Poetry in the Interim

In June of last year, I published a collection of poetry. (https://books2read.com/randomthoughts) The poems were written over a period of around sixteen months during which I concentrated the majority of my writing efforts on just poetry. Once the volume was completed, I began working on a novel, which became two books, and a third in progress.

Being in the novel writing frenzy, I have neglected my poems, other than a few which have appeared and insisted they be heard. Here’s one about my first car.

Green Mustang

My very first car

Was a ’68 Ford

My dad bought for me.

We took it for a test drive

During the day,

Closed the deal

And drove it home.

Later we discovered

It had electrical problems

And the lights wouldn’t work.

It also had no jack or spare.

Buyer beware.

My new job prompted a poem that came to me late one night after clocking out of the graveyard shift. I managed to get the lines recorded before falling into bed the next morning.

The Hotel

Working at the front desk,

Trying to help every guest,

For they are travelers,

Away from home,

At our mercy for hospitality,

Depending on us for creature comforts.

It’s late and some are yet to arrive.

We worry and wonder why they are delayed,

Like parents desiring all the kids to be at home

Safe and secure, under our roof once more.

So we jump at every sound,

Expecting to see them at our door,

Disappointed when they are not,

But still we wait,

Patiently, at the front desk.

Maybe when the next novel is done, I’ll get serious about another collection of poetry. Either that, or I’ll continue waiting for inspiration to strike. And jotting down a few random thoughts in the interim.

Donald Trump and the Mueller Report

Two years. Unlimited budget. A severely partisan team of lawyers and investigators. And the result. No Russian collusion. Not enough information to prove obstruction of justice. A bunch of old infractions committed by guys who had a connection of some kind to the President. Some process crimes, that is to say things like lying to the FBI, crimes committed by people entrapped during the investigation, that sort of stuff.

And the reaction of the Liberals? Impeach the President!

Critics have combed through the massive report looking for anything and everything that can be spun to make Trump look bad. Like I asked last week, why are these people so disappointed that our President is not a crook, or a Russian spy, or a traitor?  So, now we have to listen to their fake shock and amazement at every line of a four hundred page report that somehow reveals some secret only they can discern. Pathetic!

One of the statements that has drawn the attention of the Left is a comment by the President that the appointment of a special counsel would destroy his presidency.  To the Liberals this clearly shows that the President knew he was guilty and the investigation would finish him. OR, maybe the President could already see what the Democrats would spend the next two years doing, or should I say not doing.

With complete Democratic opposition and resistance, and with less than the full support of even his own party, the President has struggled to keep the campaign promises that got him elected in the first place. With a Republican controlled Congress, getting a wall built or getting Obamacare repealed should have been easy. Instead the constant reminder that “Trump is under investigation, blah, blah, blah” is all we heard. RINOS used the excuse to divide the controlling party ensuring that nothing would get done. Even appointing Supreme Court justices (and filling Cabinet positions) became outrageously difficult.

In that sense, the Left has succeeded in ending his presidency before it even began. And unfortunately, they aren’t about to stop now. Their current obsession is to somehow prove obstruction of justice. My question, voiced by many, is whether or not you can obstruct justice when there is no actual crime to investigate. Rather than spend time with that argument, allow me to direct you to a great article that thoroughly covers the subject.  https://reason.com/2019/04/19/in-defense-of-trump-obstructing-justice-when-theres-no-underlying-crime/ Bottom line? No obstruction of justice by the President.

The worst part of all this mess is that the Liberal Left Democratic Party has succeeded in smearing the reputation of the man and the office. I think of Richard Nixon and the effect of the Watergate investigation on his legacy. In many ways an effective president, the release of the report and the tapes from the oval office completely changed the public’s perception of him. People were particularly shocked to hear him using such profane language in the oval office. (I remain much more shocked at what Bill Clinton did in the oval office.) Of course, the Left and the media have already spent two years doing everything they can to ruin Trump’s reputation and image.

So, what happens now? Apparently not much. Someone recently asked what the Democrat controlled House has done in their first 100 days. The answer? Pretty much nothing. We’re still waiting. And while we wait, maybe we should look into the Uranium One deal. You know, the one that shows Hillary colluding with the Russians. Or maybe we should investigate a sitting president (Obama) spying on an opposition candidate’s campaign.You know, real crimes and impeachable offenses.

Is the Democratic Party the Ultimate Sore Loser?

First, they refused to accept Hillary’s loss in the 2016 election. Then in the midterms, several prominent candidates demanded numerous recounts rather than accept the election results. Now, after two years and a reported 25 million dollars down the drain, the Democrats are refusing to accept the conclusions of the Mueller Report.

As Rush Limbaugh pointed out recently, shouldn’t the American people be happy to learn that no collusion took place? After a solid two years of absolute crap about how the President is a secret Russian agent who stole the election from Hillary with the help of his traitorous Russian allies, shouldn’t any patriotic American be happy to hear that our President is not a traitor? What is wrong with this picture? Why are the Democrats still so bound and determined to prove something that apparently didn’t happen?

In the final presidential debate of 2016, the then candidate Trump refused to say that he would accept the results of the election. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cP0G4vJ5OMw It was a somewhat awkward moment, but basically, he said that he would have to actually see the outcome first and decide if everything had been done correctly or something to that effect. The Democrats and the media went ballistic. How could he say he would not accept the election results? Why the very fabric of our nation would unravel if a losing candidate refused to accept the results of an American election! (You know, like when Al Gore refused to accept his loss to George Bush in 2000.)

Well, guess what? For the last two years, it has been Hillary and the Liberal Democrats and the mainstream media and the Hollywood elites who have cried and screamed and insisted that the election wasn’t fair and they somehow got cheated. Isn’t it about time to get real? Sometimes you run for office and you don’t win. Why can’t the Democrats accept this with a little grace and dignity.

Following the midterm elections, several prominent Democratic candidates flatly refused to concede after losing. Stacey Abrams in Georgia refused for weeks to concede her loss in the governor’s race. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSVqLHlslPc Even when she finally conceded, she still claimed that millions of votes were not counted. She didn’t lose, she got cheated, right? In the Florida governor’s race, Andrew Gillum followed a similar strategy, pushing for a recount while questioning whether all the votes were being counted. Across the country, in close disputed races, Democratic candidates would not accept the results of the election. See a pattern?

I heard recently that for the last two years the mainstream media has averaged 13 stories per day about the President and Russian collusion. For two years we’ve been bombarded with declarations of his guilt and demands for his impeachment. And now that the Special Prosecutor has found no evidence of collusion? Democrats are demanding to see ever single scrap of paper collected over the course of the investigation. Already, they are questioning the integrity of the Attorney General William Barr and insinuating that he will attempt to cover up the details of the report. Again, why do the Democrats refuse to accept reality? When they don’t get the results they desire, they immediately start screaming about the process. Somehow they got cheated. Am I the only one getting really tired of this?

Meanwhile, Adam Schiff (D-CA) remains the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee despite his ongoing efforts to slander the President and his insistence that he has proof of actual Russian collusion. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN) continues to make inflammatory remarks fully supported by fellow Democrats. (And yet, the President is the bad guy for reminding us of the things we swore we would never forget?) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has become a media star by displaying her ignorance at every opportunity. When will this madness end? Aren’t these people supposed to be working? Don’t Congressmen and Congresswomen have real responsibilities? I mean, besides spending all their time bashing the President. And of course, starting up their own Presidential campaigns.

My Thoughts on the College Admissions Bribery Scandal

F. Scott Fitzgerald began one of his more well known short stories with the observation that the rich are “different than you and me.” I would have to agree with him. He goes on to say, “They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are.” Maybe that would explain the lengths to which they are willing to go to get ahead. Or in this case, help their children get ahead.

For those not familiar, the FBI has been working since 2011 to unravel this complex scandal involving parents, coaches, and college admissions officials at a number of super prestigious universities. The ringleader is a man named William Rick Singer, a so-called “college admissions counselor” with a huge company making millions to help parents get their kids into major universities. Parents have paid more than $25 million over this period to ensure their children gained admission to universities with “selective admissions,” a fancy way of saying they accepted only the cream of the crop and turned away tons of very qualified applicants in the process.

And how did they accomplish this? Three answers. First, they cheated on entrance exams. Usually, they began with claiming disabilities which allowed them to request accommodations including taking the tests at specific locations controlled by Singer. Sometimes, the test was taken by another individual. Other times, scores were manipulated after the fact. Sometimes the kids knew they were cheating. Sometimes, they may not have known. Either way, the student now had a top score on either the SAT, the ACT, or both.

A second scheme involved portraying the prospective student as a highly recruited athlete. In many cases, the student had never even participated in the sport at any level. College coaches at many universities accepted bribes to list the names of these students as “elite sports recruits” which forced admissions office personnel to consider them more favorably. Photo-shopped pictures were used in several cases to show the students engaged in athletic activities which in some cases they had never even played before. Again, the individual students may or may not have been aware of the extent to which their applications were being manipulated.

Finally, charitable organizations were used to launder the money and hide the sources of the money and its true purposes. In all, over fifty individuals have been charged with illegal activities as a result of this scheme. Notably, several high profile celebrity parents and a number of well known college coaches have been named.

So, how different are the rich? I think most parents are willing to do whatever it takes to help their children be successful. Most parents want their kids to have the opportunity to go to the best schools. The real question is – Are most parents willing to break the rules, and the law, to help their children achieve these goals? I think not.

I’m not rich, by any means, so some might question my confidence in stating that. Some might think that if I had the means, I might be more likely to be tempted, but honestly, I don’t think it’s about the money. I think it’s more about morals and values and integrity. I think it’s about playing fair. And teaching our kids to play fair.

And maybe sometimes, it’s about teaching our children that the world is not always fair. Sometimes, we may not get into that club or organization or university that we wanted. Sometimes, we get cut and don’t make the team at all. Sometimes we don’t win. Sometimes life is unfair.

Maybe Fitzgerald was right. Maybe the rich think they are better than us average folk. Maybe they think they should always win, always get the advantage, always come out ahead. I don’t know. I just find it sad to think this may be true.

Maybe we need to hold them accountable and make them play by the same rules as everyone else. Personally, I think everyone involved should be fully prosecuted. People should lose their jobs, pay fines, go to jail, whatever is appropriate. And students who cut corners and broke rules to gain admission? Every single one of them should be expelled from the school and forced to reapply. This may seem a little harsh to some, but complicit or not, every one of these students has taken the place of a more deserving applicant. And that is definitely not fair.

The New Novel – The Reddy Cab Company

So, I started my new novel this week. Four times. What I mean to say is that I have written Chapter One four times, in four different ways. It has been very frustrating to say the least.

Generally, I have a big broad outline in my head of how to tell the story and then I just write. I try not to over-think the process. It worked well in writing the first four books, so I fully expected it to work this time. But it didn’t. Or it hasn’t so far. I do have high hopes for my latest draft. Maybe fourth times a charm.

I suppose the problem is that I have spent too much time thinking about this one and I have written in my head a ton of sections, and bits of dialogue, and character descriptions, and so on. I’m so aware of the big picture that I can’t seem to write the individual parts in any sort of organized manner. I’ve barely begun and I’m ready to write the ending.

I think I’ve finally reached my original fear. I’ve always written poems and short stories and the thought of writing a novel or anything approaching a work of that length always intimidated me. The idea that I would have to write forever before getting to my conclusion seemed impossible to me. Even with the help of NaNoWriMo (which I actually completed twice!), it was hard for me to not rush to get to my ending, but I managed.

Anyway, I think I’ve gotten into the story now and if all things go well, it will all play out like it’s supposed to do and at some point, I’ll have another novel to edit and revise. What Joy!

Just to share the specifics of my dilemma, here’s the original opening –

He stepped off the bus and limped a few feet away just in time to avoid the wall of wind, dust, and gravel as the Greyhound pulled back onto the highway. Welcome home, he thought.

Lincoln Jefferson Reddy was a local legend in Eastlake, Texas. As a high school senior, he had been the best defensive end in the entire state. At 6’8”and 325 pounds, he was almost always the biggest player on the field and often the fastest, as well. Dominating the small school ranks, he was heavily recruited by every major program in the country before betraying his state and declaring that he would attend the University of Oklahoma. Two years and five knee surgeries later, he had returned to Eastlake for his mother’s funeral, his dreams of playing in the NFL long spent.

And in the next draft, the opening became –

Lincoln Jefferson Reddy was a local legend, a hometown hero, or at least he had been one, once upon a time. At thirty, he was still an opposing physical presence, but to most of the local citizens, he was little more than a shadowy figure to be avoided whenever possible. He and his high school buddies lived a somewhat nocturnal existence, out late drinking most nights and in bed nursing hangovers for most of the following days.

The third draft used the same opening lines as the first one. And by the fourth draft, it began like this –

He stood at the kitchen counter shuffling though the uneven stack of cards spilling out of the old cardboard box. Grandma’s Fried Chicken, Sausage and Rice Casserole, Salmon Patties, Easy Bake Chocolate Pie. With each card, he imagined the look, and smell, and taste of each of his mother’s favorite recipes. The little box was crammed with a lifetime of culinary memories and he laughed in remembrance of his mother standing before this very box diligently searching for the specific instructions written in her barely decipherable handwriting.

Drop me a comment and let me know which opening sounds interesting to you!