Pardon Me, Boys, Is That the Machu Picchu Choo-Choo?

Tomorrow, December 27, Judy and I will be boarding the Proud Bird with the Golden Tail (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and flying off to Peru. We'll be in Lima for a couple of days, then go to Cusco. We'll celebrate New Year's Eve in Aguas Calientes, just down the mountain from Machu Picchu. Then it's back to Cusco and eventually to Nasca to see the Nasca Lines, which, as we all know, were carved by little guys in flying saucers many years ago. On January 5, we'll be landing at Houston's Intercontinental Airport if all goes well.

What this is leading up to is the fact that I won't be blogging until sometime after January 5. I'd like to thank all of you who have dropped by for a look and/or a comment in the past year, and I hope you won't forget me while I'm gone. I promise to post a photo or two when I return but I won't bore you with the whole long tale of the trip. If I get a chance I'll write that up and post it somewhere, maybe on the website. Or, breaking my promise, maybe here. I'll just have to see how it all works out. Have a happy new year's celebration, and check back here around January 6 or 7 for more blogging in 2005.

I'm Not Dreaming. It's a White Christmas.

This is the front of my house on Christmas morning. Nobody in Alvin, Texas, can remember the last white Christmas here. Maybe there's never been one. I've lived in Texas all my life, and this is the first white Christmas I can remember. I suppose we only care about things like that because of Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby, but it's still kind of neat.

The Legendary Star Wars Christmas Special

I'm Just Sayin': The Holy Grail of Crap

Via World o' Crap comes this link to the Star Wars Christmas Special, the one that George Lucas would like to pretend doesn't exist. Being an Old Guy, I saw it when it appeared on TV, never to be repeated. But someone's made a bootleg DVD, and you can see five minutes or so of it here. (Scroll down to the picture to click on.) It seems more like five hours, so you'll get your money's worth.

Martian Manhunter Need Not Apply

E! Online News - Martian Manhunter Need Not Apply

Sad. Maybe the holiday spirit will overwhelm some "hot, young filmmaker."

Joy to the World . . .

. . . All the boys and girls.

As you can tell, the blog and I are filled with goodwill, cheer, and egg nog. We'd like to wish everyone the best of holidays and a 2005 filled with peace, prosperity, and good reading.

"Thought Experiments" by Roger Ebert

"Thought Experiments" by Roger Ebert

I got this link in an e-mail from Cap'n Bob Napier, who got it in turn through others: "(Craig Miller mentioned this on the Timebinders mailing list and indicated that Jeff Copeland pointed it out to him.) --D Gary Grady." Naturally I had to put it in the blog. It's possibly the best article I've read on fandom, and it mentions some names that should be familiar to everybody (Ed Gorman, especially). Wonderful, nostalgic stuff. My eyes got misty reading it. And if there are a few things Ebert gets wrong or misremembers, so what? It's still a great piece.

Update: Art Scott informs me that this piece was originally published as the "Introduction" to Dick Lupoff's The Best of Xero (Tachyon Press), which I should already own. I don't, so I'd better see what I can do about that.

Sci-Fi Lists - Top Science Fiction Books and Films

Sci-Fi Lists - Top Science Fiction Books and Films

I like lists, if only because it's fun to nitpick them. So I found this an interesting site, and I also enjoyed the related site on fantasy.

$39 Million Bank Robbery

My Way News

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (AP) - In one of the world's biggest robberies, thieves took the families of two top bankers hostage and forced the bosses to help them steal more than $39 million from the vaults of a Belfast bank's main office, authorities said Tuesday.

It was either the IRA or a guy named Parker. Probably not Dortmunder, though.

Mystery Martian cleans US space buggy

Mystery Martian cleans US space buggy. 22/12/2004. ABC News Online

An unexplained phenomenon akin to a space-borne car wash has boosted the performance of one of the two US rovers probing the surface of Mars, New Scientist magazine said.

It said something - or someone - had regularly cleaned layers of dust from the solar panels of the Mars Opportunity vehicle while it was closed down during the Martian night.

The cleaning had boosted the panels' power output close to their maximum 900 watt-hours per day after at one stage dropping to 500 watt-hours because of the heavy Martian dirt.

By contrast, the power output of the solar panels of Mars Spirit - on a different part of the Red Planet - had dropped to just 400 watt-hours a day, clogged by the heavy dust.

"These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape," the magazine quoted NASA rover team leader Jim Erickson as saying.

OK, this is weird. Sounds like a great premise for an SF story.

A Little Self Promotion

Jon Breen, the intelligent and perceptive reviewer for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, has this (among other things) to say about Dead Soldiers, my novel from Five Star (available in hardback and soon to be released in trade paperback): "It's an efficiently plotted and highly amusing male cozy. . . ."

So my comment is, "Male cozy"? Have I invented a new subgenre? Will my name go down in mystery history alongside those of Hammett and Chandler and, well, let's not be riduculous.

Jon also mentions Boss Napier, who plays a very minor part in the story and should not be confused with any persons living or dead because any resemblance is purely coincidental.

Interview!

On December 15, Sarah Weinman wrote this on her blog: "Writers interviewing writers is the new black, but that doesn't mean that new entries aren't welcome."

So ever since, I've been waiting for someone to interview me. And waiting. And waiting. Now I'm beginning to think nobody wants to interview me. So I guess I'll have to do it myself. Herewith, the Interview:

The Blog: When did you decide you wanted to become a writer?

Me: I've always wanted to write. In fact, I wrote my first novel at the age of five, a hardboiled tale of violence and revenge called The Velveteen Rabbit Takes Names and Kicks Ass. It would have been a blockbuster, but all the major publishers rejected it. "We don't do fanfic" was the typical turn-down.

The Blog: But you didn't give up.

Me: Oh, no. I went on to write Nancy Drew to an Inside Straight, a boldly sexual tale of Nancy and Ned and a red-hot strip poker game in which Nancy's best friend, the ambigously named "George," is also involved. Naturally the cowardly big-time publishing establishment turned that one down, too. "Fanfic is not acceptable," they said, "much less erotic fanfic."

The Blog: That must have been discouraging.

Me: You bet it was. I almost didn't write Aunt Gertrude Does Detroit. Frank and Joe Hardy are shocked to discover that their aunt is moonlighting as a pole dancer in a seedy dive, where she does a little diving of her own, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

The Blog: Yes. I do. Maybe. And let me guess: fanfic.

Me: Too true. But . . . .

The Blog: I'm sorry, but we've run out of time. Thanks for being our interview subject.

Me (tugging my forelock and digging my toe into the rug): No. . . thank you. Thank you very much.

A Hardluck Writer

A Hardluck Writer

Dave Zeltserman, author of the excellent Fast Lane, has started a blog. Fast Lane was published by a small press, and now Dave is on the verge of getting his new book, Outsourced, bought by a major house. Or so he hopes. He's going to chronicle his experiences in the blog, and it should be interesting reading.

And Whom Would You Add to the List

2004 Ethnic Cleansing Awards

What we have here is Bobfromaccounting's list of the 25 most annoying newsmakers of the past year. Hard to argue with these choices.

Disregard Earlier Posts: THIS is the End of Civilization as We Know It

New York Post Online Edition: business

"Bankrolled by the deep pockets of entertainment mogul Bob Sillerman, the estate of the late King is planning a global rollout of Presley-mania — from Elvis theme parks in Germany to lavish casinos in Asia where the singer's hologram will perform around the clock.

Sillerman, who made a fortune building the world's biggest entertainment touring outfit, bought all the rights to Presley's name and likeness, as well as his music, for more than $100 million.

The late entertainer's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, said she sold the assets to give her family a secure future and expand her father's legacy to the entire world."

Maybe Lisa Marie is really Col. Parker's kid.

Researchers Find Clues to 'Pack-Rat' Urge

Researchers Find Clues to 'Pack-Rat' Urge: "Dec. 17, 2004 -- Attention, pack rats: science may have figured you out. Researchers say they've found an area of the brain that seems to govern the urge to collect.

Well, now I know what's wrong with me. "Damage to a part of the frontal lobes of the [brain's] cortex, particularly on the right side . . . ." You can click the line for further details.

The cover of Heart of the Hunter is no doubt familiar to anyone who attended the recent Bouchercon in Toronto. It was a freebie in all the book bags, and it seemed that many people were trying to get rid of it by putting it out on the "trade" table. Maybe they just didn't want to lug a hardback home. If they didn't read it, they were the losers, because it's very good.

It was originally written in Afrikaans and was translated by K. L. Seegers, who's done a fine job. I don't know what I was expecting exactly, but what I got was an espionage novel of the "every time I try to get out, they drag me back in" variety. Or of the "retired gunslinger can't quite hang 'em up" variety. But with a difference. The South African setting, for one thing. And while there's plenty of action, the book seems more influenced by John Le Carre than Ian Fleming. The big confrontation that I kept expecting never happened. Or rather it did happen, but not at all in the way I thought it would. There's also some violence, but it's mostly off-stage. There are plenty of twists and turns. Nobody can be trusted, and nothing is what it seems to be.

I'm glad I brought this home to Texas from Canada, and if you have it on your shelves, pull it out and give it a try. I think you'll find it rewarding reading.

New Moon?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | New 'moon' found around Earth

OK, this is pretty cool. I think it's an alien spacecraft, myself, but apparently no one else shares that belief.

Les Baxter

Les Baxter

While checking on Larry Buchanan, I ran across this. Les Baxter was also from my hometown. Zowie. This is a truly famous guy. His orchestra was on a lot of Frank Sinatra recordings, not to mention Nat King Cole's "Mona Lisa." And he wrote "Quiet Village." How cool is that?

A Larry Buchanan Classic 

Larry Buchanan, R.I.P.

It seems that Anna Nicole Smith isn't the only person from my old hometown who made it big in Hollywood. This excerpt is from the L. A. Times obit:

"Born Marcus Larry Seale Jr. in Mexia, Texas, and orphaned in infancy, Buchanan grew up in a Dallas orphans' home, where he developed a love of movies in the facility's theater. He considered becoming a minister but during a visit to Hollywood landed a job in 20th Century Fox's prop department."

Disregard Earlier Post: THIS is the End of Civilization as We Know It

New York Post Online Edition: entertainment

FOX is turning a grown adopted child's search for her father into a reality/game show called "Who's Your Daddy."

On the Jan. 3, 90-minute special, the woman will face eight men — one is her father, and the fakes' goal is to trick her into thinking they are.

If, after three elimination rounds, she picks out her real father, she wins $100,000. If she picks the wrong one, the fake daddy gets the big-bucks prize. — Post TV Staff

The End of Civilization as We Know It?

NCBuy Weird News: "Crack Ho" and "Hoochie" Added To Oxford Dictionary - 2004-12-15: "NEW YORK (Wireless Flash) -- Hip hop-based words have entered the vernacular of many English speakers and now they have found their way into a prestigious dictionary.

More than 2,000 new and revised word entries have been added to the online edition of The Oxford English Dictionary and a small contingent of them come from the P. Diddy and Eminem arena."

For example, the word "benjamin," meaning "a one-hundred dollar bill" and more generally, "large sums of money" made its way onto the list.

Other hip-hop words that were added:

-- "Hoochie," which means "a young woman who is promiscuous or who dresses or behaves in a sexually provocative or overtly seductive manner."

-- "Thugged out" is defined as "resembling a thug in dress or behavior, tough-looking."

-- And finally, the dictionary editors have added "crack ho," which is defined as "a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine."

Dictionary spokesman Jesse Shiedlowe says he expects a lot more hip-hop words to be added in future editions of the dictionary as long as the music genre continues to stay popular.

Pole Dancing in Shop Windows

Downtown S.C. business to become pole-ing place this weekend By GWEN MICKELSON SENTINEL STAFF WRITER December 15, 2004

We never have anything like this in Alvin, Texas. No wonder I feel deprived.

Christmas Movie Quiz

MSNBC -

Via Incoming Signals, here's a quiz on Christmas movies. I missed two, but I claim foul, since I knew the answer to one of them and clicked on the wrong one by mistake. I'm ashamed to admit that Number 7 is not one of those that I missed.

Anthony Boucher (Again)

In the October 1958 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Anthony Boucher compiled a list of 50 (actually a few more) science fiction novels that between the years 1949 and 1957 gave "intense pleasure to a man professionally obligated to read every s.f. book published in America." (Try doing that these days!) In making his list, Boucher excluded all juveniles ("even by Heinlein") and all anthologies ("even by Merrill").

It's an interesting list, and there are two books on it that I confess I've never heard of. OK, I've heard of them, since I undoubtedly read this column in 1958. But I've never heard of them again. One of them is Malcolm Jameson's Bullard of the Space Patrol, published by World in 1951. The other is S. Fowler Wright's The Throne of Saturn (Arkham, 1949).

I've not only heard of the others; I've read most of them. Some of them are still among my favorites: Bester's The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination. Philip K. Dick's Eye in the Sky. Fred Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth's The Space Merchants. Clifford Simak's City. In fact, I might as well stop listing, because nearly everything on the list would be on my list as well.

Let's face it: the 1950s were my Golden Age of Science Fiction. The titles on Boucher's list are so evocative for me that just reading over them takes me back to the room I shared with my younger brother in our house at 401 S. McKinney, in Mexia, Texas. I spent a lot of happy hours in that room, reading the books on Boucher's list and many others besides, not to mention poring over the digest magazines of the time with an intensity I should have applied to my schoolwork.

The books and stories I read in those days had an impact on me that's pretty much unequalled by anything I've read since. They've stayed in my memory much more clearly than anything I've read in the last year. Other people have fond memories of the TV shows of that era. Not me. For me it was books. Still is. And, I guess, always will be.

Night's Edge

Night's Edge is a collection of three "romantic suspense" novellas from Harlequin (Motto: We are romance). I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "So Crider's become a girly man now, reading romance novels in his dotage. Say it ain't so!"

OK, it's not so. The three novellas are by Maggie Shayne ( never read anything by her, but she's the Big Name in the collection), Barbara Hambly (I read Bride of the Rat God), and Charlaine Harris. I like Charlaine's work a lot, particularly the now sadly defunct Lily Bard series. And I like her vampire novels with Sookie Stackhouse. "Dancers in the Dark," her story in the collection, is set in the same world that Stackhouse inhabits, but it's about different characters. One of them is a battered (really battered) woman, and the others are assorted humans and vampires, all of them dancers who work for Blue Moon productions. They dance for parties, and, this being a romance novel, Layla, the heroine, falls for her vampire partner. I liked all the characters in the story, and there's plenty more to investigate about them and their interesting work. In fact if Charlaine had the inclination, she could begin a whole new series about these people. I'd read it.

The 1967 Avon Paperback edition 

Gavin Lyall

The other day Walter Satterthwait were discussing (via e-mail) one of our favorite thriller writers, Gavin Lyall. I really enjoyed his work when I first read it back in the 1960s, and I was surprised to find that although he's still writing, he doesn't seem to have a U.S. publisher. That's a real injustice. I plucked Shooting Script off my shelves for a quick re-read just to be sure it was as good as I remembered, and it passed the test with flying colors.

Lots of Lyall's early books were narrated in the first person by pilots, and Shooting Script is no exception. Former fighter pilot Keith Carr's now flying charters and freight in the Caribbean, and he gets involved with a movie production company much like Batjac. The movie star who's running the show resembles John Wayne in just about every way. Pretty soon Carr finds himself involved in a lot more than a movie, including crosses, double crosses, and a Latin American revolution. It's all smoothly and expertly handled by Lyall. Appealing characters, great flying sequences, a bit of mystery, and a bit of romance. It all makes me wonder even more why his latest books don't seem to U.S. editions. Maybe I'm overlooking something.

At any rate, if you've never read Lyall, I highly recommend this book, or try Midnight Plus One, The Wrong Side of the Sky, or The Most Dangerous Game. Great stuff.

A political aside: At one point in the novel, Keith Carr says, " . . . just for the record, I believe democracy's simply a habit. Like smoking or drinking or driving safely. Not checks and balances, not one-man-one-vote. Just millions of people saying, 'Christ, they can't do that!" But it takes time bo build up that sort of instinct."

Maybe that's why it's impossible to bring instant democracy to the Middle East.

Alvin in Concrete

Walter Albert, who's been reading John Shannon's The Concrete River, was struck by this passage on page 132 of the paperback edition of the novel : "We was setting up this boiler room not far from Houston a few months ago. God-forsaken place called Alvin. We like to grace these little towns where maybe a lot of housewives want some pin money, and they don't want an arm and a leg for coming in, answering the phones."

It's always nice to see the place where you live immortalized in prose.

Why I love the Aggies

KBTX | Student Accused Of Eating a Roll Call List After Cutting In Line To Get Cotton Bowl Tickets

The Weather Report

When I'm out jogging in the mornings, odd thoughts run through my head. Today I was thinking about Elmore Leonard's rules for writing. Isn't one of them that you never start off with the weather report? Anyway, as soon as I thought of that, the first eight or ten lines of John Keats' "The Eve of St. Agnes" popped into my head. (Hey, I can't help it. I used to be an English teacher.) This is a poem I've read and discussed dozens of times. It's about magic and dreams and love, and, of course, the weather. The poem begins with one of the great weather reports in all of poetry:

ST. AGNES’ Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was!
The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold;
The hare limp’d trembling through the frozen grass,
And silent was the flock in woolly fold:
Numb were the Beadsman’s fingers, while he told
His rosary, and while his frosted breath,
Like pious incense from a censer old,
Seem’d taking flight for heaven, without a death . . . .

Luckily for you I can't remember any more. But you have to admit that it classes up the old blog quite a bit. I mean, John Keats never even thought about writing a Gold Medal original.

America's Oldest Living Teenager 

Dick Clark's Saturday Night Show

In his comment down below, the crusty Cap'n Bob mentions Dick Clark's Saturday night show. This, of course, sent me into a veritable frenzy of nostalgia. The show, as I recall, was sponsored by Beechnut Gum, and its Saturday evening timeslot conflicted with my parents' favorite: Perry Mason. We had only one TV set at our house, and in fact I didn't know a single person in those days whose family owned more than one. One TV set was considered enough. There was never even any discussion about it, as far as I can recall. And of course the VCR (not to mention the DVR, TiVo, etc.) was so far in the future that we would have considered it the stuff of science fiction. So what was a poor boy to do?

My grandmother provided the answer. She lived next door to us, and she told my mother that I could come over to her house and watch the Dick Clark show. This was a tremendous surprise to me, since this grandmother (my father's mother) hardly ever spoke to anyone in the family. I don't think she liked us, and I've always suspected that my mother somehow coerced her into letting me go over and watch the show. But I didn't question my good fortune. I just went over there, turned on the TV set, and sat in the floor while I watched. My grandmother sat in the room's only chair, a rocker (no pun intended), and spoke not a word during the whole thing. When it was over, I left. Maybe I thanked her. Maybe not.

The performers on this show, as on Bandstand, all lip-synched their numbers, with the exception (as the Cap'n makes note) of Jerry Lee Lewis. I remember seeing him on the show, and others I remember seeing for sure were Chubby Checker, Jack Scott, the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Paul Anka, the Silhouettes, and the Royal Teens. There must have been many others.

The show continued at least into my first year of college, but when I went to college, my TV viewing came pretty much to a standstill. Nobody had a TV set in the dorm. That was unheard of. The dorm had one tiny set, down in a dank dungeon-like room in the basement, and that's where I watched the special on which Frank Sinatra welcomed Elvis home from his overseas service in the Army. That was the only show I saw during the nine months of college for my freshman year (1959-1960). While I missed out on the Dick Clark shows that year, it still remains one of the fond memories of my teenhood.

Dick Clark

CNN.com - Dick Clark hospitalized for stroke - Dec 8, 2004

Dang. I feel almost like I know Dick Clark personally.

I used to rush home from school in the afternoons back in the '50s to see American Bandstand, and it hacked me that I often had to miss about the first fifteen minutes or so. I remember some of the girls who danced on the show, including Justine, who seemed to be everyone's favorite, but I preferred Pat Molittieri. But I digress. The guy who held the show together was Dick Clark, introducing the records, the spotlight dances, and the singers who came on the pantomime their hits. Not to mention revealing the Top Ten and doing the "rate a record" segment. Speaking of which, the only one of those I really remember is the one when they rated "The Chipmunk Song." The kids hated it, but Dick predicted they'd all be dancing to it by Christmas.

I watched Bandstand in the summers when I was in college, and I watched it for years after that. I eventually lost interest, but I always perked up when Dick Clark was mentioned, even if I didn't watch any of his shows. Judy was a big fan of Password when he was the MC of that one, so I saw him regularly in those days.

I have no idea what kind of person he is, and I don't care. He was a major part of my growing up, and he's been around ever since. I wish him well.

The REAL Ocean's Twelve

NEWS.com.au | Hi-tech gamblers to keep winnings (December 6, 2004)

This is pretty cool. I'd never have to nerve to try it, myself.

A Recent Ken Bruen Novel 

Ken Bruen

There's been a little controversy in the blogoverse recently over the novels of Ken Buren. Seems that Lee Goldberg had the nerve to say that he wasn't impressed by Bruen's Edgar-nominated The Guards, and that bothered some people a lot.

But let's face it: not everybody's going to like every book he reads. Hey, there may even be some poor, misguided souls who don't like my books, as hard as that is to believe. And Lee, for one, didn't like another of my favorite books, River Girl, by one of my favorite Gold Medal writers, Charles Williams, but I didn't notice anybody calling him bad names for that.

I happen to like most of what I've read by Ken Bruen a lot. I believe it was Jeff Meyerson who recommended The White Trilogy to me a year or so ago. I didn't pay much attention at first, but Jeff said something about how he knew I'd like the three books, so I thought I'd give them a try. As it turned out he was certainly right. The White Trilogy blew me away. I hadn't been as excited about a writer in a long time, and I started telling everybody about him. Back in March of this year, at the AggieCon, I'm sure people got tired of hearing me talk about him.

I'm not sure why I liked the books so much. Probably it was a combination of things. First of all, the style caught me. It's distinctive, spare, and poetic, and it works just fine for me. I can see why it might not work for everyone, though, and that's all right. I have a feeling Bruen isn't trying to please everyone.

Another thing was the tone of the books. To me they seemed like the 87th Precinct on speed. And they don't play by the usual rules. Anyone can die (or get cancer or get maimed or get hooked on drugs and/or alcohol) at any time. Crimes are solved more or less by luck, or accident, rather than anything resembling what you might see on CSI or Law and Order. Sometimes it's hard to tell the cops from the criminals. Sometimes the cops seem even crazier than the criminals. I ate it up.

So naturally I was delighted when I found out that stories begun in The White Trilogy weren't going to end with the three books that comprised it. Blitz might be subtitled Brant is Back, but the whole surviving crew is back: Falls, McDonald, Nash, Roberts. And it's as good as the first three, if not even better.

Last weekend I did a signing at Murder by the Book in Houston, and I picked up the fifth book in the series, Vixen. And believe me, vixen is a mild word for the title character, one of the best villains in the entire series. I liked this one a lot as well.

I feel pretty lucky because I have three other Ken Bruen books in my TBR mountain, with more to be added shortly. You can bet I'll be getting to them fairly soon.

Doc Benton's Olde Tyme Astrology Shoppe

Doc Benton's Olde Tyme Astrology Shoppe

The character of Seepy Benton in A Bond with Death resembles a real person. He's now got a big web presence (he wishes!). If you're into astrology, I recommend him highly.

Review Below. 

The Librarian

Last night there were several original movies on TV. HBO had the classy and well-reviewed Peter Sellers biopic. The Hallmark Channel had a comforting middlebrow fantasy called The Five People You Meet in Heaven with Jon Voigt. And TNT had the cheesy Da Vinci Code/Raiders of the Lost Ark rip-off, The Librarian: Quest for the Spear. Anyone who knows me will know immediately that I went for the cheesey rip-off.

And I even watched all of it, though I was thinking all the time, "This is what we've come to. Starting with National Treasure, and now this, every movie made for the next ten years will be the same." And I was also thinking, "What a piece of crap."

But, as I said, I watched it.

There's no need to summarize the plot, since it makes very little (if any) sense. I kept watching mainly, I think, in hopes to see the rest of Kelly Hu's Serpent Brotherhood tattoo. (Ms. Hu, by the way, was seriously under-used in the movie. She was great in her few scenes.)

There's no need to comment on the special effects. I've already said, "cheesey." That about covers it. If you could, for even a second or two, have believed that the stars (Noah Wyle and Sonya Walger, who has the best line in the movie) were walking over an actual bridge anywhere near an actual waterfall in one of the big scenes, you might have bought into the movie. But you couldn't believe it. Not even for a second or two.

There was one point, however, at which I was willing to suspend my disbelief. Almost. The big martial-arts scene at the movie's climax features some of the lamest fighting I've seen since Diana Rigg turned in her leather suit. But even at that, to see Bob Newhart as a martial artist was worth sitting through the other two hours of the movie. Almost.

Actually, if you can overlook the ridiculous plot and the cheesey effects, the cast is pretty good. Wyle is appealing as a geeky librarian, and Walger is aces as his hardboiled protector. I've mentioned Kelly Hu. Newhart is fine, as always. Jane Curtin has a small but entertaining role. Poor Kyle MacLachlan, though, must have needed the money. Desperately. Or maybe he just enjoyed being pure Virginia ham.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll kiss two hours good-bye.

This is the anthology that contains the infamous "No Class Chick." 

Before there was Joe Lansdale . . .

. . . there was "No Class Chick" by J. J. Solari. When I first met Joe, back around 1979, one of the stories he told me about was in an anthology called Best Biker Fiction from EASYRIDERS. So of course I bought the book and read the story. Last night I read it again. It's still as profane, and as horribly funny, as it was 25 years ago.

I once accused Joe of having written "No Class Chick" because I'm sure he wrote for Easyriders when he was starting out. He's never admitted it, but it's certainly like a story Joe would have written. It's about a guy whose initiation into a bikers' club is to take a woman on a cross-country run, and she has to remain in his company the entire time. Before he even starts, she dies. But that doesn't change the rules. The story starts off gross and gets progressively grosser. The old phrase "not for the squeamish" was never more appropriate. (I'll spare you most of the details, but there's even a rape scene.) If that's not a Lansdale plot, what is? It even has Lansdale like similes: "The panic-frozen bunch of wanderers couldn't have helped a cockroach out of a plate of mashed potatoes. . . ."

I'm posting this in case some future doctoral candidate about to write a dissertation on the collected works of Lansdale is looking for influences. Sure, there are the obvious ones, like Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor, but "No Class Chick" must not be overlooked.

The Short Of It

The Short Of It

Bob Tinsley has started a new blog devoted to reviewing short stories. Interesting idea, and I enjoyed checking out his opinions.

Another Nice Review

EDEN EMBLER

Saw this review of A Bond With Death on the 'net and couldn't resist posting the link. I'm just glad the book got reviewed at all. I thought St. Martin's might not have sent out any review copies.

Thrilling Detective

The Thrilling Detective Web Site

The latest issue of Kevin Burton Smith's webzine is up, and it has (besides a great cover) new fiction, reviews, comics, and all sorts of good stuff. Always worth checking out. And for those of you in the writing game, Kevin says that it's become a paying market.

Ross Thomas, Again

In her comment on my Ross Thomas post below, Sarah Weinman says she's written an appreciation of Thomas for Crimespree magazine. If you're not a subscriber, that should be reason enough for you to send in your sheckels. But Sarah has some bad news, too: ". . .I'm getting the feeling the reprint project isn't doing well and SMP's preparing to drop it. Which would be an utter, utter shame. "

Too true.

Blatant Plug for New Book

Just in case you haven't done your Christmas shopping yet (you know who you are), I thought I'd let you know that my latest book, A Bond with Death, got a nice review in the November 28th Chicago Tribune. Remember, books make the perfect gift. One size fits all.

Here's what the reviewer said: "Bill Crider...writes two entertaining mystery series about his friends and colleagues.... In his third book about small-town English professor Sally Good, Crider links the muder of a campus troublemaker with Good's late husband, supposedly related to a Salem witch.

"As clean and sharp as a fine Bowie knife. Crider's prose slices through conventions and expectations to produce an enjoyable read, no matter what state you're in."

The FREEP

In his comment on my Rolling Stone post, Kent Morgan mentions the Los Angeles Free Press. I lost a big stack of those in the conflagration, too. I particularly enjoyed Harlan Ellison's "Glass Teat" column, and of course the classified ads. I never saw any copies of the S. F. Oracle that Kent mentions, nor have I seen any copies of the S. F. Ball mentioned by the esteemed Cap'n Bob. But it certainly sounds like a worthy publication.

I do still have a big stack of comix that I bought back in the late '60s and early '70s: Zap Comix, Sudden Death Funnies, The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and so on. Thank goodness I didn't store those with the issues of Rolling Stone.

THE ZOOMQUILT | a collaborative art project

THE ZOOMQUILT | a collaborative art project

Far Out! Click the link and have a look.

Like a Rolling Stone

Someone on the Rara-avis list mentioned that Greil Marcus reviewed James Crumley's The Last Good Kiss in Rolling Stone. This comment brought the following response from the mild-mannered Kevin Burton Smith:

"Gee, I remember that one too -- it made me go out and buy the book, which I still think is Crumley's best by far. And didn't Marcus also do a column on Chandler about the same time, a collection of his best wisecracks?

"And how the story about Warren Zevon and Ross Macdonald? And the Macdonald obit? And the original version of Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities? The Patty Hearst story? Mikal Gilmore's coverage of his brother's execution? All those great (and disturbing) true crime
stories? Hunter S. Thompson? P.J. O'Rourke? Dave Marsh? Charles M. Young? And on and on.

"It's a sad world when the most famous Rolling Stone staffer is now lightweight filmmaker Cameron Crowe, whose lightweight rock crit career reached its pinnacle with his penning of the liner notes for Frampton Comes Alive.

"Kids, believe it or not, once upon a time Rolling Stone was much much more than just a marginally hipper version of People. Forget the cutting edge (and often surprisingly hard-boiled) writing on lit and music and politics and culture, now it's mostly, to quote those other Stones, starfuckastarfuckastarfuckastarfuckastar and regularly scheduled special issues and tributes to itself."

Well, I couldn't have said it better myself, which is why I asked Kevin if it would be okay for me to reprint his remarks here. I actually know nothing at all about the current incarnation of the magazine, but I was a subscriber from the late 1960s until the middle 1980s. By then it had begun to be of little interest to me. I'll never forget, however, the story that Kevin mentions, the one about Macdonald and Warren Zevon. I went out and bought Zevon's album (it was an LP, which you oldsters will understand), and it was so good that I bought every Zevon album afterward, which means I have a couple on 8-track, some on cassette, and others on CD.

But what about those great issues of Rolling Stone from the early days? Since I save everything, don't I still have them around? No, and that's the point of this post. When I left Howard Payne U. to come here and teach in Alvin, I had no room for all those back issues. However, there was a great storage cabinet in the Main Building on the floor where I taught. I'd been keeping the magazines there for years, and I thought it would be a great place to leave them. If I ever wanted them, I could just go back and get them. Well, Robert Burns told us a long time ago about the best-laid plans and what happens to them. In this case, Old Main burned to the ground the year after I left, and mingled in with the ashes of everything else were those of my Rolling Stone collection. I think about it every now and then. Sic transit gloria mundi, or words to that effect.

Ross Thomas

Now and then some of us will sit around at some mystery convention somewhere and ask the age-old question: "Why didn't Ross Thomas ever become a best-selling writer?" I was asking myself the same thing the other day when I was re-reading The Fourth Durango.

I think that when Otto Penzler signed Thomas to Mysterious Press, both of them probably had the idea that it was time for Thomas to "break out," as they say these days. For years Thomas had gotten rave reviews, and no wonder. He was one of the best writers around. His style was sophisticated without being literary, his plots were clever and twisty, his characterization was the best in the business, his dialogue was top-notch, his humor always seemed to click, his wit was sharp, his backgrounds and facts always seemed absolutely on the money, his worldview was a little jaded but never depressing. So why didn't Thomas break out?

Don't ask me. Writers who couldn't carry Thomas's ballpoint pen (No, I'm not naming names. [James Patterson, John Grisham, Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum.]) sell billions of copies, while a guy like Thomas sells only adequately. Maybe he was too good to be a best-seller. I suppose that's possible. It's also a shame. If you haven't read one of Thomas's books, you should. It'll be a real treat, whether it's one he wrote under his own name or as "Oliver Bleeck." I believe that the ones under his name are currently being reprinted in paperback by St. Martin's, which is a real public service.

I'd like to add here that when I picked up the first Oliver Bleeck book, many years ago, I'd read no more than two pages before I knew that Thomas had written it. I'm not usually that perceptive. (It's happened only two other times.) But Thomas was so good that I knew nobody else could have been the author.

Looney Tunes

This year, because I've been really good, Santa will be bringing me the second Looney Tunes Golden Collection. I'm looking forward to that gift as much as I am to just about any other, including my copy of Max Allan Collins' Men's Adventure Magazines. Which is saying a lot.

Probably everybody has a favorite Warner Brothers cartoon, and there are so many good ones that it's hard to choose just one. So I won't even try. But I will mention one that impressed me a lot when I was a kid. I saw it only once and never got another look at it until I got the first Golden Collection last year. Since I watched WB cartoons on TV for hundreds hours with my kids when they were young, I don't know how I missed this one, but it was great to see it again at last.

It's called "Scaredy Cat," and it stars Porky and Sylvester, who go to an old deserted mansion on a dark and stormy night. Practically the first thing that Sylvester sees is a bunch of mice taking a cat to be excuted, while as what I thought of as a kid as "the Death March" is played in the background. For whatever reason, this struck me as the creepiest scene in any cartoon I'd ever seen. I was happy to discover that I found it just as creepy after all these years. I've watched "Scaredy Cat" a couple of times just to see that scene. The whole thing seems to have a little bit darker tone than most cartoons, in spite of the overly cheerful ending. Maybe that's one reason why I liked it so much.

And of course another reason is that I can't resist the old-deserted-mansion-on-a-dark-and stormy-night bit. Give me Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and I'm a happy guy. Hey, I'll even watch Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorillia. Judy often says, "It takes so little to make you happy." How true.

Godzilla Stomps Onto Walk Of Fame

WCCO: Godzilla Stomps Onto Walk Of Fame

What took them so long?

Gulf Coast Living

One thing I like about living down here practically on the Texas Gulf Coast: no winter.

One thing I don't like about living down here practically on the Texas Gulf Coast: year-round lawn mowing.

Anybody who knows me knows that I don't like mowing the lawn. This stems from a childhood trauma created by having to mow a lawn of about ten acres with a reel-type push mower. Uphill. In the snow.

Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little bit. Not about the push mower, however. I really did mow a large lawn with one for several years back before I even entered junior high. My father finally relented and bought a power mower, for which I was grateful for about forty-five minutes. Then I found out I was expected to use it.

Down here, grass grows for most of the year. If you're lucky, you might have to mow only a couple of times in December, and maybe not even once in January. But by the middle of February, the stuff is greening up, and once that happens, you might as well crank up the mower because the cycle is beginning all over again. It never ends.

Which is why I was out today, the Monday after Thanksgiving, mowing in the 80 degree weather. And as soon as I finished, it rained. Which means the stupid lawn is growing even now.

Lawn mowing is big business in these parts. People make good money at the job. My favorite story in that regard was told to me by a teacher at the college. He was building a very nice home in Friendswood, just down the road from Alvin. He thought it was rather extravagant, in fact. But not long after he got started, someone began an even bigger, nicer home right down the street. He decided that he'd like to meet the people who were building it, since they'd soon be his neighbors, so he walked down one afternoon. And -- I'm sure you guessed it -- the guy who would soon be moving in was the one who came every week to the teacher's house to mow the lawn.

Nobody pays me. All I get is the satisfaction of a job well done. And we all know how good that makes you feel.

So Long, PWG.

Plots with Guns Flips You the Bird

Plots with Guns is packing it in. The zine did great work and published some fine stories in its five years. Check out the final issue by clicking on the link above. Thanks to Neil Smith, Victor Gischler, M. Hunter Hayes, and Trevor Maviano for all their good work.

Another Good One from Hard Case Crime! 

Allan Guthrie: KISS HER GOODBYE

Since I was fortunate enough to get an advance reading copy of Al Guthrie's new novel, Kiss Her Goodbye, I thought I'd let you know what you have to look forward to.

First of all, the book is not, as we like to say, for the squeamish. It's about terrible people who do terrible things to other people, and some of those things are described in detail. Baseball bats are involved, and so are various parts of people's anatomies.

The plot is in the classic Gold Medal tradition, the one where a more or less ordinary guy finds himself in big trouble, and, just when you think it can't get any worse, it gets worse. Much worse.

Joe Hope, who is not a nice man, gets some bad news: his daughter, possibly the only person he cares about, commits suicide. And then his wife is murdered. Joe might not care so much about his wife's death if the cops didn't think he was the killer. He decides to find out who's responsible and deal out a little payback, assuming he can survive.

Kiss Her Goodbye moves fast, and there are plenty of interesting characters to meet along the way. My favorite is Tina, a prostitute who can handle a baseball bat almost as well as Joe. (Check out that great cover.) The climax is as nerve-wracking as anybody could ask for.

I don't know what's going on over there in Ireland and the U.K. Maybe it's something in the water. If it is, I wish I had some of it to drink, myself. (Maybe it's not the water.) Anyway, there are a lot of guys over there who are really bringing noir and hardboiled novels back to their roots, but they're doing it in their own way and in their own styles. Allan Guthrie is right out there in the front of the pack, and if you missed his outstanding debut novel, Two-Way Split, it's time you read it right now. And then, next March, you'll want to be right there at your local newsstand (assuming there is such a thing these days) to grab Kiss Her Goodbye.

And while I'm at it, here's another word of thanks to the good folks at Hard Case Crime for publishing novels like this one, along with other originals and classics. Long may they prosper.

My brother, sister, and I got together yesterday for a little Thanksgiving nostalgia. Bob, my brother, had a box of old family photos, and he gave me a few of them. This one isn't dated, but I'd guess it's from around 1949. That's Bob on the bottom left, aiming the rifle. The kid in the middle is John Roy Truelove, who lived across the street from us and who died in an automobile accident on his way back to college around 1961. Francelle, my sister, is the cowgirl on the right, and of course that's me in the back. You might not be able to see the twin pistols I'm holding on John Roy's shoulders, but they were from a double-holster set. Boy, I wish I had them now. Not to mention that outfit Francelle's wearing. The picture was taken at our house at 308 East Hunt Street. There's a vacant lot there now. 

A Happy Thanksgiving to all! 

Check it out

Allan Guthrie's Noir Originals Zine: Noir And Hardboiled Fiction

The latest issue of Al Guthrie's webzine is up, and it's a good one. As always. Interviews, articles, fiction, reviews. Great stuff. Click on the linke above and see for yourself.

Motorcade Mania

I mentioned in an earlier post that I once became part of JFK's motorcade. It happened in Austin in the spring of (I think) 1960. It was registration week at The University of Texas at Austin, and I had my parents' 1956 baby blue Buick Special 4-door hardtop (by far the prettiest car the family ever owned) at school because during that week, even freshmen could have cars on campus. JFK was scheduled to speak on the steps of the capitol building, so several of us decided to go hear him.

I know that my roommate, Walter Funk, went along. I know that one of my best friends from high school, Bob Tyus, was with us. And I'm pretty sure that Mike Leary and Allan Rast were along as well. At any rate, I drove the whole bunch to the capitol grounds and found a great parking spot in back of the building. We all walked around to the front and stood in the crowd to hear the speech. I don't remember a thing that was said.

When the speech was over, we all ran to the back of the capitol building and went in through the back door. JFK was coming through the building, shaking hands with people who were in lines on both sides of him. I know that Bob Tyus and I shoved through the press and stuck out our hands for a brief contact. Then we all ran back to the car, hoping to get out of there before the crush of the traffic jammed all the streets.

Somehow we got out just in time to get into the motorcade, only a couple of cars in front of the one that JFK was riding in. We weren't in line for long. A car full of guys in coats, ties, and hats pulled up beside me and motioned me to the side of the road. Like a good citizen, I pulled over and stopped. The secret service guys stayed there for a second or two, until JFK's car went by, and then moved on. I stayed until the entire motorcade had gone past, and then I drove back to the university, my brush with greatness over.

I still remember where I parked that day, along the street that ran by the intramural field, which disappeared under a hive-like dorm more than 30 years ago.

November 22

November 22 is my mother's birthday. She's not around to enjoy it anymore, and the truth is that she didn't enjoy it for quite a few years after 1963 because of what happened that day and what the day came to represent to the whole world. She got tired of seeing the newspaper headlines every year on her brithday, and I don't much blame her.

As I mentioned in another post, I was talking about Huckleberry Finn to my fourth period junior English class at Corsicana High School on November 22, 1963, when the school secretary came by and called me to the door. She said that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. She didn't have any other details, so I went back and finished up the class without saying anything to them about it.

The next period I had to conduct the study hall. This was held in a very large room with, as I recall, nearly 90 desks. By the time I got there, just about every student in the school had heard the news. If it wasn't the quietest study hall I ever had, it was certainly the most solemn. A student had one of those little transistor radios that were so popular at that time. He put it in the window (to improve the reception) and turned it on. We all listened to the reports coming out of Dallas. Nobody talked. A girl named Janis Glenn cried for most of the hour.

I don't remember anything at all about my sixth period class. I'm not even sure I met it. Maybe the principal dismissed classes after fifth period.

Later I saw Jack Ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald live on TV in black and white. I saw the funeral procession in black and white as well.

Like everyone else who lived through that time, I'll never forget it. And I'm sad that my memories of my mother on her birthday are tangled up with memories of those terrible days.

Anthony Boucher

When I was a kid reading The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction back in the latter 1950s, one of the things I liked most about the magazine was Anthony Boucher's book reviews. (A few years later I went to college and discovered Boucher's "Criminals at Large" column in The New York Times Book Review and my life was changed forever. But that's another story.) Last night I was browsing through the May 1958 issue of F&SF and read Boucher's column. I thought what he had to say was pretty interesting, so I'm going to put it here so you can have a look. Boucher slipped up, using "Middle World" for "Middle Earth," but he was (as usual) a pretty perceptive guy:

"Belatedly the news trickles through that the International Fantasy Award, presented at last year's World Science Fiction Convention in London, went to J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

"As regular readers of this department may guess, I could not be more delighted. This superb trilogy— consisting of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King—is one of the major achievements of epic imagination in our lifetimes, and your life is the poorer if you have failed to read it. One warning, however: Tolkien's Middle World is, like Baker Street or the Land of Oz, a trap with a firm and powerful grip. Enthusiasm may here pass easily into mania; and once infected by Tolkien's magic, you may never again quite reenter this 'real' 1958 world of satellites and ICBMs and segregation and recession.

"Allen & Unwin, Tolkien's London publishers, have disclosed that the perfectionist scholar is now 'working as best he can on The Silmarillion, which might best be described as the source book for The Lord of the Rings. We cannot,' they add, 'hold out any hope that it will be published this year.' This is news which should reduce at least the English-speaking suicide rate to zero; who could willingly depart from a life which holds such a treasure in its future?"

The Norths on Radio

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

If you don't read the comments, you missed the link above to the excellent discussion of Pam and Jerry North on radio. Well worth your time.

500 Greatest Songs

RollingStone.com: News - 500 Greatest Songs

Okay, it's hard to argue with most of these choices, but only one Elvis song in the Top 20? Let's face it: "Jailhouse Rock" is about ten times better than "Yesterday."

For those of you unfortunate enough not to own a copy of the Mr. & Mrs. North DVD (Volume 2), this is the photo of Barbara Britton to which James Reasoner alludes in his comment. I didn't want you to feel deprived.

Mr. & Mrs. North 

Mr. & Mrs. North

Mr. & Mrs. North, the TV series, like the radio show before it, was based on the books by Frances and Richard Lockridge. It ran on CBS from October 1952 until July 1954. I picked up three episodes on one dollar DVD not long ago, and last night I watched "These Latins," first telecast on October 31, 1952.

I had fond memories of Mr. & Mrs. North from both radio and TV. One of the reasons I liked the TV version is that I thought Barbara Britton, who played Pam North, was a doll. After watching "These Latins," I still do. The show also starred Richard Denning as Jerry North. I like his work, too, but for me Pam was the big attraction.

"These Latins" has a couple of good guest stars: Katy Jurado and Hans Conried. Katy is the flirtatious "author" of a book Jerry is about to publish, and Hans is an Argentine poet who's madly in love with her. He overacts with zest, loving every line he speaks in his e-Spanish accen', don' joo know. Best line in the show is Katy's, when she tells Hans how well her book is going to do, and Hans says that he wrote it. "I wrote it," the offended Katy says. "You just wrote down the lines." Katy is the murder victim, sad to say, and the solution to the crime is rather perfunctory. Pam, who is not as ditsy as she appears to be, solves it, much to everyone's surprise.

I've read a couple of the Lockridge novels, and Pam reminded me a little of Gracie Allen. However, Barbara Britton does a pretty good job of capturing the essence of Pam for the TV show. No wonder I thought she was cute. And still do.

The Early '60s

My profuse thanks to Jaime over at Something Old, Nothing New for linking this article in the Wilson Quarterly. The early 1960s were great years for me. The author of the article says that "Today, the early 1960s seem remote: . . . ." But to me, those days are as close as yesterday. Maybe closer. I can see them in my mind's eye as clearly as I see the computer screen in front of me. They were they years in which I attended college, got my undergraduate degree, turned twenty-one, started my teaching career, got married. Here are a few of what were for me the defining moments of the time:

I attended the funeral of the last surviving veteran of the Civil War in Franklin, Texas.

On the Monday after the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show, a student in one of my English classes at Corsicana High School showed up with a completely new hair style. He'd washed his hair and dried it and then let it fall as it would.

I was talking that same class when the school secretary called me to the door to tell me that John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. (I had seen Kennedy in person a couple of years earlier when he spoke on the steps of the Texas capitol building in Austin and had inadvertently become a part of his motorcade afterward. But that's another story.)

Here's something else the author of the article says, and I couldn't agree more: "[T]he respectably middlebrow common culture of the early 1960s is only a memory, as is the pipe dream of an America enchanted by serious literature and classical music; instead we have American mass culture, a worldwide economic powerhouse that transforms almost everything it touches. And though that mass culture is, admittedly, large and diverse—and fragmented—enough to include many bright spots, it also has staggering depths of vulgarity, is aimed (largely) at 12-year-olds, and has little regard for intelligence, seriousness, or wit. The early 1960s’ naiveté may be gone, but philistinism and ignorance thrive unashamed. In a time when many Americans appear far more eager to be coarsened than to be edified, the early 1960s look very attractive indeed."

Toy Hall of Fame

Here's a link via Scrubbles.net to the Toy Hall of Fame. Check it out to see if anything's missing (What? No Lincoln Logs?) and send in your nomination.

A Bill S. Ballinger Double Shot. 

Bill S. Ballinger

There's been some discussion over at Ed Gorman's blog of Bill S. Ballinger, a sadly neglected writer whose books are worth rediscovery. One of them, The Tooth and the Nail, really knocked me for a loop when I first read it, more than 40 years ago. Ed isn't as taken with that one as I was, but he really likes Portrait in Smoke, which I also think is excellent. For that matter, what about The Wife of the Red-Haired Man and The Longest Second? Both thoroughly entertaining books.

Ballinger's technique was to tell two different stories, one in first person and one in third person, in alternating chapters. Eventually the stories come together, sometimes in surprising ways and sometimes in sadly inevitable ways. (And if you think that's an easy trick to pull of, just try it.)

Ballinger went on to do a number of paperback originals for Signet Books (and at least one each for Gold Medal and Pyramid). In the '60s he did a series of spy novels (again for Signet) featuring a character named Joaquin Hawks, and all of these are fun to read.

There are several of Ballinger's originals that I haven't read yet, including one called The Source of Fear, which supposedly has a lost city in it. I can't resist lost cities, so I gotta get to that one soon.

In 1993, Harper reprinted two of Ballinger's best in one paperback volume, pictured above. A real bargain if you can find it.

A Screen Legend, indeed! 

A Shameful Admission

Many years ago when the world was dewy fresh and damsels in dirndls danced on the greensward, I saw a movie called Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. I was young and innocent and didn't realize at the time just how awful the movie was, but later I saw it again and was amazed at the gloriousness of its awfulness. Besides Bela Lugosi, it stars (if that's the right word) Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, who are playing Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Duke's a pretty weak Dino, but Sammy is uncannily like Jerry. In fact, later on, Lewis sued Petrillo to keep him from acting so much like Jerry. But I digress. You have to see this movie for yourself to comprehend how wonderfully bad it is. Just the opening scene, where Duke and Sammy are found lying unconscious after having fallen from an airplane (and they've been lying there a long, long time -- long enough to grow beards), is amazing. The native costumes are astounding. The native chatter, which seems to be a combination of Spanish and nonsense syllables, is something to give a linguist nightmares. And then Sammy wakes up and goes into his Jerry Lewis act. Talk about your nightmares!

All right, already, you're saying. Enough of that. Get to the shameful admission. Okay, fine. Here it is. The other day I was in Wal-Mart, and I saw boxes full of dollar DVDs. I'm a sucker for a DVD for a buck, so I looked them over. And there it was, beckoning seductively: a brand new DVD of Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla for only a dollar. "A Film Festival Favorite Re-Presented for the Digital Generation!"

But it's a terrible movie, I told myself. You don't need it. Not even for a buck. And so I hardened my heart and passed it by. Went on about my business. Forgot all about it.

Okay, that last part's a lie. I couldn't forget it. It preyed on my mind. It called out to me in the nighttime.

And here's the shameful admission. I went back a couple of days ago, and I bought it. Yes! And even worse, I've watched it! (Well, not all of it. Nobody can watch all of it at one sitting and live to tell the tale.)

Boy, I'm glad I got that off my chest. I feel much better now.

No Wonder they Call him Dick!

See it here.

No further comment.

I-69. How about you?

Hostettler mounting campaign to change the name of Interstate 69: "John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number."

You can't make this stuff up. No disrespect for the current adminstration intended, in case you're reading this Mr. Ashcroft, but it's just plain nutty. And I'm afraid we'll be seeing more and more of it as time goes by (to coin a phrase). I keep telling myself that it's joke, but I'm afraid it's not.

UPDATE: As it turns out, this is indeed a hoax. Whew. I'm glad to know it for sure.

Save Houston's Rock101 KLOL

Save Houston's Rock101 KLOL

Some fans are trying to save Rock 101 KLOL. Fat chance. Still, it's nice to know that they're getting some signatures on their petition.

The Writing Game (again)

Ed's Place

Some years ago, never mind how many, I got a call from a Houston private investigator named Clyde Wilson. Wilson is a famous guy in this area and elsewhere. He was Ivana Trump’s investigator when she divorced The Donald. He negotiated a hostage situation in North Africa. He caught a serial killer in Clear Lake, Texas. (Yeah, I know private-eyes aren’t supposed to do that kind of thing, but Wilson did.) So what did Wilson want with me? He wanted me to help him write his autobiography.

That's the beginning of my post on Ed Gorman's Blog. If you want to read the rest of it, you'll have to click the link and scroll down.

The Sailor Man 

Popeye is 75

Ivan, over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, reminds us that Popeye is celebrating his 75th birthday this year. There's a link to this article in the New York Times, but you'll have to register to read it.

The good news for Popeye fans is that in December the Cartoon Network will be devoting four consecutive Fridays to the Sailor Man, showing all the great Fleischer cartoons and others as well. There's a good article about this celebration here.

As for me, I decided not to wait for the Cartooon Network. I got out one of my dollar DVDs and watched a few episodes. There's only one from the Fleischer era on Volume One. It's "Popeye Meets Ali Baba and His 40 Thieves," from 1937. Great visuals and animation, a song from Ali Baba (Bluto, of course), Popeye's trademark muttering, and jokes (Popeye, while they're wandering in the desert: "If I had some bread, I'd make me a sandwich, if I had a witch"). This was the best cartoon on the DVD. Coming in second is "Big Bad Sinbad," from the '50s. The visuals are almost as good as in the '30s cartoon. Bluto is a pretty tough Sinbad, but Popeye (with the help of some spinach) takes care of him. "Ancient Fistory" is the Cinderella story, with Popeye in the Cinderella role, or the "Cinderfella" role, as he puts it (years before Jerry Lewis came up with the idea). I'll have to watch a few more of these soon.

UPDATE: I had another look at "Big Bad Sinbad" because I was a little bothered by it, and I think I've figured out why. This is two cartoons in one. What they did was take one of the earlier Fleischer cartoons, and butcher it. There's a new opening and a new ending, with some interruptions along the way. A good bit of the earlier cartoon (which was probably much better) has been cut. At least that's the way I see it. Maybe I'll look into this further. Or maybe not.

Today, the Geezers, Tomorrow, the World!

HoustonChronicle.com - KLOL suddenly switches to Spanish format

Clear Channel has struck again. It wasn't enough that they'd screwed up the AM dial. Oh, no. Not for Clear Channel. As I was still reeling from the fact that the media mega-monster is changing Geezer Radio 790 AM to "all sports talk, all the time," CC suddenly and without warning changed the format of KLOL-FM (101.1) from rock to "Spanglish Top 40."

Frank Denton - The Rogue Raven

Frank Denton - The Rogue Raven

Frank Denton has returned from his wanderings and taken up posting again. It's good to have him back.

Tales of Horror and the Supernatural 

Something a Little Different

Now and then a guy (well, this guy) needs to read something that's not like anything else he's been reading for a while. And when my bookshelves collapsed, I located several books that filled the bill.

One of them was Volume One of Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Arthur Machen. "The God Pan" is the first story (or novella) in the book, and it was just what I was looking for. One character in the story mentions that it's like a set of Chinese boxes, one inside the other, and that's exactly what it is. In fact, the "story" is really a number of stories that seem at first to have only tenuous connections, but as you read farther you begin to see that there's a connection, sure enough. The horror is subtle, not the gross-out kind. Machen isn't one of those writers who spell things. He gives a few details, then leaves the rest up to the reader's imagination. It's a technique that works very well in "The God Pan." And also in "The Inmost Light." These are two of Machen's most famous works, and they certainly worked for me.

Machen isn't exactly a househould name these days, and one of the entertaining things (to me) about reading stories like these is that you can easily imagine that nobody else in the whole country is reading them or has even thought of them in years.

Jo Stafford

index

Happy birthday to one of the great voices of my childhood. And still a great voice today.

The Home Computer 2004

Jayme Lynn Blaschke's Gibberish

The link is to a great photo of the Rand Corporation's 1954 vision of what a home computer would look like in 50 years. Pretty cool.

The Java Jive 

Coffee

I don't drink it.

Many mornings when I was teaching, I'd watch the coffee drinkers lined up in front of the urn in the faculty lounge as the coffee perked, their hands shaking as they held their cups, their feet tapping as they tried to urge the brewing process on to greater speed. I never quite understood it.

Oh, I could appreciate the ritual aspect of it, all right. In fact, I sort of envied the coffee drinkers for the many days, weeks, years, of pleasant morning ritual that I would never be a part of. But actually drinking coffee was a price I wasn't willing to pay. I don't like the taste.

I tried, God knows, I tried. When I went to college, everyone drank coffee. The ritual in those days was to stay up all night to study for exams, drinking quarts of coffee along the way. So I tried to learn to like coffee. I bought the best brands. I tried all the brewing secrets.

Didn't work. Not only did I not like coffee, but I didn't like staying up all night, either. At least not to study. As usual, I just didn't fit in.

After I got married, I tried again. Judy loves coffee. She has it morning, noon, and night. (She used to drink so much of it that I actually had to hold an intervention, but that's another story.) Because she likes it so much, I gave it another try.

Didn't work. I still don't like the taste. I get my caffeine in other ways, Dr Pepper and Pepsi One being the preferred methods. But when it comes to coffee, include me out.

The Incredibles 

The Incredibles

Last night Judy and I went to see The Incredibles. We both liked it a lot. I've seen complaints that it rips off the plot of Spy Kids, to which I respond, "So?" And I've even seen complaints that the villain's lair rips off James Bond movies. Hey, what kind of lair would you expect an incredibly wealthy fanboy villain to have if not one modeled on James Bond movies? What matters is that The Incredibles has humor, heart, and action. Or maybe that should be action! It's the best superhero movie I've seen in years, maybe since the first Christopher Reeve Superman. In fact, for my part, Hollywood can just turn all future superhero movies over to Brad Bird and Pixar.

One thing that really got me about the movie was that by the time it was over I'd pretty much forgotten that I wasn't watching real people on the screen. The animation is that good. I'm scared to think where movie-making is going next, but then I haven't even seen The Polar Express yet. I'd love to see it in IMAX 3-D because I'm sure it would be an amazing experience.

Addendum: Jayme Blaschke has a comment below that's worth reading, and I put a link in my reply to his more complete review of the movie. But that link's not clickable. This one is.

Never Trust A Naked Bus Driver 

Never Trust A Naked Bus Driver

The other day I mentioned that when some of the office bookshelves collapsed, I found my copies of three books by Jack Douglas that I'd been looking for. I discovered Douglas's books back in 1959 or 1960, and at the time I thought they were hilarious. So last night I decided to see if they were still funny after 45 years or so and picked up Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver. The title is either funny or sage advice. Or both.

The cover has a pretty good likeness of Douglas on it. He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show back when Jack Parr was the host, so I remember what he looked like. And the book is just as strange as I remembered. It's very short, only 116 pages, and some of the pages have very little written on them. Chapter 42, for example, is nothing more than a sign that says, "This is your Submarine. Keep It Tidy." And in fact, chapter might be the wrong word, as it implies some kind of continuity. There's no continuity in the book. Each "chapter" is a separate entity containing things like notes, playbills, diary entries, reminiscenses, one-liners, and so on. My favorite chapter begins with another sign: "Kick the Happiness Habit -- Become a Writer."

So does the book still make me laugh? Sure, in places. It's not as funny to me as it was long ago, however, which is a shame. I figure the book hasn't changed. So it must be me.

Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson in KISS ME, KATE. 

Howard Keel, RIP

CNN.com - 'Dallas' actor Howard Keel dead - Nov 7, 2004: "'Dallas' actor Howard Keel dead"

I always sort of liked Howard Keel. The first thing I remember seeing him in was Annie Get Your Gun, which was a Broadway musical kind of western. And after that there was Show Boat. I was more impressed by Ava Gardner and Kathryn Grayson, though. Keel played another musical westerner in Calamity Jane, and he was good. I mean, if you can accept squeaky clean Doris Day as Calamity Jane, you can accept just about anything. My favorite Keel movie is Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and he plays a rugged frontiersman in that one, as well. Not that the movie's intended to be a realistic depiction of frontier life, any more than Calamity Jane was. Another of my favorites is Kiss Me, Kate. Kathryn Grayson is in that one, too, but what really got my attention was Ann Miller's "Too Darn Hot" number. Hubba-hubba! But I digress. On the grittier side, there's a non-musical western called Waco that Keel made about 40 years ago. It's pretty much forgotten now, but worth a look. I suppose most people remember him for his role on Dallas, but I never saw a single episode of that show.

Flying Taxis

BBC NEWS | UK | Flying taxi vision for commuters

OK, this would be cool, but as for myself, I'm holding out for the Commander Cody Rocket Suit.

The Perils of Book Ownership

When we moved into this house in 1983, I took over the smallest bedroom as my office. I attached some rails to the sheetrock walls, put shelf-holders in the rails, and put shelves on the holders. Then I filled the shelves with paperback books. Lots of paperback books.

The other day I was sitting at the computer when I heard a strange noise. I looked up to my right and saw that the top shelf of paperbacks had collapsed onto the shelf below, which had collapsed onto the shelf below that. Since all three of those shelves were double stacked with paperbacks, it was a precarious situation. If they all let go at once, I was going to be buried in books. Probably appropriate, but it would have taken Judy weeks to dig me out. So I leapt into action.

It's too bad that there was no one with a video camera to record subsequent events. I had a low chair at one end of the shelves and a stool at the other. To get from the chair to the stool, I had to run around the computer desk. And I had to move fast. At times, I was standing on both the stool and the chair at the same time. Impossible, you say? Well, I was there, and I know. I'm sure it looked like something out of a Warner Brothers cartoon. Somehow I managed to get most of the books cleared off the shelves and to get the shelves themselves down before there was a total disaster. Books were stacked all over the desks in the office and all over the floor in both the office and an adjoining bedroom.

I discovered the reason for the collapse: the middle rail had pulled away from the sheetrock. So I was off to the hardware store to get a couple of sheetrock anchors to replace the old ones. After I got that taken care of, the rails were back in place, and I put the shelves back up. As of today, the books are back in place, too. If the shelves will hold up for another 21 years, I probably won't care what happens to them.

A good side effect of the collapse was that I found some books I'd been looking for, the first three by Jack Douglas: My Brother was an Only Child, Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver, and A Funny Thing Happened on my way to the Grave.