Plane Crashes, Rescues and The Teenage Bodyguard

How do I keep getting into these weird research things? For "Gumdrop, a short horror", the film I'm shooting right now, I had to research serial murderers. And worse, actually

For "The Teenage Bodyguard", yesterday and today I've been researching crashed small airplanes within 100 miles of Tacoma in 1974. I found two that work. One as the crash site in the film, one as the plane itself.

I don't want to use just one anyway as it's better to blend more than one in characters of a true story to avoid various issues involved with that kind of an endeavor. Regarding the people I knew back then, I have already combined several real people I knew into a single character. And, changed their names.

In this new opening for this redraft. I chose the Cessna 210 Centurion, an above cockpit winged aircraft. Back in the 1960s when I was in Civil Air Patrol, I flew in a variety of airplanes. Cessnas, Beechcraft Musketeers, a T-34 trainer front /back seater, once even a USAF Lockheed C-141 Starlifter,  To date, the loudest aircraft I've even flown on. Louder than the KC-135 Stratotanker I flew in when I was in the USAF.

There were two crash causalities in the story. I took the story in the screenplay from my own story I wrote years ago, "Marking Time", which is in my 2012 published book, Anthology of Evil, a collection of my first short horror and science fiction.

That story itself has an interesting history. I originally wrote it when my son was about four in 1992. I was being reflective and ignorantly headed to a divorce. So I wrote a story where I was reflecting on my past and how happy I was to have a family and a child and ...yadda yadda yadda.

Now that story in that short story came from a story I was told one day up in the mountains when I was in eighth grade. Another CAP cadet told me the story on a break from backpacking that he heard from another cadet. It was about a crash site found by that cadet with two casualties, a young daughter and her father, the pilot. I was told while in Civil Air Patrol on a training search and rescue operation at Wing Team's camp in the mountains near Shelton, WA in 1968-9.

I wrote in the original about how it was. We were all competitive to be the first to find the crashed plane. It was an honor and a bagging point to be honest. It just takes one dose of reality to turn that fun endeavor into a serious life event, however.

I saw my first cadaver in serving mass at St. Joe's Catholic Church in Tacoma when the old pastor, Father Joe, passed on and I got the serve at his funeral mass. He was a great guy and we all loved him. I was afraid to see his dead body, in the open casket, during mass. But when the priest and I went up to him in the casket there before the congregation and I saw him, he looked great. Like he was sleeping. And all my fears faded. Then I was only left with missing him and knowing we'd never again talk to one another.

The original story goes that the two passengers had been up in the wintry mountains for a while before finding them and they were frozen solid in their seats. So they had to extract them, and lay them out, then jump on their joints to flatten them and get them into the stretchers to carry them to where they could be transported to the morgue.

I always found it stunning that it was among those on his team, a kid in jr high or high school who was doing that. Jamming his booted foot down on a knee to get it to crack into a straight leg position so he'd fit into the carry.

When I was going to publish that story some years ago, I rewrote it, updated it into a supernatural horror story about a spec ops soldier in Afghanistan.

When I started writing The Teenage Bodyguard, I needed a story about my time in CAP and that story came to mind. it wasn't my story to be sure, but it gave one an idea of what being in CAP could be like. Children acting professionally like adults.

So here we are today.

In rewriting the story, I wanted to make the find of the downed plane more accurate and decided to find an actual crash incident and build off of that. I spent time getting the jargon down to an acceptable degree to work in a movie where most of the audience isn't military savvy.

I found two crashes. One within weeks or months of the actual timeline in the screenplay and another eight years later in another location. Between the two it anonymizes the scene but gives me reality to base my writing on. Which is or can be important in writing a true story. And I value reality and accuracy in my writings.

How do I keep getting into these weird research things? As I said, for The Teenage Bodyguard yesterday and today, I've been researching crashed small airplanes within 100 miles of Tacoma in 1974. I found two that work as the crash site in the film, in the new opening. I chose the Cessna 210 Centurion above cockpit winged aircraft.

Two causalities as in the story so I can anonymize it as you do in combining characters in true stories sometimes.

This is plane crash based on a story I was told while in Civil Air Patrol on a training search and rescue operation at Wing Team's camp near Shelton, WA in 1968-9.

I wrote the story, "Marking Time" based on it in the early 90s. Then rewrote it and updated it for my book, Anthology of Evil about a spec ops soldier in Afghanistan and turned it into a supernatural horror story.

After shooting "Gumdop" I want a palate cleanser and decided to maybe shoot "The Mea Culpa Document of London", a short story I wrote up at Western Washington University in getting my psych degree and a minor in creative writing and team screen/script writing.

That story is about a medieval witch hunter and a bizarre horrific situation he finds himself in where he realized he's not only been torturing his daughter, brought to him by villagers he met years ago on another campaign (thus the daughter now), but realizes he is in the same exact situation his mentor and the previous judge was in. And it had killed him.

Maybe I should do a comedy next after the next?

I'd love to shoot "Quantum History" a story about an MIT experiment that went awry clear across the country in Portland, when a guy wakes up to find he is a young Hitler, literally, but with comic elements to it.

21 Reasons I Like Working For Myself

I've had a variety of jobs. Retails sales from 10th grade nights in high school on and for longer than I wish to remember. There was a time I thought i could never get out of retail sales. then after high school I worked in an insurance company in various departments like shipping and receiving, mailroom, printing, deliveries, etc.

Then years in the USAF. I went in Law Enforcement, got changed because of bad feet in basic training (when inducted I asked if I should remove my socks and the doctor said, "No, not if you want to get in."), went into being a parachute rigger in survival equipment (because I'd been sky diving (as detailed in my true crime screenplay, The Teenage Bodyguard). I just missed out on becoming a flight simulator technician), joined the OSI at end, then got out for college where I eventually graduated.

I'm the one taking the photo

After that some unbelievable jobs both bad and good. Through college and university years I worked at Tacoma Tower...Posters, then Records, then after graduating, Video (in both Tacoma and then moved to Seattle Mercer store...

Tower Posters in Tacoma

So many great stories and friends from there (some no longer with us). Then years in a corporate environment I eventually retired from as a Sr. Tech Writer, and various kinds of IT administration jobs.

Corporate office in 2008 Seattle 

It paid for my kids growing up, for us to live. Then when they moved out and I could do whatever I liked or wanted to do, I kept working and started writing day and night toward retiring.

I just wanted to write and be involved in filmmaking. Something I grew up being fascinated with and really, should have started doing after high school.

So now that I'm doing it, what is so great about it? What are the things I like about working for myself. Obviously there are some down sides. That being said, I also do work as hard as ever but I also may put in more hours day or night or whenever as I feel necessary and wanting to do it.

My home office

Well, I'll give you a look inside:

1. There is no limit to how many hours you have to work or how few. You cannot work more hours than are allowed if you want to. No concerns about allowed overtime or required minimums. And so, my hours are obviously my own.
2. Work is always judged by myself and not a committee of those who do not have even an inkling or any a background in whatever the hell I'm doing.
3. Absolutely no commuting. Unless I want to.
4. No Christmas or New Year's holiday layoffs. In fact, NO layoffs. 
5. Casual Friday is EVERY day. Dress code is what I put on in the morning. If anything.
6. I can go anywhere on the Internet at any time without repercussion or concern from management with no worry about firewall, seeing the principle or being fired. Only maybe, the Federal government. 
7. I get lunch or breaks whenever I want them. NO limit in their time or number. Lunch is when I take it and it's over when (if) I return. 
8. If I ever want a drink or a vape hit...done. I can use any substances I want to aide in creativity, if and whenever I want. NO Drug Testing. In fact, I think I'll have one right now! Which brings us to number 9....
9. I can have as much fun as I want.
10. I can now actually give a damn about what I'm doing 99% of the time. Sometimes even 100% of the time.
11. I feel far more alive now!
12. There is no one to blame but myself. Meaning, when there actually was someone else to blame, you couldn't really point that out. Now there IS no one else to blame and you CAN point it out! Or uh, wait....
13. I can jump between projects at the drop of a hat as energy and creativity dictate, to do whatever I FEEL I NEED to be doing, and when. 
14. There is no "Monday Morning Blues". In fact, there is no "Mondays", or "Fridays" for that matter. My week starts every week, today. Or tomorrow. 
15. I can actually be myself, 100% of the time. On the other hand, I am also the only one who annoys me, or for that matter, who makes me laugh. That last one though I'll admit, can be a bit weird at times.
16. Only I decide the projects. When they start, finish and how good the finished product turned out. 
17. No cubicles! EVERY one gets an office. No one argues about any of that!
18. Great coffee and treats! Always. 
19. No guilt when personal things crop up.
20. Finally...NO corporate BS. No shareholders \ no stockholders \ no management at all to answer to.

Happy Holidays!

Militarized Policing?

Cops aren't the military.

I've been saying that for decades now. Policing, is vastly different paradigm than military action, even when it appears the same. The fundamental principles behind policing are and need to be, vastly different. What's so hard to understand about that for police?

We actually do not need a militarized police force. Not in equipment, certainly not in mentality and especially not in tactics in a civilian environment. Yes, it counter intuitively appears to be the same at times, though mostly by police on the front lines. That's understandable. But that is a misunderstanding both of need and of the design of policing itself.

Why are they there? Why this desire to militarize? To protect the police?

NO. They are there to protect the citizenry. WITHIN that paradigm, there is a need to protect police. However what we're seeing is the opposite far too often anymore. All because of a misalignment of reality between the process and purpose of To Serve and Protect, and that of the military. And a conservative desire to reuse old military equipment, so they give it to the police departments. Dress like a soldier, you begin to think like one.

It's the old psychosocial Stanford prison experiment, take a like group of students, separate them into guards and prisoners and within time, abuse starts to happen, an embattled mindset takes place and we have what we see now. Police and their enemies the public; citizens and their enemies, the police.

Even our citizens now want to militarize. What do you think the pro grun movement is all about? As we see police showing up militarized to public protests, so you see citizens arming up looking militarized too, simply out of protection.

David French, Columnist, (the conservative) National Review recently said:

"They're shown [police in training] video after video and told story after story about routine calls that immediately escalate into fatal encounters. This truth, however, sometimes leads to a deception, to a mindset that enhances the sense of risk way out of proportion to the actual threat."

That is, the truth, the statistics show, in reality, that most police \ citizen encounters are vastly non violent, and not fatal. But that is hard to tell some police who work in intense environments. They may indeed need special training. But they are the few, and they too need to understand that community policing is not military handling.

Even the military in urban environments in the Middle East have had to receive police training to deal with citizens. Because they are vastly different issues requiring an entirely different mindset. Asking soldiers to do this may be asking too much. But it is a new world.

Part of the police problem and the reason for their mindset is consistently abusive under funding. As we've seen with teachers in education. We abuse our citizen servants to the point of twisting their own realities around at times to near and utter dysfunction. Then we expect them to perform at a high degree and abuse them more when they do not.

And so we see illiterate and criminal activities from children and our police killing our kids. Even our kids killing our kids. But blaming them is missing the point of what is really going on. You cannot refuse to pay for services, then expect them to be functional services. It warps reality, mindsets, social structures, and an entire nation. That creeps over into our international relations, actions and support.

We are infecting the world with a bad way of thinking. and it all comes back to how we pay for our own needs and how we rationalize our own dysfunctions.

Jamelle Bouie (Afghanistan Vet), Columnist, Slate, recently:

"Trump is so vocal about what he likes and dislikes--so present in the national conversation--that his omissions are often more revealing than his comments. On the rare occasions when this president is silent, it is consistently when confronted with violence against nonwhites."

And let's face it, Putin, too. And women Trump has sexually used and\or abused.

Donald Trump has consistently been massively wrong about so very many things, so many facts, so much of our reality to the point that it's literally killing us and ruining our lives. He is ruining the reputation of America, he is altering our path in future endeavors that will take decades to get back on track.

But only he can save us, he tells us. Yet it's not just him, it is his entire Republican party in their ignorance and refusal to admit what they know to be right and true. It has bled out in things like the Drug War on American citizens. On immigration issues. On social programs. On protections Americans have paid for and are now told they don't deserve.

All because of mismanagement, poor political thinking and actions and believing in ignorant leaders who have sold us down the road for their own profit and that of their dysfunctional beliefs, party and supporters.

We can start to fix all of this, in small steps. Like policing America properly. Funding police, teachers, education overall, health and mental health care, properly. To see all Americans can have health care, education and that their country loves them and no longer sees them as an old Testament problem and as a cancer to be cut out, but as citizens who are part and parcel of this nation and are our best and only concern.


#Police #NRA #GOP #POTUS #realDonaldTrump #Teachers

Rumors and Propaganda

"I've told people that hunting for spies is like trying to find a ghost in the fog. You've got to believe first of all, that they're there. And you have to have enough drive to keep looking."
- Scott Carmichael, Criminal Investigator (Ret.), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA, the Intelligence arm of the Pentagon).

That is how it is with hunting spies. As confusing as it is, this is also how it is with conspiracy theories or divining political maneuvering in real time. While spy hunters are in dangerous intellectual territory by seeking a foregone conclusion, it is typically after being alerted to an actual threat based on real intelligence, analyzed by actual intelligence, and they then seek more evidence to support it.

Civilians, amateurs, in fact most Americans do not have that expertise and field experience.

So what they "find" is typically mere conjecture, pure and simple. Pattern finding of coincidences or potential for something where there really is no something there to be found. Much of that has to do with "feel good" findings, possible and sometimes not even plausible situations that support their polarized contentions and beliefs about things that simply do not exist.

And I'm not even getting into things like "confirmation bias".

Yet for some, their nice and tidy faux beliefs serve their purpose in the moment, if not in an historical context.

That is to say, it may be information that travels like wildfire across the nation. It may even keep (and has kept) political candidates from office. Only coming out much later that it was false or completely fabricated information, depending on whether it was respectively, rumor or propaganda; misinformation or disinformation submitted out onto civil society with purely partisan political objectives.

Though sometimes it is just a money generating effort, or a publicity stunt by typically right wing media if not by an opponent's political enemies.

This is a problem with much of our news media today as instant information, twenty-four hour news cycles, and for profit news overwhelms facts and reality. They move so quickly that there is little or no time for due diligence on their part, for triangulation of sources and info so that in the end we are getting information that can easily be "off", off kilter, or completely wrong.

The speed of news today can do irrevocable damage before reality hits. Too often too many never hear a retraction, or a rectification. While those who did the damage even if innocently, get completely away with what is in effect a cancer on society. Many times bad information is not later corrected or apologized for at all.

Other we get news that is simply describing what we can clearly see onscreen in a redundant report that truly serves no purpose whatsoever other than to fill air time. All this leads to a bubble, a frustration, a desire in the individual to find closure when much of the time there simply isn't any to be found, and perhaps never will be.

Especially when the information being shared is intentionally wrong.

Do try to be aware, but also try to "find" what really is going on when it truly exists. Speak as if you are offering conjecture when you are, because much of the time that is what you are sharing. Pure conjecture. Do not present it as if it is fact just because you think you have "found" something, have been told by others that it is true, or simply wish it were true out of spite.

Rumors and Propaganda.

When I was in the military one of their biggest efforts on a daily basis was rumors and propaganda running wild. At first I thought it was stupid when I heard of it in basic training. Then with our quarterly security indoctrinations and seeing these things in practice among fellow military and even their families, I came to understand what the military has long known. The sheer destructive power of those two things.

We actively worked to keep rumors and propaganda in check. Because when we didn't, bad things happened. Just as we can see today in America with at times absolute nonsense spreading like wildfire.

Today these are frequently compartmentalized on the internet in graphical memes. Memes as most of us know, can be quite entertaining, funny and useful. Especially in a sharing facts (not factoids, false or unproven facts) even in using sarcasm against lies, propaganda and foolishness. But they can also be destructive as perhaps you have already seen, as most of us have.

When I was young and in the military one of us would tell our Sgt. what we had heard, concerned about it, looking for comment about it. Much of the time he would consider it, then blow it off as just more Rumors and Propaganda. And just about all of the time he was right. It saved us a lot worrying over a lot of nonsense.

It saved us grouping together against the "other", whomever it was the traveling nonsense was about. Much of the time it would be able the higher ups. Therein you get that polarization of us against them and in a structure where there is a command line, control needs to be maintained. Even if it is merely control by truth and reality over that of incorrect information..

We had been told back then that the military was the "perfect society", a microcosm of overall America. We had to keep rumors and such in check or they would be even more devastating than they can and have been in America at large.

If only America at large showed as much attention and concern over rumors and propaganda as we did in the military, we might not be in such a morass of ignorance and even stupidity. Instead sadly, many people latch onto nonsense and share it as fact. The result of which is quite obvious.

We need to try to realize whenever we are hearing or sharing information what might be rumors or propaganda rather than as solid news and information. If we do that, we will save us all a great deal of what is currently going on all across this country. Lies and misery. Lots of confusion and frustration observing whatever information can be found. Even incorrect information, because it is up against such a strong desire for understanding and closure. We may not now or within the timeframe necessary, ever really know the truth.

Especially if we do not have the capacity to understand it in all its complexities.
Especially when at times, simply none can be found.

Let me restate my point and put it into words some will more betterer understand even more clearily....

I'm not saying I'm any kind of a genius here. Or that I'm an expert. Though I do seemingly and not infrequently have more of a handle on the extent and correlation of some of these things than do some who speak so boldly, so loudly, who do not think they can ever be incorrect. Or who admit they can be incorrect, but never really exhibit that.

Sometimes these are people who very possibly do know better, even if they can't openly admit it even to themselves. Sadly, if you are sharp, if you are the type to acknowledge these things, if you do try to curb bad information, then you may be some of those who think this is you too, a part of the masses of people sharing nonsense, when very possibly it's simply not the case.

 That, is the kind of murkiness we're dealing with here. Not all of us realize that and as I have said, some of those who have loudest voices tend to be the most ignorant of their inconsistencies and incorrectness.

All I'm saying really is this, and excuse my vulgar irritation here:

F*cking pay attention people!
Because some of you out there are just spewing total bullsh*t all over the rest of us!
It's damaging what you love most. What we all love most. Our country.

 At times it's even going against your own true desires and best interests.
Not to mention it makes you look like a complete tool to those of us who can see it.
You will lose in the end because reality and truth have to win out. Truth falls into a slot that fits with reality. Lies disintegrate over time because the bulk of history won't fit up to it. It takes time, but  eventually it happens.

 As for those of you who are not sharing all this nonsense....
Speak, the Hell, up! We need you!
Push back against ignorant bullies.
We need you but we need them too!
We need them to start seeing what they are doing
How they are going so far afield into our collective enemy's hands.

 Still there's hope. There's always a sun on the horizon.

 It's just a matter of how soon we want it to arrive. To shine on the lies and expose the truths. To warm us in its brilliance and wrap us in its protective arms of honesty and reality.

 It's really a matter of how long you may want to push back the inevitable in overtaking all the rumors and propaganda that we have been and will continue to be infected with.

 There is still hope. There is always hope.
It's just not based in lies, rumors or propaganda.

Free Zombie short story - Japheth, Ishvi and The Light

Today only I'm offering my short story Japheth, Ishvi and The Light, from my Anthology of Evil, for download for the Halloween holiday (sorry, it's a day late but I thought you might need a post event, event).

Japheth, Ishvi and The Light - One of my two zombie stories, putting a religious commune, a squad of decon soldiers, a migraine and God, all together to see what happens; available for free download today only.

The other zombie story I've written is coming out soon in a British anthology associated with zombiefiend.com (Mr. Pakool's Spice) about a father trying to get his two children through the zombified winter backwoods of Oregon, while being chased by, someone, not a zombie.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!
Cheers!