What’s Next?

Does violence beget violence?  If our leaders speak in tones of hatred and killing your enemies, does that create greater hatred and killing?  If we watch graphic movies and play graphic video games involving all manner of death and mayhem, does that make us different, less empathetic, more prone to violence?

I sure don’t have a factual or scientific based answer to those questions.  My common sense says yes to all.  If we roll around in the mud, we are bound to get dirty. 

We have a segment of the population that thinks freedom is the right to have a full arsenal at your disposal just in case you are attacked, or you want to overthrow the government.  At one time in the not-too-distant past, it was hard as hell to get a permit to carry a weapon, now (at least in some states) there are no or very little requirements to secure a permit to carry a lethal weapon on your trip to Burger King.  Some even think it should be a requirement that everyone is armed to the teeth and ready to conduct war.   

As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” 

I grew up in a suburb of a larger city.  Next to my smaller town was mostly ranches and farms.  The high school had many a farm boy studying world history and math.  I would have guessed that each one of them had a rifle or shotgun in their trucks; it would have been a very normal thing. 

There were fights at that school but never a shooting.  How weird is that?  Plenty of different people, with different backgrounds and beliefs, and a few guns; but never a shooting.  Well, I stand corrected.  There was that time at the local drive-in restaurant when one of those farm boys got a snoot full of whisky and, laying in the back of his friend’s truck, blew holes in the awning covering the drive around the back of the building with his shotgun.  There was no reason for that behavior, but there was also no intent to hurt anyone, only the awning.  Why blow holes in the awing, he had no idea.  He also was very sorry and missed almost three weeks of school.

Unfortunately, our behavior reflects our society.  We have become a mean, nasty place with people on edge and ready to take offense.  It’s an unusual person who will listen to anything that disagrees with their views.  Discussions don’t seem to happen, it’s mostly arguments.  No one is responsible, except the other guy; and everyone is a victim.  Those people are doing something to me, it isn’t fair!

One consequence of our deterioration is policing.  Say you were a patrolling officer late at night and you saw a car with four males make an illegal turn, would you be eager to write that ticket?  And if you did stop them, would you be on edge and quick to shoot.  The assumption must be everybody has guns.  The protected are now the enemy. 

Another hot spot is cramming a bunch of people into an airplane and either serving them alcohol or maybe even worse, not serving them alcohol.  Attacking airline staff has become common place resulting in violent video that seems other worldly.  Why would anyone act like that?

I have family members who work in food service.  They describe scenes where people almost explode and yell obscenities, right in front of their children, over the slightest offense—WHERE THE FUCK IS MY NAPKIN!!!!  Obviously, people completely on edge when confronted with the slightest inconvenience become insane.  Yeah, everybody should carry a gun, what could go wrong?

I have no solutions to any of this.  Not watch TV or movies?  Or video games?  Vote out of office anyone who says bad things or raises their voices?  Bye, bye, almost everybody. 

One solution might be to stop awarding bad behavior.  When politicians do something disgusting, they shouldn’t suddenly be able to raise millions from an army of rubes.  Ill mannered people shouldn’t have millions of followers.  This isn’t virtual entertainment; it is our lives.

Whatever problems people are facing, having more guns is not the answer.  We need better, and smarter tools to deal with the challenges everyone faces.  Listening, compromise, cooperation and caring would be good starts.

We had a civil war that began as a political conflict that we could not resolve in the political environment.  I think those same elements exist today.  One of the greatest dangers is that it would appear an increasing number of people have given up on politics and have chosen the language of war.  Once you go there it will be hard to back track to something more civil.  You demonize your enemy until it is okay to kill.  After all they are savages, godless communists, demons, traitors……………… and they are trying to destroy your world.

Options

In all group battles, usually referred to as wars, one side demonizes the other side.  The aim is to turn the enemy into something that is less human than the folks on your side.  Words like godless, savages, animals, devils, and many more are slung at other human beings as if saying something makes it real.  Soon the savages must be stopped, or they will destroy the good humans who only want a peaceful life.  So, the good humans embark on a rampage and try to annihilate the savages; all in the name of goodness.  Has our political divide gotten to that point?  Not sure, but it does seem to be moving in that direction. 

In a political contest, defeating your opponent, is winning an election.  Much of the current political rhetoric is about destroying your enemy.  Fight until the death.  Never give up.  Destroy the threat to your country, your life.  If this enemy (political opponent) is not defeated life as we know it will end.  Those are words of war not political elections.

An election isn’t lost, it is stolen.  Policies are not wrong, they’re evil and threaten the very existence of the country. 

Once this rhetoric is pervasive it is hard to go back to “my fellow citizen” type language.  Succession is only a few steps away.

I write mystery books.  Mostly murder mystery.  These stories involve people who are flawed.  Obviously, the murderer is not a good person, but most of the other characters have faults, sometimes serious ones.  Few perfect people show up in murder mysteries.

I’ve seen what you would call “normal” people say and do things that I would never consider putting into any of my books because they would be unbelievable.  Much of this behavior is becoming normalized.  Hate, vial language, threats, ugly confrontations all at a school board meeting.  Now, there is some stuff I would never include in fiction, it could never happen, except it is happening.

Texas has a movement that would allow the state to succeed from the union.  Their Senator said if they succeeded, they would keep the oil and NASA.  That is almost laughable.  Matter of fact, maybe it was a joke.  You can break up this country, but the ugliness does not go away.  In Texas the majority is one stripe but 40 some odd percent are another.  So now you’re your own country, but the divide still exists.  The divide will become greater.  Now you don’t have Californians to demonize so you demonize your neighbor. 

Until we can understand why we are so divided, we will never sort this mess out.  I don’t think it is much about government policy as it is about different beliefs that move people to think they have a lock on what is right and what is wrong; and if you disagree, you’re the enemy.

The country was originally constructed of 13 colonies with a population of maybe 5 million.  Without question what seemed reasonable then has little to do with the country today.  We need a serious, open-minded discussion about how this country should be constructed.  Maybe there should be some number (4 or 10 maybe?) of regions that have more autonomy than states do today, but still have a central core for purposes of common defense and relations with other countries.  Region one would have a different court system than region two—even different laws, but still keep common laws regarding inter-region commerce and freedom of movement between regions.   States (or region) rights may be the common ingredient that everyone can agree on.  Not what those states do or what they believe, but that they have the right to do that or believe that.  They cannot impose their beliefs, laws or life choices on other states or regions.  Can a country be made up of totally different states who have totally different beliefs and laws?  With no federal override.  Not sure?

I have no idea what is right, but if we don’t begin discussing options, we will end of up with the worst options becoming reality.

Maybe We Need a Re-write?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.  U.S. Declaration of Independence from 1776.

Not real sure that statement was believed in 1776, and I’m pretty sure there are many people who would have some problems with this declaration today.  The created equal part gets a lot of attention since there are many contradictions to that statement in our history; and those contradictions existed when this was written. 

I think the second part is the one most overlooked.  Certain unalienable Rights.  Unalienable means—impossible to take away or give up.  Unalienable rights; Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.  Ignoring the rather critical fact that this did not exist then and we have had lots of problems living by those words, but wow, what a statement to include in your founding documents.

In this country you have the absolute right to Life, Freedom and to pursue happiness.  Double Wow.  That is so amazing.  If only it had been true.  We all know slavery never fit into this high-minded declaration, or for that matter women.  No woman had rights associated with the pursuit of happiness or in most circumstance freedom. 

This statement was for the ruling class white men who were generally also wealthy landowners.  Now maybe when they were composing this grand prose it was their plan to add substantial footnotes to clarify to everyone else there was no intent on including them, but they decided that was understood, and therefore, there was no reason to state the obvious in the document.

So, two-hundred and forty-five years later and the declaration seems phony.  We still cannot get to the point where we can say “all men are created equal”.  That bit of tomfoolery is still going on today.  Certain people are equal and certain people are not.  And the most equal get to decided who is less equal.

Or the other option might be that the writers really believed the words as a goal or an ideal.  They wanted the document to be how the country should be not how it was.  I supposed that could be why they wrote what they did.  But I have trouble believing they were anxious to share the wealth of the country with everyone—including native Americans and slaves?  Yeah, find that hard to believe.

Much of our current political debate is centered around the concept of this country as being a place for everyone.  Somehow, we have not actually agreed on that simple and basic founding belief.  We can read the words, but as they knew then and we know now, that really isn’t what it means.

Why did the founding fathers not think in terms of class, racial background, and gender realities?  Because they were talking about themselves, and it was an exclusive club.  They meant those words, it was just that they meant them for themselves, not the vast mix of people the country became.

But even though the intent may have been skewed, the actual words stand as an honorable and admirable goal for a country.  Now we should try to make them real.

In a strange way it seems to me, we should have a new statement of what this country stands for.  I wonder if we could agree on any of it.  Let’s say we took an editor’s red pen to the above declaration and took out the parts that would be controversial –what would we have?

“We hold these opinions truths to be reasonable self-evident, that all men people are important created equal, that they are endowed by their own being Creator with certain unalienable responsibilities Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty with restrictions and the pursuit of Hard Work Happiness“.  U.S. Declaration of Independence from 1776.

Probably couldn’t get people to agree with that water downed version either. 

Is that what we really want the country to be?  It seems to me rather than change the statement we need to live to the ideal.  No matter what the authors thought at the time, it is a great statement that establishes the basic goals of a great country—if only we could live by those words.

Writer’s Log

Writing books is hard work?  Not ditch digging, sweating hard work; but it takes effort, energy, and time.  My first book was a lark.  I decided based on questionable logic, that I could be a writer.  This was mostly based on someone I had met, he was a writer, and I was sure I was as smart as he was, like I said questionable logic.  That was about twelve years ago.  My background for that leap of confidence was many years as an entrepreneur, accountant, artist, business manager, CFO and investment advisor.   Obvious qualifications to write a mystery book.

I charged into this new endeavor, like all my past activities, with energy and an abundance of confidence.  It was a disaster.  This really was hard work.  One thing I had going for me in this first attempt was years of being an active reader.  From childhood I had loved books.  Even during my busiest working days, I read many books every year.  Now let me state the obvious, being an avid reader does not make you an author.  You may recognize good writing while you’re reading but it is an entirely different skill to be able to write that “good writing.”

The first half of this new book sped along at a brisk pace.  The second half was teeth pulling painful.  I was still very active in business so most of this writing was happening in the wee hours of each morning.  What I recognized immediately was not just the effort it took, but how much I enjoyed the sense of accomplishment when I completed a chapter.  As I struggled to find an ending to my great American novel, it became obvious that I wanted to be a writer.  What also became obvious was that I had a very limited understanding of what I needed to become an author.

I finished that first book in a fit of frustration because I wanted it to be over and I was tired.  All those early, early morning hours writing had taken a toll.  My “real” work had suffered, and I was not as confident about my writing skills as when I began.  I self-published the book and sold zero.  Got zero reviews.  I was invisible.  My wife liked the book.  Most people, who knew I had written a book, said nothing about it; maybe they had nothing good to say?  Most of the people I knew didn’t even bother to buy the book (it was cheap) and lie about reading it.  I was humiliated.  I had failed.

This would have been a good time to give up, hide the book and concentrate on my CPA skills.  Well, that’s not me.  I did hide the book.  It is, thankfully, no longer available.  I don’t even consider it my first book—it was only practice.  Spent the next four or five years learning what I didn’t know when I jumped into writing.  Not so much how to write, but how to write consistently, how to publish and promote a book.  Who and what I needed to help me with my new craft, such as editors, cover designers, content structure, programs related to marketing, promotion, list building and on and on. 

Didn’t write again for almost five years.  The process for the new first book was different.  I started with outlines, summaries, character lists, a great deal of planning.  I had read many books about writing and had a much better Idea about what I had to do to create a book.  I hired people to help me with editing, story structure, continuity, plot, plot holes, cover design, content development and more.  The writing was still hard work, but now I was doing it during the day; it was my primary job.  The result was The Bootlegger’s Legacy. 

Once published, sales started slow, but began to build.  I submitted it to several trade groups and won awards.  I started getting great reviews.  Also got some not-so-great remarks, but they were few and mostly about language choices.  I was totally hooked. 

Common sense tells us that most of us will not be famous or “great” any things, but for me, the most important aspects of my life have been when I tried to do something that was not comfortable, and I succeeded in a small way.  I’ve written eleven books and am still writing.  I’m not on Amazon’s best seller lists, but thousands of people have read my books and based on reviews liked them.  That sense of connecting with people I do not know gives me a feeling of accomplishment that has a value I cannot quantify, but I know has real meaning. 

One of the odd aspects of writing fiction books is the characters you develop.  It may sound nuts, but those characters have a place in my head that feels a lot like real people (yes, I know they are not real people) which is an odd feeling.  It’s also a strangely comfortable feeling.  It means that now that I’m an author, I don’t believe I can stop writing, hard work or not—it is who I am. 

Thanks for being a reader!

Subjective Truths?

Much of the news we receive today comes from pundits.  A pundit is defined as “an expert in a particular subject or field who is frequently called on to give opinions about it to the public.”  In our past most “news” came from reporters.  A reporter is defined as “a person who reports, especially one employed to report news or conduct interviews for newspapers or broadcasts.”  There were famous reporters and unknown reporters, but their job was to report the news, not comment on it or analyze it.  “Just the facts, ma’am.” 

The reporter’s job was to answer the 5 W’s—Who, What, When, Where and Why.  In a crazy twist of logic most people now trust pundits more than reporters to convey the news because the reporters are biased in some way; while pundits are trustworthy; because the pundits you listen to or read believe what you believe.  In the simplest of terms pundits are biased because they are delivering opinions while reporters are not, so to trust the opinion people over reporters turns everything upside down.

Not sure when reporters became untrustworthy to deliver facts and opinion spouters became trusted sources of the truth, but it changed the world in many ugly ways.  The definition of pundit says it is an “expert in a particular subject or field”, but the reality is that most pundits are personalities who work as entertainers.  People pretending (or acting) as experts are not experts.  They are hucksters.

Almost since I could read, I’ve been an avid newspaper reader.  During that time, I can’t recall very many reporter’s names.  I remember names of some news broadcasters but that is a different story—thank you, Walter Cronkite.  What mattered was the story and the reputation of the organization.  Because I trusted the structure of the newspaper, I trusted the reporter.  That structure included review, often by many people, a set of standards and professional ethics.  Now, of course, some organizations were better at adhering to those standards than others.  All newspapers had some bias based on the publisher’s bias or the editor or maybe the pressmen.  The important job was to keep the bias out of the news reporting. 

I’m not real sure that failed, but somewhere along our path many people decided the people running the show were slanting the news.  Exactly why they would do that is not clear.  It could have been political motivations, but most of the largest media companies who owned the top papers were controlled by people leaning to the right and the charge was that the papers were leaning to the left.  Maybe the owner of the paper hadn’t noticed.  Now there were exceptions where the paper leaned in the “bosses” way, but I think those were mostly exceptions.

One big change was cable news.  Cable news was designed to do one thing –sell ads.  Rake in big dollars on a national scale by making the “news” exciting.  What had been ethical, professional standards at newspapers was now only a distant memory, only ratings mattered.  Slanting the news became the norm because you had a target audience that wanted to hear Mister Top Dog was really a sex starved fiend—so here is breaking news showing Mister Top Dog’s –well we’ll stop there; somethings are still off limits.

Newspapers got caught up in the ratings wars and lost some of their stodginess so they could be “popular” too.  Everybody lost something to pursue the bucks.

Soon the only truth about anything is my truth.  Whatever I believe is the truth, and I can quote you hundreds of pundits, you know experts, who agree with me.  Personal truths are more like beliefs than facts and contra facts do not persuade someone from “their” beliefs. 

It was once standard motherly advice to not discuss politics or religion in social activities.  Mom knew the quickest way to discord was to question someone’s beliefs.  Beliefs are not facts.  They represent our feelings, our experiences, our traditions, but seldom are they based on empirical truths. 

Not that long ago one of the stated goals of many educational institutions was to teach critical thinking.  Critical thinking is defined as “the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment.”  Objective means to not be influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.  In only a short number of years we have gone from an educational goal of critical thinking to a societal insistence on subjective reasoning.  That is an amazing transformation.

We have replaced the truth standard with a belief standard.  And if you or your news organization spouts “news” that does not adhere to my beliefs (truths), then you are a liar.  Once liar (or enemy) becomes someone who states things that disagree with my beliefs, we lose all ability to discuss, debate, compromise or even talk about issues.  Our beliefs become fixed.

When your feelings are more important than the facts, you will almost never know the truth.

Next emailed newsletter will go out next Thursday the 14th. Guest commentary by Vincent Malone titled “Finding Your Mojo”. Sign up for the newsletter here.

Dog Gone Lies on sale $2.99 for a limited time. Act Now!

Book Research

Most of my books don’t require extensive research, but some do.  The Bootlegger’s Legacy was one that involved research, along with remembering.  The backstory for this book was about a bootlegger who was operating in dry Oklahoma during the early 1950s and some of the story took place in an area of town called Deep Deuce.

I was born in Oklahoma City and spent much of my life there.  I was familiar with the remnants of Deep Deuce that existed in the 1960s and beyond.   But, of course, I had not experienced the active, exuberant time in the 40s and 50s when it was a magnet for black Jazz and Blues singers and musicians. 

To flesh out my understanding of this unique area of town, I did research.  As a young man one of my favorite places was any library.  I found them comforting.  They seemed to embody the best of humans in an environment that was protected in some way from all the turmoil outside.  I would have loved going to the library and researching Deep Deuce, but today, that is not necessary.  Everything seems available through the internet.

“Deep Deuce historic neighborhood is a district in Downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was home to Zelia Breaux’s Aldridge Theater and Dr. W. H. Slaughter’s Slaughter Building his Cove Pharmacy and Slaughter’s Hall in it. Author Ralph Waldo Ellison was raised in the area until after his father died, and wrote about the neighborhood. It now consists mostly of low-rise apartment buildings (built primarily in the 2000s) and formerly vacant mixed-use buildings and shops.

Located a few blocks north of Bricktown and centered on NE 2nd Street, Deep Deuce was a regional center of jazz music and black culture and commerce during the 1920s and 1930s and the largest African-American downtown neighborhood in Oklahoma City in the 1940s and 1950s. Notable musicians that contributed to the rich jazz history of Deep Deuce includes singer Jimmy Rushing, swing and jazz guitarist Charlie Christian, the famous Blue Devils, Count Basie, Gonzelle White, King Oliver’s bands as well as Ida Cox, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith.

After the civil rights movement of the 1960s, much of the city’s African-American community dispersed to other areas within Oklahoma City. Much of the neighborhood was bulldozed to make way for I-235 in the 1980s, but the current downtown boom and renaissance has made the area attractive to developers once again. Little of the neighborhood’s original character remains today. As of March 2014, The Oklahoman reported that the area had only one remaining African-American owned business.”

During my high school days, I often went to a bar/pizza joint located in Deep Deuce, mostly because they served the best pizza I had ever tasted and sold alcohol to anyone breathing.  I know, not a good thing.  At the time it seemed exotic and adventurous.  It was run by a black family with the very large, and loud mother in charge.  She made all the food.  The music was loud and intoxicating. 

When I started The Bootlegger’s Legacy, those were the memories that prompted the time and place for the bootlegger’s backstory.  Deep Deuce was a key element driving the entire story line of the book.  While I was writing the book, I recalled my visits and how sad the area seemed in those days.  After doing research on the area and the activities that went on there, I became aware of how important that part of town was to a whole different community both locally and nationally.  It was part of a circuit that bands, singers, and musicians traveled that allowed them to perform and make a living in somewhat protected environments.  At one time I even thought of naming the book Deep Deuce, but went with the more understandable TBL, maybe that was a mistake.

I think for my next research project I will forgo the internet and go to the library in downtown Denver.  It reminds me of the very ornate and elegant library in downtown OKC; I always felt happy in that building.  I’m afraid we are no longer in awe of knowledge.

New cover for Blue Flower Red Thorns.  The search for the “right” cover is one of my on-going tasks that I really enjoy.  Can’t change them all the time because it costs too much and is confusing to the reader but always thinking about it.   I especially liked this new one for this Vincent Malone quirky murder mystery.  It centers around artists and clashing egos with a cast of unusual characters.

Power is a Horrible Addiction

If the US was monitoring the activities in StrangePlace (a country located in the middle of nowhere) and we saw the type of political undertakings we see in the good old US of A; our conclusion would be that the next outcome would be a civil war. We might hope for a political reconciliation, but the current trend would indicate that the sides hatred level was too high to hope for any cooperation towards a more peaceful outcome.

So, our State Department analysts, with clear-headed thinking, would declare the StrangePlace as a country to avoid, issue an order restricting travel and might add an addendum that you should not marry anyone from StrangePlace. Bravo for the State Department deep thinkers. Now in our own country they don’t know shit (see, hear, and speak nothing of any importance and you will keep your job)—just holding their breath until someone wins.

It is clear we have two sides competing for political control of the country. Just for no reason at all let’s call them the Orange team and the Purple team. The Orange team has not won a national election in some time except for wins based on some arcane system that suggests people in Iowa have more value than people in California. That could only make sense to Iowans and dictators. Of course, as Oranges would say “fuck you, those are the rules!” And, of course, they are right. Since the Oranges are not real keen on winning the popularity contest, they have decided to try and win in other ways. The result of these tactics is that a minority party could win control of the country again.

Now, the Purple team seems to think this won’t happen. Based on what logic no one knows, but mostly it is based on how awful it would be if that did happen and therefore it won’t happen. Apparently, Purples are not fans of horror movies, otherwise they would know crazy shit happens, ALL THE TIME!

Back to the Oranges, they want to take charge of the country with a minority of the people supporting them. What is it they want to do? Keep in mind the Oranges just recently had that set of circumstances and did very little. They love cutting taxes, but once you get to zero there is nothing to cut. So, what is it that drives this almost insane desire to be in power?

I sure can’t judge every Orange and know what drives them but, at least from afar, it appears to be the motivation is to just have power. Not necessarily to use it, but to have power to prevent someone else from having power. The Oranges hate the Purples and the feeling is more or less mutual. So, the Oranges see the handwriting on the wall that the Purple team is gaining ground in numbers and eventually it will be very hard for the Oranges to win. So, they must win right now, even to the point of cheating, lying, stealing, killing, my god you name it, is justified. Because it they don’t win, the Purples will and the Purples want to BBQ Oranges.

If the Oranges win, they will make changes that will limit who can vote and where and on and on until only Oranges can vote (at least that would be their dream). So, what do the Purples do? Who knows? We have no idea, the geniuses at the State Department have no idea, Purples don’t know, Oranges don’t care and don’t know—it is the ultimate unknown.

The possible outcomes are probably endless but let me suggest that there are only two. The Purples acquiesce. They peacefully go on about their lives hoping something will happen to bring back democracy and, in a few years, everything will be back to normal. A wait and see approach.

The other option is rebellion.

The rebellion response is most likely if Purples are convinced that Oranges just didn’t squeak out one more run at power, but that they have a scheme that keeps them in power–forever. No more silly elections, we’ll tell you after everything calms down when the next election will be. In the meantime, shut up and sit down.

If the majority are under the control of the minority there is no way to stop anarchy. Will the Oranges recognize this and gradually put in place a system that will allow for free and fair elections? No. They can’t. They know what they did, and if Purples ever have power again “all hell will break loose”. More violence becomes the only solution.

How many years would that go on? Two, Ten, Fifty, who can know. Power corrupts even the good people. The bad people love chaos. The normal people suffer often in silence, until they can’t take it anymore. Putting a country back together out of that mess will be hard, ugly, and maybe impossible.

One circumstance that could destroy all social guardrails is if the Oranges decide the internet is a threat, and they shut it down. You might say the Oranges would not be that stupid but remember they not only spread fear, they live in fear of almost everything. Fear often causes dumb decisions, which can result in bad outcomes– don’t forget those horror movies.

I often wonder who are these people that want to cling to power at all costs and control every aspect of other people lives. The first group that comes to mind is the Taliban. Old, grey men in full beards who want to live in a backward world where they decide everything and if you disagree you must be maimed or beheaded. Could anyone living in a free country look at those assholes and say that is what I want?

Apparently having power (and of course, the associated wealth) is more important than families, grandchildren, peace, sanity, or a sense of value for any people who disagree with you. Power is a horrible addiction.

The people who can change this exist. They must recognize that this is different than anything that has ever happen in this country. This is not the civil war in the 1860s, when transportation was mostly horses, and the most typical weapon was a musket. The number of people killed in the entire civil war could occur in one day in a modern day civil war.

We must trust our better instincts and stop the hate. Reach compromises, build trust, establish unity for the survival of all. Or we could be living in a real horror movie.

The second edition of my restructured Newsletter will be distributed on Wednesday, September 29th. It features a commentary article by me and Tommy Jacks, a character from the Muckraker book series. You can sign up to receive this free newsletter via email by clicking Grain of Salt Newsletter. Thanks. Ted

Those $%#!#1 Reviews

Most of my bad reviews for my books are because of foul, vile, filthy profanity.  These reviews are few and offer a service to the people who are offended by certain language choices, so they are useful.  Being useful to other readers who click on them locks them in at the top of the reviews, which annoys me, but it is what it is. 

Some examples.

Could not read this book due to vile, filthy language.

When you have to open your story with profanity, you aren’t a good writer. I deleted this free book after reading the first line.

I’m not a prude, but the swearing was so over-the-top, it kept jarring me out of the story. I had to give up on this one.

I couldn’t get through the first page because of all the profanity. It might be a good story, but I will never know because of the crude language used by the author. He Should be able to write a book without stooping to profanity.

Those comments are typical.  Most often the reviewer says that they read very little of the book.  “Deleted this free book after reading the first line.”  Wow, that first line must have had a punch.  Deleting a free book has a strange ring to it—I’m writing you to demand a full refund of $0.00 due to your use of awful words!  Another bad first impression, “couldn’t get through the first page.”  These reviewers have every right (based on Amazon’s loose review requirements) to make their comments.  But these are people who given the opportunity would censor everything.  Not one little bad word, or vile image, or deceptive thought would escape these watchdogs for decency.  I would also guess these people have strong opinions on how others dress, wear their hair or, heaven forbid, decorate their bodies.  Being self-righteous seems to lead to the desire to control others.  Being morally superior requires constant vigilance and diligence.

Many of these reviews are for the first two books published in 2015.  At the time I wondered if I should have “toned-down” the choice of language (as suggested by one reviewer) to improve book sales.  After only a little thought I decided that I had written the stories the way I thought they should be written and would live with the consequences of those choices. 

The first book, The Bootlegger’s Legacy, opens with a prologue of a scene in a bar with gangsters talking about murdering the person they are waiting for, who is one of the main characters in the book.  Gangsters talking about murder in a bar would be a very likely set of circumstances where there might be some profanity, duh?

Those first books were six years ago, and in that short time much of what is available on TV has more fucks in it than my books.  Now you can say, well it’s cable, or streaming or whatever, but there it is in the living room for all to see and hear; one vile word after another.  I have no way of measuring that, but my impression is that in those six years we went from a few choice words being said in some movies to a whole new level of “bad” word usage in almost all media.

Is that good or bad?  The question is silly, of course, it’s not really either one.  It just reflects our society as it exists for many if not most people. 

Now the question could be was the change in the real world caused by the overuse of profanity in the entertainment world (including books), and now the justification for those language choices in the TV world is because that is the reality of the real world.  Yep, I think there is some truth in that circle logic.

My parents were offended by certain language, me less so, my children even less so and my grandchildren wouldn’t be able to communicate without these offensive words, at least with their peers.  Change is constant.

What offends me more than language is lying.  Past generations have been lying about almost everything for hundreds if not thousands of years.  In today’s world truth telling seems more akin to foul language.  People are shunned for telling the truth.  Famous people caught in lies blame someone else; I only lied because I was abused as a child, I only lied because I have a slight drinking problem caused by my medical condition, I only lied because it will all be forgotten and go away if I do not admit anything.  Or the new classic, “I did not lie, you cannot believe what you saw me say on that video!”

All humans create myths to hide the truth.  We have become so good at myth building that we’ve lost touch with the value of truth.  “Tell it like it is” has been replaced with “say it until they believe it.” 

The goal of my books is to tell an entertaining story, but also to tell a story that is believable.  Truth (in a fictional way) is the goal and language, even vile language, is a part of that truth. 

Ray Pacheco

The new Grain-of-Salt Commentary Newsletter will publish Wednesday the 15th. The first edition will feature my article above and the premier article written by Ray Pacheco. Also includes a brief discussion on the value of changing book covers.

This free newsletter is distributed by email. You can sign up here. Thanks.

Ted Clifton’s Blog and Newsletter–A Different Approach

This blog has existed for several years.  I think there are something like 200 posts—most of which were done on an irregular schedule.  Over the last year or so the posts have generally been every week—with exceptions.

During that same time, I have produced a monthly newsletter.  The newsletter goes out as an email.

The blog has mostly been relatively short (average about 800 words) opinion pieces focusing on writing, books, marketing books and the overall process of producing independent books.  Some of the posts have been off subject and amounted to my opinion on a variety of subjects (Rambling).  The rambling opinion blogs have become more common over the last six months or so.  I like to ramble.

The newsletter has incorporated some of the blog posts along with articles related directly to my books, such as stories about locations in the books, restaurants/bars featured in the books, regional food tied to New Mexico, favorite authors/artists tied to the southwest—all generally very book focused.

People who read the blog are not the same as people who have signed up for the newsletter, although there is a little overlap. 

I’ve decided it is time to take on a little different approach.  The blog and the newsletter will share content, and each will go out on a semi-monthly basis.  Each will be distributed on/or about the 1st and the 15th of the month.  The blog will feature one opinion piece while the newsletter will feature more.  The more will be opinion pieces written by guest contributors.

Now I hope this will be the fun part—the contributors will be characters from my books along with some “real” people.  If you have not read my books the names of the “real” people and the fictional people might blend.  The first contributors will be Ray Pacheco and Tommy Jacks. Ray Pacheco has been featured in four books: The Bootlegger’s Legacy and the Pacheco & Chino series.  Tommy Jacks is the protagonist in the Muckraker series.  Believe it or not those characters have distinct voices in my head and it’s not just my opinion—yes, I am signing up for therapy.

These changes are coming about so that I can consolidate some of the time spent producing these publications.  Plus, I wanted to get away from the totally book focused newsletter.  It had started to feel very repetitious to me; and possibly boring.

You and others may hate this—if so let me know.  But I think it could be fun and even (ugh!) informative.  The fun part for me is writing in other peoples’ voices.  I know this is just strange, but these characters have real meaning for me, and it will be a blast stating their unique opinions in areas that fit those characters.  Well at least that is the plan.

As a blog reader you might want to consider signing up for the email distributed newsletter.  The newsletter (and now this blog) will be under the heading Grain-of-Salt Commentary.  Even if you have not read my books the point-of-view of these guest contributors could be interesting and amusing.

Sign up below for the newsletter, it will have more stuff than this blog, but it will the same kind of stuff.

Sign up for the Newsletter today!

Preview of First Guest Commentary

Them Verses Us

By Ray Pacheco (ex-Sheriff Dona Ana County, New Mexico)

It’s been a while since I was active in law enforcement.  That’s allowed me some time to think about the whole mess and what needs to be done. 

When I started my career there was a real sense of community involvement.  That ‘protect and serve’ BS was real to me.  It was my community, and my desire was to help people.  Somehow things have gotten kind of messed up.  Even some of the cops who worked for me in New Mexico were different.  Their attitude was not as a protector but as an aggressor.  They were going to find the bad guys and make them pay.  I found that very disturbing and it contributed to my retirement.  I couldn’t deal with the macho bullshit and the obvious hatred of any other authority except law enforcement.

People in law enforcement specifically and the criminal justice system in general are a lot like everyone else, they tend to associate with people who think like they do.  It may be a silly saying but “birds of a feather flock together” is reality.  If you’re a plumber you hang around with plumbers; if you’re a lawyer you associate with other lawyers—it’s natural, it’s the way it is.  Cops hang out with cops.  This creates a small circle of thought.  There is not a lot of negative feedback being tossed into that pool. I was the sheriff in a county where the largest town was maybe a hundred thousand, the smallest was maybe fifty people.  In those size communities you get to know a lot of people, but mostly you get to know the bad guys and the civic leaders.  In Dona Ana County, New Mexico, I knew the families that were going to cause problems and I knew the families that thought they ran everything and craved power.  The top and the bottom folks were the people I dealt with.  The other people, the majority, I had very little to do with, and this can distort your viewpoint.

more on the 15th

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Lasciate ogne paura, voi ch’intrate

My friend (and brother-in-law) Stanley Nelson has written a guest post discussing fear as a writer.  I am trying to live by his words.

GUEST POST:  Stanley Nelson

Don’t fear the elephant: Dante Alighieri, in his Inferno, imagined an injunction, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate,” etched over the dread gates of hell. It translates as, “All hope abandon, all ye who enter here.”

We writers should exchange “speranza,” Italian for “hope,” for “paura,” meaning “fear.”

Lasciate ogne paura, voi ch’intrate

A writer, whether to begin, to continue, or to finish, must live on hope and abandon fear. If you can’t leave fear behind, don’t write.

A writer must never write, an editor must never edit, and a publisher must never publish—or hesitate to do any of those—out of fear. Never be afraid to challenge the reader, especially to dare them to expand their thoughts or to take them where they might otherwise not go.

Never fear a challenge to yourself. Always reach for that next level, and the next, especially if that means breaking a barrier, whether real or conceptual. You may never be your best editor, but you always will be your best writing coach—if you abandon fear.

And most of all, never fear the reader, the literary culture or the market purported to represent either. There is far more than that at stake. And so, we arrive at the fear common to every writer. It is the ever-present elephant in the room. To begin our discussion of it, we offer another true story.

My brother-in-law writes mystery novels. Like so many writers trying to make their way in the mass market, Ted Clifton also writes a blog. In his installment for July 12, 2021, he wrote:

“I was at a gathering the other day in which there were a group of middle-age and older men. The conversation turned to my writing, and I discussed my latest projects and got nods of understanding accompanied by blank faces. Just for the hell of it, I directly asked this group if they had read any of my books—it was unanimous—NO!  Not one person admitted to reading any of my books. There wasn’t even one who would lie about it. Then I asked them, what they had read? NOTHING. It went from ‘haven’t read anything lately,’ to ‘haven’t read a book since high school’ (from someone who probably couldn’t remember high school). …

“I asked… why they had not read a book in so long. They all answered it took too much effort.”

Of course, our elephant is worse, and far bigger, than a handful of upper-middle-class wage and salary earners and retirees. Because no one really examines the matter, every description offered for it has thus far been wrong, and sometimes disingenuous. For one example, it is not electronic media in all their collective, if illusory, ascendance, and certainly not the patent supposition that they have replaced or will replace any other media, i.e., print. Human culture may create media, but never replaces or eliminates them. And let’s hear no blather about market “friction,” being the unprovable notion that real or imagined difficulty affects consumer choice toward options of least trouble. Convenience, as Amazon has proven, is quite beside the point.

Neither does the elephant have anything to do with competition for consumers’ time, one of so-called market capitalism’s plethora of half-baked urban legends. People have time to spend, and if the internet has proven anything, it is that time is also money.

The point, ironically, is “effort,” as the men Ted spoke with put it. The irony is they’re lying, even if they don’t realize it.

It isn’t that there’s no “effort” involved in reading a book. There is, however, minimal. It’s that they’re telling Ted, and us, a lie both implicit and obvious. They’re winking, and expecting us to wink back, and thereby perpetuate the popular conflation of the “effort” of reading any book with plowing through the turgid texts we dreaded in school. In this case, “effort” is a hollow talisman with a tissue-thin veneer of presumed commonality. We all know what a drudgery it is to read a book, because we all were once coerced to do so. Of course, that’s nonsense.

Further, the “effort”—our elephant—has little to nothing to do with books. The creature is far more vast. To rightly describe it, let’s consider another true story about another person close to me.

Some years ago, I attended the memorial service for my brother. One of my lasting memories of it is a table spread with mementoes of his favorite things, among them a great hardback copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I knew my brother had read books, if only the tawdry paperback spy thrillers he kept hidden about the house when we were much younger. I believe he’d also read a self-improvement title or two, and perhaps at least one instructive in real estate, which was his vocation. I felt a twang of regret for discussions I could have had with him about Tolkien’s trilogy, which I had read four times, besides his other “Middle Earth” titles.

I asked his wife about it. She only shrugged, and explained he never read the books, although he certainly was a big fan of the movies.

Of course, one closes the conversation there, ignoring the elephant, which is neither the books or the movies. It is the culture in which both are made, and in which they, and we writers and readers and watchers, are made to suffer.

I’ve never been sure whether books should be adapted into movies, or vice versa, even if I agree the basic idea seems intuitive. My problem with it centers on more fundamental ideas about originality and honesty in the creative process. I might put it like this: let a book be a book, and a movie be a movie. As things are, all damage done by differences between literary text and “adaptation” on screen is not cosmetic, but fundamental, and it affects readers and watchers.

That damage compels watchers and readers to what seems a logical conclusion—although not a truth—that the gatekeepers and arbiters of creativity have cast aside originality as a necessary catalyst. It seems no longer worth striving for, having been exiled from its place as a driving cultural force. Although I claim no authoritative depth concerning cultural observation, I seem even to intuit a turning point wherein originality, and especially any claim to it, is held in suspicion.

While public sensibilities are generally burnished to numbness by that creeping cultural presumption, we are awash in products like the bafflingly popular series of interrelated and spectacular movies adapted from the comic books we discarded decades ago. Character origins and backgrounds were redone, but only as the gainsaying of people with ideas in the present against stories created by others in the past. It’s not to say that isn’t creativity. It is. But it’s only the creativity of difference, not originality. Different is only different, not better.

 Nevertheless, in our present culture, readers, and watchers, including Ted’s group, are thereby given a pass when they assume, however wrongly, that they have seen or heard or read it all before. To them, all stories are old and familiar, even, and often especially if they have been tweaked for any reason. They are therefore not worth the “effort” to read—or even watch, particularly with any level of critical attention.

Too, the literary industry has done itself, and even its most doggedly loyal customers, no favors, to put it mildly—really, sarcastically, considering the scale and effect of its many failures. The list thereof only begins with doing essentially nothing to valorize reading, let alone reading and thinking critically at the same time. As one of its most deleterious failures, it offers no significant resistance to the disastrous and pedestrian cultural error of conflating even basic literary acumen—e.g., the level of fundamental textual criticism available to anyone with a brain—and mere primal literacy. Thereby the ranks of non-readers and ineffective readers are multiplied and deepened, to become an insolent majority, deftly reshaping the culture, ever for the worse.

As for writers, the industry offers no meaningful help, either. It offers only an impertinently garish carnival of cynical, hold-your-nose-and-click-“buy” endorsements for how-to books, online courses and webinars, much of them absolute snake oil. Even its promotion of the core business presents a bewildering failure. Its prevailing marketing philosophy is remindful of a past witticism about the cable-television business, which went something like, “if they sold fried chicken, they’d market it as ‘hot, dead chickens.’” It’s unlikely the men in Ted’s group are aware of the literary industry’s historic idiocy. If any were made so, it’s fair to believe at least a few would quickly identify its vast business shortcomings, and shake their heads, comforted by what seems a reinforcement of a conviction that books are not worth the “effort” to read.