Invisible Walls

Being on Facebook can leave one open to out of the blue comments sometimes. Posting pictures, attitudes, blogs or other statements sometimes encourages inquiries whether they are invited or not. It’s happened to me on several occasions. A name, often times unrecognizable at first, will mysteriously appear on my page with no hint as to our past connection. It often clouds my re-collection of past friendships, relationships and encounters with old acquaintances.

When this occasionally happens, I have to wonder how they found me in cyber space. Trail blazing, walking point or just plain stalking might be the answer. Nevertheless, I’ve been found. Then the mystery begins.

Back in 1999, noted intellectual Paul Krugman said that by 2005 the internet would be no more influential than the fax machine. Guess he got that a little wrong. The internet has given me a world-wide audience. Though still small in numbers, it means exposure in foreign lands I never knew I would ever reach.

I now have a worldwide audience whether I intended for that to happen or not. It’s minuscule but it’s real. My writing platform circles the globe from the United States to the United Kingdom. It covers India, skips through Asia and into Russia then back to Minnesota again. It also makes side trips to about a dozen other foreign countries and at least three-fourths of all the states.

Who are these folks that have been visiting my Facebook page and reading my blogs? Their names, gender and age are still a mystery. Yet their presence is very real according to the cyber bots that monitor such things.

Google Analytics and Facebook data have been helpful in deciphering where my readers are coming from. It’s not an exact science and I certainly haven’t gotten a total grasp on my readership but it’s been most helpful in appreciating the scope and breath of my coverage.

When a name appears out of the blue, hinting of old familiarity, the mystery only deepens. Often times I respond to their comment or inquiry immediately but then they just disappear once again. The reconnection is swift and vapid then becomes ever elusive once more. Like touching a hot stretch of beach, that foot-to-sand encounter isn’t coming back anytime soon.

This digital tap dance in cyber space can be very confusing. I don’t know why they made the initial contact in the first place if they didn’t want to continue the conversation? Perhaps it was curiosity in connecting or pondering my response. In either case, they decided not to pursue the connection any further.

Who knows? They may have been there for important milestones in your life but are no longer even a smudge on the relationship radar. What happened to those folks? Perhaps they didn’t follow through or fell short of what I expected from them. Perhaps I failed them and the ending was mutual.

Of course, no one can make someone else their friend if they don’t want to be. It’s terribly subjective and handicapped by a less than thorough knowledge of their motives. Were there extraneous factors, whether recognized or not, that contributed to the demise of that friendship? Was it something I did or didn’t do? Was it something I said even in honesty that was taken the wrong way?

Some folks can be brutally honest in terms of their relationships. They separate family (with all those obligatory ties) from friends and acquaintances (where they get to decide whom they want to be associated with.) They pick and choose their friends based on connections, associations and tie-ins all for their own self-benefit and satisfaction. ‘It’s nothing personal,’ as my boss used to say, ‘it’s just business.’

Friendships and relationships can be by their very nature a vapid and elusive bond to attain and maintain. Fleeting friendships based on circumstance are easy to recognize. An MOS partnership in the Armed Forces evaporates as soon as discharge papers are served. That’s understood, accepted and welcomed for a return to civilian life. A close relationship in the classroom can wither away and die when outstate jobs or opportunities beckon. Neighbors and neighborhoods fade from memory after the moving van has arrived. It’s all part and parcel of the ebb and flow of normal life.

Some time ago, an old acquaintance of mine resurfaced after 58 years of ‘what ever happened to…?’ She said she was surprised to see that I had become a writer in my retirement. Another friend appeared after 52 years, also intrigued by my novel writing and local speaking engagements. They both made their first overture just as others had randomly left a message on my Facebook page. My first reaction was a refrain from that old 60’s Rascals song ‘I’d like to get to know you.’ But their response seemed to be ‘I don’t think so. Just curious here.’

It’s not like I was seeking a return to the intimacy that we once shared decades earlier. I alluded to that fact in my return correspondence but their resolve was firm. Their curiosity didn’t extend beyond that first timid comment in reconnecting. Perhaps it was more curiosity than anything else. Fair enough but too bad.

Photo Credit: Jerry Hoffman

It’s been several lifetimes since I’ve seen any of those folks. I assume I never will again. So I wish for all of them health and happiness and good memories. It’s the Great Go-Around in this our Circle of Life.

Like most mysteries of life, there are no easy answers. I just wanted to revisit an old friendship but they seemed intent on letting it remain a mystery. Another way of saying, you have your memories, I have my history. And the ‘old we’ probably won’t cross paths anytime soon in our respective futures. In other words, let it go and move on.

So that’s what I’ll do with one last melody humming in my head. As Woody Guthrie once sang ‘So long, it’s been good to know ya.’ And I’ll add “thanks for the memories.”

Who is Stalking Me Now

Back in 1999, noted intellectual Paul Krugman said that by 2005 the internet would be no more influential than the fax machine. Guess he got that a little wrong. The internet has given me a world-wide audience. Though still small in numbers it means exposure in foreign lands I never knew I would ever reach.

Official Denis J. LaComb Facebook Author Page

I now have a worldwide audience whether I intended for that to happen or not. It’s small but it’s real. My writing platform circles the globe from the United States to the United Kingdom. It covers India, skips through Asia and into Russia then back to Minnesota again. It also makes side trips to about a dozen other foreign countries and at least three-fourths of all the states.

But who are these folks that have been visiting my Facebook page and reading my blogs? Their names, gender and age are still a mystery. But their presence is very real according to the cyber bots that monitor such things.

Google Analytics and Facebook data have been most helpful in deciphering where my readers are coming from. It’s not an exact science and I certainly haven’t gotten a total grasp on my readership but it’s been most helpful in appreciating the scope and breath of my coverage.

There is a notable difference between data and analytics. ‘Data is the sensory information produced by a business that has its eyes and ears on operations and customers. While analytics is the brain that processes that information and provides insight which ideally leads a company to take meaningful action.’*

I have neither the complete data nor the ability to process the analytics relative to my own web sites. I guess, in the end, those exact names, gender and reading preferences matter little at this stage of my plowing the fertile fields of a reading audience.

What is important is the breath and width of my readership and the obligation I feel to be true to my writing self while giving my audience material to enjoy.

Apache Death Wind Trilogy | Apache Death Wind, Chaparral Fox, & City of the Dead

Apache Blue Eyes | Denis J. LaComb

A lot of my readers in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and India were generated by my westerns. There is a small but almost fanatical audience for Americana among these folks. Many of the readers stateside come from states or communities I am familiar with. It’s a safe assumption that I’m probably guessing correctly more than a few of who those readers are. I knew I had readers out in cyber space but I didn’t know the exact scope of my reach.

How or why a reader in Turkey, Uganda, the Philippines, or the Sudan would read my works is beyond me. But they do and at times have left comments on my blog space. There was a time when I had a large following in Russia which made me more than a little nervous but that has since subsided.

All of this data mining and analytics reminds me of the power and scope of the internet where a simple blog such as mine can travel through cyberspace around the world and garner responses from every corner of the globe.

I have no idea if my blogging is making a difference in expanding my writing platform. All I can do is continue to be ‘open and honest’ and see what comes of it. And if that audience enjoys my writing, agrees with it, or even disagrees with it, I can only hope that they find it a wise use of their time.

·        *CFO Magazine March 2017

Strange People Are Following Me

Strange things began to happen when I started self-publishing my novels. It started out as small steps; really just tip-toeing into this ever-changing literary wilderness and trying to figure out to attract an audience to my works. 

                                               My Official Author page on Facebook

I experimented with advertising on Facebook and after several stumbles I seem to have hit a vein of interest among my targeted demographic audience. Gradually, people began to read my books and then to’ like’, ‘comment on’ or ‘friend’ my author page. 

I’m not so bold or confident as to think that it’s a reflection on me but rather (I hope) my story-telling abilities and the fictional characters that I’ve created there-in. I expect that these folks care as much about Daniel and Colleen and Jeb and Charlotte and what happens to them as I do.

Then, ever careful to follow social media standards of etiquette,  I took the eye-opening opportunity to peruse my reader’s Facebook pages and examine the kind of individuals I’ve been attracting with my stories; both the westerns and “Love in the A Shau,” my coming of age love story set in the sixties.

I was shocked…or perhaps a better word would be surprised. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was surprised never-the-less.

Somehow I had foolishly painted this picture in my mind of my ideal reader. I thought I knew what he or she might be like. Yet in reality it wasn’t based on anything more than some naïve assumption of who I thought would be attracted to my stories and characters. 

Several attempts of advertising on Facebook to reach a female audience for “A Shau” were initially met with disappointing results. We weren’t even getting close to attracting the kind of woman I thought would like “A Shau.” Then we changed our demographics and things began to improve…considerably.

Let’s just say the women who like “Love in the A Shau” (and I’m surmising here and perhaps tip-toeing on sensitive ground) are little like some of the women in the novel except perhaps for Summer Storm.

Most of them probably didn’t go to Bryn Mawr but they value education. I’m may be taking a chance here but I’d guess they’re very sensitive, romantic and have connected with my protagonist Daniel on a very emotional level. They feel an affinity for his socio-economic place on campus and in life. I’m guessing that’s because they knew other young men just like him in real life.

Their comments tell me they appreciate the honesty and rawness of that period and how it affected young people. Perhaps for some of them, “A Shau” was a glimpse back into a collegiate life not unlike that of ‘The Great Gatsby.’ Whatever their motivation, their responses have been heartfelt and much appreciated. I owe them all a deep debt of gratitude and feel a tremendous responsibility to deliver more of the same in future novels.

And as for the men who like my westerns. Well, let’s just say most of them didn’t go to Oxford or Yale. They hale from the United States, the U.K., India, Asia and Australia. They’re down to earth, blunt, realistic, opinionated and strong-minded. I would gladly bend an elbow with any one of them at a pub or go on Recon. if I could.

They like guns and motorcycles. Many of their political views border on conservative. The places where we meet in the middle are in their love of their grandchildren, their thirst for individual freedom and liberty, music of the people, love of country and an unabashed pride in who they are and where they came from. I’m guessing that despite our many differences, there are just as many points in the middle where we could enjoy a beer or two and solve most of the issues in the world in some pub around the world. 

 Surprisingly my readers and I share more in common than I ever imagined. Like Daniel and Robert, my two protagonists in “Love in the A Shau” and “Debris,” I am uncomfortable among the moneyed elite that frequent many parts of Palm Springs and our society in general. These suito-intellectual, class-conscious folks see their status in society as ordained and well earned. They mistakenly assume that luck or inheritance had nothing to do with their million dollar house on a golf course or the Bentley they drive. Their class-conscious, intellectual arrogance belies a lack of class on so many levels.

My readers are an interesting lot and I’m glad to have them. Literature abounds with dozens and dozens of genres and sub-sets thereof. I’m not trying to attract the literary hounds who shadow the New York Times Best Seller List for new arrivals. I write what I want to write.

I tell stories for a living. I like telling stories and as long as there is an audience for my kind of story, I will continue to spin my tales and engage my readers with wonderful characters, interesting backgrounds and a twist or two in the process. It’s a journey we’re all on and it’s been one heck of a ride thus far.

I’m much more comfortable around the folks whom I associate with in my real and fictional life rather than the literary elite. My audience and my friends are the really honest ones around here.

Deposits and Withdrawals

When we were all young and dumb, the world was a rainbow landscape full of wonderful  adventures and opportunities. Each of us set out to become whatever we thought we should be…at the time. The world was our oyster and we meant to have it all.

It’s funny how reality evolves and our past lives and aspirations finally catch up with us. That winding road called ‘my life’ is either running smooth as asphalt or rough like gravel. And yet none of us want to get off the road even if the ride isn’t what we expected it to be after all these years. Something like my life in pictures.

It’s been forty or fifty years since we turned twenty-one and shed our cloak of anonymity to adorn ourselves with the costume of adulthood. Now we’re at a point in our lives where reflection is more than a glass of chardonnay framed within a sunset or a cold brew among high school buddies. And there is no going back as I learned in thecompany of old men.

Our current life style is an accumulation of habits born long before our birth. For some of us it was modeled after our parent’s pioneering excursion into life. For others, it was a process of discovery, loss, acceptance and rejection. And finally our life style became us on a daily basis and we weren’t even aware of it. It’s only now that the accumulation of excess and/or scarcity raises its hidden head.

Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying that life is like a bank account. How you use it is solely your determination. You can withdraw it in a hurry and live a very short life. Or you can be diligent with your withdrawals and live, hopefully, much longer.

We can always try to rectify some of our mistakes or enhance our positive steps but age and reticence to change are usually huge obstacles to overcome. We’ve let life’s ebb and flow (our gypsy muse) guide us in this rhythm of life. For most of us, the process was organic and without a lot of thought. The first apartment, the first job, first time camping overnight during a long Minnesota winter.

 

And now quite unexpectedly, we find ourselves both benefiting and/or suffering from past investments of our youth. The things we did to ourselves, the deposits we made on our bodies, our finances, our love life and our children. We’re now at the stage of making withdrawals from our youthful decisions and indiscretions.

The life investments have been made, squandered, lost, accumulated, divested and set aside. Some things worked out and some things didn’t. Now we have the residue of our wisdom or luck or mistakes to live with for the rest of our lives. And all those life steps are now just a memory.

A career was hatched, grown and nurtured or changed many times over. That part of our lives is over unless boredom and fear of retirement pushes us in a new direction.

We abused our body with youthful indiscretion or ignored it or kept the blood flowing by never stopping. Now that investment or abuse is either paying back dividends or punishing us with worn out body parts along with the inevitable aging process.

My bank account of friends isn’t the greatest. A reluctance to make an effort back then, despite the chiding by my wife, has left me lacking in that area. Yet what I do have in the vault is now priceless. One of my aspirations is to mine those rich veins of past friendships to see if I might unearth more nuggets there. Occasionally I’ll strike gold and rekindle a long lost almost forgotten friendship from the dusty archives of my past. It’s a blast. And immensely satisfying.

Those random discoveries got me thinking about other friendships; past and future, strong and vapid, present and omnipresent. I thought about the friends I’ve had over the years. Some of them shared isolated points in my life; high school, college and work. Some were but fleeting incisions in the tenderness of my youth. Others were shared experiences like the military; isolated, vacuous and destined to crash with each discharge celebration where inane behavior in the barracks seemed to make perfect sense back then.

Most of those memories are lost now in that vacuum called life experiences. A few were found again but most are just fragrant memories of a life well spent. Like separating wheat from the shaft, I’d love to rekindle a few of those friendships and nourish them back to the point of commonality we once shared. A kind of harvesting from my lost years.

The cliché that you can never have too many friends dissolves over the pages of Facebook where collecting friends can be a cyber-game for some folks, devoid of meaningful contact and concern. Having friends on Facebook isn’t the same as having real friends who care and share and actually want to be somebody in your life. Big difference there! For some folks it’s like grade school best friends.

I guess that’s why I want to continue seeking out old friends and acquaintances who might share my same values and interests.  Even if it’s an exercise in futility like looking for Susan’s house. The past can’t be replicated nor ignored. It can be accepted for what it was even if we couldn’t see it at the time. It’s all cloaked in that most evolving, translucent, vapid metaphor called relationships. Together they fill our thoughts and dreams and aspirations with dream-like illusions we’d like to believe in. It’s a game we play on a daily basis as we go about the business of living.

But there’s one group that isn’t into that game-playing. Children are the most transparent of all relationships. No pretense, no pretending. They haven’t learned those life lessons of pretend, illusion and facial facades. It’s all there in front of us and easy to recognize.

So it all comes down to friends and family and the most honest among those two groups.

I am in a good place in my life. I don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore! As an artist, I love creating stories in many different genres and I intend to continue writing until my pen dries up or I go blind. I’d like to take my true friends along on this journey of discovery of self and life and whatever else comes my way.