Do You Know Where You Would Like To Be?

In your life?  Do you have a plan? A wish? A scenario?

Sometimes I do, sometimes I have no idea, but right now I would like to be floating in the stars listening to Arthur C. Clarke.

Goodbye, Arthur C. Clarke.

The prescient sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke died at his home yesterday, after recently turning 90.

We are both grieving, yet find solace that he might be floating in the very universe he wrote about. ( Book - “2001″).

He dies two days after Palm Sunday. Maybe Arthur C. Clarke and Jesus were brothers.

I have run out of words.

“Time, waits for no one, and it won’t wait for me.”

The Rolling Stones.

Thank You, Samantha Dunn

for reminding me to breathe when I am outraged.

for your Los Angeles Times article about memoirs.

for continuing to kick ass and take names.

for inspiration.

Happy Belated Birthday, Arthur C. Clarke

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP)  — Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke listed three wishes on his 90th birthday: for the world to embrace cleaner energy resources, for a lasting peace in his adopted home, Sri Lanka, and for evidence of extraterrestrial beings.

“I have always believed that we are not alone in this universe,” he said in a speech to a small gathering of scientists, astronauts and government officials Sunday in Colombo where he lives.

Humans are waiting until extraterrestrial beings “call us or give us a sign,” he said. “We have no way of guessing when this might happen. I hope sooner rather than later.”

The British-born author, who moved to Sri Lanka in 1954, has written more than 100 sci-fi books, including “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Clarke, who suffers from post-polio syndrome and is confined to a wheelchair, cut a cake as Sri Lanka’s president, visiting astronauts and scientists sang “Happy Birthday.”

“Sometimes I am asked how I would like to be remembered,” Clarke said. “I have had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer and space promoter. Of all these I would like to be remembered as a writer.”

Arthur C. Clarke accepts congratulations on his 90th birthday Sunday.

What Is Your Name And…..

Telephone Number???

I am pleased because I managed to get one of my father’s books up on the web site - the back jacket, and the prologue.

For me, it is the usual mood-swing-y day, with worries about people I have never met until I started writing here - Sherri, in Oklahoma with an ice storm, Desperate Writer, who also may be near the storm, GAAAA - I wake up with the stone on my chest of worries of my own life! Good God!

So, I am happy to have put up the prologue of my fathers book, because he was so anxiety riddled in reading the newspaper headlines, combined with his own life, that for tonight, I felt he was sitting right here with me, only now he is dead and he is laughing his ass off at how much time he wasted being worried, and maybe he is trying to tell me not to worry, just tackle the damned page! If you blow it and erase all of the work, who cares???

I am trying to roll with him, folks, I am, I swear.

If anyone out there is reading this, go to my web page, it is on the blogroll,, and when you get there, to the left, go to the page William Allen Mahan and read what he was reading in the headlines in 1974.

It is eerily similar to what we are reading, and worrying about, now.

People, his own sister included, used to say he was a shitty writer.

Maybe he was not perfect, but he was certainly writing what he saw, and felt, wasn’t he?

And isn’t authenticity, from one’s perspective, a little more interesting than observation for observation’s sake?

Love some feedback, as always.

Stay safe and warm in these storms, all of you.

Sara Davidson Speaks Out

I subscribe to writer Sara Davidson’s blog, and we have had a couple of really nice exchanges - She responds personally and promptly, no form letters. We have had a few chuckles over past posts concerning her wild meetings about her new book LEAP!

Check her out, she is right on the blogroll.

I read her new post today, concerning the Writers Strike, and asked for permission to re-post it here. She got back to me in a few hours, amazing for a woman juggling as many balls as she is. She gave me permission, I want to thank her, and encourage everybody to go to her blog and read her latest post - it has photos which I am too tired to wrestle with getting up here.

HOWEVER, the video below shows a way you can help with this - buy a box of pencils for a dollar. I am broke, and I can spend a dollar and eight cents on a box of pencils in support.

If you stand behind the Writers, even if you are not near a studio where you can walk the line for a day, you can buy a box of pencils.

The video link is located at the bottom of the article, under HOW YOU CAN HELP.

Thank you everyone, everywhere, for your solidarity. Enough crapping on writers, already, dontcha think?

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Article below re-printed by permission of the author.

In New York last week, I joined the striking film and TV writers on the picket line in front of the Disney store on Fifth Avenue. Before the morning was out, I’d gotten involved in a tussle that could only happen when writers strike.

I picked up a sign that said, “Fair Share for Writers!” and joined the line of hundreds in an enclosed space on the sidewalk. Our numbers kept growing until we couldn’t move at all, just shuffle in place. There were star writers like David Chase, who created “The Sopranos,” and Tony Kushner, who wrote “Angels in America,” along with writers who barely earn a living. (The average member of the Writers Guild earns $60,000 a year) I caught up with a friend who writes big horror movies, but who’s one of the calmest, dearest, sane people I know. He asked that I change his name, so let’s call him Jerry. We hadn’t seen each other in years and were catching up, when we spotted a trim man in a beautifully tailored navy suit and tie outside the barrier. “Go home!” the man yelled, “Go back to work!” People started asking, “Who is that guy?” and we heard, “He’s from management. He looks like a suit, doesn’t he?”

He was, in fact, the only man in sight wearing a suit. Writers live in jeans or sweats and sneakers.

We kept shuffling and talking, handing out fliers to passers by, blowing whistles and beating drums. The Suit kept trying to incite people, and had a cameraman with him. “Don’t you want to work?” he shouted. “When was your last pay check? If you ever hope to see another one, get your ass back to work!”

Jerry and I decided he was an agent provocateur from some sleazy TV program, trying to get the writers angry so they’d behave badly. Then they’d get it on film, air it and embarrass the lot of us. Jerry started telling people, “Don’t react, don’t take the bait. Just ignore him.”

And so we did. But an hour later, the Suit, who had dark curly hair and narrow slit glasses, appeared with a box of donuts. Right in front of Jerry and me, the Suit threw a donut in a striker’s face. Then he looked at me and asked, “Want a donut?” I shouted something incoherent, bracing for a donut to hit my face. Jerry yelled at him, “Get out of the line. You don’t belong here!” The Suit, impudent, stood his ground and asked Jerry, “Want a donut?”

Jerry—the calm, sane guy—took his picket sign and whacked the donut box— whack, whack, whack!—until the Suit dropped it and the donuts spilled all over the ground. The Suit looked into the camera and smirked. Jerry said, “I’m gonna call the cops,” and barreled toward the side of the enclosure. I started after him. Jerry was clearly reacting as the Suit had wanted him to and I hoped to diffuse things, but another guy stopped Jerry and said: “The Suit’s a writer for Saturday Night Live. This is a skit, that’s all.”

Oy. We’d been gotten.

Jerry returned to the line abashed. “They shouldn’t let me out of my apartment,” he said. “I wanted to punch that sucker out.” Ten minutes later, the Suit had changed to a Writers Guild shirt and cap and was picketing with the rest of us.

We all had a good laugh, which was sorely needed, as the situation for writers looks grim. People ask me, “Is your TV show affected by the strike?” Like, totally! We turned in a draft of the pilot for “Leap!,” the drama series, just before the strike began, but we can’t do revisions or prepare to shoot until the strike ends. And that may not happen till next summer, or later. We’re asking for two per cent of what the networks and studios make on sales of our work over the Internet and new technologies. They’re standing firm at zero. Nada. No matter how rich they get on our work, they give us nothing. Jerry says three of the heavies in management—Rupert Murdoch of News Corp., Sumner Redstone of Viacom and Jeffrey Immelt of GE—are know for their hostility to unions. They want to cripple ours, just as other unions in the country have been weakened. These conglomerates can afford to lose billions if that will undermine the pesky writers’ union.

But the writers are united, determined to go the distance.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:
If you live in L.A. or N.Y., join us in a picket line. Check the WGA West or WGA East websites for strike times and locations. We need you!

Wherever you live, you can write to the heads of companies and urge them to negotiate and give writers a fair share. The companies consider one letter to represent the views of 100 people, so your voice will matter.

Watch a video of the titans predicting how much money they’ll make over the Internet.

~ ~ ~

If you have ideas or comments, simply reply to this email. For information about Leap! go to www.saradavidson.com

Sara Davidson, a journalist, novelist and screenwriter, began chronicling the boomer generation in the Sixties with her phenomenal best seller, Loose Change. The author of five other best-selling books, she’s written for the New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Harper’s, O, the Oprah Magazine, the L.A. Times and Rolling Stone, and for 25 years she’s written dramas for television.

Susan Gordon Lydon

Warning to reader: Despite being primarily humorous, this first post is not, because of what happened today. They won’t all be so grim (despite a little too much death in my life these days) I promise.

Many years ago, I was given a book “Take the Long Way Home” by Susan Gordon Lydon. I have been sitting here for about ten minutes, comparing the first edition dated signed copy, irritated, because it was given to me on my birthday by a friend named Ingrid Heinze. It was given to me for a specific reason, it was a birthday gift, but for the life of me I cannot remember how old I was. I have been doing the math, the book came out in 1993, but…it does not quite jibe with what I was doing on my birthday fourteen years ago.

It does not matter. I read it, liked it, and it has travelled with me for at least 12 years. For the past few days, I have been packing up some books, and came across it. I have about a million books, but I have not felt like reading in months, due to catatonic depression that shows up every summer, each one worse than the last. It is finally starting to lift, and “Take The Long Way Home” was in one of the piles in my office that I was dispiritedly trying to organize. I flipped it open and it grabbed me. Hallelujah! I wanted to read again.

One of my little hobbies with the internet and web-pages and all this business is to contact authors whose work I enjoy and write them an e-mail. I get a huge thrill when I receive a reply. The last “snail mail” response from author Samantha Dunn is a personal treasure, it is probably the last paper response I will ever get. Still, an e-mail is very exciting.

So, I googled Susan Gordon Lydon, just as I had googled and had a brief dialogue with Sara Davidson (”Loose Change”) and Carolyn See (”Dreaming”).

What came up was that Susan Gordon Lydon had died two years ago, on July 17th. There was no point in even trying not to cry. I had been looking so forward to the fabulous internet highway connecting me with her.

Guess what I found out today. The internet just tells you they are dead. So far, the internet has yet to upgrade to sending an e-mail to the deceased one’s web-page. I am certain Apple will figure out a way soon.

For all of the younger women out there, you owe a huge debt to Susan Gordon Lydon. For all of you struggling with heroin abuse, you might want to pick up a copy. For me, even though there will be no e-mail, I am still so glad to have found her. Thank god for words.