Vichy Water – Author's Blog Just another WordPress weblog

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           This morning I’m environmentally down; that oil spill in the gulf is leaking more every day as if the media is leaked information in drips, trying to keep totals from over alarming us.  I also read that a grey whale washed ashore in Washington and like a scene out of ‘Jaws’ (with Richard Dreyfus) here’s what was ingested: 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball. Excuse me while I deeply exhale now. So what’s the deal with the pond in the blog title? Somehow the pond doesn’t seem relevant but I started something.

            I’ve been a published author since January. When I looked out the dining room window during a monster snow storm, most of the landscape looked rose colored.  Even up to a few days ago, same view; perhaps I’m like a virgin (thanks, Madonna). But the real world (sounds like an excerpt from reality television) dictates somewhere along the line, this New Jersey emerging author has got to hop into a heated pond, almost over my head and get wet, symbolically. So I did. And it wasn’t bad. A learning experience I keep telling myself. You know what, I love New Jersey. A few years ago, the state was the second smartest state in America (partly because NJ had the 2nd highest percentage of high school graduates going onto college). And I have to remember what Dorothy said about not being in Kansas anymore. Beyond Kansas, far away is a desert with a lone figure devoid of rationality, intellectuality, curiosity, civility, impartiality and humanity. So I ventured out there. A gentle tinnitus still rings Dr. Phil and Life’s Strategies. “You either get it or you don’t.”  Words crossed the continental divide. Fortunately the pond water was heated, protecting me from thirty-two degree outside night temperature. An epiphany came to me in those words reinforcing why people back in Biblical times threw rocks, invented Leper colonies but still wore penitent sheets. Then there was Europe and WWII and the gangs that burned crosses and lynched people here in America. That’s where those words came from. Ignorance is alive and well out there and getting blogged. And I’ve aged, gotten wet with two bearded men and a woman who looked like the ‘White Rock’ girl, watching me from the shore. So now I’ve dried off, smiled, thanked Dr. Phil and “The Secret” and the rest of my support structure and lived to write another blog(and start a trilogy) I’ve got to say this, “Have a nice day” while I open up a box of chocolates.

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            Actually, I originally wanted to use this blog time to write about my cynical view of the world of central Jersey and where Rutgers University fits into things; all meaning how I’m almost willing to wager up an extra kidney, that Rutgers and the Big Ten Conference decided to marry around a decade ago; after all, these kind of decisions, effecting the historic course of a major University for the next hundred years, are not made lightly or without precious timely years to implement and move towards acceptable standards. But I’ll stop now and leave those that thrive on alma mater things, hopefully, thoroughly titillated. Promises before going back on the campaign trail, to finish the Rutgers-Big Ten theory, including why a new hotel was needed for George Street in sleepy New Brunswick.(If I had money to invest, why not a hotel ready to book ahead because Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State are coming to town). Just when I thought I was free to move on to the real “author” topic, I get pulled back into this Rutgers-Big Ten talk.

            On January 1, 2010, I officially became a published author, although I didn’t consider myself a writer, author, or anything different from what I’ve been the past thirty years (an eyeglass salesman) simply because that modicum of critique from within the hallowed halls of ivy, a real review of my words from a real book reviewer, never happened during the winters of writing  ‘Vichy Water.’ A few weeks into January, the first review came in and I was suddenly a debut, emerging accomplished novelist and I joined the special world of authorship. I was the same man; nothing changed; no dramatic weight change or alopecia, rapid loss of hair. But something subtle happened to the world around. I was in a glass Mason jar, people looking in, perhaps through tinted distortive glass (so I’d like to think). I don’t feel different but it’s a brave new world of perception; of being a cardboard puzzle piece, fitting into to almost every piece scattered over the living room floor. Those meeting me for a first time (a puzzle piece, continuing the metaphor), after the obligatory handshake, eyebrows raised and mouth going oval, they’d exclaim, “So you’re an author. Tell me what you wrote.” A cousin communicated to another relative the other day, “Do you think we’ve had a genius all this time and never knew it?”  There’s no genius in my cellular structure (I check all the time). You take all the words inside and put them together. But I’ve got a confession. It’s not the same recognition. An author means responsibility and being taken seriously. Somewhere, there’s a magic wand of socialization. People view me different. Quicker response time. Temptation exists to call a restaurant for reservations and say, “Calvin Schwartz. Author” And I get that special table for two near the fireplace. Selling eyeglasses never got a magazine to want to feature me in an issue. Sensitivity on my side of the Mason jar exists as well. In a social setting recently, interacting with agents and writers, I realized authors were in a special world of tuning forks, listening to vibrations, feeling and sensing, and needing to be aware of the entire world around us. Every day of my life now, there’s this serious responsibility of shoving as much information and as many words into my cerebral castle. I can’t take in enough. I started reading almost voraciously (I couldn’t wait to use this word). The old “anything I can get my hands on.”  Of course I pick up my novel a few times a day and look at my name and drift into the wide world of out of body experience. Every day of my author’s life now is like being in Disneyworld, jumping into my skin and onto the ‘Back to the Future’ ride, shaking with glee and anticipation of adventure. I’ve gone back to the future, feeling like a kid, wondering why it took me so long to learn how to spell ‘ecstasy.’

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        Yesterday I attended the N.J. Environmental Federation Annual Conference at Rutgers Law School in Newark (my 3rd year in a row). Most attendees are affiliated with organizations. My reason for being; I love clean air, water and being an author; there’s a sense to learn/absorb especially since labeling myself on a few websites(under personal information) as being an environmentalist. Conference summary: seven hours of note taking; information flew off the shelves, major league baseball opening day with amazing, knowledgeable speakers (pitchers and infielders, metaphor alive and well). By the sixth page(inning) of notes, a hard dull reality, as my head swelled as in subdural hematoma; I don’t know much about what’s going on. There’s so much going on. At the end of the day, I was upset with myself; all that I thought I was, NOT. Growing up in the sixties, I thought I was a civil rights activist. NOT. Dr. King spoke 8 blocks from my house in Newark in early 1963. Was I there? NOT. The March on Washington on August 28, 1963. Was I there? NOT. Did I know about environmental issues taking place in my Jersey backyard? NOT.

            Now I’m thirteen and watching ‘Frankenstein,’ a ghastly horror gives me goose-bumps, as I hear the Baron yell, “It’s alive!” Yesterday I heard that a small Massachusetts company wants to put a coal plant in Linden, New Jersey (the first and largest of its kind in the world). It’ll capture its own hazardous waste CO2 gas PLUS waste from other emitters in the region (there you go again, dump in Jersey, the new Love Canal) (NJ has more federally designated toxic sights than anywhere in America. Hey, we’re number One! Home state pride.) Then they’ll pipe all that garbage( a trillion pounds near 1.2 million people) 70 miles off the good old Jersey shore and pump it a mile and a half beneath the floor of OUR Atlantic Ocean, hoping it hangs there forever. The coal industry is praying (I’m still thinking of the mining disaster in West Virginia and the company ignoring all those safety violations) that the good old Government( capitalized) in Jersey lets them build the plant which will make air much worse in North Jersey; the soot and more asthma will probably kill a lot of people. I heard a DEP person say (in one breath) “no” and in another breath, “but it’ll take 5 to 7 years to build.” The coal industry is praying that somebody finds a way to make coal more environmentally friendly (this Linden plant is step one). There is a Frankenstein amount of money at stake here. So I asked a question. Why Linden? “It’s close to ocean for piping it out and close to railroad tracks for moving the coal.” And what wasn’t answered: Linden already has way above average asthma incidence (a perpetual flaming oil facility in Elizabeth is 3 miles away) If not Linden, than where? “Bayonne. Cartaret” Then I asked, “What about Short Hills or Rumson?” The room laughed. I was serious. Short Hills is not near railroad tracks. I said, “But Rumson(rather high household income) is near tracks and ocean.” The room laughed again (at my virginity) Why not Beverly Hills? The old “not in my backyard or coast” slogan. Actually, I’m not such a virgin; in my novel, I mention environmental justice and incinerators(like in Newark).

            I’m not an ethicist. But what I see here for Linden, New Jersey is a government (with new Governor) that may allow a coal plant to be built because it’s good for making money and jobs and to hell with the lungs of our people. People will die as a result. Railroad cars are also in this equation just like in 1939 Europe.  Is this a Dicken’s ‘Scrooge’ thing when he talked about “decreasing the surface population.”   I’ll stop here.

            More things I learned. Oyster Creek Nuclear in South Jersey is blackmailing the state, who insist they build cooling towers (Are millions and billions of sea life dying as the old system sucks them in and spits out warm heated water???) They threaten to shut down the plant if the state forces them (cockles of my heart are warmed). Wrapping this up, I learned (feels like fifth grade) that some new apartment buildings(condos) in New York City have their own water re-use systems(called Membrane Bio Reactor) which brings some water back, not potable. Water is going to get awfully expensive in years to come. Now I’ll have to really ponder the world before calling myself an “environmentalist;” ongoing and earned. Have a nice week.

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          I just remembered, it’s tax day in America and for the first time in a decade, no extensions or running to post office (they don’t post those Most Wanted pictures anymore. Maybe it takes up too much space). Someone commented on my usage of parentheses. I said, “Look at the tips of your fingers- that unique design.” Then they understood my parentheses. From high school days until a few years ago, deep down inside my complex spiritual make-up, tangled synapses and dendrites (pure rambling now) I thought of becoming a comedian. There’s nothing like an ability to make people laugh. So why do I write blogs where making people laugh is as far away as the next parallel universe?

            I’ve touched on the subject in earlier blogs of an innate sense of the world, current events, the coming together of chains, inevitability, hopping off freight trains, history and reliving, essence, and expecting nothing from fellow planetary denizens. And I’m not Nostradamus but it’s worth repeating for the purposes of the subject matter of this blog entry.  In my novel, ‘Vichy Water,’ I wrote about car companies not recalling and people dying (Toyota); drug companies doing the same thing (diabetes drug a month ago which causes 43% increase in heart attack); President Obama’s speech in June, 2009(really important for subject matter) in Egypt where he promises that America will be more respectful and understanding to Muslims(character in novel is Muslim and is treated just like the President said); HBO, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks releasing the series, “The Pacific” which shows WWII and Guadalcanal(in novel I send a character to Guadalcanal to pay respects to our fallen WWII soldiers); a few weeks ago the United States enters into treaty with several European countries to curtail fishing for Atlantic Blue Fin tuna nearly extinct(25,000 left)(in novel I constantly bring up the impending extinction of tuna fish, predicting a few more decades left); there are serious concerns in China over water issues(in novel I bring drinking water up all the time). Enough said here.

            You can’t be surfing around the internet all day and Google your way to mild obesity with lack of exercise/movement, without stumbling onto all this Mayan calendar stuff. My novel talks about life on earth; exigencies (great word for those preparing for SAT), realities and a slap in the face, much like what Cher did to Nick Cage in “Moonstruck,” when she said so eloquently, “Snap out of it.” Wondering if yawl (do you like my pretend Southern Jersey accent) are feeling a sense of being led down the yellow brick road. Perhaps (and this is as ominous and portentous as I can be on tax day) we all (every one of us as, Tiny Tim said) need to snap out of it, do the smelling of roses, coffee, turpentine, rosemary and TIME. I remember what Kay said to Michael Corleone after he got Frankie Pentangeli to recant his testimony, freeing Michael from purgery charges. “This all has to end.” 

            A heart is heavy. Eyes are heavier. I remember Jesus speaking to a large group in a valley, talking about forgiveness. The Middle East. Terrorism. Nuclear proliferation. One of these days in a couple of years. (2012) The good old United Nations, nuclear countries, all those wonderful conference tables (I always thought a used conference table was one of mankind’s greatest inventions. (Forget the wheel or artificial sweetener), and the rest of the global planetary community. What a mess down the road a bit. Sitting on my imaginary dock at the bay at Shark River inlet (from novel) this morning, just before sunrise, a cold dense fog rolled in, enveloping me and the jetty, obscuring the hopeful horizon. Face covered with wet fog, I immediately thought of Scott Carey (the character in 1957’s ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’). He wasn’t smart enough to get out of the strange glittering fog. Curiosity and ignorance froze him. I was frozen in thought too. He shrunk. I’m blogging. The fog lifted. So many things about 2010 living just doesn’t matter anymore. Priorities (a good name for a play). My thumb is outstretched, hitching a ride onto the next universe. Movie recommendation (it’s supposed to rain through the weekend) “The Incredible Shrinking Man” (1957. Two years after the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series). Have a nice day.

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           On my trip south yesterday (to south Jersey, not Alabama. I still haven’t been to Alabama since ‘Easy Rider’. Funny thing about media and stereotypes; it’s a powerful glue; keeps me stuck in Monmouth County, New Jersey) passing by milepost 44.4,   I always look (long story) for the little green sign both going and coming. A haggard, old looking Subaru passed on the left with the license plate, 4444.  Spirituality and coincidence gripped me down to Exit 3 and a last dying breed of a sales call. Later, heading back to a northerly persuasion, thoughts of spirit, parallel worlds and quantum minutia absorbed me, passing mileposts until a visual of Jerry Seinfeld and the episode  about ‘Bizarro World.'(a place where things/people are almost the duplicitous same) In my novel, random jolts of irrelevance occupied a main character; maybe it’s a contagion.  As two lanes of the Turnpike (not one pot hole, whatsoever) became three, I thought about that episode and parallel worlds.

            What if I “trip” to a parallel world?  Earth is basically the same. All the characters come on stage again but here’s the bizarro twist; slight changes in attitude, platitude and maybe longitude. Barack Obama is a Republican and gets elected as a Republican Senator and President. No matter what party, he’s still committed to the ideal of getting 34 million Americans health care coverage. So the Republican Health Care Reform Bill gets passed (because Bizarro world, the wording is exactly the same as what passed a few weeks ago on this Earth, 2010) Intent stays the same. Bottom line the same. The notion in a Bizarro world is that it’s all politics. In the Bizarro world, the Democrats, to a person didn’t cast one vote (for the identical Bill wording). Ambience and reality of this Bizarro world is intellectually challenging. What else?

            Bizarro world in the 1960’s. Medicine, politics, industry and humanity all combine and sit together in the pews of decency and intelligent design. The madness and insanity of tobacco is banned at the beginning of the 1970’s and by the 1980’s all traces of humanity’s addiction is gone (of course a few rebels in Bizarro world still manage to grow tobacco in clandestine fields and backyards, some literally right next to Marijuana) Whatever economic and political fallout from the eradication of the malignancy of tobacco (pun intended) is all made up in Bizarro world, pretty much the same way as today’s Earth, in bail-outs galore. Bizarro world does intrigue if you’re a franchise kind of business person. I see all these drive-thru (big Red Letter M) marijuana dispensaries. I was smart enough to invest and own two drive-thru marijuana dispensaries that I passed along to my son in Allentown, Pennsylvania which is a future beach front town)

            Bizarro world fascinates. Imagine all the possibilities especially since it’s been mathematically proven parallel worlds exist. Jersey’s weather has been bizarro. Three days ago, I was down the real Jersey Shore in 95 degree temperature. This morning it was 35 degrees. And I’ll be thinking for the rest of this lazy Saturday all the things I’d do different when (positive thinking) I get back to the future.

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