Dispatch from the Razor's Edge, the Blog of Michael Stephen Fuchs
Stuck in My Brain

In what might perhaps be a semi-regular feature, here's a song so great that I think we should all be singing it for 100 years. It's Damone again.


Get the Flash Player to hear this rockn' track.
    

While you're enjoying this really, let's face it, painfully lovely song, here's a stanza from the Tao Te Ching that I flipped to at random this morning and which seemed to be a lesson I (direly) need right now:

Therefore the Master takes action
  by letting things take their course.
  He remains as calm
  at the end as at the beginning.
  He has nothing,
  thus has nothing to lose.
- Lao Tzu, the Tao Te Ching

If you're letting the song keep playing over and over again, as I am here writing this, you might also be interested to read that – à propos my earlier dispatch about how Bill Gates is the best man in the world – Microsoft's other co-founder, Paul Allen, has likewise pledged half of his billions to usefulness:

The lesser-known half of the duo that created the Microsoft technology empire, Paul Allen, has pledged to hand at least half of his estimated $13.5bn (£8.8bn) fortune to charity, taking up a philanthropic challenge laid down by his one-time business partner, Bill Gates

Allen, who is rated by Forbes magazine as the world's 37th richest person, yesterday announced that "the majority" of his estate would ultimately be left to philanthropic causes, with an emphasis on funding not-for-profit scientific research.

His declaration came a month after Gates and fellow billionaire Warren Buffett launched a campaign dubbed the "giving pledge" that urges America's richest individuals to commit half of their fortunes to charitable causes.

Doesn't this just break your heart?

As Andrew Carnegie had it, "He who dies rich dies disgraced." If it's at all interesting, I saw both of those articles when I was sitting there in my health club, dripping, simply trying to sink heat, before getting dressed and going back to work. Maybe this "means" something.


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about
close photo of Michael Stephen Fuchs

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very  long  walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

THE MANUSCRIPT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
PANDORA'S SISTERS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Stephen Fuchs
D-BOYS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
COUNTER-ASSAULT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book One - Fortress Britain, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Genesis, by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Three - Three Parts Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Four - Maximum Violence, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Five - EXODUS, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Six - The Horizon, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Seven - Death of Empires, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : NEMESIS by Michael Stephen Fuchs

ARISEN, Book Nine - Cataclysm by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Thirteen - The Siege by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - Endgame by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Fickisms
ARISEN : Odyssey
ARISEN : Last Stand
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 1 - The Collapse
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 2 - Tribes
Black Squadron
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 3 - Dead Men Walking
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 4 - Duty
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 5 - The Last Raid
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