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.

Peter Rabe

Stark House again comes to the rescue of those of you who don't want to search eBay to find a bargain on Peter Rabe's classic Gold Medal novels. This double book has two fine novels inside, as you can see from the cover. Both are highly recommended, and I'm not just saying this because I had a hand in one of the introductory essays. The truth is that George Tuttle's essay is the one you want to read. It's full of great information on Rabe and worth the price of the book all by itself. The book's publication date is January, so save up a few bucks during the holidays and order it.

Rings

In this somewhat blurry photo are two cereal premiums from my lost youth. On the right is my Lone Ranger Silver Saddle ring. It has a gold saddle, so maybe I have the name wrong, but the ring itself is silver. On the left is one that, I'm ashamed to admit, I can't recall the name of. Part of the name is "signal ring," I'm almost sure. The curved part you can see at the bottom of the ring held a small battery, and you could use the ring (that's the original bulb) to send Morse code, or at least that was the theory. You might be able to make out the scales of justice on the left hand side of the ring. Maybe that's a clue. I think the ring might be connected to Captain Midnight, but I'm not at all sure. Any help?

Late-breaking news. I should've looked on eBay before posting. Here's the signal ring, which might not have been a premium after all. And here's the Lone Ranger Saddle Ring (no silver; I guess I was thinking of the great horse by that name). I don't have the filmstrip with mine.

Evan Hunter, Again

Is there anything Evan Hunter can't write? I first became acquainted with his work nearly 50 (!) years ago when I read his Winston SF juvenile, FIND THE FEATHERED SERPENT, which must have been written about the same time he was doing THE EVIL SLEEP! (Scroll down to see a post on that one.) I wasn't even aware that he'd written a western (or historical) until someone mentioned THE CHISHOLMS to me. It was first published in the latter 1970s, and I wonder if it might have been tied in with the TV series of that name. There's no mention of the TV series in this reprint edition I picked up, however. The book is about a family from Virginia that decides to move west. They leave at the wrong time of the year and so have to travel virtually alone rather than with a wagon train. They run into scamsters, Indians, bad weather, and plenty of other problems. The book's dark tone reminded me a little of Larry McMurtry's novels, and it's certainly just as well-written. I'm in awe of Evan Hunter's abilities.

Roy Barcroft 

Roy Barcroft

I haven't been able to get on Blogger all day. Maybe there were millions of people blogging about the election and clogging the pipeline. Not that I had anything important to say, anyway.

One thing I got along with the Dixie Cup lids was a few B-western trading cards. One of them pictures Roy Barcroft, who played the lead villain (or "brains heavy" as they say in the biz; for the "dog heavies" read L. J. Washburn's dandy novel) in hundreds of Republic westerns. Barcroft played the bad guy so often that the kids in my hometown would start booing and throwing popcorn at the screen the first time he showed up in any feature.

One of my friends thought my father looked like Barcroft, but I never saw the resemblance. Most people who thought my father looked like any movie star at all compared him to Roy Rogers. I was never too sure of that one, either.

Allan Rocky Lane 

Dixie Cup Lids

When I was in first grade, the school I attended was located only a couple of blocks from my house. But on the way, I passed two mom-and-pop stores that sold groceries, candy, and soft drinks. They also sold hamburgers to kids who didn't want to eat in the cafeteria. I usually just went home for lunch, but I loved to stop at one or the other of those stores after school and buy a little cup of ice cream that cost five cents, which also covered the cost of the little wooden spoon you got to eat the ice cream with. We called the ice cream "Dixie Cups" because, I suppose, the company that made the ice cream was named Dixie and because the ice cream came in cups. But nobody really cared about the ice cream, or at least I didn't. What I like was the photos of movie stars on the inside of the cup lids. I had a small but select stack of these that I'd collected, but somehow they disappeared over the years (I suspect that my mother tossed them along with my comic books). Recently I've picked up a few replacement lids on eBay. My favorites were always those of the B-western stars, like Allan "Rocky" Lane, Wild Bill Elliott, Charles (The Durango Kid) Starrett, and it's fun to have them again.

Bloggers Beware?

anniesj: a word to the wise

For all I know, this is a hoax, but any of you political types might want to read it just for fun.

I'd been looking for this book for many years. I'm not sure Falcon Books were very well distributed in Texas, since I've run across very few of them, and I'd probably never have found this one if it hadn't been for eBay. Sure, the book was reprinted by Fawcett Crest in a slightly revised version as SO NUDE, SO DEAD, but I wanted the Falcon. Now I have it, even if it isn't signed, like Richard Moore's copy. I've even read it. It's told from the point of view of a heroin addict who wakes up one morning with a beautiful dead blonde babe in his bed. Not exactly an original idea, except for the addict part. He has to fight his addiction while trying to find the killer. There's a lot of brutality in the book, mostly torture and beatings, and a lot of sex. Ray Stone might be an addict, but he's pretty much irresistible to women. There's some awkward writing. ("Ray," she hissed. "Now!") But the story moves right along, and there's even a mention of Hunter College, which may or may not have been the inspiration for Evan Hunter's last name. Not a great novel, and no fan of Mickey Spillane's will be surprised by the ending, but I'm still glad I finally got my hands on a copy. 

Do people really live out their lives acting out a series of cliches, or is it just that way in the movies? I saw RAY yesterday, and it was a lot like a Douglas Sirk melodrama from the 1950s with a little more frankness about drugs and sex (but not much more; it's rated PG-13, after all). For that matter, it's a lot like one of those '50s rock 'n' roll movies of the GO, JOHNNY, GO era, especially in the way it presents the off-the-cuff creation of classics like "What'd I Say?" and "Hit the Road, Jack." Even though the movie's very long (and sometimes seems even longer), it doesn't really deal with the complexity of Ray Charles' character (it all goes back to childhood trauma!), and some of the supporting cast members are reduced to simple stereotypes. Sure, Jamie Foxx does a terrific job of presenting himself as Charles (except for a dream sequence at the end, when the glasses come off and show us Foxx himself, a jarring note). And of course the music is wonderful, worth the price of admission all by itself, but I left the theater feeling pretty unsatisfied. As we know, however, I'm a grumpy old man, and some of the audience liked the movie a lot more than I did. One elderly black woman pushing a walker told the woman beside her that she loved it and that she was "ready to see it again right now!" 

Monster Mash

If you want to hear the song and see the monsters dance, this link is the place to go.

And if you want a great page full of Halloween-related links, check out Incoming Signals. Everything from rogue taxidermists to the "Mickey Mouse contemplates suicide" daily comic strip from October 1930.

Not a Political Post

On Wednesday I did my civic duty and voted. And believe me, after just a few minutes in the Alvin early voting room, I'm convinced that democracy is not only messy but that we're in serious trouble. The place looked like the wrap party for the combined casts of Dumb and Dumber and Deliverance.

One woman with a nearly shaved head tried to vote in the college board election and came out of the booth saying that she'd done it all wrong and that her tranquilizers were to blame. The election officials voided her ballot and asked if she wanted to vote again, but she was zoned out and just wandered over to the national election side and got in line there.

And that side of the room was an interesting zoo all by itself. One guy in front of me was about 90 years old and using a walker. He had a voter registration certificate that was at least five years out of date. I don't know how they ever settled that one. The discussion was still going on when I left. The zoned-out woman was in the booth next to me, and one of the election officials was with her. I didn't try to listen in, but the official was talking the whole time. I wonder just who was voting. All in all, it was a depressing experience.

My favorite band of the '70s was Creedence Clearwater Revival. I could give you a list of their songs that I like, but it would take too long. When Creedence broke up, I continued to keep up with John Fogerty, whose voice and arrangements gave the group most of its distinctive sound. His new CD is DEJA VIEW ALL OVER AGAIN, and the title song is an anti-Iraq war tune, comparing Iraq to Viet Nam in Fogerty's usual understated way. But the title might also have another meaning, as most of the songs on the CD already sound familiar, as if you might have heard them on some other John Fogerty production. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like Fogerty's music, and I'm always happy to listen to whatever he comes up with. "I Will Walk with You" is a nice country-flavored love song, and "Honey Do" is a humorous number that's going to remind a lot of guys of something they hear all the time. My grandmother used to cook rhubarb, and I haven't had any in probably 50 years, so I got a little nostalgic listening to "Rhubarb Pie." "She's Got Baggage" is probably the hardest rocker on the CD. Good stuff, too. In fact, all the songs are good, if familiar. Great listening. 

The Red Sox, the Curse, a Total Eclipse, and the Kingston Trio

Judy and I are baseball fans. We watch the Houston Astros on TV or listen to them on radio just about every evening during the summer, and we enjoyed their run toward the play-offs this year. While we were sorry to see them miss out on the World Series (and they certainly had their chances in the play-off games with the Cardinals), we at least had the fun of seeing them get past the first play-off round for the first time in their history.

I've always been a National League kind of a guy, and ordinarily I'd have been rooting for the Cards in the World Series. But not this time. Here's why not: I'm a big fan of the Kingston Trio (see my homepage for more on that topic). On October 17th, the Kingston Trio sang "The Star Spangled Banner" before the play-off game between the Red Sox and the New York Yankers. At that point, thanks to the magic of the KT, the Curse of the Bambino was lifted, and the Red Sox went on their unprecedented winning streak of eight games in a row, thereby becoming (as far as I know) the first team ever to win a World Series on the night of a total eclipse of the moon.

Blogger Blues

Blogger has been trying its best to keep me from posting today, but it appears to be cooperating again. For now, at least. So here goes.

Recently I've been reading James Lee Burke's Last Car to Elysian Fields. I've been a big fan of Burke's writing since I read a paperback copy of Lay Down My Sword and Shield around 30 years ago. But lately I find myself thinking that that he's overdoing the description bit. He does it so well that I don't really blame him, however. And there's another thing that bothers me. In reading Last Car and Bitterroot, I thought that there was a lot of sound and fury but not much of real consequence. Plenty of violent action, but not much else. And everybody in the book is screwed up beyond belief. Isn't anybody in Louisana anywhere near normal? While I'm carping, I'll also add that Last Car relies too heavily on the old deus ex machina or even what the Disney guys call "fairy dust" to help wrap things up. Or maybe I'm just a grumpy old man.

Blogger Blues

Blogger has been trying its best to keep me from posting today, but it appears to be cooperating again. For now, at least. So here goes.

Recently I've been reading James Lee Burke's Last Car to Elysian Fields. I've been a big fan of Burke's writing since I read a paperback copy of Lay Down My Sword and Shield around 30 years ago. But lately I find myself thinking that that he's overdoing the description bit. He does it so well that I don't really blame him, however. And there's another thing that bothers me. In reading Last Car and Bitterroot, I thought that there was a lot of sound and fury but not much of real consequence. Plenty of violent action, but not much else. And everybody in the book is screwed up beyond belief. Isn't anybody in Louisana anywhere near normal? While I'm carping, I'll also add that Last Car relies too heavily on the old deus ex machina or even what the Disney guys call "fairy dust" to help wrap things up. Or maybe I'm just a grumpy old man.

B-Movie Hall of Fame

VinceKeenan.com

Vince Keenan says, "The B-Movie Hall of Fame inducts its new members. Who’s in there already if Sonny Chiba is only getting in now?"

This link provides the answer.

Clear Channel Clobbers Houston Geezers

HoustonChronicle.com - KBME to join all-sports radio ranks: "The departure of the beautiful music format on KBME also means the departure of veteran Houston radio host Paul Berlin, a member of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame who has been a fixture in Houston radio since 1950.

'Paul will be with us at least through Dec. 15,' Charles said. 'We've been proud to be partners with him. You don't get to work with that many legends in this business.

'But there is not a musical fit with him (among Clear Channel's Houston stations), and that is one of the hardest parts about this decision.'"

So Clear Channel is taking the only music station I listen to and going to all sports-talk, all the time. There's already a sports station, but what the heck. Now no one will be playing music from the 1940s and 1950s. I'm really angry about this, but of course there's not a thing I can do. Being an old geezer, I'm not anybody's target audience anymore, except for the people who run Goodlife TV. And the commercials on that channel are too depressing to watch.

Dream Lovers 

Because I was an adolescent in the late 1950s, Bobby Darin was a guy I sort of grew up with. Not that I ever met him. I watched him on American Bandstand when “Splish Splash” came out, and I remember that he and Buddy Holly both had hits with “Early in the Morning” (Darin was singing under the name of the “Rinky Dinks” for that one, but everybody knew it was him). I remember when “Mack the Knife”hit the air, and I realized that Darin could be Frank Sinatra if he wanted to, and I remember his folk phase with “If I Were a Carpenter” and “Long Line Rider.” Then he had a TV series. And then he was dead.

I knew all that, but I didn’t know much else. When I read that Kevin Spacey was making a movie based on Darin’s life, I was interested, and when I saw a copy of Dream Lovers by Dodd Darin, Bobby’s son, at Half Price Books for a couple of books I picked it up. It’s a fascinating
story.

I’d heard that Darin was “brash,” but he was more than that. He was a terribly obnoxious egotist, but he was also a guy who had many loyal friends. And he was smooth with the chicks. Possibly my favorite story in the book involves is relationship with Connie Francis. I didn’t know he even had a relationship with her, but apparently two of them were very much in love, or Darin was as much in love with her as he could be with anybody. Here’s the story: “While he was seeing Connie, [Bobby] was having sexual relations with other women. Bobby told her that he had to have sex to keep his skin clear, and Connie not only believed him but has said that she was not threatened by these other girls.” Now that’s a convincing guy. Either that or Connie was remarkably naive.

While I knew about Darin’s career, I didn’t know much about Sandra Dee. I’d seen her in the movies (Gidget!), and I knew that she and Darin had married, but that was about all. She just dropped out of sight during the late 1960s and never showed up on my radar again. Little did I know what a mess her life has been. I guess that cutie-pie screen image fooled me. You’d think I’d know better. The book was published in 1994, and at that time she was still in the grip of alcoholism and anorexia. I don’t know how she’s doing now, but I’d like to think that she was recovering. She’s three years younger than I am, which is a scary thought for me. I don’t know exactly why, though.

Dream Lovers is a pretty melancholy book, all in all. I’m sure that writing it was therapy for Dodd Darin, and it’s not a happy story. Bobby Darin went became a big star, and then he went from the penthouse to the outhouse before staging a hugely successful comeback. But he died before the comeback was complete, apparently through his own carelessness, or something. He’d had a heart condition since a childhood bout with rheumatic fever, and he was having serious problems . So there’s no real explanation for this: “He went to the dentist to have his teeth cleaned. Heart patients are supposed to take antibiotics when having dental work done, as a preventive against bacteria invading the bloodstream. . . . For reasons known only to [Darin], he didn’t take the antibiotics.” And septicemia killed him not long afterward.

For a guy who’s Bobby Darin’s son, Dodd Darin at times has a shaky grasp of music history. He says at one point, “The Stones followed the Beatles, then came the Beach Boys . . . .” Having been around during those days, I know full well that the Beach Boys were selling hit records years before Beatles came along. Don’t let a little thing like that bother you if you’d like to know more about Bobby Darin, though. It’s a fascinating, if depressing, story.

Among the DVDs I picked up at The Dollar Tree was one with eight episodes of the Fleischer Superman cartoons from the 1940s. I watched four of them today, and they were all great. This is one DVD that's definitely worth a buck. Obviously the guy who did SKY CAPTAIN has seen these. My favorites of the four I watched were "Japoteurs" and "The Underground World," but "The Mummy Strikes" was also a lot of fun. It's not the stories that makes these cartoons worth watching. Those are pretty lame. But the artwork, the animation, the fluidity of the movement, the images, the color -- zowie! The disc I got is Volume 2. Now I have to find Volume 1. And Volume 3 if there is one. 

SKY CAPTAIN redux

Ed's Place: "Pop Dreams from the Collective Gutter by Jack O'Connell"

I'm sure all of you check in at Ed's Place daily, but if you missed this post by Jack O'Connell, hop over there and check it out. You might have to scroll down, but don't miss it.

Enfield Grenade Launcher

Sportsman's Guide - Government Surplus - Used No. 4 Enfield Grenade Launcher

The clearance price is only 20 bucks. Of course it's a used grenade launcher, but that's still a bargain.

Yesterday I visited The Dollar Tree ("Everything's a Dollar") and checked out the DVDs. I wound up with a stack that included mostly old TV shows: "The Jack Benny Show," "Topper," "Mr. and Mrs. North," "Ozzie and Harriet," and "Flash Gordon," which starred Steve Holland. It was filmed in Europe and syndicated in the U.S. in the mid-1950s. The episode I watched ("Flash Gordon and the Planet of Death") is so bad that it makes PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE look like CITIZEN KANE. The climactic fight scene is truly pathetic. The costumes worn by the Evil Invaders are hilarious (one of the E.I. looks exactly like Old Weird Harold from the FAT ALBERT cartoons; Bill Cosby must have seen this Flash Gordon episode). The pseudo-science in the story is even funnier than the costumes. Naturally I can't wait to see the other two episodes. 

School District Bans Halloween

komo 4 news | School District Bans Halloween

And the reason for the ban? Check it out. Halloween is offensive to real witches. I'm glad my new Sally Good book is so up-to-date!

Up from the Depths

A song kept running through my mind yesterday after I posted the news about A Bond with Death. The song was written by Harlan Howard, and I first heard it sung by Hank Cochran, though others have recorded it since. It's "Sally Was a Good Old Girl." Maybe you've heard it:

Sally used to carry my books to schoool.
Sally was a good old girl.
Do my homework 'cause I was a fool.
Sally was a good old girl.

After a while, it dawned on me that a song I heard more than 40 years ago gave me the name of Sally Good, the main character in my series of novels set in a Texas community college. This is pretty scary, and I don't even want to think about where any of my other character names and/or plots might have come from.

NAKED CITY

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear : "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." -- Peter DeVries

Click on the link above for some good commentary on THE NAKED CITY (TV version) and reviews of a couple of shows. (Andy Jaysnovitch, take note.)

Horror Film Quiz

MSNBC -

Another link via Incoming Signals. I confess that I missed two, but one of them was #3, and I'm sort of glad I missed that one.

Book Heaven

Book Heaven

There's a new blogger on the block. Andy Jaysnovitch, compulsive madman, has some great stuff at the URL above, so click on it to find out about Google Whacking, among other things. Great stuff.

This is my new St. Martin's release. I really have fun writing these books, which have a community college setting, and I think this one's the best of the series. The bad news is that I've heard from my editor that "the numbers" for this series aren't as good as the numbers for the Dan Rhodes books, which means that Sally Good will quitely fade away, I'm afraid. The good news is that "the numbers" for the Dan Rhodes novels are actually improving, so I'm supposedly going to sign a two-book contract for that series Real Soon Now. Still, if you'd all rush out today and buy ten or twelve copies of A BOND WITH DEATH for Christmas and birthday gifts (one size fits all!), maybe my editor would see the light and let me write another one. 

Scholars Grapple With Godzilla Legacy

Yahoo! News - Scholars Grapple With Godzilla Legacy: By JOHN HANNA, Associated Press Writer

LAWRENCE, Kan. - He's attacked other monsters and terrorized Japan for decades. Now Godzilla is confronting academics who want to wrestle with his legacy.

AP Photo

The University of Kansas plans to pay homage to the giant lizard later this month, organizing a three-day scholarly conference for the 50th anniversary of his first film.

And I say it's about time!

Hidden Gags in WB Cartoons

Via Incoming Signals, here's a link to a page that you Warner Bros. cartoon fans (and I include myself in that group) might find of interest. It's a list of stuff the cartoonists and directors slipped into the cartoons for their own amusement. I suppose some of you might know all this stuff already, but it was mostly new to me.

Shall We Dance?

The other day Judy and I were going to the movies. I had decided that we’d see Team America: World Police. Judy had decided that we’d attend Shall We Dance?.

So, you’re probably asking, how did you like Shall We Dance? It was OK. I’ve seen it reviewed (in the Houston Chronicle, for instance) as a “chick flick,” but it’s not. It’s a “male mid-life crisis” flick, with Richard Gere having the crisis.

Gere, you see, is a lawyer. He writes wills all day and makes plenty of dough. He’s married to Susan Sarandon (!), and he has a teenage daughter who doesn’t think he’s a complete doofus. And yet . . . there’s something missing. He knows he should be unreasonably happy, but he’s not. He feels somehow incomplete, filled with vague longings. He doesn’t know what he needs, or what he’s longing for, but every day as he rides the el-train home, he looks up at Miss Mitzi’s dance studio, where there’s often someone standing in the window looking down at the train. So Gere decides that what he needs is . . . Geritol. Ha ha. Just kidding. What he decides he needs is . . . is . . . Jennifer Lopez.

Well, who among us can blame him? After all, she glows in that window like a religious icon, and, as it turns out, she’s a dancing fool. It’s only when she’s called upon to deliver dialogue that the fantasy takes a serious hit. Maybe that’s why, by the end of the movie, [SPOILER ALERT!] Gere has decided that he what he needs really isn’t J Lo after all. Or maybe it’s because he takes a second look at Susan Sarandon. What he really needs is . . . ballroom dancing! Except that it seems that he might have given it up at the end, which wouldn't be good, so I plan to disregard that implication. I prefer to think that the movie ends with Gere happy and complete and light on his feet. [ END OF SPOILER ALERT!]

This is a nice little movie. It has some laughs, it has a uniformly good cast. Gere is rumpled and relaxed and seems to be having a fine time. Sarandon doesn’t have much of a part, but she’s gorgeous. Among the supporting players, Stanley Tucci, Richard Jenkins, Mya, and Anita Gillette rate special mention. This movie may not give you complete happiness, but it will most likely make you smile and feel good for a little while.

I’ll bet it’s no Team America, though.

At the risk of sending Lee Goldberg to abebooks again, I thought I'd mention Marvin H. Albert. He wrote for Gold Medal (and others) under various names, including Al Conroy, Nick Quarry, Tony Rome, and of course Marvin H. Albert. He wrote crime novels, adventure novels, p.i. novels, and westerns (the Tony Rome books and several westerns were made into movies). The book in the picture looks like a typical '50s juvie, but it's far from it. It's a "big caper" novel that Lionel White might have been proud of. A cop is led astray by the title character and gets involved in a bank heist, which (surprise!) goes wrong. At that point, things take a violent turn. There are scenes of sadistic sex and sadistic torture along the way to the inevitable noir ending. Albert might be in the same league with some of the top GM writers, but he was certainly good enough to look for under any of his various names. 

Our Space Program Tax Dollars at Work

Faulty installation of switch doomed Genesis, NASA says: South Florida Sun-Sentinel: "Faulty installation of switch doomed Genesis, NASA says

A `gravity switch' was backward and failed to trigger 2 parachutes, an investigator says.

By John Johnson
Los Angeles Times
Posted October 15 2004

NASA's Genesis space capsule crashed in the Utah desert last month because a critical piece of equipment that was supposed to trigger the release of two parachutes apparently was installed backward, space-agency officials said Thursday."

Is this a sad commentary, or what?

As shameful as it is for me to admit it, I've never seen either of the two X-Men movies. Now someone has e-mailed me to say that Casa Loma, the "castle" we visited in Toronto, was used as the school for mutants in the movie. This is another picture I took of it. Now I have to rent the movies and see if I recognize the place in them. 

I love Daniel Pinkwater's books. Sure, they're supposedly for kids, which I guess just proves that I never grew up. (Not that we really needed further proof of that.) Among my favorites are LIZARD MUSIC, FAT MEN FROM SPACE, ALAN MENDLESON, BOY FROM MARS, and of course THE SNARKOUT BOYS AND THE AVACADO OF DEATH. Pinkwater's latest is a sequel to THE HOBOKEN CHICKEN EMERGENCY (which I also like a lot), and I wish it was about twice as long as it is. Funny, insightful, nostalgic, and a lot of other good things. Highly recommended. 

Google Desktop Search Download

Google Desktop Search Download

This is great: a google search of Outlook Express, Internet Explorer, and Word, among other things. Takes seconds to download and works like a charm.

Veronica Lake 

Veronica Lake

My Way News: "Veronica Lake's Reputed Remains Resurface"

I was tipped off to this story by a note on the always entertaining Thrilling Days of Yesteryear site. I first fell in love with Veronica Lake when I watched I Married a Witch on TV. I don't know what year it was, but my family was spending a weekend with my aunt in San Antonio, and she had a TV set. We didn't, and nobody I knew did, either. So I was fascinated. Because my aunt had a small apartment that she shared with another woman, there weren't beds for everyone. I slept on the living room floor, which was great, because I got to watch the TV late into the night and see the movie. I thought Veronica Lake was probably the most beautiful woman in the world. Maybe it was the hair style, but I've never really changed my mind. Later, I managed to see quite a few of her movies, and I always enjoyed her performances. Of particular interest to me in the article is the following sentence: "She was working as a New York cocktail waitress, drinking heavily and married to her fourth husband, a commercial fisherman known as 'Captain Bob.'" You never know what an interesting past some of your friends have had until you read about it on the 'Net.

I found a couple of Modesty Blaise paperbacks in the Bouchercon dealers' room, so naturally I picked them up. There's no better company on a long plane ride than Modesty and Willie Garvin. The one I read on the way home is THE SILVER MISTRESS. (I have no idea what the title means or how it fits anything in the book.) Pure escapist fantasy, smooth writing, exotic locations, entertaining characters, humor: what more could you ask for? OK, so the cover's not bad, either. 

This is a shot from the "open tower" of Casa Loma, looking past another tower toward downtown Toronto. 

Bouchercon

This won't be much of a Bouchercon report, but I'll sort of summarize some of the high points.

1) The convention was well organized. The panels started on time and ended on time. They were all in the rooms they were scheduled for. And the ones I attended went off very well.

2) I met a few people whose books I've admired. Ken Bruen and Jason Starr are two names that come to mind. Lee Goldberg introduced me to Lono Waiwaiole. I didn't meet Bernard Cornwell, but I did go to the one-on-one interview he did.

3) Got to see a lot of friends from DAPA-EM and a lot of writers that I've met over the years. That's always fun, too.

4) I met Sara Weinman, whose blog I read regularly. I was hoping to meet her brother, Jaime, whose blog I also read every day, but

5) I didn't take any photos of the convention. All my pictures are of the places Judy and I visited in Toronto: the CN Tower, Casa Loma, etc. If you don't believe I was there because of the lack of photographic evidence, you can click here.

6) We went to see Mama Mia, which was great. I took a lot of abuse from people who don't like ABBA as much as I do, but what do they know? Squat, that's what.

7) The security wasn't as much of a hassle as I'd feared. Maybe because it was the Canadian Thanksgiving, the lines at the airport on Monday weren't bad at all. There was certainly no traffic on the highway that day.

8) I picked up a couple of Modesty Blaise paperbacks at Tom and Enid Schantz's table. There's nothing like pure escapist fantasy for a long plane ride.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

France May Allow Jamming of Mobile Phones: "Monday October 11, 8:30 pm ET
French Official Approves Decision to Let Some Places Install Mobile Phone Jammers

PARIS (AP) -- Watch a movie or make a mobile phone call. Soon, in France, you might not be able to do both at once.

The government's industry minister has approved a decision to let cinemas, concert halls and theaters install cell phone jammers -- on condition that emergency calls can still get through, officials said Monday.

Let's hope the U.S. will do the same!

Marion Reasoner is in the middle of the back row. See my post below. 

Marion Reasoner

Probably not nearly as many people knew about Marion Reasoner as knew about Christopher Reeve, Rodney Dangerfield, Jane Leigh, or Ken Caminiti, but I want to note his passing here. He was James Reasoner's dad, and I met him only once, at a WWA convention in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the early '90s. A group of us went out to dinner one evening there, and we decided to have our picture made while we were wearing western garb. James is in the front row on the left. I'm in the back row on the left, with Judy beside me and Marion Reasoner beside her. We were a tough-looking crew, right? Okay, maybe not. Anyway, Marion was a great guy, and Judy and I both took to him immediately. I bought my first VCR from him and James way back in 1981. It was top of the line and cost $1250. Hard to believe. I paid for it with my half of the advance from the Nick Carter novel I wrote with a friend named Jack Davis. I'd never written a check for an amount that large before, and I screwed it up. My hand was probably shaking. Marion was kind enough to send the check back and let me write another one. I think I screwed that one up, too. Another member of what Tom Brokaw called "the Greatest Generation" is gone, and the world is a poorer place today.

I'm Back

We got in from the Bouchercon a couple of hours ago, and the first things I heard were that Christopher Reeve and Ken Caminiti had died while I was gone. I enjoyed Reeve in several movies in addition to Superman, and Somewhere in Time is one of Judy's all-time favorites. He demonstrated a heck of a lot more courage after his injury than I'd be capable of, and I've admired him for it. Caminiti was the third baseman for the Houston Astros for a number of years and later became the National League's MVP. Soon after his retirement, he admitted to using steroids, which tarnished his image considerably, and then he fell on really hard times. He was an alcoholic, and he went on to abuse hard drugs, including crack cocaine and heroin. He was a heck of a ballplayer, and it's sad to me when someone with his abilities goes down the wrong road. The power of his addictions was just too much for him to overcome. Maybe if he'd had some of Reeve's courage, he could have helped himself, but I'm not sure if even that would have helped. I'm sorry as heck for both of them.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel more like saying something about Bouchercon.

North of the Border

In an hour or so, Judy and I will be heading for Houston Intercontinental Airport, where we'll board the big silver bird for Toronto and the Bouchercon. I might as well admit that I hate air travel. Not the flying part, though that's bad enough. It's the "security" part that gets me down, all the lines and waiting around. Flying just about anywhere has become an all-day proposition. So today is pretty much going to be devoted to travel. Monday, when we're returning will be the same. In between, maybe we'll have some fun at the convention, see some friends, maybe even have a look at the city. I'll be back at the keyboard next week with a sketchy report of our activities. Try not to miss me too much.

This is from a 1961 Sears & Roebuck Christmas catalog. I was too old by then to be interested, but this page is similar enough to one from ten years earlier to be representative of the kind of thing I'm talking about below. I could look at a page like this for hours, trying to decide just which set of holsters would look the best on me. 

The Sears Catalog

Someone mentioned something to me today, and it sparked a veritable frenzy of nostalgia. Yes, I can even get misty-eyed when I think about the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

When I was growing up in Mexia, Texas, there weren't a lot of fancy stores. We had three five and dime stores: Perry Bros., Duke & Ayres, and Ben Franklin, all with limited stock. There were some department stores with shoes and clothing, but I wasn't interested in things like that. So the way I got to see all the latest stuff, from bikes to guns to toys, was in the Sears catalog. When the new one arrived, I'd study it for days, looking at the baseball gloves and shotguns and just about everything else. One of the happiest days of my life was when I saved enough money to order myself a J. C. Higgins baseball glove. I could never have afforded it if it hadn't been on some kind of sale as a discontinued item. I still have it, as a matter of fact. It's pretty worn, but I can't part with it.

And then there was the best thing of all: the Christmas catalog. Zowie! I can't even begin to describe what a joy it was to pore over that one, with toys galore, few of which we could afford and fewer of which I ever got to order. Just looking at them, however, was just about enough of a thrill for me.

eBay item 6929031456 (Ends Sep-30-04 17:00:00 PDT) - ATTENTION TO ALL YOU WELL KNOWN, AUTHORS!

eBay item 6929031456 (Ends Sep-30-04 17:00:00 PDT) - ATTENTION TO ALL YOU WELL KNOWN, AUTHORS!: "So that is why I am selling my manuscript mostly to well known authors and whether Oprah Winfrey reads this or Stephen King or the ever so popular J.K. Rawlings, if they bought my book for my price and put there name on it as the author, everyone will pick up the book and read it, because these authors have already earned a reputation. Now I have actual pictures of my manuscript and a legit publshing Co. that will put my book in print for 695.00 dollars. The book will then be advertise to over 25,000 different book stores through the internet only"

I read about this on Lee Goldberg's blog, and my mind is boggled. If the guy got a buck-fifty for the book, I'd be surprised, but $150,000? How depressed would I be if he got that much? Don't ask. You can tell from the small sample above that there might be a few problems with hiw writing.

Roy Drusky

Somehow I missed the news that Roy Drusky died back in September. I heard him a lot on the radio in the early 1960s when I was working at Red Arrow Freight Lines in the summers. The radio was always tuned to KTON in Belton, Texas, which was a country station. I especially remember "Three Hearts in a Tangle" and his duet with Priscilla Mitchell, "Mr. Peters." He did a great version of "Red, Red Wine" around 1970. He had a distinctive voice and was a good songwriter, but he never achieved the fame that he deserved. RIP.

Monster Blog!

Monster Blog!

Another link via Rick Klaw: a blog devoted to the monster comics of Jack Kirby. Great stuff.