Carpet sweepers and sock hops

 

 

Have you used a carpet sweeper? 

 

A machine for addition, subtraction, and multiplication?

 

Surely you have seen a computer before.

 

RCA video recorder 

 

 

Not strange relics of ancient history, these are the things of my youth, state of the art technology in the 1950s. I watched Leave It To Beaver in prime time. TV was black and white, three channels received by a big aluminum antenna on the roof. My grandparents lived in a town that was too far away to receive TV broadcasts, so they used CATV cable, a community antenna on a tower that was amplified and wired to a couple thousand homes — the forerunner of modern cable TV with hundreds of channels distributed by satellite. In the 1950s, there were two satellites in orbit, Sputnik (audio beeps) and Telstar (capable of relaying scratchy phone calls). Our knowledge of geography consisted of maps drawn by artists, based on land surveys and naval observations. Civil Defense volunteers scanned the skies for Russian bombers, listening for the drone of props and using binoculars in a lookout post on the roof of a tall building.

 

I'm speaking of it to say that some things haven't changed. Roof shingles and frame houses. Big storm drains. Sanitary sewers and filtration plants. Asphalt streets, concrete curbs, sidewalks, schools and universities. Dish soap. Thermostats and central heat from furnaces and boilers. Dairy and beef. Wheat, yeast, sweet corn, fresh fish, chicken, eggs. Rail and truck transport. Scheduled airlines, UPS, highways, snow plows, state parks, Coca Cola and 7-Up. Most of the world has not changed since I was a child. Computers are faster and cheaper, cars and aircraft infinitely more complicated. But bankers are still bankers. X-rays are still x-rays. We had vaccines and vitamins in the 50s. Brainy kids studied physics and calculus, engineered jet engines, power plants, shatterproof polymers, and smoke alarms. Skyscrapers, suspension bridges, and hydroelectric turbines were built before I was born.

 

The world did not begin with Facebook or fentanyl, binge viewing Netflix bullshit. When I was a kid, we had thick daily newspapers, two or three in every city, delivered by boys on bicycles, rain or shine. I did it and got a Social Security number, had to buy the papers and collect from customers. Sunday editions weighed two pounds each, a good day to knock on doors to get paid. We had home delivery of milk in glass bottles. My uncle had a milk route. His job started at 4 a.m., two hours later than his pal the town baker who made fresh fat jelly donuts and kaiser rolls five nights a week.

 

Whatever you think is cool about the modern world, forget it. Nobody had to lock their houses or cars in the 1950s. Nothing was made in China. VHF cop radios, ship to shore, and shortwave ham stations were built by Motorola and Hallicrafters. All toys were U.S. made, crystal clear 100x kid microscopes, Erector sets with hundreds of girders, nuts, bolts, pulleys, and cranks, multistage Estes model rockets, and Lionel railroad layouts with electric switches and car couplings detached by magnets. Girls had huge chemistry sets with acids, reagents, litmus paper, and test tubes. Many families had a set of encyclopedias. Men  wore stylish hats and waved to their neighbors. There were bridge parties, bowling alleys, golf courses, and fraternal organizations. Families went to church every week, dressed in their best outfits. Teens had cafeteria sock hops and Saturday night movie dates. A teenage kiss was a big deal, petting illegal.

 

I'm glad I started life innocently, my first 14 years anyway. Those of you who know my work as a novelist and unabashed chick magnet understand that I had a bizarre path of adult experience, but Walt Disney made a deep permanent impression, no matter what else was superimposed. My fictional heroes are confident, honest and courageous, like Spin and Marty, Davy Crockett, Mike Fink and, out of the night when the full moon is bright, the horseman known as Zorro.

 

Parenthetically, I'd like to clear up the mystery that baffled Fox News. Andrew Cuomo wasn't innocent as a kid. He grew up with a gold spoon in his mouth. He sent infectious covid patients to nursing homes, instead of the USN Comfort hospital ship or the Javitz Center field hospital, to screw Trump, avoid giving him any public credit. He lied about how many died in congregate nursing homes, lied about why, lied in daily press conferences, and lied to legislators to cover up his incompetence. Cuomo got a book deal, an Emmy, and fawning CNN air time joking around with his corrupt brother, because he was next in line to be crowned with glory, in case Lunch Bucket Joe had another brain aneurism. Cuomo was considered "safe" because he was just as dirty and devious as Biden.

 

That's the difference between me and (take your pick) Cuomo, Biden, Clinton, Obama. They have to hide who they are. Hillary confessed the purpose of lying: "What difference at this point does it make?"

 

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A million words

872,000 in publication, the rest of my output archived by the Wayback Machine and shelved at public libraries, or destroyed by WGA. Screenplays had to be renewed every 10 years or they were shredded. Doesn't include my letters, emails, forum posts, published magazine articles, a couple hundred pages that I typed in a tack room by 6V lantern light, and a couple hundred more filed in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. I've written in a penthouse overlooking Sunset Boulevard, deluxe rental houses in Holland, Costa Rica, and Australia, an unheated garret in Hilversum, a basement in London, a cheap Beverly Blvd motel, maybe three dozen offices, apartments, and prison cells, capped by five years in a sheet metal Ozarks dairy barn. A million words became a difficult 40-year project.

 

Was any of it any good? Maybe about half. Do other people write a million words? Sure. Kipling did. The execrable Dickens and Faulkner. Respectable Churchill, Rand, and Hugo. I declined to compete with Beat Generation giants or biographers or fat ladies who cranked out formula romance. Chandler authored a million words, half of which were excellent. I'd like to burn every rotten syllable penned by King and his spiritual ancestor Poe. I don't think RLS or Hammett wrote a million words. Clueless Zane Grey did.

 

I'm not certain that young people read or write. I know two men who collected every Tom Clancy book. We don't have a lot to discuss. A neighbor lady collected every cookbook and diet book in hardcover, plus twenty shelves jammed full of mystical junk. Another gal inquired if I had any dragons in my latest, which I did, although he only survived a single page. The best thing to do with dragons is to slay 'em.

 

The literary enterprise is like a dragon, or it was for me, and it was for Fitzgerald and O. Henry, a hoary, insatiable, insistent, non-negotiable life taker. When a man writes (not applicable to the fair sex, who write more than men do) the business of writing is to pit your wit and wisdom against every other man in human history. No reason to attempt that, unless you have new weapons.

 

http://www.wolfdevoon.net

 

Rats!

 My masterpiece is unreadable. No doubt that Partners is brilliant, finely crafted, believable and utterly compelling. It's also sad, violent, true to the time and place in which Kyle finds a mentor, a gunslinger nearly dead to the world, and a girl who's equally courageous, destined to love Kyle as completely and deeply as two innocents can devote themselves to each other in the grit and fury of a mob war.

The language is crude and ruthless, a tough white swagger in 1975. If I had cleaned it up, the zeitgeist would vanish, none of the events would make sense. Most men who go to war swear, smoke, and shun tenderness as a debilitating threat. When a man is in love, he questions his duty to kill or be killed. No woman in love wants to lose her man or see him suffer. Kyle's gunfights and wounds are real. The end cannot be happy, icy death at the gates of hell. Told in first person voice, Kyle suffers consciously and clearly, pushes it away, explodes with callous brutality and psychological collapse repeatedly.

It's unreadable. I want to celebrate such a fine achievement, and I can't. A little laugh at the thought of something remembered. I paid an enormous emotional price to *WRITE* it! -- months of pain and daring and dramatic triangulation. The minor characters are vivid , vital, as real as you or me.

Well, rats. Forbidden to re-read my best work of fiction. I try. The opening is mostly innocent. Clever. Sometimes I can make it to Kyle's first murder, sometimes to his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th -- and the glory of a week with Karen in snowbound Door County, to live and love, alone together, one of the finest love stories wrapped in gentleness and sparkling good humor, like an island of good, a thousand miles from hell. In reality, it's only a three hour drive, and bonded together as man and wife they will endure hell together as long as they can, a matter of weeks, with increasing incisiveness and valor.

I feel like a failure, unable to re-read Partners. That's why I wrote Chiseltown, a screwball comedy that ends happily, full of preposterous fun, a little crisis fixed by friends, some insider jargon. A distinguished pal in Hollywood liked the twin sister starlets and suggested it should be a film school textbook. I can read it with pleasure, forget about the unreadable masterpiece of tragedy.

I sort of cringe when I re-read Heaven. A little too honest.

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for Janet

 

What makes sense strategically

(The final post)

My mother always said that I was optimistic. For the past several decades, I endeavored to roll the rock of liberty another mile or two, because it mattered to me personally. Most of my work was abstract and theoretical. It's time to discuss specifications, if the United States is to reclaim its sanity, shed the burden of piggish plunder, and focus on national defense.

abbreviated as concisely as possible:

Coast Guard & Corps of Engineers (one integrated agency)
Navy to defend North America, plus strategic Trident submarines
Air Force continental tactical air defense, air traffic control
Space Command (NASA subordinated or disbanded)
DEA reinforced by Marines and Special Forces
Passports, Visas, Customs & Border Patrol
CIA, NSA, DIA (one integrated agency)
covert cooperation with Britain, Poland, and Australia
FBI to pursue fugitives, gangsters, and terrorists
commercial airlines responsible for travel security
commercial overseas consular services
State Dept disbanded, U.N. expelled from New York
Army disbanded, Commerce, Interior, and Energy privatized

Budget $200 billion a year, plus R&D, testing, procurement
(at present we have a big inventory of ships, aircraft, and nukes)

education, medical care, housing, retirement pensions privatized
charities, states, and counties can provide welfare if they wish
TVA, GSA, USDA, BLM, USPS, VA, and Amtrak to be auctioned
Judiciary reorganized, judges chosen by lawyers and term-limited
Washington DC buildings auctioned, made into museums, etc
seat of government moved to Andrews Air Force Base
IRS closed, national security funded by shareholder "cash calls"
one share one vote, to elect a term-limited board of directors
price of shares will fluctuate according to security demand
big tech, big banks, insurers, and billionaires will bid for shares
political parties and PACs will probably want shares, too
no foreign shareholders, no foreign debt, zero foreign aid
no market regulation, SEC, FDIC, GSEs, FCC, and FRB privatized

Obviously, this can't happen overnight or absent social circumstances that necessitate grim constitutional revision. Converting the U.S. Government from a $7 trillion boondoggle to a $200 billion national security enterprise will be wrenching revolutionary upheaval -- huge write-offs and millions of pink slips. How could such a terrible thing happen?

Nuclear war between (take your pick) Israel, Iran, Pakistan, India, China, North Korea, Russia, or USA in defense of Japan or South Korea could do it. Conventional war in the Persian Gulf could do it, which seems likely enough. And we face imminent disaster at home.

I hope you understand that we're bankrupt. Two or three terms of Democrat rule will wreck the United States, no different than driving off a cliff in a crowded bus with bald tires and a drunken committee of incompetents at the wheel. Obama cut military spending and funded the "Arab Spring" that destabilized Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Arabia, and Yemen. His domestic policies crippled California, Texas, New England, and every U.S. city. A "Green New Deal" would not merely throttle the United States, it would kill it. Reelection of Trump as a last ditch, desperate, defiant rear guard war for the soul of America would be worse.

It's good to start a conversation about change. There is no divine right of stupidity, or race riots, or infinite spending on free shit at home and a world cop empire that failed in every lopsided war of choice from Vietnam to Afghanistan. The CIA didn't see the Iranian Islamic Revolution coming. No clue that a gang of Saudis would attack the World Trade Center. FBI warnings were ignored. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Mossad phony evidence and Jewish neo-cons manipulating dumbshit George W. Bush like a frightened child. Trump is no better, bamboozled by NIH and CDC bureaucrats and kneecapped by Pentagon skunks. The conspiracy of Congress, the Deep State, and Obama judges stinks worse than rotten eggs, a nonstop assault on middle class white families who fear for their children.

I know how important Social Security, Meals On Wheels, and free health care are for millions of elderly. I depend on all three of those entitlement programs to survive, because I'm old, ugly, isolated, and impoverished. It would be swell to have another check for $1200 from the Treasury. However, ponzi schemes are destined to end in disaster for everyone.

War, inflation, and chaos are only a matter of time. In 1776 the issues were similar, tyranny and tumult inflicted by a corrupt Parliament. Centuries of rivalry and warfare among France, England, and Spain roiled all of Europe, the Americas, Australia, Indochina, and Africa. The way our Founding Fathers dealt with it was to let the world go to hell, stay out of it, after we won independence. Our government was small, focused on defense of the United States, and funded by wealthy citizens. See www.robert-morris.com

The genius of federalism is a laboratory of States, free to experiment with gun ownership, taxes, abortion, LGBT, interstate pipelines, welfare benefits, renewable energy, etc. An implicit constitutional guarantee of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness means that a citizen can vote with his feet, move from one state to another. People are fleeing New York, Illinois, and California in droves, but the blessings of liberty have been quashed by decades of national fascism, imposing Federal laws, regulations, unfunded mandates, and taxes.

My strategy is no Federal taxes, no Federal legislation, privately funded national security. That's how the United States began and why we prospered as a formerly free society. What happens overseas is irrelevant to our national interest. Admitting millions of refugees is a policy question for the several States to consider, costly California sanctuary, for instance. Other states are equally free to request Executive deportation of illegal immigrants. Stern interdiction of narcotics should be a national priority. Mexico is nearing collapse as a civil society. I would send in the Marines, with DEA scouts and CIA interrogators.

Unfortunately, I will not live long enough to witness the cataclysm that will anguish a nation and paralyze its bankrupt government -- until a committee of moneyed patriots offer to buy the damn thing, to rescue and refocus national defense. My job is to bequeath six words to future shareholders, a simple creed that should be chiseled in stone at Andrews.

Justice is the defense of liberty.

If there's any doubt that national security can be achieved on a preposterously cheap $200  billion budget (in 2020 dollars) I will remind you that 3/4 of current Federal disbursements are entitlements, 3/4 of military spending has nothing to do with defense of North America, and 100% of the remainder is bloated bureaucracy and emergency handouts because you were forbidden to work, operate a business, or go to school. Our cities and towns have been flooded with narcotics, riots, and murder. Police recruitment collapsed. Heather McDonald summarized the domestic social situation in two words: "It's over."

The $25 trillion we owe China, Wall Street, Tel Aviv, oil sheiks, Grand Cayman, Isle of Man, and Bahamaian drug money launderers? Like Heather said: "It's over." Try and collect from a bankrupt government that was sold at auction and stiffed millions of unionized workers.

It's best to view the U.S. Government as an insurance company that became insolvent and can't provide to its beneficiaries the security and cash that it promised to deliver, having collected revenue and borrowed funds for that purpose. It's irrelevant that it was organized as a public member-owned mutual company. It has to be wound up by a receiver, its assets auctioned, and outstanding claims settled for pennies on the dollar. I would give priority to disabled military veterans who were promised medical care, and a lump sum Social Security settlement. Nothing for politicians and bureaucrats who drove government into a ditch.

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How to fight crime

The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, whether God given or as an assertion of constitutional principle makes no sense. It doesn't apply to dead people, the terminally ill, noncitizens, people trapped overseas, terrorists, prisoners, crime victims, or aborted babies. It's debatable whether the right of liberty applies to small children or the insane. No one is free of taxation, regulation, national sacrifice in war, or collision with others that vaporizes liberty. Your freedom ends at my property line, and no one is free in a car, an airplane, or a crowd. Personal pursuit of happiness seems remote if you work for a corporation, a family business, or a government agency. It would be more accurate to say that you have a right to die, obey, and suffer numerous unwanted consequences of cohabiting a complicated world. Fraud, divorce, cancer, rape, paraplegia, and child abuse have ruinous lifetaking impact.

When Jefferson advanced the notion of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, there was historical context, a King and Parliament who were distant from sparsely populated towns and homesteads in American colonies that became accustomed to democracy. Our founding fathers routinely ignored the edicts issued in London, which reached them in fair weather a couple months later. No one would have thought to declare human rights, except that Tory judges and redcoats were dispatched to Boston. Somehow the colonial Declaration of eternal human rights in 1776 evolved into a $7 trillion tyranny of our own making. It's settled custom in the U.S. today that you're guilty until proved innocent if the IRS decides to audit you, or if Democrat conspirators launch a Deep State war of lies and leaks. No one is safe at home, at work, or at school, silenced by intersectionality, gunfire, and idiotic government lockdown. The mortality rate from Covid-19 has fallen below seasonal flu. Young adults and children are immune or suffer mild symptoms, but family lockdown was fatal to elderly with pre-existing conditions and obese people of color. Total "cases" are a fake statistic, inflated with false positives, lies about 100% positivity at Florida labs, asymptomatic hospital admissions for childbirth, and multiple retests for burger flippers. Tens of thousands of drug overdoses, car wreck victims, and heart attacks were listed as Covid-19 "cause of death" because hospitals were paid a bounty every time they intubated a patient, killing them. Half of all virus deaths in New York were mass murder by Andrew Cuomo, sending infectious hospital patients to nursing homes as a political gambit, rather than use thousands of empty Navy ICU beds and Javitz Center ICU beds provided by President Trump. Human rights? Are you joking?

The way I approach rights is simple. Justice is the armed defense of innocent liberty. It has nothing to do with voting or legislation. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away, unless you live in Brooklyn, Seattle, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, or Chicago. Buy a gun, get trained in tactical defense, carry every day, and plan ahead if you have to shoot. Don't hang around and depend on lawyers to rescue you. Scram and get rid of the gun. Toss it in a lake. You can always buy another one. Stockpile ammo, which is becoming hard to find.

There is a political question to address, which Wendy McElroy answered as follows. She is morally opposed to voting, as I am, but said that she would have shot Hitler to stop him from taking office and directing Nazi genocide and conquest. This presumes that we agree with Hegel, that world historical figures and the clash of dialectical ideas shape history, therefore shooting Hitler could have prevented World War II. Killing charismatic individuals usually creates martyrs, like Jesus, Joan of Arc, Gandhi, and MLK. The world is not improved by it. Few have done more harm recently than the idiot savant from Sweden, but it would be an error to shoot Greta, amplifying her mystique. It's too late to kill Al Gore or Bernie Sanders. Neither of them are world historical figures and the crap they plopped in the public square were little turds of derivative, garbled nonsense. We have worse problems than bumbling opportunists like Pelosi, Obama, and AOC.

The fundamental problem is constitutional law. Until and unless Americans stand up as free moral agents, no obligation to God, or Gaia, or whatever government our neighbors vote to continue, there is no hope of social progress. We see ourselves as free in a defacto sense, almost secretly, evading the opinions of others as much as possible, choosing who we love and hope to cherish and defend, which work we want to do for our own satisfaction, how to spend our days so they mean something to us personally. Patriots fight for national security. Cops pit their courage and training against evil. Those are personal choices, no different than ambitious entreprenuers like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, both of whom did enormous social harm. Brave patriots and good cops do harm by defending the morally indefensible evil of political whims, whether in Afghanistan or Milwaukee.

Crime? Be situationally aware. If possible, run. If not, shoot first, shoot to kill, and keep firing until the threat is ended. You will not succeed without tactical training, 100 hours minimum. The carry weapon of choice is a mid-size 9mm automatic in a gunbelt with a good holster. A normal belt is no good. Ladies have special front carry holsters. Understand where you are and what is downrange. Bullets travel up to a mile, go through doors, windows, sheet rock. Know your weapon. Know your ammo. Know how to deal with malfunctions.

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Food

Forgive an old man for reminiscing. As a child, there were lots of swell discoveries like devil's food (soft toffee foam covered in dark chocolate) and honest milk shakes (ice cream, whole milk, and real whipped cream), but five items from my childhood stand out so clearly that I can still taste them. Gone now and impossible to recreate. There was a Luxemburger bakery that made a unique cheesecake, tan on top, a light airy cake with raisins. Another baker had hot crisp jelly filled donuts at 4 a.m. that no longer exist anywhere on the planet. Each day Smith Bros. brought in a catch of lake perch that were fileted, breaded, and deep fried. My uncle took me to a butcher's walk-in cold room, fresh raw ground beef on saltines. As a Boy Scout, the climax of a troop meeting was bursting hot juicy sausages and fresh kaiser buns.

The Dutch know cheese better than anyone else. Miniature Gouda (HOW-da) and Edam (AE-daam) are rubbery, inferior exports. Dutchmen eat "young" cheese that's soft, smooth, and sweet, and "old" cheese, a sharp, mouth watering slab in a sliced brodje, chewy round rolls that are baked daily in the millions. Dutch ham is marvelous. I had numerous gastronomic adventures in Holland, broiled garlic escargot, clear bright boujelais nouveau, "frit saus" on french fries, and an astounding Trappist Triple that had to be poured carefully because there was thick silt at the bottom of an ancient dusty unlabeled bottle. Breakfast in Holland is a joy, especially an Uitsmieter (literally: "thrown out the window") two sunnyside eggs with hot ham and cheese on two slices of fresh bread, a hard working farmer's midmorning meal.

Some discoveries were weird, like the chicken and rice casserole prepared by my Javanese housekeeper. It had two chicken claws sticking up in the middle of it. She also used a pail to splash water all over my big tile bathroom. She didn't know what toilet paper was, or why it might be desirable to avoid soaking it with cold water. I'm trying to remember a meal that I enjoyed anywhere in Indonesia. The beer was okay, a robust Dutch lager license. Australia did not have drinkable beer, and Aussies do ghastly things to sandwiches. However, there was a French baker in Subiaco with nice baguettes and gingerbread men. I paid $35 a pound for imported Costa Rican whole bean coffee at a Greek specialty shop in Northbridge.

Oh, jeez, England. No matter how much I spent at their finest restaurants, I never enjoyed a meal there, and if you want to torture someone, make them eat breakfast at a seaside hotel. For truly excellent food everywhere, even at a train station, go to Brussels.

It was a shock coming back to America. Giant portions, enough for two people on every plate. Saltgrass in Houston was okay. That's about all that anyone can say about U.S. dining, except little out-of-the-way French provincal cafes in Forestville and Wynnewood. I liked cooking at home better than eating out in America, but it was always a challenge to find a decent fish or fresh meat. I made up for it by drinking Dewars, the only label I liked, never cared for pricey single malts or Irish whiskey. In Scotland, I sipped Bell's straight up and my favorite dinner was deep fried cod and chips wrapped in slick brown paper.

I think there should be a law against anything liquid or solid in Germany. Their pancakes are stupid, wines and spirits are intolerably sweet, and I've had better pretzels in Philly. Unless you've had a cheesesteak on Sansom St., you don't know what a cheesesteak is, and mussels in South Philadelphia come with bulletholes in the booth and Sinatra on the jukebox.

Did I mention giant prawns in Singapore?

One last anecdote of the weird. There was a corner shop in Copenhagen that had ice cream novelties in a freezer, an afterschool treat for my eight-year-old daughter. She picked what looked exactly like a thick disc of ice cream covered in dark chocolate on a popsickle stick. She took one bite and spat it out. It wasn't chocolate. It was black licorice. Those zany Danes! -- excellent neighborhood bakeries, a million bicycles that have their own traffic lanes and stop lights, big train stations, big empty trains, and a bureaucracy that makes molasses slow DMV people look like superhuman wizards. To throw away a dinky bag of trash, I had to use a key and stuff it through a locked porthole the size of a coffee can lid in a block wall garbage annex. There were six portholes that emptied into little bins, most of them jammed full. You had to get lucky after unlocking four or five portholes to find one with space for another bag.

Made perfect sense in Surakarta to have a rebar rack on a pole, to keep rats from chewing up a big thick 30-gal plastic bag of kitchen waste, papaya rinds, cigarette butts, fish guts, chicken carcasses, etc. One day during a downpour, a little brown guy on a bicycle stopped, emptied the trash on my lawn, poked holes for his head and arms, and rode away with a raincoat.

In the middle of the night, I woke in terror. A voice shouted "EE-e-e-e!" outside my window. A friend explained that it was the baker, inviting me to buy fresh roti (bread) at 3 a.m. The neighborhood night watchman came an hour later and banged on my gate with a club, to let me know he was on duty and all was well.

Less sane than Surakarta, a Fox radio bulletin just now: Atlantic City casinos are allowed to reopen. No food, no drinks, no smoking. Why the hell go there?!

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