Bill Hearne

We lost one of the good guys a few days ago. His name was Bill Hearne.

Bill was a good friend of my sister Debbie’s, and I first met him years ago, back when I was living in Rochester. He and several of his running friends were going out to the Adirondacks to camp, hike, maybe do a little rock climbing, and just generally relax in the woods and enjoy each other’s company. My sister was part of this yearly tradition, and she invited me to come.

So I went. And that’s when I met Bill, and learned his unique definition of the term hiking.

See, for many people, hiking means going for a nice walk in the woods, maybe zipping up a little ridge, taking some pictures, going back to the tent and roasting marshmallows. That’s definitely what it meant to me, at the time.

For Bill, hiking meant waking up at some ridiculous hour of the morning – one that my mind has since blocked out – and heading out in a rainstorm intense enough to drown a carp. As we headed down the muddy trailhead, we passed another hiking couple, already in full retreat. As they passed us, the husband announced: “It has been decided. We are going shopping.”

But Bill led his group onward, and we jogged straight up a 4000-foot mountain (they don’t seem to understand the concept of the switchback in the Adirondacks, so I mean straight up), then down the other side, then up another one, then back again, down and up and down, the whole way back. Jogging. It was 14 miles. I counted.

That hike is one of my favorite memories, and the last thing I remember from that day is passing out in my tent as Bill and the rest of the Old School stayed up and partied.

The next morning, again godawfulearly, Bill invited me to join him for an actual jog. I politely declined. Mostly because I still could not feel my legs.

To say that Bill was an athlete is an understatement. Bill was the athlete. Back on that trip, when I was 19 and full of amazement at my own athletic skillz, Bill was around fifty, and I remember seeing him for the first time. He just looked like a normal guy. A little paunch around the belly, even. I did not yet realize that he was, in fact, the Terminator.

But there are lots of great athletes out there. The thing that was so great about Bill was how completely humble he was about it. Living in San Francisco, you get the idea that athletic ability gives you some sort of license to carry a chip on your shoulder and indulge in endless self-appreciation. If they put it to a vote, I’m willing to bet a good percentage of the population here would opt to have the city covered in mirrored surfaces.

Bill was not like that. For Bill, running, climbing, teaching spin classes, and just basically being a perpetual motion machine was fun. And it was the kind of fun he loved to include other people in. It was a welcoming, patient, laughing, goofy, grinning, all-inclusive fun. He was just one of those guys who met you and made you feel like an old friend in the same moment. There aren’t enough people like that around anymore. Especially now.

I was never very close with Bill, but I got an email from him a few years ago. I had just climbed Mt. Rainier, and he had heard about it through Debbie. So he sent me an email, telling me he was training for a climb on Denali, and wanting to know if I was interested in joining up.

I have to admit, I had a hard time writing a response that did not include the phrase “completely nuts” in it. Not for Bill’s sake – the guy was a machine, and I had no doubt that he’d make his way up Denali. But I had barely finished my Rainier climb, and I could not imagine the discipline I’d need for Denali. So I wrote back, saying thanks, but no thanks, and keep in touch, and good luck.

After years of preparation, Bill made it to Denali, where he died suddenly in the middle of his climb, carrying supplies from one camp to another. They say he went quickly, and without suffering. They say he died doing what he loved, and in one of the most beautiful spots on Earth. I’m glad for all those things.

But most of all, even though I didn’t know Bill as well as some of his many friends, all I can say is that Bill is one of the best people you could ever hope to meet, and if you never got the chance to go on a hike with him, then you really, really missed out.

A Bold New Metaphor

This morning, I had a revelation. I would go into greater detail about how this revelation came to me, but I imagine you’ll be able to figure it out on your own by the end of this post.

I’ve read a lot of writing books. There are times, in fact, when I suspect that I have read all of the writing books. The thing I’ve noticed, over and over again, is how each book comes up with its own metaphor for the process of writing.

Writing is a battle, says one book, a battle against the invisible forces of resistance that imperil the efforts of all would-be artists. Or maybe writing is a journey. Or writing is like assembling a skeleton. Stephen King says writing is like an excavation, a slow process of discovery in which the writer unearths a story without any idea of the final shape or form until the entire damn mammoth is free of the ground. I particularly like that metaphor, because as any paleontologist can tell you, they usually only ever find half of the skeleton.

I can relate.

But this morning, I discovered my own metaphor, and I’m quite enamored of it. Writing, my friends, is like taking a shit.

Bear with me.

It’s time. Whether you’ve been putting it off all day, or you’ve jumped eagerly into the gap, it doesn't matter. When it’s time, it’s time.

You sit. Perhaps you’re filled with dread, or maybe a sense of boundless optimism. But whatever preconceived notions you had about how this was supposed to go, reality soon knocks those ideas aside. You never know what you’re going to get until you get it.

Especially on Those Days. You know Those Days.

On Those Days you huddle there, prepared to give from the deepest part of yourself. But as long as you sit, and as hard as you try, nothing’s coming. You’re blocked. You look down at what you’ve produced, a tiny dark splotch on a field of white, and you think: That can’t be it! I know I’ve got more in me than that!

So you redouble your efforts. You struggle and you strain, you curse and make vows and sometimes you even bargain with God a little, if that’s your cup of tea. And slowly, with great effort and much gnashing of teeth, you produce. And when you’re done, and you survey the results, you’re left with a single, inescapable fact: Jesus Christ, it stinks. It’s a horrible, ghastly mess, and you wouldn’t show it to anyone, not even if they begged you. And you hit the switch and away it goes, hopefully never to be seen again. Though, these things do have a way to popping back up to the surface.

Then there are those Other Days. Far more rare, but they make it all seem worthwhile.

You sit down, and everything inside you is practically bursting to get out. You don’t even have to try, it just flows out of you, like magic. It feels natural, instinctual, and when you look over what you’ve accomplished, a slow, simple warmth builds in your chest. You’re proud. Proud of yourself. And other people may think it stinks, but not you. You think it’s wonderful. You finish up and go on about the rest of your day, grateful and happy, and even if you accomplish nothing else before bedtime, it doesn’t really matter. You bounce through the world, feeling ten pounds lighter.

And both activities demand a unique schedule of everyone. Some people can spend all day working something out. Others can only squeeze in fifteen minutes, here and there. Still others find that skipping a day between sessions is a healthy approach. Personally, I find that the best time is early in the morning, every single day, and that a good cup of coffee is universally helpful.

Of course, like all metaphors, this one starts to fall apart under too much examination. For instance, I’ve never actually defecated into an envelope and sent it to a publishing house, though I am sure there are a few editors who would argue the contrary. Also, I had a hard time coming up with a good writerly equivalent to washing my hands. Although literally washing one's hands after writing is probably not a bad idea.

Because, really, who knows what kind of germs are living on your keyboard. It’s disgusting, if you think about it.

A Return to Form

Okay, so I’ll be the first to admit that this blog thing has maybe not been quite the startling success I had both anticipated and intended. This might be, in some tangential way, connected to the fact that I have not made a blog entry in something approaching seven months.

I thought it would write itself, really. And I Am Very Disappointed In It for not doing so.

Regardless, I suppose I am somewhat to blame for this, I am partly culpable for my blog’s seeming lack of motivation. Maybe I didn’t give it enough praise as a young blogling. It’s difficult, you see. Work gets in the way. Work and the ugly business of getting older. Thoreau said that most men lead lives of quiet desperation, but he was only half-right, given that he failed to predict the Camaro.

Oh sure, at first, everything was great. Those early years were a blur of diaper changings and first steps, which neatly segued (montage-like, with music and cuts betwixt time-faded film clips) into halcyon days of running behind little Bloggy’s bike, letting go and watching it crash headfirst into a tree, possibly because I had been kind of pointing the bike in that direction, treeward, but that was mostly because I was drunk, drunk and filled with a nameless rage, which I have now given a name, which is Walter, Walter the Rage.

Things changed after that. Bloggy was a little less willing to get on a bike after that, or a horse, or especially that rocket sled I built out of stolen NASA booster rockets and Mentos, even though I painted a very friendly-looking puppy on the side, although I can’t actually paint, and was not aware at the time of the proper number of eyes for a puppy, one-hundred being A Bit Much.

Time marched on, and a distance grew between us. And when I got off the phone, it occurred to me, my Blog, was just like me, yeah. My Blog was Just. Like. Me.

Or it would be, if I was a bunch of text on a screen, stored in the vastness of the Internet and regurgitated for you at your leisure. And for all you know, I am exactly that. You have no proof of otherwise. Unless you actually know me. In which case, sorry I don’t call more often.

Of course, none of this is actually my fault, as I am an American, and my citizenship includes an inalienable right to deny responsibility. Because, I am, you see, an alcoholic.

Just kidding. I’m not an alcoholic. I have no problem with booze. In fact, I love booze! I could drink all day. You should see me at work. I can barely throw up on myself without having a drink first.

No, no, friends and countrymen, I am addicted to a much more pernicious substance, more insidious in its consequences, and far more ninja-like in its method, what with the sneaking undetected into dojos and castles and 80s TV shows. That substance is Laziness.

Laziness is a problem that afflicts millions of Americans. Its symptoms may include being lazy, some other stuff, and... I don’t know, something else. I mean, I could look it up, but Christ! The Internet is way over there.

Anyway, that’s my excuse, and I’m going to see someone about it, not a life coach or therapist or anything silly like that. I’m going to call my 7th grade gym teacher, Mr. Ryder. That guy knew how to get you to do a push-up. I figure he’s got about twenty years of calisthenics saved up for me.

That’ll learn me. I’ll be back in blogging shape in no time. It’ll be like Rocky, only, instead of biffing hangers of meat, I’ll be not doing anything of the sort.

In case you can’t tell, I don’t really know how to end this one.

2004 All Over Again

Another election, another round of sensationalistic media coverage. I'm not sure what scares me more -- the fact that the media must view Americans as mindless sheep, sure to flock to the nearest trough of ridiculous half-truths and sexified nonsense... or the fact that they may be right.

I don't blog much. I don't blog much because, to be honest, blogging strikes me as a supremely egotistical act, a willful decision that the Entire World needs to know the smallest, most trivial, most nose-pickingest details about my life and my inner thoughts and the drama of my tiny little existence. Because, no, it doesn't.

We used to live in a world of gatekeepers -- educated, erudite, learned members of society who could discern between the worthwhile and the worthless, the chaff and the wheat, the Dick York and the Dick Sargent. These people were given a massive responsibility -- to read the much and publish the few. And say what you will about specific exceptions, but on the whole I think this worked pretty damn well for a good long time.

Today is different, because Everybody is Special. It doesn't matter if you can barely read, much less write, because you have rights -- the right to a blog, and unlimited digital exposure. The right to say what you want, when you want, to whomever you want, without the slightest concern for content or value or, say, spelling. Warhol said "in the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." Dig that man up and give him a cigar.

And frankly, that pisses me off a little. This isn't the Gong Show. I like the idea of proving yourself before showing your underpants to the world. I think that's a square deal.

Except, of course, that all the gatekeepers are dead. Those men and women standing guard? Look close. They wear the colors of our enemy, sensationalist reds and envious greens and the black, black stench of decay. There is no fourth estate in this country. They have fled like 5th century Romans from Hadrian's Wall. Truth is dead. Or if not dead, then at least being carried around on the shoulder of John Cleese.

So now I come, late as usual, to the conclusion everyone else reached about half a decade ago: blogs are all we got, huh? I mean, the media has left us to the sharks, hell, they're chumming the waters, and even if the majority of blogs are mindless rambling piles of zombie dung, they're still pretty much the only hope for getting truth from Here to There.

All this is a roundabout way of saying that MSNBC should be ashamed of itself for its poll today about Obama's so-called "lipstick on a pig" remark, as it frames the question in such a way as to discount the possibility that IT IS A COMPLETE NON-STORY. He was talking about McCain's economic policy. But McCain shouted fire and the media started filling buckets before they bothered sniffing the air for smoke.

So, if you see this, this little message in a bottle that I'm throwing into the big old information super-ocean, write MSNBC and scold them once more for me, would ya?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26637798/

The Lord Giveth, and the Lord Taketh Away...eth

Well, hot on the heels of my BLISTERING TRIUMPH that was my 3rd place finish in the NYCMidnight Screenwriter's Challenge, I received a rejection notice on a short story I had submitted for publication a couple weeks ago. It was a lighthearted sci-fi tale that was clearly both:

A: Too awesome for publication

and

B: Dangerously ahead of its time.

Now, I'm no Garth Merenghi, but I humbly submit that this story, this REJECTED story, is the single greatest achievement in human literature since the original, unrated version of the Old Testament. In fact, I'm going beyond that, because this was clearly the pinnacle of all human achievement, period.

You know what? Fuck it. You starfish and paramecium and zebras feel so fucking smug because I didn't include you in the above statement? Well stop smiling, you monochromatic equestrian rejects, (that was directed at the zebras -- paramecium and starfish... you'll get yours next time) I'm calling you out.

I challenge, nay, dare, I DARE any non-human species, be it mammalian, fungal, vegetable, mythical, mytho-vegetable, WHATEVER -- I DARE you to write anything even approaching the level of quality of the story that was so coldly rejected by the so-called editor of the so-called magazine to which I so-called submitted. Let's see you do it. Let's see. Let's. Go ahead. I'll wait. I'm waiting.

Because, I didn't... I didn't even want to submit my story. I was doing you people a favor. A nice favor. For free (except for the honorarium).

But you know what? Fine. That's what. It's fine. It's all fine. I'll just sit here, radiating brilliance like some Apollonian love child, and you just reject my work. Because I don't even like you anymore. And I don't need you or your big dumb magazine, and I'm not crying, I'm just being brilliant, and brilliant people's eyes sweat when they're being brilliant, because it's hard work being brilliant, except for me, because it's easy for me, but I make my eyes sweat anyway because I don't want other people to feel bad because of how brilliant I am. So shut up!

Currently Listening to: I'm not listening to anything. Music is dumb. Leave me alone.

I am (two spaces removed from) the Champion, my fri-ends!

Hey, there. For what it's worth, I took third place in the latest round of the NYCMidnight annual Screenwriter's Challenge.

What is the NYCMidnight Screenwriter's Challenge, you ask?

Well I'm so glad you asked!

Here's the deal. You sign up, and then, they give you a Genre and a Topic. For instance, my Genre for the first round was "Drama," and my topic was "An order."

Now, you get a fair amount of leeway on how you interpret your genre and topic. Drama is drama, but you can have elements of suspense, horror, comedy, romance, action, etc. As long as it's drama-ish, you're good.

In terms of Topic, you can pretty much run around naked and crazy with it. "An Order," hmmm? Maybe a court order. Or a military order. Or an order of pizza. Or an order of monks. Or an order from a military court to an order of monks to put a bunch of pizza orders in alphabetical order. And so forth.

So, as I said, first round: Drama/An Order. The goal is to write a single short script of 15 pages or less. The twist is that you get exactly one week to do this, with the deadline falling at midnight, NYC time (hence the name of the contest) on the seventh day.

I'd love to know what percentage waited until about, ohhhhhh, day 6 and a half to get started. Not that I would do such a thing. Actually, I didn't do too badly with my procrastination-prone self. I think I finally started writing on day five. But until then, I was... thinking. Yeah. Thinking.

Actually, the funny thing is that I had an idea that I had been chewing on for the first five days, but then, day five, BAM! Something else just kinda swooped in and I thought "Well that's WAY better!" and I sat down and wrote it out in pretty much one long sit.

The basic idea of the story was that a son living on the west coast orders last-minute flowers for his mom's birthday. He's kinduva jerk, so the bouquet he sends isn't exactly awe-inspiring. Back in rural Pennsylvania, the mother receives the flowers, but the gift ends up paling in comparison to the friendship she strikes up with the very nice gentlemen florist who brings them to her.

So, I wrote, and I ended up taking second place in that first heat, which was good enough to advance me to the final round.

The final round is similar, but different. Just like the first round, writers get a genre and topic. This time, it was "Suspense" and "A Birth."

What's different is that for the final round, you get only a single day to write your 1-15 page script. This is... um... less time.

Again, though, I followed a similar pattern. I had an idea all worked out in my head, then went to bed, intent on committing it to paper after I'd slept on it. But as soon as the lights were out, another idea popped into my head, and I jumped up and grabbed a notebook and scribbled down some ideas. And those scribbles ended up being the story I wrote.

So, anyway, I found out yesterday that my final round script had received third prize. I have no doubt that Hollywood will be beating a path to my door. Annnnnny minute now.

Mayyyyyybe... NOW.

Or... now.

Now?

Where the hell are those guys?

Currently Listening to: "False Horizon" by Mountain Con.
Seriously, it's been on an endless loop on my iPod all day. I dare anyone to listen to it without getting hooked.

Oh, jesus. Seriously?

Another blog?

Another ridiculous soul-bearing, bellybutton-examining, dirty laundry-airing, daddy-love-me fest masquerading as some poor sucker's attempt to assert the illusion of his significance by lighting his own tiny little candle on the surface of the sun?

One of them things?

Good christ jesus lord mother mary mercy god in heaven. Spare . Us.

Assuming there's an us to spare. Which, y'know, there probably isn't.

Yet.

But someday, I'll be famous, and everyone will love me. Or maybe fear me. Hey, maybe both. Even Machiavelli thought that was a good idea.

Jeez, I'm rambling. Am I rambling? I'm rambling, aren't I? Is this thing even recording? Am I on the Internet? Is this the... is this the Internet? Is this where they keep the Amazon my kids are always talking about? And the FaceBook? Where's the FaceBook, anyways? I wanna sign it. With... y'know... my face.

I think I'm done now. This is a little like my first time snorkling, or it would be if I had been snorkling naked in front of a room full of strangers. Which I wasn't, thank you.

But still, I feel dirty. Or, I feel like I should be dirty. People like dirty, right?

Hell yes they do! This is America! We have entire television networks dedicated to the spectacle of people debasing themselves for a twenty bucks and a cameo on Veronica Mars.

USA! USA!

I think they're... yeah, they're... that's the signal. They're giving me the signal. Line across the throat. I guess I'm done now.

Well. I think that went quite well. I think the people were heartwarmed. I think their cockles got a good warming-over, like those breakfast sandwiches they used to serve at Starbucks.

The people, they liked it. They feel good. They smile. My people smile. My people out there, my people -- fans maybe? My fans? Adherents? Followers? Disciples? Cult? My cult?

My cult, they love me. They feel a sense of warmth and peace and well-being and every-little-thing's-gonna-be-all-rightness, minus the zombie attack (aw hell no.)

This blog stuff is easy.

When do the checks start coming in?