Who Would Write

Blind Vision

2011-12-16T13:40:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

The subdued atmosphere of the tavern is interrupted by the fellow bumping his way in. He brushes into tables, spilling drinks, and gropes the back of several people until his hand finds an open stool at the bar. (More...)

"Oh man!" he says. "My eye sight gets worse every day. Pretty soon I'm going to have to get a seeing eye dog."

The bartender stands in front of him and checks him out, the flutter of his eyelids and the dead stare of the man's eyes just over the bartender's right shoulder. "You live near by?"

"20 miles down the road. If I didn't hear so well I wouldn't be able to drive over here."

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A New View Of Obituaries

2011-12-10T20:08:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Having followed the Facebook discussion of "In Loving Memory - Friends of Juneau - Past and Loved" something struck me very hard. It is the matter of Legacy. Into this Christmas time of cheer and giving I now write.

This bloke is still kicking strong and I do not plan to leave anytime soon, but my dear friends please, please, say nothing at all of my eventual passing if it would only be a lame eulogy of, he was born there..lived here...is survived by...and he was such a nice guy. If I have done nothing outrageous enough to have been noticed, nothing remarkable that has furthered the lives of others, if I haven't positively impacted the future, then say nothing at all. Dump my ashes in a dumpster, delete all memories from your hard drive, and move on to better horizons.

It would be a poor commentary of a lifetime not to have contributed in some notable way. A hermit is known for nothing but the amazement of others one could live a life so long so alone. To put something in the world deserving of a name and positive reflection by many is the best Legacy.

But if all has gone to hell in a hand basket by the time I pass on do not derogate me to whence you might some day regret. As it is I am not unaware, in my small take on omniscience, there have been some divergent opinions of me I am unconcerned about. What does concern me may be regarded by some as most unbelievable. Yet it must be said, with due regard to the emotions it may stir in others, damn the torpedoes.

You see, there is a secret I have repeatedly had to remind my elders and peers, all now being of the age that we will sooner or later, possibly sooner than later, discard the body. When I am "gone" I will still be here watching you at the funeral. So will you be at yours, if you want to be.

It is the biggest surprise to one not prepped for it to discover life after death, to find that the body may be most dead but that you are still here, thinking, perceiving and moving around, alive. Millennium of metaphysics subjects and religions have attempted to answer this question and generally pushed it off as unknowable. Don't buy it.

Consider this, despite your beliefs, your religion, a lifetime of indoctrination to the contrary, as the case may be, if only for the moments of reading this writing. Body death is not death for the being, the person himself, YOU. You can count on this. You are a being, a spirit, an immortal life. You have a body, but you are not your body. This may run against the grain of disbelievers but it is an easily demonstrable fact. People who talk of out-of-body experiences may not have been hallucinating or in a delusional drug experience but possibly have experienced this piece of truth.

This I told to my sister who didn't believe it. Not long before her death, however, she said to me that she was beginning to believe , though "you may not believe it," she had come to to think there might be something beyond death. "Come to me when you eventually die, and by simply 'being there' you can find me and I will help you," I told her. She did, and I oriented her to her new state of affairs, much to her great satisfaction. True story.

My dear friend Holly Sanders from Juneau and I had many fascinating conversations at the window of his drive-in burger stand. He told me of his near death experience. He "died", went through the various "between life" experiences that have been reported by others, grayness, the light, the long tunnel, until he came to the cognition that his wife could not raise his children without him and he had to go back. He did so, but says "the body was as cold and as clammy as could be", that it took some bit of doing to bring it back to life.

My school chums from High School have variously remarked, sometimes in complete disbelief, of their ideas of the vector my life took after my college years. Three life changing factors explain this completely.

First off, doing some powerful exercises to restore my recall abilities I started recalling past lives, completely aware and fully sober. When you remember a genuine incident in vivid detail with all its powerful emotions you come to know the truth of the matter: you were there.

Secondly, when I jumped out of the Army truck to face the Induction Center a wave of recognition struck me. This was the exact same Induction Center, at Ft. Leonard Wood, where I was for my last lifetime Army Air Force Basic Training. I knew this place intimately that I had "never been to". I could tell you where "building G" was, go there and it would be there. Where I had been viewing life from 1/4 inch of memory my existence now spanned a comparative potential of 300 yards.

This confirmed past lives for me but it also confirmed exteriorization, known as the out-of-body experience, as I also started bopping in and out of my body at that very moment.

When you really know something you know it. Where are you right now? Be three feet in back of your head. If you do that you'll will never again question it. It happened for me like this: I started to move up four to five feet above my head while in a rational, sober and knowing frame of mind.

One day in Douglas, Alaska, practicing with Bedrock, Richie Poor's band that I played base guitar with, this was demonstrated to me personally. It was an unmistakable out-of-body experience. The song really had me rocking and in error my heal hit the volume on my bass amp cranking it up to max. This resulted in an immediate loud feedback stopping the band in its music playing. The other thing this dramatic and unexpected occurrence did is throw me out of the body. I popped "out of me head", to the ceiling, and back into my head, several times in a row.

When you sit on the ceiling and see the environment from this perspective, for real, the truth of it is unmistakable. You aren't THERE, you are HERE, and your body is over THERE. You know where you are. Knowledge is certainty.

Then our drummer originated he had had such an experience. Driving in his car, he suddenly found himself out of the window looking in at the side of his head. He was on drugs though, so he wrote it off as hallucination.

The problem with a drug experience is that it can be a different deal altogether. Poisoning the body, which is what drugs do, causes a sort of near death experience. Mind altering drugs are supposed to give the thrill of psychedelic experience. A rope becomes a live snake, the world turns purple or into a glitter of of firefly pin lights playing to the music and all manner of false perceptions can occur. What confuses the matter even more is that the drug poisons also force one out of the body where, being exterior, one might perceive life for real from the viewpoint of a disembodied being. Amidst all manner of drug induced hallucination it gets hard to tell reality from delusion.

After death the issue gets stranger yet to the uneducated, that you can converse with other beings in the same plight but the people still holding onto a body for the most part can't hear you. The movie Heaven Can Wait is technically correct in this light.

After my father died mother told me of this incident the next morning. Dad had come to her in the night and "sat on the foot of the bed just as real and as lifelike as could be". He didn't say anything to her, however, and that freaked her out.

The truth is, a being without a body does not have vocal chords. He communicates telepathically. So do we actually, but we believe that without vocalization we can can't perceive others thoughts. So mother very possibly got specific telepathic communication from father but, being out of practice, could not tell the difference between her thoughts and his.

When you have been thrust suddenly (over a years time, if that isn't sudden enough) into these truths one's view of reality takes on a different vector. What is truly important changes in a big way.

Thus my life went much differently that the expected. The way of life dictating one go to college, get a job, get married, have kids, buy a house with 2 cars, and retire after 30 years no longer seemed high in importance. Having been doing that very thing, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime without end, it was time to take a broader view. What was now sometimes viewed as my having gone off the deep end to a cult (not), or into complete diversity from this wild and free rebel I had demonstrated in High School, was in fact the obvious conclusion of this major rise in knowingness.

Some of the most unknown and presumably unknowable mysteries of the universe had fallen into my possession. What would you do with such knowledge?

Which brings us back to the opening statement, Legacy. In my mind there has to be one. Since growing up in Juneau I have had some notable physical accomplishments, such as the state-of-the-art music studio for which I did the architectural sound engineering and the blueprints drawn for the award winning historical restoration of an eight story hotel.

Even more important to me has been life changing wins I have orchestrated to graduates of a course I delivered and through personal counseling I have provided. Hundreds of lives and careers were propelled to much greater heights from my activities.

This is what this supposed "cult" (more knowledge of life in the universe than anything you have ever experienced) did for the greater scheme of things in my life. At the lowest levels one becomes better able to communicate with others and to get along better in life. At the higher levels one comes to know much more. My personal leaps in knowingness and ability beyond my wildest dreams are inconsequential to those gains I helped bring to others.

If one realizes that one lives on after the declared death, this puts ones life decisions in a new light. You will reap what you sow, in the flesh of your next lifetime. You don't go around just once. This salacious fact becomes very evident to you: you will be there in the future, so it is a good idea to think more considerately of the long range scheme of things you will inherit.

That you now know that I know these things expect more of me, and if I don't perform fire me, then look forward to the next first draft pick. Hopefully though, my Legacy will stand out in the field of dreams.

Here's to you and your Legacy as well.

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The Erudite Wikipedia

2011-10-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Wikipedia is becoming unusable by the bulk of the people that have need of discovery through an encyclopedia.

The subjects are being written, evidently, as something like PHD Doctorate Thesis papers. Or as scientific studies. The articles defining terms are increasingly post graduate studies level discourses. In order to understand one I have to clear up one or two dozen definitions, each of which has multiple words also having to be cleared. All this just to get to point where I can explain it to someone else in lay terms, and I am well educated.

A layman to a subject, even an educated man in other subjects, will get swamped in misunderstood terms fast. This is specifically so on any terms listed having any relationship to any branch of science.

Examples:

-- Acne: You have to be a physicist to read the textual nomenclature.

-- Anti-oxidants: For scientists only: technical nomenclature defines nomenclature endlessly.

-- Free Radicals: Redirects to Radicals, collapses the definitions amid scientific terms.

-- Aloe Vera: Contains false and conflicting data, apparently someones attempt to discredit a millennium of healing support.

-- Blood Vessels: Call for a forensic pathologist or biologist as soon as you go to Anatomy.

-- Internal Elastic Lamina: Why not just call it straight -- everyone has heard of Spandex.

Get my point?

A straightforward explanation that can be easily understood would make the Wikipedia accessible to nearly anyone. Then you can cut into the erudite scientific treatise for those who are doing graduate studies.

Evidently no one is monitoring its public input against a consistent standard. There is no consideration of its general usability and workability.

I'm smart enough when I am patient enough to slog through links and get a basic understanding of terms, enough to get a conceptual understanding. Many of the people of whom I know would have trouble wading through an increasing number of the listings. Is this simply the product of lofty intellectuals who want to impress their fellow atomic scientists? Or is it deliberate to make the encyclopedia works worthless to anyone not holding a PHD?

Time to bring out the old Encyclopedia Britannica. I just want to do research for a blog, not write a dissertation.

Last year I put up a blog post to forward their message to help with donations. This year I'm considering retracting it. It is getting to be no longer feasible to use the Wikipedia as a first stop on a research trail.

Self Assured Quality

2011-09-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Manure happens, so it is always a good idea to check your work. With a broom and a shovel handy.

Another read, with yet another missed comma, wrong side of the homonym, or any of a zillion potential typos -- it never ceases to amaze how an error can still show up after so many edits.

Nevertheless, this very important activity is too often brushed off. QC (Quality Control), a quality check on the work you just did, can set you apart as a professional.

When omitted, when even one error sneaks through, stature and reputation for your works take a dive.

Of course, for the writer this means using the spell and grammar checking tools, as well as editing out verbosity and needless stating of the obvious. This advice would seem ever so hackneyed, but it is surprising how often one sees errors in misplaced wording that would make the publisher choke. Like using "there" for "their".

"Refudiate" is okay as long as you know you are doing it. When you coin a word like "scenarama", propose it to Wikionary with your article as the reference and make it official.

This is true irony for someone who used to think a spellchecker was someone who sat in your lap. You embrace the tech so you can concentrate on the fun things like creative style and clever insight. While you embrace the spellchecker who sits in your lap.

A good once-over applies to works of any kind. It is a wise person who returns to view the constructed scene as if a "newbie", and make needed adjustments before you close the hood, turn out the lights to go home, hit the send button, or make that next chess move. It is a checkmate that you want, in all your works.

The trick for the author is to give it a fresh read from not your own viewpoint, but to see it as if a different person entirely, and one who is seeing it for the first time. You simply consider what would QC observe if QC were looking it over.

You can also do this trick from the viewpoint of the eventual consumer, considering how it comes across as communication to the recipient. Reading the text aloud helps spot anomalies in grammar or unclear meaning.

This little step, wearing one's hat as the Quality Control person, can make all the difference in ensuring the craftsmanship and the professionalism is complete.

So, check your work, before the manure hits the fan.

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Adds To the Bloggers Dictionary For Un-Bloggers

2011-08-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Computer Dummies and Un-Bloggers need to define their terms. And preserve a sense of humor.

Apple (T) : Apples are apples and oranges are oranges. (Do I have to define everything for you?)

Google (1): v. The Ouija Board went high tech.

Google (2): Grandmother interfaces with the latest Grandchild.

Google (3): Hearty attempt to eat dinner after dental surgery.

Google Profile: The girl is so stunning you can't look at her, and you get any words out of your mouth either.

Social Media: News reporters you wouldn't be afraid to have a few too many beers with.

Search Engines: Take off from Steven King novel and Hollywood movie "Christine"; now the train locomotives get their day on the big screen. (Hear the background music?)

SEO: Some 'Ere Over the rainbow.

WWW: Blog WhoWouldWrite. (Didn't notice that did you?)

World Wide Web: After Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" came one about spiders on the international scene.

Internet: High tech props on loan to weave diverse intercourse anywhere and everywhere.

Computer (1): Cyber marketer who is always calculating to get all of your pennies.

Computer (2): The new generations' grapevine; keeping in touch without actually having to confront anyone.

Log On, Log Off: Contestants in a logrolling competition.

Cursor: Un-Blogger attempting a new task on the computer.

Going Viral: Extreme event; when you should have used a mouth wash.

Hard Drive: The bigger the truck, the harder to drive.

Software: The plastic eating utensils that come with your take-out order.

In all fairness if you want the stiff shirt version of these terms try WikipediA.

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More Dictionary:

The Bloggers Dictionary For Un-Bloggers

Home

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Aloe Vera and the Grace of the Sun

2011-07-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

To sunscreen or not to sunscreen, says someone pretending Shakespeare, his bare skin turning to crispy critter as he bakes in the sun.

Some days ago, it must have been a bad hair day, I put no Infinite Aloe on my face against the sun which showed no mercy. My experience has been that when my skin, which tends on the white side, (I'm a red head, imagine that) is not covered with aloe vera before exposure to the sun there will be blood, and I do mean sunburned.

Since applying Infinite Aloe before going out I haven't gotten sunburned, at all. The experience of a few days ago reminds me of why I do this.

Preventing sunburn with aloe vera is a personal success story, not a claim, lest we invoke the wrath of the mightiest of authorities, The FDA. Nevertheless the difference for me has been so dramatic that there has to be a technical explanation for this.

I'm told you can find anything on the Internet, but that hasn't entirely been the case here, what with my limited reach thwarted by overactive security settings. There is some valid support for the idea of this amount of sun protection from aloe vera, even though I have yet to find any clinical studies that forward the premise so objectively viewed. Besides that, nothing gets cured no ways, FDA take note we said that.

What Does Sunscreen Do?

There are 3 basic actions of sunscreen:

absorb ultraviolet (with organic chemical compounds)

absorb or reflect and scatter ultraviolet light (using inorganic particulates)

absorb light (using organic particulates).

Sunblock basically has more opaque particulates so as to block out everything. Is that the theme to Goldfinger playing in the background?

In other words sunscreen and sunblock seek to modify the presence of solar rays before they sink into the skin and burn you to a crisp. It is like wearing a bullet proof vest. But there is a downside.

The Shortcomings of Sunscreen

Sunscreen with an SPF rating inhibits most all of the vitamin D production of the skin. The irony of this is that there are indications that deficiency in vitamin D may lead to cancer, without adequate supplements to offset the deficiency. Yet 10 to 15 minutes in the sun without sunscreen twice a week is enough produce adequate vitamin D3.

Sunburn is caused by ultraviolet radiation, specifically by UVB, which is blocked by sunscreen thus preventing sunburn and DNA damage. Sunscreens do not block UVA, but UVA does not cause sunburn, it just destroys vitamin A. Ironically, sunscreens are meant to prevent some forms of cancer, carcinogens, by blocking UVB, but UVA, not suppressed by sunscreens, increases risk of another cancer, melanoma, by indirectly damaging DNA and promoting free radicals and oxidation of the skin.

Sunblock is a type of sunscreen that keeps out both UVA and UVB. A problem arises with some sunscreens that erroneously claim to be a sunblock. Also, when all sunshine is banished from the skin and the result is vitamin D deficiency.

The radiation of the sun's rays can also cause mutation of DNA, or, to oversimplify, the makings of skin diseases and cancer. If you don't want to become a Mr. Hyde or Frankenstein, become a vampire, only come out at night, and stay away from auditions.

The Solution for Sunscreening

Consider this alternative: the highly nutritional and healing properties of Aloe Barbadensis Miller eliminates skin mutations and improper cellular growth. It is so rich in anti-oxidants and health promoting vitamins its medicinal properties have been renown for many thousands of years. Per the wall pictures in ancient Egyptian Temples it was grown on the banks of the Nile and sold at Rite Aide.

Simply put, sunburn is oxidized skin. Aloe vera is very high in anti-oxidants and fights harmful free radicals. It is also high in the nutrients needed to feed the skin to grow in a healthy state. So not only does aloe vera combat harmful oxidation it supplies the vitamins that will be destroyed or depleted in the skin with the use of sun screens.

It is not determined if using a good source of aloe such as Infinite Aloe will eliminate any need for sunscreen. If you do use sunscreen put Infinite Aloe on first, it will absorb into the skin, and the sun lotion over that.

A properly fed body is a healthy body. The last place in the body to receive nutrition is the skin. Feeding the skin with penetrating aloe vera provides the nutrients needed for healthy skin, even under the sun. Then you don't have to be a stay-at-home hermit crab, or worse yet, become a vampire, nights only.

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See my Infinite Aloe web site.

Also see this post: Aloe and Other Stuff

HOME

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End of the World Lost In Translation

2011-05-22T01:23:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

The world is not all bad evidently, as the end of the world has not occurred, and there has not been some great cataclysm as of this day 21 May, 2011.

This suggests something has been lost in translation or in the millennium of misinterpretation. The word "apocalypse" comes from the ancient Greek word meaning "revelation" or "to uncover". It refers to a moment of disclosure or enlightenment. I'm sure the end of the world would come as a great surprise, but that is not the original meaning of that word from the times of which the tale evidently begins.

Mankind is certainly due for an enlightenment. Just as the "mob mentally" can telepath through a group, in the rush of a crowd from fire or a mob in a riot or the group enthusiasm of a gathering beseeched with great news, so could mankind spontaneously arrive at a cosmic consciousness, and enlightenment. I second that motion.

That "The Apocalypse" got heralded as the event of great destruction and cataclysmic events has to do with Jewish and Christian writings of Apocalypse, this work being of unknown genesis and various interpretations of its poetic rendition. For one, what survives in the writings of the Bible is not necessarily the writings before its compilation and editing in 397 AD, when the "official" Bible was adopted. Secondly, which John is said to have written it, what was said, as well the date of its origin and its prophetic value is in thorough dispute. In other words, it doesn't withstand the acid test. Thank you very much Harold Camping of the Calvary Bible Church, your opinion has been noted.

The Mayan civilization, quite apart from the Christian or Jewish lines on this, had their own prediction of a time of great celebration of the ending of a cycle, which has been misinterpreted as "the end of the world". Not what they had in mind.

This Mayan "apocolypse" is now speculated to be a calendar date of the winter solstice 21 December, 2012, when once in about every 26,000 years the sun will be directly between the center of the galaxy and the earth, i.e., the end of a 26,000 year Mayan calendar cycle. A solar "eclipse" of the center of the galaxy, so to speak, isn't the end of the world by any means, in spite of all interpretations to the contrary.

Whatever the academic or theological or astrological postulate on this mythical event, today is not, by empirical observation, the day. So would someone please take down the billboard on Fountain Boulevard which proclaims the end of the world on today's date? Whatever they are selling, we're not buying it.

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Aloe And Other Stuff

2011-05-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

"Four vegetables are indispensable for the well being of man:

Wheat, the grape, the olive and aloe.

The first nourishes him,

the second raises his spirit,

The third brings him harmony,

and the fourth cures him."

Christopher Columbus (1451-1506)

Does anyone but me find it intensely interesting that some common household items of today, like wheat, olives, grapes and aloe, have been the same regularly used items of yesteryear? We're talking about way back, surprising millennium, where we are fortunate enough to have recovered a record of it. How far back these common place items really go is a preponderance for archeologists and Indiana Jones. For the rest of us it could be good food for thought.

Aloe, for instance, goes back at least 5,000 years and more likely 10,000. Pictures of aloe have been found on ancient Egyptian temple walls. That could take it back 8 to 12 thousand years ago. There are references to Cleopatra beautifying with aloe and Alexander the Great conquering territories of aloe fields for this herbal medicine to heal and relieve pain in his warring troops. Not some of the oldest references to aloe, but household names, like Elvis, John Wayne and John Travolta.

Aloe was possibly not used in embalming, as is said in some places; it doesn't show up in descriptions made of the actual procedure and recipe by which Egyptians made mummies. The Biblical reference to Jesus’ body being covered in myrrh and aloe doesn't specifically relate it to embalming. These both also have medicinal healing applications and, while some scholars take variance with the actual outcome of that event, there were large amounts of aloe and myrrh brought in when Jesus’ body was removed from the cross. Also, aloe and myrrh were said to be among the gifts of the three wise men at his birth, obviously intended for miraculous life. Leaving that debate, 2 millennia ago is still a rather late date for aloe.

Of the other indispensible vegetables we know the grape goes back that far, 8-10,000 years, and one can suspect that includes olives. Hollywood has made sure their movies of ancient times have grapes on their sets lest we forget that thousands of years ago opulence and grapes went together. Have to keep that stereotyped image to support the history books that would have us believe stylized versions of the past. However, in a Biblical reference to grapes Noah is said to have grown them on his farm (Genesis 9:20-21). That would date this chosen fruit to before the great flood, whenever that was.

Isn't folk lore a wonderful thing? That my avocado plants could be the subject of history thousands of years from now is a fascinating supposition, a new volume of folklore but for the fact that, unless the Internet crashes, you'll be able to read of it here, first hand.

Wheat? But of course; how else could you break bread with the apostles. The Sumerians are said to have been "foraging for grains" 8,000 years ago, that we know of. Apparently International Harvester wasn't yet marketing combines. Still, in some respects society is the same old same old it has been for thousands of years, or could we say tens of thousands. Makes one wonder.

This reference to aloe for the medicine cabinet in the domas is fascinating, though. A long time ago medicines were naturally grown foliage, in contrast to our chemically derived medicines of today. It is dubious that the modern chemical contraptions, regardless how touted their said medicinal benefits, are any better than nature's fare. They are, evidently, more marketable, and believed to be good for profits. Okay to make a profit, not okay to foist off foreign chemicals that the body cannot fully assimilate as do the real medicines provided by nature.

The quote at the top from Christopher was pulled off the Infinite Aloe blog post from whence my mind was set to thinking. Thinking; one of the few things probably not remediated by aloe.

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Visit my Infinite Aloe Site

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How Good Is Your Movie One-Liner?

2011-04-18T16:39:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel 

To write and sell a movie it has to be a great story idea you can tantalizingly tell about in a sentence. Great is not something you luck into or because you are uniquely one of the outstanding geniuses. It is simple, and it is learnable.

To know what you are doing, if you want to write a great movie that embroils the audience, you must grasp the concept of the one-liner. Furthermore, to sell it to another, you must begin with a well defined story line that can be summed up in literally one or two sentences. That is the "one-liner" as it is called in the industry. This is so outrageously simple that when you have learned the knack of it you can rattle off great story lines at will.

The successful screenplay has much conflict to embroil the audience. This might be the oppositional gap between the good and the evil or the right and the wrong of the protagonist and antagonist. Simply a wide divergence in the main character himself or herself can cause conflict in its incongruity and unique paradox. The more diverse, the more unexpected, sardonic or contrary, all believably so, the more potentially explosive the plot. If you can't state the irony and theatrical appeal in a few sentences you need to rethink the story.

It isn't just opposites or contrariness of personnel. It is some paradoxical circumstance one wouldn't expect, haven't heard of before, somehow made credible by the characters and their personal drama. You'll see this in all the best movies.

I'll make up an example. A scandalous banker, now jobless in a crashed economy, gets a job peddling hot dogs from a push cart. That is sardonic. Even more ironical, it is in his own financial district where he is known by everybody, where nobody but him desires him to be back on top. Or this incongruity for a comedy: he is a white man, bank President, fired for mis-managed loans, and the sales territory he is assigned on his new job for a moving company is in foreclosure haven Harlem.

You should be able to reduce your spec screenplay to an antiphrasis stated in a line or several. A script that won't so reduce is probably flat or deficient in its plot or story lines and not a sellable work. Having a poignant one-liner the movie will practically write itself.

That is really the simplicity of the one-liner. When you have it it rings. It grabs your interest.

It says the story is unique and the description makes you want to see it. You can write a whole story from this cutting statement. Assuming one has craftsmanship, a studied skill, and imaginative rendition, which anyone can practice, one can develop a very good script package from the great one-liner . Even more, you can sell it in one sentence, which you must.

When the Producer who could make your movie asks what it is about you had very well better be able to tell him, now, with no fluster, and no ramble through scenes of the movie. This ultra condensed description actually demonstrates in a moment if you have a great story idea or not. One can see the strength of his own screenplay, but this is vitally necessary to pitch your movie to a potential buyer or producer.

Practice describing great movies you have seen in this way. Then make up some of your own.

Here is how I would one-line these movies:

A homeless, social misfit, super hero who has been thrown in jail by society for his destructive offenses must be asked by their Mayor to save the town from destruction. (Hancock)

A man zapped by a UFO turns on unusually perceptive extra-sensory powers and turns off all his friends who are freaked out by his abnormal feats, while he attracts unscrupulous government people who want to own his abilities. (Phenomena)

Twins from a biological experiment reunite but have turned out to be complete opposites physically and morally. (Twins)

A real Angel with wings gets his last sabbatical in an Earth body and is bent on having some rogue and rowdy Earth fun, but he's not here to touch any lives or perform any miracles. (Michael)

A man and his wife, unbeknown to the each other, are each secret agent assassins who become deadly enemies when they get opposing assignments. (Mr. & Mrs. Smith).

Wouldn't you want to see any of these movies only on the strength of the one-liner? Even without knowing the A-List actors who play the leads?

See these one-liners as brief, to-the-point statements of the real irony of the movie that make it a unique conceptual package.

Get it? Go to it.

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The Days Fly By

2010-12-04T16:21:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

A relevant republish.

Here it is at the end of 2010. Unbelievable. Seems like only yesterday it was Y2K and we were prepping for "the end of the world". Something happened but it wasn't that. Let's re-visit that time.

Extra stores and canned goods were bought in a hurry by flocks of people. We got together our survival bags and set them out just in case we had to cut and run. When the day approaches all we can do is wait out the crash of the computers and rampage in the streets and looting of the grocery stores, that never came. Wow.

The 30 foot billboard down the street from me had all month proclaimed the end of the world. I don't know product they were promoting but it was a failed product launch.

Now it is all of ten years hence, ten years. The known, confronted, never turns out that bad. Somehow we manage to create a better eventuality. Only when an intended act is hidden from us like the cause of the apocalypse of 911 is there any huge drama, and even then we bounce back from it in good order. We are very resilient people.

Still we don't have to be the effect of whatever life deals out. We each have a say in the matter, in the broad view of things.

It has been called many things, elan vital, life force, spiritual energy, vital spark and qi; the caustion we all have and some invoke more than others is a much sought property. Yoda had the line "Do or do not. There is no try." to which I paraphrase, do now or do not, there is no wait. Action of any kind is the best leverage.

Time, as it turns out, is very subject to one's consideration. With "too little" it becomes compressed and can be excruciating. With "too much" one dies of boredom. Time, passage of, and events, occurance of, are given substance by life's contemplation.

Life reigns. Life force is a real thing, in spite of its invisibility. You can be a sight-seer and just go along for the ride. Or you can take pro-active stance (that's what they call it these days, pro-active) and command it. You have to go for it with gusto.

So, use the force, Luke.

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Refudiate Hits The Jackpot

2010-11-16T11:18:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

As the Sarah Palin foo-pah "refudiate" hit the big numbers on 19 July, 2010 it surprises me I only see it just now. Whether the word was errant, coined, portmanteau, or revivified, the word went so viral if it could have been put in a nuclear reactor it would have powered the city for weeks.

Having put an essentially made-up word on Twitter it has now seen about every corner of the web. Whether it ever was a word or not scholastic acclaim guarantees its place in history.

Merriam Webster pronounced it was not a word, but when it got so many hits recanted and declared it the word of the summer. The New Oxford American Dictionary made it the word of the year. Wikipedia cut to the chase and made it officially a word by listing it in its Wiktionary.

It has been 4 months now and yet it pulls up as the "27th most popular search term in the past hour". A continuous uninterrupted run of listings on Sarah Palin's "refudiate" goes on for 77 pages of Google search, and that does not include the possible duplicates and similar postings. There is no competition for the word refudiate, still, the total listing of search items is 2,540,000.

I'm just amazed at how viral one word can be when attributed to a well known personage.

I refudiate that.
I am refudiating it.

I will be refudiating it even more.

We refudiated it before.

It shall have been refudiated.

It is refudiable.

The refudity is plain.

There is so much refudiation going on.

Refuditory actions can be troublesome.

Politics is full of refudiocelatory action.

Thank you Sarah Palin.

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Who's On First?

2010-05-18T12:57:00.000-07:00

The following was passed to me, written by an unknown author. Is worth passing on.

Two Tough Questions

Question 1:

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion?

Read the next question before looking at the response for this one.

Question 2:

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates. Who would you vote for?

Candidate A.

Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist. He ' s had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B.

He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon , used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C

He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, does not smoke, drinks an occasional beer and has never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be our choice?

Decide first... no peeking, then scroll down for the response.

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Candidate B is Winston Churchill.
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question:

If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.

Pretty interesting isn’t it? Makes a person think before judging someone.

Wait till you see the end of this note! Keep reading..

Remember:

Amateurs...built the ark.
Professionals. ..built the Titanic.

And Finally, can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:

* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year...

Can you guess which organization this is?

Give up yet?

It ' s the 535 members of the United States Congress.

The same group that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.

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Third Hand Smoke

2010-03-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

by Robert L Gisel

It sometimes fascinates me when I see people trying to stop this or that, like smoking, and can't. When people advise me in this light I ignore it. If I wanted to stop smoking I would just stop smoking. It's that simple. Now it turns out there are some health benefits of smoking after all.

When I started smoking natural cigarettes it was because I learned that it was not tobacco that was linked to cancer, per the FDA's own tests, it is the chemicals added: the gunpowder (salt peter) and the chemical curing. These chemicals are incidentally what cause addictive cravings, not natural tobacco. The difference is, I smoke at will, a few cigarettes a day, rather than a few packs a day. If you can't get off smoking get off chemically cured cigarettes, which may require the help of calcium, magnesium, vitamins C and B1 to break the chemical addiction.

Equally fascinating to me is the "I quit smoking now you have to" crowd. The protagonist now becomes the antagonist thinking they are really the protagonist. Call it the Darth Vader Syndrome In White Robes.

Now the anti-smoking lobby is trying to invent an imaginary "third-hand smoke". I don't quite understand their elaborate explanation but it essentially comes down to, smokers have a sort of smoking aura that gives another person cancer. They have quite an imagination I'll grant them that.

Evidently, the people they hang around with have been pervading their aura with third-hand manure, and now they are full of it.

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Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men

2009-12-25T13:25:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Those spiritual words, Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men, oft repeated characterize virtues we could use a lot more of around the globe.

It takes an abundance of trust and high ability to grant beingness to others, to always embrace the benevolence, generosity and greatness to rise above baser emotions that wear on one and taunt like response.

When you would seem to be egged into a needless confrontation you would be advised to have no fear, look it in the eye, take a deep breath, count to 10, or whatever works for you to not bite when bitten. Yet in the world there are insane enemies sometimes about that need to be rendered ineffective to harm. These are too often themselves the unrevealed culprits the politicos and their mad dog press try to foist off on us.

The men of good will are those who pursue life honestly and ethically. They comprise 80% or so of the entire populace. It is these who keep making life tenable and the life force moving forward. The Holiday spirit reaffirms this. The Hope is it will last throughout the year.

May you embrace the cause of Peace and Goodwill and be of such benevolence that you will yourself reap an abundant and prosperous New Year.

[]

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DesignerGeodesics.blogspot.com

Friday the 13th

2009-11-13T13:55:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Friday the 13th is embroiled in superstition, mystic lore. Once considered lucky how did the date become a symbol of bad luck?

Gargoyles on a building, in the traditions of European Architecture, should be 13 in number to bring good luck to the property and inhabitants. The 13 original American colonies won and the 1st American Flag displayed 13 stripes and 13 stars to celebrate the number.

On the reverse side, two phobias are named for this: paraskevidekatriaphobia, the fear of Friday the 13th, and triskaidekaphobia, meaning literally, the fear of 13.

From the article "13 Facts About Friday the 13th":

12. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number - 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.

13. The seals on the back of a dollar bill include 13 steps on the pyramid, 13 stars above the eagle's head, 13 war arrows in the eagle's claw and 13 leaves on the olive branch. So far there's been no evidence tying these long-ago design decisions to the present economic situation.

Origins of Friday the 13th
Where's all this superstition come from? Nobody knows for sure. But it may date back to Biblical times (the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus). By the Middle Ages, both Friday and 13 were considered bearers of bad fortune."

Another speculation is that when the Knights Templar were purged by the Roman Catholic Church it was a Friday the 13th in the year 1307, thus becoming a day of fear fueling superstitions.

Don't forget as well, there's Chapter 13, for Bankruptcy.

Have you any other coincidences of 13 to add to the lore?

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Yahoo News Needs A Revamp.

2009-11-07T13:20:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

The computer dummy in me has not been able to solve the irritation of having Google News forward a most undesirable message, the death and destruction lot of news feeds. I'd be willing to grant them the benefit of a doubt that automated compilation is weighing on the negative side. Still, I'm from the old school where news articles are selected and passed on by the News Editor.

It is a truism what your attention is on constantly is what you can expect to have manifest most in your life. Yahoo News apparently has been forwarding a primary theme of killing death so it stands to reason they will one day get their wish, death unto themselves (Yahoo, organizationally) if they keep that up.

This kind of death and destruction headlining is typical of mainstream press, which as a rule I avoid. Their belief is it enhances circulation, possibly, but it seems more a mouth-piece for someone who would have us be constantly afraid.

Bush was called out for using false propaganda to thrust us into war in Iraq which he marketed through the mainstream media. Why Yahoo News continues this message today makes people wonder what are they up to. Evidently the "Have Mores" haven't profited enough from the war yet. We are an intelligent people and the point is not missed.

Hardly a day goes by where there isn't a suicide bomber story and if they don't don't have one of those it is a single murder, like the one in San Francisco or the one in Portland. The deluge has to be intensified or exaggerated by dropped-out time on repeat stories; there just aren't that many suicide bombers in the world. Surely their ranks would have been depleted by now if any truth in these at all.

A steady stream of good news, on the other hand, begets goodwill and success. In fact, all man's civilized advances come from positive ideas and high hopes for betterment. The writer does this too in fictitious rendition that excites, exhilarates and gives release through laughter. Its make-believe nature releases emotion, rather than restimulating real death and mayhem by the subliminal terror message of the mad dog press.

The steady diet of "next door" death and destruction on Yahoo's venue is not accidental in wanting to foment worry and fears. It is not a "cookies" issues as I don't click off on those articles so as to set a computerized preference. Someone is running a news campaign and one suspects the White House pushing "talking points" weighted heavily on this topic.

There must be a way to exclude these chaos stories from my news, or to have no news on my home page if I can't have the good news. I'll have to explore my settings, not knowing what is allowable and doable. If you have already solved this problem let me know what the quick hatting is.

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Babysitting Versus Bureauschitting

2009-09-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

This post turns out to be best on WhoWouldWrite.blogspot.com as it is satire writing just for fun. The tongue in cheek moral of the story is: Thou Shalt Not Babysit Thy Neighbor's Kids.

It's true that rights have been violated so an appropriate soap box would be RightsFreedomsandRights.blogspot.com. That is, regarding the novel idea of Article 1 that says we are "endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood".

Equally obvious would be a posting to FavoringLife.blogspot.com as after all this insanity is from a group populated with psychologists and psychiatric dupes, who really do know what is best for the good of all. Too bad if you don't like their interpretation of sane action. Properly, sane means exhibiting the ability to tell right from wrong.

Babysitting is an American institution. Not having grown up internationally I can't attest to this for the rest of the world, but probably ditto as there are kids underaged everywhere, the only question is as to culture. Babysitting is here to stay.

Thanks to the remnants of Freedom of Speech and the World Wide Web we sometimes get to hear of the crazier governmental missteps, the latest faux pas happening in Michigan State. A mother, gratuitously helping other mothers with a safe place for their kids to wait for the morning school bus is threatened with the law by a misguided state Department Of Human Services for being so helpful.

Kids can be cruel? What about mature and old-enough-to-know-better adults? (See Adults Can Be Cruel, coming soon to a theatre near you.)

Maybe it is only Human to be like that, short sighted and quick to deal out inhumanities to man. I mean, what's a Human Services bureau if in all fairness they don't act Human, exhibiting a command of the full range of personal drama available to Humans. If you get an unconfirmed isolated report of course the Human thing to do is to forthwith shoot the malefactor, who after all has to be guilty as there was a Complaint. Never mind that no adequate data was gathered first on which to make a decision and the order was shoot on sight notwithstanding the other C's: Compassion, Caring, Consideration. This is a learned lesson from the American Soap Operas.

It is all too easy to do a knee jerk reaction. We pay our Civil Servants to have more composure and common sense. You know, like Servants of the people. Instead, the Kids waiting for the bus at Lisa Snyder's house equals Day Care Center equals Unlicensed equals Criminal. The only thing missing is the SWAT Team enforcement.

Evidently free babysitting is way too much generosity for the scalpers at the State offices. They have to make a living you know, at other's (AKA We the People) expense.

My first impression of this story was that the State of Michigan should survey for a new name for this Department. Like Department of Humane Services. In Merriam-Websters humane defines as

1 : marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals

2 : characterized by or tending to broad humanistic culture :humanistic

In all fairness to our humble Civil Servants, if we correctly define their Hat then they can wear it.

A bit of sanity emerges, however, as when the Governor of Michigan Jennifer Granholm hears of this craziness she acts fast to tell Director Ismael Ahmed to personally intervene to get the law changed. Ismael Ahmed? He wouldn't be foreign to the ways of American culture would he be? All distrusting considerations aside, and assuming he is qualified for his post, it is Ahmed's watch, being it is his Department.

The question is still open. Will Lisa continue to do the friends' thing and look after her neighbor's kids at bus time for the good of all? Will she yield to the oppression of the State and cease the good Samaritan activity? Will the State of Michigan roboticly enforce horse and buggy laws they are unable to change?

What is your vote?

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Inspirational Brevity

2009-09-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Some while back a good friend of mine pointed out that he never had time to read my longer posts but that he would read the shorter ones. It was his consensus this was so for most of the office crowd. From this sooth and months of experimentation I decided to make some adjustments.

Personally, I tend disfavor toward long posts in the RSS Feeds I subscribe to. Reading a too-long post I will generally be die-hard about it and finish it to end. The next time that author's post comes before me I will relegate it to the "to be read" filing, for some day when I have more time.

Posts of a serious social impact do tend to be longer as these will by necessity get into more specific detail of the who, when and the where, to withstand challenges of the critics. The permalink makes it possible to circumvent this, letting other's articles give the nitty gritty for someone who asks for it.

Writing screenplays I learned to be brief. Say it in the least words and let the action and visuals show the rest, so as to fit within 120 pages, the technical equivalent of 120 minutes. I decided scripts had to have less words and novels had to have more. This isn't necessarily the case.

The last book I ever read of Michener I abandoned after a too-long historical discourse. Hugo used to do this but it was done effectively to embroil the emotions. Any writing should say it with less and prolong the discourse only to intensify the emotional impact and intellectual stimulation.

It has become a fun and fulfilling exercise of mine to invent quotable quotes that exhibit depth of thinking in one or few sentences, as well composing stimulating posts that are one page or less. It's write it, then edit to say it with less words. Your audience is intelligent and suggestive meaning will be perceived out of skilled illustration.

And don't forget this, an author knows. He writes from certainty. Where he knows that from is the fabric of the universe and one's passage through it. If it's real to you now no doubt you lived it before. So write it, and don't hold back.

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Single Socks

2009-08-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Come laundry day there's a game I play to see whether I have washed any single socks. It is even a household joke about machines that always eat the socks.

My wife's response was always to throw away the single sock. Invariably though, the other sock of the pair would miraculously turn up in the next wash. Then she would have to throw that one away.

Eventually she threw me away. Now, that's way over the line. For me it has always been preferred to grant the extended warranty in depth of tolerance and generosity of good will. Still, there has to be a cut off time for trash into the bin and selling bins keeps aisle 9 active in the hardware store.

Having the optimism that the missing sock of the pair will show up it most always does. It's a small illustration, and most certainly one that won't break the bank. But it has an application to life that has more import.

It's like the paradox that the cup is half empty or half full. The former feels like heck and the later feels like a million bucks. You do create what you think, after all. It turns out a change of viewpoint can save a lot of socks, maybe even create an abundance as well.

Give your single socks a second chance.

Attorney Access Assistance

2009-06-12T08:08:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

This situation came to my attention that I wanted to write about. As a friend was having a myriad of legal questions, the answers of which were staved off by the consideration of the expense of an attorney, that and insisting on having the best of attorneys for the niche issues, she was balked taking any action at all. It's a shame, as for pennies on the dollar with a telephone one can get all one's questions answered.

Another friend wanted to do it himself. Having studied Business Law in college he figured he knew how to research any matter that might come up. Who has time for researching laws by themselves? My friend never did. So it still comes back to this, if you had very affordable access to unlimited attorney questions wouldn't you want to have that access?

It seems that some prefer to spend $100s or $1000s where $36 a month would cover it. Makes me think it's a sort of status symbol to have huge bills from an attorney.

I'm big on the subject of human rights and have discovered a tool for easy access to equal justice, which I covered in a post on my blog RightsFreedomsandRights.blogspot.com for anyone this may interest. That post you can go to here.

Lisa Marie Sings With Elvis

2009-05-03T20:43:00.000-07:00

By Robert L. Gisel

I know this is a song but nevertheless the harmony Lisa Marie Presley wrote to sing along with Elvis is intense. Chilling. Like father like daughter. Check it out:

http://nl.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=16516224

The Secret Formula for Overnight Success Launch

2009-04-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

The unconventional is successful in the world of rebel writers, as Chris Gillebeau proves. You still have time to get on his mailing list to receive his free ebook The Secret Formula for Overnight Success, launching on Wednesday. I'm recommending it sight unseen, based on his previous works of insightful art of the unconventional.

The keys to writing are, first off, to write, something I haven't been doing much of lately, giving way to distractions. A writer writes. Chris emulates this. Secondly, you have to say it like you mean it, in your own speak, and mean something you say.

People one to the next are all individuals and are different, so when a different person says something from his heart it is unique. Excepting words spoken to reverberate the words spoken by an opinion leader, these are the creative ideas that involve readers. And embroil their thoughts, if you come to the table with any wisdom at all or simply point out something which is apart from the mainstream.

My hat is off to the Rebels, to those who would strike a new stance and aim their sights in new directions, doing something remarkable, or adding a new view to the universe of viewpoints with the hopes of helping, improving and stimulating the minds of others.

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The Wandering Minds Revisited

2009-01-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

By Robert L. Gisel

We were young, very young, for what we accomplished. We were 13 or 14 when we started the rock band, The Guys, and it wasn't even a year after that when we started the folk group, the Wandering Minds. We were paid for performances. not much, but still that qualified us as professional. And we were in the music business.

It was Doug, Bill, Robert and Fred in The Guys. In the Wandering Minds it was Jill, Bonnie, Doug, Bill and Robert. We had to have started really early, jamming in garage bands, as we were in business and performing from the Freshman year of Juneau Douglas High School and kept right on going throughout all 4 years of High School.

The Wandering Minds was a sensation in the town of Juneau, at least among our age set. As was the dance band, The Guys. But what did we do?

We were spontaneous and creative. We decided and did. We were outrageously insouciant and determined. When you do something that way, just decide and go for it, the most amazing thing occurs. All the pieces of the puzzle appear and fall in line. Help materializes. Time is created and events just roll out. The material universe magically begins to align.

I, for one, was working every day after school. Where the time came from to put together two active music groups is beyond me. There was no strife or conflict, that I recall. We just rolled forward together, said and did what we did, made time somehow for rehearsals, taught ourselves songs, wrote some, appeared on stages and even on the Jerry Lee Louis Muscular Dystrophy Marathon TV Show in Juneau.

One day we merged the two groups for the JD High Sock Hop in the gym for a one-time performance. It was only appropriate that we sing the Beach Boys, Be True to Your School. Bill requistioned a keyboard and Jill and Bonnie showed up for the vocals. It escapes me how the crowd responded to that but personally I was thrilled with this versatility.

Music, like any aesthetics, rocks through time and has left an indelible memory of those charmed times.

As Jill says, after I sent her pictures of the WM:

"Hi Robert...am printing them now...so looks good! Thanks again, this is just too fun! I think back, to how much time we all spent together, the things we did, how seriously we took our music...those are very positive formative moments in my life...I wouldn't trade them for anything. I have always carried all of you in my heart...the Wandering Minds were just so...cool, you know? It was a special time. Love, Jill"

I think that says it for us all.

A Letter to the New President

2009-01-07T22:27:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

I have been following and posting to the Better World Campaign messages on the On Day One feed. Here is my latest post:

Dear President-Elect Obama,

Very well done on your excellent campaign win. Being President is not an easy job in any times but you are inheriting some very tough crisis situations.

From the top down is the world scene and the tarnished reputation of the US on the global front. While it is important to protect our sovereignty and security we cannot go it alone. Our Nation will make the best progress by supporting the UN and thus partnering in the support of all mankind.

It was this view that in the end resolved some of our land's greatest trials, for instance the Civil Rights Movement ending the huge injustice of segregation.

I urge you to help strengthen the effectiveness of the UN and do so in the name of the UN Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. Human rights violations do not beget responses that violate human rights. Unilateral actions in the international arena has soured attitudes of too many peoples and scorched our reputation as a country of freedom and rights. The mere fact of your election alone has set this on the mend.

The UN does have purpose and structure that can monitor, judicate and police man's inhumanities to man, if given due importance and support. Setbacks to security, hunger and climate effect us all.

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights is quite sweeping in its scope and ability to heal.

I humbly beseech you to embrace fully a view of furtherance of mankind of all creeds and walks and all other actions will align, as purpose transcends policy.

Further writings on Human Rights are at my site http://rightsfreedomsandrights.blogspot.com/.

A Christmas Story

2008-12-22T02:19:00.000-08:00

by Robert L . Gisel

Bubbly Josephine bursts in through the door of the quaint book store like a whirlwind. "Such a Scrooge. Where are your lights?"

Behind the counter, Brian stands putting price tags on a pile of rare books. "Not doing any. Who cares?"

"Your father would want you to put the lights up."

"Like hell. He didn't care about Christmas. He didn't even give me a gift his last Christmas! Talk about cheap."

Josephine looks around and spies the box on the top of a shelf at the back. "There they are. Right where we put them 4 years ago." She uses the step stool to reach way up to pull out the box. An envelope falls off with the dust. Josephine picks it up off the floor, "This is for you. It's never been opened."

Brian looks at the card envelope addressed to him. Opening it he pulls out the card and a stack of hundreds falls out on the counter. The card inscription reads:

Dear Brian,

Old age has gotten the best of me and I am unable to get out to shop a gift for you. This doesn't mean I don't appreciate the value of Christmas to show yours how much they mean to you. This Christmas may be my last, I hope you will keep up the custom to pass on goodwill and the spirit of peace and love.

Your loving father.

Minutes pass as Brian stares at the card and a war wages between the internal gods and devils. A tear trickles down his cheek. "Come on," he says. I'll help you put them up."

When men fully trust each other then there will be peace on Earth.

Favorite Posts:

Get Crazy, Go Wild and Prosper

An Exercise to Refresh Resolve

Bloggers Dictionary for Unbloggers

Bloggers Dictionary for Unbloggers - Unabridged

An Exercise to Refresh Resolve

2008-12-04T15:37:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

"3. DEVOTION TO GOALS. Geniuses know what they want and go after it. Get control of your life and schedule. Have something specific to accomplish each day." Dr.Barrios

Originally I wrote this for another blog, ThinkTankMan, which showcases tips for ingenuity. As a writer, for the sake of ingenuity, one definately needs to be able to control one's time and attention as otherwise the dispersal will defeat one's intentions. Things tend to not get done at all without intention.

The discussion came up with a correspondent regarding starting a blog. She expressed she was having difficulty getting her mind to work at all, so to speak, what with all the life problems and situations she was having to handle or resolve. This is something more basic than having goals and being in control of your life and schedule. This is about being in control of your mind and decisive factors.

First off, one can be distracted by having a lot of things going on at once, which is okay, but keeping and juggling so many things in one's head at the same time becomes counter-productive. Sure, that is the purpose of the mind, but you won't control anything if you can't control one thing. To control one thing you have to focus on it. Even if it's only to take hold of something you see only out of the corner of your eye, it's a focus and thus controlling something.

Here is a short set of actions that cures the dispersal. To be able to do these you must disappear from all distractions for about 20-30 minutes; go somewhere you won't be interrupted.

1. Make a list of all the actions in your life (or work, separately, unless they are the same) that are open actions to do.

2. Make another list of anything in your life you do not feel in control of.

3. Another list, what do you feel in control of.

You should have experienced some relief at the point, a plateau by itself. Now you can do this short set of actions:

4. Go back to the first list and highlight realistically what MUST be done as opposed to what is just nice or desirable to do.

5. Pick one of those that can be done now (not something unreal, like contact the Court Clerk at 2 AM).

6. Do it. If it appears it has necessary sequential sub-actions like a, b, c, d, do a.

After this you can start to complete actions on the rest of the first list, one by one get some things done and cross them off. At some point you can re-write the first list and it will be more real and increasingly pertinent.

Get with me after you have done the steps 1-3 minimally, or preferably after step 6.

Also get with me if it this bogs down for any reason, tell me what you are experiencing and I'll address that with you. This shouldn't be the case, unless some fiasco happens like you get arrested for loitering while doing 1-3. A fiasco has a different handling.

If you can't get started on any of this, if it's all too bad, select someone to take you out back and shoot you (just kidding). Seriously, your ability to do or accomplish anything you desire is your most valuable asset. Even if you don't believe that, still take the baby steps 1-6, then write to me.

gisel_creations@yahoo.com

I also talk about this exercise from a bit different view at ThinkTankMan

If you only laughed a little you'd be better; go here for a humorous viewpoint of blogging.

Another one, unique, that will make you laugh, here.

Invest in yourself here:
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Labels: Control, Doingness, Goals, Life, Mind

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Get Crazy, Go Wild and Prosper

2008-12-01T09:11:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Do you sometimes think this is a crazy world, or maybe you're crazy for doing what you are doing. I say great! Go for it! Cast abandon to the wind and be as insouciant as you can be, because:

Worry and it won't be for sure.

If you think you can't, you can't.

If you think you aren't, you won't be.

Think you are a failure and you are now.

If you feel you have lost, don't bother to enter.

If you think there is nothing to be happy about, then you said it.

Where there seems no joy, YOU are missing.

Think you've lived it all, you're a short-timer.

It's time to retire? Select your casket.

Can't get along, you think, wither inside!

Seems it's the end? Find a new beginning!

Nothing to worry about? You're right.

You know it is, you've got it.

Feel successful, see success.

Feel it's winner, genuinely, it is.

Decide, keep true the decision and command it so.

Have that miracle feeling, it happens.

Experience the joy and joy abounds.

Go crazy and wild, create like crazy and have it all.

If you visited here let me know, leave your comments.

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Videocasting Fresh Alaskan Air

2008-11-21T03:25:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Now I've gone and done it, I am blogging with video. But there is a method to my madness.

As Google and other search engines are favoring video now it only makes sense to incorporate this into a web site. The statistic is that 70% of everyone on the internet watch videos.

The execution of this was relatively simple as well, very good news for me with my 3rd grade level internet skills. I simply used a Kodak digital M853 Easy Share which has a video function built in. This downloaded to my computer to a saved file. That I downloaded to Google Video. This was necessary in order to load it back onto my blog. Blogger required that I take it from the Google feed, or if there is a way to load it direct to the text I haven't found it.

The search is showing up my Fresh Alaska Air blogsite and also my other blog Once An Alaskan both showed up on the first page of the search instantly, of 433,000 search items. Looking a little deeper I come up 2 times in the first 116 items. This is a marked advance.

The jury is still out on this as the traffic and sales conversions will be the proof of effectiveness. Nevertheless, so far this month my blog site has been showing triple last months traffic by the 20th. Last month itself was up considerably from my norm, and this before the video was posted putting the stats on a parabolic curve into a new range.

The key to a major difference in your ranking is video. Can't beat it.

Bloggers Dictionary for Un-Bloggers - Unabridged*

2008-11-14T15:56:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Here is a reprint of the Bloggers Dictionary with some edited newly added definitions. When you are finding that your blogging is in a creak and all has been said and done there's no alternative left but to join the Un-Bloggers*. This is either a breakthrough or a breakout. Rebels to the fore!

Alaska: Mythically great land with vast reaches of wild animals, non-zoo animals and Super Heroes.

Blog: Habitat with thick moss and marshy wetlands where you will find bear, deer, elk, caribou and other non-zoo animals.

Blogger: A non-zoo animal.

Blogosphere: A vast, motionless wasteland brought to life by non-zoo animals.

Comments: Opportunity for not-shy persons or airheads to mouth off on another blogger's blog; possibly critical acclaim but most desirable of all is words of wisdom and words from the heart.

Cyborg (1): A non-zoo animal who should be caged.

Cyborg (2): Every good Super Hero needs a supremely evil Anti-Hero; arch enemy of Superwebber after an un-explained transformation to Super Villian.

Cyberspace: Where you go when you shouldn't have eaten the worm.

Cybernate: You wonder where the geek disappeared to; as bears hibernate geeks cybernate.

Cybersex (1): You've been raped by the villainous Anti-Heroes Cyborg and Trojan.

Cybersex (2): The worser evil, raped by Cyborg without Trojan.

Digg (1): Where one invites poignant criticism from non-zoo animals but is always hopeful of critical acclaim.

Digg (2): The ultimate in reality life pressures where your boss's messenger, the bill collector and your mortgage broker all stand above you and say "Digg!".

Geek Squad: League of World Wide Web Super Heroes to come to the rescue of non-zoo animals.

Hyperlink: Underground sausage links spiked with way too many jalapenos.

Phish: Sea dwelling Anti-Hero and Arch Rival of Superwebber.

Post: A milepost; tells you how far you have come and how far you have to go.

Podcasting: Humble attempts to re-foliate over-forested or fire ravaged lands.

Trackback: When the you find a doubled set of tracks and realize the bear you are tracking is now tracking you.

RSS: Royal Savants Society; a fraternity of gentlemen colloquially and variously known as geeks, gurus and webmasters; official name of the WWW Geek Squad.

RSS Feed: A smorgasbord for geeks and company.

Stumble It: When you want to write but don't type you can still Stumble It.

Superwebber: Super Hero who always saves the day from the hugely villainous Anti-Heros like Cyborg, Trojan, Phish and the Worm.

Trojan: If this Anti-Hero gets in your face you'll know you've really been screwed.

Twitter: Nervous expectations that someone will come a-calling and you hope it's not the Virus League.

*Un-Blogger (1): A desperate non-zoo animal: No traffic, no comments, no ad clicks: this is pretty Un-!

*Un-Blogger (2): A rebellion against the whole blogging establishment; with zillions of bloggers running amuck your only chance is to be different - really different - Un-alike.

*Un-Blogger (3): The masked sidekick who sometimes tags along for support with Superwebber.

Viruses: The League of Super Villians, Arch Enemies and Anti-Heroes.

Worm: Underground Anti-Hero who spins a Web to catch unsuspecting non-zoo animals; Arch Enemy of Superwebber.

WYSIWYG: Grandmother talking to the new born baby.

I'm sure I have missed a few so feel free to send me words I should define and leave it in the comments for me. Feel free to spread this around, email it, social network it, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, whatever you want, just be sure to keep my name and blog site tag on it, that is, for humanitarian purposes - I don't want anyone else to get shot for this in my stead.

This is where you leave your comments; see definition above, go to comments below.

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6 Figure Freelancer. How To Make $100,000 Per Year Writing Content Online. EBook Author says: “Broke, Jobless And Worried About Survival, I Cracked The 6 Figure Code... Discover Secrets That Flood Bank Accounts With Cash. I'll Reveal Quick-n-Easy Tactics That Generate An Online 6-Figure Income... Guaranteed! And It Gets Better... Anyone Can Make This Work”Click Here!___________________________________________________________

Want to see more funny stuff? Go to my other website http://freshalaskanair.blogspot.com/

Taking Your Blog's Inventory for 2008

2008-11-08T08:21:00.000-08:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Take Inventory.

The end of the tax year is rolling around and all merchants around are going to have to take a numbers count of the stock in inventory, goods on the shelves and so forth. It may not have occurred to you blogging fools that you have to take an inventory too.

But don't get riled. The IRS or Revenue boys aren't going to come after you if you don't have at your fingertips the number of blog posts sitting in your files, sold ads parked on them and rolling potential in adsense ads (which are ethereal anyway since adsense ads rotate). Seriously though, isn't this "stock"?

For one thing if you don't know what you have you could find yourself repeating yourself. On the other hand that's a good way to slip the same old material in, just in case you're not quite bright one day in dreaming up something new to write about. Chances are the current readers haven't read it before. The loss could be, however, that some of your best material is really sage advice and may go overlooked except by the very best site surfing bloggers.

"Favorite Posts" listed on the blog sideline is one way to recycle those oldies but goodies. The other way I have seen it done is to drop names of some pertinent past posts on your current piece. Then the lazy blogger doesn't have to slug through the surf to something you can lay your finger tips on. Thinking out loud here, this is pretty good advice and I'm going to have to make some timely edits now.

Not being a Broken Record Requires Knowing What You Already Have.

Digg this (pun intended), for great content: writers, like all artists can be prone to streaks of perfectionism and want to redo earlier works. Something the perfectionist artist created in earlier days is never good enough now as he is so much more savvy and expert at his art so he feels he has to edit it or touch up the colors or even throw it out and repaint the whole canvas. Looking at it this way you may really have some new scoop on the old post, can now add points 13 and 14 to the "12 Ways To..." and this handily makes for a new post, like "Additions To The 12 Ways To...".

Personally I can let an amateurish early work of mine ride. Maybe I'll add a forward or editorial note to it but good enough then is fine now, in my mind. With my blogspot on DesignerGeodesics I'm in the process of dragging out some of earliest free shape architectural renderings and am happy to add a disclaimer. The principal is well illustrated in these works even if the aesthetic flare is lacking to my tastes now.

Use the Unpublished Draft to Keep Track of Your Future Planning.

Re content: I categorically deny that I steal any ideas from other bloggers for my own posts. Since I'm not a politician and even with the elections over I can still proffer such bull. The Latest Post from Darrel Rouse, not plagiarised by me because he gave it to me by way of RSS Feed, I only read one third of the way through before I got a flash of brilliance for this post. I was just going to note the idea in an unsung and written draft but I found myself on a roll and wrote the whole thing in one sitting.

Maybe I'll go back now and see where he was going with the rest of his post. And, like dog markings on a fire hydrant, leave my sign in a contrarian comment. To this date I haven't noticed any of my comments moderated out of existence so I seem to be doing okay at walking the fine line between contrarian and obnoxious. Yet He's not talking to me, hasn't answered my email or never even saw it because his lieutenants saved him any attempt at familiarity from an unknown. As Bloomburg took up the challenge of besting the big boys and survived quite nicely I'm up for a good fray myself.

All this brings me to the poignant datum of this post. My upmanship to Darrel's post is thus: whenever I get a new idea but also after I have have mapped out a whole long list of prospective posts I make a phantom "new post" with one paragraph or so to remind me later what the devil I was thinking. This I title and save as a draft. Later it is there for me to come back to and fill in the content and publish. Since I have been doing this I have noticeably increased the frequency of my posts.

This prompter-becomes-a-new-post involves a trick, however; you have to write it as a new post and not complete the old one. With blogger it will post on the date of the draft as a past or archival post, instead of the new date of the post. You have to copy and paste your intro paragraph, bringing it forward in time, or just start writing in a new unit of time. Then delete the draft copy.

A Genius Is Committed to Knowledge.

As a side note I consider myself peer to anybody, though my blog is green behind the gills. The Royal Savants Society possibly haze me over crumpets at the RSS Feed, if they even mention me at all. But I have no problem communicating unabashedly and sincerely in a face-to-face with a bum, a guru, a redneck or a Vice Regal - I've been all of these and more in my notoriously long past. Henry Ford didn't back down because he only had a third grade education so why should I. (I'm well educated past third grade but the intricate details of Internet webbing do escape me.)

Keeping abreast of pertinent news stories, picking up on relative research strains and reading for fun as well to hone technical skills all come with the territory, is all part of job.

Consolidate Your Activity While Still Being Diversified.
I just popped back over to the ProBlogger post so can comment on the rest of it and reiterate a couple more points I have covered before. I used to be going at a mad rate in 10 different directions, all great and promising projects that have 5-7 figure potentials. I got bright one day and realized it wasn't 10 different directions but was a diversity of activities all under the same heading: creative laboratory.

I wasn't doing beads. pens, cutlery, magazines, crystals and numbers of other wildly disrelated diversities. It is factually blue beads, red beds, green beads, yellow beads, etc. By "this" I am referring to blogs, screenplays, novels, freelance, inventions Fresh Alaskan Air, Mellon Cutter Knife Set, MERV (My Electric Rec Vehicle) Retrofit Centers, Neo Geodes - Designer Geodesics Architectural Breakthrough, etc. All creations of my Think Tank.

The arrows may go off from a central theme to branch activities it all still fits on the same property - just the way Edison did it with his inventions labs (6 buildings) and manufacturing plants (around 20 buildings). It has different departments in different buildings without duplicative functions. It's Creation Labs, Marketing, Manufacturing, etc, but it's all on the same page.

Get Control of Your Life.

I have all the usual organizing essentials as in files (physical and cyber), favorites, bookmarks address books,etc. What I run my life and work out of though, as a self-employed writer/inventor, is two leather bound journals.

The 5 by 7 journal keeps the stream of consciousness running notes I used to manage my day and week. The battleplans/to do lists, phone notes, scribbled down phone numbers and addresses captured on the fly, all of that is kept in the smaller journal which will last 3 to 6 months before I need to start a new one. This is not some cheap steno pad that is easily lost but it is hard bound suede covered bound note pad complete with bookmark ribbons. In other words it is nice to have laying around and it doesn't get misplaced. I picked up several matching sets of these at Wal Mart for a few bucks each. Personally I just like matching sets and coordinated articles, apparently a holdover from my architectural orient. This little bit of organization, however, has proven to be immensely valuable.

The larger 7 by 9 inch journal is a tasty leather bound, gold leaf et al, which was only about $7 but lends a feeling of richness. Somehow the havingness of tasty things fosters self worth and industry. This note book with its ready lined pages fills the need to keep in one place any handwritten articles, notes or quotes from references for writing articles and yes, lists of planned posts I want to write. Most of these scripts get transcribed or edited into blog posts, chapters or screenplay scenes. There are even drawings, architectural sketches and new inventions I think up.

The former book is administrative, that latter is technical.

Give Me a Break?

The boss (me) tends to be really hard on that subject. There is a daily (mostly) routine I have that encompasses this. In the morning, while I am having the ritualistic cappuccino in the morning hours before I'm fit company, I soak in a hot tub, with my note-pad book, writing journal, and reading material. It's a long soak - but I get a lot of mileage out of this.

Still, I do like the idea of taking time off totally to go look around in the park strip, meander through the mall or browse in Barnes and Nobel, just to get some space away from the daily nose-to-the-grinstone. It's like pushing the refresh button.

Any thoughts on all this? Leave me your comments, I'd like to hear them.

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Read about it here: The Truth About Darren Rowse ProBlogger!
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Information Meltdown

2008-11-05T00:07:00.000-08:00

by Robert L Gisel

If getting on the computer has been an interesting learning curve blogging has been hyperbolic. The amount of potential would seem to be unlimited but with that comes an embracive curve that puts demands on what one needs to know and keep track of. Sometimes it's too much and feels like I'm about to have a core meltdown on my nuclear reactor.

Whenever that happens the first advice is word clearing. This is when you need to clear up definitions of the nomenclature and other misunderstood terms. My first stab at this came out as the Bloggers Dictionary for Un-Bloggers.

The plethora of social networking sites is just one area of complexity and confusion and it baffles me how one would embrace any number of these simulaneously and even begin to keep up with the volume. There is not even a suitable justification for me, like I have Alzheimer's or some such incapacity. Each of the social groups has it's own format to confront. Then there is the lingo that you only know if you've been one of the good old boys for awhile.

Never have I been one to pretend affections, be a groupy and say "I really want to be like [Pro Blogger]." If you have such an illusion go see the post The Truth About Darren Rowse ProBlogger.

There are the usual diversions that would appear to answer ones questions but each platform is unique, putting back in ones face the confront challenge. If you successfully confront the complexity and weed through the newness of the new arena you may come through unscathed. Does anyone else but me encounter this?

Just one simple matter alone, that of passwords and user IDs, has taken elaborate tracking admin I found to require a secure logging system as undoubtedly I will need to look up the password or ID on any pass accessible site that I haven't been to in awhile. Even going to something I have been to a lot such as a lesser frequented email address will occasion a quasi-panic when I can't log, until I go and dig up the data from my secret log. Where is my flock of secretaries when I need them?

Usually I just use my real name as the user ID as do some others like Steve with his own site as http://stevepavlina.com/. There's no need to hide behind an anonomous ID. It seems to me even cowardly, at least if you ever plan to get into the fray where you may find yourself amid some kind of controversial discussion. For Instance, if it comes up again that someone asks you "Is Darren Rowse really an airhead?" Once you have covered an area though you now have the content to hyperlink to and answer those embarrassing questions efficiently. Don't forget, you also have to define your terms.

It may be this one facet alone, trying to remember what User ID and Password used when signing up, that keeps me majorly off the social networking sites. One friend told me she just keeps the same password for everything. Is that the way it's done by the street-wise blogger?

If I have the correct figure it's 380 million and that is the number of sites on the web. This could off by a zero or two and its still up there high even to challenge my eidetic memory. Therefore, being limited to a niche is a godsend. I now see I should count my blessings that I have since come past the elementary elements of the electronic world where the challenge once was simply to learn how to use the IBM Selectric correcto-type function.

The irony is that the mind is a far more capable computer than any artificial computer with far more capacity then you'd ever think to use. The key here is "think to use' as if you realized you could do it the stretch of what one does currently would boggle ones mind. But you'd soar with ability.

Until you said "can't", which is basically a lie, it was clearly "you can". That is the point ("can't") of where the meltdown occurs and you feel you'd best get 10 miles away from the computer. And take any favorite toys with you lest it really is the point of no return.

Maybe this blog should be titled WhoWouldHelp. Everyone needs help sometimes, even us geniuses. Remember Henry Ford, the car mogul with only a third grade education? When challenged about his literacy he pointed out to the Judge that whenever he needed expertise he pushed one of the 10 buttons in a row on his desk and the knowledgeable expert came a-running.

Me who is so confident in myself would never ask for help. It sure would be good if you who do know would proffer it. If you don't want to be seen with an Un-Blogger (i.e., comments are publicly published) then you can secretly email me at gisel underscore creations at yahoo.

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Hyperlink to another of my many blogs; this one is funny and will maka you laugh: http://freshalaskanair.blogspot.com/ .

The Truth About Darren Rowse ProBlogger

2008-11-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

The term "Un-Blogger" from the Bloggers Dictionary for Un-Bloggers psoted below needed delineation. Here's the straight scoop.

I'm no friend of Darren Rowse, the ProBlogger. Maybe this will start a revolution, shades of Alice's Restuarant, for those who remember the 70's.

Let's face the facts: with tens of thousands of friends who needs another friend. Maybe the best thing I could do for him is to not get in his friends queue.

No one put me up to this. I have not been bribed by the competition or bought off by special interest advertisers. It is on my own determinism that I elect to be an Un-Friend. Who knows, this could be the best thing that ever happened to him.

With zillions of bloggers on the net the only defense is to be different. Right?

We're not talking enemy here, though separately this is true: what good is a protagonist without a really evil antagonist. I had to learn early on that I can't write a screenplay where the people are all agreeable unless lame is the target. "I agree James, Octupusy is rather intimidating to people. I think I shall call an open forum to discuss how we can improve the image of my World Takeover Plan." But looking back to the first line of this blog didn't that rather tighten your sphincter muscle?

You don't have to be an enemy at all to be an un-friend, in fact that is not what it is all about. If one remembers back some years there was a familiar and also very successful marketing campaign - the Un-Cola. This was good positioning, rather clever actually, by 7-Up, with the goal in mind to grab the number one beverage sales position then held by Coca Cola

There was another one of these about that time as well -- the Ugly One. VW took up the odd looks of the VW Bug so as to make it an asset. That, along with it's well engineered design that they floated in a swimming pool, made a marketing campaign winner.

Look at how Darren writes. It is very professional, spell and grammar checks are all in. He has acute pictures. He is polite, cordial with his publics and shows a genuine interest in others' viewpoints. As he wants to help others get along themselves the comments from his followers are all laudatory and appreciative. Sounds great, right? Wrong.

What it appears he lacks and needs the most is a true un-friend, someone who will step up and tell him the straight poop, that that last post sucked, when that is the case. Or that his style has become so consistently congenial that it is now, well, boooring! Don't you ever vigorously disagree with anything? In the post on The Importance of Pillar Articles and Why Obama and McCain Are Idiots Darren hosted this guest post article demonstrating a completely controversial lead-in. Way to go Darrel! Who wants to be number 50,001 out of 50,000 anyway. Contrarian has its advantages.

This brings me to my point precisely: I refuse to be a lemming. This fellow, Chris Guillebeau from the blog the Art of Non-Conformity goes forward on the premise that one should do something remarkable. That made an impression on me, is rather the way I am anyway just never said it that way. Now I look forward to going around the world in my electric Jeep (my remarkable ambition) and when I pass through a new country remember to ask "Have you seen Chris - has he been by here?" Either that or I'll run into The Guinness Globetrotter. (Just go into the Pub in Bangladesh and see who has been ordering Guiness.)

When you give a good look at the ProBlogger site you see that he has really cranked out the content. Enough to write a book! In fact he did, as you know. I have heard it said the hierarchy is quantity, quality and viability (that's from L. Ron Hubbard to give credit where due). I think it's safe to say by now Darren has gotten in the quantity. His quality is impecable. Recent posts show in his social networking he has excellent command of viable interactivity and the involving of others, though I would like to see more of that. In fact he seems to have it all down pat. That's the problem.

When you completely win over a game you have to have a new game. Complete mastery leaves one in a position of not enough challenge to hold one's interest. When you are totally accomplished at tv (pros in the field never capitalize tv) you had better go for movies or directing or producing - anything but remaining stagnant as "the best there is". For instance, I have been watching a past student of mine, Michelle Stafford, 3-time Emmy Award winner of the longest running "Young and the Restless" to see what will be her new game. How many Emmys can one person get before it's time to try something new? One wonders if Darren hasn't backed himself into this corner and arrived at the disinterest of a no-game.

This is a sure route to creating problems for oneself just to keep it interesting and to keep any game going - stagnate by not moving on to a bigger playing field.

Recent posts at Pro-Blogger have been rather too technical to my liking. I know when a post is full of terminology (or too much information at one time) I have never even heard spoken before, it's way over my head. I just skip rapidly over that one, which is possibly exactly what he thought would be the case. It is curious to me whether he is seeking to move into a more savvy arena or has succumbed to the urge to get placement as one of the chosen few in the Royal Savants Society: to be immortalized as one of the great geeks or gurus.

Other posts, which I prefer the most, are down to earth invites to discussion such as the one on Abundance Highway that throws out whether to be Niche Specific or Specifically Nicheless (Un-Niche). This hearty discourse has thrown out over 100 comments to date and has been very interactive indeed.

I have to say something about that though. I think the whole point has gone missed in that blog and the commentary. It actually isn't what it appears to be, you know, niche versus broadshoot. Who cares? It is all about what presents a deferent viewpoint. When people like it it could be Niche or Un-Niche, the public have spoken.

To put this in my new perspective, to Niche or to Un-Niche, it is like a good movie: there has to be some controversy, conflict and disagreement. It doesn't matter if it is general or specific. This is so even in a comedy! This would not have to be humor at another's expense that grates on the friendship, or contrast with great sarcasm that would seem to be headed for divorce. Why get into any of that? You can't be be-friended if you aren't a friend. So be an un-friend and slice though life with complete immunity.

The worst that can happen is that no one will go to your blog. Even before my declaration as an Un-Friend and subsequently an Un-Blogger there hasn't between much traffic to speak of to my blogs, something which I will have to sort out one of these days. Seven blogs deep with posts on all of them and only one hardy sole (pun intended) has managed to fight through the fish ladders to leave the seed of immortality on one of my posts. Ouch!

My response to that is wild abandon, to go renegade and be a self-proclaimed Un-Blogger. In my own will to cut apart from indefinable mainstream I feel I must forthwith and henceforth declare myself to be Darren Rowse's Un-Friend. Like it or lump it.

In his magnaminous personage Darren might even forgive the humor at his expense (and how I butchered his name spelling on my first publish).

If you care to help plant the flag for the universal Un-Blogger leave your declaration in the comments below. And drop some coin in the cup to help me help support the aspiring writers of the Sacramento Area Screenwriters Group.

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The Bloggers Dictionary for Un-Bloggers*

2008-10-31T11:07:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

After finding my blogging was paused it appeared to me I hadn't a clue what I was talking about. So I got the misunderstoods defined and I'm glad I have it straight now.

Blog: Habitat with thick moss and marshy wetlands where you will find bear, deer, elk, caribou and other non-zoo animals.

Blogger: A non-zoo animal.

Blogosphere: A vast, motionless wasteland brought to life by non-zoo animals.

Comments: Opportunity for not-shy persons or airheads to mouth off on another blogger's blog.

Digg (1): Where one invites poignant criticism from non-zoo animals.

Digg (2): The ultimate in reality life pressures where your boss's messenger, the bill collector and your mortgage broker all stand above you and say "Digg!".

Hyperlink: Underground sausage links spiked with way too many jalapenos.

Post: A milepost; tells you how far you have come and how far you have to go.

Podcasting: Humble attempts to re-foliate over-forested or fire ravaged lands.

RSS: Royal Savants Society; a fraternity of gentlemen colloquially and variously known as geeks, gurus and webmasters.

RSS Feed: A smorgasbord for geeks and company.

Stumble It: When you want to write but don't type you can still Stumble It.

Trackback: When you find a doubled set of tracks and realize the bear you are tracking is now tracking you.

Twitter: Nervous expectations that someone will come a-calling; you just hope it's not the Virus League.

*Un-Blogger (1): A desperate non-zoo animal: No traffic, no comments, no ad clicks: this is pretty Un-!

*Un-Blogger (2): A rebellion against the whole blogging establishment; with zillions of bloggers running amuck your only chance is to be different - really different.

WYSIWYG: Grandmother talking to the new born baby.

I'm sure I have missed a few so feel free to send me words I should define and leave it in the comments for me. Feel free to spread this around, email it, social network it, Digg, Twitter, StumbleUpon, whatever you want, just be sure to keep my name and blogsite tag on it, that is, for humanitarian purposes - I don't want anyone else to get shot for this in my stead.

WhoWouldWrite.blogspot.com

P.S. This is where you leave your comments, see definition above, go to comments below.

For more funny definitions in the Bloggers Dictionary for Un-Bloggers, Un-Abridged version click here.

Want to see more funny stuff? Go to my other websitehttp://freshalaskanair.blogspot.com/

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Jobless Not Hopeless.

2008-10-30T09:59:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Being a writer means working and making a living without being somebody's employee, in my mind. Being not an employee but genuinely an entrepreneur. This web site of Barbara Winter that lends support to the idea.

At one trying period of my life I went off purpose taking up a state government job. This for sure took no creativity but the warranty of a regular paycheck versus the insecure returns of self-employment income was cozy, like an electric blanket in a bitter cold night.

Sooner or later the secure steady job will reach the limits of tolerability for the entrepreneurial minded.

If you have an avenue towards the attainment of income, exchange of products for funds that does, or will, realize subsidence it can be as creatively variable as people are different. There are commonly several mileposts you will have to accomplish to be "joyfully jobless" as Barbara flaunts above.

1) Create The Bright Idea. The new idea creates from thin air. Somewhere I heard someone say inspiration only comes around just so often you have to take advantage of it when it comes along. Not true. Decide to think of something new and do it.

I wanted to make a friend of mine laugh this morning. She is a Doctor of Dermatology so the idea was simply, how could I un-define Dermatology. At first hadn't a clue how to make a play on that term. With help from the dictionary I got inspired:

Dermatology is the field making kishke (from derma: a wrapped beef dish stuffed with a flour mixture). It is the reverse of "Where's the beef?" that being epitomized by Beef Wellington.

It's strange I don't see that in her office...

There was another example of this where I was explaining to a friend how to go about the game of creating and licensing patents. Just for example, I said, what if you wanted to come up with a better mouse trap. On the spot, out of the blue, I invented one. I elaborated a box cage that triggers a guillotine trap door when the mouse approaches the cheese inside the box. Voila! A better mouse trap.

From nothing to something is the province of the artist: the new idea from thin air, the written word on a blank page, the painting on a empty canvass. All starts with a decision and that is easy. Just decide I am going to...

2) Physical Demonstration Aids Imagination. Sometimes when the ideas just won't gel into a variation what you're trying modify or originate it can help immensely to literally put it out there in front of you. Rather than molding it in your head put it in the physical universe using scraps of things from your desk drawer to shape a demonstrative model.

In the example above you could fold a piece of paper into a rectangular box. On the floor of the box fulcrum a strip of cardboard over a pen cap. Wrap a stack of credit cards with a piece of tape and slip it through a slot in the top of the box to form a trap door. Unwrap a paperclip to create a rod coming from the entrance side of the end of the ramp and upwards through the top of the box. Play around with a lip and a hook configuration on the trap door that holds it up in the open position until triggered, at which point it drops into place. Lay a piece of "cheese" at the far end of the ramp and await the mouse.

Demonstrating something in the fashion with bits and pieces of anything is a terrific aid to invention.

3) Checklist the Practicality of the Bright Idea. Make sure it withstands the tests of feasibility: it has to be something that fulfills a real need in a practical and usable fashion. This is simply done by considering it all the different ways that a consumer would regard it. Write these ways down for quick reference or as checklist.

In one's own area you have probably been thinking in this light automatically. It is your forte'. Where you don't quite visualize it, here again you give this beingness by actual doingness. Form the considering points into a checklist. How can I think differently about this? What is a different point of view? Is this a brand new idea or does it improve upon an idea? Who would buy it? Why would someone want this? Is there anything else like it on the market? These are just a few of the questions that might be on your checklist.

4) An Economically Feasible Product Makes Good. The product should be able to be sold for 3 times what it costs to buy/make/deliver the goods. Whatever that price comes out to be has to be a value that a public will buy. The lower priced burger at McDonald's is offset by quantity, while the higher priced burger at Applebee's sells for more as it has a quality that people want and will pay more for.

A friend mine does quite well building and installing, at a much higher price, the same cabinetry middle America might buy for their homes, as he deals exclusively with wealthy publics who are willing to pay more for the same product. Consideration and market has everything to do with the exchange.

With a product like writing it is your time that is valuable. Working all year on a product for $20,000 or one month for one that pays $10,000 and leaves 11 months open for more products makes it easy to see: you can only spend so much of your time at something.

5) A Lot at Bargain Prices Versus Little at a Premium. Writing, sculpting or painting alike face the same quality versus quantity issue. You should have both. The larger ticket item when sold pays a lot of bills accumulated but a steady flow of smaller introductory items keeps bread and butter on the table daily.

The biggest reason for both, why this is essential, has to do with new public versus the established clientele. You must always, always, always develop new publics to keep up an expanding client base.

6) 2% Inspiration and 98% Perspiration. This delineation of genius by Edison speaks sooth.

You could potentially sell your ideas and never have to be involved in the manufacturing or marketing. You can license patents and the purchasing company takes care of all the implementation and can get a flat fee or may negotiate a percentage return. Whatever it is it is less than the return if you yourself manufactured the invention and put it on the market as did Edison.

Even selling the idea it takes some hard work to package a bright idea that it can be sold. It may only be typing it up, drawing it out, naming it, prototype making, testing and surveying. Then you have to sell it to someone or a board of someones and may have to defend it from all manner of ploys to get without buying.

7) Administration is Too Often Foreign to the Artist. A number of my friends are the most outstandingly creative in the field but when it comes to the practical skills of administration and marketing the product they flop miserably. This is particularly true in art where the aesthetic mind stands by itself and produces exceptional product.

Where you have experienced this of yourself the answer is to get trained and educated in the skill areas lacking or hire a manager or outsource the activity.

8) Give Due Consideration to Operating in the Red Long Enough to Succeed. How much capital you will actually need to start a new activity or how much reserves will keep you funded while the returns build enough to put you in the black is more often than not underestimated. It is a different amount for each activity.

It is best to have some form of regular proceeds, monthly income or royalties while establishment occurs.

9) All Your Eggs One Basket Can Lead to a Nasty Surprise. When the fox breaks into the chicken coop if all the eggs are in one basket the loss may be total. When there are numbers of baskets he isn't likely to get into all of of them. Especially if there is more than one chicken coop.

It is a wise idea to have more than one source of income. While this applies to anyone it is extremely viable for the self employed. It might be large white eggs, brown eggs and turkey eggs, each having its own market share. It might better be from different areas altogether like eggs, goat's milk, cheese, Christmas trees and garden boulders.

10) Be Consistent. Whatever it is you do for income it has to be regularly done. One time deals tend to be just that: a big spurt of income, then a drought. At some point success will roll over into floods of income you couldn't stop if you wanted to, but until that time comes a regular output of creation is necessary.

These are from within the realm of my experiences and observations. I welcome other viewpoints and exploration of other ideas. Leave your comments or ideas you have about this.

To Post Regularly or Not to Post Regularly

2008-10-22T02:27:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

To post regularly or not to post regularly, that is the question. It would seem that to be a professional of course one would keep in regularity and frequency.

It doesn't seem to be that simple when push comes to shove. First off blogging isn't my main line of work. It does have relevance though as it does effect other activities and can be a reflection of professionalism even where it may seem a sideline activity.

For instance, when one goes to publish something you better believe the publisher will ask if you have web site and he will examine it. This can illustrate to him your writing ability and help to secure the publishing contract.

Apart from that one should not think that when one publishes a work the publisher will take care of all the advertising and marketing and you won't have to worry about that. It doesn't actually tend to work that way. While the publisher does have an interest in the marketing of its publishing the role of the author cannot be underestimated. The exposure of the author can make all the difference between a successful publish or not.

Having one's own pre-release campaign out is really important and if done well will tip the scale over to an adequately large volume. You can this here with Chris Guillbeau from his Art of Nonconformity blogsite as regards the launch of the Unconventional Guide. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger also could seen to do this with the release of his book, just to mention a couple examples. Of course there is the traditional day-of-the-release book signing by the author, getting out there lending his hand to promotion (literally), but lending one's hand to the promotion efforts literarily demands a lot more than that as well.

This post is a sort of thinking out loud for me as it seems I am anything but a conventional dedicated blogger. Knowing about publisher demands gives an added purpose for a blog for me, enough of a significance that I have been a bit more diligent in keeping blog posts coming out.

Nevertheless, all of the things I have crossflowed about what a blogger should do I undoubtedly violate. At least the choices made have seemed reasonable for what subjects my 7 blogs cover and still keep in line somewhat the cohesive subjects each to themselves. Besides, 7 is a perfect number so of course the arbitrary decision of 7 blogs was divinely predicated. Good thing too, as I never would have thought of it.

There has become another purpose and a new set of requirements that has been shaping my activity. Selling blogging is another potential source of income and this requires some following to one's site, but also there is generally an expectancy of a minimum number of posts, not replicated from other blogs, this apparently being ten minimally. Being too far spread out in my 7 blogs this was not the case and this has encouraged me to put up more posts.

For the most part now my new posts are prompted by new press feeds or from other bloggers posts that stimulate me to write. Recommendations seem to favor a least one post a week. Personally I don't see myself doing that, not with 7 blogs, as that would be one a day and is a lot more than I have been doing.

So to answer the proverbial question ,to blog regularly or not to, I would have to say no, I don't expect to get regular in my posting schedule. My frequency has been increasing though and maybe at some point that too will change.

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Nonconformity reaches the 100th Country in the World

2008-09-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

The man who do something remarkable and tell us about it on his blog, Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Nonconformity, has achieved his goal of travelling to 100 countries. 100th country, Sri Lanka. Interesting way to get content for your blog.

When I heard of this I got the idea that maybe next year or the next he would make it but Chris has really made some tracks since then. Time to pop the cork and have a big celebration:

Congratulations!! 100th country in the world!!!! (drums, real ones, the huge crowd stands, the applause drowns out the stage microphone, goes on for 5 minutes). The regular band couldn't make it, their synthesizer had the hick ups, but we found a female singer, she's only 6 but she knows the words and she's does the remarkable especially for Chris.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkcE6Vy-e6c&NR=1

Very well done Chris, your persistence is, well, remarkable.

Robert

WhoWouldWrite.blogspot.com

What About Potential?

2008-09-22T12:36:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Plenty of potential surely helps but what really counts is whether you go the distance. The post from Chris Guillebeau of The Art of Non-Conformity strikes a note as I have seen this in other artists as well. The necessity to actualize out of potential is not limited to artists but seems to be more pronounced in that realm as therein lies the most creation from nothing.

A high capacity battery is great but if you never run the engine who cares. You have to make the trip, put in the time and exert the effort to carry through to a fully realized product.

Chris's post hits a very hot button for artists provoking the question what to do about it. I couldn't resist putting in my 2 cents and am reprinting these here as I liked what I had to say and what to expound on it. My comments:

Tips for the Dip:

Be At Peace With the Ebb Tide

My all time success action at such moments in the illusion of failure is to go with the calm that occurs at the turning of the tide. After the incoming fury and wrath of the incoming tide when it looks like all is spent for naught and now the tide will recede the sea goes very calm. That's when I observe the calmness, tune in to the creative forces of the universe and set about a new onslaught. It's only failure if you fail to persist.

Have the Last Supper.

You have to follow the ebb tide calm with the Last Supper, so to speak. When it appears defeat has beset me or the game is lost I literally go fix myself a special meal in my kitchen or get something I really like at a restaurant and call it the "Last Supper". This is metaphorical for meaning it appears I just lost the title but the eye of the tiger will see it through to win anew. Always at this time a bright idea or brilliant new phase plan emerges and I know something remarkable and great is just around the corner.

Difference of Potential Creates Energy.

When you think about it no energy is created in the absence of a difference in potential; without that there is no flow. What has more difference of potential than the work of an artist creating something from a blank page, an empty canvass or a void of space.

How Do I know It's Genuinely Good?

What makes it good or not is 1) only that it be different and 2) the discipline in the application of craftsmanship.

1) If you can say what hasn't been said or express a new view of it like a clever metaphor it will stimulate thought in others, you can be assured. Be yourself and express what comes from your heart and that will take you the longest way.

2) A casual observer may say he likes it but the artist, who knows his craft well enough from study and practice will apply his skills with the finesse that entices the involvement and imagination of the intended public, knowing fully well what rules or methodology made it likable.

The smug pleasure from accomplishing my first screenplay was that only I did it; the screenplay itself is a far cry from acceptable. Same of the second screenplay first rendering on paper. By the ninth re-write following the advices of an excellent mentor it transformed to the realm of top notch. Now doing it right comes naturally.

Know what you have that is unique. Study up. Take time to improve your skills. Then success will follow your persistence.

Take a Walk to The Top of the Mount

When all else fails here is another metaphor. In the circumstance where it appears my work is crap after all, that I have really messed it all up, spun my wheels to go nowhere and may well be defeated and left for dead on the battlefield this calls for a walk to the top of the mount to come back with the holy tables. You have to take some time out and review where you stand and be honest with yourself. Get a new view from the highest point of the journey. This is best done by reviewing your goals and most heartfelt desires candidly and reaffirm these or adjust them as needed.

A lost battle only means that you still have to confront the war.

Robert, WhoWouldWrite.blogspot.com

I am interested in the experience of others in this light. Have you observed these things and how? Post a comment to let me know your thoughts on this.

0 comments:

We Hope She Doesn't Yawn

2008-08-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

On the ProBlogger site this new post "GRAB your Readers Attention and HOOK them into your blog" got my attention so as to invite my comment:

As I’m primarily a playwright I too have been inspecting this conundrum: how do you, in the title and one sentence max, blow up the oil facilities, discard the scuba gear, dry suit and have an immaculate tux underneath to join the elite party, all punctuated by the most exciting Rolling Stones theme song.

You used to get 20 minutes now you only have 10 to grab a persons attention in a movie. Actually it is 10 pages where each page equates to a minute of movie, and that is the time you have to tempt the reader to continue reading the screenplay. No movie gets made unless some potential filmmaker reads the script and likes it, thinks it is a winner and that it will make money at the box office.

The top film producers at Ken Rotcops Pitchmart will only promise to read the first 10 pages and only will they continue reading if they are hooked into interest by then. This is down from the 20 that was acceptable as late as a decade ago.

Evidently society is now media wise, catch on fast or get bored quickly. The net has such impossibly high volumes of data and traffickers to it I’m sure it is the same in the blogosphere, no one has time to be bored when there are so many fast and exciting impressions available.

This post caught my attention with the picture of the wicked block and tackle. That’s a well done hook.

But you should go to and read the post from ProBlogger not just my comment on it.

Write Around the World

2008-06-03T17:07:00.000-07:00

By Robert L. Gisel

Recently I ran across someone who aspired to go to 100 countries to fulfill his decision to be remarkable. Then, as if that wasn't ambitious enough he decided to make it a visit to every country in the world. That certainly out-remarkables his remarkable.

It is really good to be different. When you look at it though every being is different. All you have to do is speak from your heart and say it the way you would say it and it comes out different, it's you speaking. That's probably why blogging is such a blast. There's a lot of interesting people out there amongst humanity.

In the mainstream media it is all too saturated with the misdeeds of evil doers. Well, that is what the press covers. bad news.

In my own travels it never ceases to amaze me the good people you encounter around the world. Even the friends I have here in the US who have come from all parts of the world and parts we used to never hear from, behind the communist block as we'd call it. Now I have good friends from Hungary, Russia and Taiwan. Friends from China, Turkey, Quatar, Pakistan, England, South Africa or - you name it.

You get to to see it well when you travel. You can see it more so in the blogosphere and that interests me. Finding one such person as Chris with his site The Art of Non-Conformity and his post Do a Remarkable was quite interesting enough. That's so novel it makes you feel inspired just to consider this positioning. You know, different. Then I found another such person who not only will go to each country in the world but will also drink a Guinness in each one. I think it's that extra challenge that makes this a really tough goal. Like, what does it take to find a Guinness in Bangladesh?

In the blogosphere though you get to know people well. The camaraderie, the sharing of kindred spirits. People helping other people or just being themselves. It is the media where you can hear the good news in the world. From the bloggers.

You gotta love 'em.

Who Would Write?

2008-04-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

by Robert L. Gisel

Recently I have noticed some very active blogger discussions of blogging just for fun or for income, or both. It is actually quite amazing when you look at it, now with the advent of the Internet, how many would be writers there are now.

It is a creative art and perhaps the easiest one to engage in. If you can hold a conversation and work a keyboard, albeit with two fingers like me, then you can write.

It it an art form though and unless the ramifications of that are grasped one will find himself sooner or later with serious issues about out what one is doing. All art forms require the technical skills of the medium in order to communicate message. Without message it is just so much graffiti. Without skill one will not communicate.

In writing, that skill is craftsmanship. Without that, or real promise of it, you won't get an editor or producer and you won't sell your works. That would be fine if you only write just to communicate to friends or family or just for fun but not where you expect visitors to your blog or site and you want the traffic to grow and build interest or income. You can attract the traffic or drive it away.

Internet writing is still learning ground for me. Communication is not. On the Internet the whole trick is couched in how to find a communication line. There are a lot of blogs on blogging and all the ramifications of that bearing in the direction of the burning question, how to make money at it. I tend to be impatient with this. I want to go 0 to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds.