The Adventures of Jim Bowie

The Adventures of Jim Bowie is another old TV series now available on DVD for a buck. The only one at my local Dollar Tree was Volume 2, so that’s the one I bought. The quality of the transfer’s not bad at all. The quality of the episodes is something you’ll have to judge for yourself, but I thought they were worth my dollar.

The first episode is “Monsieur Francois,” and like every one of them it begins with the famous Bowie knife thunking into a wooden door. Then Jim comes to pluck it out while the theme song, by Ken Darby and The King’s Men plays. You remember the theme song if you’re my age: “Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!/He was a fighter, a fearless and mighty adventurin’ man!/He roamed the wilderness unafraid/From Natchez to Rio Grande/With all the might of his gleaming blade/Flashing from either hand/Jim Bowie! Jim Bowie!/He was a mighty adventurin’ man!” The theme song is repeated at the end, and the soundtrack for the show is provided by The King’s Men, who hum annoyingly throughout.

But enough about that. Clearly I’ve digressed again. In “Monsieur Francois” the Bowie knife plays a big part. When Bowie (Scott Forbes) is in a fight with some wharf rats, all he has to do is pull the knife, and the rats run away. (A scene later borrowed for use in Crocodile Dundee?) And the show concludes with a “sword fight,” between Bowie, who uses the knife, and a guy with a rapier. It might have seemed exciting in the ‘50s, but it’s about the lamest sword fight I’ve ever seen. Pathetic, really. It ends with Bowie literally pulling the rug out from under the guy. The plot concerns a young boy who’s trying to find his relatives, and in one scene he’s in Bowie’s bed while Bowie is on the floor. Bowie complains, and finally the kid says, “You may share my bed.” Bowie hops in. I figure this scene could never occur in a current TV show, what with Michael Jackson and all. This episode might have played in heavy rotation at the Neverland Ranch.

The second episode on the disk is “Select Females,” and it’s better, mainly because it’s played strictly for laughs. It deals with a young woman who’s been kidnapped from a “school for select females,” and of course Bowie has to rescue her, with the help of an attractive teacher and the school’s headmistress. It’s corny and the comedy is very dated. But I still liked it. Or maybe that’s why I liked it. This episode is also notable because it marks the first screen appearance of Edd (billed as Edward) Byrnes, who of course went on to have a brief fling with stardom as Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip.

“Spanish Intrigue” is the final episode. Bowie gets mixed up with South American revolutionaries who are buying supplies for Simon Bolivar. It’s notable for its cast of WASPs trying to look and sound hispanic, and not much else. There’s another concluding Bowie knife vs. the rapier fight that’s not quite as lame as the other one.

I have to admit that I enjoyed all of these at least a little bit. They’re bad, but bad in a way that I can enjoy if I’m in the right mood.

A Trip Down Under

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Tales of the underworld

If you saw my post on the Sewergator site, you already know that I have an unhealthy fascination with sewers. The link above will take you to a fascinating (or not) article about a trip through one of London's sewers (no alligators, though). It's long but worth reading, if you're into sewers. (No jokes, please.)

A Matter of Perspective

For some reason I didn’t buy the DAW Books series of Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories when it originally appeared. I don’t know why, since it’s the sort of thing that appeals to me. Anyway, I’ve started picking up the books now, and the stories are as good as I remembered them to be.

I recently finished reading the tenth volume in the series, which covers the year 1948. I’d read every story in the book at least once before, and most of them I must have read in the years I first discovered the SF digests and anthologies, which would mean the middle 1950s. So the stories when I originally read them were anywhere from six to ten years old. At the time, I thought they were ancient.

After I finished the book of 1948's best, I picked up Donald A. Wolheim Presents the 1990 World’s Annual Best SF (also a DAW Book). All those stories are fifteen years old now, yet they seem to me to be quite recent, practically as if they were published yesterday. It’s funny how getting older affects your sense of time.

The stories that I remember most vividly from the Asimov book I mentioned are ones you’ll probably remember, too: Fredric Brown’s “Knock,” Judith Merrill’s “That only a Mother,” Ray Bradbury’s “Mars is Heaven,” Eric Frank Russell’s “Late Night Final.” Great stuff, as are all the stories in the book. The title’s not a misnomer.

The 1990 book was interesting to me because I don’t read nearly as much SF these days as I once did, and I wondered what I’d think of these “recent” stories. To my surprise, I liked a lot of them. The writing style is a little more sophisticated and “literary,” but the old familiar SF tropes are there. “Chiprunner,” by Robert Silverberg (who no doubt read the stories from the 1948 volume in the original magazines in his youth) is modern variation on Matheson’s The Shrinking Man, if not on Ray Cummings’ Beyond the Vanishing Point, and Silverberg’s “A Sleep and a Forgetting” is a time-travel-alternate-world-paradox story. Even James Morrow’s “Abe Lincoln in McDonald’s” is a time-travel-alternate-world story tricked out in new duds. “In Translation” by Lisa Tuttle is a first-contact-aliens-among-us story. I didn’t much like this one, but I still felt I was on familiar ground. I think there might even be a little Leinster connection. Brian Aldiss’ “North of the Abyss” is the old dead-man-who-thinks-he’s-alive tale with Egyptian gods. And my favorite was probably Lucius Shepard’s “Surrender,” which I see as a juiced-up version of an old movie called Alligator People.

I had fun reading both books, but I’m more interested in reading the old stuff. And in fact I’ve been browsing in several of the other Asimov volumes over the last couple of weeks. I’ve decided that I have to get all of them, and maybe I will, sooner or later.

The Red Tassel -- David Dodge

I grew up in a house in which there were very few books. My parents introduced me to the library early, however, so that made up for a lot. Later on, I started accumulating books of my own, but my parents were never very interested. For some reason, one of the few books on our single bookshelf was David Dodge's The Red Tassel, the hardcover first. I have no idea why it was there, and I never asked. I did, however, read it. That copy has long since disappeared, but when we got back from Peru, I wanted to read it again. So I picked up this copy on eBay. The setting is Boliva, not Peru, but the scenery, the references to altitude sickness, and the alpacas were all familiar to me from my trip. Dodge is another of those underrated, nearly forgotten, writers who deserves a better fate. His writing is clean, and his observations are sharp. His descriptions are right on the money. And his plotting is something we could all learn from. I'm looking forward to the Hard Case Crime reprint of Plunder of the Sun, which should be coming along Real Soon Now and should go a long way to improving Dodge's visibility. I believe that one is set in Peru, at least partially. Should be a real treat.

From Ed Gorman

Bill, when you say that the magazines Ennis Willie wrote for were "below Playboy," you don't know how much you understate. I wrote some stories for those same mags and I'll tell you while the erotic quality of the stories and photos wouldn't even qualify as "naughty" today, the sexism would probably get you the chair. A) all women were potential "nymphos." B) all men were potential studs. C) and if you thought that the cities had a lot of "nymphos" just drive out into the country sometimes. Every cornfield seemed to have thirty or forty "nymphos" hiding in the rows just waiting to jump some city slicker. The best part of every issue was the sex advice article, which was always written by somebody with PhD after his name. I wish (well, maybe not) I had a copy or two of those old rags just for the sex advice stuff. The weird thing was the mags were all innocent in an odd way. Totally adolescent--a seventh grade boy's misinformed fantasies about what "sex with nymphos" (probably even Maimie Eisenhower had a few "nympho" inclinations) was all about. Today they'd be fodder for Saturday Night Live.

Ennis Willie Is Back!

Ennis Willie Covers

That's right, folks. the best "unknown" writer of hardboiled p.i. fiction is going to be reprinted. (I'll have updates on that here, I promise.) Most of his novels were from Camerarts, a small Chicago paperback house, and his stories were published in men's magazines below the Playboy level. But it's all great stuff, though next to impossible to find these days. Now something's being done to remedy that situation. While you're waiting, have a look at this great cover gallery to whet your appetite.

THE GRADUATE -- The Sequel

Guardian Unlimited Film | News | What happened next? (the author will let you know after he dies): "What happened next? (the author will let you know after he dies) "

Key sentence: "Home School [the title of the sequel] owes its inspiration to Webb and his partner's decision to take their own children out of school and teach them at home, an illegal act which left them on the run from the US authorities and seeking refuge by running nudist camps."

I didn't know it was illegal to teach kids at home, but I'd be interested in learning more about that job Webb had while he was on the lam.

More Gators in the Sewers -- Rated XXX

BUCKY BEAVER: "Sue Prentiss R.N."

Art Scott clued me in to Sue Prentiss, R. N., a hardcore porn movie that doesn't sound as if it would be about alligators in the sewers. But it is. According to the Something Weird catalog (linked above, and definitely for Adults Only), "Annie Sprinkle is Sue Prentiss, R.N., one of four nurses waiting for a team of divers as they emerge from the NYC sewer system after searching for alligators. (Yes, alligators.)" This is the kind of high-class information that you can't find on other blogs.

The Sewergator Sanctuary

The Sewergator Sanctuary: "The Sewergator Sanctuary "

OK, this is the greatest website I've ever found. No wonder I love the Internet. Those few of you who already know about my own peculiar obsessions will understand. In the "Literature" section, there's even a photo of the cover of Urban Legends. Click on the cover, and there's a mention of the story I wrote for the book.

Your Hit Parade

Welcome to The BigBands Database Plus Hit Parade Page: "Lucky Strike Cigarettes Hit Parade Radio Show - 1935 - 1955"

The real geezers among us (that would include me) will remember a TV show called Your Hit Parade. Some of us (me, again) will also remember that it was a radio show. The link above goes to a page that allows you to click on a year and find out which songs were the most popular and how many weeks they were on Your Hit Parade. There's even an alphabetical listing of songs, with their top position and the number of weeks they were on the show. Unfortunately, the listing stops in 1955, though the show continued until 1959. For more about the singers and such, click here.

Her Last Call to Louis MacNeice -- Ken Bruen

I bought this one at Noir Night last week. It's like a stripped down Gold Medal Book, only 124 pages long. It's great that someone's writing (and selling!) books like this one, as opposed to the bloated doorstops that there have been far too many of in the last couple of decades. It hits the ground running, and it doesn't slow down for a second. Dave Cooper is a tough guy, but he's never met anybody like Cassie, a psycho with a liking for the poetry of Louis MacNeice (which is about the best thing you can say for her). Unlike a lot of Gold Medal heroes, Cooper doesn't want to be involved with the femme fatale, but she doesn't give him much choice. Make that any choice.

One of the things about noir fiction is that the poor shmoe who's caught in the downhill spiral knows that he's screwed, but he keeps on trying to unscrew himself, getting more and more desperate as he goes along. And of course it never works out. That's life.

Living in the Past

When I was a kid growing up in East Texas back in the 1940s and 1950s, I was pretty much physically isolated from the rest of the world. Travel wasn't one of my family's activities. But my imagination wasn't isolated. As soon as I learned to read, I was patrolling the streets of Bayport with Frank and Joe, roaming through the jungles of Africa and South America with Tarzan and Bomba, and walking the surface of Barsoom with John Carter. At the movies, I was riding the Old West with Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter, Allan Rocky Lane, and a host of others. And I was visiting (via the radio) Allen's Alley, Duffy's Tavern, and 79 Wistful Vista. So I didn't feel deprived.

Later on, after I started driving, I listened to radio stations from such exotic faraway places as Chicago (WLS), New Orleans (WNOE), and Gallatin, Tennessee. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Gallatin, Tennessee?" That is, that's what you're thinking if you weren't out cruising the southern summer nights in the mid-to-late 1950s and early 1960s with your car radio reaching out to hear Gene Nobles, John R., and the Old Hoss Man advertising Randy's Record Shop, White Rose Petroleum Jelly, and Silky Strate hair dressing. I loved those disk jockies and the records they played, many of them records you didn't hear on just any station. And that's why finding this website sent me into a veritable frenzy of nostalgia. Listening to the sound bites near the bottom of the page and hearing the voices of John R. and Gene Nobles transported me to a time long ago and far away, to riding shotgun in Bob Tyus's 1940 Chevrolet and Fred Williams's '50 Ford, or driving around in my own '49 Dodge with the Clunk-O-Matic transmission. Those were the days.

Nightcrawlers -- Bill Pronzini

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > Crime: Sax and Violence: "Pronzini constructs his sturdy plot with top-quality materials, including spit-polished dialogue and loathsome villains who actually giggle as they crack their victims' bones."

It's great to see the deserving Pronzini getting a good review in the NYTBR (you'll have to register to read the whole thing). But the reviewer, Marilyn Stasio, is wrong if she thinks "Nameless" is just now getting a name ("Bill Pronzini has christened his noir hero with a name.") The rest of us faithful readers have known since the long-ago Twospot that "Nameless" is really "Bill."

Noir Night, Part 3

J. D. Rhoades, Al Guthrie, Jason Starr, Ken Bruen, Duane Swierczynski at Noir Night.

Noir Night, Part 2

Jason Starr, me, Ken Bruen at Murder by the Book's Noir Night.

Noir Night, Part 1

Al Guthrie and me at Murder by the Book's Noir Night in Houston. The Ken Bruen Traveling Roadshow featured Al, Jason Starr, Duane Swierczynsik, and J. D. Roades doirng a pane discussion of noir and other things. A good time was had by all, and I even won a door prize (a rare event, indeed).

Best Recordings of the 1950s?

1950's

I love these lists. I'm probably the only one around who actually remembers all these songs and who has all of them on CD. But you can scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on your favorite decade and see what you think of the list for that era.

I don't blog politics, but . . .

The Independent Florida Alligator

. . . as a former teacher I couldn't resist linking this one. So it's come to this. I give up. It's over. They win. I'm so far outside the mainstream that I'll never get back in, and I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to hide out here in my little room and keep quiet.

No, wait, maybe I'll get rich marketing hemlock.

On second though, nah. Hiding is more in my line.

DC Comics Covers

From Elmo's Junction comes word of this site. Click on a year, then on a month, and you'll get all the DC Comics covers for that month. Or click on this page and get an alphabetical list of all the DC titles. Click on a title and get the complete cover gallery. Did you know there were five issues of a Pat Boone comic book? I didn't. There's a lot more to explore, too. Great stuff.

Robert Maguire, Again

Another nice Maguire cover, thanks to Art Scott.

Robert Maquire -- R.I.P.

From Art Scott: Master paperback cover artist Robert Maguire passed away on February 26th, age 83, in New Jersey. He painted hundreds of classic mystery covers for Signet, Dell, Ace, Avon and others from the 1950's through the '80s. Maguire and his contemporary Robert McGinnis (happily still with us and still painting) defined the sexy/glamour look of paperback crime fiction in the '60s and '70s. Maguire followed the market into romance in the '80s, though he still did occasional mystery covers, including a series of Christie titles for Pocket Books. He also crossed over into the realm of sixties "sleaze". His covers on lesbian titles for Midwood (many of them written by Larry Block and Don Westlake) have achieved iconic status. Maguire's work was profiled by Gary Lovisi in Illustration Magazine #3. His daughter Lynn Maguire is offering quality prints of his work (including some shot from classic Signet originals just recently unearthed in an amazing warehouse find) at ramaguirecoverart.com.

This link will take you directly to the cover art gallery.

DARKLY DREAMING DEXTER -- Jeff Lindsay

I'd heard that this was a "different" serial killer book. It's been a long time since I read a serial killer book, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Which goes to show how times have changed. Thirty years ago, I'd read any serial killer book that came along because I liked them and because there were so few of them. Now there are so many that I seldom bother to pick one up, much less read one. But, as so often is the case, I digress.

I was going to say that I liked Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Its serial killer/protagonist/narrator kills only people who need killing, which is supposed to be his redeeming feature, I suppose, but he knows as well as anyone that he's really a monster. That doesn't mean he wants to be destroyed, however. He has a well-developed sense of self-preservation, and he's learned to behave pretty much the way a human being would behave in most situations. (He has a lot of trouble understanding women, but then don't we all?) The fact that he works as a blood-splatter expert for the Miami police is just one of several ironies that we're presented with. The plot involves another serial killer in town, one with whom Dexter seems to have an almost supernatural connection.

One of the cops working the case is Dexter's foster sister, and if you've read any serial killer novels at all, I don't need to tell you that any woman connected with the protagonist of one of these books is going to be in serious trouble sooner or later. But Lindsay manages to twist this encounter enough to make it different and interesting. I'm not going to start a binge of reading about serial killers anytime soon, but I'm glad I picked this book up for a change of pace.

Another TV Theme Song Site

scrubbles.net: 50 Great TV Themes: "50 Great TV Themes
By Matt Hinrichs"

Those of you who thought the "100 Greatest TV Themes" site that I linked to earlier didn't do a very good job might want to have a look at the one above and compare the two. This one is also annotated.

Daredevils of the Red Circle

OK, here's the set-up for this highly regarded Republic serial: An escaped convict named Harry Crowel (he prefers to be called by his prison number, 39013, pronounced Thirty-nine-Oh-thirteen) sets out to ruin Horace Granville (Miles Mander) by destroying all his holdings and properties. Charles (Ming the Merciless) Middleton plays 39013, who, by wearing a really good mask is posing as Granville.

The real Granville is being held captive in a prison cell in the basement of his own home, and the cell is an exact replica of the one 39013 was in when he was imprisoned. Don't ask me how 39013 was able to build this cell in Granvilles basement or how he was able to honeycomb the house with secret passages without anybody knowing. He just did it, the same way he arranged to have the garage fitted out with pipes that pump poison gas.

No one suspects the impersonation because 39013 never lets anyone near him. Granville has supposedly had a stroke, so 39013, taking advantage of Granville's supposedly weakened condition, can meet people only if they are separated from him by a glass wall. He speaks to them over a microphone. 39013 of course looks and sounds just like Granville, and he never slips up because, as he tells Granville, as long as he wears the mask he speaks in Granville's voice. When he removes the mask, he looks and sounds just like Charles Middleton.

I should also mention that down in the basement with the cell there's a Rube Goldberg device on which glass balls filled with poison gas are balanced. If 39013 doesn't return to the room regularly and refill the counter-balancing bottle with water, the balls will fall to the floor and break, killing Granville with the deadly gas.

So much for the set-up. One of the first properties that 39013 destroys is the Granville Amusement Center (Granville owns a little of everything, including a radium mine, which apparently is pretty much like a gold mine). The fire that consumes the amusement center takes the life of the younger brother of Gene Townley (Charles Quigley), one of the Daredevils. Townley and the other two daredevils, Tiny Dawson (Bruce Bennett, aka Herman Brix) and Bert Knowles (David Sharpe), sign on with Granville (in reality, 39013) to put a stop to 39013's depredations. The escaped con hires them so as not to arouse suspicion. Then, of course, he immediately sets out to get rid of them, and we're off to the races.

But let's stop for a moment to talk about Bruce Bennett. He was an Olympic shot-putter, and as Herman Brix, he starred in one of my favorite serials, Hawk of the Wilderness. After he got tired of the athletic roles, he took acting lessons, became Bennett, and had a long career in movies, including a role in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. According to the IMDb, he's still alive. If that's true, he'd be 99 years old.

David Sharpe was a U.S. tumbling champion who started out in movies in 1923. He did mostly stunt work, but he was one of the Rangebusters in that Monogram series. He was the stunt double for just about everybody in Hollywood at one time or another. His last credit was as a stunt driver in 1978. Fifty-five years isn't a bad career in any field.

Charles Middleton will always be Ming the Merciless to many of us. It's sad to look at his career as outlined on the IMDb and see all the "uncredited" parts he took, or, even sadder, the movies that say "scenes deleted." But he managed to hang around for a long time.

Carole Landis is one of the sad stories of Hollywood. She was beautiful, and she could act, but she never really got much of a chance. She was only about 19 or 20 when she made this serial, and ten years later she was dead of an overdose of sleeping pills. She could have livened up the serial considerably, but she's barely used at all.

Miles Mander, as all you fans of Philip Marlowe will recall, played Mr. Grayle in Murder, My Sweet.

Charles Quigley didn't do much of note either before or after this serial. Unless you want to count a minor role in Mexican Spitfire Out West.

The butler, Snowflake, is played by Fred "Snowflake" Toones, who played the same Stepin Fetchit type of character in tons of movies for 20 years. He was often uncredited and often billed as Snowflake. You can imagine the kind of humor he was involved in.

And now back to our story. Oh, what the heck. You know the story. 39013 plots to destroy stuff, and the Daredevils foil the plots. There's a fistfight in every episode, of course, with lots of climbing around gas plants, electric plants, and oil rigs. David Sharpe does some tumbling stuff in most of the fights. The cliffhangers are OK, with the one in the first chapter being the most memorable. It has Quigley racing through a tunnel only yards in front of a wall of water that seems certain to overtake him.

The weakness are those of most serials. Like, why did 39013 put that gas pipe in the garage in the first place? And, when the Daredevils investigate, why does someone say, "That valve comes from the gas plant down the road. Let's go there an check it out," instead of, "Why don't we trace that pipe and see where it goes?" (Because if they'd done that, of course, they'd have found the tunnels, which would have led them to 39013 and ended the serial.)

And of course anybody over the age of five will figure out the identity of the mysterious figure who's helping out the Daredevils, though I defy anyone of any age to figure out how the MF is getting the information that's passed along.

Then there's Chapter 11, a total cheat, since it's nothing but padding to make the whole thing 12 chapters long. All Chapter 11 does is repeat scenes from earlier episodes. But that's why remotes have the "fast forward" feature.

The good stuff? Well, the score is a dandy, the stunts are good, the fistfights are well-choreographed, and all three leads seem to be having a good time. I wouldn't put this one in the same class with some of my favorites, like Captain Marvel and all the Rocketman serials, but it's still worth watching. I'd give it three stars.

The Most Idiotic Twist Endings?

Twist and Shout - Readers nominate the most-idiotic-twist endings. By David Edelstein: "
Twist and Shout
Readers nominate the most-idiotic-twist endings."

I haven't seen several of the movies on this list. There are some spoilers in the comments, but you do get a warning.

Andre Norton RIP

Jayme Lynn Blaschke's Gibberish: "Andre Norton has passed on
SFWA Grandmaster Andre Norton died last night in her sleep. Given her recent health troubles, this does not come as a surprise. That it was semi-expected does nothing to mitigate the loss to the science fiction and fantasy community. I never had the chance to meet her, but from all accounts she was a gracious and friendly person.

Further information is to be posted at her official website when it is available."

This is sad news indeed. When I was a kid, I loved Andre Norton's books, and I read a lot of them in the old Ace editions, including one or two of the "Andrew North" books as well.

I've Got a Little List

JUSTINALEI.CO.UK - Simpsons Lists - Chalkboard Gags: "Bart's Chalkboard Gags"

Here is is, all in one place: everything Bart Simpson ever wrote on the chalkboard. If you were snoozing and missed it, now you can look for it here.

Chupacabra? (Part 2)

WOAI: SAN ANTONIO//NEWS: "Rancher Dissatisfied with Chupacabra DNA Results"

Once again Jayme Blaschke is lagging behind on the Chupacabra news, so I'm stepping in to fill the gap.

Must-See TV

FilmForce: Spring Break Shark Attack: "Spring Break Shark Attack"

I think I can safely say that this is a guaranteed instant classic. Set your VCRs now!

Today's Trivia

I was talking to someone the other day about western writer Will Henry, and I discovered that Henry started his career writing scripts for cartoons. His real name was Henry Allen, though he's credited as Heck Allen on the IMDb. He worked a lot with Tex Avery, and he wrote most of the famous cartoons featuring Droopy Dog, including Northwest Hounded Police (1946), which is listed as #28 in The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all Time. It seems that when Allen started writing western novels, he used pen names (in addition to being Will Henry, he was also Clay Fisher) because he was afraid the studio wouldn't approve of his moonlighting. Allen's western novels are well thought of, so I guess today they'd be called "novels of the west" instead of westerns. Wouldn't want to stigmatize them. Neither would Allen, who seemed to want to downplay his writing for cartoons, as if it wasn't worthy. I think my life was influenced a lot more by Droopy Dog than by any of his westerns, however.

Amazon founder plans Texas spaceport

HoustonChronicle.com - Amazon founder plans Texas spaceport: "Amazon founder plans Texas spaceport"

A spaceport in Van Horn, Texas? You gotta love it.

I'm a Literary Writer (Again)

Sometime back in 2000 or 2001 I got a request from Rick Bass. He asked if I'd done any writing about the environment. He said that if I had something along those lines, he wanted to include it in a book of stories, essays, and poems that would protest, according to the introduction of Falling From Grace in Texas, "the abuses of the enviroment by developers, by legislators catering to the profiteers of agriculture and petroleum." Not being the state's best-known writer about the enviroment, I didn't have much. I did have a short poem that I'd published in a little magazine about 20 years previously, so I sent that to him and forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when the book arrived today, nearly five years after the original request.

Paul Christensen says in his introduction that the book is "perhaps not what Rick Bass expected or even wanted . . . . [It] is a more problematic and intimate response . . . ." Whatever the book is, my little poem is in it. I'm thrilled to be published in the company of Bud Shrake, Stephen Harrigan, Clay Reynolds, Olive Hershey (we shared an office back in our grad school days!), Marshall Terry, A. C. Greene, and, as they say, many others. I'll bet they're going to be surprised to see my name in the table of contents. But no more surprised than I was.

100 Greatest TV Theme Songs

retroCRUSH: The World's Finest Pop Culture Site

Click on the link to see a listing, with commentary, photos and links. Great stuff. "Petticoat Junction" is #100.

THE LAST DETECTIVE -- Robert Crais

When Robert Crais started writing his series about Elvis Cole back in 1987, the first book, The Monkey's Raincoat, came out as a paperback original from Bantam. It was a big hit, an entertaining p.i. novel that obviously owed something to Robert B. Parker, among others, but that had a flair all its own. Before long Crais was being published in hardback and racking up enviable sales.

But I think Crais wanted more than enviable sales. I think he wanted bestselling novels, and in the pursuit of them he changed publishers a few times. Then he wrote a couple of standalone books, Demolition Angel and Hostage. Those last two titles must have sold very well indeed, and the movie version of Hostage opened this weekend, with Bruce Willis starring.

To tell the truth, I didn't much like either Demolition Angel or Hostage. They were very well done, but they seemed to me sort of soulless and lacking any individuality. In other words, I thought of them as by-the-numbers thrillers, and I thought they lacked the spark and originality of the early Elvis Cole novels.

The fact is, for me anyway, the last couple of Elvis Cole novels have also lacked that spark. I read The Forgotten Man this weekend, and while I think it's a perfectly fine book, it didn't do much for me. For one thing, in both this one and The Last Detective, Crais has tried to add "heft" and "seriousness" to the books, and in the process he's abandoned the first-person novel for a story told in first person part of the time and in third person the rest of the time. In doing that, he's gotten away from the things that made the series attractive to me in the first place.

But it's worked. I noticed that The Forgotten Man is right there on the bestseller list this week, sitting right in the middle. So I guess that's all to the good, at least for Crais's career. Since I've met him and like him, I wish him nothing but the best. Still, I'd trade his last four novels for another one like The Monkey's Raincoat. Luckily for Crais, hardly anybody else feels the same way.

Open Season on Cats? -- Part 2

ClickOnDetroit.com - Family - Man Who Wants To Hunt Domestic Cats Gets Death Threats: "LA CROSSE, Wis. -- The Wisconsin man who's asked the state to allow hunters to kill stray cats says he's been getting death threats."

I had feeling this guy wasn't going to win too many Man of the Year Awards.

Jicarilla Mud

When I got back from the Left Coast Crime convention, I mentioned Fender Tucker's Ramble House books. (You can read the post here.) I also mentioned that I'd picked up "Jicarilla Mud," a Ramble House 10-Cent Book written by Fender himself. It's really a novelette, but it's got an extra. It comes with a CD by Knees Calhoun. The CD has only one song, "Jicarilla Mud," and it's a great number. If you'd like to hear some of Knees's earlier work, I highly recommend this site. All the songs are good, but check out the Everly Brothers covers first.

"Jicarilla Mud," the book, is a period piece about the "oil bidness" in New Mexico in the 1950s. Or that's what it seems to be about at first. It takes an unexpected turn, though, and gets into some strange territory before it's all over. It's a fast-moving story, with good period details, some laughs, and a great cover, as you can see.

Serials

Rough Edges: "I finished watching THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN, one of the movie serials I got for Christmas."

While Ivan over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is watching Captain Midnight, James Reasoner has watched The New Adventures of Tarzan. I saw this one long ago, and I'm a fan of the star, Herman Brix (aka Bruce Bennett). (You can find out what James thinks of the serial [and Brix] by clicking on the link above.) I remember Brix fondly from one of my favorite serials, Hawk of the Wilderness. And by a mild coincidence, I'm currently watching Daredevils of the Red Circle, in which Brix (as Bennett) is one of the Daredevils. Maybe after I've watched the whole thing, I'll have something to say about it.

I Got This in the Mail--Could it Possibly be a Scam?

LET 2005 BE THE BEST YEAR OF YOUR LIFE THROUGH FAITH AND PRAYER. GOD IS READY TO HELP YOU REACH YOUR DREAMS AND GOALS.

Dear.. .Someone Connected with This Address,
People just like you are writing to this 54-year-old church, telling us of all types of blessings since this church started praying with them. They are receiving divine help in the form of answered prayer. Some are seeing loved ones saved, and many of them are receiving spiritual, physical and financial blessings of all types - better jobs, raised in salaries, being able to buy and sell homes, buying new cars, and so on. Actually, these dear people are receiving so many blessings that it is impossible to mention them all in a letter. And, as you will read in the enclosed brochure a Sister Garcia used the same type of Bible faith prayer rug that we are sending to you, with this letter, and was blessed with almost $50,000! Now, we must talk to you about something we see, in the Holy Spirit, concerning vou and your family's needs.

GOD’S HOLY BLESSING POWER IS IN THE ENCLOSED ANOINTED PRAYER RUG WE ARE LOANING YOU TO USE!

WE MUST GIVE YOU THIS OPPORTUNITY FIRST.. .THEN IT MUST GO TO THE HOME OF ANOTHER DEAR FRIEND WHO NEEDS A BLESSING... You, or someone connected with this address, and another dear family are about to be blessed through this unusual, Bible Faith, Church, Prayer Rug, which we are placing in your care for these next 24 important hours. Because of any needs you are facing, we want you to use this Church Prayer Rug first, then we must pass it on to another dear friend of ours who also needs a blessing. As we pray for you and everyone connected with this address, WE FEEL THAT SOMETHING VERY WONDERFUL IS TRYING TO COME TO YOU.

When you use this Faith Church Prayer Rug, go into a room where you can be alone (just God and you). Turn off the television and radio and try to be by yourself when you kneel on this Holy Ghost, Bible Prayer Rug, or spread it over your knees. We want this Church Ministry, Prayer Rug to be touching both of your knees as you pray for the needs you are facing right now. It is going to be like you are kneeling before God All Mighty at the altar inside a great church of blessings. If you need more joy, peace, health, money, a new car, a new house, healing in family communication, or whatever, we, as a very old (54 years) church, want to know about it. Check your prayer needs on page two of this letter. Talk to us. This power you and this church ministry are about to use works!

These next 24 important hours are crucial to you. Timing is important to God. After you kneel on this Church Prayer Rug, or place it over your knees, place it in a Bible, on Philippians 4:19. (If you don't have a Bible, it's okay - just slide it under your side of your bed, for tonight, if you can. If you can't do this, it is okay.) Leave It There No Longer Than Tonight Only! God sees.
Then, in the morning it is a must that you get this unusual blessing Church Prayer Rug out of this house and back to us, here at the church's chapel prayer room, in faith. And, we must also have this letter back, with whatever you need prayer for printed on page two of it. You must get this Bible Prayer Rug back to us so we can rush it onto another family that's in need of a blessing. Do this without fail. Please, do not break this flow of power between us.

Notice the face of Jesus on this Church Prayer Rug. When you first look, you will notice that His eves are closed. If you relax and continue looking straight into His eyes, you will see His eyes slowly opening, and He will begin looking back at you. Jesus sees your needs (Philippians 4:19). Use this unusual, important. Church Prayer Rug for tonight only.

Let us ask you: Would you like to have God's blessings upon your home, your family and your finances? Say, "Yes, Lord Jesus, I do need Your financial blessings upon me and my family's finances!" Deuteronomy 28:6. Just put a mark by your needs below, telling us that you want prayer. Also, check any other needs you are facing. Pray about sowing a seed gift to the Lord's work. Give God your best seed and believe Him for His best blessing (St. Luke 6:38). Now, go and use this Church, Faith, Prayer Rug. The Lord is watching and waiting. You are about to enter the Holy Spirit of God right here in your home. through this faith exercise. Then, it is a must that you return it for another to use.

MAIL THIS PAGE BACK WITH THIS PRAYER RUG.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF PRAYER!

Dear Brothers and Sisters at Saint Matthew's 54-Year-Old Church,

( ) I received this Church Prayer Rug you loaned me, and I used it as instructed in this letter of faith. Now, I am returning it to you for another to use.

( ) Yes, I do need the Lord's blessings upon my family and me! Pray for my family and me for...
( ) My Soul ( ) A Better Job
( ) A Closer Walk With Jesus ( ) A Home To Call My Own
( ) My Health ( ) A New Car
( ) A Family Member's Health ( ) A Money Blessing
( ) Confusion In My Home ( ) I Want to be Saved.
( ) My Children ( ) Pray for God to bless me with this
( ) To Stop A Bad Habit amount of money: $_________
( ) Please, especially pray for this person: __________________________
( ) Also pray for (please print): _______________________________
( ) Enclosed is my seed gift to God's work of $ ______________.
SAINT MATTHEW'S CHURCH MUST HAVE THIS PRAYER RUG BACK. PLEASE DO NOT MISPLACE IT. IT MUST GO TO ANOTHER HOME AFTER YOU USE IT.

Whatever Happened To . . . ?

True crime books. I guess the heyday of the true crime book in the second half of the twentieth century was the early 1980s until sometime in the latter half of the '90s. We old guys can remember the days when bookstores had whole sections devoted to true crime, and writers like Jack Olsen, Ann Rule, and Carlton Stowers were getting big bucks, not to mention great acclaim, for their nonfiction accounts of various awful crimes. (Maybe the boom goes back even earlier than I think, back to Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.) At any rate, the market now has shrunk. Ann Rule is still selling fairly well, but the true crime book has gone the way of the western and the horror novel. It's a vanishing genre.

What brought this to mind is a book called Death in a Texas Desert by Carlton Stowers. Stowers is a guy who's won two Edgars for true crime, and he's an excellent writer. But this collection of nonfiction pieces (collected from articles Stowers wrote for the Dallas Observer) was published The Republic of Texas Press, and it will probably have an audience far smaller than Stowers had for his other true crime books.

And that's too bad, as all the pieces make engrossing reading. The one I like best is about the "real killer" in the O. J. Simpson case. Stowers writes about Dallas p.i. Bill Dear, who's devoted years of his time and a lot of his money to studying the case. Dear (and Stowers) present a persuasive argument that O. J.'s son might very well have committed the murders that everyone believes O. J. did.

You probably won't see this book on the shelves at your local bookseller's store, but if you do, it's well worth a look. Or you could check it out here.

Mystery*File

Here are the first two pages of the current issue

The latest issue of Steve Lewis's excellent Mystery*File is available now, and the magazine even has a new subtitle, The Crime Fiction Research Journal. That title might be a slight exaggeration, at least as far as my own meager contributions are concerned, but it's a great resource, and I highly recommend that you subscribe, if you haven't already done it.

How Soon We Forget -- Frank Parrish

I can hear some of you, probably most of you, saying, "Frank Who?" But not too many years ago, Frank Parrish was doing all right. He published a series of mystery novels about a fellow named Dan Mallett, who lives in a little English village where he's a poacher, handyman, and occasional thief. We don't begrudge him his little thefts, however, because he lives with his aged mother, who needs surgery for her arthritis, and Dan's just trying to get the money one way or another. Sure, he could get it in the straight world. He used to work in a bank. But Dan's not into banking. He's into personal freedom, which is sure to get you in trouble.

The Dan Mallett books got good reviews and and nice paperback editions from Harper & Row's Perennial Library. They were cozies in the best sense, and I enjoyed reading them. Which is why I picked up Fly in the Cobweb when I saw it the other day and reread it. Originally published in 1986, it seems a bit older than that when you read it now. For one thing, the first line of dialogue doesn't appear until page 32. Try that these days and see how far your manuscript gets. The paragraphs are long, too, another sign of age. But the characters are interesting, and so is the village life. The flora and fauna around the village play a big part in the books, and the descriptions add to the pleasure of reading the stories.

Parrish was really Roger Longrigg, who had another entertaining (and vastly different) series under the name Ivor Drummond. The Drummond books were spy novels in the outrageous vein of the James Bond movies or maybe Modesty Blaise. They were reprinted in the U.S. by Pyramid with appropriately garish covers. I still have a few of these, and I wish I had all of them.

Oddly enough, I read a book by Longrigg under another name long before I discovered either Ivor Drummond or Frank Parrish. The book was supposedly by a schoolgirl named "Rosalind Erskine," and it was The Passion Flower Hotel, about British schoolgirls who decide to earn a little extra cash by engaging in the world's oldest profession. Very racy for the time, and I thought it was really Hot Stuff. Though of course it wasn't, not at all when compared to just about anything on the bestseller list these days.

And as "Laura Black," Longrigg wrote a book that became the basis for a popular British miniseries, Mother Love, starring Diana Rigg. I've never seen the series or read the book, but if the series starred Rigg, it had to be good, right?

Ed Gorman

I've heard from Ed that his new blog is located here. Check it out.

100 Favorite Fictional Characters

The Independent Online Edition > Enjoyment: "The 100 favourite fictional characters... as chosen by 100 literary luminaries
To celebrate World Book Day, we asked the leading lights of British letters to name the characters who give them the greatest reading pleasure. Is your favourite among them? Interviews by Julia Stuart"

I looked, but Sheriff Dan Rhodes didn't make the cut.

Open Season on Cats?

WBAY-Coverage You Can Count On: Wisconsin hunter wants open season on free-roaming domestic cats: "
MADISON, Wis. Hunter Mark Smith welcomes wild birds onto his property, but if he sees a cat, he thinks the 'invasive' animal should be considered fair game.
The 48-year-old firefighter from La Crosse has proposed that hunters in Wisconsin make free-roaming domestic cats an 'unprotected species' that could be shot at will by anyone with a small-game license."

I have a feeling that cat lovers (like me) won't be sending Mark Smith any Christmas cards.

The Texas Prison Museum

Banjo Pics

You might not want to go all the way to Huntsville, Texas, to tour the Texas Prison Musuem, but you can take a photo tour with Banjo Jones by clicking on the link. More photos, including a picture of the new building, are here.

Name Dropping

Joe and Karen Lansdale are in Houston for the weekend, so on Friday night Judy and I drove over to have dinner with them. And to talk, of course. We covered plenty of topics, and when we got onto Joe's scriptwriting, he reminded me that he and I did a "treatment" based on my Sheriff Dan Rhodes books. He asked what I'd done with it, and I said, "Nothing." Mainly because I have no idea what to do with it, and for that matter I'm not even sure if it's any good. Maybe one of these days I'll figure it out.

Joe's in town because tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, he (and I) will be among the readers at a celebration of the 75th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon's book publication. The reading will be kicked off by Robert B. Parker at 5:00 p.m. at Houston's Brazos Bookstore. I'm reading at 5:57, and Joe will follow me. Joe's a terrific reader, so I'm glad I'm not following him. Anyway, you're all invited.

Captain Midnight

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

I hope you're all following the thrilling adventures of Captain Midnight as Ivan over at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear describes them day by day. If not, give 'em a try. Great fun. I don't know if the Captain wears the cool outfit in the serial, and I don't know if the blonde (Joyce of the Secret Squadron) is in it.

As it happens, I'm watching Daredevils of the Red Circle, myself, but so far I'm up to only Chapter Two. It's all Ivan's fault that I bought this serial, because he mentioned it on his blog, but I'm glad I did. It's a very good one so far. Maybe I'll have a few things to say later, but I don't have the energy, as Ivan does, to give a running commentary.

My Rotten Kid Brother

It's been a while since I mentioned my rotten kid brother's website, so I thought I'd give him a plug. He has an interesting and slightly unPC page on the old family plantation here, and I've always regretted the fact that my great-great grandfather remarried after the death of his first wife. He left everything to his second wife and her family, cutting my line off from the Big Bucks. My brother collects, among other things, seal presses, which are not used to press seals, at least not the aquatic kind. He's clearly as crazy as I am. Maybe crazier.

Tales of Future Past

Tales of Future Past

This is a nice site, with lots of covers from old SF and "real science" magazines.

10 Things I've Done that You Haven't

Well, I can't think of ten. I can think of one, and I know you're all going to think less of me when I tell you what it is. But I'll tell you anyway. I've seen Slim Whitman in concert. Three times. So there.

Richard Foster -- The Rest Must Die

I read this Gold Medal novel when I was a kid and thought it was great. The Big One has hit New York City, and the place is wiped out. However, there are survivors down in the subway tunnels: "The law of the jungle was supreme: Kill or be killed. Take or be taken." Fine stuff. What I didn't know back in those days is that the author, Richard Foster, was also M.E. Chaber, Christopher Monig, and Kendall Foster Crossen. So I missed the joke in this sentence on page 1: "Bob Randall had been with the Chaber, Crossen, and Monig advertising agency for five years." I may not read the whole book again, but I'm glad I opened it up and read that sentence.

Book Heaven

Book Heaven: "Run Do Not Walk!

I'm sure most of you have already seen this, but if you haven't already been to this site (I learned about it from imponderables.com), run do not walk to http://everyonewhosanyone.com. This is one entertaining website! Expect to spend many hours there. Maybe longer."

I suggest that you check out Andy Jaysnovitch's Book Heaven by clicking on the link above before going to the site he's touting. He explains a little about what's going on, and you might need his intro.

The Kinkster Bids Farewell (Sort Of)

Texas Monthly: Story Preview

Unfortunately, you can read only two paragraphs of Kinky Friedman's farewell to mystery fiction on-line. To read the rest, you have to subscribe to Texas Monthly. Let me just say that we're told by the real Kinky that in Ten Little New Yorkers [SPOILER], the fictional Kinky dies in a fall from a bridge while grappling with a murderer. The real Kinky implies that the fictional Kinkster, like another great detective who "died" under similar circumstances, might return if the public clamors loudly enough. [END OF SPOILER] And Kinky has some interesting thoughts about mysteries in general and series mysteries in particular. Maybe you can find the magazine in a library.

Anna Nicole in Australia

Entertainment | Anna Nicole a handful (01-03-2005): "WHILE all eyes were supposed to be focused on the live telecast of the Oscars at an exclusive lunch yesterday, it was the blonde widow Anna Nicole Smith who proved to be the star distraction.
About 300 special guests gathered in Paddington Town Hall to watch the live feed but it was the enhanced inheritress who provided the entertainment.

MC Erica Heynatz had the unenviable job of interviewing Smith during a break in the telecast and listening to her describe her efforts at surfing was like watching a car crash in slow motion.

But Smith, who arrived in Sydney yesterday morning, did manage to declare that Australia was 'the most prettiest country I have ever been to' before asking 'where are the damn f...ing kangaroos?'."

Because (as is well known) Anna Nicole is from my hometown and was in a high school class taught by my brother, I have an obligation to be sure that everyone hears about her activities.

A Book I Bought On eBay

Why did I buy it? Let's just say that I collect books that have covers showing guys wandering around in the country in suits. (I can almost hear Cap'n Bob now: "Guy? There's a guy in the picture?"

Some Final LCC Comments

I managed to get a few minutes with Bob Levinson at LCC, which was a good enough reason for going all by itself. He's an amazing guy, who's been a big success in at least three different careers, including his latest as a writer. Anybody who can hit the L. A. Times bestseller list with a Five Star book (they're usually sold to libraries, not in bookstores) has my admiration.

Walter Satterthwait, mentioned here in an earlier post, talked about his novel about pulp writer Raoul Whitfield. Whitfield was a contemporary of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and the death of his second wife is the subject of the novel. Let's hope some publisher snaps this one up soon.

My plane was delayed, so I missed most of the first panel I was supposed to moderate, but I filled the chair for one called "Deep in the Heart of Texas: When No Other Setting Will Do." The panelists (Harry Hunsicker, Leann Sweeney, Susan McBride, Margaret Tessler) were all great, and I recommend their novels (Harry's first book isn't out yet, but it's on the way; he's sold two more, too).

Members of DAPA-Em whome I saw and talked to included Kate Derie, Gary Warren Niebuhr, Janet Rudolph, Marv and Carol Lachman, Ted Fitzgerald, Thom Walls, Maggie Mason, and former member Bryan Barrett. I was sorry the whole apa gang couldn't be there.

Even More Thoughts on left Coast Crime

S. J. Rozan, who was Guest of Honor at Left Coast Crime, has some comments on El Paso here. She clearly didn't take the same walk I did. Within two blocks of the hotel, in the direction of the border, the sidewalks were so crowded that there was hardly any room for me. Pawnshops, clothing stores, variety stores, and even "Shooters Supply" all had their doors open to the sidewalk, and people were milling around all the entrances, going in and out, shopping, talking, socializing. The whole scene reminded me of my small East Texas hometown on Saturday afternoons in the early 1950s. There was even a street-corner preacher, and even though he was speaking Spanish, the message was very much the same as the ones I heard back in the old days. Of course it's true that the "real" downtown El Paso is pretty depressed and empty, but down toward the border, it's hoppin'.

Further Thoughts on Left Coast Crime

I'm sorry to have missed the display of terpsichorean talent by Victor "Disco Vic" Gischler, as I understand that it was the highlight of the convention. As many of you know, Victor "Dancin' Fool" Gischler is the author of some fine novels (Gun Monkeys and Pistol Poets). I'm hoping his new one, Suicide Squeeze, will be just as good, if not better. (Cap'n Bob Napier assures me that it's good stuff, indeed.)

Although I missed the dancing, I did manage to spend some time with the charming Walter Satterthwait, who may or may not be a good dancer (he didn't offer to demonstrate). His latest book, Cavalcade, is another winner, according to me. Walter was on a panel about forgotten authors, and he discussed a favorite of mine, Frank McAuliffe, author of three books about Augustus Mandrell. The titles are Of all the Bloody Cheek, Rather a Vicious Gentleman, and For Murder I Charge More. All three are brilliant examples of plot construction, pacing, suspense, and humor. If we're lucky, PointBlank will be reprinting all three, along with a fourth that was unpublished at McAuliffe's death.

And speaking of forgotten writers, Walter, Kelly Lange, and I got into a discussion of Stephen Greenleaf, author of many fine mystery novels, who doesn't seem to have a publisher at present. There is no justice when a writer like Greenleaf has trouble getting into print.

Ed Gorman and Friends

Most of you have doubtless noticed that Ed Gorman's blog hasn't been updated in a while. It seems that there is a technical glitch that even a computer genius like Ed hasn't been able to solve. But not to worry. Ed informs me that he's going to have Ed Gorman and Friends up and running in a permanent location Real Soon Now. I'll let you know as soon as I find out more.

Stephen King and Hardcase Crime

Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind: "Stephen King, master of surprise and strange twists, is taking his writing in a new direction: pulp fiction.

The Colorado Kid, a paperback with a lurid, 1940s-style cover featuring a languid brunette (painted by Glen Orbik of Batman and Superman fame), comes out in October from publisher Hard Case Crime."

The link goes to Sarah Weinman's incomprable Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, but some of you may already have gotten this info in an e-mail from Hard Case honcho Charles Ardai. If so, you've seen the great cover. Wow. Let's hear a big round of applause for Hard Case Crime!

The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes

Via Incoming Signals, the link above will take you to every Calvin & Hobbes strip, one of my all-time favorites.

Left Coast Crime -- The Return

Judy and I are back from Left Coast Crime, where we had a really great time. My congratulations to the committee for putting together a top-notch convention.

I saw so many people that I'm not sure I can remember who even half of them were, but I do remember being able to talk Lee Goldberg into buying a copy of Robert Martin's Sleep, My Love from Fender Tucker at the Ramble House booth. I hope Lee doesn't regret the purchase later. I picked up a few cool paperbacks, myself, including one of Fender's Ramble House productions, The Crimson Clown by Johnston McCulley, the creator of Zorro. Apparently the Crimson Clown is sort of a 'thirties Zorro, except that his disguise is different. I'll let you know. I also got a copy of "The Jicarilla Mud," which Fender wrote and which is "A Ramble House Ten-Cent Book." I love Fender's brilliant marketing, as demonstrated by the placard at his table: "Ramble House Ten-Cent Books. $8." Hey, you can't beat a deal like that.

On Saturday afternoon I walked from the hotel to the Mexican border but didn't bother to cross the river. Mainly because by the time I'd gone a block from the hotel, there was only a minute difference between what things were like on one side of the river or the other. It was an enjoyable walk, for sure.

The various bands that played in the bar each night were increasingly annoying, and conversation was pretty much impossible after they took the stage, so I didn't spend much time there after dark.

I missed my first panel because the plane from Houston to El Paso was delayed, but my second panel went very well. It was "Deep in the Heart of Texas: When No Other Setting Will Do." The panelists were Harry Hunsicker, Susan McBride, Margaret Tessler, and Leanne Sweeny, all of whom were great. And later in the convention Susan tied for the Lefty Award with Donna Andrews. It's always fun to be on a panel with a winner.

Left Coast Crime

Judy and I will be leaving tomorrow morning for the Left Coast Crime convention in El Paso, Texas. We'll get back home on Sunday afternoon. If I get a chance (highly unlikely) I'll post an audioblog sometime during the convention. I won't be near a computer, so regular posting won't begin again until Sunday evening or Monday. It's OK if you flirt with other blogs in my absence, but try to remain true blue.

Why Use Tinfoil?

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Via Jayme Blashke's Gibberish comes this link to an important webpage that explains how to construct a "thought screen helmet that stops aliens from abducting humans." In case you're skeptical, "It's a tested device that works." And there's no tinfoil involved. You can make your helmet from Velostat for a mere $35 if you buy the material by the yard. Click the link to learn more and maybe save yourself an embarrassing anal probe like the one Cartman got on South Park.

Paperback Covers!

BookScans: "Graphically illustrating the evolution of Vintage American Paperbacks - 1939 through 1959"

This is a great site. The stated plan is to provide scans of every American paperback cover, and there are already hundreds, if not thousands, of them posted. Highly recommended.

Otto Penzler Gets a Deal In the U.K.

Otto Penzler Reunites With U.K. Publisher for Mystery Line: "Otto Penzler Reunites With U.K. Publisher for Mystery Line"

"Almost 20 years after they first teamed up to publish mysteries in markets throughout the world, New York–based bookseller and publisher Otto Penzler and veteran U.K. publisher Anthony Cheetham are renewing their relationship, now to begin a new line of crime stories, under the Random House UK imprint Hutchinson."

But Otto never publishes any of my books.

One Day at a Time

OK, I might as well come clean. I know you suspected it. So, yes, I watched the One Day at a Time reunion last night. Why? I don't know. When the show was on I never watched it regularly, but if it was on and I was in the room, I didn't turn it off. Like most any Norman Lear show, it had too much yelling for me. Apparently a lot of people could identify with Ms. Romano, the young single mom with her two daughters, but I wasn't one of them. The show had a few laughs, but it just never really interested me, and I never watched it at all after the first two or three seasons. I was, in fact, amazed to learn that it stayed on the air for nine years.

Now for the age thing. It just doesn't seem possible that Mackenzie Phillips is 44. That Valerie Bertinelli is 43. That Bonnie Franklin is 61. That Pat Harrington Jr. is 75.

Good grief. Now I'm feeling old again. You young whippersnappers can laugh, but some day you'll know what it's like. I'm just sorry I won't be there to laugh and point at you.

Jack Higgins -- The Early Years

For quite a while now, Berkley Books has been republishing some of Jack Higgins' early novels, the ones that haven't been issued in paperback here in the U.S. Or hardback, for that matter. My favorite so far has been Pay the Devil, set during the Civil War. But a close second is The Graveyard Shift. This one's like a Gold Medal novel, with a main character (a cop named Nick Miller) who's not a lot different from the criminals he hates. The action of the novel, for the most part, takes place during one night, and the story moves along like a bullet. A man gets out of prison, and he's coming back to where it all started. The cops are asked to protect someone, and Miller gets the job, which naturally turns out to be a bit more complicated than anyone thought. It's hard to talk about the book without going into the ending, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. So don't read past this point if you're thinking about reading it. All I'll say is that while the ending doesn't go The Maltese Falcon one better, the influence is obvious. Even though this book must not have been very highly thought of either by Higgins or his publishers (else it would have been reprinted before 2002), I like it better than any of the ones he's written in the last ten or fifteen years.

The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time

Mobile PC - Features - The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time: "The Top 100 Gadgets of All Time"

Some great stuff here. How many of these do you own?

Stone Cold

It's been so long since I watched a made-for-TV movie that I can't even remember what the last one was. But I decided to watch Stone Cold because I like Tom Selleck, and I liked the book. And what do you know? I wasn't disappointed.

First of all, someone got smart and used John Huston's old Maltese Falcon trick: they actually shot Stone Cold pretty much as Robert B. Parker wrote it. His dialogue works great on the page, and it works just as well on the screen. And Selleck delivered it well, too. In fact, the whole cast is good.

More good news: they didn't try to lighten it up. The Jesse Stone books have a darker edge than the Spenser novels, and they kept the mood appropriately dark.

Maybe it's not surprising when a TV movie gets so many things right. Maybe I should watch more of them. I know for sure I'll watch another Jesse Stone movie if they make one.

Sandra Dee, Hunter S. Thompson -- RIP

I'm getting really tired of having people die. I never met either Sandra Dee or Hunter S. Thompson(and what a pairing) but their passing has affected me nevertheless.

Sandra Dee hasn't appeared in a movie or on TV for about 30 years now, but people my age still remember her vividly. In a lot of minds she's inextricably linked with the irksome strains of "Theme from a Summer Place" because she starred in the movie with Troy Donahue, and of course to some of us she'll always be Gidget. That was her curse, I guess, but in a way it's really not. I haven't seen an image of her from her later years, so age won't wither her in my mind's eye. It probably wouldn't, even if I did happen to see a recent picture. I like to think she'd have been a lot like Barbara Burnett Smith, still pretty and bubbly even as a grandmother. [Musical digression that I can't resist: The Four Preps appeared in Gidget, and sang a couple of songs. "Cinderella" was one of them, a great number. Far superior, I might add to "Theme from a Summer Place."]

I'll always remember Hunter S. Thompson for a couple of things, his book about the Hell's Angels, real knockout, and his "Fear and Loathing" articles in Rolling Stone, back in the days when Rolling Stone still mattered. Maybe it still matters to some people, and for all I know, it does. But to me in the late '60s and a good portion of the '70s, it mattered a lot, and Thompson's writing, accompanied by those great Ralph Steadman illustrations, was one of the highlights.

More on Hunter S. Thompson

Incoming Signals: A Weblog

Lots of links to interviews and such here.

Barbara Burnett Smith -- RIP

In a post to DorothyL today, Patsy Asher, of San Antonio's Remember the Alibi, says that Barbara Burnett Smith died in an accident in San Antonio Saturday night. Barbara and her husband there to rescue a dog, and when they visited Remember the Alibi, the dog ran from their car and into the street. It was raining and dark, and apparently Barbara stepped into the street to catch the dog. She was hit by a car and died in the hospital.

I'm still in shock over this. I've known Barbara for at least 15 years, and she was one of the nicest people you'd ever hope to meet. She was lovely and perky and a very talented writer. She was also the former daughter-in-law of another fine mystery writer, Thomas B. Dewey, whom she credited with helping her quite a bit when she was starting out.

I don't really have much more to say, except that the world is a poorer place without Barbara in it.

It's All About Marketing

So I'm reading Scott Phillips's Cottonwood, and I'm thinking, "This is a western novel." Not exactly an earth-shaking conclusion to reach, I suppose, except that the publisher doesn't want you to know it's a western novel, at least not until you've paid for it. For example, there's one blurb on the front cover, from bestselling crime writer Michael Connelly: "Scott Phillips is dark, dangerous, and important. Cottonwood is crime fiction at its best." There are several blurbs on the back cover, but only one of them is about Cottonwood. It's from another crime biggie, George Pelecanos, and it says, "Cottonwood is an adventurous, bawdy, and genre-bending epic. Scott Phillips cements his reputation as a fearless, ambitious writer who never makes a false move." I guess the western novel is really dead when a highly regarded new writer does one and it's marketed as a crime novel. Or as a "genre-bending epic."

But, see, I don't get that last part. What's so original about Cottonwood? In an interview on The World's Worst Blog, Victor Gischler calls the book a "horror-crime-western." (At least he's not afraid to use the W word.) So what? It's not like there's never been another one. Where was all the hue and cry when Matthew S. Hart (great name, huh?) published The Prisoners, a horror-crime-cannibal-lesbian-vampire western? (OK, I could be wrong about the vampire part. But not the rest.) Here's a book that I contend is as much a genre-bending epic as Cottonwood, but nobody has ever heard of it. Well, almost nobody. So let's take another example: Trevanian's Incident at Twenty-Mile. What about that one?

I know, I know. Marketing. Matthew S. Hart writes a novel that's part of a series about the Texas Rangers, and nobody who buys it knows that he's reading a genre-bending epic. He just thinks it's a really weird book for a series western. And Trevanian? Hey, he hasn't had a bestseller in a long time. Who knows him?

Anyway, doesn't nearly every western ever written have a crime element? Never mind. I'm putting my soap box away for the evening.

Loonatics, Again

I still think it sucks.

Further Depressing Signs of My Old Age

Every day I look at the little box in the newspaper where the celebrity birthdays are recorded. Here are a few I saw today:

Bobby Lewis is 72. He was a two-hit wonder back around 1961, but "Tossin' and Turnin'" was his biggest. I can never see his name without hearing his voice and that great opening line: "I couldn't sleep at all last night!" And right now in my mind's eye I can see Joe Carr, who could do a great imitation of it. That was more than 40 years ago.

Johnny Bush is 70. He did the definitive version of "Whiskey River." Early '70s. Thirty or more years ago. I can hear it right now, clear as ever it was on the AM radio in my 1967 Plymouth.

And Gene Pitney is 64. He wrote some great songs for other people ("Rubber Ball" for Bobby Vee, "Hello, Mary Lou" for Ricky Nelson), but I remember that first great single of his, "I Wann Love my Life Away." Early '60s again, maybe spring of 1960. Definitely a springtime song. And now Gene's 64, as I'll be in a few months. Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?

Worst. Idea. Ever.

DenverPost.com - ENTERTAINMENT: "Bugs Bunny and pals get a facelift: Warner Bros. offering 're-imagined' versions of classic cartoon characters"

I read about this at Something Old, Nothing New, and I share Jaime Weinman's rage. This is quite possibly the worst idea I've ever heard. In fact, I'd better stop writing this before I being spluttering incoherently like Daffy Duck.

UPDATE: Mark Evanier, the voice of reason at News from Me, seems to think we should prejudge this idea, that it could turn out to be wonderful. But I still think it sucks.

Life on Mars?

According to an article at Space.com, "A pair of NASA scientists told a group of space officials at a private meeting here [Washington, D.C.] Sunday that they have found strong evidence that life may exist today on Mars, hidden away in caves and sustained by pockets of water." I have to admit that I'm skeptical, but this is one of those things I'd really like to believe. Wow. Underground life on Mars. It's just like something out of one of those old SF digests.

The Planet Of Sardines

The Planet Of Sardines

I read about this new blog on Incoming Signals. Some wonderful magazine covers (pulps, digests, European and American). I'm bookmarking this one.

20 Million Miles to Earth

Joe Lansdale told me today that he'd just watched a movie called 20 Million Miles to Earth. As it happens, I own the old one-off issue of Amazing Stories devoted the the novelization by Henry Slesar. It has one of my favorite covers from that era of digest magazines, so I had to get it out and have a look. I remember reading this novel and seeing the movie nearly 50 years ago. I thought the book was good, and of course I loved the movie. Ray Harryhausen did the effects, and the monster depicted on the cover of the magazine looks almost as good in the movie as he does here. I don't remember that he carries around a woman in his hand in the movie, but he does fight an elephant.

Even More Hammett Stuff

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

Excellent post (as per usual at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear), this one about the radio version of The Thin Man. Lots of information, plus some excerpts from one of the shows. Not to mention links to earlier posts on Sam Spade and The Fat Man. Click on the link above and check it out.

Another Hammett Tribute

The Thrilling Detective Web Site

The latest Hammett tribute is up at Kevin Burton Smith's fine Thrilling Detective website. It includes, among many other things, the 1946 radio adaptation with Humprey Bogart for your listening pleasure.

Ong Bak

I probably shouldn't admit it, but I went to see Ong Bak this afternoon. As I recall, Roger Ebert says in his review that about seven minutes of the movie are devoted to the plot. He may have overestimated. But who cares? The plot is only an excuse to allow Tony Jaa to show his stuff, and show it he does. He's pretty amazing as he climbs trees, jumps over cars, slides under trucks, runs across a crowd of bad guys by stepping on their heads and shoulders, and demonstrates his Muay Thai martial arts prowess. Muay Thai? For all I know there's no such thing. But who cares? Jaa whacks one bad guy after another, which is pretty much what the five of us in the theater were there to see. I think I was the oldest of the five by at least 45 years, except of course in mental age. The acting's corny and the situations are corny. But, let's face it: who can resist a movie in which the chief bad guy says, "Dispose of them, and meet me at the cave." Not me.

Dashiell Hammett: A 75th Anniversay Tribute

Feature | Dashiell Hammett: Guns, Gams and Gratitude

It's the 75 anniversary of the publication of The Maltese Falcon, and January Magazine has a fine tribute issue, including comments by some of today's leading crime writers. And me, too. How I got in there, I have no idea. Be sure to check it out.

Sin-A-Rama

Sin-A-Rama is another fine publication from Feral House, and I read it so Vince Keenan wouldn't have to. Most of the introductory material is reprinted from other sources, but if you didn't get the copy of Letters to Penthouse with Robert Silverberg's fine essay entitled "My Life as a Pornographer," then that alone is worth the price of this book. Of course no one's really interested in the introductory material, though. It's the pictures of the book covers that count, adn that's where the book delivers. If you don't have the books, you can now feast your eyes on the covers of such classic titles as Ape Rape, Burlesque Jungle, Satan was a Lesbian, Her Private Hell, and, well, you get the idea. You're either interested in this kind of thing or you're not. If you're not, you quit reading this back at the first sentence. If you are, you probably have your copy already. It belongs on the reference shelf of anyone who loves old paperbacks.

Rita Hayworth

Turner Classic Movies This Month Article

Thanks to Walter Satterthwait for this link. Ed Gorman, in a comment below, remarks on Rita Hayworth's problems in The Wrath of God. The linked article goes into a lot more (sad) detail. Wrath was Hayworth's final film.

Chupacabra?

Jayme Blaschke is usually the go-to guy for up-to-the-date chupacabra information, but I saw this article today and thought I'd post it. These things, whatever they are, seem to be turning up with alarming regularity these days.