*You Might Be a Pilot If…
Every detail about that glorious day you soloed is burned into your memory like the day your kids were born. Every time you hear an aircraft overhead you automatically look up, wishing that was you. You forget all the greasers you made this month and stew over that one really not-so-good landing. You pat your plane like a trusty steed after safely arriving at your destination. You try not to think ill of those among your friends and relatives too freaked out by small planes to come flying with you. You’ve watched “Top Gun” and “The Right Stuff” at least a dozen times. You think Chuck Yaeger was as close to godliness as it gets. Irritability sets in if you don’t fly often enough. You enjoy reading listings online of aircraft for sale, even the aircraft you know you’ll never be able to afford in a million years. Pre-flighting a plane in the early morning of a beautiful VFR day, when the winds are light and the skies are clear, makes you wish you could live and fly forever. You’ve ever been on the phone with a customer service rep in India or the Philippines, trying to resolve a dispute over a bill, and resorted to spelling out words to make yourself understood using the international phonetic alphabet. You don’t think twice about dropping a hundred bucks on a hamburger if it means getting to fly somewhere new—or even if the destination isn’t new. You always read aviation accident reports. Checking the weather at your local airport has become an obsession, even on days when you’re not flying. You think it would be awesome if someone using marshalling wands and wearing an orange vest guided you into your garage at night. You wish there was more room in the “comments” section of your logbook so that years from now you could remember every detail of every flight. Climbing up through a solid overcast on an IFR flight plan and into brilliant blue skies, with a batten of solid white stretching to infinity below you, is about the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Descending out of the clouds on a precision approach to find the runway right where it’s supposed to be also is about the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and among the most satisfying thing you’ve ever done. You’d rather spend an afternoon de-greasing the belly of your plane than doing laundry or mowing the lawn. Only another pilot would understand the vanity plate on your car. Before starting the car, you roll down the window and yell, “Clear!” Your Instagram feed is mostly all airplane videos. You feel an irresistible tug to divert whenever you drive past an aviation museum. On commercial air carrier flights, you fire up ForeFlight on your cell phone so you can follow along. You’d rather go flying than sit at your desk and write. *With apologies to comedian Jeff “You May be a Redneck” Foxworthy
What’s in a Name
What’s in a name? Plenty, if you’re a storyteller and you aspire to set your book’s protagonist apart in the world of crime fiction. Myriad considerations factor into how a writer goes about assigning their hero a name. Sometimes it’s a simple function of the way the name sounds, how it rolls off the tongue. Michael Connolly, with whom I had the pleasure of sharing several bylines when we covered law enforcement together as reporters at the Los Angeles Times, certainly had musicality in mind when he named his LAPD detective Harry Bosch. Michael also chose Bosch’s name in tribute to the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch, whose work Michael admired for its complexity and depth, much like Michael’s and Bosch’s own work. A writer often will come up with a name that subtly telegraphs to the reader something relevant regarding the character’s psychological makeup or motivation. Consider Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, an ex-military policeman always on the move, always searching, always reaching for the next mystery to solve. Dashiell Hammett’s tough guy PI Sam Spade is an appropriately named digger with a wit as sharp as a shovel blade and a moral code to match. The name that author Janet Evanovich assigned to her bounty hunter protagonist, Stephanie Plum, conveys Stephanie’s bouncy disposition and the occasional comedic conundrums in which she finds herself. Some names afford the reader clues about the protagonist’s ethnic or cultural heritage (Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski; Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot). Other names are crafted purposely to remain mysterious, like Spencer, Robert B. Parker’s iconic ex-Boston cop-turned-private eye. Over 40 Spencer novels, beginning in 1973, with the release of Parker’s “The Godwulf Manuscript,” to the debut in 2011 of his “Sixkill,” not once did Parker reveal Spencer’s first name. The deliberate omission added to Spencer’s enigmatic nature and encouraged readers to connect the dots as to what made Spencer tick beyond his hard-boiled persona. And then, alas, there are authors like me who, truth be told, don’t put a ton of deep thought into deciding what to call our heroes. My protagonist for those of you unfamiliar with him is Cordell Logan, a wisecracking civilian flight instructor and would-be Buddhist who struggles to come to terms with his violent past. Logan used to fly Air Force A-10 Warthogs. That was before he was grounded by an old college football injury and transferred to a since-disbanded, Tier One Ultra counterterrorist team code-named “Alpha,”where he went around the world killing bad guys who, in the name of national security, needed killing. I will admit to having employed some fairly obscure reasons in cooking up his name. Back in the early 1990’s, the University of Colorado football team had a quarterback named Kordell Stewart. The man was a total baller. He could throw and he could run and I seriously hated him, mainly because in his first start as a sophomore, he passed for 409 yards and scored four touchdowns to embarrass my alma mater, Colorado State University, in our big, annual, in-state rivalry game. Regardless, I still thought Kordell’s first name was unusual and straight-up cool. And so, one night, probably after enjoying a glass of wine or two, I changed the K to a C and stole it. As for the Logan part of Cordell Logan, I found inspiration in Bill Logan, a legendary, long-time sports columnist who worked at the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News in Denver, where I spent three years as a reporter early in my journalism career. Bill’s desk sat opposite mine in the city room, though he was rarely there. His beat was the great outdoors add he got paid–if you can believe it–to drive all over the Rocky Mountain West in a station wagon packed with firearms and fly-fishing gear. Then he would write about all the many trout he caught and various animals he shot. As the legend goes, Bill had been a total stud in World War II, wounded at Omaha Beach on D-Day. “Wild Bill,” is what the other old-timers at the paper, all vets themselves, called him in admiration. I don’t recall him ever not having a lighted cigarette clenched in his always-grinning, sun-weather face. He was always quick with a witty quip and utterly unflappable. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle the man. If you survived the horrors of D-Day, I suppose everything else after that is gravy. Anyway, I was into duck hunting back then (one of my big regrets; I quit long ago), and Bill Logan offered to sell me one of his shotguns. We walked out of the newspaper office and down to his station wagon, from which he assembled a pump-action, 12-gauge Remington. Mind you, this was on a sunny weekday morning across from the US Mint and directly around the corner from Denver police headquarters. Neither of us, however, was thinking about that. After he handed it to me, I checked to make sure the gun wasn’t loaded, pressed the stock to my cheek, racked a simulated round, sighted down the barrel, and dry-fired the weapon. The asking price, however, was a bit steep. I told Logan I’d think about it. “No problem,” he said, with that grin and ever-present cigarette between his teeth. But when he went to break down the shotgun before returning it to the back of his station wagon, the barrel, which would normally twist free from the receiver, somehow became stuck. He twisted and tugged, but the damn thing wouldn’t budge. Then I tried. No luck. “You get on one end and I’ll get on the other,” Logan commanded me like he was directing troops on the beach. “If we both pull, it should come loose.” “Yessir.” So there were, in the middle of busy downtown Denver, with Logan tugging on the business end of a 12-gauge shotgun and me tugging on the other end, when, suddenly, an unmarked cop car came thundering the wrong way down one-way
Artificial Intelligence: Not Ready for Prime Time?
Recent studies have found that most people Google themselves. Indeed, a survey in May 2021 of nearly 9,400 adults* found that nearly one in ten people look up their name online every day using one or more search engines. “Ego surfing,” it’s called. Vanity and curiosity aside, internet searches are a good way to research the history of a prospective dinner date, or the background of the kid you’re your kid is planning to go to the prom with. Such searches also are a good way to monitor one’s reputation, especially if you’re looking for a new job. The last thing you want is to walk into an interview and be blindsided by some unfounded allegation your new prospective employer dug up in their own online search of your personal history. Most authors I know Google themselves periodically. I include myself among them. We want to know what reviewers are saying about our books and us. I’ve found that most readers who graciously take the time to comment about my work, for better or worse, get their facts straight. The same unfortunately cannot be said for that robotic new kid on the block. I’m speaking, of course, of artificial intelligence. Recently, I decided I might be enlightening to find out what A.I. knew about me. Utilizing the free search engine on chatgpt.com, I typed in, “Who is author David Freed?” The response was undeniably flattering: “David Freed is an American author known for his mystery and thriller novels. He gained recognition for his Cordell Logan series, featuring a former government operative turned flight instructor and freelance aviator. Freed’s writing is often praised for its wit, humor, and intricate plots. Some of his notable works include “Flat Spin,” “Fangs Out,” “Voodoo Ridge,” and “Hot Start.” His novels often blend elements of crime, espionage, and aviation, providing readers with engaging and fast-paced stories.” So far, so good! I decided to test artificial intelligence further. For those unfamiliar with my books, Logan lives in a converted, two-car garage with the world’s dumbest cat in Rancho Bonita, a sunny, seaside enclose on California’s Central Coast. Some readers have astutely deduced that Rancho Bonita bears an uncanny resemblance to Santa Barbara, where I happen to live. So I typed in, “Where is Rancho Bonita?” ChatGPT responded: “Rancho Bonita is a fictional location created by author Ross Macdonald. It serves as the setting for several of his mystery novels, particularly those featuring the private detective Lew Archer. Rancho Bonita is described as a wealthy and picturesque area in Southern California, often portrayed as a place of affluence and privilege, but also hiding dark secrets and scandals beneath its seemingly idyllic surface. “Ross Macdonald’s novels, including those set in Rancho Bonita, are known for their intricate plots, complex characters, and exploration of social issues. While Rancho Bonita itself is fictional, it’s inspired by the real-life affluent communities and landscapes of Southern California.” Uhh, not quite. I wrote back, “Are you sure it’s Ross McDonald?” ChatGPT responded: “My apologies for the oversight. Rancho Bonita is indeed associated with the works of author T. Jefferson Parker, particularly in his crime fiction novels. Parker’s novels often feature Southern California settings, and Rancho Bonita is a recurring fictional location in some of his works. It’s depicted as a wealthy and sometimes troubled community, providing a backdrop for various mysteries and dramas. Thank you for catching that mistake!” Me: Are you sure it’s T. Jefferson Parker? ChatGPT: “You’re correct, and I appreciate your patience. Rancho Bonita is actually associated with the works of mystery author Elmore Leonard, not T. Jefferson Parker or Ross Macdonald. Leonard’s novel “Out of Sight,” published in 1996, features the character of Karen Sisco, a U.S. Marshal, who pursues an escaped convict named Jack Foley. Rancho Bonita is mentioned in this novel as a fictional location in Florida. Leonard’s portrayal of Rancho Bonita often reflects the charm and contradictions of Florida’s coastal communities. Thank you for prompting me to double-check!” Me: Are you sure it’s Elmore Leonard? ChatGPT: “My apologies for the confusion. Rancho Bonita is actually a fictional location associated with the works of author Christopher Moore. It appears in his novel “The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove,” published in 1999. Rancho Bonita is a quirky and eccentric coastal town located in California, known for its colorful inhabitants and unusual occurrences. Moore’s depiction of Rancho Bonita is characterized by its offbeat humor and surreal elements, making it a memorable setting in his novel. Thank you for your patience as we sorted that out!” By this point in the conversation, I was starting to feel a little sorry for ChatGPT. It was like talking to a know-in-all who knows virtually nothing. Plus, my dog was nudging me on the leg with his nose because it was ten minutes past his 6 p.m. dinner time and I was still sitting obliviously at my desk, not filling his dish with food. So, I decided to set the record straight: “Rancho Bonita,” I responded, “is the fictional home of Cordell Logan, created by author David Freed.” Chat GPT seemed almost chagrined, as if artificial intelligence is yet capable of such emotions. Immediately it wrote back, “You’re absolutely correct. My apologies for the oversight. Rancho Bonita is indeed the fictional home of Cordell Logan, a character created by author David Freed. Cordell Logan is a former military pilot turned amateur sleuth, and the Rancho Bonita series of novels follows his adventures as he navigates through various mysteries and intrigues. Thank you for clarifying!” You’re welcome, AI. Experts all agree that in the not-too-distant future, artificial intelligence will transform virtually every aspect of our lives. For now, though, when I want to know what the world thinks of me and the fictional world I’ve created in my books, I’m planning to stick with real intelligence, the flesh-and-blood people who bother to read what I write and
In Memory of Nicole and Ron
On that day in June 1994, when Los Angeles police officers brought in O.J. Simpson for questioning in the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman, I was 800 miles in Durango, Colorado, working on a cheeseburger, nursing a cold beer, and watching the media frenzy play out on a wall-mounted TV in the bar where I was having lunch. The sky over downtown LA was thick with news helicopters, while reporters and photographers on the ground jockeyed for position as the grim-faced former football star emerged from LAPD headquarters after being questioned by investigators. “Thank God I’m no longer a news guy,” I remember telling my wife, “because I’d be thrown right into the middle of that mess.” I’d recently quit my job as a staff writer for The Los Angeles Times with ambitions of writing movies in Hollywood. The last thing I wanted to do was get involved in the media circus and what soon would be dubbed “The Trial of the Century.” But then, one morning, shortly after I returned to LA (where I was still living at the time), my phone rang. It was the Los Angeles bureau chief of CBS News. “You don’t know me,” she said, “but we know you. You covered the LAPD. We don’t have any sources in local law enforcement. Would you be willing to help us out, covering the Simpson case?” I told her I appreciated the offer, but that I was no longer a journalist. I was a screenwriter. “That’s unfortunate,” she replied, “because here’s how much we’d be willing to pay you.” “I can start tomorrow,” I said. As it turned out, I was on a first-name basis with the lead investigator for Simpson’s newly formed defense team. He was a former LAPD detective who’d gotten into some kind of internal beef with the police department a few years earlier, the details of which I can no longer remember. What I do recall is that he’d apparently appreciated the even-handed way in which I had reported his side of that beef. And so, when I called to tell him that I was now working for CBS News and that I was hoping to get up to speed on Simpson, he invited me over to house. We sat in his living room that night until well after midnight. He showed me uncensored crime scene photos of Nicole and Ron sprawled dead in the courtyard outside her condo in Brentwood, both stabbed repeatedly, blood everywhere. He also shared with me a three-ring binder detailing bits of potentially exculpable evidence and likely alibis upon which Simpson’s attorneys planned to build their case to acquit—everything but the infamous glove LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman supposedly planted to frame O.J. That crucial part of Simpson’s defense wouldn’t surface until it was reported in the press weeks later. I drove home that night, typed up a 16-page memo outlining everything I’d learned in my meeting with the former detective, grabbed a couple hours’ sleep, and handed in the memo that morning to my new bosses at CBS. They were thrilled. Then they proceeded to sit for days and sometimes weeks on virtually every nugget of information I’d provided. This, I was to discover, was how network news operated, at least back then, seemingly unwilling to break big scoops of their own, waiting instead for the major newspapers to validate them first. In any case, I was soon partnered at CBS with another new hire, a salty, retired detective named Fred McKnight who’d made his bones in the LAPD working undercover narcotics investigations, busting major dealers. Freddie and I drove all over LA, digging up dirt on the accused, of which there was plenty, believe me. Not long after that, I sold a screenplay at auction to 20th Century Fox for a six-figure payday. I promptly decamped CBS, left Los Angeles and moved my family up the coast to the oasis of Santa Barbara, but not before being convinced far beyond a reasonable doubt that O.J. Simpson, his abundant outward charm to the contrary, was nothing more and nothing less than a cold-blooded butcher. It wasn’t the first time I’d crossed paths with the Juice, in a manner of speaking. As a college sophomore while visiting relatives on the East Coast over Christmas break in 1973, I’d ventured one freezing Sunday to Shea Stadium with two of my cousins to watch O.J., then a star running back for the Buffalo Bills, break 2,000 yards rushing against the hapless New York Jets. After the game, one of my cousins snuck onto the field and stole a bag of towels from the Buffalo bench. He then sold them as souvenirs to our fellow passengers on the train ride home to Long Island, claiming O.J. had wiped his face on each towel. All of these memories came flooding back when word broke the other day that Simpson had died of cancer in Las Vegas at age 76. Three decades after the murders of Nicole and Ron, some people remain convinced that O.J. was innocent, a high-profile Black man framed by racist cops. Were there racists within the ranks of the LAPD back then? No question. It would be naïve to think there aren’t today, or that racism doesn’t continue to infect virtually every institution of modern American life. But facts are facts, evidence is evidence, and a wolf is still a wolf, no matter how winning his smile may be or how well he ran a football. It’s a good lesson to keep in mind when writing murder mysteries like DEEP FURY, which debuts in December.
Words and 2x4s
I’ve strung together many words over the long span of my career as a journalist and, more recently, novelist. It would not be hyperbole to say that several million sentences have appeared in print under my name, though how many specifically would be anyone’s guess. In truth, there have been few sentences I ever constructed that I reread weeks, months or years later and didn’t cringe at, at least a little. Anyone who takes the craft of writing seriously knows their work can nearly always be improved with one more draft, tighter and more precise prose, more polishing. The problem is that once your sentences appear in a newspaper, magazine or book, they’re out there for better or worse, for all the universe to see and judge, forever, and at that point, there’s not a damn thing you can do to make what you’ve written better, even though you wish you could. It’s why I have always loved building things. To construct anything of substance requires commitment, precision, and attention to detail. Crafting a novel is no different. But in construction, unlike writing, there is no tinkering after the fact. There’s permanence in the end result. What’s done is done, and only you can discern the flaws in the work–unlike writing, where everyone rightfully is a critic. My love of working with my hands began long before my love of stringing together sentences. I was about five when my father, a commercial artist-turned-street cop who carved wooden gunstocks in his off-time, began letting me play with his many handsaws, chisels, and files. In grade school, I often doodled sketches of what my own work bench might look like one day, and where each tool would go. In high school, I did well enough academically that my classmates voted me “Most Likely to Succeed”. What none of them knew was that my favorite class was woodshop, where I built what may have been the most rickety, un-level, free-standing bookshelf ever made. I’d like to think my skills have improved since then with much practice and plenty of trial and error. You might ask, “Well, if the guy enjoys building things so much, why didn’t he do it for a living?” Two reasons, both of which I learned the hard way during brief stints as a teenager toiling on crews installing chain-link fencing and pouring cement driveways. The first lesson is that physical labor is hard work. You bake in the summer and freeze in winter, and every day your body takes a beating. The second reason is that many people who end up hiring you don’t appreciate the grueling demands of the job. They will complain for the slightest reason about the quality of your work and grind you for every nickel. Life is too short; such people are best avoided. I used to fantasize about spending a summer building a kit cabin somewhere in Colorado, where I grew up. My wife and I would buy a sweet piece of land somewhere high in the mountains and have the kit trucked in. We would sleep in a tent amid the pines while I spent each day constructing our log retreat. She, however, wasn’t crazy about the idea. Neither was my lower back, if I’m being honest about things.. After we moved to beautiful Santa Barbara and found the home of our dreams, the idea faded. Life takes its turns. I’m currently building a small cottage that will be used as a home gym. In fact, I’m writing this blog post after a day of framing. Part of me feels a bit guilty about that. What I really should be doing these days is finishing editing The Impossible Turn, my eighth Cordell Logan mystery, before turning my attention to the notes I expect to receive next month from my publishers on revisions to Deep Fury, the seventh Logan mystery, which is scheduled for release in late 2024. But when the sun is shining, the birds are singing, my airplane is in the shop, and there are nails to be pounded, I find it impossible to sit inside at my desk all day and tinker with words. I promise I’ll get to the editing. But not until the drywall gets hung.
Batting 300
Much as I used to enjoy watching major league baseball, I quit following the sport long ago. My interest waned with the introduction of modern free agency. It became a chore keeping track from one week to the next which player was on what team. Plus, I found myself chaffing at the notion of grown men getting paid tens of millions of dollars every season to play a kid’s game, then always threatening to strike unless they made even more money. But while I may no longer track team standings, I continue following the performances of hitters who can finish the season having maintained a batting average of .300 or better. For someone like me who is incapable of connecting with a 75 mile-an-hour fastball in the batting cage, let alone a 95 mph one, I can tell you that .300 is a mighty impressive accomplishment. Which brings me to its relevance for purposes of this writing-related post. For me, 300 represents a personal milestone. After months of teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling toil and trouble, to have finally produced 300 pages of a double-spaced, carefully plotted, typewritten manuscript feels like a huge accomplishment. I allow myself a congratulatory slap on the back whenever I do, along with a celebratory adult beverage or two. The book may not be finished at that point—any writer knows that no book is ever really finished; it can always stand one more rewrite even after it’s published–but I know that at 300 pages and 80,000 words or so, I’m rounding third base and heading for home. More than two years elapsed before I was able to finally produce a 300-plus first draft of Flat Spin, my first Cordell Logan mystery. It seems like an interminable length of time when I look back on it now. Part of the reason the book took so long to write was that I am a relatively slow writer. I labor over my prose, rewriting incessantly–too much, perhaps–trying to get the rhythm of the words just right in my mind’s ear. But the more pertinent explanation is that I had other, more pressing obligations. Few authors get paid to write their first novel. I certainly didn’t. Until such time as you become a best-seller and can quit your day job, attention must be paid to the demands of the day–to finding work that helps pay the bills and to focusing on what matters most in life: your family. The last thing you want to do is miss your kids’ soccer games or musical performances. You work on the book in what little spare time you can find, like in the middle of the night, when everyone else in your house is asleep. Weeks become months and months become years as you eat the proverbial elephant one bite at a time. And then, one day, you reach 300 pages and everything preceding that glorious moment, all those strikeouts and foul balls, those overwritten passages and poorly executed subplots, begin to blur. I’m fast approaching the 300-page mark of my latest Logan mystery, #8 in the series, tentatively entitled The Impossible Turn. I hope to finish the first draft within a month. There’ll be the inevitable rewrites after that, followed by even more rewrites. After that, after I’ve submitted the book for publication, I’ll start over with an idea for a new book, aiming for 300 pages, because the old cliché applies as much to creative writing as it does to baseball: you can’t knock it out of the park unless you first step up to the plate.
A Cowboy in the Jungle
Jimmy Buffett’s singing voice was hardly world class, but what he lacked in vocal range, he more than made up for in the often brilliant lyrics he penned. He was a big-time popstar famous for his lighthearted, feel-good songs, but behind the cornball, fun-filled, Caribbean-Parrot Heads-Margaritaville schtick, he was a sentimental philosopher and poet par excellence whose words were freighted more often than not with wisdom and inspiration. Friends first introduced me to his music in college and I’ve been a fan ever since. He also was a successful novelist and avid pilot, which endeared him to me even more. So it was with profound sadness that I awoke last week to reports of Jimmy’s passing, much too soon, at age 76. I never met Jimmy Buffett. I once mailed him a copy of my first book, Flat Spin, figuring he might enjoy the flying references, but he never wrote back. The extent of our relationship, if you could call it that, was me having purchased most of his early albums and attending a handful of his concerts over the decades. Hardly BFFs. And yet, when news hit that he was gone, I found myself fighting back tears and grieving his loss as I would that of a close buddy. It seemed a foolish, illogical response. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wasn’t mourning the death of an entertainer I never knew. I was mourning a piece of my past that I thought was lost forever. Some studies have shown that one’s ability to smell can spark memories more powerfully as any other sensory influence. I wouldn’t know. I’m plagued with a terribly poor sense of smell. But play me a favorite song from back in the day, and chances are pretty good I’ll be able to tell you where I was, at least approximately, when I first heard it. Many of Jimmy Buffett’s tunes have that effect on me. I can’t begin to count the number of hours I’ve spent singing along to many of them in my car or dancing to them in the kitchen with my wife on Saturday mornings or struggling to do them justice on my guitar. At the top of that playlist is one of his lesser-known masterpieces: “Cowboy in the Jungle.” The song in a nutshell is about disregarding your ambitions and learning to trust your intuition. I must’ve listened to it a thousand times when I was a big-city newspaper reporter, back when I aspired to trying my hand at more creative forms of writing but feared giving up the steady paycheck newspaper work afforded. It’s no exaggeration to say that Jimmy Buffett bolstered my courage to trust my intuition and, ultimately, venture into the unknown world of screenplays and novels. That’s the part I thought was lost when I read that he was dead., those seminal moments of who I was and where I had been. Gone. That’s what I thought as I grieved. Upon further reflection, I realized I was wrong. One’s personal history is not erased with the departure of a writer who helped shape that history, whose work brought joy or comfort or insight or distraction by whatever measure. As long as a good writer’s words lives on, so too does our relationship to them and their words. In that regard, I’ll continue to sing along with Jimmy Buffett. His songs will bring back memories, and I know I’ll smile. There’s a cowboy in the jungle And he looks so out of place With his shrimp-skin boots and his cheap cheroots And his skin as white as paste Headin’ south to Paraguay Where the Gauchos sing and shout Now he’s stuck in Porto Bello Since his money all ran out So he hangs out with the sailors Night and day, they’re raisin’ hell And his original destination’s just another Story that he loves to tell With no plans for the future He still seems in control From a bronco ride to a ten-foot tide He just had to learn to roll Roll with the punches Play all of his hunches Make the best of whatever came his way What he lacked in ambition He made up with intuition Plowing straight ahead come what may Steel band in the distance And their music floats across the bay While American women in moomoos Talk about all the things they did today And their husbands quack about fishing As they slug those rum drinks down Discussing who caught what and who sat on his butt But it’s the only show in town They’re trying to drink all the punches They all may lose their lunches Tryin’ to cram lost years into five or six days Seems that blind ambition erased their intuition Plowin’ straight ahead come what may I don’t want to live on that kind of island No, I don’t want to swim in a roped off sea Too much for me, too much for me I’ve got to be where the wind and the water are free Alone on a midnight passage I can count the falling stars While the Southern Cross and the satellites They remind me of where we are Spinning around in circles Living it day to day And still 24 hours may be 60 good years It’s really not that long a stay We’ve gotta roll with the punches Learn to play all of our hunches Make the best of whatever comes your way Forget that blind ambition And learn to trust your intuition Plowin’ straight ahead come what may And there’s a cowboy in the jungle
Mahalo
As my 40th birthday loomed, my partner proposed that we go somewhere exotic to celebrate. I suggested the notion of a quiet island somewhere with good snorkeling. Our travel agent said she knew the perfect place: Molokai. We’d vacationed in Hawaii many times before, mostly on the Big Island and Kauai, but never Molokai. Small wonder. The island’s biggest claim to fame is that is was once home to a leper colony. Few tourists ever go there, yet went we did. Flying in, it looked less like the tropical paradise I had naïvely anticipated and more like the New Mexican desert. The “resort” where we had reservations was hunkered on the parched, far-west end of Molokai. To call it a dump would’ve been an insult to dumps everywhere. The place clearly was on its last legs, struggling to stay in business. The golf course looked like it hadn’t been watered in years. The tennis courts lacked nets. Our room was one of two in a flimsy, thatched-roof hut with walls so thin, you could hear the guy next door snoring all night. The trade winds were blowing so fiercely that spending any time on the beach first required digging a shallow trench, lest you be sandblasted by the gales. The ocean was so churned up, there was no snorkeling to be done. Bodysurfing meant risking your life. With little else to do, I went into the water anyway and somehow survived. Meals at the resort’s only restaurant were barely edible. On an island literally surrounded by tuna and mahi-mahi, the fish served in the dining room was frozen and of mysterious foreign origin. After three days, trapped as we were, and with no rental cars to be had, we rented a couple of underpowered mopeds and headed out in search of a bakery some ten miles distant supposedly famous for its fresh-baked bread. By the time we got there, the bread was sold out, but we did see people who appeared to have had leprosy, missing fingers and parts of their noses. I’ll spare you the details of how my partner subsequently crashed her moped, badly scraping up her arm, and how not a single motorist stopped to help. How we traded mopeds and how I sent her back to the resort to get medical attention while I began pushing the damaged moped in 90-degree heat. Cars whizzed by on that two-lane highway until finally, after what seemed like miles, two giant Hawaiian guys pulled over in their truck and got out with pistols shoved in their belts. “Terrific,” I remember thinking to myself, “murdered on my 40th birthday.” It turned out they were security guards working for a nearby cattle ranch. They hoisted the damaged moped in the bed of their pickup and were only too happy to give me a lift back to my hut. None of that, however, is the point of this story. After the two nice guards dropped me off, a cop friend from Los Angeles who happened to be vacationing with his wife on nearby Maui called to see how things were going on Molokai. I gave him the short, tortured version of our travelogue. He put me on hold for a minute. When he came back, he said, “I’ve booked you a room at our hotel in Lahaina. Get over here. Dinner’s on us tonight at the Hula Grill.” Last-minute airfares be damned, we booked two, one-way seats on a puddle jumper bound for Maui that afternoon. We couldn’t get off Molokai fast enough. There are some places you visit on this planet that settle warmly and forever in your heart, places to which you cannot wait to return. Molokai is not one of them. Maui is. Our escape to Lahaina and our vacation there in the days that followed were magical. We’ve gone back a few times since then. It’s an inspirational place to write. I edited a draft of The Kill Circle during one vacation on Maui and started The Three-Nine Line on another. With each visit, I’ve been struck by how welcoming the people are. Some of them no doubt were because we were tourists and because their livelihoods depended on tourist dollars. But the majority always struck me as being friendly and kind for the sake of being friendly and kind. That’s been my impression, anyway. Which is why, when recent wildfires destroyed much of old Lahaina, it felt like losing a family member. The death toll in Lahaina has been nothing less than staggering. For all I know, some of those wonderful human beings we met over the years, who mixed our cocktails and served us our meals, who cleaned our rooms, who serenaded us at dinner with their guitars, were among the victims. Nothing can bring back those we’ve lost. We grieve their tragic passing. In the end, you realize that buildings are merely that, buildings, no matter their cultural or historical significance. They can always be rebuilt. Lahaina will rise from the ashes and we will return to vacation there. Of both I am certain. Whether the new Lahaina resembles the old Lahaina is irrelevant. In the end, it is special people who make a destination truly special. It is the people who always matter most.
THIS BEAUTIFUL PLANET
The flight was scheduled for five hours and 26 minutes, nonstop from Los Angeles to Newark. I wanted a window seat because, as they say in aviation, we pilots have enjoyed looking down on everybody else since 1903. But, alas, no such luck. My reservation was last-minute and the flight was full; the only available seat was in the middle, near the back of the plane. Hunkered on the aisle, engrossed in a copy of People magazine and munching peanut M&Ms from an economy-size bag, was a formidable-looking older woman with short, spiky hair the color of some rare metal. “Hi, looks like I’m in the middle.” She heaved a sigh that did little to hide her annoyance at my arrival as she derricked herself out of her seat to let me in. “Thanks,” I said. No, “You’re welcome” or, “No problem.” No smile. Nothing. The dude wedged into the window seat beside me was equally humorless. He was wearing a pinstriped, New York Yankees team jersey that hung on him like a tent. Baggy cargo shorts. Flip-flops. His wispy beard did little to camouflage his triple chin. He smelled of weed and barely glanced over as I settled in. “Is it me,” I said, stuffing my backpack under the seat in front of me because the overhead bins were already full, “or do these seats seem to get closer together every year?” A shrug was the extent of his response. We hadn’t even taxied from the terminal before he pulled down his window shade and began watching a succession of Adam Sandler movies on his iPad. I can handle being trapped in an aluminum tube for five hours and change, contorted with scant legroom between two unfriendly, oversized people. Commercial air carriers—American carriers, anyway—have long regarded as cattle any passenger not paying first-class or business-class fare, and I long ago came to terms with that reality. In fact, I do some of my best writing on airliners, inspired by the views passing below. My second Cordell Logan novel, Fangs Out, was conceived in such fashion while on a flight to Denver. But what I have trouble understanding are travelers like my bearded seatmate. There we were, rocketing nine miles-a-minute across a continent that took settlers months to traverse in their covered wagons, and not once did he raise his shade to take in the panorama below. It might’ve been one thing if he spent the flight chuckling or even occasionally smiling at Sandler’s antics, but he did neither. Between napping with his neck craned back and mouth open, and his frequent trips to the restroom (which irked the woman on the aisle no end because she had to get up every time, as I did), he stared at that iPad without expression virtually all the way to New Jersey. I don’t get it. When I fly my own airplane, I don’t do a whole lot of sightseeing, either. I’m too focused looking out for other aircraft, checking my instruments to make sure I’m on course and at the proper altitude, and that my engine is running smoothly. Only occasionally will I allow myself the luxury of taking in the view. It’s a different story when I fly commercially, when I can sit with that window shade open and be reminded how lucky I am—how lucky we all are—to inhabit this beautiful planet. From on high, there’s always some new vista to relish and some new horizon toward which to strive. How did we come to be? What is our place in the universe, our purpose here? These are the enigmatic questions I ponder as I look down. I have no answers beyond the obvious and the cliche: that life is to be lived in the moment, to be savored, before we’re compelled to move on to whatever waits for us beyond that final, hopefully far-distant horizon. Don’t get me wrong. I dig mindless Adam Sandler flicks about as much as the next immature male (Truth be told, I actually prefer Will Ferrell comedies). But given the choice, I’d rather spend my time in that aluminum tube watching the sun set on the south rim of the Grand Canyon, or rise over the Great Plains at dawn. There are always rivers and highways to trace and towering, granite peaks at which to marvel. There are verdant forests and checkerboard farms and big cities and small towns. I always look for the airports. It can be easy sometimes to forget that it’s been little more than a century, in 1903, when two brothers, bicycle mechanics from Ohio, first achieved powered flight above the earth. How fortunate we are they did. Happy flying.
VFR DAYS
When you’re a pilot, little is more satisfying than properly executing a precision instrument approach. It’s all about focus, situational awareness, and trusting your guidance systems instead of your middle ear when you can’t see where you’re going. You’re descending blindly through the clouds, making small course and altitude corrections to ensure you’re properly tracking the localizer and glideslope signals. Suddenly, the clouds begin to thin, abruptly give way, and there you are, right where you’re supposed to be: at the proper height a few hundred feet above the ground with the runway directly in front of you. Good stuff. To me, though, what’s even more rewarding is flying in clear skies with unlimited visibility. Gazing down from on high, I am ever reminded how staggeringly beautiful our planet is regardless of the many challenges it faces today, and how privileged I am to enjoy the view. On such days I think of Wilbur and Orville and the countless other aviation pioneers. I am grateful to them. Their pluck and ingenuity allows pilots like me today to “slip the surly bonds” and go dancing the skies “on laughter-silvered wings,” as Canadian pilot John Gillespie Magee, Jr. put it so eloquently in his famous poem, “High Flight.” On such glorious days, I cannot understand why anyone would not want to learn to fly. Don’t get me wrong. The learning is not easy. There are abundant skills to master, medical examinations to take, operational manuals to study, much memorization, and tests to pass, both written and practical. It takes patience, money, and time. At first the goal and the hazards inherent in it seem overwhelming. Indeed, the first bit of advice my first instructor ever imparted on me, once we dispensed with all the niceties and climbed into N45290, a Cessna 150, for my first flight lesson, are burned into my brain like a cattle brand. “A plane will kill you faster than anything,” he said, “unless you know what you’re doing.” I remember thinking, This is nuts. No way I’ll ever be confident enough to ever safely fly this thing yourself. And then, on a warm August morning, with less than 12 hours of flight time recorded in my official pilot’s logbook—less time than it took to learn how to drive a car–my instructor told me to taxi in, climbed out, and said, “Three touch-and-goes, then come on back. Do not break the airplane or you’ll have to pay for it.” My first solo flight! The thing about it was, I don’t remember being nervous. What I do remember, vividly, is taxiing back out (it was a small airport in northern Colorado with no control tower) and having to wait while a coyote sat placidly about a hundred feet down the runway, blocking my takeoff. Eventually the coyote sauntered off and I advanced the throttle. As the airspeed needle came alive and the plane lifted off, climbing into the blue, I immediately heard a loud, disquieting noise—much like what I imagined a hurricane might sound like—and I realized I’d forgotten to latch the right-side door after my instructor got out. I leaned over while keeping the wings level, yanked the door shut, proceeded to perform my requisite touch-and-go’s, and landed, full-stop, to my instructor’s relief, without breaking the airplane. To this day, it remains among the proudest moments of my life. It’s especially difficult to write on VFR days, when toiling inside at a computer, trying to be creative, is not nearly as fun as taking off and burning holes in clear skies. As I write this, I’m working on my eighth Cordell Logan novel working title, The Impossible Turn), but I’d much rather be flying.