Mad as hell…

I admit it. I’m mad as hell and I’m going to take this anymore.

Hmm. Did I misquote that? Really? If you think you’re not going to take this anymore, think again. You are. I am.

Of course, I’m talking about mass murders, school killings, black on black crime, white supremacists, bought off congressdweebs, and the NRA. We’ve all got a solution, right? We’re all mad as hell that another batch of kids has been cut down in what should have been a place of safety and learning. But frankly, no matter how mad we get, we’re going to take it some more. Each day, I sit and wait for the next mass murder.

Of course, my liberal friends want to ban all guns! Get rid of them. That will end this. They forget that effectively banning all guns would not require a law, but a rule of martial law. Yep, the very thing that gun-owners are so paranoid about that they need their guns to defend us all against.

My conservative friends want to arm the teachers, not for a moment considering the fact that means they want to conscript teachers into an armed militia, against their will, and force them to stand between students and armed intruders where volunteers have refused to stand.

I have to say that if Mr. Hess had been carrying around a .44 magnum in 6th grade math class instead of that damned big paddle, we’d have had fewer people in our graduating class. Maybe not. I’m not sure anyone he hit with that board ever graduated.

Now I’ll spit out the standard conservative drivel that the problem isn’t guns.

Of course not, say my liberal friends, it’s gun-owners.

Both are wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

This has nothing to do with rights, first, second, or fifth amendment. The problem is not gun control, it’s gun culture. Like the oft-touted American rape culture, gun culture is all-American. We want something, we kill to get it. Our rhetoric, our sports chants, our sales presentations, our corporate board rooms are filled with ‘Kill, kill, kill.’

The Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in November 1620. In March 1623, my unmourned ancestor Myles Standish, invited two chiefs and their families to dinner and killed them all. Our first all-American mass murder. We kill to take whatever it is we want. It’s the American way.

We live in a Harry Potter world. Only instead of magic wands, we have magic guns. We have the same divisions of evil wizards battling good student witches in America today as in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Only instead of battling each other with magic wands we battle with magic guns.

There were three unforgivable curses in HP’s world. Avada Kedavra, (the killing curse), Crucio (excruciating pain curse), and Imperio (taking control of another person curse). I can’t remember how many times Voldemort hurled Avada Kedavra at Harry and missed. But the heroes (students) won the war and not once used one of the three unforgivable curses.

We don’t have that choice. Our magic guns only have one spell. Avada Kedavra! You’re dead. We only have one curse in our bag of magic tricks. If you pick up a magic gun, there is only one outcome. Death. It’s the American way. Kill for what you want.

So, if you are upset about school killings, about gun control, about bought off legislators, about whatever cause du jour you espouse, good for you! Just understand, you are going to take it some more. You’re going to be sitting in the same fucking chair tomorrow when another (probably white male) executioner attacks a school, mall, or concert. And you’ll still be sitting on your ass, mad as hell, the next time. And the next time. And the next time. And the next time.

It’s the American way. It’s our cultural heritage. If you want something, kill. If you’re angry, kill. If you’re afraid, kill. If you want someone to believe your religion, kill. If you’ve got pimples, bad breath, hurt feelings, or a two-inch dick, kill. Get yourself a magic gun and practice the unforgivable curse.

Avada Kedavra! You’re dead.

It’s not about gun control. It’s about the American way.

The Vultures are Gathering

I think that means it’s time to leave! These two turkey vultures have been spending mornings sunning themselves on the electric pole next to my trailer. Every morning I wake up to their subliminal message: Are you dead yet?

Turkey Vultures sitting on the power pole next to my trailer.

I didn’t see any of these birds last year. That’s one of the many reasons I chose not to go back to Florida for the winter. I thought I’d outrun them. In Florida, the turkey vultures line the rooftops, hop from pole to pole, and sit on abandoned playground equipment. Are you dead yet?

This is the territory the turkey vulture roams in North America. At least with the temperature where it is today, maybe they'll be hibernating or something.

Signs in the Everglades warn that vultures will eat the rubber off your car or trailer. Really? Just the kind of place I want to spend my waning years. Not that my years are waning. I’m not dead yet.

Which is more than I can say for seventeen students and teachers at Parkland. Rest in peace.

You know what really got to me when I saw the pictures of the murdered victims? That one guy who was wearing a UIndy swim team T-shirt. The kid was going to attend my alma mater. Cut down.

I don’t have any solutions to that situation. Every solution I hear is a bad one. Like banning porn. To my knowledge, no one has ever committed a mass murder while fapping.

They say we should arm teachers. Well, that would solve one of the terrible dilemmas that terrorists face: Who to shoot first.

Me? I write. I ridicule other people’s solutions, hoping they’ll come up with something better, though I sincerely doubt it. We’re all caught up in our own agendas. Whether you are pro-gun-ownership or against it, you won’t give up your solution. Note, I didn’t say 2nd Amendment. The issue has nothing to do with that. It’s all about me and what I want. Hell with the Constitution. We’d fight for or against gun ownership no matter what the Constitution said. We just use that as an excuse for our opinions.

I'm ahead of my writing goals for the year. But it represents four stories I'm currently actively developing! Can't do just one.

So, I write about characters and people who are concerned for the well-being of others and I try to simply turn a mirror on the world so we can look at ourselves through the eyes of others. My big project at the moment is City Limits, a literary fiction that I hope to release in late spring or early summer. I’m tracking well and the ‘final’ draft has entered the editing cycle with generally good comments coming back from my team. I don’t actually have a cover picture for the small city of Rosebud Falls somewhere in the eastern part of the country (not Indiana). I suppose, though, that my image of Main Street is heavily influenced by North Manchester, Indiana. I’ve seen several other towns with similar atmospheres, but this is unquestionably the scene in my mind when I write about Main Street in Rosebud Falls.

Main Street in North Manchester, Indiana

So, as the vultures circle my camp, it’s a sure sign that I’ve been sitting in one place for too long. Next Thursday, I pull up stakes and move. I suppose that before then, I should wash the dishes and sweep the floor. And write another couple thousand words each day.

Reboot

I’ve slowed down my travel for the past two years. After leaving Hawaii in 2016 to travel to Thailand, Greece, Central Europe, Germany, and Iceland (among others) I got back to my little camp in Idaho pretty tired. So, I spent three months there, just laid back and writing my mythical memoirs. Then I had the brilliant idea that I should spend the winter in one place, so after a month winding my way south, I ended up camped in Southern California for four months.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

I got pretty lazy as I enjoyed the lifestyle of living in a sunny nude recreation area for the winter. After driving around the southwest for a few months, I ended up back in Idaho for the summer at Sun Meadow Nudist Resort. Over my third summer there, I discovered that I really feel like I’m home when I’m there. I have friends, activities, and plenty of time to write. I’m more sociable at Sun Meadow than anyplace I’ve been over the past five years. So, I’ve booked back there for the summer (five months) for the next two years. Even did some improvement to my little campsite so I have a nice patio now.

Relaxing on the patio at Sun Meadow in Idaho.

The question is, am I still looking for the first exit off the beaten path, or have I found it?

I’m planning to make tracks again. Not sure exactly what the next two months will bring as I leave Southern California and make my way back to Idaho, but during that time, I’ll also be planning another round-the-world adventure for this fall. Plan to dip south of the equator this time!

The important thing is that I plan to reactivate my travel blog. Now, I need to decide exactly how to do it.

Reboot or Start Over?

I plan a couple of significant changes in the way I blog, partly because I learned that I don’t really like writing about travel as a subject. I far more enjoy using what I see and experience as a jumping off point for long philosophical conversations with myself. I’ll attach a few photos to my stories, but expect my posts to be more along the lines of the past several that have appeared here on First Exit rather than the earlier day-by-day travel posts.

At my usual writing desk in the morning.

You might expect that I would bless you with the accumulated wisdom of my many years on this planet, but you are most likely to encounter my many doubts and questions.

As you might or might not know, I write books under two different names. My ‘serious’ literature is authored by Nathan Everett. My ‘erotic romance and adventure’ stories are authored by Devon Layne. I split my personalities so that fans would know what kind of book they were getting before they buy. I find that my serious literature isn’t all that serious and my erotica isn’t all that erotic, but if the story has any explicit sexual content, Devon gets to claim authorship.

It is too difficult to maintain multiple blogs for my multiple personalities, so I will only use one. Hence, both Devon’s and Nathan’s experiences will influence what appears here. I expect that everything written and shown in my photographs will be suitable for general audiences with no more than a PG rating. But I will talk about new books by both authors as I’m quite prolific in my writing.

For example, you can expect City Limits by Nathan Everett to be officially announced in about two months. A man arrives in the small City of Rosebud Falls just in time to rescue a toddler from a raging river, only to discover upon emerging that he has lost his memory. Nonetheless, ‘Gee’ soon becomes an integral part of the unusual community, often as the hero but not infrequently as the scapegoat.

I love the covers for this series!

About the same time, Devon Layne will release The Props Master 2: A Touch of Magic. Sequel to Behind the Ivory Veil and Ritual Reality, A Touch of Magic explores the unusual gift of healing empathy embodied in Serepte Allen. Healing people is a painful compulsion for Serepte, but only when she exercises the gift out of true love will she part the veil that has imprisoned her father for nearly twenty years. Book covers will also be shown here.

So, the question becomes one of rebooting this blog with a new design and broader scope than originally intended, or retiring it and creating something all brand new. Frankly, I tend toward the former, but I invite your input.

And if you’d like to contribute to my endeavors, please consider becoming a patron of Devon Layne at http://www.patreon.com/aroslav. Patrons at the $10 level have already seen and read the first draft of City Limits as it was written and along with patrons at the $5 level will receive the finished book a week before it is officially released. Patrons have access to all my works before they are released to the public. Join me and know that your contribution is going directly to support my next world tour!

Let me know what you think!