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Friday, March 30. 2012
The Jam
to be confused with Ted Stevens), but wasn’t.
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So, the topic has come. For a while now there’s been that ubiquitous WRITER’S BLOCK surrounding my fingers and brain cells, putting a dam across the inconsistently creative river of juices so often described by writers writing about other writers. I would sit stumped here for hours, days even, wondering what to write and then in a fit of frustration my fingers and mind would wander over to the files that contain the multitude of nude women one can so easily find on the Internets.
Thank the gods for small miracles like the Internets. They make the ogling of nude women so much easier.
Yes, we all have our quiet little vices and mine is so easily predictable, but I’ve met some of these women who pose scantily clad (if you’re viewing their Facebook profiles) and nude (if you’re searching “beautiful nude women” on the Google) and they, for the most part, are generally very sweet and appreciative people.
Would any of them date a guy like me? I have my favorites and a story or two to tell, but that really ought not be the subject of any autobiographical short (or long) essay. Some would call it bragging and others betrayal and still others fantasy. Regardless, it would just be unseemly. But, some of the moments, a few of the interludes, the passionate days and weeks themselves, could be the framework and even the subject of some fantastic and even romantic fiction.
Or intense, heart-stopping terror that could rival that of Stephen King and Dean Koontz.
Write what you know.
I know about nude models.
And Hooters Girls.
But this WRITER’S BLOCK wasn’t broken by looking at said naked women. In fact, just last night (that would be Thursday Evening) I had the unmitigating thought that maybe I ought to stop looking at their pictures and video until this logjam on that river of creative juices is broken. That’s how big this WRITER’S BLOCK had grown: I contemplated the unthinkable.
You see writing and talking politics has grown tiring. My political views are all the same, if not more fervent, but what does it all mean? What’s it worth? Surely it means that in this land of the free and home of the brave we have the right (and the write) to voice our opinions on everything, especially the failings of our political and government leaders, although in this era the government leaders can no longer escape the soul-crushing grip of hyper-political partisanship.
And so rarely do we write about the virtues and merits of our political and government leaders, it seems all “they” can do is piss us off with their failings. Here’s a writing exercise for me: find something nice to say, as verbosely as possible, about Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum — or any other of the political people that so often offend my senses. And it has to be genuine and heartfelt, not snide and sarcastic.
And maybe President Obama, Chuck Schumer and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz too. Despite our similar political and social views, the Democrats have managed to stir some anger in my heart as well.
There are life stories that could be told, and a few have been posted here in the past seven years, but even there the well had run dry. Which is pretty sad once you think about it. Every life is worth talking about, even your own, my own.
Sadly, the other night I was recounting the time my lovely sister Elaine had told me, over the phone and in no uncertain terms, I was not allowed to take her then teenage son Dan to Tijuana, BC, Mexico without adult supervision.
As funny as that story is, it occurred to me I was telling it for the umpteenth time to essentially the same audience. I needed to talk about something new. Another log in the jam.
Did you know that some log jams provide prime habitat for riparian forests? I didn’t either until Googling “logjam” and found the Wikipedia entry on actual log jams.
“Umm, Tim? What’s a riparian forest?” Let me tell you! Or, more accurately, let Wikipedia tell you. “A riparian forest is a forested area of land adjacent to a body of water such as a river, stream, pond, lake, marshland, estuary, canal, sink or reservoir.” Originally, the term was only used for forests adjacent to flowing waters like rivers and streams, but now it’s use has been expanded to include non-flowing bodies of water as well.
For those who may be wondering, the little man-made lakes that dot San Diego County all have riparian forests, at least the ones I’ve visited.
The Internets … a wonderful repository of knowledge and wonder — and nude women.
Back to the beginning of this essay. As you can see, the logjam that was my WRITER’S BLOCK has been cleared. At least for today, but if memory serves me here, somewhere in this screed I’ve laid out some homework that would require further investigation and literary exposition. It’s a few paragraphs up in case you’ve forgotten.What cleared the WRITER’S BLOCK though was quite haphazardly discovered in a moment not intended for any deep thought or exploration of interesting topics. I was speaking with my friend (and roommate) John about some minor and now forgotten mundane day-to-day topics when I looked down at the book on the floor that had remained there for weeks, months even, since Christmas most likely, atop the Amazon.com box that brought it to our door.
The Nail and the Oracle by one Theodore Sturgeon — “Ted” Sturgeon, John said. A collection of short stories by a writer some consider the best, or one of the best, writers ever to have been spawned in America. I had never heard of him. That’s embarrassing to admit because so often I like to give people the impression I know everything about everything in literature. And apparently I don’t.
In fact, some years ago my nephew Dan, Young Dan, turned me on to two writers who had, in fact, been well known and successful authors for decades, long before Young Dan was even born: Terry Pratchett, who is now in the grip of Alzheimer’s Disease, and Neil Gaiman.
The embarrassment of not knowing either Gaiman or Pratchett has long since subsided, except now as the truth of it is revealed, but it pained me to learn, just a few years after reading my first Disc World novel, Terry Pratchett was afflicted with Alzheimer’s. Here was this brilliant mind, this passionate, disciplined and witty mind, slowly getting robbed of its river of creative juice. And he wasn’t even yet 60 years of age when diagnosed.
Life, which so often brings us beauty beyond description, so often brings cruelty equally bereft of adequate explanation.
In 2008 Pratchett gave a speech on his condition, which is included with This Link. He gave one million dollars to Alzheimer’s research.In his speech, Pratchett briefly touches upon Lara Croft’s buttocks in the Tomb Raider video game and in one compound sentence tells you everything you need to know about Lara Croft’s body. And, if I can add, neither her buttocks or body as a whole were satisfyingly represented in the two Tomb Raider films starring the lovely Angelina Jolie.
But who could recreate that perfection on film, without CGI or mechanical assistance, those firm, toned glutes and gravity-defying breasts? Lara Croft is, after all, a fictional video game character created by someone with an eye for reality-eluding perfection that can only be found in the realms of fantasy. I don’t blame Angelina Jolie, although I blame her for the over-use of non-sexy clothing, especially in the sequel. Lara Croft raids tombs in tight fitting short-shorts and tank-top and bears no resemblance to real life anthropologists, archeologists and crime fighters.
Be that as it may, this isn’t about Tomb Raider or Angelina Jolie, two subjects on which my breadth of knowledge is woefully thin. They’re both “hot chicks” and the one is married to Brad Pitt and is a philanthropist and activist of great courage and accomplishment.
Like Pratchett and Gaiman (who is always at Comic-Con), Ted Sturgeon was unknown to me and quite possibly far too many people in this world, if Harlan Ellison’s forward to the book is any guide.
But it wasn’t Sturgeon’s writing that uncorked the WRITER’S BLOCK this morning. Indeed, I have yet to read word one of his stories. No, it was Ellison’s forward that got me off the couch, so to speak.
I’ve heard of Harlan Ellison and read a couple of his books and watched much of his work on television. In his life Ellison has written scripts for TV shows so disparate in their variety, if that were all you knew of him you would probably not know he is a famous and accomplished author of science fiction.His best-known brush with a TV script was the one he wrote for Star Trek oh so many years ago. Gene Roddenberry and his sycophants rewrote it, removing everything that offended the Star Trek creator, like the sub-plot about drug dealing on the Enterprise. It was the ’60’s after all.
Anyway, this is getting pretty far a field, as this blog often does when the river of creative juice flows. I picked up this book of short stories by … geez, now I forgot … Ted Sturgeon, and started reading the forward — by Harlan Ellison.
Here’s what perked up my eyebrows. Ellison first started out by telling us what his forward would not be, name dropping the authors who penned some of the earlier volumes in this series. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, The Nail and the Oracle is the eleventh part of an anthology of Sturgeon’s stories.And then, in precise and disciplined stream of consciousness, Ellison elegantly relayed his memory of Sturgeon in such a way as to tell us how the author’s life style might have informed his art. That’s italicized because artists like to use that phrase.
Anyway, the forward is great, written by Ellison, complete with adult male nudity and a little red Speedo. Man! I haven’t read word one from Sturgeon and I like the guy already!
Sometime before he walked out the door, my friend (and roommate) John yelled, “Don’t forget about Sturgeon’s Law!”
What the fuck is that? “I’ll look it up on the Internets,” I hollered back. Now that this essay is quickly approaching 1,800 words maybe it’s time to assemble an ending, time to turn on the Internets and go to the Google to find out about “Sturgeon’s Law.” Which, as it turns out is also referred to as “Sturgeon’s Revelation.” Here it is: “90% of everything is crap.”
And with this essay I may have exceeded that by 9%.
Quite an accomplishment if you ask me.
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