The Cliffs at Etretat

Danny Ocean (George Clooney): And I always confuse Monet and Manet. Now, which one married his mistress?
Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts): Monet.
Danny: Right, and then Manet had syphilis.
Tess: They also painted occasionally.

What to do, what to do? Retirement, week one and a half.

We decided to visit the Monet Exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. We... It was Pat's idea, actually, something about which she was quite enthused. It had drawn excellent reviews. Friends had raved about it. Mid-week, mid-day. Beat the crowds, take our time. 

Of course, why not. What could it hurt, staring at paintings of... He's an impersonator, right?

Her: Impressionist, dear.
Me: Oh.

So, off we went. Since I had no pre-conceived notions of what it would be like, there was no reason to think I'd be disappointed. 

It was fabulous!

The groups embark in fifteen minute intervals, spacing them out just enough. Before entering the exhibit a worker distributes a hand-held self-guided tour. At well-marked points along the way the guest is invited to punch in a number - some for adults and some for kids - that offered information, set the scene for the scenes and gave biographical information, historical contexts and commentary by local experts in geology, botany and painting.

It was fascinating, to view how Monet's gift expressed itself. His painting evolved continually, he toured Europe and along the way tried to capture the essence of what he was seeing. Far from pictures that are virtual photographs, he gives the viewer his...IMPRESSION! That's it.

Drawing up as close as the wary security folks would allow, it was amazing to see brush strokes - a bit of red, some white, a long streak of blue - it was a woman walking the streets of Paris! Parallel green strokes with a broad brush - waves! One painting, the famous water lily scene, changed dimensions the closer one got.

It was breathtaking. A geologist commenting on my little speaker thing said "Etreta's cliffs are white! Yet here we are, the colors representing how the clouds, the air...light...can give them unimaginable hues."

Monet wasn't painting a picture, he was painting feelings, aromas, the ever changing nature of the passage of time. It was almost like he was putting you right there, without beating you over the head with the experience, and letting you imagine it for yourself.

Like a writer might.

My wife is a genius.

Emergency! Everybody to Get from Street!

"Mysterious Drones Spotted in 4 Colorado Counties"

What is it about drones that peaks our interest? The above news story, current as of this morning on FOX 31 in Denver, reports the presence of drone aircraft over...us! Who are they spying on?!

A More Perfect Union

One might conjure up all sorts of theories, at least until the mystery is solved with some bland pronouncement by "officials" that the missions were to map erosion, check electric wires or for training new operators. Boooorrring.

Solved...ha! What if...

That is the stock and trade of a fiction writer. Drones, guns, martial law. Here is a recent review of my novel A More Perfect Union (click on link to purchase):

 "The author presents a very interesting premise about the instantiation of martial law in a portion of the country, and the questions that arise in the individuals tasked to enforce that. The main characters were complex and struggled with the doubts pertaining to their role. But along with that introspection, there was plenty of action to keep you on the edge of your seat. Bonus points for the author's familiarity with firearms and tactics. Well worth the read, and very much comparable to anything published mainstream that I've read in the past couple of years. Definitely deserves a wide audience."

I didn't intend Cici and Kevin to answer the big questions. I meant them to struggle with the down-to-Earth problems faced by human beings placed in difficult situations. All of us who have served in law enforcement have asked ourselves, from time to time, if we are doing the right thing.

Did they?

Turn the Page

Me: It was surreal. Walking out was surreal. I went to the truck and sat there thinking "This is surreal."
Her (grinning): We've established walking out was surreal...
(With apologies to Phil Davis, Mr. Wallace and General Waverly)

It snowed on my first day of retirement...

Probably best to stay away from the melodramatic. This was a day Pat and I had planned for since, well, since we'd met. 

I had dropped off everything but my cell phone, charger cord and key peg. How I still had the key peg, or more appropriately how I could still find the key peg is anyone's guess. I hadn't needed it since December, 2014. But, there it was.

I ran into one of my favorite all time co-workers on his way out. Talented, intelligent and quick witted, he wondered if I needed him to stick around, to escort me out. "So you're not tempted to stop at a computer and fuck something up." I passed - he would have been a co-conspirator, anyway.

Turned in my badge, got my ID card punched to invalidate it and... 

It was surreal. I stopped to say good bye to a man I'd worked with, and for, since 1982. Then, with no fanfare whatsoever, I left.

Pat and I shared a toast, then margaritas at a local restaurant. 

And we began a new chapter in our lives.

Part Perspiration, Part...A Dog Sleeping On My Foot?

“To shift your life in a desired direction, you must powerfully shift your subconscious.”
― Kevin Michel, Moving Through Parallel Worlds To Achieve Your Dreams

The dream was vivid enough to remember upon awakening. We'd been in a running gun battle, my work partner and I. She was young, fair skin and light red hair worn in a pony tail. She had just emerged from field training, inexperienced but ready to mix it up.

We'd responded to a hot call, a... Contractor doing an excavation in the middle of a major intersection, without a permit. They started shooting the moment we arrived.

My partner moved gracefully to cover and returned fire. 

That's about when I woke up. It was just past three AM. Too early to write. Not too early to get up for a drink of water, to make sure I was able to keep the plot line firmly in mind.

Madie Delaney, fresh from field training. Still trying to decide if her academy classes really prepared her for the dangers, the doldrums... A career in law enforcement.

You know who you are out there. Yeah, you folks. I wrote a thousand words today. Are you ready to help me with a new character?

And help me figure out why the hell a construction crew was shooting at the cops over a permit dispute.

A Most Boring Art

After my first semester in law school, I'm seriously considering suing Santa for breaking and entering. I hate the holidays...

The victim is always someone still attractive in death, and maybe had a sympathetic life story. Single, uses a dating service. Ends up on a floor, a white chalk line around her, eyes skyward. Rope around her neck. Detective Karen Sorenson stands over the body, a crime scene photographer snapping a few frames, using a little scale he puts next to the silk fabric of the recently deceased's plum-colored nightgown.

"Oh, that's something you don't see every day," the crime scene guy mutters under his breath. Click. Click.

"What, the positioning of the body?" Karen asks.

"No. She's been strangled with an Anderson and Owens guitar string. Looks like the low E. They are made in Bakersfield, California. Buck Owens started the company when he invented the Bakersfield sound. Hard to get, maybe one shop in town carries them."

Karen and her partner exchange a glance...

And, we're off.

I could start a novel like that. In fact... But, do you know how I'd never get one going?

Law porn.

One of the hardest, and most boring, things to teach recruit police officers in the academy is how to read law, and apply it. Seriously - something they will do every day of their career, and it's amazingly agonizing to teach. Why? Because people are not conditioned to think the way they have to learn to think.

The above is a murder, right? Eventually Karen will find the suspect gigging at some coffeehouse near the local college, trolling for his next victim. Halfway through a rendition of "Guitars, Cadillacs" the foot chase is on. The guy is cornered, the monologging begins...

But, there is no chance - I mean NO CHANCE - Karen and her partner will be described engaging in the most elemental part of their investigation. To wit:

What statute applies, what are the material elements, and what evidence proves each and every element beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yet, for each new officer, it is imperative to learn to read law and apply it. Let's use an example from an introductory class I teach.

Jim and Pat have visited their retirement counsellor, who has told them they will have to supplement their income with a side job. Jim says "I have guns, you can drive. Let's go rob the local Sevie." Pat agrees, and drives Jim down to the 7/11. Gun in his pocket, Jim enters the store, but - SQUIRREL - is distracted by the cookie dough treats in the freezer section. He forgets (because he's old) to rob the store and leaves with his dessert. What crime have Jim and Pat committed?

Most of the recruits will blurt out "Attempted Robbery." When asked to support that legal theory, I get the most interesting variations on the puppy dog look. Big, round eyes, head cocked. Puzzled.

It is a skill that does not come intuitively to anyone. Through painful repetition, we work through most of the Academy to get them thinking like a street cop - identify the issue, apply the law, make a decision. It is painfully mundane, so much so that you will never...okay, I guess rarely...catch me writing Karen analyzing a statute.

It's what she really does for a living. It's what all of us really do for a living.

Serenade to the Big Bird*

“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.”
― Charles Bukowski 

The Collings Foundation's Boeing B-17 "Nine-O-Nine" crashed this week in Connecticut, killing seven individuals, including both pilots. It had been built in 1944, purchased in the 80s by Collings and had flown many thousands of hours, on tour as a reminder of the service rendered by air crews during WWII.

Little concrete information is available. A video clip posted on YouTube contains a radio transmission from the aircraft moments after takeoff. The pilots reported engine difficulties and were returning to land. According to an NTSB briefing, the aircraft landed about one thousand feet short of the runway threshold, shearing off a number of approach lights. The aircraft struck a deicing facility and was partially consumed in a post-crash fire.

****

My family and I, while residing in Syracuse, NY, went with my parents to the then-fledgling aviation museum in Geneseo, south of Rochester. There were half a dozen types, including a work-in-progress B-17. The grounds were open to anyone wanting to visit.

We walked up to the side of their Flying Fortress, painted a dark green. Many of its windows were covered with temporary plastic sheets. It was beautiful.

By and by, we were asked to give the craft a little room. Several men boarded, one of whom opened the left side cockpit window. An exchange of curt comments with ground crew and the propeller of the left-most engine began to turn. The radial engine coughed intermittently, seeming reluctant to stir from a sound sleep. Eventually it assumed the rumble of a magnificently-tuned powerplant, followed in close order by the other three. 

We were, at most, a hundred feet from the airplane. Once the motors were warm, the crew satisfied, she waddled to the end of the grass runway. Pausing for only a moment, the aircraft started forward. She flew directly overhead, the rumble so distinctive that someone who had even a passing interest in vintage aircraft would say - "B-17."

What must it have been like, to be at an airbase in England in the 1940s, watching as hundreds of these airplanes took off for missions on the European continent? They went aloft to uncertain futures, some of them never to return. Each carried ten men... Men. Most of the time, the aircraft commander was the oldest member of the crew...at 22 or 23. Many of the guys in back were teenagers. They did what had to be done, suffered and sacrificed together, and came home to their families when the peace they'd help win was restored.

Why do these airplanes continue to fly? To remember. We mourn the loss of life in Connecticut this week, wishing only peace and comfort to the families and friends left behind. The lost will never be forgotten, especially when The Big Bird passes overhead.


*Bert Stiles enlisted in the Army in 1942 while attending Colorado College. He flew thirty-five missions as a B-17 co-pilot, requested a transfer to fighters instead of rotating home and was killed flying a P-51 Mustang. He was 23 years old. He is buried near Liege, Belgium. His mother discovered the manuscript for Serenade to the Big Bird after his death, and had it published. It is commonly regarded as one of the finest accounts of the air war over Germany during World War Two.

Let's Go Cruise Wegman's

"I know it's two AM, but ain't ya still my friend?
It's so hard to get you off my mind.
I just had to hear you one more time."
Bat McGrath, Blue Eagle, From The Blue Eagle (1976)

Noting the passing of singer-songwriter Bat McGrath.

You've probably never heard of him. Maybe you've never heard any of his songs. Maybe you don't know that he was one of Rochester, NY's prodigal sons. That's totally okay.

Back in the 70s it was Chuck Mangione, Don Potter, the Rochester Philharmonic and Bat McGrath. They made a Grammy-nominated record, played to packed houses and crafted a unique, unmistakable sound instantly recognizable across the years.

His songs were catchy, ingenious. Anyone living in Western NY could instantly understand time, place and manner. He's at a red-neck bar called The Blue Eagle, on a pay phone with an ex-girlfriend he can't get off his mind. He's bored - let's go check out the counter girls at Wegman's: they're open all night. Let's go find a beach along the western coast of Florida, because "There ain't no stoned out hippies mauling you."

From The Blue Eagle was released about the time I was preparing to chase a few dreams into Colorado. It didn't go according to plan, initially. I felt alone and abandoned, scraping together a meager living, trying to maintain the most precarious of toe holds, living in a rooming house and delivering pizza in the DU area into the wee hours. Uncertainty a constant companion, I plied my trade in an old Chevy Impala my cousin had nicknamed "The Gold Ghost."

And, didn't I see a familiar poster in a record store window one night, an album cover - back when they were an art form - of Bat McGrath. "Yeah, it's me. I'm at The Blue Eagle." Man, I knew the feeling.

He  wanted to write music and live on a farm, his wife commented. He got to do both. I wanted to make a life in Colorado, have some kids and find a calling. Check.

Didn't we both get what we came for, after all.