When Chores Are Pleasures

There's a little spot of yard behind my garage that I named Gooseport, PA several years ago because of the two male Canada geese who used to live there all year long. The one I called Broken Wing was killed earlier this year by some kind of nocturnal predator and I only have one goose left now. His name is Big Mouth. But we call him "Mayor" now, the Mayor of Gooseport, PA.

Mayor (see pic) is eight years old and shares the summer pond with several ducks and a two-year-old female Canada goose I named Dipper (because she’s always dipping upside down in the water for food, more than the other goose, it seems). She left for parts unknown a week ago before I had a chance to snap her picture.

I feed Mayor cracked corn every day, white bread about twice a week and lawn grass, which I pick and put in an old Clementine box, about once a week also. His favorite meal is Italian bread without the crust.

Mayor paces impatiently at the gate when he hears me remove the metal lid from the corn barrel in the garage. Sometimes he almost pushes me out of the way as I fill the trough. But not lately. He misses both Broken-Wing and Dipper. I hope Dipper comes back before fall.

One of my morning chores is to trudge to the garage for cracked corn for Mayor and birdseed for the many wrens, sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, blue jays, black birds, etc. who know that, regardless of the weather, they’ll have fresh feed here to start the day.

Around this house animals are not referred to as “this” or “that” but as “who” and “whom”. And feeding them each morning never was much of a chore. In fact, it’s one of life’s little pleasures.

Nibiru

I rarely look at YouTube because I consider YouTube to be one of the many, many enemies of 21st Century writers. People go to You Tube to mezz out in front of a video screen and not to read. If they read anything there it’s mostly horribly written comments by You Tubers who have no clue whatsoever about grammar or spelling or manners.

Anyway, I was there at YouTube the other day, just to see what all the fuss is all about. I searched You Tube for topics like aliens, UFOs, political conspiracies, outer space, and so on. Most of what I got after searching was collection after collection of nonsensical videos faking the reality of everything I was looking for. After a while, I came to the conclusion that YouTube is a website for people who want to post fake videos and videos with no redeeming social value whatsoever. I really wasn’t surprised, considering the state of the world today.

But I happened on to one video that made me want to bookmark the page. It’s sort of an explanation of a vision I had as a teenager, watching the summer night sky in my Pennsylvania back yard. Around 1968 or so.

I didn't swallow this doomsday theory hook, line and sinker when I saw the video on YouTube. Doomsday stuff just makes me tired. But this one at least made me think. I'd post the link to this video but YouTube removed it for "violation of terms of service".

Unh, hunh. Right.

Anyway, here's the link to a previous Thinck Tank posting about this subject. It was posted months before I ever ran into a YouTube video about it and forty years after I experienced a vision about it:

Red Sky at Night...

The YouTube Video was about a cosmological phenomenon called Nibiru. However, I do not subscribe to the veracity of the website from which this video originates because I'm basically immune to the hype surrounding so-called biblical prophecy.

Still, you can well imagine my surprise when I saw this video on July 8, 2008, after all these years with that 1968 memory still intact. And I thought I’d take the time to share this experience with you, right here at Thinck Tank.

You never know.

The Banner From Another World

A Cold Day in Hell

Once upon a time, I tried to peddle my books at a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. When I got there I introduced myself and asked to speak with someone about selling my novels there. A couple of minutes later an elf appeared, apparently looking for a man in a suit or at least the latest fashionable attire from that yuppie-loving outfitter L.L. Bean.

When the elf finally realized that I was the author and that yes, indeed, I was wearing a ball cap and a barn coat, her face turned ten shades of elf color and then she spent what little time she gave me by trying to make me feel as bad about myself as she possibly could for 1) being in a barn coat and ball cap, despite the fact that I was clean-shaven and otherwise well-groomed, 2) being a Print-On-Demand author which the elf made very clear to me that there were just so many of them around (as though we bred like flies and had our hands out for the rest of our lives) and 3) that I had interrupted her day to talk about a POD book (and not a real one from their distribution list out of New York City) and that I had the gall to do so while wearing a barn coat and ball cap (despite the fact that it was a new barn coat and an attractive ball cap advertising Martha’s Vineyard).

Despite the fact that almost everyone in the bookstore was dressed casually and some even more casually than I was, I immediately got the picture.  Nobody in that bookstore was dressed up. Nobody had a tie and jacket on. This was a college town. Ball caps were on heads everywhere. But, I got the message this incredible little snob wanted me to get. She wanted me to take my five books and just go away. Fine. I'd do just that but not just yet, I told myself, undeterred by her nasty demeanor. I was determined not to be bested by the snooty FemBot before me, elf or no elf. I asked her if I could leave my card with her and, reluctantly, she took it without even looking at it, like it was alive and already in the act of violating her somehow. Then I thanked her (for what? I later asked myself) and left.

Outside, I asked myself if I would ever sign books in such a place as that, in the unlikely event that my novels would one day appear on some big-time New York City publishing list. Then, without hesitation, I answered myself.

“It'll be a cold day in hell,” I replied.

The Three Little T-Shirt Stores

Once upon a time, there were three little T-shirt stores.

The first T-shirt store dealt only through PayPal and PayPal and I did not get along at all. The second T-shirt store was German and their ordering and payment system malfunctioned all the time. And I mean all dee time.

So, now I have a third T-shirt store and it seems to fit me juuust right. I hope it stays that way because it will be my last T-shirt store.

False Advertising Sells

People who watch the SciFi Channel are seeing very little science fiction in that channel’s daily lineup these days. The money makers who run this channel have cashed in on the all the latest crazes, from dinosaurs to disasters. Monsters, vampires, horror, fantasy, diseases and, of course, dragons. People in black leather and black hoodies. Capes and swords. Witches and warlocks and shape-shifters. Flying sailboats. Ghosts. That kind of stuff.

It’s not science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. But it certainly sells.

The bottom line.

(Author's Note 7-22-09: A year after this posting, the SciFi Channel changed it's name from SciFi to SyFy. What that tells most of us is that the little bit of science fiction and the overabundance of Fantasy programming we'd been seeing now fits the channel's name. In other words, SyFy = Science Fiction and Fantasy. With all the monsters, vampires, ghosts, creepy characters and romance, I'd say the name SyFyHorSoap should be the official name of the former SciFi channel. What's next? Cartoons?)

When Words Speak Louder Than Actions

I think Senator Clinton and Senator Obama are, in effect, campaigning for Senator McCain in the homestretch toward November 4th and that the two Democratic presidential contenders may, in fact, have no clue that they're doing so.

Mud-slinging, self-misrepresentation and playing racial trump cards that aren't even in the deck invariably turns normal campaign rhetoric into a smear campaign that is unbecoming of anyone seeking the highest office in the land and control of the seat of world power.

The fact that the Democratic National Committee may also have no clue just how unworthy their candidates have recently become is a bad spirit that may haunt the entire Democratic Party for many presidential administrations yet to come.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I’m only one-fourth Irish so maybe that’s why I’m having chili for supper tonight instead of corned beef and cabbage. And it’s probably why I’m not watching “The Quiet Man”, even though I own a VHS copy of that particular John Wayne movie.

Anyway, wishing a fun and safe Happy St. Patrick’s Day to those of you who celebrate this popular Irish holiday.

Hollywood Whores

The Hollywood Whores I refer to in this title aren't the tawdry, know-it-all, young actresses in the multitude of seedy movies that Tinseltown cranks out each year. No, they're a dime a dozen, just like the unshaven, unkempt and foul-mouthed young actors they're paired with. No, the people "in" the movies of the new millennium are probably as dazed and confused about why they're so popular as Baby Boomers like me are about why Hollywood is allowed to become more of an open sewer each year.

No, the real whores in Hollywood are the writers, directors, and especially the producers, who have no morals and, therefore, no qualms whatsoever about turning the traditional, family-oriented, movie-going experience of yesteryear into a sordid extravaganza of four-letter dialogues and nano-second images of belly buttons and butt cracks and high-contrast action sequences that have no discernible plot or story line behind them.

The real Hollywood whores have been there since day one and now they own and run just about every type of multimedia source and they're pulling America and the rest of the world down into the gutter along with them. And I'm not even a religious person. Hell, I'm just sick and tired of being surrounded by and bombarded with filth and decadence.

The real Hollywood whores also end up with all the pimp money.

The real "Little Green Man from Mars" is alive and well and living in Appalachia.

Sometimes I feel like the proverbial Little Green Man from Mars. That's the creature from another planet who visits Earth to have a little "look see" and then who winds up living here. But not exactly fitting in. In fact, being the Little Green Man from Mars pretty much sums up my life here in Pennsylvania and on this backward planet.

So much so that Little Green Man from Mars is also the title of my sixth sci-fi thriller. Except the main character in that book is not me. He's someone a lot worse off than me in terms of not fitting in. Plus, he's a lot more interesting than yours truly.

Even as a little boy I could tell that there was something terribly wrong with the world. In my kid world the boys were divided into two groups. The boys who were bullies and the boys who ran away from the bullies. And I noticed that the bullies always won, always came out on top. They were the winners in the kid world, even though they were not the best life had to offer the boy world. In fact, they were the worst life had to offer us.

I preferred the girl world where most the of the girls seemed to be equal. I mean, some were prettier than the others but the girls didn't seem to hate and fight each other all the time the way the boys did. I liked the girls. I liked them a lot. I wanted to be around girls all the time, in fact, whenever I wasn't playing sports with the boys. I was a typical boy where sports were concerned. I loved playing sports.

When I grew up I was keenly aware of the fact that not much had changed since boyhood. Grownups fought and lied and cheated and hated a lot and that seemed to be the general rule for human beings. Especially for men. The men who were the strongest were usually the meanest and the nastiest. And the winners. Plus, they didn't play sports anymore. They just watched them on TV. And they were all experts in the most boring part of sports involvement. Sports statistics.

In the grownup world, the women wanted to be ruthless winners like the men and that threw me way off guard at first. I thought women were better than that. But this was called "survival of the fittest" and it was simply "nature's way" I was told. 2 + 2 = 5. It was a stupid but very real equation that didn't make any sense to me at all and I intended to get to the bottom of it one day.

Later, I would come to the simple conclusion that nature was something that the best of us would one day learn to overcome. That, in my opinion, would make 2 + 2 = 4 the correct equation again. But I would never be able to prove it. That's where fiction would begin playing the big role in my life that it does now. Then I started writing science fiction novels.

And my world hasn't looked or been the same ever since.

Happy Holidays!

Michael Casher is taking a break from blogging until after the new year. He wishes everyone a safe and happy holiday season.

The Scary Old Man

It’s what every middle-aged man fears as he approaches age 55, that one-way gate in what still ought to be mid-life that you are forced to pass through and surrender any weapons or treasures left over from youth. Like head hair, hairless ear lobes, arched feet, flat stomach and a mouth full of teeth. Oh, yeah, I forgot: your dignity.

But many of us aging youngsters still wouldn’t complain about entering The Senior Citizen Gate if our very presence on sidewalks and in stores didn’t strike fear in the hearts and minds of women and children. That's every man’s biggest fear about growing old. That life will push the boy that still lives inside him through that high-mileage gate at 55 and make him emerge on the other side as a tubby ogre struggling to walk a straight line despite the many aches and pains he's forced to endure.

Suddenly, that old father and young great-uncle in the tan corduroy jeans, two-tone long-sleeve pullover, ball cap and brown Hush Puppies looks like Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers all rolled into one. Only older, a lot older. As old as Satan.

The only upside of this story of senior citizen paranoia is that, once in a while, a formidable and savvy college coed merely points you out to her girlfriend and they both laugh. They don’t see the bogeyman. They see what looks like a deflating hot air balloon decorated with a ball cap and brown suede shoes, looking for a place to land.

But, what the hell. After a middle-aged man passes through “the old codger gate”, being mistaken for nothing but a lot of hot air can easily be misconstrued as a compliment.

In the Shadows

Where an independent science fiction author spends most of his waking hours.

╥

Here we go again.

Today is my 56th birthday. Once a senior citizen, always a senior citizen.

Actually, I don't really give a hoot. The only birthday I ever dreaded in my entire life was my 30th, like most other young people.

After that I thought, What the hell, the first 100 years is only a drop in the big bucket anyway.

The Pluto Observer

This month marks the 2nd Anniversary of The Pluto Observer, "a one-page monthly newsletter from the planet Pluto" that I began writing in September 2005. It's a free at Science Fiction for Thinkers, my official website.

Sometimes I have a lot of fun writing this so-called newsletter and sometimes it's a real drag, to use a worn-out Baby Boomer cliché. But, I'll continue offering this kind of commentary as long as the fingers of my alter ego and star reporter, Jonco Bugos, can keep moving over the keyboard.

Some issues offer actual articles about current events and some are strictly for fun. And that's the beauty of being an independent author. No editor can say to me, "don't write that" or "this crap gets cut" or "hell, you're just a stupid hick who can't even write". Only The Great Publishing Wizards of Big Apple City will tell you that kind of stuff. And that's because they've lived all their lives without setting foot in "fly-over" country (that's the USA between Manhattan Island and Los Angeles) and this is their biggest fatal flaw.

The Rest of the Story

One of the reasons I became a writer was the fact that I had an unshakable desire to tell the world through fiction that the wrong people have been running the world for eons and that they still are.

And just who are these people?

Why, they're the stupidest, meanest, greediest and most perverse people on Earth. But why they're in control is only half the story. The rest of the story is that most people don't want to know or don't care if they do know.

This is the part of the story that's all about us.