Author: Donald J. Lund

Don’t Touch That Dial!

~ Donald J. Lund ~ 1 Comment

Video didn’t kill this radio star, but if we have time we’ll cover that on the other side after we hit the top of the hour.

My employment resume represents a fascinating series of uniquely different jobs, but the most fun I’ve ever had with my clothes on, was working in radio.

I’ve always loved radio.  When one grows up without a lot of money in a world with only 3-4 television stations, radio gets to be your friend.  As a sports fan, who loved news and music, the battery operated AM radio was a constant companion in my youth.  From music and wacky disc jockeys by day to Denver Bears’ baseball by night, I got a lot of mileage out of my little hand held radios.

When we first moved to Wyoming, my Marine Corps and defense contracting career to that point wasn’t a big sell in the little town.  Since I had coached little league football and basketball, I used those skills to grab a part time job at the recreation center.  It was a fun place to get to know folks in my new community.

One day I found myself shopping for new tunes at a music shop and noticed the place was had the local radio stations piped in through the speakers in the store. I was the only customer in the place and I started to complain out loud to the only other soul in the place, the local merchant running the store. “Hey, how come they don’t have any sports on this station?  It needs some sports.”

“Well they do need someone up there to help them with sports, my Dad used to run the place, and I know the current general manager there.  Do you want a job?”

I nearly fell over.  What are the odds that the only person I ever needed to meet to work in radio was the dude behind the counter at the CD/Record shop?  That local merchant is my friend to this day, and yes, the reference is specific, inside humor that only he, and maybe three other humans will laugh at.

Of course I hadn’t worked in radio before, they insisted all I needed to know for the moment was sports.  Easy enough. I talked to the station manager, he said because I knew more about sports than him, I got the job.

Love or hate Howard Stern, the biographical movie Private Parts about his life had a couple funny moments for me.  In particular, his first radio gig when his voice is way up high, and he is all excited to spin a Ramones’ record — that was me.

My first hour of radio was hideous.  I made a recording of it and then destroyed it.  I destroyed it a lot.  On the tape I cringed as I heard a high pitched, quiet, whiney voiced dork talk about sports with way too much dead air in between painstakingly boring analysis.  But KEVA Sports Saturday was born, and I got paid to talk about what I wanted on the air.  The pay was not great, but it did add up and help my micro family.

I got better at it. I did play-by-play for football, basketball and legion baseball. I hosted coaches shows.  I did voice actor bits for the commercials, I spent hours on sound effects and intro music, being creative is always fun.

The station had a great news guy when I got there, but he left for a shot at working in the Las Vegas radio market, so I ended up being the news guy too.  My wife reminded me of my slogan I ran all the time in competition with the local newspaper, “When you hear it, it’s news, when you read it, it’s history.”

Radio does have that real time advantage over print, so I bragged about that a lot.  Because at the end of the day, we needed those advertising dollars to get paid and put on the cool local programs.  I recall my ambitious plan to make the station a local powerhouse, which included Wyoming Cowboys sports, Utah Jazz basketball, Denver Broncos football and the inaugural baseball season of the Colorado Rockies.  Some official looking guy flew in from Boston, representing station ownership and he said I could only do all of that if I could finance it.

Thus, I had to learn how to sell air.  And I did.  I compiled an advertising campaign, wrote up my own contracts specific to sports programming, printed flyers and hit the streets.  Selling is one of the most difficult jobs on the planet to me, and selling air time is even harder.  However, a couple months later, I had thirty sponsors in all, paying for various parts of the sports package.  And since I thanked them a bunch on the radio, and they listened, most would sign up again.

I got media passes to cover pro and college sports.  Well, I had to assemble a picture identification myself, we didn’t have a big staff.  Many of those sports adventures rate blogs all their own.  Stay tuned.

Eventually I did everything from those sales, to the commercials and my sports show hosted players from every major and minor sport in the region.  I had the Steve Martin from the movie The Jerk moment when my name showed up in print in the Denver Broncos Media Guide, “I’m somebody, I’m somebody, I’m finally somebody!”

I was a disc jockey, ad man, sales, news, sports, live radio remotes from sports bars and furniture stores, play-by-play, copy writer, cable TV television specials,  I got to do it all in small market radio in Evanston, Wyoming.  Rock and Roll Midnight shows on Fridays, morning shows, selling tractor parts on the radio station classified ad programs, hanging out with Denver Broncos.  I do mean I got to do it all.  I did serious stuff as well, interviewing governors and U.S. Senators too.

Of course, the newspaper got sick of me trash talking them, so they hired me. The weird media reversal as it is usually newspaper guys who morph into broadcasting and not the other way around.  But I could always write.

I started with a sports column and then was hired full time to be the sports editor of The Uinta County Herald.  Writing up sports events I broadcast on the radio meant I got paid twice for the same work.  That was nice.  It was also a lot of hours to cover both jobs, nearly 80-hours a week at the peak of the two jobs.

We hired a great nanny to watch the boys, but I missed those toddlers. Ultimately, the newspaper wanted me exclusive and that hurt a bit.  I got to sneak onto a few radio broadcasts my last year in Wyoming, just not enough.  Print journalism was paying better at the time, and my micro family needed the funds.

The old radio days are more glorious with each passing moment.  The adrenaline  that accompanies the big red light bulb turning on to indicate you are live and on the air is a great rush, every time.  And just when you think you are all alone in that phone booth of plexiglass and plywood, you decide to give away a couple tickets to something and the phone lights up like a dead fir tree on Christmas morning.

“Fifteen minutes after the hour, we’ve got a cold twenty-eight degrees to go with our blue skies this morning — more great music, news and sports coming at you, right after this break on Variety 1240, K-E-V-A!”

Tales of an Irish Rogue

~ Donald J. Lund

In all, my six years in the United States Marine Corps were served during a comparatively quiet time in history.  We certainly packed up and went where we were told and when, but for a couple exceptions, Marines stayed out of trouble in the mid 1980’s.

Well, not all of us stayed out of trouble.

One of my favorite former Marines was only in the Corps during my first two years of service, yet he left a lifetime of impressions during that span.  And as the modern world of blogs go, I’ll alter his name a bit in case he wants to write his own stories. Or in case the statute of limitations has not been reached on some of these adventures.

We will go with the name Mac.  And with that kind of nickname, it narrows the choices to either Scottish or Irish American heritage. The title today gives it away. Besides I’ve always considered myself bit of an Irish rogue as well.  I recognize the stereotype.  He was quite literally a fighter with the full on Irish temperament.

I had been in the Marine Corps about nine months when I first met Mac.   Three months of boot camp plus six months of training for my military occupational specialty or MoS.  And my job of course, was everyone’s favorite oxymoron – military intelligence.

I loved the job.  It included a top secret security clearance and some of the most important work I’ve ever done.  Although, right after graduating from intel school, the first assignment appeared fairly mundane, until I met Mac.

He wasn’t the tallest or strongest person I met in among Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children (my favorite of the many uses for the standard USMC initials), but Mac was the toughest.  Apparently he played hockey in his spare time, and I believed it.

A couple days out of intel school, I got my new orders and jumped on a plane to Cherry Point, North Carolina.  It was August, 1984, with emphasis on the month.  Summers in the southeast can be a bit hot and humid.  I stepped off the last plane of the journey at midnight, and the humidity was downright oppressive and hostile when accompanied with a 9o-degree temperature.

It was a two week war games effort involving several thousand Marines.  We took to the field and the conditions for sleeping outside in the south should not have been a surprise, but it was unpleasant at best.  Sweating every hour, the nights were just as hot as the days, the mosquitos were doing their level best to eat us alive.  The field showers should have been a relief, the freezing cold water was kind of nice, but the drains didn’t work. It became an exercise of will to see how long one could deal with standing in a foot or so of mucky, muddy water to rinse off. We worked twelve hours on, twelve hours off, and I’m not sure I slept at all the first week there.

Our unit sent four enlisted men and two officers to support this operation.  We would look at images pulled off of cameras from old F-4 fighters, refitted to observe the developing situation on the ground during the op.  We worked intel for one side of the war games, and another intel unit worked with the other side.  Again, pretty mundane as it was very easy to spot and identify equipment and troop movements and write up reports for our side of the war game.

So, for our particular shifts, I worked with Jeff, a friendly enough guy, but he had been in a while and he was even less excited to be there.  The other team that was stuck working together for 12 hours a day were Nelson and Mac.  Our officers, of course, were not living in the field with us, they had rooms at the nearby base.  We didn’t see them that much, except for the occasional briefing to show them what we found.

Ten days into the operation, those same officers saw that us enlisted guys were less useful to them without any sleep.  They found us a barracks room at the Marine Corps Air Station in Cherry point.  The first night in the tiny room with four ancient bunk beds felt like a four star resort.

Based on our previous shift work, it was also the very first time all four of us were in the same room at the same time.  Nelson had been promoted to sergeant just before our journey to North Carolina, which made him the senior enlisted person among us.

Apparently, he had been reminding Mac all week long about his status as the top dog.  There was quite a bit of tension in the room, as the other three had been in the unit nearly four years together, and one person bragging about rank did not sit well with Jeff and Mac.

They all decided to blow off some steam and head over to the Non-Commisioned Officer Club or NCO club.  I was the FNG (f’n new guy) and was not yet an NCO.  I was exhausted anyway and sleep was my favorite option.  And fall asleep I did about 15 minutes after they left around 2000 hours, or 8 pm.  A series of loud voices and noises woke me at 2400 hours.  I am sure of the time, because I needed that information for the official inquiry the next day.

Jeff and Mac were drunk.  At that point they were happy, exhausted drunks.  Jeff was in the lower bunk, Mac’s spot was on the wall near the door.  A light shined into the window from the parking lot.  I had been too tired to care, yet it bothered Mac and Jeff.  Mac asked Jeff to close the window blinds so no light could enter the room.

Jeff obliged, but as I noted, he was drunk.  There was one obstacle in his path to the window blinds.  It was Nelson’s bed.  Jeff jumped on top to reach the cord, but he shifted his weight to the far side of the bunk and the whole thing tipped over with a crash.  The pillow and bedding went in opposite directions.   I suddenly recalled the great pride Nelson had taken in making up his bunk as well as he did in boot camp.  A weird bit of bragging, but that is what the guy loved to do.

Drunk Jeff did his damnedest to repair the mess.  But it was an epic fail, as nothing was tucked in, and it basically looked like a pile of laundry gone wrong.

The three of us went to sleep, for about one half hour, and then our senior NCO returned home.  And he was unhappy.  He began yelling at all of us, certain that we had purposefully destroyed his perfectly made bunk.  Part of his assumption was correct, none of us liked him.  But as Mac pointed out, no one did it on purpose, it was an accident.  He was calm and collected, and he suggested Nelson remake his bunk and get some sleep.

Nelson was drunk too.  He would not let it go.  The accusations got worse, and then they got personal.  He once again bragged about being the highest ranked person in the room.  He also advanced the claim that he was a better Marine than Jeff and Mac and his promotion was evidence.

Mac flipped back the covers, stepped out of his bunk, stepped within an inch of Nelson’s face and with a quiet force and a low voice he said, “I don’t care what your rank is, if you don’t shut-up and let me sleep in five seconds, I’m going to knock your ass out.”

Nelson waited three seconds before starting to speak, it just meant he was going to miss his new deadline.  By the fifth second, Mac kept his promise and he knocked Nelson in the jaw and he fell to the floor. Mac went to sleep.  We all woke up hours later to find that Nelson had filed charges against Mac for the brief scuffle.

Each of us was called into an office by our two officers to provide our observations of what happened the night before.  I was the key witness in the eyes of the officers, as Jeff was good pals with Mac, and Nelson’s version of events was vastly different than theirs.  I was going to be the tie-breaking vote in a very close decision.  I knew two things at that early stage of my Marine Corps career, I really enjoyed Mac’s instant justice the previous night, and good Marines don’t whine or throw their new rank around. I did what any good intel guy would do in that situation.

I lied.

I explained I was awaken from my slumber twice at that point, which was true.  I recalled drunk Jeff accidentally thrashing Nelson’s bunk.  And then I heard arguing, but did not see the punch.  By the time I looked up, it was all over.  They were not buying my perspective.  Captain Young in particular saw something in my body language, probably the same tell that kills me in Texas Hold’em, but he knew I knew more.  I held my ground, and signed my statement.

I must look like one of those folks who tells the truth all the time, because Mac looked at me like I was the next one to get punched.  He asked me what I told the officers.  I sat down next to him and said, I told the truth. He grimaced and started to throw a few choice swear words in my direction, and I said, “The truth is, Nelson is an asshole. He deserved what he got.”

From that moment on, Mac and I were pals.  And strangely enough, I earned a great deal of respect from Captain Young that day as well.  I think everyone knew the truth about Nelson, but they did have to ‘officially’ investigate the incident.

And this was only the first adventure with that Irish Rogue, who kept things pretty darned interesting for peacetime in the Marine Corps.

Peacetime, another one of those oxymorons.

Ghost of a Chance

~ Donald J. Lund

I didn’t always believe in ghosts.

And maybe they don’t exist as described in the traditional forms of human lore, but I know there is certainly something beyond the visible spectrum bumping around among us.

We moved into a little brick house on the older side of town and it was an unassuming place that barely contained our family of six.  Two of my three younger brothers shared a room and my parents had to make due with a partially finished basement bedroom.

It seemed normal enough, but then the nightmares began.

The term night terrors had not made it into mainstream vernacular at that time, although they closely resemble the horrible dreams had so many times at that place.

The dream always started the same, at a door underneath the stairs at the otherwise innocent looking residence.  Of course, there was no visible door down there.  It was just a storage area with a cement floor next the unfinished laundry room.  In the dream, with some effort, I could push open the door.

Through the door it was initially dark, and it led to a meandering, endless cave.  The cave was somehow lit by flickering firelight and the sense of evil, whatever evil may actually be, was foreboding.  Within the dream, my heart rate increased and I always had the feeling I was being followed and it pushed me toward a particular carved out part of the cave.  All I ever knew was something horrible happened to someone there and I would awake in a cold sweat at various parts of the trek to that carved out area.

I was in high school at the time, so I went to library and did some dream research. I wanted to know what it meant.  Dream interpretation as it turns out is a fairly inaccurate science to this day, and it was even more speculative a couple decades ago.  There were no good answers.

I stayed awake a lot of nights.  Sleepless nights were preferred to experiencing the nightmare as often as possible.  I slept better away from home.  Be it on vacation, or a friend’s place or my grandparents — anywhere other than the nice little brick house on the old side of town.

One evening, one of my good pals was hanging out with me and we were listening to records, planning on some game time with other friends.  We were in the basement office, very near those stairs.  My parents were gone for the night, and they had left my little brothers at my grandmother’s house.  My friend and I were the only ones in the house.

Or so we thought.

The record player upstairs had gone quiet a half hour before.  I just didn’t feel like going up to flip the album over.  We were talking and laughing about something when suddenly, there was a loud noise upstairs above us, and then the record player started playing.  And no, it was not one of those turntables that was able to reset the needle itself.

We looked at each other and ran upstairs to investigate.  It took all of eight seconds to hop those stairs.  There was a hanging fern plant in the kitchen and it was swinging wildly back and forth, as if someone was just ahead of us and pushed the planter.

No one was there.

It was a cold fall day, so all of the windows and doors were locked.  The weird part was, as we continued to search the tiny house, none of the windows were open, and the front door was still secure, locked from the inside.

We searched around for the next hour for any clue of who might be trying to scare us, but no one was there, and nothing was found.  Needless to say, we continued the discussion elsewhere.

The nightmares resumed in full force shortly after.  We moved six months later, merely to a bigger place — no one else shared my night terror problem.  The first night at the new house, no bad dreams.  The nightmare never happened again.  I have always assumed something terrible happened to someone at that house, either before or after it was built.  I never did the research, I wasn’t sure I wanted to invite that event back into my life, whatever it was.

The only other spiritual or ghostly happening in life happened when my grandmother passed away.  It was very sudden, and I had had just visited her hours before, six plus hours away in another state.  When I left her she was seemingly fine.  She was a tough as nails Irish grandmother, who was not big on hugs and such.  That particular last day I saw her was on her birthday, which is always one day after my birthday.  I did something I never did before, I kissed her on the forehead.  She started to give me a “what the hell” look, but then she smiled.

Less than 48-hours later, I was 420 miles away, deep asleep and she showed up in my dream and told me “goodbye.”  The phone rang a moment later around five in the morning and my wife awoke and ran to answer it in another room.  When she returned, I told her my grandmother died, and with an understandably surprised look, she asked me how I knew.

I don’t know how I knew.

I have lost loved ones before and after, but it was the only time anything like that ever happened.

I can’t explain any of it, but I love that somehow, my grandmother was able to say her farewell.  Celtic spiritual connection or something even bigger?

I didn’t always believe in ghosts, but something is going on…

Age of Content

~ Donald J. Lund

Fifty is just a number.

The fifty yard line is half-way to the end zone in football.  Fifty bucks will sometimes cover a decent meal at a nice restaurant for two, with no drinks or desserts on the ticket. Fifty miles will get me an hour closer to the Wyoming border from here.

But fifty years old?  Yeah, it is just a number, but a pretty big one.

My birthday is next Monday, a lesser known National Holiday, but if you need a day off, just tell your boss I said it was okay.  It is a floating holiday each year, but I only get one day of me every 365-days so I take it.

I’ve always treated my birthday as a big deal, because my family did.  Candles, balloons, cake, good food and a song sung, just for me.  I know the song was just for me, because my name was mentioned among the lyrics.

Heck, sometimes kids not related to me were allowed to visit and join in on the celebration.  And while stuff is not nearly as important as it was a couple dozen birthdays ago, it is kind of nice to at least be offered stuff on my day.

Those numbers started to mean something.  At first it meant I got to be older than some of my classmates.  But with a spring birthday, I was really one of the younger kids in my class.  Then at some point it meant it was time to grow up.  The teenage years meant jobs, and then of course, the first goal line birthday was 15.  The learner permit era and the time to practice driving the car and looking cool.

Sixteen, of course made the actual driver’s license a viable option, seventeen not too much new, but the big 18 was all about the magical tripwire.  One minute you’re still a kid, the next, you can get in huge trouble for poor choices as a young adult.  For me at that time, it was the right to vote, a chance at legal, albeit watered down 3.2 beer and the ability to sign up for U.S. Marine Corps.  Be careful what you sign, those contracts are taken pretty seriously.

Of course, 21-years-old is the modern welcome wagon for alcohol, and other adult choices. Also, and it’s completely optional, one can get married at 22, like me. At 25, one can rent a car, get a better vehicle insurance rate and in my case, become a father for the first time.  Another lucky choice, as the whole Dad thing adds to the happy.

Time flies when you’re having fun.

Actually, time flies when you’re miserable too.  Through sickness, health, losing loving family members and friends.  Time -as the cliche reminds – waits for no one.

Time certainly has not waited or even slowed down for me.  Although there were a couple days in high school, those late afternoon spring classes where I could have sworn time stopped.

I know folks who downplay the birthday thing.  I know some have never really liked to think about the numbers.  I get that.  Sometimes I get pretty dismissive about the aging process myself.

Paint by numbers can be fun, so it is time to color in another pattern is all. Numbers do so many things, but they never lie.  Five decades is pretty darned good.

I don’t feel the fifty.  Well, my right knee does feel over forty, and my right shoulder is aging rapidly.  There is no way I can claim to be mature enough to be this old.  If I find a T-Shirt that says “the first fifty years of childhood are the hardest” I am so buying that thing.

I’m not going for all glib on this deal. I’m clearly closer to the finish line.   And pain has been a part of this otherwise glorious run.  However, as one of my new favorite quotes by an unknown author describes it best, “Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls our lives.”

Limping along with a bum knee aside, the emotional aspect of life is in a constant state of healing.  Bad stuff happens everyday, how I choose to respond to it is on me.  And so yeah, immature for sure, yet just enough wisdom to embrace my next birthday.

I am blessed, loved, with a sizable pile of family and friends.  I recall how my wily grandfather essentially hit a life reset button at the age of 50.  He thoroughly enjoyed his next three decades on the planet.  I will endeavor to live his example and hopefully laugh as loud and as often.

I may not get another three decades.  Hell, with traffic around these parts, I’m lucky to be alive at all.  Eastern philosophy reminds us the past is the past, and no tomorrows are promised us, so focus on the now.  Sounds like a deal.

And while I was never good at math, technically speaking, I will only be 50 for one second.  By the next tic of the clock, I’ll be over fifty.  A whole new world.  A new demographic and a chance to push on toward another year in this crazy, wonderful, sad, bizarre world.

Five decades later, and thus begins the age of contentment.

Stay tuned…

A 12-year Old Walks Into a Bar…

~ Donald J. Lund

I whipped open the glass door and sauntered in with my usual sixth grade swagger, the bartender recognized me right away.

“Yo’ Donny, how you doin’?”

I gave the standard head nod of cool, a move I perfected the year before, “Pretty good Bobby, you?”

He slid one of those little square cocktail napkins on the bar in front of me, “Same old, can’t complain.  The usual?”

Another head nod.

Bobby grabbed a glass, slung in a little ice, worked his magic and started to hand me the glass and then stopped.  He knew he forgot something. Bobby turned, grabbed a maraschino cherry out of big jar behind the bar, plopped it in the drink, then turned back and set the glass down on the napkin like he did so many times before.

“You off today Donny?”

“Yeah.”

“Can’t keep you outta dis place.”

“How else I gonna learn the ways of the world Bobby?”

“Sittin’ here, on that barstool, not so much Donny.  You should be out, hanging wit your little friends. You know, out doin’ stuff.”

I didn’t hold back, I took a huge gulp of my Roy Rodgers, and Bobby did it just right. There was not too much of the cherry flavored stuff on top of the cola.  He was a good bartender that Bobby.

He was also my little league football coach.  And the bar was located within a restaurant, one of my all time favorite places on the planet. I washed dishes there on weekends to help out, it was one of my first jobs.  I got the gig, not because of Bobby, but my Mom worked there all the time, trying to save money for college and feed her four sons.

It is gone now, the “World Famous” Colacci’s restaurant in Louisville, Colorado.  It really was famous and celebrities traveling around the west often found their way into the little place on Main Street.

The town was founded as a coal mining town, and a number of the Italian immigrant families that settled in the area were still around.  My own little Italy.  My own batch of Goodfellas, who didn’t necessarily throw around the accent heard from New Jersey or the Bronx in New York, but they had the attitude, and it carried over onto my little Irish mug from time to time.

Like the movies, everybody had a nickname or their name had to end in a “y” or an “i” – and there were a lot of head nods.  A lot. You know what I mean?

My dark hair gave me a little bit of chance to pull off being Italian too.  I won the school Halloween contest the year before dressed as none other than Rocky Balboa.  Sly Stallone ain’t got nothin’ on me.

When a number of the women who worked at Colacci’s gathered to gossip, it was like a scene right out of Goodfellas. The spot in the film when the wives gathered at a hair saloon.  The movie was years later, but it was fun having a major deja vu moment, flashing back to all the good times I had the few years I lived in that town.

Stereotypes aside, it was a tight community.  Most folks went to church, it was truly all about family and people really looked out for each other.  As long as you was on the right side of the tracks, you know?

They played hard, worked hard and fought hard, and there was always a sense of joy, regardless of the hardship and setbacks that were all around us everyday.  Bobby was pretty hard on me most days, he was an old school, Vince Lombardi tough guy coach.  But it made me a better player.

He was a different guy at work, like I earned some kind of unique respect working for a few bucks at that young age at the restaurant.

“Hey, Bobby, I keep washing them dishes good, maybe someday they let me work the bar out here wit you?”

“You ought to get out more Donny.  Go play wit your little friends, go to school or something’. Get outta here.”

And then he messed up my hair.  That happened a lot back then, something about messing up a kid’s hair.

I finished my drink, and slowly pushed the glass to the edge.  I found four quarters and slapped them onto the bar for a tip.  No way Bobby ever made me pay, so a tip was the best way to say thanks.

I only felt slightly rejected about him not wanting me to grow up and be a bartender. Working that place on the weekend didn’t look like any kind of picnic anyways.  Besides, it was a nice day — and it was my day off.  So I got outta there. It was good times though, good times.

I think I’m still a little bit Italian by osmosis.  Like something rubbed off.  You know what I mean?

The Force is Strong in This One

~ Donald J. Lund

Maybe George Lucas was on to something with this whole Force thing.

I’m not sure, but my world is certainly a brighter place for discovering whatever this newer, happier, stronger self has tapped into.  Ultimately, I have to blame my family, friends and simply having an opportunity to embrace who I am by writing nearly every day.

And it is more than my current family and friends supporting my endeavor to create fictional adventures.  The new me includes the best of the people who I have lost along the way.

I know that sounds weird, but hang in there a minute.

This doesn’t mean my grandfather appears to me in robes, surrounded by a blue energy glow.  Although it would be cool.  Cooler than Yoda in Star Wars or Bob Newhart returning to haunt Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory.

It would be cool because my Grandfather was funnier than the amazingly talented Bob Newhart.  My grandfather was supremely light-hearted, kind, loving and had a huge infectious laugh that altered mundane moments into joy.  When he departed for greener pastures, or a mythical blue energy field of the Force, we can’t be sure just yet — I became stronger.

Just as Obi-Wan Kenobi warned Darth Vader would happen.

I became stronger because I gained the gift of my grandfather’s mirth.  His love of life and the want to make others smile.  A gift I had to some degree, but lost my way a while.  It took the loss of such a happy human to remind me if I can be half as joyous as him, life will be better.

My grandmother was a vastly unique person.  When she left the world, she gifted me her strength.  An Irish grandmother who had an extremely tough existence was the toughest human I ever met.  Trust me, I spent six years in the Marine Corps and I never met anyone she couldn’t take. If she had a sense of fear, I never saw it, not even when she was ill.  When she left, I became stronger, and much tougher than ever before.

Never mix your metaphors, but we need a little Star Trek to help with the next one.  My father was one with the ultimate logic string.  He could run circles around Leonard Nimoy’s awesome portrayal of Spock in the original series of that show.  If I ever tried to make a decision or convince my dad of anything, I best be packing a logical presentation or it would get shot down in a hurry.  His gift was one of pure logic.  And as Star Trek taught us, logic can’t fix everything, but it does offer a level headed approach to difficult problems and level off the emotion when calm serves best.  He is gone, and yet I am stronger.

My uncle, a Vietnam War vet was a fierce patriot yet, with one discerning eye on the government he served.  Love your country, yet question authority.  He helped make a better me. My other Irish grandparents — loving people who held a focus on the very simple joys such as work hard and play hard. And don’t overthink it. I don’t complicate every detail of life anymore now either.

Ultimately, it would be a blast to see any member of my family show up at my door in Jedi robes goofing around with their light sabers, but they have already helped me more than any Jedi-in-training I know.  I am grateful, and I love allowing the best of each of them shine through me.

Take that Dark Side.

The Force is very strong in this one.

Politics of Fiction

~ Donald J. Lund

It happened again.

I woke up this morning and I wasn’t the President of the United States.

It may sound weird to some, but it used to be my dream job.  In fact, for the better part of my first three decades on the planet, it is the job I told people I would eventually pursue.  Luckily, enough of my life path changed, and a healthy dose of reality kicked in and I abandoned my goal.

Raising children and building a family are certainly contributors to the change of perspective, but I do not blame them for me not waking up in the White House this morning.  I don’t blame my marriage for pulling me away from Washington D.C. to build a political resume.  Raising my kids in the wilder west was more fun anyway.  The real reason is more simple.  I hate modern politics.

I don’t consider all of the discussions or arguments presenting my youthful political views were a waste. Neither were the handful of disagreements I’ve encountered the last ten years when an invisible, ancient political button gets pushed.

However much I would prefer to avoid future entanglements, the reality is — politics in some form or fashion, infect everything.  And now it has infected the Hugo Awards, the top awards for science fiction and fantasy stories each year.

To boil down a complex set of circumstances, some conservative writers considered their works were on the outside looking in to the Hugo Award process, so they built a voting block (just Google Sad Puppies — yes, Sad Puppies, to see more about them) and apparently their efforts have paid off.   So, while I can’t say that I would agree that the awards are ruined, it could be time to reexamine the qualifications to vote for the awards.

As a writer who is still looking to break in to the business sometime this year, I’m not writing for rookie of the year honors or for the market or for a lovable Hugo Award.  Of course, anyone who makes something from nothing appreciates a positive response to their work.  I’m just saying if I try to to write for someone else, I’m doing it wrong.

I don’t think George Orwell wrote 1984 to be popular.  I think he envisioned a political world that scared the hell out of him, so he had to write about it.  And that’s where good stories come from — not intended to be from the left or the right side of a political spectrum.  Stories are derived from our fears, hopes and dreams.

To this day, I’ll disagree that Robert Heinlein was trying to glorify war during the contentious days at the end of the Vietnam War in Starship Troopers.  I think he wrote a story about what a modern military might experience against aliens.  Yes, we can find politics in those pages and those truly looking to expose one “side” of politics over another can find something to disagree with, but it doesn’t mean the author was dutifully selling a specific perspective.  One’s perspective will certainly show up in pages we write, but readers always know when they are being hit over the head with ideology.

Science fiction and fantasy are great vehicles for exploring perspectives, taking concepts farther than non-fiction and exploring human emotion in an array of fictional landscapes faced with a myriad of known and unknown political circumstances.  How would we react to an alien race of sentient bugs?  I’d like to think we would be open minded, but there is a real good chance our reaction would be violent.

I generally try to avoid the personal politics of a writer – or musician, or actor, so that I can enjoy whatever entertainment the person is trying to offer.  Ultimately, that approach doesn’t always work either.  But I would contend that people always looking to be offended will find a way to be offended.

I tend to embrace opposing views in order to understand them.  I lean toward an understanding that the ‘middle’ holds far more truth than the far ends of our current political existence.  Unfortunately, in this platinum age of information, it has served to drive humanity farther apart than closer together.  People tend to cling to their circles of agreement.  Those circles turn into tribes and those tribes tend to generate their own news — MSNBC v. FOX as one example and we’re happier to hold onto tribal misinformation than truth or even compromise.

Am I against Sad Puppies?  Well, how can anyone be completely against puppies?

These writers felt slighted, they unified, organized and selected authors they identify with on the final ballot.  The only thing more impossible than arguing politics is arguing a feeling.  If someone ‘feels’ left out, no amount of logic is going make them suddenly ‘feel’ a part of the process.  I don’t agree with their action, but I can’t tell them how they should feel about the previous results of the awards.

I would have preferred the Hugo Awards not have pre-chosen ballots passed around for a block of voters on either side of an imaginary political fence.  And it is imaginary.  We all know how fast political sides vanish in crisis.  Turn the power off in a country for 30-days and try to find political parties in that pile of anarchy and chaos.  Attack a country and everyone unifies under a banner in mere moments. These are a couple of the concepts explored in science fiction everyday.

The genre will ultimately survive, even if the awards associated with them may be adversely altered for a few years while the ‘sides’ reorganize and take turns jabbing each other online or off.

If I were the U.S. President, I may draw up an executive order eliminating political action committees all together.  Instead, I woke up as a writer and thus I’ll have to write a story about it.  I’m off to listen to the Van Halen cover of Little Feats A Apolitical Blues.  As the song suggests I’ve got no time for Chairman Mao or John Wayne.  Not today.

So much more fun to write and then have readers try to guess where I fall on that imaginary spectrum.

Love Can Conquer All

~ Donald J. Lund

Apparently, after you make mistakes for a few decades, you earn a new tool called ‘wisdom’ to utilize for however many days you have left.  Better late than never, but I’ve not thought about sharing much of this newfound life experience with anyone until now.

So many fellow writers and bloggers discussing the never-ending highs and lows of love, most of them sharing unpleasant results in this modern day. I felt inspired to join the virtual reality conversation. That and I’m zooming toward a 28-years of marriage anniversary this summer. Since we’re nearing three decades of being hitched, some have inquired about our relationship longevity.  The subject line reveals my premise, as I absolutely believe love can conquer all.  Sometimes it can take a while to get the hang of it.

Last month while shopping,  a salesperson, going for that customer bonding moment, asked my wife about our ‘success’.  As she is an engineer, a quick graph drawn in the air is the easiest path to succinct information exchange.  The graph she displayed looked like a “U” – high point to start, a huge dip and then arcing upward.  Luckily for me, the last bit of the arrow on the current side of the graph was displayed as still going up.

As usual, she was spot on.

Of course, a bunch of relationships have similar graphs, and the lines aren’t all smooth and straight.  The key to my available wisdom today is I can explain a way to either avoid that valley, or if you’re there right now, a path to get out.  And yes, I’m borrowing heavily from folks far smarter and wiser than me, I’m just at a point where I understand what they have been saying all along.

1. Ignore the Fairy Tales – Society tells us through our stories, our structure that all things point towards a grand life plan.  You’re born, you go to school, get a job, meet a nice woman, get married, have kids and live happily ever after.  The modern message hasn’t changed much.  Instead of the princess being saved by her prince, our romantic comedies throw in the one adverse moment now, and then they get the happy ending.  Unrealistic expectations created by the very fiction we create and read are the enemy of real relationships.  Expectations quickly erode  into a “what’s in it for me?” vial of poison that turns teammates into competitors.

2. Don’t Compromise – This is a big one.  It sounds weird, but I had it wrong for years.  I assumed you had to compromise, to sacrifice, and surrender in order to grind it out and work through it.  Yes, it can be as horrible as the last sentence sounds.  Now, I give instead.  It seems like a subtle difference, but there is no sacrifice this way. I decide to give versus giving up.  This many years in, I really don’t always have to ask, I know many of my partner’s needs.  The old method was, I felt obligated – I had to give up my time to shop with her. Now I give or gift my time and it is a far more rewarding perspective.  If you love, then giving should be a joyous effort in order to make her feel that love.  A free hint for guys here too, watching a beautiful woman try on dresses is pretty hot.  I’m not certain how shopping got a bad rep in the first place.

3. Always Be Dating – Borrowing a bit from the film Glengarry Glen Ross, and the rally cry of a heartless boss played by Alec Baldwin, “Always be closing!”  That aside, there is no reason to stop chasing after the love of your life, like she is indeed the love of your life.  Movies, dinners, travel, walks, sports, family events and seeking out new adventures is something one would do when they meet someone, the key, as it turns out, is not to stop.  Single or married, life can get into patterns and patterns can get a little boring.  It doesn’t mean you have to climb Mount Everest to shake things up, but it sure is a blast exploring around to find the next fun or unique step to take.  The middle aged couple date includes puzzles now.  Puzzles are not exactly adrenaline rush central, although the quiet sense of working to build something together is fun.

4. Traditional Gender Roles Need an Update – It starts as mockery, the moment when the friends tease a pal about being “whipped.”  The first of many stereotypes that are hammered in regarding traditional gender roles. The dreaded ancient code about how a man is “supposed to be.”  The stick to your guns, don’t cave in, don’t be ‘weak’ versus your woman in your resolve. I’ve also discovered logic is not king (i.e., well, if we fixed our relationship this way once, it should logically work that way every time).  Projecting one’s will on another or fixing problems she didn’t ask to be fixed are a fast path to the unpleasant valley.  Listening to your partner’s needs and trying to address them is not being whipped or giving up one’s man card.  Caring is cool.  Learning how to listen is even better.

5. I’d Rather Be Kind Than Right – Yes, this is the fastest growing cliche in western civilization. As a natural extension of the Golden Rule it’s absolutely true.  And not as easy as it sounds, I mean, who doesn’t like to be right?  I used to enjoy being correct in my assessment of any situation.  However, no one “wins” a disagreement in a relationship.  People feel how they feel, and the only way out of a difference of perspective is understanding and kindness.

6. It Is What You Make It – I will fight for the rest of my days against the “It is what it is” mantra of the modern world.  I understand it.  The phrase is a simple rationalization to shrug off difficult moments, an attempt to accept the ills of life.  I think the healthier selection is not to accept, but embrace and modify adversity.  By appearances, it seems like a slight perception adjustment. However the “It is what it is” world equates to a life of indifference. In that mode I gave myself permission to be absolutely miserable.  In turn, everyone in my life shared that misery.  Instead, life is what I choose it to be.  For example, losing someone I love is horrific, yet, I choose to focus on the love and gifts they shared with me.  Sad and bad happens every day.  I can hold onto anger and fear or create the next happier moment.

Ultimately, neither of us is perfect, darn this whole humanity thing, but she is perfection to me.  I imagine our graph may move around on us again too.  I like our odds when it happens, due to the wisdom gained along our adventurous path.

Love can conquer all. And my heart is truly conquered.

As it turns out, her “air graph” is a much faster way to explain us.

Somehow, she she chose not to change the locks on the door, even at the very lowest part of our graph.  I’m thankful Dena chose to climb out of that canyon with me.  All unsolicited advice set aside, luck is clearly a factor.  I should know, I’m truly the most blessed, most fortunate man on the planet.  I get to hang out  with the most fun, beautiful, brilliant, and kindest person I know.

See? So conquered.  Not whipped at all though…

Music: Friend or Foe of the Writer?

~ Donald J. Lund

Comedian Lewis Black often utilizes an analogy comparing humans to snowflakes, in essence reminding us of how unique we are and no two snowflakes are exactly alike.  He often throws in a little profanity in there too, but it fits nicely with the grumpy old political satire stereotype.

I reference our human unique factor as it obviously carries over to the creative process and how vastly different each writer approaches their craft.  The aforementioned Mr. Black is also a published playwright, and I wonder if he includes music when he sits down to write a play or outline a comedic bit.

There are certainly times when I require a very quiet environment to write.  Generally, if the muse has me full on, I have no idea what is going on around me and my immediate environment.  If I am starting something new, sometimes quiet is good for that.  However, any moment I hit a stall, or need to do editing or have trouble getting started, music is my friend.

Overall, music is a huge passion in life.  I use it to work out, to help relax the mind to sleep, to kick off a morning, get fired up for a weekend, or anytime my world takes a bad turn.  Right now I’m rocking out to playlist number five.  I have no idea how the fifth playlist ended up with a better ratio of cool tunes over the other lists, but here we are.

I love it all.  I played the saxophone (alto and tenor) in middle school into my sophomore year in high school.  I actually walked away from the lead chair my junior year because of the practice time demands associated with both marching and jazz band.  Although I rarely spend time with the word regret, there are moments I wished I had stayed with it throughout high school.  But hey, social life and all for the teen who lost sight of the big picture more than once.

In middle school we actually made an album.  I have a jazz solo on there and I can still “hear” my nerves when I listen to it.  I was as nervous as anything I had ever done, but it was a blast.  All of it.  Music is life.  It offers so much joy.

Thus, music is a big part of this writing aspect of life now, and I don’t think I could have it any other way.  Rock, pop, country, classical, jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, I love it all.  Or at least some of each, it took a long stint of living in Wyoming for me to find room for country music in my heart.

Most recently, since so much of the culture is throwing “rock is dead’ in my face, I find I am defiantly listening to more rock and roll than ever.  That is the point of rock, a proverbial middle finger to the man — see most any Johnny Cash photo.  The ‘man’ of course being any part of society looking down on those stepping out of the perceived boundaries of what each of us is “supposed” to do in the world each day.

As a fairly unconventional human, I strongly identify with the rebellious notions of rock. I feel the anger, the frustration blasting away at a world suggesting there is only a limited, certain, allowable, standard, normal existence.  I contend a whole bunch of my fellow snowflakes feel the same way, which is why rock and roll will always have a foothold on the planet.

In the meanwhile, blasting out the Beatles, Queen, AC/DC, Def Leppard, Seether, ELO, Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foreigner, Asia, Yes, Boston, The Who, Kansas, Chicago, Soundgarden, Cheap Trick, Van Halen, Smashing Pumpkins, Rush, Kinks, Journey, Kings of Leon, Rage Audioslave, Tom Petty and a dash of Mozart will have to do.  After all, I take inspiration from all corners, and songwriters can be quite the poets too.

Quiet time is good, just not too quiet.  Write on…

Channeling Elmore Leonard

~ Donald J. Lund

If you know of his work, I’m merely singing to the choir, however even non-readers may know of Elmore Leonard by osmosis — via the many adapted works throughout his incredible career.  Most recently, the FX television series Justified blossomed from a single short story, Fire in the Hole, portraying Raylan Givens as a U.S. Marshall or a modern cowboy of sorts.

If you love westerns, 3:10 to Yuma is incredible, and it is has been made into a movie twice.  Get Shorty, Jackie Brown (from Rum Punch), Out of Sight are a a few of the films that highlight a career with 50 or so novels, short stories and screenplays, with over half of them finding a place on television or in film.

I didn’t know Leonard was my hero at first either.  I initially ‘heard’ the voice and influence of the writer through the works of Quentin Tarantino.  Each creative force shares a love for dialogue driven stories with fascinating and unique characters, often with a darker edge.  In Tarantino’s case, his characters tend to have really, really dark edges.

Ultimately, each writer plays a substantial inspirational role in my creative process and I love the standard they set as I sit down at the keyboard each day.  And rather than brag too much about Elmore Leonard in a standard ‘favorite author blog’, I thought I could generate an example of said inspiration right here.

“What do you mean, right here?” asked Bart.

“A dialogue driven example of how a story can happen over a simple conversation, even where we sit,” Jed answered.

“In this old saloon in Laredo, Texas?” Bart asked again. “It don’t make no sense.”

“Sure it does Bart.”

“How long you been tracking me, boy?”

“Since Galveston, when you and your boys hit that bank.”

“Damn, you must have really wanted to talk to me, if you been following me since then.”

“I really do,” as Jed raised the whiskey glass to his lips.

“Best get to talking then boy,” and then Bart reached down toward his holster, as if to assure his Colt still rested there.

“I just wanted to thank you, for those years you took me in, before I have to go to work today,” Jed replied, eyeing Bart’s hand fiddle with a Colt revolver handle.

“Thank me?” And Bart forced a laugh.  “Well alright then, I suppose we had to take you in since you had no place to go.”

“You made sure of that.”

“It was me or your pa.”

“It wasn’t like that, he was just trying to defend his home and kin.”

“Like I said, it was me or him. All he had to do was step aside.”

“I guess I just don’t see it that way.”

“Well, that’s too bad boy. We didn’t have to take you in them years.”

“That’s true, but it wasn’t like I was gonna forget what you done.”

“Okay, well you tracked me, you thanked me, now you best get to movin’ on.”

“You didn’t ask me about my new job,” and before Bart could ask, Jeb slipped his overcoat back to reveal a slightly battered and bent, five star badge with the words “Texas Ranger” etched across the front.  Bart’s jaw dropping reaction was all the time Jeb needed to draw his weapon, level it and fire before Bart could raise his Colt to fire back.

Bart fell back onto the wood floor, a small plume of dust enveloped him as his body settled onto the ground.

“I guess all the talking is done then,” Jed said.