Said It a Million Times

Thirty hours, round trip.

My grandma will be 98 this year. Can't say no, even if we spend more time in the car than plowing through turkey. She's as lucid as most 20 year olds. No hearing aid. Her knee doesn't bend but she could still make a Marine jump. 

And the topper: she still lives in her two-story house. No AC. Sleeps upstairs.

The most lucid 97 year old you'll ever meet. And a bored 18 year old  behind her.

Road trips aren't as difficult, now that our kids are older. The earbuds go in and its me and my wife and the endless road. My son is 18. My daughter, almost 15. We've always had a no cussing rule in our house. I try to forget what I was doing at their age, and we didn't have YouTube. We didn't have porn at our fingertips or movie torrents or music downloaders. We still found trouble.

I'm not naive. They know what's what.

This trip, I announce, you can cuss. The deal's only good until the trip is over.

My daughter says, Really?

Yeah. But no f-word. I'm not ready for that, but you can say--

Shit. Piss. Ass. She says it, laughing. Says it like those words are not strangers to her tongue.

Eating sack lunch behind a gas station. May as well cuss.

We eat Thanksgiving dinner with my 97 year old grandmother. We kiss her on the cheek with our curse-word-fouled lips. We talk to her about growing up, about when she met grandpa, about what it was like in the Depression. We see all our family and laugh and hug and not a dirty word leaves our mouths.

After 29 hours in the car -- our butts numbs and heads dull with boredom -- we're 1 hour from home, switching stations until we land on a song. My daughter announces from the back seat. 

I've got 1 hour, she says. So turn that shit up.

I've said it a million times. I love my family.

http:bertauski.com

 

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

COLD

It's 60-degrees in Charleston, South Carolina. In other words, IT'S FREEZING.

I'm a wuss when it comes to cold, but compared to Charleston natives I'm Jack-freaking-Frost. When the mercury drops below 70, folks break out coats, gloves, snowshoes, propane heaters.

But real cold hurts.

Champaign, Illinois, 1994. It's -22-degrees. That's minus. My wife are sitting in our basement apartment, watching Cheers. Someone turns on the shower. In the kitchen. It takes a second... shower?

Water, blowing out of the wall.

Call the super. No answer. Look for water meter while kitchen floods. Looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking, looking...

30 minutes later, anything I find that remotely looks like a meter is getting shut off. I mean anything. I throw the wrench on the meters outside, my buddy Dave says, "I don't think--"

THERE'S 1000 GALLONS IN MY APARTMENT!

They aren't water meters.

Winter in Charleston really sucks.

Eventually, we find the water meter on the other side of the building beneath a staircase. The apartment is flooded but the water is off. So is the gas. And it's still -22-degrees. That means everyone's furnace is out. They have no idea.

We go door to door. Hey, hi... cold night tonight, right? By the way, something crazy happened and all the pilot lights went out and we're just here to help you light it. You know, so you and your family don't freeze to death. 

We were thanked. Profusely. Even got cookies.

The next morning, my wife and I discovered she was pregnant.

Surprise.

http:bertauski.com

 

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

The Nut Falls Far from the Tree

2:40 AM.

Our son is late. Waaaaay late.

He always wakes us when he gets in, just so we know. But now it's the middle of the night, the lights are on and his bedroom empty. Dial his phone, straight to voice. Text and nothing in return. It's not time to panic, but it's damn close.

The problem is this: he's nothing like I was at 18. This nut fell far from the tree. If I was late, I was up to shenanigans, I was thinking up a 100 lies to cover tracks. I squeezing in a few more hours of fun into the night at the expense of my parents' sanity. I was just late.

My son, he's honest Abe. Something's wrong.



It's 2:50 AM and my wife and I are staring out the window. Our stomachs twisted, throats tight. Fear sits like a chunk of black ice. This is the one, I think. I don't dare say it out loud. This is the night everything changes. I've had a good life -- a great one -- but the legs are getting kicked out tonight. Thoughts about hospitals and twisted metal. Thoughts about getting jumped at the fairgrounds, thoughts about getting caught on the wrong side of town. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts...

This is the one.

At 2:55 AM, we find his license plate number and get ready to call the police, see if there's been an accident.   I look up the phone number, scan the Internet for news. I would've consulted a psychic. Just before 3:00 AM, the phone rings. I watch my wife answer it. This moment stretches out, a moment that meets a fork in the road. Her expression will tell me which path we're going down. Maybe for the rest of our lives.

It's him. He's calling from a friend's house. He fell asleep and just woke up.

The tension falls off us like dead skin. We can breathe again. We can breathe again.

But I think about all the people that were taken down the other path. And my heart breaks for them.

http:bertauski.com

 

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

Unleashing the Claus

I was seven when the lie was exposed.



I was hanging out with a friend when he gave me the truth. I said he was full of crap, I know the fat man is real. How the hell are those presents getting under the tree and who's eating those cookies and drinking that milk? Huh? HUH? Those stockings aren't filling themselves. And, besides, my mom and dad say he IS real. And they don't lie.

His dad rolled into the garage, cranky after another day at the office. My friend says, "Hey, Dad. He's not real, is he."

"NO." He jerks the briefcase from the backseat, marches inside.

And it hit. Like the truth was a spear, piercing the wall of lies. I don't know what most kids experience when they get the news. Happy? Sad? All I know is that I was pissed. I'd been punished dozens of times for lying about God knows what (And I was a liar, believe you me) and now I'm finding out MY PARENTS HAVE BEEN JERKING ME AROUND FOR SEVEN YEARS!

I wouldn't support this hypocrisy, not with my kids. Imagine, year after year of telling young minds, If you just believe. Really, seriously. I mean it. He's real, Junior. You just have to believe, you just have to-- I'm sorry, what? Oh, he told you? Yeah, he's telling the truth.

He's not real.

So now I have kids. And guess what I did when they were little. I gave them presents from the fat man. I joined the fun. I filled their stockings and ate their cookies. But the first time they asked, I gave them the opportunity to explore the truth. And, for them, the landing was soft, cushy, and fun. And they still got presents from Santa.

This weekend is the FREE promo for Claus: Legend of the Fat Man. The Christmas story never heard. The facts behind Rudolph and Frosty, the red coat, jingle bells, sleighs, reindeer... EVERYTHING CHRISTMAS!

A friend read it. She said, "I thought you didn't buy into this?"

I know. I know. But it's so much fun.

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

http:bertauski.com

 

Self Promoting Blows

Some are good at it. Real good.

Indie writers have to be. At least until everyone loves them, then word of mouth becomes an agent.



Let's compare.

PARTY #1
Joe Bob goes to a party, meets some new guy. They talk sports, talk craft beer, Ford trucks or whatever the hell strikes Joe Bob's bell. Then New Guy says, See that guy over there? He points at you. It's an oyster roast, you're wearing flip-flops and a ball cap, a guy Joe Bob's seen a million times a day.

That guy, New Guy says, wrote this amazing trilogy, I'm not kidding you. I'm talking spellbound, all night. Maybe you don't read, Joe Bob, but I'm telling you I couldn't put it down. I lost a week of sleep, because of that dude. 

Joe Bob doesn't read all that much. He's got a few swallows left in the cup, so he listens some more to New Guy.

That guy is going to be famous, one day. You can say you were at the same party as him. How many times you eat oysters with a famous author? Probably get every one of those books made into a movie, probably biggest thing this summer. I heard he's signing copies later tonight, doing a reading or something.  

Joe Bob finishes his beer, figures he'll hang around. He doesn't read much, but what the hell. He heard you're awesome.


PARTY #2
I go to a party, meet some new guy. He's nice enough, we got some things in common. Talk about baseball and fireworks. He tells a good joke.

And then I see my opening.

"Hey, did you hear that I wrote this amazing trilogy? I'm not kidding, you'll be spellbound, all night, brother. You won't put it down, you'll lose a week of sleep, it's that good. Yeah. And I wrote it. I'll sell you a copy, sign it for you, if you want. You interested? Because it's really, really good. There's, like, ten 5-star reviews on Amazon, right now. Here, look. See. This one says she lost a week of sleep, SEE? And, swear to God, hand on a stack, I don't even know her. I told you, it's good. That good.

It's that good. So, what do you say? Want to lose a week of sleep? Buddy?"

New guy never talks to me again.

http:bertauski.com

 

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

Teaching Children How to Smoke

Buddhas.

People we don't like, they are our Buddhas, graciously showing us our holes, our systems. Our deficiencies. They point us toward our practice. Zen Centers are not always warm and fuzzy, don't always feel good. Truth is that way. The sun rises, it sets. No concern for how we feel about it.

There are few buddhas in my family. I'm lucky that way. I love them. More importantly, I like them. Big diff. There's things I love that fall into my circle of practice. I don't like them, but I do them. But my family -- parents, siblings, wife and kids?

Easy.

We all spent a week in a Tennessee lakehouse this summer. The mornings were lazy and the days whittled down on the dock, sampling margaritas or whatever fit in the cooler. Kids practiced swimming, climbing out and jumping back in at least 10,000 times. Ear infections by the end of it all, but worth it.

Dinner, the men smoked cigars and studied the grill. Nieces and nephews watched thick clouds leak from our lips, fascinated, asking us to do it again while the word COOL dribbled out.

Evenings, there were games. Cards and treasure hunts, games of Make Me Laugh and Pictionary. Before the sun set, we took the boat out. The air cool. The water, glass.

We did that, every day. Every night.

We ended with the Talent Show. We all had our acts. The girls had been practicing all week. The boys, maybe they didn't care so much. We all did something until tears ran freely in fits of laughter. Bellies buckled. Sides splitting.

Perhaps, a little taste, there's a clip of my mother that captures the fever we all carry.

It's warm and fuzzy.

(Not sure he knew what that dance move looked like.)

 

Claus: Legend of the Fat Man

The Annihilation of Foreverland

Your Cover Matters

Don't deny it.

Yes, it's all about the content. No argument. I'd rather have a gold bar painted with sewage than a dog turd dusted with gold. Yes, our essence -- who we are, our soul, our integrity and honor and value -- is far more important than the flesh it's wrapped in. Infinitely so.

 (Claus: Legend of the Fat Man made infinitely better with Mike Tabor's cover.)

Nonetheless. In this world, the cover still matters.

My first couple of novels, I put together decent covers. I avoided the generic label, threw something halfway decent over the top and figured that readers would buy the words, not the picture. Somehow, I figured, readers were like polar bears getting a whiff of dinner a mile away. Only replace seal with words. If I wrote it, they would come.

Just. Not. True.

And I realized this when I finally paid attention to how I judge a book... BY THE COVER! 

I zip through a listing of books like Ray Babbit, stopping to read the summary if, AND ONLY IF, the cover is hot. I mean, if it looked dull or homemade then forget about it. There might be a gold bar in there but I wasn't going to scratch away the sewage to find out.

My homemade covers weren't horrible. Okay, some were. One I hardly tried. The Annihilation of Foreverland was dreary and depressing and who in their right mind would reach for that? I hired a graphic artist and, with some input, she created something spectacular. Guess what?

THAT STORY MOVED.

 (Guess which cover I did.)

I exercise to be fit, to be healthy. So my bones don't creak when I tie my shoes. But I'm going with the face God dealt me. It's not pretty, but it works just fine. What's inside -- how I behave, who I help, how I interact with others -- is something that I measure with greater value.

I meditate. I exercise, too. But when there's only time for one, I choose the former.

But I won't ignore the cover.