Month: July 2023

Just Shoot Me

Say goodnight, Dick. It’s over. The ship has sailed, the fat lady has sung, etc, etc. I’m out.

Here’s why: The Saga of Me, Chapter 918: The missus, love-of-my-life, brilliant editor, dozed off on page 51 of her first read of my 135-page novel. Dozed off. Zzzzzzzzz…

Okay, that’s it: just shoot me. I just can’t handle this pace. I’m starting to crack. I’m not a patient guy in the first place…

My boss significantly over-uses the phrase “death of a thousand cuts.” Like says it four or five time every day. I feel ya, man!

To fill the time whilst waitin’, I’ve been working on building a database of the historical aircraft in museums here in California. I just wrapped up recording the huuuge collection at the Planes of Fame museum in Chino, finishing with record number 268. That’s a bunch of airplanes so far.

The next museum, if one records them by their home city as I’m doing, appears to be right across the street, and has 190 planes. A HUNDRED AND NINETY?!? That’s like all the work I’ve done so far, and it’s just on one museum!

Just shoot me!

And this is only the data-entry portion of this project. In the next phase, I’ve promised to visit each museum.

How long is THAT going to take? The rest of my life? And I don’t have that much time left!

All seriousness aside, I’m just goofing around. Things take the time that they take, right? I mean, we’re busy folk, she and I. I get it. I get it. I can handle it. I can. Right?

But, I mean, really? The book can’t be that dull…

OMGeezies!!!

The impossible has happened, and I don’t want to jinx it, but, hey, right?

The girl of my dreams. The very love of my life. She’s on Page 29 – yes, 29! of my 135-page manuscript.

What do you mean that sounds short? You’re short!

Anyway, the point is… SHE’S READING IT!!!

And she’s lika-likin’ it!

You’re a writer, you know this feeling. It’s like pins and needles and empty-headed confidence and bravado and you want to go hide in the closet until it’s over.

The thing is, well, it’s been in the “reading phase” for almost two weeks. So that hiding in the closet thing is right out.

But, hey! She’s reading it, and I am soooooooo happy! I can hardly wait to see what she thinks of the chapter that starts on page 29.

I once worked with a wonderful lady, from the lovely town of Oxnard, who used to say “OMGeezies,” when she thought something worthy. Kind of violates the acronym, kinda.

Here’s a piece of useless trivia: the first time OMG was used? 1917! An English admiral wrote it in a letter to Winston Churchill, First Sea Lord at the time. And, to make sure it was understood, the admiral wrote “(Oh My God)” after it.

Watch this space… more to come!

OMGeezies!!!

Researching Madness

Researching madness sounds like a noble cause, doesn’t it? Me? Why I’m researching madness. Except in my case, I’m experiencing researching madness!

You’re a writer. You know how it goes. Before you write that piece, you’d best know what you’re talking about, right?

Whilst waiting and waiting and waiti… wait, some news! My lovely editor/wife said, without my prompting, that she’d read my book THIS WEEK! Granted, that was Sunday evening, after a promise to read it that weekend, and here it is Wednesday and the dust on the cover hasn’t been moved… but, hey, I can hope!

Anyway, I’ve started that Aerospace Museum project by building a database about the many California Air Museums I plan to visit.

Yep, a database. Here’s the museum, here’s their list of aircraft, here’s the history of each one. Ah, the Internet is a wonderful tool. It’s gonna be so cool…

Except, I mean, like, come on, you know? Castle Air Museum has 90 different airplanes. Ninety! OMG, how much can a fellow cut and paste in one lifetime?

Wait, that North American SNJ is the same thing as the North American AT-6, isn’t it? What do I do now? Isn’t the F-4J the same as an F-4? What the hell is a Ryan Navion, for crying out loud?

I’m an airplane nerd, among oh so many other subjects, but, holy cats, this is crazy-making!

So far, I’m on my fifth museum, and I’ve cataloged over 130 aircraft. My head, oh how she spins!

There are only 60 museums to go.

But, when this is done, I’ll have the supreme record of ALL the museum aircraft in California, including their complete histories and other cool stuff.

When I finally go and visit a museum, I’ll be able to point and say “isn’t that a BF-108 Taifun?” and the proprietor will give me an admiring glance and say “why, you are a discerning writer, aren’t you?”

And then it will all be worth it.

And then I’ll say “that’s a nicely restored A-6,” and the proprietor will shake his head sadly and say “that’s an AT-6, you whistlehead,” and I’ll have to leave the museum. Sigh.

And, to be fair, the museum in Boron, CA, away out there in the middle of the desert, has only one airplane. That was pretty easy data entry…

Get Thee to the South Sea

When I was a young man, I was swept away by the movie Mutiny on the Bounty. Not the Mel Gibson one – ew, no. Not the Clark Gable one – I mean, come on, I’m not THAT old.

No, no, it was Marlon Brando as Fletcher Christian and Trevor Howard as the salty Cap’n Bligh. Oh, a good pair those two made.

I tell you this in secret, because it’s kind of embarrassing: I spent the bulk of my days the summer that movie came out way up high in a neighborhood castor bean tree.

I climbed up as high as I could go, and the wind would blow, and the tree would rock, and the leaves would sigh like the open sea, and the sky was so blue, and I went a’sailin’ away towards romance and high adventure in the Great South Sea.

Stupid story. Sadly true.

Anyway, the book Fragile Paradise, written by Glynn Christian, a great, great grandson of Fletcher Christian, revealed that Fletcher Christian bellowed “I am in hell with you, sir!” at Captain Bligh.

“I am in HELL with you, sir!”

Mel Gibson kind of squeaks it out in his version of the story. Fortunately, Brando was spared the opportunity as the book was published after his version on Bounty debuted.

Why are we poring over all this old film rubbish and nonsense, you ask? Because we took my globetrotting daughter to LAX this morning, and drove not once, but twice through Malibu.

I know, Malibu, blah blah blah. But it IS beautiful, and the weather was epically gorgeous, and we spotted not one, but three container ships in the inside channel, laden deep and headed north. Three!

Not one was the converted collier Bethia, purchased by the Royal Navy, and renamed Bounty. But then again, neither seemed to be undergoing a mutiny. See? Never change a ship’s name!

So, our drive up the coast, from Santa Monica, beneath the rugged Pacific Palisades, through Malibu-Barbie Malibu, up into Ventura County, past the ginormous Mugu Rock, and around thorny Point Mugu felt an awful lot like driving alongside the Great South Sea.

Duh. Same ocean.

My book remains unread by that certain someone, the very love of my life, whilst her sister, the one who read it twice and said I had done an amazing job of creating a splendid fairytale, has yet to send me her notes.

Every day, when I get home from work, I rush to the mailbox because maybe today, today is the one. Nope. Just bills and junk mail.

I am in hell with you, sir! Or, well, madame…

The Writer’s Life

For all my days, I’ve wanted to be a writer. To live the writer’s life, and be known as John D Reinhart, the writer.

You’re a writer. You know how it is. You need time to perfect your craft and space to let your ideas unfold. Oh, how cool would it be to live the writer’s life, huh?

So, what exactly IS the writer’s life? How do writer’s live?

Like Hemingway? Fighting in civil wars, bringing down wild fishies, smoking cigars, and drinkin’ hooch in dives?

I don’t smoke, and have to avoid hard liquor because of acid reflux, and I get seasick. And I’m a little old to go fight in a war.

Maybe Dickens up there in his garret? Freezing cold and doped up on laudnum? Gee, that sounds glamorous.

On the Fourth of July, we drove up to the seaside town of Cambria and walked the dogs along Moonstone Beach. My wife-who-still-hasn’t-read-my-book and daughter went tidepooling while the dogs and I ate the cookies I’d brought in my murse… I mean European Man Bag.

As I watched a portly woman in a too-skimpy bikini waddle past, the most amazing feeling overwhelmed me. It wasn’t the lady in the bikini, or the sun on the sea, you know, like heat stroke or something.

Nope. It was much more metaphysical. It felt as if the Universe was telling me that I was supposed to be there at that very moment. That everything was okay. And it felt like the very long road I’ve traveled pointed me right to that time and place. It felt like the Universe was telling me that this life I am living is the right life. The right life.

And then I got it.

Hey, knuckle-nose, you’re LIVING the writer’s life! Duh! Hello? Anybody in there?

YOU are a writer, right? How you live? That’s how writers live.

Did you see the movie Soul? In it someone tells the story about the little fish who swims up to the old fish and says “I’m looking for the ocean,” and the old fish says “you’re in it. This is the ocean,” and the little fish says “nuh uh, this is just water.”

For all my life I thought that some magical curatin would one day open up, and that on that most wonderful day I would finally get to live a writer’s life.

Did you ever see the movie The Odd Couple, with Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau? One of my all-time favorites. In it, those guys are BOTH writers! And they’re just regular guys, like you and me.

Just like you and me. Which means that this, my friend, this is the writer’s life.

Thank you for reading my stuff and taking this journey with me. It really means so much to me.

And, take heart! You’re living the life of a writer!

Mursey, Mursey Me

We’re trendsetters, you and I. We’re writers, creators, pavers of the road forward. We gotta try stuff out and see if it works.

Take, for instance, the murse. The man purse. The European man-bag. Like the line from Madagascar 2: carry your stuff and still look tough.

Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe carried purses. So did the Three Musketeers. They were all fashionable gentlemen of their day.

I work with a bunch of engineers – eggheads the lot of ’em. Not one, zero, not even a percent of one, would ever be caught DEAD with a single-strap backpack. Because it’s a cross-body bag, like ladies wear. Eeeew, icky. Lookit me, I’m a girl!

That’s the mentality that keeps society stalled. The kind of thinking that drives us backwards.

But we’re writers, you and I. Our job is to move the world forward. We can’t leave it to the homophobic eggheads to do it.

In truth, it’s the fold-phone from Samsung that has driven me to the murse. I absolutely love the phone – in fact, I’m writing this post with it.

But it’s heavy – like two cellphones glued together! So heavy that my pants fall down when it’s in the pocket. So I have to carry it.

But the murse carries the phone, and my wallet, and my keys, and some gum, and a couple Granola bars… you know, critical stuff.

I got it from Amazon at a net cost after discounts of about $8. So, for the price of a Happy Meal, I get to be fashion-forward!

I took it with us on our trip up to the trendy beach town of Cambria. While my wife and daughter went tidepooling, the dogs and I sat down and enjoyed a cookie, pulled from the back pocket of my handy-dandy, Uber useful murse!

Icky indeed…