fpdorchak

Learn everything you ever wanted to know about the first man on the moon. Read this book.

And I mean it.

The author, James R. Hansen, has done an outstanding job, even going back to the Anglo-Danish origins of the Armstrong (“Armestrange”) name. Man, I think I even knew what he had for dinner October 20, 1953. Now, I have to admit, it wasn’t quite like Mr. Cernan’s Last Man On the Moon (see my post). I really don’t mean to compare the two against each other, because one is a biography while the other is an autobiography, one is by an academician, the other by an astronaut/fighter jock,  but you really can’t compete with first-hand anything .The structure of First Man is important in its comparison to Last Man in one important element:  the structure of First Man very much mirrors the structure of Mr. Armstrong himself. Mr. Armstrong’s strong suit was never in dealing with people. He was 110% the engineer. A flight engineer. As he himself described himself, Neil Armstrong wasn’t so much about being the first to land on the moon…but more about advancing the science and engineering of flight. According to the book, he was thoughtful, analytical, and quite meticulous. To me, he was almost robotic in nature. Totally task oriented.

The opening of the book was one of the best ever—though it was never really capitalized upon…directly. Indirectly, one could look at the oft-quoted Buzz Aldrin statement spoken to Neil Armstrong after returning from the moon and run with it in any of a number of directions. The statement is: “Neil, we missed the whole thing.” Conspiracy buffs love to run with that statement, but after reading this book (and checking out the hyperlink to a Buzz Aldrin interview from July 19, 2009), it can also mean, “Hey, we were dang busy, we didn’t even get to stop and smell the roses!”

Mr. Armstrong seemed to keep everyone at arm’s length. He dove into his work, but he was notoriously close-lipped around people. Over the years, many conspiracy theorists make this to be because he “saw something” out there. “Something” being UFO-related (Buzz Aldrin seemed more the candidate for this, since when they returned, he really wanted to talk about the “lights” he’d seen while out there, interrupting NASA debriefing protocol to discuss them with reporters and all). We’ll most likely never know answers to such questions, but as I read this 700-page account of Armstrong’s life, it became readily apparent that close-lipped is or was how Neil Armstrong simple was. As I like to say, It was who he was; what he does. I don’t know what he’s like now, I got the impression that maybe he’s changed a little? Or is perhaps trying to?…but I think the man was simply the most reserved individual I’ve ever read about or met. And I know people of few words. Some people (I’m not one of them) are just like that. And when you lump Armstrong in with all the more colorful personalities of the other astronauts, well, I can certainly see the concern.

Mr. Hansen’s book does occasionally touch on the topic of the astronauts seeing “bright lights” and UFOs, and he disappointingly brushes it off in classic and casual debunking devaluation. I never understand this type of attitude from so-called scientifically minded individuals. Why is believing in UFOs a joke? Why must phrases like “…of import for those who want to believe in UFOs…” (top of page 430, in the paperback version) constantly be employed? Just because there is no so-call “proof” they don’t exist? Look at all the new discoveries by Hubble that were never thought to have existed. Keep an open mind for crying out loud—but that’s for another posting. But, in general, you will find nothing of real value regarding anything-UFO. The book is all about the man, the myth, the legend of Neil Alden Armstrong. This one failing aside, the book is a tome of information about Armstrong. An outstanding book—one authorized by Armstrong himself (and no, he did not co-author it). First Man gives enormous insight into the man who, arguably, defined Humanity’s greatest achievement.

After posting yesterday’s blog, it got me thinking—violence in writing. Or on TV, in the movies, whatever. I read Publisher Weekly, which includes the books-to-be-published reviews. These are reviewed by publishing industry professionals.  And as I read these reviews, it’s amazing how truly nasty some of this stuff is! And I mean in terms of content…and the heinous things that can happen to someone woven into fictional stories that so-called “niece people” want to read!

Now, I’m not stupid. Really, I’m not—I understand the plotting and creation of books.  Understand that books and movies and TV have to have something interesting going on, usually framed as “conflict,” to get a reader’s/watcher’s interest. You need something of interest going on, some conflict involved in said, and a [usually] satisfying ending. Attention-grabbing characters are a huge plus (this makes the work “character driven”). Action. Love. Intrigue.

But, geesh, some of these plots are really intricate and gnarly, putting the old and now-quaint Chinatown plot to shame (and I, having seen this in college as part of a class I took years ago, remember the interest and confusion I experienced while watching it—had I heard that right?! Wait, stop, rewind that reel!). Truth may be stranger than fiction, but I think fiction is really starting to blur that line!

All I’m saying is that there seems to be so much of it. And I’m no angel. I started out writing horror. Even in my current stable of efforts I’ve employed violence…but in my current efforts I’ve tried to frame it in a way as to explain it’s existence in some way. To present an understanding of it. To not use it as a means to its own end. Perhaps not totally successful, but that has been my attempt.

In Sleepwalkers, I used it as a way to express the emotional content of what was going on at the time in the “mechanism” I employed (don’t want to give it away) in the novel. In another manuscript I used it to show how violence could be a product of certain past-life issues.  In another I used it more as a live-by-sword-die-by-the-sword employment. But I always tried to frame its (limited!) use in a way to try to understand what violence is and how it emerges into our lives. But when I read these reviews of all these books to be, it just makes me cringe at what the reading public is buying! If elements of our lives are so filled with war and crime and the like (and we’re all complaining about it), then to be reading about the same in our “down time,” our “fun” time…well, it disturbs me. Instead of using so much graphic violence, the better way, IMHO, is to find more inventive ways to plot. To write. And I mean no disservice to the writers employing current methods. They obviously did a great enough job to land a publisher, but in having to focus so much time on such nasty and graphic details has to have an effect upon one’s life, if nothing else, in the outlook of one’s life. How you interact and relate to people. And that is at the heart of my concern.

Sigh.  I think I’ve had enough of them.

2012.

Planets coming to smash our own.

UFOs denied and/or propagated by our own government.

But I still might write one more manuscript (ms) dealing with UFOs. I started one months ago and got sidetracked.

I realized—years ago—that when I worked on any novel ms topic, I end up working on it for some 2 – 3 years. That’s a long time to focus on one area of interest that’s a “dark and cloudy” mindset.  I don’t like it.

I mean, sure, I like the weird and supernatural and paranormal, and all, but with all this focus on the end of the world, et cetera, well, I think I’m over it (people have been forecasting the end of world as long as there have been people, BTW…). And regarding that ms mentioned above, I’ve been trying to find a way to deal with its content without getting all pessimistic and dark and whatnot. I’m not like that. I’m an optimist. A believer in the good of life, so I don’t like focusing on the opposite. And I really do believe we create our own lives, our own realities, and I certainly don’t want to be a part of one that involves any literally “earthshattering” moments, if you know what I mean. I believe there are infinite probabilities to any one line, or track, to life, and though I don’t know the intimate quantum interactions of how things happen, I know I’ve attracted certain things into my life by the way I lived my life.

For example, I found that when I focused on the religious and prayed for stuff—I got them.  Praying worked.

When I left the religious mindset and consciously decided to bring in only certain events  to my life by focusing on the positive and attracting things that way—it worked.

The common denominator?

Beliefs.

I started down this path of conspiracy theorists as a way to research another ms I’d written and which is being shopped around by my agent, regarding UFOs. It started with Whitley Strieber’s Unknown Country website.  I’ve since found this man is deep into the darkside of life—and though I’ve read all his “Communion Books,” and understand (as much as someone in my position can understand) his journey, I don’t have to support it. I understand and applaud his delving into his own dark issues in a way that I understand as him trying to understand his own life, but I don’t have to be a part of it. I thought his site would be more optimistic (given his Communion Books), his e-mailed newsletters the same, but they’re not.  So, Mr. Strieber, I wish you luck on your journey toward a better understanding of the whys and wherefores of your life…but I unsubscribe.

That was the start of things.  The more I looked, the more depressing this stuff got.

The long and the short of it is that given my beliefs—that we attract what we focus upon—why would I want to attract this kind of life? Sure, makes for great sound bites and movies, but it’s not who I am, and what I want to live and say about my life. I want people to think about what they’re doing and thinking and make life better.  Not to worry about the end of life on Dec 21, 2012. And whether or not I’m full of it, I’d rather believe in the positive and optimistic than the alternative. It’s just healthier on many levels.

Make your life about living and positive attraction. Make it about growth and learning. Reject these negative concepts—because, really, that’s all they are. My dad had a good thing to say the other week.  He said, why worry about things over which you have no control?  While I understand that sentiment and agree in part to elements of that statement, I say we have control over far more than we realize.

So, I’m looking for a different angle to bring this one ms to completion. I like the angle of what I have in mind…it’s a different approach I’ve still not seen done in books or movies (not that I’m all that well read)…so, I think I have a way around the dark and gloomy.  But I really want to get to more optimistic efforts, of which I have several.  A lot of books seem to be written about really nasty shit that amazes me people want to read!

And people wonder why there’s such doom and gloom in the world?  Look at what you’re focusing upon! Murder. Rape. Incest. War. Lying. Cheating. Violence. Good, God, look at these books being published—the movies being made—it really astonishes me.

So, if I’m lucky enough to have some people out there reading this post, I simply ask, to yourself—there’s no need to tell anyone what you’re doing—to yourself, try to focus on the more positive, the more uplifting. Don’t focus on any kind of hate or negativity. If you have fear, acknowledge it, know it to be a human emotion brought about by circumstances you do not have to accept as real.

Or pray.

But, come on, do you really want a life that continues to echo what all these conspiracy theorists throw out there?

I don’t.

I just completed and submitted my WWII tail gunner (see previous post) story. I’m quite happy with it. 2,200 words.  And it seems every time I read it, well…a part of me gets  a little choked up.  I hope it has the same effect for others, but I’m aware I’m coming at it from a different perspective than most are probably going to come from.  I’ve talked about the feeling that I’ve lived other lives, and, I feel one of them was as a WWII tail gunner that went down in the manner I’d described in my story. Take it or leave it, but that is my conviction, and I certainly don’t require others to step in line behind me. Others have their religions and beliefs…this is mine.

But whatever the reason, I’ve always felt (along with other similar feelings, like regarding the Civil War or the Titanic) a deep in-the-bones emotional intensity whenever I see pictures of WWII.

Not WWI.

Not Korea.

But WWII.

And pictures involving flying, especially B-17 (the Flying Fortress) bombing runs over Germany, the ones where aircraft lose pieces in-flight, really hit a note with me…but it has only been recently that it took such an unrelenting hold of me and simply would not let go. I felt that someone was reaching out to me for some reason—it doesn’t matter what that reason, or if I even understand it—just that “he” had. The imagery, the thoughts, the reaching out from “wherever.”  Call it what you will…active imagination, wandering mind.  Doesn’t matter.  But I finally decided to give it the attention it deserved.  I’m glad I did. 

The short stick is that I believe things all happen for a reason.  There is only apparent randomness. Call it synchronicity, causality, or whatever, I feel we attract what we get.  In my life I’ve felt “odd” about certain things that only because of this sudden sharp focus of attention the past several months seem to be making more sense. Such as always having an “odd feeling” while being in the very back of airliners (you know, the very last seat, or standing in the galley back there), or, as a kid, I got the book Flying Fortress:  The Illustrated Biography of the B-17s and The Men Who Flew Them, by Edward Jablonski…the odd feeling when I had been at the prone in-flight refueling station aboard a KC-135. The fact that all “this” started with the thoughts and images of “said guy” at the gym (I had been stretching in an empty martial arts/yoga room…and a lone ceiling fan [propeller images!] had been on, too, if you must know…)…only to shortly thereafter find the Memphis Belle movie on TV…and, further, that I ignored this movie the entire night, then only “happened” to channel surf back to it during the in-flight collision scene where the empennage of one B-17 (in the movie, Mother and Country) was separated through a mid-air collision.  Or how disturbed I feel every time I see photos (or watch that dang Mother and Country scene…) of B-17s falling out of the sky in pieces—sometimes damaged by their own mistakes (such as upper levels of B-17s inadvertently dropping bombs on the horizontal stabilizers of their own aircraft beneath them) or by whole wings shot off by flak or aerial dogfights.

It all quite unnerves me.

It’s almost like I could feel the falling.  The screaming out of the sky in a fiery death.  Sure, I feel for the other planes and the lives lost in the fighters (not to mention those on the ground), et cetera, but the feeling, as I recently analyzed it, just isn’t the same as with the Forts (B-17s).  It may not affect you, but for me…those B-17s…they affect me.  Always have.

So, in this story I wrote, I (unconsciously at first) found myself creating the structure of falling…and once I consciously noted this, I immediately set about trying to enhance that structure.  I hope I’d succeeded.  And now I feel conflicted.  I’m glad I finished the sorry, but feel a sense of loss…at the same time I feel I’ve helped someone.  It’s never good to continually focus on the “past,” but try to learn from it, give it the energy it deserves without invalidating it, then move forward.  I liked working on the story, doing that research.  “Revisiting old stomping grounds,” if you will.  As I’d described in the Genghis Khan exhibit post, I felt a sense of “coming home,” here, too.  Like I’d revisited an old friend, one I might have inadvertently put off a little too long…and now we must go our separate ways.  I wish him well!

I’d like to thank all the research avenues I pursued in creating this story, from the paragraphs from Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns book The War:  An Intimate History, 1941 – 1945, dealing with the B-17 crews and some of their stories, to the websites, like the one honoring tail gunner Sergeant Glen E. Seeber, or the pages on Eyewitness To History detailing B-17s, and the pages on Dave’s War Birds, detailing battle-damaged B-17s. Also thank you to all of those who got back to me about my questions about battle-damaged B-17s.  I appreciate your time and efforts.

To my own personal tail gunner who just would not leave me alone, I hope I helped.

I did it for you.

Yesterday I visited the Genghis Khan exhibit in Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science, with my wife and Mother-in-Law.  Short of traveling all the way to Mongolia itself, this was a très cool experience! I really enjoyed it. I’d wanted to visit this exhibit since I’d heard about it late last year, and I’m glad I finally got there. There was a lot to see, and though I thoroughly enjoyed it (and the two demonstrations we’d seen, with a musical and contortionist presentation) there was one area of disappointment, which I’ll hit below.

Walking into the special exhibit section’s doors, and seeing the image of the Great Khan elicited such a deep sense of familiarity within me.  I don’t know if it was because of all the research I’d done, or any other metaphysical considerations, but, yeah, it kinda felt like I’d “come home.”  When I wrote one of my still on-the-rounds novel manuscripts (mss) that involved Genghis Khan, I did a lot of research, and while researching, I remember feeling that deep sense of familiarity and calm when I saw the open plains (steppes) depicted on page xxvii, of the Paul Kahn’s translation and adaptation of The Secret History Of The Mongols: The Origin of Chingis Khan, which I read and reread during the writing of my ms.

But here’s my issue:  yes, those were rough and brutal times, and Genghis (or Chinggis, or Chingas, or any other derivative) was just as ruthless and violent…but if he was so much the absolute incarnate of evil that much of the world seems to make him out to be, then what of his Great Yasa that he (yes, he) created in order to bring, well—order—to life?  The absolute freedom of religion he allowed?  The “importing” (okay, “importing” can mean plundering and pillaging, here, but he also did seek out talent in other, non-violent, ways, too, if I remember correctly…) of skills that the nomadic tribes of Mongolia utterly lacked? The incorporation of writing into a largely oral culture (the exhibit talked about how it was thought that the Mongols had brought in the Uighur language and modified it, but I’d read a couple years ago that there was a more modern consideration that they might have actually created their own script)? What about his shamanistic side (he wasn’t “just” a warrior, my research had found he was also considered a shaman), and his statesman side?  His pure genius? Yes, the exhibit did mention these, some of them more than once, but with all the apparent focus on his weaponry, violence—even with constantly rolling film part way through the exhibit that I only saw depicting battles and violence—I really felt it simply didn’t do the Khan justice in this often ignored respect.  I only now just thought of this, but there were two Mongolian performers there, and I’d wished I’d asked them what they’d thought about my thoughts.

This is my point, one I’ve made many times in the ten years since I started researching and writing that novel ms:  just like in today’s world in which it’s the “in thing” to be “connected” to technology every waking and sleeping moment, back in the 13th century, I feel the “in thing” was violence. Being tough.  I mean, let’s face it, if Genghis was the equivalent of sweet-talkin, philosophizing thinker…he would have lost his head (and no doubt other body parts) in an instant. You live in a violent era, you either play within the rules—or die. And the nomadic tribes of that location were totally and utterly violent.  Like the museum videos said, there was one rule:  you wanted something, you took it.  And there was no escaping vengeance.  If you wronged some tribe or individual (which seemed to be easy to do…), they would keep coming after you and your family (and your cats and your dogs and your goldfish…). So, really, to effectively put an end to that kind of behavior, a ruler really had to decimate entire populations. Because they’d simply keep coming after you and yours, like the Hatfields and McCoys, like my Mother-in-Law so-aptly put it. To rule violent people, in violent times, you simply had to be ruthless. Had to be able to “put up, or shut up.” And I feel that’s what he did. He made rules (and, from what the exhibit showed, one had to be caught in the act, it wasn’t based upon any hearsay).  You steal—you die.  You commit adultery—you die.  You lie—you die.  You betray—you die.

Really, how else you gonna keep a nation of ruthless warriors in line?  With spankings?  With “No dinner for you—go to your ger!”?

If he was so frigging evil, why would he do this?  Why would he want better for his people?

I’m not saying he was a saint—he was a pure and perfect product of his times, and I don’t agree with everything I’d read he’d done. But those were the times, and that was all they knew.

And one other thing I’d like to mention.  I’d also found in my research that one of the reasons researchers felt the Mongol warriors were so fierce and unafraid in battle was their belief in reincarnation (among other things—check out this link; it’s definitely eye opening). And if, as this link discusses, they believed in excellence in everything, this could also surely explain their “enthusiasm” for warfare.  But let it also be noted (again, by my Mother-in-Law), that their handiwork in weaving and spinning clothes was so incredibly detailed.  I also noted their attention to detail in their incredibly detailed inlay work on trunks, near the end of the exhibit (the method used started with a “T,” I believe, where you infill etched lines with a compound, then buff it down so it’s all flush).  Simply incredible work—imported or not! But if the Mongols believed they were all reincarnated, then death is but a mechanism to other things.  Again, this is not an endorsement of me of their violence, I’m just parroting what I’ve found, trying to give a better depth of understanding to the life and times of Genghis and his people (I’ll also have to reread this link, myself, since it’s been a number of years since I’d last read it, so don’t nail me because I missed something in it; I’ll repost). But it helps explain some of their behavior, that’s all I’m saying.

So, Genghis rose above the common people. Exhibited genius, innovation, statesmanship. Created order.

What I’ve gathered, much or all that has been written about him, was not written by him. And much of it came years after his death, in August of 1227. And, let’s face it, he did piss off a lot of the world, and those who came after him wanted to make their own marks in the world…so, really, who knows exactly how the Great Khan was, what he was thinking? I’d read that he frequently went off by himself to “think.”  Perform his shamanistic communing. I don’t feel “evil incarnate” would act like this. “Evil incarnate” is about “you want something—you take it”  Uninhibited plundering. A self-fulfilling philosophy that would eventually collapse upon itself (which eventually, the empire kinda did not long after Genghis’s death).

So, I say…take what you hear with a block of salt (and this can be applied to most things, I find). Genghis Khan was a man ahead of his time who tried to better the plight of a battered and fractioned people, through the only tools he knew. The only “way” he knew. He wasn’t perfect, but he learned and improvised and improved upon his and his peoples’ situation.  And he should be better recognized for that, and not simply as one who was simply a brutal, vengeful, and ruthless warrior.

But, what do I know.  I’m just running off at the mouth 783 years after his death.

The past month or so, I’ve been having this persistently strong urge to write about a WWII B-17 tail gunner, so this week I began the story.  Am ten or so pages into it.  I got the urge last month or so, while stretching in the gym.  I was overcome by powerful emotion about a guy shot down over Germany during a bombing run. The imagery continued to plague me, so I knew I had to do this.  It was emotional, it was fearful, it was tragic. Then a short time later, while channel surfing at home, I spotted the Memphis Belle movie on TV.  I didn’t bother with it (though mentally noted the synchronicity), but later that night I again crossed paths with the movie, and sat and watched it for a spell, hitting the record key.  As I watched it, the last half hour, it showed a bombing run over Germany, and the scene where another B-17 in the formation was struck by a German plane that the Memphis Belle had just shot down.

This was my story.  The imagery in my head that wouldn’t go away.

Hope I do it (and the gunner) justice.