El Pais Grande Del Sur

I’m going back to Big Sur for the first time.

The reality of covid-19 hit me upon my return to Minnesota. Between the pandemic and its social distancing guidelines, I suddenly find myself unable to workshop any of the three plays I’d just completed back in Palm Springs. Furthermore, I wouldn’t be able to work closely with musicians to create the music for those plays. At least for the foreseeable future, the plays were on hold and stuck in their first draft. I really needed feedback to proceed further with their development.

Added to that disappointment, my gym was closed as were the coffee shops where I love to hold my cerebral salons. The libraries and bookstores were closed so I had to get my books online or at Half-Price Books. Then some of my friends were reticent to visit on my patio even though I could guarantee them a good ten feet distance between us. I was stuck in a kind of limbo without any of my regular routines to follow.

So what is a hyperactive, overly scheduled adult supposed to do in such a situation? I could quarantine myself and wait for the virus to leave. I could putter around the lawn all day. Knowing me fairly well, I knew I had to do something more productive. Productive in my world translated into more writing and editing. Therefore, I could edit what I’d already written, select more subject matter for future blogs, or write something entirely new.

I opted for the latter and decided to write another novel. But it would not be just any new novel (which would be my eleventh thus far). This new novel would be an entirely new genre for me - a murder mystery / thriller entitled ‘The Trades.’

The novel would be set in the fast-paced world of publishing in San Francisco and the dark, mysterious backwoods of Big Sur. It would host a cast of characters that are still vapid ghosts in my imagination but are slowly taking shape. I see them as each being corroded with human foibles and yet hope (among a few of them) for the future. It would have good guys, bad guys, and many more that float between good intentions and not so good. Many of them can’t be categorized so easily. It would naturally include a love story but one where none should have surfaced in the first place.

I already have an eighteen-page treatment that over several years, I’ve sliced, diced, and mixed up quite a bit. Now I just had to put finger to keyboard and make these characters come to life. Research of the ‘trades’ and the Big Sur area would be critical since I had only been there once earlier this year but that was just passing through at sixty miles per hour. See my past blog: Solvang for more details.

As a young man in another life, I had been close to the Big Sur wilderness area once before. Unbeknownst to me, In 1964 I had just missed meeting a new wave of strange characters that would soon be wandering Big Sur’s deep impenetrable forests and jagged coastline. In 1964-65, I was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco. I wandered up the northern coast of California but never made it as far south as Big Sur. Half Moon Bay was a far as I got on my motor scooter.

Historically, the Big Sur area was derived from that unexplored and un-mapped wilderness area which lies along the coast south of Monterey. Back in the day, it was simply called el pais grande del sur, the Big South Country. Today, it refers to a 90-mile stretch of rugged and beautiful coastline between Carmel to the north and San Simeon (Hearst Castle) to the south.

In 1937, the present highway was completed after eighteen years of construction at a considerable expense even with the aid of convict labor. Electricity did not arrive in Big Sur until the early 1950’s, and it still does not extend the length of the coast or into the more remote mountainous areas. There is no cellphone service so if your car breaks down, you’re truly SOL (____out of luck).

In the 1940s, 50s and 60s, Henry Miller lived in Big Sur on and off for years. Miller was an American writer known best for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new type of autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, stream of consciousness, explicit language (Tropic of Cancer), sex, surrealist free association and mysticism. He was also part of an avant-garde art colony centered around his controversial writings and philosophy of life. I knew Henry would be the perfect kind of idol for some of my characters in the book.

Jack Kerouac followed Miller in the 1950s. Then in the ‘60s Allen Ginsburg, along with Wavy Gravy and the Merry Pranksters, made annual pilgrimages down there to smoke dope, take LSD and get lost inside their heads. Timothy Leary used the area as the perfect setting for his pro-motion of LSD as a mind-expanding drug. He often times hosted events in the forests of Big Sur.

Esalen became a new age enclave and heralded the advancement of its human potential movement. It seemed only appropriate that the wild, weird, and wonderful characters that are a part of the fabric and tapestry of San Francisco and Big Sur should play a prominent role in this next novel.

The main characters, along with an assortment of bit players, masked strangers, and two-faced villains are all rehearsing in the twenty-five chapters I’ve outlined thus far. I’m trying to capture some of their dialogue, at least in my head, so I can begin to pound it out on my pages very soon. I’ve already seen the novel take a number of surprising twists and turns. Unbeknownst to me, motivation and greed and evil intents aren’t always as easy to recognize as I first imagined. I expect the first draft of this endeavor will come relatively easy for me. It’s going to be the second, third, and perhaps fourth draft that really make or break the novel.

This genre is a first for me so it’s going to be a different kind of journey. I’m comfortable in the saddle. The sixties were a charm. I’ve been to the A Shau and traveled around the world in the company of an endearing friend. However, putting on a criminal mind and plotting the demise of others is a whole new ballgame.

I think I’ve created an interesting main character (at least in my head) and (once again) a woman who is beautiful, smart and can kick ass with the best of them. Of course, it doesn’t help that both are overshadowed by the ghost of Henry Miller and Lewy Body syndrome. I expect they’re going to take me on one interesting adventure. I hope others will ultimately want to come along and share the excitement with me.

TBA

Solvang

Solvang means ‘sunny fields’ in Danish. For me, it meant twelve hundred miles over six days up and down the Central California Coast. Our trio of merry travelers had done the PCH from Newport Beach all the way down to San Diego by car and train. That’s the part of California that gave us Brian Wilson, ‘Surfin Safari’ and ‘California Girls.’ This part of the state was different. It offered up miles of rocky shoreline, endangered elephant seals, and a throwback in time with rugged shorelines and ancient tales of wilderness mysteries.

This new journey up along the Pacific Coast Highway had my friends and me exploring the rugged Big Sur coastline up to Monterey; a long desired trip I hadn’t yet taken until now. California in all of its complexity in land and people cuts a broad swath of culture, attitude, and terrain.

Climate and ecology play a tremendously important role in California’s ever changing geology. Recently severe drought brought forest fires then flooding and mudslides to many parts of the state. What doesn’t affect Northern California brings something different to Southern California. The entire state is a temperate one but while Northern California has coastal fog and closeness to the Sierra Mountains, the coastal regions of Southern California have a more moderate Mediterranean climate.

Sharon and I were traveling with our dear friend, LaDonna, an old cohort of Sharon’s from her days in academia. We started in Solvang, a town of five thousand souls that has re-branded itself as a modern day European village. Its authenticity is such that it actually brought me back to my old days of wandering the back alleys and cobblestone footpaths of Copenhagen.

From there we set out to explore the Central California Coast. That region cuts a broad swath of huge agricultural operations, wineries and ranches. Poor farm workers harvesting the crops work alongside ranch owners whose operation has been a family affair for literally hundreds of years.

Santa Barbara and the whole Central California Coastal area have long harbored a reputation for astronomical real estate prices. OMG is a familiar refrain among buyers when perusing the real estate magazines.

Nondescript, average homes climb up over one another on any available hillside. If there’s an ‘ocean view’ it automatically adds hundreds of thousands of dollars to the price tag. The closer to the beach sends those prices even higher into the stratosphere. It’s a different kind of world up there even by our desert standards down in Palm Springs.

For me, the highlight of the trip was Big Sur. We began at one of breeding places for the endangered Elephant Seals. From there we entered the narrow, twisting, turning roadway that hugged rugged cliff faces on one side and sharp drops to the ocean below on the other side.

Historically, the Big Sur area was derived from that unexplored and unmapped wilderness area that lies along the coast south of Monterey. Back in the day, it was simply called el pais grande del sur, the Big South Country. Today, it refers to a 90-mile stretch of rugged and beautiful coastline between Carmel to the north and San Simeon (Hearst Castle) to the south.

In 1937, the present highway was completed after eighteen years of construction at a considerable expense even with the aid of convict labor. Electricity did not arrive in Big Sur until the early 1950’s, and it still does not extend the length of the coast or into the more remote mountainous areas. There is no cellphone service so if your car breaks down, you’re truly SOL (stuck out of luck).

In 1964-65, I was stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco. I never made it down to Big Sur. Half Moon Bay was a far as I got on my motor scooter. Back in the 1930s and 40s, Henry Miller lived there on and off for years. He was part of an avant-garde art colony centered around his controversial writings and philosophy of life. Miller has a library named after him back in one of the many deep redwood canyons that slash the mountain range bordering the area.

Jack Kerouac followed Miller in the 40s and 50s. Then Allen Ginsburg, along with Wavy Gravy and the Merry Pranksters, made annual pilgrimages there to smoke dope, take LSD, and get lost inside their head.

Big Sur is the setting for my next novel if I ever get around to writing it. It’s called ‘The Trades’ and it deals with the publishing industry in San Francisco and secretive characters that inhabit the deep dark impenetrable forests of Big Sur. It’s my first shot at writing a murder mystery and so far the outline looks pretty exciting to me (he said modestly).

There’s talk from my adventurous companions about returning to the Big Sur area next year. If we do, I want to explore the craggy shoreline, the rugged cliffs above and those dark scary forests that hug the narrow roadway. It might prove to be great research for my novel and a chance to finally do my hippie mind-tripping thing once again.

Rumble In the Jungle

It seems for every right, there is a wrong. For every left turn, someone wants to swing right. For every change made, some folks cling to the status quo. I read an article recently about some neighbors who were complaining about those little free libraries that have popped up around the country. One old goat was quoted as saying: “They’re a distraction when I’m driving by and who knows what kind of riff-raff they bring into our neighborhood.”  It’s NIMBY at its most ridiculous.


Now the contrarians have hit the world of writing. Actually they’ve been trying to upset the apple cart for some time now. Back in the Sixties, they waged the censorship war and lost.

Leading the charge against censorship, publishing entities such as Grove Press and Evergreen Review began to question our collective take on the issue of morals. These literary first-offenders opened a frontal assault with books such as ‘tropic of Cancer,’ ‘Naked Lunch,’ ‘Story of O’ and ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’ While none would be considered great works of literature, they were testing the freedom of expression in this country and abroad. ‘Howl’ by Allen Ginsberg and ‘On the Road’ by Jack Kerouac took readers in directions they had never gone before. It was the 60’s and politics and culture and new views of American society were being offered up to the American reading public.



Now Indie publishing has upset that apple cart once again. Struggling to nurture and master the craft of writing is like trudging through a jungle full of hidden perils and challenges. There are more than enough financial hindrances and distractions along the way. Now some gnat has decided (for the sake of selling magazines, I assume) to challenge the notion of what it means to be an author. But he certainly isn’t the first.

Back in the 80’s there was a protracted battle going on over the legitimacy of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek.’ There were those writers who didn’t think this new take on space adventure fit into the science fiction genre. Then another argument arose over whether fantasy was even a legitimate genre. Most agreed that ‘slipstream fantasy’ (the kind of story where you can’t tell if the fantasy is something that really happened to the character or something that he misinterpreted) was legitimate. But the rest of the genre was left up to debate.

But it got even sillier as time progressed. Some female writers of romance novels hated the idea that a man would dare write in the romance genre. One well-known male writer in the mystery field said that women shouldn’t be writing mystery novels at all. Then there were those mystery writers who held in distain others who wrote ‘cozies’ (like the stuff Agatha Christie wrote) and even other authors who felt that hard-boiled writers such as Raymond Chandler were destroying the genre with their gore and unnecessary violence.

This gnat in question recently published an article about writing and publishing.  His essay asked the question about who gets to claim the title of author in this brand new world of self-publish-ing. It was an article obviously meant to generate discussion among the New York literary elite as well as Ivy League coffee house patrons as to what really constitutes the auspicious title of author.

According to this small-minded elitist, there is a ‘stark contrast between being a writer and being a professional author.’ The problem with his argument is that most of my colleagues who write and publish don’t pretend to be professional authors. We want to make money with our writing but that isn’t our main goal. Instead we share the pure joy of story-telling.

That author in question would like to ‘see the process simplified, in which you are either a writer or a professional author. If you earn your living from our writing, you are a professional author; anyone else is just a plain old writer.’ He’s even come up with a financial threshold of one thousand dollars as an entrance fee.

The main problem with his lame argument harkens back to the question of who gets to bestow the title upon whom.

If a student in high school or post-graduate studies makes a film, is he or she a film-maker? Or do they have to wait until they’ve sold their film to Hollywood to earn their title. If a person paints a picture do they have to sell their work before they’re considered a painter? If I speak at toastmasters, am I not a speaker even if I didn’t get paid for my presentation? If I take a picture with my camera, do I have to sell that photo to be considered a photographer? If I write and publish a novel do I have to wait for a certain amount of sales before I get to call myself an author?

It’s my observation that the majority of these silly disputes are really about change. The problem arises when new writers, fresh to the field, start to believe these arguments and are indoctrinated with all kinds of ‘shoulds’ and rules and guidelines created by other writers to guide their own vision of any particular genre. In short, it’s a failed attempt by some of the elders to control the creativity of the newbies.

In the past, traditional publishing exercised almost total control over the creative process and kept the doors locked to anyone who didn’t conform to their own vision/version of publishing and creativity. But now Indie publishing is allowing the creatives to break out of that artificial world and to explore a brand new world of writing and publishing on ‘their own terms.’ The gate-keepers of old have been pushed aside and they’re fighting back.

That gnat seems to take the moniker ‘professional’ as the only righteous title one can carry if one wants to write, paint, sing, act, make films or do practically anything else of an artistic nature. There are enough come-ons, book shepherds, advice traps and money-pits that a novice in this jungle has to avoid without having to think about one’s proper title in the process.

To quote from an article I recently read (with apologies to its author who remains unknown and thus can’t be given him/her credit.)

‘Writing isn’t about doing what everyone else tells you to do. Writing is about doing what your creative voice wants you to do.’

Amen to that.

Den of Thieves

This season I want to expand my den of thieves.

By their very nature and genetic makeup, all writers are thieves. We steal snatches of conversations everywhere we go.  In our minds eye, we paint a tapestry of scenarios happening all around us and store them in our memory bank or imagination vault. We grasp fleeting emotions that we have seen, felt, heard or observed. We peruse life around us with a relish and create our own life stories for people we don’t even know. We abscond with the memories of our relatives, parents, friends, lovers, associates and all kinds of fleeting friendships. Then we lock them away in our memory vault to be retrieved later on in life in some supposedly fictional world.

My den of thieves are a colorful cast of characters although they would probably not like to be called characters but rather a more mature crowd still searching for ways to find more life in life. Together we’re all still wondering ‘what is our life story’ and then examining others about theirs.

 

It’s different from the Paris crowd that gathered around Hemingway’s table for drinks and song. It’s different from Ginsberg’s eccentric group that gathered most San Francisco evenings for a salon laced along the ragged edges of drugs, sex and booze. Or my own Snow White and the Seven Seekers all gathered around a breakfast table in Brussels, exchanging cigarettes, small talk and grand expectations for the life ahead.

This is a more subtle crowd that does most of its exploration alone or in small hunter-gatherer packs. But it’s still a group of literary-bound wanderers seeking answers instead of redemption.

                                  Palm Springs Writers' Guild Facebook Page

Cat is one of them. No one calls him David or Mr. Cohen…just Cat. It’s kind of like those hard-core hikers of the AT (Appalachian Trail) who all have trail names instead of their real ones.  Cat has his loveable Stella. Everywhere the Cat goes his pit-bull is sure to follow.

Carol is a blogger and her husband at 92 is the reigning chocolate king of the valley and has several cookbooks to prove it.

Judy is the Hope Mother and its author.

Bob still teaching and learning. I hope he’ll be my mentor for screenwriting. I know he is a great class facilitator.

Sunny has a disposition that matches her name.

Jim has a novel about cyber-crime that seems to have hit its timing mark exquisitely.

Lynn is another woman whose focus is mid-life changes for women. Her novel seems to have hit a cord with a lot of readers.

Ed, whose third book will show readers How to Survive Your Vacation.

John…ad man from the east coast…is heading up the Desert Writers Expo again this year.

Paramount in my quest for their secrets to success will be the Palm Springs Writers Guild and the Desert Writers Expo this March. There are a ton of very talented folks in town. Not just retirees from the coast or ex-pats from the East Coast. There are also a lot of skill wordsmiths and artistic craftsmen from all over the country who have found a safe and comfortable haven in our community here. There are playwrights to stage a meeting and songwriters to share a chorus with. There are screen writers whom I need to share plot structure and dialogue with.

They’re all this wonderful diverse eclectic crowd of artists who might be seen as a bit strange anyplace else but are right at home here in the desert. Musicians, song-writers, novelists, screen writers and playwrights that I want to hang out with.

They are true artists of any and every ilk. Each and every one of them is very talented. I hope we can share ideas and steal a few if need be. You can’t copyright an idea and I’ll grab every thought, action, pause or whiff of anything that catches my fancy. Then attempt to craft those parts into a storyline of my own.

It’s stealing, sharing, and gleaning the best from the best.  There’s a lot going on in this city. I need to stay on top of it and perhaps add my own two cents once in a while.

Portrait of a Young Man Growing Up

My Favorite B-17

On the surface it might seem rather conceited of me writing an article about myself. Perhaps it’ll be mistaken as some self-absorbed treatise on the wonderment of youth and the trials (slash) tribulations of growing up in the 50’s in the Midwest. Like some opening act or shadowy prelude to my oft-mentioned ‘Lost Years’ during the Sixties.

Mother's Wedding Day

Our Backyard

At first glance it might seem that way but perhaps not so much after a second glance. My Mother only appears in two of these pictures; the first on her wedding day and the second with some skittish grade-schooler in her own backyard. Yet her presence can be felt in every picture…at least in my mind.

Fourth of July picnic with the cousins...  enough said.

The pictures don’t necessarily unleash a plethora of fond memories flooding my consciousness with warmth but nor do they harken back to a darker period in my life. Instead the pictures tell a simple story. It was what it was. That would be defined as growing up in a single parent household and raised by an emotionally-scarred woman who was just trying to survive under some very tough circumstances. And she did it with little to no support from other family members. Boyed by her Catholic faith and the resiliency of her rural upbringing this woman made the best of numerous life-changing events in her life.

But, of course, she came from farmer stock. Much like the woman I eventually married. Beneath that façade of modesty was one tough, hard-working, and determined woman. With little more than her own mental smarts and street-learned determination she made her way through a hard and ever-changing world…with two kids under tow and no husband at her side.

I look back at these pictures of myself now and see them quite differently than I have in the past.

My Jack Kerouac look

Just Faking

Another Kerouac imitation

I used to see a scared kid unsure of himself with no father or father figure to guide him along. Now I see a kid heavily influenced by the work ethic and penny-wise attitudes of his Mother. She started working at age three by cleaning out the chicken coop. I started working in seventh grade with my first paper route.

 I used to see a teenager desperate to find love and affection and someone to be close to. Now I see an ordinary kid just like every other kid I knew who was searching for love…only I didn’t know it at the time.

I used to see kid so proud of his ROTC training and the Lieutenants bars pinned on his shoulders even if it was only in high school. Now I see a kid who got the message early on that education was everything and he HAD to pass that on to his own children and grandchildren.

I used to see a young man in his hippie beads trying to express himself with a Mother who never quite understood. Now I see that same young man in his hippie beads and understand what she was smiling about.  I think I’d be smiling right there alongside her now.

Mom & Step-Dad Erwin

I’ve never said it before, Mom, but you did good. With little help and lacking any formal education, you managed to pull off what a lot of other married women and single mothers weren’t able to do.

You built your home with your own hands; made sure your kids got a good Catholic education and raised them both to do well. You even managed to finally find the joy of love later on in life. And near and dear to your heart, you were loved by your grandchildren who still treasure their memories of you long after you left for that Novena in the sky.

I’m sorry I wasn’t able to see the whole picture when I was growing up there alongside you. It was cloudy and vapid back then…and it’s taken a long time for me to put that puzzle together.

I should have told you how very proud I was to have you as my Mother.

I’ve never said that to you before.

But I’m saying it now.