Mark R. Hunter's Blog, page 93
October 25, 2014
Book signing-if you happen to be nearby
Just in time for Christmas shopping, we’re having a book signing Monday, November 17th, at the main branch of the Noble County Public Library in Albion. We should have copies of all my books there, especially the latest one, The Notorious Ian Grant—which will be at a reduced price compared to retail.
The library is at 813 E Main St in Albion, and we’ll be there from 3-6 p.m.—and maybe a little later if there’s interest. Buy a book there, bring a book in, I’ll sign whatever’s put in front of me unless it’s by someone else, which would be a little crazy.
There will be copies not only of my new book but of Storm Chaser, The No-Campfire Girls, and Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With The Albion Fire Department. I think I still have a few copies of My Funny Valentine, too; sadly, Storm Chaser Shorts is available only as an e-book, and I don’t think we’ll have Slightly Off The Mark ready in time.
Hope to see you there! Here’s the Facebook event page address:
https://www.facebook.com/events/35982...
The library is at 813 E Main St in Albion, and we’ll be there from 3-6 p.m.—and maybe a little later if there’s interest. Buy a book there, bring a book in, I’ll sign whatever’s put in front of me unless it’s by someone else, which would be a little crazy.
There will be copies not only of my new book but of Storm Chaser, The No-Campfire Girls, and Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century Or So With The Albion Fire Department. I think I still have a few copies of My Funny Valentine, too; sadly, Storm Chaser Shorts is available only as an e-book, and I don’t think we’ll have Slightly Off The Mark ready in time.
Hope to see you there! Here’s the Facebook event page address:
https://www.facebook.com/events/35982...
October 22, 2014
Great Fires Aren’t Good
This column did get printed in time for Fire Prevention Week—it’s just late getting online. But really, shouldn’t something like this be all year round?
Meanwhile, the new publisher has allowed me to write a farewell column for the newspapers I’m no longer employed by, so you’ll see this once more … maybe twice.
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
The National Fire Prevention Association would like to point out that, if your smoke detector is not working, it won’t work.
Sure, it seems obvious. But it’s also obvious that if sprinkler systems aren’t installed they don’t put out fires, safety belts that don’t get used aren’t safe, and people who stay in Washington, D.C. turn into blithering idiots. And yet we defeat sprinkler laws, don’t belt up, and reelect blithering idiots, so sometimes the obvious needs saying.
This is why we have Fire Prevention Week, which is a week during which we try to stress preventing fires. Fire Prevention Week is always nearest October 9th. That’s the historical date of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which took place in 1871, was indeed in Chicago, but really wasn’t all that great.
“Great” is a term used for fires that get so out of control that they get weeks named after them. The NFPA has devoted itself to keeping fires from turning great, and the best way to do that is to keep them from getting out of control. It’s counterintuitive, but they would not then be called “good”.
More importantly is to keep people from getting killed in a fire, which is the job of smoke alarms, which are just like smoke detectors except with fewer syllables. A working smoke alarm cuts the risk of dying in a fire in half. You don’t have to be Captain Obvious to see the value of that.
Here’s the fun part, though, and by “fun” I mean “tragic”: When talking smoke alarms, you always have to stick in the word “working”. In 23% of home fire deaths, there were smoke alarms—but they didn’t work. Why? Sometimes they were old or damaged, but usually the batteries were dead or missing.
“Honey, the batteries in the camera are dead.”
“I’ll just take some out of the smoke detector. Don’t worry, I’ll remember to put them back.”
Sure you will. Stop at the dollar store and get more for the camera, you schmuck.
But even if the batteries stay in, there’s no guarantee they’re working. Batteries go dead from time to time, and dead batteries lead to dead people.
Thus the idea of changing them twice a year, when Daylight Savings Time comes and goes. Whine all you want about springing forward and falling back (and you will … you will), but it’s a great reminder to put in a good set of working batteries. If the old ones are still good and you’re particularly cheap, put those in your digital camera. Sure, there’s a chance they’ll go dead and you’ll miss catching that UFO hovering over your house, but the little green men are going to steal your camera and make all the photos blurry anyway, so why bother?
In between changes, you should test your smoke alarm batteries every month. This is about the same rate at which a major celebrity gets arrested. If you’re really paranoid you can check them every few days, at the rate a minor celebrity gets arrested.
If the smoke alarm is more than ten years old, replace it. If you can’t remember how old it is, replace it. If you can’t remember how old you are, have someone else replace it. And yes, if it doesn’t work when you test it, replace it. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
There was a time when experts recommended installing a smoke alarm on each level of the home and outside each sleeping area. They now say to install one inside each bedroom, in addition to the others. By my estimation that would mean five smoke alarms in my house. If you count every room my dog sleeps in, that would mean nine smoke alarms, or more if you count each spot as a separate bedroom.
That may seem like a lot, but I’ve long had a suspicion that my dog smokes when we’re asleep. Have you ever seen hairballs burn? Not pretty.
Can’t afford a smoke alarm? Yes you can. You, put down that beer. You, put down that cigarette. You, put down that game controller. And you, put down that—oh, man. Dude, close your curtains! I can’t unsee that.
Yes, you can scrape up the money to save your life. I did a quick internet search, and found smoke alarms for sale ranging from twenty to less than five dollars. I wouldn’t necessarily go for the cheapest ones, but you can cover your entire home for less than the cost of that 20 inch flat screen TV you want to mount in your bathroom.
On a related note, you do not need a flat screen TV in your bathroom. We’ll talk electrical safety in a future column.
Meanwhile, the new publisher has allowed me to write a farewell column for the newspapers I’m no longer employed by, so you’ll see this once more … maybe twice.
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
The National Fire Prevention Association would like to point out that, if your smoke detector is not working, it won’t work.
Sure, it seems obvious. But it’s also obvious that if sprinkler systems aren’t installed they don’t put out fires, safety belts that don’t get used aren’t safe, and people who stay in Washington, D.C. turn into blithering idiots. And yet we defeat sprinkler laws, don’t belt up, and reelect blithering idiots, so sometimes the obvious needs saying.
This is why we have Fire Prevention Week, which is a week during which we try to stress preventing fires. Fire Prevention Week is always nearest October 9th. That’s the historical date of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which took place in 1871, was indeed in Chicago, but really wasn’t all that great.
“Great” is a term used for fires that get so out of control that they get weeks named after them. The NFPA has devoted itself to keeping fires from turning great, and the best way to do that is to keep them from getting out of control. It’s counterintuitive, but they would not then be called “good”.
More importantly is to keep people from getting killed in a fire, which is the job of smoke alarms, which are just like smoke detectors except with fewer syllables. A working smoke alarm cuts the risk of dying in a fire in half. You don’t have to be Captain Obvious to see the value of that.
Here’s the fun part, though, and by “fun” I mean “tragic”: When talking smoke alarms, you always have to stick in the word “working”. In 23% of home fire deaths, there were smoke alarms—but they didn’t work. Why? Sometimes they were old or damaged, but usually the batteries were dead or missing.
“Honey, the batteries in the camera are dead.”
“I’ll just take some out of the smoke detector. Don’t worry, I’ll remember to put them back.”
Sure you will. Stop at the dollar store and get more for the camera, you schmuck.
But even if the batteries stay in, there’s no guarantee they’re working. Batteries go dead from time to time, and dead batteries lead to dead people.
Thus the idea of changing them twice a year, when Daylight Savings Time comes and goes. Whine all you want about springing forward and falling back (and you will … you will), but it’s a great reminder to put in a good set of working batteries. If the old ones are still good and you’re particularly cheap, put those in your digital camera. Sure, there’s a chance they’ll go dead and you’ll miss catching that UFO hovering over your house, but the little green men are going to steal your camera and make all the photos blurry anyway, so why bother?
In between changes, you should test your smoke alarm batteries every month. This is about the same rate at which a major celebrity gets arrested. If you’re really paranoid you can check them every few days, at the rate a minor celebrity gets arrested.
If the smoke alarm is more than ten years old, replace it. If you can’t remember how old it is, replace it. If you can’t remember how old you are, have someone else replace it. And yes, if it doesn’t work when you test it, replace it. Thank you, Captain Obvious.
There was a time when experts recommended installing a smoke alarm on each level of the home and outside each sleeping area. They now say to install one inside each bedroom, in addition to the others. By my estimation that would mean five smoke alarms in my house. If you count every room my dog sleeps in, that would mean nine smoke alarms, or more if you count each spot as a separate bedroom.
That may seem like a lot, but I’ve long had a suspicion that my dog smokes when we’re asleep. Have you ever seen hairballs burn? Not pretty.
Can’t afford a smoke alarm? Yes you can. You, put down that beer. You, put down that cigarette. You, put down that game controller. And you, put down that—oh, man. Dude, close your curtains! I can’t unsee that.
Yes, you can scrape up the money to save your life. I did a quick internet search, and found smoke alarms for sale ranging from twenty to less than five dollars. I wouldn’t necessarily go for the cheapest ones, but you can cover your entire home for less than the cost of that 20 inch flat screen TV you want to mount in your bathroom.
On a related note, you do not need a flat screen TV in your bathroom. We’ll talk electrical safety in a future column.
October 19, 2014
A poll: My future as a humorist
This might as well serve as the official announcement: With my newspaper job gone and thanks to my paranoia about deadlines, I have around thirty unpublished humor columns. After talking it over (and crunching the numbers), Emily and I are turning them into a book entitled, yep, "Slightly Off The Mark". But what of the future? I still need to make up for lost pay, and I do love writing humor. So although I have an idea of the way to go, I thought I'd ask your opinion, dear readers, because you've been such dear ... um ... readers.
Don’t have Facebook? Don’t blame you—just tell me what you think!
https://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/cz...?
Don’t have Facebook? Don’t blame you—just tell me what you think!
https://apps.facebook.com/my-polls/cz...?
October 17, 2014
Goodbye, Cruel Newspaper Publishing World
Well, it appears I’m now a former newspaper writer, and my humor column is an orphan. Ironically, I didn’t find out KPC News bought the papers I wrote for until I read it in the paper. But while I considered the possibility that they might use their own reporters to gather local news, I held out hope that they might like my humor column, and maybe even use it elsewhere.
Instead, my first official contact was a phone call informing me I had become a “duplication of effort”. On the one hand, it seemed kind of abrupt after 23 years of writing Slightly Off The Mark and close to 25 years of doing news articles and features; on the other hand, the people making these decisions aren’t the same ones I’ve been working with. It’s business. You can storm the newspaper office to protest (and I kinda wish you would, just to make me feel better), but it’s probably pointless. I am upset that I didn’t get a chance to write a farewell column, though. Instead of going out like M*A*S*H, I went out like “Alf”. (Oh, just look it up.)
In addition to being the end of the best job I’ve ever had, it’s a huge hit to us financially. I still have my full time job, but this is the equivalent of taking a ten percent pay cut. I’d like to find someone else to print my column, but everyone wants to be a humor columnist and nobody wants to print one. My very funny friend Barry Parham, after trying to sell his column to literally thousands of publications, titled one of his books after the response he got from one editor: “Sorry, We Can’t Use Funny”.
To add insult to injury, I have nine or ten columns written ahead! I don’t know what my next move will be, but if I don’t find a home for the column, start selling some books, or win the lottery, I might have to give up my writing in return for that oft-joked about career in the fast food industry. Stay tuned.
Instead, my first official contact was a phone call informing me I had become a “duplication of effort”. On the one hand, it seemed kind of abrupt after 23 years of writing Slightly Off The Mark and close to 25 years of doing news articles and features; on the other hand, the people making these decisions aren’t the same ones I’ve been working with. It’s business. You can storm the newspaper office to protest (and I kinda wish you would, just to make me feel better), but it’s probably pointless. I am upset that I didn’t get a chance to write a farewell column, though. Instead of going out like M*A*S*H, I went out like “Alf”. (Oh, just look it up.)
In addition to being the end of the best job I’ve ever had, it’s a huge hit to us financially. I still have my full time job, but this is the equivalent of taking a ten percent pay cut. I’d like to find someone else to print my column, but everyone wants to be a humor columnist and nobody wants to print one. My very funny friend Barry Parham, after trying to sell his column to literally thousands of publications, titled one of his books after the response he got from one editor: “Sorry, We Can’t Use Funny”.
To add insult to injury, I have nine or ten columns written ahead! I don’t know what my next move will be, but if I don’t find a home for the column, start selling some books, or win the lottery, I might have to give up my writing in return for that oft-joked about career in the fast food industry. Stay tuned.
October 16, 2014
The Fall of The Conservative Lawn Mower
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
With the purchase of a brand new lawn mower, only the third new one I’ve ever bought, I said goodbye to my conservative lawn mower.
(So named because it stopped working whenever it tilted to the left.)
It had a good, long run. In fact, the conservative lawn mower wasn’t one of the three bought brand new—I got it used, just like my house and my cars. If it’s good enough for Pontiac/Ford/Dodge/Buick/Chevy/Nissan/Ford again, it’s good enough for Briggs and Stratton. (The less said about Renault, the better.)
Well, good for a while. I should have retired the conservative lawn mower the first time I tried to mow the hill out front, only to have it putter and die. From then on, it only worked when on the level or tilted right. That wouldn’t have been so bad on a nice, flat lawn, but over my entire lawn there is exactly one square foot of level ground. It’s as if my landscaping was done by a guy with an inner ear infection.
So I’d go one way and be fine, then forget, turn around, and the mower would gasp like someone finding a quiet moment in a Michael Bay movie. I’d have much preferred a moderate lawn mower.
I needed a mower that would match my personality: Cheap and simple. It also needed to be light because of the tendonitis, which bothered me so much when I shoveled snow that I almost forgot how much I hated snow whether it was shoveled or not.
Finally, I found a lawnmower with two stickers on the box, stickers that made it perfect for my needs: “clearance”, and “already assembled”.
It took me only an hour to have it ready to go. That’s a new record, for me. I was a little startled to discover it had no throttle, but it’s safe to say that with me the fewer parts, the better. I went out, I mowed the lawn, and I came in. That’s all a person needs in a lawn mower.
As for the old one, Spring Cleanup week was coming up. I had a suspicion that if I put it out on the curb, it wouldn’t last long, and I was right. In fact, as I came through the door after taking the first load of junk out, I heard a truck roar to a stop outside. By the time I turned around and looked out, the mower, a broken office chair, and a fifteen year old computer running Windows 95 were all gone.
You could argue that I should keep stuff “just in case”, but that’s exactly the kind of attitude that was heading me toward being on one of those basic cable shows.
For awhile the mower did a good, if not great, job. It was easy to start, easy to adjust, easy to use, the exact opposite of pretty much any government program. Then, one day … it stopped. By which I mean, by itself. By which I mean, it wouldn’t start again.
And yes, I did aggravate my tendonitis trying.
I’m not sure why this surprised me. If my life was a sitcom I’d be Gilligan, or Tim Taylor on a bad day. If I was a kid’s show, my motto would be: “Can we do it? NO!”
Still, I’m forever the cockeyed optimist, assuming that expression means you should accept defeat, but won’t. With the conservative lawn mower gone (and suddenly I missed it), I put the backup to work: an electric mower I inherited from my grandmother, tiny and unadjustable. The mower, not my grandmother. It was built, apparently, for people who scalped their yards like the villains in an old western. I call it “General Custer”.
Every now and then I’d mess with the new mower, which mostly consisted of yelling at it, shaking it around, and begging. Then I’d pull the cord a few hundred times, give up, and get out the extension cord.
Then I got lucky: Emily and I both became seriously ill, and had an excuse not to mow the lawn for three weeks. Well, lucky is relative.
Once back on my feet, I realized the electric mower would be helpless against the forest of weeds that now snapped at my knees. I would give the new mower one more try, then give up and take it back—in other words, I’d do exactly what I should have done a month earlier.
Not knowing what else to do, I drained the gas tank, filled it back up, took off the spark plug, put it back on, and pulled the start cord.
The mower started. In fact, it purred like a guided-dander-armed cat.
I can now take credit for “fixing” my new lawn mower, even though I did absolutely nothing that should have had an effect on it. It’s not often I fix something, but when I do … that’s exactly how it works.
With the purchase of a brand new lawn mower, only the third new one I’ve ever bought, I said goodbye to my conservative lawn mower.
(So named because it stopped working whenever it tilted to the left.)
It had a good, long run. In fact, the conservative lawn mower wasn’t one of the three bought brand new—I got it used, just like my house and my cars. If it’s good enough for Pontiac/Ford/Dodge/Buick/Chevy/Nissan/Ford again, it’s good enough for Briggs and Stratton. (The less said about Renault, the better.)
Well, good for a while. I should have retired the conservative lawn mower the first time I tried to mow the hill out front, only to have it putter and die. From then on, it only worked when on the level or tilted right. That wouldn’t have been so bad on a nice, flat lawn, but over my entire lawn there is exactly one square foot of level ground. It’s as if my landscaping was done by a guy with an inner ear infection.
So I’d go one way and be fine, then forget, turn around, and the mower would gasp like someone finding a quiet moment in a Michael Bay movie. I’d have much preferred a moderate lawn mower.
I needed a mower that would match my personality: Cheap and simple. It also needed to be light because of the tendonitis, which bothered me so much when I shoveled snow that I almost forgot how much I hated snow whether it was shoveled or not.
Finally, I found a lawnmower with two stickers on the box, stickers that made it perfect for my needs: “clearance”, and “already assembled”.
It took me only an hour to have it ready to go. That’s a new record, for me. I was a little startled to discover it had no throttle, but it’s safe to say that with me the fewer parts, the better. I went out, I mowed the lawn, and I came in. That’s all a person needs in a lawn mower.
As for the old one, Spring Cleanup week was coming up. I had a suspicion that if I put it out on the curb, it wouldn’t last long, and I was right. In fact, as I came through the door after taking the first load of junk out, I heard a truck roar to a stop outside. By the time I turned around and looked out, the mower, a broken office chair, and a fifteen year old computer running Windows 95 were all gone.
You could argue that I should keep stuff “just in case”, but that’s exactly the kind of attitude that was heading me toward being on one of those basic cable shows.
For awhile the mower did a good, if not great, job. It was easy to start, easy to adjust, easy to use, the exact opposite of pretty much any government program. Then, one day … it stopped. By which I mean, by itself. By which I mean, it wouldn’t start again.
And yes, I did aggravate my tendonitis trying.
I’m not sure why this surprised me. If my life was a sitcom I’d be Gilligan, or Tim Taylor on a bad day. If I was a kid’s show, my motto would be: “Can we do it? NO!”
Still, I’m forever the cockeyed optimist, assuming that expression means you should accept defeat, but won’t. With the conservative lawn mower gone (and suddenly I missed it), I put the backup to work: an electric mower I inherited from my grandmother, tiny and unadjustable. The mower, not my grandmother. It was built, apparently, for people who scalped their yards like the villains in an old western. I call it “General Custer”.
Every now and then I’d mess with the new mower, which mostly consisted of yelling at it, shaking it around, and begging. Then I’d pull the cord a few hundred times, give up, and get out the extension cord.
Then I got lucky: Emily and I both became seriously ill, and had an excuse not to mow the lawn for three weeks. Well, lucky is relative.
Once back on my feet, I realized the electric mower would be helpless against the forest of weeds that now snapped at my knees. I would give the new mower one more try, then give up and take it back—in other words, I’d do exactly what I should have done a month earlier.
Not knowing what else to do, I drained the gas tank, filled it back up, took off the spark plug, put it back on, and pulled the start cord.
The mower started. In fact, it purred like a guided-dander-armed cat.
I can now take credit for “fixing” my new lawn mower, even though I did absolutely nothing that should have had an effect on it. It’s not often I fix something, but when I do … that’s exactly how it works.
October 14, 2014
Bleeding Fire Engine Red
The editor of the newspapers I work for asked me for a fire service related article for our Fire Prevention Week insert last week, and this is what I came up with:
It’s not easy to say how a first generation volunteer firefighter like me got into the business.
For many of us, firefighting becomes such a part of our lives that we bleed fire engine red. Okay, bad example. But if your father was a volunteer, and maybe his father before him, it’s easy to see what turned your blood from red to, um, red. In Albion, if you’re a Lock, or a Beckley, or a Jacob, for instance, your family has been in the business for a good portion of the town’s history. I’ve fought fires beside more father-son combos than I can count … and some father-daughter combos, too.
I was first generation, and for many years before joining I was clueless. How many years is open for debate. Early in life I attended Scout gatherings in the basement of a building that I only later realized was the Albion Fire Department. I was a newbie in every sense of the word.
But one day I saw a big (it wasn’t really that big) beautiful lime green fire engine (honestly, it really wasn’t that beautiful—except to me) go by on its way to extinguish a motorcycle fire. Later a grass buggy rolled out of the fire station on its way to a brush fire, while I stood staring from across the street, ignoring my lawn mowing job. By the time I turned eighteen, I was inhaling any information I could get about the fire service.
And then, before I knew it, I jumped in with both feet. Well, actually I just stood there in the AFD meeting room, trying to overcome my painful shyness. Does fighting fires require courage? The most courageous thing I did in my career was walk into that room full of strangers and ask to become one of them.
My initial impression, in that windowless upstairs room, was that everyone smoked. (It was 1980.) Pipes, cigars, cigarettes—there was no need to test the fire station’s smoke alarm, as it got set off during business meetings. And who cared? This was a time when protective breathing apparatus was a mild suggestion. They included heavy steel tanks, and we only had about eight of them on the entire department. The first time I crawled into a burning building, my protective ensemble consisted of hip-length boots, blue jeans, and a windbreaker. Did I mention it was 1980?
A firefighter crawling into a burning home inhaled as much bad smoke in five minutes as he did smoking for a year. Luckily, these days we have much better breathing protection, and a lot less tobacco.
To my shock, about a year later I got a check. We got paid for this! For volunteering! Two bucks an hour! It almost made up for the scorched clothes and empty gas tanks.
Now we get $7.50 an hour at fires, and that’s not too shabby for a volunteer job. Of course, we don’t get paid for responding to accidents or medical runs, or for training, or business meetings, or fund raisers, or parades, or maintenance duties, or cleaning details.
But at least we have good working conditions. I remember once, when we had this January fire at about 3 a.m., and I fell asleep leaning against a truck because my clothes were so frozen I couldn’t bend over …
Never mind.
Volunteer firefighters bring unique skill sets to the job. When I first joined, only three of our seven trucks were actually designed to be fire trucks. The volunteers put hundreds of man-hours into the other units, formerly fuel trucks and delivery vans. They did electrical work, sanding, painting, designed storage compartments, installed emergency lights, sirens, and radios, which brings me back to electrical work.
We had professional electricians on the department; construction workers; mechanics; and farmers, among many others. (In my experience, farmers can do just about anything.) When we needed to put an addition on the fire station, we gathered the materials and did it ourselves.
By which I mean, they did it, and I watched. It turns out that, while I can use firefighting tools to tear things open and apart, I’m not too good at actually putting stuff together. Searching for a way to contribute, I learned how to use the department’s complicated 35mm camera and became the AFD’s photographer. I also became the public information officer because, according to some, I have a bit of writing ability.
By the time I’d been on for several years, I began to suspect the department’s one hundredth anniversary was coming up. It turns out my incipient powers as an historian were on track, and I began writing the story of the Albion Fire Department as a Centennial present to the town.
I finished it just in time for the AFD’s 125th anniversary. Luckily, I’ve since become much better at deadlines.
Now I’m slowing down a bit. I’ve had chronic back pain since wearing one of those old steel air tanks at an all-nighter downtown fire in the early 80’s. I’ve developed a chronic cough, and had a cancer scare a few years ago. After I go to bed, there’s a good chance I’ll snooze right through the fire page until I’ve put three or four hours of sleep behind me. Sometimes I think that book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So with the Albion Fire Department, should be my coda. The sales go straight to the department, so after 34 years of service I could kick back with the knowledge that I did my part.
But I can’t let it go. I suspect, if I ever do hang it up, I’ll offer to stick around as the department photographer, or maybe have myself displayed at fund raisers wearing 19th Century gear. Any chance to soak in the atmosphere for a little while longer.
It’s the blood, you see. Fire engine red.
It’s not easy to say how a first generation volunteer firefighter like me got into the business.
For many of us, firefighting becomes such a part of our lives that we bleed fire engine red. Okay, bad example. But if your father was a volunteer, and maybe his father before him, it’s easy to see what turned your blood from red to, um, red. In Albion, if you’re a Lock, or a Beckley, or a Jacob, for instance, your family has been in the business for a good portion of the town’s history. I’ve fought fires beside more father-son combos than I can count … and some father-daughter combos, too.
I was first generation, and for many years before joining I was clueless. How many years is open for debate. Early in life I attended Scout gatherings in the basement of a building that I only later realized was the Albion Fire Department. I was a newbie in every sense of the word.
But one day I saw a big (it wasn’t really that big) beautiful lime green fire engine (honestly, it really wasn’t that beautiful—except to me) go by on its way to extinguish a motorcycle fire. Later a grass buggy rolled out of the fire station on its way to a brush fire, while I stood staring from across the street, ignoring my lawn mowing job. By the time I turned eighteen, I was inhaling any information I could get about the fire service.
And then, before I knew it, I jumped in with both feet. Well, actually I just stood there in the AFD meeting room, trying to overcome my painful shyness. Does fighting fires require courage? The most courageous thing I did in my career was walk into that room full of strangers and ask to become one of them.
My initial impression, in that windowless upstairs room, was that everyone smoked. (It was 1980.) Pipes, cigars, cigarettes—there was no need to test the fire station’s smoke alarm, as it got set off during business meetings. And who cared? This was a time when protective breathing apparatus was a mild suggestion. They included heavy steel tanks, and we only had about eight of them on the entire department. The first time I crawled into a burning building, my protective ensemble consisted of hip-length boots, blue jeans, and a windbreaker. Did I mention it was 1980?
A firefighter crawling into a burning home inhaled as much bad smoke in five minutes as he did smoking for a year. Luckily, these days we have much better breathing protection, and a lot less tobacco.
To my shock, about a year later I got a check. We got paid for this! For volunteering! Two bucks an hour! It almost made up for the scorched clothes and empty gas tanks.
Now we get $7.50 an hour at fires, and that’s not too shabby for a volunteer job. Of course, we don’t get paid for responding to accidents or medical runs, or for training, or business meetings, or fund raisers, or parades, or maintenance duties, or cleaning details.
But at least we have good working conditions. I remember once, when we had this January fire at about 3 a.m., and I fell asleep leaning against a truck because my clothes were so frozen I couldn’t bend over …
Never mind.
Volunteer firefighters bring unique skill sets to the job. When I first joined, only three of our seven trucks were actually designed to be fire trucks. The volunteers put hundreds of man-hours into the other units, formerly fuel trucks and delivery vans. They did electrical work, sanding, painting, designed storage compartments, installed emergency lights, sirens, and radios, which brings me back to electrical work.
We had professional electricians on the department; construction workers; mechanics; and farmers, among many others. (In my experience, farmers can do just about anything.) When we needed to put an addition on the fire station, we gathered the materials and did it ourselves.
By which I mean, they did it, and I watched. It turns out that, while I can use firefighting tools to tear things open and apart, I’m not too good at actually putting stuff together. Searching for a way to contribute, I learned how to use the department’s complicated 35mm camera and became the AFD’s photographer. I also became the public information officer because, according to some, I have a bit of writing ability.
By the time I’d been on for several years, I began to suspect the department’s one hundredth anniversary was coming up. It turns out my incipient powers as an historian were on track, and I began writing the story of the Albion Fire Department as a Centennial present to the town.
I finished it just in time for the AFD’s 125th anniversary. Luckily, I’ve since become much better at deadlines.
Now I’m slowing down a bit. I’ve had chronic back pain since wearing one of those old steel air tanks at an all-nighter downtown fire in the early 80’s. I’ve developed a chronic cough, and had a cancer scare a few years ago. After I go to bed, there’s a good chance I’ll snooze right through the fire page until I’ve put three or four hours of sleep behind me. Sometimes I think that book, Smoky Days and Sleepless Nights: A Century or So with the Albion Fire Department, should be my coda. The sales go straight to the department, so after 34 years of service I could kick back with the knowledge that I did my part.
But I can’t let it go. I suspect, if I ever do hang it up, I’ll offer to stick around as the department photographer, or maybe have myself displayed at fund raisers wearing 19th Century gear. Any chance to soak in the atmosphere for a little while longer.
It’s the blood, you see. Fire engine red.
October 8, 2014
My Writing Career Is History
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
Following your dreams can take you to some strange roads that might not have anything to do with your dreams, at all.
We can’t all have our first dreams, of course. America really wouldn’t function with fifty million actors, one hundred million singers, and two hundred and fifty million lottery winners. What do those all have in common? Long odds.
Still, it’s important to pursue a dream, even if it isn’t the dream you end up with. My grandkids want to be ninjas. It’s probably not on the average college curriculum, but who knows? I’m saving back some masks and black pajamas, just in case.
My first dreams were to be a scientist, or an astronaut … or better yet, a combination of the two: a Science Officer. Yes, I was a Trekkie, why do you ask? But I had to give up those dreams because, it turns out, both jobs require being good at math.
A writer doesn’t have to be good at math.
Or so I told myself. By the time I was halfway through high school, I settled on a career plan: I would become a firefighter, and on my days off I would write best-selling novels. My backup plan would be a forest ranger, thus putting me in a position to battle forest fires in between writing books.
I cheerfully ignored the results of counseling tests, which revealed I would be ideally suited for a career in the food service industry. Years later I realized food service was actually not a bad career path from the standpoint of employment opportunities and management paths. I mean, how many astronauts get hired every year?
My guaranteed career path fell short, due to shortsightedness. Or is it long-sightedness? Whichever it was, my eyesight didn’t meet the standards at the time for full time firefighting. This was despite my discovery as a volunteer that once you got into a burning building, you couldn’t see a darned thing anyway.
It’s the only time I ever cried at the optometrist office.
Now here I am, in my twenty-third year with the Noble County Sheriff Department, two decades of that as an emergency dispatcher. While I was too busy trying to find a career to notice I had one, I had one.
Irony is my middle name. And the irony didn’t stop, because for over three decades I continued to work toward establishing a fiction writing career. While I was busy writing novels and short stories and not selling them, I became a humor columnist, newspaper reporter, and finally non-fiction book writer, none of which have anything to do with fiction. It was totally by accident. Accident is also my middle name. I’ve never asked my parents why.
Irony is a gift that keeps on giving, because just as I finished another novel manuscript, my wife and I began to discuss doing a humor book about national or Indiana state history. Within weeks of us discussing it, I was put in touch with a publisher … a history publisher.
Arcadia Publishing has a long history of books about, well, history, and they were looking for someone to do a photo-heavy book about the history of Albion and Noble County. (Not humor related, you’ll be unhappy or happy to know.)
As it happens, my wife and I had done a history book the year before, a photo-heavy book about the Albion Fire Department. But this book was going to be even photo-heavier. After a month of talking and filling out paperwork, I signed the contract for Images of America: Albion and Noble County.
True, I’ve just published my fourth work of fiction. Just the same, Arcadia is the first large publisher I’ve signed with, so my writing is, well, history.
It’s as if, while training to be an astronaut, I fell into a career as a deep-sea diver.
Now I’m asking you, all fourteen of my regular readers, to help me with this project. My attempts to be a scientist didn’t pan out, so I don’t have a time machine: I need historical photos from around Noble County, and they have to be prints. Emily, my wife/editor/webmaster/technical director/computer whiz, will scan the prints with your permission and then give them back to you (along with the scanned image on a disk, if you’re interested). Your historical photo, along with another two hundred or more others, could appear in the print and electronic versions of the book, but otherwise would still be yours.
It’s a pretty cool project, and a great way to hold onto history and maybe get kids interested in it. Who knows? Maybe it’ll put some of them on a path to being historians.
It’s never too late for a career change.
Following your dreams can take you to some strange roads that might not have anything to do with your dreams, at all.
We can’t all have our first dreams, of course. America really wouldn’t function with fifty million actors, one hundred million singers, and two hundred and fifty million lottery winners. What do those all have in common? Long odds.
Still, it’s important to pursue a dream, even if it isn’t the dream you end up with. My grandkids want to be ninjas. It’s probably not on the average college curriculum, but who knows? I’m saving back some masks and black pajamas, just in case.
My first dreams were to be a scientist, or an astronaut … or better yet, a combination of the two: a Science Officer. Yes, I was a Trekkie, why do you ask? But I had to give up those dreams because, it turns out, both jobs require being good at math.
A writer doesn’t have to be good at math.
Or so I told myself. By the time I was halfway through high school, I settled on a career plan: I would become a firefighter, and on my days off I would write best-selling novels. My backup plan would be a forest ranger, thus putting me in a position to battle forest fires in between writing books.
I cheerfully ignored the results of counseling tests, which revealed I would be ideally suited for a career in the food service industry. Years later I realized food service was actually not a bad career path from the standpoint of employment opportunities and management paths. I mean, how many astronauts get hired every year?
My guaranteed career path fell short, due to shortsightedness. Or is it long-sightedness? Whichever it was, my eyesight didn’t meet the standards at the time for full time firefighting. This was despite my discovery as a volunteer that once you got into a burning building, you couldn’t see a darned thing anyway.
It’s the only time I ever cried at the optometrist office.
Now here I am, in my twenty-third year with the Noble County Sheriff Department, two decades of that as an emergency dispatcher. While I was too busy trying to find a career to notice I had one, I had one.
Irony is my middle name. And the irony didn’t stop, because for over three decades I continued to work toward establishing a fiction writing career. While I was busy writing novels and short stories and not selling them, I became a humor columnist, newspaper reporter, and finally non-fiction book writer, none of which have anything to do with fiction. It was totally by accident. Accident is also my middle name. I’ve never asked my parents why.
Irony is a gift that keeps on giving, because just as I finished another novel manuscript, my wife and I began to discuss doing a humor book about national or Indiana state history. Within weeks of us discussing it, I was put in touch with a publisher … a history publisher.
Arcadia Publishing has a long history of books about, well, history, and they were looking for someone to do a photo-heavy book about the history of Albion and Noble County. (Not humor related, you’ll be unhappy or happy to know.)
As it happens, my wife and I had done a history book the year before, a photo-heavy book about the Albion Fire Department. But this book was going to be even photo-heavier. After a month of talking and filling out paperwork, I signed the contract for Images of America: Albion and Noble County.
True, I’ve just published my fourth work of fiction. Just the same, Arcadia is the first large publisher I’ve signed with, so my writing is, well, history.
It’s as if, while training to be an astronaut, I fell into a career as a deep-sea diver.
Now I’m asking you, all fourteen of my regular readers, to help me with this project. My attempts to be a scientist didn’t pan out, so I don’t have a time machine: I need historical photos from around Noble County, and they have to be prints. Emily, my wife/editor/webmaster/technical director/computer whiz, will scan the prints with your permission and then give them back to you (along with the scanned image on a disk, if you’re interested). Your historical photo, along with another two hundred or more others, could appear in the print and electronic versions of the book, but otherwise would still be yours.
It’s a pretty cool project, and a great way to hold onto history and maybe get kids interested in it. Who knows? Maybe it’ll put some of them on a path to being historians.
It’s never too late for a career change.
October 7, 2014
A Wrong Turn At Albuquerque: Ian Grant/Buffy The Vampire Slayer fanfiction
I've been writing crossovers between various fandoms and the main character of my new novel, "The Notorious Ian Grant", and I couldn’t leave out the Four Friends—characters from my earlier “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” fanfics who came together with no planning on my part for a series of stories.
The Four Friends are Tara, a witch/ghost who’s a bit more alive than most people realize; Buffybot, a robot copy of Buffy Summers; Dana, a psychologically scarred Slayer from an episode of “Angel”; and Kara, an original character from my first fanfic.
Title: A Wrong Turn At Albuquerque
Author: ozma914
Summary: Ian thinks he’s still headed toward Indiana, in a misguided--figuratively and in this case literally--attempt to get back in his family's good graces. Along the way he meets a very different, mystical sort of family.
Rating: PG
Length: 2,500 words
A WRONG TURN AT ALBUQUERQUE
“I think I made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”
It seemed funny when Ian said it, although it might have seemed funnier if he’d had an audience. Now, an hour later, on a two lane blacktop somewhere between the desert and more the desert, it didn’t seem that funny at all.
Although Ian Grant considered himself a pretty good driver (He’d once guested on an episode of Top Gear—the British version), he had to admit responsibility for almost hitting the girl who stood in the middle of the highway. He’d been steering with one hand and trying to unfold a map with the other, after his GPS took him onto a “shortcut” that turned out to be a secret government installation. Well, he didn’t know about it. The soldiers at the gate were surprisingly understanding, as they pointed back the way he’d come. With their guns.
“Area 52, that’s probably what it—yikes!”
He jammed on the brakes and swerved. The Mustang skidded to a stop, just feet from a young woman dressed in jeans, boots, and a long sleeved work shirt with a vest over it. In the desert. In July.
Ian’s evasive maneuver left the girl, who hadn’t moved an inch, standing right by the driver’s side window. He rolled it down, letting in a blast of hot, dry air. “Are you okay?”
She leaned down and gave him a hard, unsettling stare. Her dark hair draped across her face, but didn’t hide her critical, somewhat wild eyes. “You’re Ian Grant.”
“Yes, and you’re in a desert by yourself, with no car around. Which is more remarkable?”
If he’d hoped for a smile … actually, he was just playing for time as his heartbeat settled. She just continued to stare, then gave a little shrug. “This is how your sister met her fiancé. Well, she was on the side of the road. And there was a tornado.”
“Okay, how do you know about my sister?”
“I read your mind. By the way, I’m not underage. I just look young, like your sister does. Do you have any water?”
“Sure …”
Without another word, she walked around the car and, before Ian could think of what to do, opened the passenger door and climbed in. She took his half empty bottle of water from the cup holder and gulped the rest down. “I’m Dana.”
“This is nice. Do you have a last name?”
“No. Drive.”
Well … why not? “Any particular direction?”
“Did you see anyone back that way?”
“Just a cactus and the desiccated remains of Wiley E. Coyote.”
“Then go the other way.” She pulled on her seat belt. “Wiley E. Coyote isn’t real. He’s a cartoon character.”
“Uh-huh.” Ian drove. Why not? Even if she was underage, he wasn’t about to leave the girl standing by herself in the middle of nowhere. “Next you’ll be telling me there’s no Santa Claus.”
She gave him a serious look. “You wouldn’t want to meet him.”
They drove on in silence for a while. He kept to the speed limit, expecting to see a disabled vehicle or a pile of bodies at any moment, but the desert just kept flashing by. The whole thing made him think he’d been dropped into a crazy mash-up of Smoky and The Bandit and The Twilight Zone.
“There.” Dana pointed.
Another girl stood there, this time perched exactly on the white line. She was a short blonde, wearing black leather pants and a fringed jacket. When she spotted Dana, she grinned and waved wildly.
As soon as Ian stopped, Dana opened the door, then scooted her seat forward. “Hi, Bottie. You have to sit in the back—I get claustrophobic.”
“Wait a minute—“
The blond climbed in. “Hello!” She glanced at Ian. “Oh, I’ve met your future brother-in-law. He pulled me over once. But I didn’t know at the time …”
“Okay, how do you know—wait. ‘Bottie’?”
Bottie shrugged. “Bottina Summers—Bottie for short.”
“Why not Tina?”
She gave him a baffled look. “Tina’s are all over. How many Bottie’s do you know?”
“You have a point, or something.” He looked her up and down. Why wasn’t she half-dead, lying prostrate on the baked ground? “There’s water in that cooler beside you.”
“No thanks! I’m on three quarters of a tank.”
Was he being pranked? Were they carrying hidden cameras? That would account for the extra clothes. It had to be Seth Green, that little weasel, getting him back for the time Ian jumped out of the closet wearing zombie makeup. “So … what now? Do you need to borrow my cell phone?”
“Oh, no thanks,” Bottie said. “Just drive about five miles or so, please. Also, why are you heading toward Mexico? You’re not running from the police again, are you?”
“Not yet.” I’m heading south? Doggone GPS.
Ian drove on. To say this was putting a crimp in his schedule put it mildly, but they seemed to know what they were doing … besides, he was curious. “Am I an accessory to a crime here, or something? Not that I have a problem with that, but it depends on the crime.”
“Not to worry,” Bottie told him, in an unfailingly cheerful voice. “We hid all the bodies.”
“Heh. Very funny. Isn’t it?”
After a few miles, the Mustang’s GPS called out. “Turn right here. The turnoff to Seattle will be on your left.”
Ian looked to the right. Cactus. Sand. Some bluffs in the distance.
A voice in the back said, “I wouldn’t turn here.” It wasn’t Bottie’s voice, although Bottie responded with a little shriek of joy.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror. Bottie was hugging a taller woman, who extricated herself to reveal long, reddish-blonde hair and inquisitive eyes. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said “Love Alaska” … and a fur hat.
Although Ian was aware of his mouth hanging open, he couldn’t seem to close it until he saw the new arrival point forward. “You’re going off the road.”
So he was. He jerked the wheel, then rethought it and let the Mustang drift to a stop on the berm. “Where did you come from?”
“I got in when Bottie did. Didn’t you see me?”
“I—“ He replayed everything in his mind. “No you didn’t! I’d have noticed a second woman standing by the first woman standing in a desert in summer dressed like a Canadian centerfold.”
“A Canadian centerfold?” The third woman looked at Bottie. “Bottina, wasn’t I standing right beside you?”
“Well, you were kind of behind me.”
Dana turned to look back at them. “The desert can cause mirages, and make things disappear, and stuff. And you were behind her. So—there. Tara was standing behind Bottie. Although Bottie’s short.”
Tara nodded. “Also, I am not dressed like a Canadian centerfold.”
Beside her, Bottie punched her arm. “How do you know what a Canadian centerfold looks like?”
Tara blushed.
I’ve gone crazy. The GPS took over my mind, and it’s driving me on the freeway to Loonyville. There was, Ian decided, nothing to do but go along with it. “How many more women are we expected to pick up?”
“Oh, we just have to find one more!” Bottie told him.
“She is underage,” Dana added. “If you touch her, I’ll have to rip out your heart and eat it for breakfast.”
Ian got the feeling she wasn’t kidding, but Bottie scoffed. “That’s just silly, Dana. You couldn’t eat Ian’s heart for breakfast: That’s sixteen hours away. It would spoil by then.”
“Well, maybe just a snack.”
Didn’t Charles Manson have a crew of homicidal females? But this bunch would be way too young for that, right? Right? “Okay, look. You know who I am, right?”
Tara shook her head. The other two nodded.
“Have either of you heard of anything, anywhere, that suggests I’ve ever taken up with an underage girl?”
Bottie immediately shook her head. After a moment’s thought, so did Dana.
“Okay, then. No one in this car is going to do anything illegal or immoral while we’re all together, including the consumption of perfectly good organs that could be donated to needy children—got it?”
“That seems fair,” Tara told him. “And, who are you?”
“He’s Ian Grant,” Bottie said. “Remember that state trooper who pulled us over in Indiana? Ian is his future brother-in-law.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll bet he’s on his way to Indiana to crash the wedding.” Dana gave Ian a hard stare. “Are you?”
“No. I’m on my way to help plan the wedding.”
The women went silent. Then Bottie asked, “Does your sister know you’re coming?”
“No.”
“Does anyone know you’re coming?”
“Um, no.”
“Doesn’t your sister hate you?”
“That’s all just a big misunderstanding, based on the fact that I’ve embarrassed her and the rest of our family for all our adult lives. I’m going to make up for it by taking on all the work of planning her wedding, which according to these audiobooks I picked up on the way out of L.A. is a lot. Then she’ll forgive me, and her fiancé won’t punch me out, and my father even might decide to talk to me at other weddings, and funerals, and such.”
Silence fell again. They drove on a few miles before Ian glanced in the mirror, to make sure all three were still there. “So, what do you think, Dana? You can read my mind.”
“Actually, I read your sister’s blog.”
Oh, duh. “Does she, um, mention me?”
“No.” She patted his shoulder, in a way that made it clear she didn’t pat many shoulders. “But I’ve only read back for a few months.”
Far ahead, Ian saw a speck along the roadway. As they approached it resolved itself into a low building, with an awning out front and a sign that said: First Stop Gas and Groceries.
“Shouldn’t that be last stop?” Tara asked. “In Texas, they always seemed to say last stop.”
Ian shook his head. “I passed Last Stop about a hundred miles back. That was the last stop, and apparently this is the first stop after the last stop, so …” I’m handing this so well. “Something tells me that’s your girl.”
A teenager stood near the store’s front door, sipping on a Dr. Pepper. She wore jeans and a heaven woolen sweater, and held a jacket in the crook of her arm.
“It’s Kara!” Bottie cried, and Ian pulled up to the gas pumps.
“Kara? Is that some kind of thing with your group, having your last names end with an “a”? Should your nickname be Bota?”
Bottie paused for a moment. “Ooh, I like that idea.”
They all piled out. Ian still had two thirds of a tank of gas, but he had no idea how much longer he’d have to drive before he left the Twilight Zone, or passed through a stargate, or got sucked up by a UFO. He pulled out the pump nozzle to top off the tank.
The four females gathered in a circle, exchanged hugs, and compared notes. “That was so weird,” Kara said. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Southern New Mexico.” Bottie hooked a thumb toward Ian. “Mr. Grant is so lost.”
In more ways than one. The pump clicked, so he hung up the handle and finished paying.
Kara glanced his way, then did a double take. “Ian Grant?”
Plastic surgery. Totally valid lifestyle choice. “Hello. Your friends know more about me than I do, except for Tara.”
Tara’s hands fluttered. “I’m sorry, I don’t—“
“No, it wasn’t a complaint. Any knowledge about me pretty much qualifies as Hollywood trivia, which pretty much qualifies as pointless.” He walked over to the group, ignoring the heat that beat down on them all. “But I was wondering, since young Bottina and Dana know so much, can you get me back on the right path?”
Smiling, Bottie pointed back the way they’d come. “Go back that way, and take a right at Albuquerque.”
“I knew Albuquerque would figure in, somehow. So, where do you need me to take you?”
Dana pointed north. “Alaska.”
“Our work’s done there. Can we be in the wedding?” Bottie asked.
“Uh—“
“No, a ride’s not necessary,” Tara told him. “We’ve made arrangements.”
Arrangements? The only vehicle in sight was an old tow truck, either parked against the service station’s side wall or holding it up. The only other person, a clerk who looked like a strange mix of Gomer Pyle and undertaker, leaned over his counter to stare at them. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Kara continued to stare at Ian with an air of fascination.
“Well … guess I’ve got some doubling back to do.” He started toward the Mustang, but Tara called to him and he turned back around.
“Mr. Grant, I don’t want to pry into your personal affairs.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I get that a lot.”
“From what I’ve heard … well, may I suggest that you don’t surprise your sister? Her fiancé made quite an impression on us—I gathered he can be a hard man when he’s … not amused.”
“Please. If I ran from every cop I pis—upset, I’d have ended up in Albuquerque as a teenager.”
“Well … maybe you should look your sister up first, and … reconnect with her. Maybe you should even get the lay of the land up there first, before you contact anyone. It’s just a thought.”
Tara, for all the strangeness going on, was a nice lady. “I’ll consider it, thanks.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Grant.” Tara stepped back, and Kara waved.
“Please don’t get drunk anymore,” Dana said.
“Gave it up.”
“Try not to make inappropriate jokes at the wrong time,” Bottie added.
“Okay, I’m still working on that one.”
Shaking his head, Ian climbed into the Mustang and started the engine. He looked back to give the quartet one last wave.
They were gone.
After a moment Ian climbed out of the car and walked into the service station, where the attendant stood scratching his head. “What happened to those four girls?”
“Don’t know, mister. I was standing here admiring your car when I saw a flash, out the corner of my eye … and when I looked, they’d just vanished.”
“Huh.” Ian walked out again, to one side of the building, then the other. No tracks in the dust. Returning to the front door, he called in. “But you did see them, right?”
The man frowned. “Well … strange things happen sometimes, out here.”
“Right.”
Ian got back into the Mustang, turned around, and drove on, for the same reason he had after Dana appeared: What else was there to do? For a long time he thought about those four friends, and the advice they’d given him. They were all right, of course. By the time he reached Albuquerque, he decided they were very right indeed, and he was happy the giving up drinking part had already happened.
Now the hard part would be avoiding inappropriate jokes.
The Four Friends are Tara, a witch/ghost who’s a bit more alive than most people realize; Buffybot, a robot copy of Buffy Summers; Dana, a psychologically scarred Slayer from an episode of “Angel”; and Kara, an original character from my first fanfic.
Title: A Wrong Turn At Albuquerque
Author: ozma914
Summary: Ian thinks he’s still headed toward Indiana, in a misguided--figuratively and in this case literally--attempt to get back in his family's good graces. Along the way he meets a very different, mystical sort of family.
Rating: PG
Length: 2,500 words
A WRONG TURN AT ALBUQUERQUE
“I think I made a wrong turn at Albuquerque.”
It seemed funny when Ian said it, although it might have seemed funnier if he’d had an audience. Now, an hour later, on a two lane blacktop somewhere between the desert and more the desert, it didn’t seem that funny at all.
Although Ian Grant considered himself a pretty good driver (He’d once guested on an episode of Top Gear—the British version), he had to admit responsibility for almost hitting the girl who stood in the middle of the highway. He’d been steering with one hand and trying to unfold a map with the other, after his GPS took him onto a “shortcut” that turned out to be a secret government installation. Well, he didn’t know about it. The soldiers at the gate were surprisingly understanding, as they pointed back the way he’d come. With their guns.
“Area 52, that’s probably what it—yikes!”
He jammed on the brakes and swerved. The Mustang skidded to a stop, just feet from a young woman dressed in jeans, boots, and a long sleeved work shirt with a vest over it. In the desert. In July.
Ian’s evasive maneuver left the girl, who hadn’t moved an inch, standing right by the driver’s side window. He rolled it down, letting in a blast of hot, dry air. “Are you okay?”
She leaned down and gave him a hard, unsettling stare. Her dark hair draped across her face, but didn’t hide her critical, somewhat wild eyes. “You’re Ian Grant.”
“Yes, and you’re in a desert by yourself, with no car around. Which is more remarkable?”
If he’d hoped for a smile … actually, he was just playing for time as his heartbeat settled. She just continued to stare, then gave a little shrug. “This is how your sister met her fiancé. Well, she was on the side of the road. And there was a tornado.”
“Okay, how do you know about my sister?”
“I read your mind. By the way, I’m not underage. I just look young, like your sister does. Do you have any water?”
“Sure …”
Without another word, she walked around the car and, before Ian could think of what to do, opened the passenger door and climbed in. She took his half empty bottle of water from the cup holder and gulped the rest down. “I’m Dana.”
“This is nice. Do you have a last name?”
“No. Drive.”
Well … why not? “Any particular direction?”
“Did you see anyone back that way?”
“Just a cactus and the desiccated remains of Wiley E. Coyote.”
“Then go the other way.” She pulled on her seat belt. “Wiley E. Coyote isn’t real. He’s a cartoon character.”
“Uh-huh.” Ian drove. Why not? Even if she was underage, he wasn’t about to leave the girl standing by herself in the middle of nowhere. “Next you’ll be telling me there’s no Santa Claus.”
She gave him a serious look. “You wouldn’t want to meet him.”
They drove on in silence for a while. He kept to the speed limit, expecting to see a disabled vehicle or a pile of bodies at any moment, but the desert just kept flashing by. The whole thing made him think he’d been dropped into a crazy mash-up of Smoky and The Bandit and The Twilight Zone.
“There.” Dana pointed.
Another girl stood there, this time perched exactly on the white line. She was a short blonde, wearing black leather pants and a fringed jacket. When she spotted Dana, she grinned and waved wildly.
As soon as Ian stopped, Dana opened the door, then scooted her seat forward. “Hi, Bottie. You have to sit in the back—I get claustrophobic.”
“Wait a minute—“
The blond climbed in. “Hello!” She glanced at Ian. “Oh, I’ve met your future brother-in-law. He pulled me over once. But I didn’t know at the time …”
“Okay, how do you know—wait. ‘Bottie’?”
Bottie shrugged. “Bottina Summers—Bottie for short.”
“Why not Tina?”
She gave him a baffled look. “Tina’s are all over. How many Bottie’s do you know?”
“You have a point, or something.” He looked her up and down. Why wasn’t she half-dead, lying prostrate on the baked ground? “There’s water in that cooler beside you.”
“No thanks! I’m on three quarters of a tank.”
Was he being pranked? Were they carrying hidden cameras? That would account for the extra clothes. It had to be Seth Green, that little weasel, getting him back for the time Ian jumped out of the closet wearing zombie makeup. “So … what now? Do you need to borrow my cell phone?”
“Oh, no thanks,” Bottie said. “Just drive about five miles or so, please. Also, why are you heading toward Mexico? You’re not running from the police again, are you?”
“Not yet.” I’m heading south? Doggone GPS.
Ian drove on. To say this was putting a crimp in his schedule put it mildly, but they seemed to know what they were doing … besides, he was curious. “Am I an accessory to a crime here, or something? Not that I have a problem with that, but it depends on the crime.”
“Not to worry,” Bottie told him, in an unfailingly cheerful voice. “We hid all the bodies.”
“Heh. Very funny. Isn’t it?”
After a few miles, the Mustang’s GPS called out. “Turn right here. The turnoff to Seattle will be on your left.”
Ian looked to the right. Cactus. Sand. Some bluffs in the distance.
A voice in the back said, “I wouldn’t turn here.” It wasn’t Bottie’s voice, although Bottie responded with a little shriek of joy.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror. Bottie was hugging a taller woman, who extricated herself to reveal long, reddish-blonde hair and inquisitive eyes. She was wearing a sweatshirt that said “Love Alaska” … and a fur hat.
Although Ian was aware of his mouth hanging open, he couldn’t seem to close it until he saw the new arrival point forward. “You’re going off the road.”
So he was. He jerked the wheel, then rethought it and let the Mustang drift to a stop on the berm. “Where did you come from?”
“I got in when Bottie did. Didn’t you see me?”
“I—“ He replayed everything in his mind. “No you didn’t! I’d have noticed a second woman standing by the first woman standing in a desert in summer dressed like a Canadian centerfold.”
“A Canadian centerfold?” The third woman looked at Bottie. “Bottina, wasn’t I standing right beside you?”
“Well, you were kind of behind me.”
Dana turned to look back at them. “The desert can cause mirages, and make things disappear, and stuff. And you were behind her. So—there. Tara was standing behind Bottie. Although Bottie’s short.”
Tara nodded. “Also, I am not dressed like a Canadian centerfold.”
Beside her, Bottie punched her arm. “How do you know what a Canadian centerfold looks like?”
Tara blushed.
I’ve gone crazy. The GPS took over my mind, and it’s driving me on the freeway to Loonyville. There was, Ian decided, nothing to do but go along with it. “How many more women are we expected to pick up?”
“Oh, we just have to find one more!” Bottie told him.
“She is underage,” Dana added. “If you touch her, I’ll have to rip out your heart and eat it for breakfast.”
Ian got the feeling she wasn’t kidding, but Bottie scoffed. “That’s just silly, Dana. You couldn’t eat Ian’s heart for breakfast: That’s sixteen hours away. It would spoil by then.”
“Well, maybe just a snack.”
Didn’t Charles Manson have a crew of homicidal females? But this bunch would be way too young for that, right? Right? “Okay, look. You know who I am, right?”
Tara shook her head. The other two nodded.
“Have either of you heard of anything, anywhere, that suggests I’ve ever taken up with an underage girl?”
Bottie immediately shook her head. After a moment’s thought, so did Dana.
“Okay, then. No one in this car is going to do anything illegal or immoral while we’re all together, including the consumption of perfectly good organs that could be donated to needy children—got it?”
“That seems fair,” Tara told him. “And, who are you?”
“He’s Ian Grant,” Bottie said. “Remember that state trooper who pulled us over in Indiana? Ian is his future brother-in-law.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll bet he’s on his way to Indiana to crash the wedding.” Dana gave Ian a hard stare. “Are you?”
“No. I’m on my way to help plan the wedding.”
The women went silent. Then Bottie asked, “Does your sister know you’re coming?”
“No.”
“Does anyone know you’re coming?”
“Um, no.”
“Doesn’t your sister hate you?”
“That’s all just a big misunderstanding, based on the fact that I’ve embarrassed her and the rest of our family for all our adult lives. I’m going to make up for it by taking on all the work of planning her wedding, which according to these audiobooks I picked up on the way out of L.A. is a lot. Then she’ll forgive me, and her fiancé won’t punch me out, and my father even might decide to talk to me at other weddings, and funerals, and such.”
Silence fell again. They drove on a few miles before Ian glanced in the mirror, to make sure all three were still there. “So, what do you think, Dana? You can read my mind.”
“Actually, I read your sister’s blog.”
Oh, duh. “Does she, um, mention me?”
“No.” She patted his shoulder, in a way that made it clear she didn’t pat many shoulders. “But I’ve only read back for a few months.”
Far ahead, Ian saw a speck along the roadway. As they approached it resolved itself into a low building, with an awning out front and a sign that said: First Stop Gas and Groceries.
“Shouldn’t that be last stop?” Tara asked. “In Texas, they always seemed to say last stop.”
Ian shook his head. “I passed Last Stop about a hundred miles back. That was the last stop, and apparently this is the first stop after the last stop, so …” I’m handing this so well. “Something tells me that’s your girl.”
A teenager stood near the store’s front door, sipping on a Dr. Pepper. She wore jeans and a heaven woolen sweater, and held a jacket in the crook of her arm.
“It’s Kara!” Bottie cried, and Ian pulled up to the gas pumps.
“Kara? Is that some kind of thing with your group, having your last names end with an “a”? Should your nickname be Bota?”
Bottie paused for a moment. “Ooh, I like that idea.”
They all piled out. Ian still had two thirds of a tank of gas, but he had no idea how much longer he’d have to drive before he left the Twilight Zone, or passed through a stargate, or got sucked up by a UFO. He pulled out the pump nozzle to top off the tank.
The four females gathered in a circle, exchanged hugs, and compared notes. “That was so weird,” Kara said. “Where are we, anyway?”
“Southern New Mexico.” Bottie hooked a thumb toward Ian. “Mr. Grant is so lost.”
In more ways than one. The pump clicked, so he hung up the handle and finished paying.
Kara glanced his way, then did a double take. “Ian Grant?”
Plastic surgery. Totally valid lifestyle choice. “Hello. Your friends know more about me than I do, except for Tara.”
Tara’s hands fluttered. “I’m sorry, I don’t—“
“No, it wasn’t a complaint. Any knowledge about me pretty much qualifies as Hollywood trivia, which pretty much qualifies as pointless.” He walked over to the group, ignoring the heat that beat down on them all. “But I was wondering, since young Bottina and Dana know so much, can you get me back on the right path?”
Smiling, Bottie pointed back the way they’d come. “Go back that way, and take a right at Albuquerque.”
“I knew Albuquerque would figure in, somehow. So, where do you need me to take you?”
Dana pointed north. “Alaska.”
“Our work’s done there. Can we be in the wedding?” Bottie asked.
“Uh—“
“No, a ride’s not necessary,” Tara told him. “We’ve made arrangements.”
Arrangements? The only vehicle in sight was an old tow truck, either parked against the service station’s side wall or holding it up. The only other person, a clerk who looked like a strange mix of Gomer Pyle and undertaker, leaned over his counter to stare at them. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.” Kara continued to stare at Ian with an air of fascination.
“Well … guess I’ve got some doubling back to do.” He started toward the Mustang, but Tara called to him and he turned back around.
“Mr. Grant, I don’t want to pry into your personal affairs.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I get that a lot.”
“From what I’ve heard … well, may I suggest that you don’t surprise your sister? Her fiancé made quite an impression on us—I gathered he can be a hard man when he’s … not amused.”
“Please. If I ran from every cop I pis—upset, I’d have ended up in Albuquerque as a teenager.”
“Well … maybe you should look your sister up first, and … reconnect with her. Maybe you should even get the lay of the land up there first, before you contact anyone. It’s just a thought.”
Tara, for all the strangeness going on, was a nice lady. “I’ll consider it, thanks.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Grant.” Tara stepped back, and Kara waved.
“Please don’t get drunk anymore,” Dana said.
“Gave it up.”
“Try not to make inappropriate jokes at the wrong time,” Bottie added.
“Okay, I’m still working on that one.”
Shaking his head, Ian climbed into the Mustang and started the engine. He looked back to give the quartet one last wave.
They were gone.
After a moment Ian climbed out of the car and walked into the service station, where the attendant stood scratching his head. “What happened to those four girls?”
“Don’t know, mister. I was standing here admiring your car when I saw a flash, out the corner of my eye … and when I looked, they’d just vanished.”
“Huh.” Ian walked out again, to one side of the building, then the other. No tracks in the dust. Returning to the front door, he called in. “But you did see them, right?”
The man frowned. “Well … strange things happen sometimes, out here.”
“Right.”
Ian got back into the Mustang, turned around, and drove on, for the same reason he had after Dana appeared: What else was there to do? For a long time he thought about those four friends, and the advice they’d given him. They were all right, of course. By the time he reached Albuquerque, he decided they were very right indeed, and he was happy the giving up drinking part had already happened.
Now the hard part would be avoiding inappropriate jokes.
October 2, 2014
Hacking Up An Internet Sickness
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
A computer genius/loser at life recently spent several months slaving away, night and day, to hack into the iCloud service and swipe nude photos of numerous celebrities.
This goes to show you, some guys will do anything to see women nude. You know it was a guy. And apparently a guy who wasn’t satisfied seeing most of these people nude—or close enough to nude—o n movies or cable TV.
I’ve never cared for this “cloud” idea, in which you send all your important computer stuff somewhere else so it doesn’t get lost if your computer crashes. So, where’s somewhere else? What is the cloud, really?
More computers. Someone else’s computers.
While putting your stuff on numerous different computers in theory makes it less likely to be lost, my problem has always been that it makes it easier for your stuff to be found.
The hack involves such celebrities as Abby Elliott, Candice Swanepoel, Keke Palmer, and even Emily Ratjakowski. No, I have no idea who any of those people are. However, I’m assured they’re celebrities, and apparently my lack of knowledge means I don’t spend enough time on squeaky-clean websites like 4chan. If you don’t already know what 4chan is, do not go there.
Actually, I pulled those names out specifically because I don’t know those particular people. There were plenty of names I was familiar with, from the kick-a%@ Scarlet Johansson to the already-hacked-nude Vanessa Hudgens, to the I-don’t-ever-want-to-see-her-nude Kim Kardashian.
Some are denying the photos are actually of them, and in the age of Photoshop that’s a possibility. Some are basically admitting it the way Jennifer Lawrence’s lawyer did, by threatening anyone who reposts them. Mary E. Winstead (seriously, no idea) Tweeted that her hacked photos were deleted a long time ago. This proves two things: First, that the hackers went to extremely great lengths to get the proverbial goods. Second, that once you put something up on the internet, it’s there. Forever.
For anyone who tracks down my early efforts at fanfiction: Go easy on me.
The whole thing came into the open over Labor Day weekend. I would have reported on this incident earlier, but I was busy surfing the internet. For, um, cute photos of … bunnies.
There are two schools of thought about this incident. One is that the hacker is a serious scumbag who needs to be tarred and feathered, after which the tar and feathers should be set on fire. The other is that these are celebrities, and they should have known better than to allow whatever parts they haven’t already revealed onto the internet.
Both sides are right.
But the first side is righter … um, more right.
Yeah, I get it; with many of these celebrities we’ve already seen all but an inch of two of everything. Anybody who watched Kirsten Dunst in that rainstorm scene during Spider-Man has pretty much seen the goods. (Seriously, white and braless in a driving rain? Were we meant to think that was an accidental choice?) Although I lose man points by admitting it, I haven’t paid much attention to the skin status on most of these other celebrities, who are almost entirely female.
However …
When Dunst chose to be in that movie, she got paid Big Bucks for it. That was her choice. Jennifer Lawrence, who I’ve only seen dressed head to toe depending on how you count the blue X-Men makeup, didn’t make that choice. It doesn’t matter if taking cell phone picks in the buff was a good idea or not (it’s not)—they didn’t volunteer to let the general public see them. Now they’re out there, and that’s one nude genie that can’t get stuffed back into its flesh colored bottle.
Asking people not to look at them won’t work. There’s something pathological about men looking at photos of nude celebrities. There are certain things guys can’t look away from, like explosions and car wrecks, and for some reason the idea of seeing someone nude who they’ve heard of but don’t know personally is one of them. Sure, you could put a shock collar on them, but that never seems to help.
But how about this: How about tracking down the hacker, and putting a shock collar on him? Here’s how it would work: Any time someone clicks on a nude photo that he leaked, the hacker gets shocked. Any time one of the victims thinks about it and gets mad, they push a button and the hacker gets shocked. Any time someone types “they should have known better” or any variant, both the hacker and the typer get shocked.
It would be hacker hell. And that’s where he belongs.
A computer genius/loser at life recently spent several months slaving away, night and day, to hack into the iCloud service and swipe nude photos of numerous celebrities.
This goes to show you, some guys will do anything to see women nude. You know it was a guy. And apparently a guy who wasn’t satisfied seeing most of these people nude—or close enough to nude—o n movies or cable TV.
I’ve never cared for this “cloud” idea, in which you send all your important computer stuff somewhere else so it doesn’t get lost if your computer crashes. So, where’s somewhere else? What is the cloud, really?
More computers. Someone else’s computers.
While putting your stuff on numerous different computers in theory makes it less likely to be lost, my problem has always been that it makes it easier for your stuff to be found.
The hack involves such celebrities as Abby Elliott, Candice Swanepoel, Keke Palmer, and even Emily Ratjakowski. No, I have no idea who any of those people are. However, I’m assured they’re celebrities, and apparently my lack of knowledge means I don’t spend enough time on squeaky-clean websites like 4chan. If you don’t already know what 4chan is, do not go there.
Actually, I pulled those names out specifically because I don’t know those particular people. There were plenty of names I was familiar with, from the kick-a%@ Scarlet Johansson to the already-hacked-nude Vanessa Hudgens, to the I-don’t-ever-want-to-see-her-nude Kim Kardashian.
Some are denying the photos are actually of them, and in the age of Photoshop that’s a possibility. Some are basically admitting it the way Jennifer Lawrence’s lawyer did, by threatening anyone who reposts them. Mary E. Winstead (seriously, no idea) Tweeted that her hacked photos were deleted a long time ago. This proves two things: First, that the hackers went to extremely great lengths to get the proverbial goods. Second, that once you put something up on the internet, it’s there. Forever.
For anyone who tracks down my early efforts at fanfiction: Go easy on me.
The whole thing came into the open over Labor Day weekend. I would have reported on this incident earlier, but I was busy surfing the internet. For, um, cute photos of … bunnies.
There are two schools of thought about this incident. One is that the hacker is a serious scumbag who needs to be tarred and feathered, after which the tar and feathers should be set on fire. The other is that these are celebrities, and they should have known better than to allow whatever parts they haven’t already revealed onto the internet.
Both sides are right.
But the first side is righter … um, more right.
Yeah, I get it; with many of these celebrities we’ve already seen all but an inch of two of everything. Anybody who watched Kirsten Dunst in that rainstorm scene during Spider-Man has pretty much seen the goods. (Seriously, white and braless in a driving rain? Were we meant to think that was an accidental choice?) Although I lose man points by admitting it, I haven’t paid much attention to the skin status on most of these other celebrities, who are almost entirely female.
However …
When Dunst chose to be in that movie, she got paid Big Bucks for it. That was her choice. Jennifer Lawrence, who I’ve only seen dressed head to toe depending on how you count the blue X-Men makeup, didn’t make that choice. It doesn’t matter if taking cell phone picks in the buff was a good idea or not (it’s not)—they didn’t volunteer to let the general public see them. Now they’re out there, and that’s one nude genie that can’t get stuffed back into its flesh colored bottle.
Asking people not to look at them won’t work. There’s something pathological about men looking at photos of nude celebrities. There are certain things guys can’t look away from, like explosions and car wrecks, and for some reason the idea of seeing someone nude who they’ve heard of but don’t know personally is one of them. Sure, you could put a shock collar on them, but that never seems to help.
But how about this: How about tracking down the hacker, and putting a shock collar on him? Here’s how it would work: Any time someone clicks on a nude photo that he leaked, the hacker gets shocked. Any time one of the victims thinks about it and gets mad, they push a button and the hacker gets shocked. Any time someone types “they should have known better” or any variant, both the hacker and the typer get shocked.
It would be hacker hell. And that’s where he belongs.
September 24, 2014
The New Nude Boob Tube
SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK
There’s some irony in the fact that I’m not as thrilled about naked people on TV now as I was decades ago, when it was almost impossible to find any.
When cable TV first came to Albion, it excited people in many ways. You could see music videos! You could watch movies on Home Box Office, almost as if you had a box office in your home! They had an entire channel devoted to the weather! How cool is that?
Another exciting thing was that you could see the channel at all. If you happened to live in a bad place for receiving signals over the airwaves, you could swear every TV show took place in a blizzard. When I was a kid, if you wanted to go from watching three Fort Wayne TV stations to the two more or less visible South Bend stations, you had to physically go outside and move the entire pole the antenna was on.
I’m not making this up, you whippersnappers.
But without a doubt, the channel that most excited people of my age was a pay channel called Cinemax. Why? Well, we called it Skinemax, which should give you a clue.
The first movie I ever saw on HBO was Star Wars. The first movie I ever saw on Cinemax was H.O.T.S., which according to a character in the trailer meant “Hold On To Sex”. Young college woman—who seemed just a little old for college—went topless in this movie. No tops! It also had a plot … I assume.
Nudity on TV!
Now it’s hanging out all over the place.
In fact, there’s a trend on basic cable channels, which are already showing things that thirty years ago you’d have to pay extra for. The trend: Take reality shows that already exist, do them over without clothes, and see the ratings skyrocket.
Take the dating show, for instance. Instead of waiting to see if they’ll get naked at the end of the date, strip ‘em before they even meet. It’s, yep, “Dating Naked”.
Take a typical show about a young couple shopping for the perfect home. Instead of stripping the furnishings, strip the couple, and you have “Buying Naked”. They’re nudists, you see.
The newest is “Skin Wars”, about artists who paint on nude models. But are the artists also nude? It’s only fair.
Then there’s my favorite: Take a typical survivor show, but have a man and woman in the buff. It’s called “Naked And Afraid”. Wouldn’t you be afraid if your nether regions were directly exposed to everything from mosquitos to poison ivy?
I’ve seen bits and pieces of “Naked And Afraid”—pardon the expression. Some contestants immediately find something to cover their unmentionables, flying in the face (pardon the expression) of the whole point. It’s like H.O.T.S. with everyone wearing a Mumu.
The producers are quick to insist that these shows are not about nudity, and one even insisted that “Naked and Afraid” was a family show.
Well, yeah, if your family lives in the Sunnyside Up Nudist Colony. But let’s face it, the real point of these shows isn’t that people should be comfortable with their bodies: It’s that sex sells.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become interested in plot and characterization. While these shows do indeed have characters, the blurring out of certain body part areas seems to negate the real reason to watch them. Still, it’s a trend that’s not going away as long as there’s money to be made at it. I predict that within the next ten years, nudity will go from rare to common on broadcast TV, too. Imagine, on “Home Improvement”, how much more damage Tim Taylor would have done to himself in the buff. Imagine how much easier it would have been for “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” to kill monsters if they were too busily ogling her body to mount a defense.
Let’s take a look at how current TV shows would handle this:
“The Big Bang Theory”. The genius nerds see neighbor Penny naked every day, turning them into slobbering idiots who can’t turn a car key, let alone work out physics equations. As a result they all lose their jobs except for Sheldon, who’s only bothered by how unsanitary the whole thing is.
“American Idol”. We get still more proof that for what it takes to become a popular singer, looks matter as much as ability.
“Dancing With The Stars”. Injuries during practice become much more serious.
“Grey’s Anatomy”. The name gets changed to “Everyone’s Anatomy”.
“Resurrection”. Now sponsored by Viagra.
“Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD”. Agent Coulson strips off that perfectly tailored suit to reveal … a perfectly tailored suit. At the network, the suits are puzzled.
“Survivor”. Pretty much nothing changes.
In all those crime shows with scenes set in morgues and labs, the characters will be way more careful with the scalpels. You just watch and see.
And I’m sure you will.
There’s some irony in the fact that I’m not as thrilled about naked people on TV now as I was decades ago, when it was almost impossible to find any.
When cable TV first came to Albion, it excited people in many ways. You could see music videos! You could watch movies on Home Box Office, almost as if you had a box office in your home! They had an entire channel devoted to the weather! How cool is that?
Another exciting thing was that you could see the channel at all. If you happened to live in a bad place for receiving signals over the airwaves, you could swear every TV show took place in a blizzard. When I was a kid, if you wanted to go from watching three Fort Wayne TV stations to the two more or less visible South Bend stations, you had to physically go outside and move the entire pole the antenna was on.
I’m not making this up, you whippersnappers.
But without a doubt, the channel that most excited people of my age was a pay channel called Cinemax. Why? Well, we called it Skinemax, which should give you a clue.
The first movie I ever saw on HBO was Star Wars. The first movie I ever saw on Cinemax was H.O.T.S., which according to a character in the trailer meant “Hold On To Sex”. Young college woman—who seemed just a little old for college—went topless in this movie. No tops! It also had a plot … I assume.
Nudity on TV!
Now it’s hanging out all over the place.
In fact, there’s a trend on basic cable channels, which are already showing things that thirty years ago you’d have to pay extra for. The trend: Take reality shows that already exist, do them over without clothes, and see the ratings skyrocket.
Take the dating show, for instance. Instead of waiting to see if they’ll get naked at the end of the date, strip ‘em before they even meet. It’s, yep, “Dating Naked”.
Take a typical show about a young couple shopping for the perfect home. Instead of stripping the furnishings, strip the couple, and you have “Buying Naked”. They’re nudists, you see.
The newest is “Skin Wars”, about artists who paint on nude models. But are the artists also nude? It’s only fair.
Then there’s my favorite: Take a typical survivor show, but have a man and woman in the buff. It’s called “Naked And Afraid”. Wouldn’t you be afraid if your nether regions were directly exposed to everything from mosquitos to poison ivy?
I’ve seen bits and pieces of “Naked And Afraid”—pardon the expression. Some contestants immediately find something to cover their unmentionables, flying in the face (pardon the expression) of the whole point. It’s like H.O.T.S. with everyone wearing a Mumu.
The producers are quick to insist that these shows are not about nudity, and one even insisted that “Naked and Afraid” was a family show.
Well, yeah, if your family lives in the Sunnyside Up Nudist Colony. But let’s face it, the real point of these shows isn’t that people should be comfortable with their bodies: It’s that sex sells.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become interested in plot and characterization. While these shows do indeed have characters, the blurring out of certain body part areas seems to negate the real reason to watch them. Still, it’s a trend that’s not going away as long as there’s money to be made at it. I predict that within the next ten years, nudity will go from rare to common on broadcast TV, too. Imagine, on “Home Improvement”, how much more damage Tim Taylor would have done to himself in the buff. Imagine how much easier it would have been for “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” to kill monsters if they were too busily ogling her body to mount a defense.
Let’s take a look at how current TV shows would handle this:
“The Big Bang Theory”. The genius nerds see neighbor Penny naked every day, turning them into slobbering idiots who can’t turn a car key, let alone work out physics equations. As a result they all lose their jobs except for Sheldon, who’s only bothered by how unsanitary the whole thing is.
“American Idol”. We get still more proof that for what it takes to become a popular singer, looks matter as much as ability.
“Dancing With The Stars”. Injuries during practice become much more serious.
“Grey’s Anatomy”. The name gets changed to “Everyone’s Anatomy”.
“Resurrection”. Now sponsored by Viagra.
“Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD”. Agent Coulson strips off that perfectly tailored suit to reveal … a perfectly tailored suit. At the network, the suits are puzzled.
“Survivor”. Pretty much nothing changes.
In all those crime shows with scenes set in morgues and labs, the characters will be way more careful with the scalpels. You just watch and see.
And I’m sure you will.
