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              Wish there was a camera around (never when you need) to film my facial expression (while whispering words from the days of the Parthenon construction, “what will they think of next?”) when I saw this magazine ad for a (corn)chip that had a geometric design so that it could circumvent the curvaceous anatomy of the bottom of a jar of creamy dip, insuring that every last gram of fat(which used to be impenetrably stuck on the jar bottom) can now be fastidiously added to your brief palate experience. The obvious: the epidemic of obesity in America. Now there’s a chip to help remove all the clinging (Klingon, if you’re a Star trek fan) tasty fat. I think maybe that ad heralded a personal internal cerebral movement. I ran down to my moldy, damp, dank basement looking for an hour glass and crystal ball stored in an old wooden yellow Coca Cola soda case (which is probably worth something. The bottles were heavy thick glass in those days and needed plentiful wood support) I blew the dust off the crystal ball (how fast dust accumulates) and studied it.

            We’re on this societal whip (an amusement park ride). Everything is accelerating. How fast and easy we ingest fat and get information. Gosh how I love Twitter and Facebook and Google. The crystal ball showed one year colleges in fifty years; why bother with four when you have so much input and access. I exercise almost 90 minutes a day (every day). For the generation coming up (and the one after); there was still too much dust on the ball. But not in a year have I seen my 24 year old son exercise but bless all the input not quite 24/7 but up there.

            Back to the chip. Whilst our food scientists (and there are those real species. I pass by the Nabisco food science building at Rutgers all the time) develop geometry and artificiality; I worry about my Tuna obsession. There are 25,000 Blue Fin Tuna left in the Atlantic. Quietly the United States a few weeks ago entered into a treaty with some European nations to curtail fishing. Bring on those geometric chips. Maybe even design them to look like Tuna. Make some old folks forget about the real problems of overfishing our waters. But I do know that about half our fish come from ‘farms’ and I also know that between 71 and 100% of male small mouth bass fish in our fresh lakes now have eggs. Back in the days when Eisenhower was President, didn’t they call that hermaphroditic?  I know that it’s Earth Day on April 22nd and each year I thank Senator Gaylord Nelson for his vision. I cared about it in 1970 and I still do, trying to keep my crystal ball dust free and functional so I can hand it down.

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        Words and behaviors were passed on to me by my mother (her picture hangs right over my computer screen). Too many times in life, we don’t clench our fists and hold tightly, vestiges of time. If only I could get back and listen to my Mom while we sat at the kitchen table at 2 AM; she dominated time with wisdom and common sense. I wonder how many baby boomer guys make this same statement; I have no recollection of my father ever talking to me about anything, except saying, he was tired and going for a nap. An hour ago, a 60’s music infomercial magic carpeted me back to that decade and I wondered why, intestinally, there were really strange good vibrations. For many years, inexplicable feelings grab me by the gut, like almost wanting to deposit me back to New Years Eve 1960. In my novel, “Vichy Water”, characters are possessed with feelings of déjà-vu and so am I. (Interjection time: this is such a heavy rambling topic, that literary elements of cohesiveness might be lacking, so just go with the stream of consciousness. I’ll get to the point) Déjà-vu covers my retina and macula and I’m always drifting away, thinking I’ve been there or I’m going back. Research on the phenomenon indicates that a side effect of all my trips to Sedona was experiencing lots of déjà-vu; it’s almost 24/7 with me, and I like the feeling of warmth and familiarity; sounds like a return to the womb. I feel like a famous chef following a recipe and guest hosting with Martha or Rachel. Now you mix the déjà-vu with a spoonful of sugar (no medicine going down) and pour some parallel universes under the watchful eyes of intelligent design and all of a sudden it’s really dark for a minute. You blink your eyes a couple of times. Whoever you’re having dinner with asks, “Is everything alright?” You say, “For a moment I was somewhere else in another time. Like another earth. Weird.” What would be a great gift? I’ll take the heaven thing maybe next time. I’d like it to be dark for a minute and be back at beginning of the 60’s decade with all the great music and protestations.

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       Last night I journeyed eighteen miles up Route 18 to Rutgers and Eagleton Institute to hear a panel consisting of Mike McCurry and Dana Perino, both former Press Secretaries under Clinton and Bush respectively. Pierre Salinger kept popping into mind.  He was Kennedy’s and my first exposure as an adult to the position. During the Cuban Missile crisis how much was Pierre told, remembering national security? How the position has evolved. How we have evolved. How information has evolved. I did hear the word, Area 51 slip out and smiled. I like intrigue and cynicism, part of a brand I’d like to become.

            Then back down Route 18, starting at the reconstructed portion of the highway, towards home. Cynicism is a brand I’d like for myself. So why the rush to finish the highway, and build a new hotel on George Street, and add 12,000 more seats at Rutgers Stadium, and the condos along the new waterfront of Rutgers alma mater? I smiled and when I got home five recent college graduates were playing beer pong in the backyard and needed a sixth. Brand name popped into mind; now crossing gen x, y, and z barriers; blending, ponging and talking to my pretend contemporaries about Tuna Fish becoming extinct. Another brand; worrying about environment and sustainability. They listened intently in between a dripping wet ping pong ball sailing towards a red cup half filled with low calorie beer. Another brand; preaching dietary health concerns to college grads instead of asking what they thought about “Avatar.”

            I like this branding awareness, stream of consciousness. Do I have the beginning of a brand where I relate as a writer to varied demographics with a finger on a contemporary pulse?  Three of the kids I was playing beer pong with are my Facebook friends. Pulse stuff. Perhaps horn blowing time. I never blow a horn. Is writing about things that come to be part of a brand? Nostradamus owns the real brand. In my novel I wrote about car and drug companies not recalling for obvious reasons. We know about Toyota. Two weeks ago a diabetes drug company admitted their drug causes a 43% increase in heart attacks. Throughout my novel, I tongue and cheeked my way around Tuna becoming extinct. Without a lot of fanfare two weeks ago, the United States entered into an agreement with several countries to curtail fishing the Atlantic for Blue Fin Tuna, on the way to becoming extinct. HBO, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks released a new 10 part series called ‘The Pacific’ which shows part of the Guadalcanal story during WWII. In my novel, a main character journeys all the way to Guadalcanal today to pay respects to our soldiers who died there. President Obama gave a speech in June 2009 in Egypt promising Muslims that America would treat them with respect and understanding. In the novel, a main character is Muslim and is treated just like the President said. Of course the novel was drafted years before these events.

            I like this branding stuff. Maybe I’ve got this pulse thing licked. Maybe a potter’s wheel spinning a bowl of another novel.  And I’m thinking about forefathers. Really “fore.” And Lew Wallace’s ‘Ben Hur’ and the last couple scenes in the movie. Happy Healthy Holidays.

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