Script Update

Originally, I had hoped to complete the third (and final) episode of "Plant Your Wagon" by tomorrow. I needed somewhere between 15 and 18 pages. In the past week, I have eked out one page. Now, I'll grant you, it was a good page, but it still leaves me about 17 short. I somehow doubt (when a good writing day for me is four pages) that I'll get that done before it is time to start on the novel.

Since that's the case, I guess I'll just put "Plant Your Wagon" aside until December. And maybe by then, PRI will have come up with some moolah so that I can just worry about writing scripts every day instead of the procession of mundanities that pass for a job in my every day life.

Another Novel Approach

Well, I went and did it. As you may or may not be aware, there is a website site out there which is encouraging people to write a novel in the month of November. It has the unlikely handle of NaNoWriMo. The idea is to try to get 50,000 words of novel written between the first of November and the last. I have signed up to be part of this plague of literature.

In connection with this, Blogger.com is encouraging people who want to participate to do so through a blog devoted to their novel. In honor of this, I have created another blog called Michael Drayton, Detective Guy on which the novel will be written. (In theory.)

One and all are invited to keep tabs on the work-in-progress and to offer comments and encouragement.

In order to do this, I'm going to have to concentrate on finishing the third and final episode of "Plant Your Wagon" in the next seven days. I think that's possible. Then I will take a month off from writing radio scripts, although I do hope to keep up with both this blog and my contributions to Phil Austin's Blog of the Unknown.

The Call

Many people have no idea what it is to be called or think that it is limited only to people who are joining a religious order or are seeking to persuade the unbelieving. There are other sorts of callings, though. However, this is not the way that most people find their jobs. Choosing a career usually has to do with chasing money or it seemed like an easy way to get through college or I just fell into it. This is sad to me, sad that most people never get the experience of being called.

I say this because it happened to me. When I tell people this story, they usually look at me like they've just watched me have a nervous breakdown. Since it is not an experience that they've shared, they cannot credit it. Since it did not involve deciding to shove Jesus down the throats of the unbelievers, they cannot find the proper context in which to understand it.

I was 14 at the time, in a strange period of my life in which the friends I had surrounded myself with and the activities we participated in (by this point, mostly scouting parties into the fringes of an area called Trouble) were losing their hold on me. Change was imminent, but I didn't know that. I was just some 14-year-old punk kid.

The catalyst in this story was my English teacher, Mrs Stachurski (nee' Miss Butterworth). Towards the end of 9th grade, she assigned us something that I, for one, had never been assigned before. She had us write fiction. Write a short story, anything we wanted.

A friend of mine had told me about a movie he had seen that George C. Scott was in, called "Bank Shot." It was a caper film about some people breaking into a bank. Being the lazy student that I was, I decided to steal that plot and write my own version of it.

I had study hall in the school cafeteria. There were about half a dozen of us in there, and we sat at the tables in the back, by the milk machines. I can remember starting to write and the feeling of exhilaration that built inside me. My mind raced and my pen flew. Instead of the drudgery that I had expected, I found joy.

As I've told people over the years, always to their disbelief, it felt as though the hand of God reached through the walls of Goff Junior High School, tapped me on the forehead with a giant finger and said "A writer thou art." Talk about your epiphanies.

A year later, I would step on stage in front of 2000 students and teachers in the high school play, sneak a peek at the audience, and think, "Well, this is just like home." Almost 20 years further on, I directed a sketch for a video demo I did with my former partners. After a day of scouting locations on the fly, choosing angles, and directing performances, I thought, "This is something I could do every day."

Neither of those days, however interesting as days in which to choose a career, could hold a candle to that day in 9th grade. I write because that is what I do. I'm a writer because that is what I am.

The Only Way I Lettered in High School

I was about 14 or so when I discovered "The Groucho Letters," and it was with that discovery that my checkered career as a correspondent was born. As an adolescent, I didn't have many opportunities for epistolary brilliance, but I bided my time. At the end of my sophomore year of high school, a friend moved from Pawtucket, Rhode Island, to Harrisville, a tiny hamlet out in the sticks. In the meantime, my folks had moved me (with them, of course) from Pawtucket to North Kingstown. Now, that distance may not seem very big for people from big places, but in Rhode Island terms it was the equivalent of lightyears. Since calling her would have meant message units on the phone bill and since message units made my father's blood boil, our best chance for staying in touch was the US mail. At last, my time had come!

From time-to-time, I would shape my half-witticisms into letter form and mail them off. For every two or three of mine, I would get one reply. Life was good.

As time went on, more friends went more places and for a time my correspondence bloomed to its fullest glory. Then, as will happen, the friends slowly became strangers and there were jobs to worry about and lives to figure out, and my correspondence dwindled to mostly a memory.

With one exception. This past weekend, I wrote to the adult version of that young lady I had started corresponding with so many years before. We're down to one or two letters per year now, each. The mad rush of life leaves little time for the well-crafted half-witticism, although the urge to correspond remains. I'm trying to correct that, trying to carve out some time each week for a few people in my life who I don't get to see or speak to as often as I'd like. Like most resolutions, the odds are against this one, but if I don't try at all, it will definitely fail.

And so I reach out, one envelope at a time, waiting for the ever elusive return.

Another One of My Big Ideas

I guess it was about a year-and-a-half ago that I came across a website used by a prominent (by current standards) radio dramatist to put forth his pronouncements on the medium and the craft. Among his many rules, he had specifically admonished the neophyte radio writer to avoid submitting any script to any producer of radio theatre that was typed using a manual typewriter. Now, the first thing that struck me as funny was the thought that anybody (including me) was going around sending out scripts typed on manual typewriters. I just couldn't see that as being a common problem.

The second thought I had was that this might be something of a short-sighted policy. I mean, there are well known authors who compose on manual typewriters. So, I e-mailed the Prominent Radio Dramatist and asked him if he would reject a script from, say, Gore Vidal or Don DeLillo because they used manual typewriters. He replied in the affirmative. I don't think he knew who DeLillo was, but I do, and I'd take a script from him if it were written on a napkin with a crayon.

And in that exchange an idea was born. Figuring that, after two or three series, I'd probably be getting burnt out on churning out scripts for "Next in the Series," I thought that maybe I could do a season called "By the Manual" in which I solicited scripts from authors who work on manual typewriters as well as throw in a couple of my own. In addition to Vidal and DeLillo, I know that Ian Frazier uses a manual. And now I've found out that Bob Dylan used one to write "Chronicles, Vol. 1." I have a couple of other names scribbled down on a slip of paper somewhere, and there's plenty of time to collect more.

Now, as a result of the postings on an earlier thread here, I'm toying with the idea of including the proviso that the scripts, in some manner, deal theme of technology and how it affects us. Other than that, the authors would have a free hand.

Sometimes an interesting idea can arise simply from wanting to give the finger to someone who seems like a pompous ass. And for that, I will always be grateful to the Prominent Radio Dramatist.

You Don't Call, You Don't Write

I sent my proposal for my radio show to Public Radio International (PRI) on February 10, 2004. Since I sent it by 2-day Priority Mail, there's a pretty good chance that they received it on February 12, 2004. By the testimony of their website, their goal is to "respond to each proposal within two months of receipt." So far, in my case anyway, they are off by a factor of four.

Now, I'm more than happy to wait as long as it takes them to make their decision, but I have to tell you that the acid in my stomach has started percolating to a Latin rhythm. It's like waiting to hear whether or not you've won the lottery, but they just haven't gotten around to picking the last number yet. This is something I walk around with, wearing it like a lead-lined necktie. I wish I didn't, but I have to. And as much as I try to tell myself that each day brings me one day closer to hearing, the strain of having spent eight months in anticipation is quite tiring.

Now, don't get me wrong. I like PRI. I think we could have a beautiful partnership and that, together, we could make a nice dollar. I am not withdrawing my proposal or even beginning to think about considering withdrawing it. I'm just impatient to get the deal done and the contracts signed. There's much to be done and a good thing to be brought into the broadcast world. Let's just do it!

And I'd tell you about the shambles that has become of the schedule I did on Microsoft Project, but it's just too difficult to think about. No, no (sniff), I'm fine. That's just a fiber of asbestos in my eye. And I always get misty on anniversaries.

I'll Be in Touch

Every morning on my way to work, as I make my way up from the platform to the world outside Atlanta's Five Points MARTA station, I do my best to go through the same turnstile every morning. This started on my first day back on this job (after a year-and-one-half interregnum), almost seven months ago. And I'll bet that in all those days (excluding the occasional time I've gotten off at a different station in search of the wild donut) that I've only missed that turnstile two or three times.

The first time that this happened--I think because the turnstile was closed for some reason--I had a mild panic attack. I didn't want push my way through the next one over, but as I forced myself to, I thought, "What a strange reaction." Why in the world should it matter?

But then that's when I realized that that is how we make our ways through a very complex world. We look for touchstones. We fashion routines. As we make our way through the chaos of the average day, we look for anchors anywhere we can find them.

On my lunch half-hours, I'm currently reading a novel called "Old School" by Tobias Wolff. It's what the Germans would call a Bildungsroman, a novel of education. Set in a boys prep school in the school year of 1960-61, it's the first person narrative of a young man who is trying to understand himself as both an individual and as a writer. In the part of the book I was reading today, the unnamed narrator examines several of the short stories of Ernest Hemingway. And in the portion of the discussion concerning "Big Two-Hearted River," I found this:

You saw everything Nick did, in precise, almost fussy descriptions that most writers would've left out. How he drives the pegs of his tent until the rope loops are buried, and hold his pants and shoes in his hand when leaving the tent at sunup. How he dampens his fishing leaders. Exactly how much flour and water he uses to make his pancakes--a cup of each. I'd liked being in on all these rough solemnities but I had missed the fact that Nick observes them so carefully--religiously is not too strong a word--because they keep him from falling apart.

It's just funny that I had been thinking about these touchstones this weekend and then come across this passage today. And just for the record, I went through the wrong turnstile this morning.

The Vanishing Boy of Pacific Heights: The Sixties

Since I was born in 1959 and since my parents decided to move to San Francisco in 1963 and since I have two older brothers, I was able to experience the '60s in the manner ABC Sports used to call "up close and personal." I remember watching Lee Oswald being murdered on live TV. I remember the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. I played softball with Yippies in Julius Kahn playground in the summer of 1969. (Despite their disinclination to use me, I singled to right in my only at bat. Not long afterwards, everybody else got the munchies and went home.)

But enough of my credentials.

Although the right wing commentators would have us believe differently, as a culture, we are still trying to make sense of the time between John Kennedy's inauguration and that lone helicopter lifting off from the embassy roof in Saigon. And while the right wingers do have some valid points to make about the excesses, they miss the good and the point of the good that went on.

In fact, I'm going to come right out and say that I have a problem with PJ O'Rourke and the ilk he represents. In the '60s, when it was hip, they were radical leftists. By the '80s, when it had become hip, they became radical reactionaries. And here's my message to all of them: Hey, according to actuarial tables you dolts have another 20 years coming to you. Still enough time to flip once more. Don't pull a Lee Atwater and wait until you have a brain tumor to come to your senses.

But enough of them. They are intellectual midgets who put more value in being "right" than in gaining wisdom or knowing Truth.

I keep thinking of John, Martin, and Bobby, and each sought to ennoble us--all of us, not just the most affluent or those who subscribe to a checklist of viewpoints. I think that the American liberal experiment that began with the New Deal died on a motel balcony in Memphis and in a hotel kitchen in Los Angeles. The idea that we were a community with common interests died and was replaced by the notion that we are merely a collection of factions with competing agendas.

A Republican President once said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." (For the record, he was not the current Republican President.) Julius Caesar used "divide and conquer" as the basis for his military theory. And since that horrible spring in 1968, divisiveness has reigned supreme and commonality of purpose has been lost to the mists of time. If the American Experiment is to have any lasting meaning, we have to again understand it as a common enterprise on which we are all embarked.

And I leave you with one final thought: Happy Birthday to John Lennon, wherever you are.

The Return of Mr Controversy

I'm really not a true Luddite. I like the dishwasher. I like air conditioning. I like TV and CDs and DVDs. However, I think that it's a mistake to just accept technology wholesale, as we have done.

Most things that come with memory chips assume that you are an idiot. And while this might be true, I've found that in most cases it's not. I mean think about it. How many items do we deal with every day that attack our memory? There's speed dial, there's the thing in Windows that remembers all your IDs and Passwords. There's the favorites menu. (I've reached a point in which I can barely remember what most of the things on my "Favorites" are!) There are reminders and ticklers and alarms. There are PDAs. And memory, unfortunately, must be used, like a muscle, or it begins to atrophy. We remember less and so become more dependent on the machine.

My wife and I were having a discussion this morning about the influence of spreadsheets. Ask anybody. What's the best thing about them? They do the math for you. Again, math is good for the brain, and yet most people (myself included) will rely on a calculator or Excel if we want to add up a simple column of numbers. We calculate less and so become more dependent on the machine.

Quite often, high technology is a drug, and we have become a nation of addicts. Again, I'm no Luddite who wishes to wipe away all traces of technology. However, I think it would behoove us to be less accepting of all technology and to try being a bit more choosy in terms of what we rely on and what we don't.

I think another way to look at things is that having low tech alternatives is good for the national defense. I can tell you from personal experience that a manual typewriter keeps working even when the grid goes down. And don't even get me started on the pencil!

The Letter "CBS Sunday Morning" Dared Not Air

Back on August 29th, Ben Stein appeared on "CBS Sunday Morning." Mr Stein has started appearing quite frequently lately, espousing his opinions of the American scene. This is fine with me. I'm all for free speech, whether I like what's being said or not. The problem with Mr Stein, however, is that he makes arguments which are simplistic, shallow, and fundamentally absurd. His monologues are floor shows of lazy thinking, and if there's one thing I hate, it's lazy thinking.

His topic on that day was his vacation getaway in Idaho. Pretty harmless stuff, you say? Not after he spins it into a lot of political buncombe. I sent the following as the text of an e-mail to "CBS Sunday Morning," but they have not, as yet, had the wisdom to either read the letter on the air or to give me a job like Ben's.

In his commentary this past Sunday, Ben Stein showed that it is possible to still look through rose colored glasses even if you have an asigmatism, cataracts, and night blindness. First, I was taken with his statement that this idyllic and rural vacation spot in Idaho (which, by the way, thanks to his big mouth, will soon sag under the collective weight of thousands of TV-watching idyll seekers) is the place that we are pledging allegiance to when we pledge allegiance to the flag. I hate to be the one to break it to him, but the flag that we pledge our allegiance to flies over cityscapes just as regally as it does over the countryside. When we make that pledge, we pledge ourselves not only to the vacationer, the farmer, and the rube, but also the city slicker, the office worker, and the guy who sells hot dogs on 49th Street. Even Democrats and other dissidents are included in this pledge.

The second part of his rural rhapsody that raised an interested eyebrow was his depiction of the place as an enclave of the 1950s, a Lost Valley in the midst of turn-of-the-century post-modernism and moral relativism. The place comes across as a summery sort of Currier and Ives print, or perhaps as a Norman Rockwell caricature of an episode of "Leave It to Beaver." All the Moms wander around their self-cleaning houses draped in pearls, while the Dads, who wear ties even while showering, cheerfully spend the day working at some unnamed job "down at the office." The well-scrubbed, semi-literate children never bother their cowlicks or freckles over anything as dirty as the world and never chirp a sound harsher than "gee whiz."

Alas, back in the actual, living 1950s, things were a bit more complex. The prospect of nuclear holocaust held the world hostage, people's lives were destroyed by McCarthyism and a paranoiac fear of Communism, and Jim Crow ruled all those Americans whose forebears had hailed from Africa rather than Newport. As I understand it, there was even murder and spousal abuse and alcoholism. They even had bad news!

Mr Stein needs to learn, as do many of his friends and cohorts who are cavorting around Madison Square Garden this week, that the citizens of rural America are no more profoundly American than is the person who prefers to roam the wide open concrete, and that the 1950s were not an idyll, but merely another stretch of history that existed in space and time. And if he won't believe me, he should try reading Allen Ginsburg.

The Crow Flies at Midnight

Memo
To: All Conspirators
From: The Planning Committee
Date: Classified
Re: Conspiracy Update

We have several items on the menu, so I guess I’ll just jump right in.
First, I’d like to announce that this week’s conspiracy meeting has been cancelled. There will be no conspiracy meeting this week. One of the chief conspirators is taking his family to Disneyworld and would, therefore, have been unable to attend. This is a vacation he has had in mind for sometime and was cleared through the normal channels. Really. The forged paperwork backing up this claim is on file in The Conspiracy office, behind the third trashcan in from Front Street in City Center Park.

Second, I want to remind everybody that this year’s Lookouts and Fall Guys Picnic is only two weeks away. Sign up to bring a dish by leaving a note in the hole in the side of the oak tree just behind the grassy knoll. So far, most people have signed up to bring desserts, so we need a few more casseroles as well as someone to bring some soft drinks and chips. Forks, knives, guns and knockout drops will be provided by The Organization.

We regret to inform the membership of the passing of Shorty Levine at age 58. Shorty started getting nervous and therefore had to be killed. We encourage the membership to attend both the wake and the funeral, but please do not attend in a group as we did with Shakes Tamblyn. The group of us sitting together in one pack all wearing sunglasses made certain parties suspicious and they subsequently had to be killed. As we all know, inflationary pressures on assassination are currently pretty high and our ability to make it look like a coincidence diminishes as the number of people killed rises. So, take care and don’t go in until you see another member of The Conspiracy coming out.

Also, while you’re there, try to find out if any members of Shorty’s family are aware of our operation so that they can be killed, if need be.

Finally, I would like to say that this has been a very good year for The Conspiracy, that planning is coming along splendidly, and that specific assignments should be coming along soon. If you do not get your assignment in the next month, do not worry. That does not mean that you are about to be killed. Really. I mean, if you can’t trust your fellow conspirators, who can you trust?

Keep up the good work and let’s pull together to make sure that Operation Nuthatch is the best conspiracy ever!

Declaration of Principles

In "Citizen Kane," a young Charles Foster Kane composes a "Declaration of Principles" to publish in his newspaper. Since I make it a personal policy to clip as much as I can from the Orson Welles canon, I've decided to do the same thing for my radio show. Of course, Kane loses his way as the movie goes on, but all I have to say is this: "Don't worry, Jedediah. These will be kept."

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

1. I will never write characters who are six and yet talk like jaded 40-year-old comedy writers.

2. Ditto with old ladies.

3. If I'm ever tempted to compile a "clip show," I'll just shut the whole thing down since I will then be officially out of ideas.

4. I will never do commercials for Hawaii or Disney resorts or cruises or similar vacation-related venues camouflaged as an episode of my show.

5. I will never write a piece of dialogue such as, "Gee Dad, I'm really happy you decided to take the three of us to the Freak Festival even though Mom disapproves." Decent exposition is my guarantee.

6. I will never do a parody of "A Christmas Carol," even though I've had a corker of an idea for years that is more of a sequel than a direct parody.

7. I will never use the plotline about the unconventional cop teamed with a by-the-book cop.

8. I will never use any plotline that involves two people having to work or live together who start out hating each other, but develop grudging respect and then love.

9. I will never introduce some object or person who, although never referred to previously by anyone, turns out to be the favorite person or thing in the world to one of the major characters.

10. Once such a character or object is introduced, they will not then disappear like a Chilean dissident.

This is a start. I'll happily take nominations for more principles to be observed.

(signed)
Len Foster Kane

Mr Controversy Strikes Again!

Well, I went through the other things that I've sent to The Times in recent months, and there really wasn't that much that made sense outside of the time and context in which it origianlly appeared. So, here I am, stuck for wordage and aching to be the kind of controversial loudmouth (each side of the political spectrum has its example) that people really sit up and pay attention to. What to do? What to do?

After much thought, I finally realized what heartfelt statement I could make that would best stir the embers in the ash heap of the reader's soul, and it is this: I prefer writing on a manual typewriter to writing on a computer.

There. You have it. When left to my own devices, I still write using a manual typewriter. Episode Three of "Plant Your Wagon" is being drafted on an Olivetti Lettera 35 that I bought new (that's right; they still make them) about a year-and-a-half ago. I also own a Lettera 25 (also new) that my wife gave me for Christmas a couple of years back. This is a great machine for letters (another discredited artifact that's preferable to its modern equivalent).

Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why on earth would this dimwit want to go back to the Dark Ages? What's he going to be in favor of next? Burning witches? Curing disease with the application of leeches?" However, I would assert that the rush to a digitized life has been frantic, hysterical, and ill-considered.

Let me list a few of the advantages I've found in using a manual typewriter. First, it never has to boot up, and it requires no password. The only thing I have to do to start it up is insert paper. No Windows A-Week-Ago-Thursday® starting up. No Instant Messenger, no indexing, no icons, no wallpaper. No adware or spyware. Just me and the blank page staring each other down in the duel of the ages.

Second, there are no distractions embedded in the machine, such as Freecell or e-mail or Instant Messenger or the friggin' pop-ups that I can't figure out how to stop. If I want to be distracted, I have to actually get out of my chair to do it, thereby at least getting some modest amount of exercise.

Third, since it doesn't have all the cut-and-paste editing options, I actually have to write carefully. I have to think through each sentence before I commit it to posterity. And having looked back over some of my posts here, I wish I could blog with a typewriter. Perhaps then there would have been fewer maze-like sentences and less camouflage for the meaning.

Fourth, if it crashes, that means that it's fallen off the table and on to the floor. Workaround: Pick it up and put it back.

Fifth, the keys move. They absorb some of the energy that I exert by pounding on them. My wrists hurt less.

Sixth, when I rewrite, I have to go from stem-to-stern. I can no longer just fiddle with one word here and one word there. Every part of the manuscript gets re-evaluated, each word, each sentence, the structure of the whole thing. Using a typewriter forces me to think.

Seventh, given a fresh ribbon and a reasonable supply of dryliner, I can produce a manuscript that is very easy to read. Also, I'm never tempted to put it in some strange font, such as Herzo-Govingian Slanty.

Eighth, it does what I want it to. It never repaginates. It never automatically makes corrections that aren't really corrections at all. It never loses my work if the power goes out. It saves my work as I'm typing it.

Ninth, it has the feature I call InstaPrint. One of the problems with word processing programs, one of the reasons why they actually slow down the work process, is that they separate typing and printing. My manuals join typing and printing into one smooth process.

Tenth, I can see the entire page I'm working on at a glance and can easily read every syllable. When I need to go back a few pages as a reference, I can thumb through the pages in a second or two. I'm not dependent on a machine to do my searching for me.

Eleventh, I am the software, goo goo ga joob. And I'm my favorite software package. My default settings suit me perfectly. I'm user friendly. Working with software is like learning an endless number of variations on the minuet with a very obstinate partner, a partner who gets to make all the rules and who rules with an iron fist.

Twelfth, my typewriter never tries to make me feel like a criminal just because I'd rather use "which" than "that" or because I might want to use the passive voice once in a while. I mean, come on! Get off my back!

Well, I guess that twelve is a good number to stop with. Maybe tomorrow I can defend the old fashioned missive or the card catalogue. Until then, to quote The Firesign Theatre, "Forward into the Past"!

Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Dennis (interrupting): Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!--"Monty Python and the Holy Grail"

Mr. Bush has presented his plan to change Iraq tout de suite into a thriving democracy, and his plan goes something like this: "Remember all that stuff that hasn't worked for the past 18 months? Well, we're going to try some more of that. And isn't that United Nations that I declared irrelevant all those months ago really a quite charming institution?" We have implanted a government of our choosing. (Is it a puppet government if no one sees your lips moving?) This government was granted sovereignty. (Can a nation have a sovereign government while occupied? Does a hostage have freedom when he has a gun at his head?)

Unfortunately, Mr. Bush and those who surround him have the strange notion that freedom is something that can be presented as a gift, like a pen-and-pencil set or a mountain bike. Like Monty Python's conception of King Arthur, the current administration has no notion that "power derives from a mandate from the masses"; they think they are the power itself.

Ever since the dreadful events of September 11, 2001, we have been witness to an administration that sees itself as lord of the manor and that is answerable to none, especially not to the grubby lot that they govern. In his speech following the attacks, many--myself among them--were hoping that he would call us--the people--to sacrifice some of our comforts and to serve on the Home Front in the war that inevitably lay before us. Instead, we were told to go shopping. "Don't worry," he said. "We'll take care of it. Don't you worry your pretty little heads one bit." And in that moment I understood that Mr. Bush did not see himself as the employee of the people, but as our ruler.

Throughout their stewardship in this dangerous time, this administration has shown itself to be composed of nothing but a bunch of overgrown children who see world politics as a big game of Stratego or, on a good day, Risk. Not understanding from whence their power derives, they wield it clumsily, like a four-year-old put in charge of a ballpeen hammer. And now they think that they can say a few magic words and constitute a legitimate government in Iraq. Can such a government--one formed at the point of a gun and that is dependent on an occupying force for its existence--succeed?

Again, I am reminded of the peasant Dennis in Holy Grail: 'Oh, but if I went 'round sayin' I was Emperor, just because some moistened bint lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!" Mr. Bush's "farcical aquatic ceremony," held just before the magical date of June 30th, was meaningless since the government that was installed did not derive its power from the mass of the Iraqi people. Hence, there is an insurgency, one rooted not in the wild theories of terrorists or the stubbornness of a few of Saddam's henchmen. It is an insurgency rooted in the desire of the Iraqi people to decide their own fate on their own terms and to not blindly accept a fate presented to them like a plate of cold cuts.

What we refuse to understand in the current situation is that, regardless of how well intentioned we are, we are the problem. The best way to defuse the insurgency is to put a plan in place to remove our troops as quickly and efficiently as possible. As our presence diminishes, so will the insurgency. There will be a risk of a civil war, but not a certainty of one.

Even if the January elections do come off, the result may not be what Messrs Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz expect. The people chosen in the election may decide to do as they damn well please and not as Mr Bush would have them. To me, if the Iraqi people insist on government of a theocratic nature, that is their business. If the Iraqi people wish to form a government that is split along sectarian and ethnic lines, that is their business as well. I doubt that Mr Bush would be quite so understanding.

A government imposed, regardless of the sentiments of those doing the imposing, can never rise above the level of tyranny. Since its power derives from an outside source, it can never be legitimate. Since it cannot stand on its own, it can never be sovereign. And that is why, day-in and day-out, the Iraqi people also quote Dennis and say, "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!"

Having It Both Ways

Okay, so it was only yesterday that I was on about not throwing my opinions in people's faces. After a good night's fester, however, I find that I have changed my mind. Why? Because it's my blog and I can do whatever I damn well please with it, that's why.

On a deeper level, the fact is that we live in very strange, heated, and volitile times, and another fact is that there's not much to report on the radio show yet. (PRI is still playing it close to the vest, the next script is crawling along line-by-line.) A third fact is that I've sent a number of editorials and letters to The New York Times in recent months, none of which has been able to rise above the flood of submissions they get every day. By using these, I can get through several days without having to actually write anything new and these pieces will not go unused.

The first of these pieces will follow later today.

What Next?

Now that I've gotten that off my chest (and another birthday behind me), I can move forward with this blog. The question is, what the hell am I going to do?

Oh, I suppose I could just log on every day and be bright and witty and profound for a few minutes, but isn't that just a philosophical dead end? Of course, I could try just the opposite approach and tap into my natural reserves of tediousness and share this bounty with the world. However, in the long run, I would like having somebody besides me checking this out, so maybe a different approach is more appropriate.

I could harangue the world with my various political opinions, but isn't there enough of that going around these days? In fact, I've grown somewhat weary of having people I sort of know (you know, colleagues from work, the person sitting next to me on the train, the cars positively wallpapered with bumper stickers) throwing their opinions in my face. And expecting me to agree with them, because, in their opinion, if they believe it, it must be right.

As far as most people go, I don't care what you think. That's your business and, quite often, your problem. I won't bother you with what I think if you don't belabor me your thoughts.

This goes mainly for strangers and acquaintances. If we know each other well, then it's gloves off. It's bareknuckle time.

Plant Your Wagon, Part Four

The first innovation to the second episode of "Plant Your Wagon" that I made was to reprise "The Ballad of Sam Trellis." Since the idea is that the show will be on once per week, I figured that it wouldn't be a bad thing to kind of remind the listener of where we had left off. So, I wrote a new verse and used the same chorus, which seemed to do the trick.

The next four scenes involved little more than polishing the same sequence of scenes from the second version. The fifth scene started out with routine polishing, but I had, in the meantime, sketched out two songs, one for Judge Brand and one for the Sheriff. Judge Brand's song, in which he tells of what hard work it is to screw everyone else out of everything they own, seemed best suited to the scene. The Sheriff's song, which is about his conflict between wanting to be ethical and being on Judge Brand's payroll, was too personal for this particular scene. As of this writing, it is still be held in reserve for Episode Three, upon which I am now at work.

From that point on, I was pretty much making things up as I went along--my preferred method of composition. First I brought the action back to the flower growers' home, the Double Calyx ranch. I thought a bit more than we had originally about the character of Cookie, the elderly ranch hand who makes the meals. In the next two scenes, I was able, through his interaction with Sam Trellis, to bring out more sides to him than just being a crotchety old man.

I did have a goal in all this. I wanted the last scene to be one at the Guernsey Lilly saloon in which the townspeople mistake Holly's pacifist speech for a call to violent action. This last scene gave me a chance to bring Sam and Holly together as the love interests, which worked rather well, I think.

So far, I'm only four pages into Episode Three. I wonder what it will be like when I'm done?

Plant Your Wagon, Part Three

Again, I needed perspective. I switched gears and went back to work on what was becoming the dead end of "The Quality of Marcy." Once that ground to a halt, I thought I'd give "Plant Your Wagon" another read through in order to see if it was salvageable.

When I reread it, I was pleasantly surprised. Although it wasn't really good, it wasn't quite really bad either. The songs were fun, and there were good things here and there, but I needed to rethink it and get rid of anything that slowed down the story or made it needlessly complex.

As always, I started at page one and rewrote word-by-word. I wanted to highlight a character who hadn't even appeared in the previous version, a barmaid named Rosie, so, drawing on the many years I spent watching "Gunsmoke" with my Dad, I made her the owner of the local saloon. In the previous version, I had invented a new first scene which was set in the saloon. I added in Rosie, and tried to sharpen the dialogue.

The next major change had to do with the character of Sam Trellis. In the original version, Sam was the somewhat naive, somewhat incompetent employee of an East Coast flower seed and lawn ornament company owned by two German brothers. I retained this in the second version, but by the third version, I was ready to rethink it. It took three scenes to get Sam out of New York and on his way to Lonesome City, three scenes which barely moved the plot along and included passel of characters who would never figure in the rest of the story. I scrapped it all and started fresh.

I moved the company to San Francisco and made Sam the owner. Instead of Sam being the naive incompetent, I gave him an assistant, named Elias, to perform that function. Now Sam was showing a lot more of an edge, a shrewdness that I figured would help in later on in the story. I put him under the pressure of having his business fail, and replaced the three scenes with one scene in which he is getting evicted from his office. This gave him the impetus to just pack up and go to Lonesome City in order to set up shop there.

From that point on, it was mostly just a straight revision of the second version, which was, after further inspection, a pretty radical departure from version one. The only other significant difference was that, after filling out and smoothing out several scenes, version three reached the limit for Episode One five scenes quicker than version two had. Those would form the basis of Episode Two.

Plant Your Wagon, Part Two

George S. Kaufman once said, "Plays aren't so much written as rewritten." That really goes for almost any kind of writing (even the writing of a blog, if I--er, I mean, the writer of the conjectured blog--took the time to do so). "Plant Your Wagon" could be almost a case study on this statement.

This script originally took shape in the waning days of the comedy trio I was part of. In its death throes, Rule of Three hocked up any number of projects, "Plant Your Wagon" being one of them. Ever since I had first come up with "The Ballad of Sam Trellis," Mike and I had, separately, written some other songs and some bits and pieces of dialogue. For some reason, we eventually decided that it was time to churn out a script, so we weaved together the strands that we had on hand and created a bunch of new dialogue to hold everything together.

I think we took all of two days to do this. For structure, we borrowed liberally from the Hope & Crosby picture "The Road to Utopia," and made the whole thing a flashback told by an elderly Sam Trellis. Once done, we were quite pleased with ourselves and made a copy for our performing partner, who didn't seem quite as excited about it as we were. The script went in the vault, and Rule of Three lurched and crawled toward extinction.

As time passed, the thought of doing something with "Plant Your Wagon" stayed with me. I knew there was something worthwhile in it, and when other scripts failed to pan out, I figured that the time had come to dust it off and see what I had.

One of the best tools in the rewriting process is perspective, and the best way to get that is to put the script aside for awhile. Now, I'll grant you that putting it aside for ten years is a bit extreme, but it really gets you a lot of perspective. And the perspective that I got on this script was that it was more of an outline in draft form than an actual script. Everything needed development. The flashback narration needed to go. It needed to be less hurried. And the dialogue, as always, needed refurbishing.

The first revision I did stuck to the original rather closely, although I removed the flashback narration and turned it into a more straightforward narrative. I slogged through, bit-by-bit, until I had almost 30 pages done. I then asked my wife if should would mind if I read it to her (singing the songs is more effective than merely reading the lyrics). She agreed, and I started in.

About two-thirds of the way through, I stopped dead. It was terrible. It was stilted and brittle and not very funny. I put that version aside and thought it over some more. I was so shaken that I wasn't even sure if there would be a third draft. That beautiful inspiration I had in the shower so many years before might end up as just another fragment on the slag heap.

Plant Your Wagon, Part One

Let me tell you a tale of the strange way that ideas can evolve.

A few centuries ago, I had written a country western type song called "You Got My Woman." Although we hadn't yet tried recording it with the comedy trio, both my writing partner and I were fond of the song and would sing it regularly. Well, one evening, Mike told me that he had been singing "You Got My Woman" that afternoon while he was stuck in traffic on his way home from work, only he had changed the tune. (The original tune was inspired by--perhaps "stolen from" is the correct term--"Stand By Your Man.") He proceeded to sing this new version to me, and I had the new tune down in no time.

The next morning, we were scheduled to go to our compatriot's house in order to record something, probably a sketch. Mike was going to pick me up on his way. As happens with so many ideas, a great one occurred to me in the shower. The tune that Mike had sung had been bothering me because it was no longer a country tune; it was western. As I hummed the tune, suddenly a new lyric appeared in my brain. It went:

Out in the West, they grow petunias,
Chrysanthemums and roses red.

Well, that's something, I thought. Then another chunk appeared. And another. And then the chorus. Within five minutes, I had the entire song in my head. Furthermore, I knew what story it was a part of: It would be the first song in a musical that told the story of the range war between the cattle men and the flower growers.

I wasn't in the car more than 30 seconds before I started pitching the idea to Mike. He loved it. When we got our then-partner's house, we pitched the idea to him. Grudgingly as always, he allowed as it might not be a bad idea. But he did come up with a title: "Plant Your Wagon."