Dateline: SWA flight 2279 from Phoenix to Providence, 10 February 2005
Woke up this morning feeling oddly out of it. The previous night I managed to lose an entire post at Moveable Type, forcing me to enter in a far smaller one in replacement. I find this is something that happens when I surf through a hotel broadband system: for some reason, I time out at Moveable Type, meaning I enter in this huge post and when I hit "submit," the site simply dumps me back on its front page as though I had made no such effort whatsoever! Really starting to piss me off, especially because I seem to forget this lesson time and time again.
After that I was scanning emails until 2am my time, and frankly, answering almost none of them. Some nights, especially on the road, I just feel overwhelmed by the interactions and all the suggestions, prompts and admonitions from not only all you readers but my LLC partners as well. I just start shutting down; the visionary starts losing his vision.
Part of it last night was this slew of crazy-ass emails I've been getting from Wired readers. I mean, really, these are some of the dumbest-f—king emails I've ever received. They're so badly written, so idiotically reasoned, just so plain STUUUUUPID! (in that Dexter of "Dexter's Laboratory" sort of taunt), that I don't know whether to laugh in derision or cry at the notion that such nimrods actually read Wired and thus, presumably, represent some serious sampling of the IT world.
Now, having interacted with that community in depth over the years, I know it has its share of just plain weirdos, but the extreme right-wing nature of these response simply stuns me. It represents a strange sort of living-in-my-parents-basement sort of mentality. These guys aren't just angry, they're apoplectic—not to mention infantile in a sad, sad, SAAAAAD sort of way. I mean, they taunt you in this pathetic, Monty Pythonish/Black Knight sort of way. You find yourself wishing their mom or dad would catch them at the keyboard and simply smack them upside the head and send them to sit on the stairs in an extended time-out.
What's so weird is how they go on and on about what a liberal wimp I am, how I must "hate Bush" and "hate America" and "want to take it up the rear-end from the UN" and so on. This, on a piece that celebrates vigilante justice in the short term while arguing for a Star Chamber-like collusion among the world's great powers over the mid-term to round up and kill terrorists in the Gap with little to no concern for state sovereignty there!
I mean, God help these dumbasses! Their analysis of the piece is just so Ali G-like in its hipster doofism (right down to their corndog ****SLAM DUNK!****** sign offs!), that I find myself shaking my head like I've never done before in my life in sheer incomprehension. I mean, somebody raised these boys. Some mother actually loves them. Some normal people, I'm certain, have to work with these guys on a regular basis.
It all just makes me want to wash my hands more regularly.
What's even funnier, of course, is to get those letters on the Wired piece while I get the lefty condemnations on the Esquire piece. In reality, both articles flow from the very same logic: realistic in means, idealistic in ends. I want all the goody-two-shoes stuff and I want it in my lifetime; I just don't have any illusions about the bodies to be dropped along the way, or what niceties should be observed in that process. That, my friends, is what happens to a pie-in-the-sky Democrat who's spent his entire professional life living and working with the military. I don't apologize for this outcome. I simply revel in it.
But sometimes, I must admit, I am flabbergasted by the contrasting reactions it creates among readers. But I guess it just reminds me that when I'm forced to package my ideas within the confines of magazines, no matter how good they are or who there audience is, I run the risk of extreme misinterpretation.
Now, you have to understand, magazine editors don't fear this outcome whatsoever. In fact, they love it. They don't like to admit they do, but they do, and their rationale is: don't write down to the dumbest readers because it's pointless to try and reach that low, so accept the fact that you'll be "controversial" to pinheads on both sides and keep selling those copies!
My salvation is this: the books balance this dynamic. With the books, I dare you to pigeonhole me so. Sure, if your pinhead is pointy enough, it can be done. It's just a lot harder. But in books you capture the vast hump of the Bell Curve, leaving just the extreme shoulders to hop up and down in their indignation—both righteous and lefteous and often just plain crustaceous.
Whew! That last chunk mostly redoes the post that urped out of me this morning, only to be lost in the ether in the manner I described above.
Anyway, I get up this morning and feel pretty weird. Call from home reveals poor wife was run ragged by suffering, sick baby Vonne Mei almost throughout the night, adding to my sense of ennui (or just maybe, on-me, as in the usual guilt trips associated with business travel). I really do love staying up late with sick kids, not in some nasy, Munchausen sort of creepiness, but because I like eating food I shouldn't in the middle of the night while watching soft porn on HBO (and no, I don't watch if baby's actually coherent enough to notice it), plus I just love being Daddy in those moments, because those moments remind me of my Mom's most tender care during my many years of suffering night terrors and sleepwalking (I was world-class to the point of requiring sedatives at one point, and if you knew my Mom's fear of all medications, you'd realize how desperate she must have been).
Anyway. . .
So I waiting on my really fine room-service breakfast, when I get a call from Jay Tolson of U.S. News & World Report who—yet again—is tackling big-picture subjects in his own personal survey of recent grand strategy articles, to include my current piece in Esquire (naturally, I immediately steered him to the Wired piece for balance!).
So we chat for an hour while my breakfast gets sorta cold, which wasn't cool (er. .. nevermind). The others he's looking at include: Norman Podhoretz, whom I must confess I never bother read with all that "World War IV" nonsense; Andrew Bacevich, who is an "empire" guy now in recovery; and Robert Wright, whom I respect deeply cause he's just so damn optimistic!
Cool part: I hear that Wright returns the favor. This is doubly cool because I'm folding in his Non-Zero argument into section three of Chapter 5 tomorrow.
Anyway, I like Tolson because Tolson likes me in the best sort of way: he sees the long-term idealism and doesn't flinch at the near-term realism.
Don't know when the story appears, but keep an eye out for it. My guess is early March.
When I get done with breakfast, I notice that it's 9:15 and I'm in my PJs slurping coffee when I'm staring at a 90-minute brief in front of 450+ Raytheon executives in a ballroom downstairs at 10am and I haven't showered much less packed.
Amazingly, this happens to me almost every time.
So I crack the whip and fly out the door, leaving my cellphone recharger as an accidental tip to the maid (classy, I know).
Downstairs I hook up on this elaborate stage. I get to prowl the 30-foot-wide low-rise stage, while two giant rear-screen projections display the brief. Great lavalier mike and sound system mean I can modulate my voice all I want, but the techies run the sound effects a bit low for my taste (or maybe I was just missing an effective feedback). Two huge monitors on the floor allow me line-of-sight, teleprompter-like real-time knowledge of how the slides' animation was advancing (nice), and best of all, a third monitor gave a countdown on my time, which is really helpful. I promised 75 minutes and gave 80, leaving 10 for four questions. I ended the second I saw the "wrap up" order flash onscreen.
The upside of a presentation like this: I sense how big a hole the second book is going to fill. I give this talk without this second manuscript in hand, and I guarantee you, I'm walking out of there saying to myself: "My God! I should be writing a sequel!" If just feels so damn good to be able to tell people that Vol. II's first draft is almost done and it's coming out in the fall. I love anticipating things, and books are the best—in that regard. Only thing better is possibility of child #5, but let's not even go there after the past two months of non-stop illness in the house . . ..
CEO Bill Swanson gave me a nice intro, and following my talk, he presented me with a gift, leather duffel bag (they also gave me a gorgeous leather folder with nice, "heavy" pen (two things I always turn over to budding writer son-Kevin). When I was with the government, this would have constituted my entire payment. Fortunately, I do better much better now.
My hosts seemed very pleased, even ecstatic, with the presentation, so lunch was full of the sort of stroking I typically need after such public exertion (don't worry, it wears off in about an hour or two—just like great sex). This time it wore off even faster, because after my handler escorted me to the CEO's reserve table, I was immediately introduced to Bill Russell, legendary captain of the Celtics (11 NBA champions, 8 in a row, 5-time league MVP, Hall of Famer, 2X NCAA champion and Olympic Gold Medalist).
That resume knocks your ego down quite rapidly, but in the best sort of way, because of course it's quite thrilling to meet somebody of his great stature (no pun) and get to chat over lunch. Russell was the "team ego" speaker after lunch, and both his talk and the highlight/life bio short film they ran before it were fairly profound.
Lunch wasn't bad either.
After that I swap out my clothes, and hang a bit in the lobby, starting up where I left off yesterday on section 2 of Chapter 5. I rewrite the intro a bit, which gets me from 2,700 to 3k, and then I hop in the scheduled Towne Car for the ride back to Sky Harbor Airport (I must admit, not only does Raytheon run a secure top-management conference, but it's about as smooth as it gets on logistics for speakers).
Oh, I almost forget to mention, the other big military speaker for the two-day (the rest were business motivational types) is Adm. Vern Clark, Chief of Naval Operations. He gets 75 minutes tomorrow morning—and a nice duffel bag, I assume.
At the airport I have a really bean burrito, cause you've got to eat Mexican when this close to the border (San Diego being the best, hands down, in my experience). Run the total word count to 3,700 in between phone calls to Vonne. Plane leaves 35 minutes late, but strong tail wind means we should land in time.
Meanwhile I bang out another solid 1,500 to end the piece at 5,200, putting me at just over 110,000 total for the manuscript so far, with one more section to go in Chapter 5, the Conclusion, which won't top 5k, and the Preface, which Mark wants to keep very short and powerful, just like the China Edition Preface (where I was unusually inspired).
So wow! This thing suddenly feels awfully close to being done! And that feels no less amazing than it did last time (although in that blitzkrieg, I stopped twice for two trips to Lambeau).
Time to bug the Flight Attendant for a coupon beer . . ..
