Full-time Army POG. CW4. Sci-fi writing. Has won some awards.
Wasatch Front
Joined April 2022
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The young woman stopped at the busy street corner to observe why a crowd had gathered. Everyone had their cell phones out and raised high overhead to record what was going on. She strained on the balls of her feet to get a glimpse, then decided to simply wait for people to grow bored and move on. In 2059 it was a guarantee that people would lose interest quickly and be on their way.
When the crowd cleared a bit she got a good look at the old man seated on a stool with a shingle seemingly gripped by his thumb in one hand, and a long stick poised in the other—with a tuft of hair wrapped tightly at one end.
The old man would occasionally dab the tuft of hair at the shingle—covered in splotches and blobs of different color—then apply the color to part of a two-foot-by-three-foot white rectangle erected on a stout wooden triangle.
“What is he doing?” the young woman asked her phone, showing the phone's ever-watchful camera lens what was happening.
“THE MAN IS USING A BRUSH TO APPLY OIL PAINT TO A CANVAS.”
She stared at him while he worked for several minutes, seemingly oblivious to the people who passed. Like the young woman, all of them had their phones out and were busy asking this or that question—about their next meal, their next appointment, their next purchase, their next vote in the next election—and occasionally they’d stop long enough to inquire about the man’s activity. Then be gone. In the modern world people lost interest fast.
But something about the way the old-timer was intensely and singularly focused on his project intrigued the young woman. She could remember her grandfather looking like that when he’d had the hood of his ancient gasoline-engined car open on Saturday mornings. Fussing with this or that problem. Always intent on getting the issue solved himself despite the fact he could have asked his cell phone to tell him how to solve it in far less time.
“You’d get better results using CreateBoxAI,” she said to him after stepping forward to look over his shoulder.
He ignored her. Or didn’t hear? She couldn’t be sure. His hand holding the brush never stopped moving as he dabbed it gently on the stretched fabric, leaving curious patterns of paint which were physical as much as visual.
“CreateBoxAI has that exact feature,” she continued. “My brother uses it all the time when he wants to make backgrounds for his games.”
Still, the old-timer said nothing. Just kept working.
She risked being called rude and peered into the ear closest to her. Nope, no ear buds. Could he be deaf?
“Why do this out here?” she asked, “Especially when you don’t have a ProVid set up to record content for WatchToob. You could probably monetize if you put this there, just time-lapse sped up so people could see start to finish.”
“Who says I care about content?” the old-timer said, pausing his work to put the brush down next to several others. Some of which had oil paint on the hair, some of which had yet to be used.
“Why do anything unless it’s for content?” she replied, genuinely astonished. “Nobody does a thing like this in public except for uploading it to WatchToob or YakTalk or one of the other apps.”
He turned to look at her and she could see the little silver hairs of stubble on his tanned and wrinkled face. His brown eyes were shaded by the floppy-brimmed hat he wore, but they were keen and bright. Like her grandfather’s eyes when he was working on his old car.
“There was a time, my dear, when the painting itself was the point,” he said. “Not the making of the painting. Not the action of painting. Just the painting. There are still a few places around the country that display such things, though I hesitate to call what’s hanging in them ‘art’ because I don’t think those people have taken themselves seriously at all this century.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling his scrutiny on her now that she’d gotten his attention. “But you seem to be trying to make a likeness of that old bronze statue in the roundabout. What’s the point of doing that when you could just get a picture with your phone?”
“Indeed,” he said, picking up a fresh brush and dabbing it in a new color, which he then began to touch carefully around the edges of the shapes on the white surface he’d created prior.
She waited for him to continue. But when he didn’t, she started to lose patience with him and put her phone away. Weird people were a dime a dozen in the city. This old man just happened to be weirder than most.
“I could show your brother how to do it the real way,” he said without looking at her as she turned to take the crosswalk.
“What?” she asked, coming back to stand next to him.
The old man stopped his work and looked up at her from beneath the soft fabric of his hat. “You said your brother makes games.”
“He does. He’s a Microdev. Him and three of his friends. They’ve got three games released through the Dieselengine app which have done okay. Enough to pay the rent, at least. My brother does a lot with visuals.”
“I could show him how to do a lot more, if he asked,” the old man said.
“He wouldn’t care about this,” she said, waving a hand at the canvas. “He vibeprompts his backgrounds. He can do it and make it look like what you’re doing, just faster.”
“Of course,” he said. “Why do it the slow way when you can do it the quick way.”
“My question exactly!” she said, this time returning some of his scrutiny. Eyebrow raised.
The painter sighed.
“Let me tell you a quick story,” he said, resting both arms on his knees, the shingle with the blobs of oil paint on it still hooked with his thumb. “When I was a boy my father used to bring me to the local library. No, not the digital version you’ve used all your life. I mean the real, actual library, with real, actual paper books. Pages you could turn. Anyway, at the library I found a book with glossy paintings in it. Otherworldly, I must say. Depicting other planets around other stars. Aliens. Galaxies. Spaceships. That sort of sci-fi thing. And I couldn’t put it down. I checked it out from the library over and over again. Until I begged my mother to let me get some paints of my own.”
“You couldn’t just use Photopaint app on your tablet?” she interrupted.
“No apps in those days, my dear. No tablets like you know them, either. Except steno, but nobody does shorthand anymore, either. Anyway, my mother gets me some paints for Christmas, and I get into every class at school I can that’ll let me use them, and as time passed I covered all the walls and even the ceiling of my bedroom with what I painted. Oh, none of it was very good, of course. But it felt good, you know? It felt like I’d done something, each time I finished. And I guess little by little I got better. Until my Junior High and then High School showed my work at night, then behind glass in the foyer. And by then I was getting commissions, and would you believe I could make some money at it?”
An older pedestrian almost the same age as the painter stopped and observed the canvas, then tapped his fingers on his phone before putting it on top of the painter’s own phone, which was perched on a selfie rigged with the phone upward at waist level. The painter’s phone made a happy noise, then the pedestrian nodded his head approvingly and moved on.
“Still making money,” she said. “Though, I’m sure you could monetize for a lot more on the apps.”
“Oh, I probably could,” the painter said. “But the problem with content is it becomes distracting making the damned stuff, versus simply doing what it is you set out to do in the first place. Plus, there’s just something different about people seeing a painting live and in person, versus watching it done on an app. Would you have stopped to talk to me otherwise? How much would this have piqued your interest if you’d simply been swiping?”
“Not much,” she admitted.
“There you go,” the painter said, giving her a smile. “There’s something that’s just special about doing it the old-fashioned way. Besides, I’d never be able to compete on the apps. There are a zillion people all trying to do that kind of thing. I’d rather come out here when the weather’s pleasant and do a little impressionistic practice where people can see. Because some day there won’t be anyone like me anymore. Everyone will have watcha-box-AI or whatever you said it was, and nobody will have the stamina to learn like I learned. Has your brother ever actually used pencils on paper? Watercolors, even?”
She stared at the old man, not quite sure what to say. Nobody in their home growing up had used paper for anything. Not even grocery lists.
“I thought so,” was all he said, his smile falling into a frown. But not at her specifically, she sensed. Rather, his sharp eyes suddenly had a cloud of sorrow cross them. A sorrow so deep it almost hurt to see it.
“You’re sad,” she said.
“Of course I’m sad,” the painter said. “When there are no more people like me—no one around to teach you kids how it’s done—there will be centuries of effort lost. A whole vocation swept into the dustbin of history. I haven’t seen anyone your age actually apply oils to canvas in probably twenty years or more. And I don’t mean that garbage in the swanky galleries where some idiot shits on a brick and calls it art. I mean someone under twenty who takes the time to actually learn how to use brushes, oils, stretch and gesso their own canvases, yadda yadda. All that boring hard work that nobody’s got interest in anymore because they can just do it on an app.”
His last sentence had venom in it. But again, not directed at her specifically. He’d stopped looking at her altogether and let his eyes become unfocused as he talked. Staring at nothing.
“Anyway,” the painter said, sensing her discomfort. “Not your fault the world is what it is. I was just hoping maybe your brother might be curious enough to want to come see.”
“On second thought, he actually might,” she said. “He’s got talent. And he sometimes talks about wishing he could bring some of the old-style paintings into the games. But copyright scares him. Too many Microdevs always on the hook for lawsuits.”
“I could show him how to do the old style and never fear a copyright infraction in his life,” the painter said enthusiastically.
“Okay,” she replied, “I’ll tell him. And I hope you don’t mind if I bring myself along again next time, too.”
“That’d be a treat,” the painter said, his eyes brightening.
Then he went back to doing what he’d been doing before she interrupted him. And she watched as his brush strokes gradually brought new dimension to the shapes on the canvas, and before long he had created a very interesting likeness of the statue which was not an attempt to be realistic, but rather something else. What had he called it? Impressionistic?
She raised her phone to her chin to ask it what the word meant, then thought better of herself. Somehow asking the AI to give her the answer—here, standing next to this old guy who was doing what so few now knew how to do—felt vulgar. So, she simply tapped her fingers on her phone, then applied the face of her phone to the face of his phone on its upright selfie stick.
Again, his phone made a happy sound.
“Thank you, my dear,” he said. “That’s quite generous of you.”
“Just promise me when we come back you’ll still be on this corner!” she said over her shoulder as she got on with her day.
“Unless it’s pouring rain, I will be here!” he said. And lifted the shingle on his thumb high over his head in salute.
THE PAINTER—AN X VIGNETTE BY BRAD R. TORGERSEN
I am open to being wrong, but I don't think it's off to fear the dissolving of creative arts (any art) into the AI ocean.
In another generation or two we could inhabit a world where AI has literally designed everything: buildings, roads, cities, peoples' personal lives, etc. When literally every human being depends on his phone to tell him his meal and work plan, who to date, where to vacation, how to vote . . .
The human being will follow the path of least resistance and let the machines do it all.
I fear what our society looks like when that is not just normal, there are too few left who know the Old Ways to pass them on to the young.
Unless you have skin in the creative game it doesn't seem obvious why leaning more and more on AI for all manner of creative effort is a losing wager for both the human mind, and the human soul.
Forget about sand worms and Spice, the thing Herbert got dead right about his universe was the Butlerian Jihad: the idea that after a long period of apathy during which humanity languished in an almost infantile state—letting machines do literally everything—humanity rebelled.
I see nothing in peoples' rush to adopt AI to convince me that we're gonna avert this fate. Far from it. When everyone's phones and tablets and laptops are a mere gateway to the data centers doing all the knowledge work, what's left? Who has the time or will to actually *MAKE* something?
And no, prompting and vibe coding is not the same. Faster. Only ever faster. Not a superior mode for creating.
Could I be wrong? Sure.
But I doubt it. As someone who's seen his specific slice of the infotainment sphere fall head-over-heels for AI.
My friends know my wife is a huge anti-Trumper. She believes firmly that he's gonna seize permanent power and never let go. She knows this in her soul and cannot be dissuaded from the certainty by any argument. I know. I've tried.
Setting aside the fact the man is *old* and has no desire for a third term, I keep coming back to the fact that Trump has become the defining personality of American politics in the 21st century. Doesn't matter if I think he's a showboating showman with no real statesmanship. He towers over Obama, W. Bush, every Senator, every Congressman, every Governor, etc.
Everyone and everything just pings and pongs off the hull of the U.S.S. Trump and it's all reactive politics all the time. Even the DSA—who are Communists cloaked in Millennial metrosexualism—just hurl rotten fruit at this guy. Using him to hype up their growing base. If he did not exist they would have to invent him.
The Orange One is the dragon breathing fire across the American political scene, and the number of jousting pugilists who tilt at the Orange windmill is legion.
He defines who they are. Never the opposite. And I suspect in many ways this is what drives their hate.
My ultimate fear remains: Gen Z is going to be wooed by the promises of the DSA and once the DSA controls the branches of government it will institute sweeping nationalization of property and businesses.
All of us oldsters who got land the old fashioned way will be ordered to surrender it, or face jail.
And I am not going to jail.
More importantly, though, the suspension of private land in the U.S. will usher in permanent serfdom for Gen Z and all who come later. Never able to accrue capital—unless they are already a big-c Corporate or big-g Government connected entity—the vast majority of Americans will become despondent tenants. A huge labor class which constantly has to be plussed up by waves of fresh imports from worse-off continents across the globe.
Because Americans have lost the will to have families.
It's a horror show for the American dream. And it might happen in my lifetime. If Gen Z is thoroughly bamboozled and demoralized the way I fear they are being bamboozled and demoralized.
THIS. Exactly. My first exposure to mail ballot fraud was the Rossi-Gregoire race in WA State over twenty years ago. The (D)s of King County used "discovered" mail ballots during successive recounts to get ahead of the (R) and then of course the race got called. Magically, the mail ballots benefitted Gregoire by something like a 4-1 margin.
And this is how it always works. The tubs of mail ballots will ALWAYS benefit the people conducting the cheat, never the reverse. And who are the ones egging like mad for mail-in voting? The (D)s.
I've said before the Rossi-Gregoire debacle was the pivot that switched me off from voting (D) pretty much permanently. In the 1990s I'd voted (D) frequently, but I was shocked to see them not only cheat in a Governor race, they then *bragged* about the cheat. "This is revenge for Gore losing in 2000!" and so forth.
They now want license to permanently cheat in almost every major race which could swing power in D.C. They are still sore that the rise of Trump thwarted their permanent one-party rule in the Capitol.
Never, ever trust anyone who is egging for mail-in. It is a tool for destroying honest ballot counting.
Anyone remember that old SNL skit, "The Comments Section"? I think of that every time some rando retortbot wanders through and xits on something I've written, or a comment from someone else. I really do hope it's true bots or paid farm activity. Because if it's live human beings who get a kick out of endlessly browsing through Xitter for the express purpose of xitting on peoples' posting and commenting . . . holy cow, what a miserable existence they've gotta have.
I've tried to figure out the purpose of the rando retortbots. They always have low-follow, low-follower numbers, and their sole purpose seems to be wandering around Xitter taking a xit on peoples' poasting for no real reason on than the xit *is* the reason.
Are they true ghosts of the data center? Actual (sad) human beings who think it's amusing to endlessly troll? Paid farm accounts from outside the U.S. conducting an op? Something in between?
I liked very much that the power of the elves (in the films) was non-specific. It's largely implied by the reverence shown the elves, and the fact that they can occasionally do things like lend their souls (or a piece thereof?) so that another, lesser folk might live.
The 48-hour whirlwind fishing tour concluded at East Canyon today. The guys trolling in the jon boat 50 yards off shore from me? Catching. The family down the bank using cheese and worms? Catching. The guy with two thumbs and an unhealthy obsession for spoons and spinners? Not catching. But it was still a lovely two hours!
When I got back from the Middle East ten years ago I swore I'd make a point of getting up into my local Mountain West territory and appreciating it.
All that flat, infernal ME desert convinced me I'd been taking my home state for granted.
I have now spent the past 48 hours again being out and about in my home state. Fished 1 lake, 1 reservoir, and 1 river. Saw much natural loveliness during my most favorite time of year. Such a treat to have these mountains and this climate.
Landlocked light house. There is no internet. No cell service. You do not have a vehicle. You can walk anywhere you please, including down to the lake. A van brings weekly essentials you must cook. There is no doordash. Oh, and you can have all the on-dead-tree books you want.
Food for home defense thought. From someone I trust to know his shotguns.
Shotguns remain the very best weapon ever devised for static defense situations. Meaning Home Defense or Security. But we’ve seen a trend that has people moving away from the Shotgun in other situations. Such as your Truck Gun or Cruiser Gun. Police have turned to Rifles, and SBR’s have become the gun of choice for Truck/Cruiser Guns. And depending on where you are – this may or may not be a good thing.
The popularity of the AR-15 is unquestioned. It’s become “America’s Rifle”, and by Right, it should be. The AR-15 in it’s Militant Form has been serving the Nation as our Military’s main battle rifle for over 60 years. It’s cool to have an AR-15 and it’s cool to deck out that rifle with all sorts of add-on expensive parts and upgrades and components… and to make it so it doesn’t actually look like an AR anymore. That’s for the Cool Guys… but is it for you? Is a 3,000 dollar rifle what you need to defend the castle? Really? Do you need to reach out to 600 Meters with a glorified .22 magnum? Maybe you do.
When I lived in Vernal, Utah I most certainly could use that range and precision accuracy for defensive use. Maybe. In some Red Dawn Zombie Fantasy. In reality… my actual defensive needs were maybe 50 yards max. That’s 00 Buck range. If I had to extend – realistically I’d only need 100 yards. That’s Slug range. I’m talking Defensive Use… I’m not talking precision sniper Hostage Rescue use. That’s for Police. For my buddies in the Sheriff’s Department with the well zeroed heavy rifles. I can’t justify defensive use 200 yards away.
Reality dictates I need to stop a threat that’s trying to come into my home. And that’s where Joe Biden’s suggestion is actually a good one. "Just buy a Shotgun." The only true thing he's ever said in his life. He was absolutely right. And then he threw that statement out the window with the two blasts in the air and the shooting through doors thing. But he was right about buying a shotgun.
Remington 870. Mossberg 500 or 590. One of those. You don’t need a $2,000 Benelli M4… By all means, if you can get one, do it… but the mission is quite resolved with a $400 Pump Action. Avoid the Turkish Made shotguns that look like space guns. I’d rather buy a well used Remington 870 or Mossbergy 590 type than anything else… that’s just me.
Get some good 3″ hunting loads for it… not the super cheap #7 or #8 Shot loads… those suck. Get some good loads and test the shotgun for reliability. If it cycles good, and isn’t knocking you on your tush… you’ve got the weapon you need. NOW the fun part comes in. Now you get to go find all the different 00 Buck Loads you can find. A box or two of each. And find maybe 3 or 4 different Slug Loads. Now go out and find some big boxes like appliances come in. Draw a circle or Tape a paper plate on the box…. several of them. And get to testing.
Patterning your Shotgun is like Zeroing your Rifle. Find the load that your Shotgun likes the best – not the load You like the best. There’s a difference. If your load is giving you a pattern that is empty in the center – that is not your load. You want a nice spread across your impact zone. For the slugs, you want point of aim, point of impact accuracy and consistency. Once you find the loads that your gun likes the best – That’s the ammo you go stock up on. Buy a case of it.
It’s unbelievable to me that guys will buy a brand new shotgun and then buy a couple cases of the cheap birdshot ammo… and that’s it. If you are buying a gun to go break clays with – fine. But for a shotgun you are going to defend lives with? That’s irresponsible. Take everything you do for gun safety and professionalism – and throw it out the window. Your gun is untested and unzeroed = that’s a NO GO. Yet you do that with your shotgun? That’s a Fail. You need to know how your gun performs with the ammo you are going to use for defense. And seriously #7.5 load that has Clay Pigeons on the box is NOT your defensive ammo. Or else it shouldn't be. Ever.
The smallest you should use for defense in any situation is BB Shot. Even in an Apartment or close packed trailer park. And even then, I’d suggest #4 Buck. The shell should also be “High Brass”. Trap loads often have aluminum bases with very short heads… During firing in some guns, that little bit of aluminum will expand out and create a lock ring in your chamber making ejection very difficult or it could jam the gun, requiring some serious pounding to get it unstuck. I’ve seen that in many shotguns using that cheap ammo. You want big pellets and high brass. And quite frankly, the bigger the better. Police agencies across the nation and around the world who use shotguns, use 00 Buck for a reason. Go ask your local Sheriff’s Department what they recommend for shotguns or what they use. Some may use Regular or #4 Buck… I know some that used to use 000 Buck before switching to rifles. But the great majority use 00 Buck.
When it comes to slugs, you want to use a Brenneke or Foster type slug. Brenneke slugs have a drag device on the back of the slug… an attached wadding or plastic tail to stabilize the slug. A Foster will generally be rifled and have a hollow base. Either one is suitable for your smooth bore, and will be shockingly accurate if you do your part.
The Slug type to avoid in a smoothbore gun is a SABOT. Oh, I know they look cool as hell. But they require a Rifled Bore. If that’s what you have, by all means… but we’re talking defensive smoothbores here and with those, a SABOT is useless. They will be less stable, less accurate and they are going to tumble in the air before they strike the target and wont perform like a giant hollowpoint bullet. You are wasting your money on those. From all the testing I’ve done with common slug shells… overall the Brenneke type slugs are consistently the most accurate. Especially in the 3″ loads. Your shoulders may want something else. 2 3/4″ Foster type slugs from Winchester or Remington are common and do quite well. Reduced Recoil Tactical Slugs kick a lot less and are just fine out to 100 yards. But buy some different types and try them out.
The shotgun is much more capable than most guys think.
OK, so, is college football a bigger deal (nationwide) than either the NFL, or MLB? I say yes. Agree? Disagree?
I can't speak for all fisher folk, but for me the draw of the water is one of anticipatory possibilities. The chance. The not knowing if tonight's going to be a bust, or tonight's going to net you the fish of your life. I've had both experiences. And all it takes to turn a bust night into a boom night is one terrific fish. You won't see it coming. Might be your last cast. You've skunked all evening and you throw the lure out just one more time for the hell of it. And POW. Fish on. Few other sensations like that in the world in my experience.
