For Mom ...

For Mother's Day, I'm posting this photo of my mom, shown here with my dad on one of their many trips - trips she made despite being paralyzed on one side by polio when she was a young teenager.

She never again rode the horses she loved, but there were so many other things she was never supposed to do again.

Yet she did.

When I knew her, her right arm - she was born right-handed - hung all but useless at her side. The only muscles that worked were, oddly enough, in her fingers, which could still grasp things. Her right leg was similarly immobile. She had to swing it out to the side, balancing on her left leg, each time she took a step. Sometimes, my dad helped her up off the couch or steady her as she walked, but most of the time, she did these things herself. Just as she changed my diapers herself, walked up three flights of stairs at UCLA on her way to a bachelor's degree and got a job as a supervisor at Douglas Aircraft on her own.

Her determination to not only survive and emerge from an iron lung - when doctors said she might not - but also walk again after being told it was impossible remains an inspiration to me. But it wasn't the polio that defined her. It was her patience, love, support and willingness to listen without judgement that made her who she was - at least who she was to me. She was Mom.

I knew she'd gotten weaker from a series of strokes in her early 60s, but I never expected the call I got from my father that day at work. It was wintertime, just past the new year, and I hadn't seen either of them since Christmas. Through tears, he told me how she'd gone to lie down for a nap and hadn't awakened. I'd never heard him cry like that. To this day, he speaks of the wonderful life he's had, with his only regret that she left too him soon.

They'd had 39 years together, but it would always have been too soon. I know it was for me.

Mom's been gone more than two decades now, but her example and guidance remain my beacon. I wouldn't be here today without her, perhaps in more ways than one. I only wish she had lived to see me begin to achieve my dreams.

Thanks, Mom. I love you.

Ten Species of Troll

Here are 10 species of Internet troll I've observed and cataloged in my study of the Wild, Wild Web. Recognize them. Avoid them. Lead a much happier life without them.

1. Stalkers. Attention seekers who need others' responses to feel validated. They follow you from one page to another, leaving comments on whatever you post. The problem is, you never know whether to treat them like lost puppies and scratch behind their ears, but this just keeps them coming back for more.

2. Lurkers. The next stage in the stalker's (d)evolution. Having been banned or blocked, they stay quiet and hide behind bogus profiles, conducting online espionage. Like the rude but distant relative who invites himself to Thanksgiving dinner, they feel they're entitled to a place at the table, even after they've been asked to leave.

3. Imposters. Critics who masquerade as a member of a certain group, they wait until the time is right, then ambush members in an open forum - sometimes with self-righteous religious rhetoric, sometimes with ads for fake Ray-Bans. I'm not sure which is worse.

4. Backstabbers. They air their dirty laundry to the world, slamming a spouse, relative, "friend," boss or some other third party who's (conveniently) not around to defend him/herself. They smile in your face. All the time, they wanna take your place ...

5. Know-it-Alls. These ego-driven types pose as authorities to gain "minions" as though they'd been chosen for the lead in Despicable Me - even though the lead character in that animated film is far more three-dimensional. Like stalkers, they want validation. But instead of targeting a single person, they cast a wider net in an effort to build a cult-like following. They're usually not authorities on much of anything. But that doesn't stop them from pontificating ad nauseam on their favorite subjects.

6. True Believers. The minions or clones from No. 5, who follow Know-it-Alls pretty much blindly, faithfully memorizing their scripts and robotically regurgitating their lines. Clones? Dittoheads? Do people actually take pride in these labels? Sometimes the Web is far too similar to bad talk radio, and you've just change the station.

7. Button-Pushers. They get a rise out of people by posting uncompromising positions on hot-button issues. On the one side, they get a lot of attaboys; on the other, they receive plenty of criticism (often spiced up using colorful language). Either way, they're out for attention, same as the Stalker and the Authority. They're motto: All publicity is good publicity.

8. Victims. Often Button-Pushers who pretend to be persecuted for their beliefs, they fly the "minority" flag as though it were a battle standard - whether or not they're actually in any minority. One favorite tactic: saying something outrageously offensive, then crying "censorship!" when the owner of the wall or page removes their comment.

9. Advocates. People who take up a single issue or slate of issues and draw a life-or-death line in the sand, then dare others on Facebook to cross it ... which, of course, they do, leading to sometimes amusing but mostly aggravating repercussions. They produce more litmus tests for than your eighth-grade science teacher and flunk you if you answer one question in a hundred the "wrong" way.

10. Devil's Advocates. The people who fuel the Button-Pushers' fire, their goal is, like most of the others, to gain attention - but their method's a little different. They're counter-punchers. They wait for someone else to state an opinion, then look for a weakness and pounce when they think they've found one. It's purely a game of one-upmanship. The Devil's Advocate who can beat the Know-it-All in an argument has pulled off an effective Facebook coup and can build a following of his/her own.

Illustration: John Bauer, from Walter Stenstrom's The Boy and the Trolls or The Adventure in children's anthology Among Pixies and Trolls, a collection of children's stories, 1915 (public domain image).

When is a Rock Concert Not a Rock Concert?

About halfway through the concert, I turned to Samaire and remarked, "This is a first. A rock concert where I haven't caught a single whiff of pot smoke." No one was - in the words of Jay from Dogma - "rockin' the ganj."

It doesn't matter who's playing. Queen. Aerosmith. Fleetwood Mac. Van Halen. I've seen them all, and each one of them was accompanied by an entourage pungent smoke drifting through the ether. But on this particular evening, so far, I hadn't "sensed any milla" to speak of.

Lest I leave the gentle reader with the wrong impression, I should point out that I don't smoke the stuff myself. As an asthmatic, I don't fancy emulating a smokestack. Still, it almost seemed like something was missing when none of that distinctive odor wafted my way that evening at The Greek in L.A.

This was a rock concert, wasn't it? 

I looked around. Headbangers in the audience? Check. Laser lighting? Check. Musicians whipping their long hair around more frenetically than those wildly dancing strands of fabric that attack you from the ceiling of an automated car wash? A big 10-4 there, too. But that familiar smell ...?

Wait. I had spoken too soon. No sooner had the main act, Nightwish, taken the stage, than someone, somewhere lit up and reassured me that, yes indeed, I was at a rock show after all. And a good one, too. All three bands - Delain and Sabaton were the other two bands on the bill - put on a show that made paying $4 for a small bottle of water and $20 for parking more than worth it.

We even stuck around after the show and met three members of Delain, an opening act that deserves to be a headliner. I've always been timid about approaching celebrities, figuring they had better things to do than to hear fans gush, "Dude, you guys ROCK! I'm totally your biggest fan!" Then again, if people said that to me, I don't imagine I'd mind it too much.

Bassist Otto Schimmelpenninck was happy to answer questions - seemingly as many as I wanted to ask. He, drummer Ruben Israel and singer Charlotte Wessels all consented to have their pictures taken with me, and Schimmelpenninck even accepted my friend request on Facebook. Very cool people.

I'll admit it: I envy anyone who has a lot of hair and (or?) sings in a rock band, so maybe that made me a little more self-conscious. Besides, I'm an ultra-cool professional journalist. I've actually gotten paid - not a lot, but money's money - to talk to famous and semi-famous people; I therefore have an image to maintain. But so does Gene Simmons, and he wears a wig. I don't. That's got to be worth something, right?

Who am I kidding?

To be honest, I have Samaire to thank for my new willingness to stick around after an event and "meet the famous people" without feeling like some kind of a middle-aged toadie. A while back, she persuaded me to hang out after a play called Allegiance to meet George Takei. Depending on which generation you're from, you'll know him either as the godfather of social media and a champion of gay rights, or as a helmsman for a starship in the 23rd century. Oddly, he was piloting that starship before same-sex marriage was legal in California, which may (or may not) prove that time travel is possible if you're the Enterprising sort. 

The once and futuristic Mr. Sulu talked with us for about five minutes, about everything from Star Trek to then-California Gov. Earl Warren's support of the Japanese Internment during World War II. He, like the members of Delain, was pleasant, gracious and didn't seem the least bit put out by yours truly or any of the several hundred others waiting for an autograph. A class act all the way.

There was one minor difference: I don't remember smelling any pot smoke at Takei's performance. It wasn't a rock concert. But it still rocked.

Pictured: Me (bald guy at right) with Otto Schimmelpenninck (left) and Ruben Israel of Delain.

I Guess I'd Better Write Something

Isn't that what we authors are always saying to ourselves? The cliche is that we sit around staring at blank screens waiting for inspiration to strike and banging our heads against that painfully dense slab of figurative stone called writer's block. Just start typing, and you'll be amazed at how quickly that block disintegrates.

This is my second exercise in writing a blog (being a journalist, I prefer to call it a journal). Don't go looking for the first one online: I let the domain name lapse and lost all the content as a result. Silly me. Last time I looked, the site had received something like 400,000 hits, but I decided I wanted to write books instead. Now I've decided to do both. Who said you can't have it all? 

The posts on that earlier blog tended to be somewhat long-winded, so I pledge to keep what I share here more succinct and easier to digest (bad pun always intended).  

To the point: I've got a book coming out in August. Please buy it. You won't regret doing so - at least, I hope you won't. The book is called Fresno Growing Up, and it's an appropriate title, since I grew up in Fresno and the city grew up around me in the meantime. You can preorder it on Amazon (just click the handy-dandy announcement bar at the top of your screen). I hope to be sharing a preview in this space before too long. 

Tip for today: Find your voice and shout your inspiration to the world. You'll be amazed at the echoes you hear coming back to you.