Lancelost

Are you feeling betrayed by Lance Armstrong?  Did you buy and wear that rubber yellow bracelet, proudly declaring yourself as a drinker of his Kool Aid?  Are you now feeling like you have been conned?  Lied to?  USED?

That's because you were, Lance Armstrong is a liar, has always been a liar and is still lying.

This is not the braying of a dismayed believer, I passed on that cup of Kool Aid when it first started flowing. This is the woman that all of you jeered at when she said that Lance was nothing but a fame whore who took performance enhancing drugs to win a game.  Which is cheating and therefore not the action of an honorable man.

The only reason Lance Armstrong is coming forward now is because he knows the battle to keep his lie alive is more than lost. Now he is desperate to hold on to what little fame he has by playing the part of the prodigal son, pretending to be chastened, claiming that he has learned his lesson.

I don't follow the news so I didn't hear about this whole business until late last night.  Clyde was filling me in with a very surprised expression in his eyes; Lance went on Oprah Winfrey's show and came clean.  I was shocked myself, this was real news to me and I still don't want to believe it.  Oprah has another show?

Big surprise, I don't drink Oprah's beverages either.  In fact, Oprah's couch is the go to destination for people who wish to tell truths that are just better dressed lies than before.  Not to be trusted.

It's not that I don't want to believe, it's that I just can't when I see the lies so naked in front of me.  I don't understand how so many people line up behind media creations and vow fealty to undeserving people, it's the same thing with the Khardashians.  None of these people are finer than you or better than your friends, they are products on a very big shelf with shiny packaging designed to siphon off your funds.  And their lies always catch up to them, the same way lies catch up to all of us, only to be turned into another marketing ploy.

Any publicist will tell you to 'Hugh Grant' it these days; do the talk show tour and bravely share the story of how you were seduced by fame.

In fairness, I will acknowledge that Lance Armstrong raised a lot of money for cancer research, but this does not give him a pass.  I submit that Lance could have raised the same amount with just the honest story of his survival and without winning the Tour de France.  It just would have taken more time and, this is the crucial part, Lance would not get to play the rock star that way.

He's a fame whore, we are all fame whores in some way, look at me trying to get your attention right now. And it's okay to want some of that for yourself, but it is not okay to make yourself into a lie in order to be famous.  Technically, it's fraud.

Lance Armstrong defrauded you and some clever attorney out there should file a class action suit on behalf of everyone who believed in him.  He owes you, don't let him off the hook.

Media Frenzy

It is time to put together a media kit, actually it was time about a week ago, but I've been dragging my heels. I'm not exactly sure why I find this particular project so daunting, but every time I set myself to this task, I end up watching Top Model or playing mah jong instead.

In all honesty, I thought this heel dragging business would be over once I found an acceptable photo of myself, but apparently that is not the problem.

A media kit is the same as a press kit, from what I've read because this is yet another thing that I've never done before.  I don't think it has to be terribly fancy, just a couple of pages describing the book and author with a photo, picture of the cover and some technical bits like how long the book is, where to buy it, etc.

It is not like I don't have all the information, so what is my problem?

Okay bear with me please because this may get convoluted.  My problem is that somewhere deep inside myself, one of those negative voices keeps shouting that my stupid little media kit will look homemade, like a little kid's art project or something, and that one little voice keeps stopping me cold.

I have no issues writing and self publishing my homemade book, no issues posting homemade blogs up in here every day, heck I even proudly boasted about my homemade bulletin board.  But a homemade media kit???  Apparently that is my inner line in the sand.

I get the same way whenever I get a jury summons, which seems to happen every 6 months or so because those leeches down at the Yolo County courthouse seem to think I'm their personal judicial bitch.  One would think they would tire of my relentlessly asking them where my due process went as I sit in the overcrowded and freezing jury room watching them profligately WASTE MY TIME.  Obviously, I have serious issues with the hypocrisy of jury duty.

Yolo County has the power to put me in jail if I don't answer the summons though, my mythical media kit has no such powers of persuasion.  But I can't dally anymore, someone will be kindly featuring me and my book on their blog very soon and that kind person needs me to do my part.  I need me to do my part.

Is there such a thing as a personal assistant fairy?  I need one of those.

Magick Spell

Uh oh Travellers!  I'm having one of my notions and it's time to let you in on it from the ground floor.  Just minutes ago, I was lounging on my bed watching the birds and thinking about how words ignite magic.  It's an idea more fully expressed in Travellers & Tramps, but put simply, I was wondering how the energy I put into the words of this blogs manifests in the lives of the readers.

I know that I am overflowing, bubbling and twitching positive energy right now, that energy doesn't just evaporate away, it is going somewhere specific.  The energy is going towards all of you, it flows out of my mind on a river of intent and changes to kinetic energy as my fingers fly over the keyboard.  It got me to wondering if all my blog posts are magic spells in a way, a way of harnessing energy in specific ways to suit my ends.

The next idea made me all tingly.  What if I deliberately cast a magic spell on my words?  Nothing ominous or thunderous, just an experiment in the movement of energy.  I have a fountain of bright light and there's plenty to go around, so let's see if it does indeed go around.

If these kinds of things make you uncomfortable, stop reading here.

If you are still here, good for you!  It's just a bit of science after all.

This is a magickal spell, everyone who reads these words will be soon blessed with a moment of perfect beauty.

Okay, that was it.  I don't have a magic wand, but I don't think I need one - not that a magic wand would not be cool.  Remember Travellers, this is for science, so make sure to report your findings.

State of Fair

Happy Monday Travellers!

I've been in such good spirits for the last week that I am almost as airborne as Nelly.  Almost.  Every time I close my eyes to see her, Nelly is a bit farther up off the ground with a tremendous smile.  And she's bouncing, I think that's the right word, yeah bouncing.  Her head keeps making the starry ceiling of my vision bulge upwards when she bounces.

I gotta say that it's all pretty cool, since Nelly is generally very reserved.  It's cute to see her so animated and I am pleased that she is pleased.

But, other than all the smiling bounces, no real tangible progress has been made towards my goal of being a successful author.  I haven't sold a book in weeks and no important publishers have pulled me out of the chorus to proclaim, "Kid, I'm gonna make you a star."  Not yet, but tangibles are the last link in the chain, all those intangibles are sizzling around me, so much so that I almost smell smoke.

I'm being unusually patient, which is weird because I don't play the patience game very well -- unless it comes to cooking of course, but that is a different blog.  Whatever is coming is coming, when it is coming is anyone's guess and I have plenty to do in the meantime.

One of those things is to say clearly and for the record that, despite the many bad things my poor eyes have witnessed over the course of this blog challenge, I am exceedingly grateful for the UBC.  Through the challenge I have learned so much about improving and promoting my blog in a very short amount of time, it's been a crash course in blog dynamics.

There are fabulous (other) blogs out there too, with distinct voices and melodic prose that are worth reading. One of my favorites belongs to Caro Ness, I have described her blog as a buffet filled with tasty treats like dragons and Roald Dahl.  Purple Panda is another big fave of mine, Janet has an exuberance about embracing life that matches my own and a connection to those intangibles that seems very familiar to me.

There are no Springsteen bloggists in the challenge, that I've seen anyway, and I have checked out most of them in the last few weeks.  What a humorless bunch of stiffs, they all seem to specialize in set lists, as if fifteen blogs about all the songs Bruce played in Wichita last night was important news in need of dissemination.  I love my Bruce and have seen enough of his shows to say with certainty that levity, humor and whimsy WILL NOT KILL BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN.  It's no small wonder that the younger set keeps mocking my loyalty to the Boss, with all those sheep bleating about him regularly.

My last bit of business today is to acknowledge my sister Bonnie Domeny for all of her help in making this blog more beauteous and functional.  She made the new starry sky banner for me among many, many other things and is always gracious when I reach out.  Bonnie is an artist in her own right, a master of thread with a great web site for embroidery folk full of patterns and education, so please take a look if you are a crafty soul.

Okay Travellers, I have work today.  This is the day I enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel award and I have to make sure my pitch is perfect.  If I don't get this done, Nelly is very likely to smack me on the head with that book she is holding.

Will The Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up?

One of the early recommendations of the Ultimate Blog Challenge was to write about our heroes.  They send us daily emails with suggestions for blog content that I routinely ignore, because if you are desperate for content for your blog, then it's a reasonable idea that you shouldn't have one.

I have said before that I don't have many heroes, but I think that I should actually define that.  It's a stone fact that no one person is completely heroic or completely villainous, we all have aspects of both and everything in between.  People commit heroic actions that I admire all the time, but it's the action that is heroic, not the person.  I have too much respect for my fellow human beings to tag them with one defining label and expect them to be that label all the time.

After some thinking about heroes, I realized that mine are all a very roguish lot.  Henri Charriere, who wrote Papillon, is my greatest and he was a criminal, convicted of murder from what I understand.  That was certainly not the action I admire, it was all that came after on Devil's Island that inspired me so.  General Nasser is on my list, he was arguably the hottest world leader in history and a person I wish I could have had dinner with at least once.  My daughter is pretty heroic to me too, she is a veterinary technician and anyone who tends to the sick and abused animals of the world is a genuine hero in my book.  (To anyone who knows her and is now thinking that sweet Shortening does not belong in a rogue's gallery, I humbly submit that you don't know her all that well!)

And then there's Eminem.  Yep, that misogynistic, violent and angry voice of the f**k you generation, he is endlessly heroic to me.  Marshall Mathers is not afraid of his fear, he confronts it head on and his rage spews out into some of the rawest poetry ever written.  It is NOT pretty, it is NOT easy, but it IS his truth and he is unafraid to say so.

That is a hero to me.

From what I see, Eminem's anger is his closest ally and fiercest enemy.  It motivates him to try and be better while simultaneously clouding his emotions into preventing that from happening.  Such a seething personal dynamic is a rare, vicious beauty from which I cannot look away.  I don't know what he will say next, but I'm pretty sure it will provoke a visceral response of some kind inside me, which is his goal as an artist.

I have a lot of anger that I embrace too - nowhere near the Eminem scale mind you - because anger is a great motivator.  Making people angry makes them think, sometimes their anger is ONLY because you made them think and that is fine by me.  Get angry, some of the best things were born of ill temper so let it flow; don't be scared at finding new depths of your anger, instead embrace the fact that you are deeper than you know.

Em isn't for everyone and this is not me saying go out and buy his music, this is me saying that the messages are valuable regardless of the source.

So will the real Slim Shady please stand up
And put one of those fingers on each hand up
And be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
One more time, loud as you can, how does it go?

All The Pretty Horses

My grandpa used to say from time to time, "That's what makes horse races."  I totally got that, if all the horses were exactly the same, then that race would be pretty boring and ultimately pointless.  I've been thinking about that for a couple of days since I had a brief facebook chat with one of my old friends.

It was not a conversation of any great import, Gordon is now at the stage of life I was at when he and I first met.  He has young kids and has learned firsthand that feeling of cold, black terror that comes when your children are threatened.  I like to think that he is slightly more empathetic with my emotional responses to my kids, but Gordon is at heart a very practical and grounded person, so he is not ever likely to share them publicly.

At the end of our conversation, he asked me how the book was doing and I said "still very slow, but not for long...the world better watch out because I'm coming."  To be frank, I expected one of his genially patronizing answers -- that don't bother me a bit, in fact I've come to be rather affectionate about that tone in Gordon's voice.

His response surprised me, "I like that!"

And that's what makes horse races, you can never be completely sure what those horses are going to do next.  Let me make clear here that I know for a fact that Gordon supports me on my endeavors, he wants the book to be a success and he wants me to be happy.  He, like Nelly, just doesn't always endorse how I go about doing my thing, it's a little airy-fairy for his taste.

Which is precisely the thing about him I love most, he challenges me and I challenge him right back.  After the dust has settled, we are still friends, still bound by the bonds of voluntary affection and still very likely to have another strong disagreement about something.  I value his opinion because he fights for it, he stands his ground with me every time - which is not an easy thing to do for most people.  I'm a verbal street fighter, words are my weapons and my wit is honed more sharply than a samurai's blade, so anyone who can give that back to me is a keeper.

I'm saying all this today because there is a very important point here to be made.  My little blog is growing every day - and welcome to all the new readers by the way!  This is my personal journey, my road to travel, and I am delighted that so many of you are travelling with me.  As much as I like to think I am right about absolutely everything, I am very wrong about very many things and it's up to you to slap me back down when I'm getting too uppity.

Metaphorically slap of course, the last person who tried to actually slap me was a mentally challenged individual at a bus stop.  She was twice my size, but when that crazy bitch reached over the bus bench and put her hands on me, well it did not end the way she anticipated.  Not at all.  I really don't advise trying to physically harm me.

But sticks and stones, people, sticks and stones.  Words won't break my bones at all, strong and dissenting opinions actually make me happy and THAT is what makes a good horse race.

Starry, Starry Night

Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

It's my day off today, I woke up in the darkness of the early morning hours thinking about Vincent Van Gogh and crying.  I'm crying right now as I write this, fat salty tears that pool up behind the lenses of my glasses before spilling down over my cheeks.  Vincent always makes me cry for many reasons; the beauty of his work and the depth of his despair are just the easy answers as to why.

Starry, starry night
Flaming flowers that brightly blaze
Swirling clouds in violet haze
Reflect in Vincent's eyes of China blue

These words are from a song by Don McLean titled Vincent, and I hear it inside my head every time I get lost in the image of Starry Night.  For me, Starry Night is the most beautiful piece of art ever conceived, nothing even comes close to the emotional response my soul feels when I see that painting.  It is breathtaking and brilliant, profoundly uplifting and as raw as a heart breaking before my eyes.  Starry Night is the panoply of human emotions swirled into the colors of a deceptively simple image which became a master piece of tortured complexity.

Colors changing hue
Morning fields of amber grain
Weathered faces lined in pain
Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

I figured out the main theme of my vision board, but those stars...I can't get past the stars.  Their meaning is still unclear, what is Nelly trying to tell me?  Since Tuesday night's vision boarding exercise, I see Nelly's beautiful head bobbing amongst the bright stars followed immediately by the image of the mason jar stuffed with twinkling Christmas lights.  So something is there for me to see, but I don't see it yet.  Please don't even think the trite thought that Nelly is encouraging me to 'reach for the stars', Nelly is me and me won't ever tell me something as dumb as all that.

Now I understand, what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now

I'm listening Vincent, I've always been listening to you.  Deep down, I know that our paths have crossed at some point, when you were not being Vincent and I was not being Cairn.  I loved you deeply at one time, I felt your pain then and it carried across time to inhabit my soul, my little piece of you to hang on to when we're not together.  Does Vincent carry a small piece of me too?  Does the person he became unexpectedly burst into tears when he eats a cookie?

For they could not love you
But still your love was true
And when no hope was left inside
On that starry, starry night
You took your life as lovers often do
But I could have told you Vincent,
This world was never meant for
One as beautiful as you

We're supposed to say that suicide is wrong, bad and somehow immoral, I don't agree.  Life is a choice as is death, Vincent's pain was too much for him to handle so he did the kindest thing he could for himself, Vincent ended his pain.  He was not cowardly or weak, he was tired of hurting and perhaps he finally understood that he was the master of his own being.  There is no ultimate penalty for suicide, of this I am sure, there is no penalty for claiming responsibility for your own existence.

Now I think I know what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will

I still don't know what Nelly is trying to say to me about the stars, I am only sure that it is obvious or will become obvious soon.  Neither Nelly or I believe in convoluted messages, so those stars/twinkling lights do not represent some obscure wisdom that I must struggle to obtain.

I will keep puzzling it out though, it would be impossible not to with both Vincent and Nelly urging me onward with every passing second.  More tears will spill, but I am not afraid of salt water.  I only fear the day when I run out of tears.