Yalta, 1998, And Other Cowled Undertakings

Eighteen years ago ...


Matthew 6                                                                                     July 14
Chuck STP [Showing The Plan] tonight; Bradys and Densons   9807.14


Lay not for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:


But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, whether neither moth not rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:


For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. 19-21


For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever. Psalm 9:18


The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath. Proverbs 11:23


I have got to hear something to renew me, you know? I have got to not let people not showing up not slow me up. I do not want to be known as someone who did not keep his word when the going got tough.


Do you agree that time is a precious commodity and that you don't want to waste money? Why do you want to do this, and what do you want to do this for? Just asking this will get us started on a new cycle of growth - I've just got to get started and share this quick (5-10 minutes)! Chuck and Pat Spano built their business with just 15 tapes-ad packs.


What we're all doing - what I'm doing -- is getting hung up on showing the plan as a drawn-out, methodical act. We're the ones who need to address the time excuse at the very beginning ("Do you have an extra 10-15 hours a week? No? Then we need to talk.")


Just start TALKING! The basics of this business have never changed - we've just got to prime the pump, get to showing more plans faster just to see if they're looking! Get them looking, get them dreaming, get them excited! GET ME EXCITED!


Dig your well before you need the water. Look at that dream every day! It's the emotion that gets you excited, your hot button.


Coming up (and I'm still a pretty thorough note taker, don't you think?) ...


Damn Yalta. Actually, damn my cell phone where Saturday I tried to take a photo of Donovan, Robert, and Patrick seated together in a way that reminded me of Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at that World War Two conference. And I was thinking of this at my nephew Trevor's birthday party last Saturday ... I may have said something about that a few days ago (the party, not Yalta).

I could see this happening in Chicago. Image Comics' C.O.W.L. miniseries by Kyle Higgins and Alec Siegel with art by Rod Reis (bound in two volumes, ISBN 9781632151117 and 9781632153265) places all costumed heroes -- about three hundred according to the story, but only a half-dozen or so are main characters -- under the protection of a union, the Chicago Organized Workers League.


And quite before and in 1962 when the story takes place, C.O.W.L. and its members have been at loggerheads with city government. When the lack of major costumed villains makes many leaders question the need for the 'heroes at all, not everyone agrees how to solve the problem. Like any entrenched organization, C.O.W.L. does not want to dissolve itself.


Nor in my own fictional storyline The Progeny Cycle (three stories are done, two are in process, and one's my National Novel Writing Month project in a few months) did my main team of heroes the Superstars want to dissolve themselves. And technically they didn't, I just bring that up because I have them originally based out of Chicago, in a nod to my birth state of Illinois.


Now on the other end of the world we have the setting for Danica Novgorodoff's graphic novel The Undertaking of Lily Chen (ISBN 978196435865) where the word "undertaking" has a double meaning, heralding back to an early third century warlord's son's sudden death and his father's efforts to find a suitable and likewise recently deceased young woman to bury with him.


In parts of rural China today, these "ghost marriages" are becoming more common where a favorite son dies and his family pays a grave robber -- yep, you read that right -- for a recently deceased young woman to bury with and ostensibly be with him in the afterlife. And although this book is fiction, this is one such story.


And I was more impressed than I thought I would be. The younger son who takes the title character back with him (the other undertaking, read journey) with the intent to kill her -- again, you read that right -- finds himself torn among duty to his family, his country (he's AWOL from the Chinese air force), and his compassion. Without compassion, is not civilization impossible?

And how many of us have forgotten that?


David