated Mildred like dirt while she was alive but then suddenly got all teared up when the microphone was in their hands.  All I know is that Mildred was one of the few people I could be ornery with in this oh-so-PC town, and not only would she not stick her nose in the air, or scold me like some constipated school-marm, but she would ornery me back, and give as good as she got, and sometimes even more.

Goodbye, Mildred.  I’ll miss you more than you’d realize; more than even I would have guessed.