"Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor."
-Wernher von Braun (B.1912-D.1977, rocket scientist)
Deposited here in this plantary host body at an early age by a vastly superior intelligence, it was originally my assigned task as a junior member of the galactic intelligence survey team to study the inhabitants of this savagely exciting place and report back my findings and observations on the ostensibly 'highest evolved intelligent life form' found on Planet Earth. Regrettably and inexplicably, I appear to have been abandoned to my own devices by my fellows in the interim. Accordingly, I pass the time and divert myself by jotting down my impressions of the indigenous sentient biological life forms (populating this planet) solely for my own amusement. It recently occurred to me that some of you Sapiens of the Homo genus might also find them bemusing (possibly even illuminating?), hence you shall find a few of my reflections on Earth life here. By some happy coincidence, I have found that setting my thoughts down in words to be one of the most refreshingly effective forms of psychotherapy available to an outworlder like myself. If I had to rely upon direct communications with the rudimentarily evolved 'human beings' I circulate among for personal social fulfillment (and understanding of their lives), I'd probably have long since turned into a puddle of insensate protoplasmic slag. Klaatu barada nicto and thanks for all the fish!
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"The streets of every city in America are filled with (mild mannered, polite and socially responsible) men who would pay all the money they could get their hands on to be transformed, even for (only) a day, into hairy, hard-fisted, (sweaty) brutes who walk all over cops, extort drinks from terrified bartenders and roar out of town on big motorcycles after raping the banker's daughter."
(parenthetical emphasis added) -Hunter S. Thompson
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"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the Black Flag and begin slitting throats!"
-H.L. Mencken, 1919
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"Democracy is the art of running the Circus from the Monkey House."
-H.L. Mencken, 1924
Accomplishments: Given the extreme difficulty implicit in trying to translate my many intergalactic accomplishments and achievements into a meaningful Earth language, I shall instead modestly say that on my home planet I am widely regarded by my transgalactic peers with all the sublime respect an earth person would accord to a particularly virulent strain of amoebic dysentary. This is a high honor among my own kind, of course, but I think it somewhat ironic to find that since most earthlings have the mean intelligence quotient of an amoeba's older and slightly smarter brothers, I am in perfectly lovely company here on the Planet Earth. What an absolutely happy and totally unexpected coincidence!
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LIFE EXPERIENCE: Occasional hot dates with 30,000 pound hunks of screaming Mach 2+ aircraft aluminum (NASA N819NA and USAF 59-0010), charter member of the exclusive '11 Mile High Club', former medical attendant to HRH King Fahad (now deceased) and Saudi Oil Minister Zaki Yamani, failed contender in 'World's Worst Fiction' contest, runner-up in the 'International Appallingly Atrocious Writing Competition', legend in my own mind, world's absolute worst surfer (excepting Buster Keaton), and periodic resident of the Molokai Institute for the Creatively Challenged (Hawaii). Professional egregious writer and published author (of undistinguished mediocrity).
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AWARDS: Winner of the 2001 Hunter S. Thompson Perpetual Trophy for Addled Existentialist Journalism. Failed contender for the John Steinbeck Foundation Award for Plagiaristic Cleverness (2007). Recipient of a grant from the National Venezuelan Beaver Cheese Industrial Board Merit Colloquium (1987) for curdling milk with Marxist inspired revolutionary poetry. Member Emeritus of the Ordure of Opposable-Thumb Knights of Culturally Dubious Literary Opprobrium (vested 1992). Failed candidate for the Allan C. Weisbecker writing award for Quantum Surf Mechanics Theory Applications (2008). (For more background on this last high honor, visit: http://www.aweisbecker.com/background/ )
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OUR MAXIM: "Dios, me libre de un hombre de uno libro!" (trans: "God deliver me from a man of one book!") -attributed to Don Miguel de Cervantes
Books
Marooned on Moloka'i: Coconuts, Dreams & Death by Kalikiano Kalei A 30 day log (2005) of life on Moloka'i (HI), the last of the 'befoh time' Hawaiian holdouts, for a haole malihini....
Coruscated Confabulations: Oh! The Humanity! by Kalikiano Kalei 'Coruscated Confabulations' is a collection of stories and experiences, most of which took place in prior decades. They are taken from or based upon real events, with a certain admixture of fictional embellishments.... Amazon.com,
Amazon Books
Saunas and War Toys by Kalikiano Kalei An account of adventures in Scandinavia that involved flying dragons, Russian and German submarines, old WW2 era battlefields, Finnish foxes (female kind), Finnish-Mexican cuisine and much more. Written for the most part with a light touch, it ends on a semi-serious note about submarine warfare during the 'Cold War'....
Price: $20.00 (eBook) Amazon.com,
Amazon Books
Falling Off the Mountain (poems) by Kalikiano Kalei A further collection of poems, many from years in the Middle East, but also the California San Francisco and Central Coast areas (Santa Cruz, Carmel, Big Sur, Berkeley, etc.)....
Price: $20.00 (eBook) Amazon.com,
Amazon Books
Santa Cruz Sargasso, Berkeley Fog (poems) by Kalikiano Kalei Collected poems written in the Santa Cruz and Berkeley areas during the 70s & 80s, while working at the Santa Cruz Heart Institute....
Price: $12.00 (eBook) Amazon.com,
Amazon
U S Chemical and Biological Defense Respirators by Kalikiano Kalei An illustrated developmental history of the American military chemical and biological protective respirator for use against war agents, this work provides photographs of actual respirator specimens and several useful appendices, in addition to its engaging chapters. A perfect coffee table book to thoroughly confuse and depress your unwanted drop-in proletarian visitors (perhaps even send them scre... Amazon.com,
U. S. Chemical and Biological Defense Respirators
Short Stories ( View all 62 stories ) Searching For Haumea... by Kalikiano Kalei I have always believed that if there is a God, that indefinable omniscience must have a feminine spirit. Human nature being what it is, and given the extreme range of understanding, development, and i... The most beautiful curve on a woman's body is her smile... by Kalikiano Kalei The title of this piece comes from a quote by famed entertainer/singer Bob Marley, who famously noted that when a pretty woman smiles from the heart, the whole universe lights up before us with deep s... Notes on the mystique of 'Old Guy' aging... by Kalikiano Kalei Random notes on some of the physiological changes in older men that too many (women particularly) appear completely unaware of. Firmly ascribed to, with thung carefully placed in sheek. No older men w... On a mountain top of the mind at 2AM by Kalikiano Kalei More recollections of earlier life experience relating to my love of high mountain summits, mountaineering, and especially (in this specific case) to the astounding high-altitude mountaineering achiev... Fighting the Cold War in a VW Beetle! by Kalikiano Kalei While my brave colleagues were flying nuclear-armed Boeing B-52 Intercontinental Bombers (and pulling alert duty in Minute-Man ICBM missile silos), I was dutifully fighting my own war to keep from fre... A Plethora of Papas by Kalikiano Kalei As Rod Serling would likely out it, "Imagine a world in some distant quantum universe where everyone was a Hemingway. Not an approximation of a Hemingway but a life-sized, perfectly identical clone of... A Great Many Moons Ago... by Kalikiano Kalei A real life 1975 parallel to Edmond Rostand's famous 1897 play, Cyrano De Bergerac, starring instead one of my own muses, "Roxane 2.0" who is still a very good friend after all these years. ...
Poetry ( View all 118 poems ) Solar fire of the Heavens... by Kalikiano Kalei This pome (sic) inspired by one of the Heavenly Bodies at the furthest edges of my personal Universe [Real person/Real life! KIDS, Do NOT try this at home; professional romantic, closed adulation loop... Find her in everything... by Kalikiano Kalei Beamed down to Earth, from a wandering shooting star...... Separated by a mere hair's breadth by Kalikiano Kalei Mushy, gushy stuff from a prior lifetime. "WARNING! KIDS! Don't try this at home without parental supervision! Professional human male, professional life experience!"
... Merely a turn of the wheel... by Kalikiano Kalei Another interesting pome by my friend, A. Nonie Maus (fellow member of the 'Bad Potes Society of Suckatomato'), dealing with the Marxist disease that now pervades America's culture. Herr Maus is cu... Vector to the Target by Kalikiano Kalei Love is many things to many people. As the Japanese know, love is also death, since each human being that is born initiates his death with an act of birth. Thus birth and death are part of a whole con... Petrushka's Remorseful 5-Year Plan... by Kalikiano Kalei Petrushka (Петрушка) is a traditional Russian folk puppet character, acting as a mischievous, squeaky-voiced trickster similar to Punch or Pulcinella. I... The starward path: A tribute to Laika and Gagarin by Kalikiano Kalei The bond between the pioneer who barked at the wonder of the stars before she joined them forever...and the man who followed her into the silence of the void and returned, is one of history’s most poi...
Articles ( View all 184 articles ) Field Notes on the Species 'Homo sapien' by Kalikiano Kalei Being that life itself is an experiment that is always unique, take this essay as you would a tincture of Sodium Bicarbonate. Not meant for human oral ingestion. Not approved by the US Fools and Droo... Iaido: The art of Japanese sword draw... by Kalikiano Kalei I suppose you could call this commentary, "Daimyo for a Day!", but it's not an episode of that (fictitious) TV show, but a 'slice' of my past life, back in my Berzerkeley hey-days, when I was still tr... Danger, danger, Will Robinson! (the future of AI) by Kalikiano Kalei A deep-dive into the pressing question of what AI's future role is, in relation to humanity, and whether advanced artificial super-intelligence will present as a friend of mankind or a dire enemy.... Obesity: To be or not to be? by Kalikiano Kalei "Obesity: To be or not to be?" That's still the same old ages-old question but this time it is framed within a life-or-death health context, as it relaters to rfampant obesity in America. For anyone ... And now a word from Our Heavenly Host... by Kalikiano Kalei Luck, Kismet, "faith", "belief", fortune, circumstance...there are a great many terms for experiences that fit no rational explanation and yet there are thousands upon thousands of people who firmly b... NorCal Coastal Cold Water Reflections, 1989/2007 by Kalikiano Kalei Over the years, I kept a vast file full of reflective ruminations and meditations on many subjects that, for whatever reason, never ended up being read by others. This particular segment stems from 19... Joseph Pujol, Le Petomane, star of the Moulin Rouge (1887) by Kalikiano Kalei France has had for several centuries a tradition of spectacularly entertaining public cabarets, catering to a wide variety of tastes and ranging from those for individuals into the 'skin game', to t...
News Every writer needs egoboo (an ego boost) by Kalikiano Kalei Nationally circulated Chinese newspaper (in America) publishes a letter of mine concerning Finland and the Finnish people, 13 Oct 25.... Two new books of poetry now released and available by Kalikiano Kalei Two new short hardbound collections of poetry are now available through Amazon (or any other of the usual book seller venues): 1) Santa Cruz Sargasso, Berkeley Fog', and 2) 'Falling Off the Mountain'.... Santa Cruz Sargasso, Berkeley Fog (poems) by Kalikiano Kalei New release pending: A collection of poems from Santa Cruz and Berekely of the late 60s, 70s and early 80s).... Marooned on Molokai (a Hawaiian travel journal) by Kalikiano Kalei A lengthy travel log in the manner of the classical Japanese I-novel, concerning the off-the-mainstream island of Moloka'i, in the Hawaiian Islands.... Local Writer Not Slated to Receive Steinbeck Foundation Recognition by Kalikiano Kalei Kalikiano Kalei, obscure and almost completely unknown author of little literary note and even lesser journalistic distinction, was recently not selected to receive the annual Steinbeck Foundation Awa...
Links
Curatorial Chairman, Aerospace Museum of California
Emeritus member of the Board of Directors; Curatorial Chairman; custodian of the museum's ex-NASA Convair F-106A 'Delta Dart', and aerospace historian for aircrew life support and egress technology affairs.
Aeolus Aerospace (Academia.EDU website)
The more 'serious' of my websites at which some of my journalistic investigations in aerospace history and related concerns may be found.
A few of my serious published works do exist (in the subject area of chemical and biological defense technology), but the material appearing in Authors' Den is presented largely for your amusement. Someone recently complimented me hugely by observing that my writing is proof that sitting a single extraterrestrial down in front of 100,000 PC keyboards will eventually produce a recognisably dirty 'adult story'. Much of my whimsical work is done on the lovely island of Molokai, in the Hawaiian Islands, where an occasional falling coconut serves to cathartically jolt my scattered cerebral neurons back into thoughtful realignment, where the he'e nalu is good, and where the lovely wahines are always eager to learn about advanced Tau Ceti reproductive techniques (when they aren't all studying the hula, under the tutelage of their kumus, that is). There is no truth at all to the assertion that my opinion of myself is so good that I regard myself as a mere hobby! All that having been guilelessly shared, be prepared to boldly go where endless trillions of Earthly mortals have noisily tramped before. Don't forget to have the conductor punch your banana for the return trip, and by all means, enjoy the journey as much as you can, since you can never leave the destination without changing form and substance in a manner wholly unknown to Earth science.
[NOTE: For the author reading some of his poetry from 1967-1974, click this link: https://www.AuthorsDen.com/adstorage/77566/Kalikiano Poems 1967-1975 V4.m4a ]
Contact
Information
Aeolus Aerospace 5960 South Land Park Drive #256 Sacramento
CA
95822-3313
United States