Tag: california

New Humorous Fantasy Book

The new humorous fantasy book is almost ready to publish. That is… as soon as the artistic combat between myself and the cover is concluded, I will publish. However, I’m not sure who is winning the battle at this point. Here’s a truncated look at the current version, minus the lettering and a big portion of the image. This should be enough to give you an idea of the stylistic feel of the story: light-hearted, humorous fantasy, leaning heavily on the farm boy trope.

I’m determined to get this one published before the end of the month. As long as the rest of life doesn’t intrude too aggressively: family, church, job, water policy, satellite crashing to Earth, etc.

In the Meantime, Here’s Some Music

In other creative fronts, I’ve been reproducing a lot of my old songs via my Inflatable Hippies alter-ego band. I have way too much fun doing this. I think I first started writing music when I was around twelve or thirteen, and I’ve always been engaged in that to varying degrees ever since. You’ll have to pry my guitar from my cold hands before you put me in the grave.

Mary is about soldiers going to war and not coming home. That was my grandfather in my family during WWII, but it’s a common experience to many. Sad theme, but definitely worth exploring in any creative medium. I’ve always been fascinated by WWII and Cold War history. Music is a quick way to integrate that creatively. That said, I have several book projects I’m chipping away on that use WWII/Cold War as a context. Part of my list of about thirty books I need to write…

Charlie’s Road is about someone trying to find meaning in life and not understanding that you can always find that right at home. Right where you are, of course. I wrote this one from the perspective of a love story, but also managed to work in an Ozymandia allusion for the Percy Shelley afficionados–I love that poem and have worked it into quite a few different things I’ve written.

Anticipation of Impact is an old song about the lie we tell ourselves, that we’re in control of our lives. We’re mostly not. If I remember correctly, I wrote this after being in a car accident. For days and months afterward, I would have sudden moments where I thought something was about to collide with me. My mind would freeze up in anticipation of the impact.

Life Has Come Undone is more deliberation on that same theme–the lack of control we have in life, combined with the persistent sense of not being able to find our way home, even when at home. I don’t know about you, but that odd sense of homesickness is something that’s persisted through my life, regardless of a happy home life here in Planet California. I suppose it’s because of the innate longing we all have (at least, I hope you all have it) for heaven. That’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.

I’m Off to Punk Rock Land

Those are the new ones for now. Recently, however, I’ve started writing songs veering off into punk rock. It’s a fun, energetic style (and no, I’m not growing a mohawk) and I love the inherent protest feel it has. Plenty of things to protest these days. Such as the horrifying abuse issue in the UK recently highlighted by Rupert Lowe’s report. 250,000 Girls is the song I wrote for that.

Rambling and Rumbling

Rambling is something we all do, in long ways or short ways, and rumbling is either what’s going on in your stomach or your mind or past the horizon as we hear rumors of war, earthquake, famine and the four horsepeople of the apocalypse.

I’ll use my particular rambling and rumbling to catch up on things, though that should be “things” with a capital T.

First off, in no particular order of important, some of the homeless here in California (and there are a LOT of homeless, as, among other things, they tend to move here from other states due to weather, benefits, the degree of law enforcement or lack thereof, etc) are starting to build tiny houses in various spots with greater and greater degree of utilities: power, water and sewer. This tends to happen in the public right of way, such as this story about a homeless community along the 110 Freeway in southern California. Light, water, a fridge, a tiny home on public land.

This sort of thing is starting to make me think of the pioneers homesteading in the American West, back in the 1700s and 1800s. History is repeating itself, but with a tinge of Mad Max.

Speaking of movies… I’ve been hired to —— for an ——– for a ——–. More news coming out on that later. I’m not allowed to say much about it, so I need to confirm (and then reconfirm) the restrictions of the non-disclosure agreement. NDAs make a little paranoid, so I’d rather be ultra-safe than just safe.

Needless to say, this new job is on top of my pre-existing job working in land use, policy and land management here in central coast California, so that means finding hours and half hours early in the morning, in the evening, during lunchtimes and on the weekends. Not a problem, because I enjoy creative writing, particularly when it’s not post-modern nihilist nonsense.

I recently learned that Greenland has only three stoplights. This is sobering news. I think we all take stoplights for granted. Stop and reflect on the sheer plethora of stoplights that exist in your life. You are blessed with stoplights. Don’t take them for granted. Remember the poor people of Greenland who must only make do with three stoplights between all of them and the seals, musk oxen, polar bears etc who also make their home there.

Sad.

In other news, the homeschool year is about to come to an end in several weeks. The children’s minds are brimming with Latin, logic, literature and many, many other things that start with L but that I can’t recall off the top of my head (really, that phrase should use a different preposition). They can’t wait for non-school days so they can busily jettison all that knowledge to the best of their abilities and industriously use their synapses in other pursuits. Worthy pursuits, I’m sure, that don’t involve video games.

Speaking of throwing words around (and that’s exactly what we’re doing here), I just finished reading Dean Koontz’ newest book, The Bad Weather Friend, and I have to say–he really throws his words around in a delightful manner, even when he’s writing about somewhat disturbing topics. May Dean Koontz live long and prosper, and may he write many more books. One of the interesting things I find about him is that he writes from an absolutist moral order of the universe, that Man does not define meaning, but that Truth (with a capital T) exists outside of Man and it (and the founder of that truth) is what defines Man. This approach creates the perfect philosophical framework for writing proper suspense and horror. After all, of what worth is a horror story if the author (and the reader) don’t believe in the absolute concepts of good and evil? If you don’t believe in that, you can’t have a genuine horror story. All you can have is a dreary piece of nihilist gore with nothing at stake.

 

Genuine California Asphalt

So, this here photo is of real, genuine California asphalt. And boy is it ever in bad shape. This photo is of the road next to my house. There’s no base rock under the road. No proper foundation, underpinning, whatever you want to call it.

They (the mysterious, ever-present, ubiquitous they) laid the asphalt right on top of dirt. What does that get you? A bad road.

That’s a workable metaphor for California these days. My amazing state is in such bad shape. I think, if you had to shoehorn California into the Lord of the Rings, it would be the area directly around Isengard.

Stratospheric housing prices that no one can afford. Homeless people everywhere, doing the things that should be done within homes. Rampant crime as the criminally-inclined stroll into stores and go shopping while skipping the whole check-out-and-pay part of the equation.

Public schools are in the proverbial toilet. And it’s a low-flow toilet, because our lizard overlords in Sacramento decree we must use low-flow toilets in order to conserve water (because they haven’t spent a dime on building water projects in the last crazy number of years, despite all the water bonds they keep passing, to the tune of billions).

So what do people do? They just flush that darn low-flow toilet several times to achieve proper passage. Which is what happens in public schools. They just graduate the kids on up, even though they can’t do math at a sensible level, write an essay to save their lives, or understand, let alone apply, any kind of logic to the various situations that life throws their way.

We will now interrupt our programming with a photo of a field of Brussels sprouts growing next to my house. Who is going to eat all these little cabbages of sadness?

Good-bye California. This is one of those long, slow good-byes where we all end up yawning our way through the last few years of the demise. Nero fiddling in slow-motion, that sort of thing.

How do you create in that kind of atmosphere? Well, one of the vital things is that you keep your sense of humor. I’m pretty sure I still have mine. In fact, I just got paid to use my sense of humor in a writerly sort of way, and the results will go public fairly soon. So, yeah, got my sense of humor; I think it’s in the top left-hand drawer of my desk at home.

Pro tip: hanging onto your sense of humor is vital for whatever crazy situation you find yourself in: decaying state of California, war, monitor lizard attack in the Indonesian jungle, IRS audit, colonoscopy, etc. If you lose your sense of humor, it’s time to hang up your hard hat and head home.

It’ll be interesting to see where California is in the next ten years. I’m not holding my breath, as that would cause me to expire, even though the reduction in exhaled carbon dioxide would apparently help save the planet.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep on writing and reading and playing guitar. I just wish I could find the next Mark Twain, PG Wodehouse or Richard Powell. They just don’t seem to make ’em like that anymore.

Why?

This is an image of my mailbox, waiting for a copy of a good book to read. Good books are like oxygen, Dvorak’s New World Symphony, fine Swiss chocolate and a peaceful evening indoors with a light rain on the roof, all rolled into one. But very portable.

Kindness of Strangers

Schools Or strange kindness? Perhaps both.

Living on a farm has its upsides and downsides. One of the downsides is a harvest crew firing up at 2:30 in the morning. Which happened last night. I groggily awoke to the sound of backup beeping and engines revving up their rpms. Put on jeans and boots, jacket, went outside and grumpily surveyed a a crew prepping trailers and tractors for a romaine field.

Despite the positive effect on my character (theoretically), I don’t enjoy waking up at odd hours of the night. I couldn’t get mad at the crew. They’re just doing what they’re told. The backup beeping was from a forklift loading empty crates on the trailers. The tractors were warming their engines and arranging various trailers into position. Three hours more to go before the actual harvesters arrived, but there’s always a lot of prep that has to be done first.

Aargh.

Another downside of living out in the fields, in the larger context of a law-disdaining state such as California, is dumping. Strangers will often pull over and kindly dump their garbage on the side of the road. Sometimes they’ll drive deeper into a ranch and deposit a whole pile of bags, appliances, old tires, you name it. Parents, schools, entertainment mind-molders, etc do not teach private property these days.

Free, to a good home

Anyway, here are some nice box springs that someone generously donated to the ranch next to my house a few days ago. Feel free to stop by and get them if you need a moldy box spring for your bed.

The noisy harvest crew is an unavoidable part of living on a farm. This place is like a big, open-air factory. It just is what it is. Nothing bad about it–just peskalicious. However, dumping garbage on other people’s property is different. That hobby is a very small stone in the mosaic called “The Center Cannot Hold.” Yeats describes the process much more eloquently, but I think a lot of people are getting suspicious about that these days.

Burning Bright

Burning bright, but not precisely right. And not in the forests of the night.

Part of my somewhat unusual job is managing some industrial properties in the city. The property backs up to the train line that runs north and south through California. Due to some federal law that probably didn’t game out the unanticipated consequences when it was being written, city and county jurisdictions cannot enter the train line right-of-way unless for serious crimes (such as murder, rape, etc). Or, of course, if Union Pacific gives them authorization (which it is somewhat stingy with).

The unanticipated consequence? Homeless encampments. Full of garbage, used syringes, open-air lavatories, you name it. Homelessness in California is mostly a mental health issue. Sadly, the authorities do next to nothing about it.

Several days ago, at our neighboring homeless encampment, they decided to light a fire. They often do this, sometimes courtesy of small propane cookers that local do-gooders hand out, and sometimes courtesy of their own devices.

And the fire got out of control, as fires are often inclined to do. Fires are the ultimate bureaucracy. They want everything. They want to devour information, ideas, lives, property. You name it, they want it.

Here’s a video of the fire if you’re interested: Fire!

Fire, fire, burning bright, in the homeless encampment in our sight–who has framed thy fearful symmetry? Well, pretty much decades of California leftist regulations and enablements that have weakened the ability to deal with mental health and drug addiction in our society.

Sad!