Road Rash: the misadventures of an errant biker.

"Needs a mufflerectomy...and baby moons, and a tach."

"Needs a mufflerectomy...and baby moons, and a tach."

I was ten or twelve when it took hold. The infernal combustion disease. The seeds were sown by the first power lawnmower I was trusted with. The Johnson sisters had a vacant lot between their house and my grandmother's place, a big pie-shaped lot that needed mowing in the summer. Apparently they thought I was up to it. They pointed the mower out in their garage, along with a gas can. And they paid me. I'd have paid them.

I not only figured out how to start it, I adjusted it to run at optimal speed and duration. I'd had plenty of experience with model plane engines and their needle valves, choking and priming them, all stuff that translated to bigger machines. I loved that mower. I removed the muffler and reveled in the noise. I was alerting the world to bigger things.

One of the sisters had a son named Bill who had just returned from the war. He had bought the mower but soon tired of it and it fell to me to maintain it, use it, nurture it. It gleamed from being cleaned and even waxed. Safety issues: I was aware of the whirling blade beneath it as I'd been aware of the propellers on the model planes. And back then we were unencumbered by safety glasses, ear protection, or steel-toed boots. I made it all the way to motorcycles injury free, save for a barely noticeable slight hearing loss. What?

"Aw, come on, officer, we're just havin' fun..."

"Aw, come on, officer, we're just havin' fun..."

A digression. Another reason I loved the Johnsons aside from the mower, free Cokes, and the firecrackers they gave me to scare away the pigeons, was Bill. He treated me like an equal. And he'd somehow acquired an olive drab fifty caliber dual mount machine gun complete with tripod and dummy (I think) ammo belts. He set this rig up in the front yard and we took turns following cars with it, making ta-ta-ta sounds. He sat behind it knees supporting his elbows and told me about direct hits and how tracers helped, how not to fire in extended bursts for danger of overheating. Then the police came.

I was sent home. I never saw the gun again, but Bill's mood was upbeat and he seemed undeterred by the incident. He bought an Olds convertible and I saw less of him than I had before. He allowed me to peruse the engine of the car, work the top, sit behind the wheel occasionally. Then the school year began and I returned home.

"Envelope? What envelope?"

"Envelope? What envelope?"

Fast forward. Motorcycles. I was fourteen and discovered a place on Troost that rented BSAs. This was biker summer. I also discovered that bikes didn't stop as quickly as cars, ending up beneath the rear bumper of a 1950 green chevy. I remember that car. A woman drove it and stopped in the middle of a secondary highway. Just stopped.  I tried to stop. Her car helped me in that regard.  At impact, she took off again. I wheeled the BSA to the side of the road, limping. I finally got it started again, and, lesson learned, returned to the dealer who didn't notice the damage or didn't care. I used an older boy's license in this activity and rented several more BSAs. I learned a great deal that summer. I learned that by shifting after winding out I could lift the front end off the pavement. Not a valuable lesson, perhaps, but a thriller to me. I also learned, by mishaps, the difference in handling of some machines. Triumphs, for instance, were a little light in front, and such shenanigans could flip one. Same with the bigger BSAs. A lesson I forgot along the way.

Fast forward again. Years later I took a modified BSA chopper to Omaha. I was sitting at a stoplight on Dodge Street minding my own business, when a noisy Monte Carlo full of teens pulled up next to me. They fishtailed off when the light changed. We were next to one another at the next light.

The weather was springlike, I'd had a couple of beers, and thought oh what the hell. The light changed, I got on it hard, and, owing to the bike's extended forks, the whole thing went flying backwards over my right shoulder. It landed in pieces.

That was bad, but what put the black icing on the crow pie was, they put it in reverse and squealed backward until we were side by side once more. The passenger said, "Eddie missed that. Is there any way you could do that again?"

I think he was serious. They were all very wide-eyed.

The gearshift punched a hole in the gear case, the fork was bent sideways, the seat was off, and I was learning lessons again. I called a friend with a pickup and he took the bike to repair it. The oil and gas deposit looked in need of a haz-mat cleanup.

I've exceeded the word count for most of us short-spanners involved in social media by about 800 words, and there's so much more to tell. High speed wobbles in the rain on a BMW. Trying to speed through Iowa in a snowstorm on a Harley. Riding a fallen Bonneville by sitting on the hot engine and holding onto a fuel line as it spun around on its side. And more. Maybe later. I no longer ride. And if I do, decline to sit behind me. I may still be learning.

 

BOT WOT

Lucy (foreground, scratching) and Rocket in younger days

Lucy (foreground, scratching) and Rocket in younger days

That's texteramus for "Best of Times, Worst of Times" or is it WOT BOT, can't remember the Dickensian book start, but ITM (It Matters Not). This whole summer, for me, is summed up by the Best/Worst deal. Most of us got through it. Even Lucy, as I write this, is hanging in there, but winding down. She and brother Rocket celebrated their 13th birthday October 15th. They got toys, and bless her, she fought for one that he has now hidden. She won, too, keeping her "Toy Retention Champion of the World" title. They are ninety-one in Aussie 50-lbs-and-over years.

WTF, I took my meds, okay? Okay?

WTF, I took my meds, okay? Okay?

Summer, this October, seems ever with us. Global warming, sure. Happens every fifteen or twenty million years I'm told. Finally though, the nights are cool. Soon the days will be. Baseball is still humming along. Cubs and Dodgers are tied 2-2. Indians are waiting for one of them. I didn't regard the Blue Jays as legal anyway. By the time I post this it'll be history. Maybe the weirdass election too. Jeez. Nurse Ratshit (Ratchett?) against Jack Nicholson in that Cuckoo movie.

Expenses were awful. We managed to get the house rehabbed, painted, and F's daughter's place livable, all but the roof. We'll get that soon I guess. You've no idea the horrors involved in those two sentences. And, not wishing to relive them, I'm dropping that whole subject like a dirty shirt. 

This is showing signs of becoming one of those godawful purple mimeographed Christmas letters most of you are too young to remember. (Aunt Maudie broke her whatever and poor Ron was arrested again for a trumped up charge of driving while etc.) Most people hated those yearly missives like kids hate fruitcake, but I read them aloud with glee and appropriate voices for each participant. I miss those like I miss the electric train Christmas display in Macy's window. And ads with a pre-presidential Ronald Reagan shilling for Chesterfield cigarettes.

                                                                                 Simpler times.

If elected, no unpleasant aftertaste...

If elected, no unpleasant aftertaste...

Poems. I waxed poetic and dropped fiction for awhile. Got twenty-one a' them suckers into the lit rags at most recent count. Everything from Rat's Ass Review (true) to Oxford Magazine. Noble objectif? The New Yorker.  I'm gunning for poet laureate of Resume Speed, Kansas. And trying to finish L.A. Hardscape, a novel which will be published by Black Opal in 2017. I'm at page 157.

Had to quit the novel for show prep for a gallery in sunny Santa Monica. Slow going. They want my work, but they don't want my work that I want them to want. So I'm second-guessing that outfit. Trouble is, welding is hard work. And when you make something it pretty much stays made. If the welds are good.

Plus a freelance job that is a joy but has deadlines and interferes with all else, but I'm committed. Or I will be. Nicholson reference again. Anyway, this is long and disjointed enough. Newsy as a mimeographed crazy-letter at holiday time. Speaking of which, Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas. Or whatever you celebrate. Or don't celebrate. Or want to institute a class-action suit against. This PC shit gets convoluted don't it? Joy to the world.

 

 

 

 

"I knew Tony Schwartz, and you, sir, are no Tony Schwartz."

Interviewing the cabbie who said, "That's my opinion and it's very true." during his NY radio shows.

Interviewing the cabbie who said, "That's my opinion and it's very true." during his NY radio shows.

I met the real Tony Schwartz back in the 60's when I was looking for me and he helped me find me. The Tony Schwartz that's getting all the ink these days is the ghostwriter/co-author for "Art of the Deal" and I have little to say about that Tony Schwartz, except if he didn't believe what he wrote then, why did he write it? Because, I guess, we all chase the buck in our own way, and we're all guilty of pandering to one degree or another. Heck, I'd have jumped at that deal. So I can't judge that Tony Schwartz. It's the other one, the real one, who is so important and dear to me.

I was an art director in advertising, trying to figure out why I was in that business and what life itself meant. I read Viktor Frankl and Napoleon Hill. I watched the giants in the business--Bill Bernbach, George Lois, Howard Gossage, all the Mad Men, and emulated them. I was an art director, but became interested in media beyond the visual, and found out you could art direct radio. Tony Schwartz was doing big things in sound--such as recording a swath of New York block by block for miles on street level and above. He invented the first portable recorder, taking a bulky reel-to-reel and tweaking it for carrying with shoulder straps and various improvements.

Tony Schwartz taught with McLuhan at Fordham University, and he held degrees from several colleges and universities.

Tony Schwartz taught with McLuhan at Fordham University, and he held degrees from several colleges and universities.

He's known as a sound archivist, but sound activist would be more like it. He was a colleague of Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message) and McLuhan called him "the guru of the electronic age," and said, when they met, he had met "a disciple with twenty years prior experience."

I wrote to Tony several times, but got no answer. So I took to pestering him with a barrage of postcards with embarrassing messages from a nonexistent paramour, a lady of the night from Iowa where I lived at the time. I discovered a box of starched shirt collars in a barn in Muscatine and found I could send them through the mail with felt tip pen messages and stamps. I sent him one. He sent me a card back, saying "Dear GW, don't give up. I am weakening."

Thus started our friendship.

I came to know him as a brilliant, kind, gentle, inquiring person. And I sent his lady Friday roses on her birthday, called her and we talked often, as did Tony and I. They invited me to NY to their offices (an old church) but I had to decline. He understood, being agoraphobic. So our communication, though strong, was always long distance.

She is counting petals. Her VO dissolves to that of man counting down to zero...

She is counting petals. Her VO dissolves to that of man counting down to zero...

He was an activist, as I said. Nuclear disarmament, AIDS awareness, smoking cessation, and many other causes were important to him. Gentle though he was, his deep beliefs led him to be ferocious. He was heavily involved in the LBJ "Daisy" commercial, known as the most famous political attack commercial of all time. It opened with a little girl in a meadow plucking daisy petals. LBJ says a few words, then BOOM, the world is obliterated. Implication: Goldwater was a trigger-happy cowboy who would destroy any chances for peace. It was visceral, and it was pulled shortly thereafter. But it was seen by millions.

He also did commercials for Carter, Humphrey, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and McGovern. Aside from politics, clients included Coke, (that TV commercial where the only audio is the 'schwizzz" of the cap coming off and the bubbling of a sweating bottle of Coca-Cola), Chrysler, American Express, Kodak, and hundreds of others. 

There's so much I could say about him, and probably will in future blogs. But this was my small tribute to his work and its power, its efficacy: once, when I had control of The KC Art Directors programs as president, I did a Tony Schwartz evening. The room was busy, drinks were being consumed, Tony had been a graphic designer early in his career, and I had shown some award-winning posters of his on the program announcements.

Tony Schwartz, August 19, 1923 -- June 15, 2008

Tony Schwartz, August 19, 1923 -- June 15, 2008

Then, as people were seated, I had all the lights extinguished. Total darkness, except for the glow of cigarettes (yes, people smoked in places like that back then). Then I played a 45-minute Tony Schwartz tape, starting with a NY cabbie saying, "That's my opinion and it's very true." A classic, now in the hall of fame.

There was some restlessness, some WTF's of the day, then that subsided and these visually-oriented designers and graphics folks were each in their own world of interpretation of what was being said and the sounds that he'd recorded. No one complained. Far from it. If I'd have thought of it, I'd have recorded the applause and the many positive comments and sent them to him. But I'm no Tony Schwartz. He was one of a kind. Thank you Tony, for opening my eyes. And my ears. I'm using your powers of observation to this day.

How I learned to read, write and dream.

Toad was a hero. A wild thing, and quite a wit.

Toad was a hero. A wild thing, and quite a wit.

When I was small, some kindly people in my family read to me. Winnie the Pooh. Wind in the Willows with the irrepressible, irresponsible Toad of Toad Hall--I met some like him in advertising. Wild Animals I have known, Ernest Seton Thompson. The Jungle Book. And they took me to movies: Bambi, Fantasia, Snow White. Fantasia was psychedelic to my young brain--what a trip. I veered off into comics.

Comics and more comics. Mind-warping stuff. The Spirit, Vigilante, Air Boy, Green Lantern, The Shadow, the list is long and loathsome to those who would shape a boy's life. I did read Boy's Life, but only because I was absorbing everything in print. No TV back then. Just imagine. That's what we did: just imagine. And it was mind-stretching.

The closest thing to the internet was short wave radio and at night I could tune in foreign language stuff that sounded like ducks on a pond. I could get XERF Del Rio, Texas, hillbilly and gospel music. If you sent them an article of clothing with return postage and "blessing fee," they'd sanctify it, send it back. I couldn't afford it. My rabbit's foot key chain would have to carry me through the evil times. And my "if I should die before I wake" prayer which introduced a cruddy possibility that I hurriedly glossed over.

Now and then a kid at school would show us an "eight page bible," as pornographic comics were known then. These were slim, palm-sized affairs, on newsprint, horizontal, with panels that revealed a quick and luridly apocryphal story about Olive Oyl and Popeye, or Blondie and a plumber. But I was a comic connoisseur and knew the art was forgery. I missed the point, I was told.

"That's not MY Blondie. And the lettering is no good."

"That's not MY Blondie. And the lettering is no good."

Then I discovered pulp novels. They lay around the house on side tables or in the trash I'd take out to the backyard to burn. The covers attracted me. Colorful art depicted women in odd circumstances or men in fedoras firing flaming forty-fives. (it's where I learned alliteration, too) At first I was disappointed that the pages of these twenty-five-cent paperbacks were full of words and not pictures with word balloons, but the packed words transported me. The first of these books that I remember reading was Angels Camp.

The banner on the cover said "This savage novel may shock you--but you'll never forget it. Bantam Books Inc. believes its readers want to know the brutal truth about juvenile delinquents--and whether there is any hope for them." It was true. I never did forget it. And I did want to know if there was any hope for me.

Maybe my folks had bought it in hopes of learning how to deal with my coming teen years. More likely they'd plucked it from a wire carousel at a drugstore in a moment of boredom. An attractive woman seemed to be luring young criminals away from a work detail. Was she nuts?! These were criminals, young ones, true, but everyone knew juvenile delinquents were the scourge of the times. I would have to read this. I did. And a lot of other books.

Much of Angels Camp was puzzling. I read the word "causal" as "casual." The name Marijuano Brown made no sense to me at all so I asked about it. And what were goofballs? My alarmed folks asked where I had picked up such terms, plus a lot more questions. I kept later enigmas to myself.

And this sentence, "The G-Man asked me did I use narcotics and I asked him was it soap or hair oil, that sure was a wigger."  (G-Man was Mr. Grozier, a counselor) Wigger had to remain on my puzzling list for a long time, as did "You're looking at the King Pachuco." And why the blonde lady wanted anything to do with these guys. (She did stuff with one of them in the woods, which I vaguely understood. I sure didn't ask my folks about that.) Many words sent me to the dictionary, a good thing. Wigger wasn't in there.

Anyway, I found this vintage book online, and ordered it. It's by Ray Morrison, a former probation officer in L.A. and, upon reading it again, over a half-century later, I found it to be pretty well-written. It was a bestseller, and enjoyed several printings. As did some of the other books I found around the house: Tobacco Road, Grapes of Wrath, Kiss Me Deadly, Twelve O'clock High, and dozens more.

I never stopped reading. And I started writing. Along the way I dreamed a lot. And posited "What if?" And I managed to stay out of prison. Though my aunt Mickey used to look at my hands and say, "Spatulate fingers. Definite sign of a criminal." But I applied two of those fat digits to the typewriter, then the keypad rather than more lucrative criminal enterprise. But who knows, I may hit it big yet.

Resume Speed. And don't hide the madness.

     Somehow, I've avoided the self-publishing route on three books now. The first was published by a small university press, Pecan Grove, at St. Marys University in San Antonio. That was the result of a competition win, and I learned a lot about editing and the process of word to print from the experience. It was an eye-opener. I'll say no more. Except, when an editor tells you they're "not prissy," leave room for the possibility that they are. The book has five-star reviews and one four-star on Amazon. It's more PC than originally written.

     The second and third book have been published by an outfit in the Pacific Northwest named Black Opal. No advances, but a nicely structured payout should the book become a decent seller. Maybe I'll experience that someday. The second book was Ruined Days, and while it was read and even enjoyed by a smallish group, my efforts to push it beyond that didn't amount to much. It did get all five-star reviews on Amazon, four and five on Goodreads, and a decent review or two. At any rate, Resume Speed, the third book, is available for pre-order now, and fully released June 18th.

The blurbs are for the previous collection of short stories. That's what you do when you don't have blurbs for the present book, yet. I will switch these out at a later printing. If I get any good ones. (Cover design by the talented Mr. Carmean)

The blurbs are for the previous collection of short stories. That's what you do when you don't have blurbs for the present book, yet. I will switch these out at a later printing. If I get any good ones. (Cover design by the talented Mr. Carmean)

     This third book, Resume Speed, is a collection of short stories, most of which have seen print in various lit reviews, and even Best New Writing of 2015. An interview about it will appear in July's The Big Thrill, the International Thriller Writers magazine. For now, I'm using the blurbs for Night Train, Cold Beer just to show previous books have gotten accolades. Almost meaningless, they say, but I sometimes buy a book if the praise for a previous book seems good. I never buy Pulitzer winners anymore as they (to me) have been about as enjoyable as a noogie from a drunken uncle. RS is available for pre-order at Kobo and B&N.

Allen was always such an uninhibited child...

Allen was always such an uninhibited child...

     Resume Speed (buy it, subliminal barely-seen imperative here) runs the gamut of short-short to long stories, with one blurred genre faux memoir that's a smorgasbord of POVs and prose poetry and outright lies. But some of it will piss off distant family members. Some stories are gritty, some are, to me, funny. Most are on the dark side. As Allen Ginsberg said, "Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness." And I have almost done that in this collection. I plan to perfect that in books to come.

     Daniel Saldana Paris, a Mexican writer, says, "I personally feel that no one gives a shit about my books—maybe I'm just a pessimist—and that idea feels horrible and refreshing at the same time. I feel ignored and doomed to anonymity, but free to do whatever I want within the sacred space of literature." Okay. With an attitude like that, I'm free to write The Great American Novel. But first, L.A. Hardscape, a sort of Big Sleep in present day SoCal. Then Hot Rods from Hell, a collection of stories with cars in them.

     That'll be five books and I should know what I'm doing by then. Maybe. Meanwhile I'm betting heavily that you'll find something to like in Resume Speed. The odds and the point spread are good, with twenty-eight stories and about 300 pages. For those of you with the attention span of a duckling, there are even some one-pagers. Remember somebody dug these stories if only a speed-crazed editor of some eastern lit publication coming upon a deadline who said, "Screw it, I'm using this Wise story for the spring issue, then I'm sleeping for four days."

     So this is The Launch. It'll be on Amazon the 18th. You can pre-order it on Kobo now, B&N too. More news to come.