Magic Words

Staring at a blank page… it’s begging to be filled. Words and punctuation are only symbols. They mean nothing until they’re translated into something more. Not just another code – spoken words… or sounds - but into pure energy. Words are transformed by decomposition, decompression and decoding into flows of energy manifested in thoughts and ideas. Feelings and emotions can be created as well, as the never-ending cycle of energy transformation continues.

Backwards as forwards, energy flowing from thought into word is transferred into stored energy. Spoken words, or symbols of sounds, may be transmitted to one, to thousands, to millions. Indeed, this energy storage and transmission is not “renewable,” it’s inexhaustible. As the symbols and codes exist, so too does the power – readily available to be converted again. And again. The collected wisdom of mankind is available and ready; be it via known languages or long forgotten tongues, the energy is there, waiting to be released.

With the new age of technology and the pace of development in today’s world, the accumulated energy is so great that no one person is able to release it all. But imagine if one could… to have all that collected wisdom – the discoveries, the inventions, the creations – it boggles the mind. However, what if... what if technology could release that power? What if the power in those words and works were available, in an instant, to all who sought it? Could it be that the questions of all time, the riddles and the puzzles are already solved if one only had all the known information?

I have often wondered about magic. Fairytale magic, witchcraft, sorcery, incantations, natural, spiritual, scientific or physical – I don’t care – just magic. Why? To get “there” faster? Yes, there was once a time. To solve unsolvable problems? Sure, mine as well as yours. To make the world a better place? I’m not sure even magic alone could do that. To accomplish the impossible? To travel to the ends of the universe or… to travel to another one? Would magic be able to produce answers? Could it be an aide to finding the solution, or would it render the solution moot?

So, I have come to some conclusions that are, of course, subject to change without notice. First, there is no “Harry Potter,” magic wand brand of magic. That leads to several other conclusions that are similar regarding witches, warlocks, vampires, alchemy and a host of the other “classical” views of magic. I could be wrong, but the evidence as I see it is overwhelmingly lacking. However, the term “magic” is subject to interpretation and with a sufficiently accommodating definition, magic is very real indeed. It operates continually and forever. It cannot be extinguished or exhausted.

It is pure power. The energy that goes into and flows from words, coded from thought, born of magic. Pure magic. Whether it is defined by the electro-chemical nerve impulses firing from one nerve to next one ad infinitum or the vastness of all we have yet to learn or the miraculous progress we have made in the last ten, 20, 50, 100 years, magic is present. And it all stems from a means of translating the energy from one to another – of conveying the power that we as humans possess alone – the transmission and storage of unlimited, unbridled and unimaginable power.

The Colfax Record

As promised, here are the links to my published work this week. Although this is a defining moment in my career, the fanfare that comes with it is due to the novelty - the achievement of a goal that marks a milestone along this journey. This event - published work - will be repeated every week for at least the next several weeks. Ideally, the quality will be improving as well, but it is only this one time that can be the first. It is for this reason that I am celebrating them so prominently here.

In the coming weeks, one may stop by the Colfax Record’s website to find a number of my published stories – I won’t be announcing them all here. Of course, if there happens to be some news of more universal significance, I may mention it. If I write a column that has more than just local appeal, I may note it. If I write a piece that garners recognition, stirs controversy or is in anyway noteworthy, I will send out the alert.

I expect that most of what I write will be of the goings on in the small Sierra foothill community of Colfax. This assignment is designed to give me real world experience, not just in the writing, but also from the reading… or rather, the readers. Real people that are directly affected by what’s happening in their community and the role I play in delivering that news to them. It is not a little deal.

This week, I wrote a straight news story about the Chamber of Commerce hiring a new executive director. I was in the office no more than 30 seconds when I was assigned this story. Although not extremely long or involved, I was surprised at how much work and thought went into it. Click here to link directly to it.

I also wrote a column in which I introduce myself to the readers of the Record. This was right up my ally… it’s the sort of writing that I do best. I hope to be able to write these pieces regularly. It appears as though there is a good chance. To read these 800 odd words (give or take), click here.

To link directly to the paper, click the title of this post. It prints every Thursday, but the online version is published Wednesday evening. This is going to be a crazy summer. Let the games begin!

Of Booms and Busts

It’s odd sometimes; the boom and bust cycle and the layers of components that make it up. Time, inspiration and motivation can work together, in perfect synchronicity or they can completely negate each other. Then throw on top of all that the sensation of whether one is productive, lazy or even lucky and how those sensations affect and are affected by the first three factors and one can end up very confused indeed – which, of course gets blended in as well. And as complicated as it seems, with just seven factors to consider (causal: time, inspiration, motivation; effectual: productive, lazy, lucky; and resultant: confused) it is but a mild representation of the complex interaction of everything and everything else.

Of late, it has been an unusual combination of factors that has perhaps produced this odd insight. Time was extremely tight for a few days and then suddenly – not so much. While time was limited, a kind of motivational force was produced… grace under fire that did not require any particular inspiration. The work was defined and although original work had to be created – it was along a concise framework, one that came with a firm deadline. Perceptions of laziness were nowhere to be found – productivity is abundantly evident and there are blessings to be counted. All was in order – everything reinforced everything else. Indeed, there was not much to think about.

As fast as the pace quickened, so it eased. The stories were written, the deadline was met, the work was produced, the motivation had passed - it was time to relax. Time and motivation had run their designed course, the pressure lifted, time now to attend to some not so urgent issues. Mundane stuff, really. Boring… maintenance… chores. And there is time to relax; there is time to create. Time is in boom - it’s plentiful, motivation in bust – nothing too pressing. And inspiration? – Off the scale. Productivity? – Nothing, or not much anyway. Lazy? – And how! Lucky? – Yes, but…

Stories are coming at an alarming rate. None, however, have made it into print and many are quite possibly gone forever. And others? Maybe just on the literary “back burner.” The fact is that there is no one ”waiting” for them. Oh, sure – in the figurative or spiritual sense there is always “someone’ waiting in the great scheme of things, but there is no deadline. If these words don’t see the light of day, no one will be the wiser. The only direct downside is to oneself in how it affects one's feelings of luck, productivity, laziness, etc. Then the cycle spins, in turn affecting the physical reality until something pops; this time manifested in confusion.

Too many “whys,” a few “ah hahs” and an “hmmm” or two finally yielded some action. Action manifested as written words that, ironically enough, are born of inspiration triggered by the very confusion that spawned the questions that instigated the action that started it all in the first place. Whew! All leading right back to the very confusion that started the questioning that led to more confusion. And that’s the simple version! All this from just seven quasi-randomly chosen attributes to toss into this cyclical stew.

Even more curious is that all this revelation has not lessened the confusion in the least. However, the sensational laziness is greatly diminished; the productivity is back in the “boom” cycle; motivation is up; inspiration - enhanced; time is still available and luck is there. Everything else? – It’s everything elsing. And the confusion mounts. As inter-related as all these and infinite other factors are, they can and apparently often do have nothing to do with one another. The push/pull, action/reaction… chickens and eggs are only window dressings – except when they’re not. It’s enough to inspire and sufficiently motivate one to make the time to take a nap, producing lazy sleep to dream about how lucky one is to be confused.

Time Flies

Much to my amazement, it has been four days since I have produced anything to fill this space. Although I have spent some small amount of time reading my regular blogs – and even less commenting, even that has fallen off this weekend just now coming to an end. Of course there is a perfectly reasonable explanation – part of it I’ll share, right here, right now. And part of it I won’t, not yet anyway.

I am in summer school at Sac State. I’m enrolled in three units of Spanish reading proficiency (yuk) and another three units of journalism internship. The Spanish is compulsory… I have to take it to graduate and the internship is… exhilarating. I just started writing for a small paper in the Sierra foothills and it is keeping me plenty busy. It is a weekly and publishes on Thursdays. I will have a couple of pieces published this week. Don’t worry, I’ll remove the mystery and provide the links and all once it hits the streets. Just know that, for now I am very busy and happy as a pig in… mud!

PS: For those of you that must know what the “other” reason for my absence is, feel free to email me – it’s not a huge secret, I just don’t want to go into it right now.

~Mike

The News Business

I grew up in a small town. It is part of the greater San Francisco/San Jose metropolitan mega-city, but it had and still has an identity – a charm uniquely its own. Most (but not all) of the cities and towns between San Jose and San Francisco can make this claim even though one would be hard pressed to define the end of one municipality and the beginning of the next. Like the Los Angeles basin, all of these different governmental units have physically grown together, but still maintain some kind of identity all their own.

Some of that distinctiveness is passed down through tradition, some by way of the architecture, history, family legacy, etc. These small towns often are characterized by a city center or a “downtown” that is usually rich in cultural history. Perhaps there are annual events such as a Forth of July pick-nick, the local high school home coming parade or the Christmas Tree lighting ceremony that celebrate municipal unity. In the small town I grew up in and others in which I have resided since, these and other similar events provided the glue that bonded the neighbors and neighborhoods alike.

It is impractical as well as unrealistic for the local “major news outlet” to cover such events; time and space do not permit. The San Jose Mercury News and the San Francisco Chronicle are not in the business of covering the minutia that occurs in every small town in its coverage area. These newspapers should leave this type of news reporting to the appropriate stewards – the local weekly newspaper. They do more than just cover the newsworthy events that are important to the locals; they help to promote the civic aura that helps to define a town’s character.

The small town weekly will only report on statewide, national and world events as they apply to the town it represents. For instance, if a local kid is injured or killed in Iraq, the small town paper gives a name, a face and a family to what would otherwise be nothing more than a number worthy of a sentence at the most in the major metropolitan newspaper. The small town paper reports the local school’s honor rolls, noteworthy achievements of the town’s residents and advertises local businesses. The employees of these papers often wear many hats and are driven as much by passion as they are by pay. Indeed, often these efforts are of a voluntary nature.

When I was a kid, few “jobs” were available to those under the age of 13 or 14. Those that were consisted of baby-sitting, mowing lawns, dog-walking and house-sitting. These jobs were nice for earning some pocket change, but to earn any “real” money, there was one other option: Paperboy. When I was a kid, these jobs were highly coveted and did not see much turnover. Typically, a kind of retirement occurred at around the age of 15 when a work permit and a regular, part-time, minimum wage job flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant or pumping gas at a gas station (before self-serve), etc. became the preferred form of employment.

Every Wednesday afternoon, my papers were delivered in my driveway and after school I would start to fold, band and bag them. It took two trips to complete my route and for my efforts I earned what seemed like a considerable amount of money. I don’t remember how long I did that gig, but even way back then, the local paper in my town and countless others were dying a slow death. It was not long before it folded up all together. I was able to get a route for a daily paper in the somewhat larger nearby town of Palo Alto. It published six days per week (not on Sunday) and was the “main” newspaper at a time when the San Jose and the San Francisco dailies (there were two in SF at the time) did not pay much attention to the mid-peninsula.

I was able to acquire the route next to the one my street was on. Within a few months my “home” route opened up and I was handling two routes totaling well over 100 newspapers, six days per week. It paid pretty well and kept me busy every day after school. Sometime during my tenure, the San Jose Mercury started to offer daily delivery up and down the peninsula (the San Francisco Chronicle already did in some areas). Those poor unfortunate paperboys had to be up at or before the crack of dawn to deliver their papers – and deliver a huge Sunday paper. I don’t know if any saw this “big city” invasion into suburbia as a harbinger of things to come, but it was.

While delivering the Palo Alto Times… actually while folding them for delivery, I started to read it. I never really bothered to read it or any other paper before, but the Times almost immediately captured my attention. In fact, many times I got so engrossed that my customers would complain about late papers. It was a passion that I hold to this day. Although my hands don’t get nearly so black from newsprint as they did in those days, holding the paper in my hands while reading it lends more than just familiarity and nostalgia – it breeds a sort of authenticity. It has a character that I have so far not been able to capture from computer generated on-line news.

Unfortunately, the Times’ days were numbered too. The Times and its sister paper, the Redwood City Tribune, were purchased by the corporate parent of the Chicago Tribune, the Tribune Company and merged into one paper – the Peninsula Times-Tribune. It was all downhill from there. The purchase and merger happened towards the end of my career there and the paper managed to hold on for a few more years. However, when the Tribune Company tried to sell off the paper and could not find a buyer, it simply shut the paper down. The paper, with its 100-year history has been silent ever since.

Although many of these small local papers have been pushed into oblivion by the corporate giants; and many more have had to make major adjustments just to stay afloat, there is a resurgence of the local news provider that can’t be ignored. In my own hometown and in Palo Alto, new publications have risen from the ashes of their deceased predecessors. They provide local coverage of local events and advertise local business. Additionally, it would appear that in many cases, local control has been maintained – they are free of corporate cost cutting and business planning from executives 2000 miles away. They are once again in the news business, not the business of news.

Suburban Legends

I have resided in my current home for just a little over a year. This neighborhood could be considered upper-middle class, although these sorts of labels never meant much to me. People are people and I could get along pretty much anywhere. Having said that, however, it would be misleading to imply there aren’t certain inherent advantages to living in this kind of neighborhood. It is also true that there are some disadvantages, and how one fits in with the “look” of the neighborhood can shed some light on these factors.

The crime rate here is low. There is no poverty nearby; there are no have-nots in this neighborhood. Therefore, those inclined to less than honorable means of sustenance are not in the immediate area. Furthermore, the home values are not deflated by the intermittent unkempt property. Those that have attained this level of success are statistically better educated. They don’t generally have “jobs,” but rather, careers and can afford the price of living here. My path here was somewhat unusual, but some of these descriptors apply to me too.

There is, however, a darker side to this apparent wealth. All this higher education may have increased the collective enlightenment, but it is not apparent in the character of the neighborhood. Indeed, this neighborhood has very little character at all. Although “outsiders” are viewed with caution bordering on suspicion, the determining factor as to who is an “outsider” is not familiarity. It can’t be because no one here knows each other let alone who an “outsider” is. Therefore, if one has not the stereotypical look of an upper middle class suburbanite; if one does not drive the appropriate and appropriately new automobile; and if one fails to conform, then he is viewed through a different filter.

The picture posted here represents a contradiction and the contradiction goes well beyond the surface. It was taken last August after I was settled in and was the second occasion I had to throw a party. This one happened to be a birthday party for a friend and approximately 30 guests were in attendance. As one can gather from the photo, many of my friends are motorcyclists. Our machine of choice: Harley-Davidson. Regular readers of this blog know how I feel about riding in general and riding Harleys in particular. My neighbors don’t… or at least they didn’t (I think they do now).

These are not inexpensive motorcycles. The least expensive has a value of over $10,000 with the most expensive probably topping $40,000. These guys (and gals) represent white collar and blue collar alike. They are all highly skilled professionals and make a considerable amount of money. It is something they have in common with my neighbors, although my neighbors probably don’t have a necessarily wide enough field of vision to see it. Just as one doesn’t come to live in an area such as this by taking advantage of society, so too is it true that one does not enjoy such an expensive “hobby” with the same anti-social values.

Many of my neighbors only see the black leather, tattoos, shiny motorcycles with lots of chrome and at least one hold out (me) with long hair and they equate that to the Hollywood stereotype of the “outlaw” biker and the motorcycle gangs of the big screen. Although these do exist, they are among the extreme minority and are rarely seen is out in plain sight. The last place they would be found is in front of my home - or... out on the golf course. That’s right, some of them are avid golfers too, maybe playing right through my neighbors foursome!

I hold no animosity towards these hard working, affluent, social isolationists. I feel sorry for them – they are prejudging the richness of community right out of their lives. They are, to me so far, harmless. Only once has the cops been called on me and it didn’t amount to anything more than embarrassment for my next-door neighbor. Her preconceived idea about who I was clouded her judgment – and the sheriff’s deputy was happy to explain that to her.

Today, a year later, my neighbors actually do know at least one of their neighbors - me - by sight if nothing else. And they know that I belong here… and that from time to time there might be a motorcycle or two or three and sometimes more rumbling up the street. And they know that it’s ok. And maybe, just maybe next time they will step out of that suit of armor they feel the need to wear and risk acknowledging that they just might not know what they think they do.