Followers

I've been remiss in posts for the past few weeks due to work and being ill.  I usually try to post on Sunday at least, perhaps just out of habit.  According to blogger, I only have one follower thus far.  I don't expect to have a ton of people following me at once, especially since this blog is very new, but I wonder how it is one collects a following with a blog.  I look around at other blogs and people seem to have at least ten or so people following them.  How do these people find the blog?  Is it chance?  Is there a connection somewhere that I miss?  I don't know.  I would like to hope that people read my writing and get something out of it, that people read me because I write something of substance.

I suppose many people who write in blogs start to do so due to the movie "Julie and Julia."  This book, about a woman who blogs about trying every recipe in the Julia child cookbook, is an example of how blogging can help an aspiring writer to market themselves.  Julia didn't have success straight off.  One of her first followers was her mother who commented something like "I don't know about this whole blogging thing."  My parents don't blog, so I don't have them as followers, but I do share my writings whenever I can.

I want to know what the trick to success is here.  Of course I don't expect Julie's success.  Maybe my aspirations are too humble, but I would like to hope that I am reaching someone out there.  If I am I would like to know any suggestions for marketing myself to more readers, please leave comments.  I would like to see what people think.

An Evening in Cannery Row

John Steinbeck begins his book, Cannery Row, with one of the most unique descriptions in modern literature.  He says:  


"Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses, and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches,' by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing."  (Cannery Row, page 1.)

The context and plot of the book is a fairly simple one, yet so uniquely profound as all Steinbeck literature tends to be.  John had a knack for catching the gritty realism of 1930's California, specifically Monterey and Salinas areas respectively.  Being from these areas he knew them well, but it was due to his relationship with the legendary "Doc" Ricketts that Steinbeck probably became such a deeply intriguing writer.  Ricketts was a brilliant scientist to whom we may thank for pioneering the Monterey Marine Sanctuary and many other Marine Biological discoveries.  He probably introduced Steinbeck to the strange assortment of individuals mentioned above.  


Ricketts encouraged Steinbeck to look deeper into the human condition, an ability "Doc" is known to have possessed both in reality and in his many reincarnations in Steinbeck mythology.  You can find at least one character based on Doc in every Steinbeck book, though Cannery Row probably has the closest incarnation to the real man.  


Decades later, after the death of both men, Steinbeck's fictional depression era description of Cannery Row could be as accurate to the modern city.  Sure, the canneries are gone, replaced by huge gaudy monstrosities of hotels.    There are still scattered weedy lots, strange little "flop houses" atop more expensive restaurants and cliche California Chic stores.  The hum and bustle of life here, however, hasn't stopped.  Indeed, I would venture a guess that if not for the buildings, Steinbeck might feel right at home in the hustle and bustle of life here.  The denizens of the row in that era were working men, not tourists ready and raring to spend their hard earned cash, but there are stories here ready to be told. 


The reason I bring all of this up, of course, is that I love Steinbeck and I love Cannery Row.  I attended college up in Monterey and I always was fascinated that the majority of the book takes place in the immediate two block area of the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  Doc's lab still sits there, an unimposing little wooden house wedged between a huge hotel and the famous fish sanctuary.   When I lived up here I would come here often, hoping perhaps that some of Steinbeck might rub off on me.  Alas it probably never did, but the mythos of the place still retains a lot of its original splendor.  I once commented, of course, that I miss the old row.  There used to be more empty spaces where you could see the ocean.  It was more run down...more true to the story.   Now, well, if you've been there its a man made canyon.    


In any case, we've come up here for my mother's birthday and by luck we managed to get a set of rooms at the Spindrift Inn right on the older part of the row.  Here there are still lots, still places wide open and rugged, tugging at my nostalgic heartstrings.  


Sitting in my room, with a window open on the row this evening, I listen to the quiet hum of the row.  I start to hear the gentle grating nose of cars passing by, the soft swish of the ocean passing over the sandy beach.  There is the smell of the ocean, of fish, birds, people.  Far across the horizon the fading light casts a strange shadow over the buildings and the bay.  The larger crowds have left and the jazz bands in the cafe's have just begun to play.  This is the true essence of Cannery Row, the time between evening and dawn.  A time when life is simpler, a poem waiting to be written by those ready to be like Steinbeck and Ricketts.  They speak if you listen, whispering so softly.


"Get out into that grating noise, that stink and way of life, that dream, beyond the reality of the Modern Row.  The ghosts of that time still wait to be discovered."

Jobs and Searching

Lately I have felt a little disillusioned with my line of work.  Not that I hate it, but I've been in my position for five years and I guess I've grown tired.  I do the same thing just about every day, and the lack of mobility sometimes troubles me.

Of course, I am very glad to even have a job at all.  Most people my age cannot say the same, especially locally.  I think about opportunities a lot, seeing what is out there, but it is so easy to think that maybe I cannot do something.  I spoke to my mother at length recently and she thinks I should look at parks, as in rangers etc.  This has a certain appeal.  I always love the idea of being out of doors, leading nature walks, and explaining things.  I always love to learn and share what I learn with others.

I even thought about going back to college for a time to learn Political Science, but then I remembered my own college experiences.  The thought of siting in political classes listening to the politics of teachers has no appeal.  I usually disagreed with the political motivations of my teachers long ago but I usually stayed quiet so I wouldn't potentially fail a course.  Still I have a lot of dreams lately where I'm back in college, probably because it seems like an easier time with less responsibilities, more free time and fun.  Easy to look back in time with rose colored glasses, especially since it was never easy.

So I am left with myself and my job.  At least I have the security, and I have time for my writing.  Thats all I need.  I just hope that maybe one day I can do more with my talents and abilities, a job that applies to what I love.

On Japan

I was going to write this on Sunday, March 13 but given my internet troubles I never had the chance.  I had many more ideas that since have fled, but I'll do my best.  Here goes.

There are so many words to describe the crisis in Japan:  overwhelming, astounding, tragic, heartbreaking just to name a few.  The pictures of the waters coming in, of the faces of people, of devastation ... I can't imagine it.  The whole ordeal sounds like some bad dream.  Part of me hopes to wake up and find that it's some sort of nightmare.  I am an ocean away, but I'm living it every night on the news, in the day on the radio at work, and in my own heart.

See, I love Japan, Japanese culture and history.  I have since I was a little guy who had a Japanese friend back in elementary school.  I remember going over to their house and trying seaweed for the first time and being hooked on everything Japanese from then on.  This is not to say I am an expert or an "Otaku" as another term in the popular culture is applied to extreme lovers of all things Japan.

I always wanted to go to Japan myself.  I was planning to in May, but of course that plan was canceled.  I honestly don't know if I will ever get to go.  I can only hope.  The Japanese people are a fine, tenacious bunch, and I can only hope that things will work out for the best, especially with the nuclear situation at the Fukushima plant.  That whole situation raises a different set of concerns that don't need to be mentioned here.

My current project, one book that seems to have blossomed into three, is a result of my love of all things Japan.

The story itself is a simple premise.  A young man goes to Japan to teach English.  He falls in love with his translator and ends up in a more interesting situation than he originally imagined when another outside party falls in love with him.  This may seem like simple love story, but when the outside party is a mischevious Japanese spirit things change dramatically.  At the moment I am struggling with some very terrible writer's block in the second part of my story (the second "book").  I seem to get that a lot recently what with working back to back shifts constantly, I have no time to really rest and get my brain back.

This story is one I almost took myself.  Before I started my current job, I toyed with the idea of going to Japan for a while to teach, learn the culture and get first hand experience in this mysterious land which I have so longed to go.  Now, considering what I hear about foreign workers fleeing Japan, I am somewhat glad I didn't go.  I also wonder about the future of my story as much as I do about Japan's.  I pray for the people there and that whatever god or gods watch over them that they deliver them from this disaster to a brighter horizon.

Charter Communications Gaff

My internet went out last Sunday and technicians didn't arrive until Tuesday. I  was informed that the internet would be up the next day.  No such luck.  Apparently they forgot to tell the company, so now I have to wait until this coming Monday.  So I've had 8 days without any ability to do much.  Oh well, so it goes.

That Ultimate Question

Recently my Uncle Dale passed away.  He was some eighty-five years young, and he left behind my Aunt Kay who is perhaps one of the sweetest and kindest women one could ever hope to know.  Dale had been suffering from Alzheimer's for a long time, and he and Kay had moved from their home in Texas.  It's a very sad thing, and I cannot say I know either of them well.  We attended their 50th wedding anniversary long ago, and I don't remember much about them.  It wasn't until recently that they came back into my family's lives.  Given Dale's condition, my mother sent Kay a copy of Aboard the Phantom Express.  Given the book's subject, and her own situation, I was nervous about how she would receive it.

Kay was remarkable.  She read the book cover to cover and loved it. She shared it with her friends and book club.  She could have been my agent to several publishers for her enthusiasm. It was her comment about it that stunned me the most.  She said that after reading it, she had a sense of resolution, a sense of letting go of Dale.  Even though he had not passed, his mental facilities and all else were long gone, even though he himself remained.  Still, as anyone who deals with Alzheimers can tell you, this is not living...but I won't go into Alzheimers this time.  Kay read this book as I originally intended it, as a way of dealing with that ultimate finality of death.

It's strange to look back on my first years writing this book.  I was very young when my grandfather (on my mother's side) died, and although I remember very little about him, I remember clearly the emotions of the time when I was told.  I was traumatized.  Up until that point, I knew nothing about death or its existence.  The concept that my grandfather was gone and not coming back just didn't register.  I remember curling into a ball on or under my bed and crying very hard for a long time.  To this day I think on the time and shudder.  All told, I lost a lot of loved ones young.  Each of us in our own time is bound to. 

Over the years, coping with death is a constant struggle.   We all know we will one day cease to be, and I suppose the thought of a ceasing of consciousness is especially hard for me. The dark, unknown void frightens all of us.  It twists in my brain sometimes like a terrible snake, or it wrenches at my heart for a few minutes, then it passes. 

It's funny that I started writing out of self preservation.  I thought if I wrote, some part of me would remain.  I would remain alive in some sense in others' imaginations.  I wrote and found I loved writing but still the lack of resolution remained.  Then I stumbled on the Phantom Train and I thought, "what a perfect way to explore my phobia ... that ultimate question that nags everyone.  'What is on the other side?  How do I get there?'"  I started to write so that I could find that resolution, so that I might find peace.

It's been fifteen years of constant rewrites, of toying with different thoughts and ideas and still this book is an unfinished or rather unpublished work.  Sure, I had self published it, but somehow the lack of widespread diversity hampered what I felt was the true spark in it.  When I got the letter from Kay, I finally felt like I had accomplished what I set out to do. 

A few weeks later I showed it to my boss, and in reading it she started to cry.  She'd lost her aunt very young, and reading the book she got a sense of the same resolution.  In the end, this is a children's story, and kids love the adventure and mystery of the train.  Ultimately, however, it's adults who have come to grasp the story's true meaning and purpose.

I don't have an answer myself to that ultimate question.  I don't know if anyone has or ever will.  One day we all must take that journey, like it or not.  If we are lucky, a part of us will remain in those around us, in the works we have done for others.  I suppose it is there where part of the answer to the ultimate question lies.  In life, and death, there is always love.

Oscar Night

Well it's the one year a night where many of us will sit down and undertake one of the most grueling tasks to curse the TV viewer.  I of course refer to the Oscars, the only night in TV when you have five minutes of programming followed by five minutes of commercials for about one and a half hours.  This was ridiculous.  I apologize, but I was just astonished at how often we cut to commercial.  Obviously the Academy is short of money for all that they spent putting this on at the Kodak this year, because we had so many commercial breaks.

Overall, this was a bad year for movies.   Sitting in previews, my parents and I make a habit of turning to one another when we see a really bad looking film and saying, "Miss that one." We said that a lot this year.  It's kind of like picking wine.  I don't drink the stuff but I know there are good and bad years.  In the end though, I had two top picks that are the best vintage of 2010.  Its always so interesting to see the nominations for short films, documentaries and things we really rarely see in the main stream culture.  There are movies featured here I've only seen listed at the local Palm Theater, an establishment to itself for independent films in San Luis Obispo.  I think Hollywood needs to wake up and make more films like these.  Hopefully this year will be a better vintage for Hollywood gold and the 2011 Oscars will be far more sweet to my viewing pleasure.

Thank you to Hollywood.  You stood and delivered the Best Picture to a film that truly deserved it.  The King's Speech was the only good movie I saw this year, and this was a black year for films.  This movie is what movies should be: heartwarming, emotion tugging, true story mixed with fiction that's written well and paced superbly.  Its a grown up movie, no doubt about it.  It didn't have flashy effects like so many of the top billed movies.  I don't think the lack of effects detracted at all, in fact, it was refreshing to say the least.

As a person who has suffered from a learning disability, I know what tremendous courage it takes to face that disability and look it in the eye.  Watching this, I had to cringe to think that people treated another person as awfully as they did to George VI.  It was heartbreaking, especially having dealt with people in past and present who do not understand my own learning difficulties.  No one would want to go through what this man undertook.  Bravo to Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and all the rest.  I hope this film can be a reminder to anyone with any disability that they can overcome it.