Non-Fiction Blues

Via the incontrovertible Steve Sailer sage writing advice from Neil Gabler:

I know what it is like to have to juggle creditors to make it through a week. I know what it is like to have to swallow my pride and constantly dun people to pay me so that I can pay others. I know what it is like to have liens slapped on me and to have my bank account levied by creditors. I know what it is like to be down to my last $5—literally—while I wait for a paycheck to arrive, and I know what it is like to subsist for days on a diet of eggs. I know what it is like to dread going to the mailbox, because there will always be new bills to pay but seldom a check with which to pay them. I know what it is like to have to tell my daughter that I didn’t know if I would be able to pay for her wedding; it all depended on whether something good happened. And I know what it is like to have to borrow money from my adult daughters because my wife and I ran out of heating oil.

I've been writing non-fiction, by which I mean publishing non-fiction since 2003. Its always been a thrill to get, and see my stuff in print. The money has never been great though. Standard comp is about 10 cents a word. Some pay $400 for feature. I made a deal to publish a piece in Britain for 250 GPS, which comes to about $400 American.

I'm still working on magazine articles. The key is not to get bogged down. Under deadline, I recently cranked out 5000 words in a week. Another little secret is write about the same general subject over and over again to cut down and save on research. I've written a big spread on WWII in Burma, an article about the Imphal-Kohima campaign, an article about the Meiktila campaign, a piece about Orde Wingate. I delved deeper into Wingate with pieces on Merrill's Marauders and the 77th Brigade. I wrote another on Stilwell.

This all amounted to about 50,000 words. That's getting damn close to book length.

A few years ago it occurred to me that instead of writing articles I should write history books. Having published a half dozen or so pieces on Pershing, I have amassed 70,000 words on him and the AEF.

This effort is going well. I have an agent and a publisher is interested.

I feel for Gabler. I guess I'm getting in the same boat.

What's his wife do?

Conservative Hotties

Over at the Federalist, and interesting observation:

The young women who attend CPAC are spectacular. No kidding: What’s up with this concentration of incredibly attractive young, conservative women? It’s noticeable and remarkable. They are beautiful and stylish in the way French women often are, which is to say in their own way, not in a conforming or predictable way. They all look like the girl the high school quarterback wants to date, and they are confident, relaxed, and smart, joking amongst themselves.

I noticed this myself, and its nothing new.

Back in the swinging '90s I was a CR and attended a couple of DC conventions. God, they were beautiful, curvy, high cheek-boned blondes with bulbous, bountiful breasts that bespoke of the farmland's great fertility. They had just the cutest southern accents and squinted eyes that seemed to say, 'I am going to rule the world. Daddy said so.' Firebrand mavericks. They all wore bikinis to the pool and slink cocktail dresses to the CR functions.

A friend of mine dated and later married one. Wow.

The Weekly Standard wrote an article about a CR convention in 1996. The author commented then on the girls. 'The object seems to be to get Jack Kemp to notice you from the stage.'

Was it ever.

To Survive the Earth

The manuscript uploaded yesterday. From there it should be a couple months till publication. Maybe less.

I noted that I pressed the SUBMIT button with great fear and trepidation. I asked another author friend of mind who described a similar feeling. He wrote:

 'Accept that something is going to be jacked up. If you've sent it to beta readers and editors, there's nothing else you can do.'

Sage advise and I'm glad I ain't the only one.

Plot and Character

So recently I read a review of the movie Clear and Present Danger, saying that it was 'all plot and no character'.

You have to be a woman to think something like that about CaPD. What, is Clark supposed to be agonizing of what kind of tea to brew? Maybe Escobedo should be in therapy, Soprano style?

Jesus Christ the guys in CaPD drip with character, lets take a look.

Ryan: middle-aged square thrust into circumstances for which he is not prepared.
Greer: career do-gooder. A man of talent and honor.
Cutter: cynical political fixer.
Ritter: amoral behind the scenes operator
Clark: Cynical, world weary spook.

Clark has no character? is this reviewer out of his mind. Character oozes out of his every poor.

'I don't suppose the boys on the hill have approved this,' he asked Ritter in a cafe in Bogota. 'I think your asking for a political mess.' And after a little more discussion, 'I want the money in my account before I make a move.' The most revealing bit is when he asked for the check. 'Senior! Laqeunta porfavor!'

The man has been in Colombia a long, long time.

I had this problem with To Defend the Earth. A female editor was saying the main character in Kim is Ill needs more development and I should be leading off with a long description of him. She wanted to know his inner wounded child, so to speak. With a sentence or two, I rendered the character in a way every man reading understood. He was a general standing in the middle of a communications cetner watching an invasion unfold. He doesn't have a wounded inner child.

Updates

Posting here has been and will continue to be a little light. Lots of irons in the fire:

-To Survive the Earth is about to go into production. I will be posting a cover in a few days.
-Castro's Folly draft will be completed on 1 May.
-Giving another edit to Pershing in Command. My agent says a publisher is interested.
-Also designing a table-top war game, which I haven't done in a few years, called Pershing 1919. Basically a What If? kind of game.

Busy, busy....

The Longest Movie

A pleasant childhood memory of mine is seeing The Longest Day for the first time in the fall of 1982. The movie came on at 2 PM, I think, by the time it was over the sun was down. My sister was there with me, doing homework. Every time I see the movie, the score, and its feel, which I describe as 1962 black and white brings me back to that pleasant time.

I just re-watched the Longest Day for the first time in many years. Maybe its me, maybe I've changed, but doesn't this movie suck?

I mean, it long alright. The movie spends too much time trying to be cute. The scenes with Sean Connery are un-watchable, most of the Brit scenes are, sorry fellas, a combination of English-cute and the emerging British Cool of he 1960s.

Why is Richard Burton even in the film? His scenes ad nothing.

John Wayne mostly scowls.

Honestly, the best scenes and the most sympathetic characters are the Germans trying to make sense of what is going on. I always felt for Plutskat. The bastards, it seems, killed his dog. The poor thing.

Maybe it is me. Maybe I've changed I hope I have. Maybe watching an old fashioned war movie on the heels of seeing 'The Pacific' is a bad idea.

I dunno, I recently saw A Bridge too Far for the first time in a decade and thought it was better than ever.

Sorry, but The Longest Day is critically flawed.

Magazine Article

I have an article in the current issue of World War II Quarterly, 'MacArthur's Bataan Blunder'.

I didn't choose the title, its a bit harsh on MacArthur, a controversial but great general.

Bataan has always fascinated me, I guess its the impending doom. There really isn't much written about the actually campaign, its not something Americans like to pay attention to, it that is interesting as well.

The real hero of the battle of Bataan is Jonathon Wainwright, who fought a delaying action from Lingayen Gulf in the north down to Bataan. He found a way to hold things together for months afterwords. Just think about what he had to work with, thousands of half-trained Filipino troops, save the famous Scouts, and three regiments of Americans, mostly peacetime garrison soldiers.

The Americans had great artillery though, from 105mms to massive shore batteries. These exacted a heavy toll on the Japanese during their various amphibious operations from the Battle of the Points in January to the final assault on Corregidor. The famous PT Boats were also deadly in that environment, pretty much just like in They Were Expendable:

John Ford (PBUH) captures the feel of the battle, I think. The movie drips John Ford, oozes really. Talk about doom, it hangs over every scene which is exactly right.

The American garrison in the Philippines was doomed from the start.

Updates

Giving To Survive the Earth its final edit before I upload it. After that, more editing and of course, production. Its impossible to predict exactly, there are always snafus to clear up, but right now I'd say summer.

$20

Via my friend Bill Katz at Urgent Agenda and Breitbart:

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is expected to announce this week that Alexander Hamilton’s face will remain on the front of the $10 bill and a woman will replace Andrew Jackson on the face of the $20 bill, a senior government source told CNN on Saturday.Lew announced last summer that he was considering redesigning the $10 bill to include the portrait of a woman. The decision to make the historic change at the expense of Hamilton drew angry rebukes from fans of the former Treasury Secretary. The pro-Hamilton movement gained steam after the smash success of the hip-hop Broadway musical about his life this year.

The man was despicable, vile, no good, both as a person and as a president. He politicize the federal government like no president before, made war on the Native Americans, and crashed the economy via the Specie Circular. Sorry old boy, but Nicholas Biddle was right and you were wrong. I've never read Dickens but I understand the phrase 'not worth a dollar' is something of a running gag in some of his books.

Honestly, Jackson's reputation baffles me. Methinks this has something to do with Arthur Schlesinger (Kennedy court historian) and his unreadable work of political science about Jackson. Schlesinger actually attempted to argue that Jackson was the last of the Founding Fathers.

And I'm the greatest drag-queen in Bridgewater, NJ.

Any-who, Alexander Hamilton is easily one of the greatest Americans who was never president, like George Marshall, John Marshall, Bill Parcells....Where was I? Oh yeah. Eleanor Roosevelt seems right for the $20, there is gravitas there.

Why not?

Karl Rove, you Suck

American Crossroads, last see blowing through a hundred million dollars in 2012 is out with a new ad:

I dunno.

I'm reminded of the NY Mets 40th anniversary celebration of their 1969 World Series victory. All the young fans, by which I mean everyone under 50 were like, 'Yeah....Ed Kranepool....Cleon who?'

Could the Nixon comparison be less relevant? Why not compare her to the Credit Mobliere and Teapot Dome Scandals? Why not Boss Tweed?

Jesus Karl, this is why you failed so miserably in 2012.

I'd like to say a word about Nixon. The scandals don't impress me anymore, not after watching the Clintons and Barry operate. So let's look at Nixon's record. Detente with the Soviets, opening up China, shuttle diplomacy....He pretty much had the Vietnam War won by 1972. Domestically he passed the Clean Air Act, the EPA....This is a man with a lot of accomplishments.

Watergate? Give me break.

Just the Background, Ma'am

About a year ago I binge watched Dragnet and found myself fascinated by Detective Sgt. Joe Friday. Stiff, stodgy, reliable, he's the kind of man a middle aged father wants his young daughter to marry.

They never got much into his background and I've found it fun to put one together for Detective Sgt. Joe Friday.

Joe and his little sister were largely on their own. Dad ran out on them and mom worked. Joe kept an eye on sis, helped her with her homework and such, and when she was a teenager chased the boys away.

Joe was never one for college, but sis was and went to UCLA on scholarship.. In 1941 he was 23 years old and working as a cab dispatcher.

Joe enlisted in the navy two days after Pearl Harbor. He served in the Pacific without distinction, rising to the rank of Lt. Commander. He was the XO on a minesweeper by the time the war ended.

He's never had much time for a family, but sis has two boys, 10 and 8 both of whom worship their badge carrying uncle. He has them for a sleepover once a month, takes them for ride alongs and even down to the range, much to their mother's dismay.

Blogiversary

This blog, begun 8 April, 2015 is a year old.

Over two hundred posts later I've managed to keep things going.

My original idea was to have someplace for the 'stray voltage' as it were. Maybe I'd talk about what was happening in class, that sort of thing. Of course I don't have any classes to talk about anymore, about which more will be said in a later post.

A blog also seemed like a good way to fill the 3-4-5 O'clock hours, where traditionally I don't get much writing done. I'm writing this at 6 in the morning.

Honestly the most useful aspect of this blog is as a landing page for fans to fine copies of maps needed for the World War 1990 series.

One thing I didn't want to do was become yet another conservative blog opining on issues of the day. Politics does come up here, loyal readers know I liked Rubio, but you'll never get  a treatise of top marginal tax rates here.

That's not what I do.

Updates

To Survive the Earth is in its second editing and will be out this summer.

Entering the home stretch on Castro's Folly, 60K words and counting. Castro's Folly will be out this fall.

The Agent is giving Pershing In Command its final edit as well.

I have articles in the current issue of World War II Quarterly and Counter Fact Magazine.

Top 5s

Via Business Insider, a list of the greatest warships ever: Korean Turtle Ships, Nautilus, Enterprise, Dreadnought...

They're not really wrong but this article started me to thinking about such a list, I came up with:

The Greek Trireme: the trireme defeated the Persians and was then they symbol of Athenian naval dominance for the next century. The Greek Aegean campaign was most impressive.
The Spanish Galleon: Won the Battle of Lepanto via superior armor and firepower, heavy north Atlantic ships vs lighter Turkish warm weather ships. The Spanish sailed these too dominated for two and a half centuries.
The GATO class submarine: workhorse of America's brutal and ruthless sub campaign against the Japanese. Destroyed the Japanese merchant marine.
The Essex class carrier: workhorse of America's surface war in the Pacific, won lots of battles.
The Nimitz Class carrier: Symbol of Cold War Pax Americana and the greatest warships of the 20th century.

Awaken This!

So my family and I watched The Force Awakens this weekend. I'd already seen it once. I have to say I liked it more the second time around. A good sign. Remember, when I first saw the Phantom Menace I was enchanted. Its certainly the least-worst of the prequels. So on the Force Awakens, so far so good.

My folks were visiting and it was nice to see it with them. It's a family thing with the Stroocks, which is no doubt true of millions of other families. Part of the cannon of Stroock family lore is how this hyperactive blond haired 4 year old sat cross legged  on a movie theater seat for two hours, mouth agape, as Star Wars unfolded before him.

It was nice to see my three year old doing the same.

I had all the toys, even the ones you had to mail away for in 1977. Curtains, bed spreads...how many times was I a storm trooper for Halloween? I was only ten in 1983, so my wife does not have one of the Princess Leia get-ups. Now there's a thought...Ow! Ouch! Hey, stop hitting me!.....

Now, George Lucas majorly fouled up when he tried to make the prequels for a new generation. They don't really feel like the original three. J.J. Abrams rectified that. The Force Awakens feels like Star Wars, with a modern twist, of course, but aesthetically its father is Star Wars. Young people will like this movie, but the Force Awakens was made with Gen X in mind.

Ye Olde Test

Facebook says I shared this a year ago. Its a test I give toward the end of World Civ II:

1: Why was Europe relatively peaceful from 1815-1914? What great changes occurred during this period?
2: Would you rather live in a colony administered by Belgium or Britain? Explain your answer. Provide historic examples.
3:What happened to Japan in 1853? Describe Japanese society up till that point. What steps did Japan take after 1853 to change?
4:Describe the social reform and progress that took place in Great Britain during the 19th century.
5:Describe the Indian independence movement from the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 through the 1930's. What are its high and low points?


Enjoy.

This is Not the 80's!

The indefatigable Kyle Smith Reviews Everybody Wants Some:

A fulsomely, aggressively modest no-star picture, it’s a plotless, pointless two-hour hangout with a group of mostly likable college baseball players living in a pair of houses at a Texas university in 1980, much like the one where writer-director Linklater once bonded with his buddies

Everybody Wants Some is of course the title of a Van Halen Song, made famous in the quintessential 80's movie, Better Off Dead:

I dunno, seemed funny in 1985.

EWS is being billed as an 80's movie, even and 80's version of Dazed and Confused.

OK, but it takes place in 1980, and that aint the 80's at least not what everyone thinks of. No day-glow, not pink and gray, no synth, no Reagan, no MTV....you get the idea.

1982, yeah, 1983 certainly. Just listen to the awful synth soundtrack in Scar Face.

If your driving around in a Gran Torino, wearing earth tones and listening to classic rock, you aren't in an 80's movie.

Your Hillary! New York Primary Show down question for 4.6.16

Dear Senator Hillary!; Could you describe the places around your Brooklyn officer where you like to get a bagel, maybe a slice for lunch?

The Most Interesting Background in the World

From the moment I first heard him on the radio in 2008, I have been in awe of the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World:

He's going to Mars with a beautiful blonde. Of course he is.
He's a Renaissance man, a man for all seasons, really an epic hero along the lines of Gilgamesh or say Teddy Roosevelt. They're not making this up:

Hey look a John Milius movie...

Anywho...Does Equis never really goes into TMIMITW's background, I've like to wonder about it from time to time.

At first I figured he was Italian or Spanish but that's too pedestrian. He's Maltese or perhaps Cypriot. He comes from a fishing family and the sea has always remained in his blood. No college, he has no time for that, but is incredibly cultured and well read. He was briefly married to an Eastern European princess who bore him twins, a boy and a girl, before returning to her homeland to lead an anti-communist revolution in which she died with the palace in flames around her.

The boy, now a grown man is sensitive and introverted. A lover of nature and camping with the soul of an artist who enjoys landscape painting. He lives high in the Sierra Nevada Range, selling paintings and giving nature tours to wealthy Silicon Valley types. He too has a beard. His daughter is a prodigy. Award winning cellist and Olympic equestrian (Bronze), who graduated High School at 14 and college at 17. Today she is a world renown archaeologist.

Your Hillary!NY Primary showdown question for 4.4.16:

Senator Clinton, (D- Isle of Lesbos): What's the best subway line to get to your campaign HQ in Brooklyn?

World War 1990: Cam Ran Bay

I have no idea if that will be a novel or a short story, but there it is.

Basically as the Soviets have gotten Saddam to cause trouble by invading Kuwait, here they'll get the Vietnamese to cause trouble by attacking Subic Bay and Clark AFB. They could also attempt to close the Straits of Malacca.

History doesn't repeat but it rhymes, doesn't it?

I was casting around for forces with which the West could attack Vietnam. This seemed like a good way to get the Aussies involved.

They have a division plus on hand and two plus in reserve. This could be supplemented with a brigade fron New Zealand, which would include an SAS squadron. There would aslo be the British Gurkha Regiment and I figure a Fijian infantry battalion. And why not an air-mobile brigade from Singapore?

A naval task force of sixteen ships, nine Aussie, three Kiwi, three Singapore could be assembled. Australia had six subs at the time, Oberons. Unspectacular but very solid.

Plenty of air. Two squadrons each of Aussie F-111s and F-18s, one Kiwi A-4 squadron, and one Singapore F-16 Squadron.. Ten ANZAC P-3s.

A very imperial force, no? Why old Kitchener would be proud

Updates!

Castro's Folly is now 50,000 words.

To Survive the Earth, that's what I'm calling this thing now, is in its second round of editing.

Interestingly an article of mine was just rejected by a magazine that's been holding onto to it for a while. The editor and I had an amiable discussion about the issue. The piece was about Nixon and Cambodia and necessarily, I thought, covered a lot of the political machinations in the White House and Pentagon. One scene followed Anthony Lake, later Bill Clinton's NSA Adviser, resigning in protest:

Al Haig: You can't resign.
Lake: Fuck you, Al, I just did!

And Kissinger seemed to just gobble up everything in the article, just like in real life.  There was a great scene in the TV show Family Ties, where Alex P. Keaton gets two Goldfish. Uber Republican Wall Street man that he is, APK names his goldfish Kissinger and Agnew.  Toward's the end we get this:

'Bad news, Dad.'
'What?'
'Kissinger ate Agnew.'

Anyway....

Your Hillary! NY Primary showdown question for 4.3.16:

Senator Clinton, (D-Walmart): What advise would you offer Travis Bickle?

Hillary! A Word About the Previous Post

God the whole thing galled me no end.

I refer of course to Hillary! carpet bagging to NY and running for the Senate in 2000.  Seriously, Dems, you had no shame.

I'm from New York State me self, Peekskill, or really, just outside of Peekskill, but that was always the mailing address.  Ah....I can still get nostalgic for the cool, crisp air of the lower Hudson River Valley. On a clear day you could see past the Tappan Zee Bridge all the way to Manhattan 20 miles south. The river was over two miles wide here, when the Dutch found this span the called it an inland sea. Every other river I've ever seen looks like a stream to me. Why I remember.....

Where was I?

Hillary! bought herself a big spread in Chappaqua, right down the road. Cousins of mine lived there.

In 1999 I got a fund raising letter from Hillary! So I sent a letter back, composed entirely of trivia questions about New York. A few months later I sent that letter on a job application for a conservative direct mail fundraising outfit (don't ask). I got the job.

I wonder if a good book has been written about that Senate race? Originally Rudy! was going to oppose Hillary! But the intrepid Mayor of New York came down with prostate cancer and wisely dropped out. The NY GOP found Congressman Rick Lazio, or 'Little Ricky':

On election night you could see the look on Rudy's face. It said, 'I would have beaten her.'

Maybe. Of course he wouldn't have been mayor on 9/11.

It still offends the hell out of me.

So now that the NY Primary is looming, I thought we'd have some fun and ask the Senator from New York a few questions about New York.

Enjoy!

I know I will.

Your Hillary! NY Primary showdown question for 4.2.16:

Senator Clinton, (D Goldman-Saks)... Robin Ventura is best known for-
A-Being governor of Minnesota
B-Being a major player on the NYSE
C-Hitting the 'grand single' in game 4 of the 1999 NLDS.

Intruding

One of the elements I'm incorporating into Castro's Folly is air combat, something I've mostly avoided because I felt it was too technical. To get a feel for that, I thought I'd start easy. I watched Flight of the Intruder. A movie I haven't seen in decades and I thought was ok but somehow missing something.

After re-watching I stand by that. This review by Roger Ebert is spot on:

"Flight of the Intruder" is a buddy movie about Navy pilots in the Vietnam War, circa 1972. It's a little darker than most buddy movies - the buddies keep having to be replaced when pilots are killed - and it has the germ of an idea to it. But it's a strangely disconnected movie that leads up to a point, makes it, and then drones on for another 45 minutes in increasingly witless cliches.

Aerial chase scene: check.
Bar room brawl: check
Above two scenes done to rockabilly piano score: check
Female love interest: check
Dacing scene (good god its hard to watch): check
New family man getting killed: check

The musical score is god-awful and sounds like it was a cheap-o TV movie track.
Brad Johnson is not up to the task of leading man as Jake Grafton. Not at all. Frankly, he's barely up to the task of acting.

Which is not to say FOTI is a bad movie. It isn't.

Willem Defoe as Virgil Cole is something to watch. Cynical, caustic with a chincy mustache and a bit of hippy in him. Many a sentence he ends with 'man'.

After being shot down he goes into the air in tiger-stripe camo, face black and carrying a bowie knife. And he has a past, so I guess that's another check. 'I like to fight,' he tells Grafton early on.

The aerial sequences are pretty good too, but the attack on SAM city is ludicrous.

This isn't really a movie review, but I'd give it 3 stars.  Fun to watch.

FOTI was one of John Milius' war movies, we'll have more to say about that man in future postings.