Victim? DPCR - Defensive Passenger Car Riding

This isn't just about being a passenger. More broadly it is about being put in the position of being a victim and then, how you handle that. What do you do when you are trapped in a car with someone attempting to take control away from you?

When you are with someone who is driving and they won't let you out, how do you handle it?

Ask, please? If you're going slow, leap from the car?

The best way may be to distract them so you can grab the keys in the ignition, turn the engine off, extract the keys, possibly throw them out the window or toss them when you exit the car. If you can blind them, perhaps with the extracted keys, you can get the car to stop pretty quickly.

It may be better if possible, to crash the car. At times death is preferable to living through what may be coming. But that takes reading the situation correctly, during a very difficult situation.

The website, crime-safety-security.com suggests:

• Wait and see what happens – then decide what to do.
• Reason with him, if at all possible. [Because odds are it will be a "him".]
• Outsmart him – using Outsmarting strategies. Some of their suggested options are a bit out there, but you do need to think "outside the box". [This is basic martial arts. It is not unlike Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do style of scientific martial arts. Use what works, be smart. Use your capabilities, your environment, your options. SEE your options. Maintain a clear head. Act. But act wisely.]
• Invite him to “a more comfortable place” – one that provides an escape. [decades ago my fiancee found herself in a situation with a guy she thought she could trust. Who I thought we could trust as he was my best friend at the time. A time when I was in basic training 2,200 miles away. Once she realized what was going on, and that she was trapped, in a car by the way, she suggested a motel room, for him to take her to her car, which was at her house so they could both drive there and leave from there. When he got her home, she got out, said thank you, good night, and moved quickly into her parent's house where she was staying until I got out of basic training in the Air Force. She outsmarted him. She was smart, but she was also lucky. [This actually worked for my fiancee years ago by someone we thought to be a friend. She suggested taking her home to get her car and they could go to a motel. Then said goodnight when she got out and went quickly into her parent's home. But it takes being believable to perhaps an unrealistic degree and selling something they want.]
• Initiate violent action – preemptive self-defense – before she’s taken to a secluded place.

Slamming the car in park is good or reverse is good, if the car will allow it or if you can get it to work. Even getting it into neutral may be useful, or downshift can be lit hitting the brakes... but you'd have to hang on to the shifter for dear life. Not the safest option by they way. Should they realize others in the area may notice who can see the car, and they will take serious efforts to stop you.

That is something you want to avoid. Keying them up to be hypervigilant and defensive. You want to take action that permanently stops them and lets them know that hurting you will not help them but will indeed hurt them in some way (be it physically, socially, legally, whatever works that stops them). It's all about believability and excessive reward or punishment. However many times the only thing that will stop them, is disabling them.

Consider that they may not be fully rational in some way or another. You may just have that single moment or specific situation and you need to exploit it.

Mostly physically taking control away from them is always best (e.g., throwing the keys out of the car on a busy highway). Be aware however that some cars, mostly older vehicles, may have a capability of the keys being removed while remaining fully in operation. But those cars today are few and far between anymore.

It may be better to force a crash, than to allow them to remain healthy and intact. You would have the element of surprise if done correctly, giving you the opportunity to brace yourself which they hopefully may not have.

If you have a seat belt on, pulling the steering wheel hard toward you and not letting go, or some degree of that. Faking turning hard one direction and when they apply steering to the other direction, go fully and hard with that, can be a very effective technique.

Basically, it's whatever works, just do it. But be prepared to reverse it in order to surprise them and take control. But once you grab the wheel, don't let go... literally to save your life. You may have to ask yourself which is better, going with them, or taking a chance on dying. Once you apply something to change the direction of the situation to your direction, hang on and even if they beat you, don't let go.

Carrying pepper spray? Not a bad idea either. On that matter, whatever you do carry, and I've said this for years about the foolish who practice "open carry" of firearms...if you show it they know you have it and you lose one element of surprise, power or control. If I know you have it. I can take it from you. Yes, at times the directed display of a gun can end the potential for a situation. But showing it to all. Is just stupid.

Guns are about security (as are other protective devices). Security has several levels.

Security by obscurity. Security by obfuscation. If say, you have a safe, if no one knows you have it, how can they rob it? Or if you have a safe, and they know you have it, but can't find it, or you slow them down until police can arrive, you again have them at odds. Security is frequently about those two things. As well it is about time.

Nothing is 100% secure and mostly security is about slowing down access until it is too costly in some way making it untenable. Either because of time or their own issues of security in committing a crime. You have to make the object of their desire too expensive for them to go all the way to the end of their attempts against you.

And so it is much in the same for weapons and defensive tools. Their surprise at your suddenly using some device (pepper spray, gun, martial arts, etc.) on them, gives you one more level of control. The element of surprise and their inability to not be prepared to protect themselves from something they didn't even know they were about to get presented with.

If you are put in the trunk, if you have your cell, well, call someone. If you can, pull the tail or brake lights, wave through the tail light lens or if possible, break it out (quietly). If you can stick your hand out the tail light, that is a pretty good indication that someone has been kidnapped. newer cars have anti trapped in trunk release devices. If they are smart and prepared they will have disabled it, but it's worth it to verify that first.

But that is getting pretty deep into this situation. The best defenses are to be aware before it happens. As far as when it is happening, visualizing it far before the situation helps you be able to think clearly when it is happening and then to be better able to act on your best possible exit or end to the situation.

Once you get to a certain point, however, in waiting too long, you have given up one potential opportunity after another until finally, it may simple be too late. That is a situation you want desperately to avoid. Tough at times there may be no choice.

It depends on if this was carefully planned or a chance event, a crime of opportunity without aforethought. Not something you run into with serial killers or offenders. But you don't know that in the beginning. And that is part of the problem. Part of the reason criminals have an edge over citizens. YOU don't know you are being involved in a crime until it's too late. At least that is their desire in how they present things to you and set it up.

But even then you have the potential for survival.


One clear and painful example is Alison Botha, who was a twenty-seven year old from South Africa. She made a documentary film about it titled, Alison.

She had been abducted, raped and left for dead by two men.

Alison Botha, right, with Christia Visser, who plays Botha in the film version of her ordeal 

One of the men stabbed her in the throat so badly her head later flopped back when she tried to rise and she literally had to hold it up to be able to seek help from the location where they had left her for dead.

Alison was stabbed more thirty times in the abdomen. Had she just lied there, she would surely have died. But she first tried to move, to find help. She really had no other course to follow if she wanted to live. Through her own massive efforts in moving to a better location, she was found.

In the end, she survived. It is a lesson for us all.

Never. Give. Up.

Our Terrorist Cell

I'm sitting here in the evening, it's raining outside in Bremerton, Washington. I'm watching Netflix, a show called, Peaky Blinders. Great show. About 19th century England. Gangs. Reminiscent of  The Wind in That Shakes the Barley, Perhaps, especially because of actor Cillian Murphy and his being Irish and all, being born in County Cork (I rather liked visiting Cork). and all that.

It's no secret I'm rather partial to the Irish. Being half myself, all on my dad's side of the family. Having had a rather, albeit confused, understanding as a youth of my ethnic responsibilities and well... I do understand enjoying a good conspiracy. Especially for a good reason and all. A good... guerilla fight against greater odds, can be inspiring. Even, addicting. Especially to the disaffected and those who have little control over their lives, or who simply feel that way.

Early in high school I had learned about the troubles from a documentary. I'd long known I was half Irish, that my dad was Irish. I grew up with my mother, after they divorced when I was three. She always celebrated St. Patrick's Day. I remember a banner of cut out, green, "Erin Go Bragh" (or, Éirinn go Brách, Meaning "Ireland forever" in Gaelic) every year hanging in the house.

I hardly ever saw my dad after that and never did after I was sixteen, until he died in 1988. I doubt he ever had a thought himself about Ireland. But I did. I even tried to talk friends, fellow students in tenth grade into going with me to Ireland to fight in the Troubles. Well, it didn't happen. I had no money to get there. I doubt they'd have even wanted me. But that, is a story for another time. Or not.

Anyway, that's how I was at that time. I even wrote a screenplay about what I was like back then. The Teenage Bodyguard, is about a situation I got myself into just after graduating high school. Over the course of a week in 1974, I protected a murder witness from the local mafia.

Great story and a screenplay that is being liked every time it's seen or evaluated. "So why isn't it on the screen already somewhere", one reviewer asked in their review from BlueCat screenplay contest. Another from The Blacklist coverage said it was "a viable project that should be pursued". And so I am.

I kept finding myself in interesting situation back then. I don't know why. Mainly, because people kept asking me to act as a bodyguard for them. First was that frightened woman who asked me to protect her for a week when I was eighteen from some murderers she had worked with at Tacoma's first topless bar, The Tiki, run by the Carbone crime family.

A year later at nineteen, my own mother asked me to be my little brother's bodyguard in Manhattan. She was afraid if he got roughed up during a robbery, he could die inbeing so thin and fragile with liver cancer at the time. There had also been a rash of apartment break ins at that time. So I slept in our small studio apartment on the floor, with my .357 magnum next to me just in case someone tried to break in at 2AM or something.

I had also protected a variety of others off and on over the years. Gamblers wit cash coming to town, a big construction magnate's horse farm at the end of a road where I lived for a while, and so on.

My point being, I do get it. This whole, desire to go to battle, take on great odds, test yourself and live the life of excitement and adventure. it's kind of dumb for most, but I get the attraction.

As I watch this great show (Peaky Blinders), and sip some red wine (yes, there's Guinness in the fridge, but it's wine tonight, forgive me St. Guinness), I understand the feeling that there is no downtown here to go to, to meet locally with other frustrated or angry conspirators in some shady bar, to have talks, to sneak to covert meetings, to talk about how the government is abusing us unfairly and unjustly. How our enemies really have to go. At all costs. Or any. All of that. Not unlike our Founding Fathers did in local Freemason lodges, mostly held at or above local public (drinking) houses (pubs?).

I do get all of that. I understand that feeling. That focus. The mystery. The excitement. The addictive fear. The call to a cause greater than oneself. The ability to be something, right now, immediately. To evoke change when nothing else is happening in one's life. To achieve something now with power when no one else will give you that kind of responsibility or command over other human beings. Even to the point of taking their lives. Even if they are innocent.

I get all that.Well, not so much the taking of innocent lives. I really don't get that. Especially when they are your own. But I get it for a young testosterone filled young man, or woman. Or for one whose family and loved ones are indeed being abused if not murdered by the state as others in other countries have had to suffer through. I get that. I really do.

I doubt it's much different for terrorists in other countries, even in our own country in how some can misguidedly perceive our own reality in America as deserving of terrorism..The home of their ancestry. Maybe. But then, not a lot of Native Americans are terrorists. Some who are not even of that abused ancestry but who understand, empathize, with them. Who feel compassion for their seemingly just cause. Like non Muslims who go to fight with them.

I get all that.

The trouble is... it's nonsense. Mostly. For the most part. 99% of it anyway.

Those are the rumblings of a young man high on testosterone so much of the time. Give them a call to arms... oh my God. They will be there!

But there is another side. There will be those they harm. The innocent. Those they blind themselves about but who do matter, and greatly so. They become blinded by the fog of war and idealism. But not of conscience. And so innocents die. For no good reason.

Not until their hacked minds, hacked by disingenuous ones who put not themselves into danger but those of a younger cohort. Where justice turns into criminal actions and heroes become terrorists. There is brainwashing going on. Media is part of the problem. those manipulating it are more so. Be they Russian hackers joyriding or actually paid by Putin. Or Islamic terrorist leaders or simply... Facebook.

I'm glad I lived through those cold war years. I'm also glad I didn't have to grow up in Belfast or an Ireland under British rule where my ancestors were so abused and genocide wasn't a ridiculous word to banter about. When some Irish tried to eat grass due to starvation during the potato famine, where the dead and emaciated were found in fields with mouths stained green.

My terrorist cell is based in words, not guns, in political actions, not bombs.

 It is civilized, not barbaric. I'll kill no innocents. My terrorist cell, does not exist. Because I do not believe in terrorizing human beings. Or anyone. Or anything. It's a bully behavior, that of an immature mind, or mindset.

There is a time for violence. To be sure. But it is far less often than many would like to admit.

And that includes our American born terrorists. Those Christian misguided fools who have killed too many in our country already and should never again. And then there is simply mental illness, and social illness.

Do Act. But at some point we have to see as a race of intelligent beings that death simply isn't always the answer. While in some countries it may be necessary, at certain times, in ours it simply is not.

We have a disease in this country. It is conservatism. It is binary thinking. It is in authoritarian attitudes, having them, or adoring them. It is poor priorities. It is extremists. It is the far right politically motivated. It is the ignorant, the poorly educated, the incorrectly educated, those who believe in alternate facts, alternate realities, alternate morality, alternator mental health.

We need instead to seek out our best nature in life, not our worst.

We need to bring down our worst, and simply refuse to be a part of it.


#terrorism #peace #isis #racism

Our best example for handling God Myths is actually.... Santa Claus

Someone brought up a good point the other day about God. He's about as useful as, Santa Claus.

It made me think about my kids when they were younger. I used to do it up, kids put out cookies and milk, a note to Santa and went to bed. I'd eat the cookies, drink the milk, leave them a thank you note from Santa.

My son, when he was in 4th grade, told me he doesn't believe in Santa. I was both proud and sad for him. I tried to hold up the pretense but he gave me an analytic breakdown of how Santa simply can't be real, how I was Santa, and what I had been doing to prolong that myth. I was surprised but also pleased and impressed with his critical thinking skills.

I didn't agree so much as point out the facts.

IF you "believe" in Santa, you get more gifts. If you don't, well....

He refused to buy any of it. Finally, I said "Well look, I choose to believe in Santa because I like the idea, it's fun, harmless, and in the end, I like receiving more gifts. But you're welcome to act as you see fit. HOWEVER, you DO NOT tell your little sister. Got it?"

As for his younger sister, she went through a period of going to church in her teens, one she chose. One that unnerved her mother but that I figured she would soon outgrow, was for purposes more of its social aspects and about something she wasn't getting at home (as we were then divorced) than any true belief in "God", and so she did and eventually came to realize religion is all exactly about what is is.

Then I tried to explain how it helps to build the idea of wonder in life, of magic in the world and I believe those who don't have that understanding of the concept of magic in the world as adults, simply lose out on much of what is wonderful in life. There IS magic in the world. It's just not, "magic",per se.

So he dropped it. But he made it clear from then on he really didn't believe in Santa and so we kind of worked it out in that way. He does have a strong fascination for magic now as an adult, however.

All this made me think about religion and the "God" concept, in general.

There may be some things that are positive about it existing, though it could also be handled in a more safe and sane way through other means. But belief in "God" should also end at some point, just as Santa is useful for a time, and then should simply be let go, with a fond farewell and a move into adulthood and more mature and informed ways of thinking.

Environmentally, the God concept comes from our parents when we are very young as they are our first Gods. Genetically, our beliefs in the "Other", the "Greater" that which is all powerful and exists "out there", comes from a time that predates our humanity.

We can and I think we should, extend and buffer life for our children through parts of their young childhood, allowing them to experience magic in life.

But if we do, at some point, it should end and we should offer them more useful, productive, and more sophisticated forms.

I'm not saying we should raise our kids with "God" beliefs, but even if we did, it really should come to a conclusion at some point before they become adults. They should be led, coached, educated to have that realization come upon them naturally, organically, as it did with myself and my children.

Religion for most of us, for those who continue to believe, one of those odd animals wherein we do grow up, we do realize the silliness of it all, but then through the concept of "faith" we allow ourselves to continue to believe in what we know in our hearts is utter nonsense, but as it allows us a structure to follow and misbelive that it functions as an overall rule of law for all humans, and it simply does not, though still, many of us choose to close our minds and continue believing in those childhood mythologies.

And so we have entire cultures and nations around the world who hold this nonsense as reality until they die, who propagate it and perpetuate it among their young and in so many cases kill those, like my son, who would sanely and rationally refuse to believe in it in his young innocence into adulthood.

Religions, where people believe it is important what we wear or don't wear, what we eat or not, whether we grow facial hair, how we abuse others, especially women, for God's (really, men's) sake, and so on.

All things that at one point in ancient history may (or may not) have served a purpose and yet which are simply no longer necessary or even useful and frequently actually counterproductive, allowing certain factions to use their religion as a springboard for full out atrocities.

It's funny how wonderful one's religion is till you do a survey of all religions, add in sociology and psychology, anthropology and physics and finally start to realize one overarching necessity in the next step in our development... atheism, or at very least, non-theism.

What is, The Unwritten? Find out FREE on Wattpad. Experience, the cliffhanger, as it's being written!

[ My editor said she had trouble finding links to

my story on her iPad, so just to be clear,

here is the STORY LINK referred to below.

This is now a finished book on Amazon & Smashwords.]

New parts posted to Wattpad weekly, or more frequently

This past summer I started playing with a site called, Wattpad. An author I know from Facebook, Louis Shalako, was posting parts of a book he calls, "The Mysterious Case of Betty Blue". I wasn't paying much attention to things till I started to wonder why he was using Wattpad. So I thought I would give it a try.

I posted a few things, getting my toes wet. I posted the popular story, To End All War. A short story I wrote on Wattpad. I posted my short short story, "The Fall" which previously was only available in an ebook of mine as an additional story. This was a story that led to an article on my writings, in Indies Unlimited called, "Gender Bender" by L.A. Lewandowski, about writers writing both male and female characters and making it work. I wrote, Crashing Indulgence, as an experiment that got more than a few reads. But these were all just testing the waters, until something of substance came about.

Then one day, I came across an old quote on my quotes page here on my blog called, Quotes Along The Murdock.

Currently only 12 parts, more coming, trust me.

Whenever I post something somewhere that I find interesting, I post it on that page. I posted one a while back and saved it in there attributing it to, "The Unwritten". Which actually meant to be a kind of joke and essentially something that I hadn't written, it was a quote from nowhere. I write just about everything: non-fiction, fiction, horror, sci fi, screenplays, whatever. I try to stretch my skill set.

The quote goes like this:

"I want to learn to love you best of all," she said, "and that's just easier if you're dead."
From, The Unwritten

It occurred to me that I should write it into something so that when I said it was from, "The Unwritten", it could actually be from SOME thing called, "The Unwritten". I thought about Wattpad and figured, what the Hell, let's see what happens. Wattpad is a place readers can watch writers as they write something. Some writers have even gotten book deals from publishing on Wattpad, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.

You can see how writers think as they develop a story. It's a kind of first draft platform for many, both writers and readers. Some polish their work before publishing on there so their works aren't first drafts, but some of us are throwing our first drafts up there, a  pretty scary prospect, really. Especially for those writers who think it's offensive to show a first draft to anyone, as I was taught by one of my university professors.

For some, they really shouldn't publish a first draft. But for those who can kick out a first draft that's readable, especially if you already have readers, it can be fun and rewarding to see how a writer develops their stories. It's also a good experience for a writer. It can change how you work, it can embolden you and beef up your skills. I do have to go back from time to time to clean up parts to fit the new parts, new directions as things develop, but I've found that I really don't have to do that very frequently.

So, as for the quote, it is obviously some kind of a quote from a horror story, so I wrote part "The Unwritten Part I". I wasn't sure if I'd go on beyond that, or where it may lead.

Right after I posted that first part, I was on Facebook, joking around with some people I know from a group on there and to give a guy a hard time, who I was just teasing, I threatened to name a character in a horror story after him. I thought about which one and well, "The Unwritten Part I" became, "The Unwritten Part I - Tom". I'm not so sure he appreciated it, but there it is, the protagonist's name is now, Tom. And Tom has been immortalized in one of my stories. 

A part II came along and then a part III and I realized, there was more to come. At this point there's eleven parts published and two more in draft stage, with no end in sight.

I seemed to be publishing them on Wattpad at a rate of about one a week. Then it escalated. I work on it as I have time. I create one or a few drafts of upcoming parts and work on them if I have an idea where those part should go. I do my note taking in these draft parts and dabble in them, altering them as they develop, then sit down and write through the next part and publish it.

It's led to some research on things. Like Hell and how it's perceived throughout history and in different religions and cultures.

Okay, SPOILERS now -

If you don't want to know anything about the story till you read it, then go read it. It's free.

You can download the Wattpad app for your phone and within seconds of my publishing a new part (or whatever author you decided to follow), you get notified immediately and can read it right then on your phone. Or whatever or however you like. It's kind of a throwback to the old Saturday movie cliffhangers where you just have to wait for a new episode to see what is happening to our here. Or, our antihero, in some cases. 

Here comes a basic description of what you're getting into with this story, The Unwritten.

The story begins with a guy who wakes up in an old cabin in the woods, strapped to an old kitchen table, with a woman standing over him with a knife. She says to him (you'll never guess what):

"I want to learn to love you best of all, and that's just easier if you're dead."

There. Now that quote comes from somewhere and truly is from, "The Unwritten".

Moving along....

With that, she stabs him in the side. Not to kill, but to torture. And, he's not very happy about it. Finally, he finally passes out. When he wakes up, she's gone, he's still tied up and he can't remember anything. Not who he is, where he came from or how he got there. He just knows that he doesn't want to be there or see that woman again since, his host isn't very nice.

One thing leads to another and well, his day just gets worse from then, and then it gets really bad and finally, pretty surreal. Surreal in a way I don't think you've experienced before.

That is to say, things go downhill for him from there; literally and figuratively.

But they also go up.

You see, there is something up there in the cabin, too. Something, is flowing along the ceiling. That's bad enough but where it comes from, is even worse. But that's not all.

There are some others involved. No, they're not there. All three come together in this story in a bizarre exploration of some very disparate things that interact in unforeseen ways. Unforeseen for us, and unforeseen for the characters.

This is a horror story. It's a slasher and torture story. It's traditional and nontraditional. It's a sci fi. A very dark fantasy. Basically, a little bit of everything and, the kitchen sink.

Well, that's all I'm going to tell you. I may at some point in a future post, explain how the parts came to be.

For once, in writing this, I'm just cutting loose and enjoying my writing process. Usually I have a very structured way of going about things. But with this, as Wattpad allows, I can just go for it and see what happens, let my imagination run wild. Which some might say from past writings, I do anyway, but this is different. Maybe it will come out in a similar way to the readers, but for this writer, it's quite a different experience. 

The few people who have read it so far have liked it and have no clue where this story is going. Because honestly, neither do I. I do even more so than usual, write myself into a corner, then try to creatively write myself back out of that corner. If I do a good job in the end is yet to be seen. But so far, I have a pretty good track record in doing that.

One of the cool things about Wattpad, is that readers can make comments, can connect with the writer as the writing is being done. If I were to see a good comment and it changed how the story was going in an interesting way, I just might incorporate it.

I should say that I do have a path in the back of my mind, as to where I'm going. Up to a point. Which is mostly just one to three parts ahead at any one point with an overall thought about where I'm heading, that changes as I come up with a better idea from time to time.

The story is being honed as I write it. It's odd for me since people are reading it before my editor has a chance to do any editing. I should add that she is enjoying the experience and anxiously awaiting my new parts as I post them. So that's a good sign. Because if it sucked, I'd hear about it, I'm sure.

So if you like this kind of thing, please come along for the ride. Because you'll be on a ride that is free, fun, and a touch foolhardy. No, maybe not so much that last one, but it will hopefully keep your attention and be entertaining on several levels.

So, come on down to the dark side! 

Down? Yeah, you'll see what I mean. If you join us for the ride. Experience what the "cliffhanger" is about!

Come join us reading, The Unwritten

New parts posted to Wattpad weekly, or more frequently

Cheers!