50ZG Part III

(After her reporter friend is wounded covering a saloon shooting, bumbling innocent Anna Ironhead agrees to interview mysterious railroad tycoon Lash Grey. In the company of a laconic, heavily armed frontiersman, Anna sets out on a dangerous journey across the Wyoming Territory, dogged by a number of squabbling entities living in her head. Suddenly Anna and the frontiersman find themselves confronted by a notorious bandit.)

Image: Wickipedia

“A most good day and I must rob you,” he says to Butte. “Ah, but who is this delightful young lady? Surely not your wife.”

A wife? How could anyone think of me as a ‘wife?’ Nevertheless, I feel a feminine thrill course through my clumsy body.

“Not married,” says Butte and spits. “But she’s with me.”

The thief holds me in his brown-eyed gaze, a smile upon his lips. “May I have your name, most beautiful sparrow? In return, I will not rob you so much.”

“Anna Ironhead,” I murmur.

Leaning forward in his saddle, he replies, “Only a little bit could I hear.”

“She’s a murmuring woman,” says Butte. “You’d better come closer if you want to hear right.”

“You tell me her name.”

“Don’t reckon I will.”

“Even though I could shoot you today and you would remain shot?”

Butte spits out another stream. “If you’re Romegas, and I reckon you are, you won’t shoot me.”

Despite his low moral character, I find the bandit’s smile enchanting.

“Ha, yes, you know of me. Oscar Romegas kills no man lightly because then I cannot rob him again.”

My Inner Spinster returns with syrup dripping from her chin. She stomps her foot in fright. I whisper to the bandit, “Should you steal from us, Lash Grey will, no doubt, be personally insulted and send detectives to haul you before justice.”

Amused, Romegas rides closer, “You are like a little bird singing in a derecho.”

Butte calls out, “She said Lash Grey will sic the Pinkertons on you if you don’t clear the road.”

Nodding as if weighing this new intelligence, the bandit urges his horse nearer to the wagon. “Such a mighty friend to have. They say he is a Dandy Man of the first rank. But why would a great man like Lash Grey visit with poor people? I assume no. So you must have money. I assume yes. Give it to me now.”

“I suppose we’d better hand over what we have,” says Butte. He reaches for his hat while addressing Romegas, “Keep my poke up here.”

“Not for long.”

In a swift move, Butte removes his hat and grabs a pistol, a four-barreled pepperbox—secured to his thick brown hair by means unknown—and fires. He wounds Romegas’ horse. I am almost deaf from the report going off so close to my ears. Simultaneously, Romagas fires both pistols. His twin .36 caliber rounds splinter the wagon box and shoot off the handle of Butte’s boot knife.

Terrified, my Inner Spinster and Inner Bawdy Woman run for cover. They crouch behind a ropy portion of my brain. I prepare to faint, but a nagging thought holds me in the conscious world: these men are terrible shots. At point-blank range, they have damaged a wagon, wounded a horse and missed one another despite clear intent to do otherwise. They would not last an hour in R.I. Perryman’s.

Weaving like a sapling in a cyclone, I prepare to resume my faint when over Butte’s shoulder, I catch sight of a large dust cloud. From the west, the cloud moves rapidly in our direction, parting briefly to reveal war ponies. Holy triple cow pie. My loudest murmur fails me. I can only point, making noises like someone who has swallowed a shawl.

Art: Rhyodon Shishido

Weapons leveled, Butte and Romegas see nothing but each another.

“Blasted pepper-box. Always shoots low.”

“Were I not out of practice from not shooting so many people, you would stand at the Gates of Heaven, explaining your foolishness in testing Romegas.”

“I’m game for another go. Let me draw my Smith.”

“You will draw nothing but your last breath.”

“Indians,” I murmur at last.

“Anna, hold on. I gotta ventilate this bandito.”

“‘Anna.’ I will whisper your name tonight in my sleep, after I drop this teamster with the impressive moustaches.”

“Coming fast,” I whisper. “Right for us.”

“What is she saying?” asks Romegas.

“Something ‘fast’ and ‘fuss.’ Can’t put a hand to it.”

A round cracks overhead with a sound like a bee. Butte and Romegas turn, as the Indians gallop faster, firing from distance.

 “Damn it all—pardon me, Anna. Arapaho, I reckon.”

Romegas shakes his head and sneers. “You have the eyes of a salted ham. They are Nez Perce.”

Butte munches on a corner of his moustache. “We can finish this now, Romegas, and the Indians will hang the winner, head down, over a slow fire. Or we can run like hell and complete our business later.”

“No one wounds Romegas’s horse,” snarls the bandit. “You will live until we meet again.” He favors me with his brilliant teeth. “And you, my confection, have the most wonderful big eyes. You could hunt mice at night without hindrance.”

Panic and fright give way as I blush and loudly murmur, “Is that a compliment?”

“More gracious wording awaits you another time.” Romegas wheels his tan mount and gallops quickly to the east.

Butte drops his pepper-box, and snaps the reins. Our wagon lurches across the rolling terrain as the team flies forward. I bounce and sway, fearful at the possibility of being captured, despoiled and tortured to death, all in one day. It seems like a lot.

And yet, I bask in the compliments of Romegas. He liked my eyes. He really liked my eyes. But then my Inner Spinster calls out from hiding, reminding me that Romegas is a bandit. He would have swiped my hand bag. This extinguishes the glow of his recent compliments.

“Grab your bonnet,” yells Butte as we descend into a rocky wash.

I almost topple from my seat as we rattle and careen down the trail, along the bottom, and up the other side. More shots. Whock as a bullet passes through the wagon. I think of the dynamite cases and pale.

I see the Indians clearly now: lean, coppery feathered men with carbines, bows and arrows, and skull-splitting hatchets. They race ahead, yelling and laughing, to cut off our escape. To the north, beyond our straining horses, I spot another dust cloud.

“Might be a second war party,” says Butte. He sounds anxious. His eyes dart about as if seeking another path, some exit from the ground itself. “If so, our elk is most truly skinned. But don’t fear, Anna, I’ll put a bullet through your head.”

My Inner Bawdy Woman croons sarcastically that Butte’s offer is a sign of true love West of the Mississippi. Then she lifts her skirts and sprints for my left ear, seeking escape from my head. Interesting. Where would she go? However, my Inner Spinster also flees the same way. They collide, tussle, pull hair, curse, and scratch. My left ear loses all sound-gathering ability. An arrow strikes the wagon near my feet. Butte glances at its markings and nods in satisfaction.

“Knew they was Arapaho.”

Image: legacypitchengine

Part I, Part II, Part IV

(Part Four will go live on Wed. Nov. 26)

TVIT With Bill Farmer, Bernsteins

Image: 1057thehawk

More improvised fun may be found on Paul Rugg's latest podcast. Listen as voice actor Bill Farmer along with Emmy Award-winning composers Steve and Julie Bernstein join That Voice Over Improv Thing regulars for an hour of fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants comedy.

50ZG Part II

Image: Long Range Hunting

Hooves clop, harnesses jingle as the wagon moves at a leisurely pace, rocking gently over a dirt road. To the west rise the Bighorn Mountains, shorn of snow in the late summer. For some time now, the driver and I have ridden in silence. My Inner Spinster despises this hazardous trip. She wants to return to Wolf Tongue at once. When I disobey her wishes, she punishes me by kicking my mandibular muscles. This causes my jaw to open and close. My teeth clack together. I sound like a marionette.

“Hungry?” asks the driver. “I got hardtack wrapped in coyote lung.”

 “No,” I whisper, then lie, “I have a jaw affliction.”

Perhaps ten years my senior, the driver has long brown moustaches, a battered hat and hands rough and calloused, eyes blue and forthright. He smells of tobacco, stale beer, cordite, coffee, and a body unfamiliar with soap and water for at least a fortnight. Hence, he smells like an average man in the Wyoming territory. Except for Harney. Harney bathed every eight or nine days. He once told me this in strictest confidence, fearful other men might overhear and mark him a dude. Quasi-cleanliness was Harney’s most bearable trait.

Still frustrated, my Inner Spinster urges me to note the sheer amount of weaponry available to my driver. In addition to a holstered cavalry pistol, he carries a Smith and Wesson .44 stuck in his wide leather belt. A hunting knife handle protrudes from the man’s scuffed boot. In the wagon bed, within easy reach, are a Henry repeating rifle and a shotgun. Double cow pies with mustard: he is loaded for panther.

I refuse to allow weapons to weaken my resolve, and my Inner Spinster storms off to make flapjacks. Where in my head, I wonder, are the stove and ingredients?

Aside from the long arms, the wagon bed holds a number of heavy crates. I turn to the driver and whisper, “Such interesting cartage.”

“Dynamite, mostly. Railroad’s planning on running a line from Switchback Junction to Wolf Tongue. Least that’s what they say.”

I blush and bite my lip and murmur oddly.

“One more time?” My blush deepens and I murmur again.

“You’re something of a murmuring woman, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “And there are times when, quite unconsciously, I make a sound like a Canadian goose.”

“Whatever noise you favor, sing out loud and proper if you spot anything wearing feathers that ain’t a bird.”

“I will,” I murmur.

“Ya gotta bark louder than that. Mind if I chew?”

Art: Rhoydon Shishido

Shaking my head ‘no,’ I decline his offer of a plug. The driver takes a bite of tobacco and works it around his mouth. Soon he locates a comfortable spot in the side of his cheek for the chew to homestead. Except for periodic spitting and the rattle of the wagon, we ride in silence. In the distance, I see a neat, gray farmhouse with cows munching grass near a well. I think of my family far away. I recall my father’s most recent letter. I have memorized every word.

‘Dearest Daughter, Chopped down a spruce last week. Some of it hit a fella named Amos Carterette. He’s different now. Your mother still lives in the root cellar and has come to favor it over the rest of the house and barn. She collects mole hides, believing them to be of cash value. I buy some as it pleases her to beat the band. She sends her love and says you should follow your heart. Scandal has died down and you could come home now, I expect. Hope you are well and not killed by smallpox.

A father’s love to you, Your Father, Danelaw Ironhead'

Home. I could return once more to Lakestump, Minnesota. To the bogs and the mosquitos and winters so cold the fish froze solid in the lakes and were sold in ice bricks. I think of the plain town folk who have a tendency to marry close to hand, as it were. At least in Lakestump my father, and, possibly, my mother would love me—if she could be torn away from mole stalking.

“You ever meet this Mr. Lash Grey?”

Startled, I blush and bite my lip. “No. I’m interrogating him as a favor for Miss Harrison of the Wolf Tongue Gazette.“

“Grey’s a powerful sort and plenty ambitious. Grey and Grey Railroad might even buy up Union Pacific. Or so they say.”

Worried about myself and my thoughts and all the people who live in my head, I realize I know little about the man I am to question. “What else have you heard, Mr. Parker?”

He smiles and I see that his teeth prefer solitude. “Titus Claudius Parker, at the quick and ready. But most around here just call me, ‘Butte.’"

“Very well, Butte. I am Miss Anna Ironhead. ‘Anna’ to you.”

I grow dizzy at my forwardness. What has gotten into me? Were it not for my astounding plainness, Butte would, no doubt, mark me as a camp woman.

Butte ejects tobacco juice between the horses, making a wet splatting sound. “Anyway, they say this fella Grey is a Dandy Man with a hankering for peculiar delights, if you cut my sign.”

“Oh that surely couldn’t be true.”

“Never been seen outside in God’s good air with a woman. That’s what they say. What’s more, they say he’s got a brace of real long ring fingers, often considered the brand of a Dandy Man.”

 “I’m sure I don’t understand.”

“Reckon you’ll figure it out in your own time.”

Higher rises the sun and I open my parasol, disturbed by Butte’s queer talk. What does he suspect about Lash Grey? And does Butte Parker truly think me capable of comprehension and understanding? Or is he being polite, the way one compliments the hairstyle of a woman with facial burns?

We pass a small ranch with horses penned up, watching us with long silly faces. I would love to ride a horse, but fear my toad-like appearance would cause the animal to bolt, fall, break a limb, and require prompt dispatch.

Image: Legends of America

My nose wrinkles at the scent of discount perfume, of a type often purchased by the quart from San Francisco. Sure enough, the smell foreshadows the arrival of my Inner Bawdy Woman. She leers and slaps her fleshy flanks and calls out, in a voice made hoarse by tobacco and strong drink, that I should throw myself at Butte Parker. A toothless frontiersman is the best I can ever hope for. Before I can feel mortified, she performs a lewd act with a portion of my motor cortex. This causes my arms to flap like vulture wings.

Butte casts me a sideways look. I burn crimson with humiliation and shame, unable to stop flapping for close to a minute. Spitting, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, touching his tongue to the top of his lip, Butte waits for my arms to stop, then says, “That business there, flapping; that a regular, everyday occurrence?”

Before I can bite my lip and whisper another excuse, there is rapid clatter of hooves, a blur of movement. I have no idea where the rider comes from, but even Butte is surprised as he tugs back on the reins, stopping the wagon.

Before us on the trail, a lean man on a tan quarter horse blocks our passage. Upon his head sits a pearl gray bowler. In his hands are a brace of Colt Navy revolvers pointed at Butte. Perhaps a little older than I, the rider sports dark good looks and a mouth filled with gleaming teeth. His own healthy teeth—I can scarcely imagine—would make this rider a royal catch for any woman in the territory.

Part I, Part III, Part IV

(Part Three will go live on Sat. Nov. 22)

Enjoy '50 Shades' Satire

(Half the first chapter of Fifty Shades of Zane Grey. If so disposed, please leave a comment.)

 CHAPTER ONE 

 In my awkward ungainly way, I run toward the saloon. I imagine the very worst: Eileen without an eye. Eileen’s brains leaking out like giblets from a cracked gravy boat. Eileen wounded DOWN THERE. I only know that my dearest best friend was shot and has called for me. My Inner Spinster wags a finger and warns of serious trouble. Then she kicks a portion of my optic nerve, causing my right eye to flicker. I have trouble focusing and tumble over a horse trough. Brushing myself off, I run along a dusty street to the scene of the gunplay.

A crowd mills around the entrance of R.I. Perryman’s Sporting Palace. Half the Wolf Tongue men seem to be present. They talk and spit tobacco, occasionally striking the ground. Only grudgingly do they allow an ugly clown woman such as myself to pass through their ranks. On the rough wooden planks near the batwing doors, I see a blood-soaked Eileen. She sits up against the wall; her robin’s egg dress is splattered a ghastly red. My heart leaps into my throat and stays there, beating against my tongue and causing my teeth to vibrate.

“Took your time,” Eileen tells me. I blush and look down as she scribbles furiously on a notepad. Tearing off a sheet of paper, she hands it to a young boy. “Run this over to the Gazette. Tell the editor it’s the shooting at Perryman’s Faro table.” As the boy scampers off, I marvel at Eileen’s sand. She is adventurous, and attractive. I am a lowly dishwasher, awkward as a three-legged sheep.

In Perryman’s huge, bullet-holed window, I take stock of my overlarge hazel eyes and unruly dark hair that seems determined to vex me at every turn. I roll my big eyes, exasperated by my own plainness. I bite my lip. I murmur inane things of no weight. I make a soft honking noise like a Canadian goose.

“Stop honking this instant,” says Eileen.

“Jeez, sorry,” I whisper.

A .45 round has creased Eileen’s forehead, leaving a streak of blood like the war paint of a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. More seriously, she has been shot clean through the right breast. But far from simpering in pain, as I would have done, Eileen is angry and frustrated.

“Anna, you must conduct my interview tomorrow.”

“But I know nothing of the newspaper game.”

“Physically, I am a shambles, not fit to interview a peddler, let alone a railroad titan. All my questions are written down. You have only to ask them. With your wholesome beauty and charm, you will shine like the seat of a tramp’s slacks.”

 My beauty? But I was ugly as sin in an outhouse.

“Please,” says Eileen. “Do not deny me. This interview was difficult to obtain. Why a secretive railroad baron should respond to my request while denying others is, perhaps, a mystery you will solve tomorrow.”

Heavy breathing on my neck causes me to blush. I know who hovers behind me. Fresh-faced, ambitious, Harney Calhoun is a few years younger then I. His feigned attentions to me are both disturbing and annoying in that order.

“Hey, Anna. Hot night in town. Oh, and the stage out of Millipede got held up. Just came over the wire. Wanna go for ice cream?”

Eileen looks up sharply at Harney, “Tell me of this new mayhem.” 

On the porch beyond Eileen, one-armed Doc Monker steps over several corpses and kneels besides a wounded cowboy. Using modern Civil War medical techniques, he employs an iron probe to dig out a bullet from the man’s intestines. The cowboy’s screams, plus the promiscuous amount of blood, effectively quell my appetite for sweets.

“You know, Harney,” I murmur, “there are injured people requiring attention.”

Harney looks irritated. He is tall with an Adam’s apple so pronounced it appears to be a young head living in his throat. “I’m not saying we’d have to eat here. We could sit inside the shop.”

I roll my eyes. Eileen rolls her eyes. Even the gut-shot cowboy rolls his eyes.

Harney peers down at Eileen as if suddenly aware of her state.

“Hey, Eileen, you’re bosom-shot, or am I off the mark?”

“You’re like a prairie hawk, Harney. You miss nothing. How many robbers?” She holds her pencil poised over the blood-dotted notebook.

I break in quickly, “Please, Eileen. I’m not a reporter with your nerve and skill. I wash dishes at the boarding house. My hands are thick with pork chop grease.”

“You will clean them by tomorrow, I presume?” says Eileen, face fixed on Harney. “What property was taken?”

Doc Monker, the gut-shot cowboy and several onlookers glance toward Harney, who beams at being the center of attention. “I was done keying a message to Blind Man Falls when it came over the wire from Millipede. The Marshal there said Romegas held up the stage, sure as jack beans. Romegas stole thirty-four dollars in silver and a fella’s new pearl gray bowler hat. He left behind his old hat. I guess it was used up some.”

There is so much going on. My inner spinster presses her hands over her ears and says, ‘Aye yi yi yi yiiiii.’

Art: Rhoydon Shishido

“Took a man’s hat. That ain’t right,” moans the drover.

Someone in the crowd says, “That Mexican’s a mean bastard if you cross him.”

“Clever in his way,” says Doc Monker, cleaning his probe by wiping it on his dusty slacks. “For financial reasons, he hates killing anyone in a robbery. Then he can’t rob them again at a later time.”

My heart remains in my mouth, making it difficult to speak. I bite my lip. “Eileen, I can’t do your interview. Please don’t insist.”

“Anna, you must go and I will not accept ‘no.’ Do you realize this interview could establish me as a reporter of the first water? Why, it might even propel me all the way to Hay City and an editorial position on the Intelligencer.”

“Hay City, huh?” says Harney, as if asked his opinion. “Aiming mighty high, aren’t we? I’ll be there some day myself. This telegraphing game is only temporary. I’ve a hankering to go into the photographic impression trade. I got an old camera to practice with. ’Course, once I’m established, I’ll be looking for a wife.”

Harney glances longingly in my direction. I know he cannot mean me. I am 21 and unplucked due to my blunt, almost beast-like features. This must be mockery of some low sort. He continues, “We could have ice cream tomorrow. What do you say, Anna?”

To Eileen I blurt, “Where is the interview?”

“Switchback Junction.”

My Inner Spinster shrieks and runs around in terror. It makes concentration very difficult.

Turning to Harney, I say, “On the ’morrow, I’m doing newspaper work for Eileen. In addition, I may be having a womanly disorder. Modesty prevents me from saying more.”

“I guess that’s private woman stuff. But I’m holding a marker on that ice cream.”

I blush and smile weakly. Harney departs for the Gazette with Eileen’s notes on the stage robbery. Alone now, except for the gut-shot drover, Doc Monker, and a crowd of onlookers, I face Eileen and whisper, “Switchback Junction? Why not the Gates of Hades? The weekly stage has already left and the way is perilous with road agents and hostile Indians.”

A drop of blood rolls down Eileen’s nose. Her eyes cross, following its descent. “I’ve rented a wagon and secured the services of a driver. As you approach Switchback Junction, heavily armed men employed by the railroad will ride out to escort you safely to the interview.”

“Mighty chancy,” says the gut-shot drover. “Indians catch ya, you’ll take a week dying.”

“Mind your own affairs, cow poke,” snaps Eileen.

“Laundry ain’t a secret if you hang it outside.”

“Man has a point,” says Doc Monker, kneeling over Eileen. “Here, Miss Harrison. Bite this block of oak.”

 Eileen locks eyes with me. “Be in front of the boarding house at seven o’clock in the morning. Wear a good dress, a sturdy bonnet and a duster. Anna, this is so wonderful of you. You’ll do splendidly.”

I murmur in panic, but Eileen no longer listens. As Doc Monker spits on his probe for luck, Eileen bites into the wood block as if it were a moist cake. Soon her heels drum a merry tattoo against the planks.

Double cow pies.

And that is how I come to interview Lash Grey.

Part II, Part III, Part IV

New 50 Shades Satire

Art: Rhoydon Shishido

A portion of Chapter One appears tomorrow on this very blog. Set in the brawling sprawling Old West, 50 Shades of Zane Grey tells the tale of an innocent young woman with more people roaming inside her head than you'd find at a schizophrenic rave.

She falls for a railroad tycoon with sexual appetites one might call strange, even by the standards of contemporary Los Angeles.

Will our young heroine be corrupted or will she tame her feisty tycoon? Or will she be swept away by the charm of a dashing bandit, or give herself to a steadfast, heavily-armed scout with more guns than teeth?

50 Shades of Zane Grey starts tomorrow, Friday, Nov. 14 on Write Enough!

This story does not judge. If you like to be tied up, whipped, or have raisin bran stuffed up your fanny that's none of my business.

My task is to provide you with a laugh-packed, satirical romantic adventure.

Stop by tomorrow. The segment won't be long otherwise you'll click off to some geek comic book site or Russian co-eds. Who knows?

Read the first installment of 50 Shades of Zane Grey and do leave a comment. Let me know your thoughts on a story that dares to combine bondage and bronco busting.

Check out 50 Shades of Zane Grey tomorrow here on Write Enough! And never rope anything without professional guidance.

Image: hqwallbase.com

'Nam Kills Kurt Over Time

(This is a repost from Veteran's Day 2010.)

Photo: Life Magazine. Kurt's unit patrolled these hills. (Mutter's Ridge and the Rock Pile.) 

Some veterans die in battle while others return home to perish on the installment plan. My friend Kurt passed away in 2003 from liver cancer. He went quick, maybe a hundred days. The cancer was partially brought about by PTSD-inspired drinking coupled with hepatitis from a bad blood transfusion he underwent in Vietnam. Kurt could have skated on that particular war, but extended his enlistment in order to fight. Serving in Marine Recon, he won a Navy Commendation medal for helping his unit battle clear of an ambush.

Several Purple Hearts later, Kurt joined an ultra-secret outfit that probed the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. Hacked out of the jungle, the Trail was a highway for the North Vietnamese to funnel men and supplies into South Vietnam and Cambodia. Because of our odd political posturing, Laos was officially off-limits to U.S. ground forces. That meant Kurt and his unofficial comrades were forced to ditch the bodies of their dead. The fallen would be listed as "Missing in Action in South Vietnam." It always bothered Kurt that families would be denied the closure of burial—or the recognition of bravery from a schizophrenic government.

A good portion of Kurt's post-war years were spent in alcohol and drug-fueled rage and self-destruction. In time, he made peace with his past. Little by-little, Kurt cut a trail over to serenity from which he rarely strayed. Despite a Master's Degree in electronics, he took a job driving a truck and fixing vending machines. (Kurt worked well unsupervised.) Getting married, buying a home, his last ten years were good ones.

I was a pallbearer at Kurt's funeral. He received a Marine Corps color guard, taps, and a view of the 2 Freeway stretching below in the distance, flowing past Forest Lawn Cemetery on its way to Eagle Rock. (Transportation played a big role in his life.) I recall Kurt when I drive past and often wish he could call down artillery on erratic drivers.

This Veteran's Day Kurt came to mind. And while he's at peace, I send prayers and best wishes to those still struggling with the silent baggage of war.

Happy Veteran's Day to all who served.

50 Shades Satire Soon

It was a time in the Old West when cows ran free and women were hogtied.

Meet Anna Ironhead: clumsy, innocent, her head filled with imaginary people.

Meet Lash Grey: handsome, wealthy, with more sexual quirks than a Bangkok brothel.

Together they discover a love hotter than a burning wagon.

 . . . a passion deeper than a Cheyenne arrow wound.

 . . . a lust more primitive than basic western hygiene.

 The world around you will vanish as you plunge headlong into a torrid, page-turning realm of buried desires and telegraph sex.

Go where ropin’, ridin’ and romance meet on a regular basis. 

Coming November 14 to this blog.

The first installment of: 50 SHADES OF ZANE GREY.

Experience 50 times the eroticism.

. . . 50 times the gunplay.

. . . 50 times the annoying murmuring.

 50 SHADES OF ZANE GREY

Chapter One premiers on this blog in six days. 

 50 SHADES OF ZANE GREY

A story so steamy you'll lose weight.

50 SHADES OF ZANE GREY

Say it softly and it sounds like the ringing of a chuck wagon triangle.

50 SHADES OF ZANE GREY

Chapter One appears Friday, November 14 exclusively on Write Enough!

Art: Rhoydon Shishido

California Cult Blog Examines Golden State Fringies

'California' and 'cult' go together like 'hot dog' and 'mustard.' Learn about the many groups that have called this great big state their home. As Michael Marinacci says about his blog:

"So here they are: the impossibly diverse, often bizarre, and always intriguing cults, sects, churches, and religions that have either emerged from Californian soil, or settled here to promulgate their spiritual beliefs and practices."

Check it out here.  There's always room for another man with an alternative plan.

Image: The Wellbeing Guru

TVIT with Rob Paulsen

Well, it took a week but the wait was worth it. Episode Two of That Voiceover Improv Thing contained a healthy ration of laughs with special guest Rob Paulsen as well as celebrity impressions of Denzel Washington and Charlie Rose. Give a listen and, remember, if you can see it, it's not Voiceover Improv.
Image: Nairlalnd Blog

Fan Fic Freakazoid! Series

And what the deuce would a 21st century Freakazoid! series contain? Over at Ralph Dibny, Rafa Rivas really expended the time and effort in to envision such an occurrence. Check out his concepts on story and artwork, as Rafa combines a little Bruce Timm with a lot of Tom Ruegger to bring us new adventures of the super teen extraordinaire.

On a more sober note, health issues continue to zap me like a small man with electric fingers. And while the general trend is upwards, the journey contains side roads, detours, and messy spills that don't bear public discussion. But my spirits are good, my wife, an angel, my family and friends of service, and I don't need a doughnut to sit on just yet.

Paul Rugg Podcasts with Kevinn Gomez

Image: Voodoo Rules

I return from incredible medical adventures: pain, drugs, baffling complications, and a nurse who pronounced "nausea" as "nocha."

As I slowly recover, tuck into this interview with Friends in Hell podcaster Kevinn Gomez chatting with voice-over and animation ace Paul Rugg. Learn more about Freakazette and the voice actors who backed the Guy With Lighting in His Hair.

http://kevinn-gomez-9.podomatic.com/entry/2014-09-24T12_49_07-07_00