Posted on August 28, 2014 by Billy Ray Chitwood


                                                                   Was Einstein Right?

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Okay, perhaps it is natural that an aging crustacean (as in ‘Crab’!) like me should be writing a post like this…you know how we are: grumpy, bitching and moaning about this and about that. But, know what? We have never been here in this place!

This place?

This place in the chronology of humankind! This place where cell phones are accessories to killing people on our streets…this place where a romantic dinner is interrupted by the musical chime-ring of the latest ‘carry along do-it-all’ world data gatherer and communication gadget that everyone just has to have – sort of like the past when we tried to keep up with the Jones or Smiths…this place where the intellectually informed folks who maybe ought to know what is happening in their country and world are not making the rounds so much…this place where the new games on these weirdly-wired gadgets show the blood and gore of our imaginary kills…

You know this place of which I speak, and, yes, technology has its upside – the dictionary is there in your pocket or your purse to check the big word someone used while trying to impart something boring and unimportant.  That little gadget can allow you to really blast someone you do not like, call her/him names, make threatening and obscene remarks, and you can even do it anonymously. What a sweet deal! You can be the bully without getting punched in the nose!

Oh, there are a few who are not so addicted to this great technology of ours that they have time to see armies clashing around the world…they have time to see the ineptness of our own government in forming goals and objectives for countering the new world of terrorists – or, should I be politically correct and say ‘radical Islamists’? Well, you know of whom I speak, those creepy crawling bugs that have been around for thousands of years spewing their hatred and genocidal actions, vowing to kill all infidels and to rule the world… Yes, those of you playing your monster games, these terrorists are infiltrating our countries, our cities, and the minds of their youth, finding it easier and easier to corrupt and dislodge great historical principles and wisdom, ‘shredding’ documents and laws by which generic man has lived in hope and security.

We have made a few blunders in our living… We have given too much to those who would wish us harm and death. We have misread the tea-leaves of history too often. We have made noble efforts to make our country and the world a better place. Despite our blunders, we are the bold and the good of everyman. Are we now to somehow prove to the world we were frauds in our ideals? Damned tootin! I’m talking about America, the greatest nation on earth. We all thought that was the case. Are we not still? All countries in the world look toward our shores, many relying on us not only for support, monetary and otherwise, in their times of crises.

We got to this place somehow, maybe through all the doubling and re-doubling of knowledge that brought us tremendous growth in technology – and those cursed chatty cell phones…wonderful inventions but easy substitutes for our real selves. Scientific knowledge and technology are good but it seems in so many ways we are making them bad. This place in which we find ourselves can be very scary and depressing. We need government leaders of grand vision and wisdom who can ignite that greatness that I felt and saw during the greatest generation, leaders who do the peoples’ business without posturing and wavering with the tools Science and Technology have provided. We do not have to stay in this place! We need to kill the ‘terrorist bugs’ that are attempting to fulfill their ‘virginal’ quests.   

We might find Einstein was partially right in his observation…but, idiots, we are not, even those using the cell phones, playing their games and forgetting how to socialize without cell phone messaging.

We are, after all, the United States of America. As our English brethren might intone in Winston Churchill’s fashion, “Let’s show these buggers what we have!”

By Billy Ray Chitwood 

A Common Evil - MY NEW BOOK!

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Yes, I’m bad! Plugging my new book – the sixth and likely the final book in the Bailey Crane Mystery Series. Each of the books in the series stand alone… Really, shouldn’t you read these books? They’re fun reads, and Bailey always gets the bad guys! All twelve of my books (mystery, suspense, romance, memoir, politics, government) are presented on http://billyraychitwood.weebly.com.

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Tilt Posted on August 21, 2014 by Billy Ray Chitwood


                                                                                       Tilt

Smoking was not allowed in the dimly lit arcade but the scent of marijuana was strong, carried in by its users, the odor clinging to the clothes, mixing with body sweat, cheap perfume, after shave, and competitive fear emanating from the players’ pores. Curse words, groans, grunts, and the constant electronic sounds spewed forth from the machines…the roaring motors of race cars, bomb bursts, gun battles, beeps, and harsh monotonic whirs of games gone tilt from constant pounding and use. The big warehouse-like building held them all – the common and now highly sophisticated pinball machines, war battle machines for single or double play with hand-held remotes, car racing machines, more complicated and different versions of Pac-Man… All were there.

The big room was crowded with teenagers and adults, male and female. For me it was rather fascinating to see this different culture, this rapt attention to machines. My bored editor felt a good public interest piece could be garnered from my visit to ‘Tilt’, a relatively new enterprise begun just a month prior by two Chinese investors… The only reason for my editor’s interest, he had passed the ‘Tilt’ on the way to his bank and saw so many people and their cars filling up the parking lot – he had not known that arcades still possessed such drawing power.

Walking among the crowd I got jostled several times by the over-exuberant players, not even mindful that they had touched me…so rapt was their self-involvement. The noise was not so shatteringly loud. It was just pesky, like the steady hum of a bunch of houseflies. I found it fascinating, the taut serious faces of the crowd lost in the moments of conquest, fighting these mechanical bulks of electronic imagery.

Paused behind a large teenager, his face covered with acne and perspiration, his arms and hands frantically moving the hand-held objects to stay some ultimate course and reach a high-scoring goal, a flying elbow came at me, caught me flush on the temple, and I went down, confused and stunned by the sudden swirling of the room. I tried to get up, but my body swayed and the entire area around me began to sway and rattle madly. Bolts and metals parts came flying dangerously close by me. I closed my eyes, shook my head, sure that I must be hallucinating. When I opened again my eyes, the scene was worse.

The machines became shadowy floating objects of different colors, blue, green, red, yellow, and I was ducking out of their way as they went by me. Then I saw the floor ahead of me coming apart, ripping, becoming a gaping one-foot aperture, getting wider as it came toward me. The crowd began screaming. The machines became a cacophonous roar, their bright colors disappearing in dissonant swoons all around me.

I reached for a shiny metal wall rail which seemed unaltered by the clamor. There I clung, both hands grasping tightly the round metal, while bodies and the machines were sucked downward into the jagged fissure. I screamed but could not hear my voice. A blond lady who resembled my wife came flailing toward me, her face fixed in disbelief and horror, her hands reaching out to me for help. But I could not let go of the rail.

Then came the turbulent wind! Now I could see grotesque images of men and women, their hair seemingly drawn straight out from their scalps to become part of the landscape of terror. My body was rigid there on the rail and unaccountably not in discomfort. As my mind registered that thought the world went black and deathly silent…

The grayness slowly spread itself into light, hazy at first but growing into a purity of brightness. The brightness came with forms and sounds…beeping sounds and voices with echoic effects. My mind was initially reluctant to accept possibilities of this current reality, but slowly it made its way to a conclusion, just as the purity of brightness gained contour and completeness.

It was a hospital room, my mind suggested, not a heaven nor a hell nor an alien planet. Now from the echoic voices came the solid enunciations of some recognition. Was my wife in the room, noticing my stirring, speaking to a doctor, a nurse, to whom? I found no language clarity in the seemingly faraway words. Then, a spasm within my head made void all sound and I was being absorbed by some pleasant paralysis.

Then, the moment passed, and, again, came the clamor and din, the colors, the machines, the vortex from hell, and my body would not move to avoid once more the blackness that came to engulf me. Just before the blackness a thought came, prosaic in its numbness… Was this the end of days of which I had heard so much?

                                                          Flash Fiction by Billy Ray Chitwood

NOTE: My 12th book was just published. It was inspired by some personal experiences and some actual events in Mexico. It is set along the Sea of Cortez in a small fishing village and has kidnapping, murder, mystery, suspense, and intrigue. It has 5-Star Reviews, and I hope you enjoy the read.

                                                    A COMMON EVIL - A BAILEY CRANE MYSTERY (6)

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Our Crazy Wonderful WorldPosted on August 13, 2014 by Billy Ray Chitwood


Our Crazy Wonderful World

Do you ever idly surf youtube.com, listen and watch the musical and singing talent that appears on the various global ‘got talent’ and ‘X-Factor’ shows? I spent a morning doing just that and felt some strong emotional stirrings bringing tears to the brim.

Musicians and singers as young as nine years old, some as wide as a small VW, female, male, all colors, shapes, and sizes, came on stage giving the judges preconceived negative notions as to their talents. When the unique and wonderful quality of their instruments and/or voices reached those doubtful ears of the judges and the audiences, eyes opened saucer-like, faces altered, and mouths were momentarily locked in a community gape of jaws.

The cameras focused on the stunned people as they slowly began to utter their words of OMG and disbelief, stood in unison to applaud and roar approval. Tears came to many eyes on the judges’ stand and in the large auditorium.

“Unbelievable!” said the judges. “This is incredible!” said the judges. “Amazing!” On and on the praise was delivered to the thrilled singers, most of whom cast their lovely humility and thanks.

My morning idling led me to search my heart, mind, and soul for appropriate digestion of what I saw…being a hopeless romantic and aging seeker of metaphysical truth. The best I can offer is this:

I saw the ‘beauty and the beast’ that abides in all of us…

A long-haired, obese and scraggly young male appears on stage with a young and pretty female. The male is shy and barely audible as he answers the questions of the judges. The petite female is more casual and open in her responses. There is a palpable awkwardness felt all the way into my great room television. Then, magically, there comes the beautifully booming operatic voice of the obese male and the accompanying female’s harmonious notes of unity, a tour de force with everyone standing and applauding.

I saw a young girl, Melissa Venema and her trumpet join the official orchestra of Holland and Andre Rieu to play magnificently ll Silenzio, a version of Taps.

I saw a handsome fourteen-year old lad from Australia sit on a stool with his guitar and bring the tears to all assembled with a voice so vibrant and clear, singing songs he himself wrote.

I saw nine-year old Amira Willighagen sing O Mio Babbino Caro with Andre Rieu’s orchestra, with outstanding beauty and clarity.

As I spent most of my morning surfing these venues on YouTube it came to me that our world is rich in beauty and talent, regardless the skins and structures our DNA dictate, regardless ages. The big question I asked myself in listening to the music of the varied many, why did it evoke tears? Were the tears a natural protocol of the aging masses? Tears of joy for the performing youth? Tears of sadness that these joyous sounds had only this momentary passage in my life already lived? Tears of remembrance for beloved comedians who made people laugh with their pieces of genius?

The only answer which satisfied me was that my soul recognized some eternal message of the ages – Love conquers the beast (the evil) that hides in all of us. The caveat that followed? It seems so much of the world in its misery cannot accept the beauty that surrounds it, and the soul cries in torment. Are the tears but another way in which God tries to reach us, to tell us that there in eternity we will find the beauty found in some idle morning of surfing?

                                                                                   Billy Ray Chitwood

(This post dedicated to ‘crazy and wonderful’ Robin Williams who made all of us momentarily forget pain and suffering with his frantic comic genius… Rest in Peace, Good Robin!)

                                                                                               ***

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