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Making A Difference

Sometimes when you think you're making a positive difference in the world you find out that you're not making any difference at all.

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Providence: the Evermore Trilogy concludes

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Science Fiction for Thinkers Online

This past week I went back to WordPress and put up a site blog for my official website. For me, blogging at WordPress is like wading through a muddy field without boots on and finding more mud on the other side of the field. But at least I'm not in the same spot. Besides, Science Fiction for Thinkers.com needed a site blog and putting up a blog at Webs.com is like wading through quicksand without boots on and finding nothing to grab a hold of while you're sinking.

On the other hand, blogging at Blogger is like a walk in the park. Whenever you have to wade through some mud at Blogger, it's not very deep, and when you get to the other side it's almost always a field of clover worth rolling in. But this Thinker's Corner blog post is really about Science Fiction for Thinkers Online, the brand-new official site blog of Science Fiction for Thinkers.com.

Science Fiction for Thinkers Online
The official site blog of Science Fiction for Thinkers.com

Time and Time Again: the Evermore Trilogy continues

Evermore: the Evermore Trilogy begins

How I Grew My Horns

Hell, I should have known. And I should have known better, too. Of course, that means nothing to most of you, so let me explain how I recently morphed into the creature pictured on your left. My growing horns over the past few years is mostly due to my absolute exasperation with certain people who are contacting me because I'm an author who can do something for them or because they feel nasty and feel like targeting me.

First, a little background. I damned near killed myself to take care of my elderly mother for the past 15 years, helping her through the aging widow process, making sure that she's cared for by family and not strangers. Seeing her through the cane stage, then the walker stage and now the wheelchair stage. And, on top of that, I still found the time to take care of a four-bedroom house and a four-acre lawn, write eight books, ten blogs and an online monthly newsletter, and maintain three websites. No wonder I feel like I'm 80 instead of 59.

But that's nothing compared to the nightmare of having people from my past, in addition to perfect strangers, contacting me because they "accidentally stumbled' upon my website or ran across my website when they were actually looking for something else. And, now that they've found me, they want something from me. But it's not my books.

Do you people really think for one minute that telling me you ran across my website by accident is somehow going to make me feel better about myself? Are you so stupid and so self-centered that you would actually believe that I'm just tickled to death that you've contacted me for your own personal reasons and not because you found my books online or you liked my wesbite or that you actually read one of my books and want to tell me "good job"? Take a good hard look at yourself. Listen to yourself. Take a big step back and take a hard look at what you've just done.

That's right, people are now coming out of the woodwork to contact me and not because I'm a science fiction author but to ask for my help with something else. Not to talk about my writing. Not to express interest in reading what I've written since 2002. What they want from me has nothing to do with their interest in being a reader or part of a following or a fan of any kind. It's all about them.

One guy who heard about me emailed me and then called me up. Did he want to compliment me for being a local author? No. Did he want to buy my books? No. He wanted me to copy my ebooks onto a CD-R for him — for FREE — and send them to him at my expense so he could study my writing style and then write science fiction of his own, based on my writing style. And what did Mike the Fool do? I helped him by directing him to places on the web where he could get set up for writing, networking and publishing. I'd bet a C-note that he's never read a single thing I've written to this day because he was too cheap to buy one of my books. And, Jesus no, I didn't send him any free CD-Rs with my books on them. I told him to never contact me again.

Then there's the woman from my past who emailed me to tell me that she "stumbled upon my website" one day and was surprised as hell to find out that I was a science fiction author. Did she say anthing nice about that, anything interesting about me or my books? No. All she wanted to say was that she guessed she didn't know me as well as she thought she did. And that was that.

There was the couple from France who emailed me just to tell me two things and one of them was that they didn't like science fiction. Hmmm. That's pretty low. They could have just ignored me altogether. But then a lot of us Americans know that most French people want us dead. I'd bet a million bucks that France's reputation with most Americans is not so great, either, and that any straw poll would show that we'd let them be occupied again by just abut anybody instead of saving their asses for the third time, just to be despised. And they think we're the bad guys.

I always wanted to visit France before I died. But not now. I'd rather go to Las Vegas and lose my shirt. And I fucking loathe Vegas. The second thing this French couple wanted to tell me was that they were delighted by the way I made fun of myself in my now-defunct online newsletter, The Pluto Observer. They found it hard to believe that an American would do such a thing. Well, hell, making fun of myself is part of who I am as a humorist but what I couldn't understand is where in the hell have these people been? I guess they never heard our stand-up comics or watched The Three Stooges or Bugs Bunny or read Mark Twain. Well, that sin of omission is on them.

And now another woman from my past, who was using the search engines to find out about gas drilling in this area and who "ran across your website by accident" in the process, emailed me to ask me if I "was involved" in the 11:11 phenomenon. Did she say something complimentary about my being an author or suggest shock or surprise? Nope. She's one of those countless neurotics who are are caught up in the 11:11 phenomenon and all she wanted was for me to make her feel better somehow about being "freaked out" by the 11:11 thing. But I'd never even heard of 11:11 until I read her email.

Did I help her? You bet I did. Sure thing. Because I'm a nice guy who automatically helps people without even thinking about it. Did she thank me? No. Did she express an interest in my science fiction? Absolutely not. Her contacting me, just like all the other people, was all about her. After I basically told her to forget about 11:11 because it was probably nonsense and, if it wasn't, it was bad news that people can avoid by making a choice not to pay any attention to it. It's as simple as that. Then I used one of my fictitious online  characters, Fred Fortune, to poke fun at the 11:11 craze, to make people think and laugh about it. That's what I do best.

So, I got to thinking about what a sap I've been. What a fuckin' chump.

Mr. Nice Guy. You bet I was. Up until and including yesterday. But starting today and from now on, all you people are going to see from me is a bull you won't want to take by the horns if you even DARE to contact me about anything else except my writing. I've had it with you goddamn fucking selfish assholes.

The 11:11 phenomenon is probably just bullshit, just like Y2K was and just like 2012 will probably be. Who can say and who fucking cares? But I secretly hope that it's all very real. I hope alien hordes that look like armies of bugs and lizards come in droves and eat you bastards alive. I only wish I could hear your fucking, selfish, worthless screams when they do.

Now fuck off. Or take the bull by the horns at your own risk. But if you do, Jesus Christ All-Goddamn-Fucking-Mighty you'll wish you hadn't. Now, is this honest and personal enough for you nosy web surfers?

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A Sucker for Motown

When I was in Junior High School and then Senior High School a lot of the popular music that appealed to me came out of Detroit. The people who made it were part of Motown Record Corporation, a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Motown was founded in 1960, the pop-music brainchild of Berry Gordy, a talented and visionary music producer.

I really liked the idea that Motown, now headquartered in New York City, came from Detroit where most of our automobiles were made back then and not from some distant world like Los Angeles. In my opinion, Motown is as much an American musical treasure as Jazz, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, Blues, Country & Western, Folk, Rockabilly and Rock and Roll.

Motown music was a celebration of life and a pleasant, uplifting diversion from the roller coaster ride of being young. In addition to that, Motown fed the romantic spirit of people of all ages. I loved the "big", exciting sound of Motown's brand of Rhythm & Blues and Soul. Listening to Motown was an unfailingly upbeat and positive experience. I'm not a music expert and I'll never claim to be one. I'm a music lover and there's hardly any type of music that I don't like something from.

With Motown, I liked almost all of it. Whenever I felt bad, turning on my transistor AM radio at night and catching some Motown tunes always made me feel better. My favorite radio stations back then were WABC New York, WBZ Boston, WLS Chicago and CKLW Windsor, Ontario. Even though Motown produced records beyond the 1960s, my favorite Motown sound came from the Sixties Decade. These 25 songs are my tribute to the music and the magic of Motown Records and its many talented artists. Thanks, YouTube posters, for keeping this music alive.

1. Money — Barrett Strong (actually released in 1959)

2. Shop Around — The Miracles (1960)

3. Wonderful World — Sam Cooke (1960)

4. Mama Said — The Shirelles (1961)

5. Please Mr. Postman — The Marvelettes (1961)

6. Beechwood4-5789 — The Marvelettes (1962)

7. Do You Love Me — The Contours (1962)

8. The One Who Really Loves you — Mary Wells (1962)

9. Be My Baby — The Ronettes (1963)

10. Heat Wave — Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (1963)

11. Baby I Need Your Loving — The Four Tops (1964)

12. Come See About Me — The Supremes (1964)

13. Dancing in the Street — Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (1964)

14. My Girl — The Temptations (1964)

15. My Guy — Mary Wells (1964)

16. Needle In A Haystack — The Velvelettes (1964)

17. Where Did Our Love Go — The Supremes (1964)

18. I Can't Help Myself — The Four Tops (1965)

19. Nowhere to Run — Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (1965)

20. Shotgun — Jr. Walker And the All Stars (1965)

21. Heaven Must Have Sent You — The Elgins (1966)

22. This Old Heart Of Mine — Isley Brothers (1966)

23. You Can't Hurry Love — The Supremes (1966)

24. Jimmy Mack — Martha Reeves and the Vandellas (1967)

25. I Heard It Through The Grapevine — Gladys Knight & The Pips (1968) — 1967 is the date it was recorded

The Critics Have Spoken

What About Mike?

As I write this posting, I'm thinking about that movie where Bill Murray drives Richard Dreyfuss crazy. I've been a big Bill Murray fan ever since Saturday Night Live's 1970's Golden Era. And I've never liked Richard Dreyfuss, so I liked seeing Bill Murray drive him nuts. Shrinks are quacks, anyway, and they get away with murder.

Getting back on track, the movie title "What About Bob?" makes me think that it really means, What the hell are we going to do with this son-of-a-bitch? And, that makes me think of one day in my life, about ten years ago, when I was taking a nap and just nodding off and I heard someone talking to someone else about me. They were probably a couple of those celestial overlord Mengele types, you know, the kind that kidnap kids and vivisect them on their evil starships just to see how loud they can scream and then put them back on their bikes and call it a day. You know the type.

Anyway, this one creepy celestial voice said, What are we going to do with him? Well, they don't get to do anything with me anymore because I'm a grownup man now who will kill them outright, just for being around me, and not some helpless nine-year-old with the strength of a fly to fight them off in vain. People in flying saucers ought to be shot down, anyway, just for being people who fly around in flying saucers. Let them hop a plane like the rest of us.

Anyway, to make a long, boring story a little less long and boring, while these celestial shit smears are still thinking of a way to jettison this old man that they abused as a child, they can find me at Michael Casher on about.me. They'd just find me anyway, so what the hell's the difference?

Celestials Hard At Play

No good deed ever goes unpunished on planet Earth. Like taking care of your elderly mother for the past 16 years. Imagine my surprise when I finally found out that, not only is the world punishing me for caring enough about my mother to want to take care of her at home in her old age, the celestial powers-that-be are also making me pay for my care giving. That's right, the "real" gods. The spoiled Trulane "gods" of this universe (watch the Star Trek episode The Squire of Gothos if you don't get it) who wander the cosmos in search of toys to play with and life forms to abuse. Here's a "fun" human toy story for you.

In November 2009 my mother went into convulsions on our living room couch (and then she went into a coma at the hospital for two days) from a severe gall bladder attack and I had to call 9-1-1. With a cordless phone in one hand and holding my mother with my other arm we waited 45 Freakin Minutes! until the ambulance finally arrived. But it wasn't the Snow Shoe EMS, only a mile away, it was the Bellefonte EMS. After they knocked over most of the furniture in our living room, they finally got Mom out the door and into the ambulance. And, all during this time, a paramedic from Mt. Nittany Medical Center, who came in a separate vehicle and who would, no doubt, bill her separately, watched and chewed on a toothpick. The dumb son-of-bitch did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Where was Snow Shoe EMS when we needed them? If they'd gotten here in ten or fifteen minutes instead of Bellefonte EMS from 16 Freakin Miles Away! maybe my Mom wouldn't be in a wheelchair today. The only reason they arrived here at all is because I caught them going the wrong way (heading out of town toward Clarence) and I told the 9-1-1 operator that I was now flashing my driveway flood lights for them to see. Then I ran back into the living room to hold Mom and keep talking into the cordless phone. Finally, after 45 Freakin Minutes! (from when I called 9-1-1 to the arrival of EMS at the house), the ambulance arrived.

Wait. It gets worse. The Celestial bastards were just beginning to have their medical fun with us.

Last July my appendix perforated and then burst and I almost died because I didn't know it for two days. Finally, a family friend (and a wonderful woman who cares about people) took me to the hospital where they saved my life with an emergency appendectomy, preceded by an emergency laparotomy that cut me open from way above my belly button to just above you-know-where. They filleted me like a fish and I still feel like a fish that'd been filleted. But it save my life.

It get's better. Or, worse, as the case may be. The Trulane in charge of this particular planet (Earth) — meaning Big Jack, himself — was chomping at the bit for more. And what a sick pup this ancient extraterrestrial is. That's all "the gods" are, by the way. Ancient, invisible creatures of the natural universe who became totally addicted to power and having whimsical fun with lower life forms. Like us.

Several months ago I was coming home from Dollar General when I saw an ambulance going down our circular driveway. My heart almost stopped. Mom and I are connected by her cordless phone and my cell phone whenever I leave the house briefly to shop for us and, the last I'd talked to her that afternoon (about five minutes ago when I told her I was leaving the DG parking lot to come back home) she was perfectly fine. Before I could get to the driveway, the freakin' ambulance zoomed around it and sped up Third Street like a lunatic was behind the wheel. I ran into the house as fast as I could on my partially-paralyzed legs and found her watching TV in the kitchen and bewildered by the flashing ambulance that had used our circular driveway for a NASCAR speed trial. To this day, we still don't know what the hell that was all about, but I know for a fact that I'm at the end of my rope with this medical game. Enough already!

But, wait! The game's not over yet.

Last night I almost choked on a piece of chicken during supper. Because of a deviated septum and serious sinus problems, I have to breathe through my mouth when I eat. I can't just eat like everybody else. I have to think about each bite I take. For one moment, though, I went on automatic pilot, as it were, and a piece of chicken lodged in my windpipe. I rushed out of the room because, like a good "boy", I didn't want to upchuck on the wall-to-wall carpet. I made it to the patio where I gasped air though a pin-hole in my throat that the piece of chicken hadn't managed to block. I could only partially dislodge it. Meanwhile, my mother had wheeled herself to the dining room window to see how I was doing. I wanted to do a Heimlich Maneuver on myself but my gigantic laparotomy incision was still sore from the surgery I had eight freakin' months ago. Finally, I could breathe enough to come back inside.

Wait! The best (or worst) is yet to come.

I managed to finish my supper, coughing and still choking sporadically, when I noticed a car going around or circular driveway. I went out to investigate. Two neighbors asked me from their car window if my mother was all right. I told them, yeah, she's fine, why? They said they heard the call. I said what call? They said the ambulance call. My heart went into my throat where there was no room at all for a heart because half of that piece of chicken was still lodged there. I went in the house to ask Mom if she had called 9-1-1 when I was choking and she said she hadn't (a horrified look of being "had" by the "powers-that-be" crossing her poor face).

I convinced the neighborhood couple (two more local people who take the time to care about other people) that she was OK. It was a call about an elderly woman who fell, they told me. Mom didn't fall I told them. She's watching TV. I told them my choking story and they looked annoyed by it. Who cares about me? At this point, it never occurred to me to invite them inside to see for themselves. Why? I don't know. Maybe it was because I almost choked to death a few minutes before and I was a little weak and disoriented from that. Or maybe I just never get used to unexpected, outrageous situations and I simply don't know what to do about them. Who can say? Anyway, they never asked me how I was doing because no one in the universe cares about me. I've finally come to realize that.

Back inside, I saw that our TV and VCR were off. We were watching a taped version of "Lethal Weapon 4" while we ate our supper. Now the TV and the entire entertainment center was dark. I asked Mom what had happened. She said she hit the "mute" button on her remote control and everything went off. We both know that pressing the Mute button on a remote control cannot, in a million years, turn off the TV, VCR and stereo speaker sound system I installed. We'd been royally "had" by our Trulane. Big Jack Ass. One of the oldest and most spoiled, diabolically creative, invisible beings in the entire universe. And he, she or "it" is nothing more than that. Certainly nothing worth falling on your knees about, let alone worshiping. Worshiping invisible beings only makes the goddamn bastards more powerful.

But, wait, this is only Intermission!

While we were both thinking about how our lives were constantly being orchestrated by somebody or some thing (for my money, a bad-boy, out-of-control, bastard Celestial and the hideous humans who worship "it" on bended knees like little devious cowards), an ambulance — that's right, folks, — a Freakin' Ambulance! — came around our driveway. I rushed to the side door, turned on the outside pole light and opened the door. It was the Snow Shoe EMS. That's right, folks, the FREAKIN" SNOW SHOE EMS! who wasn't here in November 2009 when we needed them! But they were here NOW when we DIDN"T need them. And, guess what? Somebody out there, an elderly person somewhere, who fell and probably couldn't get up, DID NEED THEM!

The driver got out and I told him we didn't call an ambulance. He started an argument with me right off the bat, which really pissed me off. This ignorant prick was presupposing that I was a hideous, aging, redneck son who was hiding his poor injured mother inside the house. I quickly educated him about what was what. He told me the house number they had for the call. I told them that wasn't our number. He didn't believe me, even though the stupid sap was looking right at it. That's right, our house number is right on our house in Three Freakin' Places!, and one of them was right under his nose. Finally, he agreed to leave.

I went back inside and sat down. Then someone was knocking on our door. It was Mr. Snow Shoe EMS again, wanting to argue again. He asked me my phone number so he could match it with the call. In other words, the dumb little prick still thought I was lying to him. Still cooperative, however, I gave him my phone number and my mother's phone number. He checked them with the EMS woman in the ambulance who just sat there and stared at me like I was some madman who was harboring an ailing relative inside. Stealing her pension and social security and living it up while she fell and hit her head and needed help. Well, I was really getting pissed off by now. In no uncertain terms, I told them to take it on the heel. They did. As they ever so slowly backed their big-ass thing up, yakking about me between themselves I imagined, I reminded them in a loud, hoarse (from almost choking to death earlier) voice that somewhere in town is an elderly woman who fell and needs and ambulance and to get the hell moving!

Back inside once again, I turned the TV, VCR and stereo back on. I turned to Mom and asked her to call the neighbor couple who first showed up and reassure them that she was all right and not in any need of an ambulance. Reluctantly, she agreed. I'm glad she did. After she hung up from talking to the helpful neighbors who were obviously glad she had called them, Mom told me that the ambulance finally, — yes, finally! — got to the right house. Halleluia! Hip-Hip Hooray!

But.... Oh, yes, here's the straw that finally broke the camel's back last night. The elderly woman who fell and who needed the ambulance was our landlady, two blocks away on another street with an entirely different name that didn't sound anything like our address. Now, the freakin' Celestials were playing their nasty games with way too many people here! Nobody — and I mean nobody — deserves to be part of such whimsical, vindictive game playing. Especially not my mother and I. Or our ailing, octogenarian landlady.

Well, I'd like to sue everybody who screwed with us last night. But what good would that do? They're only the players who are listed on the next-to-the-bottom line of this hideous, whimsical, diabolical, demented, iniquitous script. So, what's the bottom line in this Snow Shoe version of The Squire of Gothos?

The bottom line is this: Nobody, and I mean nobody, Michael Casher, gives a rat's ass about you. But, man, do they like screw with you, or what?

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