Hillary’s Secret Campaign Strategy

 

We have learned from a deep source at Hillary Clinton presidential
campaign headquarters, of a highly controversial, certainly
mind-boggling, but sure-fire plan which will clinch the 2016 election
for her. When it finally becomes public, this secret strategy will
consign all the nay-saying skeptics about her viability as the first
female president in American history, to eating vast quantities of
humble pie. 

Right now, of course, since no one knows of the plan, there's a wide range of
opinion and speculation in the media on her chances. Will she run? Will
she make the same mistakes she made against Obama? Can she walk the fine
line between appealing to the traditional Democratic base and raising
the money she will need from Wall Street and corporate America? Is the
country ready for a female president? Is the country ready for Hillary? 

But her innovative new approach undercuts all of this.

The idea is as revolutionary as it is simple.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton will be running for president on both the Democratic 
and the Republican tickets.

Yes! I know it sounds unbelievable.

But it's true.

She will make appearances at both conventions. A special secret poll of select
campaign consultants and political scientists predicts she will easily
garner delegate majorities at both events __ probably on the first round
of balloting __ to secure the nominations.

My source further explains that to make this a viable strategy, the canny 
Ms. Clinton will have two different vice-presidential running mates,
probably Kirsten Gillibrand for the Democratic ticket, and  
Megyn Kelly for the Republican.

Just think about that! All-female tickets running for president and vice-president 
via both major political parties.

Talk about a watershed moment in American history!

Stepping back and thinking about it, Hillary's running as both Democratic and
Republican candidates goes a long ways towards explaining some interesting
recent developments.

While her sewing up the Democratic nomination has for quite some time been 
a foregone conclusion, Ms. Clinton has, to the surprise of many observers, been 
wooing and gaining the support of many wealthy conservatives as well. Her openly 
coming out as a bona fide member of their "team" as the Republican nominee just 
makes sense.

Let me add that beyond being a brilliant tactical maneuver just in terms of sewing
up her future role as president, this unprecedented move is also a tremendous
leap forward for democracy itself, which has come under a lot of attack in 
recent years.

Voters complain they've had a great deal of difficulty trying to figure out the
differences between the policies and positions of candidates during the
long campaign season. Despite the rigorous scrutiny and tortured
analysis by experts across the entire political spectrum, quite often
it's hard to figure out what anyone stands for. This uncertainty has
evidenced itself as voter apathy. Confused voters stay home on election day.

By running on both tickets, Ms. Clinton will eliminate the petty bickering 
and political posturing, and more importantly the contentious nitpicking by
the media, which has only served to undermine candidate credibility
among voters and erode their confidence in our electoral system.

Another enormous benefit of Ms. Clinton's strategy is that with the election
in the bag, she won't have her time and energy squandered by all of the
distractions and foolishness that goes into presidential election
campaigning __ like interviews and televised debates.

Instead she can devote the entire time right up to taking the oath of office,
honing items which will be the hallmarks of her presidency: bombing Iran
and Syria; nuclear wars with both China and Russia; tripling of the
size of America's military contributions to Israel so that they can
finally put the wily Palestinians in concentration camps where they
belong; wiping North Korea off the map; building at least 1,000 more
American military bases around the world to protect everyone on the
planet from ISIS, Ebola, socialism, Putin and whatever other apocalyptic
threats might come along; mounting a Special Ops invasion of Moscow __
ala the Osama bin Laden assassination __ to capture Edward Snowden; and
burning down the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to flush out Julian
Assange.

She should be able __ as they say __ to really hit the ground running in January 2017.



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Creativity: Writing Poetry

"Such torment and bitter 

       angst is my lot!"

Folks, I am deeply saddened __  perhaps a bit shocked.

I received several thousand complaints about my previous two "creativity" 
blogs, all objecting that they were rather light on actual technique.

I've gotten the message loud and clear. This time I will be very specific about 
the process of creating a poem.

Before we get started, I confess I'm having difficulty recalling why I started writing poetry.

Frankly, I hate poetry. I find it tedious and incomprehensible.

Aah! Now I remember.

It was an ad I saw a few years ago.





That sure didn't pan out.

But I did manage to crank out a few poems and at least got the hang of it. So here we go.

Writing a poem . . .

Rhythm is very important in poetry. So when I write poems I always wear headphones
with either Eminem or Lil John blasting away at 125 db. That tunes me
in to the naturally occurring "beats" of the English language.

I wait for a word or phrase to pop into my head. 

Tabula rasa. 

Cool.

Now I think of pop singers and movie stars.

Crystal Gayle . . . The Artist Formerly Known As Prince . . . Tom Cruise . . . Brooke Shields.

Excellent! A veritable goldmine.

I chop them up and throw them together, trying to sound deep and intellectual.

A gale reels topsy turvy / Unknown be the blind enigma / Who shield the
arrogant prince / Art shan't brook the prayers / Cruise lightly the
tabula rasa / Crystal now keens the water goddess / Hear the rumbling
tom tom / Why dost thou feed the feral beast?

Admittedly this makes no sense. So we're on the right track.

Now we find rhyming words for the first, third, fifth and seventh lines.

nervy / rinse / pasta / condom

Next we create lines ending in these words.

Conscience writhes a hollow nervy / Invisible angels fear the rinse /
Yet twirl the Hades voidal pasta / Time warps he who pricks the condom

Notice that I made up a word. This is an excellent technique for putting your
readers on the defensive, playing on the fear that their vocabulary is
embarrassingly wanting.

Recognizing that rhyming, perhaps once the delight of
long dead poets, is now among the heady and hyper-cerebral denizens of
modern literary excellence laughably passé __ more the tinker toys of
vapid pop songsters __ it's time to dig out our good old Thesaurus,
either analog or digital will do just fine, and make some tasteful
substitutions.

Conscience writhe a hollow pluck / Invisible angels fear the cleanse / Yet twirl
the Hades voidal spaghetti / Time warps he who pricks the sheath

Insert these in the initial set of lines.

Okay. Almost done. Now we need a title. 

Tabula Rasa #??? 

Always choose a prime number. Let's see. '11' is such a cliche. '13' was ruined
by horror flicks. Bob Dylan screwed up '12' and '35'. They're not prime
numbers anyway.

How about? . . . 

Tabula Rasa #23 

Perfect! 

Okay, now formatting is of paramount importance. Modern poetry really
shows its inherent rebellious character here. Total non-conformity! Left
alignment is boorishly 17th and 18th Century, right alignment hackneyed
20th Century, and centering is for symmetry fetishists with terminal OCD.

Same goes for punctuation. Not that poets know how to punctuate in the first
place. But the point is why waste such a terrific opportunity for
abstruseness? Randomly scattering punctuation throughout the poem is the
perfect method for adding a tasteful dose of sheer madness and
syntactic chaos!

Alright! Let's put it all together. Behold our new masterpiece . . .

 

Notice how I slipped a near-rhyme in at the end. That should stir up some controversy!

Okay. That was easy, eh?

If you feel the need to verify my credentials, just click here and look at the several poems I've had published over the past few years. 

Scribo ergo sum.



[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Creativity: Creating Memorable Characters

 

With the incredible success of my new novel, The Man Who Loved Too Much - Book 1: Archipelago, released only two weeks ago but already peaking at #11,496 on Amazon's Fiction/Coming of Age/Fantasy/Zombies /High School Cheerleader/Romance best-seller list, people often ask me:

"John, how do you come up with your characters?"

First, I drive my Mercedes to a local ramen restaurant, where not only do they
have great meals, but I can get my kitchen knives sharpened.

I walk in and sit down. I say something in Japanese. They just roll their eyes.

An eighty-five-year-old lady is across from me, slumped over at her table.
She might be breathing but I don't see how, with her face immersed in
the bowl of noodles.

I picture her as a twenty-year-old university student, dressed in either sexy
lingerie from Fredericks of Hollywood, or a Lycra fetish costume
purchased from an online store in the West Village. There's a tennis
ball strapped in her mouth.

Now . . . what is she feeling?

Suddenly, an off-duty Japanese police officer drives through the front of the
restaurant on a Harley Davidson. There is broken glass and disposable
chopsticks everywhere!

Inspiration!

And the plot thickens.

I thought the police officer had tattoos on his arms but they are just temporary removable sheer hosiery tattoos he picked up in Thailand, while on his police precinct's annual sex tourism holiday.

He orders the lunch special, Salty Miso Beef Ramen with Deep-Fried Pork Dumplings
on the side. Of course, all the rice you can eat is included . . . and it's free!

Now I hear the sound of a helicopter hovering overhead. Understandably, my first
instinct is that it must be Navy Seals either conducting exercises or
mounting a raid. There are so many suspicious people everywhere you look
these days. Especially here in Japan!

But no, it's a medical rescue team. Four paramedics tethered to long nylon ropes
drop down onto the street out front. They rush into the restaurant. The
first medic through the door grabs the old lady's hair. He violently
yanks her head out of the bowl of ramen, then gagging, gives her
mouth-to-mouth. But it's too late. Her wind pipe is clogged with
congealed noodles. She is dead.

While they drag her body out of the restaurant to hoist it into the helicopter,
some young boys, probably elementary school age, are passing. Several of
them are taunting a pathetic little guy, who unfortunately is
cross-eyed and suffers acute lymphedema. His legs look like pontoons,
very unusual for someone his age. The other boys are mocking him by
chanting: "Dalai Lama! Dalai Lama!"

Hmm. I don't get this. Dalai Lama? But I can use it! Sometimes you need
something a little off the wall to keep a reader's attention.

All this time I've been slurping away. The food here is truly amazing! My bowl
is just about empty, when a huge stabbing pain shoots through my gut. I
feel like someone has stuck a samurai sword in my belly button, twisting
it like they're wrapping pasta around a fork.

Food poisoning!

I don't know why I keep coming here. Every time I eat here __ I mean every time!
__ it's the same thing. I get food poisoning and spend the next six
hours . . . well, you know.

My only excuse for this habitual self-sabotage is that this place has been so good for
my writing. This is where it all starts. The huge cast of misfits and
miscreants that populate my stories are all denizens of the social
tapestry of this little hole-in-the-wall soup shop.

I'll tell you something else. No way am I giving away my secret.

You can try Googling "ramen shops Japan" if you like.

Ha! Good luck finding it.


______________________________________________________________


The Man Who Loved Too Much - Book 1: Archipelago


Apple (iBook) . . . bit.ly/1ycltFD

Amazon (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1tyIRiw

Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/ZDnQVO

Smashwords . . . bit.ly/1w62HOX

Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/1r6qWYQ

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]

Creativity: The Writing Process

 

With my brand new book, The Man Who Loved Too Much, 
Book 1: Archipelago __ my sixth novel! __ arriving this month, 
people sometimes ask me:

"John, how do you get inspired to write?"

First, I turn on the fan. Then I suddenly realize I that forgot to take out the
garbage. So I do that. Of course, now I see there's all sorts of gunk in
the bottom of the garbage container from the tomatoes that went bad and
the mushrooms that turned to slime. So I have to clean up that mess.

Finally, I pour a cup of coffee and sit down to write. Oops! Forgot to check
my FB account. Whoa!!  87 new notices.  People loved that video I posted
of a kitten chasing a rhinoceros. Hmm. Bad news. It looks like over 30
people deleted me as a friend. Cold! What did I do? Could it have been
the blog I wrote about Mitt Romney being a pedophile?

I'm exhausted.  Writing sure takes it out of me.

I decide I need a nap.  I'll get 20 winks, wake up fresh, ready to really roll!

I try to sleep.  But they are slaughtering a yak next door, beating it to death
with garden rakes.  You'd think they could come up with a more humane
way to kill the thing.  Jeeez!

I take a sip of wine from a newly opened bottle to try to relax.  I decide to 
just finish the whole thing off.

The next few hours are a blank.  I wake up in the bathtub.  
I'm hugging a bag of fertilizer. The doorbell is ringing.

I run to see who it is.  Ah!  The post man.  My new Fiction Writing software 
has arrived. Excellent!  This could be the shot in the arm my career needs.

I spend the rest of the day trying to install the program.  My Windows laptop 
keeps giving me error messages. 

The library catalog file 'clusterfck.dll' is missing. Please reinstall operating system. 

After five hours of this, I am famished!

I head down to the drive-thru window for Magic Rainbow Happy Luck.
It's Chinese fast food.  But they refuse to serve me because I'm on a
bicycle.  I go inside.  Everything is in Chinese.  I order something by
pointing.  They bring me monkey entrails on a croissant. Not very
appetizing.

This would be a total waste of time, except thinking ahead, I brought my computer.
Munching away, being careful to keep the blood and grease from dripping
into my keyboard, I begin . . . 

Once upon a time, there was a large tree in the middle of an island. A boy
of eleven years old leaned against it. A stranger approached him from
behind. The boy turned. The man was wearing a 'Mitt Romney for
President' button. 

Alright!

Now we're getting somewhere.

______________________________________________________________

The Man Who Loved Too Much - Book 1: Archipelago

Apple (iBook) . . . bit.ly/1ycltFD

Amazon (Kindle) . . . amzn.to/1tyIRiw

Barnes & Noble . . . bit.ly/ZDnQVO

Smashwords . . . bit.ly/1w62HOX

Direct from printer . . . bit.ly/1r6qWYQ

[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]