Acoustic Words

THE SHORT (BACK-COVER-OF-THE-NOVEL) VERSION

• My life history, in 10 lines.

THE LONG VERSION, WITH LINKS

• My life history, somewhat longer, with links to some of the things to which I make reference.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS....

(With many, many links)

• Authors
• Composers
• Musicians (secular and Christian)
• Television Programs (current and past)
• Quotes

"FACETS OF FRIENDSHIP" LINKS

• Links to places where you can order the book, and to personal websites of other contributors to that volume.

I was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on February 12, 1952. For the longest time, I enjoyed a day off from school when I celebrated my birthday, since that was also Abraham Lincoln's birthday, a state holiday. Then they combined Lincoln's birthday with George Washington's birthday (February 22) and celebrated both on the third Monday in February as Presidents' Day, and I lost my day off.

The first few years of my life were spent in the near-west suburb of Elmhurst, Illinois. I was the eldest of four children; as the others arrived, the house became much too small, so after I was out of first grade, we moved to a larger house in Glen Ellyn, a suburb farther west. I attended Arbor View Elementary School, Glen Crest Junior High (Middle) School, and Glenbard West High School, and our family attended St. Barnabas Episcopal Church (except for my dad, who had been raised Catholic and had chosen to not attend any church).

Some time during my grade school years, I started writing. The only thing I remember about my earliest stories is that one was about giant mosquitos. In about 1965, I wrote my first poem, a remembrance on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

About that same time, I decided I wanted to start playing a musical instrument in the band. I had always had an interest in music and had attempted to take piano lessons, although I admit I didn't get very far. (I can still play, but badly; years later my music composition instructer, who was Panamanian, asked his class if we played any instruments. I mentioned that I played "a little piano". Pretending that he didn't understand, he asked, "A little piano? What is that? A toy piano?") I originally wanted to play the oboe, but I was told I didn't have the right mouth structure for it and was steered toward the horn (or French horn, as it's popularly but mistakenly called). I learned years later that I also had the wrong mouth structure for the horn, which makes me suspect that the district music program had a plethora of oboes but a lack of horns. Still, I loved the sound of the horn, and still do.

In 1966, I entered Glenbard West. The school is a beautiful old building, resembling a castle, set on a hill overlooking a small lake. In 1968, the movie, Lucas, was filmed in and around the high school; it (and several of the students) also became the basis of the TV series "Yearbook" in 1991. At Glenbard, I was pretty much a nerd (long before being a nerd was popular!). I focused on the arts and avoided gym class - this was at a time when being in two performing organizations exempted a student from Physical Education requirements, a loophole that has since been closed. I tried out for one play, "Arsenic and Old Lace", winning the role of Officer Brophy.

Two of my high school friends, Larry Ewing and John Simanton, were passionately interested in World War I Germany, and had "adopted" the personas of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Admiral Graff Maximillian von Spee, respectively. Mind you, this was before role-playing games were popular! They included several others in our circle in their "fantasy", assigning us to various other historical figures. I became Feld-Marshal General Paul Hans Anton Ludwig von Benckendorff von Hindenburg. I wasn't really interested in the history aspect, but I did have fun faking a German accent and being called "Hindy".

During our senior year, we decided to write a play based on this game. We decided that it would be a comedy - a farce, actually, reminiscent of "Hogan's Heroes". Larry and John provided many ideas, but the writing fell ultimately to me. I created a full three-act play, which we then took to our drama director and school principal and received permission to stage at the school. We then proceeded to produce, direct, and star in the play ourselves. We rounded up quite a few other students who were willing to help out in set design, sound and lighting, and acting. We opened and closed the same night; I think the cast and crew outnumbered the audience. However, we had a blast.

It was several years later that I was going through my high school mementos and ran across a copy of the program. Listed among the "extras", as a German soldier, was a freshman by the name of Gary Sinise. I did some frantic searching, and found out that this was, indeed, the Gary Sinise; he had attended Glenbard West for one year, before transferring to another high school. To the best of my knowledge, this was his first acting job. I'm proud to say, therefore, that not only have I acted with Gary Sinise, I helped give him his start! (Although I'm still waiting for him to acknowledge me in an awards acceptance speech....)

Incidentally, I'm aware of two other actors that came out of Glenbard West: Ted Wass, who was in the same class with me from grade school on, and Sean Hayes, who was born the year I graduated and thus had to find fame without my help. (Sidetrack: I earlier mentioned the TV series "Yearbook"; one of the students featured in that series, Kris North, wasn't popular enough in high school to get a date to Homecoming that year, so for the series, she asked a friend to come back from college and take her to the dance. That friend was a pre-fame Sean Hayes.)

You know, as long as I'm haphazardly dropping names about the landscape, I may as well drop one more. During most of my time at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, I was an altar boy under the leadership of Father Dan Montague. He left before I did; I learned years later that he left the church to work for the government, after which he became an author with two books to his credit: White Wings and Second Chance.

But enough with the name dropping!

During my high school years, I spent three summers at the Hull House Art and Music Camp in East Troy, Wisconsin. I majored mostly in music there; however, I was also actively involved in their Creative Writing program. My final year there I wrote a short story that was published in the camp magazine. It was basically a bargain-basement "Twilight Zone"-style story, involving a space ship that gets lost in space and lands on a hostile-looking planet. While exploring, the crew gets picked off one at a time by giant creatures (the most sublimely ridiculous scene was where one of the crew gets carried away by a giant chipmunk) until the rest are stomped into oblivion by a giant child. The twist? The ship and crew had been shrunk by "cosmic rays" and had wound up back on Earth.

Also during this time, I started writing my first novel. Titled "Future Imperfect", it told of a space explorer who got lost and found himself back on Earth (do we begin to see a pattern here?), but this time in the far future. He finds all the people living below ground in huge caves stocked with all sorts of technological marvels and governed by one world leader, while the surface is given over to a beautiful, global park. He falls in love with the leader's daughter, then discovers that below the caves lies a series of subterranean slave mines wherein live the slaves that keep the elite populace fed and cared for. The traveller and his lady love choose to lead a revolt among the slaves. Yes, I realize that the plot is trite - but don't forget, I was a tender young teenager. And anyway, the plot was about 35 years fresher at the time!

In any case, don't bother looking for either work in any bookstore near you.

On the music front, my high school orchestra director (Merlin Escott) had encouraged me to audition for the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra. I was accepted, I believe, during my junior year, and played 4th chair French horn with them until I graduated and went to college. The orchestra at the time was conducted by Gordon Peters, principal percussionist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so I got to experience some really challenging music. During that time, I had written a short story, "The Game", which was reminiscent of The Lord of the Flies. I found out that our third chair hornist was married to a magazine editor. She interceded for me, and he agreed to look at the story and gave me some very valuable advice. More importantly, he gave a young author enough encouragement to carry through another 30 years plus!

The summer after I graduated, I auditioned for a position in the All-American Youth Honor Band, which was made up of young musicians from around the country. I was accepted. After a couple of days of intensive rehearsal, we performed, under the direction of Dr. Frederick Fennell, at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, then flew to Osaka, Japan, where we performed at Expo 70, Japan's first international exposition/world's fair.

I received my first regular paycheck when I was about 14 and became the church janitor at St. Barnabas. Other jobs I held up into my college days: busboy at two different restaurants; game and ride operator for a local carnival; and door-to-door appointment setter for a central air conditioning company.

In 1970 I started attending Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. I began majoring in Music Education, with the intent of becoming a high school music teacher. However, I was overwhelmed by the teaching classes I had to take, and changed my major to Music Composition, studying under Roque Cordero. If I could reach back through the years and communicate with my younger self, I would warn him to take some kind of English or writing or communications major and save the music composition for a minor. On the other hand, I doubt I would listen. At about the same time, I changed my instrument from French horn to trombone.

Two important things happened during my freshman year. First, I discovered WGLT, the campus public radio station. At that time, WGLT broadcast primarily classical music with a student staff. I listened and was appalled at how the announcers were butchering the composers' names. I decided I could do better than that, and applied. I was accepted in the spring of my freshman year and continued working at the station through the rest of my time at ISU. I was named their best announcer during my student years, and continued on the full-time staff as chief announcer for a year after graduation. I also did programming and production work for them during that time.

In October of my freshman year, a couple of guys from the campus branch of The Navigators dropped by our room. The Navs are a worldwide Christian organization that began in the U.S. Navy in the 1930s and later grew to include college campuses. I was always willing to engage in a little philosophical discussion - I still am - and spent some time trying to convert them to paganism while they tried to convert me to Christianity. Ultimately, the reasoning of the Bible and the power of God proved to be beyond anything I could muster and, in May 1971 I gave my life to God and Christ.

Aside from a scant handful of poems, the only writing I did in college was an attempt at another novel. Titled "Kit", this was to be a picaresque novel set in the late 60s/early 70s. It would follow the main character, Kit Thomas, as he wandered the country and became involved in some of the defining moments of that era. I didn't finish much more than one chapter and a few scattered other pages, but I haven't totally abandoned the idea. On other fronts, I started developing my style as an artist, and I started getting more serious about composing. As to the former, I've found that I work best with a simple #2 pencil and some facial tissue or cotton for shading (all the illustrations for The Eros Variations were created that way). And as far as the latter is concerned, my primary interest is in instrumental classical music, although I've written a couple of songs (I've included the lyrics on my poetry page). My style is something I would call Neo-Romantic; that is, while I use the "language" of the 20th (and 21st) century, such as dodecaphonic (12-tone) and atonal melodies and harmonies and constantly shifting time signatures, my goal is to engage the listener's heart more than his or her head. I've written a full symphony to accompany The Eros Variations; the background for the page on this site dedicated to "The Novels" is a reproduction of a few measures of part of the score.

I also tried my hand at arranging and conducting. I was chosen as "music director" for our dorm complex (Walker/Dunn-Barton Halls) in a campus-wide Homecoming talent show my freshman year, and arranged several pieces (including "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler On the Roof, "The Gospel of No Name City" from Paint Your Wagon, "Before the Parade Passes By" from Funny Girl, and a couple other songs) for voice and a pit orchestra (piano, trumpet, trombone, sax, violin, and drums). I conducted the group for both nights of the talent show. Walker/Dunn-Barton won second place overall, and first place for musical adaptation and presentation, beating out Watterson Towers, which, because it was right across the street from the Fine Arts building, was where many of the musicians lived.

There's not much else to say about my college career. I graduated on the 5-Year Cram Plan (I crammed four years of college into five) with a Bachelor's degree in Music Composition in 1975. That, however, was far from the highlight of the year. For that summer I married a beautiful young blonde with sparkling eyes and a gentle soul. Her name is Ame. I was 23 that summer, and she had just turned 19. We've had our moments, of course, but going on 30 years later, we're still as much in love as we were that summer. We've had two children. Our son was born in 1980 and is living with his girlfriend here in town; his dream is to make a career as either an artist or a musician. Our daughter was born in 1984, and is currently majoring in psychology. Her hobby is photography.

We moved just up the road to Normal's twin city, Bloomington, and have lived here ever since (albeit not at the same address!). During that time, we've raised two kids, three rabbits, two cats, and a smattering of hamsters, fish, and mice, although the latter was unintentional.

Since leaving WGLT in 1976, I worked as a construction worker (for one day!) and supervisor of records at a small local insurance company before landing a position as a machinist with General Electric's Bloomington Industrial Systems factory. I also worked as a welder in the factory, and eventually got my current job in quality control, inspecting incoming vendors' material. I had a three year layoff in the 80s; during that time I worked a myriad of jobs before being called back to GE, including piano salesman in the local mall, pizza delivery, school bus driver, and Avon representative.

I started seriously writing short stories during the early years of our marriage. Several of them have been relegated to the trash, but a few have survived and can be found on my "Short Stories" page. I also began writing a novel, The Fire and The Light. This 450,000-word epic fantasy trilogy took me six years to write. I sent it to one of the top fantasy and science-fiction agents in the United States; he returned it with a very nice 8-page explanation of why he didn't think he could sell it. Since one of the main reasons was that the epic fantasy trilogy market was glutted (otherwise, he said, he would be willing to take a chance on it), I've been sitting on it in hopes that the market would come around again. I intend to start revising it in the near future, cutting it down to a much more manageable size. After all, consider that the "average" novel, about an inch thick in hardcover, runs 50,000 to 70,000 words. I'd written between six and nine "average" novels there! It was, however, the first novel I had ever finished, and it proved that I could write a complete longer work. Subsequent novels, Mindgames (at about 60,000 words) and The Eros Variations (at about 100,000 words), were so much simpler by comparison!

In early 2001, I joined an internet writing workshop, Creative Writers. After being a member there for two years, I joined the managment team as an assistant manager. In 2004, I became principle manager (more by attrition than anything). While there, I participated in a self-published book, "Facets of Friendship" (see also below).

When we first got married, Ame and I started attending Vale Baptist Church (which has since become Vale Community Church). We switched over to First Assembly of God in Normal after a few years; after a few more years we started attending Lily Chapel in Mackinaw, which was loosely affiliated with the Association of Vineyard Churches at the time, and which is now Judah International Ministries. A splinter church, Celebration Christian Fellowship, started in Bloomington/Normal; we became one of the founding families for that. When it fell apart, we ended up at the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Bloomington/Normal, where we attended for 15 years or so. Starting with the first day of 2005, we started attending Eastview Christian Church in Normal.

To Be Continued....

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Here are some of my favorite authors, composers, musicians, etc., etc., etc. Most have links to other sites; please let me know if any of these links are broken!

AUTHORS

COMPOSERS

MUSICIANS

• Secular (some of these are also Christian, but their primary audience is secular)

• Christian

 I managed a coffeehouse through Vineyard Christian Fellowship for about three years. Some of the following artists -- those marked with * -- appeared at the coffeehouse. Others -- marked with ** -- would have appeared, but we were unable to work out details before the coffeehouse folded. Still, they sent me demo CDs, which is where I learned of them. Check out both the *s and the **s -- I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

TELEVISION PROGRAMS

• Current

• Past

QUOTES

• "I will not permit any man to narrow or degrade my soul by making me hate him" --Booker T. Washington
• "Those who refuse responsibility deserve what they get." --Sen. John W. Fulbright, Speech at Kansas State University, May 5, 1967
• "Never doubt in the darkness that which you believed in the light." --Stephen R. Lawhead, Byzantium, Ch. 3
• "The part of philanthropist is indeed a dangerous one; and the man who would do his neighbor good must first study how not to do him evil, and must begin by pulling the beam out of his own eye." --George MacDonald, Lilith, Ch. 14
• "No wonder men were often frightened of women. They had a way of getting to the heart of things, a dangerous place sometimes." --Nevada Barr, Blind Descent, Ch. 13
• "There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." --W. Somerset Maugham
• "The nature of God is a circle of which the centre is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere."--Unknown (possibly from a lost treatise by Empedocles)
• "Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history." --Aristotle, Politics
• "Nature is but a name for an effect, / Whose cause is God." --William Cowper, The Task, bk vi, The Winter Walk at Noon
• I don't pretend to understand the Universe--it's a great deal bigger than I am. . . . People ought to be modester." --Thomas Carlyle, remark to Wm. Allingham, cited in Carlyle in Old Age by Wilson and MacArthur
• "If Jesus Christ were to come to-day, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it." --Thomas Carlyle, cited in Wlson's Carlyle at his Zenith
• "There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Divinatione
• "He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all." -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection: Moral and Religious Aphorisms, xxv
• "Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter." -- Oliver Goldsmith, The Good-Natured Man, Act I
• "When we encounter a natural style we are always astonished and delighted, for we expected to see an author, and found a man." -- Blaise Pascal, Pensees
• "The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything." -- Edward John Phelps, Speech at Mansion House, 24 Jan. 1899

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These are links associated with the anthology Facets of Friendship for I wrote the foreword and in which I have "Letters From Lupus", "Of Dogs and Consequences", "I'll Be There", and "October Ride" published. The first three are sources from which to purchase the book; the others are the personal websites of some of the other contributors (those who have sites!).

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