Rest in peace David Lynch

He passed away today at the age of 78.

The impact that this man had on the cinema arts can not be emphasized nearly enough.  Everything he did, be it surreal or more traditional storytelling, he made his own.  David Lynch showed us more than most what the camera was capable of doing when guided by a mind willing to step away from the safe path.  He saw the guardrails and crashed through anyway.

I first came upon Lynch's work when I was a high school sophomore.  I had seen the promos for Twin Peaks and they intrigued me terribly.  So I did something I rarely did and still rarely do: I watched its two-hour television premiere.  Twin Peaks sucked me in hard and never let go.  And it was the gateway drug for more of Lynch's unique vision.

Admittedly, I will never be able to confess ever "getting" Eraserhead.  But that's okay.  Somehow, I think Lynch wouldn't mind.

David Lynch was also a fellow Eagle Scout.

Thoughts and prayers going up and out for his family. 

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This week's feel-good story

 A blue 1977 Volkswagen Type 2 van, untouched by flames, sits alone amid the ash of Los Angeles:

Volkswagen needs to purchase this from owner Preston Martin (who lived in the van for a year while in college) and put it on display in its museum.  That is one hardy testament to resilience.  Or else a fluke of nature, much like how a tornado will sometimes mow down everything in its path except for one solitary farm house which miraculously escapes unscathed.

However it happened, it's an amazing story and Epoch Times has an article all about it.

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My first op-ed in two years is live at The Federalist!

I'm going to preface the remainder of this post by saying something which I probably didn't do my best to get across in this piece.  Mainly, that what I've written about is a tragedy.  When any one person has wasted more of a lifetime than too many good people ever get to have, only to wind down his or her time on this earth with naught but pain and hurt inflicted upon others, that is not a thing to gloat about.  That is a very sad thing, indeed.

Time keeps on slipping into the future.  And for all his schemes and plans and plots over five decades, they have ultimately earned Joseph Robinette Biden not an iota of esteem or honor.  He had it all, and it has now come to nothing.

No, there will be no crowds waiting to enter the Joe Biden Presidential Library...

And that is what the first op-ed piece that I've written in more than two years is about.  It just went live on The Federalist.  The title is "No One Wants To Visit A Biden Presidential Library", it says what it means and it means what it says.  When I was traveling across America with my dog a few years ago I was able to make stops at the libraries of Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.  Each of them had throngs of admirers there to remember those men and their times.

I really, seriously can't imagine that happening at the future Biden Presidential Library.

Well, there it is.  Feel free to read it and leave a comment here if you're so led.  And to everyone visiting this blog today, greetings!  Thank you for stopping by here.  It's not a presidential library but I like to think there's a little something interesting for everyone :-)

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Everything I need to know about fire safety I learned in the Boy Scouts

If only there were some real Eagle Scouts among Los Angeles's leadership.

There is a lot that I could say about the wildfires in Southern California right now.   I suppose first and foremost is that the situation might the the worst example yet of ignoring reality for the sake of "feelings".  The requisite water resources, personnel, and methods of delivery for all intents and purposes did not exist.  It had been eliminated in favor of progressive programs and policies.  Like f'rinstance a tiny fish that apparently is not endangered at all.

That alone qualifies the L.A. fires as being a man-bred horror straight out of an Ayn Rand novel.

The thing of it is, fire is not really all that complex a concept.  We learned much about fire in fourth and fifth grade at school, including what is required for fire to start and what to do if God forbid you or someone else catches fire.

I suppose that more than anything right now, watching what's happening around Los Angeles, is that I'm reminded of the Fire Safety merit badge in the Boy Scouts.  Fire Safety isn't required for Eagle Scout, but it's such a basic set of knowledge that the vast majority of scouts who stick with the program earn it and usually sooner than later.  I earned my Fire Safety badge at a "merit badge college" that our local district had every winter at Rockingham Community College.  It was a course that lasted for two hours and we learned quite a bit about fire and how to be cautious with it.  One of the things that came as a surprise to me - I was twelve at the time - was that sometimes firefighters and land management people purposefully set fire to the forest floor.  This is called a "controlled burn" and it is very useful in destroying useless scrub, rotted undergrowth and fetid material that really would be potential fuel for a serious forest fire.  Controlled burning gets rid of that, makes the forest cleaner, and has the added benefit of bringing nutrient back into the soil.

It's not all that hard to do.  I've seen it done before.  I know a lot of firefighters who have taken part in controlled burns.

I mention that because President-to-be Donald Trump and others have touched upon controlled burning.  It is absolutely something that California's government should have been doing for a long time already in preparing for the outbreak of wildfires.  This is a basic tool of wise land management and it is very foolish to not have been employing it.

Folks, fire really isn't that hard a notion to grasp.  When there's heat and air and a source of fuel, they can come together and start fire.  It's then a matter of taking one or more of those elements out of the equation.  A cool head (pun maybe horribly intended) will readily know what is the best way to do this in a particular situation.  Just as that same mind will recognize the potential for fire in an environment, and understand how to prevent it from breaking out at all.

Maybe California should hire some old-school scoutmasters and merit badge counselors to come in and teach basic fire safety to the officials of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas.  If an adolescent can grasp such things, there is no excuse for grown adults to not have that knowledge also.

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Beetle Bailey on communism

I was telling a friend tonight about where I am with my writing at the moment: the book, getting back into the swing of op-ed writing, what have you.  He asked me why am I writing at all: for fame and fortune or to get a message out that's burning my bosom up from the inside.

I want a bit of all of that, to be honest.  After half a lifetime of battling demons, I still hope to find a little success as a writer.  It doesn't have to be an awful lot of fame or acclaim.  That's never been what this blog is about or anything else I've put my hand to for that matter.  I suppose if there is a gauge I'm going by, it's that I wind up feeling like Dad would be proud of me.  He never gave up on me and I want to do right by that.

Anyhoo, my friend said that if there was a message to be shared, that a true writer would get it out there.  Even if it meant making graffiti art of it.  That reminded me of this Beetle Bailey cartoon from several years back.  Amazing how much wisdom there is to be found in a comic strip...

(Click image to embiggen)

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A new op-ed every week: About that first one...

So last weekend after vowing to write an op-ed piece every week this year, I composed the first of the series.  It exists, honest!  I submitted it to a site that I've got a lot of respect for.  There was some correspondence about it but the last was a few days ago.  There hasn't been any word since and it hasn't been published.

I'm going to chalk it up as still being momentum forward.  It has been more than two years since I wrote like this so I'm a bit out of practice.  What I'm going through now is "therapy" as a writer.  When Dad SEVERELY injured his hand in a farming accident forty years ago this coming fall, it was months before he was in any shape to even hold a pen.  I've been injured too, in a fashion.  What did I expect, that I would be published again after not exercising that particular region of my gray matter?

I'm going to give the site a few more days, and if they don't publish it then I'll post it here.  Meanwhile there are two ideas for essays that I have in mind.  I'm going to work on those and send them out.  And then, we'll see what happens.

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My New Year Vow: An op-ed a week

Writing is my calling.  Writing is my gift, ever since my ninth grade English teacher told me that on our last day of class.  It is something that nobody could ever take away from me.  It is something of my very own, that was supposed to always be with me.

And I’ve neglected it horribly these past few years.

I’ve been spending so much of my waking moments keeping my head above water, trying to keep from drowning because of real life matters, that I’ve not devoted anything to my passion and true career.  It simply hasn’t figured at all in my life.  It’s been more than two years since I wrote an op-ed piece, and I had to give up a plum gig at The Western Journal, things became so rough on my end.

Life was so much better when I was working as a mental health professional.  I was going in every day, getting to truly help people have more fulfilling lives.  I was making a difference in this world.  And then I could go home and spend my own hours with my writing.  And that’s the way things would have stayed had the economy not turned so wretched and forced me to find higher paying employment elsewhere.  Employment that has been unreliable, it’s turned out.

So, for the past couple of years my writing has suffered.  And then this past August I decided it was time to finally complete the memoir that I began in 2014.  For three solid months if I wasn’t working or eating or sleeping or taking care of my dog, I was writing.  I went DAYS without showering, I was so “in the zone” with my manuscript.  Until finally in mid-November the first draft was completed.

It was a grand return to form.  And I don’t want it to stop.  I’m back in the saddle again and the last thing I want to do is to find myself slid out of it once more.

So I’m going to commit myself to something for 2025: writing a new op-ed piece every week.  Hopefully for publication elsewhere, but here on this blog if nowhere else.  I need to plunge back into the fray, and involve myself again in the larger world.  Maybe if I do that my writing chops will come back full-bore.  Maybe I can also overcome the indifference to things that I have come to feel.  Perhaps it will even improve my already existing manuscript: something I have been told is good already, but I know it can be better.  And I really do want to see it on a bookstore’s shelf someday.  A story about mental illness, swindling operations, how to make a movie, and twelve months crossing America deserves a shot at traditional publication and that’s going to be a goal for this year too.

I guess this is all a roundabout way of saying that y’all can expect some more writing here and elsewhere for awhile.  A few years ago I did a blog post each day for Lent.  If I can do that, I believe I can sit down and write a new opinion piece every week.  It may not be my best work especially just jumping back into battle… but it will be some movement forward.  And that’s what matters most.

Look for the first piece soon.

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