THE STORY SO FAR: PART 93

“DON’T SHOOT! DON’T SHOOT.” TALES FROM MY ADDMASTER DAYS—THE CORE OF MY PRE-WRITING LIFE

About three weeks ago, I heard that my old boss, Jack Clary of Addmaster had died—and immediately wrote a tribute to him (check out PART 71 or enter CLARY into the search box).

I was quite upset. He gave me my first real break—and I liked him personally. Still, he had lived a good, long life—kept his companies alive during an era when U.S. manufacturing was being exported—and had had the satisfaction of seeing his sons, John and Hugh, take over. In fact, the Addmaster Corporation of California is 50 years old this year. In my day, it made adding machines—and one of the first printing calculators. Now it makes check printers (the ubiquitous gadgets that writes mysterious things on the back of checks you cash). It has adapted, invented, improvised, and survived in an extremely hostile commercial environment. That is no small achievement.

One of my favorite memories of Jack concerns a trip he made from California to check the Addmaster subsidiary I had founded, and ran, in London, England. It is about a 6,000 miles flight and most people arrive exhausted—and ready for a drink, a meal and sleep at best.

Jack—a one man example of the American work ethic at its finest—would  have none of it, and immediately insisted on being driven to our new distribution facility which was located in Mitcham, Surrey—a suburb of London not far from Wimbledon of tennis fame.

I was quite taken aback at this because, apart from the trip, it was a Sunday; traditionally a day of rest. Nonetheless, I drove him and his second in command, Art Damschen—both mentor and friend—to the facility where our operation was located, only to discover that I didn’t have the key that opened the main gate—even though I had the key to the facility itself. We were but one unit in a small gated compound.

“We’ll climb over the wall,” said Jack. The stone wall was no more than eight foot high, and if we helped each other, we could manage it. On the other hand, we weren’t dressed for an assault course—and it was scarcely normal executive behavior.

Art and I looked at each other, but obediently followed. We made a step with out hands, and Jack was propelled to the top. I did the same for Art with Jack helping from the top. Then I was hauled up rather inelegantly. We were all lined up on the top—like a  row of pigeons—when a local policeman arrived in a Morris Minor (about as un-dramatic a police car as you can imagine). He climbed out of his vehicle, with the ponderous authority of the law, then looked at us with some incredulity, because clearly we did not look like criminals. Then Jack cried out: “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

The policeman removed his cap, scratched his head, and then burst out laughing. Not only did we look ridiculous, but English police—apart from specialized firearms units—don’t carry guns.

I jumped back down to the road and explained—and “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” became a catch phrase within the company thereafter.”

The following day I took Jack and Art to a presentation by a new advertising agency I had hired. This presentation was both extremely important to the agency founders, Brian Shrimpling and Geoffrey Cridland, and equally important to me.

We all settled into comfortable wing-chairs to watch—and within minutes jet-lag caught up with Jack, and he was not only asleep, but snoring. Brian and Geoffrey looked at me in consternation. I beckoned to them to continue because marketing would in the end be my decision; and I thought Jack could use the sleep.

After about twenty minutes, Jack woke up—not having heard a word—and immediately shouted: “I don’t agree.”

The two agency founders went pale—Addmaster was their first client--and Art and I practically died laughing. Mad Men indeed!

Jack had what I can best describe as a gruff sense of humor, but took our kidding in good part. He was work oriented to excess—in my opinion—but he was intelligent, thoughtful and kind. I have never known a man ask so many questions, but he supported me to the hilt—even when I made mistakes. They were good days; and we both worked and played hard.

Both Jack and Art—the latter in particular—put considerable effort, and no small expense, into introducing me to to the U.S. I was sent, in turn to Las Vegas and Palm Springs—and Disneyland. In those days, Vegas was a relatively small city, and much pleasanter than the present urban sprawl. In 1971, after flying back to LA from Vegas, I was somewhat taken aback to find that the Vegas bound counterpart of my Hughes AirWest flight—we must have passed each other in flight—had collided with a jet fighter  (an F-4B Phantom) and all aboard had been killed. That news, which I heard over the cab radio just after landing at LAX, gave me a singularly strange feeling. A few minutes, perhaps even a few seconds, and it could have been my flight that had ended up as a fireball.

On another trip we flew to San Francisco—nominally to look for new products that I could market in the U.S.—and we stayed in that rather splendid hotel, the Mark Hopkins on Nob Hill. The top floor contained a marvelous bar called Top of The Mark which featured a truly spectacular view of San Francisco. Art and I spent more time in truly fabulous hotels, bars and restaurants in the U.S., the UK and Europe than I should probably admit to. But we talked a lot of business too, and Art was an excellent teacher; and, above all, it was fun.

One of the companies on our list to check out was a relatively new start-up called Intel. Art, who loved new ventures, thought it might go places.

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 92

“ART IS THE ONLY SERIOUS THING IN THE WORLD. AND THE ARTIST IS THE ONLY PERSON WHO IS NEVER SERIOUS.”

OSCAR WILDE

Oscar—who was a playwright, and a brilliant one at that—gets the spirit of this crazy business perfectly—whatever be the particular nature of your creative obsession. It is all about committing totally to an endeavor that practically guarantees chronic financial insecurity—with all its attendant side-effects—while retaining your sense of humor. You had better. You are going to need it.

Trust an Irishman to nail it. After all, Ireland possesses a rather crazy culture despite every effort made over the last twenty years to turn the country into a modern efficiency state; yet its creative track record, for such a little country, is unsurpassed.

We won’t talk about architecture. That is something of a blind spot. Still, the British left us a lot of remarkably fine buildings (many of which we were idiotic enough to either blow up or burn down after Independence) but we have more than compensated through prose, poetry, music, painting and sculpture—and we have produced some seriously talented actors and directors.

Of course you can be an artist in almost any field—from terrorist bomb-maker (a not unknown occupation in Ireland) to plumber (we have some of those too) but I guess what distinguishes the artist from the profit oriented businessman is that the former is focused on the excellence of the work to the exclusion of nearly all else—while the latter, albeit doubtless proud of his achievements, is primarily profit oriented.

The convention is that business is fundamental, whereas art is a luxury. I regard that as a deeply flawed assumption. I believe art is as necessary to the wellbeing of the human condition as good sex, or a decent bottle of wine—and both have been known to go together rather well.

But, that’s just a personal perspective.

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 91

ONE OF THE CONFUSING THINGS ABOUT HISTORY IS THAT ALMOST NOTHING WAS THE WAY YOU THINK IT WAS—OR WAS IT?

I’m a great believer in the study of history because I consider it helps enormously to explain people’s actions—and, besides, it is fascinating in itself because it is comprised of a seemingly endless series of stories. And telling stories is my profession.

Nonetheless, it is also a vastly confusing area of study because a great deal of the history we are taught formally is just plain wrong. It is molded to meet the prejudices and desires of those in power—frequently, despite the evidence. And so we end up with myth—and myth is a major tool in the manipulation of our way of life. Conveniently, it also negates facts. In effect, it makes evidence, of whatever type, irrelevant. It defies both logic and science. It is a gift to all politicians who are prepared to use it—and all too many are. They don’t just fly in the fact of the evidence; they positively soar in the fashion of Icarus (or so one one hopes). Icarus, you will recall, flew too close to the sun—and his wings melted. Gravity did the rest. Those were the early days of aviation.

But can one find out the truth? I doubt we can in a definitive, detailed sense; but I do believe we can get much closer to it by digging a little—both literally and metaphorically. Fortunately, there are a large number of dedicated historians out there who do an outstanding job separating myth from fact—and getting us closer to the truth. But far too few people read their books.  To quote eminent historian, David McCullough, again: “Americans are historically illiterate.”

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

If evidence exists, but no one is prepared to listen to it, does it matter? Philosophy can be exhausting! Let me return to the business at hand.

I have been been prompted to think about all this because droit de seigneur—the right of the lord of the manor to take the virginity of the daughters of his peasants—crossed my mind. Writers are entitled to think about such things. I have assumed the custom to be true, but an article in Wikipedia states that there is no actual evidence—other than human nature to support it. Personally, I would back human nature every time.

Either way, the theme made for a terrific movie, The War Lord, which may well have inspired the castle siege which is such a major feature of my book, GAMES OF THE HANGMAN.

Do I know for sure? No I don’t. It’s history, you see.

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 90

SINCE IT IS ALL TOO COMPLICATED TO EXPLAIN, WE’LL TELL THEM AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE—AND NEXT STOP REDMOND!

One has to admire the chutzpah of the movers and shakers in the computer industry. As the various devices have become ever more powerful and complex, the industry has virtually given up on including comprehensive manuals—and has left us, the users to fend for ourselves. To paraphrase Marie Antoinette (the French queen who was guillotined—along with a whole bunch of my ancestors—a true story): “Let them click around until something happens.”

It is one of these brilliant counter-intuitive solutions that seems to be working.  After all, when a book on MS Word can run to over 1,000 pages, what hope does one have of covering the true complexity of a computer. Besides, writing good manuals is difficult, boring and expensive; and think of all the trees one saves by ignoring the task.

Just over three years ago when I bought my last HP laptop, it came with rather a respectable manual—which I put to good use, especially when I upgraded the memory. This time around, there is a single fold-out sheet explaining how to set up the machine; and the thinnest, flimsiest booklet on Windows 8 that one can imagine. It talks about ‘charms.’ Frankly, I never thought I would hear that word associated with Windows! On the other hand I thought a lot about guillotines back in the days of Vista and its predecessors. A guillotine in Redmond—operated by Windows users naturally—might have had a truly wondrous effect on the Microsoft mind set.

Have I managed? Somewhat to my surprise, I believe I have—and without calling a support line. I have learned to dread support lines.

Is this because we have all become more computer literate, or have the interfaces been so vastly improved that they are now intuitive—or has the internet made manuals obsolete? I’m sure all three factors are relevant.

Still, I cannot help feeling that we are entering an era where no one will ever fully understand anything properly, but will merely learn enough to do the minimum—and rarely utilize the full potential of the device in question. In a world of scarce resources, that is somewhat worrying—to the point of being frustrating. Besides, I have always rather liked manuals.

They are books, you see. 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 89

HOW DOES A WRITER JUGGLE WITH IDEAS—OR CATS (ASSUMING HE OR SHE HAS ANY IN THE FIRST PLACE)?

Ideas are strange things. On the one hand, they are supposed to be two a penny—but, on the other hand, they can be remarkably elusive when needed. Indeed, they are downright slippery—or perhaps I should say furry.

Given my two current guests, Charlie (the white three-legged cat known officially as Charlotte) and Chester (the gorgeous Himalayan cat of little brain and worse habits) ideas remind me of cats.

They don’t come when you call, mostly they do their own thing, yet they purr when given enough attention—and can be extremely satisfying companions. In short, they are unpredictable and bloody hard to control. But it is not uncommon to fall in love with an idea. Or—so I am told—a cat. Since I am currently ambivalent about my feline guests, I am reluctant to commit on that issue. Since I loved my pet cats when I was a child, I guess it depends on the individual cat—or idea. Both come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and personalities.

Here, let me say that if your ideas don’t purr, clearly you aren’t giving them enough attention. Ideas, for all their superficial independence—and power—are needy things. You have to develop and advocate an idea—and that takes commitment and lots of energy.

I have normally dealt with ideas in a linear fashion because I learned to write before computers in the days when we still had inkwells—with ink in them (hard to believe though that may be). In short I wrote them down, one after the other—with the odd inkblot in between.

But here is the problem. Ideas don’t necessarily appear in the order they are needed. They are just not that orderly. That means they need to be sorted—often many times—until their order suits your purpose. That is not too difficult if you only have a few of them; but it is a major pain if you are dealing with dozens or more, because the human brain isn’t too good at remembering lots of different ideas at the same time. We are a simple species really. Just look at our ancestry.

What to do? I once asked a seasoned Special Forces soldier what to do in such a difficult situation—the given context was a firefight—and his reply was both priceless and practical: “Run away.” To quote a general I remember with great affection—I really do like some generals—“You have got to love soldiers.”

The traditional way of handling such a dilemma is to use index cards at the rate of one per idea. That works pretty well if the quantity is limited, but you need a big wall, or a very large pin-board if the quantity is substantial—and printing them out requires re-typing and is a pain.

There has got to be a better way.

I’m not sure there is an optimum answer. I suspect this kind of choice is decidedly personal—much as is one’s font preference—but in trawling through my collection of soon-to-be-discarded software, I ran across one program which I had liked, but which had struck me as too expensive at the time. The company has now come out with a less expensive version that I have tried out—and I am impressed.

In essence, it allows the creation of an indefinite number of electronic index cards which you can then position with your cursor as you wish. It is both dead simple and astonishingly flexible. And it is extremely easy to use—nearly writer-proof in fact (which is saying a lot in my case).

It is called Writer’s Blocks Essence and will set you back all of $39. Big brother costs $149.

Unfortunately, neither program controls cats. Maybe I’ll try juggling the pair manually, and on the edge of the balcony at that. It’s only six floors down.

Let the cats fall where they may!

But, of course I jest. Or do I?

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PART 88

WEARY IS THE WRITER—THOUGH FAR FROM UNHAPPY

I had high hopes of getting a great deal of work done on Sunday—I am ever the optimist in that regard—and the guest cats got me up by 8.00am.

I believe in sleeping in at weekends, but clearly they do not. Chester is the howler in all this—and he has a complete repertoire of disturbing sounds—but when the food is delivered in their stainless steel bowls, Charlie morphs into front and center and assumes a swordsman’s stance—though she is a female cat with only three legs. 

Chester is terrified of her—and I may be close behind him. That said, Charlie has enormous charm—and a black-eyed look to die for. She has taken to leaping onto my desk—trashing any and all papers encountered in the process—and then leaping onto me.Then the purring starts and I get both licked and bitten. Charlie’s bite is both firm, but gentle. It inhibits my ongoing pl0tting to murder both her and Chester. The wretched creature is trading on my emotions. I sit and stroke her and contemplate ear-muffs. The purring is that loud. She is an elderly cat and sheds white fur everywhere.

I had hoped to get more done on Sunday, but I allowed myself to be distracted by both the cats and this blog—and the need for sleep. I worked and I dozed.

Perhaps that was a good thing. Last week was long and hard—albeit  immensely satisfying—and rest is wonderful. I just wish I was better at it. Once I’m up, I work.

Before I go, let me tell you about an odd thing. If I am truly in the zone—fully focused on writing—even if Charlie and Chester are due to be fed, they stay quiet. Clearly they have empathy.

It truly does make you wonder.

 

 

 

 

THE STORY SO FAR: PAGE 87

THE GODS HAVE ARRANGED THE WORLD TO BE A PLOT TO DISTRACT THE WRITER—THEY CREATED THE COMPUTER

I’m not sure I could ever have written a book without a computer. On the other hand—especially since the introduction of the internet—there exists no finer source of distraction than such paradoxical machines (and here I include Smart Phones, tablets, and the like). Under the guise of representing huge technological leaps in productivity, they are a veritable Black Hole in terms of time.

I plead guilty to being so distracted, though in my case I rarely browse the internet at random. Instead, I have long been obsessed with trying to get my computer to work the way I want it to; and thus have spent an inordinate amount of time evaluating software as a byproduct of my mission impossible.

Trying to get a computer to work just the way you want it is a delusion because the people who design the machines and write the software are from another planet—and just don’t think like we artistic humans do. But these days I’m willing to compromise; and it appears the geeks are willing to throw us a bone or two. Why not, since they have infiltrated the Earth so successfully. 

What did software pioneer Marc Andreessen say some little time back? “Software is eating the world.” At the time he was arguing in favor of HP’s takeover of British software company Autonomy for $11.1 billion—which has certainly taken a bite out of HP—but his basic argument seems valid for all that.

I should have guessed that computer geeks were aliens a long time ago. For starters, they have their own language. What normal person would say: “Boot up your computer.” In fact, a simple glance at Bill Gates should have been enough—I was able to study him at close quarters in Ireland a decade or so back—and Steve Ballmer is clearly from off the planet. But there were other clues.

For instance I wanted to do things with my computer—like write and then print out the result—whereas the geeks all worshipped the technology for itself, and regarded the notion of connecting computers and printers as quite bizarre. Good grief! Why would anyone want to do that when you could read perfectly well off the screen. Mind you, here I am harking back to the Eighties when the Soviet Union produced all the bad guys—and before bankers ruled the earth. Life was simpler for us thriller writers in those days—except where computers were concerned.

But has this quest for a biddable computer been a complete waste of time, energy and creative potential? Some could make a good case to that effect—and they would have my sympathy. Nonetheless, I think otherwise. Firstly, I am all too aware of the holes in my cognitive abilities that needed to be plugged. Secondly, even when you fail—as in running up against really lousy software, you learn. Thirdly, this whole exercise has been intellectually interesting. Fourthly—believe it or not—I seem to be getting a result. I say that cautiously, but with a degree of optimism. After a few more years, it may finally be appropriate for my epitaph to read:

VICTOR O’REILY

1944-20??

HE FINALLY GOT HIS COMPUTER TO WORK THE WAY HE WANTED—AND HE WROTE A FEW BOOKS TOO

One can but dream! Such thoughts have been surfacing while I have been going through all the software I have tried on my old machine. Do I want to transfer it across—or delete it? Over two hundred programs have been found wanting; and have bitten the dust. Do I think about their creators? Actually I do. I have considerable experience of start-ups—and I’m all too familiar with the sinking feeling one get when sales feedback is negative. Nonetheless…

Simplify! Simplify! Simplify! All else is distraction. And after you have done all that, reflect that what you’ll still be left with in today’s technological world is still—complexity. And I haven’t even touched on the Social Media!

Who says the gods don’t have a sense of humor!