Author Interview: Ryan O’Neil
This month, we’re featuring interviews with a few Long Island, NY based writers. These authors work in different genres and their writing voices are as diverse as their backgrounds. The first is with Ryan O’Neil. Not the bad-boy actor, but the Information Tech geek extraordinaire, writer and author. Ryan’s first book is a very popular YA title, Plain, Old Kirby Carson, published in March of 2011 by Auriferous Books. A recent review read: “I really liked Kirby a lot. I think if he went to my school, he and I would be good friends. I would recommend this book to all my friends, and I think people who enjoyed Diary of a Wimpy Kid would really like it. ” Sounds like a rave to me! We caught up with Ryan one rainy afternoon…
Fiction from IT? Now there’s a switch. What in your background led you to fiction?
Lucky for me I don’t have to rely on my current profession for the basis of my ideas. Unless you are an IT geek, then hard drives and RAM slots just don’t appeal to you. I’ve always had a vivid imagination and I’ve always enjoyed bringing those fun and exciting thoughts to life on paper. The ability to share those stories is just icing on the cake. Mmmmmmm, cake.
YA sometimes gives a writer an opportunity to work out his childhood issues. How did you settle into YA. Plain Old Kirby Carson reminds me of myself when I was in HS.
I dug it out and posted some of it on a blog that I was writing at the time. It was totally mocking myself and I hoped my readers would get a kick out of it. They enjoyed it and much to my surprise wanted to know more about Kirby. So I started posting bits and pieces of Kirby’s story. At the end I took those blogs posts, fine tuned them, and wrote a book. So I guess you could say that writing Young Adult kind of settled on me.Laughter can be the very best cure-all. Which comedy writers have influenced your work?
The current generation – any hope? You’ve got two kids – how do you see their future unfolding?
Are there aspects of suburban LI culture that can serve up a writer’s inspiration?
Assuming you can find slices of time between day job and family, what fiction are you working on right now?
Short story included in Anthology…
My short story Postings, has been published in the Literary Underground Anthology: Time. It is available online from Smashwords in a variety of formats.
Postings is an urban exploration of how all our modern, digital interconnections may actually conspire against us. The anthology is filled with a selection of some of the best writing published today. Get your copy now.
In other writing related matters, I’m continuing to work on my novel set in prehistoric times in Northern Europe, and am now about 1/3 of the way towards completion
I also have two other books being read by publishers. One, a novella-length scifi story that pieces together a series of scraps of personal journals from an enduring group of human colonists who find their destination may actually be no better than the war-scorched Earth they have left. They discover their new neighbors are not all sweetness and light, and only the flimsiest idea may save them from another Final Solution
I also have a tenuously connected modern day continuation of the Red Gate stories which takes place in New Mexico as a disenfranchised son of Santa Fe returns to his home to confront personal tragedy and figure out how it connects with his sorry excuse for a life.
Neither book has undergone final editing, and the titles will be set by the publishers, so I can’t really even confidently tell you those. I will when I know.
I am also beginning notes and outlines for a new novel that concerns two very unlikely but closely linked, US cities and the families whose bloodlines run in both places. It begins with a death and ends with a wedding, but more than that I can’t say… yet.
One Nation or Two?
The blogosphere is rife today, with opinions being batted back and forth like so many ping-pong balls. The noise is deafening. One of the primary reasons are the recent comments and leaks of information coming from the Administration when it comes to Same-Sex Marriage. The President has found some reason why he needs to sit on the fence. I don’t think this is any time for fence sitting.
Now, I don’t even care that the most recent Gallup poll found 50% of Americans polled, favor single sex marriage being included in official definitions of what marriage constitutes. For me, it is not about a majority opinion. This is about a real threat to the Union. Possibly the biggest threat since the abolition of slavery.
As NC became the thirtieth state to legalize discrimination on what are clearly religious grounds, we see the stage set for two nations out of one. America may well become split. Along one border, the constitutional nation of free Americans that has been protected and nurtured since we threw out the British and their supporters. On the other side, a God-Fearing, Bible Believing nation with a constitution that is overshadowed by mob rule, religious fervor and emotional responses to vaporous, perceived threats. Not a place I would ever have a reason to visit.
I’ve read lots of calls for the “proponents” of same sex marriage, to increase pressure upon the legislators, but the one call to arms I don’t hear is the one that really matters. The call to return to the constitution and its guarantees of religious freedom, freedom of speech and equal protection under the law. If our laws only provide protection for some of us, even most of us, but not others; then the constitution is dead, and the rule of law is a sham.
I have even read faux-scholarly discourse over what the founders’ idea of the separation of church and state really meant. It is simple. They intended that religion be kept out of government. That includes the way laws are written and enforced. That includes the way that government protects the rights of citizens equally, not just for those deemed “righteous”. If religious opinion is allowed to intrude into government, no legal protection will be complete, or safe. Equality will vanish. Take a look at Iran. Does that seem like a nice place to raise your kids?
Notice I didn’t say morality. If there is no moral thinking in government, then it all goes into the toilet as well, but there is a clear difference between universal morality which supports human freedom and equality and that which is rigidly derived from ancient texts applied as dogma. One is inclusive, the other restrictive.
America’s politics have become more and more partisan and polarized since the religious right decided they were to become a political force. All they way back to the Prohibition Movement, we’ve seen what happens when religious fervor dictates to legislators. Now, we stand as a nation divided along so many lines it’s hard to find a single clear issue, but I believe this is the one. If individual States are allowed, under our federal judiciary, to legalize discrimination against any class of citizens, Federal Law has failed. We may as well revert to a collection of individual states. See how well it’s worked for Europe?
So, if I issue a call today, it will be to those who have sacrificed and fought to protect the constitution of the United States and those for whom equal treatment under the law is worth saving. It’s time to let those who think they can control other people’s lives by virtue of their self-anointed righteousness know that Americans will not tolerate this destruction of our values and our honor. Dishonorable treatment of any other human being, even when cloaked in the glory of faith, remains dishonor. Jesus, according to the scriptures, detested self-righteous hipocrits. Time for Americans to “man-up” and stand up for what is truly right.
Trolling for Trash…
This rant was first posted on the writer’s site Litopia: www.Litopia.com, where I’ve been known to post and comment with some frequency…
I’ve just today been on the receiving end of a flaming group of posts on an Amazon forum. I know, I know… why was I even there? The forum was one set up for discussion of a specific author’s work – a long series, and the critiquing thereof. Like a complete neophyte, I read lots of insulting attacks heaped upon the author by people who obviously enjoyed the work enough to finish the series, to date, so I made the mistake of asking, “ whaddup with the insults?”
I was put in my place in no uncertain terms by the designated person in control, including a few personal slights as well. My question, however still stands. Why on Earth is it a necessary… even sought-after pastime to bad-mouth authors? I’m not always satisfied with what I read for pleasure. Even authors I respect and enjoy are subject to missteps. Writing stories is an ancient, human art. It isn’t ever a sure-thing, anymore than any part of life is. But it remains after the initial labor as the results of work and conscious thought. Those points alone give it some value.
I “get” trolling. I suppose the rush of excitement, putting one’s carefully constructed traps along a well-worn pathway is just incredibly rewarding, especially if there are no rewards coming from any other endeavors the troll is engaged in. I understand the thrill of the intellectual coup – counted against an opponent who is possibly respected by their peers. I think I understand the need to raise oneself above the seething masses, if only for a glimmering second. But understanding where it comes from doesn’t excuse it.
It reminds me of the nautical activity that gives its name to the unfortunate online behavior of more than just a few. Dragging a set of hooks through the water to see what comes up when you pull in the line can be messy work. I remember one morning, weighing our anchor in a popular anchorage off Martha’s Vineyard. It had been a quiet, beautiful night. Lots of stars, but a bit of a breeze. Bringing in an anchor that’s been buried in the bottom for eight hours or more is hard work. When I brought this one up, the last few ratchets of my windlass handle, along with the usual eel grass and stinky black mud, there was something wrapped around the anchor shank. A used condom. Nice. Who’d want to do this as a pastime?
Trolling the web in search of cast-off opinion to be cultivated into flaming turds just seems pointless in the long run. It wastes time. It muddies the water. It raises a noxious stink. I can understand bringing all the intellectual guns into battle, when it comes to the predations of multi-national corporate devastation, or hurtful, stupid government actions… but writing a novel?
There must be some kind of vicarious thrill in the dissection of an author’s work that I have missed over the years. One of the things I have noticed, from the time I was a kid, is how actors and artists tend to bristle when the interview turns away from the actual work and into their personal lives. As if, in their own thinking, the stupid steps and stumbles and discomforts are more important than the labor and the result.
Oddly enough, when I read a story that really holds me, I don’t usually think about the writer at all, unless the author’s voice intrudes. That’s one voice I really don’t want to hear when I’m immersed in fiction. When the story is ended, and I reflect over what I’ve read, enough to form an opinion of it, any conclusions I draw are about the work… the story. Not the author. The author, aside from my thanks, for their trouble, remains an almost invisible essence, not someone I want to immediately TARGET for my own entertainment.
I don’t like preaching in any form, so when I spend time online and see that preaching from empty pulpits has become all the rage, even venerated by cadres of sycophants, it makes me want to log off instantly. But that doesn’t satisfy my desire to discuss – back and forth – the designated topic. So sometimes, I wade in. I should really know better.
Unfortunately, the concept of polite conversation — as dated as it has become now in the new dawn of constant, endless debate – is something I miss acutely. The web is rapidly becoming the realm of shouting matches and overbearing, high-decibel battles. The sound alone makes it hard to discuss anything with any nuance or subtlety to it. I hope that the children eventually will tire of it, and find something else to do with all the time on their hands. Maybe even contribute in some meaningful way.
####
This month, I’m very pleased to post my discussion with author Tahlia Newland, whose site, Awesome Indies, came to me as a referral from an author I respect. He said it did exactly what it was supposed to do, and was full of great material: tools for writers. After I had a chance to browse it, I had to agree, plus, it is full of great material for readers, too.
Tahlia is an avid reader, an extremely casual high school teacher & an occasional mask-maker. She reads and writes urban fantasy for adults & young adults and likes to challenge readers to look more closely at the nature of their world, their mind and their perception. After creating and performing in Visual Theatre shows for 20 years, she is now a bonafide expatriate of the performing arts. She lives in an Australian rainforest, is married with a teenage daughter and love cats, but she doesn’t have one because they eat native birds.
Q: Tahlia, your book referral site, Awesome Indies is really unique. How long did the idea of a pre-screened, readers’ site for Indie Books work on you before you developed your idea? Was there a specific situation that inspired you?
There wasn’t a specific situation, more an accumulation of frustration over a couple of years of reading Indie ebooks with a huge difference in quality. To help me sort out the good from the bad, I read reviews, but found that some books with a lot of 5 star reviews by readers were still quite badly written. As a writer, poor craftsmanship makes a book unreadable. So I looked for sites that showcased quality but only found sites that authors paid to be on, the more money you paid the more visible your book. Those sites are no help to anyone wanting recommendations of books that are of a high standard.
On top of that, I came across many people who refused to read or review Indie books because they considered them all bad. That annoyed me, because it clearly wasn’t true, and when I found a really excellent Indie book, I wanted to shout it to the world. Since no one else was doing it, and I had the time, I just woke up one morning and set it up.
Q: What has been the reader reaction to Awesome Indies, once you launched it?
I’ve had a lot of thank-yous and several people have told me that it’s now their reading list, but it is early days, and there are a lot of readers out there who haven’t heard of it yet. All of the people I contacted asking if they could help with reviews were thrilled at the idea, because they’d recognized that something like this was necessary.
I did get some initial flack on Kindleboards from authors who felt threatened by the idea, and some readers were concerned that it could become a case of authors recommending their friends. These discussions helped me define the qualifications for reviewers and to refine the criteria for inclusion.
Q: I can’t imagine how the site would threaten authors. Awesome Indies maintains very high writing standards for the books you include. How did you implement these and find referrals?
I started with books I’d read that were as good as anything I’d read from a traditional publisher, then those authors recommended others. Each time I notify authors of their inclusion, I ask them if they have any recommendations for the site and if they know of anyone who fits the criteria for reviewers. I add their recommendations to the site and check out the reviewers. If they meet the criteria, I put a link to their blog on the Awesome Indies site so that authors know that these are people whose opinion we accept. Authors who wish to submit their book to the site must find a reviewer who fits the criteria and leave a link to the review and to a page that tells me that the reviewer has the required qualifications. I check each submission and if I can’t confirm that the reviewer is ‘qualified’, I don’t add the book.
A couple of our authors can tell you how picky I am about that.
Q: What in your professional background brought you to the publishing industry?
I come from a teaching and performing arts background. My initial writing experience was in script writing and advertising copy for theatre in education, something I did for over twenty years. My real talent was always in my creativity, and I always went where inspiration took me. One day after I’d retired from performing, inspiration gave me a terrific idea for a young adult fantasy novel, so I sat down and started writing. It took me three years full time to learn my craft sufficiently to get an agent, and two years later, I’m still waiting for her to find a publisher to take it. In the meantime, I’ve Indie published a collection of short stories, and I have a novella coming out on the first of June. My short stories have three reviews from qualified reviewers – two gave me five stars and one gave me four – so I’ve earned my place on the site.
Story Collection: A Matter of Perception
Take a journey into a world where the hidden becomes manifest, and the lines between fantasy and reality blur. This collection of imaginative and entertaining stories about ghosts, sirens, light spectrum mages, realm hopping gods, alien monsters and ordinary people will warm your heart and make you smile, shiver, and maybe even wonder about the nature of reality itself. The theme of individual perception as a result of our assumptions, beliefs and emotional experience bind these otherwise diverse stories into a unified whole.
A Matter of Perception Purchase links…
Q: You have a novel of your own, releasing soon, don’t you?
I have a young adult magical realism novella called “Give Me a Break” due out on the 1st of June. Here’s the blurb.
Give Me A Break -- Launches June First!
Sixteen year old Carly wants to write her own life and cast herself as a superhero, but when she stands up to a bully, the story gets out of her control. Dylan, a boy who supports her stand, turns out to be a secret admirer, and Jason, the bully, makes Carly his next victim. While romance blossoms, Dylan struggles with attacking words, an unreliable movie director, a concrete habit that requires smashing, and an unruly Neanderthal. Meanwhile, Carly has to deal with flying hooks, unflushable cowpats, and mean dragons, all while learning superhero magic in an effort to stop Jason’s abuse before Dylan resorts to violence. Will Carly become Laser Lady, earn her wings, and develop magic strong enough to prevent Jason from striking again?
Although ‘Give me a Break’ deals with very real issues, the magical realism style provides a strong fantasy element in the form of extended metaphors that express the characters’ inner experiences. The universality of the themes and unique style makes enjoyable reading for all ages.
Q: How did you move into magical realism fiction writing?
I’m particularly interested in how people manage their minds and how this affects the way they see and experience their world. Essentially, all my writing is about this. My first effort, the novel Lethal Inheritance, which is with my agent, is a cross between urban fantasy and traditional fantasy, but the book has its basis in analogy and metaphor. The fantasy is an external representation of real inner reality, and the fantasy world and the way my main character interacts with it is highly metaphorical.
It was only a short step from there to using extended metaphors when writing about the real world, and that’s magical realism.
My first foray into the magical realism genre came in a short story that used a hole in the ground to represent an emotional difficultly that the main character had to overcome. This story, A Hole in the Pavement, was clearly the readers’ favourite from my short story collection, A Matter of Perception. The overwhelmingly positive response it got and my desire to make my writing more directly relatable to young people’s lives set me in the magical realism direction for Give me a Break.
Q: What suggestions can you offer for new, self-published authors, from your own experience?
- Buy a copy of ‘Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne & Dave King’, read it and apply it to your manuscript.
- Never stop studying the craft of writing.
- Pause before you publish – The main fault I see in self-published works is authors publishing before their manuscript is ready. Put it away for 6 weeks, read lots of books in the same genre, then look at it again.
- Get feedback on the whole manuscript from at least 8 other people. At least three of them should be other writers, or people who know what makes good writing, and the others should be in your target audience, or at least be familiar with the genre. Give them clear guidelines on what to feed back on and encourage them to be very critical. It’s better you get the criticism while you can still fix it, than after it’s published.
- Get someone to edit your work – and not just a proofread. They need to check that you have expressed yourself clearly and not overwritten (another common fault).
- Get a good cover designed.
- Have a realistic marketing and business plan (Google: business plan for authors), so you don’t get lost, overwhelmed or have unrealistic expectations.
####Tahlia, thanks for a really enjoyable and thought provoking interview. Best of luck with your launch in June. Saille readers should watch for Give Me A Break, and of course, ask any questions here, they might still have…
The New Texture of Reading…
The Hopeless Ideal...
Reading fiction or reading newsprint, or reading magazines… for me is a pastime which is not just cerebral. Reading has always been very physical. Seeking the unique isolation it provides has always required first, a search for comfort. If I’m going to spend some time alone, at least it will be comfortable time. The annoyances of a sagging chair, hard log, pointy rock, lumpy mattress or rocky lawn, all create distractions that separate me from my goal: peaceful escape. Oh, and the learning that’s in it.
So this first physical attribute is the avoidance of discomfort and it takes some time to achieve. Of course, when you’re flying coach, and your gritty paperback novel is all that separates you from the passenger who is sleeping slumped upon your shoulder, or whose fat thigh is pushing you hard against the seat post, you’ll fight it and cling desperately to your reading. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes it does.
The second physical attribute, my personal favorite, is the smell of the paper. It’s special. It can run from fresh and newsy, with the ink smell rising agreeably, all the way to dank and musty, when the yellowed pages cling together and you wonder if you’re going to break into a fit of sneezing. Still, the read can survive even that. Part of it is the reassuring “feel” of the book cradled in your hands or laying across your lap. It’s solid. It’s real. It won’t go away without your leave to do so, unlike so much that swirls around us in our modern lives.
The physical side of reading couples perfectly with the words, for me. Soon I’m immersed in a place that I know intimately, while exposing my mind to all manner of things I have no understanding of, or experience with, or belief in. The magic flows from the page into my heart like food from the table over a hungry man’s tongue. From my first novel when I was seven or eight, to the last book I added to my groaning shelves, this is something I know well.
Or did, until Barnes & Noble made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
Yesterday, I called the NY Times to cancel my print subscription of over twenty-five years in favor of an electronic subscription and a free touch-screen Nook eReader. The little, rectangular plastic thing, fit right into my hand, from the moment the packing was removed; but to be honest, it felt like an oversized calculator. It’s not unlike a little computer – but that’s a tool, not a friend. A book has always been a friend to turn to when I need comfort. After many hours of charging it up from my USB port, I try to be excited as I switch it on.
No smell of ink, no rustle of paper. But that display! Those touch controls and instantly gratifying responses! I read two days’ worth of news, devoid of advertising, in one sitting. Then I downloaded a free collection of Tor’s newest SciFi shorts, and read that. Then I downloaded the first book in King’s Dark Tower series… and read it in two sittings. I’m a little embarrassed to be such an easy convert, what with my Old-School style and all, but wait… something’s still missing. The textural thing. The words are flying off the electronic page, but… it still feels like a calculator. Jarring, hard, not compliant and organic at all and this annoyance disturbs the physical side of my reading adventures. What to do?
I buy a simple, inexpensive, grain leather cover/case, which fits the little plastic thing just right. Now, when I open it up, there’s the familiar feel of a fine, old hardbound volume. The smell, too. I hope it gets ratty and stained, so I can continue my illusion seamlessly.
Oh, and did I mention that I’m saving trees?
About a Month Ago…
Copy this image to your desktop and use it in any way you can! Pin it to your lapel or to your own hoodie.
About a month ago, a skinny, teenage American boy walking home through his father’s neighborhood was shot and killed by a vigilante. The boy was black. His killer wasn’t. Justice has not been either swift or even sure.
The media has been tossing this event back and forth while the judicial agencies and law-enforcement decide what to do. Despite lots of dialog and conversation, the fact remains that this killing is going unpunished.
Trayvon was an American. Of course, he is universally identified as a black male teen, which he was, but he was shot and killed, by a man who outweighed him by 100 pounds and wore a gun in plain sight, because he claims the tall skinny kid seemed so intimidating that he had to kill him to protect his own life. His state, Florida — well known for intelligent legislation — seems to be taking the shooter’s side. Against a kid with a bag of Skittles and a can of Iced Tea.
A couple of days ago, President Obama, very eloquently told the nation that his son would look like Trayvon. It really is that simple. Of course, he is a black man, who understands how American racism has compressed the lives of all black males and increased the chance of their death at an early age. We all should get that important point. But there is another, even more salient one. He is a father. All American men need to man-up and realize that Trayvon is our son, too. It can, does and will happen to other young American men as the supply of both intolerance and handguns proliferates unchecked.
Intolerance and misunderstanding, even in an upscale, gated Florida community bred the need for armed vigilante patrols to protect what? Property. Things. The stuff that a teenager’s life is apparently worth. And from what we’ve seen as we crossed the country recently by automobile, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
America is in serious trouble. There is too little intelligence, too little compassion, too little common ground, and too many guns. We all seem to still want to poiint our fingers and say, “That’s ______________’s (fill in your favorite blamee) problem, not mine!”
Members of the heroic NY Legislature (term used with serious derision) recently wore hoodies to show solidarity with Trayvon’s family. Sadly, only the black members took part. The white members, despite representing thousands of black constituents, did not participate. Maybe it was the tired, old spectre of White Liberal Showboating. That fear has kept white liberals isolated from demonstrations and protests when the primary demonstrators were black for as long as I can remember.
Maybe there were situations in the past, where the motivation of white protesters or politicians joining causes identified as “black” might well have been suspect. I believe those days are past. Today, if you are an American male with a son, this is your issue, too. C’mon! Man-up! Trayvon was America’s son, and his killing is everyone’s problem. If justice is denied to black youths, or black men, or black mothers who have lost a child to racism, it is denied to all of us.
My wife and I will not be returning to Florida until they fix their laws to provide for equal protection under the law, not Wild-West justice dictated through the barrel of a gun. It reminds me of Chairman Mao’s venerable quotation from the little red book. “Political power grows from the barrel of a gun.” In America today, it seems to, or from the industrial lobbies who sell them. It doesn’t have to. We can make a difference if we all stand together.
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For more on this, visit the March 26th NY Times articles:
A Mother’s Grace and Grieving by Charles M. Blow
Lobbyists, Guns and Money by Paul Krugman
These are important comments on just how bad it really is right now. I hope we can find some courage to fix this. If there are ANY demonstrations planned for your community, take part in them, no matter what color or ethnicity you are identified with. This belongs to all of us!
We asked author Whitley Strieber to comment on the threat to booksellers that has come down the pike in the form of the eBoo0k revolution. Rather than settle for waiting until the dust settles and then taking whatever we can get, he advises that authors take a proactive position. One that will help secure future incomes for all writers.
Author Whitley Strieber
The book business is under an extraordinary threat from digital publishing, and with it the lives and livelihoods of authors. Marketing studies show that bookstore browsing leads to more sales than online shopping, and bookstore browsers are much more likely to discover new books and new authors than online buyers.
If the book trade collapses, writing will cease to be a livelihood and become a hobby, and new authors will be devastated because their work will not be nearly as discoverable online as it is in stores.
So far, publishers have reacted to the threat of ebooks by imposing the agency model on pricing, which means that they, rather than the ebook sellers, get to mark the price point. This was done because Amazon, in order to attempt to dominate the field, was willing to lose money on sales in order to acquire customers.
There is another way to save the book trade. It depends not on publishers and pricing but on us authors and how we demand that our contracts be written. Right now, publishers are publishing ebook and hardcover editions at the same time. While hardcover sales are holding up, we cannot count on this forever. We need to place in our contracts clauses that forbid ebook publication until some time after hardcover publication. Right now, paperbacks are published a year after hardcovers. We should add a clause saying that ebooks may not be published until six months after hardcover editions.
This needs to become an industry standard, or we are going to end up without an industry, and not only our lives, but the culture that our work supports, are going to take a devastating blow.
Whitley Strieber
Best Selling Author Whitley Strieber is best known for his meticulously researched work in UFO-logy non-fiction, including Communion: A True Story about his own ordeal and apparent abduction. A very prolific writer and tireless researcher, he maintains a very informative website at www.unknowncountry.com which poses some very unsettling questions and provides equally thought provoking research into the eternal question of whether we are alone in the universe.
In 1987 writer Whitley Strieber exposed the world to a new vision of the close encounter experience in his landmark memoir, Communion. For the first time in years, Strieber revisits his encounter with these unknown intelligences–but now dramatically wides his search to explore how the visitors connect with today’s reports of anomalous phenomena such as crop circles, cattle mutilations, UFO sightings, alien abductions and much more.
Experimental Short Story: Overheard
This is an attempt at a dialog-only short. It is based upon an actual conversation aboard the New Orleans St. Charles Streetcar Line last September. Let me know what you think…
Overheard: A Streetcar Ride to Canal
By Richard Sutton
©2012, All Rights Reserved by the Author
“I can’t really hear you… all the noise.”
“What?”
“The noise… I’ll shout. Where are you from?”
“Oh! That’s better. The Streetcar sure isn’t quiet is it? I’m from Las Vegas… You?”
“We’re just down from New York. Enjoying yourself?”
“What?”
“ENJOYING YOURSELF?”
“Oh, sure. This is one fun town.”
“Hold on… (aside) Should I give my seat to that older woman?”
“Go ahead. Oh, she’s got one. Somebody got up.”
“OK. That’s good. The car’s swaying so much I’m not sure if I could stand anyway.”
“Weighing?”
“Swaying. The tracks are pretty rough!”
“They are! So are the cars!”
“The buzzer is really loud, too. We’re coming to a stop… there, that’s better.”
“Yeah. While these folks get on, let me tell you a story I heard at a bar in the Quarter. There was this guy who wasn’t feeling too well after a night of fun in the Quarter, and his wife became alarmed when he started vomiting non-stop.”
“Was he on the street?”
“Nope, he was back at their hotel. She called 911. He was vomiting bright red, and she thought it was blood.”
“Hold on a minute… there, that’s better. So what happened?”
“The 911 dispatcher asked her if her husband had been drinking, and she said he had. Then the dispatcher asked if it had been Hurricanes – you know that one?”
“Sure. That’s the one with all the rum that tastes like cherry soda?
“Exactly. So the woman asks the dispatcher how she knew, and the dispatcher tells her…”
“What?”
“Sorry… CHERRY KOOL-AID!”
“Oh! That’s right, they’re red! I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Gotta try one, though… you wouldn’t take a trip to New York and not eat a bagel with lox would you?”
“New York Stocks?”
“Nevermind. What brought you down?”
“Always wanted to visit. The Music. The Food.”
“Me, too. Town’s full of stuff to do. I’m heading to the casino, myself.”
“Casino? Wouldn’t you get that out of your system living in Vegas?”
“Oh, that’s different. Here, it’s just for fun anyway. Do you know which stop to get off at?”
“Stop?”
“Yeah. FOR THE CASINO.”
“I think… Canal Street. You’ll have to walk three or four blocks towards the river.”
“I think I can manage that. If I survive this streetcar ride.”
“Right. Holo on, someone’s trying to get off…”
“What’s that noise?”
“Didn’t you see the tattooed woman get on? The one with the two tone hairdo?”
“Oh, her. She’s screaming like a drunk sailor!”
Laughing, “Drunk…something, that’s for sure. Jesus. I’m glad there aren’t any kids on this ride… wait a minute…”
“Can you see what’s going on?”
“She’s fighting with some guy… yeah, she’s punching him. He’s got a cell-phone stuck to his head…”
“What?”
“She’s punching some guy. Wait… shes’ got a KNIFE!”
“A knife?”
“She’s cut the guy! Jesus, he’s holding his arm and trying to talk on the cell-phone at the same time. He’s bleeding”
“God, the noise!”
“I think he’s ok. He’s pushing through. He’s coming up here… he’s bleeding.”
“SHE STABBED ME! STOP THE STREETCAR!”
“Hang on. I guess the brakes work… there.”
“What did she say?”
“I won’t repeat it, but she just pushed out the back doors. There she goes.”
“The driver wasn’t much help, but look, the guy’s got a crowd around him out there…”
“He didn’t look like it was very bad. I wonder what he said to piss her off, anyway?”
“Hang on… what?”
“I wonder what he said to her to get himself cussed and cut?”
“She looked like anything could set her off. I guess it did.”
“Oh well, just another exciting ride on the St. Charles Line!”
“What?”
“JUST ANOTHER EXCITING RIDE ON THE … Oh, sorry… Saint Charles Line.”
“They don’t look too happy with that comment, do they?”
“Nope. See ya ‘round. This is my stop, I think. Canal?”
“Right, Canal Street. In one piece. Good luck. Oh, have fun, too!”
“That’s not an issue. You watch out for tattooed ladies with an attitude!”
“Tattooed… what?”
####
Shells in the Mud…
It’s bad enough that for the past ten thousand years or so, we’ve gathered around those who think they have it figured out. We rush to absorb their knowledge and ask questions much later. The search for truth and harmony has always been a condition of human striving, but in the last few ticks of the cosmic clock, a very few humans have decided that the Creator, named : _____________________(Fill in the blank with your favorite) has spoken/revealed/indicated through ____________________________(fill in again, according to your tradition) the steps required to lead a happy life and __________________________________(fill in the prescribed promise) when you die. Their realization always seems to relieve the rest of us from having to find it/think about it/observe it on their own. I guess we are basically a lazy species as in “Why should I bother? Someone else has already covered that ground.”
Ammonite fossils in what was once the seafloor in what is now Morocco.
The really terrible thing is that for all those years, as a whole, we’d rather swallow someone else’s ideas whole than find our own truth from observing the fact of life in creation. Especially if some leader/prophet/incarnation had the business sense to write it all down. Agreement is not a bad thing, but when your agreement removes your conscious mind from the equation, clouds your eyes, and/or stops your ears, then it no longer serves the greater truth.
If human beings were completely different from every other form of life on the planet, we would probably all be simple clones, but we’re not. Just like every other living organism, we’re all different. We’re different sizes, we’re different genders, we’re different colors. We speak different languages, we eat different food, we dress in different garments, we pursue different ways of making a living. We create, we act, we think. Unless those activities are somehow not prescribed by someone else who wrote down a set of rules thousands of years before. Then we pretend. Sometimes it serves the common good and sometimes it doesn’t. If we paid attention, we might wonder why we are so willing and quick to suspend decency in the name of some written “truth”. Seems kind of destructive to me.
A long, long time ago, after the ice melted, we had to scramble for food and shelter. We got by on our wits and on what we learned from observation. No books. No religious doctrine. No wars. We might have had to resort to violence from time to time for self-preservation, but we didn’t go around deciding who was to be allowed to live and who was not. Survival was hard enough and took enough lives in the process that we didn’t see any point to taking more. Then we got educated, civilized and indoctrinated. That gave us leave to become venal, conniving, aggressive, cold-hearted, stubborn and all those other things that our great religious truths tell us are wrong, yet reinforce in our behavior every single day.
Let me put it simply. To divide or
Ammonite fossils in what was once the seafloor in what is now Morocco.
judge other human being as unworthy because of something you read or heard from someone who told you so, is inhuman. It flies in the face of life. It eschews the truths of creation, and it overturns the balance and harmony established for all living things by whatever force set it all into motion.
Another trick we humans like to play is hang names on everything. Once we have it named, then we understand it utterly, by our way of thinking. So we name all the plants and animals and particles of energy and matter down to the meson-sized and since we’ve named it, we know how it works. Well, finding a framework for our earth and all that lives on it is an admirable thing if it reinforces our interdependence and the sanctity of the spark of life. But unfortunately, from theologians to scientists, it is used as proof of ownership. As if we actually had more rights than any other living creation. Our hubris as a species knows no bounds, especially if some text gives us the right. The truth is, we’re tenants here. The landlord may not visit so regularly we know him/she/it by sight or even a common name, but that is not part of our job description. Knowing the why of it isn’t useful to prolong or preserve life. It is only useful to someone who wishes to set himself or herself or them above those other ones. As if they could actually figure it out, anyway.
Let us call the landlord God. So many already do. The real question is why, at our stage of growth, at our clearly limited level of intellect, do we persist in the belief that we can conceive what God has in mind. It’s just not possible, beyond seeing signs of God by observing creation itself. We are able to observe, but so often the collected wisdom of observation becomes the doctrine of religion. Once that happens, it becomes separate from that which it was based upon. It becomes ritualized thought created by humans, with all their above mentioned flaws. In other words, we’re not up to the landlord’s job. We’ve got our work, and the landlord has his/hers/its.
Now every day, we hear some figure of moral stature or another, from those who lead millions, to those only looking to qualify themselves as resources for the media; pronounce how some human behavior or another is at the root of all that is wrong and destructive. Today it may be an actor who is afraid of homosexuality. Tomorrow it may be the spiritual leader of a major religion telling his followers who it is acceptable to kill, even in a cowardly manner. In every case, the media pounce upon it, send the person’s opinion out to everyone and thereby, give it credence. Thinking adults will repeat it until it is spoken as truth even when a child can see that it is crazy, flawed thinking.
We need to reclaim our powers of observation. We need to sharpen our wits. We need to do better, or we won’t. It’s really that simple.
The floor of the sea is littered with the cast-off shells of dead crustaceans, corals and mollusks. The number are as high as the numbers of stars. They all built things, too. Pretty things, many of them. Then they died. If they weren’t efficient and good at reproducing, they disappeared, leaving only their shells behind. The thing is, there are lots of shells down there, and nobody except hermit crabs and some small fish really care all that much. If we can’t stop clinging to foolishness that leads us to despoil both the table we eat upon, the bed we sleep in, while killing off our neighbors; all our grand cities, technology and works of art will end up sinking into the mud like a few more shells. Maybe someday, some other living thing will pick one up and wonder at the intricacy and color scheme. Or not.
