Bruno

Prologue

    I once had a girlfriend who persuaded me — with adulation, sex, gifts and financial assistance — to elope with her to Las Vegas.  She was convinced, I later found out, that I was Shakespeare (in a former life).  The night she admitted her motive, after some fairly raucous fun, she allowed as how she had tried and tried and tried to marry me in several different lifetimes, and, having succeeded, she now was fulfilled.

    Wishes do come true, at least if they are backed up with the unambiguous, precise and unflaggingly resolute intention that they be so.  The reason you can’t ’win the lottery’ has nothing do with the mathematically astronomical ‘odds’ of winning.  You don’t win the lottery because you hope, or wish, or think it would be nice to win; or desperately need to win (you tell yourself) … you do, literally, ever single thing you don’t need to do to win the lottery, and you do not do the one thing you do need to do to win the lottery:  Intend to win.  Know you HAVE won.  Buying two Quick Picks guarantees that you will not win (except purely by chance, like everyone else), because purchasing the second ‘draw’ means that you have doubts about the first draw.  And so, you’ve lost before the numbers are drawn.

    My once-upon-a-time girlfriend’s intention to marry me, in this lifetime, was sharp and strong.  She was resolute in her goal to persuade me to marry her.  What she was not so precise in was the intention to stay married to me, or to have a happy and fulfilling marriage. Consequently, having sated her lust to wed (and repeatedly and vigorously bed me) we parted ways not long after — she hired a lawyer, without discussing the matter with me, and surprised me with divorce papers while I was at work, claiming that I had had intimacies with other women (I had not — why would I?) so that I would not get any of her money — or at least the money the cult she joined wanted her to give to it.  She eventually found another husband, and she died an early death some ten years after we parted.  I wonder if he got all of her money, or if she managed to ‘donate’ it to that cult, who feeling threatened by me, succeeded in persuading her to change me out for someone who was more obedient to its goals?

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Chapter 1

    It's critical to understand, something at least, about the power of intention.  Pure unwavering, clear and precise intention.  Intention need not be “strong” or “forceful” to be effective, and indeed, the best and most effective intention is fairly quiet, calm and unenturbulated.  It is also persistent.  Sometimes even the best of intentions do not produce the intended result -- like the proverbial rabbit being pulled out of hat ‘right before your eyes’.  Sometimes the material world has to be brought into alignment with your intention.  

    Let me offer an example.  Some years before my-once-upon-a-time-soon-to-divorce-me-girlfriend came along and snared me, I had become disillusioned with my lot in life.  It was not that it was a bad lot in life; and in face, a lot of people would have envied me.  I had two beautiful children who I adored, with my first wife, Janice, who, while she did not really value me, and who avoided having sex with me in favor of the lover she had taken and for whom she eventually jilted me, at least allowed me the consideration of watching me jerk off there in our marital bed.  

    I sometimes think that Janice's one driving intention in life was to have children to keep her company.  She didn't really need, or want, a husband, mind you.  One time she said to me that if life were perfect, she'd have her own house next door to mine, and our two darling children could go back and forth.  She wouldn't, then, need to put up with a husband, but she would have someone to share the child-rearing responsibilities ... and of course help pay for it.

     The clear headed understanding that getting someone else to pay for your life, could be a good thing, was what guided my (then) wife for, I think, most of her life.  Even after she threw me over for a man somewhat more compliant even that I had been, and even though she stayed with my replacement for the rest of her life (before she met an untimely end), I (like to) think that had she found it convenient, or if she had been able to find a better deal financially, without having to be entangled with him, that she would have taken it.

    Of course this is a not especially charitable construct which maybe I have imagined just because it relieves me of the responsibility for having married her in the first place, not realizing that she did not value me but yet still having children with her because she wanted them, and not having the gumption to move on to someone like my (good) wife sooner rather than 20 years later than I should have.

      But, if I had done that -- seen things clearly and unapologetically ... wife of my children and I once screwed at a friend's wedding in the groom's bedroom whilst everyone else was out at the party ... I thought no one would realize this ... but, everyone did ... proof certain that lust is the handmaiden to a vast array of stupidity -- I would not have the wonderful children I somehow lucked into fathering.

    By, the way, I think it is not true, as Eddie Murphy once joked that men will 'fuck mud'.  Well, it IS true that some men will not just fuck mud, but sheep, eletronic masturbation machines and, probably, guacamole.  But, not all of us.  Sometimes we are like what women are imagined to be: romantic nudkins who are loving, warm and want like the dickens to have a family, but we are afflicted with hormones that coerce us into 'fucking anything that even remotely resembles a warm squishy pussy'.  Alas.

     The wife-of-my-children, nevertheless, had what I would imagine she would consider a fairly successful life -- until she didn't.  Not wanting to seem like someone who enjoys others misfortune, I will not say -- and I do not think, actually -- that she got what she deserved when, some two decades after we parted ways, she came down with some kind of incurable illness that always results in an appallingly painful death.  But, she did.  And, the fellow who was 'lucky' enough to have supplanted me and got the privilege of spending more time raising my children than I did, had the privilege of nursing the wife-of-my-children through her dying years, months, weeks, days and hours.  I am sorry he had that burden, because I am sorry that she contracted that disease, because I am really sorry my children lost their mother when they did.

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Chapter 2 

    I have this recurring dream … which I only have when I am in a deep, deep sleep and I wake up all of a sudden, like “What?” … “Oh, noooooooo ….”  The funny thing is that this actually happened to me once … or I think it did ….  I’m somewhere … the place varies … this time I had just left where I worked, or had worked, where I had been trying to beg my job back from my boss (with whom we obviously exchanged tender feelings) … the car varies … this time it was a brand new white something swoopy … usually “they” just steal my battery, this time not only did they steal my battery, but they stole all the credit cards out of my wallet, but left the cash in my wallet and my (very expensive) MacBook Pro 16”.  I’m like ‘Shit! No battery! AND, I HAVE TO CALL THE CREDIT CARD COMPANIES!!!’.  Well, I wake up to the alarm on my watch, and it takes me 20 minutes to fully realize I am actually awake.

    What would Freud say?  Who knows.  Who cares.  But, it is odd that I rarely dream about, anything.

    On the other hand, my wife says that she can think about what she wants to dream, and she'll dream about that!  Wow.  Who knew that you could entertain yourself at night when you are asleep?  She is the second woman I've known in my life who could control their dreams.  As an undergraduate, I was a philosophy major.  One of my teaching assistants, Nina Tia Appelonia (yep), in my introduction to philosophy course, was tall, slim and wore the most provocative long brown dark hair.  

    We became good chums, later after I had moved on from her course, of course.  She was also chums with another graduate student -- which I can't lie, made me a little jealous.  But, what startled me was her admission one day that, just before she went to sleep at night, she would think what she wanted to dream about, and would dream exactly the 'play' which she set out for herself ... just like she was laying our her clothes for the next day.

    Being the remarkably naive (albeit horny) fellow that I was then, I didn't realize that what Nina was telling me, possibly to get me revved up for our next chumming, was that she could write her own pornography.  Hmm.  All there, inside her head.  No video.  No trace.  Nothing for Big Brother to hold over her head.  Sex dreams.  Who knew?

    My naivete' did not stop with Nina.  Some years later, I was a young associate attorney in a big snooty law firm in San Francisco.  I was friendly with all the Staff, but I definitely hit it off with one of the Staff, Elaine, who was in charge of the law firm's IT department.  We would talk all the time when I was between assignments.  I thought she was just being friendly, since, as I was married to Janice, and we had two beautiful little girls who I just (and still do) adored!  And, Elaine had two beautiful children of her own, lived in a fancy schmancy house in one of the better areas of San Francisco with her husband.

    So, one day we were sitting in Elaine's office, shooting the shit, and she says to me, casually, "Do you think it is wrong to have an affair?"  To which I replied: "Wrong?  No, I don't necessarily think it is wrong.  But, it would be a lot of trouble.  Right?  Having to sneak around, lie about what you are doing.  Right?"  Elaine let the subject drop, and I left as I had to get back to work.

    No sooner than I had stepped outside her door and closed it behind me, did it dawn on me WHY Elaine had asked me that!  Well, that was that, the moment had passed even if I had wanted to take her up on her offer.  Not three days later Elaine had taken up with another fellow at the Firm.

    Not sure what was 'in the water' at that law firm.  Over the seven years I worked there, there were affairs of influential partners and associates (one such pairing stayed together, divorced their spouses and left the firm ... they would come in early in the mornings and 'chum around' in the partner's office!), among married associates, among the principal partner's daughter (also an associate) and several other male associates, two of the three of which were eventually forced out while the 'victor' married her and himself became a partner.  And, surely there were other flings that weren't so widely known.

    It's a little odd congratulating a fellow for becoming voted in to be a partner, when he's sleeping with daughter of the founder of the firm.  Oh, sure, he was a good lawyer.  But, will he ever know, in his heart, that it was his skill and not his dick that led to his success?

    One of the Founder's Daughter's Lovers, who was also married when they had their fling, had a beautiful wife of his own and a beautiful daughter.  He became bitter and morose and, while he was the most talented of the associates of his era, left to pursue 'other interests'.  In the meantime, the Firm had hired a no-talent hispanic fellow just for the sake of what we now call "diversity".  He was the laughing stock of the associates.  Not because he was Mexican, but because he was, actually, stupid.  One wondered ... several of us did, how on Earth he could have ever gotten through law school, and what for Christ's Sake led the hiring committee to hire him in the first place?

    Eventually, he was 'persuaded' to go elsewhere, but in the meantime, it became clear that he really, really, really was only a 'diversity hire' and everyone had to re-do his work to avoid mal-practice suits.  But, that was the era of the beginning of 'diversity' or 'reverse-discrimination' and there were not enough 'minorities' that were smart enough, to go around.  As time wore on the 'minorities', especially the smart ones, began to realize that if they perservered there could be a place for them, and then, as that Indian Lawyer/Attorney General in the Yellowstone ... we were told a Harvard Law Graduate ... could work themselves up to the top and stick it to the man.  So, what 'we' created was a class of people bent on vengenance, instead of simply bent on what everyone I grew up was bent on, which was to support their families well.  What started out as a way to 'level the playing field' (as the playing field should have been all along) became a Marxist harangue to upend the entire economic system so that people with no talent, no guts, no drive, no conceivable idea about how to contribute to the common good, could get their vengenance on people that had done nothing to them.

    I do not know what happened to that law firm.  It was built by an astonishingly talented white man, who pretty much held sway over its management until he died at the very ripe old age of 93.  When he died, lawyers from all across the United States of America flew in to his funeral to honor him for all he'd done for them over the preceding 65 years.  Me, I stayed home, as I didn't want to have to face the Founder's Daughter and pretend that what we had had had not mattered.

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Chapter 3

    Another thing about that law firm in San Francisco ... I was well thought of ... very well thought of ... for a while.  Several of the partners thought I was the best thing since sliced cheese.  I was one of the main recruiting associates -- the associates the Firm used to lure candidates to the Firm.  I was so well liked by the main recruiting partner, that when I repeatedly overspent on recruiting dinners, he defended me.  Hell, I could have been a partner.  Hell, I ... WAS ... a partner, for a little while.  

    And, then the partner who I'll jocularly call 'Snape', got it in for me.  Snape was a tall, dark-haired somewhat muscular man in his late 30's, who fancied himself an athlete (he disdained me because I was not suitably competent to play on his softball team) who probably had a small weenie.  He had a studied, intentional, 'severe' countenance, and used his large physical size to intimidate new associates.

    Snape also happened to be adept at getting a specific kind of business, which led the other partners to overlook his overbearing, childish and abusive demeanor.  I suppose they rationalized allowing a bully to handle their associates with the thought that 'He can't be all bad, after all he does have a wife AND he does bring in lots and lots of money.'  Indeed he had what one would have called a 'trophy wife'.  She was also an attorney, bright red hair, vivacious and almost certainly ruled their roost ... given his tiny weenie.  But, she -- I never knew Mrs. Snape's name -- did know when to massage his ... ego ... and on his 40th Birthday, she gave him 40 presents.  Cute.  I am sure it was the nicest thing she could think of to do for him to make up for his tiny weenie.

    It should also be known that Lawyer Snape gave the real Snape a bad name.  He had no redeeming character traits; and he wasn't pretending to be an A-hole.  He was, and for all I know still is, an A-Hole.

    I left the Firm after it (nearly) imploded because of the incompetence of the Chief Financial Officer ... a smooth talking blonde bombshell who seemed to have a thing for Snape's weenie ... who allowed the Firm to go, basically $10,000,000 in the hole by overpaying the partners for a period of four years.  Any minimally competent H & R Block employee -- even the night guard -- would not have allowed this to happen.  But when Blonde Bombshell-who-liked-Snape's-weenie was found out to have screwed the entire partnership, of course, big tough man Snape defended her.

    As a result, the Firm fired 1/3 of its associates (including, thankfully the Mexican Diversity) and 1/3 of its secretaries, and several of the biggest business getter partners left (and took all their business) for greener pastures.  Eventually, the Management Committee found their balls and fired Blonde Bombshell.  But, by that time it was too late.  And, I left, too.

    So, if I were so well liked (well, by nearly everyone except Snape, and, by the gigolo who eventually married the Founder's Daughter on his way to becoming a Partner), why did I leave?

    To understand this, to really understand this, you have to understand something about Scientology.  Not that I then knew anything about Scientology ... in fact, I didn't hear the word 'Scientology' much 'L. Ron Hubbard' until October 1998.

    But, Hubbard, being a pretty smart fellow (despite what all the News Outlets may say) did explain with remarkable accuracy the variety of factors which bear upon how people act and why.  One of his revelations was the concept of an "Overt".  An Overt is not a wrong.  It isn't a lie, necessarily.  Although lying could be an Overt, it might not be.  Take for example the old moral puzzle about whether, in Nazi Germany, it is wrong to lie to the Gestapo and tell them that you are not harboring any jews.  Well, lying is 'always' wrong, right?  Lying to the Gestapo is a lie.  Lying to the Gestapo is wrong. Right? So, by doing the 'right thing', you end up being responsible for the death of a frightened jewish man and his wife and six children.

     That doesn't seem right, does it?  No.  It isn't.  A lot of moral theorists try, but, really none of them succeed in solving this moral conundrum, except Hubbard.  Hubbard defines ... more or less, don't quote me ... an "overt" as an act that is not just injuring someone or something ... it it an act of omission or commission which does the least good for the least number of ‘dynamics’ or the most harm to the greatest number of ‘dynamics’.  

    We can get lost in the weeds here on the topic of Scientology.  But, that would be counter-productive.  For my purposes, it's pretty clear that the reason it's ok -- nay, morally required -- to lie to the gestapo is because whether something is 'wrong', whether something is an 'overt' depends on who it affects and how.  People are part of the world as themselves; people relate to life as a member of a family; as a member of various groups; as a member of the human race; people relates to the animal and plant kingdoms; people relate to the physical universe as a whole; and people -- some say -- have a spiritual component or orientation.  Sooooooo an 'overt' affects you,  your family, your groups, the population of the Earth, animals, plants and the stars in a worse way than some other act.  Telling the truth to the gestapo would arguably, affects all of these 'dynamics' (or at least the first four) worse (via the death of six or eight innocent human beings) than misleading that group called the Gestapo.

    Soooo, an Overt is doing what least helps you and all the people, plants and animals you know, love and are responsible for.  And, the other thing you need to know is that when you have committed 'overts' in a particular area, if the overts are big enough (in your mind), you have a tendency to "blow", meaning run away without facing and/or repairing your overt.

    We see this all the time.  A child caught playing video games instead of doing their homework blows up and stalks out of the house.  Not because mom or dad are being unreasonable.  But, because they were caught in the act of doing something that would contribute to them being on public assistance in their old age, instead of being able to intelligently care for themselves.  

    Married men, and women, who rail about how evil and awful were their spouses, as the explanation about why they 'had to' divorce them, are admitting that THEY committed a variety of 'overts' against their spouse, and they were unable to face themselves ... or rather face their spouses daily because everytime they saw their spouse's face, they were reminded of all the things they have done wrong TO the spouse.  So, they "blow".

    I didn't "blow" in exactly that way.  Sometimes people "blow" by doing MORE things 'wrong' and getting caught (on purpose, actually).  They can't actually hold their own ethics in, so they give the job to someone else.g

    In my case, I 'blew' by making friends with people who did not have my interests (much less best interests) at heart, and who were not especially honest in their own lives or with their own families, and of course we also not honest at work.

    I don't mean that they cheated their clients.  Or did not work hard.  They did not.  They did.  But, amongst their fellows, they are catty, back-biting and unsupportive.  They hadn't learned that the best way to do better in the world is to help as many people as possible to do better.  They thought that you 'get ahead' by tearing others down, talking behind their back, scheming against them, and minimizing them.  How wrong they were.

    You can, and should, blame them.  They chose how to live and what to believe.  Yet it is understandable -- an much more so today -- how weak and small minds would, seeing the examples of their 'leaders' ... the great politicians of the day ... the ministers ... the religious leaders ... who trade in self-aggrandizement, crowd control and the 'minimization' or what their paranoia perceives as a threat to their perverted way of life, rather than honest forthright help ... would emulate their 'leaders' in the disgusting patterns of power they saw 'succeed' every day.

    Of course, 'success' for these pretenders to the thrones was/is purely about power, money and subjugation of others.  Success for these sorts -- including most of the partners and associates where I worked -- was not about building a mutually cooperative and rewarding association.  Success was just (mostly) about beating others down, by any means, but just enough that the subjugated kept trying to achieve the same hallowed holy grail.

    So, thinking I had made friends with two of the most likely to enter the inner sanctum, I let my guard down.  In saying this I don't mean to suggest that I was a 'victim', totally innocent and 'taken advantage of' by my 'friends'.  The consequences of my (mis)trust were not hidden to me.  I just had to look.  But, that would not have given me a reason to blow.

    So, we sat about my office ragging on Mr. Mexican Diversity ... how stupid he was (and he was) ... how incompetent (and he was) ... how his place in the firm was due solely to misguided gifts he received from what we used to call Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity:  Giving the unqualified a job and overlooking all their mistakes.

    And, one of my two 'friends', after he had goaded us into a frenzy of childish insults about Mr. Mexican Diversity, suggested we (anonymously, of course) tell MMD to 'fuck-off'.  So, one of us three, I don't recall which one ... wrote "fuck you man" on a Memorandum which had been sent to all the firm's associates. The ringleader wanted one of us to drop it in MMD’s interoffice mailbox.  Stupid me.  I didn’t realize he was setting a trap for me; and he’d make it work one way or the other.

    But, I said, no, we'd had our fun, and tossed the paper in the trash.  If I'd been smart, I would have shredded it.  But, again, there are various ways to 'blow'.

    A few weeks later, Snape shows up in my office, showed me the memo with the "fuck you man" and tells me that he has been to every other associate and they all had their copy of the Memorandum, and he wanted to see mine.  Realizing I had been had, I told him truthfully that I had thrown it away.  What I did not tell him was about the bitch-session with Not-Friend-1 and Friend-2.

    To make a long story short … it took a few years of living under Snape’s thumb … eventually Snape forced me out of the Firm.  I could have ‘saved’ myself, by ratting on Not-Friend-1 and Friend-2.  I didn’t.  This is part of ‘blowing’.  I just, more or less, let Snape and Not-Friend-1 ruin the ‘good thing’ I thought I had going there.

    To this day, I can’t say who took the Memorandum out of my wastebasket, and who put it into MMD's mailbox.  And, to this day, Snape thinks that Not-Friend-1, who eventually married the named partner's daughter, and became a partner himself, was an honest, upright man.  So, all these years Snape has partnered with a back-stabbing, mendacious, home-wrecker (it was for Not-Friend-1 that the named partner's daughter divorced her husband).

    It serves little willie Snape right.  In all his self-satisfied righteousness, he mistook a criminal and back-stabber for an honest man, and relied on this all these years.  He got what he deserved, a disreputable life.

    Well, what happened to me?  Turns out, life has been good, and has gotten even better, after a few lean and stressful years. This is what happens when you rid yourself of back-stabbers and other miscreants.  When you clear the decks and surround yourself with only honest, helpful, good people, life blossoms.

    I realize that some readers won’t want to hear this, because they think that a good story must be filled with intrigue, betrayal and upset.

    I 

    

    

    

To be continued.

 Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 6 (Delayed).

It has been four years since my last post on this heading.  What have I been doing?  Not a lot of consequence, and I certainly have not written anything approproaching the art of Stephen King.  I do hear, however, that Mr. King, has been before Congress and has testified against the attempt by Penguin Random House of Simon & Schuster.  Not surprising that Mr. King objects to what is a terrible idea, inasmuch as (1.) it is a terrible idea, and (2.) some years ago when Penguin Random House (allegedly) cheated Mr. King from certain royalties, he took his considerable talents to Simon & Schuster.

In the interim, I did read a wonderful book entitled "How To Stop A Conspiracy", by the Roman (now deceased for about 2250 or so years) Sallust, with a commentary and translation by Josiah Osgood.  I strongly recommend it.  I bought my copy from the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, via an advertisement directed at me on Facebook.  For a long time, I resisted those advertisements.  But, I'll be damned, if, somehow, Facebook has figured out what interests me (some of the time, anyway).  Or what might interest me.  Let's hope FB keeps it to themselves (and me ... 😊 ... cause I likes what I likes, and it's no body's business what I likes, except me ... 😉).

Read.  Read.  Read.  Finally, as my ripe old age, I have figured out why "people" read.  Why leaders read.  Why the wealthy entrepreneurs read.  Why teachers read.  Why smart people read.  And it is this:  YOU DO NOT WANT TO ARRIVE IN THE NEXT LIFE AS IGNORANT AS YOU WERE WHEN YOU REACHED THIS LIFE.  You think I am kidding.  I'm not.  If you educate yourself, now, in this life.  You'll have a running start as a good life, the next time.  One time I watched the movie of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and then, fascinated, I actually got the book and I read it.  The most eye-opening this for me in that book was the old lady down the street, who had gotten addicted to some kind of drug, and on her dying bed (it took her quite a while to die) one of the protagonist's children was forced to go to her bed every day and read to her.  Why?  She felt that she needed to break her addition, in this life, so that it would not follow her into the next life.  And, the process was so appallingly difficult that she needed someone to distract her from her withdrawal sufferings.  She wanted to leave this life clean, better than she had been during her life.

I want to leave this life, lo' many years from now, better than I am now ... so that, when I get to the next place I am going, I won't be as ignorant as I was when I entered this life.  I want to give myself a leg-up.  Reading does that.

My Maiden Post from https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Ntany3K5kK/what-matters-1640152

If you like what I've said here, or it means something to you, or you just have $3.00 to spare, then, please Buy Me A Coffee. 

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Art and the Game

From time to time, I wonder to myself, if -- as some say -- "art is the quality of communication" -- then will true, valuable, informative, communication win out, in the competition for attention, over "celebrities" who couldn't tie their own shoes, over "healthy living influencers" who eat junk food when they think no one is looking, over loud mouthed pundits who are simply following a script that someone smarter than they are, wrote for them.

In short, I wonder to myself, if "people" are as easily led into temptation as they seem to be and whether there is any point to trying to deliver them from evil ... as what used to be called "the Good Book" suggests might be the salvation of the human race.

And, then, following this introductory train of thought, I consider the 'ancient' civilization of "the Roman People" (that is actually what Romans called themselves. They didn't say "the United States of Rome" or "Rome". They called themselves "the Roman People"). There are many fine books written about the Roman People ... the first one I ever remember was called "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire". One I have read recently is "How To Stop A Conspiracy, An Ancient Guide to Saving a Republic" by Sallust, translated and introduced by Josiah Osgood, copyright 2022 by Princeton University Press. It's a little book, in pages and physical size (you can hold it in one hand. But, its quality of communication, its "art" is remarkable. Sallust's thesis, so far as I could recognize it is that the Roman People fell, as we now know, because, after conquering the world, and the hardships and efforts required to do so, having earned their leisure and their luxury (at least for true citizens), it ruined them. And, the "game", as it were, no longer being about getting others, came to be about getting each other. Amassing large fortunes, having fine clothes (with money stolen from their peers), amassing political power ... in short, the game came to be about nothing in particular. There was no longer any "game", and so the Roman People simply ate themselves up. The famous saying 'Nero fiddled while Rome burned', issued to suggest how morally bankrupt the Roman People had become that their leader would "fiddle" whilst they went down to ruin, is really saying that to remain great, a great people need a great game, and when the game is over, the game turns inward and self-destruction inevitably results.

So, dear friend, the next time you feel like you have accomplished something by reaching the 75th level of Dungeons and Dragons, ask yourself "What Game Is This I Am Playing?" Or more accurately, "Who's Game Am I A Pawn In?" And, if you don't like the answer, well, then, go on out and start a good game. One that actually builds something for you to pass on to your People, bye and bye.

Cheerio.

Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 5 (Reprise)

When I (was fortunate enough to somehow stumble upon and) read Stephen King's little book "On Writing", I was astonished and humbled, at the same time, by the fact that such a marvelous talent had taken the time, effort and energy to put down in writing so that the likes of me could read, his 'secrets' about how to tell stories.

And, so, I decided to devote my writing, or at least some one it (until I feel like he's gotten enough credit) to Mr. King's generous impetus.  And, of course, this doesn't mean that he's responsible for the quality of my writing; but, if anyone deserves some moral credit for these machinations, he does.

Today, I want to reprise a topic which was, oddly enough, created by the inimitable Harvey Weinstein's lecherous activities, as have come to be bandied about in our beloved "Press" throughout the last many disgusting months.  Of course, once those who had taken Harvey's money to keep quiet about what he had done to them, decided that they could gain something even more than handsome sums of hush money by eschewing their own moral and legal obligations to keep their contractually purchased word, the floodgates opened and all manner of men (and some women) have been ousted from their positions of political and financial power, and their lives ruined as much as (and sometimes more than) their victims' lives were harmed because of wrongs the lecherous (at least supposedly) committed.  Men (almost entirely) who (allegedly) 'sexually harassed' one, or more, women, and who stood to lose their livelihoods and the great fortunes they had amassed, all of a sudden, started feeling the heat that their (alleged) vile actions deserved.  Deserved, if true, yes.  Deserved at some time.  Yes, absolutely.  But, deserve, now?

Now, Virginia, THAT is the question, the answer to which, threatens to destroy the very fabric of the "civilization" which some 6,000,000,000 (billion) people or so depend upon daily for their bread.

Today, in fact, a (now) woman, is trying to see to it that one Brett Kavanaugh, nominated for appointment to the US Supreme Court, and by all accounts (save, one at least), a stand-up guy, exquisitely qualified for the post, does not get that appointment.  This woman -- who for some reason is identified in the press by her married name of Ford, as well as her not-married name, Blasey -- claims that, when she was in high school, BK cornered her in a room at a party, and drunk, "sexually assaulted" her.

There's a lot of, obvious, political timing in this particular accusation.  Without this accusation, Brett Kavanaugh would have long since been confirmed and sitting on the U. S. Supreme Court -- and he may very well be anyway, since, even though SHE brought this accusation to light voluntarily, she is  now refusing to testify before the committee that is considering his nomination "until the FBI investigates".

Sound fair?  Right?  This ought to be investigated!  Right?  We don't want sexual assaulters sitting on the Supreme Court! Right!?

Yes, we want the members of the United States Supreme Court to have 'impeachable' reputations.  I think so, anyway.

But, I want to leave those thorny, difficult and eventually unsolvable issues regarding Brett Kavanaugh's character to one-side.  They are important.  Clearly.  But, there is something far, far, far more important at stake if the public and Congress delay confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice based upon a 30-year old, supposed, event, which was known by the alleged viction, Christine Blasey Ford, AND her husband, AND her therapist, AND the long-time senator from the Great State of California, Dianne Feinstein, for the entire time Brett Kavanaugh served on an important Federal Court and distinguished himself as a jurist of remarkable talent and capability.

Personally, I do not think it will make much difference, if any, to the trajectory that this Country is taking whether it is Brett Kavanaugh, or someone with more 'liberal leanings' who is appointed to fill the vacant seat.  So, from my point of view, what it stake here is much more sinister.  It is the destruction, literally,  of the basic tenets of civilization and a return to anarchy.

I kid you not.

I happened upon this realization when I was, recently, vacationing in Scotland, on one of those cursed 'bus tours', where everyone rides around feeling nauseated from the swaying and jostling of the bus, and the incessant droning on of the 'tour guide'.

Our particular tour guide, was a remarkably knowledgeable woman named Deidre.  As we twaddled languorously through the Scottish highlands, she regaled us with a history lesson the likes of which I could not have even remotely attained in my schooling.  Leaving aside the fact that I kinda wished that she knew something more about the countryside than she appeared to, her historical and political commentary was informative.  And, frighteningly, if unintentionally, instructive.

While I may (almost certainly do) have some of the details (both important and not) out-of-kilter, the fundamental point is that "House of Windsor" (... a modern, I think 20th Century) re-naming, probably to shed the implications of the original name of the line, "Hanover" ...), which is presently represented by the person of Queen Elizabeth, was installed by Parliament on the heels of a bloody 'coup' back, I think, in the 1600's.  There was no 'vote of the people', no succession by the heavenly right of primogeniture, just the decision of some old men that the then current resident of the office 'had to go'.  Well, he couldn't very well complain -- other than about being murdered and then drawn and quartered for good measure -- since he, also, was installed as the King of England by another bloody coup.

So, on the strength of a murder of someone who had murdered someone else in order to ascend to the wealth, land ownership and power of the British crown, the "House of Windsor" was handed the 'keys to the nation', and an astonishing (even for this day of billionaires-under-a-foot-everywhere) wealth.  They didn't buy it.  They weren't voted in as "Monarchs" (which is a ludicrous thought anyway).  There was no popular agreement.  The House of Hanover/Windsor was simply GIVEN mind numbing power and wealth.

Oh, to be sure, it takes some skill to keep a "line" going for all these hundreds of years, and the House of Windsor's times have not always been good ... there has been talk about "abolishing the Monarchy" when Prince Phillip's ex-Wife, Diana, was killed in an auto-accident and the "House of Windsor's" reaction was not, well, royal enough.

But, the point is not to trash Queen Elizabeth or her "line".  The current occupants of this 'office' seem nice and dedicated to helping their 'subjects'.

The point of all of this is:  Let's assume that, somewhere back before Parliament authorized the murder of the King and his replacement with a member of the House of Hanover, that, somewhere, there was a 'legitimate' King or Queen of England.  Whatever legitimate means to you.  (If 'legitimate' means, to you, whomever is big enough to hold the throne, then even a coup can represent a legitimate installation, but for the sake of the argument, I decline to accept murder as a basis for achieving legitimacy.)  So, if murder is not a legitimate basis on which to start a new monarchical line, I think we have to conclude that the current "House of Windsor" ... its entire line, is just a long-lived of people that have absolutely no right to the power, titles and authority that they have succeeded to; that they are illegitimate; they are frauds; and they are no better than thieves.

These are harsh words, but they have a point.

So, let's return to the remarkably stale claims of one Christine Blasey Ford that she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh.  Let's say, just for the sake of the argument, that her claims are true.  What then?  Do we observe the fundamental and basic rule of law (which came down to us, not coincidentally through the English "Bill of Rights" that came into being about the time the House of Hanover/Windsor came into "power" on the heels of a murder) that 'stale claims' (in Federal Law and most States, the longest 'statute of limitations' that this author is aware of is 10 years) are barred and cannot be litigated-no remedy can be given for them?  Or do throw 'due process' out the window and do whatever we damn well please, on the spur of the moment?

And, if you say, "Yes!" This is important!  Then how do you stop, if you want to stop, from tracing the illegitimacy of the British Crown back to the murder of the prior "House"?  Yes, it's 400 or so years, instead of 30 years, but there is no analytical distinction.  A wrong is a wrong.  And, by the same token, why do we not go back to the 1800's when the American Indians were rousted out of their centuries old homes, and return "their" lands to them?  Or, for that matter, why don't we trace back the possession of Jerusalem back to the last "rightful" owners and award that Holy City to their heirs?

I do not say these things to leave you without an answer, because there is an answer, and a good one.  But, you'll want to figure it out according to your own lights, because the only good answer this author can come up with results in Christine Blasey Ford being ignored, and Brett Kavanaugh being confirmed as the next Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

So, which is it?  Consistency, finality and regularity in the application of laws, and respect for the lives that people have lived for decades and centuries, regardless of the harms that may have brought these 'lines' into currency?  Or is it the ad hoc justice that gives no one solace, gives no one but the terrorists comfort, and results in the constant warring between factions as to who is top dog?  Christine Blasey Ford's attempt to torpedo Brett Kavanaugh's nomination is the least responsible, fair or just thing she could possibly have done at this juncture in time -- and the most destructive possible of the "Rule of Law" under which we all live and enjoy a moderately advanced and well-organized lives.

180919

Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 4

Outlining is the comeuppance of many a student, harshly scolded by their spinster (not, BTW a 'sexist' term, as it applies equally to old crotchety never married men and old crotchety never married women - my oldest brother could, with definitional rectitude be called a 'spinster', except that he doesn't sit about and knit, so far as I know) teachers, that neither they, nor their writing, will ever amount to anything if they do not learn to prepare a "proper" outline, including all of the various indentations and subsections and subsubsubsubsections that the Platonic Ideal of a Good and Right Outline would have.

Outlining -- or the imagined necessity to be able to do it in order to "be" a "good writer" -- is, also, me thinks, the one evil, perverted, pernicious "stop" which has caused more promising writers to lie down their pens, pencils, typewriters or keyboards than any single other cause in the history of the entire galaxy.

I am not saying that an "outline" is not a good thing for certain purposes, none of which have the slightest thing to do with the quality of one's writing.  It is good if you need an organizational structure to display to your law school teachers so that they will think that, by displaying a talent for organization, you are similarly displaying a talent for legal acumen, understanding and ability.  it is good to be able to outline if you are writing a governmental pamphlet on 'How To Obtain A Medicare Card Before You Die From Waiting For It To Arrive" -- yet it is clear that apparently none of the writers of governmental pamphlets that deal with how to do something to get something the government provides have acquainted themselves with the fine points of outlining.  And, outlining MAY be important if you have a brilliant idea for the next 'iPhone' and you want to someone to bankroll you for its research and production.

But, I now have it on the excellent authority of J. A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins (aka James Paul Czajkowski) ... and, if I read him right, Mr. Stephen King, also, that 'outlining', per se, is mostly something that writers do to show their editors and book-publishers just enough information to persuade them to pay the writer an advance against the eventual royalties.  Yet, time, after time, after time, these authors regale us with stories about book publishers, who, having given an advance based upon some outline, receive a rather much different book than the outline promised.  From a logistical standpoint, for a writer, this is problematic only if the eventual 'product' of the outline sucks.

Assuming, however that the eventual book does not suck -- and let's say in Mr. Stephen King's case -- not only does the manuscript not suck, but it is fabulous, generates world-wide acclaim and bunches of money for the author and the publisher, then one might naturally want to ask what the purpose of the outline ever was, and do "real" authors use them?  And, if so, why?  And, if not, why not?

Well, as I understand what J.A. Jance, T. Jefferson Parker, and James Rollins all three said when they spoke at the 2018 Tucson Festival of Books in the UA Mall Tent at 1:30 p.m. on the afternoon of March 10, 2018, it turns out that, basically, books write themselves -- at least once you have an idea that is worth writing about, and you are capable of a somewhat more than rudimentary application of the standard tools of writing to that particular idea.  And, of course, you can't be lazy and shiftless, because writing, like all jobs does not do itself.  True, a book might 'reveal itself' to you, but YOU still have to write it down.  And, in a fashion such that it makes sense to everyone else, and not just you in your dreams.

Interestingly enough -- not that I would be arrogant enough to speak for a great writer like Stephoen King -- I'd wager that Mr. King would agree with me.  In fact, if you take the time to read his little book (and it is a little book) "On Writing", you'll see that, like Jance, Parker and Rollins (they are only in this order because, as the Moderator said, we are the handmaidens of that tyranny knowns in erudite circles as the Alphabet) ... ((((Hmm.  In this day and age, one wonders if someone will discover a sexist, anti-feminist, sexually discriminatory original purpose for calling men "men" and women "women" ... so that, at least to a native English speaker it is more natural to follow the order that Tyrannosaurus Alphabeticus suggests when referring to "men and women".)))) ... Mr. King suggests not only that a book writes itself, but that the characters of the book will, if you listen to them, tell you what to write about them.

I must confess in the most apoplectic and embarrassed fashion that when I first read this concept in Mr. King's "On Writing", like (probably) most people I thought something like:  "Oh, Sure, Mr. Rich Pants, that's easy for you to say, sitting in the lap of luxury, wealthy and famous beyond need.  Yep, you say that the characters speak for themselves, but what you really mean is that you are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo innate smart and internally organized that you have a kind of 'internal outline' for your stories that emerges as you write them.  But, it was there all along.  And you are just (disingenously) trying to get us no-talented schnooks to realize this by putting forth some kind of metaphysical touchy-feely explanation for our abject inability to conjure up the kind of stories that are actually worth reading."

Maybe it was just me who thought something along these lines to explain my own inability to write A STORY. But, I thought, oh, sure, Stephen King (and now Jance, Parker and Rollins) 'whispers' stories from the dark nether regions of the unintelligible morse-like code which feeds into his skull from the universe, but what about the rest of us who don't have that kind of connection to the galaxy?  And, is this how Shakespeare did it?  How does anyone do it?  How does anyone write a good story.

They find it.  And, you, dear reader, will find your story.  That, I think, is not really the hard part.  We all have stories, and they are all fascinating in their own ways.  Properly addressed, Hollywood Producers would pay every last one of us millions of dollars for the 'story of our lives', or for the 'story of how Xerxes the Croatian Giant fell in Love with and Married the President of the United States'.  At least they would if we could tell them our story, tell them the story.  And, to try to tie this all up, the reason that a LOT of us cannot tell a story is because of that damnable lie that we were told in school (at least in the schools I attended in the "mid-Western" State of Oklahoma, and elsewhere) that we can't write anything without, first, having a good OUTLINE!!!

A variant on this misinformation is the old saw 'If you know it, you can say what you know.'  Utter bullshit.  Under which I labored like a robotic drone for about the last 45 years of my life.  In my freshman year in college -- I had the good fortune to be given a scholarship to a small catholic college in Los Angeles, known as Loyola-Marymount University, without which I would have had to suffer the damnable fate of living at home with my mother and younger sister, in Sunnyvale, California, while I attended De Anza junior college.  Who knows, perhaps that would have been the better outcome.  But, as luck would have it, I had a pretty high GPA in high school, and when, near the end of my senior year in high-school, I woke up and found myself with no place to go AWAY to to college, I panicked and applied to Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles. HOW WAS I TO KNOW that my English teacher at L-M would impart to me the singularly most damaging and stultifying mis-conception about learning and life in general?  How was I to know that my impetus would cut to the quick, since, in point of fact, it was, and is, virtually impossible for me (and for most people) to "say" most of what they know?  HOW WAS I TO KNOW???

But, that is what she did.  And, while I don't remember her name, I do remember that she was a slight, somewhat sexy (at least to a horny 19 year old), dark haired, fair skinned maiden, who, upon reading my excuse on an exam for not having studied ("I know, but I just can't express it.") stated matter-of-factly "If you know something, you can say what you know."

I was stunned.  I realized how stupid I was, because I couldn't say most of what I (thought) I knew.  I was terrible as expressing myself; and I was angry as this vixen for showing me what a fraud I was.  But, my anger did not turn in to moral outrage and that did not turn into a dedication to proving her wrong.  It did not motivate me to do anything, except to give up and believe the idiocy of "I can't put it into words, so I don't know it." 

Sheer idiocy.

Take riding a bicycle, for example.  It is SUPREMELY difficult to 'explain' or 'say' how to ride a bike.  And, in point of fact, parents who try to 'explain' how to ride a bike to their children usually wind up with children with broken limbs and skinned knees from falling off their bikes while trying to 'think' about how to ride it.  There ARE things about riding a bike that you CAN explain, like you need to sit on the seat, you need to pedal to keep the bicycle moving, and you need to keep your balance.  But, beyond these trivally truisms, learning to ride a bike will not result in you learning to explain how it is that you keep your balance like a gyroscope.  Physicist can explain that, in THEIR language.  But you probably cannot, and it would be a waste of your time to try.

In actual fact, some things, indeed almost all things of value, cannot be (easily) reduced to a clear and precise concatenation of  agreed upon terms.  It is possible, with some practice, and learning to ignore all of the psycho-babble of pseudo intellectuals masquerading as your friend to make your feel inadequate because you do not understand their brand of 'psycho-speak', to know to a certainty what the person across the table from  you intends to do next (say in a negotiation to buy a car); and the fact that you cannot EXPLAIN how you know that Mary is going to ask you to marry her, does not mean that you don't know it; and it does not mean that it is 'just a hunch'.  it just means that there are some forms of knowledge (indeed most of them) which are not readily susceptible to being written down in clear and precise, premise, premise, premise, conclusion style in the King's English (for example).

What this all means is really just this.  Writing is about the art ... and it is an art ... of communicating the stories you find within you to others.  Writing is not easy, because uncovering, and finding your own stories is not easy.  Writing, like becoming a lawyer, brick-layer, mother, father, teacher, astronaut or banker, is not easy because it requires that we pay close attention to the quality of our communication to and with others.

You know how some people, no matter what they do, seem to have a certain 'style' about them that sets them apart?  Cooks?  Grocers?  Baristas?  Laundresses?  Everything which can be done, can be done with style and with an attention to the quality of communication which the do-er brings to the job.

Mr. King, Mrs. Jance, Mr. Parker and Mr. Rollins are good at telling stories.  And, so are you.  You just need to find your story.

13 March 2018, Scott Weible

Thank You Mr. King -- Installment 3

In the 'news' of late, sad to say, there has been a lot of talk, many reports about, a plethora of accusations against a number of fairly famous men (some by scores of women, some only by one or two or three) of being, in effect, 'serial sexual harassers'.  And, oh, there are some men accusing other men of sexually harassing them.  And, as you'd expect, there is a man, the City Manager/Clerk of a city in the great Commonwealth of Virginia, accusing the female City Attorney of that same City, of the same thing.  So, as 'you'd expect', mostly is is women accusing men, but, not to be out done, men are accusing men and men accusing women; so far as I know, no woman has accused a woman, however.

We're not just talking about the likes of one of the most unlikeable public figures in modern times, Harvey Weinstein.  No, certainly not.   Dustin Hoffman has been accused (and all but admitted it ... although it's unclear if he was sincere, or just wante to deflect further investigation.)  And, then, in a very interesting case, to this writer at least, a man accused another man, who is very famous and a very famous Scientologist to boot, John Travolta, puting his hand, without an invitation, in a place that no one should without one. in one case, at least, the accuser is a man, who alleges that another man, a very famous Star, and prominent Scientologist, John Travolta, put his hand, without an invitation, in a place that no one should without one.  We've had famous morning TV hosts, actors and politicians ... even a sitting Judge ... called on the public carpet for having done things which (whether or not these things are illegal is pretty much beside the point, actually) no decent person would have done.  In the case of the Judge, what he is accused of having done, took place, allegedly, some 32 years ago, in 1985.

Now, frankly, I do not know what to make of all of this.  If what 'they say' about Harvey Weinstein' is true, he's a foul and disreputable character, and anyone would be justified in never soliciting his company, in any context, any more.  At least not until he really, reforms.  Everyone, really, even murders, get a chance to reform in our society.  At least that is how we used to do things.

So, I, for one, am confused.  Apparently, 'people' knew about Harvey Weinstein for YEARS and did nothing.  Same, apparently, is true of John Travolta ... people who knew him have known for years of his inclinations.  And, in the case of one famous TV star, Matt Lauer, not only was his piggishness well known, but it was joked about on national TV when the TV network who just fired him for doing it, 'roasted' him a few years ago.

So, what has changed?  Well, before we consider that, consider a rumor that I heard one time, from an old friend of mine who 'was there', so to speak.  It is reported that the woman we all know and love as being the epitome of sweetness and light, one Debbie Reynolds, was, in fact, the dirties, foulest mouthed, person one could possibly imagine when she wasn't "on".  Now this is all hearsay and innuendo, and certainly not fact.  But, let's imagine that the rumors have some basis, and in fact, she was capable of, and in fact did, 'make her (men) sailors/band-members, blush with her foul-mouthed, sexually laced, bawdy parodies of this and that, one moment ... and the next moment, opens the curtain and, Voila'!  Sweetness and light.  So, what if this were, in fact, true, or even partly true.  What is to be done about it?

Shall "we" launch an investigation into the (alleged) awfulness of Debbie Reynolds?  And, if we find that some, even a little, of this is true, do we then find some lawyers to bring long stale sexual harassment suits against her Estate?  On behalf of the men who were subjected to her, alleged, foulness?  Shall we, employing 'today's standards' take away whatever honors she was given for her performances, because, allegedly, she earned these honors whilst displaying appalling sexual inappropriateness in 'mixed' company?

I don't know, to be honest.  I hope that these rumors are just that, and Debbie Reynolds was everything we see on the screen.  I do.

Because, I am still very confused and I don't want to have to retire one more thing I loved into the embarrassment bin, along with these tarnished memories from my own childhood:

My Daddy and Mama were divorced in 1959 when I was 6 years old.  So, I didn’t spend much time with my Daddy.  But, when I got older, he gave me a job working for him in his house building business -- which, of course, was then populated by foul-mouthed men.  No women working in construction in those days.

Well, one day, after my junior year in college, I guess I couldn't find a paying job anywhere else, I went to work for my Daddy over the summer.  One day -- I think on the way to lunch -- we were driving some place, and I happened to observe something using the “F-word”.  Well, you could have hung meat in the car throughout the rest of the 5 minute-that-seemed-like-5-years ride … all my Daddy did was turn and look at me, with that look of “Where on Earth did YOU come from, with a foul mouth like that?”  My Daddy was the boss/owner of a construction company, and I’m sure that wasn’t the first time he’d heard someone utter that word.  But, you know, in his entire life, I never, not once, ever heard that word, or pretty much any other swear word, come out of his mouth – and he served in the Navy as a Pharmacist’s Mate in WWII.  My Daddy, if he'd been alive and had known Harvey Weinstein, would have taken him out, I'd dare say.

This embarrassment was not, however, quite so bad, nor did it teach me quite as much as what happened a few years earlier when I had been bullied.  I was about 12-13 … and I was walking home from junior high school, and some crass, loud and foul mouthed bullies started following me, calling me names and throwing snow cones on my new London Fog jacket, inviting me to fight them.  Well, I didn't.  I just took it and walked on, and when I got home, crying, I was in the bathroom washing off my brand new jacket (this was at a time when new jackets meant something, and you did not spend $150.00 for a pair of tennis shoes), and my Mama came in, demanding to know what 'is the matter'.  Well, stupidly, I told her ... expecting the sympathy we now find everywhere for everyone who's ever suffered any of the slings and arrows of civilization ... and much to my astonishment, my Mama started yelling AT ME, asking me how could I walk away like that?  Why didn't I stand up for myself and fight???

It never occured to my Mama to go to the Principal and plead my case, or to tell me to 'tell on' the bullies.  Bullshit.  What I should have done, was stand and fight, and, as she put it, 'take your lumps', if they were bigger than you.  A 'real man' would have done that, and we know what the opposite of a 'real man' is ... not a woman, mind you, but a coward.  So, there I was, in the same day, having lost my dignity by having allowed myself to be bullied by a bunch of neanderthals, and having lost my Mama's respect for my cowardice.  Well, my Mama didn't stay mad at me for long, and I think she realized that there could have been a better way to deliver her message.

But, what I learned from these two incidents is that no one likes a foul-mouth coward.  Period.  Not when the coward is a man, and not when the coward is a woman.  And, it doesn't matter that you are being bullied, or harassed, whether in the 'ordinary' way or otherwise.  A victim gets what a victim gets.  When you refuse to be a victim, you might get beaten up, you might get snow cones thrown on you, you might be 'treated' to the disgusting antics of Harvey Weinstein.  Once.  But, what you get, from putting aside your worries about your 'bodily' or 'mortal' safety, or thoughts of 'what will this do to my career', and, instead, standing up for yourself, is what we call Personal Integrity.  By refusing to let the harassers of the world 'get away with it', because 'there is a hostile environment' in the workplace, or in Hollywood, or wherever, is a civilization and a society and a culture in which all can hold their heads up high and strive for their goals.  Oh, sure, some people will stand up for themselves, and never see the light of day.  Those people the ones we should salute.  For the ones that just allowed themselves to be victims, never saying anything for 'fear' of 'what might happen to them', those who settled their lawsuits for money?  Well, my Mama would ask them, Why didn't you stand up for yourself?  Why didn't you fight?  Why didn't you take your lumps?