K.J. Cartmell's Blog, page 3
September 13, 2020
On Biden
It took me a while to warm up to Joe Biden’s candidacy. I liked the man and found his story compelling, but I thought he was past his prime. Out of the gate, I supported Kamala Harris. When she dropped out, I shifted my support to Amy Klobuchar. I watched each of the debates, waiting to see which of the Democratic candidates would get traction and pull ahead of the pack.
Elizabeth Warren was clearly the best debater on the stage, and she had the most fleshed out platform, including her simple to understand wealth tax. If these were the only criteria, she would have emerged from this contest as the winner. I don’t doubt that sexism was one of the factors holding her back. For my part, I see her more as a legislator than an executive.
The Progressive wing of the Democratic Party is growing, but they are still the minority. This voting bloc, made up mostly of young voters, is not a proven commodity. We simply don’t know if they will turn out and vote consistently. The Moderate wing is still the party's dominant faction. They waited with bated breath for Joe Biden to get momentum after a slow start in Iowa and New Hampshire. Biden’s strong finish in South Carolina was the sign they were waiting for. Once the other moderates, including Klobuchar and Buttigieg, dropped out, Biden had a clear path for the nomination.
I believe that, long term, the Progressive vision is the right one. We need to do better by workers. We need to turn the tide against climate change. The wealthy need to pay more in taxes. In 2020, however, there was an overriding fear: Donald Trump must not win re-election. Trump has taken the country far in the wrong direction. The electorate craved a return to normalcy. They did not want to take a chance on Warren or Sanders. Even Moderates like Klobuchar were too risky. Biden was the safest harbor out there.
I had about 24 hours between the moment Klobuchar dropped out of the race to when I had to step up into the booth to vote in the California primary. I gave Sanders serious consideration. I know that’s who my children supported. In the end, I followed Klobuchar’s lead and voted for Biden.
In the last few months, Biden has eased some of my worries. He’s made some strong speeches, especially the one at the convention after he accepted the nomination. I was pleased that he brushed aside the pointed attacks in the early debates and picked Harris as his running mate. Early in the campaign, I had a Harris sticker in the back window of my car that read “Joyful Warrior.” I took it down when she dropped out, but when Biden picked her for VP, I put it back up.
Next up: the debates. There are legitimate concerns that Trump can rattle Biden with absurd, below-the-belt attacks. To get ready, Biden needs to bring in a brash New Yorker as a debate sparring partner. Anthony Scaramucci would be perfect.
As a reminder, Good Reads took away my ability to see how many times my posts have been read. The only way I will know that you read this is if you press “like” and leave a comment. I encourage you to do so.
Stay tuned!
Elizabeth Warren was clearly the best debater on the stage, and she had the most fleshed out platform, including her simple to understand wealth tax. If these were the only criteria, she would have emerged from this contest as the winner. I don’t doubt that sexism was one of the factors holding her back. For my part, I see her more as a legislator than an executive.
The Progressive wing of the Democratic Party is growing, but they are still the minority. This voting bloc, made up mostly of young voters, is not a proven commodity. We simply don’t know if they will turn out and vote consistently. The Moderate wing is still the party's dominant faction. They waited with bated breath for Joe Biden to get momentum after a slow start in Iowa and New Hampshire. Biden’s strong finish in South Carolina was the sign they were waiting for. Once the other moderates, including Klobuchar and Buttigieg, dropped out, Biden had a clear path for the nomination.
I believe that, long term, the Progressive vision is the right one. We need to do better by workers. We need to turn the tide against climate change. The wealthy need to pay more in taxes. In 2020, however, there was an overriding fear: Donald Trump must not win re-election. Trump has taken the country far in the wrong direction. The electorate craved a return to normalcy. They did not want to take a chance on Warren or Sanders. Even Moderates like Klobuchar were too risky. Biden was the safest harbor out there.
I had about 24 hours between the moment Klobuchar dropped out of the race to when I had to step up into the booth to vote in the California primary. I gave Sanders serious consideration. I know that’s who my children supported. In the end, I followed Klobuchar’s lead and voted for Biden.
In the last few months, Biden has eased some of my worries. He’s made some strong speeches, especially the one at the convention after he accepted the nomination. I was pleased that he brushed aside the pointed attacks in the early debates and picked Harris as his running mate. Early in the campaign, I had a Harris sticker in the back window of my car that read “Joyful Warrior.” I took it down when she dropped out, but when Biden picked her for VP, I put it back up.
Next up: the debates. There are legitimate concerns that Trump can rattle Biden with absurd, below-the-belt attacks. To get ready, Biden needs to bring in a brash New Yorker as a debate sparring partner. Anthony Scaramucci would be perfect.
As a reminder, Good Reads took away my ability to see how many times my posts have been read. The only way I will know that you read this is if you press “like” and leave a comment. I encourage you to do so.
Stay tuned!
September 7, 2020
Return to Blogging
I have been away from this blog for most of the year. In the months since my last post, I finished a novel and began another one. I’ve written some short stories and a couple of eulogies. I’ve done some reading, but not as much as I would like. Mostly, it seems, I’ve been watching the news.
When I look back on 2020, the early months of the year seem to be from a completely different time. The year started, as it always did, in January, but then it started over. For me, The Year of the Pandemic began on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s good to look back and recall a few things that happened before the pandemic, events that were still in the calendar year 2020.
You may recall that we nearly blundered into a war with Iran. Only quick action by our diplomatic corps kept our erratic and xenophobic president from pushing us over the brink.
The Democrats impeached President Trump. Adam Schiff bravely and methodically laid out a compelling case of corruption and abuse of power. Predictably, McConnell’s Senate utterly ignored him and all of his evidence, put Party over Country (again), and acquitted Trump.
The coronavirus spread across the country, starting in major cities and moving into the suburbs and rural areas. I remember March 16, anxiously conferring with work colleagues about next steps, when a region-wide shelter in place order was announced. My wife and I spent St. Patrick’s Day working from home, and except for a few brief forays into the office, we have been working from home ever since.
Now that it’s September, I wanted to come back and do a series of blogs leading up to the 2020 election. My plan is to do one a week. As always, I will try not to simply regurgitate the commentary of others, but say something new and relevant.
As a reminder, Good Reads took away my ability to see how many times my posts have been read. The only way I will know that you read this is if you press “like” and leave a comment. I encourage you to do so.
I also welcome you to go back and read my earlier posts, especially those about Trump from 2016 and 2017. You can see what I got right and what I got wrong. Feel free to like and comment on those posts, too.
Before I lost the ability to do so, I was tracking my blog read counts. There are two from 2018 that were my most read posts by far, and neither have to do with politics: “Sylph Sia vs Instagram,” posted on 2/11/18; and “Innovative Fanficton,” posted on 6/3/18. Check them out, too. Like and leave comments.
That’s all for now! Talk to you again next week!
When I look back on 2020, the early months of the year seem to be from a completely different time. The year started, as it always did, in January, but then it started over. For me, The Year of the Pandemic began on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s good to look back and recall a few things that happened before the pandemic, events that were still in the calendar year 2020.
You may recall that we nearly blundered into a war with Iran. Only quick action by our diplomatic corps kept our erratic and xenophobic president from pushing us over the brink.
The Democrats impeached President Trump. Adam Schiff bravely and methodically laid out a compelling case of corruption and abuse of power. Predictably, McConnell’s Senate utterly ignored him and all of his evidence, put Party over Country (again), and acquitted Trump.
The coronavirus spread across the country, starting in major cities and moving into the suburbs and rural areas. I remember March 16, anxiously conferring with work colleagues about next steps, when a region-wide shelter in place order was announced. My wife and I spent St. Patrick’s Day working from home, and except for a few brief forays into the office, we have been working from home ever since.
Now that it’s September, I wanted to come back and do a series of blogs leading up to the 2020 election. My plan is to do one a week. As always, I will try not to simply regurgitate the commentary of others, but say something new and relevant.
As a reminder, Good Reads took away my ability to see how many times my posts have been read. The only way I will know that you read this is if you press “like” and leave a comment. I encourage you to do so.
I also welcome you to go back and read my earlier posts, especially those about Trump from 2016 and 2017. You can see what I got right and what I got wrong. Feel free to like and comment on those posts, too.
Before I lost the ability to do so, I was tracking my blog read counts. There are two from 2018 that were my most read posts by far, and neither have to do with politics: “Sylph Sia vs Instagram,” posted on 2/11/18; and “Innovative Fanficton,” posted on 6/3/18. Check them out, too. Like and leave comments.
That’s all for now! Talk to you again next week!
January 26, 2020
The Case for Klobuchar
The trial of Donald Trump currently running in the Senate is likely to lead to an acquittal, in spite of the evidence against the president. Democratic Leadership is hoping that impeachment galvanizes their base to not only defeat Trump in November, but to take back the Senate as well.
Keep in mind that it’s very hard to beat an incumbent president. Even a mediocre president like George W. Bush got two terms in office. To beat Trump, the Democrats are going to have to run a mistake-free campaign. We will have to rally around whoever the nominee is and do everything we can to get that individual over the goal line. We will need to have our eyes open and ears to the ground, looking for Republican efforts to suppress the vote as well as new and nefarious methods of Russian interference.
Who among the Democratic contenders would be best facing off against Trump in the fall campaign? Before I make my case for Senator Klobuchar, let me run through the top group.
My Progressive friends are very fond of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Sanders was a breath of fresh air in 2016. He said many things that need to be said. Warren has a plan for everything. We’re going to need her ideas, her energy and enthusiasm.
The problem is, Trump has a playbook for these two. Where Sanders has a speech and Warren a 500 page policy manual, Trump has one word: Socialist! (With Warren, he will expand that to “Pocahontas the Socialist!”) The Democrats have their voters and the Republicans have theirs. Trump has kept a remarkable hold on 40% of the nation. The battle will be fought over a handful of independents in a half-dozen states. To these people, Trump’s argument is simple. “Warren and/or Sanders is going too far, too quickly. The economy is going good. The stock market is up. Do you really want to put all this in jeopardy for a bunch of untested Socialist notions?”
There are rebuttals to be made with that statement. The economy is more than the stock market. Too many people are choosing between health care and food. We could use a little Socialism, especially in West Virginia, Kentucky and other Trump strongholds. But, Trump is a master at exploiting people’s fears. He could win making those arguments.
Joe Biden is thought to be the one Trump truly fears. Discrediting Biden was the motivator behind the Ukraine scandal. Biden is what Trump pretends to be: a plainspoken man who cares about working class families. We have great fondness for Papa Joe from his days as Obama’s VP.
Here’s some buckets of cold water: Biden was never a top tier candidate for president on any of his previous runs; He’s running on Obama’s legacy and little else; He’s 77, and it’s clear from the debates that he’s lost a step; He’s prone to stuttering and tripping over his words, weaknesses that Trump will mercilessly exploit; When he’s hit, he’s slow to hit back.
Trump will desperately cling to power. Expect his campaign to be nasty. Trump has no shame, no qualms. There is no insult he would be too embarrassed to hurl. Even when the truth is obvious, Trump will boldly lie. He rattles people that way, and Biden and Warren particularly have shown they can be rattled and flustered.
You also can’t get caught up in Trump’s game. Going low didn’t work for Rubio. It didn’t work for Biden either, when he said he would have beaten up Trump if they were schoolboys together. When you hit back, you’ve got hit back hard and to aim for the head, like Nancy Pelosi does it.
Briefly: I like Mayor Pete. I will like him even more in eight years, when he has a little more wisdom under his belt, and he’s taken the time to repair and strengthen his relationship with the African-American community.
Amy Klobuchar is running behind each of these candidates in recent polls. She is a moderate at a time the Democratic party is becoming more progressive. Yet, her moderate policies and her plain Midwestern way of speaking should resonate in states she absolutely has to win: Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. She’s been dealing with sexist men like Donald Trump her whole life, and she will approach him with steely nerves but also with some humor.
The one knock against her so far is that she’s hard on her staff. I haven’t heard this complaint resurface for some time, but if her campaign grows in popularity, it will come back around. I think it’s an easy point to counter: Whose staff has had more turnover? Klobuchar’s or Trump’s?
The word “electability” strikes me as disguised sexism. The thought is, “We have to vote for a white guy this time, because we picked a woman in 2016 and she lost.” You think it will take a white guy to beat Donald Trump? Tell that to Jeb Bush and John Kasich.
Remember what it took to beat Hilary Clinton. The Russians hacked the DNC servers, stole polling data and dropped a series of nasty emails that reopened the rift between the Clinton and Sanders camp, preventing progressives from fully coming behind Clinton. The Russians took the stolen DNC polling data, and the RNC polling data that Paul Manifort gave them, and ran an effective social media campaign in the swing states to drum up support for Trump and suppress the vote for Clinton.
Jill Stein pulled votes away from her. Jim Comey dropped his bombshell. She battled against twenty years of right-wing media hate spewed at her and her husband. She made some strategic moves that backfired. And in spite of all of that, she won the popular vote and came within a hair’s width of winning the Electoral College.
Amy Klobuchar can win this race. Trump and his Right-wing media allies are already poisoning the well on Biden, Warren and Sanders, but they don’t have much on Klobuchar. Accusations of socialism will fall flat when she points to her record. She’ll be a tough and level-headed debate opponent. I think she will baffle Trump in the same way that Pelosi baffles him.
If you still doubt me, listen to her speak, and see if she doesn’t win you over.
Keep in mind that it’s very hard to beat an incumbent president. Even a mediocre president like George W. Bush got two terms in office. To beat Trump, the Democrats are going to have to run a mistake-free campaign. We will have to rally around whoever the nominee is and do everything we can to get that individual over the goal line. We will need to have our eyes open and ears to the ground, looking for Republican efforts to suppress the vote as well as new and nefarious methods of Russian interference.
Who among the Democratic contenders would be best facing off against Trump in the fall campaign? Before I make my case for Senator Klobuchar, let me run through the top group.
My Progressive friends are very fond of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. Sanders was a breath of fresh air in 2016. He said many things that need to be said. Warren has a plan for everything. We’re going to need her ideas, her energy and enthusiasm.
The problem is, Trump has a playbook for these two. Where Sanders has a speech and Warren a 500 page policy manual, Trump has one word: Socialist! (With Warren, he will expand that to “Pocahontas the Socialist!”) The Democrats have their voters and the Republicans have theirs. Trump has kept a remarkable hold on 40% of the nation. The battle will be fought over a handful of independents in a half-dozen states. To these people, Trump’s argument is simple. “Warren and/or Sanders is going too far, too quickly. The economy is going good. The stock market is up. Do you really want to put all this in jeopardy for a bunch of untested Socialist notions?”
There are rebuttals to be made with that statement. The economy is more than the stock market. Too many people are choosing between health care and food. We could use a little Socialism, especially in West Virginia, Kentucky and other Trump strongholds. But, Trump is a master at exploiting people’s fears. He could win making those arguments.
Joe Biden is thought to be the one Trump truly fears. Discrediting Biden was the motivator behind the Ukraine scandal. Biden is what Trump pretends to be: a plainspoken man who cares about working class families. We have great fondness for Papa Joe from his days as Obama’s VP.
Here’s some buckets of cold water: Biden was never a top tier candidate for president on any of his previous runs; He’s running on Obama’s legacy and little else; He’s 77, and it’s clear from the debates that he’s lost a step; He’s prone to stuttering and tripping over his words, weaknesses that Trump will mercilessly exploit; When he’s hit, he’s slow to hit back.
Trump will desperately cling to power. Expect his campaign to be nasty. Trump has no shame, no qualms. There is no insult he would be too embarrassed to hurl. Even when the truth is obvious, Trump will boldly lie. He rattles people that way, and Biden and Warren particularly have shown they can be rattled and flustered.
You also can’t get caught up in Trump’s game. Going low didn’t work for Rubio. It didn’t work for Biden either, when he said he would have beaten up Trump if they were schoolboys together. When you hit back, you’ve got hit back hard and to aim for the head, like Nancy Pelosi does it.
Briefly: I like Mayor Pete. I will like him even more in eight years, when he has a little more wisdom under his belt, and he’s taken the time to repair and strengthen his relationship with the African-American community.
Amy Klobuchar is running behind each of these candidates in recent polls. She is a moderate at a time the Democratic party is becoming more progressive. Yet, her moderate policies and her plain Midwestern way of speaking should resonate in states she absolutely has to win: Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. She’s been dealing with sexist men like Donald Trump her whole life, and she will approach him with steely nerves but also with some humor.
The one knock against her so far is that she’s hard on her staff. I haven’t heard this complaint resurface for some time, but if her campaign grows in popularity, it will come back around. I think it’s an easy point to counter: Whose staff has had more turnover? Klobuchar’s or Trump’s?
The word “electability” strikes me as disguised sexism. The thought is, “We have to vote for a white guy this time, because we picked a woman in 2016 and she lost.” You think it will take a white guy to beat Donald Trump? Tell that to Jeb Bush and John Kasich.
Remember what it took to beat Hilary Clinton. The Russians hacked the DNC servers, stole polling data and dropped a series of nasty emails that reopened the rift between the Clinton and Sanders camp, preventing progressives from fully coming behind Clinton. The Russians took the stolen DNC polling data, and the RNC polling data that Paul Manifort gave them, and ran an effective social media campaign in the swing states to drum up support for Trump and suppress the vote for Clinton.
Jill Stein pulled votes away from her. Jim Comey dropped his bombshell. She battled against twenty years of right-wing media hate spewed at her and her husband. She made some strategic moves that backfired. And in spite of all of that, she won the popular vote and came within a hair’s width of winning the Electoral College.
Amy Klobuchar can win this race. Trump and his Right-wing media allies are already poisoning the well on Biden, Warren and Sanders, but they don’t have much on Klobuchar. Accusations of socialism will fall flat when she points to her record. She’ll be a tough and level-headed debate opponent. I think she will baffle Trump in the same way that Pelosi baffles him.
If you still doubt me, listen to her speak, and see if she doesn’t win you over.
September 29, 2019
Running "The Nixon"
Like many people, I was surprised by the events of last week. Not surprised that Trump tried to force the Ukraine government into investigating Hunter Biden as a way of embarrassing his father, Joe Biden. Not surprised that Trump and his administration tried to cover it up. I was surprised, once the press got a whiff of the story, how quickly it all went public.
If the transcript was so damning (and it was damning!) why not fight a little more, a little longer, to keep it out of the public eye? Why not test those two new Supreme Court justices to see where they think the limits of presidential power really are?
I imagine this whole scandal was the sort of thing John Kelly, Rex Tillerson and company had kept from happening while they were in office. But, The Adults in the Room are all gone. Trump is left with sycophants and amateurs, and they really let him down this time.
Maybe Trump in his arrogance thought the Ukraine thing really wasn’t a big deal, and forced the release of the transcript to prove his point. Yet, I wonder. I hesitate to use the word “strategy” to refer to anything Trump does. He’s too impulsive and short-sighted. But, maybe this time, he really does have a plan.
I wonder if he isn’t getting a little tired of being President of the United States. It hasn’t been as fun as he thought it would be. It’s hard work, actually, and everyone is so critical of everything he does. I’m sure he finds his lack of popularity galling, baffling. Trump gets to play a lot of golf and visit all his properties around the world, but he could do that as a private citizen, too. I wonder if he doesn’t pine for the job he wanted all along, to be a pundit on Fox News, so he could get paid to criticize Washington from the sidelines.
The problem is, once you’re President, you have to run for a second term. It’s expected. He could win. Most incumbents win.
But, he could also lose. In his heart of hearts, he must know this. Manafort isn’t around to swing another clever deal with the Russians. The margin of error in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania was narrow to begin with, and has likely worsened with the trade war. The Democrats might even put Texas and Georgia in play. A narrow loss in Texas would be a disaster in terms of the Electoral College. He would lose Bigly if that happened.
We know he doesn’t like to lose. But, there may be other reasons he needs to stay President. He knows better than anyone if the cases in the Southern District of New York are snipe hunts, or if there really are crimes, like money laundering, to be had. Lose the presidency, and he loses the immunities and privileges that have protected him so far.
There’s only one play that can make all his problems go away. It’s complicated, but it’s worked before. And, from my seat, it looks like that play has already started. Trump is running “The Nixon.”
“The Nixon” is the set of steps that forced Richard Nixon from office back in the 70’s. It goes like this: Step 1) Commit a crime while digging up dirt on your political opponent. (Check!) Step 2) Cover it up, adding obstruction of justice to the charges. (Check!) Step 3) Provoke the House into impeaching you.
So far so good. Now, it’s up to the House to really put the heat on the President. But, this is exactly how “The Nixon” is designed to work. In football, the offense sometimes runs a play that tricks the defense into doing something that they really want to do. Like, tackling running back when this is really a pass play. The Democrats were eager to impeach Trump. Now they get their chance. But, it’s all part of the plan.
Trump now has options. If the House fails to turn the country against him, he can run “The Clinton,” get acquitted by the Senate and end up more popular than ever.
Or, if things are really going south, he can go to Step 4) and Resign. You can hear the speech, can’t you? “It’s for the good of the people, folks. The Democrats were being so mean, so unreasonable. I had to do what’s best for the country that I love.”
Step 5) This is the crucial part of the entire play, at least for Trump: Pence must pardon him, for everything. Obstruction, emoluments, security clearance shenanigans, money laundering. All of it.
Then, in November of 2020, he can sit back and watch as Pence gets trounced in a Reagan vs Mondale type landslide, all the while, making snide comments on Twitter, or better yet, as a paid contributor on Fox News. “Seriously, Mike? You lost to f--ing Pocahontas? And that f--ing f--t, Mayor Pete? Pathetic! I would’ve have creamed those two! But, I had to step aside, for the good of the country . . .
“Now, excuse me while I stash my money in overseas accounts, before those greedy Socialists get their hands on it.”
***
Thanks for reading! As I mentioned back on April 1, GoodReads took away my ability to see the read counts for this blog. I will have no way of knowing you are reading this unless you hit “like.” So, please, like and comment! And, if there was an earlier post that you enjoyed reading, please go back and like that one, too. I really appreciate it.
Fondly, KJ Cartmell
If the transcript was so damning (and it was damning!) why not fight a little more, a little longer, to keep it out of the public eye? Why not test those two new Supreme Court justices to see where they think the limits of presidential power really are?
I imagine this whole scandal was the sort of thing John Kelly, Rex Tillerson and company had kept from happening while they were in office. But, The Adults in the Room are all gone. Trump is left with sycophants and amateurs, and they really let him down this time.
Maybe Trump in his arrogance thought the Ukraine thing really wasn’t a big deal, and forced the release of the transcript to prove his point. Yet, I wonder. I hesitate to use the word “strategy” to refer to anything Trump does. He’s too impulsive and short-sighted. But, maybe this time, he really does have a plan.
I wonder if he isn’t getting a little tired of being President of the United States. It hasn’t been as fun as he thought it would be. It’s hard work, actually, and everyone is so critical of everything he does. I’m sure he finds his lack of popularity galling, baffling. Trump gets to play a lot of golf and visit all his properties around the world, but he could do that as a private citizen, too. I wonder if he doesn’t pine for the job he wanted all along, to be a pundit on Fox News, so he could get paid to criticize Washington from the sidelines.
The problem is, once you’re President, you have to run for a second term. It’s expected. He could win. Most incumbents win.
But, he could also lose. In his heart of hearts, he must know this. Manafort isn’t around to swing another clever deal with the Russians. The margin of error in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania was narrow to begin with, and has likely worsened with the trade war. The Democrats might even put Texas and Georgia in play. A narrow loss in Texas would be a disaster in terms of the Electoral College. He would lose Bigly if that happened.
We know he doesn’t like to lose. But, there may be other reasons he needs to stay President. He knows better than anyone if the cases in the Southern District of New York are snipe hunts, or if there really are crimes, like money laundering, to be had. Lose the presidency, and he loses the immunities and privileges that have protected him so far.
There’s only one play that can make all his problems go away. It’s complicated, but it’s worked before. And, from my seat, it looks like that play has already started. Trump is running “The Nixon.”
“The Nixon” is the set of steps that forced Richard Nixon from office back in the 70’s. It goes like this: Step 1) Commit a crime while digging up dirt on your political opponent. (Check!) Step 2) Cover it up, adding obstruction of justice to the charges. (Check!) Step 3) Provoke the House into impeaching you.
So far so good. Now, it’s up to the House to really put the heat on the President. But, this is exactly how “The Nixon” is designed to work. In football, the offense sometimes runs a play that tricks the defense into doing something that they really want to do. Like, tackling running back when this is really a pass play. The Democrats were eager to impeach Trump. Now they get their chance. But, it’s all part of the plan.
Trump now has options. If the House fails to turn the country against him, he can run “The Clinton,” get acquitted by the Senate and end up more popular than ever.
Or, if things are really going south, he can go to Step 4) and Resign. You can hear the speech, can’t you? “It’s for the good of the people, folks. The Democrats were being so mean, so unreasonable. I had to do what’s best for the country that I love.”
Step 5) This is the crucial part of the entire play, at least for Trump: Pence must pardon him, for everything. Obstruction, emoluments, security clearance shenanigans, money laundering. All of it.
Then, in November of 2020, he can sit back and watch as Pence gets trounced in a Reagan vs Mondale type landslide, all the while, making snide comments on Twitter, or better yet, as a paid contributor on Fox News. “Seriously, Mike? You lost to f--ing Pocahontas? And that f--ing f--t, Mayor Pete? Pathetic! I would’ve have creamed those two! But, I had to step aside, for the good of the country . . .
“Now, excuse me while I stash my money in overseas accounts, before those greedy Socialists get their hands on it.”
***
Thanks for reading! As I mentioned back on April 1, GoodReads took away my ability to see the read counts for this blog. I will have no way of knowing you are reading this unless you hit “like.” So, please, like and comment! And, if there was an earlier post that you enjoyed reading, please go back and like that one, too. I really appreciate it.
Fondly, KJ Cartmell
June 9, 2019
Manafort the Spy
I read the Mueller Report, every unredacted page. It’s a difficult read, dry and full of careful legal prose, but I found it fascinating. A few quick takeaways:
This was not a witch hunt. People conducting witch hunts do not allow their targets to plead the Fifth. They do not set up a “taint team” to make sure no privileged documents end up in the hands of investigators. Angry mobs with torches do not decide, at the end, that there isn’t enough evidence to convict the target of being a witch.
The Special Counsel’s office conducted a straightforward police investigation into the Trump Campaign. The first part of the report examines Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election and contacts between Russian agents and members of the Trump Campaign. The second part of the report focuses on the actions the President made to interfere and even shut down the investigation. The report explains in great detail the legal arguments for charging the President with obstruction of justice.
I predict that, in the coming months, many pundits, experts and politicians will be commenting on obstruction. Already, that second half of the Mueller report has earned the most press coverage. I will focus instead on the first part of the report, on the attempts of Russian agents to infiltrate the Trump Campaign and their efforts on social media to turn the election in Trump’s favor.
The George Papadopoulos incident was well reported in the media after the Trump campaign official was charged with lying to investigators. There were other incidents detailed in the report, of Russian agents reaching out to low- and mid-level staffers on the Trump campaign, offering aid and support. To his credit, Corey Lewandowski, during his time as Trump’s Campaign Manager, batted most of these attempts away.
One got through, however, all the way to Trump himself. The Russians knew Trump from their business dealings with him in 2015. They had the measure of the man, for better and for worse. Their agent knew just what to say to win Trump’s favor: “I’ll work for you for free.”
Russia’s agent, the spy, was Paul Manafort.
Now, you protest, “Yes, he wears nice suits, but he doesn’t have a watch that shoots poison darts and he doesn’t drive a car that shoots rockets and can turn into a submarine!” No, but he did send send encrypted messages back to his handlers in Russian Intelligence. The FBI intercepted those transmissions but could not decode them. Thus, the Special Counsel chose not to charge Manafort with criminal conspiracy. (Instead, they got convictions on money laundering and tax evasion, despite efforts by the President to obstruct justice by dangling a pardon and tampering with the jury through his public statements.)
Manafort worked for Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Ukraine, helping to prop up the corrupt and incompetent pro-Russia leader, Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort worked closely with Konstantin Kilimnik, who had long-standing ties to Russian Intelligence. (This was a well known fact in Manafort’s circle. Rick Gates, in his testimony, called Kilimnick “a spy.”)
The Russians want to take back Ukraine and make it part of Russian again, just as Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union. They annexed Crimea, then used their money and soldiers to stir up trouble in Eastern Ukraine. The last thing Russia wants is for NATO to come to Ukraine’s rescue if Russia invades. That could possibly lead to another World War, to a nuclear exchange.
Putin would rather starve Ukraine into submission. Taking the Eastern section of Ukraine, containing much of the countries resources and industry, would do just that. In 2016, they put forward a fake “peace plan” that would put Yanukovych back in charge of Eastern Ukraine. Hillary Clinton would never go along with the scam, but Putin thought political neophyte Trump just might.
That was Manafort’s main assignment. Get Trump, and by extension, the Republican party, to change their position on Ukraine and endorse the Russian “peace plan.” The Republican platform did shift slightly during their 2016 convention, but not nearly enough to prove to the ever-cautious Mueller that there was a deal on the table.
Reince Priebus and other Republican leaders knew that Manafort was bad news. They were likely the ones who killed the idea of Trump endorsing Putin’s plan. They forced out Manafort as quickly as they could, but not before Manafort and Gates passed along Republican polling data to Kilimnick.
What Kilimnick did with that data, Mueller will not speculate. (He doesn’t speculate on anything in this report. It’s all facts and law.) Mueller does detail much of what we have learned about Russia’s interference in our election. Putin’s Internet Research Agency used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to target voters in key battleground states. They were trying to turn out the vote for Trump and suppress the vote for Clinton. The polling data Manafort provided them would have been of great assistance to this effort. Without inside information, the Russians would not have been so effective.
I wrote several months ago that I did not believe Trump would purposefully betrayed our country. I was concerned that he was naive and inexperienced enough to let a spy in his midst unwittingly. Unfortunately for us, this is exactly what happened.
***
Thanks for reading! As I mentioned back on April 1, GoodReads took away my ability to see the read counts for this blog. I will have no way of knowing you are reading this unless you hit “like.” So, please, like and comment! And, if there was an earlier post that you enjoyed reading, please go back and like that one, too. I really appreciate it.
Fondly, KJ Cartmell
This was not a witch hunt. People conducting witch hunts do not allow their targets to plead the Fifth. They do not set up a “taint team” to make sure no privileged documents end up in the hands of investigators. Angry mobs with torches do not decide, at the end, that there isn’t enough evidence to convict the target of being a witch.
The Special Counsel’s office conducted a straightforward police investigation into the Trump Campaign. The first part of the report examines Russia’s efforts to interfere in our election and contacts between Russian agents and members of the Trump Campaign. The second part of the report focuses on the actions the President made to interfere and even shut down the investigation. The report explains in great detail the legal arguments for charging the President with obstruction of justice.
I predict that, in the coming months, many pundits, experts and politicians will be commenting on obstruction. Already, that second half of the Mueller report has earned the most press coverage. I will focus instead on the first part of the report, on the attempts of Russian agents to infiltrate the Trump Campaign and their efforts on social media to turn the election in Trump’s favor.
The George Papadopoulos incident was well reported in the media after the Trump campaign official was charged with lying to investigators. There were other incidents detailed in the report, of Russian agents reaching out to low- and mid-level staffers on the Trump campaign, offering aid and support. To his credit, Corey Lewandowski, during his time as Trump’s Campaign Manager, batted most of these attempts away.
One got through, however, all the way to Trump himself. The Russians knew Trump from their business dealings with him in 2015. They had the measure of the man, for better and for worse. Their agent knew just what to say to win Trump’s favor: “I’ll work for you for free.”
Russia’s agent, the spy, was Paul Manafort.
Now, you protest, “Yes, he wears nice suits, but he doesn’t have a watch that shoots poison darts and he doesn’t drive a car that shoots rockets and can turn into a submarine!” No, but he did send send encrypted messages back to his handlers in Russian Intelligence. The FBI intercepted those transmissions but could not decode them. Thus, the Special Counsel chose not to charge Manafort with criminal conspiracy. (Instead, they got convictions on money laundering and tax evasion, despite efforts by the President to obstruct justice by dangling a pardon and tampering with the jury through his public statements.)
Manafort worked for Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska in Ukraine, helping to prop up the corrupt and incompetent pro-Russia leader, Viktor Yanukovych. Manafort worked closely with Konstantin Kilimnik, who had long-standing ties to Russian Intelligence. (This was a well known fact in Manafort’s circle. Rick Gates, in his testimony, called Kilimnick “a spy.”)
The Russians want to take back Ukraine and make it part of Russian again, just as Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union. They annexed Crimea, then used their money and soldiers to stir up trouble in Eastern Ukraine. The last thing Russia wants is for NATO to come to Ukraine’s rescue if Russia invades. That could possibly lead to another World War, to a nuclear exchange.
Putin would rather starve Ukraine into submission. Taking the Eastern section of Ukraine, containing much of the countries resources and industry, would do just that. In 2016, they put forward a fake “peace plan” that would put Yanukovych back in charge of Eastern Ukraine. Hillary Clinton would never go along with the scam, but Putin thought political neophyte Trump just might.
That was Manafort’s main assignment. Get Trump, and by extension, the Republican party, to change their position on Ukraine and endorse the Russian “peace plan.” The Republican platform did shift slightly during their 2016 convention, but not nearly enough to prove to the ever-cautious Mueller that there was a deal on the table.
Reince Priebus and other Republican leaders knew that Manafort was bad news. They were likely the ones who killed the idea of Trump endorsing Putin’s plan. They forced out Manafort as quickly as they could, but not before Manafort and Gates passed along Republican polling data to Kilimnick.
What Kilimnick did with that data, Mueller will not speculate. (He doesn’t speculate on anything in this report. It’s all facts and law.) Mueller does detail much of what we have learned about Russia’s interference in our election. Putin’s Internet Research Agency used Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to target voters in key battleground states. They were trying to turn out the vote for Trump and suppress the vote for Clinton. The polling data Manafort provided them would have been of great assistance to this effort. Without inside information, the Russians would not have been so effective.
I wrote several months ago that I did not believe Trump would purposefully betrayed our country. I was concerned that he was naive and inexperienced enough to let a spy in his midst unwittingly. Unfortunately for us, this is exactly what happened.
***
Thanks for reading! As I mentioned back on April 1, GoodReads took away my ability to see the read counts for this blog. I will have no way of knowing you are reading this unless you hit “like.” So, please, like and comment! And, if there was an earlier post that you enjoyed reading, please go back and like that one, too. I really appreciate it.
Fondly, KJ Cartmell
April 1, 2019
Blog Statistics
For the last several weeks, I have been revising my novel, Every Time You Speak You Break My Heart. I haven’t had a chance to do a new blog post for this site. I was dismayed when Good Reads recently disabled a feature I used regularly. I can no longer see how often each of my posts have been read.
I reached out to Good Reads about this, but it sounds like the feature isn’t coming back soon. They wrote back, saying, “For now, we’d recommend keeping an eye on the likes and comments on your blog instead.”
So, if you are a regular reader of my blogs, I have a request: Please go through my blog posts and like and comment on your favorites.
My top five posts, as of February 28, 2019, the last day that I recorded the read counts before they disappeared:
1. Sylph Sia vs Instagram, February 11, 2018, 267 views
2. Innovative Fan Fiction, June 3, 2018, 254 views
3. Sex and Star Wars, December 18, 2016, 189 views
4. The Janus Decision, June 27, 2018, 188 views
5. Novel Writing Month, October 26, 2015, 177 views
Thanks in advance! I truly appreciate every reader I have. I look forward to hearing from you.
KJ
I reached out to Good Reads about this, but it sounds like the feature isn’t coming back soon. They wrote back, saying, “For now, we’d recommend keeping an eye on the likes and comments on your blog instead.”
So, if you are a regular reader of my blogs, I have a request: Please go through my blog posts and like and comment on your favorites.
My top five posts, as of February 28, 2019, the last day that I recorded the read counts before they disappeared:
1. Sylph Sia vs Instagram, February 11, 2018, 267 views
2. Innovative Fan Fiction, June 3, 2018, 254 views
3. Sex and Star Wars, December 18, 2016, 189 views
4. The Janus Decision, June 27, 2018, 188 views
5. Novel Writing Month, October 26, 2015, 177 views
Thanks in advance! I truly appreciate every reader I have. I look forward to hearing from you.
KJ
January 20, 2019
Zack and Cammy, part 3
In high school, I had been a member of the marching band. (My writer friend Pix was also in her high school band.) I played trombone, rather than trumpet, and I never had a solo. I grew up in an affluent suburb with a well-funded music program. My band performed in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. We competed in reviews and festivals in Hawaii and in Florida. Mostly, we performed closer to home, in band reviews held up and down the State of California.
I didn’t want Zack to have the exact same experiences that I had. Mostly, I didn’t want my friends asking me, “Which character is me?” Still, band reviews had been a big part of my life, and I wanted this story to reflect those experiences.
I wrote a chapter that detailed Zack and his friends competing in a real band review, the Del Oro Band Spectacular, held every year in the small town of Loomis, California. I added as many details as I could, adding internet research to my own memories of competing at this event.
A few weeks after I suspended work on ETYS, I published the “Loomis” chapter online at Tablo.io, as part of my short fiction collection, Every Stone a Story. (The collection also contains an excerpt from Revelation.)
Though sentimentally attached to the “Loomis” story, I quickly grew critical of it. When I would read through the manuscript, as I did every so often during this period, I found my attention waning at this section. It repeated too many ideas from earlier chapters, especially my descriptions of the band playing at the Homecoming football game. Deep down, I knew I would have to cut this chapter.
\\
Just as I had sensed, instinctively, that it was time to finally write this project, I knew when it was time to return. I cleared away or finished the other projects I had been working on. Knowing deep down that cuts were coming, I created a new file for my manuscript. This way, I could excise chapters and move sections around, while preserving my original draft. Also, by doing this, I cut out Pix and my other readers. For the time being, I wanted to proceed without their input.
On November 11th, 2018, I resumed work on ETYS. At my side I had my printed manuscript, covered in scribbled notations. My handwriting was so bad in some sections that it took me several minutes to decode what I had written.
One of the first things I did was to eliminate the “Loomis” chapter. I pulled a few sentences that I was particularly proud of, and set them in the Homecoming section. I cut other sections as well, using that same instinct as my guide: wherever my attention waned as I read, that was a section I cut or removed. In total, I eliminated over 4000 words.
I left it as part of Every Stone a Story, however. It serves as a good introduction to the characters. Your welcome to check it out: https://tablo.io/kj-cartmell/every-st...
\\
It took me a week or so of editing, every night in the evenings after work, to come to the abrupt end of my draft. Before me was the brief arc of Zack and Layla’s relationship. I had to show what attracted Zack to Layla while making a case that this was not the right girl for him. I wanted to be brief, as this is just a learning experience for Zack and not a novel unto itself. It was an uncomfortable few chapters to write, but this time, I was prepared to muscle through it.
Suddenly, I was at the very end, the last scene. Zack and Camille meet after work in the drug store parking lot. I had imagined this scene many times over these last ten years. I had rehearsed what Zack said and imagined Camille’s responses. I came to this moment late one evening, and, instead of pushing through to the end, I paused. My wife was watching TV in the next room. I was weary from a day at work. I closed the file and took the rest of the night off.
On the morning of Sunday, December 28th, I took a walk by myself through my neighborhood. I rehearsed the scene one more time, much like a musical director rehearsing a band: “Let’s take it from the line where Zack says . . . . Okay, good. Now, from the top . . . .” I returned home to a quiet house and quickly wrote the last page and a half.
Ten years after I first imagined this pair of young lovers, I had reached the end. But, as any writer will tell you, the work is never done. As soon as I had finished, I reached out to my original set of readers, including Pix, plus some new ones, like Julia Maiola, author of the historical drama The Red Flag, who I had met through the Writers Community on Twitter. Like nearly everything else I’ve written, I printed out a full manuscript copy for my mother.
I have an excerpt from ETYS, a short story called “Practice,” out at a literary journal. I have two more short stories planned for the next few months. I would like some recent bylines to my credit when I begin shopping ETYS to publishers. My plan is to skip agent queries for now, and focus solely on small presses.
When I make a match, I will be sure to let you know.
I didn’t want Zack to have the exact same experiences that I had. Mostly, I didn’t want my friends asking me, “Which character is me?” Still, band reviews had been a big part of my life, and I wanted this story to reflect those experiences.
I wrote a chapter that detailed Zack and his friends competing in a real band review, the Del Oro Band Spectacular, held every year in the small town of Loomis, California. I added as many details as I could, adding internet research to my own memories of competing at this event.
A few weeks after I suspended work on ETYS, I published the “Loomis” chapter online at Tablo.io, as part of my short fiction collection, Every Stone a Story. (The collection also contains an excerpt from Revelation.)
Though sentimentally attached to the “Loomis” story, I quickly grew critical of it. When I would read through the manuscript, as I did every so often during this period, I found my attention waning at this section. It repeated too many ideas from earlier chapters, especially my descriptions of the band playing at the Homecoming football game. Deep down, I knew I would have to cut this chapter.
\\
Just as I had sensed, instinctively, that it was time to finally write this project, I knew when it was time to return. I cleared away or finished the other projects I had been working on. Knowing deep down that cuts were coming, I created a new file for my manuscript. This way, I could excise chapters and move sections around, while preserving my original draft. Also, by doing this, I cut out Pix and my other readers. For the time being, I wanted to proceed without their input.
On November 11th, 2018, I resumed work on ETYS. At my side I had my printed manuscript, covered in scribbled notations. My handwriting was so bad in some sections that it took me several minutes to decode what I had written.
One of the first things I did was to eliminate the “Loomis” chapter. I pulled a few sentences that I was particularly proud of, and set them in the Homecoming section. I cut other sections as well, using that same instinct as my guide: wherever my attention waned as I read, that was a section I cut or removed. In total, I eliminated over 4000 words.
I left it as part of Every Stone a Story, however. It serves as a good introduction to the characters. Your welcome to check it out: https://tablo.io/kj-cartmell/every-st...
\\
It took me a week or so of editing, every night in the evenings after work, to come to the abrupt end of my draft. Before me was the brief arc of Zack and Layla’s relationship. I had to show what attracted Zack to Layla while making a case that this was not the right girl for him. I wanted to be brief, as this is just a learning experience for Zack and not a novel unto itself. It was an uncomfortable few chapters to write, but this time, I was prepared to muscle through it.
Suddenly, I was at the very end, the last scene. Zack and Camille meet after work in the drug store parking lot. I had imagined this scene many times over these last ten years. I had rehearsed what Zack said and imagined Camille’s responses. I came to this moment late one evening, and, instead of pushing through to the end, I paused. My wife was watching TV in the next room. I was weary from a day at work. I closed the file and took the rest of the night off.
On the morning of Sunday, December 28th, I took a walk by myself through my neighborhood. I rehearsed the scene one more time, much like a musical director rehearsing a band: “Let’s take it from the line where Zack says . . . . Okay, good. Now, from the top . . . .” I returned home to a quiet house and quickly wrote the last page and a half.
Ten years after I first imagined this pair of young lovers, I had reached the end. But, as any writer will tell you, the work is never done. As soon as I had finished, I reached out to my original set of readers, including Pix, plus some new ones, like Julia Maiola, author of the historical drama The Red Flag, who I had met through the Writers Community on Twitter. Like nearly everything else I’ve written, I printed out a full manuscript copy for my mother.
I have an excerpt from ETYS, a short story called “Practice,” out at a literary journal. I have two more short stories planned for the next few months. I would like some recent bylines to my credit when I begin shopping ETYS to publishers. My plan is to skip agent queries for now, and focus solely on small presses.
When I make a match, I will be sure to let you know.
January 13, 2019
Zack and Cammy, part 2
By April of 2011, I had detailed notes outlining a sad, tender story of two young lovers. But Every Time You Speak You Break My Heart (ETYS for short) was buried on the depth chart. I had just begun writing Liam Wren and the Dragon Wand for HPFF. Waiting in the wings was another compelling teen love story, The Gospel of Thomas. ETYS would have to wait.
I started writing Revelation, the first half of The Gospel of Thomas, in December of 2012. Dated that same month and year is another handwritten passage from ETYS, a scene in which Camille coaxes Zack into asking her out on a date.
Camille asks, “So, how come you don’t have a girlfriend?” Zack answers, “I can’t talk to girls. I never know what to say.” Camille: “You’re talking to me. I’m a girl. I’m ugly, but I’m a girl.” Zack: “I don’t think you’re ugly.”
The draft states: “For a moment, she is unable to speak.” It’s not just one time. Every time he speaks, he breaks her heart.
\\
Though I had worked out much of the novel, a few areas remained completely undeveloped. It was clear that Zack had received some sort of counseling while in college, but I had no idea what that counseling should look like.
My older daughter read a book for one of her college classes called A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, et al. I asked to read it when her class was over. I found it fascinating. The book does a deep dive into brain development, but also describes effective methods for healing psychological wounds without the use of medications.
Reading this book led directly to the development of a key character for ETYS. In typed notes dated April 14, 2014, I describe Zack, struggling to make friends in college. The Dean of Students recommends he get counseling. On the way to the Psychology Department with his referral slip, he meets Madison, a Psychology Graduate student. She recognizes the referral and asks if she could work with him, as she needs to do case studies for her Master’s degree. Madison becomes a key mentor for Zack, helping him heal and grow emotionally.
The notes suggest that snippets from Zack’s conversations from Madison be mixed into the narration. As College Zack reminisces about his time with Camille, he would also be reflecting on his discussions with his mentor.
\\
The Gospel of Thomas has its share of heavy scenes, particularly in Part 2: Rapture. When I finished it in June of 2014, I was in no rush to jump into another heavy book. Instead, I wrote The Witches of Slytherin for HPFF. Then I jumped right into Love and Arithmancy, which I finished in May of 2016, posting the last chapter on HPFF on June 6th. Between April of 2011 and May of 2016, I had written over 1700 manuscript pages, nearly half a million words.
There were signs that it was time to write ETYS One was hearing a teen reading a poem at a high school talent show. Her friend had recently committed suicide. The poem was part of her grieving process, and showed her determination to press onward.
It was a reminder that, when writing for young people, you shouldn’t sugar-coat life or pull your punches. Life comes at you whether your ready or not. Saying “you’re not ready for a book like this” is just condescending. It was time to write my big, dark melancholic book about heartache, loss and facing up to one’s mistakes.
\\
I wrote up a new outline, this time using MS-Excel. This was something I started doing while writing Love & Arithmancy. The neat columns and straight lines really help keep me organized, and it’s easy to move items around without the whole thing turning into a mess.
On the afternoon of July 4th, 2016, I started writing. I knew that I had better bring my A game to this story. I wanted ETYS to be beautiful and sad, like a love song. (Risking all of my hard-earned street cred, I will tell you that my model here is Barry Manilow. “Oh, Mandy! . . .”)
Here’s a sample of what I mean, a paragraph from Chapter Two that I posted on Facebook and Instagram on July 12, 2016.
When he played the cornet, Zack’s shyness fell away, and he was transformed. Confidence and assertiveness, which he possessed at no other time in his life, were suddenly at his command. The cold night air, the buzz of the crowd, the perky chants of the cheerleaders, the grunts and pops from the battle on the football field: all of it vanished from his sight and hearing. The world was the bell of his cornet, the valves under his fingers, the breath in his lungs, the song in his ears, and the silver mouthpiece pressed tight against his lips.
\\
Since the year 2000, I had been using MS-Word as my word processor. For ETYS, I decided to write using Google Docs. I shared the document with a few of my regular readers, including my friend Pixileanin, who I met on HPFF. (Pix is the author of Rabbit Heart, a popular novel on HPFF/HPFT.)
When she would leave a comment, I would get a notification. I could respond to her comments, and she could respond back in real time, a remarkable experience considering that we live on opposite coasts of the United States.
\\
My outline was detailed, but it had one big hole in it. Towards the end, there was a single line: “Zack joins a jazz ensemble and meets his future lover.” I had no idea who the next girl was, or who any of the other people who were with Zack in this jazz ensemble.
On September 15th, 2016, I got my answer. I was far away from this scene in the manuscript, but on this particular day, out of my subconscious came, not one, but four new characters: band leader and tenor sax man Carl Eldon; bass player JP; drummer Angelique; and the keyboardist (and Zack’s future lover), Layla.
I had a business meeting in San Francisco that day. To get there and back, I took an hour-long ride on the subway. I took my notebook with me, and on the train, I wrote out by hand three + pages of notes. (This time, I put the date at the top!)
Several months later, I would flesh out these notes into several chapters of ETYS. Eldon, Angelique and JP were less distinct at that first moment. Layla, however, was a revelation, one of the most complex characters I have ever attempted to portray. A music composition major, a musical prodigy with antisocial tendencies, she is often deep into her own head, listening to music that doesn’t yet exist. She is a stunning surprise at the end of ETYS, akin to Charlie Sheen’s appearance at the end of the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I could hardly wait to work with her.
\\
When I finally did reach Layla, in the summer of 2017, I was in a very different place emotionally. There are three heavy scenes in the first half of ETYS, and they had taken their toll on me. My mood picked up when I got to Madison. I hoped things would accelerate further when Layla made her appearance. Instead, I started slowing down. I was emotionally spent, and I found I could not press ahead and write Zack and Layla’s tumultuous affair.
It didn’t help that 2017 had been the busiest year of my life. My younger daughter graduated from high school and went off to college. My elder daughter got married. I chaperoned a band/orchestra trip to Disneyland and later spent ten days in Alaska. And, I organized and hosted my 30 year high school reunion.
Reading through the manuscript of ETYS, I saw plenty that I wanted to fix, but the story had worn me out. In August of 2017, I suspended work on the book. Fifteen months would pass before I returned.
I started writing Revelation, the first half of The Gospel of Thomas, in December of 2012. Dated that same month and year is another handwritten passage from ETYS, a scene in which Camille coaxes Zack into asking her out on a date.
Camille asks, “So, how come you don’t have a girlfriend?” Zack answers, “I can’t talk to girls. I never know what to say.” Camille: “You’re talking to me. I’m a girl. I’m ugly, but I’m a girl.” Zack: “I don’t think you’re ugly.”
The draft states: “For a moment, she is unable to speak.” It’s not just one time. Every time he speaks, he breaks her heart.
\\
Though I had worked out much of the novel, a few areas remained completely undeveloped. It was clear that Zack had received some sort of counseling while in college, but I had no idea what that counseling should look like.
My older daughter read a book for one of her college classes called A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, et al. I asked to read it when her class was over. I found it fascinating. The book does a deep dive into brain development, but also describes effective methods for healing psychological wounds without the use of medications.
Reading this book led directly to the development of a key character for ETYS. In typed notes dated April 14, 2014, I describe Zack, struggling to make friends in college. The Dean of Students recommends he get counseling. On the way to the Psychology Department with his referral slip, he meets Madison, a Psychology Graduate student. She recognizes the referral and asks if she could work with him, as she needs to do case studies for her Master’s degree. Madison becomes a key mentor for Zack, helping him heal and grow emotionally.
The notes suggest that snippets from Zack’s conversations from Madison be mixed into the narration. As College Zack reminisces about his time with Camille, he would also be reflecting on his discussions with his mentor.
\\
The Gospel of Thomas has its share of heavy scenes, particularly in Part 2: Rapture. When I finished it in June of 2014, I was in no rush to jump into another heavy book. Instead, I wrote The Witches of Slytherin for HPFF. Then I jumped right into Love and Arithmancy, which I finished in May of 2016, posting the last chapter on HPFF on June 6th. Between April of 2011 and May of 2016, I had written over 1700 manuscript pages, nearly half a million words.
There were signs that it was time to write ETYS One was hearing a teen reading a poem at a high school talent show. Her friend had recently committed suicide. The poem was part of her grieving process, and showed her determination to press onward.
It was a reminder that, when writing for young people, you shouldn’t sugar-coat life or pull your punches. Life comes at you whether your ready or not. Saying “you’re not ready for a book like this” is just condescending. It was time to write my big, dark melancholic book about heartache, loss and facing up to one’s mistakes.
\\
I wrote up a new outline, this time using MS-Excel. This was something I started doing while writing Love & Arithmancy. The neat columns and straight lines really help keep me organized, and it’s easy to move items around without the whole thing turning into a mess.
On the afternoon of July 4th, 2016, I started writing. I knew that I had better bring my A game to this story. I wanted ETYS to be beautiful and sad, like a love song. (Risking all of my hard-earned street cred, I will tell you that my model here is Barry Manilow. “Oh, Mandy! . . .”)
Here’s a sample of what I mean, a paragraph from Chapter Two that I posted on Facebook and Instagram on July 12, 2016.
When he played the cornet, Zack’s shyness fell away, and he was transformed. Confidence and assertiveness, which he possessed at no other time in his life, were suddenly at his command. The cold night air, the buzz of the crowd, the perky chants of the cheerleaders, the grunts and pops from the battle on the football field: all of it vanished from his sight and hearing. The world was the bell of his cornet, the valves under his fingers, the breath in his lungs, the song in his ears, and the silver mouthpiece pressed tight against his lips.
\\
Since the year 2000, I had been using MS-Word as my word processor. For ETYS, I decided to write using Google Docs. I shared the document with a few of my regular readers, including my friend Pixileanin, who I met on HPFF. (Pix is the author of Rabbit Heart, a popular novel on HPFF/HPFT.)
When she would leave a comment, I would get a notification. I could respond to her comments, and she could respond back in real time, a remarkable experience considering that we live on opposite coasts of the United States.
\\
My outline was detailed, but it had one big hole in it. Towards the end, there was a single line: “Zack joins a jazz ensemble and meets his future lover.” I had no idea who the next girl was, or who any of the other people who were with Zack in this jazz ensemble.
On September 15th, 2016, I got my answer. I was far away from this scene in the manuscript, but on this particular day, out of my subconscious came, not one, but four new characters: band leader and tenor sax man Carl Eldon; bass player JP; drummer Angelique; and the keyboardist (and Zack’s future lover), Layla.
I had a business meeting in San Francisco that day. To get there and back, I took an hour-long ride on the subway. I took my notebook with me, and on the train, I wrote out by hand three + pages of notes. (This time, I put the date at the top!)
Several months later, I would flesh out these notes into several chapters of ETYS. Eldon, Angelique and JP were less distinct at that first moment. Layla, however, was a revelation, one of the most complex characters I have ever attempted to portray. A music composition major, a musical prodigy with antisocial tendencies, she is often deep into her own head, listening to music that doesn’t yet exist. She is a stunning surprise at the end of ETYS, akin to Charlie Sheen’s appearance at the end of the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I could hardly wait to work with her.
\\
When I finally did reach Layla, in the summer of 2017, I was in a very different place emotionally. There are three heavy scenes in the first half of ETYS, and they had taken their toll on me. My mood picked up when I got to Madison. I hoped things would accelerate further when Layla made her appearance. Instead, I started slowing down. I was emotionally spent, and I found I could not press ahead and write Zack and Layla’s tumultuous affair.
It didn’t help that 2017 had been the busiest year of my life. My younger daughter graduated from high school and went off to college. My elder daughter got married. I chaperoned a band/orchestra trip to Disneyland and later spent ten days in Alaska. And, I organized and hosted my 30 year high school reunion.
Reading through the manuscript of ETYS, I saw plenty that I wanted to fix, but the story had worn me out. In August of 2017, I suspended work on the book. Fifteen months would pass before I returned.
January 6, 2019
10 years with Zack and Cammy, part 1
In the beginning, the story of Zack and Cammy looks like a complete inversion of Romance novel stereotypes. Instead of the most masculine of men, a chiseled Adonis, pursuing a ravishing fiesty beauty, the epitome of femininity, I have a couple of band kids: a quiet, nerdy boy and a girl who is charming and outgoing, but homely.
I rarely date my notes. I believe the first set, three pages of binder paper with the words “Zack and Cammy” written on the top, is from some time in 2008. In these notes, Camille was a freshman and Zack a sophomore. They both played the trumpet in their high school marching band. (Like many of my other characters, Zack and Cammy go to Cooper High in my fictional town of Peace Valley, California.)
I note that Zack is “anonymous, lost in the crowd.” To heighten Zack’s sense of inadequacy, Camille’s brother, Bud, is a star football player. Zack’s friends tease him about Camille, because she is not pretty.
Despite being younger and homely, Camille takes the lead in the relationship. She is the one that initiates the physical intimacy between them. There in the notes is a scene that carried forward into the final novel. One of Zack’s friends tauntingly asks, “Does she give you head, at least?” Zack reacts angrily, and he is still angry and flustered when he tells Camille about it later. He is shocked when she says that she would, in fact, give him oral sex.
Camille speaks in the frank way young people express their truth. I don’t compose dialogue so much as record what my characters say, and what Camille told Zack haunted me. It showed the pressure she felt, and the weight of the insults she had received through the years: “I know the score. Us ugly ducks gotta put out.” She is afraid that, if she isn’t intimate with Zack, he will leave her.
On the last page of these notes, the story darkens. I write, “Cammy is forced to have sex with a friend of her brother.”
\\
The next page of notes is dated November 2010. (This date was added later, but let’s assume it’s accurate.) I have at this point written my first Liam Wren story, “The Dangers of Black Cats,” but I have yet to post it at HPFF.
This is a one-page handwritten draft of the story’s opening. In the novel, this scene is seven pages long, but it’s essentially the same. Zack comes home for Christmas after an undetermined number of years. He admires his mother’s Christmas tree. The notes state the tree bears “mementos of a happy childhood. Comfortable lies instead of hard truths. Growing up here was miserable.” Zack’s mother mentions that she saw his old girlfriend recently. She is working as a clerk at a drugstore downtown. (The draft explicitly says “Walgreens.”) In the passage, Mom says, “You probably haven’t thought of her in years, have you?” Zack answers, “No, I haven’t.” At the bottom of the page, I write, “But this is another lie.”
Two other pages follow, briefly summarizing the course of the novel, the course I would eventually follow. Zack and Camille break up, and there is a period of time when they are out of contact. Zack has a relationship with another girl. “Though prettier than Cammy, [she] lacks her charm and skill at lovemaking. He appreciates her [Camille] in retrospect.” Zack and Camille meet again at the end of the novel. The last words of this section of notes: “[The] novel should end ambiguously. Will they get back together or go on their way? If they do reunite, will it last or lead to another breakup?”
\\
Another piece of paper, torn from a different notebook than the above draft, contains a single paragraph. It’s as if the novel is already written in my head, and I was just giving myself a little teaser. There is no context, only the header, “excerpt from Zack and Cammy”, but I know that Zack is reflecting on the experience of Camille giving him oral sex.
I write: “All Zack could recall from that first experience was the blinding pleasure. It was only much later, at the hands of a less accomplished lover, did he fully appreciate Camille’s grace and skill, and comprehend her experience. There had been other boys before him. There must have been. But, who they were he never learned. They vanished from her past like dry leaves into earth.”
Six, maybe seven years later, I wrote that paragraph almost verbatim into the novel.
\\
Finally, we have three pages of typed notes. The benefit here is that I have the MS-Word metadata, which states this file was created on April 19th, 2011. I started writing Liam Wren and the Dragon Wand around the same time. This is a typical experience of writers. You start on one project and suddenly your brain starts telling you about something completely different.
The notes are detailed and interspersed with dialogue. The story begins with Zack returning home at Christmastime. After his mother mentions meeting Camille at the drugstore, Zack begins to reminisce about her. The plot moves back and forth from the present to the past, from College Zack to High School Zack.
I’ve made some changes from the initial concepts. For one, Camille is older. I have moved her to the saxophone. In the typed notes, she is a junior and Zack a senior. Zack is now a virtuoso trumpet player, a soloist hoping to get a music scholarship to college. He is not just shy, but painfully so. Zack will not speak in crowded spaces or on the phone. He only opens up to Camille when the two of them are alone. He now has an older sister, Saffron, who encourages Zack to pursue Camille.
The plot has darkened considerably. Zack and Saffron are coping with verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Christmas is particularly painful for Zack. He is burdened with painful December memories, and the false cheeriness of “the happiest time of the year” makes him depressed. Camille coaxes the whole tragic story out of Zack. The tale leaves her in tears. She says, “Oh Zack! You are so shy. It is so hard to get you to say anything at all. And then, every time you speak you break my heart!”
I remember hearing those words in my head for days before I wrote them down. In the notes, they are in bold:every time you speak, you break my heart. I knew right then, that was the title of my novel.
To be continued . . .
I rarely date my notes. I believe the first set, three pages of binder paper with the words “Zack and Cammy” written on the top, is from some time in 2008. In these notes, Camille was a freshman and Zack a sophomore. They both played the trumpet in their high school marching band. (Like many of my other characters, Zack and Cammy go to Cooper High in my fictional town of Peace Valley, California.)
I note that Zack is “anonymous, lost in the crowd.” To heighten Zack’s sense of inadequacy, Camille’s brother, Bud, is a star football player. Zack’s friends tease him about Camille, because she is not pretty.
Despite being younger and homely, Camille takes the lead in the relationship. She is the one that initiates the physical intimacy between them. There in the notes is a scene that carried forward into the final novel. One of Zack’s friends tauntingly asks, “Does she give you head, at least?” Zack reacts angrily, and he is still angry and flustered when he tells Camille about it later. He is shocked when she says that she would, in fact, give him oral sex.
Camille speaks in the frank way young people express their truth. I don’t compose dialogue so much as record what my characters say, and what Camille told Zack haunted me. It showed the pressure she felt, and the weight of the insults she had received through the years: “I know the score. Us ugly ducks gotta put out.” She is afraid that, if she isn’t intimate with Zack, he will leave her.
On the last page of these notes, the story darkens. I write, “Cammy is forced to have sex with a friend of her brother.”
\\
The next page of notes is dated November 2010. (This date was added later, but let’s assume it’s accurate.) I have at this point written my first Liam Wren story, “The Dangers of Black Cats,” but I have yet to post it at HPFF.
This is a one-page handwritten draft of the story’s opening. In the novel, this scene is seven pages long, but it’s essentially the same. Zack comes home for Christmas after an undetermined number of years. He admires his mother’s Christmas tree. The notes state the tree bears “mementos of a happy childhood. Comfortable lies instead of hard truths. Growing up here was miserable.” Zack’s mother mentions that she saw his old girlfriend recently. She is working as a clerk at a drugstore downtown. (The draft explicitly says “Walgreens.”) In the passage, Mom says, “You probably haven’t thought of her in years, have you?” Zack answers, “No, I haven’t.” At the bottom of the page, I write, “But this is another lie.”
Two other pages follow, briefly summarizing the course of the novel, the course I would eventually follow. Zack and Camille break up, and there is a period of time when they are out of contact. Zack has a relationship with another girl. “Though prettier than Cammy, [she] lacks her charm and skill at lovemaking. He appreciates her [Camille] in retrospect.” Zack and Camille meet again at the end of the novel. The last words of this section of notes: “[The] novel should end ambiguously. Will they get back together or go on their way? If they do reunite, will it last or lead to another breakup?”
\\
Another piece of paper, torn from a different notebook than the above draft, contains a single paragraph. It’s as if the novel is already written in my head, and I was just giving myself a little teaser. There is no context, only the header, “excerpt from Zack and Cammy”, but I know that Zack is reflecting on the experience of Camille giving him oral sex.
I write: “All Zack could recall from that first experience was the blinding pleasure. It was only much later, at the hands of a less accomplished lover, did he fully appreciate Camille’s grace and skill, and comprehend her experience. There had been other boys before him. There must have been. But, who they were he never learned. They vanished from her past like dry leaves into earth.”
Six, maybe seven years later, I wrote that paragraph almost verbatim into the novel.
\\
Finally, we have three pages of typed notes. The benefit here is that I have the MS-Word metadata, which states this file was created on April 19th, 2011. I started writing Liam Wren and the Dragon Wand around the same time. This is a typical experience of writers. You start on one project and suddenly your brain starts telling you about something completely different.
The notes are detailed and interspersed with dialogue. The story begins with Zack returning home at Christmastime. After his mother mentions meeting Camille at the drugstore, Zack begins to reminisce about her. The plot moves back and forth from the present to the past, from College Zack to High School Zack.
I’ve made some changes from the initial concepts. For one, Camille is older. I have moved her to the saxophone. In the typed notes, she is a junior and Zack a senior. Zack is now a virtuoso trumpet player, a soloist hoping to get a music scholarship to college. He is not just shy, but painfully so. Zack will not speak in crowded spaces or on the phone. He only opens up to Camille when the two of them are alone. He now has an older sister, Saffron, who encourages Zack to pursue Camille.
The plot has darkened considerably. Zack and Saffron are coping with verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Christmas is particularly painful for Zack. He is burdened with painful December memories, and the false cheeriness of “the happiest time of the year” makes him depressed. Camille coaxes the whole tragic story out of Zack. The tale leaves her in tears. She says, “Oh Zack! You are so shy. It is so hard to get you to say anything at all. And then, every time you speak you break my heart!”
I remember hearing those words in my head for days before I wrote them down. In the notes, they are in bold:every time you speak, you break my heart. I knew right then, that was the title of my novel.
To be continued . . .
November 25, 2018
Fleetwood Mac Live in San Jose
On the day before Thanksgiving, my wife and I drove down to San Jose, California, to see Fleetwood Mac. Though the band’s roots go back to 1967, I knew them mostly for their lineup from the 70’s and 80’s featuring Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. For this tour, Buckingham declined to participate. He was replaced by Neil Finn of the 80’s band Crowded House, and Mike Campbell, former lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
The show was at the SAP arena, the home of the San Jose Sharks hockey team. We had floor seats - padded folding chairs placed on a covering over what, during Sharks games, would be ice. The acoustics aren’t great, but that hasn’t stopped me from coming to shows here. I’ve seen Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, and (with my teenage daughter) Avril Lavigne at this same venue.
I was excited for this show mostly because of the additions of Finn and Campbell. This would be a new experience, a blending of old songs and new talent, rather than a strictly nostalgic tour that was trying to recapture some moment lost in time.The first question was, with the new members, would it still sound like Fleetwood Mac? They started off with “The Chain,” which has a slow build leading to a frenzied guitar solo. Campbell nailed the solo and immediately put to rest the “I wish Buckingham were here” talk.
The band features three lead vocalists, and each got a turn in the spotlight. Christine McVie sang “Everywhere,” “Say You Love Me,” and “You Make Loving Fun.” Neil Finn covered songs that Lindsey Buckingham would sing, like “Second Hand News” and “Monday Morning.”
But, the big star of the show was Stevie Nicks. Nicks grew up in San Jose, and this was a homecoming for her. She had friends and family in the audience, and, despite her years touring as part of Fleetwood Mac and as a successful solo artist, she admitted to being nervous and flustered.
The core members of Fleetwood Mac are all in their 70s. The band is now augmented by a second keyboard player, a third guitarist (besides Campbell and Finn) and a percussionist, Taku Hirano. Christine McVie can still hammer out a bluesy solo on the keyboards, but with Ricky Peterson backing her up, she could also step away and just sing. Mick Fleetwood banged away on the drums for nearly entire concert, including a long percussion interlude between him and Hirano. I hope when I’m 71, I have that kind of energy.
After that drum extravaganza, it was time to cool down and mellow out. Everyone left the stage except Neil Finn and Peterson. The two of them played “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” which was a big hit in 1987 for Crowded House. Halfway through, Stevie Nicks came back on stage, and the two finished the song as a duet. This was exactly what I wanted to hear when I bought the tickets. It elevated Finn from stand-in to a key contributor to the band.
The two then started right in on “Landslide,” a lovely ballad about growing older. (The Dixie Chicks covered this song in 2002.) Halfway through, Nicks lost her place in the song and, in a fit of nerves, couldn’t get it back. The audience came through for her. We sang the next line, she joined in with us and we finished the song together. This is why you go to live shows, and not just listen to the studio recordings. You go for those unique moments, those magical, heartfelt connections between the performer and her audience. It was the highlight of the show.
As part of the encore, the band performed “Free Fallin’,” the 1989 hit for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. During the performance, they projected a slideshow, pictures of Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and the rest of that band. There were several pictures featuring Stevie Nicks. She had a hit in 1981 with “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which she recorded with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and she performed with them several times during the 80’s. It was a touching tribute. Mike Campbell bowed to his old friend, projected on the screen, at the end of the song.
They finished with the ballad “All Over Again” from the 1995 album Time. Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks sang it as a duet. The two have been portrayed as rivals through the years. It was great to see them on stage, singing together, and embracing at the end of the song.
I’ve seen some unique shows through the years - U2 during the Joshua Tree tour, Sting playing with Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland, Joan Osborne in a small theater in my hometown - but this was a memorable, special night. It was a nice early birthday present for me.
The show was at the SAP arena, the home of the San Jose Sharks hockey team. We had floor seats - padded folding chairs placed on a covering over what, during Sharks games, would be ice. The acoustics aren’t great, but that hasn’t stopped me from coming to shows here. I’ve seen Billy Joel, Barry Manilow, and (with my teenage daughter) Avril Lavigne at this same venue.
I was excited for this show mostly because of the additions of Finn and Campbell. This would be a new experience, a blending of old songs and new talent, rather than a strictly nostalgic tour that was trying to recapture some moment lost in time.The first question was, with the new members, would it still sound like Fleetwood Mac? They started off with “The Chain,” which has a slow build leading to a frenzied guitar solo. Campbell nailed the solo and immediately put to rest the “I wish Buckingham were here” talk.
The band features three lead vocalists, and each got a turn in the spotlight. Christine McVie sang “Everywhere,” “Say You Love Me,” and “You Make Loving Fun.” Neil Finn covered songs that Lindsey Buckingham would sing, like “Second Hand News” and “Monday Morning.”
But, the big star of the show was Stevie Nicks. Nicks grew up in San Jose, and this was a homecoming for her. She had friends and family in the audience, and, despite her years touring as part of Fleetwood Mac and as a successful solo artist, she admitted to being nervous and flustered.
The core members of Fleetwood Mac are all in their 70s. The band is now augmented by a second keyboard player, a third guitarist (besides Campbell and Finn) and a percussionist, Taku Hirano. Christine McVie can still hammer out a bluesy solo on the keyboards, but with Ricky Peterson backing her up, she could also step away and just sing. Mick Fleetwood banged away on the drums for nearly entire concert, including a long percussion interlude between him and Hirano. I hope when I’m 71, I have that kind of energy.
After that drum extravaganza, it was time to cool down and mellow out. Everyone left the stage except Neil Finn and Peterson. The two of them played “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” which was a big hit in 1987 for Crowded House. Halfway through, Stevie Nicks came back on stage, and the two finished the song as a duet. This was exactly what I wanted to hear when I bought the tickets. It elevated Finn from stand-in to a key contributor to the band.
The two then started right in on “Landslide,” a lovely ballad about growing older. (The Dixie Chicks covered this song in 2002.) Halfway through, Nicks lost her place in the song and, in a fit of nerves, couldn’t get it back. The audience came through for her. We sang the next line, she joined in with us and we finished the song together. This is why you go to live shows, and not just listen to the studio recordings. You go for those unique moments, those magical, heartfelt connections between the performer and her audience. It was the highlight of the show.
As part of the encore, the band performed “Free Fallin’,” the 1989 hit for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. During the performance, they projected a slideshow, pictures of Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and the rest of that band. There were several pictures featuring Stevie Nicks. She had a hit in 1981 with “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which she recorded with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and she performed with them several times during the 80’s. It was a touching tribute. Mike Campbell bowed to his old friend, projected on the screen, at the end of the song.
They finished with the ballad “All Over Again” from the 1995 album Time. Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks sang it as a duet. The two have been portrayed as rivals through the years. It was great to see them on stage, singing together, and embracing at the end of the song.
I’ve seen some unique shows through the years - U2 during the Joshua Tree tour, Sting playing with Branford Marsalis and Kenny Kirkland, Joan Osborne in a small theater in my hometown - but this was a memorable, special night. It was a nice early birthday present for me.
