Tuesday Night Music: John Lee Hooker & Carlos Santana

If David Lynch directed DIRTY DANCING (Hat tip to Megan).

Forgotten TV: Crusader Rabbit

No, not Happy Days but Crusader Rabbit.

I was quite attached to this show growing up. From what I can tell, it was aired here and there.It was the first animated TV series and began airing in 1948.For more information, you can go to this site.
Sorry to be quick today. 

Movie Themes: Psycho

How I Came to Write This Story: Dale Philips

The new Nightfalls anthology is a good thing, a collection of fine stories where the proceeds go to help those less fortunate.

When editor Katherine Tomlinson asked me if I'd like to submit a story, I said yes, and told her I'd just published a collection of stories about the end of the world, Apocalypse Tango: http://www.amazon.com/Apocalypse-Tango-Five-Story-Collection/dp/1477514902/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355098564&sr=1-1&keywords=apocalypse+tango

Uh... she said, well, that's what the new collection is about.
Okay, no problem, I'll just write another one...
But I'd used up my available scenarios.

When she told me about the charity the proceeds were going to, the idea began to form. Since the last night of 12/21 was so close to Christmas, it grew to having the apocalypse seen through the eyes of a young Latino child, who's confused as to why the grownups are acting so strangely around the time Santa is supposed to come. And since the Los Angeles area charity was there, that became the locale, and even the theme. The prompt for the collection guided precisely what the story was to be.

Within the tale, I wanted to explore the different reactions that people would have: some lose themselves in drinking or drugs, some end on their knees praying for salvation or redemption, some who would like to end with pleasures of the flesh (going out with a bang, not a whimper), some in finally getting that one thing they've always dreamed of, and some, committing that last act of ultimate love.

And a nod to the apocalypse coming 50 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when we came within a whisker of having it happen then. Plus ca change, you know...

Religion, death, Christmas, love, and the end of the world, all in a few thousand worlds. Guess that says it all.

Say Something Good About Detroit

 

Back Alley Bikes

 

Back Alley Bikes exists in one of the most desperate parts of Detroit. Only about thirty percent of Detroiters have cars or even licenses and the public transportation is lacking. How difficult must it be to get to work without either.

(From their website)

inSFor the last 10 years Back Alley Bikes has helped put Detroit residents on two wheels while teaching the youth of the city and others bicycle safety, mechanical repairs and customer service.

The program was started in 2000 by employees of Detroit Summer, a “youth program / movement to respirit, redefine and reimagine Detroit from the ground up.” The original purpose was to provide transportation to youth participants who were working on anything from planting gardens and to painting murals all over the city. Today this non-profit organization has grown into so much more offering holiday bike giveaways, adult repair classes, youth education workshops and countless other volunteer-based programs.

Back Alley Bikes is funded partially by its retail shop the Hub of Detroit, a full-service bicycle shop servicing the Cass Corridor and greater Detroit. The Hub’s profits, along with grants from Michigan’s Tri- County Bicycle Association, are put toward multi-generational educational programs and youth outreach.

One of their newest programs is for adult volunteers. Volunteer nights are on Wednesday and Thursday evenings from 6 to 8. After completing 20 hours here, participants are eligible to become “Allies.” In exchange for four hours of volunteer work a week, Back Alley Bikes gives Allies free access to tools and bike parts. For those unfamiliar with bicycle mechanics, there is an eight-week course called “Learn-a-Bike” that covers the basic how-to of bike repair and construction.

One of Back Alley's work rooms has been filled with donated bikes In reaching out toward Detroit youth, Back Alley Bikes and the Detroit Bike Hub have put on “Earn-a-Bike” sessions where young people age 8 to 16 are able to pick a bicycle to take home after three sessions of building and repairing it. This summer the program is being held on Thursday and Saturday afternoons.

For children too young to work at the shop, there are several annual holiday bike giveaways. “We just held a kid’s bike giveaway,” says Jack VanDyke, who started volunteering at Back Alley Bikes in 2005, “It was held the weekend of July 4^th and the final count was 123 bikes.”

Back Alley Bikes and the Hub of Detroit are located at 3611 Cass Ave. near Martin Luther King Blvd. For more information on programs and volunteer 

An upcoming event:

Bike-a-Thon Riders!

November 20, 2012

Hello everyone!
Welcome to Backalleybikes.org and Thehubofdetroit.org.  Before you check out the rest of the website, we wanted to let you know about a big fundraiser we are doing.  On January 6th, 2013 we are going to ride as many miles as we can over a 24 hour period.  We are doing this in hopes that you feel guilty about not riding and it will cause you to donate to our gimmicky event.  Or maybe you’ll come ride with us!  Either way, help us raise awareness of what Back Alley Bikes does and also funds to help us do what we do year round! (to access the rest of the site, click here or on “News!” above)

Happy Chanukah

Multiple Screenings

A friend of mine has seen the Bond movie SKYFALL more than a dozen times since it opened. I don't think I have ever seen a movie more than twice at a theater and I am crazy about movies. Now over an extended period, the rules change. Or for me at least.

What movie did you see the most times at a theater? And how many times? 

My second western story is up on BEAT TO A PULP.

Thanks to Ron Scheer and David Cranmer for reading it for me. Hard to get that western lingo right when you are going for hyperbole.

Saturday Night Music: Martha Wainwright

The Three Stooges: A Defense by Anonymous

More than a year ago, I asked why girls didn't like the Stooges. I found this comment on the piece this week and thought it was a wonderful defense. I don't know the writer, but she made me think I had missed something crucial with them. Thanks, Anonymous.
******************************************************************************

I am a girl and I have watched every episode at least once, as well as some of their feature films. I even own 2 of the Three Stooges Collection DVDs, and plan to add to them as I am able. It would be incorrect to say that they aren't good at physical comedy OR witty humor. They had perfect timing (which is harder work than you'd think) and, Larry particularly, had hilarious facial reactions to violence inflicted on another stooge, etc. Also, their shorts DID have a plot, and the boys did a couple very good political satires as well: You Nazty Spy, when Moe, ironically he was Jewish, impersonated Hitler and made fun of the nazi regime (btw, he was the first actor to do this, and he did a startlingly good job), and Three Dark Horses, which was so close to the truth about politics that it was almost painful lol (Shemp: "That 2 hour work week, that really got me!!" Moe: "Ya can't believe all that, thems CAMPAIGN PROMISES!" *smack*)

I think Shemp was the most versatile and experienced actor of the bunch, and had very cleverly funny things to say in any given situation (Shemp: "I had an uncle that could make things disappear!" Moe: "Was he a magician?" Shemp: "No, he was a kleptomaniac!") I personally love Shemp, and most of my favorite stooge episodes have Shemp in them. Plus, where would the Stooges be without their classic eyepoke, which Shemp invented when he got mad at Larry during a card game? Lol

However, Moe is my favorite, maybe because I'm the oldest sibling in my family and have a similar bossy personality and can relate to Moe's constant frustration with his fellow stooges. Also, I share his birthday, which I am VERY proud of. Haha

Larry was a genius, though largely inconspicuous because the playwrights wrote him in that way. He had way more potential than he was able to display. He had some very funny moments throughout the years though ("WHAT STUPID IMBECILIC FOOL PUT THAT UP THERE... oh, I did.. silly me"; and when he breaks out in a wild Tarzan yell in the middle of a packed court room after killing a piece of gum). He runs very closely to Moe for being my favorite, in fact, I think it's a tie!

Curly was the loveable little childlike fat guy who took most of the slaps and rarely fought back. He coined many of the most popular Stooges catchphrases, like nyuk nyuk nyuk and COITENLY! Though I love him too, sometimes his childishness briefly gets on my nerves.

I don't really care for the two Joes, because they weren't really stooge material. They were funny in their own right, I suppose, but not with the Three Stooges.

I know most females don't like them, and some even hate them! But I love them, and right now their films are almost the only thing that can really make me laugh, as my cousin just passed away a couple months ago. I owe them one. :)

The Summing Up, Friday, December, 7, 2012

There is a review of SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK up at Crimespree Cinema. Was I too harsh?

Ray Bradbury Works

Patti Abbott, The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
Sergio Angelini,, A Graveyard for Lunatics
 Bradbury Media , Naming of Ray Bradbury Square in L.A.
Bill Crider, A Memory of Murder
Jerry House. Links to Bradbury Works
Randy Johnson, A Pleasure to Burn
Nick Jones , The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Volume 1 & 2
George Kelley, The Stories of Ray Bradbury
B.V. Lawson , Vintage Bradbury
Todd Mason,  An Assortment of Bradbury, Bloch, etc.
Jeff Meyerson, A Memory of Murder
Richard Pangburn, A Discussion of Ray Bradbury
James Reasoner, "Jonah of the Jove Run" PLANET STORIES
Richard Robinson , Dandelion Wine
Ron Scheer, "The Last Night of the World"
Prashant Trikannad, An Impatient Gulliver Above Our Roofs

And other remembered books
Brian Busby , The Sixth of January, Jim Lotz
Martin Edwards, The Department of Dead Ends, Roy Vickers
Curt Evans, Murder of a Matriarch, Hugh Austin
Margot Kinberg, March Violets, Philip Kerr
Evan Lewis, Hammett Homicides
J.F. Norris , Burglars in Bucks, G.D.H. and Margaret Cole
Juri Nummelin, Dirt Rich, Clark Howard
Gerard Saylor , Plays of the 60s Vol 3, Katherine Brisbane
Michael Slind, A Banner of Pegasus, John and Emery Bonett
Kevin Tipple/Patrick Ohl, Mischief, Charlotte Armstrong

Friday's Forgotten Books: Ray Bradbury Day

                                        THE WONDERFUL ICE CREAM SUIT


The play tells a simple story of six impoverished Latinos living in Los Angeles whose lives are improved on wearing a vanilla white suit they purchased together and take turns wearing (sort of like the YA book about the traveling pants, I think). All six men are the same size and weight and thus can wear the suit. The suit not only allows each man to achieve his dream ( a sweetheart, a winning pool player, a guitarist, a singer, a great orator). But it allows them to extend their lives and make new friends. Much of the humor comes from their joint fear of what one of the men, a very sloppy one, will do to the suit. As is always the case for me when reading a play, it seems like it would not last more than thirty minutes on a stage. But I am sure the action in it takes as much time as the words.

Friendship is the real theme of the story, which (according to RB notes on the play) came from the writer's own relationship with Mexican-American immigrants he lived among as a young man making ends meet from a tenement at the corner of Figueroa Street and Temple in the Boyle Heights district of East Los Angeles. 

"I saw my friends coming and going from Mexico City, Laredo, and Juarez," Bradbury explained. "Their poverty and mine were identical. I saw them share clothes, as I did with my father and brother..I knew what a suit could mean to them." The young writer also watched the Latina women "on the porches after a big party, like Cinco de Mayo, throwing their dresses off the tenement to other women down below. So the dresses the women used during Cinco de Mayo became the clothing the young women who owned no dresses used for the rest of the year." Bradbury turned these experiences into stories like "En La Noche" and "I See You Never," both included in his fantastic short story collection The Golden Apples of the Sun, but most extensively into "The Magic White Suit," originally published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1957.

 "Well, I hung out with them!" Bradbury responded when asked how he knew these people well enough to make them characters in his play. He felt an affinity towards the men and women who inspired "Suit," borrowed their names and transferred their larger-than-life personalities into the five characters who find each other in the story: lovestruck, luckless Martinez; shifty opportunist Gomez; handsome street guitarist Dominguez; frustrated poet and thinker Villanazul; impulsive, uncontrollable Vamenos. Their lives are a reflection of the kind of noble poverty Bradbury saw all around him, with people uniting to help each other make ends meet. "They would all share their clothes, which was very common for any family who's struggling," says Collins.

The story, retitled "The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit," was adapted for a 1958 episode of the anthology series "Rendezvous" before Bradbury wrote it as a play and there would later be a musical version. It has been produced countless times over the years. 


Ray Bradbury, A Memory of Murder (1984)

Ray Bradbury is, of course, associated with the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres. A lot of people don’t know he started out in his early twenties trying to write somewhat hardboiled detective fiction in the pulps on the 1940’s, helped and encouraged by his friend Leigh Brackett. These 15 stories were originally published between 1944 and 1948 (Bradbury was born in 1920) and you can see why he gave up the field because, while readable, many of them just don't work. In fact, I found several quite ridiculous.
As he went on and tried different things, however, he got more confident and seemed to gain greater control over his material. Nowhere is that more apparent than in one of his most famous stories (included here), 1946’s “The Small Assassin.” It may seem familiar these days but any similar “killer child” story you might have read derives from the Bradbury rather than the other way around. That alone makes this collection worth seeking out, as does the chance to see the somewhat humble beginnings of one of the most famous genre writers of the last century.
                                                                                                                                                                                         Jeff Meyerson


Sergio Angelini
Bradbury Media 
Bill Crider
Jerry House
Randy Johnson
Nick Jones
George Kelley
B.V. Lawson
Todd Mason
Richard Pangburn
James Reasoner
Richard Robinson
Ron Scheer
Prashant Trikannad

And other remembered books
Brian Busby 
Martin Edwards
Curt Evans
Margot Kinberg
Evan Lewis
J.F. Norris 
Juri Nummelin
Gerard Saylor
Michael Slind
Kevin Tipple/Patrick Ohl

My Life in the Theater: AN IDEAL HUSBAND

We saw Oscar Wilde's AN IDEAL HUSBAND at the Shaw Festival in summer, 2010. It was an excellent production, the staging and costumes were terrific.

Here is a cute video that shows how the stage got changed between THE WOMAN and THE IDEAL HUSBAND that summer. The Shaw Festival has three theaters, each showing 2-3 plays. The Stratford has four theaters, each showing 2-3 plays. The Canadians really take these festivals seriously.

Amazing how these theaters put on so many plays at once. AN IDEAL HUSBAND first played in 1895. Its wit and the topic plays well more than 125 years later. It has been filmed three times, most recently in 1998 with Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Rupert Everett and Jeremy Northam.

Herniated Roots by Richard Thomas

                                        Herniating My Roots

                                        By Richard Thomas

My debut collection of short stories, Herniated Roots, just came out with Snubnose Press. It’s been growing for the last five years, this cyst that is my body of work. And how exactly did this diseased, engorged muscle push its way through the walls of my flesh to frighten and scar the world? Well, let me tell you.

The stories in this collection have several things in common. They deal with that moment in time, that tipping point, where you can no longer return to how things used to be. You have an affair, and are caught. You go off your medications and the ghost world comes swooping in to alter your reality. You fall off the wagon for good, and your actions cause you to circle the drain, slowly being pulled under once and for all. Road rage, a violent accident in the wee hours of the morning, the final termination of the skin-job that was your spouse, the launching of an improbable rocket made of Tinkertoys, high into the glowing moon that hovers over the dark night. These are the moments that change your life forever.

I like to write about fractured people, to see how they react when the vice grip they have on reality, on their emotions, on their sanity, finally slips away. Nobody wants to read about a husband that gets up and goes to work, kissing the wife and his two kids good-bye, where nothing happens and nobody steps out of line. No, we want to see what happens when the secretary finally sits down on your desk, her skirt hiking up to reveal her slender legs. We want to see what happens when that jackass that has been cutting you off every day for a month, finally causes an accident—do you help him (or her?) or do you leave that jerk to suffer the consequences of his actions? Who is the better person now?

I also like to write about my greatest fears, to go those places that I hope and pray will never actually happen (or never happen again). Losing your family, the random violence of life in the streets, a momentary lapse of good judgment that leads to slick flesh and a heart pounding in your chest. Yes, I want to go there, to finally see if the allure of the darkness, the solitary light bulb at the end of the alley, really lives up to all of the hype—what’s behind that red door?

I’ve called my work a lot of different things—neo-noir, transgressive, grotesque. But whatever you want to label it, my goal is to find your deepest, darkest secrets and bring them struggling and screaming out into the light. I want to make you a witness to the horror, to the vengeance, to the base desires that we all have, and tell me how it feels. Sometimes it feels pretty good.

What book have you reread the most times?

I am going to confess that this is a book I reread almost yearly. It reminds me of my youth, I think. I still wonder about Neal Klugman and Brenda Patinkin. Wonder whether Neal ever left his perch at the library and went onto a more fulfilling profession. Did Brenda settle for a life like her mother had in Short Hills, a privileged if not terribly fulfilling future? I think that these characters remain with me is due to the incredibly faithful movie version with Richard Benjamin and Ali MacGraw, who perfectly captured the characters. Also Roth is a very good writer and this may be his most accessible, lovable book.

What book have you reread most? Was it a book that spoke to you in your youth?

How I Came To Write This Story: Nic Korpon

h

How I Came to Write the Story: “His Footsteps are Made of Soot”

From the collection Bar Scars, by Nik Korpon

I’d always heard of writers rewriting a story numerous times. They’d say things like ‘It wasn’t working’ or ‘I couldn’t find the voice’ or ‘I had nothing else to do that day.’ Fuck that, I figured. Write the story and be done with it. If it didn’t work, drop it and forget it and write something else that was more interesting. Revisiting a story a bunch of times from different angles sounded too much like homework, not writing. And yes, I understand and agree that the work needs time to mature and you should always revise until it’s right, and with novels I do just that. But I’m not very good at short stories and I get bored quickly.

That being said, of course Fate would set out to make me look like a hypocrite, as it seems wont to do. The version of “His Footsteps are Made of Soot” that appears in my collection Bar Scars (Snubnose Press) is probably the fourth version I’d written. The first one was called Home Surgery and the Jersey Shore, and I can’t remember what the others were. Probably because they sucked a big one. I think the first time I wrote it was somewhere around 2006. I was walking through the Giant in Hampden, a neighborhood in North Baltimore, at 3 AM or so. Some guy passed me in the aisle, pushing his cart with the one wheel wobbling. I couldn’t help but stare at the most random assortment of crap he had in there. Listerine, chuck round, mouse traps, shaving cream and more. All I could think of was that show Supermarket Sweep, where contestants ran around the shop piling everything not-nailed-down into their cart.

A couple days later I was passing the light hours with the other bartender and we got on the subject of home businesses, something we could do instead of getting people drunk professionally. Someone came up with the idea of becoming a home surgeon, likely because neither of us had health insurance to cover anything professional, and I flashed on the weirdo’s cart. The rest, as they say, is history.

Actually, no, it’s not.

The story I wrote sucked. It was twee and tried so hard to pluck heartstrings that it dislocated my fingers. I vaguely remember some plot device with a box of frozen corndogs, which I guess was me checking the quirky box. It went into some dark folder on my desktop for a while until I stumbled across it a couple times. The concept was still interesting, though none of the rewrites were working, largely due to the relationship between the narrator and his dead brother. Something about the emotional core of the story just didn’t snap, so it sat and collected mold, which was fitting, considering the eventual setting.

After I wrote “Alex and the Music Box,” another story in the collection, I came across a throwaway line I’d edited out about the near-blind lady next door listening to Press Your Luck really loud and I immediately discovered the mother I needed for “Footsteps.” I saw her living like a ghost as she grieved her dead junkie husband, all while her son tried to bring her back to the land of the living. The idea of loving a living dead woman who was loving a long dead man was infinitely more interesting to me. Add in a healthy dose of fire-ravaged ambiance that mirrored the characters’ inner landscapes and Fate was well on its way to making me look like a jerk. Somewhere in that house, beneath ash and damp newspapers crawling with silverfish, I’d found the voice of the story. All I had to do was let it mold.

First Wednesday Book Review Club: THE UPRIGHT PIANO PLAYER, David Abbott

I have read THE UPRIGHT PIANO PLAYER twice in the last two years due to book club misunderstanding. It is a short book that seems much longer in terms of the ground covered, the number of characters, the years that pass, the plot.

Henry Cage is an enigmatic protagonist to say the least. Despite what seem outwardly like a successful life, he is left by his wife, spurned by his son, a stranger to his grandson, forced out of his career, and harassed by a man who knocks into him after a party. Yet none of these things lead him to much self-reflection. He seems unable to give much and is puzzled at the consequent results of his behavior.

This is a book that has been reviewed favorably yet not one of the women in my book group enjoyed it or even thought it a very good novel. These were the reasons they expressed:: they had no more understanding of Henry Cage by the end of the book than at the beginning--oh, yes, he had changed but it was not clear why. There were too many POVs that seemed unnecessary. Sometimes it was hard to sort out whose head we were in. Every character gets moments of reflection. So many in fact that this may have been what kept us from understanding Henry. The book begins with a horrific incident--an incident so horrible that we all dreaded having to go through it again. The author seemed determined to drape every character in tragedy, in fact. 

Having said this, I have thought about this book quite a bit. I wish we had been told more about his childhood, what made him such a inward man, so unreflective and aloof. I know back stories are unpopular nowadays but a character like Henry needs one if we are to have any hope of peering inside his head. What made Henry the man he was?

For more book review, see Barrie Summy. 

Who is the most enigmatic character you have read about? 

Tuesday Night Music: Solange

What Entertainment Are You Willing to Pay Money For?

I thought of this topic as I told Jerry House today what comedians I liked. I realized then though that I would never pay to see any of them perform live. Not Louis CK nor Lewis Stone, nor any of them. The live act would be too blue for me and too much money for the pleasure I derived.

Nor would I pay to see most musical groups. Or even individual singers. I can hear them just fine on a CD or elsewhere. I don't need to see them perform.

What I am willing to pay for are plays as I guess you all know. I will see almost any play. Not Broadway-type musicals as much as real plays. Well okay, both to some extent. But not the sort of musical that is just about big performance numbers written by middling song writers.
Guys and Dolls, yes.

It's funny what entertainment works live for us and what doesn't. What entertainment are you willing to pay for? I don't count movie because five bucks or so doesn't count.