Miley Cyrus for President

Okay, this one requires an amendment to the constitution or a seventeen-year wait, but stay with me on this. You may be asking yourself why anyone would think a teenage music star is qualified to be President of the United States. Stop for a moment and think about the people running for President today.

I rest my case.

Actually I don’t. That only explains why we need another candidate in the race. Let’s take a look at Miley’s qualifications.

Follow the Money
The first rule in life, especially politics, is to follow the money. Miley is a self-made gazillionaire. How many other gazillionaire made their first gazillion by the time they were eighteen? You can count them on two fingers: The Olsen Twins.

Where did Miley obtain her gazillions? This is the crucial question that more than anything else qualifies Miley Cyrus to be our next President.

Miley’s money comes from her fan base of screaming teenagers. That’s right. Miley’s not owned by the mob, the fat cat politicos, lobbyists, the big corporate donors – none of those scumbags need apply. Miley is beholding to teenage America. People who can’t even vote. It’s not possible for a candidate to be more independent than Miley.

Okay, I hear you. What about Billy Ray Cyrus? Sure, he has some influence and so does her mom, but Miley brings in the bucks. Even Billy Ray has to follow the money.

Higher Intelligence
We expect our President to be a high IQ type. Miley Cyrus qualifies on several levels. Understand, she does not have to be a nuclear physicist to serve as President. She only needs to be more intelligent than the other candidates. As I said above, consider the other candidates in the race. How intelligent are those fine folks? Have you ever heard one of them speak? Have you listened to the debates? Have you heard one sentence that contains an indication of a higher intelligence at work?

Now, consider Miley. Becoming a gazillionaire while still a teenager certainly indicates she has the right stuff, including the smarts to serve and lead. She has a better sense of humor than any of the other candidates, which is a sure sign of intelligence.

Oh, and most important, she decided not to go to college. As a gazillionaire, she realizes that it doesn’t make economic sense to spend $150,000 for a four-year liberal arts degree that qualifies you as a hamburger flipper in today’s economy. How did she get smart enough to skip college? She avoided junior high and high school (unless you count Disney High but I don’t think anyone does).

Miley Cyrus is qualified to call the education emperor naked and lead the reform movement away from classrooms and into cyberspace where education belongs. And she is free to think what she chooses, including having a healthy understanding of what government should be about rather than what it is.

Speaking of Almost Naked
Miley Cyrus has that special quality that all great political leaders possess – the ability to stand on two opposing positions at the same time with no one really noticing or caring. Think Ronald Reagan here. Miley has successfully balanced her good Christian “wait until marriage” pledge with sexting. It’s a delicate balance, but she somehow pulls it off (pun intended).

Sexting – Solution to International Relations
I know you’re worried about how Miley Cyrus would handle the Chinese, the Arabs, the Israelis, and those pesky Canadians among others. Miley has something going for her that no other candidate can match with the possible exception of Sarah Palin – sexting. Imagine the first international crises of her administration. The whoevers are about to invade the what-the-hecks. Miley picks up the emergency hotline (giving it new meaning) and sends a sexting message to the dictator with the invasion force. What can the dictator do but assume the worst and back off. Otherwise they would have to deal with Miley in her undergarments.

Which brings us to Fulfillment
So far this conversation has nothing to do with the release of my new suspense thriller Fulfillment. But Miley Cyrus has achieved a great deal of success because of her moxie. My main character in Fulfillment also has a great deal of moxie and connections in high places. Her name is Mary. Satan gets the bright idea that if you can’t kill Jesus because he is God after all, then what better way to stop the salvation of the world then to kill the mother before he is born?

Fulfillment is the story of the first Christmas retold with Satan added into the mix. Think about it. What was Satan up to while God was going about the business of sending his son to save the world? It’s okay to read my scary novel late at night with the rain pounding on your windows and thunder and lightning outside, but leave the light on. You’ll need it.

Who says you can’t buy Fulfillment? It’s only a $1.99 on Amazon. And don’t forget to vote for Miley.

What is your butt telling you?

My mistake was buying the smart phone. It gets my email, gives me the weather report, provides a map to wherever I’m going, and I can even get ground positioning satellite service from this thing. Oh, and by the way, I can make a phone call with it.

The phone part is the problem. Why don’t they put a flip cover on the smart phones to shut them up?

If you don’t have a smart phone, let me explain. The face of the smart phone, the part that shows the movies, the games, and the websites, also shows you a bunch of buttons you can push when, let’s say, you want to make a phone call.

The problem happens when you slide the little thingy into your hip pocket after you finish your call. The screen touches your pants as it slides in where it belongs, and so buttons get pushed. You’re sitting there minding your own business when your butt starts talking to you.

I hear this soft tin voice coming from the posterior region. “Hello? Dad, is that you?”

Yes, it’s my daughter talking to me from my pocket. When you get past a certain age, you begin to worry when you hear voices speaking out of your butt. Especially voices you recognize. Talk about scary suspense! I didn’t even hear my butt ringing. Thank goodness I didn’t put it on vibrate.

I’ve known for years that sales people are always talking out of their butts, but now they’re talking out of mine. How can you buy anything from a little voice in your pocket?

My daughter works in IT and assures me I’m not the only victim of butt-talk. It's quite common among smart phone users. I'm just sorry the phone's not as smart as my butt.

Butt-talk… will you be next?

When Becky Florped

Here's another venture into the world of sci-fi suspense. At least I think it's sci-fi and suspense. Imagine living in an isolated space colony for about a hundred years or thereabouts. Your language evolves as your population lives in isolation. When Becky florped three three times, and Tom grabbed the glinknipper, the conversation went something like this...

“Ouch!” you left the tarnickle exposed again, Becky.
“Twarn’t me. I’ve been busy all day with morkmiter. Why do you think I just florped brinknackly three times.”
Oh, sorry about the pedinkle morkmiter. I was feeding the kerpolusion and forgot about it.
“No prinkmuster. But what about the tarnickle all over the bringbobber?”
“We could just call the pliminator.”
“Too much kerblank. We go through a lot of kerblank these daproms.
If we watch our perniskys, we should be oinkbonker.”
AQ. I can hankrinkle a few daproms without spending a lot of kerblank. I’ll stop eating wormglommers and pishunks.”
“And I’ll stay away from the binkmommer.

Landed Gentry

Their father was one of the landed gentry in a land without gentry. Without fertile land for that matter. What need of land on a rock being mined for its nickel and small quantities of precious metals? Food you import from the bases on the south side of the moon. Landed gentry, ha. First off, most of them were women and they were company men, or women, as the case may be. Mine supervisors. But we called them landed gentry because they landed first. And they got to take off first at the end of the three-year shift, which now has a mere 13 months, 3 weeks and two days to go. Zelda Gimplocker was of the landed gentry. She owned the land I mined with Zorkgrack, my botdrill. Of the two I preferred Zelda, but she was the bossier of the two. Zorkgrack was the better cook. But Zorkgrack in bed is just something I don’t want to think about, especially with Zelda leaning over my shoulder right now.

Vampire River

Another episode of  my scary suspense theater. Keep your eye on the vampires across the river. They're the ones that sneak up behind you in the movie theater and get you just as you're about to scream at the most frightening part of the film. That's why you'll find me in the last row of the balcony. Which reminds me, when was the last time you were in a movie theater that had a balcony? Let me know where it is.

Something Stirs – Christian Suspense by Thomas Smith

You know the drill. A family moves into the house on the hill. Everything is cool. Everyone is happy. Then Something Stirs. It’s creepy. Critters drop like flies. We’re talking dried-up-prunes type flies. Read Something Stirs late at night when you are alone.  If you dare. Something Stirs mixes suspense with spiritual warfare. It’s devil vs. God and you know who’s going to win that one, but the fun is in how you get there. This novel does a lovely slow waltz build up to a fast-paced, roller coaster ending.  Leave the light on, folks. Easier to read that way and a whole lot easier to stay in your skin. Christian suspense by Thomas Smith. Available in bookstores. Try Amazon.

Why Super 8 Works

Director J. J. Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg have created a masterpiece with Super 8. This creative film is right on so many levels, it could be the basis for a book on film making and storytelling. Let’s consider one aspect of the film – storytelling.

When I began writing fiction, my favorite authors were the classic writers like Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. My dream was to write “the great American novel” and to become the next Hemingway or Steinbeck. Funny thing happened along the way. Turns out I write suspense stories or speculative fiction, like my short story Angel Thorns. I cross the bounds of mystery, suspense, sci-fi and horror. Suspense or thriller is the main focus of my work, just as Super 8 focuses mainly on horror but has elements of sci-fi and suspense.

A horror story is a type of suspense or thriller in that it seeks to put you on the edge of your seat by scaring you and making you ask "what's next?" Most thrillers divide the plot into two parts. Part one takes about one-third of the story and involves discovery. It’s about learning what kind of monster is on the loose. It answers the question: “What is it?” Or “What’s going on?”

The monster, once discovered, may be traditional such as a vampire, werewolf or space alien. (In Super 8, it’s a space alien.) The monster could be a demon or a demonic person such as a serial killer. It could be another kind of monster – a spy ring or terrorist organization bent on world domination or global destruction. This latter kind of thriller is the stuff of the spy or political thrillers. In the mystery thriller, the focus is on "what will happen next" as opposed to the traditional mystery story where the focus is on an action that happened in the past as the hero tries to figure out "whodunit?" Not knowing where the story is headed is the basis of the "thrill" or "suspense."

The second part of a thriller takes about two-thirds of the story. Call it the “Let’s kill it” section. Now that we know we are dealing with a vampire or serial killer or a space alien, as in Super 8, our heroes go about the business of destroying the monster. In my short story Angel Thorns, I play this section in an unusual way in that the people do not destroy the monster. Instead… well, I’ll just let you read it to find out. Point here is the good stories give you a little spin on the genre.

Skip this paragraph if you haven’t seen the movie yet. Super 8 represents a variation of the story in which you don’t actually kill the monster. Instead, you set it free because, after all, it’s not really a monster. It only looks like a monster and acts like a monster. It’s a misunderstood, abused, innocent, child-killing space traveler (Super 8) or a 75-year-old "teenage" vampire with a wall full of high school diplomas (Twilight).

Children: Connecting the Super 8 Dots to Angel Thorns
I started this blog post by saying that I began writing fiction with one intention and discovered I belonged somewhere else. Instead of writing “literary fiction” (whatever that is), I find my stories landing in the suspense or thriller genre. The other unintended thing about my storytelling that should resonate with Super 8 fans is I invariably end up with a child or teenage hero. There’s something about the monster story that works exceedingly well when viewed through the eyes of a child or teenager.

What literary types call a “willing suspension of disbelief” is much easier to achieve through the filter of an innocent mind. But if the story is only about the monster, than you can skip the child and view it through an adult lens. What the child brings to the story, in addition to the innocent filter, is the innocence-to-maturity theme. You cannot experience the monster and remain the same.

So in Super 8, the children are changed forever. One boy discovers love. One girl discovers love. Another boy discovers unrequited love. And one boy discovers that if you go around blowing things up, there are consequences. I’m simplifying here. Super 8 delivers more than a love story filled with teenage angst, albeit young teens. Watch the relationships of Joe and Alice with their fathers, for example. Nothing remains the same in the story.

Innocence to experience has been the main current in American literature from day one. And it works so well in Super 8 that we almost miss the monster until the creature leaps off the screen, grabs you by the throat, and makes you pay attention. “Hey, don’t forget about me,” the monster shouts.

Why does Super 8 Work?
From a storytelling standpoint, it stays true to its marketing niche, the horror genre, while mixing in elements of sci-fi and traditional thriller. It filters the story through the innocent eyes of youth. It plays the monster in the background of a larger innocence-to-maturity story that is the hallmark of American story telling whether it’s a novel like Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, a short story like my Angel Thorns, or a movie like Super 8.

As I said, it would take a book to dive into the vast onion layers of Super 8. If you haven’t seen it yet, go. Enjoy. And if you have time, check out my short story (4,700 words) Angel Thorns.