Tapered off, then quit, eating sugar and chips and ice cream six weeks ago, to see if I could lower my triglycerides. Getting labs done today, so we’ll see.
The result so far is that I went from 196 pounds (89 kilos) to 188 pounds (85 kilos).
Skeletal muscle up 1.2%, body water up 0.6%, body fat down 1.1%.
When I was writing animation for the tube, we bitched about how we were caught in a trap, making money for not much work. And that we had made a deal with the devil and would come to regret it.
I wrote a song about about it, and later fiddled around with GarageBand to do a weird three-part harmony.
Memory came up when I was researching the Joe Louis quote about a match he was about to have with Billy Conn.
(.22 LR handgun, above, airgun targets, below.)
I’m not a serious rifle shooter. I’m okay at it.
Some years ago, I shot in club-competitions in a discipline called smallbore metallic silhouette, using a handgun.
The short version: There were forty targets, set ten each at various ranges. These were vaguely-shaped animal outlines: chickens, pigs, turkeys, and rams. The chickens, about the area of a teacup, were at twenty-five yards; pigs, maybe a saucer-size, at fifty yards; turkeys, a vague bird-like shape a bit larger than the pigs, seventy-five yards; rams, a pie-plate size, at a hundred yards.
The competition was simple. Forty targets, forty shots. Final score was how many of the targets you knocked over on the railroad ties upon which they were set. If you hit it, but it didn't fall over? It was a miss.
You were limited to a pistol or revolver in .22 LR caliber, with iron sights — no scopes — and you had to shoot them in order, left to right.
I was a AAA-rated shooter. Pretty good, but not as adept as the International Masters. What that meant was, I scored 37-39 at an unlimited match. The really good shooters consistently shot 39-40.
One was allowed to lie down and prop the gun against a leg or knee, and to have a spotter with a scope report where the target was hit. There was also a standing event, which was harder.
If I had misses, these were almost always a turkey, which were narrower and more iffy if there was any wind blowing.
I hit ten of ten rams most of the time using a Browning semi-auto pistol with a bull-barrel, notch-and-post sights.
A maybe easier visualization, put a pie plate on the goal line of a football field. Walk to the other goal line, lie down on your back, rest the gun against your leg or knee in what is called Creedmore, or a Perry Post, position, shoot and hit that plate.
Then do it nine more times.
That’s a handgun. With a scoped .22 rifle? Even a dot scope? I could shoot all day and not miss a target. I practiced once a week, a hundred rounds.
The big bore version of this had larger targets, but set at twice the range. If you can make a 200-yard shot on a ram target with a handgun and iron sights? A scoped rifle is a gimme if you dial it in right.
.38 Special versus .380 ACP.
Out of a full-sized sidearm, the .38 Special is the more effective round. The bullets are generally heavier than those of a .380 ACP, they are a little slower, but hit harder.
It depends on the ammunition, of course. A hot .380 ACP round will keep up with a so-so .38 Special loading, but out of a service firearm, the .38 Special is, all things being equal, a more effective bullet. Recoil is not heavy in either round.
Overall, the average foot-pounds delivered are higher for the .38 Special than the .380 ACP, about forty to fifty f/p more per bullet.
When the guns used are short-barreled hideaways? The differences in punch and accuracy are not as great. The velocities drop in both calibers with snub-nose revolvers and pistols, they tend to be subsonic, and expansion of hollow-point ammo is iffy in both. They penetrate to about the same distances in ballistic gel. Neither is a rhino-stopper.
However, there are other factors to consider. Generally, pocket .380 ACP pistols have longer barrels than J-frame revolvers. Better sights on many of them, which offer a bit better accuracy.
J-frames typically hold five rounds, and .380 ACP pocket pistols hold seven or eight cartridges. So a .38 Special might throw a total of 1250 f/p downrange with a cylinder’s worth; a .380 with one in the pipe and seven in the magazine will total 1520 f/p.
There is something to be said for eight instead of five.
Revolvers are mechanically easier to operate and less likely to malfunction than semi-automatic pistols, though with the proper load, that might not be a factor.
Concealability? The pistols have the edge. They tend to be shorter overall, and the cylinder of a revolver is thicker than any of the smaller pistols. Reloads are faster, though, again, most gunfights are over before either runs out of ammo.
I have carried both kinds. I am comfortable with either, though the revolver is harder to hide. My choice will usually depend on clothing I’d be wearing. A jacket, any belt-holster handgun is fine. T-shirt and shorts? The small pistol (or mousegun revolver -- the .22 Magnum Pug, say) -- is all that can be easily hidden.
I do like having those extra three shots as an option.
In 1962, it was possible to go through the paperback rack at the local Rexall Drugstore, on the corner of Evangeline and McClelland streets in Baton Rouge, and find no more than one or two science fiction titles.
The cover of this particular one guaranteed that I, as a fourteen-year-old boy so full of testosterone that I sloshed when I walked, would buy it.
Attend: The cover illo featured a bunch of naked women, albeit artfully arranged with arms and angles so that you didn't actually see anything that would have been considered obscene back in the day. I couldn't pass it up. Plunked down my forty cents -- this was in the time when I got a buck and a quarter for mowing a lawn -- and was away to spend the afternoon reading.
The writer, J.F. "Jesse" Bone, was a professor at the veterinary school in Corvallis, Oregon, and the book is an action/adventure story about a vet who goes to a planet to take care of the livestock -- which in this case happens to be a humanoid species called the Lani, who are not human -- they have tails, and can't interbreed with humans. Thus it was okay to sell them.
Since you probably can't find copies of it, I'll give the plot away: The Lani are human and in the end, our hero manages to free them. Along the way, the writer makes some excellent points about slavery, and what constitutes humanity. Not the deepest book ever written, but it was fun, and it holds up pretty well. There is a fight scene between the vet and a male Lani that stirred my interest in martial arts greatly. The Lani is bigger, stronger, meaner, but he doesn't have a chance against the vet, who is martially-trained ...
Fast-forward sixteen years:
I went to my second World Science Fiction Convention, aka the WorldCon, in Phoenix, Arizona.
I said this before, but anything worth saying is worth saying at least three times: The Guest of Honor was Harlan Ellison. Since Arizona had refused to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, Harlan attended, but refused to spend any money in such a state. He stayed in a borrowed RV, and ate and drank what he brought with him, and kudos to him for it. Harlan sometimes got flak, but he didn't just talk the talk, he also walked the walk. I liked Harlan, but even people who hated him sometimes grudgingly admitted to admiring him.
As part of the gig, Harlan sat in a little A-frame made of two-by-fours and visquine in the middle of the lobby and wrote a short story. This was a reprise of his writer-in-a-bookstore-window routine, meant to demonstrate that a writer could craft a professional-quality tale in front of God and everybody and could concentrate well enough to pull it off, no sweat.
Impressed, I went to watch him work for while. Sitting at a table nearby was an old guy. I introduced myself, and so did he, and it was Jesse Bone.
Holy shit! The man had been a seminal influence on me. Actually, more of semenal influence, given that cover ...
I made a joke about that as we chatted. Later in the day, I went to the dealer's room and had a button made: "Jesse Bone is a Semenal Influence" and I wore it the rest of the week.
While Jesse and I were talking, a short, portly, shave-headed guy came over, carrying a huge battery-powered tape recorder. He sat, clicked on the recorder, and said, as nearly as I can recall:
"Hey, I'm Gene Gold. I know Jesse is too busy, but you're a writer, right?"
I allowed as how I was. Amazing that he could tell just by looking.
"Well, I'd doing a new magazine, and I need a story. I want it to be about the last martial arts instructor on Earth. I don't want it to be downbeat, no pathos, it needs to be two thousand words, and I need it by next Monday. Can you do it?"
I cannot tell you how flabbergasted I was at this. To this day, the idea still boggles my mind. Of all the five thousand people at the con, nobody was better qualified to write that story than I, and how on Earth had this guy happened to find me?
"Sure," I said. "No problem."
"Great. Here's my card, send it to me when you are done."
And with that, he clicked off the recorder, stood, and left.
Son-of-a-bitch!
I wrote the first four graphs of the story later, in the bar, while having a beer with -- I think, Hank Stine and Jesse Bone -- though that part is a bit hazy. Got home, did that story, plus the one Stine commissioned, and thought I was a rising star in the SF field ...
Later, I moved to Oregon, and Jesse and I would now and then run into each other, have a beer, and a fine ole time. He passed away a few years afterward, having published a bunch of short stories and a few novels, one of which was Confederation Matador -- both words I have used in my own work with some frequency. (In fact, if you Google them, you will a link to a Wikipedia piece referencing my Matador series.)
Thanks, Jesse -- in memory yet green.
Some years ago, I engaged in discussions on the late Harlan Ellison’s webpage.
Harlan was not a computer guy. A friend who was set it up, and Harlan could post his comments. I knew Harlan slightly, was a fan of his writing and speaking.
The discussions were sometimes lively and contentious, and there were some bright and clever folks who showed up for the fray. Some posted under pseudonyms because they were kinda famous and didn’t want to flash that around. Others just hid behind screen-noms so they could safely snark.
There were rules, one of which was, you were allowed one post a day, so as not to clutter things up. Ellison had favorites, and would allow them to post more frequently, but pretty much, the laity were to speak their piece and then wait until the next day to continue -- unless Harlan asked them a direct question.
One particular discussion involved a science fiction writer who was a Canadian. Upon attempting to cross the national border from the U.S. back into Canada, said writer got into a pissing match with a border patrolman. Words were exchanged, and the writer was marched off to the hoosegow.
As I recall the backstory, the writer allowed that he had done nothing to merit an attack, and that the BP agents thumped him, MACEd him, and put the cuffs on, for no reason.
The agents said that the routine inspection of his vehicle resulted in him stepping out of his car and getting surly. When told to get back into his car, he refused and got surlier, and physical.
I wasn't there, I don't know what happened, but he was charged, arrested, bailed out the next day, and came back in the spring for his trial. ***
Many of Harlan’s fans and friends and other posters were liberals, shading into radicals. The outrage at this event was exclaimed high, loud, and repeatedly. How dare those jackbooted stormtroopers do such a thing! The writer was an innocent, beset by bullyboy thugs! The injustice of it! ACAB!
Lot of echoes there.
Being a liberal-shading-into-radical, one would expect me to be on that bandwagon, sloshing my beer and ranting about the goose-steppers.
As somebody trained to be a journalist, I was curious, so I poked around, found the news accounts, the writer’s comments, those of the border patrol agent, other witnesses, and lo! the full-color picture of the innocent writer attacked for no reason whatsoever by the evil brown shirts was somewhat clearer than the fuzzy black-and-white snapshot offered to Harlan’s forum.
So, I said, Um, perhaps there is more to be seen here? You should go look. I did not say he was guilty, mind you, only that further research might be beneficial.
Oh, my. The explosion of the liberal-left was deafening. How dare I!? What was wrong with me, that I would take the side of the fascist pigs?
Got called a jackbooted Nazi Fascist stormtrooper by a few of the serious spittle-spewers, which, I confess, I found hilarious. There are those on the Left who, if you are not in 100% agreement, count you as fully against them.
Since the pile-on was heavy, I was allowed to post more than once a day, and my refutation of the knee-jerk response was, I thought, reasoned, with, you know, facts and all. I was right, the mob was wrong, and I said so. Because my heart was pure, I had the strength of ten, and amongst the other folks who were capable of reasons and not simply cant, I gained a following.
Eventually, the arguments died down and we went on to some other tempest-in-a-teapot. I considered that a win, because, being right and all.
But: Here’s the point of this long-winded backstory: A couple years later, on FaceBook, I friended a writer, one of the folks involved in that aforementioned discussion. He had not been the most vehement about me being a stormtrooper, but had been on that side of the table. Still, it had been a while, and that discussion well back in the rear-view mirror. I liked the writer’s work.
Howsoever, when I posted comments on this writer’s page, in most instances, if I said something even mildly critical? I got quick and hard pushback. Often for things that other posters had said or echoed, and for whom doing so got no such response.
Huh.
It was just me, apparently.
And I wondered: Am I still the jackbooted stormtrooper in this narrative? Did he hold onto that in some memory engram?
I believe it is a possibility. That there is a supposition my stormtrooperness is so, and thus a prejudged expectation.
Not a major problem, and first-world at that, but interesting if that is the case.
*** The writer was found guilty by the jury for obstruction, got a fine, sentence suspended.
Here’s the story:
My friend Dan, his better half, Amy, and Charlie the Wonder Dog, came to visit me after my wife passed away. To take care of me, which they did, and for which I will ever be grateful.
They elected to stay in the trailer they towed, in the middle of a nasty heat spell, and whose AC demands overloaded any circuit I had in the house, but that’s another funny story.
So, RVs have, the larger ones, onboard waste tanks. One is for kitchen and bathroom sink drainage, and is called the gray water tank. The other is for sewage, and is deemed the black water tank.
Over a period of time, these tanks fill, and must be drained. Dumping one’s tanks is a time-honored ritual known to all RV owners.
Now, normally, this is a simple, easy procedure. One drives to a waste disposal place where this is done, hooks up a large, flexible hose to the outro pipe, sticks the end into an in-ground tank. The black water valve is opened first. When it is done draining, the gray water follows, which cleans out the hose somewhat. Valves closed, the hose is removed, rinsed out — one wears gloves doing this — and stored in a special compartment, and all done.
So, Dan — wearing cowboy boots, this part is important — takes the rig to a drainage site to perform this chore. He hated towing this thing, seriously hated it, and the rig, being semi-sentient, knew this.
Arrives, he, at the site, hooks up the drainage hose, fastens it place, and opens the black water valve.
But, no rush of black water.
Because the trailer knows he hates it, and has taken umbrage at this.
So Dan, being a DIY kinda guy, says, Oh, no, you don’t, trailer! He figures that perhaps there is a blockage in the black water pipe.
Here’s an idea: I’ll poke a stick up there and dislodge that blockage.
Excuse me, I have to pause here, wait for the laughter to stop, which always takes a while, wipe the tears from my eyes, since I can’t type until this happens.
Okay, okay, I’m good, I -- wait, hold on …
Okay, no, really. I’m can do this.
I am going to skip ahead here, to the part where Dan comes home, enters the house, and Amy and Charlie and I call out: Hey, how’d it go?
Imagine, if you would, a car full of angry, drunken sailors on shore leave who have somehow been accidentally transported to a church full of nuns instead of a house of ill repute at which they thought they were arriving. The language.
Here upon, Dan steps into view.
Wearing running shoes.
Why, Dan — why are you wearing running shoes? What happened to your boots?
Okay, hold on a second, just a second, I’m okay. This part doesn’t take as long to get it back together.
Whew.
There is no need to gild the lily here. What happens when a full tank of black water whose drain pipe is blocked suddenly becomes unblocked?
Ever see one of those old movies where the drillers strike oil and a gusher of it spews fifty feet into the air and rains down upon the crew, who are smiling because now they are rich?
Leave out the smile-we’re-rich! part, add in the drunken, angry sailors. And Dan.
Stir.
That. That is how it went.
