Patrick Whitehurst's Blog, page 17

An open letter on open letters (in curmudgeon)

Dear Open Letter Writer,
We all care so much about your opinion. We want your open letter so bad.  Please write it as long as possible, as passionately as possible, and tell us all how you feel. Of course we know you have no real connection to the topic, no stake, but don’t let that get in the way of adding to the conversation. 
It’s an important topic, so make it noisy. Blur the lines of discussion, add your own story to the mix whether it’s only partially similar to the topic, whether anyone asked for you to chime in or not. We promise to hang on every word of your open letter as if we needed only your voice to make the discussion saltier.
Your open letter isn’t going to make me think you’re riding on the coattails of a trending topic. It’s going to make me want to know more about you. It might make us sad for you. It might make us nod our heads in approval, and if your instincts are right, it might even make us want to share it. So write it. Please write it. Your experience is just what we need right now while the discussion is slow, but do it before the news cycles on to the next trend. There’s nothing worse than starting an open letter and abandoning it in favor of a different open letter.
Every random thought and unimportant detail, written by way of abusive and uninformed language, should be in there. We know you know how to write like that. We all do, at least those of us on social media know. Share your personal story and school us on how it’s similar to the trending political topic of the day. Explain how your court experience, your arrest, and your violent crime is just like the one in the news. Make it seem like there are no differences. Make it seem like you know those involved in the topic intimately and we will believe every word. Do whatever it takes. It might be difficult since you aren’t involved, and your opinion wasn’t solicited, but we don’t care. We so don’t care.

We just your opinion. It makes all the difference. Really.

A road trip gauged on karate chopping

How the drive from Monterey to Cottonwood and back again might go for you
There was a beat up pickup truck, larger than average, with a flatbed area surrounded by wooden fencing made of paint chips and splinters. The bed was full of sheep. They were pressed against the wood, but not making a sound. Had I not looked up while pumping gas, I wouldn’t have seen them at all. Not even a smell preceded their arrival. And they had no idea how old that wooden fence looked. I probably could have karate chopped it to pieces without trying hard.
Tehachapi also hosted the scrawny woman with the mousy brown hair and burgundy corduroy pants. She approached our table during a short food break to give us a religious book, then asked if my son and I wanted to pray with her. Probably could have karate chopped her pretty easily too. She didn’t order anything to eat I noticed.
Barstow, driven through on the way to Arizona and slept in on the way back from Arizona, held terrors to chill the very soul. From expensive gas stations and herky-jerky stop lights, to the denizens on their bicycles who hang out in a few of the motel’s parking lots wearing very little (it was past 100 degrees at 11 p.m.) with their tattoos and desperation on view for the road weary to witness. What they did wear looked like it had been new back when Cindy Crawford still made movies. My sleepy, caffeine-fueled karate chops would have confused them at first, but then they would have kicked my ass and stole my stuff.

How can you Bruce Lee a heatwave? Mentally it’s possible. Especially from inside a car. With an air conditioner turned so on it’s like love. But that heat kills everything. My dreams of a life without becoming a crabby curmudgeon left a stain on Route 66 when it melted there years ago. But mentally, I totally kicked that 109 degree temp’s ass.
In Paso Robles, there’s always a guy there who only has enough money for a soda and sits in the restaurant in ripped up clothes he probably got from the bicycle-riding crowd in Barstow because it was always too hot there for them to need it. That guy sits there and sizes up the customers when they walk in. He makes uncomfortable eye contact. He karate chops with his eyes and I karate chopped back. I could be him after all. I could make those who see me uncomfortable. But I don’t.

And now my eye lids are karate chopping my cheeks. And my cheeks keep karate chopping them open again. And I miss the quiet sheep.

From a Big Sur writing retreat part VIII

24 moments that shaped my life  Kerouac and I posing.
Some day I hope to write about these things, if I haven't already.

1. The moment she whispered in my ear
2. The moment I heard the gunshot
3. The moment the phone rang at 3 a.m.
4. The moment the nurse tried to leave with my newborn son
5. The moment the doctor said it was life threatening
6. The moment I heard I was a father
7. The moment all the anglefish turned sideways
8. The moment I first saw the foreclosure sign
9. The moment I could breathe again
10. The moment I saw a kitten born
11. The moment when the pizza is put on the table
12. The moment I was tripped in the hallway
13. The moment I tried to breakdance
14. The moment she made me cry
15. The moment when I realized sex was fun
16. The moment I saw the body
17. The moment the Obamas came out of Air Force One
18. The moment when my son tells me he loves me
19. The moment we saw the burglars in the house
20. The moment I froze in front of the headlights
21. The moment my daughter sends me a story
22. The moment I had to put Kerouac down
23. The moment I first had bread pudding
24. The moment when algebra made me sweat

From a Big Sur writing retreat Part VII

The road map of my life
I'm told it began in California and from my earliest memory that's been the case. Happiness blossomed for me in California. I liked everything as a child and I quickly became a pop culture fanatic, devouring everything from the Six-Million-Dollar Man to standing in line for the 1989 premier of Batman. But it was short lived. The opinions of others easily swayed my own beliefs back then, particularly those that said life is cheaper, therefore better, in hot Arizona.
In my early 20s I decided to find out if that was true. It wasn't. Not better by a long shot.
There were a ton of “ers” to be found, but none of them were particularly appealing. It's hotter. It's dustier. It's colder in the winter. It's buggier. And (from what I saw, and with the exception of Bookman's, the Pererine Book Company, and Changing Hands) it's dumber. California came with memories of my mom and how she stoked the fires of my inner nerd with Spider Man dolls and introduced me to the beauty of the rolling sea. I clung to those memories after she died, while I worked on a road crew in Phoenix, when I learned DOS programming, and when I thought I would succumb to heat exhaustion while surrounded by saguaro cactus. Twenty years later I left the only two good parts of the Grand Canyon State, my children, and returned to the place where I was born. 
Today I walk over the memories I cherish, see the same sights every day that I saw through younger eyes, and wish my children were here with me. I came home again.

But I want to take them from theirs so my world will be complete.

Lulled by the lullaby

So lovely. So soft. Fuzzy. Warm.

On Effexor, paranoia is spread out like peanut butter on white bread. It’s diffused, all concentration gone. It’s less important. That’s what happens when the salmon-colored tablets pole dance down my throat. It brings my humanity back to a bearable point and whispers to my mind that it’s been wrong all this time. But who is right? Should I be paranoid? Isn’t there a truly dark and terrible reason for my depression? Or is Effexor right? There is no reason for the depression. There isn’t really anything to be paranoid about.  And if there is a reason, who cares?

Romanticizing authors for their love of alcohol is why many are as popular as they are, or at least one of the reasons they’re adored. Everyone loves to think someone so messed up can create something so loved. And there are a ton of messed up authors. Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, Poe; the list (15 top drunks here ) is pretty endless. All the cool writerly types get hammered when getting fat at their keyboard. At least they used to.

Now they’re on Effexor.

Effexor is why I can listen to Linkin Park’s Meteora album while driving (at the speed limit) in my Volvo without feeling like people will think I’m old. I was already old when the album came out.  It’s why writers don’t need to drink. It’s a lullaby for an anxious existence. It’s Wyeth-Ayerst Lab’s gift of sublime “synapsical” serotonin. Thanks you guys. I can alter my existence without throwing up now. Only I can't leave your drug. It won't let me.

The mid 90s came with turbulence. Bad relationships, new homes, mortgages, higher incomes, 3-D puzzles, Voltron, Princess Diana, Mike Tyson’s ear eating, and then came Effexor. It’s been a smooth ride since, like sitting in the backseat of your grandpa’s Buick Park Avenue.

Only he was a drunk.

From a Big Sur writing retreat part VI

Damn you, Aquaman

There is a kind of hunger for free time. Real free time. Without the damn dishes, the weekend laundry, or any chores whatsoever, without feeling pressured to write by my own OCD mind and just read any of the books I feel like reading, or paint. Or write. Or all of the above.

There is a kind of hunger that makes me jealous of Aquaman. It's a desire to swim without breathing air, to swim all day long, to explore the sea alone. Damn that guy.

There is a kind of hunger to eat pizza and cheeseburgers all day every day. Only I can't. If I want to know my children as middle-aged adults I will have to know cheeseburgers and pizza a little less intimately.

There is a kind of hunger that grows as you get older. It rises from your stomach, telling you to finish those lifelong bucket list items and do it soon. Checking off the list becomes all you think about. Write those five novels you've fleshed out or die.

There is a kind of hunger for acceptance, but only kind of. We all accept in one way or another, just rarely in the way you hope. You can try to tame them, steer people into accepting you in the way you want them to, but you end up being the weirdo, the misunderstood understand. It's okay. Just accept it.

There is a kind of hunger for death. When the kids are old enough. Or when the grand kids are old enough. That hunger is for life's goals to lose their luster, for acceptance to go to hell, for there to be as much free time as you would know what to do with (maybe sell it?), and best of all, maybe I could BE Aquaman.

From a Big Sur writing retreat part V

Shove it in with a shovel-spoon
One bag of macaroni shellsA stick of butterA block of orange (radioactive orange) cheese
THESE are the things that subdued my anger, my sense of indignation at the world, and put an end to my whining to this very day. These three things my mom combined when it came time to make a home-cooked meal. On these nights, when there wasn't a Hungry Man in the oven, I felt better. She knew it would fix things.

Boil the shells. Grate the neon orange cheese. Why does my brother get to go to Ireland? He got arrested and I got better grades in school? But then I'd pop a tuft of that grated cheese into my mouth and forget about her answer. Something about BECAUSE I was good she didn't have to worry about rewarding me. My brother needed bribes.

Once the shells boiled tender and soft, mom drained them. She'd dump them into a glass baking dish and drop the stick of butter on that steaming pile of macaroni shells. Lastly she'd stir until it all melted. Why are you buying my brother a second vehicle? You haven't even bought me one, I'd cry. The smell of grated cheese, sprinkled over the butter-drenched shells, muted the whining until my tone turned conversational in nature. YOU can take care of yourself, she'd say.

After ten or fifteen minutes the cheese would turn crusty around the outer edges of the baking dish. I think you like him better than me, I would say.  No, I love you both DIFFERENTLY, she'd reply. Then she'd serve up the baked macaroni and cheese and I'd forget about my jealousy for a bit. We'd douse it in Heinz Ketchup.

I never knew my mom wasn't a very good cook, not until I moved into my own apartment. But on those macaroni and cheese nights, she was the BEST cook.

Because pee

The line at this particular bathroom killed her. She hated lines like she hated obscurity. But she had to go. Bad. Justine was a pretty little thing. She’d just cut her long blonde hair off a week ago, going for a tomboy style she found charming. The men in her life weren’t so sure about it, but that didn’t stop them from drooling at the clubs in San Jose. She was in Paso Robles today, far from her base of popularity. Justine made this trip inland to Arizona regularly. It was part of her job, stroking and grooming pharma accounts. She got paid to act flirty and smile with sexual charm at the old men in charge of her business. The rest fell easily into place.  Except this particular bathroom at this particular gas station. It always pissed her off.

She held her pink iPhone over her face and snapped a saucy selfie while standing in line. She stood there patiently and posted the pic to Instagram, then realized there wasn’t a line to get into the men’s bathroom. Her line was six women deep. She typed, “Screw this. I’m going into the mens room. Because pee,” and hit share. Oh, there’d be a few hearts on that, she was sure.

Just as she’d forgotten the word because was once followed by more than one word, she’d forgotten that rules were often in place for a reason. It could be they didn’t apply to her. It could be so many rules were just stupid. It could be Justine was stupid. The reasons didn’t matter to her. She didn’t even think twice about going in there. Because pee.

She kept her eyes straight ahead and trucked in, strutting past the yellow-stained urinals with a sense of high dignity (and by a large man hunkered up to one), and entered one of the two stalls. A pair of brown boots were visible in the stall next to hers, but she ignored it. It was only when she sat down did she hear the deep, manly voices.

“Think we got a tranny in here,” one of them said.  “Must be a dude to think it can come in here.”
Justine scowled, indignant. “Hello? Did you see the line out there for the girl’s? I didn’t want to wait, but I am a woman.”

“Like we believe that,” the other man said, flushing the toilet next to hers and walking out of the stall.
Justine was about to reply when a brown boot kicked at her stall. She stood and just yanked her pants up when the door crashed open. A storm of wide, bony knuckles fell over her. She’d never felt pain like that before. Never thought she would either. It filled her very soul, that pain, squeezing out her own indignant anger like a vice. She went to black and collapsed on the filthy floor. Boots kicked her a few times to make sure their point was made.

Because ignorance.

Here's the deal

They say never look at reviews of your own writing. It’s like a vampire trying to gander at her reflection in the mirror. Why bother? they say. But that little narcissist in all of us, that peeping Tom or Tina, often urges action louder than the sleeping Sam or Samantha has ever spoken. Sam or Samantha can go to hell. I want to know what people think.

Then you see a bad review and you want a stiff drink.

And you want to take that reviewer out back and get their face familiar with your knuckles.

Some bad reviews are better than others, but it’s never a good idea to let them get the best of you. Coming from a background in journalism, I remember days full of criticism, some of it pretty nasty. It felt like spears heaped on your back. There are days when you hear praise too, when you win an award, and when you feel all flowery inside.  That’s when you know you are doing the best you can. If you love doing it, keep on churning it out. Just as they say the best way to sell books is to keep writing new ones, the best way to ignore critics is to do just that. Ignore them. Ignore them all to hell.

I recently took a peep at my Amazon author page. I keep thinking I should just leave it alone, but I probably won’t. I want to change the picture, try to change the order of the books, make sure the links go where I want them to go, regular old narcissistic author stuff. But then I thought I’d peek at a couple of my books to see how the reviews were coming along. Usually there aren’t new ones, but I did see one for my book “Grand Canyon’s Tusayan Village.” The review was written by “Arizona,” similar to “old west guy,” who wrote a bad review for my book “Williams.” It was pretty harsh. And I disagree with Arizona’s assessment.

Some authors would like anonymous reviewers to, at the very least, leave their real names so they can perhaps reach out to talk with the person wronged by the book. A fake name just insulates the attacker, some think. But I’m okay with it. Some people will not like a book no matter how many other people love it. Some people will not understand a book despite the fact others get it. It’s all fine. They say you can’t please everyone all of the time. We’ve all heard that nugget. Look at the original Star Wars. Fans dig the unaltered version more than they do the enhanced versions out there now – complete with additional scenes and computer generated alterations. Some fans (or at least Star Wars creator George Lucas) like the newer version better. And a book on the small community outside of Grand Canyon is just like Star Wars. Totally.  Those of you who’ve ever lived around there know what I mean.

I’m glad Arizona and old west guy pulled up to my books and spent the time writing a little something for the world to see. After all, as the author of those books, that’s all I’m doing too, writing a little something. And I’ll keep writing, with or without Arizona’s blessing, but probably with a stiff drink.

Or some Effexor.

Big Sur Alien - Dead

The creature made a move. It wasn’t much of a move, but it totally counted. It’s pale, fleshy head with almond shaped eyes (if almonds were the size of watermelons) nodded in my direction. But hell if that scared me. I’m an American. So keeping my iPhone as steady as possible in my right hand, I lifted my pistol with my left hand and fired. The thing staggered backwards behind a fallen pine tree. I kept filming with my phone, hoping it wasn't too dark for the camera to pick up the action.
I go to the range regularly and know for a fact I hit the thing, just like I killed a rabbit a few minutes earlier on the trail. But the creature, an alien for sure, kept moving even after it took a round. It dropped the rabbit I shot. Still not sure why it picked it up in the first place. When the rabbit hit the ground the damn thing scurried off. I know it was dead a minute ago, but somehow just touching the alien brought it back to life.
I may not have some fancy degree, those totally worthless pieces of paper sold by the liberal media like store bought intelligence, but I do have something better. My instincts. And those trump your un-American agenda any day. Not having a degree just means I haven’t been brainwashed.
So I kept my instincts in my back pocket and reloaded my gun.
I may live on my parents’ property in Big Sur, but I’m not a hippy. Far from it. And I’ve seen Independence Day.  If I’d wanted that rabbit to be alive I wouldn’t have shot it. I popped off another round at where I thought the alien might be hiding, then snuck closer to the fallen pine tree.
“This thing wants to kill me,” I said. I talked into the camera on the iPhone, for the sake of the video. I’d quit Farmers Only if it didn’t go viral, but I knew it would. Within hours of posting it too.  “Not sure what it is, but I know it’s not from here. Not from my planet.”
The alien leaned against the fallen pine tree, gasping for air. Eucalyptus bark, shredded from recent wind storms, covered the area. I could smell the trees, but also the hot blood of my enemy. I knew I’d got him. He held a long skinny hand over a bloodied wound on its shoulder, the wound I caused.
“You’re not even wearing clothes,” I said, glad for the camouflage jacket I had on. Made it harder to see me in the night. Actually I rarely ever went outside not wearing it. The alien’s other hand rested on the trunk of the tree. Flowers were popping out of the dead tree wherever the alien touched it. Unbelievable. It’s touch, just it’s touch, seemed to bring life. The flowers looked like poppies, maybe some violets too, I don’t know. It’s like it was trying to tell me it was the second coming or something. I wasn’t having any of that, so I kept the iPhone steady and shot it a few more times in the head. This time I was sure I’d ended whatever plans this monstrosity had for me and my neighbors.
“This pistol right here is my God-given right,” I told the dying alien. “You might want to think twice about invading an armed country next time. You hear what I’m saying? Think twice about coming to America!”
But it was dead. Guess it’s healing touch didn’t work on itself. After a few close-ups I stopped recording and got down next to the thing. Had to take some selfies with it. Make for a sweet profile pic.
Then I uploaded the video. I put it on Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, everywhere.

I wrote, “Killed an alien tonite. Your welcome,” and waited for the likes.