Note: I've been buried working on a new book, tentatively to be published later this year. This month's blog is a very very early sneak peak.
IT IS WHAT IT IS - Early sample.
“I need each of you to make a statement,” the cop said. “Tell me everything you were doing, what your missing drummer was doing. Details. Give me details.” He sat down opposite us in a plain black chair. “Let’s start with you,” he said, looking at me.
I looked over at Stella, coughed a couple times, and finally said, “No, man, um, I..I don’t know anything. I wasn’t there.”
The officer’s eyes tried to cut a hole in me.
“So, why are you here, exactly?” he asked.
“Well, I guess I was going to help look for the guy, you know. I mean IQ’s missing. I’m here to help find him.”
“Zenny owns the house we live in,” Stella said.
“Zenny?” the cop asked.
“That’s my name,” I said.
“Zenny, is that short for something?”
“No, no, it’s actually long….for ‘Zen’,” I said.
“Can I see your I.D. please?”
I reached for my pocket, but in the hurry and chaos I had left my wallet at home.
“I...I don’t have my I.D."
the cop tapped his pen nervously on the arm of his chair.
“You don’t have your I.D.?”
“Look, man, it was all happening so fast. I mean, I was asleep. They woke me up. We were outside. How about if we just get on with looking for IQ?”
The cop shook his head and sighed heavily. “Okay,” he said, turning to Stella, “were you actually there? Can you make a real statement, with events that actually happened, that maybe you saw with your own eyes?”
“I can,” Stella said.
The problem with listening to Stella is that I forget to actually listen to her. I look at the shocking streak of orange hair that invades her natural black. Her words and her voice wash over me like water.
Everyone knows she is going to be a star, a superstar, one of these days. It just hasn’t happened yet.
When she puts that guitar over her shoulder and steps up to the mic, Andre, IQ, and GQ behind her, then she pounds out that first chord, leans to the mic, and belts out her unique gut-level, attitude-infused voice, colored with just a touch of sensitivity, well, I don’t have words to describe how I feel.
I have to shake myself out of my trance and actually pay attention to what she’s saying.
The story she told the cop didn’t seem to satisfy him.
They had gone to the club to watch three different bands play. the first two bands rocked pretty hard, she said. the cop didn’t care, but Stella had to comment on the show.
She was at the front of the crowd with IQ at her side, for the second band’s set.
As the set ended, Stella and IQ joined Andre and GQ in the bar. Andre was trying to pick up some girl who Stella thought was a little too trashy for him.
“She was a smart girl,” Andre argued.
“Look,” said the cop angrily, “can we just get through what happened? The events leading up to the disappearance?”
Stella continued.
The four of them hung out in the bar while the third band took the stage. None of them really liked the guys in the third band. they’d met them before and thought they were all pretentious assholes.
So they stayed in the bar while the pretentious assholes (not their actual band name, but it might as well be) played a bunch of lame pretentious asshole music.
A few friends of Stella’s found her and the guys in the bar. It was an awkward moment, Stella explained, because she and IQ were having an argument.
After the pretentious assholes quit playing, no one was in a hurry to leave.
Except IQ.
“We were fighting,” Stella said.
The cop cleared his throat and looked up from the paper he was writing on. “Are you and the missing party, um, involved?”
“That’s kind of what we were arguing about,” Stella answered.
There was tension in the room, and Stella was avoiding eye contact with Andre. Andre stared at her with a sort of pissy expression.
“IQ and I had slept together,” she said. There was a stony silence. “He wanted us to be together.”
“And you didn’t?” the cop asked.
“I told him I needed to figure some things out. He was really upset. He started acting like he did last time.”
“Last time?”
Stella glanced at me, then Andre, then GQ. He disappeared once before, six months ago. We found him crashing at some disgusting house, not eating, wasting away.”
“Does the missing person have a history of drug abuse?”
Stella looked at the cop sideways. “He’s searching for something,” she said. “He says weird things sometimes. He’s searching for something transcendent.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Stella said, quietly. “I don’t think he knows either.”
“Okay, let’s get back to the events of last night.. you argued. Then what?”
After the argument, IQ went outside to have a cigarette. When Stella, GQ, and Andre went out to find him he wasn’t there. The sidewalk was empty.
All they found was IQ’s wallet lying in the bushes.
The cop looked at the wallet. There was money inside; eighteen dollars.
The cop shook his head. “I assume you tried calling him, texting.”
“His phone’s off,” Stella said. “Straight to voicemail.”
“How is it,” the cop asked, looking at me, “that we have I.D. for the guy who’s missing, but you’re sitting here and we don’t have any I.D. for you?”
“Well, man,” I said, “life is full of fucking irony.”
-Peter Wick
May 15, 2014
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Monday, April 14, 2014
#24 - Cobain/Van Gogh
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, and while countless articles are rehashing the same old themes, I want too float an idea out into the world that has been on my mind for...well, for 20 years.
First, I should say on a personal note that while I can count one or two Seattle musicians from the grunge era as friends, I never actually met Kurt Cobain. I blew off a friend's show once, not knowing until later that it would have been my one chance to hang out backstage with Kurt.
I do feel some personal connection to his loss, through friends who knew him and talked about their own personal memories after he died.
This isn't about my personal feelings, though.
I want to put Kurt Cobain into some sort of historical perspective.
To me, Kurt Cobain was the late 20th Century's musical Vincent Van Gogh.
Both were brilliant, troubled artists. Both probably suffered from some form of diagnosable mental illness.
Both were part of artistic 'movements' that caused them to be in conflict with the 'establishment.'
Both even suffered from severe PHYSICAL problems that contributed to their downward spirals (Van Gogh's ringing ear, Cobain's aching stomach).
Van Gogh came up as a painter among France's 'impressionist' movement in the late 1800's.
More than 100 years later the impressionists (Monet, Manet, Renoir) seem tame, but at the time they were revolutionary. they purposely broke all the establishment rules of painting. You could see their brush strokes. They painted sunlight informally as it really looked during different times of the day. They rejected posed mannerisms for candid movement.
They were the art world's punks.
Among this group, Van Gogh was an extremely volatile, insanely talented presence.
The comparison between the rebellious Impressionist movement and the 80's punk rock movement - which evolved into the 90's grunge era - doesn't seem too far of a stretch to me. It's not a perfect comparison, but it's a reasonable one.
Cobain also had a volatile, but insanely talented presence in his movement.
Both Van Gogh and Cobain expressed their anguish, their volatility, their compassion, and their internal conflicts honestly and daringly.
Both suffered downward spirals that resulted in tragedy.
Both remain losses that are hard to explain.
Everyone who writes about Cobain tries to find adequate words to make sense of his too-short life.
I feel those words are not too difficult to find. They are simply:
Kurt Cobain, one hundred years later, was music's Vincent Van Gogh.
-Peter Wick
April 14, 2014
First, I should say on a personal note that while I can count one or two Seattle musicians from the grunge era as friends, I never actually met Kurt Cobain. I blew off a friend's show once, not knowing until later that it would have been my one chance to hang out backstage with Kurt.
I do feel some personal connection to his loss, through friends who knew him and talked about their own personal memories after he died.
This isn't about my personal feelings, though.
I want to put Kurt Cobain into some sort of historical perspective.
To me, Kurt Cobain was the late 20th Century's musical Vincent Van Gogh.
Both were brilliant, troubled artists. Both probably suffered from some form of diagnosable mental illness.
Both were part of artistic 'movements' that caused them to be in conflict with the 'establishment.'
Both even suffered from severe PHYSICAL problems that contributed to their downward spirals (Van Gogh's ringing ear, Cobain's aching stomach).
Van Gogh came up as a painter among France's 'impressionist' movement in the late 1800's.
More than 100 years later the impressionists (Monet, Manet, Renoir) seem tame, but at the time they were revolutionary. they purposely broke all the establishment rules of painting. You could see their brush strokes. They painted sunlight informally as it really looked during different times of the day. They rejected posed mannerisms for candid movement.
They were the art world's punks.
Among this group, Van Gogh was an extremely volatile, insanely talented presence.
The comparison between the rebellious Impressionist movement and the 80's punk rock movement - which evolved into the 90's grunge era - doesn't seem too far of a stretch to me. It's not a perfect comparison, but it's a reasonable one.
Cobain also had a volatile, but insanely talented presence in his movement.
Both Van Gogh and Cobain expressed their anguish, their volatility, their compassion, and their internal conflicts honestly and daringly.
Both suffered downward spirals that resulted in tragedy.
Both remain losses that are hard to explain.
Everyone who writes about Cobain tries to find adequate words to make sense of his too-short life.
I feel those words are not too difficult to find. They are simply:
Kurt Cobain, one hundred years later, was music's Vincent Van Gogh.
-Peter Wick
April 14, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
#23 - CHRIS FARLEY - March, 2014
When Chris Farley's "Down by the river" sketch was named greatest SNL sketch of all time recently, I was reminded of the one time I met Chris Farley.
I should probably say up front that telling this story is not intended to be any kind of definitive statement about who Chris Farley was or what he was like. This is the only time I ever met him. Someone who knew him better than me would have to put this story into perspective.
It was 1993, during a year-and-a-half-long period in which I took any small job on any Hollywood movie set that I could.
Central Casting sent me to work an all-nighter on the Fox Studios lot, to be an Extra rocking out to White Zombie in the club scene for the movie "Airheads."
It was a thankless job; an uncredited Extra. I watched the scene again recently and can't find myself anywhere on camera, not lurking in the dark corners of any shot, nothing.
I was there, though, paired with a gorgeous blond girl. I don't remember her name, so for remainder of this story she will simply be referred to as, "Gorgeous Blond Girl."
"You two are boyfriend and girlfriend," the assistant director told us. "When we say 'action,' you just start rocking out."
Simple enough.
Life on a film set has a lot of down-time, though. So, Gorgeous Blond Girl and I had a full evening to hang out together. We were comfortable enough with each other, but she dropped The Big Warning early in the conversation.
"The Big Warning" is a girl very casually - almost TOO casually - dropping the phrase, "Oh, my boyfriend - "
It doesn't matter what the rest of the sentence is. She just let you know she's off limits. some guys take it as a challenge. I accepted it without a second thought.
The club scene in "Airheads" has Chris Farley as a cop, entering the club, getting knocked around a mosh pit by some tough guys, and then finding the character he's looking for at the bar.
We had to shoot different parts of it over and over all night, trying to get White Zombie's performance right, trying to get Chris Farley's mosh pit moment right, etc.
We were still early in the process, during a quiet moment between shots, when Chris Farley was randomly standing just a few feet from myself and Gorgeous Blond Girl.
"What's your name?" he asked her.
She answered.
He followed up with a few casual remarks and a joke or two. She responded flatly, and soon everyone had to return to their marks for another take.
"That was awkward," she whispered to me as Farley walked away.
"And the evening's still young," I said.
"Oh, god, no," she sighed.
Then someone yelled 'Action.' White Zombie rocked their song again. Gorgeous Blond Girl and I rocked out.
Cut!
"Tell me he's not coming over here," she said to me when things quieted down again.
"He's coming over here," I said.
"God! No," she whispered.
Chris Farley turned on the charm this time. He was a celebrity, and he knew he could get what he wanted - most of the time.
She chatted politely with him, but stayed just cold enough to avoid encouraging him.
We rocked out to White Zombie some more, and then she proposed an idea to me.
"Hey," she said, hesitantly at first, "do you think, um, maybe we could actually pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend, maybe just enough to get him to stop?"
"Sure," I said, smiling. "I'm game."
The next time things got quiet, and we were told to relax, I sat in a chair. She sat on my lap, dropped an arm over my shoulders, and when Farley started walking toward us she leaned close to my ear and teasingly whispered something to me, making it look like we were sharing a very private moment.
It worked.
Chris Farley was smooth.
He stopped in front of a brand new gorgeous girl, making it look as if he had been eyeing her the whole time.
The new girl seemed more open to his celebrity advances.
Gorgeous Blond Girl was off the hook.
As actors we were a little deeper into character the rest of the evening. We were boyfriend and girlfriend until about four in the morning. Then we went our separate ways, never to see each other again.
A few years later Chris Farley was dead, from a lethal combination of drugs.
He left a legacy of brilliant comedy and mediocre movies.
Perspective?
Hell, I don't know.
Maybe someday I'll get a chance to ask his old buddy, David Spade.
-Peter Wick
March 14, 2014
I should probably say up front that telling this story is not intended to be any kind of definitive statement about who Chris Farley was or what he was like. This is the only time I ever met him. Someone who knew him better than me would have to put this story into perspective.
It was 1993, during a year-and-a-half-long period in which I took any small job on any Hollywood movie set that I could.
Central Casting sent me to work an all-nighter on the Fox Studios lot, to be an Extra rocking out to White Zombie in the club scene for the movie "Airheads."
It was a thankless job; an uncredited Extra. I watched the scene again recently and can't find myself anywhere on camera, not lurking in the dark corners of any shot, nothing.
I was there, though, paired with a gorgeous blond girl. I don't remember her name, so for remainder of this story she will simply be referred to as, "Gorgeous Blond Girl."
"You two are boyfriend and girlfriend," the assistant director told us. "When we say 'action,' you just start rocking out."
Simple enough.
Life on a film set has a lot of down-time, though. So, Gorgeous Blond Girl and I had a full evening to hang out together. We were comfortable enough with each other, but she dropped The Big Warning early in the conversation.
"The Big Warning" is a girl very casually - almost TOO casually - dropping the phrase, "Oh, my boyfriend - "
It doesn't matter what the rest of the sentence is. She just let you know she's off limits. some guys take it as a challenge. I accepted it without a second thought.
The club scene in "Airheads" has Chris Farley as a cop, entering the club, getting knocked around a mosh pit by some tough guys, and then finding the character he's looking for at the bar.
We had to shoot different parts of it over and over all night, trying to get White Zombie's performance right, trying to get Chris Farley's mosh pit moment right, etc.
We were still early in the process, during a quiet moment between shots, when Chris Farley was randomly standing just a few feet from myself and Gorgeous Blond Girl.
"What's your name?" he asked her.
She answered.
He followed up with a few casual remarks and a joke or two. She responded flatly, and soon everyone had to return to their marks for another take.
"That was awkward," she whispered to me as Farley walked away.
"And the evening's still young," I said.
"Oh, god, no," she sighed.
Then someone yelled 'Action.' White Zombie rocked their song again. Gorgeous Blond Girl and I rocked out.
Cut!
"Tell me he's not coming over here," she said to me when things quieted down again.
"He's coming over here," I said.
"God! No," she whispered.
Chris Farley turned on the charm this time. He was a celebrity, and he knew he could get what he wanted - most of the time.
She chatted politely with him, but stayed just cold enough to avoid encouraging him.
We rocked out to White Zombie some more, and then she proposed an idea to me.
"Hey," she said, hesitantly at first, "do you think, um, maybe we could actually pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend, maybe just enough to get him to stop?"
"Sure," I said, smiling. "I'm game."
The next time things got quiet, and we were told to relax, I sat in a chair. She sat on my lap, dropped an arm over my shoulders, and when Farley started walking toward us she leaned close to my ear and teasingly whispered something to me, making it look like we were sharing a very private moment.
It worked.
Chris Farley was smooth.
He stopped in front of a brand new gorgeous girl, making it look as if he had been eyeing her the whole time.
The new girl seemed more open to his celebrity advances.
Gorgeous Blond Girl was off the hook.
As actors we were a little deeper into character the rest of the evening. We were boyfriend and girlfriend until about four in the morning. Then we went our separate ways, never to see each other again.
A few years later Chris Farley was dead, from a lethal combination of drugs.
He left a legacy of brilliant comedy and mediocre movies.
Perspective?
Hell, I don't know.
Maybe someday I'll get a chance to ask his old buddy, David Spade.
-Peter Wick
March 14, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
#22 - Brothers - Feb. 2014
I'm not sure what year it was. I think I was in First or Second grade. My brother David would have been in Junior High School. He had received a Daisy air rifle BB gun as a Christmas present and promptly spent the following week shooting tree trunks, blades of grass, basically declaring war on all inanimate objects in the neighborhood.
He became bored with these lifeless enemies, though, so he decided to move on to the most logical next target; our other brother Dan.
Dan is the middle brother; older than me, younger than David.
Anyone who has either been a part of, observed, or even come across a family with three brothers, knows that this is a very dangerous situation, one that is on the verge of combustion at any given time.
Brothers - especially when there are three of them - have a tendency to hurt each other for fun, injure each other for laughs, insult each other as a way to simply pass the time.
David lay on his stomach on the floor of the bedroom.
He was mostly hidden behind the doorway. He aimed the air rifle carefully at Dan, who was vacuuming the living room, a chore my mother had placed on him.
To me David looked like the perfect sniper hiding in the grass, sizing up his unsuspecting victim.
I was behind David and I was absolutely beside myself. I was jumping up and down with an uncontrollable mix of excitement and fear.
"Sh! Quiet!" David whispered back at me.
"Do it! Do it!" I whispered back.
David lay his cheek down carefully on the butt of the gun. He adjusted his eye onto the site and took a slow breath.
Dan was turned away from us, pushing and pulling the vacuum cleaner on the carpet. He was wearing blue jeans, his butt a worthy and inviting target.
The suspense was killing me.
POP!
David pulled the trigger.
The wail that came from Dan's mouth was a thing of terrifying beauty.
It pierced that wall of vacuum-cleaner noise and must certainly have travelled out into the street, to the neighbor's houses.
He twisted to look down at his own butt, where a clear indentation the size of a tiny BB showed in his blue jeans. The BB itself had fallen harmlessly to the floor.
My mother came rushing into the room, as David and I quickly hid inside the bedroom, sharing hysterical laughter.
Our laughter gave us away. My mom and Dan came into the room and looked at us.
"Did you shoot your brother with the BB gun?"
We tried to hold our laughter, but couldn't. We were cracking up uncontrollably.
Even Dan, who was settling into the knowledge that his jeans had prevented any real injury, was beginning to smile a little.
"Listen," my mom said, "there's no shooting people. You don't shoot your brother in the house. Do you hear me? No shooting your brother in the house."
I guess it was a reasonable new ground rule to lay down.
It was too late, though. The moment had already happened, and a moment like that lasts forever.
-Peter Wick
February 14, 2014
He became bored with these lifeless enemies, though, so he decided to move on to the most logical next target; our other brother Dan.
Dan is the middle brother; older than me, younger than David.
Anyone who has either been a part of, observed, or even come across a family with three brothers, knows that this is a very dangerous situation, one that is on the verge of combustion at any given time.
Brothers - especially when there are three of them - have a tendency to hurt each other for fun, injure each other for laughs, insult each other as a way to simply pass the time.
David lay on his stomach on the floor of the bedroom.
He was mostly hidden behind the doorway. He aimed the air rifle carefully at Dan, who was vacuuming the living room, a chore my mother had placed on him.
To me David looked like the perfect sniper hiding in the grass, sizing up his unsuspecting victim.
I was behind David and I was absolutely beside myself. I was jumping up and down with an uncontrollable mix of excitement and fear.
"Sh! Quiet!" David whispered back at me.
"Do it! Do it!" I whispered back.
David lay his cheek down carefully on the butt of the gun. He adjusted his eye onto the site and took a slow breath.
Dan was turned away from us, pushing and pulling the vacuum cleaner on the carpet. He was wearing blue jeans, his butt a worthy and inviting target.
The suspense was killing me.
POP!
David pulled the trigger.
The wail that came from Dan's mouth was a thing of terrifying beauty.
It pierced that wall of vacuum-cleaner noise and must certainly have travelled out into the street, to the neighbor's houses.
He twisted to look down at his own butt, where a clear indentation the size of a tiny BB showed in his blue jeans. The BB itself had fallen harmlessly to the floor.
My mother came rushing into the room, as David and I quickly hid inside the bedroom, sharing hysterical laughter.
Our laughter gave us away. My mom and Dan came into the room and looked at us.
"Did you shoot your brother with the BB gun?"
We tried to hold our laughter, but couldn't. We were cracking up uncontrollably.
Even Dan, who was settling into the knowledge that his jeans had prevented any real injury, was beginning to smile a little.
"Listen," my mom said, "there's no shooting people. You don't shoot your brother in the house. Do you hear me? No shooting your brother in the house."
I guess it was a reasonable new ground rule to lay down.
It was too late, though. The moment had already happened, and a moment like that lasts forever.
-Peter Wick
February 14, 2014
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
#21 - The Middle of Somewhere - Jan. 2014
I was back home in Seattle over the recent holidays, feeling completely at home and comfortable. I enjoyed the company of friends who I miss, and family who are a part of me.
It didn't feel like a year since my last visit, and I found myself promising a few friends that I would make it back a few times during the coming year.
Seattle is home. L.A. is home. These places I am familiar with.
I found myself thinking, though, about places that I've visited that are definitely not home.
My thoughts traveled back in time to a week of my life that began in Decatur, Illinois and ended in Appleton, Wisconsin.
I was in my 20's and was working a stand-up comedy tour of small-town midwest clubs. I use the word 'clubs' loosely.
The week started on Tuesday, with me driving a rental car south from Chicago into small-town Illinois, for what is still the only time of my life.
Tuesday night's gig was a one-nighter in Decatur. I arrived at the 'club' which was a small local tavern, where the regulars merely tolerated the once-a-week invasion by two stand-up comedians. I was the opening act, and I apologize to whoever followed me; I have no memory of who was loosely referred to as the 'headliner.'
My only memory of Decatur, Illinois is this tavern.
It didn't have a stage.
To perform I had to climb up onto two tables that had been placed next to each other. I did my best to get and keep the audience's attention, but I lost the battle to the Chicago Cubs. The biggest laugh of the whole night came when I gave up, dropped the microphone, and turned to watch the Cubs with them.
The next night was Rockford, Illinois, and then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were in Appleton, Wisconsin.
I am happy to report that the gigs gradually improved through the week. Appleton was good to me.
The most striking memory of the week for me, though, was the driving; driving through Wisconsin farm country in the Summertime. It was beautiful.
It remains a vision that I can't seem too shake years later.
Sometimes those of us who live in a big city like Los Angeles (or New York or London or Paris or Tokyo or Shanghai) find ourselves feeling a little cocky about being in the middle of something; the eye of the storm; where the action is.
I like to remember another kind of middle; the middle of nowhere - which is really always somewhere.
I have to drive through smalll-town Illinois, and Wisconsin again sometime.
I plan to get out of the car at some small tavern, maybe on a weeknight when a little entertainment might be passing through town.
I plan to sit and have a beer and make a couple of local friends. I plan to celebrate life in the middle of somewhere.
-Peter Wick
January 14, 2014
It didn't feel like a year since my last visit, and I found myself promising a few friends that I would make it back a few times during the coming year.
Seattle is home. L.A. is home. These places I am familiar with.
I found myself thinking, though, about places that I've visited that are definitely not home.
My thoughts traveled back in time to a week of my life that began in Decatur, Illinois and ended in Appleton, Wisconsin.
I was in my 20's and was working a stand-up comedy tour of small-town midwest clubs. I use the word 'clubs' loosely.
The week started on Tuesday, with me driving a rental car south from Chicago into small-town Illinois, for what is still the only time of my life.
Tuesday night's gig was a one-nighter in Decatur. I arrived at the 'club' which was a small local tavern, where the regulars merely tolerated the once-a-week invasion by two stand-up comedians. I was the opening act, and I apologize to whoever followed me; I have no memory of who was loosely referred to as the 'headliner.'
My only memory of Decatur, Illinois is this tavern.
It didn't have a stage.
To perform I had to climb up onto two tables that had been placed next to each other. I did my best to get and keep the audience's attention, but I lost the battle to the Chicago Cubs. The biggest laugh of the whole night came when I gave up, dropped the microphone, and turned to watch the Cubs with them.
The next night was Rockford, Illinois, and then Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were in Appleton, Wisconsin.
I am happy to report that the gigs gradually improved through the week. Appleton was good to me.
The most striking memory of the week for me, though, was the driving; driving through Wisconsin farm country in the Summertime. It was beautiful.
It remains a vision that I can't seem too shake years later.
Sometimes those of us who live in a big city like Los Angeles (or New York or London or Paris or Tokyo or Shanghai) find ourselves feeling a little cocky about being in the middle of something; the eye of the storm; where the action is.
I like to remember another kind of middle; the middle of nowhere - which is really always somewhere.
I have to drive through smalll-town Illinois, and Wisconsin again sometime.
I plan to get out of the car at some small tavern, maybe on a weeknight when a little entertainment might be passing through town.
I plan to sit and have a beer and make a couple of local friends. I plan to celebrate life in the middle of somewhere.
-Peter Wick
January 14, 2014
Friday, November 15, 2013
#20 - The Time Traveler's Guide to the 20th Century
The Time Traveler's Guide to the 20th Century
[Note: This is the opening chapter of a much more comprehensive travel guide. the complete time traveler's guide will be published in approximately 243 years, but it's never too early to sign up on the wait list.]
The 20th century was even more bizarre than you think. It was a preposterous century in which people listened to Mel Torme and The Bee-gees, and blew each other's countries up with alarming regularity.
What's worse is that it didn't have to be this way.
In fact, it wasn't.
The history of the 20th century, everything we have on record, is completely wrong.
Not that the history of the 20th century didn't happen the way it was recorded. It did. It just didn't happen that way when it was actually happening.
Um, let me try to explain this a different way.
Everything we know about the 20th century, all the events that were recorded, are what history was suddenly changed to when a time traveler from the year 2246 landed in Munich, Germany, in 1913 and accidentally altered everything. Her name was Sue Moody, and she committed the one disastrous mistake that all time travelers must avoid; she tripped.
Before she arrived, the 20th century (meaning all 100 years of the 20th century, those before she arrived as well as those after her arrival, if that's not too confusing)unfolded as a quiet but productive time during which war was non-existent. This was no grand scheme. No one worked particularly hard to abolish war. Everyone just suddenly realized, on October 17, 1913 (the day after Sue Moody later arrived) that it was pointless to go around killing people, and that getting drunk was a much better way to spend your time, or making up stories about wrestling wild animals.
The non-existence of war was not the most important difference though, between the real 20th century and the one that it was changed to. In the real 20th century Richard Nixon never became President. In fact he never went into politics. He spent his life working at a church camp in California, where he was in charge of cleaning the shuffle board sticks.
Then sometime in late Spring in the year 2246, Sue Moody turned over the ignition of her solar powered 17-3 Tesla Time-Travel Roadster and set the date for October 16, 1913. she landed in a dark alley in the heart of the city of Munich, walked out to a main street, and tripped over a small child's foot. She fell into a crowd of people, setting off a domino effect which knocked everyone over for a quarter mile. This included Kaiser Wilhelm and his entourage, who had been touring the neighborhood, Vladimir Lenin, who was in town for the holidays (just which holidays we aren't exactly sure), and a 24 year-old gentleman who had just begun growing a funny mustache, and whose friends called him, "Dolphie." He would soon come to prefer the more formal "Adolph," or "Mr. H."
[End note: This is all the author has written at this time. Please check back in a little over 200 years - at which time his writer's block should have worked itself out.]
-Peter Wick
-November 15, 2013
[Note: This is the opening chapter of a much more comprehensive travel guide. the complete time traveler's guide will be published in approximately 243 years, but it's never too early to sign up on the wait list.]
The 20th century was even more bizarre than you think. It was a preposterous century in which people listened to Mel Torme and The Bee-gees, and blew each other's countries up with alarming regularity.
What's worse is that it didn't have to be this way.
In fact, it wasn't.
The history of the 20th century, everything we have on record, is completely wrong.
Not that the history of the 20th century didn't happen the way it was recorded. It did. It just didn't happen that way when it was actually happening.
Um, let me try to explain this a different way.
Everything we know about the 20th century, all the events that were recorded, are what history was suddenly changed to when a time traveler from the year 2246 landed in Munich, Germany, in 1913 and accidentally altered everything. Her name was Sue Moody, and she committed the one disastrous mistake that all time travelers must avoid; she tripped.
Before she arrived, the 20th century (meaning all 100 years of the 20th century, those before she arrived as well as those after her arrival, if that's not too confusing)unfolded as a quiet but productive time during which war was non-existent. This was no grand scheme. No one worked particularly hard to abolish war. Everyone just suddenly realized, on October 17, 1913 (the day after Sue Moody later arrived) that it was pointless to go around killing people, and that getting drunk was a much better way to spend your time, or making up stories about wrestling wild animals.
The non-existence of war was not the most important difference though, between the real 20th century and the one that it was changed to. In the real 20th century Richard Nixon never became President. In fact he never went into politics. He spent his life working at a church camp in California, where he was in charge of cleaning the shuffle board sticks.
Then sometime in late Spring in the year 2246, Sue Moody turned over the ignition of her solar powered 17-3 Tesla Time-Travel Roadster and set the date for October 16, 1913. she landed in a dark alley in the heart of the city of Munich, walked out to a main street, and tripped over a small child's foot. She fell into a crowd of people, setting off a domino effect which knocked everyone over for a quarter mile. This included Kaiser Wilhelm and his entourage, who had been touring the neighborhood, Vladimir Lenin, who was in town for the holidays (just which holidays we aren't exactly sure), and a 24 year-old gentleman who had just begun growing a funny mustache, and whose friends called him, "Dolphie." He would soon come to prefer the more formal "Adolph," or "Mr. H."
[End note: This is all the author has written at this time. Please check back in a little over 200 years - at which time his writer's block should have worked itself out.]
-Peter Wick
-November 15, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
#19. The Peacefulness of The Un-Governed - October, 2013
I have no desire to write a political editorial.
As I write this, though, our government is shut down, and has been for a couple weeks.
While everyone else is clamoring to score points with one argument or another, blaming Republicans, blaming Democrats, I prefer to sit quietly, watch the sunset, and feel the unusual calm of being un-governed.
I have often described my political views by quoting the line from the Groucho Marx song; "Whatever it is, I'm against it."
I think it's a reasonable position to take. It may be the only reasonable position to take on the politics of 2013.
This in no way makes me a Libertarian. I am as firmly against Libertarians as I am against all politicians.
The government shut means that food inspectors are furloughed. Scientists are not getting paid. National Parks are closed. Secret surveillance of our private phone calls has been interrupted.
This is a funny feeling, this state of being un-governed. It's something everyone should experience for a few weeks of their life.
I was reading, this past weekend, about several car-makers' intense desire to manufacture and sell self-driving cars within the next decade.
These cars will deal with traffic, stop for pedestrians, and take you wherever you want to go, all while you sit back and play games on your iPhone.
The stickiest problem these car makers have to solve is; who is responsible when the self-driving car malfunctions, runs up on the sidewalk, causes carnage when it fails to stop at a red light?
The government is getting in on the act. Government regulators will have to determine the safety standards before these machines can take to the road.
The standards will be extremely high. Government safety inspectors are funny people. They don't care what your politics are. they just take safety very seriously.
I think about this whenever I board an airplane. I trust the safety inspectors to have checked my plane thoroughly.
I don't much like government. I don't think the political process should be taken at all seriously, and politicians should always be viewed with suspicion, like mobsters, or salesmen, or CEO's.
So, I am enjoying being un-governed.
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
But I am also against the government being shut down for too much longer.
Being un-governed truly is a peaceful feeling.
It's like that peaceful feeling you have in the airplane, right at that moment you have accepted what's about to happen, seconds before the airplane crashes into the side of the mountain.
-Peter Wick
October 14, 2013
As I write this, though, our government is shut down, and has been for a couple weeks.
While everyone else is clamoring to score points with one argument or another, blaming Republicans, blaming Democrats, I prefer to sit quietly, watch the sunset, and feel the unusual calm of being un-governed.
I have often described my political views by quoting the line from the Groucho Marx song; "Whatever it is, I'm against it."
I think it's a reasonable position to take. It may be the only reasonable position to take on the politics of 2013.
This in no way makes me a Libertarian. I am as firmly against Libertarians as I am against all politicians.
The government shut means that food inspectors are furloughed. Scientists are not getting paid. National Parks are closed. Secret surveillance of our private phone calls has been interrupted.
This is a funny feeling, this state of being un-governed. It's something everyone should experience for a few weeks of their life.
I was reading, this past weekend, about several car-makers' intense desire to manufacture and sell self-driving cars within the next decade.
These cars will deal with traffic, stop for pedestrians, and take you wherever you want to go, all while you sit back and play games on your iPhone.
The stickiest problem these car makers have to solve is; who is responsible when the self-driving car malfunctions, runs up on the sidewalk, causes carnage when it fails to stop at a red light?
The government is getting in on the act. Government regulators will have to determine the safety standards before these machines can take to the road.
The standards will be extremely high. Government safety inspectors are funny people. They don't care what your politics are. they just take safety very seriously.
I think about this whenever I board an airplane. I trust the safety inspectors to have checked my plane thoroughly.
I don't much like government. I don't think the political process should be taken at all seriously, and politicians should always be viewed with suspicion, like mobsters, or salesmen, or CEO's.
So, I am enjoying being un-governed.
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
But I am also against the government being shut down for too much longer.
Being un-governed truly is a peaceful feeling.
It's like that peaceful feeling you have in the airplane, right at that moment you have accepted what's about to happen, seconds before the airplane crashes into the side of the mountain.
-Peter Wick
October 14, 2013
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)