I Am So Over the Whole UFO Thing

The other day someone posted a link to a UFO sighting in east Texas. He was a little excited. I understand; there was a time I would have been, too. After all, I saw a real UFO. I mentioned this briefly in Growing Up Miles, Part 2 on another blog:

"One night mom and I were watching a late night sci fi movie (giant, three legged robots stomping around the desert with death rays, IIRC). There was a commercial break, and we got up to stretch. We wandered to the front door to look out. There was a giant fireball sort thing slowly descending out of the sky behind the Franklin Mountains. This was between midnight and 1AM. Much too big to be the sun or moon, and too slow to be anything falling. Mom and I just stood there until after it was gone. Then we stared at each other, both hoping the other would say something first. When we did talk, we realized we'd each seen the same thing. We could never find anyone else who admitted seeing it. When she called the AFB and army bases, they refused to say anything, just wanted a full report on what we'd seen. So I have seen a UFO. What was it? What does it mean? No idea, the U was very much "Unidentified"! I spent the next couple of years reading everything I could on UFOs and desperately wanting to see more. Finally gave up, never saw anything again."

This obviously glosses over the couple of years I spent researching this. It ignores the fact that every so often throughout the rest of my life, I read about a UFO and dig again, and once more come up unsatisfied.

I grew up with a brilliant scientist and professor of a Father. I also grew up reading both science and science fiction. I got my first chemistry set on my 6th birthday; experimentation, investigation and engineering have been some of my BFFs ever since. I always wanted to KNOW things. What things? Everything. All you scientists and engineers out there (latent or otherwise) get this.

But there was precious little to know about UFOs. There were reported sightings, lots and lots of reported sightings. There were allegedly officially documented sightings by test pilots, interceptor pilots, SAC bomber pilots, commercial passenger pilots, ground RADAR operators, NORAD, and probably bald eagles and seagulls. But almost none of it showed up in major media or anything official an unclassified civilian would ever see. Even the rumors of rumors of official sightings of rumored documents of official sightings were classified. If they even existed. They might be rumors, too.

Nearly the worst thing was that almost everyone who claimed to have encountered aliens seemed to have either gotten an anal probe or been sexually investigated. If there were aliens out there they were at worst perverted, and at best incapable of comprehending human anatomy. While I can understand some mild confusion and possibly disbelief (let's face it, we're laid out pretty uniquely), one would think that a people capable of crossing distances at speed the Enterprise crew only dreamed of could fathom human anatomy fairly quickly. Some of the most damning evidence against UFOs being spaceships was that the alleged travelers weren't curing our diseases, much less giving details on 100MPG carburetors.

But even worse than this was the shoddy reporting, the shoddy evidence (when there was any), and the lack of anything remotely scientific or intellectually useful surrounding any of the phenomena.

So I quit worrying about it. As a Christian, there are really only a few possible answers:

1. There are no such aliens.
2. There are such aliens, and they never fell, so we are probably off limits (C. S. Lewis covers this well in his space trilogy).
3. There are such aliens. They fell, and Jesus died for them or God otherwise provided for them. In that case why are they playing hide and seek?
4. These are demonic manifestations.

I know people who subscribe to each of these theories. But personally, I no longer much care. It's fun to speculate, and UFOs and/or space aliens will likely appear in some of my stories now and then, but... who cares? Either they don't exist, or they are pretty much avoiding us. Unless and until we have verifiable contact of some sort (whether that's an alien making rude gestures at the Hubble, Gort's arrival, or Loki shows up with the Chitauri) there are far more interesting and far better uses of my time.

Maybe some day I'll meet a space alien. If and when that happens, I'll offer a hug. Until then, I'm still offering hugs to any humans who need or want one. You're awesome and loved, and so are the space aliens-- real or imagined. Unless they're demons. No hugs for demons.

If you're into UFOs, that's great. Have fun. If they are real, I hope you are the one who can wave solid evidence in my face and laugh. I'll happily buy you dinner. And you get an extra hug/

Unless you're a demon. No hugs for demons.

You'll be Warm in the Arms of a Mystery Bass Beat

For a couple of years I've been tortured by a song. It's played dozens of times at restaurants; nobody could name tune or band, and the times I tried to use a phone app (Sound Hound) to identify it there was too much background noise. My favorite restaurants are inevitably full of happy people, and get a bit loud.

I love nearly everything about this song, from the apparently simple, driving bass beat to the breathless, non-stop vocal melody. Sometimes I couldn't hear anything but the bass yet I instantly knew the tune and could play all the parts in my head.

With unintelligible lyrics (thanks to ambient noise levels).

Tonight, with my phone about three feet from a speaker, I finally ID'd the song: "The Mayor of Simpleton" by XTC. As soon as I knew the song, lyrics began to resolve in my head. A quick youtube play and they were all back. How weird, to forget an entire song's worth of lyrics.

And I may be the mayor of simpleton
But I know one thing
And that's, "I love you".

Victory is mine. Yes, it's a rather trivial victory, made even more so by needing a smart phone to Name That Song. But I love music, and this song has intruded on well over half our date night meals and meals out with friends the past couple of years. A victory is a victory. I'll take the small ones along with the big ones.

If depth of feeling is a currency,
(please be upstanding for the mayor of simpleton),
Then I'm the man who grew the money tree,
(no chain of office and no hope of getting one).
Some of your friends are too brainy to see,
That they're paupers and that's how they'll stay.

THE MAYOR OF SIMPLETON (intro/verses) by Andy Partridge
Copyright 1989 Virgin Music Ltd.
Bass line as arranged and recorded by Colin Moulding
As reported by Jeff Truzi on http://chalkhills.org/reelbyreal/s_TheMayorOfSimpleton.html

Late night return trip musings

I just dropped Kayla and Lauren off after a late dinner and coffee shop road trip. It's 1:30AM, 70 degrees Fahrenheit, with lots of "Watch for ice on bridge" signs. At this end of Ronald Reagan Parkway there is no light pollution at all. On a long series of gradual hills, my headlights probe the darkness, finding nothing where the road seems to fall off into space. There is nothing obviously to either side, either, only darkness. Black Sabbath's "Into the Void" would be the perfect soundtrack.

I'm hyper-caffeinated and tired, so every second of nothing stretches out into forever. The road goes ever on. I may be home in twenty minutes; I may be tumbling through the void. In the latter case, I'll enjoy it til the caffeine wears off or the air runs out. All of these lead to sleep, which is all I want right this minute.

"Watch for ice on bridge". Maybe the signs have had too much caffeine; they're clearly hallucinating.

Writing 101 - Tools of the Trade

When I started writing, I tended to write. You know, literally. The old-fashioned way, on paper with a pen or pencil. Occasionally with a crayon.

Eventually I transitioned much of that to computers, either locally or on the net as it became available. When I got serious about writing I started carrying a journal or notebook everywhere. Pen and paper again ruled. As I started transcribing some of these stories onto my home desktop computer, I found myself writing there again as well.

I began to notice I tended to write differently based on the tool I was using. This hit me like a newly hatched face hugger from the Alien movies when I wanted to write my novel. The ideas were flowing like a dam had busted, but I couldn't write them down-- not on paper, not on the desktop.

On a whim I decided to try writing on the new Apple Macbook Air they had given me at work (personal use is Allowed). Almost 2,000 words flowed out in a couple of hours. That's a chapter. This happened again the next night. And the next. I wrote over 75,000 words in a month-- all in my spare time amidst a very busy schedule. Nearly all of it was on the laptop. I'd never been able to do that before!

The style was different. Not horribly, but subtly. I think it was perfect for the book. But it wasn't like anything I had written before. Why?

Why, why, why?

A few days after I started pondering this, I was rummaging through art supplies-- crayons, pens, pencils, markers, and brushes. And it hit me. Visual artists use different media for different things. It might vary by mood, or subject, or style, or anything else, but some artists find they can only do certain work, or perhaps their best work, with certain media.

It's true with music, as well. I can pick up my acoustic, my G&L Tribute, my ancient Hagstrom 1, or my Flying V, and likely as not start playing certain styles based on the guitar. Sometimes I even pick the guitar based on what I want to play.

Why should writing be any different? Or any other artistic endeavor?

So, are you an an artist? Try another medium! Swap a paintbrush for a sprayer, a Strat for a Tele, a guitar for a bass, a clarinet for a drum, pencils for markers.

It can help with writer's block (or other artistic equivalents). In fact, that's what happened with the book.

All that said, I'm glad this flowed onto my desktop keyboard. I guess I could have scanned a bunch of PostIt[tm] notes and used the image as the blog, just this once.

Wait. Now I have to try that! Stay tuned.