Between Thought and the Ttreetops

     The above novel will be available at Lulu.com on April 13th.

Outsider

My name is Archie Pelago. Seems I have a lifetime of stuff to write about but most of it seems pretty dull. Sure didn't feel that way when I was toddling along from one screwup to the next. Of course, I felt mine was a significant life. Yeah, don't we all. And to me it sure seemed that way—if not now then sure as heck sometime in the future. However, the passing years have shown me I'm not much different than anybody, though I've been told I tie my shoes wrong. Don't know if that makes me a one of a kind, I'll let you decide. Anyhow, it's my intention to pass on a few of my moments as best as I can recall and try not to rosy-up the picture too much.
Already wrote four books. They called for a lot of hours and not a lot of talent. I liked them all but my opinion might be a little one-sided. Two of them spoke of my Army days so maybe that's a good place to start.

I walked off the plane in sandals, Hang-Ten t-shirt and gray bell bottoms. Soldier no more. 'Course that's a lie. Been a soldier since the day I took the oath but wouldn't admit it, even to myself. In my college days I wore a fatigue shirt and combat boots to classes every day. Seein' as how I'd paid for them with two years of my life and a spell in combat, why not? Just my way of saying, "I've been there for better or worse and it sucked to high heaven." Also dreamt about those days for years on end. I guess it's easier to make a mistake than to forget one.
A couple of years earlier when I'd dropped out of school my spoken intention was a degree in Political Science. That I'd found all of the classes and assigned reading to be sleeping pills should have been a clue I was headed in the wrong direction. But I was a clueless man always a few years behind the awareness curve.

Quo Vadis

     Four books down and one remains though I don't know what it will be. Actually I do but it's  still hiding around the corner waiting to jump out and scare the pants off me. Yeah, I know I'm an idiot but there are many new levels of foolishness I haven't explored yet. So the plan is to start writing, see what pops up then organize it. Giving it some thought I figure to do this with my Uncle Emil. Throw in the fact that no one is reading this site and it's the perfect pace to hide and quietly put a few words on the page.

Frustration - or - My Ego Gets Slapped Around

     So I wrote this novel. Even went so far as to get it published and the publisher did a fine job. Let me hang myself by doing my own editing. That's what I wanted so I've no complaints. A few people have read the micro-tome and have found it entertaining, maybe even a good read.

     The original intent was to print up enough copies for my children, grandchildren and a few friends. Call it a dozen or so. Yup, that's all I wanted.

     Then things changed. What the hell, I might even sell a few copies. Why not? The tale wasn't complete gibberish, even threw in a dollop of humor here and there. All in all, worth a few bucks and an evening's reading now and then. It wasn't literature though it occasionally crossed the border. Maybe enough copies would be ordered for me to break even. Maybe turn a profit. Be discovered by Hollywood and made into a thoughtful, well received indie production with Christopher Walken as Uncle Emil and Ethan Hawke as fourteen-year-old Archie. The casting would make little sense but that would only add to the unusual aura of the tale. I'd become a darling of the left-wing press and live the rest of my life being miserable and not knowing why.

     That dream flew out the window when I saw what the books would be priced at; twenty bucks for a paperback, thirty-three for hardcover. Yeah, my novel wasn't all that bad, but worth seven bucks more than something by Jonathon Franzen? Damn, and I so wanted to meet Christopher Walken. The clouds cleared and I saw the truth. The publisher allows me to by copies at a significant discount. That's good. So the only way for my novel to be sold would be by me as the seller. Yeah, that meant many hours at the keyboard establishing a network of friends and/or doing readings with the idea of hawking a few copies. In my mind that equaled working for far less than I could be making flipping burgers at McDonalds. Top that off with a lifelong history of avoiding sales in any way, shape or form. If I have to convince you that you want or need something, then the truth is that you don't really want or need it. Right or wrong, that's the view from this side of my spectacles.

     About then Uncle Emil stepped in with a little wise old man advice, "What in the Sam Hill were you thinking? Didn't you know that was going to happen from the first moment you put Archie on the train down in Minneapolis? Long story short, you buy a few copies, give them to your kids, grandkids and friends and walk away a happy man. You started with nothing, made it happen and got what you wanted. To ask for anything more is to be like the fisherman's wife in the fairy story. They didn't write those tales just to pass the time. To not get the moral is immoral. By-the-by, next time you write a story with me in it, could you make me an inch or two taller?"

     So that's where I sit at the moment, there and at the kitchen counter with the sub-zero wind howling outside.

     P.S. ebook copies are available for $2.99 at booklocker.com. Tell them Archie sent you.

Christmas post to Mike the Hairless Werewolf

                                                            Christmas - 2016

     The other day I got to thinking of what Santa Claus did for a living before he grew old, fat and bearded (no doubt inspired by John Prine’s song Jesus - The Missing Years). Also what kind of man dresses in a red and white, fur-trimmed suit? Throw in the global warming consequences of establishing a major manufacturing operation atop an ice field, his anally obsessive, judgmental list making and you’ve got yourself a man bordering on the mentally deranged. Also not too smart. So I did what any normal person would do, fired up the laptop and consulted Wikipedia, the God of All Knowledge (At the top of the page they asked for a donation, then had the gall to say ‘piss on that noise’ had no monetary value).

     There I found all kinds of references to a Polish bishop, the Norse god Odin and what hit me most, the Finnish Christmas figure of Joulupukki, also known as the Christmas Goat. And I thought Santa Claus was weird. Top that off with his outfit of “…tight red leather pants and a tight fur trimmed red leather coat….” I don’t know about you but there’s no way I’d let a goat dressed like a Fire Island hooker down my chimney. And get this; come Christmas Eve in Finland, good ole Joulupukki comes knocking on doors at random and asks, “Are there any well-behaved children here?” That kind of crap happens here in the good ole U.S. of A. and, goat or no goat, he ends up doing five to ten. 

     Sorry, I got sidetracked. You read stuff like that and the idea of Europe being at war, on and off for about three centuries, comes as no surprise. 

     So, what exactly did Santa do for a living before becoming Jolly old St. Nick? Near as I can figure, back in the days of yore he was some kind of mythological herdsman floating in the sky up there with the aurora borealis.  Years later he found employment as a Viking mercenary sailing the seas in his ship named, “I’ve got a Little Something for You.” (While searching fruitlessly for the Norwegian translation I came on this and couldn’t resist - “Luftputefartoyet mitt er fulltar al”- which translates as “My hovercraft is full of eels” - which is close enough for me.)

     In the late sixteenth century S. Claus could be found posing nude as a model for background cherubs in the heyday of the Italian Renaissance. Yup, those happy days put the jolly in old St. Nick. It was in Florence after an evening’s tryst that Santa’s red suit was born. A little mixup in the guest bedroom and Claus frolicked out the door in Cardinal Guanella’s cape.

     After a lover’s spat with Oscar Wilde in 1898, he took up acting and starred in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado as Yum-Yum with rave reviews. Santa moved to New York City in 1912, sailing aboard the Titanic as the Countess of Rothes. A spat with George M. Cohan over the lyrics to “Yankee Doodle Was a Dandy” got him blackballed on Broadway. For the next year he made a living standing outside Macy’s with a red bucket scoring spare change and waiting for Natalie Wood to show up. An opportunity in the mailroom at Coca Cola led to him posing for Haddon Sundblom and the modern image of Santa was born. No longer satisfied with the peanuts of posing and hustling envelopes, Santa moved into the advertising end of the business and for a while, ruthlessly ran Coca Cola Asia. It was he who first realized those tiny little fingers could work magic with any task set before them and do it for a bowl of rice and a bowl of opium a day. In Bangkok, Santa is still known as the Red Swine. Finally, in 1953 he fled to the North Pole where he now lives in exile with an old woman and the few remaining Munchkin’s from The Wizard of Oz. 

     Additional research is needed for the above.

                                        Merry Christmas from Uncle Emil

     

Bike Ride

     This morning there was a collision in my head. Seems global warming ran right into the original, movie version of Frankenstein. I don’t know how these things happen to me but they do. All the time. Not so much at the cabin where the roads I bike are sand and gravel. There, it’s hard to think straight when my lungs are sucking air like there’s no tomorrow. But pavement? Yeah.

     The question of why so many people in this country can’t see climate change as being even remotely possible has me puzzled. Phrases like “prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” come to mind. Also, the Bible and Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream. When times are good, prepare for when they’re bad. Simple, common sense.
     Then the movie Frankenstein popped into my head. Truth is I have a fair idea where such thoughts come from. Yup, I blame it on my Uncle Emil, the man who sees the sense behind the absurd.
     You see, there was this scientist. Cutting edge man of learning. Smart enough and talented enough to make himself a real, live man from spare body parts. How many people could do that? Also, how many people had the money and the stone castle necessary for such an  enterprise? Well, Herr Frankenstein did. And also had himself a new bride. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I mean. Yeah, she was hot (in a 1930s kind of way). Just the opposite of the mish-mash Victor had hidden down in the basement. There’s a moral in there for those willing to ferret one out.
     Anyhow, things happen, Adam (that being the monster’s name) runs off and throws a little girl in a lake just ’cause the two of them ran out of daisies. That sure wasn’t nice. Adam wanders on, finds himself a blind hermit, takes up smoking cigars and finds a liking for violin music. I can understand Adam’s fondness for tobacco but my ears have never been drawn to fiddle music (except in a Cajun band). Push comes to shove, the villagers develop an attitude ’cause of the little girl and the next thing you know the pitchforks and torches come out. Oddly enough they corner Adam in a windmill, fire up the place and the loss of local wind power blacks out half the village. Kind of ironic.
     So that’s what I see is behind our lack of serious action toward climate change. About half of us just don’t trust scientists and their research even though they’ve given us such life changing improvements like polyester double knits and graphite shafted golf clubs. Also, about ten million other things we literally can’t live without (a fair number of which have contributed to climate change. Ain’t that ironic?).
     Anyhow, the temperature was above normal on my ride this morning just like it has for the last couple of weeks or years for that matter. 

Almost Done

     Seventeen reads and re-reads. You'd think I could recite my novel "Between Thought and the Treetops" by heart but I can't. Some parts still take me by surprise. Emil would put the blame on my weakening brain and I suspect he's right.

     My editor is the problem. No doubt about it. I thought the stories were fine from the get-go and didn't want anyone to lay their grubby hands on my words, so I decided to self-edit. That did no good. Even though my editor and I occupied the same brain there was a continual battle going on. Re-read by re-read I relented, beaten into a corner. Compromise after compromise with that little voice telling me "it's all about the reader." Hah! Maybe I should have asked, "What reader?" 

     Anyhow, it's done. At least that's my hope. By December I should have a copy in my hands.