The Great Hype Fright

Last night was my first midnight drive in a very long time–from before I was laid off from The Hole of Doom.  It was a very cloudy and cool night, which is what you’d expect with the moon waning towards new.

I was tried, and no one traveled with me to work out plots and stories and the like.  The night didn’t feel like one for creative processing, and so my mind was on other things.  And with that, my mind turned back to something I hadn’t thought about in a very long time . . .

The year was 1985, and I was working in South Bend.  I was driving sixty-five miles to get to work, and for have the year the company was in the eastern time zone, which mean it was a hour ahead of me.  I had a woman for a boss (first time for that) who was a very good boss, and there was a strange collection of people working in IT.

There was Mr. Super Patriot, who had done his time in the Air Force, was Republican to the core, and talked about all the guns he owned.  There was PC Guy who was some kind of fundamentalist dude who believed in six thousand year old Earths and Noah’s Ark.  And there was, lastly, The King of Bullshit.

The King was a consultant, some guy in his 50′s who knew everything, knew everyone, and who would always argue you down with the phrase, “I could tell you what I know about this, but I can’t, ’cause it’s secret.”  Yes, the mantra of every person who’s ever done work in, or for, the government, and though they know The Secrets of the Universe, they’re unable to do any work short of becoming a consultant in the computer field.  (Come to think of it, I’ve know four people like this.  Hummmm . . .)

One day a group of us was gathered around The King of Bullshit’s cubical, talking about something, I don’t remember the exact conversation after all these years.  It was then he pulled out one of the most incredible statements I’ve ever heard anyone utter as fact:  that there were a dozen astronauts flying around the galaxy in a Bussard Ramjet, exploring “the universe”, and that they’d come back home in five hundred years only about five years older.

For those who didn’t click on the link above–and I know that’s most of you–a Bussard Ramjet is a hypothetical sort of space ship that uses a huge magnetic scoop to gather hydrogen from the interstellar medium, and turn into fuel for its fusion engine.  In a way, it would be like having a car that could scoop petrel out of the air, so you’d never need worry about filling up again.  (It would also make rain showers real interesting, if you know what I mean.)

Only one problem:  the Bussard Ramjet is found only in the realm of fantasy.  We can’t build anything like that, at least not for a few hundred years.  You’ll find them in a lot of Larry Niven’s Known Space stories, and in Poul Anderson’s novel Tau Zero, but you won’t see one in your life time.  Ever.

The problem was I knew this, even then.  This wasn’t an unknown concept for me, and I knew it to be completely fictional.  So I called him on it.  I said that’s impossible, Bussard Ramjets don’t exist, so there are no people flying “through the galaxy,” going where no one has gone before, set to return in five hundred years . . .

The King got very pissed, because none of the other people believed me, they thought for sure he was telling the truth.  He called me out in return, saying he knew this was a fact, that it had launched ten years before, because he’d been at Cape Canaveral when it was launched . . .

I had to call him out again.  The Bussard Ramjet is a huge ship, and it’s not one deigned for flight anywhere save space.  That meant (1) you couldn’t launch it from the surface of any plant, (2) you’d have to build it in space, (3) he was full of shit.  I once more told him that was nuts, that sort of ship is, as a minimum, ten times larger than a Saturn V, and since you couldn’t “secret launch” one of those monsters, one sure as hell wasn’t going to “secret launch” something that was bigger.

At this point The King of Bullshit just affixed me with a pissed-off stare, and told me, “You have no idea what’s going on.  If you knew what I know–”

Right, dude.  What I did know then was if you cut out of work on a Friday afternoon, about one PM, but leave your monitor on so people will think you’re still working, and that you’ve just stepped away from your desk for a moment, you’re gonna get caught and fired–which is what eventually happened to The King of Bullshit.

What is the point of this rant?

For a long time one of my mantras has been, “Don’t believe the hype.”  When someone starts going on about anything with a certain amount of hyperbole, it’s always best to turned a jaundiced eye to their comments.  I’ve done the same thing in the past, but I’ve gotten better about throwing things out there without thinking about where it sits on the Hype Meter.

Hype also works against you at times.  I’m trying to break into the writing business in a full-time way, everyone knows that.  Problem is, breaking into the writing business is a tough thing to do.  It takes a butt-load of work, and the payoff may be very slow in coming.

It also seems that there’s something printed every week that is there to remind us that, not only is it a hard thing to break into, it’s getting harder.  It’s a big, hard, uphill battle, and everything is stacked against you–or so it seems.  It’s like the Hype Machine goes out of its way to knock your ass into the dirt, then stand over you laughing its evil laugh as you grovel.

Not a lot of fun, let me tell you.

So more than a few people just give the hell up, often going out screaming on Facebook that they’ve HAD IT, that they AREN’T WRITING ANYMORE, and that their DREAM IS OVER!  (Or is that “ovar”?  I can never get that one right.)

I’ve said it before:  the only one who kills your dreams is you.  Not that guy over there, not that publisher who gave you stink eye, not The King of Bullshit who knows things, and if only he could tell you . . .

The best way to combat hype is with facts, and when someone gives you shit, hit back with the facts.  And I mean well founded, researched facts, not the sort of facts you’re going to find on Fox “News” any particular minute of the day.  Someone says you suck as a writer?  Get others to read your manuscript, see what they say.  One house rejects you?  Send out the story again.  People don’t like your idea?  Screw them:  it’s yours!  Who asked them anyway?

Hype is never your friend, so you shouldn’t ever let it bother you.  I know that’s not possible, because we’re not automatons, we’re people, and our feelings get twisted by others who have the facts, who know things.  Only thing to do is get into your research, keep working, and keep writing.  If it’s going to happen, it will.

As for The King of Bullshit . . . I’m sure he’d dead by now, as he was in his late fifties back in ’85, and the dude wasn’t in the best of health then.  If he’s not dead, it’s even money he’s some cranky old man missing everything cool while he bitches about all the people who don’t know what he knows.

Here’s one thing I do know, dude.  There’s been a bit of research done on your Ramjet since you told me this story almost thirty years ago, and what did scientist find?  That the Bussard Ramjet is affected by drag caused by the interstellar medium.  (Don’t ever let anyone tell you space is empty, ‘kay?)  That means it has a top speed, which is . . .

Twelve percent the speed of light.

That means in a flat out run to Alpha Centauri, the sorta closest star to us, your ship that’s going to spend five hundred years exploring the galaxy will get there in . . . 36 years, give or take a few months to get up to speed; longer if you decide to slow down and take a look.  I’m pretty good with math, and I know twelve percent the speed of light does not allow relativity to raise its ugly head, so time dilation does not come into play.

I’m not bad with math, so let me see:  if this crew was, say, 35 when they left Earth, that would mean when they get to the closest star they’ll be . . . add six, carry the one . . . at least 71, maybe 72.  Which means when they come back they’ll be . . . add nothing, carry the nothing . . . dead.

Wasn’t it nice of me to share my top secret knowledge with you?

Roundabout Gibberish

Nothing starts off your day like waking up to the memories of dealing with idiots from the night before.

Let me tell you, I have this idea for a movie:  Thirty Going on 13!  The story of a woman who doesn’t work and still lives with her mother, and apparently hasn’t had an original idea in her head for most of her life, who likes to take to social media to throw out random shit with this hope it will stick among the few friends she has, and who–upon the moment someone dare question her incredible assertions–begins screaming that she’s being ATTACKED, and that you’re MEAN, and finally, she tells you she doesn’t have to tell you ANYTHING about why she believes what she says she does, I don’t want to talk to you any more, you’re always mean–

And then deletes her entire, foaming at the mouth, oh-I’m-sorry-I-called-you-a-lazy-government-soaking-bum-which-isn’t-the-same-as-me-’cause-I-still-live-at-home-with-mommy-forgive-me-I-say-bad-things-when-I-get-angry, batshit insane tirade of a post, because once it’s down The Memory Hole, it never existed, right?

Good thing they’re a writer (I should put that in quotes, but that’s being mean), ’cause that just means they’ll have time to work on getting that drinking at 8 AM routine, so they can damn everyone else who has done something worthwhile and pass out at three in the afternoon, secure in their knowledge that once they scamper back to the computer at 10 PM, they can get on and Post While Shitfaced, and find the few friends that remain who do enjoy listing to her Crazy Cat Lady polemic.

Seriously, there are enough negative vibrations floating about my life that I should know better than to get suckered into hair-pulling scree that are the 21^st Century equivalent of standing upon a soap box in the local park, and going on about the mind control chemicals hidden in fluidized water, and if you continue allowing your children to drink said water, eventually they’ll turn into teenagers and–Gasp!–start talking back to you!  Facebook should have a button that says, “I’m Now Writing On Toilet Paper With Crayons!”, which would warn some of us that we aren’t going to engage with people who are interested in honest debate–we are dealing with fools who piss themselves at the slightest disturbance of their sheltered lives.

Enough.  Time to move on.

Well, almost . . . the problem here is one that Isaac Asimov pointed out some time ago.  Let him speak his case in his own words:

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge”.

I am nowhere near The Good Doctor’s intellectual equal.  I do my best to stay informed, find out what’s being said on both side of the issue, and make up my mind using the available facts.  I may not always be on the correct side of opinion, but I’ll do my damnedest to support my side of an argument.

But for many people, like The Lead Paint Eater from last night, they seem to believe that the Sagan Standard doesn’t apply to them, that they are able to voice the most extraordinary claims without having a shred of evidence to back them up.  To paraphrase Harlan Ellison, this is the Clarion Cry of the Yahoo, the person who doesn’t care if you don’t like what they have to say, they going to damn well say it, because it’s what they believe to be the truth–and if you try to bring facts to the discussion, they’ll cry foul and accuse you of everything from genocide to forced sex with their goldfish.

Really, the train wreck aspects of watching an ass like this crash and burn in spectacular fashion is far outweighed by their ignorant, petulant, and at times borderline-racist screaming on any shiny thing that happens to catch their attention for the moment.  It’s not worth the hassle; it’s not worth allowing one’s brain cells to witness such a calamity, and to anguish over whether the choices available are fight, flight, or shotgunning Drano in order to end this exposure to terminal stupidity and bring about the peace of sweet, sweet death.

One should learn from their mistakes.  I have from mine.

At least until next time.

Damn.  I should stick to writing novels, you know?

Silk or Slime

Today is one of those strange days for me.  I awoke with the next scene of my erotic story fresh in my head, which is nothing unusual for me; quite often I come out of a half-sleep like state feeling as if I’m in a dream and during those times it’s as if I’m having a vision.  I’ve had this happen in ways that’s very lovely, and in other ways that leave me lying in bed moments later going, “What the hell just happened?”

My Trusty Editor^tm read over the first scene and was impressed.  It’s good to get the reaction you set out to get, and I wasn’t disappointed.  And it’s reactions of that nature that make me want to keep on writing.  That’s probably what today’s little vision in my brain meant to me: here it is, you need to take this and put it in your computer.  Or on your Seagate.  Or some damn place where electronic media is kept.

So today I should continue with the story . . . or will I?  That’s the strange part.  I’ve got all this stuff going on in my head, but the inclination to write–it keeps jumping away from me, just staying out of reach like a coy lover playing hard to get.  Oh, muse: why do you tease me so?  Why don’t you come sit in my lap and get comfortable?  Why not shower me with your sexiness?

Maybe my muse is waiting for me to burn some worthless asshole down . . ..

Just to warn people–I’m gonna rant.  So if you wanna bail, feel free to do so.

That said, onward–

If you read the thoughts that leak from my mind you’ll have gathered that I don’t deal very well with stupid people.  And by “stupid” I don’t necessarily mean people with meager intelligence, though they usually get on my nerves simply by showing their ignorance far too many times.

And in my time I’ve run into my share of these individuals.  Most of the time it’s a quick encounter and there’s little pain.  Other times shit drags on for far too long and the experience stays with me, festering like a batch of bad brew in your bathtub.

I’ve run into a few of these people while gaming.  The majority of gamers are great people, but I have encounters a fair share of bullies, liars and all-around assholes.  And every so often you run into someone who so completely fits the description of “complete psycho bitch” that you wonder why no one has ever published a paper on said person in a psychiatric journal.

I encountered one of the later a few months ago.  She ran a role playing board that I was on for a while, and when someone I knew left their board because said Complete Psycho Bitch (hereon known as CPB) went off on this person I knew one too many times, I left with them.  Because of this snubbing of said CPB we were both given the Ban Hammer of the Gods, which when all in life is considered isn’t that huge a deal.

Now, yes: I will cop to the fact that I have returned to their board every so often and acted the part of a pestering asshole.  Why?  Because CPB doesn’t understand that someone with 25+ years in IT knows how to spoof their Ban Hammers and set up various characters on their board under assumed names.  So every once in a while I’ll go in and poke the hornet’s nest just to see what flies out, and the last time I did that some of the players on the board wondered who I was and what I’d sort of character I’d had on the prior incarnation of their current board, which led to CPB going into a complete mental meltdown and ban access to her C-Box to all by those who were members–

So I have laid off poking the nest more because, hey, I had my fun.

But last night I decide to check out their C-Box because I can (old age and treachery beats CPBs all the time) and discovered a comment.  Rather than paraphrase it, I’ll just give you the full cut & paste version CPB thinks I can’t see:

 

15 Sep 11, 09:45 PM

Jill: Nothing he (this would be me) is saying is true plot info, he’s just trying to stir up crap because he’s friends with someone who isn’t smart enough to like me. 

 

And this is where I get pissed off.

You see, “someone who isn’t smart enough to like me” is my friend who was treated like something sub-human and treated to rants that would make Child Services come and remove your kids if you had any.  Of course what CPB–and for the hell of it, lets call her Jill, shall we, since that is her name . . . what Psycho Jill forgets is that this ”someone who isn’t smart enough to like me” ran three of her prior boards because Psycho Jill (or Jilly Beans, I just can’t figure out what to call her today) has all the impulse control and emotional stability of a 6 year old with ADHD who’s consumed an entire container of cake frosting, and dealing with anyone other than the voices in her head telling her that everyone is out to get her was just too damn hard.

I know you’ll never see this post, Psycho Jill, but then again maybe you will.  So let me ask you: did you ever pay back people who you’ve conned into buying you cosmetics and Facebook ads?  Did you ban someone because their boyfriend was an older guy and you just couldn’t deal with that, or were you pissed off because she simply stop kissing your ass and you cast her to the same dust bin you do everyone else who grows tired of eating your shit?

And as a GM with 20+ years, can I ask: why didn’t you want my help with your board?  Afraid I knew my shit just a little too well and I’d make you look bad?  I mean, I know your ego is made of rice paper, Psycho Jill, and the idea that someone knows more than you is just a little too hard to take . . . is that why, on your last board, you deleted my posts where I called your ass out on something and said you were wrong?  Or was it something more personal?  I mean, it’s not like I said you’re a petty gamer who only wants to RP with certain people and that you create new characters on a whim because you simply not bright enough to develop an old one properly, right?

What I will say, Psycho Jill, is that you’re a resident at the bottom of Sturgeon’s Revelation; I will say you are an oxygen thief; I will say you are a scummy little user who has totally bought into her own bullshit, who casts aside people as soon as you realize they are no longer into your game, who shows nothing but disrespect to those same people even as you drain them of everything (notice I didn’t say she was “disrespecting” people, because that’s not a real word and I don’t roll that way, motherfuckers).

And the person ”who isn’t smart enough to like me”–  She’s was your friend, and when you realized she wasn’t playing your game anymore you shit all over her.  Only problem is–she’s also my friend, and when you turn on my friends, you turn on me–

And you never want to turn on me, Jilly Beans.

Jill, you are one of the Worst Individuals I’ve ever had the misfortune of encountering.  And one day the Karma Train is gonna pull into your station and the day that happens is the day all Hell breaks loose in your cozy little corner of the world.

And I will sit back and laugh.

Oh, and I’ll likely write you into a few of my stories whenever I need a CPB.  Hope you don’t mind, ’cause I know I don’t.

Look, I know you’re never going to see this, Psycho Jill, but I don’t care.  I needed to vent, and venting is always good.

And I’m all about feeling good.