How Do We Go On?

Some days are better than others. Some nights, too.

Last night, I had one of the worst nights in recent memory. It seemed like everything was in an uproar — my physical pain was high, my grief level for my father (and, of course, for my husband) was very high, and I was yet again at the same point I often am: Is this all there is? Is there nothing more?

Not to mention the biggest question I ponder daily: Am I doing any good in this world at all?

I believe the unexamined life is not worth living. But my quest to find meaning and purpose in what I do, lately, has been ground down by life circumstances beyond my control. If I had the financial wherewithal, I might consider a vacation…just to get away, to clear my head, to give myself some chance to rest and recover.

But I don’t have the means.

So, I’m trying to give myself a break in other ways. I don’t know yet if what I’m doing is viable, even in the short term. But listening to more music, reading more for pleasure (even if it’s just a frothy romance, if it makes me smile or laugh, it’s worth whatever price I’ve had to pay to get it), and doing what I can to help others (or at least not to hinder them) has to at some point make a difference even if I can’t see it.

I was reminded a few days ago of something that happened when I was in my teens. I was in religious education — CCD class, as I was raised Catholic — and I was a bit older than most of the other students as I wanted to ponder for a few years whether or not to get officially confirmed in the religion. (This was a big deal at the time.) My parents were not happy together, and were on the road to divorce; worse, I felt like I never fit in, and my skills in music, writing, and teaching did not seem like they would ever lead me in a prosperous direction. (I guess prosperous is a matter of opinion.) I often felt like giving up, yet I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t. But as the chaos around me continued to grow, my personal belief in myself faltered.

Then we had an exercise in CCD class. We had to pick names out of a hat, keep them secret, and write something positive to them for a few days to a few weeks. We could do anything we liked, so long as it was positive.

I can’t remember what I wrote to my correspondent that I’d picked out of a hat. I do remember what the young woman wrote to me, who’d picked my name out of a hat. She sent me pictures of rainbows, poems (not romantic ones, though I wouldn’t have known the difference back then!), and quotes of stuff I’d said when trying to be encouraging that had inspired her. I had no idea that anyone saw me that way, especially as I didn’t see myself that way whatsoever.

When the day came where our correspondent had to come up and introduce themselves, I still remember the young woman coming to me. She was fifteen, I think; I was seventeen. I’m going to call her “Alice,” here…anyway, Alice came up to me, and said she’d always appreciated me. She knew my situation was difficult. (I don’t know how, because while I did discuss some things, I was still deep in the “I don’t know what to say or how to say it” phase of adolescence; sometimes I wonder if I ever got out of that phase, in fact, but I digress.) She wanted me to know that at least one person saw me not only as worthy, but as inspirational…and she reminded me that God (as Catholics believe in a male deity, though some priests including writer and priest Andrew M. Greeley, believe in the Holy Spirit as Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom) loved us all.

I have never forgotten what she said, what she did, or the various ways in which she did it. I also remember how floored I was that she saw me that way.

So, when I think about having a rough night, or two, or twenty, I do my best to remember Alice and what she told me.

I do believe the spirit is eternal, I do believe the Goddess loves us all, and I also believe that we’re here for a reason even if we don’t know what that reason is.

I’ve struggled a lot in recent years with many things. But I’m not yet willing to give up on myself or my talents, no matter how difficult it may seem to use them.

Please wish me well as I continue on this quest to find a meaning, a purpose, a goal, or a decision that matters…not just to me, but to those I care about as well.

Easter Blessings…

Folks, it’s Easter. I usually try to write something, anything about the huge observance of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and assumption into Heaven as it’s one of the most interesting stories ever told.

I mean, really. Think about it. The Deity sent Jesus, the Deity’s child, to save the world. Jesus’s path was not easy. He was betrayed by one of his best friends and apostles, Judas. His death was treated as a type of spectator sport, and he died in agony. He really didn’t know why the Deity had seemingly forsaken him, and he had no idea of what his destiny truly was.

Why was this? I think it’s because life ground Jesus down somewhat. Jesus came into this world knowing he was special. His parents traveled to save his life, and his titular father, Joseph, was not Jesus’s actual father. Mary, Jesus’s mother, had been impregnated by the Deity, and was still virginal; she married Joseph, who by accounts was a kindly older man, to have some protection and some status while she carried the son of God/Deity.

So, you are told your whole life that you’re special. There were Wise Men who blessed your birth and gave your parents unusual and very expensive gifts. (Think about how difficult it was to get or pay for stuff like frankincense and myrrh back then. I don’t think it was something that just grew and could be harvested anywhere.) Your parents had more children, yet Joseph knew you were no part of him genetically…he was more like a foster Dad, or a Stepdad, and all of Joseph and Mary’s other children were Jesus’s half-sibs. Then he was trained by various scholars and legalists, something his half-sibs did not get and probably did not want. His rise was seen as almost assured.

Then, Jesus took up carpentry. This probably wasn’t what anyone had expected of him. He was not a rabbi at that point. He was instead a hard-working man, but at most he was probably lower-middle class as we see it today. He worked hard, he probably drank with his buddies, he may well have looked at women (he always liked women and did not look down on anyone who did what she did to survive, including prostitutes), and lived as close to a normal life as was possible.

Then Jesus was reminded of his special nature, and started to walk among people as a prophet of sorts. He gathered allies, many of whom were men; they gave up all their worldly possessions to follow him and help others.

Think about this for a moment. Our analogue for this would be something like hippies. Well-meaning, granola-crunching hippies. They wanted to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, treat the sick and comfort the elderly. Rabbis already did some of these things, but they weren’t doing enough and Jesus and his followers knew it.

Consider that, the next time you wonder why people didn’t listen to Jesus from the first.

Following what Jesus taught is not easy. Writer G.K. Chesterton once said something along the lines of “Christianity is the best religion that’s never been tried,” and there’s a lot of truth in that. Most of us are going to fall short in our observance of helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, treat the sick and comfort the elderly. The modern world — no matter what age we’re in — makes it tougher to have deep and meaningful relationships with people, and without such relationships, we as human beings tend to founder.

Anyway, it is Easter. If you are alive to read this, you are blessed.

If you want to help someone today, I think Jesus would like that. I also think that if it’s possible, you should pray for the Palestinians starving in Gaza, pray for the Ukrainians as they continue to fight a huge war against Mother Russia and Vladimir Putin, and do what you can to help those in your communities live better, healthier, and happier lives.

At bare minimum, though, remember this: Jesus said to love one another as he loved us.

This world needs a lot more of such selfless love, so try to give some today.

This Just In: Studebaker’s Gas Station Is a Wonderful Place…

Folks, in July of 2022, I wrote a blog called “A Requiem for Willkomm’s Mobil” about how my favorite place in Racine County, the Willkomm’s drive-thru gas station on Washington Avenue in Racine had closed. I was very frustrated, because I’d written to the owner and told him exactly what I thought: that the Willkomm’s had friendly people who remembered what I ordered and would go the extra mile, and who never treated me — a disabled woman — as anything other than a good human being.

Well, I have news.

In late January of this year — 2024 — I found out that Studebaker’s Mobil was coming to North Green Bay Road in Racine. This turned out to be true, and it’s been open since that time. The actual address is 1215 North Green Bay Road, Racine, WI, 53406. Studebaker’s is run by the same people who ran my favorite Willkomm’s, and it also features a drive-thru where it’s possible to get anything you’d normally find in a gas station through that same drive-thru.

I vowed to patronize it just as soon as I could. This wasn’t easy, as at the time there were some members of my family who were not feeling well. I was doing what I could to help in that regard, even though most of what I could do were small things…nevertheless, once they got better, I did indeed go to Studebaker’s.

I loved it.

The same people work there who worked at the Willkomm’s, along with a few new people I don’t know. They’re all friendly, knowledgeable (one of the clerks, Nick, remembered that I always liked a large diet Pepsi fountain drink, and brought me one right away the first time it was available; yes, I paid for it, but I didn’t ask for it), and very good people. There’s a large variety of soft drinks, liquor of most sorts (including some craft beer selections; I got one called “Dragon Milk” for my good friend Lika and her family as a late birthday present, and she said she enjoyed it), various types of foodstuffs like milk, bread, Snickers bars (I do love those, probably more than I should!), and much more.

I enjoy Studebaker’s gas station very much. (If they had a website up, I’d link to it, but they don’t as of yet.) As I said, they are extremely good people, friendly, knowledgeable, will remember you and will do their utmost to serve and help you in whatever ways they possibly can.

I’m very glad to let the readers of my blog know about Studebaker’s, even though I know most of my long-term readers don’t live in Wisconsin at all, much less Racine. But if you do ever come here, I hope that Studebaker’s will still be open so you can get a taste of what Wisconsin hospitality is all about.

Edited to add: Studebaker’s, like my old favorite Wilkomm store that closed in June of 2022, is the only drive-thru of its type in all of Racine County. It is an especially fine place to go if you are disabled because you do not have to get out of the car. (They will even pump your gas for you. How cool is that?)

Grief, and Nothing More’s Song “Fade In, Fade Out”

Folks, most of you know if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time that I am grieving my father’s passing last October at the age of eighty-six. Because of that, and because I am a musician anyway (always will be), I have been listening to songs differently.

One such song is Nothing More’s “Fade In, Fade Out.” (Link to main YouTube video is here.) It discusses, explicitly, the link between fathers and sons, so it’s not too much of a stretch to consider this dialogue from a father to a daughter as well.

“But why this song,” you ask? “And who is Nothing More?”

First, I’ll answer the second question. Nothing More is a rock group from the American Southwest. They skew more toward metal than anything, but they have various influences on their music. Their lead singer, Jonny Hawkins, started as their drummer/percussionist, but realized he needed to front the band instead. Their music has a lot of life, and speaks to many different emotions and states of being.

As to why this particular song? Because of some of the lyrics, combined with the power of the music, just speak to me in a way that I can’t quite understand, except by listening to this song, crying somewhat, and then listening to it again.

The song starts out with a grown son realizing his father has grown old. They speak, almost as if it’s their final conversation; the son listens as his father says (from lyrics):

Son, I have watched you fade in
You will watch me fade out
I have watched you fade in
You will watch me fade out
When the grip leaves my hand
I know you won’t let me down

The father continues, telling his son to follow his heart, to never settle, to hold his head up, and to never run away from change. (If you look at the lyrics, which I found here, you’ll realize I’m telling this out of order. That’s OK. This is how it speaks to me.)

These next lyrics are essential to understanding “Fade In, Fade Out,” as far as I’m concerned:

(From a bit later in song)

When the morning comes and takes me
I promise I have taught you everything that you need
In the night you’ll dream of so many things
But find the ones that bring you life and you’ll find me

That’s where you’ll find me (repeated several times until the end)

The song ends on a huge crescendo, as another child is born, this to the son.**

To my mind, though, what matters most is the line about “find the (things) that bring you life, and you’ll find me.” The reason this matters so much to me is, the passions I, myself, have, are partly because of the passions my parents had. Dad loved music; so does my mother. Both of my parents were inveterate readers (and Mom still is); so am I, though I read some different things than they did (and Mom still does). The learning I took in, regarding morality and ethics and what’s truly important in life, I also took in from family influences.

So, the things that bring me life are music, words, and important relationships with friends and family. (My friends are my family, too. Just in a slightly different way. But I digress.)

Anyway, symbolically in this song, the son ends up with a child. I have no children, unless you count the workings of my mind and heart, as Michael and I were not blessed with any. (He was worth everything, though, and still is. You’ll know this if you read my blog for any length of time.) But overall, the point still matters: the oldest among us die, to make way for the new, but there is continuity between one generation and another.

In that sense, my father’s mother (who died when he was only eleven) has lived on, through him. In that sense, my maternal grandfather, who died when I was seven, has lived on, too (among others). Even though they couldn’t teach us directly, they did teach and impart values and such to my father and mother, who passed them on to me and my sibs.

So, in the parlance of “Fade in, Fade Out,” Dad watched me as I grew older (thus, faded in). He grew old and passed away (thus, faded out). But I haven’t forgotten what he taught me, the good, the bad, and the indifferent…and I never will.

What songs have mattered to you most, especially when you’ve been grieving? (All of us grieve something, mind you. That’s the parable Gautama Buddha gave, in a perhaps apocryphal story, when he sent a woman looking for someone without grief around the world. She couldn’t find anyone.) Tell me about ’em in the comments…and hey, if there are any other Nothing More fans out there, chime in, too. (That group deserves wider fame, methinks.)

———

**There’s an acoustic version of “Fade In, Fade Out” available here that’s also well worth listening to…then again, anything Nothing More does is worth it, and I can say that about very few bands. (Disturbed, Nothing More, Linkin Park…that’s about it. I’d add a few earlier bands and singers to that, such as Phil Collins with and without Genesis, and Styx with Dennis DeYoung.)

Sunday Reflection

In the past few weeks, I was reminded — forcibly — that life is incredibly short.

There is a Biblical quote that comes to mind about such times. It’s from Psalm 90, verse 12. “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”

It seems to me that too many people in this world forget both parts of that equation. Time is very short, so we have to work hard to find wisdom as our days are numbered and we have no idea when the end will come.

I try to find wisdom, teachings, and purpose wherever I can, partly because I know how short time is. (Ask anyone widowed young, and they’ll agree with me.) The other part is, I’ve always tried to find common ground with other people whenever possible, in the hopes that light can shine not only in my life, but in someone else’s life, too.

There are many things I’d do differently, if I had more energy, health, financial security, and overall stability. But seeking out purpose and wisdom would not be one of them.

As the ancient proverb says, “Time and tide wait for no man.” Please remember that, and don’t put off until tomorrow what you could do today to make someone’s life a little better.

Watching Sports (Without My Father)

Folks, as most of you know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, my father died last October at the age of 86. He was a huge sports fan, as am I, and I’ve been reflecting on how different it is to watch, listen, and read about sports without being able to talk with him about it.

Now, you might be wondering why this, in particular, is what I’m ruminating about. There are many things that people miss when someone they care about dies. But for my father and I, who were so different in many ways, talking about sports was our common denominator. We could discuss the various things like Brewers trades (he’d have not been happy about Corbin Burnes being traded to Baltimore recently, that’s for sure, no matter how good the two players are that we got for Burnes), Milwaukee Bucks basketball (Dad remembered watching the Minneapolis Lakers — yes, the LA Lakers were once in Minneapolis, folks — when George Mikan was playing, and after that he never stopped being a fan of pro basketball), the Green Bay Packers successes and failures over the years, and more.

See, Dad was up on current events, yes. But mostly he saw politicians failing to do their jobs. Or not representing the people they claimed to represent with any sort of humility, honesty, or integrity. Or just being huge buttheads for whatever reasons of their own…and none of that impressed him.

(Nor does it impress me. But I digress.)

And while professional sports has many things that are frustrating — the officiating, the huge salaries, the various strategies teams use when they want to move a team (such as the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas a few years ago, and the Oakland A’s wish to leave Oakland now for Las Vegas as well) — there are more hopeful stories there to watch, listen to, and ponder.

For example, in Milwaukee, Dad and I got to watch as Giannis Antetokounmpo was drafted as an all-but-unknown 18-year-old. He was raw, but very talented; we didn’t know it at the time, but he also was one of the bigger human success stories of the past thirty or forty years (at least when it comes to sports). Giannis grew up in poverty, and his family were undocumented immigrants living in Greece. They went there for the reason immigrants have gone to other countries forever: to live in peace, to strive for a better life, and to be able to raise their children in a more peaceful environment, too. But Giannis and his family had many struggles in attempting to become registered “aliens” (that is, known immigrants waiting to become citizens), including some struggles just to be able to leave Greece to be drafted by the Bucks in the first place. Giannis has said, fairly recently, that if he and his family had not been able to get visas, he wouldn’t have lasted a year in the NBA — not because he didn’t have the talent, but because his family means more to him than anything.

Anyway, Giannis has had the experience of playing for several excellent coaches, including Jason Kidd and Mike Budenholzer. Every coach who has dealt with him talks about Giannis’s work ethic, his values, and about how hard he works to master everything aspect. (He still needs work on his free-throw shooting, but he has improved somewhat in the past few years.)

Still. When he was drafted, no one knew much about him. We had no idea if this was just another of the Bucks’ overreaches, or straight-up draft busts…it wasn’t, and isn’t, and instead Giannis has become one of the best players in the NBA over the past ten years. He’s world-famous, and Greece, now, is delighted to claim him as a favorite son and citizen. Giannis has even played for Greece’s national team in international competition…talk about a huge change in circumstances, huh?

But this is only one of the stories the Bucks have had over the years, with the most recent story — happening before Dad died — being the replacement of Coach Budenholzer with rookie head coach Adrian Griffin. (I wrote about this at the time Coach Bud was fired, and felt it was unfair and unjust.) Dad didn’t know how Adrian Griffin was going to do, and he didn’t get a chance to watch or hear the Bucks in regular game-play. (I think he might’ve heard a few pre-season games on the radio, but pre-season can’t tell you very much when you’re dealing with a veteran team rounding into shape.)

Then, if you have followed the NBA at all, you know what else happened after my father passed away. (No, not ’cause of him dying, but still.) The Bucks replaced Coach Griffin, even though he had a sparkling record of something like 30-13, because the Bucks were not playing good defense. To be honest, the Bucks weren’t even playing average defense; they mostly were playing very, very poorly, and while they were still winning most of their games, they had to scrap and claw and fight at the end of the game to win too often for the front office’s liking. That’s why they brought in the next coach, well-traveled veteran coach Doc Rivers.

Now, Rivers played for Marquette, years ago. He was an excellent player, and his number was retired by Marquette (if memory serves). He enjoyed Milwaukee, and he said the only reason he decided to come to Milwaukee mid-season — doing something that’s almost unheard of — is because he really wanted to be here again.

Rivers, BTW, is going to be coaching in the All-Star game this weekend, something even he believes is bizarre and nonsensical. (He’s said so several times, too, mostly on the local broadcasts and in the papers and blogosphere.) He said he’s going because a) the coaching staff deserves it (all those assistant coaches get an additional paycheck, and of course they also get some more notice league-wide), and b) he believes Adrian Griffin deserves a paycheck. (I am guessing Rivers looked into whether he could bow out of this without adversely affecting the Bucks coaching staff, and wasn’t able to do it.) Rivers has said firmly that he does not deserve to be the coach of the All-Star game and I hope he does indeed send the paycheck to Adrian Griffin.

These are all things I wish I could’ve discussed with my father.

Mind you, Dad did not in general feel that the All-Star game was very important. He mostly didn’t want anyone to get hurt in a meaningless game, as he did worry about such things. (Too many Brewers, Bucks, and Packers over the years have been injured in meaningless games, whether in the pre-season or in the All-Star Game/Pro Bowl, for Dad to think otherwise. I agreed with him, too.) But this All-Star game probably would’ve been different, at least regarding Adrian Griffin’s situation.

Finally, one of the biggest sports stories since Dad died in October was when former Brewers manager Craig Counsell decided to become the manager of the Chicago Cubs instead. Counsell was the Brewers manager until the end of the season, and had said he would make up his mind after the season ended. We fans had been led to believe that Counsell would give the Brewers the opportunity to match any salary quoted to him by any other team, but that doesn’t appear to have happened.

Dad didn’t think Counsell would go anywhere. First off, Counsell was a home-grown player who had partly become a manager in the first place because the Brewers had seen his potential during Counsell’s last few playing years (spent with the Brewers). Second, Counsell had an almost unparalleled status in Wisconsin as someone everyone liked — they might not always like his managing, but they liked him. Plus, Dad felt that if Counsell did go elsewhere, he’d pick an American League team that didn’t play the Brewers very much, just out of common courtesy.

None of that happened. Counsell went to the Cubs, a team that’s just down the road; the National League Team closest to the Brewers, rather than a team further away that we’d not see much. Counsell also is getting paid a reported $8M a year to manage, which almost doubles his salary from last year with the Brewers. (Note that the top-paid manager last year was Terry Francona of Cleveland, and he made, I think, $5.5M. No one was even close to Francona; Counsell was probably as close as it got, else.)

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, Counsell made a video for the Cubs — and no, I’m not going to link to it — that says something to the effect about how he was “born a Cub.”

That’s just wrong, you know? That’s wrong. That treats the Brewers fans like we don’t matter, like everything we did wasn’t enough, and it’s astonishing to think that a Wisconsin-grown man can do and say something that’s so tremendously classless.

I’m sure this is how my father would’ve felt about it, too. He’d probably have called Counsell a “Benedict Arnold,” and have been upset that a man who has worked in baseball all his adult life, who’s made an excellent living and has an even better retirement ahead of him no matter what else he does, would choose to spit in the face of the Brewers fans and the state of Wisconsin as a whole just for the sake of $3.5M a year.

Counsell is not a guy who’s going to lose his earning potential anytime soon, either. So this is not a “swing for the fences, this is the only time I’ll even get a chance at making $8M in my life” sort of deal. Instead, this was meant to try to raise the salaries of managers overall — Counsell had said something like this, a few years ago, and it’s been dwelled upon in the Milwaukee radio market somewhat. (It’s also as good a reason as any for Counsell to do this, but I digress.)

I’m all for raising the salaries of managers. They are underpaid, compared to the players. So are the rest of the coaching staff.

But I am not for treating fans as dismissively as has Craig Counsell. Nor was my father.

So, as time goes on, I’ll probably think of more things I want to talk with Dad about. Players will get traded, released, injured (though we never wanted to see that, and I still don’t), all that…new, young players will make impacts (such as Brewers rookie OF Jackson Chourio, one of the most highly-touted Brewers rookies in the last twenty years), too. Coaches and managers will change, as we’ve seen three times in a year with the Milwaukee Bucks, and also with the Brewers when Counsell went to take the job with Chicago. (BTW, the Brewers elevated bench coach Pat Murphy, an extremely sensible choice. Murphy has a sense of humor, too, which will be a nice change from Counsell’s laconic, stoic game summaries.) Other things, stuff I hadn’t ever considered possible, no doubt will happen, too.

Now, my whole family is doing its best to watch the Bucks, Packers, and Brewers’ various situations, as we all know Dad can’t anymore. (I’d do it anyway, at least to a point. Especially when it comes to baseball, my favorite sport.) I think this is our way of saying that Dad mattered to us — or, at least, that it’s my way.

At this point, I just hope my way makes some sense.

Discussing Daughtry’s SFnal, Dystopian Single, “Artificial”

The other day, I heard a new song from Daughtry, the band fronted by former American Idol contestant Chris Daughtry. Daughtry is known mostly for their single “It’s Not Over.” That’s a hopeful song, in its way, about the ups and downs of relationships. But the new song, “Artificial,” definitely is not hopeful. In any way.

“Artificial” is about human beings being supplanted by robots, AIs, synthetics…the world has turned poisonous, and the scenery looks like an old Mad Max movie, which sets the scene for the dystopic lyrics. For example, the second verse includes the lyrics, “No sickness, no dying, no disease/no begging for mercy on your knees. No God, no religion, no beliefs.” This may seem somewhat innocuous, especially to secular humanists, but the choruses definitely aren’t. “Welcome to your worst nightmare. Days are getting dark, you should be scared. It doesn’t have a heart. Plug into the new you…the death of who we are is right here.” (I jumped a few lines down, thus the ellipsis.)

Because Daughtry himself is muscular and fit–especially for age 44–he plays himself being uploaded into the “perfect,” human-looking robot. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, it doesn’t exactly work out.

Now, why did I say fortunately, or maybe unfortunately? Well, in this dystopic nightmare of a world, that’s apparently the only way you’re going to survive. It’s a travesty; it’s not human, as the lyrics say. The whole bit about “no begging for mercy on your knees” is about compassion, and about how the robots–or whatever they are–don’t have any. They’re just beings, without true emotions; they think, but they don’t sleep. They can’t admit to fear, even if they feel it–then again, they don’t feel much of anything–and it’s obviously not the way a human being wants to live.

There is a second level to “Artificial,” though, that’s more relevant to me as a writer and editor. There’s a real problem right now, that’s grown significantly worse in the past five years, with AI programs grabbing hold of people’s work–whether music, art, writing, you name it–and not paying anything for this. If one, single AI was the creation of some guy in his basement who had no money at all, then maybe this wholesale “borrowing” (read: using without paying) would be understandable even if still wrong. However, the AI programs are being developed by some of the biggest and wealthiest companies in the world.

They don’t have an excuse. They should be paying writers, musicians, artists, etc., for the use of their works if they’re going to be used to try to bring about a better and more comprehensive version of AI (artificial intelligence).

So, the lyric “It doesn’t have a heart” in “Artificial” could, conceivably, be talking about Google. Or Microsoft. Or whomever else that’s trying to develop an AI. If they had hearts, working souls, and even an ounce of compassion, they’d not have taken so many different people’s work without paying for it.

They certainly don’t seem to have ethics, either. Or they’d be paying writers, musicians, etc., for their work. As they should.

So, getting back to “Artificial,” Daughtry seems to be saying that in the not-so-distant future, there will be copies of what he does. Purporting to be what he and his band have actually done. (Maybe he’s referring to deep-fakes, in an elliptical way.) But it’s “ice cold, mechanical. Artificial.”

A real musician, a real band, playing in real time (even if it’s recorded and played back in any medium), has a nuance and resonance that, so far anyway, synthetic programs can’t match. The sound, itself, may seem to be easily replicated, but it’s not.

You might be asking, “Barb, what are you talking about? The YouTube video will always play the same version of the song, with no variations.”

But in live performance, there will be variations. There have to be. Every time a piece of music is played, sung, or performed in any way, it’s going to be a little different in one way or another. That’s because it has life. Purpose. A sort of drive that infuses the music, makes it far more than simply numbers on a page represented as notes (and put to lyrics, in the case of Daughtry’s “Artificial”).

In short, music has soul. The best music, made by thoughtful musicians throughout our recorded history, has touched something in us, something profound. (Even something as silly as “Purple People-Eater,” with the lyrics of “one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater,” will make us laugh. Laughter, itself, can be profound in its way. So sayeth I, at any rate.)

Chris Daughtry and the rest of his band, Daughtry, are excellent musicians. They put together songs that tell stories. They have multiple levels in at least some of their songs (as seen with the recent song “Artificial”), which shows a remarkably fluent and in-depth understanding of what they’re trying to do. There’s life to their songs. And just a bit of edginess (which I appreciate), along with outstanding performance values, brings about the best of results.

So, “Artificial” is a departure for Daughtry due to being dystopic. But it’s a welcome one, especially under the circumstances. I hope they write a whole lot more songs about whatever they feel like, as there’s no way an AI could ever reproduce their passion, drive, wit, and ability.

Do not accept substitutes, people. (Further the writer sayeth not.)

Discussing Other, Alternate Timelines

Folks, the last several weeks have been extremely challenging. I am unable to say why, as what’s going on mostly does not pertain to me…let’s just say it’s a family health crisis and be done with it.

Anyway, I knew I should write a blog, but about what?

I could write about sports — the Milwaukee Bucks made a coaching change, mid-season, which is quite unusual — but that didn’t seem right.

I could write about politics — some of what I’m seeing from people like Rep. Elise Stefanik of NY (R) is extremely disquieting. (Rep. Stefanik seems to have the attitude of “Vice President or Bust” and is doing her best to ingratiate herself with former POTUS Donald Trump despite her past voting record, which shows at one point she was a moderate.) But again, that didn’t seem right…though I do admire Nikki Haley’s pluck in refusing to get out of the Republican primary, mind you. (She’s right that only two states have spoken. There are 48 states and a number of US territories, plus the US emigres abroad, that have yet to vote and thus indicate a preference.) While Haley is almost certainly not going to win the Republican nomination, any more than Bernie Sanders was going to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, Haley can highlight important issues to voters and ultimately make a positive policy difference (if nothing else).

And while that was a long digression about politics, that’s not what I want to talk about today. I am a SF&F writer, no matter how little-known, and thus I think about a lot of stuff most other folks don’t. I’ve done this for a long time, mind you; my Elfy books, which feature alternate universes (where the Elfs lived — don’t call ’em “Elves” as that’s a swear word to them– and the Elfys were created, among other races), were not the first time I’ve ever thought about alternate universes. I may have thought about them even sooner than age fourteen, which is when I read Philip K. Dick’s classic MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which features an alternate universe where the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II.

I’m not the only one to think about this, of course. There are other writers who’ve discussed this in various ways, such as Doris Lessing and the more recent book THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz. But my own ruminations lead me to how my own, personal timeline could’ve been changed by the following events:

2004: Instead of dying after four heart attacks, Michael has one heart attack and survives with brain and body intact. He does cardiac rehab, which I fully support him doing, and we get another ten-twenty years together rather than two. More books of different types result, and at least some of Michael’s artwork survives. (In this timeline, I have one piece of Michael’s artwork. That’s it. It was a brief drawing of what the uniforms looked like in his Atlantean Union universe.)

But even if Michael had still died in 2004, I had another possible better timeline with which to work, as follows:

2011: Instead of dying of a massive stroke, my good friend Jeff Wilson lives despite the heart virus that nearly killed him. He does cardiac rehab and anything else they suggest; after six or eight months of treatment, he’s allowed to leave the rehab hospital (really a nursing home). During this time, we start to date, long-distance…maybe I even manage to visit him in Fort Collins while he’s in the hospital, as it’s under the threshold of altitude that I can tolerate. (Jeff knew I get high-altitude sickness at about 7000 feet and it gets worse the higher up I go.) Books and stories follow, and whether we ever progressed beyond a very solid friendship or not, things would’ve been much better all the way around for both of us.

And even if Jeff had still died in 2011, I had yet another possible, better timeline to work with, as follows:

2014: A good friend, someone I had no idea that was interested in me, makes a play and I respond. (This happened in real life, though not in 2014.) Things progress. Books and stories follow. The relationship is serious enough to perhaps lead to marriage, and despite some major difficulties, we manage to overcome them and forge a life together.

Of course, that timeline didn’t happen either. So how about this one?

2020: Covid-19 does not happen. Millions of people do not die. (If this was lab-grown in China or anywhere else, it does not escape the lab.) People are not shut in for weeks, months, or years; there is no such thing as public-shaming over mask-wearing (I believe masks can help, especially if you, yourself, are ill and don’t know it; you won’t give it to someone else that way. But shaming people is wrong.) There’s no such thing as kicking people off public trails because of fears that they might get Covid…one of the dumbest things I ever heard, yet it happened to a good friend of mine in 2020. (I wish that hadn’t happened to him, too. As we found out later, Covid is not likely to spread outside with the same frequency as it’s going to spread inside with the greater density of people to work with.)

And as we all know, unfortunately that timeline didn’t happen either.

I’ve avoided some of the obvious ones, mind you. (Some folks may be asking, “Why not go back to 2000 and have Gore win instead of W.? Why not go back to 2016 and have your choice, Hillary Clinton, win instead of Trump?” Or even this: “Why didn’t you eliminate the war in Ukraine?”) I think many others have gone over those possibilities, and I wanted to make you think more about smaller, more personal decisions rather than stuff like that. (Well, with the exception of Covid, of course, though Covid caused more small-scale upheaval than just about anything in the past fifty years in my own not-so-humble opinion.)

So, what other timelines could you have had? What other timelines do you wish you would’ve had? (I know I wish Michael would’ve lived. Everyone who’s ever read this blog or known me in any way whatsoever should know that’s been my most fervent wish.) And is it still possible to create a better timeline in the future than the one we fear may happen? (I hope so, otherwise I’d not do anything, much less write this blog.)

Looking for Optimism in 2024

Folks, 2023 was a difficult, frustrating, and disempowering year for me. A whole lot I wanted to get done didn’t happen. A whole lot that I never wanted to occur did.

So, how can I look for optimism in 2024?

It seems like every time I turn on the news, something else awful has happened. There’s a tornado in Alabama. There’s a documentary about a young woman, Gypsy Rose Blanchard (now happily married, married name Anderson), who was mistreated horribly by her mother and who served several years in prison for conspiring to kill her mother. (If you saw what her mother did to Gypsy Rose Blanchard, you might be like me and say, “Small loss.” Especially after Ms. Blanchard tried hard to get away from her mother, and how no one understood the horrific stuff her mother had put her through.) Blanchard’s story sent ice straight down my spine, as her late and (to my mind) unlamented mother kept her looking ill and much frailer than she ever should’ve been due to Blanchard’s mother’s significant mental illness. (The diagnosis for Blanchard’s mother, who I’m not naming as I feel she was among the world’s worst villains of the last thirty years, was Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, meaning Blanchard’s mother put Gypsy Rose through all sorts of crap by making her appear sick — as a cancer patient, as needing various surgeries Gypsy Rose never required, etc.)

Then, of course, there are the usual problems. Snow. Ice. Wind. Man against nature.

So, it’s a dark and rather depressing opening to 2024 for me. It’s cold, there’s not a lot of light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m frustrated overall because I’ve tried very hard for the last nineteen years-plus since my late husband Michael died (yes, I know to the hour, but I won’t be that anal-retentive today) to live the best life I can. Maybe I’ve done that, but my creativity has not been where I wish it to be; I didn’t achieve my goals in 2023 of getting some new stories out under my own name due to my father’s passing in October (partly, anyway; I was already behind that expectation due to the earlier cellulitis of the face I suffered in February and March before he died); work lagged, and I was having to play catch-up even before I caught Covid-19 in early December.

When looked at all as a piece, it seems much worse than what it was when I lived through it. And it’s of course not a patch on what Gypsy Rose Blanchard lived through for years until her mother was killed by Gypsy Rose’s then-boyfriend. (Don’t judge that young woman until you’ve seen what her mother put her through.) But pain is pain, and Michael always told me that it’s invalidating to try to compare your pain to others’ pain.

I think that’s good advice.

In my case, stuff builds up inside. I have no way to express it safely, or at least it seems like there isn’t one. This feeds depression, this feeds illness, this feeds lack of creativity and this also feeds despair, hopelessness, and as my friend Karl Ernst put it in his book Rocking Change, stuckness.

That doesn’t mean I’d not have been ill with Covid-19 if my problems magically went away. (Plus, life seems to be all about how to navigate problems. We always have some, somewhere.) That doesn’t mean everything would be lightness, creativity, brightness, and happiness, either.

What it does mean is that the real issues I’ve got: grief, again, this time due to the loss of my father; iffy health (that I continue to work on to get at least slightly better); loneliness; frustration; anger; hopelessness; well, they all get stuffed together in a maelstrom of despair.

That said, I think there are some reasons for optimism here.

First, I am aware of these problems. They aren’t just sitting there, unremarked and misunderstood.

Second, I have managed to write over 36K words in the last year into a new story I can’t tell you much about yet (it’s in a friend of mine’s universe and will eventually go out co-branded with his name), which is the highest word count I’ve managed in the last three years. This means the prospective novel is about one-third completed. (Yay!)

Third, I have good friends I trust, along with family, that have known me for many years. That has to help.

Fourth, while 2024 is already shaping up to be a year of change for me in many senses, I believe there is room for me to take a new role upon the stage somehow. (As life is but a stage, and we are merely players according to both Shakespeare and the rock group Rush, this needed to be said.)

Or as my father used to put it, “There’s always another season.” He was talking about sports, but I think that’s applicable to life as well.

So, what I’m going to do is this. Write. Edit. Compose music. Talk to other people as best I can. Continue on my path, as I know exactly what it is, and do whatever I can and whatever it takes to make my life happier, more stable, and far more satisfying.

See, I can’t control the future. I can’t control what other people think about me. I can’t control all the vicissitudes of life.

But I can control how I react to it.

That’s my overarching reason for optimism in 2024. (What’s yours? Tell me in the comments!)

Details from the Covid-verse

I just read that generative AI (chatbots, roughly) tend to write better headlines than human beings, which is why you are getting the above-mentioned headline. (And no, I did not use AI to come up with it.) Enjoy at your peril…or something.

Last week, I tested positive for Covid-19. The symptoms were not what I had expected. I still had some sense of taste/smell; what I had mostly was bronchitis, followed by a ton of sinus involvement and general “icky feeling” along with body aches, muscle weakness, and more of a type of malaise. (No, “icky feeling” isn’t exactly the same as malaise, at least not in my book.)

Because of this, when I went in, I thought I had RSV. (For those who haven’t heard of that, it’s a different type of respiratory virus that can cause many of the same symptoms.) All I knew was, I was sick, I felt lousy, I had almost no energy, and I wasn’t the only one in the family with these symptoms. (Two out of three tested positive is all I’ll say about that.)

So, they did an overnight test for Covid, both flu strains, and RSV. Covid came back positive.

As most long-term readers of this blog surely know, I never wanted to get Covid. I have asthma. I knew that if I got Covid, it was likely going to be a bad case of the sucker, and that I would not be able to do much of anything for several weeks…which has unfortunately proven to be the case. (I’d wanted to write this blog for the last ten days, for example. It didn’t get done until now.)

For me, Covid mostly was a case of “bad cold/bad flu” with a ton of coughing, high temps, body aches, etc. As it came on the heels of my father’s recent passing, I was already at a low ebb, energy-wise, so perhaps it hit me harder than it strictly needed to do, for all I know.

What I found out, when I tried to find out how much Covid was in this area of Wisconsin, is that the state now tracks Covid through wastewater (i.e., how much Covid is in the, um, effluvia when we flush our toilets). To no surprise, Racine County, Kenosha County, and the part of Milwaukee County that’s closest to me are all in the “very high” range (nothing is higher than that on the scale, either). But it’s nearly impossible to find out how Covid’s doing, elsewise, unless you want to see how many people are put in the hospital.

Mind you, anything that keeps you out of the hospital, no matter how nasty it is and no matter how much it gets in the way of your normal life, is now considered a “mild case” of Covid. So, despite how sick I’ve been, and despite how sick other family members have been, far and near, with Covid (a few of my cousins have had it in recent months, too), we all apparently have “mild” cases.

Hmph. (Or better yet, harrumph.)

I’ve had all of the various booster shots (read: vaccinations) but one, mind you. This last one, I’d meant to get before Dad died. It didn’t happen. It makes me wonder if things would’ve been better if I’d managed it…anyway, as soon as they let me, I will get the next booster shot, because I really don’t want this to hit me this hard (or worse) again if I can help it.

I know that ultimately, life is a crapshoot. We have no idea when we go out anywhere if other people are sick, much less with what. Sometimes they don’t know yet that they are ill, for that matter; there are folks who get Covid (much less other illnesses) who have no symptoms at all, so they’d have no reason to test themselves, but they can still pass Covid on to other people. You can get Covid in the grocery store, in the pharmacy, at a restaurant (if you go in; I still don’t), literally anywhere.

That said, I’ve tried hard to avoid it. (Much good that did me, but still.)

All I can ask you, readers of my blog, is this: If you are ill, don’t be afraid to get tested. It’s better to know than not. And it’s a lot better to stay home if you’re ill rather than get a bunch of people sick like Typhoid Mary did, way back when (if you don’t know the story, Mary was a kindly soul who tried to help others, but she was a carrier of Typhoid. Even after knowing she had it, she still tried to nurse the sick, and caused people to stay sick and/or die a lot sooner because of her being a Typhoid carrier with few or no symptoms).

I know it’s awful to be sick. I do.

I wish I weren’t sick now (though I am well enough to at least type this out). But all I can do now is warn you to please keep getting your booster shots, try to remain socially distant if you can in crowds (this isn’t always possible, granted), and wear masks when out unless it’s impossible for you to do so. (There are some folks who can’t wear masks due to past trauma and/or other reasons.) I have tried to wear masks whenever possible — with my asthma, sometimes it just hasn’t been possible! — and I do my best.

You do your best, too, eh?