Hydrocarbon Hangover

Since selling our Toyota on Friday the 9th June, it's been a week of utter carlessness. 

Over the years our hybrid accounted for a third of our carbon footprint. I used it a lot for work, driving all over the country to film weddings and such.

But it has slowly become obvious it's now time to at least attempt a footloose and car-free existence for the following reasons.

• We as a family can no longer afford a car. It would cost £600 to repair the intermittent brake sensor problem, which we don't have. To me that's a signal to sell the car. Yes the Toyota gave 53 miles to the gallon, but our lifestyle sadly cannot stretch to that. Wise man say: live within your means.
• We as a species can no longer afford cars. You may or may not believe in human-caused climate change. But to me it's staring us in the face. It's a logical result of us burning a whole load of fossil fuels and cutting down a whole load of trees. Less rain, record temperatures every year, receding ice caps. Wild fires. Water shortages. The time to make sacrifices is here, if not past. We have to make changes on a personal, local, national and global level. Burning fossil fuels was a mistake at first, then a lie. Now it's unsustainable. The truth is, we were never meant to fly in jet planes. We were never meant to drive gas guzzlers. Those things were temporary luxuries. The golden age of burning oil willy nilly is over. We need to get back to cycling, horse-riding, hang-gliding - something, anything else. We need to accept that our worlds must shrink back to the smaller, slower way they once were.
• I've lost the taste for driving. Fighting to keep my eyes open while weaving home after midnight post-filming an event. Cars veering in off the slip-roads expecting you to move over. People not using indicators or driving on their phones. Feeling sick at the wheel. Being encased in a glass, metal stuffy coffin, hurtling along at break-neck speed. Back pain. Everyone complaining you're driving too fast, you're driving too slow, you're driving too badly, you're driving too well. Actually no-one's ever complained that.
• There are too many cars on the road. The days of cruising down the open road are long gone, because every other person and their lover are doing the same. It's nose to tail. Instead, you can undertake long lines of cars on a bike at the lights while inhaling their noxious exhausts and feeling the heat bouncing off their chassis.

I realise the hypocrisy of what I'm saying. I spent many air miles flying around the world. But shirking life changes due to fear of being called a hypocrite is just another excuse.

Yes, I overindulged carbon like there was no tomorrow. But now I've woken up and it is tomorrow. And must face the hydrocarbon hangover.

Case in point. Yesterday I traveled by train to visit my mum. Usually it takes 47 minutes one way in the car. It took four hours round trip. Instead of getting in the car in the driveway I had to walk a mile to the station with a heavy bag. Rather than focusing on the road, straining to hear music over the sound of the wind and worrying about drivers behind and cyclists in front (we need more cycle paths!) I sat at a train table, wrote the first half of this blog and did my accounts. I gazed out the dirty window at the passing scenery. I thought about life. I drank tea and guzzled an empire state biscuit. That leg lasted an hour. 

At Glasgow I got out and relieved myself in the (now free to use) Glasgow Central toilets, after almost going into the Ladies. I got on the train to my home town. It was too hot. I drank water.  Things cooled down a bit once we got moving. I looked out the window and pondered my next novel. I napped. I drooled. I spotted a missing playpark of my youth which had been turned to grass. This leg was half an hour. One leg shorter than the other. Strangely I was exhausted and beginning to realise I'd vastly overestimated the number of books I would read on the train. I climbed the last incline to the family home, lamenting the fact it was on a hill and has been for the past sixty odd years. Two hours later I'd arrived.

On the return journey I was too exhausted to even read on the train, and took the time instead to deal with the possibility of my phone getting hacked when I'd responded to a scammer's text to download a link, too late realising something was amiss. 

Changed trains again at Glasgow Central, where someone was expertly playing the free piano and bringing joy to a father on Father's Day. In the carriage, two older women dressed to the nines in pinks and yellows sat down at my table and ate a MacDonalds. Through the windows in the adjacent train a group of young girls were dancing and singing and waving at us. They stuck their 'American Catholic Trip' tickets to the windows to communicate where they were going or had been.

Because I had a wooden mug rack attached to my bag the two women at my table asked if I'd just moved house. I said no, I was clearing out my Mum's and this used to be mine. "You make assumptions, don't you?" the woman next to me said chattily. I wasn't chatty. I was tired. My back hurt from too much sitting. I realised they would have been old even in the 80s. But they were nice. I made minimal courteous replies hoping they wouldn't try to seduce me.

At a station on the way home, we stopped at a platform with significant police presence. I fought the urge to alight with my wrists out to confess. "It was me officer, I did it!" "Did what, son?" "I don't know. What's been done recently?" 

I walked home thanking my stars we live downhill from the station.

Life without a car is hard, but not impossible. Dare I say it, it's healthier and better for the planet. 

And more interesting.

The Luminari Launch

This weeks sees me finally getting my finger out and publishing The Luminari. This is a story I've been working on since November 2020 (what!?) and is Jake Jones's 3rd case after The Old Mice Killer and The Coffee Cup Killer. Happily it is the first of Jake's adventures to reach novel length, coming in at 54k words. 

In it, Jake investigates a mysterious cult in the desert, alleged by his new client Lucida Grande (shortly before she is incapacitated by a poison-laced cigarette) to be brain-washing members and stealing their personal savings and identities, replacing them with font names. He is tasked with finding her sister, Gill Sans, which sounds simple enough. At first.

I blatantly stole the idea from fellow West Lothian Writer, Nadine Little, and ran with it. She seems to have given me her blessing and magnanimously refused accepting ten percent of the profits, unless I make it big. Nadine also was kind enough to write a brilliant foreword for the book, as well as gave lots of great feedback advice and many hours of her time checking for errors (any that remain are definitely mine and not hers).

After approaching several agents and publishers with the story and seeing it rejected time and again, I confess I became disheartened. Felt I was knocking on Heaven's door until my knuckles bled. One or two publishers were tempted but put off by the fact that it wasn't the first in a series, but the third. Was it ever destined to see the light of day? They say you should never give up, and I told myself to keep going until I got at least 100 rejections. Which is easier said than done. The inner child in me was beginning to think, "Screw this," for which I harshly chastized it and told it to get back up the chimney and keep sweeping, dammit.

The light was going out of my writing life. I'm sure you'll agree there's a big soulful difference between creating colourful characters, dropping them in amusing situations and enjoying watching them dig themselves out, versus compiling multiple sightly different pitches to send out to established people in the publishing industry morning after morning, guardians of the golden goose, only to be knocked back again and again. 

For this reason my heartfelt thanks goes out to Twitter pal Andy Crosby, who saw value in, and convinced me to return to, the project. The Luminari will therefore be published under the Raptor Filmz banner (my small media business), as with the first two.

You can pre-order The Luminari ebook here and through the power of science it will be beamed directly to your device on Wednesday 17th May.

The paperback version will be live from Wednesday 17th May too. Those of you who think it's already live are mistaken. It can't be. That would be improper. 

I'm even currently wrestling with the document to craft a hardback version, and recording an audiobook too just for the heck of it. I've already received a proof of the 6" by 9" hardback and it's very nice I have to say. Just needs a few tweaks here and there before finalising.

The audiobook is a whole nother beast. Recording the story in the voice of Jake Jones (who turns out is from a fictional city crossed between Brooklyn and Boston) and maintaining consistency, is not easy. Add to that so many other characters who are from completely random places around the world (decided purely on whether I can do the accents or not) just pours more petrol on the pyre of pandemonium. Why is Freda from Liverpool? Why? No reference is made to this in the text. Why did she move to the US and decide to look after young offenders? Why has her accent not been Americanized? Why have Big Caslon's jaws been wired together? It makes no sense. And not only do I have to do impersonations of characters, I have to do impersonations of Jake doing impersonations of those characters, as he is the one telling the story... It makes me want to pull my hair out, and hopefully you yours.

Anyway, it's a lot of fun and it certainly adds a whole new dimension to the story. Many thanks to John Perivolaris for his mic vocal popper shield that enabled me to get this done. Hopefully it will be completed this week.

So on Wednesday 17th May at, let's say, 12 noon, I'll do a livestream to mark the launch, probably on my Facebook page. If you have any questions you'd like to ask me about the writing or publishing of The Luminari, or any of the Jake Jones stories, please email me at chrisryoung75@gmail.com or just ask me in the livestream.

Looking forward to seeing you then!

The Pursuit of Will Power

Good morning world!

This edition is beamed to you from a sleepy, drizzly, mild last Sunday in April in Scotland.

The locals have barely surfaced. The roads are quiet. The dogs, save those yapping, are napping. We'll just let those ones lie.

I would like to share my thoughts with you about will power; my wonderings, my questions, my confusion.

What is it and where does it come from? How does one generate more, if possible?

Oscar Wilde once said, "I can resist anything except temptation." But what does this mean? Is he saying it's okay to give in to cravings? Or is he just identifying that, like me, he has little will power? Or is he just making an amusing and clever comment, which starts off strong: "I can resist anything" and ends : "except temptation" which is of course the vehicle by which we are transported to what we want; a streetcar named Desire.

These days I find myself drifting along with a vague sense of impending doom. As if I'm in a rowing boat on a river heading for the top of a waterfall. I really should row. But it's just such a pleasant ride. The riverbanks are bustling with bunnies, the sun is sparkling on the water, the birds are singing, the fish are leaping over the prow. Ahh, it's so pleasant just to lie here with my feet up on the edge without a care in the world.

Wait, is that a faint splashing I can hear? Is that crashing crescendo getting louder? Hmf, it's still a long way off. I'll deal with that when it comes.

But hey, it's such a lovely ride. Sit here with me for a little while. Enjoy it.

Which brings me back to will power. How to get it? I could row if I wanted to, but I don't. 

The thought occurred to me not long ago that perhaps will power is a muscle, like physical power. You gain it by using it. And at the very least, things will get done in pursuit. If I install the loft ladder perhaps this will give me the strength to lay the insulation. If I force myself to dig the garden maybe I will gain the wherewithall to plant things. At the very least the loft ladder will be installed and the garden will be dug.

Then again there's the question of life. I was saddened recently to hear of the passing of Jerry Springer at 79. If someone so likeable, successful and famous can't cheat death, then what chance have the rest of us got? Sean Connery made it to 90. He definitely squeezed every last drop out of life.

So maybe the question shouldn't be : "Where does one get more willpower?" Perhaps it should be : "How can one live better?" And by better I mean longer, happier, and leaving the world a better place than how you found it.

But the irony is you really need willpower to live a longer, happier life which leaves the world a better place. Sitting on the sofa all day, every day, watching box sets and chowing down on mint Aeros is not going to cut it.

So, to summarize then. What have we learnt from this morning's musings? 

I guess, as with everything, it's balance. Balance the box sets and Aeros with jogging and carrots. Balance the lying in the boat trailing fingertips in the water with periods of frantic rowing. Balance the work with the joy.

Yin and yang, innit?

Yin without Yang is like Cheech without Chong

Maybe laziness is like fear. It's there to be overcome. It's not just about doing the things you want when you want. It's about wielding the savage sword of will power and smiting down your laziness with one fell swoop, thus washing the dishes and checking the tyre pressure of your car, not 'when you feel like it' but when it's appropriate.

As the winged goddess of victory once quoth, "Just do it." 

And as Larry the Cable Guy once quoth, "Git 'er done!"

Two Birds, One Dog

Another Sunday befalls us.

It occurs to me that if I take gardening gloves on my 7am walk with the dog and pick up a handful of garbage before each bin, and drop it in, my life on this earth is not entirely wasted.

A good feeling is born, which mingles with the dew and dawn, and makes the surrounding nature more aesthetically pleasing. Just a little each day, and oh, how much easier on the eyes is the undergrowth. 

A crushed Monster can gives way to new-born nettles. A plastic Golden Wonder wrapper makes way for baby trees. A rusting tin can from aeons before, somehow disgorged from the soil since yesterday, succumbs to human hand and creates a safe space for fresh, green, dew-drop laden blades of grass to reach for the carbon enriched air, and, by merely doing what it does, convert it, molecule by molecule, to oxygen.

What if we are just aliens on an alien planet with alien problems?

Overcrowding, pollution and over-consumption of food and raw materials. It must happen to every species in a confined space eventually.

But for the meanwhile, it truly feeds the soul to cast one's gaze around the nature-scape and find it litter-free, reminded not of humanity's foibles, but of Mother Earth's simple beauty.

Uncut Gems

Just a quickie as it's been a long time since my last post.

Having a puppy has completely changed my life priorities. It used to be : Write this! Achieve that! Play the next thing! Organise this! Now it's:

Doze on sofa with diminutive, furry life-form.

Damn.

But I do recall a time when I enjoyed the writing process. I think it happened just before I realised I hated the editing process.

It's a beautiful Easter Sunday morning here, with brightness refracting through dew drops and sunlight licking the underside of leaves. A discarded kid's bicycle lies half on the road. Neighbours are out walking and glow at the pup, who rolls over at the slightest sign of attention.

Rather than hide away upstairs playing Apex last night I stayed downstairs with the pup on my lap and flicked through films on the fire-stick. After successfully avoiding the western remake (yee-haw!) of 'The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo' with Daniel Craig, I settled upon a 2019 film for which Adam Sandler (I wanna Grow Old With You) won an Independent Spirit Award For Best Male Lead, Uncut Gems. 

Uncut Gems (2019)

I was only going to watch half as it was getting late, but something about the film kept me up. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse for the poor guy and I had to find out if he could make it. Such a great performance from Adam Sandler, who we're so used to seeing in comedies. According to Wikipedia, career-defining.

I can't reveal too much about the film: I just recommend you view it for yourself. It's a transformation. Rated 15 there is a lot of strong language, so if you're going to be watching something with family I might suggest Murder Mystery 2 (rated 12), which is also a pretty good and recent film of Sandler's (and Jennifer Aniston's!) film which my son and I enjoyed.

Murder Mystery 2 (2023)

Well, I suppose I should get back to my adulting responsibilities, such as pottering in the garden not getting much done and trying to remember where I left my memory.

Thanks for reading.

A New Arrival

Been a while since my last confession. Probably because I've been putting all my interesting life events into my monthly newsletters. 

We got an eight week old puppy on the 28th of January which has completely changed our lives and disrupted all patterns and positive habits I'd set up. Gone are the early writing mornings. Absent is the tri-weekly exercise regime. Suspiciously elsewhere are the healthy eating philosophy and one coffee-a-day rule. The daily guitar grind has dried up. Office is a mess. Don't know where anything is.

It's all gone, in the words of Aristotle, "These feta pies taste weird."

But "Use it or lose it" they say so here I am. They also say "Early to bed, early to rise..." but how am I supposed to unwind after a hard day with two hours of action-packed first-person shooter Apex Legends, trying to take out and/or hide from 50 other players bent on my immediate destruction and go to bed early at the same time? Impossible.

You see my problem.

Film Review : Flight 2012 Denzel Washington

Flight is a 2012 film starring Denzel Washington with fantastic cameos from John Goodman, directed by Robert Zemeckis, and written by John Gatlins, loosely inspired by the true story of Alaska Airlines Flight 261.

I began writing this review on 4th December, which is quite a while ago now, as I got side-tracked by the fact that this was inspired by a true story. While reading the Wikipedia article of Alaska Airlines Flight 261, I almost filled my pants - and I don't mean with popcorn - as I came to terms with the thought of being in a commercial airliner that had just plummeted a ridiculous amount of altitude in a fraction of a second and the only recourse left to the pilots was to TURN THE PLANE UPSIDE DOWN.

This actually happened.

I'm so glad that due to concerns about the emissions caused by air travel I have vowed to never fly again, because if I hadn't, after watching this film I would vow to never fly again again. Now I have two concurrent vows.

But back to the film itself. For some reason I came at it with the assumption that it was a huge conspiracy and someone on the plane was to be assassinated for some reason. Which might have actually made it a better film. But halfway through it became clear the pilot was in no fit shape to even consider conducting an investigation due to his life-altering drinking problem.

I was like, Jeez, come on Denzel, get it together man, you've got a mystery to solve. Someone on that plane was meant to die, and why and by whom, and you can't even stay off the booze long enough to walk straight let alone check the passenger list.

Eventually I had to concede that there was no conspiracy and that no-one on the plane was meant to die and the battle with alcohol was the story.

And then I was reminded that sometimes good people make mistakes, and imperfect humans save lives.

Part of the reason to find out how much of the film was true to life was to unearth whether all the stuff about the pilot being an alcoholic relying on cocaine to get himself fit enough to fly was accurate. But there is no mention of this in the Wikipedia article.

So you're watching the film and the end is approaching and you're thinking, okay Denzel, you've stayed sober for eight days leading up to the trial. You can do this. Just stay on the wagon one more night. Eight more hours. Then you can pretend you're the hero we all want to believe.

And then it all goes tits up and I'm crying like a motherf*^$er.

Verdict: Must watch. But not on a plane.