Happy B-Day, Devil Dogs!

 

Here's a short article commemorating the Marine Corps on their 235th birthday. Best wishes to all Leathernecks past and present. (Photo: Acclaim Images)    

Note: A decade has passed since the above post, hence 245th birthday would be more appropriate. 

Facebook Sucks

My author page is flawed. Click on it and see if you're taken to JP Mac's Author Page. You might be. Or you might see a page for Facebook business. 

This nonsense has been going on for months. The page won't load. I'm not allowed to administer. A stinking Facebook business page appears. My password is not recognized. My new password is not recognized. Furthermore, I'm not alone. Many small independent businesses are not being allowed in to their pages and can't get a helpful word from Facebook. 

I probably can't get in to cancel my own page.

On Facebook, I AM THE PRODUCT. Here are other depressing reasons why Facebook is no good. 

For now, I'll direct traffic to my website. But there must be something better out there. I will investigate. 

Pinterest 

Conquer Catalina Island Virtual Challenge

Conquer Catalina Island Virtual Challenge: The Conquer Catalina Island Virtual Challenge is on Thursday October 1, 2020 to Thursday December 31, 2020.

I sneered at such activities as a virtual challenge. But in the absence of true road races, my wife, Joy, and I are onboard for a hundred miles. In return for our efforts, we receive durable electronic trophies plus a tee-shirt.

What's amazing is that even a fey virtual challenge goads my big ass out of the chair and onto the road. I'm running a bit more per week, gradually increasing speed.

So on we go. I'm over 30 miles, a quarter finished. Updates here on this fine blog. 

 

Book Review: The Man in the High Castle

 

The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

President-Elect Franklin Roosevelt is assassinated in Miami. Isolationism dominates American politics. The Nazis prevail in North Africa and link up with the Japanese in India. Russia collapses. Washington D.C. disintegrates under a Nazi hydrogen bomb. World War II ends in 1947 with Germany, Japan (and Italy) victorious.

Such is the world of 1962 San Francisco where curio salesman Robert Childan labors to please his mostly Japanese clients. Among them are Nobusuke Tagomi, an influential trade minister whose career is guided by the ancient Chinese book of divination, the I Ching.

Also dependent on the book's forecasts is judo instructor Juliana Frink. She lives in a puppet buffer zone between the Japanese West Coast and the German-controlled Mid-West, South and East. An encounter with a man claiming to be an Italian truck driver leads Juliana to read a fascinating—yet banned—book in which the allies win the second world war.

Using rapid POV shifts, Dick whisks us between characters as Juliana's husband struggles back in San Francisco to manufacture original jewelry while hiding his Jewish blood. At the same time, Juliana and the truck driver set off on a road trip to locate the banned book's author. Meanwhile, Tagomi facilitates a meeting between Japanese and German intermediaries working to derail a diabolical plot that could plunge the world into another terrible war.

Dick parcels out the backstory while keeping the narrative hot. His shifts in POV sometimes lost me, as did his stylized dialogue for certain inner monologues. And I wasn't sure what role the I-Ching played, other than to suggest the future is fluid, other worlds possible.

As one character mulls, "Evidently we go on, as we always have. . . . But we cannot do it all at once; it is a sequence. An unfolding process. We can only control the end by making a choice at each step."

Great alternative history with a tart blend of science fiction and mysticism.

View all my reviews

Book Review: The Disappeared

 

The Disappeared by Roger Scruton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In and around the Angel Towers housing project five lives intertwine: two men, two women, and a young girl. In a decaying society, these characters seek safety, freedom, love, and meaning. Around them, the customs and traditions of England are being overwritten by multiculturalism, as well as dark new practices that exploit the gaps in a society struggling with mass immigration from tribal cultures.

Powerful and disturbing, this fiction weaves together the characters' fates in a world where the past is fading and the future seems dismally opaque. As teacher Stephen concludes, "The Christian religion, he decided, was the heart of our civilization. This heart had grown old and weak, and culture had been put in the place of it. But the heart transplant didn't take, and our civilization, after gasping for a while, had died."

Stephen finds himself drawn toward protecting a young student, Sharon, from a rape gang. In doing so, he soon experiences emotional conflict that, if unchecked, could destroy his career and land him in jail.

At the same time, Justin, a rising star in the field of green energy, becomes enamored with beautiful intelligent Muhibbah. Having spurned her Afghan family's suffocating ways, Muhibbah seemed destined to excel in modern society. But Justin soon learns, that this enchanting woman is a hive of unwholesome secrets.

At the same time, accountant Laura flees the embers of a dashed romance, going to work for Justin. But her safety is jeopardized after a criminal element mistakes Laura for another woman.

Scruton's deep, well-crafted tale eventually comes full-circle. And while I had some difficulty with the time frame, and the puzzling use of second person for one character, the author's ability to forge empathy was excellent.

The writing is powerful. The imagery strong as in this passage describing Angel Towers: "All the surfaces were covered with the same black graffiti, a repeated pattern that, in its meaninglessness, seemed to exude a bestial anger. It was as though worms had been spat on this wall, spoiling its unclaimed spaces, and preventing any human thought from breeding there."

A suitable read for lovers of literature, as well as a good book for discussions of our post-modernist world.

View all my reviews

Awesome News Site Proves You're Always Right

Ryan Long introduces the ultimate news page that dispenses with old school truth, objectivity and facts to unearth what really counts online: always being spot-on politically. 

Ryan Long

Publishing . . . and Other Forms of Insanity and the Public Square

 Erica Verrillo puts out a blog called Publishing. . . and Other Forms of Insanity. I like this blog. I look forward to it every month. As a writer, I appreciate this trove of writing and publishing information, updated regularly. I sold a short story last year thanks to a tip on Erica's blog.

But this month on page one, instead of publishers seeking unagented manuscripts or best places to have a crime novel reviewed, Erica chose to editorialize. (And why not? It's her blog.) As Erica prefaced in "Art Does Not Apologize . . . And Neither Do I":

Over the past three and a half years, I have gotten a number of comments regarding my critical stance on Trump, expressed mildly at the top of my blog with the statement: ". . . in the interest of protecting the 1st Amendment, she did not vote for Trump." I've been repeatedly admonished, sometimes with a great deal of anger, to "just stick to writing." Politics, I have been told, should have no place on my blog.

Erica chose to believe she was being told to mind her own business and not speak out. Erica then proceeded to speak out.

I think she may've missed the point her readers were making.

The cobbler who repairs your shoes under a banner proclaiming his political opinions is inviting comment. The sign outside might say, "Cobbler Shop. Shoes Fixed." It probably doesn't say, "Cobbler Shop. Shoes Fixed. Plus Free Political Opinions." You want your footwear resoled. The political opinion, then, feels gratuitous, since you entered the shop for one reason and found yourself subjected to question-begging statements that had nothing to do with your original business.

George Orwell wrote, "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

Erica is free to editorialize politically on a publishing blog.

Her readers are free to present their thoughts on such a mash-up.

If liberty is to mean anything at all.

Dark Anthology Finally Coming Soon

 MAC'S DONE IT!

Six years ago I was convinced that I'd publish a dark anthology. A dark urban anthology. In fact, I was writing like a dervish, churning out copy at a rapid rate. But then Old Man Cancer came a'knocking and my writing—along with my health—cratered.

Well, my health is much improved and the copy is finally churned; nine stories at the starting gate with an eye to a December release. (Ebook only with the softcover arriving—God willing—in spring of 2021.) The stories do not match my 2014 line-up. Not all the tales occur in an urban setting. Nonetheless, in many respects, readers will benefit, thanks to a half dozen more years writing practice.

Right now I'm hustling to finish the front and back matter as well as seeing the 31,000-plus word manuscript receives a copy edit. 

At the same time, I'm setting up preorders on Amazon and Smashwords.

At the same time, I hustle for reviews.

Here's a draft of the blurb:

Mayhem, Monsters, Madness! 

Trespass boundaries, stray into eerie dimensions, mingle with the sinister and the lost in nine peculiar tales by award-winning author JP Mac. 

 Meet a naïve publisher drawn onto a path that could lead to the annihilation of Earth. Witness a high school student pay a crippling price for popularity. Watch a struggling director’s pursuit of a mysterious woman lead to enslavement in a twilight realm. Travel to a bizarre sporting event where a desperate young man must choose between self-respect or cosmic absurdity. 

 Five stories were published between 2010 and 2019, while an additional four were written especially for this collection. So park your body and throw your imagination into drive as weird adventures await.

***

More on this latest publishing odyssey quite soon.

Oh, and, at the same time, I shall keep writing another short story. One single-spaced page a day. 

Flintridge Bookstore Promotes "Prostate" Memoir

 See? Look!

What fine, noble booksellers! Help a store keep their head above water. If you're afoot in the hills above LA, then stop in. Or visit their website. You may not choose to purchase my book, but do buy something and help stop Amazon from notching another bookstore on their belt.  

Book Review: The Fall of Paris 1870 - 71

 

The Fall of Paris: The Siege and the Commune 1870-71 by Alistair Horne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In the late 19th century, a torpid, decadent France chose to boost its sagging prestige by declaring war on Prussia. Germany of the day was a loose federation of kingdoms led by Prussia's Kaiser Wilhem under the guidance of Bismarck. The Second Empire under Napoleon III assumed the conflict would be short and victorious.

However the French army was routed and the city of Paris besieged. The Second Empire fell, giving way to a republican government. Relying on accounts of those inside the city, Horne tells a tale of hope and patriotic bombast that gave way to starvation, eventual defeat, and the brief bloody rise of a predominately leftist government of Jacobins, Marxists, and other anti-Bonapartists. They were known as the Commune.

Following acceptance of Prussian peace terms, the republican government was forced to flee to Versaillies to escape the Commune's wrath. From there, the French government counter-attacked. With the support of the army, they now besieged Paris once again. The Commune dissolved into squabbling factions. Armed workers defended their neighborhoods as the military attempted to regain control over the fractious capital.

Hornes use of contemporaneous accounts allows the reader insights into what the inhabitants of Paris thought, ate—or didn't eat—felt, and desired. There's a great deal on the French use of balloons during the Prussian siege to communicate with unoccupied France and the rest of Europe. Less may've been more. The same goes for Horne's regular inclusion of French sentences minus translations. But the book tells the story well and notes the historical echoes that reverberated from the twin events of war and Commune.

Given the harsh peace treaty, the Franco-Prussian War planted the seeds for future, more devastating conflicts that saw France invaded in 1914 and invaded and conquered twenty-six years later. In addition, the lessons of the Commune were keenly absorbed by the Bolshevik Lenin. Fearing feckless factionalism, Lenin outmaneuvered and crushed his allies and ruthlessly butchered his foes. As Horne writes, "How much of the ferocious brutality with which the Russian Reds fought for survival was attributable to the ever-present memory of May 1871 . . . . (The date the Commune fell.)

"Fall" is part of a hat trick written by Horne on the Franco-German wars from the late 19th to the mid 20th century. He touches on the First World War in his chronicle of the 1916 battle of Verdun. The Second World War is covered in an account of France's rapid collapse in 1940.

History buffs will enjoy this.

View all my reviews

9/11 Recalled 2020

 

K called from Florida, "Planes crashed into the World Trade Center and one of the towers just fell." Unemployed in Los Angeles and half asleep at 7:30 AM, I shuffled downstairs to the TV, past Joy as she prepared for work. At first, all I saw was a dirty cloud obscuring southern Manhattan. Then a stunned announcer said the second tower had just collapsed. Joy joined me, work forgotten as we learned of the attack.

Other friends phoned throughout the day. Paul Rugg speculated about the pilots of the doomed aircraft, certain they weren't Americans forced to crash. TJ, a Vietnam vet, was incensed at the footage of jubilant Palestinians with their candy and AK-47s. He wished he could gift them with a nice buttering of napalm. In a grim mood, I agreed.

Watching TV and power-chewing Nicorette, I mostly felt numb — except when the subject was jumpers. Then I felt horror. Go to work, sip coffee, joke with your pals, then decide whether you'll suffocate, burn alive, or leap a quarter mile to certain death. Questions of etiquette arise: jump solo or hold hands with a co-worker? Perhaps several of you link arms and form a chain, finding courage in numbers. Or do you clutch a table cloth and step into the air, desperately hoping it slows your fall?



The journey takes ten seconds.


Air velocity rips away your shoes.


You explode on impact.


I will always be haunted by the jumpers of 9/11.


Oceans of paper were blasted from the towers, filling the New York sky like the Devil's ticker tape. Invoices and wedding invitations floated down to gray sidewalks.

My friend Cathy, who worked in D.C., reported chaos as the government sent everyone home at once following the Pentagon attack. One jammed intersection turned scary as a man leaped out of an SUV brandishing a pistol and attempting to direct traffic.

Being murdered is not a heroic act, though it can be. Flight 93 passengers fought back and died, saving many more in their sacrifice. North Tower Port Authority employees rescued over 70 people before perishing.


There were many heroes that day.

My sister Mary Pat and I had dinner at a coffee shop. She was passing through town, leaving a job in Mountain View, CA to return to Phoenix. Depressed by the day's events, our meal was not jolly.

Later, Joy tried to give blood, but the hospital was overwhelmed with donations and refused.

Vulnerability, grief, dismay, anger.

Such a beautiful morning with a sky so blue.

(Photos from: Little Green Footballs.)

Repost: Sept. 11, 2008

Update: Strange to reread this. TJ died in 2009 and K passed away just over a year ago. My wife, Joy, and I are doing well, as is Paul Rugg who now rides the train. 

Repost: Sept. 11, 2013

Update: I had cancer surgery last year, but recovered. My wife is doing well and my sister battles her own health woes. I have not heard from my friend Cathy in a few years.  Paul Rugg continues riding the train in addition to being a voice over machine.

Repost: Sept. 11, 2015

Update: Paul Rugg's daughter was not quite two years old on 9/11/01. Now she is a freshmen in college. I have retired from TV animation writing, though, as stated elsewhere, I find retirement to be indistinguishable from unemployment. (Save for a small annuity.) And very soon, I shall ride the train to see my sister. (Explanatory post t/k.)

Repost: Sept. 11, 2017

Update: Ten years have passed since I composed this post, 17 years since the incident. Alas, the greatest hit to our nation continues to be a colossal security apparatus that can't seem to function without monitoring everyone's communications, then lying about it. I'd rather not comment on airport theater. Still, my wife remains gainfully employed and I'm racing to complete a dystopian thriller by Christmas. Amidst the great events, the little things carry us forward.

Repost: Sept. 11, 2018

Update: About to publish a softcover version of my prostate book. Meanwhile the Afghanistan Forever War continues. I refuse to believe that for almost 20 years, there's been no better way of fighting the Taliban than sending billions to Pakistan to provide hiding places for them while they infiltrate Afghan government forces and assassinate our advisors. The Byzantine Empire lasted over a thousand years battling multiple enemies on different fronts, employing a combination of diplomacy military prowess, and strategic alliances. With the entrenched, consequence-proof dimwits we have infesting Washington D.C., we'll probably end up surrendering to the Taliban.

Repost: Sept. 11, 2019

Update: How odd to stand on the threshold of twenty years. Given the riots and chaos of the pandemic, the blithering repose of local government re. small-business-killing lockdowns, the event is passing with barely a mention. If I hadn't spotted a NatGeo special on the Twin Towers, I might've forgotten myself. Interesting health issue, with cataract surgery, an upcoming new crown—for a tooth—and the results of a biopsy for skin cancer. Paul Rugg works on a Henson TV show, and his daughter nears the end of her undergrad studies. My sister continues on with NPR in the unburned portion of the Pacific Northwest. I will publish a book of my short stories by Christmas. Joy's work will soon restore her full pay, slashed during the lockdowns. Since South Dakota never locked down at all, shouldn't their population be deader than the Sioux at Wounded Knee? Not all experts are experts.  

Repost: Sept. 11, 2020

John Steinbeck Writing Hacks

Fallen from currency as of late, John Steinbeck's books occupied much of my sophomore English classes. (Grapes of Wrath, of course, as well as the lesser known Winter of Our Discontent.) In the below prompts, Steinbeck suggests the busy man's goal of a page a day. I suppose that would be single-spaced. Depending on how much dialogue, I reach such a mark in anywhere from under an hour to an hour and twenty minutes. In any case, given revisions and all, you should have a novel in a year. Wouldn't that be grand?

VelocityWriting

Ceremony Honors Victim of Senseless Police Violence

 Sure, it all happened a long time ago, but that's no excuse for indifference. Terrorist lives matter! Rest in power!

The Babylon Bee

Is Your Dwelling Sexist?

 An inspection may be necessary to determine if your living space meets current anti-sexist standards.

Ryan Long

Story Du Jour #23

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

Hike Up Mission Peak

Middle House Review/Height Chart

"Recovery Mission" - by Michael Cocchiarale  

Approx. 1k words

A slog with old friends seeks that which is past but lies between.

Here's a sample of the writing:

"Rocks crunch like breakfast cereal beneath Zac’s boots, and the sound transports him to the butcher block table of his childhood home. There’s a half gallon of milk, a box of Lucky Charms. A Christmas wish book between him and his brother. And there’s music, his mother feeling out a soft, sad number on the upright in the den. It’s a bit lachrymose, this halting tune, the product of a few lessons she’d splurged on in the fall, but it becomes more familiar as she goes. 

 The Michael Stanley Band. 

 Not really, although Zac can’t help imagining it. He turns the thin, vivid pages of the wish book, full of board games, action figures, and race car sets. In the other room, his mother’s fingers plink like rain, figuring it out as she goes. The chords rise through the house, into the winter air and straight up the charts. When Gary turns to him with a smile, Zac lets go of the pictures of dreamed-for toys so his heart can sled across the snow-smooth melody."

Note: Perhaps its time to swap out Du Jour with the French phrase for 'week or two' since that seems to be the publishing time frame. But nothing endures like the temporary. 

My Eyes are Red Hot, Your Eyes Ain't Doodly Squat

 

healing the eye.com

Not to slag your vision, but I'm fresh from cataract surgery and still overwhelmed by the whole experience. Last week in the unlooted portion of Beverly Hills, starting Monday, it was left eye surgery, a woozy ride home courtesy of My Darling Wife—MDW—followed by a check-up on Tuesday. Because my pupils were so dilated, I was given massive, all-encompassing sunglasses that made me appear enroute to observe a thermonuclear blast. 

Wednesday ushered in surgery on my right eye, a second woozy ride home and erosion of vision for small print. On Thursday, there was another check-up with the fast-healing left eye, with the right eye blurry, but gradually sharpening in quality. 

I asked the doctor why I suddenly noticed more blues and whites in the light. Apparently, my yellowish cataracts blocked those bands of the spectrum. Still, its off putting to walk outside and see gradations of light others can't. I feel like an 80-year-old on LSD. 

If you followed my last major surgery, you can probably guess that my anxiety levels were in the red. I was surprised how smooth the procedure was. For the moment, I must take, what feels like, a bucket of eye drops a day. But its small change compared to the bitching mid-to-long range vision I now enjoy.  

An Apology re. the Comment Section

huffingtonpost

Like the self-centered person that I am, I've neglected reader comments. I stink. Google changed the interface. Where I used to be emailed when there was a comment to check, that is no longer so. Out of inbox, out of mind. 

And so I apologize, especially to Authors 4 Characters who has been tireless in observations and annotations. 

Over the coming weeks, I will respond to the bulk of the remarks.

Henceforth, I vow to be a more thoughtful blog lord.

Unless Google messes again with the algorithms. 

Glass Ceiling Still Exists in Enhanced Interrogations

 Ryan Long probes for answers as to why women face exclusion in the torture profession.

Ryan Long

Cataract Surgery: The Eyes Have It

 

The New Daily

Well, here we go again. A new decade, a new operation. This time my cataracts are turning the world into a soft milky blur. The eye surgeon gave me two choices: Medicare Eyes, in which a popular government program would pay for most everything. My opaqueness would be removed, but I'd still need glasses, etc. 

Or the Cadillac Eyes. In this case, extra special lens are placed in my eyes eliminating my far sightedness save for reading glasses. Of course, that costs out-of-pocket. But, as my wife pointed out, they can only go in and muck about with your eyes one time. So, we'll pony up for the cool orbs and that will be that. 

Keep me in your prayers this Monday and Wednesday. I'll update soon. 

Book Review: Military Sci-Fi/Fantasy Anthology

 

Cannon Publishing Military Sci-Fi / Fantasy Anthology: Spring 2019 by J.F. Holmes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Uniformed men and women clash with foes both timeless and disturbingly new in this collection of short stories mashing the military with elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. Editor/contributor J.F. Holmes has assembled  thirteen tales ranging in craftsmanship from "excellent" to "needs work."

You'll find an eclectic mix of settings from alternate history to deep space to contemporary conflicts as front-line fighters encounter the bizarre and alien, sprinkled with yarns featuring rear-area "fobbits" who find themselves thrust into the confusion and chaos of combat. Alas, a few offerings seemed little more than scenes, lacking a clear beginning, middle and end. In addition, there were editing and formatting glitches that detracted from the readings.

Deserving of mention are:

"Dragon Slayer" by Alex Piasecki
"Damage Control" by Lucas Marcum
"The Nothing" by Chris Morton
"The Gunpowder Incident" by James Schardt

I particularly enjoyed "Night Shift" by Yakov Merkin who included a nice dollop of 'science' with his sci-fi story of a bored, space sailor with health problems who finds himself the only one capable of alerting his comrades in the face of an enemy attack.

Some enjoyable reads for aficionados of military and military sci-fi fiction.

View all my reviews

The Ukulele Orchestra Tackles Shaft Theme Song

 A sensitive rendering of the iconic film score. 

Ukulele Orchestra

Story Du Jour #22

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

Zocalo

"Freak Season" - by L.A. Pontes

Approx. 584 words

What the heck is happening to Reed's town?

Here's a sample of the writing:

"Something spooky and supernatural had hit his hometown hard. The frantic flow of explanations ranged from the town’s remote location in the hill country, to the strange quality of the water. Plus nuclear tests, an allegedly ancient witch tradition—that nobody had ever heard before—and, oh yes, the freaky El Nino. Reed hadn’t seen a normal human being in days. 

 Suddenly, the cloud took a left turn out of the gully and rolled up a grassy hill. At the crest, the cloud unraveled once more into the mist and faded into thin strips of fog. Reed’s eyes bugged. In the center of the hill stood a strange figure. The thing was humanoid, no doubt, but short and with a bulbous head, perfectly round, like a little aquarium. The bulb-headed thing lifted a thin arm and a tiny finger as though it dialed a phone. A spaceship materialized on the ridge."

Finally, a return to a truly short tale. 

Note: A bit late, but my review of the Google Archipelago is up at last. 

Comedians Battle Comedic Oppression

 

Once again, Ryan Long leads the way, suppressing fellow comics who refuse to squash the chuckles least someone be offended. 

Ryan Long

Book Review: Google Archipelago

Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom by Michael Rectenwald
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"The Google Archipelago has emerged and will expand, effectively becoming conterminous with the full range of human activity, enveloping every social space where people may be found."

Having envisioned the future in this short, non-fiction work, retired academic Rectenwald believes technology—Big Tech—is fashioning a digital gulag similar in its zeal for conformity and repression as the brutal 20th Century Soviet model.

Big Tech is defined as mega-data services, media, cable, internet services, social media platforms, Artificial Intelligence, bots and the apps that dot our phones like chicken pox. Given the homogenized political and social nature of Big Tech, the author describes a grim time ahead for those out of favor with their norms.

In the West, deplatforming, brigading, social shaming, ostracism are taking the place of work camps, firing squads and torture. (Though the current Chinese template of cyber control in the form of social scores backed by prison camps and forced organ harvesting seems an unappealing hybrid.)

There are a few sections where I lost the narrative thread, but the author's overall message of society's absorption into the Google blorg is not hard to believe and easily observable in action.

Readers interested in tech trajectories and their effect on freedom of speech, among other menaced freedoms, should find this a suitable companion.



View all my reviews

Hot Run in the Summertime

Run, Karla, Run

First five-mile trot in six months. Even in the early morning, it was still sweltering. Given all the people, dogs, strollers, joggers, runners, an occasional cyclist, and an actual horse on the horse trails it was splendid training for the crowded streets of a race.

If we ever have one again. 

Didn't time myself, focusing on running lightly and relaxed. Afterwards, I took a pair of salt tablets and wrote all day on a longish short story. 

 

Pro Protester Hacks

Ryan Long supplies the tips for full-time activists.

Ryan Long

Story Du Jour #21

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

Steve Powers

"Premium Harmony" - by Stephen King

Approx. 4K words

At a convenience store, a man confronts issues of life, death, and tobacco. 

Here's a sample of the writing:


"Ray looks at the gas gauge and sees it’s down to half. He could turn off the motor and roll down the windows, but then he’d really bake. Sitting here in the sun, waiting for her to buy a purple plastic kickball for ninety-nine cents when he knows they could get one for seventy-nine cents at Wal-Mart. Only that one might be yellow or red. Not good enough for Tallie. Only purple for the princess.

 He sits there and Mary doesn’t come back. “Christ on a pony!” he says. Cool air trickles from the vents. He thinks again about turning off the engine, saving some gas, then thinks, Fuck it. She won’t weaken and bring him the smokes, either. Not even the cheap off-brand. This he knows. He had to make that remark about the Little Debbies.

 He sees a young woman in the rearview mirror. She’s jogging toward the car. She’s even heavier than Mary; great big tits shuffle back and forth under her blue smock. Biz sees her coming and starts to bark."

A King tale from a decade ago. The man is not afraid to reference his own works.

Note: a fine non-fiction book review for the Google Archipelago inbound early next week. 

Werner Herzog Delivers a Yelp Review

From seven years ago, comic Paul F. Tompkins impersonates director Werner Herzog reviewing a hotel room on Yelp.  Some laughs here, I think. 

BonerAneurism

h/t: Ace of Spades                                                 

EZ Morning Run

Learning to Live

Out on the trails before noon. Three miles and back home before it got any hotter.

I received an email from the LA Marathon. They said if I sign up and the event is cancelled, then I can credit my race to a future marathon. Basically, send us money today and you might get a number next year or so.

Deal?

Well, it beats hiding out from old Wuhan Virus.

#Woke and Racist Find Common Ground

You wouldn't think so, but a Woke SJW and a white racists discover the benefits of a good conversation. Isn't that where healing starts?

Ryan Long

Story Du Jour #20

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

dangoodmanphotography

"The Hunter's Wife" - by Anthony Doerr

9,393 words

Life and death share the same compartment in a touching tale of dreams.

Here's a sample of the writing:

"Around noon Marlin Spokes, a snowplough driver the hunter knew from grade school, slid off the Sun River Bridge in his plough and dropped forty feet into the river. He was dead before they could get him out of the truck. She was reading in the library, a block away, and heard the plough crash into the riverbed like a thousand dropped girders. When she got to the bridge, sprinting in her jeans and T-shirt, men were already in the water—a telephone man from Helena, a jeweler, a butcher in his apron, all of them had scrambled down the banks and were wading in the rapids, prying the door open. The men lifted Marlin from the cab, stumbling as they carried him. Steam rose from their shoulders and from the crushed hood of the plough. She careened down the snow-covered slope and splashed to them. Her hand on the jeweler's arm, her leg against the butcher's leg, she reached for Marlin's ankle."

Are the stories getting longer? Seems so. But the well-written ones read fast.

Club Bouncers Unite Against Bigotry

Finally, someone is speaking out about this horrendous injustice.

Ryan Long

Running Update and Pink Cataract

greatruns.com

 So rare, but I will report even though there's not much going on other than consistency. (I suppose that's something.) I am consistently running three days a week. One of my favorite spots in Griffith Park is overrun with unemployed runners, walkers, and dog-walkers. Filthy grandma-killers! (Notice I choose an image uncluttered by humanity, save for a solo Everyman.)

Last month's post mentioned my general aversion to virtual races. (There's no reason everyone can't qualify for Boston this year.) I also allowed that I might run a marathon with volunteer witnesses. However, my training could be curtailed once more for medical reasons. This time it's cataracts.

They've been around awhile, I never noticed anything until recently when my computer screen seemed a bit murky, obscuring certain naked Russian girls important story point. Rather than procrastinate until I'm wandering around with a tin cup and a cane, I'll attend to matters now. Unless something goes horribly wrong, I doubt there will be a book on this procedure. At least, I hope so.

Another Story Du Jour coming soon.

When Bias Response Teams Attack!

Seeking injustice even if they have to invent it.

EricMajors.TV

Ruins of CHAZ/CHOP Draw Interest

Remember this when you think of exploring old cultures. Egypt is far away and rather dangerous. Seattle is much closer and rather dangerous. 

Babylon Bee

Story Du Jour #19

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

disasterofarmero

"And of Clay We Are Created" - by Isabel Allende

4,174 words

More than a valley is buried in volcanic mud.

Here's a sample of the writing:

"He was one of the first to reach the scene, because while other reporters were fighting their way to the edges of that morass9 in jeeps, bicycles, or on foot, each getting there however he could, Rolf Carlé had the advantage of the television heli- copter, which flew him over the avalanche. 

We watched on our screens the footage captured by his assistant’s camera, in which he was up to his knees in muck, a microphone in his hand, in the midst of a bedlam10 of lost children, wounded survivors, corpses, and devastation. The story came to us in his calm voice. For years he had been a familiar figure in newscasts, reporting live at the scene of battles and catastrophes with awesome tenacity. Nothing could stop him, and I was always amazed at his equanimity in the face of danger and suffering; it seemed as if nothing could shake his fortitude or deter his curiosity. But Fear seemed never to touch him, although he had confessed to me that he was not a courageous man, far from it. 

I believe that the lens of the camera had a strange effect on him; it was as if it transported him to a different time from which he could watch events without actually participating in them. When I knew him better, I came to realize that this fictive distance seemed to protect him from his own emotions."

A little literature to break up the genre fiction. What style awaits in Story Du Jour #20?

Book Review: It Calls From The Forest

It Calls From The Forest: An Anthology of Terrifying Tales from the Woods Volume 1 by Michelle River
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the woods there are things spooky and unknowable, not to mention hazardous to your health and sanity. In this small press collection of horror fiction set in the forest there are some offerings consisting of little more than a set-up, others more backstory than story, and a goodly number of satisfying tales.

As with all themed anthologies, certain story elements tend to crop up. Druids, clearings, old legends and kids testing boundaries appear several times. Perhaps 24 stories on the same theme is a bit much. Like binge-watching a Netflix series, you can quickly find yourself getting ahead of the author.

Among the better woodsy yarns were:
"Knotwork Hill" by C.W. Blackwell
"Lazarus' Respite" by Michael Subjack
"Forest Man" by Holley Cornetto
"Rouse Them Not" by Tim Mendees
"13" by Craig Crawford
"Getting Away From It All" by Greg Hunter
"Hollow Woods" by Brian Duncan.

My favorite pair were Jason Holden's "Fairies in the Forest," in which a father and son learn that crazy old grandpa knew his cryptids. Also "Automatic Contamination" by M.A. Smith in which what's old is new and inclined to eat and run. I especially enjoyed some of the imagery, as in passages such as the "hard ratchet of the crows" and "the spiraling trill of summer robins."

Overall, fine reading for the horror aficionado, lovers of short fiction, and fans of timberland terror.


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Happy July 4th USA!!

news.wisc.edu

For Whom the Bomb Blows

Back in 1970, I visited my brother at college in Madison, Wisconsin. He showed me the wreckage of Sterling Hall, housing the physics department and the Army Mathematics Research Center, where work was done under contract for Uncle Sam. Anti-war protestors had set off a bomb killing a physics researcher and father of three, Robert Fassnacht, as well as injuring others. I recall the windows on all the surrounding buildings were blown out and covered with plywood. According to the late Mr. Fassnacht's family, he, too, was against the Vietnam War.

In these unsettled times, not everyone crying for justice is just. Change imposed is tyranny by another name. And violence unleashed will, sooner or later, devour those who thought they could control it.

On this our nation's birthday, let's recall that our heritage as Americans is "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

For today, let us all promote a little bit of happiness.

A blessed 4th to all.

triangleonthecheap.com

Portlandia 2020

Federal Courthouse in Portland, Oregon. Many of the communist-anarchist groups in that city are funded by George Soros, the American far left, and a number of spray paint companies.

Andy Ngo

Book Review: The Trayvon Hoax

The Trayvon Hoax: Unmasking the Witness Fraud that Divided America by Joel Gilbert
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

On the night of his death, Trayvon Martin spoke on the phone with a teenage girl right up to the moment of his second encounter with George Zimmerman. But was this the same young woman who testified at Zimmerman's subsequent murder trial? Was this "phone witness" fraudulently swapped for another young woman with the complicity of Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump? And why did Florida prosecutors allows the mother of a crime victim to control access to a fact witness?

Having obtained Trayvon Martin's texts and phone records, author Gilbert sets out to answer these questions and more as he reexamines the events that led to the death of a teenage boy and the destruction of a man's life. Gilbert explores the dark intersections of grief and profit, parental responsibility and tragedy, racial myth, teen lust, and facts that don't fit any media narrative.

Gilbert's search for answers leads him through Miami's urban teen culture as well as the Haitian community. The author's dogged willingness to chase elusive truth begs larger questions as to why the media, plus the State of Florida—possessing the same information—preferred fiction over veracity to the point of convicting a man for a crime he did not commit.

Stunning revelations, supported by evidence, make for a compelling read, serving as an alternative to the contemporary fantasy of a tragic death based solely on race.

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Benefits of Cancel Culture

And you thought it was all about bellowing.

Ryan Long

Story Du Jour #18

All Story Du Jour tales are available online and free! A small offering in these trying times.

Image by Willgard Krause

Teleport Magazine

"The Food of Life" - by Matthew B. Johnson

6,122 words

Conflicting thoughts on digesting a long life. 

Here's a sample of the writing:

"Doctor Percovic?” 

A gentle voice through dense cotton, she was unsure if she’d heard it or imagined it. Soft light began to brighten the world around her as she stirred. Something hard and cold pressed into her back and the backs of her legs. 

 “Are you alright, Doctor?” 

 She opened her eyes, surprised to find she was sitting propped against the wall of the shower. Her head feeling dense and heavy as cast-iron, she turned toward the voice. A face came into soft focus and a soothing hand reached out toward her. 

 “Don’t touch me!” she shouted, recoiling as Lazarus touched her shoulder. 

She tried to stand. Lacking balance, she simply sat back on her haunches, leaning against the shower wall for support. 

“Why?” she croaked.

 Lazarus turned a nozzle protruding from the speckled green tile. A cascade of warm water rained down on them, pulling Marion back to her senses. 

 “Why?” she shouted. 

 “Look at me,” Lazarus said.

Next, a review, then Story Du Jour #19.

John P. McCann Discusses Himself

Yes, it's me. 

What could be better for an hour?

A lot of things, come to think of it: soft music, a pie, a cat and Gorilla glue. But if you'd like to hear a story of the rise, fall, and plateauing of one TV animation writer, then give a listen to my audio interview by Joshua Murphy over at JM Archives.

I discuss my Warner Bros. days, post-Warner Bros. career, and writing books and short stories. If you're thinking of writing for a living, here's a great resource on how not to do it. Give a listen, leave a comment, enjoy rose water and ham.

Cancel Culture Finally Explained

So much chat about canceling this one and banning that one. At last, the sound reasoning behind such dramatic actions is explained.
(Language warning.)

LongBeachGriffy

Book Review: A Thief of Time

A Thief Of Time by Tony Hillerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Crime, coincidence and culture clash in this tale of secrets, personal loss and theft in the American Southwest.

Navajo cops Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee once again find their paths crossing as stolen artifacts, a purloined backhoe, and a missing person compel the two men to team up in solving intersecting mysteries.

Hillerman's knowledge of the Southwest as well as Navajo ways roots the reader in the world of the story. And while his prose can be spare, it's by no means dry.

"Behind Nakai the sunset had darkened from glowing pale copper to dark copper. Against that gaudy dackdrop, two streaks of clouds were painted blue-black and ragged. To the left a 3/4 moon hung in the sky like a carved white rock."

I'm not a regular Hillerman reader, thus the sense of backstory between the two protagonists left me feeling a little like an invited guest at a family reunion. Nevertheless, the narrative doesn't suffer too badly. The use of Navajo culture to discover clues and weed out false leads lent the tale a unique flavor.

An enjoyable read and well-plotted police procedural.

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